Have You Seen The Boondock Saints?

I get asked that question a lot. I am completely perplexed by the cult status of this film. I think it's one of the worst things ever made. I started writing a long winded rant about The Boondock Saints but I stopped because it was starting to depress me.

So I decided to express my thoughts in a different format.

The Wire

I've been a bit lax on my film blogging as of late but that's probably because I spent about two months watching nothing but "The Wire". Much has been written about this show, by people more intelligent than myself, so this won't be as in-depth as I would like it to be. If I can convince just one person to give this show a try it will have been worth the time spent writing about it.

If an alien culture came to Earth to learn about us but limited their observation to prime time network television, it would be safe to assume that at least half of our population is employed in law enforcement. On the four major networks alone I was able to count 23 different police/investigation shows. Does this imply that the networks are creatively bankrupt or that they have just perfected the art of giving people what they want? The worst of these shows have devolved into what I consider to be the most tired forms of American entertainment: the police procedural. The procedural is nothing new. Sherlock Holmes was doing it 120 years ago and the mass market paperback charts are dominated by the likes of Sue Grafton and James Patterson. I don't know how many CSIs, SVUs, and NCISs we need, but television execs will continue putting out the same uninspired, formulaic and melodramatic cop shows as long as we keep watching them.

It took nearly four years of people telling me that The Wire was the best show on television before I decided to sit down and finally watch the pilot episode. After all, it was a cop show, a genre which I've come to despise. I've never even watched any of the critically acclaimed police shows like NYPD Blue or The Shield.So it was with great reservations that I began my first episode of The Wire.

The first episode failed to engage me. As a pilot episode it fails to make its concept clear and doesn't introduce any particularly intriguing characters. At this point I was ready to exert my superiority over the so-called critics by dismissing the show as another typical procedural. But at least it felt different than most of the slickly produced network cop shows. It throws you into the middle of a culture that you may not be familiar or comfortable with. A lot of the lingo and legal speak went over my head but I had to give it credit for not trying to coddle the audience. At the end of the episode I was more interested in the style of it than the plot or the characters but if it hadn't been for the shows reputation I might not have given it another chance.

By the end of episode 2 the pieces started to fall into place and something finally clicked with me. We're left with a ragtag detail of police officers who seem ill equipped to take down a much more organized and disciplined drug organization. The detectives are hamstrung by the bureaucracy within their own department and the forces of the drug runners are comprised mostly of desperate young men who live in abject poverty. We can see that the conflict between these two groups is going to be the major conflict of the series but The Wire manages to paint them both as underdogs. In acknowledgment of this hopeless situation one of the characters in episode 2 utters the words "The game is rigged but you cannot lose if you do not play."

Watching The Wire is sort of like being in an abusive relationship. It will kick your ass and break your heart and you will still keep coming back for more because you don't know what else to do. I've never felt such a compulsion to watch a show. I devoured over 60 hours of this series in a few weeks which is an obsessive quality that I don't normally exhibit.

While watching this show you are never consciously aware that you are watching a scripted drama. The Wire is so honest and uncompromising that you feel like you're involved in some kind of fictionalized documentary. Shocking and horrible things will happen to people that you come to care about and these things have such a weight to them that you may feel like you've lost a member of your own family. All the artifice and contrivances of network cop shows are stripped away and events feel like they are unfolding naturally rather than carefully constructed to fit within an hour drama. One of the The Wire's major failings as a TV drama is that it is not a show you can watch casually. You're not likely to drop in for an hour and get any kind of self contained story. But by that same token, you wouldn't read a single chapter of a book out of context. And The Wire plays more like a novel than a television show, with plot lines taking a whole season (or even a few years) to resolve. And just like real life, those resolutions don't always deliver a satisfying conclusion.

Perhaps The Wire's greatest strength is that it's essentially a sociology class disguised as entertainment. And like any good class it doesn't necessarily give you the answers, but it does lead you to ask questions. In season three when a desperate police captain creates a free zone for drug dealers, you have to ask yourself if essentially legalizing drugs is justifiable even though it seems to have a positive effect on the community. Season four introduces you to the world of an inner city school as Officer Roland Pryzbylewski transfer into a different kind of public service: teaching. He soon learns that a middle school can be every bit as dangerous as the drug corners. Here the show steps dangerously close to echoing one of those cliched "inspirational teacher" movies; that is until we remember that in the world of The Wire a happy ending is not guaranteed.

I've heard people say that The Wire is a show that will ruin TV for you. I've given myself a few weeks to process the show and I'm afraid that might be true. The other day I watched the pilot episode of Fox's "Fringe", essentially a police procedural with a sci-fi twist. I had seen this episode before and I quite liked it the first time. The second time around I felt like I was watching it through a veil of artifice. Lance Reddick, who plays Lt. Cedric Daniels on The Wire, plays a very similar character on Fringe. After watching him over the course of The Wire's five seasons it was painful to see him chew on Fringe's hackneyed dialog. While the man may be happy to be working, I'm that deep down he knows he'll never be involved in something as raw and powerful as The Wire ever again. Looking at the new fall television lineup it's easy to see that the networks have fallen into the same old trap again. Nothing looks particularly risky or innovative. In the past I might have been willing to give some of these shows a try but I guess my heart just isn't in it. I'm afraid that The Wire has ruined TV for yet another viewer.

As for that bold claim that The Wire is the best show ever broadcast on television, well that's really hard to say. Everyone has their own tastes and opinions so it's kind of pointless to make such a claim. However, if someone said to me that this was the most important show ever, I don't think I could put up much of an argument.

Metropolis + Radiohead

My first experience with Fritz Lang's Metropolis was in 1998 when a coworker lent me his VHS copy of the film. If I remember correctly, it was the first silent film I ever saw. The version of the film that I saw that day remains somewhat of a cultural oddity. It was the restored version from 1984 which was scored by Italian composer Giorgio Moroder. Moroder's idea at the time was to score the film with contemporary pop music. Being that it was the early 80's, that meant the likes of Adam Ant, Loverboy, Pat Benetar and Queen, among others. I thought it was a great idea, just badly executed. I loved the visuals of the film so much that I became sort of obsessed with it, although I longed for a score that matched the grandeur of the visuals.

A couple years later I bought my first DVD player and I picked up a cheap public domain version of Metropolis. I can't even recall if this version contained the "official" score, but as I was watching it I still was unimpressed by the music. Even though I didn't feel that Moroder's score was particularly appropriate for the film it still injected a bit of energy to the overall experience of the film. I began to wonder what someone would do with the film today if they had the opportunity to score it with popular music. At this point a little seed of an idea began to form in my head. My musical obsession at the time was Radiohead. One night I decided to watch Metropolis with Radiohead's "Kid A" on the speakers instead of the DVD's score. It just fit perfectly - not only the cinematic grandeur of the music but also the themes expressed in the lyrics. I felt like I was on to something but I lacked the equipment or the skills to make it happen. I settled for making a mix CD to accompany the film.

In 2002 a restoration of Metropolis was undertaken and it was released in theatres and later on DVD. I had the opportunity to see it on the big screen and it was one of the best cinematic experiences of my life. My excitement was renewed about a year later when I acquired the film on DVD. I still felt the frustration that the original score was underwhelming and I held onto the idea that some day I would do something about this.

A couple more years passed. Radiohead had released a few albums during that time although my excitement for the band had waned over the years. Not long after their last album, "In Rainbows", was released I sat down to watch Metropolis again. And again I was unimpressed by the music. This time, with Radiohead's new music fresh on my mind and a little more confidence in my editing skills, I was inspired to finally start working on the project that I had conceived of nearly eight years before.

To my surprise, it didn't suck. A lot of the times I felt like the film was scoring itself. By now I had a lot more of Radiohead's catalog to work with. There were a few scenes/song connections that I had had in mind for years and it was a pleasure to finally bring them to life. I felt like I had discovered the cinematic equivalent of chocolate and peanut butter and it really didn't take that much effort to put them together. I didn't edit a single frame of the film to fit the music and rarely did I even have to edit the music. There are a couple instances where I looped or layered tracks to fill a hole or create something new but for the most part I was astonished at how well things fit naturally. I generally wasn't paying much attention to the content of the lyrics and chose to focus more on the feeling of the songs, but if you are familiar with the lyrics there are a lot of strange coincidences that match up with what is happening on screen. And of course, one of Radiohead's most famous songs is "Paranoid Android." I was able to find a pretty appropriate use for that one.

In the end I was pretty pleased with the result. About a year ago I showed it to some friends and they encouraged me to post it to the internet and even send a copy to Radiohead. I'm just now getting around to doing the first part of that suggestion. Here is the entire project available for viewing on Vimeo.com. If you haven't seen this I hope you enjoy the film and music in a different context.

Metropolis + Radiohead part 1 from Chris Ayers on Vimeo.

Metropolis + Radiohead part 2 from Chris Ayers on Vimeo.

Metropolis + Radiohead Part 3 from Chris Ayers on Vimeo.

Metropolis + Radiohead part 4 from Chris Ayers on Vimeo.

Metropolis + Radiohead Part 5 from Chris Ayers on Vimeo.

Metropolis + Radiohead Part 6 from Chris Ayers on Vimeo.

Band of Outsiders

Jean-Luc Godard's Band of Outsiders I have loved for years without really ever knowing why. Maybe it's the overall melancholy feeling that's punctuated with brief moments of joy. I've never given it much conscious thought until I sat down to tear it apart and put it back together again. I was watching a YouTube clip of the film, that famous scene of the characters running through The Louvre, while listening to The Love Language's "Lalita". The song has a very lo-fi yet upbeat and poppy sound that I associate with 60's rock. It seemed to fit the tone of that scene so well that I decided to cut together a music video using Band of Outsiders.

During that process I scanned through the movie looking for the most iconic scenes. And I quickly came to realize something; you could watch the whole film with the sound off and understand it very well based solely on the strength of the images. And it dawned on me that it was reason I liked the film so much. There is no grand, sweeping cinematography here; it's all about the details and and small gestures that have a lot of meaning. The little touches that you wouldn't even think to put in the script but which lend meaning to the action. I didn't set out to make my video a chronological story but it ended up that way. By choosing the most meaningful scenes I could essentially distill the basic story into three minutes. Admittedly, some of the story elements are missing and as well as some of the subtext but it's a credit to Godard that he can say so much with a simple gesture or glance.

To quote Godard's narration near the beginning of the film: "We might digress now and describe how Odile, Franz and Arthur each felt. But that's pretty clear. So we'll let the images speak for themselves".

That is why I love Godard and this film. And cinema as an art form.

So, here is my video and following that, a description of what I think are some brilliant scenes from Band of Outsiders.




First of all, the title sequence, which quickly intercuts images of the three main characters, establishes a relationship before we've even been properly introduced to them.

Then we cut back to Arthur and Franz staking out Odile's house. They're up to something shady, even if we don't know exactly what it is yet. On the way back to the car Franz turns quickly and mimes shooting Arthur, who falls to the ground and writhes dramatically on the ground. On the surface it's a playful gesture but it has a deeper meaning. You can guess the nature of their relationship from that action. There's already an unstated competition. Is the girl coming between them already? And since we don't yet know if these guys are real gangsters or just petty thugs, the tension starts to build. How long until these guys are shooting at each other for real?

When we first see Odile, she's the picture of innocence. Modestly dressed, hair done up in pigtails and riding a bicycle. So there's already a contrast between she and them. We know the guys are about to take advantage of that innocence.

The triangular relationship is further strengthened by a single shot in the classroom. The camera pans from Arthur, over to Odile, who looks shyly at him before turning to gaze at Franz on the other side of the room.

As they are talking in the hall and Odile and Arthur seem to be getting sort of cozy, Franz literally and quite comically comes between them as he goes through the door.

Later, in the hall, Arthur asks her if she has ever kissed a guy. When he asks her for a kiss she awkwardly sticks her tongue out because she thinks that's how it's done. He kisses her on the cheek, but her gesture points out how innocent and naieve she really is. This is made pretty obvious in the dialogue but that scene alone is all you really need to establish it.

As they drive her home, with her in the front seat between them, she takes playfully takes Franz's hat and places it on her head. He promptly takes it back, probably not wanting to step on Arthur's toes. When they park and get out, Arthur removes her bicycle from the trunk and then rides it once around the car, as if to claim his property.

In the famous dance scene in the cafe, naturally with Odile between the two guys, Franz now takes his hat and places it on Odile's head for the duration of the dance. It wasn't until I watched this scene with no sound or narration that I picked up on the fact that Odile keeps stealing glances toward Franz instead of Arthur. It's subtle but almost certainly intentional.

And of course my favorite visual from this film, the sprint through the Louvre. Turning the hallowed halls of the worlds most famous art museum into a playground. I love how, in the first shot, they race past a well known classical painting, Jacque Louis-David's "Oath of the Horatii". The camera lingers there for a moment to make a point. But our young trio is long gone. It's a nice metaphor not only for the foolishness of youth but for the New Wave itself.

Once I started thinking about this film on a conscious level I started to understand that a lot of these small devices Godard uses are simple but not immediately obvious. While he gives you plenty to think about with the existentialist conversations of the lead characters, he's quietly building these signs into the background.

I'm sure there is much more of this film to analyze but these are the things that came to the surface for me as I was going through the process of re-editing the work of a master filmmaker.

My Favorite Film of 2009: Inglourious Basterds

The first time I saw Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” I came away with the feeling that I had just seen an important movie. It’s such a unique film that I couldn’t quite get a handle on it. I went back a second time with it fresh in my mind to see if I could distill my thoughts a bit but it only gave me more to think about. I was drafting a long-winded review in my head but I put off writing about it. Upon it’s DVD release I got an opportunity to examine it a little closer. And while I don’t think it’s a perfect film (I wince every time Eli Roth comes onscreen) I do think it’s the best of the year and one of the most important films of the decade.

Here are a few reasons why:

1). This is the film that finally taught morons to read subtitles.

Let’s face it, the advertisements for the film are nothing but a compilation of the most juvenile and violent scenes taken out of their original context. Those people who went into this thinking it was a splatterfest romp through WWII got something else entirely. It’s one of the largest bait-and-switch promo campaigns in film history, one in which the title characters become supporting players in their own film.

Let’s start with the opening scene, which is essentially a 20 minute conversation between two actors, one of which isn’t even a main character. And a great deal of that conversation is in French. One of my greatest cinematic pet peeves is when characters speak English instead of their native language for the benefit of American audiences. In this case the conversation begins in French but after a few moments Colonel Landa requests that they switch to English. At this point I’m thinking “Ok, Tarantino has acknowledged the fact that they should be speaking French but has carefully made a segue into English so this thing will play to the frat boy crowd.” But then I realize something brilliant is going on. There’s actually a reason for switching to English – Col. Landa doesn’t want to alarm the French-speaking Jews hiding underneath the floorboards. This sets the tone for the rest of the film, which to my surprise and delight, turns out to be a story about the complexity, subtlety and beauty of language. I’d say about 80% of this film is spoken in French, German or Italian.

What follows about an hour after this opening conversation is without a doubt the most entertaining thing I saw all year. We have three German-speaking members of The Basterds deep undercover as SS Officers meeting with German actress-turned-spy Bridget Von Hammersmark in a French bar filled with Nazis. They try to maintain their cool under the pressure of an increasingly suspicious Gestapo Officer while being forced into a party game in which they have to guess a person’s name written on a card on their forehead. There are so many layers of deception and identity going on in that scene that it’s astounding. And of course there is the language. While the Gestapo officer has no trouble discerning the Frankfurt and Munich accents of two of the undercover Basterds, he is puzzled by the seeming English accent of Lt. Archie Hickox. I will admit that during the first two viewings I couldn’t tell the difference between the German spoken by the guy from Munich and the German spoken by the Brit, but on the third viewing I knew to listen more closely, and by god I could hear it! The tension eventually builds until you can’t take it anymore, and even though it ends in an orgasm of shocking violence (as many Tarantino scenes do) you really have to appreciate how it gets there.

Once I realized what Tarantino was doing with the language in this film I fully expected large groups of people to start walking out. A packed Saturday night crowd on opening weekend most likely didn’t come to see a foreign film. But everyone was just as riveted to the screen as I was. And as we were exiting the theatre I was very surprised to hear no complaints at all. People were actually phoning their friends to tell them to see it immediately. My faith in humanity was briefly restored.

2). The Best Movie Villain in Recent Memory

When was the last time you have seen someone as well written and superbly acted as Colonel Hans Landa? Remember how Hannibal Lecter was so menacing because he was the most intelligent person in the film? But what happens when you put something like that in a position of power? When asked about his role as Colonel Landa, Christoph Waltz claimed that the whole character was all right there in Tarantino’s script. I’m sure Tarantino deserves much credit but Waltz is certainly being modest. His Landa never gives away his true intentions until it’s too late and you realize that he’s been one step ahead of our heroes at every turn. And if he wasn’t such a self-serving fascist you would almost have to admire him. He’s the most fleshed out character in the film and you could go so far as to say that even though he is the villain, he is the main character this story. They say that heroes are only as strong as their villains and what Tarantino and Waltz have created here is one of the best villains ever to grace a movie screen.

3). The End of Holocaustsploitation?

“Holocaustsploitation” is a term that hasn’t quite caught on in English vernacular and I kind of hope it doesn’t. I use it here to describe the glut of films in recent years that have mined the Holocaust for entertainment value. Regardless of whatever Spielberg’s intentions were with “Schindler’s List” (and I have no doubt that they were good) it has become clear that the shortest path to an Oscar nomination (outside of playing someone who is mentally ill) is to star in a holocaust film. It’s the ultimate “serious subject” genre. You could spend days debating the relative merits of films like Life is Beautiful, Jakob the Liar, The Pianist, Black Book, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Definance, The Reader and many others. In most cases you would probably find good intentions but some larger questions remain. Is it ethical to fictionalize something so sensitive and traumatic? Is there an inherent guilt in watching these films for entertainment? What issues are we still dealing with 75 years later that cause filmmakers to continually return to this era? Go back and view Alain Resnais’ 1955 documentary “Night and Fog” about

the German death camps. It’s certainly not enjoyable but I think every human being should watch this at least once. And then ask yourself, “Is there anything more to be said about the Holocaust”?

I think there’s a fine line with these types of films and each one is potentially dangerous and irresponsible. And sometimes we don’t realize where that line is until we’ve crossed it.

So where does Inglourious Basterds fit in? On the surface it looks like it could be the type of irresponsible film I was just talking about. Yet it somehow maintains a precarious balance on that line and then in the last few minutes completely obliterates it. One thing it does is that other than the first scene in which Shoshanna’s family is murdered, there are no images of oppressed Jews. No concentration camps, no piles of bodies, no serial numbers. The Jews in this film are all empowered and angry. This alone sets the film apart. Inglourious Basterds is simply the revenge film to end all revenge films. The issues that continue to spur on the creation of new Holocaust films? Tarantino sets out to solve them. The issue for most of us, I think, is the pent-up anger and frustration that we will never be able to go back and put a bullet in Hitler’s head ourselves. And of course we never thought we’d see a closeup of Hitler’s face riddled with bullets and then subsequently blown up with dynamite. Tarantino has the balls to give us exactly what we’ve always wanted but never thought we’d see. If this was presented as revisionist history (like Forest Gump) we would be right to be offended. But this is really an alternate timeline in which one of our biggest wishes is fulfilled. But the real kicker is that for the most part the film is handled with such reverence and elegance, moreso than any other American war film I can recall. That’s the crux of this whole thing and what I had the hardest time wrapping my head around. You have such exquisite scenes like the two that I described earlier intercut with what can only be described as tasteless juvenile violence. It’s a film that contradicts itself as you are watching it.

My sincere hope is that after Adolph Hitler and most of the Nazi high command have been obliterated in one of the most satisfying film climaxes ever that we can put this behind us. This film offers catharsis unlike any other I have seen. I don't know what is left to be said about World War II that hasn't already been said.

I think this is a film that recognizes the characteristics of Holocaustsploitation and tiptoes carefully around it. I don’t know what Tarantino’s intentions were. Maybe it was just to create something entertaining out of the stale World War II genre, which would pretty much disprove the last few hundred words I wrote. I’m still not entirely sure what to make up of this film.

I guess I’ll just have to watch it again.

Best of 2009

My year end list normally exceeds ten and I try to not to limit it to such an arbitrary number. Unfortunately, 2009 made it a little too easy on me this year. There are a few films that might take that final spot given my mood but I feel that this year I can be satisfied with a top ten because there just wasn't that much to choose from.

So here they are, in alphabetical order:

500 Days of Summer - Marc Webb

At first this film seems like something that is engineered for the cynical hipsters of my generation, but it turns out to be quite an original and heartfelt film, a romantic comedy for those of us who hate romantic comedies. I enjoyed the film when I first saw it but it has been my conversations about the film afterwards that have made me appreciate it. I find it fascinating how the different sexes view the story. Males generally side with Tom and they understand exactly what it's like to be put through the wringer like that and turn around and blame the girl for his misery. Women seem to think that Summer did nothing wrong and was honest with Tom from the beginning about not wanting a relationship. The movie was so effective in this regard that it had me hating Zooey Deschanel (my number #1 celebrity crush) for what she did to Tom until it was explained to me later by members of the opposite sex that she hadn't actually done anything to him. It's more about what we do to ourselves and I think that's what makes this film so relatable. There is one sequence that I think is brilliant and it's one that I don't think I've ever seen in a film before: the expectations vs. reality split screen. You know you've played out that "expectations" film in your mind a million times only to be crushed by harsh reality. So I admire director Marc Webb for not sugar-coating this story but also for turning in one of the more honest relationship comedy/dramas I have seen in a long time.

The Brothers Bloom - Riann Johnson

I can't remember the last time my opinion of a film has been so at odds with the major critics. Yes, this flim is overly cute, contrived, whimsical and clever but I really liked the audacity with which Riann Johnson pulls this all off. It's like he decided to try to outdo Wes Anderson and just went way over the top with it. There's nothing about Johnson's previous film "Brick" that suggested he could make a film like "The Brothers Bloom" but here it is and it's a hell of a fun ride. I've never really paid much attention to Rachel Weisz before but it's impossible not to fall in love with her in this picture. Untimately this film just goes around in circles and doesn't really end up anywhere surprising but the the trip is so entertaining. Given all the valid criticisms that I have read from other reviewers I feel like I should know better than to like this film but I do anyway.

Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson

I was very pleased that Wes Anderson was able to finally break out of his comfort zone without sacrificing what essentially makes his films so unique. And I think that creating a visual in minature world is a natural progression for Anderson's meticulous style. Almost every scene of this thing is worthy of studying in freeze frame for the sheer cleverness and artistry of it. I've already written at length about this one in a previous review, but I will say that in a year where there were many unique animated films this one takes the top spot.

Inglourious Basterds - Quentin Tarantino

This was the only film of 2009 that I liked enough to see three times. Please see my in-depth write up coming soon.

Moon - Duncan Jones

The best science fiction is about ideas. The kind of thing that you can get across in a fifteen page short story and let go of. While Avatar may appear to be the pinnacle of sci-fi, it's really just fantasy in space. Moon, on the other hand, owes more to those one-off stories by Azimov, Clarke, Bradbury and Ellison. The kind that take a scientific idea and spin it into something existential and challenging. It's a pity that there aren't more of these idea-driven films made. This one edges out the similarly cerebral "District 9" simply because it refuses to regress into a sci-fi action spectacle. Sam Rockwell carries the whole film himself in dual roles. It's this kind of bold decision that makes Moon so fascinating. Director Duncan Jones holds our attention for 97 minutes with one actor and an idea. Not many other filmmakers would even attempt that.

The Road - John Hillcoat

If there was anything bleaker than The Coen Brothers' "A Serious Man" it would have to be "The Road" based on Cormac McCarthy's novel, who the Coen's mined for Oscar gold a couple years ago with No Country For Old Men. Any faults this film may have are also faults of the novel because this is probably the most faithful adaptation of I book I have ever seen. I have longer review of this film from earlier in the year. Suffice it to say, neither the novel nor the film pull any punches.

A Serious Man - The Coen Brothers

Why do bad things happen to good people? This Coen Brothers film doesn't set out to answer that question, only to make you ask it. I knew going into this movie that it was a retelling of the Book of Job but after some research I can't tell you the point of the Book of Job. In fact there are quite a few biblical stories with confusing morals. In trying to make sense of story I felt just as lost as Larry Gopnik, our title character. Larry eventually turns to the church to help him solve his increasingly dire problems and after a series of visits to unhelpful rabbis he's just about at the end of his rope. The poor guy never gets a break. I will admit that I was puzzled by the ending even though I'm the type who likes an ambiguous ending over a nice tidy package. But the Coens create such a likable character in Larry that you want to see him succeed even while denying you the opportunity. In the end I take from this what I already knew: life is unfair. Sometimes you have to crawl through a river of shit and suffering to reach a those few beautiful moments that make life worth living. I guess it depends on your own outlook whether Larry will survive long enough to reach his next life-affirming moment. This is a challenging film from the Coen Brothers but at this point in their career I would expect nothing less.

Summer Hours - Olivier Assayas

Given that French filmmaker Olivier Assayas' last three films dealt with the corporate takeover of a pornography company, a rock star trying to kick a drug habit and a high-priced call girl who gets caught up in an international black market, you really wouldn't think he was capable of making a film like Summer Hours. The plot is simple; the wealthy art-collecting matriarch of a scattered family passes away and they are left to divide up her belongings. This setup allows Assayas to explore the nature of family as well as the commodification of art. Most of the film consists of the family discussing what to do with their mother's belongings. The actors, including Jeremie Renier and Juliette Binoche, are all so natural that it's not hard to believe you are witnessing a true family conflict. And while this conflict leads to some intense scenes there is such a simple beauty to the way Assayas photographs the summer home where most of the action takes place. There is nothing deliberately shocking here, as in his previous films which often have the effect of being off-putting. This one draws you in unlike anything he has done in the past. After years of what you could consider "ugly" films, Assayas has given us something truly beautiful.

Two Lovers - James Gray

While Joaquin Phoenix was having his much talked about performance art freakout on The Late Show with David Letterman, the movie he was supposedly there to promote quietly got swept under the rug. The plot is fairly simple - Leonard, a charismatic but directionless young man meets two available women and must decide which one to choose. Phoenix is so natural and likable in this role that we have no trouble relating to him. We know that he is troubled because he half-heartedly attempts suicide in the first minutes of the film. We also know that these two women, who are on such opposite ends of the spectrum, will eventually knock him off the precarious balance that he maintains throughout the film. One of the women, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, seems to always be in crisis but it's not hard to believe that Leonard will fall for her simply because of the male trait that causes us to want to be strong protectors. On the other hand, the woman played by Vinessa Shaw is warm and caring and motherly, which is also appealing. It may be a little too simplistic to assume that these are the only roles that women play in man's life, but they sure are strong archetypes. We know that Leonard will have to eventually choose his own role or die trying. It's fascinating trying to watch Pheonix maintain a balance between the two. I do hope that he tires of his alternate persona soon and returns to acting because he is one of the best.

You, The Living - Roy Andersson

This was my most pleasant surprise of 2009. It was orignally released in Sweden in 2007 but only had its US premiere in one New York theatre in 2009. It's debatable whether or not this belongs on this year's list but since American audiences won't be able to watch it on DVD until January of 2010, I thought it was appropriate to include here. It's not often that a film challenges the way you watch a movie. I suppose some people might consider You the Living to be excruciatingly slow and boring but this is a film that rewards patience and focus. The film is comprised of 50 short vignettes, some of which relate to the others, although most stand alone. The camera is always stationary, so that each scene takes on the features of a living painting rather than a film. What I found fascinating was that the subject in the frame on which you think you should be focusing is not always where the true action is happening. It's like how you can stare at painting for a long time and become fascinated by a small detail rather than the overall composition. Almost every character in this film is dealing with some problem, be it real or existential. Many of them address the audience directly pleading that no one understands them, although the director slyly knows that we all feel just as lost. Much like "A Serious Man" there is no answer to these peoples' problems but sometimes it just feels good to know that someone else has the same problems. This film is "absurd" in both senses of the word - the Camus sense and the Monty Python sense. One of my favorite cinematic scenes of the year involves a man preparing to do the "tablecloth trick" even though we already know he is going to fail. I never would have thought you could create such a suspenseful scene in a couple minutes and with a camera that never moves. But this is a film that defies a lot of what I thought I knew about cinema.

Honorable mention goes to: Star Trek, Up, District 9, Paranormal Activity, Where the Wild Things Are, Funny People, The Hurt Locker, Coraline, The Informant, An Education

Nine

Rob Marshall's "Nine" is an exercise in pointlessness. While Fellini's "8 1/2" is a very personal film, with the character of Guido standing in for Fellini himself, the film version of "Nine" is really owned by no one. Adapting "8 1/2" into a Broadway musical in the first place is a questionable choice. It's a strong film because it takes advantage of what the film medium can do, and it is now and forever will be the quintessential film about making films. It was first performed on stage in 1982 in a musical written by Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston. Jump ahead 27 years and we now have an adaptation of the stage version written by Anthony Minghella and Michael Tolkin and directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago). So what began as a striking autobiographical work by one of cinema's most famous auteurs is now bastard child of Hollywood and Broadway. There are simply too many cooks in the kitchen with this new version and the result is a bland mess.

There are really only two ingredients in this thing that really work. I went to see this strictly based on the involvement of Daniel Day Lewis (a perennial favorite of mine) and Marion Cotillard (quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses). They are both fantastic in this movie and I didn't doubt for a second that they were giving it all they could. The rest of the cast is serviceable and each of the women are given musical numbers and a few key scenes. Penelope Cruz is sexy as hell but behaves exactly like you would expect her to. Who better to play the ideal woman than Nicole Kidman? Unfortunately her role doesn't require her to do anything but look beautiful. Kate Hudson is quite dull as an American reporter. Veterans Judi Dench and Sophia Loren hold their own in small roles but are never given anything to do. I guess you can blame the small roles on the structure of the original story, but that begs the question of why such a star-studded remake was necessary in the first place?

So, if we remove the personal aspect of the film and let the involvement of a multitude of creators water down the orignal point of the story, what are we left with? Unfortunately not much. I think it tries to be a love letter to Fellini's Italian cinema but that's hard to pull off when almost no one in your cast is actually Italian. So let's see, we have two Brits, an Aussie, French, Spanish and two Americans. Fergie's musical number, "Be Italian" is especially infuriating. Fergie, I know what your area code is and it's nowhere near Rome. Oh, and let's not forget that everyone inexplicably speaks English in this film.

The cinematography in this film is incredibly lifeless and makes me yearn to watch the amazing black and white photography of Fellini's "8 1/2" and "La Dolce Vita".

Oh, and let's not forget the fact that is a musical, although I can't for the life of me figure out why it should be. I'm not much of a fan of musicals but I can assure you that there are no memorable tunes in this one and that the lyrics are very trite.

It's been a long time since I have felt the urge to actually throw things at the screen. If not for the fact that Daneil Day Lewis and Marion Cotillard are so electrifying every moment they are on screen, I would have walked out. For the majority of the film I kept asking myself why this thing should even exist and by the end of it I hadn't come up with an answer.