Smiley Face ***
Gregg Araki, 2007
US
@ IFC Center

I was reminded pleasantly of my old wish in elementary school to write a story without a central conflict (which we were informed was the basis of all stories ever written) where the characters would all just have a really nice time. Gregg Araki has basically made that film, except not quite.

It slides away if you try to pin it down anywhere, yet Smiley Face offers so many delightful reasons to enjoy it. Mostly it was just refreshing to watch a movie about a woman who is only at most very secondarily a love interest to anyone in the script, beholden to no one, but at the same time neither obsessively ambitious nor constantly cracking wise, just ambling through life. We spend an almost disconcerting amount of time looking directly at Anna Faris's mostly blank face, particularly at the beginning, and it brought to mind the intensity of the camera's relationship with Uma Thurman's independent, young blonde protagonist in Kill Bill. Keep in mind, though, that this is a stoner comedy.

The tiny audience seemed most delighted by the lasagna/Garfield/President Garfield riff near the middle, probably due to the way Faris keeps slowly rubbing her belly, looking dazedly pleased with herself. Also, REO Speedwagon! My only wish is that somehow John Cho would've gotten a larger part, but I suppose I can just wait for Harold & Kumar 2 this spring.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Nathan Lee review

Juno **
Jason Reitman, 2007
US
@ Clearview Chelsea

I don't think I laughed for at least the first half hour. Maybe it was the complete saturation bombing of the trailer this fall, but nothing seemed more than snarky. Eventually there were a number of scenes I liked, almost all of them involving Michael Cera. Is it a good movie though? I'm not sure if the direction was all that good, and there were definitely some strange scenes and exchanges. The memorable bits are just so memorable.

For the record, Vancouver does not really look enough like Minnesota to just hope and pretend that it will. They could have at least shot in Ontario or something.

Does anybody else think it's creepy how much Allison Janney looks like Justine Bateman? As if to suggest that perhaps Juno's stepmother is like a long-lost relative of the prospective adoptive parents of Juno's child?

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

I'm Not There ***
Todd Haynes, 2007
US
@ AMC 19th Street East

I suppose no one can really say for certain whether or not this film is intelligible without decent knowledge of the Bob Dylan biography. The reviews seem to indicate no, but I was always under the assumption that if you keep up with pop culture at all that the story eventually just seeps into your brain, so why would it even be an issue? Maybe that's not the case.

I don't see how you can quibble otherwise, though. The various story arcs are emotionally pretty well-aligned, informing each other subtly. The bookends of the Heath Ledger section involve enough of a shift in perspective that replaying the same "scene" doesn't feel obvious at all.

From the playful opening credits onward this seemed heavily influenced by Godard in a variety of ways, from the experimentation with form to the sound (numerous times an onscreen sound effect matches the tempo of the song on the soundtrack) to the questions about identity.

Plus, Jim James appears in pancake makeup to serenade Richard Gere's bizarro-world version of Bob Dylan with a version of "Goin' to Acapulco," and that's tough to beat for sheer outlandish greatness.


See also: IMDb | Metacritic | J. Hoberman review | Larry Gross essay

Val Lewton: Man in the Shadows *
Kent Jones, 2007
US
@ Walter Reade Theater

During his post-screening Q&A, Jones made the point that most stuff like this you see on television (his project was financed by Turner Classic Movies) is pretty hackneyed, unrevealing stuff, but he (like narrator Martin Scorsese) was interested in making a film rather than just an hour-plus of biographical TV. He seemed to capture the mood of Lewton's films, get into why they were made the way they were made, and focus on his life as it informed what made it onto the screen rather than just lurid detail for detail's sake.

See also: Film Society of Lincoln Center page | Variety review

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)
Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007
Spain
@ IFC Center

There are a lot of similarities here to Cache. A well-to-do couple is haunted by mysterious figures related to a dark secret from childhood. The perpetrators here are at least mostly spectral, though. Again, the adult is ultimately held accountable for what really seemed to be an innocent misunderstanding, and again I'm baffled. Everyone, including the new widower seems weirdly pleased with the outcome.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Slant review

The Savages **
Tamara Jenkins, 2007
US
@ Clearview Chelsea

Reviewers have made much of the elderly father here, noting that he's not lovably ornery or anything like you normally get with characters of advanced age in most comedies. I was thus expecting him to be over-the-top mean, but instead he just kind of makes perfect sense as an unhappy but mostly resigned about the approach of death.

This is kind of a nice contrast, for me, to Michael Clayton. Here I felt like we really were experiencing adult situations with mature characters in a fairly novel way for Hollywood, whereas with the George Clooney vehicle, it seemed pretty well-trod territory.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

Before We Fall in Love Again *
James Lee, 2007
Malaysia
@ MoMA

The black-and-white video tones were mostly flat and uninteresting. The deadpan acting was maybe a little too unassuming. The lack of camera movement seemed more like a technical restriction than an aesthetic choice. But the ending was pretty great.

See also: Distributor page

Michael Clayton *
Tony Gilroy, 2007
US
@ Clearview Chelsea

The car-bomb scene was far and away the highlight. I thought the confrontation at the end was a little overdone, and the only reason the camera ever follows someone away from a group alone to some corner of a space is for them to be surprised, so the shock wasn't really all that shocking.

The directing seemed workmanlike for the most part and I thought, like the Variety reviewer, that there were a lot of not terribly intriguing narrative threads that led nowhere. Particularly the son and his fantasy novel; his scenes could have been cut, tightening the story, with absolutely no deleterious effect on the rest.

If someone could point out to me which character was not boring, I'd appreciate it. I'd say George Clooney's "fixer" hovers between repressed and tired for most of the time. If you're real into it, you probably read outrage, frustration, and regret into the performance, but I'm not sure the movie around him is strong enough to allow for such a flat performance.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Variety review

Day Night Day Night ***
Julia Loktev, 2007
US
@ home on DVD

It was impossible to ignore that fact that, in addition to the unnamed main character, there was also a camera operator in front of or beside her at all times while she strolled around Times Square. Mainly she looked like someone who really needed a hug. The moment when she emerges from the Port Authority Bus Terminal onto Eighth Avenue almost perfectly captures the insanity of Manhattan. I don't how I'd feel about the last part of the movie if I'd never lived here or visited but in its way this section of the movie is much like Frownland in its evocation of an awkward, misanthropic character wandering in existential loneliness amidst the seething crowds of the city.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | J. Hoberman review