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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Year-End Film Wrap-Up: It's all about timing
Wednesday 07 February @ 14:29:44 |
 by PAUL BACHLEITNER
So much about judging the year's best and worst films has to do with timing.
If a film opens too early, critics might forget about it. Remember "Thank You for Smoking," the scathing satire of the smoking industry and all things unhealthy but profitable? It made the mistake of opening in April, when spring fever usually thins the crowds at the Uptown. It's tragic so few people saw, or at least recall seeing, Aaron Eckhart as a cunning ad man for the tobacco industry who speaks on the virtues of cigarette smoking to his son's grade school class.
But then comedies don't carry much weight with award voters. Okay, so what about Spike Lee? Universal released "Inside Man" in March instead of December. Now critics have forgotten that it's possibly one of the best heist pictures of all time and that Jodie Foster delivered a whiz bang supporting performance as a corporate agent who'd probably eat Aaron Eckhart's ad man for breakfast without burping.
 The misguided idea of a spring release also killed "Brick," a snappy little indie film with the best dialogue in a film noir since "Pulp Fiction." Joseph Gordon Levitt excelled as a savvy-beyond-his-years high school version of Philip Marlowe with a mouthful of slang to toss at pistol-packing lettermen who ain't afraid to die.
Maybe the vast wasteland of films released this summer erased critics collective memories of almost any film released before October not titled "United 93" (which had 9/11 as its critical mnemonic). The forgetfulness was mostly for good cause. "The Da Vinci Code" explored new levels of ineptitude in bad accents all across Europe in early May followed immediately by the abysmal third installment of the X-Men franchise.
But the summer also offered the surprisingly delightful "The Devil Wears Prada." Everyone knows high fashion is funny, but it's also supposed to be serious business, and no one sells the idea better than Meryl Streep. Her gray-streaked fashionista was one of the most memorable and nuanced film characters of the year. It's a shame Helen Mirren so perfectly resembled Queen Elizabeth in "The Queen" that no critic would dare vote for Streep, or anybody else, for the Best Actress Oscar.
Speaking of Helen Mirren, if it weren't for her and Michael Sheen, as British PM Tony Blair, "The Queen" would've been the most overrated soap opera of a film this year. Yes, it's fun to peek into the private lives of royals, but how many times do we really need to watch the queen sip tea as everyone blabbers about the world falling apart around her?
"Little Miss Sunshine" should also be a contender for most-overrated film. The little girl in the title role and her family are so dysfunctional they're cute. Too bad most of the jokes are retreads from other top indie comedies of the last few years. Correct me if I'm wrong, but did anything that's funny in "Little Miss Sunshine" not already appear in "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," "Napoleon Dynamite," or "About a Boy," to name just a few? (Although, kudos for the efforts of on-spec first-time screenwriter, Michael Arndt, and debut husband-and-wife directors, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who bucked corporate odds to make the film.)
By contrast, the awards buzz for my sleeper pick of the year, "Half Nelson," is much lower. But there's no reason why the film shouldn't be on every reviewer's top 10 list. Ryan Gosling is stunning and oddly charismatic as a teacher who abuses crack as an opiate for his long-lost, and more-than-a-little socialist, dream of enlightening inner-city junior high school students. Gosling's character's friendship with a student he coaches on the basketball team (Shareeka Epps) resists cliché at nearly every opportunity, including an uncomfortable early moment when she catches him stoned in the girl's bathroom.
This leads us finally to the fall primetime award season, which debuted like a pop gun with "The Black Dahlia" and "All the King's Men." But then "The Illusionist" rolled around, then "The Departed," then "Flags of Our Fathers," and then "The Prestige." Which are all good films.
But then came "Babel," an absolute masterpiece by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. It traces the effect of a gun shot accident on the lives of characters in Africa, North America and Japan. "Babel" is pure genius for the way its narrative structure weaves together seemingly disparate stories to observe the beautiful and terrible disharmony that occurs in the distance between one person and another. Although a few of the plot elements in "Babel" are contrived-they almost have to be in a narrative this complex-the film portrays the essence of the modern human condition better than any other film this year. It also represents a fulfillment of the promise Gonzalez Inarritu demonstrated in his prior use of multi-narrative structures in "Amores Perros" and "21 Grams."
 Indeed, the sheer talent of Gonzalez Inarritu and fellow Mexican directors, Alfonso Cuaron ("Y Tu Mama Tambien") and Guillermo del Toro ("The Devil's Backbone"), has shown Mexico to be a leader in world cinema. Cuaron's "Children of Men" should've joined "Babel" among the Academy's Best Picture nominees. The film transforms a sub-par novel by P.D. James (whose skill lies in mysteries not sci-fi) by exposing current global social conflicts via a thriller plot that supposes the effects of worldwide infertility in the near future. The magnitude of Cuaron's creativity emerges in a million understated ways, from the story's tight focus on the vulnerability of its protagonist (the multi-faceted Clive Owen) to the realism of its documentary-style camera work that lingers an extra second on victims to portray them as humans and not just sci-fi film extras.
Del Torro's "Pan's Labyrinth" is more abstractly creative as a gothic fairy that juxtaposes the dreamlike visions of a little girl with the fascist reality of Franco's Spain. A faun, a monster with eyes held by hands with long fingers and other fantastic creatures populate a hidden reality just as dangerous as the girl's domineering adoptive father (Sergi Lopez) and the troops he commands. Del Torro's direction is so deft you can believe the Brothers Grimm would've made this film had they lived in modern times and had a camera.
Finally, not to be outdone by the brilliance of the three Mexicans, is American director Todd Field's "Little Children." Field's second directorial effort is a drama as finely nuanced as his 2002 Oscar-nominated debut "In the Bedroom." No Best Picture nomination this time, but at least Kate Winslet garners one for Best Actress as a stay-at-home mom whose playful flirtations with stay-at-home dad, Patrick Wilson ("Phantom of the Opera"), echo overt and subtle social ripples in a New England community.
The following is this reviewer's top-10 list, ranked in no particular order:
1. "Babel"
2. "Children of Men"
3. "Little Children"
4. "Pan's Labyrinth"
5. "Infamous"
6. "Half Nelson"
7. "The Devil Wears Prada"
8. "Brick"
9. "Thank You for Smoking"
10. "Inside Man" ||
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