Village Voice Critics' Poll Take 7

Thanks to Images Cinema, the shrinking window between theatrical and DVD release dates, and the wonders of “long-tail economics” as epitomized by Netflix, I have by now caught up with most of the critically acclaimed films of 2005, so here I’ll compare my own ratings with the critical consensus expressed in the seventh annual critics’ poll conducted by the Village Voice.

For the record, I re-watched The Squid and the Whale when it came out on dvd and confirmed it as my personal pick as the best film of 2005. (Also enjoyed Noah Baumbach’s commentary, and interview with Phillip Lopate.) It does so much in eighty swift and concentrated minutes. And to me as a one-time Park Slope resident, would-be New Yorker writer, and infatuator of Laura Linney, it’s the greatest home movie ever, with an exquisite balance of wit and pain. But when I finally caught up with Terrence Malick’s The New World on dvd, I was equally enthusiastic, and might give that the nod for its greater scope.

If not excluded by its original release date or provenance as an Italian television series, my very favorite film of 2005 would be The Best of Youth, and I am happy to announce that I will be showing that six-hour masterpiece of family dynamics, and Italy’s passage through the past four decades, in a special presentation at the Clark over two days in September, Saturday the 9th and Sunday the 10th, starting at 1:00 p.m. each day..

So here’s a checklist of films of the past year ranked by hip critical consensus, with my own rating grade appended. You can find my mini-reviews by entering the title in the “Search This Blog” box at the top of the page, which now appears to function well. You should find something here to put in your Netflix queue.

I welcomed this Village Voice tabulation as a prompt to see a lot of films that otherwise would not have come to my attention, but my own taste is more aligned with the mainstream critics surveyed by Metacritic.com. Something about this list suggests a cadre of critics who say, in effect, “I’m so smart I don’t need to be entertained by a movie, I can occupy my mind with my own thoughts if you just throw some exotic or esoteric images on the wall of the cave. And then afterwards, I can discourse so cleverly about it that I am no longer bothered by the fact that the experience was much like watching paint dry.” You will see several *NR* ratings for films that I could not wrap my mind around, or that I felt compelled to fast forward through parts of. For those, I am willing to grant that I was not up to the challenge of watching attentively. (There are also a few that I will be adding ratings to over the next couple of weeks.)

1. A History of Violence *6*
2. 2046 *6+*
3. Kings and Queen *6+*
4. Grizzly Man *7*
5. The World *6+*
6. Tropical Malady *NR*
7. The Squid and the Whale *8+
8. Caché (Hidden) *8*
9. The Holy Girl. *NR*
10. Last Days *5*
11. Brokeback Mountain *8*
12. Café Lumière *6*
13. Good Night, and Good Luck *7+*
14. Nobody Knows *7*
15. The Intruder *NR*
16. Capote *6+*
17. Head-On *7*
18. Mysterious Skin *6+*
19. My Summer of Love *7+*
21. The New World *8+*
22. Saraband *6*
24. Paradise Now *6*
26. Keane
27. Me and You and Everyone We Know *6+*
28. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit *7+*
29. Match Point *6*
31. Munich *0*
33. Darwin's Nightmare *7-*
34. Junebug *7+*
37. The Beat That My Heart Skipped *6+*
38. The Best of Youth *9-*
40. Syriana *8*
41. Look at Me *7*
42. Broken Flowers *7*
45. The Constant Gardener *8-*
49. Turtles Can Fly *6*
51. Pride & Prejudice *7-*
52. The White Diamond *7*
58. Funny Ha Ha *6*
62. The 40-Year-Old-Virgin *7*
66. Crash *7-*
67. March of the Penguins *7*
68. Walk the Line *8*
71. Downfall *7*
75. Cinderella Man *7-*
76. Gunner Palace *6*
77. In Her Shoes *6+*
81. Hustle & Flow *7-*
82. The Aristocrats
87. Oliver Twist *6+*
88. Occupation: Dreamland *6+*
93. Murderball *7*
101. Nine Lives *7*
108. Serenity *5+*
110. The Ice Harvest *6*
118. Separate Lies *6-*
119. Where the Truth Lies
133. Duma *6*
134. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room *8*

The complete Village Voice poll results and collateral materials can be accessed at: http://www.villagevoice.com/take/seven.php?page=winners&category=1

Best films of the year, who says?

I surmise that my ideal reader is someone who is looking to add films to their Netflix queue, someone who appreciates the art of film but does not closely follow the critical consensus, so could use personalized recommendations to pick films to watch. The best snapshot of the critical consensus is available at Metacritic.com (see link in right column, or click on title below to go direct to Metacritic page for specific film), so I will take their list for last year and append my own ratings. My next posting will do the same for the more extensive and offbeat list from the Village Voice critics poll.

The "Search This Blog" box at the top of this page now seems to work pretty well, so if you want to see my comments in detail, you can find my review by typing the film's name in there. Let me remind you that a *7* is my threshold of positive recommendation; a *6* is a favorable grade but up to you, and a *8* is something I strongly urge you to see.

And let me get in an early plug for a very special "Brother to Brother Encore" at the Clark. If you will be within a reasonable radius of Williamstown on Saturday and Sunday, September 9th and 10th, mark your calendar for a rare screening of the #1 film on the list below -- the six-hour film The Best of Youth, originally made for Italian television, will be shown in two parts, starting at 1:00 pm each day.

The Best-Reviewed Movies of 2005 according to Metacritic ratings:

1. Best of Youth, The MC-89 *9-*
2. Capote MC-88 *6+*
3. Nobody Knows MC-88 *7*
4. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit MC-87 *7+*
5. Brokeback Mountain MC-87 *8*
6. Murderball MC-87 *7*
7. Grizzly Man MC-87 *7+*
8. Turtles Can Fly MC-85 *6*
9. Intruder, The MC-85 *NR*
10. Darwin's Nightmare MC-84 *7-*
11. Kings and Queen MC-84 *6+*
12. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride MC-83 *DNS*
13. Cache (Hidden) MC-83 *8*
14. White Diamond, The MC-83 *7*
15. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room MC-82 *8+*
16. Duma MC-82 *6*
17. Constant Gardener, The MC-82 *8-*
18. Memories of Murder MC-82 *DNS*
19. Pride & Prejudice MC-82 *7-*
20. Squid and the Whale, The MC-82 *8+*

Tsotsi [etc.]

Adapted and well-directed by Gavin Hood from an Athol Fugard novel, this film brings City of God from Rio to Johannesburg, following the shantytown fate of a teenage gang. The contrast between Soweto township and the modern city and suburb is well handled, but the story lacks a crucial dimension of plausibility. The first-time performance of Presley Chweneyagae as the young hoodlum denoted by the title carries the film over its unbelievable elements. He hijacks a car and shoots the frantic woman driver, only to find upon his getwaway her infant son in the back seat. The way his hardened gangsta heart melts through his incompetent caretaking, with flashbacks to his own stolen youth, reads credibly across his face, even when the baby’s failure to complain defeats credulity. Like the film itself, the character reveals a soft center under a tough exterior, sufficiently crowd-pleasing to win this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Film. (2005, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-70.)

Well, I’m enjoying my “Brother to Brother” film series, even if not many others are. Double features are too much for most people, and the familiarity of the films seems to be a drag instead of a draw. As with the last pairing of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? and Rain Man, I was more than content to see Raging Bull and American History X again and the juxtaposition worked on several levels. I still don’t rate Raging Bull as highly as many do -- it’s not even among Scorsese’s top 5 in my book but still an *8-* -- but it was interesting to compare and contrast two tales of masculine violence and ambiguous redemption, as well as the he-man performances of Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton. AHX was full of holes and confused in its implications, as you would expect from a film that was taken from its director and reedited before release, but still powerful scene by scene. The next neat pairing will be “Brothers at Work”: Big Night and Adaptation on August 13. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.

Once more let me hail HBO’s Sunday night, with the third seasons of The Wire, Deadwood, and Entourage now being shown. Deadwood is must-see tv, but The Wire may be the best tv series ever. This third season will be on dvd next month, in preparation for a new fourth season to begin airing in September. It’s not a program you can undertake to watch casually -- you’ve got to start at the beginning and pay close attention at all times. The show’s creators do not insult your intelligence by explaining everything or underlining every point -- it will take you 5 or 6 episodes just to figure out who the characters are, but once you know them you are completely hooked by their multifaceted reality and the verisimilitude of the situations. It’s closer to a serialized novel by a contemporary Charles Dickens than to any tv series you’ve seen. An initially unintelligible or enigmatic scene in one episode may not pay off till several episodes later, when everything will click into place. You get the feeling that this is exactly how it is in the war between street corner drug dealers and the poe-leese in Baltimore, and the more you watch the more you realize how exactly it mirrors larger political and economic realities. The second season shifts it focus to longshoreman at the container port, bringing much information about an otherwise mysterious place that figures prominently in the news, what with the threat of terrorism and the whole uproar over Dubai Port World. The third season returns to the drug czars and their efforts to build their business and take it legit when useful, while the police brass scramble in their own political games and the front-line police try to center in on an elusive and ever-changing target. I couldn’t begin to untangle the various characters and plotlines, so I won’t even try.

I did have a chance, however, to talk recently with the sister-in-law of one of the show’s creators, for some behind the scenes glimpses of the collaboration between David Simon and Ed Burns (neither “Kookie” nor the Brothers McMullen guy.) This Edward Burns was a 20-year veteran of the Baltimore police department, who became a primary source for Sun reporter Simon’s book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, which led to a seven-season tv series (which I’ve never seen.) Then they collaborated on The Corner, a view of addiction from the inside that also became an HBO series, directed by Charles Dutton (which just went to the top of my Netflix queue.) And then The Wire broadened the story to the whole marketplace of illegal drugs. So the essential approach is not about entertaining, but about bringing the news in the most authentic way possible. You ought to be watching.

The Sea Inside

Perhaps, like me, you approach this true-life melodrama about a quadriplegic seeking to die with dignity, which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film last year, only with a sense of duty? Wrong. This is beautiful filmmaking of a very high order, wonderful if you believe the point of movies is to make you think and feel. Director Alejandro Amenabar is absurdly young (born 1972) to have added this estimable work to his well-done thrillers, Open Your Eyes and The Others. A complete filmmaker, he even composes the music, and comes across as a latter-day combination of Hitchcock and Sirk. With impeccable acting across the board, the film is anchored by a towering -- while supine -- perfomance from Javier Bardem, with four superb and lovely actresses orbiting around him and his plight. Set along the Galician coast of Spain, this film is breathtaking in a variety of ways. And the dvd includes an unusually comprehensive making-of documentary, well worth an extra hour of viewing. (2004, dvd, n.) *7+* (MC-74.)

Mutual Appreciation

Andrew Bujalski goes right to the roots of indie film, in an admirable if less than fantastic follow-up to Funny Ha Ha. This no-frills b&w three-hander is reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise, which several interviewees in the documentary Independent’s Day (about the Sundance Film Festival) cite as the starting point for the modern American independent film movement. Another tale of post-graduate drift, romantic and vocational, this film features highly-naturalistic and seemingly aimless dialogue in stylized but anti-stylistic situations. It feels real, if vaguely grubby, but needs to get out of doors more, just like its characters. Humorous and rather sweet, though, like those shaggy, sheepish characters. Just okay as movies, Bujalski’s films represent an heroic effort by a group of twentysomethings to tell their own stories in their own way, and an even more heroic effort to get them seen. (2005, dvd, n.) *6* (see: www.mutualappreciation.com)

The Thing Called Love

A pleasing trifle from Peter Bogdanovich, worth seeing if you enjoy country music -- the film has a wall-to-wall soundtrack, which I liked a lot. The film follows the romantic and musical fortunes of four would-be songwriters who immigrate to Music City; it’s sort of Singles-meets-Nashville and has some of the same juice as the Cameron Crowe and Robert Altman films. The appealing quartet is Samantha Mathis, River Phoenix (in his last film, before he expired on the street outside the Viper Room), Dermot Mulroney, and a pre-Speed Sandra Bullock. There’s plenty of local color, and the romantic complications are not entirely hackneyed. This was a low point in Bogdanovich’s career, when the film got bad reviews and a quick yank from theaters, but it’s a worthy link between The Last Picture Show and the recent, also undervalued Cat’s Meow. It’s developed a following on video and was just released on dvd. This is a good time to remind you that my number grades are a gauge of my subjective enthusiasm, and not a statement of objective worth. My enthusiasms are informed but idiosyncratic. I am not asserting that this film, for example, is somehow “better” than far more ambitious or historic films for whom I could only muster a *6* -- just so you know. (1993, dvd, n.) *7-*

Boomerang!

From the producer of The March of Time newsreels and fledgling director Elia Kazan comes this semi-interesting period piece, a noirish semi-documentary shot on location close to the Connecticut town where the events actually took place. This story of the unsolved murder of a priest stars Dana Andrews as the honest DA (eventually to be FDR’s AG) who won’t let a suspect be railroaded in a politically volatile case. Lee J. Cobb and other familiar or soon-to-be-familiar faces mingle effectively with local non-actors. Despite the incidental interest, this film lacks the dramatic coherence or amplitude to make it anything but a mildly-involving antique (and I use the word advisedly since it dates from the year of my birth.) (1947, dvd, n.) *6-*

Girlhood

Liz Garbus was one of the directors of the superlative, Oscar-winning documentary, The Farm: Angola USA, and here continues her examination of American justice, by following two teenage girls thrown into the system at an early age, as they make their way out into the adult world. Shanae had stabbed a friend to death at 12, and when we first meet her is numb to remorse, but she moves from incarceration to a halfway house and finally into success in high school, learning about herself and others along the way. Megan is a beautiful girl made wild by her chaotic upbringing, who seems less susceptible to help from others, but with a fierce intelligence about her thwarted life. Both of these girls are articulate and engaging, and their development over time is fascinating, despite the bare-bones filmmaking. (2003, dvd, n.) *7-*

With its setting on the streets of Baltimore, this film makes a good companion piece to The Wire, the third season of which I am now catching up with in reruns on HBO, and which I cannot recommend highly enough (first two seasons already on dvd, third due next month -- put them on your Netflix queue and prepare for a transcendent viewing experience.) Back to back with the new third season of Deadwood on Sunday nights, you can see the tv series at its absolute best, filled with characters who continue to surprise and language of a profane eloquence that is a continuing astonishment. What is it about the Davids of HBO -- Chase of The Sopranos, Simon of The Wire, and Milch of Deadwood? They’re each at the top of their class.

The Killers

Director Robert Siodmak adapts an Ernest Hemingway short story into a film that is as noir as noir can get, with dark shadows and pools of light in an atmosphere of foretold doom. There is much of interest here, including Burt Lancaster’s film debut as the ruined-boxer kill-ee; a very young and thin Ava Gardner as femme fatale, fresh from North Carolina and far from the voluptuous, exotic screen vixen of my earliest moviegoing memories; and Edmund O’Brien as the insurance investigator who pieces the tale together. The story is appropriately convoluted, but impossible to care about, as are the characters. But as an exercise in style and mood, this film sets the mold. (Criterion packages in a 2-disk set with Don Siegel’s 1964 remake -- which might be worth watching to see Ronald Reagan close out his career playing a mob boss -- and a host of supplemental materials.) (1946, dvd, n.) *6+*

North Country

This is a classic example of less-than-the-sum-of-its-parts. Director Niki Caro travels as far as she can from the New Zealand of Whale Rider to another distant outpost, in northern Minnesota mining country, for another tale of female empowerment, but she brings with her a sense of place, work, and community. Charlize Theron acts well enough that you occasionally forget how gorgeous she is, and she delivers a character cut from the true-life, working-class mold of Norma Rae or Erin Brockovich. Chris Menges’ cinematography is bleak and beautiful. The supporting cast is outstanding: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins and Sissy Spacek, among others. There are well-chosen songs by North Country native, Bob Zimmerman (aka Dylan.) But the screenplay is only “inspired by” the true story of a precedent-setting class-action sexual harassment suit at an iron mine, and falls back on a variety of heart-tugging cliches; and either writer or director made some miscalculations with flashbacks and foreshadowings, so the film settles fatally for “inspiration” rather than truth. (2005, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-68.)

An Inconvenient Truth

This is an important document, but not a great documentary. Al Gore’s well-honed, much-travelled slide show on global warming is interspersed with voice-over shots of him making his way from venue to venue. It is informative and alarming -- should be seen -- but director Davis Guggenheim does nothing to advance the art of documentary with this illustrated lecture plus filler. And as well as Gore comes off, he is much more impressive in direct and honest conversation with someone like Charlie Rose. Oh, to see the alternate universe where he actually took office in 2001 . . . !!! (2006, Images, n.) *NR* (MC-74.)