The Top 40 Films of the 2000s: 20-11

20. LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, Clint Eastwood (2006). The first entry of two on my list from my favorite director of this decade. Eastwood is criticized for being too simple and non-experimental with his direction, but notice how much more emotionally potent his films are as a result. Here, as a companion to "Flags of Our Fathers," Eastwood focuses on the Japanese soldiers and makes the Americans the faceless enemies instead. And it's the furthest thing from "un-American." Rather, it's a powerful anti-war film that reminds us that the enemy is the other side, no matter what side we're on. And we all think we're right. And we all defend our truth. And it sucks every time. A dingy, grey, fantastically acted Eastwood masterpiece.

19. MINORITY REPORT, Steven Spielberg (2002). Spielberg also shows up twice in my top 20, doing his strongest work in the first half of this decade. This isn't just a popcorn sci-fi flick. It is a philosophy film that explores free will vs. determinism, building on classic stories like Fahrenheit 451, 1984 and Brave New World. It's a rare film that not only looks the way the standard Hollywood action film should look, but has something important to say as well. Easily one of the best "mainstream" films of the decade.

18. LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING, Peter Jackson (2003). Just as with Star Wars, everyone has their favorite LOTR film. I lean toward the last one, not because it was the one that finally won all of the awards (likely on behalf of the whole trilogy), but because the relationship between Frodo and Sam was at its most emotionally powerful here. Jackson also perfected Gollum, introduced in "The Two Towers," and Andy Serkis should have been the first actor nominated for a motion capture performance. James Cameron said that seeing Gollum is what made him decide to move forward with "Avatar," so attention must be paid. Exciting on all levels, this one also moved me to tears.

17. MEMENTO, Christopher Nolan (2001). I'm not sure if many directors had a better decade than Nolan, but the projects handed to him (such as the recent Batman films), were based on this piece of mind candy, a product of genius editing and twisted storytelling. At it's core, it's a standard revenge film. But its delivery is anything but standard. If nothing else, it forced others to reconsider what the narrative structure of a film looks like. Nolan is not the first to mess with story structure like this, but this offering was one of the most memorable examples of the decade, focusing on a guy who's bad memory forces the film's ingenious backward and looped conceits.

16. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, Quentin Tarantino (2009). Speaking of loopy, unconventional narrative structures. Time will tell, but I think this is Tarantino's masterwork. He actually ditches the sidebars and time warps and puts his demented spin on what would have been the ultimate revenge story in 20th Century world history by imagining that a powerful collective of renegade Jews could get to and take care of Hitler. Everything Tarantino is known for is in here, and perfected here. A 30-minute scene in a tavern is one of the most watchable single scenes of the decade, let alone this year. I am not a Tarantino-head, so I thought long and hard about where to put this one. I stand behind my choice. It's this good.

15. IN THE BEDROOM, Todd Field (2001). Field made two stunning suburban dramas this decade. The other was "Little Children." But this one felt like it almost started one of my favorite trends of the decade: the low-budget, acting-focused and writer-centric suburban stories that always ended up at the top of my year-end lists. Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson and Marissa Tomei are stunners here, in an adaptation of an Andre Dubus story that is filled with realism and family terror. I couldn't get this one out of my head. Still can't. And there have been many films like it since.

14. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, Ang Lee (2000). Talk about a movie that really changed the game. It broke box office records for a foreign film at the time and grabbed a Best Picture nomination, something that doesn't happen often for a non-English movie. Even more outrageous to me was how this film about ideas and locations that I'm rarely drawn to so completely captured my attention and imagination. I was never opposed to watching foreign language films, but after this one, I started running to them. Gorgeous art direction, magical action and strong acting. Worth another look.

13. MATCH POINT, Woody Allen (2005). As a Woody Allen fanatic, it's admittedly become increasingly difficult to look forward to the annual Allen offering because the results have been less consistent in the 2000s, and the critical favor has waned. But mid-decade, Allen made his first fresh choices in many years. He decided to leave New York City. He also decided to abandon self-referential comedy. Both choices worked, brilliantly. "Match Point" is not only his best film of the decade, it is worthy of a spot in the top tier of his films, period. A Hitchcockian tale with cinematic poetry and symbolism and sexy, magnetic performances by Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Allen's muse of the decade, Scarlett Johansson. Nothing felt better than knowing that the Woodman still had it.

12. CRASH, Paul Haggis (2005). It's become trendy to "Crash-bash." But I'm not having it. Everyone who now groans that the converging storylines are too coincidental and not plausible is missing the point. This film captured post-9/11 racial anxiety in a way that no other film has, and its admittedly too-tidy script is really meant to be a collection of character essays, not a believable narrative. Haggis, a darling in the film world in the 2000s, got the best acting to date from just about every actor in his cast, and it's time to stop hating it as the David that toppled the Brokeback Goliath at the Oscars. From a pure emotional standpoint, this film is loaded with poignant and teachable moments when most movies could only hope for one or two. As a father, the scene when Daniel's daughter runs out of the house to give her dad the "invisibility cloak" still causes me to projectile sob. As a film teacher, I rarely have conversations with students as meaningful as the ones I have after we watch this.

11. ROGER DODGER, Dylan Kidd (2002). The most obscure choice on my list, I actually had it as high as #5 before reconsidering. I love it that much. Playing with the guys-in-charge style of storytelling ushered in by Neil Labute's "In the Company of Men," "Roger Dodger" is an unforgivingly macho film that introduced the talent of Jesse Eisenberg and gave the underestimated Campbell Scott his best character, ever. The story is base, about a slick, smooth-talking ladies man who allows his nephew to tag along for a night out on the town to learn about sex from a master. But the dialogue is as crisp as anything Tarantino has written. And the film is deliciously re-watchable. A personal favorite of the decade, though admittedly the film is cruel, crude and decidedly anti-female (or maybe just pro-male).

Star Trek (2009)

STAR TREK's two hours fly by, and unlike most complex science fiction stories, the audience here is always in-the-know, whether you came to the film as a long-time follower of the series and films or this was your first Trek experience.

I am somewhere in the middle: not a Trekkie, but someone who has seen most of the films and has a basic sense of historic plotlines and relationships. My memory does not have enough of the finer details of the story stored, however, and I was concerned that watching a reboot of the story, as director J.J. Abrams employs here, would be confusing to me.

My worries were unfounded. STAR TREK is so cleverly-written that an amateur can follow it and an expert can agree with it. Even more clever is the casting; every significant character is instantly identifyable here. With those worries out of the way, one can simply sit back (if you're able) and enjoy a summer popcorn flick the way it was meant to be done.

George Kirk, a brave Federation captain, sacrifices himself to save hundreds of members aboard the ship that was just placed in his control, including his wife, in labor with their son. This son, James, grows up in Iowa and is a hell-raiser, but is eventually convinced to attend the Starfleet academy and fulfill the promise shown by his father. Jim is a cocky ladies' man and struggles in the academy because he dislikes rules and authority figures. His strongest dislike is for Spock, a young lieutenant in the Starfleet and outcast among his Vulcan people for having a human mother.

The new Kirk and Spock are played by Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto. Pine is an inspired choice, with the gravitas for the role and the lightness for its humor. Quinto, by comparison, seems like the only logical choice (pardon the Trek joke), as he's been drawing physical comparisons to Leonard Nimoy since he began his work on NBC's "Heroes." Both are excellent here.

When an emergency on Vulcan causes the Starfleet to christen its new USS Enterprise, Spock takes off for space joined by other familiars like Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Sulu (John Cho) and Bones (Karl Urban). The recently-punished Kirk finds a way onboard as well, though he is eventually discovered and cast off the ship, picking up Scotty (Simon Pegg) along the way and bumping into...Spock? It's well-known by now that Leonard Nimoy appears in this STAR TREK, too. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the film yet, but the way Abrams works him in is quite clever, and not as difficult to follow as one might expect.

The special effects and production values of STAR TREK are as good as you'd expect them to be, and maybe it's due to Abrams' ability to build on such a known pop culture myth that this film flies by twice as fast as James Cameron's "Avatar." Perhaps, at least subconciously, we all walk into this one knowing more than we think we know. This is assisted by a script that includes one clear mission for the crew that is motivated and justified, and plenty of minor winks and nods to appease longtime fans. Without those references, STAR TREK might feel like "Star Trek for Dummies," but it doesn't. And yet this film appealed to my 8-year old daughter as much as it did to me. She sat down and watched the entire film and loved it, too.

For big budget entertainment, I can't complain about STAR TREK. It's the kind of film I would buy on DVD and pull out repeatedly to enjoy. For what it set out to do, I think it did so successfully. It was fast-paced, and it was fun.

3.5 out of 4

The Top 40 Films of the 2000s: 30-21

30. MARIA FULL OF GRACE, Joshua Marsten (2004). Those who swear off foreign films are missing movies like this. Catalina Sandino Moreno was Oscar-nominated for her portrayal of a pregnant Columbian teenager who takes a job as a drug mule to get to the U.S. One of the most terrifying films of the decade, filled with sadness, intensity and suspense.

29. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, David Cronenberg (2005). Cronenberg and the fantastic Viggo Mortensen made two stunners this decade, but this one gets the slight edge over the more showy "Eastern Promises." It's a captivating look at how violence can affect an individual and a family that grows richer with repeated viewings.

28. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, Ang Lee (2005). Now often the butt of jokes, the cultural impact of this film cannot be denied. Slightly-long, a little slow, and deeply effective on a profound, emotional level. A revelatory love story of its time, whether you allowed yourself to be comfortable with it or not.

27. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, Joel & Ethan Coen (2007). Like my pick before this one, here's a film that took conventions of the Western and spun and updated them. Cormac McCarthy, an excellent writer, is the basis for Hitchcockian suspense and terror in the hands of an unforgettable Javier Bardem performance and the Coen brothers, who almost made my list two other times (with "The Man Who Wasn't There" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?").

26. UNITED 93, Paul Greengrass (2006). Waiting just long enough for America to be able to face the domestic tragedy of the decade on a movie screen, the electric Greengrass (a whiz with his Bourne films) casts a bunch of no-names and directs the hell out of this portrait of the hijacked plane that ended up in a field in Pennsylvania. Not one to watch multiple times because it's that hard to watch. But it's not like you'd forget it, anyway.

25. MAN ON WIRE, James Marsh (2008). The best tribute to the now-gone World Trade Center was this gorgeous, Oscar-winning documentary, my favorite of the decade. Recreating the plan to get French tightrope walker Philippe Petit to the top of the twin towers in the early 1970s, the film gracefully fails to acknowledge that the towers are now gone and, instead, highlights the passion of pursuing one's art to the rhythm of a fast-paced action/heist film.

24. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, Michel Gondry (2004). With an imaginative narrative structure that helps to tell the story, this film cemented Jim Carrey's status as an actor to be taken seriously and is but one example of the power of Kate Winslet, perhaps my favorite actress of the decade.

23. MOULIN ROUGE!, Baz Luhrmann (2001). Though not necessarily my favorite musical of the decade, this film (to a greater extent than "Dancer in the Dark") deserves credit for reigniting the musical as a viable commercial art form in cinema once again. A dazzling specatcle, Luhrmann closed his red curtain trilogy with fabulous art direction, cinematography, costumes and lighting, and ushered in the era of serious actors trying their hand at a tune that Woody Allen poked at a few years prior with "Everyone Says I Love You." All shamltz and melodramatic goodness.

22. BEFORE SUNSET, Richard Linklater (2004). A gorgeous, quiet film reuniting Ethan Hawke and Julia Delpy nine years after they first fell in love in "Before Sunrise." My favorite romance film of the decade, it's an 80-minute film about four hours out of the lives of two one-time lovers who, inexplicably, are able to see each other one more time.

21. Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, Alfonso Cuaron (2001). A fantastic coming-of-age film, albeit one filled with graphic sex, and a hard-to-forget male fantasy film as two teenage boys in Mexico embark on a road trip with a sexy, older woman. Caliente!

The Messenger (2009)

If a film can affect me on an honest, emotional level, I am considerably less interested in any flaws it might have. Quite often, especially with smaller films, I am a writing and acting first, stylish direction second kind of guy. THE MESSENGER is this kind of film. It lacks artistic directorial elements and could use tightening in spots. But it is also one of the best acted films I've seen this year, and one of the most emotionally powerful.

Why Ben Foster's name isn't more firmly in the conversation for the Best Actor race is beyond me. There are many films from 2009 that I have yet to see, but of those I've seen thus far, his is my favorite male lead acting performance. Woody Harrelson does seem to be getting buzz for his supporting performance in the film, and Amy Morton continues to be one of my favorite actresses for her work here. All three deserve Oscar nominations. So does the screenplay. But I digress.

Foster plays Army Staff Sgt. Will Montgomery, an Iraq War vet assigned to complete the final three months of his tour on "bereavement notification" duty. Simply put, he's the guy who shows up at your door if your loved one has been killed in combat. He's the one you don't want to see, the grim reaper in a pressed military uniform.

Montgomery is not happy about this detail, not after having seen real combat. But this is how he will play out his time in the Army, at least for now. He was wounded in Iraq and declared a hero. But his eye and leg injuries seem to be less of an impairment than what is most likely post-traumatic stress disorder. And now, he must spend his days delivering that trauma to civilians.

To make matters worse for Montgomery, he is to follow a strict script. This is protocol, and protocol is enforced by Captain Tony Stone (Harrelson), a recovering alcoholic who served two tours during the early 90s conflicts under the first President Bush. Never having seen any actual combat, Stone is even more stiff and militaristic than Montgomery. Apparently, he has spent a good deal of time on bereavement notification duty and has to remind himself and others that he is still a soldier.

Sticking to the script means not showing any human emotion toward the "NOK" (next of kin) the soldiers encounter. The memorized script includes a statement of empathy: "I'm sorry for your tragic loss," or something to that effect. But Montgomery is cautioned not to touch or hug. Get in and get out. Stone is good at this, but Montgomery is not. It's clear that he wishes the job could be completed with a little more compassion than that.

Both Montgomery and Stone are ticking time bombs. The audience waits to see how long it will be before Montgomery cannot complete his job assignment was assigned, and there is also the expectation that Stone is all artifice, a breath away from another alcoholic beverage and a genuine mess under the surface. Indeed, both of these things come to pass.

How would you respond if men like Montgomery and Stone came to your door? THE MESSENGER explores a believable range of reactions. Some simply won't believe the news. Others get angry. Steve Buscemi is believable to his core as an angry father who spits on the men and calls them cowards. Why aren't you over there dying? He demands an answer. Samantha Morton's newly-widowed Olivia poses an even more stunning, though subtle response. Thank you, she says, shaking their hands. It must be hard for you to deliver this kind of news.

For reasons unexplained (as they should be), Montgomery feels a connection to Olivia and her son. He begins to defy orders and pops up in her life to check up on her and help her with odd jobs. He half-hides behind a tree at her husband's burial. What is clear is that starting something with her would be inappropriate, but it is hard for him to help it. These scenes are played with amazing depth and quiet by Foster and Morton. Foster, in particular, is a revelation. All of his macho, bad-ass bravado displayed in films such as "3:10 to Yuma" are stripped away here. The guy who typically demands attention by mouthing off is all but completely silent. In one of his best scenes, he says nothing. Morton talks at her kitchen counter, stealing sips of coffee. Foster listens, struggling to know what to do with his hands, calculating the personal space between them.

Eventually, Montgomery's need to be compassionate spills over into his treatment of other families when delivering news and, before the film is over, even Stone is made to cave. Scenes played between Foster and Harrelson when the men are out of uniform are significant: two men who are the same but so different, trying to bond. Harrelson, who is always good, gets the transformation down here. His character takes a true journey in this film, changes to his core from beginning to end. A man who shows only strength and control at the start is a humbled, flawed survivor at the end. His control over Montgomery evolves into awe and respect for him.

If the film has a flaw, it's that first-time director Owen Moverman, who also co-wrote the script, has a bit of trouble keeping everything tied together at the end, and the film almost starts to devolve into a buddy picture before it ends on a beautiful, true note. His direction is generic, and maybe that's just as well. The star here is the script, and no flourishes distract from that. And, as I've said a million times, if you've got the right actors, you can cover up those weaknesses.

I did not feel emotionally manipulated by THE MESSENGER. Just genuinely moved. Each scene involving a family receiving notification about their lost loved one broke my heart anew. Nothing ever felt forced or melodramatic. Is this the war film of the year? No, simply because "The Hurt Locker" had the strong direction to match a great script and acting. But it's tough to even compare that film with THE MESSENGER, a film that is more of a chamber piece about the sad humanity of those of us left in America, slowly being divided into the two camps of those of us who have been affected by this war and those of us who have not.

No one should ever have to understand what it feels like to get that knock on the door, but THE MESSENGER brings needed understanding and empathy to that feeling. It is a fantastic film.

3.5 out of 4

The Top 40 Films of the 2000s: 40-31

40. DANCER IN THE DARK, Lars von Trier (2000). An emotional gut-punch as strong as any this decade.

39. THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, Judd Apatow (2005). The best sophomoric comedy for adults this decade.

38. BRICK, Rian Johnson (2005). Classic film noir gets a reboot in a high school. Moody goodness.

37. CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS, Andrew Jacecki (2003). In this era of people trying to get on camera and documenting themselves for no good reason, it's downright creepy that this family happened to be filming its own implosion for years without even knowing it.

36. ZODIAC, David Fincher (2007). One of the classic true crime stories of the past century gets a tense, brilliant second look.

35. TRAFFIC, Steven Soderberg (2000). Revitalized the Robert Altman style of converging character arc storytelling and introduced us to the now-trendy "small world" concept of global exploration seen in dozens of films this decade, from "Syriana" to "Babel." Other directors like Inarritu would succeed with this style in the 2000s, but Soderberg invented it.

34. SIDEWAYS, Alexander Payne (2004). If "40 Year Old Virgin" was the best sophomoric comedy for adults this decade, this was the best sophisticated one. Perfect acting performances, to boot.

33. MULHOLLAND DRIVE, David Lynch (2001). I still don't get it, but I love trying. Admittedly, this is a "snobby" pick made with my head and not my heart. Maybe I feel obligated to include it, but it is one of the best films of a very important filmmaker.

32. ONCE, John Carney (2008). The scene in the film that introduces the Oscar-winning "Falling Slowly" is one of the most romantic scenes of the decade, and the lovers don't even kiss. A film that was truly able to harnass the power of music.

31. IN BRUGES, Martin McDonagh (2008). Fantastic lead acting performances and whip-smart direction from the Irish Tarantino. Few movies this decade had me laughing this hard.

The top 40 films of the 2000s: A Preview

Well, it's taken me a solid month to make this list, not to mention some rewatching of films, coaxing from friends, and self-debate and doubt. Even as I completed the list of 40, I stared at a list I had sitting off to the side of films from the decade that would probably be on the list if I had seen them already. At first I wanted to be embarassed by the fact that I haven't seen some of these films that are appearing on the best-of lists of many critics. But then I though, you know what? They are getting paid for this, and although I SHOULD be, I am not. I have taste. I will get around to them. This list can only be about what I have seen, not what I should see. And these lists are transient. I can change my mind tomorrow.

The list I came up with is actually fairly well-distributed across the decade. Three films each are from 2000 and 2003, 4 films each from 2002, 2006 and 2008, 5 are from 2004, 6 are from 2001 and 2005 respectively, and the year 2007 leads my list with seven films. In addition, one film from this year, 2009, makes my list (and does quite well on it). I suspect that if more time had gone by and I would have had time to see more from 2009, a few more titles might have snuck in, but at least all years from the decade are represented here.

Choosing films for a list like this is very difficult. I tried to use the following criteria as my guide:
1. CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE. If the film was responsible for a style or trend or captured the mood or attitude of the decade, it merited consideration here.
2. RE-WATCHABILITY. Some films on the list are powerful in ways that make them difficult to watch multiple times. Sometimes, once is even enough. But most films on the list are movies that grow more rich with repeat views.
3. MASTERY. I tried to pick films that came close, in my opinion, to being the best the could be, given what they were trying to accomplish. It is very difficult to measure something like "The Dark Knight" against something like "The Lives of Others." So you have to ask yourself how successful the film was in doing what it was trying to do. Still tricky, but at least it gives you a guideline.
4. EMOTIONAL CONNECTION. Ultimately, this helped me order the films once the 40 were picked. You might see things up higher that had a stronger emotional impact on me, and films that my brain tells me were masterful or important will appear on the list, but lower. Go with your gut, they say. In fact, my #1 had to be the movie that moved me the most.

Next, the list!

The 10 Most Overrated Films of the 2000s

Note: This is a slightly-edited version of a post I made on Facebook on November 28 as I was beginning to draw a list together to make my top 40 films of the 2000s. That list will follow soon!

Here's my list of the most overrated movies of the last ten years. These are films that did very well with critics and/or audiences, but not with me.

HONORABLE MENTIONS, or "lifetime memberships":

* The films of Michael Moore:
Not too many filmmakers had as successful a decade as documnetarian Michael Moore, but to me, he's the left's answer to Rush Limbaugh: a blowhard with a movie camera instead of a radio show. "Bowling For Columbine," "Fahrenheit 9/11," "Sicko" and "Capitalism: A Love Story" (the last of which I have not seen) capture the far-left zeitgeist with the otherwise-talented Moore's trademarks of emotional manipulation, egregious fact omission and self-promotion. Moore is the only guy making documentaries who has to star in his own films, and my favorite of his films will be the one when he resists the urge. There are rumors that Moore is done with documentaries. That'd be great. There were some amazing documentaries made this decade, and while his were always among the most provocative, they were not the best.

* The films of Will Ferrell:
"Old School" worked because Ferrell wasn't the main focus, and "Stranger Than Fiction" was well-directed and scripted in such a way that Ferrell's clowning was kept in check. But does anyone else feel that Ferrell's true genius is limited to short bursts in the sketch comedy format? I truly feel that disaster strikes when Ferrell stretches clever ideas to 90 or more minutes. The worst offender, to me, is "Anchorman," a film that is practically worshiped by young men nationwide but was, for me, a painfully dragged-out version of what would have been another impressive "Saturday Night Live" character, had Ferrell used him on the show. Equally painful: "Elf," "Kicking and Screaming," "Bewitched," "Talledega Nights," "Blades of Glory," "Semi-Pro," "Step Brothers,"...sigh...

And now, my top 10...with brief comments.

10. AMELIE (2001)
Some of the most stunning art direction I've ever seen ruined by a main character I just wanted to punch in the face.

9. GLADIATOR (2000)
Why the adulation, every young man in America? Well-acted, well-directed, but it's story had nothing new to say that wasn't already covered by the sandal epics of Hollywood's glory years, and Ridley Scott made his masterpiece of this decade, "Black Hawk Down," the following year.

8. THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007)
My milkshake was made with curdled, sour milk, and I just could not drink it. The campiest Oscar-winning acting I've ever seen in my life enveloped in one of the most self-important movies I've ever seen. I wanted desperately to appreciate it but couldn't. I'm actually hoping I can watch it again in 20 years and call myself an idiot for my comments here. But until then...

7. AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (2006)
An Oscar-winning Power Point presentation. How far we've fallen...

6. A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001)
Ron Howard is more than a competent craftsman. What he stops short of is being an artist. His lean "Frost/Nixon" was much better than this pompous, "gimme an Oscar" ploy, which for me worked on only one major level...he did get that Oscar.

5. BORAT (2005)
I'm all for schadenfreude, but "Borat" mined humor in the cruelest manner, all but victimizing it's unwilling participants. Naked wrestling scene aside, I was not laughing.

4. INSIDE MAN (2006)
Genius stylist Spike Lee gets his hands on a slick, dime-a-dozen Hollywood bank heist script and makes it look like any other director in Hollywood would have made it look. His sell-out.

3. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (2008)
Creepy, indulgent, nonsensical, implausible and inflated. The story construct is so high-concept that it kills the love story and your ability to feel for its characters.

2. MICHAEL CLAYTON (2007)
George Clooney plays George Clooney (again!) in this film that seemed like a ditched episode of an NBC legal procedural show turned into a movie. Only Tom Wilkinson's performance cuts through the blah. Other than him (and maybe Tilda Swinton), I can't for the life of me understand what was so amazing about this movie.

1. WEDDING CRASHERS (2005)
The movie that made me stop giving Vince Vaughn chances. And so far down the list of the decade's greatest comedies, well...it's not even funny.

Avatar (2009)

AVATAR is the most brilliant, 3-dimensional, mind-blowing film unlike anything you've ever seen wrapped around the most banal, 1-dimensional, blow-your-brains-out film you've seen a dozen times before.

So stunning are the already-legendary visuals that it's impossible to give this film a bad rating. Only an idiot would fail to recognize that director James Cameron's work here literally changes the game, and that is no understatement. I am in my 30s. I was 5 when "Star Wars" came out, so I was too young to know that this is what it must have felt like to see a whole new world, down to new plant life and language.

But then there's the script, a Frankenstein-like patchwork of well-used Hollywood action, Western and war cliches mixed with often-bad dialogue and the most heavy-handed helping of liberally political, anti-war finger-waving I've seen in a long time. AVATAR makes "The Hurt Locker" look as though it was directed by George W. Bush. Which is funny, because its director, Kathryn Bigelow, and Cameron were once married. I don't know what her politics are, but these two movies make them the James Carville and Mary Matalin of the film world.

Even if you haven't seen the film by now, you have probably heard that it's the story of a band of Americans who come to occupy a planet called Pandora. If the symbolism of the planet's name isn't strong enough, Cameron has them looking for a substance called "unobtanium." Hmm...when you open Pandora's box looking for something un-obtainable, there's bound to be trouble, right? See, you get it.

The audience is never let on as to exactly what unobtanium will do for the Americans, other than being told that it is a valuable energy resource. Cameron loads his space ships with dueling factions: the military personnel who will take a by-force approach to occupation (aka the Republicans?) and a team of scientists led by the always fantastic Sigourney Weaver who have come to understand the indiginous people of the planet, the Na'vi, and stress the need for understanding and peaceful cooperation with them (aka the Democrats). The third party - though one more closely alligned with the former than the latter - are the corporate hacks, represented by a comically-smug Giovanni Ribisi, who is only interested in the bottom line, the dollar. Just get the stuff, because they want it and we'll profit. Though set over a century ahead of ours, the modern connections are easily apparent.

The scientists have been using Avatars to get to know the Na'vi people and, hopefully, to gain their trust. Since the air is poisonous to humans anyway, the scientists have created Na'vi bodies and activate them by having members of their team lay down in contraptions that look like a cross between an MRI machine and a coffin. (The Na'vi people, by the way, look like a cross between Jar Jar Binks and a Smurf at a "Cats" audition.) One perfect candidate for the Avatar team is marine Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington. (There has been a lot of critical flack about Worthington's performance, but I actually bought all of it and thought he did a great job.) Sully, after all, is paralyzed from the waist down and, in his Na'vi avatar body, can move freely - and then some.

While getting to know the Na'vi, Avatar-Sully must train to be one of their warriors and ends up falling in love with one of their women. I saw this movie before when it was called "Dances With Wolves." Hell, there's even a buffalo hunt-equivalency scene here where Sully is trained to select and tame a multi-winged, flying dinosaur-looking thing. By becoming one of them, Sully learns that this unobtanium will will be unobtainable because it sits beneath the main tree that this Na'vi tribe lives in. He is instructed to get them to move somewhere else, or else. Here, Cameron pours on the Native American-relocation subtext.

At this point, we're maybe an hour into a 2 hour and 40 minute movie, and yes, that is one of the film's problems (though I'd be lying if I told you that I ever got bored, tired or checked my watch...James had me at "I see you"). And since Cameron is a master at blowing shit up, the military personnel on the ship, led by a hilarious performance by Stephen Lang, who literally looks like a G.I. Joe action figure, all top-heavy with chiseled muscles. Lang's Colonel decides to go in and bulldoze the rainforest (that's what it looked like to me) and take it by force. The phrase "shock and awe" is actually used verbatim to make sure that audiences can see the comparison to Iraq/Afghanistan and oil.

It is also at this point that two things become clear. The first is that Sully's mission to learn the ways of the Na'vi was a complete red herring in the film, a construct created out of necessity to set up a love story because they were going to invade anyway. The second thing that becomes clear is that, from this point on, all military personnel will only speak in borrowed, macho, summer popcorn film-cliches for the duration of the film. You can almost FEEL Cameron throw the script out of the window at this point, or maybe this is where he simply stopped writing, content to let the actors spout off phrases like "I've got a gun too, bitch" ("Aliens") or "looks like diplomacy failed" (take that, W.!). You get the sense that Cameron had "I'll be back" in there somewhere as well but cashed in his last modicum of restraint to keep the too-familiar phrase out.

AVATAR, in the end, is about the Native Americans, about Vietnam, and about Iraq. It has a stronger environmental message than did "An Inconvenient Truth" (where was Cameron when Al Gore needed more than a powerpoint presentation to spice that one up?). But, again, I must be fair and come back to the visuals. They are groundbreaking, stunning and effective. Even when your brain tells you that you seem to be going from action sequence to action sequence and nothing is progressing in terms of story, you realize that you don't care, so long as it looks like this. And that's definitely how I felt.

In the end, I think only time can put AVATAR in its true perspective. Today, it is the most amazing film that has ever been made from a technical standpoint. I walked out of the theatre thinking: how can this film NOT be the Best Picture winner this year? What does any other film have or do that can even compete (not including the screenplay category, the one category that AVATAR hasn't a soldier's chance in Na'vi to win)? How does this film not manage to satisfy both the warmonger and the peacemaker, the action film buff and the romantic? It's got EVERYTHING!

And perhaps the biggest compliment that I can pay AVATAR is that it is, at this moment in time, officially the very first film I have seen that made the use of 3-D relevant and not a complete waste of my time. I agree with film critic Roger Ebert when he says that 3-D always seems to be saying: "hey, watch this! I'm in 3-D!" It's a gimmick. It takes you OUT of the film. Cameron is the first director to harnass it. He uses it to bring you in. He provides depth with it instead of using it to have actors stick stuff out toward the audience. What a novel concept. So integrated was the use of 3-D in AVATAR that the friend I went with commented after the film that he wasn't that impressed with the 3-D because he didn't really notice it. That's exactly what did impress me about it. I stand corrected (though I still left with the same headache that all 3-D movies give me).

I have to sum up my review of AVATAR by saying that I truly believe that once the technology on display here is seen as common-place, this movie is going to look spectacularly average because its limitations and cliches in the story and dialogue departments are going to stick out more. But until that day, and while there is no other movie in existence like it, it seems difficult not to say that AVATAR is amazing, and one of the few things out there worth driving to a movie theatre for to pay whatever they're charging these days.

3.0 out of 4

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER is this year's "Juno." Few movies will feel as good going down, but it doesn't stick to your ribs. Directed by Marc Webb, the film is his debut work following a career of directing music videos for artists like Green Day. This coincidence was not lost on me, nor on Ty Burr of the Boston Globe, who called it "'Annie Hall' for the iPod generation."

Indeed, (500) DAYS OF SUMMER is a romantic comedy on "shuffle," and so heavily of its generation that if you can't relate, the film will be lost on you. I have to come to terms with the fact that, sadly, I am a generation older than the one portrayed here. It's the reason why other of-the-moment films like "Garden State" went right past me. I simply couldn't relate. But this one worked for me. While the narrative conceit of shuffling the days of a broken relationship as the dumped male reflects on what went wrong seems hopelessly trendy and modern, it also feels a little like real life to me. We don't, in real life, remember things exactly in the order in which they happened. Especially not things that turned out poorly. When we are a flood of complex emotions, how can we be expected to control the order of our thoughts?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is fantastic as Tom, the shoulda-been-an-architect-turned-greeting-card-writer who falls for Summer (Zooey Deschanel), a newly-hired administrative assistant at his company. Watching this film made me want to scream from the rooftops: "I told you so!" While most of America seems to just now be catching on to him, I followed Gordon-Levitt from his childhood run on "Third Rock From the Sun" directly to three fantastic, no-budget indies: the emotionally devestating "Latter Days," the provocative and sexually graphic "Mysterious Skin" and the exceptional film noir-reboot "Brick." It was as good of a three film-run as any actor has had all decade, though few seemed to notice. Maybe now they will.

Deschanel seems to be getting more of the thanks for (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, though for me, she is rather plain. I suppose that's what's refreshing about her work here, because it allows her character to avoid the recent (and descructive) rom-com stereotype of the female lead as some sort of shrewd harpie who must be tamed by the puppy-dog man. Instead, we are told from the get-go that her Summer is not interested in commitment. And while we secretly hope with Tom that she'll change her mind, we know all along that she won't. And yet, to Deshanel's credit, we never think of Summer as some kind of cold-hearted bitch.

That's probably what's even better about this film than the clever unraveling of the film: the fact that it does seem so normal, so realistic, so uncinematic. Unfortunately, this can also be a reason why the film felt, to me, to be something rather lightweight in the end. Not a moment of the film felt false to me, and for that I will speak fondly about (500) DAYS OF SUMMER. But is this "best picture" material, or simply just one of the few smart and sensible films of its genre released in a while? I tend to believe in the latter.

There are many other fun and witty things about (500) DAYS OF SUMMER. What worked very well for me was the kitchy soundtrack, anchored by one of Gordon-Levitt's best moments in the movie to the tune of a dusty, 80s Hall & Oates song that helped connect older viewers like me to the film (because we know every word). I won't spoil the fun of the song's use in the movie if you haven't seen it, but I'll give you a clue...think "Enchanted.")

Dialogue in the film had that crisp, modern, pop-culture-laden edge to it as "Juno" did, which led me to my initial comparison between the two films. Sid and Nancy are part of an important philosophical conversation between Tom and Summer. "The Graduate" is referenced twice in the film, and a clip from its ending is even used here. And Ikea, in the product placement of the year, becomes the location for one of the film's most romantic scenes.

Not a moment of (500) DAYS OF SUMMER was hard to swallow, and not a moment was unenjoyable. But when I think of the film as a whole, I'm also not sure how much of it I will truly remember. I suspect that film viewers in their 20s will really relate to this one. I don't see it as a film of as much consequence as either "The Graduate" or "Annie Hall," but maybe it will come to be this generation's version of those films. But it was good enough for me to enjoy regardless.

3.0 out of 4

Coraline (2009)

CORALINE is a "be careful what you wish for" picture that lacks nothing in the visual department and quite a lot in pacing, narrative push and heart.

Everyone who talks about this movie goes gaga for the visuals. They have a right to. It IS stunning. But for some people that's good enough...that and the fact that hipsters probably relish the concept that CORALINE is an animated film - perceivably for kids - but it's a "kid's" movie with rats and cobwebs and a scary lady who wants to gouge out your eyes and sew buttons in place of them. Take that, kiddies!

I tried to fall for it. I agree that CORALINE looks fantastic. It's the story of a little girl (voiced by Dakota Fanning, who's advancing age is quite noticable as you listen to her here) who is, frankly, a pain in the ass. Her parents, writers/editors (best we can tell), are too busy for her, and for that we feel bad for her. They've moved far away from their old home and rented an apartment in an old house near a creepy forest. The house's other occupants are straight out of the wonderland Alice walks into.

And funny I should mention that, because you can't watch CORALINE without a tinge of an empty feeling, a feeling that you've seen a lot of similar things before. This is not the fault of Henry Selick, the film's clever director (and the director of "Nightmare Before Christmas," "James and the Giant Peach" and "Monkeybone," three films you probably thought Tim Burton directed but, in truth, only produced). Rather, it is the work of Neil Gaiman, a rockstar in the graphic novel world. I don't criticize Gaiman for the story of CORALINE, but it IS a rehash of "Alice in Wonderland," "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardobe," and even "Pan's Labyrinth."

Here, Coraline is sick of being isolated and neglected, so she pursues a small door in a wall of their apartment that has been locked and wallpapered over. The door leads her to an alternate version of her life that contains most of the same elements, but seems better. To return to her real life, Coraline needs only to go to sleep in the much prettier version of her bedroom in her other universe.

Gaiman and Selick throw the macabre curveball, as you'd expect, and then bring Coraline to the realization that this other world isn't so great after all. Eventually, she gets trapped there, and the sacrifices required of her to stay are too great for her to make. Terrified, she can no longer go to sleep to wake up in the real world again. This doesn't sound like a kid's story anymore, does it?

Though a huge fan of not only the incredible visuals used to show the two worlds of Coraline but the concept of a deliciously wicked and twisted story itself, I nonetheless was not so totally charmed by this element to be allowed to overcome what were, to me, glaring deficits in pursuit of cinematic perfection. I thought the opening of the film was too slow and ordinary (not including the visually jarring opening credits), and the pace never really shifted much for me as the film went on, keeping it from kicking into a higher gear even as the plot demanded it.

Missing most of all for me was any kind of heart. Coraline is a jerk of kid who escapes her negligent parents for ones that seem much more loving. When that turns out to be the case, (is there no such thing as loving parents?) and she finally gets back to her real parents, they're not improved enough...they don't seem to care what she's been through.

I'm not saying that every animated film needs to provide a warm, fuzzy feeling. But CORALINE needed some more heart. It was visually satisfying but stuffing at its core, just like the dolls that are a part of the film's plot.

3.0 out of 4

An Education (2009)

They often say that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. This is certainly what Jenny (the breathtakingly fresh and Hepburn-esque Carey Mulligan) learns in AN EDUCATION. But the film's title is a loaded one, and this is not all she learns. And I was reminded, again, that sometimes the smallest films have the most deeply resonating life lessons.

I could write essays about the thematic layers in this wonderful film, written by superstar British author Nick Hornby and based on the memoir of Lynn Barber. The film was directed by Lone Scherfig, a Danish woman making her film debut in English. I knew nothing about Scherfig until I looked her up on IMDB after watching the film, including her gender. It seems fitting in retrospect that this film was directed by a woman, because the main character, Jenny, manages to escape the "victim" trappings that characters like this are known for.

And it would be easy to see Jenny as a victim. Set in middle-class England in 1961, Jenny is a 16 year-old school girl with aspirations of going to Oxford. Or at least those are her father's aspirations. Played fantastically by the always great Alfred Molina, Jack is no-nonsense about his daugther's education. Her obvious passion for the cello is, to him, good enough to put on the Oxford resume, but not something that she become a distraction. Play the music to say you did, but don't waste time at the orchestra hall.

On the way home from an orchestra rehearsal in the middle of a storm, Jenny meets David, a charming man who strikes up a conversation from the driver's seat of his sports car as Jenny walks home, drenched. They talk about music. David is much more passionate about that subject than her father is. A few more chance encounters (or are they?) with David, and Jenny starts to realize that her life is boring and that her parents are provincial stay-at-homers with no sense of adventure. He provides the prospect of excitement, never mind the fact that he appears to be in his mid-30s.

The cynical viewer knows a Lolita-hunter when he/she sees one and will take David's boundless charms as a one-track effort to deflower the plucky Jenny. But actor Peter Sarsgaard is better than that, making us wonder what else he has in mind. As he works his way into Jenny's world, he is careful to charm her mother, Marjorie (Cara Seymour) and, surprisingly, her stern father. It is not long before David is able to whisk Jenny away on adventures that most fathers of 16 year-old girls would never allow, let alone with a man of twice her age. We wonder what he's thinking until we discover that, perhaps, there is a double-standard in his traditional philosophy about education: that if you can marry the right man, you don't have to worry about it. Clearly, he is impressed with David and sees an alternative for his daugther.

I won't spoil it, but it goes without saying that when a 35 year-old man suddenly shows up in the life of a teenage girl, his charms are bound to camoflage his motives and, while David seems genuinely interested in Jenny, he turns out to be not exactly the guy she thought he was. I wish I could say more, but part of why I loved this film so much is the fact that while my gut told me what was going to happen in a general sense, the specific details are so wonderfully handled that I wouldn't want to ruin that experience for anyone else.

There are, essentially, two educations in AN EDUCATION. One is the sophistocated adult world that David exposes Jenny to, complete with his adult friends and even Paris. The other is the world of academia - the all-girl school Jenny attends as one of her teacher's brightest students and the prospect of an Oxford education. As it appears that Jenny might become willing to sacrifice all of this for a mysterious, older man, she must suffer through the warnings from the school's headmistress (Emma Thompson, so great here in a tiny, three-scene role) and Miss Stubbs, her teacher (played with perfect British repression by Olivia Williams).

By the end of this wonderful, enchanting and delightful 95-minute film, Jenny begins to discover that both educations are important, and neither are or were expendable. Thanks to the fantastic acting by Mulligan, we sense that Jenny is willing to learn from her mistakes, rather than be victimized by them. Her experiences outside of the classroom become a course she never knew she enrolled in.

As Jenny tells the headmistress in one of the film's most quietly powerful scenes: "It's not enough to educate us anymore. You've got to tell us why you're doing it." By the end of AN EDUCATION, Jenny is figuring out why. And I was figuring out that I had just seen one of the loveliest films of 2009, a charmer of a film with a depth and richness that betrays the lightness of its running time, romance and trendy, early-60s nightlife.

4.0 out of 4

Invictus (2009)

I will look back on the 2000s as the "Clint Eastwood decade" in film. No other director, in my opinion, had as solid of a track record, with nary a misfire out of the nine films he cranked out over the past ten years. He was Woody Allen-prolific, and that's saying something, as Allen himself continued what is basically his "one a year" pace and even returned to his quality highpoint this decade with "Match Point."

Eastwood did better still. When I get around to making my list of the top 40 films of the 2000s, it will certainly include "Million Dollar Baby" and "Letters From Iwo Jima." The day this man is asked by the big guy to join him upstairs will be a day of self-imposed mourning. Longer than a day.

Preparing to hit 80, Eastwood reenters his familiar award-season-release territory with INVICTUS, starring Morgan Freeman (a faithful friend and collaborator of Eastwood's) as Nelson Mandela in a no-duh act of casting. Who else is going to play Mandela? Those of us who have read about it know that Freeman and Mandela met once. They got along famously and Freeman studied him, vowed to play him when the right script came along.

I don't know if this was the right script, but it was the right director. I say that I'm not sure if it was the right script because - by all means - Mandela is worthy of his own biopic along the lines of "Malcolm X." In INVICTUS, we are limited to a snapshot of Mandela's political career from after his relase from prison and his election as president of South Africa through his first year of office. And even in this regard, his political work and the business of healing his severely divided nation is limited to the subject of rugby.

Yes, rugby.

INVICTUS thus becomes an odd sort of hybrid film. It is a swift, surface look at one of the greatest social healers since Gandhi, with an uplifting message of forgiveness and healing that is matched only by its equally traditional sports film message of overcoming the odds and winning for your country. That tired cliche gets a dusting off here, though, because it's not just weepy sports movie hoo-hah. Instead, the victories of the South African rugby team are, in essence, requested by Mandela as a means of national healing. As the story goes, Mandela chooses to support the rugby team (mostly representative of white Afrikaners and exclusive of blacks, with only one black player on the team) to make a public statement about forgiveness. He urges every black South African in his path to do the same, and you can tell how difficult this is.

Mandela takes things further, retaining the employment of many of the outgoing administration's white staff, even placing his security in the hands of white guards. This makes his head of security, who is black, suspicious of Mandela's safety. Suspicion turns to terror for him when Mandela continually insists on attending the mass-attended rugby events. Mandela's black staff members fully anticipate an assassination attempt by a white rugby fan in the audience.

When Mandela begins his rugby-promoting campaign, the sport is either largely unknown to black South Afrikaners or they root for any team that plays theirs. By the end of the World Cup run, the team appears to be unifying South Africa much as the Olympics seemed to unify China when hosting the last Olympics. This is bigger than your local sports team. We're talking bringing a nation together. It's amazing that sports can do that, but they continue to prove themselves capable of such a task.

Sorry for all of the backstory...I haven't even gotten to the quality of the film itself. Should you see it? Yes. Because although it is not Eastwood's best film of the decade, I fear that we have begun to take him for granted now as a director. So easy and effortless is his recent work, so relaxed in pace and clear in focus, that some might mistake his films for being movies that lack artistry. It is true, calling Eastwood an "auteur" might be a claim that is easier to refute than to defend. The guy started the decade by putting old men in space and ended it with his own version of "Miracle." In between, he tackled World War II from both sides, brought back Dirty Harry (in some form) with "Gran Torino" and explored the social injustices committed by the LAPD in the early 20th Century. So much for consistency in stories.

But if a consistency in theme is what is required of an auteur, it might be worth looking a little deeper. That might be there. New York Times critic A.O. Scott argues that Eastwood's calling card is revenge. In a strange way, even INVICTUS can be seen as a "killing them with kindness" sort of revenge on the system inherited by Mandela. It certainly gives me something to think about.

That concept notwithstanding, INVICTUS falls into the category of the smaller-feeling Eastwood films. The non-flashy ones, like "Gran Torino" and "Million Dollar Baby." And there have been more of these kinds of films from him lately than larger-scale affairs like "Iwo Jima" or the unusually production-heavy period piece "Changeling." But the smallness of INVICTUS might just be its strength. The limited view of the Mandela administration only serves to magnify Mandela's character and methods. And Eastwood's focus on the rugby aspect of Mandela's first year, intentionally or not, gives us one of the greatest sports films of the decade.

Matt Damon, I have yet to mention, is fantastic as the captain of the rugby team who is surprised to find the president of his country as his mentor. His accent sounds like it was tricky to master, and Damon nails it. Though a short actor, Damon piled on the muscle and looks believable as the leader of a team in such a physical sport. The mostly unknown faces that support these two main performances are all solid. There's no bad acting here, a flaw that bothered many detractors of "Gran Torino" (and one I've had to admit to myself upon repeat viewings of that film).

I was moved by INVICTUS in ways I guess I expected to be, so perhaps the film was somewhat predictable in that sense. Eastwood's direction is never flashy, so there are no grand visual moments of cinematic potency to remember. But maybe it is Eastwood's restraint that makes him so great. Because even though I still can't understand how in the hell rugby is played after watching INVICTUS, I cared a lot about those guys and what that final victory meant. Yes, the film was quiet, but it was quietly powerful, too.

3.5 out of 4

The Proposal (2009)

While I champion originality and constantly call filmmakers to task for stealing too heavily from the ideas of past films to get a laugh (see my review of "The Hangover" for an example), I also believe that there are formulas in the world of film and that, if the pieces are right, can work, no matter how familiar. Such is the case, I felt, with THE PROPOSAL.

Lest you think I'm a total movie snob, I'm here to confess two things about THE PROPOSAL. The first would be the obvious one, and that is the fact that I could see every narrative turn of this paint-by-numbers plot coming at me from a mile away. If you had given me a pen and paper at the beginning and then hit pause on the movie 15 minutes in and asked me to write the rest of the script, I would have come damn close to what really unfolds. THE PROPOSAL is as original as a jello mold, and anyone who takes me seriously as a film reviewer would expect me to say it.

But on to my second point, and my real confession...I very much enjoyed this movie. I'm nervous to say I "loved" it because a guy has to maintain some dignity here. But I very much enjoyed it. And I'm going to focus this post on the two main reasons why despite the fact that everything points to THE PROPOSAL as recycled rom-com Hollywood drivel, I was charmed by it, even though most major critics nationwide - all of them sensible - dismissed the film for what it is.

1. Lesson #1: A great cast can transcend a basic script.

What a year for Sandra Bullock! I haven't had much of an opinion about her one way or the other, and movies like this are right in her wheelhouse, so this Golden Globe-nominated performance is hardly a stretch. But she has become acting comfort food to audiences just as the familiar plot here gives the average filmgoer just what they're looking for. Then you add in Ryan Reynolds, who was almost single-handedly the reason why I loved "Van Wilder," a film a man of my tastes has no business admitting to liking. He is boy-next-door charming but, lest you take that for granted, also possesses a natural sarcastic wit. Reynolds and Bullock play together here like a classic Hollywood screen couple. THE PROPOSAL not only benefits from these two leads, but from great support work from Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson and, most noticably, the unsinkable Betty White, who essentially steals scenes as the grandma. No matter how many times you've seen it all before, if the right actors are taking you back down Familiar Lane, you'll go willingly.

2. Lesson #2: Familiarity often breeds satisfaction.

When I teach my film class each year, I teach my students to understand the conventions of genres. What makes a genre a genre IS its repeated elements and characteristics. The romantic comedy certainly has its own elements. And while we spend a lot of time being critical of films that do nothing creative with the genre elements it chooses to play by, sometimes we overlook the fact that mainstream American audiences go to a film to see those exact, familiar elements play out just as they would expect them to. For the average person, severe genre deviations are a disappointment. "Fresh," for them, is defined by a new set-up and different actors, while everything else is the same. Don't get me wrong - I'm not that guy. That's not typically good enough for me. But I can also acknowledge that there are things that just work. And one of them is a love story that seems doomed to fail, one that is not easy. Because the payoff, no matter how telegraphed (and boy, is it ever here), is still satisfying on a gut, emotional level. Boy and girl hate each other at the beginning. There's no movie unless that changes by the end. Sometimes we judge the success on the movie based on how faithfully it adheres to conventions. Well, maybe not me, but that seems to be the criteria of the mass population, doesn't it?

I could spend just as much time picking apart THE PROPOSAL as I can telling you how much I like it. I could mention that the comedy in the second half of the film becomes much more ridiculous and broad that than more sly, dry comic moments of the film's first half. I could tell you that the director, Anne Fletcher, had nowhere to go but up after her piece of shit last film, "27 Dresses," one of the worst romantic comedies I have ever seen.

But it always comes down to the way the audience feels about the characters. And while in "27 Dresses" it was virtually impossible to like the lead female character, it wasn't as difficult here. Though Bullock's Margaret tries hard to be unlikeable, she has a heart - and we get to see it. We're okay with rooting for her. For all that is completely standard - or even sub-standard - about THE PROPOSAL, it hit me at the most basic level. I liked the people in it. And the rest, at least at the time that I watched it, was forgiveable.

3.0 out of 4

Das weisse Band (The White Ribbon) (2009)

German director Michael Haneke made "Cache" in 2005, a film that was lauded by critics and made many best of the 2000s film lists, even topping one that I found online. I regret to say that I have yet to see "Cache," though it's been sitting in my Netflix queue for a few years now, sinking lower and lower on the list as more newly-available titles catch my eye.

That's a problem I will need to rectify soon, after having seen THE WHITE RIBBON (Das weisse Band). A Golden Globe nominee for best Foreign Lanuage Film, THE WHITE RIBBON is a meticulously photographed and mysterious film with a super-slow pace and a fascinating story to tell.

Shot in gorgeous, antique black and white, the cinematography and mise-en-scene are the stars of THE WHITE RIBBON. Set just before the outbreak of World War I - with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand shocking the locals toward the end of the film - THE WHITE RIBBON is set in a small German town where strange things have been happening. It is a town where repression is all but absolute; the adults, let by a few in particular, don't seem to allow their children to do anything. The town minister goes so far as to tie white ribbons to his children. A reminder, he tells them, of purity.

Despite the stifling control over the children demonstrated by most of the adults, several key items begin to indicate that trouble is brewing. Some acts of parental dictatorship cross the line into physical, emotional and even sexual abuse. And townsfolk become the victims of random acts of shocking violence that stand to tear families apart. A doctor is seriously injured. A barn is burned. A child with disabilities is tortured. And this is not all.

The action is narrated by the town's school teacher, the one who starts to figure out what is happening here. And thought I doubt that many will see this film, I don't want to spoil his revelation by revealing what he believes.

As I mentioned before, the camera work in THE WHITE RIBBON is fantastic. Haneke very frequently keeps the frames static in sumptuous medium-long shots and has his actors create the movement within the frames. This allows for a slow-moving pace, which will not be to everyone's liking. I must admit that the two-hour film felt much longer, even for me. But it seems to fit what is happening here. Even the director is exerting the tight control that the adults in his film force upon the village children.

Ultimately, THE WHITE RIBBON is about the dangers of enforcing innocence. It's about being overbearing and overprotective. It's about adults holding children accountable but not themselves. It is an interesting, if not quite emotionally satisfying, film.

3.0 out of 4

The Soloist (2009)

It just dawned on me that I forgot to post a review for THE SOLOIST, a film that I watched many weeks ago but forgot to write about. But don't worry, it's not much to write about. Sadly, THE SOLOIST takes some wind out of the sails of Joe Wright, a director who had just made two four-star films prior to this one in "Pride & Prejudice" and "Atonement." Maybe he does better work in England?

Based on a true story, THE SOLOIST centers around L.A. Times journalist Steve Lopez, who, in the aftermath of an accident that has left him with significant (but recoverable) injuries, happens upon a street musician by the name of Nathanial Ayers. Played by Jamie Foxx, Ayers is a raggedy, slightly-frightening looking guy who quickly diffuses any fear one would have of him with his sentimental violin playing. Lopez is intrigued. Maybe he has a column idea there...some story to tell.

Upon closer inspection and conversation with the not-quite-there Ayers, Lopez learns that Ayers was once enrolled at Julliard. A gifted cellist, he traded his instrument for the much more portable violin when he took to the streets later in his life. Now homeless, Ayers is mostly ignored by his family, and by the people walking by. Lopez sees the beauty through the ugliness of Ayers' appearance and the venues in which he plays, such as the undersides of viaducts.

When Lopez brings Ayers a cello as a gift from a reader who has read his column, a bond develops between the two men. But the bond is never fully realized in the film. Despite the formitable talents of Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. (one of my all-time favorites) as Lopez, we're never fully made to understand Ayers' debilitating mental state. Nor do we ever fully figure out just what draws Lopez to Ayers in friendship. At one point, Downey delivers a line to the effect of "I've never loved anything as much as he loves music," much to chagrin of the woman sitting next to him, played thanklessly by the excellent Catherine Keener. I guess this is supposed to be the point of the movie, but little comes of it.

In theory, THE SOLOIST had all the trappings of what I love in a movie and in life, and as such it adds up to one of the biggest disappointments of the year for me. I love the actors in the film. I am passionate about music and believe in its transcending and healing power. I love a story of inspiration. I love stories of friendships that transcend demographics and transform lives. So what happened?

Wright misfires in spots. In one scene, when Lopez takes Ayers to the symphony, we "see" colors swirling around: Ayers' interpretation of what he is hearing. His feeling of the music is great in theory but cinematically lousy. So, too, (sadly) is Foxx as a violin player. Kudos to method acting - Foxx really plays. But not well enough to make a stranger suspect that he might have been Julliard-trained.

There are some interesting side-tracks involving a homeless shelter where Ayers is forced to go to play the stationary cello, and late-in-the-film scenes where Lopez brings in a professional musician to attest to Ayers' greatness and a family member to confront his homelessness. It all falls surprisingly flat. In the end, I cared far less about all of these people than I had a right to, and I was as perplexed about Ayers' mental state as I was upon first being introduced to him.

THE SOLOIST just didn't work for me. And that's sad. Because on paper, it looked like beautiful music.

1.5 out 4

Julie & Julia (2009)

There's an old film critics' saying that it's very difficult to make an interesting movie about a writer. Think about that one for a second. How cinematically dramatic is the act of writing? It stands to reason, then, that Nora Ephron's JULIE & JULIA is doubly cursed, as it features the real-life stories of not one but two writers. And, for me, this cautionary warning about a film's subject matter is reinforced here.

I'll skip all of the discussion about how wonderful Meryl Streep is here as the famous chef Julia Child. Of course she's wonderful. Some have said that she alone is reason enough to see JULIE & JULIA, and while I could support that claim, that can be said of a half-dozen other Meryl Streep films or more. Not to belittle her sublime brilliance as an actress, but I have a theory that the most honored acting performances often come from mediocre films because the fantastic work of the actor sticks out like a sore thumb. Streep has been been in only a small handful of true cinematic masterpieces or anything that comes close. So naturally, her presence is a redeeming value in any film.

Here, as Child, Streep is having as much fun as she seems to have had in recent work like "Mamma Mia!," flipping that signature Child sing-song vocal pattern and towering over Stanley Tucci as Julia's loving but slightly enigmatic husband, Paul. Yes, give her an Oscar nomination. Maybe even give her the trophy; how is it that our greatest actress only possesses two statues?

Amy Adams, one of my current favorite actresses (herself already nominated twice for Oscars so early in her career), comes off less successfully as Juile Powell, a melancholy New York City woman with a puppy dog husband who will put up with just about anything, a lousy job holding the families of 9/11 victims looking for insurance payouts at bay, and a desire to make her life matter, if only she could figure out how. Her odd decision: to cook her way through Julie Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in a year. Oh, and she'll blog about it. In the process, Adams' character comes off as snotty and hard to live with. It's amazing that the always likeable Adams is almost unlikeable here.

What's interesting about all of this is that Ephron's screenplay actually gives the Powell half of the story the much more dramatically interesting arc. Nevermind what the other critics have said, that the Julia Child portion is the "better" portion and that Ephron could have done away with the Julie Powell portion. I read those reviews before I saw the film. And I disagree. I think people are so blindsided by Meryl's transcending presence that they are forgetting that her entire half of the movie, from a dramatic perspective, involves little more than Child's collaboration with two other women on that cookbook. The film does not cover any other aspects of her personal life. True, her marriage is surprisingly rich with love and warmth -- surprising because Child's TV personality was always slightly formal and hoity-toity. But Ephron botches many dramatic opportunities, such as her husband's brush with McCarthyism, in favor of the more banal pursuit of will-she-or-won't-she-get-her-cookbook-finished. Which, of course, she does.

Powell's life, by contrast, is structured around more inherent conflict, though Ephron remains in the shallow end of the pool for her story as well. Julie's job, by all accounts, is horrible. Her decision to find purpose by becoming the Carrie Bradshaw of cooking by recreating all of Child's recipies and blogging about it is quirky but interesting. Nevermind the fact that we are never asked to believe how she and her husband can afford the groceries. The charm, I guess, is seeing her put together these formal recipies in the dive kitchen of a small apartment. But her obsession causes her to be destructive in her relationships, and she becomes so unlikeable that Ephron throws in one lunch scene where Powell is seated with three friends who are exponentially less likeable and more self-centered so that the audience can forgive Powell for her own selfishness.

Neither storyline does enough to develop the husband characters. One comes off as inexplicably loving and sweet and the other is, by all accounts, a doormat. When Julie's husband leaves her briefly (and suddenly, in terms of the film's narrative development), the reconcilliation of the marriage that occurs a few scenes later with him asking her "what's for dinner?" Shame on you, Nora Ephron!

I wish we could have known more about Julie Child: how she got to where she was and what happened after her book was finally published. Because just waiting for her to get a book deal was, frankly, boring. And the film's one true moment of cinematic tension, which comes when the stories of the two women intersect via a phone call detailing Child's reaction to Powell's blog experiment, is glossed over in that Ephron-y, "Sleepless in Seattle" sort of way. It's a cop out and is resolved in a way that makes me appreciate Powell even less.

In the end, JULIE & JULIA attempts to entertain the audience with duelling stories about one woman who is writing a book in the mid 20th Century with pen, paper and a typewriter, and another woman who is writing a book (well, the blog becomes one) in the early 21st Century at a computer screen. And if that sounds interesting to you, you'll love JULIE & JULIA. Because that's all you'll get.

2.0 out of 4

Inglorious Basterds (2009)

I get annoyed by the rabid fanbase for Quentin Tarantino and the film snob in me feels like it's too soon to be lauding him as the one of the greatest film directors of modern times. Maybe it's his punk attitude when giving interviews, or his genre-blurring narrative incoherence, or maybe it's just the fact that folks who worship at the altar of Tarantino usually lack the film history background to understand where his ideas are coming from.

With that in mind, I watched INGLORIOUS BASTERDS with every intention of hating it. Not only was I expecting Tarantino to mess with history, but I fully expected to find aspects of his treatment of a sensitive subject (the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis) to be offensive, and I anticipated visual delights with no real emotional attachments.

I got all of that.

I also got something else: the feeling that if you truly love the movies, you almost have to love INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, if not Tarantino himself. I have not had this much fun watching a film in quite some time, and there are a few scenes in particular that stand for me among the best I've seen this year.

Rather than writing a coherent review, I'm going to talk about this one Tarantino-style to explain what I enjoyed about the movie:

1. THE ACTING. Tarantino has a knack for working his actors into intense, comedy-tinged performances that border on vaudeville without quite slathering on the blackface. Characters such as Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine are absurd. You can't tell if Pitt is giving one of his best performances or one of his worst. The ridiculously brilliant Christoph Waltz (my pick for Best Supporting Actor so far) veers from the intense control of an A-list dramatic actor to moments of camp that border on the Mike Myers-esque. Clever segue there, too, because Tarantino had the cajones to actually cast Mike Myers in a completely straight role; he's virtually unrecognizable and reeled in more than Robin Williams was for "Good Will Hunting." The two lead female performances, Melanie Laurent as a Jew who escapes the film's opening massacre only to plot her revenge and, even better, Diane Kruger as a smokin', Veronica Lake-styled actress, are fantastic and award-worthy themselves. Hell, even film director Eli Roth, as bad as his acting is, fits right in. You have to give Tarantino credit. He gets everyone to buy into it. Actors with one scene in the movie are as memorable as the leads.

2. THE TAVERN SCENE. About halfway through the film, Tarantino stages a scene at a tavern that lasts for about a fifth of the entire film's running time. That might sound like a scene that lasts too long for many modern filmgoers, but to me, it was an exemplar sample of pace, timing and story development. In the scene, a few men affiliated with the Basterds are to rendezvous with the actress (and spy) Bridget von Hammersmark. The scene opens in classic Tarantino fashion with von Hammersmark holding court amidst a group of rowdy, drunken SS privates, all passionately engaged in a guessing game involving writing down the name of a celebrity and sticking that name on one's forehead so that everyone but the person with the card can see it and then engaging in a game similar to "20 questions." Did that game exist back in the 1940s? Shit, no. In fact, most viewers will most likely think of the now-famous episode of "The Office" that centers around the same game. But that's why it's brilliant here. Because Tarantino makes it fit in like it belongs there. I won't spoil the scene if you haven't seen the movie yet, but it evolves from this opening to intense, slow conversations of suspicion and, before it's over, employs not one but two Mexican standoffs (one of Tarantino's auteur touches) and a spray of bullets and blood (another). If I was a professional film critic, I'd have written three stars down as soon as that scene ended. That scene alone is worthy of it.

3. THE HOMAGES. Watching INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, I heard Ennio Morricone. I saw Leni Riefenstahl-inspired propaganda film footage (meticulously recreated by Tarantino himself). The film is a spaghetti Western disguised as a World War II film, with classic touches thrown in, such as an iconic through-the-doorframe shot lifted right from John Ford's "The Searchers." The plot is less non-linear than other Tarantino films like "Pulp Fiction," and yet just as "classic Tarantino": trippy, screwy, audacious, ridiculous. And perhaps the greatest tribute Tarantino pays here is to the movies themselves. Now famous as the guy who learned how to make movies by watching too many of them as a video store employee, Tarantino has certainly cemented his perfection of his own, loving blend of the classics. How can you love movies and not enjoy sifting through his final products to identify their ingredients? The fact that this particular film ends in a movie theatre and that, if you put the proper spin on it, the cinema itself (in Tarantino's rewrite of history) is what ends the terror reign of the Third Reich, is a crazy poetic justice. Even the moments where we see old fashioned film editing and how celluloid reels are operated are a joy for true movie lovers.

Now, with all of this said, you might assume that I have completely changed my opinion about Tarantino...that I've let down my guard and now finally embrace him as the master that he's gunning to be. And despite all of my foaming at the mouth about INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, which might just be my favorite Tarantino film now (though I need more time to process), it still holds the one fundamental flaw that all Tarantino films hold...the thing that keeps any of them from being true masterpieces in my mind. And that is the fact that, when it's all said and done, I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the film but never - at any time - cared what happened to any of its characters.

For as clever as Tarantino is at doing all of the things I've talked about here, he has yet to make me truly feel for a character. He seems uncapable of forging a genuine emotional connection. I think he tries. He just doesn't succeed. Yes, the girl who goes for revenge here escapes a family massacre. We can surely feel bad for her about that. But she runs out of the film at the beginning and shows up later for her revenge. None of the Basterds, as great as they are, are grounded with human backstories. The best characters are simply the most entertaining. No emotional connections are needed with Tarantino films because Tarantino seems preoccupied with demonstrating how clever he is. And he is.

All of this said, I can and will watch INGLORIOUS BASTERDS multiple times. And it takes a master of movie-making to make a film this long (over 2 1/2 hours) worth repeat viewings. And since Tarantino does this, I'd better start elevating him to the status I've denied him thus far.

3.5 out of 4

The Hangover (2009)

Director Todd Phillips was at the forefront of this past decade's trend of the grown-men-acting-like-sophomore-boys film when, in 2003, he tapped Will Ferrell and company to make "Old School." To some degree, the problem that plagues his latest, THE HANGOVER, is the fact that this genre has been so beaten down in the past few years that it's hard to do anything fresh with it.

If you are entertained by grown men swearing a lot and having random and inexplicable things happen to them, you'll likely love THE HANGOVER. I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh gymnastically at a good half dozen scenes in the film. And yet the entire time, I kept thinking to myself that this was just "Superbad" with guys who were 20 years older. In both cases, the entire film serves, in a sense, as one continuous trajectory gag. The boys of "Superbad" want to attend a rocking party where they feel they can lose their virginity. The boy-men of THE HANGOVER want to go to Vegas for a batchelor party and have the time of their lives.

There are things about THE HANGOVER that work very well. Most successfully, the plot calls for a loss of memory that we've not seen on film at this scale since "Memento." It's a simple plot construct that makes the film more interesting; we begin toward the end of the story and, like the characters, are exposed to random oddities that no one can explain. Why is there a baby in the hotel suite? Why is there a tiger? How did one of the groomsmen marry a stripper? What happens in Vegas, as they say. But in this case, the guys have no choice. None of them remember themselves! Oh, and the groom is missing.

The core cast of Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha are great as the wayward partiers, and clever surprise cameos and small character roles make the film funny straight through the closing credits (literally).

And yet while this film was certainly very funny, I think the clever nature of the story's construct, which has the audience coming to understand what has been happening just as the guys figure it out, is about the only thing that's fresh here. Virtually everything else feels used, borrowed or stolen! The wedding singer who performs inappropriate songs? See "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." The geek who gets the girl? See a dozen other movies. And it's hard not to watch THE HANGOVER without feeling that more than just a few moments were stolen from "Harold and Kumar," among other substance-altered, road-tripping buddies.

In the end, I have to admit to being more than just a little enterained by THE HANGOVER. I am grounded enough, however, to see how derivitave it is. Funny, solid, average. Good, but not great.

3.0 out of 4

The Hurt Locker (2009)

With a suspenseful intensity that creates some of the most visceral memories of any film this year, THE HURT LOCKER is one of those movies that people couldn't be bothered with at the time of its release. Folks who missed it-myself included-will soon be clammoring to see what turns out to be one of the finest war films of the almost-finished decade, especially as THE HURT LOCKER begins to create the profile it never had this summer, thanks to a steady stream of awards and accolades.

The current conflict in Iraq has been the subject of some fantastic documentary films in the past few years, such as "Standard Operating Procedure," "Iraq in Fragments" and "No End in Sight," but fictional films on the subject have been mostly limited to homefront conflicts, such as "In the Valley of Elah." Not that I've seen every film made about the current military conflict, but I'd say that THE HURT LOCKER is easily one of the best war films of the decade. It's certainly the best about this military conflict, and joins "Black Hawk Down" and "Three Kings" as a time capsule to represent America's war efforts in the last 25 years.

Perhaps it might surprise some that behind the lens of this intense, suspenseful war film is a woman. Kathryn Bigelow, though, is an action film director, and one used to playing with the boys. Her hits like "Point Break" and "Strange Days" have not been awards fare, but that will change this year. I expect Bigelow to join the very elite club of Oscar-nominated female directors.

But enough about the background perspective...why should you see THE HURT LOCKER? For one thing, it contains a fantastic lead performance by Jeremy Renner, a virtual no-name starring as a specialist who diffuses bombs. He's brought in after the previous man on the job meets the fate that one would expect men in this position to be all too prone to, and this guy almost gives you the impression that his work and situation is fun.

So cocky is Staff Sgt. James (Renner) in his job that he defies orders, disconnects personal communication devices and fights his fellow soldiers for enjoyment. He'd be the loose cannon cop in a buddy movie (like Mel Gibson in "Lethal Weapon") if he wasn't also fully-aware of his situation - and good at it. James might be hard to relate to on some levels, but you know you want him by your side.

There are at least three sequences in the film (one at the beginning, one about a half-hour in and one near the end) that are heart-pounding, and Bigelow relies on the normally motion sickness-inducing and slightly cliched (for war films) tactic of shaky handheld camera work to add to the gravitas of what we're seeing. But Bigelow avoids MTV-style edits and camera trickery. In one very steady and memory-burning moment, she simply pulls the camera back to an overhead shot while James discovers that the wire he's tugging on is attached to not just one bomb, but many, each bomb ominously rising from the sand in unison around him at the urging of his steady and gentle pulling of the wire. It's a terrifying moment.

THE HURT LOCKER has a number of terrifying moments, from the off-putting way that Iraqi civilians (or maybe self-sacrificing terrorists) stand in plain view as the military bomb squad works, to the side-story investigation of the demise of a local boy to whom James has become attached. And to cement the sloppiness of this war and its unfinished business, the film's penultimate scene on the home front is note-perfect in its demonstration of how a soldier like James is actually more in his element at war than in the cereal aisle at the grocery store.

The world of film has done so much to capture some of the famous miltary conflicts in U.S. history. Bet on THE HURT LOCKER to join this list. It's intense.

4.0 out of 4