New Yorker film critic David Denby prefaced his list of his favorite films of the year with a tidbit about Boston on film. Denby wrote:

“In recent American movies, Boston—not New York, not Chicago, not Los Angeles, but Boston—has provided the significant setting and a special urban music of slang, oaths, nostalgia, taunts, affection. The cycle of Boston films began, in 1997, with “Good Will Hunting,” which was written by its stars, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who were childhood friends in Cambridge. Dennis Lehane’s soulful Boston thrillers have served as the basis of Clint Eastwood’s masterpiece, “Mystic River” (2003) and Affleck’s directing début, “Gone Baby Gone” (2007). The Boston screenwriter William Monahan wrote “The Departed” (2006), in which Mark Wahlberg, from Dorchester, appears in a supporting role as a fast-talking cop; Wahlberg now stars in “The Fighter,” set in Lowell, just to the northwest of Boston, as the real-world boxer and welter-weight champ Mickey Ward. Earlier this year, Affleck appeared as a Charlestown bank robber in “The Town,” his second film as director, and he plays one of the local executives who get whacked by a downsizing Boston conglomerate in the new “Company Men.” That’s seven major films. Now, you could say that the entire phenomenon is sparked by Bostonian male stars. True, of course, but Affleck, Damon, and Wahlberg wouldn’t get money for these films from the hardnoses of Hollywood finance if the movies weren’t expected to resonate around the rest of the country. So what is the source of Boston’s appeal? All these movies are about white working-class ethnics—Irish Catholics, in particular—who can talk a blue streak, and all of them are about men and women in clans. Families, friends, neighbors. The clan makes you and it threatens to destroy you, and for the heroes (who are all male—Arise, ye daughters of Hibernia!), the question becomes: Do I leave or do I stay? Do I let the clan define me or must I strike out on my own? And for the rest of us, the question might be: Is this neighborhood and ethnic solidarity not only a celebration, an atmosphere of terrific rough talk and family warmth, but a shudder of anticipation, a last united stand in multicultural America?”

A timely question–one I’ll certainly be thinking about. The only shudder here is that Boston becomes, in Denby’s eyes, the last refuge of white America. We all know Boston has a tremendous reputation for racism–but more so than L.A., New York, or Chicago? If Denby wants someone in Boston to make Crash, he shouldn’t insult our intelligence. Even Shaq happily calls Boston home (this is a petty point, I know). And though the whiteys of The Fighter certainly come out clan-like, they’re worlds away from the people in Company Men or even Good Will Hunting. Boston is also home to the highest concentrated number of Brazilians outside of Brazil, another sign on if tremendous diversity which hasn’t yet seen the light of the camera or projector. Yet how right–despite how narrow–Denby’s analysis is will be shaken slightly off balance, I expect, by other films from The Hub, as the city continues its on-screen ascent.

True Grit,

My previous opinions on this blog can attest to my cagey relationship with the Coen Brothers. Some films—like The Big Lebowski—stand out as undeniably great, while others—anything from Miller’s Crossing to No Country for Old Men—seem a little too content with their supposed perfection for me to find them genuinely good. True Grit, though, appears to demonstrate a new direction for the Coen Brothers. I remember watching A Serious Man and thinking the only character in the film for which the Coens felt any semblance of genuine interest was the son. If he was the only character they cared about, why wasn’t he the focus of the film?

In True Grit—to which, I will readily admit, I was drawn because honestly who doesn’t want to see Jeff Bridges in everything at this point—the Coens manage to construct a film around a character for whom they genuinely care. The catch is that that character isn’t Bridges’ Rooster Cogburn; instead, it’s Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), the fourteen years aged Old West control freak out for revenge.

Mattie manages and propels the narrative, and for two hours True Grit never misses a beat. The story builds gently to its moving crescendo. The film takes its time, never folding back onto eye-rolling irony (again, how clever) or the cute, winking cuts that characterize their other films. The narrative of True Grit moves forward without any sense of the Coens’ Kubrickian disdain for the world of the film itself, which crystallizes in a perfection that some admire and others, like myself, can’t stand. Cogburn, too, doesn’t decay into the kind of personage into which you’d expect the Coens to transform him. On the sidelines, Matt Damon’s absurdly straight-laced Texas Ranger La Boeuf emerges out relatively unscathed by Joel and Ethan’s infinitely irritating irreverence, while Josh Brolin manages a deliciously rough and vile Western villain.

Here in the West, too, the Coen’s persistent and enjoyable interest in the bizarre—sometimes the downright ugly and appalling—finds a comfortable home in the mythology of our beloved frontier. From the strange doctor riding the Indian territories wearing a bearskin, to the sideshow-high forehead on a particularly short member of Lucky Ned Pepper’s outlaw gang, there’s always something to glance askew at. But in the weirdness of the Western, the Coens get tamed without losing their balls.

There’s more than a little of my bias here: I love Westerns, and I’m glad that the Coen Brothers saw fit to make a genuine Western as opposed to infuse their own irritating pseudo-stylistics into a Western formula, like they did in No Country for Old Men. What’s masterful about True Grit—and what, to me at least, is entirely new about it—is its tenderness. It comes out not only in Rooster’s tenderness for Mattie, or Mattie’s for him, but in the feel of the film itself: the smooth, round light that shines through the windows of the West; or how big and starry the sky looks, or, most movingly, when the Coens finally return to the beauty of rear-projection at the film’s climax. The melancholy of the film’s finale, too, which shows the West’s descent into an Americana traveling circus, is entirely new to the Coen Brothers. It all comes out like a love letter—something I never knew they could write.

They came out about a week ago, but if you haven’t already watched them — you should.  In an absolute stroke of brilliance, The New York Times Magazine decided to get fourteen A-list actors in front of a camera for short, silent single-take scenes.  It’s called “Fourteen Actors Acting“. (Click the link to follow to it.)

For all of you that went through film school — especially working with a Bolex and 16mm B&W Reversal — a lot of these will feel familiar in the best way.  They’re just like those exercises and assignments you had to suffer through while trying to get a grasp on the medium, the ones you overexposed or had your actor-friend drop out at the last minute only to be replaced with your roommate’s drunk friend — only these are perfect little exercises, perfect little displays, and fourteen actors — including Matt Damon, James Franco, Chloe Moretz, Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem and Tilda Swinton — who all seem to understand how less translates to more.

They can remind you why you like this crazy stuff in the first place.

After a record-setting year at the box office, what can we expect in 2010? More of the same. Don’t expect Hollywood to surprise us when things are going so well. Expect more 3D, more talking CGI animals, more lame comedies/soft dramas starring Sandra Bullock.

Not that I’m cynical.

Seriously, there are some really interesting projects set to premiere in 2010. Here is what I’m most excited to see:

Green Zone (March) The Bourne Occupation. Based on the nonfiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Matt Damon searches for WMDs right before the surge of troops in Iraq. Judging from Paul Greengrass’ non-Bourne outings (United 93, Bloody Sunday), expect a meticulously-researched, taut thriller.  Not to be confused with Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg, out the same week.

Iron Man 2 (May) The exception to the unfortunate-sequel rule: sequels to superhero movies are generally bigger, badder, and bolder than their originals. The principal cast and crew is back and they’ve nabbed Mickey Rourke. The biggest movie of the year, and for good reason.

Inception (July) How do you follow up after making one of the most successful blockbusters–financially and critically–in history (The Dark Knight)? Use the new, expanded resources the studios are now willing to give you to return to your roots. This sci-fi, potentially time-travelling story (the press and trailers are vague) suggest Memento for Imax. Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page (!) star.

The Green Hornet (December) Michel Gondry, Seth Rogen superhero adaptation, just in time for Christmas, written by the scribes of Superbad and Pineapple Express. Could be all wrong, or just right. I’ll bank on the latter.

The Tree of Life (TBA) Terrence Malick makes films every half decade, if that. This generational epic, originally titled Q, has been in the works for 30 years. Brad Pitt and Sean Penn star. Expect something interesting, if not magnificent, with a pervertedly long running time.

The Beaver (TBA) A year ago, the script of “The Beaver” was number one on an “official” list of best unproduced screenplays. This quirky portrait of a CEO who suffers a mental breakdown and, following, can only communicate through use of a beaver puppet, originally had Steve Carrell attached but now has (gulp) Mel Gibson. I couldn’t think of a more fitting comeback.

The First Gun (TBA) The director of Hero and House of Flying Daggers remakes the Coen Bros’ Blood Simple for the Mandarin-speaking crowd. Hey, we do it all the time to them. Here is some sweet vengeance.

Black Swan (TBA) Darren Aronofsky’s psychological ballet thriller. Yeah, I know. I can’t wait either.

Life During Wartime (TBA) Todd Solondz’s sequel to 1998′s great dark comedy Happiness has already made the festival circuit to generally positive reviews. Apparently, it’s more talk-heavy and politically overt than his previous films. Suitably, it’s named after a Talking Heads song.

Rabbit Hole (TBA) John Cameron Mitchell has proven he’s capable of stage-to-screen adaptations. In this one, Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart star as a couple dealing with the death of their 4-year-old. Decidedly less wacky than Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Films by Stephen Soderbergh fall into two categories—those like Ocean’s 11 that immerse themselves in the high sheen of Hollywood (even when the luster is dark, like Erin Brockovitch), and those like Ocean’s 12, which seem irritated that a place like Hollywood exists at all. The Informant! seems more the latter, though its anger is more focused and smaller.