Shutter Island

Four trailers were attached to Shutter Island. Two remakes (Death at a Funeral and Clash of the Titans) and two sequels (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Iron Man 2). I was at the end of my rope. I hadn’t seen a good movie in weeks and it seems as if Hollywood didn’t have an original thought left in its empty head. Then a gallant knight arrived in the form of Martin Scorsese. For some two hours and eighteen minutes I was taken on a cerebral trip that was mysterious, scary, clever, emotional, and surreal.


Set in 1954, the film follows U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) as they try to unweave a mystery on ominous Shutter Island, which houses criminally insane patients. They are trying to find a patient that escaped from her room by impossible means. “We don't know how she got out of her room. It's as if she evaporated, straight through the walls," says Dr. John Cawley, played with a sort of terrifying charm by Sir Ben Kingsley. Everyone on the island seems suspicious and acts as if they are hiding something, and it seems as if Daniels and Aule will not make it off the island intact. To top it off, Daniels is haunted frequently by past memories of the death of his wife and Nazi concentration camps he saw during the war.

Scorsese’s first psychological horror film is a classic. It raises so many questions, messes with your head, and scares the crap out of you all in one. Many viewers will feel cheated by the end, which answers all the questions to the plot in an often misused Hollywood fashion. But the movie isn’t about finding the answers to the plot, but more about the questions raised by the fantastic story. Scorsese saved the best question for last, so stick around for the final scene, it is a good one. And it sums up the theme of the film: how we consciously feed our subconscious lies to suppress bad memories, and how those lies can become reality if we let them. All in all, Scorsese has woven a horrifyingly terrific classic that is entertaining, thought provoking, and cinematically pleasing.

District 9

District 9 is a slum-like housing for aliens in South Africa. The aliens are being evicted from their slums and moved, until a kind-spirited man who is undergoing a metamorphosis begins to suspect that the humans may not be the good guys in the situation.
Produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neill Blomkamp, the movie is told in a documentary style, complete with interviews and shaky cameras.

Sounds like an original idea, huh? Well it is, and handled correctly it could be something special in the sci-fi universe, but this film was not handled correctly. This unique and original idea turns into too much of a splatter-fest. The film has an overreliance on visual effects and gore. Visual-guts flying around may excite the “fanboys,” but to me, it’s cheap thrills and quite silly. The characters are flat and undeveloped. What could have been a unique sci-fi film is simply an utterly typical and forgettable action movie. The best picture nod it received is, quite simply, a joke.

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker begins with a quote that includes the line “war is a drug.” That theme is embedded in the film and most notably with its main character, Staff Sergeant Will James. Sergeant James feeds off the energy of war, and his job requires that he does; he is in charge of an elite squad of soldiers who dismantle bombs in Iraq. James acts more like a cowboy than a soldier during missions, much to the chagrin of his teammates Sgt. Sanborn and Specialist Eldridge. Sanborn and Eldridge are not addicted to the drug like James, and just want to serve the rest of their tour and get out of Iraq.

I have read a few reviews that have called this film one of the most defining of the decade, or one of the all-time great war films. I think they are right about it being a film defining its time, but to think that this film can stand up against the like of Apocalypse Now or The Bridge on the River Kwai seems a little over-insinuating. These films stand the test of time because of their timeless stories and characters.

No one can argue with the great intensity brought on by the powerful camera work displayed in the film. Director Kathryn Bigelow accomplishes this by using the increasingly popular docu-style technique of jittery cameras and fast cutting. The film does not at all lack suspense. The film also does an excellent job of defining its characters, although they stay relatively flat for the length of movie. Sgt. Sanborn is the only character that really arcs. Overall, this is a pretty fantastic war movie, one that truly embraces the soldiers who fight, and the time it defines.

The Bicycle Thief

The story of The Bicycle Thief is a simple one: a man needs a job to feed his family. He gets one hanging posters because he owns a bicycle. The first day on the job his bike is stolen, flushing away any dreams of returning for a second day of pay. The man spends an entire day trying to track down the stolen bicycle with his young son, Bruno, at his side. The father and son share a journey that ends in one of the most beautifully startling climaxes in cinema history.

A simple plot for a movie that is so complex. Many talk of the film’s place as an important asset in the Italian Neorealist movement, but above all that, Vittorio De Sica’s film is simply a great character piece. The interaction between father and son, husband and wife, and man and society are all explored. The hero is broken down and driven to investigate the very depths of human indecency; and it is a dramatic, funny, thrilling, and altogether human experience along the way. A great picture.

The Bicycle Thief on IMDB.

The Best of the Aughts..the 00's...the zeros...

10. The Dark Knight

The blockbuster of the decade. Christopher Nolan perfectly blended intelligence and entertainment. Powerhouse performance from Heath Ledger.


9. O Brother, Where Art Thou?

The most quoted film of the decade. Beautifully shot by Roger Deakins (a film where every shot involved a visual effect), and full of the Coen’s usual quirky characters. George Clooney found a wonderful home at the helm of the Coen Brothers' tales.

8. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

What a grand-sweeping trilogy. No other epic is quite as complete as Peter Jackson’s trifecta-feature.



7. The Royal Tenenbaums

Wes Anderson created some of the best character-driven pieces of the decade, and none better than this tale of a man trying to reconcile with his family.


6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Another imaginative screenplay from Charlie Kaufman; inventively brought to life by the direction of Michel Gondry.








5. There Will Be Blood

Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance was the second best of the decade; right behind Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York. Beautifully shot and featuring the best score of the decade. Paul Thomas Anderson paced this gem perfectly, and made it entirely worthwhile to stick around for the monumental ending.

4. City of God


The best foreign film of the decade. Fast-paced and relentlessly intriguing.




3. Children of Men


The most brilliantly choreographed film ever made. Realism at its absolute best.



2. No Country for Old Men

The Coens achieved perfection in this ideal blend of suspense and humor. Fantastic performances from Oscar winner Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and all the secondary parts and extras, as well as my favorite performance of the movie: Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom. This wonderfully thematic film had a tenuous hold on its audience from Deakin’s opening shots that were blended with Jones’ biting narration. The result was one of the greatest films of all time about America, violence, and man’s relationship with the two.



1. Memento


Quite simply the most original, taunt, and splendid screenplay of the decade.Christopher Nolan didn’t use his jumbled narrative style as a worn device, but instead as a way to drop his audience into the mind of his main character. The most original film idea of the decade, establishing Nolan as a directing force in Hollywood and the most prolific director of the decade.


Honorable Mentions:

Sideways, The Departed, Mystic River, Talk to Her, Minority Report, Little Miss Sunshine, Snatch, Where the Wild Things Are, Michael Clayton, The Incredibles, Chicago, Munich, Gladiator, Traffic, The Darjeeling Limited.

Facts about the List:

Only two of the films won Oscars for best picture. In fact, only three were nominated.

Two Chris Nolan films appear on the list, as well as two Coen Brothers’ films.

Roger Deakins (the best cinematographer around) shot two films on the list.

Youth In Revolt

Youth in Revolt tells the story of Nick Twisp, played brilliantly by Michael Cera, and his quest to remain with the girl of his dreams, Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday). After a short summer fling with Sheeni, Nick must return to his hometown, once again a girlfriendless virgin. In order to get back to the girl that rules all his obsessions, Nick plans to commit unruly deeds and get kicked out of his mother’s house so that he can move in with his father whom landed a job near Sheeni. He plans to do so by employing the help of a supplementary personality named Francios Dilinger, played once again brilliantly by Cera. With his mischief, Nick sets off a series of seriously funny events that seem to complicate his situation at every turn.

Sounds like your typical teen flick, right? Well this certainly is not your typical teen flick. It is a finely crafted, original film. The scenes with Twisp’s alternate ego are wonderfully staged, not making any excuses or explanations. It’s just plainly presented and the audience has no choice but to accept it. The cinematography is subtly brilliant. All-in-all the film is frequently funny, and the story moves with twists and turns and ends with a great character arc.

Youth In Revolt in theaters tomorrow.

Best Movies of 2009

After what I refer to as a “down year” in 2008 (and a fantastic prelude to that in ’07), 2009 sported some of the finest cinema of the dwindling decade. Without further ado, here is my list of the top five films of 2009:

5. The Informant!

Steven Soderbergh continues to search for different and inventive ways to present cinema to the masses, shooting this film entirely in digital. Cinematography matters, but in this film it takes a big backseat to humor, storytelling, and the powerhouse performances lead by the fantastic Matt Damon. Damon was utterly human and hilarious as Mark Whitacre, an agir-business VP turned government informant. Nothing in the film world was funnier this year than Whitacre’s fast-paced, sporadic inner-monologues that Damon zipped through in rat-a-tat-tat fashion. Damn funny. Damn smart. Damn Good.

4. A Serious Man


You do not have to be Jewish to enjoy this film, which is yet another cinematic treasure from the Coen Brothers. The story of Larry Gopnik’s search for answers was such a poignant black comedy, a genre the Coen’s are true virtuosos. Gopnik searches for answers to questions we’ve all asked: “Why do bad things happen to good people? What does it all mean?” Amongst Jefferson Airplane, stagnant rabbis, and the amazing storytelling of the Coens, Gopnik searches, and finds little. The point is, well, what’s the point? Because in the end, I think it was Rabbi Marshak or maybe it was Grace Slick that said: “When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies…then what?” Well, at least we’ll always have the Coen brothers.

3. The Road


(See Previous Review)

2. Inglourious Basterds


I did not have more fun at the movies all year than while viewing Quentin Taratino’s glourious return to great cinema. Basterds was pure entertainment: funny, exciting, and spine-shatteringly intense. This film simply had some of the most memorable scenes of the year (the opening to the film, introduction of the “Bear Jew”, another Mexican standoff from Tarantino but this time in a basement, and let’s not forget the image of Shosanna Dreyfus being projected onto smoke from beyond the dead over some ill-fated Nazis). Those are simply a few of the images that make this film memorable, and QT’s best movie since Pulp Fiction. The humor and Leone-esque suspense more than make up for Tarantino’s usual long windedness. Since Pulp, most of his dialogue has seemed trite and forced, but in Basterds, the dialogue is interesting and moves the story along at a suspense-filled pace.

1. Where the Wild Things Are


Anyone who grew up skimming Maurice Sendak’s book about the imagination in all of us can agree with me here. No other film captured the childhood spirit that we all long for after the age of about thirteen than Spike Jonze’s masterpiece. And who other than Jonze could have directed such a radiant picture? Mixing his realist style with one of the most imaginative and beloved stories ever, Jonze created the dark and emotional world of the wild things. This kid’s movie for adults taught us so much about life, including what’s inside all of us: that wild thing from childhood, just itching to get out and roar its terrible roar.

Honorable Mentions:

Up in the Air- A great film about needing people.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox- As one of the finest directors around, and certainly the most underrated, Wes Anderson crafted this masterpiece in stop-motion animation, infusing his signature quirk and fantastic humor into a timeless Roal Dahl story.

Contenders yet to see: Nine, A Single Man, Precious, The Hurt Locker.

The Road

A little over a year ago I picked up a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road. After I finished it very quickly, it became the best book I ever read. So I had pretty high hopes for the major motion picture adaptation.

John Hillcoat was chosen to man the directing helms of a story about a man and his son’s struggle for survival in the grayest post-apocalyptic world ever put on film. Their goal is to reach the coast, but they must track cross-country fending off cannibals, starvation, and worst of all, the threat of losing human decency.

The focus of the story is the man’s (Viggo Mortenson) struggle to keep his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) alive amongst so much death and destruction. This is such a powerful film about a father’s love, and the lengths the man will go through to protect his son. Their only weapon is a gun, which has only two bullets with the purpose of helping the two protagonists comment suicide if the “bad guys” catch up with them. The man struggles to teach his son survival, while the son struggles to find humanity in such an inhumane place.

There will be some people who will say this film is a depressor. Look deeper. This film is a rejoicer. It will teach you to rejoice in the human spirit. Because no matter how dark, how bleak things get, there is always the human spirit to rejoice in. We will always feel the need to “carry the fire.”

Check out The Proposal. A hidden Australian-western gem from John Hillcoat.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Flat characters and disjointed story drive a would-be excellent comedy into mediocrity.


The Men Who Stare at Goats has some extremely funny moments. Too bad they are sandwiched in between a plot that is muffled and incohesive. Well, when I say plot, what I really mean is story; this film lacks any real presence of a solid story.



When Bob Wilton’s (Ewan McGregor) wife leaves him for another man, a one-armed man, he decides to show her what’s up by joining the army as a journalist. While in Iraq, Wilton runs into Lyn Cassady(George Clooney) who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's “New Earth Army,” a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions. Cassady claims to be out of retirement and on a new mission for the unit and agrees to let Wilton tag along. The movie cuts between the present with flashbacks of the rise and fall of New Earth Army, which was formed by hippie-soldier Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). The unit does extremely well until recruit Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey) brings it down out of jealousy over Wilton’s success as its top psych-soldier. That back story leads to an intersection with the present mission by Wilton and Cassady, and plenty of LSD and gags along the way.

The characters are memorable and they do really funny things, but for what? Is this the story of a man trying to find himself and his destiny after being played for a fool by his wife? Or is it a story of redemption, after a soldier uses his powers for what he sees as dark purposes rather than light? Or even still, it may be a parody of Star Wars, or even a parody of our armed forces’ tactics used for the war on terror. Whatever the story, it lacked focus. Not to say the film was all bad. It contains many moments of flat-out hilarious gags. Every so often those gags seemed forced, and they would have maybe worked better with a darker tone to the picture. But the main complaint is simply with the simple reason why movies are good: story.

The Dark Knight

A few summers ago I deemed Batman Begins the greatest comic book/superhero film of all time. Its sequel, The Dark Knight, is just as worthy of the title. Christopher Nolan has taken a worn-out premise and genre and made it fresh, intelligent, and very entertaining.

Nolan’s film is not just about good versus evil or the hero foiling the villain with a lot of action along the way (although it has a lot of action). It’s about the building of characters, characters that feel real. It’s about the choices these characters make and the consequences of those choices. In short, it’s about characters. And those characters are brought to life wonderfully by the actors. Leading the way is the late Heath Ledger, who is sure to get an Oscar nod for his creepy, intense, and all together brilliant portrayal as the Joker. He was so convincing as the psychopath in face paint that I never for one second saw Ledger up on the screen. And it is not just the creepy face paint, it is his mannerisms, his voice, and the way he encompassed himself into such a unique role. The rest of the cast is also superb, most notably Aaron Eckhart as District Attorney Harvey Dent turned villain known as Two-Face.

But the real star here is Nolan, who along with his brother Jonathan, has written a screenplay with morals and themes that run as deep as any movie you are ever going to see. Behind the camera (and he actually directs from behind the camera, not from a monitor nearby), Nolan stages some of the best action sequences ever, and couples them with emotional scenes of dialogue about morals and choices, mainly between Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and Alfred (Michael Caine). The film is long for an action film (some 142 minutes), but never seems long with its fantastic pacing.

There is a scene in The Dark Knight in which Bruce Wayne is contemplating letting go of his alter ego so the Joker will stop hurting innocent people to get to Batman. He turns as always to his mentor and Butler, Alfred, for counsel. Wayne asks, “People are dying. What would you have me do?” For which Alfred replies, “Endure.” Well, thanks to Christopher Nolan, the Batman franchise will have no problem doing just that.

The Dark Knight comes to a theater near you July 18.

If you liked this, here are some other films by Christopher Nolan:
Following(1998), Memento(2000), Insomnia(2002), Batman Begins(2005), The Prestige(2006).

The Dark Knight official Website

The Dark Knight on IMDB