A fitting finale for a beloved franchise

With their combat grips, bendable poses, interchangeable outfits and intricate moving parts, toys shepherd us from infants into teens. We grow attached to these bits of molded plastic, so much so that they become ingrained in our memories as much as specific events or people.

That is the theme of Toy Story 3. That’s been the theme throughout all the Toy Story films, but in this third one it’s expanded on and deepened to a level where it becomes a meditation on childhood. No longer a child, Andy, the owner of all the fantastic Toy Story toys, has grown up and is heading off to college. As he cleans his room one last time, he finds his old toys stuffed in a chest. He looks down at them longingly, cherishing them for the memories they evoke. There’s a scene where the toys plan an intricate cell phone trick to lure Andy to the chest in hopes he plays with them one last time. Watch the one toy as he clings to the phone, aching as Andy seems to talk directly to him through the receiver.

Later, as college beckons, Andy bags the toys up to stow them in the attic, perhaps for his own children one day. This saddens the toys, especially cowboy Woody (Tom Hanks) and space ranger Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), but Andy cares about them enough to save them from the garbage and, “At least we have each other,” they keep saying.

The plot allows the bag to be misplaced and it ends up in a donation bin heading to a day care center, where they meet lots of new toys, some kind and gentle, and others that are cold and manipulative. They also meet their new owners, toddlers still prone to stick things up their noses and cause other variations of toy nightmares — at one point cowgirl Jessie has her beautiful red-yarn ponytail used as a paintbrush. The day care that had looked so promising is more like a prison sentence, which prompts some Great Escape and Cool Hand Luke references — "Not in your bunk by lights out, you spend a night in the box." — eventually leading up to a lengthy jailbreak sequence that becomes more terrifying with every twist and turn.

Under all this, though, there’s an underlying theme of sadness, the kind that comes when people grow up and have to shed the things of their youth. There is an unmistakable innocence when a child plays with a toy — the smile and the laughter are so pure and genuine. And when the toys are gone, it’s time to grow up and some of the innocence is gone. Woody craves that again. It hurts to watch him crave it. Pixar, the animation company behind the Toy Story franchise, are expert storytellers, and the scenes they’ve created (Jessie's Emily sequence from Toy Story 2, the aging montage in Up, the love story in WALL•E) are some of the most poignant and heartfelt in all of cinema. They create another in Toy Story 3, when the toys embrace their destiny and join hands in a final act of friendship. It’s one of the most heartbreaking and touching moments of any Pixar film. In the end we all want to be loved, even toys.

As for the nuts and bolts, Toy Story 3 is simply spectacular. The animation is breathtaking, with colors splashing from the screen in mesmerizing Technicolor waves. The animation is so detailed and brilliant, it seems impossible that it was even made. Watch how Woody runs down the street in a full gallop, with arms flailing and legs pounding the concrete. The lighting is especially brilliant, with each scene being cast in lovely lunar blues, soft greens or rich, warm reds evoking the golden beams of a sunset.

The voice acting is again top-notch, and all the regulars return. I never tire of Tom Hanks’ voice, nor the voices of Wallace Shawn (Rex), Pixar regular John Ratzenberger (Hamm) or, my favorite, Don Rickles (Mr. Potato Head). Slinky Dog returns, but Jim Varney, who passed away in 2000, does not. There’s an extended sequence where Buzz Lightyear’s factory settings are reset and he speaks in Spanish, which should be interesting in Arizona, a state trying its hardest to silence that wonderful language.

New characters join the cast, too, including a fashion-conscious (and very metrosexual, if not homosexual) Ken doll (Michael Keaton), a purple teddy bear who runs a toy chest like Chairman Mao (Ned Beatty), a wily little triceratops, and a lederhosen-wearing hedgehog named Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton). Some of the new characters are toys that belong to cute little girl Bonnie, who’s animated so perfectly you’d swear you were watching a real toddler. (And speaking of Bonnie, would it be unfair to wonder aloud if she's a slightly older Boo from Monster's Inc.? I think not.)

As always, Pixar’s creativity, inventiveness and sense of humor are ever present, too. Watch how the more mature toys play roulette — with a See ’n Say (Toy: “Five Monopoly dollars on ‘The cow says moo’”). Or when Mr. Potato Head transplants all his parts onto a flour tortilla and then flops around during the jailbreak. The opening scene, which mirrors the opening of the original Toy Story, imagines the dreams and playfulness of the child's mind. Great care was taken to craft these characters, the things they say and do, and the plot that contains all of them.

This series didn’t need a finale. But now that it’s here I can’t imagine it ending any other way. Pixar, with Toy Story and all its other films, has found a way to take the human spirit and transfer it into objects as inanimate as plastic toy cowboys. While watching their films we see fish, monsters, bugs, robots and cars, but what we're really watching up there is us. We’re watching humanity play out in miniature. And for us to grow so fond of these fish, these monsters, these bugs and robots — and yes, these toys — then Pixar has truly done something beyond remarkable.

Ebert, gaming, Panic and other randomness

Greetings to the many new readers of Pick-Up Flix after yesterday's surprise and welcome Tweet by movie critic and born-again blogger Roger Ebert. Strange enough, he didn't mention the item I thought he was most likely to mention, which was my defense for his video game blog — it's the post right below this one. Instead he plugged my review of A Town Called Panic (two posts below), which he saw months ago and also loved. Not long after Ebert's post, Zeitgeist Films also Tweeted my Panic review, which was another welcome surprise. Many thanks to Zeitgeist and Roger — they've made this writer ecstatic. (They've also made this writer use the verb "tweet" several times, which is several times too many.)

Lastly, I hate to beat a dead horse here, but my page designer and I were still arguing about this video game art topic when something struck me that seemed profound at the time. It will be my last word on the subject. Anyway, I kept thinking of these video game fans and I wondered what other kinds of art they had experienced. Not to generalize, but I kept thinking that the only other artistic mediums they had experimented with were video games, comic books, Star Wars and Japanese anime. No paintings, no poetry, no architecture, no sculptures, no great works of literature. Surely someone on that diet could not tell anyone else what is and is not art. Then this Robin Williams quote from Good Will Hunting seemed to descend from the clouds in a magnificent halo of blinding light. The scene comes at a turning point in the film, when Williams (as Sean) confronts Matt Damon (as genius Will) in a park about his attitude toward people, knowledge, life and, yes, art.

Sean: Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me … fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me?

Will: No.

Sean: You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talkin' about.

Will: Why thank you.

Sean: It's all right. You've never been out of Boston.

Will: Nope.

Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations … the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "Once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you … I don't see an intelligent, confident man … I see a cocky, scared-shitless kid. But you're a genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right?

[Will nods]

Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally … I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that, do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

This single scene probably won Williams the supporting actor Academy Award in 1997, and probably helped win Damon and Ben Affleck the original screenplay Oscar. Not all of it applies to my point, but the part about art, love and war do. If life is a video game, then gamers should acquire a certain amount of XP before they can comment definitively about art. After these gamers live full lives, and possibly experience other mediums of art, maybe they'll feel differently about video games. Or maybe they'll feel the same. Either way, it hardly matters because Yahtzee is right: what is and isn't art is entirely up to the individual looking at it, or playing it.

Video games aren't art ... yet

Roger Ebert, you gotta love him.

Here he is in the worst physical shape of his life following a tremendous (and victorious) battle with cancer and the many surgeries that have left him unable to speak, and yet he’s at his writing peak, churning out movie review after movie review and writing some of the most thoughtful prose of his career on his blog, one of the smartest and most insightful on the entire Internet.

First he angered creationists by rebuking their need to have the “science” of creationism taught in school. Then he turned his guns on Glenn Beck, who he said any rational human being, Republican or Democrat, should despise. Then he outed himself as a longtime Alcoholics Anonymous member, an AA no-no.

And that’s how it goes; nothing’s really off limits: health care death panels, new-age medicine, the “festering fringe” of the anti-Obama movement and textbooks in Texas. He also talks about nice, happy things, like memories of his father, the Champaign-Urbana neighborhood he grew up in, stories of his late reviewing buddy Gene Siskel. But the meat and potatoes of his blog are really his careful articulation of controversial subjects.

Last week, Ebert posted a blog titled bluntly, “Video games can never be art.” And then, seemingly, the world lit on fire and started plunging toward the sun … at least according to every video game fanboy with an Internet connection. This group of people, bless their heart, don’t hear “no” very often judging by the anger exhibited in their responses. The largely anonymous group of game junkies will convict you of blasphemy if you don’t show pious respect to Mario, Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog or Master Chief. And boy did they convict Roger.

Nearly overnight, the article tallied up more than 1,600 comments, 98 percent of them in strong disagreement of Ebert’s assertion that video games will never be art. (Comments now number more than 3,500.) Ebert argued: “Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.”

One assumption that gamers make, one they get all wrong, is that Ebert says all films are art. Nope. He said film as a medium is an art form, although most films are not art. For example, Armageddon is not art, although cinema as a medium surely is. He does suggest (through consistent reading of his work) some films that can be classified as art — many of Ingmar Bergman’s films such as Cries and Whispers, works by Akira Kurosawa, last year’s Synecdoche, New York, or Michael Haneke’s Caché — for the way they examine the intricacies of the human condition. I agree with his assessment of film as an artistic medium, the same way I agree that hip-hop is an art form, although I can’t name you one Ghostface song that should be comparable to the works of Monet or Mozart. On the same plank, video games as a medium surely can be art, though no game yet has exemplified itself as art.

Although Ebert’s entire argument is critically flawed since he apparently has never actually played a video game, he still brings up some valid points, like why do video game fans feel that they must have their time-sucking hobby validated — “Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form.” He suggests they keep playing with his blessing, as they surely will.

What he really brings up, though, especially later in his replies to comments, is the nature of art: What is art, and what isn’t art? By and large, video game enthusiasts feel that (a) if it’s beautiful it’s art, like Flower, a game where you play as a flower petal and blow through grassy fields. (b) If it includes a moving story it’s art, like Bioshock a retro sci-fi shooter set in an underwater world. (c) If a game gives the player choices it’s art, like Heavy Rain a cinematic murder mystery. (d) Or if the puzzles require comprehension at an advanced level then it’s art, like Braid, a Mario-like platformer where the player can manipulate time. Gamers also argue that any combination of these attributes makes a game art.

Surely some games are beautiful, some games are challenging, some have involving stories and well-written characters, and some are created by visual artists of the highest caliber. But these alone don’t make a game a piece of art, or more specifically, a piece of fine art. This is where Ebert got it right even if there is a growing movement of people who will call anything art, from their ergonomic desk to their kitchen toaster. No, art shouldn't be so exclusionary that nothing is art, but it also shouldn't include everything because then it yields the same result — nothing is art. Ebert simply suggested we demand more than health bars and ammo packs from artwork.

I think art has to stir something deeper in the soul than just beauty, or invigorate the brain with something more than just puzzles. I think art must speak to elements of the human spirit, examining who we are at our core. A movie like Synecdoche, New York surely does that. The works of Picasso do too. As does Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright’s fusion of architecture and nature. But Halo 3? It’s closer than most video games, but still has some distance to climb to reach the lofty pedestal of fine art.

Gamers need to be realistic: Yes, games like Halo 3, Bioshock, Heavy Rain, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, God of War III, Flower and Braid are fun, and they also look amazing, but what do they say about us as a people or civilization? At their core, games are about jumping and shooting — essentially mashing buttons on a controller — to beat the boss and win. Some games stray from that formula, but usually not far.

If I must label anything in the gaming community art I lean toward the sandbox gaming of products — I use the word “products” intentionally — like Grand Theft Auto IV. No, I don’t think the game itself is art, but I think the way it provides an open world and then allows the players to interact with it is more artistic than anything mentioned in the Ebert blog comments. Players are given a sandbox to explore. Some do just that, explore; others get in a car and mow down pedestrians with reckless cruelty.The player’s identity is reflected in the way they play the game the same way viewers are reflected in perplexing ways in Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park, in Ebert’s own city of Chicago. Of course, a game like GTAIV would be more artful with just a city and the tools in which to realistically interact with it, but the designers give players missions, objectives and storylines, which then dilutes the artistry of the open-world choices. Other games, like Heavy Rain, give the illusion of choice, but really the formula has already been written. These sandbox games, though, really do give freedom in a digital world teeming with life.

The bigger question is this: Who said video games wanted to be art? The Rolling Stones never sat around whining that they weren’t art. They wanted to be rock’n’rollers, and they wore that title like a badge of honor. Video games should be happy to be bad-ass shooters, or sleek ultra-modern adventure thrillers, or perplexing visual riddles. I can admit, at least, that video games can be art, which is more than Ebert is willing to admit. The medium is full of artistic opportunities. We just haven’t seen any yet. And if Ebert’s debate does anything, then it should challenge video game designers to think on a higher plane, to design a game worthy of the Louvre or the Met, not just the TV rooms of every 14-year-old with idle thumbs.

In this town, Panic is the name and currency

In a single breath A Town Called Panic is a genius of absurdity and also a whimsical farce. The fact that it stars characters named Horse, Cowboy and Indian — and they are played by little plastic toys in the shapes of a horse, cowboy and indian — adds to its unmistakably zesty magic. How, you will ask yourself, did adults channel their inner 5-year-olds to make this? I’m still pondering that question myself.

Indian and Cowboy decide one day to build Horse a barbecue — why a horse would want to barbecue anything is charmingly never explained — so they get online and order 50 bricks. But due to a computer typo, 50 million bricks are delivered. The delivery trucks number so many that they create a roaring stream of traffic near Cowboy and Indian’s farm. With a mountain of bricks outside the front door, now the two friends must hide their mistake from Horse, who is smarter and more mature than both of his roommates. Where they hide the bricks, of course, is impossible, but it's hilarious they're not noticed sooner.

I love that plot. I especially love telling people that plot, because it prompts all kinds of questions, some more absurd than the film itself: Why celebrate a horse’s birthday? Aren’t cowboys and indians typically rivals? Wouldn’t their credit card be declined before ever successfully ordering 50 million bricks? Questions like this are valid, until you see A Town Called Panic, and then you realize that nothing quite lines up in the nutty meringue of the film’s delivery.

What a wacky movie this is. It comes from Belgium, based off a world created in several shorts by the film’s directors, Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar, who also do some character voices. The voice acting is French, but the English subtitles are hilarious on their own — Horse, for instance, frequently says, “No probs” to things that most farm animals would definitely have cause for concern.

Panic is shot in the most rudimentary style of stop-motion animation, though the film’s blissful mood is so contagious you won’t much care that the movements aren’t completely smooth. Many of the characters stand on the little plastic platforms that keep some toys from tipping over. The film assumes we know this, and it gets a laugh out of us, as does nearly every visual, from the enormous waffles in the vending machines to the lava spewing from cell phones.

I’ve explained the bricks, and how Horse, Indian and Cowboy live together on a farm — though Horse lives indoors, uses the Internet, reads the newspaper and has his own bed, while the slightly dumber cows graze in an adjacent field without complaint — though there’s so much more to it. Like how the trio journey to the center of the earth to play cards on a rock teetering above the molten core. Or how they encounter a giant robot penguin whose main purpose is to hurl snowballs on unsuspecting creatures hundreds of miles away. Or how a disco is held where the postman (Postman), local law enforcement (Policeman), various farm animals and a red tractor can party on a lighted dancefloor. How and why these and many other hilarious antics happen I will let you discover; just know that it all proceeds in this refreshingly illogical kind of stupor.

A Town Called Panic is not playing anywhere near where you’re reading this article, unless you happen to be in Europe or perhaps near several obscure theaters in California or New York. Why offer a review of a film you have no chance of seeing until its DVD release, you ask? Because I want A Town Called Panic to showcase the talent and originality that comes wrapped inside film festivals. I saw Panic at the Phoenix Film Festival this past weekend. It was the 10:15 p.m. screening Friday night. I think 11 people were in the theater. And we all surrendered ourselves to this charming, nonsensical movie.

The Phoenix Film Festival is not the greatest of film festivals. It’s certainly no Cannes, Toronto or Sundance. But what it does exceptionally well is introduce new films — even new kinds of films — to audiences that would otherwise be unable to see them. Only a handful of people in this state were able to experience the giddy magic of A Town Called Panic. Next year, when I see another gem, I want there to be more than 11 people enjoying it with me.

Where is the Wonder in this dark land?

Tim Burton’s library must be a mess. A long time ago he reached for Alice in Wonderland on a shelf and inadvertently grabbed a Chronicles of Narnia. That accident is preserved for us in his charmless and vapid retelling of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, a book far wittier than Tim Burton’s version will allow us to believe.

If you recall, Carroll’s book was about a girl encountering, via rabbit hole, a dream-like repertory of silliness: absurdist wordplay, nonsensical double-talk, riddling puns and punning riddles, and bizarre tests of logic. It’s no wonder the drug culture of the ’60s seized on the elements of the story for their hallucinogenic properties (see Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”).

But Burton, master of all of things gothic and ghouly for suicidal emo-inflicted adolescents, deviates around much of Alice’s central themes so he can, of all things, create a clunky fantasy-adventure in the spirit of Lord of the Rings or one of the Narnia movies, complete with magical swords, talking animals, epic army battles and the required dragon slaying. And, as if to add injury to insult, I found Mad Hatter Johnny Depp, Burton’s favorite muse, to be an absolute bore.

And it started so promising, too, with young Mia Wasikowska as the domineering, free-spirited Alice fleeing a marriage proposal and tumbling down that famous rabbit hole into the fantastic world of Wonderland. Although Alice spends a ridiculous amount of time shrinking and enlarging into and out of her dress — I hope those hems are reinforced — she’s a plucky heroine who’s given a curiosity level proportionate to that of Wonderland’s unusual oddities.

And there are many oddities. Consider Tweedledee and Tweedledum (both played by Matt Lucas), who are so round and doughy that a pizza chef might cover them with flour and flatten them. All of Carroll’s other creations are accounted for as well: the hookah-smoking caterpillar, the army of playing cards (shouldn't the villain be the Ace of Spades?), flamingos and hedgehogs that complete a croquet set, a slippery and evaporating Cheshire Cat, and the White Rabbit, who to my recollection never says “We’re late.”

Dare I forget Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, whose role is enlarged needlessly to give Depp the screen time his audience feels he deserves. Depp — cowering behind a silly lisp, a Carrot Top fright wig and what must be gallons of makeup — does nothing for the story outside of his tea party scene, and even there he’s pushing it as he stomps over the teapots and dodges thrown saucers. Yes, the Burton/Depp legacy goes way back, but after this and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, maybe it’s time for the pair to work apart more often.

The world of Wonderland, which looks a lot like Avatar’s Pandora because they were designed by some of the same people, is gloomy and dark even as plants with neon blooms and glowing mushrooms drape the scenery. Blame the 3-D process, which makes the picture dark and muddy and then requires audiences to wear sunglasses to view it. Even a bright movie like Up was dimmed by the 3-D glasses, so a trademark Burton film is turned hopelessly murky for a 3-D effect that wasn’t even that noticeable. If you have an option, see Alice in regular ol’ 2-D.

The first half of the film seems to function as we remember the book and the other films functioning: Alice is sucked into Wonderland where she reacts to the strangeness around her with her quirky intelligence and innocence. Toward the middle of Burton’s film, though, he turns it into a fantasy adventure by requiring Alice to rescue characters from dungeons and slay monsters with special swords. It’s as if Burton felt obligated to keep his Alice in Wonderland from being too smart for its own good, so he threw in some battles and chases. Shame on directors for thinking that’s what’s needed in any film.

Driving home the third act is Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, whose head is as abnormally large as her temper. Out of self-pity and jealousy of her sister, the White Queen — a goth-accented Anne Hathaway — the Red Queen is determined to rule Wonderland with an iron fist. She plans to use a dragon that only Alice can destroy, which of course sets off a race to kill Alice by "offing her head" or stopping her from stealing the only sword that can slay the dragon. It’s all mindless fantasy fare, and could have been left out completely. However, I did like the Red Queen’s castle, which is full of legless tables and chairs; holding them up are little monkeys or pot-bellied pigs.

Although I loved Wasikowska as Alice and some of the minor characters, I’m concerned at the liberties Burton took with his Alice in Wonderland. Not because he deviates from the book, which is fine by me, but because he changes the tone of the book into this glowing mess of mediocrity. The book was unique because it was free of the elements Burton seemed so inclined to add into his version.

For years I’ve said that Hollywood was going to do an action-adventure version of the Bible, maybe with Bruce Willis as a sword-wielding Moses and perhaps Zac Efron as a joke-hurling Jesus — maybe Michael Bay can direct. This version of Alice in Wonderland is an evolutionary step in that direction.

(All the photos with this review are reproduced here exactly as the studio sent them out. You can see for yourself how dark the film is. Now look at pictures with sunglasses on to appreciate the whole 3-D effect.)

Bible 2: Denzel as Scripture

The Book of Eli is completely and utterly preposterous. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Nevermind that one of the last men on earth knows kung-fu like he’s in a John Woo movie. Nevermind that he can shoot a moving target at 100 yards with a pistol or a bow and arrow. Nevermind that the three most complex technologies still on the planet are, in this order, an iPod, the internal combustion engine and a shopping cart.

And since we’re neverminding things, just nevermind the outrageous ending that will fry your brain if you try to think about it any longer than is required — and all that’s required is about 3 minutes. More on that later.

Ignore all the outrageous stuff you’re supposed to accept as believable in The Book of Eli and it’s still an invigorating and nail-biting, if also disposable, movie, the kind that’s usually reserved for the popcorn haze of summer. But here it’s released in January, which means I can safely say it is the best film of 2010 thus far.

The film, directed by the talented Hughes Brothers (From Hell, Menace II Society) — and based, not on a book, but a screenplay by Gary Whitta — stars Denzel Washington as a lone wanderer, probably named Eli, as he walks west to the sea across a dying earth. Cities are gone, plants are grey and ashy, and human skulls are bleached white where they fell after a nuclear holocaust that killed nearly all of humanity. Those that survived the blinding light of extinction now face a harsh new reality: bandits on the roads, cannibalism, the crumbling of morality and the never-ending search for drinkable water.

On the outside, The Book of Eli — a perpendicular offshoot of last year’s post-apocalyptic thriller The Road — is a violent and reprehensible action flick, with Denzel frequently eviscerating road warrior baddies with a perforated blade in silhouette under freeway overpasses with blood spurting in inky black fountains. This happens several times, another time in a dusty cantina, where the blood’s crimson hue marks one of the only visible colors in Eli’s washed-out, oversaturated world. But on a deeper level, if only in microscopic amounts, Eli is a parable about religion. And I don’t think it intends to blaspheme when it compares itself to actual scripture.

There are many secrets that will go unspoiled here, but one secret I won’t deprive you of is the book that Eli totes around: it’s the last copy of the Bible in existence. It’s one of those old antique editions with the leather cover and the metal lock on the front. It’s also a King James Version, which means Moses actually saves his people from Egypt as opposed to sending them a Facebook event invite. By the end of the film it’s safe to assume that on the shelf next to the Bible will be a biblical sequel of sorts, the first book of which will be called the Book of Eli and it will tell this story.

Using that framework — the film as Bible allegory — it’s easier to downplay some of the preposterous events that take place in this quasi-western, especially the ending, which is ridiculous on too many levels to count. No, the ending doesn’t make any damned sense, but I loved it and all the implications it brought with it.

Do my vague recommendations of the film’s ending intrigue you? They should, which will hopefully get you in the door. You’ll go for that brain-busting secret at the finale, but you’ll end up staying for and enjoying the rest of the film for a variety of other reasons. One of them is Denzel Washington, an expert actor who plays a man who could be a biblical prophet if he weren’t so violent in his quest for the rescue of his book at the sea. Another is Gary Oldman, who plays one of those big, bad Gary Oldman villains. Here Oldman is Carnegie, a (waste)land baron who wants to use the Bible to unite his town in fear.

I must agree with Manohla Dargis, though, when it comes to the casting of actress Mila Kunis as Carnegie's bar vixen. She's far too pretty and manicured for a movie about the end of the world. As is Jennifer Beals, who plays Kunis' mother, a blind woman whose delicate smile (after receiving the last bottle of shampoo in existence) lights up an otherwise grim landscape.

Whether you’re religious or not, Christian or not, The Book of Eli teaches a valuable lesson: religious texts like the Bible are not meant to be used as weapons to slay those that oppose them. They’re books of peace and compassion. And like many parts of Bible, The Book of Eli teaches this Sunday school lesson with the occasional act of violence. The Bible had spears, nails in crosses and David’s sling, and Eli has swords, chainguns and hand grenades. But really, is there a difference?

Best of the Decade: 2000-2009

These lists are not easy to create. Something is always left out, or forgotten. No one will ever agree completely. But that’s the beauty of the list — it’s open for discussion or interpretation. After careful review of 10 years of movies, here is my list of favorite films from the last decade, the Oughts (2000-2009).

— Michael Clawson

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25. Primer
Two garage scientists accidentally invent time travel and they do what most of us would do: they play the stock market. But as the time loops grow more complex, the movie unfolds into one of the most difficult, but rewarding, science experiments of the cinema. Made on the fly and on the cheap by Shane Carruth, Primer is one of the gutsier sci-fi movies.

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24. High Fidelity
John Cusack … gotta love him. He plays the most manic, depressing version of himself in High Fidelity, a wonderful comedy about love, relationships and, because of its record-store setting, music. Cusack plays Rob, a recently single eccentric who reflects back on his many loves during a movie-long “top 5 list.” He’s joined by Jack Black, Tim Robbins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bruce Springsteen and the lovely Iben Hjejle in one of the most quotable movies of the decade.

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23. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
How do you make a movie about sex with no sex? The powerhouse that is Judd Apatow figured a way in this crude but lovable comedy that introduced us to the Apatow Comedy Machine and the genius of Steve Carell, who plays the title character with a pitch-perfect howl. Many other Apatow comedies would follow (Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Funny People), but The 40-Year-Old Virgin was the best and brightest.

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22. The Dark Knight
All of Christopher Nolan’s films could appear on this list (especially Memento or Insomnia), but Dark Knight is something very special. Yes, it broke most of the box-office records. And yes, it was Heath Ledger’s last film. But more than anything the Batman Begins sequel examined the roles of superheroes, especially their roles in relation to villains. Batman growled: “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Dark Knight was not afraid to look into the recesses of a man’s soul for salvation or damnation, and for that it will always be remembered.

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21. The Hurt Locker
The lone representative from 2009 on this list, Hurt Locker was a juggernaut this summer. Compared to the abysmal Transformers 2, not many people saw Hurt Locker, but those that did knew it was something special. Directed by renowned action direction Kathryn Bigelow and starring a very talented Jeremy Renner, the film follows a three-member bomb disposal team as it navigates the violent streets of Iraq. Gripping and almost surreal, the film was the first of only several films to tell an honest story from our country’s new warzones.

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20. Japanese Story
One of the most thoughtful and unappreciated movies of the decade, Japanese Story might be also one of the most forgotten. About an Australian geologist (Toni Collette) who escorts a Japanese businessman on a tour of the Outback, Japanese Story cruises along at an easy-going pace until a dramatic twist changes the entire fabric of the delicate composition. The ending is heartbreaking and poignant, but it reveals the true nature of what we as a people are capable of becoming.

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19. Punch-Drunk Love
Paul Thomas Anderson is an artist with his characters. In Punch-Drunk Love, which is something about pudding and frequent flyer miles, he gives us Barry Egan (Adam Sandler), an awkward and desperately lonely plumber salesman who has found love, or maybe love has found him. With Sandler’s best performance and a peculiar collection of new and old music, PTA crafts this wonderfully amusing and heartfelt tribute to the awkwardness in all of us.

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18. No Country for Old Men
The Coen Brothers are the most gifted of directors, and No Country For Old Men is one of their finest works. With basically no music, no fancy camera work, very little dialogue and a number of terrifically restrained performances, the Coens created their darkest, most haunting tale, this one about a bag of money and its suitors — a grizzled sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones), a hired killer (Javier Bardem) and welding rancher (Josh Brolin). And if you can decipher the dreams at the end and relate them to the film you’re a cinema expert.

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17. Juno
Most films bark at teens. Juno just wants to talk. The 2007 comedy, about a pregnant teen who decides to give her baby up for adoption, understood teens on a philosophical level. Juno also gave us a proper introduction to star Ellen Page, whose quirky dialogue was instantly quotable. Directed by Jason Reitman — whose new movie, Up In the Air, could have been on this list — Juno, and all its heartwarming goofiness, is a treasure.

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16. A History of Violence
Director David Cronenberg is no stranger to the violent and perverse, but here he outdoes himself … and in small-town America no less. Starring Viggo Mortensen as a diner owner, History invokes in us the outrage of violence and also the act of betrayal, which may be what Mortensen’s character has done to his family by hiding his dark past. In the end, though, the film, as disturbing as it is, wants what we all want — a safe place to raise our families.

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15. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Striking and majestic, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the first major martial arts movie of its kind (wuxia) to hit American soil. And now they’re quite common. The Ang Lee-directed picture centers on a mystical sword, its owner (Chow Yun-Fat) and a young girl (Zhang Ziyi) who wishes to wield its power. There’s lots of complex kung fu sequences, and also flying wire-fu, but the film is also an epic romance and a tragedy. Add into that stunning cinematography and a terrific Chinese score and Crouching Tiger is one of the most beautiful films of the decade.

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14. Lost in Translation
People who say nothing happens in Lost in Translation aren’t watching close enough. Life happens. About two disconnected souls (Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson) as they wander Tokyo’s culture-pulsing landscapes, Translation reflects on the loneliness of society and the way it alienates us from the mainstream’s centerline. It’s also a mesmerizing romance that ends at the most appropriate moment with a hushed whisper that’s never meant to be heard.

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13. Lord of the Rings
Peter Jackson pulled it off, and in spades no less. After filming for a full year on three consecutive movies, then releasing them a year apart — Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, The Two Towers in 2002 and Return of the King in 2003 — Jackson was not only able to create a convincing Middle Earth with Hobbits, dwarves, elves and a creepy Gollum, but he added real depth to J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy books.

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12. The Departed

Martin Scorsese is one of the most gifted directors of any decade. But here, with The Departed, all his skills have been boiled into one red-hot crime thriller, about the Boston mob infiltrating the state police and the state police infiltrating the Boston mob. All the Scorsese staples are here — rock soundtrack, violence, Thelma Schoonmaker’s perfect editing, obscenely rich dialogue — as well as three of the most electric performances of the decade by Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon and Leonardo Dicaprio.

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11. Slumdog Millionaire
Hope is hard to convey convincingly on camera, but Danny Boyle never falters as he shows it in the face of young Jamal, a Mumbai teen who gets on a TV game show with all the right answers. Shot in some of the poorest locations on the planet and with many non-actors, Slumdog Millionaire nearly swept the Academy Awards the year it was released. More importantly, though, it showed audiences the importance of foreign film.

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10. Children of Men
Dystopian science fiction — from 1982’s Blade Runner all the way back to 1927’s Metropolis — is the oldest, and bleakest, variety of science fiction. Yet 2006’s Children of Men is something entirely new, and considerably bleaker. Set in a future London 18 years after women stopped giving birth, Alfonso Cuarón’s action-drama is ugly and cruel, but also beautiful and hopeful as it attempts to save the world’s last pregnant woman. The film is also a marvelous technical achievement as Cuarón and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki craft exceptionally long takes around star Clive Owen as he plods through the nightmarish future.

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9. The Prestige

Christopher Nolan is no stranger to this list. All of his films examine the balance between good and evil, and also explore the duality of flawed men, from his existential Batman to Memento’s memory-suffering Leonard. In The Prestige, a deeply layered and fully realized dramatic thriller, he takes these themes to the absolute breaking point. About two dueling magicians, Prestige is also about obsession as Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman one-up each other in 19th Century London. The film, which is told mostly out of order, is made so exact that every single scene is essential to understanding the plot’s complex riddles.

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8. Kill Bill
Quentin Tarantino freely admits that he steals styles and filming methods from other filmmakers. Strangely, though, his films are entirely unique, even as they borrow from Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa and all his other favorite directors. In Kill Bill — both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 — Tarantino turns his manic attention once again to Uma Thurman, who plays The Bride (or B****** K****), a betrayed former assassin who is sent on a “roaring rampage of revenge” after she’s put in a coma on her wedding day. Most people like Vol. 1’s chop-socky and kung-fu swordplay to Vol. 2’s wordier, and grittier, resolution. I think of them as a singular unit and feel required to watch both as opposed to one or the other. Every film Tarantino has made is amazing, but his Kill Bill shows off all his skills and powers as a filmmaker.

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7. There Will Be Blood

Paul Thomas Anderson’s devastatingly raw There Will Be Blood was set at the turn of the last century, but its themes (greed, family, business) seem very appropriate in our world right now. Are not the CEOs of Citigroup, Enron, Goldman Sachs and Countrywide secretly versions of Daniel Day-Lewis’ devastating Daniel Plainview? Plainview, the vile oilman and father, abuses the public’s trust to attain money, and in the process abandons his son, his morals and all hope of his ultimate salvation. By the end of the movie, as he hollers to his butler, “I’m finished,” you can’t help but be thankful his reign is over. Or is it?

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6. Requiem For a Dream
Drug movies can be dark, and usually are, but not like Darren Arenofsky’s brutal, almost sadistic version of Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel Requiem For a Dream. He casts Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly and Marlon Wayans as addicts in one form or another as they move from score to score in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Told using a hypnotically frightening score, split-second edits of the drug peripherals and a number of clever camera tricks (bodycams, time lapse, cameras hooked to vibrating gantries), Requiem is the scariest of outcomes when it comes to addictions.

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5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Here’s a movie that’s almost science fiction, but instead veers into the psychological catacombs of a man’s despairing mind. Jim Carrey plays a man so depressed by a recent breakup with an extrovert played by Kate Winslet that he pays a company to erase his memories of her while he sleeps. Slowly, across the course of an evening, the process begins to yield results, but then the sleeping man changes his mind mid-dream. Michel Gondry’s surreal dream movie (from a script by Charlie Kaufman) is about the pain of love’s sting, but also about why that pain is a mandatory feeling — it proves why we loved to begin with.

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4. The Royal Tenenbaums
Wes Anderson is a genius. In 50 years he will be studied in film class, cable channels will run marathons of his works, and boxed sets of his films will be a mandatory purchase for movie buffs. His Royal Tenenbaums is his most complete quirky-dark comedy. Starring an all-star cast (Gene Hackman, Danny Glover, Owen and Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Murray and Anjelica Huston), Tenenbaums, about a dying father reuniting with his imploding family, has all of the Anderson trademarks: static displays of props, hilarious montages set to rock music, highly detailed set designs, his stationary camera setups and that classic Anderson dialogue full of non-humor humor.

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3. Once
I completely believed the romance in Once. Of course, though, the stars were actually dating when the film was being made, adding a real element to the story. Real-life singers Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová play small-time musicians who meet on a Dublin street and agree to make some music over the course of a weekend. Once is a musical and the music is heartbreaking and wonderful, especially “Falling Slowly.” But Once is also a fairy tale, so much so that it spilled over into the Oscar telecast, when Irglová was cut off from her Best Song acceptance speech and after a commercial break host Jon Stewart brought her back out so she could say this: “Fair play to those who dare to dream and don’t give up. This song was written from a perspective of hope and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are.”

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2. Almost Famous
Cameron Crowe directs his own life story in Almost Famous, about a teen who hits the road with a rock band in the 1970s as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine. Everything works in the film: it works as a comedy, a road movie, a rock movie, a coming-of-age story, and in some ways it works as a documentary of rock itself with an awesome soundtrack to boot. More than anything, though, it’s a touching story told with wonderful zeal by Crowe, who captures the spirit of the ’70s with the exuberance of being young and apart of something important and magical. The film also gave us the electric Kate Hudson, although she’d never do another film as good or as important.

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1. Wall-E

No other movie from the last decade, or last several decades, has been as pure as Wall-E, a film constructed, down to every last nut and bolt, with goodness. No surprise here — Wall-E is a Pixar movie. The company has made a number of films that could have made this list, including Up, Monster’s Inc., Ratatouille, The Incredibles or Finding Nemo. But Wall-E is something very special. It’s about hope — hope that something better is out there for all of us, hope that change is possible, hope that love finds a way. The computer-animated film stars Wall-E, a little trash collector who blurts and bleats out his tinny electric language. It’s funny: he never actually says anything but we understand him more than we do most human film characters. His adventure takes him from a trash-filled Earth to the deep depths of space as he follows the only love he’s ever known. No film this decade has captivated the imagination, touched hearts, caused such great sadness, or been as moving as Wall-E.

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Honorable Mentions
The list isn’t big enough for everything, but I must commend these brilliant films: Korean revenge thriller Old Boy, M. Night Shyamalan’s realist superhero thriller Unbreakable, the Ray Liotta-starring cop drama Narc, the Robert McNamara documentary Fog of War, scary-real epic City of God, dark divorce comedy The Squid and the Whale, vampire romance Let the Right One In, gritty western The Proposition, Sam Mendes’ crime drama Road to Perdition, Clint Eastwood’s beautiful Million Dollar Baby and Brian De Palma’s erotic crime thriller Femme Fatale.

A special Jury Prize should go to Steven Spielberg, who has made some stellar movies from the last decade, none of which are quite good enough for this list, though all of them are close. His works in the Oughts: AI: Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, War of the Worlds, Munich and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, for which I have forgiven him.