Taking Stock

During 2007, I went to see 58 movies in the theater (that includes quite a few at film festivals) and watched another 28 on DVD (it's been a slow year for me regarding DVDs--blame the DVR for that). I read 40 books (also a bit below my usual average), and I went to the theater to see 14 plays and musicals (such a sad, small number considering how much I love the theater). Here are some of the highlights of the year.

Favorite Movie: The Bubble. I first saw this film at Outfest in July. It's an Israeli film that follows a group of friends in Tel Aviv as they become increasingly more aware of and involved in the tensions between Israelis and Arabs in the Middle East. Two of the lead characters are gay, and one falls in love with a young Palestinian man he meets at a checkpoint. The film was directed by Eytan Fox, who's become one of my favorites in recent years, with this film, Walk on Water, and Yossi and Jagger. The Bubble is a touching story of how innocent in many ways we are when we are younger. The audience in the theater at the Directors Guild for the July screening sat in stunned silence at the end of the movie; it's that emotionally powerful.

Runner-Up: Zodiac. I don't think this film got as much attention as it deserved. Maybe it just got lost among the spring releases. The story behind the investigation of the Zodiac Killer in the Bay Area, it stars some amazing talent: Mark Ruffalo, Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Chloe Sevigny, and more. It's a very tense movie, and I don't think I can ever listen to Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" again without feeling a chill. I think I responded so strongly to it because of my own background in newspapers. It's really an excellent movie about how stories are reported and how police investigate crimes. Fascinating procedural detail throughout. Rent it if you haven't seen it already.

Favorite Performance (Female): Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. Wow. Cotillard attacks this role as if it were her own life she's portraying. I've never seen an actor inhabit a part so completely. She has the mannerisms and the look of Piaf so exactly. I remember being in tears as the end credits rolled, so overcome was I by her performance to "Non, je ne regrette rien." Yes, I know it's Piaf singing the song, but it's Cotillard who brings the song to life at the end of the movie and makes the lyrics so easy to understand in the context of what has come before. Her performance puts all of those other actors in the biopics of recent years to shame.

Runner-Up: Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I haven't yet seen Blanchett's peformance as Jude Quinn/Bob Dylan in I'm Not There, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were one of my favorites too. With the exception of her performance as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator (yeah, I know, but I just wasn't impressed with anything in that movie), Blanchett always manages to exhibit such intelligence in her acting. Here she's returning to a role she's already been acclaimed for (I wish they could have called it Elizabeth II: The Revenge, but I know that title wouldn't have worked historically), and she's perhaps even more convincing this time around. Whenever Blanchett is on the screen, she's the only person I can watch, and that's no small feat in a movie that also features Clive Owen. I still believe the members of the Academy (affectionately known sometimes as "the dinosaurs") gave her the Oscar for The Aviator because they thought it was actually Katharine Hepburn they were honoring again--and Frances Conroy, who plays Hepburn's mother, would have been fantastic as Hepburn herself had she not been too old at the time--but perhaps one of these days they'll find it in their hearts to award Blanchett an Oscar for a more deserving part.

Favorite Performance (Male): James McAvoy as Dr. Nicholas Garrigan in The Last King of Scotland. I know this movie was released last year, but I didn't see it until this February. And I know that Forest Whitaker got all of the attention for this movie due to his remarkable turn as the ruthless Idi Amin. Yet it's McAvoy's performance that stayed with me longer. He has to demonstrate more of a range of emotions than Whitaker does, and I think he's quite a compelling young actor. At times, you find him charming and funny, even sexy, and at other times, you become angry at his naivete and stubbornness and downright stupidity. He never seems to acknowledge his complicity in what's happening in Uganda, yet he retains, for me, at least, a sense of integrity. McAvoy's getting more attention now for Atonement, which I haven't seen yet, but he's been delivering good work for several years now. He's solid in Bright Young Things, which hardly anyone has seen; I admired him in a bit part as the faun in The Chronicles of Narnia; and I might even watch Becoming Jane again because of his performance (and that's saying a lot, considering how stupid I thought that movie was overall).

Runner-Up: Seth Rogan as Ben Stone in Knocked Up. Rogan's character in this movie is like so many guys we all know. He's full of self-deprecating humor, and he surrounds himself with guys who don't challenge him, who let him remain an adolescent at heart. But now and then he really does show you that there's a guy underneath all of that goofy exterior who's felt some pain and who's capable of genuine emotional depth. When Katherine Heigl's Alison asks him not to "fuck her over," his response that he's the kind of guy who "gets fucked over" is heart-wrenching. I know Rogan won't ever get much attention from any awards shows, but he's a good actor, and I felt empathy for his character throughout Knocked Up (perhaps even more than I felt for Heigl's character--no, I don't know why).

Favorite Play: Yellow Man. This is David Henry Hwang's play about the casting of the musical Miss Saigon, alleged Chinese spies, his relationship with his father, his relationships with women, authentic Asian identity, so many issues. It's complex and puzzling, filled with intricate plot points you need to remember. The cast was uniformly good, but the actor who played Hwang's surrogate self was never less than spellbinding. It's difficult to describe all of what happens during the couple of hours that this story unfolds, but it's the kind of play that you need to see with someone in order to discuss it afterward--and not because it was confusing, but because it embraces so many topics worthy of being discussed.

Runner-Up: The History Boys. I've already written about this play. You can just reread that posting if you're interested in finding out more about why I enjoyed it. Both it and Yellow Man are plays that make you think, and we certainly need more opportunities these days to think.

Favorite Musical: Avenue Q. How could I not love a musical that features puppet sex, monsters with porn addictions, and a song about schadenfreude? This elicited the most laughs I've had in the theater in a long time. I already owned the CD of the original Broadway cast recording, but nothing truly prepares you for the story that unfolds on the stage as you watch young people (and monsters) fresh out of college attempt to determine who they are and what they're going to be. As much as I love every appearance by Trekkie Monster, the funniest parts, for me, were the Bad Idea Bears. It's a shame no one has put clips of them on YouTube; they're hilarious, especially when they're tempting Princeton to take advantage of Kate's drunkenness. But it's all great. You'll probably leave the theater humming or singing along to "You're a Little Bit Racist." Don't stop yourself if you do; some of us will understand.

Favorite Book (Fiction Division): Letters to Montgomery Clift by Noel Alumit. I realize this book is a few years old, but I seldom get to read books when they are newly published anyway. Alumit is a gifted writer whom I got to see at a reading for his second novel, Talking to the Moon, this year. Letters to Montgomery Clift is about a gay Filipino boy who idolizes the movie star, turning to Clift whenever things go wrong in his life (and that's pretty often). As odd as it may sound in my description of it, this novel exhibits tremendous warmth and humor. I hated to put it down once I had started it.

Runners-Up: I've already mentioned in a previous blog the joy I felt in rereading those Pippi Longstocking books from my childhood. Another highlight would be getting reprints of the stories of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Yes, comic books. When I was growing up, the Legion was my favorite. It featured teenaged superheroes, each with at least one unique power. The stories of the Legion began in 1958 in a comic about Superboy. Someone at DC Comics had the bright idea to put all of the Legion tales together, chronologically without regard to where the stories first appeared, in a series of books, and I now own 12 volumes that end with stories from the mid-1970s, around the time that I stopped buying and reading comics. Sometimes, it is fun to go back and relive your childhood. I reread these stories again earlier this year, and I felt the same excitement that I did back when I was a 10-year-old kid who "wasted" (my grandmother's words) all of my allowance each week on stuff like comic books.

Favorite Book (Non-Fiction Division): Clara's Grand Tour by Glynis Ridley. This is the historical account of the travels of a rhinoceros throughout Europe in the 19th century, certainly an odd subject for a historian to tackle. Also not a new book, it's still a fascinating look at a tiny moment in history. I picked this one up at the Oudry exhibit at the Getty Center, which included a portrait of this rhino at actual size. It's an enormous painting (as were most of Oudry's works on display), and the story behind the animal that inspired the painting is just as intriguing. You get a full sense of Clara's life, from her being orphaned after her mother is killed by hunters to her being the object of attention by most of the rulers and a lot of the "common people" of Europe. There was an entire room at the exhibit devoted to various artworks inspired by Clara, and this book depicts why she was such a celebrity in the mid-1800s.

Highlight of the Year: Getting to see Rufus Wainwright in concert twice. I hate that I missed him last night at the Disney Concert Hall singing in French with Belinda Carlisle. That would have made a nice ending to the year. However, I did get to see him perform all of the songs from his CD Release the Stars and a few other favorites at the El Rey in the spring, and then in the fall, I saw him perform his tribute to Judy Garland at the Hollywood Bowl. I also have the CD of his Garland concert at Carnegie Hall (I have all of his CDs, just so you know) and the DVD of the Garland show at the London Palladium. Before I start back to work in a couple of weeks, I may have to relive a few moments with Rufus that I've managed to enjoy this year.