Hans' Best Films of 2007

News that Hans had released his 2007 best of list spread like wildfire.

This is a preliminary list only. I may rethink parts of it, and I do intend to come back and write proper reviews. Then again, I am, as a rule, full of promises and vague, good intentions. It rarely amounts to very much, but I find it gets me through... My abject lack of achievement is salved, just a little, by my nebulous -- but still ambitious -- plans for World Domination. It's only a matter of finding the requisite time and enthusiasm, and then the world is MINE. (In the meantime, I will consider purchasing a sofa.)

Anyway, enough of my raving, here are the goods:

1. NOISE

[Dec 6: Hans' status at time of writing = buzzed]

I've already reviewed Noise for the short-lived film column that the estimable Ubaldi and I wrote for Beat. The Ubaldi, despite her estimableness [fuck, try saying that after a few beers...EDIT: and a Bailey's EDIT: and a refill], slammed the film ruthlessly. I can't remember exactly what she said, but I believe it was something along the lines of "This film is a crock of shit and doesn't conform to my Olympian standards. Can somebody -- anybody -- tell me why you'd make a film that doesn't have George Clooney in it? It's madness. The world needs more of George's devilishly handsome handsomeness. The only thing that could have rescued this film from its own ludicrous implausibility would be if George were cast as the copper and THEN cast as the the nutter, and perhaps even cast as the retarded kid with the dog fetish."

In my role as the non-Ubaldi [ie, the Voice of Reason; the David Stratton to her raving Adolf Hitler], I tactfully tried to inform The Ubaldi that she had, as per usual, taken off on a [possibly -- who can say for sure?] drug-fuelled flight of fancy at such velocity that she'd left the Earth's atmosphere altogether.

Sure, he's smiling. But is it informed consent?

Anyway, let's put The Ubaldi's [rumoured] drug problem to one side (the side furthest away from her). Is Noise, after a second viewing, and the passing of several months, as good as I first thought it was? The answer is, no. But it's still very, very good, and still, I believe, the best film I saw this year. It has an extraordinary sense of place and language to it -- perhaps this strikes me so forcibly because it's set in my hometown. I'm not sure. But it has an authenticity, and the plot holes that The Ubaldi detects aren't dealbreakers in my book. They're fodder for pedants -- pedants whose penchant for drugs is hotly disputed.

I was so transfixed by the film that I couldn't muster sufficient critical detachment to pick holes in its plot. I condemn anyone who doesn't agree with me. You're all arseholes. Except The Ubaldi. She is ESTIMABLE, despite her drug problem. Allegedly.

You all suck donkey balls -- for which, no doubt, the donkey is grateful, though I frown upon it. Because it's a disgusting habit. Stick to your own species, you fucking perverts. Leave the donkeys.

LIBERATE THE DONKEYS.

They have the right not to have their balls sucked.

The civilised film reviewer's tipple of choice.

2. THE LIVES OF OTHERS

[Dec 6: Hans' status = shitfaced, but oddly elated]

Another one I reviewed for Beat. I was impressed. The Lives of Others is a brainy film about surveillance and power and voyeurism and surrogacy and complacency and lots of other things. The plot is tricky and twisty, and you never really know where it's gonna go. Like so many films about people, and how their personal decisions have political ramifications, the film makes you question what you'd do if you were in those circumstances.

Given that I am a past master at reconciling myself to my own compromises, I'm pretty sure that I would've been a craven weasel, though I would like, at this juncture, ladeez and gentleman, to stick up for the honour of weasels. They are a much maligned animal. And they are related to badgers and wolverines, two of my favourite animals, and therefore by a process of association can't be all bad. Society is like an ecosystem: you need weasels as well as tigers and killer whales and ESTIMABLE Ubaldis. You have to get the mix right. I complement Ubaldi's deficiencies: I have critical judgement; she has a drug problem [so I've heard]. She has an irrational love of George Clooney and donkey balls; I enjoy an occasional civilised Baileys or two. Do you see how this is working? Are you digging my vibe? The Estimable Ubaldi's filmic views need to be complemented by my views, just like George Michael needed to be complemented by that other dude who was in Wham with him. It's like pineapple on pizza. At some point in Italy some smart fucker said: "Hey, bitches, look at this: I've put pineapple on this pizza!" And after they'd stoned him to death, the world was never the same. Because he thought outside the box. He added something sweet to something that had previously been delectable but only delectably savoury. And now it's savouriness was complemented, indeed heightened, by sweetness. Each remained itself, yet in its difference was heightened. Or something like that.

Frankly, I tire of this argument. I suspect you fuckers of being deliberately obtuse. I am beginning to question whether you deserve the full stream of my stream of consciousness. I defer final judgement. I am opposed to the rash decision, the quick rush to war, condemnation, or an ill-considered opinion not buttressed by years of research and massaged temples. That's just the way I am. But please, do it your own way. You will anyway, you ignorant bastards.

3. CASHBACK

[Dec 6: Hans' status = shitfaced, but tiring]

I will cop flak for this. But this film is great. GREAT even. And not great in the way you say "I had a great day" or "Mr Smedley, that is a great idea"... or some such mealy-mouthed misuse. I mean, GREAT, as in Nathan Buckley just carried the ball 25m and slotted it from 55m in the pocket. Or great as in I just found $40 in my jeans pocket that I didn't know I had. Or Monica Bellucci. Say no more, you say. Matrix, the second one, I say. Dress, you say. Superstructure, I say. Indeed, you say, nodding sagely, because we are on the same wavelength. Our minds have met, and decided that we're each boon companions.

Hawking: 'Hans is right. If it were possible to stop time so that you could disrobe hot chicks, I'd have found a way to do it.'

So I was extolling the virtues of this film to the GREAT Ubaldi ages ago, and she said "I really enjoyed it too, Hans, till I realised that the protagonist was sexually assaulting all those beautiful women who all inexplicably shopped at the supermarket he worked in". This, I admit, pulled me up short. Cashback's protagonist is an insomniac art student who fills his nights by working at supermarket. To alleviate the soul-crushing boredom, he stops time. Everyone but him freezes in place. He takes advantage of this to artfully disrobe the implausibly large number of babes who ply the supermarket aisles and then sketches them.

This can be construed as sexual assault, it is true. But when you're watching the film, you're deeply invested in the interests and consciousness of the protagonist (whose name I've forgotten, fuck it. Let's call him Brian). And of course, it's clear from the start that these frozen moments aren't real. They're just a fucking conceit. Because you can't freeze time. Not even if you're a lovesick young art student called Brian. Stephen Hawking, who indubitably knows more about space and time and quarks and other such shit than me or Brian, and perhaps more than the Estimable Ubaldi -- even he wouldn't be able to do it.

No, it's clear that this is a quirky story-telling mechanism. A metaphor, if you will. So you're never too troubled by Bri's pervilicious approach to the supermarket hotties. Because it's all a figment of his randy little imagination. Or so you think. Not to mention the fact that all he does is perv at them. Whoops. Did I say ALL he does? [Image of Hans backtracking...] What I mean is that despite the gross violation of privacy, there's nothing more sinister than that. And besides, did I mention that you can't stop time?

But Ubaldi is sidetracking me. What most transfixed me about this film, more even that the superb and frequently bared breasts and beavers, was the mismatch of subject and treatment. If you've watched M Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. There was a film that married a comic-book storyline to lugubrious kitchen-sink realism. The plot and the manner of its unfolding were at odds, and that was the very selling/sticking point of the film. Likewise, Cashback. It's adolescent love -- some sensitive, narcissistic art student with an infatuation -- and yet it's treated, filmed, narrated as if it were Anna Karenina, with a few pratfalls for comic relief. It's deeply, deeply odd and unexpected. And that's why it works. This film treats its subject matter -- young love, infatuation, sex -- with as much seriousness as you would if it were your loves, infatuation, and fucks that were under consideration.

4. THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD

[Dec 8: Hans' status = sober & uninspired]

This got a mixed critical response. By and large, the two criticisms directed at this film by Andrew Dominik (Chopper) are that it was A) too slow; B) was sunk by an unlikeable protagonist, Robert Ford (Casey Affleck). I can't really sympathise with the first objection because I was captivated for the duration. As for the second objection, well, cinema is filled with all sorts of unattractive protagonists. Your lead character doesn't have to be likeable, doesn't have to be the viewer's surrogate, doesn't have to good-hearted, or brave, or whatever. The only thing the protagonist has to be for the film to succeed is interesting. Robert Ford, as played by Affleck, is a seething mess of conflicting impulses. He idolises Jesse James (there are clear homoerotic overtones), but when he feels mistreated or mocked turns on Jesse like, well, a woman scorned. It's an extraordinarily unsympathetic but, for all that, human performance by Affleck. His Robert Ford is mediocre and unprepossessing, with what appears to be an utterly unmerited sense of destiny and an offputting and overly familiar sex-offender smile. He's the antithesis of Pitt, whose movie-star trappings are are perfect fit for Jesse James, a man who courted notoriety only to have it turn against him, like some proto-celebrity.

5. PAN'S LABYRINTH

6. MICHAEL CLAYTON

[Dec 10: Hans' status = sober & going through the motions]

A bunch of little people in rural America take out a class-action lawsuit against a agribusiness corporation (think: Monsanto) that has knowingly marketed some radioactive corn flakes, or somethin', with presumably devastating health effects on those who use it -- the film is never that clear about these details. And to be honest, the details don't matter. What matters is this: ruthless corporation caught doing something bad > seeks to evade responsibility via legal manoeuvring carried out by heavy-hitting NY legal firm.

But as usually happens in whistleblower-type scenarios, a jaded worker-bee turns against evil corporation. In Michael Clayton that person is a lawyer (played by Tom Wilkinson) working for the NY legal firm. Mentally unstable, oppressed by his years as accomplice to all sorts of corporate malfeasance, and smitten by a young girl who's somehow involved in the case, Wilkinson turns against the corporation when he gets his hands on documents that prove wrongdoing. Once the Evil Corporation realises that Wilkinson has documents that expose them to enormous legal risks, not to mention damages, the situation rapidly heads arseward.

The eponymous Michael Clayton (George Clooney, with typically diffident charisma) is a colleague of Wilkinson at the legal firm. He's not a lawyer, more of a 'fixer', a savvy liaison between the law firm and its clients. Clayton, like his colleague, is corrupted but still moral enough to care. In short order, Clayton is drawn into the lawsuit. His bosses make him minder to the dangerously off-the-rails Wilkinson, and he's told to liaise with the head of the Evil Corporation's legal department, played by Tilda Swinton.

So there's nothing here that sounds that new, right? What exactly, you fold your arms and ask, does this film offer that hasn't already been rehashed in about a million films?

Because I can't be fucked, and because my alcohol percentage is 0, I will continue the review in bulletpoint form:

• It's classily put together: well shot, well acted, well edited.
• It has a hangdog commitment to realism. This is evident in its characterisation. Its 'heroes' and 'villains' aren't polarised into Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. Quite the reverse, everyone is implicated, and even the villains agonise over life and death decisions.
• Most interesting, and really just a continuation of my previous point, was the film's take on how a take-no-prisoners corporate warrior might take that last step from merely lying to, ripping off, and exploiting people for profit to coldbloodedly killing them. Biographical fact: I don't think corporations are inherently evil. I'm also not a conspiracy nut. And I don't want to destroy capitalism so that we can all go back to living in some utopian (and completely imaginary) preindustrial world. That said, I don't have much difficulty thinking that some large corporations have opponents eliminated, ie killed. Corporations, after all, are responsible for scroll-like list of misadventure, corruption, and death -- it's just that much of this is probably committed in the Third World by surrogates.
• Anyway, because I've really lost momentum, let me just say that Clayton, at length, faces a decision: keep quiet about corporate wrongdoing and in the process fund his retirement, or expose them as the lying, cheating, murdering scoundrels they are.

Which option do you reckon he takes?

7. THE GOOD SHEPHERD

[Dec 8: Hans' status = thirsty]

Look, I love this film. But it has ONE FATAL FLAW. There's one crucial plot device that does not make sense, and prevents me from buying into The Good Shepherd wholeheartedly. It qualifies all praise. I might as well blurt it out: Matt Damon is a CIA operative who receives a mysteriously doctored video tape. He busily sets about getting CIA analysts to decode the tape, trying to work out who it is in the tape and what they're saying. Because this is a film about betrayal, paranoia, family, and conspiracy, you know that there's something terribly significant about this tape and you know that it will figure somehow in the film's denouement. But the thing is, once you've watched the end of the film, and all is revealed, I ask you to ponder why the tape was doctored in the first place? If Damon's KGB adversary wanted him to watch the tape, why not just send it to him undoctored? Why make him go through the painstaking process of decoding the tape, a process that wasn't certain to be a success anyway? The only reason for the identity of the people in the tape to be hidden seems to be a cheap dramatic device to suspend the identity of the tapees not from Damon so much as from the audience. It just doesn't make sense, fuck it, and it ruins my enjoyment of the film. That a film should strive for psychological realism as The Good Shepherd does only to cut corners on such a central detail is 54 different flavours of crazy.

8. 28 WEEKS LATER

[Dec 10: Hans' status = sullen & disillusioned]

Yeah, I have nothing to say about this except that I shrieked girlishly more than once. Read my previous review here.

9. SUNSHINE

[Dec 10: Hans' status = still fucking sober, still going through the fucking motions. What of it?]

Short and sweet: the Sun is dying. Scientists send a spacecraft stocked with some of Earth's brainiest and best-looking scientists to the sun. Their spacecraft carries a ginormous nuclear payload, which they will fire at the heart of the sun, thus reigniting the fucker and ensuring that Australian beach culture survives. This film, reviewed already for Beat, is a melange of many previous science-fiction films. What it has going for it is its extraordinary visuals, delivered courtesy of director Danny Boyle, and a disquieting atmosphere, equal parts dread and mysticism. The first two-thirds of the film are hypnotic. Human error means the spacecraft is damaged and the ship's captain is burnt to a crisp while attempting repairs. When the crew are informed they don't have enough oxygen left for all of them to complete the journey to the sun, things start to get really interesting. Some crew members face up to the situation and resolve to 'off' one of their number; others are much more comfortable having the deaths of the Earth's remaining population on their conscience than that of one of their colleagues. (Funny moral calculus, that.) Anyway, suffice it to say, the first two-thirds are fascinating. But then the last third takes an abrupt turn. This is how I imagine the powers-that-be came up with this narrative digression:

STUDIO EXECUTIVE #1: Look, I love what we've got so far, but I'm a bit worried that there's not enough excitement.

NON-PHILISTINE: Of course, you're right. A crew sent on a probable suicide mission to reignite sun with the fate of the Earth hanging in the balance is ridiculously lacking in drama.

SE #1: Don't get me wrong, it's great. But it's not exactly edge-of-the-seat stuff. It needs a bit more danger. It needs to be VISCERAL!

NON-PHILISTINE: Like a car chase?

SE #1: Yes! That sort of thing! But not a car chase because, you know, it's set in space, and everything.

SE #2: But something like a car-chase. The outer-space equivalent of a car chase.

NON-PHILISTINE: Maybe we could have the the mission attacked by an alien spacecraft? We could have a space chase around the sun then.

SE #2: Kinda like in Star Wars with the Millennium Falcon?

NON-PHILISTINE: Yeah, can't see why that wouldn't work. Maybe George Lucas would let us use Darth Vader?

SE #2: Fuck! That's genius! Imagine the merchandising tie-ins!

SE #1: Uh yeah, I was thinking that maybe the crew run into an alien who gradually starts picking them off one by one...

NON-PHILISTINE: That's never been done before.

SE #1: ...and it's a race against time for the crew to deliver the payload and, you know, save humanity from popsicle-ization and all that, before the alien manages to chase them all over the ship gradually dispatching them with grisly, but lovingly filmed, carnage.

NON-PHILISTINE: That's tremendous.

SE #2: God, Nigel, you're a genius.

SE #1: Thanks, Carter, I just have a knack for all this plot stuff.

SE #2: It's like Signs meets Alien. Now if we can just add a romance and one man reaffirming his faith, we've got a full house and surefire box-office gold.

[Unseen among all the high-fiving, Non-Philistine quietly exits room.]

10. CONTROL