Commentary: The Top Films of 2009

Here are the ten movies from 2009 that I liked the best:

#10: Summer Hours
This unpretentious, quiet drama from France depicts the tribulations of a family when they must settle the estate of their recently deceased patriarch.

#9: Bright Star
Jane Campion’s film about the Romantic poet John Keats and his almost-lover embodies the oft-quoted line from Keats’ verse: “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty.”

#8: World’s Greatest Dad
This may be the strangest film of 2009, but it’s also one of my favorites. This underrated gem starring Robin Williams as a high school English teacher trying to cover up the less-than-flattering conditions of his son’s suicide is a pitch dark satire about our culture’s obsession with death and celebrity.

#7: Up
Pixar did it again! The first 20 minutes alone make this film worth watching again and again. I will openly admit to having cried while watching this film.

#6: An Education
Actress Carey Mulligan is an absolute revelation as a British teenager torn between the jazz-soaked, swinging London world offered by a suave older man and the academic banalities of Oxford.

#5: Brothers
The most surprising film of the year. By some miracle, veteran director Jim Sheridan gets brilliant performances out of Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllanhaal, and Tobey Maguire. A true “veteran’s picture” in the tradition of The Best Years of our Lives and Coming Home.

#4: Up in the Air
A screwball comedy for our current age. George Clooney proves once again that he is worthy of the much-repeated title of “Cary Grant of our times.” This film strikes the perfect balance between witty dialogue and the dark realities of our troubled economic times.

#3: Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino wears his love for movies on his sleeve. His geeky cinematic worldview would become annoying if he didn’t execute this film so dang well. At least three scenes in this film are among the best of the past ten years. They will be remembered and studied closely for generations to come.

#2: The Hurt Locker
The most patriotic film I have recently seen, because it tells the story of our men and women in uniform with beauty, simplicity, and truth. This film makes the soldiers’ story come alive by focusing on three men in uniform and the daily confrontation with death they face in an IED squad.

#1: A Serious Man
The Coen Brothers have emerged as the filmmakers of the decade. They repeat the artistic success of No Country for Old Men with this modern-day retelling of the story of Job. Everything falls apart for a suburban physics professor, played with incredible acuity by the stage actor Michael Stuhlberg. Hopefully he becomes a household name someday soon.

Movie Review: Avatar (2009, Directed by James Cameron)

I can’t remember the last time I was more conflicted about a film than I am about James Cameron’s multi-mutli-multi-million-dollar spectacle Avatar. I cannot deny the visceral impact of Cameron’s much-labored-over visuals. I’m not sure if 3-D technology has ever been used more effectively than it is in the film’s first hour. I completely bought into the world of the planet Pandora, where the natives are blue and the plantlife is luscious beyond belief. I felt that I was not merely observing this world, but rather becoming an active participant in it. I have never felt this visceral involvement to the same extent in a previous film.

Unfortunately, Cameron’s incredible visual achievements are in the service of a very mediocre film. While the basic story about a paraplegic marine taken on a Pandorac mission involving a technologically-unbelievable, yet nevertheless impressive avatar interested me early in the movie, the story’s payoff was weak at best; nonexistent might be a more accurate description. The script and acting (with the notable exception of the luminous Zoe Saldana) were lazy, one-dimensional, and bland. There isn’t a single line of dialogue in the film that doesn’t simply serve a functional purpose in the plot. I cared little about the film’s characters in the second half because they are nothing more than cartoons. I would have followed the protagonists of Pixar’s Up, WALL-E, or Ratatouille to the ends of the earth. In contrast, I was indifferent to the tribulations of Avatar’s earthlings and blue people alike. I believe my apathy was a direct result of Cameron’s laziness in screenwriting and character development. As a result, the last forty minutes of the picture were completely wasted on me. I stopped caring what happened to the characters at about the two hour mark.

I could go on and on for pages about the film’s inconsistent and potentially troubling thematic concerns. Let’s just say that Avatar attempts to be a political allegory, and a completely non-subtle one at that. When I tell people that I believe No Country for Old Men to be an allegory about the war on terror, I often get blank stares. It is precisely the Coen Brothers’ subtlety in treating political issues of today that makes it a great achievement in filmmaking. On the other hand, Avatar chooses to conduct its political analysis with a sledgehammer. I have heard both liberals and conservatives attack Avatar on ideological grounds. On one hand, it is a clear indictment of U.S. foreign policy. On the other hand, Cameron undercuts whatever peace-promoting message he might have in mind by filling the film’s entire second half with messy, destructive battle sequences worthy of the latest Michael Bay offering. If Cameron really believes we should “give peace a chance,” why does he fill the entire second half with death and destruction on a grand scale?

The fact that critics from such diverse backgrounds have attacked Cameron’s political themes does not prove the story a nuanced and ambiguous exploration of international concerns. Rather, the criticisms serve to highlight the sloppiness of Cameron’s script. It is clear to anyone who is familiar with Cameron’s life work which direction he leans politically and the values he is hoping to promote in Avatar. His failure in effectively demonstrating those ideals shows how amateurish his writing and vision for Avatar really are.

You may ask whether or not Cameron’s failings on an ideological and literary level diminish the visceral reaction I had to the visuals in the film’s first half. The answer is a resounding “yes.” While I think Avatar will indeed be studied in the future by cinematic technicians to determine how Cameron managed to compellingly create such a fascinating world, I don’t imagine those who care about story and a complete artistic achievement having much use for it. My hope is that a truly visionary director will take Cameron’s visual innovations and figure out how to turn them into a movie worth watching. I’m talking to you Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, and/or Martin Scorsese!

Movie Review: Brothers (2009, Directed by Jim Sheridan)

What a pleasant surprise was Jim Sheridan’s Brothers. The director who brought us the minor immigration masterpiece In America a few years ago now gives us a tale worthy of the great films of the past like The Best Years of our Lives that document the woes of veterans making the difficult transition to civilian life. Brothers joins The Hurt Locker as one of the few successful military-oriented films made in the shadow of 9/11 and the subsequent events.

Brothers tells the simple tale of Captain Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire), thought to be dead in Afghanistan. When it is found that Cahill is in fact not dead, but has been captured by the Taliban, the young soldier must contend with the changes that have occurred on the civilian front. Maguire’s alcoholic brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) has formed a complicated bond with Maguire’s wife (Natalie Portman). Maguire must contend with not only the chilling memory of the moral compromises he had to make to escape the Taliban, but also the complex family dynamics that he finds upon his return to the homeland.

I cannot lay enough superlatives on the bold performances of Maguire, Gyllenhaal, and Portman. None of these three actors have proved themselves particularly versatile or subtle in the past. There is nothing in their filmographies to prepare me for the astonishing emotional heights they traverse in Sheridan’s movie. Even more impressive than the intense melodrama seen in the film’s trailer are the moments of subtle emotional truth. In fact, Brothers is overall a rather quiet film. We, the audience, witness quiet times in which characters express so much to one another with glances and knowing nods.

Brothers, much like The Hurt Locker, is powerful because it focuses not on the political complexities of battle, but rather the emotional and psychological effects war has on its participants. We see how, indeed, war can and does turn brother against brother.

Commentary: The Top 10 Films of the Decade

My criterion for selecting the top 10 films of the decade is very simple. These are the ten films from the past ten years that I cannot stand to live without. These aren’t necessarily the greatest films. They aren’t the most critically acclaimed. They definitely aren’t the most financially successful. They’re quite simply my favorite movies. So, in descending order …

#10: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
Julian Schnabel’s story of the paralyzed French editor of Elle magazine is one of the most visually engaging and humanistic films of the past decade. We spend most of the movie in the head of Bauby, our paralyzed protagonist. Schnabel conveys his sense of isolation and entrapment through any number of innovative film techniques. Ultimately, as impressive as this film is on a technical level, it’s the engagement with the realities of death that makes it so watchable.

#9: A Serious Man (2009)
The only film from 2009 that made it on my list. The Coen Brothers have struck gold once again with this comically heartbreaking story of a Minneapolis suburban Jewish physics professor from the late 1960s. The Coens convincingly combined dark comedy, witty dialogue, and genuine pathos into a ridiculously engaging (post)modern retelling of the story of Job. I hope Michael Stuhlbarg, a relatively unknown stage actor, will become a household name sometime in the near future. His work as the protagonist is incredible.

#8: High Fidelity (2000)
Every time I watch this film, it’s as if the filmmakers have a window into my soul. John Cusack owns a record shop in Chicago’s Wicker Park, the hipster capitol of the Midwest. He and his fellow music geeks stand around all day discussing the artistic merits of Gordon Lightfoot and Stevie Wonder and creating such esoteric lists as “Top 5 Songs to Play on a Depressing Monday Morning.” In addition, Cusack takes us through the hazards of love, highlighting his top 5 most painful breakups. Jack Black, it should be given, gives one of the great comic musical performances of all time during the film’s inspired denouncement.

#7: Almost Famous (2000)
Another film that has a window to my soul. Cameron Crowe creates one of the best films about music of all time. A young teenager has the opportunity to work as a music journalist for Rolling Stone magazine, following the tour of a rock group based loosely on the Eagles, the Allman Brothers, and several other vintage bands. Kate Hudson plays one of the band’s principle groupies. Who knew she could actually act? Crowe clearly understands the importance that music has for individuals and conveys that passion through the inspired dialogue and killer soundtrack. Having seen this film, I could never listen to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” without crying just a bit.

#6: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Screenwriter/director Charlie Kauffman is the cinematic artist of the decade. He has created three fascinating portraits of the human brain’s inner workings. It was all I could do not to include all three films on this list. Nevertheless, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, directed by Michel Gondry and staring Jim Carey and Kate Winslet, is the most effective of the three, more confident than either Adaptation or Synecdoche, New York. In the great tradition of romantic comedies, Eternal Sunshine asks the question of what it really means to love someone. Can we ever truly forget those we love, or does their memory remain forever?

#5: Once (2007)
Yes, yet another film about music on my list! Obviously, you can tell where my passions lie. Musicians Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova star in the love story of the decade. Once is the antithesis of all the big budget junk Hollywood shoves in our faces every year. The story of two Irish street musicians who find contentment in one another’s art is small, quiet, and intimate. The film’s soundtrack has carried me emotionally through many a difficult time. If I ever had the opportunity to make a film, Once is the movie I would most want to emulate.

#4: There will be Blood (2007)
Paul Thomas Anderson succeeded in making the greatest American epic since Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Anderson tells the story of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), an oilman in early 20th century America. He revolutionizes the oil business, but loses his mind in the process. There will be Blood is the kind of messy, larger-than-life film that would make D.W. Griffith proud. Indeed, Anderson explores the connections between capitalism, oil, and religion in a way that is prescient, yet never heavy-handed. The hypermodernistic score by Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood helps set the perfect menacing atmosphere for this tale of madness, big business, and the American psyche.

#3: Talk to Her (2004)
Every once in a while, I have an emotional connection to a film so deep that I can’t quite put it in words. Pedro Almodovar’s Talk to Her represents such a case. The plot is pure soap opera and the film contains so many moments of melodrama that I can’t count them all. But, somehow this intimate parable about the power of art and beauty to transform the human soul gets me every time. This isn’t a film I recommend for everyone, since it covers some dark and twisted territory. But, if you’re willing to take this weird journey with Almodovar, you will be rewarded for your efforts.

#2: Kill Bill (2003-2004)
This is the only time I really “cheat” on the list. Yes, Quentin Tarantino’s martial arts epic was divided into Volume One and Volume Two. While each volume has its own style and story arch, I feel the films are better considered together, since that’s how Tarantino originally conceived of them. Tarantino has said that with Volume One he tried to make the greatest action movie ever made. I’m not sure that I can really argue with him. He uses every cinematic resource available to him to deliver the goods in the Tea Leaf Room massacre scene, one of the most intense action scenes in the history of cinema. Volume Two is more emotional, taking inspiration from the best of Sergio Leone westerns. Tarantino is one of the true artists of the decade, making not only the audacious masterwork that is Kill Bill, but also the challenging and utterly beautiful Inglourious Basterds.

#1: No Country for Old Men (2007)
Any choice for the greatest film of the decade is going to seem absurd by default. How can one summarize all of the filmmaking that took place in a ten-year period and narrow it down to ONE film? This task is impossible, so the choice of the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men represents my own tastes and sensibilities, not necessarily artistic quality. At its root, the Coen Brothers’ film is simply an incredible thriller. Every single frame contributes to the overall experience of watching this simple story unfold. The Coens manage to keep the tension up without the use of music or heavy-handed visual effects. Javier Bardem plays the villainous role of the decade. I also think that No Country speaks to something about the social and political issues we have faced in the past decade. Not everyone agrees we me, and that’s okay. Whether or not you buy No Country’s philosophical and political explorations, surely we can all agree that it’s one of the most well-made thrillers in recent memory. Then there’s the ending …

Other films from the decade I really, really liked (in more particular order):

Lost in Translation, United 93, The Hurt Locker, Before Sunset, Zodiac, Synecdoche New York, Waking Life, Let the Right One In, Inglourious Basterds, Up in the Air, Brothers, The Lives of Others, The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada, Pan’s Labyrinth, Munich, Gosford Park, Mystic River, Cache, Ghost World, A History of Violence, Punch-Drunk Love, Grizzly Man, Letters from Iwo Jima, Children of Men, Happy-Go-Lucky, Old Joy, School of Rock, Rachel Getting Married, etc., etc., etc., ...

Movie Review: Me and Orson Welles (2009, Directed by Richard Linklater)

Oh, how glorious to be young, in love, and living in New York in 1937! Jazz was pouring through the streets. Poetry was flowing from the pens of young intellectuals in corner cafes. A young Orson Welles was staging revolutionary Shakespearean adaptations at the Mercury Theatre and ticking off most everyone he worked with in the process.

The strengths of Richard Linklater’s new film Me and Orson Welles, an account of a young teenager’s (Zach Effron) experience playing in a progressive Mercury Theatre production of Julius Caesar directed by the great Welles himself (Christian McCay), are the meticulously-staged recreations of Welles’ miraculously dramatic stage production. The audience, even looking through the eyes of 2009, cannot help but be blown away by the audacity and passion of Welles’ theatrical vision. No wonder critics and audiences alike were buzzing madly about Julius Caesar, saying that Shakespearean theatre would never be the same again.

As for the rest of the movie … not so much. Effron is passable as Welles’ young actor, but his relationships with two different women feel contrived and overly sentimentalized. The trajectory of Effron’s story doesn’t really make sense and in the end we’re left to wonder what the point of the whole thing was, other than to see moments of Welles’ theatrical genius.

I suppose McCay may be up for an Oscar for his portrayal of the young, yet already arrogant and voracious Welles. He does a credible job depicting the big guy, but doesn’t bring any new insight into the great man. As I said, though, it’s enough to simply sit back and enjoy the scenes from Welles’ Caesar. It’s the closest any of us will probably ever come to being there.

Movie Review: The Princess and the Frog (2009, Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker)

I am not a part of the target audience for the new Disney animated (not computer-generated) film The Princess and the Frog. I was mildly amused with the film’s New Orleans milieu early on. However, the stereotypes about jazz, gumbo, and voodoo became tiresome very quickly. None of the songs were memorable to me. I am happy that the film features an African-American protagonist for the first time in … well … ever, and I like the play with gender roles and expectations that seems to be occurring on some level. I hope that the cultural differences between The Princess and the Frog and princess stories from the past will be beneficial in some way for the film’s target demographic. As for me, I’ll take the bold maturity and visual splendor of the best Pixar films like Up, WALL-E, and Ratatouille any day over this bunch of magic kingdom boredom.

Movie Review: The Road (2009, Directed by John Hillcoat)

Adapting the literary works of Cormac McCarthy is an arguably impossible task. The Coen Brothers’ 2007 masterwork No Country for Old Men worked primarily because the McCarthy source material is one of the author’s weakest works. The Coens were able to take McCarthy’s uncharacteristically conventional material and inject it with enhanced character development and crisp, darkly amusing dialogue.

Unfortunately, director John Hillcoat’s adaptation of McCarthy’s bestselling The Road is not as successful. The problem lies not with its visuals. Hillcoat and company effectively convey the novel’s post-apocalyptic setting through a monochrome cinematographic strategy and a set which invokes a tour through Dante’s Inferno. Nor are the lead performances problematic. Viggo Mortensen is nuanced and emotionally intelligent as always. Kodi Smit-McPhee, in the role of the boy, brings the right combination of bravery and pathos. The real problems with The Road are the script and the music.

McCarthy’s brooding, yet ultimately hopeful novel, full of the complexity and ambiguities of human survival, is transformed into a film worthy of Oscar contention. I don’t mean this as a compliment. The actors do their best with the material they are given. However, the script asks them to come right out and say what McCarthy’s source material subtly implies. As if this lack of subtlety in the screenplay weren’t enough to edge The Road towards conventional Hollywoodization, Nick Cave’s melodramatic score serves to underline every emotional moment with a musical punch in the face. The apocalyptic material is dark enough the way it is. We don’t need to be continually reminded with the dialogue and the music what a dire situation the characters find themselves in.

Ultimately, The Road commits the artistic sin that annoys me more than any other. It insults the audience member’s intelligence. We can speculate on the author’s thematic concerns without having to be told what to think directly in a voiceover. We can soak in the work’s emotional complexity without being subjected to Cave’s pulsating score.

Despite the film’s major shortcomings, it is still successful in visually replicating the world McCarthy describes. I enjoyed the film very much on this level. I just wish the filmmakers weren’t intent on winning an Academy Award. Hillcoat’s movie made me want to read the novel once again.