OK, here we are with my final “Best-of” list, the Top 10 DVDs of 2008!  To be included on this list, the DVD in question had to contain a high-quality TV show, movie, or special and also a great presentation on DVD, with lots of cool special features.  Behold my list:

10.  Mystery Science Theatre 3000:  20th Anniversary Edition — I adore this show, and this 20th anniversary celebration of its existence just rocked.  On this set, the gang haves fun with four great/terrible films: First Spaceship on Venus (1960), Laserblast (1978), Werewolf (1996) and Future War (1997).  Even better is the inclusion of an in-depth 3-part documentary on the making of the show, from its creation through to its end.  The icing on the cake was the neat tin case that included fun stuff like a little model of Crowe T. Robot, which now sits proudly on my desk.

9.  John, Paul, Tom & Ringo: The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder — This DVD contains three lengthy, rare interviews that Tom Synder conducted with Paul McCartney (in 1979), Ringo Starr (in 1981), and John Lennon (in 1975).  The Lennon interview is the last televised interview that John gave before his death.  Snyder is an engaging interviewer, and these lengthy conversations with 3 of the 4 Beatles are a real find.  

8.  The Office: The Complete Fourth Season and 30 Rock: The Complete Second Season — Complete season sets of these two NBC shows at the top of their game were released in ‘08, I can’t tell you how many hours of enjoyment I got out of these DVDs.  In the fourth season of The Office, Ryan the temp is promoted, moves to New York City, and falls to pieces; Andy begins dating Angela; Stanley finally loses it with Michael (”did I stutter?”), Michael is deposed in Jan’s case against Dunder Mifflin; the gang creates an ad to run on local television and participates in Michael’s “fun run” towards a cure for rabies; Toby finally leaves for Costa Rica; and of course Michael and Jan invite Jim and Pam over for a dinner party.  Over on 30 Rock, Jack launches a new reality series called  MILF Island; Tracy and Jenna feud over Liz’s attentions; Liz adopts a hippie writer (played by Carrie Fisher) as her mentor; Devon Banks (Arrested Development’s Will Arnett) feuds with Jack over the top spot at GE; Jerry Seinfeld discovers Jack’s plan to digitally insert him into all of NBC’s new fall shows; Jack falls in love with a Democratic Congresswoman from Vermont (Edie Falco); and while Liz Lemon faces a pregnancy scare, Jack takes a job working in the Bush Administration along with a sad little man the President nicknamed “Cooter” (Matthew Broderick).  Both sets have extensive special features including lots of deleted scenes and commentaries.

7.  Sold Out: A Threevening With Kevin Smith – In celebration of his 37th birthday, Kevin Smith hosted a Q & A in his home-town of Redbank, NJ.  This almost 4-hour event is a hilarious (and VERY raunchy) tour through Smith’s brain, as he regales the crowd with stories covering everything from his experiences making Clerks II and Live Free or Die Hard to his day serving on a jury while stricken with an anal fissure.  This is the third DVD in the Evening with Kevin Smith series, and I treasure these even more than his actual films!  (Read my full review here.)

6.  Battlestar Galactica: Razor — We didn’t see an enormous amount of new Battlestar Galactica material in 2008, but possibly the best of what we did see was the direct-to-DVD movie Razor.  Razor follows the experiences of the ill-fated Battlestar Pegasus, which, like the Galactica, also survived the annihilation of the Twelve Colonies by the Cylons.  However, without the moderating influence of a civilian leader like Laura Roslin, we see how the Pegasus’ commander, Admiral Cain, responds to the tragedy in a much more brutal way than did the Galactica’s Captain Adama.  Razor serves as a compelling “what-if” tale, demonstrating what might have befallen our heroes on the Galactica had things unfolded just a tiny bit differently.   (It’s fascinating to see the way the movie weaves through and around the pieces of the Pegasus’ backstory that we’d already been given in the series.)  As usual with BSG, there is an enormous amount of intense action and stunning outer-space combat depicted with astounding special effects.  In particular, the visuals of the Cylons’ assault on the spacedock where the Pegasus was berthed are breathtaking in their beauty.  As if the movie needed anything else to recommend it, it also features an extended flashback in which we see young William “Husker” Adama taking on Original Series-looking Cylons in the last battle of the First Cylon War.  Great stuff, and a key piece in the over-all Battlestar Galactica story.

5.  Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs and Bender’s Game —  Not only has DVD helped with the preservation of a lot of obscure TV and movie content (I am SO excited, for example, at the recent announcement that Andy Richter Controls the Universe is finally getting a DVD release!!), but it has also helped resuscitate once-cancelled programs.  Exhibit A: the cut-down-before-its-time Futurama, which has returned in four direct-to-DVD movies, the middle two of which were released in 2008.  The Beast with a Billion Backs is probably the strongest of the two, but both contain all of the amazing animation and obscure sci-fi references that fans of the show have come to expect and love.  I hope the final DVD, Into the Wild Green Yonder (coming out next month) isn’t the last Futurama adventure that we’ll ever see!

4.  Robot Chicken: Star Wars and Family Guy: Blue Harvest — These two Star Wars parodies both aired on TV within just a few weeks of one another; both featured the work of a lot of the same talented writers and performers; and both have been in REGULAR rotation in my home since their DVDs were released.  In very different ways, both specials mercilessly mock the silliness of the various Star Wars films.  But there is so much love on display, too, along with a wonderfully geeky focus on obscure details of the films, that the mockery never becomes mean-spirited.  They are both just absolutely hilarious, with one of the highest jokes-per-second ratios of anything I’ve seen this year.  Both DVDs were also filled to the brim with special features — and the deluxe edition of the Family Guy set even came with a Family Guy Star Wars t-shirt!  (Read my full review of the Robot Chicken Star Wars Special here.)

3.  Touch of Evil: 50th Anniversary Edition — A beautiful presentation of this amazing film from 1958.  Orson Welles directed and stars as corrupt cop Hank Quinlan, who winds up tangling with Mexican narcotics official Mike Vargas, played by Charlton Heston.  Gorgeous cinematography and Welles’ incredible direction (the film is known for a series of extraordinary tracking shots, including the opening sequence and a dynamic interrogation scene in the house of a Mexican suspect) combine with a tough, surprisingly brutal story to create a film classic.  In addition to the restored film, the DVD is (like most of the other DVDs on this list) loaded with fascinating behind-the-scenes features.  (Read my full review of the film here.)

2.  Blade Runner: Ultimate Edition — I still remember the first time I ever saw Blade Runner, on VHS back in High School — I didn’t quite know what to make of it!  It was only in college, when I had an opportunity to see the film on the big screen, that I began to realize what a masterpiece it was, and with each subsequent viewing I have come to love the film more and more.  Famously, director Ridley Scott had to bow to some studio-requested changes to the final film.  A “Director’s Cut” released in the early days of DVD attempted to restore the film to Ridley’s original intention, but it was long hoped that Scott would some-day create a true director’s cut.  Finally, those requests have been answered.  This exhaustive DVD set contains a variety of different versions of the film, including Ridley’s newly-produced “ultimate” cut, as well as an astounding amount of behind-the-scenes special features headlined by the feature length making-of documentary entitled Dangerous Days.  You could spend weeks (and I did!) exploring all that this set has to offer, but of course what it all comes down to is the beautiful presentation of this astounding, ground-breaking film.  (Please note that I am cheating a little bit by including this on my list, as this set was actually released in late December, 2007.  But since I spent so much time in early 2008 enjoying it, I felt it proper to include it here.)

1.  Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog — I wrote about this quite extensively just the other week here on the site, so I won’t repeat myself.  Suffice it to say, this DVD presentation of Joss Whedon’s 3-part web-series about a beat-down supervillain (Neil Patrick Harris as the titular Dr. Horrible)’s attempts to woe a girl he met at the laundromat and defeat his nemesis (Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer) has quickly become one of my very favorite things on my DVD shelf.  If you haven’t seen it yet, you need to remedy that ASAP.

And with that, we bit a fond farewell and adieu to 2008!  See you all right back here on Monday, as we start getting caught up with all of the fun stuff I’ve seen so far in 2009…

Well, I hope you enjoyed my lists of the Top 10 TV Shows and the Top 10 Movies 0f 2008.

But, you know, EVERYONE writes those sorts of top 10 lists!  So today, I wanted to send some love in the direction of the best comic books that I read in 2008.  2008 was a PHENOMENAL year for comics, with a lot of great material out there.  Here’s what I felt was the best of the best.

15.  Top 10: Season 2 (issues #1-3 published in 2008) — One of Alan Moore (Watchmen, V For Vendetta)’s greatest works of the past decade was the first “season” of Top 10, published between 1999 and 2001.  It chronicled the efforts of a police force in a bizarre city that seemed to be a meeting point for all sorts of fantasy characters from comics, TV shows, and movies.  Although Mr. Moore has not returned for this second installment, talented writer Zander Cannon along with returning artist Gene Ha have crafted a story every bit as weird, complex, and compelling as Mr. Moore’s original.  Ha’s art remains staggeringly complex and detailed, filled with lots of fun surprises in the background for an attentive reader.

14.  Detective Comics #846-850, “Heart of Hush” – Although Grant Morrison’s “Batman: R.I.P.” storyline over in Batman got all the attention this year, it was writer Paul Dini (one of the guiding forces behind the amazing Batman: The Animated Series) who was behind my favorite Batman story of 2008.  Enigmatic villain Hush returns with a complex scheme to take down the Dark Kight, while in a series of flashbacks we learn how the friendship between young Bruce Wayne and Tommy Elliott went wrong.  Throw in Catwoman and gorgeous art by Dustin Nguyen, and you have a classic.  (Collected edition available here.)

13.  Ultimate Spider-Man (issues 116-128 published in 2008) — I cannot believe how much I continue to enjoy this Spider-Man book.  Guided by the incredible writing of Brian Michael Bendis, who has been writing this reinvention of Spider-Man since issue #1, this is everything a super-hero comic book should be.  It is filled with great action, terrific humor, and incredible continuity and character development.  I don’t know of any comic that is consistently more fun, and the fact that such a high standard of quality has been maintained for 128 issues and counting is amazing.  (The entire run of USM is available in collected editions.  Here is the latest.)

12.  Steph King’s The Dark Tower (issues 1-5 of “The Long Road Home” and 1-4 of “Treachery” published in 2008) — A complex but coherent story and absolutely gorgeous art by Jae Lae and Richard Isanove characterize this adaptation and expansion of the back-story of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series of novels.  The richness of the world that has been created rivals that of The Lord of The Rings.  Extra props for the extensive back-up features found in every issue.  (Collected edition of “The Long Road Home” is available here.)

11.  Fantastic Four #554-562 — With their “Worlds Finest” storyline that began in issue #554, writer Mark Millar and artist Bryan Hitch have returned this long-running Marvel series to greatness.  Millar’s tales are modern and yet also retro, recapturing the feel of FF comics from the 60’s in which every issue would feature big new ideas, characters, and adventures, and Hitch’s hyper-detailed artwork is eye-candy of the greatest kind.  (Collected edition of their first story-arc is available here.)

10.  Kick-Ass (issues #1-5 published in 2008) — You’ll be hearing a lot more about this comic series in 2009, as it’s being made into a movie directed by Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust).  Set in a world like ours, in which super-heroes exist only in the pages of comic books, Kick-Ass follows young Dave Lizewski, a boy who decides to become a super-hero.  Much mayhem follows.  Much, much mayhem.

9.  Young Liars (issues #1-11 published in 2008) — David Lapham (Stray Bullets) returns to the world of black-and-white comics!  The sprawling story (that constantly jumps around in time) follows a group of young twenty-somethings of dubious morality on a mind-bending adventure involving stolen art, rock and roll, and, um, spider-men from Mars.  Yeah, it’s weird.  Extra appreciation to Mr. Lapham for managing to see eleven issues published in 2008, quite a feat!  (The first six issues are collected here.)

8.  RASL (issues #1-3 published in 2008) — After completing his magnificent epic, Bone, Jeff Smith began this bizarre tale involving a thief with the ability to travel between parallel universes.  The story is just beginning to unfold, but I am already hooked by Smith’s energetic illustrations and the sci-fi tinged story.  I just wish new issues came out more often!  (And no, readers don’t yet know quite what the title of the series means…)  (Collected edition available here.)

7.  Hellboy/B.P.R.D. — Through a series of mini-series and one-shots, Mike Mignola and a talented group of collaborators have continued to expand and move forward the stories of Hellboy and his former partners at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.  Special notice must be made of Guy Davis’ work on the B.P.R.D. series — he has a style that is completely unique, and perfect for the book.  The man can draw anything.  And 2008 also saw Mike Mignola return to the drawing table for the Hellboy one-shot “In The Chapel of Moloch”!  Absolutely outstanding work, all around.  Click here for my full review of the last several years worth of Hellboy and B.P.R.D. adventures.  (Collected edition of the latest B.P.R.D. series, “The Warning,” is available here.)

6.  Ex Machina (issues #32-40 published in 2008) — Mitchell Hundred was once a super-hero known as the Great Machine.  After 9/11, he successfully ran to become the mayor of New York.  Brian K. Vaughn and Tony Harris’ story combines politics, exploration of character, and a little bit of super-hero action and sci-fi weirdness into a ceaselessly entertaining mix.  The stories never go where I expect them to, and I love the series even more because of that.  (The latest collected edition is available here.)

5.  1985 — A magical, engrossing tale of a young boy who starts seeing characters from his beloved Marvel comics pop up in his regular life, this mini-series tapped into a well of nostalgia for the Marvel comics I loved as a kid when I started reading them in the late eighties.  The story is enhanced by Tommy Lee Edwards’ amazing illustrations.  I’ve never read a comic quite like this.  Read my full review of 1985 here.  (Collected edition available here.)

4.  Criminal (issues #1-7 of Criminal Volume 2 were published in 2008) — I first discovered the team of writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips when they were working on the much-acclaimed (but I guess little read) series Sleeper for Wildstorm Comics a number of years back.  As good as that work was, Criminal is even more engaging.  There are no super-heroes to be found here — Criminal is hard-boiled noir of a type I don’t think I’ve ever before seen in comics.  Criminal kicked off 2008 with a trio of extra-length stories that were each stand-alone tales, but that linked together to tell a larger story set in 1972. Those three tales (available in a collected edition called The Dead and the Dying) established some powerful and poignant back-story for the characters introduced in Criminal Volume 1.  Then, issues 4-7 told the tale of a former counterfeiter for whom a chance interaction at a diner leads to a whole lot of trouble.  The world of Criminal is filled with vivid characters, most of whom are pretty sorry sons-of-bitches who have made a lot of bad choices in life.  This is a marvelous series, and I hope that Brubaker and Phillips continue telling these stories for a long time to come.

3.  Daredevil (issues #102-114 published in 2008) — Ed Brubaker (just mentioned as the author of Criminal) shows that he is just as skilled at writing super-heroes as he continues to spin yarns about the blind hero of Hell’s Kitchen, Daredevil.  Brubaker has been making Matt Murdock’s life a living hell for quite some time now, and I am loving every minute of it.  His partner in this endeavor is artist Michael Lark, whose gritty work creates the tough, unhappy New York streets in which Brubaker’s stories are set.  (The latest collected edition is available here.)

2.  Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men (issues #23, 24, and Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men were published in 2008) —  This is sort of a cheat, as only the final 3 issues of Joss Whedon’s story were published in 2008, but they were without question some of the very best comics I have read in years.  I grew up loving the X-Men, but I have felt for a long, long time now (since the mid 90’s), that the various X-Men comics had all lost some of the magic that made Chris Claremont’s lengthy run on the title so special.  Then came Joss Whedon (known as the creator and show-runner for Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Firefly), who crafted an astounding tale that reminded me of every reason why I used to love these characters.   No one can breathe life into special-but-misunderstood youths quite like Mr. Whedon, and the astoundingly evocative illustrations by John Cassaday were only icing on the cake.  Read my full review of Whedon’s run here.  (Collected Edition of Volume I of Whedon’s run is found here, and Volume II is found here.)

1.  All-Star Superman (issues # 10-12 were published in 2008) — Another series that only saw it’s final few issues published in 2008, All Star Superman nevertheless rises above every other comic that I read this year.  Just as Joss Whedon was able to channel everything iconic and beloved about the X-Men into his run on Astonishing X-Men, so too were Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely able to synthesize 50 years worth of different interpretations of Superman into what I consider to be a truly classic version of the character.  They told a complex tale, but were able to stick the landing and wrap everything up into a satisfying conclusion.  In many ways this series was designed to be their version of the LAST Superman story (as in, what might the final issues of a Superman comic ever be like should DC decide to stop publishing it), but what I wouldn’t give for another few issues from these fine gentlemen.  Read my full review here.  (Collected edition of Volume I of the series is found here, and Volume II is found here.)

Whew!  Quite a list of good stuff, there.  If you’re interested, follow the links and pick up some of the collections that are available through Amazon.  They’re well worth your time.

On Friday, we’ll wrap up my look back at 2008 with my list of the Top 10 DVDs of 2008! See you then!

Today we continue my list of the Top 10 Movies of 2008!  Scroll down (or click here) to read yesterday’s installment, listing numbers 10-6 and several honorable mentions, if you missed it.

5.  Tropic Thunder — Ben Stiller’s evisceration of Hollywood actors and their quest to win Oscars by making “serious” movies is one of the funniest films in recent memory.  Somehow Stiller was able to corral an astonishing group of actors and comedians (Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan, Danny McBride, Jay Baruchel, Bill Hader, Matthew McConaughey, and many more) into the project, creating one of those special films in which every single scene has about ten funny things going on.  Special attention must be paid to the brave work by Robert Downey Jr. (as Australian actor Kirk Lazarus, a man so “method” that he dies his skin black to become the Afrian-American character Sgt. Osiris) and Tom Cruise (buried under a hilariously hideous hairy fat-suit as studio head Les Grossman), who turn in two of the best performances of the year.  Though not the type that will win Oscars!  (Click here for my full review.)

4.  Religulous — Comedian Bill Maher partnered with director Larry Charles (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Borat) to create this movie in which Maher travels around asking people questions about religion.  You might not agree with Maher’s views, but it is impossible not to respect someone willing to ask straight, tough questions of believers.  (Well, not impossible, apparently, as Maher’s film certainly angered some.)  Maher speaks with members of various different religions and denominations, both religious leaders and common people.  He demonstrates a surprising (to me, at least), gentleness with most of the people he questions.  Whatever your faith, the issues that Maher raises are important ones to consider, and it doesn’t hurt that the film is also absolutely hysterical.  (Click here for my full review)

3.  Man on Wire — This extraordinary documentary looks behind-the-scenes at Philippe Petit’s incredible achievement of walking on a high-wire strung between the roofs of the Twin Towers in NYC back in 1974.  The audacity of Petit’s artistic crime is astounding to contemplate, and this film provides an insightful peek into the years that Petit and his friends spent planning the event.  It also explores a variety of ideas about art and human accomplishment.  Amazing.  (Click here for my full review.)

2.  Iron Man — Director Jon Favreau and actor Robert Downey Jr. created one of the best, most joyful comic book movies I have ever seen.  A fun, funny epic that is also a serious film filled with great character work (as opposed to a camp-fest), Iron Man is everything that a super-hero film should be.  Favreau was able to distill the essence of this classic Marvel super-hero (who has appeared in thousands of comic books since the 1960’s) into an almost-perfect film, aided and abetted by some terrific actors who you might not expect to see in this type of movie (Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard, Clark Gregg, and others).  Of course, it all rests on Downey Jr., who is overwhelmingly charismatic and honest as billionaire industrialist prick-turned-superhero Tony Stark.  Iron Man also must be praised for opening the door to what looks to be a very exciting series of inter-connected Marvel films to come.  (How great was the post-credits scene with you-know-who???)  I’ve already seen this film at least four times, and I expect to be watching it a heck of a lot more in the future.  (Click here for my full review.)

1.  The Dark Knight — The opposite side of the coin from Iron Man, The Dark Knight is a shockingly grim and brutal film.  It is everything I have always wanted a Batman movie to be.  Director Christopher Nolan and an astounding ensemble (Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhardt, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and more) show us life inside the urban hell that is Gotham City.  Throughout the film, every one of the characters are presented with impossible choices without any easy fixes or solutions.  Every character has an arc in the film — and every story is integral to the overall tale being told.  A masterpiece.  (Click here for my full review.)

Whew!  So those were my favorite films of 2008!  I hope you’ll let me know if you agreed or disagreed with my choices!  Tomorrow, we continue with my wrap-up of 2008 with my list of the Top 10 Comic Books of 2008!  See you there.

In case you haven’t figured this out already, I LOVE movies.

And in 2009, as usual, I saw a LOT of movies.  Today and tomorrow I’d like to celebrate what I feel were the best of the best of the new films released between January 1st and December 31st, 2008.

Before we dive in, though, I want to acknowledge that, even though I saw an enormous number of new films during 2008, there were also quite a few that, despite my interest, I never got around to see.  These include: Synechdoche, New York; Waltz With Bashir; Doubt; The Wrestler; Che; Rachel Getting Married; Choke; American Teen; Hamlet 2; Changeling; Rocknrolla; and Son of Rambow.  So if you loved one or more of those films and want to know why on earth they didn’t make my list, now you know.

As with my TV lists, let’s start with some Honorable Mentions:

Honorable Mention #1 — The Foot Fist Way.  If you, like most of America, discovered Danny McBride this past summer in Tropic Thunder (as pyromaniac Cody) and Pineapple Express (as the indestructible Red), then you owe it to yourself to check out this film.  The Foot Fist Way was filmed back in 2006, but only saw a release (and a very small one, at that) in 2008.  It is written and directed by McBride, who also has the starring role as a small town Tae Kwon Do instructor who is, shall we say, a little big for his britches.  This is a dark, dark comedy — not for everyone, but if you’re a fan of McBride’s it is a spectacular showcase for his abilities, and well worth your time.  

Honorable Mention #2 — Cloverfield.  For months now I’ve been meaning to watch this film a second time, to find out if it holds up on a repeat viewing.  I don’t know if it does, but I will say that the experience of seeing Cloverfield theatrically was one of  the best times I had in a movie theatre all year.  You either buy the conceit (that one of the kids is able to film their whole adventure) or you don’t.  I did, and had no problem getting swallowed up in this intense thrill ride.  Incredible visuals, great storytelling — this was a ton of fun, and a clever twist on the giant-monster-attacks-New-York sub-genre of movies.

OK, and now here’s the top 10:

10.  Burn After Reading — A disc containing the memoirs of ex-CIA agent Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) are stolen, and they wind up in the hands of a pair of not-that-bright gym employees (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand) who, mistaking them for government secrets, try to ransom the information back to Cox and sell it to the Russians.  Meanwhile, Cox’s wife (Tilda Swinton) is having an affair with State Department official Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney).  Things go downhill from there.  To everyone who preferred last year’s No Country for Old Men, I don’t know what to say.  This clever mish-mash of a political-thriller, wacky comedy, and espionage caper gave me the most enjoyment by far.  And it has one of the best final scenes of any movie I saw this year.  (Click here for my full review.)

9.  Frost/Nixon — Structured like a documentary (complete with “talking-heads” interviews interspersed throughout the drama to handle some of the exposition), director Ron Howard’s adaptation of the hit play by Peter Morgan was gripping from start to finish.  Headlined by the dazzling acting performances of Frank Langella (as Richard Milhous Nixon) and Michael Sheen (as British TV personality David Frost), this is a superb peek behind the scenes of one of the great television showdowns of the 20th century.  Terrific supporting turns by Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, Matthew Macfadyen, and Kevin Bacon don’t hurt either.  (Click here for my full review.)

8.  Redbelt — Another mind-bender from writer/director David Mamet, Redbelt introduces us to the strictly moral, but broke, jujitsu instructor Mike Terry (the tremendous Chiwetel Ejiofor) who gets drawn into an extraordinarily tangled web of intrigue involving Hollywood celebrity Chet Frank (Tim Allen), Frank’s manager Jerry Weiss (Joe Mantegna), fight promoter Marty Brown (Ricky Jay), traumatized lawyer Laura Black (Emily Mortimer), and the world of Brazilian martial arts.  As usual, Mamet graces us with a number of tough guys spouting rat-a-tat dialogue which attains a level of poetry in its staccato rhythms.  Ejiofor is a terrific addition to Mamet’s ensemble — his Mike Terry is a man of quiet nobility.  Watching how he responds when backed into a corner is one of the film’s great pleasures.  (Click here for my full review.) 

7.  Forgetting Sarah Marshall – The world of Peter Bretter (Jason Segal) suffers a complete collapse when he is dumped by his TV-star girlfriend, Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell).  To escape his sorrows he heads off on a Hawaiian vacation, only to discover that Sarah is staying at the same resort along with her new boyfriend, British rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand).  What seems like a silly sitcom premise turns into a terrifically likable (and absolutely hilarious) romp, featuring dynamite comedic turns from Bill Hader, Paul Rudd, Jack McBrayer, Jonah Hill, and a lot of other familiar faces.  Russell Brand’s Aldous Snow is one of the great comedic creations of all time, and the climactic Dracula musical (with puppets!!) is one for the ages.

6.  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — I was completely swept away by the beautiful, sad story of the life of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), cursed to live his life aging backwards.  Stunning, subtle visual effects convey Benjamin’s journey from his birth as a little baby with the body of an old man, down through the years as he de-ages.  His story is paralleled by that of his true love Daisy (Cate Blanchett)’s journey from youth (she and Benjamin meet when she is about 10 years old) through to old age.  This is a fairy tale that is both epic and also intimate.  I was caught off-guard by its power, and I can’t wait to see it again soon.  (Click here for my full review.)

That’s all for today.  Click here for numbers 5 through 1!

With Battlestar Galactica, Scrubs, 24, and now Lost all returning to life within the past two weeks, I feel like this year’s TV season has finally gotten underway!

Wednesday night saw the airing of the first two new episodes of Lost in quite some time:  ”Because You Left” and “The Lie.”  Typical of a Lost season-opener, it began with a totally unexpected and bizarre scene:  Dr. Marvin Candle (or Edgar Halliwax, or Pierre Chang — this man has gone by a different name every time we’ve seen him!) recording another Dharma instructional video and being interrupted by the discovery of the power source (and giant wooden wheel) at the heart of the Island.  What a great way to dive right back into the weirdness that is Lost!  

I’ve been wondering for a while whether the Dharma videos that have been popping up every now and then are real insights into what the Dharma Initiative was up to, or if somehow they’re just a put-on, to distract from whatever was REALLY going on.  At first, when we see Candle/Chang being recorded in this year’s opening, it looks very much like he’s sitting on a set, leading one to suspect that my initial idea is correct.  But then he seems genuinely concerned about the potential danger of the energy source discovered, so that would seem to indicate that the Dharma folks really WERE investigating all the weirdness of the island (including time-traveling bunnies).  SO I remain uncertain on this issue.  But intrigued!

There were a lot of balls in the air, story-wise, in these two episodes.  I was fascinated, and also a little nervous, by the distinct sci-fi elements of the story: that is, time-travel.  Time-travel is a tricky, tricky thing.  It has become a most over-used story device in sci-fi/fantasy TV shows and movies, and it is very tricky to tell a time-travel story properly.  The jury is still out as to how this time-travel story will shake out on Lost.  While one might not have predicted all the craziness on display in this season premiere, attentive viewers knew that this sort of time-travel story was on the horizon.  We’d already been introduced to Desmond’s mis-adventures through time, and the mysterious importance of finding one’s “constant” to keep from becoming unglued in time… and we’d also seen Faraday discover some sort of time-differential between the Island and its surroundings.  So clearly some time is not always quite linear on Lost.

I am excited to see these background story-elements get pushed front-and-center.  (As we enter the penultimate season, we need to have some of these long-running mysteries addressed and solved.)  But so far, as usual with Lost, I have far more questions than answers.  How/why is the Island moving through time?  (Was that caused by Ben’s wheel-pushing in last year’s finale, or by the departure of the “Oceanic Six”?)  Why is this only affecting the cast-aways and not the Others?  (Locke shifts through time, but Richard and the rest of the Others apparently do not.)  I am interested to see where this goes, and how long this time-jumping keeps up.

Lots of other mysteries to ponder, which of course is what I adore about this show.  Richard gives Locke a compass, which clearly is a method for Locke to prove to another-Richard-from-another-time that Locke really is jumping through time.  (”What does it do?”  ”It points north, John.”)  But it seems to me that there must ALSO be some special significance to that compass itself — because isn’t that one of the objects with which we saw Richard test little-boy-Locke in one of the flashbacks last season?  

What are we to make of Faraday’s appearance in the 1970’s opening scene with Marvin Candle?  (There was so much going on in the episode that it wasn’t until the next day when I remembered that particular bit of weirdness.)  Was Faraday originally from the 70’s, or are we to assume that at some point he time-travels back to that time-period?  If so, why?

Then there was the re-appearance, in the closing scene, of the old woman who we’d previously seen help Desmond through one of his alternate timeline/alternate universe adventures.  (A quick internet search reveals the character’s name as Mrs. Hawking.  I know the actress from her role in Waking Ned Devine.)  What a surprise to see this character appear in “real life”!  Is her pendulum-machine tracking the Island’s movements?  What’s up with the 70-hour deadline?

Other things that I enjoyed from the premiere:

The re-appearance of Anna-Lucia.  (”Libby says hi.”)

Hurley’s attempt to explain the show to his mother.  (I particularly enjoyed his confusion as to the reason for all the button-pushing, a past story-line that was actually referenced several times in the premiere.  Do the writers think that they have sufficiently explained the reason for the button-pushing?  Because I am as confused as Hurley is on that point, and would really love some further clarification!)

Charles Widmore.  (When is HE getting a flashback episode?)

Hurley’s becoming the first character to out-wit Benjamin Linus.  (At least temporarily.)

Ben’s sticking-up for Jack when chatting with his butcher friend.  (It would also be nice to see Ben admit to Jack — or to anyone — that everyone would have been spared a whole lot of grief had Ben just told Jack and the other cast-aways more about what was going on with the Island two seasons ago…)

John Locke and his interactions with the drug-loaded (and brother-of-Mr.-Eko-carrying) plane that crashed on the Island.  (I was sort-of hoping we’d see a freshly-killed Boone carcass during one of Locke’s trips back in time near that plane…)

Daniel Faraday’s explanation of the significance of a record to the story of Lost.  (Note that almost every season except the first one has opened with a character listening to a record.)

So… where is this all going?  Is the past immutable on Lost, or is there No Fate But What We Make?  

Can’t wait to see what’s next for us, next week…!

Today we continue my list of the 10 best things I saw on TV in 2008!  (Click here to read yesterday’s installment, listing numbers 10-6 and several honorable mentions, if you missed it.)

5.  Battlestar Galactica: “The Hub” (season 4, episode 9, aired on 6/6/08).  Trapped on a Cyclon basestar with Gaius Baltar, cancer-stricken President Laura Roslin begins seeing visions of her long-dead friend (who bought it on Kobol in season 2) Elosha, and Helo is given an order that puts him at odds with his conscience (as well as his Cylon wife).  In one of my favorite moments of the entire fourth season, Baltar attempts to preach to a mechanical Cylon Centurian.  But the emotional climax of the episode comes at the end, when Roslin must decide whether to let Baltar, who she now knows to be responsible for the genocidal Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies that nearly eradicated humaity, bleed out and die.  In any other show we’d be certain that, by the end of the episode, she’d “do the right thing” and let him live.  In Battlestar Galactica, in which there are never any easy answers or easy decisions, the result is terrific suspense and gripping character drama of the best kind.

4.  30 Rock: “Believe in the Stars” (season 3, episode 2, aired on 11/6/08).  30 Rock has made great use of some phenomenal guest stars in the past (Steve Martin, Jennifer Aniston, Carrie Fisher, Paul Reubens, Isabella Rossellini, Edie Falco, Matthew Broderick, Will Arnett, Rip Torn, and so many others), but Liz Lemon’s hilarious plane ride seated next to Oprah Winfrey takes the cake.  That story-line alone would make this episode a winner, but there is so much more fun to be had as Jack puts Kenneth’s country-boy morality to the test and Tracy and Jenna begin a bizarre social experiment in order to see who has it harder in America: blacks or women.  Best line of the episode comes from Tracy:  ”I watched Boston Legal nine times before I realized it wasn’t a new Star Trek!”

3.  Robot Chicken Star Wars Special: Episode II (aired on 11/16/08).  I’m not sure what more can be said that I didn’t already cover in my initial review of this special on 11/24/08.  For 22 gut-busting minutes the Robot Chicken gang mercilessly skewer all six Star Wars films in their second Star Wars special.  The jokes are delightfully random, from the House parody “Dr. Ball, M.D.” (”she lost the will to live?  What is your degree in, poetry??”) to the Cantina Band’s attempt to pitch a commercial jingle (”it works better as an instrumental”), to an awkward meal on Cloud City (Leah to Vader: “you know where I had great soup?  Alderaan!”) but they are always hilarious.  Seth McFarlane’s depiction of the put-upon, profane Emperor Palpatine takes center stage here, whether getting his hair done (”you’ve got the face for it” says his barber), haggling over prices with bounty hunters (”let’s just say SUBSTANTIAL reward”), or harassing Darth Vader (”feels like I just dipped my wang in hot lava, something you know a thing or two about, am I right?”).  Bonus points to the show’s writers for being unafraid of extremely obscure references (such as the origin of the bizarre dragon skeleton that C3P-0 shuffles by in one scene on Tatooine in the original Star Wars).  Pure genius, and more laughs-per-second than anything else I saw on TV all year.

2.  The Wire: “-30-” (season 5, episode 10, aired on 3/9/08).  I have selected the finale of The Wire, which so beautifully brought to a close the five-year-long exploration of the City of Baltimore and all of its kids on the corner, its cops on the street, its drug lords, its police detectives, its city officials, its dock workers, its judges, its school teachers, and all the sad, lost folks in between.  But really, I am using this number two spot on my list to give praise to the entire fifth season as a whole.  (It is almost impossible to single out an individual episode.)  I have sung the praises of this astounding achievement in television before, and I will do so again.  The Wire’s dissection of a modern American city is staggeringly complex (there must be at least 50 major characters weaving their way through the series by the fifth season), honest and brutal.  Each season has a focus, even as it carries all the characters’ stories forward, and season five’s spotlight was on the decline of the American newspaper.  If the show didn’t get to delve quite as deeply into that topic as it did in previous seasons (such as season 4’s look at struggling schools and the kids falling through their cracks), it can be forgiven as the show also had so many character arcs to bring to some sort of resolution.  Not everything is tied with a bow, and not everyone’s storyline ends happily, but the resolution felt just right.  Sticking the landing on a show this acclaimed and this complex is no easy feat, and David Simon & co. made it look easy.  This is a show I cannot wait to revisit, and if you’ve never seen it then you NEED to go out and get your hands on season one right away.  Once you meet McNulty and the unfortunate Snot Boogie, you’ll be hooked.

So what could possibly be on the top of my list, if The Wire is coming in at number two?

1.  The Daily Show Indecision 2008 election coverage.  Every night, week after week, Jon Stewart and his marvelous team of writers and performers did their best to expose all of the ridiculousness, hypocrisy, corruption, and other shenanigans happening under our noses.  I’ve always thought their work bordered on brilliance, but somehow their election coverage this past year, from the primaries straight up through election night, reached a new level of quality.  Every night, day in and day out, Stewart and the Best F—-in’ News Team on the Planet took what Stewart calls his “morning cup of sadness” (when he gets up and, with his team, starts investigating the day’s events) and turned it into the sharpest political satire around.  There was nothing more consistently hilarious or intelligent on TV this year, and the fact that we got to enjoy it almost daily is astounding.  Well done!

OK, whew!  That’s my list!  Do you agree?  Disagree?  Be sure to let me know!  Otherwise, I’ll see you right back here tomorrow for my thoughts on the season premiere of Lost, and then on Monday for part one of my Top 10 Movies of 2008!

Hi everyone!  Welcome to the first of my four “Best of 2008″ lists.  In the coming days I’ll be sharing my Top 10 Movies, Top 10 DVDs, and Top 10 Comic Books of 2008.  Today we kick things off with my 10 absolute favorite things televised during 2008, starting with some honorable mentions and then counting down from number 10.  (Special thanks to TV.com for helping me to find all the original air-dates!)

Honorable Mention #1 — Battlestar Galactica: “Revelations” (season 4, episode 10, aired on 6/13/08).  Plotlines converge in this mid-season finale as the Cylons and the Colonial Fleet race to discover the location of Earth.  There’s been a lot of discussion, over the brutally long hiatus, about the Planet of the Apes ending, but for me it all comes down to the nail-biter of a scene in which Lee Adama orders Colonel Tigh, now revealed as a Cyclon, into an airlock for his execution.  (Why isn’t this in my top 10 list?  I just wasn’t wowed by the “surprise” ending.)

Honorable Mention #2 — The Office: “Goodbye, Toby” (season 4, episode 14, aired on 5/15/08).  Michael is so excited by the imminent departure of his “nemesis,” the sad-sack Toby Flenderson, that he commands his party-planning committee to throw the greatest celebration the Dunder Mifflin office has ever seen.  The Jim-Pam story is a bit of a downer, but guest Star Amy Ryan (The Wire) positively killed, and her storyline, in which she becomes convinced that Kevin is mentally challenged, is pure genius.  (Why isn’t this in my top 10 list?  The Jim-Pam story felt too much like a writers’ device to keep their relationship from moving forward.)

OK, and now here’s the top 10:

10.  Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles: “The Demon Hand” (season 1, episode 7, aired on 2/25/08).  Would that every episode of this uneven show were as good as this one.  In a surprising move, the show reprises a number of storylines and characters from James Cameron’s T2, including psychologist Dr. Silberman (played here by the terrific Bruce Davison).  Sarah and John Connor struggle with her guilt and his anger over her seeming abandonment of him during the years when she was institutionalized, and Agent James Ellison (Richard T. Jones), the Jean Valjean of the show, confronts powerful evidence that everything he thought he believed about Sarah Connor might be wrong.  Great drama, great action, great exploration of the Terminator mythos.  I loved it.

9.  Battlestar Galactica: “The Ties That Bind” (season 4, episode 3, aired on 4/18/08).  Lee Adama, now out of the military and serving as a member of the governing Quorum of Twelve, must decide how far his loyalty to President Roslin will go.  Kara Thrace, leading a ragged group of officers on board the battled old Demetrius in what seems a hopeless search for a clue in the road to Earth, begins acting more and more erratically.  The Cylon Civil War begins.  And in the episode’s most powerful storyline, the marriage between Chief Tyrol and Cally begins to fall apart.  The shocking ending absolutely knocked my socks off, and once again established BSG as the most intense, stunning show on television.  (Now that The Wire is off the air, of course!)

8.  30 Rock: “Sandwich Day” (season 3, episode 13, aired on 5/1/08).  It’s a magical day in the 30 Rock studios, as the annual Sandwich Day has arrived, in which the teamsters bring in delicious free sandwiches for everyone.  The staff faces a moral dilemma when they discover Liz Lemmon’s sandwich sitting, uneaten, on her desk, and Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) must adjust to his recent demotion.  There’s a lot of funny stuff in this episode, but nothing more brilliant than Liz’s “I wolfed my teamster sub for you!” declaration of love to Floyd, a phrase that has now entered my regular repertoire.

7.  The Office: “Dinner Party” (season 4, episode 9, aired on 4/10/08).  Michael and Jan invite Jim and Pam and Andy and Angela over for the dinner party from hell.  I get nervous whenever The Office leaves the confines of the Dunder Mifflin office, but this half hour of extraordinary agony is a gem of an exception.  There are so many great moments: Jan’s candles, Michael and his vasectomies, Hunter’s CD, Michael’s prized 11 inch plasma TV, Jan’s cooking… the list is endless.  This is everything I love about The Office — staggeringly awkward moments and amazing humor.  

6.  Lost: “The Constant” (season 4, episode 5, aired on 2/28/08).  In this mind-bender of an episode, Desmond’s consciousness bounces between his life in 1996 (in the Royal Scotts Regiment) and his life in “present day” 2004, on a helicopter to the mysterious freighter.  The storyline is a 12 Monkeys style twister, containing a lot of hints about Lost’s future and Desmond’s past, but the heart of the episode is the powerful love story between Desmond and Penny, which steps to the center stage here.  

That’s all for today.  Click here for numbers 5 through 1!

Believe it or not, Slumdog Millionaire is the first film by director Danny Boyle that I’ve ever seen.  Although he’s gotten a lot of praise for the films he’s helmed over the last decade or so, either I haven’t been interested (A Life Less Ordinary, The Beach, 28 Days Later) or I was interested but somehow never got around to seeing them (Trainspotting, Sunshine).  But word had been spreading about his latest effort, Slumdog Millionaire… there have been a lot of articles, the film has appeared on a lot of Best of 2008 lists, and several of my good friends have recommended it to me.  So I was excited to take a look.

(You’re also probably aware that Slumdog Millionaire knocked ‘em dead at the Golden Globes this past Sunday, although that happened after I’d already seen the film.)

It’s a fine film, and a rare “feel-good” picture in this season of mostly glum tales.  But I wish I could say I was as captivated as everyone else seems to be.

The film follows Jamal, his brother Salim, and the girl Latika with whom Salim fell in love at an early age.  All three characters are played by three different actors as we follow them from their youth through their teenage years.  Slumdog Millionaire is set primarily in and around Mumbai, India, and for most of its run-time it contrasts the image of Jamal competing, inexplicably, on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, with flashbacks to the three children’s early lives in increasingly horrible circumstances.  These kids lived through some extraordinary events, and what is remarkable about the film is the way it is able to keep its optimistic soul in the midst of such horror.  

Credit for this should mostly go to the nine actors, in total, who portray the three kids, as well as to Danny Boyle who managed to get such consistently solid performances out of them all.  All nine kids are just wonderful — engaging and honest.  They feel like real kids going through real experiences, not overly-coached child actors.  Each set of three is also incredibly believable as the same character at different ages.

For me, the best thing about the film is the way it transports the viewer into life in Mumbai.  Many reviewers have compared the cinematography of the flashback sequences to the look of the amazing City of Men, and I think there’s something to that.  But Slumdog Millionaire doesn’t feel derivative to me — I think it creates a look and feel all of its own.  I can’t attest to how well the filmmakers were able to capture life in Mumbai — I’ve never been there — but I can state that, by the end of the movie, I certainly felt that I had gotten to know a fascinating world about which I knew very little, both its great beauty and its disturbing horror.

Wow, so far everything sounds great!  So what about Slumdog Millionaire didn’t work for me?  To be honest, I’m not entirely sure.  I just never fully engaged with the fairy tale being told.  (And, despite the gritty realism of much of the film, that is what this is — a rags-to-riches, boy-gets-girl fairy tale.)  One thing I can put my finger on is that, while I like the idea that the sum total of Jamal’s life made him able to answer the myriad questions on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, what I couldn’t quite buy was the idea that the events in his life all lined up in the EXACT SAME ORDER as the questions (so that the flashbacks could line up perfectly with the progress of the game).  This just felt a little too much like Cliff Claven on Jeopardy to me.  I’d have preferred it if the narrative had been a little more fractured.

I have a hard time not recommending such an up-beat film, and one that was clearly made with a lot of love and talent.  So many people out there seem to be responding very favorably to this movie, so maybe I’m just a Scrooge.  Give it a shot and judge for yourself.

It has been a long, long wait for the Sci-Fi Channel to begin airing the final 10 episodes of Battlestar Galactica.  (The first ten episodes of BSG’s fourth season aired from April 4th through June 13th, 2008.)  At last, this past Friday, the wait was over.

For any of you who haven’t been following this spectacular series (without a doubt one of the best shows currently on television), Battlestar Galactica is a “reimagining” of the classic (yet, let’s admit it, also pretty unwatchable) series that lasted one season in 1978.  Galactica follows the last survivors of humanity (the military folk on the Battlestar Galactica and a rag-tag fleet of civilian survivors), following the annihilation of the Twelve Colonies of the human race by the robotic Cylons.  In one of the great reversals of standard heroic television & movie behavior, the series began with the humans deciding to flee the Cylons, rather than stay and fight to the last man.  Of course, things weren’t quite that easy.  Over the course of the series we have seen the men and women of the Galactica struggle to survive, and to keep some semblance of human civilization together, in the face of crises and horror at every turn.  To say the show is gripping would be an understatement of the highest order.

The latest episode, “Sometimes a Great Notion,” picks up with the crew of Galactica at their breaking point.  Having been searching for so long for the salvation they thought the fabled “Earth” would bring, in last year’s cliffhanger they finally found Earth — only to discover it was a wasteland (having suffered the same fate of nuclear annihilation as did their Twelve Colonies).  This year’s premiere doesn’t contain any action-adventure whatsoever.  Rather, the show takes an unflinching look at the reactions of all of the show’s characters to this crushing disappointment.  Most of them do not react well.

One of my favorite things about BSG is the way the characters in the show are always depicted as real people, with real human failings.  I have seen plenty of sci-fi adventure shows in which we see heroic characters always making the right decisions.  Not BSG.  “Sometimes a Great Notion”  is a prime example of that.  

Spoilers from here on out, gang, so if you haven’t seen this episode yet I suggest you move on.

The biggest shock of the episode came from the suicide of Dualla.  I was totally caught off guard by this moment.  Dee has been in the show since the mini-series, and she was always one of the sweetest characters on the show.  It was a total shock to see her fire that gun (particularly since the few scenes prior had been a tender reconciliation with Apollo).  Hats off to the writers for not telegraphing this moment by having her appear all mopey and depressed in the early scenes of the show.  (Although looking back now that we know how her story ends, it’s hard not to see her almost-breakdown in the raptor with Helo as a clear clue as to what was coming.)  It is very sad to see Dee go, however her character had not been well-used by the series ever since the death of Billy.  (Her sudden infatuation with Apollo seemed rushed and out of no-where, and a betrayal of the touching love-story with Billy that had been a major part of the show’s first two years.)  While I hate to see that character out of the series, I am glad to see Dualla return, at least for a short time, to the fore-front of the show.  

After Dee, the biggest character breakdown would have to be that of Admiral Adama himself.  His brutal scene in Colonel Tigh’s quarters was a stunner.  (Bill has had a tough couple of days, if you remember his collapse in his quarters in last year’s finale, after learning that Tigh was a Cylon.)  Watching the lead of the show completely fall to pieces before our eyes was staggeringly painful, and a testament to the amazing acting of Edward James Olmos.  (How has this man not been nominated for an Oscar for his work on this show??)  What’s even more amazing is that Colonel Tigh came off as the most level-headed, in-control character in the whole episode!!  Talk about a reversal of roles!

But while some characters clearly stepped to the forefront of the tale, I was very pleased and impressed by the way almost every major character got some attention in the premiere.  Almost as stunning as Adama’s collapse was that of President Roslin’s.  The scene in which she stepped off the raptor, totally unable to face the crowds awaiting some word on Earth, was another high-point of the episode for me.  Who else?  One-legged Gaeta is looking a lot worse for the wear.  (I wonder when the events of the webisodes will start to come into play.)  I loved seeing Baltar back in arrogant scientist mode (as opposed to Jesus mode).  I was also engaged with Apollo’s struggle to pick up the pieces on Galactica without the help of Roslin or his father.  (The call-back to Roslin’s wipe-board with the total number of humans left alive was especially poignant.)  And then there is Starbuck, poor Starbuck, confronted with her crashed ship and the burnt corpse in the cockpit.  

Which brings me to the other thing that impressed me about this episode — we got some pretty big answers to some pretty major mysteries!   The revelation that the 13th Colony was Cylons was genius, just genius.  When we first learned the identities of the four Cylons in the fleet (in the 3rd season finale, “Crossroads”), it seemed apparent to me that being a Cylon meant something more than just being a robot (or a “skinjob”).  I thinking about the show’s mantra that “all of this has happened before,” and began to wonder if  we weren’t headed for a revelation that somehow, some humans could also be Cylons, or that somehow ALL humans were Cylons (whatever exactly it meant to be a “Cylon”).  Now, we didn’t quite learn THAT in this week’s episode, but I was fascinated by the implication that, 2,000 years ago on Earth, the “Cylons” were the human-looking people living on the planet, who were nuked by robots.  (The “humans”???)  Great mind-bending stuff.

I have no idea what Starbuck is, how she got to Earth from that nebula, or what her ultimate destiny is.  But damn if I’m not intrigued!  I was also surprised but very pleased by the revelation that the beacon she was following (that lead the fleet to Earth) wasn’t something left by the 13th Colony 2,000 years ago, but was in fact the beacon from HER OWN crashed ship.  Very clever.

I was also extremely tickled by the revelation of the final Cylon!!  I thought we’d have to wait a lot longer to learn the identity of the final Cylon, but I love that it is now out of the way so that we can focus on its implications and its fall-out.  Remember way back in the first season, when we first met Ellen Tigh (”TighMe Up, Tigh Me Down”), and Adama suspected that she was a Cylon??  Guess he was right after all!  It puts a whole different spin on everything we’ve seen of Ellen in the past, from her dalliances with Cavill on New Caprica to, of course, her death at the hands of her husband Saul.  

Now, of course, to really understand the revelation about Ellen, we still need to learn what exactly it means to be a “Cylon.”  What is a Cylon, and why were the five hidden Cylons different from the seven other models?  Who created them?  What is their ultimate plan (referred to in the opening credits of the show since the first season)?  It is hard to evaluate what I think about Ellen’s revelation (and also the revelations about Tigh, Tyrol, Anders, and Tori) until we learn the answers to those larger questions.  

But for now, I am fully engaged and on-board.  I honestly have NO IDEA where the show will be taking us during its final nine episodes, and that is so rare and so exciting.  I can’t wait for next week’s episode!  (Will this be the end of Zarek??)

If you’re interested, here is a fascinating, in-depth interview with Galactica master-mind Ron Moore in which he discusses this past episode.  

Also, here is another great interview with Ron Moore that was posted about two weeks ago, in which Mr. Moore discusses the end of the show.  It’s a great interview that avoids spoilers, but does hint at some of the story-lines that will be addressed in the final remaining episodes.  Luckily, a LOT of the unresolved issues that are on my mind are mentioned by Mr. Moore, so I am encouraged.

Can’t wait to see the final nine episodes!!  I wish there were more!!

I often find myself slightly dubious of “important” movies.  You know the type — big, epic movies with SOMETHING TO SAY, that have a habit of coming out late in December in order to be best positioned for maximum Oscar hype.  It is especially difficult to think about these movies after having seen Tropic Thunder, which so thoroughly skewers the pomposity of actors setting out to make IMPORTANT films.

Don’t let such thoughts dissuade you from going to see Gus Van Sant’s Milk.  Harvey Milk, portrayed by Sean Penn in the film, was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the United States.  In 1977, after several failed attempts, he was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors.  Unfortunately, only a year later Harvey was shot and killed, along with San Francisco’s mayor George Moscone, by another member of the Board, Dan White.

Van Sant’s film begins when Harvey, along with his new boyfriend Scott Smith (James Franco, a familiar face from Freaks and Geeks and the Spider-Man films), moves out to San Francisco in an attempt to find a better life than his in-the-closet existence in New York City.  We follow Harvey as he gradually gets sucked into the world of politics, realizing the great importance in having a gay man in a position of authority.  We, along with Harvey, experience the tribulations of the gay community, from the persecution they were feeling from the city’s police to the increasing concern about the anti-gay ordinances being proposed and passed in San Francisco and elsewhere around the country.  

Milk is an important film, particularly in light of California’s proposition 8 and similar laws that were voted on in the last election.  But what makes the film work is that it is not a polemic — it is not IN YOUR FACE about its connections to today’s America.  There’s no framing device taking place in modern day, there’s no big speech at the end about the importance of gay rights.  The connection to today’s issues are clear, so Van Sant wisely realizes that the movie doesn’t have to over-state those points — they are perfectly obvious to the audience.  Instead, Van Sant sets out to tell a personal story, about Harvey Milk, a man who doesn’t dream of climbing the heights of of political power but who slowly comes to realize that, for the gay community and for himself, he has no choice but to get involved.  

I have to admit that, while I respect his abilities, I have never been an enormous fan of Sean Penn.  He is an actor of great power, there is no question, but for whatever reason I haven’t usually been able to engage with his performances.  They always smelled a bit too self-consciously of SERIOUS ACTING to me.  But Penn is marvelous here as Milk, bringing a great deal of warmth and charisma to the role.  Harvey Milk is not without his flaws, and the film does not gloss over them.  But the inherent goodness of Penn’s Milk, and the nobility of his cause, was captivating for me.

Penn is well served by his supporting cast.  James Franco has the difficult role — so often played by women in these types of movies — as the partner who is in love with the main character but who just wishes he’d give up his struggles for a simpler life.  It would be easy to become shrew-ish, but Franco is subtle and understated, and does a good job at portraying his connection with Harvey.  I love Victor Garber, and I wish he had more to do in the film, but the glimpses we get of his Mayor Moscone are terrific, bringing impact to his ultimate death.  Josh Brolin has been having a hell of a last year or two (No Country for Old Men, Grindhouse, W.), and he turns in another stellar performance here.  He is able to be both slightly pathetic and also intensely scary, almost in the same moment.  The story of Harvey Milk is one that ends in tragedy, and it is a testament to both Penn’s performance as well as Brolin’s that, even though I know how the story ends, I spent the second half of the film hoping for some other resolution.

Milk is a true story that is well told, and one that has IMPORTANT things to say in today’s world.  Go see it.

COMING NEXT WEEK:  Josh’s “Best of 2008″ lists!!  See you then.

We lost two titans this past week:  

Patrick McGoohan is best known as “Number 6″ in the bizarre 1960’s British TV show The Prisoner.  McGoohan plays a British agent who, after resigning from his position, is captured and held in a bizarre village from which he cannot escape.  Much surrealism follows.  We never find out McGoohan’s character’s name — he is referred to as “Number 6″ by his captors.  (Some have viewed the show to be a sort-of continuation of another TV show, Danger Man, in which McGoohan portrayed a British secret agent named John Drake.)  Although short-lived, The Prisoner has proved to be an enormous inspiration for much of the sci-fi/fantasy programming that we’ve seen on TV over the past several decades.  The New York Times obituary for Mr. McGoohan contains a nice look back at his career.

Ricardo Montalban is probably best known to the world as enigmatic Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island.  But to me he will always be William Shatner’s greatest nemesis — the brutal, Melville-quoting Khan.  Montalban appeared as Khan in only one episode of the original Star Trek series (”Space Seed”), but he memorably returned to wreak furious vengeance on Kirk and co. almost 20 years later in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  Trek has never had a better villain.  Here’s a nice look back at the life and work of Mr. Montalban.

Finally, here’s an interesting piece about both men that contains a terrific excerpt from an article by legendary film critic Pauline Kael about Montalban’s iconic performance in Star Trek II.

I cannot believe this has been in existence since the summer and I only just saw it a few days ago!!!

What am I talking about?  It’s the incomparable Joss Whedon’s 3-part web-series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which has just been released on DVD.  

Some back-story: Conceived during the writers strike, Joss Whedon (Firefly, Serenity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), along with a gaggle of his friends, created a 3-part web series (each installment totaling approx. 15 minutes in length) that was released, for free, on the web this past summer.  It was quite a success, crashing various web-servers and garnering a lot of acclaim in the mainstream media.  

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a super-villain musical.  Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) turns in quite possibly the best performance of his career (certainly the best performance of his that I’ve ever seen) as the titular sad-sack super-villain, Dr. Horrible.  His nemesis: the handsome and super-strong hero Captain Hammer, played by Nathan Fillion (Captain Tightpants himself — Mal Reynolds from Firefly and Serenity).  In addition to their repeated conflicts over all of Dr. Horrible’s nefarious schemes (undertaken in an attempt to join the League of Evil), the two quickly fall for the same girl:  the beguiling Penny, played by Felicia Day.  And did I mention this was a musical?

All of the actors (the three leads and a variety of other talented folk) all turn in magnificent performances, but Neil Patrick Harris’ Dr. Horrible is one of the great creations of recent memory.  The story opens with a lengthy monologue straight into camera by Harris, delivered without cuts — this is our introduction to his video blog.  The sequence is astounding — a magical combination of a talented actor and a sharp, hilarious script by Whedon.  If you’re not hooked by its end, then I really don’t think we have anything in common.

Great actors and a hysterical, poignant script — that would be enough, no?  But I was blown away by the quality of the songs.  There are 14 songs in total, and they are really astounding.  Judging music is not my forte, but I found all of the songs to be catchy, witty, and well incorporated into the overall story.  I was humming quite a few of them after my first viewing.

Although I am astounded that I let something of such high quality go un-watched by me for so many months, I don’t regret too strongly holding out for the DVD release.  That’s because in addition to a high-quality image and some terrific special features (an in-depth “making-of” and a fun, insightful commentary) there is a also second commentary track — a little something called “Commentary!  The Musical.”  This is a full-length commentary track that is, itself, a musical about commentary tracks.  You with me?  I turned it on, not knowing quite what to expect, and was rewarded with what is, in essence, an entirely new musical by Joss and the entire cast.  It is genius.  (My favorite part:  Nathan Fillion’s song “I’m better than Neil.”)

I remember seeing an interview with Joss Whedon (it was on the DVDs of either Firefly: The Complete Series or Serenity, I can’t quite recall) in which he discussed how his goal, when creating something new, is never to make something that people will like.  His goal is to make something people will LOVE.  Well, in this case: mission accomplished.  I am head-over-heels for Dr. Horrible… and if you haven’t seen it yet, then what the heck are you waiting for???

Not to distract anyone’s attention from MotionPicturesComics.com, but I wanted to point out to y’all that Drew McWeeny, one of my favorite writers over the years at Aintitcoolnews.com, is now writing for HitFix.com and his blog (about movies, DVD, and lots of other fun, related stuff) is definitely worth checking out.  I’ve always enjoyed Drew’s writing over the years (he was known as “Moriarty” over on AICN), particularly his articles on all of the many many DVDs that he watches.  Those DVD pieces, in particular, were among my inspirations when I started this blog.  

McWeeny’s new blog attracted a lot of attention last week when he posted a lengthy open letter from one of the producers of Watchmen about the on-going litigation between Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox over the film (and Fox’s attempts to stop Warners from opening the film as scheduled in March).  If you are at all interested in this story, you should click on that link and read this fascinating letter.  Another recent post of interest drew my attention to a phenomenal evisceration of Ben Stein’s recent “documentary” Expelled (if you haven’t heard about this film, it’s a defense of creationism and an attack on the theory of evolution) by none other than famous film critic Roger Ebert.  This is an older article (Expelled was released last year), but it is a terrific read.

But enough of all that — let’s talk about the first four hours of 24’s much-delayed seventh season (it was supposed to have launched LAST YEAR at this time, but was scuttled by the writers’ strike), which premiered on Sunday and Monday nights.

I have made no secret of my opinion that, for some time now (since, oh, I’d say about season four) 24 has been crying out for a total reinvention.  Keep Jack, keep the adrenaline-pumping real-time format, but start telling some entirely different types of adventures.  For too long now, 24 has been telling the same types of stories over and over and over again, usually involving some variation on the following themes:  a terrorist captures someone and forces them to help with a nefarious plan… Jack tortures someone for information… there’s a lot of technical talk about access codes and opening sockets and someone gaining access to a weapon or a code or a piece of equipment that they can use to menace the United States… Jack winds up on his own with no one to trust, because there’s a mole or multiple moles in the government agencies trying to stop the bad guys… and meanwhile there’s a lot of intrigue in Washington involving the President trying to make some big decisions about important world affairs but getting undermined by personal business and/or the machinations of his various staff members.  Any of this sound familiar?

Upon viewing the made-for-DVD 24 movie Redemption a few months ago, I was at once encouraged to see Jack in a new locale in some new situations (involved in a brutal conflict over in Africa) and disappointed to see the reappearance of too many old 24 tropes (torture, moles in Washington DC, etc.).

So how were these first four hours of 24: season seven?

Well, as with Redemption, it’s quite a mixed bag.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to like.  There are some interesting new faces, such as Annie Wersching as FBI Agent Walker, Colm Feore as first-man Henry Taylor, and Bob Gunton as White House Chief-of-Staff Ethan Kanin.  In particular, I thought Cherry Jones acquitted herself very well as the new President, creating a very different type of chief executive from the ones we’ve seen on 24 in previous years (even though she’s confronted with a lot of the same plot developments).  John Billingsley was one of my favorite things about the rather mediocre Star Trek: Enterprise, and I enjoyed seeing him as the hapless sucker kidnapped in the exciting opening moments of hour one.  I hope we see more of him.  

I am intrigued by some of the mysteries raised in these early episodes, and I was pleasantly surprised by some nice connections with Redemption — in particular, after getting to know the President’s likable son in that DVD-movie, I was much more engaged than I might otherwise have been in the story of the circumstances surrounding his mysterious “suicide.”  Best of all, I am thrilled to see Tony (”soulpatch”) Almeida back on the show.  As ridiculous as his resurrection might be, he is a dynamic and beloved character, and his presence brings a lot more oomph to all of the standard bad-guys-make-threats-and-do-menacing-things-using computers-in-small-dark-rooms scenes that might otherwise be rather boring.  I was pleased at how early on the writers got Jack and Tony face-to-face — their scenes together were a ton of fun. 

I also enjoyed the number of nods to events in previous seasons.  From the questions asked of Jack before the Senate committee to Tony’s reference in an argument with Jack to the death of Teri from way back in season 1, I really enjoyed that attention to detail.  While I think 24 needs to abandon the story-lines that have characterized all of the previous seasons, that doesn’t mean I want the show to ignore their existence.  I like it when there is some sense of continuity to Jack’s adventures.

So what’s not so good?

Primarily I am disappointed that, in just these first 4 hours, the show has already fallen back too often on the old, familiar story crutches of the type discussed above.  OK, we’re not in CTU anymore, but the set-up in the FBI office seems to re-create almost exactly the same dynamic.  We have all the same computer monitors and ringing phones and “quirky” (read: annoying) agents.  (I guess Janeane Garofalo really studied the acting of Mary Lynn Rajskub when they both appeared on The Larry Sanders Show, because Garofalo portrays quite a Chloe-clone here.)  And yes, there’s apparently yet another mole.  Jack wasn’t back in the field for five minutes before he was convinced that he and the newly-introduced Agent Walker had to do everything on their own because NONE OF HER SUPERVISORS COULD BE TRUSTED.  I have seen this story a billion times on this show so far, and I am beyond bored with it.  Give me something new, please!

I was also disappointed by how quickly the story of Jack on trial for his crimes was jettisoned.  OK, I know he wasn’t really on trial, he was just appearing for questioning, but I was intrigued by the idea of some of Jack’s actions finally coming to light, and in seeing how he would defend himself.  But we only got 2-3 minutes of this in the first hour, before Jack got pressed into service to help the FBI.  What a waste of a great story idea.  Obviously Jack is going to get back into action sooner or later, but I would have really liked to have seen that pushed back a bit so that we could have spent more time with the Senate interrogation.

Frankly, for several years now 24 has been exhibiting what I can only term storytelling-attention-deficit-disorder, and the quick abandonment of the Jack-on-trial idea is just one example of this.  The show has become so pre-occupied with being fast-paced and twisty that it can’t seem to stick with any given storyline for more than a few minutes.  (BIG SPOILER ALERT now, so proceed at your peril.)  Here’s another example: after the first night, I was starting to get excited by the idea of Tony Almeida as a terrorist.  24 lives or dies, in my opinion, on the quality of its villain, and I was enthusiastic about the idea of Tony being Jack’s nemesis this year.  But only a short time into night two we found out that, surprise surprise, he’s not really evil he’s just undercover.  What a letdown!  Why couldn’t we have let Jack and Tony face off for a few more episodes before getting this reveal?  Bigger question: why couldn’t the show have displayed some guts and let Tony ACTUALLY BE EVIL?  Wouldn’t that have been a much bigger twist than the “revelation” that he’s really a good guy after all?

I must also note that, while I praised some of the nice connections with Redemption, there were also a lot of inconsistencies.  For example, hour one’s opening Senate scene didn’t flow at all from the end of that movie.  In Redemption, Jack seems to be consumed by guilt over all that he has done over the years.  Yet, in the opening minutes of this season, when he’s testifying, we’re back with the old familiar I-am-right-and-you’re-a-fool-for-daring-to-question-me Jack Bauer.  I had thought, after Redemption, that maybe we were finally seeing a little depth in Jack, that at last he was beginning to wonder whether the ends really do ALWAYS justify the means.  But there was none of that questioning, none of that complexity, in the Jack Bauer we were reintroduced to in season seven.  This Jack Bauer doesn’t seem all that different, frankly, from the Jack we met back in season one — tough, stubborn, and willing to do whatever it takes to get things done.  Maybe that’s what makes the character so popular, but I for one would prefer to see some additional colors added into that characterization, here in the seventh season of his show.  

Finally, there’s Tony’s plan to smash up some airplanes by fooling them into thinking that he’s air traffic control and then directing them to make course corrections that put them on course to crash.  I might think that was a clever, ingeniously evil plot if I hadn’t already seen it in Die Hard 2 back in 1990.  Sheesh.  (They should have gone full-out and just hired Colm Meany as one of the airplane pilots!!)

Bottom line — these first four hours were four hours of reasonably well-executed 24 adventures.  There is a lot of excitement to be had, but there’s no denying that we’re seeing just more of the same familiar 24 stories that we’ve been seeing for six seasons now.  Without the major re-invention that I’d been hoping for, I am concerned at just how long the show can sustain the energy of the stories currently being told, no matter how interesting things might seem in the season’s opening hours.  (Finding a way to sustain the excitement throughout all 24 episodes of the season has always been the show’s greatest challenge.)  For now, I’m still on board  – let’s see where things go.

Please note:  While I have kept the following review of The Reader as spoiler-free as possible, it does contain some substantial discussion of the film’s story-line.  Those of you who wish to know as little as possible about the movie before seeing it should proceed with caution.

OK, here we go:

The story of The Reader, adapted from the novel by Bernhard Schlink, takes place during several time periods.  We begin the story in 1995, when we are introduced to a middle-aged lawyer, Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes), making a rather awkward, quiet breakfast for a woman (an apparent one-night stand).  We discover Michael’s past through a series of flashbacks, first to his youth in Germany in 1958.  As a boy of 15 (played by David Kross), he meets and quickly tumbles into a love affair with a much older woman, Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet).  (This “sexual awakening” period of the story is attention-catching in that it contains a copious amount of nudity from both actors.)  Eventually, Hanna disappears, leaving young Michael heartbroken.  We rejoin Michael several years later when, as a law student in the 1960’s, he and several other students attend a war crimes trial.  One of the woman being charged is Hanna.  The movie continues from there, catching up with Michael at several other points in his life leading up to 1995.

As a showcase for fine acting, there is a lot to behold in The Reader.  Winslet is mysterious and beguiling in all of the various ages that she portrays.  Her Hanna is a somewhat desperate creature, haunted and alone, and we can understand why she latches on to young Michael.  As for Michael, David Kross is quite convincing as both the 15 year-old innocent in 1958 and also as the conflicted law student in the 60’s.  Both Kross and Winset should be commended for their bravery, as they do most of their most serious, emotional scenes in the nude (or the almost-nude).  Ralph Fiennes is also interesting as the older Michael, although he has less to do in the film than Winslet and Kross.  His Michael is rather impenetrable.  I suppose the intention is that Michael has become that way because of all that he went through in the flashbacks, although, as I’ll discuss in more detail in just a moment, I’m not quite convinced.  It is fascinating to see Fiennes portray a German man of entirely the opposite sort than the fierce, vicious Amon Goeth that he famously embodied in Schindler’s List.  

Despite these fine performances, though, The Reader is a frustrating film.  I am not entirely sure what it is trying to say.  It seems that its intention is to capture the way that modern Germans struggle with the legacy of the Holocaust, and that is an intriguing notion.  The portions of the film that most engaged me were the war crimes trial scenes, as those moments directly addressed complex issues of guilt and responsibility.  But I was left wondering, in the end, what message the film was attempting to convey.  Are we meant to have sympathy for Hanna, despite her past as a guard in Auschwitz, and her role (which she admits to in the trial) of allowing hundreds of Jewish prisoners to burn to death in one instance?  The way the film is structured, we do grow to like Hanna (at least somewhat) before we are confronted with her crime.  That was certainly intentional, to add weight to the scenes where we see her on trial.  Suddenly this isn’t a faceless German being accused of atrocities — it’s someone we know.  But while it is of course reasonable that not every member of the Nazi Party was quite as horrible a monster as the previously mentioned Goeth from Schindler’s List, I hardly think the film mounts too successful a defense of Hanna’s behavior.  (Is that a weakness of the film?  Well, I suppose only if that was the film’s intention — and I am not certain about that.  We’ll get back to this issue in a moment.)

The film also seems to use Michael’s plight as a way  to convey the struggles of modern Germans.  Empty and alone as an older man, Michael seems to be portrayed as, in many ways, another victim of Hanna’s.  But that just doesn’t track for me.  Should he have been awakened to the world of sexuality at such a young age as he was?  Certainly not.  And must his experiences attending Hanna’s trial have been very painful for him, because of his intimate connection to her, and also because of the knowledge he possesses that might sway her trial?  Certainly.  But none of that, for me, explains away the empty man Michael turns in to.  None of that offers sufficient justification for his apparent inability to be a good husband, or a good father to his daughter.  And if it is the film’s intention to suggest that we should consider Michael to be yet another victim of the Holocaust, as much as the survivor girl who he encounters at the trial and then again once more later in life, then I vehemently object to that notion.

Finally, I must express additional confusion by the revelation of Hanna’s secret.  (I will tread carefully here, to avoid completely spoiling the film for anyone.)  Hanna is sentenced more harshly than the other German women on trial, because of an accusation that she committed an act even worse than they did.  She does not deny this, even though she was not guilty, in order to hide a deeper secret about herself.  But this deep dark secret, is, to me, ludicrously mundane, and I cannot fathom why Hanna would rather be convicted than admit to it in court.  Any sympathy I might have had for Hanna about her fate (if any still existed after the revelations at the trial of the horrors she WAS involved with) is washed away by her refusal to reveal this one detail about herself.  

So, in the end, I am left with nothing but questions.  Now, to be clear, I am not arguing that any film that asks more difficult questions than it answers is a bad film.  Many of the best movies don’t wrap everything up in a nice little bow — they leave the audience to wonder and to make their own moral judgments about what they have seen.  But The Reader seems like a film that is crying out to make a statement — it’s just that, for me, whatever statement that may be is entirely muddled, and I am left wondering about the filmmakers’ intentions.  And if I am wrong — if the film has no grand statement to make — then I am no less satisfied.  Because then I am left with nothing more than the story of two unhappy people who made poor decisions throughout their lives, and any interest or connection I might have for or with them pales in comparison to the greater tragedies of the Holocaust.

Although it was released months ago (and is actually already on DVD!)  it was only at the very end of December that I was finally able to see the documentary Man on Wire.  I’d been interested in this film ever since I first heard about it many months ago.  Luckily, the film was still playing at a local theatre so I was able to see it on the big screen.  

Man on Wire is about Philippe Petit, the French high-wire walker who, on August 7th, 1974, illegally rigged a wire between the top floors of the Twin Towers in New York City and walked across.  

Take a second to soak that in.  This was an astounding, unbelievable achievement.  The film allows us to get to know Mr. Petit, his background and what drove him to attempt such an incredible, death-defying stunt.  We also spend a great deal of time with Petit’s friends and associates, many of whom were key players in the planning of the event.  

There is nothing particularly dramatic or attention-grabbing about the film itself.  It relies mostly on “talking-head” interviews with Petit and his associates, interspersed with a number of photographs and (amazing) footage of the high-wire walk itself.  The film also uses some discrete, mostly silhouetted re-enactments to bring life to some of the behind-the-scenes events that were, of course, not actually filmed back in 1974.  (Mostly these re-enactments cover the events of the lengthy night that the group of friends spent hiding in the two towers to set up all of the equipment Petit would need for his attempt.) But the film doesn’t need to be showy — the incredible story speaks for itself.  

Mr. Petit is a lively, engaging, albeit bizarre individual, and it is fascinating to peel back the drive that lead him to walk across a thin wire strung between two of the tallest buildings in the world.  It is equally fascinating to learn the details of how the heck they actually got into the Twin Towers and hung the wire between the buildings!  No surprise, this was easier said than done.

I don’t want to tell you any more about the film than I have so far — it is best discovered for yourselves.  I will say that this is an exhilarating film, one that pushes you to contemplate the importance of art, and of the out-of-the-ordinary, in all of our lives… and the human drive to do that which they say cannot be done.  

(I think you’ll also be pleased when you discover where the title of the movie comes from.)

This is a magnificent film, one of the best of the year.