11. I Love You, Man

I Love You, Man
John Hamburg, 2009

Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) has always gotten along better with women than men. In need of a best man for his wedding, Paul happens to meet Sidney (Jason Segal), and they hit it off immediately. But will Peter's new friend jeopardize his imminent marriage (no, it won't. Just saying).

I Love You, Man is probably the most blatant of the new sub-genre of bromances, literally grafting the friendly relationship between Peter and Sidney on to the worn-out romantic comedy plot structure. There's the meet cute, the montages, the break-up, and the reconciliation, all present and accounted for. I suppose that's part of the joke, really, but it hurts the film by saddling it with all of the weaknesses inherent in the genre. I suspect even the filmmakers were only sticking to it out of a sense of obligation, because the break-up section lasts all of seven minutes, and you can tell that no one's heart is in it.

While things suffer on a big picture level, though, they do manage to get pretty much every single thing right on a moment to moment level. It's funny, the actors play off of each other nicely, and it's funny. Did I mention it was funny? Funny enough that I still liked it, even though it didn't add up to much.

6.5/10

PS. It's taken me almost a week to get this review up, for no particular reason. This is my public announcement of failure and shame.

10. Man on Wire

Man on Wire
James Marsh, 2008

The true story of a man (Philippe Petit) who walked a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center.

I'm not generally a fan of documentaries. Well, that's not really true. I generally tend to like documentaries, I just never like them a lot. There's always that lack of design or structure that prevents it from really taking off, because you can't really write a documentary (even though they have writers) and you can only sort of direct them. Man on Wire is the exception to this rule. It's structured and plotted like a well-built thriller, based around the complicated plot to break into the WTC, string a wire between the towers, and pull the stunt. A significant portion of the film is made up of very striking re-enactments of the break-in, which are shot in black and white and become increasingly abstract as we approach the wire-walk. The backstory is interspersed in a way that feels like flashbacks from a narrative film, and it all just flows in a way that documentaries generally don't. Terrific stuff.

8.5/10

9. JCVD

JCVD
Mabrouk El Mechri, 2008

While trying to scrounge up some money to support a bitter custody battle for his daughter, washed-up movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme (Jean-Claude Van Damme) winds up in the middle of a bank robbery gone wrong.

There is a lot to like about this movie, starting with the brilliant opening credits sequence, which is a lengthy single-shot action scene in which Van Damme kills at least a couple of dozen people, using several guns, a giant pipe, and, of course, his own feet and fists. Of course, every movement is blatantly choreographed, much of the timing is off, and many of the punches don't come anywhere close to landing. But then, that's kind of the point.

Then you get to the body of the movie, which is the robbery. The story is nothing particularly novel, but it is solid enough that it would still have worked even if random actor X was playing celebrity action star Y, rather than Van Damme as Van Damme. It just wouldn't have worked as well. What is a little more interesting is the way that the story is presented, with a fractured chronology, scenes shown twice from different perspectives, and a handful of fourth-wall breaking moments including the centerpiece of the film, a six-minute monologue from Van Damme, delivered directly to the audience. It didn't really work, admittedly - but I really appreciate the attempt. Unfortunately, it all kind of falls apart as we move into the (somewhat) action-packed finale, which hurts the film quite a bit. Even then, though, Van Damme's surprisingly strong and naturalistic performance keeps it from going completely off the rails. This is, I suppose, a prime argument for why it's a good idea to let actors act in their native tongue (see also: Cruz, Penelope).

7/10

8. Funny People

Funny People
Judd Apatow, 2009

George Simmons (Adam Sandler), a famous comic, learns that he's dying of cancer. He has no friends at all, so he takes a struggling young stand-up (Seth Rogan) under his wing and reconnects with the love of his life (Leslie Mann). Then he finds out he's cured, and doesn't know where to go from there.

This is certainly Judd Apatow's best effort yet. His two previous movies, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, are generally lauded for mixing lowbrow comedy with heartfelt emotion. To a certain extent that's true, and it's true of Funny People as well - but there's a critical difference that makes Funny People work so much better. In the first two films, the world presented to the audience is the world of a comedy - it looks kind of bright and plasticky, and more to the point, its filled with funny, quirky characters and everyone makes jokes that are funny because they're jokes. The character development, drama, and emotion are the external element that doesn't quite fit. In Funny People, it's just the opposite. The world of the movie is very grounded, the characters generally feel at home in it, and it's the jokes that feel out of place. This had the dual beneficial effect of putting the whole movie on a more solid footing and also making the jokes much funnier than they would otherwise have been. It also makes the bloated 2 and a half hour running time feel like less of an issue than it was in the other movies.

On the negative side of things, it really feels like two different movies (pre- and post-cure), with largely different supporting casts. There are a few too many musical montages (hey! I have an idea how to tighten up that running time!), and it really does drag, especially toward the end of the first half.

7/10

7. In Bruges

In Bruges
Martin McDonagh, 2008

After Ray (Colin Farrell), a young hit-man, accidentally kills a child during his first hit, he and his mentor, Ken (Brendan Gleeson), are sent to hide out in the tiny town of Bruges.

I liked this one quite a bit. It's sharply written, with snappy dialogue, and manages to swing between comedy, tragedy, and surrealism without ever violating its own tone. Colin Farrell gives the performance of his career (or at least the portion that I've seen) as, essentially, a child in a man's body, and Ralph Fiennes is nearly unrecognizable as the vengeful crime boss. The ending is very interesting, taking a fairly grounded story and recasting it as a sort of fairy tale (as alluded to by several characters), albeit one seen through a fractured lens. The dialogue does at times, particularly when Harry is involved, slip into that maddening Tarantino-esque "repeating myself slowly to sound badass" sort of pattern that I hate so much, but fortunately those moments are few and far between.

8.5/10

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.