6. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Terry Gilliam, 2009

A centuries-old monk (Christopher Plummer) must enlist the aid of a mysterious stranger (Heath Ledger) in order to collect five souls before his daughter's (Lilly Cole) sixteenth birthday. If he fails, the devil (Tom Waits) will come to claim her.

Poor, poor, Terry Gilliam. Every time he tries to make a movie, fate intervenes and tries to stop it by, say, killing one of his lead actors. Parnassus is undoubtedly compromised by Heath Ledger's death and the hoops they had to jump through to get around it, but, as tempting as it may be, we can't really excuse the faults of the film on those grounds. After all, the way in which they integrated Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell into the role is nearly seamless - a triumph of luck and ingenuity. Where Parnassus goes wrong, it does so in unrelated ways. Even if Heath Ledger had finished the movie, it would have been the same basic experience of highs (Everything involving Tom Waits, Parnassus's defeat of Tony and his subsequent surreal journey) and lows (everything involving Verne Troyer, the almost offensively cheap look of the inside of the Imaginarium, and the gratuitously Python-esque musical number). I want to like the movie a lot, especially because Gilliam and Waits have given us what may be the greatest on-screen depiction of the Devil since - well, ever, but the whole thing really just doesn't hang together. It's a particular shame, given Gilliam's gift for imaginative visuals, that nearly everything he devises for the Imaginarium itself is horribly compromised by the awful CGI used to create it. An Imaginarium created with sets and miniatures, even if vastly more modest in scope, would have been much more effective. In fact, the first bit of the Imaginarium that we see, a large indoor forest of cardboard cutout trees, is a perfect example of what I wish we had seen throughout. All in all, it's worth watching for the good stuff, but it's mostly a sad collection of missed opportunities.

6/10

Stuff to See in 2010

There are few things more exciting than the prospect of a new year filled with new movies. After combing the internet, I’ve found fifty-eight movies slated to be released in 2010 that I am interested in, at least based on the minimal bits of information that are available for some of them. Of those fifty-eight, I’ve narrowed down a list of ten that I am particularly interested in. These aren’t necessarily the movies that I expect to be the best of the year – in fact, they almost certainly won’t. There really isn’t any way to make a list like this without falling back on either known properties or following people you trust. Almost all of these fall into one of those categories, but the best movies are oftentimes the ones you don’t see coming. Still, no reason to worry about that yet. Instead, just enjoy my list of ten movies to keep an eye on in 2010.

10. A Nightmare on Elm Street
Samuel Bayer

There’s a possibility that this movie won’t actually be any good, despite the brilliant choice of Jackie Earle Haley as Krueger. In fact, it will probably be the worst movie on this list, and maybe the worst of all the runners up, too. That won’t stop me from being there opening night, with bells on. It’s a Freddy Krueger movie. Everything else is irrelevant.

Hey, look, there's a trailer!

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9. The Adjustment Bureau
George Nolfi

George Nolfi is an unknown quantity to me, but I like Matt Damon and I like Emily Blunt. I suppose I don’t really know why I’m interested in this movie. I guess it is based on a short story by some old science-fiction writer, but even if I knew who that guy was, surely that couldn't explain it.

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8. The Green Hornet
Michel Gondry

I like Seth Rogan, I like superheroes, I like fedoras. . . and yet, this movie held little to no interest to me until they did something really strange and hired Michel Gondry to direct it. I have no idea what he’s going to do with the material, but whatever it is, it’s going to be fascinating.

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7. The Expendables
Sylvester Stallone

Stallone. Schwarzenegger. Willis. Lundgren. Statham. Li. That makes a pretty good start to a list of the greatest living action movie stars. It’s also the cast of this movie. Throw in a couple of great old character actors like Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts and let them all loose with machine guns, rocket launchers, and knives, and you’ve got a movie the likes of which have never been seen before. Or at least, not since the 80’s.

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6. Kick-Ass
Matthew Vaughn

This.

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5. The Tempest
Julie Taymor

Between her very interesting stage show of The Lion King and her masterwork, Titus, Julie Taymor’s name is enough to get me interested in anything. That interest won’t necessarily maintain itself over time, as demonstrated by the fact that I still haven’t seen Across the Universe, but The Tempest has a lot of other things going for it, including a return to Shakespearean source material and a terrific cast including Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, Djimon Hounsou, David Straithairn, Alfred Molina, and Helen Fucking Mirren.

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4. Iron Man 2
Jon Favreau

Because, well, because of Iron Man 1. And because you don’t pick Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell for your villains unless you’re some sort of genius.

Hey, look, there's a trailer!

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3. Never Let Me Go
Mark Romanek

From the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote the terrific The Remains of the Day, adapted by Alex Garland, who wrote 28 Days Later and Sunshine, directed by Romanek, the man behind One Hour Photo, and featuring Sally Sparrow herself, Carey Mulligan. I haven’t read the book myself, but I just bought a copy so I’ll know in a couple of weeks whether I’m still interested. What I do know is that it is apparently a moody, melancholic science-fiction story that keeps the sci-fi largely tucked away in the background. Sounds good to me.

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2. Inception
Christopher Nolan

I don’t really know much of anything about this movie. I don’t really want to know much of anything about this movie. I will probably find out a lot about this movie before it opens, and it will probably be my own fault. I’ll probably still love it.

Hey, look, there's a trailer!

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1. Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky

I can tell you why this is my number one pick for 2010 in two words, and I already typed them just under the title up there. This will be Aronofsky’s fifth movie, and the first four represent, in my eyes, a brilliant filmography unmatched by anyone. Pi (9.5). Requiem for a Dream (9). The Fountain (9.5, and I’m contemplating making it a 10). The Wrestler (9.5). No other director has ever come out of the gate swinging quite like that with the possible exception of Rian Johnson, who only has two movies under his belt. Darren Aronofsky is easily the most exciting filmmaker working today, and his name is all you should need. What about the movie? It has something to do with a rivalry between ballerinas. And it might be a horror movie. I dunno.

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There you go – ten movies for 2010, which still leaves out all sorts of exciting, interesting projects including Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, Paul, David Fincher’s The Social Network, Red, The Last Word, Madeo, Mr. Nobody, Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer, Ben Affleck’s The Town, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, Toy Story 3, and Sophia Coppola’s Somewhere, not to mention a couple of dozen others. It’s going to be a good year.

5. 9

9
Shane Acker, 2009

A handful of tiny doll-like robots are the only life left on Earth after a terrible war. When the last of these robots, 9 (Elijah Wood), comes online, he inadvertently awakens the machines that destroyed humanity in the first place - but he may also be the key to destroying those machines once and for all.

2009 has really been a banner year for animation, between Up, Coraline, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. For a while, I was thinking I could count 9 among them - certainly the least of the four, but competitive. Unfortunately, it kind of implodes at the end, devolving into some nonsensical bits of business that don't seem fully thought out. As a result, it winds up not adding up to much, despite some decent attempts at allegory. Still, there's a lot to like about the movie, mostly relating to the design of the world and characters, all of which are creepy as all hell. How could I not enjoy a movie that takes my two favorite things in the whole wide world (monsters and robots) and mixes them together into robot monsters? The animation itself is a tad clunky at times, but the top-notch designs help to mask that. It's also well-paced, exciting, and has some moments with a lot more emotional pull than I would have expected. It may be kind of disappointing, especially when stacked up against the competition, but it's certainly still worth watching.

6.5/10

4. Punisher: War Zone

Punisher: War Zone
Lexi Alexander, 2008

Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) kills bad guys. He accidentally kills an undercover agent. He kills bad guys. He befriends the agent's family. He kills more bad guys. He eludes the cops. He kills bad guys. Also, he kills bad guys.

Take a heaping bowl full of gleefully over the top violence, mix in a beautifully bleak and twisted deadpan sense of humor and a dash of half-assed political commentary, cook it under a completely unmotivated (and completely awesome) primary-colored lighting scheme (with bonus neon!) and serve it up on one of the most perfect bits of comic book casting this side of Tony Stark, and what do you get? A meal made up completely of abstract metaphors, which is almost as terrific as Punisher: War Zone.

This movie, from a story and character standpoint, is complete trash. But it may well be the best-made trash I've ever seen - completely aware of its nature, but without slipping into the laziness that tends to characterize that sort of thing. That kind of makes it something else entirely. Art? Maybe. The key to all of this, beyond the technical skill of everyone involved, is Ray "Titus Pullo" Stevenson's performance. While everyone else (especially Dominic West) goes completely over the top at every possible opportunity, he plays Castle in a very low-key, almost deadpan fashion. It should be completely at odds with the rest of the movie, the sort of thing that would tend to sink a film, but it works because it actually serves the character. By not playing things up, Stevenson's Castle winds up feeling completely out of step with the world, which, frankly, he is - at least until the violence kicks off. Once that happens, he's shoving chair legs through people's faces and blowing up parkour fanatics with rocket launchers. Suddenly, he belongs. I've got to be honest, it's subtle and abstract enough that I almost wonder if it was intentional, but either way, it works.

Really, though, that's all gravy. It's not why you watch a Punisher movie. Come for the fence-impalements, old man beheadings, face shotgunnings, axes to the chest, and bottle-crushing machine accidents (recycling is dangerous), stay for the potentially unintentional character depth. Then come back for more fence-impalements. At any rate, I'm probably being too kind with my rating for this movie, and may need to re-assess later. But for now, I'm kind of giddy over it, and that counts for something.

8.5/10

3. (500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer
Marc Webb, 2009

Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a lifelong romantic, falls in love with Summer (Zooey Deschanel), a cynic who doesn't believe in love. Happiness and misery both ensue, non-chronologically.

Loved this one, but I'm probably dead center in the target audience, so take that as you will. Even things that I probably should hate, like the overly wise child who talks like an adult and dishes out advice (Chloe Moretz), seemed to work. Most of the success of the movie comes down to the cast - especially Zooey Deschanel, who manages to hint at a lot of depth that we don't fully get to see because the point of view stays squarely with Tom the whole time. It wouldn't be hard to let Summer turn into the villain of the piece, and some people have interpreted it that way as it is - but I don't think Zooey allows that to happen. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great as well, but he has the easier job, especially with the (for once well-timed and unobtrusive) narration helping with some of the heavy lifting.

This is not to say that the actors salvaged weak material - both the script and direction were top-notch. I particularly appreciated that they continually refrained from overplaying their hand with both the emotional content and the clever structural tricks. A scene late in the movie where Tom's expectation of a certain event and the reality of the event play out in simultaneous split-screen works only because the differences are fairly subtle until the end of the sequence. Actually, let me amend that - they do overplay the last moments of the film just a tad. Fortunately, the movie is pretty much unsinkable by that point.

9/10

2. The Great Buck Howard

The Great Buck Howard
Sean McGinly, 2009

Troy (Colin Hanks) drops out of law school to pursue his dream of becoming a writer and takes a job as the road manager for Buck Howard (John Malkovich), an aging mentalist who performs in small towns across America.

Wow, this one started off badly. Probably the worst opening of any movie in recent memory. The opening credits, which serve as a montage of Troy's life up to that point, complete with first-person voiceover, feel like an extended version of an old sitcom opening, the lazy sort of laying out of the premise that is forgivable on TV, but not so much in a movie. I'm sorry to say I nearly cut and run at that point. Once we got to the movie proper, things picked up a little bit, but it never actually became anything worthwhile. It's a completely standard coming of age story, just like every other one, featuring a completely charisma-free lead in Colin Hanks. John Malkovich does what he can to make the movie work, and Buck Howard is an interesting character - but he can only do so much, because the movie isn't about him. I should also mention Emily Blunt, who manages to bring a bit of a spark to her handful of scenes. Without her and Malkovich working their asses off to salvage it, this movie would have been painfully awful. As it is, they can only drag it up to "pretty bad."

3/10

1. Encounters at the End of the World

Encounters at the End of the World
Werner Herzog, 2008

Herzog talks about philosophy while showing us pretty pictures and interviewing a boatload of eccentrics.

Well, I kicked off 2009 with a Herzog documentary, why not 2010? Unfortunately, no matter how much I love Herzog, I just can't seem to really get into his documentaries. I just went back and re-read my review of Lessons in Darkness from a year ago and there isn't really anything I have to say about this movie that I didn't already say about that. It was okay, and that's all.

5.5/10