A Prophet (Un Prophete) (FR) Directed by Jacques Audiard  Written by Jacques Audiard; Thomas Bidgeain; Abdel Raouf Dafri; Nicolas Peufaillit  Starring Tahar Rahim; Niels Arestrup; Adel Bencherif; Hichem Yacoubi; Reda Kaleb; Jean-Phillipe Ricci; Leila Behkti; Slimane Dazi

Avatar (USA) Directed by James Cameron  Written by James Cameron  Starring Sam Worthington; Zoe Saldana; Sigourney Weaver; Michelle Rodriguez; Giovanni Ribisi; Stephen Lang; Joel Moore; Laz Alonso; Wes Studi; CC Pounder

From a visual standpoint, Avatar is everything it’s cracked up to be. The 3-D, particularly in an IMAX theater, outdoes ones average trip to the local multiplex by a longshot, with the ability to turn even certain small moments fascinating - particularly in the live action scenes, where it adds pristine detail, imbuing the film with an aesthetic that seems to push the visceral experience closer to some kind of magical live stage spectacular. No doubt, the epic scope of the entire world of this $275 million film is impressive, and writer/ director James Cameron’s obsessive approach to advancing technology has led to steady improvements in 3-D/CGI, re-imagining what is possible for the form.

Fans of big adventure escapism like The Lord of The Rings and the Harry Potter series will likely have little issue with the mythmaking going on here, but others may balk at the rather basic plotting, lack of character development (or, for that matter, credible character), and simplistic, speech laden dialogue filled with lines that too often come off like those uttered in an overwrought War of The Worlds-esque radio play.  Further, as visually stimulating as the film might be, it’s still too long by at least a half hour.

The attractive leads - Aussie Sam Worthington as Jake Sully, a parapalegic ex-marine, and Zoe Saldana (okay, so we don’t actually see in her human form, but we know what she looks like, right?) as Na’vi princess Neytiri are fine (if a bit bland), and admittedly it’s kind of fun to see the embodiment of Cameron’s Alien lead Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) playing scientist Dr. Grace Augustine. Villains Parker Sefridge (Giovanni Ribisi) and (especially) Colonel Mills (Stephen Lang), however, are absurdly over the top, comic book creations without the slightest nuance offered to balance the scales. Cameron’s anti-war/pro-environmental message, as right-minded as it might be, is ham handedly delivered through the mouths of these stock evil-doer constructs, and they spew a steady stream of jingoistic inanities as they express their desire to conquer, rape, and pillage the imaginary forest land (Pandora) of the giant, blue, indigenous tree people.  At least the bad guys are Americans, though, and so the disparaged party is not some vaguely identified third world country as is the normal course in big budget action/war flicks.  

As gloriously constructed as some of the action sequences may be, there is more than a little repetition as the film proceeds. The 3-D is fun, and Pandora is interesting to look at for a spell, but at its heart this is not much more than your average animated fantasy epic, a little too in love with the cleverness of its invention, and nowhere near groundbreaking when it comes to story. Jim Cameron has been quoted saying that what we see represents the future of film, and that we will henceforth need to reconsider how we view acting performances. His overall point involves the premise that this technical process is somehow beneficial to actors because it utlilizes their movements and facial expressions to help create the animated images. It seems like a convoluted perspective at best, one unimstakedly eminating from a filmmaker who considers actors mere window dressing, present mostly to serve the cinematography, the CGI, and the many gadgets and post production tricks available in this very rich man’s arsenal. The obvious implication in what he is really saying, of course, is that they’re lucky we’re using them at all since we can do it all ourselves if we choose to.

Avatar is worthy of some of the hype, at least in regards to the magnificence of the technology, but take away the glam and glitter and there remains a semi-hollow, paint-by-numbers kids fable that is ultimately adds up to little more than an overextended allegory. Of course, the same might be said of Star Wars, or the previously mentioned epics of recent years, and all of these franchises certainly put a lot of rear ends in the seats and moved a lot of DVD units and ancillary merchandise, and that, of course, is the whole idea. While Avatar  is undoubtedly a relatively fun couple of hours, one wonders if Cameron’s latest love child is closer to an amusement park ride or video game than a work of cinema, and the implications of what it all means for the art form are potentially fairly dire, the director’s hubris notwithstanding.

Crazy Heart (USA) Directed by Scott Cooper  Written by Scott Cooper  Starring Jeff Bridges; Maggie Gyllenhaal; Robert Duvall; Colin Farrell; Jack Nation; Paul Herman; James Keane

Sixty year old Jeff Bridges, the architect of memorable characters like Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski from The Big Lebowski; Jack Baker from The Fabulous Baker Boys; President Jack Evans from The Contender ; and Duane Jackson from The Last Picture Show , sometimes gets overlooked when discussions of our finest actors take place, perhaps because his work is so naturalistic that there may be a tendency to forget he is acting.

Son of Lloyd; brother of Beau, Bridges has been plying his trade since the age of two, working steadily and consistently - first on TV, then in film.  The California native has been married for thirty years to the same woman, fathered three children, and is something of a renaissance man with a penchant for photography, illustration, and music (he even recorded an album, Be Here Soon, in 2000).

Here, he stars as Houston based Otis “Bad” Blake, a hard drinking/smoking/womanizing country singer/ songwriter in the mode of Townes Van Zandt (whose music is on the soundtrack) or Kris Kristofferson, with a little Hank Williams; Johnny Cash; and/or Waylon Jennings thrown in for good measure. Riddled with poor health; married multiple times; estranged from a son he never took care of or saw, Bad is enmeshed in the downslope of a once successful career, playing in dive bars for those who want to re-live his hits from long ago. Bridges is truly potent as Bad, his wild hair, beefy frame, booze-soaked skin, and bloodhsot eyes merely the most visible signs of a messy life lived on the edge.

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Jean Craddock, a single mother and music reporter from Santa Fe New Mexico, who is decades younger then the fifty seven year old song man, but has endured her share of heartache. The two, along with Jean’s four year old son, Buddy (Jack Nation), enter into a relationship that serves as the core of the film. Robert Duvall (who helped produce; and who himself played a country crooner with a sordid personal past, Mac Sledge, in 1983s Tender Mercies) is Bad’s older friend/employer, bar owner Wayne, and Colin Farrell takes a small role as a famous singer Tommy Sweet, who got his start in Bad’s band. Though Tommy is the source of Bad’s jealousy and resentment, he too provides the grizzled bad boy an opportunity at artistic relevance and perhaps even some form of personal redemption.

Partnering with Stephen Bruton, the music was done by T-Bone Burnett (O Brother Where Art Thou), and the soundtrack includes contributions from George Jones; Buck Owens; the aforementioned Van Zandt and Jennings; and relative newcomer, Texan Ryan Bingham, who wrote the theme song The Weary Kind. Bridges had previously worked with Burnett and Bruton on Heaven’s Gate  (1980), Michael Cimino’s classic commerical flop. In that film, long time friends and collaborators Bruton and Burnett were part of the on screen band, while Bridges was one of the lead actors. Bruton, who was dying of cancer at the time of Crazy Heart’s filming (and died some time after its completion), became something of a model for Bridges, who used some of Bruton’s experiences and characteristics in shaping Bad.

The plot is hardly innovative, and there is some lack of delving into the source(s) of Bad’s pain that ultimately keeps the film out of the realm of cinema classic. First time director, actor Scott Cooper (who also adapted the Thomas Cobb novel), doesn’t stray far from other films with similar subject matter like Nashville; Payday; (the previously mentioned) Tender Mercies; Songwriter; Forty Shades of Blue, and various other country music biopics that have mined similar territory, but the music is solid, and Bridges’ performance is good enough to help distinguish this one as among the best of a solid bunch.

An Education (BRIT) Directed by Lone Scherfig  Written by Nick Hornby  Starring Carey Mulligan; Peter Skarskaard; Alfred Molina; Cara Seymour; Olivia Willimas; Emma Thompson; Dominic Cooper; Rosemund Pike

Movies - or, at least those intended for a mass commercial market, have historically depended on casting actors who are well known to the paying public. Often the very films themselves are based around the on screen personas these leading men and women have established throughout their careers, with producers and studios depending on this symbiotic relationship between stars and their audiences. It’s nice then to view a bigger film headed by an actor who was previously unknown to most ticket buyers - even better when the actor highlighted is one who seems so obviously destined for a long and successful career

The actor in question, and centerpiece of An Education, is one Carey Mulligan, a fresh faced twenty four year old Brit who has done most of her previous work on the English stage and in television.  Playing  precocious sixteen/seventeen year old high school student Jenny, Mulligan looks appropriately young, and is fittingly brimming with dewey-eyed eagerness, underpinned emotion, and energy. One is struck by the notion of an actor being perfectly cast. 

Directed by fifty year old female Dane Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners), An Education is based on  journalist Lynn Bolber’s slim memoir, which detailed her romantic relationship with an older man. Set in 1961, still the beginning of the famed mod period in London, the screenplay is by novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity; About a Boy), who took the basics of the source material  (which was originally published in the literary journal Granta) and ran with it.

While Mulligan’s presence dominates the film, the rest of the cast is also excellent: Peter Skarsgaard (as Jew David Goldman) does a British variation on his usual semi-creepy guy; Alfred Molina is Jenny’s working class father Jack; Cara Seymour, Mom Marjorie; Emma Thompson, the Headmistress of her all girls school; Olivia Williams, her English teacher, Miss Stubbs; Dominic Cooper, David’s rich, art-collecting/playboy friend Danny; and Rosamund Pike, his vacuous, beautiful blonde girlfriend Helen.

Though the coming of age aspect of the story may be far from novel, Jenny’s internal life is nicely and subtlely evoked. Cello playing, Francophile Jenny longs to attend Oxford to read English, but she is aware that regardless of what lies in the offing there is little available for her professionally besides the promise of teaching at an all girls school like the one she attends. A neophyte aesthete with a youthful pretentious streak, Jenny loves art, literature, music, and film, but desires experiences that, at her age and station, are well beyond the reach of modest suburban London Twickendam.

Thankfully, the film avoids pandering to us or to Jenny’s character by delivering a reasonably rounded portrait of a young woman in the process of trying to grow in a conservative, repressive era when women were afforded little in the way of life choices, and her journey reflects the kinds of mistakes that are an inherent part of this maturation process. If she is exploitated (and there is most definitely an uncomfortable sexual component to the story due to her age), then she at least partially complicit, so desperate is she to discover all that life has in store, regardless of (and perhaps even because of) the narrow path she has been told is her destiny.

Up in the Air Directed by Jason Reitman  Written by Jason Reitman; Sheldon Turner  Starring George Clooney; Vera Famiga; Anna Kendrick; Jason Bateman; Danny McBride; Melanie Lynskey; Amy Morton; Sam Elliott; JK Simmons; Zach Galifinakis

As Hollywood continues to churn out its ceaseless parade of banal, vapid pablum there is, seemingly, a steadily increasing dearth of films made for adults with a functioning brain. This is not to contend that Up in the Air is a particularly trenchant, innovative, or intellectually challenging experience, but compared to what passes for mainstream, mass marketed quality nowadays, this one is something of an anomaly. It’s an example of what one might imagine modern Hollywood films could be - big stories with movie stars to appeal to wider audiences, but containing enough discernible intelligence and humanity to make the characters and events recognizable as something vaguely real-life-like.

Following Juno and Thank You For Smoking, Jason Reitman, Up in the Air’s talented 32 year old director,  has now made three engaging films in a row (his first three, by the way) - something that cannot be said for many directors working within the system. The Los Angeles native, and offspring of long time comedy director/producer Ivan Reitman (who also produces here), is quickly establishing himself as a unique voice with an eye for quality material.

George Clooney plays Clooney here - officially Ryan Bingham, a corporate axe man working for a Nebraska based company who finds himself facing professional extinction (or at least reorganization). As one of our most well-known bachelors, Clooney might be channeling aspects of his own personal life, inhabiting a character who defiantly rails again the merits of permanent personal attachment. Ryan spends most of his year on the road, commuting state to state by way of a series of rental cars, low grade luxury hotels, airports, lounges and bars, and planes; taking pleasure in the benefits his frequent flyer business status affords him.  On the side, he accepts paid motivational speaking gigs, preaching the beauty of a life unencumbered  to corporate conference audiences.

Ryan’s age is never specified, though (given Clooney’s real life numbers) we would have to assume that he is at least 45, making him a middle-aged man on the downslope.  Though evidently oblivious to the emptiness and shallowness that define his personal life (he appears virtually unfazed when an ongoing sexual relationship with his younger, attractive next door neighboor ends), as well as the shaky morality of what he does for a living, it seems inevitable that at some point in the future he will be in for a realization that he is, in fact, alone.  This is the crux of the film, so of course we are privy to the set of circumstances that will lead him to confront his existence.

Enter into the mix four women who will have a profound (though not individually predictable) impact on the way Ryan views his lifestyle and future. Vera Famiga is Alex, a slightly younger version of Ryan himself, a well coiffed businesswoman equally game for a romantic relationship devoid of obligations, commitment, or ties. Anna Kendrick plays Natalie, an Ivy educated, uptight whiz kid neophyte out to change the way the company does business. Finally, Melanie Lynskey and Amy Morton are Ryan’s neglected younger sisters, people he has all but cut out of his solitary life. Traveling back to Wisconsin for one of their weddings, however, he is forced to again deal with them, as well as his self-imposed exile from his home and extended family.

Up in the Air is based on the 2001 novel (Reitman and Sheldon Turner wrote the script) by Walter Kirn, who previously penned Thumbsucker (1999), which too was subsequently made into a quality film. Shot by Eric Steelberg (Juno; 500 Days of Summer), the visuals are excellent, and there is (like in Juno) a creative opening credit sequence. There are also several effective segments featuring real life fired workers from Detroit and St. Louis who were told they were being interviewed for a documentary, a facet that imbues the film with a resonance it might have otherwise lacked. These portions were added in response to the recent economic downturn, a decision that ties the film to the many Americans who have recently faced layoffs and firings themselves.   

Danny McBride has an amusing turn as Ryan’s soon to be brother in law. Cameos by JK Simmons; Sam Elliott; and Zack Galifanakis add flavor. Downsizing and the ongoing technologization of the workplace are relevant and timely themes, and there are ideas about family/commitment/love as it relates to personal freedom and professional success. The theme of human connectivity runs throughout the film as well, as Ryan begins confronting his life as others see it, with the cold anonymity of traveling on the road juxtaposed with the warmth of Ryan’s hometown roots. A quality, well paced story with a bevy of humor, snappy dialogue, and engaging performances from an impressive cast.

Invictus (USA) Directed by Clint Eastwood  Written by Anthony Peckham  Starring Morgan Freeman; Matt Damon; Tony Kgorogue; Marguerite Wheatly; Patrick Mofoheng; Patrick Lyster; Julian Lewis Jones; Leliti Khumalo

The prolific Clint Eastwood gives us this adaptation (by screenwriter Anthony Peckham) of the book Playing the Enemy by John Carlin. The story focuses on the newly elected South African President Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) and his attempts to rally the country around the national rugby team, The Springboks, a squad that served as a longstanding symbol of white separatism, and allegiance to a government that treated blacks as something less than human.  

This is not the Mandela bio-pic one might have expected. The sweeping scope fits director Eastwood’s strengths, but Mandela’s entire personal and professional past, incarceration, eventual release and political ascension, world wide human rights activism, and national and international political life as president are not examined in any detail. Instead, the film focuses on a specific place in time, concentrating on one aspect of Mandela’s early leadership. This approach allows Eastwood to dodge the kind of episodic torpor that often afflicts films about the lives of famous people, but, perhaps naturally, much is lost in the tradeoff.  

Mandela, an attorney who spent twenty seven years in prison due to Apartheid, was elected in 1994 at age seventy five, largely by blacks who were newly allowed to vote. Facing monumental challenges in uniting a violently divided country, he chose to retain the old national anthem, as well as the rugby team (both important symbols of the old South Africa), but attempted to co-opt both by altering what they stood for. The struggling team became a vehicle toward which he could channel common and collective energy, and eventually the team would, improbably, meet the heavily favored juggernaut All Blacks from New Zealand in the World Cup final.

Invictus is Latin for unconquered, a term taken from a William Ernest Henley poem that inspired Mandela while locked up on Robben Island (where ironically he also routed against the Springboks). A bit of a paint by numbers affair, at two hours and fourteen minutes the film also feels a bit long. Freeman looks the part, and though the accent is far from pristine he has the necessary gravitas to play a man known and revered the world over, something that couldn’t be said for many actors, famous or not. While the lack of consistent accent is a tad distracting, and his performance strays far from impression, he seems to capture the spirit of the man, and this hard to define aspect of his portrayal redeems the representation, making it an ultimately successful one.   

Though significantly physically smaller than the real life man, Matt Damon is nonetheless fine as team captain Francois Pienaar. Damon clearly bulked/toned up for the role, and seems believable in the hard hitting sports action sequences, though American audiences may be kinder in their assessment in this area than those located in places where the sport is a national obsession. The film attempts to bridge this gap for non-fans by having the players explain the rules to a group of children at one point, although it probably doesn’t matter. Like The Longest Yard , Hoosiers , Victory, and others of the type, Invictus rests in our buying in just enough to root for the underdog team as we’re supposed to, and in this regard the rules and regulations are probablysomewhat irrelevant.    

Too many platitudes and grand pronouncements are woven into the dialogue, making the film preachy and didactic in places, something that distances an audience from buying the charcters as actual people as opposed to stock types. Also, the pervading atmosphere feels more than a bit sanitized, with nary a racial epithat uttered - perhaps all but impossible in a country of extreme systemic racial intolerance, especially during this tumultuous period when tensions were at a fevered pitch.  Further, though the main supporting players are excellent, there are some clunky moments from a few of the bit actors, a fact that rehearsals, more takes, and/or directorial massaging (practices abhored by director Eastwood) might have helped to solve.  These combined factors weaken a film with excellent visuals, solid sports action, and an emotion inducing ending.

Invictus is not, by any means, a great film, and by nature of its structure it gives short shrift to one of the most heroic figures in modern times. As a sports film, however, it does its job.

The Road (USA) Directed by John Hillcoat  Written by Joe Penhall  Starring Viggo Mortensen; Charlize Theron; Kody Smit-McPhee; Robert Duvall; Guy Pearce; Molly Parker; Michael K. Williams; Garret Dillahunt

Much speculation surrounded the release of Australian director John Hillcoat’s The Road, including reports that last years’ cut of the film had to be re-edited to counteract the bleakness quotient as execs feared audiences would be turned off by a view of a post-apocalyptic America virtually devoid of recognizable humanity. As is, the film remains fairly dire, filled with monochromatic images of a gray, sparsely populated, and largely plant and animal-less landscape as barren as the stomachs and souls of those still inhabiting the earth.

Based on the 2006 award winning novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country For Old Men; Blood Meridian), Hillcoat and screenwriter (British playwrite) Joe Penhall don’t stray far from the source. Though there are invented details added to the mix, the film respects the book’s minimalistic base and narrow scope and includes most of the major plot points. And while it might be said that Hillcoat, directing his fourth feature, never manages to cinematically transcend the book in the way one imagines most successful literary adaptations ultimately accomplishing, there is also something to be said for the concept of fidelity, especially when it comes to re-imagining well-loved/respected work, and if nothing else The Road artfully manages not to besmirch McCarthy’s violent, spare telling. 

Whether Hillcoat captures the spirit of the novel is open to debate, but he does well evoking a washed out, burned out, and de-populated America still experiencing traumatic earthquakes and fires years after the undefined and unexplained cataclysmic event. For those who haven’t experienced the novel, the film is largely a two hander with the ever youthful middle-aged Viggo Mortensen as The Man and young Kodi Smit-McPhee as The Boy. The story is a simple one - the father and son making their way on foot to the warmer coast climate where they hope to connect with other “good people” to start a better life.

Thankfully, Mortensen and newcomer Smith are both excellent and believable together, which is a good thing because the film all but entirely rests on their performances. Charlize Theron has a smaller role as mother and wife, seen in a series of flashbacks, including several color splashed ones highlighting the actresses still stunning beauty, as The Man repeatedly dreams of images and moments of a life that was. Hillcoat also effectively employs name actors like Guy Pearce (fellow Aussie and lead in his previous film, The Proposition); Molly Parker; Michael K Williams (Omar from The Wire); and Robert Duvall in supporting roles that essentially amount to cameos.

To Hillcoat’s and Penhall’s credit, they obviously decided against creating additional facts that might’ve been woven into the dialogue or voiceover (Mortensen) in order to better explain the current world situation, illuminate the specific cause and nature of the catastrophic event, or detail what exactly The Man hopes to find as he and the boy move south toward the ocean. The build is slow and meandering and even the more sensational of the sections have a muted quality to them that do not work either individually or joined together in the way that traditional thrillers, horror, or action flicks usually do. Rather, they serve merely as divergences along a narrative path that trudges forward in the same manner that The Man and The Boy do as they struggle mightily to haul their meager posessions in an old shopping cart, traversing woods, mud, and hills toward a fuzzy future neither can predict.

One of the major themes of the book and the film is the idea of forging ahead despite the negative that so often surrounds us. The concept of suicide as an opt out of the pain, and specifically as a final expedient solution for the boy if the father is killed, is one that is present throughout. Their world is filled with darkness, hunger, and predatory scavengers. The boy stands as a beacon of innocence in a dark and dismal universe, as well as being The Man’s one reason to live. For the boy, his “Papa” is the prism through which he sees the world, his protector and sole source of information about the present and the past. Always looming, however, is the threat of the many rapists, thieves, murderers, and cannibals who roam the terrain in an attempt to prey on whomever and whatever comes in their wake. In an existence fraught with a constant series of very real threats, far removed from any and all modern convenience or comfort, pleasure must be drawn from the simple - finding a rare can of Coke, playing with a small toy, the protection of some new found temporary shelter. 

The subject matter, of course, is far from novel, and the film calls to mind others of the type - Time of the Wolf; Mad Max; Waterworld; Stalker; The Stand; Le Dernier Combat; Boy and His Dog; The Quiet Earth - in its painting of a scorched post-apocalyptic world, but the book and films restraint in refusing to overtly tackle broader political or moral questions means that with the exception of several platitude infused moments we as audience avoid the kind of grand pronouncements usually afflicting films of the type. And while several scenes have the kind of scary, frenzied quality of some recent well-known zombie films, the narrative remains in the realm of the real with only the boy’s recitation of his father’s lessons as screed (based on his age, lack of education/ contact with others, and having never experienced the old world) smacking of the mythologization so prevalent in apocalyptic and dystopic fiction.

While there is a definite flatness here, some of that might be understandably attributable to the depression and disaffectedness of the beaten down, unwashed, and ill-fed characters, as well as the structure of the very film itself, containing as it does a plot constituted mostly of scenes with The Man and The Boy withstanding multiple life and death challenges as they attempt to survive their journey. The accumlated effect of their harrowing experience on an audience is equivalent to that of a boxer taking one too many jabs in the face, although it should be stressed that there is genuine and deeply felt emotion in the tender father/son connection, the one overriding tactile element of warmth in a desolate, depraved environment populated by the desperate and the deprived - individuals barely clinging to the memory of what made them human in the first place

Sin Nombre Director Cari Fukunaga  Written by Cari Fukunaga  Starring Edgar Flores; Paulina Gaitan; Luis Fernando Pena; Tenoch Fuerta Majia; Diana Garcia; Kristina Ferrer

A stunning feature debut from Cari Joji Fukunaga, the 31 year old American (of 1/2 Japanese descent) writer/director responsible for Sin Nombre (which translates to Without A Name or Nameless). Fukanaga who grew up in California, and attended NYU film school, reportedly spent research time riding the trains with Mexican and South American immigrants on their way to illegally emigrate to the United States.

The visuals (shot by cinematographer Adriano Goldman) evoke the rich, vibrant colors of the landscape, but the beautiful green scenery is juxtaposed against the squalid living conditions endured by a portion of the Mexican and Central American population. The decision to use 35mm is an interesting one in the age of the mobile HD camera, especially with a story taking place in such rough terrain, and relying on a fluid verite’ feel.

Young Willy (Edgar Flores), AKA El Casper, is a member of the local chapter of the fearsome Mara Salvatrucha (or MS-13) gang led by El Sol (Luis Fernando Pena) and his brutal right hand man Lil’ Mago (Tenoch Huerta Majia), who sports a scary full facial tattoo. Obviously feeling the weight of the internal conflict over his participation in this life of crime and violence, the seemingly pensive Willy has a beautiful girlfriend Martha Marlene (Diana Garcia), who lives outside his neighborhood. Though he has been trying to keep her a secret from the gang and vice versa, Martha is becoming increasingly suspicious of his comings and goings. Willy also worries about new 12 year old gang recruit El Smiley (Kristian Ferrer), who has been assigned to him, although he is powerless to dissuade him from the life the young boy has already chosen/been sucked into.

At the same time a dual story unfolds involving a teenage Honduran girl, Sayra (Paulina Gaitan). Reunited with her father after a long absence (he has been deported from the U.S. and is seeking to return there), she is convinced by her uncle to travel with the two of them to the U.S. to join her father’s second family in New Jersey. Sayra is clearly less than overjoyed about making the arduous and dangerous trek, but her uncle prods her by pointing out that there are no opportunities where they are. Though the distance between Sayra and her father is evident, she is completely reliant on her two older and more experienced family members to see her through safely.

Heading north, they embark on a journey through Guatemela and Mexico, riding on the top of trains as their primary means of travel. They also encounter Willy and friends along the way, and it is here that the two stories intersect and become one. Through a series of events, Sayra becomes drawn to the nearly silent Willy, who is facing an uncertain future with the threat of death lurking around every corner.

Shades of the great El Norte from Gregory Nava are evident in this violent, tragic tale. Scenes taking place at La Bombia, a kind of way station, highlight the extreme poverty and the sheer numbers of those who attempt to cross over however they can in the hopes of a better life. The young, inexperienced actors are uniformly believable, and the relationship between the emotionally scarred Willy and the innocent, confused Sayra is sensitively composed. Sin Nombre was a big hit at Sundance in 08 (winning best director and best cinematography awards) and deservedly so. Fukunaga is a director to watch.

Inglourious Basterds (USA) Directed by Quentin Tarantino  Written by Quentin Tarantino  Starring Brad Pitt; Christoph Waltz; Melanie Laurent; Diane Kruger; Michael Fassbender; Eli Roth; Mike Myers

Quentin Tarantino is the master of the B movie mash-up, with a history of creatively updating and re-invigorating some of the genres he so adores by producing hybrid, difficult to precisely categorize versions of the same. This referential approach worked to a tee in his first three films. His use of once popular (though often outdated and thus obscure) music; hyper violence; colorfully profane dialogue; vivid scenes (the kind that actors live for); and dialogue chalk full of asides referencing food and pop culture initially bowled us over in all its sheer, utter audacity and style.

There was a kind of orgiastic movie geek fest at work with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction (not to mention the one that got away, True Romance), which were shockingly stylistic, and seemed to be both solidly grounded in the gritty B gangster and crime films they mirrored, while updated with a modern sensibility and punchy, entertaining dialogue spoken by memorable characters. Although he did not originate the material for his third film  (as it was based on the novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard), Jackie Brown (1997), it seemed to represent positive growth, with characters expressing adult emotion, pain, and world weary knowingness that seemed grounded in reality as opposed to feeling like reproduced movie emotions borrowed from any number of low grade sources.

The question after the altogether excellent and underrated Jackie Brown became, what would he do next? This writer, for one, felt that Tarantino was unlikely to ever again reach the heights he’d scaled in his first three (ignoring his superior Romance script, and his pedestrian segment in the failed Four Rooms) undertakings. That is not to say that the belief here was that he wouldn’t go on to create popular films that succeeded at the box office, for his adolescent view of sex and violence comes in a package teenagers and ageless comic book and movie nerds across the globe have always, and will always, eat up. The problem is, though Tarantino can talk about classic and world cinema, though he sits as a judge at Cannes, though he requires little prompting before waxing philosophic on the history of the art of film (never failing to tout his place in the pantheon in the process), his tastes lead directly to the schlock he devoured as a youth. And try as he might in the years to come (particularly as he has stated his disinterest in adapting anyone else’s work again - ironically, the very thing that might help reign him in - the thing he is perhaps most in need of), it is going to be difficult for him to break free of those chains.

No one would deny that Tarantino is anything but an enormously talented screenwriter and director. We won’t even hold the fact that he has, for years, tried to convince us that he is also a great actor (even though his performance in every film in which he has appeared has been woeful) against him. His 2003/04 Kill Bill films received mostly glowing praise from critics and mass audiences alike, leaving some (like this writer) scratching their heads as to what all the fuss was about. In order to love a reductionist offering like Kill Bill one must, to some extent, feel nostalgic for the films they recall (i.e. 70s martial arts movies), and if one does not, and never did dig that stuff, it’s difficult to buy into all the absurd hyper violence, action, and mythic storytelling going on. One can admire the panache, one can applaud the technique and the sheer derring-do of the elaborate set pieces; myriad extras; expertly shot and designed visuals; and playfully obtuse, speech-laden dialogue, but all of these factors do not automatically translate into films that are moving, emotional, dramatic, or funny. Well done from a technical standpoint, yes, but so are any number of cartoons.

Following Kill Bill 1 & 2 (which came a full six years after Jackie Brown), Tarantino teamed with Director Robert Rodriguez, another overgrown kid who revels in the same type of fantastical escapism that floats Tarantino’s proverbial boat. Like his pal, the guitar toting Rodgriguez loves movies, and wants to take part in (and attach his name to) nearly every aspect of making them, and while his films haven’t made the same impression on professional critics that Tarantino’s have, he definitely matches his big headed comrade in arms in one area - ego. One might put forth the argument that Rodriguez hasn’t made a single quality film, but that is a discussion for another day. What is certain is that the reaction to Death Proof (Tarantino) and Planet Terror (Rodriguez), the pairs’ dual attempt to recreate a double drive-in bill was hit with decidedly mixed results. Critical reaction varied but was, on the whole, lukewarm. The films, originally intended to be shown as a package, also under-performed at the box office. While they both represent a fitting homage to the cheap action/horror/suspense 1970s B films upon which they are based, and incorporate a host of stunning visual tricks to recreate the look, they also (cleverly, of course) reproduce the bad acting and dearth of quality story-line virtually inherent in those low budget originals. Intentional or not, the two films still boil down to empty-headed exploitation, and thus their appeal is largely winnowed down to those who either feel an affinity with films of this type and/or the period in which they were shot, or those who are genuinely into the titillation and/or campyness they provide.

Which leads us to Inglorious Basterds. Tarantino has been talking about his WWII extravaganza for at least a decade, and for a long time it seemed as if this was one of those dream projects that would never get done. According to Tarantino, he couldn’t stop writing, and wound up with hundreds of pages centering on a female character out for revenge, but when he eventually made Kill Bill, employing the same basic premise, he had to scrap the unwieldy script, re-tool, change the focus, and what arose was a kind of pastiche dedicated to the WWII gang-of-misfits-out-to-pull-off-a-mission like The Guns from Navarone (1961) and The Dirty Dozen (1967). The film upon which this one owes it’s “bastardized” title, Inglorious Bastards (1978), was actually an Italian production starring Fred Williamson and Bo Swenson. Tarantino’s film, of course, also harkens back to The Seven Samurai (1954), as well as the various Westerns taking their inspiration from Kurosawa’s classic, such as the The Dirty Dozen (1967); The Magnificent Seven (1960); and of course, Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969). The difference here, however, is that those other films were after telling one story, while Tarantino is intent on giving us a number of them, and because of this we never really get to know any of Basterds other than their leader Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) as they simply aren’t on screen for very long.

Make no mistake, Inglourious Basterds is bravura filmmaking, and Tarantino’s talented hand is all over the film. It also contains an obtrusive, incongruous, distracting, and in some cases wholly inappropriate soundtrack culled mostly from various spaghetti westerns (time to hire a composer); a run time that is at least 1/2 hour too long; splashy text introducing characters with an unnecessary exclamation point; and individual scenes, constructed to build tension through dialogue, often stretched entirely too long. Told in chapters that are each like different, self-contained films, Inglourious Basterds is ultimately more like several films in one, and the tonal shifts we have come to appreciate from this director don’t always work here.  What seemed so fresh (or at least as fresh as conscious re-invention can be) in Pulp Fiction now feels overly ordered and constructed, giving short shrift to the multiple movies contained within. Somehow too there is something vaguely offensive going on. It’s as if the overall agenda of the men on a mission is merely a thinly disguised excuse for Tarantino to get his rocks off.

While something like The Producers clearly had a sharply satirical edge, one gets the feeling that Tarantino merely likes the idea of The Nazi uniform and their collective mentality as theoretical villain, and the same goes for the Jews as victims of their hate filled fascist regime (the “Jews/rat” speech being similar to his “Moor/Sicilian” one in True Romance). Perhaps it’s his utilization of this subject matter to fetishize the roles of victim and victimizer for his own dramatic purposes, and further, as an excuse to serve up his form of ultra violence; or perhaps it’s his cavalier attitude toward history as it occurred (particularly this history), or perhaps it’s some combination of these factors and more, but there’s something here that feels offensive. It’s as if the film in some way reduces these very real events, this very real history to fodder for Tarantino’s perverse fun. Altering history under the auspices of arriving at some greater artistic truth is one thing (and still problematic); re-imagining the events surrounding the Holocaust in order to jerk off is quite another. One shouldn’t forget that this history involved ethnic cleansing of historic proportions, and the vicious, unrelenting murder of millions of living breathing men, women, and children, and this kind of mingling of drama and comedy, history and fiction, seems quite a different business than Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940); Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be; or The Three Stooges skewering of Adolf Hitler and The Third Reich. The closest one could come to finding a comparison tonally would probably be the television show Hogan’s Heroes, though (despite it’s questionable taste), the shows lack of pretensions toward anything resembling serious drama at least approaches inuring it against the kind of attacks this film opens itself up to.

Playing with history is a narrative writer/director’s prerogative, but they do so at their own peril. It’s difficult to state definitively whether making mincemeat out of the events of the Holocaust is acceptable at a base level from either a moral or artistic standpoint, but in these hands it certainly pushes the entire affair into comic book territory. Brad Pitt belongs, in fact, in a Coen Brothers film, playing Nazi hunter Raine with a knowing, winking irony. The hillbilly accents a gaff, and never for a moment (unexplained rope burn on the neck aside) do we think he’s anything but Brad Pitt having a good time. It might even be possible to imagine that this characterization might represent a mere (though more accurately, major) miscalculation by the actor, except that this is Tarantino’s baby all the way, and he knows exactly what he wants, and Pitt’s joke of an accent is far from the only element of whimsy here. And that’s the strange thing about Tarantino in general, and specifically the film itself - it’s schlock dressed up as serious art, and what’s stranger still is Tarantino seems deadly serious about it - or, is it just that he’s deadly serious about himself? It is perhaps even more troubling to consider that Tarantino is (like Raine) from Tennesse and also reportedly (like Raine) part American Indian, which leads one to believe that he rather inexplicably views Pitt/Raine as some version of himself, like a child dreaming of being a handsome badass superhero. Boy.

Equally as perplexing is the presence of a group of excellent European actors who are all but marooned on their individual (though literally overlapping) island sequences. The standouts include Melanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus, a Jew who owns a Paris cinema; Brit Michael Fassbender as film critic/operative Lt. Archie Cox; and Diane Kruger as actress/spy Bridget von Hammersmark. Well noted by now is the breakout performance by German TV actor Christoph Waltz as Colonel Hans Landa. Waltz is exceptional as the devious, multi-lingual officer, relishing the chunks of dialogue he’s given, while keeping himself restrained enough to avoid veering into cartoonland, something that cannot be said for Pitt. Each of the above mentioned characters (Raines excluded) is compelling enough to have commanded far more screen time, and it’s obvious that their performances must in part be credited to Tarantino (it would be silly to imply that the director does not know actors or performance), but they are so good that there are numerous times when their very presence seems in direct conflict with any of the Basterds sequences, as well as the overall ironic tone of the film itself. And tone is perhaps the biggest problem here - Tarantino’s film isn’t parody, farce, or comedy, but surely this isn’t meant to be taken literally (because if it is the director really has lost touch with reality).

While a variety of scenes (most notably those involving Pitt and Waltz) are clearly set up for the main players to let it all hang out, encouraging excess or at least actorly flourish, in terms of the movie as a whole it’s as if thespians like Waltz, Laurent, Kruger, and Fassbender are all dressed up with no where to go. Thus, when we cut to certain visually over-dramatized shots demonstrating the abject terror some of them will ultimately face there can be no genuine emotional response from the audience because the film itself is too ridiculous to have fully enlisted our sympathies at any point in the proceedings (a scene involving Raine using a foreign accent is dumb enough to render any serious aspirations moot). Thus, several of the concluding scenes come off as forced melodrama, or so much pastiche-like nods to true dramas of the kind, but the intent and effect is muddied to the extent that there is a genuine disconnect in terms of their causal linkage to the rest of the film. These indulgent, soapy mini-denouments further demonstrate the fact that Tarantino wants it all from his audience - he wants us in on the jokes, and having fun with the wild characters and long winded dialogue, enjoying the irony of his distance, bemused by the insider cinema talk,  charmed by the incongruous inclusion of a style befitting the era of moviemaking he is enamored with (and not the period in which the film takes place); reveling in the extreme violence; accepting the more dramatic scenes at a surface level; and… oh yeah, he wants us to feel too.

A perfect illustration of enough never being enough is the inclusion of a seemingly endless stream of filmmaking references. Not satisfied with a few insider allusions to the cinema we know (we know) Tarantino loves so much, we get a lead character running a cinema; the cinema itself as setting for the climactic event of the film; Landa smoking a Sherlock Holmes like pipe; another lead who’s a German movie star; a third who’s a film critic; the character of Goebbels, propaganda film producer; a character who’s a German actor; a mention of Audy Murphy; reference to Leni Riefenstahl; a character who works as a projectionist at the theater; the appearance of an actor playing Emil Jannings; discussions about Pabst; German propaganda films; Sargeant York; Charlie Chaplin, and so on and so on…

Throughout the film the major thing that comes to mind is excess. Too many story-lines. Too many tonal shifts - or at least the absence of one that’s consistent. Too many elongated speeches. Too many characters. Too many unnecessarily oddly angled shots. Too much dialogue. Too much exposition. Too many words. Where is the person behind the scenes telling Tarantino no? Inglourious Bastards, for all it’s panache, is an example of ego run amok. A director and writer in love with his own words, and concepts, completely lacking a sense of how banal his musings often are. Fetishism substituted for genuine intellectual exploration. Stock movie characters where human beings should be. Whether it’s Top Gun; or cheeseburgers; G.W. Pabst; or Naziism, the subject matter isn’t delineated because what Tarantino is actually fascinated by is the sound of his own voice. The more meandering the speech the better as far as he’s concerned, if only because it allows his characters to say more of his cool lines. He talks about writing through his characters, while quite the opposite is true - in every character, in every speech, resides the voice of Quentin Tarantino endeavoring to prove how clever he is.

While Inglourious Basterds is filled with some wonderfully written individual scenes, marvelous design with nicely (and some lavishly) turned out set pieces; crisp, fluid visuals; and excellent performances (including one career making turn); as well a bevy of great (although not all completely formed) ideas (or at least scenarios), it fails (despite its lofty ambitions) to hang together as anything close to a classic. And because it comes from one man, an auteur director who wants the glory and the criticism that comes with that, its failures can only fall on one person’s shoulders. Here, Tarantino gets an A for audacity and style. Of course, it’s not his talent or nerve that’s in question, rather, his inability to edit himself, as well as some unquestionably questionable taste.

Lorna’s Silence (FR) Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne; Luc Dardenne Written by Jean-Pierre Dardenne; Luc Dardenne  Starring Arta Dobroshi; Jeremie Renier; Alban Ukaj; Anton Yakovlev; Fabrizio Rongione; Olivier Gourmet

There is something unyielding about the films made by the Dardennes (Luc and Jean-Pierre), the Belgian brothers who write and direct films that practically moan with authenticity. Their fidelity to life being lived as opposed to the stylization that colors much of the narrative film landscape, at times leaves audiences with the feeling they are watching life unfold before the camera.

In terms of the subject matter and setting, The Dardennes have located all of their four previous features in their home town of Dairang, and each of these stories have been about people living on the edge of society, those barely making ends meet. There are other directors who thrive in this gritty milieu - Brit Ken Loach is perhaps the best known (and this film harkens to his recent It’s a Free World in its focus on foreign labor), but newer directors like Irishman Lenny Abrahmson (Adam and Paul; Garage) and American Bahrin Ramani (Chop Chop; Man Push Cart; Goodbye Solo) are two of note who also create character studies about members of the underclass.

The Dardennes have been as faithful as anyone in terms of setting parameters and sticking to them. These “rules” are self-imposed of course, in the same way that members of the French New Wave established certain aesthetic criteria before making particular films, blending genres and creating new ones in the process; or the way Dogma 95 members imposed upon themselves a finite list of limitations governing how they would shoot their films. And yet with The Dardennes, one feels (as one does with Loach) an intense commitment that extends beyond mere intellectual and/or artistic conceptualization or gamesmanship. Like Loach, The Dardennes got their start making documentaries about social issues effecting workers, and one feels the dedication they must have to a certain world view, telling stories that expose societal ills, and also put a human face on a marginalized class of people who are often dehumanized by society as a whole.

It is perhaps because of this strict adherence to a set of aesthetics developed amongst themselves that there has been some degree of negative audience and critical reaction to the slight shift in tone and structure demonstrated in Lorna’s Silence. While we still get intimate close-ups with extended scenes that, at times, reveal little more than simple everyday actions and/or moments of quiet introspection on the part of our protagonist; characters struggling around the poverty line who are endeavoring to improve the quality of their lives; the presentation of difficult moral dilemmas faced by these same protagonists; and a telling (nearly) devoid of scored music, there is more plotting here - a story that seems somehow more constructed, more written.

Perhaps to those purists out there, and those devotees of all things Dardenne, this shift represents some form of sacriledge that the brothers are committing upon the temple they have erected. However, it is the artists’ prerogative (and perhaps even responsibility) to change and evolve, and whatever results from taking chances on a piece by piece basis, these changes (one hopes anyway) will ultimately lead to discovering new avenues of expression for said artist that will continue to be reflected in some form in their later work.

Lornas Silence is set in Liege, an industrial city housing in its confines and among its population a cross-section of newer legal and illegal immigrants. One of these is Lorna (Arta Dobroshi), an ethic Albanian and dry cleaner worker. She and her boyfriend, itinerant laborer and fellow Albanian Sokol (Alban Ukay), dream of owning their own snack bar, but need money to make it a reality. The two have already partnered with Taxi/cafe owner/thug Fabio (Fabrizio Rongione) by having arranged a fake marriage between Lorna and drug addict Claudy Moreau (Dardenne favorite Jeremie Renier). As a result, Lorna has her EU/Begian citizenship now, but the next step is to divorce/get rid of Claudy in order to marry Russian Andrei (Anton Yakovlev) so that he too can gain his prized legal entry.

As Claudy attempts to get clean from heroin, Lorna’s conscience is under scrutiny as she becomes increasingly uncomfortable with her role in the scheme. The Dardennes also include some additional elements in the mix, which point to larger metaphysical/philosophical questions regarding morality and guilt, the kind of hazy abstraction mostly missing from their previous work. Still, the question of personal morality and one’s responsibility to behave in a righteous way as juxtaposed by the struggle to meet basic human needs is not much different from the challenges faced by previous Dardenne protagonists - in Rosetta, a young girl willing to do almost anything to get a job; a troubled young man in L’Enfant dealing with his unwanted child; a father in The Son, haunted by the past and trying to reconcile his conflicting emotions.

There is something different here - additional plotting, suspense arising from the possibility of several different potential outcomes, that contribute to a general feeling of the film being more “written” than simply unfolding before out eyes, but the slightly enhanced scope is but a veering from an ingrained course as opposed to a full turn in style, and perhaps to assuage the worries of a faithful audience Olivier Gourmet even arrives a police inspector, as if to prove that these are, in fact, the same guys. And yet, at the end of the film - WALLAH, there it is, some scored music shows up. It will be interesting to see what these talented auteurs do next. Could a technicolor musical be in the offing?