90    Gosford Park (2001)

Dir. Robert Altman

Only Robert Altman, the great American maverick, could turn an English country house mystery into an ambitious, naturalistic study of the class system with a cast of sixteen leading actors. Rich with period detail and full of Altman’s trademark roving camera and overlapping dialogue, Gosford Park sits in the upper echelons of this director’s work, alongside Nashville and Short Cuts. By the end, the murder mystery element seems secondary to the social commentary and impressive characterisations. All the performances delight, particularly Alan Bates in one of his last roles as the lofty head butler hiding a shameful secret.  Also highly recommended is A Prairie Home Companion, Altman’s final film released just before his death in 2006.

89    Spellbound (2002)

Dir. Jeffrey Blitz

A documentary about participants in the National Spelling Bee may sound like a quirky novelty for a debut feature, but Jeffrey Blitz turns the event into a charmingly insightful study of a diverse society. The film focuses on eight very different families, covering children as varied as Angela from a Mexican family in rural Texas, Emily from a wealthy horse-riding Connecticut family, and April from a low-income Pennsylvanian family looking to better themselves. Through these families, the contest becomes something of a metaphor for the American dream, where socioeconomic status won’t stop high achievers reaching the top – especially if they can spell Iogorrhea correctly. D-E-L-I-G-H-T-F-U-L. Delightful.

88    House Of Flying Daggers (2004)

Dir. Zhang Yimou

Previously best known for his lavish acclaimed dramas Raise The Red Lantern (1991) and The Story of Qui Ju (1992), Zhang Yimou marked the first part of the decade by making two hugely popular wuxia films – Hero (2002) and House Of Flying Daggers – the latter being the best martial arts film of the last ten years. As romantic as it is dramatic, the action sequences are simply breathtaking and, typical of Yimou, the whole film looks incredibly sumptuous, especially the remarkable bamboo forest sequence bathed in vibrant green. The final epic confrontation stretches from the rich reds and yellows of autumn to the dazzling white of a wintry snow blizzard. Stunning.

87    Capote (2005)

Dir. Bennett Miller

Every now and then an actor gets a role so perfect they could have been born to play it, such is the case with Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal of Truman Capote, which rightly won him the Best Actor Oscar. Subtle and underplayed, the film focuses on Capote’s interviews with two suspected murderers during the writing of his acclaimed non-fiction crime novel In Cold Blood. As Capote develops an emotional attachment to one of the prisoners, the conflicting role of the writer is brought into question – that of someone molding a creative document whilst confronting moral implications and breaches of trust. A remarkably assured first feature from Bennett Miller.

86    24 Hour Party People (2002)

Dir. Michael Winterbottom

The explosive music scene of Manchester from the late 1970’s to the early 1990’s is brilliantly captured in all it’s anarchy by the great hope of British filmmaking, Michael Winterbottom. Ostensibly seen through the eyes and anecdotes of the great Factory Records head Tony Wilson (here portrayed by Steve Coogan, lending a suitable Alan Partridge-esque culture-clashing to the role), 24 Hour Party People is a heady concoction of real events, rumours, urban legends and a heavy dose of artistic licence. Not just a film for those who love the music, this is a fictional document of a wild and creative era which reveals far more about the times than any regular documentary could.

85    Man On Wire (2008)

Dir. James Marsh

A documentary framed as a heist movie, Man On Wire recounts the incredible feat of high wire artist Phillipe Petit, who shocked onlookers by walking on a wire between New York’s twin towers in 1974. Combining jaw-dropping archive footage and photographs with present-day interviews and dramatic reenactments, James Marsh succeeds in presenting a non-fiction story as exciting as any fictional thriller – one which would seem unbelievable were the events not originally captured on film.

84    Dogville (2003)

Dir. Lars Von Trier

Lars Von Trier returns to the themes of Breaking The Waves and Dancer In The Dark – that of the hardships of women abused by society but who ultimately discover a higher level of well-being – but he finds another unique method of presenting these themes in Dogville. The action takes place on a minimalist studio stage, with white lines on the floor representing walls and the barest of furniture and props. The story concerns Grace (Nicole Kidman), a woman on the run from gangsters, who finds refuge in the town of Dogville, but has to endure harsh physical labour in return for her safety. The experimental staging is highly successful, stripping the story of all distracting artifice and focusing attention on the dramatic parable. The biblical allusions are heightened by the story being split into nine titled chapters and the excellent narration from John Hurt adds serious gravitas to proceedings. Highly recommended.

83    Tideland (2005)

Dir. Terry Gilliam

“Hello I’m Terry Gilliam and I’ve a confession to make – many of you are not going to like this film.” In his introduction to Tideland, the director pleas for understanding from the viewer, explaining that the naivety and innocence of a child’s mind could be seen as shocking and unnerving. Jeff Bridges collaborates for the first time since The Fisher King (1992) as the has-been rock ‘n’ roll father of Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland), a girl with a darkly vivid imagination. This is purest, untapped Gilliam, free of studio interference and compromise, but instead dangerously unrestricted in letting his brain run riot. The result if often very dark, very funny and very Terry. A polarizing film for sure, but an essential one for all those willing to fully embrace the skewed mind of Gilliam.

82    Monsters, Inc. (2001)

Dir. Pete Docter & David Silverman

Only from being followed by the likes of Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Wall-E and Up, could a film as wonderful as Monsters, Inc. end up as a neglected picture, but such was the creative gold rush of the Pixar studio this decade. Much was made of Sulley’s brilliantly tangible blue fur but Pixar, and indeed Disney, know better than to hang a film on technical advances alone. The story is fast, funny and endlessly inventive and the vocal work of John Goodman and Billy Crystal is just perfect, as is the music of  Randy Newman. Incredibly, it was beaten to the Best Animated Film Oscar by the totally charmless and unfunny Shrek, which dates like a dodgy pair of flared trousers with each passing year.    

81    Capturing The Friedmans (2003)

Dir. Andrew Jarecki

Whilst Spellbound presented a generally upbeat take on the American way of life, Capturing The Friedmans revealed an altogether darker and stranger truth at the heart of the American family. Initially starting the project as a fairly innocuous documentary about children’s party entertainers, filming took a dramatic twist when director Andrew Jarecki discovered that both the brother and father of one of his participants, New York clown David Friedman, had been convicted of child abuse. What begins to unfold is a story where things are far from clear-cut, with Rashomon-style contradictions of truth, leading viewers to question almost every turn of events. Strangely compelling.

The idea that a cultural movement begins or ends with the flip of a calendar is, of course, fallacious. ”60s Music” is an identifier of a specific strain of popular music that really refers to the time period, between 1965 (mid-career Beatles) and 1976 (The Sex Pistols). What we think of as the Golden Era of 70s movies began, arguably, with The Graduate in 1967 (or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the year before) and ended with Raging Bull in 1980.

For now anyway, the 2000s can be called The Netflix Decade, a time when, in theory, more movies were more accessible to more people than ever before. That doesn’t necessarily mean everyone took advantage of this opportunity. Still, the idea that a movie, even one from say, Romania about abortion, can have a second life on video is encouraging. If you’re a stickler for lists, consider this the 90 (or so) best movies of the last ten years. What this era in film will ultimately be called is anyone’s guess, but, many films in this list, particularly those made in the US, reflect life in the Age of Terror, where the country was led by a man whose ambition far exceeded his abilities.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days – Over the last ten years there has been a rush, in relative terms anyway, of films from countries that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain. The best of these was a heartbreakingly frank film about the moral and practical dilemmas of abortion while Eastern Europe crumbled in the late 1980s. A movie of unflinching honesty. (2007)

8 Mile – Don’t laugh. Yes, Eminem played himself, but great movies put the viewer in a time and place and Curtis Hanson’s impeccable direction gives life to the hopelessness of Eminem’s Detroit ring of despair. The performances of Kim Basinger and Mekhi Phifer are first-rate.  The movie looks even more authentic now that Eminem has faded from the limelight. (2002)

21 Grams – The title refers to the amount of weight we lose after we die. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s follow-up to Amores Perros brought together a math professor (Sean Penn), a grieving housewife (Naomi Watts) and a re-born convict (Benicio Del Toro). The story isn’t arranged chronologically and the morality of what’s taking place is apparent before the full impact of the plot.

The 25^th Hour – Spike Lee’s least bombastic work. Three men (Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper) one of whom is preparing for a prison stint, re-assess their lives in New York City while terrorist occupied planes still echo in the background. The request made late in the film by Norton will make you gasp, but then nod in agreement with his logic. (2002)

About Schmidt – When Jack Nicholson’s wife dies he decides to rent an RV and drive around trying to avoid the realization that he’s a selfish creep. Alexander Payne’s portrait of aging shines even brighter when compared to the emptiness of another Nicholson film about old age released several years later—The Bucket List. Hope Davis is brilliant as Nicholson’s estranged daughter. (2002)

Almost Famous – The best fictional account of the rock and roll life this side of Spinal Tap. Billy Crudup hits every note as an ambivalent guitar hero. Philip Seymour Hoffman is hysterical as rock critic Lester Bangs. Cameron Crowe’s movie also launched the career of Kate Hudson, who plays a groupie. Don’t hold that against it. The “Tiny Dancer” sequence on the tour bus is sure to put a lump in your throat. (2000)

Amelie  – Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s fable starring Audrey Tautou is certain to become a beloved classic if it hasn’t achieved that status already. Jeunet and Tautou occupy a world that looks much like our own yet is eminently more just, hopeful and full of love. Engaging from any number of perspectives. (2001)

Amores Perros – The three-pronged story about how lives have been irreversibly altered by a car accident can only be described as awe-inspiring. It introduced the world to the massive talents of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Gael Garcia Bernal and the progenitors of Latin American Cinema. Much as Amores Perros is a child of Pulp Fiction, it is also the father to the acclaimed City of God. (2001)

Away From Her – This tiny movie about a woman (Julie Christie) coming to grips with Alzheimer’s raises challenging questions about the true nature of love, honesty and companionship. That Sarah Polley was only 27 when she directed this counts as a miracle. (2007)

Babel – Whereas Amores Perros’ and 21 Grams’ centerpiece were a singular event, Innaritu’s Babel centers on a singular feeling brought on by a digital, wireless age. It’s one of mutedness. We can speak to more people in more places than ever before, yet we still have no clue what to say. The characters’ eyes tell us everything we need to know about their hollowed-out existences. In Babel, continents are little more than land masses that separate people trying to cope with this new world. Brad Pitt has never been better. (2006)

The Beat That My Heart Skipped – Romain Duris dreams of becoming a concert pianist conflict with his father’s desire that he follow his footsteps into a life of low-level street thuggery. Director Jacques Audiard brings together the disparate physical and emotional universes that Duris occupies. Paris, probably the most-filmed movie locale in the world after New York, is presented in a new, fresh way. (2005)

Before Sunset – Nine years after Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy fell in love on a single night in Vienna they meet again. Except now they’re in Paris. But time has passed and things have changed. Or have they? A great idea executed to perfection by director Richard Linklater and the two leads. (2004)

Black Hawk Down – Mark Bowden’s searing chronicle of the US Army’s disaster in Somalia. Ridley Scott and a strong ensemble cast capture the frantic efforts of well-intentioned men in one impossible situation after another. (2001)

Bigger Faster Stronger* – A straightforward documentary about steroids and American culture by a first time director and former devotee of the weightlifting/bodybuilding scene. (2008)

Bloody Sunday – Made prior to United 93 and The Bourne movies, Paul Greengrass’ re-creation of the events of January 30, 1972 in Derry, Northern Ireland seethes with anger. (2002)

Borat – Far and away the best comedy in recent years. Although it dutifully serves its  function as a biting social satire, it’s the bar which other comedies strive for: “Yeah, (title) was pretty funny. But it’s no Borat.” (2006)

Bowling for Columbine – With the school shootings still fresh in the public mind Michael Moore’s film about America’s obsession with guns is a tour de force of filmmaking. It’s become the template for countless other issue-driven documentaries, but the original is still the best. Who could forget Moore emerging from a bank, gun in hand as gratitude for opening a new bank account? (2002)

Capote – I tend to resist portrayals of historical figures little more than overwrought imitations, but there are some performances that just throw you back in your seat. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s depiction of the caustic, gifted, tortured Truman Capote is such a performance. (2005)

The Dark Knight – One of the major secular features of Bush Era was rampant self-involvement. Facebook has turned the personal into the global scale. In a landscape where fame goes to those who are willing only to be more extreme than their predecessor, Heath Ledger, as the sadistic Joker tapped perfectly into this pathos while living up to unprecedented pre-release hype. Everything, onscreen and off, about The Dark Knight reflected the culture of entitlement. Mostly though, The Dark Knight delivered on all its promise.  The movie has flaws; Christian Bale’s smoky (or is it gravelly?) voice is an unneeded prop and the stunt make-up of Aaron Eckhart’s character is unnecessary. That said, it performs the near impossible—a summer blockbuster whose story and message stays with you for days, if not weeks. (2008)

Darwin’s Nightmare – A documentary about the perch in Lake Victoria that shows the social and political effects of an ecological nightmare. While An Inconvenient Truth was the environmental movie that bagged the awards and attention, Hubert Sauper’s movie chilled and moved. (2005)

Eastern Promises –  David Cronenberg re-emerged with A History of Violence, but its follow-up was far more entertaining. Naomi Watts’ London midwife stumbles across the Russian mob, as personified by Viggo Mortensen, cultures clash, mayhem ensues–including a grisly fight in a steam bath. (2007)

Edge of Heaven – The best movies of the decade made outside the US addressed the blurring of boundaries among class, race, ethnicity or sexuality. Fatih Akin’s film about a German Turk who moves to Istanbul in order to find his half-sister makes you wonder if maybe boundaries aren’t such a bad thing. (2008)

Elephant – Gus Van Sant’s take on school violence is haunting. The impending carnage looms over the characters to such a degree that, as an audience member, you want to shake them by the shoulders and tell them to run before the bullets start flying. (2003)

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room – The best of its type. A traditional talking-heads documentary that harnesses the national outrage of the Enron collapse and the subsequent dominoes that fell. Names are named and we’re given plenty of reason to hold those mentioned in absolute contempt. (2005)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – I resisted this as too gimmicky at first and I don’t buy Jim Carrey doing anything serious, but on a second viewing it struck me as a thoughtful consideration of how memory relates to romantic longing, especially considering it’s a major studio release. The rare instance of  when a blend of a potentially toxic mix of artists–Carrey, Kate Winslet, Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman results in a coherent final product.  (2004)

The Fall – A suicidal stunt man, an eight year old Eastern European immigrant girl who speaks accented English, Charles Darwin, Alexander the Great and many, many others people populate Tarsem Singh’s follow up to The Cell. Reportedly made without CGI, it’s unlike any film ever made. (2008)

Finding Nemo – A father clown fish loses track of his son clown fish. In desperate need of help in finding him, he is assisted by a pang fish with short-term memory. That the movie somehow takes a parent’s worst nightmare and turns it into something cute is a testament to its many charms. Edged Ratatouille and Up for a spot behind WALL-E on this list. (2003)

Garden State – While it’s easy to dismiss the movie as a tool for Zach Braff’s navel-gazing, Garden State appealed to people of a certain age, pre mid-life, who wondered, “What’s it all for?” It owes massive debts to The Graduate and the work of Wes Anderson but it’s a movie of and about its time. (2004)

George Washington – David Gordon Green’s somber sketch on poor black children in North Carolina plays like a Miles Davis number. The movie is all mood, but by the end, you feel like you know the kids in this movie intimately. (2000)

Gone Baby Gone – This may be a blasphemy in some quarters, but Ben Affleck’s directorial debut does Clint Eastwood better than Eastwood himself. It confronts many of the same issues as Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River the difference is the performance of Amy Ryan, as the world’s worst mother. (2007)

Good Night and Good Luck – George Clooney’s paean to an era gone by was meant to be a body blow to the modern media, where rumor and innuendo flourish. More than David Straitharn’s uncanny impersonation of Edward R Murrow, most the high points are the elegant singing of Dianne Reeves that served as a bridge scenes of increasing tension. (2005)

Goodbye Solo – Souleymane Sy Savane is  Solo, a Senegalese cab-driver in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (the Tar Heel State is a new hot spot for American Indie Cinema). He picks up a weary, southern man who asks that a few days from now Solo take him to Blowing Rock National Park, no questions asked. Ramin Bahrani’s movie is so loaded with symbolism it’s easy to overlook what an assured, confident piece of filmmaking it is. If there’s any justice, Savane will pick up an Oscar nomination this year. (2009)

Happy-Go-Lucky – How far does attitude go in life? At first glance Sally Hawkins’ Poppy is gratingly optimistic, but as Mike Leigh’s small masterpiece unfolds we see that Poppy is far more sophisticated than we’ve given her credit for. Furthermore, I can think of no film of this or an era that so lovingly presents a friendship between two women—Hawkins and Alexis Zegerman. They’re co-workers and have each other’s backs in ways that the girls from Sex and the City would never understand. (2008)

The House of Flying Daggers  – Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon set a standard that Zhang Yimou’s exhilarating epic set in the Tang Dynasty surpassed. That’s Ninth Century kids. Two police officers, with differing motives, force a gorgeous dancer to go undercover and infiltrate The House of Flying Daggers, a group of militants who steal from the rich and give to the poor. There’s a sequence where…ok forget that, watch it and you’ll instantly recognize why this movie is on a “Best of” list. (2004)

In America – After WALL-E this was the movie that stole my heart. Jim Sheridan directed a script he wrote with his daughters about a family a lot like their own. It’s the magical story of a family overcoming the loss of the youngest child through great sacrifice and a move to Hell’s Kitchen. Sarah and Emma Bolger, who play the precocious daughters, will steal your heart too. (2003)

In the Bedroom  – Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek have a son (Nick Stahl) who gets involved with an older woman (Marisa Tomei) estranged from her husband. When Stahl gets killed by the husband in a jealous fit Wilkinson must face his own thoughts of revenge in this wrenching drama directed by Todd Field. (2001)

In the Mood for Love – It’s 1962 Hong Kong and Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are neighbors who suspect their spouses of infidelity. Wong Kar-Wai’s film is in the grand tradition of a love story set against a society in upheaval, but simmers with a lust and eroticism all its own. Runner-up to Y Tu Mama Tambien for sexiest film of the decade. (2001)

In the Valley of Elah  – When Tommy Lee Jones’ son goes missing shortly after returning from a tour in Iraq, he sets out to find him. In the course of his quest he’s aided by Charlize Theron and the movie becomes a layered treatise about the war in Iraq, the military and family. In his best roles, Jones face says far more than any word could and that’s certainly the case in this movie, which takes its title from the site of David’s biblical battle with Goliath. (2007)

Into the Wild  – After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta, Chris McCandless, the child of well-to-do parents, gave away all his possessions and hitchhiked across America en route To Alaska. A wonderful companion to Jon Krakauer’s elegiac account of McCandless, Sean Penn’s movie brings together sweeping natural panoramas, marvelous supporting characters (Hal Holbrook especially) and a pitch-perfect score from Eddie Vedder. (2007)

Junebug – So many films about the clash between urban and rural ways of life resort to easy stereotypes, but Phil Morrison’s movie strikes just the right tone. Now living in Chicago, a son brings his art gallery-owning wife (the stunning Embeth Davidtz) to meet his parents in rural North Carolina. He re-acquaints himself with his brother whose wife (played by Amy Adams in the breakthrough performance of the decade) is pregnant. New conflicts arise as old wounds are re-opened. Celia Weston is delightful as the family matriarch. (2005)

Katyn – The legendary director Andrzej Wajda may have made his best film in his 80’s. It’s the heretofore untold story of the slaughter of thousands of Polish soldiers at the beginning of World War II by the Russian Red Army. Wajda focusses on how the Russians lies about the massacre left a permanent stain on the Polish psyche. The final twenty minutes of Katyn put your heart in your throat. (2008)

Kontroll  – Nimrod Antal’s film about life in the Budapest subway system defies easy description. Every scene and piece of dialogue seems loaded with literal and metaphorical interpretations. And the metaphor can apply just as easily to the main characters as to life in Hungary after the fall of the Soviet Empire. (2005)

 Lilya 4-ever – Abandoned by her mother, 16 year-old Lilya must fend for herself in bleak, gray Estonia. She meets a young man different from the abusive thugs in her neighborhood. He is kind to her and promises to pull her out of her dire circumstances. Hopeful and desperate, she trusts him. Thinking they will run off to a slice of heaven, Lilya is instead lowered into a kind of Hell that can only be borne from the minds of the truly evil. Lukas Moodyson’s film muscles its way into the pit of your stomach and stays there for days.

Little Children  – The decade’s best movie about suburban dystopia and arguably Kate Winslet’s best performance. She plays an educated mother whose marriage is passionless. She begins an affair with Patrick Wilson –The Prom King, as he’s dubbed by the neighborhood mothers—whose marriage is  deteriorating while he attempts to pas the bar exam. Most memorable, however, is Jackie Earle Haley, a sex offender trying to start a new life while under the watchful eye of self-appointed moralist. (2006)

The Lives of Others – An engrossing film about the horrors of life on the front lines of the Cold War. Ulrich Muhe is a member of the Stasi in 1984 who listens in on the conversations of a playwright and his lover. His own life being one of boredom he becomes increasingly engrossed in those of his subject. Florian Heckel von Donnersmarck crafted a film of personal destruction while addressing contemporary issues of privacy in a time of unparalleled freedom. (2006)

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy – It will be hard to explain to future generations the impact that this series of films had on a populace put on perpetual edge in the age of terrorism. Thousands of people lined up to watch the entire trilogy, nine hours in total. It did not take much imagination to see the similarities between Peter Jackson’s sprawling epics and the state of world affairs. The stories of honor, mysticism, fellowship and duty in the face of an indefatigable enemy bent on an engineering an apocalypse resonated with millions of people who had never even heard of JRR Tolkien. (2001-2003)

Memento  – How Christopher Nolan began the decade. The taut Guy Pearce is covered from head to toe with tattoos. He’s also written himself hundreds of notes. The ink on both the paper and his skin is critical because he has no short term memory. In normal circumstances this would be quite the conundrum, but it’s worse because Pearce’s wife has been murdered and he’s trying to figure if he did it or if someone else did. Memento was that rare, visceral movie that left the audience in their seats after the house lights came up, catching their collective breaths. (2001)

Michael Clayton  – Where Good Night and Good Luck was a clarion call to a lazy media elite, George Clooney got back in front of the camera in this tightly written drama about corporate malfeasance. He’s a fixer who keeps small problems from becoming big ones. He must prevent an old friend gone crazy (a manic Tom Wilkinson) from jeopardizing a billion-dollar project while keeping the company lawyer (a scathing Tilda Swinton) at bay. Tony Gilroy’s movie recalls 70s classics like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor. (2007)

Minority Report - The back end (after Artificial Intelligence: AI) of a Steven Spielberg double-dip on the dire possibilities of the near future, blisters with energy. Tom Cruise plays a pre-crime officer—criminals are arrested before they commit their crimes—who finds himself caught up in agency politics that have far-reaching implications. Watch it again just to see how prescient it is, based on a Philip K. Dick novel. (2002)

Monster’s Ball  – An extremely graphic sex scene featuring Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton (ick) generated buzz, but Marc Forster’s depiction of troubled lives in the south is harrowing. Heath Ledger, Sean Combs and Peter Boyle are excellent in support of Berry’s raw performance. (2001)

The Motorcycle Diaries – Before he became a face on a t-shirt, Ernesto Guevera was called “Fuser” by his friends. As a student, he and a buddy traveled through South America on a beat up Norton 500. Gael Garcia Bernal is Che in Walter Salles’ exquisite travelogue about idealism colliding with reality. The Machu Picchu sequence is breathtaking. (2004)

Moulin Rouge! – Unapologetically over the top, Baz Luhrman’s was the best musical of the past ten years. A courtesan (Nicole Kidman) falls in love with a would-be poet (Ewan McGregor) much to the chagrin of a duke. This triangle is resolved in a splash of song, color and double-entendres. Jim Broadbent won an Oscar the following year in Iris, but he deserved it for his role as the ringmaster here. (2001)

The New World – Terrence Malick’s lyrical, contemplative rendering of the affair between John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahantas sweeps you up and carries you off to a place that only he seems to be able to construct. When the duties of colonization become too much, the stability of their relationship is threatened. (2005)

The Notebook – The moment you say, “Oh, come on! That would never happen!” you’ve missed the point. Every character in the movie is of a type and that very broadness is what makes the film such a timeless love story. (2004)

No Country for Old Men – Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh immediately joined the pantheon of cinematic psychos but Tommy Lee Jones is outstanding as sheriff trying to make sense of killer whose weapon of choice is a cattle prong. Josh Brolin is up to Jones’ lofty standards as Chigurh’s main target. Kelly MacDonald turns a potentially forgettable role as Brolin’s wife into the moral center of the film. While the movie may have caught fans of the Coen Brothers off-guard, it fits nicely in the canon of the makers of Miller’s Crossing, Fargo and Blood Simple. (2007)

Once  – Set in modern day Dublin, Glen Hansard is a Hoover repair man and Marketa Irglova is an immigrant caring for her mother and daughter. They are both amateur musicians and gradually they write songs together that reflect their growing feelings for each other. A small treasure. (2007)

Pan’s Labyrinth – In order to escape her sadistic stepfather in Franco’s Spain, a ten year-old girl imagines a secret world where she must perform three tasks to prove that she is, in fact, a princess. Fashioned by Guillermo Del Toro, who spent the decade creating worlds that exist just beyond the reach of our own. (2006)

Requiem for a Dream — Four disparate characters succumb to drug abuse. Most frightening in Darren Aronofsky’s film is the descent into madness of a woman collecting social security played by Ellen Burstyn. Far from a lecture, the movie shows in explicit detail how different people become addicted for different reasons.  (2000)

Sideways - In celebration of his philandering pal’s upcoming nuptials, Paul Giamatti takes him on a tour of California wine country. Like any good road movie, Alexander Payne’s film contrives one scenario after another in order to reveal something about the characters. What made Sideways different was the intensity of Giamatti’s portrayal of a man consumed by his own self-loathing. (2004)

The Station Agent – A thoughtful independent film from Thomas McCarthy about a dwarf (Peter Dinklage) who inherits an abandoned train station after his best friend dies. He’s subsequently harangued into friendship by a chatty hot dog vendor (Bobby Cannavale). The unlikely friends then encounter a woman (Patricia Clarkson) who is in mourning. Well-deserving of the many awards it picked up on the festival circuit. (2003)

Taxi to the Dark Side – Of the many righteously indignant documentaries criticizing the Bush Administration Alex Gibney’s was the best. It’s the story of an innocent Afghan cab driver who was tortured and killed while in US custody. He’s not a casualty of the madness of war, but rather, the victim of carefully vetted policy.  (2007)

There Will Be Blood  – P. T. Anderson’s sprawling epic of greed, oil and religion has a problematic ending but who could forget the opening scene, where Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, without saying a word, grunts his way into our psyche. He plunges one hole after another into the ground through the force of his personality, creating to a fortune but and future that will, most certainly, be bloody. An instant American classic. (2007)

Traffic  – The War on Drugs from the peripatetic camera of Steven Soderbergh. In his most complete film, he inspects many, if not all, aspects of the struggle and concludes that the effort has been a colossal failure. Sturdy performances by Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Quaid, Don Cheadle and Michael Douglas anchor a somewhat chaotic enterprise. (2000)

Waking Life – Richard Linklater’s mind-massaging meditation on truth, reality, dreams and just about everything else washes over you like a hot shower. The fact that it merges animates live action characters pushes it to the stuff of legend. An exponentially better “alternative reality” film than Mulholland Drive. (2001)

WALL-E – The other major secular strain brought on by the reign of error that was the Bush presidency was conspicuous consumption. Remember that he suggested we go shopping in the weeks after planes were crashed into the financial and political capitols of the country. And we did. Boy did we spend. The magicians at Pixar presented the down side of this approach to calming our collective nerves, while telling a tender love story. If you didn’t go “awwwww” at least once while watching WALL-E may God have mercy on your soul. (2008)

Waltz With Bashir  – Perhaps the first and last of its kind. An animated documentary about an Israeli soldier’s memories of a battle that occurred some twenty years earlier. Ari Folman’s autobiographical story of The Lebanese War had the unique distinction of reminding you of several other films while still being thoroughly original. (2008)

Y Tu Mama Tambien – The sexiest movie of the decade. Maribel Verdu joins Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna on a road trip from Mexico City to a mysterious beach with no strings attached. Much steaminess follows. (2002)

You Can Count on Me  – Before starring in Kenneth Lonergan’s movie Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo had minor roles in minor movies. They play a brother and sister who are connected by a tragic event from their past. Each day is a struggle as they to overcome their flaws and make something out of their shiftless lives. Linney was nominated for an Oscar as a single mother trying to build a life out of perpetual setbacks. The soundtrack features several songs from Steve Earle, who knows a thing or two about turmoil. (2000)

Zodiac  – David Fincher’s story of the serial killer that spooked the Bay Area in the 1970s. Jake Gyllenhaal is a newspaper cartoonist who starts out trying to decode the murderer’s cryptic messages and ends up more obsessed with finding the killer than the police officer (Mark Ruffalo) assigned to the case. Fincher gets the grisliness out of the way early and delivers an unsparing crime procedural; the inclusion of Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man on the soundtrack is inspired. (2007)

They barely missed the cut: High Fidelity, Oldboy, Adaptation and Up

Best Releases Three or Four Decades Late

Army of Shadows – Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic of The French Resistance, released in Europe in the late 1960s made going underground heroic and cool. It ushered in a much-deserved reassessment of Melville’s place in The French New Wave. (2006)

Killer of Sheep – the life of a Los Angeles slaughterhouse worker in black and white with one of the best scores in film history. Charles Burnett’s film sat in a vault at UCLA for 30 years until it was released on video by Milestone/New Yorker Video. (2007)

Underrated, Forgotten or Worth a Second Look

24-Hour Party People – Steve Coogan nails it as the riotously self-possessed Tony Wilson, the television host who sired the Manchester music scene in the late 1970s. Michael Winterbottom adeptly recalls a flowering cultural moment that was both depressing and inspirational. (2002)

The Bridge – Eric Steel’s documentary about why the Golden Gate Bridge has become Ground Zero for suicides. More than that though, it’s about those left behind and trying to make sense of the profoundly tragic. (2006)

The Cell – The acting isn’t much (Jennifer Lopez playing a psychologist and Vince Vaughn playing it straight) and the plot machinations are absurd but Tarsem Singh’s movie about the subconscious of a serial killer is loaded with visual explosions from start to finish. (2000)

The Claim – When you sell off your wife and baby daughter for a gold mine it’s just a matter of time before it comes back to bite you, even in the pre-Information Age. There’s no escaping karma on that one. Michael Winterbottom’s version of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge is unforgettable. The icy turn-of-the-century Canadian landscape is the ideal backdrop for this morality tale. (2000)

The Dish – What role did Australia play in the first moon landing? Well, the country put up a satellite interface in a remote desert. Sam Neill plays one of the technicians who helps the locals prepare for and cope with their day in the, uhh, sun. Patrick Warburton is winning as the American liaison. (2001)

Everything is Illuminated – The movie based on what might be the best novel of the decade barely registered at the box office. Eugene Hutz steals the movie as Elijah Wood’s linguistically-challenged guide and Liev Schreiber’s debut behind the camera is extremely faithful to Jonathan Safran Foer’s source material. (2005)

Heaven – It came and went in the blink of an eye, but Cate Blanchett is a bald vigilante aided and abetted by police-officer Giovanni Ribisi. Impossible to categorize as an action pic for the art house crowd (or is it vice versa?), Tom Tykwer’s movie merits another consideration. (2002)

Idiocracy – Mike Judge’s futuristic comedy about what happens to a society that spends decades rewarding impulse and hubris over intellect and honesty. Sound familiar? (2005)

The Illusionist – In pre-World War I Vienna Edward Norton plays a magician who astonishes and taunts royalty (Rufus Sewell) and law enforcement (Paul Giamatti). It was overshadowed by The Prestige which was released the same year, but it is better shot, better acted and without the cop-out ending of Christopher Nolan’s film. (2006)

Innocence – After his wife dies a man looks up his lost love from over forty years ago. She has married and is living a comfortable life. Now in their 70s, they try to pick up where they left off. Paul Cox’s film of hope, death, loss, regret and risk tugs at your heart and never lets go. (2001)

Last Orders – A London butcher (Michael Caine) instructed his best friends (Tom Courtenay, David Hemmings and Bob Hoskins) to throw his ashes into the water at Margate beach. His son (Ray Winstone) joins them as they make the journey, recollecting about what was and what might have been. The type of small, touching film that big stars don’t seem to make anymore. (2001)

LIE – Paul Dano, in a pre-There Will Be Blood role plays a teenager who sits on a bridge above the Long Island Expressway. He has nothing, so when a dubious character, the slimy Brian Cox, offers him some semblance of normalcy, he takes it. (2001)

Made – Jon Favreau’s comedy is a follow up to Swingers which again features him and Vince Vaughan. This time they’re playing wanna-be mafiosos hired by Peter Falk to cut a deal with Sean Combs. The repoire of the castcast is terrific and the movie is even funnier with the audio commentary on (by Favreau and Vaughn). (2001)

Our Daily Bread – A dialogue-free documentary about the mechanized, industrialized nature of food production. Make sure you eat before viewing. (2006)

The Proposition – Set in late 19^th century Australia, the underappreciated Ray Winstone is magnetic as a frontier lawman determined to bring peace to his town. A group of four brothers has terrorized the locals and Winstone urges two of them to turn in the oldest, who is the ringleader. This sounds like a traditional Western but Nick Cave’s bloody and depraved script is accompanied by a setting that invites comparisons to Antonioni. (2006)

Reign Over Me – Almost all of Adam Sandler’s comedic characters are emotionally-stunted man-boys. His character in Mike Binder’s film is also a shell of a man, mumbling his way around New York City on a scooter, donning headphones to keep the outside world away. Don Cheadle is his usual superb self playing a dentist, trying to find out what’s gone wrong with Sandler, his old college roommate. In the course of reaching out to Sandler, Cheadle must face problems in his own life. (2007)

Sweet Land – In 1920s Minnesota a beautiful German woman arrives to marry a Norwegian farmer. He speaks little English and she speaks none. This is the least of their troubles as her ethnicity, in light of World War I, gives the rest of the community pause. Ali Selim’s feature debut is quiet, elegant and assured. (2006)

The Widow of St. Pierre – Patrice Leconte’s tale of redemption set in the (then) French colony of Newfoundland in the 1850s. Emir Kusterica plays a drunk sentenced to death for a murder. But time passes before the guillotine can arrive from France. Slowly, the community, represented by Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil, comes to see the murderer in a different light. (2001)

The Yards – James Gray’s story of corruption in the Queens rail yards was unjustly ignored by audiences on its release. Perhaps it was because the star, Mark Wahlberg, was an unproven quantity as a dramatic actor (Ok, some might say he still is), but he more than holds his own among James Caan, Ellen Burstyn, Faye Dunaway, Charlize Theron and Joaquin Phoenix. (2000)

A Double Feature About Women Living on the Margins

Frozen River and Wendy and Lucy -  Melisso Leo and Michelle Williams try to save their son and dog, respectively, while staring some hard truths in the face. (Both released in 2008)

Actors of the Decade—Gael Garcia Bernal and Philip Seymour Hoffman

Actresses of the Decade – Cate Blanchett, Laura Linney and Kate Winslet

Directors of the Decade – Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Christopher Nolan

Overrated

Brokeback Mountain – A movie more concerned with its message than advancing the story in a cinematic way. The script is clunky (saved by Heath Ledger’s performance) and for a movie intended to bust stereotypes, it’s comprised of supporting characters who are exactly that.

Knocked Up – Where The 40-Year-Old Virgin was a sweet, bromance about the complexities of dating, this was self-indulgent. A stoner who lives with other porn-living potheads hooks up with a successful television producer? That’s a shaky premise to begin with and impossible to ignore whenever the two leads start talking about child rearing. Why weren’t women insulted by this movie?

Lost in Translation – Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson are displaced Americans in Tokyo. It’s a Jim Jarmusch movie done by Sofia Coppola. One Jarmusch is plenty thank you very much.

Mulholland Drive – What’s this movie about? No, really somebody tell me.

Movie that’s aged the worst – Crash. Only five years old and the tale of race and circumstance in Los Angeles already feels quaint.

And what of Wes Anderson? – His four films (three live-action and one animated) are entertaining, but they’re all riffs on a similar theme—highly stylized portraits of fractured families done to great soundtracks. They all made my best of the year list when released, but Anderson, so far anyway, has been content to have his characters talk about their struggles rather than show them.

Television (Still a vast wasteland)

The conversation begins and ends with The Wire. If you haven’t seen it you have deprived yourself of storytelling on par with Charles Dickens, but more visual. There’s no point in spilling more cyber-ink on it as countless others have extolled its virtues. So watch it. Now. You’re welcome.

The two best documentaries of the past ten years originally aired on television. Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home revealed every available side of Bob Dylan including a few that Mr. Zimmerman would rather have kept under wraps. Scorsese seemed to talk to everyone who ever had anything to do with Dylan.

The other great doc was Spike Lee’s agonizing, thorough, poetic story of the debacle and failure of our government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. It’s not hyperbolic to call When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts an act of public service.

OK…if I must choose…a baker’s dozen…(I actually already tipped my hand above by adding a clip after the summary)

WALL-E, Amelie, The Dark Knight, Memento, Amores Perros, In America, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Moulin Rouge! There Will Be Blood, The Lives of Others, Waking Life, You Can Count on Me and Lilya 4-ever.

Part I can be found here:

Part II is here:

24)            IN THIS WORLD (2002)

Dir: Michael Winterbottom  Scr: Tony Grisoni

Stars: Jamal Udin Torabi, Enayatullah

With ten films this decade, from larky Madchester chronicle 24 Hour Party People to chilly dystopian sci-fi Code 46, protean Michael Winterbottom is Britain’s busiest filmmaker. That sounds like a backhanded compliment, a la Spinal Tap being metal’s “loudest band”, but the ceaseless hive of activity Winterbottom generates, criss-crossing genres and global locations, adds to his particular brand of mercurial work, never as impactful as 2002’s In This World.

Scripted documentary? Vérité drama? Winterbottom ducks and dives along the borders of fact and fiction, he and unsung writer Tony Grisoni laying out a framework, but then grabbing two non-professional Afghan refugees, Jamal and Enayat, and basically accompanying them on a hellish attempted flight to London, via tourist meccas Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. Using a skeletal crew and opportunist digital camerawork that matches its material step-by-improvised-step (traumatic rides in cramped pick-up trucks and stifling cargo containers), it’s possibly the tensest road movie ever made. But one that still finds time to rejoice in small wonders: ice cream in Tehran; street football kickabouts, well, anywhere. Winterbottom flips the knee-jerk xenophobic views of immigration to show with sad-eyed wonder, that this world, in all its hostility and beauty, is all we all have.

In This World Clip (Italian subtitles):

See also:

THE CLASS (2008)

Dir: Laurent Cantet  Scr: Cantet, Robin Campillo, François Bégaudeau

Stars: François Bégaudeau, Boubacar Toure, Dalla Doucoure

A pet peeve of mine is the trend for casting non-professionals, assuming they’re more ‘real.’ Want a new face? How about the thousands of unknown trained actors out there? That said, authenticity is rarely so expertly achieved as in Laurent Cantet’s Palme D’Or-winner, about genuine inner city, multi-ethnic schoolkids and the teacher struggling to understand, let alone instruct them. Based on lead Bégaudeau’s own autobiographical tome, Cantet’s fine-tuned intuition showcases the unaffected, vibrant performances of his kids, the constant classroom negotiations of language and discipline, boldly remaining almost exclusively within school walls. Probably the best movie about teaching ever made.

The Class Clip: Apologise

23)            SCHOOL OF ROCK (2003)

Dir: Richard Linklater  Scr: Mike White

Stars: Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White

Star performances don’t necessarily have to come from the greatest actors. Few people would credit Jack Black with a whole lotta range, but plug him in to trademark schlubby, self-obsessed man-child setting, turn the mania all the way up and watch him power an entire movie. Playing an ageing wannabe guitar hero turned fake substitute teacher and making use of his own Tenacious D rawk background, this is his fret-busting, string-shredding magnum opus; his (screenwriter Mike) White album; his stairway to movie star heaven.

What makes School of Rock more than just a Black hit single, in fact one of the best, most uplifting fish-out-of-water / inspirational-teacher / underdog comedies (talk about covering your bases) in years, is ultimately director Richard Linklater. He turns White’s deft, irreverent script into a symphonic ensemble with pinpoint junior casting – not a stage-school brat in sight, these kids are more than alright – instinctively knowing when to allow the film to breathe as a real group effort and when to let Black loose. It all seems so effortless but if mainstream Hollywood comedy were this easy, School would be the rule, not the exception. Then again, not all comedies are backed in Black.

School of Rock Clip: Guitar Lessons

See also:

THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED (2005)

Dir: Jacques Audiard  Scr: Audiard, Tonino Benacquista

Stars: Romain Duris, Niels Arestrup, Linh Dan Pham

Refreshing to see a foreign-language remake of a Hollywood film given how much America scavenges from abroad, especially one as assured as Audiard’s reinvention of James Toback’s 1978 debut Fingers. Yet for all Audiard’s delicate precision, it’s rising star Romain Duris’ simmering presence that powers the film. Both violent debt collector for his crooked father and passionate piano prodigy, Duris’ bottled-up, finger-tapping restlessness wordlessly conveys the constant internal battle between brutal, cornered reality and soulful artistic escape. His intensity and daring vulnerability wholly matches Harvey Keitel’s go-for-broke performance in the original, announcing Duris as France’s acting find of the decade.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped Trailer:

22)            CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000)

Dir: Ang Lee  Scr: Hui-Ling Wang, Kuo Jung Tsai, James Schamus

Stars: Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi

Ang Lee, of refined dramas Sense and Sensibility and The Wedding Banquet – directing a no-holds-barred martial arts movie? Actually Lee’s fastidious aesthetic suits the unrequited love and repressed emotional strand of this handsome wu xia (“martial chivalry”) epic, as do actors of Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh’s innate nobility. But as anyone ambushed by Crouching Tiger knows, it’s the astounding leaps and bounds of its gravity-defying fight scenes that sweep you off your feet.

While mainstream critics raved, Asian cinephiles griped that earlier masterpieces like The Magic Blade or A Touch of Zen had done it all before, without the patina of arthouse kudos. Perhaps. But Lee respects and understands tradition, taking a 1930s story cycle, insisting on poetic, word-perfect Mandarin from his non-native-speaking cast and co-opting legendary fight choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping (fresh off The Matrix). The resulting kinetic sequences, notably a night time rooftop pursuit and Chow and firecracker Zhang Ziyi’s mesmerising ballet atop swaying bamboo trees, are jaw-droppers in their own right. And as an emissary to bring a ghettoized genre to wider acclaim, ushering in similarly spectacular, coloured-coded martial artistry like Hero and House of Flying Daggers, it’s unparalleled. Next up, Michael Haneke tackles Transformers 3.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Rooftop Pursuit:

See also:

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000)

Dir & Scr: Wong Kar-Wai

Stars: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk

The curlicue of backlit cigarette smoke, the contours of lustrous cheongsam, the shimmer of neon-hued, rain-slicked streets, the momentary caress of fingertips… Something about Asian society’s more decorous, formal codes lend themselves to tales of forbidden love that used to be Jane Austen and co’s province. Honeycomb-lit stars Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung – brought together by their respective, unseen spouses’ illicit affair – are achingly gorgeous, but lest this all appear a mere Hong Kong fashion spread, Wong’s fragmented, dreamlike structure and facility to tease alienation and emotional echoes from dazzling surfaces makes a mood piece some altogether more resonant.

In the Mood for Love trailer:

21)            THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (2001)

Dir: Wes Anderson  Scr: Anderson & Owen Wilson

Stars: Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Anjelica Huston

“Family isn’t a word… it’s a sentence” runs the snarky tagline for Wes Anderson’s terrific Tenenbaums, inadvertently highlighting the clever-clever hipness that Anderson’s critics think he’s all about, but missing the messy, heartfelt melancholy that underpins it. Whimsical, theatrical (the cast practically get curtain calls) and flaunting influences * – Scorsese slow-mo, Welles’ wide-angles, even Charles Schulz’s Peanuts – like merit badges, Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson, as did their Rushmore protagonist Max Fischer, create a hermetic, bourgeois, storybook world (snappily narrated by Alec Baldwin) in which to strut their precocious stuff. Gritty social realism it ain’t.

Instead Anderson places these self-obsessed dreamers under an ornate magnifying glass, gently raising the dramatic heat until their protective carapaces and quirks melt away, revealing the screwed-up big kids beneath – none bigger than hustler father Royal, the great Gene Hackman’s last great role. Indeed Anderson’s entire crack repertory company – Huston, Bill Murray, the Wilsons – are at their tragic-comic peak; few screen moments choke me up more than Ben Stiller’s plaintive “I’ve had a rough year, Dad,” and Hackman’s gruff, overdue consolation. Family isn’t a sentence for Anderson, it’s a series of cinematic letters, perhaps his life’s work; Tenenbaums is a great American novel. On film.

The Royal Tenenbaums Trailer:

* see the superb video essay series on Anderson’s influences by critic and filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz here.

See also:

TOGETHER (2001)

Dir & Scr: Lukas Moodysson

Stars: Gustaf Hammarsten, Lisa Lindgren, Michael Nyqvist

You can choose your friends, but not your family – unless you try and make your friends your family. But what if they’re not really your friends? Lukas Moodysson’s touching, hilarious comedy occupies a 70s left-wing Swedish commune, where free love has emotional costs and kids games involve playing tortured Pinochet prisoners. Moodysson gently torments his motley crew of inactive political activists and jaded romantics with a warmth (and Abba soundtrack) missing from later attempts to shock, despite being usurped as Europe’s reigning cinematic enfant terrible by Von Trier and Gaspar Noe. Maybe like his commune-ists, he just needs a hug.

Together Clip: “Franco is Dead.”

From acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom (Tristram Shandy, Wonderland, A Mighty Heart) GENOVA is a beautifully nuanced new drama about love, loss and forgiveness, set against the captivating beauty of the eponymous city.Following a tragic accident, widowed Joe (Colin Firth) decides to leave Chicago and he relocates himself and his two young daughters to Genova in Italy’s north, accepting a position at the local university. As Joe rekindles a friendship with colleague Barbara (the superb Catherine Keener), his daughters explore the labyrinth-like laneways of the old city. 16-year-old Kelly (Willa Holland) is drawn into a sexy and sometimes dangerous new world while the still grieving Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) begins to have visions of her mother (Hope Davis)…

This stunning English-Italian coproduction captures the challenges and strengths of family with economy and restraint. Enriched by sensitive performances and an astonishing locale, GENOVA is an emotional cinema experience not to be missed.

A movie’s soundtrack can have an impact on how it is perceived. It can enhance the atmosphere of the movie whether it be romance, action, suspense or whatever. It can work the opposite way too. Adam, for example, is a nice film but the use of sentimental music obviously tries to create a strong emotional reaction. Then sometimes you watch a great movie and love it that much more because of its soundtrack. Here are some of my top pairing for great movie/music.

Garden State

~ Large’s Ark

The Film:

Written, directed and starring Scrubs‘ Zach Braff, Garden State follows the television semi-famous actor Andrew Largeman (Braff) and his return to his home and estranged family for his mother’s funeral. Andrew goes through life in a lithium-induced state as a result of his psychiatrist father, Gideon Largeman (Ian Holme), who blames Andrew for putting his mother in a wheelchair when he was a child. Soon after his arrival, Andrew meets Sam (Natalie Portman) and the two strike up an unusual friendship. Sam is a happy, quirky, emotional and compulsive liar who counterbalances Andrew’s somewhat monotonous self. Taking inspiration from her, Andrew decides to give up taking his medicine (i.e. lithium). Along the way he reconnects with old friends and acquaintances. One such friend, gravedigger Mark (Peter Sarsgaard), then takes Andrew and Sam along on a journey to find an elusive object of great interest to Andrew. It’s a great story with excellent characters and actors.

The Soundtrack

Zac Braff wrote the majority of the movie while still in college. What’s interesting in this movie is that he also wrote the music into script. When he sent the script to people he also sent a CD containing the songs that would be in the movie in the order that they appeared. This careful planning is evident in the way the music flows well into the narrative. It includes songs by The Shins, Zero 7, Coldplay, Nick Drake and Frou Frou amongst others.

*Spoiler* And here’s the final scene, which is also a great use of music to aid the narrative.

~~~

Rushmore

~ She was my Rushmore

The Film:

Directed by Wes Anderson, Rushmore follows Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), a 15 year old scholarship boy who lives for his private school Rushmore Academy. He imagines himself as the top student when in fact he’s just getting by. However, he is king of extracurricular activities and spends most of his times in the various clubs he either leads or creates; he also writes and directs plays. Then comes Ms Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams), Rushmore’s elementary school teacher and Max falls in love with her. Max befriends his classmate’s father Herman Blume (Bill Murray), an unhappy industrialist whom Max sees as a mentor. Max enlists Herman’s help to make Ms Cross fall for him. Things go wrong when Herman ends up falling in love with Ms Cross too. This unusual love triangle begins to pits friend against friend in the hopes of getting Ms Cross. Pure Wes Anderson quirkiness.

The Soundtrack:

Consists of musicians such as The Kinks, Rolling Stones, John Lennon, The Who, The Faces, Cat Stevens and Donovan amongst others. Not only are these great musicians in and of themselves, the song choices and how they are layered into the narrative is great. Click here for a list of videos on YouTube for Rushmore. Here’s an example of how well music is handled in the film:

And while I’m not very familiar with all the musicians in the soundtrack, I think the movie is improved with them.

~~~

(500) Days of Summer

~Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t.

The Film:

Music video director Marc Webb makes his feature length directorial debut with this awesomely beautiful film. It stars the talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the boy who believes in true love and Zooey Deschanel who doesn’t. It’s the classic boy meet girl story with no real new material but it is all executed so well, the acting is fantastic and the end product is magnificent. The emotions really do resonate with anyone whether they’d had a bad break-up, can’t get over someone or whether an unrequited love is all you have. Great film.

You can read more details in my review.

The Soundtrack

With much experience behind him, Marc Webb has done a fantastic job in combining narrative and music in 500 Days. Not only does it reflect the mood of the scenes, it also enhances it by adding a sometimes quirky (see video below), sometimes poignant undertone, but always great. Artists such as Regina Spektor, The Temper Trap, The Smiths, Simon and Garfunkle, Wolfmother and Feist can be found on the soundtrack.

Here’s a YouTube video where you can preview the soundtrack.

~~~

24 Hour Party People

~The unbelievably true story of one man, one movement, the music and madness that was Manchester.

The Film:

This movie is more of a biopic/fictional documentary focusing on the music mogul Tony Wilson and the time in Manchester when punk came into the scene. It’s directed by Michael Winterbottom and stars Steve Coogan and many others playing music legends. The movie chronicles not only Wilson’s attempts at creating a culture in Manchester, but also the origins and outcomes of some of the most influential British bands such as Joy Division (which went on to become New Order), The Sex Pistols and The Happy Mondays. It parodies some events and breaks the fourth wall quite often but it all works and creates a great portrayal of the time.

The Soundtrack:

This movie is made for lovers of original punk and British music. Not only does the movie showcase some of the best music of the time (Joy Division!), it also gives insight into the bands, their members and how they dealt with their growing influence on the music scene. Therefore, the soundtrack is basically a sort of time capsule consisting of iconic music and bands.

It was by watching this movie that I came to know about Joy Division, which quickly became one of my favourite bands.

~~~

Juno

~A comedy about growing up… and the bumps along the way.

The Film:

Directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody, it stars Ellen Page, Michael Cera (along with Arrested Development co-star Jason Bateman) and Jennifer Garner. The movie follows Juno MacGuff and her unplanned pregnancy and subsequent search for affluent adoptive parents for her baby. Chances are you’ve seen the film so you know it’s not as dramatic as that, though it is emotional. The quirkiness of the characters, the development and characterisation of Juno, the humour and the writing are all great. Michael Cera still wasn’t so typecast into the dorky, awkward, almost Woody Allen Jr type of character he has now; he was still high from Arrested Development. And Ellen page’s acting was fantastic, well worth the Oscar nomination. A lot of the praise should also go to Diablo Cody for the way she wrote the script, and Reitman’ directing.

The Soundtrack:

This movie has a really unique soundtrack that reflects the emotions and atmosphere of the movie. In this interview Ellen Page talks about the music of Juno. She mentions the music has a youthful and quirky feel to it but it’s also heartfelt so there is a balance there. This balance is something the movie does really well too. There are a lot of Indie artists in this soundtrack, which again reinforces the alternative personality of Juno. It’s a fantastic movie.

I’ve obsessed over this soundtrack. I hadn’t heard of Kimya Dawson, Antsy Pants, Belle and Sebastian or The Moldy Peaches before Juno and I’m so glad I know them now. My favourite band in the soundtrack is Belle and Sebastian.

~~~

Other notable movies/soundtrack combinations are:

• Once (a great low budget movie revolving around two unnamed characters who love music; a sleeper hit; won Oscar for Best Song)
• Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (quirky love story with a beautiful look; originally Naomi Watts was set to play Amelie)
• Whip It (another great performance from Ellen Page but not at all like in Juno; a funny/offbeat coming of age; Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut)
• Little Miss Sunshine (proof of Murphy’s Law; quirky characters with a real emotional undertone; Oscar nominated for Best Picture)

Jessica Alba  incearca senzatii tari

Cel mai recent film al lui Michael Winterbottom, The Killer Inside Me, care va avea premiera în 2010, şi-a lansat luni primul trailer. Bugetul filmului a fost de 13 milioane de dolari.

The Killer Inside Me spune povestea unui şerif din vestul Texasului, interpretat de Casey Affleck. Bazat pe romanul omonim al scriitorului Jim Thompson, scenariul uirmăreşte transformarea şerifului într-un criminal crud, un socipat. Jessica Alba joacă rolul unei prostituate.

Filmările au fost realizate în lunile mai-iunie 2009, iar premiera peliculei care a avut un buget de 13 milioane de dolari este prevăzută în 2010.

Alte articole:

Eva Mendes isi arata sfarcurile

Nel nuovo film di Michael Winterbottom, The Killer inside Me, con Casey Affleck (lo sculacciatore) e Jessica Alba (poi amata).

Der britische Regisseur Michael Winterbottom (“9 Songs”) bringt uns mit seinem neuesten Film “The Killer Inside Me” eine Geschichte, die von dem Hilfssherriff Lou Ford erzählt, der nach und nach als psychisch gestörter Killer enttarnt wird. Der Film hat weltweit bisher noch kein Veröffentlichungsdatum. Für die USA und für Neuseeland ist der Film aber bereits für das Jahr 2010 angekündigt. Ein über 5 Minuten langer Promo Trailer zum Film existiert aber bereits. Aber man soll gewarnt sein: Es gibt Sex- und recht verstörende Gewaltszenen zu sehen, also nicht gucken wenn ihr unter 18 Jahre alt sein solltet!

Michael Winterbottom (“9 Songs”) führte Regie bei “The Killer Inside Me”. In den Hauptrollen sehen wir Casey Affleck (“Gone Baby Gone”, Jessica Alba (“The Eye”), Kate Hudson (“Bride Wars”) und Bill Pullman (“Unter Kontrolle”). Der Film soll 2010 in die US Kinos kommen, ein genauer Starttermin und ein Release für Deutschland steht noch nicht fest.

I’ve been covering this one for quite a while. I posted some photos a few weeks ago and now there is a sales trailer for Michael Winterbottom’s film.

It stars Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Ned Beatty, Bill Pullman and Elias Koteas.

Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small Texas town, patient and thoughtful. Some people think he’s a little slow and boring but that’s the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his ’sickness’. It nearly got him put away when he was younger, but his adopted brother took the rap for that. Now the sickness that has been lying dormant for a while is about to surface again – and the consequences are brutal and devastating.

The trailer is about 5 minutes long and shows quite a bit of what the story involves. If you should watch it let me know what your impressions of it were. I kind of liked it. Casey Affleck seems pretty solid in the lead.

Do internetu wyciekł 5-minutowy trailer nowego filmu Michaela Winterbottoma (słynne 9 songs) pod tytułem The Killer Inside Me. Casey Affleck gra znudzonego szeryfa małej mieściny, któremu odpierdala i zaczyna mordować ludzi. Oprócz niego w filmie gra piękna Jessica Alba, która w trailerze dostaje…

Całkiem na bossie ten trailer. Został zmontowany po to by film sprzedać do studia, więc pewnie zniknie po chwili z internetu. Oglądajcie póki można.

Joe (Colin Firth)

Prior to playing the role of a grieving husband in Genova, Colin Firth gave what had been his strongest performance to date in Anand Tucker’s And When Did You Last See Your Father? playing the role of a grieving son. Perhaps the challenge of expressing such complex and painful emotions brings out the best in an actor as in Firth’s case it has certainly now demonstrated again just how fine a performer he is. In Genova he plays Joe, a man whose wife Marianne (Hope Davis) tragically dies in a car accident. Joe is left to look after his two daughters, 16-year-old Kelly (Willa Holland) and his younger daughter Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) who is feeling an oppressive degree of guilt about the accident that caused her mother’s death. Joe relocates his family from the USA to the northern Italian seaport city Genova, after receiving an invitation from an old university friend, Barbara (Catherine Keener) to teach at the local university. While learning to adjust to an entirely new way of life Kelly’s emerging rebelliousness and sexuality places her in increasingly vulnerable situations while Mary begins to have visions of her mother wandering through the labyrinthine streets.

Genova is a beautifully measured film about family, loss and moving on with life. With a skilled director like Michael Winterbottom (Welcome to Sarajevo, Wonderland, The Claim, 24 Hour Party People, A Cock and Bull Story, A Mighty Heart) at the helm you can be assured that it will never delve into cheap sentiment. Winterbottom is a director of such integrity that he restrains all potential indulgences that would have been tempting to give into, considering the subject matter, to instead focus on small moments of great resonance: the awkwardness of hugging somebody at a wake while holding a plate of food, the momentary sigh of frustration a parent gives when woken by a crying child before they leap out of bed to provide comfort. Winterbottom is not a cold or detached director but he is an incredibly thoughtful one who makes sure that moments that do provoke an intense emotional response are deserved and genuine.

Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) and Kelly (Willa Holland)

Surrounding the beautiful character dynamics at play in Genova is the titular city. Winterbottom’s now trademark use of handheld digital cinematography, along with the ambient sound, perfectly captures the light and atmosphere. The dense city streets, buildings covered in scaffolding, grief theme and gradual introduction of Marianne as a ‘ghost’ in the story somewhat evokes Nicolas Roeg’s Venice set thriller Don’t Look Now. However, the comparison is only superficial and audiences expecting a supernatural horror from Genova are going to be disappointed. In fact, the true nature of what exactly it is the Mary sees is left deliberately ambiguous and while Genova may not conclude with a traditional narrative climax, it emotionally delivers all the way to the end. Genova is an incredible film that you won’t want to let go of. Winterbottom is one of the greatest living directors and Genova demonstrates this. Again.

© Thomas Caldwell, 2009

Read more reviews at MRQE

Originally published in Rip-In Magazine 045, 2007.

Genre: Drama/History
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, Archie Panjabi, Mohammed Afzal, Irfan Khan
Director: Michael Winterbottom

There is a sense of awkwardness when mainstream cinema excavates the complexity of history through the artistry of documentary stylistics. A Mighty Heart, directed by Michael Winterbottom, uncomfortably produces a cramped biography of Mariane Pearl (Jolie), who is the widow of murdered Daniel Pearl (Futterman) in Karachi Pakistan.

Winterbottom is an eclectic director that has covered the gamut of genres. He has directed TV series such as Rosie the Great (1989), docu-dramas such as Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (1996) and his most acclaimed to date The Road to Guantanamo (2006); his deft range of films also includes arthouse flicks like 9 songs (2004) and also the comedic biography of Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People (2002). However, eclecticism in style is also synonymous with confusion and clutter.

This film is made for an indelicate audience that are trained to stomach the complexity of war, especially when a masala of names, organisations and political affiliations are battered into one storyboard. A Mighty Heart, in précis, recovers the true story of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and his capture by terrorists. The film details the ordeal of Mariane Pearl as she tries desperately to locate her husband’s whereabouts in Karachi. The exposition explains that Daniel travelled to meet a religious extremist by the name of Sheik Gilani but fails to return home. Mariane suspects foul play and called a host of international organisations in Karachi to rescue her husband. The tragedy unfolds as her husband is later found murdered when the U.S. failed to comply with terrorist demands.

A Mighty Heart attempts to unveil the indomitable spirit of Mariane through the realism of cinema verite (hand-held, erratic camera movements) and the mainstream bell-curve of narrative-making (the progression of the story with low-high-low dramas). In the process of unveiling Mariane’s emotional turmoil, Winterbottom added another documentary element, which is the flood of information to sustain the realism of the film. Unfortunately, such prostitution of facts, evidences, criminal alibis and victims made the audience painstakingly run-the-mile just to catch-up with the story.

It is unfair for critics to expect tear-drenched audiences but the audience were emotionally shielded from Mariane by the excessive complexity of narrative, style and information. The two-supporting actors – Asra (Panjabi) and Captain (Khan) – were commendable in their roles as they added flesh to a convoluted jigsaw of skeletal information. While Jolie’s performance did not exceed expectation, she was well chosen to play the paradoxically spirited yet emotionally vulnerable Mariane.

From the hype came a disappointing dissolution of anticipation. This is a film with the buzz word “Oscars” trailing the wake of its screen profits but I wouldn’t bet a dime on it just yet.

'Hunger'

Alan Parker famously once said that he would leave the UK if Peter Greenaway were allowed to make another film. This was back in the Eighties, when threatening to leave the country was something of a pastime for the rich and famous, but it did reflect a frustration that Parker and others had about the direction in which the British film industry was going.

We make too many artsy films, they argued, the kind of films that confuse the man in the street and do little to promote the growth of the domestic industry. Instead we should be focusing on lively and entertaining cinema, films that pull in the crowds and tell a good story well.

Since then the British film industry has too often operated with these extremes in mind, unable to commit to one or the other. For much of the Nineties and Noughties we saw, on the one hand, self-consciously populist films that proved to be far from popular at the box office and, on the other, serious films that didn’t quite have the balls to take any serious risks artistically. Despite occasional successes (The Talented Mr. Ripley, My Summer of Love, Trainspotting, Ratcatcher) the overall mood was one of gloom, compromise and squalor.

Imagine my surprise then, when coming back to the UK in August after almost a year away, to find the country in the midst of a mini cinematic boom and myself with a whole lot of catching up to do. Ingmar Bergman in his later years reportedly watched every metre of new Swedish film that was released, and I found myself trying to do the same with DVDs, tracking down as many of the key works of this new British renaissance as I could find.

So what’s been happening here in the UK over the last, say, three years? Well for a start, we’ve been making some very good films indeed. Two of the best – Anton Corbijn’s Control (2007) and Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008) – are directed by artists who started life in other disciplines, Corbijn as a photographer and McQueen as a creator of video installations. Happily both men have a keen cinematic sensibility. In Control Corbijn goes beyond the clichés of the rock biopic to give us an honest and at times harrowing portrait of the life of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. For his part, McQueen tells the story of Bobby Sands and the IRA hunger strikers almost wordlessly, but with a palpable sense for the feel and smell and taste of things.

'Unrelated'

Also great are Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank (2009), of which you will have heard a lot recently, and Joanna Hogg’s Unrelated (2008). The first is in the much-criticised tradition of ‘kitchen sink’ drama, with teenage characters who call each other ‘cuntface’ and drink cheap cider in council flats. But, I would argue, as she tells her story Arnold leads us steadily away from genre conventions and towards themes that are pretty universal; betrayal, the process of growing up, and the need children have for a father.

On the more commercial side of things, we’ve had Frost/Nixon (2008), The International (2009) and, more recently, In The Loop. The latter is effectively a feature-length episode of Armando Iannucci’s TV show The Thick of It. Added to the usual mix of foul-mouthed political advisors and pusillanimous MPs are James Gandolfini and a storyline about the Anglo-American invasion of an unnamed Middle Eastern country. It may not break much new ground cinematically but it is intelligent and very funny, which is more than can be said for most UK small-to-big-screen comedy adaptations (Holiday On The Buses anyone? Kevin and Perry Go Large?). It also contains probably my favourite movie line of the year; “difficult, difficult, lemon difficult” says a character at one point (as opposed to ‘easy peasy lemon squeezy’).

Peter Capaldi says a rude word or two 'In The Loop'

Also conquering the world recently was Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (2008), an astute blend of Hollywood and Bollywood genres, and proof that Britain (with a little help from India) can produce the odd quality blockbuster.  In the realm of documentary, Gideon Koppel’s Sleep Furiously (2009) chronicled a rural Welsh world of library vans, sheepdog trials and cake-making and was, along the way, rather beautiful and beguiling.

And at the schlockier end of the spectrum, Donkey Punch (2008) told the story of a cruise on a Majorcan yacht gone badly wrong. It’s a tense, bloody thriller, and exactly the kind of film that this country has in the past had so much difficulty producing.

Back in Artsville, I should also mention two promising debuts: Duane Hopkins’ Better Things (2008) and Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s Helen (2009). Both are flawed but assured films from directors who have a very clear vision and, again in a break from the past, have been allowed to follow it through without interference.

This, it seems to me, is the key to the way things should be in the British film industry. The future lies not in self-consciously setting out to make one kind of film or another, but in diversity. Commercially there will always be a place for the odd costume drama or Harry Potter film but, beyond that, the truth is that it’s very difficult to second-guess what an audience will like. We can never compete with Hollywood on Hollywood’s terms, so let’s scatter our seeds far and wide, encourage as many different kinds of cinema as possible to grow in Britannia’s fertile fields and then, maybe then, we’ll have a few more hits and a few more beautiful misses on our hands.

The bad old days: 'Holiday On The Buses'

After all, there’s a hell of a lot to be optimistic about in British cinema at moment. We have prolific directors like Michael Winterbottom and Shane Meadows making films on their own terms, sometimes hitting the mark and sometimes falling short, but always in interesting ways. We have Ken Loach’s ongoing partnership with screenwriter Paul Laverty, which has seen the veteran director do some of his best work. We have Terence Davies, hopefully back behind the camera after last year’s Of Time and The City. And we have Andrea Arnold, Duane Hopkins, Steve McQueen and scores of other talented new film-makers working on their second and third features.

And Peter Greenaway? Well, maybe he’s cooking up something interesting too.

Anticipiamo di un giorno la rubrica dei consigli, per segnalarvi che già da stasera è nelle sale l’ultimo imperdibile capolavoro della Disney-Pixar:  Up !

Presentato a Cannes, dove ha aperto il festival, e poi anche a Venezia, nell’ambito della rassegna in onore della consegna del Leone d’Oro alla carriera a John Lasseter, il film, diretto da Pete Docter e Bob Peterson, è un piccolo gioiello di azione, fantasia, inventiva e divertimento, capace di unire spettatori adulti e bambini, trasportandoli su una casa-mongolfiera verso la fantastica Paradise Island.

In alcune sale è anche in 3D.

In sala pure il film di Francesca Comencini con Margherita Buy, sull’attesa – dolorosa e piena di speranze – di una madre single, a cui nasce un bambino prematuro.

Infine la nuova commedia agrodolce di Judd Apatow Funny people, con Adam Sandler, e Genova di Michael Winterbottom.

Weekend del 16 ottobre 2009

Up di P.Docter, B.Peterson ***1/2

Lo spazio bianco di F.Comencini **1/2

Genova di M.Winterbottom

Funny People di J.Apatow

Nei Cinema dal 15 e 16 Ottobre 2009

15 Ottobre 2009

• Up - di Peter Docter • Bob Peterson

16 Ottobre 2009

• Genova – di Michael Winterbottom
• Lo spazio bianco – di Francesca Comencini
• Funny People – di Judd Apatow
• Di me cosa ne sai – di Valerio Jalongo
• Orphan – di Jaume Collet-Serra
• Viola di mare – di Donatella Maiorca
• Halloween II – di Rob Zombie

Up

titolo originale: Up
nazione: U.S.A.
anno: 2009
regia: Peter Docter • Bob Peterson
genere: Animazione
durata: 104 min.
distribuzione: Buena Vista International
sceneggiatura: B. Peterson
musiche: M. Giacchino
montaggio: T. Gonzales • C. Hsu

Trama: Un eroe settantenne, assieme al suo incapace compagno ranger, viaggia per il mondo combattendo mostri e malvagi e cenando alle 15.30.

Decolla subito “Up”, ma più i protagonisti si spingono nei cieli meno sembra di volare.

L’ultimo prodotto della Pixar non delude certo le attese, nonostante il clamore attorno questa pellicola sia stato enorme, su tutto la selezione come film d’apertura dell’ultimo Festival di Cannes.

Impeccabile come l’industria californiana ci ha abituato, preceduto da un corto all’altezza dei più famosi, “Up” stupisce perché non si mostra come sarebbe normale aspettarsi, e questo aspetto potrebbe essere l’elemento che lo farà rivalutare maggiormente tra qualche anno.

Niente a che vedere con la poesia di “Wall-E” né dotato della stessa spettacolarità visiva, l’ultimo nato vince, in particolare nei primi minuti, sul piano della risata pura; si differenzia però anche per una vena di tristezza troppo terrena rispetto ai prodotti precedenti, superata troppo velocemente per riuscire a metabolizzarla e dimenticarla.

Nelle dinamiche interne ai personaggi manca originalità, così come nello svolgimento della storia dall’incontro con l’esploratore in poi; la cosa migliore rimane lo spunto iniziale, per un film che si lascia godere dall’inizio alla fine ma non fa gridare al capolavoro.

3 stars virgola cinque e ce ne dispiace assai.

Genova

titolo originale: Genova
nazione: Gran Bretagna
anno: 2008
regia: Michael Winterbottom
genere: Drammatico
durata: 92 min.
distribuzione: Officine Ubu
cast: C. Firth (Joe) • C. Keener (Barbara) • H. Davis (Marianne) • W. Holland (Kelly) • P. Haney-Jardine (Mary) • K. Shale (Stephen) • D. Goritsas (Steve) • T. White (Michael)
sceneggiatura: L. Coriat • M. Winterbottom
musiche: M. Parmenter
fotografia: M. Zyskind
montaggio: P. Monaghan

Trama: In seguito ad un tragico incidente che provoca la morte della madre Marianne, la sedicenne Kelly e la sorella minore Mary lasciano gli Stati Uniti con il padre Joe per trasferirsi a Genova, dove da anni vive un’amica di Joe, Barbara. Il nuovo ambiente rappresenta per la famiglia la possibilità di ricominciare a vivere: mentre il padre tiene corsi estivi all’università, le due ragazze prendono lezioni di piano a casa di Mauro che vive nella parte più antica della città, un groviglio di stretti viottoli in cui le ragazze faticano ad orientarsi. Mentre Kelly esplora il ventre oscuro di questo nuovo mondo e inizia a vivere i primi amori, Mary si sente responsabile della morte della madre e avverte la sua presenza nei meandri della città.

Dopo “Road to Guantanamo” ed altri film altrettanto impegnati, ci si potrebbe aspettare che “Genova” sia un film sul G8 e sui pestaggi alla Diaz.

Invece Winterbottom torna al cinema tradizionale, alla fiction pura, scegliendo il capoluogo ligure quale sfondo per ambientare una difficile vicenda familiare, l’immersione in una nuova realtà tanto esterna quanto interiore da parte di un padre appena rimasto vedovo e delle sue due figlie. Lungi dal rimanere semplice sfondo, a mo’ di cartolina turistica, Genova diventa man mano che la vicenda evolve il vero protagonista del film, interagendo con i protagonisti e le loro sensazioni, determinandone le azioni e le reazioni.

Winterbottom si dimostra a suo agio con la macchina a mano attraverso gli stretti vicoli di un centro storico ingarbugliato come quello genovese, appoggiandosi per il resto sulle spalle di un ottimo Colin Firth, alla sua prima convincente prova da protagonista drammatico. L’elaborazione del lutto è un tema che inevitabilmente ricorre spesso al cinema, principalmente per via delle proprietà catartiche che riconosciamo a questo strumento: in “Genova” quantomeno si evitano i toni elevati, mantenendo costantemente la vicenda sull’orlo di una tensione che minaccia di esplodere ma rimane interiore.

Un’ultima cosa … distrubuiscono il film le “Officine Ubu“, no dico scherziamo?

Direi almeno 3 stars virgola cinque.

Lo spazio bianco

titolo originale: Lo spazio bianco
nazione: Italia
anno: 2009
regi:a: Francesca Comencini
genere: Drammatico
durata: 96 min.
distribuzione: 01 Distribution
cast: M. Buy (Maria) • S. Cantalupo (Gaetano) • G. Caprino (Pietro) • G. Bruno (Giovanni Berti)
sceneggiatura: F. Comencini • F. Pontremoli
musiche: N. Tescari
fotografia: L. Bigazzi
montaggio: M. Fiocchi

Trama: Maria aspetta una bambina, non è più incinta ma aspetta lo stesso. Aspetta che sua figlia nasca, o muoia. E se c’è una cosa che Maria non sa fare è aspettare. È per questo che i tre mesi che deve affrontare, sola, nell’attesa che sua figlia Irene esca dall’incubatrice, la colgono impreparata. Abituata a fare affidamento esclusivamente sulle proprie forze e a decidere con piena autonomia della propria vita, Maria si costringe a un’apnea passiva che esclude il mondo intero, si imprigiona nello spazio bianco dell’attesa. Ma questo sforzo di isolamento doloroso consuma anche l’ultimo filo di energia a disposizione: la bolla di solitudine in cui Maria si è rinchiusa è messa a dura prova e alla fine esplode. È necessario che Maria salvi se stessa per riuscire a salvare la bambina.

“Lo spazio bianco” è la trasposizione dal letterario al filmico dell’omonimo romanzo di Valeria Parrella pubblicato in Italia da Einaudi.

Lo stile narrativo della Comencini, posato e realistico come in passato, si apre questa volta anche alla forza visionaria di alcune scene surreali (il ballo delle madri, la scomparsa di Pietro dietro una folla di scout in piazza Plebiscito), intermezzi dell’anima che esprimono la parte più intima e personale della protagonista. Nell’attesa di un segno rivelatore, di un cambiamento, di un assestamento, le tende dell’ospedale si aprono e si chiudono segnando il repentino passaggio dall’insicurezza a brevi momenti di gioia, dallo sconforto alla speranza. La musica, tutta al femminile (Blondie, Nina Simone, Cat Power, Ella Fitzgerald), avvolge il dramma dell’attesa in una delicatezza priva di facili sentimentalismi, accarezzando la storia e infondendole forza e tenacia. Un modo raro di raccontare che porta l’attenzione su uno dei momenti più straordinari della vita di una donna. Tra il ‘bianco’ che annulla e contiene tutte le emozioni e lo ‘spazio’ dell’anima, dove la nascita di un figlio riserva un posto speciale.

3 stars ed un virgola cinque solo per Margherita Buy (nuda).

Funny People

titolo originale: Funny People
nazione: U.S.A.
anno: 2009
regia: Judd Apatow
genere: Commedia
durata: 136 min.
distribuzione: Universal Pictures
cast: A. Sandler (George Simmons) • S. Rogen (Ira Wright) • E. Bana (Clarke) • L. Mann (Laura) • J. Schwartzman (Mark Taylor Jackson)
sceneggiatura: J. Apatow
musiche: J. Schwartzman
fotografia: J. Kaminski
montaggio: C. Alpert • B. White

Trama: George Simmons è un cabarettista di successo. Le donne gli cadono ai piedi, gli uomini ne cercano l’amicizia. Un giorno scopre di avere una grave malattia del sangue che lo condanna ad un solo anno di vita. Una sera dopo un’esibizione in un locale, incontra Ira Wright, un comico alle prime armi. George gli insegna i trucchi del mestiere, i segreti dell’improvvisazione, temprandolo per il grande pubblico. Ma oltre ad un maestro di recitazione George si rivela per Ira un maestro di vita e un amico genuino.

Uno dei film meno peggio della settimana ed ho detto tutto.

3 stars virgola cinque.

Di me cosa ne sai

titolo originale Di me cosa ne sai
nazione: Italia
anno: 2009
regia: Valerio Jalongo
genere: Documentario
durata: 78 min.
distribuzione: Istituto Luce
sceneggiatura: V. Jalongo • G. Manfredonia • F. Farina
montaggio: M. Garrone

Trama: Fino agli anni Settanta il cinema italiano dominava la scena internazionale, arrivando perfino a fare concorrenza ad Hollywood. Poi, nel volgere di pochi anni, il rapido declino, la fuga dei nostri maggiori produttori, la crisi dei grandi registi-autori, il crollo della produzione. Ma quali sono le vere cause e le circostanze di questo declino? Nel cercare di dare una risposta a questa domanda, “Di Me Cosa Ne Sai” tenta di raccontare questa grande mutazione culturale.

Non ne sappiamo nulla appunto è questo il problema.

A parte che Vittorio Longo è:

un attore:
La città dei nostri sogni (1988),

uno sceneggiatore:
Di me cosa ne sai (2009)
Sulla mia pelle (2005) (story)
Torniamo a casa (1999) (TV) (screenplay)
Messaggi quasi segreti (1997) (writer)
La città dei nostri sogni (1988) (story)

ed un regista italiano:
Di me cosa ne sai (2009)
Sulla mia pelle (2005)
Torniamo a casa (1999) (TV)
Messaggi quasi segreti (1997)
La città dei nostri sogni (1988)
Juke box (1985)

“Di me cosa ne sai” comincia come un’inchiesta su uno dei tanti misteri degli anni Settanta. Ma a differenza di altri misteri italiani senza soluzione, qui non ci sono cadaveri, né stragi. C’è però l’improvviso, rapidissimo declino di un cinema che per trent’anni ha dominato le scene internazionali. Com’è potuto succedere? Chi o che cosa ha ucciso il grande cinema italiano? Questa domanda ci guida in un percorso ricco di testimonianze preziose e di riflessioni originali: da Mario Monicelli a Wim Wenders, da Dino De Laurentiis ad Andreotti, Ken Loach e molti registi italiani. Ma “Di me cosa ne sai” è soprattutto un racconto in forma di diario, brevi sprazzi dalla vita quotidiana di alcuni registi impegnati in una lotta a volte drammatica a volte comica per difendere il proprio lavoro e i propri film, che spesso è anche una lotta per la sopravvivenza personale. Un viaggio in Italia attraverso sale cinematografiche, esercenti innamorati del proprio mestiere, multiplex, laboratori digitali di Cinecittà e vecchi proiezionisti girovaghi… un viaggio che è anche un ritratto amoroso del cinema e del nostro paese.

Diciamo che questo è un film che parla del cinema italiano.

Forse è davvero un progetto interessante.

Lo rivalutiamo?

Io direi che un po’ m’incuriosisce e merita almeno 3 stars.

Orphan

titolo originale: Orphan
nazione: U.S.A. / Canada
anno: 2009
regia: Jaume Collet-Serra
genere: Horror
durata: 123 min.
distribuzione: Warner Bros
cast: V. Farmiga (Kate Coleman) • P. Sarsgaard (John Coleman) • I. Fuhrman (Esther) • C. Pounder (Sister Abigail) • J. Bennett (Daniel Coleman) • M. Martindale (Dr. Browning) • K. Roden (Dr. Värava)
sceneggiatura: D. Johnson
musiche: J. Ottman
fotografia: J. Cutter
montaggio: T. Alverson

Trama: La tragica perdita del figlio deceduto prima di venire alla luce ha devastato Kate e John, mettendo in crisi il loro matrimonio e minando la fragile psiche di Kate, tormentata da incubi e visioni legate al passato. Lottando per riconquistare una parvenza di normalità, la coppia decide di adottare un bambino e rimane profondamente colpita dalla piccola Esther, incontrata all’orfanotrofio locale. Ma quando Esther si trasferisce nella loro casa, un’allarmante serie di eventi inspiegabili si manifesta tanto da spingere Kate a credere che nella bambina ci sia qualcosa di sbagliato e che il suo aspetto angelico nasconda in realtà qualcosa di terribile …

Non c’è niente di più spaventoso come l’idea di essersi messi in casa qualcuno che non si conosce bene e che con il tempo si rivela sempre più inquietante. La convivenza con un elemento deviante che riesce a metterci contro i nostri cari è da sempre una scintilla che scatena ansia, come anche il tema del bambino demoniaco (sia metaforicamente che effettivamente) capace di passare per innocente agli occhi di tutti e di far credere pazzi coloro che lo accusano. Jaume Collet-Sera su quest’impianto si inventa molto poco rubando suggestioni da L’Innocenza del Diavolo e molto horror spagnolo recente. La sua idea di suspense non solo è abbastanza scontata ma a tratti anche ingannatoria.

Lunghi momenti di silenzio interrotti da rumori improvvisi, porte che sbattono, macchine che suonano il clacson o impennate della colonna sonora sono il mezzo principale per aumentare la tensione anche quando poi si rivela un inganno, quando cioè la molta paura del protagonista (e dello spettatore) è per qualcosa che avviene. Purtroppo tutto questo non è propedeutico a null’altro, uno spavento fine a se stesso senza che ci sia nessuna vera costruzione di una paura duratura.

Solo il colpo di scena finale riesce a regalare qualche brivido inatteso e un senso di inquietudine riguardo i bambini e il loro modo di apprendere e rimestare le nozioni che li circondano che riesce ad accompagnare lo spettatore anche fuori dalla sala. Ma è comunque poca cosa.

3 stars.

Viola di mare

titolo originale: Viola di mare
nazione: Italia
anno: 2009
regia: Donatella Maiorca
genere: Drammatico
durata: 105 min.
distribuzione: Medusa Film
cast: V. Solarino (Angelo/Angela) • I. Ragonese (Sara) • E. Fantastichini (Salvatore) • M. Cucinotta (Agnese) • G. Volodi (Lucia) • M. Foschi (Tommaso) • L. Lante della Rovere (Baronessa) • C. Fortuna (Ventura) • A. Vassallo (Nicolino) • E. Cucinotti (Concetta)
sceneggiatura: D. Maiorca • P. Mandolfo • M. Cristiani • D. Diamanti
fotografia: R. Allegrini
montaggio: M. Spoletini

Trama: Sullo sfondo dell’Italia ottocentesca, mentre Garibaldi sbarca in Sicilia con i suoi Mille, in una piccola isola, tra il mare pressante e la siciliana fede dei ruoli blindati, una donna vive una rivoluzione ben più grande: per sopravvivere allo scandalo della propria omosessualità accetta di fingersi uomo. A 25 anni la sua vita diventa quella di un altro: coppola, sigaro in bocca, una famiglia benedetta dal Signore, e tanto potere per occultare la trasformazione.

La storia del film Viola di mare prende spunto da un fatto realmente accaduto in un’isola della Sicilia di fine ’800.

La regista Donatella Maiorca proviene dalla televisione è stata in particolare regista de “La Squadra”.

Non deve stupire pertanto la distribuzione della Medusa Film.

Sfrondata da ogni orpello di perversione, la storia di Angela è unicamente una storia d’amore, di desiderio oltre che una strategia del vivere.

Ce ne frega qualcosa?

Io direi 2 stars virgola cinque.

Halloween II

titolo originale: Halloween II
nazione: U.S.A.
anno: 2009
regia: Rob Zombie
genere: Horror
durata: 101 min.
distribuzione: Mediafilm
cast: S. Moon (Deborah Myers) • C. Vanek (Young Michael) • S. Taylor-Compton (Laurie Strode) • B. Dourif (Sceriffo Lee Brackett) • C. Williams (Dr. Maple) • M. Mcdowell (Dr. Samuel Loomis) • T. Mane (Michael Myers) • D. Callie (Coroner Hooks) • R. Brake (Gary Scott) • B. Rue (Jazlean Benny) • M. Boone Junior (Floyd) • R. Curtis-Brown (Kyle Van Der Klok)
sceneggiatura: R. Zombie
musiche: T. Bates
fotografia: B. Trost
montaggio: G. Garland • J. Pashby

Trama: E’ di nuovo Halloween, e Michael Myers fa ritorno nella soporifera cittadina di Haddonfield, Illinois, per occuparsi di alcune questioni di famiglia rimaste irrisolte. Scatenando una scia di terrore, Myers non si fermerà davanti a niente per celare i segreti del suo oscuro passato. Ma la città ha un nuovo improbabile eroe, se i suoi abitanti riusciranno a sopravvivere abbastanza a lungo da fermare ciò che non può essere fermato.

Gli omaggi e i remake sono sempre pericolosi ma Rob Zombie ci si trova così a suo agio che, dopo aver affrontato le premesse e il remake dell’omonimo film di Carpenter del 1979, decide di ‘omaggiare’ anche il suo seguito del 1981. Lo fa con grande consapevolezza del mezzo e del genere nel primo terzo del film.

A partire dal momento in cui Laurie viene trasportata in ospedale la tensione sale e la paura si fa palpabile. Perché Zombie è indubbiamente capace di far percepire l’orrore rendendolo credibile e ‘quotidiano’. Dove riesce meno è nella strutturazione narrativa. Tutte le sequenze dedicate all’autopromozione del Dottor Loomis (che vorrebbero essere una freccia avvelenata scagliata contro chi strumentalizza a fini personali le sofferenze e la morte trasformandole in evento mediatico) finiscono con lo spezzare proprio quella tensione che così abilmente era stata costruita dallo Zombie regista.

È come se Rob avesse (e la migliore delle tradizioni horror lo contempla) due sé al suo interno. Uno dei quali lotta per distruggere il lavoro dell’altro.

Noi diciamo 2 stars.

E i trailer dove li guardo?

Ma nell’area commenti dell’altro blog cliccando qui, che domande.

A cura di cinemavistodame.com

    A Mighty Heart was filmed in Pakistan, India and France during the summer and fall of 2006.  Its journey to the screen began three years earlier when Plan B Entertainment acquired the rights to Mariane Pearl’s memoir (co-written with Sarah Crichton).

“Brad’s interest in the book was inspired by Mariane’s tremendous courage, and the generosity with which she shares her story,” said producer Dede Gardner, Producer at Plan B.  “The process with Mariane from the beginning was driven by mutual respect.  We were very conscious that a movie without her input and approval wouldn’t be worth making.”
  
Pearl’s feedback was sought on the screenplay and on potential directors.  “We sent her films to watch and had many discussions about the qualities that we all felt were crucial to our choice of director,” said Gardner.
  
Michael Winterbottom began making documentaries in England in the late 1980’s and moved into dramatic features a few years later. With his 1997 film, Winterbottom began shooting dramatic stories in documentary style.  To heighten the sense of reality and truth, he kept his crews lean and unobtrusive, and encouraged his actors to improvise.  His preferred subjects, from the political docudrama The Road to Guantanamo to the lighter but still provocative 24 Hour Party People, were well-suited to this approach.
  
    A Winterbottom fan since Welcome to Sarajevo, Gardner gave the prolific director Mariane Pearl’s book at a London meeting in 2004.
  
    He was intrigued.  “I was in Pakistan in 2001 when Daniel and Mariane were covering the war in Afghanistan,” he said.  “We were filming In This World in Peshawar when we heard about Danny’s death.  So I had my own experience of Pakistan when I read Mariane’s book, and I was impressed.  It seemed very recognizable.”
  
    By early 2006, he had completed two more films, including The Road to Guantanamo (which also filmed in Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan, Iran, Cuba and Britain).  That film convinced Pitt that Winterbottom should direct A Mighty Heart.
  
    “Brad called and we talked about the book and his ideas about how the film should be,” said Winterbottom.  “Then I went to Paris to meet Mariane, and finally, in May, Andrew, Mariane, Dede and I went down to Namibia to meet up with Brad and Angie.  That was the first time I met Angelina and it was great to see her with Mariane.  They were very close and very similar – straight-forward and easy to deal with.  Our conversations were practical.  We talked about what should and shouldn’t be in the film.”
  
    Still, she did worry about taking on A Mighty Heart.  “Mariane has suffered the ugliest side of all that is going on in the world today and came out of it believing we cannot just be angry and blinded by hate, but must continue to have a dialogue,” said Jolie.  “If I don’t represent her right, and people don’t see what a beautiful, strong, open-minded, loving woman she is, then I’ve done a disservice and hurt a really great woman.”
  
    Pearl wasn’t worried.  “I am delighted that Angelina Jolie is playing my role in the adaptation of my book,” she said.  “I deeply admire her work and what she is committed to.  I am also happy that Michael Winterbottom, a versatile and talented director who genuinely loves truth, is working on this project.”
  
    Winterbottom used Mariane Pearl’s book as his bible in structuring the film.  “We started by following her descriptions of events,” said Winterbottom.  “Then I tried to meet with everyone who was with her at the time – Asra, Captain, Randall Bennett and his deputy Zahoor, Dost, John Bussey, Steve LeVine, Asif (Danny’s translator and fixer in Islamabad) and Jameel Yusuf of the Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC).  Each meeting added extra details to the story.”
  
    As he cast the film, Winterbottom also asked his actors to meet with the people they would play.  For Dan Futterman, that meant the people closest to Daniel Pearl, personally and professionally.
  
    Futterman was grateful for the access, especially to Mariane.  “We met in Los Angeles, where she still brings her son to visit Daniel’s parents,” said Futterman.  “In what must have been a painful meeting for her, she was concerned only with making me feel comfortable, and with giving me information about Daniel, his work, family, and their relationship.  We spoke and emailed repeatedly after that, and she visited all of us in France in the days before we began shooting there.”
  
    Futterman found other sources helpful, too.  “Asra Nomani was very informative about the Wall Street Journal, Pakistan and the work of journalism in general,” he continued.  “Steve LeVine spoke with me extensively about the investigative work he did with Daniel in that part of the world.  Daniel’s fixer in Islamabad, Asif, sat with me while we filmed in that city, to talk about working with Daniel.  And Daniel’s parents, Ruth and Judea, were encouraging, informative and very generous.”

http://www.amightyheartmovie.com/

    On January 23, 2002, Mariane Pearl’s world changed forever.  Her husband Daniel, the South Asia Bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was researching a story on shoe bomber Richard Reid.  The story drew them to Karachi where a go-between had promised access to an elusive source.  As Danny left for the meeting, he told Mariane he might be late for dinner.  He never returned.

   In the face of death, Danny’s spirit of defiance and his unflinching belief in the power of journalism led Mariane to write about his disappearance, the intense effort to find him and his eventual murderer in her memoir A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl. Six months pregnant when the ordeal began, she was carrying a son that Danny hoped to name Adam.  She wrote the book to introduce Adam to the father he would never meet. Transcending religion, race and nationality, Mariane’s courageous desire to rise above the bitterness and hatred that continues to plague this post 9/11 world, serves as the purest expression of the joy of life she and Danny shared.

    Starring Academy Award® winner Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted) as Mariane Pearl, and Dan Futterman, Oscar®-nominated for his Capote screenplay, as Daniel Pearl, A Mighty Heart is directed by Michael Winterbottom (The Road to Guantanamo, Tristram Shandy) and produced by Brad Pitt and Dede Gardner for Plan B Entertainment (Year of the Dog, THE Departed) and Andrew Eaton for Revolution Films (The Road to Guantanamo). John Orloff (BAND OF BROTHERS) wrote the screenplay.

    In addition to Jolie and Futterman, A Mighty Heart stars Irrfan Khan (The Namesake), Tony Award winner Denis O’Hare (“Take Me Out”), Archie Panjabi (Bend It Like Beckham), Will Patton (Remember the Titans), Pakistani television star Adnan Siddiqui (Amer Bail), and Obie Award winner Gary Wilmes (“Red Light Winter”).

    The film’s behind-the-scenes artists are all Winterbottom veterans, including director of photography Marcel Zyskind (The Road to Guantanamo), production designer Mark Digby (The Road to Guantanamo), editor Peter Christelis (CODE 46), and costume designer Charlotte Walter (TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK & BULL STORY).

   The night Danny disappeared, Mariane kept vigil with Asra Nomani, an old friend and colleague of Danny’s at the WSJ, living in Karachi.  Both women were seasoned international journalists with formidable investigative skills, but they were also foreign women in a country that had become increasingly volatile since September 11.  By dawn, they knew they were facing a crisis that required strong allies fully briefed on Pakistan’s proliferating terrorist cells, its byzantine bureaucracy and its notorious Inter-Services-Intelligence agency (I.S.I.).

    Dozens of local investigators swarmed the house that morning, including a man called Captain, the then head of Pakistan’s brand new counter-terrorism unit. With Asra’s house as headquarters, Captain’s men, along with an American diplomatic security agent, two Journal colleagues and the FBI, dedicated themselves to the search.  After five harrowing weeks, amidst escalating media frenzy, they found the kidnappers.  Among them was the known militant Omar Saeed Sheikh, aka “Bashir,” the go-between who had offered Danny information relating to the shoe bomber story.  Then came the devastating news that Danny had been brutally murdered weeks earlier. 

    Mariane and Danny believed that by bearing witness to events and allowing all voices to be heard, truthful journalism could bridge communities in conflict.  Mariane has remained devoted to this principle, refusing to succumb to hate or fear.  After Danny’s death, she went home to her native France to await Adam’s birth.  She and Adam now live in Paris, France.

The movie, based on a book written by Marianne Pearl, matches Bennett’s account in the interview.

On the day he was kidnapped, Pearl was pursuing an interview with Sheikh Gilani, a Pakistani man he had been told was tied to the shoe bomber Richard Reid, a hot story at the time. An investigation after Pearl’s murder revealed that Gilani was used as bait by Sheikh Omar, a man who went by the name of Bashir, to lure Pearl into the kidnapping. “Sheikh Gilani, as it turned out, had no idea his name was even being used,” Bennett said in the interview.

“You have to remember that Sheikh Omar was a professional at this. This is what he did for a living. He tricked people. He was a terrorist who prided himself on his ability over a particular period of time to bring somebody into a level of trust and confidence where he could carry out his act and that appears to be the case,” Bennett added.

Michael Winterbottom is directing Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Ned Beatty and Jessica Alba in the adaption of Jim Thompson’s noir novel, The Killer Inside Me.

The story follows a West Texas sheriff and his downward spiral from a boring small-town cop into a ruthless, sociopathic murderer.

Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small Texas town, patient and thoughtful. Some people think he’s a little slow and boring but that’s the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his ’sickness’. It nearly got him put away when he was younger, but his adopted brother took the rap for that. Now the sickness that has been lying dormant for a while is about to surface again – and the consequences are brutal and devastating.

Stanley Kubrick described the book as “Probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered.”

Not sure whether Casey Affleck is the right choice for this one. He is a great actor, but the look of him doesn’t fit the character I have in my mind, but I suppose that is the point isn’t it.

Source: Quiet Earth

Sábado 26 de septiembre. Acabó el Festival de Cine de San Sebastián. El cansancio y el desconcierto doméstico impidieron ese último día que fuera a ver aquellas películas que por recomendación o por sensación estomacal pasaron a engrosar mi lista must-see.

La primera de ellas, ‘Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire’ de Lee Daniels, película que puse a parir en su día por motivos que ya contaré en otro post, pero que, tras oír comentarios varios, despertó en mí bastante interés. Ganó el premio del público en Donosti, con una puntuación brutal, pero mi ansia por verla surgió sobre todo cuando me enteré que ganó en Toronto (allí, el premio principal lo da el propio público), y es que este festival nos descubre año tras año grandes películas que logran gustar tanto a público, evidentemente, como a crítica, que no es poco. ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, ‘Eastern Promises’, ‘American Beauty’ o ‘Wo hu cang long’ (‘Tigre y Dragón’) han sido algunas de las ganadoras en Toronto estos últimos años. Convencido estoy de que ‘Precious’ será un bombazo, que como ‘Slumdog…’ arrasará en festivales y en los certámenes que son antesala de los Oscar (Golden Globe, BAFTA, Independent Spirit Awards) y, por supuesto, será la película independiente que todos los años se cuela como candidata a mejor película en los Oscar, como pasó con la propia ‘Slumdog…’, ‘Juno’ y ‘Little Miss Sunshine’.

Segunda película que se me quedó en el tintero: ‘Blessed’ de Ana Kokkinos. Película australiana que compitió en la sección oficial. Antes de que le dieran el premio al mejor guión en el Zinemaldi, este post en Blog de Cine ya había despertado mi curiosidad. Una pena no haberla visto porque al contrario que ‘Precious’, que no tengo dudas de que llegará a nuestras pantallas, la australiana probablemente no tenga la misma suerte. Espero equivocarme.

Las otras dos películas pertenecen a dos habituales del Zinemaldi. La primera de ellas, ‘The Shock Doctrine’ de Michael Winterbottom y Mat Whitecross. Winterbottom repitió de nuevo este año, tras haber competido el año pasado con ‘Genova’ (y haber ganado con ella la Concha de Plata al mejor director). Este año trajo un documental sobre el capitalismo neoliberal que provoca desastres naturales, guerra y terror para establecer su dominio. Tiene pinta de ser muy interesante, didáctico y revelador.

Y la otra habitual del festival, quien sino una de las hermanas Makhmalbaf, Hana en este caso, con su nueva película ‘Green Days’, que refleja las ansias de libertad que se respiraban en Irán previas a las elecciones presidenciales de este año y la desilusión y las protestas posteriores tras la derrota sufrida por el partido reformista debida a posibles irregularidades en el proceso de votación. Una muy buena oportunidad para observar de cerca parte de la realidad actual iraní. Espero verla dentro de poco.

Por cierto, curiosa la relación de estas hermanas con el festival. Hace dos años Hana ganó el Premio Especial del Jurado con ‘Buda as sharm foru rikht’ (‘Buda explotó por vergüenza’), cuando tan solo contaba con 19 años, película absolutamente recomendable, con una mocosa protagonista que nos tiene en vilo durante toda la historia en su odisea por conseguir el material necesario para acudir a una escuela en Afganistán. Y el año pasado, Samira, la hermana mayor, ganó el mismo premio con su ‘Asbe du-pa’ (‘El caballo de dos piernas’). Por cierto, Samira ha formado parte del jurado oficial de este año.

Cerradas las puertas del Kursaal por este año, al menos nos queda el consuelo de la Semana de Cine Fantástico y de Terror y, por qué no, los festivales de Valladolid y de Gijón. Quizás allí tengamos oportunidad de ver algunas de estas cuatro películas.

The Road to Guantanamo.

Director: Michael Winterbottom y Matt Whitecross.

Guión/montaje: Michael Winterbottom y Matt    Whitecross.

Intérpretes: Riz Ahmed, Farhad Harun, Waqar Sidiqui, Afran Usman, Shahid Iqbal, William Meredith.

Música: Harry Escott, Molly Nyman.

Fotografía: Marcel Zyskind.

GB. 2005. 106 mins. aprox.

Sospechosos

          Michael Winterbottom y Matt Whitecross rubrican este espeluznante y subyugador documento que narra los avatares de un grupo de británicos de ascendencia paquistaní (algunos de ellos menores de edad) que, encontrándose en Afganistán celebrando algo parecido a una despedida de soltero, fueron retenidos en Kandahar y posteriormente conducidos a Guantánamo como sospechosos de pertenecer a Al-Qaeda. Detenidos a finales de 2001, fueron liberados cerca de cuatro años después, sin cargo o imputación alguna en su expediente.

Guantánamo

          Aunque probablemente resulte conocido por los lectores, me permito la licencia de recordar que el penal de Guantánamo (base militar americana en Cuba) se abrió en octubre de 2001 como prisión de alta seguridad para sospechosos del atentado del 11-S y cualesquiera otros de la denominada “guerra contra el terrorismo”. Las personas que son conducidas allí permanecen en un limbo legal indefinido a la espera de ser enjuiciados por presuntos delitos del referido ámbito. Actualmente, cerca de 500 personas se hallan reclusas. Todavía no existen acusaciones formales contra ninguna de ellas. Diversos comités de la ONU han denunciado en repetidas ocasiones que en Guantánamo se está violando sistemáticamente la prohibición mundial contra la tortura, y no son pocas las personalidades de la política mundial que han pedido el cierre de la prisión (recientemente lo han hecho Angela Merkel, canciller alemana, y Lord Goldsmith, fiscal general británico).

Recreación

          El filme de Winterbottom (y Whitecross, quien fuera editor de los dos filmes que preceden del primero: In this world y Nine Songs) pretende ilustrar sin ambajes, y en un riguroso orden cronológico, el auténtico calvario vivido por Shaliq Rasul, Ruhel Ahmed y Asif Iqbal, estos tres jóvenes que fueron azotados por toda una maquinaria bélica articulada para combatir el terrorismo internacional. La forma escogida para dar imágenes y narración a tan fatales sucesos funda su eficacia en la celeridad, en la fuerza explosiva de la propia true story, canalizada mediante sucintos comentarios de las tres víctimas que van puntuando una recreación caracterizada por un afán de cinema verité bien conseguido, y un esquematismo para nada reñido con la composición dramática (a la que no es ajena la partitura musical que obliga al espectador a participar del conmovedor crescendo de los sucesos).

Tortura preventiva

          Revistiendo la película un punzante afán de denuncia política sobre la flagrante violación de los Derechos Humanos más elementales y sobre la práctica sistemática de formas de tortura en nombre de la paz y la democracia (ahí están las apariciones de George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld y Tony Blair mintiendo a la prensa con la más elegante de las impunidades), resulta hasta paradójico que Winterbottom y Whitecross hagan un esfuerzo por atenuar la gravedad de los daños que esa actividad ¿preventiva? del ejército norteamericano inflige a las víctimas que aparecen en pantalla –y otros cientos de individuos que han pasado sus vacaciones en ese particular infierno, o que siguen allí, aún pendientes de recibir una acusación formal-: en The Road to Guantánamo la fiereza del contenido no se lleva hasta el extremo en el continente visual, probablemente porque podría resultar insoportable para el espectador. Las imágenes no escatiman la violencia, pero nunca se recrean en ella, y la sobriedad narrativa en ningún momento cae en sensacionalismos que puedan dar cancha a las reaccionarias opiniones (que seguro que las habrá) que quieran tachar de efectista a la película.

Terror contra el terror

Nos hallamos ante una obra que es pariente cercana de la más redonda In this world, tanto en el apartado de la puesta en escena como en el sentido de las reflexiones que la sostienen. Como sucedía en In this world, el filme que nos ocupa participa a menudo de estrategias visuales que saben ponderar los momentos decisivos –el bombardeo nocturno, el traslado en condiciones infrahumanas al centro de internamiento afgano, el modus operandi de los interrogatorios en Guantánamo-, y, dotando al espectador de información objetiva, se atreve a bombardearle (implícitamente, claro) con una serie de interrogaciones de difícil respuesta. En In this world, sucedía lo mismo, la empatía hacia el joven y osado inmigrante que arriesgaba su vida repetidamente por conseguir (nada más que) una posibilidad de una vida mejor en un país occidental no maquillaba la evaluación de la cruda realidad de otros factores coyunturales, de desigualdades socio-económicas, que auspiciaban el flujo migratorio. En The Road to Guantanamo nos escoramos bajo el peso de otro sinfín de interrogantes que sólo en apariencia no guardan relación con los de la obra precedente: ¿Cómo se da efectividad a una política antiterrorista que carece de información concreta con la que operar? ¿Por qué no existen instrumentos de Derecho Público que puedan limitar (o censurar, o controlar) de algún modo la actuación de la nación de las barras y estrellas en sus maniobras pretendidamente antiterroristas? ¿Dónde quedan los Derechos Humanos? ¿Hasta qué punto la aspiración de la paz y la seguridad justifica la utilización de la fuerza y la violencia?  ¿Hasta qué punto llega la instrumentalización de tales conceptos: “paz”, “seguridad”? ¿Cuál es el gasto, físico o psicológico para los reos, y económico para el pueblo norteamericano, de esta política antiterrorista? ¿Dónde radica, en definitiva, el sentido de retener y torturar a un grupo indiscriminado de personas durante años sin disponer de la más mínima prueba –o indicio- de cargo? ¿Sirve de algo, en estos términos, jugar a buscar la aguja en el pajar? ¿Se trata de satisfacer a cualquier precio a una ciudadanía encolerizada, o más bien de fomentar ese cólera?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468094/

http://www.roadtoguantanamomovie.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/feb/26/features.review

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Guantanamo

Todas las imágenes pertenecen a sus autores

24 hour party people.

Director: Michael Winterbottom.

Guión: Frank Cottrell Boyce.

Intérpretes: Steve Coogan, John Thomson, Nigel Pivaro, Lennie James, Shirley Henderson, Andy Serkis.

Fotografía: Robby Müller.

GB. 2002. 111 minutos.

Factory Records

Finales de los años 70. Tras asistir a un concierto de Sex Pistols, el presentador de televisión Tony Wilson y algunos amigos trazan un plan que a lo largo de las dos décadas siguientes cambiará la faz de la música pop y dará notoriedad a Manchester: se crea la discográfica Factory Records, lugar de origen de grupos como Joy Division, New Order y Happy Mondays. Tras lanzar Factory Records, compran un local y ponen su propia discoteca, Hacienda, que pronto se convierte en una de las más conocidas del mundo, hasta su declive a mediados de los noventa.

Fértil radiografía

Sobre los años que transcurren desde la visión de Tony Wilson hasta la ruina de ese proyecto profesional trata de indagar la mirada de Winterbottom. Como si quisiera darle al continente el sentido del contenido, el realizador de In this world documenta al espectador de una forma en apariencia anárquica, pero tan serena como lúcida. Avanzando su narración mediante la voz en on de Tony Wilson/Steve Coogan (en on, porque Coogan aparece en imágenes explicándole al espectador el curso de los acontecimientos, con esa idéntica idiosincrasia de vendedor que caracteriza sus actos), Frank Cottrell Boyce prescribe y Winterbottom transcribe fórmulas narrativas de lo más originales que abundan en su fértil y bien documentada radiografía. Sin caer en la tentación de tomarse demasiado en serio lo que cuenta, liberándose de cualquier atisbo de carga nostálgica, Winterbottom  tiene la habilidad suficiente para concretar sus descripciones –caracterizadas a menudo por el tono cáustico con el que se retratan los peones de la función- en un conjunto perfectamente alambicado, y rubricar así un relato apasionante, vívido, bien contextualizado en su ubicación histórica, y, porqué no decirlo, a la postre entrañable.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274309/

http://www.partypeoplemovie.com/

http://www.joydiv.org/24hourpartypeople.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Hour_Party_People

http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/24hourpartypeople

Todas las imágenes pertenecen a sus autores

Tristram Shandy: a cock and bull story.

Director: Michael Winterbottom.

Guión: Frank Cottrell Boyce.

Intérpretes: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Keeley Hawes, Stephen Fry, Jeremy Northam, Mary Healey.

Música: Edward Nogria.

Fotografía: Marcel Zyskind.

GB. 2005. 91 minutos.

Imposible adaptación

La vida y opiniones del caballero Tristram Shandy (The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman), publicada en el siglo XVIII, es la más célebre de las obras de Laurence Sterne, recordada por su singularidad o (con la perspectiva del tiempo) prodigiosa modernidad en su  modo intrincado e hilarante de efectuar una descripción de corte histórico-sociológico. Aunque no tengo el gusto de conocer la obra de Sterne, es reconocida principalmente por la carencia de complejos por renunciar a (o incluso rebatir) la estructura tradicional del relato y –como James Joyce hiciera años después- narrar desde la dispersión (procedente de continuas asociaciones de ideas) en detrimento del orden temporal. También se ha mencionado por activa y por pasiva que Tristram Shandy es el paradigmático ejemplo de obra literaria imposible de adaptar al cine.

Deconstrucción

Y surge la pregunta del millón: ¿es el presente filme de Winterbottom una adaptación de la novela de Sterne? La respuesta es tan vaga como, en el fondo, la pregunta: sí y no (la pregunta del trillón sería si se trata de una adaptación fidedigna, pero vistos los términos literarios hasta su propio enunciado perece). Digo que sí y que no porque Winterbottom parece empeñado en llevar a cabo –siguiendo unos originales patrones narrativos no muy alejados de la genial 24 hour party people- una pirueta coherente con la que auspiciaba la novela, pero trasladada a su tiempo y terreno: esto es una deconstrucción del proceso de filmación de una película sobre la obra de Sterne, que parte de la inducción desde (¿y transita hacia?) el propio texto literario, y que se centra en una visión irónica, jocosa y dicharachera que sostiene (ahí radica la gracia) las claves de un cierto hálito de realismo descriptivo (o si lo prefieren, una visión nada complaciente) de las vicisitudes narradas y personajes en liza – en tiempo presente.

Digresiones

Así las cosas, en esta hábil y atractiva opereta, que pasa por ser un desenfadado y efervescente ejercicio de equiparación experimentadora entre literatura y cine, Winterbottom –auspiciado por su colaborador habitual en tareas de guión, Frank Cottrell Boyce- inicia el filme con una descripción desgajada de los acontecimientos narrados (también de modo desgajado) en la novela, pero rápidamente se permite la introducción de la propia digresión de digresión que propone: Steve Coogan, que interpreta al protagonista de la novela (y a su padre), pero también al actor Steve Coogan que está interpretando el filme, comparte plano con los personajes de ficción, y progresivamente el foco de atención narrativo pasa a concentrarse en la realidad, en el actor, y con él el resto del elenco, guionista, productores ejecutivos, agentes, assistants, y hasta periodistas, mediante una precisa, por momentos acerada, muy brillante aproximación a los entresijos de un rodaje, para mayor intensidad planteados desde la concentración temporal y espacial (una noche en el castillo que el equipo tiene arrendado para el rodaje de la película).

Entre bamabalinas

Amén de permitirse cáusticas bromas cinéfilas –fijarse en los guiños contenidos en la banda sonora, con piezas extraídas de filmes como Barry Lindon, El contrato del arquitecto e incluso diversas obras de Fellini-, Winterbottom se mueve con soltura en semejante alambre de enunciados, continentes y contenidos, y otorga al filme un desopilante tono al tiempo que un prodigioso ritmo narrativo, concatena un sinfín de cortas secuencias que precisamente se engarzan en esa clave humorística precisa para la fértil radiografía de no pocas cuitas y juegos de egos que transcurren entre bamabalinas y que, en esta singular ocasión, no se escatiman al espectador. En ese sentido resulta impagable la composición-de-sí-mismo que lleva a cabo Steve Coogan (bien arropado por Rob Brydon y su constante talk-man-show), quien se presta gustoso al juego de someterse al psiconálisis del público en la revelación más íntima de unas pulsiones, las del actor, que sostienen, tras la impoluta fachada, no pocas miserias.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423409/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilms/releases/acockandbullstory.shtml

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tristram_shandy_a_cock_and_bull_story/

http://dreamers.com/web1/i/peliculas/e/6729/p/foros/foro.html

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_vida_y_opiniones_del_caballero_Tristram_Shandy

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