The MacGuffin

I watched Trouble in Paradise (1932) for the first time at the Grand Illusion Cinema the other night, and now I can’t stop thinking about it or the director Ernst Lubitsch. He’s beloved around my house; my husband loves The Shop Around the Corner and my favorite is To Be or Not To Be. (I have a life-long obsession with Jack Benny. At age five I could do two impressions: Mae West and Jack Benny. Yes, I was bullied.) A lot gets bandied about regarding “The Lubitsch Touch” and what that is. For me, it’s where what you don’t see is just as important as what you do.

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.

A truly great child actor can illicit emotion from the viewer in ways that dissolve once the barriers to adulthood begin to be crossed. Perhaps this is because seeing a child invoke that kind of emotion reminds us that they feel as deeply as we “grown-ups” do, and that our own pain was never silly, like we might now think of it. Perhaps it is because of the inherent helplessness of childhood, where you must face your problems in ways that others determine for you, and the audience cannot judge the character and say “this is what I would have done.” Or perhaps we just enjoy marveling at talent that comes so young. Whatever the case, the pull is there, and I felt it to an amazing degree while watching the star of Tomboy (2011).

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.

Trying to discover the logic behind what I decide to watch on any given day is an exercise in futility. I watch some things because the writer, director, DP and/or actor(s) interest me. I watch some things that my movie snob friends would refer to as “embarrassing” and insist I stop talking about. I watch some things because I think the story will be neat. I watch some things because my sister tells me to and eventually I’ll watch it just to shut her up. You may think my taste in film and television is asinine; I think it’s eclectic.

I think Top 10 lists are fun. Many critics write beleaguered sorts of “I don’t really want to be doing this and it’s stupid and rankings are meaningless” disclaimers at the beginning of their lists. Ugh. Look, it should go without saying that any list (or review) is a reflection of the writer’s personality and their un-duplicate-able individual experience. If you’ve read the rest of my writing this year, you will not be shocked by my list. What I’d like to say before I dive in I don’t consider to be a disclaimer, but just necessary context: the films I didn’t/couldn’t see that are on my mind anyway.

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).

I’ve been a big fan of women’s pictures of the thirties, forties, and fifties since the first moment I saw The Women (1939) by George Cukor when I was a kid. Films about the lives of women appealed to me, not just because I would be one someday, but because their stories revolved around different subject matter than movies targeted to men. Family, romance, social rules, scandal, and drama were all open for analysis. I love the heroic gestures of a good western, but I also love the more down-to-earth subject matter of a good weepy drama. Not only do these films give us great stories, but they provide glimpses into what it means to be a woman, the rules we are supposed follow, and the punishments life metes out if we don’t.

Hugo is a movie I wanted to embrace, but found difficult to do. Martin Scorsese is a favorite director of mine and he has an ability to take almost any story and make it feel engaging and as if time has not passed. In that, the film falls short of some of his current modern day masterpieces, but still has strong characters and, for the most part, a strong storyline that he is famous for.

Another Top 5 segment from The MacGuffin. This time Allen and Brandi share their top 5 cliched but awesome moments.

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