Most Anticipated Films of 2010

2009 is over. The 00s are over. It’s time for a new decade and an exciting new year of movies. Some years, I’ve had to scrounge around to find enough movies to fill out this list, but this year I’ve got an overflow. Of course, three of them are the same films that topped last year’s list, but hopefully they’ll all make it out this year, and hopefully this will be a great bunch of films. First off, some films I’m looking forward to that didn’t make the list include Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 3, Scott Pilgrim, Cemetery Junction and Kick-Ass. Here’s my ten most anticipated…

10. Tron Legacy - If I had to honestly guess, I’d say this will be a terrible film. The first Tron is pretty bad, though it does have some charms, and I think what I’m looking for from this film is not what it’s going to deliver. So why is it on here? It’s primarily because it’s being scored by Daft Punk and in my mind, I see a 90 minute avant garde burst of light and strange visuals, accompanied by a killer new Daft Punk score. The teaser reel shown at Comicon is pretty great, but I just fear the actual dialogue and narrative will kill the experience. So, let’s hope there’s not too much of that, and we can focus on the abstract Daft Punk experience. Bangalter’s score for Irreversible was the best score of the decade, let’s hope he matches it here.



9. Your Highness - I love the old David Gordon Green, “the next Terence Malick,” but he’s chosen now to become the next Ivan Reitman. Still, as long as he makes films as entertaining as Pineapple Express, I’m down. I’d love to see him do a non-studio project next, but the cast here is fantastic, with James Franco, Danny McBride and perhaps too much hipster cuteness to believe with both Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel in the same film. The premise is great, and hopefully it’ll be a really fun epic comedy. And, the thought of Natalie Portman in the role of a warrior princess brings to mind her fantastic work in The Professional, so I’m eager for that.



8. The Green Hornet - I remember the old 60s series, which was most notable for its great theme song. The film offers a lot more, with Gondry and Rogen sure to bring us an unconventional action film. The issue for me is that I’ve seen diminishing returns from Gondry’s work since Eternal Sunshine, his visual tricks have gotten a bit stale, and Be Kind, Rewind just didn’t work that well. Rogen has a similar problem, where his schtick has been so prominent, it doesn’t have the fresh quality it did in Knocked Up. But, Rogen’s never done a bad film, and maybe matching Gondry’s visual style to a blockbuster structure will make for something really special. The presence of Christoph Waltz is a great bonus, coming off an instantly legendary turn in Inglorious Basterds.



7. The Runaways - I’m pretty confident the two preceding films will at least be entertaining, this one’s more of a question mark. I like the premise, and musician biopics can be a great frame through which to explore social and cultural change. Of course, only filmmaker has used them in that way, the brilliant Todd Haynes. But, with director Floria Sigismondi at the helm, I’m hoping this will be something more than your typical rise and fall narrative. She has an amazing eye, and I’m eager to see what she does with a more long form work. The trailer looks pretty exciting, but I fear that she’s going to be constrained by a weak narrative and that she doesn’t have the clout to do Haynes style avant garde visual indulgence. But, it looks like a fun film and will hopefully deliver.



6. Kaboom - Gregg Araki followed up his most consistently great film to date, Mysterious Skin with a goofy throwaway, Smiley Face, that was unjustly neglected by its distributor. But, he’s back in his classic thematic wheelhouse with this tale of teenagers in a wacky universe of craziness. The initial stills look great, and I love Araki at his most personal and experimental, so I’m eager to see how he brings the style of The Doom Generation and Nowhere into a new era. His Twin Peaks comparisons only make me more intrigued.



5. The Black Swan - Speaking of films that have too much hipster cuteness, here’s Natalie Portman and Winona Ryder in the same film. And on top of that Vincent Cassel. But, the real attraction is Darren Aronofsky who’s following up his “comeback” The Wrestler with a thriller that sounds inspired by Argento’s Suspiria. I think Aronofsky’s never made a film that wasn’t great, and I’m eager to see him continue to branch out. I’d like to see a bit more stylistic experimentation here than in The Wrestler, but I’m sure whatever he does will make the film work. For all the attention that his technique gets, he always does a great job immersing you in character subjectivity, and that seems like a perfect technique for a film about identities in crisis.



4. Somewhere - Sofia Coppola is another director who’s never made a film that wasn’t great. Her new one sounds like a retread of some Lost in Translation themes, but I’m confident in her taste, and am sure that even if it is narratively similar, there will be a lot of wonderful images and moments to enjoy. I loved Marie Antoinette, and think she’s been consistent in really using film as a medium in a way that so few other filmmakers can. An assist from her partner Thomas Mars on music will only make it even sweeter.



3. Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance - This film was released in Japan in June, but thanks to the horrific distribution of foreign films, it’s still not made it over here in either a legal format or a subbed DVD release. But, it’s slated to drop on DVD in the spring, and I’m eagerly awaiting checking out this new film which diverges from the timeline of the original series to offer something new. Anno is one of the best filmmakers out there, and I’m sure he has good reason to revisit his masterpiece and bring it into a new, modern light. This film also introduces my favorite character from the series, Asuka. And, if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll see 3.0 this year as well.



2. The Tree of Life - It was a big disappointment when this one didn’t make it out this holiday season, but hopefully we’ll see it in the late summer as rumored. Malick is a master filmmaker, telling stories through film in a way that no one else even tries to, and this sounds like his most ambitious, cosmic project yet. I’m also really excited for the rumored Imax companion project. It’s going to be very annoying if this film turns up on the most anticipated of 2011 list.



1. Enter the Void - Another film that’s been released abroad, but hasn’t been seen here yet. The film got a mixed reception, but every critical review only made me want to see the film more. It sounds like a groundbreaking, sensory experience that redefines what cinema is capable of. Irreversible was the most innovative use of filmmaking in countless years, and I can’t wait to see Noe push it further with this film. I’m hoping to go to Europe in the spring, and if the film hasn’t made it here by then, there might have to be a special trip to France to check this one out.

My Academy Award Nominations 2006

Best Actor
Gael Garcia Bernal – Science of Sleep
Sacha Baron-Cohen – Borat
Daniel Craig – Casino Royale
Leonardo Dicaprio – The Departed
Keanu Reeves – A Scanner Darkly

This was a tough category to narrow the choices down in, but there was only one choice for the winner, Gael Garcia Bernal. He anchors the whole film, his performance brings humanity and accessibility to a character who could come off as closed and unlikable. The final scene with him and Charlotte Gainsbourg is truly powerful.

Best Actress
Asia Argento – The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Laura Dern – Inland Empire
Bryce Dallas Howard – Manderlay
Ellen Page – Hard Candy
Kate Winslet – Little Children

A lot of good performances here, but Laura Dern’s work in Inland Empire is on an entirely different level from every actor out there this year. She completely immerses herself in the role, going on a metaphysical journey through different worlds and identities. Her breakdown on the streets of Hollywood is the high point, phenomenal acting.


Best Supporting Actor
Alec Baldwin – The Departed
Alain Chabat – Science of Sleep
Brad Pitt – Babel
Jack Nicholson – The Departed
Mark Wahlberg – The Departed

No actor was more entertaining this year than Mark Wahlberg in The Departed, with surging fury and the word “fuck” in virtually every line, he stole the film. His scenes with Alec Baldwin were a particular high point.

Best Supporting Actress
Adriana Barazza – Babel
Macy Grey - Shadowboxer
Charlotte Gainsbourg – Science of Sleep
Rinko Kikuchi – Babel
Gong Li – Miami Vice

Gong Li may have struggled with speaking English, but her face told us everything we needed to know about the character. Her relationship with Colin Farrell is what makes Miami Vice so special, and few actresses could pull off what she did. No one can look at someone the way she can.

Best Animated
A Scanner Darkly

I only saw one animated film this year, so this one wins by default. But, it is a great film and an interesting use of the medium, certainly a better direction than yet another talking animal film.

Art Direction
Children of Men
Funky Forest
Inland Empire
Marie Antoinette
The Science of Sleep

I’ve got to give this one to the endlessly inventive world of Funky Forest. There was a ton of crazy stuff going on in this film and I was consistently wowed by the weird worlds that they created.

Cinematography
Children of Men – Emanuel Lubezki
Inland Empire – David Lynch
Marie Antoinette – Lance Acord
Miami Vice – Dion Beebe
The Fountain – Matthew Libatique

Miami Vice is the first film that truly embraced the digital aesthetic, and in doing so crafted a movie that captures the world like no other before it. Beyond the quality of the image, the framing and movement was superb. There was the beauty of boats sailing across a seemingly endless ocean, and also the closeness of Sonny and Isabella, dancing together, in a moment together, outside of the world. This is how movies should look.

Costume Design
Funky Forest
Idlewild
Marie Antoinette
Miami Vice
The Fountain

Marie Antoinette managed to convey a period feel without the stodginess sometimes associated with period pieces. The film’s emotional narrative happens in the clothes, and these were good enough to make that work.

Editing
Babel
Inland Empire
Marie Antoinette
Miami Vice
The Fountain

No other film this year had storytelling as economical and groundbreaking as Miami Vice. And on top of that, the editing created an immersive rhythm right from the first scene. The film is infinitely rewatchable primarily because the editing just gets you to a wonderful, dreamlike place.

Foreign Language
Funky Forest
Time
The Science of Sleep
The Great Yokai War
Pan’s Labyrinth

Science of Sleep is what everything Gondry has done before was working towards. You can see pieces of nearly every music video, a lot of Eternal Sunshine and a lot of the man himself. It’s a fantastic achievement.

Makeup
Funky Forest
Marie Antoinette
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Great Yokai War
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things

Pan’s Labyrinth’s most iconic images were created through the fantastic makeup. The Faun is incredible, as is the guy with eyes on his hands, thoroughly convincing and otherworldly.

Score
Babel
Casino Royale
Rocky Balboa
The Fountain
The Science of Sleep

Babel’s rhythmic, looping music united all the stories, and added momentum and heft to the film. It does exactly what a score should, enhance the emotion of the moment and add another layer of aesthetic beauty to the film itself.

Song
‘You Know My Name’ – Casino Royale
‘PJ & Rooster’ – Idlewild
‘Idlewild Blue’ – Idlewild
‘Polish Love Poem’ – Inland Empire
‘Strange (What Love Does)’ – Inland Empire

I’m not sure if it’s the exact title but ‘Strange (What Love Does)’ provides one of the most surreal moments in an already crazily surreal film. Lynch himself does vocals with a classic 50s from hell accompaniment. It’s a great track and works perfectly in the film.

Sound
Children of Men
Inland Empire
Miami Vice

It’s difficult for me to assess the different sounds categories, so I’m just doing one. The best sound this year was in Inland Empire, right from the booming, otherworldly tone playing as the title comes up. While you could legitimately take issue with the quality of the PD-150 image, it’s clear that Lynch is still working on a whole different level than everyone else when it comes to sound.

Visual Effects
Children of Men
The Fountain
The Science of Sleep

The Fountain’s crazy bubble imagery was unlike anything I’ve seen before, and the shots at the end were just mindblowing. This is original, beautiful work, that does a lot more than just a bunch of CGI.

Screenplay – Original
Babel
Inland Empire
Manderlay
The Fountain
The Science of Sleep

It was written in an unconventional way, but Lynch’s sprawling, epic Inland Empire was the most imaginative, challenging film of the year. It is like anything else I’d ever seen, and that’s reason enough to win the best original screenplay award.

Screenplay – Adapted
A Scanner Darkly
Casino Royale
Little Children
Miami Vice
The Departed

While I loved Miami Vice, it’s not particularly due to the writing, so this award goes to Little Children, a film that was full of ambition and created some of the most fully realized characters I’ve seen in recent films. It never condescended to the audience, letting us fill in gaps and come to our own conclusions. It’s a really strong film, definitely worth looking at.

Director
Babel
Inland Empire
Miami Vice
The Fountain
The Science of Sleep

Michael Mann took his art to a new level with Miami Vice. The film is visually beautiful, capturing endless nightscapes in a way that hasn’t been done before, and he allows these beautiful images to tell the story. Dialogue is kept to a minimum, everything we know about these people comes from what we see, and that’s refreshing. I love the fact that he took what was meant to be a summer blockbuster and made a $135 million art film as complex and emotional as a Wong Kar-Wai film. Two directors this year stretched the boundaries of what the medium can do, Mann and Lynch. But, Mann did it just a little better.

Picture
Babel
Inland Empire
Miami Vice
The Fountain
The Science of Sleep

Well, if you’ve read my top ten list, this is no surprise. Miami Vice was the best film of the year, I’ve seen it five times, and each viewing is a different experience, I’m constantly seeing new things and understanding better how Mann was able to create such a hypnotic work. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out on the best film of 2006.

Totals:
Nominations (Wins)

Inland Empire – 9 (4)
Science of Sleep – 9 (2)
Miami Vice – 7 (4)
Babel – 7 (1)
The Fountain – 7 (1)
Marie Antoinette – 5 (1)
The Departed – 5 (1)
Funky Forest – 4 (1)
Children of Men – 4
Casino Royale – 4
A Scanner Darkly – 3 (1)
Idlewild – 3
Little Children – 2 (1)
Pan’s Labyrinth – 2 (1)
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things – 2
Manderlay – 2
The Great Yokai War – 2
Borat – 1
Hard Candy – 1
Shadowboxer – 1
Time – 1
Rocky Balboa - 1

Best of 2006: Top Ten Films of the Year

With this, we shall bid farewell to the year that was and move on to something new. This year had a lot of really great films, and for me, represented a continuing evolution in the way I view cinema. I'm less and less interested in narrative, more interested in style and emotion. The year's best film is a perfect example of this, and a lot of others on the list are too. So, read on and find out...

10. Idlewild - I was waiting for this film for a while, and, apparently unlike the rest of the world, it totally lived up to my expectations. The musical is one of the most distinctly cinematic genres, and this is one of the few film musicals that feels fresh and now. For whatever reason, it's become a conservative genre, rehashing the same classic hits and packaging pre-existing songs into cash in jukebox narratives. This one does use some pre-existing songs, but it feels distinctly new and alive, incorporating those songs seamlessly into its world. The final performance sequences rank with the most purely fun material you'll see at the cinema this year. It may not be boldly groundbreaking, but it delivers on exactly what it promises.

My Review



9. Manderlay - Von Trier remains one of the most challenging, confrontational filmmakers working today. This film, finally released in the US in early 2006, expands on the world of Dogville, presenting a similarly constructed allegorical world that poses challenging questions about the United States and its history. It's ridiculous to criticize Von Trier for making this in spite of the fact that he's never been to the US. He is aware of what our national policy has produced, our attitudes have global reach and he is forcing us to confront those attitudes. The stage setting never feels gimmicky, instead it allows us to focus on the actors and their characters. While it doesn't quite match Dogville, this is still extremely powerful cinema, anchored by a fantastic lead performance from Bryce Dallas Howard.

My Review



8. Funky Forest - This is the oddball on the list, a Japanese film I saw at the New York Asian Film Festival. It's a three hour long journey through a hyperactive subconscious, full of comedy skits and bizarre images. This is truly like nothing you've seen before, a relentless assault of strangeness. There's the deadpan comedy of the Guitar Brothers, the oddness of a UFO abduction and alien dance sequence and the hilarious Homeroom stuff. Like another bizarre three hour film on this list, it's more an experience than a narrative, and that's a great use of cinema.



7. Babel - Inarritu expands on his previous work, taking the small scale dramas of Amores Perroes and 21 Grams and throwing them onto a global canvas. What makes this film so powerful is the way we're completely sympathetic to every character when they're on screen, in spite of the fact that their agendas are in conflict. But, seeing the events from their side, makes us realize that there's no us/them, it's all one massive human organism surging forward. Chieko's trip to the nightclub is one of the year's best scenes, a fantastic swirl of light and motion. This is the best multicharacter ensemble drama since Magnolia.

My Review



6. The Departed - It lacks the intellectual gravitas of some of the films on this list, but few can match it for pure entertainment value. Scorsese takes Infernal Affairs as a base and then throws on massive amounts of operatic excess, in the acting, cinematography and violence. Every single actor seems to be having the time of their life in this movie, and Wahlberg in particular has never been better. The film allows Scorsese to create a canvas of pop excess, one that was still compelling even though I already knew what would happen next. This is what a remake should do, take the original story, but film it with a different spirit. The restraint of the original is all gone, replaced by a distinctly American voice.

My Review



5. Marie Antoinette - Another vastly underappreciated film. People who criticized the film for its embrace of materialistic excess totally miss the point. For Marie, consumerism is the only way to escape from the strict, limited role she fills in the court. Few moments in film are as joyous as the montages of her at her country estate, the Malick inspired journey through beautiful natural landscapes, and her nighttime frolic with her crew. This is the most alive, real period film since Barry Lyndon, and part of what I think is so jarring is that the film depicts its historical subjects as people with flaws rather than caricatures out of history books. Even if Marie wasn't exactly like this, she was the eighteenth century equivalent of a Paris Hilton, so it makes sense to position her in that context. I can guarantee that this will one day experience a positive critical and cultural reevaluation.

My Review



4. The Science of Sleep - I was a bit shocked to find this film on no other top ten lists I've seen. This darker 'remix' of Eternal Sunshine goes to a rawer emotional place than that film, replacing Charlie Kaufman's ironic wit with a character arc that's distinctly Gondry's. I love the way a small, everyday story is made huge through the dream sequence visuals. In our own minds, minute conflicts, like the letter incident, are played out as epic dramas, and few films have captured that sense better than this. The film feels so close to Gondry, it's painful to watch some moments, that's the sign of a good film, that it can move us so. Bernal and Gainsbourg have fantastic chemistry and I love the ambiguity of the ending. This is a film full of visual wonder and emotional power, that's what the medium is all about.

My Review



3. The Fountain - A wildly ambitious film, I'm just happy that Aronofsky finally got a chance to tell his story. This is the kind of movie that's pounced on by critics for not quite acheiving what it sets out to do, and I'd agree that there's some missteps. But, I'd rather see a film that's so challenging and packed with material that doesn't quite make it than one that sets out to do something small and aces it. The Fountain is the most cosmically alive film since 2001, and though its scope is more focused, it still tells some vital truths about the human experience. The final twenty minutes or so are absoultely sublime, with two of the year's most powerful images: the plants bursting out of the conquistador, and the future Tom being ripped apart in a burst of light. No moment in cinema this year made me gasp like seeing that small white dot of light on a black screen explode into a gush of image and beauty. With this, Aronofsky proved he can do more than just his 'hip hop montage style,' and I'm very curious to see where he goes next.

My Review



2. INLAND EMPIRE - Ordering these last two was the toughest thing about this list. I went back and forth a bunch of times, and came out with this order. But, these last two films are nearly equal, and both a jump ahead everything else on the list. Anyway, what can I say about this film that I haven't already? It's a totally new use of cinema and one of the boldest artistic reinventions of any director ever. After two viewings, it's only just begun to reveal its secrets, and I think I'll watch this film again more times than any other on this list. There are moments in here that have an almost mystical power, like nothing I've ever seen before. I love that Lynch continues to push his art forward, while it may not be as consistent as Fire Walk With Me or Mulholland Dr., there are moments in here that eclipse anything he's done before. And the closing credits sequence is one of the most joyous things I've ever experienced in film, the perfect capper to a strange, enthralling journey.

My Review (2) (3)



1. Miami Vice - I went back and forth on the number one, but a third viewing of Miami Vice put it over the top. I was enthralled right from the opening cut, which dumps us into a nightclub with no exposition, no context, only a weirdly outfitted dancer and the sounds of Jay-Z/Linkin Park. The DV photography is absolutely gorgeous, the best use of the new technology to date, giving us seemingly endless cityscapes and oceans that stretch out as far as we can see. The relationship between Sonny and Isabella is perfectly presented, giving us just enough that we can feel what the characters are feeling, a search for joy in the moment, but always aware that the relationship will not last. I love the final moments of the film, as Sonny watches Isabella disappear out to sea and they each return to their lives. Beyond narrative, Mann has an unparalleled eye for aesthetic greatness, be it in the sequence at Yero's club, or just in Gong Li's fantastic sunglasses and suit when she's walking off the plane. The film creates a cohesive, stylish world, one you drift into when you watch it. That's what I want from a movie, to be fully immersed in something totally other, yet completely relatable. This film did it, and that's why it's the best movie of the year.

My Review (2)



Next up, I'll post my Screening Log for the second half of 2006, with star rankings for everything I saw. Then, at some point later in the month, I'll post my Academy Award nominations/winners, which will wrap up 2006. And tomorrow, look for my preview of 2007's films. Six of this year's top ten films, the top six, were in the 2006 preview, so it's worth taking a look at. And here at the start of 2007, just a thanks to everyone who read the blog last year, and keep reading this year. And, just to recap.

1. Miami Vice
2. INLAND EMPIRE
3. The Fountain
4. The Science of Sleep
5. Marie Antoinette
6. The Departed
7. Babel
8. Funky Forest
9. Manderlay
10. Idlewild

The Science of Sleep

I've been looking forward to this movie for a long time, and that can sometimes skew your perception of a film. The trailer and publicity material creates a movie in your mind that doesn't always match up to the one on screen. In some ways, this film was exactly what I was expecting, but on the whole, it was pretty surprising. I was expecting something very fantastic in an upbeat way, a journey through the wonder of dream worlds, but what's on screen is a brutally real drama about a man's difficulty in adjusting to the emotional needs of reality. It winds up as an even tougher film than Eternal Sunshine, because in this case, the couple never even gets to have the good times that Joel and Clementine did, rather it's a potential true love that's snuffed out before it can even begin.

When Eternal Sunshine came out, very few people saw it, but in the years since, it's become the go to favorite movie for the college crowd, and a large part of that is the relatability of the film. It may have some weird stuff, but the emotional core of the film has something for everyone. The film has a lot of Gondry in it, but in a lot of ways, Science of Sleep feels like he took those themes he'd already explored and decided to address them in a truly personal context. I hesitate to draw a one hundred percent correlation between Stephane and Gondry, but to me, this felt like the most damning autobiographical film since Fosse's All That Jazz. Both films allow the lead character, clearly a spin on the director, to show off what he's good at, but end up punishing their emotional inadaquecies rather than celeberating their virtures.

One of the central images of creativity is the suffering artist, a lot of people give the impression that you can't make truly meaningful art until you've experienced emotional pain. I think that's true in some respects, total happiness would also mean no desire to move forward and do more. An artist is someone who isn't happy unless he's working on something. As someone who does make films, I find it difficult to see what other people could do to derive the same satisfaction as I get from making films. But, in punishing himself/the character, I think Gondry may be taking this too far. Clearly, this is someone who's at the top of his field, an incredibly respected filmmaker, but the film leads us to believe he's got some guilt about not doing something more real with his life, with spending his time trapped in this fusion of dream and reality. But, is his intention in punishing the character really to punish himself?

All that and I've barely even touched on the film itself. Looking at this film as the followup to Eternal Sunshine, the most immediately notable difference is that the boundary between dream and reality has become much more fluid. Eternal used the memory device as a device to allow for flights of fancy, here the switches between dream and reality are generally unmotivated and sometimes not even apparent. The film immerses you in the perceptory experience of its main character, so that you're never sure exactly what is real and what is just in his head. I think the film succeeds in keeping a coherent emotional arc, so that even though you're not sure exactly what happened at times, you always know how it affected the character.

The opening half hour or so is a bit deceptive in its lightness. There's clearly some sadness in the death of Stephane's father, but it's here that we get the most fun dream bits, as well as the great comedy stuff at the office. I think Guy was hilarious, basically anything he did was funny, most notably his appearance at the club, prompting Stephane to say "He's punk." I liked how the three office workers were the focus of Stephane's dreams, they gave a continuity to the fantasies. The scenes with the stop motion animation going on through the office windows were pure Gondry, a moment only he can do. The cardboard city was a particularly notable visual.

It's with the introduction of Stephanie that we get to the main story. In this film, there's the outlandish dream sequences, but there's also a crushing naturalism to the scenes set in the "real world." Even in the dream sequences, there's a lo-finess that keeps things feeling real. When I saw him speak, Gondry talked about how he didn't want any CG, and I think that was a brilliant choice. The flying scenes were accomplished by having Gael swim with projected backgrounds behind him, and it winds up looking as good as any movie flying scene I've encountered. With most CG, particularly stuff meant to dazzle rather than blend in, there's a tendency to respect it more as good CG than to approach it as something extraordinary and real as the characters do. So, even the best stuff takes you out of the story. The Illusionist is a great example of this, the CG used in the magic trick sequences meant that we couldn't share the audience's astonishment, we're aware of how the trick is done. But, this film uses totally unique techniques that do make you ponder how they did that, but more importantly, are just visually amazing on their own, and those amazing visuals fit perfectly into the realistic world in the rest of the film. It makes it easy to keep minimum separation between the dream world and the real world.

Anyway, the first scene with Stephanie perfectly exemplifies the film's core theme, the idea that this dreamer is too naive and childlike to make it in reality. The two women talk about him while he's right there and delight in messing with him. I'm not sure if he actually doesn't understand, or just pretends not to, but either way, he does nothing to challenge their assumption. Throughout the film, Stephane's childlike qualities are played up, from having him sleep in his childhood bedroom, to literally having his mom move in with him. He seems to be regressing as time moves forward. Guy is in the film as a contrast to this, the ultimate man, someone who happily works his boring job, then goes out at night to find someone to fuck. At one point, Stephane says there's more to life than women, something that Guy would dispute. I think this is also Gondry commenting on the nature of being an artist, he expresses himself through his art, partially because he is too shy to go after girls.

If you watch the "I've Been Twelve Forever" documentary on his Director's Series DVD, you can see a lot of the emotional qualities that inform Stephane here, the conern about having big hands, the invention of wacky things, and most importantly that lack of self confidence that can cause a retreat from reality. There, Gondry talks about a dream he had where he was back in his childhood home, and that may have informed the setting of this film.

In Stephanie, Stephane sees someone he thinks is like him, an introverted, artistic type. However, because he was more interested in Zoe at first, he winds up sabotaging the relationship right at its beginning. He doesn't become aware of his attraction to Stephanie until they start to make art together, in a truly magical scene. I love Stephanie putting the clouds into orbit above them. The cellophane sink is another really cool image. Throughout the film, there's a ton of these small, but very cool moments that help deepen one's immersion in this partricular reality.

One of the best sequences in the film is the bathtub letter part. I love Stephane flying over the town holding the oversized letter, and the book made out of it is great too. But, the most emotionally potent part is Stephane realizing that he really had put the letter under her door, and running to try to get it. I love the way Gondry initially leads us to believe that Stephane has averted the crisis, but later we find out that Stephanie did read the letter, and it informs a lot of where their relationship goes. I think Stephanie feels like Stephane won't be serious about her, he was clearly interested in Zoe at first, and she believes that he will eventually hurt her. So, she refuses to let herself get emotionally attached to him, and they both miss out on the chance for something that's potentially very meaningful.

That's one of the respects where this differs from your typical romance, we're used to the love that can never last, but in this case, it never even starts. It's a bit ambiguous how far along they actually get, but the impression I got was that Stephane and Stephanie were constantly close to a relationship but never actually got to the point of dating. Their first date would have been the meeting at the bar, but it never happened. That sequence was so heartbreaking, we see Stephane's personal doubts, manifested in the dream figures, stop him from actually making it to the bar. In the process, he does exactly what Guy says Stephanie is doing to him. Rather than take the risk of being hurt when she's not at the bar, he decides to avoid that pain and just not go. Seeing Stephanie sitting alone at the coffee house, a moment removed from the subjectivity, is one of the toughest to take because we know then that she was ready to go for it, but he let her down.

Before this, there's a sequence that's rather ambiguous in its navigation of the dream/reality dichotomy, specifically the bit with the calendar debut. I don't think Stephane's calendar actually became a success, but it seems that at some point he did see Stephanie dancing with someone else, causing him to drink. I'm guessing this happened because it's emotionally essential to the film, and we do see her walk into his room wearing the same dress she was in the party sequence.

In the end, it's Stephane's own behavior that ruins his chances with Stephanie. He behaves like a child, asking her to marry him semi-seriously, then getting mad when she dances with another guy. He makes her pony run, but he can't walk into the cafe. He's a character so lost in his own delusions that it becomes an ego thing, he can't escape his own head to really understand someone else. At one point, Stephane says that Stephanie reminds him of his dad. I'm thinking this is part of what motivates his irrational behavior around her. He's the one who's so afraid to go through the pain of losing someone he cares about agian, he either wants her forever, or doesn't want her at all. So, the fear of loss that Guy attributes to Stephanie actually seems to be Stephane's flaw.

Unable to make things happen with Stephanie, Stephane decides to return to Mexico. But before that, we get one final argument between the two. This scene is the most oppressively real in the film, as Stephanie tears into the emotional dream walls that Stephane has built up around himself, and Stephane continually sabotages any progress he's making with his crude humor. It ends with Stephane in the ultimate retreat into childhood, curling up in her bed, refusing to leave. Eventually she joins him, and we segue into one final fantasy sequence. The two of them ride the horse, hop on the boat and sail off.

This is an ambiguous ending, but the feeling I got was distinctly sad. I think Stephanie will tolerate his sadness for a bit longer, but soon she'll throw him out, he'll go back to Mexico and any potential for the two of them will remain unrealized. So, one could read the horse going across the river as any chance of their relationship disappearing. That's the impression I got, just because the emotional and thematic drive of the film didn't indicate any chance of a happy ending. Stephane's behavior just wasn't a point where he could handle a real relationship and Stephanie was unwilling ot risk embarking on one with him.

This is a truly great film that's unlike anything I've ever seen before. The blend of crazy, dream visuals with crushingly real emotion works wonderfully and I think it'll be even easier to get lost in the film's world with more viewings. I was surprised by how similar the film is to Eternal Sunshine, but while that one was primarily Charlie Kaufman with some Gondry, this is all Gondry and it's one of the most singularly personal films I've ever seen. Gondry has taken his life and all his work to date and poured it all into this movie. That may mean a sometime lack of coherence, but it also means a consistent string of visual delights. Add on top of this wonderful acting from everyone involved, grounding the fanciful stuff in an emotional reality. If nothing else, the film proves that Charlotte Gainsbourg will be remembered for more than just Lemon Incest.

The film wasn't what I expected, but it still lived up to my expectations. I'm really happy that Gondry's found a way to transfer the energy of his music videos into a feature format, maintaining the visual inventiveness, but adding a much deeper emotional base. I'm not sure if it's better than Eternal Sunshine, but it's definitely right up there with it.



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Weekend Update

Back in New York

I'm back in New York for the weekend. Tomorrow I'll be seeing Science of Sleep, and on Sunday I'll be seeing the Flaming Lips. I'm really excited for both events. Gondry is one of the most original, visually innovative directors working today and this film seems to be the purest expression of his aesthetic.

The Flaming Lips

I've heard a lot about The Flaming Lips' live show, it sounds like it should be quite a spectacle. I became a fan of the band with Yoshimi, one of the most exuberant records you'll ever hear. I still think it's their best, though The Soft Bulletin and their newest, At War With the Mystics, are both great. The early stuff is a bit more hit or miss, but most of what they've done is pretty solid. I got their video compilation DVD recently. I've watched most of the videos and with a few exceptions, they're not particularly notable. They stick way too much to just having the band playing somewhere and filming it. They're still entertaining, but if the same treatment was done for a song I didn't like, I wouldn't have much as much patience for it. Sofia Coppola's video for "This Here Giraffe" is pretty generic, and lacks the style of her later work. I do love the video for "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots," and the descriptions of the videos in the booklet are great, such as this one for "Do You Realise": 'Four bored farm girls lament about how nothing exciting ever happens to them...they get stoned and an apparition of a glowing singing man appears - he is accompanied by giant rabbits with sparkling spheres.' That pretty much sums it up. I do really like having a DVD of music videos around. Sure, you could just watch them on Youtube, but I find I've got a much better attention span if I sit down and put on the DVD, rather than sit at the computer and look at it on Youtube. Hopefully a new crop of director's series discs will pop up soon.

This Week in TV

It's a big premiere week. I'll be watching the season opener for Gilmore Girls, and definitely taking a look at Heroes. I'll also probably sample 'Brothers and Sisters,' if only to see Rachel Griffiths in another show. Her work as Brenda on Six Feet Under is some of the best acting of all time, so I figure her new show at least deserves one viewing. However, from the sound of things, it's got some issues. Look for reviews here.

DMZ

I read the first trade of Brian Wood's Vertigo series, DMZ. I feel like Vertigo is the HBO of comics publishers, they've got a great history of series, but sometimes their new series have trouble living up to the legacy of previous major critically acclaimed, popular works. But, generally speaking, you can trust them to deliver a quality product. I'll sample blind pretty much anything that either of them put out. DMZ has a killer premise, but the murky presentation means that you don't get a full sense of the reality he's trying to present. The art is very much in Wood's own aesthetic, and I can see the point he's going for, using the scratchy art to convey the messy world the characters find themselves in. However, I think clearer art might have allowed us to get a better picture of the world. Wood tells some interesting stories, but I didn't get a character hook. I have no particular reason to care about this main guy, and for most longform series, audience attachment to the character is your greatest crush. Look at Y: The Last Man, it's a glacially paced series that makes a ton of storytelling errors, but the characters are strong enough that I have to keep reading. Here, Wood's writing is competent and politcally charged, but when I finished the volume, I had no particular need to read on. There's no sense of a greater scope, etiher narrative or character wise, and that hurts an ongoing series. Channel Zero had similar issues, and I guess it ultimately comes down to the fact that Wood isn't telling the kind of stories that I might want to read. He's got some great points to make, but ultimately, he's got to be better at something to keep me reading.

Rescue Me

I've been watching more of Rescue Me and I'm definitely starting to get hooked. I've got a better sense of the characters, and I think the show does a great job of showing the difference between their public personas and the private hurt they carry around. And, I think the show does much less shocking for the sake of being shocking stuff than its channel neighbor, Nip/Tuck. There's some weird stuff, but it's better woven into the narrative. I'm through episode seven now, and it's starting to get to the place where I'm watching two episodes in a sitting instead of one. I could definitely see things speeding up as we move towards the end of the season.

Top 22 Directors: Part I: 22-11

Here's a list of my twenty-two favorite directors. I'm not trying to present some authoritative view of the twenty greatest directors of all time, in the history of cinema, Francis Ford Coppola's certainly more notable than Sofia in the overall development of movies, but for me personally, Sofia's work has been more affecting. The way I see it, this list's order is determined by who I'd be most excited to see a new film by. Along with the name, there's the number of films I've seen by this person, as well as the number of films they have in my personal top 100 and the number of points they have, with 100 being 1, etc.

22. Bob Fosse
Seen: 4 (of 5)
Top 100: 1
Points: 37
Best Film: All That Jazz

Fosse is best known for his choreography work, but unlike a lot of multitaskers, his films are uniquely cinematic entities. All of his films are based around show business, usually focusing on the negatives, but occasionally showing us why people get involved in the first place. He's got a very dynamic camera and can edit a musical sequence better than anyone. All That Jazz is an extremely inventive film, most notably in the finale, one of the best film endings of all time. His most harrowing film is Star 80, a brutal assault on the viewer with one of the bleakest endings of all time. That film shows that he can work well outside of the musical genre.

21. Lars Von Trier
Seen: 4 (of 8)
Top 100: 1
Points: 65
Best Film: Dogville

Lars Von Trier makes films that frequently frustrate me, he challenges the viewer and I think that the strength of emotional reactions to his material indicates the power of his filmmaking. His 'Golden Heart Trilogy' bothered me at times, but the end of Dogville rebukes a lot of the criticisms there and provides his oeuvre with a violent catharsis. His relentless experimentalism is refreshing, if nothing else, you can always count on Lars to create something different.

20. Terrence Malick
Seen: 4 (of 4)
Top 100: 1
Points: 35
Best Film: The New World

Malick makes films that invite you into a world. Much like Wong Kar-Wai he forsakes traditional narrative for voiceover laden, philosophical and emotional journeys into moodiness. He's at his best when dealing with very simple stories, like the love triangles of The New World and Days of Heaven. In this context, he allows nature to represent the characters' emotions, and gets to show off his always gorgeous photography.

19. Gaspar Noe
Seen: 2 (of 2)
Top 100: 1
Points: 75
Best Film: Irreversible

Like Trier, Noe makes films that actively confront the audience, challenging the viewer to look away. I Stand Alone is a really difficult film to watch because Noe so thoroughly immerses you in the mindset of its racist, psychotic main character. Then with Irreversible he creates his first masterpiece. It's one of the most technically dazzling films of all time, wowing you with the photography while simultaneously horrifying you with the intensity of its content. Very few films could accurately be called an experience, but Irreversible is. It's a film that changed the way I view the medium.

18. George Lucas
Seen: 5 (of 5)
Top 100: 3
Points: 229
Best Film: Star Wars

I think of Lucas more as a storyteller than a director. He didn't have to actually direct Empire or Jedi to get his vision across. However, his direction is still notable, Star Wars changed the possibility of what could be done with science fiction cinema by creating another universe that is totally believable. In Star Wars, I find it hard to believe that cameras are there or even that these people are acting, watching those films completely erases the layer of fictional awareness. People say that Lucas ended New Hollywood with Star Wars, but by creating a film that conveyed his unique vision in a traditionally creative bankrupt genre he was doing the same thing that Coppola did to the crime genre with The Godfather. It's only what happened after that caused things to go bad.

17. Gregg Araki
Seen: 6 (of 8)
Top 100: 0
Points: 0
Best Film: The Doom Generation

Araki is another director who's notable for making really challenging films. His early work is very hyped up, always messing around with film convention, be it in the meta titles on Totally F***ed Up or the genre extremism of Doom Generation. He puts a lot of effort into making visually interesting compositions and backing them with great soundtracks. Mysterious Skin is more emotional than his previous films and manages to keep the visual greatness even in a more realistic narrative world.

16. Kim Ki-Duk
Seen: 6 (of 12)
Top 100: 1
Points: 11
Best Film: 3-Iron

Kim Ki-Duk is a filmmaker who works almost exclusively with visuals and music, frequently spotlighting mute characters who communicate through facial expressions and touch rather than through words. In this sense, he makes uniquely cinematic films and there's a lot of joy to be had in watching him construct worlds out of shots. He's got a fantastic eye and can create really powerful moments through the combination of visuals and music. Sure, he's a bit repetitive, every film seems to be involve water and/or prostitutes, but his films are always interesting, so more power to him.

15. Robert Altman
Seen: 11 (of 35)
Top 100: 1
Points: 8
Best Film: Nashville

Altman's made so many films, it's hard to pin down a specific style. I could easily see the guy who made Nashville making Short Cuts, or the guy who did Images making 3 Women, but connecting everything is more difficult. However, Altman is notable for making realistic films, in the sense that they capture words as spoken, not as scripted, and emotions in an underplayed way, trauma internalized rather than shouted out. I respect Altman for continuing to work, and excel, well in to old age. A Prarie Home Companion is one of the best films of this year and his filmmaking is still innovative and exciting.

14. Park Chanwook
Seen: 4 (of 6)
Top 100: 2
Points: 67
Best Film: Oldboy

Seeing Park's Oldboy for the first time was one of my most exhilarating film viewing experiences. The effortlessness of his craft is dazzling, each frame a beautiful composition and the stylistic flourishes, backed by over the top orchestral techno score left me really happy that such a cool film existed. Lady Vengeance was one of my most anticipated films of last year and it messed with my expectations quite a bit, however I've come to love the more serious approach to vengeance he takes there. No director has a better eye for composition, for creating a really striking image, than Park.

13. Sofia Coppola
Seen: 2 (Of 2)
Top 100: 2
Points: 73
Best Film: Lost in Translation

Sofia Coppola is an even better director than her father, and I love Francis Ford's work. Both of Sofia's films exists in a dreamy realm not far removed from Wong Kar-Waiville, a world where absolutely gorgeous visuals and perfectly chosen music illustrate stories of everyday events that happen to be hugely important to the characters involved. She understands the fact that cinema is a visual medium first, a storytelling medium second, and all the critics who complained that nothing happened in Lost in Translation totally missed the point. Those moments of nothing, beautiful pauses, are where the soul of the film lies. I'm eagerly awaiting Marie Antoinette.

12. Michel Gondry
Seen: 2 (of 2)
Top 100: 1
Points: 80
Best Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Gondry is arguably the most innovative visual director working in film today. In his music videos, he went to many crazy places, and is the only director in this CG age who's still able to make you ask "How'd they do that?" Beyond his videos, he's made one masterpiece. Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind is a totally unique fusion of very real emotional drama and surreal visual dreamscapes. It was such a leap for Gondry and I'm confident he's going to keep things going in his next feature, the soon to be released Science of Sleep.


Part II Coming Soon

Fall Movie Preview

I think one of the signs of moving from childhood to adulthood is that the fall movie season replaces summer as the season you're most looking forward to. Normally you've got to preface these articles with some snide comment about how Hollywood is churning out crap and maybe we'll get a decent film this year. Well, none of that here, I'm more excited for this fall's batch of films than I've ever been before. There's a ton of potentially great stuff here. Now, I'm sure some of these release dates will change, but for now, here's what I want to see.

September 1
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles - After a foray into martial arts film, Zhang Yimou gets back to his roots with this drama. I'm not sure I'll make it to this one in theaters, but I'll definitely check it out on DVD. I'm curious to see how Zhang's style has been altered by his foray into martial arts stuff.

September 8
Sherrybaby - A gritty indie drama with Maggie Gyllenhaal is definitely something I'm inclined to check out. The plot sounds exactly like Clean, it worked great there and there's certainly potential for some quality here.

September 15
The Black Dahlia - A fantastic trailer pretty much sold me on this one. Josh Hartnett's noir voiceover brings back memories of Sin City, and the plot seems like it's got a lot of potential for twisted stuff. If the film can keep the very modern energy of the trailer and combine that with the 40s setting, it's got potential for greatness.

September 22
The Science of Sleep - After seeing his Director's Label DVD, I'll watch pretty much anything Gondry does. However, the trailer for this one could sell anyone, there's more incredible imagery in those two minutes than in any other film released this year. This is a more personal film for Gondry and if he can fuse the very real emotion of Eternal Sunshine with some of his more whimsical, outre video style stuff, we could have a masterpiece. Plus, I'm curious to see Serge Gainsbourg's daughter in something other than his 'Lemon Incest' video. I saw Gondry speak yesterday and the few clips they showed from the film were great, very funny and imaginative. I just hope this one gets the audience it deserves.

Renaissance - A CG/live action sci-fi film, I haven't heard too much about this one, but I'm always up for a good dystopian thriller. The issue with a lot of films in the genre is that the fact that they're building a whole world means they don't get around to building believable characters. It's a good cast though, so this should be at least worth seeing.

October 6
The Departed - I love Infernal Affairs, I think it's one of the most stylish, twisty crime thrillers in recent memory. Michael Mann touched on similar themes in the brilliant Miami Vice, but I think it's the kind of concept that's always got something new to explore within. I'd be a lot more excited if this wasn't a remake, particularly since the trailer indicates it's pretty faithful to the original. However, I'm guessing that Jack Nicholson will keep things fresh, I've heard that he no longer learns his lines, he gets them sent in through an earpiece to keep things fresh, and there's some odd stories about him wearing a strap on at some point. I'm intrigued.

October 8
INLAND EMPIRE - If all goes well, I'll be able to see David Lynch's new film at the New York Film Festival on either the 8th or 9th. I've written about my love of Lynch's work many times before and he's been totally on his game since Twin Peaks: FWWM, up through Lost Highway and Mulholland, he's been developing and refining similar themes. So, I'm curious to see where he goes now that he's been freed up to go more experimental. I'm trying to learn as little about the film as possible, go in completely clean and just be blown away. This is my most anticipated film since Revenge of the Sith.

October 13
Sunshine - Danny Boyle's made two really great films, and as he showed in 28 Days Later, he can bring a lot of humanity to genre filmmaking. This one's got a great cast and a cool premise that I'm confident Boyle can pull off. Should be cool.

Shortbus - I'm always interested in looking at cinema that pushes boundaries and this film's explicit sexual content does just that. There was good buzz coming out of Cannes, though I'm guessing this one won't make it to too many theaters, so it will probably be a DVD view.

Little Children - Being from suburbia, I'm always up for a film that addresses the issues of suburban culture. The trailer for this is great and the lead actresses are two of our best. This will probably be the 'cool' Oscar pick, the film that's nominated for a bunch of things and critics will lament that fact that it has no chance of winning, despite being better than the big Hollywood films that are the favorites.

Tideland - New Gilliam. This one's been getting mixed buzz, but it at least seems to be more personal than The Brothers Grimm. I doubt he'll ever match what he did with Brazil, but I'll be glad to watch him try.

October 20
Marie Antoinette - With any luck, I'll get to see this one a week early at the New York Film Festival. This one's been getting a lot of bad reviews, but the criticisms all sound like positives to me, a focus on visuals and music over traditional biopic structure. I love the way that Sofia's blending modern stuff with the historical setting. Her previous two films are brilliant and I'm pretty sure this one'll be good as well.

October 27
Babel - Inarritu's got a very distinctive style and this seems to push everything he's done to the next level. The cast is fantastic and the trailer indicates a lot of visual energy and greater narrative ambition than anything he's done before. I'm sure a lot of the press will focus on Brad's celebrity, but he's shown again and again that he can sink into a role and steal a film. This is another I'm really looking forward to.

November 3
Volver - I'm not a huge Almodovar fan, but I usually enjoy his stuff and this one seems to be full of his classic themes and great visuals. Buzz out of annes indicates that it doesn't go far beyond his previous work, but is still reliably entertaining. This is another one I'll check out at NYFF if I get a chance.

November 10
Stranger than Fiction - This one seems to be a foray into Charlie Kaufman territory, and there's certainly room for more films like that. I'm not sure how Ferrell will do outside of his usual comic area, but if Jim Carrey could do Eternal Sunshine, I'm sure Ferrell can pull something decent together.

November 17
Casino Royale - I hate to get excited for this one because I'm sure even with the new Bond and series reboot it will still have a lot of the awful lines and implausible set pieces that the late Brosnan films had. Plus, the fact that the producers didn't choose to have Goldfrapp do the theme as was rumored is a bad choice. But, who knows, maybe it'll surprise me. Eva Green was amazing in The Dreamers and the trailer was quite good. I'll at least sample.

Fast Food Nation - I'll see anything Linklater does, but the Cannes buzz doesn't have me too thrilled for this. Still, there's a lot of potential and a great cast. I've liked a lot of Linklater stuff that didn't thrill critics so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt here.

Come Early Morning - Joey Lauren Adams was fantastic in Chasing Amy and I'm curious to see her directing debut. It's been getting good buzz, though I'm guessing this won't get much of a release and it will end up being a DVD view.

November 22
The Fountain - I've been waiting for this one for six years. This film has one of the most imaginative premises ever and promises to go into territory that only Kubrick in 2001 touched on. This is very Grant Morrison stuff and there's very little of that in cinema. On top of that, it's made by the man who made arguably the best first two features of all time, Aronofsky makes films that you don't watch, you experience, merging innovative visuals with great scores. This is right up there with Inland Empire as my most anticipated film of the fall.

Deja Vu - Tony Scott's Domino is one of the most underappreciated films of all time, a near avant garde masterpiece of visual innovation. I'm guessing he'll scale back from that style a bit, but if he just reaches Man on Fire level, it'll still be interesting to watch.

For Your Consideration - Christopher Guest movies are always fun, if ultimately inconsequential. The addition of Ricky Gervais could definitely help this one, I hope he brings some of the raw emotion of The Office to the usually cartoonish Guest world.

December 1
The Nativity Story - Catherine Hardwicke's Thirteen was a really exciting film and Keisha Castle Hughes was great in Whale Rider, even if the film ultimately didn't work. If she brings the edgy style of Thirteen to this story we could have a really cool film, if it's a somber retelling, I've got no particular interest in seeing it.

The Good German - Soderbergh films are consistently entertaining and always bring something new technique wise. This seems to be him in his big Hollywood mode, but Clooney and Blanchett should keep things interesting.

December 22
Rocky Balboa - Having come through five films, don't I have to see the last one? If the reviews are decent, I'll definitely go, I do have a soft spot for the series, and I'd love to see Stallone make a great film here. I guess we'll see what he can do.

December 25
Dreamgirls - The buzz on this one is ridiculously good, and I always enjoy a good musical. This is another film with a top notch cast and solid director, I'm guaranteeing at least ten Oscar nominations for this.

Children of Men - The premise is great and the awards season release date indicates a high degree of confidence in the film. Julianne Moore is one of my favorite actresses, hopefully this project will bring her back from a bit of a slump. Between this, Sunshine and The Fountain, we should get at least one really good sci-fi film.

Pan's Labyrinth - Fantastic buzz on this one coming out of Cannes, I'm hoping to catch it on the closing night of the NYFF. It sounds like the sort of crazy fantasy film that rarely gets made, vintage Gilliam territory. I hope it lives up to the hype.

Perfume - Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run was a masterpiece, but I haven't seen any of his other films. That said, the trailer for this is great, and I've got high hopes.

What a season, at least five films with the chance to be all time classics and some of these others might surprise. I'm psyched.

Related Posts
2006 Film Preview (12/27/2005)
Summer Movie Preview (5/3/2006)
Fall TV Season (8/3/2006)

Looking to '06

The year is almost over and 2005 has not turned out to be a great year for film, in large part due to the fact that a lot of the films I was really looking forward to got pushed back to 2006. But now that we're almost at 2006, this has become a good thing, and there's a whole bunch of movies I'm really looking forward to next year. Once again, some of these films might not make it out next year, but hopefully they all will and hopefully they'll be great. So, here's my ten most anticipated films of 2006.

12. The Departed - This is Scorsese's remake of the fantastic Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs. Normally I won't condone remakes, but in this case, it's such a great premise, it almost begs to be told again. I think IA was fantastic, but there are a lot of different things you can do with the basic premise, and it sounds like Jack Nicholson is going insane on this project. I think this picture speaks for itself. Hopefully he's going to give the kind of performance that makes this something unique, different from the pre-existing film.

11. Miami Vice - Once again, a remake, but this time it's Michael Mann updating his own TV series, so again, it's taking a basic premise and doing something different. Mann is always good, but I wasn't totally excited about this project until I saw the trailer, which is very cool, and features some very cool looking club scenes. The high point of Mann's Collateral was the shootout in the nightclub. Plus, it's got Gong Li, of 2046 fame, it looks to be a really stylish action film, regardless of whether or not it's pastel t-shirt under that suit jacket.

10. V For Vendetta - This is a movie I'm a bit wary of, Alan Moore disowned it and initial script reviews were weak, but the reviews coming out from early screenings are all exuberant, citing it as not only a great film, but an important cultural event. Moore's book is one of my favorite graphic novels, and there's certainly the potential for a good film. It's true that it's even half as good as the book, it'll be a strong film, and this looks like it'll be the biggest stretch of Natalie Portman's career, hopefully bringing back some of the steel resolve she had in Leon, when she gave one of the best performances in any film ever.

9. Angel-A - Speaking of Leon, Luc Besson has his first new film in six year coming out. It was actually released in France last week, and will hopefully make it over here next year. It seems to be an action/comedy/romance, filmed in striking black and white. Besson's stuff is always visuallly interesting, and the plot seems to play to his strengths, his films always feature strong women in action, and the title character here will definitely fill that role. Watching the trailer, the film looks to have some of the spirit of Amelie, but a bit darker, and most notably, it's got some very, very strong images. If Besson can come close to the level of The Professional, we'll have a great film.

8Art School Confidential - This is Terry Zwigoff and Daniel Clowes' followup to one of my favorite films, Ghost World. I loved the stuff with Claire in art school in season three of Six Feet Under, the odd dynamic of simultaneously working together and yet being each other's competition, wanting to top other peoples' work. There's a ton of potential for the cold, sarcastic characterization seen in Ghost World in this environment, the stuff with Illeana Douglas would seem to be a preview. There's not that many movies actually about the creation of art, but this would seem to be one and I'm hoping it'll be a biting dark comedy.

7. Fast Food Nation - This is one of two Richard Linklater films coming out next year, and I'm hoping it'll be a return to greatness after the weakness that was this year's Bad News Bear. Nation will apparently be a big ensemble piece, and that's definitely one of Linklater's strengths. Dazed and Confused did Altmanesque better than Altman himself ever did, and this film will likely touch on a lot of the alienation that D&C had. This will also be Linklater's most political film yet, all of his movies are concerned with big issues, but he's never done an issue movie to the extent that this one is. I'm hoping that he'll be able to create really strong characters so this isn't just an intellectual exercise, like Traffic was, but rather it's a really difficult emotional experience.

6. Clerks 2 - This is another one I'm not sure about. Smith hasn't made a really strong film since Chasing Amy, but I'm hoping that a return to low budget filmmaking will help curb some of the badness that plagued his last two films. On the one hand, it's a bit ridiculous to make a sequel to Clerks, it would indicate the failure to come up with anything new and a bottoming out after his attempt to go mainstream. But at the same time, Before Sunset showed how powerful the ten years later sequel can be, and if Smith does something along the lines of that film, we could have a great movie here. The early buzz sounds pretty good, but I'm going to have to reserve judgment until I've seen the film.

5. Marie Antoinette - Sofia Coppola is one of the most exciting voices in American film right now, and I basically trust that whatever she makes will be great. Normally, I'm not a fan of period pieces, but watching the trailer for this, the characters feel very contemporary and real, in the same way that the people in Barry Lyndon did. The whole thing has a very Lyndon feel, with characters who crash against the absurditities of their society. It's an interesting cast, and I'm really confident that this will be a great movie, we shall see.

4. A Scanner Darkly - Another Linklater film, it's great to see one of my favorite filmmakers adapting a book by one of my favorite authors. As Linklater's speech in Waking Life shows, he's a big PKD fan, and this project is definitely suited to his philosophizing stoner sensibility. PKD wasn't about glossy futures, as seen in Minority Report or Paycheck, he was much more about dirty, gritty lives that are inherently tied to the 60s and 70s society he lived in. This film seems to embrace that style, even as he uses the sci-fi technology. Plus, if anyone's ready to played a burnt out detective with an identity crisis, it's Keanu.

3. The Science of Sleep - Gondry's music video work is some of the most astonishing filmmaking you'll ever see, and Eternal Sunshine is one of the best fusions of crazy dreamlike filmmaking with a really strong emotional throughline. Science of Sleep follows along the lines of the video for 'Everlong,' which chronicles a man's attempts to save his girlfriend as he moves through a world of dreams. Other than the weak anomaly that was Human Nature, everything that Gondry's done has been fantastic, and this sounds like his most personal project yet, seeing as how it's written and directed by him. Gondry's done so much good work in the past, I'll see pretty much anything he puts out.

2. INLAND EMPIRE - After a five year wait, we'll at last have a new Lynch film. This is another one that has some concerns, for one it's shot on digital at Lynch's house, and he's been filming on and off for two years. This would not seem to lead to a cohesive film, however MD had a similar on and off production and that worked well, so hopefully this will too. The other potential holdup is his quest for world peace, which may make him feel a bit guilty about chronicling depression, death and violence. However, I'm confident that Lynch the filmmaker will remain seperate from Lynch peace crusader, and hopefully we'll get a great film here. The man is on a roll with Lost Highway and MD, I'm really excited to see what he does next.

1. The Fountain - This is a movie that's been in the works forever, and hopefully will finally make it to theaters next year. Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream was one of the most intense pieces of filmmaking I've ever seen, you don't walk out of that final montage unaffected. With this new film, Aronofsky goes off into three different time periods, with stories that connect across time and space. This seems like it might be the most mind blowing sci-fi film since 2001, the only film to approach the blend of sci-fi and metaphysical truth that makes Kubrick's film one of the best ever made. The Fountain seems like it will touch on practically all my favorite topics, metaphysics, large cast, multiple time storytelling, and groundbreaking filmmaking. I need to see this movie.

So, it's looking like a pretty good year. There's the chance we could have a Paul Thomas Anderson film as well, and a very remote chance that Wong Kar-Wai will finish The Lady From Shanghai. But even with just this, it's looking like a great year. Looking at my preview of 2005, I only had seven films and three of them didn't even come out, so it's understandable it was a weak year, but with 06, if even half these films hit, it'll be a great year for cinema.

Oscar Nominations

Well, the Oscar nominations were released today. They pretty much conformed with expectations. I was glad to see the screenplay nods for Eternal Sunshine and especially for Before Sunset. I don't see much chance for either, but at least they got some love. One thing that bothers me is most of the movies that were nominated in the upper categories were good movies, but they weren't the sort of movies you get really passionate about. Now, I'll admit I haven't seen any of the best picture nominees other than Sideways, but taking Sideways as an example, it's a really good movie, but it's not great. Before Sunset, Eternal Sunshine, even Garden State, these are movies that really stick with you, really personal and emotional movies. Sideways, and the other nominees feel like they're well made, but they're not auteur movies. There's not one original screenplay among them, and three of the five are biopics. Generally speaking, a film's going to work better if it moves from director's head to screen, rather than from reality through team of writers through director to screen. So, as I said when I was talking about Mystic River a few weeks ago, they may be good movies, but they don't feel personal and inspired. They aren't movies that make me as a viewer want to go out and make a film.

So, enough of that. Since the academy didn't give me all the love, here's what my nominees would be if I had my way of things.

Actor
Jim Carrey - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Min-Sik Choi - Oldboy
Paul Giamatti - Sideways
Ethan Hawke - Before Sunset
Tony Leung - 2046

My winner here would be Jim Carrey. It's a character so far removed from anything he's played in the past, and he just becomes Joel. He's the invisible center of the movie, and if he hadn't worked, the whole thing would have collapsed

Actress
Julie Delpy - Before Sunset
Nicole Kidman - Dogville
Natalie Portman - Garden State
Uma Thurman - Kill Bill II
Kate Winslet - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Julie Delpy gets it. This is actually the catergory I had the toughest time filling, other than Julie and Nicole Kidman, no one was really essential. However, Delpy definitely is. For all I know, she is the character, she's that good. She makes a simple reach into an absolutely heartbreaking moment. She has to lie in character, and also spend a lot of time dancing around the truth, in massive five minute single take shots. Her singing scene, her dancing at the end, she totally is this person, and that's what acting's all about.

Supporting Actor
David Carradine - Kill Bill II
Thomas Haden Church - Sideways
Michael Madsen - Kill Bill II
Peter Saarsgard - Garden State
Mark Wahlberg - I Heart Huckabee's

Carradine here hands down. The Bill character very easily could have been a let down after a movie of buildup, but Carradine completely pulls it off, and makes someone so nice and gentle, you can't help but like him, while at the same time hating him. It's a tricky line, but in the end, despite the movie being called Kill Bill, I really wanted him to live.

Supporting Actress
Maggie Cheung - Hero
Natalie Portman - Closer
Naomi Watts - I Heart Huckabee's
Faye Wong - 2046
Zhang Ziyi - 2046

Faye Wong for 2046. While Zhang Ziyi has the bigger role, in many ways she's even the lead, it's Faye who owns the movie for me. She's good in the present, but in the short robot story within the movie, she's breathtaking. It's purely visual acting, but she conveys so much emotion in a brief time. I think those robot scenes are the best thing Wong Kar-Wai has ever done and that's largely because of Faye's performance. Even in this future setting, she keeps things emotionally centered. There's a scene with intertitles that gets to me so much. I need to see more Faye Wong movies, since she's been the highlight of both WKW movies she's been in, and elevates his already amazing work to another level.

Screenplay
Zach Braff - Garden State
Charlie Kaufman - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy - Before Sunset
Quentin Tarantino - Kill Bill II
Lars Von Trier - Dogville

This one goes to Richard, Ethan and Julie. Their movie is literally just people talking, so the screenplay is the movie, which isn't to knock the directing, which has some awe inspiring dolly shots, but it's in the words that our joy lies, and o, what words they are! You can tell so much of each of them has gone into the script, and it wonderfully plays off of Sunrise, while at the same time crafting a deeper and richer film. The dialogue sounds like real people talking, and even in the first part, where they're sort of lying to each other, we can understand what they really want to say. And then in the end, it's just a torrent of unrestrained emotion. This is one for the ages.

Director
Zach Braff - Garden State
Michel Gondry - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Chanwook Park - Oldboy
Quentin Tarantino - Kill Bill II
Wong Kar-Wai - 2046

Gondry gets it here. He brings the crazy visual style developed on years of music videos, and applies it to a brilliant narrative. It's not surprising that Gondry pulls off dazzling effects, what surprises is how he fuses the craziness with very real emotional content. Other than Before Sunset, this is the most emotionally relevant film of 2004, and Gondry pulls it off. The man can barely speak English, and yet he gets brilliant performances and incredibly real character interaction. Word.

Picture
Before Sunset
Dogville
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Garden State
Kill Bill II

I've got to give it to Eternal. Visually amazing and emotionally engrossing. That's what film should be.

And in the other catergories, I'll just give a winner.

Cinematography - This belongs to 2046 and Christopher Doyle. Every frame is gorgeous, be it the future or the 60s. Visually, this surpasses In the Mood for Love and that's saying something.

Editing - Oldboy. Park's film has an incredible pop, and that's largely due to fast paced editing, that works perfectly with the music, and uses a lot of nifty narrative tricks.

Art Direction - 2046, and Chang once again works his magic. The cinematography is gorgeous, but that's largely because of the phenomenal sets. Both the future stuff and the 60s are pure eye candy.

Costume Design - 2046 again. The people look great, no matter how bad things get, they can still dress well. Extra props to the future stuff, which goes a long way to helping the performances.

Music - Jon Brion's score for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind sets the right mood for the film, and is very listenable on its own.

Original Song - I'm not sure if it qualifies, but Julie Delpy's 'Waltz for a Night,' is both a great song on its own, and great in the context of the movie. An excellent use of music to convey narrative information.

Makeup - Um, Shaun of the Dead I guess. Those were some good looking zombies.

Sound/Sound Editing - Kill Bill II. The buried alive sequence was one of the greatest uses of sound ever in a film.

Visual Effects - Sky Captain. Say what you will about the film, it was very cool looking, and those effects were pretty damn seamless.

Animated Film - The Incredibles. I think it may have been a bit overhyped, but it was a really strong movie. Pixar's third best film, behind the two Toy Stories.

Well, there you are.

Related Posts
The 2005 Oscar Nominations (1/31/2006)
My 2005 Oscar Nominations (1/31/2006)

Top 10 Films of 2004

I've been working on filming the movie, and it's going really well. It's definitely an improvement over everything I've done in the past, and as long as each one we do keeps getting better, it's good. It's unfortunate that we're always under time pressure, since I'd love to spend more time working on shots, but it's just not plausible. As is, there's some great shots, but I feel like we could be doing more with each frame, but are sort of limited by the time we can spend on each scene. But, it's a learning experience, and getting the story conveyed is the most important part of the process, and I think we're definitely doing that. Plus, I'm having fun along the way, which is also critical. It's just cool to see stuff I imagined being acted out in reality.

So, I've seen pretty much all the movies I really wanted to see that came out in 2004, which means it's time to drop the year's top ten list.

10. I Heart Huckabee's - The black bag sequences in this movie just owned, and were some of the most original cinema I've ever seen. I love the fact that the movie focuses on an intellectual, philosophical dispute, and the way that the events of the movie lead to an intellectual rather than plot-based resolution. I can relate much better to someone who's got a crisis of thought rather than a real pressing physical crisis. Uniformly great acting, particularly from Mark Wahlberg and Naomi Watts, and the Shania Twain cameo was genius.

9. Shaun of the Dead - It's not as good as Spaced, the TV show by the same people, but that doesn't mean it wasn't really good. There were some hilarious bits, but throughout the film, there was character development, and actual attention paid to making the characters change, rather than just getting in gags or forwarding the plot. The end gets a bit too much like a conventional zombie film, but particularly in the first half, this is a really entertaining, smart and funny film.

8. Hero - The colors alone made this a phenomenal film, but the looping narrative structure and some great action sequences gave it a real epic feeling, capturing the mythic nature of old American westerns. It doesn't hurt that two of my favorites actors, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are in the film either. This is how an action movie should be shot, as a showcase for phenomenal cinematography and production design. The green sequence and the leaf fight were notable highlights.

7. 2046 - Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung appear again here, but this one's most about Tony, who puts in the best performance of his career. Now, technically this film doesn't come out here until 2005, but it was made in 2004, so it's on the list. I talked a lot about this a few days back, but it's one of Wong Kar-Wai's best, and that's saying something. His use of the sci-fi storyline was inspired, and the sadness of the film was profound. Every single frame had something interesting visually, and I love the ties to WKW's previous works. I feel sort of guilty about ranking this so low, since it was a brilliant film, but there was just so much good stuff this year.

6. Oldboy - Damn, Asia, you don't stop making great films. Now, this film was released in 2003 in Asia, and won't be released here in 2005, buut I saw it it this year, so it's on the list. After seeing Kill Bill I, you might think there's nowhere left for the revenge film to go, but Chan Wook-Park disproves that with this incredible film. This is a film that just pops, with brilliant frames and great use of music. The one take tracking shot in which Oh Daeseu fights a whole gang of people is the sort of thing that makes you say "Respect." The prison sequence is another really dazzling piece of filmmaking, and the ending leaves you thinking. This film is just so alive and popping, it's amazing. There's supposedly a remake in the works, but watch this, because other than Kill Bill, it's been a long time since I've seen an action movie this good.

5. Dogville - Yet another foreign film, this one's from Denmark and director Lars Von Trier. Three hours long, taking place on a stage with chalk outlines instead of sets, you may say, "That doesn't sound very entertaining." Well, it is very entertaining, and it's also brutal and thought provoking. This is a slow build film that draws you into a sort of funk and then jolts you out of it with a morally ambiguous ending that makes you wonder just how much Von Trier hates people. Nicole Kidman gives probably her best performance here, and the rest of the cast does a great job of giving the feeling that this stage is not a stage, but in fact, a fully functioning town.

4. Garden State - A film that hit me at exactly the right time, and is pretty personally relatable, so I may be a bit biased in my liking of it, but that doesn't take away from the great direction and writing of Zach Braff. I love the way the beginning of the film uses all sorts of wacky visuals to bring you into the world, and then segues into a more character focused story. I like the fact that this isn't a really plot driven film, the events come out of the characters. I even love the ending, which is consistently knocked. Maybe it's because I'm not jaded enough, but I think it makes sense for him to give it a try with Sam, the one person in his life who he has really connected with. That's more important than getting back to working in a restaurant.

3. Kill Bill Volume 2 - A very different film from Volume 1, so different that I was a bit disappointed on the first viewing, since the film was so completely different from what I was expecting. However, upon seeing it again, I really loved the film. It's Tarantino's most mature film, and also full of incredible pop moments, notably the training sequence and the trailer fight. The buried alive sequence was another highlight, one of the best uses of sound in a film ever. I love how the ending throws everything that's come before into question, and humanizes all the characters involved. Volume 1 is about the gradual cartoonization of the bride, two is about the humanization of all the characters. Rather than fighting mythic yakuza leaders, she's fighting the bouncer at a strip club, and an old man. David Carradine owns in this movie, it's one of the best performances of the year. The ending is a catharsis, and then the credits bring back all the great moments from the duology, a final glimpse at the world that Tarantino created. The two films together are an astonishing piece of work.

2. Before Sunset - From an action packed, pop style spectacular we now move to two people talking for eighty minutes. That's it, but the conversation is riveting, and the suspense in this film is more than you'll get from any horror movie. Linklater perfectly captures the feelings of regret that people have about things that were done or weren't done in the past. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy completely inhabit their characters, slipping back in after a nine year gap. The beginning of the film, you can tell that they feel an awkwardness and want to get deeper, but are stuck on the surface. It's not just the lines, it's the delivery and physical mannerisms. I love the way this film seems to be much more cynical than Sunrise, but is in fact full of the exact same romantic spirit of its predecessor, even more so, as the ending shows. The ending is so simple and yet it left me smiling for a long time after leaving the theater. This film is not only brilliant, it makes its predecessor even better. Richard Linklater is on an unparalleled role in recent years, and these two films, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, contain everything that's unique and exciting about his filmmaking.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - It's been a while since this one came out, but it's still brilliant. This film was a perfect fusion of visual technique with story, using the effects to emphasize character emotion rather than replace it. Gondry is a visual master, I love the run down feel of the technology, and the mundaneness of it. The dinky Lacuna Inc. is the most Philip K. Dickian thing ever filmed. This is one of Kaufman's best scripts, so emotionally real. Jim Carrey gives by far his best performance ever, so low key and real. Jon Brion provides another great score, which gives the film a vaguely nostalgic feel throughout. The way that the narrative structure is used to gradually reveal plot developments to us is so brilliant, and the show offy structure never overwhelms the story at the heart of the film.

What a year it was. America got a bit served, with only four films in the top ten, but maybe that means we have to kick up our game a bit.

Related Posts
Richard Linklater Day (7/22/2005)
Wong Kar-Wai Day (8/3/2005)
Top Ten Films of 2005 (1/1/2006)