THE HURT LOCKER
Dir: Katheryn Bigelow
Longtime director Kathryn Bigelow (Blue Steel, Point Break, Strange Days) has always been a Hollywood enigma: an under-appreciated female director who depicts macho swagger with more authenticity (i.e., balls) than hacks like Tony Scott and Michael Bay COMBINED! Yet these guys are continually given obscenely-budgeted glamour projects, and Bigelow is forced to film in Jordan on an indie budget to bring her latest to the screen.
She gets the last laugh, however, by defying convention (and recent history) to create not only her best film by far, start-to-finish, but without a doubt the definitive movie about the 2nd Iraq War. That it has garnered more critical acclaim than any other movie of the summer is icing on the cake. The secret to her stunning success? she avoids any 'big picture' pronouncements about this misbegotten war, and instead stays on the ground with the soldiers who fight in it.
She does this by following the daily routine of a bomb disposal unit deployed in the streets of Baghdad through a series of unrelated episodes, all fraught with the tension that is the daily plight of the soldiers deployed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Every encounter they (and the audience) experience is fraught with two dangers: 1) the painstaking work of disarming an IED that can take out a city block at any moment, while 2) surveying the surrounding buildings and streets (teeming with the urban populace who live amid this daily nightmare), trying to distinguish the innocent bystander from the terrorist ready to set-off the bomb. Don't expect Bigelow to give you any cues or clues as to which of the Iraqis -- the cab driver, the man with a video camera, kids on a balcony, or a friendly English-speaker -- are the enemy.
The film brings the ongoing reality of this war to us complacent, 'I'm sick of hearing about this war' Americans. It is in-your-face, unrelenting, and visceral (Bigelow doesn't flinch at showing us how the enemy puts bombs in corpses...I told you she had balls!). Don't get me wrong: The Hurt Locker is also a heart-pounding, edge of your seat experience that leaves you exhilarated by the end of its grueling 2-hour, 10-minute length, while giving the world an important look into this ongoing, yet too quickly dismissed, tragedy.
MOON
Dir: Duncan Jones
Dir: Duncan Jones
Finally, someone makes a watchable version of SOLARIS (that impenetrable, 3-hour Russian sci-fi that not even George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh could salvage). What's more, it pays cheeky homage to that other film masterpiece of the genre: Kubrick's 2001. To the director's credit, he acknowledges the debt all science fiction films owe to Kubrick three separate times, most explicitly in the form of a talking computer (a "HAL 2.0") voiced by a soothing Kevin Spacey. That this first-time director is none other than the son of David Bowie, you have to give him credit for aiming high.
Sam Rockwell ably carries the movie as virtually the only actor, playing Sam Bell, the lonely crew member at the end of a three-year mission to mine the moon for an energy conglomerate. It is a vision of the future that is both frightening and all-too plausible: if there is a way to make money out of moon rocks, you know a multi-national is going to exploit it (and the workers it sends to mine it). The movie hits on another topical debate in the space program: how astronauts cope with years of isolation (Russia just completed a 150-day experiment with seven participants). In the movie, Sam copes via taped video messages from his wife, horticulture, hobbies, and Bewitched re-runs.
This is the set-up for an captivating plot that takes Sam on a mind-bending roller coaster as he uncovers the big corporate secret and the true extent of his exploitation. Jones only makes two missteps in carrying off this unexpectedly good suspense story: the first is the self-indulgent opening credit sequence; the second is the totally unnecessary voice-over on the final image of the movie. Each serves to call attention to itself, needlessly taking us out of the moody universe that Jones and Rockwell worked so hard to create.
and here is one more, since you've made it this far...
TETRO
Dir. Francis Ford Coppola
Spanish actress Maribel Verdu is one hot Latina woman! (whether she is wise enough to sit on the Supreme Court is beyond the scope of this review). That she was also the star of the two of my favorite Spanish-language movies of this decade -- Pan's Labyrinth and Y tu mama tambien -- gives her a special place in my heart. Working with FF Coppola no doubt adds luster to her filmography, even if his latest effort, Tetro, is a pure exercise in cinematic style.
Coppola, of all the great directors still active, has earned the right to experiment (much like Steven Soderbergh...see his latest). It is a cineaste's dream that he has decided to experiment in black and white, channeling British directors Michael Powell & Emeric Pressberger (If those two names are unfamiliar to you, this movie is NOT FOR YOU!). The film shows excerpts from their unwatchable "Tales of Hoffman" (I had to walk out of a screening--seriously!) then proceeds to outdo the duo with a pastiche of music, dance and an operatic plot not seen since ... Godfather 3!
But he has assembled a stellar cast, both in front of and behind the camera (music and cinematography are exceptional) to depict a Buenos Aires brimming with life and excitement, due in large part to the Spanish acting talent he has assembled. It truly feels like a Fellini film set in Argentina.
I must give credit to the Man for incorporating dance into this enterprise. To some in the audience, I expect it will seem laughaby out-of-place, but I think it is very effective in relaying emotion (when his actors are not up to the task, i.e., Vincent Gallo). Another Spanish acting legend, Carmen Maura, is wasted in a role that is truly laughable, but hey, she has a lustrous resume anyway, so she can experiment, too!
