Movie Review: Year One

Year One ½ *
Directed by: Harold Ramis
Written By: Harold Ramis & Gene Stupnitsky & Lee Eisenberg.
Starring: Jack Black (Zed), Michael Cera (Oh), Oliver Platt (High Priest), David Cross (Cain), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Isaac), Vinnie Jones (Sargon), Hank Azaria (Abraham), Juno Temple (Eema), Olivia Wilde (Princess Inanna), June Diane Raphael (Maya), Xander Berkeley (King), Gia Carides (Queen), Horatio Sanz (Enmebaragesi), David Pasquesi (Prime Minister), Harold Ramis (Adam), Rhoda Griffis (Eve), Kyle Gass (Zaftig the Eunuch), Bill Hader (Shaman), Paul Rudd (Abel).

There are some movies that are so colossally bad that you know some really talented people must have made the movie. They go beyond the level of normal badness, into a realm that is leaves you slack jawed with just how awful the film is. Year One is a film like that. Directed by Harold Ramis, who has some of the best comedies of all time on his resume (none better than Groundhog Day), starring Jack Black and Michael Cera, two actors who almost never cease to bring a smile to my face, and supported by a cast that includes David Cross, Oliver Platt, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Hank Azaria, Kyle Gass, Bill Hader and Paul Rudd – all of whom can be hilarious in the right role – Year One is a laugh free void. What the hell happened?

The film is about Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera), two men from a tribe of hunter-gatherers off in the mountains who are not that popular with their tribe mates. When Zed eats from the tree of forbidden knowledge, he gets himself banished, and Oh, for reasons that remain unclear, goes with him. They set off on a journey to Sodom, along the way meeting people like Cain (David Cross) and his brother Abel (Paul Rudd), Abraham (Hank Azaria) and his son Issac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), until they end up having to save their old tribe mates who have been made into slaves. Along the way there is a moment when Zed eats crap, deliberately, a moment when Oh pees on himself while upside down, and another when Oh has to rub oil on a very hairy priest (Oliver Platt), all of which turn your stomach to about the same degree.

I’m sure that when Ramis, or whoever came up the plot, they thought this was an opportunity to do something akin to Monty Python’s Life of Brian, poking fun at religious icons with a modern, irreverent sensibility. If that was their goal, then it must be said that they failed miserably. The movie just seems to go from one joke to another, none of them are funny, all of them delivered with a lack of energy, on its way to its inevitable conclusion. No one in Year One seems to be having any fun in their roles, and for a comedy, that’s deadly.

Jack Black is an actor of huge comic energy. Normally, he is great in his movies, but when he’s bad, it’s usually because the director never figured out how to rein in his comic outrageousness. Here, he’s simply going through the motions. Michael Cera plays the same shy, awkward kid he always plays, and usually plays well, but with little effort put into the role. I think they both knew this one was going to be a stinker, and decided not to try too hard.

And that’s really all I can say about the movie. It isn’t just bad, but like The Love Guru, it’s such a huge misfire, such a huge mistake, that it’s going to take a while for anyone unlucky enough to see it to get it out of their mind.

Weekly Top Tens: The Best Documentaries of the Decade

Unlike many people, I love documentary films. Some people see documentaries like homework – something that you occasionally have to suffer through, but I have always found great documentaries to be utterly fascinating. This decade has created many great documentaries, and I could have easily doubled the size of this list, and still only scratched the surface. But, these 10 films are the ones that really stand out for me this decade. I limited certain filmmakers to one film, in order to give a better overall view of the best documentaries of the decade.

10. Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008)
I’m not sure if Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir really counts as a documentary, as it is more a memory piece than actual documentary, and the whole thing is animated, except for some explicit photos at the end of the film. But nevertheless, Waltz with Bashir does what great documentaries do – which is put the audience right in the middle of a real person’s life, and makes us see it from their point of view. Director Ari Folman was one of many Jewish soldiers who in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre simply sat back and watched as a Lebanese Christian Militia slaughtered innocent Lebanese and Palestinian Muslims. In the years since, Folman has buried his memories of that day so deep, he cannot even recall it anymore. The animation in the film is brilliant, and captures the hallucinatory imagery and dream sequences much better than any other medium could. Waltz with Bashir is an important film about dealing with your past.


9. Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (Joe Berliner & Bruce Sinofsky, 2000)
Berliner and Sinofsky’s Paradise Lost (1996) was a fascinating film detailing the trial of three teenagers – Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley – for the brutal sexual mutilation and murder of three 10 year old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. It was clear in that film that the boys were being railroaded because they were different – they had long hair, listened to heavy metal music, and were outcasts. The most compelling piece of evidence against the three was Misskelley’s confession – sweated out of the mentally challenged kid after hours upon hours of interrogation. Four years later, the filmmakers return to West Memphis and revisit the major players. Echols, who seemed to relish his notoriety, even while proclaiming his innocence, in the first film is now facing a death sentence, and has matured since then. The stepfather of one of the boys seems like a possible suspect, but no one seems too interested in pursuing the matter. There are lots of documentaries about miscarriages of justice – and this is one of the better ones this decade. Currently, a third film in the series is being filmed, and you can bet I will watch it when it comes out.

8. Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002)
Michael Moore does not so much make documentaries, as he does filmed essays. He comes into a movie knowing what he wants to say and then finds the evidence to support that – even if he has to stretch the truth a little to get there. Yet, his films are always insightful and entertaining, none more so than Bowling for Columbine, his films about gun control in America. The film points out the ridiculous in America’s obsession with guns, and its long, checkered history with violence. Moore is front and center in this film and does not seem to be afraid of anything. I do find it quite amusing that however, that neither he nor Charlton Heston realize that they actually agree on the issue on guns and violence in America, even if they have different ways of saying it. Moore argues that it is not the guns themselves that are the problem – but instead it’s the inherent racism and America’s obsession with violence that are. Heston uses different words, but pretty much says the same damn thing!

7. Deliver Us From Evil (Amy Berg, 2006)
There have been a number of documentaries about the clergy molestation scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in recent years, but Amy Berg’s Deliver Us From Evil is the best of the lot. It does not try to look at the entire scandal – which was far too wide reaching to be easily summarized in one film – and instead looks at just one man – Father Oliver O’Grady. O’Grady molested potentially hundreds of children between the late 1970s and early 1990s. Every time an allegation was made against O’Grady, his higher ups would convince the family not to go the police, and simply transfer O’Grady to another parish. Eventually, O’Grady was convicted, but only served 7 years in jail, then was deported to his native Ireland. Amazingly, O’Grady agreed to be interviewed by Berg, and the result is chilling. You get the feeling you are looking into a face of pure evil when he smirks at the camera, and says God has already forgiven him his sins, because he went to confession. It’s impossible to watch this film and not get angry.

6. Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005)
There has ever only been one Werner Herzog, and thankfully the man has been making wild and crazy films for decades now and shows no signs of slowing down. Grizzly Man is one of his very best films – a documentary about Timothy Treadwell, a failed actor, who spends every summer up in Alaska “protecting” the grizzly bears from hunters. Of course, his luck only lasts so long, and one summer, he and his girlfriend are killed by one of his beloved bears. Herzog assembles the footage that Treadwell left behind, and interviews others, and puts together a fascinating portrait of a man who was completely delusional when it came to his outlook on himself and the world.

5. The Fog of War (Errol Morris, 2003)
Errol Morris is perhaps the best documentary filmmaker in the world right now, and The Fog of War is one of his most fascinating films. Interviewing Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam War, Morris is able to draw out confessions and regrets from the man who is often portrayed as evil and heartless. McNamara admits that had they lost WWII, they would have been tried as war criminals for the way they firebombed Japan, under his orders, and also admits to mistakes about how Vietnam was run. But McNamara remains an incredibly smart man throughout the film, and his insight is fascinating. Couple with Morris’ famed ability to get the best archival footage of every, and Philip Glass’s constant, swirling score, and his trademarked camera which allows McNamara to talk direct at him, while looking directly into the camera, The Fog of War is one of the great documentaries by one of the medium’s few true masters.

4. Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki, 2003)
Capturing the Friedmans is the best of the “miscarriage of justice” documentaries of the decade – a personal favorite subgenre of mine. Capturing the Friedmans looks at a disturbing case in Long Island New York, where a former school teacher and his son were accused of molesting dozens of children in their home during “computer class”. The authorities bungled the case in every conceivable way – not trying to verify the children’s claims, not finding physical evidence, asking the children leading questions again and again until they got the answer they wanted. Yet, you almost cannot blame the authorities – there were so many children making claims, they didn’t have the proper training, and the father was sexually attracted to children, as evidenced by the child pornography found in the house. Still, though, you feel sympathy for the Friedmans, as there was no evidence that they actually molested children, especially the son who was just helping out his dad. This is fascinating, troubling film.

3. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (Martin Scorsese, 2005)
Martin Scorsese’s documentary about Bob Dylan is perhaps the greatest music doc ever made. There I said it, and I stand by it. Scorsese’s four hour made for TV documentary, documents Dylan’s journey from childhood to the height of his fame in the 1960s, as a voice of his generation, then as a reviled musician who “sold out”. While DA Pennebaker’s groundbreaking documentary, Don’t Look Back (1967) portrayed Dylan at the time as a drug crazed, egomanicial, spoiled brat, Scorsese’s documentary looks deeper into the heart of one of music’s greatest enigmas. This is a very special film. (Please note, as part of my ongoing The Films of Martin Scorsese series, I do plan on re-watching and reviewing this film in a few weeks).

2. When the Levee’s Broke (Spike Lee, 2006)
Another made for TV doc from a director who mainly does narrative films, Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke is a howl of pure rage at the government for their response to Hurricane Katrina. Told in four parts, Lee’s documentary looks at what happened before the storm, during the storm, the immediate aftermath of the storm, and the painfully slow response that left New Orleans crippled for years after the Hurricane. In four hours, Lee is able to capture all facets of this very American tragedy.

1. Lake of Fire (Tony Kaye, 2007)
The best documentary of the decade is one of the least well known. Tony Kaye’s Lake of Fire looks at the abortion debate in America from all possible sides. Just when you think Kaye is leaning too heavily on either the pro-life or pro-choice side, he snaps back and shocks you with another revelation from the other side. What becomes clear during the course of the documentary is that there are extremists on all sides of the debate – nut jobs who want to control the debate with their out there philosophies – just as there are reasonable people on both sides who are capable of thoughtfully laying out their case. No matter if you are pro-life or pro-choice, or unsure of yourself, this is a documentary that will rock your belief system to the core. It is graphic, and sometimes very hard to watch, but essential viewing to anyone who wants to know all sides of this debate. A true and utter masterpiece.

Happy Birthday Roger Ebert!

As with last week, when I posted my retrospective on John Wayne the day after the 30th Anniversary of The Duke’s Death, I am a day late here as well. Yesterday was Roger Ebert’s 67th birthday. Say what you want about Roger Ebert these days – which he has grown soft over the years, and his illness has only made him softer (I mean really, 4 stars to Departures? You got to be kidding me!), but the fact of the matter remains to pretty much every cinephile I know, their first exposure to movie criticism of any kind was through Ebert, and his old partner Gene Siskel, and their television show. It certainly was for me, and Ebert helped to shape my view of the movies. Siskel may have been the more “intellectual” critic, but I always preferred Ebert. His enthusiasm for movies was infectious, as was his sense of fair play. No movie was beneath Ebert, and you could sense real disappointment in him when he disliked a movie. To this day, while I find myself drifting further away from Ebert as far as movie tastes go, whenever you read his reviews, he is still able to justify his opinions with insight and clarity. In short, while I read many critics on a regular basis now, Roger Ebert is the only one who I always read.

My first exposure to Roger Ebert was not actually through his TV show, but through one of his hulking Video Year Books, where he compiled many of his reviews. As a kid of around 10, I was already interested in film, and yet I didn’t really read any criticism at all. I didn’t know what films to watch. Every summer I spent a week with my Aunt and Uncle in Massachusetts, and we would spend many nights watching old movies. This was the first place I ever saw Casablanca, Citizen Kane, My Fair Lady and the films of the Marx Brothers among many others. I slept on a pull out couch by the TV and the bookshelf. One of the books on that shelf was one of Roger Ebert’s. I was, and remain, an early riser so often in the morning I had some time to kill before everyone else woke up. I would pull Ebert’s yearbook off the shelf and read his reviews. I started reading the reviews of the films I already knew I loved – Oliver Stone’s JFK and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven among them – expanded out to others that I had seen, and soon was reading reviews to films I had never even heard of before. Ebert’s reviews were simple and straightforward, and yet offered great insight into the films. I started viewing films in a different light than I used to. Yes, I was still an adolescent male, so I still loved action movies more than anything else, but slowly my opinions started to change. I owe Roger Ebert for that.

Over the years, I continued to read Ebert’s reviews. I do not know how many of those yearbooks I ended up buying, because they would become so worn and torn by repeated reading that eventually they would rips in half, the covers fall off. And yet, I kept those books for years after that. I couldn’t bear to part with them. Later, in high school, I started reading Ebert’s reviews online, and whole new world of films opened up to me. I also started watching his TV program, and I loved to see him and Siskel go at each other when there was a film they disagreed on, but liked it even more when they agreed strongly. Siskel and Ebert were the most widely known critics in the country, and their reviews could change the fate of a movie. Would Steve James’ Hoop Dreams be remembered like it is today had it not been for them? I don’t think so.

When you are the most well known anything in the world, you are bound to take some criticism of your own, and over the years Ebert has taken his share. There are people who believe that Siskel and Ebert ruined movie criticism forever by reducing it all to “Thumbs Up” and “Thumbs Down”, yet I have always found that argument ridiculous. Yes, because they covered anywhere between 4 and 6 films in a half hour show, in depth debates were not always possible. Yet in their short debates, they hit on many different facets of a film. I always found Ebert’s reviews on TV to be a good synopsis of his written reviews. It is through reading his reviews, and watching his show, that I learned a very valuable lesson about film criticism: It is not what rating a critic gives to a movie that is important, but why he gives it that rating. Ebert, whether he gives one of my favorite films Blue Velvet 1 star, or loves a film like The English Patient which I despise, has always met the criteria of being interesting to read.

Furthermore, his show exposed a number of different films to the masses that otherwise would have passed them by. I have already mentioned Hoop Dreams, but there are countless others. Let’s face facts and be honest here – most people in the world do not now, nor have they ever, really read much film criticism. Siskel and Ebert didn’t kill it; they simply brought it to more people. Yes, I do believe that criticism has taken a nosedive in recent years, with many critics simply dialing up the volume on the level of praise or vitriol they direct towards a film. And reviews have been shorter, and perhaps more populist. And many critics seem to use their reviews to practice their standup comedy routines, and not actually deal with the film in question in an honest way. But Ebert never did any of these things. While his taste has evolved over the years, the one thing that hasn’t changed is that Ebert gives every film he sees a fair shake. Whether it’s the new Scorsese film or something with Pauly Shore, Ebert gives the movie a chance to win him over.

In short, I owe a lot to Roger Ebert when it comes to my movie education. Would I have discovered Martin Scorsese and Hitchcock without Ebert? Probably. But what about Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, Renoir, Ozu, Mizoguchi, DeSica, Rosselini, Bresson or any number of other foreign directors? I don’t know. His great movie series has been a godsend, covering not just the confirmed classics, but also some stranger choices that have ended up being richly rewarding for me.

Over the years, my enthusiasm for Ebert has waned at times. After Siskel’s death, Ebert could have picked any number of great movie critics to co-host the show, and act as his intellectual equal. He chose wrong when he picked Richard Roeper, who was not a real movie critic at the time, and only gradually, and minimally improved, over time. Gone were the classic sparing matches between Siskel and Ebert. Watching Ebert debate Roeper was like watching Mike Tyson box a puppy. Sure, the puppy is cute, but you never doubt who is going to win. Ebert has also gone rather soft in recent years. He gives out 4 star reviews like candy, often to movies that only middling at best, and he seems to like nearly every movie that comes along.

Yet when Ebert was sidelined for a year while he faced his cancer battle, I missed his reviews more than I care to admit. Whether I agree with Ebert or not, it is nice to know that he is out there, doing his thing, and inspiring more kids like me to take a serious interest in film. In short, we need Roger Ebert. He has now turned 67, and even if he still cannot speak, his writing has not been impacted. I look forward to reading Roger Ebert hopefully for years to come. When he does go, it will be a sad day.

God and the Cinema Part XI: The "Crime" Films of Woody Allen

You could write a book about religion in Woody Allen’s movies, or at least, his aversion to it. Although Allen has often been cited as an agnostic, or sometimes atheist, director, his films are full of religion. His Jewish upbringing definitely had an effect on him, as did the films of his mentor, Ingmar Bergman. Allen’s film, when they deal with religion, seem to be all over the map. Like another Jewish director, Steven Spielberg, his films are often filled with Catholic and Christian imagery. In this piece, I am not going to try to cover all of Allen’s films – the man has made well over 40, and at a pace of one per year, he just keeps adding to his already impressive oeuvre. I am not one of those Allen fans who thinks that the master has lost it in recent years. Sure his masterpieces are fewer and farther between than before, and he has made more than his share of stinkers recently, but when Allen is on, he is still one of the best in the business.

For this piece, I am only going to concentrate of three of Allen’s films – one a confirmed masterpiece, and two more recent films. The first is Allen’s 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors. The second is 2005’s Match Point. The third is the criminally underrated Cassandra’s Dream for 2008. The first two of those films share similar themes, and end results, but Cassandra’s Dream very interestingly flips it. I am sure I will come back to Allen at some point in this series (I am going to have to deal with his sexual obsession with younger women at some point here, aren’t I?), but for this piece we’re going to concentrate on Allen’s view of death and murder.

Crimes and Misdemeanors tells two interlocking stories, but I am only going to concentrate on one. It’s not that I do not love the story of Allen’s documentary filmmaker who falls in love with Mia Farrow, only to have her leave him for the shallow, superficial comedy star played by Alan Alda, just that it doesn’t really fit in with the rest of this piece.

The story that I am truly fascinated by in Crimes and Misdemeanors is that of Martin Landau’s Judah Rosenthal, a successful ophthalmologist approaching retirement age who is looking forward to an easier life with his . His problem is that he has been engaged in an affair with Dolores (Anjelica Huston) for a while, and promises have been made by him that he never intended to keep. Now she wants him to live up to those promises – leave his wife and marry her. When it becomes clear to her that he has no intentions of doing so, she threatens to tell his wife about the affair. She even writes a letter to his wife, that he is able to intercept, but she doesn’t stop there. She is committed to telling his wife, and ruining his life. She also threatens to reveal some shady business deals that Judah has been involved in.

In crisis, Judah turns to a patient of his – a rabbi (Sam Waterson) – who is blind (none too subtle that one). He encourages Judah to be open and honest with his wife, saying that a marriage cannot work when there are lies. But Judah does not want to do this, and risk his marriage. Instead he turns to his brother (Jerry Orbach), a small time gangster for advice. He suggests that Judah hire a hit man to kill Dolores. The dead cannot say anything. Judah listens to his brother, and not the Rabbi.

At first, Judah is torn apart by guilt. Like Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and any number of film noirs, he finds he cannot live with the guilt of having become a murderer. But as time passes, it gets easier for Judah. He gets his life back the way he wanted it. The murder was blamed on a drifter. Judah now has everything he wanted. With time, any crises will pass for Judah. God does not see what you do (hence the blind Rabbi) and does not punish you for your crimes. There are no limits to what you can do, as long as you find a way to live with yourself.

Crimes and Misdemeanors is one of the key films in Allen’s body of work, and also one of the very best (I would put it just behind Manhattan and Annie Hall). It is the film that everyone points to when they call Allen an atheist director. After all, Judah commits a heinous crime, and skates away completely unpunished, by the law or by God, and even by his own conscience. He had a few sleepless nights, but then he’s able to move on with his life. It doesn’t affect him that he has taken another human’s life, and destroyed someone else’s (the drifter, who has a criminal record, but nevertheless is innocent of this crime). Life goes on, and everything is fine.

Match Point tells a similar story, except it transplants the action to England, adds a class element to the mix, and makes the characters much younger. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Chris Wilton, was once a professional tennis player, but he did not have the talent to become a huge star. Now, he works as tennis pro at a ritzy country club where he meets and eventually marries Chloe (Emily Mortimer). By marrying Chloe, Chris has everything he ever wanted. A big house, lots of money, and job that will get him even more. He has jumped classes by marrying Chloe, and Allen pokes fun at the upper classes in England throughout the movie (notice the great Ralph Lauren reference for an example of this). In short, Chris is happy with his new life, and if he isn’t head over heels in love with Chloe, like she is with him, she is at least an attractive, nice girl who he likes.

His relationship with Chloe is threatened however when he has an affair with American Nola (Scarlett Johansson, for once actually the perfect choice for the role in Woody Allen film). She is an American actress, of no fame or money, who arrives in his new family as the girlfriend of Chloe’s brother Tom (Matthew Goode). In each other they see an almost uncomfortable reflection of themselves. Both are trying to “marry up”, but Chris is more successful then Nola. Although he is Irish, he is accepted by Chloe’s family, while they patently reject Nola. But these two outsiders, and lower class citizens, are drawn to each other anyway. An affair starts, but when Nola makes similar demands on Chris that Dolores did on Judah in Crimes and Misdemeanors, things go wrong. All of a sudden, Chris is threatened to have everything in his life that he loves taken away from him. Like Judah, he determines the only thing he can do to save his life, is to kill Nola. Unlike Judah however, he has no gangster brother to turn to. Chris does the deed himself.

Match Point ends similarly to Crimes and Misdemeanors, in that Chris gets away with the murder unpunished, as someone else is charged with the crime. Chris, like Judah, finds that he can live with what he has done, and goes about his merry way. Once again, there are no consequences to Chris’s actions – not from the law, not from God, not from anyone. He got himself into a messy situation, and he got himself back out again. The only person he answers to is himself, and he is satisfied.

Crimes and Misdemeanors tell similar stories, but in different in unique ways. Both deal with the idea that a person can do anything they want, as long as they can live with themselves after the deed is done. There is no God coming to punish the wicked – at least not yet.

And that is what makes Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream such an interesting film. Dismissed by critics, ignored by audiences, I actually think that Cassandra’s Dream is one of the best of Allen’s recent films (I would put it below Match Point, but above his Oscar winning Vicky Cristina Barcelona).

Like the other two films, Cassandra’s Dream focuses on the lead up and aftermath of a murder, although the motivating factors, and the fallout is extremely different. Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell play brothers, both in need of a lot of money and fast. McGregor has some can’t miss business deals he needs money for, and his new girlfriend (Haley Atwell) is used to dating rich guys, and he wants to keep her in the style that she is accustomed to. Farrell, already married, owes a lot of money to some bad guys for a gambling debt, and has also committed to buying a house he cannot afford. Their parents are working class (there’s that class thing again, rearing its head in Allen’s British work) and have no money, but they do have a very rich uncle (Tom Wilkinson). Wilkinson has had some shady business deals, and stands to be ruined if one of his employees follows through on his threat to testify at an upcoming trial. Wilkinson will give them the money they need, if they kill this man for them.

After an uneasy start to the film (the first 20 minutes or so are rather clunky as Allen struggles with the tone of the film), the film settles in nicely. It is rather humorous in the early going, as McGregor and Farrell, two guys who are far from professional criminals, try to plan this murder, then accidently bump into their intended victim, and find out that he seems like a really nice guy. Farrell gets cold feet, but McGregor convinces him to go through with it, which they eventually do. It’s the aftermath which is the real killer though.

Like Jonathan Rhys Meyers in Match Point and Martin Landau in Crimes and Misdemeanors, McGregor and Wilkinson seem to be able to deal with their guilt over what they did. The man represented an obstacle in their way of living the life that they both wanted to live, and now that he is out of the way, there is nothing left to prevent them. They are able to put their guilt aside, as no police come after them, and God seems to not be interested in punishing them either.

Farrell is the wildcard here. Unlike McGregor and Wilkinson, he is torn apart by guilt over his crime. He wants to confess to the murder, and even offers to leave McGregor and Wilkinson’s names out of his confession, but they know that they cannot trust Farrell to do that. That any confession will lead to questions they do not want to answer. But Farrell cannot eat, cannot sleep, cannot do anything but think about what he has done. In short, he cannot live with it.

The climax of the movie happens on the boat that McGregor and Farrell own together, called of course Cassandra’s Dream. The brothers argue, and a fight breaks out, where once again Farrell becomes a murderer – this time by accident. Knowing that the guilt of killing his brother will be too much for him, Farrell kills himself as well.

This marks a definite contrast to both Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point. In those films, the murderers were able to move on with their lives, and face no consequences for their actions. The police and God turned a blind eye to them. In Cassandra’s Dream, the result is different. Although the police are still ignorant, God it seems is not, and it drives Farrell to do what he does.

But it is really all that different? After all, Wilkinson and McGregor are able to live with what they have done, and had it not been for Farrell, they would have. In fact, Wilkinson, the primary benefactor of the murder, will most likely be able to put it behind him and live his life anyway. He obviously didn’t love his nephews all that much if he would ask them to murder for him (and quilting them into it, by using the old “we’re family” routine when they at first resist). Like Rhys Meyers in Match Point, he is not someone who was born rich, but has become rich, and climbed the class ladder in England – the whole time knowing a scandal would devastate him.

And after all, perhaps it is not God that punishes Farrell with his guilt, but Farrell himself. All three films looks at the difference between deontology (a philosophical theory that it is the action itself and not the consequences that determine right and wrong) and consequentialism (the exact opposite). In ordinary terms, Rhys Meyers and Landau, along with Wilkinson and McGregor, can live with what they have done because there are no consequences to them, while Farrell cannot, because the action itself, and not the consequences, are what is causing him remorse.

Cassandra’s Dream is the most troublesome film of the three. Allen doesn’t quite nail it, and as a result while it remains a very good film, it is not quite the masterpiece that either Crimes and Misdemeanors or Match Point were. Still however, it is a fascinating film, and an interesting look at Allen’s still evolving moral outlook.

Woody Allen is one of the few American directors working today that can rightly be called a master filmmaker. His career has spanned more than 40 years, with even more films, and there are not that many truly bad films in the bunch. This piece looks at just three of his films, but there are countless others I would like to look again in the future. Stay tuned. I’ll get back to Allen one day.

Weekly Top Tens: The Best Movies About Teachers

My fiancé is a teacher, and so at this time of year, while all the students are waiting to get out of school for the summer, I often think of their poor teachers, who probably need the break much more than students do. Teachers are among the most over stressed, under paid, under respected professions out there. So, I decided to do my top ten list this week about teacher movies. Not all of the movies on the list are flattering portraits of teachers, and yet I think each and every one would make any teacher just a little happier in their job – either by inspiring them to go out and make a difference, or at least make them a little happier that they are not the teacher in the movie!

10. Mr. Holland’s Opus (Stephen Herek, 1995)
Yes, Mr. Holland’s Opus is a more than a little bit cheesy. It is the standard issue “inspiring teacher” movie, about a music teacher who reaches countless kids over the years, but cannot reach their own child, because they are deaf. There is nothing remotely new or original in the film, but watching it, I defy you to not be moved by Richard Dreyfuss’ performance, particularly at the end when he is finally able to break through the barrier to his son. Yes, it’s sappy and cheesy. But sometimes, sappy and cheesy are just what you want.

9. Stand and Deliver (Ramon Mendenez, 1988)
This is probably the best of the teacher reaching out to the inner city school children movies produced in America. We have seen countless versions of this from Lean on Me to Dangerous Minds to Freedom Writers, where all the students need is someone to believe in them in order for their academic minds to come alive. Most of them are beyond cheesy and condescending, but Stand and Deliver avoids most of those traps. Edward James Olmos gives a great performance as Jamie Escalante, the weird math teacher with overly big glasses, a bad comb over, and a dream that his students take advance placement tests for math to get them into university. Lou Diamond Phillips as the most “badass” student in the room is also quite good. A fine film.

8. Goodbye, Mr. Chips (Sam Wood, 1939)
If there is a lesson for teachers to learn from Goodbye Mr. Chips, it’s that it sometimes takes a lot of time to become a good teacher. The film follows Mr. Chips (Robert Donat in an Oscar winning role) through his nearly 50 year teaching career. For the nearly the first 20 years, Mr. Chips is viewed by his colleagues and students as a fussy stick in the mud, who they pretty much all dislike. But when he meets the woman he’s going to marry (Greer Garson) is middle age, he suddenly comes alive, and becomes one of the best and most beloved teachers in the school’s history. So keep at it, and hopefully your beloved spouse won’t die right after you get married. There have been a lot of movies about English boarding schools over the years, but this is perhaps the best one.

7. Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, 1989)
This is the final, and best, inspirational teacher movie on this list. It gets darker from here on out, so be warned. Robin Williams gives one of his best performances as John Keating, the new English teacher at an exclusive boarding school in 1960s America. Keating inspires his students to see the English language in another way, and encourages them to think for themselves, which of course, upsets the establishment. Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke are the standouts among the impressive young cast. It’s hard to watch this movie and not get a little choked up.

6. Wonder Boys (Curtis Hanson, 2000)
Wonder Boys is actually better than several movies above it on this list, but I docked it a couple points because it’s about University Professor, and there is precious little teaching going on in the film. No matter though, Wonder Boys is a reminder that sometimes the teacher is more screwed up than the students. Michael Douglas plays a novelist and a writing professor, who has been working on his latest novel for years, and cannot finish it. His third marriage has just dissolved, he’s been sleeping with his boss’ wife (Frances McDormand), and he smokes a lot of pot. Through a highly unorthodox weekend, Douglas learns from two of his students. First, there is Tobey Maguire, as a gifted student who churns out one great story after another, and then there is Katie Holmes, who reads his latest opus, and tells him its crap. Sometimes the students do the teaching. Wonder Boys is a funny, heartfelt little film and it contains Michael Douglas’ best performance.

5. Notes on a Scandal (Richard Eyre, 2006)
Notes on a Scandal is a darkly comic take on a story we hear far too often nowadays – that of a female teacher sleeping with one of her students. But the fascinating thing about this movie is that it is not the teacher who sleeps with the student (Cate Blanchatt) who is the main character, but her friend (Judi Dench). Dench plays an old, bitter teacher, lonely for years, probably a closeted lesbian, who strikes up a friendship with Blanchatt, and then uses her knowledge of the affair to try and keep her in check – with disastrous results. I suppose when you spend your entire working life in a high school, sometimes you cannot help but act like your students a little bit. I have always thought that Dench was an overrated actress, but in this movie she is utterly fantastic.

4. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Ronald Neame, 1969)
Maggie Smith won her first Oscar for playing Miss Jean Brodie, a teacher at an all girls school in England, who is fiercely protective of “her girls”, even if she fails completely to understand them at all. She assigns each of her girls a role to play, and then tests them out to see if they fulfill that role. She encourages one girl to fight in the Spanish Civil War, with disastrous results, and the other girls rebel against their roles, and finally Miss Brodie herself. Miss Brodie always considered herself a great teacher and a confidante to her girls. When she finds out what they really think of her, she cannot bare it.

3. Half Nelson (Ryan Fleck, 2006)
Okay, so if you thought some of the teachers on this list were messed up, they cannot compare with Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling) in this movie. Dunne is a rich kid, slumming it by teaching inner city kids middle school, to relieve some of his liberal guilt. He is also a crack addict, who is prone to get high before class, and go on crazed rants to his class, who don’t seem too interested. What saves Dunne is his relationship with Drey (Shareeka Epps), a young girl in his class, who knows his secret, and does not rat him out. She’s been falling in with a drug dealer (Anthony Mackie), and Dunne is determined to stop her from messing up her life. There sweet relationship is the heart of the movie. Ryan Gosling, one of the best actors in the world right now, delivers an amazing performance as Dunne. He never goes over the top into junkie hysterics, and he also does not turn Dunne into some kind of saint. He’s a screwed up man, just trying his best.

2. The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008)
If you are looking for perhaps the most realistic portrayal of what it’s like to be a teacher, then Laurent Cantet’s The Class is probably it. Based on a book by Francois Begaudeau a former teacher, who also co-wrote the screenplay and plays the lead role, The Class is a movie that looks at the struggle teacher go through on a day to day basis with honesty. The kids don’t seem to care that much, and are constantly questioning why they need to learn what he’s trying to teach them. For every kid he reaches, there’s at least one that he doesn’t. For every triumph, there is an equally big setback. Arguments with parents, who don’t understand or don’t care, petty bickering with other faculty members are commonplace. A misconstrued comment leads to consequences he never imagined. And yet, The Class ends up being a great film because it looks at it all with honesty and openness. Teaching is an invaluable profession, and if you put your all into it, you’re going to have highs and lows. A great film.

1. Election (Alexander Payne, 1999)
Alexander Payne’s Election is one the best comedies of the 1990s, and a reminder that sometimes it is not the troublemakers who annoy the teacher the most – it’s the suck-ups. Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) is one of those students. She always has the right answer, always has to be the best at everything and civics teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) just cannot stand her anymore. Already mad at her as her affair with his best friend got him fired, when it appears like Tracy is going to win the election to class President, meaning that McAllister will have to spend a lot of time with her the next year, he puts into motion his plan to stop her – by any means necessary. The movie is often painfully funny, with Broderick and Witherspoon giving pitch perfect performances (this, by the way, is the film Witherspoon should have won her Oscar for), the film looks in painstaking detail just how screwed up McAllister’s life becomes. People like Tracy always win, and people like poor Mr. McAllister always lose.

Weekly Top Ten: The Best Foreign Language Film Oscar Winners

After this weekend, where I watched the latest foreign language Oscar winner, the disappointing Japanese film Departures, I felt the urge to go back and look at what won this award in the past to remind myself that sometimes the Academy actually gets this award right – or at least gives the Oscar to a truly great film. There were many to choose from. In addition to the 10 listed below, I could have easily have added Samurai: The Legend of Musashi, La Strada, Nights in Cabiria, The Virgin Spring, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise, Day for Night, Amarcord, All About My Mother and No Man’s Land – and those are just the ones I’ve seen. Too often, The Academy gives this award to something unworthy, but these ten certainly deserved it. I had a hard time ranking the top three films on this list. Ask me again tomorrow, and I may put them in a different order.

10. The Barbarian Invasions (Denys Arcand, 2003)
Would this film be on the list were I not Canadian, and this wasn’t the only film from my home country to win this Oscar? Maybe, maybe not. But regardless, The Barbarian Invasions is a truly great film – probably Denys Arcand’s best. Picking up 20 years after his film The Decline of the American Empire left off, his characters are older, but I’m not sure any wiser. They still talk of sex, still act like snobby intellectuals – and still don’t connect with their kids. But all that changes when Remy (Remy Girad) is diagnosed with cancer, and starts dying. Suddenly, all his friends come back to see him, his son tries his best to make him comfortable, even though he hates the man. The film is heartbreaking and brilliant. The performances, not just by Girard, but also by Marie Jose Croze (who won the Best Actress award at Cannes that year for her performance of a drug addict who helps out) elevate the movie to truly great status.

9. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
To fans of Asian cinema, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon didn’t seem as new and different as it did too many Western audiences. They had been doing things like this for years. But what Ang Lee’s film did, that so many before it failed to do, was tell a touching, emotional story to go along with the great action set pieces. Chow Yun Fat, a star of multiple John Woo films, was never given a better role, and neither was Michelle Yeoh, as two warriors off to find a stolen sword. Zhang Ziyi burst onto the cinematic landscape in a powerful performance (unlike those other two though, she would be given a better role a few years later in Wong Kar Wai’s 2046). Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a magical film, and not just because of those incredible fight sequences.

8. The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
In my review of Departures, I complained that it was a foreign film for people who do not like foreign films. I think the same could be said of The Lives of Others, as the film certainly takes more from Hollywood films, then it does from its German ancestors. Yet I cannot deny the simple power the film has. It tells the story of a Stasi agent in the waning days of the Cold War, who is assigned to monitor the activities of a playwright, who finds himself sympathizing with the man, and refuses to file real reports about him. Both an intricate thriller, and a powerful character study, featuring a subtle, brilliant performance by the great Ulrich Muhe in his final screen role, The Lives of Others is a wonderful film.

7. The Shop on Main Street (Jan Kadar & Elmar Klos, 1965)
I think most people have forgotten about this powerful little film from Czechoslovakia, but it is the best of all the many Holocaust films to have won this prize over the years. When the Germans take power in the country, they assign citizens to take over Jewish businesses in order to ensure everything runs smoothly. Antonin (Jozef Kroner) is assigned to run the shop of an old widow Rozalie (Ida Kaminska in an Oscar nominated performance). She is confused, and thinks he is looking for employment, and hires him. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her why he’s really there. The two grow close over the time they spend together, and so when the authorities start rounding up the Jews to ship them off to concentration camps, he tries to protect her. Since she has no idea what is going on, it does not end well. This is an emotionally powerful movie. A forgotten masterwork.

6. The Bicycle Thief (Vittorio De Sica, 1949)
A long time staple of Best of All Time lists, Vittorio DeSica’s film is deceptively simple. It tells the story of Antonio, impoverished after the war, and struggling to support his wife and son, who is so happy when he gets a job hanging posters for upcoming Hollywood movies. All the job requires is a bike, and he has one! But when his bike gets stolen, he travels around Rome trying to find it with his son, finally deciding that he should steal someone else’s bike – but he’s not much of a thief. The film is heartbreakingly simple and emotional. A staple of any serious film scholars movie education.

5. Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)
Ingmar Bergman is one of my favorite directors of all time, and I think Through a Glass Darkly is one of his most underrated films. A family lives together on a secluded island, and tries to deal with their various issues. Karin (Harriet Anderson), has just been released, not for the first time, from a mental hospital, and her father David (Gunnar Bjornstrand), husband Martin (Max von Sydow) and brother Minus (Lars Passgard) try to deal with her. But when she says she saw God in an upstairs room, and that God is a Spider, they fear they have lost her again. The film is essentially a chamber piece, made up of conversations between some or all of the characters – who all seem to have their own problems, Through a Glass Darkly is filmmaking at its best.

4. Forbidden Games (Rene Clement, 1952)
This film probably features the two best performances by child actors in cinema history. Paulette (Briggitte Fossey) is a five year old French girl, fleeing from Paris with her parents and her dog as the Nazis attack. Her parents, and dog, are killed, and she is taken in by a nice peasant family, and bonds with their 10 year old son Michel (Georges Poujouly). Together, the two of them cope with all the death and destruction around them by creating an animal cemetery, starting with her dog, and then expanding to any dead animals they find – stealing crosses from the local cemetery to mark the graves. The film is an emotional powerhouse, featuring great performances, and impeccable filmmaking by master Rene Clement. The film is about the power of friendship, and innocence lost, and does so without becoming condescending or snide, like Life is Beautiful.

3. 8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Fellini’s 8 ½ is perhaps the greatest film about filmmaking in history. Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) is a successful film director, supposed to be concentrating on directing a new autobiographical science fiction film, when he loses interest. The film is essentially interwoven between Guido’s present, and flashbacks and dream sequences that merge with reality at several points. An intensely personal film, Fellini exorcised his demons about his own fears about making something profound, by putting it all on film. A complex film, and perhaps the cornerstone of Fellini’s work, the film is one of the most influential and critically praised in history. Later this year, you can catch Rob Marshall’s 9 with Daniel Day Lewis, which is based on the musical which was based on this film.

2. Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1983)
Perhaps Bergman’s best film was one of his last. His epic Fanny and Alexander tells the story of two siblings, who upon the death of their father, and the remarriage of their mother, are brought to live in their new stepfather’s huge house. The stepfather is a religious strict man, who demands absolute obedience from his new children. They live as virtual prisoners, are haunted by ghosts, but are finally set free with the help of some magic. Fanny and Alexander weaves all of Bergman’s favorite themes into one epic film that runs the gamut from strict authority, to the existence of God, to supernatural ghosts, to family dynamics, and everything else. It is a complete and utter masterpiece – one of the best of all films.

1. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1951)
Akira Kurosawa is one of the greatest filmmakers in history, and while I would have preferred the Academy to give this award to something like Seven Samurai, Ikiru or Ran, there is no doubt that Rashomon is a masterpiece. The film is about the nature of truth, as it tells the story of a rape of a woman and the murder of her husband, through the eyes of four different witnesses – the rapist, the woman, the murder victim (through a medium) and a woodcutter who says he found the body. But the film is more complex than that as the stories of each of the witnesses is told by the woodcutter and a priest to a third man as they wait out a rainstorm in a house marked Rashomon. None of the stories match, although perhaps none of the people are lying – they simply perceive the events differently. Complicated by the added wrinkle of each of their stories being retold by others, we are never really able to get the truth of what happened. This is a complex, brilliant film by one of the greatest filmmakers ever.

The Films of Martin Scorsese Part XXVI: Kundun

Kundun (1997) ***
Directed By: Martin Scorsese.
Written By: Melissa Mathison.
Starring: Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong (Dalai Lama – Adult), Gyurme Tethong (Dalai Lama -Age 12), Tulku Jamyang Kunga Tenzin (Dalai Lama - Age 5), Tenzin Yeshi Paichang (Dalai Lama - Aged 2), Tencho Gyalpo (Mother), Tsewang Migyur Khangsar (Father), Robert Lin (Chairman Mao).

Kundun is the most serene of all of Martin Scorsese’s films. You could probably count the number of times someone raises their voice on one hand, and have a couple of fingers left over. Most of the protagonists in a Scorsese film are ones who are struggling with some sort of inner torment – guilt, remorse whatever. But the Dalai Lama, who is practically the center of every scene in Kundun, faces no such demons. He is almost supernaturally calm throughout the entire movie. I find it kind of strange that the director, who gave us the most conflicted version of Jesus Christ in screen history, seems to think that no such struggle existed in the Dalai Lama. It takes his divinity almost as a given, and like its main character, simply sits back and observes.

The movie opens in the early 1930s in Tibet. The Dalai Lama is just two years old and already he is a handful. When a Holy Man comes to the small town on the Chinese border, he sees something interesting in this child. When he asks him to pick out a number of items that belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama, the child is able to do so. This seems to prove that the child is the 14th Dalai Lama – he knows what items belonged to the previous one because they were his as well. Over the next decade, he goes through strict training and schooling, to teach him how to become both the spiritual and secular leader of his country. As an adult, he will face decisions more difficult then he predecessors.

China considers Tibet to be part of their land. After WWII, China decides it is time to take control back of this rebel province. The Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan people, does not want this to happen, but they really do not have much choice. The Chinese army is huge, compared to Tibet’s of 5,000. Making it more complicated is the fact that the Dalai Lama does not believe in war. He is committed to non-violence. He reaches out to the world community, only to be rejected each and every time. He tries to negotiate with Chairman Mao, but finds that Mao does not want to listen to him. He has already made up his mind. The Dalai Lama represents a threat, because he commands the loyalty of his people. Eventually, he will have to flee his homeland, to which he has yet been allowed to return to.

Scorsese’s approach to this material is to tell it simply and straight forward. In nearly every scene in the movie, the Dalai Lama is at the center, more often than not, he sits back and observes and listens. He does not believe that he can truly control the outcome; he just wants to do his best to protect his people. Sometimes, the only way to do that is to give up, but the Dali Lama never really does. He tries to passively resist for as long as he can, but it is of little use.

I am not sure that there is a more beautiful film in Scorsese’s oeuvre than this one. The masterful cinematography by Roger Deakins is full of saturated colors, and nearly every frame in the movie is simply beautiful to behold. The art direction and costume design are also rich and colorful, perfectly setting each and every scene. Philip Glass’s constantly pulsating score is distracting at points, but overall underlines the action quite wonderfully. This is a movie where it is possible to simply get lost in all the glorious sights and sounds on display.

But what the film never really does is truly draw us into its story. Part of the problem with the film is that the Dalai Lama is so passive, that at times, it is quite boring to simply sit and watch him as he sits and watches what is going on around him. No doubt this is an accurate depiction, but it does not exactly make for stirring viewing. I’ve seen the film twice now, and both times I was amazed by the visuals on display – an example of pure cinema if I’ve ever seen one – but underwhelmed by the story.

It’s not that Kundun is a bad movie at all. It isn’t. There is a lot to like and admire about the film. But coming from the man who has created some of the most complex character studies of all time – character where it is possible to get lost in their minds, Kundun seems downright simple by comparison. Perhaps Scorsese made the film because the serenity of the Dalai Lama fascinated and intrigued him, and that perhaps he admired him this. Perhaps Scorsese, who has admitted in the past that for much of his life he felt uncomfortable with himself, admired the Dalai Lama for his complete comfort. Because he was raised Catholic, and not Buddhist, he does not have the same sort of complex relationship with him that he does with Jesus, which allowed him to not interject his obsessions as much on this film. I’m not really sure. What I am sure of is that although I admire Kundun a great deal, it’s not really I film I feel that much love for. I had not watched it since its original release, and I find it hard to believe that I will watch it again in the future, unless I decide to go through all of Scorsese’s films again, like I’m doing now. There is a lot to love about Kundun. Just not enough to make it a truly great film.