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There was never a romantic comedy more suitable for or telling about the 00s than (500) Days of Summer. It’s artificial and candy-coated yet knows this. It contains flirtatious sequences in big box department stores in which the central couple (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel) play house to the sound of pop songs on a floor sample arrangement of kitchen furniture and appliances (all with the price tags still on them). They mime “family dinner” and “happy ending” but never get to dig in. The shuffle of memory is a key theme. The way it was vs. the way they thought it was. The reality vs. the rom-com vision. It may be hard to imagine such a twee film being one of the year’s best but it is a pure entertainment treasure and beneath that, a knowing yet lovestruck satire of romance both at the movies and in the modern world.

Coming of age was never as stylish as in Lone Scherfig’s winning adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoir about a young girl in 1960s

Oh, Wes Anderson. Just when we thought we knew you by heart, you go and throw us a curve ball. Sure, the rapid fire comedy is as fast as ever. Yes, the characters are plucky losers with delusions of grandeur and a secret hurt inside. Of course, that Rolling Stones song comes in just where you expect it. Yet for all the ways in which Fantastic Mr. Fox is by the book

The greatest film produced yet on the subject of the

If there are limits to the cinema, somebody forgot to tell Quentin Tarantino. His epic WWII murder fantasy Inglourious Basterds is a take no prisoners, do as we please thriller that operates under the assumption that all things are possible in the celluloid universe. Moreover, Basterds contains some of the iconic director’s very best work, namely a series of long, highly suspenseful conversations which alternate power between players to the point of dramatic exhaustion before typically erupting in a burst of climactic action. But for all the war and violence, Basterds’ deeper function seems to be as a love letter to the European cinema of the time. Tarantino has painstakingly detailed the era. He both names names (Leni Riefenstahl, Emil Jannings, etc.) and cites details (flammable film stock) which one would otherwise pick up in a film history lesson. Not only does the movie’s climax take place in a movie house, but the very nature of it’s ending speculates about the character and capacity of film in such a way as to make this the year’s ultimate meta-movie and one of the most sweeping, excellent, and action-packed pieces that truly invoke the form in all its glory.
Writer/composer/actor Stew crafted one of Broadway’s most innovative and overlooked musicals in Passing Strange, a revolutionary stage show which had a thunderous but all too short run at the Belasco Theatre and earned only one Tony award (Book Of A Musical). Thankfully, director Spike Lee recognized that Stew’s show was more than just another midtown tuner. Not only is the format unique (a narrative rock concert) but the sheer tenacity of the show will blow your mind. It loosely tells the story of Stew’s own life with humor, attitude, and heartbreaking sincerity. But dig deeper and there is another layer of complexity. Stew has made a stage show which ponders art in all its forms. It speculates about the power of performance and the way in which art, artifice, and the genuine article interchange unexpectedly. It doesn’t just break the “fourth wall” but screams through it, allowing characters to interact with the narrator, the narrator to interact with the audience, and the band to simply jam all night. The musical numbers are brazen and addictive. They give the kind of buzz all great rock & roll gives. You’d think a stage show would be stifled by the act of its being filmed but Passing Strange remains a wonder. You may not be able to feel the electric guitars shake the floor under your feet the way they did at the Belasco, but you can still appreciate the amazing score, performances, and story. And the raw emotion of the show’s incredible final performance can be felt miles away from the screening room. Standout number “Keys” is not just the greatest musical sequence put to film this year; it’s a religious experience. Is it alright? Yeah, it’s alright.

“Coen-y” may be a word we use to describe kooky, kitschy,

If Howard Hawks and Cary Grant could return to make a comedy for the Google generation, they would surely create something a lot like Up In The Air. Director Jason Reitman’s third consecutive comedy knockout proves to be his sharpest and funniest yet. George Clooney stars as self-isolating, elitist, know-it-all Ryan Bingham, a professional firer who travels the country informing people that they have lost their job and giving seminars about relinquishing oneself of the burdens of home and family. He meets two women who will change his life: saucy Alex (Vera Farmiga) whom he seduces via platinum membership cards (she’s equally on the go) and up-and-comer Natalie (Anna Kendrick) whose plot to take the company’s firing practice digital may end Ryan’s always off the ground lifestyle. The banter is never stale, the characters are never false, and most importantly it all goes down so smoothly and with such vintage panache that it single-handedly reinvigorates the waning love in all of us for
This year’s other decade long labor of love from a visual pioneer involving mystical creatures and imaginative effects. Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are is a masterpiece of whimsy and emotional distress. The film expands upon the book the Maurice Sendak with a script from Jonze and author Dave Eggers which retains the book’s sense of adventure but also develops an emotionally, visually rich world in which monsters and children are broken-hearted, free-footed friends on the lam from the stricter social order, and moms everywhere. It is a stunning film with a deeply felt, loosely plotted sensibility that actually makes it one of the bolder studio features of the decade. Thankfully, it is a rounding success and one of the year’s greatest films.
First time director Scott Cooper brings to life the novel by Thomas Cobb with a central performance by Jeff Bridges as washed up country star Bad Blake that is rightfully garnering the veteran actor a great deal of Oscar buzz. Bridges is a hulking, soulful mess in the film, balancing the passion of musical performance with the jaded edge of a star past his prime. Maggie Gyllenhaal also does fine work as Jean Craddock, a local reporter enamored of Bad who quickly falls for the singer's rough charms. Crazy Heart charts the couples growing relationship, Bad's failing career and lifelong addictions, and the road to redemption ahead of him. Colin Farrell and Robery Duvall round out the cast in modest performances as Bad's former guitarist turned country superstar Tommy Sweet and Bad's longtime friend and bar owner respectively.
Director Terry Gilliam brings us yet another oddball tale of fantasy and morality in a very neat, visually exciting package. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus tells the tale of the weary and immortal Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), a disciple of imagination and storytelling in a century's long battle with the devil (Tom Waits) who has come to claim the soul of his daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole), on her 16th birthday (the price of one of their many wagers). To avoid losing his daughter, Parnassus agrees to yet another wager. He takes his flagging, dilapidated travelling show on the road along with companions Percy (Verne Troyer) and Anton (Andrew Garfield) on a quest to gather up righteous souls through the use of his enchanted magical mirror. The first to five souls wins. Along the way, the crew picks up the mysterious Tony (Heath Ledger in his final role) who upsets the long established traditions of the imaginarium and may have ulterior motives of his own.
In hindsight, Jennifer's Body never really could have been anything more than a cult hit, which hopefully it one day will be. Body is a rare thing: a horror film with a female perspective. Best friends Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried) are pinned against one another in the aftermath of Jennifer's abduction by renegade emo rockers and eventual sacrifice to the devil (to the tune of "867-5309/Jenny," no less). The result being a succubus possessed Jen who feeds on the bodies of teenage boys. Consider it Heathers with The Exorcist spiked in for good measure. Writer Diablo Cody and director Karyn Kusama have crafted a nifty piece of pop horror with underlying wit and smarts, painting one high school girl's descent into darkness with broad horror overtones that grab at the Twilight generation without losing the core allegory for abuse and subsequent destruction.
Daniel Day-Lewis, the unstoppable master of all things thespian, somehow manages to transition from transformative character actor to leading man of a movie musical in Nine. Granted, his Guido Contini is a tortured genius film director with fantastical musical memories and not exactly a Fred Astaire-type song and dance man. Still, the two-time Oscar winner shows off yet another layer of depth here as he brushes off a pleasant singing voice and some modest hoofing skills in director Robert Marshall's largely theatrical movie about the cinema. Though Nine is being adapted for the screen, Marshall envisions it as something like a stage show mixed with visual snippets of story and information. Footage of actual narrative blends with basic soundstage dance numbers rather than integrated song and dance. The results are mixed but mostly charming based on the sheer force and energy of each song's delivery.
Director Peter Jackson's well-intentioned adaptation of The Lovely Bones, the popular novel by Alice Sebold, is a visual treat but an emotional dud. The film depicts the tragic death and afterlife of young Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) who is stalked and killed by an eerie neighbor (Stanley Tucci). While her parents, played by Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz, try to uncover the truth of what happened to their daughter, Susie explores a magical world in between our earth and her future heaven. She observes and interacts, in small ways, with her grieving family as both parties learn to cope with what has transpired.
Eclectic director Werner Herzog makes a confounding detour with a loose remake of the 1992 Abel Ferrara film Bad Lieutenant starring Harvey Keitel. Set in a post-Katrina New Orleans, the new Lieutenant stars Nicolas Cage in a hammy, scenery chewing performance as Terence McDonagh, a coke addicted lieutenant with less than legitimate police procedures who is investigating the drug related murder of a family. The cast also features Val Kilmer as McDonagh's partner, Eva Mendes as his junkie prostitute girlfriend, rapper Xzibit as prime suspect Big Fate, and some small character work by talented actors such as Michael Shannon, Fairuza Balk, and Jennifer Coolidge.
Director Jason Reitman continues his mastery of the American comedy with yet another winning, mainstream, character-driven effort that is as timely as it is perfectly classic. George Clooney steps seamlessly into the Cary Grant-type dapper cad role he was born to play as Ryan Bingham, a carefree soul who fires people for a living and does a little part-time lecturing about the unnecessary baggage of a home and family. He strikes up a shallow flirtation with an equally commerce hungry woman named Alex (Vera Farmiga) and lives his life with no strings attached. His great ambition is to amass 10 million frequent flier miles and join an elite club of travel snobs to have done so. Plans go awry when whip smart Cornell grad Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick resurrecting essential and beautifully crass elements of her breakthrough character from Rocket Science) proposes a cost effective reformatting of the company that would take workers off the road and have them do their firing duties via web cam. Bingham's objections to the system, which would ground his loose and unburdened lifestyle, leads his boss (Jason Bateman) to stick him on the road with Keener in an attempt to give her the work experience necessary to address Bingham's own complaints.A Different Kind Of Film Critic