My 25 Most Anticipated Films of 2014

Well, it's that time of the year again.  All the hoopla of the past year's top tens has finally died down, and even though we still have the Oscars coming up, it's time to turn our eyes toward the cinematic goings-on of 2014.  In other words, here's a list of the twenty-five (or so) films that I am most looking forward to this coming year.  So, without further ado, here we go.  Let's count 'em down.

25. Life Itself - A documentary based on the memoir of the late great Roger Ebert, directed by Steve James, the man who made Hoop Dreams, a documentary that Ebert was integral in making a success back in 1994.  Oh you tricky little circle of life you.  Whether James captures Ebert or not, just the chance to watch the life of the most influential critic on this critic, puts the film on the list.

24. 22 Jump Street - After the surprising success of the first film (before the film came out I was expecting it to be part of my worst of the year list, instead of a runner-up on my best list) Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill move across the street, and take their somewhat surprisingly hilarious high school act into the local college.  Second films tend to go downhill from the original (well, it would be the semi-original in this case) but since the first one surprised so well, why not again?  We'll see.

23. Godzilla - After the beyond disastrous 1998 version, many are holding their collective breath waiting for the May release of this monster.  At the helm is Gareth Edwards, who went straight from the extremely low budget monster movie, Monsters, to the extremely high budget monster movie, Godzilla, and I suppose many are wondering if he is up to the task.  But hey, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Bryan Cranston in the cast, how can ya not be excited over seeing Kick-Ass and Walter White battle the big G-Dogg?

22. Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Cap has always been one of my faves in the comics, stoic and Gary Cooper-esque (and especially brilliant when written by Ed Brubaker), and the first film was a much better film than many gave it credit for being.  Now we get the old guy in the modern world, assisted by Black Widow and having to fight the Winter Soldier.  As a comicbook nerd, this sounds like fun to me.

21. Boxtrolls - I've a secret to tell.  I love stop-motion animation.  No, really, I love love love it.  Can't get enough of it kinda love.  Give me stop-motion or give me death!  With all that out there, it is a safe bet that I am excited to see the latest stop-motion movie by the same animation studio that gave us Coraline and Paranorman (and in their early days, those dancing California Raisins of the 1980's).  Can't wait for September.

20. Assassin - From one of the most cerebral filmmakers of Asia, Taiwan's Hou Hsiao-hsien, now gives us something that seems more in the Wong Kar-wai vein of things - a period piece about an assassin.  Granted, it could be delayed until 2015, but right now, it looks like it may make it to the states by year's end.  Of course, Hou being Hou (and Hou's will be Hou's - I crack myself up sometimes), this is probably not going to be the mainstreamiest of movies, so NYC and LA are it's only real potential hot spots.

19. How To Catch a Monster - Christina Hendricks and Saoirse Ronan star in this fantasy-thriller that also just so happens to be the directorial debut of one, Mr. Ryan Gosling.  Hopefully the actor, who has more than proven himself on this side of the camera, has learned a thing or two about directing while working with the likes of Derek Cianfrance and Nicolas Winding Refn.

18. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For - The graphic noir gang is all back together again, including co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller (the writer of the original novels), and stars Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis, Rosario Dawson, and Mickey Rourke, now joined by new kids on the block, Eva Green, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin, Juno Temple, and even Lady Gaga.

17. Two Days, One Night - The Belgium-born Dardenne Brothers, the duo that gave us such brilliant cinema of endurance films as Rosetta, L'Enfant, and The Kid with a Bike, are back with a film that, thanks to lead Marion Cotillard (the biggest name the directors have ever had in one of their films), could be their most seen film here in the states.  Okay, maybe not that big of a hit, but I do love the Dardennes. Why the hell don't you!?

16. Birdman - From the man who gave the world the Mexican New Wave hit Amores Perros, as well as 21 Grams, this new film about a washed-up actor, starring Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts, will hopefully make us forget the disheveled and ultimately mediocre Babel, and bring us back to the director's earlier works.

15. X-Men: Days of Future Past - As an X-Men fan from waaay back, long before the movies, long before Wolverine was in every comic made by Marvel, an way before the Phoenix or The Days of Future Past, I quiver at the possibilities of this film, but I also shudder at the possibility of this film sucking the royal teat.  This one really could go either way, and it worries me.  Will it be as good as First Class or as band as Last Stand?  After seeing some of the costumes and such in Empire Magazine this week, my worries have risen.  Even with these worries, I still place this film rather high on my list.  I mean, it is the X-Men after all.

14. Boyhood - This Richard Linklater project, filmed intermittently between 2002 and 2013, takes a look at more than a decade in the life of a boy as he deals with his divorced parents, played by Patricia Arquette and Linklater buddy Ethan Hawke.  Sort of a fictional version of the Up series, or perhaps a bit akin to Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series, the chameleonic auteur does it again - hopefully.

13. The Grand Budapest Hotel - I sort of have a love/hate relationship with Wes Anderson.  I think the guy is a talented filmmaker, and has a fun visual style to his work, but at the same time, the filmmaker hero to all the hipsters, seems to keep making the exact same movie over and over again, and this one, judging from the trailer, looks to be no different.  Alas poor Wes, let's change it up a bit next time, huh?

12. Guardians of the Galaxy - Forget Spidey, Cap, and all those Marvelous Mutants, this is the super hero movie to watch for. Why?  Because no one really knows what it is going to be.  Outside of the comic-reading world (a place where I reside) no one really knows who the hell these guys are, and unlike known properties such as the aforementioned Spidey, Cap, and The X-Men, there's no telling what director James Gunn (incidentally also the director of the fun genre pieces Super and Slither, as well as the writer of Zack Snyder's fantastic Dawn of the Dead remake) will do.  I am Groot!  We are all Groot!!  Those inside the comic-reading world will love that last joke, the rest of you will just have to wait until August.

11. Noah - Normally, I would not be all that interested in a big budget biblical epic, but the fact that Darren Aronofsky is directing this one, and Russell Crowe is starring, gives it a spot at number eleven.  We also get Jennifer Connelly as Noah's little missus, Emma Watson as his daughter, and Anthony Hopkins as good old Methuselah.  Judging from the trailer, the movie does look like a big fat CGI fest, but hopefully the guy who gave us Black Swan, can help it be more than just that.

10. Night Moves - After playing at both Venice and Toronto last year, as well as being on my most anticipated films of 2013 list (whoops), the latest film from Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, Meek's Cutoff), will finally get it's long-awaited US debut later this year.  The film will also showcase the first major adult role for former child starlet Dakota Fanning.

9. Ex Machina - A psycho-tech-thriller, robot romance-esque sci-fi film written and directed by the guy who wrote the screenplays for 28 Days Later..., Sunshine, and Never Let Me Go, and starring Oscar Isaac, fresh off his brilliant turn in Inside Llewyn Davis?  How could we not be excited by this?  In fact, you'd have to be a machine to not be excited about this.  See what I did there?  Yup.

8. While We're Young - Granted, this is another one of those films that may not see the light of day (or the dark of the cinema, if you will) until 2015, but chances are still rather strong that it will be out in late Fal, in time for an Oscar run.  The film is written and directed by Noah Baumbach (Squid and the Whale, Frances Ha) and will star Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, among many others.

7. Interstellar - Starring soon-to-be Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey, along with Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Ellen Burstyn, Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, and Michael Caine, this sci-fi film from Christopher Nolan (you know, the guy who directed Memento, The Prestige, Inception, Insomnia, and the Dark Knight Trilogy), is on pretty much everyone's anticipatory lips these days.  I must admit to not being a huge fan of Inception (I think it lacked a solid third act, and tried too hard to explain what should have been left unexplained) nor the final Dark Knight film (lackluster compared to it's immediate predecessor), but the rest of the auteur's oeuvre intact, I am greatly looking forward to this one.

6. Magic in the Moonlight - Believe it or not, this is not being called the Untitled Woody Allen Project, as has been the case during filming of the director's past films.  Set in 1920's French Riviera, the film stars Emma Stone, Colin Firth, Hamish Linklater, Jacki Weaver, and Marcia Gay Harden.  Granted, the Woodman has been hit or miss the past two decades or so (and he is going through some tough times of late, with ugly allegations being tossed and tweeted his way), but I am hoping this is more in Midnight in Paris, Match Point, Blue Jasmine territory and less in the Scoop or Whatever Works realm.

5. Gone Girl - David Fincher, one of the best directors working today (I mean, c'mon - Panic Room, Fight Club, Se7en, Zodiac, The Social Network, his American remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo!!), is back, and tackling the best seller, Gone Girl, with Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.  Dark and sinister, and both visually and psychologically harrowing, are things we should expect from this film.  Hell, with a filmography such as his, how could we not.  I know I can't wait.

4. Jane Got A Gun - This long-anticipated (in the works for three years now) Natalie Portman western was originally to be directed by Lynne Ramsey, but after she walked due to problems with the studio (Jude Law walked as well, having only signed on in order to work with Ramsey), Gavin O'Conner (Tumbleweeds) took over the helm, and finally, we may actually get to see the film later this year.  I know, I'm excited to see one of my favourite actresses starring in one of my favorite genres.  Hopefully all the pre-production problems did not hurt the final product.

3. The Terrence Malick Kerfuffle - Supposedly, Terrence Malick is working on three films right now, and no one is really sure which will come first, and when it will eventually come.  The auteur is known for taking long times between films (sometimes decades even), but after two films (The Tree of Life and last year's To the Wonder) in just three years, the old boy's pace is a-quickenin'.  Among the actors involved in these simultaneous films, are Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchet, Benicio del Toro, and Michael Fassbender, several of them starring in two of the three.  Who the hell knows what's going to become of this whole conglomerate, but one of them (most likely Knight of Cups) is bound to come out by year's end.  Right?

2. Nymphomaniac - This film was on my list last year as well (and in the same spot, if I'm not mistaken) but it took a bit longer to get here than we had all anticipated.  Now, in a two-part release schedule set for March and April (a la Soderbergh's Che, not Tarantino's Kill Bill), this ever so-controversial film from that ever so-controversial Lars von Trier, in all its penetration-happy glory, and featuring Charlotte Gainsbourgh, Uma Thurman, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Stacy Martin, Connie Nielson, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier, Stellen Skarsgard, and mister breaking news Shia LaBeouf, is finally seeing the light of the American cinema.  I wonder how many people will be offended by this one?  I am almost anticipating the inevitably ridiculous puritan backlash more than the film(s) itself.

1. Inherent Vice - Paul Thomas Anderson is the best filmmaker working today.  There, I said it!  So, I suppose after such a proclamation, it should come as no surprise that his seventh film makes it to the top of the heap on my list.  The man who made the masterpieces Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, and The Master, now takes on the 2009 Thomas Pynchon crime novel.  Expected to be somewhere between The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Josh Brolin, Jena Malone, Martin Short (yeah, Martin Short), Maya Rudolph, Owen Wilson, and Benicio del Toro, this is my most anticipated film of 2014.

Looking even further ahead: There are a few films that will most likely not make the scene until early 2015 sometime.  Though any of these could end up getting a last hour release in time for Oscar consideration, they are more likely candidates for next year's list, but since there is the possibility (albeit it unlikely), and these are films that would definitely make the list if they had sure release dates, I should include them somewhere in here - so here they are.

Carol - Todd Haynes, the man who gave us such brilliant works as Safe, Far From Heaven, I'm Not There, and the HBO mini-series version of Mildred Pierce, as well as the marvelous must-see short film, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (seriously, if you can find this creature, you must watch it!), is back again, once again, like Far From Heaven, set in the not-so-halcyon days of the 1950's, this time with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara heading the cast.  How could we not want to see such a film?  This could make its way into theatres by December (it is the most likely of these three to do so), but probably a Spring 2015 release is more likely, unless they decide to hold the film for an Oscar run next year.

Cyber - This is Michael Man doing what Michael Mann has always done best, the classic American crime film.  This one stars Chris ' The God of Thunder' Hemsworth.  They haven't actually started filming yet (hence the probable 2015 release date) but I'm already all a-twitter over the idea of a new Michael Mann film coming our way after a four+ year absence from the big screen.

Macbeth - Michael Fassbender as Macbeth, and Marion Cotillard as his hand-wringing Lady.  How can this not be one of my most anticipated films?  But alas, poor Macbeth (now I'm just mixing my Shakespeare metaphors), or should I say, poor us, because we will most likely have to wait until next year to finally see this film, unless filming goes quickly (they have not started yet) and we get a rush job for Oscar season.  Though, I am more than willing to wait some extra time just to not have a rush job on this film.

And let us not forget these intriguing but not quite list worthy anticipations (in no particular order): the sci-fi Transcendence w/ Johnny Depp, Aussie drama The Rover, Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man, Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher, Mia Hanson-Love's Eden, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Cronenberg's Map to the Stars, The Wachowski's Jupiter Ascending, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Muppets Most Wanted, The Lego Movie, Ridley Scott's Exodus, Into the Woods, Low Down with Elle Fanning, the latest version of Madame Bovary, starring Mia Wasikowska, and about two or three dozen more.

That's it kids.  See ya 'round the web.

The Best of 2011

I have been busy busy busy this past holiday season, but that does not mean that I forgot about that staple of the year's end.  Another year over and a new one just begun, and that means it's time for the film critic's most anticipated (and sometimes dreaded) annual obligation - the top ten list. A yearly look back at the hundreds of films seen throughout the year and a frenzied shuffling around to narrow your list down to just ten films (or in some cases, trying to find as many as ten films deemed worthy enough). I for one love this annual ritual and wait with giddy baited breath for it to come around, so without further ado, especially since I am kind of late in bringing this to you (but fashionably late dammit!!), I give you my choices for the best films 2011. 

1. The Tree of Life - When I first saw this stunning film up on the big screen (the first of three such visits to the cinema in order to behold this spectacle of light) I knew there would be no competition for the top spot on my eventual best of the year list - and boy was I right.  Resting the proverbial head and shoulders above all other takes, Terrence Malick's brilliant new film is not only the best film of 2011, but also an early candidate for the best film of the decade.  My review can be read here.

2. Hugo - An adventure-filled fantasy film about the birth of cinema, using the most modern of technological moviemaking advances, this 3D motion picture experience from Martin Scorsese is a thing of such cinematic romanticism, with such an audacious love of film and its inherent history (a paean to film preservation if you will) that I defy any true cinephile to either condemn or ignore it.  My review can be read here.

3. Melancholia - In all his hate him or love him glory (or should that be infamy?), Lars von Trier's latest film, taking on the subject of depression hidden in plain and brutal sight, smack dab in the middle of an end-of-the-world scenario, is a nerve-wrangling, twisting, turning, vituosic work of audacious, bullying cinema - and who could ask for anything more.  My review can be read here.

4. Super 8 - Evoking the type of cinema that Steven Spielberg was putting out in the late seventies and early eighties (back when Mr. Spielberg still know how to make us believe) yet still full of the post-millennial chutzpah that is J.J. Abrams, this quaintest of monster movies, replete with those Abramsesque blue lens flares and a camera that seems to never stay put, is the best Summer blockbustery movie that Hollywood has put out in many a year.  My review can be read here.

5. Drive - Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver for hire is one of the best genre pieces Hollywood has put out in a long long time.  Cool and aloof, this film by Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn, is a work of sheer subversive beauty.  Toss in Carey Mulligan as the Driver's only possible salvation and Albert Brooks as an against type small time mob boss (he should win an Oscar) and you have the makings of one damn fine motion picture.  My review can be read here.

6. The Skin I Live In - Creepy and exotic, this psychological thriller from Almodovar is the Spanish auteur at his most dangerously Hitchcockian.  A loose adaptation of Franju's Eyes Without A Face (though based on the French novel Tarantula), this strange creature of a movie is at times hilarious and at times harrowing.  I dare even call it a brilliant psychosexual game of smoke and mirrors.  My review can be read here.

7. Certified Copy - Iranian master filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami has made his first film outside of his native country.  It is a twisting, turning, whirling dervish of cinematic bravura and storytelling audacity.  As we watch Juliette Binoche and William Shimmel make their way through the winding streets of Tuscany, Kiarostami takes us deeper and deeper into his meta-manipulative world of filmmaking, where nothing is ever as it seems.  My review can be read here.

8. Meek's Cutoff - Trudgingly beautiful, this film by the methodically melodic filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, and featuring the director's Wendy and Lucy heroine Michelle Williams in the central role, pissed a hell of a lot of moviegoers off this past year (though perhaps not as many as the number one spot on this list) but what they could not get behind, what they could not understand, was the inherent understated beauty of such a seemingly difficult film (it wasn't really difficult people) as Meek's Cutoff.  My review can be read here.

9. Moneyball - The best damn sports movie ever made.  Yeah, I know that is a pretty bold statement but there you have it - and I am sticking to it.  Looking at the game of baseball from both a statistical mindset (the nerd in me loves that) and a romantic viewpoint (the sentimentalist in me loves that), Moneyball is, and I am going to boldly say it again, the best damn sports movie ever made.  My review can be read here.

10. Attack the Block - Take John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 and replace the never-ending onslaught of nonspeaking L.A. gang members with equally non-speaking (though not non-growling) creatures from outer space and you pretty much get the gist of Attack the Block.  This hit genre piece from the UK is a deliriously fun cinematic ride.  My review can be read here.

11. The Artist - There are some quite remarkable shots in this film, many of them done as homage to either specific classic Hollywood works or a generalized silent era style, and it is in these shots that director Michel Hazanavicius brings such vibrant life to his black and white silent film.  The current frontrunner to win the Best Picture Oscar, The Artist definitely has the visual audacity to pull off such a unique victory. My review can be read here.

12. A Dangerous Method - David Cronenberg somehow manages to take the already strange relationship between Jung and Freud and makes it even stranger.  Of course this is what Cronenberg does best, so one should not be surprised.  A psychosexual (that is at least the second time that term has been used on this list) mindfuck of a movie, hiding behind a supposed analytical period piece - and we get Michael Fassbender to boot.  My review can be read here.

13. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives - Many say Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul is an acquired taste, but when the director makes a film that involves ghost monkeys, ghosts of dead wives and a talking catfish who goes down on an ugly princess, how can you not fall in love?  Seriously though, I have always been a fan of Joe (the long-named director's choice of nicknames) but this may very well be the auteur's best work yet.  My review can be read here.

14. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - I must admit to not being much of a fan of the original Swedish films, finding them to be at times thrilling but mostly middle-of-the-road, but put David Fincher behind the wheel and you get a whole other thing entirely.  With the director's more in your face style of moviemaking, this US remake does something not many other remakes have done, and that is improve the product.  My review can be read here.

15. Midnight in Paris - This is Woody Allen as we have not seen Woody Allen in decades. Perhaps his latest film does not quite match up with many of the films from the director's Golden Age (1977-1992) but with its often biting dialogue and obvious nostalgic set pieces (showing a love for a lost Paris that nearly matches his love of the New York of his childhood) it comes closer than anything he has done since.  My review can be read here.

16. Source Code - With more than an air of Hitchcock in it, Duncan Jones' deceptively brilliant Source Code (the director's more visceral, less moody followup to the equally impressive Moon), loosely based on Chris Marker's La Jetee, is one of those rare mainstream Hollywood movies that forces its viewers to stop being mindless automatons, and to think things out.  My review can be read here.

17. Hanna - With Joe Wright's weaving, obtrusive camera, Saoirse Ronan's killer-diller, cold-blooded performance and a visual and aural in-your-face middle finger to the conventions of cinema, this calculating, visceral man-eating movie starts off slowly but once it gets going it does not stop until the abrupt bang bang credits roll.  My review can be read here.

18. Shame - The harrowing story of one man obsessed with sex.  From hard drives stuffed full of porn to old school girlie mags, from paid escorts to random sexual encounters with strangers, from constant masturbatory trips to the rest room during work to desperate and seedy club hopping, Michael Fassbender's sex addict is one of the finest performances of the year, in one of the most dangerously obsessive movies of the year.  My review can be read here.

19. Kaboom - Gregg Araki's sci-fi/thriller/sex farce/comedy hybrid thingee from another seeming planet is a refreshing and unique look at the genre film - several genres at that.  A mysterious movie that combines elements of David Lynch with moments of balls-out sex romp lunacy, this nearly uncategorizable film was one of the surprise highlights of the year.  My review can be read here.

20. The Arbor - Half documentary, half experimental film, have self-referential stage play (yeah yeah I know - math has never been my strong suit), this quite subversive, quite harrowing biopic about late playwright Andrea Dunbar, is probably the most unique film of the year in its use of real life people (Dunbar's actual friends and family) blended with actors lipsynching the actual words of witnesses.  A play within a play within a MacGuffin.  My review can be read here.

21. Beginners - A sobering yet romantic look at one man's journey through the long and laborious death of his newly uncloseted elderly gay father.  And as coolly written and directed as this film is by first timer Mike Mills (no, not the R.E.M. bassist), it is Christopher Plummer's spectacular performance in the film (one that may win the veteran actor his first Oscar) that puts it on this list.  My review can be read here.

22. Rango - Take one animated lizard, give him the voice of Johnny Depp, the wardrobe of Hunter S. Thompson and the demeanor of Don Knotts, and place him smack dab in the middle of a Spaghetti Western styled remake of Chinatown, throw in a wild menagerie of supporting mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds, and you have the best animated film of 2011 - hands down.  My review can be read here.

I suppose some runners-up would be appropriate right now, so here they are, in no particular order: The Guard, Take Shelter, Rubber, Hobo With A Shotgun, The Ides of March, Le Havre, Cracks, Drive Angry, Troll Hunter, Super, Horrible Bosses, Weekend, Higher Ground, Tuesday After Christmas, Another Earth, The Future, Terri, We Are What We Are, Cold Weather, I Saw the Devil, The Muppets, Tabloid, Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, Footloose, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes and X-Men: First Class.

Well that is it for 2011.  Coming soon will be my most anticipated films of 2012 list, so stay tuned.

Film Review: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

I must admit to not being much of a fan of the original Swedish trilogy (and I haven't even read the bestselling novels they in turn were based upon!), and I am far from a proponent of Hollywood remaking every successful foreign film they can get their hungry little hands on (why can't American movie audiences just watch a damned subtitled film!?), but put a daring director like David Fincher behind the wheel and place a surprisingly powerful, relatively unknown actress like Rooney Mara as the titular tattooed lady, and you can certainly colour me impressed.

If I had any trepidation going in it would have been on the question of the brutality that was so inherent in the original series, and if a mainstream studio project (and Oscar hopeful to boot) would allow such unapologetic cruelty to be part of its make-up - even when that same said cruelty was integral to telling such a story.  My hopes for such a positive transition from European art house to playing in Peoria were taken pretty high when I first heard that Fincher would be taking the reigns, but they went through the proverbial roof when I finally saw the picture and realized, from the very onset of the succulent black and white opening titles that looked as if they creeped out of a oil-drenched Bosch nightmare, that no one put this baby in a corner.  

Without wavering, Fincher kept the film as brutal and as harrowing as it needed to be.  The director even said, when he was first attached to the film, that he would not soft-peddle the literary content, and that this would be a "Hard R" rated movie.  This may be a turn off for those on the squeamish side (the aforementioned brutality is certainly nothing to be trifled with), but to the fan of the books and/or the original trilogy who want the best adaptation money can buy, and to someone like me who believes in balls-to-the-wall filmmaking, it is the most necessary of evils.  But still, the brutality is only the surface of this intricate and rather convoluted film (sometimes the storyline can more than border on the ridiculous) - the real stuff comes with the performance of Ms. Mara as the socially maladjusted computer hacker genius heroine of the whole shebang.

Setting aside the more than capable performances of Daniel Craig as the inquisitive lead Mikael Blomkvist, Christopher Plummer as the head of the most fucked-up family in Sweden and Stellan Skarsgård as an appropriately slimy wouldbe villain, this is Rooney Mara's film to either sink or swim with.  As tattooed cover girl Lisbeth Salander, Mara (her closest claim to fame being her brief appearence as Jesse Eisenberg's rightfully jaded ex-girlfriend in Fincher's The Social Network) is a steely-eyed force of unnatural nature that can wreak revenge on a repugnant rapist with one hand (clasped around a tattoo gun or a lead pipe) while downloading the most encrypted of code to unearth a sadistic killer of women with the other. 

Complete with a soundtrack from (Oscar Winners!!) Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and a roving, aggressive camera that has Fincher written all over its audacious brouhaha, Mara's bodacious performance - a more wily and humanistic version of Noomi Rapace's original Lisbeth - takes this film head and shoulders above the original (a rare thing indeed) and gives the film, even with any viewer of the original knowing exactly what is coming, a true sense of dread and danger.  I still say Hollywood should stop trying to remake every foreign film they can, but in this rare case it actually worked.  Imagine that.

My 35 (or 36) Most Anticipated Films of 2011

We are going to do this countdown style (just because I feel like it) so let us begin, as it were, at the end, and work our way up to number one.

35) Captain America: The First Avenger - Being a comic book geek from way back and a rabid cinephile from nearly as long ago, the sudden boom of cinematic superhero adaptations has been both a welcome sight and a harbinger of doom.  Though I love seeing my old friends from those halcyon days of yore, projected twenty feet tall on the big screen, the ability to create great cinema out of such is a thing of great difficulty.  Sure, Chris Nolan can do it, but can anyone else?  Joe Johnston, who practically killed The Wolfman with his horrendously dull adaptation, is probably not the guy for the job, and the casting of Chris Evans as the man to don the stars and stripes could be construed as a travesty, but Cap still squeaks onto the list due to him being one of my childhood faves (along with his socio-political nemesis and Avenger teammate Hawkeye) and my having at least some semblance of hope - faint as it may be.

34) Your Highness - Natalie Portman, James Franco and Zooey Deschanel in Medieval times - what more can you ask for.  In all actuality I am not really expecting much from this film.  Director David Gordon Green has done some good work (All the Real Girls and Snow Angels were both subtly sublime without anyone really noticing) but he seems to be going the Judd Apatow road these days, and that is never a good thing (unless you are looking for frat boy humour that is) and the film also stars the rather annoying Danny McBride as well.  But then we do get Natalie and Zooey in Medieval garb - what more can one ask for.

33) Red Riding Hood - Yeah yeah, I know, there's the whole Twilight connection, but Catherine Hardwicke does have an interesting visual style which lends itself to this iconic story and Amanda Seyfried is a good call for the titular wolf-lover/slayer and Julie Christie as Red's Grandma could be fun and Gary Oldman looks to be his old sinister self, all of which could bode well for the film.  Of course, Hardwicke will have to go beyond the typically tweeny mentality she was forced to play with in Twilight when it comes to the sexuality of the movie (the carnality even) for it to succeed on anything but a superficial level.  It has potential indeed, now let's just hope it can live up to it.

32) The Green Hornet - I must admit right off the bat that I am not a fan of Seth Rogen.  I enjoyed him in the long lost TV show Freaks & Geeks (the first and last time I actually liked something created by Judd Apatow also) but other than that, he just gets on my nerves.  No real reason, he just gets on my nerves, simple as that.  Of course one must wonder why a film starring the aforementioned Mr. Rogen makes this list at all - not to mention (though I am mentioning it!) a film done in that ever-annoying, cinematography-killing 3D craze that is sweeping multiplexes across the world.  The answer to that wonderment is simply put - un film de Michel Gondry.  Though to be honest, even that is probably not enough.

31) Paul - Two sci-fi geeks find an alien outside of Area 51 and all proverbial Hell breaks loose.  This is not what one looks for in a good movie necessarily but the film does have something worth noting - well, two somethings.  The two things that put this one on the map are Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as the aforementioned sci-fi/alien adopters.  Otherwise it could fall flat on its face (and again Seth Rogen is on board, albeit in voice only).

30) Thor - Again with the superhero movies and my inner cinephile battling my inner comic book geek.  Yeah, I know, one should not look for great cinema in such a genre (except when Chris Nolan is involved), but instead how much fun that inner comic book geeks is having watching the screen.  The reason this one makes the list, other than a nostalgia for my childhood and the Marvel Comics of the nineteen-seventies (before the industry lost its soul and went corporate), is the palpable excitement at seeing just how Asgard, home of the Gods, looks on the big screen.  Again, like with Captain America, there is probably just disappointment in my future, but one must have a little hope. 

29) Rise of the Apes - Starring James Franco, the busiest man in show biz (seriously, check out the guy's bio, he is working on about a dozen projects right now with another bunch in the wings) this origin story of The Planet of the Apes may have disaster written all over it, but my love for the original movies (and TV show) force my hand, so here it is at number 29.  At least it cannot be as bad as the Tim Burton version, right?  Right?  Right?

28) X-Men: First Class - And here we go again.  The first X-Men movie was well done (all things considered) and the second was one of the better films of the genre, but the third was just an unnecessary mess of a movie (as was the Wolverine prequel) so now here we are with a hopeful reboot of sorts, placing the story in the nineteen-sixties and showing the rise of the mutants.  My main attraction to this one is the cast.  James McAvoy as Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert and Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw.  Of course, the highlight of the film may very well be January Jones in full Emma Frost costume (those fellow comic book geeks know what I'm talkin' 'bout).

27) Take This Waltz - For not being a fan of Seth Rogen, the guy is involved in quite a few films on this list, but I suppose when you star in just about everything out there, that is bound to happen.  Anyway, the inclusion on this list is not for Mr. Rogen, but for the director, Sarah Polley (well, and costar Michelle 'My Belle' Williams).  I have been a fan of the lovely miss Polley since first seeing her in The Sweet Hereafter (technically Terry Gilliam's Baron Munchausen was the first time I saw her, but it was in The Sweet Hereafter that she first blew me away) but here she acts as writer/director.  Her previous directorial feature, Away We Go, had a moodiness to it that can best be described as Canadian (although on a lesser scale, she shares a certain unique moodiness in her directing style with fellow Canucks, Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg). This moodiness is why her film makes the list - that and Michelle Williams (Rogen be damned!).

26) We Bought a Zoo - Though the auteur has never made a great film, Cameron Crowe has created some great scenes inside those not so great (but some very good) movies.  He does have a bad habit of going overboard on the sap and sentimentality (and this is coming from the admitted sentimentalist this critic is) but he has still managed to gather together some pretty good moments throughout his career - many of them involving the director's seeming sixth sense at musical inclusion.  All that being said, Crowe's latest film, starring Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson and Elle Fanning, should, even if not a great film, at the very least, have some rather enjoyable moments throughout.

25) The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn - I am one of the last people to anticipate a Spielberg film, but here I am doing it.  Technically speaking, Spielberg is a talented filmmaker, I just find the guy rather soulless, yet here I am looking forward to his latest film.  I have never read any of the Tintin comics of yore, but from what I have seen, it seems rather interesting visually speaking (seeming to be more unique than your typical modern day animation) - and it has Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in their strange motion-capture selves.

24) The Raven - John Cusack is Edgar Allen Poe and he is solving crimes.  What the !!???  The absurdity alone, of changing Poe into a Sherlock Holmesian character hellbent on tracking down a serial killer using Poe's fiction as his M.O., is well worth any anticipation I may have for this film.

23) The Cabin in the Woods - A self-proclaimed "twist" on the usual formula, this Joss Whedon written horror movie is co-written and directed by Drew Goddard, one of the writers of Lost, so we should possibly expect something that perhaps makes no sense at all.  The Joss Whedon connection makes it an interesting-looking movie though.  I am not one of these Whedon fanatics (he is not God folks!), but I do have respect for the guy's work.

22) The Descendants - Alexander Payne has been one of those filmmakers who have sort of flown just below the radar of the hypemongers and general public both.  With an albeit small array of quality work behind him - Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt and Sideways - Payne has been quietly amassing an impressively esoteric, yet quite defining oeuvre.  Perhaps Payne has yet to give us his masterpiece (some directors, even the better ones, sometimes just do not have such in them) though Sideways has come closest in a classical kind of way, and perhaps this new film is not it either (who knows) but hopefully it will help him to keep amassing that impressively esoteric, yet quite defining oeuvre - quietly or not.

21) Bernie - When it comes to Richard Linklater films, one cannot help but be impressed by such works as Dazed & Confused, Waking Life and Before Sunrise and Sunset both, but as of late, the once promising auteur seems to be slipping with such films as School of Rock and The Bad News BearsMe & Orson Welles is an enjoyable film, though still not up to the Linklater of past days).  There is still hope though, even if Jack Black is involved, but I still do not rank this one in the top twenty because of a slipping of artistic genius in its director. (granted, his most recent film,

20) Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen is back, and this time his traveling show is moving onto the city of lights.  After a serious drop in quality, Allen left his beloved New York and moved his wares to the UK (Match Point) and Spain (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and now, ever forward, onto Paris.  His post NYC films have been a mixed blessing (I still long for the Woody of the late seventies thru the early nineties - his golden period if you will) so you never know quite what you are going to get.  Here's hoping we get a Match Point or another Vicky, and not something more akin to last year's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Yada Yada Yada.

19) My Week With Marilyn - It comes with an untested director (having only Brit TV under his belt) and is one of those dreaded biopics, but seeing Kenneth Branagh as Sir Lawrence Olivier, Julia Ormond as Vivian Leigh and (the capper to them all) Michelle Williams as the titular blonde bombshell herself - and from what I can tell, she (of course) looks gorgeous - is well worth the anticipation (at least I hope so).

18) Source Code - When I first saw the trailer for this film, I thought it had some interesting ideas, sort of Inception meets The Matrix, but when I saw that Duncan Jones' name was attached as the director (a thing I completely missed when I first watched the trailer!) I got much more excited.  If it has the moody qualities of Jones' Moon, it should be a winner.

17) Shame - A film directed by Hunger director Steve McQueen (no relation!) and starring Michael Fassbender (also of Hunger fame, as well as Fish Tank and Inglourious Basterds) as a sexual compulsive and Carey Mulligan as his little sister would of course make this list. That's all I have to say about that - for now.

16) Super 8 - J.J. Abrams has been keeping the film's premise under tight wraps (under lock and key is probably a bit more apt) but judging from the unique, though unfulfilling in the end Cloverfield and me being one of those Trekkers from long ago who just loved Abrams' Star Trek reboot, I do have some rather hopeful high hopes for this one - at least enough to place it at number sixteen.

15) Cowboys & Aliens - Han Solo and James Bond fighting aliens in the old west - how could this not be the coolest fucking movie of all-time!?  Seriously though, we get Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig in an old west-set sci-fi adventure film, directed by the guy who gave us the first Iron Man movie (and the second one, but let's not mention that).  This is one of several films based on comics and/or graphic novels to make this list, which once again, shows my inner geek coming through with glaring audacity.

14) The Skin That I Inhabit - Pedro Almodovar is back with a rape and revenge scenario starring Antonio Banderas as a plastic surgeon hunting down the men who raped his daughter, and with Almodovar being one of the most visually enigmatic directors working today (think Nick Ray crossed with The Archers and then covered with a rich gooey topping of a vividly homosexual Hitchcock), I am sure we are in for quite the colourful film.  Quite indeed.

13) A Dangerous Method - Here is what we get with A Dangerous Method - Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud and Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung.  What more could one ask for?  How about David Cronenberg as director?  Hells yeah!  I have not seen the play the film is based on, but judging from what I know of Cronenberg, I envision something akin to Chris Nolan's The Prestige, but darker and more disturbing in that way that only Cronenberg can disturb us.  Whether we will see another all-nude knife fight as Viggo gave us in Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, I do not know though.

12) Hanna - Saoirse Ronan as a lean mean fourteen-year-old killing machine.  This looks like a very interesting film (visually I know it will succeed considering Joe Wright's weaving, panoramic directorial style) and the creepily lovely little Ms. Ronan just adds to the strange interest I have in said film.

11) The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - The only reason this film (and I am assuming the sequels as well) is because American audiences refuse to watch subtitled films.  There is nothing wrong with the original Swedish version (though I did not go all gaga like many, and I think the sequels were considerably lesser, comparatively speaking) but since the Swedish films only did lackluster business in the multiplexes (though they did fantastic biz at arthouses) Hollywood thinks it needs to redo the foreign film (along with pretty much every other well-received foreign film out there) for audiences who cannot read a movie.  Then again, unnecessary or not, David Fincher is at the helm so that does give us something to hope for, even if there is no way Hollywood producers will allow the brutality necessary to make the film(s) properly.

10) Sucker Punch - Blend the visual audacity of Zack Snyder's 300 (and ugly-sexy middle finger to the audience, but in the most alluring way) with the school-girl fetish of the average male and combine these things into some sort of kick-ass battle royale in an alternate dream reality full of sword-wielding, scantily clad asylum girls with names like Rocket, Blondie, Amber, Sweet Pea and Baby Doll, and you get Sucker Punch.  This will have to be seen to be sure - it could go either way (the good of the wrongly oft-maligned Watchmen or the bad of the inexplicably bad-for-bad's-sake 300) - but at this point it cracks the top ten.

9) Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - Thomas Alfredson, the director of the sublime Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In, is coming to English speaking cinema with this UK-funded new version of the John le Carre espionage novel.  Why Hollywood didn't get him to remake his own film instead of having Matt Reeves do it and (for the most part - actors aside) give it a lesser mirror image, I do not know (well, I do know, but for the sake of argument, yada yada yada) but this could be a good way to introduce this filmmaker to the so-called West.

8) On the Road - How many years has one director or another, one producer or another, been trying to adapt Kerouac's Beat classic for the big screen?  A Lot, that's how many.  Now finally it comes to said big screen under the kino-eye helmsmanship of Brazilian auteur Walter Salles, the man who gave us Che before Soderbergh took him over in more epic scale.  A pair of relative unknowns headline the cast (the man who played Ian Curtis in Control is playing Jack's alter-ego Sal Paradise) and we also get Viggo Mortensen as Old Bull Lee, the man based on Old Bill Burroughs.  Now let's hope all these many years have been worth the wait to see this iconic Benzedrine-fueled novel on the big screen.

7) Haywire & Contagion - a pair of films from the ever-prolific Steven Soderbergh (and the reasoning behind the parenthetical 36 in the blog post title), one an action-thriller involving the CDC (a sort of Outbreak redux, but hopefully much much much better) and the other a straight-up Black-Ops action movie.  Soderbergh has always been a director who could straddle the fence between indie arthouse fare and star-studded Hollywood blockbustery type things.  Here, Contagion seems to be the latter, starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and the lovely Marion Cotillard and Haywire, though seeming kinda Hollywoody in its own way, stars the "lesser" star power of Ewan MacGregor, Michael Douglas and Michael Fassbender (again!!!) and is therefore the more arthouse pick - if there even is one here.  Actually, the Soderbergh I am most looking forward to is his upcoming Liberace biopic (I know, biopic...ughhh) starring the aforementioned Mr. Douglas in the title role - but alas, that is a movie for my 2012 list.

6) Meek's Cutoff - My love of Kelly Reichardt's slow, meandering sublime cinema (Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy), the Western genre, of which this seems to be part of, and of anything whatsoever involving the sublime Michelle Williams (if I had such a thing as a cinematic dreamgirl, and who doesn't, it would most surely be Ms. Williams) puts this film pretty high on my list.  I unfortunately missed this film at the NYFF, and am still beating myself up over it.

5) The Turin Horse - Bela Tarr has always been an auteur of great procrastination, not only in the slow slow slow moving of his camera and characters both, but also in his production and distribution of his usually epic-length films, which means this film may not see US screens (or any screens for that matter) in 2011.  Nevertheless, here it is in the top five.  The plot, you ask?  From IMDb, one can glean this synopsis: 1889. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche witnessed the whipping of a horse while traveling in Turin, Italy. He tossed his arms around the horse's neck to protect it then collapsed to the ground. In less than one month, Nietzsche would be diagnosed with a serious mental illness that would make him bed-ridden and speechless for the next eleven years until his death. But whatever did happen to the horse? This film follows up this question in a fictionalized story of what occurred.  Does anything else need be said?  Well, I suppose one can mention that Tarr claims this is his final film as a director, but the man says a lot of shit, so who knows.

4) Hugo Cabret - Martin Scorsese's latest is based on a graphic novel (again!) set in 1930's Paris, and shot in 3D (Scorsese does like to use every possible cinematic contraption he can get his hands on and three dimensional photography is his latest dalliance) and stars Jude Law, Emily Mortimer, Christopher Lee, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen and the cute but dangerous teen spitfire Chloe Moretz (her creepy adult-like demeanor, hidden away in the crooked smile of a thirteen year old makes one assume her one of the successors of Dakota Fanning).  I am guessing this film will not live up to the majority of Scorsese's oeuvre, which is a shame considering Shutter Island took him back nearer the top than he had been in a while, but a unique 3D experience I am sure it will be.

3) The Tree of Life - Five films in a thirty-eight year career doesn't exactly make Terrence Malick the most prolific of filmmakers, but it does make it all that more important that we get everything we can out of each of his five (so far) films, because one is never quite sure when another might come along.  This one, from what I can tell, has the distinction of having Sean Penn playing the child of Brad Pitt.  From the trailer it doesn't seem your typical Malick (if a man with five films in nearly forty years can have a typical anything) but it does look gorgeous, if nothing more - but I do think there will be much much more.

2) Melancholia - The provocateur is back (my wife and I have a love/hate relationship with the acidic auteur - she hates him and I love him) and he's bringing Charlotte Gainsbourg back with him.  Danish bad boy Lars von Trier hands us a film nobody seems to know anything whatsoever about.  Trier is keeping quite the tight lip on this one, but he has pronounced no more happy endings.  Yeah, because he is so well known for his happy endings that he needs to say he won't do any more!?  I can't remember one at all.  For Christ's sake, the man hanged poor Bjork at the end of Dancer in the Dark, and that is probably his most upbeat ending of them all.

1) The Grandmasters - And the number one spot rightfully, and quite inevitably, belongs to my favourite working director.  Wong Kar Wai's latest film is the story of the man who taught Bruce Lee everything he ever knew, which means it is a martial arts movie from the man who can paint the most luscious of designs on the canvas of the big screen (I know, I am spilling over with hyperbole, but I just cannot help it when it comes to Wong and his cinema).  Whether this film makes it to US screens in 2011 is probably a pretty valid question, but until it does, it is number one - with a bullet.

As I more than alluded to in several paragraphs above, several of these films may not actually make their way to US movie screens in the next calendar year (Lars von Trier, Bela Tarr and Wong Kar Wai are all quite notorious for delays in their production and/or distribution schedules) but here is hoping.

I would also like to mention one other very very highly anticipated movie coming out in 2011.  Actually it is a mini-series on HBO.  It is the Todd Haynes directed version of Mildred Pierce, starring Kate Winslet in the role originally made famous by Joan Crawford.  I leave it off the list since it is a TV, not a theatrical release, but I suppose one could say it is the 37th on the list.

Film Poll #5: The Results

The best Fincher?  Ya know, I figured this was going to be a runaway victory for Fight Club, but no (he said pleasantly surprised).  I figured the cult status of the club no one is to talk about would give it the necessary boost in needed to claim victory over more obvious choices (much like The Big Lebowski beating out obviously superior films in the Coen Bros. poll from a few weeks ago).   Instead, it was a tight two-team race up to the very end, when Zodiac (my choice I am happy to say!) squeaked out a one-run, walk-off victory - while everyone else fell in a very distant 3rd and beyond (including not a single vote for three of the auteur's films - two expectantly, one not so much).   Anyway, here are the results.  And to stave off all those Fight Club lovers that are getting ready to toss off an angry comment or two towards yours truly - contrary to me aforementioned snide remark, I do in fact like Fight Club (it is my 4th favourite after Zodiac, Social Network and the oft-maligned Panic Room, and right above Se7en and Ben Button - let's not even talk Alien 3 - and I have never seen The Game).  So there.

Zodiac - 12 (40%)

Fight Club - 11 (36%)

Se7en - 4 (13%)

The Social Network - 2 (6%)

Panic Room - 1 (3%)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - 0 (0%)

Alien 3 - 0 (0%)

The Game - 0 (0%)

I will be away this week-end so there will be no new film poll until next week sometime.  But not to worry, when the new poll is announced, you will be the first to know.

Film Poll #5: David Fincher

Since The Social Network is creating some buzz around town (as they say) I thought the new Film Poll should create some equal buzz.  How to do such a thing?  Ask all you fine folks out there to name your favourite David Fincher film (The Social Network or not).  So go ahead and vote over in the lefthand sidebar and come back for the results in one short week.  And please remember, if you want your vote counted, please click and vote in the poll.  Any votes being written in the comments section will not be counted.  Everyone can vote once per web browser.  Vote early and often.  And bring in your friends.  The more votes the better.

The Cinematheque Reviews: The Social Network

As promised yesterday (in one of my "couldn't wait" phases) I have finally posted my review of The Social Network.  It's 2500+ word total makes it the longest piece I have ever written on one single movie - prompting my lovely wife to proclaim I should begin referring to my film reviews as film essays instead (it makes you sound more pretentious she giddily exclaimed - yeah, like I need that).  This is also a film I have made my own pronouncement about recently - somewhere between my first viewing on October 3rd and my second on October 10th.  The pronouncement that it is the best film of 2010.  Whether I still agree with that assessment come January 1st when I publish my Best of 2010 list...well, we will see then, won't we.  Anyway, without using too many more words (ya damned blowhard), here it is.

Read my review (essay) of The Social Network at The Cinematheque.

A Few Introductory Babblings On The Social Network

From its opening wordplay sword thrusts to its horror movie-like lighting and Wellesian audacity to its wittily acerbic Aaron Sorkin written screenplay to its seamless CGI-diluted Winklevii to its Gatsbyesque delusions of grandeur to its overall damn fine storytelling and Oscar-wouldbe performances of Eisenberg and Timberlake (tossing sexy aside and bringing evil back) to Fincher's bravura camera that should elicit its own Fincherian moniker, The Social Network is deserving of being called (dare I say it?) the best film of 2010 - so far.  Hyperbolic genuflection aside, my review (or should I say essay, since it runs over 2000 words) of this movie, a movie that is quickly becoming the cinephiliac phenomenon that its titular subject has become in the "real" world, will be coming sometime tomorrow.  

I saw the movie for the second time earlier today (the last time I paid a repeat visit so soon after the original was when I went running back to QT's Inglourious Basterds last year - just three days later!) and was forced(?) to add a few more ideas to my review/essay before finally posting it.  My ranting here is merely my not being able to wait to say at least a little something about this movie (other than my periodic, and rather ironic considering, Facebook status updates over the past week) before tomorrow.  Now before I start comparing girls to farm animals (inside movie joke for those still not acquainted) or some such nonsense, I am logging off in order to finish that aforementioned 2000+ word film essay.