Avatar (2009)
Avatar IMDB Link
Directed By: James Cameron
Written By: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang
*Random thoughts on Avatar*
- I feel like if I was 13 years old that Avatar would have been the greatest movie of all time. Unfortunately, I’m not 13 and so most of the emotional hooks didn’t bait me because they were just too simple. Now most film critics would go on to mention how the dialogue was shitty and that it’s just a remake of Dances With Wolves (or any other white guilt film) in an attempt to rationally convince you with their intellectual prowess that Avatar sucks dick and is not deserving of all the money and adoration it is receiving; I am not one of those people.
- Avatar is the generational film that still has “that” ability. For me “that” movie was undoubtedly Jurassic Park. I remember squirming in my seat in fourth grade math class pumping my knees up and down constantly glancing at the clock because that night I was going to see mother fucking DINOSAURS at the movies. That day I saw velociraptors circling around a dude and a T-Rex breaking into a car and I just understood why people went to see movies, my brain got it and so I got it. Avatar creates that same type of experience. I saw Avatar on 3 separate occasions, twice with friend’s I promised I would see it with and a third time with my family. That third time it was my mom, dad, sister, aunts, uncles and cousins and I could see that same googly eyed look on a lot of their faces that I had after seeing Jurassic Park.
- That googly eyed look is important. Lets say I was going to introduce an eleven year old to movies. The last thing I would do is make them watch A Clockwork Orange, Taxi Driver or 8 1/2. Two hours later and they would probably never want to watch a movie again. Aside from the obvious adult subject matter is simply how those films are made. Those films are made with the notion that the audience understands the language of cinema and uses that understanding to create a deep and intricate film. Those films are three of my favorite movies of all time because of this but they all lack “that” ability that Avatar has. If I were to show that same kid Star Wars, Avatar or Jurassic Park he would get it, he would be in, his brain would understand why we go into a dark room to watch flickering images on the screen. I understand and appreciate these films for what they do. What I don’t understand is how people somehow lose sight of this simple idea that you can’t take a creative medium for granted. Movies aren’t going to be watched simply for existing, you need films that come once in a generation to create new fans and jolt the attention of others and Avatar achieves this. And while this eleven year old kid will think that Avatar is the greatest movie of all time now, he’ll eventually foster a love for the medium and eventually be interested enough to watch something like Taxi Driver and be blown away at all it has to offer. But getting that foot in the door, getting the feet of millions in the door, that’s an accomplishment that can’t be ignored.
- You know 9/10 guys were looking for a CG nipple slip. You know it’s true.
- James Cameron is the new Spielberg. Other than Pixar, no other name now holds more good will with the general public when it comes to movies.
- Is this the first movie where Michelle Rodriguez was able to stay below a 5 on the “annoying character” scale? I mean she’s usually averaging an 8. Old school Michelle did surface when she had her face and helicopter covered in war paint.
- Holy cow did that movie look good, just mind blowing visually. I would love to take a time machine and show George Melies and Fritz Lang what film makers are capable of creating today. Their heads would actually explode. I’m serious.
- I can’t be the only one who thought about Warcraft III (the giant world tree) and Final Fantasy (the glowing forest) when watching Avatar.
- Being a gamer hindered my reaction toward Avatar. The nerd appetite of my brain is constantly being fed by video games. Aliens, distant planets, spaceships, mechs and even a mech jumping from a spaceship onto a distant planet to kill aliens isn’t new to me. So I can imagine all the big budget sci-fi stuff had a much bigger impact on non-gamers.
- I love how much of a nerd James Cameron is and his ability to translate his love for sci-fi into something compelling. From The Abyss to Terminator to Avatar, he’s always found a way to incorporate his fascination, disgust and love for technology into his films. He sort of reminds me of a cleaner, less nutty David Cronenberg.
- Why does James Cameron always have to have at least one forehead slapping bad moment in his movies? I still slap my forehead every time I watch Terminator 2 and “Bad to the Bone” comes on. Avatar had about 6 different head slapping moments but the “I see you” at the end with the Irish guy being cradled in the giant blue alien’s arms takes the cake.
- I’m going out on a limb here but I think James Cameron’s favorite color is blue. Come to think of it, I don’t know a single movie he’s done that isn’t overflowing with blue.
- James Cameron is still the best action director alive. Since he made Terminator 2 we’ve seen a lot of filmmakers try to take the crown. We’ve seen hyper stylistic films like The Matrix and 300 to Nolan’s anti-style action in his Batman movies to Michael Bay’s insanity and an overflowing amount of just plain annoying shaky camera. No one directs action as well as James Cameron. All his scenes feel intense and chaotic and yet you always know when, where and why something is happening. They also have a flow to them, a distinct understanding of the highs and lows of the action that build to a crescendo relaying to the audience when and where to care. And they are also so tightly crafted from the framing to the camera movement to the editing, just all around stellar film making. You could probably devote an entire semester studying the last 30 minutes of Avatar and sequences from Terminator 2 and Aliens dissecting how to direct action.
- Having said that, (you don’t respect wood do you?) what’s depressing is that James Cameron proved he still has it but he’ll probably be in this PG-13/family limbo for the rest of his career. Come to think of it…
- How fucking excited would you be if James Cameron bought back the rights to Terminator and made Terminator 3 pretending like those other films didn’t exist? Oh…my…god.
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Tags: Avatar, James Cameron, movie review
The Decade (00’s)
What’s in a decade, what does it say? The 70’s is widely considered the golden age of film because the studio’s and filmmakers were both willing to take major risks in their creative medium. They birthed films like Easy Rider and Taxi Driver which were lead by anti-heroes strangely weaving you through stories you had never seen before that were filled with emotional depth and inspirational ideas of what cinema could accomplish.
Ironically because the 70’s was the counter-culture decade the 80’s was the counter counter-culture decade with movies featuring strong protagonists, clarity between right and wrong, an emphasis on shallow meaning and an enthusiasm for basic emotion. While the 70’s brought us films bursting with meaning the 80’s brought us fun romps through adolescence and the rebirth of the hero.
When the 90’s arrived it wasn’t a response to anything but more of a rejuvenation of creativity and flexing of the medium. With Miramax leading the way there was an injection of new blood, of new film makers ready to leave their mark and we got classics that changed cinema forever. You could just take The Matrix, Pulp Fiction and Braveheart and see the effect they had on not only how people approach and consume cinema but how filmmakers did as well. What was also so incredible about the 90’s was this burst of creativity crept into every genre including comedy and gave us classics with Office Space, Swingers and There’s Something About Marry.
So with the 90’s being so good that meant that the 2000’s could only get better? But looking back on this decade I just see a major decline. The cream of the crop still produced fine additions to cinema but the overall offerings were low. While the 90’s relied on creativity and imagination you could say that the 2000’s relied on other peoples creativity and imaginations. So many re-makes, re-imagining, re-boots or re-hashes of movies done previously. This was the “more of the same” decade. And as the more of the same became the norm so did the complacency with studio’s as they took very little risk and most of what we saw were big budget movies. What happened to the small well thought out films that littered the 90’s and 70’s? I’ll tell you where they went, TV.
TV this decade was a much better source of the things I usually enjoy in cinema. The storytelling, the characters, ideas worth exploring and situations I never thought could be made so entertaining. Make no mistake, this was the decade of Television. If I had to tell someone who missed out on everything in television and cinema just one thing to watch I would without a doubt tell them to watch The Wire; a show filled with brilliance at every turn that rewards you in ways you’ve never experienced. Then you have a show like Lost which made me furiously call/e-mail/meet up with people after episodes just to nerdily dissect every little thing that occurred. And shows like The Shield and Battlestar Galactica that created so much tension my fingernails would just be mush when the credits rolled and all I wanted was to see what happened next. Or what about Generation Kill, Dexter, The Sopranos, Curb your Enthusiasm, Damages, 24, Band of Brothers, Deadwood, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Mad Men? Those are just a few, there was an absolute flurry of incredible television this decade.
What’s depressing is that this incredible generation of television is ending and studios are investing less and less into television like this. You can look at Flash Forward and V as examples of this. Those aren’t ideas just waiting to take stage and blow your mind away. Those can be renamed “Hopefully We Can Capture Lost But Won’t” So what happens in the next decade? With these shows all ending eventually and Hollywood just catering to $100m+ movie budgets where will we turn to? My boy David Simon is working on a show for HBO but what happens when that ends? All I have to say is, lets hope Avatar lives up to the hype and thank god for video games.
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Tags: 00's, 2000's, best of, cinema, film, movies, Retrospective, The decade, year in review
There are films that come around every once in a while entering our zeitgeist and influencing the medium by either how they were made or simply their style. These are the top 10 most influential movies in my estimation; most were for the bad, some were for the good and others impossible to ignore.
X-Men (2000)
This decade saw an explosion of comic book movies and it all relied on X-Men. X-Men was the first comic book movie in a long time that took itself seriously and actually attempted to be more than just a b movie. If X-Men’s quality or sales figures were poor we probably wouldn’t have seen the apex of the comic book movie genre in The Dark Knight.
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Before Michael Moore came out with Bowling For Columbine he made a great documentary about Flint Michigan in Roger & Me. But lets me honest, not that many people saw it. Bowling for Columbine reminded people and film makers that documentary can actually be more than people sitting in a chair talking to a stationary camera and instead actually be entertaining. He also showed that they could also make money and soon after we saw a slew of documentary’s reach wider audiences than they previously would have had it not been for Bowling for Columbine and it’s success.
Old School (2003)
The blueprint for almost every comedy this decade.
Step 1: Take a manchild
Step 2: Surround the manchild with other manchilds who say dude a lot.
Step 3: Have comedic scenes involving 1/2 bro-humor 1/2 omg he’s embarrassing himself in front of a girl-humor.
Step 4: Ruin the ending with some bullshit chick flick shit.
Step 5: Remake the movie, this time calling it Wedding Dupree: Pie
Step 6: Rake in the cash laughing while people see the same bullshit again.
Garden State (2004)
The hipster movie that captured the sentiments of what feels like everyone in my generation except for myself. There was a period of time where it felt like everyone I knew was telling me to watch this movie. Even though I was unimpressed, I can’t deny that it started the slew of hipster movies that soon followed all taking cues from Garden State. It also unfortunately started the “hey we listen to the same obscure indie band, we’re soul mates” trend.
The Ring (2003)
Take asian cinema, remix it for US audiences, repeat the process until the money is bled dry and people end up hating the genre. I call this the Activision model.
District 9
This hasn’t been influential…yet. I imagine we’ll see in the next couple years the effect of District 9 in film making be it through how many people attempt to imitate it’s hyper realism or how it’s proof that big name actors don’t really matter as much today. No one cared that District 9 didn’t star Tom Cruise because we didn’t want Tom Cruise. Hopefully we’ll see more conceptual pictures like District 9 instead of actor vehicles.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Anyone who was into film loved Asian cinema and their action scenes, just ask the Wachowski brothers. But actually having *gasp* Asians in a movie and it grossing well in the US was an indication to make more. And what followed Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was a slew of great imitations of Asian cinema with actual budgets and unfortunately and over usage of the choreographed wire fighting.
Shrek (2001)
Another blueprint, this time for non-pixar CG movies. See here.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
I know Wes Anderson made Bottle Rocket and Rushmore before The Royal Tenenbaums but The Royal Tenenbaums was his movie that exploded onto the scene and it’s still being imitated today. What sucks is this weird idea that if you completely rip off Wes Anderson you are somehow being artistic. Get some of your own shit and stop having your actor dress in quirky outfits that match the background while speaking in a deadpan voice you unoriginal fuck-o’s.
The Lord of the Rings (2001)
Take one of the most beloved movies ever and make it into a franchise. While the chance of failure was slightly slim it was still there. Jackson made an incredible picture but more importantly it made a tremendous amount of money. Studios realized that people wanted to see huge films and huge films with sequels and thus started the trend of the 2000’s. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, all the super hero movies, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Harry Potter films and currently the Twilight series. Also, helicopter aerial shots have increased by 700% ever since the first movie came out.
*Avatar (2009)
Not out yet but lets be honest. If this movie is incredible and/or successful we’ll see tons of 3D not only in theaters but maybe in our homes sooner than we thought.
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Tags: 00's, 2000's, cinema, Decade, films, influetial, movies
The other lists I thought about for a while but this one in particular really made me pull my hair. It’s hard to compare film makers. For example, P.T. Anderson made my favorite movie of the decade in There Will Be Blood but he only made one other movie this decade in Punch Drunk Love. Quick side note, I actually have a theory about Punch Drunk Love. I think that’s P.T.’s “big dick” movie. I think he wanted to show everyone how good of a filmmaker he was so he took a joke actor in Adam Sandler, a spotty plot and a tiny budget but was still able to weave a fantastic tale. He wanted to show everyone just how big his dick was and that he didn’t need an incredible ensemble cast to make a fantastic film and to be honest he succeeded. He is without a doubt the filmmaker that I am looking to this next decade for greatness. But, with just those 2 films is that enough to be a top 5 filmmaker of the decade?
Then you have someone like Steven Spielberg. I know people hate on this guy but his decade was incredibly strong with Munich and Minority Report as his best and A.I., Catch Me If You Can and War of the Worlds as the rest of his strong offerings. A very diverse portfolio and each of those films all had interesting moments or takes on their respective stories.
Then you have guys like the Coen brothers who had outstanding offerings in No Country for Old Men and Oh Brother Where Art Thou‘ followed closely by the stunning cinematography and style of The Man Who Wasn’t There. But I have a problem with the Coen Brothers because they are a lot like Jay-Z. They are capable of so much greatness but instead choose to lower themselves with mediocre attempts at comedy with films like Intolerable Cruelty, The Lady Killers and Burn After Reading (I haven’t seen it yet but c’mon, a Brad Pitt comedy after No Country for Old Men?)
And what about the kings of the 90’s in David Fincher, Martin Scorcese and Quentin Tarantino? Those guys were my shit last decade. They all gave us at least one great film with Zodiac for Fincher, The Departed for Scorcese and Kill Bill Vol. 2 for Tarantino. But none of them were able to reach their incredible status of the 90’s and I wonder if they will ever be able to reach those heights again. All 3 still had fantastic decades.
Or how about the great Miyazaki who finally broke the western barrier with Spirited Away and then brought us Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo? Or the philosophical Richard Linklater who brought us mind benders and casual fun with School of Rock, Before Sunset, A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life? And lets not forget Ridley scott who started out the decade with two greats in Gladiator and Black Hawk Down or Paul Greengrass with his distinctive style bringing us United 93, The Bourne Supremecy and the Bourne Ultimatum.
And what about Peter Jackson? The man made all three Lord of the Ring’s films, King Kong and is about to release Lovely Bones. And I can’t forget Alfonso Cuaron who made the only good Harry Potter film in Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban and the 2 incredible pictures in Y Tu Mama Tambien and Children of Men.
And then you have the filmmakers that I am ashamed to not have caught up on. Oldboy made my top ten movies of the decade but I haven’t seen Chan-wook Park’s other offerings which are supposed to be mind blowingly awesome in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and Thirst. Or Ming-Ling Tsai, a filmmaker I have yet to tackle who I read over and over made some phenomenal pictures this decade in Face, What Time Is It There? and Goodbye Dragon Inn. And from my boy Wong Kar Wai I was only able to see In the Mood For Love and missed out on 2046, Eros and My Blueberry Nights.
As you can see there were a lot of great filmmakers this decade which made cutting this list down to five that much harder. But what it ultimately boiled down to was how the other lists ultimately boiled down to: Gut reaction. I think back on this decade and who do I think about? These 5, that’s who.
Christopher Nolan
Dominating. Lets work this out backwards like Guy Pearce’s character had to. Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige and The Dark Knight. And he’s currently working on a bananas sci-fi picture in Inception. Not only was his film the pinnacle of what this decade seemed to be striving towards but it was also the most universally loved film by both critics and movie goers. An outstanding decade and I can’t wait to see what he does in the next one.
Zhang Yimou
A true visual master and no one does color like Mr. Yimou. While none of his films made my top 10 for the decade, I did consider them all. Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower were all visual feasts more akin to ballet than film. And while it doesn’t count, there is no way I’m ever going to forget the most terrifying yet beautiful sight I’ve ever seen that was the intro to the Beijing Olympics he directed. I simultaneously thought to myself “this is beautiful” and “Oh my god China is going to destroy us all…in perfect unison”
Joon-ho Bong
Two of his films almost made my top 10 in The Host and Memories of Murder and he also released Mother this year which was also incredible. In a decade with a clear drought of new talent Joon Bong-Ho was that new guy that solidified his place with genre bending pictures and brought me hope for the future. I can’t wait to see what he makes next.
Clint Eastwood
Prolific. Gran Torino, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby and Letters to Iwo Jima. Those are 4 stellar pictures and he still has yet to release Invictus which is getting a lot of good buzz. Not only did this guy work his ass off this decade but he consistently brought his A game. You know why? Cause he’s Clint mother fucking Eastwood. He doesn’t mess around. Amazing decade Mr. Eastwood.
Darren Aronofsky
Mr. Aronofsky has such a way of drawing your mind into his pictures, utilizing the old fashioned idea of sight and sound to bring out emotion and I’m not sure if any other films I saw this decade were able to reach the pure filmic heights that he was able to in Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain. On top of that he gave us that deep small movie that I’ve been missing recently in The Wrestler. I just hope someone finally lets him make his version of Lone Wolf and Cub because that would be just…yeah.
Pixar*
“Pixar isn’t a person!” “Different people directed their films!” “Your letting the terrorist win by putting them in your top five!” I knew people would bitch so they are not in the official top 5 but fuck you. There is no way, zero way I’m not going to give Pixar the props they deserve. There is no safer bet in film right now than to see a Pixar movie. They could show a trailer for a movie about a giant piece of shit that needs to leave someone’s body and somehow they’d make it great. Finding Nemo, Wall E and The Incredibles would be enough but then they also had Ratatouille, Up, Monsters Inc., and Cars. Yeah, they aren’t a person but they deserve the crown. Flawless victory. They killed it. Game over.
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Tags: 00's, 2000's, cinema, Decade, film, filmmakers, movies, top 5
As I was reflecting on this past decade of movies it dawned on me how difficult this task was going to be. But it has less to do with leaving great movies out and more to do with the lack of classic films. This decade saw it’s fair share of films that were without a doubt incredibly well made and able to evoke powerful emotion but how many of those films were truly classic? How many of those films will someone be able to pop into the holographic disc relayer in 2040 (You know, HDR’s) and be utterly stunned and understand why it is labeled a classic? Not that many. To put it another way: If we were to lump all of the films from both the 90’s and 00’s and try to make a top 10 list, I think only a couple of films from the 00’s would even have a chance to make the top 10 and that’s a big maybe.
That’s not to say I didn’t have a great time watching movies this decade. This decade brought National Treasure, a film I still joke about today. I can be at Quiznos wondering why it’s still so expensive, receive my change, see the back of the dollar bill and exclaim “Guys, I just had the best idea for a movie EVER. What if, the back of the dollar bill was, wait for it…a map to a hidden treasure!”
For pure movie going experiences nothing will match watching the Passion of the Christ surrounded by priests and nuns who were sobbing and realizing me and a friend were the only ones there to see a movie and not a life changing experience. Or without a doubt my favorite movie going experience of the decade was watching Blade II at the Fenway theater. When Blade suplexed that guy at the end, the entire theatre exploded in cheers as if we were at a ECW wrestling event.
And while we are talking about exploding in cheers. I remember watching the King of Kong with a bunch of friend’s just rooting so hard for Wiebe and wanting so bad for Billy Mitchell’s food to be poisoned. I don’t think I’ve rooted so hard for something so insignificant these past 10 years.
The worst movie I saw this decade was definitely Aliens Vs. Predator. I almost walked out on that movie and I’ll watch just about anything. When the predator drew warrior symbols on her forehead, that was it for me. But for as bad as that movie was, I was watching 10,000 B.C. on HBO and couldn’t even get through 10 minutes of that bologna. And speaking of 10,000 B.C., Roland Emmerich wins the “surviving the decade off of one good movie” award. I mean it still says “From the director of Independence Day” in front of every trailer and even though you know his last 5 movies were shit you still think “but Independence Day was so good…”
And speaking of shit, Club Dread was one of the biggest disappointments of the decade. After the hilarious Super Troopers we were given a giant piece of shit. I laughed more watching an hour of 60 minutes with Tom Brokaw talking about starving children (he made a hilarious pun about eating a horse).
And speaking of sullying your once good name. I think we should all just realize that Kevin Smith has lost it and won’t be able to get it back. If you’re about to tell me that Clerks 2 wasn’t that bad. Yeah your right, it wasn’t “that bad” That’s not a compliment.
And while I’m complaining, here are things I don’t want to see in movies the next decade. Any movie with the nesting storyline, horror movies with possessed kids, animated films with famous actors voicing them, Ludacris/Mos Def/Common continue to get acting roles and a Harry Potter/Twilight hybrid movie you know they are thinking about doing that will be so monstrously successful that you would have to put me on suicide watch.
But enough with the comedy that is suicide and on to the top 10. I should note that I did miss out on several key movies that a lot of people tell me I would adore and they were: Battle Royale, Gosford Park, The Lives of Others and In Bruges. And before you hit me up with movies I may have left out of the top 10 by accident, believe me, I didn’t miss them. I could easily remedy the potential shit-storm with an honorable mentions section but that shit is cheating.
B Nice’s top 10 movies of the 00’s (in no particular order)
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Directed By: Paul Thomas Anderson
Easily my favorite film of the decade and one I know will still be watched and studied for decades to come.
The Dark Knight (2008)
Directed By: Christopher Nolan
There’s a natural inclination in human beings to hate things that are a) successful and b) everyone likes. We all have this built in animosity. Everyone has praised this movie since it’s release including your grandfather who thoughts it was awesome and right now a lot of people have an anti The Dark Knight sentiment because of this. But fuck that, your grandfather is right, this movie is awesome. The cat and mouse aspect of the film and how Christopher Nolan took his perverse-realism of the Batman universe and propelled it forward through the Joker was just so good. We’ve come a long way since Batman & Robin 3: Arnold Schwarzenegger edition: ICE to Meet You
Oldboy (2003)
Directed By: Chan-wook Park
So many set pieces and sequences from this film are permanently tattoo’d on my brain. But how the film plunges you into it’s mystery and each turn raises your eyebrow higher with confusion and shock is strangely gratifying. Then the film rewards you in a way so counter-intuitive to how you are normally rewarded that you are left grasping for air trying to figure out what you just saw. A great film, that’s what.
City of God (2002)
Directed By: Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund
Take a young Scorcese, inject him with speed, throw him into Rio De Janeiro and you’d get a film a lot like City of God. A movie filled with energy and like all great movies exploring crime you could tell it had sort of a quirky love for the underbelly and what made it so grimy. “Listen man, I smoke, I snort… I’ve been begging on the street since I was just a baby. I’ve cleaned windshields at stop lights. I’ve polished shoes, I’ve robbed, I’ve killed… I ain’t no kid, no way. I’m a real man”
The Host (2006)
Directed By: Joon-ho Bong
Nobody wanted Bong Joon-ho to make this movie. This guy was emerging as an award winning type director and he turned around and said “I’m going to make a monster movie, like the ones from the 60’s” You can imagine the reaction that people close to him had. What he delivered was on it’s base level one hell of an entertaining romp. But what made this film so great to me was how it so easily morphed from monster horror to a dysfunctional family comedy into a political satire then back to a monster movie. So effortlessly it balanced different genres mashing them together and yet at the same time was still able to entertain. And what I love about classic horror movies of the past was how they would use horror as a genre to push ideas. Instead of making some lame movie with a bunch of stock brokers talking, Romero brought us the awesomeness of Dawn of the Dead relaying all kinds of ideas about consumerism and life in America. The Host is that kind of movie which is why The Host is my shit.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Directed By: Richard Kelly
I distinctly remember watching this movie for the first time. I popped it in at like 1:30 AM thinking I’d watch a little bit then continue in the morning. Two hours later my head was spinning and I wanted to watch it again. Like a Twilight Zone episode, I was thrown into a world of unknowns with all sorts of philosophical ideas spilling through the cracks. Without a doubt this will be my most scrutinized addition on the list because there are “better” movies but for me content is king. And there are so many ideas that this movie explored and had so many scenes of hilarity and wonder that I can’t deny my love for it.
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Directed By: Darren Aronofsky
The most emotionally affecting movie of the decade. There should almost be a warning on the dvd case “do not watch alone” There’s a well known story that after Brad Pitt watched it, he walked around by himself for a couple of hours, went back and told his manager to put it in again. People have different reactions to the film but somehow Aronofsky makes them all feel personal. When the credits roll it puts you in sort of a daze, not quite in reality and not quite in the film world. It takes a couple hours for this sort of haziness to pass away and it still amazes me that moving images on a screen accompanied by sound can produce that type of experience and that type of reaction is us.
Mullholand Dr. (2001)
Directed By: David Lynch
A film designed from it’s very inception to be watched multiple times. Leave it to David Lynch to explore that type of movie going experience and to deliver a film filled with layers of dark comedy, latent sexuality and the kind of dreams you don’t tell your friends and family about. He took this idea that today we can watch Back to the Future so many times that the small moments become big, that the little things are what your waiting for. You could care less about the clock tower dramatics at the end and instead cheer to yourself when Marty says “Dad…dad….dadio” But instead of a silly and fun tale about time travel he gave us the heart break and reality of Hollywood. And by the time you truly understood what was going on in Mullholand Drive, those small moments, those “Dad…dad…dadios” were multiplied in meaning and effectiveness. I can’t even comprehend how Mr. Lynch even went about making this movie, relying on the notion that multiple views would somehow peel away layers revealing the true story.
American Psycho (2000)
Directed By: Mary Harron
Right from the beginning you knew this film was going to be fantastic. Red lines of what you think are blood splatter the pristine white frame only to reveal it’s some sugary topping for some bullshit desert at a yuppie restaurant. I don’t think there’s a better way to prepare your audience for what they are about to witness. What I think this film does so well aside from bringing some incredible moments of satire and the unforgettable role by Christian Bale is how it truly engulfs itself into the mind of Patrick Bateman. It’s like watching Taxi Driver but about a guy obsessed with being the shit in the 80’s. Read that last sentence again.
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Directed By: Guillermo del Toro
You could take away the fantasy aspect of Pan’s Labyrinth and it would still make for a compelling story. But how Guillermo del Toro incorporated his unique imagination and vision into this uncomfortable fairy tale was not only intriguing but heart breaking as well. As movie goers we go into a film as cynical bastards but somehow the celluloid creates a sense of wanting for the unattainable to be true. We wish so hard for her dreams/fantasies to be actuality, for a life of grand hope and civility during such times of darkness to be real but in the end we are left wondering what actually happened and our cynical nature comes back.
Feel free to call me names and post your own lists like “The top 10 reasons why B-Nice should kill himself”
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Tags: 00's, 2000's, cinema, Decade, film, movies, Retrospective, Top 10
The Bad Sleep Well (1960)
The Bad Sleep Well IMDB Link
Directed By: Akira Kurosawa
Written By: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni, Ryuzo Kikushima, Mike Y. Inoue, Eijirô Hisaita
Starring: Toshirô Mifune
“One thing that distinguishes Akira Kurosawa is that he didn’t make a masterpiece or two masterpieces, he made, you know, eight masterpieces”
- Francis Ford Coppola
The Bad Sleep Well feels very modern for having been made nearly 50 years ago. It courageously dives into the seedy underworld of corporate greed and just how far they go to keep their modern day empires. The worst part? They always win. How do you beat money and power? You don’t. Well, maybe.
In one of the best opening scenes to any movie we start with a wedding reception. The bride is crippled and needs help just to walk the aisle. Business men uncomfortably shift as they watch. Once everyone is seated the elevator door rings and a flood of reporters comes crashing in yelling about corruption, scandal and arrests. Police arrive, some men leave, some men come back. Information is being whispered to those in power. Fake composure is kept as the ceremonies must take place and all the while the reporters are feeding us bits of information from past scandals and the players involved.
And while all this silent commotion is taking place we see our star actor, Kurosawa’s partner in crime, Thoshiro Mifune as the groom standing silently and without emotion next to his crippled bride. The nervousness mounts and so do the similes from the reporters who love watching these men squirm and it all culminates in a mysterious cake of a building with a flag sticking out a window where someone supposedly committed suicide.
Someone once pointed out that when your watching a Kurosawa movie sometimes you think something and a character will say it out loud. How does this amazing twenty minute intro scene end? With reporters jabbering.
“Helluva Wedding”
“Truly Bizarre”
“Best one-act I’ve ever scene”
“One-act? This is just the prelude. “
* cue montage *
Years later Kurosawa commented that he made the film too soon. It’s nearly 50 years later and the film feels like it’s talking about now. There are lots of twists and turns, reveals, confusing relationship and deception. And on top of this well written story is again the mastery of scene construction of Kurosawa.
There is his signature pan focus in a lot of scenes and also an abundance of shots of the back of peoples heads. I think the reason he did this was not only for you to concentrate and follow the actor who is facing the screen but so many times you can just imagine how the other actor is reacting and something that’s more effective and powerful. And I don’t think anyone ever thinks “I think that scene would have been better had it been directed like X” because Kurosawa never seemed to make that mistake.
Coppola is right. Not only did Kurosawa create a ton of masterpieces but they can all still be revered, appreciated and studied today. Just his framing alone tells so much story with so little. A true master.
Filed under: Drama, Foreign, Thriller | Leave a Comment
Tags: Kurosawa, Mifune, movie review, The Bad Sleep Well, Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru
Stray Dog (1949)
Stray Dog IMDB Link
Directed By: Akira Kurosawa
Written By: Akira Kurosawa & Ryuzo Kikushima
Starring: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura
Kurosawa was famous for his love for western cinema, heck his favorite director of all time was John Ford. And one year before he exploded onto the world stage with Rashomon, a film that is still being studied and ripped off today, he made a noir detective film in Stray Dog.
Much like The Bad Sleep Well, it is incredible just how modern Stray Dog feels. A young brash detective teamed up with an old grizzled vet are hot on the trail of a serial killer who is terrorizing the streets of Japan. While on the hunt they are thrown into the seedy parts of Japan and we see just how much WW II has effected the people. Poverty, gambling, sex trade, it’s all steaming in the underbelly and Kurosawa lets you dive in and sweat in the filth. This is all shown in an amazing montage of deep focus panning shots dissolved and overlayed with close ups of Toshiro Mifune.
Like all things Kurosawa, the individual scene construction is well done throughout but there was one sequence in particular that I found really well done and very Hitchcock-esque. Not only does Kurosawa have a great sense for creating scenes but his overall understanding of the roller-coaster ride of emotion a film can produce is incredible as well. You never think to yourself “is this the end?” because it just feels like the ending.
Mifune’s character is at the train station and together with the audience is scanning everyone in the crowd. We know a few facts. We know the killer’s in a nice white suit, we know that his hand shakes sometimes, we know he’s carrying a gun and we know his feet should be muddy. The scene has an incredible amount of tension not only because we know he will blow Mifune’s character away if he realizes who he is but the soundtrack is simply Mifune whispering the facts to himself coupled with close-ups/tilts/pans of body parts. You don’t even want to blink trying your hardest to spot the killer before the movie does.
This eventually leads to a fast push in with wide eyes on reveal followed by a quick chase. When they arrive in the woods something strange happens. Both are motionless with one pointing a gun at the other but piano music starts to play. Right as we raise an eyebrow Kurosawa shows us a house in the distance where a woman is playing a quaint melody. A gun shot is heard. The music halts as she goes to the window to see what the commotion is. She can’t see anything and goes back to playing. Still no sign of what’s happened. And then we see it, blood slowly trickling down Mifune’s characters hand and landing on top of a flower.
So good.
I know I’m in complete fanboy mode here but it’s stuff like this that I wait for in my constant stream of movie watching. Little scenes or movies that I’ve never heard of that blow me away. This detective story was not only way ahead of it’s time but it was made before he even had clout which is awesome. On top of all that, Stray Dog was just damn well made. There’s the suspense and good writing of the actual chase, there’s the chemistry and learning between the rookie and the vet and there’s the social angle of how crime comes about and which side one falls on. So good. Major props to Kurosawa on Stray Dog.
Filed under: Drama, Foreign, Thriller | Leave a Comment
Tags: Documentary, Kurosawa, Mifune, Nora inu, Stray Dog
Ikiru (1952)
Ikiru IMDB Link
Directed By: Akira Kurosawa
Written By: Akira Kurosawa & Shinobu Hashimoto
Starring: Takashi Shimura
John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence contains the single most cringe worthy scene I’ve ever seen. There’s no blood or torture, only a wife off her rocker trying to host her husband’s construction buddies at dinner and my seat was squeaking due to my discomfort and constant re-shifting. Mind you, this was after years of watching Kevin on The Wonder Years perform red faced head slapping embarrassing moments one after another. ( I heard Paul is actually Marilyn Manson btw).
And while that scene specifically might be the most cringe worthy scene I think cheese is an overarching feeling that really makes me squirm. Sometimes cheese is a lot of fun like watching slow claps in 80’s movies but I try and avoid cheese in feel good Frank Kapra-esque movies. I knew going into Ikiru that it was about a dying man and I knew there would be a scene with him on a swing in the snow as I’ve seen that image countless times. But it’s Kurosawa, the OG, I had to give it a chance.
The film starts out with an X-Ray of our protagonist Watanabe played amazingly by Shimura. We learn that he’s been a bureaucrat for over 20 years; surviving but not really living. And unknown to him, he has less than a year to live. Kurosawa begins the tale with amazing storytelling using a voice over but quickly jumps into a great montage with comedic moments about the nature of bureaucracy. He frames people in squares of piles of paperwork to show just how much they have to do and just how little they care to do it. And then in rapid succession we see a group of women trying to get something fixed with every department telling them to go to another department.
Watanabe learns about his eventual death in a great scene at the hospital. Instead of the doctor just coming out and telling him, Kuosawa has a fast talking mosquito of a guy bothering Watanabe, going on and on and unknowingly revealing to Watanabe that not only will he die but if the doctor tells him that he can eat anything, he’ll definitely die within the year. When he goes into the doctor’s office his face turn’s pale as the doctor tells him it’s nothing and that he can eat anything he wants. That night he realizes that it’s not the dying that he’s afraid of, it’s the fact that he really hasn’t lived.
There’s a lot of sorrow, a night on the town filled with debauchery trying to catch up on lost times. Eventually he comes to the realization that he should instead do something meaningful, perhaps actually help people in his bureaucratic position instead of being red tape. He grabs his hat and rushes out the door ready to change the world. And this is when the movie really became interesting to me. A car horn is heard in the background and then it fades to his funeral. I was 100% expecting a happy-go lucky montage of him helping people with their faces glowing but instead Kurosawa leads brings us to his death with the Mayor underplaying what Watanabe did trying to take all the credit.
Slowly the other bureaucrats drink and talk and through them we see moments in his undertaking to build a park in a dilapidated neighborhood. A quick scene of him hunched over in pain in the office, him falling while walking in the park during construction only to have the residents come to his aid, a smile told through his eyes as he gazes on what he’s creating. It was all very cheesy but it wasn’t. Not only was there the interesting layer of finding out what happened with disjointed scene’s you puzzle together in your head but you also had the men arguing, each with a specific personality about how much or how little Watanabe had to do with the project. Surely he was just a cog in the machine says one while another stoically in the corner defends Watanabe and how much he accomplished.
And to top it all off we have the extra layer of his son slowly realizing that his father tried to tell him of his impending death but his son was too preoccupied and annoyed to even bother to listen to him. The best part? The movie really doesn’t end on an up note, it goes higher and higher then brings you back down into reality. A film still brimming with cheese but again, Kurosawa, the OG comes through with the craft and it overwhelmed any of my beef with cheesiness.
Filed under: Classic/Old, Drama, Foreign | Leave a Comment
Tags: Ikiru, Kurosawa, movie review, To Live
Kurosawa (2001)
Kurosawa IMDB Link
Directed By: Adam Low
Written By: Adam Low
Starring: *Void*
This documentary is 3 hours long. Well not really. The actually documentary is 2 hours long and it’s a conventional baby to kid to man to film maker to death. I really wanted more insight into his films from top film makers and some do pop in here and there but meh.
The second part of the DVD, the “extras” is an hour and a half long and it was way more interesting for me. It’s just a string of interviews with cast and crew about how he approached film making and things he would try and do. Overall I thought it was pretty disappointing and this might turn me off to watching other biographies of directors I enjoy.
Filed under: Documentary | Leave a Comment
Tags: Biography, Documentary, Kurosawa
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen IMDB Link
Directed By: Michael Bay
Written By: Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox
Skip down to the ************* for the two-paragraph review.
I’ve had a general rule of thumb ever since I discovered my love for the celluloid: If critics hate a sci-fi/horror/action movie then chances are high that it will be awesome. Movies that I love not only for entertainment sake but also those that I admire for their craft such as Terminator 2, Starship Troopers, Army of Darkness and The Killer are all met with a wall of disdain, scoffs and phlem spit from critics.
What trash, what drivel, what tripe they all exclaim. Of course no one will ever agree on the merits of what constitutes good art versus bad art and I’m not going to sit here and try to convince you that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the next coming of Citizen Kane. What I will say is that Michael Bay, a director who is hated by many and who I have a love/hate relationship with, has created the ultimate Michael Bay experience.
Here is a man who has an intense eye for framing, camera movement and obsessed with military might and destruction. It almost feels as if his whole career has been leading up to create Transformers: RotF, a movie so outrageous that it could be the pinnacle of Hollywood excess. You could debate if this is good or bad but the fact that it just happened is important. So much of art has to do with experiences, especially in film and I can’t think of one movie that feels anything like Transformers: RotF. The thing with Michael Bay is he is a unique artist and unique artists make unique pieces of art. No one can direct movies like Michael Bay can and no one can deliver Transformers the way Michael Bay just did. How Michael Bay can out Michael Bay himself after Transformers: RotF is beyond me.
Really it comes down to content. Most critics view sci-fi/horror/action as beneath them, genres for idiots that don’t explore other more “important” aspects of life including quiet moments of a dying cancer patient or how an orphan from Ireland learned to love her teddy bear. Something I admire about Transformers: RotF and what Bay has done, besides making a unique albeit brain numbing experience, is that there are no illusions as to what he was trying to accomplish. He rubs your face in the nerve-end sparking imagery of Megan Fox jiggling in slow-mo and robots shooting rockets at each-other with bits of metal and fire flying all over the place. So many other directors would have half-assed the experience trying their hardest to inject some amount of intellectual might into the frame like what we saw in Superman Returns. But in a counter sort of more intelligent move, Bay decided to relish in the ridiculousness of spending that much money on a movie based off a cartoon show that was created to sell toys.
Everything in Transformers: RotF is pure unadulterated subconscious and male desire driven to a point that you could look at it disparagingly on our society or understand that film is one of those outlets in which we can wallow in our filth of desires. What I can’t get over however is how simply this film is being brushed aside by many people in an attempt to somehow boost their own egos and intelligence when in fact the very act of shitting on the movie is perhaps dumber than the movie itself. Transformers is mindless sex and violence you say? What the fuck did you think you were going to get? More importantly however is, did you think it was even possible to take sex and violence to the Olympian heights that Bay just did?
I would love, no I would relish with glee and a big fucking grin being able to give every single critic out there the reigns to Transformers: RotF. I would hand them the directors chair, the 300 million whatever dollar budget and say “make me a blockbuster” and watch them squirm and sweat trying their hardest to produce anything even close to visceral amalgamation of imagery and sound, the pure assault on your subconscious and senses that Michael Bay just created.
What they would create instead would be a laughable, hilarious and clumsy middle-school play action movie. It would be so atrocious on a simple movie making level that you would cringe in your seat not thinking about “Hey I wonder if Optimus knifes that decepticon in the face” but rather “dear god I hope the boom mic doesn’t pop in the shot because these guys have no idea how to make an action movie” It would be a joke, an utter fucking joke. Imagine the action sequences on a WB sci-fi tv show and then make it worse. That’s what it would be. You can even put scenes from Transformers: RotF next to recent big budget flicks like Wolverine and it makes them look like amateur hour. And while I shit on Wolverine for being dumb it was just more of the same kind of dumb. Transformers: RotF is such a beast of adrenaline and steroids of which I have never seen or thought capable of creating that it’s pure individualism makes it interesting to me.
But what does that matter if critics can’t direct? Of course they can’t create that’s why they are critics but they can still say the movie sucked dick. This is true and I’m in no way saying they are wrong because their qualms do have merit as all the classic elements of cinema are indeed poorly executed. I’ve just always been more interested in experiences and ideas and how critics of film can so easily brush off what Bay just created is confusing. Seriously, name me one movie not directed by Michael Bay that comes anywhere close to feeling like Transformers: RotF. In a strange twist, Michael Bay has taken the idea of what a summer movie is and exploded it with so many explosions that what he created is something unique and entertaining and that is what stands out to me the most. There are so many movies these days that are formulaic and more of the same shit that I’ve seen before that when Bay comes along and creates something outrageous for even outrageous standards it strikes me as unique. Sometimes a movie doesn’t have to be a Wes Anderson indi-film rip off to be different. It also doesn’t hurt that giant robots duking it out is awesome to me.
*************************************
The best way I can describe Transformers: RotF is it’s like cake batter ice cream topped with some chopped nuts, a little bit of sprinkles, hot fudge, peanut butter cups and whipped cream. You won’t talk about it for hours on end dissecting the brilliance of sprinkles and you’ll feel dumb several times from brain freezes but you will remember that big giant sugary fun high you had and you’ll remember enjoying it.
That pile of sugary goodness might not be as good as dinner at a 300 dollar a plate obscure restaurant in east Manhattan with the best chef on the planet but fuck man, sugar and fun are well, fun and I’m not turning down that ice cream just to feel superior. “Fuck that delicious, sugary, oh so sugary ice cream with whipped cream and caramel and chocolate. Fuck it. Fuck a unique sugar high experience” is a phrase you will never hear me utter.
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Recent, Science Fiction | 3 Comments
Tags: Michael Bay, movie review, rant, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
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