Funny People

Funny People (2009) dir, Judd Apatow
Starring: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogan, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman

***

By Alan Bacchus

It’s a shame there was no one around to put the brakes on Mr. Apatow, because there’s a great picture in ‘Funny People’, a really great picture which unfortunately gets squandered by its excessive running time which goes 30mins past its stop sign.

It’s the third film as director for Apatow after two critical and box office hits. So it’s no surprise really that this effort would be stray from the fluffy male-centric situation comedies, into something more serious and more sophisticated. As such “Funny People” feels like his “Magnolia” – a film which, come hell or high water, would appear on the screen in the form imagined in his mind.

Adam Sandler plays a version of himself, a successful actor/comedian George Simmons, who has become a superstar celeb via a series of money grabbing kiddie comedies. While selling his soul he’s replaced his once loving relationship with his wife with a depressingly huge mansion, a series of emotionally detached sexual affairs and a general air of sullen self-loathing. When he learns he’s come down with a life threatened blood disease he decides to cleanse his career with a stand up comedy tour.

Enter Ira Wright (Seth Rogan) a budding comedian sleeping on his buddy’s couch, trying to make it big in Hollywood along with a million other like-minded performers. Ira happens to be at the right place at the right time when he does a short stand up gig after a surprise visit to the club from Simmons. Impressed by his writing he employs Ira as his assistant and joke writer. With Ira under his wing Simmons goes through the process of medication for his affliction and his soul, a relationship which grows slowly and reluctantly into the type of genuine male romance which Apatow is so skilled at creating.

For and hour and forty-five minutes Apatow crafts a touching but not sappy relationship drama between two interesting characters. Sandler’s portrayal as Simmons wrings true as the decadent celeb with buckets of money, but nothing to spend it on. Sandler plays Simmons with little sympathy for much of his relationship with Ira, showing him tough love as a mentor and Seth Rogen brings across genuine optimism, warmth and sincerity in his portrayal of Ira.

Between Rogen and Sandler Apatow opens up with humour, grace and truth the constantly conflicting life of celebrities and specifically comedians. Bipolarism and other such psychological disorders seem to strike at comedians more often than other entertainers, which is why many of them turn to drugs to feed a pain which jokes can’t mask. Apatow keeps drugs out of this picture, but reveals these self-hatred and lonely afflictions with poignancy.

Apatow deftly manages tones of melancholy and gut busting raunchy dick-joke humour. The milieu of the LA stand up circuit is rich with authenticity and of course teaming with enough gags to satisfy the comedic quotient of any of his other films.

And then there's the third act... The film wraps itself up in character and plot satisfyingly at the one hour forty-five minute mark, leaving the audience at a place of reflection and revelation for both Ira and George. But Apatow keeps the film going and going, introducing Eric Bana as the husband and father to George’s pined-after ex-wife (Leslie Mann). This third act, essentially reboots the film and its characters without the focus and inspiration of the previous two. The film meanders on as a domestic drama toward a sloppy slapstick conclusion which leaves all the characters in the same place as at the end of the second act.

A shame. I can only discount this ill-conceived detour to a point. But its excessively length is just too much to ignore, thus reducing a potentially four-star film into a mere three-star.

‘Funny People’ is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Universal Studios Home Entertainment

Lost - Season 5

Lost Season 5 (2009) dir. Various
Starring: Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Josh Holloway, Naveen Andrews, Terry O'Quinn. Michael Emerson

***

By Alan Bacchus

Season 5 of LOST, now available on DVD, received arguably the most critical acclaim since its first season. It’s perhaps its most ambitious, a complex narrative which changed substantially the focused paradigm of the first four seasons.

When we last left our Losties, Ben and Locke had ‘moved’ the island, which we came to learn meant moving it back in time. Through the first few episodes we get to see some of our characters (inc. Sawyer and Juliet) in flux moving through time randomly, thus allowing us to see previous plotting from different points of view, before they settle in the 1970’s at the time of the Dharma initiative. Back in the real world, at the behest of the Locke, Ben assembles the Oceanic 6 (inc. Jack, Sun, Hurley, Sayeed, and Kate) and convince them to return back to the island. But how are they going to find the island if it’s disappeared? Thanks to Daniel Faraday’s mother Eloise, the island is charted and the losties are reunited – in 1977! The reunion of Kate and Sawyer brings much complications as Sawyer and Juliet are now in a three year relationship. With these allegiances divided they’re new mission is now to get out of the time warp and back to present day – at whatever cost that might be.

I think we all figured out that the ‘Lost’ showrunners have been playing catch-up to their high concept mysterious narrative shenanigans for a while now. Not everything was planned out in advance and the producers’ need to tie every loose end, mysterious happening and oblique easter egg is approached with more transparency than ever.

Arguably the fifth season loses its forward narrative thrust when the time shifting starts to happen. The notion of conventional reality is tossed out and we are forced to accept whatever we are told could happen on this island – including moving through time. In an earlier season Hurley once joked that they were in another time, and, as the audience, there seemed to be assurance that indeed, the show ‘wouldn’t go there.’ Indeed it did go there, which I can only assume was the only way to tie these loose ends.

So is Season 5 a cheat? Perhaps. Certainly having to keep track of where the characters are and why and tracking their individual motivations became very difficult in the ‘weekly’ viewing format. On DVD, this will be alleviated for the first time viewer and even the second time viewer. In terms of narrative, the central goals of the characters are weakened. Due to the time shifting there’s a narrative gap in Juliet and Sawyer’s storylines, as they find themselves on the island three years longer than anyone else.

Even the motivation of the Oceanic 6 to get back to the island is murky. Midway through the season we even forget why they’ve returned. Is it because Locke told them to? And with what substantial reason? To save the others? From what?

The season ends with a bang as the last 2 episodes introduce a baddie even higher up the chain than Ben or any of the Dharma people – Jacob. And that four-toed foot finally gets some attention after 3 years of teasing.

“Lost” is still as much fun to discuss as ever and thus one of the best shows on television. The final season with begins in the New Year is thus welcomed with both relief, excited and sadness.

“Lost Season 5” is on DVD and Blu-Ray from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment

Salo: Or the 120 Days of Sodom

Salo: Or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Starring:Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo Quintavalle, Aldo Valletti

***1/2

It's been 34 years since 'Salo' and the notorious last film from Italy director Pier Paolo Pasolini is still the sickest, more gruesome and controversial film ever made. A tonally faithful adaptation of the Marquis de Sade’s torture novel written while in prison '120 Days of Sodom', set in Fascist Italy - The story of a small group of libertine Italy aristocrats who gather a kidnap of 18 young men and woman and subject them to 4 months of heinous sexual acts, torture, rape, and basically any kind of sexual defiance known to man.

However depraved, 'Salo' actually works as a jet black comedy. Admirable as a piece of bourgeois surrealism, mocking class systems and the rights of men over other men, in the tradition of Luis Buneul and Salvador Dali. Pasolini bravely doesn’t hold back showing us the most despicable acts of sex and violence, including bondage, forcing people to eat faeces, body mutilation and of course lots of sodomy, in order to a) exercise his own personal fetishes on screen and 2) to give another stab into the notion of right and title of the class system.

There's very little in the way of a through line, characters or even a narrative purpose. And perhaps the most disturbing aspect is that the torturers never get their comeuppance. So what’s the purpose of this all? Made in Pasolini’s elder age it serves as an artistic statement to test the boundaries of cinema and art. The final moments of torture before the boys and girls are executed are the most horrific displays of torture ever put to screen. Thus the film becomes a metaphor for the degradation of man and civilization told with terrifying audacity.

Taking away the raping and debaucherous acts, visually Pasolini's photographs nudes like artists have been doing for centuries - another contrast between sophistication and the sordid. His imagery is continually fascinating, the site of the naked men and women with leashes on crawling up the stairs is an indelible image. The formal compositions and classical Roman art direction match well together. Pasolini’s style even resembles Stanley Kubrick. His symmetrical compositions and use of the female nude body as background art decoration. The orgy rituals also is evident in 'Eyes Wide Shut'.

Salo isn’t a film to 'enjoy' per se, but to be shocked by. Pasolini doesn't 'enjoy' showing us these images. It's different than Lars Von Trier, who in his films seems to enjoy punishing his characters. Of course we don’t ever get to know any of the characters in Salo, they all seem to be props and furniture for the film more than emotional beings. Pasolini purposely doesn't have his characters react to any of the torture either, thus keeping a distance emotionality from the events like a clinical analyst.

Curiously, in a truly bizarre moment of life intimately art, Pasolini was murdered shortly before the picture was released. Apparently killed by a male prostitute who ran over Pasolini’s body numerous times near his home. The boy confessed, although later rescinded it claiming he covered up for a more nefarious group of anti-communists. Is this perhaps an act of Karma? Michelangelo Antonioni remarked Pasolini was a victim of his own characters. Regardless, 'Salo' continues to be a film which cinema just cannot ignore.

Deliverance

Deliverance (1972) dir. John Boorman
Starring: Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox and Bill McKinney

****

By Greg Klymkiw

In this day and age, is it possible to imagine a filmmaker assembling a cast and crew willing to risk life and/or limb to make a movie? Not just any movie, mind you - I'm talking about a movie of such importance that rendering it properly would be so fraught with peril that the production company would never be able to secure anything resembling insurance.

Furthermore, would one be able to find on today's landscape a financier with the balls to green-light a movie so dangerous to its participants that the picture and the very act of making it would seem, to any reasonable individual, a completely irresponsible act? In an industry increasingly ruled by lawyers, accountants, insurance agents, frail, sensitive actors and their weak-kneed handlers and worst of all, powder-puff movie executives and administrators who can only do business by dotting all the "I-s" and crossing all the "T-s" , my answer to the abovementioned questions would be a pure and simple, "I think not".

That anyone would risk ANYTHING to make a movie at all these days seems to be a rare occurrence and with the lack of risk-taking at all levels, one sincerely doubts John Boorman's stunning adaptation of James Dickey's novel "Deliverance" would even be made today.

Well, I suppose it would and could be made in today's climate of caution, but it would be awful, or at best - not nearly as good - at least not if it was made with the sort of punch-pulling, namby-pambiness that renders most everything these days as rather trite, especially since most pictures will choose to use a battery of stunt men to take the places of actual actors engaging in acts of derring-do and digital effects to make up for the lack of being able to take the time, trouble and decidedly risky business to actually capture on film those said acts of derring-do.

One of the many things that contributes to the greatness of "Deliverance" is that we see real men in real canoes on a real (and really fucking dangerous) river. In fact, when I used the Blu-Ray technology to scan the more insane stunts, I was only able to detect one - COUNT 'EM - one instance where a stunt man was used.

And I was right - when I scanned through the generous extra features on the recently-released Warners Blu-Ray disc, my own findings were corroborated.

With "Deliverance", what we see is what we get - four great actors risking their very lives to make this movie. There are several terrifying instances of this, but two of them stand out. The first is when a characters's canoe turns over on the raging waters and he cascades over a rocky indent and plunges in such an awkward manner that the CHARACTER breaks his leg. Watching thew actor in question during the aftermath as he is carried along by the current, the pain on his face is so palpable that when it's finally revealed that his bone is actually jutting out of his thigh, there's no doubting his pain. While the actor in question didn't break his leg for real, he did, in fact, break his coccyx. The other terrifying moment is witnessing one of the characters scaling a huge, treacherous rock cliff. It's an extremely harrowing scene and even more so when you start to realize that this is the actual actor scaling the actual cliff. To say this enhances the drama would be an understatement. (And never mind the actor - think of the camera people and director who would have been dangling perilously with the actor to capture these harrowing shots.) Narratively, his goal is one of life and death. If he does not accomplish his mission, everyone in the party is lost - therefore, the narrative importance of making this real cannot be underestimated.

And why, you ask, is the character scaling this cliff armed with a crossbow gun? And just who is the grizzled, toothless psychopath waiting at the top with one mean-ass shotgun Well, by now, only those living on the moons of Jupiter DON'T know what "Deliverance" is about. For those aliens, the answers to the above questions will not only be found watching the movie, but within the brief plot summary below:

Four city slickers take a weekend canoe trip along a raging river in the deep South that will soon be flooded and consumed by a huge, man-made lake. When they are attacked by crazed hillbillies with a penchant for forcible sodomy, they must not only survive the perils of nature, but dig deep to discover their dormant savage nature and defend themselves at all costs. It's pure and simple and through that purity and simplicity, the filmmakers have delivered an astoundingly rich and complex work.

With his novel, the late, great American poet James Dickey used this simple narrative coat hanger to explore man's relationship to nature and his inner beast. Director John Boorman pushed the simple narrative further to explore the notion of the effects of man playing God and the results of trying to beat and/or control nature. Clearly a perfect creative team, Dickey (who also wrote the screenplay adaptation) and director Boorman, successfully collaborated on a movie that thrills us viscerally and engages us intellectually and finally, just plain scares the shit out of us.

And to reiterate, it's not just the action and suspense that grabs us. The characters are perfectly etched and rendered. The four motley city slickers are a typical mixed-bag, not just for the drama, but are, like life itself, a microcosm of people we all know - including, perhaps, ourselves. Lewis (Burt Reynolds) is Mr. Macho Man - he loves nature, he loves danger and he's as gifted in traversing raging white water as he is with using a cross-bow to secure their food and, eventually, to defend themselves against the toothless, drooling, inbred, sodomy-loving hillbillies (Bill McKinney and Herbert "Cowboy" Coward). Ed (Jon Voight) is, by default, a rugged-enough hunk, but he has suppressed his true nature so long that it takes quite awhile to find the way back to manliness. Drew (Ronny Cox) is a guitar-picking, folk-singing bleeding heart Liberal who also gets to be part of a scene that has already - among several in this movie - become indelibly etched on the memory banks all who see it. Drew is front and centre of the "duet" sequence involving the traditional backwoods song "Dueling Banjos". And last, and certainly not least, Bobby (Ned Beatty) is a jovial, ribald, bumbling fat man who suffers the most savage indignity and learns to "squeal like a pig" in a scene that is so horrific that it's both painful to watch and unforgettable. These four men are strange bedfellows, but it's their very differences that make them a good team and ideal company for each other.

Boorman attacks the material with both intelligence and ferocity. Supported by the stunning location photography of the brilliant Vilmos Zsigmond, "Deliverance" is a movie that knocks you on your ass the first time you see it and is so exquisitely rendered that repeat viewings never disappoint. The picture continues to creep you out, thrill you and stimulate the old brain juice - again and again and again.

Another astonishing thing about "Deliverance" is that its stylistic and storytelling techniques are not dated. It feels as fresh and vibrant today as when it was made back in 1972. On one hand, it is a product of its time in that it explores such dangerous territory unflinchingly, but aside from some big-ass old cars that nobody drives anymore, it feels like it could have been made yesterday.

Finally, that's what renders it a classic. There's nothing ephemeral about this movie. It is a picture for now and forever.

"Deliverance" is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Video. It's an astounding transfer that happily and wisely does not attempt to blunt the raw quality of Zsigmond's photography which, by the way, has some of the finest day for night work in cinema history. On HD, it's as stunning as it was when I first saw it on a big screen in 1972.

Red Heat

Red Heat (1988) dir. Walter Hill
Starring: James Belushi, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ed O’Ross, Peter Boyle

**1/2

Most people don’t know Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna but would certainly identify them from the shiny Carlco logo which appeared at the head of some of the best genre pictures of the 80’s and 90’s (‘First Blood’, ‘Terminator 2’, ‘Total Recall’). Kassar and Vajna were successful as producers because they hired some of the best action directors to ever film a gunfight such as James Cameron, Paul Verhoeven and Walter Hill.

Walter Hill in particular was one of the great action auteurs who apprenticed under the great Sam Peckinpah. Hill’s pictures in the late 70’s and early 80’s, ‘The Warriors’, ‘The Driver’, ‘Extreme Prejudice’ mixed western genre sensibilities with modern and mainstream action.

‘Red Heat’ is unfortunately not one of Hill’s best pictures, but has enough of his muscular masculine panache to produce a decent action boner.

The opening sequence is a fun homoerotic suspense sequence inside a Russian bathhouse. Arnold, playing an undercover Russian cop Ivan Danko scoping out for Russian drug dealers, enters the steamy sauna populated by muscle bound Russian lifting weights. Arnold’s no push over and he easily kicks some major ass all over the place.

The key perp, 'Rosta' Rostavili played deliciously by Ed O’Ross, escapes though to the U.S. to complete a huge multi-million dollar deal with some Chicago black Muslim thugs. Danko follows him and connects with local Chicago cops to catch his trail, partnering up with affable but tough detective Art Ridzik (James Belushi).

The culture clash between commie and American produces some decent sight gags, but very little substantial political commentary. The mechanics of the investigation are also rudimentary. Hill goes through the motions of using dirty tactics of threatens violence to witnesses and staking out hookers and brothels to find Rosta.

By Hill’s standards the action scenes are minor and adequate only – none which could rival some of the great heist sequences of ‘Johnny Handsome’, or ‘Extreme Prejudice’, or the chase scenes of ‘The Driver’. Even the buddy comedy dynamic is a pale version of the Eddie Murphy/Nick Nolte pairing in ’48 Hours.’

The final bus chase through Chicago is the highlight – a preposterous chase sequence indicative of the prevailing attitude of over-the-top carnage in 1980’s action.

“Red Heat” is available on Blu-Ray from Maple Pictures in Canada

New Moon

New Moon (2009) dir. Chris Weitz
Starring: Kristin Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Robert Pattinson, Michael Sheen

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

I was extremely lenient on the first ‘Twilight’ film, enjoying it on its very surface level of campy vampire soap opera romance. Sure the action wasn’t well directed and the acting was spotty at the best of times, but there was something passionate and so very clear about the characters needs, goals and desires. 'New Moon' improves on all fronts, advancing character and story with more production value.

The films picks up at the Forks high school populated by Bella (Kristen Stewart) and her red hot flame Edward (Robert Pattinson) who is also a member of the local friendly vampire family. But when one of Edward’s brothers attacks Bella after she cuts her finger, Edward comes to realize the danger he and his family poses to the woman he loves. And so Edward has to break her heart and leave the Forks with his family. This leaves Bella alone and shaken to the core, until she develops and romantic possibilities with Jacob (Taylor Lautner), a member of a werewolf family and rival of the vampires.

Unfortunately like Edward Jacob provides just as dangerous a threat to Bella. Meanwhile a false premonition of Bella’s death causes Edward to confront the vampire high council in Rome to appeal for his own death. But Bella saves the day in time and is thus reunited with Edward. But with Edward back in town, Jacob, who now sides on the vampire’s rivals, threatens to divide Bella’s allegiances.

The decision to go with a different director for each of these films is welcomed. Its fun to watch the same characters walk around with a different cinematic style. While Catherine Hardwick employed her wideangle naturalistic handheld look, Weitz opts for a traditional locked down approach. He appears to take his time with his scenes, slowing the film down appropriately to ponder the gravitas of his character’s decisions. For example, Weitz shows Bella in mourning over her breakup with Edward with a flashy 360 degree shot around Bella, sitting in her chair watching the seasons go by stuck in her severe depression.

The added budget available for Weitz in his action scenes is palpable. His key set pieces are executed with panache, employing super slow motion to emphasize the emotions of the characters in the action. The key beat in the first act, Bella’s finger cut which sparks a ravenous action by the vampire Jasper, is drawn out for a hyper-stylized dramatic effect. The scene is only about 10 second of real time, but it’s so critical to Bella and Edward’s relationship Weitz embellishes every reaction, growl, and snarly look.

The werewolf confrontations are obviously computer generated but creative sound design brings out the violence and anger from the menacing CG-creatures. And like the Cullen confrontation these scenes are slo-mo enhanced for visually-pleasing action.

Though the acting is almost as precarious and the plotting hampered by the same narrative flaws ‘New Moon’ turns out to be a better film that ‘Twilight’. Chris Weitz’s assured eye for action, CG effects and his experience with youthful actors elevate the material that necessary notch higher required for tentpole sequels.

Oceans

Oceans (2009) dir. Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud
Documentary

**

By Blair Stewart

2001's "Winged Migration" was one of the finest nature documentaries made due to an ingenious idea by the filmmakers Jacques Perrin & Cluzard. In order to gain access to the migratory patterns of birds the filmmakers raised them from birth, therefore their subjects weren't shy when the time came to roll camera. Soaring above the continents in an ultralight amongst the company of eagles, the documentary gave a fantastical new perspective of life on Earth.

Now after 5 years of delicate filming another perspective is shown in "Oceans". Plunging deep into the watery two thirds of our planet, the two Jacques strive to bring awareness to the fragile time-bomb awaiting us in the seas, with the North Pacific Gyre (aka "the Great Pacific Garbage Patch") growing to the size of two plastic Texas's while you read this. As brief narration presupposes the question of why man searches the stars when we haven't yet mastered the seas, the cinema alights with creatures from the deep.

Dive-bombing birds blitzkrieg M.C. Escher schools of fish with dolphins cutting through like apparitions of squeaky grey-blue torpedos. An exodus of baby sea turtles from surf to sea under swooping bird-claws becomes an anthropomorphistic reversal of the D-Day invasion, and in the deep crab vs. shrimp becomes a clash of the titans.

The flexibility required to film sea life may have eliminated bulky 70mm , but the subject matter is worthy of the format, especially when the killer whales arrive. What is captured above water is impressive, further down more so, but in some of the more spectacular moments an ugly fact reared its head: C.G.I. The graceful chaos is helpfully sculpted by digital compositors
alongside nature which stings during a number of "too good to be true"moments. This practical decision for entertainment/education value doesn't undermine the film as much as a glaring narrative one wherein Perrin (a famed actor in 50+ years of Euro cinema) and his googly-eyed kid lament for marine life in a space-age museum.

Witnessing the vulnerability of a Dugong in its habitat does much more for my desire to preserve the planet over a close-up of a French brat's tear-ducts. If the film hadn't strayed from its path, "Winged Migration" would have been surpassed. As it remains, "Oceans" is a flawed contender that still demands viewing on the big-screen for the awesome scope of nature.

"Oceans" will be released by Disney in North America in April 2010

My Effortless Brilliance

My Effortless Brilliance (2009) dir. Lynn Shelton
Starring: Basel Harris, Eric Lambert Jones, Calvin Reeder

*1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Lynn Shelton’s” “Humpday” was a great film, perhaps the most audience accessible of this new wave of low rent, semi-improvised Mumblecore films. Unfortunately her previous film, “My Effortless Brilliance”, now available on DVD is not. In fact, it’s probably the worst example of the genre - a terribly navel-gazing and esoteric excuse for a movie.

One of the hallmarks of the Mumblecore genre are the self-absorbed characters whom we see living in their own bubble of petty troubles. However self-absorbed, in 'Humpday' or 'The Puffy Chair' or 'Baghead' this vacuum of angst produced engaging, funny and entertaining characters who go through profound emotional revelations and under the funny observations situational comedy.

In 'My Effortless Brilliance' there’s a conscience effort of Shelton to avoid all of the above. It’s a simple story of two friends who reconnect in the Washington backwoods, years after a falling out. Dylan (Basel Harris) is a semi-successful Seattle-based writer whose pretentious attitude pissed off his old buddy Sean (Eric Lambert Jones), so much so it caused Sean to retreat into near obscurity in the rural Washington interior. Years later, upon the release of Dylan’s latest book he decides on a whim to drive to Sean’s house for a surprise visit.

Sean is exudes no emotion upon seeing Dylan. Is he surprised? Shocked? Pissed off? Happy? Don’t know, but the elephant in the room, the conflict which caused their male-breakup, is never discussed. There’s much awkwardness between the two as they struggle to carry on even a simple conversation. The weekend discomfort continues when Dylan’s woodchopping buddy, Jim joins the fray for hunting trip for a local cougar. The two bond their mutual annoyance of Jim, before Dylan had to leave for the big city.

So we have a story two people fighting, who don’t fight, and we don’t even know what they’re fighting about. What ends up on screen is a lot of dramatic pauses, lengthy improvised and inane dialogue which merely fills space and a lot of long glances and shift eyed eyebrow movements.

The film appears to have been praised for creating a pressure cooker of awkwardness between two passive-aggressive best friends. Indeed, some tension is created with this dynamic, and it’s enough to sustain a first act, but not two other acts in a feature film.

A comparison film executed with infinitely more subtlety, grace, comedy, drama and entertainment value is Richard Linklater’s 'Tape”' which features two old college buddies in a room rekindling old fire and exposing old war wounds. Even Kelly Reichardt’s “Old Joy”, is paced with the same kind of slow simmering tension benefits from a tone of melancholy and sombre life reflection.

There’s much integrity in its filmmaking methodology which we learn in the DVD’s behind-the-scenes featurette. Shelton, essentially employing the Mike Leigh approach of developing the script extensively with the actors as opposed to drafting a traditional screenplay. Watch this film as practice ground for Shelton’s much better executed “Humpday”.

The Road

The Road (2009) dir. John Hillcoat
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

It’s difficult not to put extraordinarily high expectations on a picture this. Here’s the pedigree – a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, from the author of ‘No Country For Old Men’, made by the director of the particularly brutal and blood thirsty Aussie-Western ‘The Proposition’ about a violent post-apocalyptic world. So for people who expect John Hillcoat to go medieval on this story, his minimalist rendering might jar some.

Being a new father to a son (9 weeks!), the film resonates most powerfully as a story of family, put under the most extreme circumstances, and specifically the need for one’s father to protect his son.

Essentially a two-hander, Hillcoat shows us the journey of man and boy travelling south in a near-desolate post-apocalyptic world, continually in search of the basic necessities of life – food, water, heat, and shelter. When the father is forced to shoot and kill a member of a brutal gang, they find themselves in conflict with not just the environment but the violent depravities which human society has devolved to. While the boy searches for flashes of optimism with their spot human encounters, at every turn the overprotective father see everything as a hazard, not realizing that the other necessity of life is socialization and companionship.

In this day and age, post-apocalyptic films don’t need to explain how or why civilization could find itself crumbled like a house of cards, leaving the earth a desolate wasteland with humans back to survival of the fittest mode. But Hillcoat does open the film up in the present, before the apocalypse, showing Viggo Mortensen’s unnamed character and his unnamed wife (Charlize Theron), witnessing some kind of fiery blaze. No, it’s not necessary to show us this, but it is necessary to see Viggo’s domestic life before the chaos. With his wife pregnant with child, both parents know their son would be born into a chaotic world without security. Hillcoat flashes back to key moments in their life as a family debating the options – give up and commit suicide, or fight to survive and possible expose oneself to a life of brutal pain, and likely death.

This is the stuff of complex existential life reflection resulting in some heartbreaking and earth shattering decisions for the characters. Knowing the backstory and the option the duo gave up, helps us appreciate and understand the paternal bond Viggo has for his son. Viggo, again is a marvel, getting deep into the soul of a man with paternal instinct so strong it even clouds his overall ethics.

At several encounters Viggo’s moral character is tested, and he doesn’t always succeed. Each of the obstacles presented to the duo is a test of his fundamental belief in the goodness of man and our capacity for harmony. As a father, he is not only protective, but increasingly cynical and hardened. The final confrontation, with a solitary man, trying to survive just like he, played by Omar from ‘The Wire’ (Michael K. Williams) completes a character arc which sees him move from optimistic survivalist to a distrustful hateful man.

Hillcoat’s visual palette is not all that unlike other post-Apocalyptic films, grey in tones, with little colour. The stripped down natural environment, leafless trees, the cloudless sunlight, mixed with the abandoned cars, roads, houses etc. is typically bleak.

Call me a glass half full guy, but I sometimes wonder what life would be like if we had to revert to a world like we see in these movies. I personally believe what makes us human is our ability to think outside of the animalistic instincts of self-preservation. Despite the film’s blanket of bleakness McCarthy is a glass half full guy too and so I consider ‘The Road’ a very bumpy optimistic film of the future.

The Road | Movie Trailers

It Might Get Loud

It Might Get Loud (2009) dir. Davis Guggenheim
Documentary

***

By Alan Bacchus

The joining of guitar legends Jack White, Jimmy Page and The Edge, is a pretty cool concept and a brilliant entry point into this metaphorical examination of the effect of this one instrument on music and the creativity of its artists. Music aficionados will certainly appreciate the rock significance of the event, though I’m not sure complete Zeppelin/White Stripes/U2 virgins will fully engage with this admittedly fan-centric subject matter.

In a large high ceiling studio in Hollywood, Oscar-winning documentarian Davis Guggenheim (‘An Inconvenient Truth’) and producer Thomas Tull (‘The Dark Knight’) set up an intimate meeting room for these legendary musicians. They represent three generations of rock royalty – Jimmy Page, the leader of the legendary hard rock outfit Led Zeppelin, The Edge, the compassionate and often soft-spoken guitarist from U2 and Jack White, the Detroit-born leader of the White Stripes, and now Nashville-based chameleon of punk and the blues.

What happens if you put three great guitarists in a room with some guitars, some amps and a few record players? It’s a no brainer that a pretty cool discussion will arise about their creative sensibilities, their influences and funny anecdotes will result.

Some of the more interesting stories which emerge include Jimmy Pages’ return to the country home where Led Zeppelin’s fourth album was recorded. It appears to be the first time he’s returned to the place since they recorded those great songs and the emotional reaction on his face is genuine and we feel it too. The Edge describes poignantly the effect of early punk on his career and the growing violence in Northern Ireland as inspiration for some of their best work. I’m always absorbed watching great artists uses their tools to build their masterpieces. And so it’s the Edge’s deconstruction of his technical process which is the most fascinating.

Jack White comes off as the elusive pupil to Page and the Edge. Though his desire to scour the history of music for inspiration is genuine, he seems the least down to earth, portraying some kind of Bob Dylan-like caricature of an artist than his real self. Or maybe he really is just a crazy weird-artist who pretends to mentor an 8 year old version of himself. There’s no doubt he’s got talent and the mere sight of him constructing an electric guitar from a coke bottle, a string and a plank of wood is fascinating and headshakingly creative.

Guggenheim admirably avoids the A&E Biography template of career charting documentaries. Each one gets to demonstrate one of their songs being played to the others on stage. We learn of each of their humble beginnings and each of their historical influences and creative sensibilities. Even though the narrative throughlines are kept in tact, and evened out between the three guitarists, Guggenheim keeps an improvised and unpredictable feel, anchored by the unrehearsed spontaneity of the three artists.

For good or bad, it’s a wholly celebratory affair, each one taking turns acknowledging the greatness of the other, and nodding their heads without a whimper of conflict or question. But really, conflict is overrated.

PS. One of the indications of my absorption into this movie is that I actually watched all of the delete scenes which were just as enjoyable as anything in the movie.

"It Might Get Loud" is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Five Minutes OF Heaven

Five Minutes of Heaven (2009) dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel
Starring: James Nesbitt, Liam Neeson

****

By Reece Crothers

Oliver Hirschbiegel, director of "Downfall", once again blends fact and fiction to great effect in one of the year's most overlooked films. Working on a smaller canvas here than on the Oscar nominated Hitler picture, German filmmaker Hirschbeigel tackles "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland with an intelligent and challenging screenplay from Guy Hibberts, who collaborated with Paul Greengrass on another film about the plight of Northern Ireland, 2004's "Omagh", a worthy film that was also mostly ignored.

Over black, the voice of Liam Neeson tells us "In order to understand the man I am, you have to know something about the man I was", and so the part of the film that is fact, is a meticulously recreated 1975 murder of a catholic boy by a young U.V.F. "soldier". The hit is lead by 17 year old Alistair Little, who has volunteered in hopes that killing one of the enemy will make him a big man with the other lads, the higher ups, who will then march him into the local pub as a hero, a force to be recognized. It's not personal for him. He doesn't see the enemy as a person. For Alistair there is only "us" and "them". As Alistair prepares to assassinate the Catholic boy, we are treated to scenes of the boy's family life and meet his little brother Joe, who spends all day kicking the football against the bricks of his row-house, trying to break his own record. When Alistair murders Joe's brother, shooting from the street into the bedroom window, he spares little Joe only because he mistakes the boy for a neighbor.

The boy grows into James Nesbitt as the adult Joe Griffen, a husband and father teetering on the precipice of a nervous breakdown, and we wonder how much life was really spared, how much of the little boy actually survived. Joe is a man hollowed out over years of guilt and grief and, most of all, rage. Nesbitt plays him as a bundle of nerves that could kick off an explosion at any minute. Liam Neeson plays the adult Alistair Little, as a broken man, living a lonely empty life, a melancholy, lost soul, haunted by the murder he carried out three decades ago, and about to face Joe Griffen for the first time since the night of the killing. A television reality program has brought them together ostensibly in pursuit of reconciliation. But with a dagger hidden in his belt, adult Joe has more than reconciliation on his mind. He's going for retribution, revenge, for his "five minutes of heaven".

This is the part of the film that is fiction, the imagined meeting of two men who "bare the legacy of" the true story. "Do I shake the man's hand or do I kill him?" That question drives the first half of the film, where the journey of each man toward the TV set is plagued with painful memories played out in flashbacks. The two leads are a great match and one of the picture's strengths is the thrill of watching two actors at the peak of their talents play against each other, whether in the same scene or through the clever editing of their parallel stories and flashbacks.

Both actors have given some of their best performances in films about the Troubles before: Neeson in the title role of Neil Jordan's excellent "Michael Collins" and Nesbitt in the lead of Paul Greengrass' pre-Bourne breakout "Bloody Sunday". Here Nesbitt is electric. He careens wildly from composed family guy, full of charm, to raging, would-be-killer. It's an impressive tight rope that he walks. Equally good in his restrained, sorrowful performance as the repentant killer, Neeson's face, handsome in a slightly broken way, perfectly emulates melancholy and regret and gives Alistair Little a dignified grace that would not usually be afforded a character who has committed his crime. And while the film works as a revenge thriller, building towards the two men's reunion, and we are reminded by Neeson that Nesbitt "...doesn't want to hear me say I'm sorry. He's here to confront me!", it evolves beyond the limitations of the genre. Most revenge pictures work on the notion that we all want the hero to kill the bad guy, and look no further than Neeson's recent blockbuster "Taken" as example of that, or Tarantino's comeback picture "Inglourious Basterds", or Mel Gibson's "Payback" (admittedly, good fun), or Charlie Bronson's "Death Wish", or Michael Caine's "Get Carter", or most Clint Eastwoods, etc, etc, etc. What sets this apart is that it takes it's time setting up the murder, the events preceding it unfolding with the white-knuckle suspense of a great 70s thriller, so that we are emotionally invested in the fates of both Alistair and the little boy kicking the ball against the bricks. The film doesn't allow us the luxury of writing the young Alistair off as "the bad guy". We experience his fear, his resolve, his desire to prove himself to his peers and elders. We understand that he thinks what he is doing is right and true. And the killing is all the more horrific for it.

When the smoke clears the ending is more complex and provocative than the revenge thriller aspects would lead you to expect. This is a film which never claims to offer easy answers nor does it attempt to provide any. In the end we pray for mercy, for both of them, and wonder along with the filmmakers another question, a more difficult one: after so much violence and suffering, "is reconciliation even possible" for men like Joe and Alistair? This question drives the second half with just as much tension as the first but with much deeper drama. We don't root for Joe Griffen's revenge; we wait with knots twisting in our guts for his reckoning.

Further recommended viewing: Paul Greengrass' "Bloody Sunday", Pete Travis' "Omagh", Neil Jordan's "Danny Boy (Angel)" and "Michael Collins", Ken Loach's "Hidden Agenda", Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out", John Ford's "The Informer", Jim Sheridan's "In The Name Of The Father" and "The Boxer", Alan Clarke's "Elephant".

White Christmas

White Christmas (1954) dir. Michael Curtiz
Starring; Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen

**

By Alan Bacchus

Irving Berlin’s song ‘White Christmas’ is an endearing classic – cited by many music sources as the best selling single of all time. The song was recorded by Bing Crosby and released in 1941 and even appeared in the Bing Crosby starrer ‘Holiday Inn’ that same year. But in 1954, Paramount fashioned the single as well as a number of other Berlin songs into the lavish Vistavision Technicolor musical.

Unfortunately, the success of the song not withstanding, the film is a drab and overlong tepid musical, with aging stars and an aging director. It’s a lengthy two hour buddy picture depicting the professional relationship of two old war buddies Bob Wallace (Crosby) and Phil Davis (Kaye) who become a song and dance act. The duo get tricked into auditioning a sister act Betty and Judy (Clooney and Vera-Ellen). Though Bob is resistant Phil who quickly falls in love head over heals lobbies to take them on.

The foursome then retreat to a chalet in Vermont to relax and ‘enjoy’ each other’s company. But when the hotel manager turns out to be Bob and Phil’s old army General, now a shadow of his former authoritative self, the foursome engineer a massive televised musical jamboree featuring the famous titular song to raise his spririts.

Michael Curtiz (‘Casablanca’ ‘The Sea Hawk’, ‘Angels Have Dirty Faces’) is one of my favourite directors, but by 1954, he was long past his prime and it shows. For a musical, his camerawork is surprisingly stodgy and inert. Of course, Curtiz was not known for musicals other than his classic ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ which is less a traditional musical than a showcase for the singular singing and dancing talents of James Cagney.

To his credit, Curtiz does not have much to work with here and there is no one of the caliber of Cagney to support the material. His two stars are as dull as dishwater. Bing Crosby, 49 at the time of the making of the picture, shows his age. Sure Bing was a great crooner, but as a romantic lead, he was just too short, and knobby eared even in his youth for him to carry a picture. His costar Danny Kaye, well… never was the most masculine of actors, and thus is miscast as the handsome swooning romantic.

And so their two leading ladies Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen look like poor spinsters suffering under a false arranged marriage. Looking back into the history of the film, it seemed to originate as a vehicle for Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby to reunite. If this was the case, then Bing would have had the chops of Astaire to rely upon. Unfortunately Astaire was even older than Bing and so, in 1954 that wouldn’t have worked either. A young Donald O’Connor, on the other hand, was at one point tapped for the Danny Kaye role, which would have been ideal.

Other than the ‘let’s put on a show’ motivations, the underlying theme of the film is the loyalty and camaraderie formed by men in battle. The opening musical sequence is a somber reflection on war and the contrast of our humanistic inner emotions and the horrors of battle. In the end the duo, though now successful and famous, still are subordinate and penitent to their army superiors. The depiction of the General in civilian mode is perhaps meant to remind society of the heroism these ordinary people in society once did for their country and to heed us not to forget these sacrifices.

That’s about the only redeeming theme to take from this indigestible and dated musical.

A 2-Disc Special Edition of White Christmas” is available on DVD from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment

Red Cliff (North American Version)

Red Cliff (2009) dir. John Woo
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen and Zhao Wei

***1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

I know absolutely nothing about Chinese history. Well, not absolutely nothing. I have a vague notion that there was a period during the first few centuries of the previous millennium where the country was carved up among a variety of warlords. For what feels like eons, these despots fought each other incessantly for wealth and power until further battles shifted focus towards the centralization of power within this huge nation rather than letting things exist in a carved-up rag-tag fashion. That's it. That's all I know. I grant you it ain't much and it's most certainly a far cry from the knowledge I've gleaned on the subject of American history - a knowledge I garnered mostly from American cinema.

But I feel no shame on this front - especially not within the context of John Woo's new picture "Red Cliff" which might actually be the first movie to present a piece of Chinese history in a manner that makes some sense to me. Part of this, I believe, is rooted in Woo's consumate skill and artistry as a filmmaker. Woo's stylistic virtuosity not only presents the historical events of the picture with the kind of airtight adherence to narrative that made his best pre-Hollywood work like "The Killer" and "Hard Boiled" such fine movies, but he does so with a clear love of Hollywood cinema. He is clearly influenced and in the same league as such American Masters as John Ford and Sam Peckinpah - expertly blending the sentiment and manly honour with action and violence that borders on ballet (here we also see Woo's love of the American musical).

"Red Cliff" holds the distinction of being the most expensive film ever made in China and it has broken boxoffice records all over Asia in a two-part 280-minute epic. Alas, on its first-run in North America, we are getting, not two parts, but one shorter version that clocks in about an hour shorter. Some of the action of the narrative feels rushed and truncated in this version, but luckily, what Woo does best, is gloriously intact.

Set around 300 CE (instead of the proper Christian "A.D."), "Red Cliff" tells the story of an epic battle between an alliance of southern warlords against the much larger and more powerful northern force. It's a classic right versus might tale and I'm grateful that Woo directs with such style, verve and storytelling savvy that I feel substantially enriched in at least one small part of Chinese history.

Most of all, it's one hell of a good show. Woo paints a gorgeous series of pictures with the kind of epic sweep that only a master can bring to the table. Replete with gorgeous compositions, plenty of intrigue and romance, healthy dollops of male honour and camaraderie and truly ferocious and thrilling battle scenes, "Red Cliff", even in truncated form, does not disappoint. Woo's mastery of cinema allows for the kind of action set-pieces that feel unlike anything we have seen in recent years. Even though he maintains, like Peckinpah, a cutty style of movement, his sense of geography is so first-rate that we always know where we are in any given field of battle. Like Peckinpah, as opposed to virtually every other hack working in movies today, Woo infuses his action with emotional weight. Every edit is a story edit - moving the narrative ever-forward. And every act of violence is a skilfully choreographed ballet that not only looks great, but carries considerable dramatic impact. His sense of composition, like Ford, is painterly. I cannot think of a single frame that isn't wrought with the care and love of a true artist.

And even though things move a tad slowly in the first hour, the final ninety minutes leave you wanting more. In fact, I had such a good time that I immediately wanted to watch it again. This is a rare occurence in contemporary cinema.

"Red Cliff" is a big screen must-see event, but even still, I would prefer additional helpings of this picture to come replete with the whole damn thing. As such, I am hoping and praying that my next encounter is the full 280-minute version. I suspect that when this happens, it'll be very easy to knock my rating up to a full four stars.

Some have referred to this as a comback film for Woo. I don't think Woo really went anywhere. He patiently delivered expertly crafted Hollywood genre pictures. Some were good and others not so good. And now, he's simply and happily back where he belongs - with a story that inspires him and talent in front and behind the camera that delivers 110% to make sure his vision is everything it has, can and will be.

"Red Cliff" opens in theatres today in Canada from E1 Entertainment

Deconstructing the Cinema of the 00's: Part 4 - The New Auteurs

The following is part of a continuing series of features breaking down the trends of cinema in the 2000's.
Click below for parts 1-3:
Part 1: Tentpole Franchisees
Part 2: Social Realism
Part 3: Documentary

The creative process doesn’t acknowledge breaks in years or decades, and so compartmentalizing and passing judgment on ten years in cinema is completely arbitrary. Yet this is an easy way to view the passage of time, and the evolution of cinema. Decades have always defined filmmakers. For example when we think of Jean-Luc Godard he’s a 60’s filmmaker, even though he made as many films in the 70’s and 80’s. Same with, say, John Hughes, a man whose influence was as prescient in the 90’s, will always be defined by the 80’s.

With the end of another decade upon us, it’s time to start defining people’s careers, packing them up into a little box to be put away on a shelf never to be tampered with again. And so, even if someone like say, Judd Apatow, were to go on to make film after film of complete and utter garbage, or if he were to be revealed as a pederast, he would still be a 00’s filmmaker.

If you’ve read the previous installment of the Deconstruction of the decade in Cinema you’ll know that the indie-film dominated auteur films of the 1990’s doesn’t quite apply with the same creative force as it did back. The death of almost every art house-sensible distributor in the U.S. helped cause this, same with the risk-averse attitude of the tent-pole mentality of studio heads.

From this largely mainstream perspective, a number of fine filmmakers emerged and will likely be defined by this decade:

Why not start with Judd Apatow? He directed three films in the decade – two successful (“The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up”) and one not so much (“Funny People”). But his influence as writer-producer extends into a number of the decade’s most successful and memorable comedies including ‘Anchorman’, ‘Talladega Nights’, ‘Superbad’, ‘Forgetting and Sarah Marshall’. He also emerged as discoverer of great talent, specifically the young players of his TV series ‘Undeclared’ and ‘Freaks and Geeks’ – Jay Baruschel, Seth Rogan, James Franco and Jason Segal.

Perhaps Christopher Nolan stands tall as the defining filmmaker of the decade. His career essentially started out at the turn of the millennium with his intellectually-stimulating art house noir film ‘Memento’ and ended with the biggest hit of the decade, ‘The Dark Knight’. After a number of filmmakers tried their hand at rebooting the Batman series, it turned out to be Christopher Nolan who impressed Warner Bros and DC Comics with his realistic and humanist take on the superhero. Nolan wasn’t one to sit back and coast on the hype of franchise filmmaking, in between his two huge Batman pictures, he crafted one of the best and most underrated films of the decade – “The Prestige”. A film as profoundly existential and powerful as it was thrilling mass-market entertainment. We don’t know how ‘Inception’ will turn out but his desire to keep working and produce both personal non-franchise films with his own writings is exciting.

Is it just me as does ‘Lord of the Rings’ seem like a hundred years ago? Those three films made so much money, were nominated for so many awards, got so much publicity the first 4 years of the decade Peter Jackson’s name was everywhere. Not to mention that after LOTR was over he miraculously was energized enough to remake ‘King Kong’ as a 3 hour epic CG gargantuan. The quality of that picture notwithstanding doesn’t taint Jackson’s influence on cinema in the decade, in what will be forever seen as his decade to shine. The achievement of shooting three films back-to-back is almost believable. But now, if anyone wants to do a franchise that’s just about the only way to maximum time, resource and the creative powers of your talent. After LOTR, Harry Potter employed the same methodology, essentially giving work to the same craftsmen and actors for 10 years straight, same with the last two installments of ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Pirates’ trilogy as well as the “Twilight” bunch.

Paul Greengrass’ visual style has become a verb in Hollywood. I can’t confirm, but I’m sure filmmakers are referring to the style of handholding the camera and rapid cutting it to almost near incomprehensibility is referred to as doing it ‘Greengrass’. Greengrass’s body of work is simply astounding – like Christopher Nolan, an ability to be put an auteur-intelligent stamp on big budgeted studio pictures. The decade started out for Greengrass with his Irish-UK dramatic recreation of ‘Bloody Sunday’ a Berlin Golden Bear winning drama which would come to define his distinct documentary-like visual style. Each successive film – ‘Bourne Supremacy’, ‘United 93’, ‘Bourne Ultimatum’ built upon this foundation of energetic realism. And arguably the zenith of his career will likely be ‘United 93’ – a perfect rendering of 9/11 and essentially the first and final cinematic statement of that fateful day.

In general Greengrass fits into a new wave of British filmmakers employing a similar tone of stylish realism, including Kevin MacDonald (‘Touching the Void’, ‘Last King of Scotland’) and Michael Winterbottom. Winterbottom was prolific throughout the decade making 8 dramas and 2 documentaries, honing the run-and-gun, location-based filmmaking he established in the 90’s. Despite his preference for genre hopping, the near future sci-fi of ‘Code 46’, the Western epicness of ‘The Claim’, the procedural realism of “A Mighty Heart” or the absurd comedy of ‘Tristram Shandy’, his visual sensibilities admirably connect his body of work with a true auteur stamp. Perhaps his most memorable film of the decade is his ambitious ‘In this World’ which follows an Afghan refugee boy from across the world from war torn Peshawar to Great Britain.

In 2006, the careers of the Mexican trio Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu, famously merged with three of that year’s most acclaimed films, respectively, ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, ‘Children of Men’ and ‘Babel’. Throughout the decade the trio great success: Cuarón delivered the hardcore sexual road comedy, ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’ then segued curiously into the Harry Potter franchise with, arguably, the series’ best entry, ‘The Prisoner of Azkaban’. Iñárritu’s decade started off loudly with his cleverly structured triptych story ‘Amores Perros’, then reworked the same concept with varying results in ’21 Grams’ and the aforementioned ‘Babel’. De Toro found success with each of his five films in the decade – the genre fantasy action pictures ‘Blade 2’ and both ‘Hellboy’ films as well as his lower key Spanish language creepers ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ and ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’.

Since most of Charlie Kaufman’s work in the decade was as writer, he may not qualify using the ‘Cahier du Cinema’ definition of auteur but nonetheless emerges as a legitimate cinematic force. As writer of ‘Being John Malkovich’ in 1999, Kaufman expounded on these same Escher-like methods of storytelling producing three memorable films – Spike Jonze’s ‘Adaptation’, Michel Gondry’s ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ and his own directorial debut ‘Synecdoche NY’.

Looking into Asia, Korean cinema overtook Japanese cinema as the most influential of the Asian extreme genre. And there’s no doubt the work of Chan-wook Park stands as the high bar of Asian cinema in the decade. The force of nature that is his ‘revenge’ trilogy will leave a lasting legacy. Arguably, it was the internet support of ‘Aint It Cool News’ which helped ‘Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance’, get some notice in North America. And so, when ‘Old Boy’ was released in 2003 Park was high on the radar of cinephiles. It did not disappoint, certainly shocking me into a cinematic coma.

There’s lot more interesting filmmakers with memorable bodies of work I haven't discussed like American indies Kelly Reichardt ('Wendy and Lucy'), David Gordon Green ('George Washington), Rahmin Bahrani ("Chop Shop') Jason Reitman’s three films seem to be increasing in complexity, though the 10’s promise to be even better. And I barely touched on international cinema, but filmmakers like Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul (‘Syndromes and a Century’), China’s Jia Zhang-ke (‘Still Life’), France’s Claire Denis (‘Beau Travail’), Jacques Audiard (‘Un Prophet’) and Gaspar Noe ('Irreversible') became unquestioned auteurs of world cinema.

Of course, I end off these discussions with my own personal favourites of the ‘New Auteurs’ discussed here:

United 93 (2006) dir. Paul Greengrass
The best film of 2006 was no doubt, ‘United 93’. All public worries that it was too early to make a film about 9/11 were allayed when Greengrass’ intense, reverent and shattering depiction of 9/11 was first seen. The film succeeds beyond its need to commemorate the event and the heroes, it’s supreme immersive filmmaking no matter the subject.

The Prestige (2005) dir. Christopher Nolan
Largely ignored at the time, the film had the misfortune of coming out after another ‘magician’ film that year, ‘The Illusionist’. But you just have to look at the userforum discussions from viewers and fans who continue to debate this beguiling film

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) dir. Guillermo Del Toro
Del Toro’s film had the misfortune of going up against the equally miraculous ‘Lives of the Others’ at the Oscars that year. ‘Others’ won the Oscar and shocked most people, including myself, who assumed ‘Labyrinth’ would win. I’m sure del Toro will get his Oscar some day, but for now, his wholly imaginative and emotionally heartbreaking WWII-set fantasy picture is still a masterpiece.

Old Boy (2003) dir. Chan-wook Park
Like ‘United 93’ Old Boy had the same visceral impact. Without knowing anything about the film, it’s possible to foresee how deep Park goes into the characters’ deep dark internal psychoses. Few films have capture the raw power and impact of vengeance with as much cinematic force as ‘Old Boy’. The final act packs as much force as a freight train.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) dir. Michel Gondry
I’m confident enough to say that I doubt there is a more creative director working cinema today than Michel Gondry. As evidence in his phenomenal music videos, he is a cinematic magician. And the merging of Gondry and the storytelling surrealist trickster Charlie Kaufman with ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ is a magical concoction. Gondry manages to create a kaleidoscope of emotions of Kaufman’s character logical and empathic. ‘Eternal Sunshine’ is masterpiece of this age of self-ware cynicism.