Some films are so dense that it’s impossible to truly appreciate them while you’re watching them for the first time. The Red Riding trilogy is one of those films. Although, calling it a “trilogy” isn’t really appropriate because although it is three separate films by three separate directors using three very techniques, they are all part of a whole. Some folks have described Red Riding as a six-hour epic British version of David Fincher’s Zodiac. I think that’s an unfair comparison, which caused me to spend a lot of time comparing the two while I was watching it. When compared to Zodiac, almost no crime film comes out looking favorable.

Red Riding is a film about a serial killer, to be sure, but it’s also a film about a town. And more than that, it’s a film about a culture and a class of people. Based on a series of four novels by David Peace, the three films take place at three different years, during two different sets of serial murders and through the eyes of three protagonists. But the real main character and the main subject is the North of England in the late 70s and early 80s, specifically Yorkshire. I’ve never been to the UK and I’ve especially never been there in this time period, but the three different filmmakers all made me taste the tar of the cigarettes, smell the fumes of the local plants and hear the sounds of this place. This is dreary subject matter that takes place in a gloomy part of the world at a depressed time. In other words, this is the type of film that is right up my alley.

First we are presented with novice journalist Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield) in 1974, the installment directed by Julian Jarrold (Kinky Boots, Brideshead Revisited). Dunford is idealistic and passionate, desperate to break the latest story and willing to bend the rules in order to find out clues. Dunford fancies himself as a tough-guy private eye, but everyone around him sees him as a weakling that can be bossed around and frightened. But he’s recently moved back home after spending some time in the South and there is a twinge of condescension in his voice, like he thinks he’s better than most of the blue collar toughs he lives and works with. So, Dunford hasn’t exactly ingratiated himself with the local populace, but when investigates the disappearances and murders of several young girls, Dunford winds up suspecting some pretty powerful people. He also starts an affair with the mother of one of the missing children (Rebecca Hall).

1974 is a film that has gotten a lot of rave reviews and it’s got a lot of great material presented in an economical way that isn’t confusing at all. But it’s also a lot of set-up for what will follow in the next two films and although it has an ending that is intense and shocking, it feels a bit contrived as well. Garfield is excellent in the lead role as someone who believes he’s a big shot and is brought back down to earth in a very tragic way. He’s aided by terrific supporting performances from Sean Bean as the real estate developer, who is the most powerful man in town and Rebecca Hall as the mother who clearly misses her child, but seems to be withholding information that might be helpful. Then there are actors like David Morrissey as Maurice Jobson, Peter Mullan as Reverend Martin Laws and Robert Sheehan as the rent-boy BJ, who have arcs that only just begin with this story and continue through all three films.

1974 was the film that, for me, suffered most from the Zodiac comparisons. While it does have a similarly tight grasp of the atmosphere of the time, it just doesn’t have the same quality of construction or control of pacing as the Fincher film. The pacing is a big issue because Jarrold’s film seems to have starts and stops along the way while Fincher’s is able to follow a straight line and slowly build the tension. In this film, the tension is there for some scenes and lost for others. Perhaps this is due to having a smaller budget – it was made for British television after all – but I think mostly it’s just not an apt comparison. Despite them both being about famous serial murderers and taking places in the 70s, the films have nothing in common in terms of what they are trying to do.

Fincher’s film is a character study about obsession and a finely-tuned reconstruction of what it meant to be around in this time and place. The Red Riding films are also about a particular time and place, but while it dwells in the depressing, it doesn’t live there like Fincher’s film does. More than that, the message is much different; Fincher’s film seems to say, “there are no answers in life, only more questions,” while the Red Riding films say, “there are answers if you make it through the obstacles put in your way and you remain dogged in your pursuit.” And those themes definitely color the respective films.

1980, the film by James Marsh (Man on Wire) is when the story really begins to pick up steam. The Yorkshire Ripper is in the news, but so is corruption within the Yorkshire police department. An independent investigator from the South is brought in to find out why the earlier murders were never solved and to clean up the corruption. The man who is brought in, Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine), is a straight arrow, someone who is trustworthy and has had a previous run-in with the West Yorkshire police department before. But the interference is heavy and there are threats on Hunter’s life, even as he inches closes towards a conclusion.
1980 is certainly more concise in its aims and more efficient than the previous installment. Considine is perfect, as usual, in the lead role, someone who picks up where Dunford left off, but with more masculinity and less bravado. More information, that would be awful to spoil, starts to come to the fore. We begin to see how the pieces are starting to come together, but then it becomes muddy again at the end of the film, setting up 1983 with the heavy burden of tying up loose ends.

Our hero in 1983 is cut from a different cloth. The other two were a journalist and a policeman who have passion for what they do and are desperate to find answers. In 1983, we have an overweight and uninspired lawyer fittingly named John Piggott (Mark Addy). But concurrently, we also have a remorseful police officer that has been with us since the first film, Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey), who has a lot of doubts about what he has done. This film, directed by Anand Tucker (Shopgirl, Hilary and Jackie), has been called the weakest of the lot. I disagree, I think it’s the strongest and it helps to make the previous two films even better in retrospect.

By the time 1983 has started, everything seems terrible and it seems like nothing good will ever happen. But this is a film about redemption for three characters and retribution for one. In reality, though, this is a film about how a culture moves forward; by putting its past demons to rest. To say anything more would be to spoil it, so all I will say is that it’s important to stick through all three films. To make a musical reference, it’s a bit like sitting through The Streetsalbum, A Grand Don’t Come For Free; it takes a while to sit through, but if you listen intently, you will be rewarded.

I must say, however, that I wasn’t that appreciative of the films as a whole right after watching them. It was something that I slogged through because I was told I needed to and becauseDavid Thomson said that Red Riding was better than The Godfather. These comparisons hurt the film because it could not possibly live up to that billing. But the more time I’ve had to think about it, to let the films marinate in my brain, the more I realize how masterful they are. And a large chunk of credit must be given to the screenwriter, Tony Grisoni, for putting the pieces of the puzzle together in such an original way. There is an awful lot of information, a ton of characters and difficult language, but Grisoni knows where to put that information for maximum impact. It’s truly one of the best adaptations you’ll ever see.
I’m not quite ready to put this film in the pantheon of the greats and I don’t think I ever will be. But what Red Riding is, is better than most films. It’s the one must-see movie event of the first two months of this year. Sure, that’s not saying it’s the greatest film of all-time, but it’s pretty high praise indeed. It’s the best thing I’ve seen so far in 2010.

Noah Forrest
February 8, 2010

Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writer’s and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

I have to be honest; I really haven’t been following the Oscars as closely as I usually do. I’m not sure why that is, but if I had to venture a guess, I’d say it’s because of two big factors: 1) 2009 was one of the worst years for movies in recent history and 2) there are ten nominees for Best Picture this year.

When I first heard that the nomination field for Best Picture would now include ten films, my initial reaction was “I don’t care.” It turns out, however, that it’s really made a big impact on me. With the possible nominees doubled, it makes Tuesday morning a lot less exciting.

Truthfully, I’m a lot more anxious to see the season premiere of Lost than the announcement of the Oscars. I don’t see any reason to wake up early on Tuesday to catch the nominations live because any movie that I could imagine being on the final list will probably be there. There is very little drama to this Oscar season, especially since no matter who gets nominated, it’s a two horse-race: Avatar versus The Hurt Locker. If anything, this should be the year the field was narrowed to three nominees.

But, as always, I did feel moved to make my own ballot of what should be nominated this year in the major categories. Again, this is not what I predict will happen on Tuesday morning, but what I believe should happen – and never would happen in a million years.

Best Picture

Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
In the Loop
Mammoth
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
A Serious Man
Tetro
Two Lovers
The White Ribbon

This is the same as my top ten list. You can read my reasons for why these films are worthy right here.

I think three of these movies have a chance at a nomination on Tuesday (The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, A Serious Man), but the rest don’t have any real shot. The White Ribbon, perhaps, could sneak in there but will probably find most of its love in the foreign film category.

So that’s six movies that I find worthy, but will probably be shunned, even in a field of ten. So with ten nominees, we’re not likely to see more worthy films nominated, but even less. Films like The Blind Side and District 9 and Invictus and Star Trek are being bandied about as possible nominees. I mean, really? How does the inclusion of these films do anything but weaken the Oscar brand? Is the Academy trying to get “cool points” with the kids? Kids aren’t watching the damn show anyway. You really think that just because District 9 and Star Trek are going to be nominated that your average teenager is going to sit through a three-and-a-half hour show hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin? If you believe that, I’ve got a great talk show at 10pm on NBC to sell you…

If I were picking the winner here, then I think it should be Inglourious Basterds, which to me is far and away the best film I’ve seen this year. Although, I’d be just as happy to see The Hurt Locker walk away with it.

Best Director

Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Francis Ford Coppola (Tetro)
Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon)
Lukas Moodysson (Mammoth)
Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)

The word I would use to describe each of these filmmakers and their work this past year: control. Each one of these films is tightly constructed and each movement of the camera and every piece of blocking is so carefully and thoughtfully put together with an eye towards exaggerating whatever it is we’re supposed to be feeling. It is skillful manipulation using every cinematic trick in the book.

For Bigelow and Tarantino, that skill is used in the service of making us feel suspense mostly, although Tarantino is clearly interested in adding levity to the proceedings. For Haneke, he’s making us feel unease. For Moodysson, it’s compassion and pity. And for Coppola, it’s all of the above really.

As great as Tarantino’s film is, I think the more difficult directing job falls to Bigelow and Coppola. Bigelow had less resources and makes a film that looks just as expensive and is equally thrilling. I walked out of The Hurt Locker saying that it was the most suspenseful film I’d seen since Clouzot’s The Wages of Fears (and of course, Clouzot was referenced on a marquee in Inglourious Basterds).

But Coppola didn’t have great resources either and he made a film that doesn’t fit into any specific genre. It’s a coming of age film, sure, but not a conventional one. The tone changes swiftly at times, but it never feels jarring or out of place. The great thing about Tetro is that it’s a volatile film, one with so many emotions bubbling and churning underneath the surface, but we feel like it could explode at any time, just like a bomb in Bigelow’s film but without having the luxury of an actual explosion.

Then Moodysson and Haneke are so great too and their films wouldn’t work nearly as well if you replaced them with any other director. Both of their films are uniquely them and are reminders of why we love them. I would probably give the nod to Bigelow, just barely. But what she accomplishes is really one hell of a feat.

Best Actor

Matt Damon (The Informant!)
Alden Ehrenreich (Tetro)
Joaquin Phoenix (Two Lovers)
Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)
Seth Rogen (Observe and Report)

Okay, I know which one you’re looking at and wondering if I’m kidding. And no, I’m not kidding, Seth Rogen gave a terrific performance in Observe and Report. We’ve seen more and more portrayals of bi-polar disorder in television and movies as it becomes a more prevalent disease in our country. Knowing more than a few people afflicted with this illness, I can safely say that however exaggerated it is, Rogen’s performance is one of the most accurate depictions I’ve seen. Sure, most people with this disorder don’t go to the extremes that Rogen does in this film, but it’s actually kind of plausible if their case is severe enough.

And that is what elevates Jody Hill’s film above the norm; the fact that all of the humor and all of the darkness is grounded in something that is kind of plausible. And Rogen does an excellent job of selling the material, making us believe it and making us – gulp – root for him to succeed. Because of Rogen’s acting job, we get caught up in the mania. It’s really quite an accomplishment and one that will get ignored because of the genre it operates in.

Having said that, there is no way that Rogen or anybody else on this list could possibly compete with Jeremy Renner, who gives the best performance of the year bar none. Renner has shown flashes of brilliance before in films like North Country and National Lampoon’s Senior Trip (kidding), but in The Hurt Locker he is just a force of nature. He’s magnetic and powerful and when he is on the screen, we cannot keep our eyes off him. The way he moves, the way he never blinks, the quickness with which he rifles through the parts of a bomb with a flashlight stick out of his mouth, the single-minded focus he has while on the job…all of it is contrasted with his tenderness when talking with the kid that sells DVDs or the good-natured ribbing he shares with his teammates. Here we have a guy who epitomizes two ideas spoken about in Full Metal Jacket: 1) he’s got the thousand-yard state and 2) the duality of man.

I couldn’t stop thinking, as I was watching The Hurt Locker a second time, about what Joker says in Full Metal Jacket when a superior officer asks him why he would have “Born to Kill” written on his helmet along with a peace symbol. And Joker says, “I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir. The Jungian thing.” Jeremy Renner as William James is the embodiment of that “Jungian thing.” He’s a “wild man” as a superior officer tells him, but he also cares deeply about his men; it’s just that he can’t help himself when he gets in the moment. He sees a problem and he wants to solve it. He’s a maniac, but he’s a hero and those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

I am in awe of Jeremy Renner’s performance in The Hurt Locker. If anyone else wins this year, it would be a travesty.

(P.S. I love love love Jeff Bridges always and forever, he’s one of my very favorite actors and he gives a fine performance in Crazy Heart, but he shouldn’t win this year. He should have won for Fearless or The Big Lebowski, but just because he was robbed before doesn’t mean he should be given a “make-up” Oscar this year. He will give great, worthy performances in the future, but you cannot right a past wrong, you just have to let it go.)

(P.P.S. If Matt Damon gets nominated, which he should be because he deserves it, it will only be his second acting nomination and the first since Good Will Hunting. Think about that. He’s one of the best young actors we have and he’s only been nominated once, thirteen years ago, and not even for one of his five best performances. Good job, Academy!)

Best Actress

Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist)
Sasha Grey (The Girlfriend Experience)
Gabourey Sidibe (Precious)
Michelle Williams (Mammoth)
Robin Wright (The Private Lives of Pippa Lee)

Firstly, the winner should be Robin Wright, end of story. She gave the most layered, complicated and convincing performance by a woman this year. Of course, she won’t even get nominated by the geniuses at the Academy, who probably didn’t even see her movie. Secondly, Michelle Williams has to be one of the top five best working actresses today; she is always choosing interesting material and is consistently doing the unexpected in her roles, allowing herself to be reserved and subtle. If either of these two women is attached to star in a film, I know that because of their performances alone, the movies will be worth watching.

Sidibe gives a really great performance in an overrated film. She is quiet and believable despite some of the unbelievable aspects of the story; she grounds the film in something approaching reality and she makes us feel compassion. I find her performance to be more varied and interesting than Mo’Nique’s.

Charlotte Gainsbourg gives one of the most complicated and brave performances of the year in Antichrist and she should really get some love for what she was willing to do. She not only lays herself bare physically, but emotionally as well. The repetition in her screams and her quiet march towards a psychotic break provide some kind of emotional truth in a surreal film. She is the physical manifestation of a psychological idea: depression. And she makes us feel it.

I’m sure some people will think it’s ridiculous or deliberately controversial for me to put Sasha Grey on my ballot because she’s – gasp! – an adult film star. I’ve only seen a little bit of her adult work for, ahem, research purposes, but I can safely say that her “performances” in those films are nothing like her performance in Soderbergh’s film. She makes The Girlfriend Experience worth watching, not just because she is familiar with sex, but because she doesn’t over-emote. She seems utterly in control of her situation until she’s not and then we see her break down a little. It’s a quietly strong piece of work. Now, whether that has to do with working with a master like Soderbergh or because she’s truly a good actress…we’ll see if she makes another “legit” film.

(Note: Carey Mulligan is another one who gives a good performance in an overrated film (An Education). She is very winning and charismatic in a role that is rather one-note. We can’t help but like her and whether that’s a testament to her skills as an actress or just a great smile…we’ll find out when we see her next few films.)

Best Supporting Actor

Peter Capaldi (In the Loop)
Vincent Gallo (Tetro)
James Gandolfini (In the Loop)
Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker)
Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)

I really wanted to find a way to give a nomination to Brad Pitt for Inglourious Basterds, but I just couldn’t find room for him. But make no mistake, the engine that is that film does not run without Pitt as Aldo “The Apache” Raine. He is crucial to the movie. I also wish I could find room for Michael Fassbender, who might just be the next Daniel Day-Lewis, able to transform himself from film to film. Hunger to Inglourious Basterds to Fish Tank, I’d like to see another actor try that out.

But I digress.

This is clearly Waltz’s Oscar to lose. He does so many weird things in his performance as Hans Landa; the way he giggles when he’s negotiating with Aldo at the end of the film; the Cheshire cat smile when he tells Shoshanna to wait for the cream on her strudel; the way his face transforms when he tells the dairy farmer to point out where the family is hiding under the floorboards; the way he kisses the lipstick mark left on the napkin by Bridget Von Hammersmark. It’s an eccentric role filled with a lot of these types of eccentricities that Waltz brings to the table. Everything he does is exaggerated, but not to the point where it feels out of place. It’s the perfect over-the-top villain for one of the most perfect over-the-top films. I would say he should be the automatic winner…

…if it weren’t for Peter Capaldi’s hilarious and masterfully vulgar performance as Malcolm Tucker in In the Loop. Find me another actor who can find the poetry in a line of dialogue like this: “Within your ‘purview’? Where do you think you are, some fucking regency costume drama? This is a government department, not some fucking Jane fucking Austen novel! Allow me to pop a jaunty little bonnet on your purview and ram it up your shitter with a lubricated horse cock!”

I’m sorry, but that’s an impossible line to say let alone make it sing. Capaldi’s slimy character is so perfectly constructed and it’s because of the way Capaldi uses the tone of his voice like an instrument. It’s a performance that makes me smile just to think of it. When he and Gandolfini square off and throw profanities at each other like grenades, it’s one of my favorite scenes of the year.

I’d probably still give the award to Waltz, but Capaldi is really close. And he should be nominated at least. If we can throw a nomination to Robert Downey, Jr. for a one-note performance in Tropic Thunder, then I think we can give one to the much worthier Capaldi.

(Side note: Anthony Mackie and Vincent Gallo are integral to their respective films. Without their performances, the leads would be lost. They do exactly what a supporting performance should do: support.)

Best Supporting Actress

Penelope Cruz (Broken Embraces)
Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air)
Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds)
Vinessa Shaw (Two Lovers)
Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia)

This is a tough award for me to pick a winner. I think Kendrick is the only one who has a shot at getting nominated in this category (Streep will probably be nominated in the Best Actress category, but let’s face it, she was not the lead role in that film) and the winner will most likely be Mo’Nique, who was fine. I admired her performance the first time I saw it, but on a second glance, it’s really a completely monotonous portrayal except for her last scene, which she’s great in. I don’t think it’s Mo’Nique’s fault either, I just think the way it’s written doesn’t give her much of an opportunity to do anything other than what she does.

I think I would probably give the award to Cruz, for her second straight win in this category. Her performance in Broken Embraces is almost like three performances in one because she runs the entire gamut of emotions and is pretending to be a different person depending on who she’s with and whether or not the camera is running. We understand almost instantly why these two men would fight over her and obsess over her. Cruz imbues the role with sincerity and heart and she’s unbelievable.

She barely beats out Shaw for me, who on the second and third viewing grows stronger in my estimation. I loved Two Lovers the first time I saw it, but it’s a much more complicated film than even I gave it credit for. Gwyneth Paltrow is great as the firecracker character thatJoaquin Phoenix pines for, but Shaw has the more difficult role. She has to represent security and fragility masked in strength. She has to seem like the more “boring” option for Phoenix, but Shaw is far from boring. It seems to me that these still waters run deep, she just doesn’t wear her emotions on her sleeve like Paltrow and Phoenix is too self-absorbed to notice. Shaw is truly a revelation in the film and it wasn’t apparent on the first viewing just how good she was.

Noah Forrest
February 1, 2010

Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writer’s and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

I know that a large portion of my readers come to my column to get some insight or information about the movies currently playing in theaters. Most weeks, I’m obliged to do just that; I think that cinema is an ever-growing organism and there are always issues and idiosyncrasies in the present-day film world that are worth discussing.

Sometimes I write about films that I think are misunderstood by a large portion of the critical elite. Often, I’ll write about a particular actor or filmmaker and discuss their new works in the larger context of the filmography they have assembled. But, my favorite columns to write are when I see films that I believe deserve a wider audience and I try to make my case for why you should give a particular film a try.

This will be one of those columns, but I’m not talking about a particular film or a current one. Instead, I’m imploring those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, to rent or buy an Eric Rohmer masterpiece.

There are certain filmmakers who come along and completely change your perspective, to the point where you can actually see the dividing line of, “life before this filmmaker entered my life” and subsequently, “life after.” I’ve had only three or four filmmakers who fit this bill. Kubrick is one of them for sure (the first one, when I was eleven), then Truffaut followed a few years later and then the next really important one for me was Rohmer. With each of these filmmakers, once I saw but one of their pictures, I knew I needed to devour each and every one of their movies. And I do so in a matter of days.

I had the good fortune to watch my first Rohmer first just a few years ago. The film was Boyfriends and Girlfriends, one of his later pictures. It was part of his “Comedies and Proverbs” series. If I described the plot for you, you would probably be likely to confuse it with an ordinary romantic comedy, something that Meg Ryan or Sandra Bullock would be likely to star in. But it’s not about what it’s about, but how it gets there. Like most Rohmer films, this is a movie about young people and love. His films aren’t necessarily about young people in love, but usually about how they navigate love – or sometimes lust. He’s often interested in triangles, but sometimes squares, which is what Boyfriends and Girlfriends is about: a love square.

Many of Rohmer’s films are about the act of merely discussing love and what it means. This has given critics ammunition to say that his films aren’t about anything or that nothing happens. But, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I think his films are about everything and that everything happens. His movies talk about nothing less than why we are here, what our purpose is, what we’re searching for, why we love, how we love, when we love, etc.

But Rohmer’s films are not merely people talking in closed-off rooms with no windows. He loved to shoot his films in some of the most beautiful locales, like Dinard in A Summer’s Tale, Granville in Pauline at the Beach, Saint-Tropez in La Collectionneuse, or Paris in many of the others. But Rohmer seemed interested in the idea of escape, as many of his films are about the main characters fleeing big-city Paris for the beach or the mountains. He was fascinated by the idea of undergoing an enormous change through our travels and vacations.

It’s hard to pick a favorite Rohmer film because the themes are almost always the same. His main theme was love and then there were all sorts of scenarios that he liked to play with. Even when it doesn’t seem like one of his films is about love, it probably is. In My Night at Maud’s, it’s about a devout Catholic who makes his choice between the bland, naive Francoise and the more experienced and complicated Maud. In the end, however, Rohmer throws a curveball at the audience, subverting our perceptions of who these people are. It seems to be more of a study about our main character and what his choices say about him. But then the ending makes us realize that he is willing to do the most loving thing possible: to pretend to be the guilty party in order to assuage her own guilt.

In La Collectionneuse, he gives us what is perhaps is greatest ending, the main character finally wising up and fleeing not just an immature woman, but his own immaturity as well. This goes back to Rohmer’s interest in not just leaving to go on a vacation, but leaving behind that which has held us back; this is not always just our jobs or our spouses, but sometimes our own demons and insecurities.

Perhaps Rohmer’s most famous film is Chloe in the Afternoon, a film which is about ultimately fulfilling your fantasy…only to realize that your fantasy might not be what you need or truly want. It’s about adultery, but it doesn’t make any judgments about the main character since Rohmer was possibly cinema’s greatest humanist. It merely presents his situation from his perspective, allowing us to understand if not approve of his actions. Again, we are presented with the theme of escape, this time we have a main character with a family, a job and responsibilities that he feels handcuffed by.

In Summer, we have a character who continually wants to get away. She is all alone for her summer vacation, going from place to place and perpetually fleeing. The problem, however, is not the places she’s going to or the people she’s meeting; the problem is that she is an insufferable person to be around. She can run and run all she wants, but she will never be able to escape the one thing that will hold her back: her own personality.

Rohmer made three different “series” of films. There were his “Six Moral Tales” then came his “Comedies and Proverbs” series and then finally his “Tales of Four Seasons.” I can’t pick a favorite because each of his films is so special. I think the “Comedies and Proverbs” has some of the highest highs including the wonderful Aviator’s Wife, but A Good Marriage might be my least favorite of his films. If I was going to pick one film that you should see in order to “get” Rohmer, that would provide a litmus test of whether or not you’d dig most of his work, then I would recommend starting with either La Collectionneuse or Pauline at the Beach. I’m not saying these are his best works, but perhaps the most singular.

But to be quite honest, there’s no wrong place to start. Eric Rohmer was 89 years old when he died last week. To quote Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion, “The death of an old man is not a tragedy.” But when the old man was still churning out great films and had crafted some of the greatest works of art in cinema history, I will mourn it as a tragedy. Do yourself a favor and honor this great man by watching one of his movies.

Noah Forrest
January 18, 2010

Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writer’s and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

I’m a big fan of the romantic comedy genre, but I am no fan of It’s Complicated.

I think watching two people fall in love and laughing at the same time is one of the singular pleasures of going to the movies. The basic premise is almost always the same: Here are two people who should wind up together, here are the obstacles which will get in their way. The fun is watching how these people overcome those obstacles to eventually end up together; if there is some doubt along the way about whether they can really make it work, then so much the better.

It’s a formula, but it’s one that can be tweaked in a million different ways and which can seem fresh and new when certain elements are added or taken away – such as making the comedy more raunchy in a film like The 40 Year Old Virgin. So while it may be a formula, it’s one that I happen to enjoy when it’s done right.

Moreover, I do not begrudge the fact that certain films are made for certain audiences. Some romantic comedies are angled towards a specific demographic — namely, women over the age of thirty-five or forty. What I don’t understand is why those films have to be stupid and why that’s accepted. A film like It’s Complicated comes out and it’s got a great cast, but it’s an amateurish film that gets a free pass from almost everyone because either it’s “for you” or “not for you.” And I take issue with that.

If a movie this dumb was aimed solely at someone my age, with my gender and my financial
status, I wouldn’t give it a pass simply because it was made for someone like me. I might even give a film like that a harder time because I’m going to walk into it with an understanding of the reality of what it means to be someone my age; I’m going to be more difficult to please. Yet it seems that, because there aren’t a lot of films made for women over forty, they give films like It’s Complicated a free pass; because there aren’t a lot of other films made for them, they take what they can get. This is especially confounding since the film seems to be aimed at smart and sophisticated people.

One of the main issues of It’s Complicated is a problem I’ve had with many modern romantic comedies: that you have to be rich to have romantic struggles. From He’s Just Not That Into You to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, everyone has to have a cool job, nice clothes and plenty of money to spend. This is not inherently a problem, but it seems as if the filmmakers don’t want to be hamstrung or they don’t want to tell the tale of a working class relationship and discover that people with less means can have fun and laugh too. (500) Days of Summer is an exception to this, but it still concludes with the main character getting his life together and – presumably – starting his dream career as an architect.

In It’s Complicated, everyone has money and plenty of it. Everyone is well-dressed, wine flows freely, there’s no second-guessing when the kid needs the credit card. We’re not just in “movie” territory here, we’re in the land of the very successful. Of course, great movies can be made about successful people, but it takes away an element of struggle, giving the main character one less obstacle in a life that is mostly devoid of them.

But Nancy Meyers, the writer/director of It’s Complicated, is always operating in this setting. They always say to write what you know and this is a milieu that Meyers clearly knows well. She is creating a fantasy for older women who not only have dreams of their ex-husbands pining for them, but also of having a beautiful new kitchen and bedroom. And I think there is a place for this, that this type of fantasy film can be empowering and wonderful. But that fantasy needs to be grounded in something more concrete; we need to believe these characters could actually exist in order to suspend disbelief and believe this fantasy. Nobody in the film seems like a real person; nobody is acting according to what the characters may or may not reasonably do. Rather, they act according to what Meyers would manipulate them to do and we are always aware that she is pulling the strings.

There are a lot of rookie mistakes in this film, like expositional dialogue which could have easily been tightened somewhere between the first draft and the editing room and overreactions that seem out of place. We have a scene, for instance, where Meryl Streep hunts down her therapist and demands an emergency session to talk about her ex-husband and their tryst. But the scene doesn’t do any work for the film, it simply tells us things that we’ve already gleaned: that Streep is concerned and harried. That she would be so fraught with anxiety about this is a tad ridiculous, but that’s a writing issue.

A talented actress like Streep is able to convey the confusion and anxiety of the character without the melodrama. Meyers should have just cut the therapist scene, which winds up making Streep just look over the top. This is an example of something Meyers does a lot: she doesn’t put her actors in a position to look their best or play to their strengths. This is especially true of Steve Martin, who is given almost nothing to do; he’s playing a boring and de-balled version of Ray Porter from Shopgirl.

The biggest issue with the film is that the kids in the film – the offspring of Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep’s marriage – are incredibly weird. When they find out that their parents are having an affair, these three grown kids – all over the age of 21 – cry hysterically like babies and cuddle together in a bed. I’m sorry, I’m really close with my family, but I doubt my brother and I would be this upset if our parents were having an affair. You know why? Because we’re adults. And Meyers is writing the kids as if they were emotionally about eleven.

But all of this would almost be forgivable if it weren’t for the fact that nothing happens. Oh sure, she has an affair with her ex-husband and everyone around her freaks out about it and she has an emotional breakdown because of it. I mean, Jesus, relax, it’s not that big of a deal. Sure, in the reality of someone’s life, this would be a monumental turning point for you, but not in the reality that has been established in the film. And other than that, she meets Martin’s character and they have a courtship. But there’s zero sense of forward momentum in this film. It seems stagnant, like we’re just supposed to enjoy the characters – who aren’t particularly well-drawn – and their posh surroundings. It’s all so…boring.

My mother is about the same age as Meryl Streep’s character in the film and they have a lot in common in terms of where they are in their life – except my mother is married to my awesome stepfather. And I know when my mom sees this movie, she’ll enjoy the hell out of it. Inevitably, she’ll call me up and say, “It was stupid, but I liked it.” And my point is that, if it wasn’t stupid, she would still like it and in fact, would probably love it.

Just because you can get somebody into the theater based on a certain premise, that doesn’t mean you can just rest and give them pap; it would be nice if filmmakers took their responsibility to this audience a bit more seriously and gave them something that honors the demographic and the genre. My mom has excellent taste in film for the most part, but she has her guilty pleasures like we all do. The thing is, a film like this doesn’t have to be a guilty pleasure. It could be smart and real and funny, but instead it’s manufactured to simply be digested and excreted and forgotten.

****

My buddy Josh Shelov is a writer/director. He co-wrote Green Street Hooligans and is the man behind the hilarious ESPN.com web series Mayne Street. He has a movie coming out this year called The Best and the Brightest starring Neil Patrick Harris and Amy Sedaris; if it’s hilarious as the script is, then this will be one of the funniest movies you’ll see this year.

In response to my best of the decade column, he sent me this fascinating e-mail that I’d like to share with you:

“Noah:

First of all, excellent top 10, extremely well-chosen and as always, well-written.

But I think the real story of the aughts is that the best of the decade in American film – for the first time ever – was on the small screen.

This wasn’t merely a great decade in tv, this was the moment when the cultural impact and, more importantly, cinematic quality of the best television series’ blew their theatrical counterparts out of the water.

Do the films in your top 10 compare to the best films of the 1970’s? Unfair, you may say: the 1970s was the golden age of American film, the best decade’s-worth of films the medium has ever produced. And indeed it was, but I think that the TV of the aughts genuinely stacks up quality-wise with the theatrical films of the 1970’s. There aren’t too many works of art that can be reasonably compared with THE GODFATHER, but THE WIRE is one of them.

In fact, as a geeky exercise that you, me, and maybe eleven other people might enjoy, I stacked up the iconic filmmakers of the 1970’s with the iconic TV series’ of the aughts, and I was pretty amazed at the commonalities. There are huge similarities in terms of voice, tone, scope, and most importantly, power.

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA/THE WIRE

In addition to being the greatest works of art in the history of their media (even Kubrick ruefully admitted that THE GODFATHER was the best movie he’d ever seen), THE GODFATHER and THE WIRE have a hell of a lot in common. Both use a sprawling family structure to expose the ruthless heart of the American Dream.

Both stories are epic, tragic, operatic, and dramatically perfect. The scripts are among the best that American drama has produced, the casting could not be improved upon, and the performances are heartbreakingly great.

The comparison even extends to the fifth season of THE WIRE and Part III of THE GODFATHER, both wet-fuse misfires that fortunately don’t in any way diminish the greatness of what came before.

MARTIN SCORSESE/THE SOPRANOS

The mob is the big connect here, of course, but in a way it’s almost besides the point. The thing that’s most Scorsesean about THE SOPRANOS is its juxtaposition of the violent and the mundane: the way murderous violence underlies backyard barbecues, and bubbles up during family dinners.

The other big Scorsesean aspect of THE SOPRANOS was its stubborn, wriggling refusal to settle into a consistent tone, or even genre. The series kept shifting, episode by episode, season by season, turning surreal with one sequence, comic the next. This self-contradicting voice is awfully similar to mid-70’s peak Scorsese, whose genre-shifting run of MEAN STREETS, ALICE, TAXI DRIVER,THE LAST WALTZ,NEW YORK NEW YORK, and RAGING BULL have rarely been equaled, if ever.

TERENCE MALICK/FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

Ethereal, naturalistic, spiritual, and deeply humane, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is one of the few works in the American film canon that feels like a genuine heir to Malick’s singular tone. Chekhov’s spirit is in here: Whitman’s, too. Talk to anyone who’s watched the entire run of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, and ask any of them if they’ve seen better filmmaking in theaters this decade. My friends who are FNL fans say they’ve never cared more about fictional characters, in any medium.

GEORGE LUCAS/BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

BATTLESTAR isn’t the Star Wars George: it’s the original George, the THX George, the pissed-off, surly gearhead who wanted to be the smartest filmmaker on the planet much more than the most popular. (It was only when the former didn’t work out that he settled for the latter.)

BATTLESTAR is the dark, grownup, deep-space ponder Lucas would have made in 1971 if his craft had been the equal of his brains.

STEVEN SPIELBERG/LOST

I mean, come on: what is LOST besides every movie Spielberg ever made chopped up in a blender and served in a what-the-fuck puree? They must have a sign up in the LOST writers’ room: “Awe by any means necessary.”

HAL ASHBY/SIX FEET UNDER

Moody, surrealist, and most of all, sad as fucking hell, SIX FEET UNDER feels like Ashby with a more ostentatious gaffer, which is actually not such a terrible thing. The best of Ashby was very, very good, and the ending of SIX FEET UNDER was worthy of his name.

WOODY ALLEN/DEADWOOD

OK, a curveball. The easy choice for Woody was The West Wing, with all its witty patter and grad-student-y references. But DEADWOOD is the finer meal, one worthy of the best of the Woodman, who at his best got a lot closer to the great Russian storytellers he idolizes than he’d ever give himself credit for. The West Wing, while good, was too Lite for Woody. Somebody once said that when Michael Bay watches ALIENS he must feel like Salieri listening to Mozart. Sorkin must feel the same way when he watches MANHATTAN.

But I digress. Re: Woody and Milch: how many filmmakers in American history have really “gotten” dialogue the way they do? The list is mighty short.

WILLIAM FRIEDKIN/24

Kinetic, vicious, and, let’s face it, let’s face it, kind of morally reprehensible, 24 has Friedkin’s sensationalist soul all over it. Cut! Crash! Bang! Crunch! PUT THE FUCKING GUN DOWN ASSHOLE! WHO THE HELL DO YOU WORK FOR! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!

SIDNEY LUMET/THE SHIELD

Who plumbed the souls of tortured cops more deeply than Sidney Lumet?

* * *

It kind of works, right? Anyway, my overall point is this. These series listed above – I mean Christ, look at them all – made a crater in people’s chests this past decade. People liked a lot of movies, sure, but they mourn the end of THE WIRE like they do a lost relative. That’s how audiences felt about theatrical films in the 1970’s, when the art form was at the center of the culture.

The films on your list, though finely made, are exquisitely-prepared side dishes in the filmmaking meal that was the aughts.”

– Josh Shelov

I think this is a hell of a fun game. I’m trying to find the perfect ’70s filmmakers to line up with Veronica Mars (Robert Altman circa The Long Goodbye perhaps?) or Gilmore Girls (I think Woody Allen might be a possibility for the rapid-fire dialogue) or Mad Men (Kubrick?).

Tell me your ideas and I’ll post them next week.

Noah Forrest
January 11, 2010

Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writer’s and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

The past decade has had an awful lot of good films, which made this a hard column to write. My preliminary list, as discussed here had 54 films vying for ten spots on this list. It took me a month to slowly narrow things down and put them in some kind of order.

Here is my pre-defense of this and all lists: I like doing this and I like reading other peoples’ lists. If you think that there is something unseemly about putting art in a list or some such thing, then I respect your right to believe that, but I disagree. I don’t think that by having a preference of some films over others that that denigrates the art of film in some way. More than anything, I think that making lists and reading lists is the best way to start a dialogue about film.

Now, a word on how I operated: I had a lengthy e-mail discussion with a reader a few weeks ago, discussing the difference between “best” and “favorite.” And I will tell you all what I told him: I do not see the distinction. If I have a favorite film, then it’s because I think that is the best film in my opinion. When I picked these films, of course I thought about the broader social and cultural contexts (i.e. what does it mean to be the best film of this particular decade?) but ultimately, the order of the films is based on which ones I liked best. It’s that simple.

The way I’ve always ordered films has been about how much they hit me, personally. And each of the films below hit me hard. If they don’t hit you as hard, then I understand your right to feel that way, but I don’t understand. Film, like most art, is a personal medium and our connections to certain types of films will differ from person to person. So, I think the following films were the best of the decade and they were my favorites.

No counting down to one (since I’ve already written about it extensively), here we go:

1. 25th Hour (Dir. Spike Lee)

Back in November I wrote 2,000 words explaining this pick. There is no film that better encapsulates the decade that we just lived through than this Spike Lee masterpiece. Not only is it the best film of the decade in terms of craft, wit, pathos and performance, but it is the most fitting.

2. Before Sunset (Dir. Richard Linklater)

I think that Before Sunrise is one of the most romantic films ever made. I saw it soon after it came out, re-watched it dozens of times (often with a date) and cried almost every single time. It was the manifestation of the “perfect” one-night stand, the kind that changes a person forever. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy had chemistry that was undeniable; they played off one another in such a relaxed and confident way that we got wrapped up in their romance. These are two highly intelligent, literate, beautiful people who fall in love before our eyes by arguing and talking about every possible thing. When they part at the end, they say that they’re going to meet back in Vienna in six months and then the film ends. And for eight or nine years, I wondered if they ever did meet again.

Before Sunset was probably my most highly anticipated film of the decade. I don’t think I had ever been so nervous to walk into a movie theater, wondering whether Linklater had ruined the perfect ending he’d given to Jesse and Celine. Not only did he succeed, but he managed to craft a film sequel that deepens my appreciation for the first film. The film doesn’t take the easy way out, having two characters that were simply pining for one another for nearly a decade. Rather, both of them have had lives since their first encounter. Jesse has a family, Celine has had many boyfriends; both are miserable with what they’ve had once they see each other again.

There are many questions from the first film that are answered in the sequel, but not in conventional ways. Did Jesse and Celine have sex in the first film when the movie frustratingly fades out in the park? Did they meet at the station as they said they would? Linklater and his actors (who were all nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for their work on the script) find difficult answers to those questions. What if one person showed up and the other didn’t? Do they have regrets about their time together or the time they’ve spent since? Is it too late?

For me, this film will always be about two moments. They are two of the most perfect cinematic moments I’ve ever seen. The first: they are in the back of a car towards the end of the film, a driver taking them to Celine’s apartment. She starts crying about how she’s lost, doesn’t know if love is real anymore because of Jesse. Then Jesse talks about how much he hates his life, but loves his kid. And he tells her that he has these dreams about Celine. Jesse gets a little choked up and looks away and as he does, Celine reaches her hand out to touch Jesse’s head, but then she pulls it away before Jesse can see. Wow. That makes me weep like a baby every single time I see that moment.

The other moment is the ending. Top five endings of all-time, seriously. Celine dancing like a sexy goofball to Nina Simone, Jesse’s plane is going to be leaving any minute.

CELINE: Baby, you’re going to miss that plane.

JESSE: (grins) I know.

3. Kings and Queen (Dir. Arnaud Desplechin)

I first saw this film a couple of years ago and I was so utterly blown away by it that I immediately sought out the opinions of everyone else who had seen the film. It was almost unanimously praised, but almost nobody I know has seen the movie, even people I consider to be rabid film fanatics. After I saw Kings and Queen, I watched every other Arnaud Desplechin film in a matter of days, realizing that I had a new filmmaker to add to my list of masters. The dude is nothing less than an absolute genius.
Mathieu Amalric and Emmanuelle Devos are in almost every one of his films, and with good reason: they are two of the finest actors working today. Here, they play Ismael and Nora, two former lovers and friends. Desplechin is also lucky enough to have Catherine Deneuve in his last two films, including this one in which she plays a therapist. The story, as with most of Desplechin’s films, is so dense with the realism of relationships that it makes them very difficult to describe. Basically, the parallel stories are about Ismael being put in an institution against his will and Nora dealing with her father’s cancer, her young song, and her own past.

The film is alternatively hilarious, depressing, poignant and silly, sometimes all at once. Often, Desplechin will take a topic or a moment that would ordinarily be played for tears and instead play it for laughs by using a song that is out of place, playing with our expectations. The film, though, is all about the interplay of the characters and how their actions affect one another and how our perception of who these people are changes. We see Nora very differently at the end of the film than we do at the beginning, turning from a hero into something like a villain.

The turning point of the film is a letter that Nora finds, written by her father to her. It is perhaps one of the most heart-pounding letters ever written, a letter that completely changes our point of view about almost every character in the film, but especially about Nora and her relationship with her father. It doesn’t seem like it, but it changes everything in the movie in an almost imperceptible way.

Desplechin followed this film with the remarkable A Christmas Tale, my favorite movie of 2008 and one that just missed being on this list (although when I revisit this list in the future, I wouldn’t be surprised if it managed to sneak in).

4. The Darjeeling Limited (Dir. Wes Anderson)

This is my 3,000 word original review of The Darjeeling Limited.

I still believe almost every word I wrote in that review. The only change I would make is that in the original review, I said I wasn’t sure if it was on par with The Royal Tenenbaums; considering Tenenbaums’ absence from this list and Darjeeling’s inclusion, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve changed my mind. Other than that, I’m not sure there’s more to say than I already have. But to continue on the theme of “moments” in films, this film is full of them but I think of two in particular:

1) The scene where the brothers rescue the Indian kids from the river, but one of them perishes and Adrien Brody looks up solemnly and says, “I couldn’t save mine.”

2) The flashback as they are on their way to their father’s funeral, the last time they’ve seen each other. They stop at a garage to pick up their father’s car, an expression of their anger and confusion. As they pull the car out of the garage, a truck almost hits them. The truck driver gets out of his car. Immediately, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman (who thought Brody was crazy for going to the garage) stand in the truck driver’s way and tell him to get back in his car. Two brothers, coming to the other one’s defense, even though they don’t agree with his actions; that’s family, expressed subtly and beautifully.

5. There Will Be Blood (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

From my 2007 Top Ten column: “The film begins underneath the Earth in 1898 where Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is mining for silver to put together enough dough to build a derrick and search for oil, which is where the real money is at. Through a series of circumstances, Plainview becomes wealthy and also becomes a father to a child he names H.W. In 1911, Plainview is directed to the small California town of Little Boston where oil seeps through the ground and he proceeds to buy up all the land that he can, much to the chagrin of the local preacher, the young Eli Sunday (Paul Dano).Like all great films, this is a divisive one, a polarizing one.

“Essentially, it amounts to a character study of Daniel Plainview and he is not a pleasant man. Any kind thing he does is incidental, a side-effect of whatever he is doing that will benefit him. It’s more than selfishness, it’s a desire to see other people fail. He is a misanthrope, but one that wears a mask of humanity, trying like an alien to fit into this human world but he sticks out like an oil derrick in a barren field. Halfway into the film Plainview talks of wanting enough money so that he doesn’t have to be around people anymore. Shows how little he knows, since having money is no way to lose the people around you; in fact it’s a way to make sure you’ll never be alone again. Looking back, Plainview would probably be happiest going back to his earlier days, when he was alone in that hole in the Earth, digging for silver with no people around for miles.

” Daniel Day-Lewis is the single greatest living actor, period. He proves it again with this performance. Some people have said he is channeling John Huston in Chinatown, others believe it’s a variation on his Bill the Butcher character from Gangs of New York, but I think it is something completely different and unique. Daniel Plainview is an original because we never seen him do a sincerely nice thing throughout the entire course of the film, nor does he try very hard to be friendly like Noah Cross in Chinatown or sociable like Bill the Butcher. But Plainview is not a monster because Day-Lewis doesn’t let him become one.

He is, instead, a brilliant and sadistic person who holds grudges like you wouldn’t believe and Day-Lewis makes us want to follow him everywhere, even if he is despicable. From the mannerisms to the throatiness of his voice to the wry way in which he smiles, it is clear that Day-Lewis knew every facet of this character and as a result, we know him. We don’t like him, but we know him. Everyone else in the film is great too, especially Paul Dano, but this is a Daniel Day-Lewis’ film from start to finish.

Speaking of the finish, some have complained that the film takes a radical left turn in the last half hour. Don’t listen to those people. The last half hour of the film is the logical conclusion based on what we have seen during the first two hours. It might be shocking, yes, and eccentric, but it is what the story demands. The final scenes and especially the final line have haunted me ever since I first saw it. There’s no question that Paul Thomas Anderson is officially a master of cinema and the finest young filmmaker that we have. This film is the reason I love film.”

I think that just about does it. Except one more thing: I’m finished!

6. Lilya 4-Ever (Dir. Lukas Moodysson)

Being able to speak to Lukas Moodysson for half an hour two months ago … that was the highlight of my year, without a doubt. It’s not often that you get to speak to your heroes and I don’t take for granted that this job allows me those kinds of opportunities. As for why speaking to this Swedish filmmaker would be such a treat for me, I think this film is a good example of why.

This is the story of a young girl who lives in an unnamed Eastern European country that seems to contain nothing but abandoned industrial plants and warehouses. She, and everyone else she knows, is impoverished and bored and every day is a struggle. Compared to a lot of people in her town, Lilya is doing fairly well. She gets fed, has clothes, a place to live, music to listen to; she’s doing okay. But when her parents move to America without her, things go from bad to worse fairly quickly.

But Lilya is resilient, she makes things work for her and doesn’t complain a lot. Her best friend is a young boy named Volodya and they play games with one another, stuck in that place where they should be immature and having fun, but they need to think about much more mature problems. When Lilya falls in love with a charming man who wants her to go to Sweden with him, it seems like Lilya’s luck has finally started to turn around. And that’s when things get really, really bad.

Making a film about the sex trade and the degradation of women is a tall order. This movie is unsparing and Moodysson takes the risk that this is a film that will be hard to watch for some people. There is nothing especially graphic, but what Lilya has to endure is not only painful, but heartbreaking. I will never forget the apartment that Lilya is forced to stay in while in Sweden; I can almost smell the McDonald’s that litters the kitchen. And I’ll never forget the ending, the sadness of knowing that Lilya’s worldview has been so small, that she’s seen so little that she can’t imagine a better heaven than the shitty life she had at the beginning of the film.

Best Actress of the decade? Oksana Akinshina as Lilya. Nobody else really comes close. She’s a tough chick, someone who sticks up for herself and it makes the fact that she is so utterly trapped that much more painful. Her lot in life is to be used up and demeaned and Moodysson, ever the humanist, wants us to see that this is what life is for some people. He’s not making a grand statement or a political one, just saying “here, this is what it is.”

7. Requiem for a Dream (Dir. Darren Aronofsky)

This is my nomination for “horror film of the decade.” If AIDS was the scariest affliction to suffer from in the ’90s, then addiction would be the horror of the ’00s. I’ve seen a lot of people suffering from all kinds of addictions and when it becomes something that you look for, you see addictions everywhere. Hell, my movie-watching is something of an addiction. Lucky for me, it’s what would be termed a “healthy” addiction since I actually, you know, leave my apartment and have a life.

Requiem for a Dream is about “unhealthy” addictions. Darren Aronofsky’s first film Pi, was a wonderful low-budget debut about the search for god through mathematics. In that film and in Requiem for a Dream, he shows a knack for employing camera tricks and techniques (with the help of all-star DP Matthew Libatique) in ways that actually enhance the plot or characterization or setting rather than just trying to impress us with his skills. We’re given the entirety of a drug experience in a matter of seconds: mix heroin, suck it through the syringe, inject, pupils dilate, repeat repeat repeat. That repetitiveness is what makes the film so startling; after all, isn’t that what addiction is, apart from all of the terrible things it can make you do, repeating habits?

The story has four main characters and they are all addicts. Harry, Marion and Tyrone all are addicted to heroin and Harry’s mother Sara is addicted to speed. They all have their reasons and goals and fantasies, some of which are brought to life, but in the end they all end up losing something (freedom, decency, an arm, etc.) and all of them are in the fetal position by the time the credits roll. I always wanted to hope for the possibility that because all of the characters are in that position, it meant that Aronofsky was trying to tell us that these characters will now all be reborn. After all, the film’s title cards indicate “Summer,” “Fall,” and “Winter.” Perhaps “Spring” is right around the corner? But in my heart of hearts, I know that Spring will never come and if they are reborn, it won’t be in a positive way.

Haunted my dreams more than any other film this decade.

P.S. The Fountain was this close to making the list.

8. In the Bedroom (Dir. Todd Field)

Best actor of the decade? Easy. Tom Wilkinson as Matt Fowler in Todd Field’s In the Bedroom. I remember going to this movie with absolutely no expectations and no idea what it was about; I just knew that a lot of critics I respected were praising the film. I recommend that if you haven’t seen this movie, stop reading about it and do what I did and see it blind. It will knock your socks off.

This is another one of those movies that has a turning point, a moment where everything has changed. When that moment occurs in this film, I had no idea what the movie was going to turn into. I knew that there was an hour and a half left to go and I had no idea what to expect; the safety of the film had slipped away. The first act of the film shows us Frank Fowler (Nick Stahl) and his loving parents Matt and Ruth (Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek). Frank has entered into a relationship with an older woman, a single mother named Natalie (Marisa Tomei). Ruth has reservations about this relationship, but Matt is supportive. We see Frank and Natalie and then Ruth and Matt and realize that we are watching two functioning, loving relationships. Natalie has two kids, sure, it’s not the perfect situation, but everyone seems happy and everything is good. There is some friction, but nothing out of the ordinary. And then Natalie’s ex-husband shows up.

Then that moment happens. And everything is not good. Matt, a tough man, is reduced to tears when he looks through his son’s room. He sees everything that his son was going to become and now won’t because of a senseless killing. The case gets bungled in court and Natalie’s ex-husband is set free. There will be no peace for Matt and Ruth, knowing that their son’s killer is out there, that they can’t leave the house without running the risk of seeing the man who took away their son’s future and their happiness. Their marriage starts to crumble as they play the blame game.

Wilkinson is playing the most difficult role possible: a regular man faced with a terrible tragedy and dealing with it in a realistic, plausible way. I can’t even describe to you what it is that Wilkinson does that I found so impressive, I just know that he conveys so much emotion without saying anything and the way his voice quavers when he does speak, it says more than the words. I can’t say I’ve dealt with the tragedy that Matt and Ruth Fowler did, but I can say that I felt like it was an accurate portrayal of what someone will do. It felt real every step of the way.

Two moments: 1) Ruth slapping Natalie, an instinctual response to Nataie’s apology. 2) The ending, first Ruth asking, “did you do it?” Then Matt lying there in bed with the cigarette burning in the background, wondering if what he’s done will give him peace. Extraordinary.

9. The Squid and the Whale (Dir. Noah Baumbach)

My parents divorced when I was very young and it was one of the most formative experiences of my life, seeing my parents after that divorce. Like it is for most kids, it had a profound impact on my childhood and on the rest of my life. And I think no film expresses the complexities of divorce better than Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale.

This is a film about an intellectual couple from Brooklyn ending a marriage that never seems that great to us. We are left to imagine what Bernard (Jeff Daniels) and Joan (Laura Linney) once saw in each other because when we do see them interact, they are spiteful and angry. Joan tries to hide books from SBernard so that when the divorce comes, Joan will have the books. Doesn’t sound so bad right? Except she hides them under her younger son’s bed, making him complicit in this act. Bernard makes comments about Joan to older son Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) that will inevitably affect how he feels about his mother. But like with all things, eventually the truth will out. And ultimately both sons realize the truth about their mother and father like most children of divorce.

The film is also funny and awkward and shows the ways in which kids can be…well, weird about things. Like the way Frank (Owen Kline), the younger son, masturbates in public and has strange feelings about his mother, sexualizing everything he sees. Not to mention, he also gets drunk by himself, slipping through the cracks of both parents. Walt, desperate for his pretentious father’s approval, claims to have written a Pink Floyd and plays it at the school talent show. He also dumps his girlfriend based on his father’s appraisal of her looks.

Then that remarkable ending. Bernard saying to Walt, “don’t be difficult.” Walt running away to the Natural History Museum and seeing the squid and the whale.

10. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (Dir. Cristian Mungiu)

I’ve seen every film on this list multiple times. Most of the films I’ve seen at least three times. Except for this one, which I’ve only seen once and I don’t think I could handle watching it again. And I don’t think I need to because it is ingrained forever in my memory.

Set in 1980s Romania, this is a film about the difficulty of getting an abortion. The title refers to how far along the pregnancy is. The story is not about Gabita, the woman who gets the abortion, but rather about her friend Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) who is helping Gabita to find someone to do the deed. They find a man who works as a mechanic who does abortions on the side. The girls rent a hotel room, anxious about being caught by the authorities. In that hotel room is where the atrocities take place.

Otilia doesn’t have to do anything in this film. From the moment it starts, she is free to merely walk away. But she is a good friend, willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that Gabita gets her abortion. But she never imagines the price will be as high as it is.

I don’t want to say too much more about this film, frankly because it upsets me just to think about it. I almost never turn away from films because of the content, but this film made me look away multiple times. I couldn’t stomach the idea that these women would go through this or that someone could allow themselves to do such evil. A remarkable examination of what lengths people have to go through in order to have what we consider to be a basic right.
11. High Fidelity (Dir. Stephen Frears)

Okay, I had to add another film and make this a top eleven. I just needed to make room for the great breakup movie of all-time. Seriously, there is no better movie to watch after a breakup than this adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel. It’s a film about music, love, friendships, all that good stuff. Just because it is primarily a comedy doesn’t make it any less accomplished than any other film I left off this list.

John Cusack, between this and Grosse Pointe Blank, has proven to be both a wonderfully gifted leading man and also a dynamite writer (as he co-wrote both of the films). This is one of those movies that is in the pantheon of great films to rewatch a thousand times or to get sucked into while flipping through channels. If High Fidelity is on, no matter which part, I’m watching.

The film opens with Rob Gordon (Cusack) and his girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle) breaking up. Rob immediately makes a top five “breakup” list to prove to himself that Laura wasn’t even in the top five heartbreaks of his life. In between Rob’s investigation of these top five, he goes to work at the record store he owns in Chicago where he talks endlessly about music and pop culture with his co-workers Barry (Jack Black) and Dick (Todd Louiso). The way they talk about music is the way me and my friends talk about movies or sports or the way some people might talk about business or law or medicine. This is a film about what it is to be a guy who compulsively makes lists and tells friends about their preferences (um…or me and every guy I know).

But it’s also about what it means to be vulnerable as a guy and how uncomfortable that can make us feel. It also turns things on its head a little bit when Rob gives us five good reasons why Laura might have ended things, making Rob a much less sympathetic figure than he originally seems which is a ballsy move for this kind of film. Ultimately, it’s about the acceptance of that loss and the acceptance of the fact that we are not perfect; that in any breakup, the only thing you can really control is how you can better yourself.

This is the film that introduced us to the manic style of Jack Black, but also the important “Top 5” lists. And, fittingly, this film has a spot on my list. I’m sure the guys at Championship Vinyl would give me shit for making this a top 11, though. Just remember:

“What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”

Noah Forrest
January 4, 2010

Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writer’s and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

As I look back on the cinematic year and the one hundred and fifty new releases that I saw, I feel absolutely certain that this is one of the worst years for films in recent history. No doubt 2009 is the worst year of the past decade with only a handful of great films, one transcendent one and a whole lot of mediocre movies. One of the most interesting stories to me has been big-time critics and other web-based columnists who I respect have wet themselves over films that I have found to be ordinary or conventional. Films like An Education or Up in the Air are definitely good films that do their job well, with excellent lead performances, but there is nothing about either film that I felt was particularly innovative or original. Everywhere I look, there seems to be a critic espousing the greatness of both films and I think they’re seeing zebras when it’s just horses. There is a lot to admire about both films, but I also thought they were so light as to be forgettable, with themes that have been done before and done better.

So that’s why you won’t see either of those films in my top ten. Despite the slim pickings, there are indeed ten films that I think are worthy of spots on this list. The films on my list are ones that I felt pushed the cinematic envelope in different ways: visually, aurally, comedically, or otherwise. Each of the films set out a specific goal for themselves and each one either meets or exceeds those goals. I’m sure there will be lots for you to disagree with, but as always, that type of disagreement is why I make these lists. I want to hear from you about why you agree or disagree or which films you would choose on your top ten list. The best part about this job, for me, is that I get to share e-mails with people who have a love of film so passionate that they pick apart my words. And I thank you all for keeping me on my toes for another year.

Without further ado…

10. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Dir. Wes Anderson)

I used to put animated films in a box. I felt like they were easier to control and manipulate and I always preferred the “reality” of live-action films, believing them to be more authentic than their animated counterparts. Even when I had seen a few animated films that changed my mind about the potential of animation, it wasn’t until last year’sWall-E that I felt I had seen an animated movie that truly hit me harder than most live-action films. I realized – with tears streaming down my face as I walked out of the theater – that I could no longer view animated features as something less than a live-action film.

This epiphany was compounded by the fact that one of my favorite filmmakers, Wes Anderson, had announced that his next film would be a claymation adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Anderson insisted that this wasn’t some kind of “side project” and that this was indeed his next film as a director. Considering his last film, The Darjeeling Limited, was my favorite film of 2007 and my favorite of his films, I was both confused by this jump into animation and excited to see what would happen when one of film’s most evocative stylists took to clay.

The result is almost exactly what I would have expected – and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s basically a Wes Anderson movie, replete with all the usual themes about alienation, family and jealousy…except with talking clay foxes instead of people. While the storyline isn’t anything particularly exciting – the Fox family loses their home because the patriarch stole chickens from a farm and then they plot revenge – the interactions between the family members, the ways in which they speak to one another, it’s all Wes and it’s funny and poignant and moving.

I really enjoyed the character of Ash (voiced by Jason Schwartzman), offspring of Mr. and Mrs. Fox (voiced respectively by George Clooney and Meryl Streep). Ash is a strange kid who has a lack of social skills and has trouble fitting in. When his athletically talented cousin Kristofferson (voiced by Eric Chase Anderson) comes to stay with the family and Ash’s father dotes on him, the pain of being left out really stings Ash and we feel that pain. Despite the fact that we’re talking about clay foxes, this aspect of the film felt more remarkably human than most flesh and blood relationships we see on screen. The pain in Ash’s voice when the girl he likes shows more interest in his cousin is heartbreaking and it doesn’t feel out of place in a film that is otherwise an enjoyable romp.

The voice performances of Clooney and Streep really give the film a sense of fun and joy and proves that Clooney is one of the most charismatic presences in film, even when he’s in the guise of an animated fox. This was the best animated film I saw this year, but I can safely say that it wouldn’t have been any better had it been live-action.

9. Two Lovers (Dir. James Gray)

Read most of my thoughts on the film here.

I’ve written a lot about Two Lovers throughout the year and I still feel just as strongly about the film. James Gray has crafted a film that is dependent less on the machinations of plot, but rather something that is based on the motivations and desires of the characters. We know, more or less, what will happen to Leonard at the end of the film, but what we don’t know is how he feels about it. We have to infer how he might feel about his two very different potential mates and Gray and Joaquin Phoenix have designed Leonard as a character that is so complicated and wounded that it becomes like watching a horror film; we know what Leonard should do, but he is so self-destructive that his path to a happy ending is more clear to us than it is to him. And by the time the “happy” ending comes, we wonder if indeed Leonard will be happy or if he’s just settled for the next best thing.

8. In the Loop (Dir. Armando Iannucci)

Read my column about the ten reasons you must see In the Loop here.

In the Loop is the smartest comedy about the dumb things intelligent people are capable of that I’ve ever seen. It also happens to be laugh-out-loud funny. This isn’t one of those “smart” comedies that is really just smarmy and smug and only pretentious people find funny; this is a comedy that approaches The Big Lebowski in terms of filthy laughs and rewatchability. Each character is perfectly calibrated to the point where we understand and truly know them, so that when they act in certain ways or say certain things, it’s never for the benefit of the film or plot, but feels like a natural extension based on the way the characters have been built.

I will not stop saying that Peter Capaldi should be nominated for Best Supporting Actor this year because he turns curse-filled monologues into dirty symphonies. The scene between him and James Gandolfini when they make blunt yet veiled threats at one another is one of my absolute favorite scenes of the year. Of all the films on this list, this might be the one I watch the most times when all is said and done.

7. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (Dir. Rebecca Miller)

Read my column about Rebecca Miller’s brilliant film here.

I don’t have much to add that I haven’t said in my original column or that I haven’t repeated several times in this space. Rebecca Miller is one of the best and most underrated filmmakers we have and her streak of excellence continues with this misunderstood picture about the entirety of a certain woman’s journey into adulthood and complacency. Robin Wright is probably the only actress talented enough to make this character come to life with such vitality. This movie encapsulates the ways in which women can be held down by invisible chains and how sometimes you can wake up and say to yourself, as David Byrne once famous shrieked, “well, how did I get here?”

6. A Serious Man (Dir. The Coen Brothers)

I came to this one a little bit late and finally got around to seeing the film a few days ago. I can honestly say that it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. And to be completely truthful, I wasn’t the biggest fan for the majority of the running time. The abrupt ending, though, completely changed my point of view. In the span of thirty seconds, I went from wondering what the point of the film was to thinking that I had seen a near-masterpiece that understands life, love and religion better than almost any other film this year. I was completely, utterly blown away by the ending. It’s not a twist ending, but it changes the complexion of everything that came before.

Larry Gopnik is Job. That much is made pretty clear by the fact that everything that happens in the film effects Larry negatively and rather than scream and shout about his misfortune, he seems to just kind of go along with it. Larry has the kind of life that nobody hopes for; it is without any passion or excitement. And yet, his life somehow gets worse when things start to be taken away from him, making him appreciate his terrible life. That is the real tragedy of Larry’s life: that despite his wife and house being taken from him (and potentially his tenure as a professor), he doesn’t view it as an opportunity to rebuild or start over. Instead, he wishes he could have everything back. He’s too myopic to see that the life he has built for himself is sad and that his wife doesn’t want him anymore. Instead of looking within himself, he tries to seek answers in Judaism. The Coen Brothers make their feelings on religion known, though, by having each of Larry’s religious consultations explain less and less.

And then the ending. Everything is up in the air, a tornado is coming and nothing is explained. It is either the most interesting defense of how God doesn’t interfere with life or how he doesn’t exist at all. I believe it is the latter. And I believe that if I had more time to think about this brilliant movie, I might place it even higher on this list.

5. The White Ribbon (Dir. Michael Haneke)

This is another film that I finally just caught recently and if I had more time to digest it, it’s quite possible that it would move to the very top of this list. Like with most of Haneke’s work, it is dense and rich and full of ideas that are not always immediately apparent. But unlike most of Haneke’s previous work, this is not a film that punishes its audience; it is definitely his most accessible film, maybe ever. It is a portrait of a small town in Germany shortly before World War I. There are elements here that reminded me of Jean de Florette and Amarcord, but with a nastier streak that is befitting Haneke.

Strange and violent things are happening in this village. There is work and everyone seems to live with respect to religion, manifested by the pastor of the church, but the children are acting out, despite the fact that many of them are beaten or emotionally abused by their parents. The pastor, specifically, has a very cruel streak with his own children, scolding them in awful ways for the tiniest of trespasses.

I was mesmerized by the film, the way in which it portrays the cruelty of both children and adults, but it wasn’t until halfway through that I realized what Haneke was doing – and so so effectively. This is a film about the children that would grow up to become Nazis. This is a generation of German kids that were beaten down by religious authorities to the point where they not only became abusers themselves, but ones without religion. There’s also something in there about Germany’s natural propensity towards fascism and order. This is contrasted with a sweet blossoming of young love between a school teacher and a shy housekeeper, which grounds the film in something to root for, something hopeful.

Technically, this film is also a marvel. It’s got the second best black and white cinematography of the year by Christian Berger and every frame is beautiful and each background has life in it. The acting doesn’t have any one particular standout because this is a true ensemble and every part has to work perfectly for the film to be effective and it succeeds there.

I don’t think I’ve fully grasped all of the meanings and messages that Haneke has put into the film, but like with most of his work, I’m excited to go back and see what I missed the first time around.

4. Tetro (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola)

The best cinematography of the year, hands down. In fact, this might be my favorite black and white cinematography ever with the high contrasts making me feel the colors of everything rather than actually seeing them. Mihai Malaimare Jr. is a name to remember – and it’s one that will be hard for me to forget – as his work here helps makes the film as beautiful as it is.

But what really makes this such a beautiful work of art is the script and director of Francis Ford Coppola, who proves yet again that he is a master of the form. I’ve written about this film enough times in this space, but I still can’t express exactly why I love this film. It’s about brothers, it’s about art and how difficult it can be to make that art, how it takes all of your heart and soul to make something truly transcendent and how it takes that same kind of effort and honesty to make a family work. The sins of the father having an effect on the son, the soul of the father forever etched into the soul of the son; there are a lot of very deep and philosophical wounds being exposed here. It feels like a very personal film from a young filmmaker.

In my world, Vincent Gallo and Alden Ehrenreich would get acting nominations for their brilliant work. Gallo’s intensity isn’t always suited to every role, but here it is perfect and beautiful. And Ehrenreich has the potential to be one of our best young actors; in fact, I think he is already, based on this one performance. This is one of the finest performances by a young adult since River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho.

I cannot wait to own this movie on Blu-Ray, to get swept up in the beauty and artistry all over again.

3. Mammoth (Dir. Lukas Moodysson)

I think I’ve written more about Mammoth this year than any other film. You can find columnshere and here.

Lukas Moodysson is one of the world’s greatest filmmakers and here he’s just doing what he always does: making a masterpiece. While I’m not sure yet if I would put it on the same level as Fucking Amal or Lilya 4-ever, this is still a must-see motion picture that says more about the world we live in than any other film I’ve seen this year. Wonderful acting, brilliant direction, a wonderful script about globalization; this is the type of film the Academy should be tripping over itself to hand awards to, but for some reason is completely devoid of hype. See it and judge for yourself.

2. The Hurt Locker (Dir. Kathryn Bigelow)

The most suspenseful film I’ve seen since The Wages of Fear. I was on the edge of my seat for the entire running time. Jeremy Renner gives the performance of the year. Read my column about the best Iraq war movie here.

1. Inglourious Basterds (Dir. Quentin Tarantino)

Read my column about my number one film here.

I had written Tarantino off. I thought he had become a filmmaker that was more interested in imagining ways of remaking bad 70s grindhouse movies than making anything original or important. I walked into Inglourious Basterds wanting to detest it. But I couldn’t. This is pure filmmaking and the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater in years. This is a film that is not built around set-pieces; rather, every single scene is a set-piece. Each scene is great by itself and put all together, it makes the film one of the most exciting, funny, suspenseful and odd experience you could have in the theater. This is the Tarantino that I wanted him to be, willing to break the rules and take chances while having the type of fun he likes to have.

I wrote about why I loved the movie so much in the column that is hyperlinked above, but I really didn’t expect that by the end of the year, it would still be at the top of this list. It’s a testament to how great the movie is or how bad this year was. I’m undecided. Either way, this is a film that deserves to be mentioned with the best of the decade and will get heavy consideration when I make that list in the coming weeks.
Noah Forrest
December 28, 2009

Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

Since every minor and major critics group in the country has come up with their own award, I decided last year that I would start my own, The Frenzies. Last year was a rousing success and as with everything in Hollywood that is successful in its first go-round, it’s time for the sequel! I still have a few movies left to see, but these are the most worthy films I’ve seen for the ever-changing awards. As usual, if you are a winner of a Frenzy Award, please contact me to redeem a free candy bar of your choice. Who needs a stuffy dinner in some ballroom?

Without further ado, here are the Frenzies:

Best Film You Probably Haven’t Seen: There are a lot of worthy choices this year, but I think the award has to go to Lukas Moodysson’s Mammoth, which has been discussed for months in this space. It amazes me that a lesser film about a similar topic, Babel, could not only be lauded by critics and make a ton of money, but be considered in the awards race and get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars; meanwhile, a film that takes a similar theme and grounds it in reality, making a film that tackles the large issue of globalization with grace and vigor, can’t get any traction from critics or audiences. In twenty-five years, Mammoth will be remembered fondly as a testament to the times we lived in while Babel will have been forgotten.

Most Overhyped Film: Avatar would seem to be the easy choice here because nothing could possibly live up to that hype, but it saddens me that I’m actually going to choose Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are. Major critics are naming it as one of the ten best films of the year, every hipster in Brooklyn thinks it’s the greatest thing to hit the cinema ever, and I found myself profoundly underwhelmed. I think the first ten to fifteen minutes are actually powerful and real and sad, but once Max gets to the land of the wild things, the movie fell apart for me. I understand the subtext of it all, how the different wild things not only represent different family members, but also different parts of Max’s psyche.

But the problem is that what is happening literally on the screen is something we know to be a figment of Max’s imagination; in other words, we know that no real harm is going to come to Max, so there’s nothing to be fearful of. Once Max goes to this imaginary land, we’re essentially watching somebody dreaming and frankly, nobody has done “dreaming” well in the movies since Luis Bunuel. There are no stakes when Max is on the island because he’s having a fantasy. So if a wild thing threatens to eat him, why do I care? What does it matter? I know that Max isn’t really there, so if the wild thing actually does eat him then what? He wakes up? Not to mention that Max would have to be the most insanely self-aware kid to have a fantasy like this that so slyly brings to life all of his neuroses about his family.

The subtext in the film is really well-done, but the actual text is not that compelling, making the whole film crumble. It’s beautiful to look at, I was entertained at times, but once I checked out of the island sections, I couldn’t get myself to connect.

Best Last Line: “You know somethin’, Utivich? I think this might just be my masterpiece.”Inglourious Basterds. This is a line that borders on being too self-referential, but on the heels of what has come before it, it fits beautifully.

Best Ending: No ending made me gasp quite like the dénouement of Jody Hill’s Observe and Report. I wasn’t over-the-moon for the film at all, but after the crazy Taxi Driver ending, starting with Ronnie chasing the flasher all the way up until the end credits, I almost thought I watched a masterpiece. Now, I’m still not completely in love with the film – although I thinkSeth Rogen was excellent – but that ending sequence had me both laughing hysterically while feeling profoundly uncomfortable at the same time.

Most Disappointing Ending: This has to go to Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air, a film that I otherwise loved. If you haven’t seen it (Spoilers!), you might want to avoid the rest of this award. Okay, so the first hour and fifteen minutes of the film, we are being told a story that we haven’t really seen before. Sure, thematically, there have been films that it resembles, but the actual mechanics were fascinating. We’re being guided by the modern-day Cary Grant(George Clooney) through a world that is unfamiliar and he has an attitude that is refreshingly honest and bracing. He lives his life without attachments. Anyway, so the scenes at the wedding were a little disappointing and I wavered a bit, but then the film becomes completely conventional out of nowhere.

I remember covering my eyes when he was finally giving his big speech at Goal Quest and saying to myself, “please, don’t run off the stage like in every other movie” and sure enough that’s exactly what he did. Then when he races to Chicago, I kept thinking, “please don’t letVera Farmiga have a family behind her when she opens the door” and sure enough, she did. Reitman might think that he made a ballsy move there by not having his leads end up together, but it was actually the most conventional move that he could have made. The unconventional ending would have been the happy ending. Either way, it didn’t quite kill all that came before it, but it definitely didn’t have the same dramatic verisimilitude and I walked out disappointed.

Best Double-Dipping Director: If Steven Soderbergh keeps up going at this clip, he’s going to be the next Fassbinder. He’s been releasing at least one film a year for a while now and it’s amazing to think that he’s had three such disparate movies hit the cinema in the space of a year (Che from last year, then The Girlfriend Experience and The Informant!this year). The fluid way in which Soderbergh jumps from genre to genre is really impressive; I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a director that was so confident directing in any genre or budget-level. This year, he subtly broke my heart with The Girlfriend Experience and then made me cackle with The Informant! while directing two of the best performances of the year from a porn actress and a former Oscar nominee. The man can do anything.

Best Film to Watch Twenty Times on Cable: This award has to go to Tony Gilroy’sDuplicity. I really enjoyed watching this movie the first time and like Gilroy’s Michael Clayton, I feel like it’s the perfect film to jump in and out of when it comes on late at night. I can just picture myself scrolling through all the movie channels, trying to find something to throw on before I go to bed and then being thankful that Duplicity is on so that I could watchClive Owen and Julia Roberts sass each other all over the globe.

Funniest Film: This one wasn’t even particularly close. No film made me laugh harder thanArmando Iannucci’s In the Loop and I’ve been quoting the film ever since. Peter Capaldiand James Gandolfini really deserve some consideration from the other awards shows and critics groups; I can’t believe that I’m the only one who can recognize the genius performances given by those two actors. If I had a Frenzy for Best Supporting Actor, the two of them might have to share it.

Best Tunes: Lou Reed, David Bowie, The Cure, Velvet Underground, and New York Dolls. It’s hard to beat the music in Adventureland. It’s also a damn good movie.

Best Animated Film: Two years ago, I thought Wes Anderson made the best film of the year with The Darjeeling Limited and I decided that he was the best living example of an “auteur.” Literally, everything Anderson touches is so “Wes” that he has basically invented a genre unto himself. Lots of folks try to make “Wes Anderson” films (hello Brothers Bloom) only to fail miserably at it because it’s not something that Anderson actively tries to do, he just does what comes naturally to him.

When I first heard that Anderson would be devoting a couple of years to making a claymation adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, I was little disappointed. After he made what I think is his best film – Darjeeling – I really wanted to see him make his rightful follow-up to that film instead of some silly animated side project. But Fantastic Mr. Fox, it turns out, is no side-project, but the actual next film in his oeuvre. Make no mistake, this is a Wes Andersonfilm through and through, except instead of people, he’s using clay animals. They still speak the same way, act in the same ways, there are still bizarre yet true moments but he’s managed to put it all into a world that is made of clay

Most Suspenseful Film: When I walked out of The Hurt Locker, I remember immediately calling up a friend and saying, “that was the most suspenseful film I’ve seen since Wages of Fear.” And I still feel that way. No film has had my heart beating so rapidly for the majority of its running time like Kathryn Bigelow’s film about bomb-defusing.

Worst New Trend: Long titles. Do I really have to call it Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire every time I refer to it? Is that how they’re going to announce it at the Oscars? I just wish it was up against Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men,and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Film That Made Me Reconsider the Filmmaker: Richard Kelly, I had such high hopes for you. When I first saw Donnie Darko, I was convinced that we had a talented filmmaker that would be making difficult and strange films that would blow my mind for the next fifty years. I suppose with The Box, he’s done precisely that, but not in the way that I would have hoped. I’ve forgiven Kelly for Southland Tales, which made no sense and was unbelievably silly without being nearly as profound or “smart” as he had hoped, but it was an ambitious effort and everyone is entitled to a mistake. But The Box is so unbelievably awful that I’m wondering if Kelly is really as good as I originally thought. For that matter, was Donnie Darko as good as I originally thought? I still think it’s good, but if you’ve ever seen the “Director’s Cut” or listened to Kelly’s audio commentary, he’ll change your mind.

I almost want to give The Box credit for being so batshit insane and I would, if it made any sense whatsoever. Once it takes a left turn into crazyland, it really goes for it, which is admirable in the same way that Knowing was. But the questions I have about The Box could fill a book. And these questions aren’t out of confusion, but bewilderment; like, why doesCameron Diaz’s character have a mangled foot? What work is that doing for your story? What does it add to her character? For that matter, why is Langella missing part of his face? These two physical abnormalities don’t push the plot forward, don’t really help with characterization, so I don’t know what they are doing there. And that’s before we get into the aliens.

Most Surprisingly Effective Tearjerker: John Lee Hancock’s The Blind Side is going to make hundreds of millions of dollars, so clearly I’m not the only one, but I can’t believe how much this movie made me cry. I knew I was being manipulated the whole time, but I enjoyed being manipulated and now when I watch football on Sundays, I’m rooting for Michael Oher.

Good Idea, Bad Execution: As a child of the 90s, I’ve longed to see a film that tackled the stories of 2Pac and Biggie. I wasn’t the biggest rap fan, but it’s a fascinating story that dominated MTV and changed the music scene. Also, Tupac Shakur happens to be one of the most fascinating individuals, with a strange life story. So when Notorious came out, I was really anxious to see it and I came away disappointed at what the story was reduced to. Because of the association of Sean “P. Diddy” Combs as one of the film’s producers, there was no chance we were going to get an unbiased account of these men’s lives and I hated thatBiggie is portrayed as a martyr. The most interesting aspects of the story have been glossed over (both murders are still unsolved), which is a shame, because there’s a good movie to be made of these men’s lives.

Film That I’m Almost Embarrassed to Have Enjoyed: I have to face the facts that I’m just a sucker for Richard Curtis movies. Pirate Radio, like Love Actually before it, was a great ride for me. I enjoyed the movie and I don’t care who knows it! It might not be considered high art and I know when I’m being deliberately manipulated by the (great) music and the machinations of the plot, but I loved these characters and I fell for this story. I really just had a ball hanging out on this boat with these guys for two hours and I would gladly do it again.

Scariest Horror Film: I was surprised by how much Grace got to me. The idea of a woman giving birth to a still-born child that feeds on human blood is…well, one of the most innovative ideas I’ve heard for a horror film. And it works. Jordan Ladd, as the mother, really helps make the whole film work with her unhinged portrayal of a mother who would do anything for her child. Director Paul Solet is someone to keep an eye on.

Best Performance That is Being Overshadowed by Another Performance: Penelope Cruz is great in almost everything and she’s brilliant in Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces. She definitely gives the best performance in that film, giving the movie magic and beauty. But credit does need to be given to Lluis Homar who plays Mateo Blanco (or Harry Caine), the blind filmmaker who was not always blind. He is the lead in the film, the one who guides us through this crazy story and he does it with the assurance and ease of the master filmmaker he’s portraying.

Performance of the Year: I don’t think there’s any way that someone could embody a role better than Jeremy Renner did in The Hurt Locker. The look in his eyes, the way he walks, how he makes the other actors better with his intensity. Staff Sergeant William James is a hero who truly does not want to be one; he’s in it for his own selfish reasons, the rush that he gets from defusing a bomb and facing a near-death experience. But does that make him less of a hero? Does it make him any less noble? Renner gives him that nobility, makes him seem heroic even when most of his actions could be called questionable. He’s playing with fire, putting the lives of his men in danger, but his men make it through alive, don’t they? It’s hard for me to really describe what Renner does that is different from what another actor might have done, but I can tell you that it would only work if he were in the part; I can’t think of any other actor who could do what he did. And I think it’s a performance that just demands to be seen, no words can do it justice.

The Frenzy on the Wall Lifetime Achievement Award: Francis Ford Coppola, welcome back. Please don’t go anywhere ever again. I cannot get Tetro out of my head, the art of making art, the beautiful photography, the stunningly good performances; it’s everything you could possibly want in a film. I happened to have loved Youth Without Youth even though I don’t know that I understood it. I’m just happy that Coppola is back and making his best movies that aren’t named The Godfather (1 or 2) or Apocalypse Now. And yes, that means that I think Tetro is at least as good as The Conversation.
Noah Forrest
December 22, 2009

Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

Every year I try to single out the performances and films that I think aren’t getting enough attention during the awards season.  It seems that certain storylines become more “interesting” or certain actors or films become the “underdog” that everyone roots for and a lot of quality gets lost in the shuffle.

And this year, despite being weak overall for film, has still produced a lot of quality that seems to have gone unnoticed by the powers that be. Similar to the mass media, Oscar pundits have a measure of control over which films are talked about; they don’t shift the votes, but they can often shift the conversation. Most of the films and performances being talked about are deserving of the plaudits, but unfortunately some amazing stuff falls through the cracks.

So, as I do every year, I will attempt to shine a spotlight on two films and four lead performances that I think are lacking the attention that they deserve.

Robin Wright gives the best performance of her career in Rebecca Miller’s The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.  That might sound like I’m damning her with faint praise, but I’ve found Wright to be one of the most charismatic actresses of the last twenty years; she just decided, as William Goldman put it, that she didn’t want to be a star.  When she burst on the cinema scene in The Princess Bride, she was not only one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the silver screen, but she also showed a poise and strength that made Princess Buttercup the object of every man’s fantasy affections.

Wright was justly applauded for her role as Jenny in Forrest Gump despite having one of the most poorly written characters in a film that is light on characterization to begin with.  But Wright makes that part – and the film – soar higher than it could have by injecting a realness and a rigid toughness to it.  Despite everything in that film being overblown, she remains calm and subtle, easily stealing the film away from everyone.

Wright has also been great in a lot of mediocre films, like Nine Lives in which she plays a pregnant woman who meets her old lover in a supermarket and absolutely destroys the audience in just ten minutes of screen time. She has similar impacts in A Home at the End of the World, Hurlyburly and She’s So Lovely.  She even “uglied” herself up in a phenomenal way for The Pledge, one of the more criminally underrated films of recent years.

But all of these performances are trumped in Pippa Lee.  It’s almost like the part of Pippa is Wright’s magnum opus, the culmination of every skill she has learned along the way.  There are so many different facets to Pippa Lee and Wright is able to convey all of those layers without resorting to histrionics.  Her role in the film – as the adult Pippa Lee – is to be mostly reactive in the early going, not only to other people in the film but also to her own sleepwalking plight.  She is dutiful and graceful.  Over the course of the film, however, we have to believe that she is convincingly falling apart, that while the world around her crumbles, her foundation will be shaken in ways that might not be tremendously apparent.

And that’s the incredible thing about what Robin Wright does in this film; we don’t need her to scream or yell for us to be convinced that she is having a breakdown.  We’re convinced just in the way she subtly alters her speech patterns or the way she has a calm outburst in a restaurant.  She has been willfully imprisoned in her marriage and in suburbia and as her husband gets older, she is confronted with her own mortality.  We have to believe that she is slowly changing in a hundred minutes of screen time and Wright does it easily and masterfully, her flaws only making her more endearing as a character.

I would gladly watch a mini-series about even more private lives of Pippa Lee, but only if Robin Wright was playing her.

Joaquin Phoenix gives an unbelievably nuanced and subtle portrayal of a man who confuses lust with love in James Gray’s Two Lovers.  He has two able female counterparts to balance him in Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw, but it’s up to Phoenix to carry the film.  And he does.  And he makes it look easy.

When we first meet Leonard Kraditor, he attempts to drown himself.  This is a man that is at the end of his rope.  He has just split from his long-time girlfriend, he’s living at home with his parents in Brooklyn, working at his father’s dry cleaning business and suffering from bi-polar disorder.  This is a difficult character to play and Phoenix makes us care for him despite a lot of the mistakes he makes along the way.  And the most difficult part is that Phoenix has to make us believe that, despite all of Leonard’s issues, he would still be desirable to not just one, but two beautiful women.  The awkward assuredness that Phoenix instills in Leonard makes us understand his appeal.

Leonard is presented with two women who are complete opposites – much like his mood swings from his illness, giving us two different Leonards – in Michelle and Sarah.  Sarah is the shy, sensitive and caring daughter of his father’s business associate and she’s a fellow Jew.  She’s the safe pick.  But then there’s Michelle, who represents the “other” and volatility.  She has so many issues that she enables Leonard to be the caretaker for once and we can understand why Leonard might enjoy that.

One of the things that Phoenix does so well is imbue Leonard with humanity.  I’m not even sure how he does it, but he makes Leonard feel like a real person.  When he screws up, we don’t hate him for it; rather, we just hope he’ll make a better decision the next time, like he were a family member.  If this is truly Joaquin Phoenix’s last performance, then he’ll have gone out on the highest possible note, creating a character that looks and feels uniquely real.

I want to make quick mention of two more performances that aren’t on the same level as the previous two, but deserve some kudos. Seth Rogen gives one of the most insane, yet insanely accurate, portraits of a man suffering from mental illness in Jody Hill’s Observe and Report.  Whatever he does in the film, however crazy, he makes it seem plausible by the standards of the character he has created.  The slow burn of Ronnie, especially once he stops taking his medication, is both hilarious and strangely heartbreaking and leading up to one of the most memorable finales in the movies this year.  And Rogen is the one that sells it.

And Sasha Grey’s performance, as a high-class escort in Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, is a lot more difficult than people give her credit for.  It’s a very interior performance, something that would be more fleshed out and apparent in a short story or a novel than in a film.  It’s the kind of film performance that is almost impossible to perfect and she does it.  When Chelsea gets her heart broken – or at least, strained – there’s nobody she would tell about it, so Grey cannot rely on dialogue to push that emotion to the forefront.  Instead, she has to rely on her body language and her expressive eyes.  Truly good work from an unexpected source.

Lukas Moodysson’s Mammoth is the kind of movie that award voters usually eat up, but for some reason has been ignored this year.  Films like Babel have tried a similar globe-spanning narrative, but have failed to make the sections cohere in a way that is entirely satisfying.  More often than not, when filmmakers try to tell a tale about “the world” they wind up with conclusions that are convenient, easy, wrapping things up in a way that has the audience feeling good about themselves and their environment when they leave the theater.

Moodysson has always been a filmmaker that has tried to subvert expectations and tell stories larger than they appear.  Here, he’s telling individual stories that are set in three different parts of the globe (New York City, Philippines, Thailand) that are connected to one another in unsurprising but deeply emotional ways.  When I spoke to Moodysson, he told me that his initial inspiration was “laundry” and how it was bought and sold like a commodity.  When he pulled that thread, it ultimately led to him telling a story about globalization and the merits and pitfalls of us being so connected.

One of the most fascinating things to me was the story of the nanny, Gloria, and how she is being paid to be a mother to a child that is not hers so that she could be a better mother to her own children in the Philippines.  She is sacrificing the bond between her and her kids so that she could take care of another child.  Meanwhile, the child that she is taking care of has a mother, played expertly by Michelle Williams, who is busy taking care of other people’s children as an ER doctor.  We see her spending time trying to save the life of a child, but she has to be away from the life of her own child.  That cycle continues and continues and we are left in a world where parents don’t see their children. This is a point that is never explicitly stated in some grandiose fashion because Moodysson is too smart for that, instead he lets that point permeate everything so that it seems so subtle but so obvious at the same time.

Then there is Leo (the always great Gael Garcia Bernal) who is away from his family on a business trip.  He’s a young family man, but he doesn’t want to be in Bangkok while the details of his imminent deal are being worked out; instead, he wants to have an “authentic” Thai experience by renting a shack on a beach in the “real” Thailand.  But when he goes there, he meets other travelers and drinks and meets a local prostitute that he wants to “save.”  It’s interesting how Leo’s hypocrisy slowly bubbles up.  At first we admire that he is so intent on having a genuine experience.  But then we realize that this experience is bought and paid for too.  He’s the stereotypical rich guy who wishes he were poor and is rich enough to buy the experience of being normal.

Mammoth is one of the best films you will see this year and it’s a shame that nobody is talking about it.

The last film I wanted to talk about is Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro, a picture that seems to have been largely forgotten by most, but hasn’t been far from my mind’s eye since I first saw it. It’s about the very act of creating, whether that means creating art of some kind (music, writing) or creating a person (the act of birth, or the act of rebirth) or creating love and family.  All of these emotions are swirling about in a picture that has the most gorgeous black and white cinematography I have ever seen.  It’s a film that you just want to take a bath in, enjoying the location shooting in Argentina and the art within the art.  They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.  But then again, I’m not sure they ever made them like this to begin with.

More than anything, Tetro is the story of brothers.  There’s the titular character (played byVincent Gallo, in his finest performance since Buffalo ’66) and his younger brother Bennie (newcomer Alden Ehrenreich, the most interesting performer to burst on the scene sinceLeonardo DiCaprio) and they haven’t seen each other in years.  There is resentment on both sides since Tetro left home and moved to Buenos Aires, especially because he said he would come back to rescue Bennie from their overbearing, powerful father.  Their father is the (mostly) unseen force working behind the scenes to tear apart the family, a mad genius who is the conductor for the New York Philharmonic.

Tetro is a writer, a pure talent who wouldn’t sell out for any amount of money in the world.  Bennie discovers Tetro’s work, which is the story of their family. But there’s a lot more to the story than that.  It’s a coming-of-age film, a road picture, a film about film, a story of fathers and sons, brothers, family, love, it’s really got it all. It’s both a throwback to the way films used to be and a hint at where it could possibly be going.

There are a ton of images in the film that speak volumes about both the characters and the filmmaker, but the one that has stuck with me is the image of Tetro clutching his manuscript.  He holds it close to his heart with a vice grip, refusing to part with his creation or to allow anybody to read it. It’s one of the most poignant images because it says so much about what it means to be an artist. You create something beautiful to you and you know that once you let it out of your hands, it won’t ever be as beautiful again. And this is what Coppola is able to accomplish in a single image, but he is able to imbue that much meaning into almost every line, every scene, every movement, making the film so unbelievably dense that it’s impossible to take it all in a single viewing. It’s almost too much. Almost.

Between Tetro and the underrated and underseen Youth Without Youth, Coppola has proved that he’s still got it.  And I’m delighted to have him back.  I just wish the Academy would be delighted too, enough so to give it the Best Picture nomination that it definitely deserves.
Noah Forrest
December 7, 2009

Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

I have to start this piece by saying that I’m a young, white male.  I’ve lived in New York City since the early part of this decade.  I have no idea what it is like to be a sixteen-year-old black girl in 1987 Harlem.  I cannot comment with any authority about whether or not the story told in Precious is an accurate portrait of the reality of being an overweight African-American girl; I can only say whether or not the movie makes it feel real. In other words, I cannot relate to the story no matter how hard I try; all I can do is empathize with the main character.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I can say that I think that Precious is an effective film for what it is.  And what it is, more than anything, is melodrama.  It can be graphic and disturbing, but it is a tearjerker at its heart and it hews closely to the standard formula of many melodramas.

It’s a story about an illiterate, overweight black girl who has two children – one of whom has Down syndrome – as a result of being raped repeatedly by her father.  Her mother abuses her physically – frying pans to the head – and sexually as well, not to mention the barrage of hurtful insults that she hurls her daughter’s way. Precious spends her days getting picked on by kids at school or while walking down the street, then goes home to get berated by her mother and cook her dinner. Everything that could go wrong in the life of Precious, well, it goes wrong.

But because we are traveling in the territory of melodrama, we are given an angelic teacher named Blue Rain who wants badly to not only help Precious read, but to fix her life.  There is also a social worker who seems interested in helping Precious put her life together and a male nurse who shows up from time to time to say nice things and her classmates at her new alternative school that care about her.  What the film is doing is giving Precious a support system so that when terrible things happen to her, we know that she has various safety nets to count on.

I must say that while I felt effected by the film and thought director Lee Daniels did an admirable job making us care about the fate of Precious, I also found it to be a bit too much.  After a while, I found myself inured to Precious’ struggles and even though I desperately wanted to cry, I didn’t shed a single tear. It was too much, she was too pathetic and pitiful to be real to me.  I know some people might say, “hey, these things really happen, there are really people like this out there,” but the thing is, just because it really happens doesn’t mean it feels real.

Instead, I felt like I was being given the story of a martyr.  Precious is beaten and beaten and beaten and beaten (and beaten) and I said to myself, “Precious is Jesus.”  She is being beaten and punished for the sins of mankind.  (spoiler alert!)

By the time we find out that she’s HIV-positive on top of everything else, I was even more sure of my supposition; she’s not only being beaten, she’s dying for our sins. (spoiler end) Not to mention, her mother’s name is … Mary.

I found myself comparing the story of Precious to all of the other troubled young women in her class. Surely they all have various problems in their lives that have led to them being in this special school; one of the women even mentions a daughter and a past drug problem. There are six sad stories in that classroom, but Precious has the saddest one of them all by a mile and it is reflected in the way that all of the other students care for her and the way the teacher dotes on her and brings her home. In other words, out of all the students in Harlem, a special few make it to this school because they are troubled and struggling. And out of those students, Precious has a whole host of other problems. So, Precious is therefore the outlier rather than the norm, a rare case.

I had read a few reviews that spoke of how this film pays homage to how well the government programs can work since Precious is helped in the end by the work of welfare workers and special programs. Well, yeah, but she was suffering abuse for sixteen years despite weekly visits from a social worker, showing how easy it is for families to hide their secret demons from people. I thought that was one of the more effective points in the film, how easy it is to fool and cheat the system if you’re a monster like Precious’ mother.

But the film worked overall for me and the biggest reasons for that are the performances.  While the film often goes over the top and Lee Daniels clearly has seen Requiem for a Dream and apes it awkwardly from time to time, the performances ground it all in an emotional truth.

Mo’nique has been justly lauded as the woman to beat for Best Supporting Actress and she is truly terrifying; Joan Crawford has nothing on her. Gabourey Sidibe is unbelievably good with a permanent scowl on her face to suggest that there’s nothing in her life to be happy about, but with those wonderfully expressive eyes that seem perpetually on the verge of tears.  I don’t know how many more great roles there could be for an actress of her size – Hollywood usually prefers petite – but I hope to see her a lot more, to see her range. Sidibe and Mo’nique are truly astonishingly good and not enough praise can be given to them. Paula Patton is great as well in the “caring teacher/adult” role that we’ve seen in Ordinary People, Dangerous Minds, Dead Poets Society and many others, but she brings warmth to her role that is very comforting.  The rest of the cast, including Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitzand Sherri Shepherd, is also good.

But I do think that there are some threads that feel shoe-horned into the film or weren’t properly explained. We find out that Paula Patton’s character is a lesbian, which is great, but why do we need to know that?  What work is that doing for the film?  It doesn’t feel organic to the character; rather it feels as if the film is trying to get another point for being progressive. Then there is the issue of Precious’ grandmother who seems to serve no purpose other than being an explanation for why Precious’ older child is never around.  Grandma is taking care of the older tot – named Mongo, which is a whole other issue – but she doesn’t want to rescue her granddaughter from the clutches of grandma’s abusive daughter?

There is a mention of how grandma is afraid of Mary, but I don’t really buy that as a proper excuse.  I just want to know why grandma isn’t a larger part of Precious’ life if she’s taking care of Precious’ kid.  And going back to naming the kid Mongo…I understand that Precious is not the smartest kid, but why would she name her kid that?  I just don’t see how that would happen, especially seeing as how Precious cares very deeply for her child.

Precious is not a perfect film by any means.  It has a lot of issues and it doesn’t hit the mark that it aims for, feeling instead like an amalgamation of a lot of stories, as well as a lot of influences. This is a story that I’m glad was told, but I guess I feel like instead of spreading out the various things that plague the impoverished in America, they put it all on one single character. It is movie manipulation at its finest, but sometimes we go to the cinema to be manipulated. Sometimes we need a good cry (even if I didn’t) and that’s what this film is trying to do. While some might look at this film and see something that is truly a stunning work of art, I see instead a very well-done melodrama.  And that is not damning it with faint praise, I truly believe it does what it sets out to do and does it well.

– Noah Forrest
November 30, 2009

Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

Every time the latest romantic comedy opens, I am befuddled when it’s successful.  Films like The Proposal or He’s Just Not That Into You make tons of money and when I ask why, I’m inevitably told it’s because women flock to these films.

When I inquire as to why women would flock to such inane films, I’m told that it’s because there aren’t a lot of films that cater to females and so they take whatever they can get. The Twilight series will repeatedly get a pass from some critics and many viewers because “it’s made for girls, who cares?”  And the sad thing is that they’re right; these films are made for girls and it’s depressing that this is what Hollywood thinks about young women.

Whenever this happens, I always point to the films ofRebecca Miller; nobody is making better films about women than her.  Miller doesn’t talk down to her audience, she simply presents nuanced women in a realistic manner, warts and all.  I was first turned on to her work after seeing her second film, Personal Velocity, which has three different women in three very different stories, all of which are about how women can be held down or held captive and how they can break free of that.  But the film wasn’t told in a didactic way, it didn’t sermonize or say, “this is an issue!”  The film merely presented three completely real women of different ages (played by Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey, andFairuza Balk) and the major crises of their lives.

I enjoyed that film so much that I went back to watch her first film, Angela, which is about two young girls and how blind devotion to religion can result in tragedy.  It was a very ambitious film and a deeply unsettling one. It’s clear from watching that film that Miller, even when working with budget constraints and no major actors, was able to create a full and complete motion picture and able to coax wonderful performances form her cast.

Her third film was The Ballad of Jack and Rose, starring Daniel Day-Lewis (Miller’s real-life husband) and Camilla Belle as a father and daughter living on a secluded isle off the coast of the US, the last remnants of a once-popular commune.  With a star like Day-Lewis, one would expect it to be a film about him, but it’s really the story of the burgeoning sexuality of his daughter and the way in which she misapplies her affections because of the way she was raised.  It’s a very naked and knowing look at the growing female sex drive in a teenager that feels more accurate than the metaphorical longing and yearning that is present in the Twilight series or most films about teen girls.  Many filmmakers are just not brave enough to explore – or risk exploiting – teen sexuality in an honest way.  But Miller has never shied away from it, as it’s a theme that is present in most of her work.

That work includes her latest almost-masterpiece The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, which has my early pick for Best Actress, Robin Wright. The film is Miller’s most ambitious yet, as it is about no less than the entirety of the female experience. We are presented with a story of a woman’s life, something that we don’t often see in movies. Miller grounds the film in a present-day story about mid-40s Pippa Lee (Wright) living with her much older husband (Alan Arkin) in a retirement community in Connecticut.  But we flash back to a younger Pippa (Blake Lively) and see that she wasn’t always so docile; she was once a wild and free young woman.

We see all of the people that had an impact on Pippa’s life, from her speed-addicted mother (Maria Bello) to her aunt’s lesbian lover (Julianne Moore) to her husband’s ex-wife (Monica Belluci) to her best friend (Winona Ryder). The most fascinating thing about the list I’ve just created is that each of the people that has a big impact on Pippa’s life is a woman, except of course for her husband and later, her next-door neighbor (Keanu Reeves). I think it says a lot about being in a good enough adult place of understanding about your own gender before searching for someone of the opposite one.

But the film is first and foremost a story about a particular character and that is the titular woman, fascinating in each of her various incarnations. It’s integral for the character to have a certain allure about her that is almost indefinable and both Wright and Lively bring that to the character with their soft-spoken manner. We absolutely believe that Blake Lively grows up to be Robin Wright, which means that Miller worked hard with each actress to ensure the continuity of the character above all else.

The story of Pippa’s life unfolds in chapters, mostly in flashback.  There’s the chapter about her childhood, the one about her rebellion, the one about meeting her husband, etc.  The main story shows us how Pippa has never really stopped changing, that just because somebody reaches adulthood, that doesn’t mean they are finished growing as a person. So many films get to the happy ending of the female lead meeting the man of her dreams, having kids and settling down in the suburbs.  The main thrust of this film is about what happens after that; also, the man of Pippa’s dreams is thirty years older than her.

The wonderful thing is how Robin Wright is able to balance the many facets of the adult Pippa.  She is both mother/nurturer and independent spirit, wanting desperately to break free of her beautiful yet shackled life.  She’s got everything she wants, but she wants something different; she’s got security, but her subconscious is telling her (through sleepwalking episodes) that she needs to be more freewheeling.  The ultimate lesson of the film being: not only does nobody really know Pippa, but she doesn’t really know herself.  But in Miller’s view, this is not a depressing realization; it’s actually a beautiful thing that she has so much more to learn about herself.  There are catalysts for her realizations, but it’s really about the fire within not the forces without.

As I said earlier, I think Robin Wright gives such a magnetic and powerful performance in this film. She is acting opposite some pretty heavy hitters, but she owns the screen the entire time, our focus entirely on her.  I remember William Goldman once writing about how Wright could have been the most famous actress in the world, but she didn’t want it. Watching this film, I kept thinking about that Goldman line and how it never seemed more true. Wright decided that acting wouldn’t be her primary focus while she raised a family and moved away from Hollywood and nobody can fault her for that; but, watching her in this film, I couldn’t help but think of what we missed out on.

Wright is given ample support in the film by Lively, Arkin, Ryder, Bello and the always underrated Keanu Reeves, but we always want to return to Wright.  The way she reacts to her children, when her daughter meets them for dinner and slights her mother, the look in Wright’s eyes and the lilt in her voice, it’s so emotionally true and accurate.  It’s that look of a disappointed mother who’s been hurt by her kid; the audience sees that it hurts more than she is letting on.  When she has a conversation with Ryder’s character about how to better please her husband, the way in which Pippa believably and gleefully explodes a little bit with a burst of graphic profanity is made believable and true because of the groundwork that Wright has been laying to help make that moment – and every other moment – work.  I know she won’t get nominated for an Oscar because the Academy would never do something so smart, but she should be.

I’ve been a little vague on the details of the film, I know, but it’s because this is a film you really don’t want to be ruined for you. You might see what’s going to happen at every turn in The Proposal, but this is a film that has some tricks up its sleeve.  It’s anything but conventional. I urge everyone, both men and women, to see this film. I would especially love it if young women would ignore the abstinence-promoting vampire film and instead see this film about the reality of the female experience, but I understand that that won’t happen. But if you do see this film, you’ll understand what a powerful filmmaker Rebecca Miller is and you’ll be as anxious to see her next picture as I am.

Note: If you love The Frenzy on the Wall and can’t get enough of me, then check out my new blog! I talk about movies, sports, politics and all that jazz, so take a look!

– Noah Forrest
November 23, 2009

Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

How is it possible that some critics have given 2012 a pass?

I’m not an elitist. I understand that sometimes you just want to put down your twelve bucks and see a spectacle. I don’t always need my films to be contemplative or poignant, sometimes I enjoy seeing a purely visual feast that shows me some really cool things I haven’t seen before.  All I ask is that it doesn’t insult my intelligence and that it follows the rules that it has set up.  It’s also nice if there could be a particularly original or audacious moment or two.

When I am very famliiar with 2012 director Roland Emmerich’s work. I remember what an event it was to see Independence Day in the theater when I was a kid, and how much I enjoyed the hoopla surrounding it — so much so that I enjoyed the film mostly because of the excitement of it all and seeing the crowd around me get completely sucked in by the overt manipulation. It was a fun time at the picture show.  But I remember my stepfather telling me over and over again, after he had seen it, that it was a copy of the original War of the Worlds, that Hollywood doesn’t make anything new anymore and everything’s been done before and been done better.

At the time, I thought my stepfather was crazy for suggesting that Independence Day wasn’t original or that the effects from a movie in the ’50s could even compare to the effects in that film.  He bought me the VHS of War of the Worlds and so I watched it and afterwards, I thought, “wow, that was a much richer movie experience. The effects were there in service of the plot and characters, not as a substitute for the plot and characters.”  I told my stepfather that he was right, it was a bad copy of a better film and I realize I’m becoming a fuddy-duddy just like him, telling everyone I know that Hollywood doesn’t make anything new anymore.  Now both of us can be found at family gatherings watching TCM together.

But the point is that 2012 is perhaps the least original film I have ever seen.  Literally every moment, every scene, every line of dialogue is something you have seen or heard before. It is a compendium of disaster movie clichés. You want Poseidon Adventure? You got it. Who cares if it was remade a few years ago? You want Volcano?  Bam, supervolcano.  You want fireballs to shoot from the sky like meteors in Armageddon?  Here you are.  You want to see religious and cultural landmarks get destroyed like in every other modern disaster film?  This is it.

Call me crazy, but I’m not as keen these days on seeing the world destroyed as a form of entertainment.  Watching the deaths of billions of people just doesn’t do it for me anymore.  But I’m actually kind of offended by the way this particular film uses real-life disasters – tsunamis, buildings destroyed, massive earthquakes – as fodder for a dumb story that doesn’t really have a point. The world gets destroyed, shit happens, deal with it, look at these cool special effects. We have had real-life horrors in the past decade and have witnessed thousands killed my tsunamis, hurricanes, etc. and while I think it’s fine to use natural disasters in your films, I think to reference those events and make light of them the way this film does is indefensible really.  It’s genocide as amusement.

I started keeping mental notes in the first ten minutes about all the dumb things that occur 2012 and then I gave up because I couldn’t watch the movie anymore if I focused on all the idiocy.  I will just say that I was particularly amused by how calm the non-pilot new boyfriend of Amanda Peet’s character when he’s flying his tiny plane away from utter destruction.  The look on actor Tom McCarthy’s face is one of utter stability. These people aren’t trained for this, yet they somehow can fly planes, use defensive driving techniques, outrun fireballs, etc.

I especially love the skepticism of Amanda Peet’s character even after she was in a supermarket that was ripped apart. John Cusack is racing over to her house to save the whole family and she’s acting like nothing important happened in her life in the past 24 hours, despite the fact that she almost fell down a hole into the center of the Earth. But no, it’s Saturday and it’s time to make the kids breakfast and take them to ballet recitals.  It’s stuff like this that is so easily fixable; to simply make a character react in the appropriate manner is not that hard.

But that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. The film doesn’t even work on a basic story level.  The film is tangential at best, flitting about to different parts of the world with barely drawn characters getting killed. One character, an Indian scientist, figures to be a prominent part of the film, then is forgotten about for two hours until he dies. George Segal is on a cruise ship and is goofing around, then calls his son for the first time in years right before his son dies.  We don’t really know much about the back story there, it just kind of happens and we move along.

There are story threads all over the place and they are left hanging a lot, which would be bothersome if we ever actually cared for a moment about any of them.  My favorite moment of the film is when the main family finally gets on the boat that will save humanity and then the filmmakers realized that they need to kill off Cusack’s competition for Peet’s affections, so they do that quickly and then everyone forgets about him. That includes Cusack’s son who had grown very attached to McCarthy’s character.

To keep two of the main threads linked tenuously, we have Chiwetel Ejiofor’s White House science guy reading Cusack’s character’s disaster book. And then Ejiofor perpetually quotes from the book like its gospel; it would be like the President’s top science advisor continually quoting Michael Crichton at every turn.  “Well, I’m a scientist and I predicted this event.  But instead of boring you with the ins and outs of what’s happening, I’m going to tell you this brilliant quote about humanity.  No, it’s not by Aristotle or Nietzche.  It’s by a shitty author who wrote a genre book.”

In the end we’re faced with the fact that pretty much everyone on Earth, save a few hundred thousand, has died.  Somehow this is supposed to be a hopeful and happy ending that humanity is now going to rebuild itself.  I think it’s usually a pretty sad ending when most of humankind has been wiped off the face of the planet, but that’s just me and we know I’m a nutjob.

The acting is as good as it can be in a film like this.  I admire the choices of having Cusack, Peet, McCarthy, Thandie Newton, Ejiofor, and Woody Harrelson hanging around and it’s always fun to see Oliver Platt chew green screen.  I can accept the fact that everyone needs a paycheck once in a while – look at Nicolas Cage – so I forgive them for being in the film.  But I can’t forgive the film for wasting these talented actors in cardboard cutout characters.

More and more, I feel like my stepfather. I know that young people are going to see this film and be amazed by the “originality” of it all.  And I feel bad because they aren’t going to be crazy film geeks like you and me, who will seek out those better films that 2012 apes.  But on a personal level, watching a film like this – that, granted, is diverting at times – makes me not want to see films like this anymore.

When I began writing this column, I talked about how I had a need to see everything I could – from the great to the horrible – but I’m beginning to feel like I shouldn’t waste my time with movies like this.  Especially because I could have told you everything about it without having seen a frame; there’s little enjoyment in knowing every trick the filmmaker has up their sleeve.  And special effects, as wonderful as they can be, don’t draw me to a theater anymore.  I just want to see good stories.  So I thank you 2012 and Roland Emmerich, for helping to kill my passion for film.
– Noah Forrest
November 16, 2009

Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

As the aughts near a close, we’ll be seeing more and more lists dedicated to the best films of the decade. It’s only natural; as film fans and writers, we love to put things in lists. I like making lists, looking at other lists, having discussions about how stupid or smart a certain film writer might be because of a film that is — or isn’t — on their list.

Some folks get apoplectic at the idea of putting art into some kind of hierarchy; I say we do it all the time in our heads anyway, constantly comparing one great film to another because there are different levels of greatness. We don’t walk out of a terrific film and then forget about it; making lists and discussing them helps us pinpoint which films we liked and why.

I’m still working on my decade list. I know which films are going to be on it, more or less; it’s just a matter of seeing the films that will come out in the next two months and deciding on a limit to give myself. Should it be top 10?  Top 20?  Top 100?  I know one or two Desplechin titles will be on there, ditto Moodysson, Todd Field, Fincher and the Andersons.  I’d have to find room for Linklater’s Before Sunset and Van Sant’s Elephant and Paranoid Park, not to mention Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream.

Side-note: I think another reason people have been anxious to talk about their decade list has been that this year has been a relatively mediocre one. It’s certainly not the worst ever, but there have been only a handful of films so far that have compelled me to tell my friends and you, my dear readers, about.  By the way, best year of the decade?  It’s tough, but I think I’d go with either 2000 (Requiem, High Fidelity, Wonder Boys, Almost Famous, Virgin Suicides, Together, Quills, Dancer in the Dark, Traffic, George Washington) or 2007 (There Will Be Blood, The Darjeeling Limited, Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Michael Clayton, Margot at the Wedding, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Into the Wild, Assassination of Jesse James…)

But the one thing that has never been difficult in my many long discussions and meditations about the subject is figuring out which film to put at the top. I think there’s a lot to consider when it comes to choosing such a film because I think political and social issues should be given some weight as well as one’s own personal, emotional connection to the film and its characters.

My film of the decade was an easy pick: Spike Lee’s 2002 masterpiece 25th Hour.

25th Hour is the most culturally relevant and important film of the past ten years; it floored me on a cerebral/emotional level as well as a cinematic one. Not only does this film tell us about where we are as a people post-9/11 — and where we might go afterwards — it also pulls us by our lapels and confronts us on a human level.  It is a great story, told in the best possible way.

Based on the film’s synopsis, one wouldn’t expect a transcendent movie experience; it’s about Monty Brogan, a former drug dealer’s last day of freedom before he goes to prison for seven years.  But the film is so much more than what the plot purports to be about.  It’s about friendship: Monty’s relationship with his two best friends Jacob and Frank, one an introverted private school teacher and the other a typically high-strung and narcissistic Wall Street trader; it’s about love and trust: Monty’s relationship with his long-term girlfriend Naturelle, who may or may not have ratted him out to the cops; it’s about family: several moving scenes that Monty shares with his father James, a pub owner who traded in alcohol for club soda.

But this is just a surface reading of the film.  In the background – and often in the foreground – is a film about so much more.  There may be no greater ode to New York City in the history of film, recognizing its faults and flaws while holding it up on a pedestal.  The relationship at the heart of the film is between Monty and the city of New York. There is the famous “fuck you” scene in the bathroom of James’ pub in Staten Island, where Monty looks in the mirror and goes into a long monologue about all the different races and ethnicities of Manhattan and how much he hates them all.  But, of course, he doesn’t truly hate them; he hates that he’s going to miss them when he goes to prison.  And what writer David Benioff does so well is set up a scene that is ostensibly about hate, but is really about love for a city that is able to give a home to such diverse people.

Then there is, of course, Spike Lee’s decision to make the aftermath of 9/11 a specter looms, haunting the film and its characters. People point to the scene of Jacob at Frank’s lower Manhattan apartment, where they have a discussion while standing at a large window; on the other side of that window is Ground Zero. But there are hints of that angst everywhere, from Frank’s character fretting over the employment numbers (which of course, is more relevant now than ever, but more on that later) to taped cut-outs of the NY Post cover that read “Wanted: Dead or Alive” with a picture of Osama bin Laden that is hung up in several places throughout the film, including Frank’s office.

The conversation that Jacob and Frank have in Frank’s apartment is largely forgotten, though:

Jacob: You know, the New York Times says the air is bad down here.

Frank: Oh yeah?  Well fuck the Times, I read the Post.  EPA’s says it’s fine.

Jacob: Well, somebody’s lying.  (beat)  You gonna move?

Frank: Fuck that, man, as much good money as I paid for this place.  Hell no.  Tell you what, bin Laden could drop another one next door and I ain’t moving.

Wow.  That is an awful lot of information that is conveyed in four lines of dialogue; not only about the characters (reading the Post rather than the Times and what it says about both of these guys) but also about the world around them.  It’s a reminder of the pseudo-patriotism some folks felt, as well as the skepticism that still runs rampant today about what we are fed by the media or the government.  Those shots of Ground Zero, though, are still haunting today because the truth of the matter is that not much has changed; there’s still a giant hole in the ground.

That scene also has a discussion between the two friends about Monty and what will become of him. It’s interesting that in the scene, Frank talks about Monty’s car being “paid for by the misery of other people” since that’s essentially how Frank earns his money too, betting on whether or not folks will have a job. Just a few scenes before we hear Frank explain how the unemployment numbers will effect inflation in two sentences. Watching those scenes of Frank and the other Wall Street traders waiting breathlessly for the unemployment numbers that affect their jobs to come out was definitely discomfiting at the time, but it’s downright prophetic now.

There are also great scenes that tell us about the ridiculous Rockefeller Laws in New York, which subtly explain how prisons get overcrowded — referred to later when Monty explains how he won’t even get a cell.  There’s a wonderful scene with Monty being told how to survive in prison by his Russian mob boss employer. Then there’s the whole subplot of Jacob dealing with his complicated emotions about an attractive high school student, which is about the strange student-teacher dynamic and how easy it can be for even law-abiding citizens to potentially break a law. The scenes with Jacob show us how we’re all one slip-up from ruining everything, just like Monty does. Jacob is lucky to show enough restraint, but the experience will scar him forever to be sure.  It’s also an interesting parallel to how Monty met his girlfriend when she was still a high school student, which may explain Jacob’s jealousy or his desire to live a life like Monty.

There is, of course, the bravura ending. It is, easily, one of the best ending sequences of the decade (although, the best last line of a film this decade belongs to Before Sunset). We get this grand portrait of how Monty’s life could be if he decides to run away rather than go to prison; how he could drive off the desert and find a small-town to live out his remaining years, but he could never see his friends or family again. It’s an idealistic portrayal of how one could live one’s life on the run, but more than that: it’s a New Yorker’s idealistic vision of living a simple life West of Manhattan.

The idea of New York as a prison isn’t exactly foreign to people who live here; we’ve all had dreams of moving away somewhere where nobody could find us.  Monty’s imagining of this is familiar to all of us; maybe we could just move to the desert and be a bartender rather than live in New York, trying to get rich to keep up with everyone else.

There is the big discussion of whether or not Monty goes to prison in the end or whether he does in fact run away.  We’ll never really know, but we could argue both ways. The important thing is that this day we’ve just witnessed is the last day of Monty’s life as he knows it. No matter what happens, prison or running away or killing himself, Monty’s life is over one way or another.

The film wouldn’t be what it is without the performances, of course.  Every part is played to perfection by a truly stunning ensemble cast that includes Barry Pepper, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Anna Paquin, Rosario Dawson and Brian Cox. Edward Norton, however, is the glue that holds it all together as Monty.  Norton has the distinct honor of being in two films that are the best of their respective decades (this film and Fight Club for the ’90s), but his performance in 25th Hour is not showy in any way. Most of the film he’s reactive to the larger than life personalities around him, but he’s active when it counts in certain moments.

It’s interesting to see how Barry Pepper interacts with Norton in the film and how different it is than when he’s with other characters. Pepper’s Frank is the alpha male at all-times … except when he’s interacting wit Norton’s Monty.  Norton doesn’t need to say a lot or to say it loudly, he just commands every room with his presence and the look in his eyes. It’s one of the best performances of the decade and one that makes me long to see Norton return to exciting filmmaking like this.  But a large debt is owed to the rest of the cast, who provide ample support and give Norton a chance to react in such tremendous ways.

I know that there are a lot of folks who will disagree vehemently with this choice, who were put off by the film seven years ago and who still hate it today. But for me, this is a film that hits the mark on all levels. But I think almost everybody can appreciate the context of the film and how much it tells us about the world we live in today.

It’s a film of its time, but it’s also timeless. It’s about how life has forever changed for us after 9/11.  It’s a film that alludes to the credit crisis that hadn’t happened yet. It’s a film that recognizes the importance of living your life. It’s a film that is made with precision and humor and poignancy. It’s a film I could talk about for hours and days and pages upon pages. If you haven’t seen it, it’s the best written, directed and acted film you’ll see anytime soon.  It’s a film that should have been nominated for every conceivable award.

This is the film of the decade.

– Noah Forrest
November 9, 2009
Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

There’s rarely anything new under the sun.  Every movie we see today is similar to something else we’ve already seen: the look of the film, or the theme of it, or the plot or the characters. It’s all been done before. We accept that when we walk into a theater, we’re probably going to see a story we’ve seen before; all that we ask is that it is done in a way that makes us forget that we’ve seen it already.

We want characters that are more fleshed out, effects that seem more realistic, dialogue that is richer, music that is more evocative.  Basically, all that we ask for is for cinema to have improved over the hundred years of its existence. And we want to be surprised even if it’s become harder to elicit that reaction.

A lot of modern films care little about entertaining an experienced film-going audience; many filmmakers simply recycle past ideas without even bothering to repackage them as something different. Although this phenomena crosses all genres, it seems especially prevalent in horror films. I’m not just talking about remakes (which can be effective or ineffective, depending on what new ingredients are added to the stew), but about films that are either carbon copies of things we’ve seen before or films that enjoy the “kitsch” of films from a certain era and try to reproduce it with modern means.

I saw two films in the past week that felt very familiar, and it made me wonder why the filmmakers would bother and why the audience would care. The directors of these films are clearly enormously talented, able to create so much while on limited budgets, but I wish that talent could have been used for something more original.  Both of these films have merit, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of déjà vu while watching both Paranormal Activity and The House of the Devil.

I know that Paranormal Activity is a huge sensation and it’s a great story about this young filmmaker Oren Peli and they made the film for two dollars in his house, etc. etc.  But we’ve seen this movie before, haven’t we?  If someone told you that this film was a sequel of sorts to The Blair Witch Project, would you even bat an eye?  The techniques used in this film, the non-pro actors over-emoting and the “strange” items found are almost completely lifted from the aforementioned film. I understand that audiences have short-term memories, but it’s only been ten years since we’ve seen almost entirely the same film; just substitute a house in San Diego for the woods.  If you were pitching this film, I’m pretty sure it would go something like, “It’s Blair Witch in a house in San Diego.”

That’s not to say the film is ineffective.  I actually enjoyed it for the most part and I think there are some really nice touches.  The character of Micah is unbelievably annoying, though, in a way that the characters from Blair Witch were not.  His irrational disbelief at every turn flies in the face of logic. At one point, after a bunch of irrefutable evidence has mounted, he puts powder on the floor. Why does he do this?  At this point, he is (and we are) well aware of the fact that there is something in this house, so what is he hoping to prove with this?  Any sentient being would have called the “demonologist” as soon as the Ouija board went aflame for no reason.  It’s great to have a “skeptic” character in any horror film, but this is just ridiculous.

I also don’t understand why they wouldn’t have tried moving out of the house for a night early on.  I get that the psychic told them that the demon would follow them wherever they went, but it seems to stay in the house for the most part.  The Ouija board set itself on fire even when they weren’t there and I’m assuming nothing happened at the restaurant.  At the very least, it would seem a good idea to sleep at a friend’s house or a motel for the night and see what happens. But that would have gotten in the way of the filmmaker telling his story with camcorders and it would mean paying for a different location; therefore, he has to create a contrivance to take away the possibility of them leaving the house. I understand that there were limited resources, but this was just unrealistic in a film that is trying to look like a documentary.

In Blair Witch it was possible to watch the film and believe for a moment that we were watching a documentary of found footage.  Is that even a thought in anybody’s head when watching Paranormal Activity?  Despite the grainy footage, there is no doubt that we are watching a “movie.”  The way the characters behave just isn’t realistic enough for us to believe that we are witnessing actual events that occurred.

I do think that the first-person, handheld camcorder genre can be exploited further and that we’ve only just scratched the surface on what is possible with this way of filmmaking.  It’s still effective because the idea of people filming themselves as they experience supernatural phenomena is creepy and suspenseful, but the only new thing that Paranormal Activity brings to the table is a tripod.

With The House of the Devil, despite everything else, director Ti West has shown himself to be a filmmaker who deserves to be watched and followed.  He is clearly working on another level than most indie horror directors. Watching The House of the Devil is like watching what would have happened if Terrence Malick was forced to direct a cheesy early ’80s horror flick.  And therein lies both the fascination and the downfall of the film; it is an unbelievably dead-on facsimile of an early ’80s horror movie, from the costumes to the music to the grain of the film to the tics of the characters.  And because West is such a talent, he is incredibly accurate with all of his details, but it makes me wonder why such an effort was put into crafting a film with the purpose of making the audience feel like they’d seen it before.

I felt much the same way when Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguezmade Grindhouse; it’s hard for me to understand why people would aim for “kitsch.”  It seems like being a kitschy, cheesy film is something that filmmakers usually don’t try for, but when that’s what happens, it becomes a cult fetish.  And when you actively try to be a cult film, it seems likely that you’ll fail; the joy of most cult films is that they are trying their hardest to be the best films that they can be with the talent and money they have.  Now, we have filmmakers using big budgets and lots of talent and energy into crafting a film whose purpose is to be bad.  Bad in a good way, sure, but still not aiming particularly high.

Like Grindhouse, The House of the Devil is a success in that it approximates the type of film that is trying to, but it fails on the level of being a genuinely good movie.  The storyline is familiar: young co-ed takes a job “babysitting” at a creepy mansion in the middle of nowhere and then things go bump in the night.  It seems that as a writer, West was trying to be as generic as possible so that West, the director, could have free reign to show off some of his technical prowess.  The film is deliberately paced, but beautifully shot with long takes and gorgeous tracking shots.  Each frame is perfect in the way it looks and feels, although sometimes West becomes too enamored with the pretty pictures and the film becomes bogged down, losing suspense and momentum.

The star of the film, Jocelin Donahue, is someone to watch as well.  She’s beautiful in that movie girl-next-door way, but she definitely has charisma.  So much of the film is just following her around this big house as she walks around or dances while listening to The Fixx’s “One Thing Leads to Another.”  And, despite being the sole soul that we see for long stretches at a time, she keeps us captivated.  She does have some help, though, from Tom Noonan as the creepy owner of the house, his kindness and polite manner being way more terrifying than if someone were to yell or try to be menacing.

The film, though, is basically an hour and ten minutes of plodding and then followed by twenty minutes of “horror” that is not as scary as we would have anticipated.  But the measure of the film’s success in West’s eyes seems to be how much the film resembles its early 80s counterparts.  And the truth is that it’s way better technically, but falls short in terms of story and scares.  The film would have been much improved with a better writer and less of a reliance on early ’80s contrivances for the sake of irony.  But, West certainly has a promising career ahead of him if he decides to make something original.  The House of the Devil was surely enough to get me to see whatever he does next.

Ultimately, we can be satisfied by seeing things we’ve seen before, just as I was “satisfied” by the two films I’ve mentioned here.  But, we don’t go to movies to be merely sated; we want to be blown away, to be entertained, to see things that we think we haven’t seen before.  We want to see good stories told well, not just stories told the way we’ve enjoyed them before.

– Noah Forrest
November 2, 2009
Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

Lars von Trier is a fascinating filmmaker.  I can’t say that I always enjoy his work — in fact, it’s rare that I can emotionally connect to one of his films — but I like that he’s around.  He’s a unique talent indeed and while I don’t always think his movies hit the mark, I’m thankful for his presence in the cinematic world.  He always strives to create art and his work is instantly recognizable as belonging to him; there’s no question that he is one of a handful of modern auteurs.

My problem stems from the fact that I admire his intent more than I admire his execution most of the time.  I like that a lot of his work is centered around the idea of human anguish and the cruelty that we inflict upon one another for personal gain; he understands that love is not always beautifully, that sometimes love means doing terrible things for one another or to one another.  I enjoy immensely that he’s one of the few filmmakers that treats his movies like they are literature, heavy with subtext and allusion, hinging on existential questions of what it means to be human.

But von Trier does very little to make his films appealing to his audience.  By that, I don’t mean that his films are dark or depressing; there’s nothing wrong with that. But vonTrier doesn’t seem particularly motivated by what an audience might feel about his work. A filmmaker like Michael Haneke might not be trying to entertain us, but he is at least aware of our existence; von Trier, it seems, doesn’t care whether the audience exists or not. His films are not just personal, but insular. He reminds me a lot of Godard in a way; he’s more interested in playing with the form and making his point than creating something that an audience is attached to or cares about.

Dancer in the Dark – my favorite of von Trier’s films – is von Trier’s  Contempt.  Both films perfectly marry the director’s artistic sensibilities with characters and story that make us actually feel. Both films are the epitome of their creator’s vision: stranger than their earlier work yet also more empathetic than the work that follows. For both filmmakers, those particular movies were turning points that would eventually lead them to create more experimental work that was focused more on making grand political or personal points rather than creating an actual film.

Von Trier actually made two films in a row that were shot on a soundstage, eschewing things like “sets” or “production design.”  One would think that the focus of Dogville and Manderlay would thus be on the emotions of the characters, but nobody resembles an actual person in those movies.  It’s hard to see exactly why von Trier would insist upon a film that used chalk outlines to represent homes except, perhaps, for von Trier’s well-documented anxiety and depression; that perhaps he would prefer to work in a controlled environment rather than on actual locations.  Either way, the films were trying to make political points about the history of America but those points were either too on-the-nose or off the mark completely. Watching them often felt like watching a grainy filmed play — a shame because von Trier’s films are usually well-shot.

All of this brings us to Antichrist, a film I’ve been trying to make some sort of sense out of. I think it’s clear that von Trier was making this film for an audience of one: himself. It’s not a film that’s easy to shrug off or dismiss because of the artistry and voice behind it. It’s heavy with biblical allusion, which is fascinating but it also obfuscates the emotional center of the story a bit.  But when there are metaphors involving the Bible, it makes the audience intuit that this is not just the story of two people, but something much larger.

The story concerns a couple — played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg (both are excellent) — who lose their young child. The child falls to his death by escaping his crib and walking out the window while his parents are having sex in the shower.  This scene is truly a tiny masterwork about life and death and the all-consuming nature of passion. The Biblical allusions start here as well, with the child potentially representing the fall of man and the sex between the naked man and woman potentially representing the loss of innocence.

After the death, the woman is overcome with grief and anxiety. Her husband is a therapist and insists on treating his wife himself, taking her out to their country house called “Eden,” in the middle of nowhere.  There, he subjects her to a series of exercises designed to help overcome her fears — most of which consist of standing on the earth, the grass.  Her nightmares are about being at their country house and being consumed by the earth — to die, essentially and be buried — and her husband decides that it would be best to confront that fear of death head on by taking her to the place she fears.  In other words, the husband is taking her to the land of the dead, hell, purgatory, etc.

Writing about the film and its themes and goals is infinitely more interesting than the process of sitting and watching it. The film is dense with ideas about religion, therapy, gender identity, and sex, making it ripe for discussion after viewing it. The film itself, however, is either maddening or disgusting; it alternates between nearly lulling you to sleep and then jolting you awake with a strange mutilation.  The difficulty is in trying to piece those sections together.

There is the much-talked-about scene of the dead fox, which comes alive when Willem Dafoeapproaches and then says, “Chaos reigns!” I don’t understand why such a fuss is made about this particular sequence; it’s odd to be sure, but it’s no more strange than anything else that occurs in the film.  I don’t really know what it means, per se, but then I don’t know what anything really means in the film; all I can do is offer up a guess.

And therein lies the ultimate problem: Antichrist is rife with imagery and dialogue that can potentially evoke any number of things, but there’s no connective tissue, no thread to bring it all together.  So, everybody can venture a guess, but it’s really just a shot in the dark and nothing I can think of can make complete sense of what I’ve seen.  A film like 2001 might also be unclear about its meaning, but at least I can come up with an explanation that helps the film make sense to me; with Antichrist, I find it impossible to do that.

As someone who has suffered from anxiety attacks in my past, I think von Trier deftly handles how that works.  And it’s a credit to Charlotte Gainsbourg for being able to bring that to life in a way that felt emotionally accurate.  But the last half hour of the film where the biblical allusions become overwhelming and there is genital mutilation completely obfuscates the point that I was most fascinated by: what it means to be depressed or anxious.

And that is where von Trier missteps, I think. It’s been well-documented that von Trier was in a deep depression during the making of Antichrist, that he was working out his own demons through the writing and directing of the film. He was in the unique position of making a film about depression while suffering from it himself, but rather than allowing us into the world where we could understand this affliction, it becomes too personal for us to get into.  I understand that this is what von Trier feels like inside his head when he’s depressed, but it feels more like art therapy than cinema. Rather than make a movie, he’s instead made the cinematic equivalent of finger-painting his feelings — beautifully, to be sure, as the photography is some of the most gorgeous you’ll see this year, credit to the wonderful Anthony Dod Mantle.

Despite my own misgivings, Antichrist is a film that I root for because it is truly “art cinema.”  And sadly, they really don’t make enough of that anymore.  I would never dream of telling a visionary like Lars von Trier what he should do as a filmmaker, but I do hope that his next film lets us in a little bit, rather than trying to push us away. He’s made a film that will have critics and cinephiles arguing for years about whether or not it’s brilliant or terrible, trying to decipher clues that might not necessarily be there. I’m comfortably somewhere in between and I can see both sides: part of me thinks its brilliant, part of me thinks it’s awful, but I’m excited to discuss it; that’s a pretty good compliment.

– Noah Forrest
October 26, 2009
Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

I recently had the pleasure of seeing Mammoth, the latest film from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson. I’ll be reviewing it more fully closer to its release in November, but it re-affirmed a deeply held view of mine: that Moodysson is one of the world’s greatest filmmakers.  Yet when I talk to a lot of people, even film geeks, they aren’t familiar with him or his oeuvre.

In his native Sweden, he has been called the heir apparent to Ingmar Bergman – whose work his films hardly resemble – but here in the United States, he is largely unknown to the majority of filmgoers.  Boy, are they missing out.

Mammoth, his first English-language film, starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams, shows once and for all that despite some of the harrowing trials his characters endure, Moodyssson is a humanist at heart.  His command of every aspect of cinema, including his musical choices and his fluid camera, is something that surely cannot be taught and shows his true colors as an auteur and an artiste.

Mammoth spans three countries and focuses on globalization. The film would bring to mindBabel if Moodysson were a lesser filmmaker, but Mammoth is dense and rich, powerful in its subtlety and its evocation of its themes as it draws the audience into a story about the human condition. Mammoth shakes off the Babel comparisons because it never feels like Moodysson is using his characters and story simply as a way to make some grander political point.  Moodysson is a sure enough filmmaker to know that the themes will rise out on their own without having to hit you over the head.

The talents that are in full force in his latest film are evident even in his first, smaller picture called Fucking Amal (or Show Me Love, as it has been re-titled in some places).  With a title like that, one would probably imagine that it is a gratuitous or salacious film, but it’s actually a rather endearing love story that happens to be about a Sapphic crush in high school. Throughout the whole film – and much of his work – Moodysson consistently subverts whatever genre you might think the film is a part of, making all of his films worlds where truly anything can happen and seem believable.  When his films have a happy ending, it seems gratifying because one could see each of his films go in a more depressing direction.

Fucking Amal seems, at first blush, to be a typical high school comedy-drama with a “twist” premise: the loser girl in school has a crush on a more popular girl. The film is set in a town called Amal; the the main characters are bored by their town and wish they lived somewhere where fun things live raves happen. It seems like a standard set-up for an American Pie-style comedy. Moodysson, though, has seen as many American teen films as you have and knows which buttons to press to make you comfortable and then throws curveballs.  It seems clear at first that the popular girl has no lesbian tendencies, but Moodysson crafts the character in a way which makes it seem possible that she could.  The tone remains light throughout, but there is always the possibility of something darker creeping in – and sometimes it does, like when the outcast girl criticizes a wheelchair-bound friend of hers and says things that truly sting and make the viewer uncomfortable.  Moodysson understands that that in all parts of life, there is perpetually the threat of people to be cruel to one another, but he also understand that it does not necessarily make them evil.

While you might be trying to figure out what to make of the film, it is surreptitiously getting under your skin and endearing itself to you. Moodysson does this so masterfully that when the ending comes, I started crying a little bit; not necessarily because what was on the screen was particularly sad or uplifting, but because the film builds to an emotional crescendo and I had an instinctual, reflexive reaction to that. I knew when I watched that film for the first time, about a year and a half ago, that I needed to seek out more of the filmmaker’s work, to see if he just got lucky his first time out.

Moodysson’s next film, Together, is about a mother and two children moving in with her brother when she is abused by her husband. The only problem: her brother happens to live in a commune populated by socialists, homosexuals and would-be revolutionaries.  So the basic set-up seems simple enough: the mother and her two children would help make the people in the commune more “normal” and the revolutionaries and socialists would help to open the minds of the family that moves in.  And, while these things do happen, that would be a very superficial reading of what the movie is about.

Again, the fascinating thing about the film is how Moodysson subverts the audience’s expectations. For one thing, the abusive husband is not just a stereotypical abusive husband and lousy father; he’s a man who ’s trying to desperately to hang on and makes a mistake.  The movie allows us to have sympathy for a man who would be absolutely vilified in another movie.  But this is just another example of Moodysson’s humanism and the way in which he doesn’t judge a person based on one action or one attribute; in Moodysson’s films, people are not simply good or bad.

Just like Fucking Amal, Together builds to an emotional crescendo in a scene where the calm and collected pacifist brother finally allows his true feelings to shine in an eruption of anger mixed with joy. And when it happened, I got goosebumps and my heart started beating faster because Moodysson had built a character with whom I not only sympathized, but empathized with as well.  And, interestingly enough, the actor who plays the brother later went on to play Lutz in Bruno, so clearly Moodysson has quite the eye for talent.

While Together, like his previous film, was a more uplifting movie, Moodysson’s next film, Lilya 4-Ever, is decidedly more grim and depressing.  His first film set primarily outside Sweden, Lilya 4-Ever concerns an impoverished teenage girl in a failing industrial town in an unnamed nation that was once part of the Soviet Republic.  It’s about a girl who can only dream about the places that exist outside of the town she’s lived in her whole life. She never gets to experience anything resembling freedom or happiness, but has to find solace where she can. Circumstances eventually lead to her becoming a part of the teen sex trade and a grim story becomes even more miserable.

Anchored by one of the greatest and bravest performances I’ve ever seen by Oksana Akinshina – who later played a small but pivotal part in The Bourne Supremacy – Lilya 4-Ever is one of the most unrelentingly brutal films I’ve ever seen that is actually still watchable and entertaining. It would be impossible to watch a film like this without there being the possibility of hope present and the character of Lilya is perpetually hopeful despite some of the horrible tribulations she must endure.

Like most of Moodysson’s films, Lilya 4-Ever is dense with themes that are hard to pin down.  There is a lot of religious allegory present in the film, but it’s hard to say what Moodysson’s opinion of religion is; it’s difficult to decide whether he’s trying to say that religion is ultimately good because it gives people a false sense of hope or if that false hope ultimately dooms them and makes them weaker, more susceptible to danger. This one aspect of the film could be debated for hours, as could whether the ending is happy or not.

After Lilya, Moodysson made a gloriously failed experiment called A Hole in My Heart, which is about four crazy individuals in a dirty apartment making a porno film.  It’s graphic and disgusting, but it’s an ambitious experiment in art cinema, trying to make a film without a traditional narrative. It’s nearly impossible to sit through, but I wonder if perhaps that was the point. I can’t really consider it a part of his canon, though, because it is truly just an experiment of a film, a palate-cleanser if you will, preparing himself and his audience for Mammoth.

I need to see the film a few more times and digest its complex storyline and themes a bit longer – hence my not reviewing the film fully for another month – but it’s truly one of the finest films I’ve seen this year and something to be excited for, with exceptional lead performances by Bernal and Williams.  You should be excited for this film, anxious for its release, and if you watch Moodysson’s first three films in preparation, you will be.

– Noah Forrest
October 19, 2009
Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

Each year around this time, I write a column that usually bemoans the sad state of the horror film (you can read last year’s horror column here, and 2007’sover here.  It seemed for a while that the only horror films that being made, marketed and sold were “torture porn” movies like the Saw or Hostel franchise.  I was never offended by those films in terms of what they put on the screen – some found the films to be misogynistic or mean-spirited, I just found them to be offensively stupid.

Because of the short-term “success” of the torture porn films, the genre came to define what horror was and what it meant for about five years; when we look back upon the aughts and what kind of horror films were produced, we’ll think about torture porn.

But I’ve noticed a shifting lately, which is no surprise because the nature of horror films has always been cyclical. Torture porn seems passé now to the majority of audiences, which makes me giddy because I’ve spent a considerable amount of time and effort trying to find out what audiences found particularly thrilling about watching people get tied up and mutilated.  There’s nothing scary about the acts in the films because there’s no struggle and the end-result is easy to predict: Someone will get tortured and murdered. Repeat ad infinitum.  What’s fascinating about this particular time in horror film history is that we’re in-between cycles; torture porn is mostly dead (for now), but what is the next fad in horror films?

One of the things that depressed me about the Saw or Hostel films was that there was no fun to be had in watching them. The intent of a horror film should be to scare you and entertain you; with those films, there is a lack of characterization beyond stereotypes and plots that are easy to predict, making it hard to be entertained.  So the enjoyment of the film rests solely on its ability to titillate you – since the films aren’t trying to scare you exactly – with ridiculous ways for people to be tortured and killed.  “What if you had a bear trap attached to your head and you have to find a key in time to take it off?”  Even ridiculous set-ups like that have no fairness to them because the key won’t work.  An impossible-to-win game is set-up, as we’ve seen time and time again throughout the series of films, so from where does the excitement come when the outcome is foreseeable?

But I have good news: fun is returning once again to the land of genre filmmaking, as more enterprising filmmakers who have grown up appreciating horror films are now subverting the genre they love. Take a film like Zombieland, which takes a horror staple and pokes fun at it lovingly while also staying true to the conventions of a horror film. If the whole point of a horror film is to be subversive, Zombieland definitely does that; if one of the major hopes when watching a horror movie is to be unable to predict what’s coming next, then Zombieland truly has one of the most insane WTF moments in all of film (the celebrity cameo that has been spoiled by every critic).

The comic subversion of the horror genre seems to be a common theme lately, not just in the film world – which has lovingly poked fun since Evil Dead and done it more obviously with films like Shaun of the Dead – but in the world of literature with books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.  There is an audience of horror lovers out there that has grown up thinking about the realities of a zombie invasion and imagined the comedic possibilities of such an absurd event.  Yet, there is still room in the cinema for genuinely scary zombie films like 28 Weeks Later.  Purists will say that the modern zombie movies have the undead running too fast or that it’s a shame that they are all “infected” by a virus rather than literally rising from their graves, but I appreciate that filmmakers have put a modern twist on this horror genre.

But twisting and tweaking a genre does not mean simply remaking a classic horror film, updating it to the present, and hoping it has the same impact (I’m talking to you, The Stepfather).  Friday the 13th was exciting when it came out because it was a different idea with an intriguing campfire spook tale at the heart of it.  After ten sequels, it seemed like a dated idea that no longer packed the same punch.  And then it was remade and released earlier this year, completely devoid of anything that made it an intense viewing experience. Rob Zombie’s Halloween had the same sort of problems; the point is that while these were terrifyingly original ideas at the time, it makes little sense to remake and repackage the idea and hope to scare me twice with an idea I’ve seen been done to death (no pun intended).  I just wish that filmmakers would stop turning towards the past and instead look towards the future: don’t give me what scared me ten or twenty years ago, give me what I don’t know will scare me tomorrow.

But please, please don’t give me things that didn’t scare me yesterday and definitely won’t scare me tomorrow like a remake of Last House on the Left.  The original had no plot and wasn’t interesting beyond someone’s sadistic desire to watch women being tortured and forced to urinate on themselves.  The remake takes away the sadistic elements and makes a conventional horror film out of the “plot” and guess what?  It’s still not scary or interesting.

Vampires were never particularly scary to me as a concept, but I find them to be a fascinating subject, especially for a well-done and gratuitously entertaining show like True Blood.  But what I don’t like is that every vampire film, book or TV show winds up creating its own rules about what vampires do and what can kill them.  I wish there was a universal rule book for vampires because I’m sick of seeing the inevitable scene where the hero holds up a crucifix and the vampire just bats it away (or Brad Pitt saying, in Interview with the Vampire, “I’m actually quite fond of crosses.”)  Or vampires seeing someone with a wreath of garlic around their neck and just pushing them. If crosses and garlic never work, let’s just remove them from the equation entirely. In True Blood, silver incapacitates vampires, something I’d never seen or heard of before and I just don’t think you can go around and start inventing new rules for vampires now.

The worst offense in vampire rulebook rewriting is in Twilight.  The one thing that always, always, always kills a vampire is sunlight.  It’s the essence of what a vampire is: creatures that can only come out at night and are forced to never see daylight again, giving them a haunted sadness to them as creatures.  In Twilight, not only does sunlight not kill the vampires, but it actually shimmers off their skin and makes their bodies look like diamonds.  Excuse me?  Are you kidding?  I know this is supposed to be a vampire film for kids, but that is just ridiculous because it takes all the sadness and brooding out of being a vampire.  Now, they can go out and enjoy sunlight and live forever, what the hell is there to be so damn sour about Robert Pattinson?  Cheer up, dude, you get to be immortal and go to baseball day games, life could be worse.

Vampires do seem to be the latest fad in horror these days with the True Blood, Twilight and the new Vampire Diaries show on the CW.  There’s also a film coming out in the coming weeks called The Vampire’s Assistant with John C. Reilly, another PG-13 vampire film for tweens.  Why are vampires so hot right now?  I’m assuming it’s part of the cyclical nature of horror films and vampire and zombies just seem to be what people are interested in these days.  It also helps that vampires and zombies are creatures that are inherently dense with subtext and horror films are often used to express a political or social viewpoint; “mindless” zombies are a good way to allude to the ignorance of people and consumerism while vampires that don’t partake in blood is a great way of attempting to trick unwitting kids into being abstinent until marriage.

I’m genuinely excited for the future of the horror film because I think there are exciting young filmmakers looking to deepen the genre.  I have yet to see Paranormal Activity, but I dig the low-fi concept of it, the idea that being vulnerable in your home is the scariest thing of all.  I enjoyed Sam Raimi’s return to the genre with Drag Me to Hell, a goofy film full of jump-scares, a throwback horror film really.  But, as always, I’m most excited about the filmmakers that are hatching their ideas now, formulating new ways to scare the pants off me.  As with many things these days, now is a great time for hope – even in the horror film genre.

– Noah Forrest
October 12, 2009
Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.