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| (c) Columbia Pictures |
1) Moneyball – If I surprise you by citing this movie as #1, dealing as it does with the machinations of former journeyman baseball player (I followed him as a NY Met) and present general manager of the Oakland Athletics’s Billy Beane , it is only because I surprised myself by how much unadulterated fun it is to watch. Charged with the responsibility of reinventing his team in the face of a brutally emasculated budget (about a tenth of the payroll of the Yankees and Red Sox), Beane, played by Brad Pitt in an irrepressibly engaging performance, reminds me for all the world of early Jeff Bridges. He teams with an unknown to me, Jonah Hill who is Peter Brand, a nerd-like Ivy grad whom Beane hires, owing to a computer sensibility that he wields with the authority of a Louisville Slugger to measure a player’s worth beyond the archaic RBI’s and ERA’s, which proves you can’t have archaic and eat it. Philip Seymour Hoffman is typically outstanding as A’s Manager Art Howe, right down to the chewing tobacco stains.
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THE DESCENDANTS (c) Fox Searchlight Pictures |
2) The Descendants - In front of the camera or behind it, George Clooney continues to mature as perhaps the premiere movie presence of our time. I like his work, I like the causes on whose behalf he espouses and I like his pluck (see: Good Night and Good Luck). At the beginning of The Descendants, I thought that everyone came across as oddballs. But then I reminded myself to be patient as I had to be when watching Sideways, that homage to the California vineyards, for which Alexander Payne wrote the script and helmed it as he does here. Clooney as Matt King a real estate lawyer low-keys the fact that his net worth is in mega territory, thanks to the good fortune of having a family tree that extends to the earliest Haole settlers (with some indigenous royal blood mixed in for good measure). It is his mission to sell off, on behalf of his cousins and him, an immense parcel of beach front in Kauai for mixed-use development. Meanwhile, his wife, Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie), lies on life-support in a Honolulu hospital after a boating accident, with no hope of emerging from her coma. As “the back-up parent,” Matt is obliged to manage and monitor his two irreverent daughters, Alex, 17 (Shailene Woodley) and Scottie 20 (Amara Miller). They are each first rate performers. When Matt learns unimpeachably that Elizabeth has had an ongoing affair, he is devastated and determines illogically to confront his wife’s lover Matt (Matthew Lillard). Matt’s compliant wife Elizabeth (Judy Greer) caught in the undertow of a marital crisis not of her doing, practically steals the movie in just a few fleeting scenes. I say practically because there are any number of cameo-plus turns that contribute mightily to the warp and woof of this Oscar-bound movie’s unanticipated, often funny, events and incidents.
3) The Help – Yes, I vividly remember the signs of the south that separated water fountains and partitioned movie balconies and orchestra seats from whites and “coloreds.” In our liberal, literate, PM-reading Northern household we did have separate dinner tables for our sleep-in help. But until this movie, what I couldn’t conceive of were separate lavatories for domestics in one’s own Mason/Dixon suburban homestead, something that comes across with chilling effect in The Help. Viola Davis, who is as omnipresent on the big screen (Extremely Low, Incredibly Close) as Sidney Poitier was from Blackboard Jungle on, is her usual stately self. As Aiblileen, Davis raises the consciousness of all the characters, white and black. Her best friend Minny (Octavia Spencer) adds some not-so-subtle spice and outrageous humor to the proceedings. I could have done without a scene involving a chocolate “shiitake”pie consumed aggressively by Hilly ( Bryce Dallas Howard ) a segregationist housewife and “Daughter of the Revolution. ” The much more liberal Skeeter (Emma Stone) an aspiring writer, endeavors to interview Aibileen, Minny and other domestic help about their experiences as maids for a book that has piqued the interest of at least one publisher. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Kathryn Stockett’s, and sports a succession of famed women actors in minor roles, among whom are Cicely Tyson and Sissy Spacek. Born in Mississippi in 1969, Ms. Stockett, a white woman, has suggested that she was influenced by Demetrie McLorn, a black woman who worked as a maid for her family, and who died when Ms. Stockett was 16.
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BRIDESMAIDS (c) Universal Pictures
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4) Bridesmaids - To quote that legendary malapropist Jane Ace, “you could have knocked me over with a fender.” That was my reaction, after viewing a movie about which I knew not a thing, nor was I remotely acquainted with any of the cast, some of whom are Saturday Night Live alumna. Jane Ace was ahead of her time as a radio presence who just happened to be married to writer Goodman Ace, each of whom wrote the scripts for Easy Aces. I’m sure Kristen Wiig never heard of Jane Ace who was funny long before Lucille Ball was a comedic icon. Wiig is co-writer with Anne Mumolo as well as a prospective maid of honor for her best friend Maya Rudolph for her impending wedding. She is also as cute as a music box ballerina. Among the funniest of the bridesmaids is Melissa McCarthy, who has tons of talent in direct proportion to her ample avoirdupois. Unlike Rosie O’Donnell, whom she resembles, she is outrageously funny. There is also a scene where all the girls are victims of ptomaine from a highly touted restaurant. To describe it faithfully might turn your stomach, but glory in it, since it is the funniest scene I’ve witnessed since Abbott and Costello’s Buck Privates when I wound up on the floor assuming the fetal position, while the white-attired movie matron shone a flashlight in my kisser.
5) Margin Call - After a near-disastrous career turn as Bobby Darrin in the 2004 flick, Beyond the Sea – one year after he took over as artistic director of London’s venerable Old Vic Theatre, it’s a pleasure to see Kevin Spacey in a role almost as fulfilling as his break-out appearance in The Usual Suspects. As A. O. Scott of the NY Times artfully suggests, “ His comeback has arrived more or less simultaneously with the global crisis of capitalism.” In Margin Call, Spacey is an upper-middle-level executive at a major investment bank on the brink of 2008-style turmoil , whose pragmatic judgment vis-à-vis “right-sizing” puts him in the ethical eye of the storm. The always reliable Stanley Tucci is the fired analyst who sets the plot in motion. He leaves behind a little keepsake for Tucci’s assistant – a SanDisk containing his risk analysis of the firm’s ill-gotten mortgage-backed securities. Others who contribute mightily to the dramaturgy are Paul Bettany and Jeremy Irons as the implacable mogul of the company. Demi Moore – long missing from the screen – is miscast as a hard-hitting yes – woman.
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THE ARTIST (c) The Weinstein Company |
6) The Artist - Leave it to the Weinstein Brothers to pick up a film about which other producers may have turned up their noses. This flick , utterly silent, save for sound effects and music immediately rekindled the joy of seeing Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights in its first revival when I was a kid in the ‘30s. In my middle years, I interviewed Virginia Cherrill, City Lights’s blind flower girl, adored by The Tramp, and who for a brief time was married to Cary Grant. In many ways: beauty, sense and sensibility, Cherrill may have been the precursor to the character Peppy Miller (played by 26-year-old French/Argentinian actress Bérénice Bejo), Her partner in real life is The Artist’s director Michel Hazanavicius; they have two children. On the other hand, Jean Dujardin (George Valentin), (a vowel short of Valentino) he of the slick-backed hair and pencil mustache reminded me – not of Valentino – but the swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.Valentin, like Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain, faces the prospect of being excessed by the studio as the sound era approaches. Well , Kelly’s dance prowess saves the day for him as it does here with Peppy Miller joining Valentin in a Busby Berkelyesque tap dance number. But the real scene-stealer is Uggie, a Jack Russell terrier who is the hottest pooch in moviedom since The Thin Man’s Asta. I’ll look for his name in the next NY Times crossword puzzle.
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| MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (c) Sony Pictures Classics
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7) Midnight in Paris - The things I liked most about Midnight in Paris, were the nocturnal forays of the requisite Woody Allen-like shmegegge, portrayed by Owen Wilson, an unfulfilled screen writer seamlessly elbowing the tables of immortal Americans in the Paris bistros of the ‘20s. They are not gross caricatures, such as the ones we endured in Jose Ferrer’s Moulin Rouge, but a repository of such plausibly fascinating personalities as Cory Stoll as Hemingway, Tom Hiddleston as Scott Fitzgerald and that marvelous young stage actress Alison Pill as Zelda Fitzgerald, Marcial Di Fonzo Bo as Picasso and Kathy Bates who is simply terrific as Gertrude Stein. Yet Adrien Brody effectively steals the show as Salvador Dali. Not only is it among Allen’s better movies, but it is doing well at all the box offices.
8) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - It seems like yesterday, in fact it was only 2009 that I saw the original Swedish version of this movie. Whether you saw it or not, you will be captivated (that’s better than being captured, which Lisbeth Salander does in this engrossing treatment based on Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy). She exacts vengeance on a sadistic bureaucrat Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen), who is Lisbeth’s legal guardian and who demands sex in exchange for allowances he parcels out to her as a ward of the state. She in turn metes out a punishment that would boggle a barracuda’s deranged mind. Lisbeth Salander as Rooney Mara is crafty, serpentine and inclined to pierce her body parts with measured abandon. She also knows a helluva a lot about hacking a computer and fiercely following a lead about an obscure suspect. Fresh from a libel suit that costs magazine owner and investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist (played appealingly by Daniel Craig) all the money in his bank account, he is called to a remote island four hours from Stockholm by multimillionaire Henrik Vanger, played with lip-smacking aplomb by Christopher Plummer who requests of him to find the circumstances behind the disappearance of his then 16-year-old granddaughter 40 years ago, and offers to double the income he would have realized as a publisher. Like vintage wine, Plummer continues to plum the depths of a character more than any actor in North America, let alone Scandinavia. In an interesting twist, Blomkvist requests the assistance of a research person, specifically the one who scrutinized all the information about him good and bad on behalf of the plaintiff in the acrimonious libel suit. That person is – drum roll – Rooney Mara.
9) The Ides of March - As entertaining and timely as this political drama is, it will not likely allow me to forget probably the best of all the caucus delecti movies The Candidate with Robert Redford or State of the Union with Spencer Tracy, nor practically any episode of Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing. Directed by George Clooney, it does have what the aforementioned do not, notably two wily actor craftsmen who go toe-to-toe on the big screen as Campaign Chiefs Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman on the liberal side for his aspiring candidate Gov. Mike Morris of Pennsylvania (Clooney) and Paul Giamatti navigating the bland Senator Pullman’s (Michael Mantell) campaign. Front and center is the obligatory young idealist and strategic hotshot Ryan Gosling (Stephen Meyers) destined to be disillusioned, who reports to Zara because he believes Morris to be more doer than doubter as his president.
10) Of Gods and Men - Perched in the mountains of North Africa in the 1990s is a monastery in which eight French Cistercian-Trappist monks live in harmony with their Muslim brothers. Their story and ultimate fate became the subject of international news coverage and the culminating points of violence and atrocities in Algeria. This particular monastic order – interestingly enough - has no apostolic mission of evangelism or proselytizing. When a crew of foreign workers is massacred by Islamic terrorists who issue an ultimatum for all foreigners to leave the country, the monks eschew military protection and the government asks them to return to France. The dilemma for each of them is “Shall I leave or stay,” in light of their good works with the Islamic community. Their choral chants of hymns and psalms four hours a day embolden them for whatever perfidious fate awaits. I was struck by the ensemble portrayals of each superb actor. I was particularly taken by Michael Lonsdale who plays the avuncular Luc, who looks and even sounds likethe late Andy Rooney. He has been a presence in cinema for more than a half-century in films of such directorial giants as Fred Zinneman, Costa-Gavras, Stephen Spielberg, Louis Malle, Francois Truffaut and Rene Clement. But I’m certain you’ll be struck – as was I – by the magnetism, humanity and versatility of Lambert Wilson who portrays Christian, the leader of the monks. I was astonished by his performance and chided myself for not being more familiar with his work over the years. After reading his bio, I was privileged to interview him and learn that he was as facile a singer as he is a dramatic actor. In French with English subtitles. |
