Best of 2012

1. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

2. Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)

3. Holy Motors (Leo Carax)

4. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

5. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)

6. Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)

7. Skyfall (Sam Mendes)

8. Looper (Rian Johnson)

9. Bernie (Richard Linklater)

10. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)

11. The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan)

12. The Grey (Joe Carnahan)

Honorable Mentions: Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman), Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard), The Avengers (Joss Whedon), The Raid (Gareth Edwards), Blue Like Jazz (Steve Taylor), Life of Pi (Ang Lee), Les Miserables (Tom Hooper)


Big Imposing Art Movies Which I'm Too Chicken to Try Ranking Against These Others, But They're Certainly Something Else, Lemme Tell You:  The Turin Horse (Bela Tarr), Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

Most Underrated/Underseen:  Arbitrage (Nicholas Jarecki)

Most Overrated:  Argo (Ben Affleck)

Favorite Guilty Pleasure:  Lockout (James Mather, Stephen Saint Leger)

Worst Movie I Saw This Year:  On the Road (Walter Salles)


(actually posted Feb 2015)

Recent Movies: Argo and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

A daring idea for a comedy produces a rather quiet film, and one not nearly as funny as you might expect.  Indeed, it’s one of the saddest American comedies to be seen in years.  The jokes are mostly knowing, wistful ones about human behavior in the face of coming doom--some people go crazy, some throw out all boundaries, some commit suicide, and some go looking for love.  It’s all a but mopey and mushy, and lacking in memorable scenes, but Steve Carell and Keira Knightley anchor the film with heartfelt roles and surprisingly believable chemistry.  Somehow the thing does end up developing momentum and building emotion.  And in the end, it seems to me, this little movie reveals a far more compelling, truthful, and finally, beautiful, view of the human response to The End than Von Trier’s Melancholia and all it’s half-baked philosophizing.

Rating: 7/10 stars.

Argo

When a film presents itself as a docudrama about events of international importance occurring within living memory, it helps if the film is accurate in what it portrays.  Argo is not the worst offender in this regard, but when one reads afterward about the various fudged details and learns most of the tension-building elements of the second half of the film were added or falsified, it can leave a viewer dissatisfied.  When the film offers little in terms of depth or theme otherwise (none of the characters are more than two-dimensional, and while there’s a mishmash of comments about Iranian history and the American response that one suspects are just there so the filmmakers can defend themselves from charges of jingoism, there are no larger comments on America and/or the Middle East), the viewer might come to feel the whole thing was a bit empty and forgettable, at worst misleading and reprehensible.  

I won’t go quite that far, because the truth is Argo is pretty gripping stuff, and it effectively dramatizes the mood of the nation and the administration during one of the major crises of recent decades.  It is always a fascinating thing, for this viewer anyway, to see the inner workings of important institutions and the machinations behind major events, and I found the little details to be the most interesting (everything from the mechanical devices used by air traffic controllers before computers to the fact that the revolutionaries employed women and children to piece shredded diplomatic documents back together for propaganda purposes).  There’s also some good stuff in here about Hollywood, both its hypocrisies and its perennial appeal, and plenty of snappy dialogue to give the illusion of more depth.  The clever skewering of the movie business early on, though, just makes it more disappointing that Affleck had to “Hollywood-up” the climax with fictional ticking-clock delays.  In the end, we’re left with a pretty good movie that probably makes most viewers want to read the book or watch a documentary on the subject to learn more about the real story.

[As a P.S., I found Jimmy Carter’s voiceover at the end terribly self-serving with its boast of getting all the hostages back “peacefully”--despite the fact his violent option crashed in the desert and cost 8 American servicemen their lives, not to mention the fact the Iranians released the hostages on the day he left office as a final humiliation, not a victory.]

Rating: 6/10 stars.

(actually posted Jan 2015)

My (Imaginary) Sight & Sound Ballot

The big story in the cinephile world is obviously Sight & Sound magazine's once-a-decade poll on the greatest films of all time.  Since everybody's critiquing it and making their own suggestions, I figured I'd share my own list, if I was ever so lucky as to be asked for it.

I am an inveterate list-maker, so what follows does reflect some serious thought and many changes and revisions.  (I actually have a big list of greatest movies that I'm constantly updating--which is probably a weird thing to have, but if blogging has taught me anything, it's that I'm not alone in this practice.)  However, I freely admit that the extent of my knowledge and experience in the world of cinema is limited, probably (hopefully!) more limited than anyone who actually participated in the poll, so I make no claim that my list is better than the poll's results, nor anyone else's personal list.  There is, of course, no such thing as the "Greatest Movie Ever Made," so all lists such as this are merely games which help us discover/decide what aesthetic ideals we value.  

My list has no overarching ideals to it except my own response to the movies themselves.  I wouldn't describe the list as my "favorite" movies, because that word suggests to me those movies which I most enjoy watching again and again, but I have not tried to list those movies which are most "historically important" either.  These films are those which have impressed me most strongly with their aesthetic brilliance and emotional power; they have left me in awe and altered the way I see the world.  I present them here with no further detail or explanation; each film deserves volumes devoted to it, and I would need to write at least a post for every one or nothing at all, so I have opted for nothing at all.

So, as of September 2012, this is my list of the 10 Greatest Films of All Time:

1. Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
2. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
3. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
4. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
5. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
6. It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
7. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)
8. The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
9. The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
10. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)

OK, just two lines of explanation:  If I had to justify with one film the ability of cinema to present beauty and humanity in the face of the vast wasteland of vulgar, obscene, and commercial junk that we are so often swamped with, I would choose Sunrise.  If I had to justify film as an art form which can express the beauties and terrors of human existence on a level comparable to the other great arts--a film to mention in the same breath with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Hamlet, or the Sistine Chapel--I would choose Andrei Rublev.

And just because ten is too small a number, here are ten more films, in alphabetical order, which could on another day have made it into my Top 10:

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
The General (Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton, 1926)
High Noon (Fred Zinneman, 1952)
Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1948)
The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, 1952)
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)



(actually posted April 2015)

The 21st Century Action Hero

Every era has its own particular brand of hero.  The action movie has gone through several periods and had several different types of heroes.  In the ‘40s and ‘50s it was the American soldier, generally in World War II, in the ‘50s and ‘60s it was the cowboy, in the ‘70s the inner-city cop, in the ‘80s the muscle-bound super-soldier, in the ‘90s there was a whole jumble of different types, though tending to emphasize the average guy in an extraordinary situation.  In the first decade of the 21st century, a new trend has emerged--call him the post-9/11 super-spy, or the globalized killing machine. (Or don’t, I’m under no illusion that those are catchy names.)

That summary of hero-types is of course a one-sentence gloss on over half a century of movies, and even confined to a single type of film in a single country (America), it’s extremely reductive.  But I’m only gonna elaborate a little more, so just go with it.  The 21^st century action hero I’m talking about here of course exists alongside plenty of contemporaries as well, both (relatively) new (the Superhero), fairly old (the Inner-City Cop), and various attempts at throwbacks (Ryan Gosling in Drive, everybody in The Expendables).  So we should not consider this hero-type to be completely separate and unique, but bound up in and coexisting with dozens of concerns, trends, movie genres, available star personae, and various past hero-types, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting to elucidate the differences.

I see this hero-type as springing from two primary examples, who then influenced others: Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) from 24, and Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) from The Bourne Identity and sequels.  Together, they are probably the most influential action heroes of the millennium.  After them followed the new James Bond (why do they all have J.B. as initials? No clue) movies starring Daniel Craig, Liam Neeson (as Bryan Mills) in Taken, and Saoirse Ronan in Hanna, among others.  (Others movies that might be related, but which I won’t discuss here: Shooter, Inception, The International, Colombiana, Haywire.)  All of these characters actually have a lot in common, both in how they act and the conflicts they are involved with.  

Bourne and Bauer are each defined by a sleek, Apple-and-Blackberry-era sense of style: short-cropped hair, functional-but-probably-expensive clothes, nearly always in black.  No shiny leather or kung-fu in business suits, the emphasis is on efficiency all the way through.  Their fighting styles are similar--highly adept at hand-to-hand combat, as well as any weapon close to hand, willing to use whatever force is necessary to subdue opponents.  Their movements are highly trained, quick, and again efficient--they don’t go in for high kicks or shouting, no flamboyance, just killing.  They prefer handguns and sniper rifles, definitely higher-end than a cop’s revolver, but refraining from Rambo-style heavy hardware like BARs or flamethrowers.  They can take on anyone, but they are not gods--they can be hurt, tortured, though they are never killed.  They do not slaughter with impunity, but generally fight one-on-one against other highly-trained killers. These characteristics are generally mirrored by the others that followed them, especially Neeson in Taken.  Bond of course still loves his suits, and spends more time being a pretty-boy than any of the others. Hanna is more colorful, but then her under-size and unique qualities as a teenage girl rather require it.  For all of them, though, there is an emphasis on sleek style, killing efficiently, and a preternatural sense of focus and intensity.  Their movies are fast-paced, intense, with lots of chase scenes and sequences of bone-breaking violence.

None of this is brand new.  Spies and assassins in the ‘70s were always focused and deliberate, John Woo’s heroes were always businesslike and in black (generally suits), sleek and cool have been prized qualities in a (anti-)hero since the noir period.  A lot of these qualities could be sourced to Jean-Pierre Melville and his movies, especially Le Samourai.  Perhaps most strangely about the new types is the way they are never allowed to love (romantically, at least).  If they fall in love, their lover will almost certainly die, and knowing this they are likely to avoid deep relationships whenever they can help it.  Noir heroes were often like this as well, but modern heroes before this would nearly always get the girl.  

Luc Besson was already pushing heroes like this in the early ‘90s.  La Femme Nikita and Leon: The Professional have much in common with Bourne and Hanna.  There is also a probable influence of Michael Mann, especially in aesthetics.  Mann loves that cool-but-not-unrealistic, man-with-a-certain-set-of-skills hero, and his movies are textbook examples of how to craft a “highbrow” action movie.  But Mann’s heroes are always localized, limited, romanticized, and rather old-fashioned.  Our new super-spy-types are the opposite.

The most notable thing about this new generation is their emergence in this globalized, post-9/11 world.  This defines nearly everything about them--they are meant to be (anti-)heroes for our time, not romantic figures of the past like the cowboy, but existing now, immediate, relevant.  They are defined by the world around them, its systems, networks, and geopolitics.  What separates them most is their different stances toward the government and law and order.  Bauer is the ultimate government employee/operative, the counter-terrorist expert and defender of America.  Bond follows in his footsteps (though of course he greatly pre-dates this decade), but for Britain.  Their stance toward superiors and elected officials may change and shift over the course of a film’s plot or a show’s 8 seasons, but ultimately we know they are always working toward the good of the country (whichever it is).  Bourne, on the other hand, is a victim of government and a symbol of its guilt.  Hunted by the same type of intelligence services Bauer and Bond work for, Bourne is just out for himself, to find his memory and place in this world.  He does attempt to get justice for his dead girlfriend and shows mercy on a couple of those caught in the crossfire, but really he’s out to take down the system from a sense of personal outrage and revenge.  Hanna is very similar.  Geopolitics matter less to them than personal rights and wrongs, and they couldn’t care less what result their actions will have to the balance of power between countries.  Nevertheless, they can’t escape the system; it’s all around them.

Neeson is less influenced in politics, but he’s still international, focused intently on rescuing his daughter, who has been kidnapped by sex slave traffickers in Paris and is being quickly moved through Europe along a network that extends through Eastern Europe and to the Middle East.  Neeson used to work for the CIA, but intelligence systems never really figure in the plot--this is international crime, all underground, not spy agency stuff.  Both he and Bauer torture their enemies to gain information.  Bourne may psychologically intimidate someone, but he refrains from torture, possibly because he knows what it feels like.

Ultimately, it is the way they are located in this new world order that makes them most unique.  Unlike most American heroes (and of course Bond and Hanna, among those I’ve mentioned, are not American), they are highly international, often ending up in Europe, always mobile.  They are constantly using high-tech gadgets, but unlike past heroes--such as early Bond--these gadgets are often on the market when the film comes out, and never more than a generation removed--realism is a watch-word for these characters.  (Hanna is the most science-fiction-ish, but even she is being held to standards of believability as much as possible.)  While they are loners, constantly in motion, they find it very difficult to get off the grid--surveillance is everywhere, they can be picked up going through airports, using a credit card, even walking down a street.  They are deliberately postmodern in their ethical and existential dilemmas.  Where an older generation of hero--like the Cowboy--may be an enigma to others but understands his own aims and choices, the postmodern hero (as exemplified by Bourne or Hanna) either doesn’t know his own identity or is caught in a conspiracy he must try to escape from.  In the postmodern world, identity is fragmented, there’s always a larger, more sinister picture, and they are indeed watching you. (And here The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies may have an intersection as well.)

These heroes are (or are intended to be) creatures of our moment, locating the tensions between security and freedom, surveillance and privacy.  They are avatars of our modern anxiety, and our patronage of their entertainments suggest their concerns do indeed hit home.

Another possible source text for Tree of Life?

Probably not.  Nevertheless, the similarities and parallels struck me immediately.  If you've seen it, you'll probably notice them as well.  The whole chapter is equally beautiful and brilliant--heck, so's the whole book--but here's the important passage, where he describes the change that came over Francis at his conversion, and his evolution into both a saint and a poet:

     So arises out of this almost nihilistic abyss the noble thing that is called Praise; which no one will ever understand while he identifies it as nature worship or pantheistic optimism.  When we say that a poet praises the whole creation, we commonly mean only that he praises the whole cosmos.  But this sort of poet does really praise creation, in the sense of the act of creation.  He praises the passage or transition from nonentity to entity; there falls here also the shadow of that archetypal image of the bridge, which has given to the priest his ancient and mysterious name.  The mystic who passes through the moment when there is nothing but God does in some sense behold the beginningless beginnings in which there was really nothing else.  He not only appreciates everything but the nothing of which everything was made.  In a fashion he endures and answers even the earthquake irony of the Book of Job; in some sense he is there when the foundations of the world are laid, with the morning stars singing together and the sons of God shouting for joy.  

--G. K. Chesterton,  St. Francis of Assisi

Note: The Latin for priest is pontifex, which has its root in pons, pontis, n. --bridge. 

Final Best of the '00s Round-Up

So I've finally finished my Best Movies of the Decade countdown, but I figured I'd do one last post rounding everything up.  There are links to all the other posts in the series below, as well as the complete list of films in order below the fold.  In particular I wanted to list the Honorable Mentions that didn't make it on the list (because 60 just isn't enough, I guess?), and you can find them down at the bottom of this post, below the fold.  I also just like making lists of random things, and there are so many things you can make a Best of the Decade list about, so I've included two other items here as well, namely Best TV Show and Best Albums of the '00s.  Hope these are at least somewhat interesting.

The Best TV Show of the Decade: LOST (2004-2010)

I really don't watch that much television (in fact I have more and more aesthetic and moral issues about the whole thing) and I don't get HBO, so take this selection for what it's worth.  I watched Lost for years, viewing the first two seasons on DVD but the third through the sixth season on the designated nights on TV, living with the characters and the mysteries as I had never done with a show before.  It's the kind of show that inspires incredible fan devotion as it ranges from pop culture riffing to soap opera relationship drama to complex moral questioning amid a constantly shifting and evolving plot, all anchored to some of the best characters you'll ever see on TV.  Of course, it was a frustrating show as well, one that was constantly withholding things from its viewers, occasionally got mired in contradictory subplots, and ultimately refused to explain some of its core mysteries, eliciting a bit of a backlash.  I understand those who hated the ending, but I disagree with them.  I found the final episodes beautiful and emotionally satisfying, and I think they crystallized what had really been at the center of the series all along.

If there is a unifying theme to Lost, it is the human incapacity to create our own redemption.  Each major character comes from a flawed, broken home, and is consequently flawed and broken him/herself.  They come to the Island and are given a second chance: If they can only put aside their pasts and work together for the future, they could be happy.  But one by one, their pasts come back to haunt them, and they fail to find happiness for more than a few moments.  Desperately, they seek control, they seek complete free will, confident that if they could just have one more chance, with everything out of the way, they could finally make it right.  But it is not to be.  The universe is too big, too complex, and too cruel for them to ever be able to control it; they are lost in a sea of troubles, and the only constants they can find are in each other.  Each of them must learn to give up this search for control and certainty, to accept some things on faith and hope.  Ultimately, redemption can never be forced from within, only bestowed from above.  But grace can only be accepted by letting go.  That is, perhaps, what heaven is: a place to let go of all the hatreds, worries, gnawing insecurities, and tortured regrets that plague our earthly lives, and accept the people around us in love and gladness.  This grace is not earned, it is merely accepted.  That is what the final scenes show.

My Favorite Albums of the Decade
I have far less confidence in my musical opinions than I do in my filmic opinions, but I have them anyway and I think this list is pretty solid, so take it or leave it.  Albums are restricted to same release time span as movies.

1. Illinois (2005) by Sufjan Stevens
Honorable Mention: Everything else he did this decade, but especially Seven Swans (2004)

2. Funeral (2004) by Arcade Fire
HM: Neon Bible (2007)

3. Love and Theft (2001) by Bob Dylan
HM: Modern Times (2006)

4. Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008) by Coldplay
HM: A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)

5. How to Dismantle and Atomic Bomb (2004) by U2
HM: All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000)

6. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) by Wilco

7. American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002) by Johnny Cash
HM: American III: Solitary Man (2000) and American V: A Hundred Highways (2006)

8. Fleet Foxes (2008) by Fleet Foxes

9. I and Love and You (2009) by The Avett Brothers
HM: The Second Gleam (2008)

10. Day & Age (2008) by The Killers
HM: Hot Fuss (2004)

*   *   *   *

The rest of the Best of the '00s Posts:  Part 1: Intro and #60-55.  Part 2: #54-40.  Part 3: #39-25.  Part 4: #24-11.  Part 5: #10-2.  Part 6: #1.