How to Train Your Dragon

Dreamworks animation has had a spotty career. It started out decently with Antz in 1998, which was overshadowed by Pixar's vastly superior A Bug's Life, they found huge success with the Shrek series, then again with Madagascar, again with Over the Hedge (which I actually liked a lot), but didn't really hit a home run artistically, I think, until 2008's Kung Fu Panda. Then came '09's delightful Monsters vs. Aliens, and 2010 gives us their magnum opus, How to Train Your Dragon. It's a wonderful movie with astounding animation, terrific characters, and a good (if predictable) story. They create a world of Vikings and dragons and ships and battles, and imbue it with heart, artistry, and the kind of soul we're used to seeing from Pixar and Studio Ghibli. Maybe we can start expecting that from Dreamworks now too, as Kung Fu Panda had the same kind of care given to it.

The story is the cliche of a kid not living up to the expectations given to him by his dad and the society they live in. He's different and hasn't found his place, although we know he will, otherwise it's unlikely he'd be the hero of the story. Director Chris Sanders had previously directed Lilo and Stitch, which was a surprisingly good modern Disney movie. He'd also done work on a quirkily ambitious project called American Dog, though he was later removed from the project, which was eventually heavily reworked into Bolt. I like Bolt a lot, but after seeing some American Dog concept photos, and seeing what Sanders (and his co-writer/director on all three projects, Dean DeBlois) did with this movie, I'd love to have seen what American Dog would've turned out like.

But back to How to Train Your Dragon, the animators really created some extraordinary shots and sequences in the movie. Apparently the filmmakers hired cinematographer Roger Deakins to advise on lighting the movie to give things more weight and to add a live-action feel. Deakins, responsible as regular director of photography for the Coen Brothers for some of the most interestingly shot movies of recent years, and an 8 time Oscar nominee, must've worked some good magic. The animation is tremendous, beautiful in many cases, and would alone make the movie worth watching. But the voice cast adds some nice work as well, especially lead Jay Baruchel (a favorite of mine dating back to Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared), with his inherent awkwardness extending to our outcast hero.

I hadn't expected to love How to Train Your Dragon, despite 98% positive reviews from critics, and being liked enough by audiences to rake in nearly $500 million. But it really is a terrific movie, one of the best of the year, even if I can't quite figure out why the Vikings have Scottish accents. I'm glad I finally got around to checking it out, and I'm sure I'll end up shelling out the cash to add it to my permanent collection.

Noir, round 3

#9 Clash by Night (directed by Fritz Lang)
So, this was supposed to be an entry into the noir quest. It was in one of my noir box sets, and "directed by Fritz Lang" got me excited (since he directed the all-time classics Metropolis and M), seeing that it was based on a play by Clifford Odets piqued my interest, and after seeing the cast of Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan, Paul Douglas, and Marilyn Monroe, I was sold. But what the hell?!? This isn't a noir, it's just a bullsh-t relationship melodrama (and not a very good one in my eyes) with some occasionally noir-ish lighting. Lame.

#10 Act of Violence (directed by Fred Zinnemann)
So, I'll go ahead and count this as #10 in the series. And we're back on track with some serious noir. Actually, some interestingly serious noir. Act of Violence concerns itself with the guilt and anger felt by two soldiers who survived the horror of a Nazi P.O.W. camp. One of the soldiers, Van Heflin's Frank, was the leader of the group that'd been shot down by the Germans. Robert Ryan plays Joe, the only other man to make it out of the camp alive. Joe blames Frank for the deaths of the other men, and has tracked him down relentlessly in a bid to right the thing he feels has been wronged. Frank moved his family from Syracuse, New York all the way to southern California just to get away from Joe's vengeful quest, assuring himself that Joe won't continue following.

Frank's survivor's guilt must've been mirrored by that of legendary director Fred Zinnemann, who'd escaped the dangers of WWII with his brother just 10 years previous to Act of Violence, but lost both of his parents in concentration camps. Van Heflin's wonderfully layered performance carries the movie, especially in the scene where he explains to his wife Edith (Janet Leigh, in her first role of significance) exactly why Joe blames him for the soldiers' deaths, and what he's been carrying around with him since then. Robert Ryan is creepily effective as Joe, single minded in his pursuit, to the point that he tells his girlfriend he just doesn't love her enough to care what she thinks about his intent of violence retribution.

We're blessed again with some terrific cinematography (probably the biggest reason I love noir), this time courtesy of 16 time Oscar nominee Robert Surtees. Heflin is often bathed in shadow, with only a single ray of light across his eyes or face. The scene of he and Janet Leigh in the hotel, where he painfully explains his actions, is a masterfully shot bit of noir, with shadows and light playing off one another in many different ways. Another beautifully done sequence in when Frank contemplates suicide by standing in front of a train, Helfin's pain playing out on his face, Zinnemann ratcheting up the tension, and Surtees shining the light from the front of the train in contrast to the oppressive darkness all around. It's not the brilliant grittier photography of He Walked by Night, but it's very noir, and terrifically done.

#11 On Dangerous Ground (directed by Nicholas Ray)
After a nice round 10 movies, I returned to the first director on the list, Nicholas Ray, and his movie On Dangerous Ground. It stars Robert Ryan (of course it has Robert Ryan in it, it's a noir!) as Jim Wilson, a cop on the edge of losing his job after he continually gets too rough with suspects. He gets results, as he's quick to point out, but is also anti-social with his fellow policemen, insubordinate to his Chief, and decaying on the inside as a person. "Garbage, that's all we handle, garbage!" he shouts to another cop. He's sent away from the city into the wintry countryside to help investigate a murder and meets Mary, a blind woman played by Ida Lupino. Mary becomes a kind of beacon of salvation for Jim, but the situation may not play out in a way that allows him to have his redemption.

Ryan gives one of his better performances, giving Jim the nasty underbelly, but also believably paying out the quest for rebirth for his disillusioned cop. Ida Lupino is terrific as the blind woman, tenderly offering much needed hope, and not just for Jim. Ward Bond as the father of the country victim is a little too over-the-top and obnoxious, but I think that's kind of the point for his character.

The photography, by noir veteran George E. Diskant, isn't as iconic as some of the other noirs I've been watching. But I got a nice Fargo-esque vibe from the snowy countryside setting, and some decent city work as well. The hand-held work, however, is far inferior to the tremendous job Diskant did on The Narrow Margin, released the same year (also filmed the same year, although that was 2 years prior to its release). Ray's handling of the angsty storyline of looking for redemption through possible romance is handled with typical aplomb, even if it doesn't have the more noirish ending he originally intended. The change in setting, which some have apparently felt jarring, I felt Ray managed perfectly. We have to have our protagonist set up before we can care what happens to him. Ray is much more interested in his characters than in having a more narrow or traditional plot structure, and the movie is better off for it.

The ten most beautiful actresses of all time

So, fellow blogger Iza Larize inspired this post. You can check out her list here: http://depthsofcinema.blogspot.com/2010/10/most-beautiful-actresses-of-all-timeso.html, she is somehow always able to find some tremendous photos. We share a couple of actresses in our entry, but not too many. Although the women on the list have many distinctions from each other in their shared beauty, all have in common that their eyes are my favorite feature. I have always been drawn to dark eyes, and it seems that only two of the women has a lighter eye color. Anyway, without further delay, here we go, in no particular order, and this is based solely on beauty and not acting ability, that'd be a different list:

Salma Hayek

Salma starts off the list, because she's the most attractive actress of all time, in my book. Now, I don't necessarily think she's the most beautiful, just the most attractive. But still, this is a "most beautiful" list so she wouldn't be on here if I didn't think she was pretty. She has the same dark features that many women of her heritage (Spanish and Lebanese, although she is actually from Mexico) have, in the best way possible. Her severe eyebrows and dark eyes offset wonderfully against a smile that lights up her whole face. I think it's this contrast that has always attracted her to me.


Audrey Hepburn

Now, here is Salma Hayek's opposite. To me, Audrey Hepburn is the most beautiful actress I've ever seen, but would not be anywhere near a "most attractive" top ten list, simply because she doesn't have anything in the way of sensuality. Still, her smile could lighten even the darkest of hearts, and you could get lost in her eyes. Her almost impossible beauty couldn't not be on this list.


Aishwarya Rai

Ahh, Aishwarya Rai. She has the qualities that both Hayek and Hepburn have, but at the same time. Like Hayek, she bears the features of her heritage (Indian), namely in her prominent nose. However, her nose fits her face perfectly, and her smile, her eyes, her lips, she has beauty everywhere I look.


Halle Berry

Halle Berry may have the best smile in all of Hollywood. She has perfect teeth and impeccable cheekbones. She's also one of the few actresses that I will ever prefer with short hair.


Ingrid Bergman

Now, Bergman would certainly end up on a list of my top ten actresses, but she deserves a place on my most beautiful list as well. Although she had a severe nose, she had a luminous smile and incredibly contemplative eyes that I have loved watching on screen over and over again.


Rachel Weisz

When I first saw Rachel Weisz in The Mummy many years ago, her beauty hit me like a ton of bricks. Her eyes, her lips, her smile, she was amazing in her every feature. I'm still captivated whenever I see her, and it doesn't hurt either that she turned out to be a tremendous talent.


Gong Li

Gong Li was another one that bowled me over, this time when seeing the Zhang Yimou movie Raise the Red Lantern. That was in 1991 (when the movie was made, not when I saw it), and yet when I see things like Memoirs of a Geisha, Gong still out beauties her co-stars well into her 40's. There are many beautiful Asian women, but to me it doesn't get any better than Gong Li.


Claudia Cardinale

Continuing the theme, when I saw Claudia Cardinale in The Pink Panther, she ruined the movie for me. Every time the storyline went away from her, I stopped caring because it was going away from one of the most fascinatingly gorgeous women I'd ever seen in a movie. I found out later that the actresses Italian accent was so thick that they had to overdub her voice, but that didn't matter to me. Her dark eyes and perfect nose and mouth were all I wanted to see.


Marisa Tomei

Marisa Tomei, a strange case in that if I was making this list 15 years ago she wouldn't be on here. She has grown more attractive and more beautiful as she's gotten older, to where she is now easily one of the 5 sexiest actresses working today. I don't know how she does it, but she improves with age like wine. Her smile and her eyes pull me into her and are what help make her such a terrific actress. But they're also what get her onto this list of the most beautiful actresses.


Elizabeth Taylor

And finishing the theme of the list, Elizabeth Taylor's eyes are the most famous on the list. I have to admit that I'm not immune from the spell that they cast on so many others. I think, for me, it's not just the eyes, but the dark beauty that surrounds them (you'll notice no blondes on the list, although a couple just missed out).


Of course, there will be some arguments with my list "Where's Grace Kelly?" "Where's Catherine Deneuve?" and all that, but they always struck me very cold. They never really did anything for me. There are plenty of actresses who're beautiful enough to have been on the list, but just missed out. But you want Grace Kelly on there, make your damn own list. This is mine.

Noir, round 2

I decided not to wait for another 5, since I've written more than usual about these three.

#6 Key Largo (directed by John Huston)
So after a week off, I continued with my noir quest tonight with the less famous of the John Huston/Humphrey Bogart noir collaborations, Key Largo. Bogie has long been one of my favorite actors, and this is one of his best performances. He had one of the most emotionally expressive faces I've seen, and we see so much play out in his eyes and his facial "body language" as his disillusioned WWII vet Maj. Frank McCloud struggles with discovering a reason to fight, in this case against famous gangster Johnny Rocco, deliciously played by Edward G. Robinson, who is keeping a small hotel full of people hostage as a small hurricane passes through.

Playing as a sort of oppositely cast version of The Petrified Forest (an underrated sort of pre-noir which served as Bogie's big break as the gangster holding people hostage, it was also the movie that made me fall in love with Bette Davis), Key Largo plays out more fascinatingly with Bogart and Robinson playing a sort of cat-and-mouse/battle of wits game that plays out with about as high a body count as a claustrophobic movie like this can manage.

An all-star cast that also includes Lionel Barrymore and Lauren Bacall (in her last screen pairing with her husband), it's "Queen of noir" Claire Trevor who deservedly won an Oscar for her role as Robinson's abused and alcoholic former love Gaye Dawn. In a powerful scene where Robinson forces Gaye to sing a song like she used to in the club in exchange for a drink, Trevor is able to gain the audiences sympathy, as well as Bogart's, by singing a few lines of a song about an abused woman's continuing love for her man. There is not a shred of the same "Iceberg of a woman" Trevor played in entry #5 Born to Kill where she was a woman slowly descending into moral wasteland, here she is a broken woman who finds the smallest shred of self-worth, and using it to help the oppressed group escape from Johnny Rocco's grasp.

Key Largo is the best movie yet on the quest, and gears me up to continue on. Also, Key Largo contains what is, so far, the single best shot in any of the movies, the penultimate shot with Lauren Bacall throwing open the shutters to see light pouring into the dark hotel. Sadly, I couldn't find a screen cap of it on a quick search.

#7 Crossfire (directed by Edward Dmytryk)

So here we have a message film disguised as a b-movie noir thriller, one that managed to get nominated for 5 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Crossfire's message is about anti-Semitism, especially in the aftermath of WWII. It stars three Robert's - Mitchum, Ryan, and Young, all of whom are good. Mitchum, as is too often the case, doesn't have enough screen time, but that's more of a personal complaint, since I can't get enough of the guy. The movie, although getting a little didactic towards the end, carefully wraps its message up in the procedural of finding out what happened (from the different sources) the night a Jewish man was murdered after meeting 4 soldiers in a bar. The "whodunnit" aspect is fairly benign, since it's obvious from the first few minutes who the killer is, but Dmytryk still plays things close to the vest storytelling wise, thankfully without ever feeling like he's trying act like we don't know the killers identity.

Robert Ryan, whom I've seen in a bunch of movies but still only think about The Wild Bunch when I see him, is effective as the racist killer. He's just civil enough to have us believe he wouldn't be the immediate suspect if the evidence didn't point to him (which it doesn't). Mitchum is, well, Mitchum. Wish he'd been the inspector played by Robert Young, but Young is good in the role too, expertly delivering the least subtle aspect of the movie in the customary "summing up the theme of the movie" speech just before the climax.

I don't know that I would've looked at this movie and thought "Oscar material", but it did effectively deal with the issue of anti-Semitism, and about 5 months before the more famous Gentleman's Agreement. Overall, it was quite good, and the cinematography nicely noirish, but I would just call it solidly good rather than exceptional. Not that that's a bad thing. I'm 7 movies into this quest and have yet to have a stinker, so I'm just glad for what I've got.

NOTE: After some thinking I've come to the conclusion that my opening sentence is incorrect. The movie never really engages with the anti-Semitism theme, and doesn't really give us anything more than a "racism is bad" kind of treatment. So it's really not a message movie disguised as a noir, but a noir disguised as a message movie.

#8 He Walked by Night (directed by Alfred L. Werker, uncredited direction by Anthony Mann)


Now here's some noir! Serving as the blueprint for Dragnet's use of real police files, and having that shows creator and star Jack Webb in a small role, He Walked by Night is a fascinating police procedural noir with some striking cinematography, terrific performances, and a tightly wound script that never lets up, even if it only lasts 79 minutes.

Richard Basehart stars as a killer whom the LAPD are frustratingly searching for, more feverishly after he kills a couple of cops. Basehart had several notable roles throughout his career, including The Fool in Fellini's La Strada and Ishmael in John Huston's Moby Dick, both unseen by me, and he's fantastic in the cold role of Roy, confounding the police at every turn with his sophisticated tactics, and his ability to stay always one step ahead of them. He's matched by the quiet determination given to the cops coming after him, notably Scott Brady's Sgt. Brennan, and Roy Roberts' Capt. Breen, both men of action who're being kept in the dark by the ingenious criminal, but working harder every day to bring him down.

Credited to journeyman filmmaker Alfred L. Werker, but directed at least in part by the legendary Anthony Mann (reports conflict on how much), the calling card of the movie has to be its finale, a flashlight lit chase through the L.A. storm drain system that shames the more famous, and very similar, chase at the end of The Third Man, released the following year. The wonderful suspense of the chase is heightened by what we already know of the killer's knowledge of the underground system, and his preparation of just such a scenario. The little details adding up into a tremendous sequence that's the best I've run across in my quest. The photography of the picture overall should be commended as well, shot by master cinematographer John Alton (An American in Paris, The Big Combo, the movie I took the top screenshot from in my first noir entry, by the way), the finale is not the only memorably photographed sequence (although I can't impress upon you how much I loved that finale), we get many great shots of faces lit by the light shining through the blinds, lonely intersections broken only by a single street lamp, and many more.

I didn't really know what to expect going into He Walked by Night, although the quote on the back of the DVD case from genius filmmaker Errol Morris calling it "a gritty masterpiece" certainly piqued my interest. What I got was quite easily my favorite movie of the quest to this point, and one of my new favorite movies of the 1940's (a marvelous decade for cinema). This is definitely one I'll be returning to many times in the years to come, for its story and performances, and obviously for its remarkable photography which absolutely epitomizes noir.

Noir, round 1

I've long had a fascination with crime and noir movies. I have a few noir boxsets that a friend of mine gave me and decided to watch one of the movies, which led me to watch another one, which made me decide to make a little movie quest out of it. So these are the first 5 noirs that I've seen on my new found quest.

#1 They Live by Night (directed by Nicholas Ray)

A great little noir with Farley Granger, directed by Rebel Without a Cause's Nicholas Ray. I liked the awkward innocence of the central couple, and how they try to get away from his criminal past. The ending is heartbreaking and one of the best in all of noir, I think. It's a terrific movie with some good photography and performances. Especially not bad for supposedly being Ray's debut (although the Internet Movie Database lists other credits previous). Sadly, I don't think he ever topped it.

#2 Crime Wave (directed by Andre de Toth)

It’s an exquisitely shot, terrifically acted, tightly wound noir that is told with an astonishing economy of storytelling. It’s only 73 minutes long! How many directors these days could say everything they needed to say in a movie under 80 minutes? Seems like more than ever no one can tell their story in under 2 hours. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. Sterling Hayden and Gene Nelson are wonderful in the leading roles, with some really great supporting work from Charles Buchinsky (who would later change his last name to Bronson), Phyllis Kirk, Timothy Carey (in a tiny role) and especially Jay Novello as the misanthropic animal lover Dr. Hessler.

But, to me, the star of the movie was the gorgeous cinematography from the too little talked about Bert Glennon, who’d worked with De Toth before on House of Wax, as well as shooting legendary movies like John Ford’s Stagecoach, Rio Grande, and Young Mr. Lincoln (among others), Raoul Walsh’s They Died with Their Boots On, Joseph von Sternberg’s The Scarlett Empress, Michael Curtiz’s The Dive Bombers, and Cecil B. DeMille’s original take on The Ten Commandments.

#3 The Big Steal (directed by Don Siegel)

In what is the lightest toned noir I’ve ever seen, last night’s entry into the quest was The Big Steal. Robert Mitchum as Duke is his typically wonderful self, funny, charming, and pretty much just one of the coolest guys ever. Jane Greer, re-teaming with Mitchum two years after their classic Out of the Past, is also very good as Duke’s Spanish speaking foil Joan. Both have been wronged by Patric Knowles’ Fiske, and they’re chasing after him, while Duke is being pursued by his military superior (William Bendix’s Capt. Blake). All are being watched by Inspector General Ortega (deliciously played by Ramon Novarro).

I expected some twists and turns to the plot, (like maybe Fiske didn’t steal the money after all, but someone else did!) but it’s fairly straightforward save for a tiny twist near the end. Mitchum and Greer have some nice chemistry and are really what carries the movie through its short 71-minute run time. Siegel (Clint Eastwood's directorial mentor) doesn’t really do much of interest, although there’s nothing really wrong with the movie, there’s not much that’s great about it. It even ends sunnily! Crime Wave had a happy ending as far as noir was concerned, but The Big Steal is a traditional Hollywood ending. Not that there’s inherently anything wrong with that, but to go in expecting noir, and be presented with a straightforward crime/comedy was a little disappointing. Still, it is a good movie, just not particularly noir.

#4 The Narrow Margin (directed by Robert Fleischer)

Another pleasant surprise, The Narrow Margin is a tautly directed gem with some nice work from all of its actors. Its Oscar-nominated script is superbly written noir, with great character driven suspense, and plenty of little twists and turns to keep us on our toes. The Hitchcockian game of cat-and-mouse is perfectly played out through the long train ride to L.A., and we're not the only ones who are kept in the dark. Just a couple of years before he made 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Richard Fleischer makes tremendous use of hand held camerawork to make the train ride seem both an endurance test for our characters, and a claustrophobic nightmare for our hero's nerves.

After looking over his resume, Charles McGraw has been in some movies I've seen, but I didn't remember him. So I was happily surprised by his terrifically noir leading role. His hardened face and gruff voice suit the genre perfectly, and the way he pulls off the films terrifically confined fight scene was delightful. Jacqueline White was another actor I didn't remember ever seeing, but her Ann Sinclair was a nice performance, ably countering McGraw's. "Queen of the B's" Marie Windsor was a more familiar face, and she also does some good work bringing to life her irritating character and causing quite a bit of tension due to her characters seeming lack of emotion.

So, another good watch, and another quick one (only 71 minutes) that was expertly put together with its economical storytelling and confining camerawork.

#5 Born to Kill (directed by Robert Wise)

Laurence Tierney wasn't exactly known for his lightness of tone, and never was that more on display than in Robert Wise's black as coal noir Born to Kill. Wise, his days as a Val Lewton director still fresh, gives the picture a wonderfully dark look, a scene with Tierney walking up a shadowy staircase given as much care as a late night showdown in the sand. Claire Trevor, no stranger to noir, is terrific as Helen, our slowly conscience-losing female lead. "An iceberg of a woman" as one character describes her. And Elisha Cook, Jr. (who sadly meets the end here that his characters typically met) does some very good work, maybe the best of his career, especially working alongside Tierney's out of control murderer, Sam.

And it is Tierney that I'll most remember from Born to Kill. His killer is overly confident, overly jealous, and overly violent, with a small streak of pride that tends to be the starting point of his outbursts. Within the captivating first 10 minutes, he's charmed Trevor's Helen without saying a word, been wronged by the beautiful Audrey Long's Georgia, and subsequently beaten Georgia and her date to death with his bare hands. It's a dark opening to a dark movie, one that yet again shows that Robert Wise had a ton of versatility, and enough talent to create great movies in a bunch of genres. He not only has The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Sound of Music, The Haunting (easily one of my 10 favorite horror movies), West Side Story, The Sand Pebbles, and Somebody Up There Likes Me, but now I also know about that Born to Kill in his back pocket as an example of his tremendous talents (he was also nominated for an Oscar for his work as editor on a little picture called Citizen Kane).

So far, Crime Wave is the best of the bunch, quickly becoming one of my very favorite crime dramas. I'm very excited by this quest, as it's giving me a reason to check out a lot of noirs both famous and not so much.

Sweet Land

Sweet Land is a movie that caught me completely by surprise. My wife had watched it while I was away, and insisted that I watch it too, as it was one of her new favorite movies. She has good taste, so I assumed it would be good, but I didn't expect to love the movie as much as I did. It's an affectionate look at the courtship of two farm working immigrants in Minnesota, just after WWI. He, Olaf, is Norwegian and has lived in the States for many years. She, Inge, is German, speaks no English whatsoever, and is actually Olaf's mail order bride. Many in the community give her a cold welcome, seeing as we'd just been fighting the Germans, and Olaf begins by protecting her from the acidic response she receives from some folks in town. They slowly, throughout the movie, begin a more proper courtship, which includes her doing such blasphemic things as dancing with Olaf on their porch, in broad daylight, which totally distresses the God-fearing little Lutheran hamlet.
Not only is Sweet Land a lovably thoughtful love story, it's also one of the most strikingly beautiful movies I've ever seen. It's wonderful to watch a film take the time to pay attention to the little things that add up in a relationship. The fleeting looks across the dinner table, the body language from two people trying to find a certain calm in the storm surrounding their lives, the helplessness and even the humor inherent in not speaking the same language as those around you. But to set all that against such breathtaking artistry just makes the movie that much more special. Writer/director Ali Selim's background is in commercials and advertising, which would normally signal the exact opposite of this type of movie, but he takes the care to give us the understated sweetness of the movie. He actually must've used his background to help manipulate the film in a way that gives us the almost unnatural beauty of this movie.
I love the heart of this movie, I love the silent film-like approach to the love story. So many movies these days don't have any clue how to visually tell their story, so it's wonderful to see a movie so intent on giving us so much to visually engage us with. And to engage us with a movie that's not all pretentious art house bullshit, but sweet, lovable romance in an early 20th century setting. It's a movie I wish would have a bigger audience, and one I'd recommend to anyone looking for something gorgeous, good hearted, and completely lovable. Sweet Land is it!

David Gordon Green and George Washington

David Gordon Green is one of the best and most talented directors working right now. The film your average moviegoer would know of Green's is 2008's Pineapple Express, but your average cinephile knows Green as the director of the low key indie movies All the Real Girls, Undertow, and Snow Angels. I wrote previously about Snow Angels in December of '08, but I just recently watched Green's debut movie George Washington and felt the need to write a bit about it as well. Working with a budget under $50,000, Green and his most essential collaborator, cinematographer Tim Orr, created a movie of understated beauty and feeling.
Working with a cast of mostly non-actors, Green gives us a sort of rural, quiet coming of age story. A group of kids hang out, play, talk, and sometimes just look at the unexpected elegance of their bucolic surroundings. A tragedy befalls the group, and each child deals with it in a different way. The quiet, odd George, who due to the plates in his head not fusing correctly isn't supposed to get his head wet, saves a kid from drowning in the local pool. Both kids survive, with George branded a community hero, a badge he may wear a little too seriously as he begins dressing up as a superhero and trying to do good deeds around town. But none of Green's movies are about plot. They're about feeling, sometimes articulated, and sometimes not. Also, a little nostalgia. This is one of those summers that changes everything for these kids, they're becoming teenagers and this is really their last moments of childhood, cut even shorter by the startling accident.
This would actually be the movie I would only recommend to someone who's seen Green's other movies and liked them. His brilliant All the Real Girls is a bit more accessible, as a story of teenage romance, even if it doesn't deal with it in the same light we usually see from teen romance movies. They have a lot in common, as they're about a certain loss of innocence. About moving on and growing up, even if you don't think you're ready for it. Green's most easily watchable is certainly Undertow, with Josh Lucas's crazy uncle chasing after the fortune he believes his nephews have run away with. It's a terrific movie, as usual for Green it's gorgeously filmed, and is his most conventional movie. Actually, strike that. Pineapple Express, even though a bigger budgeted "mainstream" movie is still quite unconventional, though is certainly more accessible to your average moviegoer. His next project is called Your Highness and is a fantasy/comedy starring Zooey Deschanel (his leading lady from All the Real Girls), Danny McBride (his friend from college who was in Real Girls, as well as Pineapple), James Franco (who did the best work of his career in Pineapple), and Natalie Portman (working with Green for the first time). So he's branching out and trying new things, which I think should always be admired in the world of cinema where it seems a quest just to find new things. I think Green is a director I will continue to admire for a long time to come, and one whose new movie will always be anticipated by me.

Let the Right One In

As a fan of international cinema, I've heard a lot about the Swedish romantic-horror movie Let the Right One In over the last couple of years. I've heard it was "the best movie of the year" "the best vampire movie ever" and many other things, but I gotta say, I didn't find it to be any of those things. I purposefully let the hype settle down on it before I checked it out, so that I wouldn't be swayed even a little bit by anything but the movie. Well, the two young leads are good enough, but the movie as a whole just kinda lays there like a bump on a log. I'm all for slow moving movies (Hou Hsiao-Hsien is one of my favorite filmmakers), but this one was just flat out boring.

It's a vampire movie, but with enough different about it to add some interest. Our androgynous vampire and "her" friend lead us through this slog of a story where essentially nothing that we couldn't see coming a mile away happens. I thought in the first 30 minutes or so that we're being set up for a slow moving movie, with some decent atmosphere. After 30 more minutes of nothing of interest coming onto my screen, I actually considered shutting it off. Glad I didn't, since the final 30 minutes or so are actually quite good. The poetic finale especially is well done, but it comes as too little too late. There are plenty of great foreign films out there, and this has been a great decade for foreign cinema making into the US, but I would not recommend Let the Right One In as a shining example of that fact.

Toy Story 3

Okay, to begin with, 3-D sucks and sucks bad. We all know it, they're gonna keep forcing it on us until the fad has run its course again, and I won't devote any more time to it here. It's used as well here as it has ever been used, and it still added absolutely nothing to the experience of watching the movie, except for adding the annoyance of having to wear those damn glasses again. Thankfully, nothing about it ruins anything inside the gorgeously animated new masterpiece from Pixar, Toy Story 3. We get back to Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Rex, Potato Head and the whole gang yet again, and although I think the second entry in the series is among Pixar's weakest efforts, the third time is certainly a charm.
Andy is now 17-years-old and getting ready for college. His beloved toys lay in his toy chest, unplayed with for years. Misunderstandings ensue, and the toys are donated to the Sunnyside Daycare. There they meet a host of other toys lead by the fluffy, strawberry scented, Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear (voiced by Ned Beatty), and Ken (Michael Keaton), who immediately falls for the Barbie doll that Andy's sister had donated. They're told that Sunnyside is an ideal place for toys. They're played with all day, 5 days a week. But after one day in the "caterpillar" room, with the youngest kids (or, "not age appropriate" as Buzz says), they begin to doubt the sincerity of Lots-O and the other toys. Meanwhile, Woody has been snatched up by a sweet little girl named Bonnie and taken to her home where he meets another set of lovable toys, but he's determined to get back to his friends and to Andy.
There was something about Toy Story 2 that didn't connect with me. It didn't have the simple magic that the first Toy Story had, but didn't have its own magic to ride on either. Toy Story 3, on the other hand, has that magic. There's an amazing amount of heart poured into this movie, the characters and relationships (both positive and negative) drawn with more care and developing in much more interesting ways. I was afraid at one point that it would simply be a case of "heroes triumph over villain" and I'd have to leave the theater telling myself "Yeah, it was good. I just wish it had been more than that." Thankfully, I didn't. I even found Lots-O's backstory fascinating on its own in how it shaped the toy we see. There's also a wonderful development between Jessie and Buzz, made most hysterical when Buzz gets accidentally switched to Spanish mode, taking on the over-the-top poetic lover mode of a Spanish hero.
So, unsurprisingly, Pixar has delivered us another masterpiece, with the best ending since the perfection of Monsters, Inc's. Pixar has to mess up eventually, they can't keep up with this kind of excellence forever. Sadly, I have a feeling that next summers Cars 2 will be that slip up. We don't need a sequel to their worst movie. A movie I still liked, sure, but their weakest movie by a wide margin. Regardless, this time they've given us another movie to stand alongside their best. I've previously given 4 Pixar movies my highest rating (4 stars, 10/10, or whatever you want to quantify it as), and Toy Story 3 will join them. It may not reach the poetic brilliance that Wall-E did, or cut straight to my heart like Remy's love of food in Ratatouille did, but Toy Story 3 easily sits next to the family saga/action bonanza of The Incredibles and the unadorned majesty of the original Toy Story as not only Pixar's best work, but among the great gifts the art of animated cinema has ever given us.