TOP 10 SHOTS from "Atonement"

Welcome to "Top 10 Shots", our weekly column to get together, look at some gorgeous visuals, and reminisce about great cinematic gems past and present, so if you haven't seen this week's central film, I warn of SPOILERS and urge you to come back once you've seen the film. "The Avengers" is out today, coming out to much anticipation from the geek and normal community of cinemagoers. It's rather firmly in position to become a juggernaut at the box office, so it's a no-brainer to do something that mindfully attaches. For quite some time, I believed that to ideally be the previous Marvel installments. But I ran into something of a roadblock while going back into the Marvel canon. This may come as no surprise to anybody, but the Marvel superhero films aren't all the brilliantly shot in terms of singular visual wonders.

Despite having such a great cinematographer as Matthew Libatique on "Iron Man" and "Iron Man 2", Jon Favreau simply didn't have any direction for what the films were about. They looked good, but nothing stuck out as expressionist as "Black Swan". "The Incredible Hulk" was quite obviously a dull action fest with no visual inclinations. "Thor" is an absolute visual feast, but mostly in terms of concept art. Some shots stuck out, but it would be too greatly in that film's favor. And "Captain America" was a damn good time and all, but Joe Johnston has never been one to inflect major strokes of intelligence into his films.

Saturday-Sunday: Atonement

There are definitely quite a few films that I should have seen by now, but haven't, and that's probably the recurring theme of today. Atonement was a British drama that came out in 2007, and quite often I find that people point to it automatically as the definitive British drama. Films like Never Let Me Go and its ilk have tried to capture the same deep emotional spark, often unsuccessfully. The film is about an misunderstanding by a young girl named Briony, which eventually leads to her sister Cecilia's lover Robbie being arrested for a rape that he never committed.

The film is told through three acts, the first telling of how it all began and how Briony came to accuse Robbie of such a foul deed. The second act details the consequences of such, where Robbie, Cecelia, and Briony ended up in the four years since, and how Briony has come to regret what she did. The final act is difficult to describe without spoiling anything of crucial importance. There's a love story, as is the case with many of the best films, but it rests on much more than that. There's a great deal about how horrible things can be done by people out of the most pure innocence of their hearts.

The performances are nicely done, with the biggest stand out for me being Vanessa Redgrave, who doesn't appear until the film's final minutes. Saoirse Ronan does a nice job in the first act portraying such a biased young girl, who is almost cold in a way. There's a specific shot of her eye just at the end of the first act that gives me chills. Kiera Knightly does a rather beautiful performance visually and vocally, but it's quite hard not to like her in any case. James McAvoy continues to operate on the fringe of stardom, as he could easily become the latest Hollywood sweetheart. Wisely, he has chosen to keep at a distance from that particular path.

The cinematography is rather polished and clean, moving smoothly through most of the sets with grace. The musical score is just as elegant, with a recurring theme that simply never gets tired or cliched. Director Joe Wright has done fantastically for himself when portraying a British drama such as this. As the years go by, Atonement may not grow sharper, but it still has a sharp mind to it.