Take Three: Anna Faris

Craig here with Take Three.

Today: Anna Faris

Take One: Even cowgirls get the blues

I’m always up for a spot of Brokeback love. I know there's been plenty of attention around these parts in the past but let’s divert the love that-a-way. Let’s ride sidesaddle and gallop slightly away from Jake ‘n’ Heath. And Michelle 'n' Anne. And Ang. Hey, look, it’s Anna Faris as Lashawn Malone in Brokeback Mountain (2005).

I’d just seen Faris in Just Friends when barely a week later (January 2006) Brokeback was released here in the UK. The complete contrast between Faris in the two films caught me off guard. She pops up ninety-minutes in during a couples’ C&W night-out scene with Jake Gyllenhaal & Anne Hathaway.  She “talks a blue streak” without much pause for breath – and in doing so fills the gap where a homoerotic attraction is becoming increasingly apparent between Jack Twist and Lashawn’s husband Randall (David Harbour). Jack and Lashawn dance; she continues to chatter. A new scene comes and goes with Lashawn entering and chattering her way gaily through it.

It’s a minuscule part but one that actively enhances the film. And Faris, with a touch of cowgirl glamour creates a world for Lashawn that is surely real and would be utterly believable if we were to follow her story instead of Lureen’s and Alma’s. The other Brokeback wives have their moments of realisation and breakdown; Lashawn, being a passing, peripheral character, doesn’t get hers (Randall is another “confused” cowpoke). But, thanks to the key manner in which Faris makes palpable the glimmers of anxiety in Lashawn’s gasbagging, we know she’ll suffer as Lureen and Alma do.

Take Two: Coppola load of this casting coup

Read more »

Linkenstein

What follows is a strange amalgam of old and new links. It's a frankenstein roundup, stitched together over the past four days from aborted link posts that were accidentally unposted... until now. "IT'S ALIVE!"


/Film Jon Hamm as Superman?
Movie|Line's failed/jokey photoshop attempt at the same thing utterly delights me (pictured left)
I Just Want to Be Perfect Black Swan website devoted to Nina's (Natalie Portman) psyche.
Cinema Blend a look at the newly announced cast of The Hobbit. With pics. Why do I feel that this movie is going to be such a disaster when I love the LotR trilogy? I guess I've lost faith in Peter Jackson given that the beauty of King Kong was smothered by a lack of self-editing and then we got the disastrous The Lovely Bones.

ONTD Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen. I must have slept through this pairing. This is news to me.
Cinematical Pixar gives its first female director the book (Brenda Chapman was to helm The Brave previously due out in 2012...but you know, I assume this could delay the movie). Boo.
Montages (in Norwegian) a look at what's coming up very soon in Norwegian film. The writer is most excited for The King of  Bastøy starring Stellan Skarsgard, Kristoffer Joner and Benjamin Helstad. The film takes place in 1915 and is based on a true story about a youth prison. Hmmm. Could it be next year's Oscar submission? It's never too early to start thinking about that given that the Oscar eligibility calendar is already in the 2011 film year now when it comes to Best Foreign Language Film.

(Partially) Off Cinema
Tiger Beatdown "No One is Ever On Your Side" excellent, excellent article on Mad Men's Betty Draper Francis. A must read for fans of the show in case you missed it.
Benefit of the Doubt on Metroid, feminism and the Aliens franchise (if you're curious as to why that's suddenly in the air again, it's due to the box set's release Alien Anthology.)
Moby Lives on literature's problems in reflecting our internet ruled new world: timeliness or timelessness?
The Faster Times a list of all the new shows coming to Broadway in the spring.
The Oatmeal How to Pet a Cat. Hee

Something That's Really Bothering Me
Did you read the NY Times piece about the shortage of memorable lines in the movies these days? I suppose it's only helping them that everyone has been talking about the piece and linking to it (like me) for a couple of days but I do not understand the response. I've only read a couple of "in response" articles but they seemed to join in the lament. The article cites 90s films like Terminator 2, Forrest Gump and Jerry Maguire as among the last mammoth 'quotables.' Some response articles are saying things like "yeah, it's sad that movies aren't literate anymore..." I'm sorry but Forrest F'in Gump and Jerry Maguire are not literate movies. They just had fun simple catchphrases. Why are people equating catchphrase-making with great screenwriting and extrapolating that into a lament for the state of modern cinema? Does that mean that Arnold Schwarzenegger movies deserved Best Screenplay Oscars?  A lack of catchphrases does not a poor screenplay make. The article makes a vague statement indicating that these things can take time,  citing "Plastics" from The Graduate as a line that percolated before boiling. But then it blames The Social Network for not having a great lines (um, excuse me? It has hundreds of great lines... it'll just take awhile for a few  of them to rise to the top) Meanwhile The Big Lebowski is praised for "The Dude abides." Listen. The Coen Bros write great dialogue. But I was around in 1998 when The Big Lebowski premiered. It was received with pockets of enthusiasm (as their pictures usually are) but mostly a shrug, and some considered it a small setback after Fargo (which had been nearly as popular as Raising Arizona, their first mainstream breakthrough. Lebowski wasn't.) It was only years later after obsessive fandom had successfully added several fresh coats of "classic" paint on Lebowski that people were incessantly quoting its dialogue and acting like it was this huge hit and of the best films of the 90s.

The article does suddenly remember that "I drink your milkshake" (There Will Be Blood) permeated pop culture but completely forgets about "I wish I knew how to quit you" (Brokeback Mountain) which was quoted just about as often as movie lines ever get quoted. And then there are any number of lines from Mean Girls (Best Shot subject this week!) as reader Dom pointed out a few days ago. You or someone you know quotes that movie every day. I know, right. 

I guarantee you that "milkshake" and "quit you"will never disappear. And that 5 years from now, some line from The Social Network will still be in the public vernacular. One day people might not even remember where they first heard the line they end up using from The Social Network it may dig so deep down into the bone marrow of everyday conversation. You think everyone who has ever said "fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night" was thinking of All About Eve (or had even seen All About Eve) when they first said it?

Part 2: Jake Gyllenhaal on "Zodiac", "Donnie Darko" and "Brokeback"

If you missed my Tribeca Film article about Jake Gyllenhaal's New Yorker festival interview, open it up and dig in. But here on home turf, why not share quotes I couldn't fit into that overview? I know some of you probably suffer as do I with "too much Jake is not enough" so here's some cinematic memories to temporarily satiate your Gyllenhaalism.

Talking about Donnie Darko, Zodiac and Brokeback Mountain -- by most estimations the high points of his career -- made him extra reflective. If this past weekend's event was any indication he understands as well as anyone that these are the key titles. If Love and Other Drugs is the breakout success most seem to be expecting, it'll replace Zodiac in his key trio; He's not the star of that film anyway since that film's movie star is unquestionably David Fincher. Fincher isn't onscreen but that hardly matters when you can see his smudgy auteur fingerprints on every painstaking frame.

Donnie Darko
(<-- Jake with director Richard Kelly on the set.)
He said of his breakout film, that "it remains one of the most important I've been involved in." What does he look for in a role?

It's changed for me and i'm still figuring it out. Initally it's just a response to the story, the story itself is what's most important. Love and Other Drugs, you know, the first moment I read that I was crying at the end and when I read Brokeback Mountain I was crying at the end and when I read Donnie Darko and I was throwing up.

He had made October Sky before starting college. He dropped out at 19 -- he regrets not finishing -- and felt lost. And then came Darko.

It really marks, more than any other movie I've ever done, figuratively a time in my life. And that movie -- before we started shooting,  I had been having a rough time figuring out what was up, what end was up.

Jason Schwartzman was supposed to play that part. They had financing, they were ready to go and he dropped out and I stumbled upon it and out of the director's desperation got the role. It really matched somehow somewhere where I was in my life. I remember it premiered at Sundance and my mother, father and sister came up to me afterwards crying and realizing that I had been saying something to them with that movie -- how lost I was.

How did I do it? I don't know something about talking to that rabbit. It just seemed to comfort me at that time.

He realized how odd that sounded, laughing as he said it. Apocalyptic giant rabbits don't generally read all warm and fuzzy like security blankets, do they? When asked about the film's cult status he explained that how an audience responds is not something you can control -- he made it because of how much he related to Donnie.

When you think of cult films a lot of time's there's a bit of a wink. I don't think that was our intention at all.  It's a deeply serious movie to me... Whether you're experimenting with drugs or not there's a moment where you go 'Whats real? What's not?'

There was no thought of result. Any time I've ever done anything with the thought of a result its been a bad thing.

Hmmm. Could he mean Prince of Persia? (I kid, I kid. You can't win them all)

Brokeback Mountain (<--- Jake with director Ang Lee)
I was personally glad that when it came time to discuss his one bonafide classic, he didn't take the bait of reiterating discomfort about making out with Heath Ledger. (People are always trying to get actors to say how much they hate man-on-man scenes. It's so tired journalists. Stop it!) Instead he spoke about love scenes generally.

When you're in a movie and you're in a love scene -- it comes up in any love scene whether it's with a man or a woman -- it's inevitably uncomfortable, awkward and everybody is in on it. No matter how intimate it is, everyone is in on it. There's this weird sense of being watched. If you've ever made out with anyone and know you're being watched, you can't help but watch yourself. That takes the sexiness out of the whole thing anyway but we're performers so you can make it work. Occassionally I've been into it but I won't talk about with whom.

At this point he made a little 'oh what the hell...' kind of joke like he was going to tell us with whom he... but then he retreated. Damnit!

When he tried to talk about the reunion scene, he had difficulty.

It was about more than just kissing. The scene in Brokeback Mountain where Heath and I see each other after a very long time. This has been hard for me to explain for years. We had very little to do with that scene being as powerful as it is. It was powerful when you read it in the screenplay. It was powerful in the short story on the page. What we do when we had that moment together is filled with -- it's filled with moments that people have had that have nothing to do with us. We just basically went up and slammed our mouths together. You know what I mean? We were the instruments for something that was much bigger than  both of us.

Do you know what he means? He did ask.

David Denby, the critic interviewing him, reiterated that the film still "plays beautifully" now years later, calling it "flawless." They showed the famous 'quit you' scene and Jake told a funny story about how early on in the movie rehearsals the crew made fun of him trying to act "old" -- most of the crew was in their 40s, the age Jake was playing, and he was holding his back like it was hurting and moving slowly and such and the crew was like "We're not 80, we're 40!". But then he got serious... the movie is clearly special to him, and brought back memories.

We rehearsed it before we shot the movie and it was still winter and there was snow everywhere. There was Ang and the location scouts. We drove out and Ang played us the music he was going to have in the movie. I had my dog with us. He was jumping around in the snow. It was no different when we shot. It was already right there.

Denby asked him if he had any regrets about his performance.

I think I do have regrets about it, about things, as every actor does. When i see Heath's work in that movie it's just transcendent and amazing and as a fellow actor to me I just always admire him. I hoped that I could be as good as. So I watch it and I always see that.

Zodiac
(<--- Jake with David Fincher at Cannes)
The subject of playing different ages in films shot out of sequence came up again when it came time to discuss David Fincher's second serial killer picture.

I think if you think too much about it on the day you're screwed. With that movie, you'd be surprised what a change of a shirt can do and a little bit of makeup. In terms of age -- when I first read Brokeback Mountain and Zodiac I thought "this role should be played by a 40 year old." And then I was cast. There's bravery in casting someone younger and sometimes it's totally wrong but in these two movies for some reason it worked better. I think people suspend disbelief very easily. If I were to play, as I was joking, "OLDER." It just never works out very well unless you're Marion Cotillard.

Thought you La Vie En Rose fans would like that quote.

Denby showed two clips from Zodiac, a scene with Mark Ruffalo and a scene when Graysmith (Gyllenhaal) visually but not quite verbally confronts the man he believes is the killer (played by John Carroll Lynch) in a hardware store; they stare at each other in accusation, curiousity and then mutual recognition. Gyllenhaal related that they did hundreds of takes, and did those hundreds of takes, twice.

We shot that twice. David didn't like the first store we shot in. That was again multiple takes. The funny part of that is John Carol Lynch played by dad in  Bubble Boy so that look is filled with so much more than just 'hunter and hunted.' I was desperate for you show a scene of me and him crying in a car and me in a bubble.

Discussing a crucial late scene with Mark Ruffalo in a diner, Gyllenhaal got contemplative about understanding what directors want and ideas he had about acting from a young age.

That was the third time we shot the scene. We shot each of our takes close to 50 times. So... 150th take? Now I see what David wanted. I watch it and I'm like 'Now I know.' I didn't know what he wanted.

What I've been learning -- this is what happens when you start when you're 15 years old -- no one is going to hold your hand and when you're 15 you need that. As I've gotten older and worked more and more I've realized how much I have to be prepared and there for the director so they think 'Jake's got my back I don't need to worry about him.' I  think I had a misunderstanding for a long time -- because I grew up in a family off filmmakers -- that we're all supposed to collaborate. The truth is an actor is supposed to show up and do their job and know their job to a 't' 120% and be ready to go. Discover on the day but be ready to go. When I watch that I see myself learning.

Fincher is a taskmaster but you have to appreciate the young movie star's honesty about his long learning curve. It all sorta makes you wonder how many times Rooney and Jesse had to shoot that five minute break-up scene that kicks off The Social Network, doesn't it?

That's all! I hope you enjoyed all of this Gyllenhaalia.
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Modern Maestros: Ang Lee

Robert here, back with another entry in my series on great contemporary directors.

Maestro: Ang Lee
Known For: Prestigious, emotional, subtle character dramas.
Influences: according to Ang Lee himself, Bergman, Antonioni and Billy Wilder.
Masterpieces: Brokeback Mountain of course.  Maybe Sense and Sensibility too.
Disasters: Taking Woodstock wasn't notable enough to really be a disaster.  Not sure if that's worse.
Better than you remember: I maintain that whatever people dislike about Hulk, the real driving force against that movie was the special effects.  If those were better, people would be more likely to overlook other things.

Box Office: That being said, Hulk is his highest grosser with 132 Million.

It's said that no film is about the time it's set as much as it is about the time it's made.  For Ang Lee, whose films for the past fifteen years have all but one been period pieces, this is not just a truth but a great convenience.  His stories of evolving social, sexual, and class mores and how they sow despair are more easily embraced by a society that sees someone else's ugly reflection in the mirror.  But make no mistake, it is a mirror we're looking into.  Historical settings are also a useful way for Lee to keep his films modern without being dated by by distracting social or political messages.  In fact, for Lee, social and political messages are never the point, they're merely a means to an end.  The end is people.  Consider how many evil, one-dimensional homophobic characters Lee presented in Brokeback Mountain to underscore a "society bad!" message.  Can't really think of any?  Because Lee's not as interested in criticizing society as much as he is understanding the individuals whose desires run directly into the wall of its constraints. 

Lee's characters are sad, conflicted, confused, repressed and occasionally overrun with emotion, but never one dimensional to make a point. They are the heart of his films and the embodiment of his themes.  This is why Zhang Ziyi's rebellious Jen is the emotional center of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  It's why the Dashwood sisters turned out to be perfect ciphers of social restrictiveness for Lee.  It's why reviewers (no offense to anyone) who complained that Lust, Caution was too subtle were surprisingly off the mark.  As if anyone should go into an Ang Lee movie expecting anything other than bound up emotions.  That film also has the distinction of owning perhaps the perfect title for an Ang Lee film.  The two things he comes back to again and again in his characters: caution... and lust.  And since we're talking about lust, let's.  It's the most primary element of Lee's films I haven't mentioned yet.  After all, lust and love are two of the most primal and powerful emotions we have, and the two emotions you least want suppressed by the reality around you.

From suburban key parties to wuxia legends, Ang Lee's characters' dramas are eternally caught up in the the conflict between their desires and the world's demands.  Fore Lee, focusing on such passion is a great way to immediately involve the audience.  We consider our own passions and the realities that would deny them to us.  This universal experience allows Lee to jump into a wide number of genres, timelines and characters, almost always with success.  It doesn't hurt that the man is a fantastic director of his actors (a theme that keeps coming up in these Modern Maestro pieces).  It is, after all, the actor who serves as the gateways for the audience.  For Lee, his actors portray their heartache with such intensity they they make watching anguish into a profound joy. Which is why we'll always be looking forward to the next Ang Lee film.

Revised Experience: Kissing Jake Gyllenhaal

I saw Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on Friday. Two days later I remember virtually nothing save Jake's sandy contours and... uh...uh... well, he pretty!

"don't push your luck"

I do remember two other things: first, the noticeable video gaming levels (helpfully divided into location chapters onscreen) and second, Gemma Arterton's impossibly puffed up lips. While no one will ever challenge Angelina Jolie for authentic inflated labial beauty, Gemma's get a ton of screentime and when the very caucasion couple actually lip-locked in the middle of a mystical Arabian sandstorm, there was scattered giggling in the theater.

Kissing Jake Gyllenhaal is almost never a laughing matter (people are more likely to cry from it. Read on) but the movie had given Gemma so many "OMG!!! I'm almost kissing Jake Gyllenhaal" false alarms that it played like those countdown moments in bad thrillers where you see the bomb counter at 10 seconds and a whole minute of screen time later it's suddenly 3-2-1 dramatic. Movie time is infinitely flexible so why shouldn't Gemma and Jake stop to make out while Ben Kingsley is about to lay waste to the entire world. Kingsley is phoning it in anyway. He's not exactly in a rush to complete his dastardly mission.

What follows is the classic TFE post from 2007, touched up a little. Since this was first published Jake's lips have really slowed down. In the past 3 years he's only kissed Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman and now Gemma.

Jack Twist hasn't had a great couple of years onscreen. Let's kiss him better.


Fans are so fickle. The internet's collective 2006 boyfriend often gets a cold shoulder now. In 2007 he starred in two underperforming movies (the excellent Zodiac and the political drama Rendition) causing haters to question his bankability. He hasn't been seen much since --onscreen at least -- paparazzi pics aside. Pop culture cheaters went out seeking new objects of lust. Meanwhile, Jake grew a beard despite the rumors that that was entirely redundant.

Yet, through all of this, he remains entirely kissable.

We should all still love him. For what male movie star is as soft, cuddly and gorgeous? You may have only thought about kissing Jake Gyllenhaal while you were sitting in a movie theater (Jena Malone plays your proxy to the right) but you can kiss this movie star anywhere and in many different ways.

Consider the abundant photographic evidence. Jena enthusiastically demonstrates...


She suggests brazenly planting one on him outside your high school or at lame parties. He's shy at first but Jena guarantees he warms up in the bedroom.

Gwyneth Paltrow, who must be a Gyllenhaalic herself (unless my count is wrong she has shared the most screen liplocks with the man himself), concurs:


Lord knows why she starts crying once she gets Jake naked.

...from happiness?

But yeah, he does have that effect on people.

(It's because of Jake that he's like this. He's nothing... he's nowhere)

But, consequences be damned, Gyllenhaal must be kissed: violently, tenderly, with guilt or lust... it hardly matters. It must be done.


Even if you don't feel that way about Jake (what's wrong with you?), it's so easy to love him. Like a son... like a brother. You don't even have to come to him. He'll plant one on you.


I never thought I'd say this but Emmy Rossum and Gemma Arterton may well be the smartest human beings on earth. If the world is ending... by all means grab Mr. Gyllenhaal and make out in the glow of a fire or magical sand column. It's your last chance!!!





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previously on Kissing: Isabelle Huppert "do not defile it with cliché", When George Met Mary It's a Wonderful Life, Marilyn Monroe "just you... nobody else but you", Volver 47 kisses in the first 15 minutes alone

previous "Gyllenhaalic" classics: Jack Twist Monologue * A History of ... Gyllenhaal * Totally Gratuitous Jake Gyllenhaal *

TTT: Top Ten Characters of the Aughts

Tuesday Thursday Top Ten

Remember almost exactly a year ago when I did that impossible list of Favorite Film Characters of All Time? At the time I excluded anybody from the Aughts on account of they were still so new and we'd get to them later. Well, it's later. Here's a quick rundown which I may expand for another project later. These are the newish characters from the last decade in film that are (arguably) the ones I think about the most. I cherish them... it's not a list of best written or best performances or best whatever. It's a list of characters that frequently hop into my brain. They've bought condos in my brain real estate. Though obviously if you asked me on a different day...

Not that you asked me today.

10 Favorite(ish) Movie Characters of the Aughts

• Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain "Jack, I swear"
• Lalit Verma in Monsoon Wedding (Loving dads in cinema really get to me. I'm sure armchair therapists will love that)
• Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind "I'm just a fucked up girl trying to find some peace of mind"
  
• Eleanor Fine in Far From Heaven "Cathy... I'm your best friend"
  
• Tom Stall in A History of Violence (I've brought pompoms to this post...just in case)
  
• Satine in Moulin Rouge! "wilting flower, bright and bubbly or smoldering temptress?"
  
  
  
• Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky (my hero!)
• Sara Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (At least once a week I find myself thinking about Sara thinking about that red dress. And that's no exaggeration)
• Vivian and Brad Markowski in I ♥ Huckabees "Have you ever transcended space and time?"
  
• Elle Driver (aka California Mountain Snake) in Kill Bill, Vol. I and Kill Bill, Vol. 2
  
• Mr Chow in In the Mood For Love and 2046 (who leaves behind a cloud of cigarette smoke to punctuate this list)
  

Oops. That's 12.

Tony Leung Chiu Wai in In the Mood For Love

Did these characters sink way down deep into your soul? Or are the newish fictional men/women/creatures that are never far from your thoughts quite a different dozen?
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Screen Queens: Best of the Gay Aughts

MattCanada here with a bit of an overview and Best-Of Gay films for the last decade.

Gay cinema over the last ten years has been intrinsically tied to both the political gains made by gay activists and the intense battles surrounding everything from the worldwide fight for gay marriage to nationally specific issues like America's DADT and DOMA, and Britain's repeal of Section 28. The relationship between the political and the cinematic is always most pronounced in the medium's relationship to minority groups and their texts.

The Aughts have seen gay-rights become the most visible"social values" issue in America, and this has been reflected in a number of high profile American films dealing frankly, sexually, and politically with what it means to be gay in America. Milk, Far From Heaven, and Mysterious Skin employ gay filmmaking traditions, like those of Affirmation Documentaries (Richard Dyer's term), Sirkian melodrama, and New Queer Cinema, to examine the complexity of gay male American history.

Brokeback Mountain, in terms of cultural and critical impact, deserves to be in a category all its own. It is the defining film in the gay canon, one that has become The Gay Film to which everything else, before or since, is compared. Its mainstream success can be partially attributed to its de-gaying through the clever marketing technique of calling it a 'universal love story'. However, without a doubt, it lost the Oscar as a result of latent homophobia within what is generally perceived to be the liberal media elite. All in all, the visibility of male homosexuality in American cinema over the last decade seemed at an all time high.

a small sampling of important gay auteurs in the Aughts:
Eytan Fox, François Ozon, "Joe" Weerasethakul and Todd Haynes

Internationally gay film has continued to flourish, especially with the arthouse approved gay auteurs, the most notable being Pedro Almodóvar, Francois Ozon, Eytan Fox, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Brillante Mendoza. For me personally the biggest joy has been watching Quebec, or maybe more appropriately Montreal, become a mecca for intelligent, entertaining, and daring gay filmmaking, especially Jean-Marc Vallee's C.R.A.Z.Y, and Xavier Dolan's I Killed My Mother. English language Canada has not had the same high-profile successes, but has continued to see good work from the always intelligent and challenging John Greyson, as well as provocateur Bruce LaBruce.

Documentary cinema has continued to be an area where a multitude of disparate perspectives on gay life can be presented, and Paragraph 175, Tarnation (mentioned in an amazing post here the other day), Camp Out, Small Town Gay Bar, A Jihad For Love, For the Bible Told Me So, and Outrage have been a few of the breakout examples.

Finally, Latter Days and Shelter (previous post) have been two noteworthy gay film fest hits that became big successes within the gay community this decade. Their rankings at number 3 and 2 respectively on AfterElton.com's 50 Best Gay Films Ever speaks to this popularity, and while I can respect the latter, I think the former is just about the worst gay film I have ever seen.

So, here are my personal top 10 of the last decade:

10 Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom
Gay cinema is dominated by white men, white stars, and white standards of beauty. That is why it is great to see a film dealing with issues surrounding African-American gays and their different positioning within straight hegemony and dominant (re: white) gay culture. Hopefully this film's success will spur gay cinema to be more inclusive and ethnically pluralistic. This film is a lot of fun and provides a great showcase for a very talented cast.

09 Before Night Falls
Javier Bardem plays gay! Johnny Depp does drag!

08 I Killed My Mother
Innovative debut by Montrealer Xavier Dolan who at 18 astoundingly wrote, produced, starred in, and directed this film. There are flaws, but everything is worth it for the film's stylistic flourishes and the lead performance by Anne Dorval. (full review)

07 For the Bible Tells Me So
One of the best documentaries of the decade, and crucial viewing for anyone who wants to understand the intersection of Christianity and homosexuality.

06 Mysterious Skin
Gregg Araki is the most original and iconoclastic gay director of the last twenty years, and Mysterious Skin is his most accomplished work: nuanced, daring, and heartbreaking.

05 C.R.A.Z.Y.
The best growing up and coming out story I can remember, and the greatest use of a David Bowie song ever. Everything about this film works, and the soundtrack is incredible.

04 The films of Pedro Almodóvar
My favorite director made four films this decade and although only Bad Education (2004) was specifically gay, everything he does affects and is affected by gay cinema. I think he is now officially the most important gay auteur of all time.

03 Brokeback Mountain
Beautiful, iconic, and flawless.

02 Far From Heaven
Todd Haynes revisionist homage to the films of Douglas Sirk is masterful filmmaking, and it might even surpass the lofty heights of All That Heaven Allows (1955). Julianne Moore's lead performance is the best of the decade. How she lost the Oscar is beyond me.

01 Milk
I don't know where to begin... so much to love. The cast is magnificent, the editing is peerless, and no film dealt so explicitly with the issues facing gay people worldwide as this did. A perfectly made political film that uses the traits and tropes of the biopic to interrogate homophobia and cogently argue the needs and desires of the gay community.

Hope everyone enjoyed this list. What are your personal picks for best (and worst) gay films of the last decade?
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Decade in Review: 2005 Top Ten

2009 is almost over and so many magazines and websites have already offered up their best of the year AND decade that I'm afraid y'all will get sick of the retrospectives before The Film Experience has chimed on. Remember: the tortoise wins! 2005's top ten list (in its original form) follows. New comments in red.

Public Favorites (Box Office): Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, War of the Worlds, King Kong, Wedding Crashers, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Batman Begins, Madagascar and Mr & Mrs Smith
Oscar Favorites: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck and Munich
My Vote For UnderAppreciated: In Her Shoes, Happy Endings and The White Countess
Top Ten Runners Up (11-15): The Squid and the Whale, Match Point, The New World, Junebug and The Beat That My Heart Skipped. I like all five of these even better today than I did at the time... and more than a few things in my top ten list. I'd definitely reorder.

10 Corpse Bride
If there is one thing I value above all else in animated films, it's vivid character designs and cohesive artistic vision. In this area, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride has few equals. Credit goes to the titular auteur Tim Burton and co-director Mike Johnson's guiding goth-happy hands as well as one of Hollywood's finest production designers, Alex McDowell. (His past visually stunning credits include Minority Report, The Terminal, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, and Fight Club. And still no Oscar nomination for his troubles... tsk tsk Hollywood.)

Beyond its superb visual delights, Burton's best film in years also digs up rich voicework from its cast, and offers an enchanting tale both sweet and sour. Nowhere close to perfect but Corpse Bride's got magic to spare.

09 Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were Rabbit
(Another animated film that's blissfully not of the currently homogenous CG *only* school of animation)

I have been a fan of W&G for a long time and enjoying them for an entire feature was akin to visiting with supremely droll friends whom one never sees enough of. To sweeten the reunion, they brought along the sublimely silly Lady Tottington. They even uncovered a heretofore unseen sense of humor in Ralph Fiennes (who voices bunny-hunting Victor Quartermaine). W & G's last cinematic outing was in 1995. A plea to Nick Park: Please do not make us wait another whole decade for the next adventure.

Curious that I shoved two animated films into the top ten... especially considering how strong the runners up were. I blame this partially on my own childlike delight at stop motion animation (it gets to me on some primal level) but mostly on release schedules. I know I'm too susceptible to that but it's just the way I am. I am better at loving things I'm familiar with than brand new things I've just met. And I had JUST gotten a glimpse of Match Point and I remember that I had an awful awful time processing The New World and what was going on with Oscar qualifications that year. Like Nick recently mentioned, I wasn't even sure which version of the Malick movie I was watching. And I don't know that it even still exists. I'm nervous about what this says about me but I actually felt physically angry at the idea that a movie I saw in the theater was not the same movie that my friends saw in the theater which was maybe not even the same movie that critics were writing about for their readers who would never be able to see that one. In some ways I'm still angry. It makes no sense to be this bonkers about it but I even feel like there should be laws against that ever happening again.

08 Good Night, and Good Luck.
Seasonal truth: As surely as leaves fall in autumn, "prestige" dramas arrive in movie theaters. They are generally set in the past, always aim to be 'classy', wish to delight year-end awards voters with gorgeous production values, and plan to be good for you, too. Rarely however are do they deliver on all four counts. This recreation of the 1950s media war between journalist Edward R Murrow (played by the mesmerizing David Strathairn) and Communist hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy (playing himself in archival footage) gratefully hits all of its mark. It's a prestige bullseye for writer, director, star, and emerging activist hero George Clooney.

I have had no desire whatsoever to rewatch this. Does that mean I overvalued it or is one enjoyable viewing of anything reason enough to love a movie?

07 Kings & Queen
Ever since seeing Arnaud Depleschin's wondrously mutating film Rois et Reine about a single mother named Nola (the superb Emmanuelle Devos) and the four men (father, son, ex-lover, and fiancé) in her life I've been desperately trying to pin it down. Exactly what is it?

Whatever it is --melodrama, comedy, existential quandry-- it's as gripping as any fine novel. And to extend the comparison further, it seems just as rich and information packed. Like Nola herself, Kings and Queen is a mysterious and possessive creature: Ultimately unknowable but unwilling to let you withdraw from its world.

06 Brødre
I first saw this Danish drama @ TIFF in 2004 where it became one of my two favorites of the festival. A year later Brothers was released in the states to critical acclaim but made not much of a ripple at the arthouse box office, making it one of the many lost foreign pleasures of the year.

Hollywood may soon be utilizing director Susanne Bier. It's easy to see why. This drama about a young family turned upside down by the news that the husband has been killed in Afghanistan is emotionally potent without ever once feeling forced, despite story elements that would be either pedestrian or overplayed in lesser hands. There's nary a false note struck from the entire ensemble including Hollywood actress Connie Nielsen (making her first film in her homeland) who has never looked better or been more sympathetic onscreen.

Oops. Hollywood didn't take my warning about a story that would feel "pedestrian or overplayed in lesser hands". They went and proved my point just two weeks ago.

05 Me and You and Everyone We Know
Quirky. Edgy. Precocious. Artsy. Odd. These are all adjectives that truthfully describe Miranda July's debut film. Unfortunately all of these carry a whiff of negative connotation. Any of them alone can feel like mere attitudinal posing if a film has nothing to say. Thankfully Me and You and Everyone We Know, with its endearing cast of childlike adults and children playing at adult games has plenty to say about life and connections in this digital age. So quirky yes, but blissfully so. Me and You transcends any adjective you'd like to bestow on it.

One of Miranda July's funniest affectations in her performance/digital art is her tendency to use pre-recorded crowd cheering to punctuate her lines or do her own repetitous call/response with a lowered voice creating her own sycophant lover. I didn't need the prompting to express my adulation. In a year filled with promising debut filmmakers hers was the most endearing new voice.

This movie feels a bit like a lost oddball relic now. Not that it's aged poorly... just that it was always such an idiosyncratic unfashionable feeling thing that it stills feels a bit like an installation rather than a movie that came out. I hope she makes another film soon.

04 Caché
The last time I saw a Michael Haneke picture the title was The Piano Teacher. I was completely terrified, revolted, and stunned. Though nothing in Caché (also known as Hidden) reaches the peak of Isabelle's Huppert's performance accomplishment in the earlier film, I much prefer the newer film, which offers me the same visceral mix of reactions, albeit in different quantities. Perhaps in 2002 I just wasn't ready for the way Michael Haneke mercilessly dissects human weakness.

This mind-bender (and politically-minded story) about a rich French couple and the stalker-like videotapes that begin arriving at their door is masterfully told and rewards attentive viewing. The Austrian auteur uses no musical scoring, no quick editing, and no cheap Hollywood "gotcha!" scare tactics but still manages to thoroughly unnerve the audience. And unlike most tales meant to terrify, Caché also gives the intellect a workout. Michael Haneke may be the most gifted frightener since Alfred Hitchcock.

03 Pride & Prejudice
Confession: Prior to seeing this romantic romp from debuting director Joe Wright I had not read the Jane Austen novel nor seen the BBC miniseries which many consider definitive. I have since begun to fill in those gaps. For those angered at the films many liberties taken (300 plus page novels can't make it to film without cuts --sorry) I say pshaw! What matters is the spirit of the thing. And spirit the new Pride & Prejudice has in spades.

Austen's writing is full of memorable characters, delicious staccato banter and wit and breakneck pace. In this impressively cinematic transformation, the nimble cinematography, beautifully dexterous setpieces, and highly enjoyable performances have all been beautifully choreographed together to ape the high spirits of Austen's eternal charmer. For pure movie-movie fun and swoon-worthy romance, this film is tough to beat.

I am not at all embarrassed by my love for this film, but I do think I overstated the case with the bronze medal. I'd move Caché up a spot for sure.

02 A History of Violence
David Cronenberg, the legendary Canadian director, is a shining beacon to all fringe dwelling filmmakers with a taste for mainstream exposure. You can make an accessible film without losing any of your maverick qualities or subversive spirit. Cronenberg hardly sold out upon taking the reins of this graphic novel adaptation. His signature offputting bits, like his taste for body-horror are still present, just less visible. In one of the film's many masterfully pivoting scenes, Edie Stall (Maria Bello) suddenly vomits upon learning a disturbing truth about her husband. This isn't the in-your-face gynecological terror of Dead Ringers (another Cronenberg masterpiece) but damned if it's not psychologically connected to Mrs. Stall's genitals

...Violence is one of those rare movies that expands and contracts with the audiences expectations. For film fanatics wishing to get lost in the celluloid, it's as deep as you want it to be. For the more casual moviegoer it's a shocking thriller. Either way it's a superbly crafted piece of cinema.

01 Brokeback Mountain
When I read the famous short story upon which this instant classic is based it haunted me for weeks. In very few pages with precise and spare prose, Annie Proulx gave me a portrait of two lives and broke my heart in the process. The film version has that same lean spirit but miraculously never missteps in expanding her original story. This portrait has fresh details and a stunning humanism. Ang Lee paints the secondary characters, wives, mothers, employers, fathers nearly as vividly. In the process the confident auteur has deepened the tragedy of the original story. Brokeback Mountain is no longer just a small but perfect romantic tragedy. It's now an improbably behemoth portrait of tragedy spilling out all over; this is the price of love rejected and forbidden --both for all those who find it and all those who deny its place in society.

Brokeback, which felt like an instant classic at the time, has never disappointed on repeat visits. If anything its familiarity works for it. Like Jack and Ennis, this love deepens. Will it haunt for a whole lifetime?


How does 2005 hold up for you? Which were your favorites at the time and which have snuck up on you as enduring loves?
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Link Bag

linkage
Arts Beat When Woody Met Ingmar. How have I never heard this story before? Love it
Low Resolution hilarious take on the latest Twilight: New Moon trailer
i09 an interview with a Dollhouse writer on this last great episode
Culture Snob describe your taste in horror in 10 movies. Interesting take on a "best" list
In Contention Guy Lodge plays contrarian for Precious
Some Came Running gets nostalgic for gauzy Jenny Agutter and mack daddy Michael York in 70s 'classic' Logan's Run


This is the time of year when everyone who really loves movies remembers that not all of the best movies of any given year come out in the last two months of the year and it's so annoying that everyone pretends that they do
Man Made Movies the online Sam Rockwell Oscar for Moon campaign
Attention Deficit Disorderly great piece on The Hurt Locker and Jeremy Renner's Sgt. James

gay-gay-gay
Metro Ang Lee on the Brokeback Mountain kiss
Queerty Dustin Lance Black (Milk) banned from a college campus in Michigan. He had too many opinions! (omg, we wouldn't want that a college!) Oh Michigan, home state o' mine. I love you but you embarrass me sometimes

Finally...
Would you bite into this dead tauntaun cake? Edible intestines for your own intestines. Ewww but Yum! As much as I'm over Star Wars in my own life, I sometimes have nothing but admiration for its staunch fandom. Here's hoping one day people build whole wedding themes and desserts out of their Moulin Rouge! or I Heart Huckabee fandom! That's just two random examples of newer films worth loving and being creative with all the live long day.