My initial Top 10 of 2009 list. There are still so many from this year that I haven’t yet had an opportunity to catch. I’ll post a more finalized list in a couple of months.
1. Inglourious Basterds
2. Where The Wild Things Are
3. Antichrist
4. Summer Hours
5. Tulpan
6. District 9
7. Fantastic Mr. Fox
8. Up
9. Avatar
10. The Hurt Locker
My favorite movies of the 2000s. There are easily 15 more that could’ve made this list. But this list is only fifteen.
December 21st – December 27th
It Might Get Loud – This documentary is a success for not trying to do too much. It doesn’t aim to tell a complete history of the electric guitar, nor does it aim to give a definitive biography of its three featured guitarists, Jack White, Jimmy Page, and The Edge. Instead, you get an enticing glimpse how each of the three musicians approach their instrument which leaves you wanting more. After watching this documentary, I immediately put on The White Stripes’ concert film Under Blackpool Lights to enjoy even more of Jack White’s virtuoso work. And now I’m really anticipating the forthcoming Under Great White Northern Lights concert documentary.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – This is kind of a troubling film. Ferris could certainly be described as a douche. He basically uses and lies to his family and friends for nothing but selfish reasons. He is only concerned with finding pleasure for himself and seems little concerned with the consequences they have on the people he presumably cares about. And I can’t think that things are really going to end up okay between Cameron and his father. Sure, Ferris offers to take the blame. But, that’s too little too late. The damage has already been done.
Antichrist/Dancer in the Dark - Two from Lars von Trier on Christmas Day. Why? To put the Anti-CHRIST back in Christmas, perhaps? Antichrist still remains a beautiful yet confounding film. It’s provocative in what seem to be the right proportions. As for Dancer in the Dark,I think Bjork is absolutely brilliant for the role of Selma. Bjork can be polarizing, as a singer and actor, but I can certainly be counted as a fan.
District 9 - This was a surprise. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the tone of this film just caught me by surprise. There just seemed to be a lot of inventiveness and creativity thrown into this film. A lot of fun. I may have to add this one to my Blu-ray collection. It seems like this one would have a fairly high rewatchability factor. And I’d like to see how they accomplished some of the special effects for a relatively small amount of money. I look forward to seeing what director Neill Blomkamp does in the future.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence - Haley Joel Osment is excellent here as David. Much like Bjork as Selma in Dancer in the Dark, I’m not sure how much of it is acting prowess as it’s a credit to casting and the directors getting just what they needed for their characters. Part of me wishes that Stanley Kubrick would have survived to bring his complete vision to the film. But part of me likes the Spielbergian patina that covers the film–that lulls one into thinking this is a film for families instead of the dark thing that it actually turns out to be. I think the film, including the ending, is many things (to different people). Sentimental, however, is not a word I would use.
The Room - This movie just isn’t getting old. It’s still horrible. But it’s still so fun to watch. Unfortunately, the misguided attempt at following this one up with another film featuring Greg Sestero (Mark in The Room) was not so fun. It turns out that Retro Puppetmaster isn’t all that entertaining after all.
Sunshine – This one now officially belongs in the pantheon. When I want a science fiction space film and I’m not sure I’ll stay awake throughout the entirety of Kubrick’s 2001, I pick up this one.
Avatar - There is a lot of commentary out there about the ethnic stereotypes and white liberal guilt this film evokes. I certainly don’t think that commentary is unwarranted. But I don’t find it overly problematic either. This film is still a lot of fun. This is the first 3D film I’ve seen (since the ’80s) and it looked quite good. It didn’t seem overly pervasive. It wasn’t necessary by any means and I’m not sure if it makes the movie better, but it does make the movie even more of a thrill ride. The Na’vi characters, created with James Cameron’s version of motion capture, looked amazing. Definitely a step forward technically.
The Royal Tenenbaums - Despite all of its twee preciousness and precociousness, this Wes Anderson flick still manages to make things a little dusty upon each viewing. Chas reconnecting with his father at the end of the film, beginning with the acquisition of the dog Sparkplug, gets me every single time.
December 14th – December 20th
South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut – I think a much better transition to the big screen than The Simpsons Movie. Nicely irreverant soundtrack. Good stuff.
Inglourious Basterds - This is likely the best Blu-ray title have purchased so far (although my collection still numbers under 10). I can’t wait to rewatch this one and delve into the special features. The opening scene is one of the best of the year. This one is also vying for the top spot on my best of the year list.
Angels & Demons - This movie had the Hollywood star and slick production values that a $150 million budget affords but otherwise was not much better than the average Syfy Original Movie. The Da Vince Code wasn’t a great movie by any means, but it was immensely more enjoyable than this one. This one lacked the cleverness and pulse that was sometimes evident in the previous film.
Funny People - I’m a little conflicted about this one. On one hand, I enjoyed how the movie feels barely held together. It succeed while feeling like it could spiral out of control at any point. It was easily 30 minutes too long though. Once Eric Bana’s character arrives, the movie probably would’ve benefited from spiraling out of control to a quick end. On the other hand, a stronger script could have made for a compelling story about mortality and the lonely world of the comedian. Maybe it’s just me but I think there was a The Wrestler-like story in there that might have been worth watching. At times, Funny People approached something dramatically compelling only to lose its way.
The Goonies – For people my age, this is a childhood favorite. But, man, this one just really doesn’t hold up. Perhaps the nostalgia is strong enough for others to be able to stomach it into the present day. But for me, it was just way too grating. Just about every single character in this movie seems to exhibit moderate mental retardation. Impaired cognitive functioning abounds.
Heathers – One of the great screenplays of my generation. I am still genuinely surprised with how this 20-year script old deals with homophobia. It just seems so surprisingly progressive. Considering that it was made just three years after The Goonies, Heathers proves just how awful The Goonies really was.
December 7th – December 13th
The Tale of the Fox (Le Roman de Renard) – See previous post.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Haven’t seen this one in a very long time. This time it was from the Blu-ray release which looked quite good. And the disc looks to loaded with lots of interesting extras. An argument can certainly be made for the sexism present in the movie, but its longevity works to its advantage. This movie was released over 70 years ago–there have been plenty of worse offenders in the years since.
2001 - First time watching this on Blu-ray. I didn’t do a side-by-side comparison with the DVD version, but it didn’t seem dramatically better. I did notice that the blacks looks really good. Sometimes blacks can look grainy and grey; here the blacks looked black. The main reason for purchasing this Blu-ray edition (I already own the DVD) was because of the additional special features included on this one. On a side-note, my dog Sammy Davis Junior Jr. was absolutely enraptured with the beginning “Dawn of Man” sequence.
New World Order - An almost frustratingly evenhanded look at conspiracy theorists (including Alex Jones) who fixate on the Bilderberg group and the 9/11 Truth movement. While you are always aware that these people have taken a selective portion of distorted facts to come up with their own “truth,” you can also sort of understand what makes some people feel so strongly about such ridiculous things. Still, I would have liked some voices of reason, to illustrate the invalidity of these various conspiracy theories.
Humpday - A Mumblecore response to the Neo-Neo Realist Old Joy from Kelly Reichardt. There are certainly similar thematic elements in both movies even if they are different in tone and setting. Still those differences act to show where Mumblecore and Neo-Neo Realism intersect and diverge and also how poor both of those words are at describing the movies that are ascribed to them. Interestingly–perhaps to me only–is that Joshua Leonard (one of the leads in this film) was one of the original trio in The Blair Witch Project.
Annihilation Earth - A horribly awful Syfy Original. Bad story, bad casting, bad acting capped off with special effects that were also just bad. About as far as they went with the special effects was badly superimposing either smoke, fire, or explosions on what had already been filmed. In the world where the movie exists, Earth is obliterated. So for people in that imaginary world, any memory of this movie has ceased to exist. Lucky for them.
Herb & Dorothy - On one hand, this documentary feels very touching and sweet. This old couple who make relatively little money working for the government amass a quite impressive contemporary art collection. A singular passion leads to them being amongst the most important collectors in the art world. But on the other hand, it almost seems unfair. It seems like these people just used some sort of dogged perseverance as well as playing up their eccentricities and age to guilt artists in to selling them art on the cheap. So, I was conflicted about Herb & Dorothy Vogel throughout a good portion of this documentary. But upon learning that they continued to insist on not profiting from their collection in favor of sharing it with the world, even when it would have been both beneficial and warranted to do so, I couldn’t help but think of them as a pair of true heroes.
The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States is currently on display at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art through May 30, 2010. The fifty works donated to OKCMOA by the Vogels will then become a part of the museum’s collection.
Rushmore - What a great movie. Without a doubt it’s one of my Deserted Island picks. It sort of lies in that same area with Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction whereupon subsequent viewings really demonstrate how much of that filmmaker’s “language” has seeped into contemporary movies off all stripes. Can’t wait to watch this as a double feature with Mike Nichols’ The Graduate, a movie upon which this one itself seems to derive.
November 30th – December 6th
Fantastic Mr. Fox – After the letdown that was The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson returns with an animated tour de force. I need to see it a few more times (the same goes, admittedly, for Darjeeling), but this one very well may end up for me as Anderson’s best. While I have no familiarity with Roald Dahl’s book upon which this was based, I think Anderson and company have done a remarkable job. They have perfectly combined the nostalgia of stop-motion animation with the quirkiness that make up the Wes Anderson canon. It’s a stop-motion form that suggests nostalgia for those 1980’s weekend mornings catching Ray Harryhausen’s delightful animation for Clash of the Titans on television. And Anderson’s familiar style shines through in a way that is not overly twee. I’m already a Wes Anderson devotee, but it certainly seems he finally nails it with this mix of nostalgia and quirk. The twee works better here than it has in any of his previous work.
Like with Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are, this is one movie I absolutely cannot wait for on Blu-ray with some sort of Criterion Collection treatment. I can’t wait to pour over commentary and production diaries and featurettes. This is a world I cannot wait to dive into more deeply. The puppetry, miniaturized costumes, and set decoration have absolutely caught my imagination.
I also think there is some pretentiously affected, yet tongue-in-cheek essay to be written analyzing this animated feature with Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist. I mean, c’mon, they both have foxes. They both contain a disturbing Willem Dafoe. They both feature dismemberment of some sort. Man’s role within nature, man’s inherent sinful nature, blah, blah, blah…
In the meantime, there’s this mashup.
Upon further research, I am surprisingly fascinated by the role of the fox in literature. I was completely unaware of the relevance of the Reynard literary cycle with the fox character as trickster. The original Dahl story for Fantastic Mr. Fox and even Disney’s 1973 version of Robin Hood owe to this literary tradition (man, I really want to see Disney’s Robin Hood again…it’s been too long). Ladislas Starevich’s The Tale of the Fox (Le Roman de Renard) from around 1930 features the Reynard cycle done with puppet animation. A truly amazing animated feature, The Tale of the Fox certainly was an inspiration for Wes Anderson’s cinematic retelling of the Dahl story. The look of the animals, some of the scenery, and even some of the humor must have been borrowed from this Starevich film. If you end up loving Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox as I did, you should certainly check out this older gem (which can presently be found on YouTube — it begins with Part 1 [of 6]):
November 23rd – November 29th
Bruno - Funny stuff. But I’m kind of ready for something different from Sascha Baron Cohen. I think homophobes are worthy victims of the most brutal of comedic insulting, no matter how much they use religion or uber-masculinity as an excuse. But like another Larry Charles production, Bill Maher’s Religulous, it’s preaching to the choir (amen!) without actually accomplishing much.
The Girlfriend Experience – For every bubble there is a corresponding burst. You might make a lot of money in a real estate bubble. Or you might command a decent wage from high-scale escorting because you are beautiful and willing. But without fail, the bubble will burst and you will be slammed to the dirty concrete. Because you once made a ton of money in real estate doesn’t mean you’re some sort of financial genius. It only means that you were caught up on a giant tidal wave that had its own intentions. You surfed mightily until you were spit out. And being beautiful doesn’t make you a better person either. Beauty is also a tidal wave that has a way of taking people where it wants to go. Ultimately, we are only as good as how we seem to other people.
I really liked this movie quite a bit. I suppose its relevance to the current economic downturn can seem a little heavy-handed and perhaps moralizing. But, a movie that stars a porn actress in the role of a prostitute cannot easily be criticized in that way. Along with the low budget, this movie seems well appraised in its cinematic value. Sasha Grey is quite good as the high-end escort Chelsea. Whenever I think “porn star,” I don’t often conjure up the word “beautiful.” I conjure plenty, but not often that. So, not having seen any of her, uh, previous work, I was a bit surprised at how beautiful she actually was. And, I have to admit that she charmed me in this movie. Her character was very likable and sympathetic to me, at least until learning about her astrological tendencies.
Best in Show – This movie NEVER gets old. This one, perhaps more than any other at the moment, gets quoted and/or referenced in our household on a near daily basis.
November 16th – November 22nd
2012 - A fun disaster movie blockbuster. I could go on at length about the plot holes and the myriad of ways in which this movie is flawed. But I don’t really care all that much. This movie goes balls to wall with its utter destruction of our planet. It’s like a very polished version of a SyFy (nee SciFi) Channel Original Movie. And I mean that (mostly) as a compliment. It’s ridiculous to be sure. But it knows it and has a decent amount of fun with it. Still, I look forward in the future to an intelligent disaster movie more along the lines of The Day After (not Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow). It’d be tonally very different than 2012 but still very much welcomed.
The Class (Entre les murs) - I was very much impressed with this film. I am especially impressed with François Bégaudeau–the actor who played the teacher at the center of this film. Bégaudeau not only played the lead, but also co-wrote the screenplay which was based on the novel he had written which was a semi-autobiographical account of his own experiences teaching at an inner city Parisian school. Whew. I am also impressed with how a lot of French film lately (or at least what I’ve seen of it) addresses the changing face of France. The generational and ethnic changes that are occurring in that country seem to be interestingly dealt with in a way that seems to be much rarer in American cinema. It seems like we’d rather get lost in spectacle (see 2012) than confront ourselves within. Although perhaps I’m just looking at too small of a sample…
November 9th – November 15th
In The Company of Men & Your Friends and Neighbors - Re-watching two from Neil Labute on the heels of catching the Ghostlight Theatre Club’s production of LaBute’s Fat Pig. As Scott Tobias said in his latest The New Cult Canon column, In The Company of Men ”isn’t a misogynistic film, it’s a misanthropic film. Big difference.” I think that is exactly right. I certainly mistook it for misogynistic upon its release and only came around with time. Things became a little clearer upon the release of Your Friends and Neighbors. But even then, it can sometimes take a bit of work and some level of caution when it comes to differentiating between a writer/director is misogynistic or misanthropic and a writer/director who is commenting on misogyny and misanthropy. That caution was admittedly still in place when I went to see a local production of Labute’s Fat Pig. It was truly only after seeing that play that I realized that Labute was, in fact, not the monster that he’d been portrayed as.
Election & Sideways - Two from Alexander Payne. Election is imminently quotable. And Sideways is in some ways a love letter to pretentiousness. Sometimes ALL we have are our idiosyncratic interests.
Ghost World - At this point, this movie just makes me feel a bit awkward. On the one hand, I’m totally infatuated with Enid. On the other hand, with age, I’m beginning to see myself more and more like Seymour. This Enid Problem conjures up sage wisdom proffered by one Matthew McConaughey: “I get older, they stay the same age.” Thus, the awkwardness.
Friday the 13th – It was after Halloween, but I did still manage to catch this one on a Friday the 13th. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this but never before have I noticed how well crafted a horror movie it really is. Truly good stuff.
Up - This will likely be in my year-end Top 10. I’m also a little embarrassed that I’ve yet to see either of the Toy Story movies, Finding Nemo, or Cars. I’m a bad Pixar fan.
The Shape of Things – This was the most play-like of the three, especially in the performances. Apparently, the cast that premiered the play was the same for the movie. What it says about art (or what may be considered art) would blow the mind of Enid’s (from Ghost World) summer school art teacher. It does, quite interestingly, explore how far we go for love and sex (and how those lengths might change depending on how closely those things are shaped like Rachel Weisz’s ass). Interestingly, a production of this will play this weekend at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center.
October 26th – November 1st
Antichrist - Perhaps it’s not a movie to enjoy or one that entertains in the Hollywood sense, but it is quite interesting nevertheless. And that is more than enough. Add to that a cinematic aesthetic that is often gorgeous but also sometimes repulsive and you’ve got something definitely worth watching. Some of the critical buzz seems to almost discount the film, and its director Lars von Trier, because of its alleged misogyny. I think dismissal is wrongheaded. The film contains many things. Misogyny is surely one of them.
I also wasn’t as shocked as I expected to be. Having read some of the critical conversation, I was prepared for the graphic imagery. But it wasn’t near as bad as I was expecting. And while I had also heard about the talking fox, I didn’t find the shot funny. I found it quite disturbing and sad. That being said, if I’d seen it in a theatre the herd mentality would probably have induced a laugh. I understand where the laughter and the claims of misogyny come from, I just don’t happen to buy into them quite yet.
After only one viewing, I’m conflicted about it. I would have to see it multiple times in order to offer any interpretation as to its meaning. Whether or not von Trier has approached Bosch or simply aims to provoke remains to be seen.
