Happy 2008--let's see some movies!

1/5/08

It's 2008 now, but TVOR is still trying to digest 2007's goodies--and there were a lot of them. These films have been out for a few weeks, and may stick around a while longer if they get any awards nominations--which would be entirely warranted.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Directed by Sidney Lumet from a script by Kelly Masterson

Sydney Lumet has been directing television and film for 60 years, and he's gotten pretty good at it. His latest film, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, proves that he hasn't lost his touch. It's a genre film--the crime drama--but it's a genre film made by a master. It's a story of a heist gone horribly wrong. And when TVOR says horribly wrong, she means HORRIBLY wrong. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play brothers who rob their parents' jewelry store (you can see that the likelihood of things not working out is extremely high). Albert Finney plays their father. This is no Shakespearean tragedy. These are not great men with tragic flaws that bring them down. These are small men, motivated by greed, jealousy, lust, revenge, and other unseemly things. The characters aren't particularly sympathetic, but the writing and directing and acting (including Marisa Tomei as Hoffman's wife) come together so that we understand something about these people at the same time we are appalled by them.

Starting Out in the Evening
Directed by Andrew Wagner

Frank Langella spends most of his time on stage, but in Starting Out in the Evening, he has a great film role and does a wonderful job. He plays an aging, out-of-print author, who becomes the master's thesis project of a young graduate student (Lauren Ambrose) who worms her way into his actual as well as his literary life. Lily Taylor plays the author's daughter. This is a well-made, thoughtful, smaller-scale movie that's a nice change of pace from the rest of the year-end stuff.

Video notes:

Some of the better films of 2007 are already out on video.

Zodiac was seen by few people in theaters, yet is showing up on a lot of year-end best film lists. It's the story of the real Zodiac killer, active in California in the 1960's and 70's, and is based on a book by one of the newspapermen involved in the story from its earliest days. David Fincher, best known for Fight Club and Se7en, directed the film. Although Zodiac deals with a serial killer, the emphasis is not on the murders, but the attempts by police and the press to find the killer. Three excellent actors (Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr.) head the cast, and as the film progresses, and various leads are followed and dropped, we get a picture of the difficulties of dealing with a smart, crazy criminal--even if it's a crazy criminal who likes publicity. A heads-up: this is a long film. It was a very long, tough slog to try to solve these crimes. But if you've got about two and a half hours, this is not a bad way to spend it.

3:10 to Yuma isn't on a lot of best-films lists, but it's making it into some honorable mention sections, and TVOR liked it. It's a western with a really bad guy (Russell Crowe) and a really good guy (Christian Bale). What more do you need in a western, especially when those guys have a good script to work with, and can act?

Check out some of Sidney Lumet's work: Fail-Safe, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Equus, The Pawnbroker, The Verdict...the list goes on and on.