Don't try this at home

Four movies in two days: on Friday, Infamous and The Departed, and on Saturday, Factotum and Half Nelson. (That second double feature nearly wiped me out.) And to be honest, each of these, in its own way, is a "must see."

Without a doubt, the best acting was in Half Nelson, where Ryan Gosling's portrayal of a white, crack-addicted middle school teacher in a disadvantaged, black public school was a feat of nature. The only movie I can compare it to is Traffic, a movie I appreciated but never felt viscerally involved in. Whereas Traffic attempted to cover drugs on a global scale (a task the original British miniseries apparently pulled off more successfully), Half Nelson covers all the same themes in microcosm, within a single, devastating narrative, and by concentrating its dramatic energy on more limited terrain, it achieves laser-like intensity, and effect.

Factotum contains the best writing of the four. Its genesis in the short stories of Charles Bukowski is clearly evident in the punchy, poignant voiceovers by Matt Dillion playing Bukowski's fictional alter-ego. This movie bought to mind Jesus' Son for its depiction of the drifter class. The acting in this movie was also outstanding, and while I loved Marisa Tomei's acting -- she's never looked worse or acted better -- the scenes shared by Dillion and the always excellent Lili Taylor truly brought out the best in each actor. As his randy, clingy, dim-witted, on-again-off-again love interest, Taylor was simply amazing.

To compare Infamous and its lauded predecessor Capote, I can't top the Times' Tony Scott: "In general, Infamous is warmer and more tender, if also a bit thinner and showier, than Capote," though there are two things I would add that I don't believe have been noted in other reviews. The first is a line by Capote in correcting one his swans (a divine potrayal of Marella Agnelli by Isabella Rosallini) who persistently referred to Perry Smith as Terry: "It's Perry, dear. Like Antoinette?" I love it, and I didn't even get it until I got home and googled Antoinette Perry (the actress for whom the Tony awards are named). It struck me as precisely the type of pedestrian, arcane comment Truman Capote would have made, and so one of the truest nuggets in either movie about the man. The other thing to note is -- forget Sigourney Weaver and the rest -- the best portrayal of a swan in the movie comes from Juliet Stevenson playing Diana Vreeland -- she's virtually a whirling dervish. I've loved Stevenson since seeing her in Anthony Mingella's 1991 Truly Madly Deeply, and it's somewhat disappointing that she's unmentioned in most reviews and ads, even though the ads predictably tout Gwyneth et al. Ah well, at least they love her in England.

Which brings me to The Departed. I loved it. By the end, like many of Scorsese's movies, it's long left narrative realism for the realm of Shakespeare and Wagner. While many reviewers disagree, I believe the trilogy capped by The Departed (the other two being Gangs of New York and The Aviator), represent Scorsese at the top of his form. For this movie, the point of comparison is last year's Cronenberg, A History of Violence, insofar as one feels that much of the violence of the final act, though effective, is merely to advance the narrative in certain ways. Nonetheless, the acting by Matt Damon, and especially Leo DiCaprio is outstanding, as is Vera Farmiga as the love interest of both. Also unlike some reviewers, I found the late demise of one of the main characters truly affecting, stuck in my mind several days later.

Needless to say, I'm quite anxious to see the palate-cleansing The Science of Sleep later this week.