The Big 2-9

Aside from the fact that this day sealed my fate as the “Never Gets a ‘Happy Birthday’ from the Teacher or Your Classmates Because School’s Out for Summer Kid,” June 28 never seemed like a terribly interesting day to be born.

Until I realized that’s also the day sublimely talented actors Kathy Bates, John Cusack, the late Gilda Radner and the late Pat “Wax On, Wax Off” Morita headed toward the light of the birth canal. June 28 also gave King Henry VIII to England (bet that’s one pregnant lady the Great Holy Aardvark wishes he could have uninseminated). And June 28 happens to be the only day every year where the month and the day are different perfect numbers*.

But really, the only reason I ever get all jacked up is because the 28th of June is when the World’s Greatest Director — the reason I love movies and the reason I have such a warped, wacko sense of humor — Mel “Lepetomane” Brooks classed up Planet Earth’s population.

This year, though, looks be far more exciting because Andy at Fandango Groovers hatched a brilliant idea: Write a post listing favorite films for every year I’ve been breathing. Later in 2010 Andy’s planning a blog event on this theme, so start thinking about your choices, readers. Without further adieu, here are my favorites from 1981-2010:

Ash will saw off your nose.

1981: “The Evil Dead” — Maybe directors did horror-comedy before Sam Raimi’s cult classic, but those movies did not feature the unstoppable Bruce Campbell as erstwhile hero Ash, who would later go on to coin the phrases “boomstick” and “hail to the king, baby.”

1982: “First Blood” — The first in the Rambo franchise, Sly Stallone’s “First Blood” combines jaw-dropping action, buckets of bloodshed and a surprisingly poignant message about the treatment of Vietnam vets in America.

1983: “The Big Chill” — College pals Glenn Close, Tom Berenger, William Hurt, Kevin Kline and Jeff Goldblum reunite to mourn a friend’s suicide. This much acting talent on one set is a recipe for goodness.

1984: “Blood Simple” (full review) — The fact that this is Joel and Ethan Coen’s first film is almost as astounding as the film itself. Almost.

1985: “The Breakfast Club” — The late John Hughes showed us, in this poignant ode to real teen issues, that lurking inside everyone there’s a princess, a jock, a brain, a basket case and a criminal in search of connection. And a little doobage.

1986: “Aliens” (full review) — Twenty-four years later and Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) remains a female action hero with smarts, guts and muscles. What a novel idea.

1987: “The Untouchables” — Most gangster movies offer plenty of bloody shoot-em-ups, slick double-crosses, dark double-breasted suits and bank accounts stuffed like you wouldn’t believe. Brian De Palma’s “Untouchables” also has something else: a conscience.

Velcome to vaxwork...

1988: “Waxwork” (full review) — There are crappy films, and then there are films that revel and delight in their own crappiness. Guess which kind “Waxwork” is.

1989: “Heathers” (full review) — No matter how cruel the queen bees in your school were, they don’t hold a candle to Idi Amin wannabe Heather Chandler.

1990: “GoodFellas” (full review) — Powered by the performances of Joe Pesci, Paul Sorvino, Lorraine Bracco, Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta, “GoodFellas” set the bar for gangster movies impossibly high.

1991: “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” — The follow-up to Cameron’s impressive “Terminator,” the sequel blasted the volume up to 11, boasted some thrilling chase scenes (the semi rundown is iconic) and reached the level of Whoa, I’ve Never Seen That Before! with its ice-cool villain T-1000 (Robert Patrick). 

1992: “Reservoir Dogs” (full review) — Quentin Tarantino gives the Cuisinart treatment to the traditional caper-gone-wrong and ends up making one of the most inventive films of the ’90s.

1993: “Schindler’s List” — Steven Spielberg’s sweeping, horrifying and heartbreaking retelling of the story of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) mission to rescue Jews during the Holocaust is emotionally punishing, but it’s a film that must be seen. It can change your life if you let it.

1994: “Pulp Fiction” (full review) — It’s got John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson as hitmen, a booty-shaking soundtrack and scene about Christopher Walken wearing a watch up his ass two years. That’s all you need to know. 

Will the real Keyser Soze please stand up?

1995: “The Usual Suspects” (full review) — Not only does Bryan Singer’s noirish, twisty thriller feature a killer-good ensemble cast (Kevin Spacey AND Gabriel Byrne AND Benicio del Toro AND Chazz Palminteri), “The Usual Suspects” also has the best twist ending. Ever written.

1996: “Fargo” (full review) — Dear Coen brothers: Thank you for showing me that it’s never impossible to take an old formula (best-laid plans gone to hell) and put a devious, violent spin on them. Sincerely, M. Carter @ the Movies

1997: “Chasing Amy” — Too few directors of romantic comedies have no interest in showing relationships as they actually are. Kevin Smith is not one of these directors. His “Chasing Amy” is raw, frank to the point of crudeness and deeply heartfelt, and it examines the problems all lovers — gay and straight — face.

1998: “The Opposite of Sex” — “The Opposite of Sex” is the best black comedy you’ve never seen. Don Roos puts the screws to the traditional narrated film formula with Dee Dee (Christina Ricci), a heroine who may be plucky but isn’t the least bit lovable. She’ll ransom your dead gay lover’s ashes and not think twice about it. 

Move Milton's (Stephen Root) desk to Storage Room B and see where that gets you.

1999: “Office Space” (full review) — Mike Judge takes a maze of cubicles and turns it into a feature-length film that’s the personification of Dante’s limbo, then sets it to a fantastic rap soundtrack. It’s good to be a gangsta.

2000: “Quills” (full review) — No other actors slips so effortlessly into the part of the villain as Geoffrey Rush can, and that mirthful, slightly evil glint in his eyes makes him the perfect (and only acceptable) choice to play the infamous Marquis de Sade.

2001: “The Believer” — Based on the true story of Dan Burros, a Jew who became a Neo-Nazi, Henry Bean’s “The Believer” looks unflinchingly at all aspects of faith and features what may be Ryan Gosling’s most gripping performance. Ever. 

2002: “City of God” — Fernando Meirelles’ crime drama plays out like an elegaic marriage of the best parts of Martin Scorsese’s “GoodFellas”  and Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” capturing the bloody, grim realities of a life lived in Brazil’s rough Cidade de Deus (City of God) favela.

2003: “Mystic River” — Author Dennis Lehane understands, deep down in his soul, the rhythms of Boston’s shady, bleak underworld. Director Clint Eastwood understands the people who have fallen through the cracks. Together, “Mystic River,” about three childhood friends dealing with a murder, they make an unbeatable team.

Javier Bardem's performance is anything but bleak.

2004: “Mar adentro” (full review) — Is it possible to make a film about a quadriplegic (Javier Bardem) who wants nothing more than to die and have that film turn out to be an affirmation of life? Look to “Mar adentro” for the answer.

2005: “The Constant Gardener” — Taut political/medical conspiracy thrillers ordinarily don’t offer emotions as complex as the plotlines. But director Fernando Meirelles etches characters (Rachel Weisz, Ralph Fiennes) who matter to each other, and so they matter to us.

2006: “The Lives of Others” (full review) — Movies about Big Brother rarely take the time to humanize the enemy, but director Henckel von Donnersmarck finds humanity even in the most ardent supporter (Ulrich Mühe) of suppressing free will.

2007: “No Country for Old Men” (full review) — Call it the Coens’ Law: Every time you think they’ve made their best movie ever, they top themselves. How they’ll top this gritty, violent and blackly funny caper is something this reviewer has gotta see.

2008: “The Dark Knight” — With “Batman Begins,” Christopher Nolan single-handedly revived a years-ailing franchise; in the inspired sequel — part Greek tragedy, part action flick, part sweeping character drama — he let Heath Ledger reinvent the iconic Joker in the spirit of creation.

Get in my bell-ay, Jew Hunter!

2009: “Inglourious Basterds” (full review) — In terms of sheer imagination and cojones, almost no director working today can match Quentin Tarantino, who in this misspelled epic rewrites the ending to WWII and gives cinema one of its greatest villains (Christoph Waltz).

2010: So far? “Shutter Island.” The predicted winner? “True Grit.”

*It’s my birthday and I’m giving you a math lesson. Can you say “nerd”?

Convoluted “Brothers Bloom” signals emergence of bright new talent

Brody, Weisz and Ruffalo get their con on in "The Brothers Bloom."

Rian Johnson is the Lucinda Williams of Hollywood. In his career, he’s directed precisely two feature-length films, “Brick” and “The Brothers Bloom,” both imaginative and damn-near brilliant. The former, an indie gem about a high school loner determined to find his vanished ex-girlfriend, signaled the appearance of a fledgling talent. But the latter? Johnson’s second creation shows that talent in full, crazy-twisty inventive bloom. Worry not that he’s sold out, for a bigger budget and three top-list talents have done nothing to dampen that indie creativity.

Such innovation becomes evident early on in “The Brothers Bloom,” a kind of fairytale/Picaresque novel hybrid about two long-con operator brothers bilking a clueless mark out of her inheritance. The mastermind is Stephen (Mark Ruffalo), a showboater who loves the game as much as he loves the money it produces. He’s a showman, writing all kinds of symbolism (which no one’s smart enough to catch) into his cons. Pulled along for the ride is his weary younger brother Bloom (Adrien Brody). Bloom wants out, mostly because he’s not a real person; he only plays the parts his brother writes for him. “He’s written me as the vulnerable antihero, and that’s why you think you want to kiss me,” he tells the leggy brunette he meets in a bar. Bloom’s an island, he knows it and he wants no more of his grifter lifestyle.

Until he meets Penelope (Rachel Weisz). The eccentric serial hobbyist gets drawn into the con to end all cons. And it’s a doozy, spanning continents and involving a creepy Beligian (Robbie Coltrane), an alluring explosives expert (Rinko Kikuchi), an eighth-century manuscript and a mysterious Russian fellow named Diamond Dog (Maximillian Schell), dastardly despite his lack of depth perception.

Rest assured there’s much more to the story than this, but it’s important to go into “The Brothers Bloom” with little information. The storyline’s something of an elaborate hamster playground, a maze with overlapping subplots that run smack into other subplots; some of these lead back to the beginning, while others point toward the numerous conclusions. Yet the strategy isn’t entirely successful. Fool moviegoers once, maybe twice, and they’ll likely stick with the gimmick. (It does, after all, reward intelligence.) Do it too many times and it becomes downright annoying. Thus, for awhile, all this conning and reconning and unconning seems enough to drown out all my chatter about Johnson’s ingenuity.

But wait. There are saving graces in “Brothers Bloom,” and they come in the form of inside jokes, cinematography and acting. Johnson peppers all sorts of puns and tricks in that add a sense of mischief, from obscure literary references to split-second sight gags. Then there’s Steve Yeldin’s cinematography. His work is fairly impressive, with his lensing capturing the landscapes (Montenegro, Prague) in a way that gives the film a timeless, expansive feel that seems a fitting backdrop for the essence of Johnson’s characters.

And, oh, the characters. Ruffalo’s an actor with a gift for understatement who trafficks in little expressions, so it’s nice to see him take on a character who thrives on melodrama. He deserves more than a little credit for making Stephen, a control freak with a serious God complex, someone worth liking. Weisz, underappreciated as a comic actress, finds spunk and optimism in Penelope, who grew up a shut in and now views the world with more interest than fear. Her energy seems overwhelming at times, sure, but there’s a childlike wonder that charms more than it irritates. And anyone who follows Brody knows his characters are all about externalizing the internal using just the eyes. He’s perfected the sadsack look — vulnerable antihero suits him better than self-deprecating wiseass suits John Cusack — but lets his eyes suggest more than plain old misery. Watching Bloom warm to Penelope, who’s every bit as stuck and lost as he is, is more honest than it ought to be in about professional liars.

Then again, “The Brothers Bloom” isn’t exactly a color-inside-the-lines con movie. There’s more heart than brain but less brain than ambition. Maybe Johnson shoots a little too high, maybe he tries a little to hard to be clever. But I can’t shake the feeling this guy’s got a masterpiece in him somewhere, and I can’t wait to see it. Talent like this is rare and refreshing.  

Grade: B-