The Lovely Bones

Peter Jackson has made his best film with The Lovely Bones. Fans of his early horror films or fanatic followers of his Lord of the Rings trilogy may be predisposed to think otherwise, but the fantasy/fairy tale reality Jackson conjures in Lovely Bones resonates long after the film has ended. Based on a novel by Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones tells the story of a teen girl who recounts her murder from a heavenly perch.
The subject would be maudlin handled with other hands, but Jackson wants this to be a moral tale as well as pure visceral cinema. There's more than one sequence that relies on musical accompaniment and to the film's credit the soundtrack is scored by Brian Eno. Additional music from the likes of the Hollies or Cocteau Twins propel scene after scene with emotional weight.
Saoirse Ronan plays Susie Salmon (like the fish), with Stanley Tucci as the serial killer and Mark Walhberg and Rachel Weisz as her parents. Susan Sarandon takes command of the screen in a supporting role as the mother in law. About 30-minutes into the film Susie meets her end at the hands of Tucci only Jackson switches to expressionistic lighting and weird angles to show her in the afterlife. There's actually very little physical violence in this movie.
Once Susie is in heaven we witness visual effects that portray the afterlife as bountiful in splendor as one could imagine. Lots of special effects take the helm during the afterlife sequences. Most forceful is a scene portraying ships in bottles crashing against an unfriendly shoreline. To give you an idea of the amount of CGI, very eloquently integrated into the narrative, the end credits with all the special effects houses listed runs nearly 14 minutes. It's like Jackson is looking for a happy ground that combines suspense filled narrative with an otherworldly harmony.
There's never any doubt that Tucci is the killer, and in fact the whole affair has an objective point of view that seems to suggest that all things are transitory.

Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart aims for the sky and reaches the stars. Jeff Bridges plays seriously alcoholic songster Bad Blake. Blake was obviously bigger at one point in his career but now gigs on a small club circuit that caters to singer/songwriters. Blake's songs surprise with the ease with which they sooth, until you realize the tunes were written by T-Bone Burnett (also a producer) and naturally sound as if they were written by someone whose lifeblood flows with chords and rhythm.
The tunes Bad warbles are a little bit folk, a little bit country. Crazy Heart follows Blake's pattern of life, which consists of rolling into the next town, doing a sound check, hooking up with whatever band has been hired for back-up, and drinking lots of whisky. Crazy Heart was mostly shot in New Mexico so there's a lot of southwest to the look of the film whether the setting is West Texas, Phoenix, or Santa Fe. A couple of sequences take place in Houston but other than a single establishing shot of the downtown skyline the rest of the Space City scenes were shot in Albuquerque (bars, aquarium, home exteriors).
Bridges has one of his best roles ever with Bad Blake, and even if some of his mannerisms or body language looks familiar from film to film (one concert has Bridges playing in a bowling alley) it's hard to imagine more than a handful of performers who could pull off Bad Blake. Perhaps a couple of other actors that come to mind are Robert Duvall who did a similar turn in his Oscar winning role in Tender Mercies (Duvall is also a producer and brief co-star.) and Colin Farrell as Tommy Sweet a former protege of Bad's who now commands stadium crowds and has achieved bigger fame than Blake ever imagined. If Bridges is overshadowed by anybody in the film it's Farrell.
At one point during his tour Blake hooks up with single mother Jean (a constantly amazing Maggie Gyllenhaal) and seems to be back in the saddle again. Oddly this part of the film comes off as the most believable of Bad's journey despite their age difference. That the affair ends badly comes as no surprise since Bad cannot shake the booze monkey off his back.
Crazy Heart is one of the few films I've seen about musicians that correctly nails the atmosphere of creating original music and of making a living on the road.

The Book of Eli

The Book of Eli is an apocalyptic road movie for those who thought The Road was too cerebral yet felt Terminator Salvation was way over the top. Toplining Denzel Washington and helmed by The Hughes Brothers, The Book of Eli wants to be a smart movie and in fact the last act almost seems like a different film if not a philosophical comment on what has come before.
Washington wanders a barren landscape and comes across an ad hoc frontier town run by Gary Oldman. Figuring in the equation are Oldman's blind mistress (Jennifer Beals, too long an absence from the big screen) and her resourceful daughter (Mila Kundis). But Book has several rabbits it wants to pull out of the hat including a weird couple who might have been the lead in Motel Hell (Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour) as well as Tom Waits as a pawn shop owner, and Malcolm McDowell in an unbilled role that helps explain the significance of the book Eli/Washington totes around.
The book, a version of the King James Bible, is the object of desire and the book provides a unique twist before all is said and done. Between moments of reflection the Hughes Brothers provide some startling violent set pieces, one of which frames the action within the borders of a highway underpass in a manner that reminds of a confrontation from Korean cult classic Old Boy.
The Book of Eli will find cult acceptance with certain audiences while turning other off due to its eventual trajectory. The Hughes Brothers have never realized the potential of their first two films, Menace 2 Society or Dead Presidents, yet they definitely understand the power of narrative shifts. The look of the film strips most color from the image, much of the time resembling black and white with a tone of color thrown in for good measure.

A Single Man

A Single Man takes the viewer on a whirlwind character study of a British writer in L.A. This lonely scribe may've lost his soul, or perhaps just the rudder that guides his inspiration. Set in the early 60s the film, based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood, captures the sense of wanting the night to never end, of wanting the last drink to be the first of many.
Not oddly, Isherwood at the time depicted in the film was actually in L.A. and adapting the Hollywood insider meets cemetery satire novel The Loved One (written by Evelyn Waugh and based on his own experiences in Tinseltown). The Loved One is on the short list of all time great films as far as film history goes. As movies go A Single Man is no slouch in the film department.
A gay writer/professor looking to score to stave off his depression runs a gauntlet of seedy milieus and existential hesitation. All the while George (Colin Firth) laments over the recent death of his companion (Matthew Goode seen in flashbacks). George goes through his day in a robotic pattern; he teaches, confers with students, calls up his best friend (Julianne Moore) for advice, avoids his across the street straight neighbors who are having a party, has a drink at an ocean view bar. A Single Man distinguishes itself with a linear but stream of consciousness mood exemplified with desaturated colors.
Firth shows a great deal of range even while playing a character that holds most of his feelings on the inside. Firth's performance is matched by a constant tension in Tom Ford's direction that suggests George may be on the cusp of losing it. Ford himself makes a smashing feature film debut as a writer/director after a successful career as a fashion designer.

Leap Year

For Leap Year the real jump will be a leap of faith that this piece of shite doesn't actually smell. A vain romantic comedy starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode at least sounds promising. It's not like a movie trying to pass off Kate Hudson or Hugh Grant as the new hot thing.
Why do romcoms always have the most implausible set-ups? For Leap Year the conceit is that Adams has traveled to Ireland (from Boston) in order to propose to her boyfriend. Only her flight gets diverted due to bad weather to Wales, so she takes a boat to Ireland and then needs to hire a cab or find a train or bus to Dublin. How much of this superfluous crap do you want to know before Adams hooks up with pub owner Goode and agrees to the price of 500 Euros for him to drive her from Cork Ireland to Dublin. Some of the names of cities are made up. The truth is that the movie has no geographic verisimilitude any more than it has a toehold on logic. The amount of 500 Euros is the equivalent of 726 dollars. I'm not saying that that isn't a fair amount to pay somebody to drive you for five or six hours to a destination; I'm saying how does Adams' character afford such an expenditure since all she does for a living is assist realtors in selling apartment?
John Lithgow has star billing and he's in the movie for like all of a couple of minutes. His character explains the reason why Adams must chase her worthless boyfriend to Ireland.
If you can get past the plot contrivance, yes this is an easy romcom to sit through. Especially with those gorgeous Irish castles and cliffs offered up as set pieces. But the only chemistry in this film is between Goode and Adams and the movie camera. As actors they photograph great, but as lovers they lack serious credibility.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Watching a Terry Gilliam film is always a bit like going down the rabbit hole. Make no mistake, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a singular event that occasionally demands attention to detail and commands respect for fantasy. For those familiar with Gilliam there are touches of Fisher King, Baron Munchausen and even a fleeting reference to Monty Python.
A convoluted yet easy to follow plot has the immortal Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer in epic mode) making amends to the Devil (a laid back Tom Waits). It seems that in return for immortality Dr. P must deliver five souls to the Gloved One. Dr. P does this through the aid of a magic mirror. In a turn of events it seems The Devil is not a guy who minds losing or even renegotiating deals. One such wager revolves around a clause that allows Waits to claim any kin Plummer may've fathered when said progeny reaches the age of 16.
Doctor Parnassus parades around in a sort of motley troupe that would not be out of place in Ingmar Bergman's the Seventh Seal. This theatrical unit rolls out its stage and performs in back alleys and in front of tony strip malls. One peculiarity involves a mirror on the stage that looks like a plain prop mirror on the outside but also functions as a kind of fifth dimension transport device. Once you go through the looking glass you are in The Devil's world where every fantasy becomes real. Also on board as performers in Parnassus' circus are Valentina (amazing newcomer Lily Cole) who embodies the beauty of a goddess from classic sources (think Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, which marks more than once Gilliam has used this image) and Anton (Andrew Garfield) and Verne Troyer as the smaller than a midget Percy. Troyer, because of his tiny stature, is often used as the butt of jokes but here he's the voice of reason.
A man on the run, Tony (Heath Ledger in his last role) acts as a conduit for all of the characters to interact. As is well known Ledger died during the filming of this movie and his part, the scenes where Tony goes into the mirror, are played by Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell as Tony #1, #2 and #3.
As surreal as the film unwinds the multiple casting makes an easy transition. As fluid as Gilliam is with fantasy elements it's a wonder he's not directing Alice in Wonderland.