On the Spot Reaction: Man, what a forgetful year for Oscar nominations. Not bad overall but I’m just not seeing anything terribly important. A few of genuinely good films made the cut (Basterds, Hurt Locker, The Messenger, A Single Man), a few of nice but not earth shattering filler picks (Precious… which, okay, I kinda liked), a ton of tepid offferings (Nine, Up, Invictus) and, of course, crap (Blind Side, Up in the Air). Sadly, no big surprises other than the fact that two sci-fi films were nominated for best picture by an industry that historically can’t even bother to recognize any at all; the down side is that the lauded sci-fi films are as heavy handed as they are overrated. I gave both a passing grade though so how much can I really complain? What I can complain about is the biggest shut-outs, The Road and Two Lovers which I though could at the very least grab a few noms like Screenplay or Cinematography.  And don’t even get me started on Miyazaki’s animated Ponyo which was overlooked. Overall, though, not a bad Oscar year, just not a very compelling one.   

Best Picture (I got 9 of 10 perdictions right)

“Avatar” James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers
“The Blind Side” Nominees to be determined :cry:
“District 9” Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers
“An Education” Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers
“The Hurt Locker” Nominees to be determined
“Inglourious Basterds” Lawrence Bender, Producer
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, Producers
“A Serious Man” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Producers
“Up” Jonas Rivera, Producer
“Up in the Air” Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers (papa Ivan’s first ever nom!)

Robbed: Almost every other movie released last year are better than these ten. What a lame year to have this beefed up category. Best Pic Nominee Blind Side, okay fuck you too.

Directing

* “Avatar” James Cameron
* “The Hurt Locker” Kathryn Bigelow
* “Inglourious Basterds” Quentin Tarantino
* “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels
* “Up in the Air” Jason Reitman

Robbed: Coen Bros., right?  

Actor in a Leading Role

* Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
* George Clooney in “Up in the Air” (and I usually love the Cloonster)
* Colin Firth in “A Single Man”
* Morgan Freeman in “Invictus”
* Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker”

Robbed:Viggo Mortensen, Viggo, Viggo, Viggo.  

Actor in a Supporting Role

* Matt Damon in “Invictus”
* Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger”
* Christopher Plummer in “The Last Station”
* Stanley Tucci in “The Lovely Bones” (first ever Oscar nom for someone doing a Dr. Evil impression lol)
* Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds”

Robbed: Steven Lang, the bad guy from Avatar. Dude’s the shit in that otherwise lame movie.

Actress in a Leading Role

* Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side”
* Helen Mirren in “The Last Station”
* Carey Mulligan in “An Education”
* Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
* Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia”

Robbed:Might as well have nominated Sandra Bullock for All About Steve cuz she’s such a good actress.

Actress in a Supporting Role

* Penélope Cruz in “Nine”
* Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air”
* Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart”
* Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air”
* Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”

Robbed: I would say Moore from Single Man but she was in it for like ten minutes so Samantha Morton from The Messenger it is.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

* “District 9” Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
* “An Education” Screenplay by Nick Hornby
* “In the Loop” Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
* “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher
* “Up in the Air” Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

Robbed: The Road

Writing (Original Screenplay)

* “The Hurt Locker” Written by Mark Boal
* “Inglourious Basterds” Written by Quentin Tarantino
* “The Messenger” Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
* “A Serious Man” Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
* “Up” Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy

Robbed: Sure, a lot of good scripts were robbed but for the first time in years I like the Original Screenplay category for the most part. The sloppy, haphazard writing/plotting of Up is the only exception.  

Animated Feature Film

* “Coraline” Henry Selick
* “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Wes Anderson
* “The Princess and the Frog” John Musker and Ron Clements
* “The Secret of Kells” Tomm Moore
* “Up” Pete Docter

Robbed:WHERE’s FUCKING PONYO, AHHHHHH FUCK YOU!

Cinematography

* “Avatar” Mauro Fiore
* “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” Bruno Delbonnel :)
* “The Hurt Locker” Barry Ackroyd
* “Inglourious Basterds” Robert Richardson
* “The White Ribbon” Christian Berger

 Robbed: White Ribbon. Oh, wait they actually bothered to watch that movie. Cool!

Art Direction

* “Avatar” Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair
* “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; Set Decoration: Caroline Smith
* “Nine” Art Direction: John Myhre; Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
* “Sherlock Holmes” Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
* “The Young Victoria” Art Direction: Patrice Vermette; Set Decoration: Maggie Gray

Costume Design

* “Bright Star” Janet Patterson :-|
* “Coco before Chanel” Catherine Leterrier
* “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Monique Prudhomme
* “Nine” Colleen Atwood
* “The Young Victoria” Sandy Powell

Documentary (Feature)

* “Burma VJ” Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
* “The Cove” Nominees to be determined
* “Food, Inc.” Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
* “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
* “Which Way Home” Rebecca Cammisa

Film Editing

* “Avatar” Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
* “District 9” Julian Clarke
* “The Hurt Locker” Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
* “Inglourious Basterds” Sally Menke
* “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Joe Klotz

Foreign Language Film

* “Ajami” Israel
* “El Secreto de Sus Ojos” Argentina
* “The Milk of Sorrow” Peru
* “Un Prophète” France
* “The White Ribbon” Germany

Makeup

* “Il Divo” Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
* “Star Trek” Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
* “The Young Victoria” Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore  (huh?)

Music (Original Score)

* “Avatar” James Horner
* “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Alexandre Desplat 8-O :D
* “The Hurt Locker” Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders (wha?)
* “Sherlock Holmes” Hans Zimmer
* “Up” Michael Giacchino

Music (Original Song)

* “Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
* “Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
* “Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36” Music by Reinhardt Wagner Lyric by Frank Thomas
* “Take It All” from “Nine” Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston
* “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Short Film (Animated)

* “French Roast” Fabrice O. Joubert
* “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell
* “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” Javier Recio Gracia
* “Logorama” Nicolas Schmerkin
* “A Matter of Loaf and Death” Nick Park

Documentary (Short Subject)

* “China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
* “The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner” Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
* “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
* “Music by Prudence” Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
* “Rabbit à la Berlin” Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra

Short Film (Live Action)

* “The Door” Juanita Wilson and James Flynn
* “Instead of Abracadabra” Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström
* “Kavi” Gregg Helvey
* “Miracle Fish” Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey
* “The New Tenants” Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson

Sound Editing

* “Avatar” Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
* “The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson
* “Inglourious Basterds” Wylie Stateman
* “Star Trek” Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
* “Up” Michael Silvers and Tom Myers

Sound Mixing

* “Avatar” Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
* “The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
* “Inglourious Basterds” Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano (wow, another sound nod for IG. Werid, cuz most of the film is very low key)
* “Star Trek” Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
* “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson (no kidding, the sound is fantastic in this, um, less than fantastic film)

Visual Effects

* “Avatar” Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
* “District 9” Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken
* “Star Trek” Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton

• Avatar
• An Education
• District 9
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Invictus
• Precious
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up in the Air

Sad that the year the Academy decides to implement it’s ten picture category is a year where 10 Oscar-y films are actually hard to come by. My reasoning: in what other year would a film like Star Trek be a contender (I still don’t think it would make it because three sci-fi best pic nominees is a stretch because the Academy doesn’t even usually go for one. I would even say that even if it were just five, there’s still aren’t enough films! The locks are of course Avatar (or as it’s more fun to say “Aaavadar”), Hurt Locker, Basterds, Precious and Up in the Air.  The rest is totally filler. Also, I’m not going to bother predicting acting/writing etc awards because I don’t see any surprises. I hope I’m wrong.

Possible: Star Trek (what?! WHAT!!!), The Hangover, Julie and Julia, The Blind Side. Damn.

Hoping for: Well, only three of seven probable nominees are any good so how about anything other than what’s here. Oh, maybe there’s four good ones, I’m a closeted “Precious” fan.

Okay boys and girls here are the best songs of the year! I’m eschewing the modesty of calling these fifty tracks (plus a little gem known as ”Bale Out”) my ”favorite” songs of the year. Fuck that, these are the best. Deal with it. I took a couple of hours to listened to these great tunes all the way through and realized just then how great this year was for not just new artists/bands but for fringe musical genres such as electronica/noise/ambient/metal/prog. So enjoy the good ones, enjoy the weird ones, and everything in between. And if you’re lucky enough to know me I’ll burn a copy for you let you listen to all these songs I totally legally downloaded.

1. Sea Within a Sea by The Horrors
2. Kingdom of Rust by Doves
3. The Incident by Porcupine Tree
4. Surf Solar by Fuck Buttons
5. French Navy by Camera Obscura
6. I Don’t Like Your Band by Annie
7. Golden Phone by Micachu and the Shapes
8. Build Voice by Dan Deacon
9. The Afterlife by YACHT
10. Leftovers by Jarvis Cocker

11. Crystalised by The xx
12. Panic Switch by Silversun Pickups
13. This Tornado Loves You by Neko Case
14. Corrupt by Depeche Mode
15. Glass by Bat For Lashes
16. United States of Eurasia by Muse
17. Inaugural Trams by Super Furry Animals
18. Holiday On The Moon by Puscifer
19. Dog Days Are Over by Florence And The Machine
20. Where Shadows Make Shadows by Tim Hecker

21. Give It Up by Datarock
22. Slow Poison by The Bravery
23. Since We’ve Been Wrong by The Mars Volta
24. Oblivion by Mastodon
25. Leni by Crystal Castles Remixed
26. Digidesign by Joker
27. Stillness Is the Move by Dirty Projectors
28. Drawing the Line by Porcupine Tree
29. Jetstream by Doves
30. Babel On by The Soundtrack of Our Lives

31. Heads Will Roll by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
32. From Africa to Málaga by jj
33. Help I’m Alive by Metric
34. Lisztomania by Phoenix
35. Funny The Way It Is by Dave Matthews Band
36. Moped Eyes by Super Furry Animals
37. Don’t Stop by Annie
38. Further Complications by Jarvis Cocker
39. Daniel by Bat For Lashes
40. True Stories byDatarock

41. Working On a Dream BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
42. House of Flying Daggers by Raekwon
43. Angela by Jarvis Cocker
44. Begin The Engine by Andrew W.K.
45. Fuck You by Lily Allen
46. Divinations by Mastodon
47. Padding Ghost by Dan Deacon
48. Here to Fall by Yo La Tengo
49. Something is Squeezing My Skull by Morrissey
50. The Mission (feat. Milla Jovovich) by Puscifer
50.1 The Shattered Fortress by Dream Theater
50.2 Bale Out by EvoLoution

***

Best Non-Song Song of the Year:
“Bale Out” by RevoLucian. Genus on so many levels. First off, and all due respek to my man Bale, it’s funny. Second, it’s actually a very well made dance song in terms structure and beats. Third, this guy made the song, like, two days after the rant was released. This song is so good it’s fucking distracting.

1. “TiK ToK” by Ke$ha. Oh, I have a few signs for Ke$ha as well. Sure there’s the $, which is sooooo cool with its faux gangsta irony (which may not even be ironic), but there’s also a #@*%. This is the kind of post-Gaga popular dance music that is ushering in the new decade. It makes me not want to be alive to hear what the rest of the decade has to offer.  This song is… DEATH.
2. “Right Round” by Flo Rida. Fuck this shit.
3. “Party in the U.S.A.” by Miley Cyrus. If this is how we party they I’m moving to Canada.
4. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon. It is beyond my comprehension how this band and THIS 2009 hit single grew in popularity.
5. “My Girls” by Animal Collective. Not bad by any means just overrated and kind of bland.  There are far better tracks on Merriweather Post Pavilion.
6. “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga. Maybe not the worst song ever but the opening of this song makes me feel like my skin has been cut off and bleach is being poured on my blood covered, barley alive carcass.

Best Bad Song of the Year:
I Got A Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas. A horrible song from a horrible band. Still… ehh, kinda catchy. Mazeltov!

Music didn’t do much for me this year but I’m going to force myself to write about it anyway. These were the albums that mattered to me most but, from the looks of it, not that of the critical consensus (Animal Collective is the best band of the year…um’kay) or public taste (Lady Gaga, the most “multi-talented” male “female” “artist” of the year) or just people who think they’re cooler than us (Girls fans, UGH). Overall, I heard 35 good albums worthy of a “best of the year” list. That is both a victory for the 09 album format and a defeat because for every 35 albums that were great to good to, uh, whatever the Flaming Lips album was, there were four times as many that were a mess. The album has been dead for a while and this year it’s easy to see why. On that sad note, check back in a few days for Paper Street Cinema Music’s best tracks of the year.

Click below to find out what the Best Albums of the Year are... 

Game of the Year is Awarded To...

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)

1. Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)

2. Scribblenauts (Nintendo DS)

• #1 Trend: Playstation trophies and to a lesser degree Xbox achievements. If my increase in video game playing can be attributed to one thing this year it’s a quirky personalty obsession with scoring trophies that reward everything from head shots to beating a game on hard. This trend gave me a tangible reason to play video games other than the fact that they’re really fun.

• Good: Online play has reached a new peak. It’s better and more varied than it’s ever been.

• Bad: X-Box 360 is an overrated, suck ass system that gathered more dust this year than my Wii. This is the first year that not one Xbox game made my top ten. That’s more sad than bad.

• Bad: Xbox again for its unacceptable failure rate and for peopel for not caring that hte hardware is broken.

• Good: IPs are strong.

• Good: As games get bigger and more polished, even more get smaller and more fun. Games like Brand for PS3, Plants Vs. Zombies for PC and Shadow Complex for Xbox signal a welcome trend of indie games that rely more on core gameplay than production values.

• Bad: DLCs (added content for games you own). They suck and are overpriced.

• Bad: The words Sony and handheld should never go together. PSP Go is a system that cost almost as much as a PS3 and games can only be downloaded.

Once you go blue...

• What’s Good: James Cameron’s dedication to the material is admirable. His ability to sell this half formed, totally unoriginal sci-fi story is masterful.
• What’s Not:“A New World” meets “Dances with Wolves” meets “Aliens” meets “Princess Mononokie” meets “Fern Gully in Space.” A lot meets here. What there are not a lot of however is new ideas. Cameron’s inability to make the aliens ALIENS is confounding. Cameron is like a sane version Michael Bay who fetichizes the military war complex while denouncing it it at the same time. I’m also sore that Michael Biehn and/or Bill Paxton are not in this movie but Sigourney Weaver is so that’s cool.

Science Fiction has enjoyed its most prosperous year of the young century. The genre has not been this fecund since the year “Matrix,” “Princess Mononokie” and “Star Wars: Episode I” came out. It has also not been this overrated in years though I must admit that the sci-fi purist in me fears mainstream involvement in this genre so I’m naturally defensive. This year though: first “Star Trek” crammed that cocky, shit eating Kirk (Chris “I’m awesome!” Pine) down our throats. Then “District 9″ turned a story of alien apartheid into an inept retelling of “Transformers.” Then, um, yeah, the bland “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” came out and, astoundingly, was not as bad as everyone made it out to be. Now “Avatar” has come to rule them all.

There is very little doubt that this 300-500 million production will not only make a tidy profit but may go on to become the third or even second highest grossing film in U.S. history right below James Cameron’s other blunt edged epic “Titanic.” “Avatar” is a vivid contradiction that poses the question of how could something so stark and visionary can be so unoriginal. Easy, it’s made by Cameron. Aww, nah man, I kid, I kid, the dude’s earned my respect many times over; Cameron’s work in this genre includes masterpieces like “Terminator,” “T2″ (his most overrated film but still good by any other standards) “The Abyss” (his most underrated), and “Aliens” (an A+++++ film) are unparalleled in genre defining qualities that, “Abyss” aside, shoot first and ask questions later. That Cameron’s reputation precedes him is perhaps why I expect more from him especially given his decade long, post “Titanic” hiatus. The expectations are not so much in the storytelling department but in the powerful ways in which he is usually able to approaches stories. The result here is a mixed bag full of minor technical miracles and major storytelling blunders and a curious lack of real danger posed to the protagonist.

This save-the-rain-forest adventure set on a planet known as Pandora (that’s, uh, symbolism, right?) brings virtually no new ideas to the table. Instead, it grafts new technology over old ideas.  The ground it does tread it treads competently, but with all the narrative grace of one of the film’s tree smashing mega bulldozers. What we get here is a hearty retelling of a good vs. evil, man vs. machine, and nature vs technology tale in which an ex military grunt, working as a Backwater-esq soldier for hire, goes undercover and, before he knows what hits him, goes native. The central gimmick is that humans are now able to fuse human and alien DNA to harvest bodies known as Avatars. These proxy creatures can be possessed via cryo-sleeping humans! In their dreams! Nonsense! Yet nonsense that Cameron is able to sell effectively because everything else is so meticulously mapped out. Avatars are essentially flesh based video game characters and the hero, Jake (another original Cameron hero name–totally more original than Jack), gets a mean case of chosen-one-itis when he puts this new body to use. This avatar concept in one sense gives the film a semi-original approach(if you don’t count the other Avatar-ish ”Surrogates” this year) while at the same time removes me from an investment in the immediacy of the hero’s situation since he’s not really there. The Avatar driven hybrids and, for that matter, indigenous aliens known as the Na’vi (which sounds like a snazzy name for a laptop or mp3 player) look convincing and at times posses flawlessly rendered realism but their design is a bit awkward. Their flat noses, strange heads, stupid tribal marks and grotesque bodies gave me, among other things, really bad “Antz” flashbacks.

The plot is so far from exceptional that it gives a new name to the term space opera. There is a lot of politics (and politicking) and tropical/topical parallels to imperial America, sure, but really this is just an space set “Romeo and Juliet” story involving a boy trying to win the heart and mind of the girl and her community. He is accepted by the alien clan all too easily and masters their ways in a manner of weeks. This story element takes up about two hours of the film so expect lots of iridescent plant life, prancing about and forced moments of adventure (Jake trying to tame one wild animal or another). There are enough 90s era Disney cliches here to fool me into thinking characters are on the verge of breaking into a show tune any minute. Lucky they don’t; unluckily, though, James Horner does and his score and it’s full of tritely recycled melodies.

The rest is of the film (and entire third act) is vintage Cameron hoorah military hokum. Humans invade a peaceful, nature loving planet rich in precious minerals whose value to the  new, resource depleted Earth is never fully explained. I’ve always loved sci-fi for the ways in which it is able to encode progressive message into the text. These days all sci-fi subtext has become text because we’re obviously too stupid to get the  message if it’s in any way subtle. While Cameron is being  praised for creating a new world, all I see here is “A New World.” While the romance is nothing new, the post colonial aspects are even more worn. First off, I mentioned that the hero enters this community like a space age Jesus (or Tom Cruse or Kevin Costner etc.) and that undercuts a lot of the supposed autonomous integrity these “savage” creatures have. In addition to that the cultural tropes are obtuse. I have no idea why people bash George Lucas’s anthropological aliens when this film’s egregious mess of Earth based stereotypes gets received with near unanimous approval and cultural cache. These creatures are Ewok’s squared. The peaceful and simple subaltern alien race (Others are aliens, get it!) are a crude amalgamation of African, Aboriginal and American Indian cultures and icons. What bothers me is that Cameron makes no attempt to make these alien underdogs actually alien. I just can’t understand how something so ambitious can be so lazy. Is this a prime example of  unintentional leftist racism or just bad writing? Whatever the case, the humans of “Avatar” are just as one dimensional (ironic that this is 3D then, huh?) with bullheaded military men, egg headed business men, even headed mentors and a Jarheaded hero played by Terminator Salvation’s Sam Worthington.

While I could go on about what bothers me there’s a lot to admire in “Avatar.” Sure, the visuals pop with a musty green brilliance and eerie fog but what I like most about the film is the way it inverts the sci-fi cliche of making humans the evil invaders (weare aliens) while having the viewer relate to the little (actually, large) blue space men. Heading up the invading force is a wonderfully wicked performance by Stephen Lang (“Public Enemies”) as the evil, Duke Nukem looking Colonel who steals the movie through the simple act of bringing some color, dimension and fire to a morally black and white story universe. Too many characters, yes even my dear Sigourney Weaver as the all too noble scientist in charge, are cardboard cut outs that this bad ass Colonel shreds to hell with his his twenty foot mech’s giant-sized machete. Now, as to why a fricken mech needs a big ass knife is something I’ll have to add to the pile of things I don’t get about this movie. Anyways, after all this inane, semi-incoherent ranting I’m going to put aside my objections and give “Avatar” a (barley) passing grade. I do so with caution and the illogical self awareness that I don’t always need to like a science fiction movie to like it.

Grade: B-

“Nine?” Uh, not quite, more like a six or seven. The best thing this musical remake of Fellini’s “8½” did is remind me of how good the original is. Broadway/Hollywood’s update is a glitzed out and dumbed down version of an original that parodied the very same spectacle that ”Nine” has become! I guess the the original Broadway writers and Hollywood director/producers of “Nine” missed that; “8½” is a foreign film after all and that means you have to read subtitles so it make sense that the nuances went over their heads. That huge contradiction aside, this film doesn’t work as a remake because it doesn’t work at all as a musical. No amount of new wave Italian visuals, “Citizen Kane” ripped cinematography and sparkly costumes can mask the taste of bland-ass music. I went with a friend and soon after the film ended she mentioned that she like the song where the beleaguered protagonist played by Daniel Day Lewis sits in a corner while his wife gets her revenge on him through a musical number where she is stripped bare right in front of him. Within minutes of seeing the film this conversation happened and while I could remember the image of a scruffy Daniel Day Lewis and a beautiful, wide eyed Marion Cotillard singing, I could not for the life of me recall what she was singing or, for that matter, just about any other song in this movie! That’s a bad sign.

This is one of those rare musicals in which the story is better than its set pieces. I called it dumbed down and it is but it’s also something of a curious interest to fans of the original because here we have a crudley parsed version of a hallucinatory masterpiece. The predominant theme of male anxiety in Fellini’s version is hard to approach or understand at first but by end you’re infected with it. “Nine” is the cliff notes version where the anxiety of the lead character is quite literally spelled out for us (no flying dreams and only one childhood flashback) while notions relating to the elusive nature of art that Fellini captures so artfully (to describe it is to demystify it is the film’s point) is far from elusive with its big and bright quotation marks that are on display like a gussied up whore. Daniel Day Lewis is the right actor to play the part of Guido if only because he looks so cool when he’s tormented (I need not remind anyone of his past performances). But he’s also a bit too over the top this time.  He does lots of angsty pacing here as well as sitting crouched over with his hands up against his face like a tortured version of  The Thinker sculpture. Lewis, like Marcello Mastroianni, plays the Guido as a filmmaker who has nothing but decisions put in front of him and yet is incapable of making even the smallest one. A big difference is that Mastroianni was playing a version of Fellini while Lewis is, um, well he’s definitely not playing a version of thisfilm’s director Rob Marshall because the character in “Nine” is actually considered a great director by his peers and the press and is even called “Maestro.” At any rate, each decision and commitment, no matter how trivial, bears down on Guido like a runaway train and each is avoided at all costs, which, considering the budget of the film he’s not working on, is a lot. “Directing a movie is an overrated job. You just have to say yes or no. What else do you do? Nothing” the non-film’s costume designer, an Edith Head looking Judi Dench, tells the perpetually smoking Guido who clearly hears and perhaps even agrees but just can’t take that proactive plunge both as an artist and as a man. This is a classic struggle that is mirrored with very little mystery in “Nine.”

Marshall, like his character, also seems incapable of making a choice with his film because the music is not only forgettable and antiquated but unnecessary. Marshall wants to make a musical adaptation of a play that was adapted from ”8½” and that’s fair game I guess but he goes ahead with this endeavor without the support of the music part! Marshall’s Oscar winning “Chicago” worked because the music numbers made sense within the context and reality of the story world; they were the lavish day dreams of crazy killers and depraved men. “Chicago” also worked because the music was good and, when not good, catchy at the very least. The music in this film, like “Chicago,” occurs outside the diegetic story space but that’s as far as the film is willing to go with them. Guido will be dealing with one of his many mistresses/feminine infatuations (Nicole  Kidman the international actress, Kate Hudson the American reporter, Penelope Cruz as the mistress, Fergie the vamp from Guido’s past, Sophia Loren the mother etc.) and suddenly someone get a music number dedicated to how they’re feeling. Is he imagining it? Are they? Are we? I feel, though I’m not sure who agrees, that one of the jobs of a film musical is to accommodate the music itself. To find a home for it within the aesthetics as well as being pleasing in its own right. In that regard the music of “Nine” is not only tone deaf but homeless.

I mixed feelings about “Nine.” The lead performance is strong (perhaps too strong) and the cinematography, while not visually original, is even more beautiful than all the women. And even if the refashioned story goes against the philsophy of the original I found it compelling when the music wasn’t getting in the way. Is that enough? Depends. Those who really like musicals might give this a shot, and might like it. Those interested in classic art house foreign films may also want to see it, but will probably not like it. Everyone else should just stay home.

Grade: C+

Well, here lies another high profile release that failed to live up to the hype. While I found the year as a whole to be amazing the winter movie season is the most underwhelming in recent memory. It’s as good a time as any to put this review season to bed. I will be catch up on all the stuff I missed (Avatar, I’m coming to get you!) and of course pulling my best of the year picks out of my arse. Video Games will come first next week, then music then movies, then best of the decade lists. Gwah, exhausting.

Lovely Bones is really, really, really, really, really… bad. I mean really bad. Really. Bad. Rrrrrrrrrrreally bad. In case you didn’t read the book, it’s better than the film version. Big surprise. “I’m Sally Salmon and this my story” we are told in this movie about a dead girl narrating her life from her after life. Her family grieves for her as the murderer sits in a room right across the street (IRONY!). As time passes she prances about in her very own Candyland… or purgatory, or something, I couldn’t actually tell and this film was not about to tell me so Candyland it is. What she does there and how that relates to what’s happening on our earthly plane is never explained, which actually might be a good thing seeing as how clumsy the film’s narrative is. Better to not explain than to to so badly.

As poorly constructed as the somewhat similar 2007 mystery “The Invisible” is, at least the dead protagonist in that story took on the role of a detective who investigates his mortal death and, accordingly, can only be revived or go to heaven (I forget which; again, not a good film) once the killer is caught. Dumb, yes, but at least there’s some measure of internal logic at work. Not here. The dead girl played by the promising young actress Saoirse Ronan (“Atonement”) has no control or agency. She’s dead in other words. So then what function does she serve other than standing around and watching us earthlings with bittersweet wonder? None. The film is more interested in giving you goosebumps and being sentimental (father lights a candle atop a ship in a bottle for daughter to see in the dark storm of night ::gags::, father cries, girl’s not-quite-lover writes her poetry) than exploring notions of death, cosmic justice, fate, and the after life. Not being analytical about this stuff is all well and good in many cases (“Ghost Town” for instance gets a pass) but being that the sentimentalism falls flat while the exploration of the physicality of one’s death is not even a concern there came a time during this film when I wondered, and not in the existential sense, what the point of all of it was. Again, there is none. The film is nonsense, a hollow spectacle of style over substance over common sense that displeases to the core.

Peter Jackson put his name on this film and I feel sorry for him. It bears his trademarks both pre and post “Lord of the Rings” which is as much of a blessing as it is a curse; there are swamps, there are horrible underwater effects (fans blowing on actor’s faces), there is death, there is evil there is good and there is fantasy. Oh, and there is also a lot of bull shit. I am officially done with this filmmaker because I see no future for him. I also pity Jackson because he seems to be in a similar (creative) limbo as his main character in this movie. After “Rings” Jackson wants to be known as a serious filmmaker on “Lovely Bones” when he tries to be that here his creative expressions end up more far fetched than any fantasy world he’s ever conjured up. The movie magic and visual mastery Jackson tapped into with thedecade defining “The Lord of the Rings” series has been negated by a duo of agonizing follows ups “King Kong” in 2005 and now “Lovely Bones.” A problem is that Jackson does not seem to have an emotional compass sharp enough to depict the real world. Fantasy and sloppy comic horror (“Dead Alive”) is what he’s able to do and do very well but anything else comes across as corny and amateurish. When he attempts to blend the two, as evident here, it’s a disaster. Where Jackson was once an clever innovator (“Forgotten Silver” and “Meet the Feebles”) and a cynical genus (“The Frighteners”–his other film about ghosts), he is now a schmaltzy middle class appealing hack that could match wits with Spielberg any day. (Spielberg produced this movie by the way and it shows.) More than anything though “Bones” is a lesser version of Jackson’s own early gem called “Heavenly Creatures,” a film that also involves murder, young girls and the fantasy world they escaped to.

This film’s visual pallet contains almost as much darkness as it does heavenly color. Providing that darkness is Stanley Tucci’s George Harvey character, the killer of the girl who dwells in his Golem like layer that, on the suburban outside, looks perfectly normal, perhaps too normal. Tucci brings George to life with ticks, dorky speach mannerisms and creepy hobbies (crafting doll houses and making outdoor traps for ducks) and is certainly a potentially interesting presence of evil. What undercuts that potential is the fact that his evil is EVIL without equivocation or hesitation. By extension, the afterlife he sends his victim(s) to is the AFTERLIFE. While there’s a lot of talk of in “betweens,” there’s ironically very little of that in the moral or thematic sense. The metaphysical realm, full of rainbows and flowers and coronas of white light so bright I was half expecting Gandalf the White to pop out, is handled with such awkwardness, bombast and intellectual meaninglessness that the movie plays more along the lines of a Mitch Abom/Oprah book club selection than a gritty drama. “You are in betweeeeeeeeen” the dead girl’s spirit medium tells Sally when she asks where she is. Another line that had me howling was “We’re in HEAVEN, YAAAAAY!” and I shit you not, that yaaaaay part is in there too. In this Candyland giant boats in bottles (a blown up symbol of Sally’s father’s hobby) crash against mountains while night, day, snow, water, sun and the moon are all able to exist in the same frame. She’s EVERYWHERE, get it? Sally can’t really communicate with the living but in one scene a dead flower on earth springs back to life when the father holds it (what does that even mean?) and that seems to be the dead girl’s only real power and it’s as lame as it sounds. While the sentiments are all Hallmark TV Movie and Spielbergian drek, the painterly onanism on display in the “in between” reminded of something else, something far, far worse. The late nineties saw a unspeakable film called “What Dreams May Come,” another film about dead people prancing about like dandies in a celestial CGI world. I also happen to resent that film because it’s as empty as it is pretentious. The qualities of emptiness and pretentiousness is a total contradiction in terms but that’s what we’re dealing with here.

Okay, so the fantasy is a big fail. But this is really a mystery one could just as easily argue. But, even there, as a murder mystery the film does not fare much better because in this world cops are inept, the mother splits town and the co-lead, a father played by Mark Wahlberg (as guilty pleasure bad here as he was in “The Happening”), sulks in his den, not letting his daugher’s memory go as he growing scruffier and more introverted by the day (which, for Wahlberg, is tough to endure because he’s so low key to begin with).

Just about the only thing I learned from the director/writer on this movie is his fondness for extreme close-ups of fingers. What am I talking about? Fingertips, that’s what. Jackson cuts to them all the time be it characters skimming the dead girl’s journal, other characters skimming the killer’s journal or the killer coldly touching a charm bracelet piece he got off the girl. Yup, lots of finger action for those potentiometer fetishists out there. Why fingers? I have no idea but that makes about as much sense as anything else in “Lovely Bones.”

Grade: D

The Golden Globes kick off what’s going to be a very boring year for awards.

Maybe Our Movie Doesn't Suck

Good:

• Kathryn Bigelow nominated for Hurt Locker… against ex husband James Cameron. Hahaha. Seriously, that’s historic!
• Basterds!!!!!!!!!
• Invictis not getting a best pic nomination. I haven’t even seen the film and I love Clint, so why does this make me happy? Probably because it looks like just another biopic. 
• The Hangover. Yup.
• Hum, maybe Avatar won’t be bad after all.
• Star Trek not nominated for best pic.
• Michael Stuhlbarg nominated for A Serious Man is cool. Still not sure he’s going to get an Oscar nom so this is something at least.  
• Three words: Joseph Gordon Levitt.
• White Ribbon nominated for Foreign film (but sadly not picture). 
• True Blood nominated for Best Drama. Thanks for going where the Emmys were afraid to go.
• Jane “Hung,”Jane “Hung,” Hane “Jung.” 
• John Lithgow nominated for his amazing performance as a killer in Dexter. Far too few people remember how good Lithgow was playing killers in the Brian de Palma films Obsession and Raising Cain.

Um, Not So Good:

• The headline Up in the Air leads Golden Globe Nominations. Couldn’t have happened to a more overrated film. Well, it could have, Lovely Bones, but that wasn’t nominated thank god.
• Ponyo misses the cut for best animated film. Don’t worry though, that fucking Meatball movie made it.
• Composer James Horner gets nominated for Avatar. Have not seen the film, or heard it, but my ears are already bleeding. Wishing now that Horner stayed where he belongs, in the 90s!  
• Tobey Maguire nominated for “acting”…
• … and Jeremy Renner (so good in Hurt Locker) was not. Fuck that noise, yo!
• Oh, and Viggo got shut out too. Viggo, Viggo, where are you? Can you hear me? Viggo???!!!
• Christian McKay not nominated for playing Orson Welles.
• I can’t wait to see It’s Complicatednow ::sarcasm:: because I’m sure the best screenplay nod for Something’s Gotta Give 2 this film is justified. Argh.
• THREE double nominated actors:  Sandra Bullock, Matt Damon, Meryl Streep.
• Did I mention Sandra Bullockwas nominated TWICE. And one of them was for THE PROPOSAL!!! Since the Globes is all about star fucking how ever did Ryan Reynolds miss out?   
• Julia Roberts? Duplicity? What? Oh, yeah, more star fucking.
• Lost not nominated for Best Drama. The nominated House is way better and is not like the same ever season.
• Um, where’s the Bryan Cranston and Breaking Bad nominations? I forgot, House is soooo better and more innovative.   

Hey, let's talk about luggage!

• What’s Good: Clooney can do no wrong, even…
• What’s Not:…when his film can. How so? Well, it’s pretentious, it’s tedious, it’s shallow and it’s predictable. That probably means this is going to be a beloved film this year–a film that will win awards and a film that you’re neighbors and casual acquaintances will respond to with ”Have you seen Up in the Air, ohmygod it’s sooooo good!” Up in the Air has its share of nice moments I but came away from watch the film resenting it.
• Faux Peter ”hack” Travers Quote: This film will have you flying high on humor and emotion. It is a first class ticket to free-flight bliss. Check your emotional luggage at the door.

The more institutionalized, mainstream, critically accepted or, to put it another way, the more Steven Spielberg like Jason Reitman, the more annoyingI find his films. “Juno” was irritatingto be sure but it was also sincere and winning while Reitman’snew film is all that minus the sincere and winning part. In fact, I don’t see any sign that the director is even trying anymore because why should he? Clearly, charm and the illusion of heart are able to get his films past the finish line and into audience/critic’s, um, hearts. By that definition, “Up in the Air” is his most calculatingbest film to date. Reitman’s feel good road trip formula (actually, it’s a flight plan trip but never mind) is patronizing and relies too much on individually pre-package sentiments to get its bittersweet message across.

If “The Terminal” and “Away We Go” were slightly more bearable and slightly less patronizingthey’d be “Up in the Air.” You see, ”Up” –I wish it was “Up”– ”Up in the Air” I should say is a romantic comedy that half thinks it’s changingthe world so it doesn’t have to be that funny or romantic due to the pretence of dramatic importance heaped on with a great and obvious sense of awareness but no true integration into the material. It bothers me that this film gets a pass by the press and public on actually exploring any of its serious themes (lonleyness, joblessness, Clooneyness) because, hey, everyone will claim that it’s not it’s job but, rather, a bonus. No. The story follows a man hired by corporations to facilitate the firing of large amounts of useless corporate employees; “What am I going to tell my kids?,” “What am I  going to do now?,” “‘Sorry’ doesn’t put food on the table mister!,” “How do you sleep at night,” and my favorite “I’m going to jump off a bridge” are non emblished blurbs from what are essentially talking head “every day” Americans. Oh boy, that’s Serious Stuff, but it’s just propped up to give the film a sprinkle of context and flavor.

George Clooney plays a well dressed nomad that enjoys the life of the road and, yes, the metaphor of a man literally flying from his personal responsibilities is that obvious. His boss (Jason Batemen doing the rounds by being in every single movie this year), looking to cut costs on the business of firing (really?), teams the old business shark with a up-and-comer straight out of college and “top of her class.” ”Twilight’s” Anna Kendrick plays her without ever expanding on being that character, i.e. the challenge of youth posing a threat to the antiquated (but human) ways of the older man. She is a product of the new American business machien while he is the result of it. Personality wise, this sidekick also seems to be modeled after Reitman’s character Juno in, um, “Juno” except this sassy gal’s a walking cliche that possesses a flat sense of wit and very little empathy. The actress seems unsure if she’s supposed to be funny (her cryingscene) or serious (giving Clooney shit for not being able to “grow up”) and quite frankly so was I so I can’t blame her all the way. Faring slightly better is Vera Farmiga (“The Deparated”) as Clooney’s casual fuck buddy he meets in an airport and compares business credit/frequent flier miles (as well as fluids) with. At least this character talks from the heart (rather than the screenwriter) and also does an interesting job at selling one of the film’s only redeemingmoments with a cool plot twist at the end. I like this character because she’s the one thingin the movie that’s doesn’t remind me of nailed down furniture. She’s original (and has a great ass!!!)! Nothing else seems to be.

The plot is dull because it thinks it’s more interesting and socially relevant than it is and the filmmaking is routine because Reitman has no real flair or vision. Even the music is wrong. First, the whimsical original score (Rolpe Kent who also hammed up the sounds of “Sideways”) makes what’s on screen feel like a sitcom (because it is!). But worse than the musical Mickey Mousing (aka John Williams-ing) is the wretched song cuts that play over the film to a point where they should be credited for co-writingit. The film sounds like a b-sides Juno CD which, given the plot, is totally off the mark. And nothingbothers me more than when the EXACT RIGHT SONG plays duringthe the exact right moment, thus taking me out of a movie even more because I’m no longer watchinga crafted work of art or storytelling but, rather, a commercial.  Hey, something sad’s happening, quick throw up some Elliot Smith. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

As I watched George Clooney jet from one city/hotel/rental car to another I kept thinking of a moment in “Fight Club” of all things. Ed Norton’s deliberately lifeless (compared to Clooney’s unintentionally lifeless–jeez, is Reitman capable of making a film without voice overs?!) narrated montage about the absurdest prefab universe of travelingfor a living. I wondered for a moment what it would be like if that sequence was extended into an entire feature length film and realized that, holy hell, I WAS watching that movie albeit a neutered and crowd pleasing version. It’s as if we too are stuck in the travel purgatory of the film’s character.

Purgatory is a good word. The production design gets old very fast. A better director would have found a new way of visualizing shots of people in lines, people sitting, people at airport bars etc. and I know that’s possible because I was just mentioning David Fincher’s “Fight Club” and he did it! That being said the pervasive flatness would have been intolerable without…. George. Ah, yes, Mr. George Clooney. I love em’ as much as any straight guy could. I mean, Clooney can hold a movie as good as anybody out there, even a movie that’s not very good with is a real feat. Here he anchors the whole picture with likability and delivers what’s expected except he also delivers his most grab-happy, attention seeking performance  to date (and, yes, I’ve seen “Syriana”).

I fear Clooney had a lot to do with the emphasis of reaching out to middle America in the scenes where the film shows and puts a face to the economic fallout. I can’t stress enough how insultingthis aspect of the film is. The film contains no less than three extended sequences (boringly shot of course) of “everyday” people getting fired and blubbering by a staid looking Clooneyand befuddled Kendrick and each time Captain Your Fired spoke in his gravely voice I wanted to scream because it felt so damn self serving and unearned. But it’s not even like the rest of the film is good enough to be ruined by this social approach; it just means a bad film is being made worse by good intentions. Clooney is a lone wolf but humanist! He’s an island but really loves people! He’s, um, George Clooney. But he’s also a wounded child that finally gives into his softer side when he admits that settlingdown is more than something “other people do”–now give him an(other) Oscar, damn it! Look, George Clooney is great at being himself but what’s funny if seemingly impossible is that he’s been better and being himself! He usually smarter than the material but this time only seems to be pandering to it.

Grade: Oy Vey (C- actually)

“The Road” proves that you can make an apocalyptic movie without zombies. The film is an unrelenting yet landmark work of science-fiction because, for one, the viewer is so caught up in the moment, in surviving with the two lead characters, that it hard to tell it’s even sci-fi. That said, this is the most dramatically rich (and oppressive) films of its kind and no short-cuts are taken. The film is true to the story and the characters. Sometimes so much so that it’s hard to handle.

John Hillcoat (who made the equally bleak Western called “The Proposition”–a film I also love but am afraid to watch again) has fashioned this story based, of course, on the great Cormac McCarthy novel, with a very loose plot structure (the family is moving south for reasons unstated in a world destroyed from unknown reasons) but in a lot of ways the less we know the more we are able to feel the frustration of the characters. And that’s what’s it’s all about! When it comes to the central father and son characters the film is focused and that’s where it counts. With a strikingly haunting Great Depression era face, Viggo Mortensen is brilliant in his struggle to remain “good” when such moral qualifiers no longer exist. Yet he persists. He is not perfect and he is not profound, he just.. is and I admire the modesty and minimalism in Mortensen’s grounded performance. We may not know much in the way of context (the flashbacks to his past life are unnecessary) but we are able to connect with the spirit of the character who does not even have a name; we understand what he is doing and why he is doing it even if we, along with him, can’t articulate it. Sharing every moment of screen time, the man’s son, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, doesn’t ruin the movie and that’s one of the highest compliments I can pay to a child actor.

The film’s production design is perfect. The muted and drab earth tones capture this dying world. And I don’t just use the term “dying world” as a metaphor. The world is shutting down. The temperature is dropping and life is on its way out. Hillcoat and his team capture exactly that. When the two characters finally reach the “blue ocean,” they take one look at it and the father says “I’m sorry it’s not blue.” There you go! Trees are skeletal and often keel over on screen and in a particularly effective design choice, do so off screen too as we often hear creeks and thuds in the background which startle us at first but become a fact of life soon after. Vegetation is withered and brown. Earthquakes reign down upon man like an angry God is shaking the world loose. Animals are nonexistent (and they’re lucky for it). The only thing left is what remains of humanity, full of scavengers, thiefs, blind men and cannibals (yes, cannibals). Mad Max had it easy, this is humanity. If it’s any consolation there is hope, but in typical McCarthy fashion it comes as such a great price that there might as well not be. But there is.

“The Road” is one of the best post-man movies I’ve ever seen. I love that, after having a kid himself, McCarthy’s way of celebrating fatherhood is THIS devastating world. Still, I consider myself a student of apocalyptic fiction so my point of entry into “The Road” is through the genre more than the author and accolades. On that basis its a beautifully realized movie that, refreshingly, lacks irony, sentimentality and Will Smith.

Grade: A-

• What’s Good: “Education” features three perfectly fine performances. That’s the only thing that sets this film apart.
• What’s Not: Coming of age + private school + 60s = seen it before. Bland writing and uninspired directing. Bah humbug.

As the fifth highest rated film of the year (Metacritic) with 7 perfect scores and countless other fawning cheer-a-thons one would think this film would have more to offer. It does not. This is a very simple yet also a very assuming film. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cute little movie at its heart but that’s all it is. So while what they say is true (it is nice) and what happens comes awards time might be deserved (Carey Mulligan is guaranteed a nomination) but “An Education” is just the kind of shallow feel good story to win over the hearts of America’s old and tired who want to experience this story without being challenged in any sort of way.

Ms. Mulligan, the young lead, is winning to be sure but not very subtle in her emotional pallet. She’s smart, she’s nice, she’s a romantic, she’s a, well, Mary Sue. I blame the writing more than the performance. Mulligan’s Jenny is an overachieving student who experiences love (or lurve) for the first time but the story she finds herself in does not rise to her level of academic excellence. Ah, but there’s a twist (but not really): set in an all girls private school (insert naughty thought here) during the roaring-or-rocking-or-whatever-60s, the education in question is not one of acquiring knowledge but experience in ”the school of life.” Wow, groundbreaking. It’s not like we’ve ever seen a plot chronicling a youngins’ personal awakening set against the backdrop of social upheaval (YOU SEE, BECAUSE THE TWO PARALLEL EACH OTHER) before, oh no, never, I can’t even wrap my brain around this groundbreaking concept. Despite such trite sentiments, this gifted young girl with her gifted young dimples has the ability to melt away even my icy cynicism–she’s like the Nermal of teenage girls in that respect. Mulligan’s Jenny is an intellectual shut-in who is a willing prisoner of her demanding father and silent mother. Her bubble is popped (along with a few other things) upon the arrival of an older man into her life in act one. From Latin to lipstick, Jenny suddenly finds herself swept away by a shady rich man and her family is all too willing to allow Jenny to go down this path because the man is rich and powerful. Or is he? Will she stay with the dubious cad or pursuit a life of the mind at Oxford University??? You know the answer. What I’ve just said is all there is in this picture. The plot is so linear that watching it play out provides almost no measure of surprise or insight. It goes where it must and where it has before in countless stories about young naive love.

The film might as well have been written by a machine which, looking at who actually wrote it, author Nick Hornby, that’s half true because he hasn’t written anything true to his style or particularly original or not corny since High Fidelity. The catch in terms of how one judges this kind of film is that the lead is so winning that the flaws inherit in the by-the numbers drama are blurred to a point of forgiveness. Just as effective in an altogether different way is the jail bait scouting suitor played by Peter Sarsgaard (awesome actor, and doing a pretty good Brit accent as far as I can tell) who walks the line between charming and creepy so well that I would say the success of the film hinges upon his ability to make us like him despite our Spidey-senses tell us that some thing not quite right is going on here. While Mulligan will sponge up all the accolades (her cute-as-a-button newness is impossible to resist–could this be the second coming of Sally Field? ooooooh I hope so!) the real show stealer is the great and gifted and usually underrated Alfred Molina who plays her her father, a hysterical and peevish oaf that represents old England with their old values. The only problem is that he’s more lovable than than everybody else (made even more so because this is Doc Ock and the Mexican from “Maverick” we’re talking bout). Even here though, and all across the board, that’s all there is to it.

In the end gives me no pleasure to be hard on such a harmless and likable film. But it gives me even less pleasure to watch something that plays it safe, has no fresh ideas and still gets awarded for its mediocrity.

Grade: C+

The best horror films of all time…

Alien (1979, Scott)–Horror begins and ends with “Alien” as far as I’m concerned. I am a sci-fi guy and Ridley Scott’s was THE guy to take that genre and plant his alien seed, seamlessly crossbreeding it with true and claustrophobic horror. The resulting ingestion period spit out not just the best piece of horror ever seen but one of the best examples of the cinema experience period. The post-”2001,” post “Star Wars” story and visuals expanded the outer reaches of science fiction and did something no science fiction film ever did: make space feel real and intimate as a crew of blue collar space, uh, people encounter an alien… not so much monster but parasite. It’s hard to say what works “best” about the film. For my money it’s the “Psycho” switch–a third of the way into this film when Tom Skerritt, the only ”name” actor in the film next to Harry Dean Stanton when it was made, was killed we were left without a stable center and that make the film feel up for grabs. Enter Sigourney Weaver, the unlikely and at the time unknown star. Along the years and after fighting and endless hoard of these creatures her motto could be ”I’ve known you for so long that I don’t know anything else” and I would say the same thing about this flawless film because I can’t think of horror without first thinking of “Alien.”

1. Alien (1979, Scott)
2. Evil Dead II (1987, Raimi)–never. gets. old.
3. The Thing (1982, Carpenter)–the best remake ever made by the best horror director ever.
4. The Host (2007, Bong)–funny, sad, scary.
5. Let the Right One In (2008, Alfredson)–best film of 2008.
6. Day of the Dead (1985, Romero)
7. The Exorcist (1973, Friedkin)–gets credit for legitimizing horror films in a way nothing else had before or has since. Also becaus it’s really good. Ruined my childhood though.
8. Videodrome (1983, Cronenberg)–long live the New Cronenberg.
9. Demon Night: Tales from the Cript (1995, Dickerson)–I am not ashamed to write that “Demon Night” is good enough to warrent a top ten spot. The film has the structure of a Western but is horror all the way. Goofy but intense.
10. 28 Weeks Later (2007, Fresnadillo)–”Weeks,” not “Days.” Give us a “Months!!!!”
11. Antichrist (2009, von Trier)–too soon to tell exactly how good it is but it will always be scary. But is it horror? Yes.
12. Jacob’s Ladder (1990, Lyne)–best twist ever.
13. Rosemary’s Baby (1968, Polanski)–stay strong, brotha!
14. Re-Animator (1985, Gordon)–the only good film based on a Lovecraft story.
15. Cemetery Man (1994, Soavi)
16. The Ninth Gate (2000, Polanski)
17. Thirst (2009, Park)
18. Shaun of the Dead (2004, Wright) –2004, the best year for zombie  movies ever.
19. May (2002, Mckee)–a fantastic and classic indie cult horror movie that’s “Welcome to the Dollhouse” meets “Frankenstine.”
20. Screamers (1995, Duguay)–a true and totally bleak 90s cult sci-fi horror hybrid. This film will never be liked.
21. Phantom of the Paradise (1974, De Palma)
22. The Cabnet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Wene) The first horror film ever.
23. Blade II (2002, del Toro)
24. Event Horizon (1997, P Anderson)
25. The Last Man on Earth–Omega Man, the remake, is better (and one of my favorite movies of all time) but “Last Man” is more true to its horror roots. As for “I Am Legend”… well, lets not talk about it. Vincent Price is a one-of-a-kind horror movie actor and this is his best film because he plays it so real rather than campy.
26. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992, Coppola)–not a Coppola fan but his interpretation of Dracula is visionary and way ahead of its time. Gary Oldman’s depiction of the Count stands as the best movie monster performance ever.
27. Land of the Dead (2006, Romero)
28. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994, Craven)–Way better than his old Nightmare. As Craven films go, NM is Scream before there was a Scream. The horror re-imagining stars the actress from the first “Nightmare,” Heather Langenkamp, playing the actress from the first “Nightmare.” Wes Craven’s even in it playing Wes Craven, a director haunted by his Freddy creation! Sooooo meta. And soooo scary!
29. Slither (2007, Gunn)–a rare film that remembers that horror films are also allowed to be fun.
30. Shadow of the Vampire (2001, Merhige)
31. Nosferatu (1922, Murnau)–watch the above back to back with “Nosferatu” for a great night, muahhaha.
32. Army of Darkness: Evil Dead (1992, Raimi)
33. Halloween (1978, Carpenter)
34. The Hills Have Eyes (2006, Aja)
35. MST3K’s Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)
36. Quarntine/[rec] (2008)
37. In the Mouth of Madness (1994, Carpenter)–this self aware, Lovecraftian horror film, about a horror writer, is one of the most overlooked horror films in the history of the genre.
38. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000, Kawajiri)
39. Don’t Look Now (1973, Roeg)
40. Dawn of the Dead (2004, Snyder)–the remake is better than Romero’s version. I said it.
41. Dressed to Kill (1980, De Palma)
42. Deep Red (1975, Argento)–have to say it grew on me. Argento’s best and most focused effort.
43. Hostel II (2008, Roth)–people really dislike this film.
44. The Birds (1963, Hitchcock)–evil birds? WTF? Sharks, yeah; lions, sure; alligators, okay; insects even but birds??? Here is a film that really should not have worked if you only looked at it on paper… but it’s Hitchcock. I love that the firm almost apocalyptic.
45. Lord of Illusions (1992, Barker)–not many people know about this film. And they all suck.
46. Eyes Without a Face (1960, Franju)
47. The Hour of the Wolf (1968, Bergman)–Bergman? Horror? Yes!
48. What Lies Beneath (2000, Zemeckis)
49. Interview with the Vampire (1994, Jordan)–I grew up on this film and am a huge fan of Anne Rice (I know, I know). That the film does not hold up well is why it missed the list.
50. Martin (1973, Romero)–This loser vampire story (an awkward kid likes to drink blood) is most unique non-horror approach to this horror film I have ever seen. Oh, and this film does not star Martin Lawrence.

Just Missed the List…

• Cronos (1996, del Toro)
• The Fury (1978, de Palma)–X-Men meets Scanners.
• 28 Days Later (2002, Boyle)–would be in the top twenty if it weren’t for the abysmal last act set in a military base. What a way to ruin a potential classic.
• The Prophecy (1995, Widen)–Christopher Walken as an evil angel, Eric Stoltz as a good angel, Elias Koteas as the hero and Viggo Mortensen as Satan. God, how I love the 90s!!!
• Exorcist III (1990, Blatty)–underrated and unfortunately criticized horror sequel. It also contains the most scary and well shot horror scene of all time. One word: hallway)

Note: Though they exhibit horror elements sci-fi action movies like “Aliens” or “They Live” or “Predator” are not, by my definition, horror first and foremost. There’s a lot of close-calls in this genre. For instance, are “Mulholland Dr.,” and “Eraserhead” horror? Is this month’s “Antichrist” really horror? Is “Jaws” horror? And finally, do serial killer movies such as “Psycho” belong more to the horror or the thriller genre–unless its a killer movie like “Dressed to Kill” where the reality is heightened to a point of un-reality I would say the latter but I this is totally the eye of the beholder so you can call bullshit on me but please don’t because I love you.

Best Horror Performances

• Gary Oldman, Dracula
• Williem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire
• Bruce Campbell, Evil Dead series
• Sigourney Weaver, Alien series
• Klaus Kinski, Nosferatu
• John Cusack, 1408
• Ray Parks as Fast Draw Earl McGraw at the beginning of From Dusk Till Dawn. Every second is flawless. And who would have thought that McGraw would go to be in three more Tarentino films (both Kill Bills as well as Grindhouse)
• Jeff Goldblum in the Fly
• Kare Hedebrant and Linda Leandersson, Let the Right one In.
• Vincent Pryce in anything he did

Worst Horror Films of All Time: Campy-Bad Gets a Pass, These Are Bad-Bad

1. Friday the 13th–take your pick. Jason is a boring and blunt ”monster” that elicits no interest or dread. The plots are recycled and the characters he slashes are  not worth the slashing–I liked Freddy vs. Jason though.
2. I Know What You Did Last Summer–a film about Jennifer Love Hewitt’s boobs… and not much else.
3. The Grudge
4. The Village
5. The Exorcist 2: The Heretic
6. Alone in the Dark–I heart to hate Uwe Boll
7. Soul Survivors
8. Any horror film with “In Space” in the title. “Jason X: IN SPACE,” “Hellraiser: IN SPACE,” and of course “Leprechaun: IN SPACE… In the Hood.”
9. When a Stranger Calls–the most boring horror film of all time. ring. hello. silence. WHO  IS IT! WHHHHOOOOOOOOO! the end
10. Rocky Horror Picture Show–I just don’t get it.
11. One Missed Call
12. The Hills Have Eyes 2
13. Any movie with “Chucky”–I hate Chucky.
14. Day of the Dead (remake)
15. Any “Crow” movie that is not the first “Crow”
16. Halloween III-H20
17. Scream 3

• What’s Good: The scene with the baby powder. The amazing anticipation anytime we’re in the bedroom seen above. Usually the ghost just fluffs pillows but it’s still really exciting.
• What’s Not:A very shallow film. The film does not even try that hard to make us think that the characters “should” stay at home, I love how a visiting ghost Dr. gets creeped out by the energy in the house and screams “oh, and the presence will follow you wherever you go… lata!” on his way out.

It took about ten years but the horror genre finally gets its unlikely successor to ”Blair Witch.” Which (haha) basically means that everyone will see this un-seen ghost movie once, and probably even like it (as I did), but, because it’s a gimmicky ”reality” spook show where, as its non-fans love to point out, ”nothing happens,” where do we go from there? Nowhere, this is the end of the line. Others will copy “Paranormal Activity” but none work because what’s there to copy? There is simply not much to hold on to or embrace in terms of actual content or any measure of horror mythology. I guess they could do “Paranormal Activity 2″ set in the attic but anything short of that limits this phenomom’s had-to-be-there potential. Still, any successful horror movie that’s not ”Saw” should be seen and supported.  

Funny how just a few days after the art house horror-esq movie ”Antichrist” arrives another film with similarities such as (a) there are only two characters in the whole movie; (b) the two characters are married; (c) the characters are trapped, by their own design, in a confined space such as a house even though they could leave at any moment; (d) the wife in both relationships is deeply disturbed by inner demons that, in the case of “Paranormal Activity” but not “Antichrist,” are LITERAL demons.

This is what I call a Youtube horror movie where a house is haunted and… and… um, yeah, it’s haunted you see and… uhhhh, a dude captures it all on film with his new camera. His reasons for constantly shooting the house and his girlfriend is unclear because he doesn’t do anything with the footage except watch it and go “woah, look at that!” only to continue to stay in a house that is clearly going to hell. He’s a dumb ass horror movie character in other words. The premise is as a thin as the spectre. All the “scary” stuff happens in the bedroom, but only at night because ghosts love the night. (I have a theory that the new Leno show is so bad that the ghost snapped and decided it would rather entertain itself by scaring this retarded.) At night, the cool sound of wobbling energy (the ghost materializing?) is usually followed by a noise, a tap, a gust of wind or some sort of otherworldly ghostly resonance. If the movie “Jaws” has the tagline ”Don’t go in the water” then ”Paranormal Activity’s” should be “don’t go in the bedroom.” And on that level it really works! I for one scared the shit out of my sister who lives in my upstairs apartment and I urge everyone to do the same (to your sister, not mine please). The hauntings become more severe until the end where I must admit to have seen the different, and more subtle, ending than what was in the theatrical cut. I liked what I saw and hated the one you probably saw, which makes no sense. 

Either way, a similar but vastly superior handheld or Youtube horror film, with a real story and a tangible menace, is the underrated “Quarantine,” a remake of the equally good but most would say better Mexican film “[rec].” That film has rage zombies that tear apart human flesh while this one has… an invisible ghost that closes doors at night. That sounds (and sometimes is) underwhelming but ”Paranormal Activity” accomplishes its very basic mission statement of slowly creeping us out. And its hard to hold a film accountable for a lack of substance when I can’t look away from a it? The film is not really directed and the story is not really told but the sum of the parts adds up to a really effective horror film that had me h(sp)ooked all the way through. As is the case with “Blair Witch,” “Paranormal Activity” the film will be forgotten but the experience of watching it is here to stay.

Paranormal Activity: B / Lasting Appeal: D

“Antichrist.” Fuck! What are we to make of this? It’s hard calling something one of the best films of the year that makes you feel the worst you have felt all year. Lars Von Trier has set out to make a film about madness and the horrible things humans do to each other and has succeeded more than just about any director this side of Werner Herzog or Brian de Palma. The best way to describe the awesomely titled “Antichrist” is to say it will cut you and that if you watch it you will hate life for a least a day after watching. And that’s a compliment! Watching it hurts but its the kind of hurt we need and the kind of hurt that I could not look away from. As director Lars von Trier tells his simple yet disturbing tale of humanity’s masochistic dark side he heaps layers upon layers of artistic formalism and his approach is jagged and obvious but the effect reached his approach is undeniable and, after your done, unforgettable. I hate that Trier’s dirty parable was so well made because this is also a film I instinctively want to reject and tell people to stay away from. It’s quite mad but there’s genus in its madness and there’s no getting around that.

“Antichrist” has only two characters, one a man and Other (capital o) a woman, who, by the end are both stripped of their humanity in almost every way possible including their gender markers i.e. gentiles. The man is a headstrong psychiatrist that seeks to enforce reason to chaos and the woman, his wife, is… um, crazy. During an opening sequence that is best described as a avant-garde horror commercial porn (classical music, slow motion, black and white, and, wha!!!, a shot of actual hardcore sex done by what I hope to dear god is body doubles), the couple’s son wakes up somewhere atop a hi-rise building, sees his parents having sex (in slow-mo!) and pulls a Clapton by heading straight for the window, falling to his death which is probably what I would do I if my dad was Williem Dafoe and I saw him boning my mom. Anyways, this tragedy sets off a chain of events that drives the mother to the point of Freudian madness (I have a hunch that she was a bit off before the accident) and, it goes without saying, in bad need of help. The interesting thing is that the “help” is what hurts. Is it a good thing or perhaps a horrible thing that her husband is qualified in ”helping” people with “problems.” A few dozen night-terrors/angry-sex-beat-downs later and the couple are off to the woods, a lake house called Eden. As a qualified therapist, the husband’s project and maybe even experiment becomes his own wife whom he psychoanalyses to death! She is stricken with a condition that is obvious in origins but mysterious in its symptoms. This vague and debilitating illness, depicted with haunting perfection by actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, dominates the narrative and, if you look at it in terms of gender issues, touches upon themes of male hegemony and witch trials. She tells him the woods are the first, make that second, thing she fears most in life so… yeah, off to the woods they go. Here, the film has all the makings of a genuine horror story. Horror fans take note, the “horror” is psychological, metaphorical, tonal and achingly poetic. There are no monsters or flesh eating viruses. And the Antichrist in question is not of the “Omen” variety. 

“Antichrist” is ripe with ostentatious imagery that claws at the screen and burns some nasty shit in your head that you won’t soon forget despite wanting to. Trees, hills, grass, animals, acorns, man made tools and of course the historical pictures depicting man persecuting women throughout the ages. The symbolism, allegories, Biblical metaphors, Freudian signs, surrealist imagery or whatever else you want to call what von Trier is doing here is handled with a most heavy hand but not unsuccessfully applied if you take the whole film into account. The story will be moving along in its own peculiar way and all of a sudden Trier will cut to a slow motion tableau or dissonant visual balled. Williem Dafoe for instance will be talking a walk in the woods while on the way to the couple’s cabin and, wham, his beautifully ugly mug (Trier makes great use of the actor’s amazing features) is now staring at the camera (and by extension us!) as the film cuts to strange and off-putting images of, say, a female deer giving birth as it trots away or a fox eating itself or a baby bird falling to its death. As these disturbing (in ways we can’t always place or consciously articulate) images wash over us the film further adds to the rich-to-a-point-of-choking atmosphere by cueing menacing, David Lynchian sound chords. These alienating, distorted and perhaps hallucinatory asides that characters experience occur more and more frequently once the couple in in their cabin until a point comes where the viewer realizes that the asides are now the norm because the weird shit has taken over the film completely. The film and its characters become consumed by the sadistic and controlling artist. So, then, let it be said that Trier is the monster of this horror spectacle.

The film has been called misogynistic and that is… bull shit. Film academics are so politically correct these days that if a film disturbs us we scramble to dismiss it or classify it as something outmoded or the work of an “angry white male” and, thus, unworthy of serious consideration. That’s sad because it prevents a real dialogue from taking place. Yet all this film wants is for such a thing to take place. Every second is a prod to the viewer be it a pin prick to our intellectual side or a full frontal assault on our sensitivities; Trier plays with the viewer’s instinctual impulse to both look away and yet also sneak a peek a horrible things. Like the fox consuming its own self from head to tail, its almost as if “Antichrist” wants the viewer denounce it because that only proves its point. At Cannes this year the film got an anti-award for its horrible views towards women. Okay, but the jury then awarded Charlotte Gainsbourg, the wife, with a best actress award (and rightfully so). So which is it, fuck-wads? While bad things happen to a woman, bad things also happen to a men and, I must add, women do bad things to men and men do bad things to women. In other words: bad things happen to people! 

If I haven’t referred to the characters by name it’s because they don’t have them: she (Gainsbourg) is called Her while he (Dafoe) is called He and the two make life a living and literal hell for each other. That’s practically the thesis of this piece! The film in other, simpler words, is in one sense about the evils we do to each other but is really about the evil we have inside us innately. In one intense scene (aren’t they all?) Gainsbourg says that nature “is the devil’s playground” and this theme is consistently evoked by Trier through the mise en scene. Pine cones drop like a-bombs, animals watch as if emissaries of the devil and dirt hits buried bodies like with w real feeling of organic weight. Like some twisted Werner Herzog film, nature does indeed have plans for the two. Nature is beauty and all-giving (a female trait) but it also destroys and kills (male). Above all, the film makes us see and FEEL that, while human nature is a force of darkness, its also natural. Humans at their core, and if viewed with human constructs such as logic and morality, are evil. If nature is the devil’s playground then human are the devil itself. The Jeckle and Hyde horror movie twist is that the monster was inside us all along.

During one of the many day dreams we experience a fox, after eating its own tail, turns to Williem Dafoe and actually speaks. ”Chaos reigns” he growls. I laughed at the ridiculousness of this absurd moment (which are not uncommon by the way) but at the same time was haunted by the lasting impression it left–one of surreal hopelessness and total consumption at the hands of the chaotic void from which we all spring from and perpetuate. As the final shot (which appears at first to be ants walking up a hill… except they’re not ants, they’re people–women to be exact) fades the parting line of the film is a dedication to Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. I laughed again here because it should have been David Lynch.

Grade: A