The Best of 2013

Hey everybody!  It's that time of the year again.  That time where we film critics (and others of a similar cinematic bent) dole out our annual best and worst of the year lists.  Well, that is just what I will be doing below (and over at my main site, All Things Kevyn).  But this ain't just some boring ole top ten list.  No sirree.  This will be my choices for the best that cinema had to offer this past year, from the best to the worst.  A top twenty or so offering (a top 21 to be exact), followed by some runners-up, followed by my choices for the best performances of the year, which then will be followed by my choices for the dregs of then past cinematic year.  But enough of this introductory nonsense.  Without further ado, I give you the cinematic year that was 2013, beginning with my choices for the best films of the year.  Oh yeah, and due to some scheduling conflicts, two films that would have likely made this list (and still might through the wonder of the retcon), Spike Jonze's Her and The Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis, have yet to be seen by your not-so-humble narrator, and therefore are not included below. Anyway, on with the show...

1. Stoker - This film, the first English-language offering from Korean enfant terribles, Park Chan-wook, came onto the screen quite early in the year, and ever since the March 21st screening I saw, the film has been the runaway winner for best of the year - no film was ever able to topple it from its high and mighty perch.  Loosely based on Hitchcock's 1943 classic thriller, Shadow of a Doubt, Park brings his unique, oft times batshitcrazy, style to Hollywood, and casts a pitch perfect Mia Wasikowska in the central role of lonely little girl lost-cum-potentially demented serial killer - all via a bubbling sexual cauldron of Lolita-esque desire.  A gorgeously harrowing near-masterpiece, indeed.

2. American Hustle - The only film that even came close to toppling Stoker from that top spot, came quite close to the year end deadline - as many big name Oscar potentials do.  Taking a riff on making a Martin Scorsese film ("the best damn Martin Scorsese film ever made by someone who is not Martin Scorsese"), David O. Russell has finally made the great film we all knew he had in him all along.  Granted, many thought his last film was that great work, but the obvious cliché of that film (really, how were so many fooled into thinkig it was anything better than typical Oscar-bait pabulum?), is wiped away completely with this new, great visceral work of art.  Bravo.

3. Spring Breakers - From its opening montage of a typical spring break setting that looks to be an auteuristic take on Girls Gone Wild, to its dangerously sexualized interior involving several actresses with usually (usually) squeaky clean images, all the way to its killer final scene that could have been lifted straight out of a Brian De Palma-fuelled wet dream, Harmony Korine's succulently filthy paean to the Godardian ideal of a girl and a gun, or in this case, several girls and lots of guns, may not be the film for everyone (what an understatement!) but that doesn't change the fact that this is indeed, cinema as it damn well should be.

4. Before Midnight - This acerbic love(esque) story is the culmination (unless Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke decide on making a fourth one down the road) of one of the smartest, most beautifully filmed trilogies around.  Beginning in 1995 with Before Sunrise, and continuing in 2004 with Before Sunset (my personal favourite of the bunch), the aforementioned director, Richard Linklater, and his stars and co-screenwriters, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, have given us a deft comedy-cum-potential tragedy in this continuing tale of the life and love of Celine and Jesse.  Simple, yet deceptively perceptive, this film (along with its predecessors), and its filmic couple, is just so so fun to watch.

5. Frances Ha - Noah Baumbach, the Brooklyn-born writer/director of such arthouse hits as Margot at the Wedding and The Squid and the Whale, is at it again.  This time around he is joined by muse/girlfriend Greta Gerwig as co-screenwriter and star - in fact Gerwig pretty much created the character, foibles and faults included, from the so-called ground up.  The film, done in crisp black and white and shot on a minimal budget in and around Brooklyn, is the story of a twentysomething New York dancer, all done in the most post-new wavy kinda manner one can imagine.  So much so that one can actually see, hear, and smell the ghosts of Francois Truffaut wandering around in the background somewhere.

6. Blue Jasmine - Once upon a time, a Woody Allen film meant something special.  Lately, the guy can be pretty hit and miss.  Luckily, his latest film, though panned by many this year, is one of those aforementioned hits.  But no matter how well written it is (and it is), and no matter how great a performance is given by supporting player Sally Hawkins (and it is indeed, a great performance), and no matter how glad this critic is to see the Woodman back in such fine form (and yes, he is back baby), it is Cate Blanchett's stellar take on one of the most complex characters Allen has ever drawn, that steals this movie away from anything and everything else.

7. The World's End - Judging from the genre-spanning satirical films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the cinematic combination of director Edgar Wright, and stars Simon Pegg (also co-writer with Wright) and Nick Frost, pretty much guarantees a witty and wry comedy, and with the release of The World's End, their collective take on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and probably the most acerbic of the trio's loosely-based trilogy, that guarantee has become even stronger.

8. Upstream Color - Finally, the long-awaited second film from Shane Carruth, director of the 2004 ground-breaking indie sci-fi film Primer, and this mother is just as mind-fucking trippy as his first film.  Taking on the idea of identity and self-awareness, this film slowly builds to a bizarre climax, all the while giving momentary hints, though barely revealing the truth as to what exactly is happening on screen.

9. The Act of Killing - A documentary about gangster squads and para-military assassins, told in various manners, from reenactments to talk show appearances to elaborate musical numbers, and all done with not only the complete cooperation of these very same gangster squads and para-military assassins, but also actually reenacted by these very same men.  Imagine something akin to a Taliban reality show, and you have this bizarre and intense film.

10. To the Wonder - Sure, when compared to Terrence Malick's previous film, The Tree of Life (the one and only true masterpiece of this decade so far), this much smaller-in-scope work is sure to look minor in such a comparison, but still, a film that can be considered (and is by the director himself) a companion piece to The Tree of Life, a footnote even, then To the Wonder is a marvelous miniature work of art.

11. The Grandmaster - How good a filmmaker is Hong Kong master Wong Kar-wai?  Good enough that even my least favourite film of the director's oeuvre, makes it to number eleven on my best of 2013 list.  Yeah, that's right, The Grandmaster is probably the auteur's least interesting film, and it is still better than most films made today.  Of course by least interesting, I mean that only when compared to the rest of the guy's filmography.  Standing on its own, The Grandmaster is a gorgeous and quite succulent work of art.

12. Blue is the Warmest Color - A three hour French lesbian drama, complete with a ten minute or so unsimulated sex scene smack dab in the middle, probably is not the most mainstream friendly movie out this year (many audiences, including those at official Academy Award screenings, either scoffed or even laughed during said sex scene), but once the gratuity is overlooked, this graphic novel adaptation ends up being a heart-wrenching and tragic love story.

13. Only God Forgives - Cool and strangely calming, this otherwise visceral work from Nicolas Winding Refn (the man who gave us both Bronson and Drive) is a psychologically brutal and visually haunting look at the underbelly of Thai society and familial dysfunction, all done with three bravura performances from Winding Refn muse Ryan Gosling, and Kristen Scott Thomas, and Thai actor Vithaya Pansringarm.

14. Fruitvale Station - More often than not, when we are given a film about tragic real life events, the end result is either pandering schlock or trite mishandling.  In the case of the debut film from Ryan Coogler, the end result is a riveting look at tragic real life events, that almost never blinks away from its harrowing storyline.  A (would be) star-making performance from Michael B. Jordan helps out a lot too.

15. The Bling Ring - Sofia Coppola has made a directorial career out of portraying lost little girls in her films, be they suicidal sisters or legendary teen queens, and she keeps that going here, as she tells the story of a TMZ-addled youth culture, that, no longer able to differentiate between reality and reality TV, lives by their own (im)morality code.  A chilling film indeed.

16. The Lone Ranger - Yeah, that's right bitches!  This movie, an epic failure due more to its ridiculous (and completely excessive) epic budget than any sort of box office dilemma, can be found on more than quite a few worst of 2013 lists, but I say bah to them.  Bah indeed.  Sure, this may not be a great work of cinema that should be held high in the annals of film history, but it is a rather spectacular grand guignol of Hollywood spectacle, indeed.  Fun fun fun!

17. A Touch of Sin - This film, the latest from Chinese master of melancholy,  Jia Zhangke, slowly builds its intertwining plot threads into an eventual boiling pot of despair and destruction.  Allowing his camera, and some pretty damn spectacular work from his actors, to explain the otherwise unexplained, Jia's film resonates like an unending drum.  Thump, thump, thump, thump...

18. Side Effects - If we are to believe director Steven Soderbergh, this is to be the enigmatic auteur's final theatrical release.  If so, it's a damn fine way to go out.  If it isn't (and let's face it, it probably isn't), then it's yet another unique experiment in what is probably the strangest oeuvre of any director working today.  In other words, Side Effects is yet another reason why everyone should be in love with the films of Steven Soderbergh - and for that matter, the equally enigmatic acting of the often overlooked Miss. Rooney Mara.

19. Ain't Them Bodies Saints - My wife says that Casey Affleck may very well be the best actor of his generation, and, aside from Christian Bale and Affleck's own bro-in-law, Joaquin Phoenix, I am prone to agree, especially after seeing yet another seering performance from the guy in this little seen gem of a film.  As for the film itself, think Arthur Penn meets early Nicholas Ray, with a kinda stormy Terrence Malick feel.

20. Gravity - I have always been, and will always be a most loud proponent of, whenever possible, watching a film on the big screen, where it should be seen.  This is especially the case with Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity.  In fact, I would even go so far as to say the only proper way to watch Gravity is on the big screen in 3D.  That's right, this noted 3D-hater is proposing one see a film in 3D.  So be it.  Gravity is a stunning work of art that will probably end up being just average when it makes its way to smaller screens at home.  But up on that big silver screen?  Just gorgeous.

21. Much Ado About Nothing - A black & white Shakespearean adaptation, set in modern times and using the Bard's original Early-Modern English dialogue, and directed by the man responsible for the third top-grossing film of all-time, Joss Whedon's foray into classic lit may not have been the runaway box office success that The Avengers was in 2012, but it is certainly good enough to round out my best of 2013 list.

Some worthy runners-up (in no particular order): Warm Bodies (Jonathan Levine); Trance (Danny Boyle); The Last Stand (Kim Jee-woon); Mud (Jeff Nichols); Star Trek Into Darkness (J.J. Abrams); The Angel's Share (Ken Loach); Dallas Buyer's Club (Jean-Marc Vallee); Pacific Rim (Guillermo del Toro); Wrong (Quentin Dupieux); Lore (Cate Shorland); Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski); The Iceman (Ariel Vromen); You're Next (Adam Wingard); Enough Said (Nicole Holofcener); Passion (Brian De Palma).

Best Female Lead Performances of the Year:

Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine

Mia Wasikowska in Stoker

Adele Exarchopoulos in Blue is the Warmest Color

Julie Delpy in Before Midnight

Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha

Rooney Mara in Side Effects & Ain't Them Bodies Saints

Best Male Lead Performances of the Year:

Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club

Christian Bale in American Hustle

Simon Pegg in The World's End

Michael Shannon in The Iceman
Casey Affleck in Ain't Them Bodies Saints

Ethan Hawke in Before Midnight

Best Female Supporting Performances of the Year:

Sally Hawkins in Blue Jasmine

Nicole Kidman in Stoker

Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle

Kristen Scott Thomas in Only God Forgives

Tao Zhao in A Touch of Sin

Lea Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Color

Best Male Supporting Performances of the Year:

James Franco in Spring Breakers

Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club

Matthew Goode in Stoker

James Gandolfini in Enough Said
Vithaya Pansringarm in Only God Forgives

Nathan Fillion in Much Ado About Nothing

And then, ever so briefly, come the worst of the year...

1. 47 Ronin

2. After Earth

3. A Good Day to Die Hard

4. The Counselor

5. Machete Kills

6. Oz the Great and Powerful

7. A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III

8. Elysium

9. Bullet to the Head

10. Gangster Squad

One final note: Though it is not quite bad enough of a film to make the above Worst of the Year list, plus I would've broken my heart to have to include this filmmaker, one of my all-time favourites, on any sort of worst list, but nonetheless, the biggest 2013 cinematic disappointment for this critic has to be Martin Scorsese's surprisingly banal The Wolf of Wall Street.  Cool poster though.

Well, that's it kids.  See ya 'round the web.

Film Review: Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring

Sofia Coppola has made a career out of taking misunderstood young women, and making us feel both compassion for them and revulsion for what happens to them.  From Kirsten Dunst and her fateful sisters in The Virgin Suicides, to Scarlet Johansson's lost soul in Lost in Translation, to Dunst again, as the infamously oblivious Marie Antoinette, to lonely woman-child Elle Fanning, making her way through her empty, and most likely autobiographical life in Somewhere, Coppola's women have always been wandering girls, lost in a world that they do not understand, and which does not understand them.  Perhaps it is a bit harder to find any compassion for the jaded, seemingly amoral wannabe jet setters in the director's latest, The Bling Ring, but in a way these young women (and one gay man, if we are keeping count of the main protagonists-cum-antagonists), no matter how unlikable they may very well be, and they are all quite unlikable, are just as lost as any of Coppola's previous female doppelgangers.

Coppola's fifth feature is based on the oh so true tale of a group of L.A. teens and early twentysomethings who would burglarize celebrity homes throughout the Hollywood Hills in 2008 and 2009, just so they could dress and accessorize the way their Reality TV heroines like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Megan Fox, and Rachel Bilson, among many others, dressed and accessorized.  Coppola digs into the whole idea of post-millennial celebrity culture (and I use the term culture quite loosely) , and the vapid, TMZ-watching, celeb-obsessed youth culture (again, a quite loose use of the term culture) that has grown up around it.  These are young men and women who have no real use for knowledge or intelligence, no use for morals or integrity, absolutely no use, or probably even understanding of common sense.  All they know or care about is celebrity and the banal idiocy of reality television.  The real Bling Ring (the names have been changed for the film, but each character is still based upon real-life counterparts), after their respective arrests, have become just what they have always wanted, reality celebrities.  Granted, celebrities of less than c-class, but still, celebrities of a strange new world of media culture.

The film stars a slew of relative unknowns, headed by Harry Potter alum, Emma Watson (she is not the lead, but certainly the biggest name involved, and thanks to her small role in This is the End, spends her entire cinematic year, running around the Hollywood Hills, evading capture), and Coppola brings her usual flare for melancholy angst, and it all comes together to become what, granted may be the director's least fully formed film, but in a way, perfectly suited for its own subject matter.  We may look upon the young morally-adjustable individuals in this film as mere trash or idiots or losers, or what-have-you, but really these are just children raised in a modern media-heavy society, where emphasis is placed on the shallow idea of what we consider celebrity in this day and age.  No, I cannot imagine a similar group of wannabes performing these acts back in the days of Gable and Lombard, or Monroe and Brando, or even during the hey-day of "newcomers" such as De Niro and Pacino, and so one may be led to think that it may very well be a cause of the celebrity culture of today's modern world.  I am not lily-livered enough to believe that everything can be blamed on society (for, one must take blame and/or credit for their own lives), but one has no choice but to see how warped today's youth has become because of this celebrity culture, and Coppola shows that warped sensibility in The Bling Ring, and does it damn well.

Retro Review: Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 06)

The following is part of a series where I bring back some of my "older" reviews (those written during my 2004-2011 tenure at the now mostly defunct The Cinematheque) and offer them up to a "newer" generation.  With the release of Farewell My Queen, Benoît Jacquot's look at the court of Marie Antoinette, I have brought back my 2006 review of Sofia Coppola's often overlooked, but quite spectacular film.

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What does one get when one combines postmodern pop sensibility, French Nouvelle Vague philosophies and eighties new wave music and pour it all into an 18th century period piece already stuffed fat and full with ravishing costumes, luscious set pieces and sexually decadent behaviour? One gets Sofia Coppola's best film yet!

Opening with a wink and a nod, and full of candy-coloured confections of awkward yet graceful charm and wry wit, Marie Antoinette perhaps is not as surfacely deep as her two earlier films, but it does share with her predecessors a claustrophobic sense of entrapment and unheeded privilege. Like Scarlett Johansson's Charlotte in Lost in Translation, afraid to venture pass the lobby of her plush Park Hyatt Tokyo, and Kirsten Dunst herself as Lux Lisbon in The Virgin Suicides, a languorous kitten trapped by society inside her own imagined world, Marie, just fourteen when sent to marry the Dauphin of France, Louis Auguste, is like a lost little bird trapped inside the gilded cage that is Versailles. These girls, squelched by the strangulation of privilege, are what Coppola does best - for obvious autobiographical reasons - and she does it with her most grandiose hand yet in Marie Antoinette. Do not let yourself be fooled, for this is not your mother's historical biopic - it is frivolity underscored with seriousness.

Instead of faking the mannersims of a staunchy haughty period piece - so overblown by many a great director in the past - Coppola sends Dunst out with the voice of a mall queen with daddy's credit card in her Prada bag - princess of the all-nite rave. Many critics have said Coppola and Dunst portray the teen queen as an 18th century Paris Hilton - and this is probably true on many fronts - but they also show that being Paris Hilton (or any other rich bitch prima donna) may not be all that great a thing to be after all - you just might lose your head over it.

Full of music two hundred years out of time, this pomo set piece plays out as if The Cure or New Order are perfectly in sync with an 18th century masqued ball or a royal coronation. One number in particular, Bow Wow Wow's I Want Candy booms across the soundtrack as Marie and her ladies-in-waiting go on a shopping spree full of decadent wardrobes, delicious shoes (including a pair of purple Converse snuck in for flair) and resplendantly ridiculous hairstyles - never once seeming out of place. The modern music and period setting may be rather similar in vein to the films of Baz Luhrmann, but Coppola manages to weave her way past the overly trite style of a film like Moulin Rouge and belts out a film not only full of magniloquence and pretty party pieces, but also of a subtly meaty political underpining beneath the pink frosted exterior that is this pop star Versailles.

Peripherally responsible for the starvation of France which in turn led to the French Revolution which in turn led to the beheading of both Antoinette and Louis XVI, Coppola's queen is played more for sympathy than sneer (which assuredly led to the few boo's it recieved from the Cannes balconies). Showing instead, Marie Antoinette as an apathetic hautier that more likely than not never even came into contact with the "people of France" let alone was in any capable state to rule them. The scapegoat of history - her crime being perhaps more an innocent indifference than a calculated reign of terror - Marie Antoinette was more the giggling schoolgirl of privilege than anything else. Not that this is any excuse for what the French citizenry endured during those days before the revolution (remember when George Bush the Father could not even fathom a guess on how much a quart of milk cost?), but it is most likely the most accurate way to look at this child queen.

Even the surely apocryphal "let them eat cake" quote (the comment that launched a thousand guillotines) is played at by Coppola as if it were a snide little remark to be manipulated and teased - and Dunst's Marie, a pretty powdered present from Austria to France is commented on as "a piece of cake" early on in the film. All this leading to a pop film that seems at first glance nothing more than confectionary sugar and pink and blue sprinkles, but on deeper reflection can be seen as a politically charged dress-up film of revolutionary standards. A film that is set between 1765 and 1793 with music from 1980 through 1985 and is postmodern enough to have the heart of the cinematic future beating beneath its ostentatious chest.

Finally, in the end, although we all know the outcome (and if you do not then read a book once and a while) we still feel a kind of sadness at this fall of Eden - a child's Eden at that. 

[Originally published at The Cinematheque on 10/12/06] 

USA! USA! USA! : The Twelve Best American Directors Working Today

To jump on the flag-waving band wagon that seems to be going around right now (for future generations reading this post, it is the Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead! revelry after the recent killing of Public Enemy No. 1 Osama Bin Laden of which I speak) I give you my choices for the best American filmmakers working today.  And please, I whole-heartedly welcome you all to submit your own lists in the comments section.  I would really like to find out who you think is the best.  Here are mine.

1) Quentin Tarantino - This love-him-or-hate-him nouvelle Grindhouse auteur may well be the most derisive director working today.  I hear almost as many people say they despise Tarantino as they say they love him.  I must admit I do not understand all these haters at all.  I suppose if one has delicate sensibilities or if one were to like their cinema light and fluffy with boondoggles and butterfly wings, then perhaps they are taken aback by the in-your-face arrogance of that thing called Tarantino Cinema.  Personally I would (and am doing it right now) boldly state that QT has never made a bad film.  From Reservoir Dogs to Pulp Fiction to Jackie Brown (fuck the naysayers!) to Kill Bill (Volumes 1 and 2) to Death Proof (both Grindhouse and extended versions) to Inglourious Basterds, the man is like a coke-fueled King Midas.  Even the films he wrote without directing (True Romance, From Dusk Til Dawn) or his segments in longer films (Four Rooms, his token scene from Sin City) he is the proverbial Man.  Madman is perhaps a better term, but that makes it even better.  I have been accused on several occasions of being obsessed with QT and in no instance have I ever denied such a thing.  Now Faster, Pussycat! Film! Film! your next movie!!

2) Paul Thomas Anderson - I must admit to having had mixed emotions about Boogie Nights at first (my mind has been greatly expanded since my first viewing and therefore I now quite enjoy a movie I had originally walked out of) but I loved all of PTA's other films at first glance.  The one that put the director over the proverbial top though, was his mind-altering Wellesian, Fordian, Kubrickian (and about a half a dozen other director-labeled descriptives) There Will Be Blood.  A batshitcrazy pseudo-western (based on Sinclair's Oil!) starring an equally batshitcrazy Daniel Day-Lewis (in this critic's not-so-humble opinion, the best living actor in the world), There Will Be Blood is one of those select few films made today that I would have no qualms about calling a masterpiece (a word too often bally-hooed about by folks without much care for what it truly means, but a word that fits perfectly with Anderson's film).  Anderson, like Tarantino, is a true cineaste and it is this love - this rabid desire if you will - for all things cinema is what makes this cineaste love him so much.  His next film will be called The Master, and though it is not an autobiographical biopic, I cannot think of a more appropriate title.

3) Martin Scorsese - Perhaps if this were a list about the seventies or eighties or even nineties (at least the early nineties) Mr. Scorsese would be my number one choice.  But alas, the great master is no longer at his directorial peak.  He is though, certainly still well above many of his generational compatriots.  Lucas and Spielberg have sold out.  Bob Rafelson does TV when he does anything anymore and Bogdanovich is mainly a film historian these days (and a damn good one btw!).  The two Movie Brats (as they were often called) that are still putting out respectable work, Coppola and Allen, may still make good films on occasion (Tetro and Vicky Cristina Barcelona are respective examples) but nothing comparable to their earlier outputs. Scorsese's latest, Shutter Island, though hated by many of my fellow critics (what!!?) is a return of sorts to his daring cinema of thirty+ years ago, and with it helps put the auteur back near the top - after a decade or so of still good but not Scorsese good filmmaking.  Marty (can I call you Marty?) is one of my all-time favourite filmmakers (a quote of his sets proudly atop my blog) and it is this that keeps him so high on this list - even though he is the highest listed director here without a true masterpiece within the last decade (though he has at least five of these earlier in his career).  Hopefully his foray into 3D (he does love experimenting with new technology) with Hugo Cabret will keep this going.

4) David Lynch - The other "old guy" on this list (see Scorsese above for the other, even older guy), Lynch is responsible for the film I name as the best film of the last decade - Mulholland Dr..  Between that and Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet and Lost Highway and Wild at Heart (again, damn the naysayers!) and even Dune - as well as the best fake iphone commercial ever - Lynch is surely a master filmmaker and with his most recent, INLAND EMPIRE (and who doesn't LOVE movies that come in all CAPITALS?) proves that not only is he as batshitcrazy as ever, but is also still in top form.  Never a director to bring the masses together, Lynch is surely an acquired taste (and probably only a taste me and my fellow freaks can thoroughly enjoy) and will probably never get that AFI tribute (though a Friar's Club Roast could be fun) but this just puts him in the same class as directors like Antonioni, Tarkovsky and Bergman.  Not bad company indeed.  Of course one would have to take Antonioni, Tarkovsky and Bergman and ratchet up the insanity about a trillion notches or so (and possibly put a backwards-talking dwarf somewhere in there).

5) Joel & Ethan Coen - Blending a film noir aesthetic with acerbic comic teeth, these Minnesota born brothers have amassed quite an interesting oeuvre since their debut more than twenty-five years ago.  With hectic tales of almost surreal happenings, using many of the same actors over and over and over again (the venn diagram for their casts must be a colourful mess - and here is as close as I could find on the matter), the Coens have created an almost perfect streak of thoroughly enjoyable films (Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers had to come and break the streak).  From Blood Simple. to Raising Arizona to Miller's Crossing to Barton Fink to Fargo to Lebowski and O Brother to (skipping a few aforementioned) No Country for Old Men and their more recent less than noirish works (but no less complex) A Simple Man and True Grit - like I said, an almost perfect streak.  Their masterpiece (there's that word again) is No Country - a modern-day western done in pure Coen style, but seemingly ratcheted up to John Ford standards.

6) Wes Anderson - Cool and quirky (and annoyingly beloved by all those hipster doofuses out there - but don't hold that against the man) the other Anderson on this list may not have the deeply inbred creepiness of Lynch, nor the balls-out bravura of Scorsese and PTA, nor the flagrant arrogance of Tarantino, but what he does have is a precise (some might say anal) exactness for absolutely everything in his movies - down to the conch shell in the corner of one of the cabins of the Belefonte to the tweed pattern of Fox's jacket to the choice of wallpaper in Margot Tenenbaums bedroom.  Intricate to the nth degree, Wes has manufactured (and manicured) a series of painstakingly detailed cinematic dioramas all representing (in one way or another) the American semi-estranged family unit. My personal favourite is his obvious ode to J.D. Salinger, The Royal Tenenbaums.  My lovely wife isn't quite as taken with it as I am (saying it rips off Salinger more than it pays homage to him) but I still (and I suppose defiantly so to my wonderful - and usually better-tasted - spouse) herald the film as Anderson's near-masterpiece.

7) Michael Mann - I must preface this entry with the fact that I absolutely loathe Michael Mann's version of The Last of the Mohicans.  Granted, I have only ever seen it once, and as expressed above, I did a 180 on Boogie Nights, so perhaps loathe is a rather strong word, but it is how I feel and I thought you should know that before I begin to praise that very same filmmaker as my seventh favourite.  One of the founding fathers of the seminal 1980's TV show Miami Vice, Mann has made quite a career for himself with such visceral, hard-hitting films as Manhunter (having recognition as the first Hannibal Lecktor movie), Heat (De Niro and Pacino together for the first time - and before you bellyache, the two never had any scenes together in The Godfather Part II), The Insider (Russell Freakin' Crowe before he Gladiator'd out), Collateral (one of the few times I actually liked a Tom Cruise movie), the oft-maligned but quite intense Miami Vice (you can go home again!) and the DV-made Public EnemiesThe Last of the Mohicans a second chance. (Archetypal American mythology through 21st century cinematic technology).  Now I feel like giving

8) Sofia Coppola - No, this is not the affirmative action part of the list (nor is it the nepotism part - her dad isn't even on the list), the young Coppola deserves to be on the list - even if she has made just four films thus far.  Many have maligned Coppola's latest film, Somewhere, and I suppose it is the weakest of her four films, but then critics (myself most certainly not included) have been maligning the lovely and talented Ms. Coppola since pretty much day freakin' one.  Being called a pampered brat and/or spoiled debutante, Coppola has been criticized for basically being the child of celebrity.  This is of course ridiculous and merely critics without any sense maligning someone not for what they do but for who they are.  What she does is make films - good films - maybe even a great film or two.  She has a lyrical beauty to her films - if one can say such a thing without sounding too trite or cliche'd.  Many claim Lost in Translation to be her best work but I would say her follow-up to that Oscar winning picture (she won for Best Screenplay), Marie Antoinette.  A piece of candy-coloured pop art moviemaking (okay, perhaps she does have a debutantish outlook) her extraordinary po-mo biopic is a thing of sheer cinematic beauty.

9) Todd Haynes - The man who once made a (extremely unofficial) biopic of Karen Carpenter using Barbie dolls (sued by both Mattel and the Carpenter estate!) has grown into one of the finest and most mature filmmakers working today - while still managing to keep his youthful exuberance and radical sensibilities.  His Far From Heaven homage to Sirkian filmmaking was a brilliantly subversive piece of cinematic art (and it looked simply good enough to eat).  Safe was both seductive and appalling and Velvet Goldmine was just balls-out brashness.  His finest work so far though is that po-mo work of pure genius and (and I am going to use that wonderfully overplayed word again, but I sincerely mean it) masterpiece of technique, I'm Not There.  To make a biopic about Bob Dylan, with six different actors (one a woman!) playing the modern-day troubadour, and still never once even mentioning the name Bob Dylan - well, it is just fucking brilliant.  Tack onto this, his HBO mini-series of Mildred Pierce with Kate Winslet, and you have a sturdy number nine on our list.

10) Darren Aronofsky - One could call his films difficult (and many have) but that is merely a lazy way of saying intriguing.  From his tiny waking moment of pi to his surrealist WTF!? mindgame Requiem for a Dream to his audacious epoch-spanning flop The Fountain (flop or not, it is the director's most daring film to date and should not be shoved aside so carelessly and callously) to his yin yang double fist bump of The Wrestler and Black Swan (Aronofsky claims, perhaps just kiddingly, that these were originally one movie before being split apart at the gender lines)this mustachioed auteur may not be able to claim a masterpiece for himself yet (though The Fountain and Black Swan come closest) I am guessing it is merely a matter of time.

11) David Fincher - The only reason to see the new Hollywood remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (inevitably watered down from the, not great but still sufficiently visceral original) is because David Fincher is directing and we may see a visual orgasm of violence - even if the powers-that-be try to suppress such actions.  Who knows.  What I do know is that between Se7en and Fight Club and Panic Room and Zodiac and The Social Network, Fincher is a master craftsman that well deserves to be part of this list.  Fincher's way of using and manipulating a camera (even in evidence back in his days of making Alien movies) is as good as anyone out there - perhaps better than most (even some on this list).

12) Christopher Nolan - Okay, technically Nolan is a Brit, but he has been working in American Cinema for long enough (only the first of his seven - soon to be eight - films was made in his home country) to receive at least some sort of mention on this list - even if it is at the so-called bottom (the bottom of the top so to speak). Perhaps his Inception was a bit superficial at times (and probably a bit too highly regarded by many) but his grand superhero westerns and sleight-of-hand mysteries make for a rather formidable (and quite manly) show of cinematic power.  Perhaps it is only in comparison to such powerful work as Memento, The Prestige and The Dark Knight that makes Inception appear as a semi-disappointment.  But Brit or not, he stays on this American list.

Runners-Up:

Steven Soderbergh - The auteur's rather uneven hand (great work like The Limey and Che and the oft-misunderstood Girlfriend Experience is chopped up with lesser things like Erin Brockovich and the Ocean's films) is what stops him from breaking the runner-up barrier.  Still though, a brave, eclectic (and sometimes brilliant) oeuvre is what makes Soderbergh such a dangerous (and I mean that in the most complimentary manner) auteur.

Kelly Reichardt - I loved Old Joy.  I loved Wendy and Lucy.  I have yet to see Meek's Cutoff, but it promises to join the other two in receiving my love.  The reason I do not place Reichardt higher is the simple fact that I have only seen two of her films.  They are both brilliant (Wendy and Lucy is easily one of the best films of the last decade!) but I think I might need more before moving her onto the list proper - a thing I have already allotted a space reserved sign for.

Honourable Mentions (in no particular order):

Woody Allen and Francis Ford Coppola (they may not be at their peaks anymore but they are still capable of very good cinema); Jim Jarmusch (this Son of Lee Marvin is a visual stylist with a madman's sensibilities - a cool and collected madman, but a madman nonetheless); Richard Linklater (even my great love of Dazed and Confused cannot make me forget some of the director's more recent, and quite uneven fare - nonetheless he should still be counted); Kathryn Bigelow (sort of flying under the radar for many until her somewhat surprising, but completely deserved Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker - beating her ex to boot - has made a series of critically questionable but quite interesting films); Charlie Kauffman (at this point still a one-hit wonder, but what a wonder - and his screenplays aren't bad either); Tim Burton (this freak has made some pretty good-looking movies over the years but his art seems to be trailing off in favour of spectacle these days - still though, he has done enough to muster a mention); Spike Lee (an important director because of race - and lack of other African-American directors doing quality work - but the solid quality direction of Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X give him an importance above race).

Special Jury Award:

Ang Lee - Just as important in his native Taiwan cinema as he is in America, I add Mr. Lee because of his making of three very American (though perhaps with European sensibilities - just to throw in a third continent) movies - The Ice Storm, Ride With the Devil and Brokeback Mountain (the first two great films, the third a true American masterpiece).  This Americanization of sorts allows me to at the very least give Mr. Lee a special mention - plus this is my game and I will play it any damn way I wish.

In Defense of Sofia Coppola, And A Link To My Review of Somewhere

There are many who call Sofia Coppola's cinema, the cinema of privilege, the cinema of entitlement, and I suppose, in a manner of speaking, they are correct.  One can also say, and many have said, the same of directors such as Noah Baumbach and Spike Jonze and (of course) Woody Allen, but when this criticism is thrown at the young Coppola, it seems to come off as much more mean-spirited than when it is said of these others.  Perhaps this is a gender thing, who knows.  My point being (and, it seems, I am really doing a bad job of trying to get to said point) that just because Coppola writes and films about those one might consider entitled and/or privileged, does not mean her work is shallow because if it.  Many boo hoo about how we should not feel sorry for the wealthy - they have money and therefore have no real problems like the rest of us - including the two friends I happened to see Somewhere with this past weekend (my wife on the other hand, like me, had none of these qualms) but when all is said and done, anyone and everyone can have problems (the old chestnut of money not being capable of buying happiness, and all that).  

Perhaps if Coppola were to make films about steelworkers or bartenders or the cop on the beat, then she may not get the same criticisms about her work.  But she does not make movies about steelworkers or bartenders or the cop on the beat, she makes films about movie stars and queens and teen beauties.  Hemingway wrote about drinking and bullfighting and Paris after the war because this is what he knew.  Fitzgerald wrote about Jazz parties and flappers because that is what he knew.  Kerouac wrote about Zen Buddhism, being on the road and doing lots of drugs because that is what he knew.  Howard Hawks made films about male comradery and pilots because that is what he knew.  Sofia Coppola makes movies about the absurdities and foibles of privilege because that is what she knows.  Somewhere is probably the writer/director's most autobiographical work to date (just put her in the Elle Fanning role and Francis Ford in the Stephen Dorff role).

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that just beacuse a person writes/directs about things and people that may seem shallow or haughty to the common moviegoer (or even those critics who enjoy badmouthing such things - and you know who you are Mr. White! - someone who incidentally, also managed to dis the girl's father in the same review, as being a boring filmmaker!? - but enough about ole Armond, he is not worth the ire).....back to my point, none of this means this same filmmaker cannot express her particular worldview, admittedly a narrow one (but not necessarily a shallow one), with a certain kind of sublime melancholy that makes her films quite enjoyable.  

There, I said it!  Of course none of this defense of Ms. Coppola changes the fact that I was somewhat disappointed in Somewhere - or at the very least, in the last half hour of Somewhere, when it suddenly became the cliche'd thing I was so happy the rest of the film was most certainly not.  Anyway, I've rambled on long enough - there is actually a review of the film (though it too is encumbered by my seeming need to defend the director to the high heavens) over at my website, The Cinematheque (linked just below), that you might want to peruse at your leisure.  You too Armond, if you're not too busy shoving your head up your own ass.

Read my review of Somewhere at The Cinematheque.

Weekly Film Poll #1: The Results

THE GREAT AND POWERFUL MOST BEAUTIFUL FRAUD IN THE WORLD CINEMA POLL has concluded its first week.  You were asked (in anticipation of Sofia Coppola's 4th film, Somewhere)  to name your favourite Sofia Coppola film thus far.  Seventeen people voted in the poll (not bad for a first time??) but, and I believe I speak for Mr. Murray as well, more would be better. 

The results were as follows.

Lost in Translation - 8 votes (47%)

Marie Antoinette - 5 votes (29%)

The Virgin Suicides - 4 votes (23%)

Not a real surprise.  My favourite came in second, but....ah well.

The new poll can be found in the lefthand sidebar.  This week, in memory of Claude Chabrol, you get to choose your favourite French New Wave director.  Vote away.....

There's A New Film Poll In Town

I am beginning a new weekly "thing" here at The Most Beautiful Fraud in the World.  It will be my weekly Film Poll, henceforth to be called "THE GREAT AND POWERFUL MOST BEAUTIFUL FRAUD IN THE WORLD CINEMA POLL".  You can go over to the sidebar (right to the left of here!) and check out the first poll - a poll in anticipation of Sofia Coppola's upcoming film.  Come back every Tuesday to see the new poll (and the results of the old poll).

Sofia Coppola: Daughter of the Revolution

The following is my contribution for The LAMBs in the Director’s Chair #10: Sofia Coppola & Kimberly Peirce. 

There must have been a time - probably somewhere between the release of Francis Ford Coppola's abysmal career low point of Jack in 1996 and daughter Sofia's disturbingly delightful directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides at Cannes in 1999 - when the power of the father transferred to that of the daughter.  A changing of the cinematic guard so to speak.  Somewhere after the father seemingly lost what had made him one of the most important filmmakers of the 1970's, and the daughter had made a minuscule (and quite lackluster) splash as an actress, the two seemed to find themselves in some sort of twisted version of Freaky Friday.  

While the father had sank to the depths of cutsie-pie Robin Williams dramedy (though Dracula had its merits, this did come after a slowly declining slew of lesser and lesser and lesser films) the daughter gained a reputation (over just three films) of cool, acerbic cinema that was both stunning to look at and deeply resonating in characterization.  This daughter of the movie brat cinematic revolution of the seventies had come into her own.  Out of the shadow of daddy (who incidentally seems to be back on his own right track as of late) and into the limelight of flashy, pop culture auteurism (not to mention an Academy Award!).  But this is an essay about the daughter, so let's leave the genealogy behind and move on to that aforementioned flashy, pop culture auteurism of said Ms. Coppola.

First to come was the daring debut The Virgin Suicides (adapted from, they say, one of Ms. Coppola's favourite novels) about a group of mysterious sisters, all told through the remembering eyes of a group of boys (men now) who became obsessed with them.  The film is a gorgeous work, though from an obvious younger and inexperienced filmmaker.  Gorgeous nonetheless.  With an obvious nod to Picnic at Hanging Rock (both in visual style and overall mood) Coppola proved right out of the gate that she was more than just daddy's girl.  One could easily see that she had the ability to fly much higher than mere nepotism could ever take her.  The film had the tagline of "Love Sex Passion Fear Obsession" and nothing could describe the oeuvre of Sofia Coppola better than those five words.

Her next project helped prove that she was no mere one-trick pony either.  Lost in Translation was a step toward a more mature filmmaking.  This time Coppola wrote the story itself (instead of adapting someone else) and again she gave herself to the storytelling.  Again the idea of "Love Sex Passion Fear Obsession" came into it.  Starring Scarlett Johansson as a melancholy young woman visiting Japan and Bill Murray as the lonely movie star that falls for her (though perhaps not in the typical way) Coppola tackles deep emotions beneath a seeming surface of malaise.  Making everything look so empty while filling her proverbial glass to runneth-over status.  It is this cinematic trick that keeps Coppola so fresh - and so unpredictable in what will come next.  We know it will involve that aforementioned "Love Sex Passion Fear Obsession" but that is about all we know.

After becoming only the third woman to ever be nominated for a Best Director Oscar, as well as taking home the award for Best Original Screenplay, Coppola quietly went onto her next project.  A project that would leave the first two in the dust.  The film (of course) was Marie Antoinette, and this critic for one was blown away (I believe I called it the best film of 2006).  Right now I do not have the proper words, but allow me to use words from a few years back to clarify my thoughts on such a film.  Below is my original review of Marie Antoinette after first seeing it at the 2006 NYFF.

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What does one get when one combines postmodern pop sensibility, French Nouvelle Vague philosophies and eighties new wave music and pour it all into an 18th century period piece already stuffed fat and full with ravishing costumes, luscious set pieces and sexually decadent behaviour? One gets Sofia Coppola's best film yet! 

Opening with a wink and a nod, and full of candy-coloured confections of awkward yet graceful charm and wry wit, Marie Antoinette perhaps is not as surfacely deep as her two earlier films, but it does share with her predecessors a claustrophobic sense of entrapment and unheeded privilege. Like Scarlett Johansson's Charlotte in Lost in Translation, afraid to venture pass the lobby of her plush Park Hyatt Tokyo, and Kirsten Dunst herself as Lux Lisbon in The Virgin Suicides, a languorous kitten trapped by society inside her own imagined world, Marie, just fourteen when sent to marry the Dauphin of France, Louis Auguste, is like a lost little bird trapped inside the gilded cage that is Versailles. These girls, squelched by the strangulation of privilege, are what Coppola does best - for obvious autobiographical reasons - and she does it with her most grandiose hand yet in Marie Antoinette. Do not let yourself be fooled, for this is not your mother's historical biopic - it is frivolity underscored with seriousness.  Instead of faking the mannerisms of a staunchy haughty period piece - so overblown by many a great director in the past - Coppola sends Dunst out with the voice of a mall queen with daddy's credit card in her Prada bag - princess of the all-nite rave. Many critics have said Coppola and Dunst portray the teen queen as an 18th century Paris Hilton - and this is probably true on many fronts - but they also show that being Paris Hilton (or any other rich bitch prima donna) may not be all that great a thing to be after all - you just might lose your head over it.  Full of music two hundred years out of time, this pomo set piece plays out as if The Cure or New Order are perfectly in sync with an 18th century masqued ball or a royal coronation. One number in particular, Bow Wow Wow's I Want Candy booms across the soundtrack as Marie and her ladies-in-waiting go on a shopping spree full of decadent wardrobes, delicious shoes (including a pair of purple Converse snuck in for flair) and resplendently ridiculous hairstyles - never once seeming out of place. The modern music and period setting may be rather similar in vein to the films of Baz Luhrmann, but Coppola manages to weave her way past the overly trite style of a film like Moulin Rouge and belts out a film not only full of magniloquence and pretty party pieces, but also of a subtly meaty political underpinning beneath the pink frosted exterior that is this pop star Versailles. 

Peripherally responsible for the starvation of France which in turn led to the French Revolution which in turn led to the beheading of both Antoinette and Louis XVI, Coppola's queen is played more for sympathy than sneer (which assuredly led to the few boo's it received from the Cannes balconies). Showing instead, Marie Antoinette as an apathetic, hautier character, who more likely than not, ever even came into contact with the "people of France" let alone was in any capable state to rule them. The scapegoat of history - her crime being perhaps more an innocent indifference than a calculated reign of terror - Marie Antoinette was more the giggling schoolgirl of privilege than anything else. Not that this is any excuse for what the French citizenry endured during those days before the revolution (remember when George Bush the Father could not even fathom a guess on how much a quart of milk cost?), but it is most likely the most accurate way to look at this child queen. 

Even the surely apocryphal "let them eat cake" quote (the comment that launched a thousand guillotines) is played at by Coppola as if it were a snide little remark to be manipulated and teased - and Dunst's Marie, a pretty powdered present from Austria to France is commented on as "a piece of cake" early on in the film. All this leading to a pop film that seems at first glance nothing more than confectionery sugar and pink and blue sprinkles, but on deeper reflection can be seen as a politically charged dress-up film of revolutionary standards. A film that is set between 1765 and 1793 with music from 1980 through 1985 and is postmodern enough to have the heart of the cinematic future beating beneath its ostentatious chest. 

Finally, in the end, although we all know the outcome (and if you do not then read a book once and a while) we still feel a kind of sadness at this fall of Eden - a child's Eden at that. 

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Granted, there have been harsh criticisms tossed at Ms. Coppola.  Calling her films shallow and trite - pretentious even.  Some of this may be true to one extent or another (as with many of the greats, her father had the pretentious label slapped onto him more than a few times), but it is within this apparent shallowness or pretension where Coppola's films work - and then some.  She, like many an auteur before her, is creating cinema, not for the mere sake of entertainment (though it certainly is that as well!) but for the sake of cinema itself.  

Perhaps the gifts she got from her legendary father were not mere speculative transference but a God-given ability to make movies the way movies should be made.  Of course by God I mean Cinema (with a capital C) and all of its omnipotent powers-that-be.  Here's hoping she doesn't ever trudge into the temporary swamp of inadequacies of the father later in life, because for now, she just keeps getting better and better and better with each picture.