This is Sofia Coppola’s (Lost in Translation) story of an A-list movie star (Steven Dorff) living at the Chateau Marmont with his expensive toys, booze and drugs and an inexhaustible supply of beautiful, sexually available women. Without any purpose or connection to others, his debauchery is completely joyless. To his surprise and discomfort, his eleven-year-old daughter (Elle Fanning) moves in for a few weeks. He slowly finds some connection to her, but then she leaves for summer camp and he is aimless, again.
Somewhere is an artsy portrait of a man so purposeless that he can find no pleasure in pleasure.
Fanning is great as the kid. Surprisingly, Jackass‘ Chris Pontius shines as the movie star’s best bud.
Here’s another delightfully trashy gem from Sam Fuller, my favorite tabloid reporter turned Hollywood auteur. In The Naked Kiss, a prostitute opens the movie by beating her pimp to a pulp, and then moves to a new town, seeking a new beginning in the straight world. She gets a job as a nurse at the clinic for disabled children, and becomes engaged to the town’s leading philanthropist. She thinks that everything will be great unless someone reveals her tawdry past. But, instead, she discovers that her Mr. Perfect is molesting the crippled kids! (Only Sam Fuller could pull this off!)
Biutiful is about a great performance by Javier Bardem in a grim, grim, really grim role. (Yes, this film is grimmer than Bardem’s The Sea Inside, in which he plays a suicidal paraplegic.) In this film, Bardem plays Uxbal, a Barcelona lowlife who lives by perpetrating various petty scams. Low level crime does not pay well, and he lives in poverty with his kids, who he cannot trust with his bipolar, alcoholic wife (who is sleeping with his brother). Then he receives a medical death sentence – only two months to live. And then, things get even worse!
Can he leave his kids with a stable life? Can he find some redemption? It’s a compelling portrait of a desperate man in desperate circumstance, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores perros, 21 Grams, Babel).
Has anyone has five better performances in the past decade than Bardem in The Dancer Upstairs, The Sea Inside, No Country for Old Men, Vicky Christina Barcelona and Biutiful? Bardem won Best Actor at Cannes for Biutiful.
Okay, I’ll admit that I saw Season of the Witch because the trailer made me laugh out loud. I thought that it might have been goofily bad enough to qualify for my list of 10 Movies So Bad They Are Fun. Unfortunately, it’s just bad and not much fun.
Season of the Witch is a Nicholas Cage/Ron Perlman buddy movie set among the plague, crusades and witch hunts of the 13th century. Cage and Perlman play two knights who, after slaughtering more than their share of women and children infidels, become disgusted with the Crusades. The deserters find themselves back in plague-ridden Central Europe escorting a comely accused witch to her abbey trial. Along the way, they encounter the cheesiest of CGI effects, the most portentous of soundtracks and every medieval cliché.
My recommendation: get some laughs from the trailer and skip the 95 minute version.
Now is the time to catch future Oscar contenders on the big screen, especially crowd pleasers like True Grit, The King’s Speech and Black Swan.
True Grit is the Coen Brothers’ splendid Old West story of Mattie Ross, a girl of unrelenting resolve and moxie played by 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld in a breakthrough performance, and Jeff Bridges is perfect as the hilarious, oft-besotted and frequently lethal Rooster Cogburn. The King’s Speech is the crowd pleasing story of a good man (Colin Firth) overcoming his stammer to inspire his nation in wartime with the help of a brassy commoner (Geoffrey Rush). Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a rip roaring thriller and a showcase for Natalie Portman and Barbara Hershey.
I strongly recommend Rabbit Hole, an exquisite exploration of the grieving process with great performances by Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhardt, Diane Wiest, Sandra Oh and Miles Tenner. The Fighter is an excellent drama, starring Mark Wahlberg as a boxer trying to succeed despite his crack addict brother (Christian Bale) and trashy mom (Melissa Leo). Fair Game, the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson story with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, is also excellent. All are on my list of Best Movies of 2010.
I Love You, Phillip Morris is an entertaining offbeat combo of the con man, prison and romantic comedy genres. Red Hill is a stylish contemporary Aussie Western. Season of the Witch is a bad Nicholas Cage/Ron Perlman buddy movie set among the plague, crusades and witch hunts of the 13th century.
The great character actor Pete Postlethwaite died last week, and this week’s DVD pick honors his finest film work.In the Name of the Father(1993) is based on the true story of Gerry Conlon (Daniel Day-Lewis) of the Guildford Four, wrongly convicted of an IRA bombing that killed four British soldiers and a civilian. The four were coerced into confessions by torture and threats against their families. The real IRA terrorists, captured later for another act, confessed to the crime, but the British government suppressed the evidence of the Guildford Four’s innocence. Gerry Conlon wound up in prison with his father Giuseppe (Postlethwaite), also convicted of an IRA plot as a member of the Maguire Seven – and Postlethwaite’s performance is one of uncommon inner strength.
Don’t miss the great movies released during the Holidays. This is the time of year that I live for – lots of great choices in the theater, especially crowd pleasers like True Grit, The King’s Speech and Black Swan.
True Grit is the Coen Brothers’ splendid Old West story of Mattie Ross, a girl of unrelenting resolve and moxie played by 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld in a breakthrough performance, and Jeff Bridges is perfect as the hilarious, oft-besotted and frequently lethal Rooster Cogburn. The King’s Speech is the crowd pleasing story of a good man (Colin Firth) overcoming his stammer to inspire his nation in wartime with the help of a brassy commoner (Geoffrey Rush). Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a rip roaring thriller and a showcase for Natalie Portman and Barbara Hershey.
I strongly recommend Rabbit Hole, an exquisite exploration of the grieving process with great performances by Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhardt, Diane Wiest, Sandra Oh and Miles Tenner. The Fighter is an excellent drama, starring Mark Wahlberg as a boxer trying to succeed despite his crack addict brother (Christian Bale) and trashy mom (Melissa Leo). Fair Game, the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson story with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, is also excellent. I Love You, Phillip Morris is an entertaining offbeat combo of the con man, prison and romantic comedy genres. For some delectable food porn, see Kings of Pastry.
There are some Must See films still kicking around in theaters this week: Inside Job and The Social Network. Both are on my list of Best Movies of 2010 – So Far.
In this 2010 thriller, George Clooney plays an international master assassin. He lives a life of crushing loneliness. Anyone who gets close to him will either die or betray him. He is exhausted by years of perpetual vigilance, unnourished by human affection. I remember this loneliness from my own years as an international master assassin.
Clooney’s character is written and played well. This is a smart, arty film that transcends its hackneyed set-up: the assassin takes One Last Job and encounters some beautiful, available and potentially dangerous women who may be Up To No Good. The climax reminds me of the greatest assassin movie, Day of the Jackal.
For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.
One of the most rewarding aspects of watching movies is seeing the emergence of new talent. Here are some pleasant surprises from the past year.
With just her second feature, Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone) has emerged as an important filmmaker to watch. She presented an unflinching look at the Ozark meth dealer subculture without ever resorting to stereotype. Granik hit a home run with every artistic choice, from the locations to the spare soundtrack to the pacing to the casting. I’ll be watching for her next film.
20-year-old Jennifer Lawrence is in every scene of Winter’s Bone. With a minimum of dialogue, she creates a lead character of rarely seen determination.
14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld plays the main character in the Coen Brothers’ True Grit, a girl of unrelenting resolve and moxie. Without her performance, the movie could not have been the success that it is, and she has no problem standing up to the likes of Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin and Matt Damon.
The Swedish actress Noomi Rapace was new to us Americans when she originated the very original character of damaged, angry, master hacker Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Although Rooney Mara will play Lisbeth in the upcoming David Fincher versions, I’m sure that Noomi Rapace will fetch some Hollywood offers.
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) and Jonah Hill (Cyrus) showed us that their acting ranges are far wider than previously evident.
Mia Wasilova had a very good year in The Kids Are All Right and Alice in Wonderland. I’m looking forward to see her work in 2011, starting with Restless.
Screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe tried a novel approach in Going the Distance that respected the audience – creating characters like the ones we know in real life, who talk and act like real people do. And, instead of an implausible set-up, the conflict was the real problem of a bi-coastal romance. He wound up writing the year’s best rom com.
Edgar Ramirez carries the 5 1/2 hours of Carlos. I’m sure we’ll see the Venezuelan star soon in a Hollywood vehicle.
Ajami was co-written and co-directed by Scandar Copti, a Jaffa-born Palestinian, and Yaron Shoni, an Israeli Jew. After seeing the film, I was surprised to learn that it has no trained actors – all of the roles are played by real-life residents who improvised their lines to follow the story line. Ajami is a unique project, but I hope that Copti and Shoni continue their collaboration.
Touching Home is a little movie with a big performance by Ed Harris The film was written and directed by and stars the Miller twins, Logan and Noah, who tell the story of their own alcoholic father. The authenticity of the writing and Harris’ performance make this an exceptionally realistic depiction of alcoholism. The Miller twins made the most of their debut, and I look forward to what they do next.
Here’s my list of the best films of 2010: 1) Winter’s Bone; 2) Toy Story 3; 3)The Social Network; 4) The Secrets in their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos); 5) Rabbit Hole; 6) Black Swan; 7) A Prophet (Un Prophete); 8 ) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; 9) Mademoiselle Chambon; 10) (tie) Ajami and Inception.
(Note: I’m saving room for some films that I haven’t yet seen, especially Mike Leigh’s Another Year.)
Continuing with my list of 2010’s best films: The Tillman Story, True Grit, The King’s Speech, The Girl on the Train (La Fille du RER), Inside Job, Fish Tank, The Ghost Writer, Carlos, Fair Game, Hereafter, The Fighter, Solitary Man, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work and Sweetgrass.
You can watch the trailers and see my comments on all these films at Best Movies of 2010.
(Further Note: The Secrets in their Eyes, A Prophet and Ajami were nominated for the 2009 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but were widely released in the US in 2010.)
