Persepolis (2007): A-

Director(s): Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. Screenplay: Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. Cast: Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux and Simon Abkarian. Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics. Runtime: 95 min. Rating: Pg-13.

Based on Marjane Satrapi's own animated series—and brought to life by herself with the help of Vincent Paronnaud—Persepolis is a technical triumph as much as it is a striking evocation of growing up, a testament to what the cinema can transcend through artistry coupled with humanism. As brazenly honest as films about their own creators go, Persepolis recounts Satrapi's (Voiced by Lopes as a young girl) coming of age from 1979's Iranian revolution to her move to Vienna in the 80's during her adolescence (she is voiced by Mastroianni an adolescent and an adult). It is, indeed, a time of political crisis in Iran, as in each frame their is an echo of threats and distrusts, from her father's (voiced by Abkarian) hope to her mother's (voiced by Deneuve) rightful unwillingness to comply with the government. Each chapter—the film is framed by time segments—contains its own joys and laughs; but as a whole, through the austerity of the animated images comes a poignantly simple, unpretentious and utterly sincere tale of what it means to grow up through a time of war and suffering. That it does this through its masterful aesthetic design—from the beautiful eyes of little Marjane to each unique frame—only helps to create a marvel of animation. But none of this is fake. No, Persepolis, as truthful as stories come, is a work of true expression. Unlike so many of today's superficial films, you can feel the director spilling her emotions in every frame.

The Lives of Others (2006): A-

Director(s): Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Screenplay: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Cast: Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Thomas Thieme, Hans-Uwe Bauer, Volkmar Kleinert, Matthias Brenner, Thomas Arnold, Ludwig Blochberger, Werner Daehn, Marie Gruber and Udo Hübner. Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics. Runtime: 137 min. Rating: R.

It's rare that first films from a first director get my full support, but The Lives of Others is really something special, both beautifully portrayed and written. It's also clear, of course, that Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has skill; even though it's only his first film, some of the content of the film is so remarkable that it immediately brings to mind a feel of veteran mastery.

The film takes place in East Germany, 1984. There are two good men, but they are never shown on the same frame together. One, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), a successful playwright; the other, Capt. Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe, who gives of what is the best supporting performance in recent memory), the Stasi officer who spies on him. Georg, tall and intelligent, leads something of a charmed life, enjoying a measure of official favor without losing the respect of his fellow artists, who are not all as lucky, or as circumspect, as he is. Capt. Wiesler, a first-appearing evil teacher of law at the local university, is handed down the case of 'Operation Lazlo'. With the excellent score playing in the background, one immediately sees the apartment bugged cameras on the first floor and the Capt.’s memorable face as he listens in. It is pale; his features are bland -- not too sharp, not at all soft, except for his steel blue eyes.

Critics have already been diminishing the film, claiming that it is flat as a character study. In some ways, they are right, though I suspect that some critics are simply not buying what it's selling (there is a study cached among its excellent tone, its final shot evoking this). Yet The Lives of Others is truly something special and rare, disturbingly accurate and really quite extraordinary. In the end, however, it proves to the viewer not only keen filmmaking skill, but rather the ability of mankind to change upon its surroundings. It's rare that a beginning film reach out to me the way this one did, but The Lives of Others is a most exciting film.

Zodiac (2007): A-

Director(s): David Fincher. Screenplay: James Vanderbilt. Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Robert Downy Jr., Brian Cox, Chloë Sevigny, Elias Koteas, Dermot Mulroney, Donal Logue, Clea DuVall, Philip Baker Hall and John Carroll Lynch. Distributor: Paramount Pictures. Runtime: 155 min. Rating: R. Year: 2007.

Exhilarating, unshakeable, mesmerizing, baffling, and adept beyond belief, David Fincher's Zodiac neither lacks ambition nor audacity. Combining all aspects of Fincher's works from his cynical Se7en to his brilliant Fight Club, Zodiac is of the rarest—and dying—kind of Hollywood thrillers, both simplistically alive and meticulously astute.

Both a superb character study and a film about true obsessions, Zodiac chronicles various people as they try to uncover the true killer that terrorized the bay area for more than 22 years. The first scene—the film's seemingly drawing introduction— is truly unshakeable: a young couple is stationed at a very high altitude (possibly a mountain). As they wonder along with their business, a car stops. It is seemingly dark, allowing the eyes watching the film to see nothing. The car waits and pulls away. The couple is startled, but as they are caught up in their oblique emotions the man in the car returns and comes out. "You gave us quite a scare", says the young man. As a memorable rock tune plays in the background, the couple is shot down relentlessly. So comes the first death, so comes the mesmerizing Zodiac. A string of other murders pursue, and thus we are introduced to the characters. For one, San Francisco Chronicle "boy scout" cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), compulsive but a good man. The second, a hard boiled Mark Ruffalo as David Toschi, the main investigator in the case. And finally, the brilliant, boozy, ascot-wearing Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr., exhibiting his usual quirky, attractive idiosyncrasies.) They each part their own way, all finding info on the killer but never anything conclusive. Graysmith, on the side of Avery, smartly cracks codes from the zodiac sent to the Chronicle, which gives good credit to Gyllenhal. Overall, he plays his part well, both compulsively pitched and shaky (his character). Shot on state-of-the-art HD by Harris Savides via a process that required absolutely no celluloid or tape, Zodiac gives off somewhat of a rich, smoky feel, often felt as if it were shot with a Mini DV. This also gives a feel of realism towards a film that is not supposed to be interpreted that way at all. Such a toned-down aesthetic (full of fades to black) is matched by David Shire's taut score and the director's conspicuously reserved camerawork, which favors both masterful crane-shots and visual close-ups giving the audience it's grab towards emotion. Years pass by and still there is nothing, yet, Graysmith develops an obsession towards finding the killer. Convinced that former military man and convicted pedophile Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch) is the Zodiac, Graysmith finds himself incapable of doing anything substantial about it, his reward for going crazy and alienating loved ones and colleagues proves his obsession. He ends up writing a book all about the Zodiac, and this is where the film comes from; the taut script seems to be original but isn't, both juxtaposing key informative points and the reality of character.

Although Zodiac looks like the average, done-deal, it truly isn't. Mixed with stunning casting (especially Ruffalo, who finally proves himself), a beautiful chronology that never seems to slog the film's pace, and a feeling of overall realism, Zodiac really is a director at the top of his game. The film is in its own world, unique in its own ways, but also glares a sense of naturalism. Zodiac embeddes the beauty of itself in our minds, creating a stark, unforgettable journey that truly must be seen to be believed.

After the Wedding (2006): B+

Director(s): Susanne Bier. Screenplay: Susanne Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen. Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Rolf Lassgård, Stine Fischer Christensen, Mona Malm, Christian Tafdrup and Niels Anders Thorn. Distributor: IFC Films. Runtime: 119 min. Rating: NR. Year: 2006.

Susanne Bier's After the Wedding was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards this past February. And deservingly so. Yet another richly complex foreign language film, After the Wedding is illuminating, a film whose deep rofoundness reaches an unfathomable cathartic level past any simple contrivance. Jacob (a silently effective Mads Mikkelsen), from Denmark, runs an orphanage in India. This is where Bier's film starts, and she uses a DV—just a simple part of the film's proving aesthetic—to film it. The first shot is of kids lining up waiting for Jacob to feed them. When summoned to Denmark to sustain the orphanage, a kid, quite close to Jacob who lives there says, "You won't come back". Jacob laughs at him, claiming that he hates rich people. Once in Denmark, Jacob meets the obscenely rich Jørgen (Rolf Lassgård), who immediately cuts business and invites him to his daughter's wedding. Jacob goes, but a secret ensues: Jørgen's daughter (Stine Fischer Christensen) (spoiler alert!) is really Jacob's, and Jørgen's wife was once his girlfriend. The film surprisingly avoids soap-drama machinations; for one, Bier's film is concentrated on the human catharsis, and second, more than anything, the actors stop this from occurring. The whole cast—especially Rolf Lassgård, who plays Jørgen—acts magnificently, and without this aspect such a film would be down the drain. Bier's aesthetic is appeased by the film's own poetic milieu— the extreme close-ups, flowers, the house, and taxidermied animals, are just signs of precious life itself. Another one of After the Wedding's stratagems is that someone is dying—it's (spoiler alert!) Jørgen. Many scenes are purely emotionally arresting. Bier knows this throughout; as the film moves along, scenes become stressed and everything is evoked into turmoil. Bier plays with this aspect mostly through Jørgen—whose death waits quite soon—and not even after his death is the film satisfactory: Bier still plays with Jacob. More than anything, After the Wedding is just simply a character study—a complicated, but superb one. The circumstances are complex, but connaissence it does not lack; the depth of each character is immeasurable for just one viewing.Demoralizing to its very core, After the Wedding is richly multifaceted and rough, but posses a harmonious spiritual center. Multiple viewings, will, no doubt, reveal more, but from one viewing, Bier's film is emotionally stable, with a cathartic thrust of gold.

By the end of the film, Jacob is forced to stay in Denmark as part of a deal he signed with Jørgen. This is Bier's last and most unpredictable trick: the kid was right.

Juno (2007): B

Director(s): Jason Reitman. Screenplay: Diablo Cody. Cast: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Olivia Thirlby, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney, Rainn Wilson and Lucas MacFadden. Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures. Runtime: 92 min. Rating: PG-13.

The brilliance of Juno is in the way it presents itself to the audience. After the pretentious, smug, absurdly overrated Thank You for Smoking, I walked in with low expectations; totally unlike Jason Reitman's previous film, Juno is a wonderfully unpretentious character study that, in the long run, ends up being more touching than any recent comedy has the right to be. The film stars Ellen Page—and inhabiting it perfectly—as its titular character Juno, a sixteen year old who finds herself knocked up by her best friend (Michael Cera); abortion seems to not exactly be Juno's most-wanted option, as she opts for foster parents (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) to take care of her child once born. Reitman unpretentiously frames his narrative through seasons, while Cody's witty script seems to beautifully encapsulate Juno's overall psyche through each one. And while the film's first fifteen minutes or so are incredibly dull and dowdy in their familiarity, Juno marvelously finds its soul—by the end, it achieves an unfathomably graceful, almost pitch-perfect harmony.

The Savages (2007): B

Director(s): Tamara Jenkins. Screenplay: Tamara Jenkins. Cast: Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Bosco, Peter Friedman, Gbenga Akinnagbe and Cara Seymour. Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures. Runtime: 113 min. Rating: R.

Tamara Jenkins' new film, The Savages, deals with the ubiquitous dilemma of dealing with the elders when they can no longer care for themselves. While the film takes a different approach then the brilliant aesthetic qualities and profound themes of Away from Her, Jenkins' work clearly stresses this as its theme, its modus operandi a more comical yet nevertheless biting portrayal of a similar situation to that as Sarah Polley's work. It is one, conversely, about two siblings, playwrights Jon and Wendy (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney), forced to roadblock their "lives" in favor of taking care of their Dementia-diagnosed father (Peter Friedman); all three go into the whole nursing home crisis, the narrative dutifully dramatizing their plight through comedy and extraordinarily well framed character development. However, it's Hoffman and Linney's pas de deux, bent to Jenkins' acutely stinging writing, that is what robs the show—despite the fact that, unfortunately, it is aestheticized with a buoyant, often un-moving manner. Jenkins can't exactly avoid genre conventions—moments are contrived and predictable—yet The Savages has this bleak, rare sting that comes to it all in a remarkable fashion; while at first light, there is a cached profoundity to the film, ultimately the film's true virtue.

Atonement (2006): C+

Director(s): Joe Wright. Screenplay: Christopher Hampton. Cast: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Romola Garai, Saoirse Ronan, Brenda Blethyn, Vanessa Redgrave, Juno Temple, Patrick Kennedy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Harriet Walter, Michelle Duncan, Gina McKee, Daniel Mays and Alfie Allen. Distributor: Focus Features. Runtime: 122 min. Rating: R.

Oscar season continues with Atonement, Joe Wright's overly-calculated adaptation of Ian McEwan universally acclaimed novel. However moving and faux-imaginative as its primary themes suggest, the film's roadblock is its ostensible and black marked raison d'etre: Academy Awards. The film starts circa the late 1930's, as the war starts to arm up; it is the tale of Briony (Saoirse Ronan), a young girl whose primary love is to write (almost the first thing we hear in the film is the sound of the type-writer, slightly incorporating itself into the film's score). Naivety, however, causes havoc in the family itself, as the child finds herself falsely accusing the gardener, played by the solid James McAvoy, of raping her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley)—though they are both in love—as well as, incidentally, a member in the extended family; one could say, indeed, that it is an indignant plan—Brinony herself being herself a striving writer—though it certainly doesn't stop the whole dilemma from entering the war, as Cecilia and her love find herself separated at the cost of the girl' stupid little mistake (the titular "atonement" comes into play later in the film.) Fashioned in faux-chronological order, the narrative itself feels strained of naturalness, though nevertheless one able to portray its characters emotions. Yet the film's main problem, however, is in its uneven feeling: however dire their situation is, Atonement refuses to go deeper, almost even afraid to scrap true emotions, despite its harshly realistic ending; one could say that, ironically, Wright has dubiously diminished the themes of his work to please its audience. Artistically, however, the film proves its virtues through a magnificent color palette and cinematography (including a stunning eight-minute tracking shot on the beach, perfectly queued and felt), with both Knightely and McAvoy proving an interesting chemistry on the frame. Moving it is, though the clash of these two ideas ultimately renders Atonement as a semi-beautiful, semi-flawed, semi-felt, and finally, semi-poignant concoction.

Drama/Mex (2006): B-

Director(s): Gerardo Naranjo. Screenplay: Gerardo Naranjo. Cast: Fernando Becerril, Juan Pablo Castaneda, Diana Garcia, Martha Claudia Moreno, Miriana Moro and Emilio Valdés. Distributor: IFC First Take. Runtime: 93 min. Rating: NR.

Gerardo Naranjo's sophomore feature, Drama/Mex, is as unhinged as its protagonists. The film plays out as an Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu hybrid, dubiously and forcefully trying to connect three stories that are uncoiling in Acapulco. The first is that of Fernanda (Diana Garcia), who runs into Chano (Emilio Valdes), her ex boyfriend, at a cafe; the next thing you know, they're in bed. In this case, the drama is that, familiar as it may seem, she already has a boyfriend named Gonzalo (Juan Pablo Castaneda). At the same time, another tedious narrative thread follows Mariana, who, just after being hired by fellow prostitutes, spots Jaime (Fernando Becerril)—a pretty-damn-old man who has such meaningless life that he basically goes to the city to kill himself—and gets him to feed her, entertain her, and shelter her. Despite its grand and promising opening sequence, filled with ambition and audacity, the main problem with Drama/Mex, of course, is its callously exasperating narrative; jaundiced to its very core, it ends up going all over the place, as we now find Gonzalo attacking Chano, Jaime at the club, Fernanda running all over the place, and Mariana buying anything she can. What starts out as a finely nuanced, audaciously handsome drama evolves into a frustrating imbroglio, with a familiar ending that fails to unite its narrative threads; culminating happily, yet with a profound feel—and, as odd as it may seem, such disaster can be pliantly interpreted, even appealingly. Indeed, Drama/Mex is not entirely with out its merit: Naranjo's mesmerizing camera work fits its milieu perfectly, and the fact that he studies his characters first, before sending them to ruin, is proof of its boundless self-confidence—all of which are perpetuated by the miraculous cast which beautifully portrays the dubious situations.

The Violin (2005): B+

Director(s): Francisco Vargas. Screenplay: Francisco Vargas. Cast: Ángel Tavira, Gerardo Taracena, Dagoberto Gama, Mario Garibaldi, Fermín Martínez, Silverio Palacios, Octavio Castro, Mercedes Hernández, Gerardo Juárez, Ariel Galvan, Amorita Rasgado and María Elena Olivares. Runtime: 98 min. Rating: NR.

A strikingly accurate, yet minimalistic and starkly self-reflexive depiction of war, Francisco Vargas Quevedo's The Violin may be one of the greatest Mexican films—an independent one at that—the country has released in quite some time. The film has been adapted from a 15 minute short of the same name—also directed by Vargas—though its unforgettable story of war is no less humanistic and tender, particularly given its violent opening scene: one is thrust into the depths of peasants in the midst of torture, their captors in search of rebels running a civil war against the military. This really plays as the ending, given its main narrative thread is Don Plutarco (Angel Tavira), an old, very wise man who passes as a violin player in order to seize ammo for his cause of the civil war. In his path lies a music-loving commander, who ultimately really ends up friending Plutarco until the film's last scene. Yet The Violin rings with an unfathomable amount of tenderness, whether portrayed through the lens of Vargas' austerely sumptuous black-and-white cinematography to non actor Angel Tavira's incredibly realistic role; the man won best actor at last year's Cannes. And Vargas' realization of the camaraderie amongst the peasants is also surprisingly and warmly portrayed, essentially giving the film its humanistic feel. That Vargas' storytelling is unique and rarely found makes The Violin another fantastic testament against the evils of war.

Live-In Maid (2004): B

Director(s): Jorge Gaggero. Screenplay: Jorge Gaggero. Cast: Norma Aleandro, Norma Argentina, Elsa Berenguer, Hilda Bernard, Monica Gonzaga, Susana Lanterí, Claudia Lapacó and Marcos Mundstock. Distributor: The Film Sales Company. Runtime: 83 min. Rating: NR.

Jorge Gaggero's first feature, Live-In Maid, is a pleasant surprise. The film stars Norma Aleandro as Beba, a bourgeois woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown right before late 2001, when Argentina's economy, already substantially weakened, reached an unprecedentedly bad state. This said, the film's other main protagonist is Dora (Norma Argentina), Beba's live in maid who's already worked at the there for thirty years. As Dora starts to realize that her quite moody boss has barely enough money to pay substantial victuals (as well as her own wage), she decides to take off. It's here where Gaggero's film, especially as his exceedingly nuanced script and wonderful camera work further evoke the time and place, reaches superlative heights—an aspect that only aids the film's astute commentary; essentially, Gaggero recognizes them—especially Dora—as real people. As Beba and Dora's relationship heightens off of the realization that each has his/her identity, their, as well as the film's intimacy, grows by a fantastic amount. Gaggero's script also recognizes the warmth among them; at times funny, piercing, and poignant, it gains heft as it goes along—finally resulting, despite superfluous aesthetic thrust, in a true friendship, as well as something to truly ruminate about.

Paprika (2006): B+

Director(s): Satoshi Kon. Screenplay: Seishi Minakami and Satoshi Kon. Cast: Megumi Hayashibara, Toru Emori, Katsunosuke Hori, Toru Furuya, Akio Ohtsuka, Kouichi Yamadera, Hideyuki Tanaka, Satomi Kohrogi, Daisuke Sakaguchi, Mitsuo Iwata, Rikako Aikawa, Shinichiro Ohta, Shinya Fukumatsu, Akiko Kawase, Kumiko Izumi, Anri Katsu, Eiji Miyashita, Kouzo Mito, Yasutaka Tsutsui and Satoshi Kon. Distributor: Triumph/Destination Films. Runtime: 90 min. Rating: NR.

From the opening scene to the last, it is clear that Paprika is Satoshi Kon's own paradoxical confession. His new film, an exhilarating, mind-blowing and audaciously satisfying anime, is about Paprika, the peppy dream-detective alter ego of the cold-as-ice Dr. Atsuko Chiba (Megumi Hayashibara), who, after hearing about the theft of the D.C Mini—an object that allows for dream eavesdropping—is forced to stop the dream invader using the actual hacking people's dream sleep as well as stop the dreams that are merging among them. Although Kon's narrative is more complicated than anything imagined, one must realize it is a dream. And don't dreams progress in such a way? Paprika's brilliance comes from Kon's breakneck attention to tempo. Switching from REM sleep to real life, his narrative is so aesthetically developed that it's no wonder that it is so entertaining. Also his ability to shape his characters—specifically Chiba—into cold, one-dimensional characters recalling noir. More than that, however, Paprika is proof of the Japanese advancement in the animated genre that truly leaves American counterparts stuck in the sandbox.

Ratatouille (2007): A-

Director(s): Brad Bird. Screenplay: Brad Bird. Cast: Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Lou Romano, Brian Dennehy, Peter Sohn, Peter O'Toole, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garofalo and Will Arnett. Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures. Runtime: 110 min. Rating: G. Year: 2007.

Given that most of this year's animated films have mostly been pure deceptions, one could easily say that Ratatouille is nothing short of a miracle. It's more fun than any movie about a rat discovering his true obsessions—then almost being killed—has the right to be. An affectionate, blithe and gleeful concoction that marks Pixar's return to form, Ratatouille finds director Brad Bird—whose Incredibles is one the finest animated film I have ever seen—keenly at it again, now picking up the story of Remy (Patton Oswalt), a rat gifted with senses able to cook and read. Clearly, he's infatuated with the art of cooking—an aspect that, unfortunately, sees him perpetually out of place with his family: while he wants to cook, all they care about is survival. As Remy's senses grandly start to flourish, one now finds him ardently idolizing chef Gusteau (Brad Garrett), even enough to sneak into a rural human home to watch the chef’s food show. From its title sequence on, Ratatouille gradually escalates in not only fun, but brilliance, as Remy now—after being separated from his family—finds himself in the hands of Lunguini (Lou Romano), a slim, partly slow garbage-boy, who has, luckily, found himself a job at Gusteau's restaurant. At his first day's job, Lunguini finds himself "accidentally" ruining a soup. Led by Gusteau, whose ghost claims himself to be a figment of his imagination, Remy is able to fix the soup before it goes out the the customer. Some random food critic gets it (and loves it), and from there, the conundrum starts: after the evil, head chef (Ian Holm) orders Lunguini to kill Remy—who was found in the kitchen—Lunguini, with the threat that he will not be able to live up to the mean chef's standards and knowing that Remy is his only chance of survival in the kitchen, opts not to, now letting Remy live with him.

Remy now controls—by grabbing onto the slim garbage-boy's hair—Linguini like a marionette, and from there, plot is induced. Narratively speaking, Ratatouille, is, first and foremost, a prime example in which objectives of characters are masterfully used. Its invigoration proves, undoubtedly, Bird's ability to pick up whatever narrative he chooses and bend it to a work of art. As odd as it may seem, Ratatouille is also a brilliantly sophisticated metaphor: from Gusteau's phrase "Anyone can cook" to Remy's raison d'etre, the film juxtaposes the fact that anyone—even a rodent—can do anything to change the course of history. The fact that Remy's naïveté leads him to believe that humans are forgivable creatures is also figuratively used to aid Ratatouille as a whole.

Pixar's animation is, as usual, flawless: from Remy's humorously big, yet cute eyes to the beautifully framed mise-en-scene of Paris, Ratatouille is, for all intents and purposes, delectable. Indeed, as unfortunate as it may seem, the film does not top The Incredibles, but nevertheless, this droll paean to life is a marvel—definitely one of those films nearly flawless in creation, and profoundly received in the heart.

Rescue Dawn (2006): C

Director(s): Werner Herzog. Screenplay: Werner Herzog. Cast: Christian Bale, Jeremy Davies, Steve Zahn, Marshall Bell, François Chau, Craig Gellis, Zach Grenier, Pat Healy, GQ, Toby Huss, Bonnie Z. Hutchinson, Evan Jones, Abhijati "Meuk" Jusakul, Tony B. King, Richard Manning, Garrett D. Melich, Kriangsak Ming-olo, Yuttana Muenwaja and Teerawat Mulvilai. Distributor: MGM. Runtime: 126 min. Rating: R.

Given the origins and continuance of Werner Herzog's still-growing oeuvre, it's safe to say that Rescue Dawn, his newest film, is not up to par with his other works. Recreating the magnificent Little Dieter Needs to Fly into a motion picture, Herzog now eschews a Hollywood-esque narrative that results in exactly something that one didn't expect: another conventional POW escape film. Despite the ethereally realized evocation of time and place, Rescue Dawn is a fine-grained disappointment, not because of the fact that the film fundamentally does not work, but because the result could have added to so much more; the fact is, the film simply seems robbed of Herzog.

Rescue Dawn, unlike most of his films—including the masterful The White Diamond—only encapsulates two of the directors current thematic obsessions: obsessed heroes and nature. Herzog sees Dieter Dengler (a fantastic—like usual—Christian Bale) as a god, which gives him space to aestheticize the former with the latter. While on his first bombing mission over pre-Vietnam War Laos in 1966, Dengler is hit by incoming enemy fire, subsequently crashing on Laotian territory. After being captured by local Laotian soldiers, Dengler—who had just wittingly refused to sign a paper claiming the U.S.'s harms—is put into a POV camp with fellow inmates (among them played by Zahn and Davies). After careful planning and timing, the inmates escape. Up to this point, Rescue Dawn plays as an efficient, barely Herzog recognizable action film. Herzog's camera-work still proves the keen adeptness of the director's skill, but such an aspect is even, as odd as it may seem, quite rare. His script, as usual, is pretty much impeccable, proficiently capturing Dengler's relentless drive to escape.

The thick, mountainous cinematography evokes a fantastically real atmosphere of escape (yet I do not know how the hell Scott Foundas of LA WEEKLY can compare this to Robert Bresson; the latter was a master at escape, turning everything into art), but as surprising as it may seem, Rescue Dawn, through out, lacks that kind of direction-less trance that was conjured in his masterpiece Aguirre: The Wrath of God and subsequent Fitzcarraldo. More than anything, Rescue Dawn, unlike all of his previous films, lacks that and one more thing: the metamorphosis into an eloquent spiritual, transcendental journey. Powerful scenes in the film prove quickly forgettable—much of it, thanks to Klaus Badelt's heinously Hollywood-esque score—and the ending is the true meaning of a disappointment: essentially, it reeks of furthermore Hollywood sentimentality—to the degree that one can not (or dares not) consider it as a Herzog film anymore. It's crystal-clear that the great director could have done so much more with the ending, and it is really quite pernicious, because such a realization of Rescue Dawn's sentimentally familiar end fails to perpetuate it as a heavenly composite of the film's collective whole, something that leaves the viewer visually—and deceptively—circumvented. The acting pas de deux on display in the film clearly redeems the film from any type of inscrutable nightmare, and as the abhorrent score plays during the finale, one can't help but to wonder why Herzog's hallucinatory spell was broken. The act of self-reflexivity has been stripped away, and all is left is pure Herzogian convention. For all it's flaws, At least one can thank MGM that it's a Herzog film.

Ocean's Thirteen (2007): C+

Director(s): Steven Soderbergh. Screenplay: Brian Koppelman and David Levien. Cast: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Elliott Gould, Al Pacino, Eddie Jemison, Don Cheadle, Shaobo Qin, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner, Eddie Izzard, Ellen Barkin, Julian Sands, David Paymer, Vincent Cassel, Andy Garcia and Oprah Winfrey. Distributor: Warner Bros.. Runtime: 122 min. Rating: PG-13. Year: 2007.

There's no denying the slight slickness and rendered fun of Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Thirteen, but the problem is exactly that—everything is slicked up to say to the point of monotonous anesthetics. This time around, it's the whole gang getting payback on some rich-ass casino magnate (Pacino) for putting the gangs idle, Reuben (Gould), in the hospital. Their plan, you ask? Steal the money from his new, shiny hotel, just waiting, yes waiting, to get robbed. The cast doesn't really act—they're just having their fun. Is it entertaining? Yes. Is it good acting? No. Still Entertaining? Yes. The script, as usual, is a load of randomly placed, moronically realized garbage, yet the actors love it, and they use it to their cannon. Is it good acting now? No. Along side Soderberg's slick but uneven camera movements, slick mise-en-scene, and slick cinematography, Ocean's Thirteen still has that insouciant charm, but after the film's unexpected climax, it wears down. I suspect that the easiest comparison to the film is definitely a sugar high. Take your pick.

La Vie en Rose (2007): C-

Director(s): Olivier Dahan. Screenplay: Olivier Dahan. Cast: Marion Cotillard, Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory, Emmanuelle Seigner, Gerard Depardieu and Clotilde Courau. Distributor: Picturehouse. Runtime: 140 min. Rating: PG-13.

Usually, biopics have a tough time balancing an adequate narrative with the life of the subject. Olivier Dahan's newest film, La Vie en Rose, is no exception to such a precedent. A hideously esoteric affair so claustrophobic in essence to the point in which you want to run out of the theater for a breath of fresh air, La Vie en Rose fails to lucidly encapsulate singer Edith Piaf's (played by Marion Cotillard) life, shamelessly taking key points in her life and ripping them to pieces through an erroneous and essentially blemished narrative; one of pure mediocrity, it jumps all over the place sans any particular raison d'etre: one day, Piaf is 6, the next day, she's 45, the next day, she's 24, and the next-next day she is dead. Piaf's life makes for an appealing premise: the girl—poor, un-cared for by her mother, and most of the time sick—suffered much when little; indeed, if anything, the film does accurately capture her suffering, but it's when Dahan starts framing certain scenes as clichés that the problems start. I don't know what the hell such a glitched narrative is of good use for, but here, it ruins everything—as Piaf grows up, she discovers her talent, then sings, gets drunk, almost gets married, is born (oh, whoops, wrong order), sings, collapses, then, as unfortunate as it may seem, dies. The film is so caught up in the fundamentals of the incoherent narrative that it leaves everything—specifically Cotillard's dazzling performance—un-cared for, also blatantly leaving you monotonously awed at the screen in desperation. Piaf's life was, indeed, tragic, but the film only lays tragedy upon tragedy, and death upon death in such a melodramatic way that all you want to do is leave. Hideously manipulated, La Vie en Rose has, for all intents and purposes, failed Piaf, as its final shot dares not evoke a tragic ending—more proof that La Vie en Rose is as commercial as French films get. And that is not, not, a good thing.

No Country for Old Men (2007): A

Director(s): Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Tess Harper and Barry Corbin. Distributor: Miramax Films. Runtime: 122 min. Rating: R.

Joel and Ethan Coen's superlative new film opens with sublime shots of a small Texan desert, paralleled by a Tommy Lee Jones voice-over. It's an exhilarating establishment of a story, with the each shot increasing in sunlight until the beautiful landscape is fully-lit. The camera subsequently pans to a man—a cow stunner in hand—being arrested; he gets in the cop car, and the voice-over immediately comes to a close. It is a moment of beauteous exactness, where space, time and even fear are accounted for; without a doubt, this exactness of time and space is one of the many trademarks of The Coens' No Country for Old Men—a stunning, searing masterpiece, raw and beautiful by turns. It is that rare work of art that thrills the senses and the mind, while unequivocally reaching a cinematic apex in filmmaking and storytelling.

No Country for Old Men is the first film not coming from the Coens' own material. Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's brooding, coldly written novel, the material nevertheless seems to compliment the siblings' style, with comedy, grimly original characters, and a wry script in hand; the film also undoubtedly marks their return to form, dropping the disappointing feel of The Ladykillers and continuing the exceptional neo-noir-type genre of their masterpieces Blood Simple and Fargo. (One could even say their is a hint of The Big Lebowski, particularly in its narrative backbone.) The film stars Josh Brolin as Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss, who, while hunting in a barren desert similar to that of the opening shot, stumbles upon trouble: dead men, drugs, and two million dollars; needless to say, he runs with the money, having not a clue what is expected. Leaving his naive wife (Beth Grant), he subsequently chooses to abandon everything, in turn taking the money and running. Yet more than the police is after him; the man from the opening shot, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) wants the money and his life, but what comes is more than cat and mouse—it's a massacre to the environment that Moss flees to. Anton is a psychopath, simply crazy, his face unforgettable—to these eyes, he could be one of the most scary villains in quite some time, representing an unstoppable inhuman force. If, then, Chigurh represents what one could call an inhuman machine, then Moss represents the exact opposite: humane. Following McCarthy's lead, this is one of the many moral themes the story represents, though I suppose this is one of the biggest, given its main connection to its title that, upon second viewing, seems explicitly lucid.

The film—and its narrative therein—is so brutishly constructed, so perfectly realized, so caught up in its nihilism that it's almost as if what is happening is real. This happens, in specificity, because of the way the Coens are able racketeer an insinuating tension throughout; they get it all right. The film reaches a cinematic nirvana because of its perfect tension—basically another element mastered by the Coens. Roger Deakins's sublime cinematography perpetuates the events on screen in a transcendent way, as his shots echo the film's austere mise-en-scene with exact precision; every empty space, every little light—it all seems to become part of the film's stark collective whole. Landscapes, motel rooms, houses—the way the film is framed also seems to exude a balance in between tranquility and brutality; as the camera tracks, at any given moment, one won't know what comes next. Yet this is one of the Coen's auteristic trademarks, and this film is no different: it's also wryly funny and cunning. This is why it's so unique, also given the film's acting. Bardem's tour-de-force is transcendently matched with McCarthy's description, and to these eyes he is creepy as hell—albeit truly unforgettable (and worthy enough to be called one of the best performances of the year). Jones, Bardem, and Brolin together finish up the film's perfection, as the camera captures each countenance in every scene with unforgettable shots. These actors have found their film.

The last quarter of the film is centered on Jones's sheriff—who is caught up in the whole thing. He is a man who no longer fathoms the extents of the universe he once lived in, as he explains how he cannot keep up with his job, or even his routine. Here, the film changes from cat and mouse to a striking moral balance, as both Moss and Chigurh's missions seem to, metaphorically, be complete. The Coen's don't blatantly dodge such a conclusion, yet it's definitely new ground for them: much like the opening shot, No Country for Old Men's finale is of the sheriff telling his wife a dream—which is, in context, a strikingly similar idea to the film's main idea that, also upon second viewing, I suspect many will oversee. But the moral is there, and it perpetuates the whole of the film itself: a triumph in every sense of the word, No Country for Old Men really ends up being not only a testament to brilliant filmmaking, but a meditation on the way society works now.

American Gangster (2007): C

Director(s): Ridley Scott. Screenplay: Steven Zaillian. Cast: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lymari Nadal, Ted Levine, Armand Assante, Cuba Gooding Jr., Carla Gugino, John Hawkes, Ruby Dee, Clarence Williams III and Idris Elba. Distributor: Universal Pictures. Runtime: 158 min. Rating: R.

That American Gangster has received a surprising amount of critic appraise does not exclude it from an overall category found around this time of the year: Oscar bait. Pas de deux acting, historical topics, famous actors—you name it. Essentially, there's no way to escape this, as director Ridley Scott's newest concoction bears all of these trademarks mixed in a 70's milieu, the ultimate result being a tumultuous yet impeccably well-designed archetype unable to escape a sudden sense of familiarity all around; in recreating an embracingly deft milieu of the 70's, however, Scott, like in Blade Runner, has found an acceptable match. Not letting back, Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas, a criminal mastermind in terms of drugs and getting drugs—he gets his stuff straight from Thailand, this being an impetus for many people to use heroine quite more back in the 70's. Working in faux-intelligent parallelism, Scott also adds Russel Crowe's Richie Roberts to mirror Lucas's actions: both start out with nothing, ultimately crescendoing—the former in his drug money, and the latter on the investigation. More cast, in essence characters, are added, boiling the whole situation up above the norm, ultimately climaxing in a gripping shoot-out—yet again technically cool but not felt.

Without a doubt, this quality lacks throughout: however technically it succeeds, the film will never be able to escape its superficial ways and find a deeper meaning, this being American Gangster's main dilemma. Scott seems to have a certain amount of respect for both, though ultimately it's shown in, without a doubt, the film's best scene: the two men talking face to face. Respectively, the pas de deux works efficiently as usual, Washington giving a charismatic performance and Crowe adding what little he can to his do-good character. The film rests on their shoulders, as well as its vivid sense of place; yet its clunky running time also leads to narrative deficiencies throughout. However, an interesting success of the film is the way it manages to balance out Washington's performance with grimacing scenes of tension. There should be more of these; there aren't.

Terror's Advocate (2007): B

Director(s): Barbet Schroeder. Cast: Jacques Vergès, Abderrahmane Benhamida, Bachir Boumaâza, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, Lionel Duroy, Hans-Joachim Klein, Magdalena Kopp, Gilles Ménage, Anis Naccache, Siné and Martine Tigrane. Distributor: Magnolia Pictures. Runtime: 135 min. Rating: NR

Dictators. Terrorists. War Criminals—I don't know where the hell to start, except to say that Jacques Vergès has basically defended them all. Director Barbet Schroeder's new documentary centers on the man himself, a slick, even quite narcissistic defender of all, starting from iconic Algiers bomber Djamilla to Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, as well as Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy and famous terrorist "Carlos". "I'd even defend Bush!", he says. Respectably, the tone to match with this type of subject is slick as the man himself, and Schroeder vividly aestheticized his material by transcending a myriad of talking heads and old archival footage throughout; the film is chronologically structured, and as it goes along, it seems to luxuriate and crescendo in its rhythm. When Terror's Advocate chooses to become an unnecessarily complex political thriller, it does stray away from its primary subject; yet nevertheless, Schroeder's film is elegantly made and fascinating.

Resurrecting the Best of War Films: Terrence Malick's 1998 Masterpiece The Thin Red Line

Director(s): Terrence Malick. Screenplay: Terrence Malick. Cast: Sean Penn, Ben Chaplin, Nick Nolte, Woody Harrelson, Adrian Brody, Jim Caviezel, John Cusack, Elias Koteas, John C. Reilly, George Clooney, Travis Fine. Distributor: Fox 2000. Runtime: 170 min. Rating: R.

On December 7, 1942, the world, like on many occasions during World War II, short-circuited. In an attack launched by the Japanese to so call "get the main target out of the way", 2043 men were killed and 1178 were blatantly injured. Almost immediately, The United States called for war. It was that same year, however, that the Unites States advanced to the Guadalcanal, a small island on the Solomon Islands that, a few years before this attacked, had been occupied by the Japanese. Director Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line begins here, on the Guadalcanal, as soldiers prepare to seize the island. Full of poetic grandeur hardly seen in films anymore, both literal and with the possession of an unfathomable emotional heft, Malick's superlative masterpiece is one of the greatest anti-war films ever made, both that rare work of art that thrills the senses and the mind as well as evidence of brilliantly martyred American filmmaking.

Whereas films like Steven Speilberg's Saving Private Ryan were good in its creation, and essentially spoon-feed their audiences, The Thin Red Line differentiates the average narrative. From the first shot—an alligator, sweeping out of the water, a symbol of the death—it is clear that Malick knows how to bend poetry to his canon, an act of auteurist self-reflexivity in keeping with the director's belief in the powerful influence of history on the here and now—and history is by far Malick's favorite subject. In his recent unqualified masterwork The New World, he brought one the story of Jamestown Virginia, with Pocahontas and Smith through, yet again, visceral poetry. Whereas that sociologically and emotionally encased itself in a swirl of hallucinatory images, both unforgettable yet light in creation, The Thin Red Line forms a miasma around the viewer, also unforgettable yet compulsively watchable. Although Malick's style is the same, the director now eschews an unprecedented aesthetic development, resulting in the pinnacle of his career.

As Malick's camera scrolls around the frame, soldiers are met: the ranking officer in the fray is Lt. Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte), an aspiring Patton who's finally found his war. Under him are Captains Staros (Elias Koteas) and Gaff (John Cusack), Sgts. Keck (Woody Harrelson) and Welsh (Sean Penn). Along side them, arguably the main protagonist—the only one Malick attaches a subplot to—is Witt (James Caviezel), a young, yet austere and cynical person, both shy yet silently intelligent. In less outré hands, characters would be shamelessly studied and carved to pieces, yet Malick, in another one of his stratagems, fashions them as two-dimensional archetypes; excluding Witt, characters are not as well known as they could be. As the soldiers prepare for battle, fear eats their faces, a stark reminder that among soldiers, there is no heaven, no hell, no salvation; only war, and the existential fear of death crossed with the undeniable will to survive.

The first quarter of the film is spent spiritually analyzing fear, and it is when the Japanese launch their attack that Malick's film awakens from its miasmatically dreamy core. It's still a mesmerizing dream of a film, yet through war and suffering, Malick also finds beauty. As bloody as it is, soldiers are shot, mortally wounded and even stabbed by what the Japanese would call Banzai Charges (charges in which they would lunge with and brutally attack the enemy with their bayonets). Yet there is a difference in between what André Bazin of Cahiers du Cinema used to call "The Cinema of Cruelty". The Thin Red Line, albeit causing suffering among viewers, has an undeniable vérité outlook.

As the film progresses, a company of seven people is sent to capture a hilltop. Among these men is Witt, whom near the top, decides that alone he will go scouting. Here, Malick, like a bit before this moment, analyzes Witt; from a memory, as vivid as real life, one now sees his wife, whom, even in the darkest of times, gives him aspiration and light to continue. Yet, later in the film, Malick destroys this sentiment with news of her leaving Witt, yet another example of the mortal results of existentialisms of war. Although they are able to seize the bunker, many have been already wounded.

Many critics and audiences have a hard time with Malick's films: like Terrence Davies, he's a poet working in a medium whose audience is unused to unconventional expressions of thought and emotion. Much like his own realistic and masterfully ravishing mise-en-scène, Malick has essentially created his own genre, one of the first, besides David Lynch and Luis Buñuel, to ever do this. In this film, as well as in The New World, Malick's narrative also eschews inner monologue from the characters. His fluent screenwriting skills are, indeed, thoroughly shown through this. They, again, reveal nothing of themselves, rather revealing simple thoughts. "Who Creates this evil?" asks Witt in his own one near the end. More than anything the film is two things: a silently riveting comment against war itself, and a prime example of the auteur's atmospheric cinema, in which attention to tenor, tempo, and etherealness are placed above all other concerns. If anything, it is this aesthetic that makes Malick's films so special; it is a gift of a true, rare auteur.

Performances in The Thin Red Line are magnificent as well. As shown in Malick's still growing oeuvre, the casting is always perfect. Nick Nolte, giving yet another ferocious performance in his own personal banner year (later that year, he also starred in Affliction) joins Sean Penn, Elias Koteas and Woody Harrelson (whose death scene here is among the film's most accessible, wrenching moments) as stars who manage to emerge with strong personalities intact. In its own poetic world, The Thin Red Line is just about flawless, its editing, as well as one of the best cinematographies ever to be made in Hollywood, simply masterfully exposed.

The exquisiteness of The Thin Red Line and how it reveals itself to its audience is flabbergasting—like a flower encased in time, only to be eroded by the unmistakable and relentless path of nature. It's this purity of presentation and spirit that gives the film its universal attraction. The New World, the final shot was of a tree, unforgettably swinging, a sign of Pocahontas's spiritual and tribal end. In The Thin Red Line, it is of a weed plant, stuck in the sand, resembling something the soldiers could never do: escape and be free. With the gray clouds swinging overhead and the ocean's waves approaching the shore, one finally realizes that Malick has created one of the greatest works of his time, an appropriate sentiment for a film whose meaning—both in cinematic skill and poetry—is to likely never be forgotten.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007): B+

Director(s): Sidney Lumet. Screenplay: Kelly Masterson. Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei, Rosemary Harris and Aleksa Palladino. Distributor: THINKFilm. Runtime: 117 min. Rating: R.

"May you be in heaven half an hour... before the devil knows you're dead," reads the opening title of Sidney Lumet's new film, named after the latter part of this irish toast. It refers to the brutish case of two brothers, Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke), who have planned to rob their sympathetic parents' jewelery store—and while I won't go as far as to reveal Before the Devil Knows You're Dead's ending, what happens after is a catastrophe, as it seems. In crafting a successful caper picture, Lumet, whose Dog Day Afternoon ranks high on one of the best New York films ever made, has done it: whether via the fraught narrative—jumping back in forth among the characters and time, ultimately adding a unique feel for the film—or brutal control of tone and atmospherics, this is a hard-boiled film. Yet masqueraded by its bestial surface, there is a certain and ambiguous message throughout: that of family. This moral tie at first is not as illustrated, but as the brothers' family joins the matter as it crescendos in irreversibility, it becomes furthermore lucid: what the hell is wrong with these people? As usual, Lumet's tight, bleak direction helps elevate what could have been an archetypal rip off to superlative level. Along with Phillip Seymour Hoffman's and Ethan Hawke's excellent acting, this is a film of startling brutality and methodicalness, told with the feeling of total conviction and some sort of incredibility.