Date: March 28
Location: Clifton Living Room

There is so much working for this movie, and one big thing working against it. First the positives. The acting is uniformly excellent, with Emile Hirsch delivering a haunting performance that should have been recognized by the Academy — he is alternately charming, obnoxious and desperate, and pulls off one of those DeNiro-esque body transformations that makes the film’s last scenes particularly distubing. Hal Holbrook, Vince Vaughn and Catherine Keener (among others) flesh out their supporting roles superbly, painting a portrait of American life outside the spotlight and making McCandless’ fate even more poignant. The photography is lovely, especially in long shots of the Alaskan wilderness that drive home just how far this young man went to escape civilization. Eddie Vedder’s original songs are lovely, and were wrongly overlooked by the Academy.

So what’s the negative? Sean Penn, simultaneously the film’s biggest asset and it’s fatal flaw. Penn does a wonderful job shaping the story, putting us in McCandless’ shoes (or bare feet), telling a sad story without losing sight of the spirit behind the young man’s journey. But he wields his camera like a blunt object. I really appreciate cinematic masterminds like Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen Brothers when I see a showy director fall flat. Penn throws in every trick in the book — freeze frames, slow- and fast-motion, jump cuts, you name it. But why? The story is most effective when he just settles in and shows us two people talking, or delivers a breathtaking overhead shot of a small bus lost in a sea of mountains. The show-offy stuff distracts and detracts from an otherwise special movie.

Date: March 14, 2008
Location: Clifton Living Room

As if we needed more proof that the Oscar documentary selection committee has its collective head up it ass! This extraordinary film is not just the best documentary released last year, it’s easily one of the best films overall. It starts out as a puff piece on a 4-year-old girl who paints abstract works that sell to serious collectors for tens of thousands of dollars. It ends up as a powerful, sad and provocative exploration of art, the media and parenting.

Filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev walks the finest line imagineable, inserting himself into his film at a key turning point without losing focus on the true subjects. He manages to make a statement about the creative roles not just of the little girl and her parents, but of a documentary filmmaker, a print journalist, a TV journalist, and the masses who are so quick to both celebrate and tear down those who fascinate us. I watched this on DVD this morning but didn’t put it back in the mail to NetFlix because I already want to watch it again.

Date: March 11
Location: Clifton Living Room

It’s impossible to watch this film and not compare it to Before Sunset. As in Sunset, Julie Delpy (who wrote, directed, edited and even scored this film) plays a romantically-confused French woman wandering through Paris conversing with her snarky American boyfriend. Her parents even return, playing her parents, just as they did in Sunset.

The problem is, just about any film suffers in comparison to Richard Linklater’s classic, so a film that so brazenly mimics it really doesn’t stand a chance. Delpy and Adam Goldberg do their best with the often-clever script, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was with the wrong guy. I had no investment in the romance, and the neuroses grew old rather quickly. The plot was also contrived — Delpy’s character keeps running into old boyfriends — in a way the Linklater film (and its “prequel” Before Sunrise) never did.

I like both of these actors quite a bit and would love to see them (together or separately) in a film that isn’t a blatant copy of one of my all-time favorites.

Date: March 4
Location: Clifton Living Room

I’m glad movies like this are being made, and I’m glad writer/director Noah Baumbach is interested in making them. I’m just not so sure I want to watch them. It’s talky, raw, darkly funny and (to borrow a phrase I heard from an elderly woman following The English Patient) “very European.”

Nicole Kidman does wonderful work as the deeply flawed title character, a woman who shows affection by mistreating her loved ones. She and Jennifer Jason Leigh, playing her sister, have great chemistry and their scenes feel painfully real. Also memorable is newcomer Zane Pais, playing Kidman’s son, and shining in some achingly uncomfortable scenes. It’s all very well done, but how much fun is it to watch unlikeable people attack each other for 90 minutes? Some, but not a lot.

Date: February 27
Location: Clifton Living Room

The Paul Haggis Redemption Tour continues. To make up for the atrocity that was Crash, Haggis first co-wrote the screenplay of 2006’s excellent Casino Royale — a strong move, but he was a hired gun so it didn’t quite count. In the Valley of Elah, however, is a full-blown return to auteur mode, and it’s a splendid one. This is an anti-war film disguised as a murder mystery, anchored by a beautifully understated (and deservedly Oscar-nominated) performance by Tommy Lee Jones. Jones is the perfect actor for Haggis. He’s incapable of insincerity. He plays a weary ex-military man, the father of an AWOL soldier, with such grit and dignity that he never becomes a conduit for Haggis’ message. The message is there, no doubt, but it is completely earned. Charlize Theron does nice work as the detective working alongside Jones and small supporting roles by Jason Patric, Josh Brolin (what a year he had!) and James Franco all hit the right note. Once again I’m staggered by how strong a year 2007 was, and here’s the latest example.