Mass for Cinephile Shut Ins: Part One

Far more exciting than any 'Best of' lists are those detailing movies any of us have yet to see -- feeding the deep-seated yearning to discover what's yet to come from our favorite directors, writers, and most beloved actors. With each new minuscule plot detail and late-in-the-game title change comes the potential for new surprises, new discoveries, new possibilities. They build our expectations and validate our eventual disappointment. Let us commune over all this vague pre-publicity so as to garner faith and hope for a bright cinematic future. And let us also pass invalid judgment.

This is Part One.

Lethal Weapon 5

Buddy comedy has never been this racially insensitive!

THE BEAVER

directed by: Jodie Foster

written by: Kyle Killen

starring: Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster

Basically: A CEO with a down-and-out family life turns a beaver puppet he recovers from the trash into a tool for of self-therapy.

And We Should Care Because: Jodie Foster returns to directing after 15 years since Home for the Holidays, another family-centric film steeped in neuroses. Knowing Jodie Foster's personal life gives extra immature chuckles to the film's title, The Beaver, while Mel Gibson takes advantage of his personal life in using a beaver puppet to spout his offenses. Jodie Foster also gives herself a long overdue central role as the wife, while Gibson will get to play up his comedic chops and gain forgiveness for his last attempt at such, 2000's What Women Want. Do beaver puppets breed dangerously indie quirk? Perhaps, but Jodie Foster's attachment and directorial return breed promise.

Status: Curious

Iñárritu enunciates the title of his new film, Biutiful.

BIUTIFUL

directed by: Alejandro González Iñárritu

written by: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Armando Bo, Nicolás Giacobone

starring: Javier Bardem, Blanca Portillo

Basically: A man involved in illegal dealing is reunited with a childhood friend, now a policeman.

And We Should Care Because: Iñárritu's mixing it up it would seem. He's not using his trademark style of separate stories as means of interconnectedness, nor an inexplicable accident to center the action, as was the case in Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel. Nevertheless he's holding strong his glimpse into human darkness and the power of cause and effect. Whatever your opinions on the approach, Iñárritu has a gift for creating intrigue and heightened drama with just the right blend of naturalism and visual flourish. He has also done right in stealing from Almodóvar's repertoire with the likes of Javier Bardem and Blanca Portillo. Chances are it will be a little bit miserablist and a whole lot biutiful.

Status: Curious

Natalie Portman really can work a pole (see: Closer).
Even when set to Swan Lake.

BLACK SWAN

directed by: Darren Aronofsky

written by: Darren Aronofsky, Mark Heyman

starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Kassel, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey

Basically: A tale of psychological horror about a veteran ballerina's new rival, who could very well be a ghost or figment of her imagination.

And We Should Care Because: Darren Aronofsky is four for four, one of the great directorial talents working today. With a female-centric premise, dark psychological and sexual overtones (a rumored lesbian scene is getting most of the press), and a genuinely remarkable and underused cast, it looks to be another creative burst and change of tone for Aronofsky. Performance meets a psychological split -- could this be Aronofsky's Opening Night? Its ballet setting and moody underpinnings could make for a very stylish, surreal affair - all the more likely aided by cinematographer Matthew Libatique, and possibly another entranced score by Clint Mansell. Perhaps a blend of the low-key naturalism of The Wrestler with the dazzling headspace of The Fountain?

Status: Can't Miss

Are you 'avin a laugh?
Is anyone in this working-class town 'avin a laugh?

CEMETERY JUNCTION

directed and written by: Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant

starring: Ralph Fiennes, Ricky Gervais, Matthew Goode, Emily Watson

Basically: 1970's England serves as backdrop for this story of young working-class friends seeking a life change.

And We Should Care Because: The genius duo behind TV's The Office and Extras reunite for their first big-screen collaboration, and their gift for mining painfully funny truths out of everyday misery seems to bode well for this personalized period piece. Ricky's first feature, The Invention of Lying, may have suffered a forced ending, but its anti-religious satire and high-wire farce served the screen well. Also keep in mind that episodes of The Office were miraculously adept at mixing powerful laughs with unexpected poignancy, likely the tone this film is gearing toward. Picture Slough in the 1970's, populated this time by the stifled passions of youth. Bonus points: A Karl Pilkington cameo!

"I could eat a knob at night."

Status: Can't Miss

Arthouse Egoyan meets the Poison Ivy franchise?

CHLOE

directed by: Atom Egoyan

written by: Erin Cressida Wilson

starring: Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson

Basically: A wife suspecting of her husband's infidelities hires an escort, Chloe, to test his faithfulness. She soon finds herself orchestrating their sordid, escalating encounters, and rediscovering her own sensuality.

And We Should Care Because: Atom Egoyan makes arthouse fare that's seductive and devastating, both of which are encapsulated in this film's enticing premise. Erin Cressida Wilson also wrote the script for Secretary, and this one promises even more erotic (and explicit) encounters. Julianne Moore continues to marvel in edgy material, remarkably still drawn to sexually ambiguous extremes (2008's Savage Grace) and innovative auteurs.

Status: Can't Miss

Jason Alexander, Joe Pesci, Mickey Rourke, John C. Reilly...
Marisa Tomei is THE dreamy woman for not-so-dreamy men.

CYRUS

directed and written by: Jay and Mark Duplass

starring: Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener, John C. Reilly

Basically: Divorced boy meets girl... meets her attached son.

And We Should Care Because: Mumblecore innovators Jay and Mark Duplass crafted The Puffy Chair and Baghead, as well as being involved in the 2009 surprise Humpday, all of which earned their charms from their no frills attitude and devotion to character. Things have changed drastically, and yet not really at all. Where once were the faces of complete unknowns now reside Oscar winners and box-office champs. The dynamite talents of Marisa Tomei and Catherine Keener in particular still seem in keeping with the indie world, but promise to garner the film and its makers a lot more attention upon its release.

Status: Can't Miss

Eat, pray, love. But only after getting approval from Oprah.

EAT, PRAY, LOVE

directed by: Ryan Murphy

written by: Ryan Murphy, Jennifer Salt, Elizabeth Gilbert (memoir)

starring: Julia Roberts, Richard Jenkins, Javier Bardem, James Franco, Billy Crudup, Viola Davis

Basically: A woman with a seemingly complete life decides to divorce her husband and set out on a personal journey around the world.

And We Should Care Because: Julia Roberts gets another deserved showcase despite the film's seemingly disposable summary, title, and ties to Oprah's Book Club. Not since Erin Brockovich has Roberts been given such a spotlight, and with a startling supporting cast, it's enticing to think the film will blend her comic and dramatic chops together with enough awards-charged gusto. Ryan Murphy's cinematic prowess only extends to one other memoir adaptation, the disappointingly received Running with Scissors, but then he's also the mind behind uneven but admirable TV hits Nip/Tuck and Glee. Still holding out hope that Julia can hit Sandra Bullock in her Blind Side and steal back her title as box office queen.

Status: Mild Intrigue

What happens in Tokyo stays in Tokyo.
Especially if you're dead.

ENTER THE VOID

directed and written by: Gaspar Noé

starring: Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Emily Alyn Lind, Cyril Roy

Basically: A man caught in a hallucinatory afterlife observes the effects of his own demise after a drug deal goes awry in a Tokyo bar.

And We Should Care Because: Unlike Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, which imagines the afterlife to be a vibrant desktop screensaver, Gaspar Noé's film imagines it as a psychedelic headtrip to rival 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film's lengthy runtime of nearly three hours promises a full on cinematic immersion, rumored to include plenty of the arty and extreme sex and violence that's Noé's specialty. After notorious shockers I Stand Alone and Irréversible, Noé's rep is to combine innovative technique with mindblowing, and possibly mind-scarring, moments. Early reviews criticize it as overlong and containing of a few underwhelming performances, but quickly counter that by commending the film's bold visual and auditory scope, and all-encompassing experience to be welcomed alongside stoner classics such as 2001 and Fantasia.

Status: Can't Miss

Two teasers for the film here: Floating and Strobing. They're not for the easily disoriented, those prone to seizures or, god forbid, anyone who's sober.


Part Two soon.

I Thought Nought: Hit Me, Baby, One More Time

The decade's almost over. Me talking about it? That's only just begun!

Moments and Thoughts on the Best of the Noughts...


Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky

Marion: Anybody wanna waste some time?

Addiction has never been this addictive. Darren Aronofsky's exquisite descent into human misery and despair is like shooting up and snorting some truly potent sort of powder; you're emotionally desecrated but everything is so sensory and sensational that you're content to take just one more hit... then another... and another.

Requiem for a Dream is an unparalleled and unrelenting look at the perils of addiction: from heroin, to caffeine, to television, even love. It's the harsh but healing story of four lives unraveled in the wake of achieving one's deepest passions. Ellen Burstyn's monumental performance as Sara Goldfarb is the stuff of cinematic legend: a mother and widow succumbing to her loneliness, seeking emotional and social connections while burrowing deeper and deeper into a hellish disconnect. "Purple in the morning, blue in the afternoon..." and complete mental breakdown in the evening. Harrowing, painful and ultimately unforgettable.

Sara: I'm somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they'll all like me. I'll tell them about you and your father, how good he was to us. Remember? It's a reason to get up in the morning. It's a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It's a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right.

What have I got Harry? Why should I even make the bed or wash the dishes? I do them... but why should I? I'm alone. Your father's gone, you're gone. I got no one to care for. What have I got, Harry? I'm lonely. I'm old--

Harry: You got friends, Ma.

Sara: Ah, it's not the same. They don't need me. I like the way I feel. I like thinking about the red dress, and the television, and you and your father. Now when I get the sun, I smile!

Jennifer Connelly, also in one of her finest moments, similarly extracts every ounce of distraught decadence - allowing a fix to become the fixture that would replace the love of her life. Each of these characters use their addictions to temporarily disguise their true feelings, and the film, which is both devastating and wholly consuming, is just as raw as the emotions they're trying to subside.



Requiem for a Dream pulses and pounds like the best buzz you've ever had, pure visual and auditory bliss.... Before that moment of brutal clarity and consciousness of course - which taps into a truly dark place, yet somehow still draws us back - just one more time, I swear.

Sara: In the end it's all nice.

-- More I Thought Nought (Best of the Decade) entries here.

2008 Cheers and Tears

The year end lists bring out the best and worst in us, and usually say quite a bit about the critic at hand. I'd argue that I'm not nearly as emo as my five favorites would imply -- as in I'm not listening to Death Cab for Cutie as I cry and write in my poetry journal. I will say this year made good with the small, ambient indie film though, and who am I to resist such heady and depressing ambiguity.

So I didn't love The Dark Knight (meh) , I didn't cry over spilt Milk (I much preferred the documentary), and I didn't even see Slumdog Millionaire (I'm more of a Press Your Luck fan myself.). I never really caught on this year's bandwagons, but I'm happy to see the bandwagons were far less stuffed and plentiful in 2008.

Anyhow, here are my five personal favorites of 2008. If you don't agree, you can go cry about it. I know I will.

Coming soon to a Pottery Barn near you... Threeways!

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Love is tourism in this sensuously bitter comedy from Woody Allen. It reverberates with lust and possibility and echoes back in disappointment. The sunlit serenity manages to somehow mask the deep cynicism of these characters and gives the film a very romantic spirit. But just like a summer romance, the passion fades with some distance. Allen stays true to his fascinations with an effortlessly light energy and surpasses most of his comedies within the last decade. He finds the best in his beautiful ensemble, particularly a dazzling Penélope Cruz, and makes the heart grow fonder while we immediately lust for the next great Woody Allen film.

If only they'd named it Optimism Park, none of this would have ever happened.

Paranoid Park

Gus Van Sant's enveloping aura says so much about the affected side of disaffected youth. We as the viewer are the world on their shoulders. Van Sant, alongside cinematographer Christopher Doyle, finds the world of adolescence in a state of perpetual static dreaming at war with the harsh reality of adulthood. A young skateboarder's guilt over a sudden life-altering incident (and one of the year's most scarring cinematic moments) streams into an ethereal, grim and affecting moodpiece, with all the weight of a human tragedy amongst the airiness of a vague childhood memory.

"Over there! I think I just saw Sally Field falling from a plane..."

Mister Lonely

An expressive, feeling, and humane look at identity through the eccentric eyes of Harmony Korine. In this world anyone can be a star and miracles can and do happen -- other times the magic fails and it's best just to be a face in the crowd. The dreamy atmospherics and poetic pondering are tinged with a wonderfully offbeat sense of humor, and somehow Michael Jackson painting eggs, Marilyn Monroe getting a sunburn, and Werner Herzog's miraculous flying nuns all seem utterly transcendent and profound. There is a beauty to individuality and this film is one-of-a-kind.

The most dire game of fetch ever played.

Wendy and Lucy

Deceptively simple and unexpectedly haunting, Wendy's story is remarkably open, as is Michelle Williams beautifully subtle and distanced performance. The loss of one's only companion, the hard road to starting a new life, or any life; director Kelly Reichardt makes minuscule moments ring of truth and deeper implications of the world at large. At its most base level of a girl in search of her lost dog, there's a heart-wrenching pain at this film's center and yet it's captured without force in an environment that's immediately recognizable. Wendy and Lucy lives and breathes like a stranger you meet in passing: you know just enough to get a strong feeling about it.

Even lap dances eventually take their toll.

The Wrestler

Character overcomes cliche in this tenderly realized tale of a pro-wrestler readying for the good fight. Mickey Rourke's inhabited turn as "Randy the Ram" is an affecting look at a man bruised and beaten by his choices, and Rourke finds the real ache in those wounds. Darren Aronofsky expertly orchestrates the passionate heights of a hero's journey and the despairing lows of an average man's weakness. He also manages to take his usual brilliance for visual trickery into a more subdued, but no less spectacular, playing field. The more standard threads of the narrative are easily beaten out by some wonderful nuance, Aronofsky's low-key precision and the enduring performances, including yet another vivid and lovely supporting turn by Marisa Tomei as a stripper on a similar stage. For every punch thrown there's some equally fancy footwork and so much more going on off-stage.