Smart, engaging, funny, thoughtful, and doesn't collapse under its own weight. 4 out of 4.

There is a scene early on in Jesus of Montreal in which one of the characters performs a voiceover to a video depicting the Big Bang, and the inevitable end of the universe.  The presentation is both scientific and philosophical, and all in all, quite moving.  After he is done, the voice over artist turns to the sound technician and says, “Leaves a lot unanswered,” a question that not only addresses the cosmology at hand, but the nature of the human experience betwixt the beginning and the end.  In many ways, the scene sums up the film: curious, introspective, and reverent towards scientific explanations and religious experiences.

Religion has always been a controversial topic, and most films that challenge religion always stir up condemnation from the most faithful of the flock.  Ironically, the most protested films (Last Temptation of Christ, Dogma, Life of Brian) do not ridicule or demean faith, but dogma, interpretation and religious establishment.  Like those who came before and after him, writer and director Denys Arcand challenges the authority of the powers-that-be, but eschews smug cynicism for a receptiveness to faith in something more abstract than convention or doctrine would allow.

In an attempt to boost church attendance, Father Leclerc (Giles Pelletier) contacts respected underground actor Daniel (Lothaire Bluteau) to direct and star as Jesus in a modernized passion play at a Montreal basilica.  Daniel recruits four old actor friends to perform the play with him, and bases the play around historical accounts, theology and philosophy rather than staging a literal, and rather dry, reenactment straight from the Bible.

We get to see Daniel’s take on the Passion in its entirety about forty minutes into the film.  At one point in the play, it is stated that, “[Jesus’] miracles became more popular than his sermons,” which lies at the heart of the play, as well as the film.  The production denies the supernatural elements of Jesus’ life – including the virgin birth, Jesus’ miracles and the physical resurrection- and asserts that there is very little known about the actual life of Jesus; “disciples,” the actors say “embellish and lie.”  Instead, the play focuses on relaying the tenants of Jesus’ message: chief among them, “Seek your own salvation,” and “love one another.”

The play is a big hit with the public, who all seem genuinely moved by this new grasp on post-modern spirituality.  Church officials, on the other hand, are livid by what they deem as a blasphemous, atheistic rendering of the Passion, and having their authority questioned by a lowly troupe of actors does not help matters either.  Various members of the media take an interest in the performance as well, but are more motivated by the popularity the play generates and not what it has to say.

A modern, French-Canadian Jesus if I ever saw one

In a case of life imitating art, the film itself is something of a modern-day Passion play, with Daniel playing Christ on and off stage.  Daniel’s life also parallel’s Jesus’ life off stage: he butts heads with authority (the Church), resists temptations from nefarious forces (talent agents), and even drives out money collectors from a place of worship (in this case, advertising execs out of a theater).  Arcand skillfully retrofits the life of Jesus into a modern tale without being too obvious, and     Bluteau is perfect at exuding a calm, tranquil demeanor, and there is something very real and genuine in his actions and words, which is, perhaps, the most important element of the film; if Daniel is to be the real thing, he better make for a convincing Christ.

The film was, for obvious reasons, controversial in its day, and could still be considered so in this day of age.  Fundamentalist religious forces are still at work today, as are fundamentalist anti-theist movements, drawing battle lines, and clinging to warped concepts of deities (see: God and reason), leaving the rest of us to marvel (in confusion) in a polarized polemic between two groups who, frankly, resemble one another more than not.

As a student of history and a lapsed Catholic, Arcand has an intertwining view faith and reason, God and the universe, the natural and supernatural that is often glossed over by the media- crazy and rage make for the most entertaining stories- but has been around for centuries, if not even longer.  Arcand doubts the intentions of religious authority and remains skeptical over the supernatural, magic parts of the Bible, but there is an underlying respect, and even an acceptance, of some kind of humanistic spirituality.  There are no deux ex machinas or burning bushes in Jesus of Montreal, but the ideas, the sensations, the essence of what Daniel and his actors discover, and later go on to represent, are presented with a sense of wonder and transcendence, as if they have tapped into some kind of ground of being.

After the voiceover artist refers to the Big Bang presentation of being vague, the sound technician responds, “Yeah, on though it’s valid today, in five years it may change,” reflecting Arcand’s own gospel of hope, doubt, growth and faith.  Jesus of Montreal embodies these qualities, and does so by exploring religion in a very clever, unorthodox way that avoids being smug in its skepticism, or sanctimonious in its soul-searching.  On the one hand, it is a modern re-telling of Jesus, but in Montreal and in the Nineties, but on the other, it asks questions and makes revelations on religious thought that are profound and modern, all while providing a very smart, entertaining film that anyone can appreciate and respect.

Dark, infectious, and one hell of a ride. One of the year's best. Deal with it. 4/4

Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is something of a hallucinogenic fairy tale about madness, transformation, and the ballet.  Being an Aronofsky film, however, the film is less sweet and fluffy, and more akin to the Brothers Grimm style: dark, creepy, and grotesque.

On the surface, Black Swan looks like a return to form for Aronofsky; the film features the reckless camera work of Pi, the expressionistic anxiety of Requiem for a Dream, and the ambiguous reality of The Fountain.  Yet the film also features the psychological trials and tribulations, albeit in a very different direction, of an athlete/performer similar to The Wrestler.  In this sense, Black Swan is not so much a return to anything for Aronofsky, but a culmination of the director’s work up to this point.

Black Swan follows ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), who is chosen to play the Swan Princess in Swan Lake.  However, the ballets’ director (Vincent Cassel) decides that he wants Nina to not only portray the pristine White Swan, but also the role of the Black Swan, the formers more seductive, swan fatale look alike.

Although Nina is a phenomenal dancer with impeccable technique, she is as pure as the driven snow, and the role of the Black Swan requires a raw sensuality our virginal ballerina lacks.  Naturally, Nina needs to release her inner vamp, and in doing so, taps into a primal darkness that has been cooped up for far too long which triggers a number of disturbing transformations, both mental and physical.

Black Swan is no doubt Aronofsky’s most expressionistic film to date. Aronofsky trades in objectivity with a hyper-awareness for paranoia, anxiety and reckless self-discovery, which isn’t to say Aronofsky abandons reality entirely.  Much of the tension of Black Swan is enveloped by its portrayal of the ballet world, and Aronofsky goes to great measures to truly bring that world to life.

The film often looks more like a documentary than a slick Hollywood film; the grainy film and handheld camera techniques make the viewing experience more tangible and engaging.  There are several scenes that take place during dance rehearsals, but instead of sitting back and watching the dancers practice, the camera dances with the characters with enough vigor to make filmgoers feel little dizzy and out of breathe.  Clint Mansell’s score, which contains arrangements of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, permeates virtually every scene, and makes it almost impossible not to be obsessed with the upcoming performance.  Thus, we, not unlike the dancers, are waiting anxiously for opening.

Of course, it is the physical transformations in the film that are the most wild examples of expressionism, not to mention the thing that generated the most buzz prior to the film’s release.  These transformations, however, are not to be taken literally, for they only represent Nina’s inner metamorphosis, but whether or not these transformations are “real” is beside the point; they are frightening to watch, and effectively warp the film’s sense of realism without disrupting the ultimate narrative.    

The credit for these nightmarish changes does not lie entirely with the director; Natalie Portman gives one of the most involving, fearless performances of her career.  Portman surrenders herself entirely to the role physically, emotionally, and even sexually.  The world of Black Swan presented to us belongs to Nina, and Portman manages to, both, carry the film while surrender herself as its victim at the same time.  Furthermore, Portman portrays her character’s inner transformation with such great subtlety that the external changes serve the internal ones, and not the other way around.

Just as Black Swan relies on Nina’s own internal troubles, there are several external forces that appear in the film as supporting archetypical characters.  Although these characters have predetermined functions, it would be foolish to dismiss them as flat or uninteresting.  Mila Kunis plays a rival dancer who embodies the very raw, uninhibited sexuality that Nina lacks and needs to discover, and Kunis shows us yet again that she is far more than “the spoiled teen from “That Seventies Show.””

Vincent Cassel plays the proverbial sleazy mentor, which manifests itself here as Nina’s director.  This is the kind of role we’ve seen several times before, and Cassel seems to be the go-to “sleazy European” character in other films, yet he exhibits such a powerful presence that he goes above and beyond serving a function.

The most disturbing, shudder-inducing role in the film belongs to Barbara Hershey, who plays Nina’s overbearing, never-was ex-ballerina of a mother.  Although this isn’t the first time we have seen a horrid stage mother, Hershey plays her with a subtlety that nearly rivals Portman.  Every action and abuse her character exhibits is passive, yet it is the kind of passive that masks a greater kind of crazy and desperate interdependence.

As of late, Black Swan has become one of the most debated films since Inception; people either love it or are extremely annoyed by the film and its success.  Several people have brushed the film off as a campy B-movie; I read something that referred to it as “Showgirls for people who read The New Yorker.”  A clever, pithy zinger, yes (one that belongs in The New Yorker), but Showgirls, it ain’t.

The B-movie moniker makes sense, although the film hardly possesses the tongue-in-cheek humor inherent to camp.  Black Swan, however, is something of a genre film that features archetypical characters, clichés, and expected plot points; one could even label it a “horror-farce” if they wanted to sound vaguely condescending. The film is also unmistakably exploitative in its aesthetic style, in its emotional range, its shock value, and its treatment of the lead character.

So maybe Black Swan is a B-movie, but my question is this: does it make any difference?  Are A-pictures superior in quality to Bs?  Not particularly.  And why is it the Internet film geeks that are crying foul, citing its B-movie tendencies?  These are usually the same people that criticize the mainstream for ignoring the legitimacy of such films in the first place. Its only crime as a ‘B’, I suppose, is that it has received well-deserved critical acclaim in its own time, which ruins the fun of liking a film for the sake of being hip and ironic, rather than for the sake of film itself.

Be it a ‘B’, an ‘A’, or something in between, Black Swan is a phenomenal film.  There is something so vivid and mesmeric about the film, and these sensations linger on in the psyche long after the lights flicker back on in the auditorium.  A film so resonate is not the result of anything ironic or superficial; its damn fine filmmaking.

Let’s get this straight.  This is not really “the facebook movie.”  When I say that, what I mean is that despite its name, it’s not really about facebook at all.  To its great benefit, this film is about people, specifically a small number of characters, their friendship, and the way it was affected by greed, pride, and betrayal.  It takes the backdrop of an important event in recent history and uses it to feature universal human truths and emotions  in a way that every audience member should be able to relate to, not just the people of the “facebook generation” for which I unfortunately must count myself a part of.  facebook’s effect on the world and the way we communicate is only dealt with tangentially, as in moments when characters declare that “facebook me” became a common phrase across the Harvard campus.

Whether or not it’s an accurate portrayal (it isn’t), the depiction of Mark Zuckerberg, primary creator of facebook, is a fascinating one.  As portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg, he is the kind of anti-social self-centered genius that is pretty much incapable of change, let alone seeing the need or anything from another person’s perspective.  Eisenberg plays him with both a menacing inner turmoil and a sad loneliness that both interchanges from moment to moment and yet exists simultaneously.  Andrew Garfield, as Mark’s one true friend Eduardo Savarin, places his third intriguing performance in a row for me.  I was very impressed with him in Never Let Me Go, and was happy to see him capable of playing an American with few accent speed bumps (especially

since he’ll soon be Spider-Man).  His character was sympathetic and even-keeled, but managed to bring a unique sense of rage to the scenes that needed it and disappointed betrayal to the scenes taking place in the deposition.  Justin Timberlake steals the show in every scene he’s in, and rightly so since that’s exactly what his character does.  They needed a dynamic superstar to play the man who, for the audience, is the most well known and public figure of the bunch.  The fact that Timberlake’s Sean Parker must play serpent to Zuckerberg’s Eve also means he had to be charming and convincing as well, which Timberlake does marvelously, while still subtly revealing his original geekiness in a few key scenes through clever acting and an inhaler.

Aaron Sorkin is as awesome as ever when it comes to the script here.  Considering this movie takes place essentially entirely in conversation, he keeps the scenes fresh by having fascinating dialogue.  Some of the lines, particularly barbs between characters in the depositions themselves are hil

arious and memorable.  Dialogue-wise the introductory scene is one of my favorites in quite a while, it’s entertaining while revealing Zuckerberg’s motives and, more importantly, his inability to see the irony with which he is currently filling his life with, and will soon embody his life’s masterwork.  Throughout the entire script Sorkin just manages to sculpt phrase and diction in a way that sounds beautiful and compelling, if somewhat unrealistic.

Similarly, David Fincher manages to keep a film about a bunch of guys on computers visually compelling.  The creation of FaceMash, intercut with a wild party at one of the final clubs, is particularly fun.  On top of that, it’s one of the most realistic and best used examples of actual computer software I’ve ever seen.  The scene is done in a way that is both above your head in terms of the programming while being completely understandable and giving you insight into what the process of creating something might actually be like, including its obstacles.  While it may be an almost unnecessary diversion from the film, I think the most virtuoisic scene is the boat race featuring tilt-shift focus and fantastic editing.  Cut to a Trent Reznor arranged version of In the Hall of the Mountain King, it replicates metaphorically what is happening to the characters throughout their story, and particularly in the scene that follows it.  While there are a few Fincheresque camera tricks in the movie (seamless portrayal of twins by a single person, a bottle breaking inches from the camera lens, and camera that manages to dolly through a pillar), he mostly focuses on story and character and keeps things simple but visually diverse enough to keep the scenes of dialogue moving.

While I can’t say that it was my favorite film of the year, The Social Network is certainly one of the best, and it should be seen by all.  Zuckerberg creates a world in which everyone can become as brave as they want through the mask of anonymity, as the Shakespearean characters of As You Like It and many other plays, and in it, he’s able to crown himself king.  But in order to do so he must commit similarly Shakesperean acts of betrayal.  It truly is Julius Caesar for the online generation.

Ran is inspired by Shakespeare’s King Lear, but it transplants the story to Kurosawa’s favorite setting, feudal Japan, and rearranges the story quite a bit in order to fit and expand upon the new approach.  It’s not a literal adaptation, so you won’t see any Shakespearean verse in your subtitles, nor is there any commitment even to the characters.  While I did study King Lear, I’m not prepared to do a point by point comparison of the two works, but I can tell you that those who have seen the play will notice immediately that Ran changes Lear’s three daughters to three sons, likely to fit in better with the laws of the time.  This has intriguing side effects though, as the wives in the film become interesting pawns in the chess board that is the plot and one even becomes quite the player of her own, displaying a she-devil like prowess for power.  Ran contains some incredibly realized battle scenes that I doubt would ever be present in quite this form on stage as King Lear.  They’re incredible to look at, and bring the excitement up a notch or two.

The first thing I noticed upon starting the film was the presence of color.  This might not sound unusual, especially for a film made in 1985, but to someone who’s only seen Kurosawa’s work in black and white, it was quite a shock.  Boy is it brilliant color, too.  Kurosawa went the complete opposite end of the spectrum, with beautiful greens in the grassy hills, and reds, blues, and yellows as representations of each of the three sons.  Kurosawa sticks with his shots for a while, particularly in the first third of the movie when the pieces are being set in place for the chaos that occurs later, so those with visual ADD may find the look of the film a little trudging.  But those keeping a close eye on the shots will find many of them to be perfectly composed.

Let’s not kid ourselves here, the plot does spread thin over two hours and forty minutes.  You will feel the length.  But this is one of the best dramatic stories ever written, and I think it manages to pull it off despite its length.  There’s a poetic beauty to the way it’s told in this setting too, and the more it builds to the climactic moments the more you appreciate seeing the tragedies occur.

The acting here is all pretty good, if stylized in the traditional Kurosawa fashion.  The strong men tend to yell quite forcefully, the weaker men tend to be particularly effeminate, and the women particularly stoic.  It gets certainly gets the emotion across, and it feels right in the way that Humphrey Bogart’s dialogue had a ring to it even if it wasn’t always realistic.

With or without a knowledge of Shakespeare, this is a story for the ages.  While it speaks of big ideas this is truly a story about family, and in that way, it struck a big cord for me.  I was emotionally moved, and I think that anyone willing to commit this much time to it will feel similarly.  Seven Samurai is the more obvious choice if you’re just getting started with Kurosawa’s work, and Rashoman is great for writing geeks, but Ran may be the most mature and relatable of any of the director’s works.  Highly recommended on all accounts.

Biopics have a fairly standard structure; whether it’s about an aging musician or a troubled athlete, the presentation is often the same, and as of late, has become a boring.  Bronson begins with a fistfight between a naked convict and a group of prison guards.  If that doesn’t grab you by the balls, I don’t know what does.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson tells the story of Charles Bronson (not the American actor), Britain’s most notorious prisoner.  Having served 30 of his 34 years-and-counting sentence in solitary, it would be difficult to find enough material to make a compelling film.  Although this would be true for your average inmate, Charles Bronson is the furthest thing from ordinary.

Charles Bronson, born Michael Peterson, has written a number of books and sold a number of paintings while in prison.  He has also been transferred to over 120 prisons (including a few mental asylums) has orchestrated a several

Welcome home Charlie

hostage situations, and has a reputation of being one of the most violent people in Britain’s history, despite never having killed anyone, nor physically harming anyone aside from prison guards.  Why?  Well, Charlie Bronson just wants to be famous.  Scratch that; he wants to be a legend.

Given Bronson’s eccentricities concerning his own celebrity, it would be safe to assume that he agrees with the sentiment, “All the world’s a stage,” and that he’s its greatest character.  Thus, it would make sense that Bronson be told by no other than the man, the myth, and the legend himself.

Bronson (Tom Hardy) tells his own life story to an audience, and not just those in the movie theater.  Between the central narrative of the story, the film frequently cuts to Bronson standing on alone on a dark stage, performing for a packed theater.  Sometimes he’s standing there in his prison garb, other times he’s dressed to the nines in a tuxedo with clown make-up and re-enacting events from his life, reveling in his own notoriety.  These scenes do far more than add style to the film; it takes us into the mindset of the man and makes us understand him, or at least challenges our simple, pre-conceived notion that he is a barbarian without a cause.

You couldn’t have a traditional actor portray Bronson, just as you couldn’t tell his story in a traditional biopic.  Tom Hardy gives an incredible performance; the man disappears beneath Bronson’s menacing charm and circus strongman appearance.  The physical transformation is stunning; Hardy, a slender pretty boy, put on 41 pounds of muscle to play the part.  Not only does Hardy look the part, but he manages to humanize Bronson by channeling his wide-eyed enthusiasm and his desperation to become a somebody.  This performance is one of the best of the year, and it’s a shame he isn’t being recognized stateside; he’d give Jeff Bridges a run for his money.

Director Refn’s aim isn’t to generalize Bronson, though it isn’t an apology either; he is, both, man and beast.  By bringing us into Bronson’s world, we see the man behind the legend and understand why he is the way he is.  He isn’t crazy, nor is he malicious or cruel; he wants fame.  He wants infamy.  He wants to become the very stuff dreams, myths and legends are made of.  For better or worse, Bronson sees himself as a song and dance man in an ultra-violent vaudeville act that he is more than willing to be a part of, much to our horror and glee.

Unfortunately, Bronson’s first act is so visceral and kinetic that the film fails to keep that energy throughout the rest of the film, beginning with Bronson’s brief release from prison.  Although the last act of the film has its moments, it never quite recovers to its former glory.  The fact is, Bronson, both the man and film, flourish best in a topsy-turvy prison lifestyle; taking him out of it stops the film’s magnificent flow.  Plus, the film aims to be expressionistic in tone; truth is one thing, but we want to see Bronson as he sees himself: the showman.  Facts and historical accuracy be damned; let our entertainer do just that.

It isn’t difficult to see why Bronson is a legend in England; there aren’t many prisoners who possess his eccentricities, his ambitions, or his charm.  Although it peaks a bit early, Bronson is never boring, and always fascinating to watch.  Not to mention, I’ve never seen a biopic executed with such anarchic, devil-may-care fancy before.

Overall, 3 1/2 out of 4.

Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) is a nineteen-year-old Beur (formal term for an Arab immigrant in France) living on the streets of France when he is arrested and given a six-year sentence.  He has no family, no friends in or outside of prison and is illiterate.  Needless to say, he has all the odds stacked against him.

Soon, Malik is approached by the reigning Corsican gang within the prison (the Corsicans are to France as the Sicilians are to Italy) to kill Reyeb, another Arab inmate with vital information concerning some of their outside criminal activities.  Though reluctant to do so, Malik follows through with the task, and in return receives protection and low-level status, while still being treated like a dog by Cosriscan crime boss Cesar Luciani ( a wonderfully vicious Niels Arestrup).  From there, Malik learns to read, makes his own connections inside and outside of prison, and within his sentence, slowly becomes a reigning boss in his own makeshift crime family.

The film itself is a whopping two and a half hours, but director Jacques Audiard keeps Malik’s rise through the ranks of prison and the criminal world are engaging and unpredictable.  The atmosphere of prison is bleak enough to clash with the film’s main theme of rising to power, and the expected horrors of prison life still carry enough of an impact to shock us.

What sets this film apart from other crime films is how Audiard uses violence.  We expect people to get beaten in showers or stabbed in the mess halls, but Audiard keeps the violence to a minimum.  That kind of absence of the unexpected puts us in Malik’s place in that any horrible thing can happen at a moment’s notice.  When the violence happens though, it isn’t flashy or stylish, but savage and real; it resonates a kind of terror films of this nature seldom achieve.

Of course, credit must go to Tahar Rahim, who never fails to keep Malik a sympathetic character.  Whereas we watched Michael Corleone become a cold-hearted monster in The Godfather, Malik manages to maintain a kind of   innocence and vulnerability, regardless of his actions.  Although motivated by the classics (greed, success, and, later, respect), Malik’s acts of violence are more like acts of survival than Machiavellian tactics, and his attitude towards violence is never glorified satisfaction, and always have lasting effects on his conscience.

Malik’s rise from illiterate newbie to legit crime boss may sound like a stretch, but Audiard shows this path, not as a quick scheme of big moments, but as a slow succession of opportunity and choice.  Malik’s accumulation of power is impressive, but not so much that it’s unbelievable; one friend turns into a sizeable crew, one business deal turns into a profitable relationship and so forth.  Furthermore, Malik’s own personal growth is parallel to his professional one, as he learns to read, teaches himself the Corsican language (which is different from traditional French), and proves to be quick on his feet when it comes to handling a situation that doesn’t go according to plan.

One thing that may make this film difficult for American audiences to understand is the different European crime organizations.  For Europeans, the various Arab and Corsican mafias are as familiar to them as the Irish and Italian mafias are to us.  Because the film isn’t an American guide to Euro thugs, we are thrown into the intricate web of French organized crime while figuring out who’s who.  Although this makes particular plot points a bit difficult to follow, it doesn’t drown out the story.

A Prophet is described as someone who has contact with the outside world, often God or angels of sorts, and communicates the messages of said celestial beings to mere mortals.  This person is often celebrated, respected and revered as a result.  Although Malik is haunted by a ghostly Reyeb and has a single prophetic dream that grants him a mystical reputation with a particular gangster, the film’s title is not rooted in the supernatural.  Much of Malik’s power comes with the connections he forms with others while on leave (a conditional “parole for a day” arrangement within the prison system).  While charged to run errands and perform tasks for the Corsicans, Malik forms his own business deals and partners.  Like a prophet, Malik’s communication with the outside world brings him respect and power inside the sobering, penitent “real” world of prison.

Un Prophete is a wonderfully engaging gangster movie done with a light touch.  The film balances it’s violent subject matter with seamless storytelling, and as a result, the drugs, beatings, criminal politics and murder never once take away from the center of the story, which is simply one man’s transformation as a nobody into a very notable somebody.

Overall, 5 out of 5. Fantastique

As always, I’ll stay brief with my synopsis.  Di Caprio plays Teddy Daniels, a federal marshal who, alongside his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) goes to an island to investigate the disappearance of a patient from a highly secure mental institution for the criminally insane.  And let the eerie events ensue. Scorsese takes this opportunity to really take the premise and shoot the film using techniques that might have been more commonly used fifty years ago, while still having a completely modern feel to the film.  What grabbed me about the film right from the beginning was the mood and tone of the film, set brilliantly by the score, which begins ominously with even the first logos and titles of the film.  Throughout the film from this point on, this amazing mix of tension, paranoia, and mystery wafts through the screen with amazing consistency.  Every scene carries something that makes you feel creepy and weird but is presented in a way that made me smile with its brilliance rather than become physically anxious.  The film even manages to take things that might otherwise hinder a film, and use them in favor of creating a feel for the scene and a reminder of films past.  When the film gets expositional, as it does often in the first act, it still feels like we’re being let in on an incredible secret every time we’re told something new.  This is partially due to the earnest attitude of all the actors involved, but even more credit goes to Scorsese for making these scenes feel interesting through the fluid use of his camera, and the direction.  Each example of overly expositional scenes feels like a call back to the way thrillers used to be made, but only the best, most prime examples.  In fact, when presented with various items of information or settings, I often was very aware that these were being set up for later use, but they were presented in such a way that made me excited with anticipation for their return.  I’ve heard Hitchcock’s name and the noir label thrown around a lot regarding this film, and both are apt, but neither alone or together do they fully capture how this movie feels.

Noir or Hitchcock, who gives a shit, it's beautiful.

The look of this film is simply incredible.  It’s dark and confining, and yet perfectly composed and displays a wide range of tones and colors.  Many of the scenes have a distinctly surreal look to them. One example is the back projected skyline behind a boat used in the first scene, another callback to Hitchcockian filmmaking, but redesigned with modern technology in a way that makes the technique feel real while simultaneously unsettling in its perfection.  The art direction and production of the film is simply gorgeous and extremely stylistic.  It does loads to contribute to the tone of the film, and it kept me glued to the screen.  The mental facility itself just looks haunted as soon as you see it, and that’s before you even get to explore the intriguing variety of the different wards, one of which has the air of a foreboding castle.  Several dream sequences also make use of modern technology while harkening back to an older style of storytelling.  And while I generally find dream sequences to get in the way of more organic forms of storytelling, Scorsese finds a way here to make them both integral and poetic without stepping over the line that would make them feel over-the-top or unnatural.

To say nothing is as it seems would be a contradiction, because it seems like nothing is as it seems.

It’s no spoiler to reiterate that this film takes place on an island, nor is it to reiterate the way that this traps the characters involved within a confined set of locations.  As the story progresses, unsurprisingly, more forces converge to keep them isolated from the world.  This type of setting has always appealed to me, there’s something about putting a character in a situation in which they have no escape and seeing how they act that really gets at the center of who they are.  Not only this, but it forces confrontations between them and the other characters in the story, and each of these interactions reveals even more about the characters involved, particularly since character is revealed primarily (and more subtly) through action.  Shutter Island does this excellently, to say the least, using it’s setting in overdrive.  Not only are there physical things to be afraid of here (cliffs, caves, insanely powerful storms), but the world as a whole also presents a constant paranoia for the characters involved.  Dynamics of the Cold War and the atom bomb hang over the proceedings, adding that extra pound of fear into their lives.

The characters that surround Di Caprio’s Teddy may seem archetypal on first glance, but each of them has some sort of twist on the traditional take that makes them feel unique.  The actors, all top-notch, flesh them out even with as little as a scene, making them feel like real presences while once again calling back to the types of characters who would inhabit a 50’s thriller or even a 30’s/40’s noir.  Mark Ruffalo is reliable as always, and Ben Kingsley uses his traditional combination of charm, authority, and slightly offsetting down-notes.  As with any story involving a mental institution there’s a variety of creepy patients, and some moments that are outright disturbing as well.  Many of the actors that appear in the film were a pleasant surprise to me, so I will refrain from mentioning them here, but suffice it to say that even the players with only one scene have powerful effects on the viewer and Di Caprio’s character.  Consistency of tone and quality between actors is a difficult thing to achieve, and I credit Scorsese’s considerable experience and talent with the fact that this works as a cohesive unit, especially because it is not striving for a naturalistic feel.

I was enthralled with this movie every second of its considerable running time.  It was a breeze to watch and simultaneously powerfully affecting as well.  Had it been released last year as planned, it would’ve been one of my favorites of the year.  As it is, it’s the best thing to be released so far this year, and will probably remain amongst the top films even as the calendar comes to a close.  If you like dramas, thrillers, mysteries, or suspense even a little, please go see this movie.  I may see it twice.  It’s at this point that my review ends in my mind.  But if you have seen the film, AND LET ME REPEAT, ONLY IF YOU’VE ALREADY SEEN THE FILM.  I do have a few more opinions I’d like to get across.

ONCE MORE, ONLY CONTINUE READING FROM THIS POINT IF YOU’VE ALREADY SEEN SHUTTER ISLAND.

Don't read what's after this image if you haven't seen the film.

There was a point as I was watching this film that the ending felt disappointing to me.  As a whole it was going exactly where I expected it to, and where the entire duration of the film, I was hoping it would not go.  I was looking for something more creative and different, and not a reiteration of so many films involving mental illness.  Unfortunately, my prediction did come to pass.  But then something amazing happened.  Scorsese proved me wrong.  He took that ending of the film and did two things with it.  He created what may be the most powerful scene in the film, a slightly melodramatic but immensely affecting flashback scene, one that worked for me completely.  This thing is devastating, and while it indulges in a few cliché shots it’s so beautiful and well done that I didn’t care in the least.  The second thing that Scorsese (with great help from Di Caprio in this case) did was add a very intriguing coda to the film as Teddy has his final talk with the employees of the institution (on the steps).  This created a twist on the concept that was really interesting to me, felt different, and also perfectly true to all the characters involved.  It also had more than a few things to say thematically, pushing this movie out of the generic thriller zone.  And finally, despite originally desiring a different, more action-packed outcome, I cannot as a screenwriter figure out a way for this to work in a logical manner.  Despite everyone else’s foul cries, the ending works for me, and I’m disappointed to hear that the last twenty minutes of the film ruined some people’s experiences.  Scorsese’s created something both great and entertaining here, and I’m so glad I got to see this film.

For a while I thought Bryan Singer could do no wrong.  First, he was responsible for the first two X-Men films, which at the time were among my favorite comic book adaptations ever made.  Then I went back and looked at his previous work, which of course included the classic The Usual Suspects and the lesser known gem Apt Pupil.  And let’s not forget he helped create and was very involved with one of my favorite shows, House.  While I hadn’t seen everything he’d done, everything I’d gotten a hold of seemed to be good.  I was disappointed when he left the X-Men series to do Superman Returns, but wasn’t as disappointed with the actual product as many were.  I think he achieved what he was trying to do, and it was overall an enjoyable film, just not really the film I wanted to see out of Singer or Superman.

On to Valkyrie.  Even though most people seemed uninterested, I trusted that Singer would make something that was at least worth watching.  Nevertheless I missed it in theaters and haven’t been able to get to it until now.  The film is about a group of German conspirators who want to prove that not all Germans are evil by assassinating Hitler and performing a coup of the entire German government using an emergency plan called “Valkyrie.”  Alternate history this is not, so it’s no spoiler to say that they fail.  While their plan is complex and sometimes hard to follow (the technicalities of how these German laws work are explained, but don’t entirely make sense), the plot is actually relatively simple.  The movie splits into two distinct halves, the one where they’re setting up their operation, and the one after it begins execution.  The relatively predictable and laborious nature of the plot is probably the film’s greatest failure, while it loves to put as much suspense in our hands as it can, it usually fails because we know the outcome politically, and therefore can figure out for the most part how things will work out for the characters too.  Still, there are some great intense scenes that appear so largely due to proficient directing from Singer.  And once things get going in terms of the operation itself, the momentum does pick up.

The characters themselves aren’t particularly fascinating, we’re not given the motivations of almost any of them beyond Tom Cruise.  Essentially you come across officer after officer willing to commit high treason without any explanation of why.  All the actors are doing their best to do their “regal officer” characters, most of which have played similar roles in past films, and they all carry great presence but none manage to make these feel like people for me.  Even Tom Cruise’s character is too cold to care about that much.  The only thing that makes his character work at all is the fact that we’ve been exposed to his family.  There’s a particularly moving scene involving a bombing nearby their home set to the source music of “Ride of the Valkyries”.  But this scene, even in its great quality, actually feels slightly out of place in the rest of the film which normally depicts men arguing in rooms.  I’m all for talking heads but I prefer when they’re in service of character, or at least plot.  Many of these scenes seemed to be running circles of “should we do it”, “who should do it”, and “who won’t do it.”

The main sticking point for most people on this film is the accents.  Bryan Singer decided that it made no sense to have characters speaking English in a German accent because it’s not reality whether there’s an accent or not, the reality would be if everyone was speaking German.  And there’s the problem.  It’s so incredible in Inglourious Basterds that every character speaks exactly in the language they would logically speak in at any given time.  To contrast it to this film, which luckily for its sake, was released before Basterds, makes Valkyrie feel a bit cheap and awkward.  It also makes it difficult to get a grasp on the characters, they really feel like British and American people instead of Germans as they should.  I have to say though, I understand Singer’s point, and getting to have all these great actors without the awkwardness of fake accents is something that might be worth the tradeoff.  I mean this is a fact that allows us to have the likes of Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard (in a dramatic role no less), Kenneth Brannagh, and Terrance Stamp in the film.  You don’t see such a powerhouse of stodgy British acting often.  The actors themselves, Tom Cruise especially, get criticized for the lack of accents, but I think even Cruise manages to do a decent acting job around this problem.  There are some decent layers to his performance.  I’d say this is something that once you get into the movie, stops being a problem.

But that leaves us with the question of whether you can get into the movie at all.  I think my honest answer is that I never really did.  It was a well made movie, there were interesting things going on, and there were good actors doing about as well as they normally do, but it never became more than the sum of its parts.  And most importantly, it never grabbed me.  When you compare it to Inglourious Basterds, which not only grabs you, but grabs you by the throat and puts a clamp on your heart, you have an incredibly inferior film.  While both films are largely talking heads, Inglourious Basterds manages to take its experiment in intensity and ratchet it to 11 in a way that Valkyrie never is able to.  I have to say that unless you’re a die-hard Brian Singer fan, there’s not much reason to seek out this film.  It’s not a bad two hours, but there’s better things out there.

Every year dozens of great films slip through the cracks as far as mainstream audience reception goes.  People are often unwilling to pursue smaller films to their smaller, more rare theatrical presentations, especially if it’s something they haven’t seen many advertisements or media coverage for.  The great thing about the home theater world we live in is that the experience of watching a film at home is almost as good, if not better than the experience of watching it in the theater.  It’s with this in mind that I’d like to highlight a film that just recently went to DVD and Blu-ray after its small theatrical release this year, hoping that some of you will pick up the dark comedic gem that is World’s Greatest Dad, written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait and starring Robin Williams.

As with several of my other reviews, I find myself torn about how much of the plot to reveal.  I prefer to view movies knowing as little as possible about them, particularly with regards to their story, and I feel that my readers would benefit from the same type of experience.  Therefore I must say that the big turning point of the film is at the end of its first act, and you won’t truly understand what it is that you are watching until this point.  But the setup is this: Robin Williams plays an unpublished writer who teaches poetry (also unsuccessfully) at the High School where his teenage son also goes.  His son is dumb, perverted, and completely cruel to him, and yet he tries the best he can to be a good father regardless.  The only people who seem to have any appreciation for him are the art teacher at school who he’s having a secret fling with (but might lose to a handsomer, more successful teacher), and his son’s best friend, who’s unhappy home allows to see the effort with which Robin Williams’ character puts forth in his parenting.

Even in these early scenes you can see a lot of brilliance.  Robin Williams’ interactions with Claire, the art teacher are both sweet and simultaneously slightly unsettling.  Balancing two currents such as this is not an easy task, and the sense of dread that comes from the fact that the relationship begins in a place of relative happiness is well used. The interaction between Williams’ Lance and his son Kyle also provide unique spins on classic, almost cliché father/son moments.  A battle over the music in the car could easily have felt old, but somehow the actors and directors have come up with enough character quirks and fresh ways to play out the scene with a new feel.  The first act builds up Lance in a way that we sympathize with him completely, primarily through constant acts of kindness to his son that are repeatedly accepted with quite the opposite of gratitude.

Robin Williams can be a polarizing presence for many viewers, and his films of the last decade have most likely been more miss than hit.  But in this film, he brings his subtler self to the screen, and it works very well.  Lance as a character is more a straight man than comedic dynamo, but Williams still manages to give him a delivery that is often laugh out loud funny and there’s an atmosphere around the character that gives you an impression of condescension towards many of the characters.  Perhaps most importantly, Williams allows sympathy to remain throughout the film, despite the questionable actions of his character as the plot drives on.

Make no mistake, this is a dark comedy, and the reasons why lie largely in the latter two acts (though the horribleness of Kyle as a character is certainly dark and unrelenting on its own).  Balancing comedy with the darker side of human nature is a difficult dance, Goldthwait does so quite brilliantly.  And while doing so, the film manages to make some great commentary on the ways that we as humans act towards each other, the real ways we can be loving towards our family, and the way our art is viewed in different contexts.

It’s certainly not a perfect movie, many of the characters are two-dimensional cut-outs meant to serve a certain purpose, if not for plot, then to represent a certain subset of society or culture.  Even the supporting characters with larger roles are rather one-note, but in a comedy like this one it doesn’t feel unnatural because they deliver their jokes entertainingly and the characters are overall well executed.  Kyle’s best friend Andrew is a particularly interesting presence in the film, as he sort of grounds the antics that tend to build up later.

Because of the nature of the film (and lets face it, the recent occurrence of the holidays) I’m going to keep this review brief.  But let me just say that it comes highly recommended, especially for those who like dark comedies such as Death at a Funeral, Eulogy, or most importantly, Election.  I enjoyed finding a gem that not many others are aware of, and I think you will too.

The Road
Year: 2009
Directed by: John Hillcoat
Written by: Joe Penhall
Based on: Novel by Cormac McCarthy
Starring: Viggo Mortenson, Charlize Theron
Genre: Drama

Benn and James’ reviews and rebuttals follow after the jump.