Holy Motors (2012)

Well into 2013, and I finally found my gem of 2012, the mind-fuck cinematic glory I cannot shake. “Holy Motors” cannot be broken down or glossed over. My attempt will fail. It’s about acting and role-playing not just of movies, but in life, the roles we carry happily or reluctantly -– familial, professional, artistic, or criminal. The film centers on a man known as Oscar (Denis Lavant) who rides in the back of a limousine where he takes on a slew of successive personas: A beggar woman, a deformed lunatic, a dejected father, and so on, as the film leaps film genres and lives, all in Paris, all in one day. The man even kills himself -– his others -- twice. What is French writer/ director Leos Carax going for? I have no idea, nor any idea who “Oscar” really is. This is a trek as crazily impenetrable the second go-round as the first. That’s what I want in a film, to get lost in the unknown. The purposefully bizzaro finale is a blatant scoff at any who dare try and crack the mystery. And, yes, there is a better 2012 male lead performance over Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln.” Mr. Lavant. A

Rust and Bone (2012)

The moment “Rust and Bone” –- an erotic and harsh French drama from director Jacques Audiard (“The Prophet”) -- lost me: Marion Cotillard, who wowed Americans in “Inception” and is back in her native language, stands triumphantly upon prosthetic legs, holds her arms out Jesus-style, and smiles into the sun as Katy Perry’s “Firework” blares in her memory and our ears. Screech.

Cotillard is Stephanie, a screw-authority, sensual whale trainer whose life is derailed when one of her “pets” chomps off her legs. Seriously. Only in France. 

But hold tight. Stephanie is a secondary character to Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), a single dad fucking and torching his life away, brawling for cash in a fight club. He dotes on his son when not angrily throwing him across a room. 

So, yes, Steph and Ali need each other. For redemption, for fuck-buddy sake, because these romances happen in movies, and fellow lost-soul hook-up drama “Silver Linings Playbook” was too happy.  

The cast is divine, the pain real-ish, but never serve up Perry in a serious film, and never cast firework Cotillard as a tortured, legless woman whose journey to redemption boils down to coveting a good orgasm. Disappointing. B-

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Ten minutes into “Moonrise Kingdom,” I realized I had my fill of Wes Anderson, the Gen X darling filmmaker who tells tales of quirky hipsters and outsiders using ironic air quotes peppered with hip art deco sets and hip costumes. I’m sick of all of Anderson’s hipness. The guy aims and fails for some aura of New Wave French film with a story about pre-teen love birds (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) on the run from parents, police, and Khaki Scout Troop leaders in 1960s New England. To woo youngsters, Anderson tosses in fires, floods, storms, impaled dogs, and so much forced acting from famous actors (Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis, and Edward Norton among them), that it all feels like the over-the-top high school play that closed out “Rushmore,” a damn fine film. Yes, Jason Schwartzman appears. So does Bob Balaban as a narrator who changes camera lights. The obnoxious music score almost drowns out the realization that the central arc of Hayward as a beauty hip (again!) to Euro culture falling for a sad nerd is bullshit. Anderson’s kingdom of cool -– I loved “Fantastic Mr. Fox” -- has gone tepid. I’m out. C-

The Artist (2011)

Director/writer Michel Hazanavicius’ much-celebrated “silent” black-and-white comedy-drama “The Artist” is a high-wire act of cinematic love that pays homage to and plays with the earliest movies. The plot: Boisterous star of 1920s action films George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) falls hard from celebrity as “Talkies” become Hollywood’s mantra, ironically sweeping the starlet (Bérénice Bejo) he discovered to fame. Hazanavicius trumps expectations throughout, putting Valentin in a nightmare world of “sound” where glasses clink and dogs bark, but our hero has no voice. Sly jokes abound, too: A grammatical error in a dialogue card nudges a scene into hilarity. The lack of vocals makes us focus on the faces and gestures of the actors, the artists, on screen and fully appreciate their craft: Dujardin, Bejo, James Cromwell, and John Goodman. Dujardin and Bejo’s onscreen chemistry is priceless, and their final scene packs two surprises: The long-lost glory of dance in movies, and the real fear why Valentin feels he has no voice in America. Rare is the moment when “Artist” is truly silent, for it packs a stellar score using music new and old to serve as a substitute for voices, a narration of orchestra and ’20s jazz. Also, best dog ever. A

Hugo (2011)

Leave it to Martin Scorsese to not just set a new high bar for children’s films, but all 3D movies. “Hugo” is a – superlative! -- masterpiece, a tale of an orphan boy (Asa Butterfield) in love with machines, cinema and stories, living in a Parisian train station as a clock master. Thid 3D gem glows with a boundless joy of movies and books beloved by Scorsese, making his best film in years, and his brightest, most wide-eyed adventure in ... forever. Hugo – this will upset Fox viewers – is poor, and steals food and drink to survive. (Call Newt!) That thievery puts him at odds with a short-fused toy shop owner named Georges Melies, who you well know if you know cinema. The plot kicks into glorious gear when Georges (Ben Kingsley) confiscates a notepad from Hugo, not knowing it once belonged to the boy’s dead father (Jude Law). I will say nothing more of the plot, watch and enjoy. Everything in “Hugo” – from the scenery and special effects to the actors and words -- is for proudly childish dreamers of all ages, all the ones who ever held a film camera or took pen to paper and thought, “What world can I create today?” Amazing from start to finish. A

The Illusionist (2010)

The animated “The Illusionist” is nearly wordless except for garbled French, Gaelic and English, opens in black-and-white, is covered in bleakness and sketched emotion, and is hand-drawn. This is old-school animation in line with Hayao Miyazaki, deep and dark, always beautiful, written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. Here a French stage magician (Jean-Claude Donda) finds his life marginalized in 1959 by television, the first wave of British pop and increasingly popular movies. The man heads to the United Kingdom, searching for an audience. He eventually finds one admirer: A young chambermaid (Eilidh Rankin) who thinks magic is real. He likens her to a daughter, trying to buy her clothes and shoes. It’s all a bit “The Professional,” with no guns, and apparently inspired by a script from French filmmaker Jacques Tati, who had a tumultuous relationship with a daughter. The story floats by, but there’s undeniable magic here. Some scenes – the opening act, the painting of a billboard – are mini-epics. Fact: A human-drawn line of a desperate facial expression is far more alive than the best CGI. A-

City of Lost Children (1995)

“City of Lost Children” is an amazing-looking, mind-screw of a film. A dark, wet, sewer-level nightmare of and about children intended only for adults from French directors Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. In this alternate past, a grim-looking megalomaniac (Daniel Emilfork) kidnaps children from a local city and brings them to his water-bound tower of doom. Krank is a crank. He is dreamless, therefore he is sleepless. He steals the dreams of children as compensation, seemingly commanded by a talking brain in a fish tank that could be HAL’s grandpop. Among Krank’s victims is a boy (Joseph Lucien) with a much older brother who can pop chains and lift huge weights. That’s French-speaking Ron Pearlman, he of future “Hellboy.” Pearlman's character befriends a local girl named Miette (Judith Vittet), and here’s where the film gets creepy. They snuggle on burlap sacks in a back alley, and he gives her a deep, long foot massage. Nothing untoward happens, really, but the hints, the insinuations … linger. They make the film squirmy. Me squirmy. There’s not much otherwise depth or feeling to compensate. Those French. B

La Vei en Rose (2007)

Biopics on artists are a dime a dozen, as prolific as superhero films. Edith Piaf gets her due in “La Vie en Rose,” the most ironically titled movie I’ve ever seen. Yes, it’s the title of her hit song, but there is no pink (French for rose) here. This is all dreary grays, browns and blacks, with a dash of American pop art near the end. Piaf was an absolute talent, for sure, but the film posits that her life began in astounding poverty and disease during World War I, and was forever littered with copious amounts of alcohol and drugs, and more disease. She died at 48, looking 78. “Rose” makes “Pollack” seem as joyful as “Yo Gabba Gabba.” The film’s use of fractured timelines goes too far, and I got lost among husbands and lovers, but star Marion Cotillard (“Inception”) is so amazing in the lead, all complaints are moot. She shrinks and contorts her body, and sings the hell out of every tune, under heavy makeup. I love the use of “Je ne regrette rien" ("No, I regret nothing") at the end. B+

Taken (2009)

I can't decide if "Taken" is a straight kick-ass action film with Liam Neeson as a vengeful daddy out to fork over the bad guys who kidnapped his precious virgin daughter (Maggie Grace from TV's "Lost"), or if it's a black comedy lampooning how violent America can be. Maybe it's both.

Neeson, despite his cooler-than-Jesus Irish accent, plays a violent American ex-CIA spy who warns his precious teen daughter not to go Paris as part of a summer vacation. Why? Because French people is foreigners, sure 'nuff. Theys bad. The girl is kidnapped second after leaving the airport. Literally, seconds.

The "takers" are not thugs looking for ransom, but nasty dark-skinned men looking to sell the girl into sex slavery to a fat sheik who makes Shrek look as trim as Neeson. Dad goes to Paris and immediately starts a body count greater than any large metro's annual amount, all within 70 or so hours. Even housewives aren't safe.

"Taken" is a quick, easy watch. But don't think too much. Or at all. Would the kidnappers really keep the girl in the same city to auction her off? Did writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen really have to make all the women here either naives, b*tches and sluts who deserve death, whores, or otherwise useless? What if -- by God -- the daughter was in her mid-20s (as Grace so obviously is) and sexually active? Would she still be worth saving? Her friend who is sexually active sure is butchered.

Neeson's unsinkable charisma keeps the film racing through all these questions. Mostly. C+

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" is the true story of the late "Elle" editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a catastrophic health crisis that left him completely paralyzed from head to toe, except for his eye lids. His mind is left in perfect form. A witty, brilliant, womanizing star of French culture circa 1990s, Bauby is reduced to a captive of his own body. He can think clearly, joke, cry and ruminate on his unimaginable sentence from God inside his head. Just as the film comes within a hair of being a downer, Bauby snaps out of his self-loathing funk and decides to author a book about his life. He communicates by blinking "yes" or "no" to a series of letters read to him from his nurse, and then an assistant.

Directed by Julian Schnabel and starring Mathieu Amalric ("Quantum of Solace") this is a fantastic film, deeply felt and wonderfully acted. Amalric's left eye becomes the focal point of his performance. Daring stuff. It works. The film captures the view of Bauby from bed, from light flashes and hallucinations to bored hours watching TV and having people stare you in the face, all bleeding across his eye. Schnabel brings the audience into the mind trap of this man, and for two hours, lets us feel his pain. A