Chris and Don 7

A story about love, Hollywood, art, being gay in mid-20th-century Europe and America, and, in subtle subtext, aging. Christopher Isherwood was the hook, the famous name, and it helped that he was so good looking and, apparently, charming, on top of being British and a good writer. But Don Bachardy was the real story, and it was mainly through his eyes and words that the movie was told. Only 12 years my senior, he seemed to be the eyes of age, perhaps because his English accent, absorbed from his relationship with Chris, hasn’t aged naturally. But for every scene of him doddering around his flat, there was another of him biking to the market, doing crunches at the gym, which showed him remarkably fit. What is truly remarkable, though, is the fact that this 17-year-old boy, whom Chris picked up while cruising a Malibu beach, not only carried out a lifelong relationship with a man 20 years his senior, from a different social universe, but turned into a major artist himself. With pictures to show and quite a story to tell.

Dark Knight 7.8

Far more enjoyable than I had any reason to expect, because there was this underlying story of human relationships, motivations and emotions that carried on through the cartoon razzmatazz. The fact that three earthbound characters – played skillfully by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman – knew Batman’s identity provided the link between those two worlds. And the fact that the Joker’s acts of violence, though hardly realistic, were all so technically primitive also countered Batman’s flights of fancy. But minute-after-minute there was a surprise, a new bit of deviltry, another wrinkle to fathom, and this kept the mind totally engaged and the enjoyment quotient high. And in terms of realism, was this really that much farther-fetched than The Departed?

Mamma Mia! 6

Going against all the reviews and the word-in-the-street, we actually liked the book of Mamma Mia! when we saw it on the stage in London. The daughter’s relationship with her mother, as she searched for her father and approached her wedding, with the separation that entailed, was touching, maybe because we were looking ahead to the day our own daughter would reach this stage, and maybe because we couldn’t get three seats together and this separation was a little easier to imagine. So when the movie version camped up the story to the max, and eliminated any possibility of viewer emotion or identification, we were left with the ABBA songs, which I never knew or particularly liked and a film that was all fluff and glitter, devoid of heart and soul. Pierce Brosnan’s singing brought actual laughter from the audience at Willow Creek, and while Meryl Streep confirmed that she can do anything as an actress, the image of her pratfalling onto a mattress will not enhance her legacy. I give the movie points for consistency and pleasant fun, but the bottom line for Mamma Mia!, as it was for Phantom of the Opera, is that theatrical miracles are better left onstage.

Tell No One 6.5 (Ne le dis personne)

Before it sank under the weight of its implausibilities, I was hoping that this French psycho-thriller would, Cache-like, leave its mystery unsolved and leave us drifting in a world of unknowable terror. Instead, it went the Fugitive route and had its pediatrician hero, Alex, outrunning and outwitting the entire Paris police force and, worse, gave us a five-minute confession by a heretofore minor character explaining all the mysteries, largely by introducing two people who hadn’t before appeared on-screen! Except even this didn’t explain everything, which made me guess the movie was based on a book, where everything had more time to be laid out. Whenever a movie plot leaves out key facts, or throws in facts that just don’t fit, it is usually because the screenplay is based on a book or, even worse, “a true story.” When screenwriters are left to their own devices, they have better odds of crafting something plausible. As The New Yorker and my daughter both said, it’s a good thing this movie was in French, where the language was pretty and all the people were stylish. But plot trumps patina, and this plot was a dud.

Encounters at the End of the World 6

I’m a Werner Herzog fan and admire his quest to explore the outer limits of humanity, but this movie of Antarctica came off as little more than a personal travelogue. Try as he might, the people he interviewed were unexceptional, except for what they were doing: each, in a different realm, was examining a fundamental building block of existence. Herzog’s conclusion, however – that man was a transient resident of this planet – came only in his unsupported commentary.

Up the Yangtze 6.5

This was one of those documentaries where you wonder, how did the filmmaker know to pick this person to cover, and then, how did the filmmaker get access to film this scene – in this case, when the personnel manager fires Jerry, the arrogant loner who is talented but doesn’t fit the Chinese team model. You are left with two thoughts: one, how self-sufficient and satisfactory seems the life of the Chinese farmer before he is displaced by the Three Gorges Dam and “modernized”; and two, how silly the Western (Canadian, I hope) tourists appear and how little they can understand of the China they see. As we had just returned from two weeks in Brazil when we saw this movie, the latter point particularly struck home.

Stop-Loss 6.5

Well intentioned, I’m told, but rather disappointing. I couldn’t figure out who was who for the first 20 minutes, then after that, nothing made much sense. The battle in Iraq was well filmed but made no tactical sense: why would this platoon of Marines follow a racing car of bad guys into their neighborhood street, then go door-to-door, not knowing what they were looking for, unless it was someone with a gun pointed at them? And then, we knew from the start that Sgt. Brandon’s trip to D.C. was hopeless; so we weren’t much interested in that outcome. About the only suspense I found was whether Brandon and the engaging Abbie Cornish would sleep with each other – and I was disappointed there, too. And what was Ciaran Hinds doing as Brandon’s Texan father? (cf. Depardieu, pere et fils.) I doubt this movie will have the impact, or social relevance, of the films it’s being compared to in the reviews. And where was the “moral ambiguity” one reviewer lauded?

Paranoid Park 7

A remarkably consistent short story of a high school senior-age boy who, apparently, feels nothing and shows less. As a study in affectlessness it is superb. If you’re looking for a resolution, or most of the things one has come to expect in a movie in the way of plot, it leaves you hanging. Director Gus Van Sant seems to have gotten into the teenage mind. It’s an interesting place to sightsee, but I wouldn’t want to spend much time there.

Duchesse of Langeais 7

Very stylish, very cinematic, very Balzac-ian – not that I know what that means. The characters were absurd, but serious and wore such beautiful clothes. The story was all about love. The languor was overwhelming. It was all so French. Gerard Depardieu’s son looked just as you would expect. I rather enjoyed it on its own terms, once I figured those out. But I quite understood why others in my family might not feel the same.

The Kite Runner 8.5

A beautiful film made from a beautiful book. The characters were fully developed as real people, and the conflicts that arose, and drove the story, came from conflicting personalities running into each other. Amir was who he was, not a bad person, but because of his weakness he hurt another. The figure who held the movie together was the father, Baba. It was not just real people, but real places – Afghanistan and California – that added texture and depth.