Bolt

Byron Howard, Chris Williams, 2008 (7.8*)
Another enjoyable Pixar-Disney animated film, with some incredibly realistic graphics, at least the landscape portions (the humans look a little stiff and plastic). Bolt is a small Swiss shepherd who is rescued from an animal shelter in the beginning, when he is being appropriately cute with a rubber carrot toy. His person, as he calls her, is a little girl named Penny.

The story inexplicably then skips forward five years, at a point when Bolt and Penny are the stars of a kids tv show, in which Bolt rescues Penny from various perilous situation, most involving a green-eyed man (voiced by veteran actor Malcolm MacDowell).

The only problem with Bolt is that in order to make the show work, he has been fooled into thinking that Penny is really in danger, he has no idea that it's all a TV show, and everything is make believe. Mistaking Penny to be really in danger while he's trapped in his studio trailer, he manages to escape and immediately gets packed up and shipped away.

He runs into an alley cat named Mittens (Susie Essman, perhaps the weakest cast member - I'd have rather heard a pro comedienne like Joan Cusask in this role), and a hilarious hamster in a running ball, named Rhino.

Perhaps the lead roles could have been better cast. John Travolta is just ok as Bolt, he was actually funnier in real action comedies like Get Shorty. Miley Cyrus was just ok as Penny, no doubt selected for her young fan base.

Filmed just after The Incredibles, this has a lot of similar action, but the screenplay isn't quite as good, but it was certainly more entertaining to me than Up, which was Pixar's worst film to date to me, losing their best character in the first 10 minutes, and sticking us with two unlikeable characters for the rest of the film.

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Five Minutes of Heaven

Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2009 (8.4*)
Sundance Awards for directing and screenplay.

Based on a true story of the troubles in Northern Ireland. A Protestant worker is ordered to leave a shipyard in Lurgan by Catholics. In retaliation, a teenage gang of four, members of the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force) orders a Catholic to leave, a man named Griffin. The youths decide to kill him, even though he’s scheduled to leave the yard anyway in just a week.

When they show up at Griffin’s house, unknown to them, the senior Griffin has left the house, but his eldest son is watching tv in the living room, while his younger brother is kicking a soccer ball on the sidewalk out front. The masked hitman, Alistair Little, approaches, looks at the kid on the street staring at him, an image which will haunt him later, and still shoots his brother through the front window and kills him. Nine year old Joe Griffin not only witnesses the attack from just a few feet away, powerless to do anything, but his own mother blames him for not stopping the killing. Both his parents die soon afterwards, neither recovering from the loss of their oldest son.

Thirty-three years later, after serving a 12-year prison term, Little and Griffin are approached by a documentary television show, who sets up a meeting between the two men. Veteran star Liam Neeson plays Little as an adult, who is now a successful politician in Belfast. Griffin is an embittered man still living in the same town of Lurgan, though now he’s married and has two beautiful girls. Due to losing his entire family over the killing, Griffin has never forgiven Little, and wants, as he puts it, just "five minutes of heaven", when he can confront Little face-to-face and kill him.

James Nesbitt (Bloody Sunday) steals this film as Joe Griffin. Even though he’s now married with two children, years of torment and anguish are etched on his face in nearly every scene. He makes the audience feel his pain on a visceral level, without ever giving a false note – one feels that Nesbitt himself has gone through something similar in his own life. He steals the acting kudos from Oscar®-winner Liam Neeson in this small film produced by the BBC for television. In all honesty, he has the far meatier role, as a contrite Alistair Little seems almost resigned to giving Griffin the chance he needs for vengance. It’s a crime that Nesbitt wasn’t nominated for both a BAFTA and an Oscar® for best actor, it’s one of the best performances of the last decade.

Nesbitt with one of his 7 acting awards –

he won 3 for Cold Feet (1997),

and two for Bloody Sunday (2002)

This film deserves a far better rating than the 6.7 given at IMDB (by only 6,000 viewers). More people should watch this film, and all the other good films on 'the trouble' in Northern Ireland. There are excellent films on this subject, notably Bloody Sunday (2002), the Cannes Palm d’Or winning The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), and for PBS, both Naming the Names (which remembers the victims of Bloody Sunday) and Frontline: Behind the Mask: The IRA and Sinn Fein. Probably the first great film on this subject is John Ford’s classic, The Informer (1935), for which Victor McLaglen was awarded the Oscar for best actor.

Not being from Great Britain, those of us in the U.S., and probably the rest of the world, need to see the films on this subject so we can better understand the history of violence and repression there.

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Departures

Yôjirô Takita, 2008, Japan (10.0*)
Best Foreign Film (AA)
This is quite simply one of the most graceful, elegant, and lyrical films I've ever seen, and one of the most beautiful to watch. It's also one of the most emotionally moving and poignant ever made.

A young married cellist, Daigo (Masahiro Motoki) plays for a small orchestra that is not making enough money to survive, so its owner dissolves the group. Daigo and his wife (Ryôko Hirosue) decide to go back to the small town he grew up in because they can live in his mother's small house that he inherited.

When he arrives, he needs work, and he sees an ad that simply says immediate help needed, with no further information. It turns out that a corpse preparer, Ikuei Sasaki, needs an assistant, and has trouble keeping people. Apprehensive at first, he quickly adapts to the ritualistic and graceful tasks, and the respect shown for the departed as his own mother is dead, and his father left the family when he was six.

The screenplay is full of metaphors. Water is constantly in use, both in a ritual purification before burial, and as a healing cleanser for the living; a local public bathhouse and its proprietor are used prominently, for spiritual as well as physical healing. Snow is also used, for the pristine cleanliness and beauty of the natural world. Swans are shown landing and swimming on lakes. Along with snow, in the springtime there are flurries of cherry blossums. Both the interiors and exteriors are shown for the beauty inherent in each.

Stones are another metaphor - they are used to send messages to another by the type of stone given from person-to-person, something done in ancient times before letters. A rough stone meant the giver was worried about the recipient; a small, smooth one just the opposite. They also imply a permanence seldom found in the world of the living.

Food is also used to symbolize life; as the director (in a dvd interview) and a character says, "to eat is to live, life is impossible without eating". Also that most food is something dead, so the dead provide nourishment for the living. This is one of the more literary screenplays you will ever see.

This was a 15-year project for director Yôjirô Takita, after the idea was brought to him by one of the actors, Masahiro Motoki. Though screenplay credit goes solely to Kundô Koyama, in an interview Takita said that he did the first rough draft, then it was completed by himself and the actors together.

Overall, the film won 33 awards (out of just 39 nominations), including 10 of 13 Japanese academy awards for film, director, actor, cinematography, editing, screenplay, sound, lighting, supporting actor, and supporting actress. The only 3 it lost were actress, art direction, and score.

Departures won many other best films awards: Oscar® for foreign language film, Hawaii Int'l Film fest, Hochi film awards, Kinema Junpo awards, Mainichi Film Concours, Montreal World Film fest, Nikkon Sports Film awards, Palm Springs Int'l Film fest, Udine Far East film fest, Wisconsin film fest, Yokohama Film fest. The only awards missing seem to be BAFTA, Cannes, and Sundance. Masahiro Motoki won 5 best actors awards for his lead performance.

Awards (15) for director Takita, who said he was most pleased that such a personal and such a Japanese film meant something to viewers in other nations around the world.

Director Yôjirô Takita,

accepting his Oscar®

This is an instant classic, one of the best Japanese films of all time, and one of the best films about life and death ever made. Easily an all-time top 100 film for me, and I think for many others as well. This film more than any other captures the solemn, respectful Japanese ritualistic culture like no other.

Departures joins these other four Oscar winners from Japan:
1951: Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa)
1954: Gate of Hell (Teinosuke Kinugasa)
1955: Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto (Hiroshi Inagaki)
1975: Dersu Uzala (Soviet Union/Japan - Akira Kurosawa)

Note: I apologize for such a long review, I normally write capsule reviews that can be read quickly, but I was obviously very much impressed with this film, as was the film-viewing world. This  is only the 40th perfect 10 rating I've given out.

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Frozen River

Courtney Hunt, 2008 (8.3*)Grand Jury Prize, Sundance
Melissa Leo made a star-making performance in this film of a single mother who lives along the Canadian border in New York, who can't make the payments on her new trailer with just her part-time job. One day she helps a Native American woman from a nearby reservation, which spills over into Canada, with a ride. She ends up helping the woman transport two illegal immigrants back into the U.S. after driving over the border on a frozen river.

This begins a nerve-wracking new career, that of smuggling people over the border. Every time she begins another trip over the river, the viewer expects the worst, as this activity can't continue to be as easy as the first time. This is a good suspense film of an average person trying to survive in a harsh economy.

Winner of 23 awards overall, with an Oscar® nomination for Melissa Leo for lead actress, who would later win for supporting actress for 2010 for The Fighter

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Synecdoche, New York

Charlie Kaufman, 2008 (7.6*)
Many will be confused and maddened by this complex and epic dark poem to one man's creative and spiritual abyss. Charlie Kaufman is best known for writing some of the most interesting screenplays in the last decade: Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which won Kaufman a screenplay Oscar®. However, unlike those films, here Kaufman also directs his own work, and he seems less reigned in than when directed by Michael Gondry and Spike Jonze.

The story is about theater director and playwright Caden Cotard, brilliantly but sadly played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who receives a 'genius grant' and builds a hugely complex epic play about his own life. The cast, sets and growth of the main set to gargantuan proportions are as complex as this story, as over 200 sets were used as the play grows to last most of Cotard's adult life, as he seems to become dissociated from time, with years compressed into what he feels are days.

The supporting cast of women is superb - Catherine Keener, Dianne Wiest, Samantha Morton, Emma Watson, Jennifer Jason Leigh are all standouts. Keener is Cotard's artist wife who takes their daughter and flees to Berlin, a failure which haunts the rest of Cotard's life, especially his romances, as Cotard is more consumed by his artistic creations than any woman he encounters.

Only Kaufman could write a story this complex about a small life, featuring literally a hundred characters, getting to the level of one playing Cotard directing the play about himself, working alongside him daily like a Doppelganger shadow, who also knows intimate details of Cotard's personal life. This is not a pleasant film, but is a richly conceived and complex dark comedy on the consumption of an artist by his self-indulgent obsession with his own life. This will interest cinephiles and fans of Kaufman's other works, but will likely bore the masses and those more desirous of an easy to follow and happier narrative.

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Vantage Point

Pete Travis, 2008 (8.2*)

Getting it's inspiration from Kurosawa's Rashomon, this action thriller involves the President, William Hurt, being shot in the beginning of the film while appearing in public to address the crowd at an international summit in Spain. We are then shown the same event in small flashbacks from the points of view of various characters each with a different perspective and role in the crime.

We see the events unfold live at first from a CNN-type media command center, led by Sigourney Weaver as the director of the live tv newsfeed. Dennis Quaid plays the lead secret service agent on the site (Matthew Fox his assistant agent), and we begin with his viewpiont of the crime from eyewitness level. Before we are done, this gripping story is unfolded from the points of view of 8 characters, including the perpetrators and ground-level crowd eyewitness Forest Whittaker. We are eventually brought up to the present again, and the action continues forward from there.

Don't expect anything cerebral here, this film is about action, violence, stunts, and politics - as a book it would be called a 'classic page-turner'. The fact that it modernizes and politicizes Rashomon makes it worth seeing for classic film buffs, and it should also please the action-adventure crowd that enjoyed such films as The Kingdom, The Parallax View, and The Manchurian Candidate.

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The Children of Huang Shi

Roger Spottiswoode, Australia, 2008 (8.8*)
Mostly in English, with some Mandarin and Japanese.
Due to high production value and exotic locations in China, director Spottiswoode has put together a modern war epic that recalls some of the biggest of the past. This is the story of British journalist George Hogg in China in 1937, who sneaks into the war zone by posing as a Red Cross worker delivering supplies. Caught by the Japanese shooting photos of their atrocities in Nanking, he is saved from beheading by a local Communist guerrila leader, an engineer educated in the U.S. named Jack Chen, played by Chow Yun-Fat. He has the film's best quote: "I'm now using my skills to blow things up; I find it somewhat more rewarding."

He is taken to a boys' orphanage for safety, where he becomes a teacher, helping a volunteer and war hardened Australian nurse, Rahda Mitchell (Finding Neverland, Miranda and Miranda) take care of the sixty boys. Michelle Yeoh is perfect as a local trader and drug dealer who also helps Hogg, providing seed for food and morphine ("You know what they say about opium - you still feel the pain but it no longer hurts"). Caught in the middle of the invasion, and with Jack's advice and help, they decide to move the boys overland to a location out of harm's way, on the edge of the Gobi desert.

This film encompasses a wide scope and scale, turning the war into a major adventure story. While I found lead actor Jonathan Rhys-Myers (The Tudors) a bit less than subtle, I was inspired enough by the story of Hogg to find this film to be among the best war biographies, ranking somewhat below Lawrence of Arabia, but above The English Patient.

This is similar to the story recounted in Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), which was the story of nurse Gladys Aylward, who also moved some orphans due to the war. Viewers who enjoyed those films should find this one to be just as well made but not as long. Look for a visual reference to The Last Emperor as well. Filmed in China and Australia.

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Changeling

Clint Eastwood, 2008 (8.2*)
This Eastwood film is probably not as perfect as others of his recent films, such as Gran Torino and Million Dollar Baby, but thanks to Angelina Jolie's best performance it is still a rewarding crime-mystery film. She is the mother of a child who disappears while she is at work, and the L.A. police, who are corrupt and getting nothing but bad press, try to give her a different child to accept as her own in order to get some good press.

She refuses to accept the charade in spite of being incarcerated in an asylum by police order, and enlists as much help as possible to get to the truth. She receives much support from a local preacher with a radio show, John Malkovich, who agrees with her and drums up a storm of publicity on his radio program.

Without giving away too much, this gets pretty creepy (of the flesh crawling type), and is based on a true late 20's crime case, with only the standard "some characters are fictitious", while Clint claims that 95% of the story presented is based on historical documents. The film's only real weakness is that is runs about 20 minutes too long at 2:20, with several anticlimatic epilogues - every time you think it's over we get more followup. This story is tough to review spoiler-free.

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Transsiberian

Brad Anderson, 2008 (8.3*)
This is a nice surprise, a thriller in the Hitchcockian tradition, as two innocent and naive Americans encounter a mysterious young couple traveling from China to Russia on the Transsiberian railway. Emily Mortimer shines as the wife, husband Woody Harrelson is a bit puzzling and out of normal character as a young, optimistic Christian volunteer worker. The couple they encounter gives the audience a creepy feeling from the beginning. Eduardo Noriega is a bit too friendly as Carlos, a seemingly free spirited Spaniard, while Kate Mara is a nervous, shifty-eyed American girl along for the adventure, but who seems a little suspicious.

Ben Kingsley is perfect as usual, this time he's a Russian detective investigating a drug theft and murder, which is the film's opening. Kingsley ends up on the train along with the other travelers, scary enough to give a chill to viewers as well.

This plot has some small twists and turns, keeping it from becoming too clichéd; some events are surprising enough as to be emotionally disturbing, both to the characters and the viewers. Though a small indie film that was generally overlooked, it did received 11 international award nominations and two awards, most nods going to the cinematography, editing, and Emily Mortimer and Woody Harralson's performances.

All in all, a pleasing and surprising thriller that reminds us of the good old days, when Hitchcock would plunge innocent travelers into situations beyond their experience and control (often using trains), and also involve the viewer in the nightmare along with the characters, .

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Red Cliff

International Version

aka Chi Bi
John Woo, 2008, 5 hrs, China (7.7*)
This is a giant-scaled and expensive war epic about a Han Dynasty war in 208 A.D. involving three Chinese empires. The Hans of the north invade a southern empire to quell smaller warlords, two of which form an alliance, but they are still overwhelmed in numbers by 800,000 to just 50,000. The invading king is really after the wife of the southern leader, a beauty he saw just once, but he also has a painting of her for inspiration. Lin Chi-Ling is appropriately breath-taking in this role, with a delicate flower-like beauty; she's a moving work of art herself and worthy of causing wars.

Lacking strength, the southern alliance, led by warrior Tony Leung and strategist Takeshi Kaneshiro decides to use a plan to force a decisive naval and land battle at a fortress on the Yellow River called Red Cliff, with the emphasis on attacking the invading fleet. Most of the film is a buildup to this battle, showing preparations in great detail. The special effects of the warfare are terrific, as this was one of the most expensive Chinese films ever made at 80 million, which means it looks like a 500 m film from the west. However, there is not much story here, at least nothing compelling, so this will please fans of war films due to the massive technical achievement but will not be that engrossing to more general fans.

There are two versions of this massive war epic from famed Hong Kong action director John Woo; make sure you see the complete five-hour film on 2 discs called the "international version", not the shortened "theatrical release".

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Jeff Beck: Live at Ronnie Scott's (2007)

Stuart Watts, 2008 (10*)
..audio by Alan Branch..
Jeff Beck is an amazing guitarist, the best of the three from the Yardbirds (Clapton and Jimmy Page were the other two). He eventually moved into rock-jazz fusion, which this set from Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London in 2007 ably demonstrates. Even though there's not a lot of rock here, fans of Beck or rock history will still be surprised at the melodic virtuosity he displays here, now in his mid-60's! There are guest vocals from Eric Clapton, who kills the mood somewhat with some more of his wimpy blues vocals, Joss Stone, who does her best Aretha impression on "People Get Ready", and Imogen Heap, who mixes best of the three with Beck, especially on a rock-hard version of "Rollin and Tumblin", done ironically after Clapton leaves the stage, perhaps as if to show how much more rockin Jeff is than Eric, as this song was a famous Cream cover of Clapton's.

Adding more virtuosity are amazing 22-yr old Aussie bassist Tal Wilkenfeld, whose solo on "Cause We've Ended as Lovers"(perhaps Beck's best composition) dazzles both the crowd and Jeff - by this time she had already played with the Allman Bros, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea, after just three years of playing bass, switching over from lead guitar. Former Zappa and Sting alum Vinnie Colauita is perfect and complex on drums, and another Sting alum Jason Rebello is intricate and dazzing on keyboards. This will more resemble a Zappa show musically, being mostly jazz-rock fusion, than Beck's first group, the Yardbirds, but will amaze fans, guitarists, and rock historians alike. Look for Beck's Grammy-winning cover of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life".

This is a "must-see" music concert dvd, shot in an intimate club setting. Look for many rock luminaries in the crowd, including Jimmy Page, Steve Perry, and I believe Ian Anderson.

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Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

Mason Spurlock, 2008 (8.0*)
This is a more comedic than serious documentary that attempts to show that most people in the world are moderates, with a few extremist wackos on both sides stirring the pot of war.. Spurlock, the director of Super Size Me, takes the approach that he just wants the world safer for his almost newborn child, and travels to various nations in the middle east on a mock hunt for Osama to get the 25 million reward money. Along the way we see that most citizens are moderates who just want to work and eat and live comfortably and raise their children (so what else is new?), but that a few extremists on both sides, such as the Saudi faction of Islam and the Orthodox Zionists in Israel, will likely continue to keep the flames of war burning regardless of the rest of the world.

Not a particularly enlightening film, but is fairly entertaining as a lot of this is humorous, especially an animated Bin Laden break dancing to "Can't Touch This".. Here is a link to that excerpt from the beginning of the film at YouTube:
Osama break dancing

This film is more like a tv show than a film, but is an entertaining look at a serious subject, and perhaps will help defuse the anger that most feel about this subject. After all, the politics involved don't really affect many of us, just the few victims of terrorism (less than 10,000 so far) that the media and governments have exploded into numerous wars to benefit the defense contractors and military, who are making billions off this miniscule conflict.

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W.

Oliver Stone, 2008 (7.6*)

Though promoted as a comedy, this is such an accurate portrayal of the adult life of George W. Bush that it's a little eerie to witness. Josh Brolin is amazing, he has both the diction and even the look of "Dubya" himself, and was nominated for three international acting awards for his performance. The story is a little watered down however, based on accounts I've read. For instance, the opening sequence of his fraternity initiation at Yale has them drinking booze from watering cans and hoses, and reciting frat member's names, while insiders say that the "Skull and Bones" society drank from skulls (they claim one is Geronimo's!) and recite all the women they've made love with. His alcoholism is heavily emphasized, but no drug use is shown at all (he admitted to cocaine use).

Later political events are also glossed over, and there's no mention of either Bush's economic disasters, each leading to massive numbers of bank failures. However, director Stone does show Bush's imaginary baseball dreams, where "when I'm troubled I just stand here in center field" at the Texas Rangers' stadium. Stone does not reveal that he was basically fired as manager/owner of the team due to ineptitude, though he does mention that "I traded away Sammy Sosa, that was my big mistake".

The casting of actors is uncanny in some cases. Richard Dreyfuss looks just like VP Dick Cheney (in poor health), who is scarily megalomaniacal - when looking at a map of US troop placements in the Middle East, he states "Iran is the only place where we don't have a presence; once we go into that area, we can control the world's energy supply". Thandie Newton is a perfect butt-kissing, patriotic Congaleeza Rice with an offensive nasally voice; underused Stacy Keach shines as the preacher leading Bush's AA group; Ellen Burstyn is right on as a strong-willed and perceptive Barbara Bush; Toby Jones is perfect as campaign manager Karl Rove (and he got one supp. actor nod), getting Bush elected governor of Texas when he had failed at everything else. The only casting misstep to me is the usually perfect James Cromwell as his father (there was no attempt to even sound like Bush Sr), and the story shows nothing of H.W.'s intelligence work or genius in that area (helping bring down the USSR by a bankrupting arms race) - it just makes him look like an inept politician who needed Dubya's help to get elected president, while usually being a dis-approving parent, obviously favoring non-troubling son Jeb Bush over Dubya's lack of commitment to any career.

Most of Dubya's stupid comments are also omitted - just the "Saddam has mis-underestimated me" one was included, when there are dozens available. Also ignored was his being caught on tape saying he wasn't really religious, just "using Christianity to get elected" (a comment the White House said "wasn't meant for public consumption" - I guess not!) This is almost like an authorized and sympathetic version of his political life, making the audience see more of "the guy you'd have a beer with", as Rove puts it (as if our beer buddies would make good leaders), and less of the "evil minion of Satan", as many think of him now. In my opinion, the senior Bush should have been shown as more intelligent and conniving, and Dubya's stupidity, illiteracy, and economic failures emphasized more, especially his fights for deregulation of energy in California (leading to economic collapse there), his connections to the Enron scandal, and other pro-corporate criminality. Still, W. is an enjoyable, if unenlightening portrait of a man who wouldn't have been elected if a valid recount had occurred, as an independent election evaluation later found that TEN MILLION Gore votes had been tossed aside nationwide (likely with pressure from dad), vs. only two million Bush votes, and that Gore would have won every close state race that went for Bush, including Florida.

Quote: "History? in history we'll all be dead" (when asked how history would view his presidency by a journalist Bush calls "Miss China" - what an idiot!)

[Note: in JFK, Stone ignored public court testimony from the mid-80's by CIA heads who admitted to hiring the Mafia for the hit on Kennedy, so I'm inclined to think that Stone actually works for the "black ops" (disinformation) dept of the CIA - at the least, he's adding to their stated tactic of "confusing the facts with so much disinformation that only we know the truth". Who knows for sure? so they've achieve their goal..]

SEE my re-post below this one of Bush's infamous quotes..

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Nothing But the Truth

Rod Lurie, 2008 (8.2*)
This is a gripping and timely film that features the finest performance to date by British actress Kate Beckinsale as a Washington journalist who outs a CIA agent in a news story because the U.S. has invaded Venezuela after a failed assassination attempt, which the administration blames on that country. Does this sound familiar - can anyone remember Iraq, erroneously linked to the 9/11 terrorists? Kate is facing a jail term for contempt of court for refusal to reveal her source, based on an 80's law making it illegal to reveal a covert agent's identity, even though she hasn't broken the law, her informant has.

The excellent screenplay by director Lurie is another plus for the film, featuring some unforeseen plot twists. However, Matt Dillon is unfortunately out of his element as the prosecuting attorney here, though Alan Alda turns in an adequate job as Kate's defense attorney. There are excellent points raised here re national security vs. freedom and access to information for the public, a problematic issue in today's complex world, as either side can claim a threat to society, especially to our supposed freedom, which is an illusion at best. In a year with a large number of films worth seeing, this one seemed to escape notice but examines some important issues for all western nations, and is an intellectually rewarding political thriller.

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Che

Steven Soderbergh, 2008, two parts (8.0*)
Best Actor, Cannes
Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was a wealthy Argentinian doctor with a wife and five children, who gave up his comfortable life to help bring justice and dignity to the poorest classes in the Americas south of the U.S. If his was a U.S. 'pro corporate capitalist' story, he'd be a national hero here as well, rather than just in the rest of the world.

This bio of Che's guerrilla wars in Cuba and Bolivia is really two different films, but both are based on his diaries (he wrote five books). The first, originally called "The Argentine" is about the Cuban revolution, beginning with Che and Fidel in Mexico, then sailing for Cuba with just 82 men; it ends with the successful overthrow of military dictator Bautista, who fled Havana when it was obvious the rebels had succeeded. The cause was US corporations buying farmland from landowners there, and kicking off poor sharecroppers, who got nothing for their years of service. With 20% nationwide unemployment, many who had nothing else to do joined the guerilla army in the mountains in the east, and the movement steadily grew. This film also splices in media interviews and speeches of Che's at the UN after the revolution's success, all in black and white, while the war history is all in color.

The second, and more depressing half as it ends in failure and death, is 'Guerrilla', about the ill-fated and tiny Bolivian Liberation Army, which never exceeded 37 people, and was just 22 strong when he was finally captured and executed, after being hunted for a year by 5000 (or more) Bolivian army troops and US 'specialists' (meaning military and CIA intelligence personnel). What this film is lacking is showing the popular support in the cities, where over 100,000 were striking in support, as students, teachers, government, energy, and mining workers were all on strike in sympathy. Benecio del Toro gives a remarkable performance in these films, and was justly rewarded with the best actor award at Cannes. Unfortunately, the films fail to give us any other fully realized characters, including Castro himself.

These make a nearly exhaustive biography of Che when added to Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles' excellent film The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), about his travels around So. America on a motorcycle with best friend and fellow doctor Alberto Granada (who later founded the modern hospitals in Cuba). All these films are based on Che's own diaries, so we have an accurate first-person account of the important events of his life. Even though I would personally prefer Gandhi's non-violent approach to political change, I wasn't a doctor watching poor people dying daily from lack of healthcare, money, and food while U.S. corporations made billions in profit without sending a dollar of support, but rather syphoning off the wealth of these nations' natural resources for their own benefit alone. UN global economic experts today still bemoan this policy, enforced through the U.S. control of the Int'l Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which make multi-billion dollar loans to governments, but often only if they enforce regulations that benefit only U.S. based corporations at the expense of the local citizens. (ie, Africa can export raw peanuts, but is NOT allowed to make the more profitable peanut butter!)

These will basically appeal to war and history buffs, and those with revolutionary sympathies, which pretty much means a tiny western audience. Che said "a true revolutionary has to have a love of humanity, and a desire to see justice and dignity for all - I can't imagine any true revolutionary without these traits". In a century with very few real heroes or anyone who caused political or social change, Che, ranks alongside Gandhi, Mao, and FDR, and will inspire generations of revolutionaries worldwide.

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Star Trek

J.J. Abrams, 2008 (8.3*)
a.k.a. Star Trek Zero, Star Trek XI
This was certainly a pleasant surprise for me. In a nutshell, 'this rocks'!
This exciting 'prequel' came as a big surprise, and it has to be what creator Gene Roddenberry intended all along but was always missing: exciting action, believable heroic characters, and despicable villains, in this case a planet-destroying Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana). The cast looks amazingly like young versions of the original tv actors, especially Zachary Quint as Spock, while Chris Pine is adequate as Kirk, and John Cho makes Sulu a real character for once. The others are all better than the original actors as well, but the real attraction is the special effects, finally worthy of a major SF film for the first time in the Trek series.

Since childhood, I've been a fan of good science fiction and fantasy literature, but it took a long time (Kubrick's 2001 in 1968) for films to catch up with the writers to create anything worth seeing. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed with the original Star Trek tv show, feeling like it was even worse than the intended "western in space". The Star Trek films fared little better, with only The Wrath of Khan being re-watchable for me, as I much preferred the technical class of Spielberg's SF films (Close Encounters, E.T., later Minority Report), or Lucas' simplistic battle in space Star Wars series just because they were so well done, even if poorly written.

TV producer-director J.J. Abrams was talked into directing this by Steven Spielberg, who advised him on the action sequences. Original fans won't be disappointed, nor those who hated the originals, like myself. This is more action, less amateurish moralizing, like it was intended to be. Having now breathed new life into a tired and cliched series, I'm sure many sequels will follow with this cast.

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In Bruges

Martin McDonagh, 2008 (9.1*)

This is a thoroughly enjoyable and creative black comedy, about two hit men hiding out in Bruges, Belgium, the best preserved medieval city in Europe. Rookie director Martin McDonagh got the idea for this film while visiting the city once, and the two characters represent his own split feelings about the town: beautiful and historic on one hand, then boring when that becomes the everyday routine. In two terrific performances, Brendan Gleeson is the older, wiser hit man who enjoys touring the historic town, while Colin Farrell, new to the profession, is bored, anxious, and needs more excitement, more booze, more anything.

The pair quickly discover a film being shot and befriend both a dwarf actor, and a crew member, the sensual Clémence Poésy, who offers Farrell just the escape he needs. The film escalates into violence, especially after boss Ralph Fiennes shows up, but is a dark comedy until then. It's really a film noir with some humor, and lots of swearing. The supporting cast from the hotel owner (Thekla Reuten) to a rude Canadian (Zeljko Ivanek, Emmy-winner for Damages) are all excellent.

The film has some artistic and even surreal moments, magically filmed. When you consider all the elements involved: a town as co-star, a dwarf in a surrealist film, drug-dealing con-artists, a hit on a priest, a kid-loving mobster - this turns out to be quite a unique script from McDonagh. Farrell won the Golden Globe for actor in a comedy (I think his most versatile performance to date, tho' Home at the End of the World was probably more difficult), and Gleeson (brilliant!) was nominated, as their onscreen chemistry was hilarious. Gleeson's performance is actually the more polished and professional, he's done this often. McDonagh's Oscar-nominated screenplay won several international awards, including the BAFTA®, for which the movie was nominated for Best British film.

Be sure to watch all the bonus shorts on the dvd, especially one with all the F-word outtakes from the whole movie, there's certainly over a hundred!

Update: Brendan Gleeson just won an Emmy in Sept 09 for actor in a tv film or miniseries, for "Into the Storm"

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Defiance

Edward Zwick, 2008 (8.0*)
They keep releasing holocaust films, and I, for one, keep watching them all; I find inspiration in the struggle of the of the common man against the fascist machine (Star Wars), usually the "freedom fighter" archetype. I saw Margaret Bourke-White's photos of Auschwitz at age 5, so the worst possible images are already seared into my psyche anyway; I recently posted a list of 100 at my Worlds Best Films site. I just saw Defiance, based on the true story of the Bielski brothers of Belarus, here played by Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber (he really fits this part!), who escaped the Nazi invasion of their land by going into the forests, as the Germans burned everything their path: villages, people, livestock, farmland. Over three years, the Bielskis saved over 1200 people, and fought alongside partisans. Their knowledge of the dense Nibelofski (sp?) Forest allowed them to continue to escape capture, and survive the winter outside.

Even though the film is not as intense as I expected, it still tells an inspiring story of those who fought back with literally nothing to begin with but a few hunting rifles, then more and more captured weapons as time progressed. This group refused to give up, and lend more historical credence to the lesson all have learned: never invade even a part of Russia. Napoleon's army invaded with over one million soldiers, and only 5000 returned to France.

A similar Russian film also eerily documents the invasion of Belarus, Come and See (1985), and it reveals the Nazi atrocities in more horrifying images, approaching a dreamlike quality rarely seen in war films outside of Apocalypse Now. Defiance is more of a traditional war film, with a good mix of story and action.

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Australia

Baz Luhrmann, 2008 (7.8*)
This epic adventure, romantic western war film is actually an enjoyable piece of fluff, in spite of the mixed reviews (Roger Ebert gave it 4/5*, and it's got a 3.6/5 at netflix, I'm right between). The story takes place in the northern territory of Australia, around the coastal port of Darwin; beyond that is just desert, canyons, and huge cattle ranches. The first half of this 2.5 hr epic is a western, featuring an incredible cattle drive - you'll feel like you're in a John Ford film. The second half becomes a war film, as it's 1940 and the Japanese are advancing toward Australia.

Throughout each half, it's is also a romance, between a ranch heiress from England played by Nicole Kidman, who arrives to sell the property, and a contract drover, who gets cattle to market then moves on, played by buffed-up Hugh Jackman, who really should've been less Conan and more Indy Jones. Nice to see Aussie vets with meaty character parts here: Bryan Brown, as a competing cattle baron; Jack Thompson (Breaker Morant) as her boozing accountant; Road Warrior fans will also recognize gyro captain Bruce Spence. Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil from Walkabout plays a wise old shaman in the wild, named King George, who "has the magic".

A sidebar to the main plot involves the plight of mixed-race children (called "creamies" by the white racists), those with one white and one aborigine parent, who were taken away by officials and placed in their own type of orphanages, called "locky-locks" by the kids. One such child on Lady Ashley's ranch wants to hear a story one night, and Kidman, having just seen the film, recounts the Wizard of Oz to the child, teaching him Over the Rainbow, which becomes their special song. Now the story uses Oz as inspiration, and could even have been called "Ozstralia". This also "self places" the film in that historic era of film classics, whose look it emulates pretty well, thanks to modern special effects.

There's a lot of both cinematic and aboriginal magic here, with an almost painterly look at times, and it has the grand adventure epic feel. It's perhaps not as gripping or original as modern critics expected, and the war half seems in intrusion into a nice Aussie western, but it does have the old Hollywood formula and atmosphere - we even see big maps of Australia, like those in Casablanca and Indy Jones. Seen in that perspective, it's another grand entertainment in the over-the-top style of Cecil DeMille. Australia deserves their own grand national epic, for now, this is it.

Note: fans of this should enjoy see the four-hour miniseries "A Town Like Alice", based on Nevil Shute's romance novel of WW2 and Alice Springs, Australia.

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Gran Torino

Clint Eastwood, 2008 (8.7*)
This is just another gripping and hard-hitting modern drama from actor-director Clint Eastwood, who seems to improve with age like a fine Carmel area wine. Here he appropriately plays a hardened, grizzled Korean war veteran whose wife has just died. His neighborhood is now mostly southeast Asian immigrants from the Hmong culture, a mountain tribe there. He avoids them, they mouth off about him under their breaths. Things change when a local Hmong street gang starts putting pressure on his neighbor's son Thao, played by Bee Vang, and Eastwood helps keep the gang from kidnapping him by showing up in the yard with his loaded rifle from the war.

From then on, he's broken through the cultural barriers and the Hmongs all now respect him, a stranger who came to their aid. His gruff facade is gradually broken down by Thao's sister Sue, an intelligent and straightforward teenage girl, superbly played by Ahney Her; she simply doesn't accept his rejections, and is persistant in an unassuming way. She quickly becomes a closer friend to him than his own relations, who seem to consider him an aging inconvenience.

The Gran Torino of the title sits in Clint's garage, and is something he once worked on at the nearby auto plant; it's also something the gang, his granddaughter, and Thao all admire. Here, it become's a metaphor of an idealistic America of the past, when things were well made and people took pride in making them - much happier and more secure times, with ideals worth holding onto; for Clint, he can at least hold onto the car, keeping it in mint condition as life deteriorates all around. This is a very gripping, believable drama, one that should have been up for the best picture Oscar, as Clint was for directing; he even wrote the title song, played over the closing credits.

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