(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.
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