jueves, 30 de diciembre de 2010

Sin #85: Top 10 of 2010

2010 was mostly a year of disappointments even though great filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky and Martin Scorsese delivered fantastic movies. There are still movies that I haven’t seen that might make the cut (like “True Grit”, “The King’s Speech” or “127 Hours”) but, as of today, here’s my Top Ten of the year in descending order:

10. - Exit through the Gift Shop: This documentary about street art is unique in how the filmmaker suddenly becomes the subject of the piece. Is this real or is it a hoax orchestrated by the brilliant British artist Banksy to force us to look closer into the real value of art? In a way it doesn’t matter since it is a compelling and provocative work in itself.


9. - Shutter Island: This was a great year for Leonardo DiCaprio, having made two movies worthy of the Top Ten. In his fourth venture working with Martin Scorsese he delivers a very strong performance in the atmospheric thriller “Shutter Island”. The film grabbed me from the start with its quiet dread creeping into the story and a final twist that gives it an extra layer of tragedy.


8. - Carlos: This movie is epic in every way. Spoken in more than five languages, filmed in several countries and spanning many years, it depicts the life of Illich Ramirez Sanchez (brilliantly portrayed by Edgar Ramirez), one of the most wanted terrorists during the seventies. There are currently three versions of the film (I saw the longest cut of 5 and a half hours, which may be a long time to spend in a theater but more than worth it since there isn’t a dull minute to be found).


7. - Machete: Few movies are more fun to enjoy with a packed theater than Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete”, an absolutely outrageous piece of “mexploitation”. The movie was originally a fake trailer showing before Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” but became so popular that it was enhanced for feature length with one of the most intriguing casts in recent years. Here’s one of the most entertaining movies of the year.


6. - Toy Story 3: It took 11 years for the toys to return to the big screen but the guys at Pixar once again prove that no one is better at making sophisticated and mature family films (maybe Studio Ghibli is their only rival). “Toy Story 3” is a fitting end for the trilogy and another wonderful movie from Pixar, whose last four movies have been amazing.


5. - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Next year we’ll get the David Fincher-directed remake of this movie, but I don’t think it will surpass this Swedish adaptation of the international bestseller. The biggest triumph of this absorbing thriller is presenting us with a heroine that completely grabs our attention (actress Noomi Rapace is amazing on the role). There are another two installments on the so-called Millenium Trilogy but this one is the best.


4. - The Social Network: I was skeptical of this project from the beginning since I’ve never liked Facebook very much. I have to admit, however, that Fincher did an amazing job directing this story and the performances are great (hell, even Justin Timberlake shines). From the beginning I was completely enthralled in this corporate story of betrayal. “The Social Network” is a movie for our times.


3. - Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: I’ve seen this movie more than 10 times and I’ve enjoyed it immensely every single time. The film is incredibly creative and fun (it also is very geeky, which might explain its poor box-office performance). Directed by Edgar Wright (of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” fame), “Scott Pilgrim” is a fantastic achievement destined to become a cult classic.


2. - Black Swan: Here’s another Darren Aronofsky descent into madness. “Black Swan” is a brilliant story of obsession that features one of the strongest performances of the year (Natalie Portman will surely win the Academy Award for best actress). The film is a nightmare fetish set in the ballet world. This movie stands proudly next to “Pi”, “Requiem for a Dream” and “The Fountain”, Aronofsky’s other masterpieces.


1. - Inception: Christopher Nolan is one of the few filmmakers who is able to marry complex and intelligent stories with commercial appeal. “Inception” is a huge movie with ambitious ideas that had us discussing it for months. Is the whole movie a dream? In a way it’s a distillation of different genres and the dreams within the movies. This is yet another provocative work from Nolan and the cleverest piece of entertainment of 2010.

lunes, 27 de diciembre de 2010

Sin #84: The Facebook

It all started with a bad breakup. Erica dumped Mark and then he got a little drunk and wrote nasty things about her in his blog. To top things off, he also created a web page where guys could rank the student girls of Harvard based on their looks. The site was so popular that it blocked the server and got him in detention; it also got the attention of the Winklevoss twins, students who have had the idea of a web page similar to Myspace but way more exclusive. They want Mark’s help but Mark doesn’t need them. Instead he enlists his best friend Eduardo to create his own social network and thus “The Facebook” is born.

The creation of Facebook is one of the great corporate stories in recent years, not only because it depicts the rise of the world’s youngest billionaire but also because it defines a generation that has become completely dependent on computers for social interaction. In 2010 we got two very different movies involving Facebook, one was about its makers and one was about its users.

David Fincher’s “The Social Network” is a chronicle on the foundation of Facebook, anchored on two different lawsuits and a flashback narrative. The movie features one of the strongest casts of the year with several highlights, including Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckenberg, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker and, in a neat special effect, Arnie Hammer as the Winklevoss Twins. Fincher’s direction is superb but the real star is the multilayered script by Aaron Sorkin that never patronizes its characters. The story may not be exactly true but Sorkin’s script is so good that it sure feels like it happened like this.

The other Facebook movie is the intriguing documentary “Catfish”, where a photographer develops a friendship with a young girl and her family only to discover that they are not being entirely honest with him. The marketing strategy for the movie was based on a surprise ending that meant to turn it into a dark thriller. The truth is that this is a bit misleading since the film doesn’t offer so much a thrilling payoff but more of a sad and tragic one.

“Catfish” is meant to warn us about the pitfalls of Facebook and how lonely individuals are able to literally transform themselves and live their own fantasy through a computer (whether they’re psychopaths or merely pathetic is another matter). The issues of privacy have been the strongest remarks against the site but it all really depends on how much the user is willing to share so the blame belongs to them, I guess. Still, Zuckenberg’s project is all about “opening up” and turning the whole social experience into a frivolous and callous experiment.

There’s some part of me that admires Mark Zuckenberg. He was able to turn a good idea into a brilliant moneymaking venture by never losing focus on his objectives. Yes, he was deceptive (it’s pretty cruel what he did to Eduardo at the end) but he remains a fascinating individual, both in real life and in the movie, as portrayed by Eisenberg.

There are over 500 million users worldwide on Facebook including myself. Does this make me a hypocrite after confessing my distaste for the site? I don’t think so, since Facebook (or twitter or Myspace for that matter) depend really on how you use it and who you add. Its most of the people on Facebook I hate; the idea, on principle, is not bad at all.

viernes, 17 de diciembre de 2010

Sin #83: Coffin Nightmares

Remember that scene in “Kill Bill Volume 2” where the bride is tied up and about to be buried alive? Tarantino brilliantly changes screen formats to give us a sense of claustrophobia and dread and then turns the screen to dark as we hear the rumbling of the dirt and the bride’s hard breathing (Tarantino also used the premise of being buried alive for his great feature-length episode of “CSI”).

Rodrigo Cortés’s “Buried” takes it to next level by making a 90-minute movie set entirely inside a coffin and featuring only one actor on-screen, without cutting to flashbacks. Although “Buried” can be seen as a “gimmick movie” (one actor, one stage), it is so tense that it absorbs us completely. The film wouldn’t be effective without a believable central character and Ryan Reynolds is more than up to the task and creates a powerful performance that draws us into his startling predicament (which could be described as a cross between the literary nightmares created by Edgar Allan Poe and the thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock).

The movie is diabolically ingenious in its narrative devices; all Paul Conroy (Reynolds) has is a cell phone with half a battery, a Zippo lighter, some fluorescent lights and a pen. His captor wants him to film himself and ask for a 5 million dollar ransom. But the thing about Paul is that he is not a soldier or any kind of action hero whatsoever; he is merely a truck driver in Iraq moving supplies, working on hostile territory for a low income to provide for his family.

In a situation like this, who would we call? Our family, friends, government agencies, maybe our captor begging to let us out? Paul desperately tries to call everybody he can to let them know he is trapped underground. In one of the most grueling moments in the film he receives a call from the head of the company he works for, informing him of his termination.

Cortés shows great imagination with his cinematography and editing (he is actually his own editor, which is uncommon). Although most of the movie is shot in very intense close-ups (showing Reynolds looking bloody and grimy), there are also strange angles that show the dirt around the coffin. The movie is also wise in giving Paul a background based solely on his conversations on the phone; this gives us a completely subjective view as to the events on the other lines making us wonder, as Paul does, if they’re entirely trustworthy.

There are a lot of twists in “Buried”, including its rather ironic ending (which will be definitely a subject of conversation coming out of the theater) but the movie never takes to the usual Hollywood conventions (if a big studio had made it there would be scenes with the grieving wife and son and desperate military strategies to try to rescue him).

Here is a film hard to recommend. Yes, it’s incredibly effective in its depiction of desperation on an impossible situation but it’s more of an endurance test for audiences than an entertainment. Still it’s a virtuoso example of what can be done with the simplest resources. With it, we can also agree that being buried alive is one of the most frightening of scenarios imaginable.


martes, 7 de diciembre de 2010

Sin #82: Borders

“We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us!”

Jessica Alba in “Machete”


The topic of illegal immigrants remains, to this day, a big issue in the United States. After the attacks of September 11 xenophobia took on a whole new meaning and Muslims became targeted as religious extremists, not much to the concern of White America (especially the kind of bigots who have enforced ridiculous security measures on airports to the point of harassing hundreds of thousands of innocent travelers).

For the past few years, the border between Mexico and USA has become a warzone for Latinos in search of the promised American dream, even though they pretty much have to endure low wages and terrible working conditions; since they are illegal, they aren’t expected to demand insurance or any kind of work benefits.

While the United States remains one of the great multiethnic nations in the world, it pretty much remains divided by hate and intolerance (vividly exemplified in Paul Haggis’s “Crash”). In this social and political climate comes the movie “Machete” with a big smirk on its face and a “fuck you” attitude. By making a schlocky B-movie in the Grindhouse tradition, Robert Rodriguez has taken the caricature of the ignorant but hard working Latino and transformed it into a bad-ass action icon (played by the inimitable Danny Trejo, whose role as a protagonist was long overdue). “Machete” first started as a fake trailer showing before Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” and became so popular that he decided to expand it to feature length.

Machete himself is a retired federal agent who seeks revenge on the man who murdered his wife and daughter (played very “tongue-in-cheek” by Steven Seagal, who not only is portraying his first villain ever but is also supposed to be Mexican). Machete later becomes entangled in a plot to assassinate a senator and also ends up supporting an underground rebel movement led by a mysterious revolutionary called “She”.

The violence in “Machete” is extreme and the political message is none too subtle (subtlety has never been one of Rodriguez’s strong points). He has often said that he never meant to make a social comment and that the whole “Arizona Law” debacle merely coincided with the release of the film. It is, however, pretty obvious that the movie is meant to support immigrants and criticize American policies. But if you decide to avoid any sort of political statement you can certainly enjoy “Machete” for being a slice of delicious mexploitation mayhem.

A movie that deals more seriously with the issue of illegal immigrants is “Frozen River” starring Melissa Leo as a single mother desperately trying to provide for her family by aiding an Indian woman in transporting illegal aliens. The film is a bleak look at the underbelly of poverty in America and the cost of survival. The actions in the film may be morally reprehensible but, in a way, are enforced upon people who can barely survive on a day-to-day basis.

The racial tension is still seen full-force with President Obama, whose detractors, in full ignorance, dare to claim he is a Muslim as if saying that his partisan worldview represents a danger to the western civilization. It’s a sad state of affairs when even the so-called Free World can’t even get along.