BLOOD DIAMOND

"I like to get kissed before I get fucked."

There is no doubt about it any more, Leonardo DiCaprio can act. His straight man to Daniel Day-Lewis's twisted villain in GANGS OF NEW YORK was the beginning of his ascension to the upper echelon of today's elite group of young actors, and with his larger-than-life turn as Howard Hughes in THE AVIATOR and his implosively amazing (Oscar-worthy, in my opinion) turn as Billy Costigan in this year's best film, THE DEPARTED, Leo has really proven himself. He can now add BLOOD DIAMOND as another notch to his impressive docket.

In BLOOD DIAMOND he is Danny Archer, a mercenary who runs conflict diamonds out of Africa in the late-90s. He begins to use a local fisherman, Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), offering him the chance to find his rebel-kidnapped family in exchange for a priceless diamond. Well, actually far from priceless (expensive enough to get Archer out of Africa for good).

The film has a pretty solid plot. It offers the oppurtunity for a great action movie as well as a very convincing message. The 140-minute running time hurts both of these concepts though. While many action sequences are staged and delivered brilliantly with a ferocious bite, they are mostly in the first half. The second act sees the message weighing the movie down: the blood diamond industry is huge and nobody wants to really help the problem.

While it is formulaic in the same vein that THE LAST SAMURAI (director Edward Zwick's last movie) was, in the sense that the white man rushes to save the foreign (or black, in this case) man's troubles. The message is a bit repetitive and overcooked, but the film overall is saved by DiCaprio and Hounsou's performances. As Archer, DiCaprio is explosive, a man who faces danger often and whose formerly steel-clad morals are being melted by Vandy. Though it is another noble man-character for Hounsou, he plays the part with pent-up fury, a man who would journey across the world and give up eeverything for his son. Their explosive acting is the real reason to see this movie. Jennifer Connelly is also in it, as a journalist looking to exploit the tragedy of Sierra Leone in order to make a difference, but her character and her performance are pretty bland, and she has nothing on her counterparts.

B

A SCANNER DARKLY

"Total total total totally total total... total providence. "

A complex film about the effects of drugs on the mind, A SCANNER DARKLY is another example of how the ballsy movies of 2006 turned out to be the best. Set in 2013, the movie was traditionally filmed and then animated through the still-revolutionary process of rotoscoping by director Richard Linklater (the same was done in his 2001 film WAKING LIFE). Keanu Reeves is Bob Arctor, an undercover cop investigating the dangerous drug Substance D. Twenty percent of the population is addicted to it, and as Arctor keeps going undercover, he becomes more and more addicted himself. Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder all give solid supporting performances (Downey really relishes his role as a philosophizing addict, becoming engulfed in paranoia), but Reeves gives the performance of his much-lambasted career. It is multifaceted and deep, a startlingly moving look at drug addiction and how quickly and completely it engulfs the mind. There is a feeling of melancholia during every carefully planned frame of the film, and it can be seen in Reeves' eyes. Not only does he become addicted to the drug, but he is forced to watch himself slowly deteriorate in police videos. Linklater’s choice to rotoscope the film really helps to enhance the dystopian feel of a rotting culture, and the hallucinatory effect of drugs. This is one of the deepest animated films ever made.

A

HIGH NOON

"I've got to, that's the whole thing."

HIGH NOON is a pretty simple movie. It's a play on good versus evil, with Gary Cooper in maybe his most iconic role ever as Will Kane, the marshal of a small town in the west. He must lay his demons to rest by confronting four criminals who have come to town to kill him, on the same day he married his girl (the gorgeous Grace Kelly) and settle down. There is still time for them to run off. The killers won't find them. They don't have to confront them.

The film is a powerful but very simplistic take on honor and confronting one's demons. One by one, everyone in the town turns down Kane's plea for help. Four armed killers are too much to handle for him, but he must do it anyway. Even though the whole movie is in a way about him getting shot down over and over again, it doesn't feel repetitive or false. Though the supporting actors don't get much screentime, they feel authentic and genuine. Why on earth would they stick their neck out for the person who is supposed to be protecting them, right? A new marshal is showing up the next day anyway. It isn't their concern.

All the while a single song is played over and over again. "Do not forsake me oh my darling" are the main lyrics to this poignant, simplistic tune. Their is no real hidden message in these lyrics. There is no real hidden message in this movie. It is simply one man's two hour odyssey to put his mind at piece no matter what the adversary or the setbacks. Cooper is strong and charismatic as Kane. His performance is dignified and iconic.

A

DREAMGIRLS

"Look baby, I promised ya'll I was gonna make ya a star. Look at where you at now!"

DREAMGIRLS is the party of 2006, and everyone is invited. It’s a flashy, eye-popping, dramatic ride. Believe me when I say this, when this movie hits, it straight up kills.

Bill Condon writes and directs this lavishly shot look at one band’s rise to fame and how they deal with the limelight. Real-life diva Beyoncé Knowles shines as Deena Jones, who is in a Superemes-like three-woman band in the early-60s. Alongside of her is Lorrell Robinson and Effie White, played by Anika Noni Rose and Jennifer Hudson, who together make up the Dreamettes. A former American Idol contender, Hudson gives a breathtakingly affecting rookie performance as the girl who can sing the best, but inconveniently looks the worst.

Jamie Foxx is their manager, Curtis Jones, a true businessman. In the beginning he manages the girls during the night while maintaining his used car dealership during the day. One of the coolest sequences of the movie sees Curtis wordlessly going around to various spots in Detroit to get money to finance the girls’ record being played on the air. He sleeps with Effie to keep her happy, but when push comes to shove, he puts Deena at the front of the group to sell out more concerts. He then sleeps with her to keep her happy. Foxx is good as a man who will ruthlessly make a buck in any way, but who can’t openly show how much of an asshole he is.

What may be the most surprisingly part of the show is Eddie Murphy’s performance. Let’s face it, he’s never really been great before. He has had a few good movies, but never any juicy roles like this. As an aging, fledgling musician who originally cast the Dreams as his backup singers but quickly became their inferior, he succumbs the the drugs that destroy many a rock’n’roll dream. Murphy can touch the audience’s emotions, he can dance, and man, he can sing. His opening number is part of a twenty-minute sequence that introduces the audience to the Dreams, and features some of the biggest, grandest, most entertaining numbers in musical history.

As entertaining as this sequence is, it isn’t the best part of the show. When Jennifer Hudson sings “And I’m Telling You”, every audience around the world is going to explode. This is the rawest, most personal song of the show, and damn, Hudson goes for broke. A big F-U to all those who put her down and abandoned her because of her looks, most especially Deena and Curtis, Effie cries out to the audience in the most beautiful, affecting piece of the entire film.

While emotionally and musically the movie kills, Condon’s direction in a few scenes is iffy. The usual musical needs a suspension of disbelief to be taken seriously, where characters often break out into song instead of dialogue. In DREAMGIRLS, the story features a lot of music being sung by the group, so the suspension of disbelief isn’t needed. Part of the script calls for songs to be sung straight to the audience though, which comes off as a corny clash of sorts (the notable exception being “And I’m Telling You”, which is so damn impressive it doesn’t even matter).

This is really the only flaw in the film. The performances, costumes, and camerawork are all excellent, and the atmosphere is alive. It’s not only a look at one group’s dealing with fame, but a look at how artistic quality is sometimes slashed for a quick buck. This is a musical event.

A-

DOWNFALL

Part Five in My Examination of War in Film

"In a war as such there are no civilians. "

How many of you out there like Hitler?

Anyone? At all?

No, there's not too many who would express their warm feelings about a man who was responsible for the most horrendous series of massacres in the history of God's Earth. In fact, many would go as far as to say God abandoned this man. DOWNFALL has the balls to say otherwise.

We can't deny that Adolf Hitler was a man. A terrible man, but a man nonetheless. He had a rationale for what he did and what he believed. This isn't to say that I agree with him in any type of degree, but you really can't deny he had to have had a thought process going when he ordered the killing of millions of jews and minorities. In DOWNFALL, his final ten days are seen through the eyes of the people immediately around him. His wife, secretary, military consultants, family, and servants all watch in horror as the impending, inevitable Russian takeover of Berlin and the entire country rips his mind to pieces.

In all actuality, this German film's central character is not Hitler. It is really written to be an ensemble piece, with the most time devoted to his secretary, Traudl Junge's, experiences. Traudl is brought to life in a wide-eyed performance by Alexandra Maria Lara, who exhibits innocence, fear, anger, passion, suffering, anxiety, and still hope into every shot she is in. By her side are dozens of Germans of different significance. They are not painted as villains by director Oliver Hirschbiegel, who instead opts to film them as faithful soldiers and servants to their country.

It is only through Bruno Ganz's unbridled, explosive performance as The Fuhrer. He embodies Hitler, not only with the signature moustache, but with shaky hands and a face that has seen his epic dreams been squashed by who he believes to be a group of inferiors. While Hitler was an insane man whose mind completely abandoned him in his last days, Ganz gives a striking idea of how cunning and charming a man Hitler could be. While he hates the groups he persecutes, he cares for the people around him, especially the women, children, and young soldiers taking their last stand in a suicide mission inside Berlin.

It would be a hard task to humanize the Nazis without coming off as either assholish or truly offensive, but this small gem of a film does. With its stunning authenticity in performances, costumes, and sets (a burning Berlin haunted me, and believe me, I usually wouldn't sympathize for the German situation), DOWNFALL feels more like a docu-drama than a traditional film. As the tension escalates through the city and among the people, the drama becomes crushing. The most popular subject matter to talk about is the methods of killing oneself. Fathers take their own children's lives rather than watch them fall into the hands of the Russians. It is a haunting masterpiece of a film.

A+

BAND OF BROTHERS

Part Four of My Examination of War in Film

"From this day to the ending of the world we in it shall be remembered. We lucky few, we band of brothers. For he who today sheds his blood with me shall be my brother."

If SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is war told the way an audience wants to see it, and THE THIN RED LINE is the poetic way to look it, then BAND OF BROTHERS is war in its truest cinematic form.

An eleven-hour saga chronicling the events of Easy Company's campaign during World War II, BAND OF BROTHERS is the most intimate, yet still the most epic event in the history of television. More than $125 million was poured into the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks
-helmed project, and the authenticity of the sets and costumes are a reflection of the budget.

From their training in American and Britain to their final tour in Austria, the audience goes everywhere with Easy Company. Each episode chronicles a character, although a core group is established over the entirity of the series. After just a few minutes, each character seems real and relatable. They aren't just cliched parts in an expansive setting. These men are real.

After all, this is a true story. Each episode starts with a series of veterans relating their experiences in certain battles and the toll it took on them. Only after the final episode ends are the veterans' veils of anonymonity lifted. These men are brought to life by a cast of mostly no-names, but whom many have gone on to bigger things since. Damian Lewis, Ron Livingston, Colin Hanks, and Donnie Wahlberg all play soldiers who aren't sure whether or not to be heroes like the ads at home say, or to just try and survive their fighting.

While it isn't an anti-war series, BAND OF BROTHERS does show the messy side of war. Their is as much blood in it as in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, but the blood doesn't seem quite as exploitative or unneeded. The effects that this violence has on the psyche of the soldiers is disheartening as well. Almost every man in the company is wounded at one point or another. In fact, one soldier is given a hard time because he took two days off from the line after getting shrapnel in his leg. The constant state of fear, masked fear, eats away at the men as their body count steadily grows. They gradually become the first line in the direct Ally attack on the Germans, and this responsibility is daunting, even if they don't talk about it much.

It's been over a month since I concluded BAND OF BROTHERS. It had sat on my shelf for over a year before then. I never thought I would have enough time to get through all eleven hours of material. Towards the end of the series though, I found myself making time. I have only revisited a few bits and pieces of a few episodes since then, but the characters still stick out in my mind. Their journey through hell and back is phenomenal to watch. The simple but powerful acting and story, the sharp direction, and the visceral impact the series had on me is burned into my brain. I'm glad Stephen Ambrose's novel was adapted into a miniseries and not a film. It is because of this that the story is so completely fleshed out, and characters are not just bit parts who come and go without and emotional attachment being made between them and the viewers. Every man is real, and there is a general concern for them, as to whether or not they will make it out of the war alive. The emotional invigoration, is above all, why BAND OF BROTHERS is the single greatest accomplishment in television history.

A+

THE PLAYER

Maybe it's because I love when Hollywood makes fun of itself. Maybe it's because I straight up hate Hollywood. Maybe it's because I love when a movie can beautifully balance two different concepts (such as satire and thrills). Maybe it's because I love how Robert Altman moves a camera and how he gets eerily natural performances out of every one of his actors. Whatever the reason was, I loved every second of THE PLAYER.

From it's opening scene, a five-minute long single shot taking place in a film studio parking lot feauting different groups of people talking about movie related things (including, most hilariously, a conversation involving how Hollywood is succumbing to too many quickly edited scenes). The mood is set from there on in, a party of a movie with brains and brawn, enough to take on the film industry with many of its most famous actors poking fun. Cameo after cameo roll in and out of the film, and it is no surprise, considering how well Altman works with his actors.

Tim Robbins is Griffin Mill, a mid-level studio executive living the dream, for the most part, in Hollywood. He has a loving wife and everyone knows him. He begins receiving threatening postcards however, from what he believes is a disgruntled writer he turned down. The writer is David Kahane, played by a young Vincent D'onofrio (now enjoying his own Hollywood fame in LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT). It isn't long though before things escalate, Mill freaks, and kills Kahane. The kicker: it's the wrong guy.

This is where things get really juicy. Robbins is great as a man who is unraveling but can't show it. Hollywood is a town that says 'we love you, but what have you done for me lately?' Griffin has little on the table, and if anyone finds out that he's a murderer to boot, he's done.

Meanwhile, Hollywood is running along as usual. A dead writer is ninth page news, which says something about the town. Maybe it is because he is never been mainstream, but was always able to work with the best in Hollywood that Robert Altman was the best man to direct this satire. It bites, and bites hard. The stars lined up for it too, with more than 100 cameo roles coming and going. It is a great filjm about film, a satire of the sometimes absurdity of Hollywood, and an absorbing thriller.

A+

CAPE FEAR, SNATCH

What do these movies have in common? They're made for men.

CAPE FEAR is minor Scorsese, a 1991 update of the 1962 film of the same name. It is second-tier Scorsese, but man, is it still riveting. It's a basic story, a cat-and-mouse game between Defense Counselor Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte, in the role played by Gregory Peck in the original) and just-released ex-con Max Cady. Robert De Niro is Cady, and I mean that almost literally.

This is De Niro's show. While it may have been just another stab at mainstream success for Scorsese, you can tell from the first frame of the movie that Bobby D. took it seriously. He was nearly fifty years old when the film was shot, but you would never be able to tell from his physical appearance. Sporting a mean six-pack and covered in tattoos, he remarks " there isn't much to do in prison except desecrate your flesh."

De Niro is scarily good as the bad guy, a man who is disturbed to the bone but still manages to convey feelings of sympathy. He elevates everyone else around him. Nolte, Jessica Lange, and Juliette Lewis play the family he quickly scares the bejebus out of. While they all do fine jobs, you can tell it is De Niro's presence that light the fuel in their performances.

SNATCH is a damn enjoyable import from British director Guy Richie (Madonna's ex). It is basically another PULP FICTION-inspired crime drama, with interlapping storylines, witty dialogue, and gleeful caricature performances from Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Vinnie Jones, Dennis Farina, Benicio Del Toro, and several others playing jewel thieves, boxers, promoters, gangsters, and gypsies all trying to lay their hands on an 84-karat diamond. Many people hate these movies because they have so much in common (ahem, they rip off) with PULP FICTION. Meaning they are clever, over-the-top, and entertaining. These are all bad things, you know.

Anyway, SNATCH has a ton of energy. It doesn't stop moving throughout its 100-minute running time, and it doesn't waste any time with messages or any bullshit like that to run away from the plot. It knows that its not a particularly important movie, and it's alright with that. Brad Pitt, who always finds a way to entertain me, has almost illegal amounts of fun with his role as a gypsy bareknuckle boxer who fights till he's burger, but usually doesn't have to, seeing how he knocks out guys twice his size with one punch usually. Plausible? No. Juicy? Hell yes. Seeing him fall down after a meaty left hook, in slow motion glory, and then jump up and knock the big bastard out is just fucking awesome.

Both get a B+

Son of a bitch, PULP FICTION is on. Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames just got through That Scene. You know the one. Thank Jesus for HBO.

MANHATTAN

"You know what you are? You're God's answer to Job, y'know? You would have ended all argument between them. I mean, He would have pointed to you and said, y'know, ' do a lot of terrible things, but I can still make one of these.'You know? And then Job would have said, 'Eh. Yeah, well, you win.'"

They say art imitates life. This is so in MANHATTAN, another walk in the park for Woody Allen. In it, Allen is Isaac Davis, a 42-year-old man dating a high schooler, but who falls in love with his best friends mistress. All this takes place while his ex-wife (a very young Meryl Streep) is publishing a memoir about how her life with Isaac drove her to lesbianism.

Allen has never been an actor with wide range. He's always the neurotic, from CASINO ROYALE in 1967 to his most recent film, SCOOP (which nobody saw, but I really liked). His personality has always carried over into his characters, and his movies have been shaped around his persona. I'm completely fine with this though, because the man is so damn funny, both in life and in his films (his writing and acting are for the most part comic gold). Perhaps MANHATTAN was a pre-cursor to his split with Mia Farrow, one of his most frequent collaborators, for 27-year-old Soon Yi Previn in 1997 (he is thirty-five years old than her).

In both his life and the film, Woody looks, and eventually finds in a way, love in the oddest places. In a way, the movie is as much about his love for his home town (ahem, Manhattan) as his love/frustration with the people around him. The film is gorgeously shot in old-school black-and-white, with many wide shots showing how life beyond the camera is always happening in New York.

I'm not sure which aspect of the film made me really love it. It is an odd romance, not only in the characters but in the interactions they share with each other. Nevertheless, the characters feel real, in a surreal, neurotic, Woody-ish way. It is shot beautifully and the actors all go subtley go for broke. Maybe it is such a great, affecting, hilarious look at romance because it has all the right amounts of all the right pieces.

A

Your dose of 300 for the day

This is officially the movie I'm anticipating the most for '07. How eye-fuckingly awesome is this movie going to be?

Bravo, NIP/TUCK

Wow. The fourth (and possibly last, but I doubt it) season of FX's NIP/TUCK was terrific. The writers upped the anty on it, elevating it from exclusively soap opera bullshit and used-up characters into something that richer. It left the clichés behind, as well as all sense of reality, basically. The problems and conflicts built up and built up, and at about the fourth episode (the show is only 14, but they play three months straight with no missed weeks, which I like) I was about to just turn the damn TV off. Instead of that, I decided to just suspend my disbelief. There is a dream sequence in almost every episode, Sean and Christian have some sort of intimate relationship with almost every one of their clients, and Christian's fiancé's pimpette cuts out kidneys to pay off a drug lord that Christian and Sean did business with.

Coincidence? No, just iffy writing, says I.

But that's OK, because it's just so damn entertaining. It gets juicier and juicier with every episode, from the marital problems between Sean and Julia to the adoption of Chistian's black child. It sounds like daytime television on paper, but it's more. It pushes the artistic boundaries imposed by the FCC in terms of sex and violence, and I'm all for it. The characters are surprisingly well-written and deep for a show with such a superficial concept: the drama surrounding the lives of a couple of Miami platic surgeons. The tagline is pretty true in this case: Deeply Superficial.

Here's to a fifth season.

Random movies I've been watching...

So yeah, I haven't sat through that many new movies lately, but through the miracle of the movie channels and cable TV, I've had my fill of channel surfings and so on.

MEAN GIRLS- Say what you want, this movie is fucking funny. Tina Fey wrote it, and from all indicators (30 ROCK on NBC is one of the fall's most successful new shows-though I don't watch it), she has some talent. It bites and is still touching, and really gets the main vibes of high school (the cliques, the sexual yearning, the fights, the retarded trends, the teachers who don't know a clue), even if they're over-exaggerated and Hollywood-ized. And yeah, Lindsay Lohan is gorgeous in it, and this was in a time when she wasn't completely skankified.

FIGHT CLUB- Cory, Kyle, and I got lost trying to get to East Auburn on Friday, so we ended up raiding Wal-Mart and going back to the home front and watching this miracle of a movie. When I think about it, this could be my favorite movie, right up there with the LORD OF THE RINGS films. I'm surprised I've never gone on a complete tangent about it on here, seeing how every line of dialogue, every performance, every shot, and every concept get better and more entertaining with each viewing. From Bob's bitch tits to Marla 'never being fucked like that since grade school', this movie makes me scream in laughter. Scream. I don't have to go into how fucking manly of a movie it is either, do I? Although some have called it macho porn (I'm looking at you Roger Ebert, who gave AKEELAH AND THE BEE 4 stars), I think it's macho greatness. On its simplest level, it's a bunch of guys beating each other up, which is kickass. On its deepest, it is surreally fucked up and a socially important film.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS- I've probably seen this a dozen times, so don't criticize me too much for switching back and forth between this and MEAN GIRLS the other night. It is epic in every sense of the word, and better than about 97% of all other movies out there, but it doesn't quite ever grasp the brother-ish connection between the characters as well as THE FELLOWSHIP and THE RETURN OF THE KING do. Like I said though, it is better than 97% of pretty much everything else I've ever seen.

CITY OF GOD- Caught the last twenty minutes or so of this violent piece of visual poetry on IFC last night, and I wish I had known it was on earlier. I've seen it twice before, and it's as completely enthralling on its third viewing as it was the first time around. It is to me what GOODFELLAS is to most other people: the supreme stylized gangster pic (THE DEPARTED and THE GODFATHER are a little better, but they aren't what I would call super-stylized like this). The performances (especially by both of the Rockets and both of the Li'l Zé's), the action, the multiple storylines, and the amazing screenplay combine for a knockout punch of a movie. At this point in the game it probably cracks my Top Five of the decade so far. A breahtaking first film by Fernando Meirelles.

Is this the worst poster ever?

Gag me.

It must be Award Season...

December means Christmas and End of the Year Top Ten lists from movie critics. They're starting to trickle in, and the first two major ones have revealed a few surprises. Mainly

AFI's Top Ten List
Babel
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
The Devil Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
Half Nelson
Happy Feet
Inside Man
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
United 93

Broadcast Film Critics Association's Top Ten List
Babel
Blood Diamond
The Departed
Dreamgirls
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Children
Little Miss Sunshine
Notes on a Scandal
The Queen
United 93

New York Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Picture: United 93
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed
Best Foreign Film: Army of Shadows
Best Screenplay: Peter Morgan, The Queen
Best Supporting Actor: Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Best Cinematographer: Guillermo Navarro, Pan's Labyrinth
Best Non-Fiction Film: Deliver Us From Evil
Best First Film: Ryan Fleck, Half Nelson
Best Animated Film: Happy Feet

L.A. Film Critics Association Awards
Picture: "Letters From Iwo Jima"
Runner-up: "The Queen"

Director: Paul Greengrass, "United 93"
Runner-up: Clint Eastwood, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima"

Actor: Sacha Baron Cohen, "Borat" and Forest Whitaker, "The Last King of Scotland" (tie) (no runner-up)

Actress: Helen Mirren, "The Queen"
Runner-up: Penelope Cruz, "Volver"

Supporting actor: Michael Sheen, "The Queen"
Runner-up: Sergi Lopez, "Pan's Labyrinth"

Supporting actress: Luminita Gheorghiu, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu"
Runner-up: Jennifer Hudson, "Dreamgirls"

Screenplay: Peter Morgan, "The Queen"
Runner-up: Michael Arndt, "Little Miss Sunshine"

Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, "Children of Men"
Runner-up: Tom Stern, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima"

Production design: Eugenio Caballero, "Pan's Labyrinth"
Runner-up: Jim Clay and Geoffrey Kirkland, "Children of Men"

Music: Alexandre Desplat, "The Queen" and "The Painted Veil"
Runner-up: Thomas Newman, "The Good German" and "Little Children"

Foreign-language film: "The Lives of Others"
Runner-up: "Volver"

Documentary/non-fiction film: "An Inconvenient Truth"
Runner-up: "Darwin's Nightmare"

Animation: "Happy Feet"
Runner-up: "Cars"

Douglas Edwards experimental/independent film/video award: "Old Joy" (Kelly Reichardt) and "In Between Days" (So Yong Kim)

New generation award: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris (directors) and Michael Arndt (screenwriter), "Little Miss Sunshine"

Washington, DC Area Film Critics Association Awards
Best Film: United 93
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed
Best Original Screenplay: Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine
Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman, Thank You For Smoking
Best Supporting Actor: Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls'
Best Animated Feature: Happy Feet
Best Documentary: An Inconvenient Truth
Best Foreign-Language Film: Pan's Labyrinth
Best Acting Ensemble: The Little Miss Sunshine
Best Breakthrough Performance: Jennifer Hudson
Best Art Direction: Marie-Antoinette

Kind of pissed that THE DEPARTED hasn't been racking up the big trophies as of yet (while I haven't seen it, THE QUEEN doesn't look that mind-bogglingly great or socially/artistically challenging, which THE DEPARTED was). I'm glad to see that LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA is becoming a force late in the game, similar to what MILLION DOLLAR BABY did a few years ago. And don't worry kids, I'll post my year-end wrap-up in January, and yes, you will explode in the pants.

NATURAL BORN KILLERS

"Mickey: I realized my true calling in life.
Wayne Gale: What's that?
Mickey: Shit, man, I'm a natural born killer."

This is certainly the most thought-provoking and challenging film on the list that I have watched yet. It is an indictment on American culture for sure, but whether or not NATURAL BORN KILLERS can keep its eye on the satirical ball all the way through its running time is another question.

Technically speaking, this film is extraordinary. Or maybe innovative. Breathtaking. Cutting-edge? There are definitely many adjectives this film's technical aspects. It takes a lower-tier, shallow script and turns it into a movie that is feverishly alive, for better or for worse. It follows the epic journey of Mickey and Mallory Knox, a couple who travel across the southwest for two weeks, killing everyone they can get their hands on. Forty-eight lay dead by the time they are brought in to custody and thrown in to jail, where the death penalty awaits them.

These two characters themselves are pretty damn shallow. The tagline says "The Media Made Them Superstars", but to me, this wasn't why they massacred these people, and this is the biggest, most fundamental problem that I had with NATURAL BORN KILLERS, a problem I couldn't really ever shake during its running time. "I kill because I'm a killer," says Mickey. That is the reasoning given by the Quentin Tarantino-penned script (thank God he made PULP FICTION that year) as to why they murder, in cold blood, dozens of strangers. While incarcerated, Mickey accepts an invitation to appear on a nationally televised show about the biggest criminals in America, hosted by Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr.), a man praying that this interview catapults him to fame. "It's just murder. All God's creatures do it. You look in the forests and you see species killing other species, our species killing all species including the forests, and we just call it industry, not murder" says Mickey, in front of millions.

Like I said though, this is a morbidly entertaining movie. While I didn't like some of it, I couldn't turn away, much less turn it off. As Mickey and Mallory, Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis both have a lot of fun in shallowly written roles, and a pissed-off Tommy Lee Jones (playing the warden of the prison), a psychotic Tom Sizemore (as a slowly-unraveling cop who goes psycho because of his surroundings), and a WTF turn by Rodney Dangerfield as Mallory's molesting, controlling, ugly hick of a father are entertaining, in a sick way. Oliver Stone's direction has to be applauded as well. The man may be considered a conspiracy nut, but he has some balls. The film is extraordinarily violent and features no likeable characters, but he has made a hypnotic film that raises plenty of questions about violence and media, as well as being a visual feast on a small budget. Using different style cameras, black-and-white imaging, animation, bullet-view shots, and facial distortions, he is able to capture a lot of the surrealness and jaw-dropping lunacy of the situation that the script wasn't able to. If anything, NATURAL BORN KILLERS is alive.

B

50, 50 Link

DR. STRANGELOVE

Part Three of My Examination of War in Film / 50, 50 Link

"Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks"

I think Stuart Smalley said it best: "Man, Stanley Kubrick had some balls." He was a trailblazing artist, a man who broke through all conceivable boundaries in conventional cinema. He made a science fiction film that featured little action, almost no character interaction or dialogue, and no explosions (2001). He made a film that humanized a child molester (LOLITA). He also made DR. STRANGELOVE, exemplifying what would happen if the U.S. and Russia exchanged nuclear blows. Not only did he make the movie, but he made it smack dab in the middle of the cold war.

Kubrick was also a man of artistic intelligence. While he usually stuck to the script, he knew better than to limit the talents of comedic legend Peter Sellers, who plays three roles in STRANGELOVE, mostly improvised. Sellers is regarded as a comedic genius for good reason. He was able to morph into his roles, and for most of the film I wasn't able to notice that he was in nearly every scene. He plays American President Merkin Muffley, who finds himself in a situation involving a psychotic U.S. general red-lighting a group of bombers to fly over Russia and do the unthinkable.

The titular character, Dr. Strangelove, is brought in to advise the members of the 'war room', a group of military officials sort of ran by General Buck Turgidson, played by George C. Scott. These are unquestionably the two funniest roles in the film. As Strangelove, Peter Sellers spits out the bare minimum amount of scripted dialogue the script calls for, and is 90% improv. Scott relishes his role, a big ole' American cowboy of a general, who has sex with his secretary (not just in a sexual way, he deeply respects her as a human being too) when he's not busy trying to bail his country out.

This isn't just a physical comedy though. The satire is rich and thick here, and Kubrick doesn't pussy out with the ending, as I thought he would. Maybe it is him being a revolutionary filmmaker and me being part of a movie-making generation filled with thrillers with cop-out endings, but the ending of this film floored me. The tenacity Kubrick had to not only make a movie like this at such a volatile time as in the middle of the Cold War, but to end it the way that such a conflict would end is remarkable.

A-

Man, 300 and SMOKIN ACES Look N-U-T-S

Smokin' Aces: Heroine on Film

300: Actual Heroine

March 9th, January 26th. Mark your calendars.

MODERN TIMES

MODERN TIMES is a love letter from Charlie Chaplin to an era that he defined. It is his final silent film, and even so, it is sprinkled with dialogue here and there. It sends up the industry that was taking over the home that Chaplin was such a master of, not only satirizing talking films, but industrial progression in general.

Chaplin is an unnamed factory worker, fired from his job for not being able to keep up with the machines that can do the same job in less time, with less faults. He is sent to a mental hospital, then kicked on to the steet, and quickly thrown into prison. The film is basically a series of events consisting of change dominating a circumstance, and that change being totally blind to what was there before it.

I was pleasantly surprised by MODERN TIMES. I understand that it is a classic film, but I didn't think a film that contained almost no dialogue could affect me. The over-the-top physical comedy of The Tramp, along with the beautiful, innocent performance by Paulette Goddard as a young woman who becomes orphaned and is taken in by Chaplin's character, bring both laughs and true sadness to the screen. It hums along quickly for 85 minutes, subtley but unquestionably serving as great satire while also telling a simple story of an innocent romance.

A

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN

Part Two of My Examination of War in Film.

"This time the mission is the man."

In 1998, two war films came out, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, and that other one. RYAN was an event for a reason. While THE THIN RED LINE is a better film in my opinion, there is no denying the emotional punch that Steven Spielberg's bloody World War II opus packs.

Where THE THIN RED LINE starts off in a slow, euphoric, meditative state, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN opens with a bang. Maybe The Big Bang if we are talking about war movies. The opening sequence is one for the ages, showing the American invasion of Omaha Beach at Normandy on D-Day. The violence is brutal and emotionally shattering, and Spielberg isn't afraid to lay it on the audience heavy and often.

The Omaha Beach sequence introduces the audience to the main protagonists of the film. Tom Hanks is subtle and quiet as Captain John Miller, who leads his squad of seven men throughout Europe to find Private Ryan, a paratrooper who has lost his three brothers, all of whom were killed in action. Ryan is played by Matt Damon, in one of his first screen roles. The men in Miller's outfit can not fathom why the government considers one man's life important enough to risk those of eight others.

Where THE THIN RED LINE contemplated life and death (among many other things), SAVING PRIVATE RYAN focuses on the day-to-day battle for life that soldiers experience. While it is bleak and a soberingly realistic account of war, it is still an uplifting experience. Spielberg has always been an inspirational filmmaker, and he has always been able to find a light at the end of the bleakest of tunnels. The ultimate purpose of war is for peace and life, and Spielberg understands this, presenting it in a way that is sentimental but not hokey or sappy.

As different as the two films are, I can't help but compare RYAN with THE THIN RED LINE. While the former is a great envisioning of war, especially in its staging of battle and in its unflinching look at the graphic nature of it, it does not quite reach the poetic heights that its 1998 counterpart. It shows exactly what its audience wants to see: the Americans overcoming adversary in the face of their enemies to save the day. Does it present this idea well? Absolutely. Does it really challenge its audience, more than shocking them with graphic violence and pulling at their heartstrings? Not really. That said, it is an emotionally exhausting epic, and the attachment to its characters that it creates is undeniable. It is a great war film.

A+

New Look...

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