Incendies

The camera, starting at mid-range, slowly tracks to the face of a boy with a grimly violated expression on his face, receiving a hair cut for what seems to be a military operation. There is no sound other than the swell of "You and Whose Army?" by Radiohead (used later in the film to a far lesser effect), which is plenty. For my money, this moment, coming at the very beginning of "Incendies" (translated as "Fires," which will make sense to anyone who sees it), is the most arresting bit in the entire film. We have no context in which to process this scene until towards the conclusion, so it becomes all the more powerful when we realize its true significance: In a movie about the loss of innocence, this is the most prominent example, which ultimately frames everything else.

If this movie was just, you know, better, it would be a masterpiece. Denis Villeneuve has many of the elements he needs to make something great. His visual style is top-notch. He knows how to light and shoot a scene, and he's picked actors whose faces he can utilize to the extreme. The premise of the film is tantalizing, and the structure is well-designed. It's really the script that lets this film down. (I'm going to go ahead and make assumptions that the translation from the French and Arabic is good.)

Adapting from Wajdi Moawad's play, he has little scope of what details are interesting, what details are not, and how to write bearable dialogue. He also has an annoying tendency to spell out major plot points to the audience. The film is over two hours long; that could be solved by cutting out some scenes that repeat obvious information and dilute the film's cutting emotional strength.

The film moves between the relative present and 70's Palestine, the site of a vaguely defined conflict between Christians and "refugees" (of what I'm not sure). As we begin, the presumably 20-something twin children, Jeanne and Simon (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Gaudette), are parsing out the will of their late mother Narwal (Lubna Azabal). They are given notes which they will relay to their (absent) father and brother, respectively. However, on the way to finding their missing family members, they - and we - will learn more about their recently deceased matriarch.

To say much more about the plot specifics, I would have to dodge more spoilers than I'm comfortable with. So I'll speak in more abstract terms: much of the film from this point onwards is extremely dull. It seems to sincerely believe that thin political soup we've encountered in many other films is going to be interesting. To add to that, we don't get any of the details that are actually helpful/compelling, such as: what was the relationship between the mother and her children before she died? Villeneuve always seems to be worried that he's going to ruin the grand scheme of his film by not controlling the exposition enough. He's so devoted to preservation of the core of the film that he jumps through a hell of a lot of hoops to keep it together; a few too many, it must be said. Finally, the dialogue is clumsy throughout, especially in the abysmal scene that uses math metaphors.

It's sad when you have pretty much everything you need for a success, but botch it with the execution. ("Dogtooth," a fellow also-ran of "Incendies" for Best Foreign Film, showed there are positive results when everything is pushed to, or near, its fullest potential.) In how he tries so hard to lead us down a certain path to not spoil anything, Villeneuve lets many things fall to the wayside. Though many will be horrified/pleased by the twist ending, a good number of folks will also either a) predict it far before intended or b) not appreciate it when it comes to light. The thing about Villeneuve is that he's the right director, but he needed some help with realizing this idea, help he didn't get. C+

The Housemaid (Hanyo) (2010)

Im Sang-soo knows how to compose a shot and track forwards or backwards. He's truly talented with that. He's not so good, though, at sustaining any sort of interest, as "The Housemaid," his remake of a film made just over 40 years ago, is irritatingly dull in its slow crawl from scene to scene. I'm fine with slow movies, but there's scarcely a point for this movie to be one, and thus it is very boring. It's supposed to be "provocative," or something (that's what the ads and critics have been saying), but I'm pretty sure the only provoking that'll be happening will be the pinching administered to your arm to keep yourself awake.

I love unbelievable cinematography as much as the next man. More so, probably. But there are also some things that are more important than having your film look good. For example, it doesn't help much when you don't have ANY characters that you can relate to in the slightest. The main character in this film (played by Do-yeon Jeon) finds out information way after we do, and thus cannot really hold our attention. She's a maid who after a little while at her post starts being basically forced (via red wine) into having sex with the father of the family. It shouldn't be too much of a SPOILER, but she gets pregnant. The film would possibly be effective if it let us catch on to this as she did, but due to the film's objective POV (which attempts to pick up on all of the action in this household), we have already processed this information for quite some time before it comes as a revelation to her. A film similar in premise is Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer," which achieves wonders by putting the audience and the main character on the same level.

Back to the plot. The wife of course is pissed off when she finds out, when her (annoying) mother tells her because the experienced maid in the house informed on the main character. This makes little to sense as a plot device, as the experienced maid seems to be the only character that we have a chance at relating to. Then again, she basically tossed out all of her credibility as a believable character when flailed around in a random drunken rage. That leaves just about no one (except for the girl of the family, who's only a secondary character), unless you're about to sympathize with a lecherous man or petty grandmother. Me neither. Maybe I just knew too much coming in, or something, but this film didn't really connect with me. I wouldn't really risk taking the chance of it not connecting with you, either.

The film develops and develops, until it doesn't really matter what happens. We don't care about the characters, and thus we don't care about what they do. Simple as that. I wish I had spent my evening in a much different way than waiting it out through 106 minutes of unimaginative cinema like "The Housemaid." The camerawork is something to behold, but all the same, that can't be the only thing that's good about a movie. It's like eating a pie crust without filling inside it. C-

Oscar Wild(e): 2011 Predictions and Preferences

I want to get this up here, since I've been putting it off for a while. This is pretty basic stuff, not detailed commentary, since I haven't had enough time or (to be frank) enough interest to carry out my ambitions of writing pieces about every single nominee (I only got to "The Kids Are All Right" and "The King's Speech").

The rules of the road here: the first list is in the order of my preference, the second is in the order of the nominees' chances of winning. If there is only one list, it is a prediction list, not a preference list (though when that happens, it's noted).

I've assigned letter grades (and sprawling letter grades, like Nathaniel Rogers does and Nick Davis also) to all of the "above the line" (i.e. not technical) categories, plus the Documentary Feature, Foreign Feature, Animated Feature, and Animated and Live Action short categories. I was going to do letter rankings for all the categories, but outside of cinematography and art direction, I'm pretty much out of my element.

This is spare, but, again, I don't have all the time or the help in the world and I was tired of meditating on this. Maybe I'll put some commentary on certain categories up, but I'm still not quite sure. Sorry for the minor sloppiness in not supplying every name with every (technical) category; if you want those, go to the Oscar website. It's overwhelming, and I don't want to put this off any longer. Just so I don't lose my pedigree as a purveyor of Oscar coverage:

Best Picture:

1. Toy Story 3 A

2. Winter’s Bone A-

3. The Social Network B

4. Black Swan B

5. Inception B

6. The Kids Are All Right B

7. The King’s Speech B-

8. True Grit C+

9. 127 Hours C+

10. The Fighter C

1. The King’s Speech

2. The Social Network

3. True Grit

4. Black Swan

5. The Fighter

6. Toy Story 3

7. Inception

8. The Kids Are All Right

9. 127 Hours

10. Winter’s Bone

Best Director (I guess the same as above, though I would maybe rank Fincher higher and Aronofsky lower):

1. David Fincher, The Social Network

2. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

3. Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech

4. Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit

5. David O. Russell, The Fighter

1. Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech

2. David Fincher, The Social Network

3. Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit

4. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

5. David O. Russell, The Fighter

Best Actor:

1. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network A/A-

2. Colin Firth, The King’s Speech A/A-

3. James Franco, 127 Hours B/B+

4. Javier Bardem, Biutiful B

5. Jeff Bridges, True Grit B/B-

1. Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

2. Javier Bardem, Biutiful

3. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

4. James Franco, 127 Hours

5. Jeff Bridges, True Grit

Best Actress:

1. Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone A

2. Natalie Portman, Black Swan A

3. Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right A/A-

4. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine A-

5. Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole B/B-

1. Natalie Portman, Black Swan

2. Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

3. Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone

4. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

5. Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Best Supporting Actor:

1. John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone A/A-

2. Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right A-/B+

3. Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech A-/B+

4. Jeremy Renner, The Town B

5. Christian Bale, The Fighter B

1. Christian Bale, The Fighter

2. Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

3. Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

4. John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone

5. Jeremy Renner, The Town

Best Supporting Actress:

1. Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom A

2. Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech B+

3. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit B/B-

4. Melissa Leo, The Fighter B/B-

5. Amy Adams, The Fighter B/B-

1. Melissa Leo, The Fighter

2. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

3. Amy Adams, The Fighter

4. Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

5. Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech

Best Original Screenplay

1. Another Year A/A-

2. The Kids Are All Right A-/B+

3. Inception B/B-

4. The King’s Speech B-

5. The Fighter C

1. The King’s Speech

2. The Kids Are All Right

3. Inception

4. Another Year

5. The Fighter

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. Toy Story 3 A

2. The Social Network B+

3. Winter’s Bone B+

4. True Grit B

5. 127 Hours C+

1. The Social Network

2. Toy Story 3

3. Winter’s Bone

4. True Grit

5. 127 Hours

Best Animated Feature

1. Toy Story 3 A

2. The Illusionist B

3. How to Train Your Dragon B

Same as above

Art Direction:

1. Inception

2. The King’s Speech

3. True Grit

Having not seen: Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

1. The King’s Speech

2. Inception

3. True Grit

4. Alice in Wonderland

5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Costume Design (though I have no real way of ranking this rationally):

1. The King’s Speech

2. I Am Love

3. True Grit

Having not seen: Alice in Wonderland, The Tempest

1. I Am Love (the night’s upset, I believe)

2. The King’s Speech

3. True Grit

4. Alice in Wonderland

5. The Tempest

Best Cinematography

1. Roger Deakins, True Grit

2. Danny Cohen, The King’s Speech

3. Matthew Libatique, Black Swan

4. Jeff Cronenweth, The Social Network

5. Wally Pfister, Inception

1. Roger Deakins

2. Danny Cohen

3. Wally Pfister

4. Jeff Cronenweth

5. Matthew Libatique

Best Documentary Feature

1. Exit Through the Gift Shop A

2. Restrepo B

3. Inside Job B-

Having not seen: Waste Land, Gasland

1. Inside Job

2. Exit Through the Gift Shop

3. Waste Land

4. Restrepo

5. Gasland

Best Documentary Short

Having not seen: any of them

1. Strangers No More

2. The Warriors of Qiugang

3. Killing in the Name

4. Poster Girl

5. Sun Come Up

Best Foreign Film

1. Dogtooth B+

2. Biutiful C

3. Outside the Law D

Having not seen: Incendies, In a Better World

1. In a Better World

2. Incendies

3. Biutiful

4. Dogtooth

5. Outside the Law

Best Animated Short

1. Madagascar, a Journey Diary B+

2. The Lost Thing B

3. The Gruffalo B

4. Day and Night B-

5. Let’s Pollute C

1. Madagascar, a Journey Diary

2. Day and Night

3. The Gruffalo

4. Let’s Pollute

5. The Lost Thing

Best Live Action Short

1. God of Love A-

2. Na Wewe B+

3. The Crush B

4. The Confession B

5. Wish 143 C+

1. God of Love

2. Na Wewe

3. The Confession

4. Wish 143

5. The Crush

Film Editing (this year, no particular preference; though this is one of my favorite categories):

1. The King’s Speech

2. 127 Hours

3. The Social Network

4. The Fighter

5. Black Swan

Makeup:

1. Barney’s Version (horrible makeup, mind you; hope this doesn’t win)

Having not seen: The Way Back, The Wolfman

1. The Way Back

2. Barney’s Version

3. The Wolfman

Music (Original Score)

1. The Social Network

2. Inception

3. 127 Hours

4. How to Train Your Dragon

5. The King’s Speech

1. The Social Network

2. The King’s Speech

3. Inception

4. 127 Hours

5. How to Train Your Dragon

Original Song:

1. We Belong Together – Toy Story 3

2. Coming Home – Country Strong

3. I See the Light - Tangled

4. If I Rise – 127 Hours

1. We Belong Together

2. Coming Home

3. I See the Light

4. If I Rise

Sound Mixing (no preference):

1. Inception

2. Salt

3. The King’s Speech

4. The Social Network

5. True Grit

Sound Editing (no preference):

1. Inception

2. Tron: Legacy

3. Unstoppable

4. True Grit

5. Toy Story 3

Visual Effects:

1. Inception

2. Iron Man 2

3. Hereafter

Having not seen: Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

1. Inception

2. Hereafter

3. Iron Man 2

4. Harry Potter DH Part 1

5. Alice in Wonderland

Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts 2010/2011

More capsule reviews, this time the nominated animated shorts along with a couple of special mention, "highly commended" films:

Bastien Dubois' "Madagascar, a Journey Diary" is an 11-minute college of every different animation style you can imagine, a film that can only be seen to be appreciated. It doesn't exert that much of a pull and the audience member feels a bit disconnected, but it's powerful as an evocation of a country and (presumably) what that country is all about. The film probably should be seen more than once to be most properly received, as it blows past you, incorporating souvenirs from the trip as centerpieces in the drawings and more. That being said, it can't quite keep up with itself, getting a bit repetitive by the time it reaches its close. Even though it has a nice stream-of-consciousness feeling about it, I wish it been slightly more refined (and a bit less show-offy). Yet, it really does more for animation than any of the other nominees. B+

Deserving a nomination but only garnering a "Highly Commended" citation, Bill Plympton's "The Cow Who Wanted to Be a Hamburger" is jarring, arrestingly simple 8-bit hilarity. The title does accurately describe the film, but it makes it sound like less of a film than it actually is. What we get is an original work that only succumbs to trying to be allegorical at the end of its jam-packed 6 minutes. The (wrongheaded) cow training sequence is the piece de resistance. B+

If you've ever played the computer game Spore, where you create creatures just like the ones in this film, "The Lost Thing" by Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan may seem both like less of novelty (in the way that "District 9" seems less original when you factor in its similarities to "Halo") and also may work its weird effect doubly well. It has relatively sentimental insights (something along the lines of "The Last Book in the Universe"), but it also refuses to surrender to an uplifting ending and creates an interesting if mildly hamfisted view of the apocalyptic future (evoking the album cover for "Hail to the Thief" as well as "1984"). It follows an unnamed fellow (Tim Minchin) who stumbles upon an unidentified object on a beach and tries to put it back in its place. This is another film that requires closer study, as it puts a lot in and one might not to get all of it out in a single viewing. B

Max Lang and Jakob Schuh's "The Gruffalo" is somewhat of a sentimental favorite for me, since I am automatically charmed by monsters like one shown in this one (see: "Where the Wild Things Are," which you may have noticed is the source for my avatar). Locked into rhyme and also feeling a bit intolerable at times, "The Gruffalo" didn't always work for me. But it's pleasantly drawn and has great voicework. It's a story-within-a-story, told by Mother Squirrel (Helena Bonham Carter) to her little squirrels (Sam Lewis and Phoebe Givron-Taylor), about a mouse (James Corden) who goes to get food and encounters predators (Tom Wilkinson, John Hurt, and Rob Brydon). He uses the threat of a Gruffalo as an alibi, and although they (and he) thinks he's making it up, it turns out to be oh so real (and voiced by Robbie Coltrane). It is a humorous short, something you can't say about all of the movies up this year. B

"Day and Night" from Pixar's Teddy Newton I had harbored resentment for since I saw it before "Toy Story 3." It's not quite as bad as I remembered it to be and definitely skillful, though it is too clever by half. It just seems from its idea (two whatchamacallits representing the two halves of the day who want to experience the other's enjoyments) and brevity that it was quickly thought up and quickly put together, and I'm still not quite sure how I feel about that. Also, it ends on a strange decadent note, having one thing relishing the hot woman it now has, the other savoring its newfound Vegas. Not too sure about that one. B-

"Urs" by Moritz Mayerhofer, the other "highly commended" short, is, except for its remarkable drawings, pointless. It involves an old man bringing his unwilling wife over a mountain (done in a jagged style evoking "Metropolis"). I was pretty bored with it. As a friend noted, it could be portraying some sort of legend, but that explanation doesn't really make it any better. C+

Finally, "Let's Pollute" is 6 minutes of needless agitprop about the environment. Sloppily animated and blunt as hell, it repeatedly tells you to destroy the planet instead of to try save it. It makes a mild dent, admittedly, and plays a bit better than I let on, but that it blocked "The Cow Who Wanted to Be a Hamburger" from a nomination is ridiculous. C

Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts 2010/2011

Here are capsule reviews of the nominated live action shorts, in order of preference:

Always a step ahead of you in the way that "The Social Network" was, but much more purely enjoyable and wacky, Luke Matheny's "God of Love" stands above the others in its category. With a trite voiceover, B&W, and an appeal to god for help w/r/t unrequited love, it seemed to be heading for mannered eccentricity, but with verve, esprit, and great timing it bounds out of its shackles. Matheny is probably the only one who could have realized his vision to the fullest extent, and so he stars as Ray, who sings and throws darts simultaneously. He's in love with the drummer in his band, Kelly (Marian Brock), who's in love with Ray's buddy Fozzie (a great Christopher Hirsh, who keeps up with Matheny). Ray out of nowhere gets a bunch of darts that, when thrown at someone, strike the victim with an uncontrollable urge to be with the person they immediately look at. That is, for 6 hours. After that, they either snap out of it or continue onwards entranced. It's an intriguing idea (like something out of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"), and, with a countdown and all, Matheny examines it to its fullest, funniest extent. The film's quasi-coda, which completes the film's circular structure, falls a bit into sappiness and doesn't resist the temptation to have things fit perfectly together, but what Matheny does shouldn't go unnoticed and should hopefully win him the Oscar. A-

Ivan Goldschmidt's "Na Wewe" is the short of this year's crop that I would call the most audacious. 19 minutes long, it takes place in real time and plays out in only one scene. It takes place in '94 Burundi, where a Belgian newsperson or something and his assistant are picked up after his car breaks down. The guy talks on and on to the annoyance of the other people in the car before the vehicle is forced to stop by a group of Hutus who want to kill all of the Tutsis onboard. They try to separate their targets from the rest, but everyone stays as a group. They go on to question every person in the crowd, with each person giving reasons why they should be spared. Once it gets going, you can see how it will end, but it throws curveballs in along the way, as kids are not automatically allowed to live. Of course, due to its subject, it gets a bit heavy-handed, and some of the details (especially the whole bit about U2) are a little dubious. But the acting (which I would single out, but can't do to the fact that I can't find the players' names on the Internet) is quite solid, and (as my friend noted) the editing is splendid. This film has a good chance at winning the award. B+

The way that the somewhat stilted "The Crush" by Michael Creagh portrays its story, in a condescending manner, is spot on, even though I thought otherwise when I began watching. It's about how a second grader named Ardal (again, I cannot find the actors' names) wants to marry his teacher Ms. Purdy (strangely named, since that's the moniker of Creagh's production company) and how he tries to obstruct her jerk of a fiancee from beating him to the punch (right down to a duel at a handball court, which yields those banal observations which show how Ms. Purdy much of an a-hole the dude really is). One could have developed this to be something creepy, but instead Creagh makes it sweet and coy, though perhaps a little too syrupy at the close. One weird thing: the lighting makes some of the actors look like they're made out of clay, which in my opinion doesn't do the film too many favors. B

Tanel Toom's visual style in "The Confession" is seriously good, especially in how he juxtaposes two still shots of a road and a cornfield and how he shoots inside of a church. However, no tonal sensitivity is evident, and the film's eventual spiral from control seems both deliberate and unintentional. We follow a youngster named Sam (Lewis Howlett, whom we will hopefully see again), who is coming to his first confession with nothing to confess. He spends his days innocuously with his friend Jacob (Joe Eales), making fun of the whole process (mimicking the eucharist with potato chips) and biking around. Jacob feels that Sam should have something to say when he goes his first time, and so the two for some reason decide to take a scarecrow down from the cross on which it is hung and place it in the middle of a road. Why they do this I guess can be seen as an instance of the logic of children, but it goes underexposed, as do most things as the film progresses from this moment, the turning point in the film. Toom does have something interesting to say about how confession can be rendered meaningless, and Howlett is strong portraying a kid who now has way too much to confess, but it's hardly an impeccable work. B

"Wish 143" promises something subversive (a la "Cashback") with its premise of a cancer patient who wants to use a Make-a-Wish style program to lose his virginity rather than rub elbows with a famous person. Instead it takes the path of least resistance, ending up depressingly cloying. To the film's credit, it does set up a good comedic duo in Samuel Peter Holland and Jim Carter, who play the patient in question and his priest friend, setting up some pretty humorous scenes. But it goes all chickenshit and turns from comedy to sentimental drama at the drop of a hat, replete with that cheesy generic narration that connects some sort of obscure knowledge with life. The film is mildly touching, yet the ways it could have developed are potentially much more interesting. All directors should remember: you only get to direct a film once, so make the most of it. C+

Biutiful

The only innovation in "Biutiful" is having different colors for subtitles in different languages (white for Spanish, blue for Chinese, yellow for Senegalese), something that last year's confusing Oscar nominee "Ajami" could have used. Otherwise, "Biutiful" is an emotionally manipulative, 147-minute tapestry of cliches and poorly-developed characters that Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu puts together clumsily and without much coherence. A good but not necessarily Oscar-worthy performance by Javier Bardem (co-winner of Cannes Best Actor) and a pretty touching (and at times pleasantly mechanized) score by Gustavo Santaolalla (et al.) are to the film's benefit but don't really help it work as a whole.

Uxbal (Bardem) is a disciplinarian who has a handle on everyone but (you guessed it) himself. He tries to get money to support his children but his long-lasting felonious venture (something involving construction) seems to be nearing its end. His other job, telling people what their recently deceased family and friends (who look like something out of J-horror) said, is also losing steam as people are tired of him sayingthat their kids stole things (even if they did). His separated wife, Marambra (Maricel Alvarez), whom he still loves, claims to be stable but engages in an affair with his brother Tito and, when Uxbal moves back in with her, displays all of the problems she's said to have overcome.

Before his life bursts by itself, he finds he has contracted cancer (portrayed gratuitously with bloody urinations and needles) and neglected it beyond the point of return. Uxbal doesn't want the same thing to happen to his kids that happened to him when his father (whom he never met) passed early on in his life, but there's very little he can do about it. And that's all I'll say about the film's plot, since I'm getting annoyed describing it and also because I don't want to transcribe the whole movie right here, which is sort of tempting.

Bardem has some nice scenes of anger, tenderness, and sadness, but the performance isn't exactly the slam-dunk I was expecting. He, along with the other actors, is at the mercy of Inarritu's screenplay (with Armando Bo and Nicolas Giacobone). It throws in corny characters (a cop, a fellow supernatural friend, a conflicted immigrant), kills off minor ones to try to grip us, and doesn't treat the substantial ones as well as possible. The film's ending (and also prologue) is a mild triumph for the script, though. Despite lingering on an overplayed image, it made me feel something. "Biutiful," between its introduction and conclusion, however, doesn't really dig that deep. C

I've now seen all the nominees of the "above the line" categories at the Oscars. This enables me to do my feature to its fullest extent, though I'm unsure of how that'll work out. Stay tuned, though.

Barney's Version

The failure of Richard J. Lewis' "Barney's Version" comes from the fact that it is almost entirely unconvincing. It cannot sustain the illusion that what it's presenting is not superficial, timeworn, unintentionally hilarious, and inexplicably complex. It doesn't help that the writing is unbelievably bad on a scene-to-scene basis or that the direction is hopelessly unenlightened (revealing that lack of tonal sensitivity that is often present with a regular TV director). Paul Giamatti, whom everything depends on, throws it all on the line, but it's no use. As my friend notes, he's not skilled enough to overcome such impossible hurdles, especially without acting up a miraculous storm (he gives only an erratic if decent performance, which did win a Golden Globe). Such a film will only appeal to those who are willing to give themselves over to an insufferable collective. Do not take yourself to "Barney's Version" if you do not fit this criteria.

The film starts with Barney Panofsky (Giamatti) in the present day and goes on to cycle through his life from 1974 on. The first few sequences in the past are pointlessly supplied with time cards that give the audience information that they already know or could easily pick up. However, the film suddenly starts moving through time unclearly, coming back to the present and moving out without giving a good sense of where it's going. At this point, when the movie should be barraging us with time cards, it neglects to. In doing this, it confused me to no end, sapping the drama out of many a scene. The makeup, which is nominated for an Oscar, offers absolutely no help, and as a result is ineffective. (Add to that the fact that it is amateurishly noticeable.) Maybe it was hard for director Lewis and his writer Michael Konyves (working from Mordecai Richler's novel) to control their work. If so, they shouldn't have burdened the audience with the result.

The story of Barney for some reason picks up with him in Rome when he's in his 30's. He's chillaxing and experiencing the world and shit with his buddies and hoping to start his life soon with his pregnant fiancee, Clara (Rachelle Lefevre). But she has a stillborn, the unborn baby wasn't his anyways, and an upset Barney storms off. {{{{SPOILER She's depressed by Barney's depression and kills herself SPOILER}}}, providing a one-scene entrance for Saul Rubinek, who is as lousy as he'll ever be. The whole dramatic workings of this first segment are risible, with the making of jarring tone changes and miserable acting by Lefevre and Scott Speedman as close friend Boogie (though I will admit that Speedman goofiness is a bit appealing).

Things progress and Barney, after getting a job, meets and ties the knot with a character played by Minnie Driver, and since I was not taking notes and since the Internet gives no help, she will remain nameless. At their wedding (done up in a flauntingly Jewish fashion), he meets Miriam (Rosamund Pike, who, along with Dustin Hoffman as Barney's father, makes the film mildly tolerable), whom he immediately is attracted to and whom he really wants to be with, even then. She, being the prudent lady that she is, will not be with a married man, and so he must wait and wait and wait and wait and find an excuse to get away from Driver's character.

He does, but not before the film takes great pains to paint their marriage as loveless and shallow. A critical viewer will note that the third marriage may be just as empty. Consider the fact that we never hear Miriam and Barney talk about anything except for the origins of phrases, or the fact that Barney feels the need make a list of conversation topics that includes Saul Bellow's "Herzog" (an ironic gesture) and "All the President's Men." If this is the case, then there is no relationship in the film that is substantial, which is kind of dismal and not the intention.

I won't go on and on about this movie, even though I could. It's just a cliched kitchen sink affair, what with Alzheimer's (always having to be paired with hockey in Canadian films), a dude from Waverly Films (who's also Dustin Hoffman's son), murder, bad song choices, Bruce Greenwood yet again tied with homosexuality, and on and on. The sprawl (this movie is almost 2 and a half hours long) is admirable on a conceptual level, but it plays out poorly. I guess I bottled up a lot of impatience throughout, because when the film got to a certain point, with a line so ridiculous in its enclosure, I had a laugh attack that was almost unstoppable. If I hadn't contained myself in a few seconds more, I would've left as to not be rude. Thank the film's padded corny dialogue towards the end (which for the most part kept me from cracking up) that I didn't, because then I wouldn't have been able to write this review and inform you of the mish-mashing incompetence of "Barney's Version." I still may not have done it justice, but I won't go further. D+

Another Year

Mike Leigh's last film, "Happy-Go-Lucky," may be a bit more consistent than his new work, "Another Year," but the latter is much more heartrending. It sees geologist Tom (Jim Broadbent) and his counselor wife Gerri (Ruth Sheen) through one year of their life (with season-titled sections a la "Rushmore"). People who see this film are bound immediately to think of them as "happy," but if their life is as taxing every year as it is in the year profiled in this film, maybe not entirely.

They are routinely imposed upon by clingy work friend Mary (Lesley Manville), who always gets embarrassingly hammered when she comes over and who wears her emotions on her sleeves. When she comes over for the first time in the film (obviously following many unseen occasions), we are let on that the patience of Tom and Gerri is nearing its end. Also making appearances is old friend Ken (Peter Wight), way overweight and sinking into extreme excess. Ken has a thing for Mary, but Mary makes no pretense in admitting that she wants him to go away. This is similar to her courtship of Joe (Oliver Maltman), the witty only child of Tom and Gerri, who is a bit more tactful in his rejection of her. A horrific scene, though, results when Mary icily receives Joe's lover Katie (Karina Fernandez).

There are also characters that come in on the bookends. In an intriguing non sequiter which is supposed to be a sort of entry point for the audience, we meet a client of Gerri's, Janet (Imelda Staunton), who is having a terrible time trying to sleep. And at the end, Tom's brother Ronnie (David Bradley) and his caustic son Carl (Martin Savage, aptly named for the character) come into the fray when Ronnie's wife dies and there is a funeral.

Leigh's meticulous and traditionally droll script deserves to the win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, the only nomination that the film has garnered. It's impressively controlled and subtle (letting on instead of screaming out), putting it above any other screenplay in its field this year. Not that all of the sections are equally good ("Summer" and "Fall" work much better than "Spring" and the "You, the Living"-esque "Winter" in my opinion), but that would be nearly impossible to do.

The acting is seriously good from everyone. Manville has gotten a lot of attention, and she deserves a good portion of it. She makes some great choices in how she plays scenes, and maybe, if you really want to scrutinize, a misstep or two (the first drunk scene, possibly). I totally agree with those who say that she's unbearable, which is exactly what she needs to be, a combination of needing and spiting. Should she have gotten an Oscar nomination? Yes. Either field, Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress, has at least one less deserving candidate than Manville. I admire Sheen, too, who should have also garnered some attention.

The biggest criticism I've heard of this movie is that it is that it "invites you to revile its characters." I can see that in a couple of instances (especially the final shot, an instance of bravura camera technique but on some level misplayed), but I find that the film mostly transcends this by captivating and distracting you. Unfortunately overlooked in both the 2010 Cannes competition (yet another film better than both the Palme and Gran Prix winners) and the Oscar field that was originally supposed to serve as consolation, "Another Year" is a film that I will want to revisit (like last week's "The Illusionist"). Maybe I'll even do that on an annual basis. B+

Catfish

This review is full of spoilers, so I recommend not reading it if you haven't seen the film first.

"Catfish" is a moderately entertaining look at how Facebook and other online communication breeds obsession and strange franticness, for its first 3/4. But when the film in its last quarter decides to make a big reveal, it becomes much less interesting, much less direct, and much less ethically sound.

The filmmakers, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, have not gone the Casey Affleck route and admitted that they've made a mockumentary, so there still is legitimacy in the positions of considering it real or fake. Thinking of it as real, I side with my reader Cristina Acuna, who asked: "Why is nothing private anymore?" The film is about how Ariel's brother Nev talked to people he'd never met or seen before. However, it drifts beyond the innocuous. It begins when a girl from Michigan sends Nev paintings of his photographs. He engages in insane amounts of talk on email and chat, branching beyond the girl, Abby, to her mother Angela, and finally to her half-sister Megan. He starts to, through Megan's Facebook photos, develop an interest in her. They get up to the point (with sweet talk and everything) where if they met each other, they'd really be in a relationship. So Nev decides, when out west, to go.

When they are at another stop, Nev starts to find some problems. He finds that Abby's supposed art gallery hasn't been in operation for years, that Megan keeps sending him songs she apparently covered, but instead ripped off of Youtube and the rest of the Internet, and that her ranch is empty. But what should be an anvil drop isn't when we find Angela at home, holding Megan's phone as well as hers, painting, and updating over ten different fake Facebook profiles. If this film is real, it's exploitative to the max and I don't think that it should have been made into a movie for everyone to see. That they did means that either the Schulman and Joost are the imposing scoundrels everyone says they are, or they set it all up.

I think the film could get off pretty much unscathed (if a bit cheesy) if it were fake, save one thing: at the end of the film, there is a listing that one of Angela's mentally-challenged sons died. To create that sort of stuff in the way that Schulman and Joost (may) have to me is somewhat inexcusable. If the film is fake, they obviously put it in there to try to fake authenticity. But it just sort of makes me sick.

So it's a paradox: the film is shaky either way (much like Simon Abrams noted about "Exit Through the Gift Shop," in a piece I disagree with all the same but still admire). Ariel told me that it was as real, and if he wants to go that way, let him, though I'm unsure of what good that does the movie. C+

Ten Worst Oscar Snubs - 2010

The third edition of this annual feature. This time, I've limited it only to films (and aspects of films) that appeared on the longlists for Best Picture, Best Animated Feature, Best Foreign Film, and Best Documentary Feature. So that means no ineligible films on this list, like "Fish Tank," "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work," or "White Material." Also, as has always been the case, one spot per snubbed film. Not that I thought all of these people/films would be nominated, but still. Finally, if a film has already gotten a certain amount of attention, I don't go apeshit if it doesn't get more (i.e. "Exit Through the Gift Shop," which I think is the year's best film, got its due in the Best Documentary Feature category and since documentaries don't usually get nominated for Best Picture and all that, I'm satisfied). Influenced by other Oscar pieces including the one on The Film Experience.

10. Robert Richardson, Shutter Island (Best Cinematography)

9. TIE Christopher Nolan, Inception AND Ben Affleck, The Town (Best Director)

8. Andrew Garfield, The Social Network (Best Supporting Actor)

7. Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right (Best Actress)

6. Eric Gautier, Wild Grass (Best Cinematography)

5. Barbara Hershey, Mila Kunis, and Vincent Cassel, Black Swan (Best Supporting Actress/Actor)

4. Ben Mendelsohn, Animal Kingdom (Best Supporting Actor)

3. Ben Stiller, Rhys Ifans, and Noah Baumbach, Greenberg (Best Actor/Supporting Actor/Director)

2. Roman Polanski, The Ghost Writer (Best Director)

1. Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine (Best Actor)

More Oscar coverage coming soon.

Dogtooth (Kynodontas)

"Dogtooth," perhaps the year's most abrasive film (and the winner of the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes 2009), puts you in the company of people you would never, ever want to know and makes you feel awkward about it for every one of its 94 minutes (especially with its contracted aspect ratio). It sees a family with parents who control the lives of their college age children, who've never actually left their property before. They do this by redefining words that are connected to the outside world, by manufacturing stories about a brother who left the house and who was slaughtered by a house cat, by neglecting to give them names (perhaps to swat off the implications behind each), and by convincing them the only way that they can exit the expanse is by car (which is what the father, played by Christos Stergioglou, uses to go to work).

The children can go off "when their dogtooth falls," but only learn to drive when it grows back (which makes it I'm pretty sure impossible to ever get out, though my knowledge of dentistry is limited). The film gives no motivation behind the parents raising their family like this, which viewers may complain about. But that's entirely beside the point. "Dogtooth" is about how parents try to shield their children from the world, and how that's not necessarily a good thing.

The parents of the film do allow one other person into their system, a parking attendant named Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou) who comes periodically to have sex with the son (Hristos Passalis) and who is valued by the two sisters (Aggeliki Papoulia and Mary Tsoni) as a contact with the outside world. Things get a bit out of order when Christina gives the girls contraband items (a "sparkling" headband, "Rocky," "Jaws," and "Flashdance") in exchange for the oral sex their brother won't give her. When she exits the picture later on, and I won't say why or how, the parents decide to have their children practice incest. (Just to let people who are hanging on to the thread of hope that this is still viewable with young children know, full-frontal nudity and explicit sex are present here.) At this point, director Giorgios Lanthimos proves he will leave no rock unturned, which qualifies as an achievement of some sort. This is one guy who knows he'll never have another crack at this same material, and that when you've gone a certain distance, it's best to go all the way.

"Dogtooth," believe it or not, is also a pretty comical movie. It's enjoyably unpredictable in its etymological invention, sprawling to cover "zombie," "pussy," and "keyboard" (possibly the biggest zinger in the entire film). It's one of those works that bends familiarity for laughs, but whereas in others this is an extremely annoying technique, here it produces some good results. (Also amusing: the mother's threats of "giving birth" if her children don't behave.) The film also knows how to agonize you. There are a few instances of this, none more prominent than the one involving a weight.

The film's oppressiveness is both its biggest strength and flaw. If it made concessions, it would be a lesser film, yet the audience may retain more of a connection with the characters. Also, like the film I just saw, Chomet's "The Illusionist," the scenes sometimes feel disconnected and poorly put together. This could be deliberate (as so much of this movie is), but perhaps not. Finally, the ending is very logical in a "1984"-conclusion sort of way but noticeably abrupt. If the rest of the film is a kick in the groin, the very end is a middle finger thrown on top of it. But I'm not upset at Lanthimos about it, in the way that I was with Godard over "Film Socialisme." With solid acting and atmosphere, and a director who's definitely not asleep at the wheel, "Dogtooth" earns Greece's spot on this year's Oscar Foreign Film Shortlist (and perhaps even more than that; we will see tomorrow and in upcoming weeks). B+

The Illusionist (2010)

"The Illusionist," while still being one of the most depressing films I've ever seen, is a definite improvement on the intense scathing and hopelessness of animator Sylvain Chomet's last film "The Triplets of Belleville" (a film that lessens on repeat viewings). This one is still ripe with pessimistic observation, to be sure. It sees how the power of illusion fades as time goes on, as rock music and television surge and the only sort of magic anyone cares about is that which can be used to sell merchandise. But it seems as if Chomet has matured since his first work, as he's created a much more refined film, that happily refuses to clutter its narrative. Instead of punching you, this one takes smaller jabs, and is all the better for it. Maybe Chomet needed a Jacques Tati screenplay for this sudden growth, but who knows?

In its opening quarter, the film seems to be going down the wrong path. The Illusionist (voiced by Jean-Claude Donda), a real magician (in that he really can pull things from thin air on a day-to-day basis) goes from audience to audience, no one appreciating his work. (They're more impressed by a fictionalized version of the Beatles.) That's until he performs at a Scottish pub, where, despite a jukebox being installed, people seem to respond to the tricks. The person who does most of all is Alice (Eilidh Rankin), a poor waitress who secretly follows the Illusionist when he sets off for Edinburgh (when the film arrives there, it starts to step right).

The film centers its social/economical satire on Alice, as she becomes assimilated into the constantly upgrading culture foreign to her. The Illusionist gave her red shoes before, but now she wants the white shoes and the Cinderella-type dress in the storefront windows. The film goes full-on critical when it completes a rhyming shot of Alice, now all primped up in expensive finery, walking as a country girl who looks just like her looks on in admiration (Alice was in this role earlier on). The film also places the Illusionist and Alice (as well as the Illusionist's abrasive hat-rabbit) in a hotel alongside a ventriloquist, a clown, and a trio of acrobats (all, except maybe the acrobats, heading towards a downfall) to chart how the times are a-changin'. And, as per usual, greedy businessmen take money that's not theirs when it's left unattended.

Chomet is nowhere near as good of a filmmaker as he is a visual artist or composer (the animation and music are both frequently astounding). He gives more establishing shots of Edinburgh than you can count, so many that it feels like one a minute. The man also needs to work on his skills of cohesion. The scenes never really flow together, and the movie would be better off if they did. But critics go crazy over his works, so why change a single thing? "The Illusionist," though, definitely deserves a nomination for Best Animated Film, and I want to at some point see it again (when I'm in a good enough mood), which is a good sign for a movie. It's actually pretty interested in being sublime, and it's hard to be cynical in the face of that. B

How I Ended This Summer

Alexsei Popogrebsky's "How I Ended This Summer" has a shaky, underwhelming plot with good doses of emotional manipulation. While watching, I was hung up by the bewildering way the film was developing. However, it at least partially transcends this with incredible, incredible cinematography that should not be missed. There are certain shots in this film that really sum up for me what cinema can do. To describe one: Pavel (Grigoriy Dobrygin) has just tried to flag down a helicopter with a flare. He drops the flare to the ground in front of a wall of fog. The camera lingers on the scene for at least a minute, as Pavel heads towards the background and the fog clears to reveal a green backdrop. It's remarkable, one of many great shots that utilize composition, landscape, and (somewhat desaturated) color in great ways.

The film concerns Pavel's internship at an Arctic weather establishment, where he and Sergei (Sergei Puskepalis) take down esoteric data again and again and report it people in some place that's probably nowhere near as cold. Why Pavel decided to come is beyond me; he seems consistently lonely, bored, and tired, listening to music to relieve the difficulty of living there.

One day, Pavel receives a transmission that Sergei's family has been killed in some accident. Since he feels that Sergei will be terribly upset, he withholds the information, much to the chagrin of the people who gave it to him. The film makes an obvious attempt at evoking dread when it has Sergei, unknowing of the deaths of his loved ones, tell joyful personal stories. It works on some level, but seems somewhat cloying.

I wish there had been more to this film. I guess there is other action (frantic dashes from one side of the island to the other; hiding in remote places; the proverbial gun in the first act being, if mutedly, fired later on), but its all not terribly well thought out. Pavel Kostomarov (interesting coincidence) definitely deserves plaudits, though, for shooting the film in the way that he does. It's a "technical achievement" that sometimes feels as if it breaks out of being labeled solely as such. It hasn't the strength to quite do that, in my opinion, but it may qualify for some viewers as a nice finding (sitting as it is On Demand). B-

Somewhere

I remember Quentin Tarantino speaking about Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere" at the Venice Film Festival awards show (where it won the Golden Lion; in the next year we'll learn what film it got stolen from), saying that he and his fellow jurors "kept coming back to it." I find that pretty hard to believe, since I saw "Somewhere" two days ago and I've already almost completely forgotten it. I don't really get it (except on, you know, that fabled "certain level") any more now then I did then. The prospect of understanding it is not something that entices me, since that would require for me to allot more of my time toward it and, even if I did, I'm almost positive that I'd be unsatisfied with what I'd learned from that experience.

Anyone remotely interested in seeing "Somewhere" will be better off watching "Lost in Translation," since that film sates what most people probably will be seeking in this film. Bill Murray's acting is superior to Stephen Dorff's in just about every way possible, despite the fact that Dorff could more easily pass as an action star than Murray could. Dorff has a small degree of pull as Johnny Marco, who spends all of his days drinking, watching pole dances in his hotel room, sleeping with any woman he can, and getting abrasive text messages from an anonymous source. He's unsatisfied, but, since he's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, he doesn't possess the willpower to really do anything about it.

He's not really in touch with the life of his daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning), since he doesn't have custody over her, but since his wife is on one of those trips that could end tomorrow or never, he (as they say in "Animal Kingdom") "gets to see more of her." Cleo and by way of virtue Fanning is winning, and that (as well as Dorff, to some degree) keeps the audience at least somewhat absorbed. But look: viewing "Somewhere" is basically watching people doing shit that you and I do all the time. Whether or not that's in the service of any sort of profound notion (read: it's not really), it is what it is. I'm not too sure that a normal person would really want to pay money to see that. Nor do I think most will be too enthralled in the film's scrutiny of Johnny, which manifests itself in long takes of strippers, cars circling racetracks, and cars driving down LA freeways (observed in follow-shots behind the car in exactly the same way as every film Harris Savides has ever shot). I had a little nostalgia for the week I spent in LA a few years back, playing ping-pong and swimming like the characters do in the film, but found little pleasure more than that.

I apologize that this review cuts to the quick a bit fast. I just was tired of practicing the same restraint that Coppola did. When she gets out of her own way, I think that she will continue to make films as good as "Translation." C

Note: Many were frustrated with "LiT" in the way I was with "Somewhere." My take is that the former was enjoyable and watchable and worth my time, and the latter wasn't, or at least much less so.

Golden Globe Predix and Preferences - 2010

Didn't have time to do all the movie categories, but here are most of them:

Best Picture – Drama

In order of my preference:

1. The Social Network

2. Black Swan

3. Inception

4. The King’s Speech

5. The Fighter

In order of their likelihood of winning:

1. The Social Network

2. The King’s Speech

3. Black Swan

4. Inception

5. The Fighter

Best Picture – Comedy/Musical:

Preference:

1. The Kids Are All Right

Haven’t seen: Alice in Wonderland, Burlesque, Red, The Tourist

Likelihood:

1. The Kids Are All Right

2. Alice in Wonderland

3. Burlesque

4. The Tourist

5. Red

Best Actor –Drama:

Preference:

1. Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine

2. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

3. Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

4. James Franco, 127 Hours

5. Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter

Likelihood:

1. Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

2. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

3. James Franco, 127 Hours

4. Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine

5. Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter

Best Actor – Comedy/Musical:

Preference:

1. Kevin Spacey, Casino Jack

Haven’t seen: Jake Gyllenhaal, Love and Other Drugs; Johnny Depp, The Tourist AND Alice in Wonderland; Paul Giamatti, Barney’s Version

Likelihood:

1. Paul Giamatti, Barney’s Version

2. Johnny Depp, Alice in Wonderland

3. Kevin Spacey, Casino Jack

4. Jake Gyllenhaal, Love and Other Drugs

5. Johnny Depp, The Tourist

Best Actress – Drama

Preference:

1. Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone

2. Natalie Portman, Black Swan

3. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

4. Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Haven’t seen: Halle Berry, Frankie and Alice

Likelihood (after 1 and 2, kind of hard to determine):

1. Natalie Portman, Black Swan

2. Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone

3. Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

4. Halle Berry, Frankie and Alice

5. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Best Actress – Musical/Comedy:

Preference:

1. Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

2. Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right

Haven’t seen: Emma Stone, Easy A; Anne Hathaway, Love and Other Drugs; Angelina Jolie, The Tourist

Best Supporting Actor

Preference:

1. Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

2. Andrew Garfield, The Social Network

3. Jeremy Renner, The Town

4. Christian Bale, The Fighter

Haven’t seen: Michael Douglas, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Likelihood:

1. Christian Bale, The Fighter

2. Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

3. Andrew Garfield, The Social Network

4. Jeremy Renner, The Town

5. Michael Douglas, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Best Supporting Actress

Preference:

1. Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

2. Mila Kunis, Black Swan

3. Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech

4. Melissa Leo, The Fighter

5. Amy Adams, The Fighter

Likelihood:

1. Melissa Leo, The Fighter

2. Amy Adams, The Fighter

3. Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

4. Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech

5. Mila Kunis, Black Swan

Best Director:

Preference:

1. David Fincher, The Social Network

2. Christopher Nolan, Inception

3. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

4. Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech

5. David O. Russell, The Fighter

Likelihood:

1. David Fincher, The Social Network

2. Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech

3. Christopher Nolan, Inception

4. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

5. David O. Russell, The Fighter

Best Screenplay:

Preference:

1. Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

2. David Seidler, The King’s Speech

3. Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right

4. Christopher Nolan, Inception

5. Simon Beaufoy, Danny Boyle, 127 Hours

Likelihood:

Same as above

As noted in the comments, I didn't post my Best Musical Comedy Actress prediction since I was in a rush, but I'm pretty sure I thought Annette Bening was going to win.

Blue Valentine

"Blue Valentine," in its looping of the joyous past and the violently sad present, ends up being much more shattering than it would have been if it had gone linearly from point A to point B. Also, by placing the present before the past (i.e. using flashbacks instead of flashforwards), we see (to use the wording of a character) the couple the film follows at their worst before we see them at their best. Although the film's setup (a seemingly aimless 20-minute section) is a bit long and the staggering of time is a bit awkward, both are ultimately essential to the film.

Dean (Ryan Gosling) was, when he met Cindy (Michelle Williams), a type not unlike George Bailey from "It's a Wonderful Life." By the end of the film, he's like Bailey if he hadn't snapped out of his downward spiral. He's a drunk who can barely function, who manages to be a pretty good father but a terrible spouse.

Cindy is nearing the end of her rope with him, so he decides to book a parents' night out at a motel. This gives them some one-on-one time, which is not a good idea at this point in their marriage, suffice to say. The film's title is apparently a reference to the dominant color of the room in which they stay, which illuminates the action in a sad candor.

We come to learn, through the past, that Dean was the driving force in the relationship. He saw her for the first time in a nursing home and pursued her from there. Cindy is coming off of a hard time with a college wrestler (Mike Vogel), but she responds to Dean's self-assertion (he claims that he'll never die). What develops is a courtship not unlike the ones in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and the "Before Sunrise" diptych - it's one that you'll remember. But whereas those films have uplift and thus outward appeal, this one is sad and conclusive.

Gosling is tremendous in this film, giving perhaps the year's best male performance. His acting rarely if ever actually feels like acting. In my opinion, it's his Oscar to lose (which, of course, he will, to either Colin Firth or Jesse Eisenberg, who are not undeserving). Williams is similarly outstanding, playing Cindy as distraught and desolate, as well as delightfully sunny. I also admire the script by director Derek Cianfrance (who, as has been speculated, looks very similar to Gosling, or vice-versa), Cami Delavigne, and Joey Curtis. Though it is sometimes sudsy and flawed, it has some disturbing exposition (for example, how it has Cindy tell a child molester joke and goes on to reveal her prematurely sexual past) and natural-sounding writing. The much-mentioned cinematography by Andrij Parekh is also noteworthy. And the soundtrack, which has also been much remarked upon, is good, while the music by Grizzly Bear is not really anything to write home about. (edit: When talking about "the music by Grizzly Bear", I was referring to the instrumental stuff. The band's songs, including "Shift" and "Alligator," which I didn't know were theirs at the time, I liked a lot.)

Even though the film does have a large amount of sexuality (some it, as has been said, disconcerting), I'm glad that the film moved down from an NC-17 to an R. It may not be put together completely smoothly (I'm not sure how I felt about the overall editing), but that doesn't mean a ton when you take note of how engaging, endearing, and crushing the movie is as a whole. B+

Casino Jack

In the opening scene of the late George Hickenlooper's "Casino Jack," Jack Abramoff (played pretty well by Kevin Spacey in a Golden-Globe nominated performance) screams an interior monologue of sorts into the mirror as he's brushing his teeth. He remarks that people think he "moves too fast" (but that him doing this separates him from the rest). This sets the tone for the film, a very swift charting of the events that sent him on a descending arc from "superlobbyist" to federal criminal. It dabbles in a ton of different moods, most prominently that of broad comedy. This has led to people calling the film "clunky" but I felt otherwise, more in the vein of the critic who called it "loopily entertaining."

There is one thing, though, that the film really stumbles with: the screenplay by Norman Snider. I don't think I can remember the last time that I cringed at so much dialogue. Some of it is good, to be sure, but much of it is pathetic sub-sitcom discourse littered with an unrealistic amount of one-liners. The script also overloads on grating mannerisms. We understand from quite early on that Michael Scanlon (played by Barry Pepper, putting up an admirable struggle) is informal and womanizing and that Abramoff likes movies, so do we need to keep underscoring that throughout the entire film? It's sad to see this happen, since when the writing doesn't let the actors down, we can see what might've been.

But, moment-to-moment, one can put this huge flaw to the periphery and focus on the rest of the film, which is actually solidly watchable. It sprawls to follow both Abramoff and Scanlon, lobbyist extraordinares and partners-in-crime, and all of the many other threads that crisscross through their dealings. We see the two at their best, schmoozing and swaying congressmen (such as House Majority Leader Tom Delay). But we also see them losing control, their reaches exceeding their grasps. They devote an extremely dubious amount of time and energy in a cruise ship casino venture (called a "ship to nowhere" for a good reason), trying to funnel the funds for it from less-than-willing Indian tribes and using an disbarred, alcoholic, unreliable lawyer (Jon Lovitz) as their point man.

While this is falling apart, so is Abramoff. His marriage (to Kelly Preston, portraying a character very underexposed) is heading for its close, he's struggling to pay his mortgage while at the same time opening restaurants and Jewish schools, his reputation is becoming muddied, and, most importantly to him, his influence is fading. It's good that the film has somewhat of a sense of humor (like a character says of Abramoff), or the movie's rising unease would have had created the same degree of drags as the insanely depressing "Vincere." Or, for that matter, Doug Liman's more recent Washington saga "Fair Game," which could have used a smile or two. C+

If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle

"If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle" works and falters much like other genre films that I've enjoyed, like Ben Affleck's "The Town" and Matthew Vaughn's "Kick-Ass," in that it collapses underneath itself. It seems to offer more than it does, which comes as an unfortunate realization for the viewer at the end. However, the film would not be the same without the huge gamble that it takes, which is astonishing despite the fact it doesn't quite pay off. It jumps from a relatively easygoing first hour to a final, heightened 34 minutes from which there is no return.

Adapted from a play by Andreea Valean (but not feeling truly stagy until the very end, my guess being that they were more lenient in the transposition of the beginning), the film (the Best Foreign Film Oscar submission from Romania) follows Silviu (George Pistereanu), who's been stuck in a juvenile penitentiary for 8 years. He's apparently not caused too much of a fuss and has even helped out the head in naming names when the time was right. As the film opens, Silviu is left with under a month until he's set to be let go and seems to be cruising along. That's until his younger brother shows up telling him that he's going to be taken away to Italy by the two's absent mother. We learn (through a pretty excellent confrontation scene that signals that a change is coming) that Silviu's childhood was ruined by his mother's careless promiscuity and see that Silviu fears that his brother will experience the same neglect (and may end up in jail like he is).

The screenwriters' (and by way of virtue playwright's) command of exposition is superb. With (I believe) not ever naming the crime that Silviu committed (which is a common MO for crime movies, but still), nor giving away too much about his pre-prison life, the film is able to keep what comes from not drifting entirely into the surreal (which it threatens, and at some points manages, to do). But the film's observation of Silviu is not always impeccable. Florin Serban and Catalin Mitulescu sometimes make him do weird things for the plot to advance. The film also presents him as having limited skill in dealing with those of the opposite sex. I understand that it's tough for someone who was shut off from the outside world before he was an adolescent to carry on with a woman. But the film may push a little too far, presenting him as essentially insane when he desperately tries to court Ana (Ada Condeescu), one of the people who interviews the soon-to-leave prisoners. How his relationship with her plays out I will leave for you to see. I will only comment to say that it's pretty harrowing.

Another interesting uncertainty is how Silviu is perceived by the other inmates. They at first seem to be happy with him, but there also appears to be conflict regarding what he reveals to the superiors about illicit activity and also his incessant demanding to use one guy's phone. Silviu is seen to only have one true friend, a quiet one who listens to him and who at one point springs himself from the prison. But what Silviu does at the end inspires some degree of awe from everyone. I guess that's what happens when something out of the ordinary occurs and when one man steps out from the rest. (On a side note, these characters are apparently played by people who go through the same experiences that they do.)

The cinematography by Marius Panduru must be mentioned here. Dabbling a bit in crime-cinema technique (i.e. follow shots, utilization of the photogenic decaying buildings) but also doing some extremely impressive compositions and some eye-capturing one-takes, Panduru boosts the film during the down-time. Also significant is the work by Pistereanu, making his debut. Out of the gate, the script doesn't do him a lot of favors, but in the aforementioned confrontation scene as well as the climax he excels.

The film has a tight resolution may be off-putting to people. It was and still is for me. An argument can be made that it highlights the bizarre psychology and limited ambitions of Silviu. "If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle" is provocative enough for it to be tempting for me to make that rationalization and excuse it. It deserves a small recommendation, but as a whole, I find it too flawed for my taste. B-

Rabbit Hole

Through cinematic rearrangements, visualizations, and updates, "Rabbit Hole," a very good play by David Lindsay-Abaire, is made into a botched adaptation by the very same individual. It's filled with a ton of clutter, of which the play was gladly free. Plus, some details about the characters are lost or lessened. I know from attending the film with people who hadn't read the stage version that there's a good chance it will play better with those unfamiliar with the original. However, there also may be some who find the film the same as I did: a slog in a way other than that which it was intended to be, though admittedly I was less keen than usual on letting myself be engaged.

The film starts off with Becca (Nicole Kidman) gardening and turning down the offer of her neighbor to go to dinner. Significantly, the neighbor steps on the flower she spent time planting. At this moment, we can see the fraying of something, which will come to be revealed: Becca and her husband Howie (Aaron Eckhart) are weathering the loss of their child, who's been gone for eight months, hit by a car when following the family dog into the street. (This is an elephant that hangs over every scene at least in the play; in the film it's most scenes.)

They attend group meetings for people who've lost children, and are not really helped (Becca hates them and quits; Howie just goes). They are also not especially helped by the fact that Becca's reckless sister (Tammy Blanchard) is having a baby or how Becca's mother (Dianne Wiest) incessantly wants to give them support (and how she keeps recalling the death of Becca's brother). And then there's that kid that Becca keeps following home from school, who turns out to be Jason (Miles Teller), the guy who drove the car in the accident with their son. (I wish that Lindsay-Abaire had followed the arc from the play instead of making Becca into essentially a stalker. The relationship between the two was much better handled before.)

The film is mediocrely put together. It's not that well directed (John Cameron Mitchell, making a film that's seen as a departure for him) or edited (Joe Klotz) and it has a score (by Anton Sanko) that messes with the mood many times, despite its solidity. The performances are decent from everyone, with some nice moments drawn by Mitchell, but Eckhart, in one scene, is laughably over-the-top in his "anger." Many people have snapped this movie up; I recommend instead skipping the movie and perusing the far superior play. C

Best Cinematographers of 2010

Too exhausted to do write-ups of these (except for #1), but I do have a ranked list with honorable mentions. I run this blog by myself and thus cannot crank out as many lists as the multi-person staffs of other film websites.

10. Matthew Libatique – “Black Swan” and “Iron Man 2”

9. Danny Cohen - “The King’s Speech”

8. Robert Richardson – “Shutter Island”

7. Robby Ryan – “Fish Tank”

6. Yves Cape – “White Material”

5. Roger Deakins – “True Grit”

4. Michael McDonagh – “Winter’s Bone”

3. Matyas Erdely – “Tender Son – The Frankenstein Project”

2. Eric Gautier – “Wild Grass”

1. Luca Bigazzi – “Certified Copy”

Please don’t be the one to point out this film is released in 2011 in the United States; I’m well aware of that. Even if you’re a stickler, I think you can agree with me that Bigazzi deserves a moment of glory (even though he has “This Must Be the Place” in the future), as next year will be crowded with Lubezki on Malick’s “The Tree of Life” and whoever is shooting McQueen’s “Shame.”

There are many things to savor: the prodigious roving shots; the composition during the wedding photography scene which has a seat in the foreground and, through the door, off a mirror, the main characters having their picture taken; the close-ups (fitting for a film by Abbas); the framing at the end; the tones. Bigazzi lays out the imagery for Kiarostami’s vision to come together.

Honorable Mentions:

Jeff Cronenweth (“The Social Network”)

Yorick Le Saux (“I Am Love”)

Edward Lachman (“Life During Wartime”)

Martin Ruhe (“The American”)

Adam Arkapaw (“Animal Kingdom”)

Laurent Brunet (“A Screaming Man”)

Yaron Orbach (“Please Give”)

Morten Soborg (“Valhalla Rising”)