|
DARKNESS
ON THE EDGE OF TOWN |
 Year-end film lists for 2007 from our regular contributors: Chris Knipp Shari L. Rosenblum Howard Schumann Chris Dashiell and other friends |
CineScene's Top Ten 1. Zodiac
(David Fincher). |
And thanks to everyone who participated! -- The Editor. |
Chris
Knipp
I’ve indicated where DVDs are already available and also where the original releases were earlier; all others were 2007. Some additional titles and categories are listed on my website. Early 2008 has brought the tragic loss of Heath Ledger—an event
that has made even Daniel Day-Lewis weep. The young Ledger was only just
beginning to become clearly an important actor. His unforgettable and
deeply moving performance in Brokeback
Mountain will be his lasting monument. |
BEST U.S. BEST FOREIGN |
|
Shari L. Rosenblum Top Ten Films of 2007 Knocked Up and Superbad have their place (though it isn’t on my shelf), and I’ll always have a soft spot for the moving on/all’s well that ends well optimism of such as Catch and Release and P.S. I Love You (even if it takes me no further than booking the next flight to Ireland or the Pacific Coast), but the films that top my list this year seem to speak with a certain maturity, and brim with an honest intelligence that never condescends. They moved me, they scared me, they made me think. 1. The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck).  The
build up is slow; but the film surprises. The acting is sublime, the writing
provocative, the direction dead on. The year is 1984, and from the lost
and unlamented Deutsche Demokratische Republik, the heartland of Kennedy’s
betrayed Berliners and the prison guards within their Wall—the Stasi,
or East German secret police—an Orwellian dystopia unfolds upon the
screen. Paranoia takes center stage from the opening reel, in which a non-descript
little man—movements static, balding pate closely cropped, and expression
dour— stands at the base of a stark lecture hall beside an antiquated
reel-to-reel tape recorder and demonstrates for his students from the flickering
images the art of interrogation. Airiness on the suspect’s part is
taken for arrogance, a lack of awkwardness an antagonism to the state, and
lightly tousled hair a sign of certain sedition. Power is exercised in surveillance
and tested in performance. The symbiosis of audience and actor is mined
for all that it can bear. Dramas of fact and fiction overlay one another—romance,
jealousy, betrayal, collusion—and the interplay of the theatrical
and political stuns in its starkness. The film is quietly observant, incisive,
and insistent. The rewards are unforeseen and unforgettable.
2. Zodiac
(David Fincher). 3.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian
Schnabel). 4. The Savages
(Tamara Jenkins). 5. The
Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
(Andrew Dominik). 6. The
Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona). 7. Dan
in Real Life (Peter
Hedges) / Lars
and the Real Girl (Craig Gillespie). 8. Paris
je t’aime 9. Into the Wild
(Sean Penn). 10. 4 Months, 3 Weeks
and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu).
Almosts: |
| Howard Schumann 20 Favorites of 2007 |
1. Rocket
Science (Jeffrey Blitz).  Rocket Science, the second feature by Jeffrey Blitz (Spellbound), who overcame his own stuttering disability, is a teen comedy about a 15-year old stutterer that poignantly captures the painful loneliness of adolescence. While Rocket Science sounds like other coming of age films, it offers a unique and very special look at the pitfalls of growing up without having to rely on grossness, stereotypes, or implausible situations. Brilliantly played by Vancouver actor Reece Thompson, Hal’s sweetness and innocence as a would-be debater is totally captivating and we identify with his pain and root for him to succeed. While there are some predictably oddball characters, Rocket Science is wise, honest, funny, touching, and painfully sad, and loaded with Oscar-caliber performances. |
2. Into
the Wild (Sean Penn). Based
on Jon Krakauer’s book about the life of Chris McCandless, Into
the Wild is a celebration of youth with its idealism, desire for
adventure, and also its arrogance and short-sightedness. Director Sean
Penn, who seems deeply connected to his subject, consulted with Chris’
parents after waiting ten years for their approval to undertake the project.
The result is a sweet, thoughtful, and deeply moving film about a young
man who traveled to Alaska to seek a life unfettered by commercialism
and greed. It is not a message film but a voyage of discovery, a search
for authenticity in a world that has forgotten what truth looks and feels
like. |
| 3. The
Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von
Donnersmarck).
4. No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen).
5. Across the Universe (Julie Taymor).
6. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel).
|
| 7. Control
(Anton Corbijn).
|
8. Sicko
(Michael Moore). In his latest documentary, Sicko, controversial director Michael Moore is up to his old tricks: use of rapier comic thrusts to make a point, anecdotal support rather than statistical, feigned innocence, and good old fashioned showmanship to point out the deficiencies of the American health care system. The main premise of Sicko, however, is dead-on accurate – the system and the profit mentality it reflects are flawed, tragically flawed, and in need, not only of stop-gap repairs but of major overhaul. Moore’s films are not always balanced but they are passionate muckraking for worthwhile causes, in this case a simple one – a society based on compassion.  |
9.
This
is England
(Shane Meadows). 10. 4
Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
(Cristian Mungiu). 11. Linda Linda Linda (Nobuhiro Yamashita).
12. The First Saturday in May (John and Brad Hennegan).
|
13. In
Search of Mozart (Phil Grabsky). Phil
Grabsky’s In Search of Mozart traces Mozart’s life
from his childhood in Salzburg to his death in Vienna in 1791 at the age
of thirty-five from rheumatic fever and kidney failure. The film has gorgeous
color, valuable commentary, visits to ten European capitals, and Mozart’s
glorious and inspired music. Narrated by British actress Juliet Stevenson,
the film includes interviews with musicologists and artists, the revelation
of Mozart’s personal letters, and performances of eighty of his works,
played with rare passion by some of the world’s greatest orchestras
and singers. The first major feature-length documentary on Mozart’s
life, it is a stunning celebration filled with the unyielding mystery of
genius. Picking up the pieces from the wreck left by Amadeus, In
Search of Mozart does justice to the man and his music. |
14. Molière
(Laurent Tirard). When
the facts are not readily available, Moliére uses guesswork,
imagination, and creativity to fill in the blanks of the French playwright’s
life. Director Laurent Tirard allows us to imagine characters and situations
that might have led to such great works as Tartuffe, Le Bourgeois
Gentlhomme and 28 other plays which roast the upper classes as affected
hypocrites and worse. With the title role soulfully and convincingly performed
by Romain Duris, Moliére may not fully capture the true
essence of the French author, but it does suggest a writer of depth, wit,
and inspiration. The film is speculation, not biography, but it is art and
the payoff is a romantic and richly entertaining tribute to one of the greatest
playwrights in history. |
| Most disappointing films of 2007:
Bridge to Terabithia |
15. No End in Sight (Charles
Ferguson). 16. God Grew Tired of Us (Christopher Dillon Quinn and Tommy Walker) 17. Red Road (Andrea Arnold). 18. Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao-Hsien). 19. Zodiac (David Fincher). 20. Amazing Grace (Michael Apted). |
Alex Ellerman What I Thought About What I Saw 2007 Since I rarely see movies in the theater, I haven't had a chance to catch up on the year-end Oscar bait. That said, here are my top ten for 2007. |
1. Ratatouille
(Brad Bird).  In a year as good for movies as any I can remember, Ratatouille shines as a lovely, multilayered story, a compelling argument for criticism, and a remarkable technical achievement. I thought this film was doomed from the first promo reel – who cares about a rat that cooks? Boy, was I wrong. Ratatouille does everything right, and it's a film with genuine, earnest appeal for every member of its audience. In short, it's a masterpiece. 2. Superbad
(Greg Mottola). |
3. 1408
(Mikael Håfström). In a genre filled with slashers who are no more terrifying than anything else we might read about on the front page of the Washington Post, what a pleasure to find a well-executed ghost story. Not only did 1408 genuinely scare me, but it delivered delicious residual scares on my next hotel stay. I went into this movie with zero expectations. What a pleasant surprise. 4. Black Book
(Paul Verhoeven). |
5. Surf's
Up (Ash Brannon and Chris Buck). 6. Zodiac
(David Fincher). 7. Seraphim Falls
(David Von Ancken). 8. Black Snake Moan
(Craig Brewer). 9. 300
(Zack Snyder). |
|
Random others:
Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (Sidney
Lumet). |
I
don’t want to take up too much space repeating my opinions about
the films on my list, which can be found elsewhere. I just hope people
will trust me, as one who sees many, that they’re worth watching
and deciding about for yourselves. Here are just a few thoughts.
This was a
year for powerful movies about extremes and extremists. Zodiac
is the police procedural carried to the extreme of endless obsession.
Into the Wild, by far Sean Penn’s best
work to date, is about idealism and adventure pushed to tragic excess;
Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There is a
wildly experimental depiction of the extremes of Bob Dylan’s personality.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly depicts an
extreme experience and is a tribute to the enormous courage of a paralyzed
man—and also to the daring of the Brooklyn-born, Texas-raised painter
Julian Schnabel, ready to make a movie all in French. If genius is 99%
perspiration, directing is often 99% chutzpah. I think those six films
are going to be remembered; and they’re all from American directors,
so that’s pretty good. (The rest are also fine, but fall under various
and different headings.) 
Likewise to be long
remembered, it’s my bet, are some of the foreign ones. Once,
from Ireland, is a simple, minimal, and perfect little film. Philippe
Garrel’s Regular Lovers is a sublime long
mournful poem about 1968 in Paris and its aftermath. Pascale Ferran’s
Lady Chatterley is bold, beautiful, and strange.
Dumont’s Flanders is harsh and yet sweet.
Marion Cotillard’s over-the-top Edith Piaf impersonation in La
Vie en Rose is the performance of a lifetime. I don’t
know if all the others I have listed will be long remembered but they
are wonderfully made, and moved me. 
There
continue to be more and more important new documentaries. We surely remember,
from last year, An Inconvenient Truth, which helped get Al Gore
a Nobel Prize. Personal favorites from this year are Nanking,
Billy the Kid, and Kurt Cobain
About a Son. Many more seem obligatory, if sometimes rough
viewing. 
Exacting
and exhilarating, David Fincher’s second stab at the serial killer
genre subverts the bloodlust with forensic fascination and arrives at
something twice as chilling—morally and viscerally. From the film’s
earliest movements, where the camera aligns the viewer with a murderer’s
letter en route to a newspaper desk, it teases the balance between the
intensive detail of the police procedural—where even minutiae can
prove substantial, and the fomenting anxiety of the information age—where
control is uncertain and enough is never enough. The acting—by Jake
Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey, Jr. and Mark Ruffalo—is superb, and the
director is in top form with a film that moves swiftly at well over 2
hours, shifting its focus from the hunted to the hunting ground and then
ultimately to the hunter obsessed with his game. A frenzy of meticulousness
that even in its most deliberate moments leaves you breathless. 
A
soft warmth and strong spirit imbue this film about a dashing, successful
43-year-old man at the top of his game felled by a massive stroke, paralyzed
from head to toe, and yet somehow undaunted. While the world heaved and
sighed around him, and time lost and choices made taunted from within,
he found a way to put things in perspective and to give them universal
heft. With just the flutter of an eyelid—the only movement left
to him, a sexy wit, a remarkable sense of humor, and a patient assistant
repeatedly reciting the alphabet in order of frequency, Jean-Dominique
Dauby (Jean-Do, as he was called) managed to translate his unfathomable
experience into heartbreaking words and exhilarating images.Julian Schnabel’s
film puts us in his head, adapting the man’s spirit as well as his
text and never giving us to gawk or to pity, and Mathieu Amalric’s
performance never hits a false note. Though underpinned with the ultimate
in human horror: to be fully conscious, aware, and emotionally raw but
unable to move or to speak, the film, like its protagonist, lifts itself
up with an almost ironically grounded will to soar. And take flight, it
does. 
Gutwrenching,
heartbreaking, terrifying, Tamara Jenkins’ tale of adult children
coming to terms with their father’s aging and mortality—with
the things we choose in life and the things in which we have no choice—is
laced with mordant wit and brutal insights, and it veritably bristles
with sensitivity. Philip Bosco, in the role of the father, retains a certain
dignity even in the least dignified acts of dementia. Though the humor
in the film is raw, it is all at the expense of his unprepared offspring.
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney have never been better than they
are here as the sparring but sympathetic siblings, competitive and complementary,
stunted in their emotional growth, but learning to lean on each other
and to move forward on their own. Their performances at once particular
and universal. The screenplay itself, for all its basest notions, is truly
literate, with allusions to Brecht and Shepard and alienation and the
referentiality of theater. The punch it packs hits at multiple levels,
and it leaves its marks.
The
western landscape is photographed with an almost mystical edge—the
vastness of the spaces, the uncertainties of the terrain, the fogs and
snows and enveloping darkness of the night. The piece itself is brooding
and contemplative, deconstructing the myth even as it makes it stronger,
taking heroism, but not greatness, out of the equation. Less concerned
with right and wrong and evil deeds, it stands as a cautionary tale of
fame and its misfortunes, of the risks of illustrious invulnerability,
and of the public’s mercurial attachments. Brad Pitt, shedding his
celebrity to play the celebrated gunslinger, gives him an air of weariness
the penny novels never dreamed of, but history almost demands, and Casey
Affleck’s infamous assassin embodies angst and envy and incomprehension
as natural and inevitable afflictions. Not a moment of the film feels
forced, despite the familiar faces in the cast, and not a moment feels
wasted, despite the deliberate pace. After nearly three hours, it still
left me wanting more. 
Atmospheric
and truly haunting, The Orphanage sneaks up on you, a ghost story
that breaks your heart and makes it jump in a single seating (there were
jolts in this that had me clutching my chest and trying to catch my breath)
. . . Intending it as a refuge for disabled children, like their own,
a couple purchases the abandoned building that once housed the orphanage
where the wife was raised. What it holds in store for them is something
more than that, and something more than we can usually expect from a filmic
house of horrors. It isn’t blood and gore, but imagination and regret
that cause the timbers to shiver in this . . . a child alone in a burlap
headwrap, a seaside cliff, a game of hide-and-seek. It is a dance between
the psychological and the supernatural that swirls us up in its rhythms
and lets us choose to believe what we need to believe in its unfolding.
I’m wavering still.
Perhaps
the one is a bit too formulaic, despite its surprises, and the other a
bit too quirky, despite its solid center, but there is something of a
true romanticism in both that tops the attempts at depth in so many of
this year’s more prestigious selections. Each is served through
a comic lens with equal portions of sense and sensibility, and entirely
sans syrup, and neither takes itself too seriously. 
From
Dan in Real Life, with its unlikely but ingenious pairing of
Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche, we get a grown-up love that’s
sweet and tender and imperfect and utterly disarming. From Lars and
the Real Girl, and the impeccable performance of Ryan Gosling, we
get a fairytale about learning how to love . . . and how to be loved.
From both we get an unerring faith in possibility and just getting over
ourselves. What could be more real than that?
A
woman faints beside a car with an angry driver, a tourist stares at a
couple across the subway tracks, a doctor treats an immigrant wounded
in the street, a husband and wife prepare for divorce, a student of French
takes in the sites . . . Paris je t’aime treats its single
theme with such variety that it literally shatters the cliché of
love in the City of Lights – into 18 independent vignettes. Eighteen
almost sketches (featuring Gena Rowlands, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Steve Buscemi,
Juliette Binoche, Bob Hoskins, Fanny Ardant, Nick Nolte, and Natalie Portman
in their turns) unfolding in five minutes or less, each belonging to a
writer, director, and cinematographer all its own, traverse the landscape
of the city, neighborhood by neighborhood, looking at love from all the
right places. Possibility and loss, fleeting hopes and enduring bonds,
mystery and self-discovery all find their footing here, making their way
across age and sex, disability and death, language, race, religion and
even species without ever getting treacly. Some critics have called it
a delicious tasting menu without a main course, but I thought it a true
feast (if you are lucky enough to have loved in Paris, one might paraphrase
from Hemingway), and it has stayed with me.
The
only film on the list that I fell in love with for something other, I
think, than what it wanted to show. I had no patience for the spoiled,
ungrateful, and apparently ignorant child/man at the story’s center,
whose voyage away from societal strictures and into the wilderness seemed
nothing more than adolescent petulance and disrespect for the people who
loved and provided for him. I saw no bravery in his bravado, and was not
saddened by his undoing. But I was profoundly moved by the people he met
along the way, and the film’s capture of the open arms and welcoming
hearts of strangers that the lucky traveler meets along the way. The parents
and sister left at home (who were, in fact, strangers to him), the would-be
big brother (Vince Vaughn), hippie mother (Catherine Keener), and last-chance
grandfather (Hal Holbrook) whose stories were more interesting than his,
and whose loves and losses were more compelling than any that he suffered.
Rather than as ode to the idealist adventurer, I saw the film as love
letter to the American road, companion piece in its way to The Straight
Story.
Director
Cristian Mungiu has denied it, but this carefully styled meticulously
paced thriller tracking one woman’s quest to get her friend an illegal
abortion in the last days of Ceausescu’s reign in Romania, seems
to make of the one a metaphor for the other, with backroom deals and back
alley risks, casual extortions and offhanded rapes—the crush of
oppression against the body both human and political, and the hero’s
dark battle against it. The filmmaker’s visceral ambivalence to
the act of abortion and the woman who aborts, which is as formidable in
the film as his camera work and social realism, does not compromise the
film’s commitment to recognizing the right in question. In a year
where films like Juno and Knocked Up edit the pressures
out of unwanted pregnancy and leave the question of abortion on the cutting
room floor, the sophistication of Mungiu’s approach, if not ideal,
is certainly welcome. 
The
Lives of Others is a haunting look at the paranoia of the East German
security apparatus in the year 1984, a paranoia that ended only with the
dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Director von Donnersmarck
shows the intimidation and disorientation the Stasi used as tools in operating
a ruthless system of control and surveillance directed at artists and
intellectuals. As the surveillance proceeds, the gradual exposure of Stasi
Captain Gerd Weisler (Ulrich Mühe) to a playwright with a different
lifestyle that includes music, literature, and freedom of expression leads
him to begin to look at his life in a different way. It is the catalyst
for a plot that ends up as a powerful depiction of what it means to be
human. 
No
Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers’ brilliant adaptation
of Cormac McCarthy’s bloody lament for a vanished America, is a
powerful and uncompromising film, an elegy for what America has lost and
an outcry against what it has become, a society inured to violence where
murder and rape is a coin toss and war is an event that is woven into
the fabric of our life. In a film in which all the performances are universally
excellent, Javier Bardem stands out as the screen’s most implacable
villain in many years, conveying an unrelenting sense of menace, and Tommy
Lee Jones is excellent as the discouraged Sheriff Bell, struggling against
what he calls “the dismal tide”. Relentless in its heartbreaking
sadness, No Country is a dark and brutal saga that is without
any sympathetic characters, just the hunter and the hunted, each, however,
with a kind of integrity that hints at redemption beyond the apocalypse.
Across
the Universe offers a new generation an experience of the vitality
and sheer exuberance of the Beatles musical portfolio. Julie Taymor’s
ambitious salute to Beatlemania is a celebration of thirty-three of the
Beatles' most famous songs and how they reflected the idealism of the
1960s. Utilizing her background in puppetry, folklore, mythology, and
mime, Taymor brings imagination and creativity to the table with mostly
wonderful results. The film not only integrates the Beatles songs into
a heartfelt love story, it also provides a mirror into the political and
social turmoil of the decade. For fans of The Beatles and for a new generation
that is eager to learn about the nature of their appeal, Across the
Universe is a joyous and at times transcendent ride. 
Julian
Schnabel’s masterful The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
dramatizes the debilitating trauma faced by 43-year old French fashion
magazine editor, Jean-Dominque Bauby. Bauby suffered a massive stroke
that left him unable to speak or to move his head and whose only means
of communication was to blink one eye – one blink for yes, two blinks
for no. With the help of a speech therapist (Marie-Josée Croze),
and a very patient transcriber, a code is developed that allowed Bauby
(Mathieu Amalric), called Jean-Do by his friends and family, to compose
a book based on his experience which was published shortly after his death.
Full of humor, irony, and a great deal of eloquence and imagination, The
Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a film of enormous power that shakes
us and enables us to get in touch with the miracle of each moment. 
Based
on a 1996 memoir by the widow of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis,
Control follows Curtis’ life from his teenage years to
his tragic death at age twenty-three. Unlike conventional bio-pics, it
delivers a three-dimensional portrait of a real human being and how his
troubles affected the people closest to him. Sam Riley eerily recreates
Curtis in appearance and voice, performing all of the band’s iconic
songs using Curtis’ robotic hand motions on stage to great effect.
Riley plays him simply as a very innocent, down to earth young man whose
talent was much greater than his ability to handle it. An extremely moving
experience whether or not you have foreknowledge of the events of Curtis’
life, Control is a film that has the power to touch and leave
memories that are indelible.
Loosely
based on Meadows’ teenage experiences, This is England dramatizes
the unrest in Britain after the Falklands War. Though the U.K. was victorious,
the war unleashed underlying feelings of alienation and racism among some
elements of British working class youth and gave rise to the Skinheads,
a group that became involved in the public mind with the neo-Nazis. The
film is shown from the perspective of 12-year old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose),
a diminutive working class youngster whose father was killed in the war.
The film depicts Shaun’s decline from joyous camaraderie with new
found friends to support of an intolerant and emotionally disturbed role
model. Meadows brilliantly shows how damaged lives and mutual needs can
bring people together to take out their frustrations against those below
them on the socio-economic scale. 
4
Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is about the bond between two young Romanian
students who are there for each in moments of crisis - in this case an
illegal abortion, carried out in secret in an atmosphere where danger
is an insidious presence at all times. Reminiscent of the style of the
Dardenne brothers with its close-ups and hand-held camera, the film is
mostly understated and key events happen off camera, yet it is a very
demanding film, powerfully acted and totally convincing, as uncompromising
as any film I have seen in recent memory. It is not a polemic against
Communism or illegal abortions, but more about the dignity of two women,
friends who are willing to sacrifice for each other without expectation
of reward or even thanks. 
If
you are ready to be uplifted, the perfect vehicle is Nobuhiro Yamashita’s
Linda Linda Linda. It is not only a feel-good movie, it is a
feel-great movie that had the audience I saw it with dancing in the aisles
(figuratively if not literally). Yamashita has managed to put together
not only one of the best rock films but also one of the most truly honest
films I have seen about teenagers. It also has a very infectious song,
"Linda Linda Linda," that will roll around forever inside your
brain. The songs are not lip-synched but actually performed by the talented
actress musicians. The ending of the film is so perfect that I dare not
give it away except to say that the feeling it leaves you with is one
of pure and simple joy.
For
two years, brothers John and Brad Hennegan followed the daily activities
of those horses that they thought had a chance to make it to the 2006
Kentucky Derby. The result is The First Saturday in May, a buoyant
and energizing film experience that may just be the best documentary of
the year. First Saturday is primarily a film about horses, but
is also about the trainers and their families, and especially their children
who provide some of the film’s most entertaining moments. The most
emotionally compelling parts of the film are those showing the rise and
fall of the horse Barbaro from his astonishing 6 ½-length win in
the 2006 Kentucky Derby to his breakdown in Pimlico and his subsequent
fight for survival. 
I
watch a lot of movies - many, many more than once. And every year, I keep
track of the new (to me) movies that I see. This past year I watched 114
new movies. That's an average of 2 per week. So when I went to compile my
list of the best movies of 2007, I was a little surprised to find that I
couldn't come up with 10 "best" movies. I have 5 that I think
will stand the test of time. And a few that I thought worth noting. I must
preface this by saying that I have not seen what many consider to be the
best film of the year - No Country for Old Men. Nor have I seen
Juno - which is getting praise from many different circles of friends.
So without further ado, here is my list of the best movies of 2007:
4.
Sweeney Todd
(Tim Burton). I loved this film version of the finest
Stephen Sondheim musical. There were elements from the stage that I missed,
but overall, a fine job from beginning to end.
Into
the Wild (Sean Penn). Penn obviously
loved his subject and his scenery, but I just couldn't get behind the
young man at the center of the story.
I
expected Surf's Up to be a moderately entertaining kids' movie about talking
penguins. I was surprised and delighted to find that it's a genuinely
funny and creative kids' movie that had three generations of my family
laughing out loud. Surf's Up is smart, fun, and funny. Combine those qualities
with beautiful CGI, and you've got yourself a first-class film.
Seraphim
Falls is a western that takes westerns seriously. It nails the small details
of the Mountain West, and its unique take on pursuit and revenge engages
the mind and heart. I believed in Pierce Brosnan's and Liam Neeson's characters,
I believed in their world, and I couldn't believe my eyes or ears when
John Huston's daughter showed up and actually said, "A man's gotta
do what a man's gotta do." This film did not deserve to vanish.
Vitus
tells the story of a boy so brilliant, not even the film is certain how
brilliant he is. With the help of his grandfather (Bruno Ganz) Vitus must
find his place in a world not designed for those as remarkable as he.
While this movie started like a Swiss rehash of Searching for Bobby
Fischer, it went in a different direction that both surprised and
delighted me. Of all the film I've seen this year, I've made people sit
down for only two of them: Vitus and Ratatouille. That
ain't bad company.
