2008: The Year In Movies

[David]

Iwai's HANA & ALICE is the greatest film of the past five years. It speaks truthfully about young people, & the story is treated with quietly joyful idiosyncrasy, great charm, & complexity.

Other near-great films of the past few years include Winterbottom's TRISTRAM SHANDY & the deracinating NOBODY KNOWS by Koreeda. Stacy Peralta's RIDING GIANTS (2004) contains remarkable compositions & stunning suspense.

Paul Black's AMERICA BROWN (2005) is an honest failure, but SAHARA (2005) is a dishonest & a reprehensible one on every level. Francesca Annis gave her greatest performance yet in the made-for-TV CRANFORD (2007).

Woody Allen's SCOOP (2006) gave me a measure of confidence in contemporary mainstream cinematography, which I thought was previously a lost art. Agnieszka Holland's ballyhooed COPYING BEETHOVEN was more than a disappointment -- it was an embarrassment, with scenes of inappositeness of style, cauliflower ear for dialog, & glaring lack of originality.

Mention to Christopher Plummer, who in Doug McGrath's NICHOLAS NICKLEBY (2002) created a death scene of searing incandescence of almost classical tragicomic proportion. The most interesting music documentary was Bruno Monsaingeon's PIOTR ANDERSZEWSKI: BEETHOVEN (2001). Shot in 2001 in a recording studio in Switzerland, we trace the young pianist's (only partially successful) attempt to invest with renewed personal vigor the greatest work of piano variations in the Western tradition -- the Diabelli Variations. The scene in which Anderszewski discusses how he came to the Variations by way of the Missa Solemnis, & then sings & plays his way through the great Credo fugato, left an everlasting impression.