The 22^nd annual Santa Barbara Film Festival got off to a big start last night. This year there are bigger sponsors (The New Yorker, Chrysler) and big stars (Will, Smith Helen Mirren) and again big lines. Get there early to any shows you want. Today’s hard ticket will be the screening of Borat with special guest Sacha Baron Cohen. He has finished his tour of promoting the film in character and will be their as himself.

Last night at the opener, festival director, Roger Durling challenged the audience to shake off their fears and try new films. Good advice for a film fest. I have found the best tactic is just pick films at random and gamble on new titles. Most of the established films by big studios will be in SB or at least in regular distribution later. I am also gravitate to the shorts programs. This year my short list of short recommendations are: Avatar, Checkpoint, I am an Apartment and Don Hertzfeldt’s new film- Everything Will Be OK.

Children of Men has restored my faith in dystopic Sci-Fi. I haven’t felt this giddy since watching Gaff’s spinner land on the police station in Blade Runner. To be fair, this isn’t REALLY science fiction — it’s not about new technology. But it takes place in the future, and that’s what counts!

Children of Men is wonderfully harsh. Take all the funny out of Brazil and see what you get. It also carries some of the same political weight that V for Vendetta does. But its greatest wealth is sheer filmmaking prowess. Alfonso Cuaron has wrought some of the most delightfully suspenseful scenes I have ever experienced. This fucker knows when to turn the soundtrack off and focus on the terrifying moment of possibility when you see the danger and extrapolate in your mind the only very bad way it can end. And sometimes it doesn’t. Tee-hee!

The other thing that struck me was how much the film reminded me of Half-Life 2, first in setting, and then in the “first person shooter” sense of feeling like what you are experiencing is your own reality. I think the hand-held and Kubrick-length shots played heavily in this. So, uh … yeah. Go see it.

In no particular order here are ten movies that stuck with me this year.

The Proposition: I have never seen the wild frontier actually look like something I had never seen before - like an actual new frontier. This is the loudest and most violent film on the list and has perhaps the best music. Nick Cave’s script of the brutality of the coming of civilization and the wiping out indigenous people is countered by his haunting score.
Borat: Once again, the Thursday night free movie at Comic-Con delivered one of best comedies of the year. I never thought they could top the experience of previewing Shaun of the Dead. I am SO GLAD we didn’t try to leave this movie to sneak into the secret screening of The Fountain.

Slither: Brings the fun back into horror. This has the best balance of quirky gags and jolting thrills I have seen since American Werewolf in London.

Casino Royale: I have never been a Bond fan but this is great ruthless cold action entertainment.

The Good Shepard: The polar opposite of Casino Royale for pace and action - but I think this gives you a possible glimpse into what spying might really be like.

A Scanner Darkly: I was never stoned enough to appreciate Waking Life and I hope I am never stoned enough to identify with Scanner. This is one of the best paranoid adaptations of Philip K. Dick since Blade Runner.
V For Vendetta: Edges out the Donner Homage Superman Returns for comic book adaptation this year. Though it was close.

Pan’s Labyrinth: Dark storytelling - a fable for adults through the eyes of a child. Del Toro is one of the funniest, inspiring and most irreverent guests I have heard at Comic-Con.

Duck Season: Just simple film making and low key humor with a heart.

Little Miss Sunshine: As awkward a family comedy as we are likely to see for a while.

Last year at Thanksgiving my brother threw us all for a loop by giving us an unexpected twist on his traditional soup course. In the past he had wowed and scorched taste buds with fiery bowls of things like curried pumpkin soup but last year he gave us a creamy bowl of chestnut soup. My nephew took a couple spoons of it and wounded his crestfallen pops saying the soup was “subtle.” DJ will recover someday and remember that there is nothing wrong with subtlety. The soup was a rich mix of flavors that melted on the tongue and was incredibly satisfying and yummy. Any one of the ingredients could have overpowered the effect but instead they were there in a perfect blend - subtle and balanced.

The Good Shepard is a sort of chestnut soup movie. It is subtle - some people might say slow but I wouldn’t. It has some of the best actors in the biz delivering their lines way below the radar so that glances and innuendo and repetition of dialog keeps at you with rich little surprises. “What’s your weakness?” A line that is repeated in this film almost as many times as “Look into your heart.” is in Miller’s Crossing. And each time it is delivered in Eric Roth’s great script it has a new resonance. Much like Miller’s Crossing the look here is gorgeous wash of deep browns and lush settings. The power plays that go on in this spy film are not happening at a breakneck Bourne-pace but as a methodically crafted tempo in the halls of Ivy League colleges and secret meeting grounds of the Skull and Bones parties at Deer Island. This is one of those films where Damon could have gone at one of his always just slightly-off accents, De Niro could have phoned in a Jack Byrnes or worse still a Paul Vitti bluster, and even Joe Pesci (in a great cameo) could have reached into his well-used bag of tricks, - but no. De Niro has done an amazing job here with the actors, the look and the story. But I got to warn you it’s subtle. It’s not going to make you jump but it might stick with you as a fine memory.

On the other hand The Good German has an equally strong mix of talent and it goes wrong at almost every step. Soderburgh has been going on and on about using forties cameras and film stocks to recreate the look of films of that era - working with the impossible challenge of the technology - but unfortunately with none of the artistry. If you’ve seen any of the films that this movie leans on so heavily (Casablanca, The Third Man) you will remember how deep their range of tones were from black to grey to white. Here, there is none of that. Far too many shots are so far overblown in their exposure they look like bad digital images. There is no depth to the dark city nights and so creeping around Berlin has no real threat. And none of the actors (talented though they might be) seem right. Not Maguire as the violent scheming Milo Minderbinder-like grifter or Clooney as the love-struck patsy. And even Thomas Newman decided it was time to pull out all the orchestral stops so that in every scene the score swells and calls attention to itself when it shouldn’t. And maybe that’s the heart of what is wrong with this film it feels like it every aspect of it wants to stand out on its own and not really mix into the whole big picture.

The two films are interesting companion pieces - two very different approaches to looking at America going in and out of World War II getting ready to carve up the post-war world, but somewhere along the way all the talent that Hollywood could muster created one Ocean’s Eleven and one Ocean’s Twelve during the same holiday season.

Talented young comic actor Zac Palladino (Take it to the Fridge, coming soon to a film festival near you), is also an animator. His most recent work Giants, is up on youtube. It has that haunting Miyazaki feel to it.