michael haneke's FUNNY GAMES (2007)

it's hard to shake the feeling that writing about (or indeed even thinking too hard about) Funny Games is in and of itself a bit of a trap; from Haneke's point of view, nose-thumbing intellectual dissonance seems the funniest game of all. but it's still fascinating, and its contradictions are central to that even as they perhaps hold the audience at arm's length from the heart of the matter; we're given a spry, stern lecture on screen violence and traumatic-miserablism-as-entertainment, wrapped up in a slick, tense box unequivocally and unapologetically learned in the finer points of both. Haneke, of course, knows this, and isn't afraid to let us know that he knows, but as compelling as his film is (for all of these reasons and more) there's a smugness to the whole thing that undermines the sincerity of its ideas long before its textual clashes have the chance, and in that regard Haneke and his Funny Games are unsuccessful - such games are a lot more fun when the dealer doesn't show his hand.

sergio leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)

Leone is one of the embarrassing gaps in my film knowledge, but i've seen the light that is Once Upon The Time In The West, and i'm ready to devour the rest. i don't know if i'm unequal to the task of writing on it or just too lazy to embark on what would take pages to describe, but the short version is that West is grand and brilliant in a way that few films are, and lacks not one bit of the confidence inherent in those qualities. it's been a long time since a film shoehorned itself into a shortlist of my all-time favorites, but Once Upon A Time In The West just strolled in like it owned the place.

bruce timm's BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM (1993)

i'm the first to put Batman: The Animated Series forth as the most faithful, accomplished superhero cartoon in memory (and up there with the best cartoons period) but its bigscreen foray doesn't completely live up to its legacy; Timm & co don't seem comfortable flexing their storytelling muscles at "feature" length, and even though the flashback structure provides passable padding, the story isn't sufficiently engaging (and, more critically, the action sequences aren't nearly numerous or spectacular enough) to make too much of an impression.

richard kelly's SOUTHLAND TALES (2006)

"evacuate the atrium, move to the rear of the mega-zeppelin."
- Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (as Boxer Santoros), delivering the best line of his storied career

finally released on DVD after years of tweaking and an embarrassingly minor theatrical run, Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales is the story of a dimwitted porn star, an amnesiac conservative actor, an alternative energy baron, the head of a national surveillance agency, a ice-cream truck driving arms dealer, bong-huffing neo-Marxist extortionists, a southern senator, a soldier slinging a drug called Liquid Karma, and two suspiciously identical policemen, among many others. an attempted summary of the film’s story would turn into a list twice as long, as full of tangents and halfbaked notions as genuine plot points. Southland Tales is a movie of Ideas, and it wants you to know that. it’s cerebral, but also deadly silly and stupid.

more than anything, though, the key descriptor for Kelly’s follow-up to his much-loved, much-puzzled-over Donnie Darko is audacity. for the first twenty minutes, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the whole thing’s just a big joke, as a scarred-up Iraq veteran (Justin Timberlake) introduces us to a present-day post-apocalypse California, our primary players, and leagues of paranoiac backstory set to a series of glossy, over-designed effects. considering Kelly cut forty minutes out of the film following a positively disastrous Cannes screening, it’s hard to begrudge him the unfortunate Band-Aid of awkward exposition, but the scope of what he introduces, the obviously non-chewable bites he takes right off the bat, still leave you primed for the biggest cinematic goof since Freddy Got Fingered. (or at the very least Lady In The Water…that one was a joke, right?) and for an hour afterwards, it just plods forward without particular drive or interest.

then a funny thing happens: everything starts falling together. not in the way Kelly probably envisioned as this bloated clown originally emerged from his word processor, mind you, but falling together nonetheless. throughout Southland Tales’ running time it pretends pathetically to the thrones of Vonnegut, Robert Altman and Philip K Dick, but when it’s honest with itself there’s really quite a lot to be said for the film as a sort of slick, maximalist heir to Repo Man. it’s a shaggy dog story full of metaphysical lunacy and infuriatingly dense storytelling, with none of the patient, melancholy character work that make Donnie Darko so beguiling. but whether it deserves it or not, it redeems itself in small ways amid the mess, and ends up working unexpectedly well on its own terms, which is all you can really ask of it. it’s not hard to see why so many have tossed Southland Tales aside as a disaster, but the curious shouldn’t be dissuaded.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

robert wise's THE HAUNTING (1963)

it's all too true that they don't make 'em like they used to, just as it's true that Robert Wise managed to make this one like they wouldn't for years to come. The Haunting drags a little towards the beginning, sure, and could use more showing and less telling where Eleanor is concerned, but there's no denying the film's creepy power over the audience, just as there's no underestimating the presence of mind in Wise's craft; though the genre today scrapes by on a much lower brow, horror's hacks and heroes are all still taking cues from The Haunting's accomplishments.

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.