POETRY is a subtle and lyrical slice-of-life (Part of Dallas International Film Festival)

            Poetry, the neo-realistic film from South Korea, left me feeling sorrowful for the central character, Mija (Jeong-hie Yun), who’s an elderly lady taking care of her only teenage grandson, who was abandoned by his biological mother. The lyrical and observant tale begins with a shot of a little school girl, dead, floating gracefully down a running river.

            Poetry is a subtle drama about guilt, redemption, justice, and discovering life’s simple beauties when you’re constantly surrounded by emotional pain, misery, and financial burdens. Korean actress, Jeong-hie Yun, gives a wonderful and quiet performance. The actress evokes more sentiments and humanistic details from her body language than the monotonous tone of her voice. She’s timid, passive, and most of all, lost. Throughout the narrative, we see the protagonist gradually empathize with the dead girl’s disturbing tragedy and past childhood existence. Mija enlists in a community poetry class and throughout her journey, finds a way to appreciate nature’s simple beauties, masking her sorrowful situation.

            The director utilizes frames-within-frame during some of the interior shots, which works as a recurrent visual motif. Before a provocative moment occurs, the camera remains stationed outside the room, giving the impression that this moment should be left as a secret. For example, in a disturbing sexual sequence, the camera lingers a short distance from a bathroom door and then suddenly, the door quietly closes, but the camera remains stationed, which builds tension for what’s about to happen.

            The steady pace in the film is deliberate; the filmmakers are capturing life as it is in a lower-class Korean neighborhood. Furthermore, there are moments where the grandmother picks up a fallen apricot on the sandy pathway or gazes at a flowing river, which shows the character’s appreciation for the details in each location. Through quiet and observant meditation, the grandmother finds poetry in life, not in her class.

            I had the great opportunity of seeing the film at the Dallas International Film Festival. After the screening, audience members gathered around, trying their best to describe the powerful, yet subtle emotional build-up. After watching Poetry and last year’s quirky mystery thriller, Mother (2010), I have grown quite fond of Korean cinema and will continue to lookout for up-and-coming Korean filmmakers.

***1/2 (out of four stars)

WUSS.....my favorite Casa-nerdo (Part of Dallas International Film Festival)

            Wuss opens with a 1999 high school reunion, and the band for the party is singing a pop-rock song about 9/11. Right away, the writer/director, Clay Liford, invites the audience to a refreshing and odd black comedy, reeking of provocative and satirical overtones. After Wes Anderson’s dryly funny Rushmore (1998) and Ash Christian’s zany dark comedy, Mangus!, I get the feeling that the new generation of Texas filmmakers love to poke fun at southern suburbia.

            After our hero, Mitch (Nate Rubin), a wimpy-looking substitute English teacher, gets rejected by a woman he finds attractive, the title, “Wuss,” appears over the small man’s image in bold white letters. From there, the peculiar rhythm is established, and it rarely falls flat.

            Wuss is about a high school teacher who’s constantly threatened, intimidated, and violently picked on by a particular student and his posse of adolescent misfit friends. Mitch has a steady career, but still lives with his mother and nagging sister. Obviously, he’s too scared to find a life of his own. The bulk of the narrative revolves around the taboo relationship between our wussy hero and one of his female students, Maddie (Alicia Anthony), commonly known as “butt-whore.” Not because she’s actually a prostitute, but smokes cigarettes she find on the ground.

            The awkward tone begins to bubble-up in a scene where two of the faculty members are gossiping about Maddie, aka “butt-whore,” and the film randomly cuts to a quick shot of her picking up a cigarette off the sidewalk. The flashback shot might only last for a few seconds, but the influence behind the editing style dates back to Truffaut’s French new-wave masterpiece, Shoot the Piano Player (1960), where we see a mother keel over dead, right after a character articulates the incident. If Shoot the Piano Player dates too far back for some readers, than checkout Paul Thomas Anderson’s debut film, Hard Eight (1996), in which we cut to a random shot of a large box of matches flame-up in actor John C. Reily’s pant-pocket. Rounding out my point, the flashbacks in these films are paralleled with natural conversations, and only reveal an odd character trait, rather than an important plot-point.

Another minor aspect I enjoyed about Wuss was some of the abrupt jump-cuts, and the bold white lettering over certain scenes. These small details and stylistic editing choices bring-out the awkward visual language of the film.

            As much as I enjoyed the originality of the writing, I felt some of the portrayals were too exaggerated and a few of the performances were a bit amateurish. The dialogue might punch with a dead-pan, dryly humorous force, but some of the actors, not including the protagonist) have bad timing and delivery, which undercuts the biting dialogue.

            The bizarre depiction of a public school and smarmy faculty members refers to such indie classics as Election (1999) and Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996). The filmmaker behind Wuss won the audience award at the Dallas International Film Festival, and deservedly so. After the last screening, the audience congregated with the cast and crew for a fun and relaxing Q and A. Wuss is still working the festival circuit, but with the right connections and promotions, I’m sure it will be picked up for distribution. I wonder what kind of film the writer/director is working on next. Perhaps it will have the title, “Faggots and Retards.” (Please do not take offense; I’m just making a point about the filmmaker’s blunt humor).

*** (out of four stars)

           

           

           

APART is worth putting together (part of the Dallas International Film Festival)

Apart is a puzzling, romantic mystery about two young individuals, Noah (Josh Danziger) and Emily (Olesya Rulin), linked by a rare psychological disorder (ICD-10 F.24). At the beginning of the film we are informed that this was based on actual events. I think not. After a discussion with the filmmaker, Aaron Rottinghaus, I made the clarification that it’s actually based on an obscure event where two people checked into the hospital with similar bleeding marks. Is this a coincidence or does this supernatural-like disorder truly has any validity? Well, it doesn’t matter. What intrigued me about the film is the enigmatic connection we make with other people.

            Apart begins as Noah awakens, paralyzed, in a hospital. Gradually, his mind, speech, body movement, and most importantly, his memory gradually recovers. In fact, both Noah and Emily are seen by psychiatrists to understand their bizarre and violent event.

            The best part of the narrative is that this isn’t the actual beginning of the plot, just the story. As the film progresses, we learn about a fatal school bus crash, where both Emily and Noah were involved and survived in. Their disorder allows for them to see the consequences of such drastic events before they occur; the bloody aftermath, to be more specific.

            When I asked the writer and director about the influence for their original and beautifully shot film, they mentioned the Hitchockian classic, Vertigo (1958). Please, do not see Apart and expect to walk into the hypnotic classic. Perhaps it was the combination of a mystery and a love story, which refers to the masterpiece, but other than that, it’s the only reference to Vertigo I could spot. Vertigo is a surreal piece of cinema about undying obsession, above many other things.

            Apart was stunningly photographed on HD (the same camera used in The Social Network (2010), and surprisingly displayed a large depth of field, which can be difficult when shooting on HD. For example, during a flashback sequence of a school bus crash, the use of a sun-glowing color effect in post-production and awkward angles brought out a nice deep focus in the image. In fact, every technical stage of this little indie flick radiates with professionalism.

            The film contains an interesting, yet slightly flawed nonlinear structure. I think the plot works well by jumping sequences out of order, increasing the mysterious intrigue between the two star-crossed lovers, but it all builds up to a rather vague ending. Another issue I had with the film was the lack of chemistry between the two leads. They never have much to say to one another and during instances where they should be screaming with grief, they seem rather emotionless.

During the Q&A, an audience member questioned the use of a nonlinear structure. The filmmakers weren’t quite sure themselves, but from the tone of their voice, you can tell they wanted to just say, “Hey, it works better.” In my opinion, the only reason to use a nonlinear structure is to enhance the drama, and in the case with Apart, it works.

*** (out of four)

           

SOURCE CODE is a well-constructed thriller

The filmmakers behind Source Code don’t waste anytime moving the plot along; the first ten minutes jumpstarts the déjà-vu like plotline, and the momentum is sustained throughout. It’s just go-go-go; put your thinking cap on and enjoy the high-tech thriller.

            Jake Gyllenhaal wakes up on a speeding train on the way to the heart of Chicago, not aware of his surroundings or his own identity. Several people on the train get up and pass by, and one spills their coffee on his shoes. The director cuts to several quick insert shots, which recur over and over again in the plot, and yes, these shots generate a different perspective by Gyllenhaal’s character each time around. Eight minutes and one deadly explosion later, our hero is transported back to what he thinks might be reality. Gyllenhaal’s mission is to discreetly uncover the bomber of a train, trying to save humanity, eight minutes at a time.

            The exposition of the drastic chain of events are well established, but some of the information the audience is fed is very high-tech and far-fetched. Hell, we are not even transported back in time, but more specifically, a parallel universe. That’s okay though, we don’t need much of a rational explanation, as long as the logic works in the film, as opposed to reality. I might not completely grasp the concept of the “source code,” but throw away your logic and immerse yourself in this fast-paced, intelligent thriller.

             The best comparison I can make to Source Code is Christopher Nolan’s stunning dreamlike scenario in the ambitious thriller, Inception (2010), but Source Code is more straightforward and moves like lightning as opposed to Nolan’s high-concept opus. After the situational conflict is established, the writers work on the protagonist’s intriguing character development. Gradually, the audience discovers a central purpose to Gyllenhaal’s mission and why he’s the one to save the world from global terrorism.

             The finale of Source Code had me a little confused; I felt I needed a little more clarity and thought the ending had sort of an open-ended interpretation. Perhaps everything was tied together in a nice little bow, but I thought the last five minutes or so negates the concept of the “source code,” and its paradoxical possibilities. Films like the big-budget Source Code isn’t what I love about going to the movies, but it’s refreshing to be thoroughly engaged and thinking on my toes for a swift hour and a half.

*** (out of four)

BY DAY AND BY NIGHT serves a quiet sci-fi experience (part of the Dallas International Film Festival)

If the brilliant Italian director, Federico Fellini (La Dolce Vita, 81/2), made a sci-fi picture, the metaphorical images, particularly the ocean tide, where the earth begins and the abyss of heaven never ends, would be similar to By Day and By Night, a minimalistic science-fiction film from Mexico. The film is essentially about the apocalyptic effects of an overpopulated metropolis, and the split lives of a family; a man, woman, and a little girl, all searching for their own freedom outside the futuristic habitat. One can only see the other when they’re asleep, and are scientifically engineered with a special enzyme. By day, the woman is awake, and by night, both the man and the girl are awake. Unfortunately, the lovely threesome can’t ever experience one another’s companionship simultaneously.

The quiet story and the empty, yet luscious landscape works as an allegory for the oppression and overpopulation of the Mexican underclass, and metaphorically expresses the ancient Mayan culture of Mexico’s history. The philosophical messages slowly emerge from the science-fiction backdrop. By Day and By Night doesn’t refer to the sci-fi, popcorn extravaganza of Star Wars (1977), but more in touch with Kubrick’s hypnotic masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

The best part of this slow-paced film is the meticulous framing and image composition. The director and actor, Alejandro Molina, has a terrific photographic eye. He certainly knows how to frame his actors in every shot, and in the process, clearly distinguishes the foreground from the background. For instance, there’s a scene where the family is running away from the dreary futuristic city, and the shot of the car driving through a desolate road contains a beautiful cactus-flower in the foreground, suggesting they are the only living things in the midst of the open landscape, and in this case, the desert habitat. Another terrific shot is where one of the actors is situated on a moving-dolly, and as he progresses across the screen with a blank emotion, a shadowy mural of ancient Mayan ruins steadily move forward from the background, expressing the film’s cultural overtones.

To my dismay, I couldn’t understand the story or the convoluted interpretation until the last 40 minutes or so. Perhaps, I was so enamored by the filmmaker’s graceful image construction that I slowly lost interest in the story, or maybe, the story wasn’t interesting enough to keep my attention. Either way, I was bored, plain and simple. This is a serene futuristic drama about love, emotions, and family values, but the sci-fi elements could’ve been dropped. In addition, the gradual pacing works against the realistic conflicts of the family portrayed. There are some films where the slow placing is deliberate, and builds to a stunning conclusion. In By Day and By Night, the camera lingers for too long for majority of the shots, dragging the pace. For those interested in brilliant cinematography and composition, it’s worth a look, but I need more of a reason than the elegant look of a film to stay interested. .

**1/2 (out of four)

MANGUS!......theatre of the absurd!

The young filmmaker, Ash Christian, pulls together every absurd, sly, and politically incorrect idea that pops into his zany head, and the end result is Mangus!; a comical throwback to the midnight movie mania of the 1970s, a la John Waters. This is a fine installment to the demented queer cinema fad, but unfortunately, midway through, the bad taste runs low and the quirky concepts become too over the top.

Mangus! is about a Jesus Christ theater nut, who after an unfortunate accident, becomes paralyzed in a wheelchair, ruining his chances of being the star of the high school production of “Jesus Christ Spectacular,” which is a parody of the famed production, “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Writer/director Ash Christian creates an oddball community of trailer-park misfits, queens, and lets not forget, politically incorrect depictions of paraplegics. Mangus Spedgwick comes from a somewhat broken home, living back and forth between his biological and stepparents. His starry-eyed dream is to both play, and in state of disallusionment, transform into Jesus Christ; even if he has to carry a bag of his urine onto the stage with him.

The best part of the ultra-low-budget indie flick are the crazy supporting characters, which include parts played by Heather Matarazzo (Welcome to the Dollhouse 1996), Jennifer Coolidge (Best in Show 2000), Leslie Jordan (Sordid Lives 2000), and lets not forget, the iconic filmmaker of the crème-de-la-crème of bad taste, John Waters (Pink Flamingos 1971), playing a cameo as the real Jesus Christ. Furthermore, Ash Christian provides a satirical observation of suburban life in a small Texas community.

Due to budget restraints and a tight crew, the film was shot on HD cam, and when dealing with the digital medium, it can be tricky to enrich the quality of the image. As most filmmakers know, digital provides a very flat image, as opposed to the rich texture of film. Technically, I felt Mangus! was a rough cut to a more ambitious and polished piece of work. Some of the interior shots were a bit dark and blurry, or flooded with too much light, and could’ve used a few color corrections in post-production. In addition, the slow-motion effects in a few scenes were a bit jarring and superfluous. A little trim here and there on the final cut could’ve benefited. Indie films with a shoe-string budget and a small time-frame to complete for the festival circuit will invariably have a few rough edges. These minor flaws aren’t what I really look for in independent cinema. Story, originality, and character development are what truly matters.

Mangus! contains many laughs and bizarre plot lines, but towards the end, some of the offensive humor feels like a one-trick pony. The film left me craving for a more outrageous variation of comical, musical, melodramatic, and even gruesome genres. What the audience is walking into is a flat-out black comedy, what I really wanted out of Mangus! was an ambitious horror-musical-comedy. Overall, the film is quite the original invention, but I wanted more of a hodgepodge of polar genres.

Mangus! is premiering at the Dallas International Film Festival and is definitely worth a look. Ash Christian’s ideas and oddball visual grammar has midnight movie cult-status written all over it, and the more films he makes and the bigger budgets he’ll acquire, the more polished they’ll become.

**1/2 (out of four stars)

HESHER....the loser with the heart of gold

A few weeks ago I had the great opportunity to visit the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, TX. I only spent three days there, but out of the eight films I saw there was only one that I highly recommend seeing once it hits theaters. The film is called Hesher (2010), and let me tell you, it’s the kind of indie film that reeks of originality and candidness. The cast is superb, the humor is down-right dirty, and the dialogue crackles with witty one-liners.

Hesher is a quirky black comedy that never lets up with its mordant sense of humor. In the spirit of Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and The Good Girl (2002), here is an indie flick with the right amount of rudeness, humor, and heart. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception and Mysterious Skin) leads the cast as Hesher; a loser with no direction in life. Hesher lives in his van, never washes his grungy long hair, and lives to feed off other people, and their own misery. He’s a nihilistic tool in the worse sense, but still, the veteran 20-something actor, Levitt, has the uncanny ability of exuding a certain charm about this misfit of an asshole character. Furthermore, in reality, the actor transforms from a nice Jewish boy from the suburbs to a pot-smoking arsonist with nothing but an attitude problem.

Hesher finds himself taking advantage of a broken-home, due to the loss of a young boy’s mother. He barges in, and he acts like it’s his own home, including watching porn in his underwear on the living room couch. This character plays on the weak and usually waits for someone to have the balls to discard his disgusting presence. Fortunately, for Hesher, the family he’s barged in on is grieving for a loss in their family, and events that take to the turn for the….well surprisingly, the better, in a more therapeutic sense.

The one that everyone hates and despises for his utter crudeness towards humanity just happens to be the very one to breath life into a broken-family, numb with emotional turmoil. At this point of the story, the writing and character development soar to another level; the poignant battles we must go through to deal with grief.

The stellar cast also includes Rainn Wilson, best known as a comedian on the hit show The Office plays the empty and forever-in-grief father. Piper Laurie plays the elderly grandmother, and I’m sorry for Carrie (1976) fans, but she does not lock up any family member in the closet to pray for forgiveness. Piper Laurie’s performance is as genuine and serene as any typical grandmother who smokes pot to help with her glaucoma. Natalie Portman plays a grocery clerk who also happens to become a part of Hesher’s whirlwind of destruction and later on, redemption. The key to the relationship between Hesher and this strange family is an adolescent boy, T.J. (Devin Brochu) played with the perfect sensibility of any angry, adolescent boy.

Hesher is the kind of indie film to take your friends out and laugh at the ridiculous, yet original dilemmas, and then, find a place in your heart to empathize with every character, no matter what bad things they might have done.

***1/2 (out of four stars)

RANGO.....the lizard with no name

Rango is by far one of the strangest animated films geared towards kids I’ve seen in a while. The film begins with our lizard hero addressing the camera as he plays make believe in his safe environment; a glass tank situated in the back of a sedan. Suddenly, an abrupt accident causes him to lose his safe enclosed home and venture into a new life in the middle of the desert. From here, the film stays true to the western genre, and introduces a variety of creepy-looking animated possums, armadillos, porcupines, rattle snakes and other familiar desert creatures. The animators and director Gore Virbinski uses the depleted desert as a metaphor to express an ill-resourced environment where the citizens are barely surviving. The folks inhabiting the town “Dirt” are cleverly animated as gray, ashy and weak, suggesting they are deeply deprived of water.

In fact, water plays an important role in the film as the single greatest resource to both sustain and destroy a desert habitat. Civilization vs. the landscape is a common theme in the western genre dating back to the 1930s and in Rango, the writers take it to a more intricate level. As Rango begins to learn about the towns folk he uncovers corruption amongst the highest order of citizens. The subtext is reminiscent of one of the greatest private-eye mysteries ever made, Chinatown (1974), which uses water as a means to hold the most power in a desert town. In Chinatown, it was 1930s LA, but in Rango, it’s a stereotypical western town.

As much as I enjoyed the more adult themes in a so-called “kids” movie, I was slightly put-off by the range of western clichés, such as walking into the saloon where only the scariest inhabitants hangout in, or where Rango is forced to draw guns with an opponent in the middle of the town. Scenes like these take me out of the realm of what I love about vintage spaghetti westerns and unfortunately reminded me of other western spoofs, such as Back to the Future III (1990).

I suppose for an animated film these scenes, which I can recall in dozens of films, are necessary to address the audience and say, "Look! You are now transported into the western genre.” Scenes like these only bothered me a bit more in this particular film because from screen right to screen left, Rango is filled with inventive imagery and smartly written adult-like overtones; I wish the originality stayed fresh throughout the lizard’s entire journey.

Johnny Depp leads the cast as the colorful lizard, Rango, which exudes the same weirdness as his portrayal as Gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) (in fact, Hunter S. Thompson, the drug-induced writer, has a brief appearance speeding in his vintage red 60s convertible Chevy in the beginning of the film). I loved the awkward look of the slacker-type Rango; it’s much more fun to root for a hero that doesn’t clash with a more friendly, animated type. He’s slightly obnoxious and off-putting, and unlike most heroes in the western tradition, he rambles on with a jocular dialogue.

The strange look of the film and the clever themes of power and corruption could’ve best served for a darker and less comedic experience. The studio is aware that this is a “kids” movie, but I was more moved by the adult concepts than some of the child-like humor. I felt Rango could’ve been more ambitious if it moved into a more thought-provoking direction, alienating a large chunk of its general audience. When animated films decide to truly push the limits of their content, I’ll be the first in line, but for what it is, Rango is a delightful animated concoction, but I felt the filmmakers could’ve pushed the contents’ boundaries a little bit more.

***(out of four stars)

Yale's favoirte comedy of all time is.......

      After growing up watching reruns of MASH on television, I had no intentions of seeing the original movie it was based upon. The show was a hit and the characters were zany, but it had the feel of any other kind of television sitcom; majority of the humor is centered on the witty punch lines. However, once I was introduced to the great American filmmaker, Robert Altman, my curiosity for MASH (1970) increased. After my first viewing, I was blown away by the improvised dialogue, the sheer irreverence, the anti-war message, the dark humor, and the daring visual style.

      Even though the film takes place at a dreary medical unit, and soldiers are dying left and right, Altman still creates an attractive environment, as if being on the front-lines is as chic as an exclusive after-party. His way of getting the cast together, studying the actors’ personal mannerisms, and utilizing their individual behaviors in an improvised technique is a tour-de-force for a director. The characters and the dialogue are constantly overlapping; from screen right to screen left, Altman depicts sort of a panorama of separate actions and conversations. His most experimental and daring use of overlapping sound is in Nashville (1975), but watch all of his movies, and the same technique is evident.

      The film opens with the pop-like melody of “Suicide is Painless”—the disturbing lyrics heavily contrast with the catchy tone of the song. The lyrics suggest that going to war and patriotism in the Vietnam era was like signing your own death wish. Now, even though MASH takes place during the Korean War, Robert Altman subtly refers to the Vietnam War, the current international crisis at the time. Like filmmakers during the McCarthy era, Altman knew he had to be a smuggler of important political messages, despite the censorship. The studio demanded that the film take place during the Korean War and Altman was infuriated. Why make a film in which the time and place has no relevance to what was really going on in the late 1960s? Throughout the film, Altman makes some of the locations look like Vietnam, rather than Korea. When the doctors go into town, a lot of the citizens are wearing those triangular, peasant-looking Vietnamese hats. In addition, the film refers to the “draft,” which didn’t occur during the Korean War.

      I absolutely love the murky look of the film. The camera is inertly panning across and constantly zooming in from a distance. It seems simplistic and a bit messy, as far as camerawork goes, but it truly brings out the actor’s dialogue and has the feel of a voyeur catching something he didn’t see before the cameras rolled. Robert Altman uses a lot of smoky-like filters in his camera, decreasing the brilliance in his colors. The gloomy cinematography looks like an old picture that has been handed down for over a century. It has a rustic look, but very authentic.

      The majority of the humor is dead-pan, dry, sarcastic, and subtle. Not every character has to be stuck in an embarrassing dilemma to make the audience laugh. The way Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould casually interact with one another or purposely humiliate another comrade feels very natural. I guess this is the best comedy ever made because I’ve rarely seen rudeness seem so elegant. When the men make a bet to see if Hot Lips (Sally Kellerman) is really a blonde and pull the shower tent on her, it’s not the public humiliation of a woman that’s hysterical, it’s how all the men are sitting like a group of serious judges to see the real color of her pubic hair. It’s the non-nonchalant attitude towards everything that I find hysterical. Hence, lays the critical meaning behind the film. These doctors had to live in a sort of hysteria and craziness to deal with the constant bloodshed. MASH is one of the most beloved comedies of our time. To this day, the humor, the mischievousness, and the irreverence is still fresh as ever.

NO STRINGS ATTACHED is just another mediocre romantic hit

             Some might say that this is the perfect date movie. Lets look at the equation; two good looking stars, feather-light material, raunchy content, and the occasional penis jokes must be the new formula to get the 20-something couples back into the theater, rather than download movies via Netflix. While I was watching the R-rated romantic comedy in a packed house, I was surprised to see majority of the audience laughing. I didn’t laugh once, just smirked at the utter cuteness of the two leads, Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher.

Gross-out comedies and sex romps are dependent on a very crucial element; what’s the most embarrassing situation we can put the characters in? I’m not going to lie; this kind of scenario is the key to fine comedy. Remember when Ben Stiller got his scrotum stuck in his zipper in There's Something About Mary (1998) Do you remember dying of laughter when they cut to a close-shot of the unfortunate accident? How about when Joe Pesci showed up to court wearing a 19^th century velvet red tuxedo in My Cousin Vinny ( 1991)—now that’s comedy. 
What probably turned me off about No Strings Attached was the predictable plot and how tame the embarrassing situations were. I’m sorry, but the writers could’ve done much better than seeing a frantic Natalie Portman gorging donut holes, smearing the powder all over her face, or Ashton Kutcher waking up naked on a strange couch.

In the film, the two leads reach an arrangement to engage in a strictly sexual relationship. You know what--I think that particular scenario has a lot of room for side-splitting and inventive humor. It truly does, but since you know what kind of movie you’re walking into before the credits appear, you know they’re going to fall in love at the end. Another raunchy comedy that came out last year, Love and other Drugs (2010), contains a similar love/hate relationship, and I enjoyed the characters struggles until the tacked-on happy ending. Now, I’m not degrading happy endings. I love to feel uplifted after a movie, but why do the two star-crossed lovers always have to end up together where one is literally racing after the other when you know they could’ve called or sent a text message?

Studio romantic comedies are hit or miss these days. Sometimes, the filmmakers will try for inventiveness and still create something with mass appeal. The rest of the bunch are just thinking of mass appeal, and the finished product feels like it was manufactured on the basis of last years top grossing romantic comedy.

** (out of four)

Yale's top ten list for 2010

I know I am running late with my top ten list for 2010, but since I don’t receive tickets for advance screenings or passes for the numerous film festivals around the world, I couldn’t see every film that counts for 2010 until the new year. This was a surprisingly good year for films, specifically foreign cinema. I know my personal top ten list for 2010 won’t influence academy voters, but I’d like to think that my opinion counts with the best of them. Here are my favorite films of 2010…………

1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO. This Swedish hit was overlooked by the academy, but I was mesmerized by this grand and richly layered mystery. Noomi Rapace gives an outstanding performance as the sexually ambivalent hacker who helps uncover the disappearance of a woman almost forty years ago. As much as I liked the Girl Who Played with Fire (2010) I still felt that the first in the trilogy was the strongest and the most accomplished narrative. Just when you think the mystery is solved and the film is over, the plot reveals a bold character development, which reminded me of Kathleen Turner’s scheming plan in Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat (1981).
2. ANIMAL KINGDOM. This dark, gritty, and tension-filled independent film from Australia takes a generic crime story and turns it into an in-depth, sociological and psychological portrayal of a teenager’s survival amongst a dysfunctional family of born and bred criminals. Jacki Weaver gives an Oscar-worthy performance as the conniving, matriarch ringleader of the family. This film was overlooked by many, but I was really glad to see that Jacki Weaver received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.
3. MOTHER. A terrific, Hitchcockian thriller from South Korea. A desperate mother cares for her only dim-witted son who’s accused of murdering a young girl. Skeptical about the police investigation, she sets out to find out who was really responsible for the murder. A unique hybrid of quirkiness and mystery makes this one of the best thrillers of the year.
4. NEVER LET ME GO. This is an absolute jewel of a film. Never Let Me Go is an exquisitely crafted tale about love, loss, individuality, and the boundaries of life. I was in awe of the visual overtones of this sumptuous love story. The film has a terrific, sci-fi like revelation, which gives it an improbable connection between images and content. Andrew Garfield, better known as Mark Zuckerberg’s roommate in The Social Network gives a remarkable supporting performance here, and is a career worth tracking. He’s going to become a big star, considering he just got the lead role in the new Spiderman film, but make sure to see his earlier work.
5. THE GHOST WRITER. Roman Polanski is back in action with this highly intelligent mystery, which is reminiscent of his earlier work from the 60s. Even though there is very little violence, Polanski provides a timely, political thriller, which is more suspenseful than most big budget action films this year.
6. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP. Documentary filmmaking has never been this fun and inventive. The story is about a shopkeeper’s attempt to document the famous graffiti artist, Bansky, who is revealed as a mystery throughout the film. This spontaneous and hip documentary calls attention to its eccentric filmmaker, but you never know who is really creating the documentary until midway through. I had a smile from cheek to cheek watching this artistic and very funny opus.
7. LET ME IN. A horror remake of the Swedish hit, Let the Right One In (2008), does justice to the original and director Matt Reeves shows a little mastery in direction. This film is about the unlikeliest of friendship between a bullied twelve year old boy and a mysterious girl vampire, who teaches him some life lessons along the way. Both elegant and chockfull of gore, Let Me In is a creeper of a keeper, which cleverly reinvents the vampire genre conventions.
8. 127 HOURS. Aaron Ralston is an adventurous young man who ditches his 9 to 5 life to climb the dangerous crevices of Utah’s canyons, and unfortunately, he gets his arm pinned under a bolder. Narrow spaces and a narrow narrative, but director Danny Boyle gives us a wide range of brilliant imagery—from shaky, digital-video footage to high-resolution textures. 127 Hours is undoubtedly, an unflinching look at a real life, grueling experience.
9. BLACK SWAN. Darren Aronofsky has finally honed his directing skills in this balletic and nightmarish soap opera of the highest order. A strange, very strange psychosexual melodrama, not for all taste, but I think it’s safe to say that Aronofsky’s vision of a hardcore ballerina on the brink of a psychological meltdown is so strong, he transcends what could’ve been a campy, backstage look at the ballet scene in New York City to a dark, brooding, and artsy feast for the audience into a more bizarre world. Black Swan will fall somewhere in between the erotically-charged Mulholland Dr. (2001) and the sexually frustrating Repulsion (1965).
10. THE KING’S SPEECH. A triumphant and beautiful drama about King George VI humiliating defect as a stutterer and his rare companionship with his speech teacher. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush give Oscar-worthy performances in this uplifting period piece about a conflict that is universal, whether you’re about to be king to the throne or promoted from a busboy to a waiter. In addition, this is the best photographed film of the year. I love how the director keeps the actors at the edges of the frame, and the cinematography provides a gloomy, pastel hue, which evokes the period of the film.

Sitback, hangout, indulge.....SOMEWHERE

What’s a mega action star’s instinctive motivation for any role they take? Answer: their salary, what else? Is the life of the celeb-party animal and superficial adoration really what it’s all about?

Sofia Coppola’s artsy, new wave, European-like, lingering film, Somewhere probes the dull lifestyle of an overpaid Hollywood action star, the same way director Michelangelo Antonioni depicted the so-called “swinging” life of a fashion photographer in the influential Blow-Up (1966). Coppola and Antonioni come from different generations, but both filmmakers have an acute eye for what it’s like to be alone, when you’re never really alone.

The opening shot of Somewhere is of Stephen Dorff’s character, Johnny Marco, making the day pass by circling his expensive Ferrari in the middle of the desert. After a few laps, he gets out and glumly looks into the bright sky. He’s obviously bored, but if he’s so bored, why does he doe it? My initial response was that Dorff’s character never really knows what he wants out of life. It’s not his lucrative career, it’s not the drugs and the booze, it’s not the tiresome string of one night stands—it’s a human connection that he’s missing out of life.

Now, before you walk into the theater expecting my distinctive response to be written on the screen, than you’ll be terribly disappointed. This is a quiet and moody film, meandering through a small myriad of authentic characters, specifically the relationship between Johnny Marco and his estranged daughter, Cleo, played with great spontaneity by Elle Fanning, younger sister of Dakota Fanning.

Sofia Coppola’s work evokes her own sensibility and privileged childhood. The characters in her films are never truly outward with their emotions and are usually the non-traditional lone-wolves of a glitzy lifestyle. Somewhere challenges the viewers to come up with their own conclusion of Coppola’s emotionally ambivalent characters.

Sure, some of her work is a bit self-indulgent, but it’s quite hard to make a highly personal film without being a tidbit self-indulgent. This isn’t Sofia Coppola’s greatest achievement, but it’s nice to go to the movie theaters and hangout with characters that seem like they have it all, but still feel utterly empty inside. Like the title, the central character doesn’t go anywhere, but he has to end up somewhere, and it’s not about a place, it’s about a human connection; discovering a valid state of mind.

*** (out of four stars)