Doomsday (USA/UK)

Well. Okay. So Scotland is infected with a terrible, terrible virus and shut off from the world for 25 years. Good riddance, you say? Unfortunately, deadly viruses don’t know how to stay put all that well, and a crack team lead by a one-eyed Scotswoman has to go in to find a cure. But what do they find instead? Why, cannibalistic mutant ravers fighting a cast straight out of your local Medieval Times. Of course.

This is truly insane shit, some sort of maniacal English wish fulfillment in action. Like this is what Scotland would still be like if the English hadn’t come in to shape the place up all those centuries ago. And it’s terrible. I know, I know, with that subtle a plot, how could this movie possibly fail? Spectacularly, I say. I was impressed by The Descent - what the hell happened to Neil Marshall? Even Malcolm McDowell can’t save this show. And have I previously mentioned my love for Malcolm McDowell?

By the way, it’s good to know that even after a horrible virus wipes out pretty much all of mankind and turns the remainder into crazed, feral monsters, there will still be a ready supply of Manic Panic on hand.

Step Brothers (2008, USA)

I enjoy Will Ferrell comedies when they really go off the deep end – for example, the Applebee’s commercial that interrupts the final race scene in Talladega Nights, or the network-on-network fight scene in Anchorman. Unfortunately, Ferrell’s latest has too little of the sublimely ridiculous, and too much of forty-year-old men acting like twelve-year-old boys. It’s a fitfully amusing movie, worth a rental on a slow night for moments like the bigotry neighborhood, Richard Jenkins’ childhood dream, and, of course, the fuckin’ Catalina Wine Mixer.

While I’m on the subject, though, I have to say that I’m getting more than a bit tired of the recent string of comedies from both Ferrell and Apatow camps that consistently glorify the adolescent male mentality. I ask you – where are the comedies about me, the reluctantly adult-ish American woman? Sure, we got Baby Mama this spring, but in comparison with the approximately 83 films that Judd Apatow has had his paws on over just the past two years, it’s kind of a moot point. And don’t talk to me about Sex and the City – can’t women on film be legitimately funny without simultaneously making the rest of us feel bad about our lives because we can’t afford $800 shoes? Here’s my proposal - why don’t we clone Tina Fey, and maybe Tamara Jenkins and Mindy Kaling while we’re at it, and stick the clones in a room with a couple of laptops? That should get things started. Someone’s got to give Anna Faris something better to do than The House Bunny.

The Signal (2007, USA)

An interesting little science fiction horror comedy, The Signal may make more sense as three short films (different writers, different directors, different tones) linked by the same story, rather than as a continuous feature film. It’s an interesting concept, one that can’t help but be uneven in execution, though this unevenness actually ends up being part of its charm. The Signal filmmakers made the wise choice of a simple story – late one night, a city awakes to find all communications systems are jammed by a disruptive signal which incites people to random acts of violence (shades of Pulse). Playing in front of this backdrop are Maya, Ben and Lewis – Maya is unhappily married to Lewis, cheating on him with Ben, who wants her to leave the city with him and abandon her marriage.

Of the three segments, the first is the scariest, filmed in a similar style as 28 Days Later. Segment two (my favorite) turns the proceedings into a black comedy, while segment three has the unhappy task of wrapping everything up. Uniting the disjointed natures of the first and second segments while simultaneously providing closure on the story would have taxed the skills of a more accomplished filmmaker, and as it is, the denoument drags on too long in a less than satisfactory manner. All the same, The Signal is still a highly entertaining little horror flick, grounded in decades of precedent but still managing to forge an identity of its own.

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985, USA)

I’ve seen Mishima twice now, and I still can’t think of another non-Japanese director who could have approached the material quite as well as Paul Schrader does. Schrader and Mishima have quite a bit in common, in fact – wildly uneven artistic careers, trademark obsessional natures, and deep-rooted sexual hang-ups, to name a few. I’ve seen about half of Schrader’s films to date, and a few more of those that he’s written but not directed, and I have to say that Mishima is my favorite (though I must admit that I have a soft spot for Auto Focus).

The film is comprised of three intertwining threads – biography elements from Mishima’s life, selections from three of his novels, and a staging of the events of the morning of November 25, 1970. Yukio Mishima is one of the most famous, if not the most famous, contemporary Japanese writer. Beyond his novels, plays, essays and poetry, he was a filmmaker, bodybuilder and a rather unique political activist. On the date mentioned, Mishima and four members of his personal army barricaded themselves in the office of a Japanese Army general as an act of political and personal revolution. If he was not already a pivotal figure in Japanese culture, the events of that day certainly made him one.

One of the prime Japanese leading men of the 1980’s, Ken Ogata gives an extraordinary performance as Mishima. Watching for a second time, I was amazed by Schrader’s ability to direct actors in a language he is not apparently fluent in (sister-in-law Chieko Schrader wrote the Japanese script from Paul and his brother Leonard’s original). However, my favorite segments are the three novel excerpts, which don’t feature Mishima as a character at all (at least, not explicitly). The use of the word “lush” wouldn’t come close to describing the production design, which is unabashedly theatrical and innovatively filmed. The novel sections pull out and examine some of Mishima’s favorite themes – beauty, art, national pride, sexuality – and together with the other two segments, show how these themes ran in and out of the author’s life as well as his work. This tight focus on the novels also highlights one of the other extraordinary elements of Mishima - the fact that it is almost entirely interior. The film attempts to capture the life and work of a man in his own words, fifteen years after his death (and by a foreigner, nonetheless!). It’s incredibly ballsy on Schrader’s part, but all the more amazing for its success.

The Dark Knight (2008, USA)

I don't know if it was the caffeine I had to keep myself alert through an 11:30P.M. screening of a two-and-a-half-hour movie, or if The Dark Knight really is that much creepier and more frightening than its predecessor, but how on Earth did they manage to secure a PG-13 rating? Scratch that - it is that much scarier. And grosser. Don't bring the kids. Yeah, I'm talking to you - who the hell brings a two-year-old to a movie like this in the middle of the night?

Anyway.

As Batman Begins was an origins tale, the story of a dark hero, Knight belongs to the villains - Batman and his alter-ego, Bruce Wayne, get surprisingly little screen time in this rogues gallery, and with so many moving parts to the film, it's no huge surprise. Knight is incredibly densely-plotted, the number of threads weaving in and out of the action far surpassing your average action flick. But from the start, in fact the very first scene, the movie belongs to Heath Ledger's Joker. It's not that Bale, Gyllenhall, and the others aren't good as well (special props to Aaron Eckhart for an excellent performance), but Ledger is the most commanding presence to behold, and no one can pull the eye from him when sharing a scene (though maybe they should have given Caine a try). There's been a ton of hype about the film in general and Ledger in particular, but this is one of those rare instances where it proves true - despite the potentially hampering length of the film, the action fails to flag, and the characters ring true from start to finish. I wasn't a huge fan of Batman Begins when I originally saw it in the theater, but it's grown on me in the intervening years. Knight has no need to work its way into my system - it arrives as a full-blown adrenaline rush, a thoughtfully complex one at that, and should earn a deserving spot somewhere at the top of the comic action canon.

Also, more films need to open with William Fichtner and a shotgun. Just sayin'.

Be Kind Rewind (2008, USA)

I've always been a fan of the movie theater experience - it's not just the giant screen, the sound system, the popcorn; it's the communal experience. Some of my best college memories involve waiting in line on opening night with a group of friends. It felt like everyone you knew was somewhere in that line, and I think there certainly were some times (Star Wars: Episode I, Eyes Wide Shut) when half the school descended on a particular theater over the course of a weekend. That's the kind of movie experience that Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind strives for - the ways in which a movie can bring people together like few other public art forms do. It's also about myth-making, and how though movies are ostensibly private property (a point made more and more often these days), so many people feel a sense of ownership towards them all the same.

The bummer is that Gondry's writing isn't up to snuff - it's a charming idea, how two lovable losers bring a community together through a shared love of film, but while the execution of the "sweeded" movies is creative, the wraparound plot is a snoozer. Be Kind is yet another version of the tired "let's put on a show to save the family _____" that doesn't have any bite to it at all. I wish Gondry had had either the sense or the humility to hire a writing partner for this project. It would have really helped do justice to a movie that is so obviously in love with the form.

Hellboy: The Golden Army (2008, USA)

As popcorn movies go, Hellboy 2 delivers the goods pretty well. Despite an overstuffed plot and some attendant holes, everything makes about as much logical sense as you would expect a movie about a crime-fighting demon from hell to. Primarily, I'm delighted to see Ron Perlman step back into the role of Hellboy - even with a face entirely covered in latex and red paint, Perlman is the only actor I can imagine in the role. Dispensing this time with any real human perspective, Hellboy 2 follows the team of freaks from the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense as they seek to track down a fairy prince determined to resurrect the human-crushing Golden Army. (Despite the sound of "fairy prince", this guy can kick some serious ass.)

The best and the worst thing about Hellboy 2 is how it looks. As I mentioned, for the second installment Guillermo Del Toro has dispensed with a human protagonist, and along with it, any real grounding in the world of man. Humans here do little more than scream and run away, and even the awesome Jeffrey Tambor is pretty much put on the shelf by the time the real action gets going. Hellboy 2 is immersed in the world of demons, fairies and trolls, with Del Toro exercising his creature-concepting skills to their fullest - it's like the original Hellboy has merged with the fantasy sequences of Pan's Labyrinth. All this gorgeousness and grotesquery - the troll market, Tooth Fairies, the Golden Army itself - makes for a visual feast, but it also weighs down the action sequences. When there's so much to look at and so many details to play with, it becomes harder to block out action sequences that don't look entirely like cartoons. There's nothing here as adrenaline-pumping as Hellboy 1's fight scene in the New York Subway.

However, there are also a lot of other things going on, including two half-scetched romantic plot lines. I wish they'd made a decision on one or the other - either would have worked just fine, but the desire to include both feels half-assed - seventeen-year old boys aren't exactly going to line up for a movie about inter-creature relationships, in any case. I did like how that instead of starting from scratch, like many action and fantasy sequels do when it comes to romance, Del Toro took Hellboy and Liz (Selma Blair) to a new stage of their relationship. Unfortunately, now that she's got a handle on her powers, Liz doesn't have much to do except look exasperated with Hellboy for being kind of a crappy boyfriend, and Blair looks pretty depressed throughout. It's a bummer that the filmmakers couldn't come up with some better female story arcs, but at least they managed to fit in a Barry Manilow duet. Which is not to be missed.

My Winnipeg (2007, Canadian)

Equal parts travelogue, autobiography and myth, Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg may be his funniest film to date, and my favorite alongside Cowards Bend the Knee. Narrating a purported "escape" from his hometown of Winnipeg, Maddin navigates through a territory that is equal parts real and imaginary - personal and public histories intertwine with extravagant fantasies about sleepwalkers with keys to every home they've ever lived in, fantasy hockey teams made up of long-dead Manitoba athletes, glorious "Man Pageants," frozen horses and much more. Most memorable are the sections that ostensibly reenact moments of Maddin's family history, led by his fantastically overbearing mother (Ann Savage), who is, not surprisingly, as key a figure here as Winnipeg itself.

As usual, Maddin's visual style is stunning and inventive - a pastiche of silent film tropes, home movies, handheld black-and-white sequences, newsreels and montage. Not as uniform as some of his other films, it's a perfect mix for this "documentary", an excellent device for a film that focuses so much on what lies beneath the surface of things - particularly memories, but also those curious forks beneath the forks.

Teeth (2007, USA)

Part of me is surprised that Teeth, or at least a movie about vagina dentata in any form, hadn't been made before, but the other part is kind of surprised it ever got made at all. A wicked little horror comedy, Teeth is anchored by the hilariously dorky Jess Weixler as Dawn, a high school abstinence advocate who preaches saving it until marriage to local teens. Then Dawn meets a fellow abstinence promise-maker who turns out to be a little less interested in keeping that promise than she is. In this unfortunate way, Dawn discovers that she has a surprise defense mechanism, much to her attacker's displeasure. From this point, Dawn tries to figure out what's happening her as the rest of her life simultaneously implodes.

Teeth feels like the perfect companion piece to Ginger Snaps, another horror film that focuses on the fear of budding female sexuality, though Ginger does it with a bit more metaphor. Teeth is also a sight funnier, particularly with its repeated use of certain imagery and Weixler's bemused performance. It's not perfectly satisfying - the movie moves a bit too fast through some of the plot developments, and one of Dawn's sexual encounters felt a bit problematic to me - but films like this one and Ginger are a welcome comment on the more traditional sex = death teen horror films.