Time to wrap up my Best of 2009 lists!  I hope you all enjoyed my lists of the Top 10 TV Shows of 2009, the Top 10 DVDs of 2009, and the Top 10 Movies of 2009!

Now here we go with my list of the Top 10 Comic Book Series of 2009!

First, let’s start with some Honorable Mentions:  RASL, Ex Machina, Young Liars, Astonishing X-Men, Batman: Streets of Gotham, Superman: Secret Origins, Supergod, Aliens, The Dark Tower, and X-Factor.  All of those are series that I absolutely love — and if you’re not reading them, you should be! (I also have great affection for Powers, but since only one new issue saw the light of day in 2009, it was hard for me to justify including it on this list.)

OK, now here we go with the Top Ten:

10. Witchfinder: In The Service of Angels (issues #1-5 published in 2009) — I am an enormous fan of the Hellboy universe, and I’ve picked up every single Hellboy-related limited series or one-shot ever since Seed of Destruction way back when.  But somehow I almost missed this series about occult investigator Edward Grey, set in London in 1879.  Boy oh boy I’m glad I remedied my error and picked up all five issues.  Not only is it a terrific, creepy adventure tale, but issue #3 connects some ENORMOUS dots and basically gives us the secret history of the Hellboy universe.  This is a critical piece of the unfolding Hellboy saga, and not to be missed.

9.  Stephen King’s The Stand (issues #2-5 of Captain Trips, issues #1-5 of American Nightmares, and issues #1-2 of Soul Survivors published in 2009) — I’ve never read Stephen King’s epic novel The Stand, but I have been absolutely devouring the series of mini-series based on that work.  Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa deftly handles the enormous canvas, weaving multiple story-lines in and out of one another with ease, and Mike Perkins’ beautifully rendered artwork brings a devastated America to glorious, haunting life.  I am chomping at the bit to know what happens next — so much so that I went out and purchased Mr. King’s novel last month!   Now I just need to decide if I want to experience the story through the comic adaptations first, and THEN go read the novel… or dive into the novel right now.

8.  Astro City: The Dark Age Book 3 (issues #1-4 published in 2009) — This four-book Astro City saga has been taking its sweet time to reach a conclusion, but boy is each installment worth the wait.  The Dark Age is the story of two brothers, Charles and Royal Williams.  After their parents were killed during a super-hero battle in the late ’50s, Charles decided to become a cop, while Royal fell in with the criminal element.  But here in Book Three, set in the 1980s, Charles and Royal are working together in an attempt to find the man who killed their parents, while at the same time trying to prevent themselves from being swept under by the escalating tide of super-hero/super-villain conflicts.  The Dark Age balances a very simple, personal story with an epic super-hero saga that mirrors the darkening of comics in the 80’s (when violent vigilantes became far more popular than the boy-scout heroes of old).  Kurt Busiek and Brent E. Anderson have been weaving a rich tapestry of Astro City stories for over a decade, and The Dark Age is a terrific continuation of the saga.

7. Star Trek: Romulans: Schism (issues #1-3 published in 2009) — The third and final installment in John Byrne’s Romulans trilogy, Schism tells the tale of the unraveling of the Klingon/Romulan alliance that was hinted at in the third season of the Original Series.  A great many familiar faces pop up (Kor, Koloth, Number One) as various competing plans and strategies come together.  Filled with compelling action and interstellar intrigue, as well as extraordinary attention to the details of Star Trek continuity, Schism is the best Trek comic book to come down the line in a great many years (probably the best since Peter David was writing the DC Star Trek series oh so many years ago).  Byrne fits beautifully into the Trek universe — I very much hope he has more Trek stories to tell.

6.  Detective Comics Featuring Batwoman (issues # 854-859 published in 2009) — Greg Rucka has been spinning a brutal, edge-of-your seat story as we follow the skilled and mysterious Kathy Kane’s efforts as the new Batwoman.  I’m intrigued by this young woman, and have particularly enjoyed the last several issues that have provided a heartbreaking look into her childhood.  J.J. Williams III’s art is breathtaking, as he constantly switches styles and layout-techniques, resulting in pages that I could stare out for hours.  Each page truly is a stunning work of art.  Magnificent.

5.  Incognito (issues #2-6 published in 2009) — Zack Overkill testifies against his former super-villain colleagues and is placed in a super-hero version of the witness protection program.  Given drugs that suppress his abilities, he is told to live a normal, ordinary life.  But the crushing mundanity of his new life as an office drone proves impossible for Zach to adapt to, and when he discovers that getting high negates the effects of the powers-suppressing drugs he’s been given, Zach quickly finds himself drawn back into his old world.  Ed Brubaker sure knows how to spin a tough-as-nails yarn, and Sean Phillips’ art will grab you by the throat.  I was expecting quality from this team, but was bowled over by just how terrific this limited series was.  I hear that Brubaker and Phillips have more tales set in this world in the works — I can’t wait.

4.  Ultimate Spider-Man (issues #128-133 of Ultimate Spider-Man, issues #1-2 of Requiem, and issues #1-4 of Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man were published in 2009) — Month after month, year after year, Brian Michael Bendis demonstrates that he has mastered the art of long-form comic book storytelling while, at the same time, always making sure that each monthly installment packs a ferociously entertaining punch.  I have never loved Spider-Man more than I love Bendis’ Spidey, and frankly there are few long-running super-hero comic books that I have ever read that have captivated me more.  But while Mr. Bendis’ understanding of the character of Peter Parker is impressive, what really makes this book stand out is the extraordinarily rich supporting cast that Bendis has crafted.  Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy, Aunt May, Kitty Pryde, Johnny Storm, Kong, Flash, Liz… these characters are more interesting and fully-realized than the MAIN characters of most super-hero comic books.  I love each and every one of those individuals, and can’t wait to read about what happens next in their lives every month.  Stuart Immonen, who was the Ultimate Spider-Man artist for most of the year, is one of those guys who seems like he can draw absolutely anything — from intimate conversations between two teenagers to an action-adventure spectacle that results in the complete devastation of New York city.  Mr. Immonen’s crisp, clean line-work and detailed rendering leaves me in awe.  I’m not quite as taken by the more cartoony style of his replacement David Lafuente (on the newly renamed Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man — and I’m not quite taken with that verbose new title, either), but I’m willing to see how things develop.  This series continues to be the gold-standard in super-hero comics, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

3.  Criminal (issues #1-3 of The Sinners published in 2009) — Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (the same team responsible for my #5 selection, Incognito), return to their crime series Criminal with another tense, can’t-look-away crime saga.  Tracy Lawless finds himself back in the city, working as a hit-man for Sebastian Hyde, just as his father once did.  He’s a killer who can follow orders, but he’s proving to be something of a pain in the ass for Mr. Hyde.  Tracy dreams of cutting ties and getting out of that world, but finds himself continually getting dragged further in.  When Mr. Hyde assigns Tracy a new task, it just might be his ticket out — or into a whole new world of trouble.  Criminal is a relentlessly compelling crime series that is the very definition of a page-turner.  It’s one of the most unique and compelling comic books on the stands.  Brubaker and Phillips make this look so easy.

2.  B.P.R.D. (issues #1-5 of The Black Goddess and issues #1-5 of 1947 published in 2009) — Years of story-telling began to reach their culmination in the mesmerizing mini-series The Black Goddess, as the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense struggled to rescue Liz from the enigmatic Memnan Saa, while the world-wide war with the frog-creatures escalated even further.  Shape-shifting mystical Yetis, enormous living machines from beneath the Earth, golden dragons, and a whole boat-load of other weirdness factor into an enormous battle on the snowy Russian-Chinese boarder that might just determine the fate of the world.  Oh, and the Lobster returns.  Meanwhile, 1947 is the second volume detailing the early years of the Bureau.  Nazis, witches, and vampires spell trouble for Professor Bruttenholm and his team in this spooky mystery story.  In these two very different mini-series, Mike Mignola and his extraordinary team of collaborators continue to flesh out the world of Hellboy, and each new stitch in the growing tapestry helps make clear that they have created one of the richest fantasy universes I’ve ever had the pleasure of enjoying.  And speaking of Hellboy…

1.  Hellboy: The Wild Hunt (issues #2-8 published in 2009) — Mike Mignola has blown the doors off of the Hellboy universe over the past few years, and I have been loving every single minute of it.  Both Witchfinder and B.P.R.D. found places on this list, but I was thrilled to see the core Hellboy title return to center stage in 2009 with the phenomenal mini-series The Wild Hunt.  The miserable pig-creature Gruagach sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the unleashing of a terrible, ancient evil, and the war long-simmering between heaven and earth (that we’ve seen brewing for years now in various Hellboy mini-series) erupts.  Meanwhile, Hellboy is at a crossroads, unwilling to face the hints of his terrible potential for evil that have been growing harder to ignore.  In issue #6, we (along with the Big Red Guy) learn an entirely new aspect of his origin that absolutely blew me away.  I’ve been reading Hellboy comics since the very beginning, and I never suspected anything like this.  And yet — it just feels right.  It’s an astounding revelation that sets the stage for the next act in the story (which I await with an insane amount of anticipation).  Mike Mignola has long been known as a terrific artist, but his work these last few years have solidified him as one of the best writers working in comics today.  Duncan Fegredo’s insanely detailed artwork proves a perfect companion (and makes me stop missing the days when Mignola would illustrate every Hellboy issue himself).  The man can draw creepy gatherings of witches in their dens as well as he can draw a vicious brawl between giants in the English countryside.  The combination is perfection.  Pound for pound and page for page, there was no finer comic book series published in 2009.

Hope you all enjoyed my Best of 2009 lists.  Have a great weekend, everybody!

Yesterday I began my list of my Top 10 Movies of 2009!  Let’s continue, shall we?

5.  Inglourious Basterds — Quentin Tarantino demonstrates, once again, that no one can wring more nail-biting tension out of simple conversation than he can.  What I thought would be  a simple men-on-a-mission story wound up being a much more complex, intriguing tale.  Filled with astounding, unforgettable performances (Brad Pitt as the tough-talking Aldo Raine, Melanie Laurent as the fiercely intelligent Shosanna Dreyfus, and of course Christopher Waltz as Col. Hans Landa, one of the most unforgettable film villains of the past decade) and some great Tarantino touches (yep, that is a Samuel L. Jackson voice-over at one point), the film is ridiculously compelling.  And that ending.  Ho boy.  Read my full review here.

4.  District 9 — With a budget reportedly in the ballpark of 30 million dollars (which, if my information is correct, is about a third of what was spent on the Alec Baldwin/Meryl Streep comedy It’s Complicated), first-time director Neill Blomkamp fashioned one of the most gripping sci-fi tales I have ever seen.  The film is set in Johannesburg, almost thirty years after an enormous alien spacecraft appeared over the city.  The aliens, nicknamed “prawns,” have been settled in slum-like conditions in a refugee camp called District 9.  When the corporation MNU bows to public pressure to remove the aliens from the vicinity of Johannesburg, the hapless Wikus Van De Merwe (who participates in the forced evictions) finds his life turned upside-down.  As a sci-fi fan I am always looking for smart, original new works of sci-fi, and this film has both qualities in spades.  With jaw-dropping special effects (I am amazed at how well the alien “prawns” are brought to life), a career making performance by Sharlto Copley (who plays Wikus), some terrific action, and edge-of-your seat intensity from start to finish, District 9 is a magnificent and haunting creation.  Read my full review here.

3.  Fantastic Mr. Fox — A deliriously fantastic combination of Roald Dahl’s story (about a family of foxes menaced by three vicious farmers) and director Wes Anderson’s unique sensibilities, Fantastic Mr. Fox feels to me like the film Mr. Anderson has always wanted to make.  He has filled the movie with his specific style — detail-filled sets and precise, stage-like staging — and the foxes are a classic addition to Mr. Anderson’s repertoire of wonderfully idiosyncratic, somewhat disfunctional families.  The script is complex and sophisticated (with characters who all possess strengths as well as character flaws, and no easy answers to their dilemmas in sight), and the voice-actors (including George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, and many others) are wonderful.  The stop-motion animation has a hand-crafted, low-tech feel that fits the story perfectly.  (But that is not to take away from the great achievement in animation that this film represents.  Between the animation and the voice-acting, these foxes — and other animals — are unquestionably ALIVE.)  Somber and joyful, playful and serious, I can’t think of another movie that is anything like it.  Fantastic.  Read my full review here.

2.  Up — At this point I am really starting to believe that the mad geniuses working at Pixar can really do no wrong.  After each new Pixar magnum opus I continue to declare that there’s no way they’ll ever be able to top THIS one, and then the next film comes along.  Well, here I am again.  My jaw was pretty much on the floor from beginning to end.  The heartbreaking opening sequence (in which we follow Carl Fredrickson and the love of his life, Ellie, from childhood to old age over the course of a matter of minutes) is absolutely devastating, a gut-punch that could be one of the most powerful few minutes of film that I have ever seen.  It’s a hell of a way to start a film, and luckily the rest of the movie earns the emotional investment garnered by that opening sequence.  I absolutely adore the way the film slowly builds upon that somber opening until it becomes an explosion of, well, all sorts of wonderful weirdness that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling for you if you haven’t seen the film.  I will only add that Dug is, without question, one of the greatest characters created on film in recent memory.  The computer animation is absolutely stunning, and the 3-D effects give the film an extraordinary depth without ever becoming gimmicky or annoying.  It’s a masterpiece, and there’s absolutely NO WAY that those folks at Pixar will ever be able to top THIS ONE…  Read my full review here.

1.  Where The Wild Things Are — If there’s a theme to my choices this year, I think it’s pretty obvious that I am drawn to films that feel like unique, singular creations.  I love walking out of a movie thinking, boy, I’ve never seen anything quite like THAT before.  Well, no film made me feel that way — that I had been lucky enough to go on a cinematic journey unlike any I had taken before — more than Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s beloved book, Where The Wild Things Are.  This film hit me like a ton of bricks, and I almost don’t know where to begin in describing my love of it.  To begin with, I was blown away by the emotional intensity and honesty of Max’s journey in the film.  A young boy with an enormous amount of energy and creativity, Max is also filled with great loneliness and anger, feelings that he is not yet old enough to be able to process or really understand.  This causes him to lash out at his sister and his mother (Catherine Keener).  After one such explosion, Max runs out of the house, at which point he finds a boat and sails away to the domain of the Wild Things.  The creatures are fierce and violent, but also gentle and childlike in their emotions.  Where the Wild Things Are is gripping but also almost dreamlike in its storytelling.  The film is not in any rush to draw obvious morals for either Max or for the audience, and it studiously avoids a standard narrative structure.  This gives the film a naturalism (which is a funny thing to say about a movie with giant Wild Things) and a sophistication and complexity that I adore.  The visual effects are astounding, as the Jim Henson Company’s giant puppets were seamlessly combined with computer-generated facial animation (not to mention terrific voice acting by the likes of James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, Paul Dano, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper, and others) to bring the Wild Things to extraordinarily convincing life.  Young Max Records is phenomenal as Max — one of the best child performances I’ve seen in while, believable and gripping.  Spike Jonze (who directed the film, and co-wrote the screenplay with Dave Eggers) has created a true masterpiece, one I relish having the opportunity to revisit many more times to come.  Max may have gone home to his family, but I can’t wait to return to Where the Wild Things Are.  Read my full review here.

So that’s my list!  Do you agree?  Disagree?  Let me know.  In the mean-time, I’ll see you back here on Friday for my final Best Of 2009 list, my listing of the 10 Best Comic Books of 2009!  See you there!

Despite the horrendous batch of summer “blockbusters” that we had to suffer through, 2009 was actually a pretty darned good year for movies!  I’d been feeling otherwise, but when I looked back through my notes about all the great films that I saw this past year, I had a hard time narrowing down my Top Ten list!

As I did before beginning last year’s list, I should mention that, despite the rather large number of new movies that I saw in 2009, there were plenty of heard-they-were-great films (or films that otherwise seemed interesting to me) that I wanted to see but just didn’t get to.  These include The Hurt Locker, Moon, Pirate Radio, Broken Embraces, A Single Man, An Education, Me and Orson Welles, Invictus, The Road, and The Lovely Bones.  Might one or more of those films have wound up on this list, had I seen them?  Who can say!

So, without further ado, let’s dive into my List of my Ten Favorite Movies from 2009!

Honorable Mention: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus — I was just tickled by every moment of this wonderfully weird trip into the mind of Terry Gilliam.  Heath Ledger’s final performance is delightful and enigmatic, and the trio of actors who stepped in to complete his role after his tragic death (Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell) are all absolutely wonderful, as is the great Christopher Plummer in the title role.  Read my full review here.

10.  Coraline — I’ve got three animated films on this list, but they could not possibly be more different from one another.   Each is a magnificently unique creation.  In Coraline, Neil Gaiman’s fantasy story is brought to breathtaking life by gorgeous stop-motion animation.  Coraline is an intelligent but lonely little girl whose world is uprooted when her parents move into a strange new house.  When she discovers a small, secret door that leads into an alternate world where she meets far happier and more doting alternate versions of her parents, Coraline is delighted and entranced.  But all is not as it seems, and the young girl will need all of her wits to escape from the web into which she has fallen.  Dangerous and dark, this haunting tale is sweet and scary in equal parts.  I can’t wait to see it again.  Read my full review here.

9.  Watchmen — I’ve seen this film so many times already (in a variety of different cuts) that it’s hard to believe it came out this year!  Zach Snyder’s gloriously ambitious attempt at adapting Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ magnum opus Watchmen has its flaws, but even after many repeated viewings I remain dazzled by all that it gets right.  Through astounding visual effects and spot-on casting, the characters and world of Watchmen have been brought to gritty, rain-drenched life.  This is a super-hero film that makes no bones about being an R rated film for adults, and I applaud Snyder and his team for being rigorously faithful in their adaptation (a tack that I wish more makers of super-hero films would follow).  Though it lacks the complexity and ambiguity of the original graphic novel, there are so many moments that this film gets exactly right (my favorite would be the sequence in which Dr. Manhattan relives his life out of order).  It’s an incredible achievement, and I still can’t quite believe that it actually exists.  Read my full review of the theatrical cut here, and the director’s cut here.

8.  Sherlock Holmes — Guy Ritchie’s rough and tumble reinvigoration of Sherlock Holmes is terrific fun from start to finish.  Robert Downey Jr. seems born to play the brilliant and more-than-a-little-crazy central character, and Jude Law portrays, finally, a version of Watson who we can take seriously.  Add in Mark Strong’s creepily intense turn as the villainous Lord Blackwell, some great action, and a fast-paced script filled to the brim with verbose and clever torrents of dialogue, and you have a real winner.  Can’t wait for the (hopefully) inevitable sequel.  Read my full review here.

7.  Adventureland — I was really taken by this little movie about a young man’s transformative summer spent working at a crappy local amusement park.  As someone who has spent much of his life working at a summer camp, I love the way this film brought to life that particular sub-culture.  Yes, it’s about an amusement park, not a camp, but this film truly presented the way in which the ups and downs of friendships and relationships made and broken over the course of a summer can seem like life and death matters to young people on the verge of adulthood.  Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart are fantastic in the lead roles, and they’re surrounded by a great group of supporting actors that include Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Reynolds, and Martin Starr.  Adventureland is funny at times, poignant at others, and it really spoke to me.  It’s a film I can’t wait to revisit.  Read my full review here.

6.  The Invention of Lying — Ricky Gervais plays a man living in a world just like our own, except that no human being has ever told a lie.  When he discovers that he, and he alone, somehow possesses the capability to lie, his life — and soon after, the entire world — are turned upside down.  What starts as a comedic romp soon turns into something much more complex and interesting.  The Invention of Lying is a very funny film, but it’s also a film with something to say.  Ricky Gervais is marvelous, as always, and the terrific ensemble with which he surrounds himself  – Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K., Jeffrey Tambor, and Rob Lowe — is absolutely dynamite.  One of the more unique cinematic creations that I have seen in quite some time.  Read my full review here.

OK, that’s it for today!  Click here for part 2 of my list, with numbers 5 through 1!

Let the Best of 2009 lists continue!  I hope you all enjoyed my list of the Top 10 TV Episodes of 2009.

Now let’s dive into my list of the Top 10 DVDs (or Blu-Rays) released in 2009!

First, I’d like to give Honorable Mentions to the complete series sets of three amazing TV shows that I had just about given up all hope of ever seeing on DVD: It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, and Andy Barker, P.I. So why aren’t these shows on my list?  Because I can’t put anything on this list that I haven’t actually watched, and I’ve been way, way too busy to get through any of these sets.  Of the three, the only one I own is Andy Richter Controls the Universe.  (That one came out first, and I’m not going to purchase the other two sets until I actually have time to watch them.)  But I take great delight in knowing that these three DVD sets exist here on planet Earth, and I know that I’ll get to them all in good time.

10. Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut (Blu-ray) — I’ve seen Watchmen quite a few times since it was released early in 2009, and while the film certainly has some weaknesses, I remain overwhelmed by the enormity of its successes.  It’s hard to believe that Zach Snyder brought this seminal graphic novel by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons, which long had been considered unadaptable, to life.  It thrills me to see such a faithful take on the material and that the filmmakers had the confidence to craft a super-hero film that was aimed squarely at adults.  The Ultimate Cut of the film is Zach Snyder’s longest version, stitching together his Director’s Cut with the animated Tales of the Black Freighter sequences.  It’s pretty astounding.  This Blu-Ray set would be much higher on this list were it not for the paltry special features.  Not only are the special features lame (this is a movie that cries out for a full-fledged making-of documentary), but this set just reproduces the special features that were already released on the Director’s Cut set.  (I guess I’ve been spoiled by the amazing extended editions of the Lord of the Rings films, which came not just with phenomenal extended versions of the films but with extraordinarily elaborate making-of documentaries that didn’t duplicate the special features on the theatrical version DVDs.)  (Read my review of the theatrical version of Watchmen here, and of the Director’s Cut here.)

9. Contact (Blu-Ray) — A beautiful film that manages to combine a serious, cerebral sci-fi tale with an effecting story of the personal journey of scientist Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster).  This is director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) working at the top of his game.  The special effects are elaborate but never come close to overwhelming the story.  It’s a terrific special edition, chock full of special features, and the film looks positively STUNNING on Blu-Ray.  (Read my full review here.)

8. Homicide: The Criterion Collection — Another film that I have been waiting a long, long time to be released on DVD.  David Mamet’s 1991 film follows detective Bobby Gold (Joe Mantegna) and his investigation of the murder of an elderly Jewish shop owner.  What follows is a great, twisty Mamet tale, filled with tough guys and double-crosses.  But what gives the film its weight is the way the investigation story-line is wrapped in a deeper story of Bobby’s struggles with his Jewish identity.  The fine folks at Criterion hit another one out of the park with this beautiful new edition.  (My full review of Homicide is coming soon, but click here for my thoughts on a variety of other films by David Mamet.)

7. Eddie Izzard: Live From Wembley — It’s been a long, long wait since Eddie Izzard’s last stand-up DVD.  (That would be Circle, released back in 2002).  Live From Wembley isn’t exactly the freshest material — the footage is from Eddie’s Sexie tour, from several years back.  And the camera-work is surprisingly amateurish in places (quite a few shots are rather blurry, and there are several instances where Eddie isn’t properly framed on-screen).  But forget all that — it’s new Eddie Izzard stand-up material, and the performance (while not reaching the heights of Dress to Kill), is superb and very, very funny.  There’s also a terrific special feature on the disc: 40 minutes of Eddie’s stand-up from long before Live From Wembley, in which we can see him beginning to work out some of the material that would eventually be included in his Sexie show.  It’s a funny performance, and a neat look into his process.

6. Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder – The fourth and final installment in the series of Futurama direct-to-DVD films.  In this one, Fry gets inducted into a secret organization of telepaths (that have been popping up in the background of the show since its very beginning).  The film’s wide-reaching story also deals with Leela’s involvement with a group of eco-terrorists, Bender’s affair with the wife of a robot mobster, and a lot of other zaniness.  At the time, it looked like this was the end of Futurama, and the film’s final scene provided a wonderful capstone to the series’ run.  Luckily, the show has once again risen from the grave, and new episodes are being produced to air on Cartoon Network.  Hooray!  (Read my full review here.)

5. Star Trek: The Motion Picture Collection (Blu-Ray) — Star Trek comes to Blu-Ray with this fabulous set containing nicely spruced-up editions of the first six Star Trek films.  The films themselves have never looked or sounded better, and there have been a number of new featurettes created for each film.  (The set also includes almost all of the special features from the previous DVD releases.)  I still wish that the featurettes had been edited together into a longer, more comprehensive documentary for each film, but I can live without that.  Extra props to the makers of this set for choosing to use the original theatrical versions of Star Trek II and Star Trek VI on these discs.  (The previous Special Edition DVDs of those two films used slightly re-edited versions, which I found to be rather inferior to the original versions.)  For a die-hard Trek fan like myself, this set is a treasure.  (Click here for my full review of the Blu-Ray release of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.)

4. Will Ferrell: You’re Welcome, America — A recording of Will Ferrell’s stage show featuring him as Geroge W. Bush, looking back on his eight years as President.  I was a bit dubious, at first, as to whether Ferrell’s Bush impersonation could really sustain my interest for 90 minutes, but it unquestionably did.  The show is well-crafted — while the focus is on Ferrell’s monologues on Bush, there is also good fun to be had with short appearances by other characters, which keeps things interesting.  But all that would be moot if Ferrell’s Bush wasn’t so relentlessly entertaining.  My favorite moments of the show are when he dives fully into total insanity, such as his elaborate and manic story about being trapped in a mine shaft with his father.  We’re lucky that this live show has been captured for us all to enjoy.

3. Battlestar Galactica: The Plan — Ron Moore’s reinvention of Battlestar Galactica takes its final bow in this tour-de-force direct-to-DVD film.  Diving deep into the show’s mythology, The Plan winds the clock back to just before the events of the original Battlestar Galactica mini-series, and then shows us the events of the show’s first two seasons from the point of view of the Cylons.  Cleverly weaving in-and-around the events that we saw, The Plan connects events and characters into a complex and fascinating tapestry, bringing a whole new light to the show’s beginnings.  A terrific lead performance by Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap) and mind-blowing special effects combine to give the show a far superior farewell than the actual finale episode.  I wish there were more of these direct-to-DVD BSG films being made!!  (Read my full review here.)

2. Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer’s Cut) — This six-hour documentary traces the full history of Monty Python, from the group’s beginnings to their work on feature films The Holy Grail, The Life of Brian, and The Meaning of Life.  Told almost entirely through interviews with all five surviving Pythons as well as an enormous number of their key collaborators, this documentary is endlessly interesting and also quite a riot. It’s also filled with elaborate little touches that elevate it beyond the usual sort of behind-the-scenes documentaries, such as the creation of new songs introducing each of the six episodes, sung by the same woman who sung the classic Life of Brian introductory tune.  With a third disc containing clips from their best sketches, extended interviews, and lots of other fun stuff, this set is a winner through-and-through.

1. Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II — I loved the first Robot Chicken Star Wars Special, but things are taken to a whole new level in this second go-round.  Focusing on The Empire Strikes Back (with lots of screen time for Vader, The Emperor, Boba Fett, and the other bounty hunters), this special has more laughs-per-second than anything else I saw all year.  Hard-core Star Wars fans like myself will be bowled over by the attention to detail in the recreation of key scenes and the references to obscure characters and moments in the saga, while there is also plenty of silliness for a more casual fan to enjoy.  (Who wouldn’t laugh at the image of an Imperial officer putting a styrofoam cup over the little Vader hologram on his console?)  Just having the special on DVD would have been enough for me, but not only is this set absolutely overflowing with special features (commentary tracks, behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, and so much more), but it also contains a newly extended (almost twice-as-long) version of the original special filled with a ton of new sketches.  Phenomenal.  I can’t wait for Episode III.  (Read my full review here.)

Coming on Monday:  My list of the 10 Best Movies of 2009!  See you there!

Sometimes I get DVDs and I watch them immediately, devouring the movie and the special features within 24 hours.  Sometimes I’ll get a DVD and, for one reason or another, it will sit on my shelf for months and months.  Such was the case with the Director’s Cut of Ridley Scott’s 2007 film, American Gangster.

I enjoyed American Gangster when I first saw it in theatres.  I didn’t love it the way I love some of Scott’s other films (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and the vastly underrated Kingdom of Heaven), but I quite liked it, and when I saw that an extended version of the film was available on DVD in early 2008, I snapped it up.  I’ve really enjoyed the extended versions of several others of Ridley Scott’s films, most particularly the extended version of the afore-mentioned Kingdom of Heaven, which is a revelation in contrast to the theatrical release, so I was excited to see this new version of American Gangster.  But, for whatever reason, I just never got around to watching the DVD until recently.

American Gangster tells two parallel stories.  One half of the film is about Frank Lucas, played by Denzel Washington.  The movie opens with the death of Frank’s mentor, the powerful Harlem drug-dealer Bumpy Johnson.  Frank marshals his keen intellect and all that he learned from Bumpy in order to take control of the Harlem drug scene.  His boldest move was to travel to Southeast Asia in order to purchase heroin straight from the source, enabling him to bypass all the other crime-figure “middle managers” and sell a more powerful product at cheaper prices than his competition.  That coup, combined with his patience and his near-fanatical focus on avoiding the spotlight, enabled him to amass an extraordinary amount of power and money all while operating under the noses of what local law enforcement officials weren’t on the take.

Russell Crowe plays Richie Roberts, a New Jersey cop with a fierce sense of honesty.  In an infamous story depicted early in the film, he finds a million dollars in cash but turns it over to his superiors in the department rather than keeping it for himself.  In contrast to those qualities, his personal life is a disaster, and when the film opens his wife (the wonderful Carla Gugino) has decided to divorce him.  Richie eventually gets himself involved with (and becomes a key figure in leading) the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, where his investigative skills and a decent amount of luck puts him on the trail of Frank Lucas.

American Gangster is a film dancing on the edge of greatness.  Washington and Crowe both turn in powerhouse performances, and they’re both so engaging that both halves of the film’s story-line feel equally significant and interesting.  (A great script and some fine editing help with that as well.)  They are supported by a wonderfully deep ensemble, including Josh Brolin’s scene-stealing turn as the corrupt New York Detective Trupo; Chiwetel Ejiofor (who I first saw in Serenity and who has been amazing in each of the 10,000 films he has been in since then) as Huey Lucas, one of Frank’s many brothers who for a short while serves as Frank’s right-hand man; Cuba Gooding Jr. (who is terrific, demonstrating just how good he can be when used well) as the flashy Nicky Barnes; and Idris Elba (Stringer Bell from The Wire!) as one of Frank’s competitors, Tango.  But my favorite supporting actor has to be Armand Assante’s phenomenally bizarre and iconic performance as the powerful Italian mobster Dominic Cattano.  His performance is an inch away from falling into over-the-top silliness, but he never crosses that line.  He’s only in a few scenes, but many of his lines (delivered in his terrific accent) are the ones that I most remembered after finishing the movie.

Ridley Scott is a phenomenal director, and his unique talents really shine through in this film.  The special features on the DVD emphasize the enormous size of the film — there are 135 speaking parts and hundreds of short scenes taking place all over Manhattan, New Jersey, and also Vietnam, Bangkok, etc.  Mr. Scott’s experience in juggling epic films (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven) surely helped him keep everything under control and pull the film off.  (In his commentary track, Ridley speaks several times of the importance, for him, of not dwelling on how much needed to be accomplished — rather, he says, he just took each day at a time, putting together the film piece by piece.)  Scott is also famous for his involvement in the production design, the location scouting, and everything else that goes into the look of a film — costumes, props, etc.  That enormous care that he and his team poured into those details is evident in every frame of the film, which does a superb job of capturing the feel of New York in the 1970’s.  Nothing feels out of place.

So why did I write, above, that American Gangster is a film dancing on the edge of greatness?  What prevents me from unabashedly recommending this film as a triumph?

Mainly, it’s that the whole thing feels rather familiar.  There have been a lot of amazing movies chronicling the rise and fall of crime figures (The Godfather films, Goodfellas, Casino, Scarface, etc. etc.), so while everything that one watches as American Gangster unfolds is pretty great, it is tainted by a bit of a feeling of “been there, done that.”  For me, at least.  (As an example, the climax of the film is structured as a montage — we see footage of Richie’s closing the net on Frank’s partners and accomplices, all while Frank is in church with his mother, and the whole sequence is scored to the music of the singing in church.  I’d be impressed by the stark contrast that sequence created between Frank’s facade in church and the realities of his life if Francis Ford Coppola hadn’t done pretty much exactly the same thing in his famous climax to the Godfather more than thirty years ago.)

OK, some small spoilers ahead, so be warned.

The only aspect of the film’s story that really struck me as being totally unique were the events of the film’s very final moments. In a series of text pieces, we learn that after spending years working to take down Frank Lucas, and serving as the prosecuting attorney in the case that put him behind bars, Richie Roberts and Frank Lucas struck up a friendship.  The two men wound up working together as Frank provided evidence that allowed Richie to expose an enormous amount of corruption in the New York city police department.  Years later, Richie became a defense attorney, and his first client was none other than Frank Lucas, as Richie argued (successfully) that Frank’s sentence should be reduced as compensation for his aid in all those other cases.

That is an astonishing turn of events, and I really enjoyed learning more, in the DVD’s special features, about this most unlikely of friendships that ultimately emerged between Frank and Richie.  That’s why I think it’s an enormous failure on the film’s part that that twist was saved for a “wow” moment in the film’s final minutes.  Despite the movie’s length (the theatrical cut was about two hours and forty minutes, and the Director’s Cut clocks in at almost three hours), I feel like the film needed another half-hour at the end to more thoroughly explore that extraordinary turn of events.  THERE’S the part of the story — the TRUE story, mind you — that really is unique, and could have separated this tale from all the other similar crime films.  A big missed opportunity, I think.

I was hoping the Director’s Cut would address some of those concerns.  There are an additional couple of minutes added on to the very end of the film that give us a few more scenes between Richie and Frank that take place years after the main events of the film.  These are some nice moments, but I was still hoping for more.  As for the rest of the changes to the film: it’s funny, there are apparently about twenty minutes added on, but other than the new ending I didn’t notice any other differences.  True, I saw the theatrical version over two years ago, but I usually have a good eye for changes made in these sorts of extended cuts.  (Take a look at my anal accounting of all the adjustments made to the extended episodes of Battlestar Galactica’s final episodes on DVD!)  I guess it’s a good thing that all the new additions blend seamlessly into the film, but I must report that this new cut doesn’t dramatically change any of the film’s story-lines or its over-all impact.

It may not be the most groundbreaking film every made, but American Gangster is an entertaining tale well-told by a bunch of craftsmen at the top of their game.  If you like a good crime saga, check this one out.

Yesterday I began my list of the Top 10 Episodes of TV from 2009.  Click here for numbers 10-6.  Now here is the rest of the list!

5.  Lost: “The Incident” (season 5, episodes 16/17, aired on 5/13/09).  Everything comes together, questions are answered, and (of course) new questions are raised.  We finally get to meet the oft-discussed Jacob, and we see how this apparently ageless man has interacted with the lives of many of the castaways long before they ever crashed on the island.  In the ’70s, Jack seeks to change the future by detonating a hydrogen bomb, thus destroying the island.  This once again puts him in conflict with Sawyer, who believes that “what’s done is done.”  In 2007, Locke, Ben, and the mysterious other survivors of Ajira flight 316 converge in the shadow of the statue, we learn the true final fate of Jeremy Bentham, and a shocking murder is committed.  The cliffhanger ending leaves us in the dark as to whether Jack’s audacious plan has succeeded, or whether he has just caused “the incident” that we’ve been hearing about since “Orientation” in season two (that necessitated the construction of the Swan Station and the button).  Either way, this was a magnificent two hours of television.  It’s been a great delight watching the makers of Lost weave together the show’s many characters and story-lines as we prepare for the show’s final year.  I have high hopes for what’s ahead!

4.  Parks and Recreation: “The Hunting Trip” (season 2, episode 10, aired on 11/19/09).  I thought that Parks and Recreation was extraordinarily mediocre in its first season, but just as NBC’s The Office only found its footing during its second year, Parks & Rec has really turned things around this season.  Many weeks I consider it — are you sitting down? — the strongest of NBC’s Thursday night comedies.  ”The Hunting Trip” is a prime example as to why.  Ron prepares to take the men in the office out on their annual hunting trip, but Leslie (Amy Poehler) wants the girls (and Tom Haverford) to be included too.  Since Ron is legally forbidden from excluding them from what is tenuously a work-related outing, the whole gang heads out to the woods, rifles in hand.  What follows is an escalating series of madness that culminates in poor Ron getting shot (not fatally, of course!!).  The whole episode is a riot, in which every member of the ensemble gets a lot to do.  But Leslie steals the show when she realizes that she cannot reveal the identity of the person who shot Ron to the ranger who comes to investigate, so she tries to take the fall by putting on a “daffy woman who knows nothing about guns” act.  This montage had me in hysterics.  It begins with her saying “I got that tunnel vision that girls get” and just goes from there. Comedy gold.

3.  Battlestar Galactica: “The Oath” (season 4, episode 15, aired on 1/30/09).  BSG’s final run of episodes certainly had its flaws, but this astonishing, nail-biting hour was exactly the type of intense episode that made this series so frakking phenomenal.  Outraged by the alliance with the Cylon rebels, an embittered Felix Gaeta throws in with Tom Zarek and stages a mutiny on-board Galactica, taking control of the ship right out from under Adama.  Old grudges are paid off and long-gone chickens come home to roost as the survivors of the Pegasus take their revenge on Helo, Sam Anders is beaten and tossed in the brig, Tigh and Adama are escorted out of CIC at gunpoint, and Kara and Lee find themselves back to back in an impossible situation one final time.  The whole tapestry of the show comes into play as characters we haven’t seen in a while return (such as Laird, the engineer from the Pegasus, and Kelly, who was one of the Galactica crew-members back in the original miniseries), and some of our beloved characters (Racetrack!  Skulls!  Seelix!) make shocking choices.  In an episode stuffed to-the-brim with fantastic moments, I have never-ending love for the scene in which old men Adama and Tigh kick the asses of a bunch of armed marines.  I’ve seen mutiny episodes on ship-based sci-fi shows before, but never anything like this.  As always, BSG plays for keeps.

2.  Curb Your Enthusiasm: “The Table Read” (season 7, episode 9, aired on 11/15/09).  The glimpses that this episode gives us into the Seinfeld Reunion that we’ll never see would be enough to get this installment a spot on this list.  I loved seeing actual events of Larry’s life (from previous seasons of Curb) acted out by Jerry & the gang, and I loved the storyline the Larry created for George.  (”George, are you marrying her for YOUR money?”)  I really enjoyed all the Seinfeld supporting cast cameos.  But what is amazing is that this episode has far greater pleasures than all of the Seinfeld reunion fun.  There’s Marty Funkhouser’s painfully awkward interactions with Jerry.  There’s Larry’s inability to shake his new nine-year-old texting friend (that leads to the great last line of the show that had me on the floor with laughter).  And there is the incredibly ballsy, heads-on manner in which Larry & co. tackle Michael Richard’s infamous outburst.  Once I glimpsed Leon Black dressed in that Nation of Islam get-up, I knew we were in for it, but I never guessed just how far things would go.  Unbelievably brilliant.

1.  The Daily Show.  Day in and day out, there is nothing funnier or more piercing on planet Earth than Jon Stewart and The Daily Show.  Wondering why this is at the top of my list?  Check these out:

My list of my Top 10 DVDs of 2009 is coming later this week!  See you there!

Hi everyone!  It’s that time of year again — welcome to the first of my four Best of 2009 lists!  We’re kicking things off today with part one of my list of the 10 Best TV Episodes I saw in 2009!

Let’s dive in, shall we?

10. Lost: “Jughead” (season 5, episode 3, aired on 1/28/09).  The craziness of Lost’s superb time-hopping fifth season kicked into high gear with this episode, and all sorts of fascinating connections were made.  Trapped in the past, Locke meets a young Charles Widmore and Richard Alpert and we finally get an explanation for Alpert’s weird childhood visit to Locke (that we saw in “Cabin Fever” ).  Meanwhile, Daniel Faraday discovers that the American army came to the island in the 1950’s to test hydrogen bombs, explaining a lot of tiny references that have been layered into the show since back in the second season (such as Ana Lucia pointing out to Goodwin that the Other they killed carried an army knife from decades ago).  But this episode gets the nod because of its focus on one of my very favorite Lost characters: Desmond, who spends the hour attempting to unravel the secrets of Daniel Faraday.  Mind-bending Lost at its best.

9.  Dollhouse: “Belonging” (season 2, episode 4, aired on 10/23/09).  Oh Dollhouse, we hardly knew ye.  Though Joss Whedon’s short-lived series was frustratingly hit-or-miss, episodes like this make we wish fervently that the show was continuing.  This episode spotlights Sierra, one of the “dolls” (men and women regularly programmed with completely new personalities in order to meet the whims of the Dollhouse’s wealthy clients), and we learn how the young woman once named Priya came to be a doll.  It is a twisted, heartbreaking story, and an absolutely riveting hour of TV.

8.  The Office: “Broke” (season 5, episode 23, aired on 4/23/09).  I’ve been a bit let-down by The Office this year, but the mid-fourth season run of episodes centering around the Michael Scott Paper Company were classic, and this episode provided a note-perfect culmination of that storyline.  Michael & co. have finally succeeded in cutting into Dunder Mifflin’s business by undercutting their prices, but that action has also left Michael’s company penniless (and unable to afford even a delivery van for the paper they’re selling, as we see in the episode’s opening).  Luckily, David Wallace decides to try to buy Michael out.  The negotiations that follow are hysterical — and also a stunning moment as Michael rises to the occasion by serving as a surprisingly sly negotiator.  Also, Charles Miner (The Wire’s idris Elba), who has been running the Scranton branch in Michael’s absence, is finally undone by his ill-chosen support of Dwight.

7.  30 Rock: “St. Valentine’s Day” (season 3, episode 11, aired on 2/12/09).  Liz foolishly insists that she and Drew (guest star Jon Hamm from Mad Men) have their first date on Valentines’s Day, while Jack’s new girlfriend Elisa (Salma Hayek) insists that he celebrate the day with her in church.  The escalating chaos that befalls Liz and Drew on their first-date-from-hell is a riot, but what earns this episode a place on this list is Jack’s prayer/phone call to his assistant while sitting next to Elisa in church: “Our Jonathan, who art in the office, hallowed be thy reservation…”  Oh, and I should also mention the waiter’s reaction to Jack sitting alone in front of an enormous dessert at his favorite restaurant: “I’m sorry, is this a Sixth Sense thing?  Should I bring a place setting for your friend?”  Genius.

6.  Curb Your Enthusiasm: “Officer Krupke” (season 7, episode 8, aired on 11/8/09).  Larry’s plot to reconcile with Cheryl by casting her as George’s wife in the Seinfeld reunion is imperiled when another actress (Elisabeth Shue) auditions very well for the role.  Jeff is in hot water with his wife Susie because she found another woman’s panties in his car, so Jeff desperately begs Larry to tell Susie that the panties are his — which leads to the classic moment: “I’m Larry David, and I happen to enjoy wearing women’s panties.”  Larry gets into an argument with the fellow behind the counter at the department store where he left a pair of his pants, as they debate the difference between “lost” and “gone.”  (I’m with Larry on this one.)  Larry meets a police offer with the same name as the famous character from West Side Story.  All of those story-lines are terrific, but what elevates this episode beyond the rest is the phenomenal closing moment when Jeff shows up at Larry’s door wearing a neck-brace: “you’ve got to tell Susie I was in a car accident!”  (I won’t spoil the meaning of that gloriously dirty joke for those of you who haven’t yet seen this episode.)

Click here for numbers 5 through 1!

Charlyne Yi (who you might recognize from Knocked Up) doesn’t really believe in the concept of falling in love.  She’s not sure such a thing as love truly exists — and if it does, she’s not sure it’s something that she’s capable of.  So she sets out with her friend, director Nicholas Jasenovec, to film a documentary about love.  The two travel across the U.S., interviewing all sorts of everyday people (along with the judge in a divorce court, an Elvis who marries folks in Vegas, Seth Rogen, and a few other not-quite-so-everyday folks) about their thoughts regarding true love.  Things get more complicated when, while filming the documentary, Yi meets Michael Cera at a friend’s party, and the two hit it off and begin dating (an awkward process captured on camera by the documentary crew).  Do her interviews with people — or her burgeoning relationship with Michael Cera — change Yi’s feelings about love?

If Yi’s happening to fall into a relationship with Michael Cera while at the same time filming a documentary about love seems like a wild coincidence to you, then you’d be right!  Because things aren’t quite what they seem.  The interviews that Yi conducts are absolutely real.  But the Nicholas Jasenovec that we see on-camera isn’t actually the Nicholas Jasenovec who directed this film — it’s an actor, Jake M. Johnson!  And while Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi did date, their courtship as we see it was staged for the camera.

What we’re left with is a rather bizarre hybrid film.  The movie is constantly bouncing back-and-forth from the real footage (the interview segments, which are like much more in-depth versions of all the couples we see telling their how-they-met stories from When Harry Met Sally) to the staged footage (of Yi and Cera, and of Yi and Johnson/Jasenovec).  What’s really intriguing is the way the film doesn’t hesitate to make clear to us that that footage is staged — or, at the very least, manipulated.  Almost every time that we might find ourselves drawn in to Yi & Cera’s story, the film draws our attention to the artificiality of those moments.  (In one scene, we see Yi and Cera playfully interacting on a beach, and then beginning to walk hand-in-hand down the shore-line.  It’s a tender moment… until we see Johnson/Jasenovec run into the frame wondering if perhaps they could do another take.  In another scene in Yi’s apartment, we see her first kiss with Cera… and then the camera pulls out to see a camera-man and a sound-guy perched on the next couch, recording the moment.)  Even the interview footage is played with, as we often cut away from the people telling their stories to see endearingly low-tech cardboard cut-out recreations of those stories animated by Ms. Yi.

Part of me wishes that Paper Heart had gone fully one-way or the other… either being a real documentary about American perceptions and beliefs about love, and how our attitudes toward relationships have been shaped by our culture, and the stories we tell one another… or a more fully-realized scripted version of the story of this tentative romance between two young people.  But I suppose then we’d be left with a much less unique — and probably much less interesting — film.

It’s quite a delight to see such a distinct voice captured on camera, and Charlyne Yi is certainly a unique voice.  From her stumbling, halting interview method to her wonderful little animation scenes, Paper Heart is fully imbued with her personality.  The degree with which one engages with that personality will, I think, strongly influence whether one engages with this film or not.  Personally, I found it charming, if perhaps a little slow.  (But the film has a phenomenal ending.)

Paper Heart isn’t a movie I can imagine myself re-watching all that often, but I’m certainly gald to have seen it.  I am eager to see what Charlyne Yi does next.

When unsuspecting passers-by step through the magic mirror in Doctor Parnassus’ traveling imaginarium, they find themselves transported into a world in which their innermost thoughts and desires are brought to life.  Watching The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, I feel as though I have been treated to a similar experience: a trip inside the very mind of writer/director Terry Gilliam.

It’s pretty astonishing to me that Terry Gilliam has only directed seven films since Brazil back in 1985, and only thirteen feature films in his entire career.   (I’m including in that count Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which he co-directed, and Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, in which he directed the opening short film, The Crimson Permanent Assurance.)  Mr. Gilliam has had an extraordinary string of bad luck, over the years, in his attempts to make the movies he sets his heart on making (click here for more information on his doomed effort, at the start of the decade, to bring to life his film version of Don Quixote, which was to star Johnny Depp), which in part accounts for the sparcity of his films.

Therefore, any new Terry Gilliam movie should be a source of much rejoicing.  And yet, I much confess that I have not actually seen the three films that Mr. Gilliam has directed since Twelve Monkeys in 1995: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Tideland (2005), and The Brothers Grimm (also released in 2005).  I’m not sure why, exactly.  Something about those three films just didn’t appeal to me.  But ever since first reading about The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus a few years back, I was excited and intrigued to get a gander at what Mr. Gilliam was putting together.

As in many of Mr. Gilliam’s films, Parnassus has a twisty plot that would be extraordinarily difficult for me to really explain to you, nor am I all that sure that I should even try.  I will tell you that Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) has apparently been engaged in a thousand-year duel with the devil (Tom Waits) over whether mankind’s imaginations or our more prurient instincts represent the dominant force in our nature.  Their latest wager involves the fate of Parnassus’ young daughter Valentina (Lily Cole).  Hard times have befallen the aged Parnassus and his small troupe, which includes the wise Percy (Verne Troyer) and the young Anton (Andrew Garfield).  It seems that, in our modern world, Doctor Parnassus’ traveling imaginarium doesn’t attract anyone’s attention or interest any longer.  But things change when Lily rescues an enigmatic and amnesiac young man named Tony (Heath Ledger) from an attempted suicide.  Will Tony help Doctor Parnassus, or wind up destroying him?

Heh.  That’s certainly a bizarre synopsis, and trust me that there is a whole heck of a lot more than that going on in this film.  But you’re best off going in not knowing anything more — just sit back and enjoy the ride.

And what a ride it is.  The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus feels like Terry Gilliam unchained, and the CGI effects — while dodgy in places (this isn’t Avatar) — enable Mr. Gilliam and his team to bring to life all of the bizarre, zany ideas in Gilliam’s imagination.  Anyone who has ever seen any of the animation that he did for Monty Python has an idea of the types of crazy imagery that seem to populate Mr. Gilliam’s internal imaginarium, and it was a great delight seeing those visions brought to large, colorful life in a way I never had before.

As for the story around which that amazing imagery has been wrapped, well, let’s just say that narrative coherency has never been one of Terry Gilliam’s strong suits.  There is a whole heck of a lot of weirdness in the film that is never really explained, and the degree to which that bothers you will affect your ultimate enjoyment of the film.  Usually that sort of thing bugs the heck out of me, but there was so much greatness on display here that, surprisingly, I didn’t find that I really minded.  There is enough information given that the story hangs together.  Sort of.

The film succeeds, in my mind, because of the energy and enthusiasm that the ensemble of actors bring to the proceedings.  Christopher Plummer never ceases to astound me, and he imbues a great seriousness and tragic depth to the titular Doctor Parnassus.  Lily Cole has a unique beauty, and she brings an intriguing otherworldliness to the young Valentina.  It’s no wonder all the men in the film seem to be besotted by her.  Andrew Garfield does a nice job as Valentina’s friend, Anton, who is clearly in love with her.  This could be a tough role — he is called upon to create a sympathetic character who is also a good deal of trouble, and Mr. Garfield finds that balance well.  Verne Troyer is always fun, though I would really love to see him in a film that doesn’t make jokes about his height.  (There’s nothing in this film that comes anywhere near the level of Austin Powers offensiveness, but still, the couple jokes at his expense were wildly unnecessary, in my opinion.)  I did appreciate that Troyer’s character, Percy, seems to be the most honest and loyal character in the piece.  Tom Waits was an inspired choice to play the devil, and he absolutely owns the film every moment he is on screen.  A phenomenally wonderful cinematic creation.

Which brings me to Heath Ledger, in his final role.  It is tough to watch this film without having the experience colored by his untimely death, and it is tough to shake that context when considering his performance.  I can say that I was a bit surprised by the character that Mr. Ledger created here, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been.  If his too-short career demonstrated anything, it’s that Mr. Ledger was able to be something of a chameleon, creating entirely new and different characters with each role that he took.  His Tony is charismatic but dangerous, and Mr. Ledger is a joy to watch perform.

But I must say that, of all the bizarre characters in the film, Ledger’s Tony was the one who I never really got a handle on.  As a key example, while I can understand Tony’s desire to hide away from his former life (once we discover its details), I never really understood the ease with he throws himself into a position as a member of Parnassus’ troupe.  (In one scene he is scared and befuddled by Parnassus’ weird gang, and in the next, Tony is in costume and prancing around wildly, in an attempt to draw passers-by to Parnassus’ show.)  I am unsure how much of this confusion is due to a flaw in the storytelling, and how much of it is due to the way that Mr Gilliam and his team had to piece the unfinished film together around what had been shot prior to Mr. Ledger’s passing.

But I will say that my favorite parts of the film were the sequences inside the imaginarium in which Mr. Ledger’s role was temporarily played by three different actors: Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell.  (This creative solution to Mr. Ledger’s unfinished performance was what enabled Mr. Gilliam to complete the film.)  The transitions between these different actors is creative and very smooth, and all three really knock their all-too-brief appearances out of the park.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is perplexing, weird, and wonderful.  It’s not for everyone, but it is without question one of the more unique films to be released this year.  If you’re a Terry Gilliam fan then seeing this is a no-brainer.  Even if you’re not, I hope that movie-goers interested in seeing Heath ledger’s final performance will give this a try.  It might not be a wholly-satisfying movie-going experience, but it will certainly give you a whole heck of a lot to think about and to talk about.

News broke yesterday that Sam Raimi’s planned Spider-Man 4 has been scrapped, and the studio is going ahead with a total reboot of the series.  DeadlineHollywoodDaily broke the story.  Personally, I’m bummed by this news.  Though Raimi & co. broke my heart with the atrocious Spider-Man 3, the first two Spidey flicks were so great that I really wanted to see him come back and try to return to the greatness of those first two films.  I hate that his run on the character is ending on such a low note, and the idea of rebooting a series that is only eight years old and wildly successful just seems insane to me.  But hey, I’m the guy who also wants to see Bryan Singer make another Superman film.

I have not read any of the Twilight books, nor seen the movies, nor do I have any intention of doing so.  But this piece over at CHUD about why Breaking Bad (the fourth and final Twilight book) MUST be made into a movie is absolutely hysterical.

Behold the weirdest wedding video I have ever seen.  This dude had his friends in the wedding party act out scenes from Superman II.  I am at once awestruck and disturbed.

Speaking of slightly-insane Superman fans, a few weeks ago I stumbled upon photos of this guy who decorated his office cubicle as the Fortress of Solitude.  Check it out:

You can find the full story behind his crazy construction project here.

Then there’s this incredibly bizarre stop-motion animated interview with Fantastic Mr. Fox director Wes Anderson.  Except Wes Anderson is played by Jason Schwartzman.  You read that right.  Check it out.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, a super-cool new trailer for Iron Man 2 came out last month.  Take a look.  I was an enormous fan of Iron Man (read my review here), and have high hopes for the sequel.  Don’t break my heart, Mr. Favreau!  (By the way, in re-reading my review of Iron Man, I can see that I was sure that the Mandarin would be a key villain in the sequel.  It’s not looking that way… so I’m wondering whether that character factors into the story at all.  I certainly hope he does!)

Speaking of trailers, let me lay a few more on you.  Here’s a sort of weird new trailer for Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe’s latest collaboration: Robin Hood.  Take a look.  This seems like familiar ground for Scott and Crowe, and I can’t say that I have been lying awake at nights waiting for a new version of the Robin Hood story.  That being said, it’s Ridley Scott, so of course I’m interested.  Let’s see what he’s got.

Here’s a phenomenal short trailer introducing the character of Hit Girl from the new film Kick Ass.  I have quite enjoyed this comic book series from Mark Millar and John Romita Junior (read my thoughts on the series here), and am really jazzed to see the film adaptation.  Here’s a longer trailer that was released late last year.

Do we really need a Shrek IV?  Do I really believe it’s the final chapter, as the new trailer for Shrek Forever After promises?  No and no.

It’s been fascinating watching and reading about people’s wildly differing responses to James Cameron’s Avatar since its release last month.  (You can read my mostly positive review here.)  I mentioned the film’s familiar (and, when you boil away all the sci-fi trappings, fairly simplistic) white-man goes native story-line.  In addition to being a bit disappointing narratively, some have pointed out a larger issue with that type of story — and I must admit, this is something that has been bugging me a bit as well.  Annalee Newitz over at io9 has written a fascinating piece that explains this far better than I ever could.  Her article is called “When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar?” It is well worth your time.

Speaking of Avatar, here’s a fascinating article comparing the finished film with the 144-page treatment for the project (originally titled Project 880), that James Cameron wrote after finishing Titanic.  It’s an intriguing glimpse into Mr. Cameron’s original intentions for the film.

Lastly for today, here’s word that Seth McFarlane would love to do an extended parody on Family Guy of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (in the style of Family Guy’s recent hour-long parodies of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back).  That would be a ton of fun, I think.  Here’s hoping Paramount’s lawyers let the project happen.

A few months ago my wife and I began our Great Lost Re-Watch Project!  In preparation for the upcoming sixth and final season of Lost, we’ve been re-watching every episode of the show, starting with the pilot episode and working our way forward through the seasons.  I’ll have a lot more to say about our Lost Re-Watch Project in the coming weeks, but for now I just had to share the major epiphany I had in re-watching the season 3 episode “Flashes Before Your Eyes.”  I had remembered this installment as being a terrific episode, but in re-watching it now it seems to me like this episode spells out some of the MAJOR SECRETS of Lost!

Spoilers abound, so if you’re not a fan of the show I’d advise you to turn back now.

In this episode, Charlie & Hurley confront Desmond on his apparent ability to see the future, which he used to prevent a lightning bolt from striking Claire’s tent and then again later to save her from drowning.  After being pushed angrily by Charlie in those introductory scenes, we follow Desmond’s experiences after turning the failsafe key in the hatch (in the season 2 finale “Live Together, Die Alone”). Somehow, after turning that key, Desmond wakes up in the past, in his apartment with Penny (which she has apparently just moved into with him). Desmond has flashes of memories of his future years spent pushing the button in the hatch, which are prompted by moments such as the beeping of his microwave sounding eerily like the beeping in the hatch… and his alarm clock reading 1:08 (the number of minutes one has to push the button)… and of course the moment when he sees Charlie playing music on the street.  But mostly (at least at first), Desmond seems to be re-living his past experiences with little knowledge of what is to come. We see him happy with Penny, and then we see him asking Charles Widmore for Penny’s hand in marriage.   (The old man cruelly rejects him.)

Things really get mind-bending when Desmond goes to buy an engagement ring for Penny.  There he meets a mysterious woman (who we’ll learn in later episodes is named Eloise Hawking), who seems to know all about him and insists that he’s not supposed to give Penny that ring. She states that he must follow through on the chain of events that will lead him to the hatch and the button, saying that “pushing that button is the only truly great thing that you will ever do.” When Desmond insists that he can change things, she tells him that, try as he might, “the universe has a way of course-correcting itself.” (She illustrates this by describing the futility of her trying to save a red-shoed man from death.) Desmond ultimately decides that he isn’t worthy of Penny, and leaves her (after the two get their photo taken – the photo that Desmond and Penny each keep of the other), just as he had done before.

On first viewing, this episode was a trippy variation on Lost’s usual flashbacks.  It was a fascinating insight into what drove Desmond to break Penny’s heart, and eventually wind up trying to prove himself to her father by entering in his boat-race around the world (which would result in his crashing on the island as seen in “Live Together, Doe Alone.”)  Later, of course, we’d get a little more information on the idea of time-travel by way of mind-switching in season 4’s “The Constant” (another standout episode).

But in light of all of the time-travel shenanigans of season 5, this little season 3 episode must be seen in an entirely new light.

This episode seems to spell out, quite clearly, that in the Lost universe it is impossible to change the past/future.  While small details can be shifted, the universe will continue to course-correct itself until everyone’s original destinies are met.  In fact, that storyline is played out throughout the third season, in the form of Desmond’s ultimately futile efforts to save Charlie from death.

In the season 5 finale, “The Incident,” we saw Jack’s plan to detonate a hydrogen bomb on the island in the past, in an attempt to change history and prevent the crash of Oceanic flight 815.  While Sawyer insisted that “what’s done is done,” Jack professed his belief that Locke was ultimately correct about the island’s nature, and that it was his “destiny” to change the course of history.  At the episode’s end, the time-lost castaways successfully detonated the bomb at the moment that the Dharma initiative drill hits the island’s mysterious electromagnetic energy source (the much-discussed “incident” mentioned throughout the run of the series).  The screen flashed white, and the season ended, leaving Lost fans desperate to know whether Jack succeeded in changing history, or if the gang had merely wound up causing the “incident” that lead to the construction of the button-pushing contraption in the Swan Station.

I would argue that a close examination of season 3’s “Flashes Before Your Eyes” makes the answer clear: on this show, history cannot be changed.

Am I correct?  We’ll see in just a few weeks!

Did my run of Star Wars: Episode I cartoons last month (click here to see ‘em all) not fill your craving for  Episode I bashing?  Then take a look at this phenomenal fan look-back at The Phantom Menace that was posted over on CHUD.  Apparently they came across this seven-part video series from a tweet by Simon Pegg (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz).  I guess I’m not the only die-hard Star Wars fan still scarred by the debacle that is Episode I.

I wrote about my experience seeing Episode I for the first time in a theatre here, and gave my thoughts on the film looking back a decade later here.  But this guy dives into the film quite a bit deeper than I did.  (That’s putting it mildly.)  I’m not sure I quite understand the almost psychotic mumbling fan-boy persona this guy puts on for these reviews, but it’s pretty damn funny (though also more than a little bizarre).

Take a gander at part one:

Pretty funny stuff.  Head back over to CHUD to see the rest.  Part two examines the story of the film, and kicks off with the comment: “it’s almost mind-boggling how complex the awfulness is.”  Couldn’t have said it any better myself!

Back in 1999, Tom Spurgeon wrote a piece in The Comics Journal entitled “Martin Wagner Owes me Fifty Bucks.” The subject of that piece, Martin Wagner, was the writer/illustrator of an acclaimed black-and-white comic book called Hepcats. What had begun as a comedic strip when Mr. Wagner was a student at the University of Texas gradually morphed into something much deeper, and the storyline “Snowblind” received an enormous amount of critical acclaim in the comics community in the early ’90s. But after the publication of Hepcats issue twelve in 1994, the series ceased publication, leaving the “Snowblind” storyline frustratingly incomplete.

In 1996, Mr. Wagner signed a deal with the small comic book publisher Antarctic Press to re-print the first 12 issues of Hepcats and then continue the series onward. This is when I started following the series. But while the twelve original issues were re-printed as planned, no new material ever arrived, and to this day the “Snowblind” story remains incomplete.

That is what lead Mr. Spurgeon to write his piece for The Comics Journal, expressing frustration that he (like many others) had invested in the storyline (both emotionally and monetarily), and if Mr. Wagner was not planning on finishing the tale, he owed us all our money back!  I suspect Mr. Spurgeon was not seriously asking for a refund check from Martin Wagner, but his piece expressed the frustrations of fans who follow the work of a particular writer and/or artist, only to have a beloved project left unfinished. (This is not unlike the frustration felt by fans of canceled TV shows whose storylines are left forever unresolved.)

After finally seeing the publication of the years-delayed final issue of Planetary (read my review of the series here and the final issue here) earlier this year, I got to thinking about the other criminally unfinished comic book stories that haunt me. You’d think most of these unfinished series would be small, indie books, whose creators ran into monetary difficulties that made it impossible for them to continue their series (as may or may not have happened to Mr. Wagner, depending on whose story you believe), but that’s not entirely the case…

Stray Bullets – David Lapham’s black-and-white self-published crime comic absolutely blew me away when I read the first issue back in 1995. I was familiar with Mr. Lapham’s work from the Valiant Comics line of books in the ’90s, but Stray Bullets was an entirely different sort of project. The series was told mostly through single-issue stories, each one spotlighting a different character and the tragic circumstances that would befall him/her. The series would jump, from issue to issue, around to different protagonists in different areas of the country and different years (from the ’70s to the ’90s). Of course, as the series progressed, the puzzle pieces began to fit together and readers started to see how the individual stories connected and related to one another. But the genius of the series was in the astounding quality of each tough, brutal gem of an issue. Sadly, after issue 32 the series vanished. The storyline that was in progress was never completed (Mr. Lapham has said in interviews that one issue remained), and I have always felt that the over-all storyline had a ways to go yet. I am devastated that this masterpiece may never be completed!

Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target – After knocking ‘em dead writing Green Arrow for DC and Daredevil for Marvel, filmmaker Kevin Smith began two limited series: Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do, and Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target. The Spidey series didn’t interest me, but I eagerly picked up The Target. I had loved Mr. Smith’s “Guardian Devil” run on DD and I wanted to see what he had planned for this new series spotlighting Daredevil’s long-time adversary Bullseye. Sadly, only one issue was ever published. The Spider-Man/Black Cat miniseries hit a similar snag after issue 3, but was eventually completed years later. No such luck, as of yet, for The Target.

Grant Morrison’s Wildcats (with Jim Lee) and The Authority (with Gene Ha) – I’m a big Grant Morrison fan, and when I heard that he was taking over the two central titles of the Wildstorm comics universe in 2006 I was thrilled. When I found out that he was working with two extraordinary artists, in the form of Mr. Lee and Mr. Ha, I was DOUBLY thrilled. The first issues came out of each title, and I was intrigued by both.  Wildcats was a frothy combination of familiar elements with a busload of new twists, while The Authority kicked off with a bold decision to keep the familiar characters off-screen, instead focusing on the group of normal Joes tasked with investigating an extraordinary phenomena — the Authority’s crashed shiftship. But my interest in the books quickly turned to frustration when issue 2 of Wildcats and issue 3 of The Authority never arrived. (Just a few months ago, Wildstorm did finally begin publishing a resolution to the Authority arc, but it’s written and illustrated by different creators. This doesn’t really satisfy me. And that one great issue of Wildcats seems to have been consigned to comic book limbo.)

The Twelve – J. Michael Straczynski began an intriguing project for Marvel Comics back in late 2007/early 2008. The Twelve was to be a twelve-issue limited series about twelve super-heroic adventurers from World War II who find themselves trapped by the Nazis and cryogenically frozen until a construction project awakens them in present day. This was an interesting elaboration on the basic concept of Captain America, and a fun (and sometimes tragic) look at how society has changed from the ’40s until today. Great scripts by Mr. Straczynski and sharp, detailed art by Chris Weston made this a series worth one’s time. But only eight issues were published. Issue nine never arrived, and now Straczynski is working for DC Comics (rather than Marvel), and Joe Quesada, Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief, has announced that the series is on hold. (By the way, while I’m on the subject of Mr. Straczynski, I was also extremely disappointed by his abandoning his Supreme Power series after issue seven of the second series, right in the middle of a storyline! Readers were left hanging on a dramatic cliffhanger, but the next issue was never published. What is that all about??)

Big Numbers – I actually have never read this series, since when it first came to my attention it was already famously incomplete (and I’ve never felt like starting to read something that I know will never be finished), but no list of unfinished comic books could leave out this collaboration between Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz, two towering geniuses of the field. Only two issues (of the planned twelve) were ever published, back in 1990.

It kills me that the above comic book series were never finished (and don’t look like they ever will be). While I realize that there is a wide variety of factors that can lead to the sudden end of a series, I do tend to think that publishers and creators have an obligation to the fans who have paid for their work to not just abandon stories mid-way. Sigh. This list makes me sad.

I read all the bad reviews when Woody Allen’s latest film was released this past summer.  But I was dubious.  Larry David starring in a Woody Allen film seemed like a genius idea, to me.  How could a combination of those two neurotic, grumpy Jewish comedians not yield something at least remotely interesting?

Well, go rent Whatever Works and find out.

Or better yet, trust me, DON’T.

Whatever Works is a catastrophe of epic proportions and one of the worst films I have seen in a long, long time.  After 30-40 minutes of the film had elapsed, I was already supremely bored, and only sheer force of will (and the hope — ultimately dashed — that maybe something funny was just around the corner) allowed me to finish the film.  It is certainly one of the worst Woody Allen films I have ever seen.  (Celebrity has always been, in my mind, Woody’s worst film — though now it has strong competition.)

Larry David plays Boris Yelnikoff (as Woody Allen a character name as you’ll ever find), a man described as a genius physicist but who we mainly see as an irritated complainer hanging out in his bathrobe in and around Grennich Village.  Unhappy in life and love and convinced (as so many Woody Allen protagonists are) that life is meaningless and that he is surrounded by an unending parade of idiots and incompetents, Boris spends much of the film vacillating between miserable and merely unhappy.

One night a beautiful homeless Southern girl, Melody (played by Evan Rachel Wood), follows Boris home.  Despite her stunning beauty, Boris is entirely uninterested in her (and indeed spends much of his time berating her for her stupidity).  He does, though, take some pity on her and allows her to stay with him in his apartment.  Then, in one of the most staggering and unconvincing plot twists I have ever seen in a movie (and I have seen a lot of movies with space aliens and time travel), Melody falls in love with Boris and the two get married.

The above paragraph summarizes the entire first half of the film, all of which seems to be nothing more then a lengthy set-up for what was, I supposed, intended to be a hilarious comedy of culture-shock when Melody’s mother (Patricia Clarkson) and, later, her father (Ed Begley Jr.) show up in New York looking for her.  While the movie does, briefly come to something-approaching-life for a few minutes following Ed Begley Jr.’s introduction into the film (at about the one hour mark), it’s far-too-little and far-too-late.

Woody Allen’s movies have often been characterized by some condescension to non-Manhattenites, but Whatever Works is overflowing with it, and this left a bad taste in my mouth.  Melody is depicted, from start-to-finish, as an empty-headed dunderhead.  When we first meet her she is unable to understand that Boris is joking when he sarcastically comments that he used to play for the Yankees, and when we leave her at the end of the film she has to be told “I’ll explain it to you later” about what has just gone down.  Her mother is predictably disdainful of Boris when she arrives in the city, but she is quickly exposed as a hypocrite as, after just a few days in Manhattan, she transforms into a bohemian artist taking photographs of nudes and living with two men.  Her father is similarly depicted as foolishly hypocritical, as the stuck-up Southern man quickly realizes that he is, in fact, a homosexual mere days after he arrives in the Big Apple.  And so on and so forth, ad ridiculous infinitum.  It’s one thing to find comedy in the failings of others, but I feel Mr. Allen looking down his nose at every single character, other than Boris, presented in the film.  Not a one of them is anything approaching a fully realized, human character.

If any of this was even remotely funny I might excuse these flaws, but it’s not and I don’t.  Larry David tries his best, but he is stranded by the material (as are all the other fine actors).  What a waste.

Having watched Fantastic Mr. Fox, the phenomenal new stop-motion animated film from director Wes Anderson (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and The Darjeeling Limited), I am almost forced to reconsider all of his previous (also wonderful) films.

Mr. Anderson’s work has always been characterized by an extraordinarily stylized look to his sets and staging.  (The Royal Tenenbaums, my favorite of Mr. Anderson’s films, must be considered a triumph of art direction amongst its many other great qualities.)  Now it seems to me that Mr. Anderson has always been approaching his movies as if they were animated films: pouring never-ending attention into the creation of the artificial worlds that his characters inhabit.  (In animation, this is of course necessary: there are no “standing sets” to use – everything must be designed from the ground up.)

Or maybe I should put it this way: in stop-motion animation, Mr. Anderson has found a perfect stylistic vehicle for his particular idiosyncratic method of storytelling.

Adapted from a book by Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox focuses on a family of foxes who enter into an escalating feud with three cruel farmers: Boggis, Bunce, and Bean.  What is remarkable is that this animated fox family is just as fully-realized as any of the clans seen in Mr. Anderson’s previous films.  Each character is filled with flaws and with strengths.  Each feels, well, human!  George Clooney voices the title character, Mr.  Fox, who is inventive and fearless… but also dangerously reckless and oblivious to the walls he is inadvertently building up between him and his son.  Jason Schwartzman plays his son, Ash, a teenaged (in fox-years) boy who idolizes his father but, sensing that he is not going to get the approval he seeks, has withdrawn into teenaged “this is all stupid” rebellion (that includes the wearing of bizarre outfits).  Meryl Streep is the patient mother of the brood who deeply loves her husband yet must admit, in a powerful moment late in the film, that she never should have married him.

Does this sound like your every-day animated film so far?

It’s just amazing, really, how Mr. Anderson (working with co-writer Noah Baumbach, who wrote and directed the magnificent film The Squid and the Whale) has shaped Roald Dahl’s tale into a film whose character drama fits perfectly in with the rest of Anderson’s filmography.  But he has done so without losing the charm and heart of Mr. Dahl’s original tale – particularly when it comes to bringing to life the increasingly escalating lunacy (and violence) of Mr. Fox’s back-and-forth feud with the farmers.

I haven’t even mentioned the enormous ensemble that surrounds the Fox family.  As in Mr. Anderson’s other films, much of the fun in Fantastic Mr. Fox comes from the terrific group of actors who have been tasked with filling in the edges of the story (and the world that has been created).  Bill Murray plays a worried badger, Willem Dafoe plays an antagonistic rat, Wally Wolodarsky plays a friendly opossum, Eric Chase Anderson plays Kristofferson (a cousin of the Fox family with whom Ash falls into a rivalry), and lots of other familiar and impeccably-well-cast voices.  But my favorite supporting role was Michael Gambon (now best known as Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series) who plays the villainous Mr. Bean, a terrifying menace that bedevils the Fox family (and all the other animals in the vicinity of his and his brothers’ farms).

The stop-motion animation – so rare to see nowadays – is wonderful and brings just the right hand-made feel to this very human story.  Having dabbled myself in stop-motion animation as a kid, I can only raise my glass in stunned appreciation to the magnificent artists who must have spent months bringing this tale to life, one teensy tiny movement at a time.

Don’t make the mistake as dismissing Fantastic Mr. Fox as a kids movie.  (It really isn’t for kids at all – well, certainly not young kids.  I was somewhat frustrated to have seen this movie in a theatre in which most of the seats sold seemed to be filled by parents and young kids.  Needless to say, most of the laughter heard as the movie unfolded came from the adults.  A lot of the kids seemed bored or a bit confused.)  But I was absolutely delighted by every frame of the film. Fantastic Mr. Fox is exciting, funny, and poignant, and clearly the work of an extraordinarily talented group of craftsmen guided by a director with a unique vision.  What more could I want to see in a film??

Simply fantastic.