Quite the directing debut by multi-talented Ben Affleck and (forgive me for appearing to damn with faint praise – I promise that is not my intention), a more substantial achievement than most of his in-front-of-the-lens work, GONE BABY GONE is a wonderfully lurid, compelling film noir, populated by well-drawn characters, and fleshed out with intelligent casting and sure-handed direction.

A neighborhood gumshoe (Casey Affleck) investigates the disappearance of a child, encountering turbulent resistance from the child’s family, the community, and the police. Nothing is what it seems, as we slowly, satisfyingly learn. If I were to choose my favorite aspect of the film, it would be the dialogue, which feels grittily genuine, and provides for many unique exchanges. Next would be performances. Topping the list, not surprisingly, is Ed Harris as a complex cop. Amy Ryan is winning awards left and right, including the National Board of Review Best Supporting Actress award, all of them deserved. But Casey Affleck is no slouch; in fact 2007 was his year more so than any other actor’s, having given this performance as well as his (so-called co-)starring role in THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD.

At the NBR Award Ceremony in January, the younger Affleck introduced his brother, who was to receive an award for his auspicious Directing Debut. He casually sauntered to the mic, and while he was not sparing with off-handed compliments for brother Ben, he did temper them with statements such as “He did a nice job, but I wish he hadn’t made me take those two sixty-foot jumps into the water if he knew he wasn’t going to use the footage,” and also criticized how one drug-den scene turned out. Then he casually sauntered off the way he’d sauntered on. A radiant, confident Ben Affleck promptly leaped up onto the stage and, gesturing in the direction of his brother’s departure, exclaimed, “That…is why I deserve this award!” Which got big laughs, and elevated him even further in my estimation.

2007 was the year of failed third acts. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, 300, WAR DANCE, SUNSHINE and EASTERN PROMISES to name several. GONE BABY GONE survives the curse, but just barely, as the protagonist makes a critical decision toward the end which had audience members coming down harshly against the character, slightly tainting the entire viewing experience. On the other hand, perhaps leaving the viewers debating isn’t such a terrible thing. One of the many purposes a film serves is to generate debate. However, an alternate ending is presented on the DVD, as part of the supplementals, which wouldn’t have prompted such audience polarization, with Affleck explaining why he decided not to use it.

The DVD xtras, incidentally, are good. Affleck’s feature-length commentary is intelligent and indicates that he thought out practically every iota of the film’s many components.

And his brother’s 60-foot jump is also included in the Deleted Scenes section.

Noble, brilliant suit-wearing Negros fight for equality in racist Texas circa 1935. All the white people are toothless, evil pig farmers. Denzel insults his white audience with caricatures.

I wasn’t going to review THE GREAT DEBATERS knowing full well the ugly emails I would get. If I don’t like a movie made by or about black people, I’m a racist; I didn’t like RENT, so I’m homophobic; and only the Lord and I know what happens when I don’t like the “underdog- team-makes-good” sports movie.

But no group out-ranks the LOTR army.

DISCLAIMER: I leave for my 7th trip to the continent of Africa next week. And, just so you know, I don’t do Africa behind a big white air-conditioned bus. I camp out with the people. I know more about African culture from first-hand, feet on the ground experience then all my black neighbors and friends put together.

While I hope to go to Central Africa (Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso) next year, I must pass up visiting the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rebel factions are notorious for attacking Western tourists, and in 1999 a group of Western tourists was kidnapped and savagely hatcheted to death by rebels. Tourism to DRC is ill-advised.

This now said, let me also say that some of my critic colleagues encouraged me to write what they are afraid to write about THE GREAT DEBATERS, even though they agree with me.

You’d think that when a top star directs, he’s got all the right support staff behind him. He’s watched and learned from great directors, he knows all about pacing and structure. He should know how to direct actors. THE GREAT DEBATERS is poorly directed. All the acting is over-the-top. I’ve never seen a film with more sanctimonious, flaring nostriled, noble-faced actors. This is high school drama class directing. Everybody in THE GREAT DEBATERS is playing to the back row.

If you’ve forgotten the cruel fight for equality, director and star Denzel Washington wants to shove it right back in your face. Denzel’s huge fan base might have either not known or forgotten America’s ugly past, so here it is. There is even a lynching.

What is Denzel Washington so bitter about? Julia Roberts, in her Vanity Fair cover story, continues to lust after him. He’s one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Why the grudge? Get some therapy!

It’s 1935 and Wiley College’s Professor Melvin B. Tolson is the coach of the debating team. He’s also a poet and secret union organizer. When does he teach? A classroom full of students want to join the debating team, so Professor Tolson must whittle down the top students to a four-member team. He chooses Hamilton Burgess (Jermaine Williams) and arrogant Henry Lowe (Nate Parker). The two alternates are fiery feminist Samantha (Jurnee Smollett) and 14-year-old James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker).

Tolson is a fire-and-brimstone coach. Young James is the son of a strict preacher (Forest Whitaker) and, even though he is a brilliant student, he is given no slack. James Farmer Jr. grew up and founded the Congress of Racial Equality.

Tolson, dressed as a sharecropper and organizing the poor folk, comes to the attention of the mean town sheriff (John Heard). James follows Tolson to a union meeting and sees a lynching.

This is Texas in 1935 from director Washington’s point of view: Barely dressed, cud-chewing white pig farmers, racist sheriffs and deputies, and snotty, elite Harvard.

Tolson keeps applying and finally gets an invitation from Harvard to debate! Because of his union-organizing activities, he is unable to go with his team to Boston. The Wiley Debating Team suddenly loses Hamilton when his father questions Tolson’s alleged communist sympathies. At Harvard, the man who serves the trio their meals and attends to them is a classically trained, highly educated, well-dressed Negro.

I had no idea that college debating was so boring. About that, you will agree with me.

How can one criticize THE GREAT DEBATERS without looking like a mean-spirited racist? I also know how popular attending debating teams are with the movie-going public, so let me suggest you see the movie first before emailing me.

Fox Atomic / DNA Films / 91 minutes / R Rated

The Zombie Anti-Christ arrives. How come not one non-zombie ever pretends and runs with, not away, from the bloodthirsty zombie mob? I would fake being infected.

I liked 28 DAYS LATER, but strongly criticized the inane plot revolving around a small group of people who escape vicious, flesh-eating zombies. The two young women in the group refused to meet the sexual demands of the soldiers once they reached the only well-stocked, heavily armed fortress. They could have seen themselves as re-starting the human race as Eve 1 and Eve 2. Instead, their men kill all the armed soldiers and everyone leaves the outpost for a destination and future unknown. Did they even take a gun with them or, as most horror film victims do, throw it on the ground? Just how heavy is an Uzi?

I have a section of my library on the Holocaust and Nazi concentration camps (I recommend, among many, “How Mankind Committed The Ultimate Infamy at Auschwitz” by Laurence Rees, “Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account” by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli and “Inside The Concentration Camps: Eyewitness Accounts of Life in Hitler’s Death Camps” complied by Eugene Aroneanu.) People will do anything to survive even for a few more hours of life.

What would you have done? Have sex with a soldier willing to protect you, or face being torn apart and eaten alive by a mob of zombies?

28 WEEKS LATER – a very hard “R” – presents a different, more complicated story, opening with an interesting moral conundrum. It’s been six months since the outbreak ended in Britain. The zombies died of starvation. The people who made it out of Britain are returning under the protection of U.S. soldiers. Even though the city has been deemed cleared of the virus and zombies, an area of London has been sealed off and under constant surveillance by U.S. soldiers. No one is allowed to leave the heavily guarded Green Zone.

Don (Robert Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) are hiding in a remote country house with others during the zombie meandering rave across Britain. Their children, Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) have been evacuated to a detention camp in France. At the country house they are discovered by zombies. Don, seizing an opportunity, runs away, leaving Alice to fend for herself.

Don meets up with his children and takes them to a nice high-rise. He’s got a job and things look good. Don tells the kids he tried to save Mom but she was eaten by zombies. Andy complains he doesn’t have a photo of his mother, so he and Tammy disobey the rules, leave the Green Zone, and go home. Guess who is hiding out at home?

This visit causes Outbreak 2.

Dreading the “spoiler” backlash, I think it is best to leave this high octane zombie movie plot summary right here. However, I will say this: If the kids had just stayed inside their city-fortress and enjoyed the U.S. provided perks of re-populating London, things would not have gone to Hell in a hand basket.

It’s hard to like these kids.

But, as a great sequel needs to be, the ending ominously ups the ante!

Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo – I have a copy of his debut film, the fascinating INTACTO – takes full advantage of the “R” rating. Blood is splattered with glee. Be warned. The next step has been taken.

No wonder Bruce Willis is complaining about LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD being rated “PG-13.” Who wants to see John McClane in a walker using it as a weapon against bad guys? “PG-13” means McClane’s signature phrase will now be: “Go poop on yourself!”

Danny Boyle who directed and co-wrote 28 DAYS LATER with Alex Garland, are both executive producers here. Fresnadillo co-wrote the script with Rowan Joffe, Jesus Olmo, and one of the film’s producers, Enrique Lopez Lavigne. There is now a Spanish Inquistion flavor to the second of what surely will be a franchise. Fresnadillo has his AMORES PERROS. He’s going to be an important director. 28 WEEKS LATER doesn’t bother with exposition or sentiment. It’s tough, gory, exciting, and a daring thrill ride. I especially liked Don’s dilemma, his authentic transformation, and Alice’s decision to pick up a gun.

The score has now reached iconic status and has become a strong, menacing character itself.

Credits:
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Screenwriters: Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Enrique Lopez Lavigne, Jesus Olmo
Producers: Enrique Lopez Lavigne, Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich
Executive producers: Danny Boyle, Alex Garland
Co-producer: Bernard Bellew
Director of photography: Enrique Chediak
Production designer: Mark Tildesley
Music: John Murphy
Costume designer: Jane Petrie
Editor: Chris Gill

Cast:
Don: Robert Carlyle
Scarlet: Rose Byrne
Doyle: Jeremy Renner
Flynn: Harold Perrineau
Alice: Catherine McCormack
Andy: Mackintosh Muggleton
Tammy: Imogen Poots
Gen. Stone: Idris Elba

Lionsgate / The Film Farm & Foundry Films / PG / 110 min

Powerful. Writer-director Sarah Polley rightly deserves the kind of praise heaped upon Sofia Coppola for the lousy LOST IN TRANSLATION.

My mother succumbed to Alzheimer’s. I found a fantastic private assisted-living home facility and a loving nurse care-provider, Priscilla Barcelon, who gave my mother a rewarding life for 10 years. Priscilla, from the Philippines, always made fresh vegetables and banquet meals. My mother had her nails done and was always well-groomed. My mother gained weight and, reluctantly, had to be put on a diet. However, like the woman in AWAY FROM HOME, my mother gradually declined from a group home situation to Priscilla’s full 24-hour dedicated Alzheimer’s home facility.

Canadian actress Sarah Polley adapted an Alice Munro short story and directed this outstanding film. Polley has a magnificent career ahead of her as a director. Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent, and Olympia Dukakis all merit Academy Award nominations. Polley deserves two nominations: Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Retired professor Grant (Gordon Pinsent) is serenely married to his gorgeous wife of 44 years, Fiona (the luminous Julie Christie). Slowly, Fiona and Grant realize that she is becoming more and more forgetful. Try as they might to accommodate the problems that have arisen, Fiona recognizes that she needs to go to an assisted-living facility. Grant is opposed to this arrangement and prefers to continue their life in the snow-covered cottage they have lived in for 20 years. Fiona is so sophisticated, groomed and stylish that it is hard to imagine she is soiling her underwear or forgetting how to brush her teeth.

While Fiona is forgetting the present, her long-term memory is still aware of the cruel pain of Grant’s earlier indiscretions with so many female students. Did Fiona regret compromising and her decision to stay in the marriage?

At the assisted-living facility, Fiona quickly forgets who Grant is and forms an attachment with a mute patient, Aubrey (Michael Murphy). Fiona has become Aubrey’s primary caregiver and companion. He needs her.

Grant, struggling with his grief and loss, comes to the facility every day and sits alone watching Fiona nurse Aubrey. He tries to see her and finally asks why she likes Aubrey. She clearly explains and we understand.

After my mother had been moved, I got a call from Priscilla asking for a private meeting. Apparently, my mother was behaving “inappropriately.” The staff already accepted my mother’s foul language but what was “inappropriate” behavior? Was my mother hiding food or stealing money from other residents?

Knowing my mother, what was “inappropriate” behavior shouldn’t have shocked me, but it did. Such activity is generally acknowledged as a byproduct of Alzheimer’s. I pleaded with Priscilla on my mother’s behalf. My mother was given private time.

However, while Grant asked about sexual shenanigans, Fiona was a model resident.

Aubrey’s wife Marian (Olympia Dukakis) takes him out of the facility and his departure has a devastating effect on Fiona. She is so overwhelmed by depression that Grant decides he must to something – and later, anything – to get Aubrey back for his wife.

AWAY FROM HER takes a poetic, unexpected turn.

For someone who liked GRINDHOUSE, 300, 28 WEEKS LATER, and VACANCY, I will say that I was overwhelmed with the artistry of writer-director Sarah Polley. Making a movie about Alzheimer’s without getting mushy (The awful THE NOTEBOOK) or tugging on the heart strings, is not easy. In fact, before this, I would have said it was impossible.

Polley showcases her talent as a writer by giving us many subtle, yet devastating, conversations. The strongest moment in AWAY FROM HER is a scene between Grant and Kristy (Kristen Thomson), the facility’s head nurse.

I hope that AWAY FROM HER will be remembered when award season comes around at the end of the year. You can trust me here – and I hate message movies and movies with heavy furniture sentimentality – AWAY FROM HER is unforgettable.

Credits:
Director: Sarah Polley
Screenwriter: Sarah Polley
Based on the short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” by: Alice Munro
Executive producers: Atom Egoyan, Doug Mankoff
Director of photography: Luc Montpellier
Production designer: Kathleen Climie
Music: Jonathan Goldsmith

Cast:
Fiona: Julie Christie
Grant: Gordon Pinsent
Marian: Olympia Dukakis
Kristy: Kristen Thomson
Aubrey: Michael Murphy
Madeleine: Wendy Crewson