Neverending
12-21-2003, 10:18 PM
1. "Monster": The performance of the year, in the film of the year. Charlize Theron plays Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who was executed in Florida for the murders of seven men. The film portrays her as a woman so damaged in early life, so beaten down by daily existence, that although her crimes are not forgivable, her actions are like the flailings of a wounded animal.
Theron, now 28, has been known until now as the tall, attractive star of mid-level entertainments like "The Italian Job" and "Men of Honor." Nothing in her career prepares us for this astonishing performance, in a film she developed with writer-director Patty Jenkins. She uses various strategies to look older, heavier, more weathered, but we simply forget to think about them because her character is real, convincing, and focused at every moment with a scary intensity.
Christina Ricci co-stars, as a naive young woman who becomes Aileen's lover and gives her for the first time the hope of leading a normal life. But both women are disconnected from reality, and their search for happiness leads to a serial killing spree in which the death of a well-meaning man played by Scott Wilson is unbearably painful. We are told to hate the sin but love the sinner, and "Monster" (opening Jan. 9 in Chicago) is a luminous work of empathy, showing us a woman whose destiny was already sealed as a battered child.
2. "Lost in Translation": Sofia Coppola wrote and directed this winsome, bittersweet film about two lonely people in the middle of the night in Tokyo. Bill Murray is a movie star in town to make commercials. Scarlett Johansson plays the new wife of a young photographer who is dazzled by his own success and drifting away from her. They meet in the hotel bar and begin a conversation that lasts several days. Ancient movie conventions lead us to suspect they will have an affair, but the movie is deeper and wiser than that -- and shows that, although the possibility of sex exists between them, their needs are much harder to fill: They need someone to talk with about lifetimes that seem to be drifting away from their dreams.
Murray gives his finest performance, carefully controlling his comic gift so that he plays a man who could be funny, but is off-duty. Johansson, who brings enormous reserves of presence and patience to the role, is also magical in another 2003 film, "Girl with a Pearl Earring," where again she plays a woman who is the focus of an artist's loneliness.
3. "American Splendor": When a Cleveland file clerk uses his mundane existence as the inspiration for a comic book, he achieves unlikely fame, a berth on the Letterman show, and a following that includes other wage slaves who find daily office life to be as filled with rage and excitement as any action picture. But how can a film about Harvey Pekar reconcile truth and fiction, comic art and daily reality? Co-directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini meet the challenge by combining all of the elements.
Part of their film is in the form of an animated comic strip (based on drawings by R. Crumb). Part is a documentary showing the real Harvey Pekar, his wife Joyce Brabner and his co-workers. And part is a fiction film starring Paul Giamatti as Harvey and Hope Davis as Joyce. The real people and the actors are sometimes on screen together, creating an uncanny tension between life and performance. The movie is funny and brave, the story of heroism in the real life of an anti-hero who is in a bad mood most of the time, and who rejects an offer to host a talk show because he doesn't want to risk his civil service pension.
4. "Finding Nemo": I usually sit toward the back of the theater, but during Andrew Stanton's "Finding Nemo" I wanted to sit closer, to immerse myself in the underwater beauty of the film's graceful animation. The story is lots of fun (how in the world can a fish escape from an aquarium and get across the highway and back into the sea?), but the most distinctive accomplishment of the Pixar production is its visual artistry.
Water is often dealt with in animation as if it is simply transparent, except for bubbles. The artists of "Finding Nemo" have uncanny success in suggesting that their characters are actually swimming in the sea; carefully modulated color densities suggest actual less water between a character and the audience. The story is well-told, but the telling gains immensely from the visuals.
5. "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World": Patrick O'Brian's characters inspire a grand and glorious spectacle in the tradition of the best seafaring epics. Russell Crowe, always convincing in a performance that sidesteps the obvious temptations to overact, plays the captain of a British warship contending with the French for control of South American waters. His best friend is the ship's surgeon, played by Paul Bettany, and their conflicting views about war and life provide a counterpoint to the action scenes.
Not simply a swashbuckler, although it has rousing sea battles, but an intelligent movie about men tested by the sea. Director Peter Weir mounts an impressive production, seamlessly combining real ships, models and tank work into a sobering portrait of how deadly and beautiful sea warfare was in the age of sail.
6. "Mystic River": Clint Eastwood's drama is a brooding exploration of ancient evils and their abiding cost. His film, based on Brian Helgeland's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel, shows us three friends for whom childhood is forever marred by a tragedy. Now, as adults, Sean Penn's daughter has been murdered, Tim Robbins is a possible suspect, and Kevin Bacon is the cop on the case.
This could have been a crime thriller or a police procedural, but Eastwood turns it toward almost Shakespearean tragedy, as each man's character plays out in his fate. Eastwood has directed some two dozen films, some good, some ordinary; in this one and "Unforgiven" he finds greatness.
7. "Owning Mahowny": Philip Seymour Hoffman's inward, focused performance is the key to this movie about a gambling obsession. He plays a Toronto bank clerk in hock to his bookie, who begins to steal money and eventually loses millions in Atlantic City and Vegas. The film, directed by Richard Kwietniowski and inspired by a true story, avoids the artificial highs and lows of many gambling movies and shows Hoffman burrowing straight ahead, his eyes rarely lifted from the action, as if under a hypnotic spell.
John Hurt is splendid as the casino boss who thought he knew all about compulsive gambling, but becomes fascinated by this man's overwhelming need to play -- and lose.
8. "The Son": Not a film many readers are likely to have heard about, but Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's "Le Fils" cannot be forgotten by anyone who saw it. "It needs no insight or explanation," I wrote in my original review. "It sees everything and explains all. It is as assured and flawless a telling of sadness and joy as I have ever seen."
Directed by the brothers Dardenne, Jean-Pierre and Luc, it tells of a Belgian carpenter who supervises apprentices. One day a candidate is brought to him. At first he rejects the boy, but then he reconsiders and accepts him, and we discover something that the carpenter knows about the boy -- a secret that leads to scenes where sudden violence seems barely beneath the surface. All the action is in terms of the carpentry work, and there is a sequence in a lumber yard that uses sound and timing to make sudden physical disaster seem imminent.
9. "Whale Rider": What a splendid film for the entire family! Keisha Castle-Hughes stars in a sparkling performance as Paikea, a teenager who would be next in line to lead her tribe -- if she were not a girl. Niki Caro's film is set in a present-day Maori village in New Zealand, where legends are still preserved. Paikea's father has no wish to lead the tribe after a tragedy, and leaves the country. Her grandfather loves her, but is locked into ancient traditions. As he tries to train one of the hapless village boys, Paikea studies on her own, and the climax is thrilling and heart-warming. This year's "Bend It Like Beckham."
10. "In America": Inspired by Irish director Jim Sheridan's own immigration to America in the 1980s, it tells the story of a family that lives in poverty in a New York tenement and struggles to survive after the loss of a son. Paddy Considine plays the sometimes despairing father, Samantha Morton is heroic as the mother, Sarah Bolger steals the show as the older sister -- and downstairs, a fearsome African artist (Djimon Hounsou) reveals a hidden gentleness. I've seen a lot of movies about the immigrant experience, but this one lives outside the rules, absorbing us in the family's struggle to survive.
Theron, now 28, has been known until now as the tall, attractive star of mid-level entertainments like "The Italian Job" and "Men of Honor." Nothing in her career prepares us for this astonishing performance, in a film she developed with writer-director Patty Jenkins. She uses various strategies to look older, heavier, more weathered, but we simply forget to think about them because her character is real, convincing, and focused at every moment with a scary intensity.
Christina Ricci co-stars, as a naive young woman who becomes Aileen's lover and gives her for the first time the hope of leading a normal life. But both women are disconnected from reality, and their search for happiness leads to a serial killing spree in which the death of a well-meaning man played by Scott Wilson is unbearably painful. We are told to hate the sin but love the sinner, and "Monster" (opening Jan. 9 in Chicago) is a luminous work of empathy, showing us a woman whose destiny was already sealed as a battered child.
2. "Lost in Translation": Sofia Coppola wrote and directed this winsome, bittersweet film about two lonely people in the middle of the night in Tokyo. Bill Murray is a movie star in town to make commercials. Scarlett Johansson plays the new wife of a young photographer who is dazzled by his own success and drifting away from her. They meet in the hotel bar and begin a conversation that lasts several days. Ancient movie conventions lead us to suspect they will have an affair, but the movie is deeper and wiser than that -- and shows that, although the possibility of sex exists between them, their needs are much harder to fill: They need someone to talk with about lifetimes that seem to be drifting away from their dreams.
Murray gives his finest performance, carefully controlling his comic gift so that he plays a man who could be funny, but is off-duty. Johansson, who brings enormous reserves of presence and patience to the role, is also magical in another 2003 film, "Girl with a Pearl Earring," where again she plays a woman who is the focus of an artist's loneliness.
3. "American Splendor": When a Cleveland file clerk uses his mundane existence as the inspiration for a comic book, he achieves unlikely fame, a berth on the Letterman show, and a following that includes other wage slaves who find daily office life to be as filled with rage and excitement as any action picture. But how can a film about Harvey Pekar reconcile truth and fiction, comic art and daily reality? Co-directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini meet the challenge by combining all of the elements.
Part of their film is in the form of an animated comic strip (based on drawings by R. Crumb). Part is a documentary showing the real Harvey Pekar, his wife Joyce Brabner and his co-workers. And part is a fiction film starring Paul Giamatti as Harvey and Hope Davis as Joyce. The real people and the actors are sometimes on screen together, creating an uncanny tension between life and performance. The movie is funny and brave, the story of heroism in the real life of an anti-hero who is in a bad mood most of the time, and who rejects an offer to host a talk show because he doesn't want to risk his civil service pension.
4. "Finding Nemo": I usually sit toward the back of the theater, but during Andrew Stanton's "Finding Nemo" I wanted to sit closer, to immerse myself in the underwater beauty of the film's graceful animation. The story is lots of fun (how in the world can a fish escape from an aquarium and get across the highway and back into the sea?), but the most distinctive accomplishment of the Pixar production is its visual artistry.
Water is often dealt with in animation as if it is simply transparent, except for bubbles. The artists of "Finding Nemo" have uncanny success in suggesting that their characters are actually swimming in the sea; carefully modulated color densities suggest actual less water between a character and the audience. The story is well-told, but the telling gains immensely from the visuals.
5. "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World": Patrick O'Brian's characters inspire a grand and glorious spectacle in the tradition of the best seafaring epics. Russell Crowe, always convincing in a performance that sidesteps the obvious temptations to overact, plays the captain of a British warship contending with the French for control of South American waters. His best friend is the ship's surgeon, played by Paul Bettany, and their conflicting views about war and life provide a counterpoint to the action scenes.
Not simply a swashbuckler, although it has rousing sea battles, but an intelligent movie about men tested by the sea. Director Peter Weir mounts an impressive production, seamlessly combining real ships, models and tank work into a sobering portrait of how deadly and beautiful sea warfare was in the age of sail.
6. "Mystic River": Clint Eastwood's drama is a brooding exploration of ancient evils and their abiding cost. His film, based on Brian Helgeland's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel, shows us three friends for whom childhood is forever marred by a tragedy. Now, as adults, Sean Penn's daughter has been murdered, Tim Robbins is a possible suspect, and Kevin Bacon is the cop on the case.
This could have been a crime thriller or a police procedural, but Eastwood turns it toward almost Shakespearean tragedy, as each man's character plays out in his fate. Eastwood has directed some two dozen films, some good, some ordinary; in this one and "Unforgiven" he finds greatness.
7. "Owning Mahowny": Philip Seymour Hoffman's inward, focused performance is the key to this movie about a gambling obsession. He plays a Toronto bank clerk in hock to his bookie, who begins to steal money and eventually loses millions in Atlantic City and Vegas. The film, directed by Richard Kwietniowski and inspired by a true story, avoids the artificial highs and lows of many gambling movies and shows Hoffman burrowing straight ahead, his eyes rarely lifted from the action, as if under a hypnotic spell.
John Hurt is splendid as the casino boss who thought he knew all about compulsive gambling, but becomes fascinated by this man's overwhelming need to play -- and lose.
8. "The Son": Not a film many readers are likely to have heard about, but Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's "Le Fils" cannot be forgotten by anyone who saw it. "It needs no insight or explanation," I wrote in my original review. "It sees everything and explains all. It is as assured and flawless a telling of sadness and joy as I have ever seen."
Directed by the brothers Dardenne, Jean-Pierre and Luc, it tells of a Belgian carpenter who supervises apprentices. One day a candidate is brought to him. At first he rejects the boy, but then he reconsiders and accepts him, and we discover something that the carpenter knows about the boy -- a secret that leads to scenes where sudden violence seems barely beneath the surface. All the action is in terms of the carpentry work, and there is a sequence in a lumber yard that uses sound and timing to make sudden physical disaster seem imminent.
9. "Whale Rider": What a splendid film for the entire family! Keisha Castle-Hughes stars in a sparkling performance as Paikea, a teenager who would be next in line to lead her tribe -- if she were not a girl. Niki Caro's film is set in a present-day Maori village in New Zealand, where legends are still preserved. Paikea's father has no wish to lead the tribe after a tragedy, and leaves the country. Her grandfather loves her, but is locked into ancient traditions. As he tries to train one of the hapless village boys, Paikea studies on her own, and the climax is thrilling and heart-warming. This year's "Bend It Like Beckham."
10. "In America": Inspired by Irish director Jim Sheridan's own immigration to America in the 1980s, it tells the story of a family that lives in poverty in a New York tenement and struggles to survive after the loss of a son. Paddy Considine plays the sometimes despairing father, Samantha Morton is heroic as the mother, Sarah Bolger steals the show as the older sister -- and downstairs, a fearsome African artist (Djimon Hounsou) reveals a hidden gentleness. I've seen a lot of movies about the immigrant experience, but this one lives outside the rules, absorbing us in the family's struggle to survive.