Ingmar Bergman: 1918-2007

RIP, ya old Swedish mope.

2006: A Second Chance

2006 gave us some challenging, thought-provoking films. Some of these were acclaimed, some just sorta fell through the cracks and weren't given the credit they so justly deserved, at least in the humble opinions held here at TM. Let's dive in and see what made last year worth living for...

1. The Devil and Daniel Johnston (directed by Jeff Feuerzeig)

The enigma that is artist/singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston is documented in this disturbing, funny and ultimately cathartic film from Jeff Feurzeig. It's quite possibly the best examination of a troubled artist since Terry Zwigoff's infamous 1994 documentary Crumb. Though the comparisons with Brian Wilson and numerous declarations of "genius" are a bit much, it's fascinating to watch, and from a psychological point of view, almost a complete miracle that the schizophrenic Johnston is able to create music (though he still lives with his parents, smokes, and drinks copious amounts of Mountain Dew). Fan of Johnston's music or not, this is one not to be missed.

2. An Inconvenient Truth (directed by Davis Guggenheim)



I'm going to try to save some of our natural resources by not saying too much about this movie. I confess that I also started wearing environmentally-friendly underwear since I saw it. In all seriousness though, what is essentially Big Al's Slideshow is a crucial step in raising awareness about the climate crisis. Unfortunately, it also spawned a little demon called Live Earth and another documentary, The 11th Hour, where Leo DiCaprio narrates us through a similar scenario.

3. The Departed (directed by Martin Scorsese)

Watching The Departed reminded me why I still even bother going to the movies at all. The energy and passion that Scorsese puts into his films is rivaled by very few directors, and the furry-browed one finally got his due, winning Best Director and Best Picture at the Oscars. A remake of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, it takes the basic elements of that story and adds layer upon layer of Shakespearean drama to it.
____________________________________________

Other essential Scorsese:

Who's That Knocking At My Door? (1967)

Part art film, part gritty drama, starring a fresh-faced Harvey Keitel. A bit patchy, but like any Scorsese film, immensely watchable and well-filmed, with a great soundtrack. Scorsese was only 25 when he made this, which makes it all the more impressive.

Mean Streets (1973)

The firecracker that started it all. There's an intensity to the scenes between De Niro and Keitel that threatens to burn a hole right through the screen. A poolhall fight scene set to "Please Mr. Postman"? Pure genius.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)

A different sort of movie for Scorsese, about an independent woman (Ellen Burstyn) struggling to find herself after her husband's death. Great acting and a sharp script by Robert Getchell. Shot here in beautiful Tucson, Ariz.

Raging Bull (1980)

The movie that should've made Hollywood clutch Scorsese to their bosom. Instead, they gave the Best Picture Oscar that year to Robert Redford's Ordinary People. Go figure. Robert De Niro gives his best performance, with Frank Vincent and Joe Pesci being welcomed into the fold, both later starring in GoodFellas and Casino.

The King of Comedy (1983)



An original satire on the trappings of fame, with Robert De Niro as poor Rupert Pupkin (certainly one of the greatest movie names), who kidnaps a TV host played by Jerry Lewis as an attempt to get his comedy material on the air.

After Hours (1985)

Another detour, this film was Scorsese's return to his low-budget roots after failing to get backing for The Last Temptation of Christ. Griffin Dunne plays a New York computer hack whose night goes from bad to worse in a darkly comic series of misfortunes.



The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

It was a bold decision on the part of Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader to adapt Nikos Kazantzakis' 1951 novel The Last Temptation of Christ, which was not welcomed kindly by the religious faction upon its release. Scorsese had initially tried to make the film in 1983, but financing collapsed and had to start anew. Willem Dafoe had big sandals to fill in the role of Christ, but his performance here is nothing short of outstanding and Harvey Keitel is a bit hilarious in the role of Judas, but also good. Barbara Hershey portrays Mary Magdalene, and David Bowie is in a brief scene as Pontius Pilate (Scorsese originally was going to cast Sting in the role). The beginning of Christ makes it clear that this is an account not based on the gospels, which surely sent heart rates through the roof. Instead, it imagines Christ's life if he had faced the temptations that us mere mortals face, and the final temptation of the film's title imagines the life he could've led by marrying Mary Magdalene and having children. Scorsese's film shouldn't be treated as heresy but as an open, fascinating, respectful look at a well-documented subject.

GoodFellas (1990)

From Jesus to gangsters...Scorsese had been around long enough at this point that you'd think he'd finally get some recognition. Instead, he got snubbed again at the Oscars by Kevin Costner's buffalo ballet Dances With Wolves. Joe Pesci is hilarious and terrifying as Tommy DeVito, a hothead gangster who uses any and every opportunity to whack somebody.

Casino (1995)

A mob epic about the gangsters who ran the casinos in the 70s, Scorsese says on the DVD commentary that this film was also his own personal statement on the bloated ways of Hollywood. Sharon Stone gives perhaps her only worthy perforance as De Niro's loose canon wife, Ginger.

Bringing Out The Dead (1999)

An underrated gem. Nicolas Cage, John Goodman and Tom Sizemore star in this manic tale of paramedics running loose in Hell's Kitchen. Ferocious energy and a great soundtrack, reuniting Scorsese with past collaborator Paul Schrader.

_____________________________________________________________

4. The Prestige (directed by Christopher Nolan)



Rival magicians, a sharp script and direction by Nolan (Batman Begins, Memento), excellent visuals and David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. What more could you want?

5. Borat (directed by Larry Charles)



I like you. Do you like me? Sacha Baron-Cohen takes his character from Da Ali G Show and makes a hilarious, unnerving commentary on America and their "war of terror."

6. Marie Antoinette (directed by Sofia Coppola)



This one was completely overlooked. Those quick to dismiss Coppola on charges of nepotism should take a second look at her films, which have a quiet beauty about them. Oh, and what was the last good movie her Dad made? If you don't like this one, try sitting through the nearly-three-hour 1938 version.

7. Pan's Labyrinth (directed by Guillermo del Toro)



I seriously went into this thinking it was going to be a magical kids movie, or maybe something along the lines of Tim Burton. What a surprise. Wonderfully creative, with one of the best villains in recent years, the diabolical Capt. Vidal (Sergi Lopez).

8. The Lives of Others (directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)



Winner of the Best Foreign Film Oscar, this German tale of cat and mouse before the fall of the Berlin wall is gripping, realistic and powerfully affecting. Sebastian Koch plays a German playwright who's being monitored by the East German Secret Police, under Hauptman Wiesler (the excellent Ulrich Mühe), who eventually becomes sympathetic to Koch and his girlfriend (Martina Gedeck). The Lives of Others seems like a good history lesson until you realize that it's just as applicable in modern times.

9. The Bridge (directed by Eric Steel)



An unconventional documentary, The Bridge chronicles the 24 deaths that occured at San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge in 2004, examining the lives of the jumpers and the dark, complicated subject of suicide and depression. It's a film that sticks with you long after you've left the theatre.

10. Little Children (directed by Todd Field)



I wasn't too fond of Todd Field's previous film, 2001's In The Bedroom, but with Little Children, he chooses just the right tone to tell the story of suburban boredom and dysfunction. Former Bad News Bear Jackie Earle Haley is tremendous as the pedophile who just needs a little bit of love.

The Limburger Awards

Every year, there's a movie that's so bad that you start to lose all faith in humankind. It's a special kind of picture--one whose pure awfulness just emanates from the screen, like a slice of Limburger kept in a storage closet for a couple of years. That's why here at TM, we have the Limburger awards. They usually fall in three different categories: movies that shouldn't have been made, movies that could've been great but sucked, and movies that sucked from the very premise. 2007, I really hope that you don't disappoint, but in my heart of hearts, I know that 2007's Limburger is just around the corner. In the meantime, here are a few past winners...

The Black Dahlia (2006)

Movies like The Black Dahlia are the worst kind of disappointments. Seeing that it's based on a novel by estimable James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential) and has some good actors (Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johansson), it should be decent, right? Oops. No. A guy named Brian De Palma directed it, and they decided to cast half-chipmunk, half-heartthrob Josh Hartnett in the lead role, who spends most of the movie looking like he really needs a nap. The "romance" within leaves the viewer feeling as cold as if Joan Rivers looked you directly in the eye, and a potentially interesting story gets bogged down with ambiguity, overacting, and just plain foolishness.

Elizabethtown (2005)

After watching this one, I was tempted to issue a warrant for Orlando Bloom's arrest. He may feel right at home in the Pirates of The Carribean and Lord of The Rings movies, but in terms of actually acting? This putz couldn't act if Kirsten Dunst's 2nd assistant's life depended on it! Although I have a special place in my heart for Almost Famous, Singles, and Say Anything, you also have to remember that Cameron Crowe was the guy responsible for the Tom Cruise scheißabbildung Vanilla Sky. Elizabethtown is apparently a loving tribute to Crowe's Kentucky-based family, but if I were related to Crowe, I'd be tempted to attack him with a frozen turd dagger. The soundtrack is overwhelming and unnecessary--I like Tom Petty and everything, but do we really need 40 of his songs in one movie?

Garden State (2004)

"You didn't like Garden State?" That's usually the reply I get when discussing this much-beloved film, along with another 2004 favorite, Napoleon Dynamite. Zach Braff's painful, painful movie is like a 90 minute homage to himself. "Oh, aren't I so edgy, so indie, so hip and so cool?" Perhaps the most uncomfortable scene is when Natalie Portman is listening to her headphones and, when asked what she's listening to, replies "The Shins." Now, The Shins really aren't terrible, but that sort of obvious advertising is just one of many examples of Braff's moronic version of filmmaking. There's that old saying that shit rolls downhill, and Braff apparently is on a mission to gather as much of it as he can before reaching the bottom. Put this one in a time capsule and see if you don't feel guilty in about 20 years....

In The Cut (2003)

This was supposed to be the movie where Meg Ryan finally broke out and gave an arresting performance in a daring role. Sadly, no one told Ms. Ryan that this was quite possibly the last movie she should've tried to do that in. Maybe she's a glutton for punishment, or maybe no one gives two hoots for the former Queen of Cute anymore. A competent director, Jane Campion, tells a story that's so convoluted and boring that it tests your patience by the 15-minute mark. In The Cut is excruciating because, besides all of the killing and the screwing, there really isn't much left. Hey, I likes me a cocktail of sex and violence just as much as the next guy, but I need something else. Y'know, like, a story?

La Vie En Rose

La Vie En Rose (directed by Olivier Dahan)

La Vie En Rose, despite some of its flaws, (one of them being about 20 minutes too long) has one obvious weapon in its favor: a striking, multifaceted performance by Marion Cotillard as legendary French chanteuse Edith Piaf.

Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, said it was one of the best biopics he's seen. It's hard to argue--with so many of them floating around lately, it was easy to think that Rose could've gone along with the routine. Fortunately, there was nothing typical about Piaf's life, nor the manner in which Dahan tells her overwhelmingly sad story. Dahan jumps around a lot chronologically, but he also dives straight into Piaf's tortured mess of a soul, and examines the nature of what it means to be an artist as opposed to just being a performer. Amazingly, Rose gets every little detail right.

Grinderman- S/T

What can really be said of an album that starts out with a couple of no-bullshit tracks like "Get It On" (which sounds like Nick Cave fronting Suicide) "No Pussy Blues" and whose front cover displays a primate shielding his testicles?

Grinderman is too good to be a Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds side project--although that's exactly what it is, with hired 'Seeds Warren Ellis (also of Dirty Three), Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos. Ellis contributes to most of the sickness, playing not only acoustic guitar and a "Fendocaster," but his trademark violin, viola and electric bouzouki.

Songs like "Love Bomb," "Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars)," and "Depth Charge Ethel" hint at the more ravenous Birthday Party of Cave's past than any of his other projects.

Although a few tracks fall flat, like "Go Tell The Women," the rest of Grinderman has a mournful, atmospheric mood, "Electric Alice," and "(I Don't Need You) To See Me Free" being prime examples. While it's unsure whether Grinderman will continue, this debut is venal proof that they just don't give a damn.

A healthy dose of Shellac

Shellac- Excellent Italian Greyhound


Here we are, almost seven years after 1000 Hurts, with another Shellac record. Just when it seemed like it would never come out, it's arrived, and so all of us can stop our bitchin'. Greyhound is easily the best of Shellac's four studio albums, or at the very least on par with their first LP At Action Park.

The goofy, playful side of their live performances definitely shines through, particularly on album opener "The End of Radio," when guitarist/vocalist Steve Albini shouts "this microphone turns sound into electricity!" and "that drumroll...means we have a winner!" in the persona of the last DJ on an isolated planet. The imagery summoned in "Radio" is striking, provocative and immediate, with Bob Weston's repetitive, chunky, three-chord bassline acting as spine to the post-apocalyptic scenario. Weston also contributes vocals to two sharp, biting tracks, "Elephant" and "Boycott," both exercises in political polemic that seem out of place but also strangely welcome at the same time.

"Greyhound" offers great straight-up rockers like "Steady As She Goes" and album highlight "Be Prepared," a sort of awkward call-and-response anthem. What other band is going to shout lines like "I was born in Portland, Oregon!" "I was born with 20 bucks in my pocket!" or "I was born wearing spats and a dickey!" only to break down the song into a ridiculously catchy boogie?

The two instrumentals, "Kittypants" and the cataclysmic "Paco," (powered by Todd Trainer's thunderous drums) are a welcome change after the nonstop verbal torrent on the first half of the album. "Genuine Lulabelle" is another break in form, using various voice-overs midway through to help narrate the story of a woman of ill repute--certainly Shellac's weirdest song.

The real kicker is saved for last. "Spoke," a song the band initially recorded for a Peel session in the 90s, surfaces here in a slightly different, but still maniacal/nonsensical rocking form. Let's just hope we don't have to wait seven years until the next one...

I'm so bored with the U.S.A.

Sicko (directed by Michael Moore)

Michael Moore doesn't have the best track record for truth and accuracy, with both Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 having very clear, specific purposes that were more centered on filtering out anything that wasn't part of his agenda than cutting straight to the issues at hand (gun control and the Bush dynasty, respectively).

With Sicko, Moore finally takes on a subject that is absolutely universal and affecting: health care. Oh and not just any health care. Good, honest health care, which we currently don't have in the ol' U.S. of A. Moore narrates through most of the film, and in the beginning, we're told that he received more than 20,000 e-mails with people telling him horror stories of dealing with HMOs and being denied care for a variety of absurd reasons. Why is this happening in America? Well, the answer isn't going to shock you: money. As Moore illustrates, the megatron corporations make more jack if Grammy or Gramps is denied care than if they aren't.

Although Sicko still has some of the trademark Moore-isms (including a Communist sing-a-long and taking a group of 9/11 rescue workers to Guantanamo Bay), the film has a unique power in the fact that any of the people whose stories are being chronicled could be you or your family. Indeed, Moore knows how to pull the emotional strings, but the stories in Sicko are so heartbreaking and unbelievable that it's no wonder that they found their inclusion in the film.

Only when the story goes elsewhere does the stage really get upturned. Moore visits France, England and Canada, only to discover that the damned people actually have sensible health care systems that have been established as far back as World War II. No matter what side of the political fence you're on, Moore fan or not, Sicko demands to be seen.

Get these ghosts out of my motherf****** hotel!

1408 (directed by Mikael Hafstrom)

John Cusack seems like an odd choice to star in a psychological thriller, but as he did with Identity, he proves that he's up to the task in 1408, a return to form after a string of comedic Limburgers.

Neu-horror directors take note: it is possible in this day and age to make a film scary/terrifying without automatically having to reach for the prosthetics and fake blood. Perhaps the most frightening thing about this particular picture is that the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun" plays on the clock radio to signify true terror.

1408, based on the Stephen King short story, involves a spook writer (Cusack) who decides to visit New York's Dolphin Hotel to see just how haunted it really is. Naturally, no film is complete without the presence of Samuel L. Jackson, who already whupped it up earlier this year in Black Snake Moan. SLJ plays the manager of the Dolphin, who warns Cusack's character against the "f****** evil" contained in the room of the movie's title. I'm wondering if Sam's agent (or perhaps Sam himself) had it written in his contract after Snakes On A Plane that he'll not appear in a movie unless an f-bomb gets dropped. So much for the Pixar movies, Sammy.

I digress. One of the more moving elements of the film is the backstory of Cusack's wife and their deceased daughter. The scene where Cusack believes his daughter has returned is powerful and affecting, a rarity in the world of "horror" (though the makers of the film are loath to classify it as such, and for good reason).

With all of the Stephen King novels that have made their way to the screen, 1408 is a welcome addition to the canon--perhaps not quite The Shining (which King hated), but certainly no Pet Semetary either.

Trauma revisited

"In times of terror, people want to be terrified, but in a safe environment, because with all of the things going on in the world, certainly with the war in Iraq, and the horrible, horrible aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, where our government did nothing to help anybody, you want to scream."

-Eli Roth

Hostel: Part II (directed by Eli Roth)

Here comes the confession: I really hated the first Hostel. A lot of the violence was gratuitous, and frankly, parts were just plain sickening. Then I saw the fake trailer for Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving" from Grindhouse, and the thought arose: what if this guy made a really great horror movie?

Unfortunately, with Hostel: Part II, that great horror movie still hasn't arrived, but it's a step away from the simple out-and-out nastiness of the first one. This time it's three young American women (Bijou Phillips, Lauren German and Heather Matarazzo) vacationing in Slovakia, who are lured to an exquisite spa by a seductress named Axelle (Vera Jordanova). If you're wondering why this particular locale looks so exotic and mysterious, it's because Roth shot it in Iceland, where, in his own words, he's a celebrity of sorts.

The problem is, this particular spa has ulterior motives--in particular, using American girls as slabs of prosciutto on the cutting board. In the original movie, the torturers were tired stereotypes. In this one, the two bidding at the highest price for the girls are two clean-cut yuppies (Roger Bart and Richard Burgi), the former of which is having qualms about committing to the task at hand. As a result, it makes the film leagues more terrifying, particularly the scene where Bart's character repeatedly says "I'm not that guy," only to find out that he is that guy.

The Bubblegum Gang, a group of kids hired by Sasha (Milan Knazko), the head of the Elite Hunting Agency that puts Americans up for "market", adds a bizarre element to the story that brings to mind Children of the Damned or City of God, where young children are either victims or the cause of heinous violence.

Yes, there's a good deal of gore, although this time it's more justified and the shocking finale is strangely satisfying and completely nuts (I know, I know). The scene in which poor Matarrazo is offed in a very barbaric and Communist way is disturbing, but the sheer audacity of the scene and the unsettling way Roth stages it is almost like a lamb being sacrificed in a Turkish bath.

Roth has got something interesting at work here, but I'm also anxious to see what he can do without buckets of blood at his disposal. Perhaps Roth's next project, an adaptation of Stephen King's Cell, will finally get him the recognition he deserves.