My Top 10 of 2008

The 10 films I enjoyed most this year, counting down from 10 to 1. Click the respective banner to read my complete review. Happy New Year!

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

Based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald and adapted by Oscar winner Eric Roth, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is former post-modern grit director David Fincher's arrival as a soulful filmmaker. Rich detail and imaginative visualization can be found in all his works, but Button, which feels more like an arrival than a departure, reaches new heights of aesthetic and emotional splendor.

Benjamin Button is born under unusual circumstances. He emerges wrinkled and withered by arthritis and then gets younger with each year. "Promise me, he has a place" is the last line spoken by his dying mother. Soon after, his father drops him off at the doorstep of a home for the elderly. A worker at the home named Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) takes him in and cares for him despite his unsightly appearance. At first Benjamin thinks he is an old man just like all the rest but as he ages down as everyone else ages up, the truth begins to be revealed to him. He falls in love with the granddaughter of a resident and the two age in opposite directions, ultimately meeting in the middle. She grows up to be played by Cate Blanchett. He is played at nearly every stage by Brad Pitt (via a number of special effects). The two actors are enchanting from start to finish in what are two of their greatest roles respectively.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a grown-up fairytale that calls to mind the impossible order of things and the renewability of being. It aims to lift people up from their chairs and send them out of the theater refreshed, rejuvenated, and feeling that they, like Benjamin, do have a place in the world. Less a narrative film than an all-around good-hearted ode to the human spirit with all its whimsy and unpredictable yearning. In a year full of phenomenal films about the importance and the endurability of hope (Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, Happy-Go-Lucky, The Dark Knight, Wall-E), The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is perhaps the best of all.

Grade: A

Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road tells the bleak tale of Frank and April Wheeler, a nice young couple who live on Revolutionary Road in some unnamed suburb of New York City. We meet them as they meet each other at a party one night. We shift then to their lives years later as miserable suburban spouses who almost instantly start in with the brash and brutal verbal assaults. It's like Whose Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? with none of the wounded drunken vulnerability or wicked wit. Just a constant onslaught of miserable people with selfish motives yelling things at one another. Nothing is nuanced or suggested but instead stated aloud and often. It's like being bludgeoned with melancholy to the point of submission. The only sliver of hope is in the able execution of director Sam Mendes and the surprisingly effective performances of the cast, particularly lead actors Leonard DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

Winslet quietly explodes on screen. Her yearning as April Wheeler nearly eclipsed by the yearning actress behind the eyes desperate for lines less heinous than: "You're the most beautiful thing in the world. You're a man." The simpleness of her longing stare expresses twice the pathos of Justin Haythe's wish-washy screenplay. She finds uncanny truth in a character so thin in her desperation. April decides one day the whole family should just up and move to Paris and the film holds at arm's length the deceptive belief that this ambition is something more than a placating delusion. The trap of suburban comfort is not so easily escaped and the fact that this big move -- a falacy sustained for more than half of the film's runtime -- factors so prominently into the narrative makes the whole movie feel like one big inevitable meltdown always just a little bit father in the distance. Moreover, neither April or Frank deal with the massiveness of such a choice. They simply dangle it in front of their friends at parties and whisper it to themselves when they're alone in the dark. The longing they share would be sad if it wasn't so pathetic. Everything about them is so casual and superficial. On a walk one day with an institutionalized mathematician played by Michael Shannen (because you know, that's just the sort of thing that couples did together in the 50s) they off-handedly remark about the "hopelessly empty" lives they lead in a manner so calm and collected that it seems obvious they're not suffering all that deeply. What, if anything, more hopeful would present itself in Paris is unclear. As is the way in which their posh suburban life is truly deadening them to the point of needing more than just some simple self-reflection. Revolutionary Road is not a film about dissatisfied people who simply want to make their lives better. It's a film about emotional hypochondriacs who want to do illogical things in the name of fixing a problem that runs deeper than a zip code. And when the idea of Paris finally passes, the film only turns darker and the characters more frustratingly desperate. Buying into their bullshit is something near to maddening.

It's surprising that Mendes, who raised suburban discontentment to an art with his brilliant handling of Alan Ball's screenplay for American Beauty, could get behind such a sullen and unsatisfying piece that reduces the entire situation to a handful of rotten and overly dramatic blowouts between a charmless couple. Beauty saw suburbia through scathing eyes but with humor and imagination to spare. Road is pure melodrama and its characters see nothing with original eyes. They are wearying, pre-programmed types who offer no new insights to the well beaten path they walk on. Every inch of their lives is painted with such moroseness that it's hard to envision the reason why they stay together, or ever got together in the first place. It's a film too flat to be art and too boring to be entertainment. It coasts rather than engaging and the result is something miserable that leaves you no better at the finish than you were at the start. American Beauty was probably even darker than this film, but it was also joyous in its own sinister way. It found the beauty in tragedy. Here there isn't even really tragedy, just overblown banality.

Grade: C-

Seven Pounds

Seven Pounds is the hardest type of film to describe because it is built around the slow revelation of information. Will Smith stars as Ben Thomas, a mysterious man determined to help change the lives of strangers for reasons not immediately understood. The film reteams Smith with Italian director Gabriele Muccino, who previously directed him to an Oscar nomination in The Pursuit Of Happyness. While Happyness was more than a little bit treacly it still has a leg up on Pounds which is nothing but a dour and emotionally false melodrama. Somehow Will Smith manages to remain charming and honest at the center of it all. The greatest achievement of Muccino in his American films has been to push Smith to deeper depths as an actor. Some movie stars never reach the maturity Smith has in recent years, and he himself credits Muccino with helping him to breakdown his on-screen persona and create legitimate characters.

Seven Pounds is not a film worthy of his talents, nor those of co-star Rosario Dawson, who stands out with her usual earthy charms as an ailing beauty in need of a heart transplant. The actors gifts are wasted by an awkwardly constructed feature with far too many contrivances to strike an emotional chord. Rather than addressing the feelings of the characters, the film makes the unfolding plot so blurry and distorted that scenes pass without being able to be fully understood. The result is unearned drama with heavy-handed tear-jerking scenes that register as over the top when placed outside any sensible context.

The inevitable reveal, to which the whole film builds, is anything but satisfying. Just another ugly and implausible manipulation in a long line of them. If not for the effervescent nature of the film's two winning stars, this would not even be anywhere near watchable. As it stands, it's still not quite there.

Grade: D+

Gran Torino

To direct, produce, score, and star in a feature is always an accomplishment. To also direct, produce and score another feature that same year is even more impressive. To do all this at the age of 78 is something else entirely. Veteran Clint Eastwood is a marvel of achievement. A Hollywood icon who is not just sitting around and being iconic but actively working to produce ever more engaging cinema late in life. Both his earlier feature in 2008, Changeling, and his latest, Gran Torino, demonstrate Eastwood as a solid storyteller working consistently to create films that are complex and ambitious yet aesthetically within the classical Hollywood style. In a film age where the divide between commerce and quality seems to be growing and directors must choose either to be art-house auteurs or popcorn schlock peddlers, Eastwood is a down the line straight shooter who breaks the pattern.

Gran Torino is a fine parable about modern violence and the evolution of the American neighborhood. Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) is a detached widower openly dissatisfied with the growing Hmong population which is slowly dominating his neighborhood. This is especially true when a new Hmong family moves in right next door. But when the youngest son of the family is harassed by a local gang, Walt steps in with his loaded rifle and unintentionally becomes a local hero. He continues to defend his neighbors from the rough gangs in the area, perhaps out of an instinctive impulse to protect and serve, and eventually grows to develop a particular affection for the neighboring kids, Sue (Ahney Her) and Thao (Bee Vang).

Changeling might be the better and less sentimental feature, but Gran Torino is so quintessentially Clint that its foibles get buried beneath a glowing audience nostalgia for the man, his myth, and the way he sees it through to the end in this work. Eastwood has stated it will be his final role as an actor and it's a poetic end to be sure. At once a memorial for that old gun-toting son of a gun Eastwood was born to play and a revision of his legend as that of a healer and humanist rather than an agitator or menace. Even at his darkest, Eastwood always managed to give his world weary renegades soul and Walt may be the deepest and most heartbreaking of all these. Stand up men misunderstood by a stubborn and naive society that does not appreciate the nature of their stoic compassion and the burdening scars their pasts have earned them.

Eastwood has never won an Academy award for acting (though he has racked up 4 as a director and producer) but here he once again showcases a fine subtlety of craft and keen comic timing. He encapsulates both the comedy and tragedy of Walt into an everyday Eastwood-esque snarl that registers both as an affectation and revelation. His soul may be weary but his patience runs thin. While the crotchety man next door could easily be a throwaway ham of a role (as it so often is) Eastwood squeezes in some wrenching sincerity between the easy jokes about his antiquated nature and overtly racist, but only passively malicious, word choices.

Tensions run high and sap can sometimes dominate, but Gran Torino still manages to pull off the feat of merging violence and emotional connection with great poise and distinctive sincerity. More importantly, the Eastwood shadow lends this a warm and earnest sentiment that makes the cheese forgivable and even charming. Another winner from Eastwood. He's not done yet.

Grade: A-

Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon began its life as a Broadway play written by Peter Morgan (The Queen, The Last King Of Scotland) as a consequence of his frustration with the Hollywood screenplay. He expressly made it "unfilmable" keeping all the action within a few select settings and including direct addresses to the theater audience. Now, years later, Morgan's play has been made into a film, and perhaps to his own surprise, a good one. Morgan penned the adapted script and director Ron Howard stepped up to film the "unfilmable." Frost/Nixon survives translation better than Doubt and the lesser Mamma Mia! making it this year's top stage to screen cinema entry.

The centerpiece of the film is the series of interviews held between Frost and Nixon following Nixon's decision to resign the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Frost, a British talk show host, had no credibility as a political journalist at the time and was predicted by most of his peers to be Nixon's easy way out, an interview with someone not of the caliber to grill him properly. Such is the case for the bulk of their time together in which a cocky Frost, who has sunk a bunch of his own money into making the interview happen, gets the wind taken out of his sails. His call to action, spurred by an unforgettable late night phone call from Nixon which is known to be a fictional creation by Morgan, leads him to procure what was thought impossible: a candid public confession from the man known as "Tricky Dick."

The stars of the original show, Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, reprise their roles here as former president Richard Nixon and media mogul David Frost respectively. They are as good here as they were on stage and their rapport, obviously strengthened from 8 shows a week, gives the film all the more energy and verve. The rest of the ensemble has been fleshed out with more famous faces, all of whom do astoundingly well and are surprisingly gracious in peripheral parts. Kevin Bacon does his best work in years as Jack Brennen, Nixon's unwaveringly loyal confidant and protector. He manages to be stern, hilarious, villainous, and strangely likable all at once. Opposite in every way to the dead-serious Brennen are Frost's confidants and investigators, including a laid back Oliver Platt, a hot-headed Sam Rockwell, and a charmingly stuffy Matthew Macfadyen all in top form. Frost also manages somehow on his way to conduct these interviews to charm a young lady into joining him for the trip. She is played by delightful up and comer Rebecca Hall.

Morgan's intensely engrossing yet brisk and funny tone survives into his screenplay which is very faithfully adapted. Even his theatrical direct address technique gets appropriated here as mock-documentary interviews in which people involved with the interviews confess their thoughts and feelings. Director Ron Howard continues with this docudrama feeling, creating a film that feels candid and quite plain, with select and specific visual flourishes. Howard has never been much of an auteur but he continues to assert himself as a splendid classical filmmaker. Frost/Nixon is both compelling non-fiction narrative and satisfying entertainment.

Grade: B+

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Scott Derickson's remake of the 1951 sci-fi flick The Day the Earth Stood Still is yet another leaden eco-crisis thriller almost as bad, and certainly as pointless, as M. Night Shyamalan's hideous The Happening. Keanu Reeves, still drawing unintentional laughs all these years later, tries to utilize his general wooden stare to indicate the inhuman detachment of the other worldly Klaatu but still comes up short of being convincing. Klaatu is a messenger, accompanied by the massive and massively goofy looking robot guardian GORT. He heralds the extermination of the human race by some unspecified intergalactic alliance for the purpose of saving the earth from additional harm at human hands. While on his mission, he meets Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) and her stepson, Jacob (Jaden Smith), whose job it becomes to demonstrate to him the goodness of humanity and convince him to stop the plan for destruction (an unexplained process involving rapidly duplicating parasites that basically allow Derrickson to create a cool looking dissolve effect as the parasites eat through 18 wheelers and sports arenas).

The film is utterly predictable, uninventive, and unexciting. Worst of all, for something clearly meant as sci-fi pulp, it takes a decidedly self-righteous and somber tone toward its material, making all its robots and laser beams laughable instead of cool geeky fun. Beneath the effects, there is no great depth or humanity and a kernel of environmentalism does not equal a genuine dramatic theme. Each character is boiled down to baseline emotions and monotonous dialogue filled with smart-ish sounding science jargon that once again makes scenes about aliens somehow awfully boring. So many talented people appear throughout the film, spewing pointless lines about some such scientific something or whatnot, and at some point you start to wonder how they got all these people and how they let them all go to such waste. Supporting players, ranging from stars (Kathy Bate, John Cleese) to working character favorites (Jon Hamm, Kyle Chandler, and Robert Knepper) are put to no use at all. They enter, say some vague line about traveling speed and arrival time and then exit with just as little purpose. Either the bankroll was high or the producer was a smooth talker. It's a shame these guys didn't get more material, or at least some of a more substantive caliber.

This is a weird, preachy, and significantly action-less wannabe blockbuster that seems hot on the heels of Francis Lawrence's more effective I Am Legend in its efforts to exploit scenes of New York City destroyed and left in ruins. Perhaps that was exciting all the way back in the 90s when CGI offered new cinematic possibilities, but by now audiences have seen enough computer generated wonders not to care about the marvel of "how it's done." A solid story and compelling characters need to back up the spectacle and this film has neither of those things.

Grade: D

Doubt

There are films of dramatic subtlety and then there are films like Doubt. The metaphors are heavy-handed. When the drama elevates, it's always raining. And canted frames are constant, as if that is the only way the audience can understand that things are not quite right. The adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer prize-winning play, adapted by Shanley himself, remains stagy in its form and his attempts to add visual allure by means of showy technique only distracts from the far stronger source material. I'm sure sitting alone in a dark editing suite, Shanley reasoned his rampant overhead shots were some complex allusion to a divine onlooker, relevant to the film's Catholic school setting, but to the audience in the theater it seems to simply allude to the fact that Shanley was like a kid with a camera while making this film.

What makes the film watchable, and yes, sometimes riveting are the phenomenal performances by its esteemed cast. Meryl Streep stars as Sister Aloysius, the head strong principal of a Catholic grade school in 1963 New York. When it is brought to her attention by the warmly innocent Sister James (Amy Adams) that a young boy was brought to the rectory and seemed strange afterward, she very quickly and adamantly takes to the notion of wrongdoing on behalf of the parish priest, Father Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Flynn insists it was a misunderstanding but Siter Aloysius persists in her investigation of his character and in two very memorable scenes confronts the mother of the boy in question (Viola Davis) who gives her a shocking and heartbreaking response. No satisfying evidence is presented by either side of the contest and in the end the battle becomes not a matter of justice but a trial of wills between the congenial and eccentric priest and the rigidly traditional nun nipping at his heals.

Shanley's writing, which is far better than his directing here, can be refreshingly ambiguous and quite tart in its earlier, subtler moments, which are mercifully interspersed with light humor. The verbal cat and mouse between Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn is often engrossing and unexpectedly funny. By film's end, though, Streep and Hoffman are reduced to yelling and screaming (while the thunder rolls on, of course) and all the tension dissipates instead of climaxing. The piece falls too often into such histrionic melodrama that only the most enraptured audience members are likely avoid the feeling of having swallowed a bitter pill.

Grade: B-

SAG Nominees

This year's SAG nominees have been announced with Doubt leading in nominations. Not a surprise when you consider that most people are calling it this year's "actor's film" with a quartet of phenomenal performances. SAG's big race, Best Ensemble Cast, is unique in that it focuses on the overall caliber of the cast rather than the production they appear in, making for some different choices in acknowledgment of actors rather than producers and directors. For the full list of nominees go here.

Best Original Song: Bouncing Back?

The "Best Original Song" category at the Academy Awards has been under fire for some time and many have simply accused it of becoming irrelevant in a significantly musical-less modern film age. In past years, some nominees and even some winners have been embarrassingly tuneless. For the past two years, a single musical has racked up the majority of nods (Dreamgirls followed by Enchanted). By the mercy of angels, though, neither film's hideous pop confections took home a trophy. Lest we forget Beyonce's Oscar plea "Listen" (pronounced "Liiiiiiiiiisteeeeeennnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!). Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's win last year was a mini-triumph of quality over the power of Disney and gave credit to a little film, Once, that probably should have had more recognition anyway (it was #2 on my top 10 last year).

This year there are no hit musicals (except the ineligible ABBA recycling Mamma Mia!) but there are at least 5 enjoyable songs that range from stunning to just plain catchy. That, of course, is assuming the Academy makes the right choices. Thus far, it seems at least two worthy tunes will make the cut: Peter Gabriel's delightful "Down to Earth" from Wall-E and Bruce Springsteen's haunting "The Wrestler" from the film of the same name. The Jack White penned bombastic Quantum of Solace rocker "Another Way to Die" is also a solid candidate though no sure thing. And if I had my druthers, the category would be filled out with deserving longshots "Little Person" written by composer Jon Brion for Synecdoche, New York and "Jai Ho," the AR Rahman composition to which Danny Boyle staged his mock Bollywood dance routine in Slumdog Millionaire. Both Brion and Rahman deserve composer nods as well but only Rahman is likely to receive one. Brion is one of the greatest film composers working but mysteriously he has never been nominated. His greatest work can be heard on the scores for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Punch-Drunk Love, and others.

The main threats to the awesomeness of this year's category come from a pair of pop stars whose fame may hold a little too much weight: Miley Cyrus and the perennially Oscar hopeful Beyonce. She is one of 7 (Seven?!?!) credited songwriters on the completely mediocre "Once In A Lifetime" from Cadillac Records and Miley shares writing credit with Jeff Steele on "I Though I Lost You" a duet with John Travolta (gulp) from the Disney movie Bolt (double gulp). That, my friends, just may be a sign of the apocalypse, a trifecta of evil no mortal can defeat. Also keep a lookout for veteran Clint Eastwood stealing a nod for the passable title tune from Gran Torino which he penned with singer Jamie Cullum and son Kyle Eastwood. But by no means would another Oscar for the legendary Eastwood crush the soul like one for Miley Cyrus. The thought alone chills me.

Only time will tell. Meanwhile, check these out:

Bruce Springsteen - The Wrestler

Peter Gabriel - Down To Earth

Jon Brion with Deanne Storey - Little Person

AR Rahman, Sukhvinder Singh, Tanvi Shah, & Mahalaxmi Iyer - Jai Ho

Alicia Keys & Jack White - Another Way To Die

The Wrestler

A bruised and beaten Mickey Rourke in full lumbering nice guy swagger mode is the main attraction in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler. The film, penned by Robert Siegel, tells the story of a Hulk Hogan type down on his luck pro wrestler, Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Rourke), who was once a big star and is now a novelty item at regional shows who lives in a trailer park (when he can afford it) and makes his fun by playing as himself in an old Nintendo game with neighboring kids. His life is grueling and unsatisfying and it only gets worse from here. In an early scene, Randy's favorite dancer at the local strip club, Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), makes an off-handed reference to The Passion of the Christ and the comparison sticks, in metaphoric terms. Randy is a good man who suffers mercilessly in the ring for the enjoyment and satisfaction of others. The film can be best read as a testimony to the sacrifice of an artist to his audience. Randy is put slowly and surely through trials and torment both inside and outside the ring and ultimately Aronofky's ambiguous ending suggests something dark and completely transformative: The Passion of the Hulk.

Following a particularly brutal match involving barbed wire and staple gun, Randy is forced to take a break from wrestling. At first he is terrified, but he grows to see it as a chance to try and get back to the real world. He takes extra shifts at the local grocery store and tries to reconnect with the daughter he abandoned years prior (Evan Rachel Wood). Cassidy, a kindred spirit also feeling the pressure of aging in a young person's field, agrees to see him outside the club. The two wounded souls both struggling to be "real" and rid themselves of their alternate stage named selves (his real name is Robin and hers Pam) form a connection that could possibly save both their lives. The question is whether or not either one can leave the jobs they have outgrown but do not know how to live without. Randy, in particular, seems unable to exist anywhere but inside the ring. He makes it clear that part of him would rather die than not wrestle.

The Wrestler is ultimately an all-American tragedy, raw and unsentimental and yet more strongly felt and pulsing with sincerity than most of the pompous prestige pieces you're likely to see this season. Rourke does not create a purely sympathetic character, but a scarred and damaged one who is frustratingly weak and yet overwhelmingly lovable. He is the best in us and the worst in us and to watch his journey is to grapple with quintessential human nature, particularly for those who happen to be old-fashioned and gentlemanly macho men. Tomei is also riveting in yet another scene stealing role as an earthy and assertive female. The actress, often overlooked and teased for winning an Oscar for a comedy not made by Woody Allen (a rare and admirable feat), is a natural beauty who refuses to succumb to doe-eyed ingenue character types. She fills Cassidy/Pam with as much strength, combustibility, and out and out balls as Rourke does Randy. It's about time people recognized her as the powerful and versatile performer that she have proven herself to be. Evan Rachel Wood is also back in top form after a string of forgettable indie flops and half-hearted attempts at commercial fame. She is brimming with pain and unobnoxious young angst in this film (the kind that made her an instant critic's darling in Thirteen). Put together you have a trio of performances so impassioned and authentic that Aronofsky's artful minimalism as a director pays off in spades. The film, often handheld and always gritty, plays like found footage packed with real emotion and a very real non-Hollywood pay off in the film's final moments. Truly one of the best endings to one of the best films of the year.

Grade: A

The Reader

The Reader is a film in 3 acts, as are most films. However, this particular feature is distinct in that its 3 acts are clearly marked intervals of narrative that take place in unique setting and eras. In its seductive first act The Reader is an erotic coming of age story. 15 year-old Michael (David Kross) is aided by a stranger on the street (Kate Winslet) one day. He brings her flowers to thank her and the two end up forming a connection that ultimately leads to a sexual relationship. He finds her name is Hannah and she is nearly 20 years his senior. Act two features Michael, 7 years since parting with his older summer fling, attending law school and observing the trial of 6 women guards at Auschwitz. One of them, he is stunned to learn, is Hannah. In its close, the now imprisoned Hannah receives taped book readings from Michael (she loves to be read to) and, in this way, their bond continues.

The film is mostly cerebral rather than gut wrenchingly emotional, but it does offer some fascinatingly complicated scenarios to consider, especially regarding the nature of justic and moral law. The opening flirtation objectively stings of scandal but subjectively seems tender and almost forgivable in its innocence. Hannah is not predatory but lonely and the bond she shares with the much younger Michael does not feel solely sex-based but deeply passionate. Its final notes -- Hannah bathing Michael and not so subtly washing out a milk jug -- call to mind something more maternal despite the couple's charged sexuality. Inappropriately maternal, certainly, but maternal, nonetheless.

The trial, like the seduction, offers questions of allegiance and moral judgment. Hannah has certainly commited unforgivable acts and yet she remains strangely sympathetic. It's a mean trick, but an enlightening one that once again puts traditional senses of right and wrong through the wringer. It's also the arc in which both Kate Winslet and David Kross do their best work. Winslet gives as fabulous a performance as you would expect her to give when supplied with a character this complex. She is so riveting and so real that she makes the whole film feel sharper than it is, more believable too. Kross, a young unknown of only 18 years, is the true lead of the film (if there is one). His Michael grounds the film and steers us through the years (until later when the character is played by an able but less indelible Ralph Fiennes). It's a stunning breakout performance that ranges from young and charming to tortured and emotionally deep. That his name has not come up in a single discussion of potential award nominees speaks to the excessive influence of celebrity.

The first two sections of the film are far more compelling than the unaffecting and unsatisfying finale, which feels like a sullen dead end. A lot of the film, beautifully lit by veteran Roger Deakins, feels too refined and stoic where it needs to be raw and gritty, but the turgid conclusion takes the faux art cake. I'll refrain from spoiling the events of the third act for it holds the most surprises (in all the worst ways). What I will say is that it doesn't offer climax but rather empty tragedy. When it really needs a human moment to bring its heady themes of ethics and traditional justice down to the ground, it simply sinks further into downtrodden melodrama. Everything is miserable and yet their is not a heartstring stirred. Michael's coming to terms with his troubled mistress is made so slow and so ambiguous that their connection, once vibrant, now registers as token plot. There's something vaguely touching about it, but only vaguely. The bottom line is that this is Oscar bait with a capital O.

Thankfully, the film's stronger moments (there are more than a few) and its fabulous performances keep it capably afloat even if they are unable to raise it to the level of something extraordinary. A masterpiece this is not, but I'd still take this flawed think piece over a mediocre popcorn flick any day.

Grade: B

The Black Balloon

Aussie drama The Black Balloon is a well-meaning but unsuccessful look at the lives of a family dealing with an autistic son. While the parents of the family have learned to deal with their son's needs, younger brother Tommy (Rhys Wakefield), only 15 himself, is still struggling to accept his brother Charlie (Luke Ford) as he is. The story is predictable and saccharine. Tommy inevitable learns to love his brother. Who would have thought? Worse yet, the film reduces autism to a social nuisance getting in the way of Tommy's dating cute girls, with the only autistic behaviors displayed by Charlie having everything to do with feces and genitalia and nothing to do with his unique mind. It's oversimplified and cartoonish, and unfortunately, still ends up being one of the more grounded looks at the disease put on film. It's not much but it is something.

The moments that make this film watchable are not its grandiose moments of melodrama (Tommy hit Charlie!) or its cheap comic antics (Charlie ate a tampon!), but small little human moments between the family. Toni Collette is especially forgivable as the family matriarch who bestows her undivided love and attention upon her sons. She is a warm and likable figure who steers clear of trite sentiment or broad shtick. There's also a lovely performance by Gemma Ward as Jackie, the girl of Tommy's dreams and the first person open to learning about Charlie's disease. Still, having misty romantic moments in the foreground of a story about autism can feel sleazy, and the young actors don't seem able to reconcile the romantic with the tragic. As for Luke Ford, given the notoriously difficult and indulgent task of portraying someone with a developmental disability, he is more or less harmless though obviously overdoing it. The of which plausibility is stretched further when we meet Charlie's school friends, a uniform group that displays none of the spectrum of abilities and eccentricities that makes autism such an elastic diagnosis.

Though it possesses many tender moments and several fine performances, The Black Balloon, is an underwhelming and unimportant feature that seems to think itself enlightening when it is at its most shrill. Credit goes to the cast for keeping this afloat, but absoluting nothing in this piece soars.

Grade: C

Hunger

Writer/director Steve McQueen's debut feature is a sure to be controversial spell-binder portraying, in very vivid and visceral detail, the IRA hunger strike led by Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) from within prison walls in 1981. Sands was one of 10 men who died in the strike, which was designed to encourage the British to grant political status for IRA members who performed acts of violence in the name of their cause. The efforts, according to the film, were significantly successful. The British ultimately granted most of the IRA's requests, though they still refused to cave on the issue of political status.

The film opens very ambiguously with unsubstantiated shots of an unidentified figure going about his daily routine, as what seems to be some kind of law enforcement officer. Next we meet a resilient prisoner being forced into his grimy cell, the condition of which is unsettling and grotesque. The film is his momentarily until we ultimately meet the former male character again, and discover him to be a prison guard who brutally "baths" and "grooms" the prisoners. He is abusing an unknown man, the identity of which we will come to learn is Bobby Sands. Sands does not occupy the film's central narrative until more than 30 minutes into its 90 minute run. It is a wholly unconventional device for a film that is essentially a narrow window biopic, but many of McQueen's choices here are deliberately untraditional and artistic in nature. The most blatant of these is a reportedly recording breaking 17.5 minute shot, the longest in cinema. It appears during a confrontation between Sands and a Father Moran (Liam Cunningham) and is essentially a rundown of the talking points for the IRA's strike initiative. It is the only strong dialogue scene in a mostly silent, visually oriented feature. It's sustained wide-take is more suggestive of a theater performance whereas elsewhere McQueen exploits the visual versatility of cinema to express the inexpressible within his characters, stoic men on a mission of dire consequence.

What Hunger says about Sands as a historical figure could be debated, but what's most satisfying about it is its portrayal, not of this historical moment, but of a human condition that is perpetual and always present. The collision of opposite minds, the reduction of intellectual ideals to violent action, and most prominently the degradation of a prisoner by his captor. Sands is a captivating figure, though not neccarily a likable one. In the end, his physical struggle as he nears starvation turns into an act of awing will, but to sympathize with his pain is not the same as sympathizing with his cause, or even agreeing with his methods. It simply cannot be denied that to watch a man die slowly in the name of a belief, no matter who he may be or what he has done, is a terribly uncomfortable and dark experience rife with reflections on human mortality and the value of one's life. It is a powerful and unique story, and would still be, even if told in allegorical fiction.

Detractors and those sensitive to Sands' legacy are likely to take offense to McQueen's nonjudgmental portrait. It seems a preferential choice to open the story in prison, where we see these men as beaten victims suffering for a belief, and are not shown the violence they perpetrated, however motivated, that led them into these lives. The most egregious act of violence, though, is perpetrated outside the prison walls, presumably by an IRA gunman, and it could be argued such a moment offers counterbalance. It is truly the most shocking and unspeakable cinema assassination I can ever recall seeing. It is understood that these men have committed terrible acts, and in his dialogue with Father Moran, Bobby Sands seems to convey as much of himself, but I think what McQueen is driving at beneath all of this violence and torment is not a pro-IRA justification of Sands and his actions, but instead a reverence for human life, so easily dismissed by these prisoners and the guards who abuse them. No one in this world is better than another. They are all vicious and the universality of this viciousness makes it all the more difficult to stand. Sands has long been debated as a political activist or a terrorist, whichever your stance might be. But McQueen suggests that all people can be read in two ways and that no person would much stand up to over-analysis of their character, particularly in such terse circumstances. In that long debate with Father Moran, Bobby Sands suggests that people like Moran need people like him because he makes life real rather than theoretical and philosophical. And in real life, no one is a hero.

Grade: A

DVD of the Week: The Dark Knight

Chris Nolan's epic crime saga, The Dark Knight, single-handedly raises the comic book film from fun summer pulp to bona fide artistic medium. The film is not just one of the most pulse-racing action flicks of the year, but also a morally grey and sophisticated meditation on the modern "hero." The classic caped crusader, Batman (Christian Bale), does battle with the anarchic and twisted Joker (the late Heath Ledger in the role of his lifetime) and in the process collides with an ungrateful Gotham city, a corrupt police force, the mob, and other very real dilemmas. The film's ultimate act of violence is not a gun fight or an explosion (though there are plenty of those), but instead the crushing of a man's character, District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who after making a name for himself as a brave crusader within the legal means (a Batman with a face, so to speak), finds his hope and idealism crushed. Batman must not only save Gotham from threats of literal violence, but also from the pain of finding its hope squashed. In this film, being the hero does not mean performing acts of heroism, but simply being what is needed, even when that something is dark and disrespected.

Milk

Gus Van Sant returns to the mainstream movie making fold following years of avant garde film experiments (Gerry, Elephant, Last Days) of mixed success, to deliver this powerful biopic/personal-political history of famous gay rights activist Harvey Milk. The return is not an act of submission, though, as Milk is far and away Van Sant's best film in years and the furthest thing from his later Hollywood flops (Finding Forrester, that infamous Psycho remake). It is an impassioned mini-masterpiece that charts Milk's journey from a dissatisfied New York attorney to an adamant human rights activist in San Francisco, culminating in his becoming the first openly gay man elected to a major public office, and leading, most tragically, to his brutal assassination.

The film is framed with Milk's own narrative voice, achieved through interspersed footage of Sean Penn as Milk sitting alone and recording a forboding "In Case of My Assassination..." tape. Penn is a thoroughly transformative actor, and has always been, but in this film particularly he is phenomenal to watch, and often so phenomenal that you forget you are watching an actor. The idea may be cliche and over used, but here it is perfectly applicable. Sean Penn is Harvey Milk.

His story begins, interestingly enough, not with any tales of his childhood or early life, but with his first encounter with Scott Smith (James Franco) who agrees to spend the night with Milk and ends up making a life with him. The two then move to San Francisco, open a camera shop (Castro Camera, recreated here in the very same storefront that once housed it), and get involved in local merchant unions to help support gay shops. Eventually, the teamsters take notice, and then local politicians. Soon enough Milk has made himself the face of the evolving neighborhood and earned himself the nickname "The Mayor Of Castro Street."

To combat the police brutality and rampant human rights crimes of the area, Milk decides to run for political office, and after several years of faliure, finally wins a seat on the Board of Supervisors due largely to a new zoning regulation that cuts out the more conservative neighboring community. They, in turn, elect the proudly conservative Dan White (Josh Brolin), who adamantly opposes the policies of change and equal rights Milk brings before the Board.

Dan White, here given a generously humane amount of vulnerability only made deeper by Brolin's subtle performance, would go on to murder Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, and receive a minimal punishment, getting off on the junk food excuse famously termed the "twinkie defense." The beauty of Milk is that it is not a defeated film, built on tragedy, and sleazily designed to elicit your tears. It is a smart, sensitive, funny, and utterly captivating account of a life and a time in history that concludes, most adirambly, with the sentiment that in spite of tragedy people must always have hope.

Grade: A

Golden Globe Nominations

I'm always skeptical about the Golden Globe nominations, which tend to incorporate absurd choices, celebrity obsessed nods, and the dreaded "Musical/Comedy" distinction. This year is no different. With ample nods for comedies that have no Oscar hopes at all (only Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky and Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona stand a chance), a gifted nomination to celebu-friend Tom Cruise for a very funny but very limited cameo role, and accolodes for famous people in movies no one has even seen yet (Last Chance Harvey?), the nods look awfully suspect. Interesting to note, The Dark Knight did not ascend beyond the token Ledger nomination, The Reader made more of a showing than most people expected, and Doubt looks to be an actors only nominee with no trophies likely for anyone but Streep. For a full list of nominees go here.

Slumdog Millionaire

The brilliance of some films can be reduced to a phenomenal narrative or bravura performances by a director, cast, and crew. Other films are simply so radiant and magical that dissecting them feels callous. Such is Slumdog Millionaire, a modern day fairytale from first-class director Danny Boyle whose status as one of the great talents of his generation should be secure by now. And if it's not, then this should do it. Most people know Boyle for helming the drug odyssey Trainspotting and more recently the metaphysical sci-fi epic Sunshine. The most relevant credit for understanding his handle on this film, though, is his work on the little seen Christmas dramedy Millions, which also specialized in melding the miraculous and the unspectacular, and sometimes tragic, lives of spirited adolescent boys.

Slumdog opens with two scenes being intercut: Jamal (Dev Patel) taking the stage for a fated stint on India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" and being berated by its snarky host (Anil Kapoor) and Jamal being strung up and beaten in an interrogation room by a stern police inspector (Irfan Khan). We are informed that he has won 10 million rupees on the show, a feat thought impossible for a boy of his breeding, a "slumdog" with no formal education and a disreputable past. He is suspected of cheating, but Jamal insists he simply knew the answers. His brutal interrogation, and the review of the footage from his "Millionaire" appearance frame his childhood narrative from this point on as Jamal provides the inspector (de facto us) with anecdotal evidence as to why he happened to know all the answers to the questions he was asked, though logic suggests he shouldn't. After a life of poverty and dark violence, Jamal has been brought to providence by a force unknown. This film is brave enough, and joyous enough, to simply call it destiny. Cynicism be damned.

The film is a celebration of life, and of goodness. Jamal is a saintly, wide-eyed presence with the kind of purity of conscience and decency of character no one with a life as hard as his should reasonably possess. He does not want money. He only wants to find his one true love, Latika (Freida Pinto) and rescue her from her own dangerous life. When the two meet down the road and he begs her to leave her wealthy, abusive husband, she asks him "And live on what?" To which he answers earnestly, "Love." The two are pitted against a slew of obstacles yet hurdle romantically toward a happy ending the hardest of hearts could not help anticipating with glee. As children, Jamal and Latika, along with Jamal's tougher, more practical brother Salim, suffer through the loss of their parents and eventually end up under the care of a con man named Maman (Ankur Vikal), who feeds them and houses them but ultimately has dark aims for them all. The journey through the criminal underground continues for the three whose lives part and then intersect multiple times in the zig-zag narrative leading Jamal to his destined big win.

The complex story is kept constantly moving by Boyle, who gifts the film with a combination "lived in" minimalism and glossy surreal eye-candy feel. Some frames are painfully unadorned while others look elegant enough to be torn from a storybook. The streets of the slums feel authentically dismal and hauntingly cruel and yet Anthony Dod Mantle's rich cinematography and Chris Dickens' careful editing still manage create a fuzzy warmth that goes hand in hand with the film's modern day fable feeling. Equally transportive and ephemeral is AR Rahman's phenomenal score, which uses original melodies in conjuction with perfectly suited source materials including snippets from Sri Lankan born hip hop innovator M.I.A. (not the least of which is her suddenly ubiquitous "Paper Planes").

While most films this positively jubilant and life-affirming work to purposefully feel old-fashioned, this one is proudly modern. Rather than a standard plot about the cold dehumanizing effects of media and commerce, we get TV as a piece of the fabric that leads to Jamal's great reward. Modernity is not an ailment, but part of the fabric of a universe which still ultimately boils down to the punishing of evil and greed and the rewarding of goodness and love. It is a timeless message in a story of modern times.

Grade: A

I've Loved You So Long

Philippe Claudel's Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long) is a solid character drama made only stronger by uniformly sensational performances, especially that of Kristin Scott Thomas. Her Juliette is a woman so emotionally wounded that she doesn't cry. Her pain is rich and complex. It inhabits ever fiber of her being and affects every aspect of her life. She is wounded to the point of being not normal, a social outcast trying to find her way back into the mortal world.

After 15 year in prison, Juliette is coming home to live with her sister Léa (a magnificent Elsa Zylberstein), who has not seen her since her incarceration. At home, Juliette must reconnect with her sister. In the world at large, she must adjust to being a maligned pariah whose past looms over her every waking moment. She herself has not reconciled with it. Not the sentence that condemned her, but the dark act that put her there. It's full revelation and emotional resolution mark the film's strongest dramatic thread.

I've Loved You So Long is a minimalist feature with a realist tempo defined by its casual pace and often non-casual scene transitions. The ebb and flow of Juliette's metamorphoses is not charted surely, but passively. Perhaps this is the wiser, subtler choice. However, it loosens the narrative to the point of being inconsequent. We are not seeing a slow transformation but rather a buoy in the lake being bandied about. Juliette does not grow into consciousness but instead gets jostled into it. The journey is rocky and sad but never easy for the audience to follow in time. The film's closing scene is more of an emotional rollercoaster than all that comes before it. After many moments of confusion and desperate meandering, Juliette is forced by Léa to confront the trauma that's been her subconscious motivator all along. In an instant, the film is sharp and urgent. In its whole, it is baggy and unevenly spectacular.

Grade: B+

Trailers: Benjamin Button

Combination cinephiles and indie rock abusers prepare for an overdose. The newest TV spot for the highly anticipated Fincher film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button comes to us perfectly edited with a bit of Arcade Fire's epically entrancing "My Body Is A Cage" slipped into the sound mix. Nice one, no?

Indie Spirit Nominations Announced

The nominations for this year's Independent Spirit Awards, Film Independent's annual celebration of all things indie, have been announced with strong choices all around. I'm especially pleased to see Charlie Kaufman's zig-zag meta-tapestry Synecdoche, New York selected as the second annual recipient of the newly founded Robert Altman award. There's a surprisingly large amount of overlap this year between the indie set and the big show Oscar hopefuls. The gap has slowly been closing with pseudo-indie victors such as last year's Juno, but this year's potential crossovers come with authentic indie grit and audacity for the most part. Spirit nominees Rachel Getting Married, Milk, and The Wrestler are all looking certain to at least be nominated come Oscar time and others such as Frozen River, The Visitor, and the aforementioned Synecdoche all have longshot chances at nods as well. For the full list of nominees go here.