#39 "Blade Runner" (1982)

I've seen "Blade Runner" a number of times over the years in all three of its 'official' cuts and it's a film I will keep watching regularly. I'm not going to try to get too deep into it here, but just wanted to make a couple of quick observations from seeing it again last night.

If anyone reading this hasn't seen this film - see it. It's a work of outstanding vision and influential on so much of the dystopian science-fiction that would follow.

This time around I was even more impressed with the world that Director Ridley Scott creates, but felt disappointed and even disconnected from the narrative. Let's look at the positive first.

"Blade Runner" will be 32 years old this year and, set in 2019, is only five years away from that situation almost unique to sci-fi of being a film that predicts the future we've already lived. That always make it easy to see quite how dated some of the film's 'future' looks now that it's the present, but this is a vision of future past that stands up really well.

As a film made before CGI could do much other than simulate 'futuristic' computer displays, "Blade Runner" creates a very tactile world that is compelling and easy to relate to, no matter how different from our actual present it is. Most of the effects work stands up remarkably well. Some of the 'flying car' shots look a little bit off, but there are no effects here that pull me out of the film's world - which isn't something I can say of most older sci-fi films.

Part of the genius Scott and Production Designer Laurence G. Paull (also the Designer of "Back to the Future," another sci-fi film that has aged very well) is that they imagine a future in which by no means is everything 'futuristic' - there may be flying cars and synthetic animals and humans, but there's still old-fashioned booze, poverty and crumbling apartment buildings. The rising tide of technological progress and bio-engineering may have created wonders for the increasing number of humans living off-world, but much of the lives of those not so privileged remains only tangentially altered by technology here on Earth.

Wedded to the incredible detail of clothing, props, architecture and screen displays both tiny and gigantic are the elements of late '40's / early '50's style, lighting and design that make "Blade Runner"'s world truly succeed as 'neo-noir.' Harrison Ford's worn-down android hunter Deckard may face uniquely futuristic dangers and dilemmas but the way that he walks 'down the[...] mean streets' explored by Raymond Chandler is in many ways the same as Bogart's Sam Spade. Lights from passing airborne vehicles is always bursting through the windows and blinds of "Blade Runner"'s world, but it's as much a reminder of the darkness inside as it is a form of illumination.

What disappointed me this time around was that I didn't feel much of any real emotional connection to the story. I don't know the film's different versions well enough to say if this is a weakness of Scott's 'final cut' of the movie, but a lot of the 'poetic' moments the film lingers on and the increasingly out-there behavior of Rutger Hauer's chief replicant felt forced, even ridiculous at times. I have loved this film ever since seeing a 35mm print of the 'director's cut' in college, so I want to think that maybe I was in a bad mood or just overly familiar with the story. The narrative itself holds up just as well as it ever did, but I'd like to go back and visit that earlier cut again to see if I feel an emotional difference.

Whether it works for me emotionally or not, though, "Blade Runner" is a work of imaginative genius, one of the most perfect examples of a film creating the sense of a complete world that is different from our own, but feels just as real. This is the kind of film that makes a sci-fi lover like myself wish that the Ridley Scott who made this film - or a new filmmaker with the same level of talent and resources - was still creating the same kind of visionary work today.

#38 "End of Watch" (2012)

At first glance, "End of Watch" looks like it's going to be another found-footage movie, though one set in the cop drama and not horror genre. Over dash-cam video of an all too real looking car chase that ends in a quick and brutal firefight, Jake Gyllenhaal delivers a monologue that defines both his character, LAPD officer Brian Taylor, and the film's themes (not too unlike the 'This is my rifle...' passages from "Jarhead").

One big elliptical cut forward and we see Gyllenhaal and his partner Mike Zavala, played by Michael Pena, returning to the force after what we learn is a month off for the investigation into their fatal shooting of the suspects has been concluded. Brian just happens to be taking a film class as part of his extra-curricular schooling so he has his own camcorder rolling, along with micro-cameras clipped to his and Mike's uniform chest pockets.

Over the course of the movie we see footage from Brian's camcorder (a constant source of annoyance for his fellow officers), the micro-cameras he and Mike wear, their police car dash-cam, a kind of reality-show wide angle lens fixed inside the camera and numerous cell-phone videos taken by different civilians as they witness and / or participate in various crimes.

Luckily though, Director David Ayer (writer of "Training Day") doesn't keep our view pinned to the various found-footage-finding cameras inside the film's world. Although he sticks with diagetically motivated cameras for the first few minutes of the film, Ayer quickly 'cheats' with gritty camerawork that is obviously from taken from the filmmakers' point of view and not that of the characters, along with some classically gorgeous aerial and establishing shots.

The overall effect is to put us squarely on the ground in the lives of the LAPD officers and residents of some of the most dangerous parts of Los Angeles. This also spares us, for the most part, the found-footage cliche ("People have to know!") that justifies the ludicrous notion that anyone would actually keep shooting video in these increasingly dangerous situation.

Ayer really takes advantage of this immediacy to connect us to the characters of this world with uniformly strong performances. Gyllenhaal and Pena have the kind of relationship that one can see in any bog standard "buddy movie," but what makes this film so effective is that their friendship, which includes practical jokes, raunchy banter and a fair amount of mutual button-pushing, feels completely real thanks to the strength of the writing and of their performances.

Ayer really succeeds in making us feel that there is a very real world 'outside the frame.' While there is an overarching narrative thread as Brian and Mike find themselves in the crossfire of a black vs Latino gang turf war and are ultimately targeted by a cartel leader, Ayer lets his characters and narrative breathe. Narrative strands collide and coincide, but in ways that feel much more plausible and satisfying than much of "Training Day," where the film's entire resolution turns on a coincidence that is improbable in its plotting and absolutely ridiculous in its timing.

We see much more of the day-to-day lives of Brian and Mike and their department than in a more programmatic narrative - and the material is often great. The two partners respond to the kind of calls that give child protective service workers nightmares. Brian talks directly to the camera about the joys of department paperwork and captures co-workers bitching about the politics inside the department. Other characters also at times 'kidnap' Brian's camcorder and talk directly to him (and us) through it.

Brian also falls in love with and eventually marries a lovely young engineer, played by the completely adorable Anna Kendrick. The moment where the two of them in full wedding regalia perform an obviously well-rehearsed 'first dance' to Salt 'n' Peppa's "Push It" is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long while. In fact, for a film about the terrifically violent fall-out of a savage gang war, "End of Watch" is often a whole lot of fun (especially in the family gatherings we see outside of duty) and a number of moments are outright hilarious.

I'm an experienced / jaded enough viewer to know that a movie like this will in the end have a conventional narrative arc (Neo-Realism this ain't) and I started to pull back, feeling like all of this additional character-revealing material (complete with loving familial attachments) was a typical emotional 'fattening-up' of the audience. Like the war movie cliche of the soldier who talks about his wife, children and / or mother being marked for death because 'hey - tragedy,' crime dramas tend to set up their protagonists as more-than-just-their-badge just so we'll feel sadder when they suffer and / or die.

Now, it's not that the film isn't doing all that (in fact, there's nothing unconventional about the film's plotting) but those great human moments and the detailed depiction of the film's world are as much 'the point' as the narrative itself. "End of Watch" is something special because it works as a memorable character piece and document of its world just as well as it does as a cop thriller.

#37 "Trollhunter" (2010)

I took this one out from Family Video at the same time as "[Rec]", which was probably too much found-footage filmmaking for one week, but even though the narrative hook has gotten old quickly, "Trollhunter" certainly has pleasures all of its own to offer.

This film follows a group of three young folk who are looking to do some attention-getting investigative reporting on recent bear attacks in a remote part of Sweden. However, they quickly learn that something much more dangerous and fantastical is responsible for these attacks and they team up with a reluctant and reclusive insider who takes them behind the curtain at their own peril.

OK, so far, so standard. Swap out 'Sweden' for anywhere in the States and 'bear attacks' for 'mysterious disappearances' or 'strange occurrences' and you've a scenario that would fit about 90% of all found-footage films languishing on store shelves or flooding the 'Recent Releases' section of Amazon, Netflix or Hulu.

And indeed, we do get elliptical edits, scenes shot all in night-vision green and running-with-camera shots that make Sam Raimi's 'shaky-cam' in the first "Evil Dead" movie look like the steadicam shot from "Goodfellas." We get moments where we wonder why anyone with any interest in survival would keep shooting. We get shots that may look cool, but how on earth could any of our characters actually be shooting that? And we get an ending that just... ends, because 'hey man - found-footage.'

But as the screen-shot above shows, this is also a film that shows every bit as much as it suggests and in a really good way. The trolls themselves aren't wonders of seamless CGI (though the 'final troll' pictured here is pretty damn great), but they make an imaginative and enjoyably absurd difference from the zombies and evil spirits that are the staples of the found-footage craze.

And all of this comes with just enough character reality and detail to make the story compelling and a sly sense of humor that respects our intelligence. Otto Jesperen as the titular trollhunter is awesome - the straight man of the narrative, Jesperen carries the unspoken self-confidence of someone who is a veteran professional (whose profession just happens to be troll-hunting) along with the bone-deep weariness of a man who is simply getting sick of his job. He's tired of the physical wear, lousy pay and bureaucratic bullshit he's experienced in his 30-some years of keeping everyday Norwegians blissfully unaware of - and uneaten by - the monsters hidden in their back-fjords.

"Trollhunter" doesn't give new life to the found-footage horror sub-genre, but its imagination, absurdist humor and deadpan lead performance certainly make it a cut above the rest.

#36 "The Lego Movie" (2014)

"The Lego Movie." Released in February. With a hyperactive trailer and bubblegum pop of the gummiest sort. Product placement that gets you to pay for a ninety minute commercial. Yeah, I'd seen the trailer and enthusiastically added this movie to my list of films that I will happily go to my grave without seeing.

But then all kinds of good reviews from people I trust and respect started coming in - the kind of reviews the film I was so ready for this to be would never, ever get. In a couple of days, "The Lego Movie" became my first must-see new release of 2014.

And it's good. I'd love to see it again right now because there is so much detail and creative energy in this movie from start to finish, so many great gags and nice little touches that pay off years of genuine goodwill built (pardon the expression) by the product with a sly wink to the adults in the audience that almost never relies on the crude humor or simple pop-culture reference that so many kid's movies think their non-children viewers will find hi-larious.

"The Lego Movie" isn't quite on the level of the very greatest Pixar films, but it's up there with, say "Cars" or "Monsters Inc" (and way above their sequels) as an imaginative, excellently crafted entertainment. The voice acting's excellent and varied (major kudos to Will Arnett's brazenly narcissistic Batman), the imaginative twists keep coming while the narrative never drags and best of all, for a computer animated movie about everyone's favorite interlocking brick, the actual tactile quality of the Lego itself is top-notch.

A sequel is already in the making and although I'm cautiously skeptical about the creators' ability to bottle the lightning crazy again, the set-up for the next movie rates as one the best. I won't spoil anything here, but it's a great gag that punctuates the narrative and tone perfectly while suggesting creative possibilities that talented minds could have great fun exploring. In the meantime, bring on the Blu-ray and pack it with as many behind the scenes special features as its 50 gigabytes will hold.

#35 "Inside Llewyn Davis" (2013)

"Inside Llewyn Davis" is a very Coen brothers take on the east coast folk singing scene in 1961, a time when the clean-shaven squareness of the '50's is on the wane, but the creative craziness of the '60's proper had yet to arrive. Titular folk singer and guitarist Llewyn Davis is a classic Coen character in the same line as Barton Fink or Larry Gopnik of "A Serious Man" - a not-so-loveable loser whose level of talent and dedication aren't enough to save him from the obstacles he creates for himself or from the uncaring, fickle world that deems him not quite good enough.

And yet, equally typical of the Coen brothers, while our protagonist's journey is largely a series of setbacks and crises, the writing and direction (both of visuals and of performance) help make what could be quite a bummer compelling, intellectually satisfying and even funny in a dark, skewed, absurdist way.

One of the Coen brothers best choices throughout the film is their exercise of stylistic and narrative restraint, while putting Oscar Isaac's playing, singing and acting front and center. Where many films would fade out from a song in progress to hurry along with the story or play it out over a narrative-forwarding or detail-building montage, the Coen brothers leave their camera squarely on Isaac and let us care about and better understand an often unlikeable, self-destructive man through his music. It's an excellent choice as Isaac plays and sings each song, giving authenticity, soul and even heart to an otherwise downbeat tale.

Just as Isaac completely embodies Llewyn, Carey Mulligan is once again brilliant, beautiful and disappears into the character of Jean, Llewyn's best friend Jim's girl and sometime lay (for whose abortion he pays early in the film). Justin Timberlake in a bit part is also excellent as Jim, a lighter, less pompous singer of earwig novelty pop tune "Please Mr Kennedy" about an astronaut not wanting to be launched into space (it's still going around my brain as I type this). And then there's John Goodman - there's always John Goodman - as a heroin-addicted jazz player who succeeds both in popping Llewyn's balloon of self-seriousness, while Llewyn simultaneously deflates the pretensions of Goodman's character.

The Coens are obsessive about detail and it shines through here, richly recreating the New York (and Chicago) folk scene in Greenwich Village at the time and giving Llewyn's actions and motivations context in the world.

"Inside Llewyn Davis" shows the Coen brothers maturing in their story-telling and stylization, while still making compelling cinema that couldn't really belong to anyone else.

#34 "Oscar-Nominated Shorts - Live Action" (2013)

And the live action shorts...

- "Helium" The story of a nurse who tells a dying boy the tale of the magical world of Helium that he will be going to when he passes on, this is Oscar-bait in its purest form. It's acted well and the CGI animation of Helium and its balloon-suspended world look great, but everything about it feels calculated to win that little golden statue. I will be pissed if it does.

- "The Voorman Problem" A Douglas-Adamsy tale of psychotherapist Martin Freeman interviewing prisoner Voorman (Tom Hollander), who believes he is God and has the other inmates agreeing with him. The film starts off on a bum note as Freeman meets the prison's despairing governor (Simon Griffiths) - it's not a badly written scene but the difference in acting ability between Freeman and the unknown Griffiths is almost painful. Hollander is brilliant as Voorman, Freeman is excellent as ever and there's a great joke about Belgium (poor, poor Belgium). Even still, the whole thing feels a little too forced and the ending way too obvious.

- "Avant que de Tout Perdre" ["Just Before Losing Everything"] Utterly gripping filmmaking. A film where the plot is best left undescribed, not because of a Shyamalanesque 'twist,' but because so much of its power comes from just following the characters and gaining an understanding of their situation by being with them, not by heavy exposition. Xavier Legrand draws Hitchcock-like suspense and real emotional engagement by playing straight with a narrative that is unnerving precisely because it is so plausible and realistically portrayed. Lea Drucker is exceptional in the lead role and this is a film that makes me genuinely excited to see what its Director does next. This is the one I'm rooting for.

- "Aquel No Ero Yo" ["That Wasn't Me"] An amazingly powerful and emotionally draining mini-epic following the kidnapping of a small group of NGO workers by a bloodthirsty commander and his army of child-soldiers in an African republic at war with itself. Director Esteban Crespo gets excellent performances from all of his cast and drags us in emotionally with incredible speed to a horrifying situation which he portrays without pulling any punches but also without exploitative sensationalism.

- "Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa?" ["Do I Have to Do Everything?"] A short, sweet piece of pure comic relief after the emotional gut punch of "Aquel...", here we see a typical middle-class Finnish family rushing to get ready for a wedding they're running late for. The actors are truly endearing and although it's all essentially a set-up for a single punchline, it's a hell of a good joke and paid off with perfect deadpan ridiculousness.

#33 "Oscar-Nominated Shorts - Animation" (2013)

Gonna keep these next posts short to catch up. So, scattered impressions of this year's Oscar-nominated animated shorts:

- "Get a Horse!" An incredibly well made homage to the black-and-white Disney cartoons of Steam-boat Willy vintage. This short combines the lovingly detailed feel of a 1933 cartoon with a fourth-wall breaking leap into Pixar-level 3D animations of the same characters. A cartoon-lover's cartoon with precise, disciplined visual story-telling.

- "Mr Hublot" Charming, wordless comedy about a man and his robot-dog set in a kind of retro-future world that looks a lot like indie adventure game "Machinarium." Doesn't do anything dazzling, but tells a good, simple story in an entertaining way with subtle shades of pathos and affection for its characters.

- "Feral" The story of a boy who's grown up in the wild adopted by a traveler who wants to give him a home in the civilized world isn't anything at all original. But the grace of the black-and-white animation and the rather lovely way it exaggerates human and animal forms is something special.

- "Possessions" The tale of a samurai-like tinker who encounters a hut full of living and overlooked tools and clothes. Beautiful cell-shaded animation makes each frame look hand-drawn while allowing for 3-dimensional camera moves both sweeping and subtle. A truly satisfying narrative that is unlike anything I'd seen before.

- "Room on the Broom" Narrated by Simon Pegg and starring Gillian Anderson and Timothy Spall and with sky-high production value, this one feels like the 'over-dog' to me (though the Academy may be more likely to go with Disney). But damn it all, it's perfectly paced, utterly loveable and beautifully crafted in a faux-Claymation style that really succeeds in feeling as wonderfully tactile as any Wallace and Gromit adventure.

#32 "[Rec]" (2007)

Is it too much to hope that someday, perhaps someday soon, horror filmmakers will stop finding "found footage" footage?

Oh yes, it most certainly is - and it's all down to supply and demand. So, like a bad Reagonomics pundit, let's start with the supply side first...

Horror films have always been cheap to make. Not that all of them are low-budget of course, but it's almost unique as a genre in that its audiences do not demand - and do not even necessarily want - high-production values, technical brilliance or name actors. And as the cost of independent film-making has gotten lower and lower over time, it's been easier and easier to crank out horror flicks with only a location, a cast of aspiring (read: dirt cheap) actors and a modest budget for special effects make-up.

Found footage films take the DIY ethos of the classic '80's slasher movies and run with it, making films like "Friday the 13th" and "My Bloody Valentine" look like "Gone with the Wind" in their production values. Needing little to no crew, a tiny cast, no more equipment than a camcorder and an Arri light kit and very little time, a film like "Paranormal Activity" can be made for $15,000 and (with some digital tidying and an admittedly hefty publicity budget) take in gross theatrical receipts of almost 10,000 times that much (or about 1,000,000% of the production budget). And that's before DVD, Blu-Ray, on-demand, basic cable, merchandizing and - of course - franchising. Forget Apple or Exxon Mobil - if you want to look at mind-bending bang for your production buck, the smart money's in found footage.

Of course, anybody can make a low-to-no-budget feature film these days (really, anybody) and can spend $15,000 on a film that exists only on its Director's hard-drive. The second part of the profit equation is obviously demand - and that's where the audience comes in. It's easy to see why Producers make found footage films, but even the cheapest film needs to compete for time and space with other movies on store shelves, theater screens, even iTunes and Amazon product line-ups. So why all the demand?

That's a harder and much more interesting question to answer and one that may only become clearer once more time has passed. Horror films are the nightmares of their times and, just like any dream worth its time on the couch, they often reveal things about our culture and ourselves things that we might not want to otherwise face. 'Torture porn' like "Saw" and "Hostel" (and their many, many sequels and imitators and imitators' sequels) were all the rage from 2004 until around 2009. Essentially torture porn took off when mainstream Americans heard of Abu Ghraib and started to realize just quite how much torture their government was committing in their name - and then came crashing down in popularity after the election of a determinedly anti-torture President. Sure there are still hold-overs like "The Collection" that try to re-capture the glory-days of graphic, voyeuristic sadism, but over all that kind of horror has moved back to the extreme.

We now live in an era in which there are cameras everywhere, they've become smaller and cheaper than ever and they're recording all the time - to the point where we often forget about them in the moment. We've gotten used to 'filming' ourselves and our friends and to documenting even the minutest details of our lives. And the monster in the closet no longer looks like abduction by mysterious, faceless captors who will torture us for their amusement (and maybe for our own sins - like being complicit in the torture of others...). The fears are a lot closer to home - indeed they come from our homes, from our daily lives, from our relationships with those closest to us.

"The Blair Witch Project" was a huge success back in 1999, but what really strikes me is how little successful imitation followed it at that time. It wasn't until 2007 / 2008 that the genre exploded and has become the phenomenon it - for better and for much, much worse - it now is. With the end of the Bush administration in sight, America fell head-over-horrified-heels for "Paranormal Activity" and "Cloverfield" (both movies I really enjoyed myself). If "Saw" was the horror franchise for the Bush era, seemingly unstoppable every single Halloween, "Paranormal Activity" has become the post-Great-Recession franchise for the age of Obama.

But in the same way that Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace came out with their theories of evolution at practically the same time with little mutual contact, on the other side of the pond a little film called "[Rec]" was getting the kind of buzz "Paranormal Activity" was in the States. And like "Paranormal Activity," "[Rec]"'s success would kick off its own mini-franchise with 2 sequels out and another on its way later this year.

"[Rec]" starts off nicely by introducing us to reporter Angela immediately (no credits to distract us or remind us that what we're seeing is fiction) who is having trouble keeping a straight face and remembering her lines as her cameraman Pablo records the open to her 'human interest' segment on the night-time lives of local firefighters. What follows really does look like the kind of unedited footage a segment editor for a local news channel might receive filled with the kind of staged interviews you would expect as well as Angela's little asides to Pablo immediately before and after the 'real material' is being shot.

The firefighters we meet are likeable and so is Angela in her kind of bratty way - even with her obvious boredom with the material she and Pablo are shooting, she stays game and does her best to bring some life to the proceedings. That boredom goes away as soon as the fire alarm she's been all but praying for comes and she goes for a 'ride along' with the firefighters to an apartment building in which an old lady seems to be trapped in her room. Then, of course, things quickly get weirder and more dangerous and her tame 'filler' piece turns out to be the story of the decade - if only she and Pablo can get the tapes (and themselves) back out of the building in one piece.

Honestly, writing about "[Rec]" after watching it for the first time 7 years after its release seems a little unfair. Moments that are now cliches were a lot fresher at the time. A good example is the inevitable justification for keeping the camera rolling ("People have to know the truth!") when surely any sane person would just be cowering somewhere or running for their lives. This line is now such a well-worn plot crutch that it's nicely parodied by "Psych"'s own found footage episode ("Lassie Jerky"), but it wasn't at the time and it actually does make sense given that Angela is a reporter - and one hungry for her 'big break,' at that.

As it is, despite some drag in the middle of the film, "[Rec]" does what it sets out to do and does some smart things with its central idea. At one point, locked out of the room where the 'contaminated' firefighter and policeman are being held, Pablo stands on a table shooting through a cracked window to avoid being seen. When the 'treatment' suddenly turns into a violent attack, we want to see more to understand what is happening, but the suspense and shock we feel are increased by the fact that our vision is limited to what Pablo's camera can catch.

The very ending is also effective, played out through the green night vision of the camera as this is the only way to see in the dark with the onboard light broken and a hostile presence stalking nearby our protagonists. The impact of this hunt in the dark is undermined, though, by a scene of ham-fisted exposition right before that involves a conveniently cued-up tape for Angela to discover and play that 'explains everything' (or at least way too much).

It's the kind of exposition that would be fine in an adventure video game, where we expect there to be lulls in the action and accept that there will be audio-logs and written messages for us to discover - but in a film, it's bad narrative technique and bad horror. So much of the real fear in horror comes when we don't know why the killer is murdering his victims, why the dead have suddenly come back to life with a taste for... us or who the Blair Witch actually was or is and why the hell is Josh standing in that weird way against the wall?

"[Rec]" isn't the horror masterpiece it was hyped as in horror circles before its release in the US and its impact is considerably lessened by everything that's come since. Nevertheless, it's still a well thought-out, at times very effective horror film that - unlike the found footage genre itself - doesn't outstay its welcome.

#31 "The Great Gatsby" (2013)

Like so many teens, I first read "The Great Gatsby" in high school and absolutely loved it. It was one of very few books I read, out of choice, more than once. So when our English class got the chance to see the film adaptation (with Robert Redford as Gatsby) I was really excited - I mean, I loved films, I loved "Gatsby" so put them together and... Oh, dear.

I remember only two things about the film (1) I was amazed at quite how boring the story could be made in the right hands and (2) the shirt sequence. Oh, the shirt sequence - with the pastel colored linen flying from left to right and right to left... in hilariously overplayed slow motion. It took me another reading of the book to confirm that, yes, it really was the film that was awful, not the original material.

The shirt sequence is here too, in Baz Luhrman's "Gatsby" (as it in the book), but there's no slow motion, no rapturous shots of Mia Farrow lost in shirt-rapture. Instead it plays like the scene it is - with Gatsby acting as a child showing off in front of his girl, and Daisy clearly reacting poignantly to his naive flirtation, not to the shirts themselves.

To my surprise, I really liked Luhrman's take on the novel. Luhrman always does a good job with over-the-top surfaces, but he's not exactly known for his emotional depth. And to be sure, the surfaces in "Gatsby" are stunning - Luhrman's hyperbole and gaudiness fit perfectly the spirit of Gatsby's bacchanals and the hyped-up spirit of the Roaring Twenties. That's what I'd expected of Luhrman and he delivers fabulously - but what impressed me even more is how he handles the quieter moments, as when Gatsby asks Nick to bring Daisy over for tea in the shadow of his walled-off mansion. Luhrman uses CGI skilfully to bring an era to life, especially the depressed, industrial no-man's-land that bridges West and East Eggs with the hopped-up energy of New York City.

Luhrman is not known as an actor's Director, but the performances here are first class, allowing us to understand and feel for characters who are not intrinsically relatable to those of us outside of the 1%. Leonardo DiCaprio was born to play Gatsby and he wears the role, which comes with almost impossible expectations, very well indeed. Indeed, all the cast are great. Tobey Maguire's mild-mannered awkwardness works as go-between Nick Carroway, and while it would be easy to play the character simply as a spectator and catalyst for the plot, Maguire does well to suggest that Carroway has much more of an idea of what he's doing than he might admit.

Carey Mulligan, with her natural soulfulness, does a great job with Daisy - bringing emotional depth, vulnerability and genuine playfulness to a character who is essentially a bored aristocrat's wife. Joel Edgerton, an actor I'd never really noticed before, is an excellent Tom Buchanan, capturing both Tom's selfish blindness and his ability to cut others to the core, as well as his pure animal brutality and hedonism.

I had very limited expectations coming into this film, but I enjoyed it, I was moved by it and I would gladly watch it again.

#30 "Beauty and the Beast" (1991)

Bah, humbug. OK, maybe I don't feel quite as much of a committed party-pooper as old Ebeneezer himself, but I can't help it - I've always seen "Beauty and the Beast" in comparison to other films and it's always felt like the lesser movie as a result.

I first saw "Beauty and the Beast" when it came out in 1991. I loved the quality of the hand-drawn animation, which had been dropping at Disney even since their Golden Age classics, as well as the way it was enhanced by (carefully buried) computer-enhancement to create the swooping 'crane shots' in the ballroom and the dance of the plates.

But the narrative felt too simplistic and too sentimental and although the Beast looked hella cool, none of the characters really stuck with me. It also felt to me, though I don't know if I would have articulated in this way at the time, that the sentimental love-story wasn't really integrated with the more enjoyable comic relief of the enchanted household items that had been the Beast's human servants before the curse.

Then I saw "Aladdin" the next year and there was no doubt - "Aladdin" and not "Beauty" was the Disney renaissance I'd been promised. Better spectacle, silky smooth animation, a more tolerable song and the best possible use of Robin Williams' bipolar style in the Genie.

As it is, the best thing about "Beauty" is the supporting cast, with loveable Angela Lansbury, charming David Ogden Stiers and a brilliant Jerry Orbach (of all people) as the outrrrageously French candlestick, Lumiere. Paige O'Hara and Robby Benson do just fine as the titular Beauty and Beast, but they're not given much character material to work with.

It's still a fun movie. It's still a pleasant way to pass 90 minutes in the company of Disney's animators. But it'll always be second fiddle to me. Now, if only I could shake that bloody earwig of a theme-song...

#29 "The Master" (2012)

"The Master" tells the story of a critical moment in the rise of Lancaster Dodd (a slightly fictionalized L. Ron Hubbard) and his movement 'The Cause' (a slightly fictionalized Scientology) as seen through the often admiring eyes of Freddy Quell (described by Dodd as 'my guinea pig and protege'), a psychologically disturbed and intellectually limited ex-navy WWII veteran in 1950.

Like any of Writer-Director Paul Thomas Anderson's films, there's a hell of a lot of movie here, with much more going on thematically, dramatically and artistically than I could possibly hope to even scratch the surface of here. What really linger in the mind are the detailed depictions of the mind games Dodd plays to draw his followers in and the terrific performances by Philip Seymour Hoffman as Dodd,  Amy Adams as Dodd's wife and Joaquin Phoenix as Freddy Quell.

Hoffman owns the movie as the titular Master - his depiction of Dodd is unforgettable. Hoffman has great material to work with in Anderson's script, but what he really brings out is Dodd's humanity. Yes, Dodd is a grandiose, pretentious and venal leader of a pseudo-scientific cult, who is part charlatan, part confidence trickster and part madman. But he is also an utterly charismatic man, who disarms with his bonhomie, self-deprecating wit and (apparent) utter confidence in what he is doing. Hoffman makes it impossible not to be drawn to Dodd and whenever he's on screen, he draws our eyes to him no matter what he is doing.

Anderson's most intriguing narrative choice is to not make Dodd the protagonist of a film that he dominates so completely, but to portray him as experienced by - and in relation to - Joaquin Phoenix's troubled, crude and at times violent perma-loser, Freddy Quell. Anderson also chooses to put concentrated focus on a moment in 1950 when Dodd is on the rise, encountering his first serious legal problems and publishing his all-important second book, which will transform 'The Cause' from a fashionable phenomenon to a worldwide movement. Put together, both of these choices help Anderson avoid the predictability and narrative staleness of the 'biopic' and get in close to the character and thematic details that really excite him.

There's a lot to be said for revealing a central character (particularly one as iconic as Dodd) through his relationship to others (as in "Citizen Kane"). However, Anderson's choice of Quell as protagonist and our main entry into the world of Dodd and 'The Cause' makes the film a lot less accessible and a lot more alienating than it could be otherwise, and I'm not sure if it gains much from that. Phoenix’s performance is certainly powerful and fully committed (man, did it make me miss Theodore Twombly from “Her,” though...).

Like Jennifer Lawrence's Rosalyn in “American Hustle,” Phoenix’s Quell is a very intelligent portrayal of a very stupid person. As a supporting actress in “Hustle” Lawrence’s performance is part of a great ensemble and adds to the texture of the film’s world and ups its dramatic tension in a believable way. But if Rosalyn were our protagonist and the story was told through her eyes and in relation to her? Not so much fun.

Anderson is a unique Writer-Director, a true auteur with an incredible range of gifts. “The Master” is one of those films that reminds me quite how alive grown-up cinema is in America in this second decade of the millennium and it has moments that I will not forget soon. I also respect the way that Anderson goes out of his way to avoid narrative and dramatic cliche and the choice to tell the story of Freddy Quell is certainly a gutsy one. It just makes “The Master” a film that’s a whole lot easier to admire than it is to love.

#28 Prometheus (2012)

"Prometheus" is Director Ridley Scott's return to the sci-fi universe of "Alien." While it doesn't (really) feature everyone's favorite post-Freudian xenomorph, it's very much a part of the world complete with devious corporate leaders, white-blooded near-human androids and a spaceship's crew who are for the most part more interested in getting paid and getting home than pursuing any higher calling.

The basic premise is the same as god-awful 'reality' show "Ancient Aliens" which airs on the 'History' Channel: Our ancestors were created and guided by powerful, ultra-intelligent aliens because otherwise how could you explain Stonehenge or Easter Island (since obviously anyone who didn't have an iPhone, HDTV and e-mail account couldn't have been very clever). Maybe if "Prometheus" were coming earlier in the decade I'd feel more forgiving to its central conceit, but it isn't and I don't - it just feels insulting and that's no way to kick off a movie.

Aside from re-visiting the universe of his seminal sci-fi film - a great idea in itself as its world has always seemed ripe for exploring - Scott is also repeating himself in ways that aren't so fun. The corporate big bad, played ably by Guy Pearce under layers of old-person make-up, is just too  one-dimensional, as are most of the characters, even with what is basically a very able cast. Once the cast attrition sets in as our ragtag crew are picked off by... something, everything feels so been-there, done-that that overall I found it hard to care about much of anything.

There are a couple of bright spots in the performances. First off is Michael Fassbender, often the best thing in any given movie, who does a great job of portraying 'David,' the apparently servile and perfectly polite droid-servant who has a lot more going on under his surface (and like his droid predecessors in "Alien" and "Aliens" does a remarkably good job of continuing to speak calmly after being ripped apart). David gets the most interesting character beats and has a wonderfully satisfying (and chilling) character arc.

The other truly three-dimensional performance belongs to Noomi Rapace, who plays the overly curious archaeologist determined to find the truth about our species' origins on the desolate planet where the bulk of the film takes place. Rapace doesn't get material that's nearly as interesting as Fassbender's (no-one does in this film), but it's nice to see her really taking to a not-Lisbeth-Salander role. She also does a terrific job with the film's most intense sequence as she performs a particularly harrowing self-surgery that is the very definition of 'pro-choice.'

In the end, this just felt like a wasted opportunity to me. The "Alien" universe is so ripe for story-telling and it deserves better stories than this one. It's still a pleasure to watch Scott's skilled craftsmanship and the lovingly crafted set-design, imaginative use of CGI and location shooting. I may hate the central premise of the film, but it's fun spending time in such a detailed and textured world - if only there were characters and a narrative to match it.

I'm not giving up hope, though. Apparently there is a "Prometheus 2" in the works and if it can go deeper into the story and world without needing to do the whole naive crew discovery / cast attrition / final girl schtick that this film does, it might be something special.