My interview with Andy Seifert of The A.V. Club (Chicago Edition) of The Onion is now up with links to the trailers of some of the Indonesian cult movies I’ve discussed.
It’s going to be a fun time with trailers, a special short, samples of Nasi Goreng (Indonesian Fried Rice) and other friends who love these crazy movies as much as you do.
Best if you show up in person, but remember, if you are not in the Chicago area, you can watch the lecture (not the movie, sorry) live online. Once I get the exact web address for that, I will post it.
The lecture and screening of Lady Terminator and the Golden Age of Indonesian Exploitation is this coming Saturday night Feb. 6th at midnight. There’s a link for the Facets Night School schedule here and if you’re a friend of Facets through Facebook, you can get to attend all 8 lectures/screenings through a special offer. Just go to Facets’ Facebook page and you’ll get details. For the special offer, you will need to go to Facets sales catalog entry here.
Had an hour-long phone interview with Andy Seifert of The Onion’s A.V. Club. I felt it went well and we covered a lot of Indo-cinema ground. The results should be appearing online in Wednesday’s The Onion.
Tomorrow, I’ll be interviewed for my upcoming Facets Night School lecture Lady Terminator and the Golden Age of Indonesian Exploitation by The AV Club of The Onion. I’ll let you know (if and) when the interview appears. Also, I’ve found out that The Chicago Reader and NPR’s Eight Forty-Eight program are also interested. Quite the hectic time for me as you can imagine. As I stated on Facebook, the scheduling of a “rip-off” of a James Cameron film came at just the right time through sheer luck.
Sorry I haven’t been adding posts on here lately. I certainly want to comment on the Conan/Jay NBC debacle and will do so soon (probably after Leno shows up on Oprah).
But I want to announce an upcoming event at Facets Multimedia on Saturday Feb. 6th at 11:55pm (okay, midnight, but I wanted to be clear it’s Sat nite/Sun morn).
Facets will be resuming its popular Night School series and my lecture, Lady Terminator and the Golden Age of Indonesian Exploitation, will be up first. I’ll be talking about the film and the era in which it came out, one in which a lot of crazy films were released in Indonesia during a relatively short time.
It’s not a given, but I’m told there’s a strong possibility that the lecture will be web broadcast live, so that those of you from out of town who can’t make it can still be able to see me conduct the lecture (but you won’t be able to see the movie). If this becomes a certainty, I will let you all know, especially on the Facebook entry found here. However, if you are in Chicago, you should definitely stop by, because there’ll be some other surprises the home audiences will miss.
I’m quite lucky to say that I was working and was not home to have the choice of watching or completely ignoring The Golden Globes. But here are the winners.
The major awards were given, for the most part, to films released in November and December.
Susan Doll made a good comment on Facebook after the awards. Yes, it still is a boys’ club, but making $1 billion worldwide apparently equals quality. I dunno.
Of course, I’ve commented on the short memory of the voters before. If you want to know who those folks are, I’ve tracked them down:
The dust-up over what to do with The Jay Leno Show and The Tonight Show Starring Conan O’Brien is a pretty fascinating look on how really bad decisions are being made by NBC execs.
If you haven’t caught up, basically the 10pm-aired Jay Leno Show was doing badly in ratings after its premiere. So badly, in fact, that many local NBC affiliates considered dropping the show in favor of higher-rated programming to lead into much needed boosts for local news. In order to save face and possibly keep Leno from moving to another network (something that seemed a possible threat when Leno left The Tonight Show), NBC is moving Leno to 11:35pm and giving him a half-hour and pushing The Tonight Show Starring Conan O’Brien to 12:05am.
Conan O’Brien has a right to be majorly pissed.
Normally, a show’s failure would mean one thing to a network: cancellation. What I’d like to know is what is NBC thinking? New York Daily News critic David Hinckley is apparently wondering the same thing and he’s right. This could be NBC’s dumbest programming move ever.
What gets me is why Leno has to be treated so royally? He gave up The Tonight Show and got a prime time shot and he failed. Case (should be) closed.
But somehow, he and NBC are getting cover by some who think that this is just some grand experiment and Jay should be given a break. One of those chiming in is Jerry Seinfeld:
” I think this was the right idea at the wrong time. I’m proud of NBC for trying to do something different. That’s just showbiz and you’ve got to try things.”
When asked whether he would stay at NBC if he was in Conan O’Brien’s shoes–that is, being asked to move his show to 12:05 a.m. after having the plum 11:35 p.m. slot–Seinfeld put the onus of The Tonight Show’s ratings performance on O’Brien. “I don’t think anybody’s done anything to Conan,” Seinfeld said. “What did the network do to him? I don’t think anybody’s preventing anyone from watching Conan.”
So moving your family and the family of staff members from NYC to LA for possibly only four months is no big deal? Also, apparently, Seinfeld forgot about the idea of lead-ins, because local affiliates sure didn’t. But those aren’t the only things that bugged me about the statements. Seinfeld made a comparison of the “Leno shuffle” to the AOL-Time Warner deal. Not a good choice.
Why isn’t that a good choice? Because it’s not the first time NBC has given a former Tonight Show host his own prime time talk show airing before the current Tonight Show. Virtually the same move was made when Jack Paar left The Tonight Show in 1962. NBC, fearing the popular Paar would move to another network, gave him a weekly TV show in a talk format. Paar’s new show ran concurrently with The Tonight Show, which for the next few months had guest hosts (Groucho Marx and Jerry Lewis among them) until Johnny Carson was able to begin his long-term contract with NBC. The Jack Paar Show worked for a couple of years, in large part due to the unique style he had and the pairing of fantastic guests. I mean, having Cassius Clay and Liberace on the same show reading poetry to music is truly genius. But, you see, that’s why Paar lasted an extra two years–genius.
Which brings me to the final point. It’s one that the great comic and actor Patton Oswalt brings up on the radio show Oh No They Didn’t. Jay Leno actually didn’t push The Tonight Show forward with its comedy. Listen to this audio of his assessment, it’s very good.
Each of the long-term hosts of The Tonight Show brought something unique to the show. The first host, Steve Allen, brought a wild spontaneous humor and goofy characters to the show. Successor Jack Paar was incredibly astute, emotionally honest and had a fantastic hilarious repartee with intelligent guests. Johnny Carson had an innate ability to have a symbiotic rapport with world leaders and everyday people alike, leading to genuinely organic humor. What did Leno bring that was distinctive and progressed late night comedy? O’Brien has a chance to really take The Tonight Show further and get this institution back on track.
If he’s not given that chance, I think O’Brien should take his $80 million and produce other shows. He’s actually in the driver’s seat, since he might have a case for breach of contract.
When I reviewed my choices for the Best Movies of 2009, I mentioned that the first 8 months were pretty good for movie watching. Well, I didn’t mention that the following 4 months would expose me to so much garbage compacted in such a short time, I was hurtin’. Hurtin’ bad. So in the spirit of having to deal with a load of backed-up shit, I dedicate this list to the memory of the late great Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, who knew real discomfort when he felt it (“no one’s actually went out and recorded a song about real pain!“) and expressed it in the classic “Constipation Blues.”
In order to catch up as quickly as possible on movies, I follow the 20-minute rule: watch a DVD for 20 minutes and if it’s not destined to be one of the best or worst of the year, go to the next one. I was able to get through 86 films following this plan, but I have to tell you, two of the first three entries on my yearly stack of cinedung I could not finish, unable to justify watching them until the end. The other films I watched from beginning to end and I have the gray hair and indigestion to prove it.
So let’s get to it. Grab a prune and let’s loosen up:
10. Gentlemen Broncos
Gentlemen Broncos is probably going to be most noted for Fox Searchlight’s panicked decision to pull the movie from release after it received shitty responses in NYC and LA. In this case, the studio made the right move. What’s unfortunate is that this comedy by the husband and wife team of Jared and Jarusha Hess had a kernel of promise. Michael Angarano plays Benjamin, an introverted, talented writer who creates a fantastical novel and presents it at a sci-fi convention. Appearing at a seminar is the much revered and ego-driven writer Chevalier (Jermaine Clement), who steals the boy’s idea for his own new novel. That is a good premise, especially when the Hesses bring life to the novel’s characters in goofy and imaginative sequences . What goes completely wrong is surrounding Benjamin and Chevalier with a host of inane, stupid, dreary town characters that act as lead weights on what good storyline they had and throws the pacing way out of whack. Benjamin is made so passive in this film that its very existence depends on other characters that seem unnecessary and act as reminders that rewrites are a good thing. Why not make Benjamin the eccentric character with the vivid imagination and drive to make his own movies–sort of like a Crispin Glover? That way, he can truly go toe to toe with Chevalier from the outset. Also, the Hesses need to desperately learn that supporting characters do act like real human beings. I mean, c’mon, the clenched teeth, the droopy faces, the constantly strained smiles–these aren’t real human beings being portrayed, these are auditions for “Constipation Blues: The Musical.”
9. Bruno
Sasha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles admittedly pulled brilliant pre-release PR moves of this pseudo-doc with Cohen posing as an Austrian fashionista determined to be famous. Two big problems arise, however. First is not recognizing what type of project they have. Is it a feature? A special? A YouTube short? Ah, there we go! It’s too bad Cohen and Charles didn’t realize they had a short film idea, because through most of this “comedy,” we have to suffer through the same repetitive scenes. Bruno does something outrageous, cue shocked looks. After this happens about 7 or 8 times, you get the idea. Better to make this a series of videos you can have viewers subscribe to on YouTube rather than ask them to show up at the theater for this crap. And besides, the elephant in the room with this movie is that this gay stereotype is the only gay lead character in any Hollywood movie this year. The counterargument that Bruno was made to show how other people are intolerant is complete and utter baloney. The movie is not about those people, it’s about this character trying to fulfill his egotistical needs and oversexed desires. If he were straight, he’d just be an asshole. Having him be a flaming faggot is exactly how Hollywood studios would have it for public consumption, a gay minstrel show pretending to be subversive. Next up, Cohen plays Aunt Jemima.
8. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
This was the other film on the list that I could not finish (Gentlemen Broncos was the first). I tried, oh how I tried, but director Michael Bay seems to enjoy specializing in films that are literally unwatchable. Apparently, fearing anyone in the audience with Attention Deficit Disorder would be bored, Bay makes rapid fire editing a mainstay, thus creating in Armageddon and in this film some of the worst editing in cinema history. I don’t even want to spend precious space on my blog telling you the basic plot. Look it up on IMDB if you really want to see this movie. This will not only make you want to see less of both Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox on the big screen, it has the distinction of having the year’s worst movie line. LaBeouf, as Sam Witwicky, is preparing to head off to college and his car Honeybee is crying, saddened to see him go. Witwicky: “You’ll always be my first car man. I love you.” Why don’t you two rent a garage and do some real back seat driving?
7. Miss March
Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, two of the stars of the cable series The Whitest Kids U’Know, make the big leap from small screen to big screen with this feature they co-wrote and directed. They made an offensive, racist, sexist and incredibly lame comedy when they should have made an inspirational documentary, because it’s a goddamn fucking miracle these guys ever got the money to make this worthless piece of shit. Cregger plays Eugene, a virginal high school student about to graduate along with his “friend” Tucker (Moore), an oversexed stoner. Eugene is talked into having sex with his girlfriend (also a virgin) during a graduation party, but he falls down a flight of stairs and slips into a four-year coma. Oh, the hilarity. Revived from a coma by his “pal” wielding a baseball bat, he tries to track down his gal, who has since become a Playboy centerfold. Cregger and Moore have managed one notable accomplishment: they are without a doubt in my mind, the rock-bottom worst comedy team ever in the history of the movies. These two seem to think repeated jaw-dropping reactions to events are pretty funny, when in reality, it only causes my jaw to drop. Not once did I ever believe their two characters would even say hello to each other in school, let alone be friends. This striking lack of authenticity leads to desperate cloying scenes where the incredibly selfish Eugene has to tell his shitstain “buddy” that he’s such a good friend. Don’t worry, you deserve each other. Enjoy your 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
6. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
If any of you gals out there have a tough time getting your guy to rent romantic comedies, blame movies like this one. Matthew McConaughey continues his quest to move from the big screen to permanent cable TV status in his role as Conner Mead, an arrogant womanizing photographer who could care less about the women he beds until “that one special girl” comes along. I’ve already mentioned in a previous post about bad adaptations of “A Christmas Carol” that the Dickensian approach of having 3 ghosts come to haunt him amounts to having nothing fresh and interesting to say about relationships or any of the cliched characters in this movie. What I didn’t mention is that this movie also wastes good actors like Jennifer Garner, Oscar-winner Michael Douglas and Robert Forster. They better hope viewers have short memories. Finally, the only other thing worth noting in this crapfest is that it’s one of two movies on this list that have the most implausible wedding scenes of the year.
5. The Informers
Sara Libby at True/Slant gets it right: Crash could possibly be the worst movie of the decade (I’ll have to check over the last decade to make my final decision). The reason it’s a strong contender is because the supposed “subtlety and nuance” of that film lead to other similarly inspired movies that Crash defenders will have to explain. One example is this crock of steaming dung, already declared the year’s worst by my friend Elric and, boy, has he got it right. I found this movie–another “examination” of LA, this time in the 1980’s–one of the dullest, most confusing and most irritating experiences of the year handled with incredible ineptness by director Gregor Jordan. Rich and poor are examined here showing how they all have terrible flaws. How profound! Zzzzzzzzzz. Seriously, I don’t think I can remember a single scene of this movie, as it went through me like raisins. I’ve given more of my life than necessary to adaptations of Bret Easton Ellis novels. Three movies: Less Than Zero, American Psycho, The Informers and they all suck like an Electrolux. No more.
4. Knowing
A time capsule buried at an elementary school in 1959 and retrieved 50 years later holds secrets for the possible apocalypse. Discovered by the son of an astrophysicist, the paper filled with scribbled numbers is actually a guide to future disasters predicting the dates of calamities and the number of casualties. Oscar-winner Nicholas Cage, who occassionally takes a break to do terrific work in films like Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, gets right back in pay-the-castle-mortgage mode with this howler, playing John Koestler, the drunken widowed scientist who makes the 180 degree turn from rationalist to numerologist. Director Alex Proyas really coasts on the ridiculous CGI, throwing in a subway crash so bombastic no one could have survived it, except, of course, Koestler and a few others. If you do decide to waste your time on this, check out the ridiculous looking alien spacecraft near the film’s end. Quite possibly one of the year’s “party” movies.
3. Couples Retreat
Ever sit in a movie theater during a comedy and hear nothing but dead silence from the audience? That was my experience watching this atrocious film. Jason Bateman and Kristen Davis play a couple close to divorcing who convince three other couples (Vince Vaughn, et al.) they should all split the costs of heading to a tropical resort to work out their own issues. The other three couples are much more interested in having fun than taking the retreat seriously and alleged hilarity ensues. Good Lord, I don’t know where to start with this movie. It tries to be a romantic comedy, a screwball comedy, a gross-out comedy, a family situation comedy and a sexploitation comedy with both men and women as sex objects. It’s a failure on all those levels, so naturally it was a box-office hit. What the fuck, people?! Couldn’t you find something else to do with your time? Read a book? Scrub the baseboards? Download internet porn? Anything, but this? The script by co-stars Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn is one of the worst of the year. Several times in this movie the story should have come to a screeching halt, but unfortunately doesn’t. A controversy brewed when the UK promotional ad sheets for Couples Retreat excluded the African-American couple (Faizon Love and Kali Hawk). Those actors should consider themselves lucky to get whatever distance they could from this catastrophe. BTW, if you hated this movie but loved A Christmas Story, you should know that this cinevomit was directed by Peter Billingsley, who you thought was cute playing Ralphie in that obnoxious movie and allowed him further work in Hollywood. Thanks a lot.
2. Bride Wars
Another movie you guys suckered for was this incredibly insincere comedy and, upon any amount of examination, one of the most misogynistic films of the year. Why did you go? Was it the title? “Yeah, you see, girls like ‘Bride’ cuz it’s like weddings, beauty, love, you know? Guys will like ‘Wars’, because, hey, what guy doesn’t like war except some pussy, right?” Oscar-winner Kate Hudson sees her golden statuette shrinking distantly in the rear-view mirror portraying Liv, the best friend of Emma (Anne Hathaway). They’re both best buddies on everything until their dreams of each being married in NYC’s Plaza Hotel collide as a result of a scheduling conflict by a wedding planner (Candice Bergen, looking very uncomfortable in this role). Just as in Couples Retreat, this movie could have ended a half-dozen times, but trudges on, because we had to have one of the most forced happy endings in movie history. This movie rewards bickering, irrationality, bitchiness and demands that the male fiancees of both these rotters stick by them when it’s clear the guys should have called the weddings off. Hudson and Hathaway were both close to 30 years-old when they starred in this atrocity, but director Gary Winick, fresh from his single-episode lensings of Lipstick Jungle and Ugly Betty, armed himself with writers bearing sketchy credentials to bring the magic of bad TV sitcoms to the silver screen. Both these good actresses are reduced to acting like girls half their ages. This movie was rated PG, so a number of you probably took your young daughter to see this movie. In that case, I should become a therapist and charge you triple the normal rate when she comes to see me.
1. Antichrist
Okay, now I have to get serious. I was very ready and willing to let Bride Wars be the number one worst film of the year and Lars von Trier’s catastrophe sit at number three. However, over the last couple of weeks I’ve been stunned to read and hear folks finding justification for this trash. It’s the thing I fear most: Antichrist is probably going to be studied in film schools because some scholars who’ve puffed up their skulls with “art” films will actually lack the common sense to know when they’ve been taken. Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg star as a couple too busy wildly fucking each other to notice their infant son unattended in the next room. After the tyke slips out the window and falls to his slow-motion death (accompanied by operatic music), Mom falls apart. However, rather than have her committed–which she clears needs for her own safety–Dad takes her on as a patient for psychoanalysis (he’s a therapist, you see). Taking her to an isolated cabin in the woods, it’s Fatal Attraction meets Hostel time, as “She” goes completely bonkers and “He” is left wondering if there’s some supernatural goings on or whatever the fuck von Trier is trying to get at. There’s, believe it or not, two seperate scenes where she jumps on him from behind trying to kill him. I’ve actually had someone argue that this movie is a statement against psychology. Bullshit. This movie is about a domineering husband taking advantage of his wife’s desperate situation and later making him the “victim” in her assaults. Despite Anthony Dod Mantle’s fine cinematography, he’s left with one of the most hateful film ideas ever made. Yes, folks, thrill at the sight of evicerated animals, Gainsbourg finger fucking herself (hey, she had to win Best Actress at Cannes for something, right?), Dafoe staggering about with a grinder’s wheel bolted through his leg and later digging up a crow buried alive in a cave while Gainsbourg tries to kill him (I almost burst out laughing at that ridiculous scene) and Gainsbourg snipping off her vaginal lips in extreme close-up. This is fucking art?! Please. Don’t shit on my shoes and tell me you dropped a brownie. And to those of you embracing this movie: don’t complain about the next films in the Saw or Hostel series. Ever.
Other Losers this year:
17 Again: Zac Efron has to convince us that he grew up to look like Matthew Perry. Plastic surgery or genetic mutations?
Away We Go: Incredibly overrated comedy about a couple seeking a suitable environment to bear their first child. Cloying and irritating.
Fast & Furious: Vin Diesel high-octane action nonsense which lost me in about 5 minutes. That has to be some sort of speed record.
Hannah Montana, The Movie: Billy Ray Cyrus’ revenge against critics: get the youngsters. If your child grows up to be Hannah Montana, start over.
Haunting in Connecticut: Weak horror film riding on a freaky looking promo pic of some funky vomit-like substance coming out of a boy’s mouth.
Killshot: Mickey Rourke and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as hit men out to off witness Diane Lane who, you guessed it, is stripped and humiliated. Year of the Woman continues. A snoozer.
My Life in Ruins: My twenty minutes in shambles. Tour guide in Greece discovers love while you will probably discover the nearest exit.
Obsessed: Imma letcha finish readin’ but Beyonce was in one of the worst psycho thrillers of all time! Well, perhaps not so, but this was bad.
O’Horten: Another overrated “art” film (See Antichrist above). Retiring engineer encounters a goofy night before his final day at work. Boring and pointless extremely dry comedy.
The Proposal: Sandra Bullock seeks the comfort of playing yet another irritating bitch a la Crash in this mind-numbing crap that borrows the idea of extreme contrivance from Couples Retreat but was somehow able to convince some people that Bullock deserves a Golden Globe award nomination for this.
Another year has come and gone and 36 films that I’ve seen this year I considered to be worth my while. In fact, the first eight months of 2009, surprisingly, gave me no bad theater experiences which must mean I’m getting pretty selective in my choice of movie viewing (a good thing, I guess).
I want to note that this and future lists of Best Films will only include movies set for release prior to Christmas of that year. I’m frankly quite tired of studios cramming movies during a time when I’m too busy, poor and reluctant to trek out in lousy weather to gamble on what they figure Oscar voters will remember. If Up in the Air and Avatar are the greatest films ever made, tough bananas. Until I’m actually paid to watch those and other award-hyped movies or they decide to spread the good stuff out during the rest of the year, those movies are out. Whew! Okay, enough of the ranting. Now for the movies that made me glad to be watching movies.
10. World’s Greatest Dad
I’ve sat suffering through a number of high school themed nonsense films like Gentlemen Broncos and 17 Again, but I have to say this movie stunned me by its audaciousness and, I think, psychological honesty. Robin Williams, in one of his best performances ever, stars as a failed writer who is content to squeak by life as an uninspiring poetry teacher (certainly a parody of his character in Dead Poet’s Society). He lives alone with his only son, a jerk who constantly berates his father for being a loser and who has very strange sexual proclivities. Writer/Director Bobcat Goldthwait is probably one of the most daring independent comedy filmmakers out there, coming up with the pretty good Shakes the Clown and the not-so-good Stay (aka Sleeping Dogs Lie). However, he’s really struck gold with this one. Trying repeatedly in his films to mix the uncomfortable and tragic with the comic foibles of everyday life, Goldthwait gets the right mix and the right tone here with his take on how a community deals with tragedy that exposes hidden perversities and hypocrisies. This one film is worth 3 or 4 Apatow-produced comedies.
9. Where the Wild Things Are
The most brilliant kids film I’ve seen this year was this Spike Jonze directed feature based on the Maurice Sendak classic. Max, a lonely little boy with a tendency to throw tantrums, has a crying fit playing with his older sister’s friends and goes berserk at the appearance of his mom’s new boyfriend. He runs away from home and, in so doing, Max also runs off in his imagination to a distant land inhabited by strange monsters who, instead of eating him, make him their king. The close friendship he develops with his best monster friend Carol becomes complicated as “King” Max has to try his best at dealing with them. This movie remembers how it was to be a little kid, living carefree but also having to figure out tough complicated issues almost on your own. The creature costumes are great and the music score by Carter Burwell and Karen Orzolek is one of the year’s best.
8. Goodbye Solo
Here’s another example of the power of great indie films. Ramin Bahrani’s wonderful tale of the tenuous friendship between two men demonstrates how great tales can be told very simply. Souleymane Sy Savane plays the title role of Solo, a Sengalese immigrant driving a taxi in Winston-Salem, NC. One night, he picks up a disagreeable old man (Red West) who arranges a one-way trip on a specific date for $1000, no questions asked. From this arrangement, both men’s lives are changed forever as each meets unexpected ups and downs as the date approaches. Bahrani has a great grasp of the desire for the American dream and the realities of human limitations. There’s terrific cinematography by Michael Simmonds and Savane is fantastic, playing one of the most likable characters of the year.
7. The Messenger
The Hurt Locker is the war film getting all the attention (and perhaps many awards) this year, but this small budget film by co-writer/director Oren Moverman is much more moving. Ben Foster gives one of the year’s best performances playing a sergeant given the unenviable task of informing next of kin their child was killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Woody Harrelson plays the veteran co-hort who’s been doing this for too long. More than the bombast of mortar fire and the rattle of machine guns, the after-effects of war can be as powerful and even more devastating (as in the case of the great documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly). This film also has a great grasp of how different people react to tragic news, expressed terrifically in Samantha Morton’s Oscar-calibre performance as a war widow who responds to the news unusually. The news I’ve been getting about this movie is that it’s depressing. Duh! It’s about the effects of two ongoing wars, folks. What’s remarkable is that there is hope for some of these characters, but in complex ways. Once again, just as in a few previous films discussed here, it’s about honest approaches to crises.
6. Wendy and Lucy
Speaking of honest reactions to crises, Wendy and Lucy might the truest film about Americans living on the economic edge in years. Michelle Williams plays Wendy, a young Indiana woman promised a job in Alaska if she shows up. Packing her car and taking her companion, a dog named Lucy, she finds herself stranded in Oregon. Without money and desperate, circumstances begin unraveling for her quickly until she’s forced to make unpleasant decisions. Director Kelly Reichardt’s trademark meditative pacing is perfect for this story making the kindness of some strangers and the cruelty of others felt deeply and profoundly. Williams is remarkable in the role as is Wally Dalton, who is great as a security guard willing to help her as much as possible. Yes, technically this film was released in NY and LA in 2008, but it made Chicago in 2009 and that’s when I saw it, so there.
5. Big Fan
Okay, so The Wrestler might have reignited Mickey Rourke’s career, but let’s remember that if it weren’t for Robert D. Siegel’s great screenplay, he may not have had such a fascinating character. Siegel wrote and directed this magnificent debut film, one of the best directorial debuts in film history as far as I’m concerned. Patton Oswalt is nothing less than astonishing playing Paul, a poor schlup who spends his tedious hours as a parking-garage attendant taking copious notes for his nightly 1am sports rant. Obsessed with The New York Giants and, in particular star linebacker Quantrell Bishop, he lives only to see his Giants win and tear down any doubters when calling his favorite sports radio talk show. An incident with his favorite player, however, throws his whole life into a spin. This movie has one of the best thought-out climaxes I’ve seen in a long time. It truly clobbered me and Oswalt nails his character perfectly. If he doesn’t win the Oscar this year for Best Actor, it’s a robbery. Big Fan is also the first film I can remember that takes sports addiction seriously, and I don’t mean the type that makes guys paint their faces blue and run out into the stands half-naked. With The Wrestler and Big Fan, Siegel is doing nothing less than reimagining and reinvigorating the sports film genre.
4. Munyurangabo
As with the earlier mentioned film The Messenger, this film by American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung looks into the after effects of armed conflict–in this case, the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. The title refers to the name of an ancient Rwandan warrior Munyurangabo and was the inspiration for the lead character, Ngabo (Jeff Rutagengwa). Ngabo is a member of the Tutsi, the tribe suffering the most deaths during the genocide. The teenage boy befriends another boy Sangwa (Eric Ndorunkundiye), descended from the opposing tribe of Hutu. Ngabo, armed with a stolen machete, informs his new friend that he’s headed off to find work, but agrees to accompany Sangwa to see the boy’s parents who he hadn’t seen in three years. Once they visit the family, circumstances emerge which test the boys’ faith in the importance of their families, friendships and integrities. I’m truly amazed at the power of this film, given that it was the first film made in the local Kinyarwanda language, shot in 11 days, and uses non-actors in the roles. This authenticity serves very well in the boys’ final conflict, one of the most heartbreaking movie scenes of the year. Munyurangabo is proof positive that some of the best tales told can be the simplest.
3. Silent Light
Another great tale told simplistically and meditatively is Carlos Reygadas’ mesmerizing Silent Light. Set in Mexico in the Mennonite Community, it tells the tale of Johan, a hard-working married man who falls in love with another woman. Much has been made of the famous 6-minute sunrise sequence at the beginning of the film, but it sets the tone for patience needed and helps the viewer enter a different world–one which may have different approaches to crises than what many of us may be accustomed. Like Munyurangabo, this movie uses non-actors and a rarely used language. Compared with the works of Tarkovsky, Olmi, Dreyer and Bergman, Silent Light puts Reygadas’ in the league of classic storytellers confident to remind us that slower paced films can be great too. It seems incredible that I have to write that last sentence, but I have had people complain about how tedious this movie is. Their loss.
2. Sita Sings the Blues
You can throw a bunch of Pixar features at me and toss in 3D effects, fine. But, by far, the most enchanting, exciting and dazzling animated feature (and of virtually any feature this year) was this bravura solo computer project by writer/produer/director/editor Nina Paley. In actual life, Paley was dumped by her boyfriend and upon recovering from her broken heart, learned that her story seemed to parallel the ancient Indian raga of Ramayana. With virtually nothing for a budget, Paley (with some help from fellow animator Jake Friedman) tells both stories using several different animated graphic styles, some hilarious bickering shadow puppets and lovely (and strangely befitting) blues songs by jazz legend Annette Hanshaw. This film is the only one that I know of on my list that you can download completely on YouTube, but seriously folks, see this on the largest screen you can find. You’ll be amazed. Also, you can help Paley pay for the cost of the music copyrights by donating on her website here.
1. The Baader-Meinhof Complex
With the recent news of a terrorist attempt on Christmas Day, watching this truly terrific and terrifying film should be required. Period.
Director Uli Edel was, thankfully, not in Hollywood when he created this international political thriller. Otherwise, this incredibly daring film would have looked more like Taken or The International instead of standing along the ranks of classics like Z and The Day of the Jackal. Focusing on radical journalist Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck in a fantastic performance), the movie shows how a terrorist movement germinated in very tense times (The Vietnam War and repression against leftists in West Germany) with justifiable grievances and understandable emotions. Edel, however, brilliantly lays out both sides of the conflict by eventually showing how the RAF (Red Army Faction), growing in popularity, gets completely out of hand. This film is able to be both an exciting action film–there are plenty of scenes showing the dozens of deaths attributed to the RAF–and a thought-provoking psychological study of a cultic political group, first using its notices to lay out its political dogma and later having to use it to justify murders. Even if you knew what eventually happened with the Baader-Meinhof Group, you can find yourself wondering in this film how the escalating conflicts are going to come to a successful end and how the emergence of new violent radical groups can be stopped.
Runners-up (in alphabetical order):
The Beaches of Agnes; Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans; Big Man Japan; Capitalism, A Love Story; Coraline; The Fantastic Mr. Fox; Flame and Citron; I Love You, Man; Il Divo; Julia; Katyn; The New Twenty; Pontypool; Spread; Valentino: The Last Emperor
I’ve just read two online articles in one day about how Warner Brothers has gotten antsy over the publicity of two major film releases.
First, they’ve reportedly gotten nervous that Robert Downey, Jr. has suggested the possibility that Sherlock Holmes is a “butch homosexual” and Dr. Watson is his dalliance.
Second, they forced director Kevin Smith to change a great title to his new detective comedy film, A Couple of Dicks, to the newer weaker release title Cop Out. No word yet as to whether they would insist Universal Studios change W. C. Fields’ classic The Bank Dick to The Bank Employee.
Seriously, someone needs to look into the Warner Brothers publicity department and get some hip people there. Can’t they tell great free publicity when they see, hear or read it?
