A Thought

How is it that Public Enemies isn't winning, much less nominated, for any of the big end-of-the-year honors?  It's a somber film, certainly, but gorgeous, and quite well acted.  Marion Cotillard can't handle her accent, but that doesn't prevent her from being alternately fragile, defiant, and movingly brutalized.  Johnny Depp is predictably marvelous; the tension in his face is perfect for the role.  There's genuine chemistry between them.  His "I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars...and you" is a condensed and predatory version of Crash Davis's classic declaration in Bull Durham (NSFW unless you've got headphones in).  Christian Bale's humorlessness works as Melvin Purvis; he's an arrogant, incompetent bastard with a strain of decency.  Stephen Lang makes up for his absurd overacting in Avatar with an excellent, understated performance as a very different kind of man who carries a gun.  And the movie just looks beautiful: a digital shot of fog rising off the ground in the night as two men flee the gunfight at Little Bohemia is the best-looking thing I've seen on screen all year, Pandora and the afterlife be damned.  Despite my initial skepticism, it really was one of the best movies, top to bottom, I saw all year.  The way it's being overlooked is a grievous error.