5) THERE WILL BE BLOOD
2007 saw two of the most effective displays of cinematic evil since Hannibal Lecter's debut. First was Javier Bardem's chilling assassin in the Coen Brother's critical favorite, No Country for Old Men. It was an intense and even Oscar worthy performance in a dark thriller with artistic pretensions. The dark thriller was exceptional. The artistic pretensions were not. Bardem's menace was made abstract and not helped by an ending that was not simply ambiguous, but non-existent (a strange trend this year shared by the otherwise great Before the Devil Knows Your Dead.)
So while the evil represented in No Country, ends up in the same vein as Halloween's Michael Myers, There Will Be Blood is a study of a more human evil given cold blooded personification by the equally Oscar worthy Daniel Day Lewis. These two films have been much compared due to their bleakness (and striking visions of the American Western landscape), but for me, There Will Be Blood is the better film. The Coen Brother's used bleakness in a clever and nihilistic way. Paul Thomas Anderson lets his story and characters dictate the tone.
This is quite a departure for Anderson, whose ensemble dramas, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, were clearly influenced by his mentors, Altman and Scorsese (this is meant as a compliment). There Will Be Blood, on the other hand, is a period piece about the early days of oil drilling and focuses on one character, Daniel Day Lewis's complex and gritty prospector, Daniel Plainview. It's not reminiscent of Anderson's previous work and you never question that you're in a desolate oil drenched hellhole in the first years of the 20th century.
This is one hell of a performance from Day Lewis! He plays the personification of greed and selfishness and somehow manages to be both over the top and scarily authentic. While I was impressed by his cartoon villainy in Gangs of New York, here his range reached back towards Robert DeNiro in Scorsese's Taxi Driver, allowing us to see the hate slowly brewing. It is an accomplishment that the emotional violence is rendered just as intense as the physical violence.
4) SWEENEY TODD
The crowd that I saw Sweeney Todd with seemed evenly divided between fans of Sondheim's acclaimed musical and devotees of the works of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. I belong to the later category. Some audience members were so perplexed when it became apparent that most of the dialogue would be sung that there were a few walk outs. Trailers and promotional materials gave the uninitiated no clue that they were in for a full fledged musical.
I had seen two earlier versions of Sweeney Todd. First, an "in concert" version with Patti LuPone and George Hearn; followed by a grainy video of the original Broadway production. I was not a fan. It was difficult to appreciate Sondheim's score as the songs were not memorable and seemed to bleed into each other without dramatic effect.
Yet I love this new version. Tim Burton has perfected and, frankly improved upon, the gothic style of those old Vincent Price and Hammer horror films. After less interesting forays into the light, (Big Fish / Charlie & the Chocolate Factory) Burton is home in Halloweentown where the line between black comedy and bloody horror is as thin as a razor's edge.
Johnny Depp, as always, creates an unforgettable character in the morose, revenge driven Todd. The treat here is how Helena Bonham Carter matches him step by step. The scene where she imagines them as a family at the beach is a classic because of despite her unbridled optimism, even in her fantasies, Depp's grim pallor never breaks. This sequence alone is worth the ticket price.
I still don't get the Sondheim music though, except that Burton has provided a new context to appreciate it. The songs in this "musical" act in the same way an orchestral score would in a normal movie. When Depp is singing a love song to his razor, it doesn't matter that I can't remember the melody. (Trust me - there are no "Music of the Nights".) What matters is that he's using the songs to further his performance and make his madness even more palpable.
When the score itself takes over and we get a reverse zoom outside the demon barber's window, there we have some real movie magic. Black magic, of course.
3) JUNO
Well into 2008, I must be one of the last movie-buffs to jump on the bandwagon, but true is true and Juno really is a wonderful film. I knew it was the big indie hit of the year and I expected something in the spirit of a better than average crowd pleaser like Little Miss Sunshine. Juno surpasses that and reaches Amelie levels of lovability. That is does so while being laugh out loud funny and with attitude to spare makes it even more of an accomplishment.
While the acting, directing and music are all top notch, it is first time writer and deserved Oscar winner Diablo Cody who shines brightest with cliché-free script featuring the most memorable dialogue this side of Tarantino. A former stripper, Cody is clearly not of the movie industry. We can all guess how Hollywood might treat a pregnant teen, her family and friends, but Cody allows her characters the freedom to act as full blooded people might, not the cutout characters that usually populate teen comedies.
Take Bleeker, the father of Juno’s child. Both a nerd and a jock, he plays shy in a way I haven’t seen before. And it’s funny. Potential adoptive parents played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner have their own story arch that again combines truth and laughs. Bateman, in particular, underplays his generational angst just right.
Ellen Page is perfect as Juno. There’s been some criticism that teenagers don’t really talk in the witty dialogue style that dominates the film. I’m sure they don’t, but neither do adults speak as they do in better scripts. The truth is that teens do speak their own language and if its not as smart as Diablo Cody thinks it is, its their loss and Juno’s gain.
2) I'M NOT THERE
There is only one thing I know about Bob Dylan, that he's a storyteller. His storytelling is not limited to his peerless songwriting category, but also reveals itself in interviews and public appearances. Here is a man who refuses to be defined. When reporters, documentarians and Dylanologists attempts to do so, he tells more stories, or, to put it less charitably, he lies. Though it's not always obvious in what way.
There is one thing I know about Todd Haynes' Dylan biopic, I'm Not There. It's that it is not a Dylan biopic. His stories and legends are the canvas Haynes is working with, but, like Citizen Kane, the film is actually about the contradiction of trying to sum up a life in a two hour film. That six actors play Dylan representations is not a gimmick in trying to discover the enigma of Bob Dylan. It is the point of this daring and thought provoking film.
A young African-American boy named Marcus Cark Franklin plays "Woody Guthrie." Though the real Guthrie was well known to be a major influence on Dylan, those looking for realism will note that it is unlikely that Dylan was a freight train riding black kid. It is also highly doubtful that he was swallowed by a whale. These sequences work because I'm Not There is as much about the Bob Dylan myth as the man.
Equally surreal is Richard Gere's appearance as "Billy the Kid" to represent Dylan's current incarnation. In reality, he's still performing and writing vital music, but he's not part of any current musical movement and not the celebrity idol he once was. The Gere sequence shows Dylan as a man comfortable in his own skin, but not of his own time.
One might imagine that he's rather see himself as an aging outlaw than the highly unlikable version portrayed by Heath Ledger as "Robbie Clark," arrogant movie star and failed family man. Christian Bale plays folk singer turned born again revivalist, "Jack Rollins" and Ben Whishaw is "Arthur Rimbaud" elusive interview subject.
The most dynamic performance however belongs to Cate Blanchett who, as "Jude Quinn" has one of the most shocking and memorable entrances in recent film memory. Blanchett erases all questions of gender by embodying the version of Dylan that we think we know best, the 1965 era superstar who revolutionized the folk and rock world by going electric. She also embodies Dylan's caustic orneriness when dealing with the press.
As director, Todd Haynes weaves all these disparate elements into a coherent narrative that takes wonderful advantage of Dylan's song catalog and perfectly mimics the look of its various eras. One need not be a Bob Dylan fan to appreciate the remarkable achievement that is I'm Not There (though you'd get some of the inside references) because, as the title alludes, it's not really about one man, but all of us.
1) BLACK SNAKE MOAN
When I Netflixed Black Snake Moan, I was expecting a sleazy exploitation flick that might offer some cheap laughs and titillation. I was not, I repeat, NOT expecting to witness a great film that would become my top pick of the year. The promotional poster was of a half naked Christina Ricci chained to an ornery old Samuel L. Jackson for pete sake!
The amazing this about this film is that it does, in fact, succeed as cheap exploitation, but it does so much more. First off, it's a filmed blues song. If I can't quite articulate what that means, it's because I've never seen it done before, but all the musical and lyrical elements of those old Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters records have been dramatized.
Sam Jackson is wonderful as the disillusioned old blues singer. Praising Jackson is redundant considering that he is invariably great in all his roles regardless off the movie surrounding him. He is the most watchable actor on film today and has himself claimed that this is his best acting work (though I still vote for Pulp Fiction.)
What Christina Ricci does, however, will knock your socks off! I've always found it an annoying cliché when actresses are described as "brave" for taking on nudity or overt sexuality (Sorry Halle Berry, you didn't really deserve that Oscar). I have only seen two instances where this description is accurate; Jodi Foster in The Accused and Christina Ricci in Black Snake Moan. She takes on her nymphomaniac hellion with an unexpected fierceness that dominates the film and everything in it.
Even the previously hated Justine Timberlake turns in a fine performance as the boyfriend plagued by panic attacks.
There is a fantastic sequence where Jackson comforts Ricci by singing the title song during the kind of thunderstorm that can only take place in a blues song. By this point, I realized that this little exploitation flick has become a highly moral love story that's alive and pulsing on the screen.
2007 saw two of the most effective displays of cinematic evil since Hannibal Lecter's debut. First was Javier Bardem's chilling assassin in the Coen Brother's critical favorite, No Country for Old Men. It was an intense and even Oscar worthy performance in a dark thriller with artistic pretensions. The dark thriller was exceptional. The artistic pretensions were not. Bardem's menace was made abstract and not helped by an ending that was not simply ambiguous, but non-existent (a strange trend this year shared by the otherwise great Before the Devil Knows Your Dead.)
So while the evil represented in No Country, ends up in the same vein as Halloween's Michael Myers, There Will Be Blood is a study of a more human evil given cold blooded personification by the equally Oscar worthy Daniel Day Lewis. These two films have been much compared due to their bleakness (and striking visions of the American Western landscape), but for me, There Will Be Blood is the better film. The Coen Brother's used bleakness in a clever and nihilistic way. Paul Thomas Anderson lets his story and characters dictate the tone.
This is quite a departure for Anderson, whose ensemble dramas, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, were clearly influenced by his mentors, Altman and Scorsese (this is meant as a compliment). There Will Be Blood, on the other hand, is a period piece about the early days of oil drilling and focuses on one character, Daniel Day Lewis's complex and gritty prospector, Daniel Plainview. It's not reminiscent of Anderson's previous work and you never question that you're in a desolate oil drenched hellhole in the first years of the 20th century.
This is one hell of a performance from Day Lewis! He plays the personification of greed and selfishness and somehow manages to be both over the top and scarily authentic. While I was impressed by his cartoon villainy in Gangs of New York, here his range reached back towards Robert DeNiro in Scorsese's Taxi Driver, allowing us to see the hate slowly brewing. It is an accomplishment that the emotional violence is rendered just as intense as the physical violence.
4) SWEENEY TODD
The crowd that I saw Sweeney Todd with seemed evenly divided between fans of Sondheim's acclaimed musical and devotees of the works of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. I belong to the later category. Some audience members were so perplexed when it became apparent that most of the dialogue would be sung that there were a few walk outs. Trailers and promotional materials gave the uninitiated no clue that they were in for a full fledged musical.
I had seen two earlier versions of Sweeney Todd. First, an "in concert" version with Patti LuPone and George Hearn; followed by a grainy video of the original Broadway production. I was not a fan. It was difficult to appreciate Sondheim's score as the songs were not memorable and seemed to bleed into each other without dramatic effect.
Yet I love this new version. Tim Burton has perfected and, frankly improved upon, the gothic style of those old Vincent Price and Hammer horror films. After less interesting forays into the light, (Big Fish / Charlie & the Chocolate Factory) Burton is home in Halloweentown where the line between black comedy and bloody horror is as thin as a razor's edge.
Johnny Depp, as always, creates an unforgettable character in the morose, revenge driven Todd. The treat here is how Helena Bonham Carter matches him step by step. The scene where she imagines them as a family at the beach is a classic because of despite her unbridled optimism, even in her fantasies, Depp's grim pallor never breaks. This sequence alone is worth the ticket price.
I still don't get the Sondheim music though, except that Burton has provided a new context to appreciate it. The songs in this "musical" act in the same way an orchestral score would in a normal movie. When Depp is singing a love song to his razor, it doesn't matter that I can't remember the melody. (Trust me - there are no "Music of the Nights".) What matters is that he's using the songs to further his performance and make his madness even more palpable.
When the score itself takes over and we get a reverse zoom outside the demon barber's window, there we have some real movie magic. Black magic, of course.
3) JUNO
Well into 2008, I must be one of the last movie-buffs to jump on the bandwagon, but true is true and Juno really is a wonderful film. I knew it was the big indie hit of the year and I expected something in the spirit of a better than average crowd pleaser like Little Miss Sunshine. Juno surpasses that and reaches Amelie levels of lovability. That is does so while being laugh out loud funny and with attitude to spare makes it even more of an accomplishment.
While the acting, directing and music are all top notch, it is first time writer and deserved Oscar winner Diablo Cody who shines brightest with cliché-free script featuring the most memorable dialogue this side of Tarantino. A former stripper, Cody is clearly not of the movie industry. We can all guess how Hollywood might treat a pregnant teen, her family and friends, but Cody allows her characters the freedom to act as full blooded people might, not the cutout characters that usually populate teen comedies.
Take Bleeker, the father of Juno’s child. Both a nerd and a jock, he plays shy in a way I haven’t seen before. And it’s funny. Potential adoptive parents played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner have their own story arch that again combines truth and laughs. Bateman, in particular, underplays his generational angst just right.
Ellen Page is perfect as Juno. There’s been some criticism that teenagers don’t really talk in the witty dialogue style that dominates the film. I’m sure they don’t, but neither do adults speak as they do in better scripts. The truth is that teens do speak their own language and if its not as smart as Diablo Cody thinks it is, its their loss and Juno’s gain.
2) I'M NOT THERE
There is only one thing I know about Bob Dylan, that he's a storyteller. His storytelling is not limited to his peerless songwriting category, but also reveals itself in interviews and public appearances. Here is a man who refuses to be defined. When reporters, documentarians and Dylanologists attempts to do so, he tells more stories, or, to put it less charitably, he lies. Though it's not always obvious in what way.
There is one thing I know about Todd Haynes' Dylan biopic, I'm Not There. It's that it is not a Dylan biopic. His stories and legends are the canvas Haynes is working with, but, like Citizen Kane, the film is actually about the contradiction of trying to sum up a life in a two hour film. That six actors play Dylan representations is not a gimmick in trying to discover the enigma of Bob Dylan. It is the point of this daring and thought provoking film.
A young African-American boy named Marcus Cark Franklin plays "Woody Guthrie." Though the real Guthrie was well known to be a major influence on Dylan, those looking for realism will note that it is unlikely that Dylan was a freight train riding black kid. It is also highly doubtful that he was swallowed by a whale. These sequences work because I'm Not There is as much about the Bob Dylan myth as the man.
Equally surreal is Richard Gere's appearance as "Billy the Kid" to represent Dylan's current incarnation. In reality, he's still performing and writing vital music, but he's not part of any current musical movement and not the celebrity idol he once was. The Gere sequence shows Dylan as a man comfortable in his own skin, but not of his own time.
One might imagine that he's rather see himself as an aging outlaw than the highly unlikable version portrayed by Heath Ledger as "Robbie Clark," arrogant movie star and failed family man. Christian Bale plays folk singer turned born again revivalist, "Jack Rollins" and Ben Whishaw is "Arthur Rimbaud" elusive interview subject.
The most dynamic performance however belongs to Cate Blanchett who, as "Jude Quinn" has one of the most shocking and memorable entrances in recent film memory. Blanchett erases all questions of gender by embodying the version of Dylan that we think we know best, the 1965 era superstar who revolutionized the folk and rock world by going electric. She also embodies Dylan's caustic orneriness when dealing with the press.
As director, Todd Haynes weaves all these disparate elements into a coherent narrative that takes wonderful advantage of Dylan's song catalog and perfectly mimics the look of its various eras. One need not be a Bob Dylan fan to appreciate the remarkable achievement that is I'm Not There (though you'd get some of the inside references) because, as the title alludes, it's not really about one man, but all of us.
1) BLACK SNAKE MOAN
When I Netflixed Black Snake Moan, I was expecting a sleazy exploitation flick that might offer some cheap laughs and titillation. I was not, I repeat, NOT expecting to witness a great film that would become my top pick of the year. The promotional poster was of a half naked Christina Ricci chained to an ornery old Samuel L. Jackson for pete sake!
The amazing this about this film is that it does, in fact, succeed as cheap exploitation, but it does so much more. First off, it's a filmed blues song. If I can't quite articulate what that means, it's because I've never seen it done before, but all the musical and lyrical elements of those old Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters records have been dramatized.
Sam Jackson is wonderful as the disillusioned old blues singer. Praising Jackson is redundant considering that he is invariably great in all his roles regardless off the movie surrounding him. He is the most watchable actor on film today and has himself claimed that this is his best acting work (though I still vote for Pulp Fiction.)
What Christina Ricci does, however, will knock your socks off! I've always found it an annoying cliché when actresses are described as "brave" for taking on nudity or overt sexuality (Sorry Halle Berry, you didn't really deserve that Oscar). I have only seen two instances where this description is accurate; Jodi Foster in The Accused and Christina Ricci in Black Snake Moan. She takes on her nymphomaniac hellion with an unexpected fierceness that dominates the film and everything in it.
Even the previously hated Justine Timberlake turns in a fine performance as the boyfriend plagued by panic attacks.
There is a fantastic sequence where Jackson comforts Ricci by singing the title song during the kind of thunderstorm that can only take place in a blues song. By this point, I realized that this little exploitation flick has become a highly moral love story that's alive and pulsing on the screen.
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