The country that has provided, arguably, the two best films in this genre is, surprisingly, Australia. The Australian film movement has been relatively dormant for over a decade, mostly just offering up the usual middlebrow art-house fare, or slapstick comedies, which have left little trace on cinema. Lately, however, things have been picking up. First was the release of The Square, a terrific noir from earlier in this year which echoed modernist fare like Blood Simple in its brand of brutalist simplicity in presenting the story of things falling apart. Now, we see an even better film, from the same group of young filmmakers, in Animal Kingdom – a tremendously mean and frigid tale of a family of armed robbers, a young apprentice, and the mother who loves them.

Newcomer James Frecheville stars as J, the teenage son of the Cody family’s sister, who as the film opens we learn has just died from a heroin overdose. Strikingly calm about the situation, he calls his grandmother, Janine ‘Grandma Smurf’ Cody (Jacki Weaver) to ask for advice on what to do. She comes to pick him up to bring him home with her, where he will stay with the rest of his estranged family, brothers Craig and Darren, who have, with their other brother ‘Pope’ and friend Barry Brown (The Square star Joel Edgerton), just held up a bank. Pope, played in one of the best performances of the year by Aussie vet Ben Mendelsohn, is hiding underground while the local cops are staking out the rest of his family. It is when Pope re-emerges that the story really begins to take flight.

Mendelsohn brings an aura of dread to Pope that is unlike almost any other character you are likely to see this year. Physically unassuming and coldly measured in the way he speaks, on first glance Pope looks like a math teacher. But it becomes clear early on that he is, in fact, a sociopath in the way that he controls his family, the paranoid Craig and reluctant Darren, with just a few words of piercing menace, all looked upon approvingly by his mother, Janine, whose loving warmth for all of her sons belies what we learn to be a distinctly keen criminal mind.

On the other side are the cops, some of whom are vigilantes; others drug-dealing criminals on the side. Detective Leckie (the always-great Guy Pearce) is an honest policeman trying to bring in the Cody family without using shortcuts. When a revenge killing involves the Codys and some cops, Leckie tries to convince J to grass on his uncles, which only amps up the paranoia for his newly re-discovered family, and which leads to tragic circumstances for all involved.

I’m loath to give away too much, as the story unfolds so perfectly, that for me to just type all over it takes away much of the film’s power. Writer and director David Michôd, in his film debut, has crafted a classic tale on how, in society, criminality surrounds us all in our daily lives, often without us even knowing it. His story, while traditional in many senses, is perfectly pitched in its presentation: deliberately low-key. Even the most evil of characters (say, Pope) is revealed to be much more than they‘d appear at first glance. There is very little violence in the film, but when it does occur, it’s appropriately shocking. Nothing is wasted on cheap thrills or cheaper swerves.

The acting is tremendous throughout. Mendelsohn is amazing as Pope, a truly scary guy, in that he allows his eyes and demeanor to exhibit true menace. Weaver, as well, in that she only ever allows us to see Janine’s true colors in the briefest of moments, so that when we do, the result is a true surprise. Pearce delivers his inevitable solid performance as a solid cop just trying to capture a band of murderers, and Frecheville, for a first performance, handles himself quite well as a fairly generic teenager who finds himself in the middle of a hornet’s nest when all he wants to do is sit around with his girlfriend.

Comparisons have been lazily made to films like Goodfellas, but that’s not really fair. Where Scorsese was at the height of his power as a filmmaker to craft a crime melodrama almost without peer, Michôd is just beginning to see what he can do. With Animal Kingdom as his calling card, it will be most fascinating to see where he goes next. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Crime/Drama

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 1/20/11

In The American, Clooney has thusly made a move towards the European art-house cinema of the time period. Director Anton Corbijn, fresh off his impressive debut with the Ian Curtis biopic, Control, evokes thoughts of Euro-cinema auteurs like Bernardo Bertolucci with this low-key, yet absorbing drama about a hit man hiding out in rural Italy to complete his last assignment before he can retire into a life free of the complications of his trade. Clooney, known only as ‘Jack’, is an expert in his field, not so much in the area of killing, but in designing exquisite tools of the trade. His contract, as the movie begins, is to design a rifle for a female Belgian assassin, which is not only accurate from long distances, but also able to be easily transported.

Taking an inauspicious room in a small Italian village, Jack aims to maintain a life of secrecy, weary of both the world he lives in, and the one that he has created around himself. As he hones the weapon, and prepares for its delivery, Jack is also befriended, of a sort, by the local priest, Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli), who senses something ill at ease about the village’s newest arrival. Jack poses as a photojournalist in town on assignment, but it’s clear the padre doesn’t wholly believe him. As an alternate, and ultimately much more appealing, companion to the priest, Jack slowly develops a relationship with a local hooker named Clara (the impossibly beautiful Violante Placido), who he visits at the village bordello and gradually allows into his life of seclusion.

As is often the case with stories such as these, Jack is not going to be able to just ‘retire’ without a bit of struggle. His employer is understandably vexed by Jack‘s decision to walk away from his lucrative position, pressuring him to keep going as long as there are people to be killed and money to be made from it. Jack, on the other end, begins to long for a life less encumbered by death, and perhaps allow himself to pursue a relationship with Clara. He also is taken by the quiet life in Italy, and, title aside, has no desire to return to the United States. These are the conflicts which take up most of the time of The American and which make it, to me, an utterly rewarding experience which may, in fact, disappoint viewers expecting something more rudimentary.

The American is not an action film, in any way, shape or form. Yes, I know the picture of Clooney on the box shows him running with a gun, but, aside from a mid-film chase on Vespas, Clooney takes much of the film up in quiet repose, lost in his thoughts, thinking only of not doing what he is doing anymore. It is a film about conversations, avoiding conversations, and the complexity of acquiring simplicity. This is when The American feels anything but American, and much more like a French or Italian thriller from 1973, when the personal is political, and even the slightest of motions have the greatest of consequences. There’s also a lot of nudity, which is, you know, nice. Placido, like the illegitimate daughter of Euro favorites Laura Antonelli or Maria Schneider, wears her sexuality without a hint of puritanical shame, in the manner that drew the crowds to the art houses back when such a thing actually existed. (Fun fact: She is the legitimate daughter of Simonetta Stefanelli, who was Michael’s Sicilian bride, Apollonia, in The Godfather.) Ms. Placido is not merely eye candy, however, as she offers a nuanced performance of a young woman who sees sex as her job, has her eyes set on a higher prize, and senses something in Jack even when he doesn’t see it in himself.

The countryside of Italy is enticing in itself, and Corbijn films the village sympathetically in a way that makes you wish you could move there yourself. Rowan Joffe‘s script is keenly minimal, offering only as much information as is necessary, and occasionally less so. Clooney is, as always, terrific, never relying on his much-loved charm to gain easy favor with the audience. Jack is not a bad person, but he is, in many ways, a necessarily anonymous one. The rest of the cast is excellent, rarely elevating the pace of the film beyond the languid and maintaining a low-key demeanor, which is reflective of the surroundings. Paperback theorists have labeled Clooney, wrongly, as a Cary Grant of his times. He’s not; Grant never played anything but Cary Grant, not only because that’s what the audience wanted, but because that’s what he was best at. Clooney clearly has a different model in mind, and that would be Warren Beatty, a sadly underappreciated actor/producer/director who, in the late 60′s and early 70′s, made the sort of savvy career moves, with the underlying risk to his good name, that few would ever dare to do today. The difference being that, at age 49, Beatty was just about finished making his mark. Clooney seems as though he’s just getting started. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Crime/Drama

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 12/28/10

“We need you to write a review of the Will Ferrell movie.”

Stunned to speechlessness, I merely nod my head, less in agreement than passive resistance. How had it come to this? The world knows of my disdain of Herr Ferrell’s oeuvre; I am on record as saying that I wish that his parents had never met. It has long been my wish that I could go back in time 35 years to bludgeon Lorne Michaels with a canvas sack filled with doorknobs to spare the nation the indignity of his television show Saturday Night Live, his tepid tribute to mediocrity which has forever ruined the concept of comedy in the United States, and thus insure that men such as Ferrell would forever remain anonymous to society, beyond selling used cars or working in the post office.

As I slid the DVD copy of Ferrell’s latest filmed sketches, The Other Guys, a parody of the buddy cop movie in which he co-stars with noted comic genius Mark Wahlberg, into the machine, I began to pace back and forth in my small bungalow, sipping from a bottle of iodine and muttering obscenities. As the opening credits began to roll, and I collapsed into my purple beanbag chair to face my destiny, my toucan, Latimer, began to solemnly intone the Five Stages of Grief as though a mantra. He was only trying to help.

1) Denial. The opening was quite funny. Was it? No! Yes! Samuel L. Jackson and The Rock riotously mocking their big-screen personas as larger than life New York City cops destroying parts of downtown Manhattan in pursuit of the crooks. Juxtaposed with Ferrell and Wahlberg as low-rent office boys in the police department, one blissfully doing all of the paperwork, the other unhappily so.

2) Anger. I find myself chuckling, more often than I’d preferred. Wahlberg is proving to be pretty adept at comedy. Ferrell is, mostly, downplaying his usual bellicose idiocy. It’s nice to see Michael Keaton back in a comedy. He really is great at this kind of thing. The introduction of longtime favorite Steve Coogan as a slimy British investor. It’s always nice to see him. Why are they in a Will Ferrell movie? ‘It’s not fair!’ ‘Who is to blame?’

3) Bargaining. The film continues to be more amusing than I’d expected. Yes, there’s the usual loudmouth stupidity, and low-level gross-out material, which makes the frat boys swoon, but Eva Mendes has shown up, as Ferrell’s wife, in a low-cut top. Is this unusual for her? I find myself enjoying a Will Ferrell movie. ‘Just let me live to see a funny film.’ ‘I’ll do anything for this movie to remain amusing.’ ‘Just one hour to go. Can it Iast?’

4) Depression. Ferrell does something stupid. The script goes askew, trying for satirical jabs both political and populist, all involving the financial crisis, bankers, and the usual villains. Aren’t there 317 documentaries about that coming out in the next three months? I’m tired of living in the United States. The hit-to-miss ratio of the jokes sags measurably. ‘Why did you have to do that stupid pimp bit?’ ‘Old ladies doing lame sex jokes? What’s the point?’ ‘Didn’t I see this done better in “Hot Fuzz”?’ ‘Why is Eva Mendes’ shirt top buttoned?’

5) Acceptance. Two hours have passed. I’ve laughed more than I could have ever hoped to anticipate. Wahlberg, Keaton, Coogan, and, yes, Ferrell are all quite funny. The plot, while a bit of a mess, is entertaining. The goofball stuff isn’t too bad. The usual SNL crap is kept to a minimum. I enjoyed myself. ‘It’s going to be okay!’ ‘It was almost as funny as The Secret.’ ‘There will certainly be a sequel, and it will certainly be much worse!’

In cases such as this, one would think that I would begin to rethink my stance on Will Ferrell, and, in the spirit of the season, take back all the horrid things I’ve said about him and his place in the world, and maybe, just maybe, be more forgiving and understanding towards the people who insist to me, beyond all available evidence, that his movies are all ‘really funny’.

Nope. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Comedy/Crime

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 12/14/10

Hollywood is no stranger to Thompson’s work. He wrote ‘The Killing’ for Stanley Kubrick, had his novels ‘The Grifters’ and ‘Pop. 1020′ adapted into films, and his influence is enormous on the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino. While it is difficult to pinpoint which one of Thompson’s innumerable stories is his ‘best’, aficionados of the genre will inevitably lean towards ‘The Killer Inside Me’, his first person accounting of the brutal Sheriff Lou Ford and his predilections to a kind of sexual savagery, all hidden behind a charming smile and low-key drawl. It is a terrific story but a difficult one to imagine cinematically; told entirely by Ford, himself, it would be a challenge to any filmmaker to do the story justice. Credit, then, must go to director Michael Winterbottom, an inventive director in his own right, who crafts a fine film which, while it doesn’t live up to the novel, is as close as could be hoped for.

Winterbottom’s best move was casting Casey Affleck in the title role. Affleck, who in the last few years has shown himself to be a fine, understated actor in Gone Baby Gone and his Oscar-nominated performance in The Assassination of Jesse James, is fantastic as the everyman with a nasty story to tell. Affleck’s strength is his ability to underplay his roles; while Lou Ford is a charmer, he is not a showboat. Lean and quiet, with a voice which barely rises above a whisper, he goes about his business in Central City, a Texas town which, in the 1950’s, was run by Chester Conway (Ned Beatty), a developer who, as the story begins, has asked Ford to escort a local prostitute, Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba), who has been carrying on with his son, out of town. When Ford encounters Joyce, they embark on what would be considered the exact opposite of a ‘meet cute’ scenario, but which ends in the same way. They soon become lovers, even as Ford has the loyal Amy Stanton (Kate Hudson) waiting for him back home.

This being a noir in the truest sense, of course, things get a bit complicated for Ford. A plot to blackmail Conway’s son soon turns to murder, and despite his best efforts to cover it up, Ford is soon the top suspect of the local district attorney (Simon Baker), and a local union boss (Elias Koteas) who may have unintentionally triggered Lou’s foul temper. Unflappable, Lou goes about his business, which for the town’s citizens is not necessarily a positive. Blackmail, murder, and a penchant for sexual deviance all swirl around Ford, who tries to keep them all under wraps while maintaining his position as the logical choice to replace the soon-retiring Chief of Police.

As written, Lou Ford is a psychotic with a penchant for horrible violence, but also keenly intelligent with a library full of books and opera recordings. Affleck plays him exactly right, with a shy smile and piercing eyes that can turn from observant to enraged in seconds. He also narrates the story, as Ford does in the novel, never apologizing for his actions, but never fully explaining them, either. He is an enigma, a student of cruelty who has no real motive for his actions beyond the workings of a mind that can justify anything, no matter how brutal, as ‘necessary’. The cast is excellent throughout, in mostly small roles, particularly Hudson, who plays the loving girlfriend who only wants Lou to settle down and marry her. Alba is fine, if limited, but at times seems too ‘modern’ for the 1950’s setting. Koteas, Baker and Tom Bower all do nice work, and Bill Pullman has a winningly blustery performance that lasts only moments.

Winterbottom does a nice job establishing the mood, effectively using classic Texas swing records to augment the feel of a 1950’s dustbowl town, and his spare camera work makes certain that the words, and performances, are the focus of the film.

A word of warning, however. While the usage of violence in the film is limited, it is extremely brutal. The women are beaten in a manner rarely shown on screen, and while it is not exploitative in the least, it can be unsettling. Which it should be. Make no mistake, Sheriff Lou Ford is nobody’s idea of an ‘anti-hero’. He’s a psychotic, a killer, and presented as such, just as Thompson would have it. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Crime/Drama/Thriller

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 9/28/10

Credit, then, is due to Richard Linklater for his attempt to portray Welles at the apex of his theatrical fame, during the legendary 1936 staging of ‘Julius Caesar’ for the Mercury Theater. lt was Welles’s idea to present ‘Caesar’ as a harbinger of the fascist movements gaining hold in Europe, as a warning to those who still may have dismissed Hitler as a nuisance, that what was happening in Germany, and elsewhere, was utterly real, and utterly frightening. The beginnings of this production are the backdrop to this charming, if very slight, film, which concerns a young novice, Richard Samuels (Zac Efron, doing his best) who, through sheer luck, is hired by Welles (Christian McKay, in an effective portrayal) to play a small part in the production. Once inside the Mercury, where he is soon smitten by another member, Sonja Jones (Claire Danes), we watch as Richard watches many of the names who would soon become famous either through their own talents (Joseph Cotten), or to their connection to Welles via the Mercury (John Houseman, Norman Lloyd). He swoons a bit at the indifferent Jones, and tags along with Welles when he can.

Much of the action backstage entails the sort of theatrical extravagance that has gotten many a high school drama student beaten up; people trying to outwit, out charm and out seduce the other members of the company. Samuels is a bit of a cipher, which Linklater seems to get very early. While Efron is ostensibly the ‘star’ of the film (likely because it was his name that got this film green lit in the first place), the film is at its best when the camera focuses on Welles, as he bullies his cast, eyes the ladies, and performs in a radio play. A great credit goes to McKay for never allowing his portrayal of Welles to become a caricature; in Tim Robbins’ dreadful Cradle Will Rock, it showed Welles as a lout, and a blowhard, and nothing more.

This film was barely released to theaters last year, then quickly thrown in the garbage by the good people at Warner Brothers, who undoubtedly had a talking dog movie to promote. While it is hardly a lost masterpiece, Me & Orson Welles is a very smart film, similar in look and feel to a mid-period Woody Allen film, small in stature but heartfelt in both its presentation of a time when the American theater presented major works instead of hopeless trivialities, and in its reminder of when artistic ambition was used for the sake of the audience, instead of the investors. – [DVD]

Drama

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 8/31/10

This, in a nutshell, is the philosophy of novelist David Peace, a native of Yorkshire in England, whose series of books about crime and corruption are the base for this excellent trilogy, originally broadcast on the BBC. Peace is a progenitor of pulp, and obvious student of American crime writers Jim Thompson and James Ellroy. He has made a study of historical fiction, much like Ellroy, in taking true events from the past and making them his own. Fortunately, like those two, he also understands that the true nature of noir is, in fact, a nasty business mandating that, once the story is established, the downward spiral must commence soon after. His series of books, which make up the skeleton of Red Riding, are quick and to the point, consumed with sex and violence and written almost entirely as internal dialogues in an amphetamine rap. The challenge for writer Tony Grisoni in adapting these books into a plausible narrative was immense; as impressive as Peace’s novels are, it could be argued that Grisoni’s efforts are even more so, as he has effectively torn apart and reassembled the books into a compelling whole, crafting a haunting and brutal three part series about police corruption, murder, and the secrets a city will keep to maintain order.

I’m loath to give away much in the way of detail, as the trilogy needs to be experienced from the very beginning, in 1974, through to 1980, and finally finishing with 1983. Let it be known that the fulcrum of the story is a murdered child, a ten-year-old girl, who is found in a dump with swan’s wings crudely sewn into her back, which is the latest in a series of abductions which have plagued the city. The series begins as Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield), a son of York, returns to Leeds from London to work as a crime reporter on the local paper. He gets himself involved with the case, despite the efforts of both his editor and the police to keep him in the dark. A fellow reporter on the paper soon clues him in on the facts about life in Leeds; the local constabulary are utterly corrupt, using members of the force as thugs, and are in the pocket of one of the cities leading businessmen, John Dawson (Sean Bean), whose money speaks quite loudly.

The 1980 story drops us into the true story of the Yorkshire Ripper, a serial killer who the Leeds police have been unable to find after thirteen murders. A Manchester cop, Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine), is sent to Yorkshire to aid in the investigation, bringing with him two other officers, and also to quietly try to learn why it has taken the police so long to catch the killer. A particular murder, long attributed to the Ripper, catches Hunter’s eye, which leads him to suspect there is something afoot in the Leeds police department. Violence, arson and blackmail are all the tools of the trade of the Yorkshire force, which is united under the maxim “This is the North. We do what we want!”

Finally, 1983 shows the snake eating its tail, as another child abduction leads to intertwining investigations, one by Leeds detective Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey) who was on the original case, and one by local lawyer John Piggott (Mark Addy), who finds himself representing both the long-convicted Michael Myshkin and the now-suspected Leonard Cole. Guilt drives them both to discover the truth behind these child murders, and to finally bring the killers to justice.

There are a number of plot threads, characters and flashbacks which tie together each of the films, but I can’t possibly detail them all, nor should I. Suffice it to say that there are slags, corrupt cops, pornography, a medium, hard-drinking reporters, adulterers, murderers, grieving mothers and a young rent boy who seems to know everyone’s secrets. The acting is terrific throughout, from a number of faces familiar to viewers of British cinema and television. The leads in each film are all top-notch, with Garfield showing an impressive charisma akin to Ewan McGregor’s early days that would hopefully lead to better things, although the fact that he is playing Spider-Man next is very disappointing. Considine, Morrissey and Addy are all superb, and aided by Rebecca Hall, Sean Harris, Warren Clarke, Jim Carter, Daniel Mays and many others in providing small but indelibly portrayed characters. The three directors (Julian Jarrold, Anand Tucker and Man on Wire Oscar winner James Marsh) all present a dark, grimy menace to the proceedings, which offer impressive period pieces without relying on stylistic clichés. A word of warning, however. The dialogue is true to its surroundings of northern England, and at times it can be difficult to make out the dialect. As odd as it may sound, even for a series of films in English, the subtitles option may be a way to go.

Noir is a nasty business. Each of these films is dark, often cruel, violent and despairing. Which is how these things are supposed to go, you know. Much like the recent The Square, an Australian film which lays bare the bones of aberrant human behavior in exquisite detail, Red Riding offers little hope in the caverns of human nature, and remembers that it is the horror of man which should frighten us the most. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Crime/Drama/Mystery/Thriller

Unrated

DVD Release Date: 8/31/10

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

There have been any number of political thrillers released in the last few years, the culmination of the ‘lost years’ of America, where the Bush administration, and its allies in England, have come in for a right kicking over any number of right-wing policies. Most of the results have been fairly lukewarm, either due to an institutional timidity, or a teeth-grinding stridency which has led to any number of well-meaning films left to die, unwanted and unloved, in the bargain bins of history.

Fortunately, last year, the British film In the Loop, used the microscope of satire to finally put a cinematic stamp on much of the shenanigans of the last decade. Now, as a sort of sidekick, we have The Ghost Writer, an extremely expert and engaging political mystery based on a pulpy book entitled “The Ghost”, which was written entirely as a sort of kidney punch to the legacy of former England Prime Minister Blair, fictionalized on the page and on the screen as Adam Lang, portrayed with keen gusto by Pierce Brosnan as a mixed drink of Blair and his blueprint, Bill Clinton.

Lang, we learn, has been ridden out of England on a rail, after his support for the War on Terror proves to be untenable in a country long tired of being America’s pet beagle. He has landed in a compound off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard with his wife, Ruth (an icy, and excellent, Olivia Williams), his assistant Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall, somehow cast as an Englishwoman, and somehow pulling it off just fine), and his auld acquaintance, and ghostwriter, Mike McAra. As the story begins, we learn that McAra is now, in fact, dead. He has apparently drowned, and his body washed up on the beach. This, naturally, means that another ghostwriter is needed, and he soon appears in the form of Ewan McGregor, a failed novelist who makes a living knocking off the sort of quick buck projects that support much of the publishing world. McGregor’s character is a man seemingly without an island of his own. We never learn his name, he has no family to speak of, and he is assigned the task of fixing another man’s work, as McAra’s manuscript is finished but needs to be re-written to the more exacting demands of Lang’s publisher.

Soon after McGregor arrives, Lang learns that he is to be accused of war crimes by his former Foreign Secretary, Robert Rycart, with calls for him to be tried in the International Court. Lang’s attorney then informs him that he will have to remain in America, since, as Henry Kissinger gratefully appreciates, the U.S. doesn’t acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Hague. The pressure is now on not only Lang, but McGregor as well, as his publisher wants the book in a month to take advantage of the media attention, which daily surrounds the house along with political protesters.

Initially a disinterested party, the ghostwriter sets to work on fixing up the manuscript, when he begins to discover clues relating to his predecessor’s investigations, which may or may not have led to his untimely demise. It is our protagonist’s wont to attempt to untangle the many tendrils of not only Lang’s political origins, but of McAra’s demise. This leads him up and down the Vineyard on a snipe hunt that may, or may not, reveal the truth as he meets an assortment of characters with a story to tell. But, as the ghostwriter learns more and more, we are left to ask ‘What does it mean?”

Roman Polanski, who knows a thing or two about international persecution, masterfully culls all of this together into a taut and delightful thriller, something else that he knows a bit about, having directed some of the darkest mysteries of the last 50 years, starting in 1962 with Knife in the Water. Polanski is able to use a cast of waiver wire pickups (Cattrall, Jim Belushi, Eli Wallach), veteran pros (Brosnan, Williams, Tom Wilkinson), and a once-prized prospect who never quite made it big (McGregor), combined with a best-selling novel, and enough barely-disguised winks towards the recent past (picking out the villains of the decade can be done as a parlor game, if you so choose) to earn comparisons to brilliant echoes of the genre like Parallax View and The Manchurian Candidate. Polanski’s long-standing refusal to find silver linings for his characters blissfully remains intact, which leads to my favorite ending to a movie in a long time, and makes The Ghost Writer, much to my surprise, my favorite movie of the year so far.

How Tony Blair feels about it, we can only guess. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama/Mystery/Thriller

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 8/3/10

Now, with Greenberg, we have Baumbach casting his attentions to the male of the species. Ben Stiller, in literally the only performance of his career which I’ve ever admired, stars as Roger Greenberg, an emotionally stunted failed musician in his early 40′s who, as the film begins, has traveled to Los Angeles from his home in Brooklyn to house-sit his wealthy brother’s palatial home. It’s here that he first meets Florence, his brother’s personal assistant, a girl in her mid-20′s who is already drifting amiably, if not a bit disconsolately, through her own life. Greta Gerwig, who has become something akin to the Queen of the stultifying indie ‘mumblecore movement’, is wonderful as Florence, offering a performance of great subtlety as a woman who tries to please but is clumsily stumbling into a life she doesn’t really want, of loveless sex, casual drinking, and quiet sighs. Florence, early on, sees something in Roger, a bitter and caustic man who spends his time writing letters of complaint to major corporations, that nobody else, including the audience, seems to. Roger, for his part, sees in Florence someone he can both bully and manipulate.

Roger, who grew up in LA, also tries to reconnect with old acquaintances. One, his former band mate Ivan (a weary Rhys Ifans), who must deflect Greenberg’s guilt over the dissolution of their rock band, and Beth (a wary Jennifer Jason Leigh), his former flame who has happily moved on with her life, even as Roger can’t seem to get on with his. While both are glad to see him, it’s not always certain if he feels the same, or if he feels at all. Greenberg’s passive/aggressive behavior is almost awe-inspiring at times. Stiller, whose comedy success has always hinged on exploiting his own humiliations, here internalizes his impulses until he lets his frustrations out in short, sharp bursts. It’s the most human he’s ever appeared on film, devoid of warmth or pathos.

After many fits and bursts, a relationship of sorts does develop between Greenberg and Florence. Co-dependent at times, and somewhat revolving around a sick dog, the lazy manner in which the two part and depart, needy and yet distant, plays out as a sort of drunken waltz until the very end. The age difference between the two plays a part; Florence knows that Roger is too old for her, while Roger despairs over the fact that he cannot relate to her friends. Greenberg is, in many ways, a romantic comedy spared the romance and, occasionally, the laughs. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama/Comedy

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 7/13/10

Cinematic War fatigue, a syndrome afflicting most Americans over the last six years that involves the understandable symptoms of choosing escapism as entertainment over ‘realism’, has claimed many victims at the box office. Many of these films weren’t necessarily worthy of much attention, anyway, either due to their ideological stridency (‘War is bad’), or jingoism (‘America Rules Ok!’). Before the recent Oscar success of The Hurt Locker, it was nigh on impossible to ever get anyone to even look at a film concerning, directly or peripherally, the Iraq War, the September 11 attack, or the continuing quagmire of the US’s empire building in the Middle East, unless it was packaged as a documentary which, much like the cable news buffet which is slowly rotting away the concept of journalism as anything but more entertainment, allows the viewer to choose which side of the argument he wants to have be reinforced by the filmmaker.

Which means that one must either applaud, or question, the choice by director Paul Greengrass to step not once, but twice, into the breach. Before his success with the last two Bourne films, Greengrass was nominated as Best Director for United 93, a compelling and brilliantly conceived retelling of the September 11 attack. Nobody watched it. Now, six years later, Greengrass returns with the film Green Zone, based on the best-selling “Imperial Life in the Emerald City”, about the early days of the US invasion of Iraq. It was a box office disaster, despite reuniting Greengrass with his Bourne star Matt Damon. Were its failures deserved, or was it just one more example of the country’s default setting of “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”?

Damon stars as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, heading up a unit that is patrolling Baghdad soon after the US invasion. When his unit is roasting some locals, Miller stumbles upon a notebook, which contains information that is of value to an assortment of people. One, CIA official Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), who wants the notebook for military intelligence. Two, Pentagon official Clark Poundstone (an oily Greg Kinnear, in full-on Don Rumsfeld attire), who wants to keep the intelligence from getting out. Three, journalist Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan) who is in Baghdad to cover the war and, possibly, help drum up support for the invasion, much like Judith Miller and the New York Times did. Miller doesn’t trust any of them, and spends much of the film playing cat and mouse with them, all the while also trying to track down deposed Iraqi general Al Rawi who, after the US eliminated the Iraq military, is planning an uprising against American forces.

Anyone familiar with Greengrass‘s work (which also includes the terrific Irish film Bloody Sunday) will know what he is getting into. Hand-held camera work, which can prove to be either exhilarating or exhausting, vertigo-inducing action sequences, and close-to-the-bone storytelling, spared any superfluous scenes not directly involving the action. Damon, who has proven to be an unexpectedly excellent action hero, is uniformly fine, as are the supporting cast–in particular Kinnear, whose default mode of phony sincerity makes him an inspired choice as one of the cogs of the Military Industrial Complex. Several sequences are quite thrilling, with a number of heavily caffeinated chase scenes where Miller is both pursuer and prey. Somehow, however, it all adds up to something less than the sum of its parts.

To call Green Zone just ‘Bourne in Baghdad’ may be unfair, but there is a whiff of familiarity to the proceedings. The biggest problem, however, may just be that the story feels a little stale. The realization that the Bush administration, and the Pentagon, was lying and manipulative about the reasons for the war seems to be yesterday’s news to anybody beyond the cult of Sarah Palin. If Green Zone had been released in, say, 2005, the story of a soldier desperately trying to get to the truth of the occupation of Iraq would have been noteworthy in contrast to the ‘Mission Accomplished’ xenophobia and the ‘Support Our Troops’ car magnets manufactured in China.

Of course, as we’ve already discussed, nobody would have ever gone to see it, anyway. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Drama/Thriller/War

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 6/22/10

Which brings us to The Road, based on the award-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy. While reading the book, there were more than a few moments where I caught myself thinking “He’s writing a script.” Spare prose, detailed descriptions, and a story which rarely veered from the path which Father and Son (as they shall be known) were traveling on themselves; it would take a very lazy director not to make a compelling film out of it. Fortunately, in John Hillcoat, whose superb 2006 Australian Outback western The Proposition was a master class in violent minimalism, we have a director who is anything but lazy. But, is The Road compelling? Yes… for the most part.

The story, in a nutshell, deals with the unnamed Father (Viggo Mortensen) and his Son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they traverse, slowly and cautiously, through a ruined land in hopes of reaching the sea. An apocalypse has struck, how we do not know (please don’t consult your Mayan calendars), and the earth is rotting away. Humanity, what’s left of it, has been relegated to scavenging to survive; cannibalism is, for some, most definitely on the menu. Father, determined at all costs to protect Son, has only a revolver with a few bullets as protection against the impending savagery. Rumors of a more civilized gathering of the tribes on the coast are all that sustains them. But will they get there?

The film, for all the initial anticipation, was left to sit on the shelf for over a year. There was talk of adding ‘effects’, but if I had to guess, the real problem was that the film, in its unrelenting bleakness, proved impossible to market to a mass audience. Make no mistake: The Road is as grim as its subject matter, with an impressively rendered backdrop of death in every frame. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing. The performances, not only by Mortensen, who at this late stage (he’s 52 years old!) has become one of the world’s great actors, and the equally superb Smit-McPhee, but also by the brief but excellent cameos by Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall and Michael K. Williams, are all of a very high quality. Hillcoat’s direction is very matter-of-fact, taking full advantage of the hell his design team has wrought, and blissfully willing to linger. The script, a tricky one to capture since McCarthy’s book is almost entirely written as internal dialogue, is spare and meaningful. But, at times, there seems to be something missing. There is little hint of suspense, and occasionally the withholding of information can be confusing if you’re not already familiar with the book. It’s quite possible that this was the best anyone could do.

The hardest part of all of this, of course, is how to convince you that, just as summer looks to be approaching to shake hands, spending a couple hours watching the world end is somehow worth your while. Well, you’ll just have to take my word for it. But, if you were not convinced, perhaps you’d be happier sitting back with a book to read. I’d recommend McCarthy‘s ‘Blood Meridian‘. Now there’s a story that would make a great movie.

Maybe. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Adventure/Drama/Thriller

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 5/25/10