OSCAR SEASON - Best Movies of 2006

And finally, the best films of 2006.

I'll start with my honorable mentions. These films were all tops in their various genres, or just good movies. They may not have been quite top 10-worthy, but that doesn't mean there not nearly as good.

Best Films Honorable Mention (in no particular order)

CASINO ROYALE - The best cineplex action movie of the year. James Bond updated for the 21st century. Whether he needed updating or not, it was still a fun romp.

HALF NELSON - A great performance by Ryan Gosling drives this indy film about a drug-addicted history teacher and his students in the bad part of town.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH - It's surprising that a power point presentation by Al Gore on global warming worked so well as a movie. Easily the most important film of 2006.

BORAT ... - The funniest (and crudest) film of 2006, Sacha Baron Cohen has some scenes so funny it's hard not to fall out of your seat. A Kazakhstani reporter searches America for lessons on its culture, and for Pam Anderson.

LITTLE CHILDREN - A good crop of films kept this out of my top 10. Perhaps I should go up to 11. It's a funny documentary on the animal known as suburbanites.

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS - Probably the most accessible and uplifting of the good films this year. A great lead performance by Will Smith as a down on his luck salesman struggling to provide for his young son.

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE - Those who love cutsie movies will love this. It was so sweet I may have gotten a little sick to my stomach. The story of a disfunctional family and the little girl who brings them all together.

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS - A very good look at the battle of Iwo Jima and the power of marketing and symbols in the American culture.

NOTES ON A SCANDAL - (I thought) a ridiculous story, but with amazingly good characters and fantastic performances by Judy Dench and Cate Blanchett. A young teacher has a sexual relationship with a student, and then of course a creepy old lesbian tries to use that to her advantage. Yes, it's sounds dumb, but it's not as bad as it sounds.

TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY - A literate, intelligent and wickedly funny telling of actors making a movie about a supposedly unfilmable book. Twisted and smart.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA - Light stuff, but a fun and funny story about a young girl living her big dreams in the fasion industry. Great performances by Stanley Tucci and Meryl Streep and Emily Blount.

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND - An interesting look at the ebulient, and barbaric, former dictator of Uganda, Idi Amin. Great performance by Forrest Whitaker as Amin.

BLOOD DIAMOND - A horrible love story got tacked onto a powerful tale about the barbaric conditions in Africa. Very good performances by Leonardo DiCaprio as a South African smuggler and Djimon Hounsou as a father searching for his kidnapped son.

MARIE ANTOINETTE - Although incredibly slow, there was much that I found unique and wonderful in Sofia Coppola's follow-up to LOST IN TRANSLATION. It's just a story about a little girl who's rich.


Top 10 Films of 2006

10) DREAMGIRLS - First off, this musical worked very well as a story, and that's hard to do when characters periodically break out into song. Bill Condon deserves the credit for his direction. DREAMGIRLS is more or less based on the life of Diana Ross and the creation of Motown records. Great performances by Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson.

9) THE PROPOSITION - A glorious bit of art. This cold and barbarically violent western set in the Australian outback manages to show some form of beauty in our violent natures. It's a cruel film, perhaps a little slow for the cineplex crowd, but a great work.

8) CHILDREN OF MEN - Alfonso Cuaron does a great bit of directing on this science fiction tale about the end of the world. People have suddenly lost the ability to reproduce and are slowly dying off, until a young immigrant shows the world a baby.

7) LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA - A wise and mature look at the Japanese culture during the battle of Iwo Jima. This is Clint Eastwood's matching bookend to FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS.

6) THE QUEEN - The story seems like a made-for-TV movie, but it's raised far above that level by some great direction, and acting, and writing, and well, everything else. This is the story of Queen Elizabeth II and Tony Blair after the death of Princess Diana, and it's wonderful.

5) BABEL - At times this picture feels intensely "real" and gritty. At others I found the script absurd, but it's nonetheless a success overall. BABEL tells 3 intertwined tales of miscommunication between our cultures and between ourselves.

4) VOLVER - I loved this screenplay and film from Pedro Almodovar. It's the story of women struggling with the same problems again and again down through the generations. A great performance by Penelope Cruz.

3) A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION - My pick for the most underrated film of 2006. This wonderful elegy for the simple pleasures that pass away, is also an elegy for our own simple lives that pass away.

2) PAN'S LABYRINTH - A film that while flawed, still reached to new heights of filmmaking. This is a story of a little girl during the Spanish Civil War, and how the power of imagination can be the only thing allowing us to survive.

1) THE DEPARTED - It's not Scorsese's best picture by any measure, but it's the best this year. There were a lot of very good pictures, but no masterworks in 2006. The Departed is a Hollywood crime story amped up as high as it can go. The direction and acting was masterful.

OSCAR SEASON - Directing

Next up, the directors. And that's all I have to say about that. Except that I'm going to go 10 deep rather than 5 - for no good reason.

Best Directing

10) Paul Greengrass - UNITED 93
I think the movie was more propoganda than art, but there's no denying it's very, very well made propoganda.

9) Clint Eastwood - LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
Dirty Harry has become the everyman artist. Good for him, and for us.

8) Stephen Frears - THE QUEEN
How can you not applaud the director for a movie this engaging?

7) Bill Condon - DREAMGIRLS
This was the best story in a musical in a long, long time.

6) Alphonso Cuaron - CHILDREN OF MEN
Some of this film had the best direction choices of the year. Other parts didn't, of course, since I don't have him at #1.

5) Robert Altman - A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION
It's an Altman movie, in Altman style. I think this film will eventually be noted as among his best work. No, it didn't have the immediate impact of MASH or GOSFORD PARK, but it's nearly as good.

4) Pedro Almodovar - VOLVER
It's strange how many great spanish language directors there are right now. Almodovar is the godfather of Spanish cinema. He's Spain's answer to Fellini, Bergman or Kurosawa.

3) Guillermo del Toro - PAN'S LABYRINTH
Yep, #3. And this is from the guy who did HELLBOY. Who knew?

2) Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu - BABEL
The Mexican triumvirate of Cuaron, del Toro, and Innaritu are taking over Hollywood. Let me be the first to welcome our new overlords. Because they're really talented.

1) Martin Scorsese - THE DEPARTED
This will be the year Scorsese wins best director at the Oscars (I hope). And THE DEPARTED is probably only his 4th or 5th best movie. The movies the academy considered better directed than TAXI DRIVER, RAGING BULL, GOODFELLAS, and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE? John Avildson for ROCKY (Scorsese wasn't even nominated), Robert Redford for ORDINARY PEOPLE, Keven Costner for DANCES WITH WOLVES, and Steven Spielberg for SCHINDLER'S LIST (Scorsese wasn't even nominated). One or two of those I think are very defendable choices, but ORDINARY PEOPLE? Come on. Oh yeah, and Scorsese also lost to Barry Levinson for RAIN MAN over his LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.

OSCAR SEASON - Acting

2006 was a great year for actresses in starring roles. There were 3 performances that would have won in most years, and 1 or 2 more that easily could have won in down years. For the first time since I've been a movie fan I think the women outdid the men this year in quality and quantity at the top. Kudos.

And that's not to say that the men had a rotten year either. There were a handful of really good performances this year, just like always. What is strange this year on both sides of the gender divide is how obvious a separation there was between the top performances and the rest. My list this year of the best starring performances almost perfectly mirrors the Oscar nominations. Okay, it does perfectly mirror them. For all of my griping about the Oscars, I should probably feel badly about this. But I don't. There's a first time for everything.

Best Leading Actor

5) Leonardo DiCaprio - BLOOD DIAMOND
In both the Departed and Blood Diamond I completely believed DiCaprio as a tough guy. In his career up to this point I never thought that possible. Even though The Departed was a far better movie, his performance as the cynical South African aiding and abetting the struggles of sub-saharan Africa was superior, and superb.

4) Ryan Gosling - HALF NELSON
The hippest of this year's best performances, I give Gosling a whole lot of credit for taking a character I would normally have found laughably absurd, and making him intesely intriguing. A great job for the MTV crowd hearthrob, a onetime winner of the MTV 'best kiss' award. You go boy.

3) Peter O'Toole - VENUS
You've got to love the British classics actors, urbane, witty and raunchy at the same time. In Venus, O'Toole in many ways just plays himself, an aging urbane, raunchy actor, and it's great every step of the way.

2) Will Smith - THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS
There are different kinds of great acting. There's great character acting, where an actor loses themselves in another persona, and then there's great movie stars, where a film is lifted up entirely by the actor's charisma. Will Smith is one of the great movie stars of this generation.

1) Forrest Whittacker - THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
The more I think about it, the more intrigued I am by the conflicting personas of dictators. On one hand they're almost always charming and popular. On another they're grusome barbarians willing to do anything to maintain power. I mean, who were these people in high school? Regardless, Whittacker nailed the childish emotions that ruled Idi Amin, which has a lot in common with what rules bad decision makers everywhere.

Best Leading Actress

5) Kate Winslet - LITTLE CHILDREN
Ms. Winslet's best performance to date, for the first time I felt she stepped out of herself in a role.

4) Penelope Cruz - VOLVER
I attribute this performance as much to Pedro Almodovar as to Ms. Cruz, but that's usually the case with the best roles. Almodovar may have thrown a fat pitch to Penelope with this character, but she's still the one who had to hit it out of the park.

3) Meryl Streep - THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA
An easy pick for best actress most years, Meryl Streep's intesely wicked and compelling performance was only third best this year. In many ways she was a comic equivilent to Forrest Whittacker's dictator in the fasion industry, ruling over her people with an iron fist, even if she was less popular.

2) Judy Dench - NOTES ON A SCANDAL
Ms. Dench's performance was great, great, great. Layered, creepy, wicked and sweet at the same time. It's disappointing she won't win because she gave on of the best performances of the last decade in Notes.

1) Helen Mirren - THE QUEEN
I'm a guy from Cleveland. One who likes ribs, football, and beer. And I fell in love with an elderly British monarch in this movie, and it's because of Mirren. Her portrayal of Elizabeth II during the death of Diana was marvelous, so compelling I couldn't look away.

OSCAR SEASON - Screenplays

Round 2: The Screenplays.

The best screenplay nominees are often a better list of the best movies of the year than the best picture nominees. At the least it's a larger list where the Academy honors films that didn't quite crack it's top 5. It certainly seems, however, that the list of screenplay nominees is where the edgier films lives, the ones that don't quite have the mass appeal of a best picture nominee. As such, sometimes the films nominated for best screenplay are really the better work, albeit harder to swallow, than the easily digestible best pictures.


Best Adapted Screenplay

5) FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS
Not one of the ten best movies in 2006, the screenplay still had much that was superb. It's a wonderful study of the power of symbols, and the power of marketing, and the power of society, in our little American Culture. It may be set in the 1940s, but things haven't changed as much as you might think.

4) LITTLE CHILDREN
At its best this was a superb bit of writing, a comic documentary-distanced look at the human animal. At its worst it was annoyingly smug in its degrading attitude toward your average suburbanite.

3) TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY
I won't call it the smartest of the 2006 scripts, but it was probably the most literate. Maybe not ground-breaking after some of the Kauffman scripts, but its still intensely creative work.

2) CHILDREN OF MEN
The best piece of science fiction in quite a while with its socio-religious themes.

1) THE DEPARTED
If I was to read a synopsis of this script I'd assume The Departed was a crap Hollywood crime drama. Scorsese is the biggest reason for the film's success, but the script took this basic crime story and filled it with incredible smarts and intensity.

Best Original Screenplay

5) THE QUEEN
The Queen is perhaps a frontrunner to win the Oscar this year in this category, and while I admit it's an intriguingly good script, I don't think it measures up to some other original screenplays. I attribute more of the film's success to the actors and director.

4) PAN'S LABYRINTH
An homage to the power, and necessity, of creativity. I liked the screeplay a lot, and loved the movie, but I wish it would have had the guts to tackle religion more directly along the way, because this story is very much about religion, and yet it's almost never mentioned.

3) BABEL
The most Oscar-like of the Oscar films this year, Babel is serious and gritty and intense. As a screenplay I liked it a lot, with it's three interweaving tales of societal and personal miscommunication. The lack of optimism was just plain depressing, though.

2) A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION
I once read a negative review of this film calling it elitist, but I can't imagine a more wrongheaded observation. This story is about as universal as a story can be. My bet is that if you don't yet understand the bittersweet power of simple pleasures, you will someday, at least when you finally realize that they will be gone. A great script, and a great movie.

1) VOLVER
My favorite story of the year was the most magical and the most realistic at the same time. Pedro Almodovar's tale of women through the generations is meaningful, and sweet, and painful and fun. A great story that's absolutely absurd on some levels, and absolutely marvelous on others.

OSCAR SEASON - Supporting Actors

Only 6 short days to go, boys and girls, until the 79th annual Hollywood love-in, the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Academy Awards, where the American film industry pats itself on the back for producing a quality movie or two in amongst the sea of teenage horror flicks and big-budget comic books spectacles. You know I can't wait. And even though they get their winners wrong quite a lot, it's still fun to see just *how* they'll mess them up. Seeing Three 6 Mafia win best song was easily the highlight last year (cynically speaking). It will be hard to top that atrocity for the ought 6 awards, but here's hoping.

Sarcasm aside, there is a legitimite reason for many of those 'wrong' choices. It's just plain hard to pick a "best" film or performance among many that are good. We're talking art here, not statistics. So that's why I put far more regard on the list of nominees than in the actual winner of an Oscar. Even better are the critics top 10 lists, but even those don't cover all the movies worth seeing and all the performances worth seeing. Regardless, it's just fun to pick out a top 5, so that's what I'll do.

For my part I'll begin my personal 2006 award list just like the Oscars, with the Supporting Actors and Actresses. The best supporting roles are occasionally meatier than the starring roles in their respective films. Sometimes it's easier to write a great character for 30 pages than for an entire movie, and often times it's useful to write a fun, off-the-wall character to serve as a foil to the main character. Supporting characters rock, and these are the rockingest of ought 6.

As always, my choices are limited to the films I've seen in 2006 (60-ish movies). There are obvious holes in my catalog, like Inland Empire. I'm a Lynch fan and can't wait to see Laura Dern's performance, but it's not looking like any of the prints are going to make it to Cleveland for some time. Regardless, you get the idea, so here's the list:

Best Supporting Actress

5) Emily Blunt - THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA
Yes, this is the lightest of material and her role isn't exactly a career-definer, but in a great year for starring actresses, 2006 wasn't the best of times for female supporting roles. Blunt manages to walk an incredibly fine line, simultaneously giving her character compassion, humor, and an acidic attitude.

4) Adrianna Barazza - BABEL
Babel is the most "serious" of the obvious Oscar pictures this year, and although I thought the film had a lot that only partially worked, the scenes with Barazza (and Bernal!) were some of the best. The Mexican scenes were the most realistic and tragic in the film, and she was the heart of those scenes.

3) Cate Blanchett - NOTES ON A SCANDAL
I found Notes on a Scandal to be absurd as a story, but the actors brought the characters completely to life. When an actor can obviously raise the level of a film, they're an obvious choice. Judy Dench elevated Notes on a Scandal tremendously, but Blanchett was quite nearly at her level.

2) Meryl Streep - A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION
Streep is, along with DeNiro and a handful of others, one of the best actors working today. She turned out 2 unbelievably good performances in 2006. In The Devil Wears Prada she was as ferocious as a lion, but in A Prairie Home Companion she was as gentle as a lamb. Streep embodied the bittersweet sincerity of this film in her character.

1) Jennifer Hudson - DREAMGIRLS
Dreamgirls was a juicy stage for characters. These were some of the best roles in a musical in quite some time and every actor seemed to feed off of each other. Hudson was a wonderful surprise, giving a performance ranging from innocent optimism to jaded discontent. You never know, but this might be the the highlight of the former American Idol contestant's career. Even if it is, she shouldn't complain, because it's quite a highlight.


Best Supporting Actors

5) Stanley Tucci - THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA
It's kind of amazing just how much great acting this silly little story possessed. Tucci plays a gay fashion industry veteran, and Anne Hathaway's guiding light, and is incredible every step of the way.

4) Paul Giamatti - THE ILLUSIONIST
The Illusionist is a beautiful movie, but at it's heart it's just a Hollywood crime tale. Ed Norton as the lead is great at these types of twisting stories, but it's Giamatti (and to a degree Rufus Sewell) that lifts the film well past your average flick. Giamatti was wrongfully passed over in 2005 (for his great performance in Cinderella Man) and he was again in 2006. Giamatti is probably the most unique actor working today.

3) Djimon Hounsou - BLOOD DIAMOND
Hounsou and Leonardo DiCaprio both gave excellent performances in the very uneven movie Blood Diamond. I'll admit that would be hard not to feel empathy for his character no matter who played him, but there's no denying he nailed the role in any case.

2) Michael Sheen - THE QUEEN
For all of the praise that Helen Mirren has (righfullly) received for her role in The Queen, Michael Sheen was with her step for step in that delightful film. I don't know what more praise to heap on him.

1) Eddie Murphy - DREAMGIRLS
Yep, I'm fairly confident Murphy will win the Oscar this year, because his performance was head and shoulders above the rest of the supporting actor crowd in 2006. I won't bother describing his performance. You should just see it. It's definitely an exclamation point on Mr. Murphy's career.

HALF NELSON

Director: Ryan Fleck (Young Rebels, Gowanas Brooklyn)

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps, Anthonoy Mackie

I've managed to miss The United States of Leland, The Notebook, Remember the Titans and all of the other major entries in the Ryan Gosling acting catalog, so this was my first introduction to the MTV-crowd hearthrob. As first meetings go, this one was impressive. Gosling received an Oscar nomination for this role of a drug dependent teacher, and it's well deserved. His is not the best performance this year, but it's still excellent. The film as a whole is touching, a "little" story that focuses in on a small piece of society, the heart and soul of independent film-making.

Many independent films have a slow pace, and use images to eat up space that is missing in the screenplay. This is often necessity. It's just plain cheaper to edit in drawn out images on screen, rather than to film another scene with another set and have to pay everyone for another few days. As is often the case, necssity is the mother of invention though, and independent filmmakers have gotten this style to work. This isn't the first film to be shown in this style (by any means), but it still works. What the unshowy, inexpensive style does is let us focus on the actors. This film lives or dies by Gosling's performance, and wonderfully the film doesn't just live, it thrives.

Gosling is a hipster history professor at an inner city junior high school. It's lucky that Gosling's performance was so good, because I found the character himself to be nearly laughable. I can barely imagine how little respect I would have had for this guy as a teacher back in the day. His disheveled/cool appearance, 3 day beard, street-cred language and really absurd lessons on history (which was more silly, unfocused philosphy than history) were really kind of funny. It's a testament to Gosling's performance that he makes this guy work, completely. I believed and was intrigued by this ridiculous (on the surface) human being.

Gosling is a drug addict. He lives in a crappy apartment, and lives a mundane existence, and sometimes gets high. He doesn't have much in the world, and he doesn't accomplish much in the world, or so he thinks. Eventually he comes to realize that his contribution is through the kids he teaches, and that it's a big contribution, as worthwhile as any one could hope for. Before this understanding, though, he has to sink down deep into his dependency.

A student of his (Epps) becomes his friend, and the film follows their struggles in their environment. Epps becomes entangled with a local drug dealer (Mackie), eventually selling for him, while Gosling sinks deeper into dependency. There is an ominous sense of the future in this film. There's real doubt that either of these people will overcome their obstacles, although eventually, each can see their themselves in the struggles of the other and they do make progress. This is a wonderful film, really showing the best that low-budget independent filmmaking has to offer.

Standouts: Gosling in a wonderful performance. Perhaps not quite "great", but subtle and powerful.
Blowouts: Not much.

Grade: A-

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS

Director: Ryan Murphy (1st major feature film)
Starring: Annette Benning, Joseph Cross, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, more

I can picture many of the actors in Running with Scissors, Annette Benning and others, before they signed up for this film. Their agents bring them a script of a bestseller, with Brad Pitt as a producer. They read it, see the showy, ridiculous, off-the-wall characters and think these might be some of those juicy roles that just might garner award consideration. I don't know if they realized during the shoot just how wrong they were, if they realized this film was a trainwreck. I'm sure they realized after the fact though, because this film failed in a lot of ways. It crashed, and it crashed magnificently. The cars skidded off the track and piled on top of each other. Then there was a massive explosion and the mass of metal and passengers caught on fire. Then the train rolled flaming down a hillside, sliding into a deep cold lake. And then a monster killed off the few survivors who didn't get crushed, exploded, suffocated, or drowned. Okay, I may be overdoing this a bit. This was not a good movie, but it's not like this was Ishtar or anything. To be perfectly honest, as film failures go, this one was better than most. It was a failure by talented people.

Running with Scissors is the screen adaptation of the bestselling "memoir" (and I emphasize the apostrophes on that) of Augusten Buroughs, an extravagently imaginative young man who was adopted by his mother's therapist. In my opinion, the most important thing to know about the real author, and his character in the film, is a line he delivers early on. "I'm more like my mother... I want to be famous". You see, Mr. Burroughs has been sued by the family that raised him, claiming defamation. They're saying that most of his memoir is pure invention. Now I certainly can't say for certain who's right in this familial melodrama, but from what I saw in the film, it certainly reeked of fakery. The story felt like an invention of somewhat shouting out to be famous. Even if I'm wrong, it doesn't excuse the story itself.

Young Burroughs (Cross) has an hysterically absurd mother (Benning), convinced of her own importance as a poet, yet drowned in her own failures. His father is a distant alcoholic, although a more or less decent guy as Alec Baldwin plays him. Soon his father leaves, and his mother starts a dependent (and sexual) affair with her therapist (Cox). This psyciatrist is the kooky patriarch of the kookiest of families. Imagine the Adams family without the walking hand or hair-covered cousin.

Unable to cope with the responsibility of motherhood, Benning gives away her child to the therapist. His family includes a socially impotent mother who chomps on cat chow while watching old movies, an older sister (Gwynneth Paltrow) who channels the thoughts of her cat (before she kills it), and for some reason wears only victorian skirts and blouses, a tarted-out younger sister (Wood) who's more or less your average unhappy rebel teenager, and a schizophrenic older adopted brother with whom young Augustin starts a homosexual affair.

In a nutshell, these people are thoroughly messed up emotionally. They do weird things that we're supposed to find cute, and then other weird things that are just disturbing. Augusten tries to reconnect to his mother, but it doesn't work out. Unfortunately, I don't think there's a catharsis of any kind in this story, or even a climax, but at the end young Augustin moves to New York. And the film's over. He gets away from the madness I guess. So, my four-word film review: "houseful of nut jobs".

This film just doesn't work, and as is usually the case, the writing and directing is to blame. The story doesn't have enough continuity from scene to scene, it just jumps from one weird episode to another. The characters are so off-the-wall as to be nonsensical. The characters I saw on screen should have been hospitalized, every one of them. As I said regarding the climax, there was no story arc per se, it was just an episodic tale of weird folks. As I understand it, the book is written as journal entries of Burroughs. This film occasionally has Augusten narrating into his journal, but strangely, not very often. That seems to me to be the connective tissue the story needed, the 'recounting' of his life so to speak, but it wasn't used very effectively. Nope, this was not a good movie.

Standouts: Good actors in bad roles. Benning, Baldwin, Cox, Paltrow, Fiennes, Wood and Cross are all good actors and were interesting even in the bad story.
Blowouts: You've got to blame the director when a film fails like this one did. I wonder if Mr. Murphy will get another chance at at directing a major film.

Grade: C-

VENUS

Director: Roger Michel (Notting Hill, Changing Lanes)
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Jodie Whittaker, Leslie Phillips

Venus is the story of a dirty old man. Of course it's also a story about confronting death and the inevitability of our passing away. Maurice (O'Toole) is an aging actor, urbane and wickedly intelligent, at times cheeky and endearing, charming to the last, and at least to me, occasionally creepy (although I don't think the screenplay felt the same way). We're supposed to smile at him, and we do, as he cutely attends to the young girl who's come into his life (Whittaker), the grand neice of his good friend. As this friend tells him, he should be content with his life here near the end because he has been loved. Nonetheless, Maurice is not content. He's lived a life where his own pleasure is all that mattered. The young girl becomes his Venus, bringing love and hope into his life.

Unfortunately, just like in the old Greek mythologies, the gods are a bit erratic. She flounders in her feelings for the old man. She certainly likes the gifts he gives her, and at times obviously takes advantage of the old man's willingness to please. Of course, how is that any different from younger, more "normal" relationships, except perhaps in its scope. In the end she does come to love the old man, although undoubtedly not in the way that Maurice originally hoped. In the end, she comes to love him in a way that actually matters.

Maurice and his good friend Ian, another actor, spend their days marking the passing of their friends, and filling the time as they choose or as they must, seeing a play, or seeing the doctor. They well know they are nearing the end. They are by no means rich, but they have a great wealth of memories. They are minorly famous, or they once were. They've obviously led a rich life that's worth remembering.

One day Ian's troubled young grand neice moves in with her old relative, hoping to find a job in London. Ian is horrified by the intrusion of this lower-class child into his measured, urbane, and calm world. Maurice, however simply falls in love. We get the impression he's fallen in love a thousand times before, but this will be his last. He takes her to plays, buys her things, and attempts to seduce her. Though admitting his impotence, he notes his "theorhetical desire" to make love to her.

She is off put by his advances, basking in his attention, certainly pleased with his gifts, but not particularly happy with his touch. In time she runs off with a slimey young boy, who prods her to take advantage of the old man even more than she has. This ends badly for Maurice and for the girl, but they both find a measure of peace at the very end, when he quietly slips into eternal sleep.

The story is relatively simple, as every story of our endings should be. It's bittersweet, sad and yet funny. O'Toole is certainly marvelous. I do believe that his age limited him in some ways in this film, but he still gives a wonderful performance. He deserves his Oscar nomination. The film as a whole is quite nice, not great, not awful. It's a quiet little film, perfect for a dim, cold winter's night when all endings seem closer at hand. It will soon be forgotten when more exciting events shake it from our minds, but a short look at the end can only help our appreciation of the journey.

Standouts: The old standards of Brithish actors, O'Toole, Redgrave, Phillips, others.
Blowouts: The screenplay was just okay.

Grade: B

THE DESCENT (DVD)

Director: Neil Marshall (1st major feature film)

Starring: Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder

Let me start off by saying that I like a good horror movie now and again. What I don't completely buy into, however, are the arguments that Night of the Living Dead is a great movie because it has a layer of metaphor beneath it's schlock horror. I loved The Omen (at least the creepy original Gregory Peck Omen), and it had a dude getting his head sliced off with a plate of glass. It was not a great movie as art. It was a great bit of creepy entertainment.

The reason I'm writing about this is that The Descent seems to have some aspirations to be more than a silly horror survival tale. Nominally, I think it would be very possible to argue that this is a story of female empowerment. Now I'm 100% for feminism, but in the end, when the lone statuesque blond emerges blood-soaked from the dark caverns, I still think this is just a story about cave creatures eating hot chicks. Metaphor be damned, let's just call a spade a spade, okay? Or a hot-chick eating cave creature, a hot-chick eating cave creature as it were.

Here's our story, horror fans: A group of well toned women like adventure vacations, whitewater rafting, base jumping, you know ... maybe even some spelunking? One of the ladies (MacDonald) has lost her young daughter (or son, I can't remember, and am too lazy to research it) in a car accident. A year or so later, the group of women get together to do a little caving somewhere in the Appalachians. It'll be good for Sarah, they say. She needs to heal, they say. She needs to confront her demons by having a little adventure, they say. This is a bit of a non sequitor, but these ladies all get eaten eventually.

The group heads into the cavern and soon enough disaster befalls them. A rockfall blocks their entrance. They're trapped. Uh oh. It even turns out that the Type A personality leader of the group (Natalie Mendoza) has lied to them and led them into an unexplored cave system. She thought it would be more exciting for the women to be the first to map out the new cave. Of course in the end she gets eaten.

The girls now distrust each other (since they were lied to and all), and now have no idea how to get out. They wander down into the depths looking for another exit. One breaks a leg, but they struggle on. Then they meet the creepies, and are eaten. Except for the blond, who doesn't get eaten. She struggles through her situation and comes out alive at the other end. So, the blond? Not eaten. Every one else? Eaten.

Get it? She delved down into the depths of her psyche (the cave) and faced her monsters (the monsters) and didn't get eaten. She even confronted some of her untrustworthy confidants at the same time. She kicks some ass without bothering to take names. She is empowered to the Nth degree. I sure wouldn't want to face her in a fist fight.

Okay, horror plot aside, I should note the cinematography. Set almost entirely inside a cave, surrounded by the dark, the film did an impressive job with the visuals. Yes, much of what was on screen was probably not entirely realistic, but so what. This is a horror story. There aren't a lot of movies set entirely in caves for good reason. They've got to be hard to light. At times, we only see headlamps in the distance, and this definitely works to amp up the creepiness factor. In all honesty, the first half of the film (before they find the monsters) is much better than the second half (where they fight and are eaten by the monsters). Nothing really happens in the first half except for some caving, but there's certainly a sense of anticipation in the air. Of creepy dread anticipation, that is. Once they start getting eaten, the film is just a horror movie. But that's how it works, isn't it? The dread of the needle is often worse than the shot?

Standouts: Metaphorical spelunking into the mind of a damaged woman? Nope. Hot chicks fighting cave creatures.
Blowouts: Hot chicks fighting cave creatures.

Grade: B-

THE ILLUSIONIST (DVD)

Director: Neil Burger (1st major feature film)

Starring: Ed Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell

Despite its flaws there is quite a lot I loved about The Illusionist. There is a richness to the story and the visuals that is lacking in most movies. Despite pointedly being a revenge story with both a murder and a suicide, the film does not degrade us with senseless tacked on action scenes, or violence. It's certainly true that this story has no great aspirations. It is simply a twisted tale of revenge, but it is a very well done tale of revenge I think. At times it feels like a Poe story, or Trilby, or some other grand Victorian age tale, even if in the end it's pure Hollywood. Nonetheless the world in this film feels real, even though it's entirely fantastical. It's a beautiful and magical creation brought to life.

The Illusionist Eisenheim himself (Ed Norton) is an incredibly clever conjurer in 19th century Austria, during the grand empire of Vienna. We never really know if he is himself magical or not but his onstage conjuring is magical in every way (whether a simple trick or no). I really loved the visuals of this world entirely, but the images of the stage shows were stunning. It just so happens that Eisenheim is in love with a countess (Biel), who just so happens to be pursued by the heir to the Empire's throne, the Crown Prince Leopold (Sewell), who just so happens to be a brute. When after an argument with the Prince the beatiful young woman ends up dead, everyone in the empire suspects Sewell. However, to openly accuse him would be foolish in this land where he weilds nearly aboslute power. Eisenheim devises a clever stage show where he finely walks the line between accusing the Prince of murder and simply providing magical entertainment to the masses.

Paul Giamatti (wonderfully) plays Vienna's chief inspector of the police, in some ways in league with the Prince, in others bound dutiful to the rule of law. Although this is a much lighter role than some others he's recently taken, his inspector is just as well performed by the actor. Giamatti has certainly raised himself to the highest circle of actors working today. It's obvious how his choices with each gesture of his character are unique from what another actor would bring to the role. Here his character struggles between supporting Eisenheim and fearfully conceding to the Prince. It's a wonderful performance I think. Not showy, not incredibly deep, but well done nonetheless.

The film builds slowly to the confrontation between the Prince and the stage wizard until (perhaps unfortunately) the film ends with a simple sleight of hand, giving away the secrets of the magic trick. Any magician knows you don't show how the trick is done, and for 90% of this film this story does the same. Nonetheless, the twist explaining how everything happened does not entirely take away from the story. This is entertainment, pure and simply, and a nice, neatly wrapped up twist at the end can certainly be entertaining.

Now on to the negatives of this film. First, while Biel completely surprised me with her fine performance here, the love story still felt contrived. I also heartily believe that many viewers will find this story stilted and slow. I think we've reached a point where many movie-goers will only pay to see a slow Victorian tale if it's stuffily earnest, a Forster, Bronte or Jane Austen story. The Illusionist on the other hand is pure Hollywood entertainment, not a novel of values. Agree or disagree, however, I really loved the world that this story evoked. It was magical and tangible, and even if the story behind it was just light entertainment, the foreground was beatiful enough to praise.

Standouts: Giamatti, Norton and Sewell really shined. Great performances. The visuals were stunning.
Blowouts: The "highbrow" feeling tone conflicted with the Hollywood plot.

Grade: B+

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS (DVD)

Director: Clint Eastwood (Star of Pink Cadillac, Firefox, Paint Your Wagon)

Starring: Ryan Philippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Paul Walker

Well, now that I've seen both sides of Clint Eastwood's battle of Iwo Jima (along with the fine Letters from Iwo Jima) I'm certainly better able to speak about each. First off, it is not necessarily required to view these films in tandem. Each story is unique and works on its own. The films do show war through the eyes of both sides, but they are still unique creative works, each in their own right. The stories at times intersect, but only for the briefest of moments. I particularly like how, given that this first film was entirely about the power in our culture of the flag raising on Mount Suribachi, in Letters that great American moment was no more than a tiny aside shown far in the distance. There are a few other moments where the stories of each of these cultures run into each other in the battle, but by and large they are individual stories. They can be appreciated each as films each in their own right, but seeing them side by side still adds much to the whole experience. I applaud Mr. Eastwood greatly for this acheivment. Neither film was a masterpiece, but each was quite good, and taken together does give us something new in the world of cinema.

This first piece of the Iwo Jima puzzle, Flags of our Fathers, tells the story of Iwo Jima both through the eyes of a few American soldiers, but also through the eyes of American society as a whole. The story follows the handful of young men who raised the flag on top of Mount Suribachi early in the battle. They were immortalized in the now famous picture from Joe Rosenthal. This story is as much about how that moment and its photograph affected American society as the young men, however. The photo was an instant sensation back in the US, running front page on newspapers across the country. Seeing the power of the picture, the US government soon pulls the young men from battle and sends home to serve as pitchmen for war bonds.

This film (like Letters from Iwo Jima, and most other Eastwood films) defies easy definition, but its for certain that the story is straightforwardly about the power of symbols in American culture. Those symbols may be completely false, or like in the Rosenthal photograph, not nearly the whole story. To the American people this picture represented victory, but the battle raged on for another month or more. In the story, by the time the young soldiers return home to sell war bonds for the government, only 3 of the original 6 soldiers are alive. If you know your history, you know that that famous picture wasn't even of the original flag planted on top of Mount Suribachi, it was a larger, later replacement. Each in their own way the three young men who survived the battle struggle with their feelings on the power of this great (but in some ways false) symbol.

One of the young men (Bradford) is completely at ease with using the false symbol. To him, he just wants as much as he can get out of life. He sees the flag raising picture as a means to many different ends. More money for the war, more opportunity for himself. At the least it's a ticket out of the war. Another of the soldiers, a native American indian (Beach) struggles with the lies he is telling. To him, whatever benefit the war bond drive may bring is lost in the lies that are wrapped around it. He struggles with alcoholism and his own demons, this struggle for the truth is just one more. And finally Phillipe's character, who is more at ease and centered with the entire affair. He is a physician (a medic in the war) and as a prime drive wants to help others. The story is primarily through his eyes. These characters are archetypes and symbols in themselves, just as much as the flag picture, but they are well conceived and written.

The downside of the film is the missing magical entertainment value. For all of the great construction of the story, by itself and with Letters together, the film still was not itself great. It's quite good, but the story and characters were just not captivating. It's an eminantly wise film, an incredibly smart film, a well-written, well-constructed, well-conceived, well-shot, and well-directed film. But it's not quite great. I'm giving this film a B+, but there are all different kinds of films with that grade. Some are dumb entertainment done well. This is a smart picture that's very much worth seeing. It's not as entertaining as some, but it's far more worthwhile to watch.

Standouts: The story and direction were superb, with intense battle scenes and a smart plot.
Blowouts: The characters were a bit bland. The acting wasn't quite up to the level of the rest of the film.

Grade: B+

THE PAINTED VEIL

Director: John Curran (We Don't Live Here Anymore)
Starring: Naomi Watts, Ed Norton, Liev Schreiber, Toby Jones

William Somerset Maugham was in some ways the Steven King, or Arthur Hailey of his generation. He was the best selling author of his time (1920s and 30s), and his stories tended toward the formulaic, helping ensure that each new tale would be accepted by readers. Each of these writers were generally disregarded by critics, yet adored by fans. The work of each (at times) inched toward art, but as often (or more often for King) it was sheer entertainment.

Maugham's stories were usually set in far flung corners of the British Empire, giving exotic settings to his tales of intrigue, love, and human frailty. Many of his stories and characters were said to be lifted from his life, The Painted Veil being a prime example. Supposedly he changed the story at least twice so as not to offend some Britons living in Hong Kong at the time. The Painted Veil is not one of Maugham's most successful stories, but it is certainly archetypal of what he wrote. As is often the case, simpler, more straightforward novels make better movies than more complex ones, and Maugham was known as a simple, straightforward writer. The Painted Veil feels like a movie script, and works well as a film. It's no great work of art, but it's a nice picture, simple and enjoyable.

Ed Norton plays a timid bacteriologist in 1930s British society. In a whirlwind he is soon wed to young Kitty (Watts) who's parents desperately want to marry her off. In the best of circumstances she certainly would have no desire to be married, but she does so anyway if only to get away. Soon after they are in Shanghai, where he has been dispatched in the foreign service. Bored, alone, and unhappy with her marriage she dallies around with the local ladies man (Schreiber). Norton discovers this and angrily gives his wife 3 choices: They can quietly divorce if Scheiber will promise to marry her, or he will publicly - and shamefully - divorce her for adultry, or she can come with him to a village in the deep interior of China in the throws of a deadly cholera outbreak. She soon finds that her lover has no intentions of marrying her, and fearing the shame of a public divorce follows her husband into the heart of village China.

Here, isolated in an entirely alien world, they slowly reconnect. He struggles to contain the outbreak, and she begins to help the local children along with a group of French nuns. Their anger toward each other eventually melts away until, ironically, the good doctor finally succumbs to the disease he is treating, and she is forced to give him up just as they've found each other again. (Yes, yes, it's fairly melodramatic.)

Much of the film was shot in China, and the locations are at times beautiful. The cinematography never really astounds, however. It's more pretty than wonderful. I am not a huge fan of Watts, but she is acceptable in this role. Although as always, I just didn't find her particularly interesting. At first I found Norton's English accent annoying, but in time it grew on me (in some ways like he grew on Kitty in the story), so I can applaud Norton's effort, although as a whole I can only rate his performance as good, not great. In fact that review can apply to the film as a whole. It was good, not great. At times the story felt a tad cheesy, at others it was fairly engrossing. At times it was lovely, but it never wowed me.

Standouts: Solid efforts across the board, but nothing blew me away.
Blowouts: Maugham's story was a bit cheesy at times, although not awful by any measure.

Grade: B