WalrusList: My Top Five Westerns

Doing a genre thing this week, as it's fair and rodeo time where I live and I'm seeing a great many guys and dolls rockin' cowboy hats. Since I don't really relate to that world outside of the movies, here are my five favorite Western films (in chronological order.

The Searchers (1956)

Though he maintained a prolific and diverse career that included classics like The Grapes of Wrath and The Fugitive, director John Ford is today remember as the ultimate American master of the Western. His many collaborations with John Wayne are the stuff of legend, and nowhere is their work together more powerful than in The Searchers. John Wayne gives the most savage performance of his career as Ethan Edwards, a man on the hunt for his niece after she is abducted by Comanches. The film doesn’t shy away from the racial hatred and violence of the late 1860s, and Ford’s bravura direction makes it not only a great Western, but an American classic.

Rio Bravo (1959)

This classic is one of John Wayne’s more lighthearted films. Directed by the great Howard Hawks (who made two more similar Westerns with Wayne, El Dorado and Rio Lobo), the film places Wayne in the role of a sheriff trying to maintain order as malicious forces work to oust him from power. The film also stars 50s teen idol Ricky Nelson and the great Dean Martin, who gives a surprising and thrilling performance as Dude, the town drunk, who must overcome his weaknesses to help save the day. As an added bonus, Deano actually gets a chance to croon in the film. What more could you want?

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

If you’ve ever been confused about the term “spaghetti western,” here’s a brief explanation. In the 1960s, filmmakers in Italy wanted to capitalize on the success of American westerns, so they began to make their own, adapting them to their own cinematic style. It’s an American genre done an Italian way, so we call them spaghetti westerns. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the ultimate spaghetti westerns, a sweeping epic pitting three legends against one another, on a backdrop of the American Civil War. Clint Eastwood stars as his archetypal “Man with No Name” (though in this film he’s commonly known as “Blondie”), and battles Lee Van Cleef as “Angel Eyes” and Eli Wallach as “Tuco,” as each of them find ruthless ways to beat the other two to a stash of Confederate gold. Director Sergio Leone’s visuals, Ennio Morricone’s invigorating music and the sheer scope of this film make it among the greatest ever produced in the genre.

Unforgiven (1992)

Clint Eastwood chose this as his final Western, a film about the violence of the West, the ruthlessness, and the lengths to which one man must go to escape. Eastwood both directs and acts in the film, co-starring alongside Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and the late Richard Harris. It’s an unrelentingly grim film, a film that scrutinizes the myth of the West in ways that no other effort in the genre ever has, but it’s also brilliantly acted and directed, and amazingly compelling.

Tombstone (1993)

Western films are certainly not what they used to be, but glimmers of greatness still slip through from time to time. Among these is Tombstone, director George P. Cosmatos’ depiction of the events leading up to and following the legendary Gunfight at the O.K. Corral between Wyatt Earp and his compatriots and the notorious Clanton Gang. Curt Russell stars as Earp, joined by Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton as his brothers Virgil and Morgan and Val Kilmer as the legendary gunfighter Doc Holliday, in what is possibly the best performance of his career. Tombstone is one of those wonderful films that seems to just fly by, and when it’s over you want to watch it again, and then again. It’s among the most thrilling films ever produced in the genre, and if you’re not watching it just because it was produced in the last 20 years, you’re missing out.

New Comics: 'Clive Barker's Hellraiser,' Number One

Hellraiser hasn't been Hellraiser for a good long while now. We got a great film, a good film, an OK film, and then valiant efforts by Epic Comics to keep the spirit of the tale alive, but it seems like it's been ages since Pinhead and company have been their old selves.

That changes now, with the launch of Clive Barker's Hellraiser, a new ongoing series scripted by Barker and Christopher Monfette and drawn by Leonard Manco. It's not perfect, but it gives us something we've longed for since time immemorial: the old brutality that made Hellraiser great.

The Cenobite known as Pinhead and his fellows have been reduced to shells of their former selves, or so Pinhead himself believes. Now at the level of taking human sacrifices from loyal servants in the mortal world, Pinhead longs for something new, a change, a new experience beyond the hell he knows. Meanwhile, Kirsty Cotton, the girl he and his cohorts tormented to the limits of sanity in Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II, is still trying to forget, living a quiet life as an artist. Little does she know that the devil from her past is preparing to haunt her again.

The most astonishing thing about the book is how quickly it picks up on the old feel of the franchise. Manco's art sets the perfect tone, lending an atmosphere elegant viscera to the book. The characters are well-rendered, the scenes unfold dynamically; it's everything you could want. But more than that, Barker seems to have stepped seamlessly back into the world he created with a novella and a film so long ago (though he has been rumored to be revisiting Pinhead in other realms lately as well). The Cenobites almost automatically return to their former glory in his hands. His dialogue might not be among the more realistic in modern comics (mere mortals don't speak in the poetic lilt of Barker's prose, to be sure), but his storytelling and his horror savagery hasn't dimmed, and it's a joy to see these characters and this world return in such a grand fashion.

At its end, Hellraiser Number One is little more than setup, a stage put in place for bigger things to unfold in future issues, but that doesn't matter. It has promise, and it has power, and it has most of all something we've all been waiting for: a true revival of an iconic horror universe.

Want more? Here's a particularly bloody preview page from the book. 

Pick up the whole thing at your local comics shop today, and don't forget to check out my previous post for a free 8 page Hellraiser short story.

Pinhead's Back, with Clive Barker at the Helm: A Preview of BOOM! Studios' 'Hellraiser'

It's a good day if you like comics.

It's a better day if you like horror.

But if you like horror comics, this might be the best day you've seen in a long time.

Today's the day that BOOM! Studios debuts their new ongoing series, Clive Barker's Hellraiser, a new vision of the classic horror world brought to life in Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart and his own film adaptation, Hellraiser.

Yes, there have been Hellraiser comics before, not to mention countless sequels to the original film, but this time it's different. This time Barker himself has returned to re-invigorate his iconic world, and his iconic demon, the Cenobite known as Pinhead.

In celebration of this auspicious occasion, the good folks at BOOM! have released a free 8-page Hellraiser story, "At the Tolling of a Bell," written by Barker and Christopher Monfette and drawn by Leonardo Manco. They've also asked folks like me to provide this gift to you to whet your appetite for the full series.

I've already given this story a look, and it's a wonderful return to the savage world of the original Hellraiser. Manco's art is vivid and bloody and, best of all, Barker has brought Pinhead back in all his ruthless glory. None of the gimmicks of past franchise efforts, just hellacious awesomeness.

Here's a preview page from the tale. If you want the full 8-page story, click the link at the end of the post and download it for FREE, courtesty of BOOM! Studios and A Walrus Darkly. And be sure to catch my review of Hellraiser Number One later today.

Get the full "At the Tolling of a Bell" story HERE: http://www.mediafire.com/?zu2ychyy3bnvvg5

The Best Films You've Never Seen: 'Bottle Shock'

Rickman...tasting poisons instead of brewing them.

Bottle Shock is the sort of film you're always looking for on a lazy Saturday night, but never can seem to find. It's unassuming yet complex, lyrical yet accessible, robust yet grounded, and if that seems like the sort of description that could apply equally well to a bottle of wine or a film, it's all the more fitting.

It's 1976, and California's Napa Valley is not yet a wine Mecca. There are a number of rising wineries though, and Chateau Montelena, run by Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) and his son Bo (Chris Pine), is one of them. Bo and Jim butt heads often. Jim's perfectionism clashes with Bo's freewheeling lifestyle, and the two often literally duke it out in a makeshift boxing ring on the winery grounds. While Jim obsessively crafts and recrafts his chardonnays, Bo hangs out with best friend Gustavo (Freddy Rodriguez) and sexy new wine intern Sam (Rachael Taylor), regularly ditching any real work to win bets in bars on how keen Gustavo's palate is (with help from a saucy bartender, played by Eliza Dushku).

Meanwhile in Paris, British wine vendor and snob Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) is frustrated with the lack of respect he's getting in the French wine world. At the suggestion of his friend Maurice (Dennis Farina), he opts to diversify both his expertise and his business prospects by organizing a blind taste test pitting American wines against French. He journeys to the Napa Valley, expecting to find mediocrity or even calamity, and instead discovers greatness as he meets the Chateau Montelena staff and their band of wine-making friends.

Based on the true story of what has now become known in the wine world as the "Judgement of Paris," which would go on to make Napa Valley a world wine power, the film functions both as a lighthearted comedy and a testament to hope and hard work. Director Randall Miller (Nobel Son), who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jody Savin and Ross Schwartz, crafts a bold mix of visual virtuosity, pitch perfect comedy, and something deeper to sink your teeth into. The clashes between Bo and Jim are a representation of the wine they're making, a heady combination of passion and willful pain. Beneath the layers of that conflict are Spurrier's issues with the strange land he's now wandering in, and the reluctance with which he comes to discover that this strange, untamed land of vines is where the future lies. It's an intoxicating blend, and it makes the artful comedy of the film - Bo's shenanigans, Spurrier's bumbling snobbishness and more - all the more satisfying.

All that satisfaction, from the comedy to the heartier portion of the bouquet (more wine metaphors), stems from a stellar cast. Pine is solid, and Pullman has a powerful presence, but Rickman is unquestionably the star. There's a tendency to forget, amid the Hans Gruber nostalgia and the Severus Snape greasiness, that Rickman is a comic genius. His voice is made for snarky comic timing, and he works it with the kind of genius that reaffirms his status as one of the world's most gifted actors. There's also the soulful work of Rodriguez, the perfect smart girl hot vibe from Taylor, the understated smirks of Farina and awesome cameo work by Dushku and Bradley Whitford. It's a cast that comes together perfectly, and it's worth savoring.

Bottle Shock's greatest virtue, even apart from the pure joy of watching, is that it never attempts to become a movie about soul-searching. It's not a Sideways rip-off, or a movie about someone who goes to wine country to "find themselves." It doesn't need to find anything. The soul, the heart, the joy, is all included, and that makes it a pure pleasure to watch.

'Paul,' a stellar sci-fi blast

This is the reaction you get when Nick Frost takes off his shirt.

There’s a constant danger that a film like Paul could end up one long inside joke, filled with obscure sci-fi references and nerd shout-outs with no real connection to anyone who isn’t a massive geek. It goes without saying that Paul is a flick by geeks, for geeks, but it also packs enough heart and energy to win over anyone with a taste for the odd, or even just a dirty sense of humor.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (the team that brought you Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) star as Graeme and Clive, a pair of English nerds who flew into America for the annual San Diego ComicCon and then opted for an RV tour of America’s most noteworthy UFO-related sites. After a pit-stop at the Little A’Le’Inn (a real place) in Nevada, the pair encounters a car crash on a lonely road. It’s there that they meet Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen), a little grey alien on the run from a government facility.

After the initial shock of finally meeting an actual alien after years of nerdy speculation, Graeme and Clive chat with Paul, who reveals that his spaceship crashed in Wyoming in the 1940s and he’s been hanging around ever since, informing the government on alien life and even influencing more than a few aspects of American culture (Agent Mulder was his idea). But now he’s used up his intellectual and scientific currency, and the Powers That Be want to keep him quiet. So, with a cold Man in Black (Jason Bateman) and his two hapless subordinates (Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio) hot on their trail, the threesome set off on a cross-country adventure to get Paul back to his home in the sky. Along the way, they meet a Bible-thumping RV park manager (Kristen Wiig), her crazy father (John Carroll Lynch) and a host of other helpers and obstacles as an adventure full of cursing, car chases and cosmic fates unfolds.

It’s easy to dismiss what’s going on here as a foul-mouthed, grown up version of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. If you said that’s what Paul is, you wouldn’t be wrong, but you would be wrong to dismiss the film because of what it owes to classic alien visitor films. Wrapped up in “Paul” are E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Aliens, The X-Files and all those fun old flying saucer cheeseball flicks from the 50s. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Pegg and Frost, celebrated nerds in their own right, celebrate even the most clichéd parts of the characters and story they’ve created, because after all, Paul is a love letter to all the “visitors from beyond” flicks of yore, and in that respect it works marvelously.

It also becomes very hard to fault Pegg and Frost for making a film based almost entirely on other films when you take into account how funny Paul is. The pair made their names as in over their heads zombie battlers in Shaun of the Dead, and they do just as well as in over their heads alien companions. It might be a formula, but it’s not worn out yet.

Pegg and Frost know how to do what they do better than anyone, but Paul is their first truly Americanized film, and it's set apart by a bevy of American comic actors joining the act. Bateman, one of the great straight men of modern comedy, delights in the villainy of his character. Hader and Truglio are brilliantly bumbling, and Wiig is her typically effortless self.

What it all comes down to is that there’s nothing to complain about here. Mixed reviews for this film are mystifying. There’s no doubt that a good portion of what’s in Paul is derivative, but it’s also well done, reverent and a flat-out blast to watch.

Matt’s Call: If you’re a sci-fi geek, you’ll love it. But even if you’re not, there’s plenty to enjoy here.

New on DVD: 'The Fighter' goes all 10 rounds

Christian Bale implores Marky Mark to listen to him even without the Bat-cowl.

Some films get under your skin before you even know it.

They sneak up on you, make you think that you’re not going to care and then hit you with the truth: you cared all along, it just took a few key developments to make you realize it.

The Fighter, the new film from I Heart Huckabees director David O. Russell, is one such film. Much of its runtime is devoted to explorations of poverty, drug abuse and general misery, but it all builds to soaring scenes of hope and triumph, and all those minutes of darkness were well worth the wait.

Based on the true story of a pair of boxer brothers in Massachusetts town in the early 90s, The Fighter of the title is Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a struggling boxer trying to break his losing streak while working his day job as a road paver. His trainer, mentor and resident upstager is his brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), a former boxer still trying to relive his glory days and disappearing for days at a time to hang out in a crack house.

As the film opens, a documentary film crew is following Dicky around, chronicling his boxing career and his efforts to make a comeback even as he tries to train his brother for the big time. What he doesn’t know, what no one in the family knows, is that the documentary being shot is about crack addiction, not boxing.

As Micky struggles to succeed even as his brother’s absence and bad decisions sabotage his career, he also must juggle his domineering mother (Melissa Leo) and his new girlfriend, bartender Charlene (Amy Adams), who is in a fight of her own to get Micky past his family’s hang-ups and into the realm of real boxing glory.

Much of the film, at least the first half, is often incredibly hard to watch. The filmmaking is top notch. Russell packs strong visuals and intense scenes together in a rapid fire cocktail of powerful cinema, but the fact that it is so powerful, so convincing, means a long ride of drug use, family tension, poverty, depression, pain and failure that’s real enough that it almost hurts to look at.

It’s almost a theatrical ordeal, and as a result it might seem unenjoyable. But where Russell and his cast and crew succeed is in portraying the turnaround, the high moments, the crescendos of bright glory. When the inspirational portion of this inspirational true story kicks in, it really kicks in, and the fact that the first two acts were so hard to watch makes it all the more satisfying.

The performances are almost all top notch. Wahlberg gives a solid performance as Micky, and Amy Adams, known for her sweetie romcom fare, shows off her chops in a grittier role. The real champion of the film, though, is Bale, who lost a good deal of weight for the part. It’s not just the fact that he’s skinny, though. It’s the look in his eyes, his nervous energy, his nonstop squirrelly shaking and yammering that make Dicky so convincing, and so tragic. It’s a daring, powerful performance, and he steals every scene.

The Fighter is a film that never lets up, that pummels you first with despair, then with unrelenting hope. It’s a film about struggles, about not just one fighter but a whole town of them. Some of it might be a cliché, and it’ll never be Raging Bull (the best boxing film EVER), but rarely has a film about a working class hero been done so well.

Matt’s Call: Definitely one of the best films of the year, made even better because it’s hard to make an original film about a boxer any more. 

'Rango,' the way animated films should be

Rango rides out...possibly in search of sequels.

Rango doesn’t look like the typical American animated film. That’s its first virtue.

For starters, no one in this particular talking animal comedy (a subgenre now as ubiquitous as the romantic comedy) is particularly cute and cuddly. Endearing, yes; amusing, yes; adorable, not so much. It’s not a film that focuses much on the polish, puns and predictability that’s become the common currency of its forbears. Like its misguided hero, Rango goes its own way.

Johnny Depp stars as the voice of a lonely chameleon whose paradigm shifts completely when his terrarium flies out of a car on a highway (in a scene that includes a wonderful Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas reference), leaving him stranded and severed from his cushy existence putting together performance pieces in his home. After encountering a philosophical armadillo, he heads for the nearest town, a gritty community appropriately named Dirt, where everything is so dry, water is actually currency.

As he realizes he’s easily the weakest link in this tough chain of reptiles, rodents and other critters, he uses his acting chops to get ahead, styling himself as a tough gunfighter from the Far West named Rango.

Desperate for any kind of hero, the town proclaims him their sheriff, and tasks him with the seemingly impossible job of finding where all the water has gone. As a consequence, Rango must now fake it ‘til he makes it, and face Hawks, gophers, bats and other obstacles along the way.

The first thing you notice about the film is inevitably its look. Apart from being more than cute animals in bright colors, the film is also just incredibly cinematic. Director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) makes full use of the Western setting, shifting from bright panoramas to vivid close-ups and mixing in crooked angles that jive with the offbeat quality of the tale. It’s a visual masterpiece, the kind of film that soars on cinematic energy.

But the creativity and exuberance of Rango doesn’t just stem from its visual successes. It’s an all out work of imagination. Nothing about “Rango” seems pre-packaged or designed with marketing in mind. It’s all about creativity, about telling a story that other animated films haven’t bothered to tell yet. Even if you’re not down with the look, or the comedy, you can at least marvel at the fact that this film is like no other mainstream animated flick you’ve ever seen.

Add to all this originality and directorial bravado a daring, joyfully unhinged performance by Depp and a remarkable supporting cast including Isla Fisher, Ned Beatty, Stephen Root, Ray Winstone and Bill Nighty, and the result is one of the most entertaining films likely to come out of 2011. In an age when every animated film is trying hard to be like the last one that made money, Rango is a flick unafraid to be different, and that’s not only a refreshing cinematic choice, but a refreshing message to its viewers.

Matt’s Call: Go, take the kids, and enjoy. It’s going to be a while before we see another one like this.

'Conversations with Scorsese' by Richard Schickel

 Martin Scorsese is among the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema, and widely considered the greatest living American director. Frequent and frenzied analysis of his every cinematic move, of every frame of his films and every interview he gives, are bound to follow along this path of reverence, but they often lead to still more questions. This is because, as Richard Schickel points out, Scorsese is not a puzzle to be solved. He’s simply a man driven by his every fiber to make movies.

“Live virtually every good director I’ve ever known, Marty is not good at explaining his motives, why he may opt for one project over another – or, for that matter, one shot or edit over another,” Schickel writes in the introduction. “Movie directors are as instinctive as any other kind of artist except that they have to marshal and control far vaster and often more recalcitrant collaborators than someone working alone- a writer or painter, say. There is, as well, something hypnotic and addictive in the filmmaking process, something that drives its practitioners to immerse themselves in the work to the exclusion of all else.”

Wisely, Schickel, film critic for Time Magazine and one of the most respected cinematic authorities of the past half century, never attempts to dissect Scorsese in Conversations, never tries to get to the heart of something that isn’t there. Instead, he opts for a free form, friendly discussion with the filmmaker, and it’s the combination of casual attitudes and uncommon cinematic passions that make this a great insight into the working life of a legend.

The book is nothing more than a series of interviews covering the length of Scorsese’s career, beginning with his often rough and isolated New York childhood, continuing through his education, his early film work with Who’s That Knocking at My Door?, his breakthrough success with Mean Streets, and his daring work on modern classics like Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, Goodfellas and The Departed. Finally, Schickel closes the volume with discussions on Scorsese’s working methods, color palette preferences, music selections and other details of what make a Martin Scorsese picture.

Conversations with Scorsese is immediately engaging, if only because it serves in the early chapters, perhaps accidentally, as a master class of American cinema. As film writer and director chat about what films hit Scorsese hardest as a boy (a subject intriguing enough for most film buffs), something perhaps more amazing occurs; the discussion becomes a discourse on the development of American films. You see the evolution from filmmakers like Sam Fuller and John Ford into Martin Scorsese. You see where he came from in an unpretentious, genuine way, and that makes the chapters that follow all the more spellbinding.

Schickel takes Scorsese film by film through nearly his entire canon. Remarkably, he never tries to lead the discussion, or if he did, he deemed those bits not interesting enough to be included in the final product. The discussions on the films themselves are less about why they’re great and more about how they were put together, what drove Scorsese to make them and what he thinks of them now. Added to this are Schickel’s own opinions on each film, including the negative ones (he freely admits that he didn’t care for The Last Temptation of Christ upon first viewing, and that Gangs of New York needed more work). It’s a remarkably free discourse, the kind of thing you wish directors and critics would do together more often.

The overwhelmingly impression gleaned from Conversations with Scorsese is not a pocketful of theories about why Martin Scorsese is great. The book assumes that. It then goes on to indirectly explain exactly why he’s great. This is a portrait, thoughtfully painted by one of the great film writers of our time, of a driven, brilliant and courageous filmmaker that still has more to give than directors half his age. In that respect Conversations with Scorsese reads less like a look back, and more like a look ahead.

Conversations with Scorsese is available now from Knopf.

Advance Reading Copy courtesy of Alfred A. Knopf Publishers.

Underrated: 'Shutter Island'

Note to Readers: Here I am launching yet another irregular feature at A Walrus Darkly. Underrated is a chance to look again at films that have been panned, lambasted and even hated unjustly. This week, in honor of the release of Richard Schickel's book Conversations with Scorsese (a review of which will appear here soon), I bring you the first installment, my review of Shutter Island, a film far too many people just seemed to shrug at.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo rock fedoras. Ben Kingsley looks jealous.

I’ve often said to anyone willing to listen to me that Martin Scorsese is our greatest living filmmaker.

Whenever I make this claim, I’m inevitably confronted by questions. Why do I prefer him over people like Joel and Ethan Coen, Clint Eastwood, Stephen Daldry or Jonathan Demme? 

Those are all great names, and believe me I could heap tons of praise on them as well. But what sets Scorsese apart, what makes him, in my mind, the undisputed King of the Movies, is his daring.

It’s a cliché word, and it’s been applied to Scorsese before, by people far more credentialed than I, but it’s the right word. A Martin Scorsese Picture, even today, is an experience like no other. It’s magnificently detailed and yet viciously primitive, subtle yet bold, striking yet tender. When you see his films, you feel without question you are in the hands of a master.

So, Martin Scorsese is my favorite filmmaker, and flicks like Shutter Island are the reason why.

Leonardo DiCaprio (who has succeeded Robert DeNiro as Scorsese’s chief collaborator) stars as U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, who has been assigned along with partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) to investigate the disappearance of a patient from a high security psychiatric facility on a remote island.

Upon arrival at the creepy facility, they are advised that their missing person somehow vanished from a locked cell in the middle of the night, and escaped barefoot into the rocky terrain. After finding a mysterious slip of paper in the missing woman’s cell suggesting that things aren’t what they seem, Daniels and Aule experience resistance from the physicians Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) and Dr. Naehring (Max von Sydow), who refuse to turn over documents vital to the investigation.

As a hurricane moves in, the Marshals find themselves trapped in a hostile environment, surrounded by madmen, and locked in a web of deceit, all while Daniels is continually haunted by dreams of his wife (Michelle Williams), who died in an apartment fire years earlier.

In many ways the film functions as a tribute to the pulp and noir thrillers of Hollywood’s golden age (something Dennis Lehane, the author of the novel, seemed to intend from the beginning). All the trappings of a classic thriller are here: a gothic setting, trench coats, fedoras, grim looking men gathered around fireplaces, and a mystery that only gets deeper as the film moves forward. Scorsese, who is also in many ways our greatest film student as well, revels in this, drawing on the wisdom of his forbears (Hitchcock is of course the most obvious) to craft a tale that pays homage to the classics of the genre while unleashing his own brand of brutal cinema magic to push the film into the modern age.

One of the hallmarks of a Scorsese film is his unparalleled camera technique, and while I’m not one to generally point casual viewers toward aesthetic viewing, when it comes to Scorsese you just can’t help it. The man is a virtuoso with the camera, crafting shots that are the stuff of legend at every turn, from a ship slowly emerging through fog to a mind-blowing tracking move up a spiral staircase. Hitchcock’s influence is all over it, but it’s pushed to another level in the hands of Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker, who is in my mind the best film editor working today.

DiCaprio holds up his end of the bargain as well. His accent gets a little shaky in the middle, but the visceral subtlety of his performance cancels it out. Kingsley’s complexity is unmatched, von Sydow delivers his usual creepy magnificence, and look out for a stellar scene by Jackie Earle Haley as one of the most dangerous patients; one of our finest character actors at the top of his game.

There are times in this film, particularly near the end, where you might find some of the story elements at play border on hokey, even predictable, but for once, don’t worry about that. This is a tale paying tribute to and recreating a genre that is in many ways long dead, so the plot is bound to rehash some of what you might have seen or read before. Like any real great story, what matters isn’t the subject, but the interpretation (there’s nothing new under the sun, after all), and with Shutter Island, we see familiar story conventions catapulted into a whole new stratosphere. Martin Scorsese is still the best.

Matt’s Call: It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, but if you crave a real cinematic experience, this is where you’ll find it. As I was leaving the theatre, a friend asked me what I thought. All I could do was point to the screen and say: “That’s how it’s done.”

'The Crusades' by Thomas Asbridge

Even for those with a more than casual interest in medieval history, the Crusades are often an area of confusion and muddled uncertainty. The disjoined series of conflicts that raged for two centuries from 1095-1291 are a source of frustration for even the savviest of history buffs. Even if there was nothing else to praise about Thomas Asbridge’s The Crusades (and there is plenty), we can rejoice that he has managed to harness 200 years of war, intrigue and faith and place it neatly into several hundred pages of clear, bright prose.

The first thing to be admired about Asbridge’s work is inevitably its completeness. Everything is here, from the muddled but surprisingly successful First Crusade, to the Fall of Jerusalem nearly a century later, to the legendary clashes between Richard the Lionheart of England and the incomparable sultan Saladin. More impressively, the less-contemplated figures of the era are also well-represented. Frederick II walks these pages, as does the sultan Baybars, responsible for beating back much of the latter crusading movement. Each battle, each moment, each king is given his place of importance.

But more impressive is Asbridge’s ability to record all of this in a single volume, along with thoughtful commentary and unpretentious insight, without ever seeming boring, rambling or long-winded. It’s a feat in itself that a book on The Crusades is this complete, but it’s an even greater achievement that it’s also entertaining.

Asbridge also makes room for political, sociological and even religious observations about the events of these holy wars, but he never presumes to understand the minds of the men who led these battles, nor does he assume that the motives were always grounded in faith. The Crusades is as scholarly as modern history comes, but it’s also a remarkably complete tale that leaves many conclusions to the reader. There’s no agenda but the history, and that, particularly in an age when every clash between Christianity and Islam is being re-contextualized over and over again, makes Asbridge’s work remarkable.

 The Crusades is new in paperback today from HarperCollins.

WalrusList: Five Great Films You Didn't See In 2010

Now that The Oscars are over, everyone is running out to rent and watch all of the nominees and winners that they didn’t see before. That’s the kind of thing that needs to be encouraged, hunting down great films and giving them more attention. But the Academy, as history shows, is far from perfect, and there are far too many great flicks that slip through the cracks. In an effort to level the playing field, here are five films from the past year that you really should see.

Youth In Revolt

Michael Cera was in two major releases this year. The big one was the highly overrated Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. This is the other one, the better one, the one that people seemed to overlook. Cera stars as Nick, an awkward, mumbling guy who talks and acts a lot like Michael Cera. In an effort to win the girl of his dreams and get out of his nerdy runt, he invents an alter ego, and hilarity ensues. Youth In Revolt is funnier, hipper and just plain better than Scott Pilgrim could ever hope to be, and proves Michael Cera can do more than just play Michael Cera.

The Extra Man

No one does eccentric academic better than the great Kevin Cline, who helms this flick as a failed playwright who spends his evenings as an “extra man” escorting wealthy old women about town and reaping the benefits that come with it. When a young intellectual with some serious issues (Paul Dano), moves into his spare room, the pair embark on a strange adventure of a sex, money, women and just plain oddness. Oh, and John C. Reilly plays a bearded oddball with a funny voice.

A Town Called Panic

I’m cheating a little here. This is a Belgian film released in 2009, but it really only appeared in America last year, so it qualifies for this list. Based on a popular stop motion animated cartoon series, it’s a film about a cowboy, an indian and a horse, appropriately named Cowboy, Indian and Horse. Horse’s birthday is coming, and Cowboy and Indian scheme to build him an outdoor grill out of bricks, but due to an unfortunate ordering error, they end up with 50,000,000 bricks and an adventure bigger than they can handle. This movie has everything: adventure, laughs, love, sea monsters, robot penguins, talking farm animals and lots and lots of waffles.

Ondine

Neil Jordan directed this Irish film about a simple fisherman (Colin Farrell) who hauls a woman up in his nets with no memory of where she came from. The story gets stranger when his precocious daughter (Alison Barry) begins to suspect the woman is a selkie, a beautiful sea creature from Celtic mythology. The story, blending a modern setting with an aura of the fantastic, is magic in Jordan’s deft hands.

Cropsey

This creepy documentary, directed by Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio, also premiered in 2009, but became widely available via video streaming services just last year. Cropsey plumbs the dark folklore of New York’s Staten Island neighborhoods through an investigation into several child abductions and possible murders in the 1980s. Dark, insightful and set against a brooding backdrop that includes the infamous Willowbrook Hospital, Cropsey is an incredible journey into how terrifying what’s in our own backyard can be. The film is available to watch online via Netflix, Hulu and Amazon.com right now, and hits DVD in May.