Tuesday, December 30, 2003
TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2003!
Well, it's become an annual tradition on this blog (err..well, this is the second year in a row..) for me to pontificate on what movies I thought were the year's best. So here we go (counting backwards like David Letterman would do it):
Number Ten: (tie) THE HULK and X2
Even though both of these movies are based on Marvel comics characters, they're actually very different. And there were times when both would have placed much higher on the list. X-Men 2: X-Men United (the full title) just might be my favorite superhero movie so far. I thought it was even better than the original, that it had a terrific cast (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos really shines this time around as Mystique, and Nightcrawler is a very cool addition to the team), great special effects, and a really solid storyline. As a long-time Wolverine fan, I think Hugh Jackman is doing a great job, and exploring his character's origins is a definite motivation this time around. So why didn't it place higher? 2003 was one helluva year for movies, and it was pretty hard choosing 10 favorites.
As for The Hulk, a lot of people didn't like it. There were a lot of complaints that it moved too slow, and took too many liberties with the comics. I admit, there are directors who might have created a more dynamic movie than Ang Lee, and this movie does have flaws. But for some damn reason I really liked this movie a lot. And I didn't think the computer animated Hulk looked that bad at all. As a long-time Hulk fan, I was just overjoyed to finally see the green goliath on the big screen after all these years, and it's probably the fanboy in me that put this movie on my top 10 list. But I have a lot of affection for this flick. The Hulk vs. the Gamma dogs scene alone is a total joy to watch. I've had to defend this movie to a lot of people, but you know what? I don't mind. Hulk still kicks ass. Now let's hope if there is a sequel, it has a REAL Hulk villain in it. My vote is for The Leader or The Abomination. But I've also always been a big fan of The Rhino.....
NUMBER NINE: HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES
Another flick that a lot of people hated, and that I've had to defend to detractors. It seems that some people were disappointed when Rob Zombie's notorious horror film was finally released. But I found it to be a fun rollercoaster ride of a movie. A weird mix of (very) dark humor and some genuine scares. It could have been improved by a tighter script, but for Zombie's debut as a writer/director, I really enjoyed this movie. Enough to put it on my list. The venerable Sid Haig is especially a treat as Capt. Spaulding. Nice to see an old favorite back on the big screen.
NUMBER EIGHT: MAY
Sure it's predictable at times and you can see the ending coming a mile away, but this might just be my favorite horror movie of 2003, and there were a lot of 'em for some reason. What made this movie so good was the cast, from Angela Bettis who is terrific as May, to the underrated Anna Farris (from the Scary Movie movies, but she also played a self-absorbed movie star this year in Lost in Translation, too), as her lesbian co-worker who takes a shine to her, and Jeremy Sisto (from Six Feet Under) as the object of May's affections/obsession. And Lucky McKee directs it with style. For some reason it reminded me of another recent horror fave of mine, Ginger Snaps.
NUMBER SEVEN: 21 GRAMS
The American debut by the Mexican director who previously gave us the amazing Ameros Perros is a study if grief and harrowing tragedy as three people's lives collide. The three stars are simply amazing to watch: Sean Penn in one of his best roles ever, Naomi Watts, who is becoming one of my all-time favorite actresses, and the underrated Benecio Del Toro. All three of them deserve Oscar nominations for this one, and the story is pretty fucking terrific too. Not the kind of movie you go to for an upbeat escape from real life, though. This one is bummer theater. I guess I just happen to dig that, though.
NUMBER SIX: BAD SANTA
Might just be the best holiday movie ever made, and it's one of the most anti-holiday movies ever made at the same time. Billy Bob Thornton is great as a repulsive, vile, totally unredeemed drunk who dresses like Santa and cracks safes. And he gets to fuck Lauren Graham too (woo-hoo)! Either you'll love this movie or you'll hate it. I loved it.
NUMBER FIVE: THE SHAPE OF THINGS
Neil LaBute has made some of my favorite movies. In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors are two of the most mean-spirited movies you'll ever see. Then LaBute started going soft on us, with an adaptation of A.S. Byatt's Possession and his most commercial film to date, Nurse Betty. I thought we were losing him to the light side. But no, in 2003 LaBute came back to the darkness with this little gem of a movie. Cruelty at its finest. To describe it is to do it a disservice. Just see it and expect the worst.
NUMBER FOUR: AMERICAN SPLENDOR
I became a big fan of Harvey Pekar back in the early 80's when he was a regular on the old (NBC) David Letterman Show. He'd come on a give Dave a hard time, and came off as a real curmudgeon. He also wrote comics, so I checked them out - and immediately got hooked. You see, Pekar doesn't write about superheroes or spacemen. He writes about everyday life. And he's not the most likeable guy you'll ever meet - but who said everyone has to be likeable anyway? Pekar portrays himself, warts and all, in his American Splendor comics (which he's published at least once a year since 1976), aided by artists over of the years from R. Crumb to Gary Dumm. This movie brings Harvey, his life, and his comics, to the big screen in some very innovative ways, including having the real Harvey and his wife Joyce onscreen, as well as actors portraying them. Paul Giamatti is terrific as Harvey, as is Hope Davis as Joyce. The real people ain't so bad, either. There's even genuine nerd Toby Radloff. What else could you ask for? If you like Harvey and his comics, you'll love this movie. The only reason it isn't higher on my list is because this was an incredibly good year for movies.
NUMBER THREE: IRREVERSIBLE
Earlier in the year, this was my number one movie. It's a balls-to-the-wall exercise in shock theater that is practically guaranteed to offend a lot of people, and disturb everyone else. It starts out with a brutal murder involving a fire extinguisher and then goes backwards to explain why it happened. There's a grueling 15-minute rape scene where Monica Belluci is agonized and humiliated. It's not exactly a movie you "like" but it is a ballsy movie that dares you to look away, and most people probably won't be able to sit all the way through it. It's a big fuck you to its audience. But there's something about the pure rawness of it that appeals to the punk rocker in me. If Sid Vicious had lived and become a filmmaker, he'd probably have made something like Irreversible, although it probably wouldn't have been as coherent. A rare look at the real underbelly of life as human.
NUMBER TWO: LOST IN TRANSLATION
Sophia Coppola might have been a joke after her acting job in Godfather 3 (which I still, to this day, haven't seen), but she's acquited herself nicely as a director. First with The Virgin Suicides, which was flawed but showed great potential, and now with Lost In Translation, which is nothing short of genius. I thought Bill Murray was great in Rushmore, where he had the supporting actor role of his career, but in Lost in Translation he has the best leading role of his career as a washed up American movie star who goes to Japan to make some quick cash doing a whiskey commercial. In between shoots, he's bored, lonely and feels like a fish out of water. Until he meets Scarlett Johansen (formerly in Ghost World), who is in Japan because her husband is a photographer doing a shoot there, but he's never around, and she's just as lonely as Murray is. The two of them connect. It's one of the most low-key love stories you'll ever see. Nothing much happens in it. It's mostly just two people hanging out. But in a zen kind of way, it's one of the most profound and touching stories you'll see. Bill Murray has never been better. If he doesn't get the Oscar for this one - then Hollywood just sucks.
AND....(drum roll please)
NUMBER ONE: KILL BILL: VOLUME 1
This is the only movie that could have knocked Lost in Translation out of the number one spot for me. I notice that it didn't even make most critics lists. Maybe it's some kind of Tarantino backlash. Well, fuck 'em. This is easily the best movie of the year. It's got Uma Thurmann with a sword. It's got geysers of blood. It's got Sonny Chiba. What the fuck else do you need? Some people thought it was short on story, but that's bullshit. It's a revenge drama pure and simple. As old as literature. But I do hear there's more character development in Volume 2, which I cannot wait to see in February. This movie is absolutely perfect. Tarantino as usual gets every little detail right, and proves he's a master stylist in an era where most movies are just cookie cutter product. He hasn't directed a bad movie yet, and he sure as fuck hasn't stumbled with this one. Either you get it, or it's gonna pass you by. I've seen it twice, and I'll no doubt see it a lot more when it's out on DVD. Faster Uma, Kill Kill!
Some Honorable Mentions:
Mystic River (good story and some terrific acting, just missed making my top 10).
Fun movies: Freddy vs. Jason (the first half sucked, but once they got down to business, it was like watching "Marvel Team-Up" come to life) and Bubba Ho-Tep (not a masterpiece, but a lot of fun, with Bruce Campbell turning in an exceptional performance as an old Elvis and based on a story by Joe Lansdale, one of my faves), and Beyond Re-Animator (not up to the first Re-Animator's standards, but a fun, outrageously violent sequel).
More good 'uns: Spider (another creepy Cronenberg flick), The Magdalene Sisters (exposing the abuse of girls in Ireland in the name of "morality"), and School of Rock (very watchable mainly because of the always-entertaining Jack Black, who really shines in this one. Without him, this would have been a piece of shit).
Well, that's my list. You might agree with some of my choices. You might not. That's life. But I call 'em as I see 'em, and this year I had a real good time going to the movies. Let's hope 2004 is an even better year for cinema.
Now go have a happy new year!
Saturday, December 27, 2003
GREETINGS FROM BAD SANTA!
Okay, I know I haven't been as reliable as I used to be when it comes to the blog. Between the holidays, long hours at work, and a battle with the bug, I've fallen behind a bit when it comes to updating this thing. But I plan to correct that now.
First off, I saw BAD SANTA last week, and it's a good 'un. I was expecting a lot when I saw that Terry Zwigoff was directing this. He directed the amazing documentary CRUMB, as well as the very cool comic-adaptation GHOST WORLD, so I'm expecting big things from this guy. I wasn't disappointed.
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I thought it would be more commerical, with Billy Bob Thornton as a misanthropic Santa, who maybe redeems himself at the end and becomes all sweetness and light. But that is not the case with this movie. Thornton's Santa is a son of a bitch at the beginning and stays that way all the way through. No life-altering personality changes. No saccharine. No cute little kids melting his heart. None of that shit. This is maybe the most subversive, anti-Christmas Christmas movie ever made.
God, did I love it!
Billy Bob is a disgusting drunk. He's constantly sick or hungover, he constantly spews out long tirades with lots of "fucks" and "shits" and "goddamns" in them. He drinks, fucks, smokes, swears and belches. He even pisses himself more than once. You'd think he couldn't keep a job, but somehow he does. Mostly because of his partner, a dwarf named Marcus who plays his elf (Tony Cox). You see, they're more than just partners when it comes to playing Santa and his elf - they are also thieves who knock over the safes at the end of their stints as department store joy-givers. Santa specializes in safecracking and Marcus is an expert in disarming alarms. They make quite a team and make lots of money, but Santa is starting to get a little too sloppy lately...
Enter the kid. But he's not the kind of cutsey, heart-warming kid you usually see in holiday movies. No, this kid is fat and his nose seems to be constantly running (it looks like no one ever told him about Kleenex). He also says very odd stuff and seems borderline retarded. But he lives in a big old mansion with his practically comatose grandma while his father serves time in the pen for embezzlement, so Billy Bob's Santa crashes there when the cops start nosing around his motel room.
There's also a love interest, and she's Lauren Graham, who plays none other than Lorelei Gilmore on the WB show Gilmore Girls. I can't explain it, but I find Graham to be one of the hottest chicks on TV. There's just something about her - especially when she smiles. She has a radiant fucking smile. And the scene where she is fucking Billy Bob in the back of a car and shouting "Fuck me Santa!" is one of my favorite holiday moments ever. To see wholesome Lorelei Gilmore drinking, swearing, and fucking Santa Claus, is simply priceless. I really dug that she was in this movie (even if there wasn't any nudity, alas).
The rest of the solid cast includes John Ritter (in his last role) as the manager of the department store, who is so politically correct that it hurts, and Bernie Mac, who is hilarious as a store detective who figures out with Santa and his elf are up to, and wants a piece of the action. Everyone does a terrific job here.
But it's Billy Bob Thornton who steals the show. This is one of the most repulsive, unredeemable characters to carry a movie, and he pulls it off with ease. This is easily one of his best roles, and he seems to take pure joy in being the most obnoxious son of a bitch he can be. Which is why I thought this was one fucking hilarious movie.
Check it out!
MYSTIC RIVER
I also recently saw the movie Mystic River. It's been out for awhile now, but I just never got around to seeing it until now. I'm glad I did.
Based on the book by Dennis Lehane, directed with skill and ease by Clint Eastwood, and performed by an amazing cast led by Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins, Mystic River is a big, riveting puzzle of a movie. It's a bit long - it seemed to be over 3 hours - but every scene is important to the plot. There's no filler here. But there is a ton of story.
Basically, it involves three childhood friends, Jimmy, Sean and Dave. One day they are playing street hockey and decide to write their names in wet cement, when a guy stops them and claims to be a police detective. He threatens to tell their parents and takes Davey, who lives a few blocks away, home in his car. Except he's not a cop, and he doesn't take Dave home. Instead, he's a pedophile who puts Davey through a four-day hell, which the kid is somehow able to escape from. But he's never the same afterwards.
Flash forward to present day, and the three friends are grown-ups now. Jimmy (Sean Penn) is a store owner with ties to the underworld. Sean (Kevin Bacon) is a (real) police detective, who's pregnant wife has just left him and he has no idea where she is. Dave is a damaged shell of a man who has a wife and son, but who seems to be always on the verge of losing it.
The three friends' lives interconnect again, when Jimmy's 19-year old daughter is murdered, Detective Sean is on the case, and clues seem to point to the fact that Dave might just be a suspect in the case. But there are a lot fo questions that need to be answered before we find out the truth about what happened.
Mystic River is a real story movie - it keeps you glued throughout as you really want to know what happened that fateful night. The rest of the cast is very strong, too. From Laura Linney as Jimmy's hard as nails wife, to Marcia Gay Harden (from Pollock) as Dave's confused and increasingly scared wife, to Laurence Fishburne who finally gets to shine in a non-Matrix role here as Bacon's partner, and shows that he's a damn good actor after all (when he isn't playing the robotic Morpheus).
All in all, a really good, well-written and directed movie with an involving plot, and characters who seem very grounded in reality. Sean Penn in particular has had a stellar year with strong roles in this one and 21 Grams. If there was any doubt this guy was one of the best actors we've got today, these two films should put those doubts to rest once and for all.
No doubt Mystic River is going to get a lot of nominations at Oscar time.
COMING SOON
I might see a couple of more flicks between now and New Year's, but I'll be putting together my top 10 movies of 2003 soon and will be posting them here. For once, there were a lot of movies to choose from. It was an exceptional year for movies.
So until next time. Infernally Yours,
LLS
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Last week was a pretty bad one. Had to work a lot of overtime at work, and I was feeling under the weather to boot, so I didn't write anything for the blog. I'll correct that this week, with a review of Bad Santa, and my top 10 movies of 2003 list. Both coming soon. So stay tuned.
Friday, December 12, 2003
Sorry I haven't been updating the blog as often as I should be. I've usually been pretty good about writing here at least once a week. Last weekend we got hit with a blizzard out here, something like two feet of snow, and even though the plows cleaned the roads, the commute to and from work has been pretty slow all week long. The trains especially have been moving at a snail's pace. You'd think in New England they'd be used to a little snow, but it seems like this particular snowstorm had a real affect on things.
Haven't seen any movies in a few weeks. Did give the show Alias a second chance, though. Back when it first began, I watched a couple of episodes and was underwhelmed. Sure, Jennifer Garner is real nice to look at, but I found the show's pacing to be abominably slow, and I didn't really care about any of the characters. It just wasn't the kind of thing I'd want to watch every week.
Well, it's now in it's third season, and I have been hearing great stuff about it, so I figured it was time to give the show another chance. And what better reason to tune in again than the fact that director David Cronenberg was the guest star for the last two weeks.
For some reason, I enjoy Alias much better now. One big thing is that the pacing is a lot faster. The hour seemed to zoom by. And while Jennifer Garner is still just fine as the star, it also seems like the secondary characters have gotten a little more interesting. And even though I'd missed more than two seasons of the show, and really had no idea who some of these people were, it was interesting enough to keep me watching anyway.
I think I'm hooked. Or maybe I'll just keep watching until it gets bad again.
Not much else. I still want to see Bad Santa - how can you beat a movie directed by Terri Zwigoff (who also did the amazing documentary CRUMB and the great comic book adaptation GHOST WORLD) about a drunken Santa starring Billy Bob Thornton (I know he's had some clunkers, but he's also turned in some great performances too) and TV hottie Lauren Graham.
So it's not like there aren't any movies worth seeing. It's just been hard finding the time.
Oh well, when I finally get around to seeing some new movies, I'll be talking about them here. And, with the year coming to an end soon (can you believe how fast this year went by!) it will be time to list what I thought were the best movies of 2003 (it's going to be a tough list - there were lots of good movies this year) and maybe a list of the best CD's too.
Until next time......
LLS
Thursday, December 04, 2003
I know, I've been pretty quiet lately. Things have been pretty busy on this end.
One movie I saw recently was 21 Grams. It's the new one by the same director who made the Mexican film Amores Perros a couple of years back, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Amores Perros was an amazing film that helped spearhead a new wave of Mexican filmmaking. It told three different stories about different sets of characters, each storyline involving dogs somehow (thus the "perros" in the title). One storyline concerning dogfights was particularly controversial at the time.
It's obvious Hollywood took notice, because 21 Grams is Inarritu's first English-language film.
Inarritu loses nothing in having to change languages. 21 Grams is a really terrific film and shows a lot of the same strengths of his previous film, including the ability to juggle multiple storylines with ease.
There's a touch of Memento in 21 Grams. The story is told with little concern about chronology. It jumps constantly from the past to the present, and involves three people: Sean Penn as a man who has recently had a heart transplant and who is reassessing his life. Naomi Watts as a woman who has lost her family to tragedy, and is trying to put her life back together. And Benecio Del Toro as an ex-con trying to go straight and be there for his wife and kids. All three characters have tragic stories to tell, all three are very compelling. At one point, the three stories merge to become one, but, throughout, the scenes jump all around time-wise. It's the kind of narrative that could be very "arty" and annoying, but in Inarritu's hands, it works very well, and you don't even notice it that much, since you're so drawn into the stories and the characters (the three main actors especially are terrific in this film). In fact, it's kind of satisfying to eventually see all the disjointed scenes start to come together as it goes on.
21 Grams, the title referring to how much weight the body loses at death (might it be the weight of the soul, perhaps?), is one of the best movies of 2003 - and we're talking about a year which has been shaping up to be an above-average one for cinema.
And, to switch to a topic that couldn't be more opposite to 21 Grams, I saw two episodes of the new show The Simple Life this week. It stars Hilton hotel heiress and home sex tape star Paris Hilton and her best friend Nicole Ritchie (daughter of Lionel). The premise of this show is that these two girls are spoiled millionaires who haven't had to work a day in their lives, and they are sent to live on a farm and do some real work for a change. The show is pretty funny - as these two clueless California girls experience culture shock in Middle America. There are some funny lines, like when Paris asks if Wal-Mart is a place where you "get stuff for walls." Tonight's episode had the girls working at a dairy, filling up milk bottles, washing down the barn, etc. Needless to say, they only last one day before getting fired.
It's a funny show and is worth checking out if you need a little comic relief in your life.
That's all for this week. See you again next time. Same bat channel.
Infernally Yours,
LLS
