Frost/Nixon:

I've always found Richard Nixon to be intriguing.  He's the rare president who shows his flaws right on the surface.  We all know about his paranoia, ego, and ambition.  It's rare to see anything positive about him.  But Frost/Nixon feels like the rare film that portrays both his flaws and his strengths.  He's a larger than life figure, but also very human.  It's a shame that it couldn't have been done in a more cinematic style.

Frost/Nixon picks up right at the end of the Nixon presidency.  The first time we see Nixon (Frank Langella) is when he's addressing the nation, about to resign.  People all over the world are watching on television, including talk show host David Frost (Michael Sheen), who decides he wants to interview Nixon.  He, along with his producer John Birt (Matthew Macfayden), assembles a research team (Oliver Platt and Sam Rockwell), and begins to pursue the interview.  He has to pay an astronomical amount of money for the interview ($600,000), even though no network will show it, so he has to find sponsorship.  All while preparing to battle it out against a notoriously hard interview subject.

The entire film is framed by faux talking head interviews with the secondary characters (Macfayden, Platt, Rockwell and Kevin Bacon among others) talking about what everyone was thinking during the interview process.  I found the interview segments very distracting, taking me completely out of the film without adding anything of value.  I imagine that they were added to make what's essentially a filmed version of the play more cinematic.  They were completely ineffective in that regard.  Things felt just as staged even with them added in.  Ron Howard just doesn't add anything especially interesting visually.  It's competent work, but nothing great.

What really carries the film is the performances.  Frank Langella is extremely good as Nixon.  At first, it seemed like he was doing an imitation nearing on parody, but he quickly convinced me that it was a textured, deep performance.  I've never seen anyone come close to playing Nixon as well as Langella did.  Sheen does some very good work in the much less flashy role of Frost.  He holds his own in scenes with Langella.  The supporting cast is excellent.  Sam Rockwell gives an over looked and under appreciated performance.  If he wasn't completely over shadowed by Langella's Nixon I would think that he'd get some awards consideration.

Frost/Nixon is a good film, even with its flaws, but I can't help thinking that it was an even better play.  I would like the chance to find out, shame that the play isn't running anymore.  It isnt' one of the 10 best films of 2008, let alone 5 best, but it's worth seeing for the performances.

Grade: B+

Burma VJ:

In the fall of 2007 a small film about an underground journalist working in Burma became something much greater as Buddhist monks led the largest protests in decades against the military regime of the country.  Burma VJ tells the story of the uprising and the reporters of the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) in getting the information outside of the country and to the rest of the world.  Everything comes from the point of view of "Joshua" a reporter in Rangoon who, once he's compromised, goes to Thailand to coordinate the reporters inside Burma and send the information they're getting him along to the DVB broadcast office in Oslo, Norway and to the world media.

Burma VJis not an easy film to watch.  It's almost entirely shot with hand-held, low resolution cameras.  Often the reporter is running away, or trying to hide the camera in a bag, which makes for somewhat of a nausea inducing experience at time.  But this is the best footage that exists of what happened in Burma last September.  Anything else would be impossible.  Even with the shaky cam, the story carries the film through.  It has important things to say about democracy, free speech and the courage to act upon your ideals.

It's amazing to be on the ground, amongst thousands of monks as they march through the streets of Rangoon, in direct defiance of the government.  It's like being transported right into the middle of a political or spy thriller.  You're constantly worried about what will happen to the reporters, and the people with them.  Will they be arrested, or even killed?  It's much more exciting than most Hollywood thrillers, and it's all real.

Burma VJsheds light on events, and the situation in Burma, that most people have already forgotten about, or at least have stopped thinking about (I know I had) with style and excitement.  It really leaves you charged up to want to do something to help the DVB.

Grade: B+

Prom Night in Mississippi:

In 2008 Morgan Freeman went to the administration of the high school in his home town of Charleston, Mississippi and offered to pay for their senior prom, but only if it would be the school's first integrated prom.  Unlike in 1997, when he made the offer and it was ignored, they accepted and agreed to integrate the prom.  The classrooms had be integrated for decades, but they had always had segregated proms.  Prom Night in Mississippi follows the students as they plan and prepare for the dance.  We get to see them stress about everything any other teenager would stress about, "Who will I go with?", "What will I wear?" and everything else, with the added pressure of worrying about what their parents will think if they go with someone outside their race or if the community will support the prom.

It's an amazingly well made film.  Beautifully shot, with a real sense of style (though the animated sequences didn't really work for me).  It has a lot of energy and heart even while dealing with such weighty matters as prejudice and race relations.  You really get to know the group of students that the film focuses on, living through their day to day worries and joys.  They really seem to be enjoying themselves and having a great time (and the kid with two dates to prom is hilarious).  The problem has never really been the students, they're generally comfortable with people of other races.  The problem was always really parents and administrators.

I really enjoyed Prom Night in Mississippi.  It had a generally light hearted way of dealing with weighty subject matter.  It wasn't the greatest thing in the world, but it was fun and insightful.

Grade: B+

Milk:

Or, How a Gay Man Stood Up For His Rights and Started a Movement

Could there have been a more timely year to release Milk than 2008?  I think you'd have a hard time finding one.  From the battle over Proposition 8in California (greatly resembling Harvey Milk's (Sean Penn) fight against Prop 6 in 1978, excepting the outcome) to the election of Barack Obama, who's words on hope echo those of Harvey Milk:

"...you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right."

It's the spirit of this hope for a better tomorrow that gives Milk its greatest strength.  It would be easy to take the subject matter (fighting for gay rights) and become over the top preachy, but Milkmanages to avoid that trap (at least most of the time), by grounding everything in characters, and the relationships between them.  Even the characters in opposition to Harvey's cause have enough humanity in them to not be complete villains.  Harvey's murderer, Supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin), isn't the caricature of the evil, bigot and Harvey isn't a saint.  The film is hopeful, but still realistic.  I was impressed.

The scoring:

Writing:

It's great work that finds the humanity in Harvey, while still giving time to his cause.  The dialogue is very good and the characters are well written.  Using Harvey's final speech as a framing device for his life story was a brilliant idea that let the film cover disparate time periods without losing a narrative flow.  Great stuff.  0.85/1

Directing:

Gus Van Zant has a flair for interesting visuals.  There's a very off the cuff, naturalistic style here that really integrates the stock footage with the rest of the film.  It feels almost like a documentary, without becoming distracting.  I found myself particularly struck with the scenes where the camera would stay with one character, whether they were talking or not.  This lack of traditional coverage really let the performances shine.  I found the pacing to be just a touch slow, but that could just be my overall lack of patience.  0.9/1

Acting:

It's a great cast led by an amazing performance from Sean Penn.  I think that it's his best work ever.  He lost himself so completely in the character that I forgot that it was Sean Penn.  Which is quite the accomplishment at this point.  Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, Alison Pill and James Franco turn in fantastic supporting work.  I was especially impressed with Brolin and Franco.  They've both been consistently good in everything the last couple years.  0.9/1

Technical:

The period design was excellent.  Things looked just like the 1970s.  I really loved all the location work in San Francisco, especially in the Castro.  It would have just been impossible to recreate the look and feel of the place anywhere else.  0.7/1

History:

I imagine that it will garner itself a bunch of award nominations, possibly some wins.  A steller film about a slain civil rights leader will have a long shelf life.  0.6/1

Entertainment:

It's a fairly long film, and kind of slow, but I quite enjoyed it.  It would never be something you'd just put in for some mindless fun, because it isn't exactly fun.  Though it does have a great sense of humor.  It's interesting and thoughful.  0.8/1

Misc.:

0.1 for the jokes that are in the trailer.  Things like "but we sure keep trying" and such.  Even though I'd already seen them quite a few times, I still laughed.  0.1 for the marches.  They really felt like a political march.  0.1 for the birthday parties.  It's interesting to see how they evolved over time.

Overall: 5.05/6.8

It's one of the better films of the year, I definitely recommend it.