Director Tim Burton was beginning to worry me. Not since 1994’s ED WOOD has he done a really solid piece of work that I could whole heartedly recommend to pretty much everyone. MARS ATTACKS! is junkie, SLEEPY HOLLOW was pretty good but mostly due to Johnny Depp’s bizarre performance, and PLANET OF THE APES was a surprisingly so-so Hollywood actioner that was extremely easy to forget five minutes after it had ended. BIG FISH may surprise people, particularly Burton’s oldest fans who remember just how twisted (BEETLEJUICE, BATMAN) this guy can get. BIG FISH is shockingly normal. The film it most reminded me of in terms of its way of telling a story was FORREST GUMP. Only in this film, the lead character, Edward Bloom (played as an older man by Albert Finney and played younger in flashbacks by Ewan McGregor), isn’t taking part in world events; he is the event, at least the way he tells the story.

I’m not spoiling anything by saying that Finney’s Bloom is a dying man, estranged from his only son William (Billy Crudup), because William is sick to death of Edward’s tall tales. There isn’t a story you, can come up with that Edward can’t top. He has elaborate concoctions about the war, about his days working in the circus, about falling in love with his eventual wife, Sandy (old: Jessica Lange; young: Alison Lohman), and about his time marketing freaks (giants, conjoined twins) into top-notch entertainment acts. He has boyhood tales of meeting a witch and seeing how he is going to die. These are great stories, and McGregor portrays the younger Edward as a man who simply accepts these strange occurrences in his life with a dignified elegance. He’s the most polite man you could ever meet, and McGregor sells his southern accent with much zeal. It’s fairly obvious that Burton had the most fun filming the scenes at the circus (with ringmaster Danny Devito) than, say, the sequence in the world’s most perfect town, which basically doesn’t go anywhere. Although it’s in these scenes that we meet a famous writer named Norther Winslow played by Steve Buscemi, so it’s not so bad.

As much fun as I had watching the adventures of Edward Bloom, I could kind of tell where things were leading. One way or the other, we would discover that whether Edward’s stories were really fiction or not. But things don’t quite play out that way. William does a little investigating and discovers a mysterious woman named Jenny (Helena Bonham Carter). Was she Edward’s mistress? I’m not telling. But I will say that the scenes with Bonham Carter are the ones that finally pulled me in emotionally to BIG FISH. I actually started caring with my heart about Edward’s fate and his believability. I cared about whether the relationship with his son gets mended. There are also some sweet scenes between Finney and Lange that got to me. These moments with the female leads are the ones that elevated BIG FISH in my mind, not only in comparison to Burton’s other recent films, but also compared to much of what is in theatres now. BIG FISH is Burton’s most emotionally satisfying film since EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, and it verifies that his abilities as a compelling storyteller have not abandoned him; they just weren’t be serviced with great material. It’s nice to see Burton stretch his wings beyond what’s expected of him every once and a while. The film opens around the country on Christmas day.

CALENDAR GIRLS

Everything you’ve heard about CALENDAR GIRLS is true. This is the real-life story of a group of middle-aged to elderly British women who posed artfully nude for a calendar a couple years ago to raise funds for Leukemia research as a tribute to one of their late husbands and ended up earning piles of money and breaking worldwide calendar sales records that rivaled and outsold the likes of Britney Spears, making them international celebrities. This film is NOT the female version of THE FULL MONTY. Anyone who says that is lazy and wrong. These members of the Rylstone Women’s Institute in North Yorkshire are a far cry from the working-class schlubs of MONTY. However, both films possess an innocent humor that will win you over in the first five minutes, due in large part to the genius and talent of Helen Mirren and Julie Walters. These two should make 10 more films together. Their natural banter and utterly convincing performances as two old friends bored to tears with the WI meetings and calendars is what sells the film and provides its deep heart. Being that this is one of the few films I’ve seen in quite a while that features this many women in the this age bracket, my guess is this will be THE “small” UK hit of the holidays, following in the tradition of films like MONTY, WAKING NED DEVINE, and most recently BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM.

The film is a no-frills account of the birth, execution, and success of the calendar ideas, and it was both fascinating and funny to watch the process of women in their 50s and 60s talk themselves and others out of their clothes. The success of the calendar brings the women and their families some unwanted attention of the notorious British tabloids and from Hollywood types looking to cash in on their popularity. I didn’t think the Hollywood stuff held a candle to the British-based parts of the story, but it was intriguing to see which women let fame go to their heads and which remember the source of inspiration for the calendar and try to keep the proceedings dignified. I’ve had a not-so-secret crush on Julie Walters since I saw her in EDUCATING RITA, and my well-documented love for Helen Mirren knows no bounds (I know she’s way too good for the likes of me, but a guy can dream, right?), so to see these two together is something of a dream come true. The film is light-hearted fun, a unique story told in a fairly conventional way. I’m guessing older women are going to be knocking down us youngsters to get to this one. It opens this weekend in most places.

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

This is an easy film to review because very little happens, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Based on the popular novel by Tracy Chevalier about master painter Johannes Vermeer (played by the master actor of angst Colin Firth; serious has any actor played more characters in love with women below his character’s standing than this guy?) and the maid (LOST IN TRANSLATION’s Scarlett Johansson) who served as the model for one of his most famous paintings. The story speculates that Vermeer fell in love with the maid (although never acted on that feeling) much to his wife’s disapproval. There are countless subplots in the film involving Vermeer’s wicked children, his lecherous patron, Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson), the other servants, and a butcher’s son played by 28 DAYS LATER’s Cillian Murphy, but none of these are as interesting as the nearly wordless interplay between Firth and the stunningly expressive face of Johansson. Never has catching a glimpse of a woman’s uncovered hair seen quite so erotic. And never has Colin Firth been so pent up and repressed as he is here.

Yes, the brief glimpse that first-time feature director Peter Webber gives us of Vermeer at work and his technique is fascinating, but the fact remains that next to nothing actually transpires here, and this may turn some people off to the film. It feels like everyone in this film is on the brink of exploding from repression. Vermeer’s wife suspects him of all sorts of indiscretions, although he hasn’t done anything but sin in his heart. So little goes on in the household that the servant gossip about even the smallest out-of-the-ordinary events. GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING might be the most tension-filled movie I’ve seen this year that didn’t result in some explosion or bloody death. The film is an excellent chamber piece, beautifully photographed, with a handful of perfectly understated performances. What more do you need? I have no idea whether any of this took place in the Vermeer house, but the film is so convincing that in my mind, this is exactly what happened. It opens wide this Christmas.

IN MY SKIN (DANS MA PEAU)

The most jarring and shocking film I've seen all year (or at least since IRREVERSIBLE), IN MY SKIN from France, is written, directed, and stars a truly brave woman and even more brave filmmaker named Marina de Van. With her first feature as a director (she has co-written with Francois Ozon such devastatingly great works as EIGHT WOMEN and UNDER THE SAND, as well as served as lead actress for Ozon's tragic SITCOM and SEE THE SEA), Marina de Van has created the ultimate expression of how much fascination and loathing a woman can feel for her own body. De Van portrays Esther, a seemingly well-adjusted, motivated woman in a dead-end relationship and working an uninspiring but well-paying job. At a party with one of her best friends, she accidentally falls and gashes the hell out of her leg (although she doesn't realize this until many hours later). Rather than let the wounds heal, something in her is altered by the sight of the cuts and scrapes and she starts to poke and prod at the openings, making the injury bigger and bloodier.

We don't know enough about Esther's past to speculate as to why she begins to do these things to herself, and that's the major difference between French and American films. The French films don't see the need to justify their characters behavior. Was it some childhood trauma? We don't know and it doesn't matter. It makes the characters more unpredictable and, therefore, more scary to watch. It isn't long before Esther gets bored with her old wounds and starts carving in a few new ones in her legs, arms, even small ones in her face. And while she commits these almost unwatchable acts on her person, she's smiling. The pain, blood, small chunks of flesh and skin that she carves out, these things are turning her on. The look on her face looks like she's having good sex, rather than what it is: deep emotional damage manifesting itself on the surface (literally). There's a scene of Esther at a client dinner with her boss that I watched holding my breath. Esther is cutting her arm with a steak knife under the table cloth, and the others are so preoccupied with their inane conversation, they don't even notice. She sees herself as the ultimate object, not even a human being. After the feeling of nausea passed, it was replaced by a great sadness.

And it's not like her boyfriend and others don't notice. She covers most of her cuts successfully, but when people start to find out, rather than try to help her, they abandon her as being too bizarre to be around. And for some moviegoers, all of IN MY SKIN might be too bizarre to be around. This is no exploitation film or celebration of blood and guts. This is a movie about inner torment and despair. It angered me at times, particularly at the idea that if Esther had been committing these acting against another person, she's be in jail, but since she's only doing it to herself, no one does anything to stop her. I got extremely nervous anytime Esther was left alone. If you can get past your initial revulsion at the fairly explicit depictions of self-mutilation (which may never happen, I warn you), IN MY SKIN reveals itself as an exceptional work by a talented artist whose next work in any capacity I can't wait to see. IN MY SKIN has already opened in some city and opens in Chicago at the Landmark Century Centre Theatre on December 19.

Capone

I cry like a wee woman when Legolas looks at me during ROTK!