the best show of the year is…

1. Breaking Bad (AMC)

Full List

1. Breaking Bad (AMC)
2. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (FX)
3. Damages (FX)
4. Archer (FX)
5. Caprica (SyFy)
6. Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Cartoon Network/Adult Swim)
7. Doctor Who (BBC)
8. Lost (ABC)
9. Dexter (Showtime)
10. Party Down (Starz)
11. Justified (FX)
12. Fringe (Fox)
13. Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
14. True Blood (HBO)
15. Code Geass: R2 (uh, the Internet)
16. Venture Brothers (Cartoon Network/Adult Swim)
17. 24 (FOX)
18. Chuck (NBC)
19. Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood (Cartoon Network/Adult Swim)
20. Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! (Cartoon Network/Adult Swim)
21. The IT Crowd (BBC)
22. Mad Men (AMC)
23. Smallville (CW)
24. Vampire Diaries (CW)
25. Human Target (FOX)

long winded thoughts…

1. Breaking Bad season 3–
   Season one of “Breaking Bad” set the tone for the series but did little else. This was a show that was not only cut in half due to a crippling writer’s strike but lacked elegance and narrative refinement. Season two needs to be recognized for taking a decent cult show and elevating it into something of a critical breakthrough. An uncompromising drama that could be poignant yet totally irreverent and wacky. Season three however is when a lot more of us started thinking about “Breaking Bad” not in terms of how good it is but, rather, how much better it is than everything else. While season two brought a crucial element of gritty and goofy storytelling to the forefront this season managed to do that but with a more artful purpose. 
   Basically “Breaking Bad” is about the corrupt soul of Walter White (Bryan Cranston). It is about the disease that exists not only within him but the one he puts out into the world. Building on that simple theme season three loads up on awesome like it’s going out of style. The season began with aftermath of that fateful, “Lost”-ish season two ending where, as an indirect result of Walter’s corruption, a plane almost magically up and crashed over his goddamned house. Freaky. And it gets even more freaky. From Walter acting all crazy during school speeches and principal meetings (is his tumor back?) to getting fired and taking over an industrial sized meth lab to trying to win back a wife that clearly hates him to that pesky fly that turned Walter into a full blown caricature of Wiley E. Coyote, caused him to go into a full lockdown for an entire episode (the best of the series in my opinion) to the surprise car attack to the final twisted reversal of power… more seemed to be going on this season than in the previous two combined! As the bald meth cooker would say ” its not quantity, it’s quality.” It’s a good thing, then, that “Breaking Bad” has both locked up. 
   “Breaking Bad” is so full of  irony (dramatic, tragic and just plain funny) that it gives Shakespeare a run for his money. What started out a dying High School science teacher’s (almost) noble goal to provide for his poor family by cooking Meth on the side with a former student of his (Aaron Paul, yo) turned into a saga of greed that, three years later, obscures all moral lines to a point of tortured allegiance. We side with Walter but at a cost. Walter’s Godfather-like arc manages to feel epic even as the show wisely remains as myopic and focused and as ever. During season three ”Breaking Bad” fully began to trust in its strange brew of a formula, its characters and its sense of the strange and surreal and is poised to become the best thing on television next year too.
2. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (season 5)–
   Not just the funniest show on television but the funniest show since “Arrested Development!” By sticking to a simple formula where every episodes starts with”the gang…” followed by some ridiculous plot that is guaranteed to end in anarchy (and maybe some rape), everything about “Sunny,” from the dialogue to the plotting, is forced and unnatural. But in a good way; sometimes comedy needs to be stylized, laid on thick then forced down our throats. This show challenges the viewer and even challenges norms (bothcultural and within television itself) but rarely comes off as being contrived and never takes itself too seriously or, for that matter, seriously at all. Unlike most comedies shows “Sunny” gets better with every passing year. All five personalities that exist in this bar-set shows (a long, long way from “Cheers”) have been perfected to an essence of ”Stooge”-like stupidity and the storylines move with such enjoyable momentum that I always find myself amazed that a half hour just passed. I could make the case that the fifth season of this sharp but never serious show is not only funny in its own right but brilliantly set its sights on various cultural issues such as racism, alcoholism, the economy, gas shortages, the mortgage crisis, lawyers, skinny jeans, obsessed sports fans, straight male break-ups, um, ass hole cyclists who hog the road, abortion, glamor muscles, homeless people, homeless wrestlers played by Roddy Roddy Piper and of course cat mittens. As it gets meaner and meaner, “Sunny” attains a level of blissful savagery that nothing on television matches. As a final indication of how awesome “IASIP” is, if you hear someone say “Phili” the chances are very good they’re talking about this show and not the city.
3.  Damages (season 3)–
   On the surface, this season of “Damages” was not sexy or thrilling or easy to sell to people who didn’t already know how great it was (which is about three people). For a season three show on the bubble, opting for quiet and often reflective drama punctuated by moments of deep seeded anger and raw violence proved to be a big gamble that failed on one really big hand (FX canceled it) but succeeded in almost every other aspect. This slow but dense season took all the time in the world to get going but in its final episodes paid off with more emphatic drama, top notch acting (Close, Byrneand Martin Short all earned their Emmy nods) and smart but never glib writing than anything else out there and that includes movies. What’s most amazing is how all the story threads and characters (from all three seasons!!!) are either wrapped up, resolved, destroyed or come together in a way that left me breathless. There’s so much more to this shows than lawyers that to even call it a “lawyer show” seems wildly unfair yet totally appropriate. I don’t care how un-cool it is to like “Damages,” it’s a classic and anyone not watching it is missing the best drama on TV.
4. Archer (season 1)–
   Picking up where the perverse animated action comedy “Frisky Dingo” left off (which, sadly, never let back on), Matt Reed has created another wildly inappropriate masterpiece. It’s hard to describe a Reed show to a non-Reed fan. It’s irreverent. It’s funny. It’s sick. It’s mean. It’s goofy. It’s arrogant. It’s even full of action… that usually ends very badly for everybody but the sociopathic lead character. As voiced by H. Jon Benjamin, secret agent Archer is the biggest douche bag on earth. And the most lovable one too. He is sex crazed, lazy, rude, insensitive, plagued with major Oedipal mother issues (try not to laugh when he gets half a boner after his mother’s life is threatened–”the other half really wanted you to live” he said) and has given himself a license to kill. AND an unlimited budget. Archer almost always saves the day but almost never on purpose. Archer’s self interest, self preservation and self centeredness is a thing of horrific beauty. This is the best animated show on Television right now.
5. Caprica (season 1)–
   What a debut! Go ahead and call it boring but this is real sci-fi or, as Roman DeBeers on “Party Down” would say, ”hard sci-fi.” ’Star Trek”/”Battlestar” vet Ronald Moore’s (how’s that for nerd cred?) new show on the Syfy Channel is the stuff of pure cyberpunk storytelling full of noir heroes/antiheroes, ambiguous corporations, virtual reality nightmares, pagan cults, sexual Epicureanism and the dualistic hope/fear that technology can makes us more than human but at the same time reduce us to our savage cores. Advertised as a prequel series to “Battlestar,” “Caprica” distinguishes itself from its predecessor in almost every way possible. First off, instead of space, the show dives us into cyberspace. The show is set in a deceptive utopia (aren’t they all) and follows many charactersbut is, at its core, about two men struggling with loss. One (Eric Stoltz) is the most powerful man in the country (an ass-holier version of Bill Gates) and the other is a detective (Esai Morales). Both lose their children in a terrorist attack (curse you, one-true-God-ers!) and turn to the dark side. Oh, and there’s robots!
   This show is not for the adventure seeking or, for that matter, the low-end of the “Battlestar Galactica” fan base that just want to see stuff blow up. While we all know the robots will eventually nuke the frack out of Caprica, this show of the same name posits the fascinating notion that Capricawasdestroying itself well before that apocalyptic end point. It also opens some really gritty philosophical questions relating to human memories. If a person’s essence can be downloaded, are they real? Do they have a soul? The show plays with such notions as Stoltz’s “dead” daughter exists as memories that inhabit the clunky form of a Cylon prototype while Morales’ equally dead daughter (Bill Adama’s sister  by the way) becomes the Neo of Caprica’s virtual world. As much as I would love to blab on I’ll just say that an ambiguous and smart sci-fi show like this is real treasure because it usually never makes it out of the novel stage. ”Caprica” is for viewers who prefer something like ”Blade Runner” to “Star Wars.” Both are great in their own way but we tend to get way more of one than the other and I hope “Caprica” gets a fair shake even though I fear it won’t make it past season 1.5 which is set to air in January. Long live the new flesh.
6.  Aqua Teen Hunger Force(season apple chin fur neck tie)–
   “ATHF” saw a much welcomed resurgence in quality and to some degree did that by going back to basics. And by basics I mean random-ass shiz. The season’s meta friendly premiere episode was a gooey love letter to fans ejaculated out of Master Shake’s mighty phallic straw. That is his own super power after all. And it only got better from there culminating in a 100th episode celebration that is very much in keeping with the vibe of the show. I’ll just quote the synopsis “Shake tries to collect syndication money for completing the 100th episode. The Aqua Teens are forced to start a new series of episodes after they are threatened by the “100″ monster.” Perfect. Nothing else needs to be said really.
7. Doctor Who (series 6)–
   Matt Smith is a bit of a creep. It doesn’t help that Smith, the tenth incarnation of The Doctor just replaced the best incarnation of the Doctor of all time played by, well, he whom I shall not name for I can’t bear the thought of him not being the Doctor. The upside to a lesser Doctor though is, first, THEY ARE ALL LESSER after all and, second, Smith actually got a lot better as the 13 episode season progressed and the lack of expectation is what freed the show up, allowing it to do its own thing in it’s own way. Smith’s Doctor grows on you through a playful mix of youthful mania, razor sharp intellect, scatter brained actions and, to counteract that, a touch of exhaustion and tiredness (he is 900 years old after all). The Doctor was not the only thing to improve. The overall plotting reached new heights. The show runner this season is of course Steven Moffat who I would argue is real genus behind the show all these years (Russell T. Davies is a huge wanker at times). Moffat scaled the scope down a notch while brilliantly adding more complexities and was wise to do so because in the past the series keep trying to one up itself and only tripping over its grandiose gestures in the process.
   This season is more about ideas and characters (Amy Pond and her boyfriend are awesome companions) and even science. Erm, just try to forget the embarrassing Churchill/Dalek episode and underground Lizard people two parter when factoring in that compliment. Another cool aspect to this “new” “Who” is that we are given more implicit insights into the Doctor’s intelligence and problem solving abilities–when he uses the Tardis (which feels like a character at this point), for instance, he explains how and why he’s using it and it almost makes sense! Even the historical episodes proved to be a win for the show as it engages in far more than the usual self amusement “hey, look, it’s so-and-so, aren’t we clever.” Film director Richard Curtis wrote one of the series best historical episodes, a heartwarming van Gogh centered plot that playfully twists are notion of history and uses art to do so. It’s also a very touching episode. Oh, and the final episodes, a true past/present/future time travel juggling act, have more fun with the oddities of time travel than any other episode to date. I won’t spoil the fun except to say we finally begin to understand what it must be like to move through and change the nature of time. And it’s madness! As good as the show became, the best thing this season of “Who” did is ease my fears that the show could not go on without David Tennant. Ah!!!!!!!, see, he’s not even he who I shall not name anymore!
8. Lost (season 6)–
   I had not been this excited/scared about a show ending since the good old days of “Buffy” season 7–full reactions/favorite episodes HERE. By the time ”Lost” ended for good though I, like many, had… mixed feelings. The show ultimately played it safe and even sentimental (the all-religion church is just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen; strangely enough, “Lost” has always been the most spiritual show with the least spiritual fan-base) but playing it safe also means not totally sucking and, thankfully, the show was able to ensure its legacy. Six was a good but far from great season that wasted a lot of time on unessential and/or underdeveloped plots (the temple episodes and  ”Across the Sea” are among the series’ worst ideas) and characters (more agonizing Kate episodes, the mythology wrecking ball that is Zoe, and what was the point of Ilana?) only to scramble in the last quarter of the season to resolve/reconcile the complex mythology surrounding the stuff we actually care about. Still, I think when it ended we all learned the lesson that it’s not about the answers but the journey and, frankly, I’m kinda burned out on decoding ”Lost.” Teaching me to let go was the best gift this show could have given me after so many years. Leading up to this final season, seasons four and five were not just great but a perfect blend/execution/evolution of sci-fi, drama and mystery (it was my number one show last year) and I was sad to see the final season stop way short of that level of twisty genre sophistication. Still, I give season six credit because, again, I feel it kept the legacy intact without blowing it apart in a Jughead-like fashion. In The End this is a show that finally earned the right to be mentioned in the same breath as “Twin Peaks,” “X-Files” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and regardless of how much or little you or I liked/disliked its final moments, season six had a big part to play in sealing “Lost’s” legacy. A show like this.
9. Dexter (season 4)–The most improved show of the year! I ranked “Dexter” season 3 and the early parts of season 4 quite low last year. And for good reason: it was not very good. Well, when season 4 finished I thought to myself ”wow.” Then thought ”Wowey, wow, wow, wow!” All my issues withdomestic Dexter (both the character and show) being dragged down and tamed by the “normal life” (children, wife, baby seats, BBQs ugh) was addressed with a blood curdling vengeance. With the prospect of a darker, angrier and single(er) Dexter Morgan (the great Michael C. Hall) I want season 5 to air so bad I can smell the blood. The season long arc of serial killer John Lighgow that Dexter clings on to (probably due to daddy issues) is far and away the series’ best long-form plot to date and even manages to surpass that little Ice Truck Killer incident. Lithgow gave what was the best performance of the year while reminding me in the process of his killer De Palma performances of the 80s and 90s. replaced.
10. Party Down (season 1 and 2)–
    While it just bit the dust I have a feeling that history will be kinder to “Party Down” than almost any comedy on TV right now. While aesthetically similar to “The Office”, “Party Down” does what that show does not. It’s funny. Consistently so. It knows exactly how to utilize awkward-social-situation-at-work humor without constantly having to show-off at how clever it is to its audience. More reasons to love this show are, #1, it’s waaaaaaaaay better than any network sitcom shot in a similar style and that includes the overrated Emmy winner “Modern Family.” Reason #2: lead by Adam Scott and Ken Marino this is an ensemble show without a single weak link (even Megan Mullally, taking over for Jane Lynch, is a total gem of a character). Reason #3: if 80s movies taught us anything it’s that drug use in comedies is actually funny. Reason #4: this is a show about a work (a catering service) where no work gets down and that reminds me of “NewsRadio”; being reminded of “NewsRadio” is always a good thing. Reason # 5: Never has nerd rage been as vividly captured on film as by Martin Starr in this show. His use of the term “hard sci-fi” has become a running gag with me. For instance, is someone mentions “Avatar” I can now shoot back with a dismissive “Avatar sucks…. I’m all about HARD sci-fi.” As the embittered writer, Starr (“Freaks and Geeks,” “Adventureland”) was without a doubt the most entertaining character on television last season. He will be missed. So will this show.
11. Justified (season 1)–
    Every week a U.S. Marshal played by Timothy Olyphant (reunited withhis ”Deadwood” cowboy hat) tracks down a criminal, chats with them, gets shot at and throws them in jail (or a morgue).  His interactions withcriminals, more than his colleagues girlfriend, is what makes the show special. What’s so remarkable is how vividly these criminals are written and how cool the protagonist is. He respects them, you see, more than he does himself in a lot of ways. When faced with ambiguities, and there are a lot, he just smiles, keeps his opinions to himself and presses on. He is a classic western hero in that sense. The answer to how show runner Graham Yost pulls this all this off is simple: his show is adapted from an Elmore Leonard story and as we all know (or not), Leonard is the best dialogue writer on earth. Not just that but the writing team lead by Yost retains Leondard’s unique voice that is funny, humanizing and, while utilizing many cop conventions, is never conventional in its approach or execution. So, yeah, for those reasons as well as Walter Goggins as a born again criminal, ”Justified” is the coolest show on TV. It also gets points for revitalizing the Western on Television, something that has not happened since “Firefly.”
12. Fringe (Season 2)–
    After I finished “Lost” I wiped my tears and cleaned up the apartment I destroyed out non-denominational church season six rage. Two minutes later I missed the hell out of “Lost” and not too long after that I scrambled to find a new sci-fi mythology-ish type show to fill the void or as I like to call it the cork in the middle of my island. Hum, there’s that “Fringe” show that looks almost good and rips off “X-Files” so okay, why not, game on. So I the watched two full seasons of “Fringe” this summer and… the show sucks. But its a delightfully fun suck that sucks in more ways that one: it sucked up my time! First off, the flaws prevent it from ever really taking off above many of the above and shows I’m listing. “Fringe” is a slave to its formula. The show is full of annoyingly predictable plot beats: a death or murder that’s paranormal in nature, then some small talk, them some detective work followed by thirty seconds of character development and/or banter (if we’re lucky, usually it’s only a few seconds), then action, then Michael Giacchino’s recycled “Alias” music, and finally a brisk resolution that usually ends with “and he did it with the power of his mind!” The character speaking that line is the best version of a modern of a mad scientist that we’ll ever get (John Noble) and he makes “Fringe” worth watching every week. You never know what he’s going to do even though you kinda always know what the show is. Noble’s son is played by Joshua Jackson who is also good but in a stoically charming, measured delivery Pacey from “Dawson’s Creek” sort of way. As for the lead character played by Anna Torv… well, she’s no Skully. She’s down right square in fact and posses so little charm and charisma that she practically vanishes before our eyes every time she’s on screen. But Torv’s blandness has a side effect in that it allows the two best characters on the show to feel all the more quirky and interesting. The episode titled “Peter” in which we finally get to see into Walter’s past tragedy involving his sick son and eventual dimension hopping betrayal of, well, himself (Walternate he is called, hehe) remains a highlight of television in 2010 and proves that this show is best when it doesn’t follow a formula. Even as it’s stuck in the fun-suck mode though “Fringe” is nothing less than the best procedural on TV (not saying much) because it’s comes up withgenuinely fun ways of mashing up the mystery formula with paranormal science.
13. Curb Your Enthusiasm (season 7)–
    Look, this show is good enough to be ranked much, much higher on this list (at least up in the top ten if not top five) but after so many years I wanted to give some other shows a chance. The “Seinfeld” reunion was a near perfect season long story arc (it ranks up there with the Larry death and “Producers” season). I am amazed at how this comedy show has not even come close to wearing out its welcome. Every season is as fresh and funny as the last. Not even “Seinfeld” achieved that!
14. True Blood (season 3)–
    This show is about the only thing keeping Vampires cool these days. Season three is almost over and half of it hasn’t as good as what I’ve come to expect from this deliberately trashy vampire show. The other half is brilliant trash. Sometimes I love the anything-goes feel of “True Blood” more than the given episode I may be watching. The camp, the sex, the goofy writing and of course the series the regulars are all decent but dodgy plotting (Merlot’s dog fighting family, that werewolf guy and his skank, Lafayette and Jesus romance plot etc.) in the early episodes and too many boring  new characters brought this season down to a low even season two didn’t reach. And let’s face it, Bill and Sookie have become TV’s most predictable couple. For three seasons the two interspecies lovers have been stuck in a mindless triple-B pattern of bickering, banging and being apart. Over and over. And over. It’s really time for Sookie and Eric to give it a go because couples that hate each other are way hotter than whatever Bill and “Sukkkaaaaa” are into. Also, they are the new Buffy/Spike after all. But, yeah, ”Blood” redeemed itself big time in the season’s later episodes, proving it was still capable of offering up genuine surprises. Most of that is thanks to biggest bad ass-eist big bad of of all time, The King, played by character actor Dennis O’Hare. What happens when an infinitely powerful –and very gay– 3,000-year-old vampire snaps? “Blood” has an answer for that and it’s a really good one.
15. Code Geass: R2 (season 1)–
    “Code Geass” was a great mech/messiah show because the human element was never lost amidst all the super cool (and strange) tactical robot battles. It’s sci-fi allthe way with a story about a British Empire taking over the world and a band of Japanese rebels lead by a powerful teen fighting back. While this kind of lingering post-war Japanese revisionist (future) history is hardly original, it kept the story alive with its imagination and use of action. R2, a second season/series of sorts improves almost everything that was great about the first series of episodes. It’s got enough tension, action, freaky Japanese sex stuff to keep Anime fanswell fed and the plot has showed a surprising increase in complexity and depth. It dosen’t hurtthat the series also borrowed from the best of “Death Note” (the #1 Anime show of all time) to tell its story about a bombastic protagonist (student by day, blah, blah, blah by night) slowly growing mad with power while balancing the burdens of the world on his shoulders.
16. Venture Brothers (season 4)–
    GO TEAM VENTURE! “Venture Brothers” is really the most ambitious show on Cartoon Network. While I love all the postmodern head games that shows like “Aqua Teen,” “Robot Chicken” and “Metalocolypse” throw at us, “Venture” is so consistent in its storytelling bravado and so consistently funny to boot that it will go down as one of the greats. Yes, I’m ranking this show way too low this year but I do not do so out of any decrease in quality but purely because I am sad to admit that I missed most season 4 episodes when they aired. As usual Cartoon Network is asleep at the wheel when it comes to releasing DVD/Blu-Ray sets. Grr.
17. 24 (season 8)–
    The ups and downs in the life of poor Jack Bauer continue… for the last time. After a strong seventh season (gotta love the African terrorists that scuba dive their way into the White House) the show is going out on a down note but, once again, I’ve only seen about half the season and if I know anything about ”24″ it’s that even though I kinda know what it’s going to do, I NEVER know how well it’s going to do what its going to do. At any rate “24″ was smart to shift the setting to D.C. and New York in its final two seasons. And a special mention should go out to Keefer Sutherland who, year after year, doggidlychased after bad guys without ever appearing tired with the role. A man of action and regret, the barking Jack Bauer was often stuck on one note but, damn, what a great note to be stuck on. It’s just sad that the end of “Lost” stole so much thunder from the end of “24.” Across all mediums “24″ was able to carve out a remarkable benchmark for the action genre. It’s influence can even be felt in action movies. May the clank sound of “24′s” digital clock never be silenced.
18. Chuck (season 3)–
    Season three sucked compared to one and two. Like, a major step down but I’m not sure if I can blame that on the Super Chuck plotlines which are usually exciting and as a bonus give Neo Chuck more to do than squeal in wimpy horror. Still, I kinda like the Chuck that couldn’t fight. Hell, I even liked the not-so-popular Brandon Routh. So why is this the worst season to date? To be honest I think it’s fatigue from the dragged out sexual tension between Chuck and Agent Walker. Is this show not aware of the “Moonlighting” curse? And am I the only one that wishes ”Chuck” bring back the unfairly shafted (literally) Kristen Kreuk? Now that I got that out of the way, yes, I LOVE CHUCK. Despite a lot of action it is by far the most fun and innocent show on television and I can’t wait to see Chuck vs. Season 4!
19. Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood (season 1)–
    Nowhere near the golden era of FMA but a solid and fascinating anime show that reenvisions the previous series had it not diverged from the Manga. It’s such a rare thing too. A show that’s a remake of itself! Is it necessary? No. Am I glad to be treated to new(ish) episode from one of my favorite animated series of all time? Hell yeah! If only more Anime shows did the same.
20. Tim and Eric Awesome Show (season 4)
    Great Job!
21. The IT Crowd (season 3)–
    Have you tried restarting your computer?
22. Mad Men (season 3)–
    Yeah, okay, I suck for not liking “Mad Men” more. Whatever. While season three is wonderfully crafted it is wonderfully crafted (acting, cinematography, production design etc.) in a way that is predictiable and a bit dull. Hum, that makes no sense but for some reason I think this is a show that has never really added anything to the near perfect first season. Same thing happened to “Six Feet Under.” So why am I still watching every episode? It’s like porn for smart people and while I am not smart I do love porn! There were many great moments like the final break-up in Don’s professional and personal life but also so much wasteful pretentions and indulgences that go nowhere. As an update, season four is looking to be, surprise, good but not earth shattering or worthy of all the gushing.
23. Smallville (season 9!)–
    I’ll admit to missing the hell out of the show’s Doomsday season. That was among the best of the best of 2008/2009 television and I was not ashamed to admit that at the time, ranking the show as high as number 3 on my list last year. This season… was not. Not even close. “Smallville” has always been a hit or miss affair and it’s neo-Zod plot (he’s a clone, I think… I don’t even care to be honest) is decent but far from original as armies, alliances, frenemieswith Clark have all been done and done better in the past. The writing and season long plotting was very, very, VERY weak in a lot of places but the season performed the mini miracle of not making Clark and Lois a boring couple like the ones above (“Chuck,” “True Blood”). That’s especially amazing considering how irritating Lois has been all these years. Filler episodes in this series have always ranged between the bad and the unwatchable (good god, did they really make a haunted hotel episode this season?) but what disappointed me was that the usually strong key episodes (usually occurring during the opening of the season, sweeps an final episodes) were lacking the power that I have come to rely on. I’m still a fan and, even better than that, an optimistic fan. I have a really good feeling about the final “Smallville” season coming up but the beauty of this show is that even if it’s not very good, it’s still worth watching.
24. Vampire Diaries (season 1)–
    At times better than “True Blood.” At other times worse than “Twilight.” This is one of the few instances where being the second best vampire show on TV isn’t a bad thing.
25. Human Target (season 1)–
    For some reason action shows that don’t involve Jack Bauer don’t get much attention on mainstream television. Human Target looks to change that. Here’s hoping season two finds an audience.
26. I Watch Too Much TV I Need To Get A  Life (season 1)
    Not a show. Just talking about myself.

Not quite this season but had to mention: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles–
I have to mention ”Terminator: SCC” because this is the year I finally finished the series and because I ranked it wayyyyyyy too low last year, having only seen a few season two episodes. If it came out this year it would have been the number one or two ranked show. Season two in its entirety is (…or, ugh, was) brilliant in an unexpected way and in a way that’s hard to figure out in terms of how could a show so middling turn out so heart wrenching tragic and action packed. I never could have guessed how good season two of this sadly canceled show would be. Yeah, it surpasses the first season sure but here’s the amazing thing: season two of this show is better than any “Terminator” movie! I’ve never truly connected with or loved the “Terminator” mythology until I finished the last season of this show which, along with “Party Down” is now officially the most tragically cut short series since “Firefly.” “I love you, John” is the final line of the show and couldn’t have said it better myself.

Most Improved in 2009/2010: Dexter
Most Un-Improved in 2009/2010:Smallville and Mad Men (the last time these two shows will ever be compared by anyone, anywhere)
Best New Show: Archer, Caprica and Party Down. Don’t make me pick just one. So many good new shows!  
Show I Could Not Bring Myself To Watch That Might Be Good: Dollhouse. I’m the biggest Joss fan in the world but I have avoided this show. I knew it was going to fail and I knew it would not be anywhere close to his former glory. Maybe I’m wrong.
Show I Can’t Believe I Have No Interest In Given How Big Of A Nerd I Am: V
Best Talk Show: The Charley Rose Show
Best Reality Show: Hoarders, Mythbusters and Man vs. Food
Best Ensemble Cast: Damages followed very closely by Lost and Party Down. 
Most Likable Actor in the Most Meh Show: Nathan Fillion in Castle.
Most Underrated Character: Chris Bauer (Det. Bellefleur) in True Blood.
Most Overrated Sitcom: Modern Family. I saw the first five episodes. So-so. Not sure how a show with very broad and “edgy” family humor won a best writing and best comedy Emmy. This show has tricked a lot of people into watching a freaking family comedy. It may be mildly amusing but it’s still a family comedy. It’s no “Arrested Development” that’s for sure.  
Best Miniseries: Torchwood: Children of Earth.
Best Network: FX. Damages, Archer, It’s Always Sunny, Sons of Anarchy and Justified. You can’t beat that line up! Even though FX passed on Damages it’s the best network around and that’s not going to change next season (the new show “Terriers” looks great!).
Best Show of Next Season: I’m calling it… Walking Dead. It’s the best graphic novel around and there’s no way the show’s not going to be good.

Best Individual Episodes:

1. Lost, “Ab Aeterno” (the most important episode of Lost ever. It remains the best TV retcon episode ever.)
2. Breaking Bad, “Fly”
3. Archer “Honeypot” (the gay episode)
4. Dexter “The Getaway” (season finale)
5. Fringe, “Peter”
6. Aqua Teen Hunger Force, “Rabbit Redux”
7. It’s Always Sunny, “Paddy’s Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens”
8. Justified, “Pilot”
9. Doctor Who, “Vincent and the Doctor”
10. Party Down, (tie) “Nick DiCintio’s Orgy Night” and “Guttenberg’s Birthday”
11. Damages, “The Next One’s Gonna Go in Your Throat”
12. Torchwood, “Children of Earth” (didn’t include above b/c it’s not a full season).
13. Lost, “The Candidate”
14. Lost “Happily Ever After”
15. And of course the final two Doctor Who episodes.

The Worst Shows of 2009/2010:

1. Family Guy–I watch FG from time to time and am always surprised at how much it sucks. The 150th episode finds Brian and Stewey trapped in a bank and… yeah, that’s about as funny as it gets. This show sucks. It was once good. A long, long time ago. It is now bad. Very bad. The worst show on TV bad. I hate Family Guy!
2. American Idol
3. Entourage
4. The Jay Leno Show (late night and primetime)
5. Jersey Shore
6. The Office
7. Two and a Half Men
8. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
9. Grey’s Anatomy
10. The Hills
11. Treme

Top TV Performances:

1. John Lithgow, Dexter
2. Terry O’Quinn, Lost
3. John “I have an erection” Noble, Fringe
4. Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
5. Glenn Close, Damages
6. John Hamm, Mad Men
7. Martin Starr, Party Down
8. Denis O’Hare (The King!), True Blood
9. Danny DeVito, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
10. Martin Short, Damages
11. Michael C. Hall, Dexter
12. H. Jon Benjman, Archer (voice performance)
13. Timothy Olyphant, Justified
14. Michael Emmerson, Lost
15. Eric Stoltz, Caprica
16. Dana Snyder, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Squidbillies (voice)
17. Jared Harris, Mad Men
18. Elizabeth Moss, Mad Men
19. Nestor Carbonel, Lost
20. Alexander Skarsgård, True Blood (not a great actor, just really cool)
21. Megan Mallally, Party Down
22. Chris Bauer (Det. Bellefleur), True Blood
23. Ken Marino, Party Down
24. (real life) Cow, Fringe
25. Jesus, this list is a sausage fest.

Worst TV Performances:

• Allison Janney as Zoe on Lost. More of a bad character than a bad performance. Still, never has a on-off character appearance come this close to ruining an entire show.
• Evangeline Lilly on Lost
• That Eggs guy form season two of True Blood.
• Reality show actors–and, yes, they are all actors!
• Julie Benz on Dexter (never been happier to see a loved one offed. Now about those kids…)
• Blake Lively on Gossip Girl (can’t wait to see her suck at movies too! still, though, those boobs get an A++)

Shows I’ve Ranked #1 From the Last 10 Years:

• (2000) Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 4/5
• (2001) Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6
• (2002) Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 7
• (2003) Angel season 5
• (2004) Arrested Development season 1
• (2005) Battlestar Galactica season 2.5
• (2006) Aqua Teen Hunger Force season 5
• (2007) Frisky Dingo season 2
• (2008) Lost season 5
• (2009/20010) B     R      E     A     K     I     N     G               B     A     D

Why Damages Should Have Won The Emmy For Best Drama: While watching the last episode of “Damages” it occurred to me that there has never been and may never will be again a lawyer show like “Damages.” It is, at its core, a show more about relationships than lawyers. It is also a brilliantly crafted thriller, yes, but more than that it’s all about tightly knit and wound and sometimes even choking connections lawyers make with themselves, with their lovers and with their clients. With a clenched intensity ”Damages” has the and ability to move past lawyer movie/show tropes and expose the people of this profession in the most illuminating and dramatically interesting ways possible. Sure, a unique lawyer movie such as Sidney Lumet’s “Night Falls on Manhattan” or TV show like “Murder One” and of course the original (and only good version of…) “Law & Order” are examples of the best this genre has to offer but I feel this is a genre that has never been as good as we’ve made it out to be. Until now.

The third season of “Damages” took a long, long time to get interesting but that’s why cable shows are often so much better. Where else could a show spend 9 episodes setting everything up? This show is afforded the luxury to buld like a movie rather than a show that needs to worry about high ratings on every episode and, lets face it, “Damages” never needs to worry about how many people are watching because the answer is always the same. None, and that’s a shame. The show, along with it’s now iconic protagonist Patty Hughes (Emmy winner Glen Close), oozed tension and venom. Taking a page from “Law and Order’s” “ripped from the headlines” playbook and crossing it with “Murder One’s” season long arc dealing with a single case this season of “Damages,” about the legal/political/personal aftermath of Bernie Maddoff pnozi scheme where a disgraced family continues to hide all those billions they stole, came together in ways that no other show, lawyer or otherwise, has before it. There are so many sins of the past, shadowy discresions and time jumps at play at any given moment that “Damages” managed to give “Lost” a real run for its money.

Unlike “Lost” this series ended on a high note rather than a safe one. Season three did not simply resolve its own inherently great and un-contrived topical plot, but those of season one and two that I forgot about such as Ellen Parson’s (always underplayed by Rose Byrne) husband’s deathand Patty’s true relationship withEllen! Same goes for Timothy Olyphant’s character from season two (he has since moved over to FX’s great “Justified”). Even Ted Danson’s character got to reprise his once central role in a handful of great episodes. By the end, this show’s ability to weave together all the plot points of seasons past and present and, here’s the key, organically pay off these many threads and stories withlogic, intensity and a lot of dramatic schadenfreude is astounding. All the characters get, more or less, what they’ve deserved and thaks to a last minute renewal and network shift (DirectTV) they will live to go through it all again.

What’s Good: Hey, they made a Scott Pilgrim movie! And it didn’t totally suck! And I’m happy!  
What’s Not: A curious lack of chemistry between almost every character in the movie, especially the two leads. Not all the jokes work. A lot of stuff is crammed in and the story sometimes hurries along awkwardly.

It’s funny that the movie version of “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” tries to be more of a comic book than the actual comic book which was modest and minimalist in comparison. In the movie every punch is swung with a “woosh” and lands with a “boom,” every fall lands with a “thudddd,” every bass guitar chord resonates with a deep and profound “dddddd” and every boyfriend boss defeat yields a bounty of coins and flashing one ups. That this is director Joe Wright’s first comic book movie is a surprise, but not really considering his superlative “Shaun of the Dead” and even better “Hot Fuzz” felt like high energy comic books come to life. This movie is not as good as those two but, lets face it few, modern comedies are. The good news is that “Scott Pilgrim” is it’s just as enjoyable to watch and soak in from a manic visual standpoint. The film, about a loser in love, tries very hard to push the already outlandish premise of a boy fighting a girl’s seven evil exes to earn her love. And while a degree of wacky forcefulness is almost mandatory, many jokes, puns and visual gags misfire harder than one of Scott’s dates. That is not to say that even the lame jokes such as the rhyming of “bi-curious” with “bi-FURIOUS!!!” are likable even when missing the target by about a mile. A slightly less acceptable miscalculation is that the chemistry just isn’t anywhere to be found between the Super Mario power star crossed lovers Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) and Ramona Flowers played by the fittingly anime eyed Mary Elizabeth Winstead, a girl I too have had an insane crush on for years and if you don’t believe me just ask my (non) evil exes and they will tell you many sad stories of my rather odd obsession with this not very well known actress. Ahhhhhh, uh, where was I… flaws, yes, forget them, they don’t really matter. Despite its dark color pallet ”Pilgrim” is a vibrant love story/adventure that incorporates everything I love about almost everything other than movies including but not limited to music, comic books, video games and kicking the shit out of Canadian hipsters.

Earlier in the day I was lamenting the fact that more people were interested in the douchey, straight-to-DVD looking “Expendables” and self indulgent love fest “Eat, Prey, Poop.” After watching “Scott Pilgrim” I no longer tried to argue the point that more people should be into “Pilgrim.” It’s one of the most inside and esoteric video game homages ever put to film. Seriously, “Scott Pilgrim” is more of video game than the “Scott Pilgrim” video game, which is awesome by the way! I was shocked at how much the aesthetics of old school games informed this film right down to the pixelated Universal logo rocking an 8bit MIDI version of the Universal jingle. This influence is in the comic series but I was delighted to the degree at which the movie drapes itself in a feverishly kinetic embrace of all things video games. When Scott fights Ramona’s league of angry exes he does so in a way that can best be described as a Nintendoized version of “Kill Bill” meets “Kung Fu Hustle.” Anything is possible, including Scott pulling a fiery sword of love out of his heart. People who don’t know the Zelda save menu music –not the Zelda theme, mind you, because that would be too easy– might not get the full effect… so, yeah, “Eat, Prey Love” will make more money. A lot more! Fine. “Pilgrim” is a niche movie all the way and based on the audience’s (non) reaction to it, it is destined to live on as a cult movie and not much else.

Michael Cera’s shtick is getting old but, damn, the dude sure does look the part. Yet he lacks the chemistry that I mentioned as well as a certain wild and playful sense of manic-depressiveness that the original character possesses. Cera’s standoffish persona and cute/awkward verbal meanderings (not really an acting stretch for him) overcomes a lot and it’s cool to watch the actor add something, ANYTHING, new to his repertoire which is kicking ass. Seeing as how this is the last time we’ll ever get to see Cera do that, get it while you can. As a fan of the six volume comic series I always wondered who could play Scott and how his fights would be staged. Even if it’s not perfect it feels good to know those answers and I had a lot of fun watching this character (and movie) come to life. On the topic of fun: director Edgar Wright is still the most enjoyable comedy directors around. Maybe of all time. As with “Hot Fuzz” Edgar Wright does not just tell the story of a funny movie, he shows you one by incorporating all the cinematic tools at his disposal (while inventing some new ones) to serve the material. Particularly (and predictability) impressive is the rapid fire editing bridges between (and during, and after… and in the middle of) scenes and whiplash inducing cinematography that allows for anything to happen at anytime such as Scott being lifted and tossed through a wall by Superman’s (Brandon Routh) mental vegan powers (vegans can do, or at least think they can do anything, y’know) or tossed across the screen into a building by Capt. America (Chris Evans). This is the closest thing to a fully realized comic book movie since “Hulk,” except about 100x better and with 100% less daddy issues and mutant poodles. Oh, and Wright also adapted the script and did a decent if not entirely smooth job of combining everything that’s lovable and charming about the comic into the power-up film version. The end result is enormously entertaining but also kind of messy. But this really wouldn’t be a Scott Pilgrim story if messy didn’t factor into things. 
Grade: B+

What’s Good: Duvall’s beard. 
What’s Not: The rest of the movie.

“Get Low” opens with a stunning visual. A house burns bright in the middle of a dark and dusty landscape. Suddenly, from far away, a figure jumps out of a window on fire and runs past the camera. My god, I though, this could be another “There Will Be Blood.” That was the last time that thought ran through my head. It’s not that “Get Low” is bad, it’s just that it’s so content with being cute and coy and reverent that it ends up being little else. The “tall tale” set in an unspecific but long time ago past stars a scruffy Robert Duvall in a sort of book end version of the “benevolent falcon” Boo Radley he played so many years ago in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The film, not quite a western and not quite a period movie, is about this “crazy old man” and his quest to throw a living funeral for all the people who hate him. The film, by the way, thinks this little plot detail is a lot more clever than it actually is and to be honest it is really not enough to sustain a feature length film. Maybe it would have worked as a short. I don’t know and I don’t really care. For mysterious reasons that will, of course, be revealed in very calculated increments, this bearded old ghost has been a shut-in for nearly 40 years, toiling away in his log cabin with only a donkey to talk to. By the film’s end I would have killed to switch places with him or, hell, even his donkey.

There is an abundance of “mystery” surrounding this figure and his dark, dark past that the film lays on very thick and with very little finesse. I hate the small town movie genera as a rule (and am rarely proven wrong) and this film indulges in almost every tired rural cliche in the book including a fight with a local bully, a old flame rekindled (Sissy Spacek), colorful locals that pop up when the script needs them to, a preacher, an honest young protégé (Lucas Black) that learns many valuable life lessons, a small town radio broadcast and of course a cranky man who is reformed by the wonders of community. The film milks its premise, or maybe just drags it along, but does little to deepen the character’s admittedly intriguing (on the surface) mythology. Instead, “Get Low” opts for exploring the man’s social connections which is the least interesting part of the movie. Now, Duvall is a good actor and this is a decent performance (aside from Duvall’s usual ticks that involve exaggerated emoting where the actor contorts his face while mumbling things like “oooohhhh-hehehe”) but it suffers from the film’s inability to gets its hand dirty with his psychology. Juicy lines like “They keep telling me to ask Jesus for forgiveness, I didn’t do anything to him” keep the film afloat and hint at the gravity that could have been but any glimmer of hope is ultimately dragged under by the corny sentiments of the director (Aaron Schneider) and writers who play it safe every chance they get.

Once Duvall’s character gets it in his head that he wants to “make right, ” which is very early on in its short but seemingly endless running time, the film begins its downward spiral into indie movie mediocrity, complete with bad music and stiff performances. Sure this is a nice and pleasant enough experience with a harmlessly stupid sense of humor and a big ol’ heart but, in a way, it’s also a waste of time. The reason being that the film draws everything out until its big finale where, in typical small town movie fashion, the town gets together for a moment of grand catharsis and transformation. Here, Duvall reveals his BIG SECRET, a contrivance that goes against the character’s personality and central motivation and does nothing to explain why he’s the way he, why the town hates/hated him and why he imprisoned himself in the first place. To say it’s an underwhelming revelation is an understatement–”Get Low” has a non-ending so cavernous that it almost eclipses “Inception!” That I have not yet mentioned Bill Murray as the shifty funeral home director is a testimony to how light weight this “Gothic mystery” is.
Grade: C-

What’s Good: Nolan is one of the few masters the cinema has left. His films are beautiful puzzles. Flaws are secondary to the ambition, clarity and intense, German-like origination of his vision. However one chooses to look at this movie it is a landmark science fiction film that we will be talking about for years.  
What’s Not: However garishly constructed, when you dissected or deconstruct some Nolan films you often are left feeling empty handed and betrayed. ”Memento” was that kind of film and in a lot of ways so is “Inception.” The screenplay is one of the biggest assets and flaws. DiCaprio is miscast as usual. The action is unnecessary and illogical (can’t believe I said that). And while I have a lot more bad things to say about it than good, I like the movie, I’m just not going to pretend it’s an all around masterpiece.

Note: Given the nature of “Inception” I thought it best to write about it with my gut and heart more than my head. The second after watching I was moved to get whatever I had to say down as quickly as possible but not to over think it’s “meanings” because doing so might lead to levels of madness of DiCaprian proportions. My reaction is obviously going to change for the better or worse after have some time to sleep on it (though I wish I could sleep in it as well)  but know that I’m writing all this immediately after seeing the movie. I’m posting this three and a half to four hours after STARTING, not finishing, the movie and that’s give or take the time it took for all those IMAX trailers, driving home and feeding my hungry dogs that were waiting for me in the dark when I got home. Whatever the following response is, it may be more unrefined and impulsive than usual but, really, not much more than my usual crap I’m capable of. Given that at this moment the film is ranked on the IMDB as the third best film ever made there’s (you gotta love IMDB users)  a lot of knee jerk(off) reactions are around even though none of us really know how it will hold up. The drive to talk about this film is just that powerful and just that’s welcome given the sad dearth of thought (un)provoking summer movies.

I have a feeling that the more someone likes “Inception,” the more in denial they are about how much they like “Inception.” It’s as great and technical and expertly crafted as a film can be. It is also as hollow and empty –but beautifully so– as one of Esher’s stair cases leading to nowhere. That it looks hypnotically fabulous on its way there counts for something or, in this film’s case, everything. Like one of Esher’s playful works, this film is aware of itself and made to be looked at as such. There is a scene where the mark/dreamer is told by the protagonist that he’s in a dream. His dream in fact and that he is being told this so that he can be taken further and deeper down into various levels of this overarching dream. Noland is doing to us what he has in the previous films of what I would call his head-trip trilogy. In “Memento” his character broke all sorts of fourth walls to guide us into his fractured and, as it turns out, literally fleeting attention span. As he ran from his reality, we were brought closer and closer to it and while it seemed to signify so much at the beginning, it all evaporated after we revisited it and applied the film’s own logic to its plot. The entirety of “The Prestige,” Nolan’s best film to date, was built as a cinematic magic trick that the audience was brought in to participate in because a magic trick cannot exist without someone there to be (willingly) tricked. That film worked perfectly because when you take the pieces apart you get something substantial–a timeless parable about human obsession and the thin line between magic and science in our world. And with “Inception” Christopher Nolan takes our hands once again, using his firmest and most aggressively forceful grip to date, and plunges us in a very mediated journey into the world of dream espionage (which is a lot cooler than calling it dream stealing). It’s a bit “Matrix,” a bit “Open Your Eyes”/”Vanilla Sky” a bit of a Joss Whedon dream episode and a whole heap of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Also substantial is the amount of in-dream shooting and clunky metaphors pertaining to our unconscious mind where people literally lock up their secrets. The film is strangely lacking in surrealism but, given the plot and even tagline “the dream is real,” it’s very refreshing that the director didn’t resort to any nonsensical dream related Dali-esq “randomness.”  The dreams of “Inception” have weight and a consistent internal reality that the film, whatever its flaws are, benefits from sticking to all the way to the end. The final, open to interpretation shot existing as a fun little existential joke that only Nolan is capable of ending his film with.

What I admire is all the work that went into it. And who wouldn’t? To watch it unfold is to enjoy the power of any well thought out and choreographed cinematic achievements. It’s as if the impossible has happened, Kubrick merged with Fellini! What I do not admire is also very clear cut. While the craft is there and at the top of its form, this movie’s basic plot is just not very interesting and it spends a lot of time masking that with fantastic sights and constantly juggled Rube Goldbergian machinations. It’s a flashy and well made hurricane of a movie, but to what end? What are we left with? When the layers are taken apart we are stuck with a very thin story that has almost no reason for existing on its own terms. It’s about a man who is not very interesting that has lost something that was not very interesting or original to begin with! He does everything he can to get “it” back and I kept waiting to get to the heart of what that is exactly and once I did was not impressed. The thinness of the story brings with it of course very thin character motivations as well and, worst of all, a very thin excuse to have people shooting guns at well dressed cyphers, existing as a built in security measure (an dream defense army whose job is to protect their host’s mind). The action scenes where characters shoot at each other feels off. Pondering “what is real” is of course nothing new and feels even more shallow in a college philosophy class kind of way this time around then it did when “Matrix” came out. The plot I will not waste my time describing because, first, this is not the kind of film you get people to see by explaining it and second, well, as I said: what plot? There’s lots of talk of getting “information” and beyond lazy MacGuffins featuring  hard to crack safes with hard to locate combinations and hard to care about documents within these mind-lockers. Such heavy handed icons never break free to signify anything other than themselves and I was never once pleased to find out what “vital information” any given characters was hiding. Perhaps that’s a deliberate way to impress upon us how, in real dreams, feelings are always more profound and lingering than the minute details. But that would assume that the film has much feeling or emotion. As is, the details are unclear and the emotions lack even definition.

I could talk about the beautiful, near non-stop music soundscape that Han Zimmer has created. This is amazing work by a seasoned composer that is able to lull us in with dreamy orchestral synths that guide without ever bringing us to the surface as, say, John William’s did with “A.I.” The editing is also first rate. It has that elliptical, metronome like construction that “The Prestige” used so well to its advantage. All the cuts are in service of the story’s vision rather than providing us with visual indulgences and I think that’s an important distinction to make. Same goes for the special effects. When characters float around and buildings topple into themselves, there’s a reason for it. Not a reason that is particularly engaging but a reason none the less. The way the film is put together, first in Nolan’s mind, second in the always brilliant Wally Pfister’s visual mapping and finally in Lee Smith’s cluttered but somehow coherent cutting room. These combine to form a effect worth treasuring and a big reason to come back again and again to this special world. The cast, in true human fashion, introduce flaws to Nolan’s otherwise perfect technical construct. He’s like Kubrick in the sense that humans always taint the notion of film in its pure form.

The film is has a pair of great actors, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and an underused Michael Caine. There are also competent but sometimes overrated performers such as Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy and Marion Cotillard. There are even WTF casting choices that rival Eric Roberts in “Dark Knight;” Tom “where have you been” Berenger and Levitt’s “Brick” co-star Lukas Haas appear. Oh and, yeah, Leonardo DiCaprio. Except for Leo, nobody really does a bad job. The characters, however, are all as distant and faceless and as mechanically driven as all those unconscious/subconscious Mr. Smiths running around people’s dream worlds trying to seek out the foreign body. Nothing about these characters except for that persistent dream stalker played by Cotillard, the beautiful Freddy Kruger of this dream worlds (she acts as a much needed wild card that comes in and disrupts the dream team’s “plan” in very cool ways) stand out in any way that inspires or evokes much feeling or depth. I didn’t not really like these characters but that’s only because I did not know them! Or their highly specialized jobs for that matter. They may be the “best” at what they do but I was always are left having to take the film’s word for it because what each character’s job is, such as a “dream architect” that could learn her job and be the best in the world at it after about a half day of unconscious training, makes no sense but at least the film doesn’t dwell because what good would come out of that? Even after spending two and a half hours with these people I didn’t come close to having any sort of organic connection with them or what they do. When Levitt pecks Page on the lips it was the only moment of genuine human involvement and while I liked it a lot it also seemed like an after thought, and a tease of one at that.

Also integrated awkwardly is a pivotal snow-set section of the film which is not only narratively bland and unclear but represents the only instance where the technical aspects let the film down (stark but dull visuals and hurried editing make it hard to get a fix on anything that’s going on in the snow–it was like a level out of “Moder Warfare 2″). The actors are given very simple performance tools and very challenging physical demands to play with and while few bring much to their characters beyond exactly what is required of them, at least they don’t take away from them either. Except for DiCaprio. As usual he is out of league and unable to draw me in to his reality. He is unconvincing and uninteresting. Another actor, Christian Bale for example (I know, I know, you don’t have to say it, I’m too much of a Bale fan), could have finessed the part up a bit, adding perhaps small touches of humanity and some wry humor to go along with all that overwrought intensity. DiCaprio, who is always so wound up in his movies (and always so damn obvious about his turmoil), fails to hold the dream at large together because he is always so glacially sober which, again, is ironic given the fluid subject we’re dealing with. The character is just a drab fellow that is never fun or energetic on screen. He’s a total drag. To his credit, Leo was having a good year after a somewhat similar turn in a far more (as performances, and perhaps films, go) successful mind bending “Shutter Island.” Both movies exist to takes us into the corridors of this actor’s crumbling psyche, failing to realize of course that there’s just not that much in there to get lost in.

Grade: B

Has any of this made any sense?

What’s Good: Noah Baumbach manages to make his most dramatic film also his funniest. He just gets better and better. And speaking of better, this is one of the year’s best.
What’s Not:People who don’t “get” Greenberg. Actually I can understand why this film would turn people off. Museum crashing Stiller fans need not apply because this is not the kind of Stiller comedy you may be expecting. Also, while I usually hate hearing from critics (in any way and about petty much anything) I included the AO Scott review of ”Greeberg” from recently dead At the Movies show because Scott is one of the few critics to give “Greenberg” the credit it deserves.  

“Greenberg” is out! Usually DVD/Blu-ray releases don’t interest me but this bit of news is an event and a reason to celebrate. I haven’t been very into movies this year for the simple reason that none of them are really worth writing about. Actually I’ve just been really lazy when it comes to writing, talking about movies, going out to movies or for that matter leaving my apartment. But, still, on top of that is the fact that movies have been sucking. Hard. Except for “Greenberg.” Seven months into the year and “Greenberg” is still the best thing out. I usually hold that personal info close to the vest so as to give my year end top ten some heat //term used ironically// but this year is so uneventful that I must appreciate the one great film of 2010 because I may not get another chance to do so after “The Last Airbender” gives me a brain aneurysm and kills me right where I sit. 

From “Greenberg” to this month’s solid but not particularly earth shattering ”Cyrus,” man-baby movies are very in right now. These are movies about or featuring men so selfish and entitled that the world must meet their every selfish demand or feel their totally powerless wrath.  More often than not, in a movie like “Step Brothers” or “Cyrus,” men literally act like babies (to comic effect) and have a whole lot of mommy issues whereas in a film like “Greenberg” it’s more a part of the behavioral makeup of the character. Somehow we are able to like such characters played by top man baby actors John C. Riley, Ben Stiller and of course the biggest man baby of them all, perhaps even the inventor of modern man babyisms, Will Ferrell who, to his credit, seems to be channeling the classic literary man baby progenitor Ignatius from “A Confederacy of Dunces.” This character type rings true for a lot of reasons, the topmost of which  might be that male adults these days are indeed trapped in an infantilized, womb like haze of me-me-me self entitlement. Which brings me to the film at hand. “Greenberg” provides the most incisive, biting, funny and most dramatic treatment of this popular new cultural trope.

It’s kinda sad when you see a deliberately unlikable character and think to yourself that it could be you in ten years if you don’t stop what you’re doing right now and get some therapy. Greenberg is a character that has given up on life and success and happiness yet still desperately wants attention, validation and credit. He’s a walking conflict. This is a character that hates growing older while at the same time also hates the young and energetic. When his ever patient best friend played by Rhys Ifans exhaustively rehashes that Oscar Wilde line about youth being wasted on the young Greenberg feels that’s not cynical enough and fires back with “I’d go one step further. I’d go: Life is wasted on… people.” With great zeal he then adds, rhetorically perhaps, that ”I’m strangely ‘on’ tonight” while the dinner party looks at him without an ounce of agreement. I have used that line many times in the months since “Greenberg” has come out. Capturing the self loathing vibe and sour humor of Woody Allen, Noah Baumbach’s ”Greenburg” speaks to the misanthrope in me, perhaps us, and is honest enough to admit that we may all have a little Greenberg lurking inside of use.

That alone would make the film rather hard to tolerate so Baumbach balances his broken compass of a character with a 25-year-old babysitter played by “Mumblecore” (hate that term) princess Greta Gerwig. In this wonderful performance, a much needed base to Greenberg’s acid, Gerwig plays a family babysitter who is helping Greenberg watch over his brother’s killer pad and sick dog in L.A. while he’s out of town. Of course she ends up babysitting the mentally ill or perhaps mentally eccentric Greenberg, falling in a very depressing sorta love in the process. Even here the writers (this time Noah teams up with “Margot at the Wedding” star Jennifer Jason Leigh) do not fall back on the conventions we’d expect with these types of movies. The easy thing would be to give her the Helen Hunt in ”As Good as it Gets” treatment, positioning her as the patron saint of patient women who put up with ass-holes for no clear reason. She’s also is not some sort of bombshell that would not normally fall for this guy except for in movie world (she’s cute, Greenberg, muses, but only if you had to work with her in a all day, every day sort of way), nor is she terribly witty in that annoying indie movie way. She’s normal and yet what she does makes sense because the writers take the time to develop the character and explore her psychology. Not enough good things could be said of this performance.

Noah Baumbach is one of the best filmmakers around because he’s not out to sell us one his cleverness and not out to drone on about how much life sucks. His films contain all the humor of his collaborations with Wes Anderson but fare better for my money because he sits down and actually attempts to deal with and engage his audience in some sort of unspoken dialogue with these characters. And sometimes, as in a film like this, “dealing” with a character does not mean fixing them and hoping for that happy off-screen ending, either, which is to be applauded. Baumbach characters in this movie, while funny, are all grounded and match their respective intelligence levels. While plagued with psychological troubles Greenberg is not a ”Shine”-like savant or brilliant anti-social writer and his friends are just normal people who happened to grow up a little faster than Greenberg. While suburb and often underrated I always felt his characters in “The Squid and the Whale” and to a lesser extent “Margot,” especially the children, talked in a very stylized intellectual manner. Which is fine because so are many if not most of Allen’s characters. However it’s that kind of closed-off writing style that, outside of the Allen-verse, is impossible to sustain without coming off as a bit of a pretentious prick (Hal Hartley, Diablo Cody, etc. al.). Not Baumbach and definitely not “Greenberg.” 

“Greenberg” also happens to be Baumbach’s most skilled work as a filmmaker. The pacing and visuals doing a good job at keeping up with the story and writing. Shots of a solitary Greenberg or visual metaphors like a hose spewing water and spinning around in a pool attain a poetic quietness that help sell the film’s somber but not sad tone. Even the awkward (an obligatory facet of comedies these days) or dramatic moments are scaled back to avoid “Meet the Parents” sized exaggerations and, on the other side of the Ben Siller spectrum, cheep melodramatic storytelling shortcuts like the drama filled but somehow hollow attempted suicide scene in “Royal Tenenbaums”–a scene I don’t like in a movie I do… depending on what mood I’m in (I have a weird love/hate relationship with that movie that even I don’t understand).

Ben Siller should be commended for acting in a “real” movie. How considerate of him. Stiller does a fine and nuanced job here but those words lack proper weight and I understand that saying so is about as useful as say Adam Sandler is good in all of “Punch Drunk Love” and small parts of “Funny People.” It also does me no good to state that now that he’s made his money he should stick with quality directors like Wes Anderson, Noah B and, strangely enough, himself because they all seem to be the only ones giving his career longevity. I guess I’d add Neil LaBute to that list well as he was fantastic in “Your Friends and Neighbors. Stiller’s willingness to dive into this troubled man and ability to render him vulnerable but not in a cheap or sentimental way results in his very best performance to date. We have a really unlikable guy to contend with here and are often are left wondering why people would even bother meeting him a second time after receiving a mean (but delightful on the other side of the screen) diatribe. Yet for all his miserable ways the film is not mocking Greenberg or laughing at him or studying him under a microscope. Gerwig sums the enigma of Greenberg up best when she tells him, simply, that ”mean people treat people mean.”
Grade: A

What’s Good: Lots of fan service, which, for a film like this, is all that matters. One of those rare reboots that updates the formula as much as it pays tribute to the original.  
What’s Not: Waiting for the next Predator film.

“Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.”

You have to understand, fans of “Predator” movies are not like other fans. We don’t expect greatness, we don’t even expect good-ness. Unlike bitter and whiny fanboys of other franchises (ahem, “Star Wars”) “Predator” fans have the remarkable ability to be content with what we get, which is not often and not often that good so when we get a “Predator” film, any predator film, we also know enough not to complain (too much) because we’re getting a Predator film! Our expectations are always low but spirited despite knowing that this franchise maynever (a) surpass the first “Predator,” and (b) yield a full on mainstream success. As jungle planet movies go, this ain’t Pandora and thank the sci-fi Gods for that! Realistically, Fox is doing us a huge favor whenever they throw us a predator shaped bone so imagine my surprise when something I don’t expect or even need to be any good is actually good. Unnecessary but thank you very much for that.

Maybe I shouldn’t speak for “us fans” because, honestly, I’ve never meet a real Predator fans in person so the “we” in question is more of a projection of “me.” So from myside of things, “Predators” is everything a Predator film should be and actually a little bit more. This new high stakes jungle adventure is both a fantastic tribute to the classic John McTiernan film right down to the musical score that is basically a re-composition of the original (John Debney by way of Alan Silvestri), but it’s also a sturdy and competent reboot of a franchise long dead or as H.P. Lovecraft would call it, a “dead but dreaming” state. This film, R-rated and proud of it, comes off as being written by people who actually respect what the first film was about (human nature more than alien nature) and understand what the series needs to thrive in films to come if indeed there are any. “2 Fast 2 Predators” is my title suggestion for the next “Predator” which I hope gets made sooner rather than the standard one “Predator” per every twenty or so years. Included in this third (or fifth if you count b0th “Alien vs. Predator” films which most fans don’t or won’t or maybe just can’t) are key aspects like a slow and steady build-up which is an essential and I should think rather obvious ingredient that, somehow, most”Predator” films missed. Various hunter/hunted and predator/prey themes are also very strong, so strong that the cold protagonist even quotes that bear of a hunter Earnest Hemingway–that’s where the above quote comes from. Awesome weapons, seedy humans that die off one by one, stealth kills, gruesome Mortal Kombat-esq kills (no kidding: a Predator yanks a dude’s skull and spinal chord, Scorpion-style), fearsome non-Predator creatures (that’s a new one!), well timed explosions, booby traps, alien ships and while I could go on I will settle by stating that everything is calibrated just right. There is a build up to be sure as the Predator doesn’t rear it’s ”one ugly motherfucker” head for a while, but the story never drags. Like the Predators themselves, the film is quick and over before you know what hits you. The film even adds to the always mysterious mythology/methodology of these tribal creatures by including different species within the Predator kingdom of creatures. I took a perverse pleasure in learning from this film that even Predators can be racist.

The film just kicks ass. All kinds of ass. If you ever wanted to see a samurai sword wielding Yakuza tussle with a Predator, this film has that! If you ever wanted to see a Predator get a shiv in the chest and called a “space faggot” from a surly inmate, this film has that too! And for anyone thought that Aliens fighting Predators was just about the coolest thing ever, this film offers up a sight that may just be cooler: Predator vs. Predator! I’m gushing but I can’t help it, it’s that awesome. I may be embellishing as to how good this movie actually is but I have no problem blaming that on timing and the lack of a single worthwhile summer film this year.

This film understands that a big budget does not make a “Predator” film better or worse. Similar to the “Pitch Black”/”Chronicles of Riddick” schism where more is not anywhere close to better, this film gets back to the basics. Tension and atmosphere, if done right, do not necessarily need to cost a lot or be over thought and while I am usually very reluctant to give Robert Rodriguez credit for much of anything except for ”Desperado” I’ll concede that his down and dirty filmmaking philosophy works very well on this type of project. But this is not a RR film, director Nimrod Antel (Kontrol, Vacancy) may not be a great or stylish director but he clearly understands how to use atmosphere.

“Predators” is set on a prison planet where people are dropped from the sky while Predators lie in wait. That simple hook (and I’m not spoiling because the trailers give that away–which sucks but that’s the world we live in) gives the plot a perverse sense of hopeless pessimism that even the first “Predator” did not have. Even if you are able to defeat the enemy at hand you’re still stuck on the planet which is one giant big game reserve. Also, killing a Predator, as we learn from a deranged and seasoned vet who has been on the planet for “ten seasons,” will only cause more to come because apparently they dig the challenge. Dutch had it easy because he was able to GET TO THE CHAPPA by getting the hell out of Dodge or Central America as it were. Not so much this time as the setting is literally an amusement part for the world’s most demented race of “higher beings.” Advanced Lobster men with dreadlocks who have somehow figured out the whole interstellar travel thing and yet look, and act, no more evolved than the main portion at a Red Lobster. To contradict myself for a sec, while watching I actually thought about the nature of these Predator “monsters” and a part of me, a small part, could almost makes a case for them not being monsters. He or she (though nobody’s ever seen a female Predator as far as I know; maybe they’re huge nags and that’s why the men go halfway around the universe to distract themselves with the hunt of primitive human bipeds) is a hunter and a warrior and follows what appears to be a strict set of codes and customs. They may be violent but at least they have honor. Humans… not so much. I mentioned a samurai fight: in this scene, the bad ass Predator could easily shoot the sword wielding ninja with his three red light missile contraption a la Indiana Jones in that funny “Raiders” scene but, no, he steps up and uses his hand knife. And they fight. To the death. In tall grass. And it’s awesome! There is a dignity to that gesture and I appreciate the hell out of it. Yes, the “monster” wants to kill humans but they are not innocent or unarmed humans. Predators don’t want it to be easy and that separates these aliens from other movie aliens.

I’ve saved the cast for last. Not without reason. They serve the plot well but unlike Predator 1 or 2, no great personalities emerge. The cast offers a very strange range in styles and personalities. You know something’s off when Adrian Brody is cast as the Arnold of the movie. He speaks like Clint Eastwood (minus the humor) and carries a very large gun. It feels like a joke at first (the dude is no sexual tyrannosaur) but the character grows on you even if it’s no where close to how Arnold or Danny Glover did. There’s also the always welcome Rodriguez favorite, Danny Trejo, as a Mexican gangster (or something), a Russian military thug who gets to use Jessie the Body’s chain gun, a convict played by Walter Goggins (so good at playing a sleaze in The Shield, Justified and now Predator), an African death squad guy, the Mr. Eco of the group, played by Mahershalalhashbaz Ali(as opposed to Majdkajfksjkfdajskjfaskdfaskljfdk Ali) and, of course, the obligatory “Predator” movie staple of casting a hot Latin co-lead (Alice Braga, who made “Blindness” better and “I Am Legend” worse). Topher Grace, the one “non warrior” of the group, appears as a out-of-place doctor and Lawrence Fishburn even pops in to offer a few great surprises that I won’t spoil except to say his intro is brilliant. The film has a timeless set-up where a bunch of strangers wake up in an unknown place for an unknown reason. That kind of story has been done before (“Saw,” “Identity,” every other “Twilight Zone” episode and even Agatha Christie) with the only difference being that the characters in this story wake up while free falling towards the ground. With guns! And a parachute that may or may not work.

As I said, this is not a great film but it ends up being great by simply offering something that’s missing. Fun, non pretentious summer action and sci-fi thrills. That was once common but a precious commodity in the era of CGI kids movies, superfluous 3D action films (effin “Clash of the Titans,” “Last Airbender”!!!) and Kathryn Higel movies. The summer movie, as we knew it, is dead. ”Predators” recalls a time when B-grade sci-fi were not only found on syfy channel late at night. In fact, films like this were once an event and for however brief a moment in time, there are once more.

Grade: B+

Best of Decade(s) Mega List: Since movies this year have been, to put things kindly, underwhelming (its days like this I’m glad I’m not a real writer because there’s nothing worth writing about), and summer’s not going to be much better for the second year in a row (all nerds like me have to look forward is, what, Inception and Scott Pilgrim–okay, Predators too but don’t tell anyone I said that),  there really is no better time than now to look back. I began with just wanting to name my favorite films from the past decades of cinema leading up to the 2000-2009 but, of course, that turned into a longer, more bloated and memory testing endeavor. As objective as all this may be, not to mention arbitrary (does a film released in 1991 belong more to the 90s culture or 80s?), doing this still gives me a fantastic sense of the movies within their proper history setting which is often the best way to look at them because so many once-great films may not hold up well today but still should be given credit for the era they did come out in. But lists like this are organic and change/evolve/devolve/etc within the viewer perception. We should not be ashamed to admit that how we feel about a given film, or in this case a list of films, is not really “how we feel about them” but, rather, how we feel about them at a specific time. That being said a list like this is never final; with any luck it will grow along with the viewer.

Here’s the real reason I’m doing this list. Over the coming weeks/months I’m going to get my Double Zero decade list on but before I do that I wanted to, for my own sake (because at this point in my life who else would I be doing this for?), start with past before moving to the most recent past. Now that I’ve gotten this list foreplay out of the way I can get into the real fun stuff by diving into 00′s lists covering the “best” music, best songs, video games, books, anime and of course movies of our most recently past decade, thus finally being able to let the last ten years go by putting it to bed in the graveyard of “best of” lists. Maybe then I will be more inspired to write about current movies. The future may be now but I’m not quite ready to live in it, and who can blame me; have you been to the theater lately?

Pre 1920s

1. A Trip to the Moon (George Meles)
2. Broken Blossoms (Griffith)
3. Caberia (Pastrone)
4. Intolerance (Griffith)
5. Les Vampires (Feuillade–the first vampire movie?)
6. The Outlaw and His Wife (Sjöström)
7. Take Your Pick of Lumiere Brother films
8. Leaves from Satan’s Book (Dreyer)
9. Fantomas (Feuillade)
10. Birth of a Nation (Griffith)
11. J’Accuse (Gance)
12. The Circus (Chaplin)
13. Oyster Princess (Lubitsch)

Random Thoughts: As important as Griffith’s role as the person that changed, but really invented, the film narrative and use of the frame as well as even establishing the rules of film pacing, what Meles did with the medium was actually greater or at the very least more lovable: he did all that the super literal Griffith did but added the essential ingredient of imagination to the mix. I should say that while I very much enjoy films made in this era, it’s almost not fair to call them “films” in the way we use the term today. It’s more like pre or proto film which is not to dismiss the work of  this crucial era but, rather, to allow it to exist as its own art form and not be compared to films that have the advantage of building on a previous conventions. Should we compare the aesthetic quality of cave paintings to Rembrandt? Hell no, even though both can be amazing in their own way. I have friends who hate when I say that but I find that separating this era really allows these films to understood better.

1920s

1. The Last Laugh (FW Murnau)
2. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
3. Metropolis (Lang)
4. Sunrise (Murnau)
5. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene)
6. Nosferatu (Murnau)
7. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
8. Un Chien Andalou (Bunuel/Dali)
9. The Crowd (Vidor)
10. Man with the Movie Camera (Vertov)
11. Sherlock Jr. (Keaton)
12. Nanook of the North (Flaherty)
13. Dr. Mabuse (Lang)
14. Der Golum (Wegener)
15. Faust (Murnau)
16. Strike (Eisenstein)
17. The Marked Ones (Dreyer)
18. October (Eisenstein)
19. Napoleon (Gance)
20. Häxan (Christensen)

Top Filmmakers of the 20s Era: FW Murnau, Eisenstein
Performance of the decade: Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Easily the best close-up performer in the history of cinema! Also, Keaton in The General because it goes far, far beyond just acting.
Most Overrated Film: Chaplin’s The Kid. Also, The Jazz Singer
Random Thoughts: The dismissively titled “seventh art” took everything that worked from the earliest greats and added its own polish and professionalism. The silent film was absolutely perfected in this era which was, of course, on the cusp of so much change. But I take a certain comfort in this decade’s output as it cuts through the BS of so many films after. There ‘s an innocence and wonder that the 30s contained that just kinda went away. More than anything these films are a joy to look at; a simplistic way of putting it but is there any better way to describe the rapid visual poetry of Potemkin, the stark close-ups of Dreyer’s Joan of Arc and endlessly cool looking comic set-ups of just about any Keaton film? While comedies and science fiction came into their own Murnau, in particular, took film to the next level with his flawless titles Last Laugh (he moved the camera and broke the fourth wall before anybody), Sunrise, Faust and Nosferatu, none of which are like the other, all of which are perfect. Amazingly, Murnau works account for almost half this list! Dude Rocks

1930s

1. M (Fritz Lang)
2. Modern Times (Chaplin)
3. Zero for Conduct (Vigo)
4. The Rules of the Game (Renoir)
5. Alexander Nevinski (Eisenstein)
6. King Kong (Cooper)
7. Angels with Dirty Faces (Curtiz)
8. Frankenstein/The Bride of Frankenstein (Whale)
9. City Lights (Chaplin)
10. Stagecoach (Ford)
11. Fury (Lang)
12. The Thin Man (Van Dyke)
13. The 39 Steps (Hitchcock)
14. Greed (Stroheim)
15. Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)
16. Freaks (Browning)
17. The Blue Angel (Sternberg)
18. Pepe le Moko (Duvivier)
19. Snow White (Disney)
20. Gunga Din (Stevens)
21. Lost Horizon (Capra)

Top Filmmakers of the 20s Era: Chaplin and Fritz Lang
Performance of the Decade: Chaplin in Modern Times. Peter Lorre in M.
Most Overrated Films: Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and The Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup. Not a fan of Capra/not a fan of (in Sean Connery voice…) the Marx brothers. I’m a huge dick because of this apparently.
Random Thoughts: Also known as the awkward decade. A transitional era in every way, but that’s what makes its films so unique. When else could something like M have been released? Who needs sound when you have a figure like Chaplin taking cinema to its most exuberant heights. While sound certainly is preferred by almost anybody, this new technology kind of ruined a lot of the films of the period.  Hollywood and elsewhere didn’t quite know what to do with it but that’s also what made some of the films of the era so exciting.

1940s

1. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
   Citizen Kane (Welles)
   Citizen Kane (Welles)
   …more Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. His Girl Friday (Hawks)
3. Stray Dog (Kurosawa)
4. Bicycle Thieves (DeSica)
5. Double Indemnity (Wilder)
6. The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles)
7. The Woman in the Window (Lang)
8. Shadow of a Doubt (Hichcock)
9. Kind Hearts and Coronets (Hammer)
10. The Treasure of Sierra Madre (Huston)
11. Rebecca (Hitchcock)
12. Sullivan’s Travels (Sturges)
13. The Third Man (Reed)
14. Fantasia (Disney)
15. Out of the Past (Tourneur)
16. Rope (Hitchcock)
17. The Red Shoes (P&P)
18. Late Spring (Ozu)
19. Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau)
20. Naked City (Dassin)
21. Laura (Preminger)
22. Lady from Shanghai (Welles)
23. Key Largo (Huston)
24. The Great Dictator (Chaplin)
25. Red River (Hawks)
26. Casablanca (Curtiz)
27. Notorious (Hitchcck)
28. The Big Sleep (Hawks)
29. Detour (Ulmer)
30. The Stranger (Welles)
31. Pursued (Walsh)
32. Meshes in the Afternoon (Deren)
33. White Heat (Walsh)
34. Mildred Pierce (Curtiz)
35. Lifeboat (Hitchcock)
36. Gilda (Vidor)
37. The Razor’s Edge (Goulding)
38. Ball of Fire (Hawks)
39. The Postman Always Rings Twice (Garnett)
40. Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Barton)
41. The Lost Weekend (Wilder)
42. The Philadelphia Story (Cukor)
43. Dumbo (Sharpsteen)
44. The Lady Eve (Sturges)
45. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Mankiewicz)
46. Gentleman’s Agreement (Kazan)
47. The Wolfman (Waggner)
48. Miracle on 34th Street (Seaton)
49. The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman)
50. Palm Beach Story (Sturges)

Top Filmmakers of the 40s Era: Orson Welles and Howard Hawks. And you got to give it up to Preston Sturges flawlessly prolific 1940s run that includes classics like Unfaithfully Yours, Miracle at Morgan’s Creek, Lady Eve, Christmas In July, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (that odd Harold Loyd sequel to The Freshman), Palm Beach Story and, oh nothing, just Sullivan’s Travels. 13 films in 8 years. 13!!!! There is no filmmaker in the past or present that could ever match that run. Sturges put so much into his work during these ten short years that, when he tapped out after 1948, nobody could really blame the guy.
Performance of the decade: Joseph Cotton in Citizen Kane/Magnificent Ambersons/Shadow of a Doubt. Cotton is one of my all time favorite actors and it’s sad how little respect he gets these days or even at the time. His partner in crime is of course Orson Welles and his role in Citizen Kane is every bit as towering as Welles the director. And how about Alec Guinness in Kind Hearts and Coronets? Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity proved that nobody reads Wilder dialogue better than Freddy Mac which is no easy task–sorry Jack Lemon, you’re good too.
Most Overrated Films: Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life (no hate mail please).
Random Thoughts: The best decade for not just comedies but film in general? As much as I love the run the late 90s had, Yes, there’s no question that this was the true golden age of film. More than that this was the period when films became FILMS. American, European and Asian films all blossomed with such astounding growth and aesthetic maturity that, to watch the films from today’s time, is sobering to see how little the fundamentals have changed since the 40s. Only 2001 in the 60s, Pulp Fiction in the 90s and a few noteworthy art films have changed the core paradigm of what cinema is in any way worth noting. This is also the decade that genres sorted themselves out and established rules they still use to this day: dramas, comedies, noir and realism all came into their own as distinct modes of storytelling/filmmaking. I can never say enough good things about this era.

1950s–

1. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
2. Rashomon (Kurosawa)
3. Mr. Arkadin (Welles)
4. Sunset Boulevard (Wilder)
5. Singing in the Rain (Kelly/Doen)
6. Night of the Hunger (Laughton)
7. In a Lonely Place (Ray)
8. Touch of Evil (Welles)
9. High Noon (Zinnemann)
10. Godzilla (Honda)
11. The 400 Blows (Truffaut)
12. The Big Heat (Fritz Lang)
13. A Place in the Sun (Stevens)
14. The Ten Commandments (De Mille)
15. Pickup on South Street (Fuller)
16. Rear Window (Hitchcock)
17. Eyes Without a Face (Franju)
18. Gun Crazy (Lewis)
19. North by Northwest (Hitchcock)
20. The Caine Mutiny (Dmytryk)
21. Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean)
22. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Siegel)
23. The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
24. Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich)
25. The Hidden Fortress (Kurosawa)
26. Leave her to Heaven (Stahl)
27. Umberto D (DeSica)
28. The Trouble with Harry (Hichcock)
29. Orpheus (Cocteau)
30. Hiroshma Mon Amour (Resnais)
31. All About Eve (Mankiewicz)
32. The African Queen (Huston)
33. Shadows (Cassavetes)
34. Winchester ’73 (Mann)
35. La Strada (Fellini)
36. Tokyo Story (Ozu)
37. Written in the Wind (Sirk)
38. Rififi (Dassin)
39. Wild Strawberries (Bergman)
40. Some Like it Hot (Wilder)
41. Paths of Glory (Kubrick)
42. Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock)
43. A Face in the Crowd (Kazin)
44. The River (Renoir)
45. Sansho the Baliff (Mizoguchi)
46. The World of Apu (Ray)
47. Breathless (Godard)
48. The Searchers (Ford)
49. Dark City (Dieterie)
50. Written on the Wind (Sirk)

Top Filmmakers of the 50s Era: Hitchcock and Wilder.
Performance of the decade: Toshirô Mifune in Rashomon. Humphrey Bogart gave his best performance in In a Lonely Place.
Most Overrated Films: I love Hawks but Rio Bravo is grotesquely overrated (count me on team High Noon). Rey’s Rebel Without a Caus always strikes nothing but false notes; every time I watch it is painful. I’m also not a fan of 90% of Kazan’s blockheaded work, On the Waterfront is so blunt and preachy I literally can’t sit through it any more (and I’ve seen it twice). And I can’t forget Giant. And though it’s not by any means bad, I will never understand how Seven Samauri became people favorite Kurosawa film.
Random Thoughts: Clearly, the 50s belonged to Hitchcock. And thank the movie gods for that too because, despite color kicking ass, this period of time saw movies at their most safe and bland. Not Hitch, though, whose films added bite and intensity and proved single handedly how the movies could capture (and twist) our emotions.

1960s

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
2. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leoni)
3. High and Low (Kurosawa)
4. Planet of the Apes (Schaffner)
5. Becket (Glenville)
6. Underworld USA (Fuller)
7. The Shop on Main Street (Kadar and Klos)
8. 8½ (Fellini)
9. Night of the Living Dead (Romero)
10. Woman in the Dunes (Teshigahara)
11. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Hill)
12. Yojimbo/Sanjuro (Kurosawa)
13. For a Few Dollars More (Leoni)
14. Once Upon a Time in the West (Leoni)
    
15. The Graduate (Nichols)
16. I Am Cuba (Kalatozishvili)
17. Lolita (Kubrick)Contempt (Godard)
18. Z (Garvas)
19. Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick)
20. Rosemary’s Baby (Polanski)
21. Closley Watched Trains (Menzel)
22. Take the Money and Run (Allen)
23. Zulu (Enfield)
24. Point Blank (Boorman)
25. Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
26. La Dolce Vita (Fellini)
27. A Man for All Seasons (Zinnemann)
28. Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
29. Cleo from 5 to 7 (Varda)
30. From Russia With Love (Young)
31. Shock Corridor (Fuller)
32. La Jetée (Marker)
33. Psycho (Hitchcock)
34. Belle de Jour (Bunuel)
35. The Trial (Welles)
36. Persona (Bergman)
37. Playtime (Tati)
38. The Producers (Brooks)
39. Manchurnian Canidate (Frankenheimer)
40. Quartermass and the Pitt (Baker)
41. Satyricon (Fellini)
42. Hour of the Wolf (Bergman)
43. The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
44. Blow-Up (Antonoioni)
45. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (Aldrich)
46. If… (Anderson)
47. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (Ford)
48. The Apartment
49. Peeping Tom (Powell)
50. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – (Demy)

Top Filmmakers of the 60s Era: Kubrick and Leoni
Performance of the decade: Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Peter O’Tool in Beckett. Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove and Lolita. Anthony Perkins in Psycho. Cliff Robertson in Underworld USA.
Most Overrated Films: Lots. Easy Rider, Bonnie and Clyde, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Tom Jones, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Charade.
Random Thoughts: The 60s means something different to so many people. For some its the European Renaissance. For most its the birth of New Hollywood (ushered in with Bonnie and Clyde). For me… it’s Kubrick, Clint, and Apes. While I prefer the classic (30-40s) and modern (90s-00s) era to the 60s-80s looking at this list makes it hard to deny that this decade had a good run.

1970s

1. The Duellists and Alien (both by Ridley Scott and no I can’t choose just one)
2. The Man Who Would Be King (Huston)
3. Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
4. Jaws (tried to keep Spielberg off the list but… it’s Jaws!)
5. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Peckinpah)
6. The Conversation (also tried to keep all Coppola off the list but, damn, this movie is perfect!)
7. Carnal Knowledge (Nichols)
8. Aguirre Wrath of God  (Herzog)
9. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Gilliam/Jones)
10. Walkabout (Roeg)
11. Phantom of the Paradise (De Palma)
12. Rolling Thunder (Flynn, written by Schrader)
13. I, Claudius (miniseries, Wise)
14. Network (Lumet)
15. Eraser Head (Lynch)
16. The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Herzog)
17. The Passenger (Antonioni)
18. The Fury (De Palma)
19. Real Life (A Brooks)
20. A Boy and His Dog (Jones)
21. Amarcord (Fellini)
22. Love and Death (Allen)
23. Hardcore (Schrader)
24. The Castle of Cagliostro (Miyazaki)
25. Silent Running (Trumbull)
26. Traveling Players (Angelopulos)
27. Chinatown (Polanski)
28. The Obscure Object of Desire (Bunuel)
29. Red Beard (Kurosawa)
30. Solaris (Tarkovsky)
31. Fat City (Huston) “Did I get knocked out?” “No! You won!”
32. Star Wars (Lucas)
33. Manhattan (Allen)
34. A Clockwork Orange (overrated but still amazing, Kubrick)
35. Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir)
36. Being There (Ashby)
37. Day for Night (Truffaut)
38. Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
39. Time After Time (Meyer)
40. The Spy Who Loved Me (Gilbert)
41. The Godfather II (Coppola)
42. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman)
43. Phantasm (Coscarelli)
44. Pale Rider (Eastwood)
45. Halloween (Carpenter)
46. The Yakuza (Pollack)
47. Zardoz (Boorman) “Zardoz is pleased.”
48. Assault on Precinct 13 (Carpenter)
49. Two Lane Blacktop (Hellman)
50. The Last Wave (Weir)
51. Apocalypse Now (Coppola)

Top Filmmakers of the 70s Era: Woody Allen. The rest were all high or something during these years.  
Performance of the Decade: Sigourney Weaver in Alien. William Holden and Ned Betty in Network. Michael Caine and Sean Connery in The Man Who Would Be King. Jack Nicholson was the straightest (and best) he’s ever been in The Passenger and Carnal Knowledge. Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver. And I’ve never seen a performance quite like the one Susan Tyrrell in Huston’s Fat city. People should study what she does in that movie.
Most Overrated Films: The Godfather (“the best film ever” or a slightly above average mob movie hijacked/ruined by Brando, the most overrated actor of all time???), The Deer Hunter, Rocky, Coco’s Nest, The Sting and, as non best picture winners go American Graffiti, Nashville, Mean Streets and 1900.
Random Thoughts: You can have your Coppolas and Scorseses because Ridley Scott made the best two best  films of this era and I don’t care what culture-hogging baby boomers say to the contrary. Woody Allen pretty much made the rest. This was an odd and ugly decade in terms of aesthetics. Even some of the “best” films like Holy Grail and Jaws look foggy and dull. A part of me wishes that 70s and 80s films were made in glorious black and white because at least they would hold up better. Though no color filter could make the hair and glasses of the time look better. This of course is a personal opinion that not many share (because, again, baby boomers have convinced everyone that their generation is the best ever, for all time, the end) and to defuse being called an idiot I’m not saying the “classics” of this era aren’t classics on par with the greats of any other decade… only that there does seem to be more overrated titles that people won’t shut up about. What’s funny is that I didn’t even realize that until looking at all the notable works to come out in this much (too) celebrated period of cinema. On a bit of a controversial note (as if saying the 70s is overrated isn’t) I’m choosing The Duellists as the top film over Scott’s own seminal late 70′s masterwork Alien. It is one of the most rare and rewarding and unseen gems that the cinema has to offer and  more similar to Kubrick’s equally brilliant Barry Lyndon than people realize. See it!

The Top 100 Films of the 1980s

1. Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen)
2. Brazil (Gilliam)
3. Die Hard (McTiernan)
   
4. Mad Max 2 aka The Road Warrior (Miller)
5. They Live (Carpenter)
6. Evil Dead 2 (Raimi)
7. Aliens (Cameron)
8. The Empire Strikes Back (Lucas, I mean Kirshner)
9. Blade Runner (Scott)
10. Amadeus (Forman)
11. Ran (Kurosawa)
12. Predator (McTiernan)
13. Raiders of the Lost Arc (Spielberg–argh, made the list again)
14. Adventures of Barron Munchausen (Gillian)
15. The Decalogue (Kieslowski)
16. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Schrader)
17. My Dinner With Andre (Malle)
18. The Thing (Carpenter)
19. Fanny and Alexander (Bergman)
20. Body Double (De Palma)
21. Conan the Barbarian (Millius)
22. Day of the Dead (Romero)
23. Zelig (Allen)
24. Down By Law (Jarmusch)
25. Return of the Jedi (Marquand)
26. The Big Blue (Besson)
27. Re-animator (Gordon)
28. Stalker (Tarkovsky)
29. Akira (Okomo)
30. Spaceballs (Brooks)
31. Lethal Weapon 2 (Donner)
32. Ferris Buller’s Day Off (Hughes)
33. My Beautiful Launderet (Frears)
34. My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki)
35. Fitzcarraldo and Burden of Dreams (Herzog/Blank)
36. Purple Rose of Cairo (Allen)
37. Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (Burton)
38. Hanna and Her Sisters (Allen)
39. Videodrome (Cronenberg)
40. Beetlejuice (Burton)
41. The Last Temptation of Christ (Scorsese)
42. Back to the Future part II (Zemeckis)
43. After Hours (Scorsese)
44. Robocop (Verhoeven)
45. Blow Out (De Palma)
46. House of Games (Mamet)
47. Landscape In The Mist (Angelopulos)
48. Broadcast News (Brooks)
49. Blue Velvet (Lynch)
50. Dead Calm (Noyce)
51. Dead Ringers (Cronenberg)
52. Escape from New York (Carpenter)
53. A Fish Called Wanda (Crichton)
54. The Untouchables (DePalma)
55. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (Zemeckis)
56. Stardust Memories (Allen)
57. The Right Stuff (Kauffman)
58. Ghotbusters (Reitman)
59. Down and Out in Beverly Hills (Mazursky)
60. Angel Heart (Parker)
61. This is Spinal Tap (Reiner)
62. The Name of the Rose (Annaud)
63. Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (Kurosawa)
64. Sex, Lies and Videotape (Soderbergh)
65. Better off Dead (Holland)
66. Radio Days (Allen)
67. The Falls (Greenaway)
68. Mephisto (Szabo)
69. Dressed to Kill (De Palma)
70. A Zed & Two Naughts (Peter Greenaway)
71. A Passage to India (Lean)
72. Night of the Comet (Eberhradt)
73. Labyrinth (Henson)
74. Never Ending Story (Petersen)
75. Tapeheads (Fishman)
76. Legend (Scott)
77. Do the Right Thing (Lee)
78. Monsiur Hire (Leconte)
79. the first half of Full Metal Jacket (Kubrick)
80. Repo Man (Cox)
81. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Almodovar)
82. Highlander (Mulcahy)
83. Das Boot (Petrsen)
84. Romancing the Stone (Zemeckis)
85. Body Heat (Kasdan)
86. Big Trouble in Little China (Carpenter)
87. The Terminator (Cameron)
88. The Bounty (Donaldson)
89. The Quiet Earth (Murphy)
90. Bloodsport (Arnold)
91. Henry V (Branagh)
92. Meet the Feebles (Jackson)
93. Driving Miss Daisy (Beresford)
94. The Little Mermaid (Clements)
95. Salvador (Stone)
96. Princess Bride (Reiner)
97. Gates of Heaven (Morris)
98. Mona Lisa (Jordan)
99. The Abyss (Cameron)
100. 2010: The Year We Make Contact (Hyams)
101. Young Sherlock Holmes (Livingston)
102. Explorers (Dante)
103. Alien Nation (Baker)
104. Hellraiser (Barker)

Top Filmmakers of the 80s Era: Woody Allen
Performance of the Decade: Because it’s an action movie Bruce Willis gave the best performance in the decade in a little terrorist killing movie called Die Hard. At first that sounds out of place but, watch it again and study what Willis does here. Willis gives the kind of performance people find easy to overlook but he defined the everyman action her, adding equal parts humor, humanity and ass kicking to John McClane. The combo of Hulce/Abraham in Amadeus created one of the most vivid and tangled relationships in history (I’m a sucker for movie characters who love and hate each other to a point of obsession; see also, my placement of The Duallests). Jeremy Irons and his twin Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers. And for the second decade in a row Sigourney Weaver brought heart and soul to the hard core action movie Aliens, proving, along with Willis, that action movies can be about so much more than action. Also amazing: Kurt Russell in The Thing and Escape from New York, Michael Douglas in Wall Street and Romancing the Stone, Tim Curry in Legend (so cool, so evil), Harrison Ford in Blade Runner and Empire, Harry Dean Stanton in Repo Man. And Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead 2 because no actor went through as much hell and came out so charming.
Most Overrated Films: Scarface, the worst film ever made made by one of the best directors ever born. Also, Spielberg’s beloved E.T. is a rank, annoying, shrill, gooey, sentimental, stupid sci-fi feel good movie staring a dumb looking alien with a heart of, what, light bulbs? It’s what I hate about movies in general. People my age love it, and hate me for not. Also, despite seeing this movie four times, I’m still not and might not ever be as down with Ragging Bull as other film lovers seem to be. Perhaps it will grow on me like Blue Velvet, a film I really didn’t care for until the third viewing when I approached it as more of a self aware mystery suburban noir and was able to loved it from this new perspective. Honestly, though, a lot of 80s movies are overrated. When it comes to the 80s we are all in some way blinded by nostalgia.
Random Thoughts: The the most schizophrenic and aesthetically jacked up (and not always in a bad way) decade of cinema, the decade I was born in (coincidence?), was thankfully balanced by the timeless bravado of Woody Allen’s filmmaking, foreign films, sci-fi, horror, b-movies and great John Carpenter flicks. While Allen is more known for his 70s output, I found the mature, Bergman-ish Allen of the 80s to have hit his stride. I am grateful to Allen for cutting through the excessive style of the time (big hair, ugly glasses, neon) because, in America, his films actually hold up beyond the time period which is not something a lot of American 80s “classics” could say. At the same time, though, I don’t think any decade in history had more purely fun films at the top of the list–Hollywood wasn’t quite Hollywood till the 80s kicked in. I mean, in what other decade would a film like Die Hard or Predator or They Live top any sort of list? None. The 80s are an enigma, I love the era as much as I hate it.

The Top 150+ films of the 1990s

1. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarentino)
2. Topsy-Turvy (Leigh) “Thank…yoooou…veeeeery…much.”
3. Magnolia (Anderson)
4. Fight Club (David Fincher)
5. JFK (Stone)
6. Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick)
7. Deconstructing Harry (Allen)
8. Heat (Mann)
9. A Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami)
10. Babe (Miller/Noonan)
11. Out of Sight (Soderbergh)
12. Hamlet (Branagh)
13. The Game (Fincher)
14. Strange Days (Bigelow)
15. The Remains of the Day (Merchant)
16. Nixon (Stone)
17. Being John Malkovich (Jonze)
18. Naked Lunch (Cronenberg)
19. Dark City (Proyas)
20. Boogie Nights (Anderson)
21. Starship Troopers (Verhoeven)
22. Contact (Zemeckis)
23. Barton Fink (Coen bros)
24. The Insider (Mann)
25. Three Colors Trilogy (Kieslowski)
26. The Limey (Soderbergh)
27. The Ninth Gate (Polanski)
28. Demon Night (Dickerson)
29. Red Rock West (Dahl)
30. The Thin Red Line (Malick)
31. Kiki’s Delivery Service (Miyazaki)
32. Delicatessen (Jeunet)
33. The Fisher King (Gilliam)
34. Hearts of Darkness (Bahr)
35. Unforgiven (Eastwood)
36. Sweet and Lowdown (Allen)
37. Dead Again (Branagh)
38. The Big Lebowski (Coen brothers)
39. Dracula (Coppola)
40. Clockers (Lee)
41. Naked (Leigh)
42. Aladdin (Clements and Musker)
43. The Zero Effect (Kasdan)
44. Total Recall (Verhoeven)
45. The Shawshank Redemption (see, I can like sentimental–Darabont)
46. Ulysses Gaze (Angelopoulos)
47. The Stolen Children (Amelio)
48. Natural Born Killers (Stone)
49. Chungking Express (Kar-Wai)
50. Three Kings (Russell)
51. The Player (Altman)
52. The Talented Mr. Ripley (Minghella)
53. The Arrival (Twohy)
54. After Dark, My Sweet (Foley)
55. Bullets Over Broadway (Allen)
56. Man Bites Dog (Belvaus)
57. Crash (Cronenberg)
58. Jacob’s Ladder (Lyne)
59. Jerry and Tom (Rubniuk)
60. Quick Change (Bill Murry. Yes, Bill Murry directed it)
61. Smoke (Wang)
62. White Hunter Black Heart (Eastwood)
63. Rushmore (Anderson)
64. Groundhog Day (Ramis)
65. Twin Peaks Movie Pilot (Lynch)
66. Waterworld (Reynolds/Costner)
67. Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (Park)
68. The Hunt for Red October (McTiernan)
69. As Good as it Gets (Brooks)
70. Memoirs of an Invisible Man (Carpenter)
71. The Cook, The Thief (Greenaway)
72. Secrets and Lies (Leigh)
73. Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki)
74. Grosse Point Blank (Armitage)
75. Close-Up (Kiarostami)
76. Taylor of Panama (Borman)
77. Looking for Richard (Pacino)
78. Leon: The Professional (Besson)
79. The Truman Show (Weir)
80. Get Shorty (Sonnenfeld)
81. Before Sunrise (Linklater)
82. Reversal of Fortuine (Schroder)
83. The City of Lost Children (Jeunet)
84. Kingpin (Farelly bros)
85. L.A. Confidential (Hanson)
86. Jackie Brown (Tarantino)
87. Miller’s Crossing (Coen Bros)
88. Buffalo ’66 (Gallo)
89. The Assignment (Duguay)
90. Flirting with Disaster (Russell)
91. The Last Boyscout (Tony Scott)
92. Fresh (Yakin)
93. The Long Kiss Goodnight (Harlin)
94. Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino)
95. Escape from L.A. (Carpenter)
96. Toy Story (Lassiter)
97. Ghost Dog (Jarmush)
98. Alien: Resurrection (Jeunet)
99. Breaking the Waves (von Trier)
100. Until the End of the World (Wenders)
101. Exotica (Egoyan)
102. Harley Davidson and the Marbrol Man (Wincer)
103. Tremors (Underwood)
104. Screamers (Duguay)
105. Hudson Hawk (Lehmann)
106. Goldeneye (Campbell)
107. In the Mouth of Madness (Carpenter)
108. Short Cuts (Altman)
109. Snake Eyes (De Palma)
110. Fearless (Weir)
111. Blade (Norrington)
112. The Red Violin (Girard)
113. Mission: Impossible (De Palma)
114. Jesus’ Son (Maclean)
115. Mystery Science Theater 3000 the Movie (Mallon)
116. Diggstown (Ritchie)
117. Tombstone (Costamos)
118. The Usual Suspects (Singer)
119. Hurlyburly (Drazan)
120. Night Falls on Manhattan (Lumet)
121. Ghost in the Shell (Oshii)
122. The Last Seduction (Dahl)
123. Waiting for Guffman (Guest)
124. Underground (Kusturica)
125. Fargo (Coen Brothers)
126. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (Radomski)
127. Se7en (Fincher)
128. GATTACA (Niccol)
129. Die Hard With a Vengeance (McTiernan)
130. The Nightmare Before Christmas (Selick)
131. The Road to Wellville (Parker)
132. Homicide (Mamet)
133. Malcolm X (Lee)
134. Fallen Angels (Kar Wai)
135. Holy Smoke (Campion)
136. Sneakers (Robinson)
137. True Lies (Cameron)
138. The Thirteenth Floor (Rusnak)
139. Happy Together (Kar Wai)
140. Judge Dredd (shaddapp, it’s underrated)
141. The Matrix (Wachowski bros)
142. The Last Action Hero (McTiernan) “Look!… Elephant.”
143. The English Patient (Minghella)
144. The Rock (Bay, yes Michael Bay–he was bound to make at least one good movie)
145. Schindler’s List (Spielberg)
146. Farewell My Concubine (Kaige)
147. 187 (Reynolds)
148. The Age of Innocence (Scorsese)
149. Tommy Boy (Segal)
150. The Ice Storm (Lee)
151. Austin Powers (Roach)
152. Face/Off (Woo)
153. Vampires (Carpenter)
154. Cronos (Del Toro)
155. Lord of Illusions (Barker)
156. Godzilla 2000 (Okawara)
157. Trainspotting (Boyle)
158. The Lion King (Allers/Minkoff)

254. Titanic (Cameron)

341. American Beauty (Mendes)

801. Goodfellas (Scorsese)

Top Filmmakers of the 90s Era: QT did not just make films in the nineties, he defined the nineties. Also Oliver Stone went deep in his modernist experimental period in the 90s, destroying Hollywood conventions and getting people talking, really talking, about films. He opened up new forms of cinematic communication through yet people held that against him. I don’t know how such a forward, free thinking filmmaker can be marginalized by audiences and the institution itself. Such a shame. Then there’s David Fincher, a filmmaker that reinventing darkness in modern cinema (Se7en, The Game, and Fight Club), something that had not been done since noir’s black and white heyday. 
Performance of the Decade: Topping the list is Samantha Morton as a mute in love with a non-stop talker in Woody Allen Sweet and Lowdown–whatever acting may be, Morton figured it out and did so without the need to utter a single word of dialogue. Garry Oldman in Dracula. Tom Cruse in Magnolia. Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. David Thewlis in Naked. Phillip Baker Hall in Anderson’s Hard Eight. JT Walsh, RIP for his body of character actor work in the 90s. Ron Liebman gave the most underrated performance of the decade in Night Fall on Manhattan, a performance that could teach Al Pacino a thing or two about good over reaction as opposed to, uhhhhhh, Al Pacino acting. Elias Koteas in Crash.
Most Overrated Films: My ten picks for overrated/bad 90s films reads like most people’s favorites but here it goes…

1. Forrest Gump (Zemeckis)–I don’t like preachy films and I don’t like sentimental films that go for easy heart tugs–this film is both. I also never understood the overwhelming respect these films earned…
2. Life is Beautiful (That babbling idiot that nobody remembers)
3. Romeo + Juliet (Luhrman)
4. Wild at Heart (Lynch)
5. Run Lola Run (Twyker)
6. Batman Returns (Burton)–F-Tim Burton
7. Braveheart (Gibson)
8. Casino (Scorsese)
9. Jurassic Park (Spielberg)
10. Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg, second half only) 
11. Dances with Wolves (Costner)
12. Mrs Doubtfire (Columbus)

Random Thoughts: Full disclosure: I’m a 90s boy. The 90s is the decade of the auteur. This era gave birth to Tarentino, Fincher, Soderbergh, both Andersons (Wes and PT), Linklater (to a lesser degree), John Dalh and a few more. Could you name half as many from this last decade?
Tarentino’s Pulp Fiction is an achievement beyond what most people realize. No film changed the style and rules of the medium more than Citizen Kane. Fact. But no film since Kane came close to doing so again until Pulp came along. The film changed the medium through storytelling devices, through its use of postmodern homages and, most notably, through writing. Characters never talked like that before, but always talk like that after Pulp. It’s one of the best films ever made but, on a personal note, its also my personal favorite. The other personal favorite (the only film that might actually surpass Pulp) is Mike Leigh’s Topsy Turvy, a good movie by most people’s standards, the best by mine. I can’t quite explain its allure, either. I’m not even a Gilbert and Sullivan fan but I am a Leigh fan and the (funny/dramatic/realistic/staged) tone he and his cast achieve is achievement of such morbidly beautiful harmony. Topsy-Turvy puts a smile on my face, it makes me happy to be alive, it makes me love movies. Through making this list I also was delighted to see how Kurosawa managed to make decade defining masterworks in the 1940s (Stray Dog), the 1950s (Rashomon), the 1960s (High and Low), 80s (Ran), and, yes, even in the 90s! His “Dreams” never get enough credit. For some reason Kurosawa seemed to sleep his way through the entire decade of the 70s but in his defense 1975′s Dersu Uzala is really high on my Netflix queue so maybe that will become an exception to this odd dry spell (was this around the time he attempted suicide? because that could explain it). The only other director that comes close (and is still going!) to bridging more than half a century of cinema is Woody Allen who’s impressive output began in 60s, eased into the 70s, reached its peek in the 80s, made a come-back in the 90s and of course continued all that good stuff into 2000s as well. Good god, man, how is that possible?! Even if you’re not a fan you have to respect that.

2000s–???
So far I have the best films of the decade nailed down, just not the order. Now I can work on that. Until that happens in a few weeks, who knows, maybe something that I haven’t seen yet will make the list.

Directors With the Most Appearances On the List

1. I put 12 Woody Allen films on the list! Best director ever or am I just a weird fanboy?
2. Akira Kurosawa scored no less than 9 films.
3. John Carpenter also with 9… holy crap, that’s more than…
4. Alfred Hitchcock made no less than 8 films but that number could have easily been more.
5. Stanley Kubrick made the list 8 times. Given how non prolific this director is that’s impressive.
6. Orson Wells 7 of his films made the list. Amazing considering how few films he made. Or should I say: was allowed to make.
7. Brian DePalma made the list 7 times. Even his “bad” films like Snake Eyes are great! Like Carpenter, De Palma is one of the unsung masters of the medium.
8. Howard Hawks has 5 films on this list. Gotta respect Haws (despite my feelings toward Rio Bravo).
9. FW Murnau made the list 4 times. 4 times in a single decade! That sets the single decade record.
10. John Huston, the most underrated well known studio director of all time has 5 on the list and that’s not enough.
11. Ridley Scott with 4 on the list.
12. David Cronenberg, one of the all time greats with that magic number 4.
13. Hayo Miyazaki with 4 on the list.
14. Peter Weir, out of nowhere, with 4.
15. Robert Zemeckis, a director I didn’t even know I liked (and am still not quite sure), managed to get 4 on the list. He can now be forgiven for making Forrest Gump.
16. Tarkovsky with 3. but only because I haven’t seen The Mirror yet and can’t find Nostalghia, like, anywhere.
17. Quentin Tarantino has 3 films but that was just from the 90s. One happened to be the best of the decade. If I factor in his shockingly consistent 00s run that number would be bumped up to 7. By 2020 he may be tied with Woody Allen.

Lost Seasons Ranked
Season 4–Perfect for a lot of reasons. The first is that season 4 is when Lost finally became a true sci-fi show and it’s flashbacks, er, forwards (trying to get back to the Island!) became something other than filler content. The drama of getting back actually enhanced the Island reality, which is something season 1-3′s flashbacks never quite did. This is the season where the mythology of the show finally catches up with the stories it tells. Everything comes together. 
Season 1–I can’t think of any great show that started this great. Usually it takes a few seasons for a show to get really good. Lost was great right out of the can. Such a good start in fact that the show had nowhere to go but down for a few seasons after.
Season 5–Mindbending and unlike every other network show on TV that year or most any year, smart and challenging.
Season 6–A bit of a come down from the great time travel arc but season 6 had a lot of good writing and a strong backbone thanks to the episode where we finally find out what Jacob was protecting. That the iffy sideways stuff actually amounted to something is a relief.  
Season 3–The show still couldn’t find its footing in most of the season 3 episodes but you can clearly see itself working its way to something resembling a good show. A transitional season if anything. It tried and even gave us a lot of cool moments (the Desmond episode, Charley at his most doomed and interesting and the classic “we have to go back” moment).
Season 2–A few good episodes punctuate way too much time in the Hatch and way too much time on pointless back stories of characters we know already. Not a total waste, at least we got Eko this season only to have him killed off way too soon.

Best Lost Episodes:

1. Walkabout (Locke)–This is “Lost” at its best. Most of the great season one episodes were written by David Furry (Buffy). He never showed up for a season two, instead writing for 24′s best season (five).
2. Ab Aeterno (Jacob/Man in Black/Richard)–It shouldn’t have worked. It did. I would argue that this episode is the most important in the entire series. It sets everything up, past and present. Just about perfect. So much heart and soul here too. Works better as a series finale than the actual finale!
3. Almost every episode in Season 4, especially The Shape of things to Come (Ben), one of the best Ben episodes of all time (which is saying something). Who wrote it, you ask? None other than Brian K Vaughn (Y: The Last Man) and Drew Goddard (Buffy) which is like total nerdgasm time.
4. Pilot parts 1 and 2–Abrams had pretty much nothing to do with this show except for kicking it off. He still gets way to much credit for this show but in a way it might not even exist had the pilot not been this good and the pilot (of the Oceaninic flight) not been that bad. It was as good as any movie released that year.
5. The Other 48 Days–This tail section survivors episode contained a whole seasons worth of material play out in one packed episode. Ironically, that “season” is better than the season it’s actually in! Also great because the show got to experiment with its structure and formula in a big way.  Not only did it feature a new cast but it was a non flashback episode or, more accurately, a non flash on Earth episode.
6. The three big Desmond-centric episodes went on to define what people really love about the show. A trippy sci-fi show that also has the capacity to be a touching love story. The Constant (considered by many to be the best ever Lost episode), Flashes Before Your Eyes and Happily Ever After.
7. Through the Looking Glass (Jack)–Great because it pretty much ended the two season “Lost sucks” streak.
8. The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham (Locke)–Poor, poor Locke/great, great, episode.
9. The Man Behind the Curtain (Ben)–Ben kicks all kinds of ass in this episode. His dad gets it, the Dharma twits get it and even lost gets a bullet. Wow, go Ben! It’s really the kind of episode where a character makes a show worth watching, which, given its placement in season 3 was a godsend. It’s also the first Jacob episode.
10. Expose (ugh)–Nickey and Paulo’s famous episode. One of the most disliked episodes of lost ever. I loved it for it’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-esq behind the scenes antics and cleverness. Seeing so many of the classic events on the island through new eyes proved to be a fresh and unique way to tell a story in Lost. People gave and still give the characters crap but that’s the entire point of this episode! It’s an episode that seemed to have been made just for the haters… that ended up being hated. I loved it though and, yes, I hated N&P as much as anyone.

Worst Lost Episodes:

1. Across the Sea. If Walkabout captures everything about Lost that is good and pure and mysterious then the late season 6 episode AtS turned out to be the antithesis, the anti-episode, the Man in Black to Walkabout’s Jacob, the worst Lost episode ever. Since the first Jacob/MiB back story episode easily ranks amongbest of Lost (it’s my number 2), it’s quite surprising that the second turned out so overwhelmingly bad. In what could have been a great experimental episode unlike anything we’ve ever seen before turned into an entire episode about Jacob and his brother’s messed up mommy issues and trips the glowing cave of magic. Horrible, unnecessary, redundant. And stupid, let’s not forget stupid. It was also a waste of time, valuable time, valuable time that could have been spent on just about anything else, and given all the lingering questions we were left with, that time could have done the legacy of Lost a lot of good. Worse than all that though is the fact that the episode demystified Jacob and the Island itself! A 40-minute flashback episode of Hurley stuck in a bank with Vincent the dog a la Family Guy wouldn’t have been better (but not by much).
2. How about Born to Run? How about Left Behind? How about Eggtown? What do they have in common? Kate. That goddamn Kate ruined almost everything she touched. The answer to What Kate Did (a bad season 1 ep) and What Kate Does (a worse season 6 ep) is and will always be I DON’T CARE.
3. That Jack tattoo episode called Stranger in a Strange Land–most Jack episodes were lame but none were this lame.
4. Season 2
5. Jin and Sun episodes (…and Found, House of the Rising Sun etc)–Jin was an interesting character that kept getting sucked into Sun’s dull family drama. Her dad’s rich and EVIL. They don’t love each other. They love each other. They have kids. The run from dad. They get separated. They go back to the island. They die. The End. It all seems so pointless.

Ten Best Lost Characters

1. John Locke
1. Ben Linus (Ben and Locke, Locke and Ben, Lost would not be Lost without either)
3. Daniel Faraday (such an underrated character)
4. Sommabitch Sawyer 
5. Miles
6. Hurley 
7. Frank Lapidus (a personal favorite. another great season 4 character!)
8. Desmond 
9. Mr. Eko (so cool… so dead)
10. Smoke Monster/UnLocke/MiB
11. Richard Alpert
12. Juliet (she should have been the Kate of the show) 
13. Jacob (would have been a lot higher if “Across the Sea” hadn’t made me hate him)

Worst Lost Characters

1. Kate
2. Kate
3. Kate
4. Claire
5. “WALT!” (why did the Others want him again?) 
6. Jacob’s Mom
7. Sun
8. Shannon
9. Aaron (not the character or actor obviously but the fact that the character, like Walt, had so little meaning in the end)
10. Bernard’s wife, I never even bothered to learn her name. 
11. Kate

Until I wrote out this list I had not realized how few good female characters this show actually had. Not one in my top ten favorite and six in my ten least favorite. Odd. The only thing more odd is Jack. While he’s technically the main character (it begins and ends with him after all) I don’t think the lead of a show has ever been this unessential. He doesn’t hurt the show, he just inhabits it like a know-it-all squatter. We tolerated him but never really liked him. Followed his journey but never really lost ourselves in it in the same way we did for Locke and Ben. Poor Matthiew Fox, I don’t think it was his fault either. The show just didn’t know how to write for him. While I found myself actually liking Jack for the first time in the latter half of the last season it was definitley too late for him. The ship had sailed so to speak.  

Must. Purge. LOST……….

wha, wha, what?!

The final “Lost” episode ever, ever, ever (everrrrrhhhh-nooooooo, it can’t end, what am I going to do with myself?!) didn’t go off with a season 5 sized nuclear bang but a warm and gentle and somewhat confusing glow. Contrary to what I had read from “Lost” Gods Cruse and Lindoff, warnings of a “Sopranos” style reaction where 50% of fans would “hate” the final episode, the last thing I expected ”The End” to do is played it safe. Though I’m grateful the “Lost” team handeled their “End” with a lot of hurried care and caution, the first thing it does do is play it safe by relying on cosmic magic to answer the unanswerable (scheesh, I’ll never get religious people). The episode is not hateable but it’s also not extraordinary. It ends with dignity but not clarity as unanswered plot details linger but do so in a way that invites thought and discussion rather than frustration. Anyone still watching “Lost” at this point and still expecting “answers” is to be pitied because this show will provide no more answers than God himself speaking into our ears and I think that’s the whole point. We must allow for a certain amount of mystery because a world with out that is not worth living in. The shows knows this but viewers didn’t and as such both became slaves to the tyranny of logic and narrative symmetry. Let go people, it’s about the process. It’s about the questions. It’s not and will never be about the whys because, as Jacob’s lover/mother put it, “Every question I answer will simply lead to another question.” That’s a perfect mantra for the show.

Season six of “Lost” tried very hard to canonized itself into a new science fiction based religion (the “Star Wars” of television). Yet it pushes its dogma on us even though the religious mechanics (magical water, glowing caves of wonder, the twinkly promise of an afterlife etc.) comes off as blunt more than something truly profound. It’s still a worthwhile effort because divine intervention might be the only explanation left for a show as convoluted as this. Why did such and such happen? Uh, God and magic. That being said this uber “spiritual” (in the words of the writers) season of “Lost” is mostly agreeable but numbing and not particularly challenging or philosophically earth shattering. The final episode follows those traits. So, yes, ”The End” is passable; “good” by virtue of the fact that it was not a horrible F-you to it’s fans. If anything it’s very loving and accepting and even emotionally involving (tell me you didn’t feel something when Vincent joint Jack at the very end) and I can’t hate something so noble even if it’s also grandiose. That, plus, Jeff Fathey, the pilot, didn’t die! Yeah, the episode provides a lot of fan service with coo (if not always meaningful) cameos and fresh new concepts such as the awesome actuality of the sideways verse. This may not be the earned ending I or anyone had hoped for but it’s a nice one and I’ll settle for that.

The critical side of me however was left disappointed at how poorly the episode was put together but that’s to be expected as series finales are usually rushed and aesthetically all over the place. Still, the “Lost” team had three years to plan this “End” and they settled on a non-denominational Fellini-style church shindig? Really?! The new sets were boring and just plain goofy (more Disney theme park ride than an ecstatic religious experience), the big apocalyptic storm was murky, dark and uneventful while the “sinking” island involved nothing more than camera shaking and characters going all season 5 time shift wobbly on us. Also, the editing didn’t flow well and the writing may have done it’s job at getting a lot of information across to us but even at two plus hours it felt rushed and didn’t set the bar higher as the great episodes of “Lost” have done in the past. Sure I feel like the show needed more time to really sort its mythology out but, again, it had to end somewhere. As I sit here pondering somewhat trivial, episode specific question such as Where is the plane going and how exactly does that destinion relate to the sideways existence? What’s with the corny collective mental church creation and why are certain island characters there while others are not? Why did Ben not join the others (not Others mind you but others) in the church? Does that mean he won’t die, or that he’s suck in limbo for his sins or could that even imply that he’s the new and necessary dark half to Hurley or another Alpert type of helper? Is Smokey really dead? If so why does the island need to be protected? And why would any God be dumb enough to keep the totality of the universe together with a literal cork in the ground etc. There is of course less-trivial/more-nagging series-wide questions about Aaron’s specialness, Dharm true role on the island (just for research?) and why can’t women give birth on the island? I have to say don’t mind the prospect of spending eternity with these lingering issues because they are interesting rather than maddening “Twin Peeks” or “Battlestar Galactica” sized questions that were made specifically to torment and haunt its fans to their graves.

Less than a day later I honestly have no idea what the reception of this ending will be but after Now I’ve gotten this stream of consciousness vomit off my chest I might actually enjoy finally checking out where fans go with the show now that it’s finally, finally, FINALLY over. No more speculation (which I’ve never, EVER been into). Like it or not the end we get gives us a lot to chew on but, come on admit it, the geek in me (in us) is still hoping for a “Lost” spin-off years down the line starring Hurley and Ben. As fans go I’m pretty sure there will be a few types now that the (black) smoke has cleared. Flashback people, flash forward people and flash sideways people. Most will choose the flashbacks because it defines the essence of the characters but I found that to be mostly filler and extraneous information that could/should be answered ON THE ISLAND and, as such, will always be more fond of the flash forwards because it’s the stuff of pure sci-fi ambition and the first time the show excelled at turning its wild metaphysics into a pure and even thoughtful form of entertainment. Few if any will end up being sideways people but this alternate reality season was not a total loss in my opinion. It was cool if tricky how this season’s sideways reality turned into what people thought the island itself was from the beginning: a purgatorial place where lost souls gather before they move on to the (now literal) light. When the bomb went off in season 5, sideways is where everyone ended up to finish things up in their own way. Or is it? Either way the show got to keep the “they’re all dead” aspect of that long favored end point theory but does so in such a way that it gets to exist as one aspect rather than the whole; the other being the island itself as the hub of existence sealed by a literal cork being guarded by a fat man who talks to dead people. Jesus, that sounds silly and makes no sense. And that’s why I love ”Lost.”
Episode Grade: B
Season Six Grade: B+
Series Grade: A (There was Twin Peeks, there was X-Files, there was Buffy and now there is was Lost, a show that has finally earned the right to join that club)

What’s Good: Great sense of style, character and pacing. And with dialogue this good who needs a story? I was surprised at how much I liked this movie. Not better than the first, not even close, but a solid effort.
What’s Not: Matt Fraction didn’t write this movie. Stupid third act. Race track sequence very lame (lets just say it’s no Afghan cave). Also… Pepper Potts nagging. I just hope a third ”Iron Man” does not come out before the “Avengers” movie because I don’t want to see it rushed. 

From the moment I saw the trailer I’ll admit that my heart sank. Robert Downey Jr. with his shoe polish facial hair, eye liner and frizzy due, looked more like an 80s porn star than a modern superhero. The trailer also showed him going to more parties than fights. What’s with that? Then there’s the whole matter of Col. Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle) who, while not quite looking like a porn star (though he did in “Boogie Nights”), also didn’t look like Terrance Howard. Also featured in the trailer was Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) looked as bland as ever and it was hard to forget Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) looking like chewed up and spat out supervillain crap–a joke villain out of “Kick Ass” more than the most high profile comic book movie in two years. 2s are hard to get right because of how much we expect. That being the case I didn’t expect much and, as I often foolishly do, declared that ”Iron Man 2″ would suck (last time I did that: “Avatar”), something that friends and Metacritic only confirmed. Well the only thing all that proved was (a) that the trailer was not any good and (b) that I was dead wrong.  

The first “Iron Man” was better than everyone thought it would be while the second lands somewhere in the region of what most people thought the first would be. I disagree. This franchise is as relevant and exciting as it ever was because it favors its interesting characters as much as its high quality action. Playboy Industrialist Tony Stark is of course a great character being played by an even better actor. Unlike last year’s Capt. Kirk (Chris Pine), Downey Jr. finds the right, dare I say “perfect,” balance of cocky and cool to imbue his larger than life character. We root for him even though he doesn’t need our help because he’s rooting for himself louder than we ever could. Some of that’s posturing of course as Tony’s underlying flaws are actually insecurities. ’Iron Man 2″ accomplishes the very difficult task of transitioning this character from the heroic origins of his first venture to a genuinely fleshed out figure that has evolved quite a bit. Right off the bat the film does not turn into the trite alcohol after-school-Iron-Man-special that many expected–I’m glad it didn’t as I prefer Stark to be a happy, William Powell in ”Thin Man’ type of drunk rather than a Nick Cage  in “Leaving Las Vegas’ one. Rather, the film does some a lot more challenging by making Tony a ticking time bomb. That’s interesting to me because normal Tony is a ticking time bomb while a Tony that knows he’s dying is a total party! I mean that literally, he throws a party and shoots his laser at guests. In this film, even more than the first, we understand why Tony doesn’t so much like being a hero but needs to be one because he’s protecting (and literally shielding) himself as much as he is protecting us. Unlike a lot of tedious movie superheros like Spider-Man (my favorite whipping boy, by the way), the reason for his reckless actions has as much to do with thrill seeking as it does duty and personal fulfillment. The added psychological element (daddy issues) adds another fascinating layer upon the Stark mythos, especially when that dad is played by John Slattery in full whiskey drinking, Camel puffing ”Mad Men” mode.

The problem, if there must be a problem, is simple; the script by Justin Theroux of all people. Theroux, or JT as I call him in my personal life, could be called awesome. He not only starred in “Mulhollad Dr.” and “Inland Empire” (earning so much indie cred that I’ll let his “Charley’s Angels 2′ appearance slide). He also co-wrote ”Tropic Thunder,” another great Downey Jr. movie. His script, while competent and full of great dialogue (“I have successfully privatized world peace” Tony tell the Government before flashing a peace sign), doesn’t stir the soul the way the first “Iron Man” did. The nerd in me knows that such a problem would have been solved by hiring Matt Fraction who, after his work on the brilliant “Invincible Iron Man” comic series, has a better handle on the Iron Man universe than anyone alive. But studios hardly ever hire comic book writers so on those grounds the story we’re stuck with is still good and I can say that because the film passes the test of being strong even when Iron Man is not on screen! For instance, people may not be talking about Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash as they would many great superhero villains but for my money he really overcomes how stupid he looks. And speaking of looks, if you look at it a certain way this character is an Eastern mirror of Tony Stark. He’s got father issues (his dad worked with Stark Sr.), he’s as brilliant as he is eccentric, he drinks too much and he commands technology to accommodate some sort of insane personal drive for attention and validation. I found myself understanding his motivations and if I must tell the truth was actually won over by Rourke’s heavy Russian accent which is funny, but even more importantly, not distracting when it’s not funny. After teaming up with a sleazy war-mongering Government politician (the best actor of last year: Sam Rockwell) the Russian has one demand: ”VEEERS MIE BEIRD!.” “You’re what?” “My BIERRRD! IE VANT MEI BEIRD!” ”Oh, okay here’s your bird.” “DAT’S NUT MEI BEIRD!!!” He’s saying he wants his bird by the way, and it’s one of many great touches. Also included to the roster of actors playing characters who should have sucked is Samuel L Jackson in the thankfully beefed up role of Nick Fury. Fury in particular works nicely within the Iron Man universe as a ball busting mentor or sorts that manages to out-cool Tony. “I got my eye on you,” the one eyed Fury says before shooting a patented Sam Jackson glare in Tony direction. There’s only one actor in existence that could do that and lets just say Faverau hired that one actor.  

Unlike the new (and, okay, better) “Batman” franchise I could see how and why so many got the feeling that this film comes up short. It’s not the “Dark Knight” of ”Iron Man” movies and it’s foolish to expect so much of it–or anything for that matter. Everyone was so eager to make an “Iron Man” movie and, in turn, everyone else was so eager to see an “Iron Man” movie that the specifics and quality of that “Iron Man” follow-up that everyone wanted, and wanted as soon as possible, shouldn’t be taken for granted. This movie could have easily just filled in the blanks but instead supplies fans with necessary storytelling. The plot explores the aforementioned whip toting, Vodka drinking, toothpick sucking, bird lovin Russian genus thug and throws in the plot-line of Tony being made “sick” by the same thing keeping him alive and manages the time to chases those two whoppers with a more standard Government going after one of its superhero storyline. I am still sick of the superhero on the run plot device but “Iron Man 2″ at least gets creative with that trope. After destroying his home in a drunken fight with Rhodes, Tony is forced to up his game, save is name and his life and none of that would have happened if the Government wasn’t a total dick to him. When the ask to give his technology in the interest of public safety Tony fires back with a great line that goes to the heart of what the character’s about: “I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one” he tells a Senator played by a smirking Garry Shandling of all people. That he allows Rhodes and the Government to steal one his suits and create “a war machine” is ideologically problematic and inconsistent but, then again, so is Tony Stark.        

Actor/director Jon Favreau may never be considered a “great” director but he gets the job done and knows exactly what this franchise needs at this point in its cycle. Being as funny as he is (“Made,” a film he starred in, wrote and directed is even better than “Swingers”) he never takes things too serious, which could have really hurt this movie. In terms of style and subject matter Favreau doesn’t overdo it but even if he did he gets credit for not being Brett Ratner. The scenes of flight and combat are not as exhilarating as in the first but they are snappier and streamlined in many places. We even get a better sense of the people underneath the machines when the film cuts to Jarvis’ POV. 

I had a chance to re-watch the first “Iron Man” again and I’m glad I did. It occurred to me how special that movie is. There’s one big action set piece in the first act and a bigger one in the last. The middle chunk is easy to dismiss but it’s actually the best part. It’s about Tony figuring out who Tony Stark is as a man, how he thinks and what he wants to do with his gifts. That he’s not a complete ass kissing do-gooder is why he’s so interesting. When he ended that film with the self-actualizing statement “I am Iron Man” it felt like one big mission accomplished on everyone’s part. That rare origin story that actually earns it’s badge or shiny suit as it were because it took the time to develop all the necessary aspects without giving into the demands of the typically and retardedly fast paced summer movie. More than about action the film is about an imperfect man that strives for perfection through science, engineering and big brass balls. Literally half of the first “Iron Man” is just one big gear head construction project that we all got to sit in on.

“IR2″ wisely follows the first film’s action/looooong set-up/action formula without loosing track of the heart of its character. I give this sequel credit for also not artificially cramming in a pointless action scene in the middle potion of the film. The sequel also gets to revisit the usual superhero who-am-I? questions without feeling redundant as “Spider-Man 2″ was when it basically just remade the first film by making Parker loose his powers only to be forced to re-learn them. Now, successfully following the original does not come without a few hiccups. Namely, the first film’s third act was not its strongest even though The Tony vs. The Dude (protegee vs mentor) showdown holds up surprisingly well if you watch it today. The third act of “Iron Man 2″ does not come out of nowhere (at least we see Whiplash and Hammer cooking up their evil plays) but it might as well have because it’s not inspired at all. Once again Iron Man must fight a larger and stronger version of Iron Man™ with the only difference here being that he has Rhodes, an ally in an Iron Man suit joining him to face-off against Whiplash in, uh, another, bigger Iron Man suit… with LIGHT SABER WHIPS! And not only does Iron Man and Iron Man fight Iron-er Man, but they also face an army of Iron ManRobots modeled after the Army, Navy, Marines and whatever. Watch out for those Navy robots on dry land, Tony! These scenes are literally one big cluster-F if you ask me but not so horrible when you really stop to consider the lack of alternatives available. Should Tony’s Iron Man fight a human? No, too easy. Should he throw down against a monster? Nah, that wouldn’t fit with this series’ semi-realistic style; this isn’t “Hellboy” after all. Should he fight his inner demons? Doesn’t he do that already? So what’s left other than hot and steamy mech on mech action? I don’t know but then again I’m no writer. Lucky for us Justin Theroux is. Well, kinda. 
Grade: B+

The Absolute Worst Films of 2009

I’ve run out of good things to say about 2009 so after catching up on the bad things I am, after all these many months, finally ready to close the door on last year.

1.Lovely Bones (Peter Jakson)

A film so misguided and ill-conceived that it essentially undid all the greatness Peter Jackson was able to accomplish with his masterful, decade defining “Lord of the Rings” series. I didn’t think it possible but this movie surpassed Jackson’s God awful ”King Kong” fuckery. With “Bones,” Jackson takes an adaption about a dead girl “solving” her own murder. This could have been cool if only the filmmaker didn’t Spielbergize it to a point of nauseating candy coated proportions. The shallow as a grave and bare “Bones” film fails as a gritty mystery because characters sit around and mope rather than engage in any sort of investigation and the movie fails just as hard as a “What Dreams May Come” type of fantasy because characters sit around in a magical candy land and just sort of stair off into space. In the latter scenes, the film does little more than showcase its heavenly effects. The film not only gets the admittedly tricky tone surrounding dual realities connected by love (rolles eyes) all wrong but lays the schmaltz on so thick that it forgets (or fails) to give the viewer a proper sense of logic, purpose, reason, causality or motivation. Obviously this kind of story that requires the viewer to take a leap of faith and while I went into it with a total sense of openness, I found it impossible to do so because this forced, heavy handed and dramatically inept film doesn’t meet us half way or provide any reason for why we should take that leap. This may be the most passive mystery ever made! Like its main character, “Bones” is as dead as disco and yet also like her it never shuts the fuck up or gets real for even a second. ”We’re in heaven…. yaaaaaay” a fellow lost soul tells our wonderstruck heroine. If this is heaven then I’d rather be in hell. (full review)

2. Away We Go (Sam Mendes) “I can’t believe you told your mother about my tilted uterus.” “I didn’t know your tilted uterus was a secret.” ”Yes, my tilted uterus is a secret.” Wonderful. Okay then… two married, or dating (I don’t even remember) and self-described “fuck-ups”/non-self-described douche bags decide to travel around the country to “find themselves.” The two attention sponges played by a pregnant Maya Ruldoph and, um, a bearded John Krasinski get so much out of life and suck so much more out of it. And us! Their journey is a draining affair full of trite sentiments, forced indie music cuts, tacky humor and phony drama. Every line and plot action is performed in a precious, whispery aren’t we funny/cute/profound way that instantly activated my gag reflexes. The ponderous dramedy (directed by the overrated Sam Mendes with a screenplay by David Eggers of all people!) enables the 30-something angstaholics to a point of complicity. It’s not presenting their story but selling it and rubbing it in our faces. While this isn’t technically the “worst” movie of the year it is certainly the most annoying and definitely the most insincere hipster message movie since “Rachael Getting Married” and “Garden State” before it. A movie made for all those preening monkeys who grew up being told how important they are. (full review)

3. The Blind Side (John Lee Hancock)
“I never had one before,” “What, a room of your own?” “No……… a bed.” “The Blind Side” is not only biggest turd of the year but after a shameful best picture nomination/best actress win it’s the most unjustly celebrated turd of the year. This Republican wanking, pseudo inspirational sports drama has me convinced that people in general are way too easily inspired. Its ”based on a true story” (but not really) views on small towns, sports and race relations is archaic and down right creepy. After watching ”The Blind Side,” for instance, I learned that all white people are rich, that all black people need help from said all white people and that all black people are either on drugs or sell drugs. The film is that blank and white (no pun intended) about the world it exists in and the people that inhabit that world.
The (indirect? unintended?) racial condescension gets even creepier with its curious depiction of white saints treating its resident sad, black and perpetually moping lug of character (Quinton Aaron in a horrible performance of startling one dimensionality) as if he has no agency or power to help himself. Rather, he must be directly controlled, shaped, pitied, educated and generally ”fixed.” The firecracker Football Mom played by the untalented-as-ever Sandra Bullock determines that “that poor Michael is like a fly in milk at that place.” This giant sized teen, compared to an animal (or insect as it were) is literally turned into a pet project by her. And by the film as well which is as lazy as they get. The shrill and irritating Bullock (and her shrill and irritating family) seems to be thinking, “hey, this boy’s black and big so lets put a football in his hands” as if that’s all a person like this can offer the world. Oh, but don’t worry, the film also allows it’s black character to be a bit racist. Apparently white folk, with their books and food and, oh wow look at that, beds, are “weird.” I can almost see his point. As bad as things get, black and white Amreica come together at the end thanks to football, the prospect of money and of course Jesus. “You’re changing that boy’s life,” Bullock is told by an ego stroking cronies. ”No……………………………… HE’S Changing ours” she responds in a line that illustrates the trite nature of the screenplay. Bravo assholes, like the movie “Crash” (another racist classic starring America’s Most loved Nazi lover) the one thing this sub-TV movie manages to do when it comes to racial relations is make me dislike all races involved.

4. G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra (Steven Sommers)
Worst “Hollywood” movie of the year. In fact, as soulless, disjointed and jagged as almost anything Michael Bay has ever done. Ironically, 2009 was the year Bay actually made a halfway good movie–literally, though, only about half of “Transformers 2″ could qualify as being watchable but that’s a full 50% more than “G.I. Joe.” Everything about this film is awkward and stiff and, that being said, you won’t be surprised to learn that director Steven Sommers also made “Van Helsing.” Well, he managed to top himself! Star of tomorrow (and that’s really true than kill me now) and expert non-actor/male stripper Channing Tatum sucked harder here than his after hours activities at his previous job. And if it’s possible Marlon Waynes’ “that’s whack!” token black side-kicked sucked even harder. Did anyone survive unscathed? Yeah actually, Joseph Gordon Levit plays such an over-the-top, Darth Vader-ish heavy that he gave what’s either the worst performance of the year or some just sort of a brilliantly self aware “bad” performance on par with Marlon Brando in “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” Bill Murray in ”Charlie’s Angels” and Robert De Niro in “Rocky and Bullwinkle.

5. Jennifer’s Body (Karyn Kusama)
Yes, I like “Juno.” No, I don’t like Diablo Cody. Her name at this point in her “career” is a punchline and the joke was this shitty shitty film she wrote. This teen horror movie tries sooooo hard and goes sooooo nowhere that it makes “New Moon” look like a Bergman movie.

6. Up in the Air (Jason Reitman)
Speaking of “Juno,” did I mention how much I dislike Jason Reitman? For putting George Clooney in a rare bad movie he can never be forgiven. I’m serious: Steve Gagen and I are still not on speaking terms after “Syriana.” The film tries to be socially relevant and comes off socially inept. Any film with this amount of insincere sincerity is almost guaranteed to land a spot on my top ten. To make matters worse this film also tries to be funny and comes off cloying. It tries to be dramatic and comes off… the rails. I’m shocked that it managed to be both popular and respected. (full review)

7. Paper Heart (Nicholas Jasenovec)
This nugget of indulgent indie hipster bullshit was saved but the bigger and stinkier piece of indie hipster bullshit that was “Away we Go.”

8. Taking Woodstock (Ang Lee)
Ang Lee is such a hard director to figure out. He’s capable of mighty feats of technical skill like “Crouching Tiger…”, gritty American dramas like “The Ice Storm” and rich period melodramas like “Brokeback Mountain,” and ”Ride with the Devil.” He’s also really good at fucking good things up. The stylized “Hulk” and noir “Lust, Caution” are both virtually unwatchable. “Taking Woodstock” belongs in that second category of Ang Lee movies. It’s not just bad but his opus of fuck-ups. It’s hard to watch but at the same time hard to stop watching because it’s so not cool.

9. Brothers (Jim Sheridan)
“The Hurt Locker.” “The Messenger.” For a genre that has no good movies to its name, Iraq War 2 movies gave us two good ones in 2009! The rarest of streaks was cut short by Hacky McHacksalot’s (aka Jim Sheridan) ”Brothers.” This is not so much a bad movie as it is a really boring and biteless one. It plays it safe and plays it contrived. At the heart of the film’s problems is a miscast Toby Maguire who stars as a hardened (really?) soldier taken hostage while his wife paints her new kitchen with his boner hiding brother. THEN HE COMES HOME! The terrorists should have done us all a favor and not given him back.

10. Fireproof (Alex Kendrick)
HahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHahahahahahahahahahahahaha
…(gasp)…ha. Married characters haven’t been this annoying since “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” But at least that film had action and guns and shit. This one has fire fighters and Jesus.

11. Up (Pete Doctor)
Clear your mind and pretend you know nothing of Pixar or “Up” and just listen for a second. So there’s an old guy and his wife dies that bums him all out so he, well, he gets a bunch of balloons and, um, attaches them to his house and the house floats up and up and up in the air and, whoops, there’s a chubby Asian Boy Scout in the house too and so… uh, the house floats to an exotic land and almost lands but doesn’t quite land and the two jump off and find a rare bird that like chocolate and the three go on to meet an other old guy who has a blimp and hunts said exotic chocolate eating birds and, oh, he also has an army of talking dogs. THAT GOT AN OSCAR NOMINATION. THAT GOT TONS OF CRITICAL RESPECT. THAT MADE A LOT OF MONEY. PEOPLE LOVE THAT MOVIE.

12. Miss March (someone directed this?)
Gave it a shot because it made AV Club’s number #1 worst movie of the year. Now I wish I was shot.

13. Julie & Julia (Norah Ephron)
Only the Julie part makes the list. Amy Adams as an aspiring chef/nagger is hard to stomach. Here I was all ready to watch a movie about a historic figure and instead got one about a self obsessed blogger that leaches off a historic figure and screams at her husband for not being supportive enough. The effect this had was strange because the better Meryl Streep is in this movie (and she’s good), the more I ended up disliked it because it’s not really her movie at all. New rule: the only time Amy Adams should be allowed to be in a movie with Meryl Streep she better be playing a nun.

14. I Can Do Bad All By Myself (Tyler Perry)
So can Tyler Perry. I’m so sick of Perry’s that I’m not going to even bother watching his movies at this point, I’ll just put them on this list with the total confidence that they belong on it. Why are people so afraid to call Perry out on his hackiness?

15. The Burning Plain (Guillermo Arrigaga)
From the writer of the films “21 Grams” and “Babel” comes a film just as bad as “21 Grams” and “Babel.” Here’s the lesson and it’s a lesson worth learning. When a bad film is pointlessly rearranged, it becomes an even worse film.

16. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Gavin Hood)
Almost had me missing the glory days of Brett Ratner. (full review)

17. Hanna Montana: The Movie (Peter Chelsom)
I’m not admitting to watching this movie. I’m only admitting that I didn’t like it. Draw your own connections if you must.

18. Mutant Chronicles (Simon Hunter)
Mutants, mutants never change. You would think a movie with Ron Pearlman, Thomas Jane and a shit load of mutants AND the apocalypse AND a giant hole in the earth where the mutants came from would be really cool. This movie is not really cool. It’s really stupid.

19. Year One (Harold Ramis)
No… more…

20. Land of the Lost (Brad Silbering)
…bad comedies!

Not Quite On The List but Not Quite Off The List:New Moon (dir. Chris Weitz)
Proof of how hard it is to mess up a story about vampires. This film is not bad but it’s such a lazy, you’re-going-to-pay-to-see-regardless-of-quality sequel that one has to admire the almost total lack of effort that went into the making of it. And this is coming from the director of the beautifully crafted (and underrated) “Golden Compass.” I can’t blame Chris Weitz though because he was clearly rushed by a studio that doesn’t give a blood sucking shit about quality. Summit is milking this bloated cow till it runs dry and they are wise to do so because they know that a few years from now it’s not going to hold up and that millions of girls of all ages are going to wake up out of this daze they’ve been in these last few years, hate themselves, then probably move on to a worse fad. 
“New Moon” is lightweight and very dumb but harmlessly so. The amazing thing about this series, book and movie, is how it attracts haters as much as it does fans. I love watching non-fans or as I like to call them “normal people” get all worked up about the creepy social message this series upholds. Girls apparently can’t function without an abusive man in their life. The message is rancid and the across-the-board performances (except the dad, who is always cool somehow) do not help things either. Bella, played by a pouty Kristen Stewart, is such an infuriating twit that I found myself dreaming of Buffy coming to town and kicking the brooding shit out of her (then, of course… lesbian sex). Buffy was into an vampire asshole too but she MOVED ON. Bella is such a needy creature that I don’t think independence is possible for her. Ah, it’s just so fun to snark on this movie! This is a movie instantly ready for Rifftrax. Had the above commentary been released in theaters it might have out grossed the actual movie.

Worst Lines of the Year:

1. A character gets stabbed. “My tit,” she whispers. ”No…………your heart” her friend tells her. Jennifer’s Body, keeping it real. A very profound and subtle statement Diablo, you are a true feminist.
2. “You’re changing that boy’s life,” “No……………………………… HE’S changing ours.” Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side.
3. “You’re lime green jell-o and you can’t even admit it to yourself.” Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body.
4. “I SEE YOOOOOOOOUUUUU,” Sam Worthington in Avatar.
5. “You’re my only reason to stay alive……..if that’s what I am.” Edward in New Moon
6. “I can’t believe you told your mother about my tilted uterus!” Maya Ruldoph in Away We Go.
7. “Every second I am with you is about restraint… and you’re too fragile.” Edward (again) in New Moon.
8. “You can’t trust vampires… trust me.” Edward (again, again) in New Moon
9. “Bella, you give me everything just by… breathing” Edward (uh huh, again) in New Moon
10. “We’re in………………. HHHHHEEEEEEAAAAAVVVVEEEENNNNN! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!” Some stupid dead kid in Lovely Bones.
11. “You never leave your partner! Especially in a fire!” Kirk Cameron, as a fireman, in Fireproof using a fantastic fire metaphor for his marriage. What a dick.

Top Ten Suprisingly Non-Bad “Bad” Movies

1. The Box–destined to be either cult classic or a film people try their best to forget.
2. Crank: High Voltage
3. Knowing
4. Taken
5. Pandorum
6. Gentlemen Broncos
7. Push
8. Gamer and Law Abiding Citizen (Two three star Butler movies brings up the grand total of watchable Butler movies to three. He still sucks though.)
9. Funny People (Well funny until the lame third act where I found myself hoping Adam Sandler would get cancer again and stop making out with his boring ex wife. Hum, third act problems, where have I see that before, who directed this movie again?)
10. Bandslam–a lot of cheese here but ”Bandslam” is still one of the best High School/music movies around.
11. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans–as Michael Sheen vampire movies go, better than “New Moon.”
12. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Worst Directing

1. Peter Jackson’s Lovely Bones
2. Stephen Sommers’ G.I. Joe
3. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad…
4. Karyn Kusama’s Jennifer’s Body
5. Sam Mendes’ Away We Go

Worst Performances

1. Worst of the Worst: Channing Tatum in ”G.I. Joe.”
   Picture a Ken doll that sounds like Markey Mark from the 90s… and add zero acting ability, personality and charisma and you have an idea of Channing’s first big splash in the industry. Really, it’s more of a dribble though. Tatum is so bad that he transformed G.I. Joe from one of the worst films ever made to one of the worst films ever made EVER.
2. Megan Fox, Jennifer’s Body and Transformers 2
   Head overruled other head on that vote.
3. Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
   How did this false performance earned Oscar nomination I will never understand)
4. Sam Worthington, Avatar/Terminator Salvation
   Sam Worthington can’t ruin every movie this year too, can he? Can he?! Oh shit, he gonna isn’t he!
5. Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side
   She seems nice, let’s give her an Oscar.
6. Sandra Bullock’s annoying fucking son (Jay Head… yes that’s his real name) in The Blind Side
   A special place in hell is reserved for this little shit.
7. Sandra Bullock’s 300 lb pet project (Quinton Aaron) in The Blind Side.
   The master of one expression and one expression only. Here it is folks.
8. Ms. mopes-alot Stewart in New Moon
   The most mentally crippled character in “literary” history successfully parlayed her mind numbing into the cinema thanks to Kristen Stewart’s perpetually off-putting, sad sack mumbling sappy stupid performance.
   Toby, we need you to play someone who is very dull and not quite in touch with his emotions. Toby: …………………I can do that.
9. Tyler Perry in EVERYTHING 
   This year he had the distinction of sucking in not just his own movies (he did, what, six last year?) but Star Trek too!
10. Robert Pattenson in New Moon
11. Marlyn Waynes, “G.I. Joe.”
    Dude, you’re not funny.
12. Michael Gambon in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
    Getting better just as he got, um, dead. And that getting better accounts for why he’s so low on this list cuz Gambon (normally a great actor) as Dumbledore is usually way higher.
13. Vin Diesel in Fast and Furious
    This character went from charming in a very campy way in the first THE Fast and THE Furious to macho desperation in Fast and Furious.
14. Hillary Swank in Amelia 
    No words, just pictures.
15. Maggie Grace in Taken
    Maggie Grace (from Lost) is young and hot and a girl yet after watching this movie in which she plays a bubbly teen that gets kidnapped it is as if she has never been all three of these things. Okay only two, she’s still hot.
16. Liv Shriver in X-Men: Origins
    The normally good Shriver takes all the teeth out of Sabertooth’s character. He’s just dull. I never thought I would miss the wrestler that played Sabertooth almost ten years ago but… here we are.
17. Chris Pine in Star Trek.
    Capt. Kirk as a frat boy douchbag.
18. Michael Jackson in This is It
    Oh, he wasn’t acting. Then what was he doing exactly?
19. Leslie Mann in Funny People
    Ruined so many comedies that Mann has now earned the right to be called the Mia Farrow of this generation.
20. Morgan Freeman in Invictus 
    Oh, come on people he was horrible in this tepid movie. I love Freeman, but this is not a good performance, it’s him talking slow, going on walks and staring off into a rugby field.

Most Overrated Film of the Year:
Avatar, followed very closely by Up. Avatar is the better movie (I still stand by my B-) but it’s shallow conventions and down right annoying moments get more and more apparent with every viewing. Up, however, was annoyign from the beginning and never looked back.

2008′s Worst Films (because I didn’t do one last year for some reason)

1. Rachael Getting Married
   Audience Getting Fucked.
2. Paranoid Park
   Gus Van Sant at his art houseiast worst. Meandering tone poem about blank teenagers that has all the feel and personality of an indie wax museum of people, places and events I would never want to see, go to or experience. GVS tries to pass the blankness as thoughtful reticence of youth but it’s really just bad, pardon non, pardon natural acting crippled by enabling directing. I love when the director meanders (Last Days and Gerry are modern classics) but with this film he wanders off the edge.
3. Slumdog Millionaire
   The most overrated film of 2008 and the most overrated Best Picture winner since “Crash.” Almost every note the film hits is false. Cinematography, screenplay, music, acting and Danny Boyle’s lame use of style for the sake of style are all grating. I thought it would take a few years for this Oscar winning film to be forgotten but we’re pretty much at that point now. I don’t know if you got the memo but it’s officially not cool to say you like this film.
4. Zach and Muri Make a Porno
   Another year another bad Kevin Smith movie. Kevin Smith: please go away. Not going anywhere, are you? Oh, you still have fans, good for you! Okay then just roll out Cop Out 2 and Clerks 3 and, fuck it, how about a Mallrats sequel. Smith is novelty director and the novelty wore off, oh, I’d say about fifteen years ago.
5. The Reader
   To be honest I forgot why I hated this film so much in 2008 but rather than watching this prestige POS again I’m just going to go with my gut. Pretentious: yeah. Profound: no.
6. Righteous Kill and 88 Minutes
   These two 2008 films from John Avnet are so bad that users in the wasteland that is the IMDB message boards are calling for his death. Ouch, but, gotta say… not completely out of line.
7. Punisher: War Zone
   Hey, not all comic book movies in 2008 were happening. Some were just bad (Hulk 2-ish) and some, like Punisher, were just the worst. Just about the only thing this Punisher was able to kill effectively was any chance that they’ll ever make another Punisher movie again.
8. Speed Racer
   Speed Racer is a beautiful film. Speed Racer is a horrible beatuiful film.
9. Sex and the City
   To quote Jack Nicholson: SHUT UP!!!!!!!!! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!
10. Leatherheads
    Clooney, what happened? To build upon my “Up in the Air” mini-rant: For directing George Clooney in a rare bad movie, George Clooney can never be forgiven.

and let’s not forget…

Seven Pounds, Quantum of Solace, The Eye, Prince Caspian, The Mummy 3, Mirrors, The Bank Job,  the second half of Wall-E, Get Smart,  Harold and Kumar 2, Mamma Mia, Saw V and no doubt if I had been brave enough to watch The Love Guru and Fool’s Gold both would probably be on this list.

What’s Good: I haven’t read the graphic novel but I have a feeling it hasn’t been tampered with by the studio which is always a good thing. The irreverent humor rocks! So do Big Daddy and Hit Girl! Bravo to Nick Cage for finally being in a halfway decent superhero film. While I can see him playing a comic book villain Nick Cage knows he’s too old for tights and thus picked the perfect role. He is forgiven for Ghost Rider.
What’s Not: Roger Ebert. I love the guy but he’s got to shut up about two things: video games and “Kick Ass.” The non-superhero sequences involving Dave/Kick Ass are not particularly interesting. “Spider-Man”-esq scenes dealing with girls, family life and school don’t work even though I can understand why they are included.

“Kick Ass.” It sure does. And does, and does and does some more. This is one of the most unusual “parody” superhero films ever made. With titles like “Sky High,” “Mystery Men,” and “The Incredibles” dominating this sub genre it was, until last week, hard to imagine anything other than kid friendly superhero comedies. After “Kick Ass” it’s now hard to imagine going back to those tepid kid films. “Kick Ass” does not hold its punches in service of the comedy aspect. In fact that only makes it punch harder. It’s the “Fight Club” of superhero movies in that respect. Don’t get me wrong, the violence in this movie is funny but it is also mean and jarring. The tone is all over the place as well. It’s a funny teen comedy where kids slip and fall on the bad guy when trying to save lost cats. It is a half baked critique on hero worship in the Internet era where, for instance, Kick Ass’s kitten saving/bad guy stomping antics end up on My Space (people still use that?). On the other hand it’s also a lame and corny “Spider-Man” type of “will the hot popular girl like the nerd” High School film. And finally, how do I put this, the kind of movie where someone is thrown into a giant microwave and cooked. The effect of all of the above is overwhelming at times but in a way that I have to admire because while real Superhero movies only go so far with action and moral conduct ”Kick Ass” found a way to go farther while still somewhat keeping you in the movie and, most importantly, liking its characters.

The hero kicks the story off by telling the viewer about his average teen life. “With no power comes no responsibility” he tells us, riffing on Spidey’s bombastic style. The kid is played by a soft spoken, easily bruiseabe Aaron Johnson who goes on to illustrate his lack of talents, skills and strength. Inspired by the comic books he reads he becomes a not quite super hero called Kick Ass for the hell of it and after very little time “crime fighting” his self aware heroics inspires others. But not necessarley in a good way because he inspires people who are far from well adjusted. The film might be saying that the superheros, if looked at objectively, are actually pretty off balance.  That’s when/why the film gets interesting. “Real” superhero Big Daddy, played by Nick Cage (Adam West era Batman meets The Punisher meets, um, Nick Cage), and his daughter Mindy aka Hit-Girl are the movie’s real crime fighters. We are introduced to the two memorable anti-heroes on a father daughter weekend activity that involves Big Daddy testing out a new bulletproof vest on his daughter. Standing on opposite sides of the screen he shoots her right in the chest. Being only 11 she practically flies off the screen, landing with an emphatic oomph. If you’re not laughing at the act of a grown man shooting his daughter then you WILL NOT like “Kick Ass” because that’s one of the lighter scenes. This film is hardcore but I really have to say that it is not without heart.

While the non-hero hero is doing his own thing (which mostly consists of having people laugh at how stupid he looks before beating him up) Big Daddy and Hit Girl exist in their own separate superhero movie. A much darker one and a much better one. Kick Ass just wants to play around on the streets of New York while the other two are serious about their hobby. Dead serious. Seriously, they’re sadistic and their quest to stop and punish a drug king pin (Mark Strong in that rare bad guy role–yeah right) is a long and bloody one that’s more “Kill Bill” pot boiler than “Spider-Man” foot cozie. The murderous father-daughter duo don’t so much fight crime as they torture it and I really have to say that Hit Girl, played by the young actress Chloe Moretz, steals the show then proceeds to rip it to shreds. This tiny psychopath is a great movie character because she runs counter to almost every side-kick-kid trope ever. There’s a deeply ironic undercurrent to Hit Girl but there’s also a genuine and emotionally engaging character here that is equal parts lovable and scary. Seeing this tiny purple blur fly around the screen, impaling drug dealers leaves you, and the out of his element Kick Ass, speechless. I can’t speak for Kick Ass but the lack of speech on my side of things relates to my usual dislike of child actors/characters in movies. I’m going on record by saying that this is one of those cases where a precocious child actually makes an action movie better! Not only that but the same precocious child that made “(500) Days of Summer” worse! I don’t think that has ever happened before. Okay so maybe it has, but it’s not often and Moretz is in the same league as Newt from “Aliens” and Natalie Portman in “Leon/The Professional.”

“Kick Ass” is directed by Brit Mathew Vaughn who has managed to combine the no-nonsense grittiness of his breakout “Layer Cake” with the subversive fantasy of his underrated “Stardust.” This project is a good step forward for the director who wisely balances the film’s style so that it never takes away from the story or calls attention to itself which it could have easily done given the hip and geeky subject matter. Just look at the Edgar Wright’s “Scot Pilgrim Vs. the World” trailer for an example of an opposite but hopefully equally enjoyable approach. You might remember that Vaughn was initially slated to directed “X-Men 3″ (the one Brett Ratner ruined) and I’m glad he knew enough about his comic book sensibilities to stay away from mainstream conventions. At the same time though this movie adaptation tends to be very conventional at times. Many scenes involving the teenagers don’t quite work as intended (they’re not always very funny and not always as interesting as they should be) and the animated cell comic narrative device within the movie falls a bit flat. I’m not going to let those minor flaws that affect my overall enjoyment of “Kick Ass” however because in a way it needs to have a conventional backbone for the very reason that when it breaks those conventions it comes as a shock. And if this film proves anything it’s that it knows how to shock. 
Grade: B+

Best Indivdual Shots of the Year

Sure the “motion” part of motion pictures is the selling point but I’ve always been a fan of single movie images. These moments in time or as Roland Barthes would say, “shadow[s] of the frozen moment,” remind us that movies can provide us with 24 works of art every second. Even bad movies can stumble into moments of visual greatness, quick as they may last (see my “Public Enemies” shot at #10)! Powerful images have a way of freeing themselves of the tyranny of the whole. They exist on their own artistic terms yet never get enough credit…

1. A Serious Man
D.P. Roger Deakins
I also have an obsession with the absolute first thing we see in a movie and the last. They are, after all, the alpha and omega of a story’s universe yet far too often filmmakers take these impressions for granted. Not the Coen Brothers. No final image was better last year than “A Serious Man.” The main character’s son is listening to music on once confiscated radio at school just as he’s about to finally pay that bully back (long story… but a good one). Suddenly, out of nowhere, a tornado hits. Random but also… not because the moment is juxtaposed with the boy’s father learning of his fate across town. This absolute final shot gives me chills. It’s an absolutely perfect cut-to-black moment. The shot is visually atypical of the rest of the movie (therefore not really a spoiler shot) but hammers home the notion of divine intervention, God’s wrath and… Jefferson Airplane.

2. Two Lovers
D.P: Joaquin Baca-Asay
“Two Lovers” was the second new film I saw in 2009 and it certainly stuck around, ranking as my number two film overall. Once again a movie with Two in it’s title ranks as number two. Grey is clearly a great visual filmmaker and I’m sure he would be quick to credit his cinematographer. While many of the extended two-shots (another two!) in this movie such as this or this or, yikes, even this (shameless self promotion) resonated, I fell in love with the above shot the second I saw it. Phoenix’s look is priceless. I said to myself that it’s so powerful and quirky that I had to find some way to talk about it. What’s great about how this shot comes off is the isolation in Phoenix’s character’s world. We not only can see but also feel how out of his element the charater is. That piece of art looming above his head (which was on location when Grey and co. got there) is perfect because adds a splash of strange humor.

3. Thirst
D.P Chung-hoon Chung
Speaking of strange humor. This show kept me thinking about the notion of what it means for a vampire to reach the absolute bottom of the barrel and a priest laid out on the floor and sucking blood from the IV of a man in a coma is pretty much there. Well, maybe not quite–Brad Pitt sucking on a dead rat in “Interview with the Vampire” might lower but that’s up for debate. The way he lays down implies a feeling that this man is far, far away from being human at this point. He’s a monster but in the most non monster-y way possible and between this and “The Host,” Korean filmmakers have nailed the realism of horror. I also love cinematography involving that white roomthe the two vampires make for themselves to mimic day and a shot and the end with the empty shoes which I won’t get into for obviosu reasons. But, really, nothing spells out the film’s quirky and dark tone than what you’re seeing. Plus, it’s kinda funny.

4. Antichrist
D.P. Anthony Dod Mantle
Hard to find a shot in this movie that isn’t striking. I’m even transfixed even when von Trier and Mantle zoom in on a plant in a jar of water. The one I settled on is not only a great shot but chilling in an undefined archetypal sort of way. The poetic visuals of a completely ruined human being laying alongside animals (known here as three beggars) in a cabin is iconic and will not be soon forgotten. To hammer home how much Lars von Trier and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle have shifted we really should consider the meta-sparse visuals of “Dogville” side-by-side with the hyper stylized “Antichrist” to see two polar opposite aesthetic approaches executed in equally effective ways; hard core function in one and harder core form in the latter. Filth, flesh and nature is what “Antichrist” is all about. And all are combined in this shot which, to me (and what do I know?), is like a neoclassical painting (horrible things are happening to beautifully naked people) come to life. Compare it to this, that or one of my favorites Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David and you may agree… or you may not (I know jack about art after all) or it just may confirm how much of a creepy ass hole Lars von Trier is.

5. White Ribbon
D.P. Christian Berger
Perfectly captures the eerie, off-balance tone of the movie in a way you can’t quite put your finger on but that’s reverberating through your body. A visually imposing and hypocritical authority blocks out the foreground while sheepish followers stand in the middle. One of the few innocent people in the whole movie meanwhile gets punished and relegated to the back. Life suck. This image says all that yet comes off so natural and unplanned. It just knocks me out every time I look at it. Something’s not right here. Something is very, very wrong. And beautiful.

6. You, The Living
D.P. Gustav Danielsson
The camera never moves and the editor never cuts. Images, then, have a way of lingering in this wonderful movie. This shot is the one most loaded with meaning, humor and horror. Roy Anderrson’s sensibilities are fascinating. Slow, depressing and morbid. In this scene a dinner party is huddled in a corner (no explanation for this… as if one is needed in an Anderrson film) as a man attempts to do that old trick of pulling the dinner cloth from a table. Anderrson’s interpretation of this age old gag is not just funny (all the shit falls…) but surreal (…to reveal a giant swastika on the table!!!). He’s also making a comment on Sweden’s hidden pro Nazi past. By the way, the guy pulling the cloth gets arrested (perhaps for revealing such a past) and, in the next vignette, convicted by a panel of beer swigging judges to be sent to death.

7. The Road
D.P. Javier Aguirresarobe
As epic as it is bleak. This vast shot conveys depth, death (all plant life in this movie looks like that) and man’s small  and fleeting place in this post civilization world. For the overall look I picked Aguirresarobe as the best cinematography of the year and this shot is at the top of the reasons why.

8. Inglourious Basterds
D.P. Robert Richardson
A classic movie shot. There are many great shots in this movie but this is the iconic moment. And it’s official: a new generation of film lovers finally got their Rambo moment!

9. Moon
D.P. Gary Shaw
The decay of flesh juxtaposed with the corporate coldness of space and science. Note: The image looks crappy because I didn’t grab this directly from the movie. I don’t have a way of doing a screen caps on blu-ray–and if you don’t see Moon on blu-ray you’re missing something.

10. Public Enemies
D.P. Dante Spinotti
Christian Bale aims, shoots and fires. Michael Mann’s film may have missed the mark but this shot sure didn’t. Mann and the always great Dante Spinotti have a keen eye for cool shots (literally) and that’s probably because doc inspired handheld style allows for more experimentation and unplanned composition. This one, though, was very planned and it’s easily the film’s most memorable moment. And by that I simply mean that it’s one of the few things from this movie I haven’t purged from my memory banks.

Guilty Pleasure Shot: Knowing
D.P. Simon Duggan
What you’re looking at is balls. Total balls. Sometimes the goal of science fiction is to transport us to a different place. A place we never could have expected when we started the film. Knowing’s final shot is a thing a of audacious beauty. So full of hope, symbolism and painterly beauty that it turned many off. It feel the moment is earned and contains more ecstatic religious power than any Mel Gibson movie I’ve suffered through. It also managed to blow the socks off of “Battlestar Glatica’s” strangely similar but far more literal “new earth” ending concepts. With this, director Alex Proyas continues his streak of perfect final shots; “Dark City’s” pier closer is dear to me and “I, Robot’s” robo-Jesus final moment never gets enough credit so I will include it.

Best Poster Art
AKA poster art most likely to be displayed in my dingy apartment

…wow. wow, wow, wow. This is the most rich and evocative poster I’ve come across in a long time. I want this but may never get a print because it’s a limited edition deal. The poster is by David D’Andrea was made for Fantastic Fest.

…should have been the main poster for Basterds.

…the humans only angle is just brilliant marketing. And it doesn’t even say the movie’s name. Looks cool too.

…another Antichrist poster. I could see someone hating this poster design but I really grabbed me. Especially when I think about how these scissors are used in the movie. When I look at this I think the alternate title should be “There Will Be Blood.” Hum, I think that one’s taken though.

…usually Paul Giamatti movie posters are bad but this one gives off a cool “Being John Malkovich” vibe. Well, that and “Men in Black” (‘member that alien inside the head… aw, never mind). This is such an interesting poster I’m surprised nobody saw the movie. I’m including myself in that large group.

…yup, that about sums the movie up. That poor, poor priest. I particularly love how the human figures are positioned in such a way that implies the infinite loop of misery these two immortals sinners will be engaged in. Not just misery though, lust too.  The look on Kang-ho Song’s face says it all.

Worst Poster…

Extract. Someone got paid to come up with this? Really? Is this a joke? Sadly… yes. There are no redeeming qualities to this poster. It’s tacky and nowhere close to being clever which is ironic because the film’s pretty good in a cult comedy sort of way. It’s almost as if someone at the studio wanted to sabotage Judge’s film. And it worked. That the film is funny is the biggest tragedy of all.

Runner Up: Ghost of Girlfriend’s Past

Screams out, in every way possible, WE’RE NOT EVEN TRYING. WE GIVE UP.

Best Trailer

Fitting that the film with the best shot of the year also has the best trailer to go along with it. Now why didn’t this make my top ten again? I starting to freak out at the idea and may never let myself forget that I relegated “A Serious Man” to #12. Even so, I said it from day one that “A Serious Man’s” trailer is the most visually exciting and artful mainstream movie trailer ever made! It’s rapid fire editing and use of sound is absolutely perfect. It’s so good I’m surprised it didn’t convince the usual multiplex philistine to see, gasp, a Coen Brothers period movie. The rhythmic flow in the clip below does not represent the style and flow of the film itself (thank god) but it exists as a work of art in its own right which, some could argue, is the point of a well made trailer.

Worst Trailer#1: After Last Season
BEHOLD………………

Worst Trailer#2: The Boys are Back
Ever seen a trailer and made a audible sound of dejection? Something like EWICK or awwwaghh? Well this was a total ewick/awwwaghh!!! moment for me. And here I though the Brits (esp Clive Owen) were above bein so trite. Still not sure if the trailer is bad or just has the misfortune of trying to get people to see a worse movie. Since I would rather die than sit through this sappy crap I’ll just assume it’s both.

Trailer I had to see so much I got sick of: Duplicity and Shutter Island. When you see dozens upon dozens of moves in the theater in 2009 you don’t exactly expect variety in the trailers but to see the same two every time is agony. I sat through the two trailers so much I had to be creative or risk losing my mind. Ironically both movies were decent but I almost didn’t watch them.

Okay, I’m almost ready to let go of 2009. Just one more list to go and that’s the worst movies of the year.

Click for full list.

Directing

1. James Grey’s Two Lovers
2. Lars von Trier’s Antichrist
3. Quentin Tarentino’s Inglourious Basterds
4. Michael Heneke’s White Ribbon
5. Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker
6. Chan wook Park’s Thirst
7. Duncan Jones’s Moon
8. Roy Anderrson’s You, The Living
9. Jane Campion’s Bright Star
10. Coen Brother’s A Serious Man
11. John Hillcoat’s The Road

Writing

1. QT’s Inglorous Basterds
2. Armando Iannucci and co.’s In the Loop
3. James Grey’s Two Lovers
4. Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man
5. Alessandro Camon and Oren Moveman’s The Messenger (a better story than Hurt Locker!)
6. Duncan Jones and Nate Parker, Moon
7. Woody Allen, Whatever Works (oh, shut up, the writing in that shit is tight)

Favorite Performances

1. Sam Rockwell in Moon–one of the best one-man-performance movies ever. No other actor put as much in a role as Rockwell did. He not in the movie, he is the movie. Rockwell needs his due.
2. Charlotte Gainsburrow and Willem Dafoe in Antichrist
3. Kang-ho Song in Thirst–Easily my favorite international actor. The best vampire performance since Willem Dafoe in “Shadow of the Vampire.”
4. Viggo Mortensen in The Road–History of Violence, Eastern Promises, The Road. Wow.
5. Cristoph Waltz in Inglorous Basterds
6. Peter Capaldi in In the Loop–”Climbing the mountain of conflict”? You sounded like a Nazi Julie Andrews!”
7. Melenie Lorrent in Inglorous Basterds–Nobody could have seen either Lorrent (or Waltz) coming. While he stole the show, the movie belonged to her.
8. Joaquin Phoenix in Two Lovers
9. Jeremy Renner in Hurt Locker
10. Tilda Swinton in Julia
11. Colin Firth in A Single Man–This is what happens when a great actor finally gets a great role.
12. Woody Harrelson in The Messenger and Zombieland–Great fun in Zombieland, great sad in Messenger. Harrlson plays crocked eyed wild in both but his crying scene in the later is one of the best dude crying scene in recent memory.
13. Jason Cope in District 9–If only the movie was as good as the performance.
14. Samantha Morton in The Messenger–One of the best actresses working. What baffles me is how few talked about how good she was in this film.
15. Bill Murry in Zombieland and Limits of Control–Most leading performance did not contain as much brilliance as Murray’s five or so minute scenes in these two movies.
16. Nick Cage in Knowing and Bad Leutenent–A laughable actor in two laughably good films. Bad Lt. specifically figured out Cage in a way few films have.
17. Paul Schneider in Bright Star
18. Abbie Cornish in Bright Star ?
19. Mimi Kennedy in In the Loop
20. Jeffery Dean Morgan in Watchmen

Cinematography

1. Javier Aguirresarobe, The Road
2. Anthony Dod Mantle, Antichrist (hereby forgiven for being the DP on Slumdog)
3. Bruno Delbonnel, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
4. Joaquin Baca0-Asay, Two Lovers
5. Robert Richardson, Inglourious Basterds
6. Roger Deakins, A Serious Man

Best and/or Most Iconic Lines

1. “I can’t stand to see a woman bleed from the mouth. It reminds me of that Country and Western music which I cannot abide.” In the Loop
2. “Chaos reigns.” Antichrist
3. “Wait for the crème.” Inglorous Basterds
4. “You don’t speak Spanish, do you?” Limits of Control
5. “My name is Shosanna Dreyfus and THIS is the face of Jewish vengeance!” Inglorous Basterds
6. “I failed John Keats. I did not know until now how tightly he wound himself around my heart.” Bright Star (that line gets me every time)
7. “What are these fucking iguanas doing on my coffee table!” Bad Lieutenant
8. “I can’t say enough times, whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filch or provide, every temporary measure of grace, whatever works.” Whatever Works
9. “Goddamn it, Bill fucking Murray!” Zombieland
10. “His soul is dancing.” Bad Lieutenant
11. “Is Doc Miles gonna have to choke a bitch?” Crank: High Voltage
12. “Are you mad that you died at the end of Die Hard?” Funny People
13. And this one from A Serious Man…

Larry Gopnik: So, uh, what can I do for you?
Clive Park: Uh, Dr. Gopnik, I believe the results of physics mid-term were unjust.
Larry Gopnik: Uh-huh, how so?
Clive Park: I received an unsatisfactory grade. In fact: F, the failing grade.
Larry Gopnik: Uh, yes. You failed the mid-term. That’s accurate.
Clive Park: Yes, but this is not just. I was unaware to be examined on the mathematics.
Larry Gopnik: Well, you can’t do physics without mathematics, really, can you?
Clive Park: If I receive failing grade I lose my scholarship, and feel shame. I understand the physics. I understand the dead cat.
Larry Gopnik: You understand the dead cat? But… you… you can’t really understand the physics without understanding the math. The math tells how it really works. That’s the real thing; the stories I give you in class are just illustrative; they’re like, fables, say, to help give you a picture. An imperfect model. I mean – even I don’t understand the dead cat. The math is how it really works.
Clive Park: Very difficult… very difficult…
Larry Gopnik: Well, I… I’m sorry, but I… what do you propose?
Clive Park: Passing grade.
Larry Gopnik: No no, I…
Clive Park: Or perhaps I can take the mid-term again. Now I know it covers mathematics.
Larry Gopnik: Well, the other students wouldn’t like that, would they, if one student gets to retake the test till he gets a grade he likes?
Clive Park: Secret test.
Larry Gopnik: No, I’m afraid…
Clive Park: Hush-hush.
Larry Gopnik: No, that’s just not workable. I’m afraid we’ll just have to bite the bullet on this thing, Clive, and…
Clive Park: Very troubling… very troubling…

Music

1. Clint Mansell, Moon (one of the best composers around)
2. Hanz Zimmer, Sherlock Holmes(Hanz is back!)
3. Christopher Young, Drag me to Hell
4. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, The Road
5. Joe Hisaishi, Ponyo
6. Abel Krozeniowski, A Single Man (see, it’s possible to sound like Phillip Glass w/o being as annoying as him)
7. Mike Patton, Crank: High Voltage
8. Michael Giacchino, Star Trek (much, much better than his Up score)

1. Mark Jakubowicz and Fernando Villena, Crank: High Voltage
2. Sally Menke, Inglourious Basterds
3. Anders Refn, Antichrist
4. Jon Gregory, The Road
5. Ant Boys (real name?) and Billy Sneddon, In the Loop

Best Set Piece
Pretty much any sequence in Hurt Lucker.
The bar scene in Basterds which is not even really a set piece… which is why it’s such a good set piece!

Best Nekkedness
That girl in Jarmish’s Limits of Control that was naked for like the whole movie!

Liam Neeson from Taken vs. Jason Stathem from Crank
I can’t, I can’t, it’s like choosing between my two (really buffy) kids. Okay, Chev wins the fight but only because he can’t really be killed.

Best Horror
Antichrist, best of the year, which makes it two years in a row for the horror genre.
Best Vampire Movie: Thirst
Best Zombie Movie: Zombieland

Best Sci-fi
The Box and Knowing

Funniest Movie
In the Loop

Best TV Movie
Caprica… long live the new/old flesh!

Best 3D Movie
Still not Avatar so Coraline it is!

Best Ensemble Performance

• Basterds–Pitt, Waltz, Lorrent etc.
• Moon (not New Moon!)–Rockwell, Rockwell, Rockwell and Robot.
• Bright Star–Cornish, Winshaw, Snyder, Fox.

Best Non-Human Performance

• Kevin Spacey in Moon. Robot.
• Jason Schwartzman in Fantastic Mr. Fox. Fox (better in clay than he was in flesh in Funny People)
• Up‘s talking dog. Dog.
• Jim Carrey in Christmas Carol. Um, human.
• Dakota Fanning as Coraline.
  

Best Video Game Performance/Voice Acting

• Nolan North in Uncharted 2
• Mark Hamill in Batman Arkham Asylum
• Cammy in Street Fighter IV (not good, just like looking at  the booty)

Finally, check later in the week for the final installment if the best, before I get to the worst that is.

1. Antichrist
Director: Lars von Trier

This film reminds me of Dante’s famous quote ”Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” about his fictional descent into hell. His character had it easy. In what became far and away the most original (and hated) movie of 2009, “Antichrist” established its own rules, created it’s own visual discourse and pissed off just about anyone who watched it in the process. This film divided to a point of anarchy, proving to me that some of the worst films of all time are, to others, some of the best and most interesting. It can be called a lot of things: the worst film of the year, torture porn, misogynistic, an art house version of “Saw,” “The Shining” on acid and even perhaps just a string of curse words. Okay, so I made all that up up but at the top of the list of things I would call “Antichrist” is the best film of the year.

Set in the aftermathof the accidental death of their child, “Antichrist” features just two characters (“He” and “She”) as they experience the stages of loss that include grief, pain and despair. In an effort to be “normal” again they head to the archetypal site of the fallow woman’s fears, the woods, a place in the middle of nowhere or, perhaps, middle of everywhere if you were to take the philosophical approach that these two characters are removing themselves from civilization to a cabin called Eden. This is a staggering and absurd work of dissonant visual poetry that pompously wages nothing less than the true nature of mankind and questions his/her place in “Eden.” The sinister beauty of nature certainly provokes strong emotions and the film’s heightened sense of formalism is a contentious matter of film geek debate. Some find the stylistic oddities unnerving and mean while other are inspired by the aggressively bold stance writer/director Lars vonTrier takes. Though the haters seem to outnumber the lovers by a large margin, the lovers love it by a larger margin. This is a film worth fighting over and while I feel the love I also understand where the hate comes from (this film is ridiculous) but at the same time hope that the anti-Antichristers understand that the film was made to provoke us into an feverish hatred of ourselves, others, the film we’re watching and most importantly the person behind the movie who wants us to hate all of the above. To hate it, in other words, is to validate its reason for existing. That alone does not make it any better but the goal here is to get past objective feelings of hate or love to arrive at some sort of truth in the object of art. That’s what “Antichrist” is all about and, really, that’s what movies are about.

Having never been a huge fan of Lars von Trier, this is the film where I feel he finally arrived director of tangible substance. In the past he effectively hid behind his own self-amused experiments and ironic melodramas but emphatically buries the “realism” of that pre and post-Dogme. “Antichrist” backs up its dark themes, subjects and symbols with a unique aesthetic approach that one can look at and debate until the end of cinema itself which can’t be too far off. I found this transcendentally down and dirty experience to be anything but cold, sexist or nihilistic as politically correct critics are quick to point out in an effort to discredit this movie. Another common slam is the (mis)reading that “Antichrist” is nothing more than a misogynistic battle of the sexes where the probing and rape-like intellect of man (Willem Dafoe–is there a better or more beautifully angular face in the movies today?) brutalizes the atavistic irrationality of woman (the bony perfection of Charlotte Gainsborough). Sure that’s one level of what’s going on but that is also a naive and reductionist reading that fails to take into account the notion that this is a film about artificial divisions that we make. Mankind’s arrogant assumption that “nature is Satan’s church” or that s/he is separate from or better than nature is what ultimately leads to the decay of what makes us human in the first place. Through the filter of horror of all things this film captures the existential pain of our banishment from Eden by returning us there and showing us how far we’ve fallen. In regards to gender issues as well as the man vs. nature theme, the film disavows dividing traits in it’s thesis that nature –the ugly side as well as the beautiful– is in man just as man is in woman (sometimes literally) and vice versa. To resist nature and to resist our nature is to kill it. The final, bleak summation that “chaos reigns” in the end makes the appropriately titled “Antichrist” the most disturbing film about the dark side of humanity ever made. Also the most howlingly ridiculous considering that bit of wisdom is coming from a talking fox that just ate its own tail.

2. Two Lovers 
Director: James Grey
Continuing the trend of tortured relationships, “Two Lovers” boasts two separate dysfunctional romances for the price of one! This is a profound work from one of America’s greatest and most underrated filmmakers, James Grey. “Two Lovers” is at once classic filmmaking/storytelling that recalls the great romances of the 50s and 70s and yet totally fresh in its approach to the genre through its dark tones, heavy technical mastery (romances are never this well made) and uniquely neurotic outlook that adds layers of meaning to a story that features real adults and real complexities. Grey is a director that previously worked in one genre, crime, and did it well, but here shows his true colors as a hopeless and helpless romantic. It’s his best work to date and that’s saying something because 2008′s “We Own the Night” is one of the decade’s best. The film got swept under the rug thanks to the hobo looking Joaquin Phoenix’s bizarre antics but lets face it, the real problem was the general impossibility to market an American romantic film that doesn’t appeal to US Weekly readers. The title is pretty much exactly what the film is about but if neither of those “two lovers” are Sandra Bullock why should we care? Romance is a crippled genre that was able to stand on its own two legs for a brief moment before it was brushed aside. I would bet anything that “Two Lovers” will be discovered in the years to come because it has to. A film this good, this well made, this human and this touching can’t go unnoticed, it just can’t. From the performances (Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Vanessa Shaw), to the cinematography and right on down to the subtly brilliant sound design (rain, thunder and fish tanks!) that puts you in Leonard’s bipolar and love struck world, “Two Lovers” is the best genuine love story I’ve seen in years, maybe ever, and the best American movie of the year.

3. Inglourous Basterds
Director: Quentin Tarentino
Tarentinoowned the 90s and set himself loose on the 00s with, in the words of his Bible quoting character, “great vengeance and furious anger.” After he worked up the nerve to return to movies post “Jackie Brown” and got the revenge epic “Kill Bill” as well as that little road trip revenge movie (… that people don’t like to talk about) out of the system, QT turned to this inwardly epic WWII fantasy story about (but not really) a band of Nazi hunting Jews seeking, you guessed it, revenge. To call it a brilliant piece of filmmaking would not do it justice because, more than anything, it is a brave piece of filmmaking. Brilliant because of what it is and brave because of what it does or, rather, what it does not do. While the renegade basterds are a bat wielding force that “the Germans will talk about” and “fear,” “Inglourous Basterds” is not a typical “war movie” and it is not the revenge movie that “Kill Bill” or “Death Proof” are.

Forget about the fact that the film contains the unstoppable Basterds and not one but two separate (and simultaneous!) plots to overthrow Hitler (a brilliant plot detail by the way), all the pivotal moments contain nothing more than a few characters talking to each other at a table. From the masterful opening scene set in a farm to the subtle but hair raising strudel scene where the theater owning Jewish girl hiding in the farm is now being interviewed by her family’s killer to host Hitler movie night, to the tense (and wickedly extended to De Palma-size proportions) bar sequence to, finally, the moment of ultimate truth/truce where a discussion between the great Jew Hunter (Christoph Waltz) and lead basterd Brad rewrites the course of the modern (fake) history. Here’s the genus: more than guns, dynamite, the Jew Hunter’s choking hand or even Brad Pitt’s big ass knife that he uses to carve a swastikas on the foreheads of Germans so that they can forever bear the mark of their evil, Tarentino’s weapon of choice is the explosive power of celluloid and transformative nature of cultural and ideological discourse. In Tarentino’s universe, film itself is the catalysis that changes world events by literally transforming its audience. Film canisters set the world on fire while the theater holds us all trapped but riveted. Now there’s an alternate universe I would much rather live than the one we’re stuck in.

4. Thirst
Director: Chan Wook Park
Vampires are big and this film could care less. Similar to my number one film of 2008, this gorgeous anti-love story (another “Bad Romance”  makes the list!) rewrites the vampire movie rules of narrativity, myth making and visual presentation. In a world dominated by brain dead “Twilight” fans, “Thirst” madeliving in a vampire-centric culture a little easier in 2009. It blazes on with a blatant disregard for fluffy vampire lore and sparkling heroes. Directed by Chan-wook Park (he of  the Vengeance Trilogy fame), “Thirst” is a perverse morality tale about a priest, the always great Kang-ho Song, who gets infected by this “virus” while on a pilgrimage, becomes a religious icon in his country, looses faithin God, grows bored withthe prospect of eternal life, falls in love with a girl and infects her, creating a(nother) monster in the process. He spends the rest of the movie in a Russian-lit version of hell, which is before that literal hell he may soon face at the hands of an angry God he’s not even sure (or cares) exists anymore. Forget puffy shirts and Tom Cruise, this is what it means to be a vampire folks! This is not only a smart genre movie but one of the craftier explorations of religion and perdition I’ve ever come across. In other words “Thirst” is not something that could ever have been made in America.

5. In the Loop
Director: Armando Iannucci
What’s so good about “In the Loop?” Besides everything? Okay, how about dialogue that spews as much gold as it does bile “I can’t stand to see a woman bleed from the mouth. It reminds me of that Country & Western music which I cannot abide.”  How about editing that is fast as it is funny–a mock doc without the winks. How about the f-star-star-star-ing pitch perfect performances by Tom “climb the mountain of conflict” Hollander, Mimi “mouth bleeder” Kennedy, Tony Soprano and the scene/movie stealing Peter Capald-fucking-i? Imagine “Dr. Strangelove’s” satire with the UK’s “The Office” style and some meta-doc “Tristram Shandy-isms” thrown in.

“Loop” captures the feeling of being a little fish in a big, nasty, oil covered pond full of sharks (republicans), leaches (the media) and toothless bottom feeders (liberals… AND the English). “Loop” mocks/attacks all sides, showing the absurdly pathetic situation British-era politicians and policymakers faced when trying to buddy up to Americans in the time just before an entire war was invented from thin air. The feeling that these people are running around trying to get in this “loop,” which is inhabited by idiots screaming at each other, is ridiculous because the loop is just that, an insulated circle with no on-ramps or pauses for logic, reason or public interest to enter. Unlike political comedies like “Charley Wilson’s War” or “Wag the Dog” this film never wavers in its realism and yet also never hammers you with it. Taking satire to a new level, “Loop” is fun, then funny then sad when you realize that the humor is not that far fetched.

6. The Road
Director: James Hillcoat
The following really needs bold lettering: THE ROAD IS UNDERRATED. This film is as plain spoken and beautiful as the Cormac McCarthy novel that spawned it. Maybe modesty is why so few noticed this exceptional and sadly overlooked 09 film. “The Road” is special because it takes a serious look at the fall of man. This is not an action or science fiction or even fantasy movie, it is simply the single most important work in the apocalypse genre. A film that does not demand to be taken seriously, but should. The world has moved on and what it has moved on to, in the words of McCarthy, “cannot be made right again.” 
The economy of “The Road” is something to be marveled at because everything we see fits into this barren world. The vegetation is withered and browning and when the corpse of trees fall to the we realize that the trees did not just die but they have been dead for a long long time and their fall. That feeling of nature inevitable last gasp carries over into ever aspect. The world is not dying it is dead and mankind’s last survivors, what few there are left, find themselves witness to Earth’s quietly dwindling epilogue. The film captures hopelessness in ways even the great book can’t quite offer because we are SEEING what had happened to the earth and what is happening to humanity. Viggo Mortensenplays a man withno name who exists to ensure the survival of a son with no name in a world where allowing the young an innocent to survive may ultimately be a curse more than a blessing. Yet he persists and isn’t that’s the whole point? His performance is… right. Possessing the perfect image of a Great Depression era face set in this even greater depression, every line in Viggo’s face and smudge of dirt on his skin is as well worn as it is weary. And when he speaks, it’s poignant but never pompous. “If he is not the word of God, God never spoke” the man says of his son, whom the father is simply trying to raise to be “good” in a place where such moral qualifiers have lost their meaning. That is if those words ever really had meaning because for all the “good” in man look where it got them.

7. The Hurt Locker 
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
I never get tired of saying how much I hate Iraq war movies. I HATE IRAQ MOVIES. Ah, so refreshing, it just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it? “The Hurt Locker,” a film that looked like just another Iraq 2 drama, single handily made me think twice before dismissing this genre. Then I saw “Brothers” and went back to hating it. Oh well. I saw the film over a year ago and, by now, everybody knows it. Sure this isn’t the “best” film of the year but whatever flaws there may be in the narrative structure are commendable if you consider this film’s jagged, nearly episodic sequences as an extension of the fragmented lead played so well by Jeremy Renner who should have won the Oscar (sorry Bridges). Renner’s Sgt. William James is one of the more interesting war characters I’ve ever come across because, as many have noted by now, he feeds off the discord rather than whines about it. We may not understand the war but after watching we do understand why he would want to go back. It’s a drug and the bombs James diffuses work as a handy metaphor for the male ego as well as the entire FUBAR situation we find ourselves in “over there.” 
What I respect most about “Hurt Locker” is its ability to takes us unto the sandy trenches and come out without a agenda or slant. It’s not anti or pro war, it’s just war. Even if you’re against this war “Hurt Locker” will endure beyond “Brothers” and “Stop Loss” and “Redacted” and “Greenzone” and all those shame on usdocumentaries because it removes itself from judgment and, thus, seems to have more integrity. The wonderful filmmaking by Bigelow (happy to say that I’ve been a fan since “Strange Days”) may be big and loud but the screenplay is contemplative, subtle and barley even there and the two styles make for a perfect marriage (unlike Bigelow and James Cameron hehe). After it’s big Oscar run K-Big should really make an Afghanistan-set sequel. She can even take her time making it because we’re going to be there for a while.

8. The Box
Director: Richard Kelly
If you ask me who the best new directors of the last decade is –or was– I would point to Richard Kelly as someone who should make the list. If you then laughed at me I would cite “Donnie Darko” then recommend you watch or rewatch “Southland Tales” and give his latest film, “The Box,” a shot. If you still laughed I would tell you to enjoy your Zach fucking Snyder films and walk away in total defeat. But, yeah, Richard Kelly………. Richard fucking Kelly. Three films in and I’m wondering why we don’t pay more attention to this mainstream cult filmmaker. In each meticulously made project, one thought always comes to me: “What……. is….. going on?” For some that’s why his film suck and for others it’s why they’re so good. Eschewing the modernist impulses of “Southland Tales,” a brilliant flop of a project that must of exhausted him, Kelly returns to intimate mystery while adding the assured bravado of a modern Hitchcock. This is like a Hollywood-er version of “MulhollandDr.” (mystery boxes!) and “Lost Highway” (suburban murders go down while creepy dudes visit your house with absurd proposals and deadpan whispers of ”I’m looking at youright now”) meets one of the twistier moral scenario seen in “The Twilight Zone” (push a button = someone dies = you get a million dollars). Equal to those stories, “The Box” evokes a striking end-of-the-world-ish sci-fi doom and gloom scenario that brilliantly ties the fate of the world to the morals of it’s inhabitants. ::Sigh:: when it comes to the end of the world plots people picked the bluntness of “2012″ over the strange subtle qualities of “The Box.” I could go on describing the movie but think back to “Darko” and ask yourself if any description would do the film justice? Like “Darko,” this film made no money and like “Darko,” it may find a small but loyal following willing to “walk into the light.”

9. White Ribbon
Director: Michael Heneke
You could watch “White Ribbon” and mistake it for a lost classic of the new wave German cinema made in the 60s through the 80s. Except it’s not lost, it’s modern and made by Michael Heneke, one of the world’s greatest pessimists; a director that, like von Trier, is not only unafraid to sow the seeds of discord but gleeful about doing so. The film, a brilliant anti-teutonic counterpart to “Inglourous Basterds,” offers a harsh de-glorification of pre-war Germany. As much of a nationalistic cautionary tale as it is an intimate drama, the specific theme or thesis of the disturbing film is left deliberately murky. Instead, Haneke offers more of a mood than a theme as the slowly unfolding events in this small town parable play out foreshadowing, of course, the torn, divided and ultimately ruined Germany that is to come. But that’s just the context. At the heart of things, this appropriately black-and-white film is a brooding mystery about sins of the father(s), who are careless and cruel, and the sins of their offspring. The little basterds in this film could hold their own against those in Heneke’s”Funny Games,” ”Cache” or just about any one of his creepy-kid movies. Containing very little plot in the traditional sense of the word, “White Ribbon” moves at a glaciers and is shot with deliberate distance and space. The approach allows for an atmosphere that builds and builds and builds and, by the end, festers into something really ugly. It is a truly wonderful piece of filmmaking that evokes the iciness of Bergman and social malefice of Aurthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”

10. Ponyo
Director: Hayo Miyazaki
“Ponyo” has a way of washing over you like a warm current in the dark sea of life. He may have done better but, really, that’s a relative notion when you’re dealing with Hayo Miyazaki. Miyazaki’s latest and hopefully not last children’s film is a treasure that captures a dreamlike wonder and innocence of childhood. ”Ponyo” does not tread new ground for both Miyazaki(this is a Japanese “Little Mermaid” after all) or ecological message movies (it’s more imaginative than “Avatar” though) but it makes up for its lack of innovation with a wealth of dedication to the craft of non-ironic storytelling. The reigning animation master’s brilliance is actually getting old so I can see why “Ponyo” slipped through the cracks because his brilliant “Howl’s Moving Castle” suffered a similar fate few years back and that film is as awesome as they come! Like a lot of the under performing films on this list, this modest little gem would rather endure than cash-in. Recalling the opening shots of this movie where a ocean full of strange and wonderful life co-exist in a soup of marvelous creature creations, Miyazaki sets the stage for a young marine girl’s strange and scary adventure on dry land. She wants to become human and, in turn, we feel human while watching her story. This movie gives its viewer a world that feels loved and fully inhabited. I saw a fair amount of animated films in 2009 and none came the slightest bit close to matching “Ponyo’s” charm. Especially Pixar’s “Up,” a film so forced you can practically feel the balloons popping under the stress. Ponyo’s” serene, sea-set pleasures are unassuming and unsoliciting of our affection. It exists in a natural state of wonder and cuteness.

Alternate Top 10

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Director: Werner Herzog

Another “Bad Lieutenant?!” Who would have though? Who could have? Herzog, only Herzog! It’s hard to describe this movie. I’ll try, but I’ll fail. This is not a remake and its not a sequel or a prequel to the 1990s film of the same name starring Harvey Keitel, Nicholas Cage’s “National Treasure” co-star. It is its ts own beast, a totally original re-envisioning (for lack of a better word) of a film nobody asked to be made in the first place. Having seen far too many lame remakes/reboots I feel this is exactly the kind of film that should be re-made! Besides, one doesn’t cash-in with “Bad Lieutenant” because… where’s the cash? The fact that this was made means it was made for a reason. I say that because Werner Herzog is behind it. For those who don’t know, and shame on you if you don’t, Herzog is a gritty auteur who happens to be one of the most fascinating directors working today because he has figured out a way to make films for himself as much as he makes them for  Hollywood (“Rescue Dawn” was his last). 
As wired as cat in heat and as sleeplessly bug eyed as a lizard, the film stars Nicholas Cage as a dirty, drug addicted cop. Now, Cage playing a cop under totally “normal” circumstances would be an exercise in overacting theatrics (ahem, “Face/Off”) but add heavy drugs, severe back pain, corruption and sexual compulsion and you have a potential acting disaster on par with “Wicker Man,” another cop performance. Instead, the crazy of Cage and craz(ier) of Herzog cancel each other out, yielding something improbably good. The clips above and below are my gift to you and if they don’t make you want to see this movie then you might just be too well-adjusted to watch. Hunchback, wild eyed, screaming, and laughing through every scene, this is a remarkable collision of Cage’s tension and Herzog’screativity. They are so good together that there almost doesn’t even need to be a scrip. And there practically isn’t. The performance is exceptional because I laughed at it withthe awareness in the back of my mind that what I’m laughing at is not entirely a joke (it shares that quality with”Antichrist”); there’s something genuine going on here. Same with the film. It has an unmistakable 90s aesthetic in the way it is shot, the quality of the shoot and the pacing. Did Herzog do that to pay homage to the original? Who knows? All I do know is that Herzog’s quirky indulgences (tons random shots of reptiles for instance makes for a truly wacky, only-in-Herzoglandmetaphor for the kind of people we’re dealing with) make this the best cop movie since “Kiss, Kiss Bang, Bang.”

okay, two more clips (I just can’t get enough)

A Serious Man
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
…yet not as serious as one would think given the subject matter. Jews in Michigan in the 1960s. You can imagine. Except you can’t because you don’t think like the Coens. I cannot recall laughing this much at such a depressing film. ”A Serious Man” is about an even-tempered professor (Michael Stuhlbarg, the discovery of the year) whose life goes from bad to worse to down right ridiculous. Things fall apart in every way possible to a point of near divine intervention–its almost as if God has chosen this man to fuck with. All this character can do is… react. To people, to chance and to his own steadily declining nerves. The film takes the narrative causality of one of the Coen’s beloved crime movies like “Blood Simple” or “No Country” where the protagonist makes a bad moral choice at the beginning of the film and then everything after goes wrong from him in the karmic and physical sense. The difference is there’s no crime here, just minuscule choices that people make that shifts the tides of their life. The cruel joke is that others seem impervious to the fickle hand of fate. Everyone except for the marvelously creepy guy (Fred Melamed) who steals his wife away in the most humorously condescending way possible; “let’s just step back, and defuse the situation. I find, sometimes, if I count to ten… one… two… three… faw… or silently…        …          …          …”
This is the Coen’smost philosophically fertile film to date, which is saying a lot coming off of “No Country For Old Men.” Like that movie, the unmoving and seemingly illogical hand of fate becomes crossed with, or perhaps tangled to, forces of randomness. All of which are energized with the mystical forces of cabala, Judaism and vintage Coen wit and mockery. They really should create their own Church at this point. I would totally join. 
I get the sense that this is one of those rare times where the Coen’s are not mocking their protagonist. They haven’t really liked one of their protagonists since “Fargo.” Okay, also The Dude because who doesn’t like The Dude. “A Serious Man” has been called the Coen’s most personal film to date and I would go one step beyond that to call it their most real film. Real is a much better word, too, because I’m not so sure the directors are capable of being “personal” because that would require a person. These filmmakers are clearly not of this earth. They are studying us and they are laughing at us. The irony is that within the alien community they’re still probably considered weird.

Summer Hours
Director: Olivier Assayas
How do you sum up a person’s life? One way is by looking at all the crap they left behind. “Summer Hours” does that but –unlike my choice of words– in the most eloquent way possible. It is a leisurely meditation on lives lived and lives in the living; the passing of an old era is not really a passing at all but a ghostly merging with the collective now. In the least sentimental way possible (thank god) the film is about a old woman with a rich history who passes on and leaves her house and art collection behind for relatives to pick over. There are three distinct acts. The film opens strongly with a bittersweet family get-together, spends its middle chunk detailing the organizational and financial and, oh yeah, emotional aftermath of death (I loved the scene where the kids pass through the house with appraisers, picking at these things of great value that spiritually mean nothing to them anymore) and ends, perfectly if I may say, with the children of the children having a party in the now empty estate. They are innocent and possess very little awareness of the shared connections. But it’s there, and we feel it. They will die too the film seems to be saying in the most optimistic way possible. This film is not mean or sad or funny or one of those bullshit “Big Chill” celebration of lifestories. It’s also not cold or overly analytical. Instead I would just say that it’s a very natural effort from Olivier Assayas (“Irma Vep,” “Demon Lover”), who, by not showing off for the first time, has made his best film yet.

Crank: High Voltage  
Director:Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
“Juice me!” That line, or some variation of it, is spoken often. Jason Stathem, the speaker, growls lines such as that like roidedout Energizer Bunny with a really good sense of humor. So, okay, this is a total indulgence pick on my part; every year I seem to stumble across a fantastic film that happens to be viewed as nothing more than shallow commercial entertainment. For most, though, calling “Crank 2″ “entertainment” in any capacity is a kind act as it was generally disliked/dismissed by critics and unamused audiences who didn’t quite know what to make of it. Like the character that fuels it’s cinematic combustion engine, this action/fantasy/comedy is a thing of pure energy. It is also the most wildly fetishistic, male body worshiping hyperbole since Arnold walked into “Terminator” as naked as a baby. It works as a very clever action parody that went over everyone’s head. Or not as it’s remains unclear if I see more in the series than others do or if others don’t see enough. Like his action predecessors, Stathemgets ripped beyond belief but unlike them he takes his battery charged and literally heartless body through a plot beyond belief, finding time for sex, drugs and a full fledged/full sized Godzilla style battle with the man that stole his heart. Not in the gay way either, his actual heart.

Anvil!: The Story of Anvil 
Director: Sacha Gervasi
The best documentary I’ve seen since “Grizzly Man” (made by the above filmmaker). In the commentary for “Anvil!,” the director proudly stated that Michel Gondrygives this movie to his actors and demands they watch it. There is more truthin it, he tells them, than anything you could possibly script out. That’s such a good point that I’ll try my best to forget that he must have given his actors that advice on the set of “Green Hornet.” This film is like lightening caught in a bottle. It’s so perfect that I can’t believe it exists the way it does. Shots and scenarios play out with such a pitch-perfect blend of pathos and comedy that it feels like a modern retelling of “Spinal Tap” right down to quirky characters, long hair and Stonehenge imagery. But this is not a put-on for the exact reason Gondrysays, you just can’t make this shit up! There is a moment where the aging, stringy hair rockers (down on their luck Canadian metal rocking Jews) are on a European tour that includes stops at clubs with two people to promote an album that those two people probably didn’t even buy. The band shows up in their own grungy van and do a set only to find out that their gig check (probably for about $10 bucks) was taken away because they showed up late. The owner, instead, decides to pay them in borscht. As the lead singer known as Lips (a truly wonderful character person) screams his “fuck you, man” anthems at the shady owner, spit flying out of his mouth in the process, the rest of the band can be seen in the back of the shot slurping up the slop with a look of utter metal-head defeat on their faces. It’s hilarious, its heartbreaking, it’s “Anvil!” Rock on!

Knowing
Director: Alex Proyas
Another Nic Cage movie made the list?! Go ahead, laugh, I did too until I sat back and thought about the effect this movie had on me. Cage fires on all hammy cylinders in a Saturday night supernatural thriller that, on the surface, looks like just another Cage paycheck. And it is! Except sometimes Cage accidentally manages to cash-in on a good movie. This year he did so on two which may never happen again. “Knowing” is a powerful sci-fi fantasy that takes the end-of-the-world subgenre to one of the most interesting places I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen it all except for “Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell” which is totally on my Netflixqueue. Though his films are not well regarded outside of a Roger Ebert review, the underrated director of films like “I, Robot” and “Dark City,” Alex Proyas, is actually one of the best big budget directors around. Proyasis that rare sort of popular filmmaker that figured out how to make his films visually interesting while doing the same thing with his stories. The pacing is remarkably effective because when the number-fixated conspiracies get old, Proyas does what a film like “2012″ couldn’t, he changes direction so that suddenly we’re now watching a full on horror mystery and when that gets old Proyas goes all sci-fi on us. When that gets old… well, it doesn’t because the kind of sci-fi this film has to offer never gets old! Nobody would be blamed for not seeing this silly looking movie, many however will be rewarded for taking a chance on it.

You, The Living
Director: Roy Anderrson
Life sucks. It’s a miserable, meaningless void that signifies nothing other than our misfortune to be alive and stuck with each other. Lets laugh about it! “You, the Living” features a string of vaguely connected vignettes covering the most extraordinary quirky of topics and finding deadpan humor in the most random places. Swedish director Roy Anderrson is not just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, he links together one magnificent scenario after anotherin an effort to dispel misery while wallowing in it. The title lays out the tone perfectly. It’s YOU, the living, not US the living and with this the director seems to be channeling from somewhere beyond subjective human experiences. In this film you will find trombone jam sessions, tortured dogs, suicide, drunks, crying –lots of crying– sex withemaciated trombone players, death, traffic jams (a shout-out to his masterful “Songs From the Second Floor”), direct address monologues, a larger emphasis on nightmares than I expected, judges chugging beer and dishing out the electric chair during court, people crammed like sardines in tight places like bus stops and elevators, Nazi tabletops, and enough generally weird shit to put the entire Japanese entertainment industry to shame. The miracle is that by the end you will not feel depressed. Somehow, Anderrsonpulls it off. Scenes play out with great humor (most are set up like a joke, punch-line and all) and an even better sense of composition. Anderrson is a director of singular importance and originality. He masters his craft not through traditional narratives, sunny dispositions or any editing to speak of. His camera sits and watches while you watch characters watch you watching the watching camera. Sure time flies when you’re having fun but this film is living proof that it flies by a lot faster when you’re going “what the fuck?”

Bright Star
Director: Jane Campion
Here is penance for all the dark love stories I saw and loved in 2009 even though, if you think about it, “Bright Star” is just as dark if not darker than them. I put off watching “Bright Star” until the last minute. And can you blame me? It’s a movie about the late love/early death of poet John Keats madeby the director of “The Piano.” “Crank 2″ this is not. I’ll say it now and say it loud: I, along with so many others, were wrong to not want to see and embrace this beautiful movie. Possessing the same timeless qualities as Keats’ poetry, you could watch “Bright Star” fifty years from now and find yourself just as moved by it as if you saw it at the Cannes premiere. The film is about the ever so short relationship between the poor poet (the unwashed-as-always Ben Whishaw) and Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish, a rare beauty whose rounded features are impossible to look away from–not only am I in love but I totally got Ryan Phillipe’s back now). The film is also about the artistic process. Keats and his adorably acerbic writing partner Charles ArmitageBrown (an out of left field Paul Schneider who steals the movie with his alluring Scottish accent and stinging irony) sit around, discuss words and “ruminate” which is another way of saying doing nothing–poets were definitely the 19th century equivalent to being in a rock band. This is one of the best films ever made about an artist and “the woman who inspired him.” Campion is too smart to resort to biopic clichés (no constant reminders that this unsung figure is going to be famous one day), period movie blunders (either trying to over dramatize a famous relationship as “The Young Victoria” did or underplaying things to a point of suicidal boredom as Campionherself did with “Portrait of a Lady”) or romantic hyperbole (the agonizing trope of making the muse the primary creative agent a la “Copying Beethoven”). She’s also not out to make this pure yet short lived relationship something of a tragedy (though Keats is pretty emo even before “the sickness”). Campion’s skills as a storyteller first and filmmaker second really shine here. She knows when to hold a shot and when to cut, she knows when and what dialogue is appropriate and when silence accomplishes just a much.

Beaches of the Agnes
Director: Agnes Varda
“What is cinema?…. Light coming from somewhere.” I can’t think of a better documentary for French film lovers! If only every director made a film about themselves. If only every director were as interesting as Varda. Realizing, and wisely so, that objective “reality” is impossible, director Agnes Vardadoes something much better with this most personal of films. She reflects reality through the sandy mirrors of the cinema. Looking like the grandmum from “Triplets of Belleville” I watched this self-made reassemblageof the New Wave legend’s life with a unwavering smile. Like “Summer Hours,” this is a leisurely stroll through the corridors of someone’s life. In that sense, it’s not positioned to be some grand or pretentious statement but a much earned bout of super self reflective filmmaking that reminded me of Al Pacino’s documentary about the artistic process “Looking for Richard.” The abstract editing is particularly remarkable. When Varda says “the idea of fragmentation fascinates me” she intends to backs that up in this moving biography. Reenactments are staged to reflect various moments in Varda’s life, French history and, most importantly, French film history (the history of a nation is composed of the mired histories of individuals after all). This film’s depiction of history is so deliberately staged that the film effectively challenges fiction and non fiction conventions, two genres Vardahas worked in. I am usually distracted by this technique in documentaries but “Beaches” makes good use of its “theater” by simply calling attention to how artificial it can be much in the same way Fellini did with “8 1/2″ or some of his documentaries like “Roma.” By the end though Vardabecomes comfortable with being “my self” in front of the camera and this candidness is what really ends up making the film something special. With “Beaches” Vardareflects on the eternal nature of cinema by juxtaposing that magical quality with the fleeting nature of her own life. I never grew tired of her photography, her stories or her spirit. What a trippy self-tribute.

Moon
Director: Duncan Jones
“Moon” is visionary but a truly depressing feat of science fiction storytelling. Set in a space station, this one man show stars Sam Rockwell in a performance that put everything else to shame in 2009. Hell, even his robot companion, voiced by Kevin Spacey in his best performance since “The Usual Suspects,” outdoes most performances. “Moon” is a science fiction film for people who like the look, feel and doomed intimacy of something like “2001: A Space Odyssey” more than the hipster schlock of last year’s “Star Trek.” The one (crazy) man scenario also recalls the oddball charm of the sci-fi cult classics like “Silent Running” as well as, in the end, the surreal disturbances of Friedkin’s “Bug.” Yes, there was a time when science fiction experimented and took chances. Unlike it’s tragic Phantom of the Spacestationhero, “Moon” is free from corporate intervention and tampering.  The best thing “Moon” does is reminds us that budgets don’t make for good sci-fi movies, ideas do. This is a film I admire, not one that I like, and not one that I find easy to write about so I’ll move on to one I do…

Special Mention…

Drag Me To Hell
Director: Sam Raimi
Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of Raimi, I’m just not a fan of Hollywood SAM RAIMI, the guy that directed those dreadful “Spider-Man” films. I derived practically no enjoyment out of his big budget escapades and that is strange principally because Raimi, at his core (and when he’s at his best) is one of the most purely enjoyable American filmmakers working today. I specify “America” because there’s nobody more fun to watch than Joe Wright. “Drag Me To Hell,” a fantastic horror comedy made in the goof-spook vein of “Evil Dead,” makes the list for that simple reason. It’s sense of fun is pure.

Still Walking
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
“Still Walking” is about a family that reunites one weekend during a summer. This modest film by Hirokazu Koreeda (“Nobody Knows”), is very similar in plot, if not culture, to Assayas’ “Summer Hours.” It’s nonetheless a rewarding to see how two countries tackle a similar issue without resorting to melodrama. This wonderful little reflection on life, death and family history being passed down from one generation to another (to yet another: children) is told in the gloriously un-rushed sea set tradition of Yasujiro Ozu. Pretty much the only difference is that the returning son in this film will occasionally pick up his cell to receive a text message. Oh, and the story climates in an action  packed denouement where a cranky old father, his unloved son and his unloved son’s loved step son, walk to the beach… for five minutes… in silence. God, I  love these kinds of films. Issues from the past linger but don’t fester and are not always resolved. Bickering continues but never comes to a blow. Life moves on and sometimes people don’t/can’t/won’t change. Some lessons are learned, others are simply washed away by time while just a few are passed on such as sonss not making the same mistakes as their father. Here is a film not in a rush to say anything that ends up saying a whole lot.

Sherlock Holmes
Director: I can’t believe I’m writing this but, yes, Guy Ritchie
While it’s sad to see Holmes turned into an 1800s master of science “Iron Man” action hero, this modern retelling of the Holmes mythos managed to be both fun and daftly smart. It’s easy to make fun of Guy Ritchie at this point and hard to remember that, however arch and bullheaded he tends to be (Britain’s Michael Bay), he did make at least one good movie, “Snatch. Make that two good films! This time Ritchie doesn’t show off as much as he allows his character to show off for him. And he’s got the right man for the job. Robert Downey Jr. gives Holmes the Johnny Depp treatment and by that I mean he fully looses himself in this character, giving him a ton of idiosyncratic ticks and a real sense of obsession. As far from masterpiece theater as human can possibly be, Holmes a reclusive lout laying in filth and performing his OCD experiments on flies and dogs and himself until the “game is a foot” at which point he’s a scruffy, clue hunting hound dog. 
I particularly enjoyed how Ritchie is able to make Holmes an action hero but in such a way that’s somewhat true to his style. This is just the sort of take/update to the character that was needed to make him relevant again so quit your bitching and enjoy. The film, as well as Holmes, may be silly but he’s never dumb and the film actually values the mind over the muscle. When on the precipice of attack, for instance, the film freezes as Holmes internally calculates the best method of attack (figuring out the attacker is a drunk by the smell of booze on his breath, for instance, then applying a quick jab to his liver). After living in the great detective’s brain for a few moments the film will pop us back to real time as we see the chain of attacks Holmes laid out so neatly performed in an orgiastic flurry of intellect, sensuality and kinetic action. The film applies that same level of causality to Holmes’ power as a detective. A smudge of chalk on a shirt or speck of inc on an ear can basically sum up a character’s life story while something as small as a stain on a rat’s tail can lead Holmes to the source of his next clue. This happens a lot and Ritchie’s zippy style is quite good at visually representing Holmes’ methods with flash forwards/backs that almost match Edgar Wright (“Hot Fuzz,” “Shaun of the Dead”) in visual cleverness.

Taken
Director: Pierre Morel
Speaking of fun. This year’s “Gran Torino” ladies and gentlemen. There’s just something about watching grumpy old men kicking all kinds of ass that feels so damn satisfying these days. Liam Neeson, a retired CIA agent, is called back to “my old life” for a personal bout of vengeance and heads to Europe to kick the head in of every shit eating piece of Euro trash that may have had anything to do with his dumb ass bubbly daughter who dun got herself kidnapped and sold into white slavery like a bruised puppy. Hahahahaha!!!!!! This was one of the great guilty pleasures of the year for me right alongside KFC’s Kentucky Grilled Chicken except I don’t know which is more overcooked. Watching the angry American brnad his personal blend of Papa justice (not eye for an eye but eye for a head) upon the “bad guys” was a cathartic thrill as it arrived in an age where Americans are completely inept and powerless both abroad and in country. That the film is made by a Frenchmen and stars a giant elf of an Irishmen makes it an oddball role-playing inversion where the Euros get to imagine what it’s like being bossy, self-entitled Americans. You know what, they’re good at it. This twist gives the film an ever-so-subtle spin on the usual pro-American Hollywood hooey. But, really, I love “Taken” because, despite its total preposterousness, it ended up taken (haha) itself seriously. Maybe this is not a good thing but the film’s humorless sincerity combined with a “Death Wish” ideology reminded me of the good old days where bad asses like Arnold or Chuck (of the Bronson and/or Norris variety) would go into a room to save their daughter and not leave till the evil doers were rounded up, grounded up, and spit out and, hum, who are we forgetting, oh yeah, their daughters were sitting pretty atop their shoulders. God bless American violence.

Whatever Works
Director: Woody Allen
“Hollywood Ending,” “Melinda and Melinda,” “Anything Else” and last year’s under the radar “Whatever Works” are some of the least popular Woody Allen films of the decade and perhaps ever made. They also happen to be in on short list of the filmmaker’s most underrated works to date. Speaking of works, ”Whatever Works” finds Larry David doing more than just being Larry David. His persona here is Larry David by way of Woody Allen! Okay, not a huge leap but it’s a match made in non-Christian heaven. When it comes to Woody Allen I have taught myself not to listen to what other people, even Woody Allen fans, (especially Woody Allen fans) think about Woody Allen movies.

Dean Spanley
Director: Toa Fraser
“Dean Spanley” is really just about a father who has been estranged from his son. That alone would not be a reason to rank it here so I should elaborate. It’s about a father and son who are united by a friend named Dean (Sam Neill) who, as it seems, was a dog in a past life and will only talk about those “dog days” when under the influence of a rare wine previously reserved for Spanish royalty. Did I forget anything? Probably but at least I didn’t forget to put it on this list.

The Messenger
Director: Oren Moverman
This somber but simmering on the insidemodern war drama is about two messed up soldiers, Woody Harrilson and Sam Foster, who go around telling people their kids/husbands/baby mamma’s etc. have died in a stupid, pointless war. What a job. I like to think of “The Messenger” as “Up in the Air” for the non-retarded who hated “Up in the Air.” It tells you a story without making the characters into “gee, these are real Americans, lets sing their common praises.” It’s overwrought in a big way but not in a way I minded because the film is approaching tired material (soldier coming home from war, yada, yada, yada) witha sense of nobility a rare mood of outright anger at what’s going on overseas and here at home. “The Messenger” is great because it starts about these two men, one a former drunk (Woody Harrelson) and the other’s a current dick (Ben Foster), who don’t know each other but rather than being ALL about that, the film splinters off when Foster falls in love with one of his jobs, a single mom played by Samantha Morton. Once again the film avoids clichés here. Foster is good but the reay show stealer is Harrelson, who finds his most interesting character in years. His final scene is heartbreaking perfection and if there’s anyone other than Mr. Waltz I’d love to see get the Oscar this year it’s him. Plus he was in “Zombieland” so that’s pretty cool.

Pandorum
Director: Christian Alvart
This year saw an explosion of hot sci-fistories hit the scene. Very few were actually good. The first, “Pandorum,” is about two characters waking up in a space ship withno idea how they got there while other, the significantly more arty “Moon,” is about one person on a space station with no memory of his past. Both make the 09 list because they are amazing, visionary works but also to make a point. That point being that Hollywood is mainstreaming sci-fi to a point of generic dilution. These films take it back to its roots, one through grindhouse sci-fi nightmares and the other through art house dreams. The huge impact “Star Trek,” “District 9,” “Transformers 2″ and “Avatar” helped to give sci-fi its first genuine renaissance in years, decades maybe. I’m happy in a sense and sad in another. Happy for my favorite genre. Sad that my favorite genre is being watered down by clunky moralizing and obvious metaphors. “Pandorum” is not that kind of film. It’s a dark and unforgiving space horror movie (the survival horror video game “Dead Space” withelements of the cult movie “Event Horizon” and some of the better aspects of “Saw” thrown in) witha claustrophobic mise-en-scene that reminded me of “Alien” or, to a lesser degree “The Descent.” Best of all, and what makes this film worth seeing, is a final revelation that stands as one of sci-fi best genre twists of all time.

Adventureland
Director: Greg Mottola
“Superbad” mets “Wet Hot American Summer” except it doesn’t try as hard either. Plus the film throws in Kristen Stewart as a Jew and Martin Starr (“Freaks and Geeks”) as, um, an even bigger Jew. Score!

A Serious Man
Director: Tom Ford
Ack! I forgot to include “A Serious Man” when I first made this list. Crippling third act problems aside, a few things save this unique film about the saddest gay man on earth. First, of course, Colin Firth in a touching and uniquely human performance. We see the world through this sad man’s eyes and it is as if we’re seeing it with new eyes thanks to Tom Ford’s vision. I wish more non-directors could get films like this made but I can see why they don’t as it takes a special kind of director to wrap up everything by the end. Still, Ford’s ability to experiment with cinematography and period movie conventions (not to mention out-Mad Menning ”Mad Men”) make this film hard to forget. Er, well, I kinda did forget it but I’m mad at myself.   

The Good, The Bad, the Weird
Director: Ji-woon Kim
Some of the first, a little of the second a lot of the third. This is another oddball Korean release except it’s is not a horror film. Or a drama. The director’s previous films include “A Tale of Two Sisters” and “3 Extremes” which he co-directed with none other than Chan Park (who made my number four pick) and the genre(s) of choice here is Western screwball comedy. It’s not only the highest budgeted Korean film ever made but one of the most fun. This quirky Korean epic (a chow mein western?) about a hero a thief and a thug looking for treasure marked with a big X burned into a much sought after and McGuffinized map reminded me of the spirit of the American adventure in the days before stars and high concepts and CGI took a big dump on creativity.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Director: Wes Anderson
There’s a moment in this stop motion animated film where a recovering boy gets mad at his cousin from out of town visiting his family’s fox hole. The cousin cries and the boy (Anderson staple Jason Schwartzmen) comforts him by showing the crying fox his train set. The film cuts to the fox family’s shanty house (literally a hole in the ground) and in the background we see a real train, from the human world, passing by. It’s not hard to see what’s going on here. Wes Anderson  is showing us his train set. Is Anderson capable of anything else? Visually, well yeah because this is his first animated film but at the same time “Fox” is as coyly self-examined as anything he’s done since “Rushmore.” Besides the hole non-human thing, “Fox” is basically just another Wes Anderson film in stop motion sheep’s clothing. Everything takes place on a 180 degree plane and every line of dialogue is wry and overly factual. While I’m tired of Anderson, this film renewed my fondness if only for a short period. I like how the film out-humanizes humans by making its universe of animals (even the ones who usually eat each other) respect each other and even band together to do one thing: “Survive,” the grinning Papa Fox voiced by George Clooney (in full Danny Ocean mode) says with such gravely coolness that his performance easily surpasses that whole “Up in the Air” embarrassment. The film also get points in my book for casting Jarvis Cocker as a thug by day and musician by night who is told “That’s just bad songwriting. You wrote a bad song, Petey!” by his land hording and Fox hating hood of a boss and, you know what, I think I just ranked this film on my list so I could include that line. I’ll just give co-writer Noah Baumbach credit for writing it and call it a day.

The Watchmen
Director: Zach Snyder
Hold up, hold up, this does not mean “Watchmen” is on my list. It just happens to be in my list, you see, hanging out  like someone at a party that wasn’t invited and nobody’s is talking to.

worth mentioning…

• Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel)
• I Love You, Man (John Hamburg)
• 35 Shots of Rum (Clair Denis–might have gone higher if I got around to seeing it with English subtitles.)
• 24 City (Zhang Ke Jia)
• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (David Yates)
• Tulpan (Sergei Dvortsevoy)
• Precious (Lee Daniels)