50 words max
Now Playing: stuff I've seen lately, in short
CINDERELLA MAN (2005, Ron Howard)- surprisingly engaging, largely due to the presence of Crowe and Giamatti, two of the least sentimental actors currently working in Hollywood. Zellweger stuff drags down the story, as she fails to trick up a cliched worried-wife role with her crinkly-faced mannerisms. Fight scenes good, in a RAGING BULL-in-color-and-PG13 way. Rating: **1/2.

UNLEASHED (2005, Louis Leterrier)- comes out swinging, starting as a quick-cutting actioner only to become a sometimes touching portrait of a killing machine’s (Jet Li, quite good) movement towards self-awareness. Story’s pretty silly, but the filmmaking and performances sell it (Bob Hoskins makes a scarily avuncular baddie). Certainly the most fun summer movie thusfar. Rating: **1/2.

ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM (2005, Alex Gibney)- despite attempts to interject filmic flair (moneybags, strippers, etc.), this expose of Enron’s rise and fall is like an audiobook with pictures (videobook?). Moments of outrage come throughout- California power outage/fires scenes especially- but credit belongs to the story, not Gibney. Maybe it’s time to give politically-motivated docs a breather. Rating: **.

HEAD-ON (2004, Fatih Akin)- fascinating character-driven work, with the personalities of aging punk Cahit (Birol Unel) and suicidal party girl Sibel (Sibel Kikelli) dictating the story’s trajectory. Their ethnicity (both German-born Turks), while part of the narrative, matters little to them, freeing them up to be individuals. Sexual frankness and unpredictability justify Fassbinder comparisons. Rating: ***.

JOINT SECURITY AREA (2000, Chan-Wook Park)- Park’s film about a incident along North/South Korea border is less effective as RASHOMON-inspired mystery than as minor-key drama. The central flashback is the highlight, as the major players in the violence become more complex while their dilemma becomes indelibly clear. Bookend material’s more prosiac, but it’s still worth seeing. Rating: **1/2.

And, as promised...

IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL (2004, Jessica Yu)- Henry Darger was a fascinating figure- a reclusive janitor who created a massive illustrated epic novel at night in his little room. While Yu’s tendency to parallel events in the book with Darger’s own life feels overly neat at times, computer-animated versions of scenes from the work prove surprisingly effective. Rating: **1/2.

Why do I always come here/ I guess I'll never know/ it's like some kind of torture/ to have to watch the show
Now Playing: Newish stuff I saw this week
KICKING AND SCREAMING (2005, Jesse Dylan)- I've started to like Will Ferrell in the last several years, in movies like ZOOLANDER, ELF and ANCHORMAN. While his cuddly white-bread dufus schtick would seem to be an ideal fit for a kid's movie, this isn't a very good vehicle for him, not so much because the character doesn't work in the film, but because the film isn't funny. At all. Ferrell's character has some serious issues here, namely his relationship with his ultra-competitive dad (Robert Duvall), who has always been driven to win, especially against his son. This central storyline doesn't work for a PG-rated family film, since while the rating requires it to be toned down to kid-friendly levels, effectively taking any potential bite out of it, it's still too serious-minded a plot on which to hang ninety minutes of silliness followed by a pat, forced sentimental climax and reconciliation. It's in the final reel that Ferrell's sappy side comes out after it was so expertly hidden in ANCHORMAN, and the results are deadly, making me think of the sage words of the alien in STARDUST MEMORIES- "you wanna do the world a world a favor? Try telling funnier jokes." Rating: *.

MONSTER-IN-LAW (2005, Robert Luketic)- ever since MEET THE PARENTS, the conflict between in-laws (or future in-laws) has become a popular premise for Hollywood comedies. However, it's wearing fairly thin now, with the only thing making this better than FOCKERS being the long-awaited return of Jane Fonda. She's every bit the star presence she was when she was last seen onscreen a decade and a half ago, and although she's unafraid to tear into a role (or to look her age, for that matter) she still commands the screen. Now all she needs is to find movies that are really worthy of her. A big problem is that Jennifer Lopez's character is clearly no match for Fonda, and any attempts the movie makes to even the odds don't ring true. Even more deadly is the fact that J. Lo seems to have forgotten how to interact with her costars- she can deliver her lines all right, but she never really engages with the people around her, as though she's acting in front of a blue screen (or maybe having her own dialogue filmed and then having her costars interact with her double, like Sinatra did in his later films). More assured filmmakers- Soderbergh, or even Martin Brest- have gotten good performances out of Jenny from the Block by making her earn her paycheck, but Luketic isn't on their level. And quite frankly, it shows in the finished product. Rating: *1/2.

CRASH (2004, Paul Haggis)- looking at the rating below, I'm probably overrating this, but not nearly as much as the critics who are fawning over it. Seems to me a clear-cut case of being so taken with the film's message (the tendency in every one of us to judge others, whether we admit it or not) as to disregard the clumsy manner in which it's delivered. Haggis neglects to make the characters at all interesting, instead making them mouthpieces for various theories on race relations, which bogs the film down in speechifying, particularly in the first half-hour. Likewise, he sets the film over the course of a day and a half, which gives it the feel of a writerly exercise but also points out his over-reliance on some rather far-fetched coincidences. That said, nearly all the performances worked for me, and some were actually quite impressive, particularly Terrence Howard as a black studio executive. I actually think the film would have worked had it spun out the Howard/Thandie Newton/Matt Dillon storyline out to feature length (and with the timeframe expanded to, say, a year)- a film that explores the judgmental nature of many police officers would certainly be a worthwhile project, and the tensions that arise between Howard and Newton would be an ideal counterpoint. But for every moment I found myself caring about what was going on, there was one moment I found myself slapping my forehead, and at least once during the film I wanted to throw something at the screen (that would be the highly contrived scene involving the little girl). Still, CRASH is a film that should be seen for what it's trying to say, even though you have to wade through a lot in the meantime. Rating: **.

IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL (2004, Jessica Yu)- I'm tired. Comments to come, maybe. Rating: **1/2.

Deep Focus Film Festival
Now Playing: Columbus throws its hat into the film-fest ring
Given the limited number of screens in Columbus open to arthouse offerings, a festival spotlighting some of the best in world cinema is a godsend. Because the festival was only in its first year and the organizers were unsure of what interest there would be, they only programmed ten films, with at least one potentially high-profile film unavailable for booking. Still, I'd have to say it performed quite well for an unknown quantity, judging by the attendance for the screenings I was in.

The biggest draw of the four films I saw was Friday night's screening of THE ARISTOCRATS (2005, Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette), a documentary about a legendarily dirty joke. Much of the drawing power came from the wide range of comedians who were interviewed (many of whom shared their versions of the joke)- I won't list them all here, but the list is fairly impressive. The film itself is no great shakes as filmmaking, but it's pretty hilarious, provided of course that you don't mind foul language and vivid descriptions of disgusting acts. In the "who knew?" category, turns out Bob Saget and Gilbert Gottfried are really funny after all. Rating: **1/2.

The best film I saw at the fest was the first one I caught on Sunday (and my most-anticipated film that played there). It was MOOLAADE (2004, Ousmane Sembene), a towering achievement from a filmmaker whose other films I need to see. Plot descriptions will focus on the fact that it deals with ritualized female genital mutilation ("purification," they call it), but the film is hardly a one-sided screed. While many Western filmmakers might deal with such a harrowing topic through condescending eyes- asserting their moral superiority by chastizing practitioners of mutilation for their backwards thinking- Sembene approaches the topic through the point of view of the villagers themselves. Genital mutilation has its roots in the male fear of female sexuality, and the tradition legitimizes their superstitiousness, to the point where some of the most passionate advocates for the practice are women who have themselves undergone it. The film isn't quite perfect- its climactic scene ties everything up too neatly- but Sembene often finds ways to subvert audience expectations, particularly in the film's one flashback scene, which doubles back to resolve a story that had seemed sketched-over before that point. Also, the film's ending is a small marvel, a modal shift as jarring as anything since the heyday of Kubrick. Rating: ***1/2.

Another fine selection was BROTHERS (2004, Susanne Bier), which could be summarized as being like a Danish version of THE DEER HUNTER where Christopher Walken comes home instead of staying in Vietnam playing Russian roulette. Bier, a Dogme 95 veteran, uses a handheld camera to heighten the raw emotions on display in the story of two brothers, Michael (Ulrich Thomsen) and Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), and the strain placed on their relationship once Michael returns from being captured on a peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. The film's setup is a bit contrived- I have a feeling that the Danish military wouldn't be so quick to declare a soldier dead as they do here- but after the first half hour it's quite effective. Connie Nielsen is also good in her first performance in her native tongue, as Michael's wife who begins to bond with Jannik after her husband's presumed death. Rating: ***.

The problem with not being able to watch everything was that I had to skip some films I was interested in seeing, and I ended up making my selections based on movies I might not be able to catch elsewhere. Thus, instead of buying tickets for MY SUMMER OF LOVE, OFF THE MAP, MURDERBALL, and THE ANIMATION SHOW (all of which will likely have regular Drexel releases later this year), I saw the Japanese horror film ONE MISSED CALL (2003, Takashi Miike). Disappointingly, the film was pretty straightforward by Miike standards, though with a few snazzy touches- the shot of the disembodied hand dialing sticks out in my mind- and an admittedly more coherent plot than, say, JU-ON. I didn't hate this film, exactly, but it's pretty forgettable, and I'm about ready to admit that J-horror probably isn't my cup of tea. Rating: **.

The Last Few Days
Now Playing: Stuff I've seen, on screens big and small
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005, Ridley Scott)- a Crusades epic that's not as rousing as expected, but that's not really the point- yes, the battle scenes are well-done, but the film's heart is in those scenes that problematize the impulse to fight in the name of God. The warmongering types in the film use religious divisiveness as a ruse to mobilize their followers, while the peace-lovers acknowledge the need to live alongside those who believe differently. Naturally, there's no way to make a Crusades movie nowadays without drawing parallels to the war in Iraq, what with the Europeans claming "God wills it!" (he's on their side, you might say), but the film doesn't force the point too much. Still not sure if Orlando Bloom can really carry a movie (I'll hold out judgment until ELIZABETHTOWN) but he's as good as anyone of his generation at onscreen swordplay, and he's backed up capable supporting actors like Liam Neeson, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Eva Green (who sadly declines to get naked), and especially Ghassan Massoud as Saladin, general of the Muslim army. Rating: **1/2.

SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES (2004, Michael Schorr)- the most interesting element of this film is the stylistic gambit wherein the camera remains still while Schultze is in Germany (with one notable exception) and moves quite a bit when he's visiting the U.S., as effective a way as any to convey the newness of this experience for him. The deadpan comedy on display recalls Kaurismaki to a certain point, although Schultze is much too ingratiating a protagonist to fit into Kaurismaki's vision, and the film's less effective moments (the radio that talks back, Schultze in a speedo) are generally the more audience-grabbing ones. Much more effective are scenes like the one where Schultze, attending a polka festival in Texas, stands at rigid attention as the band plays "Deutchland Uber Alles." Rating: **.

F FOR FAKE (1975, Orson Welles)- Welles' examination of flim-flammery begins as a portrait of two famous frauds: Elmyr (a highly accomplished art forger) and Clifford Irving (who wrote a falsified memoir of Howard Hughes). Yet Welles isn't content to stick to the subject, but instead expands the film's scope to examine people's fascination with fakery, especially as a facet of showmanship. Much of Welles' genius (his inventiveness as a director, his interest as a performer, and so on) came from the fact that he was a consummate showman, and in many ways F FOR FAKE may be Welles' most overtly autobiographical film (he integrates his beginnings in show business and his infamous WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast into the film). F FOR FAKE places Welles front and center in the film, not just as an onscreen presence in his black cape and fedora, but also as a director, continuing to experiment with style and form even in his final completed feature. Rating: ***1/2.

STAR 80 (1983, Bob Fosse)- the less-than-stellar rep for Fosse's final film led me to expect a misguided effort that exploited the still-recent memory of Dorothy Stratten's killing. But watching it, I realized that the real reason for the ire is the film's refusal to turn her into a simple martyr to show business success, to say nothing of the fact that Fosse invites the audience to identify with her husband and killer, Paul Snider (played by Eric Roberts), who to put it mildly was quite a piece of work. Snider was a sleazeball and a money-grubbing opportunist, latching into Dorothy even before she was famous in the hope of basking in her eventual fame, but Fosse and Roberts generate a certain degree of pathos through the character- he seems to legitimately care about Dorothy (Mariel Hemingway), and once he arrives in Los Angeles, his smirky snake-oil-salesman personality and tendency to suck up to celebrities makes him something of a pariah in the Playboy mansion, where Dorothy has become the hot new thing. Fosse also refuses to eroticize Dorothy's (inevitable) nudity, flashing forward to images of the murder throughout the film, and even the climactic killing scene is handled in a fairly restrained manner, which given the details of the real-life crime is something of an achivement. Rating: ***.

SECRET CINEMA- once again throwing Wexner audiences a curve, this month's selection turned out not to be movies but rather a few classic television shows projected on film, which was something of a surprise but not a bad one. Both selections were Alfred Hitchcock shows, the first being from ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, the second from the ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR, with the original PSYCHO trailer programmed between them. I particularly enjoyed the first episode, entitled "Breakdown," starring Joseph Cotten as an rich industrialist who is paralyzed in an out-of-the-way auto accident. The episode, directed by Hitch himself, toys with the audience by keeping the focus on Cotten in the car, as his wait to be rescued becomes almost unbearable until he discovers that he is capable of moving one of his fingers (Tarantino is a fan, of course). The longer second episode is entitled "The Unlocked Window," starring Dana Wynter is an absentminded nurse hiding from a nurse-killing psycho. This episode is less suspenseful than "Breakdown" (it was directed by Joseph M. Newman rather than Hitch himself), and there doesn't seem to be quite enough material to stretch over the longer running time, but the technical credits are impeccable, with Stanley Cortez behind the camera, Bernard Herrmann writing the music, James Bridges writing the teleplay, and the house from PSYCHO serving as the exterior.

Weekly update
Now Playing: Stuff I've watched on the company's dime
THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (2005, Garth Jennings)- pretty disappointing, but not terrible. Being a fan of this book for roughly half my life, it would've taken a work of pure genius to satisfy me, but what's onscreen is a dilution, albeit one that's mostly harmless (sorry). Douglas Adams' style, which was less concerned with plot and character than with witty story diversions, doesn't translate well into Hollywood moviemaking, so the film doesn't quite work as a whole. Much of the blame has to go to Jennings, who directs like he's making a slam-bang action-adventure rather than an absurd Brit-com in space- could've been a slamdunk with a filmmaker like Gilliam, who flair for mind-bending comic flights of fancy and coherence-be-damned storytelling style hew fairly close to Adams. The cast is mostly game, with Mos Def proving a wryly inspired choice as Ford Prefect, Martin Freeman as the ideal Arthur, and Sam Rockwell predictably awesome as Zaphod. Rating: **1/2.

xXx: STATE OF THE UNION (2005, Lee Tamahori)- junky and ridiculous as an entertainment, but fascinating as cultural anthropology. The film's subtext is that African-Americans who want to get things done need to do things their way, outside out of the white man's system- Ice Cube as the new XXX is much chummier with Samuel Jackson's Gibbons than Vin Diesel ever was, and when he needs backup, he doesn't recruit from the Army but rather enlists his old chop-shop cronies. Lots of smaller plot points provide food for thought: the rich blonde as double-crossing temptress, XXX and Gibbons' long-standing animosity toward general-turned-Secretary of Defense Willem Dafoe, the president's (unknowing) quoting of Tupac on national television, and (my favorite) the film's clever tweaking of the agent-infiltrating-high-class-party scene, wherein Cube dons a tux to attend a Capitol Hill shindig... as a waiter. I can't in good conscience recommend this to any self-respecting filmgoer, but I certainly enjoyed the film more than the first xXx, and was entertained more than I really ought to have been. Also, was Nona Gaye always this hot? Rating: **.

DALLAS 362 (2003, Scott Caan)- admittedly, some of my enjoyment for this film comes from my shock that Scott Caan actually is a talented filmmaker (I certainly prefer him to, say, Zack Braff). But the film works on its own merits, as a portrait of a young man (Rusty, played by Shawn Hatosy) who maintains a long-standing friendship with Dallas (Caan) in spite of the fact that it's holding him back- from adulthood, from happiness, and so on. Caan's writing and direction here hearken back to scruffy 70s filmmaking- the kinetic camera feels like Scorsese, but the character dynamic is closer to MIKEY AND NICKY. I was particularly grateful for the scenes between Rusty and his shrink/mom's boyfriend (Jeff Goldblum, the best he's been in ages), which begins as standard analysis but later shifts gears into a real attempt to reach out and understand each other, more or less around the time Goldblum breaks out a joint. Rating: ***.

The Great Desplechin
Now Playing: Arnaud Desplechin retro, plus one much-needed rimshot
Well Wexner buds, you've done it again. You've booked a retro for a filmmaker with whom I was previously semi-familiar and made me a believer. Good job. Starting with his latest, the masterpiece KINGS AND QUEEN (click HERE for my thoughts), was a good call- after checking it out, I was signed on for the duration. I didn't LOVE the rest quite as much as KINGS AND QUEEN, but that's like faulting everyone else in the NBA circa 1990 for not being Michael Jordan- there's no shame in being merely awesome. And I'd say that pretty much anything Desplechin does qualifies as awesome.

From his first film, the just-short-of-an-hour LA VIE DES MORTS (1991), Desplechin had a keen eye for messy intrapersonal dynamics and a fascination with death and the darker aspects of the soul. In this film, an extended family comes together to await the death of an unseen cousin, who has recently shot himself. In the course of the film, we discover that the family has a long history of tragedy, and as the family members interact and try to take their minds off the tragedy at hand, a pall hangs over the proceedings. Desplechin's style isn't quite fully-formed in LA VIE DES MORTS, but his sensibility is, and the jolting moments that would distinguish his later work are here as well, notably an early scene that introduces Marianne Denicourt's character.

LA SENTINELLE (1992) is Desplechin's first feature-length film, a low-key post-Cold War thriller involving a French pathology student who finds a disembodied head in his luggage upon moving from Germany. Giving a new meaning to the phrase "morbid curiosity," our protagonist (played by Emmanuel Salinger) neglects to turn the head into the authorities, instead examining it covertly, after-hours in the lab where he's interning. The film is set amidst the less-glamorous-than-expected world of the French intelligence community (the hero's roommate and many of his friends work as agents), but the genre aspects of the film are less interesting than the approach it takes to its lead character, an early prototype for the somewhat socially-dysfunctional characters of his subsequent films.

When I say that MY SEX LIFE... OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT (1996) made me highly uncomfortable in spots, rest assured that I mean this in a completely positive way. Paul (Matthieu Amalric) is going through a transitional period in his life much the way I currently am- in his late 20s, he's in much the same spot he was years ago, watching his friends move forward with their lives while he mostly treads water. I was even taken aback by his relationship with Valerie (Jeanne Balibar), a brash and difficult woman who reminded me of an ex-girlfriend of mine, at least personality-wise. To be completely honest, if I was to properly review this film (aside from the identification factor) I'd need to see it again. All I can say is that I reacted very strongly to the film in a way that I rarely do anymore. And that I came out of the film wanting to cuddle with Emmanuelle Devos' character.

The only Desplechin film I had seen prior to the retrospective was ESTHER KAHN (2000), his English-language debut, showing here in its longer European cut. In my original review I wrote that it contains "some interesting insights into acting, but I wasn't quite feeling it... part of the problem is the inert title character." Hey 2002 me bud, that's the point of the movie. Esther has made herself unknowable to those around her, and Desplechin and his lead actress Summer Phoenix purposely extend this to the audience- early scenes involving her poor Jewish family would normally provide psychological insight into the character, but such reductiveness feels out of place here. Does Esther act to escape herself, or to provide an outlet for emotions and behaviors she otherwise bottles up? The film isn't telling, and it's this very elusiveness that makes it magical.

Finally, PLAYING "IN THE COMPANY OF MEN" (2003) is a fascinating, though not-altogether-successful adaptation of an Edward Bond play, with Ophelia from HAMLET thrown in for good measure. What Waz said, pretty much. As the troubled servant Jonas, Bakary Sangare is a fascinating presence.

So when is Desplechin's next film coming out already?

Ratings-
MY SEX LIFE and ESTHER KAHN: ***1/2.
LA SENTINELLE and LA VIE DES MORTS: ***.
PLAYING "IN THE COMPANY OF MEN": **1/2.

Getting Paid to Watch
Now Playing: Hollywood spring offerings give me a headache
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005, Andrew Douglas)- substituting sub-RING stingers for real scares, the film pretty much evaporates on contact, leaving little more than the vague feeling that you've kinda wasted your time. Mostly serves as a concrete example of a cinematic pet peeve of mine- anachronistic anatomy. To wit: the film takes place in the seventies, yet not only does Ryan Reynolds have uber-defined abs, but his chest is completely hairless in the heyday of chest hair. If you're not going to stick to the time period, why bother setting it there at all, hilarious "based on a true story" attribution aside? Still, fairly inoffensive stuff compared to the outrage of TEXAS LAMESAW, and Melissa George and Philip Baker Hall are pretty good here. Rating: *1/2.

KING'S RANSOM (2005, Jeff Byrd)- pretty much a textbook example of a Film That Wasn't Made For Me. The characters here are all cartoonish morons, but many of the digs are reserved for white people, particularly Jay Mohr's pushover of a kidnapper. I wasn't offended so much by the fact that white people in general were made the butt of jokes (heaven knows that African-Americans have been the butt of white jokes for centuries) as I was by how deeply unfunny the film is. I laughed not a single time, to be honest. Luckily for me I was getting paid to watch. Rating: 0 stars.

THE INTERPRETER (2005, Sydney Pollack)- works all right as a thriller, with an effective suspense sequence aboard a city bus, but this is a middling effort from a filmmaker who has fared well with thrillers in the past. The UN here is painted less as the semi-listless organization our current administration have turned it into as an idealistic school-kid's image of a one-stop diplomacy shop, enforcing international law and bringing genocidal leaders to justice. Kidman and Penn underplay effectively, but Pollack's uninspired direction betrays them somewhat, luxuriating too much in closeups that emphasize Kidman's bangs or Penn's actorly stylings. Likewise, the "shock" in the climactic sequence hardly registers, not least because Pollack tips his hand, but also because audiences have become suspect of major characters who disappear for extended periods of time. Rating: **.

It's that time of year again
Now Playing: Cannes Competition Slate announced
Full list can be found over here. Here's the main competition slate:

David CRONENBERG - A History of Violence
Luc and Jean-Pierre DARDENNE - The Child
Atom EGOYAN - Where the Truth Lies
Amos GITAI - Free Zone
Michael HANEKE - Hidden
Hsiao-hsien HOU - The Best of Our Times
Jim JARMUSCH - Broken Flowers
Tommy Lee JONES - The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Masahiro KOBAYASHI - Bashing
Arnaud and Jean-Marie LARRIEU - Peindre ou Faire l’Amour
Frank MILLER and Robert RODRIGUEZ - Sin City
Dominik MOLL - Lemming (Opening Night Film)
Carlos REYGADAS C. - Battle in Heaven
Hiner SALEEM - Kilometer Zero
Johnnie TO - Election
Marco TULLIO GIORDANA - Once You’re Born You Can No Longer Hide
Gus VAN SANT - The Last Days
Lars VON TRIER - Manderlay
WANG Xiaoshuai - Shanghai Dreams
Wim WENDERS - Don’t Come Knockin’

I tried my hand at predicting this year's competition films, and I ended up doing pretty well (the ones I predicted are italicized above).

My thoughts on the competition slate: some interesting choices, with lots of Cannes veterans in competition, and even a few past winners (Wenders, the Dardennes, Von Trier, Van Sant). The fact that Tommy Lee Jones has made a film is intriguing to say the least, if for no other reason than to see why he's been taking paycheck jobs in stuff like MAN OF THE HOUSE lately (lately? Try for the past ten years or so). Also, SIN CITY and the Johnnie To film prove that last year's genre-friendly Cannes wasn't a fluke.

Who are the frontrunners?: with Jury prez Emir Kusturica, it's hard to tell. His vision is strange, to put it mildly, and I'm not sure how he'll respond to many of the filmmakers here. It's unlikely that Van Sant will win the Palme again, having won just two years ago, unless the film is a world-beater, but really who knows. Wenders may have a shot, since the film could be a comeback for him, and Cannes regulars Jarmusch and Haneke haven't won yet, so it might be his time. But no one knows anything until the films actually screen.

Unscientific and purely subjective
Now Playing: The Film Journal's Directors Poll
Over at The Film Journal they recently conducted a poll that asked the participants to submit their 25 favorite filmmakers. I was able to participate, and was happy to see that a number of my favorite were popular among the other participants as well. I had hoped to make time to print my list here with commentary, but I haven't been able to as yet, so here it is, with comments (maybe) to come.

All lists are in alphabetical order.

My top 25:
Robert Altman
Ingmar Bergman
Robert Bresson
Luis Bunuel
John Cassavetes
Jean Cocteau
Jacques Demy
Jean-Luc Godard
Alfred Hitchcock
Buster Keaton
Krzystzof Kieslowski
Stanley Kubrick
Akira Kurosawa
Sergio Leone
Richard Linklater
David Lynch
F.W. Murnau
Michael Powell
Jean Renoir
Jacques Rivette
Martin Scorsese
Andrei Tarkovsky
Jacques Tati
Jean Vigo
Orson Welles

Just missed the cut

Classical filmmakers:
Charlie Chaplin
Stanley Donen
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Federico Fellini
Howard Hawks
Chuck Jones
Fritz Lang
David Lean
Sam Peckinpah
Maurice Pialat
Preston Sturges
Francois Truffaut
Billy Wilder

Contemporary filmmakers:
Woody Allen
Claude Chabrol
David Cronenberg
Brian DePalma
Terry Gilliam
Jim Jarmusch
Aki Kaurismaki
Spike Lee
Mike Leigh
Terrence Malick
Mayao Miyazaki
George Miller
Errol Morris
Nick Park
Roman Polanski
Eric Rohmer
Steven Soderbergh
Lars Von Trier
Agnes Varda

Inconsistent, but intermittently awesome:
John Carpenter
Joel Coen
Francis Coppola
Joe Dante
Clint Eastwood
Philip Kaufman
Sidney Lumet
Mike Nichols
George A. Romero
Wim Wenders
Robert Zemeckis

Missing In Action:
Michael Cimino
Elaine May
Nicholas Roeg

Need to see more before I cement my opinion :
Chantal Akerman
Robert Aldrich
Pedro Almodovar
Roy Andersson
Theo Angelopoulos
Michelangelo Antonioni
Dorothy Arzner
Bernardo Bertolucci
Budd Boetticher
Stan Brakhage
Charles Burnett
Marcel Carn?
Henri-Georges Clouzot
George Cukor
Terence Davies
Jules Dassin
Vittorio De Sica
Alexander Dovzhenko
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Sergei Eisenstein
Victor Erice
Jean Eustache
Louis Feuillade
John Ford
John Frankenheimer
Sam Fuller
D.W. Griffith
Werner Herzog
Hou Hsiao-hsien
King Hu
Shohei Imamura
Joris Ivens
Ken Jacobs
Elia Kazan
Abbas Kiarostami
Richard Lester
Jerry Lewis
Ernst Lubitsch
The Lumi?re brothers
Ida Lupino
Alexander Mackendrick
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Louis Malle
Chris Marker
The Maysles brothers
Georges M?li?s
Jiri Menzel
Russ Meyer
Vincente Minnelli
Kenji Mizoguchi
Max Ophuls
Nagisa Oshima
Yasujiro Ozu
Sergei Paradjanov
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Otto Preminger
V.I. Pudovkin
Nicholas Ray
Satyajit Ray
Carol Reed
Alain Resnais
Roberto Rossellini
Martin Ritt
Ken Russell
Michael Snow
Aleksandr Sokurov
Jean-Marie Straub and Dani?le Huillet
Josef Von Sternberg
Erich Von Stroheim
Seijun Suzuki
Bela Tarr
Hiroishi Teshigahara
Jacques Tourneur
Edgar G. Ulmer
Paul Verhoeven
Dziga Vertov
Luchino Visconti
Raoul Walsh
Peter Watkins
James Whale
Frederick Wiseman

Possible contenders in a decade or so:
Paul Thomas Anderson
Wes Anderson
Olivier Assayas
Brad Bird
Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Claire Denis
Arnaud Desplechin
Atom Egoyan
Jonathan Glazer
David Gordon Green
Michael Haneke
Todd Haynes
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Hong Sang-soo
Peter Jackson
Guy Maddin
Takashi Miike
David O. Russell
Quentin Tarantino
Tsai Ming-liang
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Wong Kar-wai

Sweet Jesus!
Now Playing: KINGS AND QUEEN (2004, Arnaud Desplechin) [seen in theatre]
24 hours later, and I'm still trying to sort out my thoughts about this, the most exciting new film I've seen in ages. It's been a long time since I was able to completely surrender myself to a film, to allow it to carry me away on its shoulders so that I would forget that my moviewatching butt was planted in a seat, so it was no small feat that the film left me, quite frankly, gasping. I credit Desplechin's direction fully for this- his command of the medium here is staggering, and he's able to carry the audience in the palm of his hand even while careening through the ever-shifting tone of the film. It's these tonal fluctuations that are at the heart of KINGS AND QUEEN, which pulls off much more successfully what Woody Allen attempted with MELINDA TIMES TWO- comedy and tragedy, side by side, each playing off the other. Here, rather than attempting to unfold one premise in two different ways as Woody did, Desplechin introduces two very different characters and allows their personalities to dictate the tone of their respective storylines. Where Nora (Emmanuelle Devos), a single mother whose life has been touched numerous times by death- her first husband, and now her father, who has been diagnosed with cancer- has a tendency to bottle up her emotions to maintain the appearance of dignified strength, her second husband Ismael (Matthieu Amalric) has (in spite of being somewhat nuts) had a relatively good life, in that most of the unfortunate business that has occurred has been of his own doing. The two storylines exist largely independent of the other, intersecting only when Nora, worried about her own mortality, goes to convince Ismael to adopt her son in case she dies. Desplechin cuts back and forth between the heavy dealings in Nora's life and the more rambunctious action of Ismael's to shocking effect, subverting conventional emotional trajectories in favor of keeping the audience on edge, and it's breathtaking to behold- one minute, we bear witness to a heartbreaking scene involving Nora and her dying father (the skeletal Maurice Garrel), the next we see Ismael, slightly unhinged but resilient all the same, once again getting into ornery misadventures at the mental hospital. The film sails into the stratosphere, however, in the extended epilogue, in which (not to give too much away) Matthieu imparts some hard-earned wisdom to Nora's son- this sequence got me choked up, not least because Matthieu could just as easily have been talking to me when I was the boy's age. KINGS AND QUEEN is sure to have its detractors (any film that so stubbornly refuses to coddle the audience is bound to), but to my mind, it's alive in a way too films are anymore, and I'm excited to familiarize myself with the rest of Desplechin's work. So yeah, it's a masterpiece.

Rating: ****. Awwwwwwww yeahhhh boyeeeeeeee.

P.S.: In my excitement, I completely neglected to mention two points. First is the rating, which I've added above. Second, and more importantly, Catherine Deneuve, only my favorite actress EVER, has a supporting role as a shrink at the hospital where Amalric is being held. She only has a few scenes, but at least one of them- the one where he declares that "women have no soul"- is pretty classic.