The MacGuffin

There are some films that have become so familiar to us that watching them again feels a bit like coming home. We know the characters, we know the sequences, and sometimes we can even say the lines of dialogue before they come. They are so a part of who we are that we associate the film with our own upbringing. That’s how I feel every time I see Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future (1985). One of the essential films of the 1980s, I feel that it’s safe to say that just about everyone knows and has seen it, and for some of us, couldn’t fathom what growing up would be like without it. It does everything that you can expect out of pure entertainment—with names, places, and images that have lasted in contemporary popular culture. I’ve become so familiar with the film that I can’t remember the first time ever seeing it.

Here’s what I’ve been watching recently:

The opening shot is as striking as any you’ll see. Up high in the Peruvian mountains, amongst the clouds and mist, a line of soldiers, animals, and workers snake their way down a steep path. While the shot is taken from a distance, it’s clear that this moment is not manipulated at any point—those are real people steadily going through the dangerous cliffs of the rock side, with the green canyon thousands of feet below. This is just one of the many haunting images that populate Werner Herzog’s daring and ambitious examination of human nature, Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972). It’s a film that examines the depths to which obsession can take a person, created by a man who has made a career out of his obsession for the cinema. There are some filmmakers who do the work as a job, others because they simply enjoy it. Herzog does it because it is ingrained in his very being.

Sometimes, the beauty of smaller or independent films is that they are populated by characters that feel more tangible than those of big Hollywood films. The achievement of Dee Rees’s film Pariah (2012) is through the believability of its main character. Adepero Oduye, who plays Alike (Ah-Lee-Kay), is so tender and sincere with her performance that it seems as though she were picked up right off the streets and placed in front of the camera. She is so natural here, never gesturing towards the audience or making it known that what we are watching is an “act.” Instead, she breathes and lives her character with an element of truth; not at any moment did I feel any kind of falsehood. Too many lesser actors would strain—trying too hard to gain an effect from the viewer. Oduye doesn’t do that with Alike, she just…is.

With 2011 officially in the books, it’s time once again to look back and reflect on some of the best films that have come out in the past year. As with all movie writers, coming up with a list like this is usually expected, but also damn near impossible. To me, reading and writing these types of articles are only beneficial in spreading word about titles that really had an effect on me, while stirring up debate between those who strongly agree with my choices, or vehemently disagree. No one list is ever truly definitive; what is considered great to one may not register the same way to another. The only real truth is that 2011 had a wide range of very interesting and fascinating films, and just like every year, there’s always a good handful worth noting.

No other genre evokes a sense of place better than the western. You have vast rolling hills, expansive barren deserts, horses, hats and pistols, and sleepy towns where sheriffs and robbers shoot it out to the death. It’s a world long since passed, where those with gold and guns dictated the law. What I find so fascinating about westerns is that they are a representation of a place that once was—with people who perhaps lived lives that were similar to the ones we read about in folk stories, or watch in the movies. Survival and the hope of prosperity drove people toward these places, and motivated those who wanted to steal their way to a better life. There are a handful of great movies set in the Wild West, but very few have reached the plateau of Sergio Leone’s epic, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).

What have I been watching lately? Well, let me tell you…

Now this is what I’m talking about. The beautiful thing about seeing Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin (2011) is realizing all the shortcomings that made up his lackluster film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Sure, both films have similarities: both are over the top adventure films, both have absurd plots that stretch the limits of believability, and both see our heroes in the middle of thrilling action sequences. But the difference here is that Tintin has much more life, energy, and enthusiasm, while Crystal Skull felt like an uninspired attempt at recapturing the once-great magic of a franchise. While the characters of Herge’s comic book series have been around for quite some time, this feels as though it is something new, something to be discovered and perhaps inviting us to revisit those stories, told in a way that can only come from the partnership of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson.

Tom Cruise is back once again as super agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), the fourth installment in the highly popular series. This time around, the film is directed by Brad Bird, the man who brought us some of the best animated movies in the last fifteen years in The Iron Giant (1999), The Incredibles (2004), and Ratatouille (2007). I was a little surprised that a person who is so associated with the animated world would be helming the next film of a franchise that has seen the likes of Brian DePalma, John Woo, and J.J. Abrams. Would his storytelling abilities translate well to a live action setting? Well, let me tell it to you like this: with a film that has the title Mission: Impossible, I walked in expecting over the top action, death-defying set pieces, preposterous plot twists, and really cool gadgets. I’m happy to report that I was not disappointed.

“…I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am”

Perhaps no other name in film acting is equated to that of an icon quite like Marlon Brando. He has been referenced and pointed to countless times, and his practice of the Method approach has become legendary. Brando has influenced actors who can be identified by their last names: Dean, DeNiro, Pacino, Nicholson. To say that someone is the “greatest” in anything is a hyperbolic statement, because an idea like that could never be truly measured. But it can be said that Brando, in his laidback, naturalistic, and even quirky manner of performance, helped transition screen acting to how it is seen in the modern day. You can even see the difference in approach in the films themselves, with other actors boldly gesturing against his more unorthodox style. That’s not to say that either is right or wrong, but one thing is undeniably certain: Brando stood out from the rest.