The Dooryard

More than meets the eye

I don't think it's going to be the biggest movie of the summer, but I am more excited about TRANSFORMERS than any other movie coming out in the next three months. And the latest trailer (left) has just increased my already heightened excitement!

Growing up in the 1980s, Transformers were a staple of my childhood. From comics to the cartoon to the action figures, I was hooked. I stuck with Transformers into junior high school; I still have a couple I keep around.

A friend of mine who also produced X-Men produced Transformers. And if there's anyone I trust to take my favorite childhood comics and make them into kick-ass action movies, it's Tom.

R2-D2 where are you?

The post office is a royal pain in the ass. Takes too long to get through a line and the people working are, from my personal experiences in L.A. and New York, often not particularly kind. But, I gotta give them props for a great idea: R2-D2 mail collection boxes. It's a whole campaign, which will include Star Wars stamps, that is being rolled out over the next few months.

While the Star Wars prequels generally sucked, those first three will always hold a dear place in my heart. Of course, in typical USPS fashion, no word on how to actually find the R2-D2 boxes. Some things never change.

My best picture picks

I spent much of the last four weeks seeing most of the award-caliber movies released in 2006, in anticipation of the Oscar nominations coming on Tuesday.

All-told, I saw 30 movies this year. And I have to say, it wasn't a total loss of a year for films. I think this will be remembered as the year movies broke out of the cookie-cutter, with some fine films that were incredibly inventive: IWO JIMA, LITTLE CHILDREN, BABEL, PAN'S LABYRINTH and THE QUEEN.

My top two films - UNITED 93 and APOCALYPTO - were both incredible stories well-told that also both broke convention in their own ways.

I've ranked the 30 movies I saw this year below. Babel was by far the toughest to rank because it had three distinct forces pulling it different ways: 1) It is emotionally engaging; 2) With all the handheld shots, it made me seasick; 3) It was the most anti-American movie I saw this year; 4) There was one of the best performances of the year (Rinko Kikuchi deserves an Oscar for her performance as a deaf-mute).

Discuss.

MY BEST PICTURE NOMINEES:
1) United 93
2) Apocalypto
3) The Devil Wears Prada
4) The Children of Men
5) The Queen

RUNNERS-UP:

6) Flags of our Fathers
7) Notes on a Scandal
8) Pan's Labyrinth
9) Bobby
10) Dreamgirls

WORTH SEEING:

11) The Departed
12) Thank You For Smoking
13) Babel
14) Letters from Iwo Jima
15) Little Children
16) The DaVinci Code
17) Inside Man
18) Glory Road
19) The Prestige
20) Invincible
21) An Inconvenient Truth

ONLY IF YOU'VE GOT TWO HOURS YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT:

22) Casino Royale
23) Pirates: Dead Man's Chest
24) Akeelah and the Bee
25) The Descent

NOT EVEN WORTH MY TWO HOURS:

26) Little Miss Sunshine
27) X-Men: The Last Stand
28) World Trade Center
29) Borat
30) Superman Returns
31) Charlotte's Web

Children of Men

It has seemed so rare in the last couple of years to find truly unique movies - films that revolve around a unique idea or present a unique way of filmmaking. I had the pleasure of seeing one of those rare unique films Friday night in CHILDREN OF MEN.

Set about 20 years in the future, it features a world in chaos because there have been no human pregnancies in the world in 18 years. It is an incredible commentary on society and how the absence of a future so strikingly can affect the present. For some reason, only England remains standing without too much chaos or a toppled government; I'd love to hear thoughts as to why that creative decision was made (maybe it's as simple as that's where the production company was).

What I find most wonderful about the movie is how honest it is. The characters make decisions with little fanfare, and their choices are very real. The entire movie is always from the perspective of one man; While there are many opportunities for the filmmakers to go off on more interesting tangents following other characters, they stick to the vision and perspective of one man as human life passes before him. It's riveting.

Dan commented with about 30 minutes left in the movie that it was incredible stressful. And it is. But that is the result of the beauty of the film. You really become engaged in the characters and come to feel that the future of humanity truly rests on the shoulders of the several characters trying desperately to get to a ship called Tomorrow. Along with UNITED 93 and APOCALYPTO, it's easily one of the most gripping movies of the year.

I'll be curious to see where it ends up come Oscar time. It presently sits in my top five; But I don't know as it's the kind of film that could find favor with the Academy set.

FINAL ANALYSIS: A very well-made film featuring strong direction and performances from Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine. 9 out of 10

Apocalypto

As I said in a previous post, I am trying to watch all of the big Oscar contenders before the nominations come out. I've seen a bunch of them and will have thoughts here in a couple days.

So far, APOCALYPTO is the best by far and may be the best movie I have seen all year. It is a very small, very simple story about one man's dedication to his family. To be sure, it is violent, and graphically so. There were a couple of moments when I turned my face so I didn't see the carnage. But the repeated violence isn't simply thrown in for effect; It is a part of the movie as much so as any movie since PULP FICTION. It left me thinking about the complex themes and messages in the movie all day long.

Of course, the movie hasn't gotten the awards recognition it should (just as THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST did not) because many in Hollywood don't like Gibson's conservative and religious politics. They'll decorate a rapist and a child molestor who fled the United States to lowly France, which refuses to extradict him (Roman Polanski), but they won't give deserving credit to Gibson. When conservatives complain about liberal themes in Hollywood movies, they are always told that they should simply judge it as art; But when a vocal conservative like Gibson makes an incredible movie, they shun him. Such a shameful double standard.

Many reviews reflected this. While movie reviewers are supposed to stick what's on the screen, many of them dove into Gibson's personal reviews, like this amateur review from the Denver Post: "APOCALYPTO wants us to believe there is an overpowering darkness in the land, while I can't quite get past a suspicion of overpowering darkness in the filmmaker." I don't remember reading reviews of THE PIANIST that talked about Polanski's sexual misconduct. Of course, if you're liberal, you can be excused for things like molesting children.

To be sure, Gibson's indefensible anti-Semitic rant to a police officer did not help his case. But, again, we're told by Hollywood that we should judge artists for their art, not their actions; And that we should judge films for their quality, not for what the filmmakers snort up their nose or with whom they have sex.

Awards or no awards, APOCALYPTO is an incredible acheivement, and Mel Gibson has strengthened his position as one of the great filmmakers of our time.

FINAL ANALYSIS: Brilliant direction and performances, beautiful art direction and a haunting script. If this was made by almost any other director, it would be hailed as a cinematic acheivement. 10 out 10.

Bobby

I have been blessed with the next five or so weeks away from work, which will give me time to do the things I otherwise wouldn't do. One of those things is my quest to have seen every movie that is in contention for a big Oscar before the Academy Awards at the end of February.

Today I saw BOBBY, which was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Movie-Drama. It takes place in the 24 hours leading up to the assasination of Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1968 just moments after he won the California Democrat primary (he actually died two days later). It focuses on the day in the life of several people who were there, within 50 feet of Kennedy as he was shot. You don't get to see Bobby except for news footage, but that was plenty for me. And I mean that in a very good way. For my generation, born several years after Kennedy was killed, Bobby is a forgotten historic figure. I can't say I'd ever heard him speak until today. And it was very powerful. In just a few clips, I felt like I came to deeply understand why so many Americans put so much hope in this man, who most likely would have supplanted Richard Nixon as the 37th President of the United States. A few shots and words from him from news footage was "plenty" because that's all it took for me to want to learn more about him.

The creative decision to focus on about a dozen people at the hotel seemed like a bad one for the first 90 minutes of the film. The ending, though, was incredibly powerful. And having spent 90 minutes getting to know all of these other characters made the impact of the shots that rang out through the hotel kitchen that much deeper. Sharon Stone won't get any big nominations for her role in the film, but she really carried it. I was blown away by her. And I certainly have to mention the cast, which is quite possibly the most prestigious cast assembled in years, including Harry Belafonte, Emilio Estevez, Laurence Fishburn, Heather Graham, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt, Ashton Kutcher, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Stone, Elijah Wood and others.

FINAL ANALYSIS: A well-acted (except Kutcher), well-directed film that at times seems to want to be Crash. It is saved in the end. 7 out of 10.

Notes on a Scandal

I got the chance to see Fox Searchlight's NOTES ON A SCANDAL last night at a preview screening. First, a note on the screening itself. If you ever get the chance to screen a movie in a private screening room at a studio or entertainment business (last night it was courtesy of Dolby), do it. All of the screening rooms at Paramount (THE best), Disney, the Writers Guild, the Directors Guild and now Dolby that I have experienced are truly great theaters. The only mainstream theater that I have experienced that rivals them is the Village Theater in Westwood.

Now, back to the movie.

I didn't think I was going to regard it as much, given that I'm generally not into woman-on-woman stories. But the flick is quite something. The storyline involves a kind of a love triangle between Cate Blanchett's character Sheba, Judi Dench's Barbara, and newcomer Andrew Simpson, who plays Steven Connolly. It seems 15-year-old Connolly has seduced Sheba, his teacher and the object of Barbara's affection; And when possessive Barbara finds out, drama ensues.

It's a rather riveting when-she-gonna-spill-the-beans storyline with a thread of camp running through it, courtesy of a snappy script and some lovely delivery by Dench. It's also a fascinating study of unconventional relationships, leaving me wondering what is and isn't OK, and who can and cannot be romantically invovled with one another?

It should be no surprise, given the two matriarchs of the cast, that the performances are very strong. I even found myself believing that young Connolly's advances toward his teacher were genuine and, at the same time, very innocent.

A passing note on the 15-year-old. When the movie was shot, Simpson was 17. I'm not generally attracted to teenagers, but he is quite easy on the eyes. So, while Sheba's affair with 15-year-old Connolly is quite illegal, the audience's attraction to 17-year-old Simpson is (if you're OK with looking at an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog) quite all right.

The best thing about the movie might be its length. I've seen so many movies in the last couple of years that dragged and dragged. In just 98 minutes, NOTES ON A SCANDAL gets you in and gets you out in just the right time.

FINAL ANALYSIS: Especially in light of most of the crap that was out this year, this is a small, refreshing film that simply aspires to be what is: A study of unconventional relationships. 7 out of 10.

Irreplaceable

Generally twice a year I get super excited to see a movie. Earlier this year, it was Superman Returns, which was totally disappointing. It wasn't a surprise. About three-quarters of the time, when I get excited about a movie, my expectations rise and the movie can't match them.

Now, I'm getting excited for Dream Girls, and it doesn't help that Beyonce's new single, timed nicely a few weeks before the movie hits theaters, won't get out of my head. Some friends of mine have seen the movie, and their reaction has been unanimously positive. Of course, they were all gay men who enjoy musicals far more than I; But, I'm hopeful.

A live version of this great song after the jump>>

An Angel Wears Prada

You hear so much about how important the actors can be to a movie, but so rarely do you see one of them really transform a project. Meryl Streep's performance in The Devil Wears Prada is one of those rare performances around which an entire movie is built. It's no big surprise; Streep is first of all actors, ahead of the likes of Katherine Hepburn, Jack Nicholson, Laurence Olivier, Bette Davis, Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman, with 13 Academy Award nominations under her belt, and I have no doubt that this movie will build her record.

While her timing is incredible, the glances of her eyes startling, it is the humanity Streep brings to "the dragon lady" that is so fascinating to watch. She allows just a glimmer of Miranda Priestley's vulnerability in several scenes, leading up to the character's final reckoning over the course of the final 30 minutes.

On the flip side, Anne Hathaway brings absolutely nothing to the main character, Andrea/Emily/Andi. I'm getting so tired of these young actresses walking through roles (Natalie Portman in Star Wars; Kate Bosworth in Superman Returns; Hathaway here). I'd much rather watch a much less pretty and much older actress actually earn her money in some of these roles. Hathaway brought no arc to her character whatsoever; it was so bad that the ending seemed out-of-place and misguided. I actually got angry at the ending, which I should have fallen in love with (I'm a sucker for redemption stories).

Still, Hathaway can't undermine the wonderful performances poured in by virtually everyone else in the cast, highlighted by Streep and Stanley Tucci.

FINAL ANALYSIS: If Hathaway had brought anything to the lead role, this could have been a 10; but the other performances are so strong, the movie still shines. 9 out of 10.

An Inconvenient Truth

It is really irrelevant that An Inconvenient Truth is a bad movie, as far as movies go. It doesn't try to be a movie. It is a filmed lecture, given by former Vice-President Al Gore, about the dangers of CO2 emissions and the effects they're having on our world.

I'm a conservationist at heart. Always have been. So, what he had to say really did hit home. I don't think for a secont that everything he said was entirely truthful. But, his general ideas about conservation of energy and improving the environment of the world we live in all made sense to me.

Since I saw the movie last Friday, I've taken the stairs instead of the elevator 10 times (and I live on the sixth floor and work on the ninth). I've turned lights off more often. I've taken a train or walked instead of taking a cab, which I usually would have done, twice. I'm doing my part in this, and I will continue to do so. Because whether or not everything in that movie was 100 percent accurate, I see no bad coming from reducing the amount of energy I use and getting a little more exercise. I hope more people will do the same.