Terri (2011)

Director: Azazel Jacobs

Movies about the hard life of teenagers in high school have been done to death, but Terri stands out because completely real and honest. The movie doesn't resort to cliques and pop culture references, instead it's about a fat kid who has trouble at school and it takes that plot seriously. The characters and situations are completely authentic and never resort to sensationalism. Director Azazel Jacobs is patient with the story and seems aware that it is capturing the characters in real and believable ways that is more important than getting through the same old plot we've all seen.

The best part of the movie is that it captures character motivations in a way that's probably not all that sweet. It avoids sweet and happy scenes just for the sake of making the audience feel better, instead the movie the is not afraid to reveal how selfish people are, even when you think they are doing something nice for you. Every character has this issue, even Terri himself. I'd be very interested to see if Jacobs can keep this up or if he just caught a lucky break. His script is lackluster, but he seems to know that the story is secondary to how he captures the characters on camera.

Grade: B+

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011)

Director: Werner Herzog

This Werner Herzog documentary about the oldest cave paintings ever found is a pure treat, not only because the cave the documentary visits is not open to the public, but because we have Herzog as our tour guide. Herzog asks some fascinating questions about humanity, the beginnings of art, and even goes into the topic of spirits. His narration keeps you thinking and interested while his cameras focus on the painting. The movie celebrates both primitive art and the newest technologies simultaneously as he talks to those behind the exploration and preservation of the cave.

The cave itself is completely fascinating because it's been so well preserved, and so going into the cave is like stepping into a time machine and going back thousands of years ago. Herzog does take some detours  in which he explores a bit about how the people who may have done the paintings lived, but during those moments we're just waiting to get back to some more exploration of the cave. The movie was released in theaters in 3D, but unfortunately I saw it on DVD so I can't comment on how the 3D works. But the movie is fascinating, and to be honest, I don't think any movie made by Herzog will not be fascinating and thought-provoking in some way.

Grade: B

The Skin I Live In (2011)

Director: Pedro Almodovar

Almodovar has lately been known for his melodramatic, artful, and sometimes literary films of female friendship. But there was a time when he did thrillers, and in this film he goes back to those roots. The Skin I Live in is Almodovar by way of David Cronenberg body horror. The plot is wild, unpredictable, and sometimes even wacky. But it also allows Almodovar to take on many of the same themes he's known for, like identity and perception. This is a film about how physical perception can change our self-identity. When your self-perception changes, does your identity change as well? or is the other way around?

On the outside the film seems like some wacky campy B-movie, but Almodovar is a smart man who makes fascinating points and asks thoughtful questions with material that could otherwise have been wasted on a dumb sensationalist film. Almodovar's style is clean, beautiful, and clinical, and that formalist sheen on the film complements the theme of things that are beautiful and controlled on the outside, are not necessarily beautiful and controlled on the inside. I can't say too much of the story, because it truly has to be experienced to be believed. But I can say that of all Almodovar movies I've seen, this one may just be my favorite thus far.

Grade: A-

Weekend (2011)

Director: Andrew Haigh

This film is a simple gay indie romance that puts the emotions and feelings of its character at the forefront rather than politics or sociological issues. The story and structure is nothing new, neither are the characters when you take away their homosexuality. But the film is realized in such a simple and affecting way and you find yourself completely connected with the relationship of these two men. The film isn't showy at all and the dialogue feels very real. The movie does not present an obvious romantic tone, nor does it present a cynical tone, it just presents reality. Prominent issues facing gay people are brought up, but not focused on, and so the movie doesn't alienate itself. Andrew Haigh does a standout job at directing in this film. The tone is completely controlled and the chemistry between the actors is completely controlled as well. The visuals in the movie seem improvised and meticulously composed at the same time. It's a simple romance, but one that is more effective than most.

Grade: B

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

Director: Lynne Ramsay

Parents usually cite their number one goal to be to raise their children to be great people who are better than their parents were. In We Need to Talk About Kevin the complete opposite of that happens, and we see a mother grappling with the question of why this happened and what went wrong. In this film the titular Kevin ends up going to jail for a Columbine-like massacre at his high school, but it's not about him, it's about his mother and the complicated issues she goes through. It's a horror movie for parents.

The movie has a fractured narrative, in the sense that we see Kevin's mother, Eva, played by Tilda Swinton, during her life after the massacre, and we frequently flashback to scenes from before the Massacre. We go from Kevin as a baby all the way till the massacre, but the scenes of his mother in the present day are necessary because they establish that the scenes we are watching in the past are not exactly objective. Eva is a mother who is questioning whether or not it was her fault for what Kevin did. Through the flashbacks we understand that Eva is going through an inner conflict. Eva lived a fantastic life as a travel writer before Kevin was born, and having a baby seemed to have made her life a lot more dull, something she did not like at all. Part of her feels guilty for that and possibly sees her disdain for the child as the reason this happened. But we also see that Kevin is a pretty horrible kid in the flashbacks, so it's possible that this was an inevitable act that was bound to happen no matter how Eva raised him.

Lynne Ramsay does an incredible job at establishing the dread-filled mood that accompanies Kevin in every scene. Every horrible thing he does is highlighted completely because we see Kevin as Eva sees him. Ramsay infuses the film with the color red, because thats the color that stands out to Eva as she reminisces about her killer son. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a movie I hope to watch again someday soon because I'm not sure I was ready for the bait-and-switch it does by seeming like its based on realism, and then ending up completely and incredibly subjective. But as I reflect about the movie more, I find it a greater and greater achievement that puts us smack dab in the mind of a tortured mother.

Grade: B+

Bellflower (2011)

Director: Evan Glodell

First-time filmmaker Evan Glodell has made a film I quite respect for its massive ambitions, but not one that I can say is very successful. The movie shows the rise and fall of a relationship, but there also flame-throwers and muscle cars. Glodell made his own cameras and muscle car to achieve the very unique look of the movie that stands out, but the story itself seems to morph into a big blob of incoherent testosterone rampaging in the second half. I wish the film had been more successful in translating the post-apocalyptic  feelings that one gets when a relationship ends, but instead the part where that's supposed to happen is a bit too over-the-top. I wouldn't call Bellflower a bad movie, but I wouldn't call it a good one either. But it's unique enough that I think the time spent watching it was certainly worth it.

Grade: C

Margin Call (2011)

Director: J.C. Chandor

This is a bit of a low-key movie set at the dawn of the 2008 financial crisis at a investment firm that's about to implode. We know what happens, so the stakes are high. The subject matter is not the easiest to make compelling, but still the film is not as exciting as it could have been. The screenplay has got some flashy dialogue, but the directing is lacking in style. Chandor does succeed in raising some interesting points about the financial system through his screenplay. One of those more unique parts of the movie is how the dialogue isn't being dumbed down for the audience, but for the executives who know nothing about their profession and only care about the money their company earns. It's a great example of the film giving us information as to why this all happened and one of the main things I took away from the movie, but I don't think that's all the movie was trying to say, and the rest of what the film was trying to say didn't quite come across. Also, I must add that Demi Moore's performance is baffling for how obviously horrible it is.

Grade: C+

The Wire: Season Two (2003)

Executive Producer/Showrunner: David Simon

The second season of this landmark show does something I have never seen in a television drama before. After a successful, critically acclaimed, first season that is heavily serialized, the show starts the second season with a completely new story. We revisit some of the main characters, but we are introduced to a brand new story-line in the Baltimore shipping yard with many new characters. But this decision ends up being not just bearable, but brilliant. The first season was about the poverty-stricken predominantly black drug-dealing lower class of Baltimore, but this second season expands by showing how the urban decay effects not just those on the bottom, but also white blue collar workers as well.

The show builds and expands on that first season in a very brave way. Eventually many of our main characters and format of the first season comes into play, but that takes a lot of time to happen. Like the first season, the season takes time to get everything into place, but by the end of the season everything feels completely perfect. The blue collar members of the working class are the ones that have it hard this season, and in a genius move, their connection to the drug trade in the first season is made very clear at the end.

The second season is almost a Godfather-like sequel to the first, in that the first season is a great piece of art in its own right, and the second one expands on the first season and almost equals it. Once again, David Simon created a crime show that actually focuses on the reasons for the crime. When the jobs for the working class go away to other countries, or when their jobs are replaced by technology, where will those workers go? If the only place hiring is the local gangster, they'll do anything to feed and house their families.

Grade: A

A Separation (2011)

Director: Asghar Farhadi


It is surprising how many films have their characters painted as exclusively good or exclusively bad. That is why it is so refreshing to see a film like A Separation, one in which all of the characters are complex and can be seen as good and bad simultaneously. The film is an incredibly rich character drama that starts off with a divorce, but one that only unravels further after that and ends up being one of the most morally complex films I have seen in years.


Every character in this film has a moral dilemma that is instigated because of their situation, which includes where they live or how much money they have. Every adult character can potentially grab your sympathies, because even though some of these characters lie, the reasons they do so are spelled out very clearly. The husband and wife at the center of the eponymous separation both struggle with the conflict between compromising principles for practical benefits and standing behind your principles at all costs. It would have been very easy to make one of these characters the bad guy, but Farhadi does an incredible job at making sure everyone has an understandable point. Because the film is so moralistic, it is very likely you will end up sympathizing with one character more because of your own morals, but in that way the movie makes the audience examine their own morals.


As the film goes on though, there are a couple characters that start to come to the forefront as pure characters, and those are the children. Children are innocent and pure, and in these adult conflicts they are always the one who end up being the collateral damage. I have yet to see a film that gets across how it is always the children that lose in divorces. A Separation reveals the many battles human beings have with and within themselves and the real world consequences of those battles.


Grade: A

My Favorites Movies of 2011

2011 may not have been that great of a year for quality Hollywood movies, but when you step out of Hollywood it was an amazing year. Only one of the films on my top 15 of 2011 can be considered a major studio film. The rest were all either independently made or foreign made. The reason why the list is a top 15 instead of a top 10 is because there were just too many great movies. Each of the top three films on this list would have individually been my favorite movie of last year, that's how much quality is on this list. 


The amount of movies I saw in 2011 was the most I have ever seen in my life in any given year, so for that reason I believe my list is quite well made and one that I am proud of. But like every year, there were movies I was not able to see that may have made it on this list had I been given the opportunity to see them. Those movies include The Artist, Margaret, Martha Marcy May Marlene, House of Pleasures, and Mysteries of Lisbon. 


When it comes to the movies that were barely left off the list, there are many, but a handful of them would be: Midnight in Paris, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, The Descendants, Weekend, and Shame. 


Now, continue onwards to finally view my long-delayed best of 2011.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Director: Tomas Alfredson

If you've seen Tomas Alfredson's previous film, Let the Right One In then you know a bit about what to expect with his newest film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. What Alfredson does to horror movie conventions in Let the Right One In he does to spy movie conventions in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It's a subtle and quiet film that avoids giving the audience the action scenes and plot twists that they expect from movies like this. Instead of the mystery of who the mole is, it is the atmosphere and the personal stories that make this movie so special.

If you have not read the book or seen the BBC miniseries adaptation of the book, like I did not, then the first viewing of this film will almost certainly be filled with some confusing moments. But after you leave the theater, things will pop into place and it will all make sense. I have seen the film twice now and on the second viewing I can confirm that everything does make sense and is all connected in an incredibly intricate and elliptical way. The screenwriters had a huge book to adapt and they did so in a way that avoids spy movie conventions but still offers just enough information for the plot to make sense.

More important than the plot though are the people involved in this hunt for a mole and the world that they inhabit. They work in a cold and stoic bureaucratic world that has made no room for personal desires, but as we learn in the film it is exactly those personal desires that keep creeping up. Alfredson and his actors, Gary Oldman in particular, create a distance to their characters, we're not supposed to know them because that's how this world works. But we learn that as much as these people try to repress their inner desires, those passions and wants will always come into play and influence the most stringent of institutions.

(I also reviewed the film for the Daily Evergreen, which is more or less the same as this but a bit longer. You can find that here)

Grade: B+

War Horse (2011)

Director: Steven Spielberg

I reviewed War Horse for the newspaper and you can find that review here. In short, it's a well intentioned film, but it feels too tame to be all that effective. It's more Spielberg's direction than the story that's a problem, the story of following a horse through a war is unique and prime for insight, which is why I wish Spielberg hadn't directed it in such a way that made it easy to digest and appealing to a family audience. What animals, and especially horses, went through in wars like these is not something that is completely family friendly, and it's better to reflect reality rather than try to turn in reality into something that will go down much easier. I will point out though, that visually the movie is usually beautiful and it takes full advantage of not only the locations but also the majestic beauty of the horses.

Grade: C+

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Director: David Cronenberg


This isn't a great film, but I feel like it will eventually become an essential part of David Cronenberg's career. A Dangerous Method boils down so much of the thematic material in Cronenberg's earlier films, which makes the fact that it's basically a talky period drama not that surprising even though it should be. Both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung are the main characters of the film, and their studies on human sexual behavior and psychoanalysis were probably studied by Cronenberg many times when he was making his earlier body-horror movies.


So the subject matter and all the conversations that Freud and Jung have are directly related to Cronenberg's sensibilities, and if you're a huge Cronenberg fan it's definitely a must watch. But I'm not sure it's a great movie. The film does not have a singular focus, instead it tries to be a film about the birth of psychoanalysis, the rise of a young psychologist studying under Freud, and a love story between a patient and her psychologist. The elements in the film were certainly connected, but tf it wants to satisfyingly tackle all of these stories it should have been much longer than the 99 minute runtime.


It may not have been exactly what I wanted, but A Dangerous Method is still always completely fascinating. This battle that Jung has between repressing his sexual desires and staying true to the monogamous relationship that he believes he must uphold makes for some inner conflict that is thrilling to behold, especially for a figure as educated and intellectual as Jung. I certainly was engaged in intellectual thought while watching and listening to Jung, Freud, and the very entertaining Keira Knightley, but it was the result of the dialogue and the real life figures in the film, rather than the filmmakers.


Grade: B-

Enlightened: Season One (2011)

Laura Dern plays Amy, a character who got fired from her job, has a nervous breakdown, and earns a reputation for being a crazy woman. She goes off to Hawaii to a rehabilitation program for a summer and comes back reformed and a changed person, now she's ready to change the world around her. Unfortunately, changing the world around her proves to be an especially difficult task. First of all, as nice as she is to people, they can't seem to see her as the new person she is and continue to reprimand her for her past behavior. Second of all, changing the world takes sacrifice, especially financial sacrifice. Lastly, no one else seems to be interested in changing the world with her, and she can't do it by herself.

Project Nim (2011)

Director: James Marsh


Humans have always tried to anthropomorphize animals, be it in Hollywood movies or putting clothing on our own pets. In the documentary Project Nim a scientist tries to take this to the next level, he takes a baby chimp and intends on raising it like a human and teaching it sign language. Whenever a documentary or fictional film is made about a scientific experiment, it's almost always about a scientific experiment gone wrong, so it's no surprise that the experiment does not really work out as planned.


All the people involved in this experiment are seemingly noble people, they display real affection for the chimp (they name it Nim Chimpsky). But eventually, their noble intentions are not enough, because the whole project is misguided from the beginning. Eventually we see them learn that animals are animals, and trying to humanize an animal will not make them humans. Nim's story ends up being tragic and devastating, and it's unfortunate that it turned out this way. The only thing the movie is missing is a third act uprising by the monkey to turn it into Rise of the Planet of the Apes.


Sometimes the tragedy of Nim gets dragged on a bit too long in the film, and director James Marsh takes advantage of our sympathies with animals a bit much as well. But the tragedy was real, and it's a shame that a chimp had to go through such a terrible life because a few people wanted to see what would happen if they tried to raise a chimp more like a human. In Project Nim we see how the treatment of animals will usually reveal a lot about the carelessness of humans for other creatures. It's not particularly surprising, but it's still a sad truth


Grade: B

The Descendants (2011)

Director: Alexander Payne


I was not highly impressed by Alexander Payne's previous two films, About Schmidt and Sideways, I found those two films to be well-made and amusing but lacking in uniqueness or ambition. They were occasionally wonderful films, but not completely memorable. Payne's newest film, The Descendants, is a vast improvement. The tone of the film is sometimes relaxed and languid, but despite the Hawaiian setting, the subject is very serious. That combination of a serious plot with the supposedly relaxed Hawaiian setting, gives the movie a unique tone and also shines an equally unique light on Hawaii.


Hawaii is known as paradise, but I love that The Descendants shies away from showing famous Hawaiian beaches and oceans. Instead, the movie shows us real residents of the state and the real human problems they have to deal with. In this film, a family has to deal with a few messes, one being an affair that their now terminally ill mother was having, and another being a large piece of land that this family inherited. When a person is dying or dead, they will inevitably leave something behind for their relatives to sort out, and that's what this film is about. The movie is morbid in that sense, but in the end it's just a tale about a family that has to come together in the face of dealing with the issues that their mother and relatives left behind for them.


The Descendants is Payne's most mature film to date, even more so than About Schmidt. Death and family is an issue that deserves serious treatment, and finally Payne has matured enough to be able to tell a subtle story with a control of tone. There are humorous moments in this film that are completely out-of-place, so he didn't do it perfectly, but ultimately this is Payne's most satisfying film since Election. It's a somber tale of death and how those who are dead always linger a while longer even after they pass.


Grade: B+

Young Adult (2011)

Director: Jason Reitman
Country: USA


I don't think we'll ever get tired of the man-child character (or in this case, woman-child). Its an adult character that acts immature and like a child. Part of the reason we'll never get tired of them is that contradictory image of a full grown person doing some pretty stupid things. Charlize Theron indulges us all greatly in Young Adult with a performance that convincingly allows us to hate her completely without much sympathy at all. She's an adult who is still stuck in a world of teenage fantasy, and we flock to it because we know so many people like just like her.


Diablo Cody's script is sometimes very clever and definitely coherent, but it's not unique in many ways. What you might expect from a character like Mavis who comes back to her hometown is basically what you might expect to happen (except for a great ending that is certainly not conventional). The movie flows very well most of the time, but it comes to an abrupt close towards the final quarter that seems to suggest that the movie should have actually been much longer than it is. The main reason this movie does not get top accolades from me is the lack of ambition, not only from the script, but mostly from Jason Reitman's directing. The movie feels like something he did on a whim as a favor and didn't spend much time thinking about it in pre-production.


The film is ultimately a clever character study of a person who is flat-out fun to watch. Seeing the fancy and hot Mavis interact and befriend the nerdy guy played by Patton Oswalt is something that seems to happen only in the movies, but the actors and the script play on that so well that it's hard not to be amused. But really, I wished this film would be more than just amusing.


Grade: B-

Tabloid (2010)

Director:  Errol Morris


In The Thin Blue Line Errol Morris investigates a truth and finds out that it is actually a false truth. In that film the truth was found, but in his newest film Tabloid, Morris knows that the truth will never be known, and so he uses that to have a lot of fun. The story is completely fascinating and bizarre in its own right, and if you had never heard of the "sex-in-chains" story in which a woman (possibly) kidnaps a mormon and rapes him for three days, then you will be even more fascinated by the trajectory of how far Joyce McKinney's obsessive love story goes. 

Showing how the truth is subjective by the cutting between different stories is not the most original thing, but Morris uses it with such a great story and also a truly eccentric character in McKinney. Truth is highly elusive sometimes, and things can get even more complicated with time. There's also some added subtext considering this film is a documentary and not a fictionalized account. This is one of those stories that is too crazy to be made up, and if it was in a fictional film you would expect some sort of reveal or something at the end, but in this we never really find out anything about the truth. It's a movie that has all the trappings of a crazy scripted story, but without the usual gift-wrapped ending. 


There's also the case of the title, and I think Morris does a great job, especially in the second half, of highlighting tabloid culture and the lengths they will go to get juicy information. Tabloid doesn't reveal anything that I hadn't known before, but the fact that it looks at tabloid journalism, and the pursuit of truth, through this wonderfully wacky and bizarre story makes it a film that no one will be bored by. 


Grade: B+