Micmacs (2009)

4/5

Micmacs is a return to form for the exquisite Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The movie is as inventive, clever, and fun as all his other movies, with the expected bedazzling visual style and quirky, lovable heroes. The movie centers around Bazil (Boon). After being shot in the head by a stray bullet, he loses his job at a video rental store and takes to the streets for money. He is given shelter and friendship by a group of oddly-talented misfits (Pinon, Marielle, Ferrier, Moreau, Crémadès, Sy, Baup) who live underneath a garbage dump. One day he finds himself walking down a street separating the two biggest arms manufacturers in France. He gets it in his head--like the bullet that still resides there--to teach them a lesson for all the pain he's suffered at their hands, but he is going to need the help of all of his newfound friends.

The movie is simultaneously magical and believable. Jeunet creates a bizarre, exceptional world brimming with personalities instead of characters, spectacles instead of events, and mazes instead of plots. But it is a world that is self-contained, a world that survives under its own unique rules and regulations and not necessarily those of our world. His movies do not require you to suspend your disbelief so much as they require you to engage and engorge your belief, to open up your mind to match his own. Jeunet is full of imagination and, luckily for us, he is able to faithfully reproduce that same world for our benefit. His movies leave you with a grin on your face and a lightness in your soul.

But I have spent many words explaining why I like Jeunet and very little on why I like this movie. Micmacs is as technically proficient as any other Jeunet movie, and perhaps even a bit more ingenious, but it did not have the same oomph as Amélie or A Very Long Engagement. Nor did it have as clear or as relevant a message, at least for me (I found even less here than in Delicatessen). But none of that is a bad thing and none of that diminishes this movie in the slightest. Micmacs is overwhelmingly enjoyable and entertaining, otherworldly in the best possible way, and it is a movie that I would not hesitate to watch over and over again.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1149361/

Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)

2/5

Make Way For Tomorrow is a movie about an elderly couple (Moore, Bondi) who gather their kids together to announce that the bank is taking their house for failure to make payments on it. None of their children can seem to find enough room in their houses, their schedules, or their lives to take them in except for one son (Mitchell). He only has enough space for his mother, so he manages to convince his sister (Risdon) to put up their father until a more permanent situation can be sorted out. And so they are forced to go their separate ways after 50 years of marriage. They miss each other dearly as they try to adjust to their new living arrangements.

The movie itself was competent, but it was overwhelmingly heavy-handed and blunt in its message. It felt like they were hitting me over the head with every lonely composition and sad line of dialogue. Despite the sappy melodrama, a number of parts actually felt realistic. The parents themselves were somewhat annoying, which made the children's frustration easier to relate to. The entire movie was slow-paced, to match the speed of speech of the parents as they complained about random things. The last half of the movie felt a little more spirited--although it didn't make the movie go by any faster--as the couple reunited and relived the happiness they shared in their youth. The most powerful moment for me was a bit earlier on, however, when they are talking on the phone and you realize how much they sacrifice for the little happiness they get by being with each other. All in all, I am not a huge fan of this movie, but then again I am not yet a curmudgeonly grandfather who has shared the majority of my life with a meddling grandmother, although I fully intend to be when I grow up.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029192/

True Grit (2010)

4/5

The Coen brothers' True Grit is an honest-to-goodness Western through and through. It follows 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Steinfeld) seeking revenge for the murder of her father by a drifter named Tom Chaney (Brolin). She hires US Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Bridges) to track him down; he tries his best to dissuade her, but she is steadfast in her determination. Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Damon) joins in on the hunt, as he has been following Chaney since he killed a senator in Texas and aims to bring him back there for a hefty reward. The trio bicker back and forth in delicious Coen dialogue and have some gunfights with the baddies in precise Coen fashion before the final letdown in typical Coen style.

The movie is as technically proficient as ever. There is not a single misstep or error. The cinematography is beautiful and evocative. It feels rich and warm and barren and cold in metered, measured doses. The editing enhances the cinematography by letting it breathe when appropriate and taking your breath away when the story calls for it. But where this movie shines is in the writing and the acting. I recently realized that I am a big fan of the Coens' writing. The words they put down on paper are eloquent and earthy and the way they direct their actors to speak them deadpan works to subtly downplay their elegance. Their dialogue is even better than Tarantino's--and far more poignant and nuanced. Furthermore, the Coens do this on a consistent basis, in every single film they make, which just makes us take it for granted. As for the acting, Hailee Steinfeld is a revelation to behold, dominating every scene she's in (which is essentially the whole movie). She steals the limelight from Bridges and Damon, although their performances are impressive for their grit and charm in their own rights. And wow, does she earn it. Much like Aronofsky's Black Swan, True Grit is a technically proficient film that will be remembered not for the directing or the writing, but for the passionate, unforgettable performance of a young actress with seemingly limitless potential.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1403865/

The Road (2009)

2/5

The Road is a poorly-made adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name. It follows a man (Mortensen) and his son (Smit-McPhee) fighting to survive in a post-apocalyptic world terrorized by nomadic groups of rapists and cannibals. The book is extraordinary, even though its message can be somewhat difficult to decipher. The movie, despite some arresting images, is unimpressive in almost every way and contains some very odd decisions by director John Hillcoat. He uses music in an attempt to bring emotion to a stoic piece, but instead just adds melodrama. He films a birth scene with as much uncomfortable awkwardness as the sex scene in Munich. He uses inane and unnecessary voice-over narration to reiterate what we are already watching on screen. The editing is jarring and stilted. The acting is either overwrought overacting or amateur hour. I'm not saying this is a bad movie, I just see no reason to waste your time watching it.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/

The Family Man (2000)

4/5

The Family Man feels like a modern reworking of Capra's It's A Wonderful Life with a sprinkle of Dickens's A Christmas Carol. The story follows money-hungry CEO Jack Campbell (Cage) working on a multi-billion dollar merger on Christmas Eve. He has even set up an emergency meeting on Christmas Day that he expects all his employees to come in for. He unexpectedly gets a call from Kate (Leoni), an old girlfriend he was thinking about marrying before he left her at the airport for a competitive internship in London, but decides to refrain from calling her back. On his way back to his bachelor pad in an NYC high-rise, a mysterious man (Cheadle) offers him a glimpse of the life he could have led, as a family man in Jersey married to Kate with two kids.

There is nothing particularly spectacular about the technical aspects in this film. The cinematography and editing are competent enough to fade into the background and be forgotten. The acting, on the other hand, was something special. Simple performances for relatively simple characters, but full of genuine emotion. You can easily see the hurt and happiness on their faces. You sympathize with them (even if you're not a fan of Nicolas Cage). When you're watching this movie, you are completely enveloped in it. And there is nothing more you want than for them to be happy. It's far from a perfect movie. There are plenty of plot inconsistencies, unclear motivations, and ambiguous backstories, but they matter about as much as the lighting. The Family Man is about the Christmas season and the holiday spirit, and it is pleasantly delightful.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218967/

Black Swan (2010)

5/5

Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan is honestly one of the most terrifying movies I have ever seen. It envelops you in the psyche of an unstable, damaged woman. It traps you there without escape. Yet you cannot turn your eyes away. You can only watch in horror as she gradually disintegrates. You are left staring at scenes that will disturb and disgust you. You witness her fears come alive as hallucinations; you witness her ecstasies turn cruel and nightmarish. When her paranoia completely engulfs her, I was literally trembling with fear.

The movie is arresting in all its technical aspects. Its stark lighting and black and white palette is visually stunning. It frequently tracks characters' movements, more often rough, nauseating, and immersive instead of the more typical smooth, dreamlike voyeurism to which we are accustomed. The editing is pitch-perfect: it gives us fluid transitions alongside beautiful compositions, it integrates plot progression with taut suspense. The thematics are compelling and powerful, revealing Aronofsky's focus on central concepts that likely mirror his own life. The story shares the same basic framework as all of his other films. An outcast discovers a hobby or talent. It becomes an addiction that soon consumes their life. It finally metamorphoses into an obsession for which they will sacrifice everything they used to cherish.

Aronofsky's Black Swan, for all its technical prowess and thematic underpinnings, is a movie that ultimately rests on the actors' shoulders. Winona Ryder, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, and Vincent Cassel shine in their roles, but none of them take your breath away quite like Natalie Portman. She delivers a phenomenal performance. She plays the timid, virginal ballerina to perfection. Her ultimate reversal into the sexually uninhibited black swan seems equally effortless. She simply becomes her character--none of it is acting. She is the reason to stop whatever you're doing right now and see this movie. But no matter when you see it, now or ten years from now, I have no doubt that it will still be hailed as a masterpiece.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0947798/

Transsiberian (2008)

3/5

Transsiberian attempts to be a finely-honed thriller but instead frequently crosses the line between tense and boring and often mixes up scary "what if" paranoias with absolutely ludicrous impossibilities. The movie follows an American couple, Roy (Harrelson) and Jessie (Mortimer), leaving China on an 8-day train ride to Moscow. On the train they meet another couple, Abby (Mara) and Carlos (Noriega), and quickly place way too much trust in them. When Roy is nowhere to be found when the train takes off, Jessie gets worried. She gets off at the next stop and waits there with Abby and Carlos, but they don't hear from Roy all night. Also, randomly, Ben Kingsley plays a narcotics officer that eventually gets involved.

The plot itself is a mixed bag. As I said earlier, the creators must have found it very difficult to strike the balance they desired. Oftentimes the movie drags, oftentimes it is preposterous. The other half of the time they spin a wonderfully taut psychological thriller. On paper it must have seemed well-crafted, giving the audience subtle clues and background stories to foreshadow ominous events before an exciting and climactic finale. But the whole thing seems very written and pre-planned. Unfortunately, the more you get into the movie, the less you believe it and the less you care about the characters. None of the technical features really stood out to me while watching it either. Still, this was a relatively enjoyable popcorn flick with a few too many contrivances and plot holes for me to really love it.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800241/