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.

There's A New Poll in Town: Name Your Favourite Lars von Trier

It has been a few months since The Most Beautiful Fraud in the World has done a poll.  Well the dry spell is over.  In light of the recent release of Lars von Trier's eleventh feature film, Melancholia, you are asked to name your favourite film by the audacious Danish director.  Be it Breaking the Waves or Dogville, Dancer in the Dark or Antichrist, The Idiots or Europa, The Element of Crime or Epidemic, Manderlay or The Boss of It All, or his latest, the aforementioned Melancholia, go on over to the sidebar of this very site (relatively near the top of said sidebar) and click in your vote.  And remember, you must vote in the poll on the sidebar - votes left in the comments section will not be counted (though feel free to comment away).  And for all you von Trier haters out there (and I know there are a lot of you), there is no choice for "none of the above" so take your hatred elsewhere (though I do encourage even the haters to make comments below).  The poll will go on until shortly after the New Year, where upon the results will be announced.

Anomalous Material Weekly Feature: 10 Best Lars von Trier Films

Here we are again true believers, with what is my seventeenth weekly 10 best feature for the fine folks over at Anomalous Material.  For those of you not in the know, those same said fine folks have given me a (possibly foolish on their behalf) regular weekly gig as feature writer.  It is a series of top ten lists on various cinematic subjects (and anyone who knows me can attest to how perfectly suited I am to such an endeavor - yes I am a list nerd).  This week's feature coincides with the US release of Lars von Trier's Melancholia.  I take a look back and rank my favourite Lars von Trier films.  Some would say that a task such as this - one of the most divisive directors around - is quite an ugly task, but what the hell do they know!?  

Read my feature article, "10 Best Lars von Trier Films" at Anomalous Material.

Here is an added bonus for all you true believers out there: A young LvT making the sign for what many of his detractors have called him over the years. I personally think of him as more of an imp.

The Cinematheque Reviews: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

Back in May, so much focus had been put on the stupid things that LvT said at Cannes - the seemingly anti-Semitic guffaws that the director meant as a silly joke that went way way awry, and got the Great Dane banned for life - that his new film, which incidentally took home the Best Actress award for Kirsten Dunst, had been lost in the mire of tabloid bullshit.  Well, now here it is nearly a half a year later, and the director's eleventh feature, Melancholia, is finally getting its long-anticipated US release.  As a member of the "misunderstood cinematic genius" camp that holds one side of the hill in the great divisive debate over the audacious auteur (the other side being held down by the "pretentious misogynistic asshole" camp), I am thrilled this quite stunning work of art is finally making its way to American soil (a place LvT has never stepped foot btw).  When I saw it at this year's New York Festival, I was, as they say, blown away.  It comes this close (picture of me holding my thumb and forefinger ever so close together) to being my choice for the best film of 2011 (sorry Lars, Mr. Malick edges you out) and will surely make many a top ten list come year's end - as well as I am sure, several worst lists.  Anyway, I have already written pieces on my anticipation of the film, as well as my initial thoughts after the aforementioned NYFF screening, but now my actual review of said film is up and running over at The Cinematheque.  Read it AND see the film, which will open this Friday in NY and LA, and subsequently widen its cinematic distribution swath over the next few months.

Read my review of Melancholia at The Cinematheque.

Not so coincidentally, my piece entitled "10 Best Lars von Trier Films" will be published soon over at Anomalous Material.  Keep your eye out for it.  And if you are still not convinced, just check out the three shots below.  That Danish bastard sure can make a movie.

Criterion Critiques w/ Alex DeLarge

What follows is part of a regular series of reviews on the always wonderful, and quite indispensable Criterion Collection, written by our special guest reviewer Alex DeLarge of the Korova Theatre.

ANTICHRIST (Lars von Trier, 2009)

Released on Criterion Blu-ray 11/09/2010; Spine #542

“So the green field To oblivion falls,
Overgrown, flowering,
With incense and weeds
And the cruel noise
Of dirty flies.”
-A Season In Hell, Arthur Rimbaud

Man succumbs to the deviltry of his antithesis, his masculinity replaced by emotional impotency, both victim and abuser of Mother Nature. Lars von Trier’s season in hell exorcizes his own personal demons through the dark glassily; the nameless characters avatars of human conceit, both lost amid their own secret gardens.

The film begins in a monochrome snowfall, the couple making love while their son tumbles like spun clothes. Cut to color and a month later where the woman is hospitalized in a deep depression and her husband is revealed to be a psychologist, a man who seems cold like a hard rain and just as expressionless. He begins aversion therapy with his wife, discovering her atypical fear and confronting it, his relentless ego a brooding shadow upon her senses. She is inexplicably afraid of their summer cottage named Eden, where the previous summer she gave up working on her thesis about the Salem witch hunts. He forces her to confront each aspect of this wicked landscape and it soon subsumes her…and him.

Trier’s maddening narrative remains elusive in meaning and ripe in interpretation: is she suffering from the trauma of her lost son? Does she become possessed by some feminine malignancy represented by Nature? Cause and effect has been erased and reversed blurring the lines between external horror and internal conflict: in this storm only chaos reigns (rains). We begin to suspect that she has loathed her husband for some time, and had begun torturing their son the summer before. In a revisionist flashback, we see her cruel eyes focus upon their son moments before his fall from grace as if she could have saved him…but chose not to. Her passion has transformed into hatred, and sex becomes a violent weapon whose edge cuts both ways.

The lush cinematography imbues this world with a vibrant realism underscored by a damnable crescendo of entropy. The violence is brutal and anarchic, the comfortless man suffering the trials of 17th century women while his wife becomes tormentor. Their roles reversed, she is consumed by her masochistic behavior while his lament blossoms into a spiritual awakening: he is finally embraced by the ghosts of woman past, and becomes a daughter of the dust.

Final Grade: (B+)


To toss my own hat in the ring of this guest review, here is my take on Antichrist.

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About Alex: "To state things plainly is the function of journalism; Alex writes fugitive reviews, allusive, symbolic, full of imagery and allegory, and by leaving things out, he allows the reader the privilege of creating along with him." Alex can be found hidden deep within the dark confines of his home theatre watching films, organizing his blu-ray and dvd collection and updating his blogs. Please visit the Korova Theatre and Hammer & Thongs to see what’s on his mind.

NYFF 2011: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

For years now, all those Lars von Trier haters out there have been saying, or at least implying, by all their critical caterwauling, that the audacious auteur would some day destroy the world. Well guess what? The melancholy Dane has done just that in his new, aptly titled work, Melancholia. Take that! In fact, just to stick it a little bit to those LvT haters, as soon as the NYFF press screening was over and I found my way back out to 65th and Broadway, I called the film a Goddamned Masterpiece on Facebook - and I stand by that even on second and third thoughts. Take that too!! 

 

LvT is certainly what most would call a divisive filmmaker. You either love the guy and his baroque, operatic style (which is highly evident in Melancholia) or you hate him for his arrogance and vulgar pretensions (which also is quite evident in Melancholia) - and to the nth degree in whichever direction you happen to choose. I happen to choose (if there is actually a conscious choice - perhaps, like being gay or straight, one is born a von Trier lover or hater) to be on the love side of that fence (from the director's eleven theatrically released features, only the quite disappointing Manderlay is held in low esteem) and my reasons for picking that particular side probably have quite the overlap with the reasons so many hold for hating the man, and his films, so greatly. Take that as well!

Meanwhile, Melancholia, a film about how an incredibly dysfunctional family copes with love, loss, depression and the literal end of the world, is certainly a force to be reckoned with - even amongst LvT's already demanding oeuvre. The film is split, much like his last film, Antichrist (the nadir of the aforementioned haters existence), into a stunningly shot, and quite cinematic opening and closing, replete with ominously beautiful classical music and utter despair and destruction, bookending an ultra-realistic centerpiece of hand-held cameras and improvised words and actions. Unlike that film though, which many called misogynistic and sadist (and in a way, the film is both things - so much so that a misogyny consultant was amongst the closing credits...and yes, it was a woman), Melancholia has no real controversial aspect to speak of. Yeah, the guy destroys all life as we know it - and in the first two minutes at that - but he doesn't have paramour Charlotte Gainsbourg doing anything with power tools this time. That's something, right?

Actually Melancholia is probably the director's best chance for mainstream accessibility (due more to name stars like Cannes Best Actress Kirsten Dunst and Kiefer Sutherland, who gives an astonishingly brilliant performance as a rather cocksure jerk, than typical mainstream storytelling, but such a thing did not help Dogville at the box office - and that had Nichole Kidman AND Lauren fucking Bacall!).  The film's accessibility will come to possible fruition when it is released (by Magnolia) to a somewhat unsuspecting US audience on November 11th of this year.  Okay, I'm not a mindless dreamer - I know a box office draw is not about to happen (especially for a film that depicts the destruction of Earth as both existential metaphor and pretentious reality), but at the same time I do not foresee the rabid antagonistic rhetoric from LvT haters that Antichrist's Grand Guignol artifice had elicited upon its release. Again, that's something, right?

A full review of Lars von Trier's Melancholia will be coming a few days prior to its 11/11 release date.

In Giddy Anticipation of von Trier's Melancholia (and the NYFF)

Well here we are again at that special time of year.  No, not football season, and not back to school time either.  Something greater than both of those things (if you consider either of those things to be great that is).  As the temperature drops and those proverbial dog days of Summer quickly (and finally dammit!) fade away, we are given not only the new season (and a grand old season it is too) but also the greatly-anticipated New York Film Festival.  Press screenings begin this week, and though I will sadly not make all of them (or even close to all of them) I will be traveling to a few days of said screenings, and Lars von Trier's infamous Cannes winner (Best Actress for Kirsten Dunst) Melancholia will be first and foremost on that list.

Seeing the von Trier film on Thursday at 10 am (after a four hour train ride leaving Harrisburg at 5 am - ugh, I hate mornings) at Walter Reade, it will be my third such catching of von Trier at the NYFF.  The first was back in 2005 when me and the missus traveled to the city to catch Manderlay (this was before I held a press pass).  After a trip to New York filled with my near non-stop anticipation of the film, combined with my incessant talk of how much I had adored Dogville (a film which my wife had yet to see at this point in the story), my better half was thinking to herself "what the Hell does he see in this von Trier guy anyway!?"  Granted, she had seen (and loved) Dancer in the Dark, but her rather lackluster response to Manderlay (a film that still stands as the only disappointment this critic can find in LvT's quite divisive oeuvre) was enough to make her ask me why I was so excited to see this 'film'.  Since the film could not live up to my expectations, I of course had no respectable answer for her and kept my mouth unusually shut.

My second encounter with the audacious Dane was in 2009 when the festival screened Antichrist.  This time I was a full-fledged member of the press and therefore watched the film with my fellow critics (most of whom I knew from afar but would never approach out of fear of seeming a cinematic rube in comparison) at Walter Reade.  A screening that was followed by a von Trier Q&A via Skype on the big screen.  I quite liked the film - one could even make a claim for my loving it - and it would eventually (after its late October release) make my Top 10 list for the year (number two behind only QT's Inglourious Basterds).  Not so incidentally, my lovely wife ended up walking out when I screened it for her a few months later.  Still only Dancer in the Dark and (now that she has finally seen it) Dogville will she admit a fondness for - otherwise LvT is about as persona non grata in her personal opinion as the director is at Cannes after his quite irreverent remarks back in May.

Now we cut to Sept. 22nd, 2011 and the screening of the man's Melancholia.  To say I am excited is to say the least - the very least.  Looking to be the director's most accessible film yet (with the help of Dunst and Sutherland, the film is a bit more mainstreamy than typical LvT), Melancholia, which will get a proper US release on Nov. 11th.  Now I don't really see any Oscar nominations in its future (its closer to mainstream acceptance than anything else the man has done, but let's face it, even sight still unseen, this is a Lars von Trier film still) but a semi-wide release is not out of the picture.  I am not going to get into any of the tabloid talk of Lvt and his Cannes remarks (other than to say, though seemingly offensive, they were probably not meant as anything other than a rambling joke getting out of control) but these unfortunate remarks could keep his film from even getting that aforementioned semi-wide release.  Nevertheless, I will be seeing it in a few days, and that is all I care about right now.

I suppose there are some other films playing at this year's festival, and I suppose even this von Trier head should make mention of them.  There are a slew I will unfortunately not get to see (ah, to be a New Yorker) and these include Steve McQueen's Shame, Julia Loktev's The Loneliest Planet, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Once Upon A Time in Anatolia, Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene, Mia Hansen-Love's Goodbye First Love, Michael Hazanavicius' silent film The Artist and the Brothers Dardenne with The Kid With the Bike.  But enough of the negative (I will eventually see all of these films) let's accentuate the positive, shall we.  I will be catching Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, as well as Bela Tarr's The Turin Horse and Abel Ferrara's 4:44 Last Day on Earth.  Sadly three trips are the best this wayward traveler can do this year, but I will try to make them count as I will catch non-NYFF films now playing in NYC after the festival screenings and before my train ride home.

I will post pieces on each of these films as I see them, followed by full reviews as each one is eventually released in theaters.  As for now, I'll get back to my giddy (rather school girl crush) anticipation of LvT's Melancholia (gee I hope there is another Skype Q&A).

Melancholia is Coming.....

Although I am greatly looking forward to such upcoming films as Malick's Tree of Life and Scorsese's Hugo Cabret and Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, there is one film in particular that I am looking forward to with the greatest of (maniacal) glee.  This particular movie is Lars von Trier's Melancholia.  I am an unabashed lover of (almost) anything von Trier (I say almost because I am loath to like Manderlay, though perhaps a second viewing may quell such thoughts).   I suppose what I am trying to say is, no matter the pretentious jackass he is, I sure do love me some von Trier.  One of the best times cinematically I have had in a while was watching Antichrist at the Walter Reade during a NYFF press screening and getting to watch and listen to von Trier himself via Skype ( a scary head to see thirty feet high I can tell you though!).  But I am getting off subject.  Melancholia will make its world premiere at Cannes next month and should (hopefully) make it to the states sometime later this year (perhaps after a stop at the aforementioned NYFF).  I am already predicting it to top my Best of 2011 list.  Anyway, here is the trailer.  Watch it.  Now.  The voice of Max Von Sydow commands you (a little Europa injoke for those fellow Trierheads out there - and you know who you are).

Antichrist Reviewed at The Cinematheque

When I first saw Antichrist (a Lars von Trier film!!) at this year's NYFF, the press screening was punctuated with a plethora of hisses and guffaws.  Why do people hate this movie so?   Beats me.  Sure it's pretentious and condescending and pretty fucking arrogant, but c'mon guys, it is Lars von Trier afterall - what the Hell did you expect!?  Anyway, I think the film is brilliant, not in spite of its pretentiousness and/or arrogance, but because of it.  Bravo you mad mocking maestro you.

Read my review of Antichrist at the Cinematheque. 

NYFF 2009: Lars von Trier's Antichrist

Perhaps this post should be subtitled, "In Defense of" or possibly even "in RABID Defense of".  Nonetheless, here it is.

Okay, let me begin by saying that yesterday's NYFF press screening for Lars von Trier's Antichrist waas met by giggles, guffaws and a general malaise of what the!? get-this-over-with shuffling about in the seats.   The film even received a bevy of cat calls when everyone saw the film was dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky.  Okay, the Tarkovsky thing was a bit out-of-the-blue but as far as everything else goes and/or went, I must say - with more than a great deal of arrogant pride for some reason - that for better of for worse I liked the damned thing.  In fact I think I could even go a stretch further and say I loved the damned thing - genital-mutilation and all!

So what I am saying here is, send me off to cinephilia purgatory if you want, I don't give a damn.  I (arrogantly again?) pronounce LvT's Antichrist as the second best film of 2009 (second only to another ballyhooed mixed mataphor movie, QT's both beloved and bemoaned Basterds).  Well at least in my opinion it is, as for everyone else - not so much.  So no matter how many belittle the film (the impression I got after overhearing post-coital, er I mean post-screening comments at Walter Reade yeasterday) or just plain were not happy with what the director was doing with it (though others did like it for what it was) while at the same time being bothered by it still (and isn't this merely falling into the provocateur's grubby little Danish hands?) and no matter how many people begin to uncontrollably snicker and chuckle when the blood-drenched fox tells Willem Dafoe that chaos reigns (perhaps instead of Tarkovsky, LvT should have dedicated his film to Chris Noonan and/or George Miller!?) and no matter how many claim all von Trier is doing is satiating his own misogynistic wet dreams, I stand by this film with a furious dedication to defending its rather precarious (if it has any at all) honour.

Simply put, I loved this big steaming pile of pretentious cinematic garbage for whatever it is worth.  And by "steaming pile of pretentious cinematic garbage" I mean to compliment the film in not only the best way I can think of but also in the most apprpriate way to praise a film made by a director who when informed (via his Skype Q&A after yesterday's screening) that no one had walked out of the screening, replied with a wink-and-a-nod "then I have failed".  A sidenote: one critic sitting in the back (did not see who it was) was heard saying that he had wanted to walk out.  Too bad von Trier didn't hear him, it may have made the bastard's day.

Oh yeah, with all this defending of the film's character (or lack thereof) from those I perceived to be my enemies due to their obvious distaste for what is certainly a distasteful movie I forgot to talk about the actual film.  That is a wink-and-a-nod comment too by the way - I am sure no one even cares that I loved a film that they hated, but its kinda fun to provoke (oh now I get it).

The film itself starts off with a title card which reads (in scribbled crayon-coloured handwriting) - no make that boasts the director's name.  This was the moment the snickers first began.   Aside from obviously finally letting go of at least some of his dogme hang-ups, all this boast does is let us know who made the damned film.  Would these snickers have met Capra when his name-before-the-title movies played?  Perhaps he should have dedicated the film to Capra then.  But I digress.

Antichrist opens with a silky black and white slo-mo (for slo-mo's sake perhaps?) of He and She (Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as the unnamed but for He and She couple) doing the proverbial nasty from shower to sink to bedroom, all the while, their toddler toddling his way from crib to open window to snowy ground several floors down (teddy bear in tow).  Is this prologue pretentious?  Hells yea, but who would have expected any less - von Trier is no less pretentious than say, Welles or Kubrick or Bergman or Antonioni or Lynch or Tarantino or Godard (I can go on ya know).  I think this is actually the very reason I like the filmmaker so much - his proud pretentiousness in the face of cinematic art.

Anyway, to go on with the film, after this the movie turns to colour (and I think even its many detractors cannot say much against the gorgeous cinematography throught) and the therapist He decides to take the fractured, grief-striken She to their cabin in the woods.  Did I mention the aforementioned cabin in the woods is called Eden?  So yes, after the fall the couple goes back to Eden.  Maybe instead of Antichrist, LvT could have called his film Eden II: The Revenge of the Serpant (or talking fox). 

Yeah yeah, I know.  The whole thing reeks of a wild abandon of indulgence.  But in the strangest of ways (similar to QT's Basterds and just about every goddamned JLG film!) this is what makes the film work for me.  Its self-arrogance.  Its buzzing hindrance.  Its ugly, nasty self-indulgent nature.  Its Strindbergian theory if you will.  And I haven't even mentioned the parts where He ejaculates blood and She takes a pair of scissors to her, well let's just leave it at that.  She did win Best Actress at Cannes for this, so what does that say about Cannes?  It says a lot I think, but as I said, lets leave it at that.  The fox, the scissors, the Omen-esque overtones, the Lynchian white noise, the Tarkovsky rhetoric, the scissors, the snicker-inducing arrogance, the closing credit that reads "Misogyny Researcher" (and yes, it is a woman), the scissors.  The film is nowhere shy of batshitcrazy and I suppose I like that in my cinema, which definitely explains by fist-in-the-air defense of LvT's latest provocacation.  Anyway, I said I would leave it at that so leave it at that I will - for now.

I will be posting a full length review on the film (over at The Cinematheque) closer to the release date of the film (which is Oct. 23 at IFC Center in NYC to start).  As for now, I'm going to leave it at this.  Did I mention the scissors?