Category Archives: Brad Bird

This Dark Knight’s Not For Shrugging

Posted on by

A few weeks ago I did what I thought only ever happened in movies; I snapped awake from a nightmare, drenched in sweat, heart pounding. The usual dreadscapes of monsters, insects, and rampant unexpected public nudity had been replaced by atypically sober horrors, wherein I walked in on Daisyhellcakes, distressed, as she watched the news showing President Obama conceding an electoral loss to Mitt Romney. I was as grateful for waking life as I am when I dream of being arrested or getting lost in New York. At least for now, the US doesn’t have to go through what the UK is currently going through, and that’s good, even with an economy as unhealthy as this one.

Because if Romney and his Randian conspirator Paul Ryan (one man with two first names, another with none) gets into the White House, the US will go through something similar to what is happening in the UK, except turbo-charged in that uniquely American way. The UK is watching aghast as the Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition begins to take apart the welfare state under the guise of economy-restoring austerity. Well, I say Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition, but right now it feels as if the Tories, pretending to be operating under a mandate, are desperately looting the country and selling off huge chunks of it before their coalition falls apart while the Lib-Dems stand by like a clone army of Neville Chamberlains, their only contribution to occasionally clear their throats to say, “About that House of Lords reform…”

A Romney-Ryan win would see the US welfare apparatus attacked too, except that while the Tories are breaking bits off and handing them under the table to the titans of industry, the two Rs would just drop a nanobomb on society like Cobra in the hit Channing Tatum film G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, before dusting the debris off their very expensive jackets and saying, “Job done. Another liger blood daiquiri?” Rest assured it will happen. The Right are thrilled because whenever the populace is scared enough, the sociopaths with their leather-bound copies of Atlas Shrugged[1] will be able to do whatever they want, and no one seems able or willing to oppose them. A society distracted by fear, oppressed by the terror of imminent economic collapse, can be made to do anything.

Yes, this is a review of The Dark Knight Rises – or at least a brain-dump about how my feelings about it have evolved from anticipation to reflection — but there’s a reason why the movie chimed so strongly with me, and why that nightmare rattled me so thoroughly. Christopher Nolan has stated that he has not included specific political messages in his movies, preferring to add ideas that resonate before letting the audience make their own minds up. Certainly The Dark Knight felt like a response to 9/11 and the War on Terror, with Batman creating a surveillance device that so offended saintly Lucius Fox that he threatened to quit Wayne Enterprises, and the Joker representing an unpredictable and implacable terrorist boogeyman determined to undermine the psyche of Gotham’s populace.[2]

However, the conclusion to the trilogy very quickly inspired a take on the movie’s politics that troubled me greatly. Catherine Shoard’s demolition of the movie as pro-capitalist, in which she rightly brings up the difficult fact that Bruce Wayne is able to become a crimefighter using inherited wealth to fund his activities in order to save the underprivileged from themselves, worried me in the days leading up to the release of TDKR.[3] Shots in the trailer showing the rich being pulled out of hiding by baying mobs were shot by Nolan and Wally Pfister to look like a kind of dystopian nightmare, and the thought of a Batman movie making an explicit plea for sympathy for the robber barons in the face of out-of-control populism concerned me.

The Occupy movement doesn’t create the same headlines it once did. Updates on protests still pop up in my Twitter feed from time to time, especially during the recent one year anniversary, but for now the novelty seems to have worn off and the media has moved on. Nevertheless the populist anger against the money men remains even if now belittled and treated as a failure, and there are still many who hold out hope that the movement could conceivably hold the germ of a nationwide philosophical realignment on a par with the populist movement during the (last) Great Depression. The thought of one of the most anticipated movies of the year dismissing this movement as the rule of the mob depressed me beyond words.

The stories that make a difference inspire hope, not despair, which is why the possibility that TDKR might seek to demonise the Occupy movement was so upsetting. We don’t need their battle to be any harder than it already is. Occupy’s potential for success is precarious, the odds against it altering society for the better so large because of the monolithic corporate power ranged against it, that a kind of derangement has set in with some voices on the left who have even, shamefully, taken to shouting down feminists who dare to call for Julian Assange to be extradited to Sweden over the rape charges against him, his worst supporters taking on a tenor of desperation as if to say, “Don’t you see how close we are to bringing the evil empire down? You uppity bitches are ruining everything!” Seriously, fuck these clowns.[4]

On first viewing, head filled with tragic reports from the horrifying shooting in Aurora and the comparatively trivial worries that The Dark Knight Rises was going to be a letdown on an artistic level, it was impossible to concentrate on it. The only thing to break through the mental block was the bravura finale[5], but my reaction was nevertheless muted, which I attributed at the time to the continued post-Avengers lull I’ve felt since April[6]. It was only upon seeing it again in full IMAX that I was able to figure out what I thought of it, and to work through concerns about the seemingly superfluous digressions and complications in the plot that had irked first time around, and to decide if it truly was the “audaciously capitalist vision” that Shoard suggested.

The misunderstanding that has tainted some takes on The Dark Knight Rises is that Bane represents Anarchy, that the League of Shadows are anarchists, and that the movie is a depiction of the futility and ugliness of the Anarchist credo. The capitalist system and its framework of government, if removed and replaced by “Bane-archy” (sorry), will inevitably lead to mob rule, and the collapse of society as we know it. Even to anyone who has reservations about the capitalist system, the thought of wealth being not redistributed but effectively destroyed and replaced with barbarism by the idiotic, conscience-free mob is a terrifying one, and the scenes of the people of Gotham baying for blood are truly nightmarish.

However, Anarchy has once more been misinterpreted by almost everyone, except Chris and Jonathan Nolan, who are well aware that Anarchy is not a lack of “government” or the destruction of society, but a political philosophy in which the people can become responsible enough and engaged enough that they do not need to be governed from above through fear or coercion, and can look after themselves and create a functioning society out of civic virtue and co-operation. The League of Shadows wants nothing more than the destruction of all of communal, supportive society, holding to a kind of cultist idea that our world is corrupt and evil, seeking to destabilise the world and stymie progress at every turn[7]. This isn’t about fairness or justice; The League have more in common with a kind of militant nihilism than true virtuous anarchy.

Bane pretends that he is freeing the citizens of Gotham from the shackles of society; killing the mayor, trapping the police in a prison resembling the one that he was once trapped in so that he can break their spirits, and closing the people off from the rest of the world (i.e. a militia paradise of no government, destruction of the loathed Feds, and total isolationism). However, the deadly mobs we see in the movie, though they certainly would contain many citizens of Gotham, are formed behind a phalanx of armed prisoners released from Blackgate Prison. What we see is not Gotham spontaneously turning into a violent hate-mob; we see a terrified populace staying at home in large numbers under fear of nuclear annihilation, while the worst of them run riot.

This is not freedom. The rule of law is removed, and replaced with the fear of imminent death. Trap a rat in a cage and it’ll become as angry as Billy Corgan. Basically, Bane has turned Gotham into a city ravaged by the idiocy and fear of a gang of violent, vengeful and perpetually aggrieved Billy Corgans, while the virtuous of the city — the Kurt Cobains of abstention, if you will — stay at home, off the streets, living in terror. And yet pundits continue to argue that this is an attack on Occupy. A bunch of tent-dwelling Engel-quoting sweethearts whose most violent act would probably be slamming their MacBook Air shut after reading a contentious Wall Street Journal op-ed? If anything, the militant forces roaming the streets of Gotham represent the Tea Party. They’re the ones praying for the dismantling of the state that so “oppresses” them, in favour of a return to “survival of the fittest” chaos[8].

These were the many metaphors in The Dark Knight Rises that I was trying to parse and juggle through my first viewing in an attempt to reassure myself that one of my favourite filmmakers wasn’t going to take one of the most impressive movie franchises of all time and betray the message of hope from the second installment, choosing instead to churn out propaganda that would misrepresent an attempt to hold our leaders to account in order to help stabilise or celebrate a corrupt strata of power. The problem in approaching this movie as a patchwork of topical themes about government, law enforcement, terrorism and economic populism is that those themes exist alongside a complex but elegant narrative in which the characters can be seen to represent those themes but more importantly — obviously — represent themselves. By ignoring the human story I disappeared down a rabbit hole of interpretation, and my enjoyment was the casualty.[9]

If Nolan doesn’t see himself as a political filmmaker, merely as someone who is aware of modern politics and wishes to use them as a single shade in his artistic palette[10], we can either ignore him and parse this movie with a copy of Jonathan Wolff’s Introduction to Political Philosophy in one hand and a signed picture of Noam Chomsky in the other, or we can take him at his word and take or leave the politics, which means we can focus on the characters and their stories. The second viewing of TDKR, in IMAX[11] revealed a tapestry of character arcs that echoed that of Bruce Wayne’s journey from spiritual death to life, and initial concerns about the meandering plot were washed away. This is a precisely tooled movie; the longer runtime is not a consequence of flabby editing but of ambition, and even if, like me, you think The Dark Knight is superior, this will be a movie to revisit and explore many times over.

Also, as someone who is in the middle of writing a trilogy of books (in one go, like an idiot), it’s pleasing to see this as a single movie but even more so as a part of a larger whole, with Bruce Wayne/Gotham going through three individual arcs and one master arc that resolves problems posed right at the beginning of the first film.[12] Nolan’s genius move here is the flashback that occurs while Bruce Wayne is recovering in the prison, back to the moment where he sees his father descend into the pit to save him. We realise Bruce is still in the pit, literally in the sense of the prison in which he has been placed, and figuratively in that he never really escaped the pit in the first movie. His father rescues him, before being murdered, after which Bruce carries the fear he experienced in the pit with him, even cloaking himself in a costume based on the bats that appeared at that moment.

Alfred has been telling Bruce this all the way through the series, and much to my own annoyance these scenes with Michael Caine never really struck home until I realised that the main arc of The Dark Knight trilogy was Bruce saving himself[13]. In the comics Bruce Wayne can never recover, but here Nolan fixes the man, and everything that happens in the trilogy is about him finding peace, as well as his own way. To do that he has to be broken down (literally), to lose everything that his father has given him, so that he can finally step out of the shadow as his own man. The buffers (Alfred, Wayne Enterprises, his financial resources) are gone, he’s returned to the pit, and he conquers fear, the failures of his body, and the consequences of his arguably misguided decision to fight crime as a shadowy monster, but this time without the crutch of his inheritance and his father’s legacy.

Of course Bruce can only fix himself once he has fixed Gotham, and this has been an ongoing process through the films, but as Robert McKee would probably applaud, his subsequent adventures are instigated by the mistakes he makes. In the first he establishes himself as a protector of Gotham, hoping that his example would inspire the people of Gotham to take responsibility for their city. This obviously fails, even though he defeats and kills Ra’s al Ghul (an act of omission — saving Ra’s from the monorail — is as bad as an act itself, surely). This sets up a problem in the second movie — the crap vigilantes he has to keep stopping, not to mention the escalation of the Joker’s plans — and the third — Talia and Bane’s revenge against Batman and the city Ra’s wanted to destroy.

Of course this also sets in motion Bruce and Gotham’s salvation. In the second movie Harvey Dent rises to Batman’s challenge, and the people of Gotham reject the Joker’s terrible plan. Then Dent goes insane and the only thing Batman and Commissioner Gordon can do is cover it up, a mistake that sets up the events of the third movie. This lie rots under their achievement, and as a result Gotham is still corrupted even in peace. The police are arrogant idiots who won’t take expertise seriously, due process is ignored, the Wayne Enterprises board is still polluted with the presence of Daggett[14] and Talia, the distribution of wealth is still skewed horribly (and this time without the interference of the League of Shadows, as pointed out in the first movie), and the Mayor is eager to get rid of Gordon because he’s short-sighted. The complacency and corruption are still there, and the poor still suffer.

Bane and Talia arrive to wreak vengeance on the things that destroyed Ra’s al Ghul, and cause their own undoing; they make their enemies follow the path they once walked, thinking it will either kill them or break their spirit. Their hubris is borne of their lack of imagination, and the typical arrogance that they and only they could survive such an ordeal due to their inherent superiority — that Randian, “We Built It” overconfidence shown by Mitt Romney and his Tea Party followers fully in view. But they don’t count on Bruce’s eagerness to transcend the limits of his body and soul, nor Bruce’s final realisation that, as Alfred and Bane point out, all he has done since his father’s death is carelessly chase his own demise. In that sense Bane rescues Bruce from a brink we didn’t even realise he stood on, freeing him from his fear and self-destructive urges (I doubt I’m the only person who was reminded of Bresson’s Un condamné à mort s’est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut during this sequence).

As for the police, their complacency is thoroughly shook up, and their charge at the end of the movie, after escaping from the facsimile of the pit created by Bane, is the moment in which they reclaim their purpose, united against a true foe without the complications of politics, as shown by the heroism of Foley, who finally abandons his ambition for a greater good. The visceral nature of this battle removes all ambiguity or doubt from the minds of Gotham’s heroes, even to the extent of resolving Selina Kyle’s stance. She finds herself lost in a world without structure, merely surviving, disappointed that the collapse she predicted did not bring about the utopia she imagined. Her decision to stay in Gotham at the end is as much a fight for the world she once hated as it is an act of heroism, though she flippantly dismisses any such suggestion. The storm she wanted came and all it left behind was chaos. Inspired by Batman’s selfless fight to not only preserve society but improve it, she turns to the side of good.

John Blake was already there, and spends the whole movie struggling against the corruption that stays his hand. His crisis of faith intensifies after Gordon’s hand in the Dent lie (aka Patriot Act) is revealed by Bane, and Blackgate is exposed as Gotham’s equivalent of  Guantanamo Bay (an institution that, if this bit of trivia is to be believed, attracts the outrage of Gotham’s public in the same way Gitmo does).

BLAKE
These men, locked up in Blackgate for eight years, denied parole under the Dent Act. Based on a lie.
GORDON
A lie to keep a city from burning to the ground. Gotham needed a hero, someone to believe in -
BLAKE
Not as much as it does now. But you betrayed everything you stood for.
GORDON
There’s a point. Far out there. When the structures fail you. When the rules aren’t weapons anymore, they’re shackles, letting the bad get ahead. Maybe one day you’ll have such a moment of crisis. And in that moment, I hope you have a friend like I did. To plunge their hands into the filth so you can keep yours clean.
BLAKE
Your hands look pretty filthy to me, Commissioner.

Gordon’s decision to double-down on deceit follows the pattern in which the police force in Dark Knight is riddled with corrupt cops, a fact stubbornly ignored by Gordon even when Harvey Dent challenges him on it. This corruption was never resolved, which is why Blake becomes so frustrated under the incompetent charge of Deputy Commissioner Foley, and may be a factor in his rejection of the weapons of the police force (his disgusted reaction to the gun with which he kills the construction worker is one of the most satisfying moments in the film, and a lovely bit of foreshadowing). More importantly, it factors into his rejection of his badge when confronted with the obstinacy of the policemen guarding the bridge (it’s telling that the cop he interacts with, played by Dexter‘s Desmond Harrington, is listed in the screenplay as “Uniform”). His reaction is perfect:

GORDON
Can I change your mind about quitting the force?
BLAKE
No. What you said about structures. About shackles. I can’t take it. The injustice.

His response is to take responsibility, without heirarchical pressure or political interference, to get on with the job of continuing Batman’s work. Which is all Bruce Wayne wanted; for the people of Gotham to follow his lead, to figure out that they didn’t have to let their city fall to the corrupt, that they can hold the police or government to account, that the job of cleaning out the rot is theirs if they want it. A vigilant populace that doesn’t reject the rule of law but ensures it is maintained, one that can still be like the society of altruistic individuals coming together that they are in already, but operating with a higher purpose and greater investment in their future. As Batman says to Gordon near the end, “A hero can be anyone. That was always the point.”[15]

Just as Bane — a man forged by The Pit — represents the dark mirror image of Batman[16], Bane’s Gotham is a bleak insult to Bruce Wayne’s vision. The League of Shadows thinks only through some kind of ideological purity and training can someone become ready to forge a new world, but Batman knows anyone can take on this mantle as long as they have the right inspiration. Batman has fathered Gotham — rightly and wrongly — for years, and the only way to let it grow is by leaving the city to itself, and so he “sacrifices” himself, killing Batman but rescuing himself (which is why Nolan makes sure we know it’s Bruce who writes the autopilot software patch, not Lucius Fox), safe in the knowledge that Gotham is ready to make its own way, as he has been predicting throughout the trilogy.

This wasn’t possible earlier in the series, because a hero based on fear is as problematic as a villain who promises freedom but really just lets fear act as control. What Bruce Wayne wanted was a hero who inspired hope, as shown by his support for Harvey Dent, because he understood its transformative nature even as he built himself into a vision of terror. After all, a man consumed by fear is like the carpenter who sees every problem as a nail and every solution a hammer. Bane’s ultimate punishment is to turn that idea of a hopeful Gotham into a black vision of despair, that he could use as a weapon the thing Bruce Wayne sought to bring to the people. As he says as he monologues at Bruce in The Pit:

BANE
There is a reason that this prison is the worst hell on earth. Hope. Every man who has rotted here over the centuries has looked up to the light and imagined climbing to freedom. So simple. So easy. And, like shipwrecked men turning to sea water from uncontrollable thirst, many have died trying. I learned that there can be no true despair without hope. So as I terrorize Gotham, I will feed its people hope to poison their souls. I will let them believe they can survive so that you can watch them clamber over each other to stay in the sun. You will watch as I torture an entire city to cause you pain you thought you could never feel again. Then, when you have truly understood the depths of your failure, we will fulfill Ra’s al Ghul’s destiny. We will destroy Gotham. And when it is done…when Gotham is ashes…then you have my permission to die.[17]

Perhaps Bane’s biggest mistake, even more than putting Bruce in a world in which he can learn to be free from the cycle of hatred and self-loathing that powers his brute-force nemesis, is to turn that symbol of fear into a symbol of hope, by foolishly revealing that Batman was innocent of the crime which led Bruce to hang up his cowl, to show how dedicated Batman was to the goal of saving Gotham, allowing him to truly become the symbol of resistance that can lift up the people and the police. Thankfully Bruce isn’t the only person who knows that hope can inspire, as he does by burning the Bat symbol into a bridge to reassure the people who thought him gone. John Blake is in the depths of despair as he tries to save the busload of orphans, but even he sees the importance of keeping up the illusion of hope in front of those he seeks to protect.

BLAKE
Come on! On the bus!
FATHER REILLY
What’re you doing?
BLAKE
Protection from the blast -
FATHER REILLY
It’s an atom bomb -!
BLAKE
You think they need to hear that in their last seconds? You think I’m going to let them die without hope?

We don’t get to see Gotham become a shining beacon. We just get hints that he has made a difference. We get a statue, and Gordon’s statement that the people of Gotham know that they were saved by Batman. This inspiration may empower them to take control of their lives, that they will realise it’s up to them to monitor those who govern them, that they will be on the lookout for threats against their liberty, against society. It might not be true anarchy in the sense of a world without government or control, but it’s a lot closer to it that the faux-Anarchy forced on them by Bane. It’s self-actualisation, taking on the responsibility of protecting the world we already live in, and the people of Gotham have seen that they can save their city by following that ideal.

Which is why I can’t separate the final act of this movie from the election that worries me so much, or the government meddling in the UK. The society we live in is corrupted and bureaucratic and unjust and basically terrible much of the time, but it’s also worth saving. It’s a work in progress, and we’ve made it better over periods of time that are almost geological in size. We refine society, and it’s not easy, but that’s what we do. We move forward, together, lifting each other up and giving each other the chance to grow to a point in which they can repay that debt, contributing through taxes or accomplishment.

Right now the UK, and soon the US if the Republicans win, will roll back the clock in the name of giving people “more” responsibility. That view is merely sink or swim, allowing the money men to rule the world and create an unjust society like that seen in Gotham. While greedy assholes like Daggett try to make money by acquiring things instead of building them (a la Mitt Romney), everything else falls apart. Bruce Wayne was trying to save the world with a sustainable clean power source, but he halted it because of its potential for destruction. He knew what the world does when it’s not ready. It builds things for good reasons then sees them turned to bad. The system becomes a shackle.

But only if we let it. Big government isn’t the problem; it’s unaccountability. Government and society can be good things if properly monitored by a motivated and vigilant populace that participates in its governance, instead of giving up with a cynical shrug. The alternative is the world of the Tea Party and Bane, “freeing” a people who end up at the edge of the abyss, where any mistake they make will plunge them into the darkness. Ordinary people will be trapped between the grasping claws of the robber barons, giddily and immorally making whatever money they can, and the out-of-control and increasingly desperate criminals taking over at the bottom, because they don’t give a damn about the rules that give everyone a chance.

Anyone who has read Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead will recognise this vision, in which altruism is eradicated in order to create a world in which no one helps anyone else. What a desolate, miserable fantasy this is. And while the superhero genre has at its core the idea of the Übermensch, or at least diametrically opposed versions of this, with Manicheaen heroes and villains of immense power battling to save the world or control it, the idea of the superhero — the man or woman who embodies the greatest ideals of generosity and compassion, sacrifice and honour — is one that is more culturally accepted as right than the Randian hero who lives for him/herself, honours and helps no one else, and stands astride the world like an aloof, solipsistic colossus.

Yes, as Shoard says, Bruce Wayne is a titan of industry, or at least the inheritor of such. And to have him be the one to rescue Gotham plays into the idea of trickledown economics or, as here, morality. The rich, cultured, worldly hero saving the masses from themselves, the poor as children to be saved by their inherently superior bosses. But at the heart of the Batman myth, and the last movie in this trilogy, is the very kindness that so appalls Objectivists. Bruce Wayne is saved by the kindness of his parents, Alfred and Jim Gordon. John Blake escapes his fate through Wayne Enterprise’s donations to the orphanage. Bruce saves Catwoman from her cynicism by offering her a way out (the USB drive with the “Clean Slate”) before asking for her help. And it’s right there in one of the most moving exchanges in the entire trilogy:

GORDON
I never cared who you were -
BATMAN
And you were right.
GORDON
But shouldn’t the people know the hero who saved them?
BATMAN
A hero can be anyone. That was always the point. Anyone. A man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a little boy’s shoulders to let him know that the world hadn’t ended…

Bane and Talia have been brutalised their whole lives, have been indoctrinated by Ra’s al Ghul to distrust a world they never lived in until it came time to enact their terrible plan. They have protected each other but cannot see how anyone else deserves that, or can feel the same way, treating all others as criminals, as the Other. Right now, in our world, the Coalition government in the UK is selling off the NHS — that great liberal idea — merely to profit their friends, convinced that any profit is a moral good. In the same way, the Republicans have promised to drastically transform American government in a way that would, again, only profit their friends and backers[18]. The result would be Bane’s Gotham. Those images of Faux-Anarchy shown in the Dark Knight Rises trailer, the ones that upset me so much, are visceral for a reason. It’s not an image of sympathy for the 1%; it’s a message to the rest of us. Don’t let the 1% turn us into a self-destructive hateful mob, or they’ve won. As is said in the movie:

FOLEY
I’m sorry for not taking you seriously -
GORDON
Don’t apologize for believing the world’s in better shape than it is…just fight to make it true.

This is the lesson I took from The Dark Knight trilogy.[19] There are always things worth fighting for, and though democracy is flawed and the welfare state will always attract criticism from those who see a way to make a profit from desperation and bad luck, these civilised ideas are a weapon against the erosion of society, ways to ensure that people are given the chance to forge their own future without worrying about plummeting back to the bottom of the pit. Every tiny improvement in the world is the consequence of an enormous battle, and if Occupy Wall Street didn’t radically and instantly transform society (as it never could), it is at least a movement that can plant a seed in the minds of millions, who can come together to fight for a world in which every individual can be a precious resource, if given the opportunity. The Dark Knight trilogy calls on people to recognise that the world we live in can get better, if we uncynically choose to fight for it.

Yes, my fear of this dismantled and cruel world is hysterical and hyperbolic, and I’m sure most people reading this will tell me to calm down and get a grip[20], but America has a chance to reject an argument for the privatisation of society’s best structures for the benefit of a fraction of the population. I can only atheistically pray to Crom or something that Mitt Romney, the man who wants this world to be turned into a business (as argued in Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly), will find his quest for power stymied, for the sake of everyone who knows me and has had to put up with my sour moods and reflexive pessimism.

The only glimmer of hope I’ve had in the past few weeks — a time in which panic was the background radiation that polluted my every thought and paralysed my very soul — was the video of Romney’s 47% speech captured by a waiter / waitress who worked at the fundraising event in full view of the politician accusing almost half of the population of laziness and fecklessness. In The Dark Knight Rises Bane is finally defeated by Selina Kyle, who has previously masqueraded as a waitress and is obviously not a woman of means. Wouldn’t it be perfect if Romney — a man motivated by a barbaric ideal, but who tells lies about his allegiance to the poor and aspirational — was also brought low by the actions of the otherwise ignored “help”?[21]

Return 1. As I have done occasionally in the past, I’m going to discuss Rand’s ideas in a blunt manner, not because I’m obsessed with her (heaven forfend), but because her philosophy of Objectivism is at the core of Romney and Ryan’s worldview, and is responsible for a lot of the misery in the world right now. Also, she idolises the idea of larger-than-life characters, who exist almost as superheroes within the berserk, dystopian worlds she wrote about. Rather than compare Batman to some kind of Nietzschean ideal of humanity, it seems timelier to look at him through the Rand lens, especially as The Dark Knight trilogy deals with themes of economic warfare, behind-the-scenes manipulation of the world, and men who transcend the weakness of their minds and bodies to become greater than the riff-raff.

Return 2. I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again; the most powerful moment I’ve ever experienced in a cinema was seeing The Dark Knight in New York, and hearing a cathartic roar of approval and defiant joy from the audience as Tiny Lister throws the detonator out of the ferry window. Nothing will ever top that, I think.

Return 3. Also, stupidly, Rush Limbaugh accused the movie of trying to create some kind of link between Bane and Romney’s Bain Capital. As I’ll get to in this piece, I’d say Bain Capital could easily have been run by snidely Daggett, while Bane could arguably be more aptly compared to Rush himself, inciting hatred and violence and calling for the destruction of many of the things that make America a civilised nation.

Return 4. I know that by daring to suggest that Assange’s supporters are acting like crazy people right now will draw fire; some friends of mine who have written about the subject have been attacked and accused of being CIA stooges (!!!!!!!!) for doing so. So I have two things to say to anyone who tries that with me. 1: If you think Wikileaks is the torpedo that flies down the exhaust port and blows up the Death Star of capitalism and corruption in one swift move, and not just a useful tool for campaigners to turn the dial of societal morality a little closer into the green, then you are deluded and need to stop watching so many movies where a single act by a single person can stop an evil Empire. And 2: try that hostile shit with me and I’ll delete your insults before they even show up on this site. This is a moderated blog and I police it with an iron fist of not-approving-comments-that-annoy-me. Your freedom-of-speech isn’t as important as my freedom-to-not-have-to-listen-to-misogynist-horseshit-from-hysterical-and-immature-dickheads because believe me, there’s enough of that everywhere else on the Internet and I’d like this corner of it to be a respite from that despicable fuckery, thanks.

Return 5. It truly is a rousing finale, even if on first viewing the majority of the film seemed to be a mechanical manipulation of characters and emotional elements in order to justify the 30-minute suspense/spectacle blow-out. The second viewing fixed that, and I now see it as a whole that works well, but even in that cluttered, compromised first experience, my heart soared as Gotham’s police force charged Bane’s mob, and my fists clenched as the Bat struggled to avoid the Tumbler’s missiles in one of the most naturalistic and convincing FX setpieces of recent years. All hail the smart folks at Double Negative, who absolutely nailed that sequence.

Return 6. There’s a strong argument that The Dark Knight Rises is a superior film to The Avengers, and I’d certainly accept that TDKR is not only more ambitious but more successful in many ways. In my review of The Avengers I tried to get across that I didn’t think it was perfect, and further viewings have made those flaws even more obvious. But even though TDKR is commendably serious and thought-provoking, it’s the relative triviality of The Avengers that makes me think so fondly of it. No other big summer blockbuster in recent years has so succeeded in entertaining the audience, exceeding the viewer’s expectations and providing such “uncomplicated” and joyous fun.

If this sounds like I’m only praising Joss Whedon for creating a film that is better than your average Michael Bay / Stephen Sommers fart, it really isn’t. Creating something like The Avengers is in no way easy to do, and as if to prove that, the hit of pleasure I got from The Avengers was so pure and so intense that I’ve spent the rest of the year searching for an experience even a tenth as potent, and have been repeatedly frustrated as movie after movie stumbles in its attempt. TDKR, for all its considerable and glorious accomplishments, did not hit that sweet spot; a classic example of me splitting movies in terms of objective quality and emotional contact (the best movie I’ve ever seen is Kurosawa’s Ran, but my favourite is either Die Hard or The Matrix; both terrific films, but more traditionally praised for their entertaining elements than their profundity or artistic merit). The only film this year that got close to making me as ecstatically happy as Avengers was The Bourne Legacy, and if popular opinion is anything to go by I’m statistically alone on that one. ::depressed sigh::

Return 7. I like this take on the philosophy of the League of Shadows in a comment on a blog about the philosophy of The Dark Knight trilogy that I agree with a bit less but still think it worth a read. The thought of Batman as a force that opposes a group altering the course of history on a vast level is one that fits in with my take on the trilogy, which is more about empowering and inspiring the masses to take control of their own destinies, to raise their expectations of what society can accomplish and then act upon that uncynical vision; a goal espoused by Bruce Wayne from the first film onward.

Return 8. Many, but not all, but seriously many of the Tea Partiers I’ve seen talking about their goals appear to be Christian, or use Christian quotes to fill out their otherwise threadbare debating gambits. How oddly perfect that Objectivity, a philosophy written by an atheist and keeping at its core a blunt version of one part of the work of Charles Darwin, should find such traction with hardcore anti-generosity “Christians”.

Return 9. Perhaps the worst thing about this initial experience is that this happened even though I’ve come to despair of movies being picked apart for political reasons, with no concern for it on a pure storytelling or cinematic level. After months of seeing perfectly acceptable — or even exceptional — films or TV shows pilloried for the inclusion or exclusion of characters, scenes or even in some cases individual lines of dialogue, I swore I’d approach things open-mindedly as stories first, political messages second (and by politics of course I mean content that either furthers or restricts the causes of gender, sexual, racial and class equality, and it’s telling that my leftie paranoia about such matters means that I agonised over the order in which I put those four elements in case anyone thought I was diminishing any of them by putting one in front of the other).

And yet I found myself parsing The Dark Knight Rises for its entire running time, and basically broke my own rule and did everything arse-over-tit. Which is exactly why I have tried to resist this approach. I didn’t enjoy the movie on first viewing because it didn’t seem to fit in the boxes I wanted it to. Only by looking at the characters did I get anything from it, and even if I subsequently extrapolated from there and wrote a huge and basically unreadable blogpost littered with sixth-form political philosophy and sweeping generalisations, at least now I “own” the film, in the sense that it sits in my head as an event that generated an honest emotional response from me, and not a box-ticking rundown of political elements required for me to be able to feel comfortable liking it. I mean, I do that all the time anyway, but I have to get out of the damnable habit of analysing art for its acceptability and just meet the artist behind it on their terms in order to give it a fair shake before I strip it apart to see if I have to worry about being considered insensitive for liking something that has made the world worse for someone (like the mother who railed against The Avengers because of the “He’s adopted” line).

See also: Lena Dunham’s Girls, which has failed to satisfy everyone in the entire world and has therefore been treated like shit by a significant number of people even though it’s fantastic and I love it and think it’s the best new show of the year by far because it’s just so goddamned funny and honest and I’m genuinely sorry if anyone thinks I’m an awful schmuck for saying that but goddamnit nothing is perfect and expecting this show to be perfect is counterproductive and negates all of the things it does that are extremely positive in helping the cultural discourse change for the better. ::deep breath::

Return 10. Christ, I’m really going for it in this one, aren’t I? Sorry for all the bloviating and faux-profundity. I gotta get all this bullshit out of my head so I can get onto more productive things (like blogging about why I’m blogging less these days). This election and this goddamn film have made it impossible for me to get anything else done. If you think this post is ridiculous by now you should know you’re only about halfway through and it just keeps getting more hysterical. I won’t blame anyone for giving up here.

Return 11. And what a difference IMAX makes to this movie. It’s sad that right now the only filmmakers really trying to get the most out of this technology are Nolan, Brad Bird and Michael Bay, though reportedly JJ Abrams and Francis Lawrence will be joining this small group soon. Nolan’s use of IMAX to create scale and spectacle in The Dark Knight was easily the most impressive use of the format yet, from that first vertiginous shot out of a window during the heist to the breathtaking shots of Chicago and Hong Kong. The Dark Knight Rises takes this even further, with 72 minutes of overwhelmingly powerful IMAX footage shot by SoC favourite Wally Pfister. While much Dark Knight‘s IMAX footage looked down on Gotham, Dark Knight Rises — when not echoing those memorable shots in order to create a visual continuity — takes things to the streets, casting the city as a series of canyons, those verticals enhanced by the square shape of the IMAX screen.

Nolan chooses to place his protagonists on the ground, not underneath or above the city as with the previous movies, and those images bolster the theme of an underclass struggling to control their territory as towers loom over them on all sides. Nolan has spoken of TDKR as his epic, but where that great, epic artist David Lean controlled the horizontal with his 70mm lens, Nolan controls the vertical now. The result is scale mixed paradoxically with claustrophobia, a cityscape that hems in the populace and the police that fight for them, while the money men and superheroes who normally occupy the heights are forced to battle on our level.

Return 12. What a pleasure it is to see a trilogy that feels so complete, thematically and emotionally. My own trilogy, always referred to as #TheProject, is hopefully structured similarly: protagonist has a problem that needs solving and only ever gets to solve bits of it while creating further complications that sets him/her back until getting to a cataclysmic point where the solution requires a terrible choice that allows the person to transcend their obstacle and the limits of their original desires, helping themself and everyone around them. Too many trilogies are just three films shoved together: The Dark Knight trilogy is a textbook example of a perfectly structured three-part tale. Only the first three Bourne films come close to that. See? There I go talking about Bourne again. I love the Bourne movies, you guys, and the fourth one is fantastic SHUT UP NO COMEBACKS.

Return 13. The scene in which Alfred reveals to Bruce that Rachel was not going to wait for Batman to leave their lives is a devastating one, and in that moment I realised that my favourite character in this series is Alfred. His compassion and love for Bruce is so total and so perfectly expressed that to see it crushed here was almost unbearable. Even during my first flawed viewing the tears they did flood down my face as if t’were a veritable downpour of sad. Michael Caine might be a tax-avoiding mofo but bless him, he’s a true cinema titan and his work here is of an incredibly (but unsurprisingly) high standard. But then everyone is great here; I can’t fault anyone, especially a resurgent Christian Bale, who does fantastic work as a broken and beaten Bruce Wayne who gradually finds peace, and the amazing Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle; a much-needed spunky and funny presence in an otherwise dour movie. I’d even argue that Gary Oldman deserves an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the very least. His battle with his conscience is one of the most memorable things about this installment, and my recent realisation that he is one of our greatest actors is bolstered by the quiet pain and resolve displayed in his work here.

Return 14.  On first watch I misheard the name as Daggart, which was transformed by my conviction that this was an explicitly political movie into a portmanteau of Dagny and Taggart, the heroine from Atlas Shrugged. I still suspect might be the case, as Daggett is such a perfect embodiment of the reality of Rand’s most successful fans; the delusional power-hungry bullies willing to commit all manner of crimes in order to attain what they feel is rightfully theirs, who are utterly unable to comprehend how truly insignificant they are when compared to the forces that oppose them (the moment Bane puts his hand on Daggett’s shoulder is infinitely pleasurable). Catherine Shoard and many others might be right that Bruce Wayne is a member of the moneyed aristocracy of  America, and the fantasy that the rich are fixing the poor is a troubling one, but Bruce is at least willing to sacrifice himself for a greater good — something which no Objectivist would even consider — and is interested in building things like the fusion power source instead of merely acquiring companies and projects, which is what Daggett and Mitt Romney would do.

Yes, the idea of the benevolent capitalist is one that galls anyone who opposes this system, but honest-to-God, I cannot and will not apologise for thinking that a rich guy using the best years of his life to train to become the world’s greatest superninja before adapting military technology into a non-lethal arsenal which he uses to combat crime and injustice while patrolling the streets of Gotham on that beautiful beautiful Batpod is THE COOLEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED IN ALL OF FICTION so step off. See also: Tony Stark, Danny Rand, Oliver Queen.

Return 15. Funny that Ratatouille, another film that flirts with Randian ideas of self-actualisation, finishes with the speech from Anton Ego about how “an artist can come from anywhere”, and is resolved with an act that inspires others to find their own way. Perhaps we should be grateful to Rand for creating such a bleak vision in which selfishness and aspiration merge so completely, that we get filmmakers like Brad Bird and Christopher Nolan who are willing to get their hands as dirty as Batman, reaching into the muck of those ridiculous, massive books, extracting the uplifting morals which celebrate achievement while leaving behind the message that helping others is a moral evil. Not to mention all of the rapiness in there. Oh Ayn, you really went for it, didn’t you.

Return 16. The first fight between Bane and Batman is particularly clever, as we see Batman for the chancer he really is. He was always a visitor to Ra’s al Ghul’s world, the rich kid on a gap year. Yes, he became a supercool vigilante badass, but he wasn’t forged in pain like Bane, and seeing him try to use the tricks of the League to gain the upper-hand is pitiful and hard to watch, especially if you have a paralysing (ha ha) fear of spinal injuries like I do. Of course Bane then stupidly makes Batman follow his path, which creates a more powerful foe. Oh silly, arrogant Bane. Didn’t you almost have it all (all being a big mushroom cloud).

Return 17. Real talk: how fucking cool is Bane as a villain? Yes, perhaps he isn’t as shocking as Heath Ledger’s incredible Joker, but Tom Hardy and the Nolans have performed what I think is comparable to a miracle; they’ve turned the lamest and stupidest Batman villain of all time into a meme-generating popular supervillain that lingers in the memory, that generates real hiss-boo loathing in the audience, and then flips it all on its head, throwing in a last act moment of humanity that recasts everything he has done in a new light. I’d like to see anyone try to do a similar trick with Superman’s similarly punchy foe Doomsday.

Tom Hardy has become one of those actors whose presence is guaranteed to make me want to watch everything he’s in. He was the main reason I went to see Lawless last week, and he was predictably fantastic as “Fawrst Bawwwndrawwwwwnt, as he would pronounce it. His work as Bane is remarkable, and imitating his voice has been this summer’s most enjoyable game. And even though Hardy has explained that he was inspired by bare-knuckle boxer Bartley Gorman, I prefer the description of that comical voice by friend-of-the-blog Jimmy LeChase: Patrick Stewart as a hyper-intelligent parrot.

Return 18.  I’d swear it was Bane, not Grover Norquist, who said, “I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Of course the only thing left to replace government is business, and as Leonard Pierce notes here, Romney is running for CEO of America, and there’s nothing good that can come of this idea.

Return 19. If you think I’m a little crazy to go to these lengths to defend the not-even-slightly-socialist-but-still-invested-in-inspiring-a-conversation-about-reshaping-society-for-the-better TDKR as an uplifting call to arms for the defence of a modern world that’s broken and malfunctioning, I’d rather gather up my yelling-breath to preach this rallying cry from the nearest mountaintop than let the dissembling creeps at Breitbart’s site claim this movie for their own side. There are obviously many arguments for and against this movie as a right-/left-wing message movie, but I honestly think the compassion shown by many of the characters immediately invalidates this as a Tea Party text.

Bruce Wayne sacrifices the identity of Batman (in TDK) and leaves Gotham (in TDKR) because he thinks his presence will make things worse, or hold people back from taking on his mantle and looking after themselves (which suggests a libertarian or anarchist bent to the tale, depending on your persuasion). In Atlas Shrugged John Galt leaves society in a snit because the nasty people don’t wuv him enough and he’s just so dang wonderful that he knows his absence will make people call for him to come back to show them all how powerful and righteous he looks in his sci-fi Slacks of Superiority, like the fuckwit teenager who believes his friends when they say you have to treat women mean to keep them keen; Galt’s choice betrays Objectivism’s laughably immature self-pity. While both The Dark Knight trilogy and Atlas Shrugged run on similar tracks, they’re both heading in completely different directions, with Batman as a figure of inspiration and John Galt a wank-fantasy for “self-made men” who didn’t fucking build it all, okay? They just fucking didn’t no matter how many times they say it, those myopic braggarts.

Return 20. Though I strongly believe I’m really only as angry and worried about all this as Samuel L. Jackson is. I just can’t help it. This happened four years ago and I went through a similar meltdown, constantly refreshing Salon, HuffPo, Slate, DailyKos and Andrew Sullivan’s page (KNOW HOPE!!!!) for constant updates. It’s awful. Daisyhellcakes is rightly sick of me fretting about this. If this post gets me to calm down IRL, it’ll be worth it, even if no one reads all of it, which I suspect will be the case.

Return 21. Well done! You made it to the end. I wish I could give you a cookie or some Optrex eye wash or something. Now celebrate finishing this descent into my metaphorical navel and go watch a movie. It’s better for your soul and your psyche than reading fucking blogposts, even when they’re not as redundant or laughably late-to-the-party as this one.

Listmania ’11! The Best Movies Of The Year

Posted on by

A major caveat needs to be applied to this exhaustively thought-through list of the year’s best cinema, and I don’t mean the usual caveat I add about missing some key movie. The number 4 film on this list is so fresh in my mind (I watched it about 5 hours ago) that I’m not entirely sure it belongs in that place. It’s such a rich movie, such a complex and challenging piece of drama that there’s a good chance it should feature even higher, and yet I cannot place it where I think it will belong in future. Listmania is about how I feel at the moment I hit Publish, for better or worse. This means that sometimes I make almighty fuck-ups like including Megamind on last year’s list instead of How To Train Your Dragon, or putting Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Up below Michael Mann’s Public Enemies in ’09. As a result, it’s at 4, and if I decide that’s wrong in future, I’ll mention it somewhere.

Another thing to note; this year’s list doesn’t include a Best Documentary entry as I broke my new year’s resolution by not watching a single one. The Interrupters is on my Sky+ box, and I really wish I’d seen Senna even though I have next to no interest in Formula One. The one big documentary highlight of the year that I have seen — Errol Morris’ Tabloid — was shown during the 2010 London Film Festival and I wrote about it then, so my arbitrary rules demand I can’t add it this year. Those rules are very important, I’ll have you know. Contravention of the rules requires flagellation and right now I’m already feeling sorry for myself after one of our cats decided to use my face as a scratching post. ::sigh:: It’s been a long day.

As for the movies we traditionally didn’t get to see, the only possible contender for this list was The Descendants, which we could’ve seen at the 2011 London Film Festival if we’d been able to afford £25 each for gala tickets (which… no). Other than that I bet there was a ton of great stuff out there that would have surprised us and warranted inclusion, but I really doubt The Iron Lady (January release over here, rather perversely), Harry Potter and the End of the Franchise, or Jack and Jill would have made the cut. So, for about ten minutes at least, I feel pretty satisfied with this list. Yes, even the placing of Fast Five. You have no idea how much I enjoyed that movie. No idea. #ActionMovieBoner #CrushingOnTheRock

25. Wu Xia

How to describe this thrilling curio, other than to list the mashed-up elements: CSI, A History of Violence / Reign of Assassins, One-Armed Swordsman, Seven, and a dash of Raising Cain meld together to create a unique modern martial arts classic. Donnie Yen, Takeshi Kaneshiro and the legendary Wong Yu-lung face off in a relentlessly surprising tale of hidden identity, suspicion, and obsession. Yen is especially good as a family man thrust into a situation that jeopardises the lives of those he loves, but Kaneshiro matches him in the acting stakes as a possibly-demented detective who suspects he is on the brink of arresting a notorious and deadly killer. All the while, his distorted view of justice threatens to trigger a chain of events that could destroy an entire town. The battle for his soul, and the innocents of Yen’s village, is thrilling and unpredictable, aided by assured direction from Peter Chan, and beautifully photography by Yiu-Fai Lai and Jake Pollock. The well-controlled madness culminates in a final battle of epic intensity that is well worth the wait. Ignore critics who complain that Wu Xia is too much of a slow burn; the build-up contains pleasures too, before paying off in memorable fashion.

24. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Two legendary filmmakers experimented with new technology this year, following in the pioneering footsteps of James Cameron and Robert Zemeckis. Those men made movies that have been critically shunned; perhaps Scorsese and Spielberg would have better luck. Hugo was embraced by film buffs for its loving homage to the works of a revolutionary filmmaker, but while Scorsese’s use of 3D and CGI FX was beautifully handled, the result was a little indulgent, too long, too personal to really breathe. Spielberg’s adaptation of the works of Herge was, on the other hand, derided by many. But it does more than just breathe; it hyperventilates with enthusiastic abandon as it leaps and gambols and sprints in an effort to entertain. The first half is less involving as it introduces beloved characters with too much reverence, but around the halfway mark Spielberg takes his new toy out for a real test drive, and from then on the audience is treated to a whirl of inspired choreography, unbridled imagination and sheer filmmaking genius. The series of setpieces that close out the film – especially the dizzying chase sequence through the elaborate Escher-like maze of Bagghar – are trademark Spielberg; beautiful, unconventional, technical marvels that left me giggling like a drunkard. The promise of further installments is enough to make this former Tintin-sceptic giddy with joy. More! Now!

23. Kung Fu Panda 2

This year’s crop of animated features was pretty disappointing, but that’s not to say there weren’t gems there. The blaze of publicity – and anxious online concern – for Pixar’s car-crash Cars 2 meant that attention was directed away from this Dreamworks sequel. The oddly dismissive reaction to the original might have contributed to the muted response but, for those of us who think the original is an underrated masterpiece of both computer animation and martial arts cinema, this was a cause for celebration. While not as thrilling and powerful as the first movie, KFP2 did the most important thing; it honoured that original, finding new ways to build Po’s character that followed on from his first arc, both by giving him a new source of inner pain to conquer, and by providing an antagonist whose own pain echoes that of our hero. Even the nigh-perfect Toy Story movies trod the same ground from one end of the franchise to the other; to see the KFP franchise show new facets of its central character was most welcome. On top of that, Jennifer Yuh Nelson – who provided the magnificent opening of KFP1 – does stunning work here too. Her direction is hectic but clear, packing giddy setpieces alongside well-judged character moments and perfectly timed gags. If this level of quality can be maintained, let’s hope Jeffrey Katzenberg’s pledge for a dozen sequels will come true.

22. Rise of the Planet of the Apes

What seemed like the most unnecessary movie of the summer season turned out to be one of the year’s highlights. It’s probable that no one thought we needed another Apes movie after Tim Burton’s woeful remake hurled scat bombs at the franchise, but hallelujah, Peter Chernin figured there was enough juice left to be squeezed out, and the result was a rousing triumph. Director Rupert Wyatt took the brilliantly “simple” script by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver and treated it with respect, conjuring up some breathtaking setpieces more thrilling than any amount of crazy Bayhemian pyrotechnics. The fully realised cast of ape characters may have made the humans seem dull in comparison, but that’s only fair; this is a story about the emancipation of our poorly-treated simian brothers, after all. There’s lots to love about RotPotA, but special praise and garlands must be thrown at the amazing Andy Serkis. He’s terrific in Spielberg’s Tintin, but he’s even better here, bringing to life a truly great character. Caesar’s arc from innocent companion to vengeful freedom fighter is the key to this movie’s considerable success, and Serkis does thrilling performance capture work that deserving of award recognition. This summer may have opened with light mocking about RotPotA‘s existence, but the season ended with millions of us impatient for further installments. Who could’ve seen that coming?

21. We Need To Talk About Kevin

The formal daring of Lynne Ramsay’s long-awaited return to cinema is almost frightening, but welcomed gratefully. This adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s novel could, in less intelligent hands, have been reshaped into a run-of-the-mill thriller, but thankfully Ramsay is an artist of the highest order. Her crimson vision of cruelty and misplaced guilt washes over the audience like a wave, playing elliptical games with time and sensory input to create a sense of bafflement similar to that experienced by poor mistreated Eva. As with her previous movies, We Need… is an epic ambient hum compared to the three-minute manufactured ditties that we are usually served up. However, it would have been higher up this list were it not for the character of Kevin, here portrayed as a ludicrous force of pure malevolent evil, not a human being, whose actions are so dreadful as to unbalance the film. As a metaphor for the guilt and pressures placed on women as mothers, and a way to dramatise the vile rejection of Eva by a society that has yet to learn how to process grief, the demonic Kevin works brilliantly. As a believable person, less so. That means the movie’s higher allegorical purpose lacks the human core that would allow it to work on two levels, but even so, there is greatness here. Cinema needs Ramsay’s purity of vision; let’s hope she doesn’t stay away so long next time.

20. The Tree of Life

Terrence Malick’s semi-autobiographic cosmic meditation not only divided critical opinion but has such a split personality that viewer sympathies can change wildly from one moment to the next. Is this too self-indulgent, even for a Malick movie? Is it transcendental? Is it profound or profoundly stupid? The truth almost certainly lies somewhere in the middle, but for fans of the great man’s formless musings and pro-nature fixations, this triggered epiphanies that dwarfed the frustrations. Brad Pitt excels as the cold father who alienates his son, driving him to flirt with feelings of isolation that haunt him for the rest of his life. The microcosm of this transference is given an extra dimension by Malick’s startling decision to present a view of the macrocosm, an infinity of randomness and loneliness that seemingly extends beyond our lives. Tree of Life is arguably more compelling in its wilder moments; Sean Penn’s sojourn into what might be a barren and baffling afterlife, and the early Doug Trumbell-hewn effects sequences, are unexpectedly moving, grandiose bookends to a story of tainted childhood that can’t help but pale in comparison. Nevertheless, this peek into what makes Malick tick is also worth the effort. A filmmaker who for so long has been an enigma opened his heart to his audience, and in its finest moments, his honesty makes that journey worthwhile.

19. Arriety

There have been a number of adaptations of Mary Norton’s Borrowers novels — just this week the BBC showed a new version that featured lots of familiar Beeb-approved actors screaming and shouting and getting into all sorts of hi-velocity scrapes. Studio Ghibli’s version couldn’t be more different; it’s so relaxed that the only antagonist in the movie is revealed late in the movie and barely presents a credible threat. Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Hayao Miyazaki’s tale of dislocated family is disarmingly gentle, and focuses more on the details of life within the walls of our houses than the possibility of danger. The gloriously rendered background paintings and exquisite animation reintroduce us to our world from this new perspective, helped by stunning sound design that turns the ambient noise of a house into something alien. There is no need for empty histrionics; the tale of Arrietty’s growth into an adult, and the strain that puts on her overprotective parents, is drama enough. Arrietty’s friendship with Shô provides the rest of the narrative force; against all caution she befriends this potential enemy and inadvertently saves him from despair. This delicate, achingly lovely movie might not have the flights of imagination that other Ghibli movies have, but its grounded nature works in its favour. There is magic and beauty in this ode to friendship, this instant classic of pastoral fantasy.

18. Friends With Benefits

The profitability of cheap, bawdy comedies has led to a glut of films unafraid to depict gross-out bodily humour or frank discussions of the literal ins and outs of heteronormative sexuality (and its unfortunate homosexual partner, high-larious gay panic jokes). This year we’ve had the good (Bridesmaids), the bad (Bad Teacher), the lazy (The Hangover Part II), and the underrated (What’s Your Number?). Only one truly verged on greatness. Friends With Benefits trounces its other fuck-buddy rival No Strings Attached thanks to a good heart that is never swamped by the hilarious sex chat, rampant irreverence, and high energy hijinx, as well as a winning co-starring combo of Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake at their most charming. Will Gluck provides the same enthusiastic movie-referencing nerdery as he did with last year’s exemplary Easy A, this time drawing attention to the conventions of the romcom genre. Quite rightly, our cynical heroes, hurt by past lovers and eager to strip relationships of their romantic baggage, gleefully mock those conventions, and yet are unable to escape their draw when they finally, inevitably fall in love. Some have said Gluck is having his cake and eating it. I say he’s depicting the emotional arc of his protagonists. Honestly, what are critics paid for these days? Not enjoying transparently wonderful comedies? SADFACE.

17. Thor

It doesn’t have to be all Nolan-esque sourness in the superhero movie world, and Thor is the best example of the sheer fun that can be had within this maligned genre. Kenneth Branagh’s remarkably confident experiment with caped heroics does almost everything right, from introducing an audience to an alien world and unfamiliar hero, to using that new world to expand a recently established one, to matching its tone to its predecessors. The Marvel Film Universe has now been established as a place of high adventure and sneaky humour, both of which Thor has in spades. The perfect cast bring the ambitious script to life with infectious verve, with special honours going to scenestealers Anthony Hopkins and Kat Dennings, new star Chris Hemsworth, and especially the amazing Tom Hiddleston. His work here as the tragic and tortured Loki, “God” of Mischief – the year’s best villain – is a revelation. Branagh was right to think of this movie in Shakespearean terms; Loki’s anguish over his birth and insecurity over the love of the King Lear-ean Odin has shades of Richard III with a touch of Don John’s malevolence as he tries to undermine his brother by exploiting his Prince Hal-esque hubris. Thor takes the comic subject matter simultaneously lightly and seriously; it’s that balance between the two states that makes the best superhero movie of the year such a triumph.

16. Drive

For the majority of its running time, Nicholas Winding Refn and Hossain Amini’s pared-down crime thriller features the purest kind of cinematic iconography, using classic elements from the past thirty years of movies to create their simple tale of a getaway driver doing the wrong thing to protect the wholesome girl. It’s a glorious painting done in primary colours, depicting a luminous LA in which our near-silent anti-hero – a professional from the Michael Mann / Walter Hill school of perfectionists – performs miracles, but is undone and/or saved from solitude by a connection to the human world. File this alongside Refn’s previous movie, Valhalla Rising, as a portrait of a man whose singular purpose cannot change his inevitable future, as all around him complicate their lives with suspicion and misguided ambition. Refn’s pure imagery and purposefulness was revelatory, and his playful use of 80s-style imagery went some way to redeeming that ugly decade’s bad reputation. What a shame that overplotting in the last half hour had to tarnish this almost crystalline object. It’s a frustrating final act stumble that dampens the impact of what came before, but even taking that into account, Drive‘s mixture of innocence and grotesque violence is still remarkable, all the more so thanks to thrilling work from Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, and an unexpectedly terrifying Albert Brooks.

15. Martha Marcy May Marlene

Much like Jennifer Lawrence won a legion of fans with her appearance in Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone, Elizabeth Olsen’s debut performance in this dark drama is one of the highlights of the year. Her titular character is a mystery, an uncomfortable presence in our world and a sympathetic one when trapped in her cult. John Hawkes is the link between Bone and Marlene; his menace crosses over, but here he adds a layer of messianic charisma, controlling his minions and compelling them to commit terrible crimes. The question at the heart of this remarkable and bleak movie is whether Martha (Marcy May / Marlene) is a victim or a participant, and Olsen’s achievement here is to never tip us off. Sean Durkin’s directorial debut may feature a pleasingly ambiguous protagonist, but the one thing that’s not in doubt is his skill at using the natural world to generate an oppressive atmosphere of dread, one which curls over our anti-heroine from the first frame to the last like a closing fist. That gradual darkening, brilliantly evoked by the photography of Jody Lee Lipes and paced to perfection by editor Zachary Stuart-Pontier, is more effective than any horror movie made this year; when combined with the humanity of Olsen’s work, the result is unforgettable.

14. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tomas Alfredson’s dour adaptation of John Le Carre’s classic novel is the kind of movie that gets plaudits just for being so out of sync with modern populist tastes; all of those garish loud movies that no one will admit to enjoying. Luckily there’s another reason for the critical praise; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a riveting and intelligent thriller, made with exacting care by Alfredson, here proving that he is a major talent. The complex novel is cleverly condensed by Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan (redeeming himself for the mess he made of The Men Who Stare At Goats), wasting no time in feeding the audience swathes of information. Full attention is necessary, aided by the anti-distracting spartan visuals and authentically glum mise-en-scene; there’s an argument to be made that Tinker… captures Britain’s damp melancholic soul better than any other movie. Every performance is pitch-perfect, with special praise to be given to Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy and a never-better Gary Oldman. Their task is to take something that seems dry and clinical and show that the espionage element of the plot rests on subdued and submerged emotions. They leak out at times, giving us a peek into a world of immense, unaddressed grief. The result is a quietly devastating movie about betrayal and compromise, and the toll it takes on the secret guardians of society.

13. Fast Five

The summer season kicked off with Thor and Fast Five hot on each other’s tails around the globe, bringing with them the possibility that this could be the best summer season of them all. Sadly it was not to be. Nevertheless, at least we got this. Fast Five may be “just” an action movie, something that attracts derision from the criterati, but this “lowest-common denominator” action movie was like mainlining adrenaline. Embracing its humble origins, Justin Lin and Chris Morgan’s cacophonous action extravaganza is unapologetically crazy, doing everything it can to entertain its target audience, exceeding all expectations. It’s a perfect example of what a late entry into a series should do; it expands the franchise’s world without abandoning its roots, it adds new elements to enhance what we already have, and it pays off emotional beats that have been lying around for years. It also atomises most of Rio de Janeiro thanks to a joyous disregard for the laws of physics. No one here will win any awards, except for awards in my head, such as Best Movie Uniting Underrated Action Icons. Fast Five is Ocean’s 11 in cars mixed with The Fugitive, and the big showdown in the movie pits a sweat-spritzed Rock against an angst-ridden Diesel. If Shades of Caruso believed in the concept of guilty pleasures it’d file this in that category, but fuck that. This is just pure, delirious pleasure, a classic of the genre.

12. Wuthering Heights

Odd to think that this project has been in the works since 2008, considering the regular TV adaptations of Charlotte Bronte’s novel. There’s an industry at work doing nothing but churning out movies and TV dramas that try to depict the surface of Bronte’s story without capturing its essence. Adaptations need to break their source material apart to get at the meat within, and this version by Andrea Arnold and Olivia Hetreed does just that. By casting black actors to play young and “old” Heathcliff, they have done the impossible; they have breathed life into characters who have long lived as alien icons trapped in amber. With the rejection of Heathcliff here caused by ignorant bigotry due to his ethnicity, the motivations of all involved make sense in an instant, and from there we can empathise with them as people and not as tragic romantic caricatures. For the first time in my life I now understand Cathy and Heathcliff, feel their pain, ache for their tragic loss. This single move is a miraculous bravura flourish made even more profound by depicting this world as a kind of hell, in which Heathcliff can only rage and suffer. Arnold and Hetreed show how he brings everyone down into the depths with him, but they never lose sight of his humanity, inhumanity, and aching soul. Aesthetically perfect, atmospherically oppressive and thematically precise; this is the definitive visual adaptation.

11. Contagion

Doomsday fiction usually has to operate on a fantastical plane to generate a menace large enough to threaten all of society, but the plague subgenre doesn’t have to fake it. Which is why Contagion is so welcome, after years of Cassandra Crossing / Outbreak-style wackiness. Only Robert Wise’s Andromeda Strain ever got close to depicting the uniquely fascinating world of virology / epidemiology with any real rigour before, but Soderbergh and Burns’ terrifying vision of societal meltdown knocks even that terrific movie into a cocked biohazard mask. A brilliant cast tamps down its emotions to dramatise humanity’s reaction to imminent pandemic horror; muted emotions, delayed sadness, dutiful conscientiousness. Where lesser plague movies have succumbed to melodramatics, Soderbergh has made a forensic experience, using multiple narrative arcs to cover a lot of ground, all depicted with his trademark neat visuals. There are no pyrotechnics here, no races against time or miracle cures; there is only bureaucracy, panic, stupidity, and venality. Nevertheless, these qualities are balanced by the scientific minds that dispassionately work to prevent calamity. Contagion will probably scare the bejeezus out of you, but there is hope there too, because Soderbergh and Burns show that the connective web that threatens to destroy us is also the thing that will keep us alive.

10. Shame

They should call 2011 Annus Fassbenderis. After being the best thing about Jane Eyre, X-Men: First Class, and almost every movie he’s been in for the past five years, Michael Fassbender proved fans like SoC right by giving us the year’s most memorable performance, one that would send shockwaves through the culture if it wasn’t about that icky sex that people don’t want to reveal that they’re thinking about. His depiction of a sex addict’s psychological meltdown is mesmerising and courageous, and is enhanced by Steve McQueen’s evocative portrait of night-time New York, lit by the remarkable Sean Bobbitt to match Fassbender’s calm facade, all sterile, gleaming perfection hiding a darker core. Abi Morgan’s script wisely avoids providing explicit information about what made the protagonist, Brandon, the way he is. This isn’t about a journey into darkness. It’s about the arrival, and we are invited to look at ourselves without excuses or reasoning. It’s not an anti-internet message either, or a political statement about an over-sexualised culture. McQueen, Morgan and Fassbender may be trying to trigger a conversation about how we’ve all arrived at the point we’re at, alone and scared of opening up to others, without making facile assumptions. A problem doesn’t get fixed until we recognise it; perhaps that’s Shame‘s purpose, as well as to grip us, and horrify us.

9. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

The thought of Brad Bird following Ratatouille — one of the most profound meditations on art and creativity ever made — with another attempt to justify the existence of cinema’s most malfunctioning franchise made SoC depressed. It’s like hearing David Cronenberg is going to adapt a Robert Ludlum novel. And yet while that project was so deformed and weird that it never happened, Bird’s Ghost Protocol blasted onto IMAX screens in a flurry of confidence, taut suspense, and epic audience satisfaction. Bird’s beautifully designed and filmed setpieces are rightly attracting praise from even the most critical of viewers, with the Burj Khalifa scene on its way to becoming a new star in the action pantheon, maybe eclipsing even De Palma’s Topkapi homage in the first Mission Impossible. Supporting those thrilling highlights is a strong framework of improved character work (only Ving Rhames has registered in previous installments), propulsive pacing, and a giddy sense of silliness that compliments the drama. These touches, which turn a good spy movie into a great one, bear Bird’s fingerprints, more than justifying the decision to bring the great man on board. Yes, the villain’s terrible. Yes, the threat’s outdated. But Bird knows this genre so well, and can transmute the basest elements into gold, so what could’ve been another boring MI movie becomes 2011′s best action movie.

8. Melancholia

It’s a dark thought to have midway through Lars Von Trier’s brilliant end-of-the-world movie, but his recent awful experience with depression may have brought about a renaissance in his art, replacing his petty taunting of the audience with a greater awareness of himself, and his ambivalence toward himself. The result of this redirection has been the remarkable Antichrist and now Melancholia, which depicts the crushing weight of Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s depression as the inevitable end of the world due to collision with a metaphor in the shape of a planet. As blunt as this metaphor is, it’s effective in capturing the scale of a depressive episode within a person’s life, and is mitigated by subtler details that express with devastating accuracy society’s exasperating and uncaring attitude to those who suffer from mental health problems; the first half of the movie, with Dunst’s bride pushed and pulled by meaningless social obligations that she has become unable to comprehend or care about, is especially good. Dunst is mesmerising as the woman who dissolves into her depression, reaching something like a state of grace as her sister (Gainsbourg, also phenomenal) succumbs to her own version of this dread. Von Trier’s frank and honest exploration of his experience is an invaluable aid for those of us fortunate enough to escape its misery, and for that he should be thanked.

7. Margaret

Kenneth Lonergan’s long-delayed movie-as-novel is here presented with approximately a sixth of itself missing, and who knows how the restoration of that chunk would alter the movie. But what multitudes are already contained here, what glorious truths, what immense joy and anger. Lonergan has weaved a tale about perception and interpretation by making a movie that is intentionally opaque and misleading, but his primary achievement is to transcribe the fractured, confusing experience of PTSD into disorienting dramatic beats and unpredictable explosions of emotion. This unconventional approach is especially apparent during the final hour, as precocious student Lisa tries to mitigate her feelings by lashing out at everyone. Anna Paquin gives the performance of a lifetime as a young woman who believes she knows herself and her place in the world, despite all evidence to the contrary. What Lonergan has done is perceptively capture the exasperation of those adults who have stepped aside to let their progeny find their feet, only see watch in horror as they founder and then fall back on obnoxious bluster. Many commentators decry this as “merely” an outdated movie about 9/11, but it’s as much about how parents can fuck up their children, while offering hope that eventually those children will come to realise and accept they are a part of society, not above it.

6. A Dangerous Method

The accumulated works of David Cronenberg have shown his fascination with the life of the mind, and how our inner selves contain secret things that can bring us low. This metaphysical horror has been overtly addressed by him many times, but this is a more subtle exploration of the threat of our hidden self poses to ourselves. The Carl Jung here brought to us by Cronenberg, Christopher Hampton and Michael Fassbender is an enthusiastic man of high ideals and loyalty who is undone by a lust he could not have anticipated, one which erodes his marriage, his public reputation, his friendship with father-figure Sigmund Freud, and eventually his expectations for his future. But this superb film keeps this torrent of disappointment and longing out of sight; Cronenberg’s subtle direction means only Keira Knightley’s explosive catalyst Sabina Spielrein gets to unleash her emotions, often against her will. Jung’s yearning for such freedom, and Freud’s reaction to the young man’s ambitions, leak out in occasional moments of recognisable childish weakness at odds with our image of them as great men. These relationships are the engine for this masterful dramatisation of their theories in action; psychoanalysis as psychodrama. Though this hasn’t landed with as big a splash as Cronenberg’s most recent movies, SoC suspects time will be kind to it. One day it will be ranked among his best.

5. Attack The Block

It’s rare that a British filmmaker has enough control over his urge to emulate his directorial heroes that he can pay homage to them without making a hollow copycat exercise, and Joe Cornish deserves plaudits for his expert handling of suspense and pace. But this is more than just a proficient sci-fi homage. The real-life mugging that inspired Attack The Block has been transformed through Cornish’s compassionate and questioning approach into a treatise on the ethnic and social tensions that exist between the victims of our unjust economic system and those who glamorise it. There’s no patronising here; Cornish is aware of the wrongness of his protagonist’s crimes, and doesn’t excuse them, but he at least tries to understand what drives those who are sickeningly referred to as “the feral underclass” to such lows. This curiosity and empathy is almost unheard-of in British culture, especially after the recent riots that caused a shudder of sneering disgust to ripple through our media. That it has taken so long for someone fortunate enough to not sit at the bottom of Britain’s socio-economic ladder to sympathetically wrestle with these themes is a black mark on our country. AtB isn’t just a thrilling horror-action movie; it’s an attempt to communicate something about the UK that no one wants to think about, a time-capsule representation of who we are and what we’re doing to our disenfranchised youth.

4. A Separation

Proof, if proof was needed, that a movie about a simple gamble within a marriage could create the dramatic equivalent of a train crash. Asghar Farhadi’s riveting drama begins simply as the tale of an Iranian couple considering divorce, with Simin (Leila Hatami) testing the resolve of her stubborn husband Nader (Peyman Maadi), before becoming a cross between Kramer Vs. Kramer and Rashomon. Farhadi’s stunning movie becomes complicated with such stealth that it’s not until you’re an hour in that you find yourself engaged in a kind of dialectic with the movie, questioning everything you have seen in an effort to keep up with the shifting narratives of the protagonists. The stubbornness of Simin and Nader, which causes such damage to those around them including their daughter and the tragic figure of Razieh (Sareh Bayat), should make them unsympathetic but Farhadi’s humanity means we recognise every stupid, selfish thing they do. His direction is forensic, his cast uniformly impressive, and his script is the screenwriting highlight of the year. This is a movie to watch and study to in order to pick up all of its subtleties and surprises, and that’s before you consider its allegorical richness. But it’s not necessary to know the intricacies of Iranian politics to get the most from A Separation. All you need to do is be a human, with all the understandable flaws so perceptively captured here.

3. The Artist

There are numerous arguments against Michel Hazanavicius’ silent movie homage:” it’s too light”; “the melodrama is overplayed”; “there’s not much to it”; “it’s too derivative of several movies”; “the dog’s not in it enough”; “why is it black and white and why are there no words”; “there’s no way I could possibly enjoy this as being happy is anathema to me and my very serious ways”. It’s all a load of stuff and nonsense. Experiencing this ode to joy, this gratifyingly weightless and ecstatic love letter to the power of populist art, is the best time you will have in the cinema at the moment, and being a part of the collective audience experience – as depicted very pointedly in the opening moments of this modern classic – is an unforgettable treat. Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo are delightful as lovers separated by pride and fear of the future; their infectious joy and indestructible attraction to each other is the secret of The Artist‘s considerable success. As opined here, it’s also a tribute to the artists who have been part of the tapestry of culture that is still being woven, and the way in which an idea generously given can flourish. One act of flirtatious kindness pays dividends in the future, with the recipient paying it back in order to save a loved one’s soul. But forget about that; see it, succumb to its delirious, enthusiastic embrace of cinema and romance, and don’t forget to bring your dancing shoes.

2. Rango

Who would have believed that Gore Verbinski had this in him? Shades of Caruso is proud to call itself a pro-Gore blog, having been one of the five audience members to have enjoyed the determinedly peculiar Mousehunt on release. Even taking that early oddity into account, Rango is a startling leap into the weird for Verbinski. A Chinatown homage that mangles the Western genre and goes out of its way to alienate the audience it needs to be a success? Just for taking that risk it deserves to be praised, but tokenism like that isn’t necessary when the end product is this much fun. As SoC tweeted at the time — in a state of some shock and joy — it’s like a Grant Morrison Animal Man comic directed by Sergio Leone, breaking the fourth wall and probably even a hypothetical fifth wall as Rango seeks to define his personality by pulling our new modern cinematic mythology into his world to form a path of self-discovery. Much of the rambling discourse on how we define ourselves makes it seem like the recording of the dialogue – done by Verbinski with all the cast present, acting out their parts on a soundstage – was actually an informal group therapy session. There’s structure within this berserk adventure, and Verbinski stages a couple of delirious action sequences too, but it’s the doodling in the margins, the asides and self-inspection of Rango himself that make this one of the most exciting and lovably deranged movies of the new century. It’s also a vision of beauty; thanks to the stellar production design of Mark “Crash” McCreery and the lighting design of consultant Roger “King” Deakins it’s almost too much to take in on first viewing.

1. Take Shelter

For far too many of us, the world has become a buzzing, unpredictable maelstrom of doubt and fear, as established institutions crumble and threaten to take everything familiar with them. A combination of things beyond our control have conspired to alter the world too quickly for us to keep up with, so that we’re assailed by external and internal strife that manifests in global pessimism about the future; there was too much news this year, too many things going wrong. The earth shifted beneath our feet metaphorically and literally in 2011, and no other cultural experience captured that terrifying feeling like Jeff Nicholl’s magnificent end-of-days movie. Expertly combining a sense of imminent world-shattering event and the personal story of one man’s battle to overcome his seemingly inevitable mental collapse, Take Shelter is suffused with the sense that devastating things can happen to us and there’s nothing we can do can stop them.

The final scene can be seen as either hopeful or not, but for anyone who feels their stomach drop every time they turn on the TV or look at Twitter or read a newspaper, and hear that the world as we know it has become alien and newly fragile, it’s the slow build of dread that makes this the most immersive and upsetting cinematic experience of recent times. Nicholls has put his finger right on the synapse that controls our terror; watching this exhausting experience, and marveling at the mesmerising performances from Jessica Chastain and Genius-Level firebrand Michael Shannon is to see your fears realised before you. For those of an optimistic bent, there is still much to enjoy here, but for the rest of us, this is the movie of our time, the touchstone and representation of our psyche.

Honorable Mentions:

Children Who Chase Lost Voices From Down Below: Makoto Shinkai’s magical trip into the underworld is an afterlife myth for our time, as a young girl and a shady operative both seek to deal with their feelings of loss and loneliness by embarking on a death-thwarting journey into Agartha. CWCLVFDB‘s epic sweep and honesty make this a visual and emotional success.

Weekend: Comparisons to Before Sunrise are inevitable, but this depiction of a brief encounter is transformed into something different due to the inevitable political element within. Andrew Haigh is to be commended for not making this romance specifically about gay politics, but addressing it cleverly provides an extra emotional level. It’s also just very romantic.

Footloose: More to come on this Craig Brewer remake in a forthcoming post. Suffice it to say, it did everything right, nothing wrong, and fixed everything wrong with the beloved but heavily flawed original. A hugely underrated crowdpleasing treat.

Super 8: 2011 was a year in which our best filmmakers were eager to plunder the history of cinema, and J.J. Abrams’ homage to the golden years of Spielberg’s Amblin so accurately captured the look and feel of those movies that all structural flaws could be forgiven. To those who grew up watching the movies referenced here, Super 8 was a glorious reminder of their power and beauty.

Moneyball: Brad Pitt co-produced this, and it’s pretty much his show. Eschewing the usual mythologising of baseball (at least until its final act), Bennett Miller, Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin use a dry tale of statistical manipulation to depict the slow awakening of a man to life’s possibilities. Pitt “knocks it out of the park”. (UK readers note that this is a baseball metaphor.)

Coming up, once I’ve harnessed my considerable grumpiness — Listmania ’11: Worst Movies of the Year. There will be grump.

The Top One Hundred and Six Movies of the Oughts (5-1)

Posted on by

The last installment of this epic list-making enterprise comes a day after the Times ran their own 100 movies of the decade list, and as expected, within moments of looking at it I regretted missing out two fantastic films: Battle Royale and School of Rock. Actually, the first movie is one I’ve only seen once, and though I remember loving it it’s been so long I’d like another chance to reappraise it at some point.

This is something that has come up frequently in our house, which contains two hardcore fans of Suzanne Collins’ fantastic Hunger Games series. Though Battle Royale — itself based on a novel by Koushun Takami — has high dementedness value, it’s arguable that Collins’ YA novel features a similarly hardline ethos. When I read it I was surprised by Collins’ willingness to take her characters to some extremely dark places. That said, Battle Royale does have one thing over Hunger Games: Chiaki Kurigama as the deadly Takako Chigusa, in a performance so eerily amoral that Tarantino hired her to play GoGo Yubari in Kill Bill Part 1. She is terrifying.

There’s a good chance watching that again might convince me it should have reached the top 100, but I already know for sure I screwed up with School of Rock. It’s one of my all-time favourite movies, and one I had only just recently had a chat about with friends of Daisyhellcakes, so there really is no excuse for missing it off. I’m a fan of Jack Black and tend to ignore criticisms of him, especially when he has recently excelled as my beloved Po in Kung Fu Panda: a role that he was born to play. I even liked him in the not-great-but-not-terrible-either Year One, and thought pairing him with Michael Cera was an inspired choice that needed to have been made on a better movie. So yeah, considering School of Rock is the perfect vehicle for him, mixing his endearing/obnoxious immaturity and his sincerity better than almost anything he has been involved with.

I’ve heard some people criticise Richard Linklater for selling out and making a mainstream movie, but the level of commitment from everyone involved — and Linklater’s surprising facility with the most likeable cast of teenagers ever assembled for a movie — marks this as a triumph for dedicated filmmaking no matter what studio it was made for. I’m so pissed that I missed this off: it would definitely have been in the top 30, maybe even top 20. This omission tells me it’s been too long since I’ve seen it.

And what do you know, Jack Black appears in one of the top five movies as a very angry biker, and Richard Linklater directed another of them. It’s as if it was meant to be. Remember, this list has been built with one important caveat: I’m not including movies from this year as I’ve not yet had time to get acquainted with them. As a result I’m going from 1999 – 2008. This might seem silly considering everyone else is doing it from 2000 – 2009, but I feel safer sticking with movies I know well instead of including stuff from this year that I’ll just go off in time, and if I started it in 2000 I’d only be considering 9 years of films. Also this timeframe matches my arrival in The Big Smoke, and so has subjective value. The reason why this special list-ruining rule is important now will become clear very soon…

5. Anchorman

What had seemed, before release, to be little more than a one-joke movie about 70s fashion and workplace sexual prejudice was something much, much more than that: a Dada-esque parody of a vast number of cinema and TV cliches, racing past the dreary pastiche of the 70s that it could have been, and coming to rest in a parallel universe where all bets were off. Ferrell and director/co-writer Adam McKay slaved over the script and rehearsed with their incredible cast for months before shooting began to come up with as many alternate lines as possible, and even had two B-plots, allowing them to construct a “sequel” — Wake Up, Ron Burgundy — from the leftover scraps. Freed of storytelling logic, and willing to play with audience expectations, the viewer has no idea what will come next. A crazed Yazz Flute solo? A huge fight between rival news teams? A dog talking to a bear? No matter what they threw at you, it made a kind of twisted sense in this baffling world. At the risk of sounding like boring nerds, it’s a rare day when we don’t quote Anchorman in some capacity, which is either testament to our lameness, or the almost infinite genius of this film. It deserves a place in the Comedy Hall of Fame alongside Blazing Saddles, Duck Soup, Sleeper, This Is Spinal Tap, and Airplane!

Best Moment: There are countless wonderful scenes and lines in this, but this moment from a deleted scene shows how even the alternate versions of the finalised movie featured incredible moments. Not only is Ferrell’s hysteria inspired, check out how Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) races into the studio. Perhaps that’s what I like about this: every time there is an opportunity for a stupid joke, Ferrell and co. take it.

4. Before Sunset

Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise was the perfect romantic movie for those who shared the ages of the onscreen couple of Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Their impulsive and idealistic romance would most appeal to those who had not yet reached a point in life where hopping off a train in Vienna to spend time with a complete stranger would seem like a terribly risky idea. Going back to that movie as I grew older, its appeal remained, but more and more it seemed like a fantasy. The sequel came at exactly the right moment, just as I had suddenly decided to take an impulsive step of my own, and so my first experience of seeing it was already ripe with subjective emotion. Even to those who were not embarking on their own journey of romantic discovery when first seeing this, surely its intelligence and careful expansion of the themes of the first movie would impress them. Bravely showing how Jesse and Céline have changed and matured in the nine years since their first meeting, Linklater uses its real-time format to cram in as much discussion about the nature of love, regret, and the effect of time on memory as he possibly can, with his two leads improving on their already impressive work from the first movie. Without a doubt, it’s the most profound and most life-affirming romantic movie ever made.

Best Moment: For much of its length it feels like a realistic riposte and negation of the flighty romanticism of the original, pitching it perfectly at an audience that had been optimistic when seeing the first film, but were maybe feeling less romantic when seeing the second. Linklater’s masterstroke comes in the final moments, where he shows those who might have “grown up” that maybe that impulsiveness was still something to aspire to. Objectively, an amazing note to end on. Subjectively, it was an unnervingly accurate depiction of what I was going through there and then. I will be eternally grateful to all who worked on it.

3. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

If ever a movie was crying out to be made into a franchise, it’s this one. Peter Weir’s phenomenally entertaining adaptation of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series is pure joy from beginning to end. Russell Crowe was criticised by fans of the series as being wrong for the role, but he is utterly believable as a man who is a fool on land but a genius at sea. Paul Bettany as the stiff Maturin is less of a stretch, but his work is just as endearing, and the relationship between them both is perfectly played. With Aubrey as Kirk and Maturin as an amalgam of Spock and Bones, it’s almost like watching an episode of Star Trek, though easily the best one ever made. With a humbling attention to detail only matched by Peter Jackson, a mastery of mood and pace borne of years of making underrated classics, and the understanding of cinema’s power that would drive even the most cynical audience to the edge of its seat, director Weir has created a modern marvel with seeming effortlessness. A repeated refrain — from myself, Daisyhellcakes, film critic Anne Billson, and several other people who I have seen this movie with and watched their indifference transformed into awestruck adoration — is that it could have continued for another two hours and it wouldn’t have been a chore. On the contrary. I, and many others, would love to see this series go on for as many movies as can be made from O’Brian’s books, and have leaped on every scrap of sequel news as if it were a liferaft. If I ever win a EuroMillions rollover, bankrolling a new movie will be my first — and biggest — splurge.

Best Moment: Too many to mention, with multiple high notes including Crowe’s bluff performance, Bettany’s lovable snootiness, exquisitely rendered battle scenes, and an amusing side-trip to the Galapagos for Stephen Maturin, here portrayed as a proto-Darwin. It’s impossible to find clips that haven’t been tampered with, so let this review from Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper stand in their place. Basically, what they said, and then some. It’s a magnificent adventure.

2. The Incredibles

The only bad thing I can say about Brad Bird’s superhero movie is that it renders moot any attempt to make a Fantastic Four movie, which of course didn’t stop 20th Century Fox from trying and failing to do just that. Twice. In the space of a single movie Bird showed us how flexible Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original creations were by adapting the “Superfamily” metaphor into the tale of an actual family of Supers, forced (like the JSA) to hide their powers from an increasingly hostile public. From there Bird is free to satirise our litigious culture, paralysed by bureaucracy, all while providing entertainment on a level even the best of Pixar had yet to achieve. Though criticism has been levelled at him for making a movie that seemed to celebrate Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy — with the exceptional people of the world forced to curb their efforts to change the world by those who are less exceptional — as with Ratatouille Bird is merely interested in seeing people using their knowledge and skills to help others instead of taking shortcuts and chasing fame and fortune (Syndrome and Linguini both over-reach, misunderstanding the importance of experience and intelligence, though at least Linguini learns his lesson and finds a way to excel in the final act).

What could be more inspirational than saying you should be true to yourself and then use your talents to make the world a better place? And what could be more thrilling than Bird’s staging of some of the greatest superhero moments ever committed to film? With the help of Michael Giacchino’s rousing, playful score, and some of the best voicework of recent times (No surprise that Craig T. Nelson’s best performance is found here, but could this be Holly Hunter’s finest moment too?), Bird delivers a series of bravura setpieces, respectfully paying homage to early James Bond movies and classic 50s and 60s superhero tales while still keeping things fresh. As I’ve said before, this was the decade in which the superhero genre came into its own, but it was The Incredibles that represented the ultimate expression of the things that make superheroes appealing: it’s inspiring, it’s fun, and it’s spectacular. Pixar will struggle to top this beautiful moment. If I was compiling a list of movies released between 2000 and 2009, it would be number one with a bullet.

Best Moment: An early trailer for The Incredibles made it seem like a mere superhero spoof. Though those movies can be fun (Kinka Usher and Neil Cuthbert’s entertaining adaptation of Bob Burden’s Mystery Men was another movie that could have found a place on this list), I had hoped for more from Pixar. As it progressed a seriousness of purpose became apparent beneath the brightly-coloured surface, but when Helen Parr and her children Dash and Violet are fired upon by Syndrome it becomes clear that the stakes here are deadly serious. At that moment, The Incredibles went from being a good movie to a truly great one, something that touched on every emotion in the spectrum. I was utterly smitten, and have been ever since.

1. The Matrix

For those who know me, this is no surprise (and before anyone accuses me, my fudging of the parameters of this list was not an intentional move to allow me to wax rhapsodic about it). However, to anyone who has come through this list expecting a more respected movie, this might come as a disappointment. Though it was admired on release, familiarity and two unloved sequels have made it easy to forget how groundbreaking this was. SF fans who were once thrilled to see a cerebral and exciting science fiction film have long since decided that this is as embarrassing and soft-SF as other unloved and bone-headed mainstream efforts. It’s not hard-SF, I have heard. It’s just a pastiche of Philip K. Dick’s ideas, a brainless and shallow action flick that pisses faux-profundities down its leg like a village idiot dressed like a goth. Admitting to loving this movie has proved as fraught as saying I loved Titanic. Which I didn’t. But I’ve heard enough anti-Matrix complaints to last a lifetime, and that’s before we get to the knee-jerk criticisms about how Keanu can’t act. Yes yes, that’s very perceptive of you all.

None of this matters to me. Seeing The Matrix for the first time was an epiphany. The Wachowskis collected ideas about the nature of reality, society-as-form-of-oppression, anarchic resistance to control structures, and the power of self-belief, and then mixed them up with cutting-edge visual effects, explosions, and martial arts action. It was as if they had made the movie I had been waiting my whole life to see, and since then nothing has matched that feeling of awestruck recognition, something akin to a waking dream. It was as if a movie had ravished my brain and injected my heart with adrenaline. I walked on air for months after.

Ten years later, it might be time to give The Matrix another chance. The Wachowskis might be amateur philosophers giving Cliff’s Notes abbreviations of challenging philosophical ideas, but as a primer for further exploration, it can’t be beat. It’s no coincidence that after seeing this I read Baudrillard and Debord and Chomsky, my interest in political and moral philosophy finally overtaking my previous fascination with epistomology. This may not have turned me into Christopher Hitchens (thank God), but it made me — and many others — take note of the injustices intrinsic to the structure of our society, and how it has become increasingly difficult to escape that Black Iron Prison. It deepened my appreciation of PKD as well, and the rest of the decade saw me expanding my reading habits. In that way it is laid the groundwork for Lost, probably the most thematically complex pop culture artifact ever. Another reason to love it.

It’s no exaggeration to say it changed cinema. Many of the visual conventions that the Wachowskis borrowed from anime have since been “borrowed” from them and overused to the point of cliche, but we should only blame the brothers for being smart enough to recognise the appeal of these images. It was probably the first time famous actors were expected to undergo intensive martial arts training in order to perform many of the stunts themselves. Its visual effects were not just technically impressive but also looked unlike anything else, and represented a break from the traditional SF conventions of space battles and giant monsters. And it also featured some of my favourite characters ever: treacherous Cypher, lovestruck Trinity, naive Neo, deadly Mr. Smith, and — best of all — Morpheus, the man who sets it all in motion, played by the coolest cat in cinema, Mr. Laurence Fishburne. As with many other movies on this list it technically doesn’t belong in this decade, but to me this decade started the moment I saw this, and everything since has been a post-script. Even the sequels cannot ruin it.

Best Moment: I’m sure this cod-Buddhist speechifying will make a lot of people cringe, but when I first saw this, and Morpheus says the big line, it took all of my energy to not leap to my feet and scream “YES!” at the top of my lungs.

And that’s that. A big big thank you to all of those who have checked out these posts and sent me kind comments on Facebook and Twitter. Hopefully, though a lot of my choices were pretty obvious, there have been a couple of mentions here or there that have inspired you to go back and check out a movie you’ve forgotten or avoided, and I certainly hope that you enjoy whichever film it is you end up watching. There are more lists to come at the end of the year as I go over the movies I’ve seen in 2009. Fingers crossed those don’t get out of hand, though I already suspect they will.

The Top One Hundred and Six Movies of the Oughts (15-11)

Posted on by

I’d hoped to finish the final installment of this list today, but ongoing problems with cranky computers and the impossibility of getting WordPress to work faster than a cart dragged by a three-legged horse has scuppered me, so I’ll just add these five now and finish the rest over the next few days. I had originally planned to write one quick post about how I wasn’t going to compile a list, and look what happened. Of course I rushed it, and in the process missed some movies off and had to make quick decisions on others. Two that I considered for inclusion but ended up making a strict decision against were Steven Spielberg’s SF collaborations with Tom Cruise: Minority Report and War of the Worlds. Both movies contained some of Spielberg’s strongest filmmaking as well as displaying his terrible impulse control, as both suffered from poor endings that undermined a lot of what had come before.

Minority Report was a brilliant redefinition of Philip K. Dick’s short story, with Scott Frank taking Dick’s ideas and running with them, as well as providing Spielberg to indulge his new-found fascination with the joys of the Weird Segue. What could have been a very conventional chase movie became sidetracked with bizarre slapstick, eccentric performances, and crazy ideas. It also showcased some amazing futurism, pre-empting concerns about targeted advertising and giving us wonderful motion-recognition setpieces with a Voguing Tom Cruise that have made me long for the time I never have to use a keyboard or remote control ever again. I want this future right now!

Sadly the oddness and imagination made way for a deeply unsatisfying final act that hinged on that hoariest of thriller conventions: the secretly taped confession. What could have been a bleak movie about fate became a dull crime thriller, and as a result missed this list. Only just, though. The same happened with his adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel about alien invasion. For the most part it’s a commendably bleak depiction of the end of civilisation, told in Spielberg’s trademark small-scale style. Focusing on three characters, he is able to depict the devastating effect of the breakdown of society just by showing how it affects them. This is best shown in the scene in which the family are separated from their car by a mob, and a terrified Cruise has a breakdown in a diner.

More effective than any number of admittedly terrifying and beautifully choreographed scenes of FX carnage, that scene would get into a top ten of my favourite scenes of the decade. Of course, Spielberg fluffs it. As soon as Justin Chatwin disappears over a hill top, you just know that Spielberg is going to orchestrate a reunion at the end of the movie, and even though the movie’s darkest sequence is yet to come — Cruise protecting his daughter by killing the crazy man they are forced to take shelter with — the knowledge that Spielberg is unable to kill off a family member for fear of bringing the audience down too far neuters the movie. I don’t think any other movie I’ve seen this decade has frustrated me so much. It was so close, and yet so far. As for AI, I wasn’t crazy about it when I first saw it and have yet to revisit it.

One day I will, and hope to get over my objections to the final ten minutes. At the very least, even though all three movies irked me, I am grateful to Spielberg for making such unique SF movies. Their rough edges do not completely invalidate them, and the genre has benefited greatly from their existence. I suspect time will be kinder to them than I have.

Right, no more vacillation. Here is the next installment of the list. As I’ve said each time, there are no movies from this year, although there is at least one movie from 2009 that I think would crack the top fifteen. I’ll see how I feel about it in a few weeks.

15. Oldboy

The middle installment of Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance trilogy is based — unlike the other two movies — on a manga by Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya, concerning the quest of a loathsome man for vengeance and redemption after being held captive by a mysterious nemesis for fifteen years. It owes much of its power to Choi Min-sik, whose iconic presence and unhinged commitment to his role is utterly riveting. Without him the dazzling puzzle plot would still draw you in. With him (and his crazy hair), it achieves true greatness. A shattering masterpiece with a truly horrifying final act.

Best Moment: The revelations in the final act are shocking, and the notorious scene where Oh Dae-su devours a live octopus certainly shocks, but who can forget the brutal one take fight scene in a cramped corridor:

14. United 93

The terrible events of September 11th, 2001, defined the decade. The scale of the horror, and the manner in which it unfolded before our eyes, was unprecedented. It scarred everyone who experienced it. Paul Greengrass’ project to document the events of that day horrified many, eliciting the cry of “Too soon!”, but this story needed to be told as soon as possible. It’s lucky Greengrass — who had a documentary background and had already done a magnificent job cataloguing the horrific Bloody Sunday massacre — chose to take on this task, as his meticulous attention to detail led him to interview every relevant living person involved in the hijacking of United 93. Time dulls these memories, and the urge to derive some hope from 9/11 meant the story was already being manipulated to suit political ends by the time Greengrass started work. Not long before he had finished, a TV film about the same events was aired, but this was more than just a cash-in. It was an attempt to create a definitive historically accurate account of that moment, free of emotional distortion.

Best Moment: Something as sensitive as this doesn’t have any moment that makes you want to cheer. It just attacks your soul and wrenches your heart from your chest. On a personal level it has been important to me simply because I slept through that day (night work does that to you), and so I can attest to its value as a document of the day’s events. The nausea and emotions I would have felt on that awful day hit me as I watched this. I completely understand why many won’t want to watch it: it’s the most harrowing experience I have ever had in a cinema, and I’ve not been able to rewatch it since. Nevertheless, I’m glad I did see it.

13. Munich

Steven Spielberg has spent much of his career exploring the events of WWII, at first as a backdrop for shenanigans (1941, Raiders of the Lost Ark), then as the setting for commentaries on the darkness that conflict exposed both in our enemies and ourselves (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan). It seemed likely that this fascination with the era was a consequence of his Jewish upbringing, and in biographies his late-career interest in Judaism certainly informed his work on Schindler’s List. He wasn’t finished exploring his cultural and ethnic heritage, though. As you can imagine, his effort to depict the dark side of Jewish history was not received with as much acclaim as his movie about Schindler. Munich‘s nightmarish vision of the awful moral corruption faced by a group of former Mossad agents — given the task of wreaking vengeance on the men behind the Munich Olympics massacre — is unflinching, a sentiment definitely not shared by many right-wing supporters of Israel’s foreign policies. Arguments rage over the veracity of the movie, but Spielberg is obviously expressing anger at the way this ongoing conflict is poisoning all of our lives, and to do that he has taken liberties with facts to create a warning to us all that “an eye for an eye” is not a viable policy.

Best Moment: As with United 93, this is not a triumphalist movie, but Spielberg is too much of a showman to make something that completely eschews manipulation of the audience. Early in the movie the team of assassins place a booby-trap inside a phone in the hope of killing a Palestinian translator, but in a nerve-wracking scene they realise they are about to kill his daughter as well. It’s a thrilling suspense setpiece with dark undertones that come to the fore as the movie progresses.

12. The Dark Knight

The praise-backlash-praise cycle for The Dark Knight seemed to flash past quicker than usual. Blame the Internet. Now that things have settled down, and debates about whether it should have qualified for a Best Picture Academy Award nomination have become moot (though it should have), one can look back with fresher eyes and see if Christopher Nolan’s crime epic stands up to scrutiny. Concerns over some of the editing remain, but it still manages to do several things better than almost any other purely fictional movie released this decade: it addresses contemporary concerns over the effect of terrorism on society, it condemns recent foreign policy and domestic security mistakes using crystal-clear metaphors, and it finds a way to make the fantastical superhero genre work in a contemporary setting without losing what makes that genre so appealing. It’s also ridiculously exciting, and features two of the most thrilling performances of recent times from Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart.

Best Moment: As Batman battles to stop a SWAT team from killing a group of innocents, the occupants of two booby-trapped boats have to make a terrible decision. The deadlock is broken by a convict whose actions show that, despite the terror caused by The Joker and his minions, the people of Gotham will not buckle under the pressure. I saw this in an IMAX cinema in New York, and the applause that broke out at this moment was more than just an acknowledgement of good cinema. It was defiant approval. Terror won’t win out. We won’t let it.

11. Ratatouille

It’s a film about a talking rat who loves cooking. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker it could have been nothing more than a fun diversion, but in the hands of Jan Pinkava and Brad Bird, it is instead a treatise on what it is to be an artist. Celebrating self-knowledge, commitment to excellence, and thoughtful artistic criticism, it’s one of the most profound movies about the creative impulse ever made, all while being artistically accomplished in its own right. No mean feat. It’s also a love letter to Paris and to great cuisine (choosing Thomas Keller as a consultant shows Brad Bird knew what he was doing), not to mention a wonderful comedy. In other words, a pure triumph.

Best Moment: Curmudgeonly critic Anton Ego finally arrives at Gusteau’s ready to destroy its reputation once and for all. What happens next might be my favourite scene of the entire decade.

As I’m going a bit bigger with these last fifteen, might as well split this into three sets of five too. Apologies for dragging this out even further: it was beyond my control. Next two parts will materialise either over the weekend or on Monday.

A Large List Of Movies I Enjoyed This Year (Updated With Canyon’s Picks So It’s Even Larger!)

Posted on by

Happy New Year, denizens of the internet! The holiday season is over, unhappy workers are returning to their nasty offices, and I’m cleaning the house. But, before I get into the rest of it, here is an absurdly long list that has missed off a million things either because we’ve not seen certain films that stand a good chance of getting on here (Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood, Tekkon Kinkreet, Rescue Dawn, etc.), and because I’m forgetful. There was a supporting actor performance this year that I loved but I can’t remember who it was now. That’s as annoying as later remembering that I wanted to give music of the year shout-outs to Tenacious D’s Master Exploder (song of the decade) and Steven Seagal’s album Mojo Priest (not the hilarious hubristic disaster people expected it to be; I actually quite like it).

Anyway, here is as complete a list as I can make. Note that the worst film winner is not yet decided. Over the next few days I intend to decide who should win this coveted prize with a Worst Film of 2007 Face/Off special! So stay tuned. Also, I’m hoping that at some point Canyon will include her best and worsts of the year. I’m not 100% sure what her list will look like, though I get the feeling it will be fairly different. I look forward to reading it.

Favourite movies of the year:


1=: Zodiac – A perfect movie about an obsessive quest made by an obsessive perfectionist.
1=: Ratatouille – A perfect movie about a perfectionist and the obsessive quest for perfection.
2: The Bourne Ultimatum – Like being beaten up by a film. But in a good way. Best threequel ever, best action film of the decade.
3: Black Book – Moral quagmires, betrayal, sex, death, twists, violence, blonde women being mistreated by the world but keeping their dignity even when doused in shit. Hitchcock would have loved it.
4: Once – My favourite romantic movie in ooooh, aeons. Lovely soundtrack too.
5: The Darjeeling Limited – Wes Anderson triumphs again! Yeah, I said it.
6: Grindhouse – Sorry to say it, but only the full version gives you the full effect. Fuck you, Weinsteins.
7: Exiled – Johnnie To’s gangster masterpiece. The most unpredictable film of the year (other than I’m Not There, but who knows what the hell Todd Haynes was thinking with that).
8: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – Possibly the best ensemble cast of the year, certainly the best photographed. Hypnotic brilliance.
9: Paprika – A feast for the eyes, and featuring a heroine that I want to see return in a billion sequels.
10: The King of Kong – Best documentary I’ve seen since the magnificent Capturing the Friedmans. No other documentary I’ve seen has made me so angry and so overjoyed. Who’d have thought real life could be this interesting?

Honourable mentions:


I Am Legend
Jindabyne
Hot Fuzz
Superbad
3:10 to Yuma

Honourable honourable mentions (there were a lot of good films out this year):

Gone Baby Gone
The Mist
Sunshine
Transformers
Black Snake Moan

Honourable honourable honourable mentions (I mean, seriously, a lot):

The Lives of Others
Beowulf
Charlie Wilson’s War
Knocked Up
The Lookout

Favourite movies released in the US in 2006 but then released in the UK in 2007 and were good enough to get a mention here anyway:

The Fountain, Curse of the Golden Flower

Movies that are not getting included because I need to see them a couple more times before I know whether I was crazy about them or not:

No Country For Old Men, I’m Not There

Movie that I didn’t want to like because the director is an asshole but damn it’s a lot of fun:


Apocalypto

Worst movie:

To be decided between I Know Who Killed Me and D-War (Runners-up: Bubble Fiction Boom or Bust, Spider-Man 3, Southland Tales, The Reaping, Next)

Most pointless movie:

Ocean’s Thirteen

Best actor:

Chris Cooper – Breach / Casey Affleck – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Gone Baby Gone (Runner-up: Will Smith – I Am Legend, Kurt Russell – Death Proof, Viggo Mortenson – Eastern Promises)

Best actress:


Laura Linney – Jindabyne (Runner-up: Gong Li – Curse of the Golden Flower, Carice Van Houten – Black Book, Marketa Irglova – Once)

Best supporting actor:

John Carroll Lynch – Zodiac (Runner-up: Chris Evans – Sunshine / Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Sam Rockwell – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang – Exiled) (ETA: OMG how could I forget! James Marsden’s hilarious performance in Enchanted! Easily the best thing about the movie.)

Best Supporting Actress:

Robin Wright Penn – Beowulf (Runner-up: Marcia Gay Harden – The Mist, Amara Karan – The Darjeeling Limited, Sairse Ronan – Atonement)

Most entertaining performance in a bad movie:

Nicholas Cage – Ghost Rider

Worst actor:

Patrick Dempsey – Enchanted (Runner-up: Jason Behr – D-War)

Worst actress:

Lindsay Lohan – I Know Who Killed Me (Runner-up: Amanda Brooks – D-War, Claire Danes – Stardust)

Best hero:

Remy the Rat – Ratatouille (Runner-up: Rachel Stein – Black Book, Paprika – Paprika, McLovin – Superbad, King Leonidas – 300)

Best villain:


Anton Chigurh – No Country for Old Men (Runner-up: Billy Mitchell – The King of Kong, Stuntman Mike – Death Proof, Anton Grubitz – The Lives of Others, Mrs. Carmody – The Mist)

Worst hero:

Ghost Rider – Ghost Rider (Runner-up: Elizabeth Swann – Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Ethan Kendrick – D-War, “Jack” – D-War)

Worst villain:

Thomas Gabriel – Die Hard 4.0 (Runner-up: Venom – Spider-Man 3, Doctor Doom – Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Evil General – D-War)

Biggest badass of the year:

Zoe Bell – Death Proof

Best Director:

Brad Bird – Ratatouille (Runner up: Paul Greengrass – The Bourne Ultimatum, David Fincher – Zodiac)

Worst Director:

To be decided between Chris Sivertson – I Know Who Killed Me and Hyung-Rae Shim – D-War) (Runner-up: Mark Steven Johnson – Ghost Rider, Richard Kelly – Southland Tales, Lee Tamahori – Next)

“Stop perving, Grandad!” director of the year:

Mike Nichols – Charlie Wilson’s War. We get it, Mike, Charlie Wilson was a big perv, but that doesn’t excuse the leering shots of boobs and butts, nor does it even begin to explain why you cast Emily Blunt and then made her sit around in next to no clothes for five minutes and then not have her appear for the rest of the film. (Runner-up: Michael Bay – Tranformers. Megan Fox is not that hot, so please stop staring at her oiled midriff, kthx)

Best cinematographer:

Roger Deakins – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and No Country For Old Men (Runner-up: Harris Savides – Zodiac, Robert Yeoman – The Darjeeling Limited)

Best sound design:

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Runner-up: I Am Legend, Tranformers)

Best visual effects:

Transformers (Runner-up: The Fountain, Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End)

Most improved director:


Danny Boyle – Sunshine. I’ve always been frustrated by the lionisation of Boyle, whose movies feature pretty shots and no overall coherence or concept of how one shot has to link into another (Michael Bay gets accused of this yet I think he’s much better at creating a whole movie than Boyle, and yes, I know that is considered heresy. Whatever!). Sunshine is the first film where he gets it totally right. The whole movie is an perfectly sustained audio-visual assault. He can be proud of it.

Runner-up: Len Wiseman – Die Hard 4.0. I’ve found Wiseman to be a hack with a bland visual style and little imagination, but even though Die Hard 4.0 shared the same monochrome look of his vampire movies, the action scenes featured some wonderfully imaginative moments, not counting the Jurassic Park 2 rip-off with the car in the elevator shaft. I was very pleasantly surprised. Still got a shit villain, though. Did Hans Gruber have no more brothers?

Most precipitous drop in directorial ability:

Sam Raimi – Spider-Man 3. Jaredan maintains Raimi purposely sabotaged the movie as a screw-you to Sony for making him include Venom, and I can’t argue with him. I can’t believe someone as talented and conscientious as Raimi could poop out something as dreadful as this. Let’s hope he improves soon, as he’s still top of the list of directors capable of pulling off The Hobbit.

Disappointment of the year:

Spider-Man 3 (Runner-up: Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End, Eastern Promises)

Most overrated film of the year:

Atonement. Stately, respectable, well-crafted, pretty. It’s all of those. It’s also empty, features some really dodgy acting, and makes no sense until the final twist comes into play. Then it’s all very affecting, but for an hour, the movie is filled with head-scratchers and logical leaps. (Runner-up: 28 Weeks Later)

Most underrated film of the year:

Hot Fuzz. Has none of the respectable cachet of Atonement, but is possibly the most carefully crafted British film in decades. Repeat viewings unearth a wealth of detail and beautiful structure. If only critics loved Point Break and the films of Michael Bay the way they should, they would have appreciated its genius. (Runner-up: Curse of the Golden Flower)

Best comic adaptation of the year:

300. I don’t even like it that much, but the competition (Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider) is pitiful. Persepolis is almost certainly going to be better, even though Marjane Satrapi is not really a comic writer/artist, more like a writer who draws the odd picture.

Best schadenfreude:

The Brothers Affleck prove to a sceptical world that they are awesome, to the massive happiness of myself.

Best comeback of the year:


Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay for Charlie Wilson’s War was his best in ages; smart, funny, irreverent, and only a bit pompous. It went a long way towards making up for Studio 60.

Best action scene of the year:

Jason Bourne vs. Desh – The Bourne Ultimatum (Runner-up: Autobots and humanity vs. Decepticons vs. a city – Transformers, motoring ladies vs. Stuntman Mike – Death Proof, Viggo’s genitalia vs. hitmen – Eastern Promises)

Best non-action scene of the year:

Anton Ego eats a meal – Ratatouille (Runner-up: Cops interrogate John Carroll Lynch – Zodiac, every conversation between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in Hot Fuzz)

Best musical moment of the year:

Marketa Irglova sings on her way back home – Once (Runner-up: Samuel L. Jackson sings Stack-O-Lee to a writhing sweaty mass of people – Black Snake Moan, Justin Timberlake lipsynchs to All These Things That I’ve Done by The Killers – Southland Tales)

Most WTF ending of the year:

The Mist – I cannot spoil it, and am still not sure whether I liked it or not, but I will say this: once seen, never ever forgotten.

Most bullshit death of the year:

Jazz going out like a punk in Transformers. Okay, so Megatron is five times taller, but still, that was not acceptable. (Runner-up: the various “tragic” moments at the end of Spider-Man 3)

Most wasted actors of the year:

Chow Yun Fat – Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End (Runner-up: Emily Blunt – Charlie Wilson’s War, Thomas Haden Church – Spider-Man 3)

Biggest jerks of the Year:

The Weinsteins’ decision to block the international release of Grindhouse may have been borne of their fears of financial ruin, but the dismissive attitude they have towards international audiences, and the lack of understanding they have of the movie itself (individually hardly anyone likes the films, but together they are perfect entertainment) is notable. Just remember, next time they push for a film to win an Oscar with their bully tactics, it’s got nothing to do with championing the film. They’re only in it for themselves.

Best screw-you of the year:


Kurt Russell mouthing off against the Weinsteins at the Cannes Film Festival. Just like Snake Plissken would! Now go appear in a bunch of movies next year because you are so awesome, okay?

************

Canyon’s Mostly Redundant End-of-Year List

Though you might have caught on that Admiral Neck is very fond of end-of-year list-making, I myself am not. I do love reading other people’s lists, I have to admit, and I appreciate the opportunity to step back, think about the year as a whole, and organize your thoughts. The problem for me is that I often don’t feel there are ten movies made every year that I will remember and really love as time goes on (the same goes with books and music and tv shows — most years will produce maybe three or four of each). With most movies I enjoy in a given year, “Oh yeah, that’s a good movie” is the first thought that springs to mind when I think about them later — not “Wow, what a haunting, life-changing masterpiece that was.”

I get that it’s probably the same for everybody, but I feel wrong memorializing merely good movies in a top-ten list when they probably won’t matter much to me in the long run. I guess this is kind of unfair to the very good movies I leave off, but it’s my list and I’ll do what I want. Also, Admiral Neck and I have very similar tastes, so I mostly have the same movies on as he does, and I liked all the other movies he mentioned mostly as much as he did (except The Darjeeling Limited, because I have been burned by Wes Anderson too many times and refused to see what was by all accounts another dollhouse whimsy-fest). Okay, enough clearing-of-throat preamble: my seven favorite movies of the year (I could stretch this to ten, but I feel a bit wrong doing it, so I won’t).

Top Seven

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford — One of the most gorgeous movies I’ve ever seen (the visuals in the train-robbery scene will stay with me a long time); the comparisons to Terrence Malick are apt, but this film is no rip-off (as if that would even be a bad thing). The narration was moving and elegiac and wonderfully literary, the pace was perfect, many scenes were incredibly haunting (especially the fantastic ending), and Casey Affleck needs awards shoved between his tiny Chiclet teeth immediately.

Ratatouille -- I adore The Iron Giant but was disappointed with The Incredibles (apparently I was the only person on earth who was), but this movie had Admiral Neck and I sobbing like little babies. I would have cried more if we hadn’t been in public. Gorgeous animation, wonderfully funny, with a turn by Peter O’Toole that made me choke up over a discourse on the role of critics. That’s some writin’, Brad Bird! And damn you, by the way, for making me cry more at your movies than even one of Joss Whedon’s.

Zodiac — Another one that stayed with me for weeks afterward. A meta-comment on obsession that was scary, funny, thought-provoking, and ended perfectly.

(Note: All three of the movies above are what I’d consider the haunting-masterpiece variety.)

I Am Legend — Yeah, I said it. I think the movie was very unfairly derided as being a typical Will Smith flashy blockbuster, a sci-fi FX-extravaganza with no brain and no heart. (And it almost was — Admiral Neck got hold of the original script, and it’s absolutely terrible, and the kind of movie you can imagine would have been perfect for Michael Bay [he was previously attached to direct].) Instead, it’s a quiet, thoughtful, incredibly moving meditation on isolation and loneliness, and the main character’s slow descent into madness. I don’t often agree with Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek (though I love reading her reviews), but I think she was mostly on the mark about this one. I don’t agree with the complaint I’ve often heard about the ending — I think it flows very well with what came before, and while I think the God stuff and the very end were missteps, those aren’t the moments that stayed with me. The shots of a deserted New York are incredible, the action set-pieces are brilliant, and I haven’t been able to get some scenes out of my mind since I saw it. There might have even been more sobbing during this than during Ratatouille (though I blame Admiral Neck for being a big crier himself and dragging me down with him).

Once — My favorite musical of the year (though who knows if Sweeney Todd would have bested it; that doesn’t come out here till January, thanks distributors!!!!!). Wonderful performances, beautiful songs — I went on about it earlier this year so won’t belabor it, but it was absolutely lovely.

3:10 to Yuma — The second-best Western of the year — perhaps a bit too neatly wrapped up at the end, but that’s kind of what I liked about the ending, that even though Russell Crowe’s actions are seemingly out of character, they make perfect sense in the context of the movie. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but I loved the symmetry of it.

Grindhouse — Planet Terror was a perfect spoof — mocking grindhouse movies with hilarious accuracy but incredibly clever in its own right. Death Proof wasn’t a grindhouse spoof by any stretch of the imagination — it was more of a Tarantino movie badly filmed and scratched up — but it was brilliant in its own right (people moaned about it, but would they really want two back-to-back straight spoofs?).

Black Book — Straight up Verhoevenly goodness. In Dutch!

Best Coen brothers movie I’ve seen, but which still left me a bit cold: No Country for Old Men

Movie I thought I’d hate and, much to Admiral Neck’s gloating joy, I really, really liked: The Bourne Ultimatum

Favorite bad movie: Ghost Rider, mostly because of the weird character quirks Nicolas Cage adds to his performance

Biggest disappointment: Eastern Promises (I loved History of Violence and consider it one of those elusive masterpieces, so it was a huge disappointment to find that this barely felt like a movie)

Movies I liked but am a bit ashamed to admit to: Music and Lyrics, Hairspray, Transformers (and potentially Dan in Real Life, as it’s supposed to be a lot better than the mawkish trailer makes it seem)

Movies that would probably be on my list if they came out in the UK in %#$($# December like they should have: Walk Hard, There Will Be Blood, Juno, Sweeney Todd, Into the Wild, Away From Her, National Treasure 2: Book of Seeeeeecrets, No End in Sight

Things I Learnt Today (Dec 4th)

Posted on by

1. Michel Gondry has a brother almost as talented as him.

If I were to name the artist I derive the most inspiration from, it would have to be Michel Gondry, director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Human Nature, and some of the greatest music videos ever created. The DVD, The Work of Michel Gondry is the one I would save from a burning building, as it features so many little works and touches and thoughts and clever little moments that I’m inspired to just devote my life to creating art every time I watch it (and then I forget to, but that’s my fault, not Gondry’s). I love that his philosophy of lo-fi DIY filmmaking not only informs how he makes his movies (The Science of Sleep‘s on-set physical effects), but also the projects he chooses (the wondrous Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, in which Chappelle throws a huge party seemingly on the spur of the moment and basically wings it), and the plots of new projects. Case in point; his next movie Be Kind Rewind, which looks to be about taking art back from the corporations and making stories for yourself and your friends and relatives. It’s a charming idea, and even better it stars Jack Black and Mos Def, two actor/musicians who seem to annoy a lot of people but fill me with joy.


Anyway, it turns out his brother, Oliver “Twist” Gondry, is also a filmmaker/animator, and has worked on many ads, some of which are quite beautiful. This is my favourite; a Hewlett Packard ad that features Michel talking about his philosophy, as well as his family.

On the Works DVD, he idolises his son and has an endearing rapport with him. Hearing him talk about him here in the advert made me realise how unpretentious he is, how happy he is to mesh his life and his art, and how his need to keep creating things keeps him so centred. He truly is an inspiration.

2. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are playing another stadium gig in London next May.

I am, of course, thrilled to hear this, but of course if I can’t get a ticket, I will be very very sad and might have a horrible strop not unlike earlier tonight when I spilled a carton of double cream on the floor.

3. Do not spray Mr. Muscle Multi-Cleaner on spilled double cream.

They say don’t cry over spilled milk, but having a screaming fit over spilled cream is just fine. It’s hard enough to get off the floor as it is, but upon trying to wash up the last bits, I applied a Mr. Muscle variant which instantly curdled the cream, turning it into a viscous substance not unlike the glue we used to use in primary school. It had to be almost pulled off the floor, it was so tenacious. Without my wake-up coffee, and in desperate need of a shower, the last thing I needed was to wrestle with some dairy-based epoxy. That the kitchen didn’t get demolished by my subsequent Hulk-like tantrum is a testament to some vestige of restraint within myself.

4. Cutthroat Bitch Amber might make a return to House.

This was posted on Michael Ausiello’s blog last week, but I only just noticed it tonight. Seems Anne Dudek made a big impression on the House showrunners, as producer Katie Jacobs explains.

Michael Ausiello: Why’d you cut the Cutthroat Bitch! I loved her!
Katie Jacobs: I can tell you that it was a phenomenally difficult decision. When we decided to go in this [Survivor-like] direction this season, [fellow exec producer] David Shore and I never anticipated that we’d fall in love with as many of the characters as we did — and [Cutthroat Bitch] was certainly one of those. But I would say that, if you want to see more of her, so do we. And I think that that might happen. She’s terrific, and she adds a really great color to the group. I’m looking forward to finding a way that she could come back into the fold.

While I maintain she would not be a good fit as a member of the Cottages, Dudek was enormous fun this season, and it would be great to get her back in some capacity.

5. Many years ago, it was illegal to smile in Russia, except for propaganda purposes.

While searching for information on Ayn Rand (I’m currently reading The Fountainhead in order to back up or dispel certain comments I made in a Ratatouille post some weeks ago), I found a transcript of her perfectly charming testimony in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, during the McCarthy period. She talks of a movie made during WWII called Song of Russia, made to bolster the relationship between American and Russian troops united against the Nazis, in much the same way that Poweel and Pressburger made A Matter of Life and Death to engender fond feelings between Yanks and Limeys. With the war over, Rand explained why she thought the film showed a false image of Russia, based on her time there.

Also realize that when all this sweetness and light was going on in the first part of the picture, with all these happy, free people, there was not a GPU agent among them, with no food lines, no persecution — complete freedom and happiness, with everybody smiling. Incidentally, I have never seen so much smiling in my life, except on the murals of the world’s fair pavilion of the Soviets. If any one of you have seen it, you can appreciate it. It is one of the stock propaganda tricks of the Communists, to show these people smiling. That is all they can show.

Mr. [John] McDowell: You paint a very dismal picture of Russia. You made a great point about the number of children who were unhappy. Doesn’t anybody smile in Russia any more?
Miss Rand: Well, if you ask me literally, pretty much no.
Mr. McDowell: They don’t smile?
Miss Rand: Not quite that way; no. If they do, it is privately and accidentally. Certainly, it is not social. They don’t smile in approval of their system.
Mr. McDowell: Well, all they do is talk about food.
Miss Rand: That is right.

Also no one could look at each other, and if you had food, watch out because everyone will rip you to shreds to get at it, even though it was probably horrible beetroot soup!

In my time we were a bunch of ragged, starved, dirty, miserable people who had only two thoughts in our mind. That was our complete terror — afraid to look at one another, afraid to say anything for fear of who is listening and would report us — and where to get the next meal. You have no idea what it means to live in a country where nobody has any concern except food, where all the conversation is about food because everybody is so hungry that that is all they can think about and that is all they can afford to do. They have no idea of politics. They have no idea of any pleasant romances or love — nothing but food and fear…

Now, here is the life in the Soviet village as presented in Song Of Russia. You see the happy peasants. You see they are meeting the hero at the station with bands, with beautiful blouses and shoes, such as they never wore anywhere. You see children with operetta costumes on them and with a brass band which they could never afford. You see the manicured starlets driving tractors and the happy women who come from work singing. You see a peasant at home with a close-up of food for which anyone there would have been murdered. If anybody had such food in Russia in that time he couldn’t remain alive, because he would have been torn apart by neighbors trying to get food.

::sigh:: Oh Ayn, you kooky old bird! You need to buy yourself a rootbeer float to cheer yourself up. Have a dollar on me. Or should I say, as my copy of The Fountainhead tells me, have a colophon of the philosophy of Objectivism on me, whatever the hell that means.

As for Brad Bird, I also found out he denies being an Objectivist in a NY Post interview with Lou Lumenick.

Bird: The idea that “The Incredibles,” a mainstream animated feature, was thought of as provocative was wonderful to me. I was very gratified, though I thought some of the analysis was really kind of goofy.
Lumenick: Such as?
Bird: Some pieces compared the viewpoint to the objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand. I thought that was silly and the writers were humorless. I was into Rand for about six months when I was 20, but you outgrow that narrow point of view. Some compromise is necessary in life.

Knowing that, I might just give up on this damn book now, except that it’s so overwrought and funny. Hell, even though I find her philosophy unpleasant, and her alliance with HUAC detestable, I owe it to her and myself to at least give it a try. I guess. [Thanks to decca for inspiring me to find that crazy transcript.]

6. I’m so envious of Americans because John C. Reilly is touring as Dewey Cox.

Canyon has already written a post about Walk The Line and how excited we are at the imminent release of the spoof Walk Hard, but now I see John C. Reilly is touring the US. He’ll be in character as Dewey Cox, and will be backed by his band the Hard Walkers. It’s sold out already, which bodes well for the movie box office (unless the gigs suck and annoy the audience, of course). There’s no plan to tour the UK, obviously, as we’re just Airstrip One, after all. The movie isn’t coming out on time here either, thus increasing my ire. Still, at least this perfect poster eases the pain somewhat.


Plus, we’re getting Springsteen in London! Beat that, America! ::pokes out tongue::

ETA: 7: It seems my Ticketmaster account was out of date:

While buying Springsteen tickets, I found, to my great amusement, that I haven’t used my Ticketmaster account since living elsewhere. As a result, my bank card was out of date and my old address was listed. I’m not good in stressful situations, and the purchasing of popular tickets within a very small window is one of the most pulse-stretching things I can do, so it was not much fun to have to change everything while a little message tells me I only have one minute to confirm the purchase. But I did it! And I have tickets! Directly opposite the stage, and therefore several miles away from Bruce, Clarence, Little Steven, Max Weinberg and the rest, but it’s better than nothing. Much better. Because it is a Bruce Springsteen gig, and as Jon Stewart said recently, they are pure joy.