Top 10: 2012

Steven Soderbergh, discussing his (hopefully temporary) retirement in an interview with Vulture, commented that "I just don't think movies matter as much any more, culturally," observing that the audience for original content aimed at adults has largely moved to television. Quentin Tarantino has also repeatedly discussed his plans to retire, citing the industry's switch to digital projection as "not what I signed up for." Paul Schrader has repeatedly referred to the "post theatrical era" in interviews for his upcoming movie The Canyons, a microbudgeted thriller that relied on crowdsourcing for financing and to assemble much of its crew. Whether the traditional moviegoing experience or the cultural importance of film is dead or dying remains to be seen - in Soderbergh's case, his comments reveal more about him than they do about the medium - but it's clear that the massive transition to digital production and exhibition, coupled with the ever-multiplying number of distribution channels, will effect film culture and history in ways that none of us can quite predict yet.

The future is already here; the last movie I saw projected on film was The Master, appropriately enough. Before that, I saw a few movies - Prometheus and The Expendables 2 - projected on film over the summer at a local multiplex. The sound was muddy and the prints were already a mess after a few days. It was clear that the theater wasn't even trying anymore. It has since switched over to digital, as did the art house theater where I worked as a projectionist for eight years (thankfully, they've kept their 35mm projectors). I loved that job, but had I known I was literally witnessing the end of the era, I would have spent more time rewatching and appreciating every print and less time farting around on the internet between reel changes.

We're in the midst of a paradigm shift, and just as the greater national (global?) paradigm shift (coupled with a particularly divisive election year) have made us more prone to defining ourselves by our differences, our varying tastes and pop cultural proclivities have also become more heated, in both trivial and unsettling ways.  Shortly before The Avengers' record-setting opening, I tried to explain in detail to a friend who had implied that my lack of excitement for the film was pretentious that I couldn't get excited for what was, at its heart, an elaborate act of corporate synergy. His response was "So you're more of a DC guy." It's not a new thing for geek culture to be contentious, but as once-marginal genres and properties are, more than ever, dominating the box office and the cultural discussion, the bullies became more vocal. A movie like Prometheus could go from the rabidly anticipated film of the year, every detail of every trailer analyzed in minute detail, to a completely picked-apart carcass that one would be ridiculed for liking by the end of its opening weekend. "Did you see the Red Letter Media review?" "Did you see the 'How Prometheus Should Have Ended' video?" I mention Prometheus not because it isn't a flawed film, but because no movie better represents the triumph of left-brained thinking in contextualizing popular art. A chorus of voices demanding to know what Lard-Ass did after the pie eating contest.

And then there was The Dark Knight Rises, a movie I like very much but is no fun to talk about, as it means aligning myself with the bullies who told any critic who dared not praise a movie that is by no means beyond criticism that they should die violently. Then twelve people actually did die violently while watching The Dark Knight Rises, and most of us remembered how trivial any of this ultimately is and how lucky we are just to be able to go to a movie and live and be happy. Still, this remains a climate where all discussion about Django Unchained boils down to whether or not Tarantino overused the word "nigger" and countless op-ed pieces have been written about whether Zero Dark Thirty is saying torture is good or bad (after having had enough of the anti-Zero Dark Thirty pieces, I joked to my girlfriend, "That's it, I'm a Republican now"). Every film has a cultural context when it is released that it both creates and is created for it; right now, we're letting that context be defined by the talking point generators and the quipsters, reducing everything down to whether a film is awesome or sucks, whether it's liberal or conservative, whether the filmmaker reinforces or contradicts our biases. Whether this is truly the post theatrical era or something we don't have a name for yet, it seems more important than ever that film critics and real cinephiles do whatever we can to broaden the conversation.

And in the midst of all this were films that looked back into the (sometimes recent) past to discover what our history can teach us about the present. Others looked into the future, realizing our anxieties about where we may be headed in frightening detail, yet also finding hope in unlikely places. At least one movie looked to the past and the future. Several of the best movies of the year were independent films, but the definition of independent films is changing - it can refer to someone like Megan Ellison investing tens of millions of her own fortune into ambitious, medium-budget films that would have been mid-level studio productions not long ago. And while I never deliberately adjust my list to ensure diversity, it makes me happy that, after an election that signaled that diversity is not just a growing but an essential component to where we're headed, my favorite movie of the year was directed by a woman. That's not why it's my favorite movie, but somehow it feels right this year.

It was a strong year for movies, and while I've never liked the idea of an "honorable mentions" list, I've decided to include my full ballot for the upcoming Muriel awards as a hat tip to some of the other excellent films released this year. I can't guarantee that you'll like any of the movies listed here, but they're all worth checking out, on the big screen or Netflix Instant or on TNT a few years from now. I don't think cinema is dying, but if I'm wrong, it's having one hell of a death rattle.

1. Zero Dark Thirty

I have to give Jen, my girlfriend, credit for pointing out something about Zero Dark Thirty that I haven't read in any review - its production history is like Fever Pitch, the Drew Barrymore/Jimmy Fallon rom com that was supposed to end with Drew and Jimmy breaking up and the Red Sox losing until the team's 2004 victory prompted a rewrite and a new happy ending provided by reality (not that I'm equating bin Laden's assassination with the Sox winning the series). Similarly, Zero Dark Thirty began as an existential thriller, like Zodiac, about the cost of the seemingly endless pursuit of Osama bin Laden until reality necessitated a drastic rewrite. Several people whose opinions I respect have speculated that the earlier version of Zero Dark Thirty may have been the more interesting film, but the film that director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal have made has hardly sacrificed narrative complexity or moral ambiguity - it's a difficult, often deliberately upsetting film that is honest about the emotional catharsis most of us felt upon hearing of bin Laden's death while also challenging our assumptions about what we sacrificed to get to that point and whether we can ever get it back. In her single-minded pursuit of bin Laden, Jessica Chastain's Maya is a surrogate for our national preoccupation with - revenge? justice? - acheiving closure through giving an ending to a story that has no real ending (it's in this way that the film most resembles Zodiac). Zero Dark Thirty is a brilliant procedural that also had more to say about this moment in time than any other film this year; I know that it's great, but I suspect that I'm still too close to it to fully understand why.

2. Looper

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the year - I thought it would be good, but I was blindsided by just how original and ultimately moving Rian Johnson's third feature is. Johnson's first film, Brick, is one of the strongest debuts in recent years, and it's exciting to see him bringing his talents to a bigger-budget sci-fi/action movie that is consistently tense, exciting, smart and is still clearly born from Johnson's idiosyncratic sensibility and philosophical preoccupations. The chase between Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis as a younger and older version of the same character is a great showcase for both actors; as with Moonrise Kingdom, Looper is also a fascinating exploration of the underlying world-weary sadness behind Willis' stoic appeal. The film stands alongside The Terminator and Back to the Future with its witty, sometimes grim exploration of the storytelling possibilities of time travel; it's both technically superb and capable of marvelling with a low-tech editing trick or a perfectly timed camera movement. But what makes Looper really special is the ingenious way that, after using the time-travel plot as an exploration of the often scary idea that we inherit the world our elders have left for us (or that we create for ourselves in our foolish youth), it reveals late in the film what it's really about (with one important detail established early on in a brilliantly off-handed bit of misdirection). The film is a brilliant inversion of the "What if you could kill Hitler?" question, carrying a hopeful (and earned) message about the ways that love, mercy and a single act of personal sacrifice can echo through the years. I was not expecting a violent action movie starring Bruce Willis to arrive at a place of authentic grace, and it was a pleasure getting there.

3. Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino's three most recent films all come back to Carol J. Clover's assertion that exploitation movies afford their makers the opportunity for a more honest and direct examination of racism, sexism and our ugly history. Tarantino is clearly unconcerned with questions of good taste, and yet for all their blood and  pulp, his movies have a consistent (if cockeyed) sense of moral responsibility. In Django Unchained, the scenes involving plantation owners' violent exploitation of their slaves are brutal, protracted and difficult to watch, but the scenes involving the masters' violent comeuppance are cartoonishly gory and, frankly, a hell of a lot of fun. I can understand why this is problematic for some, and maybe this is a sign that I'm not fully morally developed, but I hope black audiences enjoy the hell out of watching Django (Jamie Foxx) get paid to kill white people. Django Unchained isn't as perfect a film as Inglorious Basterds, but it's more emotionally satisfying and may be the one I revisit a bit more in the future. As with all of Tarantino's movies, it's gorgeously shot, has a great ensemble cast and is both a smart deconstruction of and a fully satisfying example of its genre. Unlike any of his previous films, it has not just a moral but a political dimension; Tarantino reveals himself as the kind of liberal I can relate to, not preoccupied with the vanity of philosophical perfectionism but possessing a real and urgent understanding of justice and equality. That he expresses it by literally burning our ugly past to the ground is the icing on the cake.

4. Lincoln

I was tempted to call Lincoln the MLK to Django's Malcolm X, but then, Steven Spielberg's film isn't really about slavery as much as the political process and the thorny, sometimes dubious means by which real and meaningful progress is achieved. Daniel Day-Lewis is amazing, but it would have been shocking if he phoned it in. It's Spielberg who is the big surprise here - while this is clearly his film, but aesthetically and in its generosity towards its characters, it's not quite the earnest, teary-eyed biopic I would have expected (frankly, I was fearing Amistad 2). Working from a brilliant Tony Kushner script, Spielberg has made a film devoted to the slow, often frustrating process of passing the 14th Amendment, its moral the necessity of pragmatism and compromise. In other words, it's subject matter that could have been deadly dry, and I'm not exactly surprised that I was literally the only person under 50 in the audience when I saw the film. But when Lincoln inevitably becomes a mainstay in high school history classes, I think that its teen audience will be surprised by how funny, suspenseful and relateable it is; maybe it'll even keep them awake until the bell rings. I kid because I'm acutely aware that this is the squarest movie on my list, and one easily dismissed as calculated Oscar bait. But it really is so more than that, and I urge my fellow millennials to stop texting and listening to the hip hop for a little bit and give it a try.

5. Magic Mike

The most fun I had this year was watching this with a sold-out audience of riled-up women. Thanks to you, Mr. Soderbergh, the theatrical experience is not only alive and well, its panties are wet. The experience would have been a blast even if the movie was terrible, but it was surprisingly great, a deadpan comedy that recalls Shampoo in its mix of cheerful smut and sly social commentary. Channing Tatum is ridiculously likable, the dance sequences are a blast to watch, and I would happily watch a sequel that focuses entirely on Matthew McConaughey's character. That Magic Mike is so much fun but also smart and incredibly well-made is something of a marvel - audiences were able to hoot and holler at all of Tatum's moves without feeling bad about it in the morning. If Soderbergh is truly done with filmmaking, at least he's going out with a bang.

6. The Master

I got a bit burnt out on discussions of The Master, mostly because of their repetitive nature ("Who is the real master here? Is Amy Adams the real master?") but also because, after seeing it, I was just the slightest bit let down. You can feel in what I wrote about the film back in September that I'm taking a "Maybe it was me?" attitude, but after talking with friends that had the same reaction, I'm not so sure. For 80% of the movie, I was convinced that Anderson had made another masterpiece; then it gets to London and "Slow Boat to China," and I couldn't help feeling like this wasn't exactly Daniel Plainview screaming "I told you I would eat you!!" at Eli Sunday. I'm still a bit baffled by the film, but I'm very eager now to revisit it; I still suspect that, like Kubrick's later films, The Master's seeming vagueness could prove to have dimensions I haven't considered on repeat viewings. If I discover the film supports my suspicion/hope that its actually about how, as I wrote in September, pussy is the only thing worth believing in, than it IS a masterpiece. But maybe not. All of this is a roundabout way of explaining why The Master isn't higher on my list, as it also boasts three of the strongest performances of the year, is technically astounding, contains scenes that are as great as anything Anderson has written and directed, and is so clearly and completely the work of a filmmaker committed to realizing his singular vision. The Master is a movie I have to live with longer before I'm sure how I feel about it, but even if it turns out to be not as great as the sum of its parts, its imperfections are more fascinating than any number of movies that aim straight for the middle and succeed.

7. The Dark Knight Rises

The final chapter in Christopher Nolan's trilogy is actually better than its predecessor in one important way - the action sequences are more fluidly shot and edited. But it was probably impossible to replicate the astonishing impact Heath Ledger's performance had on the previous film, and Nolan was wise not to try. That said, it's a thematically and emotionally satisfying resolution to the trilogy - it's easy, at this point, to forget just how radical Nolan's approach to Batman really is, and the greatest pleasure of The Dark Knight Rises is seeing the payoff thematic and narrative threads set up in Batman Begins that we didn't realize at the time. It's also the most fun of the three films - after the surprising brutality of The Dark Knight, it's fun to watch Nolan introduce elements of James Bond and Hitchcock's lighter capers and even a little romance into the film. Whoever reboots the franchise next would be wise to take it in a more comic book-y direction, as these films have probably taken a serious take on Batman as far as it can go. But I'm so glad we'll always have these three films - as far as big-budget franchises go, none match Nolan's films in terms of ambition and intellectual depth while still sticking the landing.

8. Holy Motors

Holy Motors is an interesting example of whether or not one is committing the intentional fallacy by interpreting it using biographical information about its director. Although the movie ends with a photo of Leos Carax's wife, Katerina Golubeva, who passed away last year, I didn't know who it was until I read it after the film, and the movie doesn't explicitly identify her. So while I was watching the movie, I read it as a sort of requiem for analog filmmaking; on reflection, it's also a literal act of mourning, with Carax making himself inseperable from his medium, reflecting on its mortality as a way of acknowledging his own. Either way, for a film that is about endings, it's surprisingly exuberant, clearly intoxicated with the playful possibilities of moviemaking. Its protagonist, Oscar (Denis Lavant), who works his way through a variety of surreal, sometimes ridiculous scenarios over the course of the day, is clearly tired of his work. And yet a movie that contains a mid-movie performance by a chorus of accordions just because it can reflects no apparent resignation on the part of its director. It's one of the most pleasurable expressions ever of an artist raging against the dying of the light.

9. Cloud Atlas

An unwieldy, cumbersome beast of a movie that threatens early on to turn into a complete disaster but is ultimately a beautiful and astonishingly original adaptation of David Mitchell's novel. What the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer have achieved is so unique not just because it weaves together multiple storylines - D.W. Griffith was doing that 100 years ago - but because the movie's themes of breaking down conventions and personal transformation are so clearly reflected in its form and the collaborative nature of its creation, both in its directorial threesome and the obvious commitment of its repertory cast. It's flawed and messy in a beautiful way, a movie that takes huge chances that are head-scratching in the moment but pay off beautifully.  It challenges our notions about narrative and form and what a movie should be in ways that are witty, lyrical and surprising. And it makes a passionate and intelligent case for the eternal soul, which I'm a sucker for. If most movies were half as ballsy as Cloud Atlas, we'd be immeasurably better off for it.

10. Silver Linings Playbook

After hearing about the premise of Silver Linings Playbook, I honestly didn't expect it to end up on this list. I'm very averse to movies about the power of love to cure mental illness, and the plot sounded like a mess - a dance contest? Really? Luckily, David O. Russell's adaptation of Matthew Quick's novel is, if not bluntly realistic, an honest and perceptive character study about mental illness; that it's also a sharp, sweet romantic comedy reminiscent of Billy Wilder, and that it succeeds at being both things, is something of a minor miracle. And the dance contest turned out to be a plot point that stems perfectly from the characters (aided by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence's strong performances, and a great ensemble cast), rather than contrived device, that leads to a resolution that is sort of beautiful. This isn't a movie about love conquering bipolar disorder, it's a movie about two flawed people who care about each other enough for each to encourage the other to become healthier and stronger. I can see why it could be very grating for a lot of people, but it touched a lot of nerves in a good way - no movie this year made me feel as happy. I heard a critic on a podcast say recently that emotion can be an impediment to critical judgement, but I think that's only true if you don't trust your own emotions. Maybe I shouldn't. I don't know. This movie was so goddamn cute.


The rest of the ballot:

Best Lead Performance, Male 

1. Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

2. Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
3. Jack Black, Bernie

4. Jamie Foxx, Django Unchained

5. Liam Neeson, The Grey

Best Lead Performance, Female 

1. Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
2. Rachel Weisz, The Deep Blue Sea

3. Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

4. Kara Hayward, Moonrise Kingdom

5. Sarah Paxton, The Innkeepers

Best Supporting Performance, Male 

1. Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master

2. Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike
3. Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

4. Michael Fassbender, Prometheus

5. Bruce Willis, Moonrise Kingdom

Best Supporting Performance, Female

1. Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

2. Amy Adams, The Master
3. Doona Bae, Cloud Atlas

4. Shirley MacLaine, Bernie

5. Sarah Silverman, Wreck-It Ralph

Best Direction 

1. Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty

2. Rian Johnson, Looper

3. Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

4. Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

5. Steven Soderbergh, Magic Mike

Best Screenplay (original or adapted)

1. Rian Johnson, Looper

2. Tony Kushner, Lincoln

3. Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master

4. Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
5. Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty

Best Cinematography
 

 

1. Mihai Malaimare Jr., The Master

2. Robert Richardson, Django Unchained
3. Norm Li, Beyond the Black Rainbow

4. Dariusz Wolski, Prometheus

5. Roger Deakins, Skyfall

Best Editing 

1. William Goldenberg and Dylan Tichenor, Zero Dark Thirty

2. Bob Ducsay, Looper

3. Lee Smith, The Dark Knight Rises

4. Alexander Berner, Cloud Atlas

5. Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers, Silver Linings Playbook

Best Music (original, adapted, or compiled)

1. Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer, Cloud Atlas

2. Jon Brion, ParaNorman

3. Howard Shore, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
4. Jeremy Schmidt, Beyond the Black Rainbow

5. Nathan Johnson, Looper

  

Best Cinematic Moment

 

1. Entr’acte, Holy Motors

2. 30 year montage, Looper

3. Emergency extraction, Prometheus

4. First processing, The Master

5. Skyjack, The Dark Knight Rises

6. “You lie to me and I hurt you,” Zero Dark Thirty

7. “I’ve Got a Name,” Django Unchained

8. The elevators open, The Cabin in the Woods

9. Dance contest, Silver Linings Playbook

10. “Fresher shit,” Magic Mike

Best Cinematic Breakthrough
(vague explanation:  a performer, filmmaker, or technician who made a notable debut in film, took his/her career to a higher level, or revealed unforeseen layers to his/her talent during the year 2012)

1. Panos Cosmatos, Beyond the Black Rainbow

2. Drew Goddard, The Cabin in the Woods

3. Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, Moonrise Kingdom

4. Channing Tatum, Magic Mike

5. Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best Body of Work
(a performer, filmmaker, or technician who made superior contributions to multiple films released in calendar year 2012)

 

 
1. Megan Ellison (Lawless, The Master, Killing Them Softly, Zero Dark Thirty)

2. Matthew McConaughey (Bernie, Magic Mike, Killer Joe, The Paperboy)

3. Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises, Les Miserables)

4. Steven Soderbergh (Haywire, Magic Mike)

5. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Dark Knight Rises, Premium Rush, Looper, Lincoln)

Best Ensemble Performance
 

 1. Lincoln

2. Moonrise Kingdom

3. Django Unchained

4. Argo

5. Silver Linings Playbook

Top 10: 2002

1. Secretary (Shainberg)

2. Punch-Drunk Love (Anderson)

3. Far From Heaven (Haynes)
4. Solaris (Soderbergh)
5. Adaptation (Jonze)

6. Talk to Her (Almodovar)

7. Gangs of New York (Scorsese)

8. The Pianist (Polanski)
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Jackson)
10. About a Boy (Weitz/Weitz)

You say more inappropriate things than appropriate things.

As with all of David O. Russell's films (except for Three Kings), Silver Linings Playbook often seems like it's about to become a complete mess. Moments of remarkable insight, wit and heart are followed by awkward plotting, jarring tonal shifts and Russell's tendency to have five or six characters in a scene yelling at each other and racing through their dialogue at a manic pace. It'd be easy to pick apart Silver Linings Playbook, but as my girlfriend put it, very few movies this year have made me as happy. And it's precisely because of Russell's messiness that the film works as well as it does - few directors match his bracing (sometimes blunt) emotional honesty, his obvious affection for his flawed, complicated characters and his ability to locate their grace even when they're at their most fucked up.

Matthew Quick's novel is the ideal material for Russell to adapt to the screen. It's the story of Pat Solatano Jr. (Bradley Cooper), who, as the movie begins, is finishing an eight month court-ordered stay at a mental hospital after he assaulted the man he found in the shower with his estranged wife Nikki. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Pat is motivated and optimistic, but highly manic and obsessed with winning Nikki back. Pat moves back in with his mom (Jacki Weaver) and his Eagles-obsessed dad (Robert De Niro), who works as a bookie and watches each game with a long list of transparently obsessive-compulsive rituals. These early scenes of Pat spending time with family and old friends struck a nerve with me; while I don't have bipolar disorder, after my own stretch of therapy following the end of my marriage, I couldn't help seeing how nearly every sane person around me unconsciously exhibited mild signs of personality disorders or compulsive thinking. The way Silver Linings Playbook subtly comments on the experience of trying to get strong or develop a "strategy" only to realize that everyone is a little bit crazy is honest and wonderful. While it's not a hard-hitting drama about mental illness, I appreciate that, for a screwball comedy that could have just made Pat "movie crazy" to create an amusing backstory, the film actually takes Pat and his perspective seriously.

Pat's focus on winning back Nikki is thrown into chaos when he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a recently widowed young woman who lives in the neighborhood. Tiffany is, in some ways, as troubled as Pat, but she's also strong and self-determined, and she and Pat have an immediate emotional connection (they bond early on by listing the antidepressants they've tried). Tiffany reaches out to Pat, who retreats to the safety of his Nikki fixation, so Tiffany begins aggressively pursuing Pat (sometimes literally), basically tricking him into becoming her friend and growing as a person (that sounds creepy as I write it, but in the movie it's strangely romantic). I was afraid that Silver Linings Playbook would be one of those movies about how the redemptive power of love can conquer mental illness. Instead, it's something smarter and healthier, a movie not about a Manic Pixie Dream Girl who heals a crazy, heartbroken guy, but rather a complicated female character with her own needs who cares enough about Pat to push him to heal himself.

It helps that the two leads have great chemistry. Cooper really surprised me - as he tends to play smug jerks, I didn't know he was capable of the openness and vulnerability he reveals here. And Lawrence is so great that I stopped wondering whether Tiffany got married in high school after about ten minutes. Tiffany tells Pat that "There will always be a part of me that is dirty and sloppy, but I like that, just like all the other parts of myself," and it’s a great credit to Lawrence that you believe her. There's a scene late in the movie where Tiffany challenges Pat Sr.'s assertion that her friendship with Pat Jr. is ruining the Eagles' "juju," and the 22-year-old actress not only holds her own against De Niro but actually steals the scene from him. De Niro, incidentially, is both very funny and often moving; this is the strongest material he's had in years, and it's a much-needed reminder that he's still capable of greatness.

As I said at the top, Silver Linings Playbook sometimes stumbles into cartoonish moments (Julia Styles' one-dimensional housewife character belongs in a much broader film) and transparent plot devices. Chris Tucker, as Pat's friend from the hospital, shows up implausibly whenever the story requires it (although it's nice to see Tucker onscreen again), as does the police officer (Dash Mihok) assigned to Pat's case, who seemingly puts in massive amounts of overtime. Despite this, the movie works, and it often works best when it gives itself over to the contrivances of romantic comedy. The second half of the movie revolves around Tiffany and Pat's preparation for a dance competition, of all things. It should be a disaster, but I ended up believing in it because Russell and his actors so clearly believe in it. When the movie becomes disarmingly romantic, it reminds that all the cliches we've become used to - a character running frantically after the object of his affection, a swirling camera around a long-delayed first kiss - still have the power to move us if the filmmaker believes in the moment. I'm not saying that Silver Linings Playbook is a perfect movie, and I completely understand why what was moving to me might be grating to others. But when the movie cut to black, Jen (who met me when I was pulling things back together and was just the friend I needed) gave me a big, long hug until the lights went up. It doesn't get any better than that.

Top 10: 1992

1. Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino)
2. Malcolm X (Lee)
3. Unforgiven (Eastwood)
4. The Last of the Mohicans (Mann)
5. The Player (Altman)
6. Candyman (Rose)
7. Batman Returns (Burton)
8. The Crying Game (Jordan)
9. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Lynch)
10. Alien³  (Fincher)

Top 10: 1982

1. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Spielberg)
2. Blade Runner (Scott)
3. The Thing (Carpenter)
4. Creepshow (Romero)
5. Tootsie (Pollack)
6. Fanny and Alexander (Bergman)
7. The Dark Crystal (Henson/Oz)
8. Fitzcarraldo (Herzog)
9. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Meyer)
10. Poltergeist (Hooper)

Top 10: 1972

1. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Herzog)
2. Cries and Whispers (Bergman)
3. Last Tango in Paris (Bertolucci)
4. The Godfather (Coppola)
5. Solaris (Tarkovsky)
6. Cabaret (Fosse)
7. Deliverance (Boorman)
8. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Bunuel)
9. Pink Flamingos (Waters)
10. Images (Altman)

One day more with revolution, we will nip it in the bud!

I saw the touring production of Les Misérables in Boston earlier this year; while I was antsy towards the end of the three-hour production ("Bring him home already, dammit!"), overall I had a great time. The show is a big, sweeping, unapologetically melodramatic epic, an emotional rollercoaster set against the backdrop of revolution. Since then, I've been looking forward to Tom Hooper's film adaptation as the perfect overstuffed holiday movie - even when I can see their flaws and excesses, I'm a sucker for old-fashioned crowd-pleasers of the sort that would have premiered as roadshows (complete with overtures and intermissions) fifty years ago. Unfortunately, Hooper isn't the right guy for the job, directing a mega-popular Broadway musical as if it were a Very Important Art Film. His misguided approach in bringing Les Mis to the screen isn't enough to ruin the movie - the music and several of the performances are strong enough that it still basically worked for me - but I can't remember another time where I thought a movie was pretty good in spite of the direction.

One choice Hooper made that I did appreciate was the decision to record the vocals on-set rather than having his actors lip-sync to previously recorded tracks, as is usually the case with movie musicals. The effect is sometimes rough around the edges, but in a good way - I like that vocals that serve the performance were given more importance that technical perfection. When Hugh Jackman, as recently released convict Jean Valjean, sings early on about the mercy a priest has shown him and the change this has caused inside him, his singing is filled with "flaws" that would make your average theatre snob wince but which make the scene much more affecting. The fearlessness the actors show - this is as close to live theatre, in terms of acting without a net, as a movie can be - and the resulting immediacy has admittedly uneven results, but the overall effect is often exhilarating.

This is especially true in the movie's best scene by far, Anne Hathaway's goosebump-inducing rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream." Over the past few years, Hathaway has proven to be one of the best young actors around, crafting believable and empathetic characters even when the material she's working with is shaky. As the doomed factory worker Fantine, she's heartbreakingachingly vulnerable and openhearted, and her performance is as big as the material requires without ever feeling hammy or self-important (she would have been great in one of David Lean's late-career romantic epics). For "I Dreamed a Dream," Hooper wisely keeps his camera fixed on Hathaway without any cutaways or his typically mannered compositions (we'll get to that in a minute); most of the song is an unbroken close-up, and I found myself marvelling at Hathaway's precision and openness (probably the most important trait for any actor) even as I got a bit of a lump in my throat. In short, she crushes it and deserves every bit of praise and awards recognition coming her way.

But when Fantine exits the film, its shortcomings become more apparent. I liked Hooper's previous film, The King's Speech, but Hooper's more self-conscious directorial mannerisms - off-center compositions, excessive dutch angles, unmotivated edits - kept me from fully embracing it. I was hoping Hooper would tone it down with Les Mis, which demands a more sweeping, romantic aesthetic, but the in-your-face, show-offy direction is actually much worse here. There are scenes that have as many cuts as a Michael Bay action sequence for no apparent reason, and the overuse of askew close-ups makes the movie feel claustrophobic when what it badly needs is a sense of an epic canvas (the film's handful of wide shots work wonderfully). It's clear that Hooper has tried to make Les Mis gritty, covering his actors and sets in dirt, grime and shit (sometimes literally). But it's not gritty, it's a frigging Broadway musical - the approach Tim Burton took with Sweeney Todd, making it visually stylish but also knowing when to step aside and trust the material, is what this sorely needed.

Hooper's direction also frequently does a disservice to his actors, especially Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert. Crowe's singing isn't as bad as people have said - he's actually okay - but he's clearly working very hard to not suck, and the way that Hooper has blocked and shot Crowe's scenes, we can only see the effort, not the performance. This is a side note, but Javert is basically the worst inspector ever. He's obsessed with capturing Valjean, but he doesn't recognize his face on several occasions and only comes close to catching him when Valjean happens to be standing next to him. Maybe his inability to recognize a face is why he thinks he can successfully disguise himself and infiltrate the student protestors by putting on a hat? This is a nitpick, but the shoddy direction makes it easier to get hung up on this and other weaknesses in the original musical, particularly the completely lame romance between Fantine's daughter Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and young revolutionary Marius (Eddie Redmayne). Seyfried's got a good voice, but has almost nothing to do in the story - her eyes seem to be exclaiming, "Hi, I'm in this movie too!" It's no wonder fans of the musical tend to prefer Eponine (Samantha Barks) and her unrequited love for Marius; Barks is also very good, and her rendition of "On My Own" is another highlight of the film. Again, Hooper is smart enough to stop moving the bloody camera around and trust the performance. I wish he'd done that more - the film's battle sequences, in particular, are a complete mess.

Probably the film's biggest missed opportunity is that, at a time when the global economy is fragile and, just last year, student protestors were being pepper-sprayed by cops, there's never any attempt to give the story any contemporary relevance. I was struck by the connection when I saw the musical, and amused by the idea that it was being performed in a theatre where the cheap seats were $70 and much of the audience probably didn't make the obvious connection between 19th-century France and the world we live in now. The movie could have been both a crowd-pleaser and a broad rabble-rouser, but for all its artistic pretensions, it doesn't feel like Hooper put much thought into what the musical is actually about. As I said, it still works because of the music and the obvious commitment of its performances (Hugh Jackman deserves a lot of credit for basically carrying the movie on his shoulders). It'll probably satisfy fans of the musical, but I can't help imagining how much better it could have been.

Novecento, Nosferatu, Gran Torino

I finally found time over the weekend to fill out my answers to the most recent quiz at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, this one administered by the stern but well-liked Professor Chipping. I realized I've been taking Dennis Cozzalio's quizzes for five years (and known him through the series of tubes for about the same amount of time); I always look forward to them, even as life necessitates that, rather than filling them out in one sitting, I carry the questions around with me, returning to them when I've thought of just the right answer. In many ways, I actually prefer doing it this way. Anyway, it's been a pleasure as always, and I highly recommend you head over to SLIFR and check out the many terrific answers to the quiz.

1) What is the biggest issue for you in the digital vs. film debate?

As others, including our host, have pointed out and discussed at length, it would have to be the availability of 35mm prints for art houses, independent cinemas and especially repertory screenings. The squeeze the industry is putting on smaller theatres to convert or die will inevitably result in a lot of smaller cinemas going under, which can only result in more screens devoted to the blockbuster of the week and less screens for more eclectic film programming. This is especially true with repertory cinemas, which will have fewer choices for the forseeable future. Here in New England, I dread seeing the great programming of theaters like the Brattle and the Coolidge affected by the digital conversion, although it appears so far that they’ve been able to use creative means – the Brattle recently borrowed John Landis’ personal print of Schlock – to keep their calendar as diverse as ever.

2) Without more than one minute’s consideration, name three great faces from the movies

Jack Elam

Sissy Spacek

Jim Broadbent

3) The movie you think could be interesting if remade as a movie musical When I was in high school, some friends and I ran our own theatre company (Rushmore wasn’t far from our reality). Once we were having a meeting about what play we should stage next, and a trenchcoat-wearing occult aficionado in the group piped up with “Let’s do Blade as a play!” We laughed at the time, but as the suggestion has stuck with me all these years, I have to admit that it would at least be interesting. Sadly, we never had the audacity to try it, although I remain proud of our production of Barton Fink.

4) The last movie you saw theatrically/on DVD, Blu-ray, streaming

Theatrically: Lincoln. A great movie and, as a Spielberg film, surprising in many ways. And so many outstanding beards!

On Blu-ray: 3 Women, as puzzling and hypnotic as ever.

5) Favorite movie about work

The Shining and The Conversation are two great movies about characters who spend too much time on the job. But for a movie set in a traditional workplace, I’d go with Secretary.

6) The movie you loved as a child that did not hold up when seen through adult eyes

I saw Hook on the big screen when I was seven years old, and I was completely enchanted; it was the first movie I asked to see a second time, and if you’d asked me back then, I would have told you it was as good as E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When I saw it again as an adult, I realized how overproduced and flat much of it is. I still can’t help having some affection for it, though, and Dustin Hoffman and Bob Hoskins are still terrific. And John Williams’ score is one of his best; it deserves a better movie.

7) Favorite “road” movie

Badlands

8) Does Clint Eastwood’s appearance at the Republican National Convention change or confirm your perspective on him as a filmmaker/movie icon? Is that appearance relevant to his legacy as a filmmaker? Clint’s movies have always reflected his politics, but even movies with overtly conservative elements like Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino are strong enough films that they make a case for virtues like self-reliance (and his obvious contempt for people on welfare) without ever feeling didactic or one-sided. He should probably sit out the next RNC, but he’s a great director, and I don’t want to only watch movies that confirm the correctness of my own politics. I still like Bat Out of Hell, too.

9) Longest-lasting movie or movie-related obsession

I can’t wait to see Room 237, as daffy as some of the theories it presents about The Shining might be. I first saw the film over 20 years ago, and I think about it almost every day. I’ve read volumes about it, and I’m still capable of being sucked into a 5,000-word essay or 60-minute YouTube video analyzing the film at a moment’s notice.

10) Favorite artifact of movie exploitation

A Turkish one-sheet of Dario Argento’s Inferno, signed by the director. It was Argento who told me it was a Turkish poster, explaining, “In Turkey, they add snake. This not enough. They need snake. Yes, Turkey.”

11) Have you ever fallen asleep in a movie theater? If so, when and why?

I nodded off during the last 20 minutes of the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. I can’t think of a more damning review of that turd.

12) Favorite performance by an athlete in a movie

Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator

13) Second favorite Rainer Werner Fassbinder movie

This quiz has reminded me of a serious blind spot of mine - I've only seen two Fassbinder movies! The lesser of the two is Querelle.

14) Favorite film of 1931

City Lights

15) Second favorite Raoul Walsh movie

High Sierra

16) Favorite film of 1951

The Day the Earth Stood Still

17) Second favorite Wong Kar-wai movie

Chungking Express

18) Favorite film of 1971

I put A Clockwork Orange at the top of my '71 list earlier this year. I re-watched it a few months ago, and it's still amazing, but I have to admit that a few scenes dragged in a way that they never had before. It could be that my perspective on it has changed a bit for the worse over the years, or (hopefully) I'm just too familiar with it and waiting a few years before another rewatch will make it fresh again. But for now, I'll go with Harold and Maude.

19) Second favorite Henri-Georges Clouzot movie

The Wages of Fear

20) Favorite film of 1991

My Own Private Idaho

21) Second favorite John Sturges movie

Bad Day At Black Rock

22) Favorite celebrity biopic

It's weird to think of Raging Bull as a "celebrity biopic," but it is a biopic and LaMotta was famous, so there it is.

23) Name a good script idea which was let down either by the director or circumstances of production

The first one that comes to mind is Red Dragon. It's the best of Thomas Harris' books featuring Hannibal Lecter, and we already had proof, with Manhunter, that it could make for a pretty great movie. But Brett Ratner's bland direction wastes both the script and one of the best casts ever assembled, and the awkward attempts to create more screen time for Anthony Hopkins results in scenes getting shoehorned into the movie that make little or no narrative sense. It's watchable, but I can't help being disappointed by what a huge missed opportunity it is.

24) Heaven’s Gate-- yes or no?

It's beautifully shot, but I found it dramatically inert. However, it's been ten years since I saw it, and I've found myself thinking about it here and there over the past few years. The Criterion Blu-ray is tempting, and I'm sure it would at least look fantastic on our TV, but I'm hesitant to spend thirty bucks to find out that it's no better than I remember, or perhaps even worse.

25) Favorite pairing of movie sex symbols

Julie Christie and Warren Beatty in McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Something about covering them in all that dirt and grit and stripping them of any glamor - Christie as a Cockney whore (using her real accent) and Beatty as a dopey grifter who, nevertheless, has got poetry in him - makes them sexier and more real than any of their star vehicles (Shampoo, where Beatty also plays a schmoe, is almost as sexy).

26) One word that you could say which would instantly evoke images and memories of your favorite movie. (Naming the movie is optional—might be more fun to see if we can guess what it is from the word itself)

27) Name one moment which to you demarcates a significant change, for better or worse, on the landscape of the movies over the last 20 years.

When Yoda went from puppet to CGI character in Attack of the Clones. It was the moment when practical effects officially became retro, the idea that a character that had been beloved for over twenty years was now a flaw that had to be improved. It was a solution that nobody was asking for.

28) Favorite pre-Code talkie

The Public Enemy

29) Oldest film in your personal collection (Thanks, Peter Nellhaus)

Nosferatu

30) Longest film in your personal collection. (Thanks, Brian Darr)

1900

31) Have your movie collection habits changed in the past 10 years? If so, how?

A few years ago, when my ex-wife and I separated, my movie collection was halved. As I've been gradually rebuilding my collection, I realized that my attempt to get as many classics and serious movies as possible had resulted in what a woman I dated rightly called a sad bastard collection; most of the comedies I had were nabbed by my ex, and my copies of movies like 21 Grams and A Very Long Engagement have been collecting dust for years. So I decided that I didn't have to replace every last Very Important Movie, and if I want to buy Predator 2 on Blu-ray for $7.50 then, by God, I'm going to buy Predator 2 on Blu-ray for $7.50.

32) Wackiest, most unlikely “directed by” credit you can name

Ghost Dad, directed by Sidney Poitier.

33) Best documentary you’ve seen in 2012 (made in 2012 or any other year)

 Cave of Forgotten Dreams

34) What’s your favorite “(this star) was almost cast in (this movie)” anecdote?

It'd have to be Nick Nolte as Han Solo, because it inspired this: 35) Program three nights of double bills at a revival theater that might best illuminate your love of the movies

Vertigo and Mulholland Drive, Orpheus and Wings of Desire, All That Jazz and Synecdoche, New York

36) You have been granted permission to invite any three people, alive or dead, to your house to watch the Oscars. Who are they?

Paul Lynde, Ivan the Terrible and LexG.

37) Favorite Mr. Chips. (Careful...)

Erik Estrada!

Making Monsters #31: An American Werewolf in London

Of all the movies that made me obsessed with monster makeup and special effects artists as a kid, An American Werewolf in London was number one with a bullet. John Landis' classic isn't so much a horror-comedy as a horror movie where laughs offer temporary relief from its many scares. It's also a landmark in transformation effects that has never truly been surpassed; while most werewolf movies until that point relied on dissolves and other camera tricks to sell the effect of their characters transforming into werewolves, An American Werewolf in London, along with The Howling earlier the same year, pulled off astonishing in-camera metamorphoses. Rick Baker was the makeup effects supervisor on An American Werewolf in London, and offered advice to Rob Bottin for The Howling while waiting for the film to go into production. If the transformation in Landis' film has a decided advantage, it's because of Landis' wish to shoot the scene where unlucky American tourist David (David Naughton) first turns into a lycanthrope in a brightly lit living room set with no shadows or obscure angles to hide Baker's techniques. The result is an unforgettable scene where one effect builds on another to sell David's abrupt and painful transformation (Naughton's convincing screams of fear and pain do a great deal to sell the scene as well).

As a kid, I searched for any information I could find on how Baker pulled off the scene. Needles to say, each shot in the transformation required a great deal of imagination and effort to pull off. Prosthetic versions of Naughton's limbs were made, then fitted with air bladders that, when inflated, gave the appearance of David's arms and legs stretching and changing shape. For the closeups of hair rapidly growing over David's body, Baker threaded thousands of individual strands of hair through sections of latex skin, filmed the hair being pulled through the holes, then reversed the shot to create the illusion of growth. For the point at the scene where David's head transforms, Baker created two animatronic heads designed to bulge and expand as David grows a snout; coupled with some bone-cracking effects, it's frighteningly convincing.

But even knowing so much about how the scene was done, I completely forget about the details every time I watch it. It's a perfectly shot and cut, and brilliantly underscored by Sam Cooke's version of "Blue Moon" (which takes on an ominous quality here). Landis' ability to use humor to both punctuate and magnify the movie's sense of inexorable doom is remarkable; I'm particuarly fond of the insert, during David's transformation, of a Mickey Mouse figurine observing the scene passively, the character's cheerfulness taking on an eerily blank quality. Landis ability to walk a fine line between laughter and screams is just as strong throughout the entire film, from David and his friend Jack (Griffin Dunne) initial teasing of each other fading as they realize they're lost and scared shitless from the sound of howling in the distance to the perfectly abrupt cut to black at the film's end that cheerfully announces that everything has completely gone to hell and the story is therefore over. If it weren't for the Twilight Zone tragedy a few years later, Landis might have gone on to a career to rival his then-friend Steven Spielberg; the two had more in common than most people realize now. And Baker is similarly firing on all cylinders throughout the film, from the awesome Nazi demons in David's nightmares to the undead Jack's rapid physical decay to the climactic bloodbath in Piccadilly Square. An American Werewolf in London is everything a horror movie should be - thrilling, tense, witty, stylish, bloody, believable, and driven by an inexorable sense of dread. It's the perfect film for the Fangoria-reading, socially awkward child that many of us were and, really, still are.

Making Monsters #29/30: Alien/Aliens

I first saw Alien and Aliens together on a VHS tape my dad had copied; I was probably too young, but I loved both movies. As a result of watching them together as a kid, I can't help thinking of them as one long, intentional double feature, even though the sequel was made seven years after the original and is as much a product of the '80s as the first was of the '70s. Comparing the creature designs of the two films is one of the greatest examples of a pioneering original film followed by a sequel that both honors and imaginatively expands on its predecessor.

The different stages of the alien's life cycle in Ridley Scott's original were famously designed by H.R. Giger; screenwriter Dan O'Bannon had worked with Giger on Alejandro Jodorowsky's unrealized adaptation of Dune, and was able to incorporate Giger's designs (as well as the world-building concepts by Ron Cobb) directly into the script. Each stage was brought to life through a combination of old-fashioned trickery - the unsettling movement of the egg Kane investigates was created by Scott fluttering his hands inside the prop - and an eye for verisimilitude. Animal organs were incorporated into the design of the egg and facehugger in order to make them appear more, ahem, organic. When the full-grown alien appears, Giger's design is brought to stunning life by Carlo Rambaldi, who won a special effects Oscar for the mechanical design of the alien's head. But as impressive as Giger's design and Rambaldi's execution are, it's still a guy in a suit - it's Scott's brilliant decision to only show us the alien in brief shots, veiled in shadows, that retains the creature's otherwordly mystery and allows our imagination to fill in the dark spaces.

The film's most famous scene, when the newborn alien rips through Kane (John Hurt) as he's just trying to eat his lunch, is actually shot in full light; while the grown alien is all Lovecraftian supernatural menace, the chestburster is all about presenting this perverted form of childbirth in as unflinching and visceral a way as possible. The effect was shot in one take, with multiple cameras rolling, to capture their real surprise on the actors' faces (while they knew what would happen in the scene, they didn't know what the effect would be like). As a technician pushed the chestburster puppet through Kane's prosthetic torso, a jet of fake blood squirted directly at Veronica Cartwright's face; her surprise and disgust are authentic. It's such a stunning moment, sold by the unnerving sound design and Hurt's convincingly anguished performance, that when we register a moment later that the chestburster is clearly a puppet, it really doesn't matter - by that point, Scott has us hooked and we're prepared to believe anything.

It's normal for sequels to adapt a "bigger is better" mentality, and Aliens is no exception - more aliens, bigger action sequences and lots of firearms. Thankfully, with Aliens this approach works brilliantly; James Cameron was still at the top of his game as one of the most skilled action directors, the switch-up from interstellar Agatha Christie to Heinlen-influenced combat movie is inspired, and the relationship between Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and young survivor Newt (Carrie Henn) creates a strong emotional investment in the nail-bitingly tense climax. Cameron also made changes to the alien's design, most significantly removing the sleek dome of his head to exposed the ridged cranium underneath. The production also cast acrobats and contortionists to play the aliens in order to give them inhuman movement and combat the "man in suit" problem. Aliens is that rare beast, a special effects spectacular that doesn't sacrifice intelligence or believability.

The film's most astonishing effect is the queen alien that Ripley has to rescue Newt from. Visual effects artist Stan Winston initially scoffed at Cameron's request for a 14-foot animatronic character to be completed entirely without the assistance of stop-motion or optical effects. Thankfully, Winston accepted the challenge - the queen required multiple puppeteers and technicians operating various controls, hydraulics and a crane supporting the entire puppet. The end result is a convincing and fearfully intimidating villain that lends Aliens one of the most suspenseful, crowd-pleasing endings of all time (Winston and the other effects supervisors won the Oscar). The great thing about the Alien series is that it has allowed each of its directors to make the franchise its own - while David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's entries in the series had varying degrees of success, each is interesting and distinctive, as is Scott's own return to the Alien universe, the flawed but fascinating Prometheus (we'll leave the AvP movies out of this). But it's the first two films that remain the best, each the work of an exceptionally talented filmmaker at the top of his game.

Making Monsters #28: The Thing

The subject of makeup effects in The Thing is probably enough to fill a book. The 1982 remake of the Christian Nyby film and, especially, the John W. Campbell novella "Who Goes There?" that was the basis for both films was lambasted by critics when it was released and died a quick death at the box office. It was the summer of E.T. and, as John Carpenter has noted more than once, Spielberg's film had an alien that made the world cry, and his was the alien that made people throw up. Three decades later, The Thing is generally regarded as a masterpiece of suspense, one of the best sci-fi movies of all time and a landmark in special makeup effects. Carpenter elected to return to Campbell's concept of the alien as a shape-shifter and encouraged makeup effects artist Rob Bottin to run with it. Bottin, then 22 (boy, do I feel lazy), and his team of artists and technicians used every trick in the book - prosthetics, hydraulics, pneumatics, radio controls, reverse photography and buckets of K-Y Jelly - to bring to life a creature that imitates its prey on a molecular level before killing them and, in each of its incarnations, takes on the grotesquely distorted characteristics of its current host and every previous one. Bottin's creature designs are expressionistic and highly imaginative, with each seemingly topping the previous one, and they're an enormous compliment to the themes of distrust and paranoia that Carpenter carefully weaves through the film.

The showstopping sequence, for me, occurs about halfway through the film, when Norris (Charles Hallahan) collapses of an apparent heart attack and Copper (Richard Dysart) attempts to revive him. As our attention drifts to the action on the other side of the room in one of the film's several excellent moments of misdirection, Copper's hands suddenly burst through Norris' torso, revealing two rows of very big teeth that close in on Copper's hands like a bear trap. All hell breaks loose, culminating in Norris' head stretching off of his body, sprouting spider-like legs and provoking one of the best lines in this or any movie. To sell the effect, a double amputee was cast to stand in for Dysart, and Norris' torso was built to close with enough force that it would sever the prosthetic arms. It's amazing to consider that moment and everything that happens next - the second form of The Thing that explodes from the hole in Norris' body, the transformation of Norris' head - was all accomplished in-camera and sold through the meticulous, detailed work of Bottin and his team, as well as cinematographer Dean Cundey's brilliant cinematography (which shows us everything but the seams of the effect) and the disturbing, otherworldly sound design. While it's true that suggestion is the most powerful tool a horror director has, if you can show everything as effectively as Carpenter did in The Thing, than go for it.

Making Monsters #27: Street Trash

While I appreciate a good gore effect, I've never had a lot of interest in splatter for splatter's sake, so I've skipped or been late to a lot of the more notorious horror movies, including the majority of the subgenre known as "melt movies." While I can appreciate a solid effect depicting the spectacular liquefaction of the human body in the context of a movie that earns it - just last week, my son and I were enjoying the featurette explaining how they melted Toht's face in Raiders of the Lost Ark - protracted gore porn just isn't my bag. I'm not judging, I'm just saying. So when I finally saw Street Trash in ideal circumstances - a pristine 35mm print with live commentary by writer/producer Roy Frumkes - I was surprised that there was much more to the movie than I'd always assumed from its disgusting VHS cover art. To be clear, it is a completely disgusting movie, but with more wit, satirical edge and pure chutzpah that I'd expected. Rarely has a film that features rape, necrophilia, rampant bodily fluids and an extended game of "hot potato" involving a severed penis seemed so darn cheerful.

A film about winos, junkies, lowlifes and the assorted denizens of New York's streets in the 1980s, Street Trash is a joyously over-the-top exploitation movie that has as its narrative thread an extremely cheap brand of booze called Tenafly Viper that has become lethally skunked. When a liquor store owner sells his overstock extremely cheap to the homeless, it causes any character who drinks it to rapidly melt in a spectacular fashion. What makes this work is that the approach to the melt effects, which aren't as interested in a realistically sickening detail than in constructing an extreme, deliberately ridiculous gross joke. Bodies erupt in cascades of blue, green and purple goo, collapsing within their clothes, melting into grimacing puppets or even exploding into a million sticky pieces. The effects transcend bad taste; they're so extreme that they become completely, hilariously abstract.

One of the makeup effects supervisors on the film was Jennifer Aspinall, who also did a lot of work for Saturday Night Live, which suggests that the filmmakers were more interested in makeup that was comic than realistic (incidentially, Aspinall doesn't include Street Trash among the list of credits on her website). And it helps a great deal that the filmmakers weren't cynical hacks but genuine cinephiles - Frumkes has long been a member of the National Board of Review, and he's also responsible for Document of the Dead, the excellent documentary on George A. Romero and the Dead movies. And the movie's director, Jim Muro, is responsible for the movie, which was largely shot on Steadicam, for having such a slick visual style and professional look for a very low-budget movie. This is Muro's only film as a director; he became one of the most sought-after Steadicam operators and cinematographers in the business, working on Best Picture winners Titanic and Crash. Frumkes explained at the screening that Muro had become a Christian and, possibly embarrassed, had distanced himself from Street Trash. In a strange coincidence, I worked as an extra later that summer on the Anna Faris vehicle What's Your Number? and realized that the cigar-chomping director of photography was none other than Muro. It took a lot of willpower not to mention the movie to him, but it was a pleasure to watch him work - using clearly homemade rigs and even substituting a 2x4 between two ladders for a more expensive camera mount, it was clear that Muro hadn't completely lost touch with his low-budget roots.

Making Monsters #26: The Birds

My dad, who is not a huge movie buff, often cites The Birds as one of his favorite movies. When we saw War of the Worlds together, his only comment was "That wasn't scary. The Birds is scary." I've heard other people about my dad's age cite The Birds as a favorite; it's clearly a movie that touched a nerve with an entire generation who saw it as kids. Alfred Hitchcock's follow-up to Psycho, very loosely adapted from a short story by Daphne DuMaruier, was probably the first high-profile "environmental horror" movie, and its sense of a mounting terror just beyond the boarded-off windows of a domestic refuge was a huge influence on Night of the Living Dead. The premise of the birds in a small coastal village suddenly turning on humans for no apparent reason is perfect for Hitchcock, who seems to take delight in denying the audience an explanation for the movie's events. Hitchcock's famously controlling, rigorous directorial style is a fascinating match for the film's scenes of large-scale destruction; it's a movie about chaos, executed with obsessive precision.

Hitchcock was famously a big fan of special effects and the control of shooting conditions they allowed him, preferring soundstages, rear projection and other techniques in situations where most other directors would have chosen to shoot on location. So while The Birds was a famously complicated production, I imagine that Hitchcock must have relished its technical challenges. The special effects supervisor was Ub Iwerks, who used a technique he developed while working at Disney called the sodium vapor process. An element is filmed against a screen lit with sodium vapor lights; the image is captured on two different film stocks, one of which only captures the sodium vapor wavelength. Compositing these two elements greatly reduced the visible matte lines typical of early blue screen effects. The result is that dozens of individually photographed mechanical and real birds seemingly occupied the same shot; the effect (intensified by the incredible sound design) is still chillingly believable almost fifty years later.

The most memorable scene in The Birds, however, borders on documentary. While the scene where Melanie (Tippi Hedren) is assaulted by birds in the Daniels' attic relies as heavily on careful angles and editing as the shower scene in Psycho to maximize the feeling of violence, the fact remains that the scene was largely captured by hurling real birds at Tippi Hedren for five days. The very real fear and exhaustion on Hedren's face lingers long after the movie is over; why is it that Hitchcock, who was happy to use effects to substitute for reality whenever possible, felt that it was necessary to actually place his leading lady in harm's way? I haven't seen The Girl, and I'm suspicious of any account of history taken from one perspective. But it's clear from The Birds itself that director was capable of cruelty, both towards his actors and his audience; he was cold, calculating, immensely brilliant and attuned to the dark side of existence for reasons we may never fully understand.

Making Monsters #25: Creepshow

Creepshow, director George A. Romero and screenwriter Stephen King's loving homage to the lurid, gory EC Comics they loved as kids in the '50s, is not only one of the most entertaining horror movies ever, it's also one of the best comic book movies. King's screenplay, an anthology of five short stories, recreates the storytelling formula of books like Tales From the Crypt and The Vault of Horror, where evil or repugnant characters are dealt grisly, bluntly ironic supernatural payback for their sins. The script is admirably faithful to its unapologetically lowbrow, crowd-pleasing source, and Romero pays further tribute to their pulpy artistry by using dramatic lighting, backdrops of expressionistic splashes of color and animated transitions turning shots into comic panel and cuts into turns of the page. Other comic book movies like Hulk and Dick Tracy, have tried to ape the look of their source material, but none have matched Creepshow's celebration of the bold aesthetic pleasures of the medium.

The anthology format also allowed to go makeup artists Tom Savini to go wild, creating zombies, a monster, a skeletal Cryptkeeper-inspired figure and a moss-covered Stephen King. Savini's character and creature makeups perfectly capture the style of the EC illustrations; Bernie Wrightson did a graphic novel adaptation of the movie, long out of print, that is well worth keeping an eye out for to see Savini's designs translated back into comic book panels. The vengeful, cake-hungry corpse of Nathan Grantham from the opening segment "Father's Day" is my all-time favorite movie zombie, his face a sneering skull covered in earth and worms and lit in garish reds and blues by cinematographer Michael Gornick (who would go on to direct Creepshow 2). The ape-like beast locked in a crate beneath a university staircase in "The Crate" is also a highlight - nicknamed "Fluffy" by Savini, he's all fur and huge teeth and looks almost comical until he tears his victims apart.

Savini's showstopper is the final segment, "They're Creeping Up On You," about a corrupt, misanthropic tycoon named Upson Pratt (E.G. Marshall) whose Howard Hughes-like sterile existence is invaded by hordes of cockroaches. Thousands of roaches were transported for the film, and as one can't really train a cockroach, the crew had to spend a great deal of time dropping crates of roaches into the frame and getting whatever they could. In the story's final moments, Pratt's inert body suddenly explodes with the many, many cockroaches who have found a home inside him. It's a great sick-joke ending, and Savini, Romero and the crew pull it off the sort of giddily bad taste that made William Gaines and his comic label such an illicit pleasure and inspiration for King, Romero and the many other genre writers and filmmakers who loved Tales From the Crypt as kids.

Making Monsters #24: Ghostbusters

Is there a movie in the past 30 years as unanimously loved as Ghostbusters? It's a movie that just about everyone who was born between 1970 and 1985 has a great deal of affection for, and there are almost no contrarian views on the subject (Pauline Kael was one - she preferred Ghostbusters 2). It's one of those movies that works like gangbusters for audiences across all age groups and demographics; I read an interview once with Rick Moranis where he mentioned that, when he was filming Club Paradise in the Caribbean, locals frequently asked him if he was still possessed by demons. A lot of the movie's appeal is due to it being the rare horror-comedy that actually works pretty well as a horror movie. The ghost in the library at the beginning, the reveal of the otherworldly portal in Dana Barrett's (Sigourney Weaver) fridge and the scene where Dana is attacked by demonic canine paws are effectively scary.

That these and the rest of the ghosts in the film are very believably brought to life by effects supervisor Richard Edlund and his company, Boss Films, makes Ghostbusters a very unique comedy. Usually, even with some of the funniest comedies, the production value, cinematography, effects and other elements become secondary to capturing the performances. It's a valid and often effective approach, but when a comedy like Ghostbusters actually puts the effort into making its fantastic scenario credible, Bill Murray's wisecracks actually become funnier in the context of a legitimately high-stakes story. Building on techniques Edlund developed on Poltergeist, the crew on Ghostbusters would combine multiple elements - miniatures, blue-screen photography, travelling mattes - in a single shot to make each scene work (this is before digital compositing, when composite shots had to be acheived directly on a photochemical negative). Even a ghost like Slimer (called "Onionhead" by the first film's cast and crew, he got his name from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon) that is meant to be purely comedic works better as a gag because of the effort Edlund and his crew put into selling the effect.

This is especially true in Ghostbusters' finest moment, the reveal of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Bringing the jolly-looking demonic manifestation of the Ghostbusters' certain doom to life required combining multiple effects techniques. A full-size Stay-Puft suit with animatronic facial expressions controlled by a team of puppeteers stomped model cars on a minature set of the city. Individual elements like cars and people running out of Stay-Puft's path were shot seperately and composited into the shot with the travelling matte techniques that Edlund and others developed on the original Star Wars trilogy. This was then combined, via matte, with shots of the Ghostbusters atop a skyscraper. The effect is both hilarious and jaw-dropping, almost unmatched in film for its sheer large-scale absurdity. It's funny, but if any of use ever saw Mr. Stay-Puft headed our way, we'd be as terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought as Dr. Spengler.

Making Monsters #23: The Fly

David Cronenberg's The Fly, along with John Carpenter's The Thing and Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, makes the strongest case for the possibly artistic worthiness of remakes. Cronenberg took the original 1958 movie - a fun, campy B-picture with a memorably creepy ending - and transformed it into an intelligent, emotionally devastating story about disease and mortality that was particularly resonant to audiences when it was released in 1986 as the AIDS crisis was beginning to receive more attention from the mainstream media. The movie is anchored by strong performances from Jeff Goldblum as scientist Seth Brundle, who is on the verge of inventing a teleportation device, and Geena Davis as reporter Veronica Quaife, who is invited by Brundle to write a book on his invention and quickly falls for him; Goldblum and Davis, who were a real-life couple at the time, have terrific chemistry in the happier first half-hour of the film, and we're invested in their characters by the time Seth decides to try out his telepods on himself. At first the experiment seems like a smashing success, but a stray fly in the telepod causes Brundle to transform, in horrible ways, on a subatomic level. While the original film simply swapped out it's protagonist head with a giant fly's, Brundle's mutation is gradual, grotesque and realized in unflinching detail; as Veronica tries to help Seth, the movie becomes a surprisingly poignant story about what it means to love and care for someone in a finite lifetime.

Seth's transformation was designed by Chris Walas, who also worked on the original Gremlins and the face-melting climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Walas designed Brundle's transformation into Brundlefly (as the character refers to himself) in seven stages. Goldblum worked with prosthetics resembling grotesque lesions and deformities that eventually covered most of his bodies, as well as prosthetic teeth and, towards the end of the film, contact lenses to make his eyes appear larger. He was also required to spew fake vomit to illustrate Brundefly's new digestive habits (Goldblum's embarassed, matter-of-fact delivery of the line "That's disgusting" is one of the movie's few laughs). Through all of this, Goldblum's empathetic performance shines through - it's one of the best examples of an effects artist and actor's work complimenting each other. At the end of the film, as Seth completes his transformation into a six-foot fly, a series of animatronic puppets take over for Goldblum. The greatest compliment I can give Walas' work on the film is that, watching it, you forget that you're not watching Goldblum any more. As Seth wordlessly begs Veronica to put him out of his misery, the effects artists' "performance" is nuanced and completely believable; thanks to their work and Davis' performance (not to mention Howard Shore's brilliant score), it's a heartbreaking ending. Walas won the Oscar for Best Makeup Effects for his work, and he deserved it, but the entire cast and crew is just as instrumental in making this Cronenberg's best movie.