Moriarty Picks His 24 Favorite Films Of 2007! PART TWO! The Main Event! Two Films Under $1 Million! Blood And Bad Decisions!

Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here. As I was saying… We can dispense with the preamble this time and just get right into the top ten, starting with another special award for an experience that helped define this year for me…

BEST THEATRICAL RE-RELEASE BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT

Last March, I started running a series here on the site called “25 Years Ago,” reviews of films from 1982, which I consider one of the very best years of geek cinema ever. We ran a number of articles, which you can read here:

Nordling Remembers E.T.! Harry Remembers TRON! Obi-Swan Remembers CREEPSHOW! Capone Remembers POLTERGEIST! FlmLvr Remembers FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, PORKY’S and THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN! Cartuna Remembers THE SECRET OF NIMH! Merrick Remembers STAR TREK II And POLTERGEIST! Merrick Remembers BLADE RUNNER And THE THING! Elston Gunn Remembers THE DARK CRYSTAL!

It’s one of my favorite series we’ve ever run here on the site, even if we never quite finished it. If I’d had my way, we would have run at least ten more articles about films like THE ROAD WARRIOR, CONAN, EVIL DEAD, FIRST BLOOD and more. But I’m pleased with what we did get to put up, and it feels right that we wrapped it up with a look backwards and forwards at the same time with my review of BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT. Now that I’ve seen it a few times theatrically and watched it at home on DVD (I still haven’t picked up the Blu-Ray version, but I will), I feel like BLADE RUNNER is the perfect film to sum up why 1982 has such lasting power, and how it formed so much of how I think about film even today. It was a film that seemed so revolutionary at the time it was released that it was almost impossible to digest, a movie that has influenced so much of what has come since visually that the DGA should pay Ridley Scott an annual fee as a courtesy. It’s a movie that is positively drunk on the state of the art of filmmaking circa 1982. Ridley Scott pushed the envelope so hard it shredded. Even if you don’t like the movie, you have to respect the enormous craftsmanship of it. It’s one of the great effects films of all time, but it’s more than that... there’s a density to it that is intoxicating. It doesn’t offer up its answers easily, and that’s what I fell in love with the first time. It’s a hard film to love, and when you’re 12 years old and you see something that you know in your bones is a great film and you read professional critics telling you that it’s terrible, worthless, a disaster… it’s a defining moment. This is where I zigged and didn’t give a shit who zagged. I decided to trust my own opinion over the opinion of the box-office or the opinion of the critical mass. And once you decide to do that… once you really decide to turn your back on giving a shit about the Oscars and box-office and simply give your heart to films based on their own merits… it’s liberating. And I’ve never looked back. The films I love… they’re the films I love, and seeing BLADE RUNNER with my friends in Westwood... knowing that 25 years has seen many more people fall deeply in love with this film… it just felt like a celebration. Charles De Lauzarika produced this FINAL CUT version, and it’s not just the movie that felt like a celebration… it’s the restoration work that De Lauzarika and his team did. It’s not just that they went in and tweaked the film one last time… that’s done all the time now. It’s the way they did it… they way they went down the geek checklist and got it all just right. It’s the dream of what BLADE RUNNER is, made real. And for that… thanks. And now, let’s get back to it. The top twelve films of 2007, the films that I know I’ll revisit the most, the films that completely defined the year for me. Let’s pick up where we left off...

#10. (THREE-WAY TIE) KNOCKED UP Dir./Scr. Judd Apatow SUPERBAD Dir. Greg Mottola Scr. Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg THE FOOT FIST WAY Dir. Jody Hill Scr. Ben Best, Jody Hill, and Danny R. McBride

It was a good year for comedy. And before you hop into talkback to argue with me about it, hear me out. I recently got a disturbing e-mail from someone I consider a casual acquaintance. A friendly associate. I’ve met this person many times. And in the e-mail, this person made a very pointed comment about how I am “very friendly to” all things Judd Apatow. And the implication was that there was something shady and underhanded about that. Seriously? See, I’ve been consistent about this. ANCHORMAN was 2004, and that was the first big Apatow hit, the ramp-up to THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN. Before that, Apatow was more of a cult favorite for comedy nerds because of his TV track record and film credits like THE CABLE GUY and HEAVY WEIGHTS. When I wrote a piece about the script for ANCHORMAN, before it was even officially in production, it was because it made me laugh. It wasn’t political. I didn’t know Apatow was involved with it. And I’d never met him at all. I laughed. It’s that simple. When I wrote about ANCHORMAN as it came together, my enthusiasm wasn’t initially because Apatow was the producer… it was because it was a great script and a really exciting cast and the things I saw on-set were hilarious and I just had a feeling. There was no advantage to me being such a vocal advocate of a film like that as early as I was, except that I was genuinely excited about it, and in the end, I felt really vindicated that it turned out to be as good as it was. With VIRGIN, it was on people’s radar, but it was still a small film. When I visited the set, it was not something that people were fighting to get to go see. They were using a converted store space that was obviously a Staples at some point, in a completely unglamorous part of Hollywood, all the way down near Venice and Fairfax. There was no guarantee that Steve Carell would work as the star, or that they’d be able to sell it to people even if it was good. Again… backing them and being excited by what I saw wasn’t some sure thing. It was just that they kept making me laugh. Really, really hard. These are incredibly funny people. I was starting to recognize though that something was going on… that they were gathering a head of steam… collecting even more funny people… While they were making KNOCKED UP, the pressure was on, and finally other people were paying attention and Judd and Shauna and the cast were starting to become big business. And each time, it’s seemed to me like they were taking chances. Doing something genuinely different. I thought the same thing on PINEAPPLE. And the same thing on SARAH MARSHALL. And each time, I’ve been sure that the streak was going to have to come to a thunderous crash soon. But I’m still laughing. I feel like someone is making comedies specifically for me. Comedies that pick up where my favorite comedies from my childhood left off. When STRIPES and CADDYSHACK and VACATION and GHOSTBUSTERS and BEVERLY HILLS COP were all coming out, and SNL was huge on TV, and it really seemed like my comedy icons were poised for superstardom that was going to last forever. And then Belushi died. And Ayrkoyd got fat. And Eddie Murphy turned into Elvis. And John Candy died. And Chevy Chase turned into an asshole. And Chris Farley died. And it just seemed like the films that did get made were shitty films… funny moments… interesting chemistry… we took whatever we could get in terms of those comics and comedy in general. The biggest-grossing mainstream comedy of the ‘90s is, I believe, HOME ALONE, and that’s the success studios chased in the ‘90s. We’re still seeing shit like DADDY DAY CAMP squeezed out like clockwork, and Fox in particular has been very good at keeping their unholy broad awful family comedy division alive and fiscally healthy. Coughalvintrilogycough. The reason I am in constant blatant awe of the Apatow Factory (and I’m still searching for the right collective phrase to describe this sprawling cast of characters that are in orbit around this same creative hug at the moment) is not because of access. That’s just a dumb blessed accident, gang. I’m fortunate enough to watch these people work, and they’re not secretive about it. It’s not alchemy. They’re not afraid of the process. The reason I’m amazed by them is because they have their eye on the ball in a way that no one in comedy has in a long, long time. And they’re generous. They’re determined to keep the door open and keep piling talented people in as long as they can. I’ve said a lot about KNOCKED UP and SUPERBAD as films over the course of their development, and in both cases, the final product is better than I thought it would be while watching them work. Neither one of these films is written as a blockbuster. Think about it. One’s just “couple meets cute, has a baby” with Judd’s particular variations, and the other is Seth and Evan rewriting a script they wrote in high school about being in high school. Both are fairly low-concept, all things considered. And that’s the shaggy charm and the real brilliance of them. It’s not the premise that is supposed to be funny. It’s the recognition of these people. It’s the humanity. I am convinced now, more than ever, that Judd was a big part of THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW. Like, bigger than I realized back then. Because that show’s great moments are still unlike any comedy I’ve ever seen on TV, and I see some of the spirit of that in the work that Judd’s doing now. There’s this willingness to be ugly, in an effort to see what’s great and loveable and human and recognizable in that. Hank Kingsley is on my short list of my ten favorite fictional characters of all time, and what slays me is when I catch an echo of Hank in the work we’re seeing now. I think it’s important to note that I’m not just offering up some blanket endorsement of all things even vaguely related to Apatow and saying that’s my #10. KNOCKED UP I chose because of how honest I feel like it is about marriage and parenting in LA right now, and if that’s not something that speaks to you, perhaps the film won’t resonate for you the same way. With my son at 2 ½ and baby number deux coming in about seven weeks, I’m definitely the audience for that movie. And SUPERBAD is here because of how completely it is NOT Judd Apatow’s voice. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s script is what you saw onscreen. For all the talk about improv in the films made by these producers, the final cut of SUPERBAD is surprisingly close to the shooting script in both dialogue and structure. It was music on the page. Filthy, filthy, filthy music, but still… let’s give credit where it’s due. Greg Mottola’s eye reminds me of John Hughes before he went all Scrooge McDuck batshit and retired to his mountain of money in Chicago, and I think SUPERBAD’s actually a really good-looking, well-made movie with a distinct feel all its own. It speaks well of how these producers work that they can let a film like this get made and manage to not get in its way and impose their own voices on it. They encourage rather than absorb, and looking at these films side-by-side, you can see the results. What I haven’t spent a lot of time or energy writing up yet for the site is THE FOOT FIST WAY, which you’ll get a chance to see this year. The reason I can’t think of it separately from these two films is because my thoughts on them are all tangled together. When I went and visited the SUPERBAD set, Jody Hill was hanging out, and Shauna Robertson introduced me to him. She kept mentioning THE FOOT FIST WAY while I was there, but I didn’t know the film at that point. I didn’t quite make the connection. It wasn’t until later, after Shauna kept mentioning it and finally sent me the movie so that I could see what she was talking about, that I made sense of who he was and why she was introducing him in the first place. Jody seemed like a cool guy, but maybe it’s better that I met him like that, not having seen the film, because if I had, I might have humped his leg. Just a little. The movie is that f’ing good. Oh, I know what you’re thinking. “What? How can this be? How can some film made in 2006 that I’ve never heard of with a weird-ass title like that starring no one I know be any good and deserve a place this high on your list?” Cause director Jody Hill has a weapon. A weapon named Danny McBride. I’m not telling anyone in the industry anything they don’t already know. The word is out. Danny McBride is fucking happening, and that’s all there is to that. He’s got jobs stacked up four deep right now. And when you find yourself about a year and a half from now standing up in a theater after seeing the sixth trailer in a row with him in it, screaming, “OKAY! I GET IT! DANNY MCBRIDE IS THE SHIT! TAKE A VACATION!”, just remember… this movie is the reason that’s going to happen. It’s ENTER THE DRAGON for comedy. Fred Simmons is the unlikely name of the hero of the film, a tae kwon do instructor who runs his own dojo. He is the single best comedy character created since Ricky Gervais first showed up as David Brent. Fred Simmons is a mesmerizing bundle of crazy, and his relationship with his wife Suzie (Mary Jane Bostic, who also deserves to work a lot after seeing what she’s capable of here) is part of the reason he seems constantly on the verge of full-ego meltdown. The journey that McBride goes on as a comic character here is so rich, and he explores so many different possibilities, that it’s one of the few times I’ve ever actually thought the phrase to myself, “This guy just became a movie star.” And part of it is that he’s not just good… he knows how to play a scene in a way that makes someone else look great if that’s the point of the scene. He’s not a ballhog. When it is his moment to shine, though… holy shit. His break-up scene in this movie is one of the great movie break-up scenes, and the first time I saw this with a room full of friends, we ended up watching that moment four or five times in a row. It’s humbling how good he is. He’s an intuitive comic performer who I think arrives as fully formed as, say, Paul Reubens the first time we saw Pee-Wee, or Eddie Murphy wailing “Roxanne” in 48 HRS. Ben Best, co-writer of the film, is awesome as Chuck “The Truck” Wallace, a low-rent local scene champion fighter who Fred idolizes, and Jody Hill actually does some of the weirdest, craziest work in the film as a friend of Fred’s. The film looks like it cost $7.37 and a plate of ham sammiches, and that’s fine by me. Comedy does not have to be pretty. It just has to move me, and to have such an overload of genuinely great comedy in one year makes me genuinely thankful. Here’s my review of the theatrical release print of KNOCKED UP! Here’s my review of the rough cut of KNOCKED UP that we saw at BNAT! Here’s my SUPERBAD review!

#9. THIS IS ENGLAND dir./scr. Shane Meadows

If you aren’t onboard the Shane Meadows train already, you’d better get your head right, because he’s one of the best filmmakers working right now, and this year, he made what I think is his best film so far. When you’ve got A ROOM FOR ROMEO BRASS, twentyfourseven, and DEAD MAN’S SHOES on your filmography, that’s saying something. I’ve never heard him interviewed or read anything about his background, but I’m willing to bet Meadows is a big, big Alan Clarke fan. I’m not sure if this film’s autobiographical (although I love how cheeky it is for Shane Meadows to name his young hero Shaun Fields), but it feels authentic in terms of just how richly detailed it is, just how specific. This is a great film about childhood, a great film about the need for fathers, and a great film about England. I love the way he grounds the film in the early ‘80s. It’s insane to me to think that something set in the early ‘80s is now a “period film,” which makes me a fucking fossil. Meadows gets all the little stuff right. It feels like a film made then, not a film trying to recreate an era. Shaun’s father is long gone, dead in the war, and Shaun is a mess. I’m not sure where Meadows found Thomas Turgoose, his young lead, but the kid’s a miracle. Bug-eyed and made of mashed potatoes, he’s completely adrift and easy fodder for bullies. He makes a connection with a group of skinheads and finds the family he’s been looking for, and if that’s all the film was, that’s already pretty heavy. What Meadows does that I find so subversive and powerful is he makes you understand why Shaun gravitates to these people. He makes the case for them as a positive influence in Shaun’s life, and it’s like any kid finding his peer group. There’s something really great and infectious about watching a kid come to life and engage with others and really get comfortable in his or her skin, and the fact that they’re skinheads doesn’t negate the fact that they seem to really care for Shaun and take him in as one of their own. And then there’s Combo. Now, I’ve seen Stephen Graham before, but until this performance, I feel like I had no idea who he really was. Now I’m paying attention. What is it about this type of role that really allows certain actors to shine? I would compare this to the first time I saw Russell Crowe in ROMPER STOMPER, but I think Combo’s a more charismatic character than Crowe played in that film. He’s an older skinhead who’s been away in prison, and he shows up, ready to start cracking heads and raising hell. The thing is… the kids he left behind have grown up, and they aren’t skins in any philosophical sense… it’s more fashion and community for them. It’s just a way to identify one another. For Combo, though, it’s much more than that. He’s a hardliner, a genuine racist beast who craves violence. He’s terrifying and from the moment he shows up, the tone of the film changes. Shaun finds himself facing much bigger choices than he ever anticipated. Meadows builds his entire film to an amazing, wrenching finish, and it’s because he’s made several films now that he’s able to maintain such an amazing sense of control over the way the tension mounts. Turgoose tore my heart out for the last half-hour of this film, and the idea that this kid isn’t being hailed by critics coast-to-coast at the end of the year is disgraceful. It’s fantastic work for a child or for an adult, and the way he and Graham play off each other is remarkable, brutal and tender in the same beats.

#8. ZODIAC dir. David Fincher scr. Jamey Vanderbilt based on the book by Robert Graysmith

Over the years, I’ve noticed something odd. People who are otherwise fairly mainstream in their tastes occasionally develop a serial-killer obsession. They read about them, they watch the documentaries and the true-crime TV shows, and some people even take it further and visit sites where terrible and notorious things happened. Some people write to these monsters. And still others collect things. I remember hearing at one point that Johnny Depp and John Waters had bonded over the fact that both of them owned original John Wayne Gacy paintings, and Waters also supposedly had a jar of dirt from the crawlspace under Gacy’s house. People are fascinated by these abhorrent creatures, these broken men who do these unthinkable things. They listen to stories about what they did, and they listen to accounts from the people who knew them, and they shiver and they love it. They love it. They are repelled and attracted at once, and I think it’s because these are the modern fairy tales, the cautionary stories we use to scare our young and freak ourselves out with the thoughts of these Big Bad Wolves in human clothes all around us. For some people, these obsessions can go deep, and they may not even understand why they’re drawn to the subject matter, and I think the real innovation and brilliance of Fincher’s ZODIAC is that the film is not a procedural built towards any eventual sense of justice. Instead, it’s a film about what it is that draws someone into this sort of manic need to understand, and how people can get lost in that particular funhouse. Robert Graysmith’s book is a pretty great read. I remember picking it up years ago when I, too, went through a period where I was fascinated with all of this stuff. The books like HUNTING HUMANS or the films like MAN BITES DOG or the novels like AMERICAN PSYCHO. I thought that if you looked at enough of that stuff, you might understand what makes someone so damaged that they do something like that in the first place. I think the closest anyone’s gotten to really explaining it is Michael Haneke in FUNNY GAMES, in a wicked, black-hearted and cynical monologue that demolishes the very notion of explaining away monstrosity with some mundane “cause.” But I don’t think you ever really understand a Zodiac, and I think the very notion of trying is what makes Jamie Vanderbilt’s screenplay so interesting, so compelling. If you don’t find that a gripping central driving motivation for a film, I guess ZODIAC’s not for you, and if you want this to be some sort of police story that wraps things up, then I guess ZODIAC’s not for you. Me, I love the way the film is so obsessively made, as if Graysmith’s itch has somehow jumped to Fincher now, as if Fincher is some sort of pamphlet-printing loony peddling his personal Zodiac theory. It’s beyond slick. It’s a different level of technical craftsmanship from Fincher, and I think most people have no idea how insane his work is because a lot of the really remarkable things he does are invisible. He’s simply pulling off these Olympic-level perfect gymnastics routines, visually, and because he’s done his job so well, most people don’t realize they’re even seeing it. It’s thematically appropriate work from Fincher, maybe his strongest since SE7EN. The cast is great, and every time I’ve watched this film this year, I’ve found new things to like in it. There’s some great nuanced ensemble work throughout, and Fincher makes great use of this huge sprawling speaking cast, with people coming in and making strong impressions in a very few moments of screen time. My favorite character in the movie, though, is San Francisco. I think the way he shot this film, the way he recreates a specific place and time, it’s just breathtaking. He’s literally used the cutting edge of CGI and set building and on-location camera work to rebuild his childhood. And it’s stunning. It’s real. It’s something you can step into. Audiences don’t question that they’re looking at the San Francisco of the ‘70s, even though much of ZODIAC takes place on sets or environments as “real” as anything in SIN CITY or a STAR WARS film. You just don’t think about it here because of how seamless it is, how right the entire world feels. I still don’t think we’ve seen the very best work of Fincher’s career, which is why this film isn’t higher on my list, but if this is what he does when he’s simply working out some aesthetic ideas, we are going to be flattened when he finally does connect with the perfect piece of material. Here’s my original review!

#7. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN dir./scr. Ethan Coen and Joel Coen Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy

You know why it’s this low on the list? The ending. But not because I didn’t like it. It’s here because the ending paradoxically makes the film better and also keeps it from completely connecting for many people, and that is both a shame and a statement on moviegoers in general these days. Keep in mind, I love this movie. I gave this movie a very, very good original review. And I think Cormac McCarthy’s novel is a very strong, smart piece of thematic writing, and the film is a strikingly literal translation of the novel, right down to its stubborn refusal to satisfy certain narrative questions. I love that. I love the ending, but I understand why many people don’t, and I think the Coens ultimately hurt themselves with many viewers. I think the ending of this film is like a glass of cold water being thrown in your face. It’s designed to make you wonder what film you were watching. “Wait... what the fuck? Where’s the shoot-out?” Well, it’s in the middle of the film, actually, when Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) and Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) finally “meet” at the hotel and each take a chunk out of the other in the process. That’s the real fireworks display, and it’s staged with a simple elegance that reminds me why I fell in love with the Coens in the first place. That scene is every bit as carefully constructed as the “Danny Boy” sequence in MILLER’S CROSSING or the “diapers” scene in RAISING ARIZONA. The difference is that these days the Coens have gotten so good at what they do that you almost don’t realize how beautiful and sleek the scene is. It shakes you up, it’s thrilling, and it’s over quicker than you would like. When people really rail about the ending, it’s a backhanded compliment because they really wanted more movie. They wanted to see things that they are forced to imagine, and they wanted a certain kind of satisfaction. I still don’t know where the money goes, and I’ve seen the film twice. Maybe I just missed it. Maybe it’s not there. I don’t care. What I love is the ride into absolutely spot-on perfect Coen Bros country, that twisted landscape of the imagination that I fell in love with all those years ago the first time I saw RAISING ARIZONA. By the time the title of the film actually appeared onscreen, the Coen Bros were among my favorite working filmmakers. I didn’t know a damn thing about them, but that film hit me hard. I saw it five or six times in the theater, and I went with different friends. I took my girlfriend at the time, and even though I didn’t tell her, it was a test. If she had sat through it without laughing, we were going to break up. It was a deal-breaker. And my love of the Coen Bros has lasted much longer than my love for her. I would say they remain a deal-breaker in my film nerd friendships. I expect people to have an understand of and appreciation for all things Coen. I think they’ve made some rancid, awful films… but not many. And the ones they made are rancid in fascinating ways. Still… I think those few years of making impersonal Hollywood garbage did something to them, and for the better. You can defend INTOLERABLE CRUELTY and THE LADYKILLERS to me if you’d like, but you can’t convince me those films came from any honest or genuine place in the hearts of the Coen Bros. With NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, they’ve finally reconnected with the voice that made them special in the first place. In some ways, it feels to me like a summation of many of the ideas and themes and styles that they’ve been trying on over the course of their career so far, which seems doubly appropriate considering what the film is about. When the Coens began their careers, they were impish brats, brilliant technicians who were often accused of being chilly, more interested in imagery than in human beings. I never bought that criticism, but I think they definitely made young-man movies. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN feels like them shedding the skin we’ve become familiar with in favor of something new, something mature. And not just mature based on their previous work, but genuinely mature compared to the arrested adolescence of most American cinema. NCFOM does not play according to any formula. Every time you think you’ve got a bead on the shape on the film and what you can expect from it, the narrative twists or inverts, and you realize that you’re in the hands of confident filmmakers who are going somewhere unexpected. I think the reaction by some people to the film’s ending sort of calls those viewers out. If you make it to the end of this film and you still want to see more violence… if you feel like you need to see some sort of big showdown between Llewelyn and Chigurh… then I would suggest that you’ve not only missed the point of the film, but that you may not be ready for what it’s saying. We are soaked in blood in our culture. And in the ‘70s, that was really just getting started. Horror films turned a corner, thanks in large part to the overwhelming horror of the daily world, and films in general got explicit. Our shared culture has become coarsened, and as much as I am an action junkie and a horror junkie and as much as I have spent my life tracking down some of the most extreme imagery ever committed to film... I am willing to admit that we are not necessarily richer or better as a people for having access to these things. I don’t know that I could ever make the argument with a straight face than the existence of slasher movies enriches us as human beings. I don’t think I could ever sell the concept that we are elevated as a species when someone makes a film like RAMBO. I consume this stuff like everyone else, and I am no snob. I think films work just as well as pure viscera as they do when they aim for the intellect. But the moment that is captured in NCFOM is the same moment that Johnny Depp’s Hunter Thompson described so beautifully in one of my favorite moments in FEAR & LOATHING; it’s a turning point, the place where the building radical anger in our country could have boiled over into genuine revolution, but instead, it turned into a sort of diffused bloodlust that we’ve never satisfied, a compromise of national ideals that we still haven’t made peace with, and if you want to read NCFOM as pure metaphor, this is the death of conscience in America. This is us giving in to greed and our sociopathic side overwhelming whatever decency we still possessed as a group. The wounded lament of the last ten minutes of the film is so raw that I’m frankly amazed I saw it in an American film at all. I don’t care if the ending pissed off ten people or ten thousand. It is the reason the film exists, and just saying “it’s the same as the book” is no defense. It’s the same because you cannot thematically approach this story without that ending. If you turn it into just another action movie with just another death-equals-justice ending, you simply compound the problem, rip further the flesh that already rains blood on the baffled and brokenhearted Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones giving the performance that really earned him that Oscar nomination this year) as he sits alone in the gathering gloom of a world going dark. Oh… and one thing I learned from writing that original review. It is possible to play a low-key joke too low-key. When I complimented Carter Burwell on his score for the film, I knew full well there was no score. That’s what makes it so unusual. It just cracked me up that he still got an opening title card based on how minimal his contribution to the film is overall. I will endeavor in the future to make my jokes more obvious so that the frequency of you having to call me “fucktarded” in the talkbacks is lower this year. Thanks. Here’s my original review!

#6. INTO THE WILD dir./scr. Sean Penn based on the book by Jon Krakauer

When I saw THE INDIAN RUNNER, I’m not sure what sort of filmmaker I thought Sean Penn would develop into, but he confounded any expectations I had with his choices. THE CROSSING GUARD tries real hard, and I want to love it. I mean, it’s David Morse head to head with Jack Nicholson, and Nicholson’s on a holy-fucking-pissed-gonna-kill-some-sumbitch rampage in the film, which should be a direct hit. But… it’s not. It just never connects the dots. Even with Nicholson and Angelica Huston working together, something that is always sublime, the film never lurches fully to life. And the same thing’s true of THE PLEDGE. Nicholson again, and surrounded by some of the best actors working. Patricia Clarkson. Bencio Del Toro. Aaron Eckhart. Helen Mirren. Tom Noonan. Vanessa Redgrave. Mickey Rourke. Sam Shepard. Harry Dean Stanton. Robin Wright Penn. That’s an insane line-up, a dream team of actors able to bring real weight to the table. And I think what ultimately cripples both the films is that they’re built on these giant moral choices and defining moments, and Penn obviously wants to invoke the spirits of Bukowski and Cassavetes, and that yearning is a little too naked. You’re so aware of it as you watch that you’re never able to fully engage. But that yearning is part of the fabric of INTO THE WILD, and for the first time since THE INDIAN RUNNER, Penn puts it all together. And this time, he paints on such a big canvass that it seems to me that he’s graduated to a different level as a filmmaker. Before now, he struck me as one of his generation’s best actors who also occasionally fooled around with filmmaking. Now I’ve got to think of him as the complete package. This film isn’t about Chris McCandless, and it’s not about Alexander Supertramp. It’s about Sean Penn, wild young man. It’s about every young man who has ever taken reckless action in search of identity and experience. It’s about the ones who made good choices as well as the ones who made tragic choices. This isn’t GRIZZLY MAN, which was a troubling look at a person who simply had his fill of rejection and who turned to suicide-by-nature as a solution to his pain. This story is tragic. Yes, McCandless makes some monstrous errors in judgment, but there’s a purity to the way Penn portrays him that makes this character (and I’m talking about the film, not the real-life kid) a sort of holy fool. How can you fault a man whatever he has to do to find peace in this world? It’s a precious fucking thing, and we all spend most of our lives trying to find it in our own ways. It makes me sad when I see people attacking anyone else’s fundamental way of life… like when someone bashes somebody for being religious or for some group they belong to or some hobby they have or some lifestyle they’ve chosen… because if someone else can find some peace, then all I can do is wish them well. And if someone’s chasing it, as long as they’re not doing harm to anyone else, then I have to wish them well along their way. Taking this trip with McCandless, Emile Hirsch and Sean Penn have tapped into something primal, some urge that makes these journeys so compelling, so deeply imprinted in us. We are still nomads deep inside, still longing for those distant mountains. I love the performances in this movie. Finally, Penn’s knack for casting pays off in an ensemble that really gels into a solid and tonally coherent whole. It’s easy for a road movie to be uneven, like an anthology film in that you find yourself sitting through episodes you don’t like waiting for some segment you do. INTO THE WILD is a beautifully paced and structured movie, and what ties it all together is the way the cast plays off of Hirsch as he heads for what we know is inevitable from the start. He’s a stone, skipping across the surface of these lives, leaving ripples behind him as he goes. I think Catherine Keener’s wonderful in this, and Brian Dierker is a natural, charismatic presence in his scenes. Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt turn in devastating work in a few brief sequences as his heartbroken parents. They represent everything Chris is running from, and it’s quite canny the way Penn plays them stiff and overbearing at the start before finally revealing the depth of their parental love later in the film, once Chris starts understanding just how important human contact and community truly are. Not enough can be said about how good Hal Holbrook is in this film, and in any other year, I’d say he’s a lock to win the Oscar he’s nominated for. Doesn’t matter. When Holbrook’s entire body of work is discussed in years to come, this will be one of the performances people talk about. It’s beautiful. The connection he forges with Ron Franz really scares the hell out of Chris because he can see himself staying there, giving up that dream of the wild. And too much of his identity is wrapped up in seeing this trip through, so Chris has to reject a father that is everything he always wanted in his own, served up by fate just before Chris is finally ready to turn his back on everyone and everything. Vince Vaughn, Kristen Stewart, and Jena Malone all do solid work in their sequences, all of them adding to our understanding of just how deeply Chris affected the people he left behind. I’m a big fan of Eric Gautier’s work, and I think he gives the film a visual grandeur that matches the emotional heft that Penn’s aiming for. Same thing with the score by Michael Brook, Kaki King, and Eddie Veder. It perfectly captures what’s going on inside of this kid as he makes his way steadily north. Going to these real places where Chris went, standing on those spots and trying to summon some honest version of those experiences… that sort of challenge is what directors dream of, and I love the way Penn pushed himself here. Emile Hirsch was given one of those life-changing roles, and it seemed to me like he really stepped up and delivered on the expectations Penn had for him. Talk about a director who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to performance… I would think his process with someone like Hirsch is a master’s class in creating something real. As with all the films that are this high on the list, I felt this movie, deep in my bones, and I think in time, it’s going to be one of those movies that young men have to discover for themselves, and the genuine life experience of Penn and McCandless and Hirsch and Krakauer is all going to soak into these kids to some degree, even if it’s just a little bit, and I think they’ll be richer for it. I certainly am. Here’s my original review!

#5. RATATOUILLE dir. Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava scr. Brad Bird story by Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco additional story material by Emily Cook and Kathy Greenberg and Bob Peterson

This one’s just plain good for the soul. Then again... that’s Brad Bird for you. He’s made three feature films. He’s made three classics, and I mean that. I don’t use that word lightly. That’s an insane batting average. That’s like a Babe Ruth who literally hit a home run each and every time he stepped up to the plate, without fail. It would be spooky to see an athlete perform with such mechanical precision, and I’m a little freaked out at how easy Bird makes it look. But THE IRON GIANT and THE INCREDIBLES both deserve to be called classics. They are films that grow with each viewing, that seem to become more and more entrenched each year, and I wish Warner and Disney/Pixar would hurry the heck up and put them out on Blu-Ray. When he stepped into RATATOUILLE late in the process, it seemed like he was being brought in to just get a film onscreen, a favor to Pixar to thank them for rescuing him from Hollywood. What he finally released, though, bears so many signatures of his work that it’s hard to believe he didn’t start from the ground up when he took the reigns as director. First and foremost, there’s the big idea. THE IRON GIANT deals with some remarkably heavy shit considering what sort of film it is, and so does THE INCREDIBLES. Bird doesn’t talk down to his audience, and in a way, I’m amazed people aren’t more shaken up by the way he talks to them in his films. It’s bracing and direct and unafraid to be hugely emotional. He makes movies that use comedy and big entertainment to deliver some fairly powerful concepts to the general public, and I am just glad he uses his evil voodoo powers for good. I wrestled with which animated film was going to get this slot at first, because there were several titles I really loved… for a little while, PERSEPOLIS was in contention, and so was TEKKONKINKREET. But the truth is that a vote for PERSEPOLIS would be made with my head, not my heart. I love the aesthetic of PERSEPOLIS, black and white and hand-drawn and full of eccentric character. I love that it’s about the real world, that it’s so human and honest and moving. And honestly… I’m interested in Marjane, but I’m not sure I like her much. Same thing with TEKKONKINKREET, a gorgeous piece of anime that is a headgame with just enough heart to make it matter. I wrestled with including it somewhere on the top 20 list, and ultimately I think it’s a little esoteric, a little unapproachable by design, and as much as I find myself transported by it, I think the fact that I can’t recommend it to everyone is what keeps me from putting it here on the list. Both of them are films I’ll return to and enjoy and share with people in the future. But as a lifelong fan of animation, it was RATATOUILLE that knocked me out the most. As a piece of technical craftsmanship, it is one of the most beautiful overall animated movies ever produced. I wish there was a way to just walk around in the version of Paris that was created for this movie. It’s luminescent, alive, stylized but recognizably Paris. And I really love the people in the film. Skinner and Linquini and Gusteau and Horst and Colette and, of course, Anton Ego. Beautiful human designs, the best that Pixar’s ever done, giving great performances. That’s the magic of RATATOUILLE. I think it’s valid to say that the device of Remy controlling Linguini using his hair is a bizarre one-step-too-far notion, but I just accept it as the way this particular riff on CYRANO works. Remy’s got to give Linguini courage and talent until it kicks in for real and he can step up on his own. It’s something I accept because I like the film so much thematically. And it’s not that big a stretch. I’m amazed people have such a visceral objection to the idea of a rat in a kitchen, but I guess that’s the challenge that Jan Pinkava and Brad Bird and every one of those writers listed were all trying to conquer. How do you do that? How can you make that appealing and a heroic thing instead of vomit-worthy, which it is for a lot of people when they first hear it. Rats are detested, loathsome things for the most part, and to anyone who says that Pixar is just business as usual, merchandising first, corporate and plastic, I’d say this is one of the films that confounds that idea. You don’t really merchandise rats. They tried. A little. But you don’t really merchandise rats. Not the way you can typically merchandise one of these pictures. I think Disney exploits the Pixar brand rabidly, and that’s certainly the point of running a company like Disney these days… brand exploitation. IP management. You give them talking cars, they can merchandise that for a decade straight without even needing a sequel to keep it alive. It’s that simple. You give them rats… well, you better hope the film’s good, because it’s not making money off the goddamn Happy Meals. Some people seem threatened by what they see in Bird’s films as a disdain for the mediocre. I suspect it is largely the mediocre that find themselves writing these e-mails and talkbacks, complaining that it’s not fair to want people to maximize their potential, dream big, try to find and nurture your talent. In THE INCREDIBLES, I think Syndrome’s plan is interesting because it’s not particularly evil. He wants to make everyone a superhero. He wants to make everyone special so that no one is. He hates the idea of people being celebrated. But not Bird. He seems to be of the opinion that it’s our birthright to aim high. Maybe it chaps people because we live in an age of homogeny, where we encourage people to aim for the middle and fit in and where most of what we produce in the media is designed to make sure no one feels stupid while they’re watching… even if they are. I appreciate that there are filmmakers like Bird who believe that it is our responsibility to encourage the extraordinary. And I don’t mean something like STAR WARS or HARRY POTTER with the “chosen one” archetype that’s so much fun for kids to plug themselves into, either. I’m talking about a movie that celebrates learning a trade and doing it well and having pride in your work and trying to be the best at what you do… not for money or for fame, either, but for the simple pleasure of doing something well. Here’s my original review!

#4. THE KING OF KONG dir. Seth Gordon

Which brings us to THE KING OF KONG, the highest-ranking documentary on my list this year, and one of the highest-ranking in a while. I really can’t convey the crazy love I have for this film. I even turned out on a cold recent night in Westwood for a chance to watch Steve Wiebe play some Donkey Kong in person and maybe shake his hand. I felt like part of me needed to see Wiebe in person to verify that this wasn’t an elaborate hoax, perfectly perpetrated. The film works that well as narrative, with such clearly-played archetypes that Seth Gordon must feel like he got a Christmas present when he stumbled into this world. With a film like this, you don’t have a writer in a conventional sense, but Ed Cunningham is the producer, and he certainly had a hand in helping Gordon decide what story they were telling. They started with Weibe, never realizing that the world of Twin Galaxies was out there. I recently saw CHASING GHOSTS, the documentary that played Sundance while KING OF KONG was playing Slamdance. It covers a lot of the same ground as KING OF KONG, with some of the same characters, but watching the two films is an education in the difference between a good film and a great one. There’s a photograph that ran in LIFE magazine back in 1982 that featured a group of high-score-record holders at the time, and CHASING GHOSTS is primarily interested in tracking down the guys in that photograph to see where they are now and what role video games played in their lives. Several of those guys are also characters in KING OF KONG, including Billy Mitchell. And let me tell you… Billy Mitchell is the best villain in any film released in 2007. If I call this guy a douchebag, I’ll get letters from douchebags complaining that I’m giving them a bad name. He’s way past that… more like a Giant Cumwad. He’s like a William Zabka character, and more disturbingly, I think he knows it, and he’s proud of it. Part of what makes me laugh so hard when I watch this is the way Billy Mitchell’s got his army of Junior Giant Cumwads running around following orders for him, the way he’s built up his own little cult of guys who are all still worshipping him because of a game he mastered 25 years ago, something that he can do reflexively at this point. Brian Kuh is incredible as he walks around an arcade, telling everyone “There’s a Donkey Kong killscreen coming up,” desperate to not be impressed by Steve Wiebe, furious that someone would dare encroach in Billy Mitchell’s world uninvited. Kuh sees himself as Billy Mitchell’s protégé. I’m not sure how old he is, but I’m guessing late 20s or early 30s at least, and the notion that he spends his free time picking whatever peanuts he can out of the pounds of shit it looks like Mitchell makes him eat is really, really sad. But he looks thrilled to do it. When he’s sent Billy’s “special videotape,” it’s like the Pope just trusted him with the funny hat for the weekend. He’s so proud, so entitled, and you can see the almost unspeakable pleasure he takes from telling Steve Wiebe that he can’t show him the videotape. The guy I find most interesting in the film is Walter Day, the official record keeper of Twin Galaxies, the first guy who ever tried to position gaming as something truly competitive, something worth treating seriously. He’s been involved since the very start, and I think his heart’s always been in the right place. But he’s been dealing with the same group of people since the very start of Twin Galaxies, and by this point, he’s so completely entrenched with them that he can’t make the hard choices he needs to if he plans to maintain any integrity with the organization. There’s a turning point that they captured in the film where the Guinness book calls Walter and asks him to handle all the official verification of high scores. You can see him realize that he has to handle things differently, even if it upsets The Billy Mitchell Cumwad Squad, and you can see the emotional toll it takes on Walter. In the end, the appeal of this film is that we’re so used to seeing underdog sports stories that play out the way they do because of the whim of the screenwriter that it’s a shock to the system to see one come together that plays out for real. Steve Wiebe’s the real deal, a decent guy with a modest dream who has been shit on by life so many times that even he doesn’t believe he really deserves to win. And Billy Mitchell is a perfect example of a guy who has major entitlement issues, a guy who has been ass-kissed so long he’s gone numb and has no idea how he comes across to other people. Watching this story unfold, you can practically hear Seth Gordon and Ed Cunningham behind the camera, jaws hitting the floor as each perfect story beat unfolds. I love this film because it is a reminder that the reason we are drawn to this story in fiction is because, sometimes, it actually plays out in real life just right, and when it does, it feels like a victory for all of us. It would have been easy for this to be a film that just taps the nostalgia many of us feel for a vintage era of gaming, but instead, this is a film that speaks directly to anyone who has ever wanted something hard enough to fight for it. Here’s my original review!

#3. THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD dir./scr. Andrew Dominik based on the book by Ron Hansen

You know what I forgot? This film is funny. Like, seriously funny. One of the things that made me fall so head-over-heels in love with it the first time I saw it was that wonderful eccentric sense of humor towards the characters that runs through the whole film. In my original review of this one, I talked about how approachable I think it is, how it’s the opposite of an oblique, audience-unfriendly art film. It’s warm and human and funny and full of great, interesting character beats, and at a moment when we are determined to eat our celebrities as fast as we can create them, there was no movie released this year that had more to say about our unhealthy infatuation with the famous than this one, and right now, it says things we absolutely have to hear. We don’t talk about celebrity gossip on this site at all. We don’t write about people’s personal lives, no matter how much information gets dropped in our laps. In the last eleven years, I’ve learned more that I haven’t written about than I could even explain, and when I tell you that I separate the art from the artist, that’s not because I want to excuse the bad behavior of one or two favorites… it’s because I’m an imperfect person, just like I’m sure most of you are, and the idea of me trying to base what films I will or won’t watch on the personal morality of someone I only know through their media representation or through rumor… that’s fucking madness. And I would end up watching nothing at all. The thing about gossip is that it not only destroys the people it is about… it destroys the people addicted to it. And celebrity gossip seems to serve a couple of functions: it exposes the very famous as human, and it also makes the non-famous feel like they’re just the same as these people they’re reading about. And since so much of what gets said about celebrities is toxic and false, it basically feeds gossip addicts this fantasy world of bullshit that, frankly, drives them mad. It is not amazing or unusual when we produce a Mark David Chapman. It is amazing and unusual that we do not produce more of them. When we allow the paparazzi culture to thrive, when we pretend that legality gives anyone the right to treat anyone else the way the paparazzi treat people, then we are practically painting bulls-eyes on the famous, and it sort of smacks of resentment. “How dare you become famous for being good at something or looking or a certain way or having a skill I don’t have? Why shouldn’t we destroy you?” Jesse James was famous in a way we don’t really understand in today’s media age. I was driving tonight and saw a billboard for what I assume are Paris Hilton clothes of some sort. And the ad line was “The most talked about celebrity. The most talked about line.” It’s not just cliché to complain about her fame; it’s pointless. Fame is an animal. It does what it wants. And it’s devalued today. It doesn’t really mean anything in terms of the quality of a person. You don’t have to be good or interesting or noble or beautiful or a role model to be famous today. Fame is so cheap that anyone can pretty much get a hit if they want one. When Jesse James was famous, though… he was famous. He was known from coast to coast. His name, his story, the details of who he was… familiar to anyone who had any contact with culture. It was that simple. Jesse was part of the fabric of his age. Like Thomas Edison. Or the early Presidents. That’s real fame. And the thing that I find most interesting is how Jesse James was able to be that famous, but also maintain the sort of anonymity that allowed him to lead a private life with his family, undisturbed and unknown. For him to pull that off as long as he did makes him some sort of genius who out-thought fame before anyone even knew it was a game to be played. And for Brad Pitt to play that person… and to bring his own experiences with modern fame to the table… this is a film we are not really equipped to fully evaluate in the year 2008. This is one that’s going to serve as a sort of mosquito-in-amber that will be even more interesting in hindsight. “Can you believe Brad Pitt made this film BEFORE [some future horrible event that perfectly points out the destructive cycle of celebrity] happened in 2011? That’s crazy, man. It’s like he saw the future.” It might be later. It might be earlier. But the stuff we’re seeing right now like the meltdown of Spears or the vulture’s feast on the remains of Heath Ledger is just the warm-up for how bad it’s going to get. Roger Deakins made the prettiest pictures of the year, and I think it’s deranged that he’s probably going to cannibalize his own Oscar chances once again. For one guy to have shot this and NO COUNTRY in one year is pretty remarkable. And Andrew Dominik… I’m not sure if you’re going to director’s jail or not. You shouldn’t, of course, but when even the people at Warner Bros. tell me that they hated your movie, I think it’s distinctly possible that the director of one of the most significant and robust movies of the year is going to have to bench it for a little while until someone will let him earn his way back into the studio system. And that is an outrage. Here’s hoping some producers with both taste and big balls keep Dominik working, and sooner rather than later. Here’s my original review!

#2. ONCE dir./scr. John Carney

I didn’t see it before it came out. I didn’t see it at a festival. I didn’t see it in the theater, as a matter of fact. I kept meaning to go, but my wife and I ended up missing it, always busy with something else I needed to see first And I just put it off, and then suddenly the end of the year was approaching and Fox Searchlight sent over a batch of screeners, and one of them was ONCE. And even after it was in the house… I put it off. More often than not, “Sundance sensations” bug the tap-dancin’ piss out of me by the time they’re finally rolled out to the public, and this one sounded particularly twee. And all the evangelical praise for the film only turned me off more. So when I finally watched the film, I was on vacation. It was one of a handful of movies that I took with me, and one night, after my wife and son had fallen asleep, I was still wired, awake. I put the disc in, figured I’d watch a bit before I went to sleep to decide if my wife might want to see it with me later. About 85 minutes later, my wife woke up and found me sitting there, headphones on, totally gobsmacked. She asked me what I was watching that had me looking like that, and I just started the film over and showed her. She was just as smitten as I was, and we saw it one more time before we went back to LA. I had the soundtrack sitting in a box at home from when someone sent it over the summer, still sealed, and as soon as I got home, I put it on my iTunes, dumped it into heavy rotation, and went through an experience that I’m sure many people shared after seeing the film. Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova make gorgeous music together, and discovering that music would be reason enough to celebrate. Discovering it in the context of this breathtaking film that truly represents to me the potential inherent in the year 2007 in something as simple as two people and a camera, two voices and a song, two hearts and a dream. We can create anything today in film. We can bend reality to our will. We can simulate images that are photo-real that realize our wildest fantasy. And still, the thing that has the greatest potential to transform us is a human connection, truth about ourselves and who we are and how we live. And ONCE takes some truly shopworn notions and plays sweet, cotton candy riffs on them, lighter than air. And it manages to paint one of the most selfless and generous pictures of what love can do for us as we move through life that I’ve seen in cinema in recent memory. I despise what Hollywood calls “romance” most of the time. Betrayal, constant lies, emotional abuse, contrived sexual misconduct… it makes me wonder what some of these people making these films are like with their loved ones. Here, two people are able to offer each other healing and strength at the precise moment that it makes a difference, and they both are transformed by this encounter, deeply moved and bettered by it. What they share… what happens between them… that’s love. There’s no other word for it. Knowing that something real happened between them off-camera as a result of what they were playing here… it doesn’t shock me. There’s not a note the two of them play in this film that feels false. I have no idea if we’ll ever see Marketa in another film or not… in a way, I hope we don’t. It would make this even more special. If you haven’t seen the film, it’s about a guy who works in a vacuum cleaner repair shop owned by his dad, and in his spare time, he goes to the center of town and plays his guitar for money. Stands out in the street playing and singing familiar and popular songs. Except… sometimes… when it’s late and no one’s around… he plays his own stuff. Great stuff. But only when no one can hear. And there’s this girl. She’s a lot younger than him. Still fairly new to Ireland. She’s a mom with a very, very young baby. And a mom who lives with her. And the mom doesn’t speak a lick of English. And the girl… well, she’s married. The guy’s still back in whatever Eastern bloc country coughed the girl up, and he probably doesn’t even want to follow, and even if he did, she’s not sure she wants him to. And the vacuum cleaner guy, he’s got his own ghosts to deal with. There’s a girl in his past, a betrayal, some heartbreak, and now, most importantly, distance. She’s in London. He should be in London. He should be working as a musician. Singing those incredible songs of his where and when people can actually hear a few of them. But he’s blocked. Afraid to take the step and fail. Afraid to take the step and succeed. Just plain afraid. The collision of these two is what the film deals with. Glen Hansard was great in Alan Parker’s THE COMMITMENTS about two-hundred-and-eleven years ago. I thought everyone in that cast was going to go on to monster stardom, especially seeing the film with crowds here in LA. It played like a concert film. People would wildly applaud for Andrew Strong, the guy who looked like Curly Howard and sang like Joe Cocker, as he tore up number after number, and the band itself was pretty awesome if you saw the movie in the right theater. And Hansard was right there in the middle on guitar, young as shit, giving a good performance but definitely not the star of the film. It’s been 16 years since THE COMMITMENTS, and time’s had its way with Hansard. The film introduces him singing right away, and after the very funny opening scene (which contains one of the film’s strangest throwaway revelations), he’s singing again, the epic “Say It To Me Now,” and it’s hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck time. The age has made his voice really interesting, and time has made his playing that much more rich and mature. He’s a really tasteful performer, and even if most of his songs are just exercises in loud-soft-loud-soft dynamics, he’s got real taste as a writer, too. I think John Carney was brilliant to build this musical... and that’s exactly what it is, too, an unapologetic-but-sneaky musical.. around the music of Hansard and Iglova. His story is very simple, but the variations he plays on it are what make it really special. The guy is really drawn to this young girl, and part of him wants to fuck her, and part of him wants to protect her, and part of him just wants to sing with her, and she’s just as twisted up about him, and what they share… what holds it together… is the music. For me, it’s a scene early in the film where I totally fell for it, and either you got the chills during this moment, or you didn’t, and if you didn’t, then I’ll bet you don’t get why anyone else is so excited about it. The girl is on lunch and she takes the guy to a music store that is closed for an hour. She knows the owner, and he lets her play any of the pianos in the place any time she wants. The girl has heard the guy play, and she wants to share something of her own, some proof that she understands him and his music. Because of his music, because of the effect it’s had on her, she has to find some way to connect to him. And he’s curious. She’s such a strange little bird from the first moment he encounters her, so earnest and serious and cute and brusque to the point of being rude tha