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TOP TEN FILMS OF 2006
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1. LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

Truly one of the year's more harrowing film experiences, the devestating WWII saga Letters From Iwo Jima marks the long-awaited artistic maturity of director Clint Eastwood. Where both his recent Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby failed to gel for me as fully-formed, emotional laments (each fatally deflated by their own clumsy and damning final acts), Letters never once makes such a crucial misstep, exponentially improving instead as it deftly unwinds its sobering tale of the mostly doomed Japanese soldiers imbedded within a series of tomb-like caves beneath the scorched island of Iwo Jima. Working (finally) without his constant screenwriter Paul Haggis (responsible for last year's horrifically overrated Crash), Eastwood delicately paints an impressive portrait of three men (each soldiers of varying rank) pulled firmly between a traditionally expected duty to their country and a very real challenge to the worth of their own mortality. The gifted actors who take on these roles (Ken Wantanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, and Tsuyoshi Ihara) are all extraordinary, as are nearly all of this complex film's myriad technical achievements (editing, sound design, cinematography, pretty much EVERYTHING). This film is about as close to perfect as any made available to audiences this year, and taken with its companion piece (the less successful, though still thrilling Flags of Our Fathers), it is truly a masterpiece. It's also the best film of 2006.

2. INLAND EMPIRE

With all due respect to The Queen's Helen Mirren, the more appropriate honor for this year's greatest onscreen performance rests solely in the hands of the jaw-droppingly versatile Laura Dern. In INLAND EMPIRE, director David Lynch's first official offering in more than five years, Dern (in a career-defining role) proves to be much more than fearless in the way she shuffles effortlessly between a whole slew of disparate characterizations --- a famous but aging actress, a sullen prostitute, a low-income (and adulterous) suburbanite --- and ultimately provides the viewer with a razor-sharp representation of an actor's fractured psyche. It's a marvel to behold, and appropriately paired here with Lynch's dark and cryptic treatise on the curious, yet necessary, relationship between an actor and his/her audience. Shot entirely on digital video (a first for Lynch), INLAND is alternately grainy and visually stunning, a nearly three-hour epic nightmare filled with seemingly disconnected realities and personas that will leave many (if not most) of it's viewers in an intial daze of cinematic paralysis. Once everything has had time to settle in, however, one eventually does come around to deciphering its madness... and more importantly, its genius.

3. LITTLE CHILDREN

Four years ago, and about a hundred pages into reading Tom Perrotta's bitingly satirical Little Children, I was suddenly struck by the presence of two very persistant thoughts. The first, that the book I held in my hands would one day be made into a fantastic film (and I do mean FANTASTIC). The second, that if said fantastic film was ever made, whatever actress was lucky enough to land the lead role of Sarah Pierce was going to be rewarded with an Oscar nomination. Quick cut to the present and... double check! Courtesy of director Todd Field and the consistently gifted Kate Winslet, my cinematic premonition is now a welcome, stark reality. Little Children may very well be one of the more honest and uncompromising dramas to be released in the last two decades, telling a very wise and simple story about the elusive and mostly unpredictable events that force us all into reluctant adulthood. Todd Field's second feature is a bold step forward (both stylistically and structurally) from his previous effort (the acclaimed, though imperfect In The Bedroom), featuring across-the-board superlative performances by Kate Winslet (of course), Patrick Wilson (as a handsome young dad who enters into a clandestine affair with Sarah), Jennifer Connelly (his jilted wife), Jackie Earle Hailey (the newest child sex offender in town), and the heartbreaking Phyllis Somerville (the newest child sex offender in town's elderly mother). Expertly woven together with one of the more effective uses of voice-over narration in years, Little Children is both courageously experimental and shockingly accessible, a welcome antidote to the more pedestrian American Beauty, and certainly one of the more successful (and organic) slices of American suburban pathos to hit movie theaters in a very long time.

4. PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER

Already a box office smash across Europe (and currently the most expensive German film of all time), director Tom Tykwer's incredibly twisted Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is hands-down the most unpredictable ride of the season. 2006 was a great year for dark fairy tales on the big screen (see also Pan's Labyrinth at # 7), and this film in particular seems to understand this tricky genre in the most transcendent way possible. The relatively unknown Ben Whishaw sizzles and scares as Perfume's nearly speechless anti-hero, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a damaged young man whose unnaturally acute sense of smell eventually leads him down the unsettling path to serial murder. Utterly obsessed with preserving the virgin scents of his female victims, he secretly hones his skills as apprentice to formerly celebrated perfumer Guiseppe Baldini -- a hilarious Dustin Hoffman -- who becomes quickly impressed with his eager young pupil's olfactory prowess. As the murders (and their subsequent scents) begin to steadily pile up, however, it's the ultimate plan Jean-Baptiste has in store for them that truly makes this film soar in its unforgettable final act. Trust me. You have never seen anything quite like it. Not in the movies, and certainly not in your dreams. Nightmares exempt... of course.

5. CHILDREN OF MEN

The future's looking pretty bleak in director Alfonso Cuaron's modern sci-fi classic, Children of Men. The year is 2027, and the place... what's left of England. Human beings have mysteriously lost the ability to procreate, provoking an outbreak of slow-burning chaos upon the death of 18-year-old "Baby Diego," the world's youngest living person. A stellar Clive Owen plays Theo Faron, a civilian man reluctantly charged with the safety of Kee, a feisty young woman who is secretly with child. The film's purposefully loose plot revolves mainly around Theo's brutal attempts to deliver Kee and her baby to safety, but tangentially, there's even more going on here. Immigration, War, even Terrorism (Freedom Fighting?) are all name-checked with aplomb, and on the technical front, the film is a complete wonder, pain-stakingly anchored by what is undeniably the year's most ingenious fusion of cinematography, editing, special effects, and sound design. There's even a much needed jolt of humanity slealthily injected through the valiant efforts of both Michael Caine (who provides the film with it's rare shards of comic relief) and Julianne Moore, breathing understated fire into the small but pivotal role of Theo's former love interest. Not since Ridley Scott's ethereal Bladerunner (or maybe the best parts of the Spielberg/Kubrick opus A.I.) has cinematic science fiction cut this deep... or been this necessary.

6. HALF NELSON

7. PAN'S LABYRINTH

8. TIDELAND

9. VOLVER

10. BRICK

WHERE

DO THEY

GET THESE

PEOPLE??

X

X

Garrison Taylor finds out when

he talks with Mark Bennett,

Casting Director for the arthouse smash

JUNEBUG

MARK, YOU'VE SERVED AS CASTING DIRECTOR FOR SOME MAJOR HOLLYWOOD PRODUCTIONS SUCH AS UNFAITHFUL AND OLIVER STONE'S RECENT EPIC, ALEXANDER. WHAT WAS IT ABOUT PHIL MORRISON'S JUNEBUG THAT MADE YOU JUST HAVE TO BE INVOLVED, BEING THAT YOU PROBABLY TOOK QUITE A PAYCUT (AS DO MOST IN INDEPENDENT FILM)?

I got a call when I first moved to LA from New York (about two years ago) from a manager friend, who said, "Listen. We represent this director, Phil Morrison, who has a script for a feature he's gonna direct called Junebug. Do you want to read it and meet with him?" The manager knew that I was certainly friendly to indie films, having worked with people like Allison Anders, Chris Munch, people like that, and having done a lot of Sundance kind of stuff. He also knew that I was new in town and so he presumed, rightly, that I was unemployed. But they were smart. They got me hooked on the script first, and only then told me what I'd be getting paid (or more accurately what I WOULDN'T be getting paid). But I just loved the script too much to worry about the lack of a payday. When I first got to LA, I read so many scripts, and so much of it was crap, that on that rare occasion that you find a script that really affects you, you just grab onto it. I remember, I had to go to their office to read the script before the meeting, and they had nowhere to put me, so they stuck me in the copier room. And so I sat there, huddled on a pile of recycled scripts, and read the script with tears running down my face, while all these poor interns scampered in and out copying scripts, and not knowing who this weird crying guy was and whether or not they should do anything for him. Somebody did bring me coffee, I remember.

PHIL MORRISON SERVED AS A CONSULTING PRODUCER ON ONE OF TV'S GREATEST COMEDY SKETCH SHOWS, THE UPRIGHT CITIZENS BRIGADE. NOW HE'S DIRECTED WHAT IS HANDS-DOWN ONE OF THE YEAR'S BEST FILMS. HOW WAS HE TO WORK WITH?

Phil was a treat. Generous with actors, polite, articulate, just great in every way.

WHAT EXACTLY WAS THE PROCESS YOU AND HE WENT THROUGH IN ORDER TO ARRIVE AT SUCH A PITCH-PERFECT CAST?

Celia Weston and Ben McKenzie were already attached before I came on. Phil read and met with a lot of actors in LA for the other leads, but we moved pretty quickly. I think we set all the leads after about two weeks, which is quite fast. We did maybe one round of callbacks for the Ashley role, but that's it. Phil is quite decisive, and he's not a literalist. He can see actors' potential and knows what they'll be capable of delivering, even if he didn't actually see it in their audition. There were a few locals that I helped with, but mainly the local supporting players were all cast through a really great woman named Lisa Mae Fincannon. And a couple of people came from Phil's personal relationships - like Will Oldham, who plays one of the art scouts - I'd love to say I was responsible for bringing him on, but that was all Phil.

WERE YOU AWARE OF THE ACTRESS, AMY ADAMS, BEFORE YOU BEGAN CASTING? I REMEMBER HER MOST FROM (BELIEVE IT OR NOT) THE CAMPY STRAIGHT-TO-VIDEO SEQUEL, CRUEL INTENTIONS 2.

I totally believe it. I think more people knew her from that, weirdly, than from the Spielberg film she did (Catch Me If You Can). It's one of those films that just lives on on video, I guess.

IT’S A GUILY PLEASURE, WITHOUT A DOUBT. I CAUGHT IT LATE ONE NIGHT ON CABLE, AND WHILE THE FILM ITSELF WAS A COMPLETE MESS, AMY DEFINITELY STOOD OUT TO ME. BASICALLY, SHE JUST REALLY MADE ME LAUGH. I ALWAYS HOPED SHE'D SOMEHOW GO ON TO BIGGER AND BETTER THINGS. HOW EXACTLY, THEN, DID SHE COME TO THE ROLE OF ASHLEY?

Amy was one of those actresses that I'd been rooting for ever since I first met her. She was always so fucking good, I mean, she nailed EVERYTHING. And on top of that, she was smart and worked incredibly hard. I could never figure out why Hollywood wasn't just throwing offers at her. So when I read Junebug, and specifically the Ashley character, I just sort of knew that I'd finally found the perfect fit. I mean, there were similarities to her Catch Me If You Can character, but this role just had so much more for her to do. I knew it was the “money” role, and that Amy would kill it. When I had my first meeting with Phil, I actually went so far as to predict, right there on the spot, that Amy's who he'd cast - and I NEVER do that, just because it is such a journey, casting, and you can never predict what'll happen. But this was one of those rare occasions when the ideal person, and the most deserving person, was the one who actually got cast.

I WAS ALSO GLAD TO SEE CELIA WESTON AS THE FILM’S FAMILY MATRIARCH. NOT ONLY DOES SHE VERY MUCH LOOK THE PART, BUT SHE SEEMS TO HAVE THE ACTING PROWESS TO BREATHE BOTH LIFE AND COMPLEXITY INTO WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN JUST ANOTHER OF CINEMA’S TWO-DIMENSIONAL, DISAPPROVING MOTHER-IN-LAWS. HER WORK WITH ALESSANDRO NIVOLA, ESPECIALLY IN THEIR FINAL SCENE TOGETHER, IS SOME OF THE FILM'S BEST. HOW DID CELIA COME TO THIS PART? WERE YOU AWARE OF HER BEFORE CASTING BEGAN?

Any casting director worth their salt knows Celia and, rightly, worships her - she's one of our great characters actresses. But she was actually attached to the project before I came on. She'd been attached for a long time before it finally went. And, of course, actors all want to work with her, so it helped to attract the interest of the other cast.

AS A NATIVE OF SOUTHERN ALABAMA, ONE THING THAT USUALLY BUGS THE SHIT OUT OF ME IN FILM IS WHEN ACTORS MUCK UP THEIR SOUTHERN ACCENTS. THE CAST OF JUNEBUG, HOWEVER, PASSES MY LITTLE AURAL LITMUS TEST WITH FLYING COLORS. I WONDER, THEN, IF THIS WAS A MAJOR CONCERN FOR YOU DURING CASTING?

Well, Phil Morrison, the director, is a native of North Carolina, so he was definitely aware of the need for authenticity. Ben McKenzie and Celia Weston are both real Southerners, so they at least had an ear for it. And Celia has played so many variations of the Southern woman that there was no doubt she had this in her repertoire. Scott Wilson too - he'd just done Monster and Clay Pigeons before that (among other things), a lot of different variations on the theme, as it were, so there was never any doubt that he could pull it off. And Alessandro and Amy both have such an incredible gift for dialects, and work so hard to get everything right… we also had the privilege of getting to see Amy read before we cast her, so we could sort of field-test it. And all the supporting roles and “dayplayers” were cast locally. We were lucky enough to be able to actually shoot in North Carolina, which happens so rarely these days. They always want to move you to someplace cheaper, and so you cast locally there and you end up with all these Canadians, say, trying to understand what a North Carolina accent is... not that I don't love Canadians.

ALL RIGHT, ONE MORE QUESTION, CAUSE I KNOW HOW THE READERS OF “NATHAN JR.” JUST LOVE THEIR HOLLYWOOD SLEAZE. TELL ME… ARE THERE ANY SPECIAL, BEHIND-THE-SCENES CASTING STORIES FROM JUNEBUG THAT YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO SHARE WITH US? ANYTHING WILL DO, AS LONG AS IT'S DIRTY.

Like what, an actor showing up drunk or offering to sleep with me for the part of something? Traditionally, the only one drunk at casting sessions is me. But no, I didn't sleep with or get propositioned by anyone in the cast - although if Celia ever asked, I'd probably hop the fence and do it, just out of respect. I'm pretty sure she's married, though.

--- Mark Bennett, 30, currently resides in Los Angeles, California. He has served as casting director for numerous feature-length films, including the Academy Award-winning MONSTER'S BALL, IN THE CUT, ALEXANDER, UNFAITHFUL, and the latest from director David Cronenberg, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE.

--- Garrison Taylor, 24, is your humble Hollywood reporter. He is a frequent, almost obsessive, contributor to NATHAN JR. (in which this interview appears next month), and has recently decided that (despite an undeniably acute allergy) he may indeed like cats.

TWIN PEAKS:

FIRE WALK WITH ME

"When this kind of fire starts, it is very hard to put out.

The tender boughs of innocence burn first, and the wind rises,

and then all goodness is in jeopardy."

-- The Log Lady

David Lynch's wildly misunderstood film prequel to the hit television series TWIN PEAKS has slowly garnered a belated appreciation since it's disasterous, boo-laden debut at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Initially viewed as an overly cryptic, misogynistic mess, time has been kind to this surreal and operatic lament to innocence corrupted.

Following the last seven days in the life of doomed high school prom queen, Laura Palmer, Lynch takes the symbols and iconography of his beloved mass media hit and reframes them in such a way as to give cinema what may be it’s greatest ever evocation of the inner psychology of a victim of rape and incest.

As Lynch draws ever closer to the night of Laura’s brutal murder, the viewer is allowed to become an intimate witness to the details of her father’s “possession” by the sadistic spirit “Bob,” a very clever and effective metaphor that ruminates on the way both an abuser and a victim can employ the concept of a “split identity” in order to cope with an increasingly unbearable reality. Lynch also compliments this extreme drama with some of his most beautiful and disturbing visual compositions, a gut-wrenching lead performance by Sheryl Lee, and a supremely haunting score by long-time collaborator Angelo Badalamenti.

Fire Walk With Me is without a doubt one of the most overlooked films of the 90’s, and like any great film, it has grown well with age and repeated viewings. It’s all heavy stuff, assuredly, but well worth the time for any serious cinephile.

-- originally appeared in the May 2005 issue of NATHAN, JR.

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LAST DAYS:

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Gus Van Sant Tackles Suicide

(and in the meantime,

saves his cinematic soul)

So here we have it, the final installment in Gus Van Sant’s ambitious (though some would say misguided) trilogy of death… “deluded” death, to be more exact, and mind you the distinction is an important one. First, there was 2002’s flawed but bold Gerry (death by a friend), followed closely by 2003’s masterful Palme d'Or-winning Elephant (death by a stranger). This year, however, Van Sant delivers Last Days, a piercing meditation on suicide that takes as it’s blueprint the final days in the life of enigmatic rocker, Kurt Cobain.

It’s definitely helpful to note that not only have all three films shared a variation on this common mortal theme, but they’ve also employed mostly improvised dialogue paired with purposefully sparse plots, each kept afloat by the absolutely stunning work of the trilogy’s gifted cinematographer, Harris Savides (Birth, Seven). Van Sant has seemed determined to shake off the stink of such uncommitted, artistic clunkers as Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester (aka Good Will Hunting, Part 2), and now, almost impossibly, he seems to have done just that.

Last Days opens with the somber image of Michael Pitt’s Blake (our Cobain surrogate) wandering aimlessly through the woods near his secluded, northwestern mansion. He mumbles despondently to himself as he bathes and urinates in a nearby stream, and is less of a vital person here, really, than a wounded animal exhaustively searching for a quiet place to curl up and disappear. Those who watch closely will notice the inpatient bracelet still fastened to his wrist. With this, the viewer can assume that Blake (much like Cobain in the short days before his demise) has recently escaped from a drug rehabilitation center. Later, when he is shown shakily digging up a small cigar box near his home, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s probably hidden inside.

The majority of the film deftly catalogues the remainder of this slow descent, using a series of fluidly sustained tracking shots following Blake as he flounders in his own heroin-induced haze. We see him fumble with the preparation of what inevitably becomes an undercooked helping of instant macaroni and cheese. Then there is a comedic, yet oddly tender, encounter with a door-to-door salesman (Pitt is extremely strong here). And, yes, there is even Blake in his own practice space, yelping and scowling as he pounds away upon a whole slew of musical instruments, probably aware that he better soon get his fill of them. It’s what little interaction Blake commands with the people closest to him, however, that most makes this film so heartbreaking.

Four others are shown to be sharing Blake’s house during this dark and desperate time, most notably a fellow musician named Scott (Van Sant regular and former street hustler, Scott Green). His character most likely draws inspiration from Michael Dewitt (nicknamed Calli) who was the nanny of Cobain’s daughter at the time, and who is pictured quite memorably while wearing a dress upon the CD for Nirvana’s last official LP, In Utero. A seemingly gratuitous (at least, at first) homosexual encounter between Scott and another of the houseguests (Lukas Haas) also lends itself to this supposition.

As Calli was present in Cobain’s home at the time of his suicide, it becomes clear that his probable fictional counterpart, Scott, is the character that best has a chance at pulling Blake back from the proverbial edge. It’s quite disturbing, then, to see his ill-advised attempts at shielding his “fugitive” friend from the incessant calls requesting his whereabouts, or even his efforts at thwarting the private detective (Ricky Jay) sent by Blake’s absent wife, Blackie (quite clearly, the film’s refreshingly non-judgmental nod to Courtney Love).

As he did in Elephant, though, Van Sant chooses not to lay blame directly on any one situation or person, but simply observes from afar the various possible causes that might have lead to such tragedy. As Scott and the others quickly vacate the mansion towards the film’s end, the viewer is very much allowed to witness the regret in his eyes as he views Blake solemnly through a large and lonely window… pacing, alone, and fairly oblivious.

This moment readily recalls what may be the film’s most significant scene, an earlier visit from a label representative played by Kim Gordon of the seminal rock band, Sonic Youth. “Do you talk to your daughter?” she asks Blake. Then, with only the slightest bit of edge in her voice, she sadly adds, “Do you tell her you’re sorry for being a rock and roll cliché?” More or less, she never gets an answer, and it’s with this character’s exit that the viewer painfully discerns that Blake’s fate has long ago been sealed. The events that then play out in the final moments of Last Days are pretty much in line with the reality of what transpired with Cobain. This anticipation, however, does little to shield the undeniable sadness that must grow alongside it.

It’s curious, too (although not that unexpected), that Van Sant deems it appropriate in this film to reveal his own personal feelings about Cobain when, once Blake is dead, an apparitional and naked version of his spirit is seen briefly climbing upwards to a supposed (metaphorical?) heaven. It is a delicate and nearly problematic scene that, in the end, is completely warranted. For who can one blame, really, when a death is self-inflicted? What good can such accusations yield? Van Sant, more than any other filmmaker before him, appears to understand these delicate questions. And in this, quite possibly his greatest film, he humbly observes the want for a hope that, somehow, a great suffering has been extinguished… for everyone… everywhere.

* the above review appears in this month's issue of NATHAN, JR. (a Los Angeles-based film 'zine)

MYSTERIOUS SKIN:

a

brief analysis

of

the year's best film

The closing scene of Gregg Araki’s new film Mysterious Skin can rightfully be included among the more emotionally devastating moments in recent American cinema. How curious, too, that it should also provide such an unexpected uplift of hope and possibility, tucked so firmly as it is in the bleakest of all dark corners.

Huddled in a stranger’s shadowy living room on Christmas Eve, teenage hustler Neil McCormick (Joseph Gordon Levitt, in a spastically fascinating performance) numbly rattles off to Bryan (Brady Corbet) the sinister details of a once shared and fateful night of horror. It is a scenario that amply feeds a sense in the viewer that he or she may have somehow overstepped the private boundaries of what is understood (but certainly not felt) to be a set of purely “fictional” characters. Such a thing is a rare and highly ambiguous feeling in movies, an incredibly vital and overwhelming gift that Araki has constructed in this, his most important and mature work to date.

Based on Scott Heim’s powerful novel of the same name, the film version of Mysterious Skin is an anomaly in the way it juxtaposes the two most prevalent coping mechanisms employed by survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The first, embodied in the hyper-sexualized character of Neil, is a type that seems to readily embrace his or her own loss of innocence, mythologizing both the past traumatic event as well as its manipulative perpetrator (in this case, Neil and Bryan’s Little League coach, played with great care by Bill Sage). Neil’s choice of profession is a subtle cue to this idea, as he consciously seeks (through dodgy meetings with a series of older “johns”) a kind of off-kilter sexual dynamic comparable to the type he first experienced as a child. It’s pretty clear how he survives, by injecting both his past and its demons with a heavy jolt of eroticism.

Quite a different tactic altogether is used by fellow wounded soul, Bryan Lackey, Neil’s naive but no less troubled foil. Bryan, who attributes the “blackouts” he experienced as a child to possible alien abduction, is a textbook case of psychological denial and repression. In the film, he embarks on a quest to unlock the mysteries of a summer in which he suspects things went terribly wrong for him. Unlike Neil, though, who has managed to at least remain somewhat cognizant of his own corruption, Bryan has been so emotionally and sexually stunted in the subsequent years that both his appearance and mindset are pretty much that of the small child he was only briefly allowed to be. Araki makes a conscious effort in the film to highlight this immaturity, and even has another character refer to Bryan once as “kind of asexual,” a signpost that connects him to Neil (although obviously from the opposite side of the spectrum).

When Neil and Bryan finally do come together at the film’s end, it is a watershed moment set in the very location of the boys’ mutual nightmare. As Neil recounts to Bryan the sickening details of their coach’s transgressions, Bryan is finally forced to replace his alien abduction fantasies with that of a much harsher reality. In return, Bryan’s flowing tears at this haunting revelation finally provide Neil a channel through which he may feel his own pain. As an angelic group of carolers suddenly converge outside the darkened house, their ethereal take on “Silent Night” balanced cautiously in the quiet evening, both young men are sufficiently floored by the roundabout way in which hope has found them again… broken, together, and shivering in the night.

* The above review originally appeared in the July 2005 issue of NATHAN, JR.