tim burton's SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (2007)

it's great to have Tim Burton back in the game. after Sleepy Hollow he staked out and firmly defended a healthy territory of mediocrity, but building from (or at least handsomely recreating) Sondheim's musical finally seems to have snapped him out of it. he's a good fit for the material, of course, but for reasons opposed to the obvious ones: Corpse Bride, his last foray into the macabre, was an abysmally affected and unimaginative rehash of past successes that tainted his earlier work by association, and here he redeems himself by leaning on material that had "that Tim Burton feeling" long before he did, which seems to free him to concentrate on the finer points of his craft, so often overshadowed by his sensibilities.

stanley kubrick's DR STRANGELOVE or: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964)

quite simply the best shit ever. Kubrick's range is the stuff of legends, but Terry Southern's blacker-than-black comedy still attempts to push the boundaries, and sure enough Kubrick not only meets the challenge but one-ups him. flawless tone, pacing, design (!!!) and performances across the board. a perfect film.

robert altman's 3 WOMEN (1977)

here's a film that's as illuminating to another filmmaker's work as to its own: i've always been dubious about the more outré elements of David Lynch's work, drawing inspiration as he does from his dreams without the skill (or concern) to put these images and ideas to use beyond simple self-service, and Altman reinforces Lynch's folly with 3 Women by taking a curious dream and transforming it into something so detailed and delicate without sapping its unease. the end of the film finds Altman still unsure of its overall meaning, but the lengths to which he goes to discover it (and the overwhelming, if incomplete, degree to which he succeeds) makes all the difference.

billy wilder's THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1970)

richard donner's THE GOONIES (1985)

john carney's ONCE (2007)

lucio fulci's THE BEYOND (1981)

again, i'm out of my element with this stuff, though my best friend lives and breathes it. what occurred to me watching The Beyond, though, is the effect that context has on standards: this is surely a more polished film than City Of The Dead, and by and large there's a genuinely unsettling mood that most horror flicks would kill for, but stripped of its few charms there's little to clarify to me why Fulci is held to a sort of auteurish ideal among the horror cognoscenti. even looking past the rock-bottom production value, the film is sloppy, vague and rife with holes, depending solely on mood and gore to score its points, and as a result the underwhelmingness of it all undermines the scares. Argento i can understand: as much as Suspiria (the only one i've seen, i readily admit; as i said, out of my element here) suffers from milder cases of the same afflictions, there's obviously art oozing from its design, tone, and pacing. but the two and a half Fulci films i've seen leave questions. maybe i just don't understand. but there's so much potential, so little delivery, and yet so much regard.

brian depalma's BLOW OUT (1981)

noah baumbach's MARGOT AT THE WEDDING (2007)

lord, i’d hate to meet Noah Baumbach’s family. it’s possible, of course, that they’re perfectly lovely people, worlds removed from the walking psychological time bombs that populate his films, but that would make Baumbach the greatest screenwriter of his generation, an honor I’m not ready to bestow on the co-writer of The Life Aquatic. Margot At The Wedding, a worthy spiritual sequel to his excruciatingly perceptive commercial/psychiatric breakthrough The Squid And The Whale, again examines the dynamics of familial dysfunction, but on a far more bothersome level than the affected quirk typical of similar American indies; Baumbach’s voice as a filmmaker has by now clearly emerged through his ruthless examination of the thoughts and feelings we do our best to hide from the people we love, but slip out nonetheless.

where Squid centered on the emotional and intellectual angst of a teen facing his parents’ divorce, Margot At The Wedding focuses instead on the adult product of such psychological sabotage, a failed mother and wife who retreats to her own high horse on the eve of her estranged sister’s wedding. as character studies go, few in recent memory have been as penetrative as Nicole Kidman’s manipulative, desolate Margot, and Baumbach meets his performers halfway with a visual flatness that’s nearly as ugly as the emotions in play, but naturalistic in a way that serves the material. the overall result is less striking than The Squid And The Whale, but only because he seems to be striving to make his characters here as real as their feelings; that the film is unshowy makes it that much more subversive, and leaves us afraid of what Noah Baumbach might strip from our minds and hearts next time around.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

mike nichols' CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR (2007)

most everyone has had the displeasure of seeing a favorite book neutered and mismanaged on the road to the silver screen, and George Crile’s superlative nonfiction yarn Charlie Wilson’s War shouldn’t be an exception to that rule: the story of Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson’s successful efforts to covertly arm Afghanis against their Soviet oppressors is terrific material, but the sequence of events is convoluted and tangled as only real life can tangle them. it’s that much more miraculous, then, that Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation is not only reverent but indeed a nearly perfect model of how such daunting material can play effortlessly onscreen. Sorkin (redeeming himself after the dreadful “Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip”) makes every choice with precision and wit, freely molding Crile’s details into a characteristically snappy, streamlined script that does the book’s larger-than-life characters and story full justice without bending under the weight of adaptation. it helps, of course, that Sorkin’s script attracted veteran subversive Mike Nichols (confidently continuing a career resurgence here) and the unexpected comedy team of Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman, all of whom are almost unfairly suited to the material. Charlie Wilson’s War could have easily been a misfire, but the talent and professionalism at hand make for one of the most satisfying (and refreshingly adult) mainstream efforts of the year.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

jason reitman's JUNO (2007)

months of hype and counter-hype in the wake of Sundance steeled me for Juno’s inevitable Indie Cutesyness, and in some respects it doesn’t disappoint; Diablo Cody’s much-lauded script takes occasional detours into affected sass and cringeworthy pop namedropping, and director Jason Reitman shows no more facility for the material here than on his smug misfire Thank You For Smoking, relying instead on a sloppy autopilot that lazily mimics genre touchstones. luckily, though, Cody’s work is more than strong enough overall to lead Reitman by the ear through an undeniably worthy crowd pleaser, notable not only for its uniformly fine performances (Ellen Page lives up to every bit of praise) but also the sincere emotional intelligence that makes them possible.


(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

dwayne carey-hill's BENDER'S BIG SCORE (2007)

ridley scott's BLADE RUNNER (1982)