The first great film of the year is a small, and likely already out of the theaters, treasure written and directed by the genius behind 2004’s brilliant “The Station Agent.” Like its predecessor, “The Visitor” is a story about a journey from loneliness back into the real world of the living. In this case a recently widowed, middle aged professor, stuck somewhere between deep professional apathy and outright depression, is given a totally unexpected shot in the arm. Summoned to NYC to present a paper to his colleagues, Walter Vale played brilliantly by Richard Jenkins from “Six Feet Under,” returns to his largely abandoned NY apartment after years away only to find two illegal aliens living inside. But after an awkward initial meeting, Jenkins begins to really gel with the young free spirited drummer from Syria, who, in the gentlest of ways reintroduces him to the simple pleasures of life. Ultimately the flim becomes more complicated exposing us to the inherent hypocracy of our immigration policy in a post 9/11 world. From the incredibly nuanced portrayal of lasting and fleeting love, to the broader issue of finding joy in life, this movie is a gem that pushes buttons but never tugs too hard. The truth is told in a quiet convincing tone but with a beautifully understated cast. This is a deep diamond in the rough.  

Holocaust films are always hard to watch but the best, “The Piano” and “Life Is Beautiful,” tend to distract you with stories about distraction leading to survival. “The Counterfeiters” is the incredible true story of a Jewish master craftsman thrown into the concentration camps for, of all things, counterfeiting. Ironically this crime is the gift that gives him the chance to survive for years by helping the Nazi’s mint currency to prolong the war. 

 The counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch is played with incredible intensity by Karl Markovics whose emotions and expressions beat with a fearlessness that somehow allows the movie to keep the realities of death enough at bay to lose yourself in the dark flow of the film. Markovics, like Duvall’s Lt. Colonel Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now” eminates a kind of glow that you know will let him emerge from the war without a scratch, but is forced to take risks that could cause the deaths of the men around him. Working for the Nazi’s is like playing poker with the devil, but drawing the perfect card against the evil empire is redemption like no other.

War is bleak, and the Holocaust will always feel like the most devasting of them all, but  ”The Counterfeiters” is one of the most compelling war films of the past decade. This film can not be missed.

Somehow watching a great documentary always makes me feel a little like I just did something healthy for myself - like eating organic vegetables, reading a book or going for a run. I suppose this is because documentaries are extracted from real life, and as such are educational and historical. “Deep Water” is one of those films. It tells an incredible story that most Americans are not likely to have any recollection of.

In 1969, there was a boat race to see who could become the first person to make a solo trip around the world without stopping. Nine contestants entered the race and less than half of them completed it. But the real story revolved around Donald Crowhurst a novice sailor with a nagging zeal to win the race as his one shot to leave a mark on history. He built a odd custom boat and mortgaged his house to compete against some of the finest sailors in the world. Leaving his wife and three children behind for what was expected to be a 9 month excursion, what follows is one of the most fascinating stories in the history of sport. There is nothing particularly unusual about the filmmaking here, mostly just old footage taken before the race, interviews with friends and relatives shot recently, and some haunting footage shot while out on the sea. To say more would be to ruin an incredible mystery, but this film will stick with you long after it is over. 

Filmmage

Despite the greedy, bickering, and seemingly unsolvable problems that have managed to suck much of the air out of the this year’s awards season, 2007 is beginning to feel like one of the strongest movie years of the decade: A happy split between genuinely mass audience popcorn epics, and smallish indie movies that focus on perfectly drawn characters moving through everyday life. As usual, ten films seem like an arbitrary number, so this list will include quite a few more … why not? In any event, most of these movies are already rentable, and the ones still in the theatres should be seen on a big screen without interruption or a pause button, if at all possible.

1.             Once - Dir. John Carney (Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová)

“Once” is an instant classic, transforming the simple story of a scruffy Irish street singer and beautiful Czech immigrant into a kind of kindred musical and spiritual collaboration whose narrative is told largely through lyrics and whose tone is set by the natural chemistry between Hansard’s guitar and Irglova’s piano. It is that rare jewel of a film that not only dares to reinvent the genre but does so using novice actors (although Hansard did play one of the Commitments in the 80’s film and has been leading his own band, The Frames, for over a decade)  and music that has disappointingly eluded the mainstream for years. Watching this film made me somewhat envious of the kind of language and relationship that only music can bring out between a man and woman who learn to love through an unspoken musical language- a kind of romantic groove. If there is any justice in this world, Hansard and Irglova, will win the Academy award for best song, vaulting The Frames into a much deserved wider audience, much like Elliott Smith did with “Good Will Hunting,” and “Once” will become 2007’s little indie that could, accumulating awards and a more visible place in the history of independent film. This film will choke you up repeatedly.

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It has been almost 15 years now - the moment I got turned on to the raucus music of Mudhoney and then subsequently stumbled into “Kim’s Video” in 1993 to rent and watch a tattered copy of “Mudhoney” that I have been waiting for this collection to emerge. Well not exactly, because at the time DVDs weren’t in existence and I didn’t yet realize how consistently weird, sexy and oddly funny all of Meyer’s film would be, but I did know I was determined to see every film he had ever made. This collection consists of 18 Meyer classics, all featuring ridiculously buxom babes thrust into variety of strange and limp but humous plotlines.

Meyer, the one-time early Playboy photographer, was one of the most important figures in early low budget American filmmaking ranking up there with Roger Corman. On the surface it is easy to watch any of his “Vixen” films and dismiss them as rather dated soft core exploitation films, which they are, but that is only one layer of a much weirder fusion of comedy and boobs and violence that make up this extraordinary collection. Films like the gritty black and white “Mudhoney” and “Faster Pussy Cat Kill Kill” are strange, violent and so over the top that you quickly begin to lose track of which genre they belong to entirely. While films like “Beneath The Valley of the Ultra Vixens” and “Lorna” and others are feel more like pornos but narrated in the same gosh-golly tone as a sixth grade science film.

To understand and appreciate Meyer is hurl yourself completely unique world. This is a cinematic plane that looks like something old and cheap on the surface, but is really the bizarre work of a master. Meyer wrote, directed, and edited most of these films and every frame is stamped with his off-kilter signature. I wil lbe hard pressed to find a set od CDs that I was happier to find than these.

Some great docs get by mostly on the heels of the captured on-screen magnetism of the subject, others on the clever way bits and pieces or the story are combined visually, and still others based purely on the story itself. In the case of the life of Lew Wasserman, the 100 minute film relies entirely on still pictures and interviews with friends and colleagues. “The Last Mogul” is Wasserman’s life story beginning with his childhood as a poor Jewish kid from Cleveland through his ascent to becoming one of the most influential men in the history of Hollywood.

“The Last Mogul” tells the story of a man who both was able to see and shape the future of the music, film and ultimately television. But unlike the celebrity CEOs of today, Wasserman believed that fame should be reserved for the stars and as such worked tirelessly in the background crafting the blueprint for how much of the packaging of creative assets still works today. Although far from a recluse, Wasserman didn’t do interviews, rarely gave speeches but instead reshaped Hollywood one deal at a time. It is hard to really get a sense at all for the man himself, but his legacy depicts a long long life of success so difficult to sustain in a town as cynical as LA you have to imagine it he was a moan to love and loath. Like “Easy Riders and Raging Bulls” this film is a history of one of one of most pervasive universally loved businesses in the world and of the man who helped create it.