MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO - April 18th at the Belcourt

The 40th Nashville Film Festival

I've hardly written about films this year at all. In fact, I only wrote about my favorite movie this year, and only informally. So this is a banged-out, more informal approach to a top ten. Hopefully less permanent, less serious, less self-serving. Screw everyone else, I thought it was another great year for movies. For me. Here are the ten that had the biggest impact on me, from ten to one.

Werner Herzog takes his eternal questions of man and nature to the most remote place on earth: Antarctica. He interviews the people working at the south pole, wondering who these characters are and what forces brought them here to this desolate, surreal landscape. The results, as is always the case with Herzog, are humorous, bizarre, fascinating. And in some cases, extremely poignant. A movie that made me look at life differently after leaving the theater, after such a journey into the unknown.

The first movie by Harmony Korine that I really connected with. And definitely a departure for a director who has seemingly become so stereotyped. Diego Luna is Michael Jackson impersonator and Samantha Morton is a Marilyn Monroe in a dreamlike fantasy of a film in the spirit of Fellini. It's a beautiful and organic tribute to the search for individuality and acceptance; It's a very personal movie about feeling on the outside of the world, trying on different selves, and finding other people in the same boat. And running off with them to a utopian castle in Scotland and feeling for a little while like you could live forever. It's not perfect, but it defined what I loved in movies this year: speaking to something within me personally that I just couldn't shake.

Kelly Reichardt's beautiful followup to OLD JOY is short and sparse, a seemingly short story about a young woman who loses her dog and almost loses everything. But that doesn't make it any less a great film. Actually, a whole lot about the daily struggles we experience in life can be found in this deceptively simple tale. Michelle Williams is incredible here, and the minimal style is right up my alley. Plus, at 75 minutes, you can't beat that running time. After two films I'm confident that Reichardt will emerge as one of the most talented American filmmakers of her generation.

A movie that just seemed to be written from life. Too rarely, small independent films, original screenplays like this, come along and really feel true-- to the nature of family dynamics, to the unique individuality of couples... Music lover Jonathan Demme really uses music every chance he gets to breathe authenticity into the scenario; Some say the dinner, reception, and Rachel's wedding overall goes on too long, but I loved how it makes you feel like you're there, with real people, watching a real couple who really loves each other, and a real family whose issues, secrets and traumas are as real as it gets.

The most misunderstood movie of the year. First, I hoped American moviegoers would be on board for the Wachowski brothers psychedelic, pop-art rollercoaster-- a live-action anime mismarketed as a Hollywood kids movie. People called the plot convoluted (it's not) and the running time too long (it's shorter than tons of movies including this year's biggest one). Surely a movie like this -- the biggest acid-trip of a movie Hollywood has produced this century-- would go over well in Japan. Nope, it tanked there too. Now it's just me and a growing legion of secrets fans, enjoying for ourselves the wonder of this fantastic and imaginative motion picture-- a dark and archetypal story of loss, brotherhood, and the little guy taking down the system (you can trace Star Wars right over it)--- and a movie that continues to push the boundaries of film language, treating the screen as a canvas of abstract color and every cut as an opportunity to move us *through* the movie rather than pulling us alongside it.

What can I say about the biggest movie since TITANIC that hasn't already been said? First, that the stupid sonar sequence has got to go. Secondly, that Gary Oldman is the man. And lastly, that I told you Heath Ledger would get an Oscar nomination for The Joker before the movie even started shooting. Now I'm just waiting to watch him win it.

Where the vampire movie meets the GDSM (the Goddamn Sam Movie). Set in the snowy suburbs of Sweeden-- a Chris-Van-Alsburg two-tone town where the sun is always down and no one is around-- two children meet. One is an outsider, ridden with angst. The other appears to him as a both an angel and a demon, trapped in death, defined by lonliness. Adolescence, as this list will reveal, interests me almost more than anything else in movies. This one says more about the lonliness of growing up than it does about being a vampire, but as a vampire movie its just as haunting. Great deaths, the most beautiful score I've heard in years, and a perfect ending. Huge jump up to the top three from here.

The best Pixar movie since their debut. The pinnacle of contemporary animation. A quasi-silent film that rediscovers and celebrates the power of storytelling with action, movement, and pure cinema. The most romantic robot love story of them all-- and an interesting study of the masculine and the feminine, or relationships in general. A childrens film that is already considered a classic. And a post-apocalyptic cautionary tale with the most refreshing and endearing sense of hope for humankind. In a way, the quintessential movie of our time. I didn't see it at first, and then I saw the light. This is the best movie of the year. There are just two others that, personally, hit me just ever so slightly deeper.

The directorial debut of the genius Charlie Kaufman. I had to remind anyone interested that this movie was even playing, and that's without telling them that this is a movie that Ebert himself admitted one must see twice to have even seen it at all. This time, Kaufman's meta-mentality takes a theater director (a career-defining performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman) who's obsessed with death and bestows upon him the notion to create the ultimate work of theater that encompasses life itself. There is nothing in life, or death, that is not somehow addressed by this movie. Nor is there anything in the experience of love, loss, relationships, and the passing of time that is not somehow addressed in Kaufman's dream. It is a Jungian treatise, a celebration of the female muse (where Samantha Morton radiates as Kaufman's idea of the indie Bardot), and a soul-searching work of pure, personal philosophy; few movies I've ever seen have made me look at my short, fleeting, beautiful and meloncholy life in such a new, inspired way. A true work of art that must be seen and studied multiple times to truly appreciate.

But one movie-- SYNECDOCHE too, but these three are really all up here together-- had such a personal impact on me that I can't put any other movie above it. Its been years since a movie made me feel the way Gus Van Sant's PARANOID PARK made me feel. GVS reigned in his experimental side that I've so enjoyed watching bloom over the years, taking a young adult novel with a compelling plot and merging the two into a pure dream of youth. What David Lynch did for dreams GVS does here for memory-- taking us into memory itself as a teenager remembers and retraces a traumatic event that will define his grownup self. As Alex remembers, we journey into Alex's soul. It takes Alex a couple of loops through what happened before he can process it and find closure, and through incredible editing and beautiful camerawork from Christopher Doyle we explore this process with him. No other movie has ever captured my experience of being a teenager-- that inward voice of the self-- the way Van Sant has. By exploring the process of trauma, GVS captures something about the experience of growing up itself. One of my favorite films I've ever seen.

Ten more outstanding works of personal vision: HAPPY GO LUCKY, BE KIND REWIND, THE FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON, THE CLASS, FUNNY GAMES, REPRISE, THE WACKNESS, MILK, WALTZ WITH BASHIR, and VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA.

Also liked, and shouldn't leave out REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, BURN AFTER READING, A CHRISTMAS TALE, THE WRESTLER, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, IN BRUGES and docs YOUNG@HEART, AMERICAN TEEN, and MAN ON WIRE.

Worst of the year: Easily THE HAPPENING, but SEVEN POUNDS, THE X-FILES and INDIANA JONES-- for sheer dissapointment-- come close.

Tons I still haven't seen yet, but mostly stuff no one's ever heard of: BALLAST, HUNGER, STILL LIFE, THE BAND'S VISIT and IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA to name a few.

Favorite performances of the year: Philip Seymour Hoffman in SYNECDOCHE and its entire female ensemble (Samantha Morton, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emily Watson, and Hope Davis), Lina Leandersson and Kare Hildebrant in LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, Gabe Nevins in PARANOID PARK, Meryl Streep in DOUBT and MAMMA MIA, Kate and Leo in REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, Frank Langella, Sean Penn, and Mickey Rourke in FROST/NIXON, MILK and WRESTLER, and the performance of the year, Heath Ledger in THE DARK KNIGHT.

Since I'm a geek who listens to film scores as much as any other kind of music, the best scores of the year: Thomas Newman's WALL-E, Johan Soderqvist's LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, Jon Brion's SYNECDOCHE, James Newton Howard and Hanz Zimmer's DARK KNIGHT, and Alexandre Desplat's BENJAMIN BUTTON.

Ten movies I'm most looking forward to next year.... aka proof that I am a child.

1. PONYO ON THE CLIFF BY THE SEA, the new film from Japanese master Hayao Miyzazki
2. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE - Spike Jonze filmed this Sendak adaptation with giant puppet suits in New Zealand. These top two movies are among the most anticipated of my life.
3. UP - New Pixar, about an old man who goes on a safari via a flying house in honor of his late wife.
4. THE ROAD - John Hillcoat's film of Cormac McCarthy's novel hits screens this year with Viggo Mortensen.
5. BRUNO - Sacha Baron Cohen returns to wreak more havok. I just realized I don't know how to spell either wreak or havok.
6. INGLOURIOUS BASTARDS - New Tarantino war epic.
7. THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS - New Terry Gilliam, with Heath Ledger, promised by Gilliam to be as good as the best films of his career.
8. THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX - Wes Anderson with stop-motion-animator Henry Selick...
9. TWO LOVERS - Joaquin Phoenix's "last" performance before "retiring," Gwenyth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw (the hooker in Eyes Wide Shut), a remake of the 1957 Visconti/Mastroianni/Doetoyevsky "Le Notti Bianche." GDSM.
10. THE SOLOIST - Trailer for this Robert Downey Jr / Jamie Foxx weepie looks cheesy, but after Pride and Prejudice and Atonement I'll follow director Joe Wright to the ends of the Eath.

and if they come out this year, new movies from Terrence Malick, Woody Allen, the Coen Brothers, Scorsese, Ang Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Miranda July, Mike Judge, Steven Soderbergh, Michael Mann, David Gordon Green, Pedro Almodovar, Jean Pierre Jeunet, and Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Bonus treat for those still reading: my favorite albums of the year. I hardly listened to any other than these, and I don't feel like ranking them, so here they are in alpha order.

Coldplay - Viva la Vida. Yeah that's right.
Eef Barzelay - Lose Big
Explorers Club - Freedom Wind
Gabe Dixon Band - s/t
The Happy Perscriptions - The Enter Sign
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
Paper Hats - Deseret Canyon
Portishead - Third
Sigur Ros - Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust
Vampire Weekend - s/t
The Walkmen - You & Me

Thanks for reading.

Notes on PARANOID PARK.

I haven't posted in a while here, but I wanted to write out some informal thoughts on PARANOID PARK after having seen it recently. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it and I feel strongly compelled to write all this stuff down. I'm going to talk about specific structural elements of the movie and specific shots, so if you want to be pure about seeing this one I'd suggest reading this post afterwards (or not, as I'm mainly typing this just to get it all out... if it stimulates conversation then great). But I can't recommend highly enough that all of you see this movie. I truly hope that come the end of the year it's not one of those films that many never got around to seeing. Problems with IFCFilms aside, the good news is that if you can't find it in theaters you can get it on IFC on Demand with Comcast or your cable provider, and turn the lights off at home, and the sound way way way up, and watch it that way. I haven't felt this way about a film in years. Years. I hope you seek it out and experience it, and I really hope to hear what some of you think about it.

I knew from the opening credits of this movie that I would love it. See, this has been a certain trend with GDSMs (God Damn Sam Movies) released in the past several years; the opening flight-simulator sequence of HEAVEN, the long take of Damon and Affleck driving that opens GERRY, the snowy tracking shot in BIRTH. As I watched PARANOID PARK's long landscape shot of Portland, accompanied by some great ambient sound stuff that reminded me of Fridge or Four Tet, I had that same feeling... I knew it. That's not to say that I decided then and there to love the film before truly seeing it, but that I had a sneaking suspicion that, if the pattern held true, the way I felt about that opening shot would line up with how I felt about the whole film, and that I was in for something special. Something just for me.

The style of this film is exactly the kind that I love. I should qualify my initial reaction and say that it reaches the level of pure cinema intermittently... it's not as pure as, say, KOYAANISQATSI (maybe the best film I've ever seen that tells a story without words), because PARANOID PARK has a concrete story, and a good one at that. Neither is it, on the whole, as pure as ERASERHEAD, which has a very abstract story laid out in the logic of dreams. But given its source material, the young adult novel on which it's based, the result is as close to pure cinema as one could imagine. The overall affect of the film is one of pure cinema. It's the exact kind of movie that I love because rather than relying on dialogue and traditional notions of plot, it creates an entire audio-visual experience which immerses us in (rather than presents in front of us) its story. Editing, cinematography, sound, music and performance all aim towards this same cause. What David Lynch did for dreams in ERASERHEAD, Van Sant has done for memory in PARANOID PARK. He is IN memory. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

It had frankly just been a while since a movie made me feel this way. Those aforementioned GDSMs, released between 2003 and 2004, along with some others like Soderbergh's SOLARIS, approached the level of film that I dream of. And though I consider every coming year a great year for film, each year bringing many many films I consider great, even my favorite films from the past few years -- THE NEW WORLD, CHILDREN OF MEN, and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, haven't hit that truly personal level for me. And there's nothing wrong with that; every year can't give you a film that makes you feel that way. And I absolutely those movies. Stylistically, THE NEW WORLD and NO COUNTRY are actually in the realm of my ideal style... true GDSMs. It's just that in that arena, some films mean more, personally, than others. I was beginning to fear I wouldn't truly feel that way again... that my reactions to some of those films I saw in college were simply based on my context at the time. PARANOID PARK restored my belief in the movies of my dreams. And given that Van Sant's GERRY was one of the films I previously placed in my own personal pantheon, I have to now acknowledge the fact that PARANOID PARK doesn't just sit alongside those films, I think it sits above them.

Yes, even I can admit now, from this perspective, that GERRY, ELEPHANT, and LAST DAYS were mere stepping stones to what many critics are agreeing is the perfect culmination of Van Sant's talent and vision as a filmmaker. One of the things that's been making me happy about PARANOID PARK is that critics and friends who didn't like GERRY percieve this to be an improvement on the potential expressed in the death trilogy, while fans of GERRY like myself love it too. Perhaps I see them as more similar than people who didn't care for Van Sant's experimental period, but I'll be the first one to expound on how this film refines and reigns in some of Van Sant's most promising aesthetic concepts that he's been exploring in the past few years. There is a source novel, and within that a compelling story. In fact, a mystery. And a good mystery, as any businessman on a plane can tell you, can enable you to move through any formal or aesthetic shortcomings with ease; I would imagine that even the people who don't care for PARANOID PARK still found themselves curious about the outcome of its plot. But to me, and it seems to a lot of people, Van Sant is giving us something accessible again. Not just an intriguing premise and a mystery to unfold, but something more... a psychological trip into the soul of a highschooler. Nostalgia. Put it this way: it's a lot easier, and a lot more entertaining, to be transported into the experience of being in highschool than to be transported into the experience of wandering alone through a desert.

It's funny, just last week Matt and I were having an interesting talk about memory and writing and I was telling him about how all through high school I found myself kind of taking mental notes about the way things were, and that I dreamed of one day writing a screenplay about high school that would capture what I experienced to be the truth and reality about that time in one's life. The internal world of the teenager. The experience of hearing, for the first time in your life, your adult voice taking shape. Your adult self, forming minute-by-minute all around you, as that wonderous world-- school, sports, cars, girls-- comes racing by at a speed that seems hard to even take all in at once. On the surface, you might think I didn't have much in common with Alex, the protagonist of PARANOID PARK. But I can't say I've ever seen a film so truthfully explore the teenage mind and soul. That film I always thought about... this is it.

In what could be considered the film's title card, we see Alex's handwriting on the lined pages of a small journal: "Paranoid Park." This beach landscape, where he's just sat down on a lonely bench, is our present tense. The voice we hear is Alex's written word. From here, we begin to share in Alex's memories; we know that this story is going to be told through memory. It's the framing device of the film. Soon thereafter we see Alex and his friend Jared skating down the street, talking about Paranoid Park. Alex, in voiceover, is describing what we're seeing, and he sounds just like it would sound in one's mind reading these words in a journal. We see Alex say to Jared, "I don't think I'm ready for Paranoid Park," but we know he's saying that already, because in Alex's voiceover he's already told us that he said that. In fact, the dialogue from the original scene is low in volume, and Alex's voiceover is in the aural foreground. It's somewhat jarring, given how the film's trailer showed us this scene already as if it were a present-tense scene to expect as normal... now, we see that this was in fact a memory*. It's as though we're not just hearing Alex's present-tense written word, but the closest approximation to what Alex was actually thinking and feeling in the past, during that moment. And when you think about it, it makes sense. Jared is throwing the gauntlet down, saying that they should do Paranoid Park. At that moment, thoughts run through Alex's head. He says something, but it may not be exactly what he's thinking inside. This is the beginning of a whole sub-narrative about the friendship between Jared and Alex. The power struggle between them, the intimidation and tension that Alex feels, and maybe a kind of admiration or even attraction (more on that later). Van Sant shows us Alex's story through the lens of his memory, and with the soundtrack of him reflecting on these memories, giving us insight into his internal state at that time.

(* watching the trailer back now, it's such a misrepresentation of the tone, style, and pace of the movie. But like other art films released by studios in recent years, you can't blame the marketing department for cutting a trailer that promotes a more mainstream movie. It's no wonder, though, that the trailer didn't particularly get me excited, nor did it match up in my mind with what early reviews were saying about the film)

It's this sound-image structure that, to me, taps so directly into that highschool, teenage consciousness. As a teenager, let's face it, the person you project to the world around you is rarely, if not never, an accurate reflection of the person you are, or are becoming, inside. Again, it is the most emotionally and psychologically tumultuous time in one's development. I think this is the main reason that I'm so attracted to children's films and films about childhood-- because they deal with a myth that will always haunt me: coming of age. It's so fascinating to me. It's this time in your life when you are becoming yourself. In the grand scheme of your life, it's so short a period of time. But when it's happening, it can feel like an eternity. PARANOID PARK takes us directly into the heart of adolescence. Here, the internal world is a vast universe of thoughts, ideas, philosophies, rebellion, observation, imagination, desire, questioning, introspection. I won't speak for anyone else, but at some point during adolescence I found my mind just talking. A lot. A mile a minute. I heard a continuous internal monologue. Not a monologue, but many voices, a collage of thoughts. It's been that way ever since... not aggresive, rarely suffocating, almost always calm and flowing. Of course, the inner monologue is one of the all-time movie cliches, and we're all familiar with hearing a character's inner thoughts, often with a nice reverb on it, as he or she ponders the mystery in which they've found themselves. But in one scene Van Sant reveals to us Alex's internal voice in a way that shatters this cliche: Alex walks across a bridge after experiencing a certain traumatic event, and we hear the many voices in his mind, all stacked and overlapping, without agreement or clarity. This is how it was, to be a teenager. This is often how it still is.

Separately from the inner world of the teenager, there are references to the teenager's outer world that are just so spot-on, for me. In one scene, Alex drives around at night in his mom's car. As every other teen movie and TV show has taught us, the car is the literal vehicle of teenage independence, and in the context of PARANOID PARK, it's a welcome relief of sorts to see Alex in that safe haven. It's something everyone remembers. Driving around, alone, through the night. Listening to music; Alex, just like me, goes through rap, jazz, classical, and tries on all of these personalities behind the wheel. After all, in that car you can be whoever you want to be.

One of the most interesting things about this story that you have to address is the relationship between Alex and his girlfriend. I loved it. At first, it's easy to say that this girl, a blonde, shallow, seemingly popular cheerleader, is an unlikely match for the young skater Alex. But I love how the film deviates from everything we would expect from this relationship... mainly by showing Alex in scenes having fun with her, going shopping and trying on vintage clothes. We know that Alex is introverted, and I would argue sensitive, but it's surprising and refreshing seeing him in these scenes. He's like a kid. And in other scenes, when Alex sees her, we hear beautiful music. It's interesting to me how realistically the film treats the paradoxical nature of this relationship, and the complexity of his feelings for her.

This leads me to the sex scene of course. Amazing. The sound design is brilliant. As she deflowers him on the second floor of her family's house, we only hear what Alex hears-- the other kids outside in the yard. It's a great scene because, obviously, we understand that Alex is mentally elsewhere (and Nate made a good point about how we rarely see males taken advantage of or emotionally distant during sex or the loss of virginity)... but also back to that aethetics of memory that Van Sant creates. I felt like I was actually there. I could imagine that Saturday afternoon, what the weather was like, and the other kids hanging out outside. Speaking of the kids' homes, I loved how Alex used Jared's house as a changing station, sneaking in and out through the night (and, unless I'm getting this wrong, showering there too). Who didn't have a friend in high school who's house was just a safe haven for other teenagers like that? I loved that it was a big, nice house, and though Alex was sneaking in and out carefully, you got the sense that Alex had free reign to drop in on Jared's place whenever. It was just true to life. And then the space of Alex's home... cheaper, minimal, empty. I loved when Alex is studying in the living room but then feels uncomfortable when his dad approaches him, and so he moves into his room for privacy... in these moments the adolescent is almost testing the waters of adulthood (can I hang out in the grownup space? no... a bit to scary still...). The parent characters were really fascinating to me, but more on that later.

The sound design on the whole film is brilliant. It plays a bigger role than we are used to. It plays a huge role in what I consider to be the defining, most memorable shot in the whole film-- the shower shot. I'm tempted to say it's the most iconic shower scene since PSYCHO, which Van Sant coincidentally re-shot himself already. But just as a piece of art, this one shot itself, I was completely blown away. Nate or Joe or someone else can bust this thing open and tell me exactly how it was technically achieved, but as Alex showers after the traumatic event (we are teased this image once earlier), he is enveloped by the water, by sound, by what has just happened. The water drips down his hair and we're suddenly not looking at a teenage boy, but a massive obscure object, an uncanny form, a terrifying vision. It almost looked like a bullet-time effect, or like a technique I may have seen in a Bjork video. As Alex leans against the wall and holds his hands to his face, it's as though the whole image of him is melting away. It's one of the greatest moments of abstraction I've ever seen... the image of Alex showering becomes something else entirely, and it's absolutely terrifying. One thing I didn't notice at the time for being to deep in the image, is that apparently we start hearing swarms of birds in this moment, as though the birds seen behind Alex on the wallpaper have come to life. All I remember was an ERASERHEAD-like drone of terrifying sound.

Every shot in PARANOID PARK has meaning and is so beautiful to me. Some other favorites of mine: Alex sitting poolside, and in a matter of six or eight seconds it appears that the sun goes down and night falls... some kind of exposure trick that just blew me away. The last three shots of the film were incredible... I won't ruin them or do any injustice to them in describing them. The shot of the security guard, when we see from Alex's point of view what's happened to him, is one of the most disturbingly surreal images I've ever seen outside of a Lynch film. It's no wonder he was traumatized (more on that later too).

And of course the skating shots. I would love to take a look at skateboarding films as a genre, and I'm sure someone already has, but it really interest me, and I'm sure there is a LOT of overlap, genre-wise, with surfing movies. But anyways, skating is to PARANOID PARK as flying is to Miyazaki. Basically, it's heaven. Alex isn't a hardcore skater, but he's adopted the image of one as a possibility of who he might want to be. When he visits Paranoid Park, it's a place of complete freedom and independence, but it's also a place of adulthood. Not that there are adults there; but the people around him are older than he is, and he looks up to the citizens of Paranoid. It's a threshold, an arena of adulthood in a way. As he sits there on the side of the ramp, we have no idea what will happen next... will he make a move? will he be approached? will it be friendly or hostile? or will he just observe the surroundings, a fly on the wall? Meanwhile, the skating sequences shot on 8mm are transcendent in their beauty. We're already one level deep into Alex's memory, and when we transition into these unique formal sequences we descend levels deeper into Alex's consciousness. Skating is Alex's independence, or what we wishes his independence to be represented by, and these sequences are a dive into Alex's dream self. And diving in we swim. Speaking of surfing, in these sequences I was struck by how much it felt like these guys were moving over the crests of ocean waves, and that we were swimming behind them. In this sense, skateboarding is just surfing with wheels (again, I want to come back and look more closely at this skating/surfing thing sometime). Van Sant's editing is great here too, and once again the sound design... watch and pay attention to how we transition into these sequences. The transitional shots and sounds that take us deeper into this state of consciosness. Perfectly done.

Almost all of Van Sant's films have been given gay readings. In ELEPHANT and LAST DAYS you have gay scenes coming almost out of nowhere (not that they don't belong... some might say they just felt a little forced), whereas PARANOID PARK has a potential gay reading to it but it's not overt... and the gay reading is actually more interesting and complex than in his other recent films, if you choose to see it. It didn't even cross my mind when I saw the film, but then reading about it online I came across some great interpretations. They addressed Alex's possible attraction to Jared, yet to fully develop or be acknowledged, and most notably the possible truth behind Alex's parents' situation. Alex's dad (who Alex interestingly feels like he should go talk to when he's in desperate need) is divorcing Alex's mom, and comes to Alex to say goodbye and give a very weak explanation for the divorce. We know he's been staying at Uncle Tommy's, but what I never thought about is the idea that Uncle Tommy could have been the cover story for a relationship dad was secretly having... perhaps he didn't realize he was gay when he married her and had Alex... and when you look at it this way, it's a hell of a lot heavier when dad tells Alex earnestly that he never meant for any of this to happen. Either way you look at it, I loved the one scene showing Alex's mom. We only see her from the back, but in one exchange of dialogue we learn so, so much about her, and about her relationship with Alex. She's basically cool as shit. Alex is in Alex's world. For many teenagers, nothing a parent can do can change this. I just thought it was cool to see the mom be really supportive and let Alex have his freedom. Too often teen problems in movies point right to their cliched parents. This movie has a fresh approach to its issues of family, and it says a lot with a very small amount of scenes.

Back to Alex's journal. Almost halfway through the film, we see Alex write again, "Paranoid Park." So the shot I previously considered the title card (aka the beginning) is here again. Is the narrative starting over in some way? Towards the end of the film, Alex's friend suggests that he write about what happened to him as a way of coming to terms with it. So now we know that what Alex has been writing (and saying in voiceover) is that very letter, written to this friend. But here's the thing-- we've seen Alex tear pages out of the journal and crumple them up only to start over again. Reflecting back on the structure of the whole film, you realize that when we see the title card again, it's Alex writing a new version of the story. So what's the difference between the first version and the second version, and why did he throw the first one out? Here's my take on it. In the first half of the film, which I'll call Alex's "first draft," we are given a kind of all-access into Alex's memory. Once he starts his "second draft," the narrative (fragmented as it may be) begins again. But this time, we hardly hear Alex in voiceover at all, or at least we hear him far less than during the first pass. My first interpretation of this, given the generally pleasant, sedated nature of the first half and the more ominous tone of the second, was that this may be a sort of structural film, in which we see two possible narratives: one in which he didn't do whatever this detective is accusing him of, and one in which he did. But when I realized Alex was actually re-writing his story, I understood what I now can only assume is the meaning intended here: that Alex, during his first draft, had actually not realized what he had "done." He was traumatized. When he starts the narrative again, it is here that he uncovers what happened to him. It was repressed, and he had to find it again. This is why in the first half, we see a couple glimpses of what we will see fully later on. Remember: everything we're seeing is what he's writing and remembering. So when we see the incident at the train tracks for the first time, we may assume Alex is revisiting it for the first time too. When he looks at the security guard, he is confronting this event in the present as well. And then that third-to-last shot... given this interpretation, is extremely devastating... or maybe beautiful... I don't know what to make of it yet. Other than that he has confronted what's happened. He's lost his innocence.

The best moment of the movie for me might not have been any of the gorgeous shots or image/sound syntheses, but when Alex sits with his friend and tells her with deadly seriousness that he now sees in the world "different levels... of stuff."

Just over a year after launching my own blog, I up and left everyone hanging with total of one post this year. Life got in the way, but I'm here now to make it up to you with a 2007 recap. After spending the last several years keeping up with over 100 new movies each year, I set a new rule for myself in 2007: Watch less mediocre new releases, and use those 120 minute chunks instead to see some great films I've never gotten around to seeing. I didn't quite fulfil my idea of a 50/50 split, but I did manage to save some money I would have surely regretted spending (PIRATES 3, SHREK THE THIRD) and crossing off some big titles on my list (THE GODFATHER PART II, ON THE WATERFRONT). But aside from these heavyweights I had many other discoveries this year, and to honor that I'm starting a new tradition of an additional top ten, highlighting older movies I've just discovered.



1. ERASERHEAD - Lynch at his deepest and darkest. A journey into the subconscious. 2. GONE WITH THE WIND - More bold and more beautiful than I even imagined it would be. 3. THE SEVENTH CONTINENT - My introduction to Michael Haneke, who brought me such other disturbing joys as FUNNY GAMES and THE PIANO TEACHER. 4. NAKED LUNCH - A dream-like exploration of creativity, writing, and adaptation. 5. BLOOD SIMPLE - The brilliant beginning to my re-education with the Coen brothers. 6. THE FILTH AND THE FURY - The incredible story of the Sex Pistols, told as a cinematic collage. 7. HARLAN COUNTY U.S.A. - Maybe the best documentary I've ever seen, and one that makes you re-think your place in the world. 8. DON'T LOOK BACK - A fly on the wall during the most fascinating of Bob Dylan's chapters. 9. ROGER & ME - Michael Moore first brings to light the American issues we've yet to acknowledge. 10. THE NOTEBOOK - I cried in spite of myself. A classic Hollywood film.

Other discoveries: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, THE LAST WALTZ, LITTLE BIG MAN, THE RED BALLOON, BARTON FINK, FUNNY GAMES, ALPHAVILLE, THE FLY, PIERROT LE FOU, ON THE WATERFRONT, THE KARATE KID, THE GODFATHER PART II

But contining on...

...there's nothing like the allure of a dark movie theater for me, and it would be almost impossible for a personality like myself not to keep up with new releases, especially in a year that many are calling the most outstanding in a while. For whatever reason-- maybe my aformentioned project, maybe my whirlwind of a year that had me away from home most of the time, or maybe the growing possibility of being an out-of-touch eccentric-- I didn't always agree with the popular opinion. The school of Judd Apatow just wasn't for me, as I found both KNOCKED UP and SUPERBAD simplistic, sexist, and mean. ONCE seemed like it was made just for me, but I didn't fall under its spell. I hated the critical darling WAITRESS, I felt flat out guilty for not giving TRANSFORMERS a pass, and I found it frighteningly easy to see how dangerous a movie like 300 is to our society. Meanwhile, it was the random expectation-free matinee, be it HAIRSPRAY or STARDUST or DAN IN REAL LIFE or ENCHANTED, that caught me off guard and warmed my heart.

And once again, this year more than ever, I found myself in a frustrating perdicament as a movie-goer and movie-lister: the documentaries I saw this year moved me more than almost any fiction film I saw. How do you compare the power of an imaginary story to the enlightenment brought on by a great documentary? Complicating things even further, how do I reconclie the fact that for me, the greatest achievement by far in the art of motion pictures this year was the BBC's PLANET EARTH? To remain somewhat technical, I'm leaving that epic work off my list. But I'm gonna try out the easiest solution: giving the docs their own top ten. That might be a cop out, but it's an experiement. As Taylor from Kid Nation would say, "deal with it!"



10. IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON - Letting a story be told by the ones who lived it, before their time has passed.

9. JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN - Julien Temple follows THE FILTH AND THE FURY with another artful rock doc.

8. HELVETICA - Yes, a documentary about a font, but arguably the most important and controversial font ever. How often can you say a movie truly makes you see the world differently?

7. MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES - An inconvenient truth by way of MoMA... a slideshow of civilization's imprint on the earth.

6. THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS - Steve Weibe and Billy Mitchell turn a Donkey Kong quarrel into the stuff of Star Wars.

5. NO END IN SIGHT - An investigation the US' involvement with Iraq that should not just win an Academy Award but a Nobel Prize for the caliber of its journalism.

4. INTO GREAT SILENCE - A quiet, once-in-a-lifetime look at the Carthusian monks, who live an ascetic life in the French Alps, and a meditation on the spirituality of space and solitude.

3. HEIMA - Not just an introduction to the people behind the music of Sigur Ros, but a story of a country seemingly united behind music as the band returns home to Iceland, sounding their gorgeous music across the country's spacious, alien landscapes.

2. SICKO - Michael Moore's passion trandscends its own loopholes. Here he contributes again to our disillusionment with ourselves as a country.

1. MY KID COULD PAINT THAT - First about a possible child prodigy in painter Marla Olmstead, then about parenting and the media, then, as filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev becomes a character in his own documentary, about the representational nature of art itself. The most thought-provoking movie I saw all-year.

Continuing now into the realm of fiction, my 2007 top ten is going to look a little different this year; hopefully more passionate, probably even less mainstream, definitely more confused. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that there were massive amounts of well made films this year, and yes, maybe more than in years before. But I'm realizing that the worst thing I could do, if I'm embarking on the mostly self-satisfying, very obsessive task of listmaking, is to promote a movie that didn't send a torpedo down into my heart and explode. One's "best" films might not be their "favorites," but I hope to come closer and closer to merging the two. In that progress, you'll still recognize a few of those dark, dark movies that 2007 brought out of us (particularly those several about mad, mad men out West), and maybe even one of those movies about pies or about abortions. But you won't find a movie, no matter how well done it may have been, that didn't keep me up at night still thinking about it, wishing I could see it again, and marvelling at how, in some small way, I won't look at the world exactly the same way again.



10. DEATH PROOF - Beyond the parody of PLANET TERROR, Tarantino actually makes a real grindhouse film, not without paying homage to some of his favorites with a killer car chase courtesy of Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike and the only person who could stop him: real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell.

9. MICHAEL CLAYTON - A Hollywood thriller I could actually follow, confidently directed in a debut by Tony Gilroy's, and with Clooney in the darkest recesses of his iconic star-power.

8. SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET - Perfect harmony between director (Tim Burton) and material (Steven Sondheim), plus a great ensemble cast from Johnny Depp to 's Burtonesque blonde china doll, all brought me rapturous joy and a permanent distaste for pie.

7. THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD - The first of three parables of the American Old West and America Today, with Casey Affleck as the youngling obsessed with the celebrity of Jesse James, whose myth is personified in Brad Pitt. Gorgeously shot by Roger Deakins.

6. ATONEMENT - You heard it from me first, when Joe Wright revitalized movie language in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, displaying his ability to locate human emotion and then film it. Here he adapts what some said was an unfilmable novel and surprises us with the devastating power of storytelling.

5. ZODIAC - David Fincher returns with an epic chronicle of obsession. As reporters Mark Ruffalo, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Robert Downey Jr. descend deeper into their search for the real Zodiac killer, so do we, only to be left in the darkness.

4. BLACK SNAKE MOAN - A heartbreaking story of redemption and the healing power of music, directed in the deep South by Tennessean Craig Brewer, and disguised as a bargain-bin exploitation flick. The most underrated movie this year, with career-best performances from Christina Ricci and Samuel L. Jackson. I didn't really "get" the blues until I saw this movie.

3. THERE WILL BE BLOOD - Paul Thomas Anderson paints a mythic portrait of the capitalist and religious enterprises of America in the story of Daniel Plainview, fiercely played by Daniel Day Lewis. Finding a soulmate in composer Johnny Greenwood, PTA crosses a new divide as a filmmaker, and gives us a deep parable of man's conquest to dominate the world around him.

2. PAPRIKA - No other foreign cinema captures the essence of its culture quite like Japanese animation, and PAPRIKA is the most amazing anime film I've seen. The ideas here are familiar, ones we've encountered in Philip K. Dick, David Cronenberg, and THE MATRIX, but through the imagination of anime they are more fantastic and profound than ever. In Satoshi Kon's hallucinogenic visualization of the future, characters delve seemlessly into their dream worlds and transform playfully into their dream selves (the titular character is the ultimate fantasy heroine-- Leeloo meets Amelie). PAPRIKA is a celebration of the collective unconscious and individual identity, as well as a romantic homage to the magic of movies, so similar to dreams themselves.



1. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN - Rewatching the Coen brothers' films this year didn't just give me the appreciation for these filmmakers I've always longed for, but it also set me up perfectly to see how their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel is a movie that, if the Coens died tomorrow, could culminate their career. In a sparse masterpiece of suspense, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones play three men rotating around each other in the boundaries of mortality. Like THERE WILL BE BLOOD, it's a movie that hovers far above me; It's perfectly articulated in form, yet still a mystery, and in the deepest way I silently understand it, and how much it says about our world today. We all look around at what's happening and wonder how it's possible. Can we do anything about it? Is there hope?

Honorable mention: THE LIVES OF OTHERS, THE DARJEELING LIMITED, I'M NOT THERE, AFTER THE WEDDING, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE, L'ICEBERG, ENCHANTED, CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR, DAN IN REAL LIFE, STARDUST, RATATOUILLE, THE HOST, JUNO, RESCUE DAWN, INTO THE WILD, HAIRSPRAY, BREACH, I KNOW WHO KILLED ME, BLACK BOOK.

And the many films I didn't see and wish I could have: THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, PERSEPOLIS, SOUTHLAND TALES, LAKE OF FIRE, CONTROL, 4 MONTHS 3 WEEKS & 2 DAYS, YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH, SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY, ROCKET SCIENCE, THE SAVAGES, THE KITE RUNNER, THIS IS ENGLAND, PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD, 12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST, RESERVATION ROAD, COLOSSAL YOUTH, GRACE IS GONE, REGULAR LOVERS, STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING, LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT, PROTAGONIST, TEN CANOES, THE LOOKOUT.

The best performances of the year: Daniel Day Lewis (THERE WILL BE BLOOD), Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci (BLACK SNAKE MOAN), Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and Tommy Lee Jones (NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN), Rolf Lassgard and Stine Fischer Christensen (AFTER THE WEDDING), Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck (THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD), Ulrich Muhe (THE LIVES OF OTHERS), and Cate Blanchett (I'M NOT THERE).

Worst of the year: SPIDER-MAN 3, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, WAITRESS.

And lastly, as always, my top ten most anticipated movies of 2008:

1. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (Spike Jonze)
2. THE DARK KNIGHT (Christopher Nolan)
3. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (David Fincher)
4. INDIANA JONES & THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLS (Steven Spielberg)
5. BE KIND REWIND (Michel Gondry)
6. REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (Sam Mendes)
7. WALL-E (Pixar/Andrew Stanton)
8. FUNNY GAMES (Michael Haneke)
9. PARANOID PARK (Gus Van Sant)
10. IRON MAN (Jon Favreau)

Agree? Disagree? Post your Top Ten and other comments below, and I'll be back as much as possible in 08.

2007: Music

For the past few years I've put a lot of time and thought into my year-end lists... now everyone and their grandmothers have top tens, and this year I was so preoccupied with making music myself that I barely caught up with this year's new music. For me this year was all about digging into old music, and I discovered several old records that ended up meaning a lot more to me than any new ones. But to keep up the tradition, here's my abbreviated, self-explanatory list of the records I enjoyed this year.

1. Radiohead - In Rainbows
2. Rilo Kiley - Under the Blacklight
3. Cortney Tidwell - Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up
4. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
5. The White Stripes - Icky Thump
6. Peter Bjorn & John - Writer's Block
7, Coconut Records - Nighttiming
8. The Nobility - The Mezzanine
9. Silverchair - Young Modern
10. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

Also liked: Aqualung - Memory Man, Air - Pocket Symphony, Amiina - Kurr, Rufus Wainwright - Release the Stars, The Clutters - Don't Believe a Word, Feist - The Reminder, Band of Horses - Cease to Begin, Panda Bear - Person Pitch

It was just aight for me: Justice - Cross, Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, The Shins - Wincing the Night Away, Caribou - Andorra, Dungen - Tio Bitar, Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

Didn't Get To: The National - Boxer, LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver, Menomena - Friend and Foe, The Hives - Black and White Album, Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity, Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala, The New Pornographers - Challengers, Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger, The Bird and the Bee - Please Clap Your Hands, Battles - Mirrored, Kanye West - Graduation, The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible, Amy Winehouse - Back to Black, Lily Allen - Alright, Still

I'd love to hear what everyone else listened to this year, so post your list below if you got one.

And if you see me, ask me for a 2007 mix CD. Just be forewarned, John Mayer is on it.

Halftime '07

The first half of '07 delivered. I can't remember another year period where not just a couple good movies came out in the dreaded first quarter, but a couple GREAT movies came out... plus a whole other batch of good ones and even enough of em for people to disagree and come up with different lists, as I'm hoping will be the case here. I won't go so far as to say that this Top Ten could be a suitable year-end list, but I'm counting on a couple of these not straying very far from their current positions.

23 Movies so far this year, which means I'm holding pretty well to my 2007 ration of mediocre new films-to-great old films.

01. Black Snake Moan
Since the Nashville Film Festival screening of Hustle and Flow I'd been watching for Memphis-based Brewer's next moves, but this bizarre trailer threw me off and leveled my expectations, which helped me to appreciate what is not just a sweaty exploitation flick but a tender and moving story of redemption. Sam Jackson and Christina Ricci both give what I consider to be the best performances of their respective careers and deserve Oscars for their work in this movie, which also enabled me to finally "get" blues music.

02. Zodiac
To comprehend the level of detail that Fincher put into this superior serial-killer movie would take the kind of manic obsession in which the story's protagonists find themselves in their quest to somehow understand the Zodiac killer himself. Fincher's welcomed return to the screen rapidly scrolls by you like a microfilm machine gone haywire, yet we retain sympathy towards the real victims of the Zodiac: a couple of San Francisco's best professional and amateur detectives. The genius of this movie, and how Fincher has mindfucked us so with it, is that just like the life and work of a serial killer, it is tantalizing, confounding, and ultimately unsolveable.

03. Grindhouse
I would hope that any box office pundit who is at all intelligent would admit that the famous Grindhouse flop of 2007 was simply a fluke, nothing more, nothing less. Trailers, lengthy dialogue and all, Grindhouse is another movie-lover's dream, but more so a relieving
respite from the Hollywood formula. If we're breaking them apart, I'd give this slot to Death Proof (which I still believe stands on its own and will do so in the future) and put Planet Terror among my honorable mentions (which I still believe has less staying power due to its heavy tone of parody).

04. The Host
A new director with a refreshing new style, a great sense of location, and a politically-charged monster. The Host says something about that world we live in without being so damn overt-- something most American horror films fail to do.

05. Ratatouille
I was actually surprised a bit at how Pixar's new movie avoided some of the sentimental pitfalls that even this great little studio has repeatedly encountered (in their own, more mature sort of way of course). And for some reason this kinda disappointed me... that Remy didn't miss his family that much out in the world on his own... that it's the first Pixar movie where its characters have to really interact with fully-developed human characters... that the majority of the movie takes place in a single restaurant kitchen. To me, its a big turn for Pixar. I have some quibbles with it, and I may still be rooting for Cars. But because they continue to not insult the intelligence of young AND old viewers, and because their technical ability nearly outshines the simulated water, fur, fire, and textures of the world's top effects companies, I welcome this one with open arms.

06. Paris je t'aime
Way more affecting than I expected, especially from a movie made by twenty different directors. Unlike previous films of this kind, this actually felt whole, with its fragments linked with b-roll and even suggestions that these characters all live in the same time and space
together. I'll take a couple of weak pieces (the oft-cited vampire short) for the several that managed to get me in the gut (think Willem Defoe as Death on a horse).

07. Once
Something about Once isn't quite the perfect musical love story for me, but I'm all about romantic encounter flicks like these, especially when they involve songs and songwriting, and for that reason Once is a movie I'm telling everyone to see. It's just no Before Sunset, to give a somewhat arbitrary comparison (but one that others seem to be using anyway).

08. La Vie en Rose
Severely depressing and often unpleasant, but with a very good performance and some exceptional all-around film craft.

09. Black Book
A superbly-made old-fashioned historical thriller. It's a shame I don't really like old-fashioned historical thrillers. But if there's anyone who will make me forget about that for a couple hours, its Carice Van Hauden.

10. Ocean's Thirteen
A sorry victim to the 2007 Curse of The Three, Soderbergh's trilogy-capper is almost completely forgettable and, in a way, just as sloppy and selfish as its predecessor (Twelve). But a Soderbergh mis-step is at least three times more interesting on the surface than Sam Raimi taking a great super-franchise on a huge-horrible nosedive.

Honorable mention: Offside, Away From Her, An Unreasonable Man

Worst so far: Spider-Man 3, Waitress

It's Compicated: 300, Knocked Up, Hot Fuzz

Missed or haven't seen yet: Sicko, 28 Weeks Later, The Lookout, Syndromes and a Century, The Hoax, Paprika, Reign Over Me, Evening.

Skipped: Shrek 3, Pirates 3, Fantastic Four 2.

Best Male Perfs
1. Sam Jackson, Black Snake Moan
2. Cillian Murphy, The Wind That Shakes the Barley
3. Mark Ruffalo, Zodiac
4. Charles Fleischer, Zodiac
5. Justin Timberlake, Black Snake Moan

Best Female Perfs
1. Christina Ricci, Black Snake Moan
2. Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
3. Carice Van Hauden, Black Book
4. Zoe Bell, Death Proof
5. Marketa Irglova, Once

Best Scene Contenders
1. Car Chase, Death Proof
2. "Black Snake Moan," Black Snake Moan
3. Place des Victories (Nobuhiro Suwa), Paris je t'aime
4. 14th arrondissement (Alexander Payne), Paris je t'aime
5. "If You Want Me," Once

And finally, my current Top 10 Most Anticipated for the rest of the year:
1. Be Kind Rewind
2. Atonement
3. The Golden Compass
4. Sunshine
5. Reservation Road
6. The Darjeeling Limited
7. There Will Be Blood
8. The Simpsons Movie
9. Son of Rambow
10. Stardust

And of course the new Allen, Lee, Cronenberg, WKW, Van Sant, Herzog, Baumbach, and if it comes out, that Jesse James movie with the very long title. And since it counts, I should mention that I kinda can't wait to go see Transformers as the first movie of the second half.

Hit me with your best and worst, and I'll see you at year's end.

Out of Office

As you might have heard, I've been asked out on tour at the last minute to play for a guy named Ben. Operations here will be on hiatus until further notice. Thanks for coming and please come back again...

2006: The Year in Film

Any critic, blogger, or movie geek will tell you the same thing about 2006 awards season: that it took forever to get here, and when it did it lasted forever. In not just New York and LA but wherever else the 2006 movie-watcher called home, the end of the year brought too many great looking films for any functional human being to pencil in. This has sadly become the norm: spring and summer gems get left in the dust when the big awards pictures are unveiled in November and December and ruthlessly campaigned for gold. As a listaholic collector of these new releases, it's made me panic. Thankfully, on my trips to New York with Syd I snuck in VOLVER and LITTLE CHILDREN early. My favorite movie of the past year didn't play in Nashville until this year. A sneak preview here and there filled in some other gaps. But it's only now, in the second week of 2007, that I can begin to collect my thoughts, and that's giving up on INLAND EMPIRE, CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, NOTES ON A SCANDAL, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, and MISS POTTER (you laugh, but that Beatrix Potter ballet movie was the first movie I remember seeing). My Top Ten may be one of the last to come out, and it may look different two weeks from now. But here it is anyway. Other movies I'm sad to have missed include THE PROPOSITION, HAPPY FEET, THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON, MANDERLAY, THE BREAK UP, DOWN IN THE VALLEY, LOOK BOTH WAYS, THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE, DUCK SEASON, NEIL YOUNG: HEART OF GOLD, FLUSHED AWAY, BATTLE IN HEAVEN, BEOWULF AND GRENDEL, and yes, even LASSIE.

The thing that kept me going through it all? My newfound love of the documentary. Some say the new documentary boom doesn't hold up to the classic docs of decades past, but if 2006 only consisted of ten documentaries-- ones like 49UP, SHUT UP AND SING, WHY WE FIGHT, and WORDPLAY-- it'd still be a very good year. It's actually sparked within me a large debate about whether or not a good documentary is better, more useful, or even more "important" than a fiction film. While on a relative scale I'd probably rather watch a good doc and learn visually something I didn't already know, the following list goes to show that at the end of the day I'd rather escape, even if it's to an extremely bleak setting. I'm leaving the debate open ended, and on this list I'm letting a couple of my favorite docs represent them all. Beginning with...

Doug Block was launched on a journey of discovery when, after his parents' 54-year marriage ended with his mother's death, his father flew to Florida and instantly married his former secretary. In this profoundly moving documentary, Doug then begins to investigate the history of his parents' relationship, talking with his mother's friends, his sisters, and finally his alienated father to learn more about who these people -- "Mom and Dad" -- really were. It is impossible to watch 51 BIRCH STREET and not stare deeply into the memories, regrets, and possibilities of your own life.

Hollywood has a strange way of coincidentally releasing competing films on the same subject: MISSION TO MARS and RED PLANET, ANTS and A BUG'S LIFE, CAPOTE and this year's underseen INFAMOUS. This year this happened with two films about magicians, and THE PRESTIGE had all the thrill, shock and wonder of the greatest magic trick and then some. Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play two magicians who, through twist after turn after twist, do everything in their power to outwit, outplay, and outlast the other. Director Christopher Nolan, who brought his BATMAN BEGINS friends Bale and Michael Caine, plays with time as he did in MEMENTO, but it's easy to follow along as the story constantly jumps forward and back (Nolan has also now perfected his authentic style). Some of its big secrets we're supposed to figure out, while others still remain a mystery. But no other movie this year was as wonderful to watch and fun to dissect.

In Kelly Reichardt's quiet breakthrough feature, two old friends reunite for a camping trip in the Oregon mountains. They go into the woods grown apart; Mark (Daniel London) has settled down into middle-class society with a baby on the way, while Kurt (Will Oldham) is unchained, a drifting granola warrior on an eternal vision quest. When they come back from their trip together they haven't changed, but so much has happened. What took place is open to interpretation; when the guys reach the hidden hot spring they've been looking for, the camera leaves them in privacy for the first time. But what they do first when they get back seems to say everything. As much as we can tell from the tranquil surface, OLD JOY is about friendships drifting apart as people grow older, settling into themselves, and how this sadness is somehow tolerable.

Gauge an audience's reaction to THE FOUNTAIN and all will be revealed: the average moviegoer has no patience for a movie without a cookie-cutter concept, an ending without a simple conclusion, or a sci-fi film without robots, aliens, and explosions. Little do they know, THE FOUNTAIN pays tribute to the pure editing of imagery that cinema was originally about. Across three stories in three different times using the same two actors, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM director Darren Aronofsky cites heroes from Kubrick to Svankmajer, weaving the fabrics together with repeating visual motifs and Clint Mansell's fluid, operatic score. But what impressed me most was its heart, pumped passionately by Hugh Jackman in a performance that turned me from being ambivalent about the actor to practically being his publicist. THE FOUNTAIN's themes-- immortality, reincarnation, and the sorrow of death-- can be explored in greater detail an arm's length away on your nearest bookshelf. But it paints pictures that you won't forget, and it makes you think, discuss, and debate with whoever's next to you, which is much more than can be said for the movies that most people chose to see on Thanksgiving weekend.

I've said it before and I've said it again: A great documentary makes you feel, even if for only two hours, that its subject is the most important in the world. It was this movie that made me forget about AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (which probably IS the most important documentary you can see). JESUS CAMP visits one of America's evangelical youth camps, and is full of complex and disturbing discoveries. The human brain can't always differentiate between what's real and what's not (it's the reason we cry at a good movie), but these young children, led in group rituals indoctrinating all sorts of moral and political dogma, look and act like the posessed victims of a horror film. What's worse: the icecaps melting, or America's future generations being taught that global warming is just a hoax? JESUS CAMP is the saddest, most troubling film I can ever remember seeing, and it touches on everything that worries me about this country today. But there is some hope; Perhaps these filmmakers might follow the path of Michael Apted (the torch-bearer for the unprecedented UP Series which continued with this year's 49UP), tracking down these kids at 18 or 21, when their independence might help them think, and believe, for themselves.

The Spanish Civil War is ending. Above ground, a young Spanish girl's ailing and pregnant mother has moved in with a bloodthirsty and fascist Captain. Underground, the girl discovers a fantastic world being rendered just for her. In Guillermo Del Toro's fantasy there are fairies and magic, but the film's horrifying perception of adult violence is not for kids. It is hard to talk about this beautiful, tragic movie without exposing its ultimate secret, where a magical faun and a series of seemingly disconnected fairy tale motifs (citing everything from CINDERELLA to THE WIZARD OF OZ) perfectly come together. In all of the great fantasies of childhood, the magical world is a metaphorical sanctuary for the coming of age. Here, it's so much more than just that.

It took two viewings for me to give Sofia Coppola the props she deserves for her imagining of the famous French teen. The most misinterpreted film this year, MARIE ANTOINETTE has about as much interest in painting a historically acurate portrait of the queen as Gus Van Sant's LAST DAYS had in probing the real Kurt Cobain; If you want a BBC miniseries, I'm sure one's out there. Using 80's new wave and modern indie rock as ambient film score, Coppola's Marie is simply our imagination-- specifically, a young woman's imagination-- of being in her decadent shoes. Kirsten Dunst has the perfect presence for the role, even if it splinters when she delivers one of her few lines, and Jason Schwartzman's minimalistic portrayal of the sexually lifeless Louis XVI is hillarious. As Coppola imagines Marie's adolescent independence through abstract cuts and montages, she occasionally reaches the lyrical heights of Terrence Malick.

Overlapping with the many great documentaries I saw this year is a group of films that point out just how messed up this country is right now. Nothing could prepare me for the shame I felt watching my fellow countrymen in "Ali G" creator Sacha Baron Cohen's BORAT. Cohen's character, a Khazakhstani reporter investigating the American way, is about as offensive as a character can be. But nothing Borat says or does even compares to the stuff that actually comes out these peoples mouths, like cowboys wanting to lynch homos or frat boys wanting to reinstill slavery. Blurring the line between fiction and documentary, this bonafide Hero's Journey opens up an enormous satirical can of worms; I'm just starting to realize that Cohen doesn't just want to show how racist Americans are for believing in Borat... he wants to remind us that we'd rather all play along than actually protest (ask yourself what you'd do if you and some friends ran into Borat on the street and you'll start to see the complexity of Cohen's act). Hats off to you, Mr. Cohen; You got me, and you've also made the funniest movie I've ever seen.

This year brought us the first two Hollywood films processing the events of 9/11, and director Paul Greengrass (BLOODY SUNDAY) set the bar as high as possible. Without a single movie star, UNITED 93 documents what we know to have happened on a hijacked plane that morning, and what went wrong in the country's chain of command on the ground below. On the surface, it reminds us how unprepared we are for such an emergency despite the best laid plans (many of the ground control officials play themselves). But beneath that, it draws a courageous comparison all of the human beings involved: the Americans who rallied together to bring the plane down, thereby averting its possible target, and their attackers. These terrorists struggled, feared, and prayed just as the passengers did that day. When both parties are convinced that God is on their side, we've got problems. UNITED 93 pays respectful tribute to the heroism of those passengers, and at the same time it demythologizes 9/11, exploring the complex reality of terrorism and religious warfare that isn't so black and white. How's that for an inconvenient truth?

In college I wrote a final paper on the Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, in which I discovered that all of his previous films (A LITTLE PRINCESS, GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, and HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN) were really about childhood. Little did I know then that in his next film, a dystopic vision of a nightmarish future, children would become a metaphor for humanity's very existence. CHILDREN OF MEN doesn't explain why, twenty years from now, women have become infertile and the world's superpowers have wiped themselves from the earth. It simply follows a group of rebels, led by Theo (Clive Owen) and his former wife Julian (Julianne Moore), as they lead to safety a miraculously-born child-- the first in eighteen years. Cuaron and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki shoot three crucial sequences in long, seamless takes, like when Theo navigates a chaotic battleground of tanks, explosions, and warfare (it's the most impressive and elaborately choreographed bit of war filmmaking I've ever seen). These visceral sequences alone don't make CHILDREN OF MEN a masterpiece, but the fact that they represent the movie as a whole just might; When the film abruptly and ambiguously cuts to its end title card, it hits you that the film itself could easily have been one long take, where there's no time to catch your breath, where characters die before you even got to know them, and where you hardly know what just hit you. Nothing could better represent our fear for the future than the idea of a world without children, nor could hope be more fulfilled than by the presence of one tiny child. In a time when darkness lurks just under the surface, CHILDREN OF MEN is a hopeful nativity story wrapped in our worst nightmare. A month ago I was wondering why no one was talking about this movie, and though it's still in limited release, it's slowly infiltrating critics' top ten lists. Watching Cuaron and Lubezki get this long deserved recognition is like watching your favorite local band make it big, and I couldn't be happier about it.

The next 25 (to recirculate the maxim that if you think it wasn't a good year for movies, you just didn't see enough movies): APOCALYPTO, BABEL, BRICK, CARS, DAVE CHAPPELLE'S BLOCK PARTY, THE DEPARTED, 49UP, THE GOOD GERMAN, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, LITTLE CHILDREN, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, NACHO LIBRE, A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, THE QUEEN, RIDING ALONE FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES, A SCANNER DARKLY, THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, SHUT UP AND SING, STRANGER THAN FICTION, SWEET LAND, TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY, VOLVER, WHY WE FIGHT.

Biggest Disappointments of the Year: DREAMGIRLS - I seem to be in the minority on this one, but here are my reasons: The music sounds like showtunes, not like the great soul music of Motown and Stax. Jennifer Hudson may have stolen the show, but she can't act. Beyonce still can't act. The years pass so quickly in this story, from decade to decade, that there's no time to care about any of the already underdeveloped relationships. "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," the single song that will give Hudson an Academy Award all by itself (this is ridiculous when you really start to think about it), was triumphant in the theater, but looking back on it, it's just as cheesy as the rest of it to me. And I thought CHICAGO was going to up the ante for Hollywood musicals. Also: THE LAKE HOUSE - Start with a premise that had me drooling: a Griffin and Sabine-esque correspondence through time, then add resounding support from nearly every film critic out there. But I just couldn't take Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock seriously for a minute. For me, a concept can be as unrealistic and fantastic as it wants, as long as the emotions feel real. LADY IN THE WATER - Just ridiculous. And I love fairy tales. FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION - Just not funny. And I love the Oscars. SNAKES ON A PLANE - I coulda told you it wouldn't live up to the hype. There's a fine line between "so bad it's good" and just bad. Fans of this movie will say that it delivered just what it promised, but that doesn't account for the romantic subplot, the pointless sidekick, and any of the other scenes involving neither snakes nor planes.

Best Actor: Sacha Baron Cohen, BORAT
When it hit me that Cohen is just as eligable for year-end awards as any other serious actor, everyone else dropped off my radar. Cohen's subversive humor is genius, and has made me laugh harder than anyone else, ever. If Cohen's name appears on the Oscar ballot this February, I expect a cut of your office pool. Runners up: Will Smith (THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS), Hugh Jackman (THE FOUNTAIN), Leonardo Dicaprio (THE DEPARTED), Clive Owen (CHILDREN OF MEN)



Best Actress: Sandra Huller, REQUIEM
The amount of great female roles this year-- not just in Hollywood but in Indiewood too-- is few once again. But Sandra Huller is unmatched in this true story of a supposedly posessed young German girl. Unlike countless other horror movies, we don't see what she sees inside, but what her friends and family see on the outside. When she finally snaps, projecting her inner demons at her neglectful mother in a wrecked kitchen, it's spine-tingling. Runners up: Kirsten Dunst (MARIE ANTOINETTE), Penelope Cruz (VOLVER), Helen Mirren (THE QUEEN), Charlotte Gainsbourg (THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP)

Best Supporting Actor: Robert Downey Jr., A SCANNER DARKLY
His paranoid skittishness dominates every scene he's in, like when he hillariously debates the specs of his newly aquired 18-speed (or is it 16-speed?) bike. One of the most overlooked performances of the year, I suppose because he's a cartoon. Runners up: Michael Sheen (THE QUEEN), Mark Whalberg (THE DEPARTED), Kevin Kline (A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION), Alan Arkin (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE)

Best Supporting Actress: Vera Farmiga, THE DEPARTED
She's just now being considered "one to watch," even though her performance in 2004's DOWN TO THE BONE silently topped critics' awards. Was any other actress more captivating (and sexy) in such a small amount of screen time this year? Runners up: Shareeka Epps (HALF NELSON), Meryl Streep (THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA and A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION), Maggie Gyllenhaal (WORLD TRADE CENTER)

Best Director: Paul Greengrass, UNITED 93

Best Screenplay: Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, THE PRESTIGE

Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, CHILDREN OF MEN

Best Original Score: Clint Mansell, with Kronos Quartet and Mogwai, THE FOUNTAIN

Best Scene: It takes a great, great scene -- one for the history books -- to trump BORAT's nude wrestling match. That honor belongs to "Battlefield / Ceasefire" from CHILDREN OF MEN. If you've seen the film, you'll probably never forget the scene I'm talking about. Runners up: Nude Wrestling (BORAT), Let's Roll, UNITED 93, Road Ambush (CHILDREN OF MEN), Olive's Dance (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE), Birth (CHILDREN OF MEN), Hot Spring (OLD JOY), The Tree of Life (THE FOUNTAIN), Escape at dawn (CHILDREN OF MEN), In Da Club (BABEL), Dojo (THE PROTECTOR), and Foot Chase (BRICK).

Worst Movies: THE WICKER MAN, THE LAKE HOUSE, FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, THE WILD BLUE YONDER, DRAWING RESTRAINT 9, SNAKES ON A PLANE, MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND, THE BLACK DAHLIA, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 2: DEAD MAN'S CHEST

And a slew of other fun awards (thanks to Atli at Cinemasters for coming up many of these categories), SOME OF WHICH MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS about movies you may haven't seen yet; Proceed at your own risk!

Best Title: BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN

Best Poster: THE GOOD GERMAN (see my Top Five Movie Posters list)

Best Trailer: BORAT, LITTLE CHILDREN

Best Shot: Battlefield, CHILDREN OF MEN; Last shot, MARIE ANTOINETTE; Last shot, UNITED 93.

Best Fight: Borat vs. Azamat, BORAT

Best Opening Studio Logos: THE GOOD GERMAN

Best Opening Credits: SUPERMAN RETURNS

Best Closing Credits: BUBBLE

Best Use of a Song: Snow Patrol, "Chocolate," THE LAST KISS (see my Year in Film Music post)

Best Sex Scene: Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman, MARIE ANTOINETTE; Orgy, PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER

Best Nudity: BORAT

Best Soundtrack CD: MARIE ANTOINETTE

Best Villain: Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), THE DEPARTED; Sergi Lopez (Capitan Vidal), PAN'S LABYRINTH; Global warming, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Best Line: "I am not attracted to you anymore. ... NOT!" - BORAT

Best Voice Acting: Paul Newman, CARS

Best Directorial Debut: Rian Johnson, BRICK

Best Child Performance: Shareeka Epps, HALF NELSON; Jodelle Ferland, TIDELAND

Best Casting: UNITED 93

Best Remake: THE DEPARTED

Most Overrated: DREAMGIRLS, LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, CASINO ROYALE, THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU, L'ENFANT, HALF NELSON

Most Underrated: 51 BIRCH STREET, SWEET LAND, NACHO LIBRE

Most Pleasant Surprises: STRANGER THAN FICTION, WORLD TRADE CENTER, THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

Most changed by a second viewing: MARIE ANTOINETTE, A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION

Most Pretentious: MUTUAL APPRECIATION

Most overly-criticized: TIDELAND

Biggest Hottie (Female): Jennifer Connelly, BLOOD DIAMOND, Vera Farmiga, THE DEPARTED

Biggest Hottie (Male): Clive Owen, CHILDREN OF MEN, Tony Jaa, THE PROTECTOR

Best Cameo: Pamela Anderson, BORAT

Best Death: Julian, CHILDREN OF MEN; Colin Sullivan, THE DEPARTED,

Best Twist: Donna, A SCANNER DARKLY; All of THE PRESTIGE

Best MacGuffin: Emily's phone call, BRICK

Best inanimate object: Vaseline mold, DRAWING RESTRAINT 9

Best Use of Silence: Ceasefire, CHILDREN OF MEN; Phone Call, THE DEPARTED

Best Special Effects: CHILDREN OF MEN

Best Trend: Thom Yorke songs over closing credits (A SCANNER DARKLY, THE PRESTIGE), Love stories set in three time periods using the same two actors (THE FOUNTAIN, THREE TIMES)

Worst Trend: Computer animated talking animal movies (OVER THE HEDGE, OPEN SEASON, BARNYARD, THE WILD, ICE AGE 2, THE ANT BULLY, FLUSHED AWAY, HAPPY FEET)

Best Moviegoing Experience: BORAT sneak preview full of fans

Worst / Strangest Moviegoing Experience: TALLADEGA NIGHTS, simply because everyone else was laughing so much more than me.

Best Tie-in Toy or Collectable: The die-cast cars from CARS, which I spent way too much time hunting down this summer.

Scariest: THE DESCENT

Funniest: BORAT

Cried During: THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, CARS, WORLD TRADE CENTER, SHUT UP AND SING, CHILDREN OF MEN

Fell Asleep During: CHARLOTTE'S WEB, APOCALYPTO

Walked Out During: THE WILD BLUE YONDER

Movie Seen Most: BORAT (three times)

Most likely to be considered a masterpiece in 30 years: A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION

Best Ending: UNITED 93








And finally, here are 30 movies I'm looking forward to next year, where some of my favorite auteurs come out of hiding and where sequelitis is at an all time high.

The big screen adaptation of Philip Pullman's fantasy THE GOLDEN COMPASS, David Fincher's return with ZODIAC, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez' double feature GRINDHOUSE, Paul Thomas Anderson's THERE WILL BE BLOOD, Wes Anderson's THE DARJEELING LIMITED, Ang Lee's LUST, CAUTION, Soderbergh's OCEAN'S THIRTEEN, SPIDER-MAN 3, Michel Gonry's BE KIND REWIND, Pixar's RATATOUILLE, the digital epic 300, HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, Natalie Portman in MR. MAGORIUM'S WONDER EMPORIUM, Claire Daines, Michelle Pfieffer and Robert DeNiro in the fantasy STARDUST, Danny Boyle's space thriller SUNSHINE, David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES with Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts, Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in the western remake 3:10 TO YUMA, the Korean monster movie THE HOST, Craig Brewer's BLACK SNAKE MOAN with Sam Jackson and Christina Ricci, the Shaun of the Dead team's HOT FUZZ, Brad Pitt in the confoundingly titled THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD, Michael Moore's health care doc SICKO, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, Paul Verhoeven's festival hit BLACK BOOK, Tim Burton's SWEENEY TODD, Robert Zemekis' computer generated BEOWULF, and for all you kiddies, TRANSFORMERS, SHREK THE THIRD, and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and be sure to post your Top Ten and any other comments below. Lists are to me what cookies are to Cookie Monster.