Syriana - The scenes shot at White Marsh

Hey mom, I thought you'd get a kick out of this... These are the scenes in the movie Syriana that I was telling you about - they were shot at White Marsh in Baltimore, MD:

Here, George Clooney's character drives on the highway in Maryland. It's a little hard to make out in this picture (although it is actually really clear on a big theater screen) but if you look closely at the sign above, you will see that the sign says:

Route 147 - Harford Rd

Route 43 - White Marsh Blvd

Route 1 - Belair Rd

So in this scene, Clooney was driving on I-695 South, because if you look at the sign on the right, he's just passing the exit for Route 41 - Perring Parkway.

Then, the camera pans to the driver's seat, showing that Clooney is, in fact, driving the car. (Isn't it funny how nobody noticed him when they were filming?)



This scene has Clooney talking to William Hurt's character in a parking lot. The parking lot is actually the White Marsh Mall parking lot. Look over Hurt's shoulder - you'll see the Macy's store.



In between the two of them in this shot is a big building in the distance. I don't know if you can recognize it, but it's actually that huge hotel that you drive by when you come into White Marsh. You remember seeing that?



And of course, as they walk across the parking lot, you can see the Ikea building across the street!



During the scene, they both end up changing sides and facing the opposite direction. Here, you can see Ikea again between the two guys.



And finally, you can see the Macy's store again in the background, right next to Hurt's head on the right side of the picture. To try to give you an idea of where things are in this scene, the mall has been directly behind them for the entire scene, and in this shot, the mall is directly to the left of where Clooney is standing.

Dave Chappelle's Block Party
(5 stars out of five)
Wow. I went into this film simply to answer a question that's been nagging me for some time: why does everyone like Dave Chappelle? I rarely watch TV, and so I've never seen his show, and I figured, at the very least, that this movie would give me some sense of who this guy was. What I ended up seeing was one of the best depictions of black culture that I've seen in at least a decade. This movie says more about race in 10 minutes than Crash could ever hope to say in its entire running time. But it's not a "race" film as we've come to expect from such a movie... no, it's much more than that. This film celebrates how far we've come all these years, while still making a point of showing how far we need to go. And did I mention that it's fucking hilarious, too? Chappelle's humor is witty, true, and overwhelmingly inviting. Love and happiness flows through the entirety of this picture. What starts out as a great little concert film quickly becomes a funny, touching, and often moving study of the great qualities that can bring many different people together. Even more impressive is the fact that here we have a wonderful, sincere film about the culture of Young Black America in the new millennium, and it's directed by a middle-aged French guy! (Michel Gondry, director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Further proof that sometimes the best films come from the most unexpected places.

I'd just like to point something out here...
I'm going to move on from all of this soon and consider this last year's stuff, but I just want you all to see this, and see how little sense this actually makes:

Best Film awards for Brokeback Mountain:
BAFTA Awards: Best Film
Boston Society of Film Critics: Best Picture
Broadcast Films Critics Association: Best Picture
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association: Best Picture
Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture (Drama)
Independent Spirit Awards: Best Feature
London Critics Circle: Film of the Year
Los Angeles Film Critics Association: Best Picture
New York Film Critics Circle: Best Film
San Francisco Film Critics Circle: Best Picture
Satellite Awards: Best Picture (Drama)
Southeastern Film Critics Association: Best Picture
Vancouver Film Critics Circle: Best Film
Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion (Best Film)

Best Film awards for Crash:
Academy Awards: Best Picture
Chicago Film Critics Association: Best Picture

What the fuck?...

John Stewart at this night's Oscars:
"In case any of you out there are counting, here's the tally...
[rap group] Three 6 Mafia, 1 Oscar; Martin Scorsese, still zero."

Transamerica
(2 stars out of five)
Writer/director Duncan Tucker's debut feature is a potentially interesting story in desperate need of a better-realized film. Felicity Huffman is wonderful in it. She convincingly plays a transexual with a subtlety that the rest of the film doesn't have. The film is loud and obvious when it shouldn't be and frustratingly undefined when it comes to the supporting characters. The movie is quite simply a mess. It's all over the place. It's horribly edited (drags on forever), clumsily written (same old "road-trip story"), and filled with terrible dialogue (when a character gives an astoundingly out-of-place monologue about the "gay undertones" in The Lord of the Rings, that's when I start to groan). Even worse is the fact that the film itself gets in the way of Huffman's performance: The movie starts out well enough - it starts simply and assuredly, letting the story tell itself and allowing Huffman's performance to shine. Then, the whole comic "road-trip" starts, and the film goes down in flames. There are moments in the very beginning of the film where we are allowed to study Huffman's face and learn what's beneath the surface; sadly, those sort of moments quickly disappear, and it almost feels as if the director has forgotten that he has actors up on screen. He treats them as props, moving them from one scene to the next with no sense of development or character arc. Against all odds, however, Felicity Huffman manages to inject emotion into the film. Much like the way an actor on stage must talk louder for the audience to hear him, Felicity is somehow determined not to get lost in the chaos of the film. She gives it a center, and that's the only reason this isn't zero stars. It's a pity her performance couldn't have been in a better film.

The Best Films of the Year (in order):

Updated, with trailers for each film (click on a film title to view the trailer)

1. Brokeback Mountain
2. The Squid and the Whale
3. Syriana
4. Murderball
5. Capote
6. Cinderella Man
7. Good Night, and Good Luck
8. Saraband
9. Broken Flowers
10. Match Point
11. A History of Violence
12. Walk The Line
13. Rent
14. King Kong
15. Grizzly Man
16. Oliver Twist
17. Proof
18. The Constant Gardener
19. Memoirs of a Geisha
20. The New World
21. Crash
22. Paradise Now
23. Jarhead
24. Munich
25. North Country
26. Junebug

Mrs. Henderson Presents
(2 ½ stars out of five)
A trivial little picture, which wants to be (and often thinks it is) much more than it really is. It stars the insanely overrated Judi Dench, the wonderful Bob Hoskins, and is directed by Stephen Frears (High Fidelity). It's another one of those lighthearted, comedic films that wants the audience to take the dramatic U-turn into serious drama about halfway in. The only problem? The film is so lightweight it almost floats away, with performances that border on caricature, and almost nothing to ground the film in reality. A collection of one-liners and funny banter does not sufficiently develop characters enough to make the transition into a dramatic third act, unfortunately. If you really want to see a film about the power of the theater, see Tim Robbins' wonderful Cradle Will Rock.

Match Point
(5 stars out of five)
It started with Anything Else, continued through Melinda and Melinda, and finally reaches its peak here with this film: the return to form, of Woody Allen. Match Point is Allen's darkest film since Crimes and Misdemeanors in '89, and it's a welcome change from his recent decade-long run in making comedies. Perfectly cast, tightly scripted, and filled with Allen's darkly comic views on faith and humanity, it's probably the most "adult" film he's ever made, replacing the often-neurotic male protagonist of his films with an almost shockingly (at least by Woody standards) confident character. Especially of note is Woody's striking use of slow motion in the film, something he's never used before in his four decades of filmmaking. I won't go into the movie any more. It's best you go into it knowing as little as you can.

The New World
(4 stars out of five)
Terrence Malick is the granddaddy of existential, poetic filmmaking. He's fond of studying the grass on the ground and the leaves on the trees just as much as the characters themselves. He's a strange character: he makes his films for himself, and no one else. He's 62 years old, and yet he's only made four films in his entire career (including the one in this review). After making Badlands and Days of Heaven in the 70's, he retired from filmmaking for over 20 years before returning with The Thin Red Line in 1998. Now, seven years later, comes his new film, which is also the first Malick film I've seen in the theater. It was an interesting experience, to say the least... Now, the audience walkouts for The Thin Red Line are almost legendary (people were expecting a war film, and instead found themselves watching philosophical conversations taking place amid picturesque shots of grass blowing in the wind at sunset), but the walkouts for this film were unbelievable. The theater was filled with a mixture of giggly teenaged girls anxious to see Colin Farrell, their boyfriends who were dragged along with them, and lots and lots of old couples, no doubt attracted to the film by the new TV ads, which compare the love story in the film with Titanic. So, as you can see, not quite the audience for this film. The movie starts off quickly enough, but about a half hour in, I saw the first walkout. The reason? The movie is one of the slowest-paced films in recent memory, with the movie's 2 ½ hour running time feeling more like 3 hours. It's not a problem for me; I actually enjoyed the film. But it is definitely - just like The Thin Red Line - not a film for mass audiences. Periods of 10, 20, even 30 minutes go by without a single line of dialogue spoken. There is a wonderful sequence, about 20 minutes long, that is simply one huge montage with a voiceover, nothing more. There are probably less than fifty actual lines of spoken dialogue in the film; almost the entire film is in voiceover, with the characters having inner monologues. People had no fucking clue what to make of this movie. I'm not exaggerating when I say over half of the people walked out. I will admit it - the film is a little long. A good 20-30 minutes could have been trimmed. But what we have here is decent. At least it wasn't longer than it is... Malick is famous for shooting hundreds of thousands of feet of film, and this movie had four editors - a sure sign that some major trimming was going on (The Thin Red Line's final runtime was 3 hours - cut in half from its original six hour running time). Sure, it drags a little bit. But there are real moments of beauty and honesty present, not just in nature, but between people. The acting is quite good. Newcomer Q'Orianka Kilcher is a revelation! I'd love to see her get a nomination, but this year is really crowded and this film was mostly ignored. A Malick film is famous for its photography, and this film is no different. Roughly half of the film was shot on 65mm as opposed to 35mm, and it really looks magnificent. Look for a cinematography nomination for this. So in summation, this is a film that is better than what most people will tell you. Just give it a chance. And lots...and lots... of patience.

Brokeback Mountain
(5 stars out of five)
In a year of great movies, this tops them all. This is my pick for the best film of the year… it is truly an amazing, AMAZING film. This is a film that fearlessly dares to break down walls and barriers, without looking back and without apologizing. This is a film about love, friendship, and the importance of human tolerance and understanding. It makes the love between two men as potent and beautiful as any other romance you’ve seen on screen before, without sacrificing truth, and avoiding the pitfalls of stereotypes that would normally hinder such an on-screen relationship. Everything you’ve heard about the film is true: it is just as striking, poetic and moving as everyone is saying it is. Possibly even more. Ang Lee (The Ice Storm) directs the film with patience and stillness, and the film deserves an audience willing to give it that sort of attention as well. The cast is excellent, with (of course) special mention going to the two leads, most of all Heath Ledger. It’s a little overlong near the end, but fuck it… it doesn’t really matter. It’s one of those films where it has given you so much throughout the film, that you’re willing to give it as much time as it wants from you. A great movie, and one of the most important films of the decade.

Memoirs of a Geisha
(4 stars out of five)
Steven Spielberg was, at one time, in negotiations to direct this picture. The directing duties eventually went over to Rob Marshall (Chicago) who did a decent job with it, although his relative inexperience (this is only his second feature, and his first was a musical) is apparent from time to time. No, the biggest problem with the film is something that not even Spielberg could have overcame: being an American production funded with American dollars, there's no way the producers would have poured so much money into something that wasn't in the English language... So here we have a film, set in Japan and with Asian actors, who all speak English instead of Japanese. It's a strange thing, and it just feels wrong... but there's nothing that could have really been done about it, unless it was a Japanese production from the start. Nevertheless, the film is beautifully shot, and the actors do amazingly well with conveying emotion in a language that's foreign to them. I still wonder, however, how much more powerful it would have been if the actors had spoken their language instead of (sometimes quite awkwardly) spitting out English. Oh well...
I'm pretty tempted to give this another half star, as it really was very well done and truly packed a punch, but this is one of those films where the story was so amazing, that it could have been done by pretty much anyone with at least decent results... I'm not so sure how much of Rob Marshall was in this film, and how much he really had to do to make it work. Most of the scenes in the beginning have a feeling of a lack of passion for the material... it almost feels like someone else picked up the movie from that point on...or maybe it's because you end up getting into the story and forgetting how lazily directed everything is... either way, the reason why this film is as good as it is...well, it's not Rob Marshall.

A million gazillion reviews

The Squid and the Whale
(5 stars out of five)
An amazing, beautiful film. Writer/director Noah Baumbach (co-writer of The Life Aquatic) has crafted one of the best films of the year. Shot with a grainy, handheld camera (on either 16mm or video, I can't tell for sure), the film has a feeling of urgency, moving like a locomotive from start to finish. With a runtime of only 80 minutes, Baumbach has managed to create fully realized characters, the like of which we hardly see in movies anymore. The entire cast is stellar, the writing is observant and fearless, and you get the overwhelming feeling, during the film, that you're watching something really special. A great achievement, and a huge contender for the Best Original Screenplay category this year. Winner of the Director's Award (Dramatic) and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

Munich
(4 stars out of five)
The opening sequence is wonderfully shot and edited. The entire film is exceptionally well-made. The movie raises some great questions, and never ceases to be entertaining. Yet, something is missing from Steven Spielberg's latest film. It's a revenge drama, and it never is anything less than compelling, but it somehow still holds us at arm's length in terms of how close we're allowed to get to the emotional core of the characters. The ending is also a mess. It's not terrible by any means, but the film is further evidence that Spielberg will never make a better film than Schindler's List.

King Kong
(4 ½ stars out of five)
Peter Jackson's first film since completing the Lord of the Rings trilogy is just about as good as a fantasy film can get. The original Kong was the film that inspired Jackson to be a filmmaker, and so it's no surprise that here, his loving hand can be felt on every frame of film. The film shares the epic feeling of the Rings films, and it really feels like the kind of "event movie" that they hardly make anymore. Jackson is mostly successful in making Kong seem human and emotional, and his cast is uniformly excellent, particularly Jack Black, who sinks his teeth into his first largely dramatic role and comes out on top in the end. It's a rollicking, wonderful ride.

Syriana
(5 stars out of five)
Hands down one of the best films of the year. Immensely entertaining and amazingly complex, I think Roger Ebert described the film best when he said: "The movie's plot is so complex we're not really supposed to follow it, we're supposed to be surrounded by it." That's the perfect way of explaining the feeling one gets while watching the film. Even though the audience is almost guaranteed to be confused at least a few times while watching the movie, never once is it a frustrating confusion. The movie - which follows the complexities of the oil business and the countries involved in it - surrounds the audience in a warm, enveloping atmosphere of plot and character, and presents it in such an interesting way, that we grab onto the things we understand, leave behind for the moment the things we don't and put faith in the filmmakers that everything will add up in the end. It's a testament to writer/director Stephen Gaghan (writer of Traffic) that, not only do we understand any of it at all, but we're fascinated by it, and even more importantly, that we're emotionally involved with the characters. An incredible motion picture. I would even go so far as to call it a masterpiece.

Bee Season
(3 stars out of five)
Starts out well enough, but soon devolves into a disappointing mess. Subplots go nowhere, and the most interesting parts of the film aren't explored enough. The individual family storylines (the daughter's spelling bee competitions; the son's spiritual exploration) are handled well enough, but directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee (the wonderful The Deep End) can't quite find a way to merge them together without it becoming phony, or - at its worst - silly. The ending is quite fitting and beautiful, however.

Walk The Line
(5 stars out of five)
Fun, entertaining, and powerful. It follows the conventions that most biopics have, but breaks free of some of them with some smart writing and clever scene construction. Joaquin Phoenix is Johnny Cash. His transformation into the legendary singer is unbelievable. James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted) directs the film in a surprisingly subtle way, letting the actors and the story do the work, and the result is a film that feels as if it doesn't quite know the magnitude of the person it is chronicling... but in a good way.

Shopgirl
(3 stars out of five)
Having not read Steve Martin's original novella, of which this film is based, and from reading other reviews, which observe that the movie is apparently a very faithful adaptation of the book, I must say that the main problem with the film lies in the flaws of the book itself. The movie is made competently enough: Claire Danes is wonderful, Steve Martin is quite good, and Jason Schwartzman is perfectly cast, and there are some wonderful lines and dialogue sequences. The problem with the film is a structural one. The main plot of the film consists of Danes' character choosing between Martin's character and Schwartzman's. The problem is, after a few early scenes with Schwartzman, we rarely see him again for the rest of the film. When she finally makes her choice at the end, we know she's happy, but how are we, as an audience, supposed to make up our minds when we don't have enough character substance to make a choice? We can take for granted that she makes the right choice in the end, but to be denied the opportunity to decide for ourselves and compare her choice with ours, takes away much of the power that the film could have had.

Proof
(4 ½ stars out of five)
A really wonderful little film from John Madden (Shakespeare In Love). A small, subtle character study that takes its time with its characters and treats the audience like adults. Jake Gyllenhaal and Gwyneth Paltrow are well-cast and the movie is beautifully shot.

Rent
(4 ½ stars out of five)
One of the best stage-to-screen adaptations in recent memory. It could have failed miserably: With Chris Columbus (Home Alone) as director, and a huge legacy to live up to, it was almost destined to go down in flames. But, fortunately, we have this film. The movie feels big and lively and important (as it should), with dozens of camera moves and sweeping crane shots. It really opens up the film from its stage production. The most welcome success of the film, coming from someone who's usually not a fan of musicals? Things don't feel forced, which I feel is the problem with most movie musicals. Everything just feels... right. That's the best way I can explain it. How does a movie musical work? If they open their mouths and sing, and it feels like they're supposed to.

Paradise Now
(4 stars out of five)
A brave film that gives a face to the problems in Palestine, as we follow two friends about to become suicide bombers in Tel Aviv. A solid, well-crafted film and the front-runner for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Jarhead
(4 stars out of five)
--The big question that people usually ask themselves when they’re about to view a war film is a logical one: Which side will they (the filmmakers) be on? Early on in this film, a soldier says “Fuck politics. We’re here. That’s all that matters”. There’s the answer to your question. Sam Mendes’ (American Beauty) new film Jarhead does not take an outright stance on politics, Iraq, or war in general. In most cases, that would seem to be a strange, and – especially in these times – irresponsible move. However, it quickly becomes apparent that the film is much like Full Metal Jacket: it is a scathing attack on the American military.
From the first scene of the film, we are instantly aware of the film’s stance. The main character (exquisitely played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is getting punched in the face by his drill instructor, and we hear his voice-over narration on the soundtrack: “It was about this time that I realized that joining the Marines was a mistake”. In this film, we have a rare thing in American movies: a soldier that regrets his choice to enlist. His story continues as he’s trained physically and mentally (i.e., brainwashed) into being a “killing machine” along with his fellow soldiers. There’s only one problem: they’re shipped to the desert, but the war hasn’t started yet. They proceed to go insane as their urge to kill goes unquenched in the uninhabited desert. It’s quite an original story to see on film: a war film with almost no violence. In fact, the only person that dies onscreen in the entire film is a Marine that dies during boot camp in a training exercise where live rounds are fired.
Sam Mendes continues to be a director with a superb sense of pacing, and his skill goes a long way in making this film successful. In making a film about boredom, it’s exceptionally hard to keep it fresh and entertaining. While he doesn’t always succeed, Mendes keeps things moving with a wonderful selection of songs on the soundtrack, and Thomas Newman’s surprisingly upbeat score.
Unfortunately, the film suffers from an overwhelming feeling of detachment. We never really connect with any of the characters, and whether it was intentional or not, it keeps the film from being as involving as it could be. Regardless of the shortcomings, it’s still a remarkably accomplished and timely piece.

Capote
(5 stars out of five)
--An outstanding film. The accolades go out to everyone: Philip Seymour Hoffman is almost unrecognizable in the title role, and he's aided by wonderful supporting performances from Katherine Keener, Chris Cooper, and especially Clifton Collins Jr. The real surprise here is that the movie has not only a first-time director (Bennett Miller) but also a first-time writer (Dan Futterman), and it succeeds as if it were a film made by veterans! The real triumph of the film is in the construction of the story, in relation to the characters. You don't feel as if you're being forced into feeling certain emotions, and at the end of the film, it's up to you to decide just how much you like Truman Capote as a person, if at all. A stellar picture, every step of the way.

The Weather Man
(3 stars out of five)
--Wow, this movie really wants to be the new American Beauty... It tries to mix humor and despair in equal parts, with limited success. In American Beauty, the humor seemed to evolve naturally from the drama around it. Here, it just seems manufactured and forced. The movie is at its best when it grabs hold of a melancholy tone and sticks with it; there's an extended sequence near the end of the movie, in which director Gore Verbinski (the director of The Ring and Pirates of the Caribbean, here in his first "serious" film) does just that, and the attention to detail in the sequence is almost startling. It's a shame that the rest of the film that surrounds this sequence is so poor.

North Country
(4 stars out of five)
-- (review deleted accidentally)

Good Night, and Good Luck.
(4 ½ stars out of five)
--Who would have ever thought, years ago, that we'd be sitting here, talking about a great film directed by George Clooney, of all people? But that's just the case. Clooney, in his second feature, has crafted a picture that has a wonderful sense of tone and pacing - the best I've seen in years. The film - shot by Paul Thomas Anderson's cameraman, Robert Elswit - has a wonderful sense of movement and rhythm, further enhanced by the editing of Stephen Mirrione (the Oscar-winning editor of Traffic). It should also be mentioned that for a film with such serious subject matter, the movie is actually quite humorous and even light in many moments. The screenplay, written by Clooney and Grant Heslov, is full of great lines and memorable scenes. David Strathairn is truly amazing in the lead role, and if the buzz is proven right and he's nominated, it will be well deserved. One of the best movies of the year.

A History of Violence
(4 ½ stars out of five)
--One of the best films of the year. Director David Cronenberg takes the tired genre of "psychological thriller" and turns it on its ear, creating a nicely textured, subtle drama with moments of shocking violence. Now, I must tell you, I'm not a person that usually "jumps" at a sudden shock or scare in a movie. Well, this movie caused me to do so. Twice. Cronenberg draws out his silences so long that when the violent act does occur, it comes literally out of nowhere. The violence in the film is treated almost like an ugly poetry, with very little cutting during the scenes of brutality, showing the killing in all its maliciousnesss. Cronenberg also uses a nice technique of placing the sound over the action a split second before you see it onscreen, keeping you one step behind of everything that's happening. A definite Best Director contender here: from the moment the movie starts, you truly feel as if you are in the hands of a powerful storyteller. No matter how great everything else in the movie is - and there are great things, to be sure - this movie is Cronenberg's, and you can sense it every step of the way. Finally, the fall movie season has begun...

4 Reviews

Elizabethtown
(2 stars out of five)
-- Oh, Cameron Crowe..... Cameron, Cameron, Cameron... What have you done?!
A complete mess in every sense of the word, Elizabethtown is a film in search of a purpose. While nice little moments do exist, there's nothing within the story to hold them together. Characters come into and out of the story with no real development, and no real reason for them being there. A fine cast is wasted, given hardly anything to do in their supporting roles. The movie also has a problem with sudden, dramatic changes in tone. The beginning of the film sets a nice, melancholy, darkly-comic feel to the picture, and then ruins it when Crowe decides he wants the movie to be an out-and-out comedy. The end of the film, however, I must say, is wonderful. The ending is so terrific, that it almost feels as if Crowe came up with it first, and then created everything else around it. It's a pity the ending (which involves the main character on a sort of "musical road trip" - different songs accompany him on his cross-country journey home) couldn't have been in a better film. Kirsten Dunst is quite good in her role, and Orlando Bloom is serviceable (although the limits of his acting ability are seen several times), but the two simply don't have any chemistry together, unfortunately. And finally, the thing we always look forward to in a Cameron Crowe film: the writing. Here he writes a couple great lines, but most of the film just feels false and forced. Granted, lots of the problem comes from Crowe's script, which flails around all over the place, but some of it also comes from Bloom. He just can't sell some of the lines he's given. Some of the classic Crowe lines ("I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen"..."You complete me") wouldn't have had a chance in hell of working if there weren't great actors saying them. It's a frustrating film. There are great little moments, and then Crowe feels the need to go bigger and broader with his humor. Huge disappointment.


Everything Is Illuminated
(2 ½ stars out of five)
--Actor Liev Schreiber (the Scream series) tries his hand at directing. Unfortunately, his characters are too vague to make a connection with the audience. It's beautifully shot, and Schreiber has a director's eye for detail, but the film starts off with an insanely goofy, almost cartoonish tone, and Schreiber asks us about a quarter of the way through the picture to make a sudden tone change to the dramatic. We don't care enough about any of the characters to feel the emotions he wants us to feel, and it doesn't help that a character that we hardly know narrates the film. Schreiber still shows lots of promise, however: the acting is very good, and the camerawork feels fresh and exciting.


Thumbsucker
(3 stars out of five)
--Another one of those films that doesn't develop its supporting characters enough. Lou Taylor Pucci gives an amazing performance as the title character, a 17-year-old who still has a problem with...yeah, you guessed it. The film follows him as he is diagnosed with ADHD, given medication to combat the disorder, and his eventual triumph and downfall because of it. The emotional center to all of this, however, is his relationshipp with his parents. The mother, the more important figure in his life, is more fleshed out...the father remains something of an enigma. First-time director Mike Mills has no problem with throwing in several visually intensive dream sequences, but he doesn't usually have his characters talking about much of anything involving themselves. But the camerawork is great (beautifully filmed in wide 2.35:1), the acting universally spot-on, and Pucci's performance is worth the price of admission alone. An average film with flourishes of greatness sprinkled in.


Oliver Twist
(4 ½ stars out of five)
--Roman Polanski's 2005 version of the classic tale is a wonderful film. Before seeing this, I had never before read the story of Oliver Twist, nor had I seen any of the other film versions. I have since seen the classic David Lean film, and I must say that this movie rivals it, without a doubt. The film is just over two hours long, but it feels like an epic tale, although, for some reason, the film itself doesn't feel overlong at all. Polanski takes time with his characters, and immerses the audience in the strange world in which the story takes place. A great film. It accomplishes something which I've always felt is an extremely hard thing to pull off: it makes you feel as if you've actually gone on a journey with the character, as opposed to just watching them make that journey.

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan
(5 stars out of five)
--An incredible examination of the legendary singer. Martin Scorsese crafts an exhilarating 3 ½ hour film from hours of never-before-seen footage and interviews, and succeeds in doing the seemingly impossible: to present the sometimes-reclusive Dylan as honestly and truthfully as possible, while also placing the man, and his impact upon the world, within the context of his era. The film ends abruptly, but Scorsese was only given license (and the footage) to tell the story up until 1966, so hopefully someday we will get another film that chronicles more of his life.

Corpse Bride
(3 ½ stars out of five)
--I'll readily admit that these sort of films are not usually my cup of tea (animated films with musical numbers), but this is one of the better of the bunch. Of course everyone remembers The Nightmare Before Christmas, the other Tim Burton stop-motion animated feature, but the thing that separates this film from that one is the sheer beauty of the animation. It is, without a doubt, a magnificent looking film - the best stop-motion animation ever done. Burton has created a beautiful Gothic world here, and the story is actually quite poetic, recalling the touching, almost mythic quality of Edward Scissorhands. In my opinion, however, the film is held back by the goofy musical numbers that really feel out of place with the rest of the picture. You have Burton's darkly funny sense of humor (eyeballs hanging out of sockets, limbs falling off, talking maggots) contrasted against the overly-cute, Disney-like musical numbers. It's something that didn't work for The Nightmare Before Christmas, and it certainly doesn't work here. I understand why they're there, of course; this is animation, and so it has to be marketed as a kid's movie. I would have much preferred that Burton return to the days when being dark and twisted meant pushing the limits.

November
(4 stars out of five)
--I still don't quite understand what was going on in this movie, but that's a feeling that I really don't mind having, and in the case of this movie, it's a completely satisfying one. It only lasts 73 minutes, but it feels longer, because it moves in a steady, unhurried pace. It feels just long enough, and it's a rare case in which I feel that an extremely short running time was justified.
The movie is confusing as hell, but it's also bold in how confusing it actually allows itself to be. The audience is literally lost as to what's going on until the last few minutes, and even then it's unclear as to what is actually going on - in a literal sense, at least. Philosophically, we are given many clues, and we are actually left with several different possibilities for us to consider at the end. I'm being purposely vague here; if I described anything beyond the basic opening plot, it would give away everything. To tell you the truth, I don't really know if I even could explain it to you... Needless to say, it's deftly executed, well acted, and is sure to leave you with a hell of a brain teaser long after you've seen it.

Saraband
(5 stars out of five)
--An enormously affecting film. The fact that this is also Ingmar Bergman's final film makes it all the more emotional. Bergman, now 87 years old, flirted with the idea of retirement back in 1982, when, with the release of Fanny and Alexander, he declared it would be his last film. Now, over two decades later, Bergman has finally given us his last film. It is a startling achievement. Bergman examines - as he has in his past films - life, death, and love. But Bergman's last opus focuses on something that hasn't always been examined in his films: himself. This is a film about the ties between parents and children, the process of aging, and the terrible feeling of long lost love. Bergman dedicates the film to his wife, who died years ago: The film opens with a simple "To Ingrid", and the title card. Simplicity is something that's always been a part of Bergman's work, a sort of deceptive simplicity. I kept thinking, as I watched the film, as I watched this great filmmaker's final film... what would be the last shot? What would be the last image he would choose...the last shot that he would ever commit to film? It seems fitting that the last image Bergman would choose to film would be of a face, in close-up, looking into the camera. It is that almost oblique thing, the human face, that Bergman has devoted his life to studying, in close-up, in his attempt to go beyond it into something more beautiful, complex, and truthful than mere words could ever express. He is the world's greatest living director, and this is a beautiful swan song...

Lord of War
(4 stars out of five)
--Right from the opening sequence of this film (an inspired montage, following a single bullet as it is created, packaged, sold, and finally, shot into the head of a young man -- all set to Buffalo Springfield's classic anti-war song "For What It's Worth"), you know it means business. It does not shy away from its opinions and messages. I assure you: don't be scared away by the awful trailers for the film... the marketing people obviously had no idea how to market this movie, and as a last-ditch effort, made it appear to be an action film. It couldn't be more the opposite. It leaves hardly anyone unscathed in its open disgust of war and violence: entire countries are taken to task, and a nicely-written text at the end of the film informs the viewer that the biggest weapons dealers in the world are also the permanent members of the UN... the film is saying, in so many words, that the U.S. and other countries are no different than the despicable arms dealer that Nicolas Cage plays in the film. The movie's message is quite dark, but true: things go round and round, people will die, the soldiers will get younger, and as long as money is involved, nothing will change. It's quite unsettling, but the film has a sense of humor that keeps things going. Andrew Niccol (writer of The Truman Show) writes and directs the film with wit and intelligence, and the cast is first-rate. It's one of those films where the message of the picture - and how clearly and effectively the filmmakers get that message across - is almost more important than the film itself. We don't always get the feeling that the movie has a firm hold on its story, but the message of the film comes across as clear as day... with startling effect.

Junebug
(4 stars out of five)
--For the first hour of this film, we are watching one of the best films of the year. Clear, memorable characterizations, great dialogue, sure-footed direction... we feel like we are in the hands of great storytellers. Then, about 3/4 of the way through, the film loses its momentum, and stops almost completely in its tracks. It feels like a totally different movie. It's a big misstep, but what came before it is so good, it can almost be forgiven. The actors are uniformly great, but Amy Adams particularly stands out in her wide-eyed, energetic performance which practically steals the show. In fact, the biggest reason why the last fourth of the film suffers is because she's offscreen. It may not be apparent at first, but a big reason for Junebug's success is Adams.
Overall, a promising first feature for director Phil Morrison. Winner of a Special Jury Prize for Acting (Amy Adams) at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

Mysterious Skin
(3 stars out of five)
--A frustratingly inconsistent film. Starts out beautifully, but something doesn't feel quite right, and it's apparent early on that director Gregg Araki (The Doom Generation), in his first "serious" film, doesn't have the emotional maturity as a director to pull it off. The best thing about the picture is the acting: Joseph Gordon-Levitt tackles the material head-on, completely becoming his character in every word and mannerism. Just as good is newcomer Brady Corbet, who plays the second lead character. These actors have great moments to shine in the film, but ultimately the movie just feels muddled and unsure of itself. It hits home the graphic points with great power, but Araki isn't quite sure yet how to handle the more fragile, quietly emotional sequences. They feel hamfisted, and, at their worst, cartoony. I thought it was a long shot, but I was hopeful that Araki might be able to turn himself around with the great material he was given. Oh well... It's still a must-see, just for Gordon-Levitt's performance.

Grizzly Man
(4 ½ stars out of five)
--A constantly entertaining and intriguing film. Filmmaker Werner Herzog uses found footage to tell the story of Timothy Treadwell, a man who lived among the bears in Alaska for many years, only to be killed by one of them in 2003. What's amazing about the film is how many beautifully sad moments Treadwell was able to capture over the years: a bumble bee, dead on a flower, somehow died as it was doing its work; a baby bear, killed and eaten by his mother, because a summer drought has stopped the salmon run... Through all of this, Treadwell is openly and honestly emotional at what he is seeing: mourning the death of a young fox killed by wolves, or calling upon whatever God may be up there to make a heavy rain so the bears will stop eating their young. It's also amazing to see Treadwell at work: he's making a film, and so he does multiple takes of some scenes, and we see the contrast between who he is in his film and who he is in reality. Although some of Herzog's interview scenes seem suspiciously staged and scripted, the Treadwell footage is what makes this film what it is, and he is able to make us understand, even in some small way, why this man would live the way he did. Winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

Song of the moment:
Against Me - "Sink, Florida, Sink" (MP3, 3 MB)

The Exorcism of Emily Rose
(1 star out of five)
--Terrible, terrible movie... A film that tries to mix two wildly different genres (courtroom drama, horror film) and ends up with painfully unsuccessful results. The people who came to the film expecting horror will instead find themselves watching a human drama, and the people who came to see this drama will find its impact shattered by way too many unnecessary "scare" scenes. Fine actors like Tom Wilkinson and Laura Linney should know better.

Song of the moment:
Against Me - "Cavalier Eternal" (MP3, 3 MB)

(Big thanks go to Mike for introducing me to this band...)

The Constant Gardener
(4 stars out of five)
--A strange bird, this one is... Of its 130 minute runtime, the first hour or so is almost completely just a setup for the last hour. Strangely, even though this first hour lags at times, becoming repetitive and even bordering on boring, the movie still manages to create a startling impact in the last half. Patient audiences may end up being very happy they stuck with it. The violent aspects of the story are not shied away from, and this can almost definitely be attributed to the brutal force of Fernando Meirelles' (City of God) direction. One of those films you admire more than enjoy.

Murderball
(5 stars out of five)
--There's an old quote from the director Luis Bunuel, in which he says that "The thing that would make me angriest about dying, would be that I would be unable to read tomorrow's newspaper." That's the kind of sentiment that runs throughout this amazing, amazing film. If a man is able to communicate, create, and live his life, then why on earth would he not want to read tomorrow's newspaper?
This is an incredible motion picture. Everything seems to click, everything adds up, and we are treated to one of the best examinations of people overcoming physical and emotional challenges that I've ever seen. My original review of this was just accidentally erased, but I guess this is the sort of film that deserves a shorter review anyway. This is a movie that needs to be discovered and experienced. Highly, highly recommended.
Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Sundance Film Festival.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin
(4 stars out of five)
--I've waited a long, long time... and finally, it's happened: Judd Apatow has made his feature-film directing debut. Apatow's television directing goes back to The Larry Sanders Show, and he was one of the main creative forces behind Freaks and Geeks (along with, of course, the show's creator, Paul Feig). The result? Exactly the kind of movie I was hoping Apatow would turn out.
For all its vulgarity and raunchiness, the movie is actually very bold in its message that it gives in the end: At first, the main character's virginity is the butt of the joke, but eventually, the fact that he's a virgin makes him the best person of the bunch, so to speak. Because he hasn't had his emotional outlook clouded by sex, he's able to see much more clearly when Ms. Right does come along. This is a movie that starts out being just what you think it is, and then sneaks in some amazingly insightful things about the overemphasis of sex in relationships and about the lack of emotion in today's intimacy. Oh, but don't worry - it's still pretty damn funny. There's hardly a minute that goes by in which you're not chuckling at something. An exceptional group of actors - perfectly cast, by the way (including Freaks and Geeks' Seth Rogen(!) and Oscar-nominee Catherine Keener) - also helps quite a bit. Sure, some jokes fall flat, but not to the extent of Wedding Crashers.
People might notice that I've given this movie the same rating as Wedding Crashers... So which one is better? Well, they really are (despite what you might read) two quite different movies. I definitely laughed harder during Wedding Crashers, but the actual better movie of the two is this one. The other film relies on the stars' chemistry and a breakneck pace to propel the movie through its rough spots, and most of the laughs come from that aforementioned chemistry and some of the wacky situations that take place. In this one, most of the laughs come from the dialogue, rather than the situations the characters are in. The best way to explain it is, while both movies are quite funny, Wedding Crashers goes the route of piling on joke after joke, throwing them relentlessly at the audience, hoping that most of them will connect... which they fortunately do. The 40-Year-Old Virgin takes its time with its jokes, weaves them more cohesively into the storyline, and is overall a highly fine-tuned film, with every little beat and pause worked out to be just long enough. I encourage everyone to read this article, which is a great little examination of the test-screening process that the film went through. While I'm not usually a huge fun of this, it's obvious that Apatow's close examination of the movie, and the subsequent fine-tuning of the film using that information, really paid off.
A fine feature debut by Apatow. Hopefully we see much, much more from him. (Oh, and just one more thing: Freaks and Geeks fans should keep their eyes open for several cameos from regulars on that show).


Red-Eye
(3 stars out of five)
-- Wes Craven's best film since the original Scream has movie clichés galore, an overlong feeling despite being only 85 minutes, and characters that are paper-thin, but still manages to create a considerable amount of suspense. The opening 10 minutes or so feel awkwardly pedestrian, as if Craven was out to lunch during the shooting of it. Everything feels nice and tense, though, once the plot thickens. Craven usually fares best with big set pieces, but here he proves he can do just as well with mining suspense out of dialogue and chemistry (the biggest jump in the movie occurs during one of these scenes, and it's brilliant). He does get the chance to do a couple of the aforementioned setpieces, however, and he does his usual stellar job with them. It sort of rambles in the beginning, and the ending is nothing new, but this film succeeds in what it tries to do - nothing more, nothing less.

Broken Flowers
(5 stars out of five)
--A pitch-perfect examination of loneliness, which also happens to be really funny and really touching all at once. Bill Murray gives a great, quiet performance...possibly his best yet. Jim Jarmusch's direction creates a slow and rhythmic pace that quickly becomes almost hypnotic. You really feel as though you've taken a journey with this character by the end, and that's a rare thing for a film. Winner of the Grand Prix (second place) at the Cannes Film Festival.

Reviews

6 new reviews, with star ratings and "summary"-like reviews

Four Brothers
(3 ½ stars out of five)
--Solid action picture. Arguably Singleton's best film since Boyz N The Hood (which isn't really saying much - Shaft and 2 Fast 2 Furious come to mind). There's some genuine suspense to be had here, and the action scenes actually feel fresh and exhilarating.


Wedding Crashers
(4 stars out of five)
--Funny As Hell: Lively direction, a genuinely funny script, Vaughn and Wilson in top form, and (thankfully) jokes that hit more than they miss. The opening sequence (at least 15 minutes long, set to the song "Shout" and taking place at dozens of wedding receptions) is especially well crafted and features exceptional editing. Raw and risqué, but it has its heart in the right place. It's a good half hour too long, and more jokes fall flat than they should, but it coasts along on its cast and the chemistry between the two stars. One great choice was to have Rolfe Kent (Sideways) compose the music. The funniest film of the year, and one of the funniest of the last few years.


Batman Begins
(4 stars out of five)
--Director Christopher Nolan (Memento) brings a fresh spin to the long-dormant Batman series. For the first time, we actually begin to discover who the title character actually is. The picture is helped immensely by the superb supporting cast (Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman). The first three-quarters or so of the film is great, as it deals with Bruce Wayne becoming you-know-who. Ironically, as soon as he's actually suited up and fighting the enemy, the film goes downhill and becomes the same old story.


50 First Dates
(3 stars out of five)
--Not the typical Adam Sandler movie. He's (thankfully) still in Punch-Drunk Love mode for this, and his character comes off as extremely likeable because of it. It's a strange picture: too low-brow for the very people who may actually get some enjoyment from it, and, for the other audience, definitely not a laugh-out loud Adam Sandler picture. As it is, it's a semi-dramatic film with distracting instances of low-brow humor that feel out of place.


Hustle & Flow
(1 ½ stars out of five)
--Something I thought I would really enjoy... Starts out well enough, but soon becomes cliché-ridden and utterly uninspired. The cop-out of an ending doesn't help, either.


Me and You and Everyone We Know
(2 stars out of five)
--Another disappointment... The trailer looks amazing, especially the first half of it. The film has won a slew of festival awards, including a special award for "Originality of Vision" at the Sundance Film Festival. The film sure is original... there's nothing quite like it out there. And it contains one of the funniest scenes you'll probably ever see involving a child and a computer. But it feels much too often like the film is just being weird to be weird, for the hell of it. It also doesn't help that writer/director/actor Miranda July isn't that great of an actress. But for some reason I keep thinking of it, weeks after I've seen it... I'm almost tempted to give it three stars, but I guess I'll see how it goes after a second viewing.

Jim --
Here's an article I thought you'd be interested in... it's about Jim Jarmusch (with some Tom Waits comments thrown in here and there)....

"The Last of the Indies"

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