Dennis Hopper

by Tony Dayoub

Just a few months after I started this site, I got the opportunity to meet Dennis Hopper in New York. I had just flown in to cover the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, and attended a rare screening of a restored version of Curtis Harrington's Night Tide (1961) that evening. Hopper surprised all of us by making an appearance to give an impromptu discussion on the film, his first as a lead. As I recount elsewhere, the screening of this surreal love story between a sailor and a mermaid took a turn for the stranger due to some inadvertent rearranging of the film's second and third reel. Hopper seemed fairly irritated, but as I braced myself for the actor-director to explode in a rant derived from some bizarre melding of his photojournalist character in Apocalypse Now with Blue Velvet's deranged Frank Booth, I was instead pleasantly surprised to see the actor-director take a breath and begin to get us up to speed on the plot points we'd missed from the misplaced second reel.

The Best Films of the 00s: 2008

by Tony Dayoub

This is a somewhat reworked repost of my 2008 end-of-year wrap-up, originally published on 1/23/09. The main difference is my inclusion of Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys) on the list instead of as an honorable mention. It replaces a television show (In Treatment) I included on the original list; not because I regret the original decision to include it, but because this series is really dedicated to discussing the decade's cinematic offerings.

I started blogging in 2008 so you should see a marked difference in my selection of films. This isn't by design, necessarily. 2008 just afforded me the opportunity to watch more movies through press screenings, screeners, and invitations to film festivals, now giving me additional access I wouldn't normally get in Atlanta. Some reminders: I cannot judge movies I haven't seen, so if you feel a film you like was unjustly left out, it might be that I haven't seen it; also, if I already wrote a review for it, I'll include a link back to the original review.

And now, in alphabetical order, the best films of 2008...

Best of 2008: The 10 Best Films of the Year

Wrapping up this week's Best of 2008 series, I present my top 10 films of the year. While the first half of 2008 was somewhat weak, I managed to find some underrated gems released during that period. And I think that the year in general was not as bad as some other recent ones. It was hard enough to narrow the list down to 10, so I didn't try to rank them in anything but alphabetical order. I also list 10 additional films I feel deserve an honorable mention. You might be surprised at how wide I cast my net in deeming some of these entries as films, but I prefer to be as inclusive as possible. Of course, my list's only requirement is that the film be released in the U.S. (in a festival, at the very least) sometime in 2008. If the title is hyperlinked, you'll also be able to see what I wrote when I first reviewed it which should be interesting as I've only been blogging for about a year. Feel free to post your own list, and agree - or even better - disagree with any of my selections. Che (Roadshow Edition), director Steven Soderbergh - A gutsy attempt to shed light on a polarizing figure, Che is actually two movies that must be seen together. The first part, The Argentine, is surprisingly the more marketable, despite being the one with potential for controversy. Shot like a traditional war movie it depicts Guevara as the hero of Cuba's revolution. The second part, Guerilla, is the more damning and difficult movie. Here, Guevara is a remote and weak character, stubbornly pursuing his lost cause. Together, they give us an understanding of why he is seen as both hero and monster by so many. Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale), dir. Arnaud Desplechin - Desplechin's look at family dynamics is the best film I saw this year. And even though this family shares some disdain for each other, one gets the feeling that they love each other in a way that one can understand only when one is part of such a group. Bitter and warm. Elegy, dir. Isabel Coixet - This is the first time I think I ever saw a sign of the real Ben Kingsley in a performance. And it was truly fascinating to watch. The story of a womanizer and his greatest character flaws - insecurity and possessiveness - was also illuminating. The Fall, dir. Tarsem Singh - Simply the most visually stunning film I've seen since Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Gran Torino, dir. Clint Eastwood - From a response I wrote to a reader's criticism at Some Came Running:

Allow me to reference "The Searchers" in order to make another point, and I preface this by asserting that I am in no way elevating "Gran Torino" to the same class as that classic film. In Ford's film, John Wayne's Ethan Edwards is the protagonist, is a racist, frequently uses epithets against the Native Americans in the film, yet still musters the tolerance to work with Jeff Hunter's Martin - a half-Native American - to pursue his quarry. For about 115 minutes of its running time (and years, in the film), Edwards is committed to killing his own niece (Natalie Wood) simply for being presumably defiled by the Native Americans who kidnapped her. And then in the last few minutes, Martin convinces Edwards to let her live. Happy ending, save for Edwards extricating himself from the life he can't be a part of due to his inherent and unresolved feelings for the Native Americans. The plot remarkably tracks similarly with "Gran Torino". So why can we give Ford a pass for the "bait-and-switch" at the end of "The Searchers"? Or the comic relief that Hank Worden's Mose so jarringly injects into every scene he's in? And why can we be so cavalier towards Ethan Edwards' own racism yet admire his heroism? Is it because the fact that Ford's film is a Western it adds another layer of distance or archetypal reduction to the events in "The Searchers"? Had "Gran Torino" been a Western with Native Americans replacing the Hmong would we even be having this conversation? I found Eastwood to be unusually direct and economical in his storytelling, a relative rarity in his recent films. And I applaud the fact that he trusts us to do the heavy lifting, rather than get anymore on-the-nose than the movie is already accused of being.

In Treatment, producer and developer, Rodrigo Garcia - Yeah, I know... it's a TV series. But its curious format is what made it compelling enough to list along with these fine films. Gabriel Byrne plays a psychologist with marital problems. Each weeknight, the show would follow him with a different patient, except for Friday when he would see his own psychologist (Dianne Wiest) to discuss his relationship issues. If you only cared to follow his sessions with Patient A, you'd only have to tune in on Monday nights; Patient B on Tuesday nights, etc. But for the complete picture, and to really get to know the psychologist, you would watch all week, as one session often impacted others during the week. A series that truly demonstrates what the long form is capable of exploring. Shotgun Stories, dir. Jeff Nichols - Nothing much happens in it... externally. But the internal is what's interesting in this one, and Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) acutely conveys so much of the devastation that one man can cause by leaving one family to start another. The Strangers, dir. Bryan Bertino - It is a truly terrifying film in which the camera forces you to be an unwilling accomplice. Not innovative per se, but that perspective has been sorely missed in this age of "torture porn". I'm gratified to see such a style make a comeback. Synecdoche, New York, dir. Charlie Kaufman - This mindbending indie pushes the limits of how far imagination can take you on a limited budget when a writer like Kaufman is given the keys to the car. Wall·E, dir. Andrew Stanton - So many of us were touched by this film, an even more amazing feat once one remembers that the characters are computer generated robots. Honorable Mention: Burn After Reading, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Happy-Go-Lucky, Iron Man, Rambo, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, L'Heure d'été (The Summer Hours), Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys), Waltz with Bashir, The Wrestler For more on the Best of 2008: Best of 2008: Animated Features Best of 2008: Performances and Creative Achievements Best of 2008: Oscar Nominations Open Thread

Best of 2008: Performances and Creative Achievements

As I continue reviewing the best that cinema had to offer in 2008, I'd like to pause before listing the 10 best movies of the year this Friday, and reflect on some individual achievements today. Best Actor: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler - It is a bravura performance that reveals enough about Rourke to dispel any questions about the limitations of his expressiveness due to the punishment his face has taken over the years. Best Actress: Meryl Streep, Doubt - Streep is so convincing that she convinced her writer/director to rethink the point of his Iraq war parable. Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight - Some wonder whether this performance would be awarded the amount of recognition it has received if Ledger hadn't died. But even if the spectre of his death did not haunt the film at its edges, it would still be the spookiest submergence of an actor's personality in a role that I've seen all year. Best Supporting Actress: Chiara Mastroianni, Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale) - Mastroianni charms the viewer with her portrayal of Sylvia, the beguiling daughter-in-law that discovers her life might have been different had she known earlier that two of her husband's relatives competed amongst themselves to win her heart. Even resignation to being a housewife is not enough to mask her incandescence, not an easy achievement when sharing the screen with her legendary mother - the great Catherine Deneuve. Best Ensemble Cast: The cast of Rachel Getting Married - Whatever my problems with its phony setting, Anne Hathaway's tour-de-force performance is still not enough to steal the spotlight from the rest of this film's supporting players. Bill Irwin and Debra Winger - playing her divorced parents - and Rosemarie DeWitt as the titular older sister Rachel give raw improvisatory performances that illustrate the love and recriminations that bind a family. And even the minor players in the film seem to have a life beyond the confines of the movie. Best Newcomer: Laura Ramsey, The Ruins - In what could have been the thankless role of whining victim that seems to always be the center of attention during the early parts of a horror film, Ramsey instead gets sympathy for refusing to play the character as weak. With more spunk than any of her fellow monster fodder, Ramsey's character manages to be the one that the viewer can most identify with in this surprisingly effective, underrated thriller. Best Comeback: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler - My own review for the film points out how it's not really a comeback if you haven't gone anywhere. And Rourke has been very present and engaged in his career for quite a few years, now. But let's just say that Hollywood has finally let him out of the doghouse. Be glad that he is now more marketable than ever, and he can start playing some leads again. Best Animated Film: Wall·E - I talked about this film in Monday's post, but I'll reiterate. This one is strong enough to be counted alongside some strong competition for best movie of the year. Best Documentary: Waltz with Bashir - A documentary that is totally justified in its animated presentation. The truth being revealed here is not about the Israeli director's involvement in a disturbing attack on Lebanese. It is about how his mind fails to reconcile his participation in the attack with his own opinion of the violence he's capable of. Best Foreign Language Film: Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale) - Desplechin captures everything that drives this traditionally American genre, the family reunion film; adapts it with an eye to French sensibilities; remembers to give it visual and aural flourishes; and does it in a completely realistic way. Aside from its performances, Demme's Rachel Getting Married compares pretty poorly to this film. Best Cinematography: Colin Watkinson, The Fall - A stunning visual achievement that eschews CGI marvels for actual in-camera artistry. Best Original Score: Grégoire Hetzel, Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale) - The lush score serves as a warm counterpoint to the sharp squabbling that pervades this film. Best Original Song: Bruce Springsteen, The Wrestler - The devastatingly tragic Randy "The Ram" Robinson is captured by this simple lyric, "...Then you've seen me, I always leave with less than I had before..." Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Truly supporting the story, the effects are marvelously picaresque when depicting Button's travels, and unusually subtle when illustrating his gradual decline into youth. Best Adapted Screenplay: Nicholas Meyer, Elegy - Best known for his Star Trek films, Meyer succeeds at adapting Philip Roth, an author whose sensibility has been notoriously difficult to capture. Based on The Dying Animal, the film is an example of Meyer's theory on the central appeal of a movie, "A good story to me is one that, after I’ve told it to you, you understand why I wanted to tell it.” Best Original Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York - Kaufman's creations are always wildly original. But this movie consistently inverts expectations in a way that would both impress and confound screenwriting teacher Robert McKee (the real-life one, not the Brian Cox character from Adaptation). A downbeat look at one artist's impulse to make a mark in life that celebrates the mundane and condemns the obsessive pursuit of creative accomplishment. Best Director: Steven Soderbergh, Che (Roadshow Version) - Soderbergh takes pains to present an objective film about a controversial historical figure in the most unexpected way possible. He makes two movies about him. The first part, The Argentine, builds Guevara up to be a revolutionary hero. The second part, Guerilla, tears him down by demonstrating his arrogance and remoteness towards his comrades. Together, they form a well-rounded look at why Guevara is both glorified and demonized. On Friday, I'll post my top 10 films of the year. But because I don't want to address the following in that post, here are the worst films I saw this year, in alphabetical order: A Corte do Norte (The Northern Land), dir. João Botelho - Visually sumptuous, but pretentious to the extreme, this Portuguese film was stultifyingly boring. Flawless, dir. Michael Radford - Demi Moore should never play a Brit again, but especially not in a period drama opposite Michael Caine. Hounddog, dir. Deborah Kampmeier - Dakota Fanning should never be raped in a film again, but especially not in a period drama that pretends it has something important to say about exploiting children. Pineapple Express, dir. David Gordon Green - I admire David Gordon Green's films. Judd Apatow's films make me howl with laughter. But David Gordon Green directing a Judd Apatow film? Not so much. Slumdog Millionaire, dir. Danny Boyle - That Gran Torino is being accused of racism for wearing its controversy on its sleeve while Boyle's celebrated film is practically drowning in white ethnocentric prejudice is the real crime. For more on the Best of 2008: Best of 2008: Animated Features Best of 2008: Oscar Nominations Open Thread Best of 2008: The 10 Best Films of the Year

Movie Review: Elegy - Character Piece is Year's First Serious Oscar Contender

by Tony Dayoub



The year's first serious Oscar contender, Elegy, directed by Spain's Isabel Coixet (My Life Without Me), is a fascinating character piece. Ben Kingsley (Sexy Beast) gives one of his most vulnerable performances as college professor David Kepesh, an egotist and womanizer left nursing a growing insecurity after starting a relationship with one of his students.


Consuela Castillo (Penélope Cruz) is the much younger student, a humble Cuban woman who is captivated by Kepesh's intelligence and mature mystique. But Kepesh is too self-absorbed to notice. Constant self-examination and guilt over his serial non-commitment to women (usually his students), have paralyzed him after falling in love with Consuela. He is certain Consuela will leave him for a much younger man, and his possessiveness starts getting in the way.

Based on Philip Roth's novel, The Dying Animal, the film is one of the most incisive readings of male-female relationships to hit the screen in a while. Writer Nicholas Meyer (and a great director in his own right) adapted the screenplay, like he did for another Roth novel, The Human Stain (2003). But Coixet shows a greater sensitivity to the material than the director of the previous film, Robert Benton. Roth's protagonists are generally self-centered intellectuals with little regard for women.

As Glenn Kenny states in his review of the film, the characters are a tad more sympathetic in the novels, where one is seeing the story from their first-person perspective. The same, some would say, repulsive actions that often occur in sexually intense relationships can seem subjectively different to individual readers, depending on what they bring to the material. While Benton, as a male (and often a bit of a dirty old man, in my opinion) may be attracted to some of the more lurid aspects of Roth's story, Coixet brings a softer touch. Kenny's review seems to imply it is because of her European nonchalance with sexuality (indeed he cites a Ben Kingsley profile in New York where Coixet admits this herself), but I believe it apparent that it is her very femininity that helps her approach the material differently.

Why else expand the role of Consuela (a thin one in the novel) to equal status in the film? Well, not exactly, because she still seems defined by the way Kepesh relates to her. But Cruz's portrayal elevates Consuela, and verbalizes all the questions and opinions Kepesh keeps to himself regarding his dubious respect for women. Coixet effectively softens the boorish behavior exhibited by Kepesh simply by showing Consuela, a fully formed female, a conservative one, falling for this jealous man, a person just as deserving of love as anyone is.

In a year top-heavy with big action films, one hopes that the fall season brings films with a longer intellectual shelf-life. Elegy is a good indicator that it will. Seek this one out.

Elegy is in limited release in theaters across the country.

Still provided courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films.

This entry first appeared on Blogcritics on 9/5/08.