Paranoid Park

Gus Van Sant is a weird dude. Okay, that's unfair - he's just not a Hollywood dude and I should add that I don't think that is a bad thing. He just refuses to be categorized. Big time Director with a capital D - sure - think Good Will Hunting, To Die For, Milk. Independent film maker with an eye for teen angst - you bet - My Own Private Idaho, Elephant and Paranoid Park. Likes to thumb his nose at studios and Big Money - well let's remake Psycho... exactly like the original, cheesy dialogue and all but in color. hmmmm.

Paranoid Park is based on a novel by Blake Nelson and is set in a real skatepark in Van Sant's native Portland. Perhaps that is what drew him to the material. The story revolves around Alex (Gabe Nevins) who's disaffection draws him methodically through his days, until the accidental death of a security guard seems to give him a reason to breathe. The skaters, the oblivious adults and the urban blight seem to coalesce into... not much. It's hard not to watch though, lovingly filmed and framed - and Nevins is so pretty.

Sooo, I don't know. Verdict is still out on how Van Sant keeps getting money (even small amounts) to make these sort of ego driven visual cotton candy movies. All shiny and no substance? I have to admit that his fascination with his star is founded (Nevins is a natural, most of the other teens in the film are stilted) if a little creepy in its dedication. But long moments of the camera lingering hungrily on Nevins walking, or skating, or taking off his shirt??? hmmm. Another review here.

Reservation Road

Terry George displayed a gift for handling difficult subject matter with Hotel Rwanda. That was a big story with big implications and Reservation Road is a more subtle thing. Again, with the difficult subject matter, but this time George endeavors to show us both sides of the story - walking a careful line and reserving judgement for the viewer. It is both deft and heartbreaking, and aided (as was Hotel) by some incredibly talented actors.

The story starts with two families wrapping up their weekends. Ethan and Grace (Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly) are driving the kids home from a lakeside concert. Dwight (Mark Ruffalo) is racing home late from taking his son to the ball game - an extra innings, angry ex-wife sort of desperation about him. Dwight bolts in fear from the accident that leaves Ethan's son dead on the side of the road. What follows is a sort of descent into hell - Ethan from grief and Dwight from guilt.

This could have been another overdone vigilante film, but it isn't. Ruffalo brings such human vulnerability to Dwight, showing a depth of pain and desperation that easily matches the anger and frustration of Phoenix. The two men show a range of emotion often alien from films with men as protagonists, and the women of the film get to demonstrate some rarely seen female rationality. The ending is just about pitch perfect. Worth the watch... see another review here.

Fugitive Pieces

It is the rare film that stays with you. You know what I mean. The type of thing that haunts your head with images and words that linger and slide past your defenses; snapshots that stick around and crop up in unexpected places. Fugitive Pieces is such a film, so lyrical and lovely and ripe with human experience that I found myself thinking of it as poetry. This is my favorite type of film - one that takes you to another facet of our humanity - and takes you there with all your senses.

Told largely in the fragmentary flashbacks of memory, this is the story of Jakob (Stephen Dillane)who at seven years old watches in terror as his parents are murdered by Nazis in occupied Poland. Jakob escapes to the woods where he is rescued by Athos (Rade Serbedzija)who successfully smuggles him out of Poland to Greece. Jakob is haunted by images of his sister being dragged away, but the war comes to an end and Athos packs them off to live in Canada - far from memories. Despite the love and dedication of his 'godfather' Jakob grows into a brilliant writer but a deeply lonely man as "living with ghosts requires solitude." But through the love of friends, themselves all in some ways victims of the war, Jakob finally makes peace with his ghosts and learns to love, and live, again.

Jeremy Podeswa delivers a masterful adaptation of Anne Michael's novel - beautifully framed and lovingly filmed. The acting is superb and subtle as well; I was particularly smitten with Serbedzija and his expressive eyes. This lovely film may well break your heart, but it demonstrates the ever remarkable ability of the human heart to heal. See more here.

In Bruges

Have you ever been to Bruges? Me neither. Apparently it is an amazingly beautiful little city in Belgium, complete with canals and spectacular medieval architecture. Who knew? Anyhooter, Bruges is the fabulously picturesque setting of this black little comedy... and it has a part to play, so to speak. As anyone who has been stuck for any significant length of time in a tourist trap can attest, a gorgeous backdrop can be remarkably tedious and more than a little sad.

So what happens In Bruges, is that Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are stuck hiding out in a cozy little hotel room for two after a poorly dispatched assassination. Crime boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) is rather adamant that they stay in Bruges, see the sights and lay low. Ray is having a hard time of playing tourist and having an even harder time of dealing with his new profession. Ken is trying to enjoy the vacation. There are lots of very odd and funny bits about tourists (American and obese) and dwarfs. There are lots of odd and funny bits about honor and responsibility regarding killing people. There is a fair amount of blood.

In the end, I would say that this was a moderately clever, mostly entertaining bit of blackness with some fine actors having a bit of fun. Fiennes does a splendid job as the psychotic Harry, hamming up the accent and the f-word. Colin does his vulnerability shtick and Gleeson is solid as the ever-faithful regular-guy sort of killer for hire. You end up sort of liking them all in a vaguely disturbing kind of way. Charming and offensive all at once. And Bruges is really gorgeous. See another review here.

Rails & Ties

Contrary to popular belief, I can be as sentimental as the next gal. True, I am unforgiving of the sort of trite sentimentality that seems to be prerequisite of the 'chick flick,' and I am unrepentant in my avoidance of anything that might qualify. Rails and Ties snuck in under my radar; probably because I don't think of Kevin Bacon as the sort of actor who would choose to be in one. My bad. This is definitely a chick flick, and it is achingly sentimental - heck, my husband cried. What it isn't is trite - although the story is fantastical and no, Virginia, life rarely works out in quite this tidy a fashion.

Tom (Bacon) is a train engineer who is having a lot of trouble dealing with the fact that his wife, Megan (Marcia Gay Harden) is dying of cancer; he's having so much trouble dealing with it that she is near to leaving him... determined to make the most of the time she has left. Then Tom makes a judgement call in a train vs. car situation that results in the death of a young woman, and makes an orphan of her 13 year old son (convincing newcomer Miles Heizer.) When Davey eludes Child Protection and shows up at their doorstep to confront Tom, Megan is smitten and unable to turn him away.

This is the first feature film directed by Alison Eastwood, (yep, that would be Clint's daughter) and she seems to have the family gift for drawing out memorable performances. Harden is blessed with looks that seem to meld into Everywoman- she is remarkably real and beautiful while trying to look plain and simple. Her Megan is glorious in her pain and vulnerability. The ending may be fairy stuff, but the journey seems genuine in its exploration of grief and healing. See the website here, and don't give me any chick flick crap....

Burn After Reading

Can't tell you how many people told me in no uncertain terms that they hated this movie. Enough that I put off a viewing despite George Clooney and, did I mention and? Brad Pitt. I love George Clooney in a would bear him children sort of way. I love Brad Pitt (although I'm not sorry Angelina is doing the bearing.) But I put off the movie because a number of folks really, really, really didn't like it and then I realized that all these folks were younger than me. Yes, this has bearing. It takes a certain maturity to truly appreciate irony. To enjoy anything by the Coen Brothers requires a deep seated love of the ironic. Oh, and this is really a film about middle aged angst... something the younger folks just aren't going to get. Go figure.

The story in a nutshell - middle aged Linda (Francis McDormand) has decided that nothing short of radical plastic surgery will find her a man, so when her brain dead buddy (Brad Pitt is hilarious!) at the fitness center finds what is apparently a CD of spy type stuff she sets off to sell it to the Russians. Middle aged Osbourne (John Malkovich) has been let go from his post at the CIA as a low level analyst - it's really just his financial records that our dubious duo are trying to peddle; dropped by middle aged Harry (George Clooney) who's boffing Osbourne's viper of a wife (Tilda Swinton) and anything else that walks including Linda. Lost yet? It gets incredibly worse and people end up living impaired and the CIA tidies everything up in the end. Don't they always?

The ever jovial Coens actually wrote these parts for these very actors and take great glee in taking ridiculously handsome men like George and Brad and making them simply ridiculous dorks. Of course, they've played with Francis (Fargo) and George (O Brother, Where Art Thou) before - but they sure had fun with Brad. So, I laughed at the irony and I laughed at Brad Pitt playing a mindless muscle head and I even laughed at the outrageous and unexpected violence. I hate it when they get me to do that... but I do love it so. Check out the website here.

The Counterfeiters

What I enjoy about foreign films is usually based on how different they are from our domestic product. Films that are made not only in a language other than English, but also in a context other than the American worldview, are a completely refreshing window into the larger world. From that point of view, The Counterfeiters is a bit of a disappointment. Other than language, this Austrian film could have been made on a Hollywood sound set - with production values, writing, and acting that is definitely on a par with anything made in the US. And, sadly, this is the film that beat out Pan's Labyrinth for the best foreign language film of 2007.

The film is based loosely on on the memoirs of Adolf Burger and his participation in Operation Bernhard - the Nazi plan to destabilize the Allied war effort by flooding the UK and US economies with counterfeited cash. Life in the special barracks at Sachsenhausen is luxurious for a concentration camp, but the hand picked specialists are still prisoners - stripped of their families and their dignity. The story centers around Burger (August Diehl) with his deep seated desire to resist the Nazis in every possible way and Sorowitz (Karl Markovics) who pragmatically simply want to survive.

As a film about the horrors of the Holocaust, this is pretty mild stuff - our protagonists are subtly removed from the worst of it. It's an interesting story anyway - particularly regarding the CO Herzog, who believes in a very unNazi way that you can get more flies with honey than vinegar. As I mentioned, the production values are superb, and the acting is top notch. But I'm afraid to say that I didn't feel I got anything more out of the experience than a history lesson. Just Ok. See the website here, (artsy and none too easy to navigate.)