Day 60: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

"Stop visiting tattoo removal websites or I'll do it again... Right here!"

There's a long, sad story behind the creation of these novels by the author Stieg Larsson which involves his death before he could see the unbelievable success they became first as novels, then as Swedish films, and now as an American film. He was a journalist and an activist, and there has been tremendous controversy surrounding not only the cause of his death, but also the division of his assets. All that aside, he possessed a wonderful talent as a writer, and created probably the greatest heroine of this new century in the character of Lisbeth Salander.

When it was first announced that David Fincher was directing the American adaptation of the first novel in his Millennium Trilogy, I thought it superfluous at best and a downright cash grab at worst. I love David Fincher, he is one of the elite directors working in film today, but I didn't see it as necessary to do English language versions of the books, especially since the Swedish language version were not only well-liked, but also fairly faithful to the novels. What could any American director, let alone one of the great ones, possibly have to say that hadn't already been said?

A lot, apparently, and I have very rarely been so wrong as to write off a film sight unseen before. Fincher is a master and he puts on a clinic with this film. The story is pretty well-known at this point, but it involves a  journalist with a tarnished reputation named Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig, proving once again he is one of the best actors working today) who has been approached by a wealthy businessman named Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer, wonderful as always) to aid in solving the decades old disappearance of his niece. Blomkvist travels to the secluded northern Swedish estate where Vanger and his family live, to not only figure out the mystery, but also to escape the scrutiny he's under for his seemingly misguided attempt to sue a possibly corrupt businessman.

When he finds the case too much to handle alone, he asks for an assistant, and is paired with the aforementioned Salander (Rooney Mara, in the year's best performance by a mile), a young computer hacker with a sullied past of her own. Her scenes leading up to her involvement in the case are brutal, but she is no wilting flower, and is shown not just fending for herself, but leaving an indelible mark (pun fully intended) on anyone who wrongs her. As the two dig deeper and the mystery begins to unravel, it proves to be a murkier and more unsettling series of events than either was prepared to confront. If, like me, you're walking into this story cold, the less said about the details of the mystery, the better.

The film is full of wonderful character actors giving great performances, among them Stellan Skarsgard, Joely Richardson, Geraldine James & Robin Wright. As far as the two leads go, they are a force to be reckoned with on-screen. Craig shows that he has not gone so far to the tough guy side after playing Bond for the better part of the last decade. He plays a weak man in over his head, and he's thoroughly convincing (even if his accent does wax and wane). As for Mara, she is a revelation, and she announces her presence to the world in the boldest way possible, Now granted, the character is incredibly well written, but in the wrong hands, it could have been nothing more than a wasted opportunity at greatness. Thankfully, she is an actress as adept at infusing the character with life as the man who created her in the first place. She is unlike anything you've ever seen before, and I cannot wait to see what her future holds.

Fincher frames his film as only a master can, never getting bogged down in coverage, and always selecting the most eye-catching angles imaginable. The film reunites him with his best cinematographer, Jeff Cronenweth, who shot Fight Club and The Social Network with him, and the two are a formidable pair when working together. He's also wise in using Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor for the score, and it compliments every scene without ever being distracting.

Another reason to love Fincher is that he's a master of the long dead art of the opening credit sequence. His credit sequence here is like an S&M James Bond credit sequence, and it sets the mood perfectly for what follows. I wish more directors would invest the kind of time into opening titles that Fincher does, although it remains his conquered domain.

I sincerely hope that this team reassembles to make the other two films in the series. They deserve the chance to complete the trilogy. It depends upon a number of circumstances, but I am truly hopeful that it happens. I skirted a lot of the nastiness of the film that others have been dwelling on, and I have to tell you, there are three scenes in the film that are unbearably tense and disturbing, but they occupy a total of 10 of the film's 160 minutes, so they aren't worth not seeing the film over. They're awful, but they're so integral an necessary. They establish the awfulness of the human race that permeates the entire story and they're not superfluously tossed in for shock value. They're certainly not for the squeamish, but they're also not worth missing out on this entire film for.

Be back tomorrow for my number 2 film of 2011, Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive.

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Day 59: Hugo

"If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from, look around... this is where they're made."

Martin Scorsese is an icon, a living legend, and, I'll go ahead and say it, the greatest director of his generation, a generation that produced a ton of great directors, but only one true master of the cinema. His early life was spent as a sick child, indoors, watching films while his friends spent their lives playing outdoors, and we, the movie-going public, have reaped the benefits of his time spent absorbing cinema.

No other director of his ilk can move so seamlessly not just between genres, but between fiction and documentary filmmaking. If you can name another director that can do this, I'd like to hear about it. Werner Herzog maybe, but it's an amazing talent that very few have attempted, let alone mastered. In his documentaries, most notably My Voyage to Italy and A Personal Journey... he has been able to parlay his love of film as a medium into an enjoyable narrative, but he's never attempted to construct a true love letter to film in the confines of fiction.

Hugo is his first attempt to do so, and it is a resounding success. It's the kind of film that only a true cinephile could have made. Using Brian Selznick's novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret as a jumping off point, Scorsese and screenwriter John Logan tell the story of Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield, a true natural on-screen), a young boy orphaned by the death of his father (Jude Law) and forced to live in a early 20th Century Parisian train station by his uncle (Ray Winstone), a drunk who takes care of the clocks in the station.

He scours around the walls of the station every day, trying to avoid the Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), and stealing spare parts from a toy store run by a stern old man named Georges (Ben Kingsley), in an attempt to fix an automaton robot left to him by his father. After befriending Georges' god-daughter Isabelle (Chloe Moretz, fast becoming one of the best young actresses in film today), he notices a key she wears around her neck, that is shaped like the keyhole on the back of the automaton. While it's important for the film's magic to keep the hows and whys a secret in a review, the automaton was created by Georges, who is actually silent filmmaker Georges Melies, director of such films as A Trip to the Moon. He has fallen into a deep depression, thinking that his work had been lost and forgotten, but with the help of film historian Rene Tabard (Michael Stuhlbarg, from the Coen Brothers' underrated A Serious Man), Hugo and Isabelle set out to prove to Melies that he hasn't been forgotten.

Okay, first of all, any film where the protagonists turn to a film historian for help is gonna get high marks from me, but the film is so much more than that. The flashbacks to Melies creating his films are the stuff of pure cinema magic, and give the film a lived-in luxuriousness that a lesser director would have skirted over. This also brings me to the use of 3D. It is absolutely, positively the best use of the technology yet put on film, and I feel it's essential to see the film this way if at all possible. It almost makes me want to buy a 3D television so I never have to see the film in 2D. The depth of field he achieves, particularly in the breathtaking opening shot that breezes in and out of the walls of the train station, is nothing short of miraculous. It makes filmgoing an immersive experience. You feel like you're there in the train station with them. It's amazing.

The parallels between Hugo and Georges are powerful, and give the film it's true emotional punch. Georges sees in Hugo a boy that should, by all rights, have given up on humanity and turned hard-hearted and cynical like him, but Hugo's firm belief in the human condition and its power to move people permeates Georges, and makes him remember what it was like to be that way. His friendship with Isabelle is definitely his gateway to human connection again, but it's through his faith in Georges, when seemingly no one else has it, that gives Georges the will to regain his status as a cinema master.
It's a beautiful film, and one that made me glad to say that I took my daughter to see her first Scorsese movie. The special effects are incredible. The way the camera glides through the train station and 1930s Paris gives the film a truly magical aura, and allows you to get lost in a world we'll never see again in real life. Howard Shore's score is equally magical, never feeling overbearing like John Williams at his worst. It gives even the most mundane shots, of which there are very few, an air of whimsy that allows you to be transported right along with the images.

The performances are also fantastic, across the board. Both young actors are wonderful, and Ben Kingsley manages to return to greatness again, after spending the last decade since Sexy Beast meandering in dreck like Bloodrayne and The Love Guru. Everyone needs a paycheck, but even that's no excuse for the kind of slumming he's been doing. Sacha Baron Cohen also proves that he's a good actor that can hold his own on screen when he's not endlessly winking at the audience. Helen McCrory is also very good as Melies' wife, and Christopher Lee is always a welcome sight.

Martin Scorsese reminds us why we go to the movies in the first place with Hugo. He has made better movies, but I don't think he's ever been this romantic a filmmaker before. Even Age of Innocence has a cold detachment to it, despite its lush interiors and costumes. This is Scorsese in full-on film lover mode, and it's a wonder to behold. Even the most cold hearted cynic will find that facade melting away throughout the second hour of this film, and my biggest disappointment with this film is that it never found the audience it deserved. It kind of got buried by the deluge of family films all released around the same time at the end of last year, and it has struggled to connect with a wide audience. Oh well, it's their loss, and yours if you don't see Hugo.

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Day 58: The Muppets

"Nobody cares about you anymore. Nobody cares about your hippie dippie Dom DeLuise and Julie Andrews hosts."

Coming in at number five on my list of the best films of 2011 is a film that I've been waiting my whole life for, The Muppets. The only Muppet movie I had seen in the theater until this was released was The Muppets Take Manahattan when I was six years old, and I had been a fan my entire life, just waiting for the chance to see some of my childhood heroes take back the big screen. The Muppet movies of the 1990s were decent, but I had never felt compelled to go see any of them in the theater. Now, with kids of my own, I couldn't wait for this to come out, and when I got to see an advanced screening of it two weeks prior to its theatrical release, I jumped at the chance to take Clementine to her first Muppet movie. We went back and saw it all together as a family a few weeks ago, and it just confirmed how magical the Muppets truly are.

Actor & writer Jason Segel has harbored a life-long obsession with the Muppets as well, and after his 2008 film Forgetting Sarah Marshall featured some Muppet-inspired puppetry, he was able to parlay that love into a job writing the next Muppets movie. The original title of the film was The Greatest Muppets Movie Ever, and while I do enjoy hyperbole, I'm glad they just called it The Muppets as it doesn't unnecessarily inflate your expectations going in. The film opens with the story of Gary (Segel) and Walter (a new muppet character, performed and voiced by Peter Linz) a pair of life-long friends (or possibly brothers, the script gives mixed signals as to whether or not they're related) who have loved The Muppets their entire lives. Walter in particular loves them as they represent him in a society where he's always felt like he didn't truly belong. Gary and his fiancee Mary (the wonderful Amy Adams) are taking a trip to Los Angeles, and Gary invites Walter to come along so he can see The Muppet Studios in person.

Upon arriving in Los Angeles, they discover that not only have the Muppets disbanded, but a wealthy oil tycoon named Tex Richman (Chris Cooper, brilliant as always) has purchased the studio because there's apparently oil underneath the theater. There is a clause that states that if the Muppets can raise ten million dollars by midnight on a certain, fast approaching date, they retain the rights to the studio and their name. Walter, Gary and Mary leap into action, recruiting Kermit for help in solving the problem. Kermit thinks it's pretty hopeless, but if they were to get the whole gang back together and put on a show, then maybe, just maybe, they can raise the money they need to save their legacy.

They begin a road trip to round up the old gang, the details of which I'll save for those who haven't seen it yet, but it keeps beautifully in the style of the old films (I particularly liked the snide, tongue-in-cheek reference to critics of the new film's humor through Gonzo's new vocation). Once the gang is reassembled (and all your favorites are there, rest assured, they left no one out), they set about the business of getting together a telethon, provided they can find a celebrity host and get the theater in order in 48 hours. Most of the last half of the film is the show itself, and the film truly delivers for Muppet fans as it manages to encapsulate everything you love about the Muppets from their movies to their tv shows. It's a top-to-bottom lovingly done film that will have the true believers dancing for joy and thrilled to see their childhood heroes be treated with the love and care that many properties from their childhood have not gotten.

The film is loaded with cameos, as to be expected, although I would loved to have seen Steve Martin as I've always associated him with the Muppets, but the wide array of cameos they pull-off are great. The script was written by Segel and his writing collaborator Nicholas Stoller have delivered a gift to the parents of today, and director James Bobin, who honed his skills on HBO's Flight of the Conchords directs with the loving attention to detail that can be expected from another true fan. The songs in the film were written by Bret McKenzie, one half of the aforementioned Conchords, and they are sublime. The opening number "Life's a Happy Song," is as clever and winking an opening number as you could hope for, and his Oscar-nominated "Man or Muppet" is fantastic as well.

I won't spoil how it all shakes out, but the theme of the film is believing in yourself, and staying true to who you are, something I touched upon in my review of Happy Feet, and it's truly one of the best lessons a parent can teach a child, or a Muppet for that matter. I am appalled by the number of people who felt that the film somehow dishonored the true spirit of the Muppets by adding "one" fart joke, or having Kermit living in a mansion, but these are low blows, and anyone who thinks that this film was made by anyone other than people with the Muppets' best intentions in mind is a fool. It makes perfect sense that Kermit lives in a mansion because it wasn't his idea to have a mansion. Clearly he was forced to live there by Miss Piggy, no stranger to excess, and when she left, he couldn't bring himself to go because he still carried the torch for her. Also, just to quickly address the controversial addition of Cee-Lo Green's song, it is used brilliantly, and anyone unfamiliar with the song, like kids, will never know it's being used, but the adults familiar with the song will get a kick out of it.

Believe me when I tell you that this is the feel-good movie of the year. That phrase gets bandied about so much, but this is the real deal. You cannot leave the theater with anything but a beaming, glowing inner-child, and maybe one or two by your side. It's everything you're hoping it will be and more. Go see it, bring your children, and if you don't have any, bring your inner-child. They'll thank you for it.

I'll be back tomorrow with Martin Scorsese's 3D love letter to the silent film era, Hugo.

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Day 57: Moneyball

"How can you not get romantic about baseball?"

Preach it, brother. Moneyball has the same romantic streak for the game of baseball that fuels the other great romantic baseball films like Field of Dreams and The Natural. It's a movie that's way inside the game, but also has the smarts to appeal to people who may not know much about the game. It does it in the best, smartest way possible, by not pandering to the lowest common denominator. It expects you to keep up, whether you know what they're talking about or not, and it rewards your patience and resolve, much like the game of baseball itself.

Now, a quick summation of my feelings on the over-arching theme of the book and film. I don't feel that Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta (changed here to the fictional Peter Brand) necessarily changed the game. I think it was Michael Lewis' book Moneyball that changed the game because it gave away all of the secrets these two men had figured out. It's no secret that they did something radical, and it paid off to some extent, but once that book came out, and everyone was able to figure out the method to their madness, that's what changed the game.

When men like Theo Epstein adopted the philosophies that Beane and company implemented in Oakland, the game was forever altered. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is not for me to decide, but personally, I think it was one step towards undoing a lot of the damage that was done to the game in the steroids era, if for no other reason that it started to put value back on role players rather than guys that swing a big bat.

The film opens with Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt, looking so much like Robert Redford in this scene, it's eerie) sitting in an empty stadium, listening to his team lose the 2001 division series to the reviled New York Yankees. His team is now at a crossroads. They're about to lose three of their biggest players to free agency, and he is not going to get any more money to put together another team like the one he had, so his orders are simple: Put together a championship team with the money they are giving him.

The game of baseball is one of serious financial inequality. Unlike the NFL & NBA, there's no salary cap in baseball, so it allows big market teams to buy as many players as they want, pay them whatever they want, leaving smaller market teams, like the A's, to make due with the players they can buy with the limited resources they have.

On a trip to Cleveland to talk to their GM Mark Shapiro about a possible trade, Beane meets Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) a statistician, who Shapiro seems to put a lot of faith in. Beane strikes up a conversation with him, and ends up deciding that his method of valuing players by things like on base percentage (later to be referred to as saber-metrics) is something he wants to try in Oakland, so he buys Brand away from Cleveland and sets out putting together a team of cast-off and misfit players that nobody values anymore. Beane puts so much credence into Brand's system, that he begins summarily ignoring what his scouts have to say, putting him in a precarious position where everyone seems to turn their back on him for ignoring the way the game has been played for over a hundred years.

Beane's present day struggles are intercut with his past as a former player. He was drafted in the first round of the 1980 draft by the New York Mets, and was talked up as the next big thing, a true five tool player. He failed to live up to these expectations, and revelations about his playing career are given at moments when he seems to be failing in the present. It's an interesting way to approach the source material, and I think it's incredibly effective. It certainly gives Pitt the opportunity to really sink his teeth into some meaty, actor-y stuff, and it pays off brilliantly. The entire script, written by two modern masters, Aaron Sorkin & Steve Zaillian, is ridiculously good. It never sacrifices the game for drama and vice versa, and it walks a tightrope between the two that ends up making it that much better a screenplay and film as a result of its ambition.

If you don't know much about baseball, or the 2002 season, I won't spoil it for you, but the way the film handles the ups and downs of that season is incredibly effective, and made me, a die hard baseball fan, forget about certain milestones this team achieved. The film also includes details about Beane's personal life and his tenuous relationship with his ex (Robin Wright), as well as his only real relationship with anyone outside of work, his daughter (Kerris Dorsey, a wonderful young actress). All of these gamuts pay off, even though you think they won't. The film has a very light touch and handles all of these multiple storylines well. The film is directed by Bennett Miller, who's only other film, Capote, really made me wonder why on earth he was directing a baseball movie, but as the film goes on, you see what really attracted him to the material, and why he ends up being an excellent choice to direct the film.

Brad Pitt has truly earned his status as one of the greatest living film actors, and he is outstanding here. Between his performances here and in Tree of Life, he has had a truly remarkable year. A lot has also been made of Jonah Hill's performance (it earned him an Oscar nomination). I will say this, he's good, almost to the point of making you forget that he's never really acted before, he's always just sort of played a variation on the angry, young fat guy, but he shows here that he does have talent. I don't know how deserving of a nomination he is, but I certainly won't roll my eyes when he turns up in a movie from now on.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays former A's manager Art Howe, and he is sorely underused. Don't get me wrong, he's great in all of his scenes, but he's given only a handful of scenes, and makes you wish he had more to do because of his little flourishes that make him one of the elite actors working today, like the way he fidgets with his watch while waiting to talk to Beane near the beginning.

If you don't like baseball, I promise you'll still like Moneyball, and if you do like baseball, you'll appreciate the film all the more for its ability to be deep inside the game and also be a great drama to boot.

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Day 56: The Ides of March

"I don't believe in extortion. I don't believe in tying myself to you for the next eight years."
"Four years, let's not get ahead of ourselves."

My number seven film of 2011 is based on the play Farragut North, which was penned by Beau Willimon, a former campaign worker for Howard Dean during his 2004 Presidential bid, making The Ides of March is one of the more savvy political films that's been made in the last few years. George Clooney is a movie star of the highest order, he harkens back to the era of actors like Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and John Wayne who played variations on the same role their entire careers. As a director however, Clooney has shown where his true versatility lies. He's only made four films, but they have been diverse, interesting and, with the exception of Leatherheads, pretty fantastic. He believes, as I do, that the 1970s was the best decade for film and filmmakers in the history of cinema, and his films all beat with the same heart that films of the 70s beat.

The Ides of March tells the story of a fictional Ohio Democratic primary that hinges on the endorsement of a powerful Senator (Jeffrey Wright) whose endorsement will swing the contest to one of the two candidates left standing. The film's focus centers on the one candidate, Mike Morris (Clooney) and his campaign managers Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling). Paul is the hardened, cynical veteran, Stephen, the young idealist. It's established from the very beginning that Stephen is a true believer in Morris. He believes that Morris is the man who can take the country in a new direction. It's more than a job for him, and this sets him apart from Paul and Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti), the man running the campaign of Morris' opponent. On a side note, I can't believe this is the first on-screen pairing of Hoffman and Giamatti. I'd love to see another film where they can really go toe-to-toe, somebody write that movie. I've even got a great title, you could call it "Schlubs."

Stephen begins an affair with an intern on the campaign, Molly (Evan Rachel Wood, who at 24 years old is wearing entirely too much makeup in the film, but is otherwise very good). While this is going on, Stephen is approached by Duffy to come and join the other campaign, because Duffy knows that with Ohio being an open primary state, Republicans and Independents can vote as well, and they will turn out in force to ensure that his candidate gets the nomination, if for no other reason than they think that he's beatable in a national election.

There is a revelation that happens around the forty minute mark that turns Stephen's opinions on Morris around, and I won't reveal it here as I didn't know it going in, and I think it may hinder your enjoyment of the film. It's not far outside the realm of believability, and it wouldn't hinder your enjoyment of the further twists and turns that follow, but the less known about it, the better. The story of the film then becomes Stephen's journey from an idealist to a cynic, and while it's not new ground the film is treading, it's done in such a way that it makes it feel new and revelatory.

Top to bottom, front to back, this is the best ensemble cast of the year, and probably of the last few years. These are all Actors, with a capital A, and they relish the witty and crackling dialogue that the script, written by Clooney, Willimon and Grant Heslov, gives them to bounce off of one another. Everyone gets a big scene, and they all, Hoffman in particular, make the most of them. Marisa Tomei is also great in a small role as a reporter playing all sides to get a scoop, and even Jennifer Ehle, as Morris' wife, has a really nice little scene with Clooney that shines a spotlight on the plight of being a candidate's spouse.

The film is incredibly well directed. As good as Clooney is in his role in the film, he is becoming a better director every time he steps behind the camera. His first effort with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was outstanding, one of my favorite movies, but it had a lot of flourishes that a first time director can get consumed with, like his long shots that spanned time and space. With Good Night, and Good Luck, he scaled back considerably with those stylistic touches, and told a great story in a tense, spare way.

Here, he's taken his cue from the paranoia thrillers of the 70s (Pakula's All the President's Men, Coppola's The Conversation & Yates' The Friends of Eddie Coyle leap immediately to mind), and the film belongs right alongside those as a great example of less is more. It's incredibly well-made, and his cinematographer Phedon Papamichael lights the film amazingly, and gives you instant visual clues as to the tone of a given scene. My favorite scene has no dialogue at all, and is when Paul leaves a barber shop and is called into an SUV by Morris for a chat. It's done with just a slow push-in on the shot, and it tells you everything you need to know about what's going on in the SUV without having to show a frame of dialogue being spoken.

Ryan Gosling is slowly becoming one of my favorite actors. His turn in this film, along with my number two film Drive, and his performance in last year's Blue Valentine are all the work of a very intense and dedicated actor, and I look forward to whatever he does next. Here, he works alongside some actors that he's probably taken a few cues from in his career, and he leads the ensemble ably and excellently. He's no longer an actor to watch, he commands your attention with just his presence, and that's a pretty hard thing to do.

I'll be back tomorrow with my number six film of 2011, Bennett Miller's Moneyball with Oscar nominees Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill.

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Day 55: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

"Take your stinking paws off me you damn, dirty ape!"

First things first, the title is stupid beyond words. There's seven words and four of them are "of the." It's a classic case of Hollywood thinking that people are stupid and won't know that Rise of the Apes is a Planet of the Apes movie, so they have to add more words to the title. Granted, there's a lot of stupid people in this world, but it's no excuse for clumsy titling. Once you get past the stupid title, there's actually a gem of a sci-fi action film to be discovered here.

The film falls squarely into a category of it's own. It's not a remake, although it tells a story that's been covered in the series before with Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. It's not a reboot, because it's very clearly indebted to its forebears, and references them whenever it gets a chance (my favorite example being when Caesar is assembling a Statue of Liberty puzzle). It's pretty much a true prequel to the original 1968 original, though it leaves room for a sequel to squeeze as much from this franchise as humanly possible.

James Franco plays Will Rodman, a geneticist who is working on a cure for Alzheimer's, presumably to cure his own father (John Lithgow). One of the apes, Bright Eyes, that they've been administering his serum to gives birth to a baby ape, and on the day of Will's big presentation to the board, Bright Eyes freaks out while protecting her baby, and is gunned down by a security guard. Will takes the baby ape, Caesar, home with him and discovers that the traits from the serum given to his mother have been passed to him genetically. He begins advancing at a rapid rate and becomes a super smart ape. Will has also begun giving the serum to his father, and he improves virtually overnight.

As time goes on, Caesar thrives, as does Will's father, but Will discovers that the disease combats the serum over time and soon, his father's disease comes back. One day when their neighbor gets into an altercation with the father, Caesar moves to protect the father and bites the neighbor's finger off. Caesar is ordered to go to an ape sanctuary and cannot live with the Rodmans anymore. The sanctuary is run by John Landon (Brian Cox) and his tyrannical son Dodge (Tom Felton, whom I hope gets the chance to play a good guy at some point, lest he risk playing assholes for the rest of time).

At first Caesar is an outcast because of his integration into human society, but soon he proves that he is smarter than the other apes and earns their loyalty. Will meanwhile has begun developing a new strand of his treatment, but unbeknownst to him, it's toxic to humans. Caesar escapes the sanctuary one night, returning to Will's house and stealing the new serum. He returns, gives it to the apes, and begins training them for war.

It's so easy to pick sides in a film like this because the villains are drawn with such broad strokes that it's impossible to root for anyone besides the characters the filmmakers have chosen for you to root for. Avatar is another such film like that. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, it's been happening for as long as there's been drama, it just throws the balance off. You find yourself rooting for the apes because all the humans are assholes. Of course, this is what the original did in reverse, it forced you to root for Taylor because Chuck Heston looked so good in that loincloth.

Let's talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and that's Andy Serkis. The man is undoubtedly talented and a master at what he does, but that doesn't mean he should win an Oscar for it. A nomination would at the very least be a step towards legitimizing performance capture, but that puts entirely too much value on the Oscar itself. I understand it's symbolic and is a validation of your work by your peers, but the Academy has never been known for championing the cutting-edge, daring and truly great films. They get it wrong 90% of the time. He'll get nominated when he's 70 and playing Caesar in Return of the Conquest of the Battle of the Planet of the Apes.

So why do I like this film so much? It's because it's both visceral and cerebral and plays both sides of that coin so well. The technical work done on the film by the mo-cap performers and visual effects artists is outstanding. It's also very visceral, like I said, and plays to your base instincts. You find yourself cheering the apes as they take back what's theirs, and it's a great popcorn flick, arguably the best one released this past summer.

The human performers are also uniformly good. James Franco has a knowing, winking sort of demeanor in everything he does, but it works here. It's like he knows it's not Shakespeare, but that's not going to stop him from committing to it like it is. John Lithgow is great in everything, and this is no exception. He's another fully committed actor and I always look forward to seeing him on film. Director Rupert Wyatt has a big future in front of him as an action director, and I also look forward to what the future holds for him.

On a side note, I would love to see a side movie about the Rodman's neighbor. The guy somehow manages to always be in the thick of misfortune. I was waiting for him and his family to be picnicking in the Redwood forest at the end when the apes took it over. It would have been awesome. It'd make a great short, if nothing else, to show this normal guy, having trouble at home, trying to keep his temper in check, and always getting set off by his weirdo neighbors who've been keeping a chimp as a pet. Someone make this movie, please.

Tomorrow we'll look at my number seven film of 2011, George Clooney's The Ides of March featuring the best ensemble cast of the year.

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Day 54: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living and, above all, those who live without love."

Apart from being the most successful franchise in film history, the Harry Potter series of films is notable for being a gigantic undertaking that produced eight very good to great films that will most likely be cherished for generations. The first two films were directed with a slavishly pedestrian loyalty to the books by Chris Columbus. By film three, the directing reigns had been passed to Alfonso Cuaron, a vastly superior filmmaker who made by far the most unique film of the series. Film four was directed by Mike Newell, and while it wasn't the best adaptation in the series, it has its merits and is incredibly fun if taken as a separate entity from the book. Films 5-8 based on books 5-7 were directed by David Yates, a television director not known for big spectacle, but who managed to make some fantastic films.

Splitting the final book into two films was a capital idea, in both senses of the word. It enabled the studio to wring as much money as possible from the series, but it also allowed the expansive nature of the book to play out at a suitably expansive pace. While Part One is far and away my favorite film of the series, Part Two does something that virtually no other final film in a series has been able to do; Wrap everything up in a satisfactory manner, yet manage to tell a self-contained story that unfolds in a traditional three-act structure.

Picking up immediately where Part One left off (in fact, it actually repeats the final scene from Part One of Voldemort stealing the famed Elder Wand from Dumbledore's tomb), the film takes its time setting up the story before launching the main characters back into action. When Part Two first came out on dvd at the tail end of last year, I watched both parts back to back, and the most ingenious thing about the second film is how seamlessly the tone of the first part continues for the first thirty minutes or so before taking on a life and an energy all its own. Those who've seen the film and read the books know the plot well enough for me to not have to rehash it here, and those who don't will be lost by a simple plot dissection, so I'm going to eschew that in favor of a more analytical discussion of the film's elements.

The most noticeable thing about this film is how wonderful the actors all are. The core trio of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson & Rupert Grint have grown into full-blown actors. They're no longer just little vessels for conveying plot, but they're able to convey emotion and infuse their characters with nuance and feeling. I don't say this as a knock, it's high praise. Many a child actor has tried and failed to make that transition from cute kid to actor, but these three, along with the many other young actors that have been in all three films, Tom Felton, Matthew Lewis, and Bonnie Wright among them.

The adult actors are solidly fantastic as well. The loss of Richard Harris as Dumbledore was sad, but Michael Gambon is absolutely note-perfect, and was at least partially responsible for making Dumbledore my favorite character in the entire Potter universe. Alan Rickman as Snape is sublime. Once his true motives are revealed, it makes you want to rewatch the entire series to see just how good he's been all along. His scene discovering Lily's dead body is heartbreaking and intense and everything you had hoped it would be when you read the book. Helena Bonham Carter is ridiculously good, not only because she's so evil as Bellatrix, but her ability to ape Emma Watson's body language in the scenes where she's playing Hermione playing Bellatrix is really great.

Although not given much to do, Maggie Smith, Jim Broadbent, Warwick Davis, David Thewlis, Jason Isaacs, Gary Oldman, Julie Walters & Robbie Coltrane all make the most of their limited roles. The shining star of this series however from his very first appearance all the way through to the end has been Ralph Fiennes. I'm an unabashed admirer of his as an actor, but he is so adept as an actor and plays Voldemort as evil incarnate. There's not a bit of good in him, anywhere, and Fiennes relishes playing such a bad dude. His performance is so effective that his specter hangs over every scene, even ones he isn't in. He was only in one scene in Part One, but really chews every bit of scenery in sight for at least half of Part Two's running time, and he is note-perfect in every way.

I was a huge fan of Order of the Phoenix and I feel that David Yates has actually grown as a filmmaker throughout each successive film. This film is incredibly well-made and its best moments rival the best moments in Lord of the Rings and are superior to a lot of Peter Jackson's directorial choices. The entire Snape penseive scene is done better than virtually anything in the entirety of Lord of the Rings, and sadly, not many people talk about how well-directed this film is. The King's Cross scene between Harry and Dumbledore is also incredible, and ballsy too. To grind all of the action to a halt and have a two person conversation in a neutral setting is super-ballsy and it works so incredibly well because it never feels slow or boring.

The film is also sleek and compact. It doesn't get bogged down in holding for applause the way The Return of the King did. The big moments are followed by bigger moments, and the film doesn't stop to let the audience breathe for even a minute. Once the battle for Hogwarts begins, it doesn't let up except for the King's Cross scene, and it's blissfully awesome and exciting and unrelenting. This is an true event film, and it's the kind of film people talk about when they say, they just don't make them like that anymore. It's spectacle, but it's also intimate and personal and is never afraid to linger on the little moments that make films like this transcend good and become great. 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two is a pretty perfect film. It can't exist without Part One, but it's so well done, it makes you glad the filmmakers stayed true to themselves, true to the books, and true to the audience without ever sacrificing anything to bring these books to life in the best way possible. If you're a fan and a true believer in the Harry Potter series, this is exactly the film you were hoping for when you first sat down to watch Sorcerer's Stone. It makes good on every promise that a book adaptation should, and I am sad to see the films end.

Be back tomorrow for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, my number eight film of 2011.

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Day 53: The Beaver

"Starting over isn't crazy. Crazy is being miserable and walking around half asleep, numb, day after day after day. Crazy is pretending to be happy. Pretending that the way things are is the way they have to be for the rest of your bleeding life"

For my number ten film of 2011, I selected Jodie Foster's The Beaver, the much-hyped, devastatingly under-seen first starring role for Mel Gibson since his much-publicized fall from grace in 2010. The film grossed a paltry one million dollars in its entire theatrical run, despite a pretty clever ad campaign and a lot of buzz as the script had topped the famous "Black List" of best unproduced screenplays in 2009. Steve Carell had been attached to it at one point, and Jim Carrey as well according to imdb, though I hadn't heard that before now. By the time it trickled down to Gibson, people just seemed to have lost interest. There is a certain amount of time that people consider to be "too soon" when dealing with a public catastrophe, and it seems like it was just too soon for many of Gibson's detractors.

The script by Kyle Killen is brilliant beyond words. In fact, if the film itself is anything, it's a mediocre vehicle for a fantastic script. Not that I think the film isn't good, it's just not as good as the script itself. The film tells the story of Walter Black, the CEO of a struggling toy company who is in a deep depression. As the film opens, he is being kicked out of his house by his wife (Jodie Foster) and he drives to a liquor store where he discovers a beaver puppet in the dumpster. He takes the puppet with him to the hotel, and just as he is about to kill himself, the puppet talks to him and his suicide attempt fails.

Okay, I know what you're thinking right now, but believe me, it works. Whenever the beaver is talking, it's very clear that Walter is operating the puppet and talking. It's not like it's magic or something, so don't worry about that. Walter goes everywhere with the puppet, handing people a card that says he's under the care of a prescription puppet that is supposed to help him create a psychological distance between him and his problems. He begins communicating with people solely through the puppet, to mixed results at best. It's best not to spoil any of the details, but for me anyway, it all worked beautifully.

Walter's story is juxtaposed with the story of his oldest son Porter (Anton Yelchin). At school, people pay Porter to write papers for them and he is apparently very talented at it. At home, Porter has a litany of post-it notes in his bedroom, each one containing a similarity between himself and his father that he wishes to purge himself of. Porter is approached by the class valedictorian Norah (Jennifer Lawrence, hands-down the best young actress in film today) for help writing her graduation speech. The relationship that develops between the two also takes some interesting twists and turns, and is done just as well as the main story line.

The film does have some visual flair to it, which was a nice surprise. Jodie Foster has always been a director that worked well with child actors, and she gets a very nice performance from the young actor who plays their youngest son, Riley Thomas Stewart. I also loved her little touches, like the suit Walter wears when he finds the puppet, it looks like it's two sizes too big, not because he can't afford a suit that fits, but because he's a shadow of the man he used to be.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that haters gonna hate, but I'll go ahead and say it, this is the best performance of Mel Gibson's career. I was a big fan of Gibson as an actor for most of my life. I kind of got off his bandwagon around the early 2000s when he was just making the same movie over and over and then stopped doing that to focus on directing. Passion of the Christ is an undeniably gorgeous film, even though it's downright pornographic in its violent content. The thought of any parent taking their child to that film makes me ill, and just shows the amount of delusion that can be found among the zealots in the church, but I digress.

I never really got caught up in any of his personal shenanigans beyond thinking that they were amusing at best and stupid at worst. I'm sorry, but no one censors themselves when they're leaving private voicemails, so to make the man a pariah for that never made any sense to me. I've never given a shit about what people do in their private lives, so long as they delivered in their jobs (Bill Clinton, Russell Crowe & Robert Downey, Jr. being notable examples). Gibson was dragged through the mud, and I'm not saying he wasn't complicit in what happened, but what does it matter, really, at the end of the day? The man's an entertainer. If you don't like his attitude, don't date him. Okay, that's the end of my tangent.

The other actors are also great, top to bottom. It's easy to forget how good Jodie Foster is as an actress because she acts so infrequently, but she's pretty spectacular as well. Yelchin and Lawrence are also outstanding, as is Cherry Jones as the vice president of the toy company. For me, this film felt like a logical extension of Fight Club. It's the middle-aged version of it, and I think that seeing the film will make that pretty obvious. What at first seems like the perfect diversion from our problems, can end up controlling our lives, but are we better men because of it or in spite of it?

The Beaver was far and away the most pleasant surprise of the year for me, and it's a movie I wish more people would see. It's worth your time, and I think that if you're willing to go along for the ride, it'll take you to some pretty surprising and fantastic places.

I'll be back tomorrow with my number nine film of 2011, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

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Day 52: The Kentucky Fried Movie

"A quick reminder, these reports are not intended to foster a belief in astrology, but merely to support people who cannot take responsibility for their own lives."

The writing collective of David & Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams got their start doing sketch comedy in their hometown of Milwaukee, operating under the name "Kentucky Fried Theatre." These three men would go on to create some of the greatest comedies of all time, Airplane!, Top Secret & The Naked Gun, but like everyone, that had to start somewhere. Fortunately for them, that somewhere is the hysterically funny sketch comedy film The Kentucky Fried Movie directed by their friend John Landis. This was Landis' second film, and he made it right before he rocketed to stardom with 1978's Animal House.

The film is one of a kind. There hadn't really been films like it before, and the few that have come since, Amazon Women on the Moon & The Onion Movie to name two, have paled in comparison. A great deal of the sketches are horrendously dated, but the humor is timeless. It also features some great cameos from all over the spectrum: George Lazenby, Donald Sutherland, Henry Gibson, Bill Bixby, & Tony Dow to name a few.

The structure is pretty basic, it begins with a commercial parody, then transitions to a morning talk show parody that really kicks things into high gear when a gorilla begins assaulting everyone and everything in sight. It's absurd humor, fully rooted in the tradition of its forebears like The Marx Brothers and Monty Python, but it has an energy all its own. The high point of the early part of the film is a parody trailer for a sexploitation film called Catholic High School Girls in Trouble, produced by the fictional Samuel L. Bronkowitz. The sex, nudity and profanity come fast and furious and it's refreshing to see such a brazen disregard for the standards of the time.

The centerpiece of the film is a forty minute kung-fu parody called A Fistful of Yen. Some of the best jokes are found in this section, and it's the most obvious precursor to their films to come. It's a spot-on parody of the insanely (yet inexplicably, at least to me) popular Bruce Lee films of the 70s. The loving recreation of the tropes of the genre are on full display here, along with the clever wordplay that would come to define their later work.

The last half hour of the film is more sketches. Some highlights include the parody trailers for Cleopatra Schwartz and That's Armageddon, both produced by Samuel L. Bronkowitz, and the final segment of the film where a couple begins having sex while watching the late news, and the late news devolves into a bunch of dudes enjoying the show being put on by the couple.

Top to bottom, the film is inspired and holds up because of its hilarious and brash sensibilities. It's certainly not a career best for any of the talent involved, but it's a pretty damn good first effort for a bunch of amateurs finding their voices. The opening and closing credits feature a song titled "You'll Dream of the New Carioca" and good luck getting it out of your head. It's infectious, annoying, yet endlessly catchy. It's still stuck in my head.

I doubt there are many kids today who would see this film and appreciate it, but considering that I saw it for the first time some fifteen years after it came out, there's hope that future generations will discover it the same way I did. It's a great little movie and will most assuredly have you laughing for the majority of its 83 minute running time.

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The 10 Best and Worst Films of 2011

So beginning tomorrow, January 22, I will be doing long form reviews of all my picks for the best films of 2011, but I wanted to put them in list form first. I've been holding off on reviewing some of these for a while, but I've had a chance to see almost all of these films at least twice. Here is my official list for your perusal with the date the review will appear next to it, so be sure to check back every day for my review. I've also listed my picks for the worst films of the year. I've reviewed some of them, and the others I'm not about to revisit any time soon, so don't look for long reviews of those. We'll start with honorable mentions, some of which I reviewed already...

Honorable Mention
The Artist (reviewed on 12/26/11)
Beginners (reviewed on 1/4/12)
Hobo with a Shotgun (review coming soon)
Midnight in Paris (reviewed on 12/22/11)
The Rum Diary (review coming soon)
Winnie the Pooh (reviewed on 12/28/11)

The Best Films of 2011

10. The Beaver (January 22)
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (January 23)
8. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (January 24)
7. The Ides of March (January 25)
6. Moneyball (January 26)
5. The Muppets (January 27)
4. Hugo (January 28)
3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (January 29)
2. Drive (January 30)
1. The Tree of Life (January 31)

The Worst Films of 2011

10. Immortals
9. 30 Minutes or Less (reviewed on 12/8/11)
8. Super 8
7. Zookeeper
6. Your Highness
5. Apollo 18 (reviewed on 1/11/12)
4. Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World
3. Sucker Punch
2. Another Earth (reviewed on 1/1/12)
1. Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star (reviewed on 1/18/12)

So there you have it. Like I said, long form reviews start tomorrow, so we'll see you back here for my review of Jodie Foster's The Beaver.