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.

2007 Movie Preview

2006 was a pretty good year for cinema, a lot of my favorite directors had projects coming out, and most of them turned out quite good. And next year looks like it should have an equally exciting plethora of new films to delight and enthrall.

10. Electroma - This is Daft Punk's film about a robot's quest to be human. It's supposedly very experimental, and seems like the kind of thing that could be either great or tedious depending on your mood. But, I love the trailer and I'm very curious to see what they do as film directors. I'm not sure what the status of this is, it showed at Cannes back in May, but I havent' seen much since. Hopefully it will re-emerge and get a 2007 release.

9. Smiley Face - This year, Gregg Arkai became one of my favorite directors, and I'm eager to see some new work from him. that said, this one sounds like a much more straight ahead mainstream comedy than he's done in the past. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, as long as he maintains his own voice in there. The plot, surrounding a woman who eats some pot brownies and has a crazy day offers the potential for some Doom Generation or Nowhere style craziness. After the intense drama of Mysterious Skin, he's earned a lighter film.

8. Be Kind Rewind - Another director's lightening up for a more accessible mainstream comedy. However, with Gondry at the helm, it's sure to be idiosyncratic and full of weird, wonderful images. The premise, that a guy who work sat a video store gets zapped with a magnet, erases all the tapes, and has to remake them himself, is absolutely ridiculous, but full of comic potential. Jack Black is great in the right role, and this sounds like it has the potential to harness that School of Rock go getterness. The combination of him and Gondry should be brilliant.

7. Grindhouse - Tarantino has never made a film that's less than great, and he's only gotten better as time passed. So, I'm going to check out anything he does. That said, I feel like this film will allow him to indulge all his worst instincts, and the premise, a slasher film with a car as the killer, is pretty inane. Without considering the director, the Robert Rodriguez side of the project looks a lot more interesting, Rose McGowan with the machine gun leg is genius and we've even got Freddy Rodriguez, Six Feet Under's Rico, in the film. Ultimately, I think this will be a joycore film, full of so much love from the creators, you can't help but get caught up in it.

6. Sweeney Todd - Burton made a virtually unmatched run of quality films from 1988-1994, but since then he's been a bit underwhelming. After the good, but not great Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I said that he should do a musical, so I was excited to hear he'll be adapting Sweeney Todd. I haven't seen the show, but the subject matter fits perfectly into his visual world. Rarely do you see a musical that fully uses the possibilities of cinema, I'm really excited to see what Tim brings to it. On top of that, there's a fantastic cast, Johnny Depp, Alan Rickman, Sacha Baron Cohen and even Anthony Head. This has the potential to be Burton's best film in a long time.

5. I'm Not There - Normally, I would be disgruntled that we're seeing yet another musician biopic. These films are usually boring reenactments of culturally iconic moments that give no real insight into the person they're interrogating. The only two musician biopics that really worked were Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story and Velvet Goldmine, both directed by Todd Haynes, and what do you know, he's directing this film as well. Haynes is a conniseur of pop culture, using cultural trends to examine the direction of society as a whole. Superstar and Velvet Goldmine are more about a time and place than specific people and I'd imagine this film will be the same. The fact that there's seven actors playing Dylan could potentially be gimmicky, but it makes me think this'll be a crazy, surreal film and that's a good sign. He's never made a bad film and I doubt he'll go wrong here. Plus, the cast is just fantastic: Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Heath Ledger to name just a few.

4. There Will Be Blood - Finally we're getting a new Paul Thomas Anderson film. Magnolia is the best film of the past twenty-five years, PTA the rare person who's equally adept at writing and directing. Paul himself said he didn't think he'd ever top Magnolia, and I'd agree, but I'm still eager to see new work. There's not too many details out on the project, but I've got to say, a period piece of this nature is not what I'd really want to see from him. Still, all his films are amazing in their own way, and someone with his talent is going to make films that are full of compelling details even if the whole doesn't work. I'm eager to see some stills or a trailer because right now I really have no idea that this movie will be like. It's just PTA's name that earned it this place on the list.

3. I'm a Cyborg (But That's OK) - After wrapping up the Vengeance Trilogy in spectacular fashion, Park Chanwook moves on to a lighter, but still odd, comedy. The premise of this one is great and I think it has the potential to be that rare kind of movie that is simultaneously very funny and very touching. It's difficult territory, but the hard edged sensibility of Park means we won't drift too far into melodrama. And, as the trailer shows, virtually no one working today can make images as striking as Park's.

2. Southland Tales - Many of my favorite films have been described as self-indulgent messes, so I wasn't too wary when Southland Tales got savaged at Cannes. I'm increasingly less concerned with narrative coherence, instead interested in seeing moments of cinematic transcendence, and even the bad reviews concede this film offers those. Kelly's Donnie Darko is one of the best films ever, even though every re-edit and comment he makes about the film makes it sound like he has no idea why it worked in the first place. But, I still believe in him, this one sounds so over the top weird, I can't wait to see it. If Inland Empire showed us anything, it's that a three hour, barely narrative piece of directorial self indulgence can be utterly satisfying. Of course, Kelly isn't Lynch, so this one could really just be bad, but there's only one way to find out.

1. My Blueberry Nights - Wong Kar-Wai is the best film director of all time, he has redefined the way the medium can be used, inventing a totally different, more emotional, language for cinema. No one works like he does, and no one makes films like his. So, a new Wong Kar-Wai movie is an event. 2046 was a great closer to one part of his career, and My Blueberry Nights offers a lot of changes. The major one is that he's shooting in America, in English, with an American cast. I love the Hong Kong cityscapes his characters usually inhabit, but Happy Together worked well in Argentina, pushing WKW to even more visual experimentation. Perhaps shooting in America will do the same. An article I read about the shooting made it sound like this will have plenty of classic Wong Kar-Wai moments, though they're taking place in a Midwestern diner instead of a Hong Kong fastfood stand. He's got a fantastic cast, and the way he works, he seems to push people to their best work. And, it'll be great to have my first viewing of this movie in a theater instead of on an import DVD.

In addition to films, there's a few other things I'm eagerly awaiting.

True Blood - Alan Ball's work on Six Feet Under is some of the best writing ever, and I was thrilled to hear he's doing another HBO series. This one involves vampires. A supernatural conceit like this should allow him to mix things up a bit from Six Feet Under. Rarely do you see a TV auteur like Ball do a second series, primarily because a series uses up so much story, how much can one man have left? Clearly, SFU was very personal, and I'll be curious to see how the way he reimagines his trademark themes to fit in this new genre context. I'm not sure if the show will actually premiere this year, but whenever it starts up, I'll be there.

The Sopranos - More HBO, we're going to finally see the end of The Sopranos in April. There are a select group of TV shows that I consider to be in the pantheon, the absolute best series, and The Sopranos is the only one is still on the air. I'm really curious to see what happens in the final season, will Chase continue the lethargic, introspective style of the second half of the sixth season or will things rev up and end in fire? I'd guess it'll be more of a fade away than a burn out, but we'll see. Even when it's frustrating, there's no current show that can match it.

New Babylon 5 - I've still got a lot of material to go through, but I'm happy that JMS is doing some new stuff in the Babylon 5 universe. The direct to DVD format has been much discussed as an option for continuing cult shows with a small, but devoted fanbase. I would love to see the movies become wildly successful, and possibly open the door for the Buffyverse direct to DVD movies Joss wanted to do. He claimed it came down to a budget issue, so maybe some success here would inspire Fox to do an about face and fund those movies. Maybe it's been too long, but if Babylon 5 can return after eight years, why can't Buffy after only three?

Buffy Season Eight Comics - Speaking of Buffy, if we can't get DVD movies, at least there's something coming in. I'll be picking up a monthly comic again for the first time in a while. It's been too long since I spent time with these characters and I'm eager to see what they're up to. The preview pages indicate we're still in a season seven millieu, which doesn't thrill me, but I'm sure there'll be some great stuff in there as well. I don't know that a project like this has ever been attempted, a canon continuation of a series in comic book form by the original creators. I'm excited to see how it works.

Morrison/JH Williams Vertigo series - This one is the most hypothetical. In a recent interview, Grant said he was working on an original series for Vertigo with JH Williams on art. The two of them did amazing work on the two Seven Soldiers bookends, in the first creating an entire universe of believable characters and then destroying it in only thirty pages. The second was a hypercompressed pop speed pill, one of the most dizzying, awe inspiring single issues I've ever read. Morrison's projects are frequently riddled with artist problems, the few times all has gone well on art, as with Flex Mentallo, We3 or Kill Your Boyfriend, he's made masterpieces. The thought of JH on a long term project with Morrison is almost too much to handle, I just hope that it happens.

Splendor

The journey through Gregg Araki's filmography comes to a close (for now) with Splendor. Every successful indie director usually reaches a point where they are offered a mainstream project, and the success of this project will determine whether they "sell out" or continue in the indie world. Splendor certainly isn't your everyday romantic comedy, but it's so toned down from the excess of The Doom Generation and Nowhere that it can't help but feel like a stab at mainstream success. This is like Dazed and Confused after Slacker, or Mallrats after Clerks, a film that takes the director's idiosyncracies and fits them into a more mainstream form, in this case the romantic comedy. For Linklater, doing a mainstream film actually helped curb some of the excesses of Slacker and made for a fantastic, albeit unprofitable, film. Splendor is more like Mallrats in that it feels like Araki made some concessions to the mainstream that ended up blunting that which was so unique about him. Splendor isn't a bad film, it's just one that that's not particularly unique.

That said, the first half hour or so is very successful, and very Araki. The Halloween club scene, with intense blue light, is right out of The Doom Generation and Veronica is like a female version of James Duval's characters in those films, naive, yet full of strong desire that will drive her through the film. I really like the device of Veronica speaking directly to the camera. For one, those shots are gorgeous, with the ethereal white background and rings of light in her eyes.

Tracking back a bit, it's interesting how Araki uses near identical openings for all his films. We usually start on a white background with white letters on top, ethereal music playing as the camera pans down to a scene. I love the opening shots here, and the way the white soon fades into purple, it's fantastic visual stuff.

A film like The Doom Generation is notable for its complete visual assault on the audience. But, as Splendor forges ahead, we get less and less of visual interest. The opening club scenes give way to a rather standard domestic scenario, becoming more and more mundane as the film goes on. I'm guessing that the opening visual intensity is designed to disguise the fact that what we're watching is essentially exposition, but I'd rather watch this interesting exposition than the plot stuff that happens later.

The plot itself is at once transgressive, in its basic conceit, and totally ordinary, fitting the mold of countless romantic comedies. When the film begins, we're presented with a love triangle with no easy resolution, two guys who each have their own unique merits. When combined as one, they become the perfect guy, the fusion of physical and mental prowess serving as the ideal mate for Veronica. I found this pretty interesting, the troubles they have trying to navigate life as a threesome. I think there was more potential for comedy there, particularly in putting them in contact with more 'normal' social situations, maybe bringing in a character who knew Veronica back in her suburban home, directly contrasting her old life with her new.

Though I suppose that role was filled by Ernest. Ernest is a classic romantic comedy character, the nice guy who seems perfect for her, except for the fact that she doesn't love him. Once he enters the film, things start to descend. I was still emotionally involved in the story, but I wasn't really sure how to feel. On the one hand, Veronica doesn't love him, but at the same time, the story goes out of its way to make Ernest seem like this perfect guy, it feels a bit cruel for her to string him along then dump him. It's a bit of a cliche to make the romantic rival into a jerk, but that's done for a reason, because it makes it easier for the audience to get behind the heroine dumping him for the guy she really loves. In this case, the two guys seem so slackerish and unproductive, and Veronica so dissatisfied with them, that it's hard to accept that she has a deep love for them.

But, that's what the story's about. I think the ending is particularly troubling, with the really goofy jumping off the hotel balcony bit, which feels like a much different film. This, for all the goofiness, had a generally real world feel. But that final stunt felt like something out of an Adam Sandler movie.

In the end, Veronica's decision to embrace her alternative lifestyle ties directly in to Araki's central theme of people growing up and leaving behiind the repressive power structures of generations past. This is dramatized in a crazy way in The Doom Generation, and also represented in the totally out of touch parental figures in Nowhere. But it feels the most like Mysterious Skin, where Wendy has to choose between staying in Kansas and growing up to live her parents' life or heading for, and embracing the big city.

The film has most of Araki's thematic and stylistic tropes, but they're shoehorned into a conventional romantic comedy structure that really limits him. Mysterious Skin does a much better job of moving out of the hyper style of TDG and Nowhere and into more sedate, 'mature' filmmaking without sacrificing his visual style or narrative ambition. But, Splendor was a necessary step along the way.

Looking ahead, his next film is Smiley Face, a stoner comedy, which could be another attempt to move into the mainstream. He could play it as an over the top insane journey, a la Nowhere, but I'm guessiing it will be more restrained and conventional. Will this be successful, and more importantly will it be good? I'm still hoping that he gets Creeeeps going, that one's been talked about for a while, but doesn't seem to be making much forward progress.

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

Nowhere

My film watching pattern is usually to find a director I like then watch all the films he's done. It started with Tim Burton and I've since gone through a whole bunch of other directors. One of my current people is Gregg Araki. Mysterious Skin was good enough to make me want to see everything else he'd done and that's led me to Nowhere.

Nowhere is clearly stylistically indebted to Araki's previous feature, The Doom Generation. TDG took place in a stylized cartoon universe where characters spoke in an odd, unnatural style and everything was overplayed to a severe degree. Nowhere is set in the same basic universe, but an even more schizophrenic over the top world than The Doom Generation. And, unlike The Doom Generation's narrow focus on three character, Nowhere wanders through a whole bunch of plots, using a similar structure to American Graffiti or Dazed and Confused.

Because this is such a short film, only 78 minutes, and there's so many characters, what you take away from it is more the style, both in terms of production design and also editing. Everything is pushed to extremes, the lighting casts the characters in bold, primary colors and particularly towards the end bares very little resemblance to what we know as reality. I think this is a fantastic choice, the whole point of the film is to push real life tendencies to the extreme and using the set design to parallel character feelings takes advantage of what only film can do. I've never seen another film, besides The Doom Generation, that looks like this, and that's a big compliment.

The opening sequence is actually the high point of the film, as rapid editing shows Dark's masturbation fantasy. I love the transitions between different scenes, showing the different elements of the character's sexuality, and the conflict presented here is what will drive him throughout the film. It's a really dynamic opening for the film, perfectly scored by Araki's choice of music.

The early moments of this film remind me a lot of Totally F***ed Up, the first film in the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy. The videotape diary is the most obvious example, but also the way the characters interact. Outside of the moments of stylization, the jealousy and sense of abandon are right out of TFU. The major change is that TFU takes place in a world that's essentially our reality, while this film takes place in a totally exaggerated world. Outside of Mel and Dark, pretty much everyone is a caricature, right down to their names, like Christina Applegate's Dingbat, whose kitten sweater and braces are the most obvious stereotype of a geeky girl.

The b characters, particularly the celebrity cameos like Rose McGowan and Heather Graham all feel completely unreal. Heather Graham's Lilith has no character traits whatsoever outside of the fact that she likes to have sex. But in this film, that's fine, Araki's goal isn't to promote an emotional reaction, it's more about immersing you in his stylistic world. So, we don't really care what happens to Lilith, no more than we do about Elvis and Alyssa, but it's still enjoyable to watch them because of the way Araki constructs a scene.

In this respect, the film is very different from The Doom Generation. There, we had the heavy surface stylization, but there was also a lot of thematic exploration and emotion. The ending of The Doom Generation, when the characters have a threesome, is a strong emotional payoff for what we've been through. Then, the intrusion of the neo-nazis is a really disturbing moment, both because of Araki's strobe heavy presentation and because we care about these characters and don't want to see them hurt.

Here, that emotional connection is lost, so we only watch for the style and presentation of events. That's fine because most of the film is pretty light and consequence free, however, it causes problems in the moments of real emotional violence. In such a cartoony film, it's disturbing to see a realistic rape scene. It just feels out of character with the rest of the film. The tomato soup beatdown at the end is still disturbing, but fits into the world better. And, I love the way he can get away with a ridiculous amount of blood by throwing the tomato soup into the scene. For the viewer, there's no difference between the two.

Sometime between watching The Doom Generation and this, I actually saw a picture of Gregg Araki, and there's quite a resemblance between him and James Duval, which would lead me to assume there's a good bit of autobiography behind Dark here. Dark is the only character who's really developed, and to some extent, I think his very real issue of being torn between the sexually free world he lives in and the more traditional relationship part of him wants is perfect fodder for a serious film. However, here the moments that are actually emotional wind up feeling a bit out of place.

The biggest issue with this is in the final scene with Montgomery. On one hand, I love the absurdity of Montgomery returning from an alien abduction, and the idea of an alien just wandering the town in general. However, the scene slows everything down and feels like it's from another movie. It might have worked if this was a movie based in reality that was just paced really quickly, but we have no basis for processing real emotion so it winds up feeling off. I do like the end when Montgomery turns into a bug and flies away, it's a really nice, bizarre note to close the film on.

Nowhere was a really fun film to watch, but it lacks the thematic depth of The Doom Generation, or Araki's later Mysterious Skin. It's primarily of interest as a style piece, and there it works wonderfully. Araki always picks perfect music to accompany his images, and this film works as his Fallen Angels, pushing everything to an extreme before a retreat to something a bit more conservative. I'm interested to see where he goes next, Smiley Face sounds like a rather mainstream teen comedy, but I'm sure he'll bring something crazy to it.

The one really lingering question from Nowhere for me is how was this made? This is a really odd film, yet Araki managed to get tons of stars to appear. I'm really glad that he got the freedom to do this kind of film with such a high profile cast, but it perplexes me how it happened. I don't see this film getting a wide release or appealing to a mainstream audience. But at least a really personal, unique film can still be made in America.

Weekend Update

Gregg Araki

There's a Gregg Araki blogathon going on over at Being Boring. A lot of interesting stuff covering someone who I'd consider one of the most underrated filmmakers working today. Very few people have the uniqueness of vision that Araki does. This is a guy who rarely makes a film that can make it to an R rating, let alone PG-13. So, clearly he's not concerned with commercial success, it's more about his vision. Inspired, I ordered Nowhere from Amazon UK. Once I watch it,, I'll put up a review.

Music Video Shoot

Earlier this week, I shot a video for the song "Yer Warpin' Me" by Nepo. It's a bit weirder than the last video I did, and a bit happier than most of my stuff. That one should be finished by the end of August. The film workshop I'm running also ended. The film we shot there has some potential, but I'm not sure if it'll top the insanity of last year's film, Extracurricular Activities.

Producer Autuers

Though I liked it on the first listen, Justin Timberlake's Sexy Back has been really growing on me. Lately, I've been liking more and more current pop songs, both this and Promiscuous are masterful singles. It's interesting to see the growth of the producer as auteur, Timbaland did both those tracks and the media genuinely gives him as much credit for their quality as they give the artists. It's becoming more a film situation, where the producer is like the writer/director and the artist is like the actor. Most people still go to see the actor's performance, but increasingly people are aware of who's behind the scenes. I know I'm always on the lookout for a new Neptunes track and especially anything from Dan the Automator, who's a clear example of a producer auteur.

Electropop

Along the same lines, I'm really excited by the crystalization of a new music genre for the 00s, eletropop. It's always existed but the success of a song like SexyBack, along with bands like CSS and and Ladytron are evolving this form of really poppy electro songs. Nine Inch Nails fused industrial with pop song structures, but what these songs are doing is making really pop stuff that is based around intense electro beats. Daft Punk are pioneers in this, with their constant use of vocoder. Their last album is full of tracks that foreshadow the hard driving electropop that's cropped up since. If you're looking for more, check out Does it Offend You, Yeah, an unsigned British band that makes tracks that sound like Daft Punk on a bender. I think the reason I like this stuff so much is that it feels new. Most of the rock bands I like today are in some way throwing back to something before, it's like rock as a genre has exhausted itself and can only look to the past for inspiration. But, this electro stuff feels fresher, uncovering new territory.

The Doom Generation

Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin was one of the best films of 2005, and it prompted me to go back and check out some of his earlier stuff, starting with The Doom Generation. I went in pretty much blind on this one, except for the knowledge that Araki was a leader of the "New Queer Cinema" movement on the 1990s, and also that it starred James Duval, better known as Frank the Bunny from Donnie Darko. Like Visitor Q yesterday, Doom Generation is a pretty weird film that takes place in a heightened reality, that's slightly askew from our world.

The film's opening is quite strong, starting with the buzzing synth of Nine Inch Nails' "Heresy" and frenetic strobing images of people in a club. A title announces that this is "A Heterosexual Movie from Gregg Araki," which I initially figured was just a joke about his reputation, but turned out to have some more thematic significance to the film as a whole. Araki uses the same font as he did in Mysterious Skin, it's interesting to see certain directors always sticking with the same type, such as Kubrick's preference for Futura.

When the film proper begins, the characters' style of speech is notable. They never sound quite natural, sometimes using bigger words than you'd expect them to, and other times using slightly odd turns of phrase, particularly when insulting people. James Duval as Jordan reminds me of a young Keanu, speaking with a perpetual stoner drawl, always about thirty seconds behind what's going on. Despite all the strange stuff they go through, he remains an innocent until the finale. His most notable cluelessness is in the relationship with X, there's clear homosexual undertones, practically overtones, and yet he doesn't seem to get it at all. Scenes are set up to maximize their tension, most notably in the scene by the bed, where they always seem just a few inches away from kissing.

The thematic significance of this becomes apparent later, for most of the film it's just subtext to the relationship between Amy and Jordan. Amy is someone who's incredibly worldly, always desiring to be in control. She takes on the traditionally masculine role in the relationship, driving the car and usually initiating sex, while Jordan plays the role of the ditzy airhead. Normally if you have the attractive stranger, like X, come into the car it would be the man trying to get him out, while the woman is attracted to him. Here it's flipped, which makes for an interesting dynamic.

For Amy, X represents a sexual and intellectual equal. He takes the initiative in their relationship and she seems almost in awe of him. In the scenes where she has sex with Jordan it's all about closeness and love, whereas when she has sex with X, it's more about the spectacle, the novelty of this man and his skill. This is particularly evident in the cowboy hat scene, where Jordan observes her and sees a sexual enjoyment that's deeper than what she experienced with him. I also really like the aesthetics of that scene, the hat and the way the scene is shot make it seem like she's a rodeo rider, using this guy as her own entertainment device.

So the film sets up a basic conflict between the somewhat naive love she has for Jordan, and the more experimental pure sexuality of X. It's not a straight love triangle (pun intended) because Jordan has an attraction to X. He seems almost unaware of it, but it's evident that there's something more than just friendship between these two. The only time he seems to object to X being with Amy is when he wanders away from the room after they're having sex, an action that could be interpreted as despair prompting him out into the desert to reflect, or simply giving them space for what he's doing, almost like a child who caught his parents having sex.

Getting away from the narrative elements, I loved the aesthetics of the film, most notably in the design of the hotel rooms. The initial red room, with cold blue light was very David Lynch, and the way Amy was lit prefigured what Lynch would do with Patricia Arquette in Lost Highway. In that scene, there was also the funny bit with the bluescreen showing through the news anchors' clothes, a nice visual, even if the overall tone of that newscast was a bit too knowingly ironic. The later black and white checker hotel room was another fun bit of design.

The film is very much a mid 90s indie movie. It's got Parker Posey, a character using speed, absurdly excessive violence and frequent trips to a convienence store. At times, the stylized dialogue and bizarre situations can be a bit distancing. It's a case of seeing through the surface sheen and finding the emotions underneath. If you only look on the surface, this is a pretty soulless, excessive movie, you have to dig through that sensationalist stuff to find the real core.

The end of the film takes things to a stylistic melting point, pushing the violence and imagery over the top. If you look at the top of the film, it says "A Heterosexual Movie," which would imply that the film exists within the code of heterosexual society. So, a threesome is okay, but after Amy leaves we see the homosexual relationship between X and Jordan finally about to happen. At the moment he makes a proposition to him, the gang invades their space and attacks Jordan.

Why do they attack Jordan and not X? I would argue it's because X has proven himself to be the superior partner. If we look at the film as a competition between Jordan and X, it's clear that X is the more in control manly guy, even if he does seem to have a strong bi streak. As the film progresses, we at first see Jordan and Amy exclusively together, except for that one time sleeping with X that didn't mean anything. Then they have sex while Jordan's not around, and ultimately there's an implicit agreement that they will share her. By the end, they're on an equal level, flipping a coin to decide who will sleep with her first. There's a critical moment where she looks at the coin, and could easily lie and choose Jordan over X, but she doesn't, and it's more clear than ever here that X has moved ahead of Jordan in her affections.

He opens her up to new things sexually, that she then uses when she's with Jordan, and ultimately X feels free to move in on the two of them and make it a three. This moment revisits the earlier scene where we see the three of them in bed together, but there it's played as the height of love for Jordan and Amy, alone together, despite the presence of X. Here it's Jordan who gets lost in the shuffle, he's no longer enough for her own his own, he needs the aid of X.

So, Jordan is now irrelevant, he has been replaced. The gang at the end is representative of normalizing society, competition between two men over a woman is okay, but for the two men to be together themselves is unacceptable, one of them has to go, and clearly it's going to be Jordan. He's the boy, while X is a man. Considering this is a film where the characters' primary mode of expression is their sexuality, the moment when Jordan is castrated is equivalent to death, he now has no chance to compete with X, and as a result, he must go.

The sequence itself is harrowing and intense. The use of the American flag, national anthem and swatiska by the same group is meant to equate the restrictions within the country on homosexuality with similar restrictions in nazi Germany. This gang of blonde haired, blue eyed men is out to destroy those who are not compatible with their worldview. The moment when Amy turns their weapon against them is particularly satisfying.

In some respects, I wish the film ended on that dramatically intense note, instead of the just there finale, but that scene is crucial for a couple of reasons. One is to show that X and Amy are now together, and Jordan is left behind. A new relationship is forged between the two adults, the two men, and the child is left behind. The other is to show that even after all this extreme violence, things are still going on the way they were before.

I'm not sure if it was out at the time, but the title may very well be a reference to the videogame, Doom. Araki's statement seems to be that this generation is so used to extreme violence that it is numb to them, and even after all they've done, the only X has to say is "Dorito?" The weak and innocent are left behind, it is the strong cynics who survive.

I really liked the film, I think it's visually inventive and thematically challenging, even if it did drag a little bit at times. That's largely because there is very little narrative, and there's no traditional tension. In theory, we're worried that the police will catch them, but that's not really a pressing concern. It's basically these people living their lives, upended by a burst of ultraviolence in the finale. In that respect, it's not unlike the late 60s youth films, like Easy Rider and Bonnie and Clyde, that both relied on the romantic myth of the open road and the power of progressive youth to combat outmoded society.

My Oscar Nominations - 2005

So, if I was the one choosing the Academy Awards, here's what they would be. Before I begin however, I want to say that Oldboy and 2046 were in last year's awards. If they were around this year, they'd be omnipresent, however, I'm not bringing them back. The time has passed. Also, some of these films weren't even released this year here, so they couldn't be in the real awards. It's just the stuff I saw that was either made in 2005 or released in the States in 2005.

And another side note, I didn't think this was the best year for film. In terms of visual media, by far the best accomplishment was Six Feet Under's last season. If that was eligible, it'd be dominating the acting catergories, and the final run of episodes was more satisfying than any feature I've seen this year.

Anyway, on to my nominations...

Best Actor
Joseph Gordon-Levitt – Mysterious Skin
Terence Howard – Hustle and Flow
Heath Ledger – Brokeback Mountain
Bill Murray – Broken Flowers
Michael Pitt – Last Days


These were all amazing performances because the actors completely inhabited the character. There was no sense of acting, it was like this is who they are. However, I would give the award to Heath Ledger because his character had the biggest emotional arc, and watching him was emotionally devestating.

Best Supporting Actor
Jake Gylenhal – Brokeback Mountain
Ludacris – Crash
Ian McDiarmid – Revenge of the Sith
Nick Nolte – Clean
Keanu Reeves - Thumbsucker

This catergory has a wide variety of actors. Ludacris was the best thing in Crash, really funny, shining above the film's clumsy preaching. McDiarmid went way over the top, leaving teeth marks in the scenery but always remaining true to the character. Reeves finally returned to the stoner character everyone wants to see him as. However, my choice here is Nick Nolte, who's so sympathetic as a grandfather who knows he has no real right to the boy he's raised as a son. He's a calm presence navigating a complex emotional landscape. This performance redeems him for the mug shot.

Best Actress
Maggie Cheung – Clean
Q’Orianka Kilcher – The New World
Ji-Min Kwak – Samaritan Girl
Yeong-ae Lee – Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
Naomi Watts – King Kong

Comparing this bunch of actresses to the actors, it's pretty clear that American film isn't offering many good parts to women, and even though they're accused of misogyny, Korea's extreme directors are offering more challenging parts to women than just being "the girlfriend." However, the choice here is easy, Q'Orianka Kilcher creates the emotional anchor for The New World. Watching her over the course of this film is watching the course of America during its first few years of colonization. She goes through much and through it all we see a truth to the character. It's astonishing that she pulled off this performance, carried the entire film, at 14.

Best Supporting Actress
Maria Bello – A History of Violence
Maggie Gyllenhal – Happy Endings
Yeo-Reum Han – Samaritan Girl
Tilda Swinton - Thumbsucker
Michelle Williams – Brokeback Mountain

This was the toughest of the acting catergories to fill. There's a bunch of good performances here, but the one that stands out is Tilda Swinton. She gave three great, wildly varied performances this year, but Thumbsucker was her best. She wasn't the main character, but she was fully realized and the character could have easily carried an entire film.

Art Direction
Mirrormask
Revenge of the Sith
Sin City
Sympathy for Lady Vengenace
The New World

These were all great looking movies, but I'm going to give the edge to Revenge of the Sith. There's such a variety of environments in the film, I admire the way they simultaneously contributed a lot of new stuff to the Star Wars world, while at the same time tying stuff together with the previous trilogy. Well done.

Cinematography
Domino
Mysterious Skin
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
The New World
3-Iron

This one's easy, The New World was so well shot, both in terms of what was shown and how it was shown. It was a uniquely cinematic story, like nothing that's come before. Not to get nasty, but if you weren't able to appreciate the cinematography in that film, why are you even watching a movie, maybe you should stick to books.

Costume Design
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Mirrormask
Revenge of the Sith
Sin City
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Mixing it up a bit here, I'm going to give the award to Lady Vengeance. It's not the most dramatically inventive work, but in terms of defining character, it's absoultely critical. Her outfit is the character, and that's what good costume design does, sell the world to the audience.

Editing
Clean
Domino
Revenge of the Sith
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
The New World

There were two movies this year that showed me a new way of storytelling through editing, one was The New World, which used its editing to give a hypnotic rhythm to its visuals, however the best editing was in Domino, which was the only film I've seen where the most exciting part of the movie is watching the editing and seeing how far they can push the medium. It pushes the film beyond narrative to the point that it's a near avant garde visual experience.

Foreign Language
Clean
3-Iron
Samaritan Girl
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
The Bow


It's pretty clear here that this was the year for Kim Ki-Duk, dropping three of the five films here. Of these three, the best is 3-Iron, an achingly beautiful story of two people. Kim takes words out of the vocabulary and instead creates a film which uses visuals to maximize the emotional impact of events. It's great work and the final moments of this film are some of the most haunting I've seen.

Makeup
Mirrormask
Revenge of the Sith
The New World

Sith grabs the award, if only for the stunning work on Anakin's scarred body after getting drenched in the volcano. It's disturbing stuff.

Song
“Hard Out Here for a Pimp” – Hustle and Flow
“Whoop that Trick” – Hustle and Flow
“Move Away and Shine” – Thumbsucker
“Down in the Light” – Clean
“Veruca Salt” – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

A catchy bunch of tracks here, it is hard out here for a pimp, but I'm giving the award to Thumbsucker. The Polyphonic Spree are one of my favorite bands, and "Move Away" is one of their best songs. It's also really crucial to the film, providing the emotional conclusion.

Score
Brokeback Mountain
Mirrormask
Revenge of the Sith
The New World
Thumbsucker

These are all fantatsic scores, but I'm giving the award to The New World, a film where the score was absoultely crucial to defining the film. It's not a strictly narrative movie, so the score has to do more than just support, it has to define the rhythm of the film, and it does so admirably. James Horner has done some decent work in the past, but this goes way beyond.

Visual Effects
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
King Kong
Mirrormask
Revenge of the Sith
Sin City

Yoda in Sith was real. I know he's CG, but he feels like a real dude, and that's the best compliment to visual effects, that you could pull of so challenging a character and make it feel seamless and real. So, that earns the award.

Adapted Screenplay
A History of Violence
Brokeback Mountain
Mysterious Skin
Revenge of the Sith
Thumbsucker

Yes, nominating George Lucas for best screenplay is a bit weird, but I'm looking at the overall story construction, not the dialogue there. However, the award here goes to Greg Araki for Mysterious Skin. This was a really well written film, balancing two fully realized characters and a strong process of gradual revelation as it proceeded. Great stuff.

Original Screenplay
Broken Flowers
Clean
Samaritan Girl
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
The New World

I'm giving this one to Chanwook Park for Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Park builds a complex, sympathetic, yet disturbing central character, and there's a bunch of great twists throughout. This is a better written film than Oldboy, even though the movie on a whole doesn't quite match.

Director
Olivier Assays – Clean
George Lucas – Revenge of the Sith
Kim Ki-Duk – 3-Iron
Chanwook Park – Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
Terence Malick – The New World

These were all films that worked because of very strong direction, unique films that used the medium in incredible ways, however, the best direction was Terence Malick's for The New World. In the film, Malick builds a world that's completely believable as the past, yet has an essential humanity that makes it feel contemporary. It's the rare period piece where you get the sense of real people living these events, and that's largely due to the wonderful performances from everyone in the cast. And beyond that, just visually, the film is astonishing. It's like nothing else I've ever seen.

Picture
Revenge of the Sith
3-Iron
The New World
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
Clean

There was one film this year that took me on an incredible emotional journey and at the end left me feeling completely satisfied, even after waiting for the film for virtually my entire life, and that's Revenge of the Sith. It's not perfect, but it achieves so much, and is full of rich thematic development on a scale rarely seen in movies. It's incredible visuals used to create an emotional effect in a way that only film can do, and that's why it's my best picture of the year.

And just to tally everything up, here's the winners:

The New World - 4
Revenge of the Sith - 4
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance - 2
Thumbsucker - 2
3-Iron - 1
Clean - 1
Domino - 1
Brokeback Mountain - 1
Mysterious Skin - 1

Best of 2005: Film

The time has come for my top ten list for 2005. A few days ago, I would have said this was a very weak year for film, however, in the last two days, I've seen two absolutely phenomenal movies that pretty much redeem the year. It's annoying that the release structure means that all almost all the quality films are released at the end of the year, meaning that I'm not able to get to all of them, while for most of the year you're struggling to find a decent film. However, at least they're out there and being in New York right now, I'm able to see the stuff I want.

Another note on this list, back when I was young, I was would always read the critics' top ten lists and be annoyed that they never had any movies I'd actually heard of or seen. Well, time has past and now I've got a list where only two of the films actually made it to theaters outside NY or L.A. and three of the films weren't even released theatrically here this year.

And one final note before we begin. I had 2046 and Oldboy on last year's list, they've been turning up on a lot of critics' list this year, and they would have been two and three respectively on this year's list. However, I'm not going to put films on the list two years in a row, they were films I saw last year, so they're on that list.

Anyway, onto the list...

10. Last Days - Van Sant followed the brilliant Elephant with a film in the same style, but a bit more challenging. Elephant used the archetypal high school types as a shortcut to easily make us understand what was going. Last Days is tougher because it is largely reliant on pre-existing knowledge of Kurt Cobain for its meaning. If you didn't know anything about Kurt, it would be a truly baffling film, but knowing about the man's life, it's a great antidote to the traditional biopic, exploring the person himself rather than the events that occurred to him. I love how the film builds incredible drama out of very small moments, even just eating macaroni and cheese helps to build the character, and while I could see how one could consider it a pointless, boring exercise, give it a chance and you'll learn a lot more about this guy than you could in a film saturated with plot. There may have been films I enjoyed more than this, but it's got the spot on the list because it's something that uses the medium in a very unique way.

My Review



9. Mirrormask - Like Last Days, this is a film with some issues, the second act drags and some of the CG is exhausting, but there are moments in the film that are so exciting and unique that it earns its place here. This film takes the 80s fantasy template, but adds in a really strong emotional undercurrent, with a lot of real world relevance. Watching the Dark Helen in the real world is wonderful on a solely visual level, but is also full of thematic complexities and the process of growing up. It's a film where the good parts are so good that they overwhelm the weaknesses.

My Review




8. Mysterious Skin - This film touches on some very dark and gritty subject matter, and is shot so that the dark stuff is certainly disturbing, but within the darkness there are moments of incredible beauty, both in terms of narrative and just visually. I'm thinking the opening and ending in particular, the image of the falling cereal sending sugar all around is one of the most striking openings I've ever seen. It's one of the rare American films that deals with serious subject matter in a contemporary setting. Normally, you only see big issues in historical films, this actually reminds me a lot of the tone of the films of Kim Ki-Duk...

My Review



7. Samaritan Girl - This is the first of two Kim Ki-Duk films on the list, and the second to deal with the issue of teenage prostitution. While it's not really a huge issue here, it's apparently a very big concern in Korea. This film, like most of Kim's work, is beautifully shot, with some great music choices. The reason this film is higher than Mysterious Skin is because the emotions are a bit more relatable. Also, despite being a relatively small scale film, it takes you on a huge journey, with a bunch of really strong plot twists. It's a film that would seem designed to shock with its subject matter, but instead turns out to shock because of how much you care about the characters.

My Review



6. Domino - This is certainly one of the more controversial selections on here, a Hollywood action film amongst a bunch of indie stuff, however, watching this movie, it's clear that it's anything but conventional. Tony Scott basically destroys the action genre, reducing it to isolated images of violence edited together at hyper-speed. It's a film where the filmmaking is the real highlight, you don't really care about the characters, it's the images, music and how they're put together that makes this fun to watch. The film somehow manages to take the energy that a great trailer has, but extend it to feature length, always building on what came before, leading up to a massive finale that pushes the violence and crazy filmmaking to its limit. Give this one a look, it's the craziest film to come out of the Hollywood machine in years.

My Review



5. Clean - Maggie Cheung is arguably the world's greatest actress, and with this role she moves away from her traditional regal roles into a gritter, more realistic film. Watching the film is watching her journey and it's riveting. I really wanted her to succeed in getting her life together, and as things did progress, the results were never sappy, but still very emotional. It's a really well made film, with some strong use of music, particularly Maggie's own singing. Like a lot of the films on here, it's a simple story that uses character rather than narrative as the driving force, and as a result, is a very strong emotional experience.

My Review



4. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance - I had a lot of trouble placing this and the number 3 film. I've seen them both so recently that it's tough to get perspective. However, at 4, this is still a high ranking, and the film is a worthy successor to Oldboy. What put it so high is the joy I had watching it, each shot in the film was beautifully composed, there are very few people who can shoot a film like Park. By the end of the film, I was emotionally drained, but still exhilirated that such a powerful film exists.

My Review



3. The New World - As I mentioned before, in the past two days, I've seen two of the top films on this list. I'm going to do a full writeup of The New World later, but to sum it up, this movie takes you to another world. It not only recreates the physical space of early America, it puts you in the mental space too. The film is unbelievably beautiful, and the use of voiceover combined with great music creates a really unique space. Particularly in the early part of the film, where Smith is in the Indian camp, the images contain so much power. My primary gauge in making this list is my emotional reaction to the film, and watching this, particularly O'Orianka Kilcher's lead performance, was to be completely caught up in the feeling of the film. She gives one of the best lead performances I've seen in years, the joy in her face is just infectious. It's Malick's best.



2. 3-Iron - This was Kim Ki-Duk's year. 3-Iron is a modern day fairy tale about the power of love to transform the lives of two broken people. However, Kim's stark style keeps it from being sappy, and even though the occasional bursts of violence are disquieting, it's ultimately the feeling of peace and serenity that sticks with you. There's one moment that makes the movie for me, and it's pictured below. Everything you need to know about the movie is in that one image, that one moment. The whole movie has a feeling about it, and it's something I love to feel.

My Review



1. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith - Reaching the end, another potentially controversial choice. The thing about this film is that it has a lot of problems, I wouldn't want to insult phones by saying that Natalie Portman was phoning it in, but the film's faults are eclipsed by one of the most ambitious stories in film history. I've never seen an entire universe falling apart, and the entire film has an apocalyptic feeling. Rather than go on and on about what worked, I'm just going to say that for the entire prequel trilogy, the thing I wanted to see was Jedi getting killed, and Darth Vader, and I don't think I was alone in this. And yet, the montage of the jedi getting killed was tragic, and when the Vader mask was finally put on, it was a devestating moment. This wasn't about finally getting to see the guy we'd all been waiting for, it was the death of someone who'd been so thoroughly broken and used by everyone around him. I liked the fact that Lucas didn't make it black and white, the Jedi were corrupt and clueless, the destruction was needed to pave the way for a new order in the next trilogy. This was my most anticipated film of all time, one that I'd been looking forward to for over fifteen years, and at the end of it, I was completely satisfied. Living up to that expectation alone makes it the best film of 2005.

My Review



So, following this, I'm going to post my star ranking of all the films I've seen this year, and my Academy Award nominations, and that will close out the year in film. I cracked on the stuff coming out this year quite a bit, it certainly wasn't at the level of last year, where there were five or six all time masterpieces, but things came back at the end, and we're left with enough really good movies to make things memorable.

1. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas)
2. 3-Iron (Kim Ki-Duk)
3. The New World (Terence Malick)
4. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Chanwook Park)
5. Clean (Olivier Assayas)
6. Domino (Tony Scott)
7. Samaritan Girl (Kim Ki-Duk)
8. Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki)
9. Mirrormask (Dave McKean)
10. Last Days (Gus Van Sant)

Mysterious Skin

Mysterious Skin was one of the most critically acclaimed films of the summer, and now that it's out on DVD, I've finally gotten around to seeing it. The film follows the lives of two teenagers who were molested by their little league coach ten years prior and are each struggling to deal with the ramifications of what they went through. The film's notable for its structure, which follows two completely different plot line until the very end of the film, when our two main characters finally meet and sort through their issues.

The opening sequence of the film, which contrasts the two boys' abuse experiences is really well done, with a nice use of voiceover to convey narrative information. I love the opening shot with Apple Jacks falling down onto young Neil's head, leaving trails of sugar in their wake as they bounce off his hair. Another really striking image is the UFO over Brian's house, an image that remains unexplained in the rest of the film. Either his whole family had a mass hallucination, or there really was a UFO there. But that UFO serves as a crucial character motivator later in the film, regardless of its reality. The scenes with Neil and the coach were getting close to painfully awkward. You know something bad is going to happen, and it's just a matter of waiting for things to go wrong with the relationship.

The twist that the film puts on the abuse scenario is the fact that Neil actually likes the coach and he never considers himself a victim. Even though his experience clearly caused massive psychological trauma and led to his destructive behavior patterns, Neil finds that he never was able to find someone who would make him feel the way that the coach did, though he is not reticent in seeking out that love.

In the present, the film splits into two parallel narrative tracks, following Neil and Brian seperately. The two stories have quite disparate tones, but I think they work well together, and in light of the finale, it's clear that the film needs both stories to have its full impact. Neil's story is the more serious and developed, following his journeys as a male prostitute. His best friend is Wendy, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, and I'm really glad to see that she's choosing challenging roles in her post-Buffy days. Of all the actors from the show, she's done the most quality work, between this and her all too brief turn on Six Feet Under. She's good here, but is firmly in a supporting role, used to show us more of Neil and help us understand him. I really like their discussion in front of the movie screen, the idea that they would want to watch a movie of their lives that ends with them standing in front of the screen is definitely something I could see myself saying.

Concurrently we follow a slightly goofier plot with Brian and his investigations into UFO culture. Now, we already know that he was not abducted by a UFO, that it's actually the coach, which changes the way that we view these scenes. Brian's arc is his struggle to finally face what happened to him, to clear away the mental blocks that he has built up around the experience. It was good to see Mary Lynn Raskjub, so brilliant on 24, getting some work. She's good here as someone who's quite delusional. If we are to use logic, it would imply that she too was abused, and has masked it behind this story about aliens, but at the same time, it's possible she is telling the truth and Brian sees her zeal as a way to avoid confronting his own issues. The scene where Avalyn comes on to him and he awkwardly rejects her is tough to watch because it's the first time we really witness the extent of the emotional trauma he has suffered.

About halfway through the film Neil heads off to New York and Brian meets up with Eric, Neil's friend. The scenes with Brian and Eric are some of the most fun in the film, as we see Eric gradually move Brian towards the point where he can resolve the issues he has surrounding the abuse experience. We get the sense that Eric is his first real friend, and through their relationship, he gains the courage to stand up to his father and more easily express his feelings. Even though the real torrent of emotion comes at the end of the film, it is his experiences with Eric that allow Brian to finally let go at the end.

In New York we see the at first glamourous life of Neil as a prostitue. The scene where he takes on a john with AIDS is disturbing and has you fearful for the character, who is so self destructive. He has a sheen of invulnerability and can just coast along without concern for the trouble he leaves in his wake and seeing the AIDS victim is like seeing his own future if he's not careful. This invulnerability is completely destroyed in the harrowing confrontation with the man from Brighton Beach who rapes and beat Neil, leaving him bloody and broken. It's a really disturbing scene, the first time that Neil completely loses control of a situation.

The ending of the film is great, as Neil finally acknowledges the damages his actions have done, particularly to Brian. Both Neil and the coach were responsible for what happened to Brian, and that's no an easy thing for Neil to admit. I love the camera move up at the end of the film leaving the two characters crying on the couch, with their pasts finally revealed, the harsh reality torn from the hazy construct of memory. The stories have been destroyed and with only the reality left, they have no choice but to cry, alone in a house that has moved on. Throw in some Sigur Ros and you've got a great ending for a film.

One of the film's greatest successes is its visual style. The camera captures some gorgeous images and the stylization in the memories is striking. Even though the abuse sequences are difficult to watch, they are filmed in a way that works to convey the impact of what is happening, and the restrictions required by the use of such young actors actually ends up helping to create a more stylish depiction of events. I really liked the look of the New York sequences, particularly the stylish bar where Neil 'works,' and also the early 90s goth punk stylings of Wendy and Eric. The music is great as well, with wonderful looping, ethereal guitars adding to the film's beautiful, dreamlike feel, with the Sigur Ros at the end a notable highlight. It's a dark film, but the music manages to make everything palatable, not diminishing the intensity of the impact, but rather placing the viewer in a state where it's acceptable.

Even though it's needed for the story, I think the film does suffer a bit from the divided structure. It's an episodic film and only the two main characters get significant development, the others are all there to serve the needs of the plot. Obviously it's difficult to create a lot of fully fleshed out characters in a 100 minute film, and these aren't grievous offenders on the exposition front, but I'd still have liked to get a bit more insight into what drove Wendy or Eric. Though I guess it's proper that we only see them in relation to Neil or Brian.

The other thing preventing me from fully embracing the film is that the subject matter is difficult. This is a film you respect more than really love, though perhaps like Irreversible, the impact of the violence will lessen on future viewings and it will be easier to watch and enjoy. On the first viewing it's sometimes difficult for me to survey the full impact of a film because I'm anxious about how the narrative will resolve itself, and that was the case here. There were a lot of scenes where the awkwardness made things a bit difficult to watch.

So, on the second viewing I'll make the final decree, but the first viewing definitely proves that this is a top notch film. It uses music and visuals to create a unique mood and supports them with a compelling narrative. A film can make up for a lot of sins if it leaves you with a great ending and that was certainly the case here, the final image was striking and the last scene a great catharsis. This is definitely one of the best films I've seen this year.