Thirst

When films about vampires or werewolves are made, generally it’s more interesting when the transformation is a metaphor for a new self or rediscovery, rather than a literal black and white term of being a monster. The 2000 Canadian film Ginger Snaps poked fun at girlhood puberty and the menstruation cycle by having a teenage girl who has never menstruated slowly turn into a werewolf, with the telltale signs of growing hair and bleeding, aptly calling it “the curse.” The 2008 Swedish film Let the Right One In uses a vampire child as a manifestation of a bullied boy’s rage, as if she is his imaginary friend and he can take power and control back through her killings and supernatural abilities.

In the 2009 Korean film Thirst, directed by horror master Park Chan-wook, a mild-mannered priest makes himself a guinea pig for a medical experiment to find a vaccine for a virus, only to become a vampire through a mistake in the experiment and being revived by a blood transfusion. His new identity as a vampire gives him an out for the sins he has denied himself, which includes coveting his friend’s quiet and repressed wife, who is desperately looking for an out from her trapped marriage and family, both which are practically one and the same (as she is weirdly married to her adopted brother, who has cancer).

The relationship between the former priest Sang-hyun (Song kang-ho) and the wife Tae-ju (Kim Ok-bin) is the most fascinating of the film, and both undergo the biggest transformations. Sang-hyun tries desperately to stay true to his priestly disposition, not wanting to kill anybody, and instead drinks the blood of terminally ill patients who wish to commit suicide, both prolonging his life and energy and reducing their pain and agony. He cannot fully let himself go with his new desires, as he is Catholic to the core. When he can see Tae-ju’s blood pumping through the veins through her thin pale skin, it’s all he can do to hold himself back from pouncing on her. He thinks to himself, “Now I thirst after all sinful pleasures.”

He always tries to stay dignified, but Tae-ju, as his Lady MacBeth, continually tempts him to the dark side as she finds his powers irresistible. She enters the film resembling a bored post-teenage wife, mopey and quiet and misunderstood by her husband and mother in-law. But it is obvious that she has buried passions boiling inside of her, and in her rapturous lovemaking scenes with Sang-hyun, she reveals herself to be as dark and as twisted as him. “I’m too damn healthy,” she says, pissing about taking care of her sick husband and envying Sang-hyun’s illness which strangely gives him free will. It’s a literally biting passion, and it quickly transforms Tae-ju, noting, “It’s strange, but good,” and not knowing why she receives pleasure from pain. Kim does an outstanding job of turning Tae-ju from a chilidish girl into a conniving femme fatale within a short character arc. She becomes completely unrecognizable from her former self as she seduces and manipulates Sang-hyun, both playing the innocent and his eager partner. She craves blood, power, control, and both she and Sang-hyun feel more confident and stronger with each other, less like their former slave selves.

Shot in muted colors with a blue shadiness, Thirst has some resemblance to Let the Right One In in terms of moodiness and dark atmosphere, plus the theme of loneliness and outsiders finding power and strength in an unexpected relationship and source. Both films present their paired stars as them against the world, held back by their surroundings and looking for an escape. But Thirst feels like it has more tragedy to it, as Sang-hyun and Tae-ju cannot possibly live forever feasting on blood and not get away with it. It would tear them apart. Sang-hyun, despite becoming a vampire, is too full of Catholic guilt and piety, while Tae-ju uses her transformation to justify all the hidden desires she’s ever had. It is at once a beautiful but tragic romance.

The Book of Eli

It’s a rare beauty when a film opens up with a nearly silent sequence, holding the audience in the loneliness and solitude of the main character as they goes about his day, just trying to survive in no-man’s land. Wall-E in 2008 illustrated this beautifully, as the garbage-collecting robot on an abandoned Earth compacts garbage to make large city-like towers, reminiscent of the time before, and finds rare treasures to decorate his home with, assuaging his loneliness with collectibles. When he watches Hello Dolly!, he’s learning about the romance and joy and life of human beings, whom he has never known, and the film has a timelessness that reaches across decades and cultures, which speaks volumes that if a work is magnificent enough, it will stand the test of time.

The Book of Eli, the new film from The Hughes Brothers (Dead Presidents, From Hell), opens in a very heartbreakingly similar way to Wall-E, taking the audience on the long and hard journey of Eli (Denzel Washington), a man with a mission from God to carry the last remaining Bible after the apocalypse thirty years ago, which killed and blinded many, and left water as a scarcity to find. In the opening sequence, Eli, covered in dark clothing, sunglasses, and a thick backpack, hunts down a mangy cat that won’t provide much meat (but will do for now), strolls down the dusty road like a lone western hero, and settles in an abandoned home with no water, his face still hidden by sunglasses and a scarf. It’s only when he sits and leans against the wall, pulls out his i-Pod (which surprisingly still works), and puts on Al Green’s “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” that the film goes into a whole another dimension. The Hughes Brothers not only combined Western and science fiction genres, both which rarely have a black character as the main P.O.V., but brought in an element of soul music, tying Eli to his past and giving him a moment of peace to remember the beauty of humanity before the world went to hell. Al Green’s song works because it’s not only identifying with the loneliness of Eli’s mission, but that Green’s music is about sparseness, with so much space between him and the instruments, that his voice quietly floats over the music, touching the listener deep in their heart. It’s so simple, but so gorgeous, and those opening scenes, with no dialogue, made Eli’s character so much more real and relatable as just an ordinary man trying to survive in hell.

The film closely follows the story of Saul of Tarsus, who was chosen by God to spread his gospel throughout the world, and who had written the Bible. Saul spent fifteen years preaching and helping to create new groups of followers, risking himself for persecution, as it was believed that the followers of Christ were a threat to the Roman Empire. Eli was told by God to pass on his word to the nonbelievers, many who are blind or cannot read, and to be their eyes and their savior in a lawless land ruled by a sick man who represents the end of evangelism and hope, Carnegie (Gary Oldman). He has a selfish need for the book, to get it so he could create and rule over other towns, and sends out illiterate thugs all the time to try to find the book, despite that they wouldn’t be able to tell which one it would be.

The Hughes Brothers has a history of violence in their films: Menace II Society with beatings and shootings in South Central L.A ; Dead Presidents with Vietnam and a failed bank heist; and From Hell with the Jack the Ripper story, though most of the violence happened offscreen. The violence in The Book of Eli is quick and graphic. Despite that Eli doesn’t like to fight or “doesn’t want any trouble,” nevertheless he must defend himself against cannibals and thugs, and shows no mercy in murdering them in seconds to save others from their savageness.

Given that the post-apocalyptic film genre can be clichéd, The Book of Eli takes a stylish and fresh turn, not just making an Eli a cynic about the world, nor making everybody hopeless and jaded. Eli, despite his hardship and difficult task from God, is polite and respectful of people, and wants to protect the good ones from the monsters created by the apocalypse. As noted before, the blending of genres, a black hero, and the dusty and gritty atmosphere make for an original and possibly underrated film of 2010, a film which has received mixed reviews by writers who just cannot understand its new interpretation and may have the idea of “If I can’t relate to it, it’s not worth watching.”

Serenity

Science fiction has had many interpretations of the future. There’s the future where the world is controlled by strict eugenics (Gattaca), where people are persecuted for crimes they haven’t committed yet (Minority Report), and the ever-popular dystopian future (Blade Runner, Children of Men, The Road Warrior). Often the science fiction genre takes itself very seriously, warning its audience of the dangers of relying on technology, the consequences of racism, and the inner destruction of humanity. While science fiction can tackle these issues with intelligence and gravitas, the manner leaves little space for humor or brevity, which can sour a sci-fi fan where everything is life and death and nothing in between.

Joss Whedon, the celebrated creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, created characters that were intelligent, witty, and unique in a slightly quirky way, portrayed by actors who, while all physically attractive, got the oddball outsider sensibility of their characters, and played it up with grace and humor. Whedon’s characters gave viewers heroes who weren’t perfect, were personally conflicted, and while possessing a quick tongue and amazing hand-to-hand combat skills, were just regular people in extraordinary situations.

In 2002, Whedon created the now cult-classic Firefly, a TV show on Fox about a spaceship crew on the ship Serenity who had lost a civil war and were now living on the outskirts of society. It closely resembled a Western, with an Appalachian bluegrass song as the theme and an outlaw hero in Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), a former sergeant with a Southwestern accent, a long brown coat, and guns at his holsters. The Serenity crew fights criminals, the combined U.S./China government known as the Alliance, and the dangerous Reavers, a cannibalistic group of nomadic humans that have turned savage and monstrous. The show was unique for its mismatched cast of unusual but interesting characters, a sense of wry humor, and not being as heavy-handed as its precursors in sci-fi, as stated in the opening paragraph.

Unfortunately, due to low ratings, Firefly was cancelled after one season, despite fans’ attempts to keep the show on the air. But its cult status grew so much that, as a gift to the fans and as a season finale, Whedon wrote and directed the feature film version of Firefly in 2005, entitled Serenity.

Serenity works as an introduction to those who did not see the show, detailing the civil war that happened five hundred years into the future, where Earth’s resources have been used up, and humanity has moved into living in space and on other planets. The Alliance controls all of the planets, yet there is a rogue justice league that operates far from the core planets, where the Serenity crew survive. Their world is put into jeopardy when a young girl named River Tam (Summer Glau), who is a pupil of the Alliance and holds dangerous secrets that she obtains through psychic abilities, escapes with her brother Simon (Sean Maher) to Serenity, hiding away from the Alliance, including a dignified but ruthless agent ( Chiwetel Ejiofor). River’s abilities make her a deadly weapon for the Alliance, and her allegiance to the Serenity crew is questioned, if she is truly one of them or if she will turn based on her government programming.

The language of Serenity is very sharp and smart-alecky, keeping with the Western motif. Both Mal and Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin) are very much like cowboys, quick with a pistol and a one-liner, men who have seen death and destruction firsthand. If they’re not being movie heroes, they are tech-savvy intellectual nerds, in the forms of shy mechanic Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite) and pilot Hoban (Alan Tudyk). Zoe (Gina Torres), the first mate and Hoban’s wife, holds this loyalty and deadly strength, thinking with her head and following Mal’s orders with “Yes, sir.”

While the film has a great script and engaging characters, the story is at times hard to follow, especially for those unfamiliar with the Firefly show. Halfway through the movie, the story gets more complicated, and a plot summary and a re-watching helped to understand it better, but it felt tedious and confusing, without much of a resolution. It ran long and could have had scenes shortened or more of a conciseness so that the viewer wouldn’t lose track of what was going on.

Serenity undoubtly pays homage to its sci-fi predecessors, for their grungy and rough exteriors recall the crew of Alien, just regular people with intellectual and technical skills who eke out a living working on a ship. They band together when they fight, laugh over drinks, and just take it as hard, tough work, like average working class joes.

Serenity may get muddled down at times and is overly lengthy, but it stands out as one of the most original and interesting sci-fi films to come along, simply because it has talented and unique actors, compelling characterizations, and a closer sense of modernity than other sci-fi films overly concerned with the future and not the present.

Gone Baby Gone

Ben Affleck made his name as a screenwriter and co-star of Good Will Hunting in 1997, but abandoned screenwriting in favor of a big Hollywood career, which was hit or miss. While his co-star Matt Damon experimented with offbeat arsty fare like Rounders and The Talented Mr. Ripley (and later as an unlikely action hero in the Bourne series), Affleck stuck to mainstream popcorn flicks, where his big defined jaw and athletic presence dominated in fun but inoffensively bland films like Armageddon and Forces of Nature. But despite seeming like a frat boy on the outside, it’s interesting to note that whenever he was on SNL or poked fun at himself (like in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), he displayed plenty of wit, sharp comedic timing, and more self-aware and keen intelligence than one would take him for. It was this underbelly of intellect and seriousness that led to him adapting Dennis Lehane’s novel Gone Baby Gone, about detective searching for a missing child in South Boston, to the screen, both co-writing the screenplay with Aaron Stockard, and making his directorial debut. The result is an intimate and rough neo-noir gem that fell below the radar when it was released in 2007.

Local media have surrounded the streets of Dorchester, reporting on Amanda McCready, a missing 3-yr old girl. Her mother, Helene (Amy Ryan), is distraught and in tears in front of the cameras; however the inside story is that she is a known cocaine addict who spends more time in the bars than she does raising her daughter. Suspicions arise over the company that Helene keeps, and her sister in-law Beatrice hires the one man who can truly get her niece back the way the cops can’t.

Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) is a private detective who chooses to work the South Boston streets where he grew up, as it gives him an edge to getting the real story from the people he knows, whereas unfamiliar cops would just intimidate the locals who’d keep to a “no snitching” policy. He lives modestly with his girlfriend and partner Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), in a small and sparsely furnished apartment in the heart of Dorchester. He’s short and wiry with a local accent and a no-bullshit detector, and takes to the streets to investigate the bars and drug dens to get leads on Helene’s “friends” and where Amanda could be. This path, alongside assistance with the local police who are lucky to have Kenzie as an “inside man,” takes him down into the seedy and corrupt parts of Dorchester, and he gets an uncomfortable lesson in trusting the wrong people.

Gone Baby Gone was shot in South Boston, and the use of locals as actors gives the film a genuine, gritty atmosphere, celebrating their neighborhood. Lehane wrote Mystic River, which was also adapted into a film in 2003, and though Clint Eastwood directed with a sweepingly gorgeous cinematic eye, the A-list cast and showboating histrionics of Sean Penn’s acting made it look fake, as if the stars were just passing through and not committed to the inner city world. In contrast, Amy Ryan, a veteran Broadway actress, delivered a raw and honest performance as Helene, exhibiting her selfish, unlikable traits that one could write off as being “white trash,” but giving her a hardened soul that allowed the audience to emphasize with her predicament and regret over her life choices. Helene at first comes off as immature and sociopathic the way she callously speaks to law enforcement, as if not caring what happens to her daughter. But as the consequences of her lifestyle get to her, she crumbles and displays this heartbreaking wretchedness, as if she had never really thought before about how her choices would affect others.

Similarly, Casey Affleck shines in this film, and not because his brother directed it. Him being a Boston native, he gets it. He gets the language, the streets, the accent, the hard knocks of Dorchester that lead many promising children into lives of crime, ignoring any kind of untapped potential that they have. It’s a place where it’s easy to fall through the cracks, and as Patrick Kenzie, he doesn’t play him as a cold cynic, but somebody who truly loves and cares for his people, and doesn’t like to see them waste their lives.

Occasionally, the script falls into Good Will Hunting territory, where Kenzie will intimidate a drug lord or a cop with a long, stream-of-consciousness rant detailing the trajectory of someone’s actions, and what will happen to them if they make the wrong choice, and how it will ruin the lives of others. It came off as forced and unrealistic, compared to the rest of the profane and rough dialogue, and was too reminiscent of Will Hunting as a know-it-all smartass with a street accent. It’s the kind of monologues that actors will memorize for their classes, trying to act tough and streetwise, and it’s unnecessary and more like screenwriting masturbation and fantasy stuff than sticking to quick and sharp dialogue that gets the point across.

The film settles into a morally ambiguous ending, where the choices may benefit some in the short-term, but can have damaging long-term effects, and neither choice seems great in the long run. But while those are the circumstances, it’s up to someone to make their own life decisions, and not be influenced by their surroundings simply because it’s an easier way to go. Gone Baby Gone may be about the consequences of an ill-chosen lifestyle, but Affleck's direction never denigrates the South Boston neighborhood. The gritty blue lighting and sweeping shots show the neighborhood as a hard but close-knit place, where everybody knows each other and looks out for one another, for better or for worse.

Eastern Promises

In David Cronenberg’s films, he has had this fascination with the body, and how it can define us, betray us, and be twisted inside out to represent our demons and hidden desires. Seth Grundle in The Fly uses his body as a science experiment and pays the price with a degeneration into something less human, eating him alive. The twin gynecologists in Dead Ringers cannot bear to be apart or separate people, and are practically one and the same, mutilating their bodies to be together for eternity. And the hedonists of Crash receive sexual pleasure from car accidents, feeling perturbed yet interested in becoming aroused from seemingly unusual circumstances. It’s a captivating theme that Cronenberg enjoys exploring in different ways, like a sculptor moving his hands through wet clay and finding new answers in the relation of the body and the mind.

The body theme takes a new direction in Eastern Promises, a dark and gritty 2007 feature about the subculture of Russian mob life in London, and the hidden secrets guarded by its family. Opening with the death of an unknown teenage Russian girl, midwife Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts) discovers her diary, and, only having a rudimentary knowledge of Russian from her father, investigates the girl’s life, with the help of her uncle’s translation. The girl’s life ends up being dangerous knowledge for Anna, as the seemingly kindly old owner of a local Russian resturaunt, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is actually a major boss in the vory v zakone (thieves in law), a Russian mafia that is widely feared for good reason.

Nikolai Luzhin (Viggo Mortensen), a chauffeur for Semyon, is his right-hand man, a quiet, sophisticated man with slicked-back hair and manicured suits. Nikolai presents a cool calm and self-assured professionalism, maintaining a sense of high morals amongst thieves and murderers. Next to him, Semyon’s son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) is absolutely ridiculous, a gangster with no class or sense of intelligence, flashing money and getting wasted. Yet he exerts authority over Nikolai because of his birth rite. By witnessing Anna’s inquisitions about the girl’s life, he courts her in a charming way. Not necessarily being romantic, but finding her fascinating as an Anglo-Russian outsider who wants to seek justice. But nevertheless, as she gets closer to the truth about the girl’s life, she risks her own, ignoring Nikolai’s warnings not to get too close to this well-protected underground institution.

Eastern Promises goes into well-researched detail on the inner lives of the Russian Mafia, recalling comparisons to The Godfather, for the happy extended family scenes in Semyon’s restaurant mask the depraved dirtiness that goes on behind the scenes. Mueller-Stahl is convincing as a sweet old man playing violin for his grandchildren, yet his inner world shows him as anything but merciful. The crime family resettled their roots in London, and it’s practically a little Moscow in their narrow cobble-stoned streets. Deeper to the bone is the tattoos given to gangsters, detailing their whole lives all over their bodies. Without knowing their names, their tattoos can tell someone everything about their rank, where they’ve been, who they know, what their ethnic affiliations are, and what they’ve seen. Their life is their body, they can’t hide any secrets. Nikolai is not exempt, as in a brilliant scene where he is considered being admitted into the family.

The film is haunting and strikes as real, for its sense of menace and dirty crime, and that nobody will ever receive repercussions for the disgusting things they did to ordinary people, like the deceased teenage girl. When coming away from this film, Mortensen’s performance stands out as a high-class professional with knowledge of dangerous secrets, who stands stoic as a statue, smoking a cigarette with the air of a cosmopolitan hit man.

The Beast

Many war films focus on one side as the victor, and the other as the absolute enemy. They don’t show the enemy except in nefarious ways, like plotting to take down the “good guys” or hardly being seen at all. In WWII staples like Saving Private Ryan or even Band of Brothers, the focus is on the brotherhood of the “good” side, and little is seen from the opposing side, except as bullets fly in from offscreen or someone is stabbed/shot to death. While these are great depictions of the close community that war can bring to soldiers from all walks of life, the myopic view of “us vs. them” can make for a narrow-minded film sometimes.

The Beast, from 1988, was a small and intense film about the consequences of war in 1981 Afghanistan against its Russian invaders. It was directed by Kevin Reynolds, who unfortunately went from such an interesting and harrowing drama to maudlin and overbloated Kevin Costner vehicles years later (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Waterworld). His falling-out with Costner during their last film soured his directing dreams, and he has only directed three films since then. Which is a shame, because in The Beast, it balances the narrative between a small group of Russian soldiers led by a hardened and cruel commander (George Dzundza) and a group of Afghani rebels fighting to reclaim their land and avenge the death of a fellow brother.

The soldiers are patrolling a Pashtun village, bombing civilian villages and terrorizing its people, with endless explosions blasting from a cannon shot at a POV camera angle, not unlike a computer video game. Women rebel and throw stones at the tank, the “beast” of the film, and the sepia-toned cinematography and shaky handheld camera capture absolute destruction of homes and families. In the first ten minutes, Commander Daskal orders his tank driver Konstantin (Jason Patric) to drive the tank over the body of a captured Afghani man, as a public execution and warning to his people. Despite hesitation, he does so, and the death incites vengeance among the mujahideen against the Russian soldiers, whose handicaps are that they are not familiar with the terrain, and easily get lost.

A notable scene early on occurs between Konstantin, who is clearly sympathetic to the Afghanis and wants to protect them, and his fellow tankman, an Afghani man named Samad (Erick Avari), who gives him some vital Afghani sayings that can bridge a language barrier between the two sides, and bring understanding and peace.

Konstantin holds this to his heart, but despite low fuel and low rations, Commander Daskal is ruthless towards eliminating the mujahideen and staking the land as Russian territory, at any cost. The pressure mounts when Konstantin is caught between the sides and has a mixed allegiance to both, and how he can save each side from each other while still remaining loyal. It’s a sick and sad predicament to be in, but Patric plays it with a warm sense of humanity and compassion. Dzundza, on the other hand, plays Daskal as a cruel and heartless individual, deadened from life under Stalinist rule, and would rather die fighting than admit defeat. His selfish actions later lead to dire consequences for his tank squad.

The Beast is an absolutely well-rounded war film. It moves at a fast and exciting momentum, building characters quickly with brief expositions, and doesn’t shy away from giving sympathy to both warring sides instead of a black-and-white “good guy/bad guy” motif.

Some of the Best Films of 2009

Skin

A deeply underrated film about racial identity under apartheid, Skin tells the true story of Sandra Laing (Sophie Okonedo) a "white" woman born to Afrikaaner parents in 1950s South Africa who appears black. As a child, her family urges the government to have her classified as "white," proving her Dutch heritage. For her parents, her dark skin is a great embarrassment, and something to be shed for her to have a better life. Sandra grows up caught between two worlds, and not accepted by either, feeling like a traitor no matter what race she identifies with. Okonedo's performance lends sadness and vulnerability to Laing's emotions, and the audience's heart is held as she makes difficult choices to find love and acceptance amongst both her parents and her commonlaw black husband. In one scene, her black family's township is torn down by the government, and the community resents Laing for having the ability to shed her "blackness" and return to white privilege whenever she wants, while they remain in poverty. Laing's story is an example of how apartheid caused unnecessary racial strife under government laws, and truly limited the opportunities for people to get to know one another in a loving and accepting manner.

An Education

Lynn Barber is a world-renowned British journalist, and she wrote her memoir about her time as a 1960s schoolgirl when she had a two-year tryst with an older and charming gentleman who often padded the truth with glamorous lies. Her story was turned into An Education, and its crisp screenplay by Nick Hornby delivers a sharply intelligent take on class, coming of age girlhood, and the allure of the high-class boho lifestyle. Carey Mulligan is absolutely charming as Barber's younger self, renamed Jenny, dominating every scene with a combination of innocence, wit, and an increasing self-awareness that the dream man she has met (David, played by Peter Sarsgaard, who maintains a sense of a likeable and warm chap, veering away from borderline creepiness) is stringing her along. It's relatable in the sense that many young women fantasize about being sophisticated women with a taste for travel, the arts, and bohemian culture, and that school can feel like a stagnant institution keeping them from achieving their independence. Is it better to receive an education from life out in the world, or being trained in academic programs for years? Jenny wrestles with that, and Lone Scherfig's direction allows the audience to grow with her and know that she will be all right in the end.

The Hurt Locker

Kathyrn Bigelow has made her mark on Hollywood with phenomenal films that re-invent the genres of action and science fiction. Near Dark takes a vampire tale and places into a road trip Western, coating her vampire crew in dust and grit and smelling of whiskey and stale blood. Point Break was nonstop action, and had the two straight male leads practically in love with each other, because the undercover cop admired the drink-life-up gusto of his surfer/bank robber mate who he felt guilty about trying to nab, while the robber was very charismatic in trying to convince the cop not to give up their friendship for the law, all the while threatening his life. Strange Days reversed expected gender roles, with Ralph Fiennes as the weepy sap obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, and often having to be literally saved by Angela Bassett, the smart and badass action hero who has little patience for his self-pitying victim role. With the flop U-571, Bigelow didn't direct another feature until this year's The Hurt Locker, and its success lies in not making a war film where the heroes are musclehead supermen who blast endless rounds and spout clichéd lines like "Don't you die on me, man!" The Hurt Locker focuses on a bomb squad stationed in Iraq to disable mines and bombs, the center character being Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner in a knockout performance) as the cocky but intelligent lead disabler, taking the place of a former disabler who was killed in action. He continually antagonizes his fellow squad members, but what works about Bigelow's film, written by journalist Mark Boal, is that the characters seem like real men. They're not heroes, they're not villains, they're just ordinary guys who laugh and fight with each other, and more focus is placed on their brotherhood and personal experiences than the war on a large scale. The Hurt Locker may lead in a an Oscar nomination for Bigelow, and given the track record of female directors and the Oscars, it's safe to say she should be a top contender for the award.

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds, the latest from Quentin Tarantino, faced a lot of controversy for re-writing WWII history and potentially offending people who didn't like seeing Jewish freedom fighters when the reality was much more tragic. The film pays love and respect to Jewish people by giving an alternate story where they fight back against their occupiers and enemies, all with a self-assured "fuck you" confidence. Between the characters Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) and Shoshanna Dreyfuss (Melanie Laurent), they have power; they have strength, and fortitude to die for their beliefs if they can take down their enemies with them and save others in the process. That kind of bravery is to be respected and admired, for anybody who is willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause. By far, the most haunting and chilling performance comes from Christoph Waltz, as the SS "Jew hunter" Hans Landa, who smiles with ease and comfort as he quietly intimidates his prey, pretending to be less aware than he actually is, and hiding a cold heart of evil underneath an amiable charming facade. In two scenes, both set at a table, he intimidates and laughs and jokes, all with a deadly ulterior motive. The dialogue is lengthy, and mostly spoken in German and French, but has so many subtleties, revealing little facts that could hold one's life in jeopardy or make them a trusted confidante, depending on the finely tuned ear for reading between the lines. It's clichéd to call Inglourious Basterds a mature departure for Tarantino, but in a way, it is. Not because it is a period film, but it's a new challenge for him to find film references (Riefenstahl, Dietrich) in a different time, and weave them into the political atmosphere, and make it sound believable and honest. It's a stunning film that probably will not be as remembered as Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill, but ranks with Jackie Brown as a dialogue-led film rather than violent homages to B-movies.

Moon

Moon has this quiet atmosphere, and holds a sense of isolation and mystery in the cavernous space station occupied by Sam (Sam Rockwell), an astronaut who has spent three years on the moon, and is looking forward to coming home in two weeks. He misses his wife and young daughter, and feels exhausted and strained. His only friend is the main computer GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey in a manner of emotionless detachment), who runs his life smoothly and keeps him from talking to himself. During the past few weeks, however, Sam has been getting headaches and feeling more weak, but just shrugs it off, knowing it will all be over soon. But on a routine checkup driving on the moon, he crashes, and wakes up back in the station, and the film takes a odd but intriguing twist, exploring Sam's psyche and the true nature of his assignment.

The film succeeds in keeping the audience enraptured due to both Rockwell's incredible performance as the sole character on screen, bringing his natural "regular guy" attitude that makes Sam a real person and not a superhero, much like Bruce Willis, an average joe, as the star of Die Hard. The spotless white interior of the space station increases the sense of loneliness, and pays homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris, for its depiction of solo astronauts and their relationships to computers as replacements for human companions. Moon is one of the most inventive and interesting science fiction films to come, and it couldn't have come better itself from the writer/director Duncan Jones, whose father wrote the song, "Space Oddity."

Whip It

When reading the blog Jezebel, I was disappointed when so many posters put down the idea of seeing Whip It, almost because it's a "girl" movie, and wanting to prove that they liked "boy" movies, as if they were saying that "boy" movies were better than films marketed to women. Whip It is not revolutionary, but it is so fun and exciting to watch, because it brings back a sense of DIY feminism that some young women discover in their teens for the first time, learning about all these great female heroes in whatever genre they choose, and being inspired to "be their own hero," as said by a roller derby girl in the film. Whip It, directed by longtime actress Drew Barrymore, centers on Bliss (Ellen Page), a teen girl pressured into beauty pageants by her former teen-dream mom (Marcia Gay Harden). Bliss is a punk rebel at heart, and spends her free time cruising with her awesome and funny best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat, who should really star in her own comedy). They go to a roller derby match, and are floored at the sheer badass brutality of the derby girls, each with monikers like Rosa Sparks or Smashley Simpson. Bliss decides, what the hell, and auditions, and despite her ineptitude, makes the team. The community and the family between the skaters is instantly palpable, and Barrymore pads out the cast with real-life strong and charismatic actresses from all walks of life: rapper Eve, stuntwoman Zoe Bell, and wild child Juliette Lewis. The story gets thin at times as Bliss isn't really as interesting as her best friend or the derby girls are, and there's a need to see more of those characters than Bliss and her so-so relationship with an inept rocker wannabe, but it's a story about real women, and an appreciation that Barrymore and screenwriter and (real-life derby girl) Shauna Cross have for female relationships. From the derby girls to the way that Bliss' mother is not made into a one-dimensional old dream-killer, but someone who fights just as hard for her wishes and goals as Bliss does for hers, and it's great to see that respect for their characters. Whip It may not have been a big success, but it's a great inspiration for tween girls who are looking for films starring teen girl characters that aren't preoccupied with makeovers or finding "the one."

Zombieland

It's immature to say it, but it has to be said: Zombieland kicks ass. It's funny, playful, pokes fun at zombie tropes in films while reveling in its own silliness, and has a unique and great suspense-driven action sequence at the end. All the characters have state capitals for names (almost re-naming themselves after the zombies first slaughtered everybody, due to mad cow disease), are quick experts with firearms, and hold a no-bullshit attitude towards the zombies. The opening title sequence, with stills of zombie attacks to the tune of Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls," gets the audience in gear for a world ripped apart by madness and murder, and how the only person you can trust is yourself. Jesse Eisenberg plays an awkward nerd, and his character is the least interesting person. Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin play orphaned sisters, and there's this great sense of family between them, like they would really fight for each other with genuine love and trust. Woody Harrelson is hilarious, self-assured, confident, and has a secret love of Twinkies, the Twinkies representing a more innocent time of convenience and reliability before the zombies took over. It's honestly one of the most fun movies of the year, and one should rent it and just have a blast imagining themselves as a badass zombie killer with a quick wit and a sawed-off shotgun.