At the movies: Aquaman 2

 Another day, another Aquaman. Which I kinda dug. Needed more of the ladies, and I missed the drum-playing octopus. But this one has a new octopus who is a delight.

Best Films of 2001.

 

I got to take part in The AV Club's Best Films of 2001 poll, and got to write about two of my very favorite films. Perhaps you're intrigued...

At the movies: Being The Ricardos.

 

I had expansive and complex feelings about Being The Ricardos.

At the movies: Stoker.

I was given the chance to write about the exquisitely messed-up English-langauge debut for Korean director Park Chanwook, and it's an opportunity that I leapt at. When you see Stoker, and you certainly should, you'll sink into its sensual enchantment and you will want to get new wine glasses. It's not just a testament to Nashville's exceptional film industry, some of the finest artists and craftspeople I've had the pleasure of sharing a mutual horror at our state legislature with, but an example of how you can rope together several disparate elements and turn it into something unexpected and glorious. Not to be missed...

At the movies: The Paperboy.

The most infamous film of this year's festival season finally reaches Nashville. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Getcher $8.75 and get a ticket, because this one is everything you could want out of socially conscious exposes and trashy exploitation.

At the movies: The 50th Annual New York Film Festival.

 For my eleventh consecutive New York Film Festival, I wanted to have a grand experience. I only saw two films I hated, so that certainly counts for something.

 There were so many dazzling moments, I just sort of had to keep my responses internal, barring the occasional gleeful gasp or slack-jawed amazement.

So here's my write-up from NYFF 2012. I hope you enjoy it. There were so many good films that I couldn't fit them all in, so much respect also to Pablo Larrain's No and Damon Packard's Foxfur, which I recommend to all.

At the Movies: Rabbit Hole.

So here is the sprawling, 1,000+ word review I got into both Metromix and The Tennessean. It's a great film, and it was a hell of an assignment. As a special bonus, you get a little bit of a sketch of the screening attended by Nicole Kidman, which was, for a moment, the biggest art event in the city. Kidman is a doll, graceful, humorous, and supersweet.

My desperate quest for public recognition.

I'm getting attention in the press. Yay!

At the movies: Australia.

Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) must leave England to tend to her family's Australian cattle ranch. There, she encounters the half-caste mystical child Nullah, culture clash on several levels, and Hugh Jackman, done up right as The Drover- an independent businessman who handles business all over the Northern Australian frontier.

Sweeping plains, arid desert, cute animals, collective racial guilt, financial shenanigans, and the timeless power of "Over The Rainbow." Nobody blends disparate cultural touchstones together quite like Baz (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge) Luhrmann, and Australia is a glorious mess of an acheivement.

Hugh Jackman gets to be Clint Eastwood (eye-lit man of mystery in bar fight), John Wayne (driving cattle across the plains), Cary Grant (when cleaned up for a society ball), and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (rescuing children) all in the same movie. Nicole Kidman gets to be all prim and stuffy, then beat a bad guy with a riding crop, herd cattle in the most dangerous part of the Aussie desert, preside over a fancy dance (where she gets to rock a cheongsam like Maggie Cheung in In the Mood for Love), breathe life into desolate nothingness, sing a little, and give up the goods in a rainstorm.

In the seven years since Moulin Rouge, director/cowriter Baz Luhrmann has remained an enthusiast of mash-up culture and timeless romanticism, and this film could have easily been released in the fifties, such is its sense of Cinemascope epic-ness. For anyone, then, who says they don't make them like they used to. You could almost call it South Pacific with kangaroos.

I spent the first ten minutes thinking I was in hell, then gradually warmed to its blend of frontier adventure, aboriginal magic, and romantic skirmishes. And by its final half hour, I was bawling my face off like a puppy had died right in front of me. If Australia, the film, is about thirty-five minutes too long for its own good, it still delivers everything one could want from an old-fashioned romantic epic. If Pearl Harbor hadn't been made by a sociopath, it might have had some of the emotional impact that this film wrings from its collision with WWII. As it stands, there's nothing else quite like this out there.