Eugene weekly., February 21, 2008, Page 17, Image 17

diffi culty of maintaining one’s character
and self in a brutal and foreign world.
The ruthlessness beneath the surface of
a seemingly kind man and the humanity
behind the eyes of a killer are both a shock
to Naomi Watts’ character, an outsider to
the mob, whose job is to bring life into the
world, not to take it out. (9/27/07)
irreperable damage she did by telling a story
she shouldn’t have. (1/10/08)
Zodiac
10. Michael Clayton
8. Zodiac
Director David Fincher often makes
slick, indulgent fi lms, horrifyingly violent
but impressively watchable, but here, with
the story of the men pursuing California’s
Zodiac killer, he’s restrained and formal
— to his benefi t. The fi lm’s fantastic cast
(this year was full of stellar ensembles)
doesn’t hit a single wrong note in the
careful, obsessive hunt for the killer — a
hunt which may or may not have proven
fruitless. Zodiac is a story staring right
at futility, at failure and at the damage a
singular fi xation can have on a life. But it
also, as Elbert Ventura points out on Slate.
com, comes down on the side of justice
done right, done fairly, done methodically.
“What makes Zodiac truly — and sneakily
— subversive,” Ventura writes, is that “it’s
a Hollywood movie that champions due
process.” (3/8/07)
9. Atonement
Like my number one movie, Atonement
is a story about using fi ction to change
things, though The Lives of Others’ writer
is considerably more successful than
Atonement’s. More than that, I’m unwilling
to say. The Ian McEwan novel on which this
fi lm is based seemed an unlikely candidate
for a successful adaptation; with its quiet yet
shocking close, it seemed too psychological
and interior to transfer to the screen. But
director Joe Wright and screenwriter
Christopher Hampton untangled it neatly,
and the resulting fi lm, though it sometimes
comes on too strong, managed to break my
heart completely — not with the story of
the troubled lovers, but with the story of a
young girl who never grows away from the
If I’m going to comment on the
relative familiarity of Daniel Day-Lewis’
performance in There Will Be Blood,
I should, to be fair, note that George
Clooney can do the composed smart guy
in a suit in his sleep. But Michael Clayton,
written and directed by fi rst-time director
Tony Gilroy (who also wrote or co-wrote
the Bourne fi lms), plays off that strength,
setting Clooney up as the calm, understated
center around which less stable characters
revolve, chief among them Tom Wilkinson
as a lawyer having a crisis of conscience
that coincides with his decision to go off his
medication and Tilda Swinton as another
corporate lawyer who will go to horrifi c
lengths to keep her case under control.
Michael Clayton is an elegant piece of
work, a subtle thriller that never panders to
its audience or slips to let a character tell us
what exactly is going on. (10/25/07)
ELEVEN MORE
The Bourne Ultimatum Paul Greengrass
knows how to make a smart, swift, compelling
action fi lm even when the story is familiar from
the previous two in the series. Eager to make
the most of jittery cameras, smart stunts and
a juxtaposition of glossy fi lm and gritty streets,
Ultimatum is grounded in Matt Damon’s ability to
look totally ordinary yet pull off the extraordinary
over and over again. (8/9/07)
Gone Baby Gone A surprisingly deft directorial debut from Ben Affl eck, Gone
Baby Gone has almost too much in common with Mystic River , another adaptation of a
novel by Dennis Lehane. But Casey Affl eck truly comes of age here, leaving behind his
stammering, reluctant younger roles while playing a private investigator for whom the
fl ashy story — the abducted child — is only the beginning.
Hot Fuzz No, it wasn’t Shaun of the
Dead . You can only create the rom-zom-com
genre once. But this clever send-up and
appreciation of action fi lms is its own kind
of genius. You just have to be patient. Let
Edgar Wright and his all-star cast lull you into
thinking it’s a quieter, gentler kind of comedy
— until the point at which they, er, stop doing
that. Quite convincingly. (4/26/07)
In the Shadow of the Moon There’s a striking humility to the men of the Apollo
missions as they tell stories about their lives in this graceful, affecting documentary. As
one astronaut points out, one day he was an ordinary pilot, the next a hero, and nothing,
really, had changed. Perceptive and charming, simple and inspiring, Moon offers a
fi rsthand look at the uniting qualities of an accomplishment like the moon landing
— and a reminder that the rest of the universe is still out there, waiting. (10/11/07)
No End in Sight Charles Ferguson’s
documentary about the missteps and
failures of the Iraq invasion is systematic
and sharp, and it takes plenty of time to
listen to the men who were on the ground
and knew of what they spoke — which
happens to be one of the things the
damning, incendiary doc points out that
the Bush administration failed to do. No
End in Sight should stand as a defi ning
document of our era. (9/13/07)
Paprika and Persepolis These
are two very different animated fi lms,
one fl ashy with color and one elegant
in black and white, one exploring the
fantasies, fetishes and hangups of our
dreaming selves while the other tells
of growing up in wartime and under
a repressive government. Persepolis ,
based on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic
novel memoirs, has literary cachet
and undeniable relevance to the
present, but Paprika , futuristic and
imaginative, might just linger in your
memory a touch longer. Both, though, are unmissable pieces of art. (7/5/07; 1/31/08)
Stardust Working from Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess’ lovely illustrated novel, director
Matthew Vaughn ( Layer Cake ) reinvigorated fantasy fi lmmaking with this sprawling,
sprightly caper of a fairy tale about a fallen star, murderous princes and a young man
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters The year’s least likely villain is a
restaurant owner and hot sauce salesman from Florida who also, as it happens, long
held the world Donkey Kong record. His nemesis, in Seth Gordon’s wildly funny fi lm,
is a Washington science teacher whose life has been a long chain of almosts. King
of Kong is an engrossing peek at a subculture full of conspiracies and connections,
competitions and inspirations. All the better is the fact that the story continues offsceen.
Was Billy Mitchell really so negative? Did Steve Wiebe hold the record for a longer
period? Watch the movie, then hit Google: There’s enough material out there for a
sequel and then some.
No Country for Old Men Every
critic — every viewer — has their
hangups, and I’ll admit that one of
mine is that I tend to be exceptionally
hard on movies in which the plot
hinges on a main character doing
something incredibly stupid. And in
the Coen brothers’ latest fi lm, the
actions of Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin)
solidly fi t that bill. But Moss, though
the character around which others
revolve, is the least interesting fellow
in the mix. What makes the fi lm tick to its surprisingly calm end is the other pair of
actors: Tommy Lee Jones as a careworn sheriff and the incredible Javier Bardem as a
magnetic sociopath. (11/29/07)
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who’s more than he thinks he is. The Golden Compass may have had the bigger budget,
but Stardust has the magic that marquee adaptation sadly lacked. (8/9/07)
Waitress Sweet and tart, Adrienne
Shelly’s story about an unexpected
pregnancy was the smallest of the year’s
three fi lms on the topic — but it had an
enormous heart. As the titular waitress,
Keri Russell pulled off a performance
that buoyed and seasoned the fi lm; her
bottomless frustration with her lot in life
didn’t get in the way of her affection for her
friends and colleagues, or her attraction to
the handsome local doc played winningly
by Nathan Fillion. This is what a romantic comedy should be. (5/24/07)
EUGENE WEEKLY FEBRUARY 21, 2008 17