Note: An in-law invasion sidetracked this project a little. Still a lot of big movies to see, and not many more days to see them in. Only one more entry to come before my Monday list deadline.
Monday, November 27th
Neil Young: Heart Of Gold (commercial DVD): I hadn't planned on adding this one to my screening schedule until Scott mentioned that it was probably going to make his Top 10. I got the reminder from Scott in the morning, bought the DVD at lunchtime, and watched it just before midnight of the same day. That seemed the best way to go about experiencing a live performance designed around the theme of the too-rapid passing of the not-always-appreciated commonplace. Heart Of Gold made me realize that Young's Prairie Wind album is better than I'd remembered (though
I wrote a fairly positive review last year); and damned if "Harvest Moon" isn't still one of the most uncommonly beautiful songs ever written. But I don't know that I can call this one of the best movies of the year, because there's nothing much to it: just some great songs, well-played and well-filmed. Unlike any other movie that would make my best-of list, I'll be more likely to watch this only in bits and pieces, from now until I reach the age when I'll really understand it. But I will keep watching it.
Grade: B+
On the list? Not quite. It's list-worthy, but I almost don't think of it as a movie. It's more an album with pictures.
Tuesday, November 28th
Art School Confidential (commercial DVD): As one of the few Dan Clowes fans not all that wowed by the movie version of Ghost World, I didn't feel all that bad that I missed Art School Confidential in its initial run, especially since the reviews weren't too strong. The one glimmer of hope in those early reviews was that everyone seemed put off by how sour the movie is, which led me to wonder if it might be closer to Clowes' sensibility. Having seen the movie now, I see that it's actually not that Clowes-y at all, even though some of the jokes and sarcastic comments are just like what shows up in his comics. Though Bad Santa's a funny movie, Terry Zwigoff's just not a very good comedy director. He's too sloppy, and too inclined to let his actors make the most obvious choices. When I read a Clowes comic, then watch a Zwigoff-directed version of that comic, I don't hear the same voice. That said, I kind of enjoyed Art School Confidential just as a shaggy comedy-mystery with some truthfully brutal things to say about the pretentious muddle that is art school (or even just the artsier departments of a regular university). The story's pretty engaging, the art isn't half-bad (even when it's supposed to be bad), and the themes do resonate. If only Clowes and Zwigoff had gone a little further with scenes like the one where an art history lecture devolves into a wheel-spinning debate about paternalism, Art School Confidential might've cut as deep as it should've. But like Ghost World, this feels like a minor league version of what might've been a major league movie.
Grade: B
On the list? No, but I'm glad I saw it.
Friday, December 1st
The Queen (commercial screening): I tend to like movies that turn recent history into low-boil middlebrow drama, and for a time, The Queen really felt like Top 10 material. I loved the intricate protocol surrounding the royal family, and their confusion about how to handle an emotion like grief in that context, and the contrast between their lives and the life of Tony Blair and his family, who cook their own dinners and wash their own dishes. And I was surprisingly choked up by all the archival news footage of London in the week after Princess Diana's death, especially given that I've never had any emotional connection to "the people's princess" whatsoever. (Maybe it's just a pop thing–seeing how an icon moves people can be, in itself, incredibly moving.) But it seems like a good screenwriter and/or a good director should've been able to find a way to convey the significance of this moment in British culture without having characters continually giving speeches about that significance. (Blair's big blow-up about the respect due Queen E is especially cumbersome.) Also, there's a key question that kind of goes unasked in The Queen: whether the royal family's eventual acquiescence to the public demands was actually worth it.
Grade: B+
On the list? No, but this is another one I suspect I'll still enjoy watching years from now. We can't have enough smart, relevant little movies like this.
Monday, December 4th
United 93 (Academy screener): I avoided this movie when it first came out, not because I was "gutless" (as some annoying critics called people who chose not to see United 93), but because I've been trying to preserve the images of 9/11 in my memory, and not let them be corrupted or diminished by seeing them too often. But when the movie started making lists, I knew I'd have to bite the bullet and check it out, and holy mother, am I glad I did. Director Paul Greengrass hasn't impressed me much before, but here his verité approach really works, because he's not overdoing the shaky-cam, just just taking in the events of the day, one piece after another. It reminded me of my own reactions on 9/11, especially when the air traffic controllers watch the second plane hit live on CNN (just as I did, horrified at what I was seeing and by the fact the anchor wasn't aware of what was on her own screen). That sense of: What does this mean? What do I do now? How could this happen? United 93 touches on those big issues, but only inasmuch as they relate to the smaller details, from the reaction of the military to the anxiousness of the terrorists. Greengrass doesn't oversell the ironies (like the plane being delayed not long enough to prevent take off, but just long enough for the passengers to learn what was happening elsewhere) and he doesn't oversell the heroism of the passengers (who look alternately horrified and feral). This is a restrained but gut-wrenching piece of you-are-there filmmaking, and though I can understand why some people wouldn't want to be there–Lord knows I didn't–experiencing those moments on the ground and in the air is like an explanation of what the whole last five years have been like, from shock to violence to exhaustion.
Grade: A
On the list? This is the best movie of the year.
Tuesday, December 5th
Mutual Appreciation (DVD-R): Here's a tricky one, because writer-director Andrew Bujalski has, with this film and his earlier film Funny Ha Ha, shown a mastery at capturing the awkwardness and extended pre-adolescence of certain bohemian university types, whose social skills have been turned to mush by near-constant immersion in irony. But these people aren't that much fun to be around, and Bujalski's reluctance to shape their experience into a narrative or even a set of amusing sketches–the way that, say, Noah Baumbach would–is on one level really noble, and on another kind of lazy. That said, Mutual Appreciation is a big leap forward from Funny Ha Ha, because the situations and characters vary more; and by setting it partly in the world of indie-rock, Bujalski gets access to good music and to a different set of types. And it's amazing how he can take these amateur actors and make their fresh faces and personalities seem more compelling than any movie star. By accident, I restarted Mutual Appreciation halfway through watching it, and I found myself sucked in by the opening scene all over again, and wanting to keep it running instead of skipping ahead. This film reminded me of the '60s underground films from the Warhol factory, only with people and behavior I recognize. Bujalski's next task: Finding a way to show more of life than just it's painfully embarrassing moments. (Yes, college parties often suck; but not always.) I look forward to seeing what his characters will be doing in ten years.
Grade: A-
On the list? Maybe so. I need to restructure a bit, because I now have more than 10 "A-" or better movies to choose from (including the one below), and I need to start thinking about making a list that's well-balanced between indies, mainstream fare, documentaries and foreign films, as well as thinking about what's a "list film" and what fits better in my five available honorable mention slots. At the moment, I'd say this goes on the list and Old Joy comes off.
Wednesday, December 6th
Children Of Men (Academy Screener): When nearly everyone you trust and respect is telling you that a movie is the best thing they've seen all year, full of bravura filmmaking and emotional impact, you can't help but worry about how you're going to react to it with your hopes so high, but Children Of Men pretty much lived up to my expectations. I wasn't fully invested in all the twists and turns of its sci-fi apocalyptic story, nor was I as moved as many of my friends have been, but I join them in marveling at Alfonso Cuarón's technical achievement in executing long, constantly moving takes through what seemed like acres of rubble and human waste. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't looking at the world as it is (even though one of the messages of the movie is that this kind of is the world as it is) and that I'd get to turn the future off when the movie was done. I would've preferred more explanation about how and why people live the way they do in a world without children–it's the wonk in me, I guess–and I couldn't help pondering how Cuarón pulled some of his effects off, which drew me out of the movie sometimes. But mostly I was rapt. I can understand why individual critics and viewers might not rate this as one of the best movies of the year, but I can't understand why a consensus wouldn't agree that it is. I mean, it has to be.
Grade: A-
On the list? Yes, likely in the Top 5.