Has it really been over a year and a half?

Holy shit.

Well, first off, my apologies to all two of you out there reading this because the headline includes the words "pastries" and "prostitutes", and when you found the link on Google you suddenly thought, holy shit, this is going to be the best website ever. I hate to disappoint.

Second - I'm back, and I'll be blogging regularly, but mostly movie reviews, with the odd movie thought or movie adventure, but using this less as a diary than it used to be used.

So, cutting to the chase-

2007 - A Year In Review

As far as I'm concerned, these were the best movies of 2007:

1. Black Book
2. The Bourne Ultimatum
3. Ratatouille
4. Interview
5. Gone Baby Gone
6. Juno
7. I'm Not There
8. There Will Be Blood
9. Enchanted
10. This Is England



In terms of awards specifically (I'm talking about awards in general, because as far as I'm concerned this is the year the Oscars have lost any credibility), these are the people I would nominate (note that throughout this post, I consider Black Book eligible, since it was released in the US in 2007):

Best Director

Todd Haynes, I'm Not There
The Coen Brothers, No Country For Old Men
Brad Bird, Ratatouille
Paul Greengrass, The Bourne Ultimatum
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell & The Butterfly

Best Actor

Brad Pitt, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
James McAvoy, Atonement
Benicio del Toro, Things We Lost In The Fire
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Best Actress

Sienna Miller, Interview
Carice Van Houten, Black Book
Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose
Ellen Page, Juno
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Best Supporting Actor

James Marsden, Enchanted
Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men
Nick Frost, Hot Fuzz
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Homayon Ershadi, The Kite Runner

Best Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Michelle Monaghan, Gone Baby Gone
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Michelle Pfeiffer, Hairspray
Samantha Morton, Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Best Original Screenplay

Diablo Cody, Juno
Brad Bird, Ratatouille
Adrienne Shelly, Waitress
Shane Meadows, This Is England
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages

Best Adapted Screenplay

Steve Buscemi, Interview
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Wilson's War
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
John Logan, Sweeney Todd

Best Score

Dario Marianelli, Atonement
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Ford
Michael Giaccino, Ratatouille
John Greenwood, There Will Be Blood
Clint Eastwood, Grace Is Gone

Best Song

"Falling Slowly", by Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, Once
"Guaranteed", by Eddie Veder, Into The Wild
"Pop! Goes My Heart", by Adam Schlesinger, Music and Lyrics
"Le Festin", by Camille, Ratatouille
"How Do You Know?", by Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz, Enchanted

Best Cinematography

Janusz Kaminski, The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
Roger Deakins, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Ford
Seamus McGarvey, Atonement
Robert Eltswit, There Will Be Blood
Darius Khondji, My Blueberry Nights
Best Animated Film

Ratatouille
Bee Movie
Persepolis
Beowulf
The Simpsons Movie
Best Documentary

Sicko
Manda Bala
In The Shadow Of The Moon
Taxi to the Dark Side
The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters

Best Visual Effects

Beowulf
The Golden Compass
Transformers
I Am Legend
Spider-Man 3

Best Editing

The Bourne Ultimatum
I'm Not There
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Foreign Language Film

Lust, Caution
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
La Vie En Rose
4 weeks, 3 weeks, 2 days
Triad Election

Best Makeup

I Am Legend
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End
La Vie En Rose

Best Costume Design

Albert Wolsky, Across The Universe
Marit Allen, La Vie En Rose
Colleen Atwood, Sweeney Todd
Patricia Norris, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Ford
Jacqueline Durran, Atonement


Best Art Direction

Sarah Greenwood, Atonement
Patricia Norris, Martin Gendron and Troy Sizemore,The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
Dante Ferreti, Sweeney Todd
Carlos Conti and Karen Murphy, The Kite Runner
Jack Fisk, There Will Be Blood


The other categories - such as sound or sound editing - I could never claim to know enough about to "nominate" anyone, so I'll leave them be without insulting all the people involved by pretending I have any knowledge about the matter.

I won't ramble on and on either, but in terms of overrated films, performances, and other bits of business of the year...

1) ATONEMENT - A masterpiece of a novel, it became a film that looked gorgeous, had the best score I've ever heard in a year, and was technically flawless. The only problem with it? It's dull, it's got no rhythm, and worst of all, no heart. As one reviewer of the film put it in the Guardian, how does it feel to watch a film where "only the lawns are real"?

2) MICHAEL CLAYTON - Seriously. If this was the 90s, this would just be your run-of-the-mill John Grisham thriller everyone goes to see on a date and forgets about a minute later. Sidney Pollack being Sidney Pollack, Tom Wilkinson being Tom Wilkinson, and George Clooney being a slightly overweight George Clooney in a plot that's way too intertwined for its own good. Doesn't deserve any of the award noms and wins it's been getting.

3) OVER-COMPLEX PLOTS - That would be you, Michael Clayton, Pirates Of The Caribbean and other films that think "not underestimating the audience" means "having plots that don't make any fucking sense". How about being emotionally challenging, rather than logically challenged?

5) JULIE CHRISTIE - A fine actress if there ever, ever was one. But her performance in Away From Her is slightly above average at best - predictable, straightforward, theatrical, she plays "the complexe woman with Alzheimer's" the way any Broadway actress (or James Woods, if he were a woman and this were a made-for-TV movie) would. Not exactly worthy of all the kudos she's been getting, and don't even mention the Oscar she's probably gonna get (which, in my humble opinion, shall be akin to her beating Marion Cotillard up in a back alley and robbing it from her). Away From Her itself is little more than a Lifetime movie - a good Lifetime movie, but still a Lifetime movie - directed around obvious metaphors and indicating of emotions. If you want to reward the film's connection to the audience, reward the one person involved whose work is actually down right impressive - Gordon Pinsent, who proves why he's a national treasure in Canada.



And that's the year for me. Overall, it was one of very few great films (Ultimatum, Ratatouille), a few mind-blowing performances that shall unfortunately go overlooked (Sienna in Interview, Marion Cotillard), a ton of disappointments (Live Free & Die Hard, Atonement, American Gangster, Charlie Wilson's War, nonsensical Academy rules for who's eligible for nominations), and a handful of really good, interesting, challenging films, be it in style or content or tone or all of the above (Once, I'm Not There, Interview, Gone Baby Gone).

2008's got a lot of great stuff lined up - so here's to a great year in film.

GONE selected for First Sundays Comedy Film Festival in NY!

Gone, directed by Mary Kerr, will be screening at the First Sundays Comedy Film Festival in New York on February 3rd, as part of First Sundays' second show of 2008!

Mary's film premiered in October at the St. John's International Film Festival in Canada, and for its second public screening will be "coming home" to downtown Manhattan. First Sundays is a festival Mary and I both really like and respect, insomuch as its very goal is to promote and nurture up-and-coming comedy talent, and so it's a real kick and honor to have Gone play there.

In the past films selected for First Sundays have gone on to play at both Cannes and Sundance, and be picked up by HBO, Cinemax and Comedy Central - which doesn't necessarily mean we presume we'll get similar honors, but that, at the very least, Gone is likely to play in great company, which is always a privilege.

The screening will take place on February 3rd at 7pm at the Pioneer Theatre on 3rd St (between A & B) in New York City - check out www.firstsundays.com for more information and to buy tickets (which are $10 apiece). 

Another big hand to Mary - who shot this film nearly 2 years ago now, as the absolute FIRST thing she ever directed (for real), and now, through sheer perseverance, is getting it OUT THERE!

2007 Year In Review Is Coming...

I just want to give every film a fair chance when I lay out who I think is worthy of award nominations, and since I have yet to see Sweeney Todd, I Am Legend, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, American Gangster, The Kite Runner, Juno, No Country For Old Men, Charlie Wilson's War, Persepolis, The Savages, There Will Be Blood or Into The Wild, I'd be biased writing up a list now.

I can guarantee three things, though:

a) I'll have seen all these films in the next ten days
b) I'll write up and post the people I think should be nominated for Oscars (regardless of hype or self-serving Academy rules, and based solely on merit perceived by yours truly) BEFORE the Oscars come out with their nomination
c) Away From Her's not gonna be anywhere in there, unless I choose to make a Most Overrated category (where it'll be able to rub shoulders and chat with Michael Clayton. Sorry, George.)

On another note, isn't it lovely to see how supportive of each other everyone in Hollywood is? Harvey Weinstein hates everyone and everyone hates him (we knew that), but this year's shown us Warner Bros. not standing behind their Superman Returns team, not because of the quality of the film but because of a few million dollars it didn't take in at the box office; the whole industry sabotaging its own award shows (well done, I'm sure the people for whom it's the one and only time they ever get a nom will remember the event with joy); David Letterman and Tom Cruise screwing solidarity to the wind and making a pact with the opposite side (less so true for Letterman, after all the man is both a writer and a producer); Jay Leno pulling off PR stunts in support of striking writers and staff, before firing his whole staff, then re-hiring his own staff under jeers, and then screwing aforementioned writers by breaking their strike rules and writing his own monologue the night he returned on TV; the heads of the Writers Guild proving that most unions, even though they have their members' interests at heart, tend to forget that about a few days of negotiations and drown it under a fat jelly of greed (c'mon, guys. We're with you on the whole internet-and-DVD revenue thing. But the reality TV and animation writers thing? That's just pure Fat Cat™).

Then we have the aforementioned Academy, which, for some reason, decided to cut Beowulf off from being nominated in either the Best SFX or Best Animation categories (guys! This is the film people will remember in history books as having launched two major film technologies. It was decently reviewed, it made great money at the box office, and like it or not everyone involved took massive chances in making it. But you think Shrek The Third is worthier, that's cool with me.); and then decided to cut off Harry Potter and Spider-Man 3 from SFX nominations, solely based on the contention that, as sequels which have known success in the category before, they can't have a spot. Now, what the fuck....? Fine. Then call Peter Jackson and get those Return Of The King golden boys back. Nevermind the fact that Pirates: At World's End DID get a nomination (despite not really innovating on anything, other than some of their water tricks, which were in NO WAY as innovative as impressive as the work everyone did on Spidey with Flint Marko's sand body), or that The Bourne Ultimatum (an otherwise amazing movie, and in my opinion one of the two best of 2007 with Ratatouille) is eligible for the award instead - which, as far as I'm concerned, is the Academy hypocritically making up for not having a Best Stunt category, which is where Bourne clearly deserves recognition and victory.

Then we have poor Lives Of Others, in which no one had ANY interest whatsoever while it was being made or screened, barely scraped together a distribution deal... but then went on to win an Oscar, and the NEXT morning (literally), Harvey W. and Sidney Pollack announced they were remaking it. Graceful, respectful of the art, full of vision and risk-taking...what can I say. Give these guys a statue already!

Then we have Peter Jackson throwing principle to the wind and agreeing to New Line making a Hobbit film with him only exec producing (read, he went from "They've fucked me over, and I won't give in until that's proven as fact and I receive my due!" to "Oooooh, payoff. Ok."). We also have David Cross gloriously ranting away about his role in Alvin & The Chipmunks (a film I thought was nowhere near as evil as a lot of other crap that comes out every year, and which the two kids I went to see it with thoroughly enjoyed), essentially bashing the whole concept of the film and saying, in so many words, that he did it to pay for his summer cottage. Kind of destroys the whole "edgy, in-your-face comic" vibe you've got going, Dave. We've got Paramount getting gigantic egos on the strength of their great 2007 year (and what looks like an equally terrific slate in 2008), and taking the opportunity to bash every single one of their talent along the way, robbing them in the dark and claiming the credit for good, successful movies resides not with the people who make them, or the people who are in them, but them, the executives - the people who greenlight them. This went from pinning the Iwo Jima/Flags Of Our Fathers disappointment on Clint Eastwood (one exec saying, essentially, "if the famous guy had been IN the movie, it woulda made money." Right. Sure. Kids, these days - what they want is Transformers and an 80-year old cowboy fighting in the Pacific.) to everyone at Paramount actually taking the stand that, "Steven Spielberg? Yeah, we don't need him." IT'S STEVEN SPIELBERG, YOU FUCKING MORONS. Now, granted, David Geffen might be playing them for his own benefit. But hey, you know what? If a man's only strategy is to make you look like you disrespect Steven Spielberg, and he succeeds, then you're pretty much fucked anyway.

We've seen Brett Ratner, who followed up one craptastic movie with another Rush Hour poop fest, be rewarded with a slew of new high-profile projects (from a Hugh Hefner biopic, to a Chris Rock-Eddie Murphy comedy, to a film about the Rat Pack centered around Frank Sinatra's then valet, George Jacobs). To thank the brainless studio heads who, for some reason, are keeping his career out of the morgue (someone's got some dirt on someone else here, I'm telling you), Brett went ahead and cast Chris Tucker as George Jacobs. Well done. When people think about the Rat Pack, they think Vegas, smooth, cool, crooning, partying, roughness, manhood - a high-pitched voice, rubber face, no-talent asshole is obviously the best way to go here.

We had Katherine Heigl, whose career was catapulted forward thanks to Knocked Up, go around and do the promotion for the film as enthusiastically and fervently as possible; before turning around and saying, essentially, that she thought the film was a bit shit, and all the boys involved (and the material) incredibly sexist. Now, love, I kind of agree with you, but that's a tad hypocritical, isn't it? Kind of like chewing off the hand that feeds you, spitting it out, and taking a dump on it, to be honest. We also had Sienna (whom I otherwise LOVE with all my heart) perfect the art of gushing hypocrisy - naming My Life As A Dog as her favorite film while shooting with Dog director Lasse Hallstrom on Casanova, and now, after promoting and cheering for Factory Girl all through its promotional rounds, coming out and bluntly saying "oh, no, the movie's terrible." A hint here, Sienna: us filmgoers don't mind being done over a barrel. We do appreciate it, though, when you guys refrain to point it out. Or at least wait until the end of your career, when you're a respected actress in your 50s with two divorces and three Oscars behind you, to reveal it in a tell-all interview, by which point we won't take it as hypocrisy and betrayal anymore, but as inspiring old cooter honesty. Seriously.

In the wider industry, we've seen Radiohead put up songs online for fans to buy for free in exchange for a donation, then seen Radiohead get fucked up the bum because most fans just downloaded the songs for free and gave zip-all as a donation (what did you expect, guys? People have no moral fiber. Especially not when they're sitting alone at their computer and no one can judge them.). We've seen people get sent to jail for downloading and piracy, but whenever I'm in New York, I know exactly which subway station to go to to find a Chinese woman, her two kids and their rug covered in DVD knock-offs - and they never seem to be bothered by anyone.

Hollywood™ - Where film is a business, and backstabbing and hypocrisy are an art

Two weeks? In f*cking Bruges? In a room like this, with you?

http://www.alliancefilms.com/inbruges/trailer.html

Not necessarily the best trailer in the world (it's decent), but check it out. It's for the upcoming In Bruges, written and directed by Martin McDonagh, and I'm not gonna get mushy, but this is something I am going to plug, because Martin McDonagh is a fucking genius.

You know when you're a kid, and you have that fantasy that some day you'll grow up and set all these records, be the youngest to do this and that, be the best at this, win awards, be acclaimed whatever you do? Well, if those fantasies had come true, you'd be Martin McDonagh.

The man was the first man to have 4 plays running in the West End in the same time since a man called William Shakespeare -- at the age of 27. Starting with his first play, he was nominated and won a slew of Obies, Oliviers Awards, Tony Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Evening Standard Awards, Writers Guild Awards, et al. He created a movement. His first short film won him an Academy Award. His first feature-film is opening the Sundance Film Festival.

And how did he pay for himself as he started out? Unemployment benefits, the fucker!

You don't have to check out the trailer. You don't have to like the trailer. But keep an eye out for the film when it comes out, and if it sounds like something you might like, give it a go -- the man's sure to at least give you something to talk about afterwards.

Cheers,

Ten Cents

The Getaway Car

Best recent TV show. Seriously -- I can see why it got canceled -- but if you've got any interest in Saturday Night Live, sketch comedy in general, producing film or television, and/or like The West Wing and rat-tat-tat dialogue, then Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip is for you. And, on a sidenote, Danny Tripp is God. I'm starting a cult and calling us the Trippers. Who's in? Let's Tripp together.

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I'm developing a script at the moment (if you know what it's about, ssshhhhhh). It's an adaptation of a recently released bestseller, it's the first option I ever got in my life, and I'm fairly excited about it. And the reason I'm bringing it up is something that has to do with producing: how hard it is to find writers.

If you're just starting out in the film business, and you're a director or producer who can't especially write, then your first challenge is going to be finding someone who can. To be honest, decent actors are relatively easy to find -- not great ones, but decent ones; and so are ideas. Writers, who can make that idea into a piece that has something worth filming on every page, though, are a very, very rare thing. If you've ever been to a film festival, you'll agree with me that one thing short films and low-budget independent films have in common is great lighting, great camerawork, decent acting, good editing, and HORRENDOUS writing. The dialogue will be all right, albeit showy, the structure will be shoddy and essentially rely on a last-minute twist, and any theme or subtlety is usually missing in action. I used to think this is because most people don't work on their scripts enough, and I now think I used to be mistaken. It's because scriptwriting is a bloody hard, unnatural thing to do.

I like to think of myself as a competent semi-pro screenwriter. In the sense that if I have a solid, plot-able idea, I can write that out into a script that's fairly clever, fairly entertaining, and fairly commonplace. It'll take me lots of hard work, but it'll have a theme, two- or three-dimensional characters (also whether they're interesting or not I couldn't vouch for), and a somewhat compelling, forward-moving three-act(ish) structure; dialogue that doesn't rape your ear; and maybe even one or two good scenes. The problem is, it'll also be about as exciting, inspired and risky as your average chair. And I think people can learn to get to that level of writing -- get a good idea, hack it out to where it clunks along in a decent fashion -- and then use those skills to shoot a decent short film, go to a festival, network, find better writers, and move up the Ladder To Nowhere together.

But inspired writing -- and this is what I need for this, inspired, tone-perfect, brings-tears-to-your-eyes-as-you-smile writing -- is rarer than diamond. It's not a very new thing to do, and probably not something you give a pole-dancing crap about, but I've been wrestling with this adaptation for a couple of weeks now, and that's what on my mind on the moment, so I thought I'd share.

And as you might be wondering: Yes, I do support the Writers' Strike. It's a shame there is a strike, but if there's a right side and a wrong side, the writers are definitely in the right.

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It's funny (and by funny, I mean unbearably sad) how America used to mean apple pie, Brett Favre, Bruce Springsteen, Clint Eastwood, Walter Cronkite, fulfilling your potential, entrepreneurship, hard work, family values, hot dogs, the 4th of July, and men on the moon; and now it means Burger King, Michael Vick, Paris Hilton, Adam Sandler, Fox News, fear, Enron, legalized torture, distrust, and the impunity of the powerful.

Don't me wrong -- I never thought America used to be Heaven and is now Hell (I mean, Jefferson of the many lovers were as hypocritical as they came; the Founding Fathers knew smear campaigns as well as anyone before or since; and the 50s had their share of crappy blonde "singers"). But their used to be respect for the idea of America. It was cultivated. People who believed in it were welcomed, and people who made it happen were celebrated. I can't help but be worried by the fact that America won the Civil War by being the side that fought for their rights rather than their privileges; then won the Cold War by being the side that said "we'll fight if you pick a fight"; and now is losing the war on terror by being the side that attacks third-party countries and says, "torture? sure. slap a different name on it, lie about it, and we can do it". I can't help but worry that they're fighting a moral struggle by taking the same moral low road as their enemies do.

If you had asked people in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, what the word America meant to them... I'd never dare predict what their answers would have been, but I imagine they would've been very different from what people would think of first now. Not in a good way, either.

I suppose it's a cyclical thing, that the superpower that rose as a beacon of progress falls as a litter of fat cats, and that if it happened to Athens, Rome and the L.A. Lakers, it's only logical that it could happen to America. To someone like me, though, who grew up on the idea and values of Americanism (despite not being even remotely American), it's like waking up one morning and realizing that Kermit the Frog is actually a wife-beating child molester. Or is that piggy-beating child molester?

In any case, it's not a warm feeling.

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Things have, otherwise, been going relatively well. I've been meeting writers (some of them potentially very good, shame on my earlier self for being so negative), optioned the project, and even though I can't announce exactly who just yet (but will soon), I have just signed a fairly well-known artist to help us finish that long-overdue short film I'm hoping to get out there in the somewhat near future. In my first year out of film school, I worked with Robert DeNiro, Indiana Jones, Elizabeth, a Stephen King story, and Natalie Portman; and hustled a (very good) short film into film festivals.

Looking back, it's been good. The one problem so far has been getting paid to an extent where I can do all these things comfortably, without counting pennies in the evenings to make sure I'm not going to eat canned soup all weekend, and if any of you hear me talking about needing a win, that's what I'm referring to. One of those Paying Jobs. I'm onto a few leads, but the legend is true: they're a hard thing to come by. Not any paying jobs, not something to pay the rent and food, but something that's IN the film business, advances your career and learning, and can pay for optioning stuff, buying your writing books, maintaining your software, traveling to a couple film festivals, registering copyrights, and all the while have enough time to keep working on your stuff.

You might say I'm not finding one of those jobs because they can't be had. But, hey -- I'm not gonna get anywhere by having what can be had, am I? That would be too easy.

Cheers,

TenCents

PS: Check out I'm Not There and Gone Baby Gone if you can. Great films -- and both, to me, epitomize, in very different ways, what independent is all about. Risky, unique, artfully made, entertaining, challenging and emotionally and morally complex. If I get to help make one of those, two of those, in my lifetime, I'll die a happy producer.

PPS: And to finish, and in case you'd like me to explain the title of the post, a David Mamet quote about producers...

"The artist is, in effect, a sort of gangster. He hitches up his trousers and goes into the guarded bank of the unconscious in an attempt to steal the gold of inspiration. The producer is like the getaway driver who sells the getaway car and waits outside the bank grinning about what a great deal he's made." - David Mamet, Bambi vs. Godzilla

You gotta love film people.

London Film Festival (Week 1)

In The Shadow Of The Moon

In The Shadow Of The Moon is a British documentary, directed by TV veteran David Sington, and telling the story of the only people to ever reach the moon -- American Apollo astronauts. Using tons of unseen footage, and new interview with the surviving Apollo crew members, the movie is an inspiring experience, starting with the beginnings of the space race, and, using Apollo 11 as a centerpiece, tells the astronauts' stories -- how they got to the moon and back, what it was like, and what they took away from it.

The film is an uplifting experience, and a lot of the space footage is awe-inspiring. The most enlightening part is getting to know the astronauts involved (you get to hear everyone's first hand recollections, with the sole exception of Neil Armstrong, who is famous for keeping to himself), who are all soft-spoken, gentle, Middle-America kind of people, extremely clever, extremely articulate, and extremely humble. Everything about them, from their achievements to the way they speak, throws you back to what America used to (and was supposed to) be in the first place; a feeling enhanced by footage of the whole world (yes, including the French) cheering and waving U.S. flags to celebrate Apollo 11's landing on the moon -- a togetherness it's hard to imagine happening again in today's world. The film's music, composed by Philip Sheppard, is the movie's other big strength: powerful, emotional, stirring, it's an impressive feat, especially considering this is Sheppard's first film score.

The directing itself is unexceptional, and you do get the feeling that the film just rides somewhat comfortably on its fantastic subject and all the fascinating men involved -- but in the end, that's enough for a terrific 90 minute doc, one which'll entertain you, educate you, elevate your spirits, and throw in a few things to ponder in the process. 8/10

Enchanted


Enchanted had a one-off screening at the festival, making it its World Premiere, two months before the film's actual release in the UK (which'll come in the middle of December). It was a big promotional event for Disney, who treated every audience member to a free magic eight ball (woo-hoo!), and made sure the movie's three main stars were present and in a good mood to get some buzz going.

Enchanted tells the story of animated princess Gisele (Amy Adams), who is about to marry animated Prince Edward (James Marsden), which'll make her Queen of Andalasia in stead of evil Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon). To save her throne, Narissa pushes Gisele into a magic well, that leads into an world where there are NO happy ever afters -- ours. More specifically, New York City, where Gisele meets a handsome divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey), who introduces her to her new environment...

It's an idea that could've been developed into a sickly-sweet film, aimed squarely at teenage girls and their parents. But Disney and director Kevin Lima (Tarzan, A Goofy Movie) instead make the concept blossom, and develop it into an extremely entertaining movie, one that even I, a 20-something male whose favorite films include The Godfather and Braveheart, thoroughly enjoyed. In fact, there's a lot of satire and irony in the film that I'm not sure kids would get, but that made all the grown-ups in the audience piss themselves, and that's not something that happens very often with movies about Disney princesses.

Most of the humor in the film comes from the culture crash between members of two very distinct worlds: the classic Disney cartoon world and our real-life world. Gisele, a gorgeous young princess, is used to improvising love duets, marrying Prince Charmings she barely met, cutting dresses out of curtains and rugs, and counting forest animals amongst her friends (and housekeeping mates). But suddenly, she finds herself in a world where no one sings, there are supposedly no happily ever afters, and people, well...date before deciding to marry.

The film is well, but not uniquely, written, but flies along at a very fun, breezy pace. The actors have a great time, and most of them are pretty much terrific -- Amy Adams is fantastic casting as the princess, and even though one might blame her for just taking on yet another pretty-ditzy role, she still delivers every inch of the way. James Marsden, who is the only person I can think of ever to get typecast as "the likeable other guy" (see the X-Men movies, Superman Returns, and The Notebook), is a revelation as Prince Edward, and overall gets the most laughs of anyone in the movie. He plays your typical overjoyful, overconfident, overperfect, overzealous storybook prince with glee and an absolute straight face, and as such pulls off the very rare feat of creating a character who is deeply likeable because of all his flaws. Patrick Dempsey is great casting too, and even though his role isn't exactly a stretch in any direction, he fills it solidly, hitting the beats and making every situation work. There's also a great animated chipmunk in there, one of the few CGI-animals-in-a-live-action-film I've ever seen work so well.

The one disappointment, really, is Susan Sarandon, who is terribly miscast as evil queen Narissa. She just tries too hard to be over-the-top and cartoonish, and as a result is simply ridiculous, working all right in the animated portions of the film, but looking ludicrous in the live-action bits -- like a thesp who takes herself very seriously, but to prove that she doesn't, takes a fun popcorn role and, hamming up way too seriously, comes out looking like a desperate middle-aged woman in a funny outfit, trying too hard to be wacky. Dempsey's to-be NYC girlfriend, played by Idina Menzel, is also somewhat annoying and miscast, but her role not being gigantic, it's not much of a bother.

There are also a few situations that the film fails to exploit fully, and even though the songs are composed by legend Alan Menken (an EIGHT-time Oscar winner) and do stick in your head, the way they are orchestrated in the couple of musical numbers ruins them. The choreographies in the musical numbers aren't very impressive either, and on a whole the numbers themselves are disappointing. The very final act is also quite disappointing (it throws the necessary CGI-packed climax at a film that never really needed it).

Nevertheless, it's a great film, really good fun, especially if you enjoy Disney films (even if you don't admit it) or if you have a little girl to take out to see it. 8/10


The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford


This is one of the films I was looking forward to the most in this year's lineup -- I'm a huge fan of Ron Hansen's book, I'm a huge fan of westerns, I'm a huge fan of the cast (Brad Pitt, Sam Shepard, Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell -- how right can you go?), and the early buzz has been quite good, comparing the film to some of the 70s greats.

Let's say it straight-out: the film's far from perfect. In fact, it's far from even being the film it could be. It feels over-edited (director Andrew Dominik's spent a year in the cutting room) and somewhat without a center, shooting for a theme but not quite bringing it together as poetically and humanly as it could and should.

As a result the film is edited in fade-outs, like little vignettes, and features what felt like wall-to-wall narration from an omniscient storyteller. The idea is obvious -- to make the film feel like a yarn told by a frontier storyteller, which is the tone of Hansen's novel -- but the filmmakers sacrifice the story's power and potential on the altar of that form. Some of the important transition and human bits are left out of the story, and eventually, it definitely feels like someone is telling you a yarn, but not the most interesting one -- it's like Grandpa is reading you a story, but leaving out most of the good bits.

The movie isn't a bad one in any way -- it's a good film, but it could've been a great western, as far as I'm concerned an all-time great. It looks fantastic -- absolutely breathtaking for most shots -- the music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is brilliant (and I wish had been used more in place of the irritating narration, which just tended to tell us everything that we could already see happening on screen), the costume and set design looks deliciously authentic, and the acting is all-around top-notch. Brad Pitt is great as Jesse James, a man whose larger-than-life character slowly turns mercurial and paranoid, but there again the edit cuts out many of the important transition points in his character's arc, which has the effect of making his performance seem less impressive than it actually is (I think). The supporting cast is stunning, from Sam Rockwell (who steals every single scene he's in, which is pretty much what you pay Sam Rockwell to do) to little-known Garret Dillahunt, magistral as an awkward, frightened member of the James Gang. Zooey Deschanel makes a solid cameo near the end, and two of the bigger names in the cast (Mary-Louise Parker and Sam Shepard) take rather unnoticeable turns, but there again it could be the editing shaping their performance into something less defined than it could've been.

Surprisingly (to me), considering how much praise his performance has received so far, I thought Casey Affleck's performance was unexceptional, nothing special -- he takes the obvious path of making Robert Ford your pale-faced, awkward kid with a cracking voice and tender eyes, the victim of bullies who suddenly turns the biggest of all bullies into his own victim. But he never fully creates Ford's darker side, his ambition, his own mercurial side, all those things that, in a way, do make him like Jesse James -- only a weaker Jesse James, one without courage or pride. As a result you never quite feel James and Ford connect in the way they should: as Mary perfectly put it when we left the screening, this is essentially All About Eve, and where Pitt does (in my opinion) a fantastic Margo Channing, at first captivating and entrancing and likeable, then fearsome and paranoid, Affleck's Eve Harrington is too simple, too obvious. Jesse's his hero, he wants to be like Jesse, turns out Jesse isn't that nice a guy, so the best way to become as famous as him AND not be bullied anymore is to shoot Jesse. Only it's not that simple: in actuality, Ford was someone who went from wanting to be like Jesse, to wanting to be with Jesse, to wanting to be respected by Jesse, to wanting to BE Jesse; but since he didn't have any of the few qualities that made Jesse James such a larger-than-life character, he ended up going about it the way most of us would've, by waiting until the last possible moment and then, motivated by fear and greed rather than something undefinable, shooting his prey in the back, in his own house, while backed up by his brother.

Again, it might be the fault of the way the film is cut together (incredibly, the very important beat where Robert Ford turns from James gang member to government snitch is just plain missing from the film), but it's another reason why the piece doesn't completely click.

In the end, what could've been The Godfather or Unforgiven or Once Upon A Time In The West comes out more like The Proposition or Open Range -- a good-to-great western, but not a masterpiece. The shame is, that masterpiece is probably on the cutting room floor somewhere, already shot and performed, but probably never to be seen. 7.5/10