It's obviously a bit early to be summing up a year in movies. I'm in a strange position in November though where I would actually say I've seen more fine films at the cinema this year than in a long time.

In some aspects it's been a lame year for cinema. Those who make films primarily to entertain only seem to get worse by the year. And others seem to make the films that are on their hearts to make, and bring something that really matters out of that conglomeration of accidents and quick decisions called film-making.

Thankfully this has actually been a year where I've been more impressed in the cinema than I have been for a few years. Though Australian release schedules mean there are things I'm talking about that people consider old hat in America, I thought I'd share some thoughts anyway.

These are nine so far this year that I've gotten a lot out of: (last year's winners - Wong Kar Wai's 2046, with Good Night, and Good Luck, The Proposition and The Constant Gardener runners up)

1. The New World (Malick) - So satisfying... so relieving. The night before seeing this I'd had one of my worst experiences in a cinema for a while... a certain Tom Cruise film that shall not be named. To have my faith restored so soon was unexpected. And a good film can carry you for a long time. Everything from Lubezki's lensing to the masterful editing to the elliptical evasion of historical romance narrative to the inspired use of some old classical (Wagner, Mozart, Johnson) and New Age (Francisco, others) warhorses.... but the central casting and the clear hand of the film's director alone made this one really worth it. 10/10.

NEW ENTRY
2. The Prestige (Nolan) - Christopher Nolan's greatest film to date, and perhaps one of the best adaptations of a novel in recent times. For some reason it reminds me of Coppola's THE CONVERSATION, and since this film is nothing like Coppola's, I assume one thing draws the connection in my mind - this is a cleverly-plotted film where all the ideas arise from the character's natures. A character conflict at the heart of a film... in 2006. It's been too long. Cleverly structured to maximise impact. Magnificent. Casting, photography, editing, costumery, scripting, directing, and at least in its filmic function - music - all up to the challenge.

3. United 93 (Greengrass) - I forgot what that day felt like to a powerless observer, and in a strange way this film reminded me of that. It used its very low budget wisely, was aesthetically masterful, and while it could have left a little more wriggle room on some controversial facts, is truly the great film I never expected this event to inspire. John Powell's music for this has lifted him in my estimation a lot. 9/10.

4. Munich (Spielberg) - Actually I hold this nearly on equal par to Greengrass's film. I love the way genre blends with political commentary... the film is like a symphony where each killing is a movement in itself - a variation on the theme of vengeance and what justifies it. The opening montage is a great condensing of the Munich events into 10 minutes, and the final juxtaposition of the broken Avner's most intimate trauma with the unseen climax of the Munich airport shootout left my heart beating like a hammer. Spielberg has not made a more important film I feel that was also this dramatically successful. It's the perfect merging of the master of film-making with the man who wants to make serious films. The sense of paralysis the film-maker communicates on how to end all this feels very true for the world today. Also perhaps the best John Williams score in a long time? 9/10.

5. Squid and the Whale (Baumbach) - It kind of feels like there are so many family dramas around that I didn't think this was going to be worth it. Thankfully I was very wrong. The way this cast and crew managed to get every little moment right was scary. The little beats that really sell this family... yikes, it's half scary, half rolling-on-the-floor hiliarious. 9/10

6. Tristram Shandy (Winterbottom) - Perhaps the greatest film about film-making since Salaam Cinema (1990)? Pretty unique film... with moments of humour as basic as toilet humour (some of the funniest I've seen for a while), and others so subtle you'd have to wonder if the actors realised all of it! Good good good! And what a way to film the unfilmable book?! :biggrin: 9/10

7. Cache (Haneke) - Masterfully creepy... don't know if I ever need see it again, but this extracts such tension from so little. 8/10

8. Miami Vice (Mann) - Not a masterpiece, but floats my boat. I'd call it a guilty pleasure, but I don't feel particularly guilty about accepting a film on its own terms when it's this good and the terms are good. 8/10.

9. The Departed (Scorsese) - Does some things better than the superb film it remakes (humour), and some things not so well (suspense), but a pretty fine film from a fine film-maker. 8/10.

Semi-10. [red]Doco[/red]. Grizzly Man (Herzog) - As always, I come out feeling really embarrassed that I don't see more documentaries. This one I'm sure is pretty good though even when compared to all the ones I haven't seen. The subject matter and the unusual posthumous access we have to his thoughts, filtered through an interesting film-maker, make this an unlikely but definite classic. 9/10

Special mentions: Syriana (Gaghan), Three Burials (Tommy Lee Jones), Enduring Love (Mitchell), Thankyou for Smoking (not sure who), Children of Men (Cuaron), History of Violence (Cronenberg - by a nose), Walk the Line (Mangold), Inside Man (Lee), Water.

And of course any of these could be knocked out by those still to come out or that I haven't seen... Book of Revelation, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Suburban Mayhem, L'Enfer, The Black Dahlia, All the King's Men, Flags of our Fathers, Apocalypto, The Descent, A Good Year, The Prestige, Pan's Labyrinth, Little Miss Sunshine, Charlotte's Web, Volver, The Queen, Babel, Little Children and others. I'm particularly hopeful for Dahlia, Perfume: Story of a Murderer, The Fountain, Prestige and Babel.

Any thoughts?

EDIT - Prestige obviously turned out to be a favourite - It shot to number 2.

As typical, I haven't seen many movies this year... I did see Munich late last winter and it was a very interesting film. It was so beautifully shot and I liked the score very much as well. The only thing that really disappointed me was the last shot of the film, which just seemed way too forced. It's the first new score from Williams that I've enjoyed in quite some time.

Being the concerned liberal that I am, I had to check out Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth last July. It was quite interesting, but IMHO there was too much personal stuff about Gore thrown in (and this is coming from somebody who generally likes Al Gore.) That stuff should have been saved for an "About Al Gore" featurette on the DVD. The non-biographical content ("the slideshow") was very tight and informative, though.

A few weeks ago I made my most recent trip to the theater. What I saw was a bit of a disappointment, though I shouldn't be surprised. Man of the Year is a political thriller marketed as a comedy. It has a few laughs (all of which can be seen in the trailer) but as a political thriller it's quite weak. It's like Barry Levinson started writing a comedy, then found out that he ran out of jokes fast, so this corrupt voting machine company angle was brought in to make a thriller out of it all. (Spoilers) The problem is that the corporate corruption issue is way too weak. The audience is supposed to be believe that a weird software bug in a voting machine is just a coding accident that the company wants to cover up to preserve market cap. The problem is that the "bug" makes no sense as an accident and that's why I was a bit annoyed after watching the film (being the computer geek that I am.) It also goes overboard while following around Laura Linney's character as she gets set up by her former employer, the corrupt voting machine company. I do like the "don't trust the voting machines" angle, but this story was not the best way to get that point across.

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Originally posted by Southall:
Franz, in the other messageboards you used the more traditional spelling of "enjoyed" - is the usage of the alternative an attempt to generate debate?

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Now for those you haven't seen: The Prestige is nearly flawless in my retrospective viewings (I've seen it four times at the cinema and it continues to haunt me). I created a thread about the film which, so far, has recieved nary a peep from the cinema-conscious posters on this forum. The Black Dahlia was an enjoyable pulp romp by another undervalued (IMO) filmmaker. Flags of our Fathers has a "been there, done that" feeling to it and has a very weak score alog with a heavy ham-fisted screenplay by Paul Haggis. The Descent is a worthy addition into both psychological horror and creature horror; one of the best since Carpenter's The Thing. Babel is Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's weakest effort (which is unfortunate) and feels like it's trying to capitalize on Crash's morality; some wonderful performances from Pitt, Cate Blanchett, and Rinko Kikuchi, but you'd be better off viewing 21 Grams or Amores Perros for the truly captivating Inarritu/Guillermo Arriaga films. For the end of the year, I'm greatly anticipating The Fountain, Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, and Volver. Hopefully the Academy will take note of the truly memorable films and with-hold on giving Eastwood another Oscar.

And you mention a certain Tom Cruise film giving you a terrible experience; I hope it's not Mission: Impossible 3 because I'd love to have a chat with you on how it's the most structured and well-paced of the series. Just don't judge it because the jerk uses it as another vanity project.

NP> Can Tago Mago Remastered (*****/*****)

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
A few distractions though: I wasn't too impressed with The Squid and the Whale. As a seething satirical look at a dysfunctional and divorced family, it did well. As a whole, it had this putrid "Sundance stench" that I've noticed more and more films having since the debut of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. It's like the indie filmmakers have decided it's okay for a viewer not to find solace and enjoy any character they're viewing.

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An interesting comment on the film. I actually found all the people in this film strangely understandable. I really knew them - particularly the elder son and the Jeff Daniels character. I felt like I'd come across them.

I particularly liked about this film: (i) the acting; (ii) the pretty flawless handheld camerawork; (iii) the mysterious revelation of the title in the ending, the only real ending possible in such a film.

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The same thing occured to me with Paul Haggis' Crash. I'm not given an inclination that these character's eventual redemption in the third act will suddenly make them likable characters. I noticed the same thing with Little Miss Sunshine.

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I haven't seen SUNSHINE... I'm not a fan of CRASH. It's a bit 'neat' in the way everything balances out for me.

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Miami Vice is a tough call; on retrospect I'm enjoying it a little more than when I did as I left the cinema. I enjoyed the fact that it was a serious cops and robbers drama for adults, but I can't help but find fault with it's neglegance of any comedic moments; something that provides a lot of comfort to the viewer as they're watching such a serious drama unfold with brutal violence and near-unintelligble dialog. If Mann had raised the stakes a little more, made his leading men create more chemistry, and supplied each with enough reason to want to survive the job their undertaking it might have warrented a better response from me.

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I love Michael Mann's aesthetics - sound and vision... and I love the brooding performances he extracts. But you've highlighted the reason why I'd consider this film something of a guilty pleasure - the weight of it, which seems so heavy at the time, lifts immediately on the ending of the film. There's no lingering melancholy, which I usually feel with Mann's best films. (COLLATERAL, HEAT and THE INSIDER hung over me for a long time.)

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The same can be said about Haneke's Cache; one first viewing I was stunned. But since I've gotten the DVD and had a chance to view the movie again with my film friends, it's lost a good majority of muster. It felt like Kevin Smith directing a Hitchcock movie: there was very little substance other than the actor's (very fine) performances. The camera was stagnant (and I'm not sure that was Cache stylistic choices after having viewed Funny Games) and the plot seemed to not know any direction to lead us into an almost too-ambiguous ending.

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I can't imagine Haneke's film would work too well on the small screen. I think part of the magic of it is that he's figured out just how tense something understated can be when you're in a dark room. On DVD, I think the film wouldn't envelop me nearly as much, and the stagnances of the camera would get increasingly annoying.

Incidentally, I missed the point of the last shot when I saw it. I didn't see what was apparently a meeting that partly explained everything. I kind of wish it wasn't there (I prefer the idea of the camera as some kind of guilty reflection of Auteil rather than a 'real' video recording).

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For the end of the year, I'm greatly anticipating The Fountain, Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, and Volver.

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Children of Men is interesting... Amazing film-making. I didn't entirely go with it... but I won't say why until you've seen it. Wasn't crazy about the use of music.

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And you mention a certain Tom Cruise film giving you a terrible experience; I hope it's not Mission: Impossible 3 because I'd love to have a chat with you on how it's the most structured and well-paced of the series. Just don't judge it because the jerk uses it as another vanity project.

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
Ah... but alas, it is that film. I had real problems with this beyond the vanity element. Probably the thing that will tip you off as to why this wasn't the film for me - I so wish either of the original directors, Fincher or Carnahan, had stayed in place.

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Great responses all around Franz. I always enjoy that. Now on to Mission: Impossible 3. I, too, wish that either Fincher or Carnahan had stayed in place. For J.J. Abrams first feature-length movie, it was an impessive debut, although he needs to take the camera back and shy away from close-ups in the next Star Trek installment, it doesn't need that claustrophobic feeling. He owes a lot to his editors (both are women) and his great cast. After viewing the trailer for Carnahan's Smokin' Aces I really wished he had stayed on because he looks to be travelling into "I should make wierd and obscure cult action films for the sake of being weird and obscure action films" and I really wished he wouldn't traverse in that direction (and become as shallow as both Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez). I thought he was smarter. Fincher, being one of my favorite rsising directors, would have been choice; but I'm looking forward to Zodiac next year even more.

On Cache, it was tough pulling away from my friends after having hyped it so much after I saw it in the cinema that many of them felt I owed them an apology. I quickly showed them Funny Games and they lightened up some, but still weren't floored. It's wore off on me. We've had numerous discussions on what each film is trying to say but all of us (four guys) come back with different answers. I may find it interesting companion piece to Cronenberg's Videodrome (though entirely inferior) whereas one of my buddies was reminded of Sexy Beast (don't ask how).

You're spot on on the Mann commentary. And a musical piece always seems to fit and I remember that piece. With Miami Vice, not one bit stayed with me.

I will admit the filmmaking in The Squid and the Whale is good (very reminiscent of a pseudo-Wes Anderson/Paul Thomas Anderson creation, without the Robert Altman wit.

Hey nuts, remember the scene in Crash where racism pushes Sandra Bullock down the stairs!?! HAHA!

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
Children of Men is interesting... Amazing film-making. I didn't entirely go with it... but I won't say why until you've seen it. Wasn't crazy about the use of music.

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I'll get to my favorite movies of the year-so-far shortly....

Kirk

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Originally posted by James:
Now that you mention it, I'd like to ask you a question about this. When you say you weren't crazy about the use of music, do you mean (A) that the choices of music individually don't work well in the scenes they underscore, or (B) that the choices of music individually work very well with the scenes they underscore, but as a whole they don't really cohere with one another, or (C) something else? I only ask because scenario B is exactly how I felt about Cuaron's Great Expectations. Every individual cue of Patrick Doyle's score is absolutely brilliantly used in the film, and the songs employed in other scenes are also well-chosen and well-employed, but the songs never really gel together with the score and the score itself is sort of schizophrenic as well, so the music ended up making the film seem too jagged and zigzaggy (which it somewhat already was on its own, despite how gorgeously it was realized).

Kirk

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Maybe I'll tell you what I mean, and you can tell me if it's the same thing... (I don't think it is - though I suspect you would have had some problems with all of Williams' idiomatic dancing in PRISONER OF AZKABAN?) There are some insignificant issues... e.g. I feel the use of a particular song over the end credits is an incredibly deflating way to pop the film's balloon.

More important is the Taverner issue. However it was written in relation to the film, it felt like the exact same cue point was being faded in every time the film-makers tried to raise the stakes. The first three times it's ok, but when it's ultimately used five times (or something like that), they could have held off using it earlier to save up for the big quotation of the piece. (Owen descends the stairs.)

Having said that, it's an interesting film, and I'd like to see it again before blanketing it in negativity on that issue. My greater reservations were on the screenplay.

I did see these

1. Flags of our Fathers-very good. Liked it a lot, Score so-so.
2. Munich-didnt care for it much. Prefer the older TV movie on this one. Although parts of it were suspenseful, I didnt care for how he approached it.
3. Flight 93-exc film. Very well done.

I think thats about all I have seen at theatres so far this year.

Pride and Prejudice (don't know the director!)

Actually I saw this at the cinema in 2005, but as my girlfriend was going overseas the next day, we mostly spent the movie kissing... so much so that I couldn't for the life of me remember who played Wickham, and on seeing the character this time around, I didn't recognise him at all!(Then again, the role is only about five mins long in this new film... still, must have been a good kiss!) I didn't really want to 'see' it again, but she insisted. My reaction to the film on its own terms is really positive - I think it condenses the story nicely, the casting of the two older sisters with Keira Knightley and Rosamund Pike is a lot closer to the right age for these girls (and accompanying childish girliness), the music and photography are really exceptional... In particular, the director finds some grand ways to block scenes (some great one-takers that are very unshowy) that instantly puts this well above the BBC's popular and more faithful adaptation of the text.

The only rubs?
* Donald Sutherland has grown on me on seeing his nicely manner performance a second time... still I think the miniseries handled this role better.
* Brenda Blethyn and Judi Dench annoy me to no end in roles like these... I know they're meant to, but perhaps the work could be spread around the British film industry?
* A subtle point of story editing - I feel like we're aware of Darcy's good intentions too early in this version... on the other hand, to get rid of that you'd have to get rid of some really nice moments in Matthew McFayden's performance. (Certainly he exceeds Colin Firth more often than not - but what living organism doesn't show a block of wood how to live?)
* Gratuitous country folk dancing shots.
* Something else I can't remember.

Oliver Twist (Roman Polanski)

Strange to think of a Polanski film as being very redundant, but I can't imagine what this new tale actually contributes above either of the previous popular versions - David Lean's (which this one leans closer to) or Carol Reed's. The acting is all good... it just never really leaps to life for me... and I can't see where its point of uniqueness is?My expectations were high after Polanski's very fine The Pianist, but I can't see how he was the essential man for this.

Rachel Portman's score is strangely upbeat at times - almost like she's still in that version of Nicholas Nickleby from a couple of years back. At other times she speaks to the darkness well, and her work here uses leitmotifs more than I've seen in her previous works, but I think Polanski's relationship with Wojciech Kilar would have yielded something more special. I'm glad I haven't bought Portman's score, because it really doesn't add much to her fine previous work.

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
Maybe I'll tell you what I mean, and you can tell me if it's the same thing...

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No, what you're describing sounds like a different problem from the one I had with Great Expectations. But thanks for the ellaboration. My expectations for this film are -- ahem, great -- so a little deflation is probably a good thing before going in. Though chances are my excitement will only build up again, given how long I still have to wait (if you didn't know, they booted this back to Christmas here in the States in the hopes of securing some attention from the Oscar people).

Incidentally, I had no qualms with Prisoner of Azkaban, though I can understand how others might. Perhaps there was just enough of a thread there that Williams held it all together for me. Or perhaps because I had read the book before I heard the score I had a fairly good idea of what every cue was meant to accompany, so my initial reaction was one more of excitement at trying to anticipate how Williams was going to interpret everything musically. Or perhaps the previous two scores were so stylistically self-contained that I welcomed the branching out. (More likely it was a combination of all these things.)

Tideland (Terry Gilliam) - I managed to see this twice in the one week it was here, and I think Terry Gilliam may have actually surpassed Brazil (one of my favorite films of all time) with this one. As disturbing as the problems presented in Gilliam's best films are, the problems in <i>Tideland</i> seem far more dire because the scale is smaller, more intimate, more immediate. It's also more shocking and disturbing because the film's perspective is so innocent. This is not about an ineffectual dreamer slowly starting to take responsibility for the world around him, as is the case with most of Gilliam's work. This is a film about a little girl who should not be responsible for anything being thrust into a living nightmare and forced to survive there on her own.

As with most of Gilliam's heroes, her primary means of survival and escape is her imagination. But this is not a triumph or a celebration of the dream over reality. This is about what happens when reality is so traumatic and the mind is so locked into the fantastical escape that all perceptions of real danger and real happiness are obscured and nightmarishly twisted.

A lot of people are disgusted by this film. A lot of people are walking out halfway through. I don't blame them. It's almost suffocatingly unpleasant at times. I just wish that people who do walk out in disgust wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the film as an exercise in sadism. There's so much more here, layers upon layers of ideas, and real beauty, too, if you stick it out.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu) - Chronicles the plight of Lazarescu Dante Remus as a paramedic drives him from hospital to hospital in Romania looking for someone willing to treat him. The doctors are addicted to procedure and immediately dismissive when they smell the alcohol in his breath, and a bus accident has filled every hospital to the brim with patients. It quite seriously feels like spending two hours at the side of a dying man, and that's not an easy feeling to discard. I told a friend that it burrows into your skin like a tick and continues to suck your blood long after it has ended (which I meant as a compliment to its power) and I still feel drained and infected by it. I think it just has to be seen. I don't know how I or anyone else can convey what it's really like.

4 (Ilya Khjanovsky) - Begins with three Russians who meet in a bar late one night and exchange exaggerated (if not totally fabricated) stories about their careers for half the film's running time. After that it follows each of them as they go their separate ways, eventually descending into what seems like an absurd, hellish nightmare world but which Russian viewers seem to be saying is actually completely realistic. The overall impression is of people who are caught in an endlessly repeating loop, caught up doing the same meaningless actions day after day in an endlessly decrepit society. This seems to be the voice of a young generation of Russians searching for a new system of values in an old world they perceive as bankrupt of hope and morality.

13 (Tzameti) (Gela Babluani) - French thriller from a Georgian filmmaker. Attempting to explain anything about this film risks explaining too much. Suffice it to say, I was pinned to my seat the whole time, afraid to breathe. I really like the last paragraph of Michael Wilmington's review in the Chicago Tribune, so I'll quote it here: "The whole goal of classic film noir is to create a stylized nightmare vision of the real world, to play artistically with the ruthless traps of destiny and bad character. That's what Babluani does here. He creates a fear so bottomless, a bad dream so plausible that its hooks tear into your consciousness. You may think you can guess where he's heading, but you probably won't."

Tbilisi, Tbilisi (Levan Zakareishvili) - Another entry from a Georgian filmmaker, this one actually set in and about Georgia. The loose story concerns a filmmaker writing a script, which we see played out in black-and-white segments throughout the film, as he travels around the city meeting friends and crooked politicians and getting beaten by the police because he fits the profile of a drug addict. This is a Tbilisi of thieves, rapists, and drugs with corruption at every level of authority, on its last leg with a dying past and an aborted future. As a film it's not perfect, but its only real problems are mere technical issues like dialogue sync. It's definitely a powerful statement -- I suppose the reason it hasn't been distributed anywhere is simply because it's just too bleak. The very end of the credits read, in large Roman letters, "S.O.S."

The Departed (Marty) - A tight, fun little piece of awesomeness. Scorsese shows all the young upstarts why he's still the top dog.

A Land of Glass (Janina Lapinskaite) - This little Lithuanian film had precisely one screening here in Chicago, and I doubt I'll ever have another chance to see it. It's centered around a woman living with her hsuband, young daughter and newborn son in an isolated house surrounded by an icy, wintry landscape. She's suffering from rather severe postpartum depression. Her husband disregards it like a headache, and her gynecologist takes advantage of her need for connection by starting an affair. Things happen, but not in such a way that they constitute a conventional story, yet it's also not really episodic. A moody, oppressive, disengaged, and rather cold atmosphere permeates the short but slow-paced story, and as the heroine's condition worsens she becomes a less and less reliable narrator. It was beautifully made, with a lush score, meticulously crafted soundscapes, and the most striking use of color I've seen in any new film this year.

A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater) - Someone finally gets Philip K. Dick right! I was especially pleased that the film, just like the book, was much less concerned with the story than with the people who were being pushed through it. In the hands of someone with less respect for the material this could have been turned into a horrible half-baked "thriller," but thankfully it's nothing like that. And my biggest fear, Keanu Reeves, worked out surprisingly well.

A Praire Home Companion (Robert Altman) - I'm not really a big Altman fan, but I really, really loved this film. I think it's his best in at least a decade.

Thank You For Smoking (Jason Reitman) - Pretty clever. I thought I'd like it, but I was surprised at just how much I did. I liked how it didn't refrain from pointing fingers at anyone and everything. Aaron Eckhart's performance is faceted and nuanced even when he plays for laughs.

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Originally posted by Tristan:
I agree with many of the films aforementioned. As far as I could see though, nobody cited THE DECENT which I think was very effective because it was molded by hands from across the pond (UK). A very good film, especially in their portrayal of the strong and realistic female presence (and not in that forced American ALIAS type of way). Great character development and pretty unnerving at times, especially in the breakdown of these relationships amongst the girls as they fight for survival.

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Ah, but you didn't search far enough Tristan . . .

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Originally posted by me:
The Descent is a worthy addition into both psychological horror and creature horror; one of the best since Carpenter's The Thing.

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Originally posted by Scorro:
Not only the best animated film in years

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Oops, that would have left out Howl's Moving Castle... which is a beautiful movie.

THE BLACK DAHLIA

In sum, Brian DePalma always makes a film worth watching, but it's easy money to bet that the film David Fincher aspired to make would have been more convincing, lucid, and compelling.

Plus-side:
* The setpieces - Brian DePalma's defining stamp as a director. Three in particular come to mind here - (i) a boxing bout of striking (mind the pun) physicality; (ii) a street-based shootout bookended by the camera and character's respective discoveries of the titular corpse; and (iii) one of DePalma's best, a stairwell shootout that manages to visually, symbolically and narratively evoke the stairwell scenes of Vertigo.
* Even when we're not in a setpiece, DePalma's camera discovers and reveals things always in an active fashion. You're meant to notice this camera work - the deliberate choices of pacing, use of space and time, the impeccable mise-en-scene, and...
*... with Vilmos Zsigmond lensing, cinematography and its interaction with...
*... Dante Ferreti's production design is splendid.
* Mark Isham is given a front row seat to the drama, and provides a score that is not only one of the year's best, but one of the best of Isham's estimable oeuvre, and a strong entry in Brian DePalma's track record of legendary scores. And it's not just the genre setting of the score - there's a richness to the range of influences here. The arpeggiated woodwinds at the height of the boxing and stairwell setpieces is an unexpected touch that lifts both scenes to another level. I don't know how much additional music was written by the additional composer credited in the liner notes, but whatever they did (perhaps the score for the Vampire film?), it was good too.
* Good casting of peripheral characters.
* Good choice of the Dahlia herself. Mia Kirshner's screen tests are good stuff.
* Josh Hartnett's performance is good for his role as 'patsy'.
* Scarlett Johannsen is fine, if a little bored, as Kay Lake. She's been taking the Cate Blanchett path of too many supporting roles in good films lately.

Negatives:
* Aaron Eckhardt is a very fine actor, and his performance is very deliberate and convincing here, but the movie doesn't come up with an acceptable explanatio as to why he's so messed up about the Dahlia.
* Hilary Swank is majorly miscast. Not only because her 'channeling' of screen stars of the past doesn't really fit in with the rest of the performances, and not just because her character doesn't seem for a moment as alluring as everyone finds her, but because she is meant to remind people of Elizabeth Short! I can't believe DePalma missed the opportunity to double-cast Mia Kirshner as Dahlia and Madeleine... not only would it have made the plot more convincing, and given an actress better suited to the material a chance to shine, but think of the Kim Novak-Vertigo congruencies DePalma could have played with.
EDIT - I read that Eva Green was DePalma's first choice for Madeleine. That would have been a major improvement, and the likeness issue would not have been so significant.
* The film is not nearly sensual enough, and to me this is an amazing thing for a DePalma film. This is the man who made Femme Fatale?! Josh Hartnett's character is attracted to Madeleine both because of her sexuality and her resemblance to the Dahlia. Now let's just get away from the latter (see above), but where is the smouldering passion? It falls to Mark Isham to sell the sensuality as the two kiss in a hotel room doorway, before a cutaway to the curtains. I'm not the most salacious viewer out there, but this film is about a confusion of violence towards women and male passion - surely a subjective experience of that needed to at least be hinted at?
* The film's depiction of the police political landscape is a bit of a nightmare of clarity. E.g. Eckhardt storms out of the porn film screening that depicts the Dahlia, and a superior is enraged. What is the background to this?
* The script is barely interested in police procedure. Compare to Curtis Hanson's treatment of LA Confidential, the obvious comparison. In Hanson's film, careful manipulation of audience empathy with the Spacey, Crowe and Pearce characters results in a pleasing flow of information about the true nature of the crimes being committed, and who 'Rollo Tamassi' is. What a contrast... We never really see how these detectives figure out anything. Hartnett's character is guided by one of the 'wettest' crime scenes ever - even I could figure out what went on there. Compare to the depiction of police procedure in other recent films - The Departed, Infernal Affairs, Miami Vice, heck, even the Mark Ruffalo scenes in Collateral are richer in detective work than the whole of Dahlia.
* Somehow the script manages to bury some of the most important moments under narration or expositional moments. How did Hartnett's sense of betrayal by both a brother and a lover get so wasted as dramatic mileage? This should have been the bread and butter of the second half.

Still, 7 to 7.5 out of 10. Because the aesthetics are so strong.

SUPERMAN RETURNS

Amiable enough, but I don't really feel strongly enough about much of it. The CGI-dominated effects don't come across that well on DVD

Plus:
* Superman with modern special effects. There are all sorts of images here that were impossible for Richard Donner's crew.
* Heck, more Superman. Even warmed my heart to see him back to Williams' tune.
* Parker Posey. An odd-touch and a free spirit in an incredibly straight-faced film.
* Loads of Messianic/saviour imagery. Heck, I believe in it, and it made the film more interesting.
* Interesting the way it picks up from an old series...

Minus:
* Unbelievably young Lois who must have had her child at age 13?!
* Superman did find the secret to looking younger on the remains of Krypton too...
* Lois thrown around in that shuttle is a bit of a stretch...
* Kevin Spacey's good... but Luthor isn't really that interesting a villain. And with Marlon Brando's voice floating around, I couldn't help but miss Gene Hackman too.
* The kid thing. Opens up a few problems - for one, why isn't Lois asking a few questions about when all that baby-making happened? Or Lois's fiance, for that matter.
* John Ottman. Big moment coming, let's do THAT THEME again with CHOIR. Some strong moments in the film, but equally suffers from a lack of Williams' elegance and attention to structure. And like the FSM boys said, there's no reason for that 4/4 arrangement of the love theme. The melody just doesn't feel at home in that setting.
* Batman Begins. Just because this film (and doubtless most modern reboots) suffers from comparison with Nolan's rejuvenation of Batman. This script feels like a remake of Superman at times (break it down on a structural level and note the similarities), a sequel at others.

6 to 6.5 out of 10.

THE NAME OF THE ROSE

As I feared, not a patch on a fine book. A shame, as it starts out well, before the descent into anarchy.

Plus:
* Sean Connery is fine as William.
* Christian Slater is a surprisingly-strong Adso.
* Annaud is a strong revealer of things with both camera and sound. The sets, cinematography, locations, costumes, and general casting (the weirdest bunch of faces in any film perhaps), are superb.
* James Horner's predominantly-synth score adds the appropriate sense of eeriness. I'd never heard it before, and imagine it doesn't play too well as an album, but it's a good score in the film at least.

Minus:
* A film takes a rich world from Eco's novel and reduces it to one aspect.
* The humour is gone. Almost entirely. What a shame. Only the murder plot really comes out intact, and that with some unfortunate simplications.
* One big point the novel made about the string of murders, the way a pattern was read into them that motivated their continuation according to that pattern, is utterly missing. And it's a shame, as this meta-aspect to the detective story would have helped this film stand out in that genre.
* Needless simplications - William did not need to be made a previous torture victim of Bernard, Bernard could have been seen as more duplicitous than zealous (as hinted in the book); the girl should not have lived (an utterly ridiculous concession); and in the most unnecessary change of all, Bernard did not need to be killed, let alone impaled on a spike - the ultimate tacky movie villain death. (Anyone who knows a little of the period would know that Bernardo Gui lived many more years.)

Perhaps a mini-series would have been better. Or perhaps some books should never be touched by film-makers. I can't think of anyone who might have done it better - except perhaps Christopher Nolan (whose Prestige comes to mind as a rich adaptation of recent times).
6 out of 10.

THE NEW WORLD

Watched it again last week, with my brother (who hadn't seen it before). And it's magnificent, lifted both a liberal approach to storytelling conventions for a historical romance, Malick's wonderful humanism, his eye for anthropological detail, brave performances, and some of the best use of classical music in a film in years. 10 out of 10.

MIAMI VICE

Michael Mann's aesthetics, like Brian DePalma's, are irresistable. The cinematopraphy on HD-Video is a highlight, as are the moody terse performances. The dialogue is a little hard to catch at times - it's both very 'shop' , and more than a little under-mixed. But Mann has made a good film about being 'undercover' here - both the romance and danger angles, and it's unfortunate that the insignificance of the events depicted is well and truly apparent before the end credits roll. Unlike Dahlia though, at least there's a coherence to the drama and character experiences, so this remains one of my top 10 for the year, though low on the list. 8 out of 10.

V FOR VENDETTA

Ultimately inconsistent, if interesting film.

Plus:
* Strong cast, if a little underused. Stephen Rea, John Hurt, Rupert Graves, Stephen Fry and Tim Pigott-Smith are all worth watching, to say nothing of the lead actress herself.
* V himself - voiced well.
* The story. I particularly liked the end-of-second-act revelation re: Evey's tormentors - that's such an interesting idea, and could have motivated a much more interesting final act.
* V's final fight. The Matrix may have done it to death, but bullet-time is still engaging when used well.
* Dario Marianelli's score. Some have made a big thing of 'Evey Reborn' as a cue, but I think the whole thing is pretty carefully done, and I love the scoring of the 'dominoes' and 'knives, guns and bullets' scenes.
* Best use of 1812 Overture on film?
* Kept you wanting to know more about V.

Minus:
* Satire is pretty broad - too much for my taste.
* Should have been content to be a stylish film of ideas - the intrusion of action scenes never fails to feel like a play to keep action film audiences interested.
* I wanted to see more of this world. I felt like I was constantly corraled into this indoor and back alley sets that the budget could dress, but that there was a country (and a world) out there waiting to be seen.

Soon to be played: The Old Man Who Read Love Stories, Happy Feet, Too Beautiful for You (Bertrand Blier's comedy with Depardieu - I saw a bit once and found it hilarious), Fateless, Capote, Evil and Jacob's Ladder.

HAPPY FEET

Boring at the start, picks up around the 20 minute mark, then clean sailing until the last 15 minutes.

Plus:
* Robin Williams
* The 'Barry White' character
* George Miller - never content to let a 'kid's film' pass without a few challenging images, even for adults.
* Some dark material indeed - hardline Presbyterian church stuff from Hugo Weaving, crash zooms out from the zoo, horrific images indeed. This stuff sets this film apart from most of its ilk.
* The subtle irony of the conclusion (before the not-so-subtle irony of the global 'human' montage).
* John Powell mostly on the ball.

Minus:
* Boring set-up feels like a return to that horrible 'documentary' MARCH OF THE PENGUINS. Neither funny nor moving.
* The ending feels very tacked on. The jump from the zoo to Mumble's return is out-of-keeping with the rest of the storytelling, and even if that had to happen, the story probably should have ended with the performance for the helicopter men before the global montage.
* Not really a musical fan - found it hard to get into the music, especially the first few songs.

Plus:
* Strong, if highly externalised, acting. It took me a while to get used to Mirren actually - the painting scene at the start in particular seemed a little unreserved for what I've seen of Elizabeth II. Because it is Mirren and Sheen's film though, you come to get used to them so much that when an uncannily real gestural similarity flashes before our eyes - Mirren's performance of the live TV statement, and Blair's 'call me Tony' giggle towards the end - you suddenly realise they are not the people they're playing. (Otherwise those similarities would be more frequent with fewer in between.)
* Nice subtle visual arc - the handheld spontaneity of Blair slowly infiltrates the framing of her majesty. As she realises he's right, we go from the fixed tripod perspectives on her to a more mobile handheld camera.
* Sound design was nice and deliberate throughout, and I'm so glad they weren't afraid to keep the faders up on...
* ... Alexandre Desplat's score, which proves a very fine fit with the picture indeed. This is perhaps one of Desplat's best-spotted English language films to date, even if the general pattern for entry points feels a teensy bit overused by the end. Standouts: 'People's Princess' (magnificent and audacious in context), Charles' inspection of the coffin (the second half of 'Queen of Hearts' on album), the Queen's meeting with 'The Stag' . What I really liked about Desplat's work in general actually is that he made the whole thing seem more cinematic than it would have been otherwise, functioning in a way very similar to what John Powell did for United 93. I do wonder if George Fenton - who might have been another candidate for this scoring job - would have pulled it off nearly so well. The music also finely balances mockery with respect into healthy ambiguity - both of the royals and their many antagonists: press, PM's office, paparazzi, anti-monarchists, Diana worshippers.

Negative:
* Certain perspectives are very well-served by this version of events. Perhaps that's how it happened.
* I kind of agree with my girlfriend's take on this: "It wasn't really about much, was it?" And I'm inclined to agree. Like United 93, everything's very much on the surface - it doesn't seem like there's a big subtext here (though there are flashes of one). Unlike United 93 though, which was mostly about the live unfolding of the most momentous political events of our time, this film feels decidedly smaller in both content and significance. It's mostly about a man and a woman and how they reacted to events, and interesting as it is, it never really goes beyond that.
* There were three moments I thought were cinematic - (i) the mixture of documentary and re-enactment as Diana sets out on her fateful ride, (ii) the helicopter/jib shot of Prince Phillip and the princeling setting out after the stag; (iii) the Queen's meeting with the stag. The general lack of a strong cinematic feel definitely supports the feeling that this film was born for television. This is a very dialogue-driven, close-up emphasizing, drama. It makes me wonder what a marvel it was that such ripe-for-TV material as THE INSIDER fell into Michael Mann and Eric Roth's hands. And I don't think it's about budget - how did Paul Greengrass made United 93 so cinematic, so un-TV?