It's a little early in the year, and it's possible a couple of these won't end up in my top 10 list at the end of the year. But, for what it's worth, here's five films I would definitely recommend (maybe not better-than-sex, with the exception possibly of the first film on the list, but surely full price)

1) MOTHER (Joon-ho Bong)

Joon-Ho Bong is one of the most exciting and wonderful storytellers coming out of Asia today. With Mother, he joins with Chanwook Park as being one of THE young South Korean directors to see - by that I mean anything they put out. Bong's work is layered with the skill of comedy and drama, both often so dark and thick that you can put your hand in and not feel the bottom. His previous film The Host showed his talent at making a 'popular' entertainment, a monster blockbuster that actually gave characters to care about while action and terror ensued. But this time he returns to his second feature, Memories of Murder, in crafting a murder mystery that is ultimately, in the sense of the details of the story, hopeless, but carries so much joy and passion in its making that I left elated by the performances and cinematography.

It is, from the look of the premise, pretty simple stuff. A kid who is sort of 'simple' (not really retarded, just slower than the rest of the pack with a bad memory) is charged with a murder of a teenage girl found hanging over a rooftop. He says he didn't do it, or at least doesn't think he did, and his mother believes him. But finding out what happened won't be easy, and the police (as in Memories of Murder) just want the confession quick, which they get from Do-joon's misunderstanding, and move along to the next case. So, the Mother goes on a mystery, like a detective first tracking his shady golf-hustler friend, then going on to who this girl who died actually was, what her connections were, who, if anyone, saw what happened when her son stumbled home drunk that fateful night.

All of the details, seemingly straightforward. It's all in the presentation of the details, and it's this how Bong sets himself apart as an original: taking elements of film-noir and Greek tragedy, of a mother trying to save her son, and by proxy herself, and warding off the "chorus" of a strange and untrustworthy townsfolk who shun her after the incident. Oh, and like in other Bong films there's some touches of pitch black humor- watch for that interrogation scene of the teenage punk on the ferris wheel, or how that crazy hit-and-run happens at the start of the film- but it's either subtle or pronounced so large that one almost puts it down to hysterics. But while Bong navigates the black-comic elements well, it's his skill as a Hitchcock-cum-Chabrol idolizer that makes it a must-see.

This is suspenseful film-making, from the overall arc of finding out the details of the crime, to little moments that are just suffocating. Take when the Mother goes to search the complex lowlife Jin-Tae's place to find possible proof that he committed the murder. She has to hide in the closet when he comes in (Blue Velvet much?), and watch as Jin-Tae and his girlfriend have sex. Later, she has to exit ever so slightly, and knocks over a water bottle. Every second of this counts, and it's thanks to Bong's trust in the view to be lead along, and go for the tension, that makes it work.





2) THE GHOST WRITER (Roman Polanski)

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I have to admit, I wasn't terribly impressed with the first several minutes of The Ghost Writer. Not because it was bad, far from it, it was an engaging beginning and a good (not great) premise. But because I wasn't sure where the spark was connecting it to the director, Roman Polanski. Any director could make this kind of premise, right? A ghost writer, usually focusing on subjects outside of politics, is given a well-paying but very rushed assignment to profile a former Prime Minister of Britain. He finds there is a manuscript written already, but that it needs more work, and that the Prime Minister needs to give him some more input on his life - or what he's not willing to say outright, what's under the surface.

There's room for an audience's interest here, but it's really once the writer goes to Martha's Vineyard in Massachussetts, where the Prime Minister will be staying shortly while weathering a scandal involving him and alleged torture of terrorist suspects, that it really gets interesting. More than that, it starts looking like a Polanski movie. A very good and surprisingly handsomely made one (maybe not too surprising, as it's Polanski's metee to do solid, for-adults-thinking thrillers). What I mean is I started to get shivers of recognition - scenes by a beach, limited characters, and a mounting mystery around a conspiracy that gets bigger and more complex. It's like Chinatown set on the island of Cul-de-sac, doused with the fire of current events (there's even one shot that is obvious but funny, where Brosnan's PM Adam Lang stands next to a black woman at a press conference that is a knock-off of Condaleeza Rice).

While the story in The Ghost Writer, which keeps getting better and more absorbing as it goes along, as the writer (never named specifically but played by Ewan McGregor) keeps digging somewhat unintentionally through Adam's past and connections with the CIA in the 70's and shady figures, not to mention the late-memoir writer who was found washed up on the nearby beach, is intriguing, it's Polanski's direction that kept me glued. It's not just the story but how it's told, and I was reminded again of how the director, now in his 70's, hasn't lost the nerve to just tell the damn thing and put in a few twists that would keep us guessing but not enough to find it too preposterous. The shots and compositions also, again, recalled former films of his, but never at the expense of self-parody. Always when there's a tight close-up of a person's face (look at how close Brosnan and Wilkinson get when talking to McGregor in their scenes), it's done to add tension to a scene, and keep things moving along. It's discreetly artistic, if that makes sense.

Then again, sometimes Polanski just relishes in keeping his willing and attentive audience on their toes. The performances help- everyone here is terrific, including McGregor, better he's been in years, and Olivia Williams really giving it her all as a frustrated wife of the Prime Minister in her few scenes (she really will keep you guessing, and her seemingly predictable tryst with the writer has more going on than meets the eye). But there's also some sly humor going on, like in a Hitchcock film where side character seem to know more, or perhaps nothing at all, compared to the main character (watch those maids and groundskeepers looking at the Writer with strong glances or caught up in the breeze outside). I also loved the settings and locations, like the hard concrete walls of the quasi-bunker that Lang's people are set up in, giving an added level to the proceedings.

And, lastly, the reveal of what's actually hidden in the memoir. I couldn't reveal it here, for one thing as a major spoiler but just because the fun of the scene is not in what is passed along in a note but how it's passed along, how Polanski relishes in shooting the note being passed hand-to-hand among suits at a party. It's a brilliant sequence leading up to a bittersweet ending... make that more bitter. Would you expect anything less from Polanski?

3) SHUTTER ISLAND (Martin Scorsese)

Everybody waited for years for Martin Scorsese to win his Oscar that when it was finally over and done with for The Departed, many were elated, but a question no one really asked was “what’s next?” The Rolling Stones documentary Shine a Light notwithstanding, Shutter Island is the follow-up from Scorsese’s biggest box-office success, and I’m slightly sorry to report that it is no masterpiece of filmmaking. I’m not sure if film students will study and foam at the mouth in joy over this as they do Raging Bull and GoodFellas.

What the film is, however, great genre moviemaking, or a take-off on it. Using Dennis Lehane’s novel for the story points and characters, Scorsese fashions his own horror show of giddy psychological madness with a healthy dose of film noir. It’s set in 1954 when two federal marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), are sent to the fog-covered Shutter Island off the coast of Boston to investigate a woman’s mysterious disappearance. The doctors (Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow) give their support to the investigation, at least on the surface. But there’s something fishy about the place, something sinister, and the patients get coached for interrogations while the nurses and guards shuffle about with something to hide. And there is something to conceal, something quite huge, and it’s in large part the real reason why Teddy is on the island.

Again, I don’t think this is Scorsese in his top-top finest hour. He spends chunks of the film on exposition, some of which could have been cut out. But I would be hard-pressed to suggest where. It’s the director’s knack for creating atmosphere out of seemingly nothing, of creating tension and intrigue in just a handful of edits and shots that makes the film stand out as a whole. The story builds like a solid potboiler, but a smart one, fashioned out of Lehane’s clever text into a madhouse of dark corridors and staircases, rainy prison cells, and nightmares of the Dachau concentration camp.

As a horror movie, Shutter Island strikes rich and fertile ground. The cast is all on their A-game, especially DiCaprio, who has gone through Scorsese’s version of film school since Gangs of New York and become a phenomenal actor. Here he’s a weathered detective out of ’40’s noir (an inspiration for the film was Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past), and in every scene he is given a little more to do emotionally. By the end, it becomes heartbreaking and haunting to see what his character goes through. Other actors like Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley and Elias Koteas have fantastic one-off scenes, unforgettable even.

Contrary to what (some) critics are already declaring, this is not Scorsese slumming it, or even going “too far” in some kind of Hollywood excess of style. It’s him doing something else, almost unexpected (rarely, not since Cape Fear, has he gone this dark). Shutter Island is a movie to get the blood boiling, a snappy, hard-edged entertainment with a twist that reminds jaded audience members what it’s like to get knocked down with something incredible, yet believable.




4) SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (Edgar Wright)

The inclusion of this film may not be entirely fair as pretty much nobody has seen it - except, of course, for those in attendance with me at the free test screening from a month ago, where we got a look at Edgar Wright's third feature film, practically complete (some of the music was taken from Planet Terror, which will probably be replaced, and some wire-work wasn't edited out) and, AWE and SOME and maybe a FUCK YEAH! somewhere in there, too. I'm hoping my inclusion here (not to mention the trailer) will get all you people just a little more excited.

The story of Scott Pilgrim, played by Michael Cera, and his dogged attempt to be the new boyfriend of Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizbaeth Winstead) by having to face off against her seven ex-boyfriends (or, sorry, SPOILER, one of them a girlfriend), could have been cheesy, like a silly teenage movie. Turns out Wright is far too smart and clever and has too wonderful a sense of humor to let anything sit still or be tied down by conventions.

The film boasts Cera's best performance (which maybe isn't saying much, but he gets to show a lot more range here than anywhere else), and Winstead, a cutie one may have spotted in Death Proof, shines in a performance that asks her to be Zooey Deschanel, only prettier and a better actress. And several other actors like Chris Evans and Jason Schwartzman hit it out of the park with supporting performances as the ex-boyfriends (Evans especially has rarely been funnier playing as a stuck-up movie star).

It's Wright's creative energy that keeps the movie going so far as it does, and it's outrageously funny - as far as a PG-13 comedy can get - and has the spirit of a comic book down pat (whether it's like the original comic I can't say as I've yet to read it). The best way I can describe this surprise smash, which will be hitting theaters in August, is that it's like Wright's 90's show Spaced about slacker guys with a sarcastic wit going through relationships mixed with the speed of the Crank movies and the quirky romantic entanglements of (500) Days of Summer. Only, it's better than ALL of those.






5) A PROPHET (Jacques Audiard)

The first half hour or so of A Prophet, the new film from Jacques Audiard (of the brilliant The Beat That My Heart Skipped), looks like a good prison movie. Better than that, it looks rough, raw, gritty, a French variation of the HBO series from the late 90's, Oz, that showed prison life as its own living, frightening organism of human horror. A young man who committed a crime that is never revealed to us, Malik El-Djebena (Tahar Rahim) is nineteen and in for six years at a French prison, with a mostly Muslim population. He, too, is an Arab, though mixed with French, and is picked out of the pack- as he's a nervous, small little guy- by the Corsicans, who have the dominant control of the prison (albeit smaller but stronger numbers). He's charged to kill a prisoner in transit who is supposed to testify against them. He refuses, but, as happens, is told if he doesn't he will be killed instead. He gets up the nerve to do it, however clumsily and gushing blood all over, and gets their protection.

From here it turns into something else I wasn't quite expecting, which was a crime saga. There's echoes of The Sopranos, The Godfather, hard-boiled stories of family and loyalty, only in the case of A Prophet put into the context of prison life. How this happens is that Malik gets a little more prominent with the Corsicans, specifically the boss, Luciani (Arestrup), who seems to make a path anywhere he goes and has that kind of calm but angry form of expression that seems much more realistic than we see in many crime movies (or, to put it another way, like the aging bulldog who is usually just watchful and mindful, but has a bark as bad as his bite). Malik becomes his right-hand man practically, but Malik also gets wrapped up in drug dealing in the prison, becomes friendly with a prisoner who helps him how to read (he's later released and also has cancer off and on), and gets 'leave' days here and there, where he's tasked on missions for Luciani as a foot-soldier. And meanwhile, he's plotting, like a game of hidden chess, in moves that will help that he'll stay alive.

It's a staggering work of plotting in its script, but also character development. We always believe that Malik is capable of what he's doing because he's a learner and smart enough to know the angles he's playing at. When he goes on a mission for Luciani on one of his days, going all the way to Marseilles, and nearly gets killed, he somehow gets out of it through dumb luck, and in the process gets to have some terms of his own with another mob boss. The director, Audiard, has a big running time to lay out six years of prison life - 155 minutes give or take a few in all - and it's loaded with memorable characters and performances, most especially by Arstrup (previous in 'Beat'), who makes for a subtly imposing figure, a lion of a man, with a face that hides many things, like a poker face.

Rahim, in a breakthrough performance, is also completely engaging. He makes for a vulnerable character early on, and then transforms into a Michael Corleone but with more street savvy and guts. The actor also plays well in some surreal situations, like the here-and-there scenes when Reyeb, the man he first killed with the razor, keeps appearing to him with conversations obscure and familiar all at once (he even gets Malik to dance by himself). While a few of these surreal touches from Audiard don't quite work, such as the dream scenes with the deer and its wrap-around in Marseilles, when the director keeps it focused on the story and characters, he gets solid acting and a fearless sense of style.

Some of the film isn't easy to take, like that murder scene or another later on with Malik and some other gangsters in a black SUV, but for all the right purpose. Going in to the film I almost expected it to be more focused on the Muslim angle, that Malik rises to be a kingpin in the Nation of Islam in prison or something. There is a distinction of class that Audiard touches on often, mainly about the reversal of power over time from the Corscicans to the Muslims, but it's secondary really to the genre concern. This is a memorable prison-crime hybrid, full of intrigue and surprise, occasionally very funny, surprisingly heartfelt (i.e. scenes between Malik and his cancer-stricken friend) and sometimes deliberately paced. It's also, surprisingly for something as early 70's Scorsese inspired, subdued in a way of approach to its characters and setting. Which is really the rich choice to make in order to not overstep into lurid melodrama.