secretagent_007

Life has not been easy for Dan Evans. He fought in the Civil War and lost his foot. He settled down on a ranch, then got hit with a drought. He has a family, but one of his sons has tuberculosis, the other seems to hate his guts, and his wife no longer has faith in his ability to provide for them all. And then someone burns his barn down. Evans is a man who is beat down by the world every day. He is a failure in his son's eyes because he is not a war hero and he is not a dashing rogue like he reads about in his dime store novels. This character, played solidly by Christian Bale, has one of the best setups I've seen recently - a guy who is ripe for change in his life.

Change comes in the form of Ben Wade (Russel Crowe), a dashing rogue just like the kind Dan's son reads about. Ben and Dan cross paths as the rancher is collecting his cows that were scattered by the barn burners. Ben proves to be a brutal man, but fair. He allows Dan to get his cattle, but relocates his horse so he can't fetch the law. Back in town, after Ben has been cornered in a saloon and placed under arrest, Dan offers to get Ben on the train to prison in exchange for enough money to save his family from all kinds of trouble.

This is a thrilling ride, full of shootouts and horse chases through the desert, but it thankfully stays focused on the characters in the story. Ben Wade is a conflicted character from the outset. We first see him drawing a sketch of a hawk - a small hint that maybe he was never meant to be the leader of a gang. (I gather that not many thieves back then had much artistic ability.) After he's caught, he even shows sympathy for Dan's plight, though that doesn't stop him from trying to get away when he can.

Like High Noon, this western is a story about a desperate man trying to do the right thing, even if it's also the foolish thing. You can't call Dan a coward and you can't call him stupid, either. Every step he takes to accomplish his mission is thought out and nothing depends on luck. One of the best new westerns in years, up there with Unforgiven, Open Range, and The Quick and the Dead.

(Just kidding about that last one...) http://www.movieswithmark.com

20 shorts by 20 directors (give or take), all set in Paris. Some wild, some sweet, some sad, some absolutely bizarre. This collection of films by directors like the Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant, Tom Tykwer, Walter Salles, Gérard Depardieu, and Gurinder Chadha is often a wonder to watch, but you know what? I still don't want to go to France. The movie is constructed as a weird love letter to Paris (title translates as Paris, I Love You), with an emphasis on beautiful locales and kooky characters. I think every section is about love in some way - lost love, love slipping away, new love, old love, the death of love - it makes sense for Paris. Alexander Payne's "14th arrondissement," which finishes up the movie, proves that Paris still has that old romantic feeling at its core by causing even me to pine for the land of wine and cheese. This is high praise. Judging by this film, living in Paris would be an adventure. This is where people really live. But I've got another six months to go on my year of movies… Adventure will have to wait for me.

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Gore in movies doesn't bother me. As a fan of horror movies, one knows it's all fake and starts to enjoy the ingenuity behind some of the effects. There is an effect early on in this movie (or near the end, depending on your perspective) that I would have gone back to inspect more closely if only I wasn't so shocked and grossed out by it. It involves a fire extinguisher, a guy's head, and the floor. And I couldn't see where reality ended and film-making began. Starting a movie with that casts a shadow over the rest of it, so you can never tell if you're watching some type of twisted snuff film or not. (IMDB now tells me that the movie includes many digital effects - including Mr. Cave-in-Head. I don't know whether to congratulate the digital artists for their seamless work or scold the director for making it look TOO real.) Irreversible starts at the end of its story and each scene unfolds in reverse order. We start with an act of vengeance, go back to see what inspired that vengeance, and then continue even further back into the characters' lives together. At the beginning, the camera sweeps around wildly, like a garden hose run amok. We're seeing the end of a spiral and the movie moves backwards to show us the point where that spiral began - the camera behaves less frantically with each scene. The fascinating thing is that the point where it all begins is not notable. The catastrophe that occurs at the movie's midpoint, a rape, was not born out of anything except the random meanderings of people on this earth.

Before we see the rape happen (in a single, unmoving camera shot that lasts probably 15 minutes) we can piece together what has led the two main characters, Marcus and Pierre, to seek revenge. We see the violence and are shocked. We hear why the violence was committed and we decide that is was just. Then we see the rape. And we realize Marcus and Pierre didn't assault the right man. The director, Gaspar Noe, seems to be saying with this movie that the world is a crazy place where the most outrageous things can happen to a person literally depending on which way they turn at the street corner. One's life can change based on things people have no control over in the first place. I guess it's true, which is depressing. I just really wish Monica Bellucci had been packing pepper spray that night. This movie, infamous for driving people out of the theater, is an experience not meant for the faint-hearted. You've been warned.

http://www.movieswithmark.com