Holy Motors (2012)

Director: Leos Carax

 It is not too difficult to appreciate this film, or to admire this film, or to enjoy this film, but understanding what it all means it is a different story. There is a lot going, and deciphering every single thing about this film may prove impossible on a first viewing. But when looking at the film overall, it's quite simple. We see an actor do rides around a limousine over the course of a single day doing nine different "appointments". He acts as an old lady begging in the street, he performs on a motion capture stage, he plays a father picking up his daughter from a party, he plays a sewer creature who kidnaps a model, he plays an old man on the verge of death, etc. The odd thing about these "appointments" is that there are no cameras or audience around, at least not visibly. He is performing these acts in the real world. The film hints that digital cameras are so small now, that they are invisible.

The film is a remarkably unique film in that every one of the "acts" Denis Lavant's character performs performs are executed to perfection. While the film does make sense as a whole, it's certain that director Leos Carax also wanted the opportunity to tackle all sorts of genres in one movie (it's his first film in 13 years, so he has a lot of catching up to do). He tackles these familiar genres because these genres are the "typical" entertainment we have in our lives, and because we are always performing for the omniscient camera, these genres become our reality. The digitalization of not just cinema, but of everything in our culture, has made it so in our constant performance for the camera we have lost our sense of identity. Our identity has slipped away behind the veneer of technology and the ways we choose to portray ourselves to the world. With its unique ambiguous structure, Holy Motors shows that truth in identity is slipping away from all of us in our increasingly technology-dependent world. Through it's multiple "episodes" Holy Motors is a mystifying, powerful, sensational, and thought-provoking film that tells us much about who we are and where we're going.

Grade: A

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Director: Peter Jackson

Now if you're a fan of the first Lord of the Rings trilogy then you're certain to find some enjoyment in returning to Middle Earth, as I did. The world of Middle Earth is as rich as ever. But The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is certainly not the ideal introduction to this world and the story of the ring. It's a movie in which the stakes are not very high, especially when compared to Lord of the Rings. Bilbo Baggins has a strong character arc, the theme of taking back the homeland is also well established, but as of now there's no existential threat to the world as a whole, at least not to justify the extremely long running time. But at the same time it's difficult to judge the film because the movie is written almost as a miniseries. It's clear that Peter Jackson knew he was going to two more three hour long movies and so he took his time and included every side adventure from the book and much more that was never in the book.

The movie is the first of three movies, and unlike the fairly cinematic ending of The Fellowship of the Ring, the end of the The Hobbit feels very much like the ending of an important episode of TV. While I enjoyed the movie, the eventual three-part structure makes the movie hard to truly criticize because there's so much more. Certain scenes in the movie are meant to introduce a certain concept and then are not talked about it again, which would be a blatant flaw in any other movie but in this one you can't fault the film because obviously it will be brought up in the later films. If you don't compare it to the previous trilogy, this is a very satisfactory first film, though much of it could have been streamlined and cut out. But if the film was streamlined and only scenes that were important to the direct plot, the movie would not quite have felt like a part of Lord of the Rings, which is a series known as epic fantasy. Instead we've got the beginning of what I'm sure is going to end up an epic, but it just isn't quite there yet.

Grade: B-

Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season Two (2001)

Creator: Larry David

The chain reaction humor, the miscommunications, the victim of circumstance, all those elements that were at play in the first season of the show are once again on full display here in the second. In some cases they're refined and done even better, but most importantly there are some stakes that are introduced. Larry pitches a TV show with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and his actions during the show actually have consequences for how those pitch meetings go, which is to say not well. There is real damage done to his career and personal relationships. Now the show is still very episodic, as the TV show pitch plot comes and goes, and there's not much of a serial narrative.

The show still is a joy to watch just because it's quite expertly plotted, though the structure is a little familiar now, and so we're pretty sure that the odd thing that happened to Larry in the beginning of the episode is going to come back to bite him in the ass later on. One particular episode that stood out was the episode with Shaquille O'Neal. That episode was special because it introduces a new experience in Larry's life. We've been seeing the same side of him for the whole show but that episode we see a different side, a side that is satisfied with the worlds reaction to him. He finds himself in a situation in which he doesn't have to deal with people anymore, and he loves it. I definitely hope for more adventurous episodes like that one in the future. It's a hilarious show that I think has the potential to be even better.

Grade: B

My Favorite Television Shows of 2012

The greats continued to be the greats this year. Only two of the ten shows I mention in this post are new shows (and one of them isn't even coming back for another season). So it's basically an opportunity to continue to shower praise on the shows I've already praised so much already. As always, I haven't seen every show, though one particular show I feel that I may have liked quite a bit had I gotten to it is Treme. Maybe next year.

Homeland: Season Two (2012)

Creators: Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa

 It was in the first half of this season when I proclaimed Homeland to be the next Breaking Bad. I said this mostly due to the unpredictability of the plot, and I'm not talking about the unpredictability of what things will happen, but of when things will happen. Like Breaking Bad, this is a show in which you eagerly anticipate every single episode with bated breath because you have no idea what crazy plot twist will occur on any given night. Also like Breaking Bad, our main character is a fascinating and original character who is brilliant yet deeply flawed. By the end of this season though it's clear that Carrie is not the the only "main" character of the show, because Brody is given an even larger presence this season than the first. Damian Lewis puts in a performance just as good as Claire Danes, as he plays a man stuck between a rock and a hard place, carrying secrets upon secrets. In the first season Carrie lost her mind due to bipolar disorder, this season Brody also loses his mind but it was due to the overwhelming amount of mental stress placed on him by all the secrets he was carrying.

As compelling as the show is though, it did falter a bit this season in expanding the story and becoming almost 24-like in it's convenient plot points. It didn't quite retain the intimacy and subdued storytelling of the first season, and so the plot sometimes overwhelmed the characters and themes. Even throughout this 24 phase the show was still exciting and suspenseful, so there was never a point where I started to dislike the show, but there were moments where it turned into the show that I fear may turn into someday, one that you love but still accept the flaws of. But then the show regained its footing with a superb finale in which personal conflicts rose once again and secrets starting piling up. It set the stage for a third season that could go anywhere, and since the writers of this show are clearly talented, this gives me optimism that this newfound freedom from plot will turn out to be good for all of us.

Grade: B+

Miss Bala (2012)

Director: Gerardo Naranjo

What this movie accomplishes basically makes it an "issue" movie. It's about the consequences of the Mexican Drug War that has taken hundreds of lives and scared thousands more. Issue movies can be tiresome if not done well because no one likes being preached or lectured to. Miss Bala avoids this problem fairly well (but not completely in my opinion) by focusing on one innocent character and her horrific experiences as she is dragged unwillingly into this war. With this it shows us the consequences the drug war has had on the innocent and how it has ruined and affected the lives of so many innocent people. It's not a revolutionary subject but nonetheless an important one and the fact that the film has seen worldwide attention (it played at Cannes 2011) is a wonderful thing.

The main character of the film who is dragged into the war is a woman whose goal is to get into a beauty pageant. It's a bit cliche and contrived to make the main character a good-looking girl who just wants to look good, but I can't blame Naranjo too much because he was apparently influenced by a real-life story in which a beauty pageant contestant was found to be involved with the cartels. It's also a testament to Naranjo's filmmaking that the movie does not feel as cliche as it could have been. He shies away from easy emotions and instead opts for some truly visceral filmmaking in some tense sequences and some beautiful patient long shots that display the despair and hopelessness of the situation. Naranjo captures the predicament of this girl using her own perspective, including showing us her point of view during shootouts, which puts the audience in the exact same situation as her. Even though the main character is a beauty pageant contestant, the film still succeeds in showing that the victims of the cartels are people just like you and me and that's exactly what a film like this wants to do.

Grade: B

The Imposter (2012)

Director: Bart Layton

Coming into this film I had never heard of this story about a man who steals the identity of a missing child, and that I think improved by experience of this film quite a bit. Director Bart Layton takes a fairly  fascinating story about manipulation and manipulates it in his own way resulting in an absolutely wild ride of a documentary filled with twists and turns. Layton controls the audiences reactions in the film very effectively using things like manipulating interviews with subjects and making it seem like the interview subjects know just as much as the audience. It's also no secret that this guy is not actually the missing child this family has been looking for, which creates unbearable tension during early sequences in which the man meets this family. We know this guy is going to be revealed eventually, but we don't know when and we don't know how and that keeps the audience on its toes at all times. And I'm not even going to mention some of the later twists that come out of nowhere.

The Imposter is not just a great sensory experience (the first time you see it at least), but not a bad intellectual one as well. At first the film is an example of the extreme power of confirmation bias, not accepting something that may be against your preconceived beliefs. We see such an extreme form of confirmation bias in that a parent doesn't even recognize her own son. But in the final act of the film things get a little more muddled and unfortunately the movie brings up a point (I won't spoil it) that I thought was astonishing while watching, but in retrospect is the only example of Layton going a little overboard when it comes to manipulating the audience. That brings up the fact that the film is astonishing when you're watching the first time without knowing any of the story, but thinking back about the story (and maybe a second viewing) diminishes the impact just a bit. Ultimately I can't imagine anyone not having an extremely engaging experience with this documentary that asks us all question about truth, lies, assumptions, and manipulations.

Grade: B

Lincoln (2012)

Director: Steven Spielberg

 The title of this film makes it seem like it will be a full-fledged biopic of Abraham Lincoln's life, from the cradle to the grave, and reportedly that's what the filmmakers, Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner, did plan on in the beginning (he's one of my favorite historical figures so I would have been fine with that too). But instead, we get a film titled Lincoln that almost completely takes place within the time span of a few weeks in January 1865. The decision to center on just those few weeks during the battle to pass the 13th Amendment in the House of Representatives turns out to be a brilliant move. Lincoln is not a scattered biopic about a man, but a film about a specific moment in time that serves as a perfect example of the kind of man Lincoln was. The passing of the 13th Amendment shows us the self-interested world Lincoln occupied, and how he managed to the reality of the world and his own ideals together to actually achieve his goals while preserving the Union. It essentially looks at the main conflict of all politicians, which is to achieve the personal ideals each of them have while occupying a place within a group of people who all have so many various goals in mind.

But this is not just a fantastic film about Lincoln, because by showing us Lincoln's pragmatic nature Lincoln also turns out to be one of the best films I've seen about the nature of politics and democracy. The film may be centered on Civil War-era politics, but it is a film that applies to the politics in any part of the world at any time. Spielberg and Kushner aren't afraid to be remarkably honest about the often dark nature of politics. It's not a cynical movie about how everything is corrupt because we do see success, but it's also not naive about how that success was achieved. The passing of the 13th Amendment was a great accomplishment, but we see the not-quite-ethical tactics used and deals made by the men of the era that ended up aiding in the abolishment of slavery. Many have accused Spielberg in the past, myself included, of being too sentimental and naive in many of his dramas, but with Lincoln Spielberg has uncharacteristically made a procedural that is more grounded in its approach. Especially when compared to last year's overly sentimental crowd pleaser War Horse, Lincoln is a film that is not afraid to get down and dirty and look at the unflattering ways great things happen. Lincoln the man is a genius not because he believed in a higher ideal and inspired everyone around him to take a stand, but he we see that he was a genius because he was a pragmatist who knew how the world worked and knew how to get things done. Lincoln is a great film precisely because it does not show him as a saint, but as a great politician with a heart.

Grade: A-

Killing Them Softly (2012)

Director: Andrew Dominik

The first thing to know about this film is that this is not really a film meant to entertain you, at least not in the conventional genre sort of way. It's technically a gangster film, but even fans of the gangster genre probably will be surprised (putting it gently) by this film. This is a political film about the Great Recession of 2008. I'm not saying that the subtext of this film is political, because the political elements are right there on the surface. Many critics complained that the movie made the political commentary way too obvious and hits the audience on the head, but I think director Andrew Dominik intended on first and foremost making the film as an allegory for our times, and not just a gangster film with subtle political commentary. But I do admit there may be other, and probably better, ways to do that besides inundating the sound mix with Obama and McCain campaign speeches on the radio or television. At the same time, that inundation is successful in making the audience always have the political edge at the forefront of their mind. This way we can make the connections that so much of the film stands in for different parts of our government and financial system, which is pretty important because the gangster story would not be engaging on its own without any of the political commentary.

The 2008 setting gives the film the right mood for this to happen as well. In the movie we've got criminals who put a hit out on a couple of guys who stole some money, and most of the movie is about the game that has to be played in trying to make sure the right people or the right message is sent out when it comes to punishing the people who stole. It's a smart allegory for the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and how difficult it was to punish the Wall Street-types who were responsible for the collapse. The allegory is quite an impressive feat considering that the book Dominik adapted the movie from was written back in the 1970's, way before the 2008 recession. While ultimately the gangster story feels a bit slight and not quite as powerful as it could have been (though the gangster genre sets quite a high standard), Dominik crafts some spectacular scenes, including the creative opening credits, the brilliantly tense stick-up job at the center of the movie, and a great dope-smoking scene. Coming off the amazing The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford it's hard not to feel that Killing Them Softly is a bit of a step down, but Killing Them Softly is still a fantastic display of Dominik's talents on its own right.

Grade: B

The Civil War (1990)

Director: Ken Burns

History can be just as compelling as any subject, fact or fiction. Besides the great storytelling that can be inherent in history, there is the bonus of knowing that the story you're watching has certainly happened therefore you can never accuse a story about history of being "unrealistic". When we see the many Civil War anecdotes that Ken Burns tells us during this almost 11 hour long documentary minseries, we don't question their authenticity, we just take in the emotions and ideas expressed through those stories. It makes those stories that much more effective. This expansive and ambitious documentary series is great accomplishment just on the basis of of its scope. We get the history of a grand event that has had a large impact on the world today, and multiple smaller stories that take us into the real America during the Civil War. It's an extensively researched and detailed series that took five years to finish, one year longer than the Civil War itself.

Burns' trademark classical documentary style that has been copied so much now is in full use, but despite the fact that we've seen so much of this "conventional" style in the 20 years after this film, the style rarely inhibits the film. Getting actors to recite letters, or using slow motion zooms on photographs accomplish the goals of Burns. He gets you into the world and connects you emotionally to the soldiers, the politicians, and ordinary people involved through the melancholic and humorous stories told by either the actors or talking head historians (very few appearances by them I must add). The grand scope and long length of the film enable Burns to not just tell the whole story event-by-event of the Civil War from start to finish, but also take many digressions along the way by looking at issues like women in the war, sanitation issues, and pardons for deserters. Not every digression is interesting though, and if I could change one thing it would be to add more about the political issues going on during the war rather than soldier life. Though the film can once in a while seem like a dull moving textbook, we also get somethings that textbooks overlook. These are the smaller stories, the moments and unimportant individuals who lived during this enormous conflict that created, as Abraham Lincoln called it, a new birth of freedom.

Grade: B+