An Obligatory, Preliminary Best (And Worst) of Film

In eager anticipation of a more thorough list by Alfred ;-) I humbly submit my 10 favorite flicks of the year. No fear of the lowbrow here (I did watch "Talladega Nights" twice.)

There's no rank or research here- if it was good enough to stick in my mind, it's below:

TOP TEN
1- "Borat"- A comedy of almost unprecedented vulgarity, "Borat" was a Roscharch test: Cruel punishment of the unwitting? Brilliant political satire? Balls on your face (literally) laughathon? You take your pick, but nothing else this dumb, offensive, endearing, revealing, and fucking hilarious had come my way in ages.

2- "A Scanner Darkly"- An anti-drug thriller screened through a tripping camera, more people needed to see Richard Linklater's adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novella. Maybe it was the anti-adult-animation bias, maybe the anti-smart-sci-fi bias. God knows that, unfortunately, it wasn't an anti-Keanu bias. (See "The Lake House" below.)

3- "L'Enfant"- This uncomfortably affecting Belgian drama about youth, poverty, and the weight of children on the unweary it's, like eavesdropping on teenagers, disheartening, scary, and necessary.

4- "Volver"- Almodovar's late streak continues. Yes, in my eyes, it IS a streak, and "Bad Education" was great. If it disappointed sligtly, it only goes to show how much we've come to expect from Pedrito. "Volver" is even better. No other film maker is as adept at tip-toeing the line between hysteria and catharsis.

5- "The Departed"- Scorcese does no wrong. Nicholson does wrong more entertainingly than anyone else. Leo convinced me he could kick someone's ass, and if that isn't movie magic...

6- "Cars"- The old-fashioned Disney animated musical has been gnawed to death by
hateful direct-to-video sequels, (Jesus, did anyone need "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame 3: Little Hunchy's Adventures"?). But Pixar keeps upping the visual ante. "Cars" wasn't as emotional as "Finding Nemo", or as exciting as "The Invincibles", but the glint of the virtual sun on virtual chrome left reality in the dust. You won't find racing this thrilling in "Talladega Nights..."

7- "Talladega Nights"- ... which incidentally, was pretty damned funny. The "baby Jesus" rant? Sasha Baron Cohen in his second greatest role of the year? Shake And Bake? Gary Cole? The cougar? Come on, you laughed. At two hours, it was longer than any stupid joke deserves to be, and it was almost avant garde in its disregard for plot, but, for a clean dumb time, it sure beat "American Pie 5: Eugene Levy's Gambling Problem."

8- "Leonard Cohen:I'm Your Man", "Dave Chapelle's Block Party", "Neil Young's Heart of Gold": Three documentary/ concert/ tributes that have little in common except that they are all testimonies to how underserved music on the big screen is. Yeah, I know, "Dreamgirls," "Idlewild,' blah blah... Haven't seen those.

9- "Pusher 3": The last (maybe) installment in the great Danish trilogy finds likable Serbian drug dealer Milo trying to drop his own habit, orchestrating a huge party for his ball-busting daughter, unloading an unexpected shipment of ecstasy, cooking for 45 guests, and then matter of factly descending into murder and dismemberment. Like "The Sopranos" with subtitles. Except better than that makes it sound.

10- "Fearless"- Jet Li's retirement party has more ass-kicking than any other retirement party since my grandpa's.

Underrated:
"Lady in the Water": It's easy to hate M. Night Shyamalan. His name is hard to pronounce, he has an ego the size of Alfed Hitchcock, his movies are so preciously constructed that one feels tempted to bully them down, and his dialogue can be sheer torture. A Shyamalan scene goes something like this:


A: (looks stoic) "I wanted to say hello. (pause.) To you."
B: (looks stoic and about to cry) "Is that what you meant to say? I will answer equally, with a similar greeting."
A:"Very well. I will accept that. If that is what you desire to convey."
(Pause. Characters stare at some oddly colored wallpaper for two minutes)
A:"Is that all that will be said between us?"
(Now the camera is only capturing B's armpit and A's crotch.)
B:"Yes. Except perhaps that..."
(B looks away. He's about to show some emotion. Restrain.)
A:"Do not to be afraid to speak. Fear is the killer of all that mankind has produced. The killer of goodness." (Mystical strings are heard.)
B:"I only fear... that we may not make contact with each other before..."
A:"Before..."
(Three minute static shot of B narrowing his eyes.)
B:"Before the darkness."
(Audience snores.)


BUT he does have ambition and imagination, and those are extremely rare in Hollywood.
Also, this movie stars Paul Giamatti. So come on. Worth a watch.

"Clerks 2": It was funny, allright? And a damn sight better than anything Kevin Smith's done since "Chasing Amy." But fans of "Clerks" have since moved out of their parent's basements, so this went a little under the radar. The geek jokes were true, (if tried), and... "Pillow pants"? I know you laughed.

"Lucky Number Slevin": Lucy Liu and Josh Hartnett not sucking should be enough to earn this a rental. The plot was too damned pretzely, and the gangsta dialogue so sharp it cut right through most people's suspension of disbelief. This one was easy to dismiss as bad Tarantino, but it's actually more like "not as good as usual" Tarantino. It might surprise you by not sucking nearly as much as you think it does.

The batch of computer animated cartoon comedies: "Cars," "Open Season," "Barnyard," "Over the Hedge", "The Ant Bully," "The Ice Age 2," "Happy Feet," "Monsterhouse,": It really was more than any post-pubescent person could keep up with, but the surprise is that all of these movies had sharper dialogue, better characters, and just LOOKED better than the large majority of their live action counterparts. My theory: it's harder to shoot a bad scene when you're literally creating it from scratch. The camera can't quite be accidentally off-centered, can it?

Overrated:
"Little Miss Sunshine." Actually, I must have gotten my version of "Little Miss Sunshine" mixed in with something else, because all the critics claimed it was "riotously funny", and what I saw had maybe three ok chuckles. I liked the movie fine at first as a family drama, but the more I thought about it the more unlikely its family seemed. And a second viewing on DVD reveals so many absurdities: Yeah, it's funny when the cop sees the porn, but I cannot believe he wouldn't investigate the GLARING CORPSE-SHAPED SHROUD in the van. And how exactly did Greg Kinnear talk those strangers into lending him their motorcycle? And are we to believe that Toni Collette's caring mom had not for a moment looked at her daughter's rehearsals, or outfit, or song choice? What about the fact that Alan Arkin's vulgar-but-good-and-NOT-creepy grandpa had for months being teaching his grand-daughter how to strip? That goes unaddressed. And how is it that the Nietzche-reading son would scorn his father's Nietzchean "winner takes all" mentality? Or that anyone would logically expect to maintain a strict vow of silence until AFTER becoming a pilot? After all, not many anti-social non-talking weirdoes are accepted into flight school. In fact, the more thought one gives to the movie, the more contrived its cliches appear.
Er, after writing all that, I'm not even sure I liked it after all! ;-)

Hideous:

"The Fountain": Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream" is one of my all time favorites. I went into "The Fountain" hoping to adore it, ignored all the negative press, opened my mind wider than (insert slutty starlet)'s legs. I have seldom thrown more good will in a movie screen's direction. But I failed. This movie just sucked in every possible way, from the ridiculous, and unparseable, New Age plot, to the unmemorable dialogue, to the yucky color palette. Worse, it was embarrassing. Hugh Jackman was serviceable, as he was in "Scoop," another of the year's sucky ones. The difference between those movies: While Woody Allen has obviously sleepwalked through most of his latter oeuvre, and I doubt he himself thinks greatly of them, Darren Aronofsky LOVES his material and you can tell in every frame. It's like having a friend who's blindly in love with the Elephant Man, and you're trying to be nice and not puke during your double dates.

"The Da Vinci Code": "The Passion" crowd sure needed a counterpoint. This should have been a big blockbuster about the Church's murderous legacy, organized religion's absurdities, and Jesus' sexuality, (yeah, the J-Man probably liked to get it on with that sexy Magdalene ho.) So how exactly did "The Da Vinci Code" end up being so damn polite and sleepy? Tom Hanks looked more life-like in "The Polar Express."

"The Lake House": Keanu Reeves. Sandra Bullock. So it was just like "Speed," except very very slow.

"Pulse": The PG-13, J-Horror-rethread trend, as exemplified in "Pulse," needs to go away. I thought I could watch Kirsten Bell quietly wash dishes for hours, but I was wrong.

I might as well throw in a really REALLY hideous movie called "Feast" in here: it was this year's Greenlight Project. Only reason I don't really add it it's because I feel dishonest about reviewing a movie I couldn't bring myself to finish watching. Thirty minutes in, I walked away in contempt.
(Note to "horror" film-makers: The green/red filters to signify techno/moldy/dusty/rusty/gory have to stop. The scratched celluloid technique too.
Exception to the rule: Rob Zombie. I am NOT kidding. "House of a 1000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects" are true horror greats, and will earn a cult in time.

"Material Girls": Hilary and Haylie Duff star in... Actually this one is self-explanatory, and a perfect nadir. Yes, I watched the whole thing, but the circumstances were tragic.