james gunn's SLITHER (2006)

horror comedy is a strange beast. there's no shortage of lovable films among its best examples, but very rarely is a workable balance struck that lets the film sit comfortably astride the two genres; most are either horror films playful enough to sustain humor (Dead Alive, Evil Dead II) or comedies goofing on horror, however effectively (Ghostbusters, Shaun Of The Dead), leaving us to draw the conclusion that the dichotomy between fright and funnybone is, in the end, too vexing to avoid choosing sides.

James Gunn's gross, giddy Slither insists otherwise, operating not only as a tremendously funny low-key comedy but also a genuinely accomplished horror flick. a fair share of the credit for this goes to the inspired cast, great special effects and Gunn's impressive debut behind the camera, but the real asset is his script, which strikes and sustains a tone that nurtures both genres without allowing them to interfere with each other. the key to its success is a deep wit extending beyond the comedic elements ("sheriff, what's a 'gina?" "it's...a country. where Ginese people come from.") into the fabric of the film itself, allowing Gunn to take a well-worn scenario from the annals of 80s B-splatter and lace it with a smart self-consciousness that keeps the scares real by never stooping to simple parody. the emphasis on the gross-and-creepy m.o. of Slither's forebears rather than the gory-and-sadistic scares of its contemporaries also does the film innumerable favors, particularly as it toys endearingly with the genre's sexual and phallic tropes, reduced so sadly to crass distastefulness in recent horror. all of these clever decisions culminate in an obscenely satisfying and entertaining work, impeccably paced (a decided strength in both comedy and horror cinema) and playfully executed. (two of the film's most effective sequences are absolute models of the power of cross-cutting.) given the dominance of horror films over the past few years, it's both a shame and a surprise that this film wasn't better-received upon its release, but it's a consolation that it seems destined for cult appreciation, placing it among the distinguished company it deserves.

woody allen's STARDUST MEMORIES (1980)

one of the things that makes Woody Allen one of our most essential filmmakers is the self-reflexivity of his art, an almost desperately rare characteristic in American cinema. nowhere is this more evident than in Stardust Memories, in which he plays a director beleaguered by his transition from light comedy to serious film; his self-examination here extends beyond his typical preoccupation with his own personal neuroses (familiar to anyone who's seen more than a handful of his films) and into his experience as an artist, and even into the artifice itself. visually, the film is a shamelessly direct homage to Fellini's 8½, but any incumbent hubris is defused by a graceful self-consciousness. (at this point i've officially exhausted the "self" prefix.) Allen fills his frame with faces and characters straight out of a surrealist sketchbook, all hounding his director with banality and non-sequitirs as he attempts to navigate the landscape of a weekend tribute to his work, and he is repeatedly forced to deal externally with the questions about his life and work that surely plague him privately. and though this portrayal of his fans occasionally veers into meanspiritedness (Allen transparently insists that the film is not a dig at his own fanbase), it rings extremely true, and is consistently entertaining. his enthusiasts and detractors aren't the only source of his torment, though; the film's most stylistically and emotionally exhilirating moments center on three objects of his affection, each respectively embodying the past, present, and future. it's in these moments (many of them told in the random but fluid flashbacks he perfected in Annie Hall) that Allen's craft really stands up for itself amidst the story's unflinching look at what it means for an artist to earn and assert his maturity.

f.h. von donnersmarck's THE LIVES OF OTHERS (2006)

The rise of totalitarianism in Europe following the First World War has been an understandably central preoccupation in Western culture over the past century, and cinema, our youngest art, has proved among the most impressionable in its wake. From propaganda to popcorn flicks, the physical and psychological violence of our collective experience with—and within—oppressive states has resulted in countless films both important and entertaining, and this spectacle of a history filtered through celluloid has created and refined for us an iconography of good, evil, freedom and fear. We’ve been less receptive, however, to the notion of idealistic defeat, and thus those regimes (Franco, the Soviets) that survived the 1940s have, beyond a Cold War mentality rooted as much in nuclear paranoia as anti-Communism, been downplayed as they fell into slow decline toward the end of the century.

It’s from this twilight that German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck conjures his award-winning debut feature, The Lives Of Others (Das Leben der Anderen). His low-key approach to the material serves its setting well, drawing the slow crumble of East German communism into psychological focus through the story of a playwright, his muse, and the government agent assigned to eavesdrop on their every word. As it begins, Stasi captain Gerd Weisler (Ulrich Mühe), a ruthless interrogator and an academy instructor to secret-police cadets, is approached with an assignment undoubtedly common in 1980s East Berlin: overseeing the surveillance of a suspected subversive, writer Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). Weisler dutifully accepts, and begins gathering tentative evidence of Dreyman’s reserved dissidence, but playing voyeur to the intellectual and emotional lives of Dreyman and his live-in girlfriend, Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck), quickly yields unexpected results: Weisler’s own subdued, solitary existence, defined only by his role in a decaying regime, contrasts starkly with the intimacy and relative happiness of his charges, and so he is driven from fascination to envy, and from envy to empathy. He listens, rapt with attention at his attic desk, as Dreyman plays the piano, and Weisler even ventures into the apartment in their absence, examining a wooden salad fork, given as a birthday present, for the “beauty” with which Dreyman has described it.

Refreshingly, this obsession never delves into any of the boring perversity we’ve come to expect from such movies, but instead emerges as the moral and ethical crux of the film. (Though subplots concerning a coerced affair and an illicit manuscript occasionally tear the narrative away from Weisler, it’s very much his story.) As von Donnersmarck’s quiet thriller begins to close in on its characters, Weisler finds himself torn between his allegiance to his country and his own realizations about human nature and dignity; even as he is bound by duty to preside over one character’s eventual betrayal of another, the look in his otherwise cold eyes suggests that he, too, has been betrayed.

Weisler’s story is, of course, also the story of East Germany itself as it woke from a 40-year nightmare. Thankfully, von Donnersmarck approaches the material with a delicately humanist social realism that keeps the film from wallowing in its allegory. It’s not hard to imagine the characters drawn in broad strokes by less careful hands (archetype dictates Weisler as a tragic figure and Dreyman as a brave, brash reformer) but here both are suitably complex to sustain the film’s introspective tone, which makes its points without lecturing. The visual approach is similarly restrained, as the largely static frames take us back and forth between the warmth of Dreyman’s apartment and the shivering, empty streets and corridors of East Germany.

It’s this restraint, though, that ultimately prevents the film from being as engaging as it might like to be. Whether Weisler’s general quietude is his own true nature or just a by-product of his position, his character arc is often confoundingly introverted, and while we’re interested in Dreyman and Christa-Maria, the nature of the story holds us at arm’s length, and our concern remains solely intellectual. It doesn’t help that the two-hour-plus film is conspicuously stingy with its levity, nor that its epilogue, while stopping thankfully short of sentimentality, closes the film on a mildly unsatisfying note.

Despite these missed connections, The Lives Of Others has a lot to say about a painful period in Europe’s history largely unexamined on film, and first time writer/director von Donnersmarck makes an impressive, gently assured showing that’s earned awards the world over, most recently beating out multiple-nominee Pan’s Labyrinth for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. Although it lacks the bravura and brilliance of Pan’s superior Fascist fable, the two films share a message common and essential to all of the art that has helped us survive the last century, and all the centuries before that: humanity prevails.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

jean cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946)

this work of strange beauty was the other film i was privileged enough to see on a fresh 35mm print at the Janus retrospective, and it was an utter marvel. Cocteau's control of his craft gives the film a distinct stylistic panache, but the heavy lifting of its visual wonderment is done by the production designers, who produce a mysterious magical castle that is overwhelming even today. (i can hardly imagine how dazzled the audience must have been fifty years ago.) candelabras held by sentient human arms line the corridors, doors open by themselves, and, in one marvelous display of visual wit, a bust sits on its pedestal and watches Belle back and forth as she paces. (one of the other striking things about the film is that it's remarkably biting in its humor.) the beast, too, is amazing to look at, clearly evocative of the two extremes of humanity and beastliness central to the character. most of all, the film is as dark and unsettling as fairy tales ought to be for maximum impact, though it sadly loses its tonal nerve in the ending, which wraps up too quickly and hits insincere emotional notes. still...beautiful.

françois truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS (1959) / ANTOINE ET COLETTE (1962)

i was fortunate enough to make it to nashville for a banner day in the Belcourt's "Fifty Years Of Janus Films" series, beginning with a double feature of 400 Blows and its first sequel, a short piece from an international anthology film. i feel self-conscious trying to think of anything to say about a film of Blows' magnitude, so i'll just say that it is indeed one of the more poignant looks at youth i've seen on film. Antoine Doinel is a thief and a liar, but what child isn't, at least to some degree? he's still a creature of dignity. (watch him skip school and return home for the evening, only to run away from home the next night and return to school in the morning! he's willing to give anything a try.) we love Antoine even as his behavior worsens, and his fate is mildly devastating.

but is it? we catch up with Antoine (and, as a pleasant surprise, his chum Rene) several years later in Antoine et Colette, a meditation on unrequited love and the universal difficulty that men have being "just friends" with beautiful women. Michel Gondry's The Science Of Sleep trod similar (though more whimsical) ground last year, but A&C's brevity and understatement makes it even more effective, particularly in its perfect ending. most of all, though, it's nice to revisit Antoine and find him well, if a little lovesick. the end of 400 Blows is infamously wide open, but given the film's progression we're seemingly meant to expect further unpleasantness for Antoine; here we see wonderfully otherwise...Antoine has survived long enough to find out that adulthood is no easier than being a child.

billy wilder's SABRINA (1954)

sad that i'm going to take kind of a gimme on a film by one of my favorites. Sabrina is a little frothier than any of what i'd consider Wilder's best, but it's still a lovely, clever film, and a wonderful way to spend a valentine's evening.

richard linklater's DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993)

i first saw Dazed And Confused during my initial teen-aged infatuation with movies, as my friends and i sought out all those films supposed to be "cool" or "really awesome", and as such i have been reluctant to revisit it. i was pleasantly surprised, then, to find that my recollections of it were off-base: D&C isn't a counterculture film, or a drug film, but simply a film about being a teenager, and sublimely so. in fact, it resembles nothing so much as a superior companion piece to American Graffiti, watching benevolently over the last night of school to the strains of the mid-70s' finest tunes, seemingly deejayed by God himself. (maybe the distance that allows me to look back fondly on my teenhood is what makes the film resonate now?) at once evocative of its setting and warmly, abidingly universal, the film draws much of its strength from its dedication to ensemble; though there the are one or two nominally "main" characters, at least fifteen others are given equal attention and affection, and as a result the essentially plotless film possesses a lazy but undeniably fun momentum, eschewing the mechanizations of story in favor of confident characterization. it probably wouldn't work, of course, were the cast and script not so uniformly fine, but the talents of Linklater and his merry band make for a refreshing, carefree film about the nights we fought to keep our buzz going and the cops never showed up.

jacques tati's MON ONCLE (1958)

Mon Oncle isn't as eagerly, broadly funny as M. Hulot's Holiday or as ponderously existential as Playtime, but instead offers a middle ground as intriguing as either extreme. Tati's beaming ode to the scourge of suburban modernity offers only slightly more form narratively than those bookending films, but nonetheless takes its situational comedy to sharper levels; more than once he strongly suggests Buñuel as humanist, as humorist. Tati's craft is as close as any to truly qualifying as painterly, not only in light but in sound, but he's just as much a cartoonist as a painter, and grasps the capabilities for truth and beauty in each. Most importantly, Tati's is a singular sort of comedy that dazzles with its sure-footedly alien pacing and surprises us with belly laughs just as we've become lost in the poetry of simple human procedure, however stylized. and as a counterpoint to the sublime hopelessness of Playtime, Mon Oncle is buoyed by a lively but affable indignance at the symptoms of what, by Playtime, seems a lost cause.

steven soderbergh's TRAFFIC (2000)

there's few working directors in Hollywood that can really hold a candle to Soderbergh so far as sheer effortlessness goes. he stumbles, sure, and occasionally falls, but along the way he's developed a healthy swagger rocking back and forth between art and commerce, always to differing degrees. Traffic is one of the films he'll be remembered for, and its staggering balance between ambition and entertainment is as good a reason as any why. in many ways it's an activist film, but said activity lays simply in decrying pragmatism... it very smartly doesn't purport to offer any answers, and as such reveals perhaps its true preoccupation, more universal in nature: if we truly desire progress, we must learn to admit it when we're wrong.

almodovar's VOLVER (2006)

it's strange that Almodovar never comes to mind as a favorite filmmaker. such assurance! he's one of the best living directors, making grand films that do right by the European masters as international cinema slouches toward hollywood. they glow dazzlingly but darkly, and Almodovar's mastery of the medium runs so deep that he is able to translate deeply personal sensibilities into something uniquely but irresistibly entertaining, and universal in its appeal. he's almost too good, in fact; Volver occasionally tempts you to marvel at color and composition at the cost of the story. it's a great one, though, and after two films about men it's a glorious Return to the realm of the fairer sex for Pedro, whose films are also among the cinema's most blissfully feminine.

joe carnahan's SMOKIN' ACES (2007)

about two thirds of the way through Smokin' Aces, a strange thing happens: two key characters are overcome with emotion at the (perceived) passing of beloved partners. this is not peculiar in drama, of course, nor the real life it strives to emulate, but it is strange in the context of this messy, morally desolate film, which wears a flippant disregard for life on its bloody sleeve. and it's at that moment that Aces finally manages to shake its audience completely loose: how are we supposed to empathize with grief after an hour of little but gratuitous, meaningless violence?

scads of other movies are vulnerable to the same criticism, of course. and i'm still not sure what makes Smokin' Aces stand out in the crowd. but somehow it pushes into focus a truism in the discussion of violence's role in entertainment: violence is a natural, thrilling manifestation of drama, and as such it's a useful narrative tool, especially in a medium as visceral as film. here, though, there is no drama...only violence. sure, Carnahan wraps the carnage up in a pretty package consisting of a terrific premise (soured by embarrassingly expository bookends) and an creative cast suggesting a cut-rate splatterhouse Grand Hotel. but the real star is tried-and-true ultraviolence, stylishly and emptily employed at every turn. and though this sort of mayhem at its most delirious can be extremely fun in the right hands, precious few of the scenes find the necessary tone, and as a result the audience has little to do but think about whether or not they're psychologically comfortable with the fact that so much violence could be so goddamned boring.

robert altman's A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (2006)

so wonderful, and fitting, that this should be Robert Altman's final film. it's not among his very best, of course, but it is among his most pleasant, and certainly his most peaceful. the humor is warm, the music is terrific, and the cast (with the exception of a startlingly wooden Virginia Madsen) are all gracefully game for Altman's challenges, resulting in an expressionistic narrative concert film in which kind-hearted people develop and refine their ideas about mortality. it is a film about life because it is a film about death, and it's as dignified (and, for his fans, comforting) a final artistic statement as any else that come to mind.

stephen frears' THE QUEEN (2006)

The Queen reinforces the lesson that Capote taught us last year: sometimes compelling historical figures are done better justice in character study than biography. but a brilliant performance never hurts, of course, and Helen Mirren tackles the role of HRH with bravery and grace. the queen is distant and guarded, but wrestles convincingly and poignantly with the idea that her country and culture has grown defiantly beyond her. (the chap playing Tony Blair isn't bad either, and will bear an uncanny resemblance to him five years down the road. for now, though, his youth was a little disconcerting.) and though The Queen isn't one of Frears' best films (and, beyond Mirren's bravura performance, is perhaps undeserving of the degree of praise it's received), the character study approach to a terrifically telling moment in the queen's life allows him to revel in his themes without forcing them, turning the film into a quietly powerful meditation on how our world changes and the state of mind of those who try to ignore (or prevent) such change. but while it is occasionally ruthless, it's also fair, and not unsympathetic.

woody allen's BROADWAY DANNY ROSE (1984)

i'm an enormous fan of Woody's, and was terrifically pleased to rediscover Broadway Danny Rose, which i saw during my initial infatuation with his work but apparently didn't pay close enough attention to. it is still, as i had perceived, a resonably modest comedy by his standards (more subdued than his early work but less intellectually ambitious than his late 70s output) and in some respects a warm-up for the emotion-driven storytelling of Purple Rose Of Cario and Hannah And Her Sisters, but it's also light, lovely, and heartfelt little film. Danny Rose isn't particularly smart, but he's virtuous and oddly dignified, and though all these things are uncharacteristic of typical Woody roles, he gives one of his best performances as a result. It's also in BDR he first uses the deft conversational framing device he revisits in later films (though never more successfully.) But most striking is the film's gorgeousness - Gordon Willis handles this comparatively light comedy with the same skill and attention to detail with which he approached the headier Stardust Memories and Manhattan, and the result rivals both, and reinforces BDR's role as the the bridge between the second and third phase of Woody's career.