2. Knocked Up 
Of the four pregnancy films this year, I liked Waitress best, Juno least, and was most disappointed with Knocked Up (as a Palme d'or winner, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days already had "overrated" stamped on it in the form of that telling little leaf.) After all this is Judd Apatow's follow-up to The 40 Year Old Virgin, which turned out to be a charming love story filled - pregnant, you could say - with lots of good jokes. Knocked Up had a great Munich jab and good appearances by Harold Ramis, Kristin Wiig and Alan Tudyk to save it from the "suck" pile, but it was wrongheaded and unfunny enough to turn me from Apatow enthusiast to wary follower. For one thing Judd, hire an editor: two hour comedies are not going to cut it (no pun intended, though I'll probably reuse that "accidental" wording when I get to Sweeney Todd) every time, especially when 80% of the jokes are improvised by guys sitting around bullshitting. Granted, Jason Segel and some of those other dudes are usually enjoyable to listen to but that's what deleted scenes are for. At least get rid of the damn Seacrest cameo. Still in this movie that kind of thing is a relief from the unbelievable premise that a young, attractive LA career gal would ever force herself into a relationship with a hideous loser from a drunken one night stand just because she got pregnant. Apatow sets it up like this is the responsible plan, that bringing two strangers who aren't right for each other together is a good scenario for raising a kid (it's not! Listen to the "Growning Pains" mom, she knows what she's talking about!) It's ludacrious, but it fits in with the movie's lazy characterizations which border on misogynistic: even Katherine Heigl admitted the lead females are portrayed alternatively bitchy, demanding, castrating, whiny and pathetic (to paraphrase.) And Seth Rogen's Canadian slacker is completely unlikable, especially in two of the film's three "revelation" scenes in which someone gets in another character's face shouting "the truth" at them, and that person walks away miraculously changed by it. Guess what Rogen, Paul Rudd's character is not a shitty father (why didn't Rudd punch him out?) and Leslie Mann has every right to be in the delivery room during the birth. She's Heigl's lamasse partner! The botched attempt at getting you on Rogen's side and making you care about the harpy women's self-centered behavior seems to have been misconstrued as good story-telling by the same people who stand by all the google gags and Seacrest cameos and other failed attempts at humor. For example people swear by the Vegas scene. Yeah I love Paul Rudd - that scene sucks, it's not funny. Rogen being in the movie makes me think of the "Freaks and Geeks" episode where his character falls for the hermaphroditic tuba player - so much more honest and interesting a love story, and it was a fucking TV show. Knocked Up was a big let down, and based on this and Superbad, which is much better but still wasn't quite what I hoped for (please stop saying "McLovin," movie), the Apatow crew had better come up with something less utterly implausible and with more actual jokes. Segel, don't let us down with Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Of the four pregnancy films this year, I liked Waitress best, Juno least, and was most disappointed with Knocked Up (as a Palme d'or winner, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days already had "overrated" stamped on it in the form of that telling little leaf.) After all this is Judd Apatow's follow-up to The 40 Year Old Virgin, which turned out to be a charming love story filled - pregnant, you could say - with lots of good jokes. Knocked Up had a great Munich jab and good appearances by Harold Ramis, Kristin Wiig and Alan Tudyk to save it from the "suck" pile, but it was wrongheaded and unfunny enough to turn me from Apatow enthusiast to wary follower. For one thing Judd, hire an editor: two hour comedies are not going to cut it (no pun intended, though I'll probably reuse that "accidental" wording when I get to Sweeney Todd) every time, especially when 80% of the jokes are improvised by guys sitting around bullshitting. Granted, Jason Segel and some of those other dudes are usually enjoyable to listen to but that's what deleted scenes are for. At least get rid of the damn Seacrest cameo. Still in this movie that kind of thing is a relief from the unbelievable premise that a young, attractive LA career gal would ever force herself into a relationship with a hideous loser from a drunken one night stand just because she got pregnant. Apatow sets it up like this is the responsible plan, that bringing two strangers who aren't right for each other together is a good scenario for raising a kid (it's not! Listen to the "Growning Pains" mom, she knows what she's talking about!) It's ludacrious, but it fits in with the movie's lazy characterizations which border on misogynistic: even Katherine Heigl admitted the lead females are portrayed alternatively bitchy, demanding, castrating, whiny and pathetic (to paraphrase.) And Seth Rogen's Canadian slacker is completely unlikable, especially in two of the film's three "revelation" scenes in which someone gets in another character's face shouting "the truth" at them, and that person walks away miraculously changed by it. Guess what Rogen, Paul Rudd's character is not a shitty father (why didn't Rudd punch him out?) and Leslie Mann has every right to be in the delivery room during the birth. She's Heigl's lamasse partner! The botched attempt at getting you on Rogen's side and making you care about the harpy women's self-centered behavior seems to have been misconstrued as good story-telling by the same people who stand by all the google gags and Seacrest cameos and other failed attempts at humor. For example people swear by the Vegas scene. Yeah I love Paul Rudd - that scene sucks, it's not funny. Rogen being in the movie makes me think of the "Freaks and Geeks" episode where his character falls for the hermaphroditic tuba player - so much more honest and interesting a love story, and it was a fucking TV show. Knocked Up was a big let down, and based on this and Superbad, which is much better but still wasn't quite what I hoped for (please stop saying "McLovin," movie), the Apatow crew had better come up with something less utterly implausible and with more actual jokes. Segel, don't let us down with Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
3. There Will Be Blood
I expect the most flack to come from this entry, but let me ask this film's overwhelming fanbase: really? This is the movie that should be considered universally exceptional, unquestionably flawless? PT Anderson "pictures" look great, sound great, if movies had an odor they'd probably smell great, but what's it all add up to? Once upon a time there was a guy named Daniel Plainview who sounded like John Huston. He was greedy and manipulative and pretty much remained that way from cradle to grave so far as we know. And he was pestered by a young evangelist who acted like Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein who you pray will someday get bludgeoned to death by a bowling pin. But so what? A rich oil tycoon's kind of a jerk, huh? PTA's a Big Idea filmmaker, but in everything he's done besides Punch Drunk Love there aren't enough moments. In Blood, when they do appear they're usually flagrantly over the top, and I genuinely can't tell when Anderson is being serious and when he's having us on. There's that final scene, which I almost don't want to touch upon it’s become so universally parodied, but have to mention since Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano indulge in the worst case of ham-fisted tug-of-war since the time Rod Steiger accused his mirror reflection of eating all his cupcakes (that probably happened at least once in his life.) And I've liked Day-Lewis in the past: his grand excess served him well in Last of the Mohicans and The Crucible, he was even enjoyable to watch when he played Snidley Whiplash in Gangs of New York, but here it's out of control. And I've read no mention of Kevin J O'Connor's sad, subtle performance in any of the glowing reviews praising the two leads - is it because he was in the Mummy movies? Don't get me wrong, Blood is far from terrible - miles above Magnolia - but nobody's reinventing cinema here. Even the few who have complained about it focus on the wrong things, "the movie's too long and Day-Lewis is mean." It's a case of overwhelming work from a film crew on an underwhelming movie, one with very little to say. But I like talking to people about it and would love to be convinced, so lovers of the movie let me know what I'm missing.
4. Zodiac
It's hard to say why I'm not on the Zodiac bandwagon. I'm a longtime follower of the actual case, a fan of several of the supporting actors, and very much into David Fincher's obsession with the stacks of paperwork, mountains of boxes and number of phone calls to various jurisdictions required to compile a single police investigation. But at the risk of offending Kent Jones and other Fincher zealots, it's got a lot of problems. Not the least of which is one champions of the film are quick to identify and footnote: the dweeby, unlikable performance of Jake Gyllenhaal as cartoonist-turned-Zodiac stalker Robert Graysmith. I care as much about Graysmith's marital problems as I do Ryan Seacrest cameos and that stuff is total dead weight, thrown in to get Chloe Sevigny from turning the movie into a sausagefest (I kept thinking "Why does her character exist? Does she turn out to be the Zodiac?") Besides those problems, which pretty much eat up the second half of the movie, I just wasn't hugely impressed by most of the stuff lots of people seemed to love about the film: the soundtrack, the period haircuts, the silly suspense scene in the basement of the guy's house. I liked the murder sequences best because of their portentous tranquility and the use of different actors to play the killer, especially the attacks at Lake Berryessa, but those scenes made everything happening at the Chronicle and police department less interesting to watch. Then of course there's the problem the film shares with its source material, the condemning of Arthur Lee Allen as the de facto suspect (they leave out that several witnesses described the killer as having a crew cut, which doesn't fit the physical profile as Allen was bald...or that Allen passed a 10 hour polygraph test...or that his blood failed modern DNA tests...or that the key witness' son had been molested by Allen.) Still I think this is a good movie, definitely Fincher's best, a huge leap after Panic Room, and retroactively deserves the first Oscar they give out for digital photography, I just thought it was a little overrated. That's all.
5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Considering it's a musical about slashing throats, this movie's surprisingly bloodless (sorry about that.) Burton knows all the right technical people to hire, but doesn't seem to be able to communicate visual ideas beyond his go-to pancake makeup and dark architecture. The best scene in the film, a montage of awesome art direction and Oscar-winning production design set to Helena Bodham-Carter singing the boppy jingle "By the Sea," works against the rest of the film as a stand-alone example of what could have been. Depp's an interesting actor but he's got limited range (not to mention vocal range), and this role is beyond him. Things that should have been fun - Sacha Baron Cohen as a rival barber, the darkly comedic duet "A Little Priest" - fall absolutely flat. And Sondheim's music, though I like it, really doesn't translate well to film: most of it's too busy and offsets the tone. Only Alan Rickman, as a high ranking pervert, comes off as particularly exceptional although to be fair he's pretty dynamite, his singing voice is great to listen to (and I like Timothy Spall in true character actor form as his beadle.)
6. La Vie en Rose
The official entry in this year's faceless foreign release comes from France, who served America an Edith Piaf biopic as generic as it is indistinguishable from your standard Ray/Walk the Line/Tip Toe Through the Tulips: The Tiny Tim Story tortured musician melodrama. Following her life from rejected whore-raised cherub to fish-mouth chanteuse, the movie coasts on Amelie-style charm until it has to get down to business and show why this person deserves scrutinizing in an overblown biography. Yet by the end, what have we learned about Piaf? She's any combination of loud, shaky and obnoxious. But apparently that's why we're supposed to love her. Marion Cotillard does display a good penchant for chameleon-like transformation from 20 to 40 to 60 and while I'm glad she beat out Ellen Page for the Oscar, it's really more an achievement in makeup (which, to be fair, also won an Oscar.) The film's a checklist of scenes you can pretty much write yourself before the credits are over with the occasional timeline shake-up to make it seem like a masterstroke of structure, but it's just following the numbers.
7. American Gangster
The true story couldn't be more interesting or rife for adaptation. The characters so conflicted, the environment so heated and deadly. I speak of course of 2001's Black Hawk Dawn, another real life adaptation Ridley Scott managed to overcook and thoroughly gut of relevance. Technically this movie split audiences, but the people who liked it loved it and praised it to the hills. Everything's a miscalculation, from Josh Brolin's soulless corrupt cop (who literally indulges in the "kick the dog" method of audience identification) to Cuba Gooding Jr's flashy pimped-out dealer, the latter of whom is barely part of the story. Coming long after various films inspired by Frank Lucas' MO - New Jack City, Blow - it seems cliché, and is overstuffed with useless subplots (more marital problems!) that seem to exist solely to make the film longer (re: more epic) rather than create a tight, enjoyable crime drama. The lead actors are fine (especially Denzel, natch) but after the fifth scene of Lucas going crazy on a brother we get it, he's dangerous but charming and unpredictable and a brilliant drug czar yadda yadda.
8. Into the Wild
"I'm canceling Christmas!" - William Hurt
I expect the most flack to come from this entry, but let me ask this film's overwhelming fanbase: really? This is the movie that should be considered universally exceptional, unquestionably flawless? PT Anderson "pictures" look great, sound great, if movies had an odor they'd probably smell great, but what's it all add up to? Once upon a time there was a guy named Daniel Plainview who sounded like John Huston. He was greedy and manipulative and pretty much remained that way from cradle to grave so far as we know. And he was pestered by a young evangelist who acted like Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein who you pray will someday get bludgeoned to death by a bowling pin. But so what? A rich oil tycoon's kind of a jerk, huh? PTA's a Big Idea filmmaker, but in everything he's done besides Punch Drunk Love there aren't enough moments. In Blood, when they do appear they're usually flagrantly over the top, and I genuinely can't tell when Anderson is being serious and when he's having us on. There's that final scene, which I almost don't want to touch upon it’s become so universally parodied, but have to mention since Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano indulge in the worst case of ham-fisted tug-of-war since the time Rod Steiger accused his mirror reflection of eating all his cupcakes (that probably happened at least once in his life.) And I've liked Day-Lewis in the past: his grand excess served him well in Last of the Mohicans and The Crucible, he was even enjoyable to watch when he played Snidley Whiplash in Gangs of New York, but here it's out of control. And I've read no mention of Kevin J O'Connor's sad, subtle performance in any of the glowing reviews praising the two leads - is it because he was in the Mummy movies? Don't get me wrong, Blood is far from terrible - miles above Magnolia - but nobody's reinventing cinema here. Even the few who have complained about it focus on the wrong things, "the movie's too long and Day-Lewis is mean." It's a case of overwhelming work from a film crew on an underwhelming movie, one with very little to say. But I like talking to people about it and would love to be convinced, so lovers of the movie let me know what I'm missing.4. Zodiac
It's hard to say why I'm not on the Zodiac bandwagon. I'm a longtime follower of the actual case, a fan of several of the supporting actors, and very much into David Fincher's obsession with the stacks of paperwork, mountains of boxes and number of phone calls to various jurisdictions required to compile a single police investigation. But at the risk of offending Kent Jones and other Fincher zealots, it's got a lot of problems. Not the least of which is one champions of the film are quick to identify and footnote: the dweeby, unlikable performance of Jake Gyllenhaal as cartoonist-turned-Zodiac stalker Robert Graysmith. I care as much about Graysmith's marital problems as I do Ryan Seacrest cameos and that stuff is total dead weight, thrown in to get Chloe Sevigny from turning the movie into a sausagefest (I kept thinking "Why does her character exist? Does she turn out to be the Zodiac?") Besides those problems, which pretty much eat up the second half of the movie, I just wasn't hugely impressed by most of the stuff lots of people seemed to love about the film: the soundtrack, the period haircuts, the silly suspense scene in the basement of the guy's house. I liked the murder sequences best because of their portentous tranquility and the use of different actors to play the killer, especially the attacks at Lake Berryessa, but those scenes made everything happening at the Chronicle and police department less interesting to watch. Then of course there's the problem the film shares with its source material, the condemning of Arthur Lee Allen as the de facto suspect (they leave out that several witnesses described the killer as having a crew cut, which doesn't fit the physical profile as Allen was bald...or that Allen passed a 10 hour polygraph test...or that his blood failed modern DNA tests...or that the key witness' son had been molested by Allen.) Still I think this is a good movie, definitely Fincher's best, a huge leap after Panic Room, and retroactively deserves the first Oscar they give out for digital photography, I just thought it was a little overrated. That's all.
5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Considering it's a musical about slashing throats, this movie's surprisingly bloodless (sorry about that.) Burton knows all the right technical people to hire, but doesn't seem to be able to communicate visual ideas beyond his go-to pancake makeup and dark architecture. The best scene in the film, a montage of awesome art direction and Oscar-winning production design set to Helena Bodham-Carter singing the boppy jingle "By the Sea," works against the rest of the film as a stand-alone example of what could have been. Depp's an interesting actor but he's got limited range (not to mention vocal range), and this role is beyond him. Things that should have been fun - Sacha Baron Cohen as a rival barber, the darkly comedic duet "A Little Priest" - fall absolutely flat. And Sondheim's music, though I like it, really doesn't translate well to film: most of it's too busy and offsets the tone. Only Alan Rickman, as a high ranking pervert, comes off as particularly exceptional although to be fair he's pretty dynamite, his singing voice is great to listen to (and I like Timothy Spall in true character actor form as his beadle.)6. La Vie en Rose
The official entry in this year's faceless foreign release comes from France, who served America an Edith Piaf biopic as generic as it is indistinguishable from your standard Ray/Walk the Line/Tip Toe Through the Tulips: The Tiny Tim Story tortured musician melodrama. Following her life from rejected whore-raised cherub to fish-mouth chanteuse, the movie coasts on Amelie-style charm until it has to get down to business and show why this person deserves scrutinizing in an overblown biography. Yet by the end, what have we learned about Piaf? She's any combination of loud, shaky and obnoxious. But apparently that's why we're supposed to love her. Marion Cotillard does display a good penchant for chameleon-like transformation from 20 to 40 to 60 and while I'm glad she beat out Ellen Page for the Oscar, it's really more an achievement in makeup (which, to be fair, also won an Oscar.) The film's a checklist of scenes you can pretty much write yourself before the credits are over with the occasional timeline shake-up to make it seem like a masterstroke of structure, but it's just following the numbers.
7. American Gangster
The true story couldn't be more interesting or rife for adaptation. The characters so conflicted, the environment so heated and deadly. I speak of course of 2001's Black Hawk Dawn, another real life adaptation Ridley Scott managed to overcook and thoroughly gut of relevance. Technically this movie split audiences, but the people who liked it loved it and praised it to the hills. Everything's a miscalculation, from Josh Brolin's soulless corrupt cop (who literally indulges in the "kick the dog" method of audience identification) to Cuba Gooding Jr's flashy pimped-out dealer, the latter of whom is barely part of the story. Coming long after various films inspired by Frank Lucas' MO - New Jack City, Blow - it seems cliché, and is overstuffed with useless subplots (more marital problems!) that seem to exist solely to make the film longer (re: more epic) rather than create a tight, enjoyable crime drama. The lead actors are fine (especially Denzel, natch) but after the fifth scene of Lucas going crazy on a brother we get it, he's dangerous but charming and unpredictable and a brilliant drug czar yadda yadda.8. Into the Wild
"I'm canceling Christmas!" - William Hurt
Sean Penn as a filmmaker is a hard to get. He's definitely talented in coming up with weird and interesting visuals: I think immediately of the scene in the barn in The Pledge, and this movie's got its share (the guy shaving in the middle of a watered field, the 3-wheeler hauling a christmas tree in the trailer park.) But I don't think he's much of a storyteller, and I'm not just saying that because he tricked me into seeing a Vince Vaughn movie. He fails to offer one good reason to care about Emile Hirsch's arrogant anus of a self-righteous windbag, and while the final consensus seems to be "yeah well he didn't really have it all figured out after all did he?" Penn still reveres the character's self-dependence and "simple beauty" (funny coming from a guy who refused to attend the Thin Red Line premiere unless they sent him a private jet.) I think what the film really needed was yet another shot of Hirsch spreading his arms triumphantly from the top of a hill/rock/plateau while Eddie Vedder warbles along sanctimoniously. That "homeless in LA" sequence, holy god that was ridiculous, and why weren't the riots happening as he panhandled his way about town? He could have been killed in the riots and saved us an hour of movie viewing drudgery. At least with someone like Timothy Treadwell you kind of understood his deluded self-image, but if this real life guy was anything like the way he's portrayed here, he was just a douchebag. Like a picaresque only with no interesting characters - all hippies and sentimental oldsters - and a philosophizin', Jack London-worshipping retard of a hero, Wild never manages to be more than a Discovery Channel travelogue, the only suspense involved is wondering when the would-be survivalist will finally get eaten by a squirrel or something.
9. This is England
I am not on the Shane Meadows train for the simple reason that his films feel like Alan Clarke Lite. Clarke's Made in Britain is still the only effective portrait of skinheads, and although This is England is better than Romper Stomper, American History X and The Believer, it doesn't really have anywhere to go once its young protagonist joins up with the National Front and follows the inevitable road to tragic conclusion, which I think the movie actually would have been more interesting without. It is interesting to see how something like the Falkland Island invasion, which we Americans pretty much take for granted, effected the youth of England and was used as propaganda for recruiting neo-Nazis, how to others being a skinhead is more of a punk/fashion statement than a political stance, and the film is an interesting companion piece to Son of Rambow where instead of becoming white supremists the outsider English kids remake First Blood. But Meadows is still too slick a filmmaker to achieve the gritty realism he's interested in. I know it's meant to be tongue-in-cheek (since they're skinheads and all) but aren't slow motion shots of a group strutting passively forward kinda long over?
9. This is England
I am not on the Shane Meadows train for the simple reason that his films feel like Alan Clarke Lite. Clarke's Made in Britain is still the only effective portrait of skinheads, and although This is England is better than Romper Stomper, American History X and The Believer, it doesn't really have anywhere to go once its young protagonist joins up with the National Front and follows the inevitable road to tragic conclusion, which I think the movie actually would have been more interesting without. It is interesting to see how something like the Falkland Island invasion, which we Americans pretty much take for granted, effected the youth of England and was used as propaganda for recruiting neo-Nazis, how to others being a skinhead is more of a punk/fashion statement than a political stance, and the film is an interesting companion piece to Son of Rambow where instead of becoming white supremists the outsider English kids remake First Blood. But Meadows is still too slick a filmmaker to achieve the gritty realism he's interested in. I know it's meant to be tongue-in-cheek (since they're skinheads and all) but aren't slow motion shots of a group strutting passively forward kinda long over?.
10. No Country for Old Men
You didn't think you'd get off that easy, did you Coen Brothers? That Blood Simple comparison swings both ways. Simple is a movie that feels perfect, but not like it's trying to be perfect. The further along their career the Coens move, the more their technical neurotisim threatens to numb their once energetic, more experimental style in both shooting and writing. I'd trade any line of Country's finely-tuned, emotionally cold dialogue for one line that felt nearly as effective as when M Emmet Walsh asks Dan Hedaya's corpse "Who looks stupid now?" This obsession with perfect shots and camera movements and calculated speech leaves the people populating their painstakingly constructed world in the dust. Do they care about them? Should we? Unlike Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, No Country feels so nihilistic that character fates are practically weightless (these guys are close to starting a band named Autobahn.) Clearly the approach has huge merits - the film's inclusion on my own top list is clear indication of that - but it isolates the audience and makes them second guess the honesty of the filmmaking. Then you've got the mischievous brothers' seemingly uncontrollable need to throw in their cute little comedy: the Norteño band, the fat landlady, and most distractingly the casually racist mother played by Beth Grant. At least there weren't any Polka King posters behind any of the hotel room doors. After I saw the movie a second time I was able to let some of these nagging concerns go, but I'm still worried that the Coens blew their load (see above photo), got everyone trailing obediently after their droppings, and will probably go back to the kind of indulgent crap they churned out between Lebowski and this with next year's Burn After Reading.
You didn't think you'd get off that easy, did you Coen Brothers? That Blood Simple comparison swings both ways. Simple is a movie that feels perfect, but not like it's trying to be perfect. The further along their career the Coens move, the more their technical neurotisim threatens to numb their once energetic, more experimental style in both shooting and writing. I'd trade any line of Country's finely-tuned, emotionally cold dialogue for one line that felt nearly as effective as when M Emmet Walsh asks Dan Hedaya's corpse "Who looks stupid now?" This obsession with perfect shots and camera movements and calculated speech leaves the people populating their painstakingly constructed world in the dust. Do they care about them? Should we? Unlike Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, No Country feels so nihilistic that character fates are practically weightless (these guys are close to starting a band named Autobahn.) Clearly the approach has huge merits - the film's inclusion on my own top list is clear indication of that - but it isolates the audience and makes them second guess the honesty of the filmmaking. Then you've got the mischievous brothers' seemingly uncontrollable need to throw in their cute little comedy: the Norteño band, the fat landlady, and most distractingly the casually racist mother played by Beth Grant. At least there weren't any Polka King posters behind any of the hotel room doors. After I saw the movie a second time I was able to let some of these nagging concerns go, but I'm still worried that the Coens blew their load (see above photo), got everyone trailing obediently after their droppings, and will probably go back to the kind of indulgent crap they churned out between Lebowski and this with next year's Burn After Reading.
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