Movie Lists

Coming Up on TV: The two best Civil War films

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Jeff Daniels (center) in Gettysburg

The Civil War began 150 years ago this month, and TCM is broadcasting the two best Civil War movies on April 25.

Ron Maxwell’s 1994 Gettysburg is the gold standard of Civil War films.  It follows Michael Shaara’s superb historical novel The Killer Angels and depicts the decisive three day battle.  It was filmed on the actual battlefield with re-enactors.  Maxwell took great care in maintaining historical accuracy.  Civil War buffs will recognize many lines of dialogue as historical, as well as shots that recall famous photographs.  In addition, Gettysburg is especially well-acted, especially by Jeff Daniels, Tom Berenger, Stephen Lang, Sam Elliott and Brian Mallon.

The other very best Civil War movie is the 1989 Glory, which tells the real-life story of an all-black unit in the Union Army.  Glory has tremendous performances by Denzel Washington, Andre Braugher, Morgan Freeman and Jihmi Kennedy.

Best Movies of 2011 – So Far

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I’ve starting my running list of Best Movies of 2011 – So Far.  So far, I’ve included Source Code, Carancho, Potiche and The Adjustment Bureau.

There are some intriguing candidates coming out soon, including Poetry, In a Better World, Incendies, Meek’s Cutoff and The Princess of Montpensier.

My top movie so far, Source Code, is in theaters right now.  Here’s the trailer.

2010 in Movies: The Year of Food Porn

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To conclude my 2010 in Movies series, here’s another very fun trend:  2010 brought us more food-centric films than any year in memory: I Am Love (Io sono l’amore), Mid-August Lunch, The Kings of Pastry, Today’s Special, A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle House and Soul Kitchen.  The Movie Gourmet approves of this trend.

You can get the idea here from I Am Love‘s trailer.  Check out the plate of glazed prawns about 58 seconds into the trailer.

Here’s my list of 10 Food Porn Movies.

2010 in Movies: The Year of the Crime Drama

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2010 continued a trend of really good recent crime dramas.  This year, most of them came from overseas:  The Secrets in Their Eyes (Argentina) won the most recent Best Foreign Language Oscar and A Prophet (France) and Ajami (Palestine/Israel) were nominated.

All three made my list of the year’s best movies and my list of  Best Recent Crime Dramas.

We also had other strong imports in this genre:  the Mesrine films (France), Animal Kingdom (Australia) and Mother (Korea).

The best American crime drama was The Town, in which the rockin’ first two acts were betrayed by a sappy and implausible climax.

Here’s the trailer for Ajami, an ultra-realistic crime drama set in a scruffy neighborhood in Jaffa, Israel.  The story weaves together Arab Christians and Arab Muslims and both religious and non-religious Israeli Jews.  Everyone aspires to make a living and live in personal safety, but the circumstances and tribal identities make this very difficult at best.  There are two trans-religious romances, but no one is going to live happily ever after. Ajami was co-written and co-directed by Scandar Copti, a Jaffa-born Palestinian, and Yaron Shoni, an Israeli Jew.   After seeing the film, I was surprised to learn that it has no trained actors – all of the roles are played by real-life residents who improvised their lines to follow the story line.

2010 in Movies: The Year's Best Movies

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Here’s my list of the best films of 2010: 1)  Winter’s Bone; 2) Toy Story 3;  3) The Social Network; 4) The Secrets in their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos); 5) Rabbit Hole; 6) Black Swan; 7) A Prophet (Un Prophete); 8 ) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; 9) Mademoiselle Chambon; 10) (tie) Ajami and Inception.

(Note:  I’m saving room for some films that I haven’t yet seen, especially Mike Leigh’s Another Year.)

Continuing with my list of 2010’s best films: The Tillman Story, True Grit, The King’s Speech, The Girl on the Train (La Fille du RER), Inside Job, Fish Tank, The Ghost Writer, Carlos, Fair Game, Hereafter, The Fighter, Solitary Man, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work and Sweetgrass.

You can watch the trailers and see my comments on all these films at Best Movies of 2010.

(Further Note:  The Secrets in their Eyes, A Prophet and Ajami were nominated for the 2009 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but were widely released in the US in 2010.)

2010 in Movies: Documentaries

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As usual several documentaries made my list of  Best Movies of 2010:  Inside Job, The Tillman Story, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, and Sweetgrass.

And there were still more excellent documentaries.  Ken Burns augmented his brilliant Baseball with The Tenth Inning.  PBS’s Earth Days told the story of the modern environmental movement through the voices of key players.  The Most Dangerous Man in America brought new texture to the story of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.   The fine PBS series Independent Lens brought us Lost Souls (Animas Perdidas), in which filmmaker Monika Navarro trailed an uncle deported to Mexico and discovered secrets in her own family.

Here’s the trailer for the magical Sweetgrass.

Food Porn

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Glazed prawns from I Am Love

I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on the recent post updating my 10 Most Memorable Food Scenes – the movie food scenes that are the most amusing, shocking, etc.  But what about the most tantalizing food movies?  They are on a completely different list:   10 Food Porn Movies.

Nobody will be surprised that I’ve included Babette’s Feast or Eat Drink Man Woman.  But I also feature four 2010 films.  Visit the 10 Food Porn Movies for the other picks, trailers, images and even a link to some recipes.

Toy Story 3 and Best Prison Movies

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One of the main threads of Toy Story 3 is how the toys escape (while sending up virtually every convention of the prison movie genre).  On NPR’s Fresh Air, Toy Story 3‘s editor Lee Unkrich and  screenwriter Michael Arndt recently discussed how they watched many prison movies for inspiration.  The interview is here.

The movie that they call the “most boring” is Le Trou, which actually tops my list of Best Prison Movies.

Best Recent Crime Dramas

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Gomorrah

We’re living in a good time for crime drama.  When I think of this genre, I generally think of The Godfather, Goodfellas, and the film noir of the 40s and 50s.  But there are some excellent contemporary ones.  This year, we have had A Prophet, The Secret in Their Eyes,  Ajami, Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Animal Kingdom.  (Interestingly, two of those films are French, and the others are Australian, Argentine and Israeli.)

Here are some more outstanding crime dramas from the past seven years:  The Lookout, A History of Violence, Layer Cake, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,  Tell No One,  Gomorrah,  Sin Nombre,  In Bruges, Zodiac,  Maria Full of Grace and Eastern Promises.  All of them have inventive, fresh takes on the crime genre.  All of them are on my list of best films for its year.

For descriptions and trailers, see Best Recent Crime Dramas.

Layer Cake

DVD of the Week: Winter's Bone

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My pick for 2010’s best movie to date is Winter’s Bone, which is just now available on DVD.  A 17-year-old Ozarks girl is determined to save the family home by tracking down her meth dealer dad – dead or alive.  The girl’s journey through a series of nasty and nastier Southern Missouri crank cookers is riveting – without any explosions, gunfights or chase scenes.  Every moment of this film seems completely real.  Winter’s Bone won the screenwriting and grand jury prizes at Sundance.

With just her second feature, Debra Granik has emerged as an important filmmaker to watch.  She presents an unflinching look at this subculture without ever resorting to stereotype.  Granik hits a home run with every artistic choice, from the locations to the spare soundtrack to the pacing to the casting.  I’ll be watching for her next film.

As the protagonist, 20-year-old Jennifer Lawrence is in every scene.  With a minimum of dialogue, she creates a lead character of rarely seen determination.

Dale Dickey is exceptional as a criminal matriarch.  John Hawkes (the kind Sol Star in Deadwood)  also gives a tremendous performance as the ready-to-explode Uncle Teardrop.

For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.  Winter’s Bone is on my lists of Best Movies of 2010 – So Far and 5 Great Hillbilly Movies.