(Click on image for original source)

The Movies section of this blog now draws to a close. But before the curtain falls, one last number…

In early 2009, I made a list of the best films of the year. I saved it in my email as a draft, changing the rankings from time to time as a distraction.

What happened next? Laziness. Yes, I had more films to see, more deadlines and eventually two years of medical school. That’s no excuse.

So here it is at last. While I remember the details of some more than others, I still remember how each made me feel. Thus the explanations may be succinct or non-existent, but I know the rankings are accurate.

This may be the last piece of film criticism posted on the Movies section of this blog. My film critic days are over. The Musings section of this blog must take over.

My thanks to you that followed my amateur critic days for the short time I had them. I still dearly miss it. It is not what I was meant to do 24/7, but it helped enhance what I do now and will continue to do.

And so, the list:

1. Synecdoche, New York – A film about our lives: birth, death and how we view the world while we are between those two states. Complex, breaks free of all convention, never confused. The boldest and most meaningful film I’ve seen in a long time.

2. Man on Wire - A documentary that’s part heist movie part inspirational story. Or is it a tragedy?

3. Slumdog Millionaire- I was reminded of Dickens. One man’s incredible journey from rags to riches and girl. The visual depiction of India is surprisingly accurate.

4. The Dark Knight – The most unconventional, conventional mainstream movie of the year.

5. The Fall - The story isn’t new, but the visuals are. There are gorgeous sights in this movie I will never see in any other film. I am shocked that none of them are computer graphics. Full disclosure: I watch my movies with a projector.  The film will may have less life on a smaller TV.

6. The Wrestler

7. Rachel Getting Married

8. Tie: W. and Milk

9. Happy-Go-Lucky

10. Frozen River

Surprise, surprises, there were a few films I liked nearly as much. So here’s your bonus next few picks, though with no explanations.

11. Doubt

12. Frost/Nixon

13. Revolutionary Road

14. Lakeview Terrace

Josh Pothen

Let me be clear: I think Top Ten lists are pointless. They provide one useful piece of information: which film is the film critic’s favorite for that year. This gives some insight into the critic’s personal taste. But to argue that a film is “better” than another because it’s ranked at #3 instead of #4 on one’s list is a bit silly.

It is not a critic who usually determines whether a film will last, but time. It’s a Wonderful Life, my best friend’s favorite movie, opened to many negative reviews. Then it got a new life by being aired on television. Now it is on the AFI’s list of the best American movies and is, in my mind, a great film.

I have made my argument. Now the surprise: I will make a Top Ten list. Why? Because this is my first year of film criticism, and so I would like to taste in the tradition at least once. Perhaps I will innovate a new idea for noting my favorite films in the future. But not now.

This list will come later, as there are several movies for 2008 that I have yet to see. These include Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt and Slumdog Millionaire. Many of these films have not been released in my area yet. (I do not get advanced screenings.) A few others I have seen, but not written reviews for yet. I try not to work while on vacation.

You see my dilemma. How could I make a list now without reviewing those titles? Sometimes a single movie can surprise you. For a long time, I thought I had decided on my best film of the year. Then a few weeks ago, I saw a film (I will not say which one yet) that I liked even more. That was the best movie-going experience I had all year. That convinced me that it would be discussed for years to come.

So wait a while. The reviews will be written. The list will come. See you then.

Josh Pothen

2 stars out of 4

This piece is an original review never published anywhere before.

I know a critic who gave “Quantum of Solace” a negative review because he was in love with the style of the previous Bond films. He bemoaned the loss of Q and Moneypenney and took issue with the Bond girl’s name, Camille, not being a sexual pun like Plenty O’Toole. He felt the villain’s plan to control Bolivia’s water was lackluster compared to the global domination schemes of villains like Goldfinger. To add insult to injury, he then took a pot shot at the film’s title, claiming it was the second-worst name ever given to a Bond movie.

It is true that the title is not the most evocative, although it is accurate since the movie spends most of its time in action and plotting instead of quiet character moments. But here’s the thing: this new James Bond isn’t the James Bond of films past. He couldn’t be. He is not meant to exist in a cartoon world of buffoonish villains with crack plans to dominate the world, but in a slightly hyperized version of our reality. We want him to deal with our issues. Our problems with the world. And we want him to handle them with that suave Bond style.

So I will analyze the film from that perspective. It begins with a car chase in Italy, which unfortunately is all too telling of the action to come. Shots are fired, cars are flipped and exploded, but it is all edited with quick shots that are seconds long, at most. It’s hard to get involved in an action scene when people are fighting while dangling from ropes, and you can’t tell who’s who.

Anyway, Bond discovers he has captured a member of a secret organization called Quantum, so secret that M says, “We’ve never heard anything about them. And yet, the captured Quantum member says, “We have people everywhere.”  Hey, here’s a big revelation! Quantum has agents all over the world, in every government branch! Yet M and the rest of her Secret Service staff don’t act as if anyone they could be talking to are insiders. If they don’t care about the apparent power of this organization, why should we?

And what is Quantum, you ask? Funnily enough, I am still asking the same thing. I think it’s an organization of world leaders who work together to make money off of other countries, but I’m not sure. I’m still confused as to what their solace is.

Whatever they are, I know two things about them. First, they love comfort. They have a hotel with hundreds of rooms in the middle of a desert, even though only a few of them are ever in it at a time. What a use of resources.  Second, they’re not particularly intelligent. One of their hideouts is on a harbor dock surrounded by a thin metal fence. All Bond needs to do is stand by the side, and he sees Quantum members walking alongside corrupt officials. The Bond girl, who has met Bond earlier in the film and realizes he’s not on their side, is even walking with them. All she’d have to do is look in front, and she’d see him. Never does. And don’t get me started on Bond giving a letter to the guard in front of the gate to give her.

And the scheme. Oh that scheme. Not the most captivating. When it involves taking control of a South American country’s water supply in order to make profits off of charging them, you need to give much more background to make it important. What will they do with this money? Will they use this power to gain control of Bolivia and of other South American countries? Are they power hungry? What danger do they pose to us?

As for Bond, Daniel Craig accomplishes the strange task of convincing us that he is Bond without always being given the necessary material. Don’t ask me how. Take this classic exchange between the villain and Bond:  “My friends call me Dominique.” Bond: “I’m sure they do.” Right.

A good review should give you an idea of the experience of the film. An underdeveloped Bond lacking on Bondesque qualities spends most of his time tracking down an organization we care nothing about, engaging in fights that are impossible to follow and foiling a scheme that has no power or payoff. It feels static and boring when it should be kicking into high gear. This isn’t a Bond movie. It’s an incompetent action film.

Part of the problem with the film must lie with the source material. “Casino Royale” was based on the Ian Fleming novel of the same name and stayed true to its basic events and character development. Say what you want to about Ian Fleming, but at least he understood what made Bond tick. Vesper’s betrayal and suicide at the end of that book effectively completed Bond’s development, making him cold and calculating since the only woman he loved had turned against him, as well as turning him into a womanizer since he wouldn’t love a woman like her again. “Quantum of Solace”, however, is made more or less out of thin air, and it shows. Without giving anything away, it commits the unforgivable sin of undoing the end of the last film in order to make Bond more sympathetic. Bad move.

All this to say, my friend was right. Wrong on his prescription for future Bond films, but right nevertheless about the diagnosis of the film’s qualities. If you were to read his review and wonder whether you would enjoy this new Bond if you were interested in the franchise’s new direction, you have your answer. Perhaps I should have seen it coming. When “Another Way to Die” was announced as the new Bond theme, I criticized it for being low-energy, repetitive and bland. Now I believe it to be an accurate representation of the film.

Josh Pothen

3 stars out of 4

This piece was originally published at the ODU Mace & Crown and is reprinted below.

Kevin Smith’s “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” is rude, lewd, crude, and everything else you’d expect from the title. Compared to his other films, it’s decidedly minor. And yet at the same time it, like its stars, are so warmhearted and loveable you can’t help but like it.

The film stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as Zack and Miri, two childhood friends living together in Pittsburgh. They have a normal working-class existence. He works at a coffee shop. She works at a clothing store. Smith’s direction creates a world that feels normal, even without the current economic woes. He’s unafraid to show details of their lives like cars covered with dirt and ice, or the darkness and dinginess of a low-rent apartment.

Soon, Zack and Miri can’t afford the rent, and their power and water is cut off. Desperate, they decide to make and sell a porn film to pay off their debts. This means they’ll have to have sex with each other, which they’ve never done before. (Zack feels that would complicate the relationship). But they’re willing to do it for the film, and when they do, everything changes. Smith shoots that scene against their faces with no nudity, allowing the actors to show us what they’re doing is more than sex. It’s making love.

Where Smith excels is with infusing the mundane with his witty, honest and unabashedly crass dialogue. Listen to the exchanges between Zack and Miri, and you sense a man in love with his own writing. You can imagine him smiling as he writes about trivial details like high school alumni magazines while referencing everything from the comic strip Ziggy to the Highlander film series and dropping in copius amounts of dirty words along the way.

I enjoyed the movie, but I walked out with more admiration than affection. Why? I offer two observations. First, Smith’s movie is so crude, so dirty and so profanity-laden that we grow acclimatized it. It’s so shocking that it ceases to be. There are laughs, such as a moment involving what I can only describe as a flood. It’s just that the laughs aren’t constant.

Second, Zack and Miri’s story, which is familiar, is so much of the film’s focus that the other characters have little to do but propel the plot forward. Craig Robinson is quite funny by being one of the few people not involved in ridiculous shenanigans, or at least trying not to be. Yet all we learn about him is that he has a wife who he doesn’t get along with. If these other characters had been developed more, Smith could have explored the themes of love and sex in a more in-depth manner.

And yet, like most of Smith’s other films, there is an undeniable sweetness and innocence at its core. A scene between two gay men is quite funny without ever resorting to stereotypes of how gay men supposedly talk. Look past the profanities and the crude gags, and you see a writer with a warm heart and a love for life. If occassionally he says something out of turn, the rest of the film assures you he’s only kidding.

Josh Pothen

1.5 stars out of 4

This piece was originally published at the ODU Mace & Crown and is reprinted below.

“Pride and Glory” is a movie so bad that I must use two analogies to describe it. It is like eating a malformed cake. All the familiar ingredients are present, but something has gone wrong with the cooking. It is also like looking at an unkempt beard. It is so unfocused, ugly and long that all you want is to shave it off completely.

If there is a saving grace to the movie, it is the acting. Edward Norton, Colin Farrell and Jon Voight all star as members of a family of New York cops, each with a different personality and way of dealing with the law. They’re so believable that even when they can’t win against the screenplay, we’re reminded of how talented they are.

The plot involves a drug bust in which four of the family’s friends in the force are killed. The main outline of events of the movie are clear, but the individual brushstrokes seem confused. Part of this may the editing, which more than once makes it seem as if certain conversations have had parts cut out of them. Another part is the screenplay. There are many people in this film, from individual policemen to members of the family. Most are not given enough screen time or dialogue. One particular missed opportunity is a family Christmas dinner, where music plays over a good part of the conversation, preventing us from hearing what they’re saying. This prevents us from connecting with the characters, or even learning to differentiate them. At one point, I thought one character was merely another one wearing a wig.

What’s surprising is how many tired cliches are thrown in to accentuate the story. The dying wife. The alcoholic father. Lines like “I’m doing the best I can”. And I haven’t even mentioned cliches that could spoil the movie, though you will know what they are if you have seen any police thriller before. There are two original ideas in the movie, but you know you’re in trouble when one involves attempting to brand a baby with an iron, and the other involves a one-on-one fistfight in a bar set to (I kid you not) Irish dance music. At the climax of the drama of the film.

The result is that the story is devoid of interest, and we sit back unmoved and uninterested. The film partially redeems itself towards the end with an intense argument between family members that feels true. Then it descends into ridiculousness with some inexplicable developments.

The film closes with the longest disclaimer I have ever seen, assuring the audience that the people, story and situations are not based on anything real. What a pity. Truth, after all, is stranger than fiction. “Pride and Glory” is a film desperately in need more more truth.

Josh Pothen

4 stars out of 4

This piece was originally published at the ODU Mace & Crown and is reprinted below.

Here is a film that is so natural, unconventional and true that it continually surprises you with where it goes. That “Frozen River” is writer and director Courtney Hunt’s debut film is all the more astounding. She is always in control of the movie, knowing what she wants to say and how the story should play out.

“Frozen River” stars Melissa Leo as Ray, an American woman living in a trailer home with her two children on the US-Quebec border. Her husband has run away with their savings. As Ray searches for him, she meets a Mohawk named Lila Littlejohn (Misty Upham) who ropes her into a business smuggling immigrants in her car’s trunk across the border. There is no border for the Mohawsks, since they are their own sovereign nation, which means all they need do is drive their car across the frozen river across the countries. The only danger is them being stopped by the police along the way, and “they won’t stop you because you’re white.” So Lila thinks.

The performances by Leo and Upham are the core of the film. These two aren’t Hollywood beauties, which makes us believe them as these low-class individuals. What’s incredible is that their performances seem so easy and effortless, as if they’re not acting at all. Their facial and body language have so much depth that we always understand what’s happening internally even if neither one of them says it out loud.

The film’s script and direction consistently keeps the tone in check. If a moment has an element of horror, it is played as it should be and doesn’t hijack the course of the story. It also knows how to show details of these characters’ lifestyles in an objective manner. A scene where Ray feeds her children tang and popcorn for dinner because she hasn’t received her paycheck could have seemed condescending in a lesser movie. Hunt also is courageous enough to show some of the more honest details of life in this region, such as dents in car doors, dirt on walls and a strip club that has all of one dancer and one frequenter on any one night.

There is one crucial point in the film. Before a Pakistani couple is loaded into the trunk, Ray is handed their duffle bag. She throws it away, since she’s afraid it could be biochemical weapons. Now what is actually in the bag? All I will say is that it is the key to the character evolution.

“Frozen River” is one of those films that allows you to step into someone else’s life as it really is. It wisely avoids taking sides on the issue since the story is really about economic survival and emotional struggles. The drive across the frozen river becomes a metaphor for something more. Look at the first and the last shots of the film carefully, and you’ll see it.

Josh Pothen

3.5 stars out of 4

This piece was originally written in the Mace & Crown as a 350 word piece and is reprinted below. The paper changed my rating to 3 stars, and is now listed correctly.

The Duchess of Devonshire was an unusual woman for the England of the 1700s. She was a witty, strong-willed fashion-setting socialite beauty with strong political views and a penchant for gambling. “The Duchess” loses some of its power by brushing over this information to focus on her relationship issues. But what remains is a sharply focused film about aristocratic life and cultural standards.

Keira Knightly plays the Duchess Georgiana as a naive young woman who slowly became aware of what it meant to be married to the Duke (Ralph Fiennes). Fiennes plays him as a human yet depraved bore. He feels something for her, yet thinks nothing of fathering children with other women, drawing her best friend Bess (Hayley Atwell) into a lifelong ménage à trois, or raping Georgiana out of anger. (I am surprised by the PG-13 rating). Societal rules left women little power, but Georgiana still found weapons to use against him. If the end of the film feels arbitrarily happy, perhaps by that point all she could do was make the best of her situation.

The film feels like an authentic period piece, showing both the polished and unpolished sides of life in this time. Towering wigs made women look elegant, but they could be ruined by even a small accident with a candle. What’s surprising is how many parallels exist between their culture and ours. Satirical plays about the aristocratic culture, much like late-night TV show sketches about celebrities. Or aristocrats posing briefly for artists to sketch them, much like celebrities posing for the paparazzi. Even a politician who used powerful rhetoric and celebrity endorsements to rally people to change England. “The Duchess” is a insightful delight that makes you realize just how much has changed over time and how much has not.

Josh Pothen

4 stars out of 4

This short piece was originally written in the Mace & Crown as a 350 word piece.

Oliver Stone’s “W” is an engrossing film that never feels mean-spirited or satirical. It is an objective piecing together of information about George W. Bush’s life from multiple books and sources, and it seems true to what we already know. It has a certain slant, of course, but most people will be clever enough to realize that and want to learn the truth about the events portrayed in the film. I certainly did. As proof, dear reader, I took more notes for this movie than for any other I’ve reviewed.

The story is the White House buildup to the war in Iraq, intercut with events from Bush’s younger years. Each flashback shows the evolution of an aspect of his personality reflected in the following White House scenes. A lecture Bush Sr. (James Cromwell) gives to his son about keeping his commitments explains in part why Bush was gung-ho to head into Iraq.

At the center of Bush’s motivation is a desire to earn his father’s respect by outbesting him. George Sr. is continually disappointed in “Junior’s” reckless antics, and believes Jeb (often offscreen) will be the family’s success story. Even when Bush cleans up and becomes governor of Texas, his father complains that Jeb lost his political race.

Josh Brolin will certainly receive a Best Actor nomination for his work as Bush. He has the correct tone, mannerisms and body language, but never comes across condescendingly or as an imitation. His performance is so natural we forget that he’s acting. At times he is indistinguishable from the real thing.

A film like this will inevitably inspire controversy. Stone has already put up a guide on his film’s website listing sources used for information in the film. He wants to inspire a discussion. Anyone willing to put their biases aside will be surprised to discover it’s a very civil discussion.

Josh Pothen

3 stars out of 4

This piece was unable to be published and is reprinted below. It is shorter than most as was intended to be a ~300 word piece, but contains most of my thoughts on the film.

Body of Lies contains acting so good that it makes us gloss over the problems with the story. The screenplay plays like a thriller containing elements of realistic political dramas and Hollywood action formulas. If the end isn’t believable, at least we’ve had an intriguing journey.

The movie centers around a CIA mission to capture Al-Saleem, a leader of an Middle Eastern terrorist organization attacking Europe and the United States. An operative named Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his boss Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) create a fake terrorist organization (obviously a cinematic substitute for Al-Qaeda) to lure Al-Saleem into contacting them, since he will not want anyone encroaching on his territory.

To do so means simultaneously cooperating with and hiding information from Hani Salaam (Mark Strong), the head of Jordanian intelligence. Arguably the best performance of the film, Strong makes Salaam a powerful man of Arabic ideals, such as establishing relationships with key individuals over time. This contrasts sharply with Hoffman, excellently played by Crowe as a man who treats people as resources to be tapped. Not that the commentary is all one-sided. Ferris later asks Hani about a prisoner being beaten in a Jordanian prison.  “We do not torture,” Hani replies. “This is punishment.”

If the movie is believable and insightful on US-Arab cultural differences, it is less so on spy tactics. The plans and their execution seem reasonable, but I doubt Hoffman and Ferris would hold phone conversations about secret plans in public areas such as soccer fields and hotels, or that they would always have crystal-clear, lagless cell phone connections across continents. And why do armed forces conveniently arrive at the last possible minute to save the day? But Body of Lies is a movie with lofty ambitions compared to most. Though it doesn’t feel completely true, it is thought-provoking and fun to experience.