Resident Evil: Extinction (2007, USA)

I love zombie movies, and though they're solidly b-movie grade, and not terribly good b-movies at that, I thoroughly enjoy the Resident Evil franchise. It's got a badass (but sexy!) heroine, zombie dogs, some fun fight scenes, and a dumb relentlessness. The third film is wise to remove the action from Raccoon City to the desert outside Las Vegas - the daylight horror is a welcome change, and allows for certain very cool setpieces, such as the murder of undead crows. All three Resident Evil movies feature strong secondary female characters - this time in the form of Ali Landry as Claire, a somewhat motherly figure who is attempting to transport a convoy of the living to safety (I am starting to really enjoy the somewhat wacky feminism of the franchise). Oded Fehr is back as Carlos, but the only really important male figure in the film is Dr. Isaacs (Iain Glen), the evil Umbrella Corporation scientist who is experimenting with an army of cloned Alices in an attempt to find a way to control - rather than outright "cure" - the T-virus. Despite word that this is the last film in a trilogy, the end of Extinction leaves the door open for yet another sequel, one that would no doubt continue to indulge my love of zombie-fu.

Year of the Dog (2007, USA)

Despite Year of the Dog being written and directed by Mike White, I kept expecting it to veer back toward more traditional comedy/rom-com plotting after the first hour, instead of staking out new territory. Anchored by a surprisingly low-key Molly Shannon, the film is about Peggy, a sweet dog-loving loner whose life becomes uprooted when her darling puppy, Pencil, dies unexpectedly. Watching Year of the Dog is somewhat like seeing the seven stages of grief unfold before you. At some points it's deeply discomfiting, but it has a bigger heart than either Chuck & Buck or The Good Girl, and I ended up really liking where Peggy's journey takes her. It's a little gem of a film, and I hope it ends up finding an audience on DVD.

Persepolis (2007, French/USA)

I can't remember the last time (or . . . ever?) I thought a book and a movie version of that book were of the same quality, but Persepolis is that rare project. While it elides some storylines and detail for the sake of run time, it's absolutely delightful to see Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel in animated form. The film retains the style of the book, allowing for wonderful sequences such as the story of the Shah's rise of power told with puppets or how the veiled women harassing teenage Marji writhe like snakes due to their all-encompassing veils. Watching the film, I kept remembering a bit from Noel Murray's A.V. Club wrap-up of Sundance 2008, in which he asked himself if the films on view needed to be made, needed to be seen, and will stand the test of time. Persepolis answers an absolute yes to all three questions.

Cloverfield (2008, USA)

I thought Cloverfield was fun. However, I didn't find it particularly frightening, which is kind of a let-down for a monster movie (the part in the tunnel was an exception, but in general I think small and jumpy things are scarier than larger, slower things), and since I couldn't muster any feeling for the characters, their plight was little more than a race through a disintegrating Manhattan with some amazing scenery on the way. And speaking of the whole disintegrating Manhattan thing, I thought that the shots immediately following the monster's first attack, showing New Yorkers running through clouds of dust and falling paper, were pretty stomach-turning. However, there was little indigenous to the plot that managed the same effect.

SPOILER ALERT

However, I liked that everything went towards the inevitable - pretty much everyone dies. I was also glad that they didn't find some magical 11th hour silver bullet that would do away with the alien/sea monster in a hot minute. I'm sick of that happening in pretty much every creature movie (Signs and War of the Worlds being prime examples). Sometimes, the monster's going to win. It's bigger, hungrier, and apparently, our most advanced weaponry doesn't work on beasties. Ever.

Also - I've been roaming around the interwebs for the last hour or so, finding all sorts of fun stuff in the viral videos and Slusho website. But if anyone can come up with an explanation as to why Marlena exploded after getting bitten by one of the spider-thingys, that would be awesome. Some kind of toxin? Allergic reaction? Or does J.J. Abrams just really love Alien?

The Lives of Others (2006, German)

The Lives of Others depicts life under the Stasi, the East German Secret Police. Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe) is assigned to bug the apartment of Dreyman (Sebastian Koch, having a banner year with German Socialism - I highly recommend Paul Verhoeven's Black Book), a seemingly patriotic playwright whose girlfriend is the mistress of a high-ranking Party official. Doubtful about his mission's objectives, Wiesler finds himself being pulled into the lives of the people he's surveilling - for better and worse. It's an elegant film, and quite affecting as well. It's somewhat hard to believe that this is writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's first full-length feature. In particular, his characterization of Wiesler is fantastic, and Muhe is brilliant - the audience knows virtually nothing about the Stasi agent's life, or why he becomes so involved with Dreyman's story. Is he swayed by the argument Dreyman and his friends make about the power of art? Is he moved by the relationship between the writer and his girlfriend? Or is he ultimately incapable of keeping apart from the action? It's a true shame that Muhe died last year, but what an incredible performance to go out on.

The Insect Woman (1963, Japanese)

The Insect Woman is the earliest of Shohei Imamura's films I've seen to date. Like many of his later films, it deals with themes of sexual transgression, female agency, rural poverty, and society in post-war Japan. The protagonist is Tome, a village girl whose relationship with sex guides the course of her life from girlhood to middle age. Imamura starkly points out how little choice women of Tome's class and era have as to how to live their lives. It's a pretty bleak picture, as we watch Tome's personality turn bitter in response to her harsh environment, but it's bolstered by Imamura's trademark black humor and stylistic innovation.

NOTE - For anyone in Chicago interested in Imamura, the Siskel Center has just begun a 2-month retrospective. January showcases his earliest work, and February his more well-known films. I would highly recommend The Ballad of Narayama, The Eel and Warm Water Under a Red Bridge. Narayama and Red Bridge are particular favorites of mine.

Disturbia (2007, USA)

It was a very David Morse weekend. 12 Monkeys on Friday, The Rock on Saturday, and on Sunday, Disturbia. I love David Morse, but I hate to see him doing such rote crap. D.J Caruso is a hack, and this movie was such an unthrilling thriller that I actually paused it at a critical moment so that I could go make myself some dinner. It fails even on the "boo" fright level. Pretty much everything about the plot is conventional, and there's never ANY doubt as to whether Morse's character is a psycho killer. Shia LaBeouf had a bang-up summer at the box office, but if he keeps doing crap like this and Transformers (and at this rate, why wouldn't he?), I think he's destined to become the next Seann William Scott

Shoot 'Em Up (2007, USA)

Wow. I don't know what hurt my brain more - gratuitous use of carrots, or the the big anti-gun spiel in the final third.

Diva (1981, French)

Diva was recommended to me years ago, but as I'm not big on French New Wave, I'd never gotten around to it until now, when the Music Box Theatre advertised a brand-new 35mm print. The film follows Jules (Frederic Andrei) as he chases his obsession, an opera diva (Wilhelmenia Fernandez), and is himself chased by white slave/drug smugglers and assorted other parties. It's all a bit tawdry for French New Wave, which is why I suppose it caused such a sensation. And there are aspects I liked very much - the intricacy of the plot is very striking, as two audio tapes are followed through Paris, their paths constantly criss-crossing, and some of the sequences, particularly a moped chase and an escape from the city, are brilliantly filmed - but the whole thing felt a bit drawn out. It would have benefitted from a certain leanness that it doesn't possess. However, it's beautifully photographed, and as my friend said, terribly French. And for Jean-Pierre Jeunet fans, Dominique Pinon has a wonderful small role as a very irritable thug. In any case, I was expecting more from this, as I've heard it spoken of in such high terms for so long, but perhaps my FNW prejudices got in the way here.

65th Annual Golden Globe Winners

What a terribly boring and predictable list of winners. As I expected, Atonement took home the prize for Best Motion Picture, Drama, and it was Day-Lewis for the win for Best Actor, Drama (not that he didn't deserve it, mind you, but it wasn't much of a competition). Bardem for Best Supporting Psycho, Blanchett for Best Dylan, and a number of awards for Sweeney Todd. Schnabel for Best Director and Marion Cotillard for Best Actress, Musical or Comedy, are the only two (minor) surprises in my book. I thought the Coens might take Director, but No Country flopped out except for Best Screenplay. (It's consolation prize time!) Good on Schnabel, though - his wins here and at Cannes (and at whatever that awards show last week was) make me that much more interested in seeing Diving Bell. As far as Cotillard is concerned, I always have a problem with "Musical or Comedy" nominations that are essentially biopics about singers, which is what Walk the Line was, and seems to be what La Vie en Rose is as well. Walk the Line was NOT a musical, it was a drama with music in it. So what if actors are singing the songs themselves - it's an entirely different format than a true musical. I think it's somewhat silly to put a role like Edith Piaf up against Ellen Page as Juno or Amy Adams as a fairy princess, but divide it from Julie Christie in Away From Her. If you're going to make up silly categories for "best" this and that, at least have some sense of consistency. Draw the line at an understandable location, or throw everyone into the same pool. It's how I feel about Best Foreign Language Whatever, and why should that be any different from acting awards? Best is best, no matter if it's in French or if it's making vicar pies.

Code Unknown (2000, France/Germany/Romania)

I got my wish! Even though my next movie of the year was a Michael Haneke film, no one died violently! Code Unknown is the warmest of Haneke's films that I've seen. It's still rather stark and narratively disruptive, but at least it seems to evince some belief in humanity. The film has no real plot, rather it intertwines narrative fragments that follow four people who meet at random on a Parisian street. The main thread is about an actress, Anne (Juliette Binoche), and her lover, Georges. Another follows Georges' brother and father on their farm outside of the city, a third a young man of African decent and his family, and a fourth a Romanian beggar woman who travels back and forth between Paris and her homeland.

Some of the fragments are merely short bursts, little more than two or three minutes in length. Others have a bit more substance - the two I found most affecting followed Anne, the first as she fights with Georges in a supermarket, and another as she is harassed on the subway. The fragments dip in and out of the larger story of each character's life, lives that we see only in moments. The more of Haneke's work I watch, the more impressed I am by his style. In Code Unknown, each fragment is filmed in one take, even the 10-minute opening shot that follows people back and forth on a busy city street. As in his other films, he favors medium shots, and follows his characters closely. It's both meditative and unsettling, even when used in the dramatic genre rather than the thriller. I'm looking forward to seeing how Haneke approaches a Kafka adaptation - his version of The Castle is up next on my queue.

There Will Be Blood (2007, USA)

Frankly, I loved it. It's an amazing movie. However, it certainly won't leave you dripping with the milk of human kindness. I wouldn't recommend having to interact with other people a whole lot for a little while after you've seen it.

The cinematography is gorgeous, like something Robert Altman or Michelangelo Antonioni would have done in the 1970's. The soundtrack, by Johnny Greenwood, is excellent - horribly so in parts because it's so tense. It's long, but epic long, expansive. David Lean long, not just P.T. Anderson long. I read somewhere that Paul Dano more than stands up to Daniel Day-Lewis, and it's true. Despite the fact that Dano's character disappears for a good part of the second half of the movie, when the two are together, they're like poles of a magnet.

In any case, I'm still wrapping my head around There Will Be Blood. It's both an excellent period piece and big ol' fuck you to the contemporary devils of corporate America. I've been a fan of Anderson's since Boogie Nights, but this movie is a different creature. You can tell it's Anderson, but he's tighter, clearer, and he's finally got something real to say. I can honestly say that even if his next movie stars Tom Cruise AND Tom Hanks, I will see it.*

I'm really on a roll in 2008 - I think I would like it if in the next movie I watch, no one dies violently.

*I really hope I don't end up regretting this.

Renaissance (2006, France/UK)

This film just fell totally flat. Set in a future Parisian dystopia, the plot revolves around a missing genetic engineer and the cop who's trying to find her. Unfortunately, the whole thing is just about as rote as that description might lead you to believe, except perhaps for the Parisian dystopia part. Renaissance is filmed in a high-contrast black-and-white motion-capture animation style (whew, that was a lot of hyphens). It looks cool, most of the time, but ends up suffering from a similar flatness that the plot does - the characters have little facial expression, which is a problem, and I wouldn't recommend watching it on a small television, because detail can be difficult to discern. It's a shame that the filmmakers spent so much time and energy on the look of the film, when it was the story and script that could have used the attention.

Funny Games (1997, Austrian)

The only reason that I can think of why Michael Haneke has decided to do an American remake of his 1997 film, Funny Games, is because he really, really likes fucking with his audience. The first Haneke film I saw, The Time of the Wolf, lost me video rental privileges in my apartment for at least a month. The second, Cache, was one of my favorite films of 2006. Funny Games is like Cache, in that it uses the medium of film itself to implicate the viewer in what's going on onscreen. The premise is simple - a family is vacationing at their lake house when two young men appear at the door and take them hostage. The villains (Peter & Paul/Tom & Jerry/Bevis & Butt-Head) aren't motivated by theft, rape, or anything other than sadism. It's a recipe for a very sick movie, especially since the director is a genius at ratcheting up the tension (his films are worth re-watching just for the framing). But Haneke really goes the extra mile here with the interlocking use of two devices.

(CAUTION: SPOILERS)

The first is the most obvious - the villains break the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience. The way in which they do so aligns the viewer with their games, creating the assumption that we want to play as much as they do, that we WANT to see this family brutalized and ultimately killed. Why would we watch a film of this sort if we didn't want to see these things? The villains even go so far as to change the outcome of the story with one of the weirdest dues ex machina sequences I've ever seen. They are utterly relentless in their quest to give the audience what it wants.

The second device? Haneke turns the tables once more, denying us those same pleasures the villains are exacting from their victims. We don't see a thing below the neck when the mother is forced to undress. We don't see any gunshots save the one that is undone seconds later. Haneke is teasing us, calling us sick and then denying us our gratification. In doing so, he walks a fine line - is he crowing over how much smarter he is than his audience? (This is why I stopped watching Todd Solondz movies.) Or is he earnestly trying to break things up, to get us to acknowledge the way in which we receive media and are manipulated by it?

(END OF SPOILERS)

On instinct, I dislike the fact that a recent foreign film is being remade expressly for American viewers - we're too pampered in the first place, and so many of us already lack the initiative to explore the cinematic landscape - but after seeing the original Funny Games and thinking on it a bit, the remake now makes perfect sense. Haneke wants to play the same game again, only with a different group of people this time. It's the perfect externalization of the film itself. In fact, it practically takes up where the original leaves off. I'm thinking I'll see the new one when it hits theaters so I can hear how the audience reacts. Does that make me as sick as Peter and Paul?

Sweeney Todd (2007, USA/UK)

About midway through Sweeney Todd, I wondered - how does he get referrals?

Nitpicking aside, I really enjoyed the movie. I'm not at all familiar with the source material, so it was fun to see the story unfold on its own (rather predictably, but it's a vengeance musical, so how much innovation can you expect?). I think Tim Burton finally has a strong enough frame to wrap himself around - without a well-written script and careful plotting, he tends to let his visual sensibility and quirky humor get away from him. I think Big Fish is a prime example, though I had similar problems with his version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, despite enjoying it more than I expected to.

Sweeney is the darkest thing I've seen Burton do in some time, and it's got to be a joy for him to be able to indulge this much. It's BLOODY. Really bloody. (BTW, don't bring your kids. At my showing, there were at least two in the front rows, and one of them couldn't have been much older than six.) It's nasty and gross and quite a bit of fun. The romantic plot didn't interest me - it rarely does in this type of narrative - but it was a necessity, and Burton doesn't dwell on it. He spends most of his time with the fabulous couple of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett, and I really enjoyed what Helena Bonham Carter does with Mrs. Lovett - you know she's all kinds of wrong, but there's a great big gaping hole of need inside her that turns her crimes inside out. Depp is good, as usual, as are Rickman and Spall. Sacha Baron Cohen's Italian barber was a bit too much Adam Sandler for me, but whatever - it's a melodramatic musical about a killer barber. Subtlety isn't exactly on the menu. But vicar is!