My Favorite Movies of 2007

It was an excellent year for film, much better than the last two or three, says I. This year I almost alphabetized my top ten for the first time, because I had such a hard time choosing number one. And as a matter of trivia, something I didn't notice until compiling this list, it was another excellent year for Canadian films. Other trends in 2007: films got crowded out of theaters faster, dvd releases continued to accelerate, it was a year of big sequels in Hollywood, many serious boutique releases (several of them war related) tanked at the box office (a trend I fear studio execs will draw the wrong lessons from), film blogs took off like crazy, with the success of Juno Fox Searchlight is now officially the new Miramax (ready crossbows accordingly), and mumblecore got mainstream recognition. (Oh, and NY Mag called it the year of the wang, causing many giggles around the FD office.)

TOP TEN
1. Zodiac (dist. Paramount)
I hated Se7en and was disappointed that Fincher had chosen to revisit serial killer territory, but when I heard it was nothing like the dreaded head-in-a-box movie, I rented it. Two and a half hours later I was kicking myself for missing my chance to see it on the big screen. Like this year's underpraised The Dead Girl, Zodiac completely subverts our expectations of the serial killer genre. Critic Amy Taubin's Film Comment appreciation got me to start seeing how much there is going on under the surface of this film. For starters, just compare the scenes in which Jake Gyllenhaal's character thinks he's met the killer with the scene in which the cops come face to face with the actual killer. Zodiac has some of the scariest scenes I've seen in a good long while, but it doesn't exploit. It doesn't revel in gory mayhem. It doesn't use murder to "thrill." It's never less than watchable in a completely mainstream-friendly way, but on another level it's the art film of the year, capturing our moment in time like no other film I saw this year.

2. Away From Her (Lions Gate)
Or as Dave Kehr jokingly called it, "Away With Her." An hour in, it seems like merely a great weepie, but as it unfolds it reveals itself as an unusually subtle and impressive narrative. From a story by Canada's Chekhov, Sarah Polley has crafted an exquisite feature debut. I can't always relate to psycho killers and their prey (I guess it's one of my great failings as a moviegoer), but I can relate to a story whose fears concern losing one's memory, growing old and being abandoned.

3. Ratatouille (Pixar/Walt Disney)
An utterly perfect entertainment, smart, elegant, joyous. In the future I won't just anticipate the next Pixar film, I'll anticipate the next Brad Bird film. Iron Giant, The Incredibles and now this - he's proven himself to be the top director in American animation. I think my favorite aspect of the film is that, all kidding aside with the coffin-shaped room and skull-like typewriter, Ratatouille acknowledges, even celebrates criticism as a crucial part of the experience of art, something practiced by all of us, not just professionals. Wow, pinch me. This came from Hollywood? USA? I'm also delighted to read that the film did spectacularly well in France, where one might have feared a story about a rat who wants to be a chef in Paris might have raised hackles.

4. The Darjeeling Limited and "Hotel Chevalier" (Fox Searchlight)
Sporting a dream cast of talented comedians, Wes Anderson's latest got the bum's rush from too many critics, but I still believe audiences will be watching his films a century from now. His style is so singular, so instantly recognizable that his name is invoked by reviewers to point out inferior imitations (like Juno, for one) almost as often as Altman's is, yet he was publicly lectured by several critics to shuck off that hard-won style, ironically just when it's yielded his strongest film since Rushmore. I suspect if Anderson had concocted a serious revenge thriller, he'd be the toast of critics' groups this season. But instead of making a film that takes up war and revenge and other long played out 9/11 themes, he chose to tell a story about men who remain uncorrupted by cynicism, struggling with grief and the failures of love. It's a story, in other words, most of us can actually relate to our everyday lives. There's no cattle gun wielding maniac, no oil tycoon or sham evangelist, no assassin-hiring corporate executive to root against. How this film got tagged by some as a juvenile film while No Country for Old Men and its brethren were celebrated as mature fare simply astonishes me.

5. Year of the Dog (Paramount Vantage)
Mike White surprised and impressed me repeatedly this year. A friend showed me the episode of Freaks and Geeks that he penned, which was excellent (my friend who watched the entire series admitted it was probably the best single episode); post-Virgina Tech he spoke out in a New York Times op-ed about filmmakers' responsibilities regarding violence in their work, an unpopular argument asserting an unprovable connection between life and art that I, for one, find harder and harder to deny; and then there was his new film, The Year of the Dog. It's an unusually original Hollywood-style narrative, one that I think met resistance from audiences expecting something a little more conventional, especially in the romance department. I was impressed by the way it followed its concerns to logical conclusions without the usual pandering to formulas or avoidance of what might be deemed unpleasant, and for that reason I think it deserves a commendation for gutsiest producers of the year, at least by Hollywood standards (the production team includes Brad Pitt and, according to imdb, an uncredited Jack Black). Molly Shannon excelled in a role that should have done for her what Stranger Than Fiction did for Will Ferrell.

6. Rescue Dawn (MGM)
Herzog's remake of p.o.w. Dieter Dengler's story was a welcome surprise in the usually dismal late summer season, one of those unbelievable tales made all the more powerful for being inspired by actual events.
Herzog brilliantly focuses on the details to bring the story vividly to life, from the insect used to torture Dengler to the dog that licks his wounds in prison camp. Christian Bale (who had a good year) seems ever eager to adapt his body mass for his roles, and here he is joined by supporting actors Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies in losing weight to convey the experience of wasting away in detention. Together, the film's cast conveys a stirring message of camaraderie and derring-do, but as corny as it may sound, on second viewing I was equally impressed by Bale's interpretation of Dengler as a man who unwaveringly holds on to his optimism no matter how desperate the circumstances. Miraculously, Bale, Herzog, Zahn and company never allow the film to degenerate into standard inspirational treacle.

7. Eastern Promises (Focus Features)
A film that's much richer if you look at it as a companion piece to A History of Violence (read Kristin Thompson on the subject once you've seen both films), but it's stunning on its own - not just the infamous nude combat in a Russian bathhouse that distinguishes Mortensen as an unusually fearless actor, but also its treatment of the father-son relationship between Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and Kirill (Vincent Cassel), especially in regards to the open question of Kirill's sexuality. Another film that boldly defies formulaic expectations regarding romance, just the first of its many admirable traits. Is Cronenberg on a hot streak or what?

8. Brand Upon the Brain! (The Film Company/Vitagraph Pictures)
I was lucky enough to see the film when it toured with live accompaniment (on our stop, the narrator was a hugely entertaining Crispin Glover), and I think it ranks with Maddin's best features like Careful and The Saddest Music in the World. Strange and riotously funny, Maddin's work is one for cult audiences, to be sure - even more so than that of David Lynch, the director I consider his closest cinematic compatriot, who at least usually offers audiences a familiar Hitchcock element. Maddin, on the other hand, generally loves to deconstruct the Freudian psychology of Hitchcock-era Hollywood, challenging us in a lighter, more humorous mode that nicely complements Lynch's scarier explorations of the seedy underbelly of classic Hollywood.

9. Lady Chatterley (Kino International Corp.)
I loved this movie from the start, but I've gone back and forth on where to rank it. I think that's because this D.H. Lawrence adaptation is so deceptively simple that it seems artless, which must surely be a feat worth celebrating. What I remember of Lawrence from school was that his work was about as subtle as a hammer blow, taking a modern attitude towards issues like sex and class but in a highly artificial and gendered way, keeping a brick wall between masculine and feminine characters. This film surprised me with its loveliness, its naturalism, its quiet beauty. I caught Pascale Ferran's Coming to Terms with the Dead a decade ago, and I remember being rather impressed with it (it'd be nice to have a Region 1 dvd available - of course there isn't one), but this film establishes her at a very high level of accomplishment.

10. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Dreamworks)
I was so happy to see my old favorite Tim Burton finally fully back in top form after a decade of uneven and sometimes downright poor work (Planet of the Apes - ack, Big Fish - gag). Sondheim's source material was certainly key to success here, and what a thrill it was to hear this calibre of songwriting after so many movie musicals which, however otherwise enjoyable, sported pop-derivative (Across the Universe, Moulin Rouge) or Broadway-lite scores (Enchanted, The Producers). There was much concern about Depp's and Carter's abilities to handle the material and while their vocals are rather weak (in the sense of pop singers compared to opera or Broadway singers), they suit the more intimate and informal experience of moviegoing just fine. I'm under no illusions that the story, based on supposedly true events from the era of Jack the Ripper, is profound, but the filmmakers don't seem to be either, an important distinction in awards season.

RUNNERS-UP
Hot Fuzz and "Don't" (a fake trailer from Grindhouse) (Rogue Pictures)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Warner Brothers)
Offside (Sony Pictures Classics)
Once (Fox Searchlight)
Poison Friends (Strand Releasing)
The Lives of Others (Sony Pictures Classics)
Bourne Ultimatum (Universal)
The Last Mistress (IFC)
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (IFC)
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (THINKFilm)

HONORABLE MENTIONS (the next forty)
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, Diving Bell and the Butterfly, You, the Living, Inland Empire, Le Petit Lieutenant, The Host, The King of Kong (A Fistful of Quarters), The Dead Girl, Blades of Glory, Live Free or Die Hard, Red Road, There Will Be Blood, Dan in Real Life, This is England, Regular Lovers, The Savages, The Witnesses (Les Temoins), Letters from Iwo Jima, I'm Not There, The Role of Her Life, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Hairspray, No Country for Old Men, Lars and the Real Girl, Ira & Abby, Knocked Up, Days of Glory (Indigene), Fay Grim, Grindhouse: Death Proof, Black Book, Private Property, The 3:10 to Yuma, Amazing Grace, Margot at the Wedding, Exiled, Hallam Foe, Enchanted, Show Business: The Road to Broadway, Grbavica: Land of My Dreams, Talk To Me

Top Ten Undeserved Obscurities
One of the consolations of movie addiction is finding gems that no one's heard about. These films didn't get enough love, and though they may not all be masterpieces, they all helped make the year more interesting.

Colma: The Musical
The Dead Girl
The King of Kong (A Fistful of Quarters)
Offside
Le Petit Lieutenant
Poison Friends
Red Road
The Taste of Tea
This is England
The Year of the Dog

Still Hunting: Top 2007 Films I Missed
There were mainstream movies I probably should have made myself see for their cultural value but couldn't bring myself to (300, Transformers, The Brave One, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry) and a few films I'm excited about that still haven't played in Chicago (Forever, My Winnipeg, Secret Sunshine, Son of Rambow), but there were at least eleven which did play here and which I failed to catch. All will hit dvd soon if they haven't already except perhaps Colossal Youth, ironically the film that I'd most prefer to see on dvd so I can study it closely.

Bamako
Colossal Youth
Gone Baby Gone
Into the Wild
Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
Lust, Caution
The Mist
No End in Sight
Strange Culture
Time
Syndromes and a Century

A Movie That Provided a Surprising Amount of Food for Thought: Hairspray
I know, I know. Hairspray? I dismissed it, too, but catching it a second time around the holidays, I found the film to be an interesting tangle. Not great art, by any means, but what a strange mix of exhilarating liveliness and plastic-coated formula. Like Dreamgirls (which struggled more in its second half), it's a mainstream musical that blends gay sensibility and civil rights politics, and it sports the safe retro appearance of pop culture history while actually addressing itself to a contemporary society in which Katrina could become a national source of shame and gays are officially second class citizens. There's obviously tons of queer talent involved, but it's all hidden safely away, with a married Scientologist in the prominent drag role originated by Divine and played on Broadway by Harvey Fierstein. Still, the camp sensibility is intact, abounding with jokes about rats and flashers, and except for the third quarter, which focuses more on the grown-ups and bogs down in a poorly directed protest march, the infectious young cast thrills with energy. (And Travolta ain't bad, intriguingly adding an unexpected pathos to the character's camp nature.) After listening to me vent about its faults, Red insisted that the final number is undeniably powerful, and guess what? He's right. As the most irresistible number in an overwhelmingly catchy score is playing (a song whose verse melody, to my ear, echoes that of Madonna's "Material Girl" - an unconscious irony?), a series of characters risk their place in the limelight to share it with someone off stage, knocking the gatekeepers out of their posts. It's a profound gesture which anyone who's ever felt marginalized will not fail to appreciate, at least on some level. It's the kind of ending that can leave you feeling choked up and yet ridiculous at the same time, the kind kids find easier to deal with than adults - one reason its teen fan base pushed the film over the $100 million threshold. With its sunny, naive optimism (exactly what do you imagine happens to Penny the moment she goes home to her church lady mother?) and its insistence on a simply unstoppable integrationist future ("You can't stop the beat"), Hairspray looks to me like it could be a defining film of an Obama era.

Why are No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood so low on my list?
Why are they buried so low in my list? When I caught No Country early in its run, I was relatively entertained though unsatisfied, and in the weeks that followed my spirit sagged as I realized it was stalking the same path as The Departed - the one that ends in Oscars. Upper echelon directors who've never won an Oscar for direction, ultra-violent thrillers for the middlebrow crowd, hype galore: you may as well bank on it, the Cohens will win big. It's McCarthy's source dialogue that provides the film its moments of power, but the fatal problem with the film is its ending. Yes, it's anticlimactic, but I might have accepted that if it weren't also so pretentious. The film insists on presenting itself as being profoundly spiritual in its anticlimax, and in that very insistence it reveals itself to be a sham. Its worldview is off-putting enough (Dave Kehr jokingly referred to it as "No Country for Old Humanists"), but the ending reveals the Cohens to be all mechanics and no soul.

As for There Will Be Blood, I like it better. The characterization is deeper, the direction is stunningly powerful, the story takes more risks, and the score is a wonder, but in the end this is a case of a great young director winning acclaim by sacrificing too much of his personal vision and submitting to the will of the crowd. It feels like another Bush era tirade about oil and revenge and the war of commerce and religion (themes that have played out on screen and on the nonfiction bestsellers lists for years), and he hasn't really anything discernible to say about any of them - except that they are themes of the moment. Well, duh. Or perhaps the idea of big business and religion beating each other to a pulp is simply wishful thinking. I suspect cinephiles are reacting with excitement to Anderson's channeling of Kubrick and Welles. But look at it this way. In three hours Magnolia developed half a dozen characters and challenged us with its daring gestures. In three hours There Will be Blood fully develops one character and offers up something familiar, if dressed in style. (Which is much more than you can say for Southland Tales, which also wanted to capture the zeitgeist but stylelessly failed to develop anything.) If being accepted back into the fold after the excellent Punch Drunk Love helps Anderson's career, I'll wait and see what he does next, but I won't pretend it's even close to being his own best movie, let alone the best movie of the year.

A Moment of Appreciation: Death Proof
Tarantino's latest was a disappointment, especially in needlessly extended form on dvd. His point regarding grindhouse cinema may have been that these old films lured audiences with promises of cheap and kinky thrills but delivered results that were too often mind-numbingly stupid or dull, but in this case he made his point too well, with protracted of scenes of dialogue too often denuded of his characteristic pop culture wit. Still, it has a structure and premise unlike anything I've seen before, and parts of it worked very well. In short, a Tarantino failure can still be more interesting than most other directors' successes. I'm amused that the Cahiers du Cinema crowd admired it so.

AWARDS
Best Actress: Julie Christie (Away From Her)
Runners-Up: Asia Argento (The Last Mistress), Ellen Page (Juno), Molly Shannon (Year of the Dog), Laura Dern (Inland Empire), Amy Adams (Enchanted),
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead)
Runners-Up: Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her), Christian Bale (Rescue Dawn), Steve Carell (Dan in Real Life), Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises), Jake Gyllenhaal (Zodiac)
Best Supporting Actor: Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton)
Runners-Up: Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), Adrien Brody (The Darjeeling Limited), Kazunari Ninomiya (Letters from Iwo Jima), Paul Schneider (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Lars and the Real Girl), Vincent Cassel (Eastern Promises)
Best Supporting Actress: Sydney Tamiia Poitier (Death Proof),
Runners-Up: Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There), Emily Mortimer (Lars and the Real Girl), Bae Du-na (The Host), Maya Lawson (Brand Upon the Brain), Marisa Tomei (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead)

Best Vocal Performance: Peter O'Toole as critic Anton Ego (Ratatouille)
Best Adolescent Performance: Sima Mobarak-Shahi (Offside)
Runners-Up: Thomas Turgoose (This is England), Nikki Blonsky (Hairspray), Brittany Robertson (Dan in Real Life), Imogen Poots (28 Weeks Later)
2007 Most Promising Newcomer Award: Justin Timberlake (Black Snake Moan, Southland Tales) - I've never paid any attention to his music, but he was a saving grace in both these films.
Best Cameo: Kevin Smith (Live Free or Die Hard)
Best Director: David Fincher
Welcome Back: Tamara Jenkins - please don't wait another decade to make your next film.
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Roger Deakins (The Assassination of Jesse James... and No Country for Old Men)
Best taglines: There's more than one way to lose your life to a killer. (Zodiac); Has the world left you a stray? (Year of the Dog)
Best Gay/Queer Film: Eastern Promises
Not a great year for gay films (Boy Culture was enjoyable in a Showtime kind of way, though I missed several key films including The Bubble, The Nines, and Whole New Thing), and there was watered down fun to be had in mainstream films from Blades of Glory to Hairspray, but of the whole lot, nothing beat Vincent Cassel's character in Eastern Promises, whose repression was actually foregrounded.
Best Film Critic: David Edelstein
I'm not sure I'd even heard of Edelstein before he started filling in occasionally on Roger Ebert's show. Now, I read his reviews every week. One of the smartest, ablest critics I've ever found, he's become one of the few indispensable critics I read every week (along with Dave Kehr, Stuart Klawans, Jonathan Rosenbaum, and Andrew Sarris).

2007 Soundtrack Highlights:
"Hurdy-Gurdy Man" by Donovan from Zodiac (a song I now never want to hear again), Rescue Dawn score by Klaus Badelt, Ratatouille score by Michael Giacchino, Darjeeling Limited soundtrack, esp. "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)" by Peter Sarstedt (featured prominently in "Hotel Chevalier"); "I Love My Dog" by Cat Stevens (a dog song by a Cat man!) from Year of the Dog; songs by Nick Cave (Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), the score of Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim; "Good Morning Baltimore," "The Nicest Kids In Town," "I Can Hear The Bells," "Welcome To The 60's," "You Can't Stop The Beat," "Come So Far (Got So Far To Go)," and "Mama, I'm A Big Girl Now" (Hairspray); "Whither, Wander" (lyrics by Guy Maddin, music by Jason Staczek, Brand Upon the Brain!); Hot Fuzz soundtrack; songs from Once, especially "Falling Slowly," "If You Want Me," and "When Your Mind's Made Up"; "Mediational Field" and other songs by Susumu Hirasawa (Paprika); covers on the I'm Not There soundtrack, esp. Cat Power, Sonic Youth, Stephen Malkmus, Jim James & Calexico; Control soundtrack; incidental music from You, The Living (ha!); Johnny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood (plus the Brahms and Part pieces); songs by Sondre Lerche for Dan in Real Life, "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" Clayhill covering The Smiths (This is England); The Kinks's "This Time Tomorrow" (Regular Lovers AND Darjeeling Limited); "Gonna Make a Pie" lullaby and Quincy Coleman' "Baby Don't You Cry" (Waitress); "Chick Habit" by April March (Death Proof); "Anyone Else But You" sung by Ellen Page and Michael Cera, "A Well Respected Man" by The Kinks (Juno); "Amazing Grace" sung by the actors (Amazing Grace); "Happy Working Song," among others (Enchanted); "Spiderpig" (The Simpsons: The Movie); and "Colma Stays" and "Crash the Party" (Colma: The Musical).

BEST OLDER FILMS I SAW IN 2007
I was fortunate to be able to see my favorite "new" (to me) older film, Earrings of Madame de... (aka Andrew Sarris' favorite film), twice this year on the big screen, confirming my love of Max Ophuls's cinema. Why is it so hard to see the work of this director? It's a crime. I was also knocked out by The Heiress when I saw it on dvd, probably the most I've ever admired a Henry James story in any form. I loved with Vincente Minnelli's The Clock, finally available on dvd. A romance starring Judy Garland and Robert Walker, it reminded me of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, two of my favorite romances of all time. Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground was a romantic noir that also dazzled me. One might describe Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as a romance, and I was impressed by the gorgeous cinematography.

After scratching my head over a Pedro Costa art film I checked out the film that inspired him, Jacques Tourneur's I Walked with a Zombie. Suffice it to say that I was so impressed by this film and the film it came paired with on dvd (The Body Snatcher) that I've ordered a copy of the Val Lewton box set they came from. I only wish the set could somehow also include Tourneur's Stars in My Crown, a wonderful film I caught in an intriguing series curated by Jonathan Rosenbaum at the Film Center. I made time for the 60s comedy classic Bedazzled this summer (actually, we were looking for a way to pass the time until the midnight release of the final Harry Potter novel) and, though never previously a Dudley Moore fan, was surprised to find one of the best comedies I've ever seen. My admiration for Barbara Stanwyck grew to an all-time high when I caught screenings of Clash By Night and Douglas Sirk's There's Always Tomorrow - I can't believe more people don't talk about that Sirk. It's one of his best.

The Film Center, in a stroke of eerie prescience, began an Antonioni retrospective just weeks before the old master died. I caught L'avventura and L'Eclisse, challenging films I studied further on dvd. A fantastic Janus films series at the Music Box exposed me to (among other films) the epic Children of Paradise, which truly lived up to its reputation. In preparation for You, The Living, I also caught up with Roy Andersson's unique Songs from the Second Floor. Months before the Ford at Fox dvd set was announced, I decided I was shamefully ignorant about Ford's work and decided to put together my own retrospective of his work at home. It was quite an education, and it's only whetted my appetite for more. I plan to blog about this in more detail at some point, but highlights included Stagecoach, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Sun Shines Bright, How Green Was My Valley, and Judge Priest.

Other highlights of the year included McCabe and Mrs. Miller (which I saw at last during an Altman series at the Music Box), Make Way for Tomorrow (an incredible 30s film about the way we treat the elderly, directed by Leo McCarey), Capra's version of the Kaufman and Hart play You Can't Take It With You (I grew to love Jean Arthur this year, too) and, lastly, an entertaining treat, the Marilyn Monroe rarity Ladies of the Chorus, which happily screened in New York City when I visited there for a few days. While reviewing the landmark Ford box set, Dave Kehr made some good points about the importance of keeping our film heritage alive the way we do with our literature. I couldn't agree more, not just because it's important but also because it's a way to see incredible movies that put today's films in clearer perspective. How about Nicholas Ray and Max Ophuls box sets in '08? Personally, I've resolved to do a better job of staying on top of Criterion's releases, and I'm especially looking forward to their forthcoming Lubitsch box set in their Eclipse line.

The Great Transition: World Cinema in the 1950s

One of the highlights of the last few months for me was a series at the Gene Siskel Film Center called "The Great Transition: World Cinema in the 1950s." A lecture series, it was curated by Jonathan Rosenbaum, a film critic I greatly admire. I was saddened to read that he's about to announce his retirement. To be honest, it's something I've been dreading. As head of the film section of the beleaguered Chicago Reader, he's assembled a team of critics like no other whose reviews I've come to depend on. Losing him is bad enough, but the question is, what will become of the Reader's film section without him? In my opinion, deputy critic JR Jones has grown from an interesting critic who often got things wrong into a great critic who's usually right, so I wouldn't mind seeing him in charge. But is that what we'll get? Does this change really mean we're losing Jones, Gronvall, Camper, Graham as well? Perish the thought. And what about the capsules from Kehr that Rosenbaum ran as editor?

Mr. Rosenbaum is one of those writers who has become like a friend for me, certainly like a beloved professor, his thought-provoking opinions something I'd miss terribly. I often disagree with him, but he's been consistent in the maturity of his views. With him you always feel his opinions are grounded and well thought out - an excellent source of support if you agree and an enjoyable opponent if you disagree. Though he is sometimes reduced to a leftist politico, this characterization fails to hold up under the laziest scrutiny. In fact, this lecture series has only reinforced for me the agility of his criticism, his deep impulse to resist the didactic in every way. He's long been an inspiration for me in transcending knee-jerk political thinking. Time and again I've found this charge of leftism to be the opinion of people who resent his aesthetics, his consistent championing of arthouse fare as well as Hollywood work. It doesn't matter than 99 out of 100 critics treat Hollywood as the center of the film universe, it is still too much that 1 critic has a different focus. Crazy. Such people are unfailingly unwilling to believe that he actually champions Hollywood pictures on a regular basis.

Rosenbaum caused two major controversies this year - the first when he wrote in the Times that Ingmar Bergman needed to be reassessed, the second when he ran a review that disagreed with the general acclaim for No Country for Old Men. (The latter piece strains for socio-political insight, but I agreed with the gist - a technically fine movie but spiritually dead. David Edelstein handled his criticism of the film better. I have a ridiculous amount to say on both controversies but will refrain for the time being.) Blogs and message boards oozed vitriol and the more opponents (including the convalescent Ebert) frothed, the worse they looked by comparison. Rosenbaum apparently is retiring because he's 65 and not because of these controversies or because of the sad financial decline of the Reader. He will also continue to write (including for the Reader web site), so I'm trying not to worry for the time being.

*
At any rate, I was able to attend a few screenings in the weekly series on 50s cinema, and I enjoyed them a great deal. I eagerly await the follow-up series about the 60s coming this Spring. The entire 50s series is listed on the Film Center's calendars (Sep., Oct., Nov., Dec.). They list these words from Mr. Rosenbaum by way of introduction:

In between Italian neorealism and the European new waves, one can find a ferment of creativity in many different cinemas around the world. This two-part series will investigate the phenomenon in all its complexity and diversity. Mainstream and independent films from the U.S., France, Sweden, and Japan will be among those represented. In Part One, devoted mainly to the 1950s, the critical writings of such critics and future filmmakers as Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, and Francois Truffaut will be discussed alongside many of the films they championed and wrote about, such as Nicholas Ray's PARTY GIRL, Robert Bresson's A MAN ESCAPED, and Howard Hawks's THE BIG SKY.

While this intro paints the series fairly seriously, I hasten to say it was actually a lot of fun. The overall aim may have been to explore a cinema in transition, but I got the feeling that our curator was at least as interested in simply sharing some favorite old films, to give Chicagoans access to some lesser-known films. Art Institute students enrolled in the series as a class may have gotten more of the advanced critical writings, but as a member of the public (and of the Film Center, which got me a reduced rate) I was able merely to attend the screenings I wished without worrying about note taking. I stayed for 2 or 3 lectures, wishing I could have attended more.

The first film in the series I attended was The Story of Three Loves, an example of that rather rare bird, the anthology film (in color, despite this picture). As I've become a Vincente Minnelli fan, it's probably no coincidence that it's probably my favorite of the films I saw in the series. The first story (directed by Gottfried Reinhardt) tells the story of a love between an impresario (James Mason, ugh, not one of my favorite actors) and a dancer (Moira Shearer, donning her ballet shoes for the camera once more years after her success in The Red Shoes). Agnes Moorehead added interest in a supporting role, and the story was romantic, melodramatic and only fairly good. Much more enjoyably, eleven-year-old Ricky Nelson plays a boy who wishes to be a man so he can escape his French governess (cute Leslie Caron) in the Minnelli directed second segment. A witch named Hazel Pennicott (so memorably played by Ethel Barrymore) grants his wish, transforming him into Farley Granger...for a limited time. Predictably yet enjoyably, as an adult he has much more appreciation for his governess. Delicious. The final segment (Reinhardt again) tells the story of a trapeze artist (FD fave Kirk Douglas) urging himself and his love interest (Pier Angeli) into a dangerous high-wire act. Awkward in spots (and Douglas, as so often, veers into overracting, not to mention those silly tights), the story builds a white-knuckle suspense when both cameras and actors move higher and higher into the air. The grown woman next to me was clutching her date and the armrest we shared. Rosenbaum discussed the way the storylines (esp., as I recall, the latter) evidenced the influence of French existentialism in pop culture of the time, an international trend that seems (to me) difficult to imagine happening now. Personally, I savored the queerness of the project - the emphasis on artists as characters, the casting (Moorehead, Granger), the melodrama. Very enjoyable.

I attended Party Girl because I'm a Nicholas Ray fan, but I'd have to say I felt this film was a bit of a letdown. Still, it is intriguing. Set in 20s Chicago (another reason to see it), it's the story of a dancing showgirl (Cyd Charisse) and a crooked lawyer (Robert Taylor) falling in love and trying to escape a mobster's control. Rosenbaum saw it as an intriguing example of Ray's theme of flawed lovers coming together to create something greater than the sum of their parts. With the "transition" theme in mind, I saw it as an interesting example of MGM's growing pains, going from the glory days of their musicals to something dramatic and serious. The aging Charisse shines when she gets to dance (she's still got it at this point), though the costumes will bring laughs now (as they did when I saw it), and I thought she was less than compelling otherwise. The violent conclusion is likewise ridiculous. It's not quite a case of actors wrestling rubber squid-monsters (a la Ed Wood) but they do act rather unbelievably. Of interest thematically for Ray fans, then, and not otherwise recommended.

I saw two Jacques Tourneur films in the series, and Stars in My Crown was the first. I have a weakness for both Joel McCrea and for these mid-century films of nostalgia (like Meet Me in St. Louis and Heaven Can Wait), so I enjoyed this very much, though I think many of us in the audience were surprised and uneasy to discover that the story included the threat of a lynching. It's handled quite well, though. Difficult to summarize, but the story, as seen through the eyes of the young Dean Stockwell, features a tough, good-humored Parson (McCrea) in a rural Southern town, a young science-minded doctor setting out to take over his ailing father's practice, and a rich mine owner (Ed Begley) looking to take advantage of an old black farmer. Alan Hale supports as the head of a big family of strapping farmers who provide some comedy. Some people online have described it as 'Americana' and as a Western, both of which do fit the tone. I loved it and found it thoroughly enjoyable. Rosenbaum highlighted the perennial Tourneur theme of the power of absence to engage people's minds (there's a letter near the end that illustrates this theme), not to mention the overall darkness of various episodes in a story which overall feels quite light and warm. From his capsule review: "recalls some of John Ford's best work in its complex perception of goodness."

Murder by Contract has a reputation as the best film by director Irving Lerner but also the only real keeper in his output. Still, the film looms large, an influence on Scorsese's career as well as on Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog. (Actually, a scene in a barber shop also made me think of Cronenberg's Eastern Promises.) It's fascinating, actually, one of those films you can't quite believe has never made it to dvd. A young and handsome Vince Edwards plays an ambitious young man who becomes a hit man--oddly, those ambitions are rather normal and middle-class: he wants to save up money for a dream house in the midwest. He's just impatient about getting it quickly. The script is witty, humorous even, without losing the edge of a crime drama. Perhaps it's a side-effect of its minimalism (employed effectively to make the most of a low budget--the film feels very independent), but the story raises all kinds of interesting, even bizarre questions. Again with the existentialism, and there's also something Nietzschean about Edward's character. Very much ahead of its time.

The second Jacques Tourneur film I saw in this series (and Tourneur was the only repeat director in the series) was Curse of the Demon. This was a mild letdown for me, but there was enough of interest that I didn't regret seeing it. It was a strange note to end on, but I was glad I stayed for the lecture/q&a this time as it really deepened the picture. It's a supernatural story based on M.R. James that involves a demon (that looks like something out of godzilla), a devil cult leader and an American doctor crusading against superstition. (Oh boy, you never want to be the rationalist in a supernatural story.) When I asked him what connected this picture to the other Tourneur (they're such different films), Rosenbaum again stressed Tourneur's consistent belief in the power of absence and darkness to fire power people's imaginations. (This reminded me of Cat People.) But I was also struck by the fact that in Stars in My Crown you have the pastor and the atheist doctor disagreeing on philosophies and here you have the rationalist and the occultist. (Later I watched I Walked with a Zombie in which I saw this conflict echoed once more.) Rosenbaum was surprisingly candid about Curse's many contradictions and flaws, but he was fascinated by the fact that Holden and Karswell are in many ways the same person and that at other times their behaviors seem the opposite of what they should be. The longer the post-film discussion went, the more oddities and nuances we found, so despite my slight disappointment, it's worth a viewing.

Update: Thanks to GreenCine Daily for the link. It's my favorite film blog, and I subscribe by email (as well as RSS) so I never miss an entry. A bit of a thrill to see my own words there. (I'm such a geek.)

43rd Chicago International Film Festival - Part 2

The Festival has announced its awards, and I'm happy about having seen the Gold (Silent Light) and Silver (You, The Living) winners, though I obviously don't approve of the two awards for Control. I also learned that it was, indeed, Udo Kier (serving as juror) sitting just a couple rows in front of me at the Hallam Foe screening. I'd recognize that enjoyably odd German anywhere (esp. because of his role in My Own Private Idaho). Overall, I had pretty good luck this year picking worthwhile films to watch.

I did my homework for You, The Living (Du Levande), renting Roy Andersson's previous film, Songs from the Second Floor a week before the fest, and while 7 years passed between their makings, the new film seemed to pick up exactly where the previous film left off. Not that you need to see the Songs in order to appreciate the new film, just that they're very much cut from the same cloth. Of the first film, J. Hoberman quipped, "It's slapstick Ingmar Bergman." "Yes," added Roger Ebert, "and tragic Groucho Marx." Tati comes to mind, and to some degree the film Delicatessen. Filmed all in long shots, both of Andersson's films portray a bleakly surreal cityscape and hop from character to character, sketch-like, with the grimmest sense of humor. There is very little in the way of a narrative thread connecting them except that they are all residents of this comic dystopia. Almost all of them are middle-aged or old, rather unattractive, sadsack in dozens of unique ways. I think there is one child in all of Songs but there are some major characters in You, the Living in their twenties. Songs struck me as a meditation on a graying Europe and the ills of modern society, whereas You, the Living had me thinking more globally, but that might be an effect of my catching up to Andersson's vision. I felt that some of the scenes in You reach higher comic heights, but there are several scenes of questionable purpose which fizzle. It sags at times, but I'd still strongly recommend it overall. Rating: 3 out of 4 stars.

There's no way I was going to miss The Witnesses (Les Témoins), the new film by André Téchiné, and I was a bit disappointed in the lack of coverage the film received during the festival. Téchiné is a major filmmaker who's beginning, it appears, to be taken for granted, which is too bad because this AIDS drama set just before and during the initial outbreak in France is clearly one of his very strongest works, along with Strayed, Les Voleurs, Wild Reeds and My Favorite Season. In fact, it was one of the strongest films I caught at the festival. Téchiné is a subtle filmmaker who can sometimes be too refined and unsentimental for his own good, as in Changing Times and Far Away--he can leave you feeling nothing. But, as with the backdrop of WWII in Strayed, here the emergence of AIDS provides him with some strongly charged material to resist, creating a more effective tension. It also provides him some nearly readymade narrative material with which to explore his perrenial theme of the challenges we face in trying to achieve stable identities and monogamous love lives. The story moves from a scene in which young Manu goes cruising in Paris to the story of his affair with the older (unconventionally) married Mehdi, a cop who rescues him from drowning. Their scenes proved genuinely passionate and sexy, and an eleventh hour revelation keeps the relationship interesting from beginning to end. The cast is excellent: Emmanuelle Béart rarely better, young Johan Libéreau is entirely believable as a smart young man from the provinces who manages to fascinate two older rival lovers. Julie Depardieu (yes, daughter of) is excellent as the sister preoccupied with her opera training. A scene in which she performs an aria and the lights go out is a rare emotional indulgence on Téchiné's part, and it works beautifully, suggesting the blindness that a character experiences as his disease develops but also a society struggling to adapt to dangerous circumstances. Sami Bouajila has had quite a year, first with Days of Glory and now this turn as a bisexual cop. I was also pleased to see Xavier Beauvois and Jacques Nolot (two notable French directors) turn up in small supporting roles, and I should also note that Téchiné is one of the few French directors who has shown a committed interest in his nation's relationship with Algeria. My only real quibble is that a minor American character who turns up late in the story has a ridiculous accent. Rating: 3 ½ out of 4 stars.

Bad girl Catherine Breillat's latest picture The Last Mistress (Une Vieille Maîtresse) is a deliciously dark erotic costume drama in the vein of Dangerous Liaisons. Not coincidentally, Laclos is mentioned more than once by the characters in this film. The film has garnered positive reviews so far on the fest circuit but star Asia Argento has gotten raves for her turn as a scandalous Spanish countess who struggles to hang on to her young French lover as he jilts her for a respectable marriage to an almost sickeningly pure young maiden. Breillat's trademark sexual provocations are on full display. The pretzel positions she films the lovers in are designed to shock, and I thoroughly enjoyed the gasps and squeamishness of some of the older women in my row. (The lady next to me nervously rustled her plastic bag every time Argento appeared nude.) Argento's countess at one point takes a blade to her lover's face and in another, vampire-like, licks blood from a bullet wound he received in a duel over her. (Hilariously, the attending doctor replies to her query of concern by pointing out that her ministrations have just added a risk of infection.) Fu'ad Ait Aattou as the lover Ryno is a typically indulgent casting choice on Breillat's part (she who has been known to cast porn stars as leading actors). He looks like a high-fashion magazine model, and I initially pegged him as a substandard Louis Garrel type, but he turned out to have somewhat more in the way of chops than I expected. I was most charmed during the first two-thirds of the film when Ryno spends an entire night relating the story of this affair to his proper young fiancee's grandmother, played wonderfully by Claude Sarraute. As the Marquise, she insists that she comes from the more liberal generation of Laclos and is unshockable, yet she urges him on in his storytelling, clearly finding it more interesting that any novel and rightly so--the story has some unexpected twists. But the last third of the film, taking place after Ryno's marriage, seems less urgent, as if Breillat loses interest once the tragic ending comes into view and the fun must come to an end. Characters' deaths are related off-handedly and before I was quite ready for it, the show was over. Still, I feel this is a major rebound for Breillat, whose films had begun to feel played out and unenticing in their post-feminist games. It's certainly her best since Fat Girl, and I hope it's a huge arthouse hit here in the U.S. Rating: 3 ½ out of 4 stars.

I'm still trying to sort out what I think of this boom in ultra slow-paced films on the international scene. Kiarostami, Zhang Ke Jia, Ming-liang Tsai, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Sokurov, Angelopolous, Bela Tarr, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and many more celebrated filmmakers of various origins, styles and concerns have all embraced a slower than average pace. Meanwhile, classic filmmakers who pioneered this "contemplative cinema" such as Dreyer, Antonioni and Tarkovsky are being praised for precedent. Obviously, few critics celebrate all of these directors equally, but in general I get the sense that highbrow taste favors them over all. I try to make a point of mixing some of this work into my filmgoing because I find it challenging, and I've taken a policy of seeing no more than one or two at film festivals because when they fail they can be very enervating. Worse than merely sleep-inducing at their worst, they can put you off wanting to see any cinema. I've seen Carlos Reygadas emerge during this decade as yet another name to add to this, championed for his Japón, generally excoriated for his Battle in Heaven, and now getting the best reviews yet for Silent Light (Stellet Licht), and as the trailer intrigued me (and since what I read about the new Tarr film didn't encourage me), I decided this would be my token slow film of the festival. I'm glad I saw it, but in the end I'm not quite sure how to evaluate it. It's one of those challenging films you want to argue about even with yourself, a perfect example of why such films are worth seeing.

The film opens with an incredible sequence, near darkness until you realize it's a starry sky. You begin to realize the camera is panning through the night, you sense shadows, the outline of trees, and so gradually as the screen brightens, you realize you're seeing a sunrise. Somehow the film seems to capture the moment in real time yet I suspect it must somehow be compressed. Silent Light is the story of a Mennonite farmer in Mexico (they speak Dutch, I believe) and his wife and rather large, handsome family but more to the point, it's about his struggle to deal with his feelings when he falls in love with another Mennonite woman. And here's my first problem with the film: the women seem very much alike to me, and I never got a clear sense of what he preferred about the new woman. The film is acted with non-actors, actual Mennonite farmers who do a very good job as non-actors, but then, the stiff style of the filmmaking lowers the bar a bit, I think. The lead actor Cornelio Wall cries a few times on screen, and to see such a stoic man crying can't help but win some of our sympathy (not to mention admiration--it must be tricky to cough up tears on command), and he's really quite up to the task of holding our attention most of the time, at least at this pace. During one serious moment I caught Peter Wall, who plays (and, surely, is) his father winking at the camera, and I wondered if it was a mistake - if the actor had thought the shot long over only to discover Reygadas keeping the camera going. Did Reygadas keep this shot in knowing it might call attention to the style? Why? There's some business with a clock being stopped and started again that subtly lends an air almost of science fiction or fantasy or fairy tale to the film. Silent Light is generally always beautiful to look at, and I was content enough to go along for the ride, but then came the ending. Suffice to say that something miraculous happens but (rather pointedly) because of an action that's human and not divine. I'd read the ending was compared to a bit of deus ex machina at the end of Dreyer's Ordet (a film I haven't yet managed to see), and I was both surprised and pleased that I still hadn't guessed this ending. The film ends with a sunset to match the wonderful opening, and I felt reasonably satisfied as I left. But when I thought about the film some more, I began to feel this ending is a cheat. (Actually, a cheat compounded, because there's a death in the film that feels very, very unlikely and unrealistic to me.) Here's one way in which the slow pace really works to a director's benefit: it can hypnotize the audience into a dreamlike frame of mind in which we're less likely to balk at such an unlikely leap of logic. (Just as a frenetically-paced film can exhaust us into acceptance.) I often feel that slow, languorous shots should be used for emphasis. Rare is the stylist like Sokurov of Wong Kar Wai who can build an entire dreamlike movie out of them. Usually when they're used for an entire film, it's like highlighting an entire novel's text--useless. During such films, I find that rather than doing more "contemplation" my mind simply slows down. I don't mind a provocative ending or a stylistic departure, but here I didn't see the purpose (at least not a good one). Still, the ending aside, I enjoyed the sumptuous photography and the sense of getting to experience the lives of character who live very differently from me. And perhaps I'm overthinking the whole thing in this case. Rating: 3 out of 4 stars.

Update: so far I've found two other bloggers who blogged from the fest, Nick and Prince of Cairo. Nice work, guys.

43rd Chicago International Film Festival - Part 1

First stop for me on this year's Festival Express was Hallam Foe, and if ever there was a twisted film, this is it: voyeurism, incest that isn't technically incest (stepmom, lookalike mom), blackmail, murder, split personalities--this thriller has enough material for half a dozen stories. It doesn't delve into any of these issues or ideas with enough dedication to really achieve anything significamt, but it's an agile, interesting film, and it succeeds as a naughty entertainment. It seemed to please my audience as a small-plates meal of thrills and titillations that doesn't try to implicate or embarrass us. This Scottish import (from the director of the darker, less entertaining, but more artistically satisfying Young Adam) grabs inspiration by the handful from Hitchcock's Vertigo and Rear Window (hey, steal from the best) and also brought to mind (would you believe?) Italo Calvino's The Baron in the Trees, since the title character spends some significant time on rooftops and in trees. Earlier this season I rented the much-ballyhooed The Lookout, a dud of a thriller notable for one main reason, the commitment of its young leading man, the impressive Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This film is likewise notable for the tour de force performance of Jamie Bell, who elevates this film far above what it could have accomplished otherwise. The actor, who as a teenager beat out Tom Hanks, Russell Crowe and Geoffrey Rush for a BAFTA award for his first film performance in Billy Elliot, has more than proven himself, and with films such as Undertow, Nicholas Nickleby, and Flags of Our Fathers, he's clearly shown an intriguing taste and intelligence in picking roles so far. Jamie Sives (who I'd seen play Peter Mullan's son in On a Clear Day) also seems like an actor to bet on. I was less taken with Claire Forlani, though admittedly she's successful as an evil stepmother (whose motivations remain too murky and whose reactions seemed unbelievable). Sophia Myles manages well with a part that seems impossible in theory, and in fact, of all the unexplored stories that could have been fleshed out here, the one that seemed most interesting to me is the one her character hints at: a woman who discovers her new young lover is rather damaged goods but decides that indulging his idiosyncracies may go a long way to cure him. Rating: 2 ½ out of 4 stars.

As it was to Mr. Lazarescu before it, the fest circuit has been very good to 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, a Romanian drama about a young woman helping her friend obtain an abortion illegally in the 1980s. I found Lazarescu eventually oustayed its welcome, become unbearably tedious as it entered its third hour, but I had the opposite reaction to 4 Months, which is more like a Dardennes film than Lazarescu. If anything, it was too unbearably unnerving. I'll confess, I considered leaving. Absolute horrors take place (some of them happen, brilliantly, off screen), and I expected worse and worse things to happen. I still feel a bit queasy about the filmmakers' motives (some of the characters' decisions are unlikely in a way that smacks of rub-their-faces-in-it), but I suppose it's impossible to argue against the notion that it can help us appreciate the ramifications of the debate over abortion. Secondhand, I've heard it described by a critic as a film which presents us with standard thriller and horror narrative routes only to take a more intelligent turn at every opportunity--and that's excellently put. What interested me just as much, I guess, was the way the film shows people dealing with one another in this Communist society, the black market everyone traffics in (the film opens in a college dorm in which everyone seems to be dealing in soaps, cigs, you name it). And perhaps the most inspired narrative decision is to have the heroine become obliged to leave a hellish situation temporarily and show up at her boyfriend's mother's birthday party where she has to put on a happy face and ignore some of the older guest's intergenerational put-downs. The Romanian New Wave, as its being called, may be an exaggeration, but this film is undoubtedly one of the more challenging, artful and serious films of the year. (And it could instantly be added to that Onion list of great films too painful to watch twice.) Rating: 3 out of 4 stars.

I was not so impressed with Control, a film generating a lot of buzz online at the moment. Because Anton Corbijn's music video work has been featured alongside the likes of Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze, I couldn't help hoping his feature debut would be better. It looks good, certainly, shot in black and white for starters, something I couldn't help but admire. But the comparisons to kitchen sink realism don't really ring true for me, as the visual style here is all about de-cluttering the frame and lovingly portraying the hero to the point of hagiography. Some shots called to mind Jeanne d'Arc or St. Sebastian. Yet the story (taken from the deceased Ian Curtis's wife's book) reveals him to be, sorry, an asshole. You might argue that the film creates an interesting tension, then, between the diverging visual and narrative approaches to the subject, but I don't see it that way. Curtis-the-character comes off as a man who proposes marriage and childraising only to suddenly turn around and change his mind, which would be one thing (he's human, they're really young), but he's also a coward about expressing what he wants, going silent and pouty just when his wife (played excellently, of course, by Samantha Morton) needs him to be frank. The film tries to pass him off as a rock 'n roll Wordsworth or Keats, too sensitive for this world (or, at least, for conventional monogamy), but it just left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Schmucks can make for good drama, too, of course, but I got the uncomfortable feeling that Corbijn could never bring himself to deal with the ugliest aspects of the story, so how could he be expected to provide some perspective? In terms of musician biopics, the film does show more taste and greater ability to sidestep cliches than recent Oscarbait films like Walk the Line, but I still can't quite recommend it. I'm not even sure die-hard Curtis fans would like it - it might even offend them most of all. Rating: 1 ½ out of 4 stars.

43rd Chicago International Film Festival: Introduction

Next week is the Chicago International Film Festival. The Trib has a piece on colorful Kutza and Ebert contributed a modest write-up. There was a bit of a kerfuffle when Chicagoist recently wondered why the schedule wasn't out yet. (In my opinion they jumped the gun--the fest was on its normal timetable.) The comments (which you now have to click on "Show comments" to see fully) were, as usual with the Internet, disheartening and catty.

At any rate, my opinion of the Fest is about the same as ever, though it seems less international this year than most, and it's much more expensive. (And no one has commented on the missing critics' choice series, which was always one of my favorite sidebars.) CIFF is generally free of the commercial ickiness of Toronto, but also (partly as a consequence?) much of the excitement. More than a couple of the high-profile films it gets are (I would guess) prints that would normally be used for sneak previews for films that will open commercially within the month. Which brings up another issue: with the Oscars moved back a couple years ago, October has more than ever become the biggest month for grown-up films, more crowded than ever, so if there's one month we really don't need a festival, it's October. I wish it could be held in late summer, during the worst film year doldrums. General filmgoers could be excused for thinking they could put together a better film festival (and more cheaply!) at the cineplex screens down the hall. (In fact, last year I ditched one CIFF fiasco and went down the hall to see the film that ended up winning the Best Picture Oscar, The Departed.) [Update: evidence I'm not the only one who thinks October has become glutted.]

Still, though it brings few of the biggest buzz-generating titles on the fest circuit, CIFF always delivers more than you think it has on first inspection--and the internet has made it much easier to research films on the int'l fest circuit. I love the way the fest's depth (it's much bigger, if less choosy, than the NYFF) means you can talk to 5 different friends all going to see 10 films and discover none of you are seeing the same films.

My definite picks so far are: Hallam Foe, Control (turning out to be a big draw), 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Witnesses (it's Techine, who I never miss), and The Last Mistress. I'm going to try to add You, the Living (after watching the director's Songs from the Second Floor last week) and Silent Light (which'll be my token slow artsy choice--I'm going to try Reygadas with what they say is his best rather than revisit Bela Tarr with his latest, which has gotten poor reviews so far).

If I had but world enough and time, I'd add: Before I Forget, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Chicago 10, The Flight of the Red Balloon, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Lars and the Real Girl, and Beaufort. Luckily, many of those are coming back, some of them (Devil, for example) very soon.

There are lots more highlights not quite to my taste: glitzier events with directors and actors (the Affleck brothers, Tilda Swinton, Marc Forster, John Sayles), lots more documentaries, and, egad, The Kite Runner. The ubiquitous Kite Runner.

The Pervert's Guide To Cinema

Slavoj Zizek, a Slovenian philosopher, academic and cultural critic, has been slowly becoming more prominent in the U.S. His articles, which often engage pop culture in an intellectual yet accessible way, have been showing up in places like In These Times and The New York Times, and then a year or two ago he was the subject of the documentary Zizek!.

Now he's created a three-part lecture about movies for the screen entitled The Pervert's Guide To Cinema , directed by Sophie Fiennes (Ralph's sister). Cleverly, they've filmed Zizek in locations that look a lot like the films he's discussing (including the completely blank white "room" of The Matrix), so that as the film goes from lecturer to clip and back Zizek almost seems to be there on the spot, commenting on the action. I think this technique alone says a lot about the philosopher before he even opens his mouth. To me, it says he has a sense of fun appropriate to the experience of watching many of these films; that he sees himself as equal to and not above the material; and that he has a considerate, media-savvy appreciation for modern audiences' tastes and desires. (Of course, he may also have been influenced by Mark Rappaport, who has done this kind of thing even better--see Rock Hudson's Home Movies, From the Journals of Jean Seberg, and The Silver Screen/Color Me Lavender.)

Cribbing from the program notes on the film's web site, the lecture breaks down like this: in Part 1, Zizek focuses on psychoanalytical themes and Freudian concepts like the Ego, Superego an Id, the death drive and libido; in part 2 he discusses fantasy and its role in sexual relationships; and in part 3 he considers illusion versus reality and the Gnostic theory of our world as an unfinished reality that God bungled in the act of creation. Okay, that's all well and good, but it makes the film sound dull and academic (it isn't) and it doesn't give you a sense of what Pervert's Guide is like as an experience. Zizek takes up these themes with an almost tireless energy, riffing like a jazz musician, apparently explaining his ideas for you from outline rather than prepared notes, so it feels fresh and impromptu. It's an often exhilarating experience. Perhaps I've seen too many movies, but he seemed to become a rather lovable character, with his heavily accented but always comprehensible English and his enthusiastically spit-producing thoughts.

Zizek covers a lot of films and directors: a beaut of a clip from Possessed starring Joan Crawford in which she watches a train slowly pass by, noticing various scenes in each car through their windows, a gorgeous metaphor for watching film; Coppola (The Conversation), Fincher (Fight Club), the Aliens movies, The Matrix (of course! like catnip to philosophers--r.i.p. Jean Baudrillard, who I read somewhere wasn't a fan), The Wizard of Oz, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin (several clips that shamed me into admitting to myself that it's time I really carefully watched his classics), Ingmar Bergman's Persona, Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher, Tarkovsky's Solaris and Stalker and more. But he gives probably his most sustained attention to David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and Mullholland Drive), and Alfred Hitchcock (esp. The Birds, Vertigo and Psycho, plus the recurring image of people hanging on ledges throughout AH's films). In fact, his commentary on Psycho and The Birds, two movies I've never really connected deeply with before, really helped enrich them as experiences for me. And I couldn't believe I'd never picked up on the recurring father theme he found in Lynch. Perhaps that's because Lynch has so many recurring motifs, and the father theme has never really spoken much to me. (I'd love to know what he thought of Inland Empire.)

I think of The Pervert's Guide To Cinema as a creative essay more than a lecture. I wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for facts or history or something concrete. The strength of it is that Zizek is sharing some ideas and a way of seeing that doesn't boil down to a summary, even to that 3-part synopsis from his web site. Still, at times his insights into individual films are so clear and smart that they seem obvious, and I wondered, "Why didn't I ever think of that? How have I never seen that before?" That's a sign of a great critic. He also has a gift for excerpting the most essential moments from films, and at times I did wonder how much of my response I owed to him and how much to the individual filmmakers. Some of his notions, however, are ridiculous, even disgusting (the cinematic screen as overflowing toilet bowl?), and occasionally I found myself wondering to what extent he was joking.

Ideally, I think the film is best watched over three nights rather than in one mad rush the way I saw it, and it is available as a Region 0 import, which surprised me given all the clearances I imagine it required. The film's web site also offers further readings.

Here are the essays he wrote for In These Times on 24, The Matrix, and The Passion of the Christ.

He has also comments on the new, just-released dvd of Children of Men.

An interview with Believer Magazine.

Lastly, he has also has written eloquently about torture recently for the New York Times and the Guardian.

My Favorite Movies of 2006

What's a top ten for? I figure that it's an expression of your own taste, not what critics, awards groups, advertisers or even friends tell you to enjoy. Looking over my list, I can generalize about my mood. For one thing, I've had enough of post-9/11 fear, revenge and seriousness. Cinema that tries to be a newspaper (United 93, World Trade Center, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Babel, the dozens of Iraq war documentaries) isn't meeting my needs, but critics at this time of year have a way of hyping such films as serious and "important." One prominent blog argued that lack of interest in Iraq war documentaries was a sign of poor citizenship--never mind however else we might be working to stay informed or make our opinions matter. The biggest problem with the profession of film critics is its lack of diversity, esp. in terms of aesthetics. The Departed is a perfect example: an adrenaline rush of a movie, overlong but made with top-notch skill, it's a shallow, macho thriller. It has polish and gusto, but it's an empty thrill ride, yet it's a top awards contender this year. I won't argue that The Notorious Bettie Page and C.R.A.Z.Y. are equally skillful, but they were much more relevant to my life. And they both withered on the vine for lack of attention. C.R.A.Z.Y., from far-away exotic Canada, has played in countries around the world including Turkey but was never picked up for distribution in the U.S. I had one chance to see it, at Reeling, Chicago's gay film festival.

I saw my usual number of new films this year (between 90-100) with more still to see, but I thought it was a rather weak year (third in a row). Unlike A. O. Scott, who moaned recently that people who say it was a bad year are just engaging in lazy "they don't make 'em like they used to" thinking, I think it's a fair statement. Some crops are just better than others (2007 already looks miles better!) but this year offered less critical consensus, which is always fun. Some trends and events of note: Wellspring went under, a terrible loss; there was a shakeup at The Village Voice, which also looks like bad news; I've yet to see the film Idiocracy but there seems to be a troubling story emerging that this mass media satire was buried by Fox; IFC Films/IFC First Take has emerged as a major player, and relatedly (some good news), quicker release of DVDs seems to be helping foreign and indie films survive.

TOP TEN
1. Children of Men (Universal)
One reason I think it was a weak year is that even with my top choice I can think of some arguable weaknesses (for the opinion of someone who hated the film, read Andrew Sarris' grumpy review): it's arguably far-fetched and "mindless" (more emotional than rational), and it isn't the greatest actors' vehicle. But to me it's probably the greatest science fiction film since the underrated A.I.. Taken literally, it is rather implausible, so if realism is the god you serve you may as well skip it. But by exaggerating many of the features of today's world (threats to our security, privacy and ecology), it captures our anxieties and offers us a glimmer of hope, of redemption. Cuaron evokes the kind of emotions (wonder, dread) that make me think of Spielberg's best work, and he's surely Spielberg's greatest rival. I've been a big fan of his children's films (A Little Princess, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), and so the role played by a child in this film is especially fitting, but it also asks audiences to set aside their cynicism when cynicism has never been more fashionable.

2. "My Dad is 100 Years Old"
It seems a bit unorthodox to include short films in my top ten lists, but there have been some exceptional ones these last few years, and they've simply excited me more than most feature length films. This 16-minute film, shown in theaters with the revival of Rossellini's The Flowers of St. Francis, is a tribute to the filmmaker by his daughter Isabella, directed by her recent collaborator Guy Maddin. It's an excellent example of a film whose auteur is not (solely) the director. Isabella plays a number of film legends including Hitchcock, Chaplin, Selznick and her mother Ingrid Bergman, all having a discussion in a movie theater about her father. Completely unique, an absolute treat for film lovers.

3. The Notorious Bettie Page (Picturehouse Entertainment)
This film was greeted with such indifference it's like it never existed. Was the problem that it was partly shot in black and white? That it scared off people who thought it would be sleazy? That the Bettie Page fad had crested? Or was it that it treated its subject as a human being rather than a campy sex object? I have no idea, but Mary Harron has proven herself one of the most enduring directors of the "new queer cinema" of the 90s (that much too short-lived moment) by always doing unique work, and I found this film's grace and optimism refreshing. Gretchen Mol gives one of the most generous performances of this or any year (she's been so unfairly overlooked by the awards groups, esp. the Independent Spirit Awards--what purpose do they serve?). Yes, she's naked during some of the film, gloriously so. More than any recent film I can think of, certainly more than Shortbus, which tried a lot harder, Mol celebrated the body's natural beauty. Sexuality in movies is so often prudish or routine but here it's somehow transcendent, even pastoral in one particular outdoor scene. In real life sexuality is also risky, vulnerable especially for a woman, which makes some of Page's decisions all the braver, given her experiences of abuse, about which the filmmakers are frank without indulging in fashionable exploitation. In the end, I was moved by Harron's and cowriter Turner's integrity in honoring their heroine's choices, especially the religious ones, at a time when too many people have become panicked about religion. The soundtrack, too, is excellent.

4. The Illusionist (Yari Film Group Releasing)
There's a much-discussed and bizarre phenomenon of strangely similar films arriving to theaters in pairs. This year it was two stories about 19th Century magicians, The Illusionist and The Prestige, and there was much more anticipation for the latter because the source novel has a cult following. Several people went so far as to boycott The Illusionist because they saw it as a kind of copycat, a lot of silliness. Both films are excellent and quite different, but I prefer this one. Adapted from a short story by Steven Millhauser ("Eisenheim the Illusionist," from The Barnum Museum), The Illusionist tells the story of a magician (Edward Norton) in turn-of-the-century Vienna who falls in love with a woman (Jessica Beil) who is engaged to the prince (Rufus Sewell). I saw this just after the terribly disappointing new M. Night Shyamalan film (Lady in the Water) and couldn't help thinking it was exactly the kind of film he should be making.

5. Tristram Shandy: a Cock and Bull Story (Picturehouse Entertainment)
Deliciously dry British humor flavors this admirable and entertaining attempt to translate the source novel to the screen. Half adaptation and half fiction about the making of an adaptation, this didn't work for some, but for me it transcended comedy. Dare I use the 3-letter "A" word?

6. Change of Address (Changement d'Adresse)
Simply a delightful romantic comedy, sexy, gentle and heartfelt. The fact that it involved a musician made it even more enjoyable for me. The structure, the unexpected departures from formula, the absurdist approach to philosophies of love, all of it gave me an impression of unusual intelligence and artistry. It's a film many people would enjoy if they just gave it a chance, but I'm not sure how many people I'll be able to convince about its high quality. After all, most people seem to think silliness can never be taken seriously. I feel sorry for them!

7. Linda Linda Linda (Viz Pictures)
What at first seemed just another slow-paced Asian art film (about, of all things, 4 high school girls creating a rock band for a school project) grows in power to become a uniquely and unexpectedly touching experience. I'm not sure everything came through the cultural translation (esp. the material about Japanese-Korean relations), but I have since learned that kids are forming rock bands in Japan like never before. The flip side of Gus Van Sant's Elephant?

8. Evil (Ondskan) (Magnolia Pictures)
A Scandinavian boarding school drama set in the 50s whose intense, cruel violence put me in mind of Lord of the Flies. Its troubled and troubling hero evokes James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, but his relationship to violence is much more morally questionable. A local critic accused the film of stoking the audience's bloodlust, but I thought the film ingeniously addressed the many dilemmas of violence--whether it can be avoided, whether it should be, why and when it should be used. (Also, during Kill Bill, a film that certainly aroused bloodlust, my audience shouted and cheered, but during this film all I heard was whimpers.) It doesn't touch Cronenberg's A History of Violence for artistry, but it deserved much more support from critics. (This film played at Cannes in 2003 but only finally reached the U.S. in 2006.)

9. C.R.A.Z.Y. (no U.S. distribution; dvd forthcoming from Netflix)
It feels like I've seen hundreds of gay coming-out stories, but I don't remember seeing one that succeeds so well at including the point of view of a parent struggling to accept a child's unexpected sexual identity. A straight director and gay co-writer collaborated here and achieved something exceptional. True, it's excessive at times (terribly so in an Israeli sequence), but experiences like this are messy affairs in real life. I'll take this over more conservative yet "tasteful" Hollywood treatments like Brokeback Mountain any day.

10. Little Children (New Line Cinema)
I haven't read Tom Perotta's source novel, but this makes the second exceptional film to be made from his work. Director Todd Field's In the Bedroom was strong but I wasn't prepared for how much this film would impress me. The story's brave take on sex offenders and the way our society creates and handles them is just one reason to see the film. Kate Winslet heads up a terrific cast (she's been Oscar-nominated a fifth time, sure to lose again).

RUNNERS-UP
11. Three Times (IFC Films)
Very reminiscent of Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood for Love, 2046) yet completely in keeping with Hou Hsiao-hsien's previous work. Romantic, visually gorgeous, slow and moody with a great soundtrack. I'd like to see this again.

12. Wordplay (IFC Films)
A surprisingly entertaining documentary. (Or perhaps the idea of watching a documentary merely to be entertained offends you?) It may not be inspiring like Spellbound--unless you count that craving to do a crossword puzzle you'll have for a week after seeing it--but the cast of characters is delightful and the energy and enthusiasm of the film are contagious.

13. The New World (2005) (New Line Cinema)
Shame on me. I skipped this in the theaters and waited for DVD. It was gorgeous and would have been amazing to see on the big screen. As a meditation on our nation's founding, it's mythical and romantic yet also manages to be clear-eyed about our failings.

14. Pan's Labyrinth (Picturehouse Entertainment)
In many ways the most exciting film of the year, Pan's Labyrinth is rich and masterful in its memorable blend of fantasy and Spanish Civil War movie, but it's ultimately too pessimistic and gratuitously violent. When Red saw it, he heard a couple argue afterwards, summing up typically: "What was the point of that ending?" "Because, that's how life is." Well, that may be provocative, but it isn't a vision of life I can embrace. I believe if Steven Spielberg's name were on the film as director, critics would be condemning its irresponsible mix of politics and fairy tale, but that's neither here nor there. It's still a brilliant film and I hope it presages better from Del Toro.

15. The Queen (Miramax Films)
An exceptional script and top-notch direction are the key ingredients here, though Helen Mirren is certainly excellent in the role that has won her nearly every award but the Nobel Peace Prize. I walked in thinking the cult of Diana was ridiculous and that monarchy is an outdated political abomination, and I was surprised that a film which might have been just another tv movie of the week has as much to say to me as it does to the royalty nuts. Its warm humanism was refreshing, but even I wondered if it was a bit too kind to the politicians involved until I heard writer Peter Morgan's illuminating Golden Globes speech.

16. The Prestige (Newmarket Films)
The lesser of two Victorian magician films was still a great entertainment, but it ran into some serious problems in its ending (whereas the ending of The Illusionist was like the cherry on top). And I have to note this is the second film in my top 20 this year featuring Michael Caine, getting even better with age.

17. The Science of Sleep (Warner Independent Pictures)
I greatly preferred Eternal Sunshine, but Gondry's latest is still individualistic, trippy and romantic. And how surprising that Charlotte Gainsbourg has the opposite problem that Juliet Binoche has: when she switches from acting in French to acting in English she becomes more charming.

18. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation)
The film provided a few laughs, yes, but made me think more than any other film this year (besides Pan's Labyrinth). Cohen mixes improv, "reality tv," and satire, borrowing from Johnny Knoxville and Michael Moore as much as the Comedy Central crowd. It's one of the very few 2006 films people will be remembering and talking about long after the Oscar hoopla dies down. The ingenious Cohen has been attacked, defamed, sued and questioned to a degree second perhaps only to Mel Gibson this year, and I'll admit I'm as queasy about some of his tactics as the next person, but ultimately I agree with Time Out New York's Joshua Land: "There's hardly a shortage of commentators bemoaning the degraded state of American culture, but only transgressors like Zwigoff and Sacha Baron Cohen seem to understand that it might be necessary to sacrifice the niceties of good taste and fine art in the process." And something I just learned (it's the film that keeps on giving): when Borat is supposed to be speaking Kazakh, he's actually speaking Hebrew!

19. Little Miss Sunshine (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Cute indiewood ensemble picture (an enviable cast, though some members were underutilized) notable mostly for giving us some solid laughs (though most of the jokes were spoiled in the trailer) and for its aggressive, innovative and successful ad campaign.

20. Notes on a Scandal
Tacky, pulpy and so enjoyable. And thus it just edges out Almodovar's latest. (Penelope Cruz was revelatory in Volver, but Notes has two world-class actresses, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett.)

HONORABLE MENTIONS (the next forty)
Volver, Half Nelson, Sweet Land, Lassie, An Inconvenient Truth, The Bridesmaid (Demoiselle d'honneur, La), Strangers with Candy, Stranger Than Fiction, L'Enfant, Slither, Comedy of Power, Changing Times, Interkosmos, A Scanner Darkly, The Devil Wears Prada, Quinceanera, Eight Below, Friends with Money, Shortbus, Iron Island, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, The Lake House, The Painted Veil, Letters from Iwo Jima, The Fountain, Why We Fight, The Departed, Climates, Dreamgirls, Cars, Bubble, A Prairie Home Companion, Thank You for Smoking, On a Clear Day, District B13, Twelve and Holding, Clean, The White Countess, Nacho Libre, Casino Royale.

AWARDS
Best Actress: Gretchen Mol (The Notorious Bettie Page)
Runners-Up: Penelope Cruz (Volver), Helen Mirren (The Queen), Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal)
Best Actor: Steve Coogan (Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story)
Runners-Up: Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson), Michael Sheen (The Queen), Ralph Fiennes (The White Countess), Paul Giamatti (for making Lady in the Water bearable & also for The Illusionist)
Best Supporting Actor: Simon McBurney (Friends With Money), Runners-Up: Mark Wahlberg (The Departed), Stephen Colbert (Strangers With Candy), Alec Baldwin (The Departed), Steve Carell (Little Miss Sunshine)
Best Supporting Actress: Frédérique Bel (Change of Address),
Runners-Up: Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada), Charlotte Gainsbourg (The Science of Sleep), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Stranger Than Fiction), Phyllis Somerville (Little Children)

Best Child Performance: Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine)
Best Adolescent Performance: Claire-Hope Ashitey (Children of Men)
Runners-Up: Q'Orianka Kilcher (The New World), Shareeka Epps (Half Nelson), Zoe Weizenbaum (Twelve and Holding), Ivana Baquero (Pan's Labyrinth),
2006 "It" Girl Award: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Best taglines: "Hell on Heels" (Devil Wears Prada), "One Woman's Mistake Is Another's Opportunity..." (Notes on a Scandal), "Censorship, uncensored." (This Film Is Not Yet Rated), and "The story of a man who could only count to #1" (Talladega Nights); Worst: "If You Ain't Outta Control, You Ain't In Control." (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drft), and "She Always Thought She Was Somebody... And She Was." (Last Holiday), and "He's nacho average hero." (Nacho Libre).

Activist Film of the Year: An Inconvenient Truth (deserving of the overused term "important")
Most Overrated Film: Hollywoodland
Most Underrated Film: The New World
Best Gay/Queer Film: C.R.A.Z.Y. / The Notorious Bettie Page
Best Film Critic: Matthew Wilder and Sam Adams, best contributions to the IndieWIRE poll.

2006 Soundtrack Highlights: Lang Lang performing Satie and Alexandre Desplat's main theme (The Painted Veil), main titles/end titles by Eastwood and Stevens (Letters from Iwo Jima), "Long, Long Time Ago" by Javier Navarrete (Pan's Labyrinth), Children of Men soundtrack (esp. John Lennon and Jarvis Cocker), Notorious Bettie Page soundtrack (esp. the songs by Patsy Cline, Jeri Southern, and Julie London), "Linda Linda Linda" (Linda Linda Linda), "Rain and Tears" (Three Times), DeVotchKa/Sufjan Stevens (Little Miss Sunshine), the stunning lip-sync'd number in Volver, Philip Glass's Notes on a Scandal soundtrack, Broken Social Scene's "Stars and Sons" (Half Nelson), Brit Daniels/Spoon (Stranger than Fiction soundtrack), "Okan Bale" by Angelique Kidjo (Changing Times), "You Know My Name" by Chris Cornell wasn't bad (Casino Royale), and (o.k.) *the* number from Dreamgirls.

BEST OLDER FILMS I SAW IN 2006
I enjoy seeing new movies, but lately I'm even more excited about the past. This year I saw more older movies than ever, and as a group they far outclassed the Class of '06. A baker's dozen of them were pure gold: 3-Iron (Bin-jip), a 2004 Korean film, was the highlight of a strong series of Korean films I watched--if it had been released here this year, it may have been my number one choice. I tend to love or hate Douglas Sirk films, and I loved All I Desire (1953), a rarely screened gem starring Barbara Stanwyck. Brief Encounter (1945), quoted in the recent play/film The History Boys, lived fully up to its classic reputation. I rented The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) for Gene Tierney and was surprisingly moved by still another take on the impossible romance story. Girls About Town (1931), an early Cukor film unavalable on DVD, surprised me with its bold pre-Code sexuality and dazzled me with its opening montage. Kay Francis and a handsome young Joel McCrea were lead the cast. Modern Romance (1981) is the best Albert Brooks film I've yet seen by far. How is it not better known? Breakfast on Pluto got me interested again in Neil Jordan, and his Mona Lisa (1986) was an enjoyable precursor to The Crying Game. I look forward to watching more of his early films. The New One-Armed Swordsman (1971) is everything I could have desired in a campy older martial arts film, if I'd only been a bolder dreamer. Now all I hope for is a dvd release. One of the few key Sturges films I'd not yet seen kept an impossibly glorious string of classic comedies going: Palm Beach Story (1942). I've tried a few Jean Renoir films and been impressed but not fallen in love with any of them until The River (1951), which will no doubt inspire me to keep trying with his other films. I expected Ken Russell's Tommy (1975) to be dated and campy, but I didn't expect it to be so powerful. It absolutely won my respect. I've seen some of the best and most celebrated screwballs of the 30s, but Trouble in Paradise (1932) electrified me. Whenever I see any of its (heretofore unknown to me) cast pop up in any old movie, I instantly sit up and pay more attention, a smile on my face. And I thought I'd never see another film noir that would interest me after being in a film group that watched a couple dozen, but I adored Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)--nearly the equal of the classic Laura.

I also highly enjoyed: Breathless (1960), Army of Shadows (1969), Classe Tous Risques (1960), Chicago (1927), Fourteen Hours (1951), Grey Gardens (1975), The Servant (1963), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), Cabin in the Sky (1943), Evil Dead 2 (1987), Bus Stop (1959), Psycho (1960), Oliver Twist (1948), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Un Air de Famille (1996), I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), Duel (1971), and Bad Company (1972). And the highlights of a "silly film" series I watch with Red: The Court Jester (1956), Ride the Wild Surf (1964), Teenagers from Outer Space (1959), High School Confidential (1958), Viva Las Vegas (1964), and Speedway (1968). And that's just scratching the surface. Here's to '07 and its excavations!