d.a. pennebaker's DON'T LOOK BACK (1967)

what a weird creature Dylan was! volatile, inquisitive, and operating on an altogether different plane; a plane, one imagines, that he might very much like to take an impossible vacation from, which exacerbates the situation. it's tempting to say that Don't Look Back wouldn't be any less interesting without the music, but the scattered performances (split though they are between poetic obscurity and heartbreaking lucidity) are a necessary reminder as to why so many would clamor for the opportunity to put up with such an unstable, inscrutable, condescending, brilliant fucking punk. Pennebaker is bold and merciless in his choices, and it's both a treat and a treasure that a fascinating time in a fascinating life was caught and cut with such taste and observant depth, even if the "rock doc" Pennebaker invented would inevitably descend into self-serving fluff.

kevin lima's ENCHANTED (2007)

as pleasant (if innocuous) a surprise as there is to be had in this corner of the movies, it's not hard to see why Enchanted saw such an eager critical reception: it's sweet-natured in a way that deplorably few contemporary family films are, especially considering the premise is such that it could have easily collapsed into asinine self-reference at any moment. but there's no spoof, only homage, and the script is amusing and witty without aspirations to unbecoming edginess. Enchanted not only lives up to but actively enriches the Disney legacy, too long tarnished and neglected.

todd haynes' I'M NOT THERE (2007)

i can understand and appreciate what Haynes intends for I'm Not There, but it's clear that realization is a bit beyond his grasp; scenes and segments are successful (Cate Blanchett's turn as Dylan Abroad is every bit as bravura as it ought to be) but overall the thing churns and lurches, overstaying its welcome despite the fact that there's no real story to be told. it's a strange, creative tribute to a strange, creative man, but it's also an unnecessarily minor detour for Haynes.

joss whedon's SERENITY (2005)

how embarrassing for George Lucas that the summer of Sith should come to an end with a piece of science fiction that succeeds so wildly on every level that his Star Wars prequels failed. with Serenity Whedon gives his nearly-perfect Firefly the grandest sendoff imaginable without skipping a beat; the finale is every bit as lively, inspired, and downright fun as the series' best, but it's also astonishingly comfortable as a feature, and as much as Whedon impresses as a first-time director, it's still his writing that steals the show. i'm not talking about the trademark banter (which, in another trademark, occasionally misfires), but rather the spotless transition of scope and structure from hourlong to feature length that shines a light on Whedon as a trully accomplished screenwriter; the bravura opening sequence alone is a graduate class in both construction and unobtrusive exposition, pulling the uninitiated into Firefly's universe with one hand and giving old fans a welcoming pat on the back with the other. whether it's television, film, or even comics, there's little excuse for people not to be constantly throwing money at Joss Whedon.

wes anderson's THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (2004)

it was hard for me to contain my disappointment when i first saw Life Aquatic, but it stands up insistently on another viewing, even if its problems are just as i'd remembered them: the seeds are there for the same sort of emotional character studies Anderson pulled off so well in his first three films, but whether through hubris or just plain laziness he refuses to water them, and the result is so emotionally distant that it would feel like a joke if the whole thing weren't also so twee and sentimental. but deep wounds aren't always fatal, and there's a fair deal to redeem Anderson as a technician even as he fails embarrassingly as a storyteller. Life Aquatic is still enthralling in its meticulous beauty, and if anything the ruthlessly indifferent affect of its emotional arc allows a cleaner sacrifice of substance in pursuit of style. (it's also to Bill Murray's credit that he forgot to read the memo about the film's emotional vacuum; he does some extremely fine, affecting work here.)

scott frank's THE LOOKOUT (2007)

tony kaye's LAKE OF FIRE (2007)

towards the beginning of Tony Kaye’s devastating, clairvoyant documentary Lake Of Fire, celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz relates a parable about a rabbi mediating between a bickering couple. the husband, he declares, is right, and so is the wife. a student, however, objects. “they can’t both be right!” the student, the rabbi admits, is also right.

this paradox, as painfully simple as it is complex, is central to Lake Of Fire, and Kaye is uncommonly mindful of this, particularly within the myopic world of nonfiction film. but his subject requires, and deserves, nothing less: after sixteen years of production, Kaye has produced what amounts to a definitive primer on abortion in America, unconcerned with convincing but hell-bent on trying to understand. “everybody is right when it comes to the issue of abortion,” Dershowitz concludes, and Lake Of Fire unceasingly concurs.

beautifully constructed even at two and a half hours, the film bounces back and forth across the culture war’s most brutal line of fire, collecting from each side the scattered moral and ethical imperatives that define them. on the pro-life side we speak to pastors and protesters, unshakable in their defense of the unborn; on the pro-choice side we hear from the activists and doctors in the trenches as well as from great minds like Peter Singer and Noam Chomsky, who dare to take an objective look at a divisive, impossible issue.

more important than names and faces, of course, is the depth and breadth of ideas at play. where a woman’s right to choose is concerned, Lake Of Fire rarely has occasion to repeat itself, moving rapid-fire through all-too-relevant subjects like civil liberties, sexual politics, public health, and the hypocrisies of focusing resources on the unborn while men, women, and children starve and suffer all over the world. through this array of well-argued positions, it’s Chomsky, speaking with his usual tone of profound common sense, that makes one of the film’s most salient points: no one is supporting infanticide, and no one is bemoaning the loss of potentially life-giving cells when a woman washes her hands. “somewhere between that,” however, “there are decisions to be made about how we are going to balance what we call ‘life’ against other problems. and those decisions are not simple.”

visits to the pro-life side emphasize the difficulty. it’s harder, of course, to effectively communicate faith-based stances to an objective audience than it is the civic and logical bases of the pro-choicers, but Lake Of Fire manages it wherever it can by facilitating a genuine empathy; as we become attuned to and confident in their convictions, it’s harder to dismiss their fervor in condemning and combating what they see as an ongoing, culture-approved prenatal holocaust. (particularly affecting is a DC protestor’s quiet, poignant eulogy for his unborn nephew, which makes the heart of the anti-abortion movement much clearer than any bumper sticker or picket sign ever could.)

one of the many things Kaye doesn’t shy away from, however, is a sobering examination of how this disenfranchisement stokes the fires of fanaticism, and Lake Of Fire’s primary detour from stances, facts and fictions emerges as its strongest narrative thread. the key figure in this portion of the film is Paul Hill, a defrocked Presbyterian minister and vocal advocate for the murder of abortion providers, whose repeated intersections with Kaye’s chronicle of anti-abortion violence spells only trouble. but we also hear from a survivor of a clinic bombing, a callow murderer trying to use Catholicism as a shield, and a nurse who has worked for no less than three murdered doctors…one of whom is also interviewed. (there’s also the matter of off-kilter movement firebrand Randall Terry, whose trajectory as an invective-spewing radio host and paleoconservative reformer is somehow nearly as insidious as Hill and his cronies.) in a way this intermittent emphasis on the violent, unstable faction of the pro-life movement could be construed as skewing the film, but Kaye’s only sin is curiosity; the sad contradictions in this violence and the figures that perpetuate it are an undeniably crucial element in the equation.

besides, any damage to be done to their own cause by the Hills and Terrys of the world is undone by Kaye’s unblinking ferociousness when it comes to the down and dirty business behind it all: the procedure. Lake Of Fire spares no gory detail: one moment we are treated to a photo of the heartbreaking aftermath of a botched pre-Roe self-abortion, the next to a poorly-filmed, stomach-turning movement filmstrip, produced to galvanize believers like so much moral pornography. but the most jarring, haunting sequence is smartly deployed early in the film, as Kaye’s elegant 35mm black and white captures the aftermath of a second trimester abortion in all its quiet horror; the images he comes away with are surely among the cinema’s most unforgettable.

and that’s fitting for Lake Of Fire, as it earns its bona fides as a landmark piece of nonfiction film; it’s accessible to the best of its ability, and communicates important ideas with a clear head. but the greatest praise one can give it is that it is challenging: emotionally, intellectually, and morally. there’s nary a moment that won’t move you to reflection, disgust, or both, and when it fades to black you’ll be as prepared as one can be to make up your own mind.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

james cameron's THE TERMINATOR (1984) and TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991)

i hope when James Cameron sits back and reflects proudly on his career (which he probably does on an hourly basis or so) the Terminator movies get their proper due; though i'd probably say Aliens is his best work, Judgment Day creeps closely behind, and part of the latter's success is the full embrace of a rich mythology hinted at in the first film, a mythology that continues to fuel the brand 25 years later. (that the original now seems a bit tedious is only further credit to its sequel's wall-to-wall spectacle; it's a pretty accomplished lowish-budget piece of sci-fi.) the one thing that still troubles me, though, is that such a fully, arguably unnecessarily realized backstory relies so heavily on an obvious (and, thanks to persistent oversight, irreconcilable) paradox within its time-bending premise: if Sarah Connor were ever to find true, lasting success in her campaign to stop SkyNet, her beloved son would surely blink out of existence, and she would once again find herself a sadder, older version of the vapid clubrat we meet at the beginning of the first film...which would once again leave SkyNet unprevented and unopposed. (this is all, of course, assuming that space/time doesn't rupture and destroy everything post-1984, though if that were the true nature of Terminator's time travel philosophy, it probably would have happened eight times over by Judgment Day's climax.) the only other explanation is that all the holes and folds in time throughout the films are already accounted for in a grander timeline, which means that there's no changing or stopping mankind's fate, no matter how many picnic tables are etched up with facile assertions of free will.

david slade's 30 DAYS OF NIGHT (2007)

it's rare that i'd fault a film for insufficient pilfering, but 30 Days Of Night is the exception: regardless of Slade's own considerable talents and instincts, i spent a good deal of the film wishing he'd spent his downtime screening and re-screening The Thing and Assault On Precinct 13, notepad by his side. it's obvious, handsome and moody though the film is, that Carpenter's knack for sustained, intimate tension would be a great help, but Slade takes it at his own muddled pace, so we never get a definitive feel for the geography or timeframe, and that hobbles an otherwise frightening film. still, there's little to grumble at technically; an extended bird's eye tracking shot of the town under vampire seige is surely one of the most striking setpieces in recent horror.

david wain's THE TEN (2007)

Wain & co's Wet Hot American Summer is unquestionably one of my favorite comedies, so i was a little disappointed in myself when i didn't make it to the theater to catch The Ten, but in hindsight i'm pretty satisfied, as this lazy, lousy anthology wasn't even really worth streaming for free off of Netflix. (i was home sick and didn't feel like getting out of bed; what's The Ten's excuse?) there's a laugh here and there, but very little effort, and even less charm.

ben affleck's GONE BABY GONE (2007)

it turns out Ben Affleck isn't a complete cosmic waste of space, just that he was on the wrong side of the camera! Gone Baby Gone is a slick, capable and occasionally impressive debut from everyone's eleventh-favorite romantic lead, drawing a lot of strength from a great cast (it is, for instance, damn clear who got whatever acting genes there are to be had in the Affleck lineage) but even more from an uncommonly well-drawn portrait of the smaller corners of a big city. even if it didn't share Amy Ryan, Michael K. Williams and Dennis Lehane with The Wire, there would still be easy parallels to draw between the two: GBG's Dorchester streets are as finely textured as those of The Wire's Baltimore, featuring faces and types you don't often see in movies but quite plainly belong where they pop up, which is all the more conducive to the startling depth of the character constellations. in the end it's a pity that Lehane's lopsided narrative doesn't squeeze more comfortably into a feature film, but Affleck's still to be commended for a job finally well done.

akiva schaffer's HOT ROD (2007)

Hot Rod is a dumb movie (sorry, a very dumb movie), but pleasing just the same. Andy Samberg and his crew are able ambassadors between mainstream comedy and the strange, only-mostly-worthless shenanigans of the YouTube generation, and in that sense Hot Rod is a success: whether it's appealing because or in spite of its random, goofy shapelessness is left to question, but for a certain audience (myself grudgingly included) it's funny enough not to really matter.

john hughes' SIXTEEN CANDLES (1984)

i somehow made it through young adulthood without seeing this, despite my affection for Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller, both of which it lives up to in small ways; Hughes really did seem to have a feel for contemporary teendom, and all the deeply human moments scattered through the film keep it perfectly fresh a full generation later. (it's a shame that Hughes' films have no obvious no post-millenial analogues, though Superbad, i suppose, comes close.) interesting, on reflection: all three of the films take place over the course of a single day (the full 24+ hours, in Candles' case, but still), which is both bold and smart, and may be the key to such strong evocation of the teenage mind: every moment means so much.