We take only a small amount of pride in being almost as painfully slow as the prestigious Academy to sort through our own opinions and award the year’s best in movies. In fact, we’re even painfully slower - we didn’t know the Oscars were scheduled for tonight until Friday. (And where the hell was I?)
Partly a victim of circumstance, partly trapped in the moribund Midwest, we always scramble during January and February to load ourselves up on the previous year’s best. Still, we fall short. Frost/Nixon, for example, hasn’t surfaced anywhere near here. Our local art cinema has scheduled Milk and The Reader for the next two weeks, after the Oscars have already concluded and nobody plans to watch those hollow award pleas again. Which, I suppose, is OK.
But by now, you’re sick of our whining, hyperbole and excuses – and you’re certain this column runs longer than Benjamin Button. To our lists!
Still waiting: Rachel Getting Married, Frost/Nixon, Doubt, Synecdoche, N.Y, Frozen River. Here’s the thing about movies. By and large, I’ve already made up my mind that I will like these, and two of them possibly will crack my top 8 below. So if any of them are terrible, my vengeance will boil over. (See Revolutionary Road, below.)
Never even knew about until today’s blog research: Young People F**king, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. YPF seems doomed by its arrogant, sneering title masking a simple twentysomethingesque relationship saga. I never heard about How to until just now; perhaps coincidentally, I read the side-splitting, brilliant memoir on my plane to Mexico. Not the best year for Toby Young: banned from the set of his own book’s film adaptation, the film turned out to be terrible, and his grating stint as the guest judge on Top Chef, offering more misapplied metaphors and grandstanding than most Congressional committees.
Totally, unequivocally ‘meh:‘ The Bank Job, Smart People, Chaos Theory, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I liked some things about all these movies, but not enough to really care about any of them. Funny thing about these incessant Judd Apatow movies – sure, they receive lauds and accolades for supposedly pushing the comedy envelope, but then they recede faster than Nic Cage‘s hairline. Doesn’t it seem like Forgetting Sarah Marshall came out about a decade ago?
Lukewarm anticipation:
Milk. I don’t want to sound politically incorrect, but I’m bored by the whole thing. Most biopics fail to inspire me; and after the fiasco of Brokeback Mountain — simply a dreadful wink-wink joke about gay cowboys — I have no inclination to watch another film that allows critics to pat themselves on the back simply for accepting the gay community. I realize I sound like a Republican, but I do not care. Sean Penn, however, will win the Oscar tonight in the Academy’s latest attempt to reward the self-important Penn in lieu of a career turn by a grinder like Bill Murray or Mickey Rourke. Jerks, I know.
The Reader. I just can’t get past poor testimonials, critical, word-of-mouth, and otherwise. An Oprah-book-club winner about the Holocaust? Yeah, sign me right the fuck up.
The Curious, Three-Hour Case of Benjamin Button. David Fincher has been one of my favorite directors since Seven, and I have watched The Game nearly 200 times. Yet this can’t be any good, can it? Not only does it resemble Forrest Gump to the point of mimicry, it’s similarly heavy-handed in some sort of lovey-dovey, time-tested, pompous message. I just can’t get past the feeling it’s a bloated version of a Father Guido Sarducci comedy routine – without the laughs, of course. By the way, this will win the Best Picture Oscar. You heard it here first.
Wall-E. Of course, Pixar’s latest is on every fawning critic’s top-ten list, and many of them are pissing and moaning that it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. Sigh. Fuck them, it’s a cartoon. You want to whine about a comic-book character snub, I’ve got just the movie for you.(Hint: It stars Batman.)
Personally, I can’t believe that everyone overlooked Pixar’s shameful rip-off of Ron the Robot (left) one of my homemade comic-book character creations from back in fifth grade. Those are light bulbs as his eyes, ears, and nose, in case you’re wondering.
(Didn’t see that one coming, did you?)
Unimpressed.
Indiana Jones & The Longest Title. At first, I called this movie no worse than Temple of Doom. Now, however, the whole thing just seems laughable.
Kung Fu Panda. Another animated movie that critics swooned over for no apparent reason. This was like an hour long, and the voice work actually was abysmal. What the fuck gives, critics? Whatever happened to stuff like The Secret of Nimh? Now that’s an animated movie!
Baby Mama. Believe it or not, this apparently was a comedy.
Religulous. If I wanted to see Bill Maher smugly berate religion, I could watch … well, every single thing that Bill Maher ever does. (Cymbal clash!)
Snow Angels. Hey, look! A totally depressing movie with thoroughly unlikeable characters who behave with actions more contrived than the last, as though writers are attempting to steer the audience like puppets on a string! Should we critics like it? We should, indeed!
Man On Wire. Sure, fine, it’s interesting, I’ll give you that. Yet I couldn’t bother to be impressed by the determined, amazing feat of dancing between the World Trade Center because I was too busy hoping the insufferable lead character would plummet to his death.
Revolutionary Road. The most disappointing movie of 2008. Normally I’d be thrilled with a re-creation of Sam Mendes‘ timeless American Beauty. Instead, however, I was unable to buy this mess for a second. Critics everywhere panned the story, yet still lauded Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. However, to me, they dragged the film down more than anything — overacting at every turn. The story sputtered because of their stilted dialogue, each line sputtered or overpronounced with impunity, robbing the characters of any versimilitude. Within 10 minutes, I could no longer care, and they couldn’t win me back. Indeed, I’ve seen more understated acting in high school drama classes. As a final insult, a throwaway, explanatory-device character earned a Supporting Actor nod. Cripes. I’ve seen better exposition on fucking 24. I should, also, point out that Slate is correct, for once.
The top 9, in reverse order.
9. I’m On a Boat. Just checking to see if you’re still paying attention. Actually, this is totally valid.
8. Iron Man. Comic-book superhero movies are probably getting better overall (unless they’re about The Hulk.) Iron Man mixed the right amount of gravitas with just enough tongue-in-cheek humor for an enjoyable ride.
7. Burn After Reading. The Coens’ nice follow-up to the masterpiece No Country For Old Men, in that it’s totally different. Features George Clooney talking fast, Frances McDormand acting charmingly goofy, John Malkovich screaming and yelling, and Brad Pitt distilling his inner quirky. In short, everyone’s doing what they do best.
6. Slumdog Millionaire. Engaging, intriguing, and impossible to detest, Slumdog is a winner because it doesn’t shun its most preposterous moments – neither the contrived game-show setup nor its hokey love story. Instead, however, it uses these along with flashbacks, storytelling, and effective acting to illustrate the coalescence of chance, fate and random past experiences into an actual destiny. Personally, I even enjoyed the font and color design of the subtitles. But then, I’m a geek. If it won Best Picture, would that really be so bad? I mean, it’s light-years better than Crash.
5. Gran Torino. Clint Eastwood‘s winning redemption story isn’t so much an afterschool special on racism as a meditation on aging, mellowing, and learning from past mistakes. Over the top at times, but charmingly understated at others – Eastwood sucks you into his character’s pain, torment, and conviction. Personally, I’m simply pleasantly surprised, after the overrated spectacles of Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, I fretted about seeing this. See, Clint, I can change, too.
4. Definitely, Maybe. Now, at first glance, you’ll think this is simply a reflection of my man-love for Ryan Reynolds, our generation’s Bill Murray. Not so. Definitely, Maybe features a somewhat hokey setup, but still is a fresh tale of a college star student coming to grips with an inability to change the real world. Most of all, however, it’s a chick-flick that’s totally written by and for guys. A coming of age story with a lead character navigating the pitfalls of awful relationships and taking small dance steps around maturity, Reynolds is perfect as the sensitive, bumbling everyman. Loses points for an ending that felt superfluous – the actual story should have climaxed about fifteen minutes earlier. Check it out and you’ll see.
3. The Wrestler. A gripping saga of fleeting fame, advancing age, and coping with a world that passes you by. This movie is fantastic; the failure of the Academy to nominate it as Best Picture is the second biggest snub this year alone (AHEM, see below.) Mickey Rourke deserves the Oscar, and the film deserves your attention. A resonant character study, Rourke‘s harrowing wrestler commands your attention, scorn and admiration.
2. In Bruges. Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell team up as cantankerous mentor and protege marooned in a tourist trap, waiting for instructions on what to do next. The blackest of comedy and a sublime tale of friendship and frustration, In Bruges deserves best original screenplay for its dialogue alone. But I’m a sucker for that – to me, the best books and movies always feature the most authentic dialogue (partly the reason Revolutionary Road could never get off the ground). To top it off, I’ve been to Bruges (actually liked it), I hate tourists, and I like swearing.
1. The Dark Knight. Of course. You already know what I think, hell, I called Batman Begins the best movie of 2005. (And rightly so.) I’m bothered by the end of the year rush of Oscar movies, which result in most critics giving The Dark Knight only passable mentions on their top-10 lists. You really going to watch Milk over and over on DVD instead of TDK? Really? Quite simply, the most impressive, genuine, bleak and daunting portrait of the Caped Crusader and the Clown Prince, on film or on the pages. Years from now, when we’ve forgotten all these forgettable Oscar nominees, forgotten the rest of this list, and forgotten whatever happens tonight – we’ll still be queuing up Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece. And that’s your Best Picture.
