2011 Films: #1

This year turned into a grind towards the end of the countdown. Oddly enough, I had more free time this go 'round, but I also had a lot of writing projects simultaneously. I think in the future, I will do it like a normal human being and write the movies up after I see them and give one paragraph re-caps in countdown season.

We'll see.

For the first time since I started doing this in 2004, I did not see all of the best picture nominees. I saw 8 of the 9, but missed Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I wasn't particularly enthused about it, for one, but I just kind of ran out of time.

There are three movies that did not get included in the countdown--two of which I saw after my self-imposed deadline, and one that I had forgotten I saw. They are: Hanna, J. Edgar, and What's Your Number?


*J. Edgar was slow, dark, kind of strange and all over the place. Leo was good. It would probably chart in the low to mid 40s.

*Hanna was Bourne Identity with a young girl who could shoot a bow and arrow. It was pretty cool, from what I remember. Mid to high 30s.

*I thought What's Your Number? was better and funnier than expected. It's not overly gross but there is some hilarious foul language and hijinks. Low 30s.

Those three bring my 2011 total up to 58. Yikes.

Here are the movies I wanted to see and missed:

Tabloid

The Interrupters

The Trip

13 Assassins

The Future

Project Nim

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Carnage

Contagion

A Harold & Kumar Christmas

A Separation (Ebert's #1)

Melancholia

Shame

My Week with Marilyn

Finally, enjoy this as well. Offers some nice counter-insight!

http://movieswithmulhern.blogspot.com/

My #1 this year is kind of polarizing film. It's pretty bloody, which is what kept it from much award-season love, but I (and plenty of other people) think it got snubbed. Interested to hear back from you all on it, if you've seen it.

Without further ado...


#1 Drive

After a meeting that had completely bombed between Ryan Gosling, studio execs, and director Nicholas Winding Refn concerning the direction and attitude of Drive, Gosling was giving Winding Refn a ride home (who ironically does not possess a license). A song came on the radio and Gosling turned it up. They both sang along to themselves. Winding Refn, frustrated and emotional, said to him "That's what I was trying to convey before-it should be about someone who can't connect with anything or anyone except being behind the wheel." Gosling nodded, their relationship improved, and the best film of 2011 was born.

Drive, originally slated to star Hugh Jackman (no offense to Wolverine, but it's for the best here) and be a straight action film, got a dramatic re-tooling following the botched meeting. Gosling plays the nameless lead--"Driver" in the end credits, called "kid" by his mechanic boss Shannon (Bryan Cranston)--a stunt driver for films and part time car shop worker who moonlights as a getaway driver for small-time thugs. The opening sequence finds him outrunning and outsmarting the police, carrying two armed robbers as cargo. It's one of the best car chases I have ever seen. Then comes the movie's best mood-setter, its soundtrack. The awesomely pulsing techno, combined with the pink scripted font, makes the viewer feel like they are smack in the middle of 1986; the movie, in tone and style, is oft-compared to the great William Friedkin crime thriller To Live and Die in L.A.


Two events set up the action of the movie: 1) Driver meets his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her young son Benicio, and 2)Shannon, limping from a previous "accident" and looking to make some dishonest money, sells the driving services of his young protege (Gosling) to mobbed-up stock car sponsor Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) and his partner Nino (Ron Perlman). Driver steps in for Irene's absent husband Standard (Oscar Isaac), currently serving a bid in jail. Thanks to a montage set to College's thumping theme song "A Real Hero", we see Driver getting closer to Irene and Benicio. It doesn't last though-Standard gets released, for better or worse, back into their lives. After Standard gets the crap kicked out of him in the apartment garage by a couple of toughs who he owes money to, Driver offers to help him on a job that will pay back the interested parties and keep Ireneand Benicio safe. This is a mistake in every possible way, and soon Driver is on a "crash-course" (sorry, had to) with some very dangerous people. It starts to become clear that he will do practically anything for Irene, and some of those things aren't exactly flowers and cupcakes.

Drive owes a lot of its brilliance to it's subtext. When Gosling and Mulligan got the script, they started slashing expositional dialogue in favor of quiet looks that say it all. As the viewer, you get absolutely none of his backstory, so it's unclear if this is the first time he's involved himself in a situation like this or the 12th. He talks very little, but his eyes and his tone speak enough. As a villain, the always outstanding Brooks matches Gosling in eerie calmness. After the wild thrills, top-notch car chases and spiraling violence come to a close and we're hearing "A Real Hero" play us out, we are left to wonder-how heroic were his actions, really?

That wraps it up. Hope you enjoyed this year's edition of Mulhern at the Movies. Thanks for reading!

2011 Films: #2

#2 Stuck Between Stations


Proof once again that everything in life can be drawn back to The Simpsons, Seinfeld , and LOST, my ranking of this film at #2 reminds me of something that happened with LOST. Leading up the series finale, the producers made a questionable decision when they benched the entire starting team in favor of an episode with a plot line that could have been resolved weeks or possibly seasons before. It pissed a lot of people off, and hopefully the fact that I ranked a film that virtually no one has heard of one spot from the top does not have the same effect. It comes out on March 13th on DVD (and hopefully Netflix). Now, I will try and convince you why you should see this one.

Stuck Between Stations takes its name from the opening track of the Brooklyn-via-Minneapolis band the Hold Steady's classic Boys and Girls in America record. Though the song itself is about being high and or drunk ("some nights are crystal clear/but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations/on the radio"), the title is applicable to the protagonists, two postgrad hipster types who re-connect for one wild night in Minneapolis.

They are Casper (Sam Rosen), a vet of the 2nd middle east tour who is back for his father's funeral, and Becca (Zoe Lister-Jones), a graduate assistant bent on climbing the educational ladder. Out for a whiskey at famous music venue First Avenue, he spots Becca and remembers her from his childhood. The guys that she are with begin hassling her at the pool table, he steps in, he gets punched in the face. Outside a few minutes later, she approaches him and to his dismay, does not remember him. Via a cool split screen shot, we see them part ways-she to the car with her pals, him to his BMX bike-before she realize she is a little asshole'd out and runs to catch up with Casper. She's curious, obviously, and seems to want to make it up to him for the knight in shining armor act going awry. They talk about the present and the past with the lights and shadows of Minneapolis providing the backdrop. There's a tangible connection, but there are complications. Becca is romantically involved with her host professor (Michael Imperioli) and Casper, who up until this point hasn't really opened up to much of anyone, is damaged goods.

This doesn't stop the 12-hour adventure from unfolding, including a bicycle gang of Casper's old friends (including Minneapolis native Josh Hartnett), a night carnival in a warehouse, and a mission to retrieve her laptop from the professor's house. There is a constant "will they or won't they" vibe throughout, and I though I won't tell you the answer to that, know that what matters is, just like 1995's Before Sunrise, they click enough to tell each other the most intimate details of their lives as virtual strangers. Sometimes, it's easier that way.

It's very possible that I am biased because of the Minneapolis aspect. However, the script and the leads are strong enough that I believe it would have worked in any city. Working with a script penned by Rosen, director Brady Kiernan (newcomer) and cinematographer Bo Hakala (previously worked on Atmosphere and Doomtree music videos) aptly give life to Minneapolis, to the night, and to the confusion of trying to figure out exactly where, and who with, you belong.

2011 films: #4-3

#4 The Descendants


After his wife suffers a horrendous boating accident, Hawaiian landowner Matt King (George Clooney) suffers a horrendous realization at the hands of his daughter Alex (American Teenager's Shailene Woodley) : his wife had been having an affair. He had no idea. This news comes amidst King and his entire family being on the brink of selling a huge piece of their land to investors; they are the descendants of former Hawaiian royalty. The entire island seems to know about and be affected by the impending decision. "So what are you gonna do, Matt?" is a common question from the plebes.

King is of course a little sidetracked by the bomb that has been dropped and rather than deal fully with the land issue, he works on figuring out who this other meddling guy is. After he gets a lead on the extracurricular lover's whereabouts, he and Alex, his younger daughter Scottie (Amara Miller), and comical relief surfer dude Sid (Nick Krause)-who may or may not be Alex's boyfriend-take a trip to one of the other islands for a "vacation" so that they can track him down and confront him. King comes to find out that despite his best attempts, even his wife's lover is intertwined in the potential land deal. As the trustee among several cousins with their own ulterior motives, and people that continue to seemingly come out of the woodwork, the sale of the land is continually stressful. The news about his wife could  not have come at a worse time-or could it have?

The Descendants is flat out great. It's Alexander Payne's first film since the wine-country romp Sideways, and it is even more smart and much more touching than its predecessor. Krause is a joy as the party crasher who is deeper than his exterior leads you to believe. Beau Bridges (Jeff's brother) is both gregarious and conniving as cousin Hugh, constantly leaning on Matt to sell to the best potential developers. Woodley is a revelation as an angry and rebellious teenager who gives her father strength he didn't quite know he had. And then there's Sir George. He's a father who's as clueless about fatherhood as he is about his wife's infidelity, a trustee that's nowhere near as confident as he projects, and as a potential collector of revenge, he's not even quite sure what to do with it once it is in his grasp. This is Clooney's Oscar to lose; a hospital scene towards the end of the film is what locks it up in my opinion. He is completely believable, and so, somewhat uncommonly, is the film.

#3 The Artist


It all seemed like a gimmick to me. A silent film in 2011? Why, exactly? What is the point of stepping that far back?

Then I saw it, and it was stupendous.

Michael Hazanavicius' story follows George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), and his Jack Russell terrier Jack (skateboarding super dog Uggie) silent movie mega-star(s) in the year 1927. After a big premiere, he comes out to welcome his adoring fans and ends up bumping into Peppy Miller (Bernice Bejo, Hazanavicius' real life wife). They have a moment, and soon all of the papers are wanting to know--who's this mystery woman linked to the beloved George Valentin? Before too long, she is a backup dancer in one of his films and eventually works her way up to a starring role. Her trajectory goes on to overtake his, and as the world takes new shape, silent pictures get left behind by "talkies". Peppy Miller adjusts and Valentin does not. So while there is a love connection, it gets complicated by jealousy and the fear of change. They will work their way back together, but not without a few tears, laughs and life-threatening situations.

This movie would probably not succeed if it were not for Jean Dujardin. He does not let the fact that he can't talk get in the way of being completely effective and engaging. I couldn't help but grin at his enjoyment and hang my head at his moments of shame and desperation. He had a face that was equally evocative for the highs and lows, which is tough to pull off. While the supporters (Bejo, cigar-puffing John Goodman, and especially Uggie), the music, and the excellent cinematography helped to take us back in time, none more so than Dujardin. If it weren't for Clooney's turn in The Descendants, it's his statue.

2011 Films: #7, 6, 5

#7 The Tree of Life


Pretentious? A little. Confusing? At times. Heavy-handed? Absolutely--any film comparing the rearing of a small-town 1950s Texas family to the creation of the universe has to be.

However...

Fascinating? It had the ability to be. Gorgeous? Very much so. Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography was the best of the year, sun streaming in through picture windows, wind blowing through grasses and trees, follow shots of both children and adults walking down empty streets. And was it evocative? I thought so, especially being a male in that there were elements of it that reminded me a little of my own growing up and the confusion, anger and lack of responsibility that comes with adolescence. Others felt it more so than me.

There's not really a narrative arc to speak of in this movie, and that was a little bit of a problem. Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain are a husband and wife raising a family. We see the world through the eyes of their son, 11-year old Jack (Hunter McCracken) in jumbled vignettes and subtle, simple meditations on life. Pitt, a patent salesman, is an intimidating disciplinarian, who, despite the my-way-or-the-highway act, loves them all. He can be stern and has the ability to snap on a dime, and Chastain is the quiet, submissive counterpart.

Interwoven with all of this is adult Jack (Sean Penn), wandering lost in big-city, business world and looking for answers, and a long montage detailing the creation of the world, complete with NASA quality cosmos shots and exploding volcanoes. And even CGI dinosaurs. There are voiceover whispers and sweeping orchestral fare. Art house favorite Terrence Malick, in only his fifth feature in 40 years, decided to go as big he possibly could with the Tree of Life. Sometimes his conception of big is over our heads, and sometimes you find the film meandering and sleepy.

But my God, is it ever something to look at.

#6 Harry Potter 8

One of the most remarkable things about the mega-franchise, and I think I said this last year, is that Rowling has written them in such a way that each progressive book gets more adult and less kid. The movies follow the gameplan-thanks largely to having David Yates at the helm for the last four films-by holding onto dark undertones. We have watched the Radcliffe/Grint/Watson trio grow up on screen over ten years, from optimistic and wide-eyed (Rafcliffe), frightened and goofy (Grint), snippy and mousy (Watson) to full-fledged adults. Where Deathly Hallows Part I was a showcase for all three (Grint has come a long way from the one dimensional "scared of spiders' face in Chamber of Secrets), Part II is all Radcliffe, and he absolutely rises to the challenge of impending martyrdom.

We pick up right where we left off with a little bit of a re-cap to kick things into gear: Voldemort has just jacked the elder wand from Dumbledore's giant white tomb, rendering him virtually unstoppable; our fearless three escaped an attack at Malfoy manor by the skin of their teeth; and fan favorite Dobby the house elf bit the dust via a knife thrown by evil nutjob Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter). They had spent the last movie on the run, away from their family, away from Hogwarts, hunting down the final horcruxes--items containing pieces of Voldemort's soul. For those keeping score at home, they had previously destroyed three of the seven: Harry stabbed Tom Riddle's (Voldemort's childhood identity) diary in the Chamber of Secrets, Marvolo Gaunt's ring was pulverized by Dumbledore sometime in the timeline of Half-Blood Prince,  and the locket that Harry and Dumbledore failed to dispose of near the end of Half-Blood Prince gets finished off by Ron Weasley in the Deathly Hallows, Part I. At the beginning of Part II, four remain. To make Voldemort mortal and defeat the bald asshole once and for all, the horcruxes must go. The trio starts by infiltrating Gringott's Bank in disguise for the purpose of a goblet that they have reason to believe is a horcrux, and from there it's back towards Hogwart's for a final showdown. Unlike Part I, this one is straight-up action, and wastes no time in chugging to the finish line.

The most successful film franchise of all time (it helps when there are eight of them) thus comes to a close, and it does so in a bombastic fashion worthy of the superbly-structured books. Throughout, there are game-changing reveals that continue to hit Harry like a quidditch bludger to the stomach, and eventually he comes to understand that his fate is unavoidable. Both the good (Maggie Smith as McGonnagal, Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, David Thewlis as Lupin) and the bad (Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort, Alan Rickman as Snape, Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy) suffer a gang of casualties. All of the actors convey the urgency very well, and special props go to Matthew Lewis as Neville Longbottom, who experiences a heroic coming-out of sorts, and to director David Yates, who knows exactly what is at stake and delivers a stark and powerful finale to legions upon legions of muggle fans. None, though, are on quite on Radcliffe's level this time around. There's a scene that takes place when on the way to meet Voldemort in the woods that he plays so perfectly, so quietly that it's practically a dance. He's a great and fearless actor with tremendous upside, and as the heart and soul of the story, he takes the viewer right into the psyche of the boy who, for better or for worse, lived.

#5 Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest


A couple-three years ago, I was sitting on my best friend's couch, paging through the contents of the book "Stuff White People Like". Lo and behold, there was a Tribe Called Quest. I was confronted with two harsh realizations on that day: One, I am, in fact, white; and two, following the hip-hop group was both ubiquitous and not at all unique. The truth is that I know every last word to Midnight Marauders and own a cat named Q-Tip with plans to eventually own a cat named Ali Shaheed Mohammed and a dog named Phife. This does not mean I am the world's only fan of ATCQ and I guess that's a good thing. It should come as no surprise to those who know me that this one would be charting high.

None of my biases, though, stop this from being a great and engaging film. I have watched it both with people who enjoy their music and those who had barely heard of them, and the result was the same. Early on in the film, the group is introduced via the semi-famous (at least in the hip-hop community) audio of the robotic woman who gives public service announcements in between tracks on Midnight Marauders: "A Tribe Called Quest consists of four members-Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Mohammed, Q-Tip and Jarobi. A, E, I, O-" "And sometimes Y, motherf***as!" Jarobi interrupts, and just like that, we're off and running.

The movie begins with the renowned Queens, NY group in a state of turmoil; it's 2008, and they have agreed to reunite to headline the Rock the Bells hip-hop lineup. Things have since gone south in a hurry, with Phife and Q-Tip at playing battling egos. As the movie unfolds, we come to realize that through the years, Q-Tip and Phife were oftentimes more competitors than allies (Phife Dawg's diabetes diagnosis played a role as well), both struggling to equally share the spotlight while ASM (Jarobi left in the early '90s) played the background.

It wasn't always tense, though, and it is a blast to see and hear how the whole thing came together, from the high school lunch table rhymes, to sampling records, to the formation of the Native Tongues collective (ATCQ, Black Sheep, De La Soul, Jungle Brothers) and their eventual  rise to fame. Director and superfan Michael Rapaport spent years collecting testimonials of hip-hop heavies like the Beastie Boys, De La Soul,     ?uestlove and Busta Rhymes, along with studio execs like Jimmy Iovine and Lyor Cohen who can all agree that A Tribe Called Quest's influential music  and path changed the game for good.

2011 Films: #9 & #8

#9 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I can safely say that I wasn't one of the million billions who had the ubiquitous bright green paperback in tow at the coffeeshop, on the beach towel, in the chaise lounge, on the airplane. Here's what I went in knowing: Punk rock mohawked cyber hacking girl with a giant chip on her shoulder. Daniel Craig plays a rogue journalist. It takes place in Sweden. It's directed by David Fincher. All the credit in the world to Rooney Mara, but the aforementioned director, who I knew would have the balls to get super dark with it, was the main thing that put me in the seats. 


 To the nine other people besides me who haven't read the commercial juggernaut, the story is that Michael Blomkvist (Craig) is himself in the news for uncovering shady corporate goings-on. Though he resigns amid the scandal, his work impresses the wealthy and geriatric Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), still haunted by the disappearance and possible murder of his niece some 40 years ago. Before he hires on Blomkvist to do his investijournaling, his family lawyer takes on the services of computer whiz/researcher/motorcycle rider/tattoo and piercing enthusiast/angry loner Lisbeth Salander (Mara) to tail Blomqvist and make sure his nose is clean. Henrik thinks someone in his family has murdered his niece, and under the ruse that he will be writing his memoirs, puts Blomkvist in a nearby cottage to conduct his interviews. He comes to realize he'll be needing a research assistant, so he goes to track down the raven-haired waif that somehow got open-book with his personal life. The unlikely duo is thus formed, and a strange, quiet connection begins to grow. She doesn't ever quite crack a smile, but her time with Blomkvist is about as upbeat as it gets for her.



She has good reason to be pissed, incidentally-her legal guardian (she's been orphaned since she set her pops on fire as a kid) has just died, along with her weekly stipends. Lisbeth is put under the watch of calculated and vile lawyer Nils Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen-what is that, Swedish or something?), who blackmails her into sex acts for her weekly financial allowances. Fincher does not shy away from the brutality and depravity of their relationship, and though it gets hard to watch, Bjurman getting his comeuppance is a thing to behold. Mara plays that particular scene perfectly, displaying an eerie calmness as she delivers the disturbing coup de grace.



Meanwhile, Blomkvist has quickly found himself in over his head, getting shot at from afar and threatening visitors. He and Salander have uncovered something much bigger than they imagined, deadlier the deeper they get. Someone wants them to let bygones be bygones. Someone thinks that they were getting along just fine in their quaint, picturesque Swedish seaside town before they stuck their chiseled jaw lines and pierced noses into their business. Someone wants them to get dead in a hurry.



From the get-go, Fincher creates a mood and an atmosphere that is equal parts fluorescent lights and black leather as it is dreary skies and black peacoats. The opening credits, to a Karen O cover of "Immigrant Song", pulse with industrial drums and show faces flexing out of melted black rubber. The flashback scenes showing the day of Harriet's disappearance bring a vibrant, old-timey kodak color to a town that has been under a cloud ever since. There are some grimy moments, but don't look away if you can help it, because they are handled masterfully. And save a few little chunks of sluggish exposition, the two and 40 minute run time sounds a lot more daunting then it is. Fincher brings lots of flair and excitement to a murder mystery that, without the Salander character and the set in Sweden thing, is standard fare for the genre.

#8 Moneyball

 

Right before I left to teach in Tanzania for two months, I finished reading the Michael Lewis book that film is based upon. Even I as a self-proclaimed baseball nerd had absolutely no idea how they would pull this off as a movie. Enter the King Midas team of screenplays, Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian. Sure, you owe plenty of this film's success to Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill and director Bennett Miller, but Sorkin, who turned a story about the Facebook lawsuit into provocative cinema, proved to once again be the man for the job.

I remember the Oakland A's of the early 2000s as constantly being a force to be reckoned with. They had incredibly good starting pitching, and their hitters, despite lacking a true superstar after Jason Giambi bolted for the New York Yankees, managed to wreak havoc. Their secret? A baseball mind named Peter Brand (Jonah Hill, whose character from the book is re-named), a student of stats guru Bill James and sabermetrics. Unlike typical baseball statistics, sabermetrics is focused on creating runs and creating wins, so it favors players who have a high on-base percentage (i.e., take walks) rather than people who hit a lot of home runs but strike out as a result.

Fascinating stuff, I know.

Oakland A's general manager and ex big-leaguer Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), who oozes overconfidence and bravado in every step and chew of his tobacco, recruits the unappreciated Brand after he helps the Cleveland Indians reject a trade with the A's. Mostly, he wants to know what Brand knows that everyone else doesn't. His Oakland squad finished strong the season before, but that was with slugger and MVP Jason Giambi in the lineup. With a payroll the size of a circus peanut, how are they going to replace his production? Scott Hatterberg, that's how. Hatterberg, played by Parks and Recreation's Chris Pratt, brings a little rube charm to the role, surprised to learn that he is even being coveted at all. To the dismay of Beane's scouts, the team roster begins to get stacked with cheap players that aren't flashy in the least, but get on base and manufacture runs, which in turn manufacture wins. Billy spars throughout with team manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), whose ego is as big as the gut tucked into his starched white uniform. Beane forces Hatterberg and the rest of the lovable losers on Howe, leading him to bench sluggers like Carlos Pena (who, to be fair still hits around .200 every season). It's not pretty at first. They lose some games, lack morale and watch the angry and passionate Beane throw things all over the locker room. Before long the experiment begins to work, and the Oakland A's rattle off 20 straight wins and rumble towards the playoffs.

More than anything, Moneyball is about winning at the least possible costs because you have no choicePitt settles into the Beane role extremely well. He's nervous energy, quick anger, potent charm, and, in moments of solitude, quiet vulnerability. While he tries his best to spoil his daughter, he lives with the scars left by his failed marriage (he still wears his wedding ring) and his failed career as a ballplayer. The underdog A's and their strange path into the history books are easy to root for. So are Pitt, Hill (more subtle than he has ever been), Seymour-Hoffman,Pratt and yes, math too.

2011 Films: #10

#10 Beginners

Beginners, in the context of the Mike Mills film, refers to starting anew; the thought that all of us, even at age 75, are still learning. For Mills, the piece is very autobiographical. After his mother passed away, his father came out of the closet as an elderly man and started a homosexual lifestyle. Same goes for Oliver (Ewan McGregor), who during one funny exchange, informs his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) that the kind of music he has just heard at a dance club is called "house". Hal holds the phone to his ear and takes notes on this.

Beginners actually begins after Hal has passed away. Oliver, dealing with the estate and the possessions, takes in Hal's Jack Russell terrier Arthur (played with vigor by Cosmo) and gives him a tour of the apartment. Arthur talks throughout the movie in subtitles and is often comic relief. After Oliver meets Anna (Inglorious Basterds' Melanie Laurent) and he is at a loss for words, Arthur says to him "Tell her the darkness is about to drown us unless something dramatic happens right now." Oliver and Anna's beginning is about as meet-cute as it can possibly get (a little much for me, but nice enough) in that she has just lost her voice, so she can only nod, smile and write messages. During the ride home, she points for him to turn right and he drives on the sidewalk. The narrative structure jumps between the present as his relationship with Anna begins to develop, and the past, which showcases the vibrant lifestyle Hal had always wanted but was too afraid to let play out. Even up to his death, he appears happier than he had ever been to his only son.

Speaking of narrative, the narration aspect of Beginners is far and away its strongest and most unique storytelling device. The film takes place in 2003, and Oliver's voice over brings us up to speed with the help of photo slides. Example: "This is what the stars look like in 2003 (a photo of the galaxy). And the President (a photo of George Bush). Here is what kissing looked like in the year 2003 (a photo of people kissing)." You get the idea. It sounds a little condescending as I'm writing it out, but the way that feels as your watching it is not that way in the least, and it hooks you in from the get-go. Mills also utilizes the effect with footage instead of pictures. "This is what it looked like when my father told me he was gay," Oliver says in voiceover as Hal, sitting on a couch in a sweater and ascot says "I'm gay."

Ewan McGregor is dynamite in the part of Oliver, a heart-on-his-sleeve type who supports, never questions, his father's strange admission. Melanie Laurent comes across a little pretentious, but maybe that's just because of the French accent, and Goran Visnjic as Hal's lover Andy is a pleasant counterpart. But this is Christopher Plummer's supporting actor statue to lose, and he'll win much in the same way that Jack Palance won for City Slickers in '91--an older gentleman who had never previously won an Oscar and was very effective in limited screen time. He's definitely fun to watch and truly does give the viewer the impression that for the first time in his life, he's having a blast being alive.

2011 Films: #11 & #11 (tie)

(Author's note: This next review is longer than usual because I used to be buddies with the filmmaker in high school. I happened to like it a lot, and it deserves to have more people know about it. I think if you're up for a little bit of craziness and originality, you should go see it.)

#11 Bellflower

You may have noticed that as a "reviewer", I sometimes err towards giving a movie more props than I maybe should based upon originality. The Guard, for example, is like plenty of other crime capers, except that Brendan Gleeson's performance makes something formulaic seem completely new. Bridesmaids certainly isn't the funniest film I have ever seen, but the fact that it's a raucous and gross and over the top and performed as such by six women impressed me. That was an original concept. And though it is twisted, a little self-serving, and at times even sloppy, so is love, and I have not seen a movie or love story this year that is as bravely and outrageously original as Bellflower.


Writer/director/star/camera builder/flamethrower building/car assembler/walking leatherman Evan Glodell and I spent a couple years running in the same circles during high school--not best friends, but always friendly. I remember Evan being spastic, entertaining and talking about 35 miles a minute. Walking across a pit of hot coals was par for the course among he and his crew. In interviews leading up to and following the Sundance 2011 success of Bellflower, the fast-talking and excitable personality was on full display. The film--despite moments of batshit insanity--came across as pretty together.

So what the hell is Bellflower about, exactly? At its core, Woodrow (Glodell) and Aidan (Tyler Dawson) are best friends that have formed a gang called Mother Medusa, whose responsibilities include building flamethrowers (the flamethrowers are 100% real, 100% built by Glodell, and 100% ruling class), assembling firebreathing muscle cars, and readying themselves for the end of the world. Do they have jobs? Who cares? Who needs jobs when you're preparing for the apocalypse?

One night at some dingy L.A. (Bellflower is a street in Los Angeles) dive bar, Woodrow and Aidan are throwing back beers and getting into some light debauchery when Woodrow lays eyes on Millie (Jesse Wiseman). He's smitten. He'll do anything to have a chance with her, including eating a whole bunch of crickets in a cricket-eating competition; this ain't your average romantic comedy. Their attraction is immediate. To keep the unorthodox vibe alive, she asks to be taken to the filthiest restaurant that he can think of, and this restaurant happens to be in Texas. In the ensuing road trip (featuring a whiskey-dispenser on the dashboard), they fall in love.

Woodrow soon comes to realize that love is kind of a tricky thing. Just as his relationship with Millie hits a decline and his relationship with the Mother Medusa "gang" starts to become strained, he sustains a head injury (won't tell you how or why) and suddenly his world becomes more dark, more unforgiving. From there until the explosive (see what I did right there?) ending, the line gets hazy between friend and foe, and more importantly, between reality and imagination. Bright sunshine love story/bromance becomes black revenge tale, and with a flamethrower and a fire-spewing muscle car at Woodrow's disposal, it does so in a hurry.

With a budget of just under $20,000, Bellflower certainly had its imperfections. While Glodell did a great job portraying a character who was equal parts affable and breakable and Dawson, as his Mother Medusa sidekick, was also good especially in their plotting and building dialogues, the rest of the gang was just okay, including Wiseman, other auxiliary love interest Courtney (Rebekah Brandes), and seedy friend/neighbor Mike (producer and past collaborator Vincent Grashaw). One reviewer said the entire movie's dialogue felt like it was spoken in "air quotes", and while I do disagree, there were a couple moments in the script that seemed almost Juno-esque in their deliberate coolness. Finally, with how stunning of a film Bellflower was visually (more on that momentarily), the sound mixing, especially in the dialogue scenes, could not quite keep up. Though the movie's score was pretty cool.

Nit-picking aside, I again bring up the budget of just under $20,000. Bellflower was, all in all, damn impressive to me. When you're working with a budget constraint like that, you don't have a whole lot of leeway to mess up the stunts/explosions, or a whole lot of film to keep re-shooting rough dialogue takes. Michael Bay gets hundreds of millions to blow stuff up, and his movies don't come close to the powerful nature of this one. The thing that stuck out the most to me about Bellflower was how it looked. Glodell built his own cameras out of various components of multiple cameras, and along with cinematographer Joel Hodge, created a blurry, washed out, bright hungover Sunday aesthetic. There are plenty of shots in films that feature our main subject in focus and the things behind him/her looking softer, but the way these cameras are put together, the focus is sharper and the blurry is blurrier. The way it is shot thus helps the audience get into the confused, warped, dizziness of Woodrow's Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Bellflower is all at once funny, quirky, terrifying, nauseating, anxious, slowed-down, sped-up. For a while there, it gets really tense, like Black Swan tense. But that's okay, because to me, if a filmmaker can create such a vivid emotional response--even if it's a jarring one--then they are on the right track. If Glodell and company can do all this with so little, I can't wait to see what they can do with more.


#11 Crazy, Stupid, Love.

While Bellflower appeals to the machismo and cynicism in me, Crazy, Stupid, Love hits the sappy guy in me right in the nuts. Steve Carrell has made a career out of playing the kind-hearted but aloof guy who receives help, advice or circumstances that allow him to drop the nice guy act and become more badass. That's sort of Steve Carrell's thing.

In CSL, this situation manifests itself in Cal, a doting straight-and narrow husband who ends up dumped at a fancy dinner by his wife Emily (Julianne Moore), and later in the car, she drives the nail in further by telling him she has slept with somebody else. That somebody else? Her boss, David Lindhaagen (none other than Kevin Bacon). Not knowing how to deal with the news, he rolls out of a moving vehicle, gets back into the moving vehicle, tells the kids and the babysitter that mom wants a divorce, and then makes his way to a fancy hotel bar, where he proceeds to take down vodka cranberry after vodka cranberry and repeatedly slur and curse the name "David Lindhaagen". "I'm a cuckold," he shouts. "David Lindhaagen cuckolded me." The shouting draws the attention of local Lothario Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling), and out of charity mixed with a little bit of the constant opportunities to hear himself talk, decides to take Cal under his wing. Shortly after telling Cal that the straw he's using is too phallic (in so many words), he tells him "I'm going to help you rediscover your manhood," and then proceeds to walk out with a model-looking chick.

Throughout Cal's journey of trying to win back his wife, we spend time with his son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) who is in love with his babysitter Jessica (Annaleigh Tipton) who is turn in love with a much older man; Kate (Marisa Tomei), the first woman Cal picks up with the help of Jacob; and Hannah, a young law student who slowly gets into Jacob's head and makes him re-think his womanizing ways. The scenes between Gosling and Carrell are nothing short of stupendous, and the way their upping-the-status-quo montages characterize how different they are is one of the movie's best techniques. There are a couple of interesting and entertaining plot twists, not to mention some cool visual tricks; in the very beginning, the camera pans under the tables at the fancy restaurant to show sets of fancy shoes playing footsie before stopping on Cal and Emily's table, where Cal's New Balance sneakers rest a few feet apart from his wife's high heels. Why this one worked for me over a lot of other romantic comedies is because instead of being sappy and sentimental (okay, maybe a little) it was mostly just sincere.