Somewhere made me skip over some other movies I had planned to write something about. I was going to write all about True Grit and how I liked it excluding the ending (yeah, yeah it was in the book, so what?). I was also going to chat about the utterly likeable The King’s Speech. I would have been unable to resist noting that, somehow, the idea that the most important thing a modern king has to do is read a speech someone else wrote demeans the notion of divine right or, at least, defines it as something less than ordained from on high.

Anyway, Somewhere, Sophia Coppola’s latest, is a lovely film. It is also, unfortunately, one that is going to perplex some moviegoers. I am not saying these moviegoers are idiots necessarily. Some of them will be but others will just be those who prefer a more sturdy narrative structure. It is not an action thriller. It is paced at a crawl.

Sounds like I didn’t like it from those last couple of sentences.  I did. In fact I loved the film. It is a movie about a character, Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), not about what that character does. One of the fascinating things about the film is how the audience knows who he is, basically, before he says a single thing. He doesn’t say much throughout the entire film and you still know who he is. You even kind of like him and his affable, confused look. The films slow pace is also perfect. It makes you feel like you are in Marco’s life, not just watching it. Big things do not happen. He is on the lookout for the paparazzi but they do not accost him.

Then there is his job. He is an actor. A good one? A bad one? No way to tell that from what is presented but he is a successful one. And there is a wonderful take on being an actor; Coppola portrays it as a job. It isn’t rolling asphalt or working in a steel mill. Nor is it that sort of “oh woe is the poor rich, famous actor” sort of nonsense that pops up now and again in films. He can afford twin strippers and gets treated like a prince. But then you get back to the character and he just doesn’t seem to care about any of it.

He does seem to care about is his daughter, Cleo, played with charm and poise by Elle Fanning. She is allowed to be childlike but, in some small way, shows that odd characteristic kids who have moderately irresponsible parents exhibit; the kids are more together than mom or dad. Keep in mind I am not talking about the children of crackheads, just moderate fuck-ups of the vaguely clueless variety.

There are parts of the film that HAVE to be things that happened to someone in real life. These are little snippets of life that are not part of a larger story, moving the plot onward, but part of the development of a character. You learn by what he does rather than just through words. And I am filling in plot here. Other folks might see this film and be struck by other parts. It is open to much interpretation (especially the ending).

The film should get Oscar attention (Coppola, Dorff and Fanning certainly but also camera and editing). I am not sure it will win many or any of these. It just isn’t flashy. It has the feel of a foreign film, an older foreign film; it has an air of The Passenger.  One Oscar the film should get is for best Original Song, Phoenix’s Love Like a Sunset Part II (I think it is part II). It makes a scene in the movie, to say nothing of the trailer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I took that film studies class where the professor said “you don’t notice a good soundtrack.” That professor was full of shit and Phoenix should win for Best Song and could easily for best score as well. I noticed the sound and how integrated it was with the mood being conveyed as well—stripper poles squeaking un-sexily, for one.

Somewhere is one of those films you may not want to see when you are in the mood for Alien vs. Predator but if you love movies you should see it and maybe see it again. It is a film you will think about after you watch it, and probably like more as those synapses fire.

While I did see a bunch of movies recently and planned on writing about all of them I didn’t. But it wasn’t because I didn’t like the movies. It was mostly because I am a lazy sack of crap. I saw several films that I liked, or at least didn’t hate, at the end of December but I am not playing catch up with ALL of them.

I am not, for instance, going to write a whole bunch on The Chronicles of Narnia, The Voyage of the Dawntreader. Was it BAD? No, in fact, if I were ten I would have really liked it I think. It looks good, has a fairly easily discerned point and lesson (much like the blunt, hard to miss moralizing of the C.S. Lewis books). BUT I do have to say, let’s stop with the non-animated 3D films unless they are Avatar-spectacular? We won’t talk about how all movies should have plots conceived on higher than a 3rd grade level. I barely remember any reason why this was in 3D. It didn’t give me a headache like that piece of shit, Alice in Wonderland, at least.

Anyway, after this I went to see something a wee bit heftier and rewarding, 127 Hours, which is something of an acting tour de force by James Franco. Even half-hour sitcoms have trouble holding my attention when they opt for a “one-person” show, even if, like this film, they employ flashbacks, hallucinations and the like. That is, perhaps, a comment on my attention span, but it is also a comment on how most half-hour TV shows suck.

This movie holds attention throughout. You know what is going to happen; you know, more or less, when it is going to happen, but that heightens the suspense rather than lowers it (as is evidenced by the eye-covering and “ick ick IICCK” coming from the two people I went to see the film with). The direction and camera work is superb.

One of my co-viewers didn’t like the use of screens within screens that begins the film, in almost “24” like fashion. This didn’t bother me when I was watching the movie. It bothered me even less after I had time to think about it. This section, to me sort of frames the beginning of the film with the racing, modern life we live. It makes me think, for instance, about why it is that some people, even when they go out into the wild, out to where there are not thousands of others breathing down their neck, do they have to still move at breakneck speed? Why does it have to be so “extreme”? What is it about our world and us that makes this so.

And perhaps that is part of what this movie is about and why that particular directorial/editorial choice didn’t bother me.

James Franco may or may not get an Oscar for his role. The powers that be have anointed other movies that made more money. It would certainly be deserving. Who would have thought the guy who made me want to poke out my eyes while watching Spiderman 3 was such a fine actor?

The film might not be about what it inspired ME to think about, of course. That is the nature of any good, or great, piece of filmmaking (or art, or poetry or whatever). It makes you think and it makes you interpret. If they have to spell every nuance out to you it is just a sitcom and, unless it is 30 Rock, that is usually not a good thing.

But the film clearly is about focus in the face of tragedy. Could you make a bungee cord pulley (however ineffective) to try to get a boulder off your crushed hand? Would you keep your head about you and ration your water (and, eventually, your urine)? But that is pretty obvious from the story. Another part of this is about regret. We all face hand-crushing boulders every single day. Did you answer the phone when your mom called and didn’t feel like chatting? Did you at least call back? Do you treat your friends the way you should and appreciate and connect with them?

If you haven’t you never know when that boulder might trap you in the desert or that city bus might run you over and mangle you (I live in Chicago, this is a concern). Ultimately, 127 Hours gets this across as much as anything else and is one of the best films of 2010.

And for some bizarre reason this film made me want to go hiking alone.