Top Ten Movies of 2007

If there was one trend in movies in 2007, it was an onslaught of unhappy endings. The majority of the films in my top ten are tragedies, films that portrayed the immoral desires of men, and how they and others around them face the consequences. One took place in a godless world; another drained the color out of life and let its protagonist try to breathe. One was a stark epic about wasted time; another was about the horrifying sacrifices that come with friendship.

So why watch these films in the first place? Because each is a life-affirming, stimulating work of art. They remind us that there are different kinds of life out there, characters that may or may not really exist, but nevertheless have stories that need to be told. To be a critic, you need to have your own sense of morals, and each of these films challenged my own perceptions and ideas of what a movie should be. They were transformative experiences that educated me, had me racking my mind and heart for deeper meanings. They are movies that have discrete stylistic qualities and narrative techniques that pay homage to older films, yet by experimenting with the art form, they successfully keep the medium fresh and alive.

Out of the 61 movies I saw in theaters this year, these are my favorites.

10. Control

Joy Division, probably my favorite band of all time, gets a biopic better than I could have hoped for. Music video director Anton Corbijn’s feature-length debut is a loving, intimate, perfectly realized biopic of frontman Ian Curtis, based on his wife’s memoirs, that not only does justice to the band’s music, but also makes you forget you’re watching actors in the first place. Sam Riley’s fiercely handsome face makes a perfect Curtis, and his portrayal of Curtis’ internal struggle with infidelity never fails to be interesting. Riley especially amazes when acting out Curtis’ near-epileptic stage performances. The black-and-white cinematography and musical cues are nearly perfect, and knowing the outcome of the story doesn’t lessen the experience.

9. We Own The Night

One of the most underrated movies of the year, James Gray’s third movie in 12 years is such a restrained crime drama that it almost takes you off-guard. A late-80s tale of New York cop family ties, Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg play two brothers on both sides of the law, each one’s loyalty tested when their paths cross. Without any big-budget explosions or gunfights, calling it underwhelming is to ignore the fascinating character arcs, arguably some of the strongest uses of sibling-rivalry archetypes. From the rapturous opening club sequence to a car chase shown entirely from a first-person perspective, the movie is a highly sensory experience, and anyone who expects another Departed will be missing the point.

8. No Country For Old Men

Joel and Ethan Coen have been such consistently great filmmakers over the last 20 years that their last couple of misfires were easily forgiven. Here they bring their entire career full circle, creating a tremendous suspense film that echoes the nihilistic themes of their debut Blood Simple, while also containing such trademarks as memorable dialogue and crisp cinematography from Roger Deakins. Javier Bardem, in a career-defining performance, and Josh Brolin play a cat-and-mouse chase through a landscape of diegetic sound and breakable motels, while Tommy Lee Jones provides elliptical bookends for a tale that could only exist in a world where morality is just a passing fad.

7. The Host

Every year there comes a foreign film that should serve as a wake-up call to America that certain kinds of movies can still be successful. In this case, it’s the monster movie, which comes in no better shape or form than Joon-ho Bong’s effort, which is the highest-grossing film ever in South Korea, and deservedly so. A giant fish-monster (one of the few recent convincing CGI-rendered creatures) attacks Korea, and sends the entire country into a frenzy, heavily stemming from the government to instill fear into its citizens. The film is so successful because, aside from being as entertaining as any summer movie, it really makes you care about the characters, and its surprising moments of humor and pathos make it into something more than just a horror movie.

6. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

The most entertaining movie of the year is also the best documentary of the year, which says something about the integrity of popcorn filmmakers these days. (Did I mention that this is already getting a Hollywood remake?) The true story of the rivalry between the egotistical maniac who held the record for the highest score in Donkey Kong for 20 years and the humble underdog who challenged his legacy is the best movie ever made about videogames; a movie with more plot twists and oddball characters than you could fictionalize. Even if you don’t like videogames, it’s impossible for anyone not to enjoy this movie. And the best part, even after the last-minute overwhelming twist, is that the story isn’t over. Sequel, anybody?

5. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days

The scariest movie of the year is also the most true-to-life. The winner of this year’s Palm D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, this Romanian film follows a woman trying to secure an illegal abortion for her roommate in the late 1980s, told through long camera takes and natural sounds. Like the sound of a speeding car in the distance—a subtle motif throughout the film—you’re constantly alarmed and worried about their safety, even when the main character is stuck at dinner with her boyfriend’s family in a claustrophobically framed, nearly five-minute take. Yet the film ends up being about a more fundamental theme: the instability of friendship. You wonder, after sitting through two hours of nervewracking tension and frustration, whether you would have taken the same risk.

4. Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead

Director Sidney Lumet, at 84 years old, is beyond trying to make a name for himself. 12 Angry Men and Network remain compulsively watchable moral tales, and I feel that his latest, a tragedy involving two brothers who attempt to rob a jewelry store, will eventually join the ranks of those films as an overwhelming testament to the wrong thing to do. Indeed, this movie is all about the casualties of immorality, and who better to play the lead than Philip Seymour Hoffman, an actor who continues to give his all, always fascinating to watch, and yells up a storm to our delight. Ethan Hawke gives a fittingly submissive performance, while Marisa Tomei and Albert Finney fill out the rest of an incredible ensemble. If you want great, unfettered drama, this is your ticket.

3. There Will Be Blood

I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t my most anticipated movie of the year, and I’d also be lying if I said it was exactly what I expected. Paul Thomas Anderson, who hasn’t made anything less than stellar yet in his career, brings us a sweeping indictment of American ideals with hardly any sentimentality, set to a freaky, remarkable strings-and-percussion score by Jonny Greenwood. His weapon of choice, Daniel Day-Lewis, as fiery and mustachioed as ever, is the cinematic equivalent to a train wreck—scary as hell, but you just can’t look away. In the most talked about performance of the year, he embodies an oil prospector who hates people, particularly a young preacher (Paul Dano) that stands in his way. These are single-minded characters that are as far apart in beliefs as they are in Anderson’s frame, and like all opposing forces, must eventually clash. And by the time the YouTube-bound ending comes around, it’s obvious that this is a caliber of filmmaking rarely displayed and essential to preserve.

2. Zodiac

David Fincher, like Stanley Kubrick before him, is a notoriously meticulous director, and with that, he has made his longest, most involving movie yet, a cinematic case study to the nth degree. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an obsessive film. The story of the 30-year case on the Zodiac killer and the policeman, reporter, and political cartoonist that gave a good chunk of their lives working on it, Fincher directs tried-and-true actors Mark Ruffalo, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Robert Downey Jr., whose characters combine enough enthusiasm and skepticism to sustain the movie to its overwhelmingly protracted finish. Because the film seems to leave absolutely no details out, it doubles as a historical document, one that is as entertaining as it is informative.

1. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

It’s funny how, after all these excellent movies made by veterans, my favorite was from a relatively unknown director, and mostly shunned by critics for reasons I can’t comprehend. Andrew Dominik, obviously a highly visionary filmmaker, brings us one of the most indulgent, achingly cinematic, heartbreaking, and beautiful movies of the decade. It’s as if he knew he just had to make the movie of all movies, an ode to fiction and artificiality, and the consequences of making them a reality. The power of the film lies in the cinematography by Roger Deakins, the unforgettable score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and in Casey Affleck’s chilling performance. From the opening shots of clouds passing by; to the melancholy, oft-repeated chimes of the xylophone; to the disarmingly sheepish grin on Affleck’s face as he holds his tattered hat—this movie has it all. In a year with several attempts at a revisionist western, this is the only one that takes complete control of its environment to bring out the emotions of its characters. And even though the title gives away the ending, you’ll still be on the edge of your seat when it happens. It’s long, but not long enough; and once that feeling is over, when the huge title is finally displayed on the screen, barely able to fit, you’ll know what to call it.

Safe (1995)

There's a famous story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman called "The Yellow Wallpaper" that I had to read for sophomore year in high school. It's about an unnamed woman who descends into madness after she spends months inside a room at home believing that she's severely depressed, and her husband, a doctor, seems oblivious to her feelings. She starts to obsess over the queasy yellow wallpaper in the room, whose swirling design seems to constantly change, and whose color rubs off on whoever touches it. Eventually, she sees what looks like a woman crawling on all fours behind bars, and in a bout of madness, rips the entire wallpaper off. Her husband comes in, faints, and she says, "I've got out at last."

Todd Haynes' "Safe" doesn't dare to let its protagonist, or audience, escape. In one scene, Carol (Julianne Moore), similarly "diseased" like the woman in "The Yellow Wallpaper," lies down next to her fellow camper at an environmentalist retreat, partners in one of many spiritual exercises. When asked to recount to her partner a room she remembers living in during childhood, she says: "There was yellow wallpaper..." and is interrupted by an ambulance, announcing the death of one of the inmates.

"Safe" is, more than anything else, a great and important L.A. movie. Not only does it display some of our most memorable highways and venues, but it digs deep into the core of how privileged, upper-middle-class Southern Californians feel all the time. Or in the late 1980's, at least. In a way, it's David Lynch's "Rabbits" segment of "Inland Empire" stretched out to a feature length film, complete with fuzzy, low-lit photography and detached high camera angles. It reaches a similar kind of realism as "Short Cuts" (also starring Moore), except Haynes takes into account the faux-religious (or, should I say, cultish) influences that lure these rich, unhappy people into believing that they have the cure. This movie is about Scientology and The Kaballah Center, but it's also about me.

There's a particularly funny scene where Moore's stepson reads out an essay at the dinner table: "In the 80's there are more gangs in the Los Angeles basin. Plus, many more stabbings and shootings by AK-47s, Uzis, and Mac 10s, killing numerous innocent people. L.A. was the gang capital of America. Rapes, riots, slashing throats...are all common in the black ghettos of L.A." "Why does it have to be so gory?" Carol asks. "Gory? That's how it really is! God," he replies. This is the whitest family you've ever seen, and watching Carol's bafflement is a hilarious display of her ignorance. Does Carol really have problems if those people have it so bad? Later on, the son asks how "uzi" is spelled. "Exactly the way it sounds," says his father (Xander Berkeley).

Carol impulsively gets her straight red hair permed, which, as we see later, is a result of her trying to fit in. There's a neat use of color coding throughout the film, such as when Carol is at a party with her friends, each of them wearing a distinctly different color of the rainbow, each of them permed to perfection. Later on in the film, while Carol watches a commerical on TV, we see color bars, and then the title card: "WHERE ARE YOU?" This is the turning point of the film, where Carol becomes convinced that she, like several others, suffers from "environmental illness."

But don't we all have environmental illness? Living in Los Angeles, where you feel like there are more cars than people, can be incredibly suffocating. I took a week-long trip to Arizona last year to visit friends, and I was amazed at the vast expanses of highways that are completely empty, aside from a car or three. It's almost a form of meditation, driving alone on the highway, in the DAYTIME, but my friends seemed to think nothing of it. It's funny how things look from different perspectives, which is another reason I watch movies, and why I found "Safe" both hilarious and terrifying.

In fact, I think I've even been to the place where the environmentalist camp was filmed, which made me feel even more uneasy. Religious retreats happen there all the time. Do you see how this movie is starting to creep into my life?!

Anyway, I'm rambling, but I think this is one of the best movies I've ever seen, one that anyone who has lived a good portion of their lives in L.A. should make essential viewing. There's a great line in the movie where the preacher of the environmentalist cult/thing says, "We need to give up the rage...and strive for a quiet light." I think it's road rage he's talking about, and in a movie filled with quiet light, I think I'm kind of worried.

Oh, and on a side note: Watching "Safe" reminds me of other movies, particularly Lynch's, which oddly works in its favor. Perhaps the opening credits of "Mulholland Dr." were borrowed from any of the highway sequences in this film, complete with a Badalamenti-esque synthesized score, and angled shots of the backs of cars. That doesn't make me love Lynch's film any less, but it's interesting to note that films about L.A. can have similar motifs.

Grade: A

I'm Not There (2007)

(Why is this a production still if it never happens in the movie?)

I enjoyed "I'm Not There," even if it got a little tiring. Bob Dylan is the most elusive figure in rock n' roll history, and any attempt to bring him to the screen will probably have you stumbling somehow. Director Todd Haynes tries to renovate this by splitting his life into six different characters (none of them named Bob Dylan), all played by different actors. What he comes up with is a movie that, through its kaleidoscopically dense narrative, manages to say absolutely nothing about Bob Dylan that you wouldn't know already, and will confound anybody with little more than a passing interest in the man and his myth. Because none of the characters have anything in common with each other, it leaves the audience with nothing to grasp onto, and ends exactly where it began.

But that was probably the point. "I'm Not There" is a fan's movie, a spot-the-reference field trip through loopholes of persona that never really seem to mesh or intertwine. But did you really expect them to? It's filled with impressive cinematography and memorable montages (all set to classic or bootleg Dylan's songs), and makes for a highly entertaining experience, but it's ultimately a hollow shell of a film. You can get more out of listening to an entire Dylan album than watching it.

The problem with assuming six different characters are all playing one person is that you can never feel for them directly. You're at a distance, because once you get a sense of how one character works, the film shifts to a completely different one. Again, perhaps that was the point, but how is the audience supposed to connect to the material? The montages are the best parts of the film because we hear the Dylan songs we know well and love, but what about the movie? What's the point? I also felt that the movie could easily have been a half hour shorter or longer if Haynes really wanted it to be. For a movie that pretty much runs around in its own world with little (if any) substance, adding or subtracting certain scenes wouldn't really make a difference.

It's hard to really talk about the movie specifically other than the performances, because it's so self-reflexive and glossy that there's nothing more to say about it once it's out of your system. Watching these actors attempt to embody Dylan is like watching actors try to embody Dylan. You laugh at Cate Blanchett because of how hard she tries to match Dylan's mannerisms, and how Christian Bale seems like a parody of Dylan, but they never really amount to more than that. It's hard to find the nuances in the characters, and you can't just fit them all together like pieces in a puzzle.

But if you're a fan of Bob Dylan, it's certainly worth seeing, if only that you'll have the illusion of being enlightened for 2 and a half hours. "I'm Not There" is a case where a director takes a pretentious concept and makes it watchable, if only for a select group of people, if only to further celebrate the myth of Bob Dylan, and if only because somebody had to try.

Grade: B-

Across The Universe (2007)

"You didn't get my left nipple right," Evan Rachel Wood says to Jim Sturgess, after a scene fashioned uncannily like the borderline R-rated nude scene in "Titanic". "Sorry. I drew it from a distance," he replies, and therein lies one of the many problems contained in Julie Taymor's 2007 musical "Across The Universe". It is a film that will most likely come and go without consequence--that is, unless it miraculously scores some Oscar nods and its teenage cult following to go with it.

One day, a musical called "Mamma Mia!" came to Broadway and started a trend of jukebox-musicals, shows in which a certain classic artist or group would have their music carefully arranged in a well-advertised production, all with stories we already know. Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and the Beach Boys all got that treatment. Is it any surprise that nearly all of those musicals, save for "Jersey Boys", either flopped or closed within weeks of their debut? People don't just want songs they already know; they want something else. But then again, "Mamma Mia" is still standing. There must be a reason why. (I know why--I've seen it, and it's oodles of fun.)

The Beatles are arguably the greatest band of all time, partly because they made, at times uncompromisingly experimental, eclectic, and resonating music that continue to shape millions (billions?) of lives. For that reason, it's amazing to think that there hasn't yet been a movie about the Beatles themselves. Or at least, not to my knowledge. Perhaps it's because it's too unwieldy a topic, or perhaps it's because two of them haven't died yet.

Regardless, "Across The Universe" is not the movie to rekindle your love for the Beatles, to start a new generation of Beatles-mania, nor will it be a movie to cherish for years to come. Instead, it's merely a cut-and-paste conversation piece that strangely has a lot of Beatles songs, a film with some nice visuals but almost no flair, and hardly any believable characterization. In fact, it contains some of the laziest mapping of characters I've seen in quite some time in a movie, and I found myself scratching my head every couple of minutes wondering what, and why, things were going on.

Perhaps the most intriguing number in the entire film comes early on. A tan-skinned (Asian?) cheerleader, with two black blemishes on her lips that are never explained, stands on a crowded football field. She begins to sing "I Want To Hold Your Hand," for no particular reason (this is basically how all the songs go). It's an incredibly slow, jarring verison, but we soon get used to it. Then we see her looking at a blonde-haired jock standing with his blonde-haired girlfriend. Hey, typical high school girl crush on the football star, right? But no. He walks away, and in a confusing moment, the two girls lock eyes with each other. The Asian girl turns her head. We realize by the next shot that she's presumably lesbian as she watches the blonde girl practice. "Oh please, say to me, you'll let me be your man," she sings, and I laugh. It's clever, at least I think it's supposed to be, and it's all the more emphasized by her walking along the field as the testosterone-fueled football players tackle each other all around her, letting her pass as they fly across the screen. That's what works for me as symbolism--she has no need for the opposite sex.

But perhaps I'm looking too deeply into it here. Perhaps she's not completely disowning the opposite sex, because the next time we see her, she's escaping from some guy's apartment into our protagonist's apartment through the bathroom window (Beatles reference--get it?). We don't see the guy, we just hear her talk about some guy she's escaping from. I'm guessing that the audience isn't expected to think about this as some sort of character inconsistency, but is instead supposed to laugh at how clever the Beatles reference is. We get it, it's funny, but it's not working. Why does this girl (named Prudence) have black blemishes on her lips? Why is she suddenly in love with Sadie, a prostitute/punk rocker/jungle-fever-girl a few scenes later? Why does she suddenly feel better about everything when "Dear Prudence" is sung? Why is this relevant to me and nobody else? And anyway, the movie treats Prudence's bisexuality too preciously to make any sort of real statement or impact.

The movie is filled with character inconsistencies like those, which ends up taking away anything it could have had if it tried. I wasn't able to invest myself in any of the characters, because I just didn't get why they were doing the things they did. The first time we hear Evan Rachel Wood say a sentence, it's about the narcissism of having children. Her apparent feelings of rebellion in that scene never come up again until much later in the film, past the point where it could have meant anything (try a random 10-minute departure from reality with Bono, who makes a cameo as Doctor Robert, a hippie who drives a bus presumably run by LSD, and exits the film as quickly as he entered). We also don't feel anything at her soldier boyfriend's funeral, even though the movie expects us to. Why not? Because we didn't know the guy. Why should we feel bad for him, or her, for that matter? And it's a motive that isn't really explored. She has very few doubts before she moves on to the next guy. No transition--just a song about her feelings, then cut to making out with him. Yay.

So, I mean, I don't really know what else to say--I could go on for hours about what was wrong with this movie. Most of the setpieces are boring, like a bowling alley that all of a sudden turns into something like a discotheque. Hardly any of the songs have context; the only scene that creates some sense of wonderment, aside from the gorgeous opening shot, is "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite," set to easily the worst song in the entire film, yet manages to be a weirdly fascinating bout of kinetic, frenzied imagination. It's as random as anything else that happens in the movie, yet somehow, it works. Maybe Taymor should have made the movie more trippy, and less drippy.

I began this review with a quote that I was going to use to mention how pretty much nobody in this movie seems old enough to have lived in the 1960s. Well, I just said it, and there you go. I probably know less about the 1960's than these filmmakers, but it seems to me that they certainly had importance. "Across The Universe" does not.

Grade: C-

Henry Fool (1997)

Hal Hartley's "Henry Fool" is that great work of fiction, one that many people spend their whole lives trying to create. There are literary allusions abound; characters come, go, and return all over again in the most unusual or unexpected ways; and above all, it doesn't tell us anything more about its characters than we need to know. We enter their world, witness their sometimes bizarre actions, and learn to accept those actions, just as the characters themselves eventually accept each other.

It's also about the art of fiction; or rather, writing. I've heard someone say before that all stories follow the same essential pattern: a strange someone, or something, comes to a town or any place, and brings unprecedented change. As vague as that sounds, I couldn't help but think about that concept as the titular character (portrayed by the absolutely unforgettable Thomas Jay Ryan) walks down the street, carrying a briefcase and a cigarette plastered to his mouth, ready for action, in perhaps one of the most memorable character entrances of any movie. "Get up off your knees," he says to James Urbaniak, reflecting the entire film: every character will be taking a stand in some way, somehow.

As he moves into the Grim household, setting down his mysterious "confession" notebooks and searching the fridge for donuts, he gives the static, unassuming garbageman Simon Grim (Urbaniak) some witticism, a notebook, and a pencil, telling him to write whenever he feels like it. He does, and everyone who reads his writing elicits a variety of strong reactions. Parker Posey, who plays Simon's sister Fay, is her usual bitchy self, but this is one of her best roles, as she lets her Southern tinged voice to gain full power and plays a sexpot to great comedic heights.

The splendor of "Henry Fool" is the deadpan dialogue and the soaring musical score, even going so far as to work together: the piano chimes continuously add an extra punchline to Fool's hysterical, decidedly spoken intellectual ramblings. And when Fool wants to go to a club and party, the music lets him party, as he freaks with two strippers in a hilariously awkward, unexpected scene.

At times, the film seems too long, running about 2 hours and 20 minutes; but the final half hour makes it all worthwhile, bookending all the scenes beforehand and leaving the viewer with a comfortably ambiguous, much-debated ending. Anyone can have their own interpretation of this movie, and to point out any flaws with it is missing the point; it shows an alternate reality that can only exist in the realms of independent cinema. And undoubtedly one of the best.

Grade: A

Snatch. (2000)

You know how every once in a while there comes a movie that tries to mix style and substance and tries to make a big deal about it? That's probably a generalization, but I'm referring to such recent mainstream movies as "Smokin' Aces" and "Sin City," in which quirky characters and heavy dialogue are mixed with crazy camera techniques and cool soundtracks, usually to the delight of the young and young at heart worldwide. They've been called "MTV-style," "neo-noir," "video games",and "Tarantino-esque," among other things, but none of those actually explain what the movies are.

And the problem with that kind of movie is that recently, it hasn't worked. The story is almost always the first thing that's sacrificed, for the sake of some nifty imagery that never really sticks with you once you're done watching, or even if you are watching. (The primary exception to this is "GoodFellas," which is a movie that, over a decade later, manages to be just as entertaining, groundbreaking, and eye-orgasm inducing as when first released.) I can't say how many movies I've sat through, with or without friends, that I could describe as being utterly neutral to my emotions: it's there, I'm seeing it, but I just can't feel it at all. (Ahem, "300.")

Now, as for "Snatch"--it most definitely worked for me. In fact, it works so well that I'm amazed the directors of the aforementioned movies haven't taken its perceivable advice. It's hard for me to say why I liked it, but maybe I can suggest a few things.

For one thing, and perhaps the movie's most important success, is that the majority of the soundtrack cues in this movie are perfect. It's not often that a song and an image are so well edited that you really feel like a part of the scene, but this movie does it on a handful of occasions, notably in a few of Brad Pitt's scenes, where his mumbling gypsy-boxer is let loose to kick some ass. Pitt isn't particularly great in this movie; he doesn't do as much as you would expect him to, but he fits the part amiably, as do the rest of the cast.

It's nice to see Jason Statham not playing the badass action hero once again, even though he has his one particular scene...in fact, pretty much everyone in this movie has their one particular scene, but Dennis Farina and Alan Ford have perhaps the most ridiculous performances of all. "Snatch" is also a very funny film, in that its visual plot twists are well placed, and thankfully it doesn't get too loony for its own sake of plausible entertainment.

I'm typing this review late at night, and I better go to sleep, so I will say that unfortunately the movie ends too quickly, and by the end credits we realize that "Snatch" can only exist in its self-contained world, as fun and bloody and pointless as it really is. But all movies, good or bad, are in and of themselves, and knowing that they can be revisited more than once can be a reassuring thing. All the other guys can have their "300" and eat it too, but the rest of us will still have our "Snatch."

Grade: A-

Black Snake Moan (2007)

Craig Brewer's sophomore effort shoves its themes in your face in the first scene. First, there's black-and-white footage of a blues singer explaining how blues and love are intertwined. Then it blacks out, heavy blues starts to play, and it cuts to Justin Timberlake fucking the shit out of a startlingly bare-breasted Christina Ricci.

It's certainly one way to start a movie, and it's what I would expect from Brewer, one of today's most promising new directors, who began his first film (the excellent "Hustle and Flow") in just as eye-opening a way. But I did get the feeling that most of the audience already got what they came for.

If "Flow" was the ultimate hip-hop movie--deconstructing the craft while telling a convincing story of a pimp's rise to fame--then "Black Snake Moan" certainly doesn't live up to those standards. By no means is it a bad movie; it's just never clear on what sort of movie it wants to be. It's not an homage to 70's exploitation films, as the posters would lead you to believe; nor is it a sex romp with dirty Southern jokes. It's more of a pseudo-"born-again"-Christian-sex-anxiety-tale, yet with a heart. And if that makes absolutely no sense, then I don't know what else to tell you.

The original reason for me wanting to see this movie (as well as its primary selling point), aside from being a fan of "Hustle and Flow", was the concept: how the hell could they get away with making a movie about chaining a girl to a radiator? But that aspect of the story, when viewed as a part of the whole movie, is more of a comedic device, which, surprisingly, is thrown away more easily than it's brought in. The movie has a number of small plot holes--or, rather, character inconsistencies--that I don't feel are worth getting into. We already know that it's not a perfect movie--so let's talk about the acting.

Samuel L. Jackson probably enjoys his acting career more than anyone else his age, and he shows it. His breakthrough role in "Pulp Fiction" jumpstarted a cult following of crazy whiteboys (the ones who made that 30 seconds of "Snakes on a Plane" worth seeing), who are always searching for one of those classically delivered phrases, many of which he echoes here, such as "bad motherfucker". This role doesn't do anything new for him, apart from proving his worth as a blues singer.

Christina Ricci--probably the main reason to go out and see this movie, if anything. I always find it fascinating to see actresses play these types of roles, where either they lose their minds completely, or their clothes, and at the same time looking as dolled-up as possible. The fantastic opening credits sequence (another one of Brewer's talents), in which the camera lingers on Ricci's swaying hips in a jean miniskirt as she trots along the freeway, has a great "fuck authority" image that needs to be seen to be believed.

Another notable sequence is the supposedly "much-talked-about" trashing scene, which, if it has, I never heard anything about. Basically it consists of Samuel L. Jackson playing blues to a full crowd at the local bar, as Ricci bumps and grinds in slow-motion along the dance floor with numerous partners, her dirty-blonde hair stuck to the front of her sweaty, dirty face. It's almost scary to watch, since by this point (SPOILERS AHEAD) we would have assumed that Ricci was cleansed of her freaky nymphomaniac doings (another plot hole). (SPOILERS FINISHED) Apparently, this is different, yet it's ultimately the dirtiest, and most memorable, scene of the film.

One problem that a lot of people have had with Ricci in the past (and not that she tends to play white-trash roles--this time to the extreme, no less) is that she's always exposed her giant forehead, which gives her a strangely youthful look, her huge eyes and weird mouth popping out at you. Thankfully, "Black Snake Moan" fixes that problem, as her hair is almost always disheveled in front of her.

Justin Timberlake is woefully miscast as Ricci's boyfriend, an anxiety-ridden yet ultimately hopeful guy who enlists for the military. It's hard to watch a pop star/sex icon play a flawed character. His subplot is never believable, and his character never reaches a satisfying ending.

It's ultimately a testament to Brewer's craft that the best scenes in "Black Snake Moan" are the ones that play like the first, with blues and sex mixed to create some extremely provocative imagery--and ultimately, those two elements are what save the characters. But it's scenes like those that made me think of what the movie could have been, rather than what it already is. The majority of the humor comes from people cursing each other out, which is always fun, but that's not good enough, coming from a director who's already proved that he can put together something much more concise, resonating, and heartwarming.

But honestly, it's good enough, and as the first movie I've seen in 2007, it's just an inkling of things to come.

Grade: B-