Bee Movie (2007) Review

rating: ****

the story: A bee discovers that humans use honey.

review: The thing about Bee Movie is that it’s an animated movie that’s probably better appreciated by adults than by kids. It’s kind of the whole point.

For one thing, it’s probably going to end up the only time Jerry Seinfeld does an actual attempt at telling a story, rather than what he did for nine seasons of Seinfeld, “a show about nothing,” in which he poked fun at everyday foibles with no real concern whether he acting or sort of just waiting to deliver his stand-up material around a given cast of characters. I mean, I loved it, but no one, including Seinfeld himself, was ever going to argue that Seinfeld made any kind of effort to be an actor.

A lot of Bee Movie is a collection of gag material, too, but it ends up being an actual story, with a point an’ everything, and not just a point but a very good one. Seinfeld’s bee goes to trial to prevent humans from stealing honey. And this leads to bees no longer producing as much honey. And not so much pollinating. And suddenly it gets real.

It’s a morality tale. It’s about failing to see the interconnectedness of things, how in trying to rip one thing apart from another, it ends up being like that loose thread that unravels the whole sweater. This has huge applications for a modern world that no longer understands how much unraveling is really being done, that can’t distinguish between distinctions being made and losing the sweater in the process.

And it’s got Patrick Warburton! I don’t know, I’m always a sucker for the guy, ever since discovering him in Dave’s World. And John Goodman, making full use of his booming voice. Renee Zellweger kind of recedes into the animation (I think even she learned years later that her eyes are a huge part of her appeal when she tried to surgically change them). Also: Chris Rock. He’s Chris Rock. Hilarious minor role.

And Jerry Seinfeld. As a bee. It’s kind of a big deal. I loved the movie when I first saw it, and then eventually just thought of it as that movie where Jerry Seinfeld is a bee. But the whole thing absolutely works, and is worth celebrating.

Stardust (2007)

rating: ***

the story: A young man seeks to win the heart of a beautiful woman by seeking a falling star.

review: The idea of new cult movies seems to have fallen by the wayside in recent years, possibly because the MCU Avengers cycle has effectively made geek cinema mainstream in just about every iteration imaginable.  But Stardust is about as liable a contender as anything that's been released in the last fifteen years, in large part to a cast that has kept on giving, and a writer and a director whose legacies keep expanding.

The cast.  Oh, the cast!  You've got Charlie Cox as the lead character, Tristan.  Cox eventually found another spotlight in the Netflix series Daredevil.  Henry Cavill, in a much smaller role as Tristan's romantic rival (in Tristan's imagination, anyway, insofar as Tristan ever really had a chance), is perhaps the biggest easter egg in the movie, nearly unrecognizable as a fop with blond hair.  He would, of course, later take on the role of Superman.  Ian McKellen, at this point only a few years removed from his career-defining role as Gandalf in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, is narrator.  Mark Strong, who would become a much better recognized supporting actor across a dizzying array of films, plays a would-be king.  Rupert Everett is in there, unrecognizable.  Ricky Gervais is easier to spot.  Claire Danes is the falling star.  Michelle Pfeiffer is the witch who wishes to be young again.  Sienna Miller is the girl Tristan thought he deserved (an oddly low key role, considering this was Miller's heyday).  Peter O'Toole, looking surprisingly frail, is in there.  And Robert De Niro.

Ah, De Niro.  This was the period where De Niro was finally coming to grips with his father.  Robert De Niro, the most famous tough guy of modern cinema, was the son of a gay man.  He'd directed The Good Shepherd (2006), a kind of allegorical film about his father, and then appeared in Stardust as a pirate who is secretly gay.  The gay aspects of the character are kind of parody, but the role is unexpected for De Niro, so seeing him this way is itself kind of reason enough to see Stardust.  I suspect part of the cult appeal for it comes from the LGBTQ community.

The writer of the book from which Stardust is derived is Neil Gaiman, who also wrote the epic Sandman comic book series.  Stardust was his first major screen adaptation.  The director is Matthew Vaughn, whose geeks credentials have expanded since. 

The results aren't as magical as all that.  You'd want a contender for The Princess Bride, but it just isn't there.  The presence of all those stars is just about enough compensation, though, with De Niro leading the pack.  McKellen sets the tone with his storybook narration.  Princess Bride is a storybook that spirals hilariously out of control.  Stardust remains storybook.  But it's still a good modern storybook.  Few enough elements compete with De Niro.  One is the collection of dead brothers.  The other is the goat who becomes a man (somewhat unconvincingly).  There's also Strong's undead duel with Tristan.  If there had been more of that, there'd be a better chance at truly comparing the results to Princess Bride.

Not that there has to be a comparison.  As its own thing, Stardust lightly sparkles.  And then, again, you see yourself drawn to all those stars...

Fantastic Four (2005)/Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

rating (combined): ****

the story: Reed Richards leads a scientific mission that inadvertently gives his team superpowers; the Silver Surfer arrives on Earth as a herald of the apocalypse.

review: In hindsight the Fantastic Four duology featuring Ioan Gruffudd (Mr. Fantastic), Jessica Alba (Invisible Woman), Chris Evans (Human Torch), Michael Chiklis (Thing), and Julian McMahon (Dr. Doom) is one of the most tightly-conceived superhero movie experiences yet filmed.

In the wake of the X-Men (energized comic book fans) and Spider-Man (energized mass audiences), the Fantastic Four always had a tough few acts to follow.  Where the X-Men became known for Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, Sam Raimi only ever had to contend with one hero.  History has shown that if you try to focus on a number of superheroes in one movie, you really need to earn it.  And Fantastic Four (2005) introduced, well, four of them, and they all compete for attention.  You can kind of tell in the sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) how there was the perception that Chris Evans' Human Torch dominated the first one too much, or that maybe Michael Chiklis's Thing was too depressing.  One consistent element was the relationship between Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman.  They go from catching back up romantically in the first one to spending virtually the entire second one trying to get married.  There's no loss of focus there.  It's the most direct a second superhero movie has ever come to being a true sequel since Superman II played out the threat of General Zod and company introduced in the first one.

I can only guess the number of reasons why these movies have always been perceived as familiars.  Aside from Thing, it's also depressing to think that the nominal lead, Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic), is basically the Absent-Minded Professor.  The Robin Williams version of that character has virtually the same arc as Reed across his two movies in Flubber (1997).  Unlike Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Ioan Gruffudd never gets to look cool, partly because, again, Evans spends all his time in the first one making Johnny Storm (Human Torch) look as cool as possible.  And Johnny is also just as clearly always a supporting role, made all the more clear in the second one, even though technically he has the most redemptive arc and gets the save the day.

I also get the sense that superhero movies viewers will never be able to admit how uncomfortable they are watching women be superheroes.  Jennifer Garner, by all rights, should have become iconic after Daredevil (2003), but her solo follow-up Elektra (2005) was the flop that doomed both the character and the franchise.  Halle Berry's Catwoman (2004) was a flop, too, and she was consistently deemed a weak link in her role as Storm in the X-Men movies.  And despite there being ten years worth of Avengers movies now, there has still not been a single solo Black Widow movie.  Yet there are plenty of high profile action movies led by women, including the Hunger Games series and Wonder Woman (2017). 

So the fact that Jessica Alba has a prominent role in both movies as Susan Storm (Invisible Woman), to my mind, is no coincidence.  You might try to argue that it's the nature of how she's used in the movies, but I don't buy it.

It might not help that along with Chiklis (The Commish, The Shield) and McMahon (Charmed, Nip/Tuck), Alba was previously best known in a TV show (Dark Angel), so it gives the movies a smaller feel than the superhero movies before and after it, by and large populated by known movie stars.  The only one among them truly hamstrung in performance for this is McMahon, who never really earns the menace needed to sell the Doom the mere human Victor Von Doom becomes.  I don't usually like manipulating voices; giving him an entirely new one might have done the trick.  Laurence Fishburne is fantastic (heh) voicing the Silver Surfer in the second one.

Speaking of Rise, a lot of fan complaints for this one stem from the fact that we never actually get to see Galactus.  For those who don't know, Galactus in the comics is a gigantic humanoid in purple armor.  I don't know how that works in a movie.  Rise instead depicts him as a menacing cloud.  If anything is wrong with the concept it's that the movie dedicates all its foreshadowing of his threat to the random journeys of the Surfer around the globe.  There's very little effort made to sell Armageddon.  You can see, throughout both films, that the budget was mostly reserved for selling how cool the team's superpowers are, and certainly in contrast to later Avengers movies that's going to look disappointing, but the team's powers are cool, especially Human Torch and Invisible Woman's.  Thing stands out so much, it's really a wonder that so little effort has ever been made to give him solo stories, in the comics.  If there were solo movies for these guys, he'd be a natural lead, right along with his frenemy Johnny Storm.

Even if Doom can be disappointing, he makes for an effective, well-explained enemy, which is something a lot of superhero movies struggle to find.  That's another reason these movies look better in retrospect.  They have a lot going on, but they never bog down in following the journeys of each member of this strange family.  They have much better defined arcs than the generalized family shenanigans of the Pixar Four, the Incredibles.  And they're always going to have much more storytelling potential.  There was a reboot in 2015, equally underappreciated.  Tim Story directed both of these, and he's made a career directing duologies.  Just, never again, superhero movies.  That seems a shame.

Lions for Lambs (2007)

rating: ****

the story: Two conversations tackle the state of America in 2007.

review: From the vantage point of 2018, the conversation in America sucks.  Lions for Lambs captures perhaps the last real opportunity the nation had to correct this before it became impossible for differences to be set aside and people to be civil about their political differences.  At the time of its original release, it was dismissed as talky, academic.  I always found the results, all the same, to be fascinating.  Today they're downright essential.

A political science professor played by director Robert Redford and a brilliant but disenchanted student played by Andrew Garfield form one of the conversations.  A hotshot Republican played by Tom Cruise and a liberal reporter played by Meryl Streep form the other conversation.  Soldiers played by Michael Pena, Derek Luke, and Peter Berg participate in military maneuvers, illustrating the realities of what their talking about.  I love the idea of Redford, Cruise, and Streep converging on something.  I love Garfield already submerging himself in vital material.  I think few actors today have chosen as interesting material, as consistently, as Andrew Garfield.

Cruise was still working at winning back his credibility after his affiliation with the Church of Scientology had become toxic.  Today he subsists mostly on Mission: Impossible movies.  The opportunity has definitively, it seems, been lost.  Back in 2007, though, Lions for Lambs is a kind of latter-day answer to Born on the Fourth of July, the Oliver Stone movie where Cruise plays a real-life veteran who after having become paralyzed in Vietnam becomes disenchanted and begins protesting the war.  Garfield's role is the complete opposite of that role; he never even signs up.  That's exactly the legacy of the Vietnam era right there.  I saw it myself on campus in the early part of the century.  Garfield doesn't believe he can affect change, despite his passionate, well-considered opinions.  Today we see students protesting...everything.  But we don't see them inserting themselves into the process.  We've collectively decided the process is broken, just as Garfield's character does.  But Redford challenges Garfield to choose a different path.  He admits he was a Vietnam protester, too.  But to motivate Garfield, he tells him about two other students he had, Luke and Pena, who chose very different paths, enlisting in the army.  They give a brilliant presentation in his class explaining exactly why.

It's the juxtaposition of their thought process, Garfield's, and the fact that Redford is willing to support all three of them despite having other ideas.  He sees it as essential that participation, not protest, is chosen as a reaction.  When Obama was first elected, he was called a symbol of hope, that the system could still work.  After the Bush presidency, voters wanted to believe in positive change.  Yet Obama ended up presiding over a further polarized culture, not because he was black but because protest became a permanent way of life, disengagement, cynicism.

And that's what Cruise and Streep's conversation reflects.  Meryl Streep's career fascinates me.  At this point she hadn't yet chosen to represent the protests of Hollywood.  That was still reserved for documentary filmmakers.  She was only a few years removed from portraying a pastiche of Hillary Clinton in The Manchurian Candidate.  Later, she'd rocket to new levels of acclaim playing all sorts of morally superior figures, and be rewarded with a staggering array of Oscar nominations.  She'd become a figure out outrage.  Her character in Lions for Lambs ultimately decides on that path.  She opts to give up the idea of dialogue with the other side, after sitting through the conversation with Cruise.  Her producer begs her to keep trying.  She decides it isn't worth it anymore.

It's the kind of conclusion you can either agree with or find unsettling.  I find it the latter, and I see that as exactly what happened, over the past decade, and I think that was a massive mistake.  This is a movie that reflects what could've been.  And now it stands as a testament to what didn't happen, and why.

Maybe it's a little hard to watch, because it is talky, but sometimes that's exactly what's necessary.  Arguably, more than necessary.  And now it serves as testament to what should have happened, and why.  The sad part is, we know it was rejected at the time, as well as the idea it represented. 

2007 Capsule Reviews

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
rating: *****
review: One of my all-time favorite movies, Brad Pitt's most unexpected role in a career that to that point had been made of unexpected roles, taking on a quintessential American rebel, with masterful direction from Andrew Dominik and trademark narration from Hugh Ross.

American Gangster
rating: ****
review: I love when two major movie stars collide, which is what happens here between Denzel Washington (the eponymous gangster) and Russell Crowe (who takes on the challenge of bringing him down).  This is Ridley Scott in another of his genre deconstructions.

Ratatouille
rating: ****
review: As close to a true artistic masterpiece as Pixar has gotten, culminating in a divine meditation from Peter O'Toole, the likes of which will probably never be heard again in an animated film.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
rating: ****
review: The final showdown between Dumbledore and Voldemort ought to be considered a master class of fantasy dueling, the most rewarding element of this fifth film in the series.

Gone Baby Gone
rating: ****
review: Ben Affleck began a career revival by directing this Dennis Lehane mystery, starring his brother Casey in one of his defining roles (along with the eponymous Robert Ford above).

Smokin' Aces
rating: ****
review: A truly rollicking experience from Joe Carnahan featuring a bevy of great character performances from the likes of Ben Affleck (yes), Chris Pine, Ryan Reynolds, and even Jeremy Piven as the nominal (and eponymous) lead character.

Across the Universe
rating: ****
review: A visionary exploration of the Beatles catalog with exquisitely reinterpreted arrangements.

No Country for Old Men
rating: ****
review: The Coens go subdued, Josh Brolin solidifies his ascent to A-level, and Javier Bardem delivers an iconic performance as the relentless Anton Chigurh.

The Simpsons Movie
rating: ****
review: It may not feature the delirious music of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, but this is a perfect representation of the secret heart at the center of The Simpsons.

3:10 to Yuma
rating: ****
review: Crowe does another epic team-up, this time as the villain to Christian Bale's would-be hero in this modern Western.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
rating: ****
review: It may lack the sheer panache of Dead Man's Chest, but this is a worthy, otherworldly conclusion to the original Pirates trilogy.

The Lookout
rating: ****
review: Joseph Gordon-Levitt's true breakout performance after the splashy attention-getting style of Brick.

I'm Not There
rating: ****
review: Several big names play Bob Dylan in this extrapolation of his legend, including Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, and Heath Ledger.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age
rating: ****
review: Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth duology reaches epic proportions, the very rare historic drama featuring a woman at the heart of action.

Hot Fuzz
rating: ****
review: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost, the team behind Shaun of the Dead, return in a kind of British Western.

Lucky You
rating: ****
review: Eric Bana bringing humanity to the traditional gambling narrative.

The Number 23
rating: ****
review: Jim Carrey in a mind-bending drama that allows him to lose himself in the narrative rather than stand out in front of it.

Spider-Man 3
rating: ****
review: The traditionally maligned final Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire/Kirsten Dunst Spider-Man flick is actually narratively its strongest, thanks to at least one of its villains, Thomas Haden Church's Sandman.

Grindhouse
rating: ****
review: A film each from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Taratino, who both let loose for rollicking adventures.

Charlie Wilson's War
rating: ****
review: Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks explore the mess of the Middle East, from well before 9/11.

Lions for Lambs
rating: ****
review: An ensemble cast including Tom Cruise takes an immersive look at the post-9/11 intellectual landscape.

Juno
rating: ****
review: Ellen Page's perfect role, as a sardonic teen struggling to reconcile her life after becoming pregnant.

The Mist
rating: ****
review: An overlooked horror spectacle from Frank Darabont, once again adapting Stephen King.

In the Valley of Elah
rating: ****
review: Tommy Lee Jones laments the state of the United States post-9/11.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets
rating: ****
review: Arguably better than its predecessor, kind of hard to understand why Nicolas Cage hasn't gotten to make another one.

300
rating: ****
review: Instantly iconic visual spectacle from Zack Snyder and Gerard Butler, from the Frank Miller graphic novel.

Enchanted
rating: ****
review: Thoroughly enchanting live action update of the traditional Disney princess narrative, starring the only actor who could pull it off, Amy Adams.

There Will Be Blood
rating: ***
review: Unbalanced visionary work from Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis.

The Hunting Party
rating: ***
review: Fascinating, subdued journey with Richard Gere and Terrence Howard.

Rescue Dawn
rating: ***
review: Harrowing tale of survival from Christian Bale.

Fred Claus
rating: ***
review: Novel Santa tale from Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti.

Ocean's Thirteen
rating: ***
review: Breezy final adventure from Danny Ocean's crew.

The Game Plan
rating: ***
review: Goofy family comedy from Dwayne Johnson.

We Own the Night
rating: ***
review: Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, and Eva Mendes in a gritty crime drama.

Michael Clayton
rating: ***
review: George Clooney begins to find his stride as a leading man.

Music and Lyrics
rating: ***
review: Charming romantic comedy from Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant.

I Am Legend
rating: ***
review: Minimalist survival experience with Will Smith.

Shoot 'Em Up
rating: ***
review: Clive Owen delightfully parodies his own Children of Men.

Freedom Writers
rating: ***
review: Hilary Swank as an inspirational teacher with Patrick Dempsey playing against McDreamy type as her naysaying husband.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
rating: ***
review: Tim Burton and Johnny Depp finding out if their acts work in musical form.

Beowulf
rating: ***
review: Motion-capture version with some sweet vocal performances from Ray Winstone (as the title character), Angelina Jolie, and Anthony Hopkins.

Ghost Rider
rating: ***
review: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes and Sam Elliot interpret the Marvel superhero as a kind of modern Western.

License to Wed
rating: ***
review: Robin Williams as a live action supporting actor is clearly still having fun, and so is the kid trying desperately to be just like him.

Shrek the Third
rating: ***
review: The only real misfire in the Shrek series attempts to shift the narrative focus to King Arthur (as voiced by Justin Timberlake).  I always have a hard time remembering what happens in this one.

Bee Movie
rating: ***
review: Jerry Seinfeld disappointingly delivers a fairly traditional animated flick.  But still notable, as it's the only Seinfeld movie appearance to date.

Bucket List
rating: ***
review: Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman popularize the concept of the bucket list.

Alvin and the Chipmunks
rating: ***
review: Lively modern take on the animated critters.

The Bourne Ultimatum
rating: ***
review: The third in the series features Matt Damon learning his secret origin.

Martian Child
rating: ***
review: Charming variation on the classic Harvey narrative, with a kid.

Transformers
rating: ***
review: Bombastic opening salvo of Michael Bay's ultimate cinematic creation.

28 Weeks Later
rating: **
review: If the first one is more memorable, they clearly didn't learn why.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
rating: **
review: Serviceable second entry that chose to counterpoint a team that had already failed to fully connect with a lifeless addition.  But at least he's voiced by Laurence Fishburne, and Chris Evans still plays Johnny Storm.

Pathfinder: Legend of the Ghost Warrior
rating: **
review: Karl Urban is asked to anchor this relentless Viking/Native American horror flick.

The Last Legion
rating: **
review: Colin Firth leads an uninspired look back at the Roman Empire.

Blades of Glory
rating: **
review: A rare misfire from Will Ferrell.

Wild Hogs
rating: **
review:  Uncomfortable comedy that seems to come at the expense of John Travolta and Tim Allen.

Good Luck Chuck
rating: **
review: Dane Cook may be a fine standup comedian, but he's not really a leading man in movies.

The Golden Compass
rating: **
review: The Philip Pullman books may desperately want to be the atheist Chronicles of Narnia, but they haven't launched a successful adaptation.

TMNT
rating: **
review: This computer animated Ninja Turtles entry is pretty forgettable.

Fracture
rating: *
review: Ryan Gosling has been heavily pushed by critics for years, but this was an instance where I found the material to fail him.

2007

Viewed/Ranked

1. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
2. American Gangster
3. Ratatouille 
4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
5. Gone Baby Gone
6. Smokin' Aces
7. Across the Universe
8. No Country for Old Men
9. The Simpsons Movie
10. 3:10 to Yuma
11. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
12. The Lookout
13. I'm Not There
14. Elizabeth: The Golden Age
15. Hot Fuzz
16. Lucky You
17. The Number 23
18. Spider-Man 3
19. Grindhouse
20. Charlie Wilson's War
21. Lions for Lambs
22. Juno
23. The Mist
24. In the Valley of Elah
25. Nation Treasure: Book of Secrets
26. 300
27. There Will Be Blood
28. The Hunting Party
29. Rescue Dawn
30. Fred Claus
31. Ocean's Thirteen
32. The Game Plan
33. We Own the Night
34. Michael Clayton
35. Music and Lyrics
36. I Am Legend
37. Shoot 'Em Up
38. Freedom Writers
39. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
40. Beowulf
41. Ghost Rider
42. License to Wed
43. Shrek the Third
44. Bee Movie
45. Bucket List
46. Alvin and the Chipmunks
47. The Bourne Ultimatum
48. Martian Child
49. Transformers
50. 28 Weeks Later
51. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
52. Pathfinder: Legend of the Ghost Warrior
53. The Last Legion
54. Blades of Glory
55. Wild Hogs
56. Good Luck Chuck
57. The Golden Compass
58. TMNT
59. Fracture

Other Notable Releases

1. Atonement
2. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
3. Bug
4. Dan in Real Life
5. The Darjeeling Limited
6. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
7. Enchanted
8. Hannibal Rising
9. Hot Rod
10. I Think I Love My Wife
11. The Kingdom
12. Knocked Up
13. La Vie en Rose
14. Live Free or Die Hard
15. Love in the Time of Cholera
16. Lust, Caution
17. The Nanny Diaries
18. Once
19. Paris, je t'aime
20. Reservation Road
21. Rush Hour 3
22. The Savages
23. Slipstream
24. Stardust
25. Superbad
26. Talk to Me
27. Waitress

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

*****

directed by: Andrew Dominik
starring: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, Jeremy Renner, Sam Rockwell, Mary-Louise Parker, Zooey Deschanel

Released in 2007.

One of my hallmarks of great storytelling is knowing your characters.  It's not always essential to base the entire story around exploring these characters so much as what happens to them, but it certainly helps.  This is a movie about Robert Ford, not Jesse James.  As the title suggests, Ford killed James, and this is an attempt to explain why.

Actually, that's half the fascination for me about Assassination of Jesse James, that it doesn't feature the more famous of its subjects as the lead.  In this movie, Jesse James is more myth than man.  All his best banditry is in the past.  He's actually just a man, but he's most definitely a myth to Robert Ford, who has grown up reading about Jesse and all but fallen in love with him (although that's more implied than explicit).  The basic plot is Robert signing up to be a part of Jesse's last big job and the gang's efforts to then fade away.

Now, obviously the notoriety of Jesse James works both ways.  He'll have had his admirers.  He'll also have had the authorities gunning for him.  Robert Ford ends up straddling both, once he finally sees behind the curtain he previously held in front of Jesse.  That's how he ends up standing behind the famous outlaw as Jesse stands on a chair to some dusting.  It's a moment that's repeated several times at the back-end of the movie, first as it really happens and later as Robert recreates it for the stage.  Because it's Robert's movie, it continues after the title event, as the so-called coward tries to come to peace with what he's done.

Robert Ford is portrayed by Casey Affleck, the younger brother of Ben Affleck.  Although Casey has cared a pretty respectable career for himself, he's nowhere near the league of his brother.  For one, he has a softer voice that he either can't or won't mask.  It's an ideal feature for a youthful and naive character like Robert Ford, a sycophant who definitely suggests the sickness of such a role.  You have sympathy for him, sometimes, and at others you despise him.

Which is funny, because the man he shoots was not a good man.  Well, maybe some people could construe Jesse James in a positive light.  In this movie he's played by the bigger star, Brad Pitt.  I've long been interested in the career of Pitt.  He's filled it with contradictory roles, mostly because he's terrified of being defined only by his physical appearance.  Jesse James is certainly one of those contradictory roles, and maybe it's exactly right to cast a big star in the role, to signal to the audience in an immediate way that aside from everything else this was a guy who knew how to draw attention to himself.  There would always be a lot more to him than someone like Robert Ford could comprehend, and yet he was also exactly what his historical reputation marks him out to be: a bad apple.

Yet Pitt finds the human in him, enough so that you're forced to remember that in Robert's mind this was a horribly complicated situation.  Jesse was a hero to him, Robert's idol, and yet the man didn't live up to the myth.  Robert quite deliberately shot him in the back.  Pitt doesn't make the role too flashy, which is an underrated specialty of his.  Occasionally he'll take a role like in Twelve Monkeys where he's a spastic attraction, but that speaks more to Pitt's range than any particular style.  In the end he's exactly what he wants to be, and that's not just a pretty face.  Assassination of Jesse James is his best film.

Director Andrew Dominik, who's still only at the start of a brilliant career, hits an unmistakable milestone with this film.  It's divisive, because it's meditative where most viewers prefer action or clever characters, but it's also one of the most gorgeous movies you'll ever see.  It's also got, behind Pitt and Affleck, plenty of supporting actors you'l love to watch navigate the film, including Jeremy Renner, Sam Rockwell, and Zooey Deschanel.

Juno

****

directed by: Jason Reitman
starring: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner

Released in 2007.

Juno is known for a couple of things.  One, it's a teenage pregnancy drama.  (Although the funny thing is that anyone who knows about this movie probably doesn't think of it that way.)  Two, it's Ellen Page's big break.  Three, it was written by Diablo Cody.

That last point makes Juno pretty unique.  Usually if anyone knows who wrote a movie, it was the director.  There are exceptions, sure, but for the most part few people think of the writers as an active part of a film's success.  It's either the director or the actors, and anyone else you have to be a real cinephile to care about.  Not so with Diablo Cody.  She became an immediate sensation thanks to Juno.  In fact, even though Jason Reitman as director had his own budding career have a definite mark of distinction with this movie, everyone talked about it as if it was Cody's baby alone.

Yet it's also very much about Ellen Page.  She's the rare young actor who is able to captivate an audience, and the sardonic nature of Juno helps demonstrate her specific appeal and make it palatable to a mass audience.

It certainly doesn't hurt that she has a terrific supporting cast around her.  Michael Cera is probably the opposite of Page as far as mass appeal goes.  He's become a favorite of filmmakers, but he plays a pretty specific role that doesn't always translate to mass audiences, the nebbish loner who somehow is great at making the right connections, or in other words our new Woody Allen.  He's perfect for a movie like Juno, a key element of its success and a perfect complement to Page.  Yet it's not just young people.  J.K. Simmons, who was brought to everyone's attention as J. Jonah Jameson in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, begins to assert himself as a much more broad and appealing presence as Page's father, while potential adoptive parents Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner have a chance to present their own charms, which can sometimes be unappreciated.  (It's nice to see Cera and Bateman in a project together outside of Arrested Development, too.)

The whole affair is about as laid back as the main character herself, enjoyable and transformative.