REIGN OVER ME

Written and Directed by Mike Binder


Charlie Fineman: I don’t like this.
I don’t like remembering.

Sometimes it takes a catastrophe to shut a man down and sometimes it happens little by little over time and no one knows until its already happened. REIGN OVER ME is the story of two such men who find themselves in similar positions despite the drastically different paths that got them there. Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) is a successful New York dentist, who has his own practice, a gorgeous apartment and a family that loves him. He is coasting comfortably on his success until he happens to cross his college roommate on the street one day. Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler) doesn’t do any coasting, except on his motorized scooter. Charlie lost his wife, three daughters and family dog on September 11th, 2001. They were on one of the planes that crashed into the towers and he was on his way to meet them at the airport when it happened. Charlie had his life taken from him in one moment while Alan has let his slip through his fingers over the course of his entire life.


Writer/Director, Mike Binder (THE UPSIDE OF ANGER), has placed all the elements carefully to allow for these two men to heal each other only he has forgotten to connect them or give them any personality of their own. The film itself does its own coasting as it presumes that its supposed bravery to deal with post-traumatic stress experienced by those touched directly by the events of September 11th is original enough to sustain itself. The presumption is that anyone with a soul will allow their heart to go out to this man because they can still feel the pain from that day. I have a soul and I still feel the pain but my heart doesn’t automatically go out to a man just because you tell me he’s ruined. Even Sandler, who showed great dramatic promise in PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE, relies too heavily on audience expectation, allowing his Dylan-esque mess of a haircut and inability to sit still to show his hurt. The alternative is to show what Charlie went through that led him to this place in his life but no one needs to be bombarded with that imagery again. Only, the planes crashing into the towers was just the beginning of Charlie’s experience. The emptiness that followed is what specifically hollowed Charlie Fineman and there is no trace of that pain in the film until it is too late.


Binder also had a difficult time balancing out the two separate experiences of his characters. As Charlie has the showier, more intense trauma to deal with, Alan’s lessons to learn become an afterthought. The divide is uneven but I almost wish Alan’s plight had been given little to no thought. It is both tired and tedious to tell of a man who achieved all of his goals but somehow eluded happiness. It is then also all too simple and increasingly irritating to blame these problems on the wife. Alan’s wife (Jada Pinkett Smith) makes him dinner, wants to speak openly with him and spend time together learning new things. She is making an effort and doing her part and all he can do is resent her for it because it’s a lot easier than facing the fact that he is responsible for his own happiness. Helping Charlie becomes a convenient way to avoid both his own problems and his wife. Of course, he learns that his wife is not to blame for his dissatisfaction but you know that he will from the moment you see there is a problem. There is no other solution that could lead both the film and the character to resolution. In fact, ultimate resolution is what removes all urgency from the film. Charlie and Alan meet and there is no question that they will learn from each other. So obvious is the point of this film that it becomes entirely predictable.


REIGN OVER ME opens and closes with shots of the streets of New York City. As the people scurry through the maze, it is obvious that there are stories of pain and loss from September 11th still waiting to be told. This one however never quite feels real. Instead, it feels calculated and constructed which is made even sadder as it misses the emotional pay off it seems so bent on getting. Charlie doesn’t want to remember that day. He doesn’t want to remember everything he once had, that he was once happy without having to try to be. He is hardly alone though. Many have tried to forget that day and the wounds that were suffered. I seriously doubt that REIGN OVER ME is the way they will want to remember again.

<

CASHBACK

Written and Directed by Sean Ellis


Ben: What is love anyway?
And is it really that fleeting?

It would be real easy for me to say that CASHBACK is so offensive, it will make you want to demand your precious cash back. Only that isn’t fair. Writer/Director Sean Ellis’s expansion of his 2004 Oscar nominated short film of the same name can be juvenile, unconvincing and entirely misogynistic, but it somehow manages to retain some level of tenderness and endearment that makes for a more often soothing than not experience. Having just broken up with his first serious girlfriend, Ben Willis (Sean Biggerstaff) loses the ability to sleep. He quickly grows tired of flicking the lights on and off repeatedly and reading all of the novels he always meant to, sometimes twice, to pass the time, and decides to get an overnight job at a grocery store a week into his new sleepless existence. (He is a speed-reader, apparently.) Here, he meets a group of quirky coworkers who provide a safe place for him to heal his wounds and let his imagination run wild in the cereal aisle. Somewhere between frozen foods and canned goods lies the secret to understanding love – how it begins, how it grows and how it spoils. If only there weren’t so many breasts to distract us.


Despite its earnest approach, CASHBACK’s quest to understand love needs a serious cleanup in aisle four. From the opening shot, the film’s slanted view of the male/female love experience is clear to all. In close-up and slow motion, a woman stares directly into the camera and goes into a psychotic rage. Her hair is flailing; her eyes beam with uncontrollable hatred. Not before long, she is throwing things. The shot introduces her as an irrational lunatic while the director frames this scenario as typical, supposedly relatable for any man. The film then cuts to Ben. He is docile, put upon and glassy-eyed. How could this be happening, he asks himself. He has such an innocent face. There could not possibly be any justification for this crazy woman’s fit. In this situation, she is the devil and he is the innocent. Ben’s narration is all we hear throughout this exchange, which leads me to wonder if maybe Ben is not more responsible for the love lost than Ellis appears to be suggesting. Yelling though she may be, Ben isn’t listening to a word she is saying. All progression begins with listening.


Ben does spend a lot of time listening to the sound of his own voice mind you. It keeps him isolated from his peers and keeps him from having any genuine human interactions. In fact, to pass the time while he works, Ben imagines that time has stopped and that he is the only one who can walk freely through it. What does this young artist do with this remarkable ability? Why he exposes the private parts of the female grocery store patrons by pulling up shirts and pulling down skirts of course. He proceeds to whip out his sketchpad and draw these half-naked beauties while reminiscing about his life’s experience with the opposite sex and the discovery of the female form. An encounter with a Swedish boarder when he was pre-adolescent exposed him to the wonders of the female anatomy and it seems he has not been able to see anything else since. But if he is capable of seeing artistic beauty in an open bag of peas on a grocery store floor, then how is it that everything that is beautiful about a woman is found only in her nakedness and never in her soul?


Somehow, Ben deriving art from his time-stopping, breast-exposing experience justifies what would ordinarily be seen as sexual assault. By telling this story, Ellis positions himself in a similar position on the fine line between art and objectification. While CASHBACK did get me to see love as life slowing down with someone else so that you can see all the beauty it has to offer together, it also made me feel uncomfortable. I was not at odds with myself and the physical act of watching so many nude bodies fill the screen. I was not even scandalized by the demeaning imagery. By now, I am accustomed to the male gaze. I was more so embarrassed to be watching a new filmmaker with such a romantic longing and vivid eye offer an art piece that does nothing more than expose an ego that thinks with the wrong head.

300

Written by Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Michael Gordon
Directed by Zack Snyder


Additional review writing by Trevor Adams

Spartan King Leonides: Pray that they are not so dumb.
Pray that we are lucky.


Have you ever heard of a little argument called, “Style vs. Substance?” If you haven’t, I’m afraid I cannot help you. You must stop reading now. No, seriously, of course you know the debate. In a visual world, what holds more relevance, the way something looks or what is ultimately being said? When related to film, some would argue that style can and should exist without the burden of having to show meaning, that a provocative, effective aesthetic can stand alone. Others would argue that beauty is only skin deep and that without meaning or attention placed on other areas of focus, one is left with an empty experience. In this review, this argument will be applied to Zack Snyder’s 300, a film that is drawing mass hordes of people to the theatre to feast upon its blood soaked violence, based on the Frank Miller (SIN CITY) graphic novel. Included amidst these masses are my roommate, Trevor Adams, and myself. Trevor will argue for style and I will argue for substance. Trevor has a background in animation and special effects and carries with him a childhood love for comic books and video games. All of these influences lent weight to his enjoyment of 300. If you’re a regular reader and you know me at all, you know that I am most satisfied by well-strung words that are given even more meaning by appropriate and innovate visuals. Trevor and I are two people with often similar views that left the theatre entirely polarized. Whereas he saw art, I saw a failed attempt.


TREVOR: Truthfully, I’m not so much a fan of blue/green-screen filmmaking. If the recent STAR WARS films are examples of using this technology to create an entire feature, why would I be interested at all in seeing this 300 film? 300 Spartans acting in front of a screen that would later be replaced by computer graphics just didn’t appeal to me as a concept. I blame the trailer for convincing me of otherwise. In its 2 minutes, I knew that this was going to become an important art film that would have to fight to assert its value. The frames are painted in a way that they create an astoundingly beautiful, living comic book. I’ve treated myself to reading a number of comics in the last few weeks and although the stories and dialogue make my eyes roll in a way that sometimes gets me dizzy, the drawings, color and composition keep me heavily interested and eagerly turning to the next page. 300 is no different. A single film frame can be worth a thousand words of script. The fight sequences are so strikingly rendered, I found myself at points begging for the director to slow down so I could absorb more of each and every frame … and in fact, at times, that was exactly what he did. My appreciation of this film lies not within the 300 naked Spartans or the violence they promote that brought on the comic book geeks and raving macho WWE crowd, but rather within the frames of perfection that I was given. I was so filled with love for what my eyes were witnessing, the style became the substance of this film.


JOE: It’s not that I cannot applaud 300 for its innovation and effort. The framing at times approaches a higher level of art and the tonality and quality of the film are engrossing, despite the obvious GLADIATOR influence. What GLADIATOR had that 300 does not is depth, a more personal sense of urgency and purpose. Spartan King Leonides fights with passion and love for his empire but his almost entirely faceless army fights blindly alongside him. 300 spends little time establishing itself historically and even less time developing its cast past their drone status so what you are left with is a bunch of boys in battle. It is violence for its own sake and its energy is not enough to overlook the banalities of their dialogue or the ridiculous fashion in which that dialogue is delivered. Even the look wears thin. As one fight leads to another with little to no other development taking place in between, the cheaper elements of the design unveil themselves. Gimmicky monsters appear to attempt new levels of excitement and the skimpy outfits and painted-on abs of the Spartans draw attention to the film’s thinly veiled intentions. 300 is nothing more than a stylized masturbatory fantasy of violence, blood and misogyny. In other words, it is pure Frank Miller.


TREVOR: The story is simple in 300. It doesn’t try to hide itself under any complicated military strategies, nor does it weave in any intricate politics within the Spartan government. Zack Snyder simply connects the simple dots of Frank Miller’s story and then beautifully paints his colors within and around those lines. It’s not that I couldn’t go on and on about the elements that bothered me in this film (i.e. the Golem-like ogre character; the horribly-acted Xerxes; or the simple fact that this was based on a Frank Miller comic book), but I‘d rather take the same approach I did in exiting the cinema: Focus on what I loved. No film is perfect, but there can be perfect moments. This film had about 300 of them.

JOE: There are certainly a select group of film and graphic geeks, like Trevor, who will see this film with the sole purpose of devouring its visual extravagance. It is their art and I do not begrudge them of it. As far as I am concerned though, when a filmmaker spends all of his focus on one element of style and allows for so many other formal aspects to just get by on their own, you are left with a hollow shell. 300 is beautiful but beauty fades fast when there is nothing underneath.

TREVOR

JOE

ZODIAC

Written by James Vanderbilt
Directed by David Fincher


Melanie: Why do you need to do this?
Robert: Because nobody else will.

Who doesn’t like to play games? You face the other players dead on and you struggle to retain control over the board, keeping everyone else guessing as to what your next move will be. In the 1960’s and 70’s, one such game player, who called himself the Zodiac, decided all by himself that he would start his own game. He would decide who the players would be and he would make up all the rules. The stakes in his game though were a slight bit higher than your average game of Risk. Drawing his inspiration from a 1932 film entitled “The Most Dangerous Game”, where a man hunts other humans because he feels them to be the most dangerous animal of all, the Zodiac began a series of senseless killings that terrorized the people of San Francisco. And this was just the start for this game. The Zodiac sent letters to several prominent San Francisco media outlets, demanding that they print his confessions and their accompanying ciphers on their front page. Fearing that the Zodiac would make good on the threats his letters contained if they didn’t, the messages ran and the public went into a state of mass paranoia and fear. As the killings and messages went on for years, the Zodiac baffled the police and the public with a mystery that remains inconclusively unsolved.


Another man who clearly enjoys his game play is director David Fincher. In SE7EN, he toyed with our morals; in FIGHT CLUB, he split personalities and teased our collective subconscious; and in PANIC ROOM, he locked us in a tiny space and made us feel like we couldn’t breathe. He even made a movie entitled THE GAME at one point. For his first film in five years, Fincher plays with our basic need to understand and to make sense of something. ZODIAC bounces back and forth between an exhausting police investigation that spreads across numerous jurisdictions, the frightening killings themselves and the life of a cartoonist who develops a fascination with the Zodiac that eventually becomes a crippling obsession. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, the real life man who went from drawing satirical cartoons for the San Francisco Chronicle to writing the definitive book on the Zodiac killings. Graysmith is a natural when it comes to solving puzzles so when he is exposed through his position at the SF Chronicle to private information regarding the killings, he needs to piece this one together too. It is the mother of all puzzles and there is no way he can let it go unsolved.


Subsequently, we too need to figure this whole mess out. Fincher makes it so Graysmith’s obsession becomes ours as well by allowing us to have only certain pieces of the puzzle at certain times. The sheer vastness of how far the Zodiac’s murders were spread out meant that many clues went undeveloped because they needed others to be brought to light. Fittingly, ZODIAC is one of the darkest films I’ve seen. Yes, I meant that to suggest that it is twisted and sick like any serial killer film should be but I was referring more to Harris Savides’s stark use of lighting throughout. Light tends more to showcase than fill which keeps the viewer just as in the dark as the police and the San Francisco public. Even the humour is dark. James Vanderbilt’s script is dizzying as it travels back and forth between the vast number of lives affected by the Zodiac but he still manages to find laughs amidst a mass murder investigation. The laughs may feel awkward but ZODIAC is meant to be uncomfortable and, like any harrowing and consuming experience, it would be impossible to make it through it if we didn’t laugh every once in a while.


Captions constantly remind the viewer that time is passing by at a rapid rate yet at no point does the film feel long. While the passage of time reflects the reality of the events that took place, it also ensures the viewer knows how frustrating the entire investigation was. All involved went years without coming to any substantiated conclusions. With the central focus of their lives not making any sense, it became impossible to connect with the rest of their surroundings. ZODIAC is an intensely involving mystery that is both chilling and infuriating in all the right ways. It is itself its own puzzle remaining to be solved. Without understanding, there is no security or certainty. Just like a game of checkers or going out on a first date, success depends on figuring out the other player as much as it involves understanding yourself. The same applies to the investigation of the Zodiac killings. You will need to know how and why it happened but you will not really want to, considering to fully understand this mystery means staring into the eyes of a murderer who kills for sport. Good game, Mr. Fincher.

THE 2006 MOUTON D'OR AWARDS

AND THE MOUTON D’OR GOES TO …

That’s right. I called it a MOUTON D’OR. You got a problem with that? Wait. Why am I being so defensive? I guess because I anticipate a loud, collective groan being let out after I post this. Of course, that theory presumes that enough people would be logging on to the site to let out a groan that would be reasonably audible. Not to mention, they would all have to be online at the same time for it be collective. Anyway, no matter. It’s time to give away some MOUTON D’OR love to some very deserving films and performances. And seeing as how you are in fact here and reading my neurotic rambling, that is what matters most.

I think I’ve complained enough about how rotten 2006 was for film. Uninspired! Tired! Inconsistent! You name the film critic cliché and I’ve said it. Only, as I went through my nominations for the Best of 2006, something I was not expecting happened. It was actually difficult to choose a winner in some of these categories. Not all but definitely some. The films that did rise above the heaps of crap were somewhat spectacular. Yes, some were flawed but their flaws have become endearing with time. The movies that I cherished most this year have all grown in my esteem and touched or enlightened me in ways I did not think they would have been able to.

In January, I narrowed down my favorites from 2006 and the time has now come to further narrow these already short lists to even shorter lists made up of just one. That one is the winner of the highly coveted MOUTON D'OR … well, theoretically coveted, as a physical statuette does not actually exist at this moment. All in due time. And now the winners …


BEST POPCORN MOVIE

The nominees in this category are here because they succeeded in being big, enjoyable, and entertaining without being standard Hollywood fair, with all the trappings of a formula film.

CASINO ROYALE had a raw energy to its quick action and successfully reinvigorated the Bond franchise but I can’t let it win just because Daniel Craig was unbelievably delicious. THE DEPARTED blew me away. It was tense and full of life, not something I was expecting from Scorcese but it’s got holes that ultimately undermine the whole thing. The music from DREAMGIRLS is in constant rotation on my ipod but a great soundtrack does not make for an equally great film. V FOR VENDETTA was explosive, surprisingly witty and brave but only slightly less brave than the winner of this year’s MOUTON D’OR.
2006’s Best Popcorn Movie was bold and hilarious. There was rarely a moment I was not in stitches and I was constantly impressed with just how far and just how accusatory the film was willing to be. For literally being the ballsiest film of the year, the MOUTON D'OR for Best Popcorn Movie goes to

BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKING BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN




BEST LITTLE THINK PIECE

The nominees in this category made the most of their small budgets and limited exposure to leave a deep mark on this here filmgoer that stayed long after the lights came up.

DEATH OF A PRESIDENT was classy, stylish and civilized. It made insinuations about the future of a Bush-run America without calling on easy attack points. HALF NELSON was a dizzying and honest look at a man in desperate need of change whose job it is to teach about historical change. HARD CANDY was the visual equivalent of eating an incredibly colorful candy that was entirely too difficult to swallow. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE was beautiful, quirky and much more enjoyable the second time around for me. All of these movies give you more the more you watch them but none match the dark, twisted, hilarious depth of this year’s winner by director, Todd Field, a man I believe will one day be described as one of the greats. For exposing suburbia as the supposedly grown up elementary school playground it is, the 2006 MOUTON D’OR for Best Little Think Piece goes to …

LITTLE CHILDREN




THE WORST FILM I SAW ALL YEAR

Make no mistake, this category does not dishonour the worst movie of the year because I have not seen every movie released this year. However, of those I’ve seen, these were the most appalling by far.

Despite its record breaking success, I found BON COP, BAD COP to be entirely unfunny and I am still puzzled as to why it is considered a step forward for Canadian cinema when it is nothing more than LETHAL WEAPON 20 years later. FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION flies by but is awkwardly acted and edited into a confusing mess when it could have been a contender given its promising premise. The first few minutes of IDLEWILD are energizing and get you bouncing in your seat but it quickly turns into a sequence of pointless music videos that are only more frustrating to watch because you can see the obvious story that should have been followed waiting in the wings. SORRY, HATERS is a movie you have likely never heard of because it got no play. It has somehow managed to get recognized at the Independent Spirit Awards, which has made me wholly disinterested in their opinion. It is so horrible a look at post-September 11th angst that it only serves to further demonstrate how much I hated this year’s loser. For thinking it actually had style when it was nothing more than a poorly executed Ikea ad; for it’s laughably flat performances from leads Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles; for sickeningly using footage of real life atrocities to further its own plot that the devil is coming; and for remaking a movie just because the year happened to have a convenient 6-6-6 release date, 2006’s MOUTON D’OR for The Worst Movie I Saw All Year goes to …

THE OMEN




THE TREVOR ADAMS ANIMATED FEATURE AWARD

2006 brought upon a new roommate to my life and though Trevor has been a friend for years, living with him has brought much more animation into my life, as animation is his passion. This award is meant to honour the animated feature that impresses from a technical standpoint while satisfying on a deeper level as well.

I must admit that I did not love CARS. It is nominated here because the folks at Pixar always push themselves creatively as far as they can. It is the perfect example of a film that should be happy just to be nominated. HAPPY FEET is infinitely more enjoyable and surprising. It’s a cross between MOULIN ROUGE and THE MARCH OF THE PENGUINS. Satisfying and technically well executed. Check out that combo, CARS. Meanwhile, another less recognized film manages to surpass them both in both execution and satisfaction. This year’s winner is both tender and tense, creating a realistic look at that time in everyone’s life when you realize you may be getting too old for trick or treating. Given that the award is named after him and I know he loved this film, I am happy to announce that the MOUTON D’OR for the first-ever Trevor Adams Animated Feature Award goes to …

MONSTER HOUSE




BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

In LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, Alan Arkin played the wise elder of the dysfunctional family. This was all a bit misguided as his advice ranged from telling his granddaughter that he loves her most for her looks and telling his grandson that he should fuck as many women as possible in his life ahead. Yet still you never doubted he cared. BLOOD DIAMOND gave Djimon Hounsou another chance to scream and shout but no one does it more passionately than he does and his perseverance was moving. Eddie Murphy showed everyone a much deeper side to his performance capabilities in DREAMGIRLS. His singing and dancing were impressive but it was the look in his eyes as a man broken by the machine he helped build that was most memorable. Throughout THE QUEEN, Michael Sheen, as newly elected Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is constantly bewildered by the actions of the Royal Family. He is a man torn between wanting to help and tear them down all at the same time.

Another torn man takes the prize though. Everyone hates this man except for his mother. Her love makes him want to be a better person but he knows better,. For wearing both that knowledge and a burning desire to change on his face and shoulders, the MOUTON D’OR for Best Supporting Actor goes to …

JACKIE EARLE HALEY in LITTLE CHILDREN




BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

When is Cate Blanchett not incredible? In NOTES ON A SCANDAL, she cheats on her husband, abuses the friendship of a colleague and has an affair with a 15-year-old student yet you still manage to feel for her. As a young girl trying to choose between two paths that are equally wrong for her, newcomer, Shareeka Epps, is poised and curiously fascinating. Her performance in HALF NELSON shows incredible promise. Jennifer Hudson had big shows to fill with her role as Effie White in DREAMGIRLS and she did just that. She was a little shaky in them at first but by the time she belts out the character’s signature number, she planted those shoes firmly into the stage and brought me to tears and shivers. Meryl Streep is another actress who so rarely takes a wrong step. She is the best thing, if not the only good thing, in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. She plays an ice queen who lets her inner warmth show for a spilt second and shatters your entire perception of that character in that one tiny moment.

The winner of this category speaks volumes without saying anything at all. She is tragic and misunderstood, fragile and aggressive. Your heart goes out to her and breaks every time she tries to reach out. The MOUTON D’OR for Best Supporting Actress goes to …

RINKO KIKUCHI in BABEL




BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

As far as the term “adapted” goes, I think it applies very loosely to BORAT. Sasha Baron Cohen & Co.’s script is at times low brow comic genius and sharp social commentary at others. However, the line between what is scripted and what it purely improvised is too blurry to distinguish. William Monahan took Hong Kong crime tale, INFERNAL AFFAIRS, and translated it into American terms. Smoking out the moles becomes a great game where everyone’s motivations come into question but a couple of sizable holes ultimately undermine the film. NOTES ON A SCANDAL, by British playwright, Patrick Marber, pits two women against each other with only one realizing just how serious the game is. It is both thrilling and intellectual but it stops there. Ron Nyswaner’s script for THE PAINTED VEIL is delicate and romantic. Two people do what they think they should for all the wrong reasons which leads them to hate each other before a situation forces them to learn to love.

Despite all these solid examples of pointed writing, there is only one script that bites off more than it can chew and manages to swallow it all without choking. This tale of suburban sleepwalkers is deliciously dark and tensely erotic. Yet somehow, despite its disturbing nature, it also manages to be hilarious and telling. The 2006 MOUTON D’OR for Best Adapted Screenplay goes to …

TODD FIELD & TOM PERROTTA for LITTLE CHILDREN




BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Guillermo Arriaga’s vast script for BABEL stretches far and wide to make its point. Individually, the stories are beautiful and harrowing but the distance is sometimes too far to make a connection. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s HALF NELSON tells of how one experience, which becomes a secret, can connect the unlikeliest of people. Though one is a teacher and one is his student, it is the teacher that has more to learn from her. Zach Helm’s STRANGER THAN FICTION is structured and organized and balances these fine attributes in a world that has become increasingly more chaotic. Although eye-opening from the perspective of the subject, it is even more telling from the perspective of the author. Paul Greengrass deserves credit simply for his sensitivity. For UNITED 93, he spoke with the families of the victims from that famous flight to ensure that he got every detail right. He ended up writing words about nothing that said so much about where everyone’s head was at on that historical day.

As a writer myself though, I have to commend this year’s winner for taking a real life person who hides behind a castle gate. He recognized all the factors that lent to a tragic death becoming a turning point in British history and he did so with only a few years hindsight. Despite having no contact with his subject, the character he imagined seems so plausible as the real deal. The MOUTON D’OR for Best Original Screenplay goes to …

PETER MORGAN for THE QUEEN




BEST ACTOR

I would like to preface this category by saying that Peter O’Toole should have been nominated in this category but I had not had the privilege of seeing him in VENUS before these nominations were announced. He had childlike awe on his weathered face throughout a film that focused on showing what it was like in his last days.

As BORAT, Sasha Baron Cohen puts himself in countless dangerous and embarrassing situations all for the benefit of our own entertainment. His performance managed to pull legions into the theatres, many of whom he was laughing directly at. Aaron Eckhart is much more subtle but just as solid as a man whose job it is to lobby on behalf of big tobacco companies in THANK YOU FOR SMOKING. He is constantly attacked for the poor example he is setting for his child but what he is really teaching him is confidence. Will Smith hollowed me out in THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS. Treading through despair is not common in Hollywood fare and Will Smith is as Hollywood as you can get. Yet his performance here strikes the right balance of film star admiration and genuine skill to make anyone who sees it feel their life is not as bad as they thought. Forrest Whitaker, well a lot is being said about Forrest Whitaker. In THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, as Ugandan dictator, Ida Amin, he is frighteningly unbalanced and unhinged. There is some level of nobility buried deep beneath all of his paranoia and selfishness that makes this monster still human.

Despite Whitaker winning mostly every major award, my vote goes to a man who has himself in a sleeper hold. He teaches of how history is made. He claims that change is inevitable, that turning points happen and that there is no looking back. When one such turning point happens in his own life, he isn’t able to accept it. The performance struggles to be simple but is held prisoner by years of self-abuse. The MOUTON D’OR for Best Actor goes to …

RYAN GOSLING in HALF NELSON




BEST ACTRESS

Anyone who knows me knows I love my girls so this category is always a difficult one. As a bitter, lonely woman in NOTES ON A SCANDAL, Judi Dench is at her usual finest. She is manipulative but so unhappy that one can’t help but forgive her when she lashes out. It’s hard to love someone so hateful but Dench makes it so you have to. I always say that Maggie Gyllenhaal may possibly be prettier than her brother, Jake. As the title character in SHERRYBABY, she plays a recovering drug addict just out of prison who tries to reconnect with her five-year-old daughter. She has the will to make a new life for her daughter and herself but her body quivers with urges she has been spending years trying to shake. Naomi Watts is one of my favorite modern actresses. In THE PAINTED VEIL, she transforms from a selfish person into one that is entirely giving. Her character simply matures before our eyes. If there is anyone I enjoy more than Watts, it is Kate Winslet. She can do almost any role it seems and in LITTLE CHILDREN, she treats her daughter with contempt, her neighbours with superiority and herself with no consideration at all. That is until she wakes from her sleep and her body comes back to life … again and again and again.

There can be only one woman to wear the crown and 2006 saw near unanimous praise for one performance. This actress breathed life into an already living historical figure that the public barely knows. Who knows if that’s how she truly is but this performance is so believable, it’s hard to imagine her any other way after seeing it. The MOUTON D’OR for Best Actress goes to …

HELEN MIRREN in THE QUEEN




BEST DIRECTOR

When narrowing down the nominations this year, this was by far the most difficult category. I had to leave a few names behind that I would never have imagined I would. I guess if you’re here, you damn well earned it. FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS was sappy and unfocused but Clint Eastwood’s second film in the same year to tackle the same battle, LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, was a sensitive war story that hopefully enlightened many in North America to how the other side suffers the same. You can feel the director’s caring for his characters and he did it entirely in Japanese too! Stephen Frears’s THE QUEEN is incredibly tight. Bouncing back and forth between new and archival footage, between either side of the gates at Buckingham Palace, Frears creates a balance that does not take either side explicitly but shows sensitivity towards both. Paul Greengrass made more than a movie when he made UNITED 93; he made a tribute to the people who lost their lives on September 11th. As a director, he was calculated and precise without ever being melodramatic. For its sheer ambition, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu finds himself in this list for his work on BABEL. Albeit I have issue with the film’s overall cohesiveness, he creates deeply personal situations that are revealing about both his characters and our understanding of them.

I will be playing it safe with the winner though. This is not to say he is undeserving. His last efforts felt forced as did the accolades they acquired. Here though, his skilled, steady hand guides throughout this film. You can always feel the presence of the director as God carrying the viewer through his tense, dizzying cat and mouse game … and you can just feel that he was having a blast doing it. This year’s MOUTON D’OR for Best Director goes to …

MARTIN SCORCESE for THE DEPARTED




BEST PICTURE

Are we finally here? Thank you for reading through … unless you just scrolled straight to the end. Well, I guess that’s alright too. Let’s get to it then. Everything has already been said about all five of these films throughout this article. So without any further ado, here again are the nominees for the MOUTON D’OR for Best Picture of 2006:

THE DEPARTED

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

LITTLE CHILDREN

THE QUEEN

UNITED 93


And the MOUTON D’OR goes to …

(drumroll)

UNITED 93




No film left a deeper impact on me this year. It is not a film everyone can watch and those who do will be hollowed out by the end but so much more healed for having been brave enough to experience this gritty, honest testament to heroism and the human will to survive. Congratulations to Mr. Greengrass and all the winners.
Happy 2007!

THE 2006 MOUTON D'OR NOMINATIONS

BLACK SHEEP’S BEST OF 2006

2006, huh? Done and gone, you say? Would it be wrong to say good riddance? It was a good year for Black Sheep but not a great year for film. Before September rolled around, I thought we were doomed. I had only caught a handful of enjoyable films and been subjected to heaps of mediocrity. Enjoyable times but forgettable ones. Luckily, a few surprises came through in the fall quarter, making this yearend list possible (for a while I didn’t think it was going to happen).

Last year around this time, I had only been reviewing films for a few months. I’ve now banked an entire year’s worth of reviews that are being read by hundreds of strangers every month. It’s a beautiful progression and I thank you all for reading and showing your support.

I’ve been cramming so many movies in this last week and I’m happy to bring you … BLACK SHEEP’S BEST OF 2006. Before you get to the results, I’ll preface by saying that I try my darndest to see as many movies as I could but ’m not a professional with time to see everything that hits the theatres, I can’t see everything. I tend to avoid films I know I won’t like so this list is based on a long list of films I took chances on. I saw over 70 new movies in 2006 and I give you my favorites in all the regular categories. I’ve also added a category or two and tweaked others. This year, the screenplay category has been broken up into adapted and original. The best independent film has been changed to the Best Little Think Piece … the nominations there represent some of the smaller films of the year that speak volumes despite their small frames. And finally, I’ve also introduced an animation category, which I’ve named, The Trevor Adams Animated Feature Award, after my friend / roommate / business partner. He is a talented animator that makes me watch more animated features than I normally would.

Just like last year, I’m announcing my nominees two days before the Academy announces theirs and I will announce the winners two days before the Oscars are televised. Regular Black Sheep reviews will start back up in a couple of weeks. I think I need a tiny break because all these movies are starting to look the same. Enjoy the rest of awards season and here’s hoping the Academy doesn’t screw everything up this year like they did last.

Happy 2007!


BEST POPCORN MOVIE

- Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Making Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
- Casino Royale
- The Departed
- Dreamgirls
- V for Vendetta


BEST LITTLE THINK PIECE

- Death of a President
- Half Nelson
- Hard Candy
- Little Children
- Little Miss Sunshine


THE WORST FILM I SAW ALL YEAR

- Bon Cop, Bad Cop
- For Your Consideration
- Idlewild
- The Omen
- Sorry, Haters


THE TREVOR ADAMS ANIMATED FEATURE AWARD

- Cars
- Happy Feet
- Monster House


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

- Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
- Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
- Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
- Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
- Michael Sheen, The Queen


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

- Cate Blanchette, Notes on a Scandal
- Shareeka Epps, Half Nelson
- Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
- Rinko Kikuchi, Babel
- Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

- Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Making Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer, Todd Phillips
- The Departed, William Monahan
- Little Children, Todd Field and Tom Perrotta
- Notes on a Scandal, Patrick Marber
- The Painted Veil, Ron Nyswaner


BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

- Babel, Guillermo Arriaga
- Half Nelson, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
- The Queen, Peter Morgan
- Stranger than Fiction, Zach Helm
- United 93, Paul Greengrass


BEST ACTOR

- Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Making Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
- Aaron Echkart, Thank You for Smoking
- Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
- Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
- Forest Whittaker, The Last King of Scotland

BEST ACTRESS

- Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
- Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sherrybaby
- Helen Mirren, The Queen
- Naomi Watts, The Painted Veil
- Kate Winslet. Little Children


BEST DIRECTOR

- Clint Eastwood, Letters from Iwo Jima
- Stephen Frears, The Queen
- Paul Greengrass, United 93
- Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel
- Martin Scorcese, The Departed


BEST PICTURE

- The Departed
- Letters from Iwo Jima
- Little Children
- The Queen
- United 93

CHILDREN OF MEN

CHILDREN OF MEN
Written by Alfonso Cuaron and Timothy J. Sexton
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron


The trouble with foretelling the future in film is that you need to make it credible. The viewer must be almost instantly immersed in a world that is unlike their own, be it entirely or just slightly. If successful, the viewer has the potential to form insights regarding the world they currently live in based on where it looks to be headed. If it fails, every intention the director weaves into the film will be lost on untrusting eyes. Alfonso Cuaron’s near apocalyptic CHILDREN OF MEN opens in a coffee shop in London where the patrons stare in a state of numbed shock at the newscast that announces the death of the world’s youngest human being. Baby Diego was all of 18 years old. There is no one younger because the human race has inexplicably stopped reproducing. The film is set only 20 years from now. Unfortunately, by carefully avoiding over-explaining how humanity got to this point, CHILDREN OF MEN misses achieving that level of authenticity necessary to fully engross the viewer, albeit just narrowly. Yet as more time is spent with the characters of this future, it somehow transforms into a compelling testament to the hope that keeps humanity going no matter how dire the state of the world. Given our current sliding slope towards an increased spread of apathy and despair, Cuaron has crafted an important film that serves as both a reminder and a tool to unify the global population … or at least the film-going one.

Part of the reason CHILDREN OF MEN fails to convince from the start is because of another device designed to foretell the future, the movie preview. To draw us into the intensity of the film, the preview shows an explosion that lead character, Theo (Clive Owen), just misses being killed in. This scene takes place early in the film and, given that this particular preview has been running even longer than most as the release was delayed by three months, the knowledge that the bomb is coming detaches the viewer as they brace for the blast. Had it been a genuine surprise, the shock itself would have served to announce the severity of the times, leaving the viewer as frightened and uneasy as the Londoners of 2027. The missing desperation allows for more time to make sense of what defines this future. While Cuaron’s clues to explain humanity’s collapse are clever and creative, the viewer is still left alone to play catch-up, trying to piece everything together on their own. Of course, it becomes clear that understanding how it happened is entirely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that’s where the road leads but the ground is not solid enough to get a good bearing, making it difficult to see past the details.


Surprisingly, the film is still surprising. And thankfully, once it does catch you off guard, it continues to do so until you understand what it means to need to survive at all costs. Theo must deliver Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) to The Human Project, a group of the world’s greatest minds dedicated to the rebirth of the human race. At the risk of pointing out the film’s obvious symbolism, Kee is the “key” to this project as she is the first woman to conceive a child since Diego. Her miracle, although unexplained, inspires everyone she encounters to do right by her and protect her unborn child. As those who are accustomed to varying degrees of selfishness shed their ego-serving ways, their true colors shine through. Even those are meant to stop Kee so that they can use her baby to further their own purposes in the world ahead, from underground terrorists to an army that doesn’t care who they blow up as long as something is being destroyed, are powerless in the presence of the potential savior she is carrying. It’s as though everyone has given up and decided that their actions are meaningless and Kee’s baby gives them a hope so pure it is unlike anything they ever knew before all the trouble began, as if they too are reborn along with the child.

What was impossible to imagine at the start becomes so vividly real that the viewer cannot help but be wrapped up in the urgency of Kee’s need for a successful mission. Cuaron gives no reason at any time to think CHILDREN OF MEN will have to end happily out of a necessity to appease its audience. He makes every step of Kee’s journey arduous and exhausting. After all, she is over eight months pregnant; her odyssey would be hard for anyone. Only she is not simply carrying a child. She is carrying the fate of humanity at a moment in history that could mean the difference between a chance to begin again or an otherwise likely extinction. Being only 20 years away, there could already be a “Kee” amongst us. Though hope sometimes feels difficult to muster, CHILDREN OF MEN shows us we will find it again when we least expect to and it will keep us alive when we need it most.

DREAMGIRLS

DREAMGIRLS
Written and Directed by Bill Condon


A few short years ago, a little musical called CHICAGO came along and set the new standard for the modern movie musical. Picking up where CABARET left off fifteen or so years earlier, CHICAGO featured quick-paced editing that compartmentalized and sexualized many a shake and just as many a gyration. Its polished glitz and glamour announced the second coming of a genre that had been struggling for years. Long gone were the days of showcasing talent, leaving composition and aesthetic to bring up the rear. From now on, talent would be constructed to work with the visuals, allowing the musical genre to appeal to a generation that can’t hold its focus longer than the time it takes to execute a four-step combination. The bar had been raised and no film has come close to CHICAGO’s caliber since, until now. Following 1960’s girl group, The Dreams, from their humble beginnings to their ultimate dissolution, DREAMGIRLS brings the musical back to the multiplex with a brand new R&B groove to back it up. Director Bill Condon hopes DREAMGIRLS will follow in CHICAGO’s successful footwork all the way to solid box-office gold and with it, he throws his hat into the Oscar race one more time (following moderately successful bids with GODS AND MONSTERS and KINSEY). What all this repackaging suggests though is that a musical is a naturally difficult sell and though DREAMGIRLS had me bopping along, rootin’ for the girls and crying out loud, it never let me forget how much it was trying to get me to like it.

Condon paints a colorful scene, rich with deep blues and golds but all his aesthetic work is overshadowed by the brazen performances of his exuberant cast. Much has been said already but everything you’ve heard is actually true. As James Early, a womanizing, coke-snorting master of funk, Eddie Murphy is sneaky and sleazy and enjoying every minute of it. His descent from fame weathers his face but his spark always manages to find its way through the funk that finds itself watered down through the years. In many ways, Murphy’s career mirrors Early’s so the applause echoes both on and off screen. With Murphy showing new life later in his career, Beyonce Knowles shows a promise I had not expected so early in hers, if at all. Months of acting classes were a great investment for Knowles. As Deena Jones, Knowles transitions from a naïve girl hoping to succeed into a grown woman at the forefront of a groundbreaking female trio struggling to take back some control over her life, which has been directed entirely by the recording industry. It might not sound like a stretch for Knowles given her experience with Destiny’s Child but her performance as Jones shows both vulnerability and desire. Perhaps her most impressive feat is scaling back her trademark vocals to play someone who supposedly has no colour in her voice. And then there is Jennifer Hudson, this year’s breakout star. Your eye is instantly drawn to her and you wait for her to show you what she’s got. When she does, you’ll see why everyone is talking. Hudson’s voice is so powerful and exudes so much character and emotion that it brought me to tears more than once. Hudson’s Effie White gets all the best songs and the best trajectory as well but if Hudson didn’t own every aspect of this character’s fragile ego as it crumbles and falls hard, no one would care about this movie. That only leaves Jamie Foxx as Dreams manager, Curtis Taylor JR. You haven’t heard much about Foxx but that’s probably because he underplays the role so much that he ends up leaving no mark at all.


The musical is not always simply song and dance; the musical can also be meaningful. DREAMGIRLS has plenty to say and it says it directly and without shame. The bulk of its malice is pointed straight at the music industry. The first point of its one-two punch assault is in regards to the treatment of artists in the industry. Deena replaces Effie as lead singer of The Dreams because there is more chance for The Dreams to crossover with a smoother, more accessible (read, more white, but more on that later) sound and the group gets no say. One artist will rerecord another’s song and usurp all of their radio play if the label executives say so. The girls eventually lose all say over what they want to do with their own lives for the sake of their careers. In Deena’s case, this is even more abusive as her manager, Taylor, is also her husband. The second punch attacks the industry for its whitening of soul music. Often, the songs that were being rerecorded were being done so by white recording artists with more popular appeal. This is what made The Dreams so important. They were able to crossover from the R&B stations to the pop stations. While the industry was exploiting their artists and exploiting an entire race, these same black artists managed to make their own inroads towards fighting racism by appealing to white listeners who were forced to face images they were not willing to before. That’s the healing property of music, I suppose.

DREAMGIRLS is not simply a monumental musical but it is a mammoth film. It is grand in scope and large in life. Though it stumbles at times, its soul is infectious and its satisfaction is sweet. Mr. Condon, you needn’t have tried so hard. I would have liked you just the same.

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS
Written by Steve Conrad
Directed by Gabriele Muccino


As the opening shots of THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS establish San Francisco as the setting for this tale of adversity with the Golden Gate Bridge and hordes of people rushing up and down the steep hills to get to their important jobs, I couldn’t help but begin to worry that I was about to be fed Hollywood’s take on what it means to go through hard times. This is after all a Will Smith picture. My anxiety eased up slightly though when the view dropped down from the indistinguishable faces of the swarm to a face that blended in all too well amongst the masses of determined feet. Throughout the opening credits, Italian film director, Gabriele Muccino, drew my attention away from a race I know all too well and ever so subtly forced me to look at what I am accustomed to looking away from, the homeless. And though Smith’s Chris Gardner is currently employed, he is about to face challenge after soul-depleting challenge until he too finds himself amongst the people he turns away from as hurries about his day as a unsuccessful salesman. THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS is a hollowing drama that drags both its protagonist and its audience deeper into despair than either would have expected. It is a relentless assault on the sense of security and entitlement many of us have as supposed functional members of a working society and by the time I left, I knew that I had absolutely nothing to complain about.

Chris Gardner’s story would be nothing more than one man’s pursuit of the American dream if it weren’t for one very important thing. In this case, that thing is actually a very charming, young boy, Chris’ son, Christopher (played by Smith’s real-life son, Jaden). Watching Will and Jaden quibble and endure provides for some endearing screen time but their plight and performances overshadow their off-screen family ties. If Chris fails, he will not only be begging for his food but he will lose the one thing that gives him purpose. Little Christopher’s future depends on whether his father can successfully overcome his horrible misfortune to beat out nineteen other candidates in a competitive internship for thriving brokerage firm, Dean Whitter. Today, the American dream often symbolizes an unhealthy, greedy amassment of unnecessary material goods but Chris’ fight is for the bare essentials. His son deserves a stable home and regular meals. He deserves these and other rudimentary needs in order to have the opportunity to pursue his own dreams. And while I’m certain Chris wouldn’t mind a bigger piece of the proverbial pie, he knows what he needs to survive and by chasing that, he reminds the audience that the American dream should be spread more evenly. It is not a contest to win out miles ahead while the rest clamor for scraps.


Will Smith is by far the most successful black box-office star of his generation, if not of all time. He has broken barriers around the world and yet manages to find himself facing criticism for not addressing any specific racial issues in THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS. However, not verbalizing the unavoidable prejudices a black man must face competing against a room full of white faces in 1981 doesn’t mean it isn’t there. If anything, Smith’s Chris exhibits his intelligence by pushing his understandable racial frustrations aside in order to appease his potential employers. He becomes the showman who gets his foot in the door by making the white folk laugh, all the while knowing he has the goods to surpass all their expectations once he’s in. In one of the film’s many moments of desperation and impending disaster, Chris finds himself sitting in his first interview at Dean Whitter, splattered in dried paint, wearing overalls and no shirt at all. The men who sit opposite him are all white and not amused. When they leer at him, they certainly aren’t just uncomfortable with his appearance; they see his black skin just as plainly. Not focusing on the obvious showcases Muccino’s subtle grace handling Hollywood and allows Chris to be the smartest man in the room. It also allows for Smith to give a performance where he appears as though he might break at any given moment while he wears the knowledge that closing his eyes for even a second is never an option.

Without confirming whether THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS actually concludes with Chris achieving the happiness he works so hard to get, I can say that it deftly humbling and certainly doesn’t allow for the viewer leaving that happy. Smith’s backwards journey towards the top speaks to anyone who has ever struggled to succeed. What it says to them is to ask themselves if they have ever truly suffered and if so, for what? Have you been fighting to make your dreams come true or fighting to beat out the next guy? More importantly, have you ever tried to be happy in exactly the spot you’re standing?

THE HISTORY BOYS

THE HISTORY BOYS
Written by Allan Bennett
Directed by Nicolas Hytner


These boys are tight. They would have to be after the amount of time and dedication they’ve given to Allan Bennett’s play, THE HISTORY BOYS, just recently released as a feature film, directed by Nicolas Hytner. This group of eight young actors originated their roles on the London stage and stayed with the success through the year long run. They then found themselves on stage together again in the Broadway production, which ran for almost another year. And now, these talented fellas find themselves on screen together, some two years after they first formed their gang. Theirs is a gang built on brilliance and banter. These young men have all performed so well that they are all within reach of admission to Oxford, an educational pinnacle that they all believe will set them up for life. They are on the edge of completing their studies; they are on the verge of discovering their true selves; they are on the cusp of their very own lives. The energy these boys feel pushing them forward is infectious and it makes for an exhilarating film experience. All they need to do now is put aside their confusions about sex, class and identity long enough to master their field of concentration, history. For mastering history ensures these boys a bright future.

The boys are not the only ones being schooled either. THE HISTORY BOYS offers the audience its own insights that make it a rich and provocative film. As the school these boys attend also has its own interests in seeing these boys make it into Oxford, they hire a coach of sorts to give them an edge. Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore) must show these boys that understanding history is not just memorizing facts but rather exploring the era to see what these facts are covering for. They must then take these more rounded views and learn to spin them in a fashion that grabs the readers’ attention. In other words, they must learn the art of show. What they end up learning along the way is that, while sprinkling your arguments with little known nuggets of information might make for a more colorful debate, nothing speaks louder than an effective formulation of your own original thoughts. This is quite the challenge for these boys as speaking for themselves does not fall in line with always saying exactly what everyone wants to hear.


Pleasing other people and pleasing yourself is a difficult line to tow for the “history boys.” This is especially relevant when there are students and teachers on either side of the line. The boys pit new boy, Irwin, directly against their “general studies” teacher, Hector (Richard Griffiths, a Tony Award winner for this role). Between both supposed role models, the boys take turns trying to capture their teacher’s attention, and in some cases, affection. It is as though their existence and opinions are somewhat more valid if they are applauded by their authority figures. As we rarely see any of the boys’ parents, these two teachers are the closest things they’ve got. As the boys play their games with the teachers though, it is the teachers that unknowingly and unexpectedly end up addicted to the attention feigned upon them, as though being the central figure in these boys’ lives somehow means they have the same boundless futures ahead of them. Like their parents, the boys must come to terms with the humanity of their teachers. However, unlike the boys’ parents, the teachers must conceal these vulnerable sides of themselves in order to maintain authority and protect their own emotional investments. After all, when these boys graduate, they will leave their teachers behind them.

Aside from an obsession with fondling his students, Hector also has an obsession with the subjunctive. The theme runs throughout and forces the boys, the teachers and the audience to question the fragility of fact. History is most often summed up with facts but all of these could have been entirely different if there had been a slight alteration in the circumstances in which they took place. As these boys decide whether they will be the ones to make history or to react to it, THE HISTORY BOYS affirms that their futures, no matter how bright they might seem in the present, can give way to any number of possibilities caused by circumstance. And despite all the life the boys naturally exude, despite all of their seemingly boundless opportunities, one day in the not-so-distant-future, their lives will also be the subject of history.