The Dame's 2012 Playlist: Avicii "Levels"

Yes, technically, it's a 2011 track. But, like most ignorant Americans, I wasn't even aware of this Avicii track until the "Levels"-sampling, vastly inferior Flo Rida hit "Good Feeling" came out last December. When I did discover it--along with a number of other brilliant Avicii/Tim Berg singles--there was an instant spark. Together, "Levels" and I had a blazing chemistry most romantic comedy pairings could only dream of. And, like every romantic comedy ever, it was a case of opposites attracting. Avicii, with his house music stylings, and I, who normally can barely stomach extended remixes of pop tunes let alone straight house music, shouldn't have gotten along. Yet here I am, singing along with "Levels" despite that 95% of the song is instrumental. We've overcome the odds and proved that we're a match made in heaven, and it's all because of "Levels."

100 Hot Men and a Dame: #90 Alexander Skarsgard

90. Alexander Skarsgard

Occupation: Actor 

Nationality: Swedish

Age: 35

Best Known For: Playing a sexy vampire on True Blood. And, of course, starring in Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" video.

In this installment of 100 Hot Men a Dame, I've brought back my bestie Sammi to discuss this Swedish hunk of a man. If you watched our last video together, you know that we get sidetracked really easily so join us in our not-so-timely discussion of The Help and other various shenanigans, including our introduction of the Armie Hammer Theory. (And, once again, I realize the sound is a tad wonky. I promise for our next videos we will get all technical issues sorted out, but, for now, headphones should make it all better).

So is Alexander Skarsgard the one and only vampire in your eye or does he not even rate among the many others? Also, does the Armie Hammer Theory exist or is it just a lovely thought?

Good Luck, Eric Saade

I have no real interest in the Eurovision Contest, the finals of which are airing live as I write this. However, I will say that I am rooting for the Swedish entry from Eric Saade. The song is called 'Popular' and is both utterly ridiculous and utterly amazing.

I must admit I have a soft spot for the Irish entry from those enfants terribles Jedward, but it doesn't come close to my adoration of 'Popular.' The song is so simple yet there's something about it that makes me want to shout it at the top of my lungs every time I hear. It also doesn't hurt that Eric Saade is a gorgeous, gorgeous man.

So here's a good luck kiss from me to you, Eric (Well, it's not exactly me but we can pretend, can't we?). If Eric doesn't win, rest assured that the winning country will be burned down.

Top 10 Albums of 2010

What a strange year for music. Never before have I had to reconcile my list so much between commercial albums and artistic endeavors of the highest (pop) order. I feel like I've got a good feel for what I think of as the most important albums of the year, but I doubt anyone else will agree. Oh well. I've been called the Armond White of the blogosphere before so I may as well live up to that reputation. Enjoy!

Runner-Ups: Selena Gomez & The Scene came this close to making it and in a weaker year, I could see their sophomore album A Year Without Rain making a serious run for the top spot. That girl certainly has grown up musically in eight short months; Janelle Monáe's The ArchAndroid has proven to be a love-it-or-hate-it album. I adore the more commercial sounding first half, led by singles 'Cold War' and 'Tightrope' but that more experimental second half, 'Come Alive' aside, often leaves me cold; I wasn't sure whether or not to include Wynter Gordon's The First Dance EP since it's technically not a complete album. Those six songs, however, make for one of the most consistently absorbing listens of the year. Can't wait to see what this girl does next; And, yes, I have to give props to Justin Bieber for My World 2.0. He hasn't quite reached the level of Miley, Demi & Selena yet, but he's getting there. I expect his next album to be a real contender.

10. David Archuleta, The Other Side of Down

As I admitted a few months ago, Archie's sophomore album isn't exactly groundbreaking musically speaking. What it lacks in innovation, however, it more than makes up for in pure listenability. Archie's voice is quickly developing a distinct personality that was lacking on his solid, if unremarkable, debut album. The Other Side of Down is a major stepping stone in Archie's career and I couldn't be prouder of the little fellow.

Key Tracks: 'Stomping the Roses', 'Something 'Bout Love', 'Look Around'


09. Gabriella Cilmi, Ten
Cilmi's debut album was high on vocal ability but low on follow through. But it appears that Cilmi learned her lessons (ha!) for Ten, her sophomore album. Lead by the massive, highly charged first single 'On a Mission' and its more mellow but just as kinetic second single 'Hearts Don't Lie,' Ten proves that Cilmi can retain her natural soul in a more aggressive electropop setting.
Key Tracks: 'On a Mission', 'Hearts Don't Lie', 'Superman'


08. Hurts, Happiness
The gloomy British duo's debut album captured the hearts of serious-minded pop music lovers with tastes far loftier than my own. Surprisingly, I found myself completely falling for Hurts' beautiful melancholy. They make miserablist music without forgetting that the music should ultimately be listenable as well.
Key Tracks: 'Wonderful Life', 'Blood, Tears & Gold', 'Devotion'


07. Rihanna, Loud
It's no Rated R, but neither is it pretending to be anything like that masterpiece. And it's not a retread to her former Good Girl Gone Bad glory, á la Kelly Clarkson's All I Ever Wanted; if anything, the album is stronger and more consistent than that slightly overpraised collection of singles. Rihanna has moved on from the past. There's no looking back anymore and Loud is there documenting her journey forward.
Key Tracks: 'Man Down', 'Fading', 'Only Girl (In the World)'


06. Ke$ha, Animal
Ke$ha's end of the year 8-track album Cannibal was a complete turd and signaled that perhaps the Queen of Trash Pop needs to change it up a bit next time around. But there's no denying that her first album, a glittertrash mash-up of hot mess dance tracks, showed that the pop world needed a slutty, alcohol-fueled alternative to Lady GaGa.
Key Tracks: 'Party at a Rich Dude's House', 'TiK ToK', 'Your Love Is My Drug'


05. Alphabeat, The Spell/The Beat Is...
The Danish pop band known for their retro 80's music channeled Ace of Base and the best of 90's pop music on their latest album to near perfect results.
Key Tracks: 'The Spell', 'Heat Wave', 'Heart Failure'


04. Kelis, Flesh Tone
And the award for "Best Album I Rarely Listen to But Every Time I Do I Quickly Fall In Love With It Again and Wonder Why I'm Not Listening to It 24/7" goes to Kelis' latest album. The 'Milkshake' diva ditches the hip-hop and embraces her electropop side with shockingly fantastic results. Who knew that the chick who once screamed "I hate you so much right now!" is now one of our greatest Dancehall Queens.
Key Tracks: 'Emancipate', 'Song for the Baby', 'Acapella'


03. Joe McElderry, Wide Awake
Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected the dullest contestant on The X-Factor to produce not only an album this alive and electrically charged but, also, perhaps, the greatest debut album from a reality show finalist ever. La Joe and Simon clearly reached a compromise--give me a few ballads and I'll let you do whatever crazy electropop stuff you want--but it never once feels like he is compromising himself as an artist. The album's bombing is unfortunate, but, if anything, it may eventually lead him to a label who will know what to do with his interests and talents (here's hoping Cherrytree, home of Robyn and Frankmusik, snatches him up after Simon releases him).
Key Tracks: 'Someone Wake Me Up', 'Ambitions', 'Until the Stars Run Out'


02. Robyn, Body Talk Trilogy
Part 1 was the more consistent album. Part 2 was a bit hit or miss but contains 'U Should Know Better', possibly my new favorite Robyn song ever. Part 3 was great but didn't quite reach the levels of Part 1. How on Earth was I to choose just one of these albums? In the end, I decided that I needed to just honor the complete trilogy for its sheer ballsiness and complete listenability.
Key Tracks: 'U Should Know Better', 'Dancing On My Own', 'Cry When You Get Older'


01. Miley Cyrus, Can't Be Tamed
I resisted as long as I could, ladies and gentlemen. I know a lot of you were confused by my initial lust for this album, and I seriously thought that my complete and unrelenting infatuation with it would pass with time. But it didn't. And as I sat down thinking about this list, trying to come up with a number one, I kept coming back to this album. Sure, the album isn't perfect--'Forgiveness and Love' is utterly unlistenable--but all of its highlights make up for the imperfections. Miley can go on and on about how she isn't a pop artist, but Can't Be Tamed proves that this is where the girl needs to concentrate her talents. Her limited range shines here in ways that other genres or styles of music wouldn't support her. And the tracks not only sound bloody good but they also tap into Miley's personal life far more than we've ever seen. She can say over and over again that 'Liberty Walk' and 'Robot' are about women leaving abusive relationships, but they reveal so much about her relationship with Disney as a corporate product and coming into her own as an artist without them controlling her. There's no denying that Can't Be Tamed is hardly the most serious album of the year but it's the one I feel offers the most insightful look at its artist and the one I keep thinking of as The Moment in music this year. If that's not enough for a number one spot on this list, I don't know what else is.
Key Tracks: 'Who Owns My Heart', 'Can't Be Tamed', 'Robot'

Top 20 Rentals of 2010

I consider a "rental" any movie I have seen in 2010 that wasn't actually released in 2010 (or, in the case of a few films, some films released in 2009). Although there weren't as many gems as there were last year, the quality of these films is very nearly equal to those. Here's what I thought was the best, in order from top to bottom:

A
The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache, 1973)
The grand finale to the French New Wave movement. Eustache and star Jean-Pierre Léaud evoke both the talkiness of Godard and the romance of Truffaut in this evocative, emotive drama of love. Léaud's shining moment as an actor; some of his monologues would put more "traditional" actors to shame.






The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962)
A two-hour nightmare: perfectly captures the increasing confusion and insanity while never forgetting the sense of dread and doomed fate that hangs over Anthony Perkins' Josef K.

Twist and Shout (Bille August, 1984)
Two Danish best friends--one emotionally damaged, the other in love--deal with racing hormones while balancing adult-sized burdens, not limited to pregnancy, a mental mother and an abusive father. Twist and Shout sounds unremarkable, even slightly rote, but sensitive direction from August makes you care deeply about these damaged people. (More on Twist and Shout)

Applause (Rouben Mamoulian, 1929)
The first proof that these new-fangled "talking" pictures may prove to be just as fruitful artistically speaking as their silent predecessors. (More on Applause)

Z (Costas-Gavras, 1969)
Costas-Gavras' breakthrough film is the rare political thriller that manages to be both an intelligent, indicting commentary on the then and now political climate and compulsively watchable entertainment. The Raoul Coutard cinematography, with his usual palette of severe reds and blues, and Jean-Louis Trintignant, who manages to make his blue sunglasses an extension of his character, make this high-charged film cool.

A-
Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
Speaking of cool, Alain Delon is the very definition with his perfectly positioned hat and icy cold demeanor in this stripped down, both dialogue-wise and visually, gangster film.









Another Woman (Woody Allen, 1988)
Gena Rowlands plays Woody Allen with surprisingly fantastic results in this sober, introspective drama more in line with Interiors than Hannah and Her Sisters.

Claudine (John Berry, 1974)
Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones tackle "the race problem" in 1970's New York with the kind of head-on confrontation of the issues and stylized delivery more associated with sketch comedy (the Bunifa sketches on MadTV, for one) than the usual race film we think of then and now.

Tout Va Bien (Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972)
Godard and Gorin's call to arms in a post-'68 France is one of the most reactionary films I've ever seen. After watching the film, I wanted to riot in the streets and protest everything that's wrong with this country. Such is the power of Godard when he's in the right mood.

No End in Sight (Charles Ferguson, 2007)
Nothing in No End in Sight is exactly a breaking news headline when viewed in 2010, but considering the film came out in 2007, it's almost downright prophetic.

They Won't Forget (Mervyn LeRoy, 1937)
A white Northerner is accused of murdering one of his Southern students. The prosecutor has very little in the way of tangible evidence so he turns the town violently against the accused, eventually turning the case into a nationwide battle between the good ole boys of the south and the uppity Northerners. This Warner Brothers (surprise, surprise) flick is one of the most damning and truly progressive films of the entire Studio Era.

The Sundowners (Fred Zinnemann, 1960)
The rare family drama that works as both a 60's-era big budget crowdpleaser and an introspective look at the inner-workings of an atypical family. The characters are just as full of disappointments as they are triumphs.

Edvard Munch (Peter Watkins, 1974)
A biopic of the now famous painter who battled a hostile art community who refused to see his work as legitimate "art." Told in a highly unusual way, Watkins' intense stylization often walks the fine line of discomfort as Geir Westby's Munch often stares right into the camera as if he's staring right into the audience's soul.

The Collector (William Wyler, 1965)
Terence Stamp falls in love with Samantha Eggar so he does what any other normal male would do in such a predicament: he kidnaps her, giving her anything she wants while keeping her locked up in his basement. Stamp is a great addition to the oeuvre of Emotionally Damaged Boys and the film's complicated and often shocking intertwining of sex and slavery is shocking and fascinating at the same time.

The Happy Ending (Richard Brooks, 1969)
I feel like my love for this film has died slightly in the months since seeing it, but I can still appreciate Brooks and star Jean Simmons baring their souls and real-life marriage for everyone to see.

Best of B+
Shut Up and Sing (Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, 2006)
The fall and rebirth of the Dixie Chicks. Uncomfortable, often times provocative, this documentary gets into nitty gritty of dealing with a PR nightmare and how to retool a once lucrative career because of one infamous sentence.







The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962)
I hate the British New Wave, but Richardson's film is an anomaly for the time period: it's more The 400 Blows than Tom Jones. Tom Courtenay, playing the Antoine Doinel of this film, is slowly becoming a favorite actor of mine.

A Hatful of Rain (Fred Zinnemann, 1957)
Zinnemann again, this time with a Broadway adaptation depicting the life of a heroin junkie, his wife, his brother and the horrible circle of co-dependency they live in day after day. Tony Franciosa got the Oscar nom back in '57, but Don Murray and Eva Marie Saint, as the husband and wife, respectively, are the real knockouts.

The Cell (Tarsem Singh, 2000)
I never thought this would be my kind of movie in a million years, but Tarsem's heavy, lush visuals are jaw-droppingly good. And it contains the best performance from J. Lo we're ever likely to see; her facial expression the moment she awakes from the killer's psyche still gives me chills.

King Rat (Bryan Forbes, 1965)
Bryan Forbes, director of such underseen "women's films" like The L-Shaped Room and The Whisperers, tackles men in a POW camp and achieves the same results he did with the women. The film chronicles how these men slowly start to lose their humanity in an artificial world where anything goes and you have to do anything it takes to stay alive. Tom Courtenay, as the uptight British officer trying his damnedest to be an honorable soldier but slowly realizing it may not be worth it, is once again a treat in this film, but George Segal and James Fox as amoral officers who seek control of the camp (and may or may not have a homoerotic vibe around them) are just as great.

Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Somehow, I've managed to either to go 15 or so years since seeing this film or never seeing at all. Even more surprising was the film itself, with Spielberg at the top of his Movies as Entertainment game.

A Few Thoughts on Zappa

In Zappa, Bille August's prequel to his 1984 film Twist and Shout, young teen Bjorn (Adam Tonsberg) is facing the normal perils of adolescence, caught between his budding sexuality and navigating shaky friendships with devious juvenile delinquent Steen (Peter Reichhardt) and cherubic Mulle (Morten Hoff). The film sounds like a typical coming of age film, and for the most part it is, but as he showed in the emotionally precise Twist and Shout, August is a master of emotions who knows how to make the most banal of moments into character-defining ones. Bjorn has his first sexual experience with a girl he meets on holiday and is so elated he goes to bed early that night so that he's left to himself to rewind the moment in his head. When he goes back to find her the next morning and finds that she has gone just as suddenly as she appeared, his disappointment is palpable. He has such sympathy for these characters, even the supposed "bad" ones, that is refreshing to see in these cynical modern times.

I'm glad that August is able to garner such emotions for all the characters, but I'm not a fan of the way he got there in Zappa. Much of what made Twist and Shout such a joy to watch and reflect upon later is the way August brought up uncomfortable emotions and twisted them in unexpected ways, whether it was simply because they weren't normally discussed in films (Bjorn and Erik's relationship) or were made complicated by the narrative (Erik's relationship with his father). With Zappa, any attempt at shading the relationships is downright ignored. Bjorn commits the petty crimes he does because he wants to fit in with Steen. Mulle is over coddled at home by an attentive father trying to make up for his alcoholic mother. The most obvious example, however, lies with the character of Steen. He's a big bully with a raging temper who manipulates both Bjorn and Mulle into committing crimes of escalating violence, but, surprise, he does it all because mommy and daddy are too wrapped up in themselves and their failing marriage to care about him. As if August doesn't trust his audience enough to understand, he bludgeons us over the head repeatedly with explanatory scenes. There's a scene where Steen goes to the trouble of making a grand dinner for his mother, hoping for some affection from her. She is in awe, at first, but as soon as she discovers that he made lamb, which she can't eat because she's on a diet, she gets up and makes reservations for the two of them to eat out. I mean, honestly, couldn't we have gone without such blatant manipulation? Steen is a fascinating character in his own right and Reichhardt's interpretation really didn't need any "help" from the narrative such as this. Reichhardt's body language alone, which often casts an ominous shadow over the entire scene before a word is uttered, is as terrifying and simultaneously pitiable as any backstory August gives.

Zappa was released right before Twist and Shout and the two are supposed to go together but nothing besides two of the characters really transfer between them. Bjorn and Kirsten, who makes an appearance in Zappa as Bjorn's first crush/girlfriend, in Zappa hardly resemble the Bjorn and Kirsten in Twist and Shout. There are a few similarities, but the Bjorn and Kirsten in Zappa are empty versions of the intricate characters in Twist and Shout. Even motivations and plots don't seem to connect between the two films. By the end of Zappa, Kirsten breaks up with Bjorn but in the beginning of Twist and Shout, she seems to be attracted to him again with no explanation for her turn around. Even more confusingly, the climactic finish to Zappa that supposedly changes Bjorn's character forever makes no sense with the Bjorn we see in Twist and Shout. The fact that this really dark moment happens doesn't seem to have altered Bjorn's life in the slightest. As a coupling, these two films make no sense together. But as separate films with their own goals and merits, it's easier to appreciate what makes each film special. B

Rants on Twist and Shout

Netflix is great at a lot of things--providing multitudes of little-seen films I would never have access to in Michigan, for one--but something they could vastly improve on is their synopsis writing. Sometimes the summary is so off from the actual film it makes you wonder if whoever wrote it had actually seen the film before writing on it. There are numerous examples of this but the most obvious misrepresentation I've run across is Twist and Shout, a 1984 film from famed director (and two-time Palme d'Or winner) Bille August. Netflix actually recommended the film to me, most likely since I've been overdosing on 1960's and 1960s-set cinema since I started Netflix. As it was a "sexy coming-of-age story" with teenagers whose "libidious passions explode," I simply knew I had to add it to my queue for future watching. I mean, the description made it sound like Skins crossed with The Dreamers, so you can hardly blame me. But when I started watching the film, I was shocked to discover that what sounded like a Scandinavian soft-core porn was actually an arresting, heartbreaking, emotionally complicated look at teenage relationships, both romantic and platonic. The relationships in question, the friendship between Bjorn (Adam Tonsberg) and Erik (Lars Simonsen), Bjorn's romantic escapades with Anna (Camilla Soeberg) and Kirsten (Ulrikke Bondo) and Erik's infatuation with Kirsten, sound like the typical set-up for your average episode of Gossip Girl (minus Blair Waldorf's constant scheming, natch), but August and Twist and Shout are more interested in exploring character and mining emotional depth from well-worn plots rather than trying to shake things up through big dramatic twists.


One of the very first images we see of Bjorn and Erik is this still above. The two are in the back of a truck, obviously running away from something. This opening moment raises a lot of questions: But what are the running from? And what exactly is their relationship with each other? Based on my experience with numerous films that feature a scene like this, I got it into my head that this was going to be a film about young gay lovers who were unaccepted by their families and society and, pushed to the breaking point, decide to flee society with only the clothes on their back and each other. Clearly, there's a whole backstory attached to this pose courtesy of other films and I spent the first ten minutes of the film reading into every look given by each boy to support this hypothesis. The whole gay lovers angle is revealed to be nothing more than a load of bollocks, for Twist and Shout wants to discuss something even rarer: the emotional bond between two platonic male friends. There are plenty of films about male/male friendships but they often stop short at exploring the emotional side of the relationship. Twist and Shout, without a second thought, enters the rarely chartered territory of how much of themselves men are allowed to expose to other men. But the relationship between Bjorn and Erik doesn't descend into sappy, "chick flick" clichés about bonding and true friendships. Their connection is often felt in moments where they simply react to each other and their shared surroundings. Erik's mother is mentally ill so, as a way of dealing with it, his father locks her up in the house and treats her as if she's an embarrassing family secret. Bjorn is privileged to know the truth about her and treats the information as delicately as Erik does, even if Bjorn realizes that there is something wrong with the situation in Erik's home. For example, Erik and Kirsten walk home together and she becomes insistent on entering his house. She knows about his sick mother from Bjorn and when he asks her how much she knows, she admits that all he told her was that she spends most of her time in bed. For a second, Erik is relieved that she (1) doesn't really know anything and (2) Bjorn hasn't betrayed him. Instead of ignoring the problem, or acting uncomfortable when the situation comes up, Bjorn is almost delighted that Erik trusts him enough to come in and have a cup of tea with his mother.

Bjorn and Erik, despite--or maybe because of--their close friendship, truly are complete opposites and the film shows them as such. Their first real scene together is at some concert where a local band is playing a cover of The Beatles' "Twist and Shout." Bjorn is front and center, rocking out and enjoying himself dancing. Erik, on the other hand, is pacing back and forth in front of the door, covering his ears, clearly waiting for the first available moment to get the hell out of there. The blocking and costuming certainly help in figuring out these characters as well: Bjorn is in a medium shot wearing a bright red coat while Erik is dressed in tan, fading into the background in a long shot.


The fact that Erik has a hard time standing out is repeated visually throughout the film. When Kirsten has a party at her house with all of her classmates, Erik tries to get a good look at her but his face is lost in a sea of people. Even when August gives him a close up, he has to fight other people in the frame to be noticed. Erik's desire to be noticed, especially by Kirsten, forces him to resort to what many people, including Bjorn, consider public humiliation. At this party, Bjorn has brought his new girlfriend, Anna, much to the dismay of Kirsten who is madly in love with Bjorn. When she confronts him about it, after everyone agreed that this was "classmates only" party, Bjorn suggests she go with Erik. She scoffs at this suggestion, openly insulting him and his screwy family just as he enters the room. As Bjorn storms off in a huff, he insists that Erik comes with him and Anna as he's been humiliated in front of everyone. Erik, rather, wants to go back into the party, clearly ignoring the fact that Kirsten doesn't want anything to do with him and insisting that it was Bjorn who was clearly at fault. Bjorn doesn't understand Erik's viewpoint, but the great thing about their relationship is that this is not a dealbreaker for either of them. They can love and cherish each other without understanding each other's logic at certain times.

One of the things Twist and Shout absolutely nails is its depiction of teenage romances and sexuality. Instead of presenting unrealistic, Gossip Girl-esque, "we're-18-and-having-hot-and-steamy-sex-to-make-up-for-our-relationship-getting-stale-three-weeks-in" viewpoint, Twist and Shout shows the red-blooded immediacy of young relationships without concentrating on what goes on in the bedroom. Bjorn and Anna fall head over heels for each other in the matter of a single date, to the point where Bjorn's thoughts all revolve around Anna almost immediately. They spend every waking moment together and when she must leave for three days for a family event, it's the end of the world for Bjorn. From the way he reacts, you would think she was moving to Siberia for a decade. He has all these all-consuming fantasies that other men are lusting after her and she is obliging, at first raising her skirt a little but eventually performing a whole burlesque routine reminiscent of a Rob Marshall film. These fantasies cripple Bjorn for the three days she's away as she has quickly become his center of the universe. Then there's Erik, who isn't in a relationship with Kirsten but still can't get her out of his head. She becomes a sort of escape fantasy for Erik from his humdrum life taking care of his mother and quietly avoiding his father. Unlike the Netflix summary suggests, Twist and Shout is not chock-full of sex scenes. There is only one to speak of and it's hardly the erotic moment you have been led to believe. The scene involves Bjorn and Anna and is more sensual than sexy, more tender than sappy and, ultimately, more realistic than many overblown representations of teenage sex. What is so fascinating about the scene, however, is the transition between it and the next scene. Bjorn and Anna are seen embracing, whether this is pre- or post-coitus we do not know but they obviously with hanky panky on the mind, and the shot dissolves slowly to show Erik slowly caressing a hat Kirsten left at his house after her one visit. Erik eventually lifts it up to his nose, inhaling the scent of Kirsten. The moment on it's own is a bit stalkerish, but connected to the sex scene through a dissolve gives it a whole new sexual connotation and serves as a sad reminder to Erik of what he doesn't have.


The power of Twist and Shout lies in the fact that the film starts off as a broad ode to the days of Beatlemania and eventually becomes this complex study of human emotions. You don't even realize how drawn into the film you are until it's far too late to take yourself out of the film. While Bjorn's relationship with Anna takes an unexpected tumble after a catastrophic event, he winds up with Kirsten, obviously looking for a way to ease his suffering but he eventually ends up in too deep with the relationship. When the two of them become engaged, Bjorn can't even verbalize it to his family. When Bjorn takes Kirsten out on dates, he takes Erik along so he doesn't have to spend alone time with her. As Bjorn is dealing with this, however, things have taken an even darker turn at Erik's house. While the film at first positions Erik's father as a saint for dealing with his wife's illness when she breaks a glass early in the film, the "something off" Bjorn notices quickly rears its ugly head. Erik, based on Bjorn's advice, has started taking his mother out of the house in the hopes that she'll start to feel better. The result is definitely positive; she's not exactly cured but she at least becomes coherent to what is going on around her. The father soon realizes this and takes measures to put a stop to it. In private conversations where he literally shuts the mother out of the room, he clues in Erik as to the cause of her mental problems: first, the cause is "unusual" literature and second is post-partum depression. The story switches so often, and with such alarming drasticness, we begin to wonder whether either of these stories is the answer or if one even exists. As the film progresses, Erik's house slowly becomes colder and creepier, to the point where it's reminiscent of the house in Cries and Whispers. And, at a certain point, these scenes do become a sort of gothic horror movie. A desperate Erik, after his mother gets worse under his father's strict, doctor-free care, makes a late night call to his grandmother to get help. We see dark shadows and figures over his shoulder as he makes the call, but we have no idea what is behind him. His mother? His father? Nothing? Eventually, his father does catch him in the act and it slowly becomes apparent to both us and Erik that he's the real villain in this piece. Later on in the film, as Erik rebels against his father's punishment, Erik's father cuts off a speech from Erik about him not having a childhood with the line, "Don't behave like a child." This line becomes ironic since throughout the rest of the film, whenever Erik encountered his father, he regressed back into an infant under his stern control. This is the first time he's asserted himself and sets the film up for a highly emotional finale.

The title, Twist and Shout, obviously refers to The Beatles song of the same name which permeates the film but it could also be seen as a way of describing the main characters. If Bjorn is the jubiliant, expressive "Shout," then Erik is the uncomfortable, hunched "Twist" and both Tonsberg and Simonsen embody these characteristics flawlessly. It's not surprising that Simonsen, playing Erik, is the character I responded to the most as he is the Emotionally Damaged Boy of this movie and to see him so fully craft everything from his stuttering line delivery to his slouched-over body language makes me wish that Efron had done as much work in Charlie St. Cloud. And Tonsberg is very adept at handling the transition of Bjorn from love struck puppy to emotionally drained vacuum. But their best work often comes when they are together and a whole language between them is spoken in tiny looks and gestures. This is the mark of a true friendship and one of the many fine details of life Twist and Shout manages to convey. A

Rants on Scenes from a Marriage

The idea of reviewing an Ingmar Bergman film, especially considering my last post involved a memoir from a girl who at the time of publication couldn't even drive a car, seems a little daunting to say the least. But considering I spent five hours watching the TV version of his Scenes from a Marriage, I figured I owed it to myself to write up a couple thoughts about it.

In the simplest terms possible, Scenes from a Marriage follows the disintegration of the marriage between Marianne (Swedish acting goddess Liv Ullmann, in one of her most famous performances) and Johan (Erland Josephson). For years, they have pretended that their marriage has been a happy one. In reality, however, they've simply swept their problems under the rug, as the title of the second episode implies, and subconsciously avoided discussing their real feelings toward each other. Marianne, in particular, has deluded herself so much that when her husband tells her that he's leaving her for another woman, she is caught completely off-guard. Apart from each other, they begin a journey of self-discovery which leads to drastically different results. Marianne realizes that she has a problem standing up for herself and putting others' feelings ahead of her own. Johan, on the other hand, realizes how utterly miserable he is without Marianne and admits that he made a mistake leaving her. After their separation and even through subsequent marriages, the two of them continue to analyze what went wrong in their relationship.

The plot doesn't sound too different from a typical American divorce drama circa 1982 but Bergman's execution completely sets apart. As per usual, the visuals from famed Sven Nykvist are emotionally cold and distant, appropriately highlighting the relationship between Marianne and Johan. What is particularly unusual about the camerawork, however, is its remarkable simplicity. Bergman wasn't particularly famous for a moving camera, but he had an eye for crafting haunting images using lights and shadows. I still find myself frightened by that image of Liv Ullmann in Cries and Whispers where she stares straight into the camera while a shadow covers half of her face. With Scenes from a Marriage, the camera is often non-existent, peering at the Marianne and Johan like an uncomfortable third-party. This often gives the film the feeling that it's more of a rough cut of a film than a fully realized one. The camera often lingers on the same shot of Marianne and Johan, deep in conversation about some aspect of their marriage, for far too long. When you expect the film to make a cut and move on, the camera is still trying to capture something else. The art direction is also rather uncomfortable, eerily similar to the sets in Godard's La Chinoise (a surprising comparison since Bergman thought Godard was a "fucking bore"). This makes sense because, like that Godard film, Scenes from a Marriage is not necessarily interested in making a statement visually. The lack of distracting camerawork and art direction is on purpose so we can focus on what is being said by the characters. This is a film about words and faces and reactions and, holy hell, do we get a lot of that. At times, Scenes from a Marriage comes across as too harsh and too personal, to the point where you have to tune out to keep your sanity. But a lot of what is said is powerful stuff and apparently needed to be brought out in the open as, according to Bergman, the divorce rate skyrocketed after this debuted on TV. This film touched a lot of people, which is both incredibly hard to do and surprising considering Bergman's cerebral filmmaking. If anything, Scenes from a Marriage showed just how complicated and twisted the relationship between formerly married couples can be. Unexpectedly, this film validated the complex relationship between Dorothy and Stan on The Golden Girls; finally I understood why even after all the hurt they had gone through with each other, they never could completely break free. B

By the way, I feel like I should mention Liv Ullmann's performance here. As you may be aware, she was notoriously declared ineligible at the 1974 Oscars since the film had aired on TV beforehand which prompted this newspaper ad from all of Hollywood's then-reigning females thespians to have her included for consideration. Pretty ballsy, huh? And, judging by her performance, those ladies were on to something. While I didn't love her as much as I did in my personal favorite performance of hers, Autumn Sonata, she's damned excellent. She has the uncanniest ability to portray five emotions at once using only her eyes and slight shifts in her face. And she does this all in the most unshowiest way possible. If she was in her heyday now, there is no way she would ever be nominated for an Oscar, let alone two in a five year span. I've never seen anything like it. She is a one-of-a-kind talent and I'm dying to see more of her work.

The Top 10 Films of 2008

On more than one occasion, I have been accused by different people of hating every movie I see. Granted, most of these accusations have come after my "meh" reactions to some of their favorite films, but the number of these claims got me thinking about my reaction to films. It is not that I give more lower grades than higher ones (they're about even, methinks); rather, I think it feels like I'm more of a hater because with the few films I do hate, I hate them with a passion. Most of my best/favorite reviews have been for films I completely disliked and I often complain about them for months on end. For whatever reason, I find it harder to write about the films I actually love in any given year. Now that I've diagnosed the problem, I think it's time for a change and, as we all know, living in the Obama Era is as good as time as any to start changing. From this point forward, I will devote more time to great films in addition to my constant bitching about Twilight and Mamma Mia!. The best way to start this off is with my Top 10 list of 2008 (a couple of months late, so sue me), which is also a kick off for the 2008 Diva Cup Awards! Woohoo! I know everyone is pumped for that so let's get started.

Close, but no cigar: The Edge of Heaven (Faith Akin) is the film Babel tried to be but failed so epically to accomplish; I really wanted to include Michael Haneke's Funny Games U.S., a remake of his own 1997 film, but I felt it was generally unfair since I haven't even seen the original and they're exactly identical; Shelter (Jonah Markowitz) gets points in my book simply for being miles above Latter Days and Big Eden, two contemporaries in the gay indie scene, but the goes above and beyond the call of duty in analysis of a boy torn between family obligations and a love he doesn't completely understand; John Crowley's Boy A, with the help of an incredibly game performance from Andrew Garfield, turns what may have been a fairly standard redemption drama and tweaks it in very unexpected ways.

10. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Directed by Peter Sollett
The plot of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist- two hipster teens obsessed with the same indie rock band meet and fall in love over the course of one crazy night in New York City- almost sounds like my own personal hell; it's as if the high school romantic comedy and indie rock have formed their own Axis of Evil just to spite me. When you're watching it, however, you quickly forget about all of these preconceived notions, instead getting lost in the simple yet endearingly sweet love story unfolding before you. Credit is due to screenwriter Lorene Scafaria and director Peter Sollet for taking a tired genre and squeezing something fresh out of it and the young cast, particularly the severely underappreciated Kat Dennings and the girl who reinvented "the drunk friend" role, Ari Graynor, for pushing themselves comedically and adding layers to characters that, in lesser hands, could have come off as one-note.

9. American Teen
Directed by Nanette Burstein
I'm not naive enough to truly believe that all of the footage in American Teen is truly "off the cuff"; in fact, I'm pretty sure that more than half (and I'm being generous here) of it is staged. What separates this film from the average episode of The Hills is that, either by a stroke of genius or luck, American Teen captures with an almost scary amount of accuracy just what life as a small Midwest town high school student feels like. Much more so than any other Hollywood film that claims to be the "final word" on the high school experience, American Teen feels like my own experience. The basketball players weren't big bullies who spent their time stuffing the socially awkward band nerd into lockers; they were too consumed by their own problems and pressures to spend their time falling prey to that stereotype. While Burstein's documentary does this all very well, I must admit that I loved the way it showed how these young people were growing and changing before our eyes. Seeing Hannah, the quirky girl rebounding from a case of severe depression after breaking up with her boyfriend, finally gain the courage to open herself up again to school heartthrob Mitch (who also did his sharing of growing, most notably during that fantastic scene on the school bus when he admits to his jock friends that he liked Brokeback Mountain) proved to be one of the few things in 2008 that warmed this cynic's cold heart.

8. The Visitor
Directed by Thomas McCarthy
What I loved most about Thomas McCarthy's quiet, studied and controlled The Visitor was the fact that one of its subplots was about illegal immigration, yet McCarthy DIDN'T feel the need to go all Paul Haggis on us and preach about the inhumanity of the deportation process. For that, I'm deeply grateful. The Visitor, instead, spends it time focusing on Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins, a beacon of quiet suffering barely covering some deeper pain under the surface) and his reconnection to society and intimate human contact after the death of his wife. Seeing him reemerge from his life as a zombie, just going through the motions of living, to help these people he has grown to care for is one of the most poignant experiences I've felt at the movies this year; in fact, The Visitor may truly be the first film of the Obama Era.

7. Burn After Reading
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Coming after a huge Best Picture win, most directors would either take some time off or work on a serious picture that proves that the win wasn't a fluke. Well, the Coen Brothers have never been "most" directors. After the enormous success of the ultra serious No Country for Old Men, the Coens went back to their kooky black comedy origins with Burn After Reading. To describe the plot of this film seems almost masochistic because, as with most Coen comedies, the film is about the journey, not the final destination. With a cast full of intelligent actors playing some of the dumbest people you can even begin to imagine- most notably Brad Pitt, in possibly the best performance of his career, as a dimwitted gym trainer who thinks he has the skills to negotiate a high sum of money for a CD that may or may not have secret codes on it- the Coens make sure that the journey through Burn After Reading is one you will never forget.

6. The Wrestler
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
The most interesting thing about The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky's back-to-basics redemption drama after the surrealistic Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain, is that it can be appreciated by different people for completely different ways. Personally, I was fascinated by the fact that Aronofsky and screenwriter Robert D. Siegel treat professional wrestling, a sport I grew up watching, with the respect it deserves, instead of making fun of its theatricality or for being "fake." But then, soon after watching it, I was having a conversation with Nick about The Wrestler and while he had no idea about any of the wrestling stuff (he wasn't privileged enough to grow up with it), he was fascinated by it in a very different way. The Wrestler works on so many levels- character study, sports film, father/daughter drama, Mickey Rourke comeback vehicle, budding romance between two vulnerable people- there's something for everyone. And this doesn't even begin to describe the powerfully subtle and deftly handled performances from Rourke , Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood, who all wisely dodge whatever clichés their roles/personas throw at them; I think this is probably the closest any film came to "realism" in 2008.

5. WALL-E
Directed by Andrew Stanton
Animated films are for kids, or so we've been programmed to believe all of our lives. You're allowed to love and/or be obsessed with Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, etc before you hit puberty, but after that, it's just "weird" and "immature." Thank the Lord then for Pixar and their contributions to the animation renaissance. Starting with Finding Nemo and with each film thereafter, they have continually expanded the audience for animated films and allowed people to start taking these films seriously as actual pieces of art (although it could be argued that Miyazaki's 2002 masterpiece Spirited Away could have gotten the ball rolling, too). Everything came together for Pixar in 2008 with Andrew Stanton's visually stunning WALL-E. You would think that an epic love story between two robots set during a time in the future when Earth becomes inhabitable for humans with an opening 30 minutes that are generally wordless would be a tough sell, but Stanton makes WALL-E a completely enthralling experience from the opening frame to the last. The world Stanton creates is simply astounding to look at, prompting "oohs" and "aahs" at any given moment, and the love story that takes place in this world between the endearingly determined WALL-E and the kick-ass EVA makes every other romantic plot in any film you've seen in the past decade look absolutely dire in comparison.

4. Rachel Getting Married
Directed by Jonathan Demme
The spirit of Robert Altman's best works are alive and kicking in Jonathan Demme's deceitfully simple but really painfully complex depiction of family struggling to deal with an attention-seeking drug addict who happens to bring out the worst in all of them. Demme weaves in and out of different threads and characters of the film as skillfully as Altman did in Nashville and, like that film, most of these threads hinge on the actions of one character. The "Barbara Jean" of this film is said drug addict Kym, played by Anne Hathaway, who proves that all of her hard work these past eight years has not been in vein. Rachel Getting Married has more going on than this Kym storyline- hello, there's a wedding going on!- and there are some that don't directly involve her, but Kym will be damned if she somehow can't turn every fleeting moment into something about her. This is exactly what Rachel Getting Married will do to you for days after you see it: turn every thought you have and direct it somehow towards the movie.

3. Reprise
Directed by Joachim Trier
From the opening shot onwards, you can practically feel all of Joachim Trier's influences on this film: the ice cold starkness that permeates throughout the compositions from Ingmar Bergman, the role of fate and chance in seemingly everyday occurrences from Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run, the idea that young men can just sit around and talk about nothing in particular from Barry Levinson's underseen Diner, etc. What Reprise does so well, and hence it's placement so high on this list, is that it takes these influences and creates something refreshingly new and personal with them. As I'm growing into my 20's, I can relate to the trials and tribulations of maintaining a longtime friendship as we grow into people that would have been unrecognizable just a few years ago. Reprise captures this complex fact of life with a precision and grace that is rarely discussed in cinema.

2. In Bruges
Directed by Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh's first obstacle to overcome in In Bruges: making the overused "hitman's redemption" plot line seem fresh and spontaneous while turning the numerous clichés on their head. Martin McDonagh's second obstacle: delivering a dark comedy that deals with the serious issues in a mature and complicated way but also knows how to step back and laugh at them. I'm sure it goes without saying just how difficult it is to do this properly. Martin McDonagh's third obstacle: getting a rich, deeply layered performance from the normally disconnected and generally uninteresting Colin Farrel as said remorseful hitman, a role that requires both excellent comedic timing (something we had never seen from Farrel before) and the ability delve into a pathos-driven moral minefield. The fact that McDonagh surmounts all of these seemingly impossible obstacles with the grace and ease of a veteran filmmaker makes In Bruges even more special.

1. A Christmas Tale
Directed by Arnaud Desplechin
Dysfunctional family dramas are, along with inspirational teacher dramas, one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Give me some beautiful people with big problems, high-strung emotions and a couple of choice quips preferably taking place over a major event like a holiday or funeral and I'm perfectly content. So, it should come as no surprise that Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale, with it's cast of beautiful French actors including the legendary Ice Queen Catherine Deneuve, Anne Consigny, Mathieu Almaric, Melvil Poupaud, Emmanuelle Devos and Chiara Mastroianni (and that's not even including the warm and fuzzy father figure Jean-Paul Roussillon and up-and-comer Emile Berling), would be warmly received by me. What took me by surprise was just how much of a wallop A Christmas Tale packs. Days passed and all I could think about was the film's intricate, absorping plot that's so overstuffed it could have collapsed with one false move, Desplechin's ability to capture years of backstory with just one look or line of dialogue and the way he relishes these moments more than the big emotional outbursts, the depiction of a family falling apart for reasons, beyond their control, that can't even begin to be put into words, etc. As you can see, I can talk about this film for days, and that's precisely why it's the best film of the year. It can stand up to weeks of scrutiny in my head and still reign supreme over all other films. This is the true test of genius and, ladies and gentlemen, A Christmas Tale has it and more.