Written by Scott Z. Burns
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale

You can tell when the book you’re reading is going to end. You just look at the last page and see how close you are to it. You can likewise tell when the movie you’re watching is about to finish. You look at your watch, approximate the film to the usual running time of two hours, and there, credits at your prediction. But we watch movies to avoid that, to avoid thinking of the obvious, not to be aware of time. Often it is the movies that make us stay in the theater for long that we remember—out of experience. Importantly, it’s not the when but the how. The Informant! requires a lot of hows to be shown, but the good thing about it is that you just have to wait for it to finish, and it will all make sense.

Matt Damon is the ! in The Informant!—that’s for sure. The beauty of his character is that you want him to get caught and not to get caught at the same time. Here you have an executive of an agricultural company cooperating with the FBI against his own company, thinking in the end that he will be elected as CEO after the well-supported pursuit of his price-fixing allegation, and hoping to save himself when his scams are exposed. He’s loony—but it’s an understatement to call him loony after all the years he managed to continue dovetailing the company and the FBI. The crazy lies he makes, seemingly unaware but unadulterated, pile up like Uno Stacko waiting to collapse anytime.

Soderbergh avoids making another Erin Brockovich—the championing of human spirit, the tasteful blend of quirks and generalities—and fails. The Informant! is just like it turned upside down. Mark Whitacre and Erin Brockovich took their convictions with them till the end, and on their behalf, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts made them memorable characters. A film earns the right to be dazed and confused only when it is funny, and when it is so goddamn incredulous you start to believe it. When The Informant! ends I actually wonder why the hell I watched it. The music rolls everything into a snowball, which hits the pins in my head to turn me sober. But the trouble was worth it.

(PS. Let’s keep this a secret. I chose watching The Informant! over Jennifer’s Body and Astroboy because of the exclamation point in its title. The basis of the movie—The Informant by Kurt Eichenwald—does not have it, and I thought perhaps that will make all the difference. I suppose the movie can manage without it—but without the !, seriously, I may not be too keen on seeing it. I can be petty like that when pettiness is concerned.)

Directed by John Madden
Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anthony Hopkins, Hope Davis
Based on David Auburn’s play

If human emotions were represented by imaginary numbers, then mathematicians will have a lot of equations to die with, knowing, in their lifetime, it is impossible to prove our intelligence without qualifying our actions that mirror our stupidity in the first place. That stupid people have their own intelligence and intelligent people have their own stupidity is something we should all be grateful for, at least, at some point. Intelligence, or the lack of it, is every man’s unique torture.

Written by Kelly Reichardt and Jonathan Raymond
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Cast: Michelle Williams, Will Patton, Wally Dalton

One can’t help but remember the classic Reader’s Digest story “Cipher in the Snow” by Jean Mizer after watching Wendy and Lucy. It is a tragic story of a child named Cliff Evans who dropped dead after getting off the school bus, as told by his teacher who reflected on the circumstances that turned him meaningless, thus the cipher in the title. His death was largely ignored by his family and classmates, his mother even telling the teacher that her child never even spoke to her about being ill.  Reichardt deftly peruses that ostracized feeling through minimalism and a savage control of material. She takes the risk of being too simple – - from plot to treatment, from the hard-hitting rawness of the story to the humming used in the tracking shots, from the consistently blasé distance to the heartbreaking conclusion that isn’t even presented as heartbreaking – - and comes up with a depressingly fascinating and brilliantly nuanced critique of life in exclusion, the anger and hopelessness of it, the casualness and cruelty of the situation, the desperation of hanging onto things that matter to a woman we only know as Wendy – - her dog and her car, which to her means everything, her life, her dream of going to Alaska to find work, to start anew. Reichardt keeps us far from knowing more about Wendy’s life, but Michelle Williams, in an incredibly moving and controlled performance, and in the role that she will always be noted for, gives us an indelible impression of her past – - that of departures and pain – - and shows us the desperation of living on the edge on your own, the utmost difficulty of connecting with people and seeking their help when they are filled with doubt and apathy. That it has kept its brave politics without losing its artistic merits is already a feat on its part; what more if it tells us the truth, and how we cannot avoid it.

Directed by Danny Boyle
Cast: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irfan Khan
Based on Vikas Swarup’s Q & A

The Slumdog hype has seriously put me out of sorts. Not that it is a bad film that deserves a hammer of expletives but it comes out too nice and too cathartically pleasing that I find it quite annoying. Its supporters have already cemented its reputation, by all means, as this year’s best film, gaining plenty of back up from different award-giving bodies that hand out their picks for this season. It is a favorable work to generate such adulation – - I wouldn’t deny that. While a film with layers of intertextual and multicultural (a British director doing a Bollywood film for an American audience) understanding is an interesting product of our global village, what proves to be more appalling is the varying reaction of people towards the film – - the argument whether it has represented the underbelly of India without exploiting it becomes too trite considering the times we’re in – - because certainly, films are easier to analyze than people. When films are unstoppably glorifying, then that must be the end of cinema, the way Godard envisions it in Week-end.

It is a tale of hope and hopefulness, relying on a cordial narrative that is always on the lookout to tolerate our wanting to escape. It maximizes every advantage of cinematic storytelling: the main character’s quirky predicament, the game show questions that serve as the film’s structure, first to hold the story from start to finish and second to give way to a dozen of flashbacks to beg for our sympathy, the jarring cinematography that fits the somberness of its physical and emotional setting, the typical editing style of MTV babies, fast, hip, oozing with colors that dissolve into our eyes to move our tears back, the charming conclusion that rips off the glory of Bollywood, it is all too cinematic – - and that is what Boyle exploits in Slumdog Millionaire. The loopholes are very visible and he does not attempt to hide them. The material is formulaic, scene after scene of commonplace actions that are easy to relate because we are eating it everyday of our lives. Well, I apologize, that is too subjective – - I am speaking for myself, hello world, I am from the Philippines – - that’s commonplace for me, and it’s even hard to speak what’s commonplace for my fellow Filipinos.

On the periphery is the city, the dirt, the bile of consumerism, the dregs of globalization, the looming hope of comfort, the buildings that signify progress, the lines of communication outside India, the booming economy at the center of the center. Boyle recognizes those with a conscious effort to paint a portrait of Mumbai without actually seeing it, strokes that are evenly marked, surprisingly picture-perfect, and details that strike a chord, but there is an absence of gravity, lack of serious might, it is all transitory, all make-believe.

I get it, films must be entertaining, films must be hopeful, and films must be uplifting. And Slumdog Millionaire has done those. It even seems to me that, with the monstrous hype that comes along with it, its fans are pushing for a Danny Boyle monument, to canonize him, to beatify his latest work and turn it into a holy sacrament. That’s why I choose to belong in the world of movies – - everything is a matter of taste, fake, real, obscure, popular, biases on actors, writers, directors, auteur theory, harsh critics, starred reviews, inconsistencies, spectacles, awards season, the transcending influence of films – - a wealthy pastiche of meta-life. When a critic imposes his opinion, one can easily throw things at him to show vehemence, but when it is the audience who imposes, what is there to do?

The only time when all my disbelief was suspended, for reasons that are difficult to explain and yet the only metaphor I can think of is the jumping pheromones that I see leaping out of other people’s bodies and entering mine, is the sparkling end, the gaiety of moving bodies, the levitating music, the pinchbeck happiness that it carries. I have seen it many times, playing it back to feel that euphoria that all its fans share – - I understand them – - the need to create a fitting closure, a celebration of life. But it’s like walking through a pale nothingness; it only leaves a dashing afterglow, nothing more, with the terrible truth lurking behind.

Written and directed by John Patrick Shanley
Cast: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffmann, Amy Adams, Viola Davis

Doubt is a fistful of dynamite, carefully prepared to reach a desired effect. In fact it is so rigorously structured it can only reach an effect similar to everyone, as if Shanley has connived with science to dismantle the morality of an overtly spiritual institution, stripping it of its sins. There is clever magic at work, with the confinement of the story, the characters that follow certain logic, their apt excuse for their actions, and the setting that emphasizes the restraint without overstating. While it is rather off-putting to know that it is a play written by someone who also directed it in theater, who in turn adapted it for the big screen, the competence of the film lets you forget the self-importance. That it is a prizewinning play will also tell you that it is an actor’s film, actors who are sometimes bigger than themselves but nevertheless overwhelming with might. They explode in perfect time, leaving the shrapnel of broken faith. There is always that feeling of guilt, of un-mentioning the unspeakable, of precaution because the unspoken overrules the happening. Nastiness does not exist; it remains where it should belong: in the void of our dark hearts. The heavy rain pours, coming down like it is the last day of earth, and patters against the silk windows of an unsettled religion. It blurs the light of conscience. A rotten weather, a rotten truth. If in the pursuit of wrongdoing, one steps away from god, then we must be in another planet, far off where gods don’t exist, close to where penmanship is, indeed, dying.

Directed by Sam Mendes
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Michael Shannon, Kathy Bates

Richard Yates’ phenomenal novel is meant for Sam Mendes to film. After all, he is neither new to dealing with the complexity of suburban life nor inexperienced in adapting literary works. Both American Beauty and Road to Perdition, I would say, are decent works, which are not disappointing from someone who makes a film every three years and from someone who had his humble beginnings in theater. His films are worth the wait. Revolutionary Road is a daunting challenge, truly the hardest text to translate is the story that looks the easiest, but Mendes has made every second of watching it painfully memorable that I think the greatest honor it can give the book is to oblige the people to read it, and it did, it deservingly did.

It is a work whose ambition lies underneath its sheets. Frank and April Wheeler’s discontentment with their life in a Connecticut suburb stirs them to move to Paris, to lead a future they have always dreamed of, and to do the things they enjoy doing. It is the prospect of an exciting life that keeps them inspired, for Frank wants to feel things, and April wants him to fulfill his dreams, and they don’t want to be just like everyone else. From that battering scene before the title comes in, Mendes has effectively drawn us to their relationship, the fussy arguments they have, the details of their quiet little family, the asphyxiating feel of confinement with consent. A suburban life can never be complete without neighbors, neighbors who barge into your home to tell you about their life, neighbors who accept your offer to have a cup of coffee, neighbors who can change your decisions, alter your thoughts. Mendes knows how to balance his material; he has a clear preference to heightened action, deliberately staging his sequences like a play, his actors pummeling us with calm resistance, their heart-wrenching delivery of pain, their dismissal of chances. The characters cross the screen and walk to us, shaking our wits with the blowing agony of their simple problems, their niceties wrapped in deceiving beams of silence. DiCaprio and Winslet show us the depthless floor of the abyss, exemplary maneuvering us to the hopeless emptiness of their marriage, and make us feel that it really takes plenty of guts to see that hopelessness, that unshared grief. Shannon steals their thunder to extinguish himself; short but hurtfully sweet.

It is clearly a wife’s tale and not a mother’s; in fact Frank and April’s two kids seem non-existent. That’s what impresses me, the concern on the woman as what she is and not on what she has become, that it is possible for her to be her own self, that she can act separately from her duties, that she is not her husband’s loyal servant but his better half, her importance is not emphasized by having children, she is not reduced into being a piece of household furniture. And if love, as Pascal has fittingly observed, has reasons that reason cannot understand, then I believe her death has given her happiness, a happiness that only she can enjoy. Now if you could just let me finish this whiskey with a Prozac, I need my endorphins.

Directed by Stephen Daldry
Cast: Kate Winslet, David Kross, Ralph Fiennes
Based on Bernard Schlink’s novel

Who would have thought that several years after the fall of the Third Reich the pain that has turned into memories, fossilized by time and refreshed by retelling, is still as painful as it was back then? Or perhaps more painful, because it is a pain that never goes away. So how come our writers are immortalizing the pain? How come our filmmakers, almost every year, decide to tell a war story, a painful war story of the Jews who survived the Holocaust? Or Germans who put them to death mercilessly? Are they redeeming themselves? Has it always been a matter of inspiration, of hope, of giving us a view of hell that we do not experience now? To appreciate what we have? To extricate ourselves from guilt and comfort the past for its crime? Daldry’s Reader has not aspired for greatness; I am sure the book has already achieved that. But when a literary text is translated into images and sound, there is an unmistakable partiality on the part of the filmmaker, of the writer, of the actors, of every one involved in the production, to accomplish a certain ideological responsibility that suppresses the pain but in the end always comes off unsuccessful, almost futile. The first half is an excuse to look at passion as an irrepressible weapon of innocence and power. Winslet has always been bold and effectively sensual; anyone who has seen Titanic at least twice may have easily committed to memory how her breasts look like. When she is on her character that dominates, she is a bit shaky, almost unsure of her actions, disturbed and apologetic, you can see in her eyes the past she had tried to avoid. The second half, particularly the trial of Hanna and Michael’s communication with her after she was sentenced to jail, is now an excuse to look at history with emotional significance. Daldry handles it predictably well. The Holocaust is always a reminder of pain; therefore the register of pain is anticipated. I can see it coming, but it becomes a meta-catharsis, with Olin even pointing out that the camps were not therapy; nothing comes out of the camps. Fiennes’ coldness as he keeps his guilt gives a striking contrast to Kross’ passionate youth; it is understandable why Daldry resorts to skipping time frames. It fumbles for sympathy, but what logic does the great extermination can give? Absolution is not decided on earth. Absolution is illusion in itself. People will forget, people will remember. What would you have done? Nothing, because you weren’t there. But the German guilt is shared by everyone,  even the unborn and the illiterate, even the almighty word.

Directed by David Fincher
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Julia Ormond

The trick in film adaptation is not really coming from the material; faithfulness is the trick to beat, for at times being faithful is actually an act of betrayal. In Fincher’s case, it is rather difficult to even call it an adaptation because he has only borrowed Fitzgerald’s premise, nothing else. The period, the feel, the tone, the humor, the dialogues, the excesses, the addition and loss of some characters, the storytelling, the overwhelming effect of witnessing a life – - everything is rewritten to aggrandize an extremely rare case, to let its towering inspiration be shared by everyone, to set an example of a huge anomaly that can also be considered a blessing, to bring out emotions from characters whose situations are far from what we have, to allow us to see life from a different point of view, to appreciate our differences, to reconsider our selves. I dislike the hidden politics of Forrest Gump, so I guess it is quite reasonable to say that the things I don’t like in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button come from Roth. There are some minor glitches, scenes that turn your awe into confusion after kowtowing a few minutes ago. I am happy that Fincher’s influence is more dominant than Roth’s sentimental indulgence, and despite its almost three-hour length the interest never fades; in introducing us to Benjamin, the film has promised to tell us his life from start to finish, his incredible life, larger than everyone’s. We take the predictability for granted because Claudio Miranda is feeding our eyes with breathtaking visuals and Alexandre Desplat’s music, though underused, is giving us the shivers. Brad Pitt has given the best that can be expected from his entire career – - almost flawless – - and even Cate Blanchett acknowledges it. There are moments that I feel myself melting in my seat, like when young Daisy invites old Benjamin under the table and they share a candle, secrets, gazes, an innocence so pure and affecting I wish that fierce woman who reprimands them die at that moment, or when old Daisy visits young Benjamin at his home, alone, losing his memories to dementia, and Daisy carries him, accompanies him outside, they walk, holding hands, looking at each other, and when it is Benjamin’s time to go, he closes his eyes and Daisy looks at him until his last breath, until his very last look of life. Likewise, the telling of Daisy’s accident is purely magical. It is a sad life – - Benjamin’s – - but it is also filled with a unique sorrow and grace that moves you from the deepest pit of your self-serving sadness to the banality of simple existence. The humor and simplicity of Fitzgerald’s short story have also moved me to tears, though in a different way, and are less maudlin in filmic terms. What Fincher did is blow everything up – - so big I feel the film is moving towards me, like the stars and satellites in planetarium.