Over on the venerable Book of Faces I participated in the 30 Day Song Challenge. Every day for a full month you post a song following a certain rule for the day. It's fun to do and it has spurred a little discussion if not as much as I'd hoped for initially.
The only thing I'd improve is it seems aimed at a younger set of followers. Some of the rules are a little focused on teenage angst and less on showing your appreciation for music. So, as a brain exercise, I'm going to redo the 30 Day Song Challenge as tho I were writing it and aiming it at my peer group.
Day 1 - Your favorite song - "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procul Harum
This one is the same as the actual challenge and it doesn't change.
Day 2 - Your favorite song from the last year - "Runaway" by Kanye West
In my opinion, the 3 best songs from the last 12 mos. were "Bed Intruder", "Fuck You" and this song. Out of those 3, this is the one I still listen to frequently.
Day 3 - Your favorite song which is 50 years old this year - "My Favorite Things" by John Coltrane
This takes us back to 1961 which was a weird year in music. Rock had struck it big in the middle of the previous decade but had cooled for various reasons. So we're still 3 years away from The Beatles coming to America and jazz is making its last run on the top. As such, I pick Coltrane at or near his peak.
Day 4 - Your favorite song which is 25 years old this year - "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" by Paul Simon
This jump takes us back to 1986 which was the first year I really started to listen to music and have my own opinions on it, simple tho they may be. One of the albums I remember my dad (and, by proxy, me) listening to a lot was "Graceland" and I've held a special affinity for the album even until today. In fact, if you pulled up my fandom of Vampire Weekend you'd find "Graceland" at its roots.
Day 5 - Your favorite song which is 10 years old this year - "Jo Jo's Jacket" by Stephen Malkmus
Now we're up to 2001 and in that year I would've told you my favorite album that year was Weezer's green album. But now it's been 10 years and there are two albums I'd go to the shelf and pull out to listen to on a whim: The (international) Noise Conspiracy "New Morning, Changing Weather" and Steve Malkmus' first solo album. Since I like the latter better than the former, I'll put that one out front.
Day 6 - A Song Which Was Played At The 1st Concert You Ever Attended - "Hanging Tough" by New Kids On The Block
Fuck yeah I went to a New Kids concert and I was excited as shit to go. It was 1989, the concert was at the Met Center and my young ears and heart were won by whatever was on WLOL. My whole family went, we sat right were the speakers were pointed and I still have vivid memories of it. Some might find it embarrassing to admit their first concert was the New Kids. I think it's kind of perfect.
Day 7 - A Song Played At The Most Recent Concert You Attended - "I'll Buy" by The Replacements
It's been the slow season for concerts here in Minnesota and I've been kind of skint here at the end of it all as bands start touring thru here again. Consulting my calendar tells me the last concert I went to was the Replacements tribute at First Ave over the Thanksgiving weekend. Yes, it's been that long. Either way, here's the original version of a song from "Tim".
Day 8 - A Song Played At The Best Concert You Ever Attended - "Warning" by Green Day
Another shocker perhaps. The best concert I ever went to was in January 2001 when Green Day played The Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee. My friends Adam, Bryan and I drove down from school in Green Bay and it was an amazing show. The band was in the in-between space after their "Dookie" success but before their "American Idiot" success. This meant they were actually trying and tuned in and it made for a great show.
Day 9 - 4 Days of Songs About Classical Elements: Air - "Blowing In The Wind" by Bob Dylan
I could go with Bob Dylan for each of these. But I'll limit myself to this one as the quintessential song about wind. And since YouTube only has covers, it should be one by someone who at least knows Dylan.
Day 10 - 4 Days of Songs About Classical Elements: Earth - "Dead Leaves & The Dirty Ground" by The White Stripes
Again, you could probably go with Jack White on each of these. But again I'll limit myself.
Day 11 - 4 Days of Songs About Classical Elements: Fire - "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix
When you think of fire you should think of Prometheus and Jimi Hendrix.
Day 12 - 4 Days of Songs About Classical Elements: Water - "Take Me To The River" by The Talking Heads
There are a lot of great songs about rain, oceans, snow and tears. But this one is the best one about rivers.
Day 13 - A Song about Luck - "Lucky" by Radiohead
This is the first song I ever heard off "OK Computer". This performance actually since I was a Launch subscriber.
Day 14 - A Song About Love - "Lovesong" by The Cure
This song came out when I was about 9 or 10 and it was the first time I remembered a love song sounding sad. Not just "Baby, baby. Where did our love go?" but actually sad while still being about love.
Day 15 - A Song About Falling Out of Love - "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" by Amy Winehouse
The original is a little too upbeat. I like Winehouse's cover better.
Day 16 - A Song About Loneliness - "So Far Away" by Carole King
How did anyone survive the 1970s? Seriously, did everyone just zone out and let shit happen? Or did everyone break their hearts early on and what we have now is the broken version of those people?
Day 17 - A Song About Happiness - "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" by Stevie Wonder
Scratch that. Everyone in the 1970s must've been listening to Stevie Wonder. Boom! Happiness achieved.
Day 18 - A Song About The Past - "In My Life" by The Beatles
This song, in addition to being my father's favorite Beatles song, was the music which scored Kevin Arnold's first kiss with Winnie Cooper on "The Wonder Years" and you can't get any more about the past than that.
Day 19 - A Song About The Present - "Right Now" by Van Halen
CARPE DIEM, MOTHERFUCKER!!! (Drink Crystal Pepsi.)
Day 20 - A Song About The Future - "Ooh Child" by The 5 Stairstep
Yeah, I see myself as an optimist. But if my fault is believing better things are around the corner, it's a fault I'm okay having.
Day 21 - The Original Song Sampled in A Hip-Hop Song - "One Step Ahead" by Aretha Franklin
To be later used by Ayotollah on Mos Def's "Ms. Fat Booty". When you hear it, you'll shit bricks.
Day 22 - A Song Which Should Be Sampled By A Hip-Hop Song - "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson
It used to be "Cruel Summer" by Bananarama. Now I just wish someone would use "Billie Jean", especially the drum beat and bass lines which are both dope as hell.
Day 23 - Coolest Guitar Riff - "Seventeen Years" by Ratatat
I know it's kind of unfair to put Ratatat here because all they do is riff. But it's my rules and I choose how to enforce them.
Day 24 - Coolest Guitar Solo - "Dazed and Confused" by Led Zepplin
Listen, I could've put everything Jimi Hendrix or Eddie Van Halen ever did in this slot. But I chose Jimmy Page playing "Dazed & Confused" in "Song Remains The Same". Get it?
Day 25 - Coolest Vocal Solo - "Great Gig In the Sky" by Pink Floyd
One of the few times I can think of where the human voice was used as an instrument and yet also given it's own space. If this had been a guitar or a saxophone, it would've been cheesy. But the human voice...
Day 26 - Best Verse - "6 Foot 7 Foot" by Lil Wayne
Yeah, just pick your favorite between either of Wayne's verses on this song. Both are classics.
Day 27 - Best Chorus - "Enjoy The Silence" by Depeche Mode
Just read the words.
All I ever wanted/All I ever needed/Is here in my arms/Words are very unnecessary/They can only do harm
God, there's just so much there.
Day 28 - Best Cover - "Hurt" by Johnny Cash
This is the one time on this list I feel like if I'd forgotten about this song for this category I actually might've hated myself. Like actually been angry with myself.
Day 29 - Best Mashup - "I'm A Flirt 7/4 Shoreline" by The Hood Internet
I could've gone with a Girl Talk or Super Mash Bros mashup here. The Hood Internet is on to something here and it's sneaky good.
Day 30 - Last Song You Heard Before Starting This List - "Vanessa From Queens" by Stephen Malkmus
From the very good and under radar "Pig Lib" album, Malkmus woos a reluctant paramour.
Showing posts with label best of. Show all posts
Showing posts with label best of. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Monday, December 22, 2008
Oh, Eight Songs
I was combing through the last year in music and I'm going to do something a little different. The thing to do usually is to make a list of the year's best albums. But let's be honest. Not only are you unlikely to go out and buy those albums, most people don't even consume music via the album anymore. It's all about single songs.
So these are eight songs I chose to represent the music which turned me on in the last year. These were bands and/or songs a regular person wouldn't have stumbled into just by listening to the radio. (Sorry Kanye and Coldplay.) At the same time I also wanted to highlight music that most people could enjoy too. (Sorry Battles and TV On The Radio.) Most of all though these were eight songs I listed to often during the year. When I think back on 2008, these songs will be the soundtrack.
And just for added difficulty, let's make them appear in the same slot as they do on the album from which they come (our first song is first on its respective album, the second song comes second on its album, etc.) and do it in under thirty minutes.
1.) Colin Meloy "Devil's Elbow" - When I think of 2008, I will think of being in Chicago. When I think of being in Chicago, I will think of three things. The first one is obvious. The second is the good times. The third will be riding the train. I rode the CTA everywhere and on the nights when I didn't have a companion I was plugged into my MP3 player.
Colin Meloy's live solo album got a lot of spins on my way to work, going to baseball games, going out to shows and most often when I was going home. I will hear this song or any from this album and forever think of the Clark and Division stop, the stretch between Sheridan and Howard and standing at Main in the morning. Add in that it's a great song and "Devil's Elbow" spells 2008.
2.) Vampire Weekend "Oxford Comma" - Have you ever heard a buzz band that everyone seems to love and they really are that great? It's not hype. It's actually music journalism fulfilling its purpose and bringing good music to light. I had a few of those this year.
Vampire Weekend was one of them. Maybe it's because all of my musical taste is calibrated to The Clash but I always love music that isn't familiar. I like weird sounds and sounds that are presented in a different way than I've heard. Being able to do that within a three minute pop song though is a real feat.
There's something that sounds very close to Jamaican reggae about Vampire Weekend's music. Their influences are actually West African and I think that's something Joe Strummer would be way into if he were still alive. I think that because it's stuff I'm way into myself.
3.) Kings of Leon "Sex On Fire" - One of the great quotes I like to pull from my life is by Gregg Allman. He was talking about the term "Southern rock." He said (and I'm paraphrasing) "All rock comes from The South. So saying 'Southern rock' is a little bit like saying 'rock rock'." Normally when we think of music that rocks, we think of the music which followed and drew influence Led Zepplin with shredding guitars, bombastic drums and soaring vocals. Allman is right though. Even the almighty Zepplin sound draws its roots in The South.
That would mean the purest form of rock made today is the "rock rock" being made by bands like My Morning Jacket and Kings of Leon. I mean what's more sex and drugs and rock and roll than a song called "Sex on Fire"? All the more to the point when you dive into the lyrics about the visceral and raw elements of making sweet love. Wrap it all up in a melody and a beat that makes you want to drive very fast down the open road and you'll be wrapping yourself in the American flag in no time.
4.) MGMT "Electric Feel" - MGMT was another buzz band that lived up to their billing. A lot of music played on synthesizers ends up sounding like its been run through a computer and filtered into bleak dystopia. It's just what happened because Bowie and Eno and their ilk were the first guys to get there and start using these new tools and that's the type of music they make.
What makes MGMT so weird and interesting is they make music about a psychedelic world without technology. They present a conundrum when they use a syntesizer to sound like a "4000 year old Peruvian flute" as Andrew VanWyngarden says in the behind the scenes video to this song. For forever the idea of more authentic and earthy music is that which is played on instruments made of wood. (See: any coffee shop this Friday or Saturday) Yet here are these two guys working with The Flaming Lips' producer to make a song about a girl from The Amazon who can create electricity from her hands. It's the type of music which appeals to your head, your heart and of course your ears.
5.) Broken Social Scene "Churches Under The Stairs" - When I think about concerts I saw this last year I'll think of the peak performances. From Pitchfork Music Festival to Lollapalooza to Rocktober to a set of shows on either side of Snelling on University to a few more great shows at First Ave, I saw a lot of really great live music this year.
Broken Social Scene contributed a large part of that great live music. I saw them not once, not twice but three times this year and each time my love for them deepened even further. Each concert was like a date. On the first date at Lollapalooza I got a quick brush-up on their sound and an introduction to some of the songs I didn't know. The second date later that evening at The Metro was confirmation that first blush wasn't a misread on my part. Then by the excellent concert of a third date at First Ave during Rocktober I had made my decision and I was wearing my good underwear. I fell for this band the way you're supposed to; by seeing them in their peak moment and being rewarded as you do.
6.) Flobots "Handlebars" - This song gives me an opportunity to give shoutouts and for wildly different reasons. First I have to shoutout Willibuster, Ghost and Emily Osby. When I was visiting home during August, we were hanging out with one of Will's high school friends and the night devolved into what most parties usually do with all of us sitting around looking up stuff on YouTube. It was even Will himself who pulled up the video for this song and every time I hear this song or watch the video I think of chilling with those three.
The other person I get to shoutout is K10. Eight years younger than me and full of opinions, K10 is more than willing to tell me my musical taste sucks and that I've gone soft in my older age. Which is exactly the thing I love about him. Ever said that if you had the opportunity to talk to yourself at a younger age you'd probably just argue about stuff? I don't have to imagine what that would be like to argue music with my younger self because of this guy. Except my younger self really likes The Flobots. "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens his friend."
Additional shoutouts for additional and different reasons to Dan, Patrick, Noha, Luke, Pete, Peder, Jim, Abby, Stensby, Christian, Nicky, SayRock Brian, Ed, TK and all the people that were at Doomtree Blowout. Thanks for making "going to shows" the new black in '08. Let's go get them swimming pools in '09.
7.) The Black Kids "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend To Dance With You" - Guess "What?". Yet another buzz band that lived up to their billing was The Black Kids. I got this CD during the month I was subletting in Evanston and it was just a matter of having heard about them a lot on the periphery and finally taking the whole CD plunge. It really is amazing doing that worked out so well for me this year.
Okay, what do The Black Kids sound like? It's like The Cure was brought to the 21st Century and decided to write in the "Just Like Heaven" mode. That mournful quality is still there as are the crazy good synth lines. The difference is Robert Smith is playing with The Revolution and that means really danceable sped-up songs underneath the heartache and loss. It literally is the type of music which can be called 1980s retro and not have that be a derisive term.
8.) The Hold Steady "Stay Positive" - Is there any greater summation of the year of Our Lord two thousand and eight than "You gotta stay positive!"? Yeah, things went into the trash this year. At the same time a new era is dawning. Things are always darkest before the dawn and sometimes things are so bad the only place we have to go is up. In 2008, we all had to stay positive or else we'd lose our minds. But by staying positive we'll see ourselves through.
Now pour that over the type of big anthemic hooks that Springsteen and U2 only stumble upon anymore and you have a song you actually can listen to and come out feeling positive and part of something larger. The song isn't suggesting that we stay positive and then leaving us to figure out how to do that. It is infused with the raw energy and mass needed to sustain and to even see the way through to thriving. It doesn't move you in the usual way of touching your heart. It should swell in you the defiant walking-into-the-wind attitude needed to tough things out. Because, as I said before, this year more than ever you gotta stay positive.
So these are eight songs I chose to represent the music which turned me on in the last year. These were bands and/or songs a regular person wouldn't have stumbled into just by listening to the radio. (Sorry Kanye and Coldplay.) At the same time I also wanted to highlight music that most people could enjoy too. (Sorry Battles and TV On The Radio.) Most of all though these were eight songs I listed to often during the year. When I think back on 2008, these songs will be the soundtrack.
And just for added difficulty, let's make them appear in the same slot as they do on the album from which they come (our first song is first on its respective album, the second song comes second on its album, etc.) and do it in under thirty minutes.
1.) Colin Meloy "Devil's Elbow" - When I think of 2008, I will think of being in Chicago. When I think of being in Chicago, I will think of three things. The first one is obvious. The second is the good times. The third will be riding the train. I rode the CTA everywhere and on the nights when I didn't have a companion I was plugged into my MP3 player.
Colin Meloy's live solo album got a lot of spins on my way to work, going to baseball games, going out to shows and most often when I was going home. I will hear this song or any from this album and forever think of the Clark and Division stop, the stretch between Sheridan and Howard and standing at Main in the morning. Add in that it's a great song and "Devil's Elbow" spells 2008.
2.) Vampire Weekend "Oxford Comma" - Have you ever heard a buzz band that everyone seems to love and they really are that great? It's not hype. It's actually music journalism fulfilling its purpose and bringing good music to light. I had a few of those this year.
Vampire Weekend was one of them. Maybe it's because all of my musical taste is calibrated to The Clash but I always love music that isn't familiar. I like weird sounds and sounds that are presented in a different way than I've heard. Being able to do that within a three minute pop song though is a real feat.
There's something that sounds very close to Jamaican reggae about Vampire Weekend's music. Their influences are actually West African and I think that's something Joe Strummer would be way into if he were still alive. I think that because it's stuff I'm way into myself.
3.) Kings of Leon "Sex On Fire" - One of the great quotes I like to pull from my life is by Gregg Allman. He was talking about the term "Southern rock." He said (and I'm paraphrasing) "All rock comes from The South. So saying 'Southern rock' is a little bit like saying 'rock rock'." Normally when we think of music that rocks, we think of the music which followed and drew influence Led Zepplin with shredding guitars, bombastic drums and soaring vocals. Allman is right though. Even the almighty Zepplin sound draws its roots in The South.
That would mean the purest form of rock made today is the "rock rock" being made by bands like My Morning Jacket and Kings of Leon. I mean what's more sex and drugs and rock and roll than a song called "Sex on Fire"? All the more to the point when you dive into the lyrics about the visceral and raw elements of making sweet love. Wrap it all up in a melody and a beat that makes you want to drive very fast down the open road and you'll be wrapping yourself in the American flag in no time.
4.) MGMT "Electric Feel" - MGMT was another buzz band that lived up to their billing. A lot of music played on synthesizers ends up sounding like its been run through a computer and filtered into bleak dystopia. It's just what happened because Bowie and Eno and their ilk were the first guys to get there and start using these new tools and that's the type of music they make.
What makes MGMT so weird and interesting is they make music about a psychedelic world without technology. They present a conundrum when they use a syntesizer to sound like a "4000 year old Peruvian flute" as Andrew VanWyngarden says in the behind the scenes video to this song. For forever the idea of more authentic and earthy music is that which is played on instruments made of wood. (See: any coffee shop this Friday or Saturday) Yet here are these two guys working with The Flaming Lips' producer to make a song about a girl from The Amazon who can create electricity from her hands. It's the type of music which appeals to your head, your heart and of course your ears.
5.) Broken Social Scene "Churches Under The Stairs" - When I think about concerts I saw this last year I'll think of the peak performances. From Pitchfork Music Festival to Lollapalooza to Rocktober to a set of shows on either side of Snelling on University to a few more great shows at First Ave, I saw a lot of really great live music this year.
Broken Social Scene contributed a large part of that great live music. I saw them not once, not twice but three times this year and each time my love for them deepened even further. Each concert was like a date. On the first date at Lollapalooza I got a quick brush-up on their sound and an introduction to some of the songs I didn't know. The second date later that evening at The Metro was confirmation that first blush wasn't a misread on my part. Then by the excellent concert of a third date at First Ave during Rocktober I had made my decision and I was wearing my good underwear. I fell for this band the way you're supposed to; by seeing them in their peak moment and being rewarded as you do.
6.) Flobots "Handlebars" - This song gives me an opportunity to give shoutouts and for wildly different reasons. First I have to shoutout Willibuster, Ghost and Emily Osby. When I was visiting home during August, we were hanging out with one of Will's high school friends and the night devolved into what most parties usually do with all of us sitting around looking up stuff on YouTube. It was even Will himself who pulled up the video for this song and every time I hear this song or watch the video I think of chilling with those three.
The other person I get to shoutout is K10. Eight years younger than me and full of opinions, K10 is more than willing to tell me my musical taste sucks and that I've gone soft in my older age. Which is exactly the thing I love about him. Ever said that if you had the opportunity to talk to yourself at a younger age you'd probably just argue about stuff? I don't have to imagine what that would be like to argue music with my younger self because of this guy. Except my younger self really likes The Flobots. "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens his friend."
Additional shoutouts for additional and different reasons to Dan, Patrick, Noha, Luke, Pete, Peder, Jim, Abby, Stensby, Christian, Nicky, SayRock Brian, Ed, TK and all the people that were at Doomtree Blowout. Thanks for making "going to shows" the new black in '08. Let's go get them swimming pools in '09.
7.) The Black Kids "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend To Dance With You" - Guess "What?". Yet another buzz band that lived up to their billing was The Black Kids. I got this CD during the month I was subletting in Evanston and it was just a matter of having heard about them a lot on the periphery and finally taking the whole CD plunge. It really is amazing doing that worked out so well for me this year.
Okay, what do The Black Kids sound like? It's like The Cure was brought to the 21st Century and decided to write in the "Just Like Heaven" mode. That mournful quality is still there as are the crazy good synth lines. The difference is Robert Smith is playing with The Revolution and that means really danceable sped-up songs underneath the heartache and loss. It literally is the type of music which can be called 1980s retro and not have that be a derisive term.
8.) The Hold Steady "Stay Positive" - Is there any greater summation of the year of Our Lord two thousand and eight than "You gotta stay positive!"? Yeah, things went into the trash this year. At the same time a new era is dawning. Things are always darkest before the dawn and sometimes things are so bad the only place we have to go is up. In 2008, we all had to stay positive or else we'd lose our minds. But by staying positive we'll see ourselves through.
Now pour that over the type of big anthemic hooks that Springsteen and U2 only stumble upon anymore and you have a song you actually can listen to and come out feeling positive and part of something larger. The song isn't suggesting that we stay positive and then leaving us to figure out how to do that. It is infused with the raw energy and mass needed to sustain and to even see the way through to thriving. It doesn't move you in the usual way of touching your heart. It should swell in you the defiant walking-into-the-wind attitude needed to tough things out. Because, as I said before, this year more than ever you gotta stay positive.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
My Five Favorite Time-Travel Movies of All-Time
Travel through time is suprisingly a common plot device in movies. Army of Darkness, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and of course the Back to the Future trilogy are all movies where the plot centers around a character or characters moving through time. However in each of the cited cases, the time travel is not as important as the characters being a fish out of water. The movie is not about time travel as much as time travel is a mechanism to create the plot.
I like movies that are centered on time travel itself. The time travel needs to be integral to the plot with the additional treat of questions of causality woven into it. The central metaphor is then not a fish out of water but a fish in the current of a river. The current may normally push the fish in a specific direction. But the fish is able to swim in many directions and not just where the current takes them. Since I like these types of movies, I've seen quite a few and these are my favorite five.
Groundhog Day
Probably the most popular movie on this list, it's the one which is 100% centered on time travel and it does it in a very innovative way. The idea is causality is not being something fluid where small changes have large impacts. Instead causality is something that you repeat over and over until you get it "right", a kind of destiny forcing your hand. Free will is out the door but except in your capacity to learn.
Add on to its uniqueness that this story could only have been a movie. If you tried to tell "Groundhog Day" as a short story, it would've been almost unreadable. The consistent hiccups in the The medium of film and the audience's familiarity with film editing makes this movie not only possible but also very enjoyable.
12 Monkeys
I liked this movie because it posits that everything that will happen will happen. It's not just regardless of the involvement of time travelers either but in some cases because of those time travelers. It puts a different spin on causality than the normal "butterfly effect."
According to 12 Monkeys, you can't go back in time and kill your grandfather because you didn't already. At the same time, there are things that happened in the past that are better understood from the perspective of the time-traveler. Once you know X precedes Z but follows Y, the entire story is changed. The time travelers' role is no longer God-like with a prescient knowledge but as a cog in the machine that serves a role in advancing history to where it was going all along anyhow.
Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko is largely indecipherable on its own. Richard Kelly's strength is what is in his head, not putting what's in his head onto the movie screen. Which is why a quick plunge into the extra material on the DVD is important to understanding this movie. This is especially useful if you get your hands on the director's cut.
Once you find out about the tangent universes, artifacts and the living receiver stuff, the movie makes a great deal of sense. One of the assumptions of most time-travel movies is that there is one true time stream and we can make tangential changes in it by traveling through it to another point. This movie is different by positing that making a tangent universe is actually a bad thing.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Okay, this movie is on here for two reasons really. First, it was a movie I watched as much as any other when I was an adolescent. My mom figured out how to use our video camera to play videotapes we rented from the videostore through the VCR and dub them. So I had a copy of this movie before owning your favorite movies was common.
Second, it's a goofy movie. It's not a heavy-handed "Going back to kill your own grandfather" time travel story. They can and do come both with and without existential dread. Bill and Ted are traveling through time to collect historical figures to come speak at the final history presentation of the school year. Even Camus would've cracked a smile at something as absurd as that.
Primer
There was a brief couple of months in early 2005 where this movie made me lose my mind. I rented it from CinemaRevolution, watched it by myself and then promptly showed it to anyone who I could get to watch it with me. It's not a movie that you can really figure out in the first time through and also gets better with repeated viewings. I was so enthralled I literally watched the movie like an addict.
It was addicting because it has the most believable mechanism for time-travel in any movie I'd seen. Normally it's a device like a flux capacitor and we're asked to suspend our disbelief that this device is the reason time travel is possible. "Primer" used a version of realistic physics to explain how time travel could actually be possible in real physics. Seeing "Primer" was, for me, like having a dream that you wake from and are convinced that it was real.
I like movies that are centered on time travel itself. The time travel needs to be integral to the plot with the additional treat of questions of causality woven into it. The central metaphor is then not a fish out of water but a fish in the current of a river. The current may normally push the fish in a specific direction. But the fish is able to swim in many directions and not just where the current takes them. Since I like these types of movies, I've seen quite a few and these are my favorite five.
Groundhog Day
Probably the most popular movie on this list, it's the one which is 100% centered on time travel and it does it in a very innovative way. The idea is causality is not being something fluid where small changes have large impacts. Instead causality is something that you repeat over and over until you get it "right", a kind of destiny forcing your hand. Free will is out the door but except in your capacity to learn.
Add on to its uniqueness that this story could only have been a movie. If you tried to tell "Groundhog Day" as a short story, it would've been almost unreadable. The consistent hiccups in the The medium of film and the audience's familiarity with film editing makes this movie not only possible but also very enjoyable.
12 Monkeys
I liked this movie because it posits that everything that will happen will happen. It's not just regardless of the involvement of time travelers either but in some cases because of those time travelers. It puts a different spin on causality than the normal "butterfly effect."
According to 12 Monkeys, you can't go back in time and kill your grandfather because you didn't already. At the same time, there are things that happened in the past that are better understood from the perspective of the time-traveler. Once you know X precedes Z but follows Y, the entire story is changed. The time travelers' role is no longer God-like with a prescient knowledge but as a cog in the machine that serves a role in advancing history to where it was going all along anyhow.
Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko is largely indecipherable on its own. Richard Kelly's strength is what is in his head, not putting what's in his head onto the movie screen. Which is why a quick plunge into the extra material on the DVD is important to understanding this movie. This is especially useful if you get your hands on the director's cut.
Once you find out about the tangent universes, artifacts and the living receiver stuff, the movie makes a great deal of sense. One of the assumptions of most time-travel movies is that there is one true time stream and we can make tangential changes in it by traveling through it to another point. This movie is different by positing that making a tangent universe is actually a bad thing.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Okay, this movie is on here for two reasons really. First, it was a movie I watched as much as any other when I was an adolescent. My mom figured out how to use our video camera to play videotapes we rented from the videostore through the VCR and dub them. So I had a copy of this movie before owning your favorite movies was common.
Second, it's a goofy movie. It's not a heavy-handed "Going back to kill your own grandfather" time travel story. They can and do come both with and without existential dread. Bill and Ted are traveling through time to collect historical figures to come speak at the final history presentation of the school year. Even Camus would've cracked a smile at something as absurd as that.
Primer
There was a brief couple of months in early 2005 where this movie made me lose my mind. I rented it from CinemaRevolution, watched it by myself and then promptly showed it to anyone who I could get to watch it with me. It's not a movie that you can really figure out in the first time through and also gets better with repeated viewings. I was so enthralled I literally watched the movie like an addict.
It was addicting because it has the most believable mechanism for time-travel in any movie I'd seen. Normally it's a device like a flux capacitor and we're asked to suspend our disbelief that this device is the reason time travel is possible. "Primer" used a version of realistic physics to explain how time travel could actually be possible in real physics. Seeing "Primer" was, for me, like having a dream that you wake from and are convinced that it was real.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
2007 - The Year In Film Pt. 3
(Hi, Mom! I already did my taxes.)
Finally, here are the best of the best movies from 2007.
In 2007, The Top Five Movies stood apart from the rest of the bunch. I'll again type a few paragraphs about each which is why you might be reading this in March. In reverse order...
5.) Once
When I was 13, my childhood epilepsy returned for one isolated incident while I was away at summer camp. Chasing down the theory that I had the seizure because of a lack of sleep and exhaustation, I stayed up with my dad overnight the night before I had a CT scan. We watched two movies, "Terminator 2" and, more importantly, "The Commitments". It was the beginning of a family tradition of non-traditional musicals.
Now, more than half my life later, the guitar player from The Commitments is the male lead in a quaint, non-traditional musical. It's a romance through music but not in the way "Moulin Rouge" is, more the way it actually happens in real life. The circumstances aren't ideal. There are things which hold you back. But in the end you find a way to be with that person. "Once" is about what you love in its many forms.
4.) Lars and the Real Girl
"Lars and the Real Girl" is also about love in the real world. It's just about not knowing what you want yet. Though Ryan Gosling's character takes the road otherwise untraveled, it's a different shade of the journey most of us take to find the person for us. In a roundabout way, it's about chasing after the ideal person.
However anyone who has been on the journey knows it's really about finding out what is lovable about you. This movie could've been a freak show about a guy who has a relationship with a RealDoll. It's more about a man out-growing his damaged past and into a full and heathy adult. For him, the journey is about finding where and how he fits in the world.
3.) Hot Fuzz
The best satire comes from deep admiration. When Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg made "Shaun of the Dead" in 2004, it was from a place having seen and loved the old masters of the genre. It was spot on as a zombie movie eventhough, as a comedy, it was meant to also expose the quirks of the genre. It is a case of using the tools of the master to lovingly deconstruct the masters' house.
Then they returned last year to take on a genre even more ripe for satire, American action movies. Yet they took a different tack to lampooning the largest of Hollywood's movies. They made them very small. It's comedy is the comedy of inversion instead of adoption. By scaling down (but not toning down) the violence, the absurd hilarity was increased exponentially.
2.) Michael Clayton
I've been a fan of George Clooney for a long time. My admiration springs from his willingness to do projects which are difficult and on the fringe. Compare to his close friends. Could you see Brad Pitt in "O Brother Where Art Thou"? Or Matt Damon directing "Good Night and Good Luck"? Clooney has attained a level of being able to do the projects he wants and follows through on doing them.
"Michael Clayton" is another project with some teeth. It's part Grisham-esque legal thriller (without the courtroom) and part morality quest for the titular character. What sets the movie apart is the ending. I don't want to give it away. I will say that it was one of the rare times where the ending was set-up well throughout the movie to conclude at a point instead of just ending.
1.) Knocked Up
One year, two excellent movies about unwed pregnancy and in both cases they keep the baby. Hollywood has a liberal bias? Like the other movies I was drawn to this year, I enjoyed this movie because it was a reflection of the contemporary world. There are people who get pregnant out of wedlock and DON'T have their lives descend into ruin (despite what health class teaches us).
I also really like both Seth Rogan and Katherine Heigl. One of my constants of romantic comedies (even of the Apatow variety) is I have to like the girl and see myself in the guy. Now I don't see myself as an adrift stoner trying to set up a celebrity nudity site. But there is something about getting to a point in your life when you have to decide to switch from being someone's child to being an adult. For some people that's when they have a child of their own and, instead of being angsty and mourning their childhood, growing up a lot in a short time.
Finally, as I mentioned, it was an Apatow comedy. As a fan of "Anchorman" and "Forty Year Old Virgin", I'm glad to see the dual success of "Knocked Up" and "Superbad" solidifying the place for movies like this in the market. As I mentioned in my "Hot Rod" blurb, there's a different paradigm in movie comedies now. Ten years ago a comedy was based around a funny concept. You took a swinging 1960s superspy, put him in the post-AIDS 1990s and all of the jokes flowed from the "fish out of water" situation. Now it's sped up, more YouTube-ized where the what matters isn't a concept which can grow stale and wear thin quickly. You have to bring the jokes. This style where the plot is a starting point, not a teether, means there are no throwaway jokes. It's all in there because it's all funny.
Finally, here are the best of the best movies from 2007.
In 2007, The Top Five Movies stood apart from the rest of the bunch. I'll again type a few paragraphs about each which is why you might be reading this in March. In reverse order...
5.) Once
When I was 13, my childhood epilepsy returned for one isolated incident while I was away at summer camp. Chasing down the theory that I had the seizure because of a lack of sleep and exhaustation, I stayed up with my dad overnight the night before I had a CT scan. We watched two movies, "Terminator 2" and, more importantly, "The Commitments". It was the beginning of a family tradition of non-traditional musicals.
Now, more than half my life later, the guitar player from The Commitments is the male lead in a quaint, non-traditional musical. It's a romance through music but not in the way "Moulin Rouge" is, more the way it actually happens in real life. The circumstances aren't ideal. There are things which hold you back. But in the end you find a way to be with that person. "Once" is about what you love in its many forms.
4.) Lars and the Real Girl
"Lars and the Real Girl" is also about love in the real world. It's just about not knowing what you want yet. Though Ryan Gosling's character takes the road otherwise untraveled, it's a different shade of the journey most of us take to find the person for us. In a roundabout way, it's about chasing after the ideal person.
However anyone who has been on the journey knows it's really about finding out what is lovable about you. This movie could've been a freak show about a guy who has a relationship with a RealDoll. It's more about a man out-growing his damaged past and into a full and heathy adult. For him, the journey is about finding where and how he fits in the world.
3.) Hot Fuzz
The best satire comes from deep admiration. When Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg made "Shaun of the Dead" in 2004, it was from a place having seen and loved the old masters of the genre. It was spot on as a zombie movie eventhough, as a comedy, it was meant to also expose the quirks of the genre. It is a case of using the tools of the master to lovingly deconstruct the masters' house.
Then they returned last year to take on a genre even more ripe for satire, American action movies. Yet they took a different tack to lampooning the largest of Hollywood's movies. They made them very small. It's comedy is the comedy of inversion instead of adoption. By scaling down (but not toning down) the violence, the absurd hilarity was increased exponentially.
2.) Michael Clayton
I've been a fan of George Clooney for a long time. My admiration springs from his willingness to do projects which are difficult and on the fringe. Compare to his close friends. Could you see Brad Pitt in "O Brother Where Art Thou"? Or Matt Damon directing "Good Night and Good Luck"? Clooney has attained a level of being able to do the projects he wants and follows through on doing them.
"Michael Clayton" is another project with some teeth. It's part Grisham-esque legal thriller (without the courtroom) and part morality quest for the titular character. What sets the movie apart is the ending. I don't want to give it away. I will say that it was one of the rare times where the ending was set-up well throughout the movie to conclude at a point instead of just ending.
1.) Knocked Up
One year, two excellent movies about unwed pregnancy and in both cases they keep the baby. Hollywood has a liberal bias? Like the other movies I was drawn to this year, I enjoyed this movie because it was a reflection of the contemporary world. There are people who get pregnant out of wedlock and DON'T have their lives descend into ruin (despite what health class teaches us).
I also really like both Seth Rogan and Katherine Heigl. One of my constants of romantic comedies (even of the Apatow variety) is I have to like the girl and see myself in the guy. Now I don't see myself as an adrift stoner trying to set up a celebrity nudity site. But there is something about getting to a point in your life when you have to decide to switch from being someone's child to being an adult. For some people that's when they have a child of their own and, instead of being angsty and mourning their childhood, growing up a lot in a short time.
Finally, as I mentioned, it was an Apatow comedy. As a fan of "Anchorman" and "Forty Year Old Virgin", I'm glad to see the dual success of "Knocked Up" and "Superbad" solidifying the place for movies like this in the market. As I mentioned in my "Hot Rod" blurb, there's a different paradigm in movie comedies now. Ten years ago a comedy was based around a funny concept. You took a swinging 1960s superspy, put him in the post-AIDS 1990s and all of the jokes flowed from the "fish out of water" situation. Now it's sped up, more YouTube-ized where the what matters isn't a concept which can grow stale and wear thin quickly. You have to bring the jokes. This style where the plot is a starting point, not a teether, means there are no throwaway jokes. It's all in there because it's all funny.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
2007 - The Year In Movies Pt. 2
Let's resume this little tea party and close it out asap.
Up next are the honorable mentions, aka The Films I Liked Which Didn't Make the Top Tier. I won't say anything about them because really my recommendation is to see them if you're interested in them but not to go too far out of your way if you aren't. Basically, they're enough to justify a rental for someone who is already interested in...
4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, American Gangster, Blades of Glory, The Ex, The Golden Compass, I'm Not There, The Last Mimzy, Music and Lyrics, Ratatouille, Rush Hour 3, Sleuth, Starter for 10, TMNT and Zodiac.
Penultimately, these are The Films In the Lower Half of the Top Tier. They're movies I'd recommend seeing because I really liked them and I think a good number of the people I know would like them too. Here are a few words about each.
300 I already praised the obvious things about "300" above. But it's also interesting to the post B.A. me because I believe in modern myth. Not "am interested in." Believe in. And when the characters talk about their actions resonating through history, I think, "Just like how there's a movie about them now."
Beowulf Same thing about modern myth when it comes to this movie. "Beowulf" is synonymous with "Because you had to" reading and the epic poem has therefore lost why it survived in the first place. Myth should feel present. It should feel like a part of our lives. So when a film like "Beowulf" takes that myth and makes it "available" to a modern audience, it has succeeded.
Breach Based on the real-life Robert Hanssen espionage case, Chris Cooper is the gravity which holds the story together. His portrayal of Hanssen holds the duality of being patriotic and virtious and while being a traitor as well. He basically carries the film all by himself but, like a spy, without being obvious about it.
Charlie Wilson's War I saw this movie after the New Year so consider it bonus coverage to make up for not finishing this list earlier. The Global War on Terror is understandably a delicate subject right now. There really isn't a way that you can approach it without taking a stance on it. So laurels go to the people behind this film for saying something poignant instead of being preachy and for being funny without taking the topic lightly.
Control The saddest part of any movie about Joy Division and their frontman Ian Curtis is when the band finds out they are going to tour America. It's sad because they are all so happy and it appears their career (and lives) are taking off. But, knowing the history, a Joy Division fan knows Ian Curtis hangs himself on the eve of their American tour. It makes the moment sad because you know that their happiness is really just the beginning of the end.
Death at a Funeral This movie was a very dry almost-farce which has a brilliant "Chekov's Gun" and, based upon what I've read of other "End of the Year" lists, I don't know if other people got it in the same way I did. It's comedy is based in situations (but not sitcom) and in manners and in uncomfortable circumstances.
Eagle vs Shark Starring Jemaine of "The Flight of the Conchords", this movie's tagline was a perfect summation. A story about there being someone for everyone apparently, it's also a story about not judging yourself because of what other people think of you.
Hot Rod There is a new paradigm in comedy. Ten years ago you had to have a quirky concept like a 1960s superspy who is out-of-place in contemporary times. Now, in our post-YouTube culture, you just need to have funny jokes like "I needed to think about last night. So I galloped into a wooded glen, and after punch-dancing out my rage and suffering an extremely long and very painful fall, I realized what has to be done." It has become a medium of ideas and unlimited potential.
Juno This year's "Little Miss Sunshine" down to its quirky dialogue and the way it snuck from the fringe to the mainstream on the strength of its word-of-mouth. Here's the thing. I think it's a better movie and is even more deserving of the attention.
The King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters This movie was the perfect set of circumstances. Profiling something with as much drama already as the obsessive world of competitive arcade-game-playing, the filmmakers lucked into a situation which also injected some dark green-eyed jealosy.
Live Free or Die Hard One of my favorite moments of the year came when Susie and I saw "Hot Fuzz" in Madison with CJ and Elaine amongst others. We were all hyped up and talking about what we thought of the film (more on that later). Then CJ turned his head to see the poster for this film. "Oh, no," he said. "Oh, yes," said I. The movie promptly lived up to the moment.
Ocean's Thirteen As much as I liked "Oceans 12" at the time, later viewings have worn thin pretty quickly. In opposition to that is "Oceans 13", a movie I saw multiple times in the theater and enjoyed each time. The movie needs a strong villian to wash out the moral ambiguity of the heist and Pacino's character really deserves what happens to him.
The Simpsons Movie It says something about the vitality of "The Simpsons" that the series is still going while the movie came out over the summer. It says even more that the movie was so good proving that they aren't entirely out of ideas. Whether you thought it was a glorified episode or not, you couldn't deny it was made of what it is that makes The Simpsons great.
Spider-man 3 This was a different kind of Spider-man movie. Action was eschewed for emotion. I don't know if I would've liked this movie as much if I weren't in a relationship. But I liked the ending when Peter comes back Mary Jane, she goes to meet him and they are just back together.
Stardust Well, Neil Gaiman wrote it so you know the story will be good. And DeNiro is in it. And Claire Danes. And Ricky Gervais too. Then something awful happens to Rupert Everett's character and you say, "Oh, it's silly fantasy. I get it."
Superbad How great was this movie? That the phrase "I am McLovin'," didn't become annoying along the lines of "Yeah, baby!" is a testament to how many good jokes it had to spare. This movie almost snaked its way into the top flight of my favorite movies this year just on its quotability and rewatchability.
The Ten Now that the Apatow crew has gone above ground, The State/Stella/Wet Hot American Summer group is the best thing in the fringe. I was even willing to see this movie all by myself because of my love for their last movie, "The Baxter." Yet another which fits in the paradigm of having the jokes and "The Ten" has them in spades.
There Will Be Blood Another movie I saw after the New Year and I was going to write an entire entry about it. Instead I'll just summarize here.
Seeing a Paul Thomas Anderson movie can be like eating a salad. You get it in your head to eat right and so you order a salad. At first, you feel great because you're eating all of the croutons and cherry tomatos. Then it seems like there is too much fucking lettuce to eat in your whole life. Somehow though you stick out the lettuce and you finish the salad. You aren't particularly full and think maybe you should've ordered a steak. Then two days later you're still thinking about how good you were by ordering a salad. You even congratulate yourself for having the salad.
Ladies and gentlemen, I feel good about seeing "There Will Be Blood" in the same way I feel good about eating a salad.
Walk Hard After a few consecutive years of Oscar-baiting musician biographies, it was about time for someone to parody the genre. That it feel to Judd Apatow and his compatriots is comedy gold. The best part is that, since John C. Reilly can actually sing, it's actually able to be a good movie in the genre it simultaneously lampoons. If it were based on actual events, that is.
Up next are the honorable mentions, aka The Films I Liked Which Didn't Make the Top Tier. I won't say anything about them because really my recommendation is to see them if you're interested in them but not to go too far out of your way if you aren't. Basically, they're enough to justify a rental for someone who is already interested in...
4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, American Gangster, Blades of Glory, The Ex, The Golden Compass, I'm Not There, The Last Mimzy, Music and Lyrics, Ratatouille, Rush Hour 3, Sleuth, Starter for 10, TMNT and Zodiac.
Penultimately, these are The Films In the Lower Half of the Top Tier. They're movies I'd recommend seeing because I really liked them and I think a good number of the people I know would like them too. Here are a few words about each.
300 I already praised the obvious things about "300" above. But it's also interesting to the post B.A. me because I believe in modern myth. Not "am interested in." Believe in. And when the characters talk about their actions resonating through history, I think, "Just like how there's a movie about them now."
Beowulf Same thing about modern myth when it comes to this movie. "Beowulf" is synonymous with "Because you had to" reading and the epic poem has therefore lost why it survived in the first place. Myth should feel present. It should feel like a part of our lives. So when a film like "Beowulf" takes that myth and makes it "available" to a modern audience, it has succeeded.
Breach Based on the real-life Robert Hanssen espionage case, Chris Cooper is the gravity which holds the story together. His portrayal of Hanssen holds the duality of being patriotic and virtious and while being a traitor as well. He basically carries the film all by himself but, like a spy, without being obvious about it.
Charlie Wilson's War I saw this movie after the New Year so consider it bonus coverage to make up for not finishing this list earlier. The Global War on Terror is understandably a delicate subject right now. There really isn't a way that you can approach it without taking a stance on it. So laurels go to the people behind this film for saying something poignant instead of being preachy and for being funny without taking the topic lightly.
Control The saddest part of any movie about Joy Division and their frontman Ian Curtis is when the band finds out they are going to tour America. It's sad because they are all so happy and it appears their career (and lives) are taking off. But, knowing the history, a Joy Division fan knows Ian Curtis hangs himself on the eve of their American tour. It makes the moment sad because you know that their happiness is really just the beginning of the end.
Death at a Funeral This movie was a very dry almost-farce which has a brilliant "Chekov's Gun" and, based upon what I've read of other "End of the Year" lists, I don't know if other people got it in the same way I did. It's comedy is based in situations (but not sitcom) and in manners and in uncomfortable circumstances.
Eagle vs Shark Starring Jemaine of "The Flight of the Conchords", this movie's tagline was a perfect summation. A story about there being someone for everyone apparently, it's also a story about not judging yourself because of what other people think of you.
Hot Rod There is a new paradigm in comedy. Ten years ago you had to have a quirky concept like a 1960s superspy who is out-of-place in contemporary times. Now, in our post-YouTube culture, you just need to have funny jokes like "I needed to think about last night. So I galloped into a wooded glen, and after punch-dancing out my rage and suffering an extremely long and very painful fall, I realized what has to be done." It has become a medium of ideas and unlimited potential.
Juno This year's "Little Miss Sunshine" down to its quirky dialogue and the way it snuck from the fringe to the mainstream on the strength of its word-of-mouth. Here's the thing. I think it's a better movie and is even more deserving of the attention.
The King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters This movie was the perfect set of circumstances. Profiling something with as much drama already as the obsessive world of competitive arcade-game-playing, the filmmakers lucked into a situation which also injected some dark green-eyed jealosy.
Live Free or Die Hard One of my favorite moments of the year came when Susie and I saw "Hot Fuzz" in Madison with CJ and Elaine amongst others. We were all hyped up and talking about what we thought of the film (more on that later). Then CJ turned his head to see the poster for this film. "Oh, no," he said. "Oh, yes," said I. The movie promptly lived up to the moment.
Ocean's Thirteen As much as I liked "Oceans 12" at the time, later viewings have worn thin pretty quickly. In opposition to that is "Oceans 13", a movie I saw multiple times in the theater and enjoyed each time. The movie needs a strong villian to wash out the moral ambiguity of the heist and Pacino's character really deserves what happens to him.
The Simpsons Movie It says something about the vitality of "The Simpsons" that the series is still going while the movie came out over the summer. It says even more that the movie was so good proving that they aren't entirely out of ideas. Whether you thought it was a glorified episode or not, you couldn't deny it was made of what it is that makes The Simpsons great.
Spider-man 3 This was a different kind of Spider-man movie. Action was eschewed for emotion. I don't know if I would've liked this movie as much if I weren't in a relationship. But I liked the ending when Peter comes back Mary Jane, she goes to meet him and they are just back together.
Stardust Well, Neil Gaiman wrote it so you know the story will be good. And DeNiro is in it. And Claire Danes. And Ricky Gervais too. Then something awful happens to Rupert Everett's character and you say, "Oh, it's silly fantasy. I get it."
Superbad How great was this movie? That the phrase "I am McLovin'," didn't become annoying along the lines of "Yeah, baby!" is a testament to how many good jokes it had to spare. This movie almost snaked its way into the top flight of my favorite movies this year just on its quotability and rewatchability.
The Ten Now that the Apatow crew has gone above ground, The State/Stella/Wet Hot American Summer group is the best thing in the fringe. I was even willing to see this movie all by myself because of my love for their last movie, "The Baxter." Yet another which fits in the paradigm of having the jokes and "The Ten" has them in spades.
There Will Be Blood Another movie I saw after the New Year and I was going to write an entire entry about it. Instead I'll just summarize here.
Seeing a Paul Thomas Anderson movie can be like eating a salad. You get it in your head to eat right and so you order a salad. At first, you feel great because you're eating all of the croutons and cherry tomatos. Then it seems like there is too much fucking lettuce to eat in your whole life. Somehow though you stick out the lettuce and you finish the salad. You aren't particularly full and think maybe you should've ordered a steak. Then two days later you're still thinking about how good you were by ordering a salad. You even congratulate yourself for having the salad.
Ladies and gentlemen, I feel good about seeing "There Will Be Blood" in the same way I feel good about eating a salad.
Walk Hard After a few consecutive years of Oscar-baiting musician biographies, it was about time for someone to parody the genre. That it feel to Judd Apatow and his compatriots is comedy gold. The best part is that, since John C. Reilly can actually sing, it's actually able to be a good movie in the genre it simultaneously lampoons. If it were based on actual events, that is.
Friday, January 4, 2008
2007 - The Year in Film, Part 1
Since the year is over, by default it's time for my column about my favorite movies of the last year. (Happy New Year by the way and sorry for not posting in December.) I saw 55 different movies this year which is a prodigious number and still 30% fewer than I saw in 2006. Maybe the less I say about 2006 from now on the better.
First are the special categories.
The Worst Movie of the Year - 30 Days of Night
It was tough being the worst movie this year with films like "The Darjeeling Limited", "Across the Universe", "Transformers" and "The Invasion" all finding their ways into multiplexes. But somehow "30 Days of Night" eclipsed them all.
It took an interesting twist on vampire movies by isolating their victims in the endless night above the Arctic Circle and then wrapping a flaccid plot around it. There really is no reason to see this movie if you think the concept is novel because it's the only redeeming quality of the film. Once you grasp its uniqueness, the movie you imagine will be much better than the one which made it onto the screen. In that regard, it's this year's "Hellboy" (even down to being based on an independent comic book).
The Best Movie from Last Year That I Saw This Year - Ehhhh...
There weren't a lot of movies I didn't see last year that I ended up seeing this year. Based on what CJ and Elaine tell me, "Air Guitar Nation" would've been that movie if it had ever been at the video store when Susie and I went to rent a movie. So instead I'll use this space to talk about my growing interest in the Harry Potter movies.
First, let me qualify a little bit. I read about 100 pages into the first Potter book and decided, "No thanks. Not for me." So I did give them a try and, like I said, it wasn't for me. Second, I'd always heard from people who had read the books, "Oh, you have to get to the third book and then it picks up." As though I want to plow through 600 pages and then find out if it really does pick up. But the last two movies, "Goblet of Fire" from two years ago and "Order of the Phoenix" from this year, caught my fancy as Susie (the real reason I ended up seeing them) will watch them at home.
I like "Goblet" and "Phoenix" because they have Voldemort in it. The world construction and character introduction and the behaviors and rituals of the world J.K. Rowling is imagining isn't really that interesting to me. I'm not into that kind of stuff and thus that rules out 95% of fantasy novels for me. Yet these two movies (and, I guess, novels) are when things start to go bad. The fit is hitting the shan, people are freaking out and there's actually something at stake.
Without that apocalyptic presence of Voldemort, the stories are too sitcom-esque for me. If you just wait 90 minutes, the world will be okay and everyone one can go one living their happy lives. At the end of "Goblet" and "Phoenix", the world is much worse off after 90 minutes and not everyone even made it out alive. It follows the "end times" archetype perfectly and it breathed something into the Harry Potter franchise which was never there for me before. Perhaps that's what people meant about waiting until the third book.
The "14 Year Old Boy Inside Me" Award - 300
This award goes each year to the movie I guilty enjoyed because it had all of the things someone half my age wants in a movie. I was going to give this to the Rob Zombie "Halloween" remake because of the amount of nakedness in the movie. However I didn't want to encourage anyone to actually see the Rob Zombie "Halloween" remake.
Instead I'll give this award over to "300" without hesitation. The movie was instantly quotable, the action sequences were the best of the year, there was a solid enough plot to the movie to pull it all together and it didn't skimp on the testosterone. Hey, there's even some well-placed nakedness in this movie too.
So eventhough the contemporary Mike liked "300" for different reasons (see my following entry), I'm sure the Mike who is half his age would've really dug it too.
First are the special categories.
The Worst Movie of the Year - 30 Days of Night
It was tough being the worst movie this year with films like "The Darjeeling Limited", "Across the Universe", "Transformers" and "The Invasion" all finding their ways into multiplexes. But somehow "30 Days of Night" eclipsed them all.
It took an interesting twist on vampire movies by isolating their victims in the endless night above the Arctic Circle and then wrapping a flaccid plot around it. There really is no reason to see this movie if you think the concept is novel because it's the only redeeming quality of the film. Once you grasp its uniqueness, the movie you imagine will be much better than the one which made it onto the screen. In that regard, it's this year's "Hellboy" (even down to being based on an independent comic book).
The Best Movie from Last Year That I Saw This Year - Ehhhh...
There weren't a lot of movies I didn't see last year that I ended up seeing this year. Based on what CJ and Elaine tell me, "Air Guitar Nation" would've been that movie if it had ever been at the video store when Susie and I went to rent a movie. So instead I'll use this space to talk about my growing interest in the Harry Potter movies.
First, let me qualify a little bit. I read about 100 pages into the first Potter book and decided, "No thanks. Not for me." So I did give them a try and, like I said, it wasn't for me. Second, I'd always heard from people who had read the books, "Oh, you have to get to the third book and then it picks up." As though I want to plow through 600 pages and then find out if it really does pick up. But the last two movies, "Goblet of Fire" from two years ago and "Order of the Phoenix" from this year, caught my fancy as Susie (the real reason I ended up seeing them) will watch them at home.
I like "Goblet" and "Phoenix" because they have Voldemort in it. The world construction and character introduction and the behaviors and rituals of the world J.K. Rowling is imagining isn't really that interesting to me. I'm not into that kind of stuff and thus that rules out 95% of fantasy novels for me. Yet these two movies (and, I guess, novels) are when things start to go bad. The fit is hitting the shan, people are freaking out and there's actually something at stake.
Without that apocalyptic presence of Voldemort, the stories are too sitcom-esque for me. If you just wait 90 minutes, the world will be okay and everyone one can go one living their happy lives. At the end of "Goblet" and "Phoenix", the world is much worse off after 90 minutes and not everyone even made it out alive. It follows the "end times" archetype perfectly and it breathed something into the Harry Potter franchise which was never there for me before. Perhaps that's what people meant about waiting until the third book.
The "14 Year Old Boy Inside Me" Award - 300
This award goes each year to the movie I guilty enjoyed because it had all of the things someone half my age wants in a movie. I was going to give this to the Rob Zombie "Halloween" remake because of the amount of nakedness in the movie. However I didn't want to encourage anyone to actually see the Rob Zombie "Halloween" remake.
Instead I'll give this award over to "300" without hesitation. The movie was instantly quotable, the action sequences were the best of the year, there was a solid enough plot to the movie to pull it all together and it didn't skimp on the testosterone. Hey, there's even some well-placed nakedness in this movie too.
So eventhough the contemporary Mike liked "300" for different reasons (see my following entry), I'm sure the Mike who is half his age would've really dug it too.
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