(500) Days of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009)

One of the characteristics that I most appreciated about Marc Webb’s debut feature (500) Days of Summer was its adherence to depicting a relationship unto itself in all its highs and lows, from courtship to break-up and maybe back again. There’s no infidelity that leads to a huge blow-up, no manufactured drama to push the plot forward. One day Tom Hanson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) are together and the next they’re not. And it’s largely left up to the characters and the audience – through indicators, sure – to decide why. The film is told in an out-of-order presentation, as we flip back and forth through their connection (Summer refuses to label it a relationship) with the help of some unfortunately mood-indicating title cards. And what should be shocking for a romantic comedy these days, it gets a lot of the moments right without relying on a high concept (see: The Proposal) to throw these characters together. There’s a wonderful segment chronicling the high, on-top-of-the-world feelings a relationship can instill in you, amplified to comic effect, but even that is crammed alongside a mood of sick desperation after a breakup and a depression where you can’t even get the resolve to roll out of bed… and sometimes don’t. Then there are the cute moments of flirtation… and the “what the hell happened?” instances where you’re buying Jack Daniels and Twinkies in your bathrobe and no one at work has seen you for a week. The film might be a little too cutesy and plotted for its own good, with Tom overly reliant on his apparently know-it-all, been-there-before kid sister and the 500 days set-up in itself, but there’s a surprising amount of depth here and it’s a real rarity to see the encapsulation of a romance done so well. The film is emotionally impactful and heartfelt and before you know it, it’s Autumn.

Bruno (Larry Charles, 2009)

Sacha Baron Cohen claims his anti-Semitic Kazakhstanian alter ego Borat Sagdiyev is used as a means to lower the guard of interviewees and expose their own intrinsic racisms or indifference to racism. What then does Bruno, his homosexual Austrian character, expose? The irritating, effrontery with which Bruno conducts himself ruins any chance of garnering a real reaction or anything that can be considered social commentary towards homosexuality, leaving nothing but sketch after sketch of people staring aghast at his repellant buffoonery. This is most evident in the scene where Bruno tries to seduce Congressman Ron Paul. As soon as Bruno drops his pants, Ron Paul goes running for the door and the “I can’t believe he just did that” aspect of it doesn’t hold up. Even on Cohen’s “Da Ali G Show,” Bruno always seemed like a superfluous character, best taken in small doses and used mostly to show the superficiality and hyper-self-seriousness of the modeling and fashion world. But that’s a very limited target, and in the film it’s largely ignored in favor of Bruno’s narcissistic aims to become famous. This is largely used as enough reasoning to subject his interviewees and – by default us as his audience – to uncomfortable, upsetting situations and a whole lot of unnecessary frontal male nudity. When the film is working it is genuinely funny, but that occurs from time to time only when Bruno takes a back seat to his “guests” and allows their views to come through (such as in the hunting scene, the talk show scene, Bruno’s conversation about his attempted conversion to heterosexuality and his interview with the parents of child models). Otherwise, it’s a huge misfire. And Cohen doesn’t seem to know who or what he’s trying to target. In or out? Ish don't think so.

Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

While talking up Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino regularly mentioned setting out to make a “men on a mission” movie. The Basterds mission? The simple, depthless goal of killing as many Nazis as possible… in all sorts of torturous and barbaric ways. The trailers themselves all but guaranteed this as “The Jewish Revenge” movie. Thankfully then, this is not the Basterds movie and the movie has considerably more on its mind. Instead Inglourious Basterds more rightfully belongs to Shoshanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), a Jewish woman hiding out in France running a movie theater during the Holocaust, and Col. Hans Landa (the astonishing Christoph Waltz), named after his wartime specialty as “The Jew Hunter.” Landa is among Tarantino’s best creations, a villainous Nazi investigator with a gleeful attitude and a genial manner, he’s all the more creepy and off-putting because of it, and the horrible things he’s capable of unleashing at any time. Any time this character is on screen, Tarantino conducts a master class in building suspense simply through dialogue and the fear of the unknown. The best moments here regularly revolve around some sort of sit down conversational scene. The more problematic areas of the film, as I feared, come from the Basterds themselves. They’re a renegade group of thugs, as they would need to be to be dropped into occupied France and start slaughtering Nazis left and right. The problematic part is more to the point Tarantino wants you to enjoy the slaughter, baseball bat bludgeonings, scalpings, swastika forehead carvings, he’s personally handing out vengeance for WWII. As he’s said himself, this is no doubt a propaganda film but it’s also regularly a sadistic one, and offers the audience far too many opportunities to cheer the massacre. The film is told in five chapters and eventually the stories of Shoshanna and the Basterds converge as they both plan to destroy the movie theater screening a Nazi sniper’s propaganda film Nation’s Pride with the Fuhrer and his highest officials in attendance. There are moments of brilliant filmmaking, storytelling and scriptwriting scattered throughout and I’ll admit the film lodges itself into your memory (I’ve had more cravings to see this film again in theaters than any other 2009 release outside of Public Enemies). As usual, Tarantino’s love of film is found in every moment (hell, he even uses film as a weapon and a film critic for a hero) and the technical aspects are never less than tremendous and ingeniously clever. The performance Tarantino gets out of Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine is also more than noteworthy for its humor and commitment. If it weren’t for Waltz, Pitt would be receiving a lot more notices. This all leads to a finale so dizzyingly outrageous, it took me two days to realize it’s really nothing more than an audacious, juvenile prank. It’s both the best and worst of Quentin Tarantino… and to me that’s still pretty damn good.