Movie Review: The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl Who Played with Fire ****
Directed by: Daniel Alfredson.
Written By: Jonas Frykberg based on the novel by Stieg Larsson.
Starring: Noomi Rapace (Lisbeth Salander), Michael Nyqvist (Mikael Blomkvist), Lena Endre (Erika Berger), Sofia Ledarp (Malin Erikson), Peter Andersson (Nils Bjurman), Georgi Staykov (Alexander Zalachenko), Yasmine Garbi (Miriam Wu), Micke Spreitz (Ronald Niederman), Tehilla Blad (Young Lisbeth), Annika Hallin (Annika Giannini), Michalis Koutsogiannakis (Dragan Armanskij), Paolo Roberto (Paolo Roberto), Tanja Lorentzon (Sonja Modig), Per Oscarsson (Holger Palmgren), Anders Ahlbom (Dr. Peter Teleborian), Jacob Ericksson (Christer Malm), Niklas Hjulström (Richard Ekström – Prosecutor), Magnus Krepper (Hans Faste), Reuben Sallmander (Enrico), Ralph Carlsson (Gunnar Björk), Johan Kylén (Inspector Jan Bublanski), Hans Christian Thulin (Dag Svensson), Jennie Silfverhjelm (Mia Bergman).

Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy has become one of the literary events of the past decade. Think of it kind of Twilight for adults – not because the books are about vampires, which of course, they are not, but because Larsson has created characters and an intricate storyline that has involved millions of adults across the world. Lisbeth Salander is his greatest creation – an antisocial, bisexual, brilliant computer hacker, with a dark past which explains why she so adamantly hates violence against women. But the other main character - Mikael Blomkvist – is just as important as Salander. He is more normal, more instantly likable, and it’s because of him that we allow ourselves to let Salander into our lives in the first place. The books are all breathless thrillers, but what raises them above the level of most novels in the genre is two things. The first is that they are connected to the larger world – Larsson used his novels to talk about the corrupt, morally bankrupt place Sweden has become in the past few decades. More importantly however, it’s because the characters in the book feel real – they are involved in a thriller plot, but we believe in them and that they would actually find themselves in the position they are in.

They knew what they had in Sweden, and they rushed a trilogy of movies into production to capitalize on the popularity of the novels, before Hollywood could get a hold of them (and they have, with a proposed 2012 release date for the first American film). The films were a huge hit in Sweden, and around Europe last year, and this year, North American audiences have got a chance to see them. The first movie, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo did very well for a foreign language film in the spring, so now we have a chance to see the second movie – The Girl Who Played with Fire, and in my opinion, it’s just as good as the first film.

Once again, the key to the movie working in the performance by Noomi Rapace, who has made Lisbeth Salander her own. When we left her in the last movie, she had just had a huge financial windfall and taken off for parts unknown, while Blomkvist regained his reputation by bringing down his adversary – all this and they had time to catch a serial killer as well in the first movie. But things get complicated once again, when Millenium Magazine decides to publish an expose on the sex trade in Sweden – and name names. When the reporter working on the story, along with his fiancée and Salander’s new, wicked guardian, all turn up dead, Salander is fingered as the prime suspect. Although Blomkvist has had no contact with her for a year, he knows she is innocent, and sets about trying to prove it – while Salander tries in her own way, and her dark past is dredged up for all to see.

This film has a new director – Daniel Alfredson – but you wouldn’t know it. The film moves with the same wicked pace as the first film, adding layer upon layer to the mystery, and making the characters come even more to life. Rapace fits the role of Salander like a glove – and she continues to deliver one of the most fascinating performances of the year. I’m not quite sure how she manages to make a character who rarely speaks so fascinating, but she does. For his part, Michael Nyquist gives Blomkvist some added depth this time around as well. The supporting cast is excellent – from Peter Andersson as the horrid guardian to Georgi Staykov as the evil Russian mobster to Micke Spreitz as a hulking blonde goon and even ledgendary Per Oscarsson as Holger Palmgren, Salander’s beloved former guardian suffering from a stroke. This series has known precisely who to cast at each step of the way.

The series, both the books and the movies, work as well as they do because they concentrate more on the characters then even the twists and turns of the plot. They do not seem like characters in a thriller – doing and saying things simply because the plot requires them to, but rather they feel real. The movie ends in a bloody shootout, and even then it feels natural – as if it was the only way it could end. I’m sure that with the success of the first film, and what is sure to be success with this one as well, that we will see The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by the end of the year. I don’t think that this film is quite as good as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – which surprised me with how good it really was. I wasn’t surprised by the quality of this film – but I loved it just the same. Bring on the third movie – the sooner, the better I say.

Movie Review: Cyrus

Cyrus *** ½
Directed by: Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass.
Written By: Mark Duplass & Jay Duplass.
Starring: John C. Reilly (John), Jonah Hill (Cyrus), Marisa Tomei (Molly), Catherine Keener (Jamie), Matt Walsh (Tim).

Cyrus is one of those independent comedies that is so painfully true at times that you cannot help but laugh. If you didn’t, you would probably end up crying. The movie is about John (John C. Reilly) who has been divorced from Jamie (Catherine Keener) for seven years, although they still work together, and has never really gotten over it. When she comes over to tell her she is engaged, he tells her it still stings. She invites him to come to a party with them the following night, and John cannot say no to her. He goes, get drunk, makes an ass of himself, but somehow attracts the attention of Molly (Marisa Tomei). They laugh, the flirt – even do so impromptu singing – before ending up back at his place. Amazingly, the next day when he calls her she agrees to see him again, and once again they end up in bed together. But both times, part way through the night Molly gets up to go home. John, curious to what is taking her away, follows her the second night and ends up in front of her house. And that is how John meets Cyrus (Jonah Hill) – Molly’s 21 year old son, still living at home.

We sense that there is something wrong with Cyrus pretty much immediately. He stares a little too intently at John, for a little too long. He says he has no problem with them dating, but he seems to be putting on a little bit of an act. He apparently got his GED 5 years ago, and has spent all of his time since working on his “music” – which to me kind of sounded like a cross between techno music and whale noises. But most of all, there is something in his eyes that just seems off. The first night John stays over at their house, he wakes up to find his shoes missing – and he has no doubt who is responsible for it.

You could see a Hollywood movie made of this same concept – hell even starring the same cast, where John C. Reilly would slip into his Step Brothers/Talladega Nights mode, and Jonah Hill would be, well, the Jonah Hill we have pretty much come to expect. Both of them would act like children, playing on trick after another on each other (and you know at least one would involve bodily fluids), while the ever patient Tomei would be the typical Apatow woman – the hot girl who waits for her men to grow up.

But this film was written and directed by the Duplass brothers – veterans of the mumblecore movement (with films like The Puffy Chair and Baghead under their belts), so the film, and its comedy, is more based on observation than a series of mindless jokes. You get the sense that if something like this really happened, this is pretty much how it would play out.

The Duplass’ depend on their cast to bring the movie to life, and they have cast pretty much perfectly. John C. Reilly is pretty much the perfect everyman – a guy well into middle age who still needs to grow up a little, and leave the past behind, but basically a good guy. He has a idealized view of his ex-wife, and comes to have an idealized view of Molly as well – until Cyrus enters the picture. For his part, Hill has never been better – more grounded then he is here. He basically is still a kid, acting like a spoiled brat who doesn’t want to lose his mommy. He is scary in some scenes, but most of the time he comes across as an overgrown, overweight child. And for once in a movie like this, the woman in the film is not just some perfect woman, but a real one with flaws all her own. In most movies, you might question why someone who looks like Tomei would fall for someone who looks like Reilly – but here you don’t. He is a nice guy, who treats her well and seems to care about her son as well. You get the impression that most guys would head for the hills when they meet Cyrus, but John sticks around. She has clung too tightly on Cyrus herself, feeding into his obsession, and allowing him to remain a child for far too long. Perfect she isn’t, and that’s what is so wonderful about her.

If I have a problem with the movie, it is the ending. I think that had the Duplass’ pushed their idea a little further, they could have made a brilliant, pitch black comedy. Instead, they settle for life lessons learned and a happily ever after ending – which works to a certain extent. Yet, I think they could have pushed this concept further, have Cyrus really go over the edge, and taken the film to a darker, but more honest place. That’s just me though, and it is a small complaint. Overall, Cyrus is a wonderful movie – honest, funny, intelligent and brilliantly well acted. What more could you want?

Movie Review: The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender **
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan.
Written By: M. Night Shyamalan.
Starring: Noah Ringer (Aang), Dev Patel (Prince Zuko), Nicola Peltz (Katara), Jackson Rathbone (Sokka), Shaun Toub (Uncle Iroh), Aasif Mandvi (Commander Zhao), Cliff Curtis (Fire Lord Ozai), Seychelle Gabriel (Princess Yue).

What the hell has happened to M. Night Shyamalan? After three films – The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs – critics were comparing him to filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and Alfred Hitchcock. He seemed poised to become that rare Hollywood director who could sell a movie by his name alone. Personally, I loved all three of those films – Unbreakable especially – and was looking forward to seeing what he had next. I just didn’t think it would like this.

The Village seems to be where Shyamalan’s career went off the rails. He tried hard to create one of his characteristic thrillers, and set it in the past. He built atmosphere all right, but his screenplay was ridiculous – and culminated in one of the worst ending of any film in the last decade. Most directors would just chalk the experience up to a failed experiment – but Shyamalan seems to have a ego problem. His next film was Lady in the Water – and while I kind of liked that film – we went even more overboard on the writing, and created a film critic character who was horrid and just asking for rotten reviews. It didn’t help that he cast himself as a writer who would save the world. Then came The Happening, a kind of return for him to the thrillers of his earlier career – and while that film had some great, terrifying moments when people were killing themselves, it all came undone because Shyamalan seemed to have lost the ability to write dialogue. The once “next big thing” had become a little bit of a joke.

When I heard that Shyamalan was going to turn the wonderful Saturday morning cartoon: Avatar: The Last Airbender into a movie, I was both skeptical and excited. Skeptical because Shyamalan had not previous shown an ability to make a big budget action movie, but excited because I thought it was so far out of his comfort zone that he may come up with something great. Freed from the confines of having to create a thriller with a shocking ending, perhaps Shyamalan could find that magic that made his earlier films so good. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I cannot recall the last film that got such a horrible critical drubbing, and while I don’t think the film was THAT bad, it sure as hell isn’t very good either.

The movie is about a world where there are only four nations – Fire, Earth, Water and Air. Each nation seems to have two kingdoms – one in the north and the other in the south. Some of the people from each nation is a bender – that is the can control the element that their nation represents (essentially they use this power to hurl fire, dirt, water or air at each other). There is only one man – the Avatar – who can bend more than one element – he is supposed to be able to do all four. He brings balance to the world. But the Avatar disappeared 100 years ago, and since then the nations have fallen into war. All the airbenders have been slaughtered, and the evil fire nation wants to control everything.

Then one day Aang (Noah Ringer) shows up from under the ice. He says he is an airbender who ran away just a few days ago. Of course, he really is the long lost avatar, missing for 100 years. He befriends Katara (Nicolas Platz), an amateur water bender and her brother Sokka (Jackson Rathborne). They travel from the South Kingdom of Water, where Katara is the only bender left, and not a very good one, to the North, where they can both learn how to bend water. Along the way, they stop off at cities throughout the Earth Kingdom and incite them to revolution. This, of course, angers the powerful fire nation who wants to capture the Avatar – including Prince Zuko (Dev Patel), who has been banished by his father and told he can never return unless he brings the Avatar with him.

This admittedly sounds pretty stupid, and if you judge the story solely on this movie, it is. The TV show, which I was never an avid fan of, but ended up seeing most of it anyway (my wife loves anime – even knock-off anime like this was) was intelligent and exciting. The movie is neither. The problem, I think, is that Shyamalan has lost pretty much all of his ability to write dialogue. Admittedly, he was never the best – but in movies like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs, the dialogue was at least serviceable. Now, there are few lines throughout this movie that don’t sound at least slightly ridiculous – and his mostly amateur cast brings little life to the proceedings. Shyamalan covers some of this up with his visuals, but he cannot disguise how painfully dull the movie is at times. Worse still, the studio insisted on making this a 3-D movie, and the result is not good. It is not nearly as bad as Clash of the Titans – whose 3-D was so bad it rendered the film nearly unwatchable, but it really does feel like you’re watching this film through a dirty window. The colors are duller than they should be. And the 3-D is fairly useless as well – not adding anything to the proceedings. I am pretty much at the point now that unless a film is animated (or almost entirely motion capture like Avatar), I think that 3-D really isn’t a good idea. Even in animation, I don’t really think it adds to the experience, but for the most part, it doesn’t take away from it either.

The Last Airbender was supposed to be the first in a trilogy of films – hence why after the opening credits it says: Book 1: Water. But I have a feeling that like Jumper and The Golden Compass before it, that this series is never going to go beyond the first film. That’s a shame, because the underlying story could have made a great movie. But M. Night Shyamalan screwed it up. Please, don’t let this man write another screenplay. He can direct, and that’s about all (and I’m, even starting to doubt that).

Movie Review: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse ** ½
Directed by: David Slade.
Written By: Melissa Rosenberg based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer.
Starring: Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan), Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen), Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black), Xavier Samuel (Riley), Bryce Dallas Howard (Victoria), Anna Kendrick (Jessica), Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale), Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen), Sarah Clarke (Renee), Peter Facinelli (Dr. Carlisle Cullen), Elizabeth Reaser (Esme Cullen), Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen), Nikki Reed (Rosalie Hale), Billy Burke (Charlie Swan).

Perhaps after reading all four books, and now which three movies, this series has simply worn me down. Eclipse is far and away the best movie of the series so far. That isn’t to say that the movie is good – it really isn’t – but the things that bothered me in the first two movies – Robert Pattinson staring off into space, and never seeming to speak normally, Taylor Laughter’s wooden acting and a storyline that seems to take forever to get nowhere – didn’t really bother me very much this time. No doubt they are still there in the movie, but this time they didn’t distract me as much. Perhaps all the credit is due to David Slade – the third director this series has had so far – who managed to give the movie a darker look and feel than the other two movies, and also seemed to drain away much of the cheesiness and overdramatic speeches that killed the first two films. Don’t get me wrong, this still isn’t a very good movie despite what your teenage daughter tells you – but it isn’t half bad either.

By now the story behind this series is well known to anyone who could possibly care, so I’ll just offer a quick recap. Bella (Kristen Stewart) is a human girl who lives with her father (Billy Burke) in a small town in the Northwest. In the first movie, she met and fell in love with Edward (Robert Pattinson) – only to have him reveal that he is a vampire – but a good one, meaning he doesn’t kill humans. In the second film, New Moon, Edward decides to leave to try and protect Bella, and let her live a human life. She seeks comfort in her friend Jacob (Taylor Laughter), from the local Native tribe, only to have him reveal that he is a werewolf. But Edward cannot stay away, and when he comes back, she has a decision to make (undoubtedly you’ve seen girls walking around in Team Edward and Team Jacob shirts). That’s the first two films. In this one, Bella is with Edward, who has agreed to turn her into a vampire as well – angering Jacob, who vows to fight for her until the end. Also back is Victoria (now played by Bryce Dallas Howard), still pissed because Edward killed her mate in the first movie (see what I mean about the plot taking forever to go anywhere), and the Volturri – a kind of vampire royalty we met in the second movie, who is tracking a new coven on vampires who are wrecking havoc in Seattle. Much to their mutual dislike, Edward’s vampire coven and Jacob’s wolf pack have to band together to fight off these new vampires.

But the plot really is secondary in a movie like this. For all the vampires and werewolves in this series, there is remarkably little action. Afterall, the books were all told from Bella’s point of view, so when Edward is out hunting wild game, and Jacob is on the prowl, we’re stuck with Bella in her bedroom whining. This time, they promise a big showdown between the teamed up Cullens and werewolves, and the pack of newborn vampires, and at least the movie delivers on this promise – eventually. But mainly the movie is about Bella wanting Edward to turn her into a vampire and have sex with her – not necessarily in that order – and Jacob fruitlessly fighting to save Bella from making a mistake – at least as he views it.

I have documented my problems with the series in detail before, and they haven’t really changed. I have no idea what Bella sees in Edward – as he is essentially an ice cold, rock hard corpse who is always such a downer. He says he loves her, but we never really feel it. Perhaps it’s because Robert Pattinson’s performance seems so distant and restrained – and the fact that he can’t really act doesn’t help either. I never really understood why Jacob hung around either – Bella is essentially cruel to him and rubs his face in her “love” of Edward, but still wants him to be there whenever she needs him. Laughtner doesn’t add much except his body to the role of Jacob in the movies – he is an even worse actor than Pattinson really. Of the three main actors, only Kristen Stewart is really any good – she tries her best to make Bella into a real teenage girl struggling with her emotions, but sometimes you just want to slap her and tell her to quit whining so much.

But, I have to admit I actually kind of liked parts of Eclipse. Director David Slade, who made Hard Candy about a very different type of teenage girl, and 30 Days of Night, about a very different type of vampire, doesn’t seem all that interested in these three characters and their whining. It’s still there of course, but it’s more muted. He also seems to breathe some life into these characters as well – even giving them a few moments of lightheartedness and humor (my favorite is when Edward asks of Jacob “Does he own a shirt?” and pretty much every line that Billy Burke as Bella’s father utters). The visual look of the film is also much darker, and for the first time, the villains in the films actually seem deadly and dangerous. Slade’s direction is at its best when it’s not concentrating on the main love triangle, but on the threats to their safety.

I have to admit that I am not the target audience for the movie, just like I wasn’t the target audience for the books either. Teenage girls went wild for the books, and have made the movies huge hits. They love them beyond all reason. Good for them. For me however, the Twlight series has never really risen above the level of a curiosity piece. It’s getting better as it continues, but I still wonder what they hell these teenage girls see in these characters that make them go so crazy. But then, if I understood teenage girls, I would have spent my high school years single.

Half Time Top 10: The Best Films of the Year So Far

We are now half way through 2010, so just as I did last year, I thought I’d look at the 10 best films of the year so far. I have to admit that I missed some titles that could have made this list – something I will correct most likely by DVD by the time of the year end list. Among those missed are Winter’s Bone, Cyrus, Micmacs, Mother and Child, Solitary Man, The Eclipse (not Twilight), Father of My Children, Terribly Happy, Ondine, Agora, The Square and Ajami. I have been thinking that this year has been fairly bad – and to be honest, it sure hasn’t been great if you limit your self to the multiplex screenings – only two wide release films made my top 10 list. The rest have been smaller films or foreign films. But there have been a number of good films this year to see. In addition to the ones on my list there was: How to Train Your Dragon, Kick Ass, Get Him to the Greek, Green Zone, Greenberg, The Runaways, Harry Brown, Vincere, Please Give and The Most Dangerous Man in America. However, it just so happens that I saw many of “this” years best films at last year’s Toronto Film Festival – meaning that pleasures have sometimes seemed few and far between this year. I have confidence (or perhaps wishful thinking) that the second half of the year will offer better films – starting in 2 weeks with Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Having said that however, I would be surprised if the top three films on this list do not make my final 2010 top 10 – and wouldn’t be all that displeased if all the top 5 did. Anyway, enough of this – onto the list!

10. Wild Grass (Alain Resnais)
Years after all of his other French New Wave compatriots have either died or been lost in a maze of their own pretensions (cough, Godard, cough), Alain Resnais is still making wonderful films. Wild Grass is a dazzling cinematic achievement for the 88 year old filmmaker. The cinematography in this movie is wonderful – as the camera seems to literally glide through the air at points, and the colors are rich and full. The movie is about the irrationality of its characters, who do strange things and we can never quite figure out why. This makes the film both fascinating, and admittedly infuriating at times. I feel I really do need to see this one again – I only saw it once at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, and that was at 9 in the morning. Seeing it again, I think I would admire the film even more. But even with just that one viewing, I know that this is one of Resnais best films in years.

9. The Secret in Their Eyes (Juan Jose Campanella)
To many observers, it was a shock when Juan Jose Campanella’s The Secret in Their Eyes won the foreign language film Oscar in February over the much more highly touted films A Prophet and The White Ribbon. While I would agree that both of those films were better than this one, that doesn’t detract from how wonderful this film really was. The film takes place in Argentina over a 25 year span. Ricardo Darin delivers a great performance as a former cop haunted by a murder that took place in 1974. The film flashes back and forth in time from that time to 1999, when he returns to Buenos Aires for the first time in years, now retired and decides to write a novel based on the case. He starts remembering what happened, and rekindles an old almost romance, but cannot quite get all the pieces of the puzzle to fit together. Campanella’s film is a thriller not unlike David Fincher’s Seven (although less violent) in the way it twists and turns, and makes the audience question its own sense of morality and justice. It is an excitingly made film (that chase sequence through the soccer stadium about half way through is absolutely masterful) and the film slowly draws us into its web. No, it didn’t really deserve to win the foreign language film Oscar this year – but you shouldn’t hold that against it. It is a great film in its own right.

8. The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)
Roman Polanski has been in the news almost the entire year so far – but you would be forgiven for not knowing he actually had a film come out this year. It seemed to get buried under all the talk about his legal problems (I am going to say this for the last time here: Roman Polanski is a genius, one of the best filmmakers in history. But that doesn’t change the facts – he drugged and raped a 14 year old and then ran away before he was sentenced. Whatever he gets in terms of punishment when they finally return him to America is okay with me). Polanski’s latest (last?) film is a masterfully directed movie about a ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) who comes to Martha’s Vineyard to finish the autobiography of a former British PM (Pierce Brosnan), who is obviously modeled on Tony Blair, just as a scandal involving rendition hits him hard. McGregor spends his time on the island writing, and also trying to get to the bottom of what is really going on. Polanski’s film overcomes the obvious miscasting of McGregor and Kim Cattral (as the PM’s aid/mistress) in part because of Brosnan and Olivia Williams (as his wife) are so brilliant, and partly because Polanski’s direction of the film is so damned good. He creates a paranoid atmosphere and then keeps turning the screws, twisting the plot in unexpected ways. No, The Ghost Writer isn’t one of Polanski’s best films – but it is an excellent paranoid thriller.

7. Red Riding Trilogy (Julian Jarrod/James Marsh/Anand Tucker)
The Red Riding Trilogy is easily the longest film to be released so far this year. It is actually three different movies, running a grand total of about 5 hours, based on four novels by British writer David Peace. Each movie is done by a different director, and features a different protagonist, as it follows two separate criminal investigations in the Yorkshire region of England from 1974 to 1983. One is the Yorkshire Ripper case, where a man killed almost 20 prostitutes over the span of years. Another involves a little girl who is found dead with wings stitched into her back. But the movie isn’t really about those two cases – it is about a corruption so deep in the area that it has infected everything. It is about a culture of sexism and racism, about violence that simply perpetuates itself. The three films have different directors, and all of them have a different visual look for the others – and although some characters overlap, each is in its own way its own story (the last film is the only one you have to watch in order – as it ties everything together). Made for British TV but released theatrically here, The Red Riding Trilogy has the type of ambition that is rare to see in films these days. Ridley Scott has plans to remake this one for America (no word yet on who Russell Crowe will play)– setting it in Philadelphia of all places – so make sure you check these films out before Scott ruins them, which I can all but guarantee he will.

6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Niels Arden Oplev)
Steig Larsson’s Millennium trilogy has become one of the biggest literary events of the decade – so it was only a matter of time before they turned them into movies. This first installment is everything you would want an adaptation to be – dark and violent yes, but also thoughtful and intelligent. Lizabeth Salander has become one of the best known characters of recent years, and in Noomi Rapace, they found the perfect actress for the role of the antisocial, goth computer hacker. The movie tells its story well – the direction is a little workmanlike at times, but Oplev finds the right tone, and hits all the right notes throughout the narrative. The film is a mystery that gets gradually deeper as it progresses, but it never loses focus on its characters, who seem real even when they are investigating the crime. The film kicks off the trilogy with style and intelligence. I hope the other two films are just as good – and that David Fincher’s planned American remake can match it.

5. Mother (Bong Joon-ho)
Bong Joon-ho has become one of the best directors in the world in the past few years – and certainly the best of the new generation of Korean filmmakers (yes, even better than the more highly praised Chan-wook Park). His Memories of Murder was an excellent, almost darkly comic police procedural and his The Host was the best giant monster movie in decades. He changes pace yet again to make this dark thriller – almost akin to a Hitchcock film. In the film, a young mentally challenged man is charged with the murder of a young girl for the neighborhood – and his mother (the brilliant Kim Hye-ja) starts to investigate the crime herself when it appears her son maybe railroaded. Gradually, she becomes a little more unhinged as she discovers the truth – and will go to any lengths to cover it up. The film is a thriller – and a fine one at that, full of great camera work and intricate plotting – but it really is a character study of this lonely woman who has nothing in her life but her son, and her secrets.

4. Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)
British filmmakers made two films in 2009 about a teenage girl falling for an older man. An Education went on to garner Oscar nominations and become one of the more critically acclaimed films of the year (and it is a wonderful one), but I think Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank – which got little more than a cursory release early this year – was the better film. Katie Jarvis gives a remarkable debut performance as a poor teenage girl, with a mother who bounces from one boyfriend to another. The latest is Michael Fassbender (brilliant as always), and at first he seems like he could be an ally for Jarvis – he is kind and supportive of his dreams of becoming a dancer. But when they look at each other, we can tell they both have something more on their minds – their gazes last just a little too long. This is not really a film about a lecherous older man taking advantage of an innocent teenager – for one thing, Fassbender isn’t quite that old, and Jarvis isn’t quite that innocent – but a film that looks at the situation with its eyes wide open, and doesn’t pull any punches, nor try to make everything seem romantic. It is an acutely observed movie anchored by two of the very best performances of the year.

3. Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)
Toy Story 3 is the best movie in the series, and one of the best film that Pixar has ever made. The first two films were excellent as well, but I think this film pushes the story further, takes on a darker tone, and makes you truly, deeply care about the fate of these toys. It is a reminder of our childhoods when we all had beloved toys, but it is more than that. It is also funny, smart, brilliantly well animated and exciting, and features the best villain perhaps in any Pixar movie in the form of the giant, purple teddy bear Lotso Hugs, wonderfully voiced by Ned Beatty. The rest of the cast we know – Tom Hanks continues to make Woody one of his most endearing characters, Tim Allen is once again gloriously clueless as Buzz and the rest of them fill out their roles nicely. Toy Story 3 is brilliant because it works on one level for kids – who will undoubtedly be excited by all the chase sequences – but on another, deeper, more melancholy note for adults. Pixar has continued to push animation further and further, and become the most consistently great creative force in American movies for the past 15 years – and Toy Story 3 is one of their best.

2. Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese)
Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island seemed to divide critics deeper than any other film this year. I heard one critic call it Scorsese’s best since GoodFellas, and another call it the worst film the master filmmaker ever made. While I don’t agree that it’s his best since GoodFellas, I am certainly much closer to that camp than the other. Scorsese has always been an admirer of film noir, and this is the most noir of all of his films. Set in the early 1950s, Leonardo DiCaprio gives another stellar performance as an US Marshall, haunted by his wartime experience, sent to a mental hospital with his partner (Mark Ruffalo) to investigate a missing patient. But not only is this Scorsese’s film noir, it’s also his version of Kubrick’s The Shining – with its huge, haunting estate, and the sense that main character is not quite who he appears to be. I know some critics didn’t like the film – or its twist ending – and that’s fine. But to me, this is Scorsese at its best.

1. A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)
There are some films that make you see a filmmaker in an entirely different light. It’s not that Jacques Audiard’s previous films – the tense thriller Read My Lips and the wonderful crime film The Beat My Heart Skipped – weren’t quite good, but I never guessed that he had a film as masterful as A Prophet inside him. The film stars Tahar Rahim, in what has to be the performance of the year so far, as Malik, a young Arab Frenchmen sent to prison for seven years for punching a cop during a riot. When he arrives at the prison he is full of youthful arrogance, but that quickly goes away, first when the other Arabs beat him up for his shoes, and then when he is approached by the Corsicans (think the IRA mixed with the Mafia) with a command – he needs to kill an informant who is passing through the prison, or they will kill him. Thus starts Malik’s downward (or perhaps upward depending on how you look at it) trajectory through the criminal ranks of the prison. Soon, he isn’t just the Corsicans pet, but is doing more important jobs for them – and then he gets even bigger. Malik’s story is a tragedy in a way, because when he arrives at the prison, he is just a confused, lonely, mixed up kid – and when he leaves all those years later his path is set for life. A Prophet is a great prison movie, an epic crime movie with a feeling not unlike The Godfather, and also a character study. It is quite simply a stunning film – and if it ends up being the year’s best, I will have no problem with that.

Movie Review: Wild Grass

Wild Grass *** ½
Directed By: Alain Resnais.
Written By: Alex Réval & Laurent Herbiet, based on the novel L'Incident by Christian Gailly
Starring: André Dussollier (Georges Palet), Sabine Azéma (Marguerite Muir), Anne Consigny (Suzanne), Mathieu Amalric (Bernard de Bordeaux), Emmanuelle Devos (Josepha), Edouard Baer (Narrator).

Alain Resnais is one of the most daring filmmakers in history. For his films Night and Fog, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad and Muriel in the 1950s and 60s, he established himself as one of the masters of the French New Wave. He has never stopped working in the years since, even if his films have become somewhat more obscure, and less highly touted. Now at 87, he has made Wild Grass that many critics believe is his best film in years. And while I quite liked the film, I must admit that I do not see the masterpiece that others see – but that doesn’t mean that Resnais is not back in fine form.

The film is about the strange connection between two strangers, and how their relationship progresses when one character finds the others wallet. Sabine Azema plays a woman who goes shopping one day and has her purse snatched by an unknown assailant. Andre Dussollier finds her wallet in the parking lot of a local mall. After some debate as to what to do, he decides to turn the wallet over to the police, here represented by Mathieu Amalric. When Azema picks up the wallet, she asks about the man who found it. She calls him up to thank him, but Dussollier is not satisfied with a simple thank you. He wants more. He starts writing Azema long winded letters about himself, and making phone calls to her. At first she is annoyed - she even goes back to Amalric to report him, who goes to see Dussolier to tell him to back off. But then Azema has a change of heart, and starts wanting to connect with him. By then, he has lost interest though. He is married to a much younger woman (Anne Consigny), with two grown children, and has decided to stick with his normal life.

The movie is a very strange comedy, based on the irrationality of the characters. Why do these characters behave the way they do, and make the decisions that they do? Honestly, I have to admit that I have no idea. To some this may seem charming, and it was for me for the first two thirds of the movie. But in the last act, I grew frustrated. It can be thrilling in a movie, even a seemingly lightweight comedy like this one, when you have no idea what is going to happen next - but when it’s based on the completely irrational behavior of the characters, it started to grate on my nerves a little bit.

Yet, having said all of that, it is impossible to deny the skill that is involved in making this film. Eric Gautier’s cinematography favors wonderful, swooping crane shots and the use of color in the movie is mesmerizing. And while I do not think I ever fully comprehended the characters, it is clear that the actors all do, as their performances are all wonderful. Dussolier has the central role, and his face is one of the most fascinating I can recall seeing on an actor. He seems to always be thinking about something, and mulling over his options as each new development happens. Azema is more of a free spirit, and she is equally wonderful. Consigny is quite good as the wife who has no idea what is going on, and Emmanuelle Devos is fun as Azema’s best friend who find herself drawn into the events without ever quite understanding them. Best of all may just be Amalric as the increasingly put upon cop, who is just trying to stay sane. And while I’m not sure if every scene leads effectively into the next one, taken by themselves they all work wonderfully well.

I cannot help but admire Resnais, who at an age when most filmmakers, are well, dead, is still taking chances, and still pulling off much of what he attempts. There are not many directors of any age, who would attempt something like Wild Grass, and even fewer who could make something this good out of it. Perhaps I just need to see the film again to fully appreciate it. I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival, and sometimes in the midst of seeing fives films a day, and going on little sleep, the more complex movies sometimes seem overly so. Whatever the answer, Wild Grass is certainly one of the more interesting films of the year, even if I do not think it is necessarily a great one.

Note: After writing this in review in full – I did not change a word – I went read the rather lengthy review of the film in the September/October issue of Film Comment. What I came away with from that reading, was that I did not really miss the point of the movie. It is about the irrationality of its characters in the depths of “mad love”, and the confusion is all part of the fun. This makes me feel good. I still admire Resnais’s film – the camera work, the colors, the performances, the brilliant Vertigo homage at the center of it all – but I still don’t quite love it. Strangely though, I think I want to see the film a second time now more than I wanted to see the film the first time.

Movie Review: Year of the Carnivore

Year of the Carnivore *
Directed By: Sook-Yin Lee.
Written By: Sook-Yin Lee
Starring: Cristin Milioti (Sammy Smalls), Mark Rendall (Eugene), Kevin McDonald (Mr. Smalls), Sheila McCarthy (Mrs. Smalls), Will Sasso (Dirk), Ali Liebert (Sylvia), Patrick Gilmore (Todd).

Year of the Carnivore is a romantic comedy that spends so much time trying to be hip, that it forgets to be either romantic or comedic. The movie is so relentlessly quirky that I never really got involved in the movie, I just sat there and watched in horror as I was subjected to one stupid scene play out after another.

Sammy Smalls (Cristin Milioti) is a 21 year old cancer survivor with one gimpy leg, who works as a store detective at a grocery store. Essentially, her job is to catch old people trying to steal meat, or teenagers trying to steal porn, and then turn them over to Dirk (Will Sasso) who then takes them out back and beats them up, then takes their picture. She is a little to into her job, as everyday she shows up in a more elaborate disguise to try and fool potential shoplifters. Her parents (Kevin McDonald and Sheila McCarthy) are a little too over protective, and still want her to move back home. Their marriage does not seem to function unless Sammy is there to act as a buffer.

What keeps Sammy going from one day to the next is her crush on Eugene, a local musician who spends his days playing his quirky and personal songs on the street, and his nights playing in a loud, incoherent rock band, that for some reason seems to be on the verge of making it big. The two of them like each other, and after a long night o drinking, they fall into bed together, and things do horribly wrong when he tries to touch her and she starts laughing. She’s ticklish. So what does Eugene do? Tells Sammy to go out and learn how to have sex properly if she wants to be with him.

Now, most self respecting women I know would at this point, kick Eugene in the balls, call him an asshole and storm out. But not Sammy. She takes him seriously, and really does go on a journey of sexual self discovery. But she really does not know what to do. Attempts to use a vibrator, pick up guys at the bar, and have a threesome do not go well. She ends up taking guys she catches stealing out to the woods to practice sex with them. If she was a man, we’d call that rape. But she’s a woman so we call it quirky.

The movie, written and directed by Sook Yin Lee spends so much time trying to be cool - with its hip attitude towards sex, its soundtrack full of “indie” bands, and its constant need to be “clever”, that it never really just settles down and tells its story. All of the characters are so of full of idiosyncrasy, even the tiny role of Ali Liebert as a porn star, turned sausage girl, turned university student turned philosopher, that I never really got invested in the characters. When all of the people in a movie belong in a mental hospital, it’s hard to truly care about them. The movie tries so hard to be funny, that it never really is, just painful and embarrassing. Sammy’s sexual quest is not enlightening or enjoyable for her, just embarrassing. The scene where she has a threesome with a married couple - with the mother lactating no less - is just down right difficult to watch.

The only thing that really makes the movie at all watchable is the performance by Milioti in the lead role. True, she has to deliver some truly inane dialogue, and has more quirks than the rest of the characters combined, she somehow remains lovable throughout. She reminded me of Brittany Murphy at her best, and the scene where she dances around her room trying to make herself feel sexy, is quite endearing in its way. When she is not stuck delivering terrible dialogue, she is quite the charmer. I look forward to seeing her in a real role. Rendell is no where near as charming as Eugene. He is incredibly awkward, yet he somehow gets beautiful women to fall into bed with him at the drop of a hat. He never has a moment of genuine emotion in the film.
Year of the Carnivore is insufferable because the movie never really settles down and tells its story. If the film would just relax and tell its story. It needed to let Milioti play a real character. Because it didn’t, Year of the Carnivore is just plain painful to watch.