The Artist (2011, France)

It is so clear to me how this lovely, charming, wonderful film won so many Academy Awards this year. I would have loved to have seen it on the big screen, because it was just wow, and a theater would have made it even more so.

Seriously, everything about it was just magical. A silent film about the silent film era is a strange but successful subject. Modern audiences could be thrown off by the lack of speech, but the actors convey so much with their faces and bodies, and the absolutely stellar score (heavy on the jangly piano) does the rest. I smiled, I laughed, I cried, I loved it!

They captured the era with the subject, the sets, the costumes, the score (especially the score—maybe the best Oscar-winning score of all time!), the title cards, the props, the everything. Yet the story of a man who suddenly finds himself obsolete (and in love with the new face of the future, to boot) was timeless. Really, the story was just... charming. I was enraptured. I even loved the use of blatant symbolism (like when he sinks into a sand pit in his final silent film) despite (and maybe because of) its obviousness. George Valentin has this dream where suddenly there is noise everywhere but he can't speak, and it was just brilliantly executed. Brilliantly.

As I mentioned, the actors were incredible and portrayed a wide range of emotion flawlessly. (Dare I include the adorable Uggie, who played The Dog? He was much better here than in Water for Elephants!) Dujardin certainly earned his Oscar. He was every inch the charmer, but he was also believable when he fell on hard times too. (When he finally did speak his only two words of the film, I felt the urge to clasp my hands to my chest and grin like an idiot.) He makes the viewer fall in love with him and mourn for the world he represents, a world that is vanishing for him and has already slipped into the fog of the distant past for us. But Bérénice Bejo was just as good as Dujardin, and sometimes even better. Her Peppy Miller was vivacious, effervescent, and so full of life that I kept expecting her to pop out of the scene at any second. Her megawatt smiles and flamboyant dance moves and ceaseless energy were hard not to fall in love with too. But her character had a big heart too, as her occasional tear-filled eyes illustrated well. Seriously, I've said it twice in this paragraph already, but I just fell in love with them both. I don't see how any film lover could avoid succumbing to their sparkling charms. Captivating doesn't even begin to describe Dujardin, Bejo, or the entire film.

I could ramble forever. This is a love letter to the movies, and it bears reading and rereading by cinephiles everywhere. (The fact that audible language plays such a small role makes it even more accessible to film lovers worldwide.)

I can't wait to watch it again. Did I mention I was in love and entirely charmed?

Rating: 5.0

J. Edgar (2011, U.S.)

On the one hand, this was a very interesting and entertaining movie. I knew next to nothing about Hoover before, and I found his relationships with his mother, Helen Gandy, and Clyde Tolson to be quite fascinating. The cast of the movie was out of this world. Of course Dame Judi Dench is one of my all time favorites, and her performance as Mrs. Hoover was very nuanced, I thought. Armie Hammer was pretty good, and Naomi Watts was spot on, as usual. I loved everyone playing small roles of big people, from Robert Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and Dwight Eisenhower to Lucille Ball, Ginger Rogers, and Shirley Temple. They were all very well cast. Then of course there was Leonardo DiCaprio, probably the most talented actor of his generation, who just became Hoover. He nailed both the intimidating, intelligent public persona and the insecure, unsure inner man. I think poor Leo gets a bad rap just because of Titanic, but a) his acting was great in that movie, and b) I have never seen him give less than a brilliant performance in another movie, either. Just think about What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Gangs of New York, The Departed, even lighter movies like Catch Me If You Can. I don't really think he's attractive, but boy can he act.

Anyway, it obviously wasn't the acting that was underwhelming in this movie. I think it must have been the script. There were so many instances when I felt like a bit more dialogue or a more lingering camera shot could have added a lot more meaning to a moment. It also could have suffered because they were trying to cover so much of his life at once while picking the most important professional and personal moments and not having enough of either. That was pretty frustrating.

Another frustrating thing was the makeup. It was eery how well they did DiCaprio's makeup as he aged. I could have believed they shot the film over 50 years! For Watts, they did a good job of adding wrinkles and things and making her look much older than she is, but her character didn't seem to age nearly enough to match Hoover's aging. The worst job was on Hammer, who went from a young man to a sort of fake looking, spotty, clay-headed geriatric. He didn't even look like a real person in his elderly form. That was very off-putting.

The costumes and sets were also brilliantly done. The cinematography was dark, dark, dark, which served many functions. It made the movie feel historical. It emphasized the secretive nature of their work in the Bureau. And it served as a reminder of the parts of Hoover that were hidden from the public.

So this movie was good, but I just felt like it was missing something. I wanted a lot more from it than I got. However, it is certainly worth watching.

Rating: 3.5

Little Ashes (2008, UK)

This was a beautiful film. It was about boys who were becoming men, artists who were finding their talent, liberal homosexuals trying to survive in Fascist Spain, lost souls trying to find love... and themselves. It really was beautiful. Fractured and hard to follow, but it a good way.

Javier Beltrán and Robert Pattinson were phenomenal. They're both talented actors, and they had a strange chemistry. Watching Pattinson change from a strange, outcast boy into a intensely passionate young man to an absolutely crazy, flamboyant artist was incredible. (On the other hand, he goes from a Spanish accent to an English accent when eight years pass, although he also does a French one on purpose later, so maybe it's a sign of his craziness.) Beltrán was steady as rock, gentle and sweet and fragile and poetic, for lack of a better word. When I looked for information on Frederico García Lorca, I discovered that the actor and the deceased poet looked shockingly similar.

They used what seemed to be archive footage cut into film, which I always find effective. I felt like I learned a lot from this film, although how accurate it was I couldn't say. I was familiar with Dalí's work, but not his life. And I'd never heard of García Lorca, but I found his poetry to be beautiful and his life to be fascinating and, of course, tragic.

The filming was (yes, you guessed it) beautiful as well. There is one scene in particular where García Lorca and Dalí are young and taking a holiday in Andalusia. It's nighttime and they're swimming in the moonlight together. The way they float around each other seems symbolic of the complicated dance they're doing in their relationship and the lack of clear definition in their lives. Amazing.

I wish I could describe how wonderful the acting and cinematography and writing and absolutely everything were, but there just aren't words. You could call this film "art." Art about art. Magical.

Rating: 4.0

Changeling (2008, U.S.)

Obviously I was going to see this one, because I absolutely adore Angelina Jolie. And she was nothing short of brilliant in this one. Brilliant.

I truly cannot say enough about this film. The cinematography was astounding , from the very first black and white fade to color until the final fade back to black and white. (Very effective in introducing the film, a sort of eerie "once upon a time.") The costumes were perfect (and let me tell you, Jolie should have been a '20s/'30s film star—she rocked that cloche hat). Mis en scene in general was good. Very few anachronisms.

And the score was incredible. I nearly died of shock when I saw it had been written by Clint Eastwood. It was mostly a serious of variations on a very simple theme, using a violin (I think) and a solo trumpet. It fits the time period well with its slight jazziness, but it especially fits the plot because it is so dark and sad. I actually bought the score, and I'm glad.

The film was much darker than I thought it was going to be. Obviously, the disappearance of a child is enough to make a film pretty depressing, but add to that police corruption, a serial killer, and an eery psychiatric hospital, and wow. It was a very strange, subtle kind of suspense, and it was very effective.

This is really the first Clint Eastwood film that I've really, really liked. (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil isn't bad, but it doesn't hold up compared to Changeling.) Angelina Jolie really made it what it was, but I think it would have been good even without her (though I'm glad we'll never know). This film blew me away, and I would definitely recommend it.

Rating: 4.5