SHARKWATER

Written and Directed by Rob Stewart


I had an awfully difficult time getting anyone to see this movie with me. Apparently, a lot of people have issues with sharks. This apprehension was part of the original inspiration for filmmaker, Rob Stewart, to make SHARKWATER. He had been taught his entire life to fear sharks, as have we. The media vilifies sharks every so often to remind us that they are not our friends. It isn’t safe to get in the water after all. Haven’t you all seen that movie with sharks where they eat all the innocent people? It’s as if we have never fully recovered from JAWS. In his career as an underwater photographer, Stewart discovered that these fears are almost entirely unfounded. He could swim with the sharks and get close enough to touch them if he showed them that he did not fear them and that they had no reason to fear him. And so he set out to make a documentary that would demystify our notions that sharks are perversely obsessed with the killing of human beings. What he would discover is that we as humans have already launched a full-scale retaliation against our sworn enemy.


Stewart’s experience as an underwater photographer does not go to waste in this breathtaking film. Stewart’s ocean is one of tranquility and warmth. Over time, it has become his sanctuary and he presents the environment to his audience with the same feeling of security that he claims to get from it. Though he was once very much like a fish out of water, Stewart has found a new home in the ocean and his neighbors don’t seem to mind him at all. The imagery of SHARKWATER was what originally drew me to the film and it does not disappoint. Schools of fish of so many different varieties swim past and mingle with each other that the screen becomes a mélange of colour and movement that is at times dizzying and hypnotic. And though those same fish scatter when the sharks enter the frame, Stewart does not. Instead, he swims towards them and in one instant you see how two species can forget their supposed feud between them by letting their fear of the unknown fall away. For a moment, two worlds collide to create an unexpected harmony.


This only makes what follows all the more painful. Stewart’s shoot took an unforeseen turn when he joined the crew of a militant oceanic watchdog ship that makes it their mission to ensure international treaties protecting the rights of ocean dwellers are upheld. Before long, Stewart and the crew are involved in an international scandal over shark-finning. In some countries, like Japan, shark fin soup is considered a delicacy that when served affirms one’s social status. It is popular at massive weddings and can cost upwards of a hundred dollars in a restaurant. According to Stewart, shark fin trading on the black market is only second to drug trafficking. Although the statistic seems a bit skewed, there are still billions of dollars involved in the trade. For the first time in the 450 billion years that sharks have been on this planet, there are certain species of sharks that are facing serious threats of extinction. Once again, human beings plow through other life in pursuit of the almighty dollar without acknowledging the long term ramifications. See, the planet consists of two-thirds water and this water contains a lot of plankton that produces 70% of the planet’s oxygen. The ocean is filled with fish that survive on plankton. The shark is the ocean’s leading predator of these plankton eaters. If we kill off all the sharks, then the other fish will have free reign over the plankton, which means a diminished production of oxygen for us to breathe. Why do we always assume that our actions have no consequence? And why do we always put money ahead of preservation? You can’t spend money if you can’t breathe.


All of this ecological unrest for soup. Shark fishers remove the fins of the shark, which make up 5% of the shark’s body, and throw the shark back into the ocean to die. Stewart and his crew go undercover into the illegal industry to give weight to their accusations and, as you stare out at rooftops covered with shark fins drying in the sun, you cannot help but be horrified at the sheer size of the operation. SHARKWATER invites you to make friends with the enemy and to see how we as humans are so much worse to sharks than they are to us. The mirror is turned to expose who is the more evil predator and its mouth is not home to sharp jagged teeth but rather to a smiling face sipping down its soup. Sadly, SHARKWATER will not be seen by as many as it should as people prefer their sharks as foe instead of friend. Bring on JAWS 5! Quite frankly, I consider SHARKWATER to be a hell of a lot scarier.

YEAR OF THE DOG

Written and Directed by Mike White


“Animals are like us; they live for love.
And if you have too many of them,
then there isn’t enough love to go around.”

Dog people. When I think of dog people, I think of my friend, Lloyd. He’s got this puppy, Andy. Andy’s got his own personal walker, play dates on weekends and some pieces of his wardrobe are more stylish than mine. Despite being the dog that has everything, the most important thing he has is Lloyd. If you spend any time with this twosome, it’s hard to tell who loves who more. Some people say that owning a dog is selfish, that having another living being depend on you and give you nothing but love in return only serves the owner’s ego. I guess these people forgot about the natural human need to nurture. I suppose these people also have not had the chance to see Mike White’s YEAR OF THE DOG. White, writer of indie faves CHUCK AND BUCK and THE GOOD GIRL, makes his directorial debut with the simple tale of one woman, whose tightly wound life of disappointment unravels after the death of her dog, a beautiful beagle named Pencil.


Before Pencil’s unexpected passing, Peggy (Molly Shannon) spent her days with a permanent smile on her face. Whether she was at the office comforting her boss (Josh Pais) while his neuroses got stuck in spin over office politics, or at the mall listening to her colleague (Regina King) yammer on about her boyfriend’s commitment issues or even walking on eggshells while visiting her brother and his overprotective wife (Thomas McCarthy and Laura Dern), Peggy never frowned. Sure, she never found her dream job or got married or had any kids of her own. But why should she let that bother her? She has her health, a home and Pencil. Finding herself without Pencil though finds Peggy feeling lost. The beauty of White’s script is that Peggy is not suddenly lost but only suddenly realizing that she has been for years. Anchoring this decent into the depth of an internal fear that has been avoided for years is Shannon. As Peggy, she never fully abandons her comedic luminescence but shows new sides of her range, including fragility, determination and sparks of buried hope. She sits one night in a passenger seat at the end of a date. Her suitor (John C. Reilly) asks without tact if she has ever been married. The woman who answers no longer has the strength or the desire to pretend anymore. She simply stutters through an evasive response and stumbles as she exits the car.


Pencil’s death leads to her meeting Newt (Peter Saarsgard), a dog trainer that coaches her how to tame her newly adopted dog, Valentine, while unknowingly waking a part of her heart thought long to be dead. Meeting people is easy. Getting to know people is tricky. Navigating a relationship through the hope and apprehension that comes after years of potentially difficult experiences can be more than enough to make you run home to your dog. For Newt and Peggy, neither has had much success with other human beings. Other human beings are complicated and come with their own set of expectations. Animals on the other hand, want very clear things from you, like food and attention, and, in return, give you unqualified love and admiration. You don’t have to think about what to say to a dog when there is an awkward silence. There is no experience to be had with a dog that mirrors the dance between two people who are trying to figure out whether this is or isn’t the right time to kiss the other person. And while all of this can be infuriating, it should not be forgotten that this is an excitement that cannot be had with a dog.


White’s script works because he does not categorize the characters but rather allows them to grow into themselves, no matter whether that self fits into society’s mold or not. As a film however, YEAR OF THE DOG, is occasionally just as awkward as its characters. White’s direction and cinematic approach are often static and flat, ultimately taking away from the warmth of the whole. Thankfully, Peggy’s late life journey towards embracing her true self is so winningly portrayed by Shannon that the film’s cinematic limitations never go from flaw to fault. By the time she realizes that her own compartmentalized cubicle life bares its own resemblance to the life of a dog in a pound, she sees that it is also just as wrong for her as for the dogs. After all, dog people are people too and if there's anyone out there who should give you unconditional love, it's yourself.

GRINDHOUSE

Written and Directed by
Robert Rodriguez
and
Quentin Tarantino


Cherry Darling: That’s the problem with goals.
They become the thing you talk about instead of
the thing you do.


Cult favorites, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are not talkers; they are doers. If they want to recreate exploitation films popularized in the 1970’s for today’s masses, they don’t just hang around talking about how cool they would be if they did something like that; they do it. GRINDHOUSE packs more blood, boobs and banalities than you can shake a severed limb at into two feature-length films that run back to back. Despite being packaged as two films from the same genre, Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” and Tarantino’s “Death Proof” offer very different approaches in their homage to excessive sex, violence and gore. One throws story to the blood-soaked floor and spits on it, cluttering the screen with an abundance of characters, sub-plots, political insinuations and zombies galore. The other is all about fast cars and even faster talking women. Both films were aged to simulate the feel of the “Grindhouse” era, complete with added dust and scratches as well as missing reels thrown in for authenticity. And after three hours of vain indulgence, neither film rises above its flaws to become the ultimate cheesy experience it both should and could be.


Up first is Rodriguez’s zombie flick, “Planet Terror”. It isn’t fair to criticize a “Grindhouse” film for it’s plot, even less so in the case of a zombie movie. Regardless, Rodriguez crams so many people and plights into this fright film that the focus is mostly scattered, at times so much so that it takes away from the impending onslaught of zombies bent on taking over humanity. The acting is often horrible; the scenarios are often ludicrous. Ordinarily, this would be the downfall of any film but here it is expected. It is functional for the most part, good for some laughs, groans and nausea, but the fun that Rodriguez is clearly trying to have is often stunted by his efforts to be loyal to the genre. There is so much time spent attempting to recreate a long forgotten feel, that the action is left floundering. His own talent as a filmmaker further undermines Rodriguez’s mimicry of style. The careful framing and calculated composition is often too good to be believable as the B-movie the style is structuring the film to be. Still, Rodriguez deserves praise simply for casting Tarantino himself as a biochemically infected soldier, finding the perfect role for Quentin’s unique acting style. And by unique, I mean bad.


The moment “Death Proof” begins, Tarantino puts Rodriguez to shame. Applying similar visual effects to the film stock, Quentin has crafted a modern take on the “Grindhouse” style rather than attempt a film that feels it was taken from the era. The result is a smoother, more sophisticated aesthetic that is only further strengthened by social implications. “Death Proof” tells the tale of Stunt Man Mike (an energized and exciting Kurt Russell) and his fetish for killing beautiful babes in high-speed collisions. The ladies he targets are nowhere near helpless. In fact, they are strong and smart, if not somewhat naïve. Tarantino’s genius shines through his approach to showcase female empowerment in a genre designed to rob them of all power as well bring the filmmaker’s own perverse gaze to light in the eyes of his antagonist. Just like Rodriguez though, Tarantino trips his own pace. He does so by over-indulging the sound of his written word. One too many dialogue-heavy scenes slows the chase to a dangerously boring speed. The girls (Rose McGowan, Rosario Dawson, etc.) wrap their luscious lips around Tarantino’s snappy quips but this is the last thing you want when you’ve already been watching for over two and a half hours. A drag race movie should never drag.


GRINDHOUSE can be a lot of fun when it isn’t taking itself so seriously. It is broken up by hilarious mock previews, again crafted to fit the period, by directors like Eli Roth (HOSTEL) and Rob Zombie (HOUSE OF A 1000 CORPSES), arguably a director making modern day “Grindhouse” pictures without going out of his way to label them as such. The features themselves though are then bogged down by auteurs trying to be amateurs. In fact, it might have actually been more fun if two such meticulous filmmakers weren’t at its helm. Perhaps then, it would have actually captured the amateur feel it was designed too. For all its pretentious good intentions, GRINDHOUSE is never neither good nor bad enough to be great.

THE NAMESAKE

Written by Sooni Tarapolevala
Directed by Mira Nair


Ashoke Ganguli: My grandfather always said that’s what books are for, to travel without moving an inch.

THE NAMESAKE is a true treasure. It is a film that honours long-established convention and meaning by maintaining its own traditional approach. All too often, filmmakers take sides when telling a story about a culture taken out of context. Either the old is just plain too old for its own good or the new is entirely empty. Director Mira Nair begins this story of one family’s history by drawing her own conclusions but allows the film to learn the error of its ways at the same pace as its characters. The Ganguli family must learn to meet each other in the middle of its own extremes. Once there, they must learn to breathe soft and slow to allow both sides to hear each other and learn from what they are hearing. By finding a similar breathing pattern to establish its pacing, THE NAMESAKE is able to criticize and question the Americanization of other cultures while never losing focus on what matters, the experience and heart of the Ganguli family.


Giving history its due, THE NAMESAKE opens in Calcutta. A young girl by the name of Ashima (played by Tabu) returns home from singing lessons to find a male suitor waiting to ask for her hand in marriage. She does not run from what is expected of her nor does she go towards it blindly and obediently. Instead, she approaches with caution and an open mind. Before she even meets Ashoke (Irfan Khan), she is drawn to the exotic possibilities he can offer her when she finds his American shoes by the door. She slips the shoes on, seemingly trying to feel what kind of man wears these shoes and what kind of weight wears them down. It is a simple moment, one of many to follow, that both gives the film its charm and connects Ashima and Ashoke to each other. Theirs is a marriage arranged in the most traditional sense yet a great love grows from this beginning. The newlyweds travel to New York to start their life together while getting to know both each other and their new surroundings. The tenderness of their relationship is a moving testament to the importance of listening and comprehension.


The wide spectrum of colour that runs rampant through Calcutta is reduced to nothing in New York. The city is covered in snow and only the drab concrete manages to poke through. Before long, Ashoke and Ashima have their first of two children, Gogol (Kal Penn). With his birth, the central conflict is also born. As Gogol grows older, he grows further away from his heritage but more importantly, he grows further away from his parents. All families face these kinds of challenges. In the case of the Ganguli family, it is easy for the children to rebel against their cultural backgrounds as it is the most obvious target that will certainly hurt their parents. The parents had to adjust to the American way of life while the children were born and raised within it. It is difficult to reconcile the differences, which leads to the feeling that they are barely a family at times.


THE NAMESAKE is about healing and understanding. It does not focus on any one family member more than any other but rather on their shared similar experiences of happiness and loss. And though its visual basis is specific, its messages are much more universal. Never letting go of the past will never allow you to see your future. Still, refusing to acknowledge the past will leave your future just as hollow. If you’re not too stubborn though and you realize that everything that comes before you makes you who you are today and who you can be tomorrow, then you will learn to resolve both past and future to enjoy your present and the family you are fortunate to have surround you.

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.

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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!