THE BEST FILMS OF 2010

1- Tiny Furniture

2- The Wolfman

3- Heartbeats

4- Exit Through the Gift Shop

5- The Social Network

6- Restrepo

7- Hot Tub Time Machine

8- I'm Still Here

9- I Saw the Devil

10- Blue Valentine

TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2010

10- YOUR HIGHNESS

This one is directed by David Gordon Greene, the independent director that sold out by making Pineapple Express in 2008. I don't particular mind that he sold out, mainly because Pineapple Express was his best film and this new one should be hilarious. First off, it's about knights in medieval times. Secondly, it stars and was co-written by Danny McBride, the hilarious star of Eastbound and Down and The Foot Fist Way. Not only does it have a terrific setting, writer, star, and director...but it has an excellent cast. Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel, and James Franco turn up. Why is this not higher on my list?

9- PAUL

The duo that starred in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz re-team as stars and writers in this flick about two sci-fi geeks that go to Area 51 to check it out and run into an alien voiced by The Rock. It's directed by Greg Mottola, who did Superbad and Adventureland. It sounds hilarious, right? And Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are great together. This should be a cult-hit, sure, but also a very, very fun film.

8- ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Tim Burton made his best film in years the last time out (Sweeney Todd). He's following that up with an adaptation of the famous novel by Lewis Carroll. It has Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway and it's in

3-D. Yes, it might turn out to be a special f/x disaster, but it's definitely one of the most intriguing films coming out this year. The dark, hallucinogenic world of Alice with the dark sensibilities of Burton and the wry, Gonzo humor of Depp. It'll be interesting no matter what.

7- THE WOLFMAN

Honestly, this looks like the greatest movie ever made. It was bumped from the Fall to the Spring which means that it might be a train wreck, but it looks ferocious and fun and it's rated R. The Wolfman is Benicio Del Toro, who rarely works, and the young minx is played by Brit hottie Emily Blunt. Anthony Hopkins also shows up. It's foggy London in the late-Nineteenth century and it has babes and blood. What more could you ask for?

6- THE GREEN HORNET

They wrote Superbad, which had a lot of funny lines it but had a typical story. Then they wrote Pineapple Express which had a lot of funny lines and a bizarre story. Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen's latest script is based on the masked superhero, The Green Hornet. It was radio serial in the 40's and then a TV show in the 60's. Can you even imagine this duo writing a super hero script? And on top of that, Michel Gondry, the uber-weird maestro behind The Science of Sleep and director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Be Kind Rewind, is directing this. It also has Seth Rogen as the hero and Christoph Waltz as the villain. Yes, it might be a mess, but the elements of a great, wild, amazing film are there. This should be a wild ride.

5- HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1

This certainly wasn't the best book (it was the second worst), but it does have three or four really huge action spectacles that could be exciting on screen. I read the book two years ago, but I do remember that there's a big action sequence with a dragon inside Gringott's bank, there's a melee at Draco Malfoy's house, and there's the big war at the school. This film is only half of the book, so expect to see the wedding of Ron's brother and the sequence at the cute blonde girl's house. Will this film be any good, though? Since it will abruptly end...and there's a lot of boring camping scenes, not to mention the whole deathly hallows plot that never goes culminates in anything exciting or revelatory, it's up in the air at this point. I did think that the last film was excellent and this has the same director. There's two films left. After that, it's over forever. I eagerly expect this to be a great beginning to a stellar finish.

4- SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD

Well this series of graphic novels is awesome. It's funny and perfect and it might be impossible to translate to a film. The actor Michael Cera is not a good fit to be Scott, but he's the “it” guy these days. If he does his quiet, nervous schtick than the film is ruined. Scott is annoying, a jerk, obnoxious, sweet, and loud at times. The story has Scott meeting a new girl that he falls in love with. To get her he has to defeat her evil ex-boyfriends. Yeah, it's odd. It's also hilarious and quirky and amusing. The film is being directed and co-written by Edgar Wright, who co-wrote and directed Shaun of the Dead and hot fuzz. The one problem that I have with Wright is that he loves the fast-cut edit. This means that the fight scenes might be horrendously over-stylized. Like Watchmen, at least it'll be cool to see it come to life.

3- GULLIVER'S TRAVELS

I'm have an English degree and I've never read this book. I know the story, though. I've seen the adaptations. This one is different because it stars Jack Black. Yes, it should be an awesome film.

It's coming out around Christmas. That means that it's a big-budget, special f/x picture. That means that besides the comedy it should look stunning. The cast also includes Emily Blunt and Jason Segel. This might be the most entertaining and most fun film of year.

2- CEMETERY JUNCTION

Ricky Gervais and Stepen Merchant wrote and directed this film. It stars Ralph Fiennes and takes place in the 70's. It supposedly a drama with comedy. These two have made some of the funniest TV shows in the past decade. It will be interesting to see how they pull off their first film together. They've said that they tried to make a film akin to Saturday Night Fever. Does that mean we'll see a hilariously cool dance number? These two could write a film about paint drying and it would be an instant classic. I can't wait to finally see this.

1- TREE OF LIFE

This was on my list last year. It probably won't come out until next Fall because of the Oscar potential. This is writer/director Terrence Mallick's fifth film. Sadly, he wrote a script about Che Guevara but had to toss it when Steven Soderbergh made a Che film first. Mallick made two films in the 70's then took a twenty year break for no good reason. I'm glad that he came back because The New World was his masterpiece. A lot of people don't like his films because they're slow. He focuses on landscapes and nature more than actual story or characters. He has a unique, beautiful vision, though, and his films transcend the multiplex and become works of art. This film apparently takes place in the 50's and currently. It stars Sean Penn and Brad Pitt. It should be another stellar work.

BEST FILMS OF 2009

1- Observe and Report

2- Capitalism: A Love Story

3- $9.99

4- Up

5- The Hurt Locker

6- Public Enemies

7- Zombieland

8- The White Ribbon

9- Thirst

10- Up in the Air

THE BEST FILMS OF THE DECADE (2000-2009)

1- THE NEW WORLD (2005)

2- BEFORE SUNSET (2004)

3- SHORTBUS (2006)

4- THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON (2007)

5- OLDBOY (2003)

6- CLOVERFIELD (2008)

7- GRANDMA'S BOY (2006)

8- ONCE (2006)

9- MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)

10- THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN (2005)

Review: THE MATRIX RELOADED

COMPUTER NERDS, KUNG-FU & KEANU REEVES. THIS IS COOL?

(reviewed at KOP with Stu on opening day, Thurs. May 15th, 2003)

    There is only one improvement that The Matrix Reloaded holds over its predecessor, and that would be the final shot. If you remember (and how can you forget? Even though I said “looking for a mind-bending sci-fi classic? Look elsewhere” about The Matrix, ironically it has become just that), the final shot had Keanu Reeves as “Neo,” the sunglasses wielding, dark clothed hero flying through the sky and straight at the screen. What the Wachowski Brothers (obviously they’re nerds because they’re losers with women-- see Bound--, and even more so because they made The Matrix) wanted to accomplish with that final scene was not that this franchise will be continued (no…even though the matrix, a computer that feeds off humans, was never defeated in the first one, the only reason for the new sequels is $, not unleft plot), but that you would leave your seat saying to your friends, “Cool!”
    Sad to say, the final scene of the first Matrix was silly and stupid. What…is Keanu Reeves supposed to be Superman? It’s even worse in the new Matrix when Reeves flies up into the clouds and by the moon and is apparently supposed to be an homage to Batman. Jesus Christ…what’s next? Reeves as Aquaman?
    & while a lot of people loved the first Matrix, I thought the beginning was interesting and the final action scene good, but besides that it wasn’t all that great. Most critics seemed to feed off of the first film as being good because it was smart. So what’s smart about a machine controlling humans? The philosophizing gets even worse in The Matrix Reloaded, a film that pretends to be “smart” by featuring well-known college prof Cornell West in a cameo, but then also features Roy Jones Jr. in a cameo and gives him five more lines than West.
    What worked in the first film were the action scenes, and what detracted from the first film was the silly dialogue and the “training” sequence that was a borderline joke (was it actually supposed to be “cool”?). The new film is just about the same…the story is about as thin as a vanilla wafer. The only “new” thing we witness is the underground human city known as Zion that features dance raves in a cave (yeah, I thought that scene was pretty bad, too). The only “plot” in the new one involves the matrix digging towards Zion to attempt to destroy it, and also some silliness involving a key maker and a golden door that ultimately is completely pointless in the grand scheme of things (except, of course, to leave enough room for another sequel…Nov. 5th’s The Matrix Revolutions). But yet again, what works in the new one is the action scenes, unfortunately there are only two that work; the weapons fight scene that leads into the extremely cool highway chase sequence that is even better than anything in the first film. Another cool aspect to this highway chase are the two new nameless characters that are white dudes with glasses and dreads that can disappear and reappear in the middle of fighting. Pretty cool stuff. Unfortunately, everything else is anti-cool and laughably silly. The French guy subplot is supposed to be funny but is ridiculously awful in a “I can’t believe they filmed that” vein. At least the French guy’s wife is played by the red hot (but taken-- sadly she’s married) Monica Belucci, who survived a Bruce Willis film (Tears of the Sun) –and- a ten minute anal rape
scene (Irreversible) this year. It’s sad that she has very little to do, as do most characters beside Neo and his g-friend, Trinity, played by Carrie Anne Moss. They dominate the film while the others are left to lay in the backround, and thus the film just seems like it was slapped together. “Let’s have a hot French chick!” the brothers Wachowski probably shouted between reading comic books, jerking off, and drinking Grape soda. “Now we’ll have a car chase!” And then they high-five. And then they realize that their parents won’t be proud of them, so they throw in some philosophizing that makes no sense, even to them. I would pay to hear the conversation Cornell West had with Roy Jones Jr. on the Australian set.
    But there is one thing that this new Matrix has done better than the original, and that is the ending. It’s a climax of sorts because it leaves you hanging, and as soon as it ends the credits slam up against the screen with a Rage Against the Machine song blaring in the background. It is a truly great cliff-hanger ending. Sadly, the movie isn’t really good enough to make me care how the cliff-hanger is resolved. And jeez…the humans are obviously gonna beat the matrix and win in November…right?
    We’re talking comic book nerds here, so yeah, they’ll win…& get the girl. ** (out of ****)

Review: STORYTELLING

THE ANTI-HOLLYWOOD KING OF CRINGE IS BACK

(reviewed on video)

   He put his foot in the door with a movie about a High School loser who gets made fun of constantly at school, whose sister gets kidnapped, and whose boyfriend/bully keeps telling her that he’s going to rape her.
    He followed that up with a 139 minute film about a pedophile, a murderer, a sexually frustrated stalker, and a kid who wants to cum. 
    Todd Solondz is the shock master of current cinema. His first feature film, , won rave reviews for its hilarious yet depressingly realistic look at High School. His sophomore effort, Happiness, won critical raves, but floundered at the box office and never found an audience. His newest film, Storytelling, featured somewhat good reviews (Ebert & Roeper gave it two thumbs up), but was censored to receive an R, came and went in theaters as quick as you can say Minority Report sucks, and has found little shelf life on video.
    It seems that while Solondz was supposed to be the “next big independent filmmaker,” there was no real audience for him besides the usual film fan or critic who was sick of the usual Hollywood popcorn fare that moviegoers eat up.
    Storytelling is a film that will seemingly disappear. No one has ever heard of it, and no one ever will. Todd Solondz, who was king at Sundance, has not gone Hollywood. He has not followed Linklater and done a big budget Western. He has not followed Rodriguez and done a Kevin Williamson script. He has stayed exactly the same and not sold out, and sadly, he is paying for it, all the while he is currently one of the top ten directors working today.
    Storytelling received mediocre attention from critics when it opened with an R rating instead of being unrated, as his last film, Happiness, was. Instead of cutting a sex scene, he has covered the scene with a gigantic pink rectangle. In essence, Solondz has told the MPAA to go fuck themselves. Fuck censorship. He wanted to make the movie he wanted. The studio didn’t want it unrated. The MPAA wouldn’t give him the R. So he did what no other filmmaker has ever done. He covered a sex scene up. You can still here what’s going on, and even Roger Ebert mentioned that by covering it up, the scene plays out even more extreme. It’s as if Jack Valenti is telling us all that we can’t see what is going on. We’re not allowed. Bad boys and girls. Look away.
    Storytelling is not, however, as shocking as Happiness, a film that was more shock value than entertainment. It does feature classic Solondz, though. There are many scenes where you cringe in your seat and want to look away. And while it’s not as good as Welcome to the Dollhouse, it is a very good movie, and like his other films, his reputation stays the same; you’ve never seen nothing like this, and probably never will again.
    The film is made up basically of two short films. With the subtitle of Fiction, Selma Blair plays a graduate student who is in a writing class taught by a Pulitzer Prize winning African American author who is very intense, and very cruel, yet always tells the truth.
    The second film subtitled Nonfiction features a loser played by Paul Giamati who sets out to make a documentary film about High School. He ends up entangled with a dysfunctional family whose stoner Senior wants nothing to do with college, even though his venomous dad played by John Goodman has other intentions.
    Both short films work. They shock, and entertain, but unlike usual Hollywood fare or movies that are only meant to shock or get a rise, Solondz understands these characters enough to make the film realistic and filled with real emotion. The stories work.
    Solondz, as seen on TV, is a loser. He obviously went through High School as the King of the Nerds. He never got the girl. He probably got his head flushed down the toilet. He was emotionally scarred for life. Yet instead of using his father’s gun collection to mow down his enemies, he went into film making. He has a warped, depressing, sadistic view of the world. This isn’t a happy, fairy tale place. This is a part of real life. The horror of High School, the failure of love and the pain of sexual frustration. At least Solondz is doing something with his life; making good movies. He’s one of the best in the biz. He hasn’t sold out. He’s stayed true to what’s in his head. And while some may say he’s sick and fucked up and needs to go to prison, I say go and make another film. Personally, I can’t wait. ***

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Review: MINORITY REPORT

OLD SCHOOL SPIELBERG DELIVERS AN AWFUL MINORITY REPORT

(reviewed at KOP with Jack on Tuesday, July 2nd, 2002)

    They were known as the Film School Gang. Nowadays, going to film school is about as Republican as wearing a suit and tie to High School. It’s for the nerds, the losers. Why waste your money and time when you can hit one out of the park for $7,000 bucks like Robert Rodriguez did? Or max out your credit cards to make a movie and become a star with a hot wife like Kevin Smith? Why waste your time at film school? It’s so…late 60’s.
    Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg went to film school and came out of Hollywood in the 1970’s as Kings. They rode on silver horses and walked on rose petals. They made classic epics like The Godfather and Star Wars and Jaws. They had everything. Sadly, twenty plus years later, in the year 2002, people are scratching their heads and wondering, “What went wrong?”
    Francis Ford Coppola’s last good movie was Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and before that it was Apocalypse Now, which came out in 1979. George Lucas’ last good movie he directed came out in 1977. Steven Spielberg made two great movies in 1993, Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List, and followed those up with his awesome WWII picture, Saving Private Ryan. But after A.I. and The Phantom Menace (and Coppola’s last picture, Jack), we move into the year 2002 wondering if they still got it. Can they still surprise us? Can they still awe us? Can they still get the job done? Have they gone soft? Is it over?
    Sadly, it seems so.
    Attack of the Clones reinforced the depressing idea that The Phantom (Disappointment) Menace delivered. George Lucas was once a good filmmaker, but not anymore. Clones was all special f/x and no heart. The movie was silly, laughably dull, and preposterous. It was more a soulless roller coaster ride than a thrilling popcorn adventure. And with Steven Spielberg’s monstrously awful Minority Report, it seems that the Film School Gang has lost touch with the art that they had once mastered. The year 2002 has become the Year That the Good Directors Went Bad.
    Minority Report is a sci-fi picture loosely based on a story by Philip K. Dick, who brought us the ideas behind Blade Runner and Total Recall. The premise is a solid and interesting one, the script on the other hand, is just below riotously bad.
    The story goes like this: in the year 2054 (yeah, right…in fifty years cars will drive up walls and cereal boxes will be printed in moving animation?), pre-crime has become the hottest thing in Washington, D.C. The cops can predict the future. That said, murderers will be caught and arrested and sent to prison before they ever do the deed. Tom Cruise runs the project, and he’s the one who’ll arrest you right before you plunge that sharp knife into your adulterous wife. He’ll say, “You are arrested for the future murder of so and so.” But I didn’t do anything! you’ll scream. Tough luck. But it is right? What if it’s wrong? What if you grew a conscience? These are the “big” answers of the film, but most of these questions are bogged down in silly sci-fi chase sequences and a plot that goes south the longer the film is running.
    If you haven’t seen the previews, then you don’t know that yes, Tom Cruise finds out that he is going to murder someone in the future. So he runs away and tries to find out the truth. Granted, this all sounds good on paper, and the movie is interesting for a few split seconds, but whomever wrote this script should be commited. What could have been a great movie (and the ideas and story is there) ends up being a laughably silly, suprisingly awful film that ends with you, the viewer, saying, “That movie sucked.”
    Yes, they fucked up a perfectly good idea. They went too far. They ruined it. The kings of popcorn, and Spielberg himself, ruined it. If this movie had been an independent, it would have worked. They would have dealt with it specially, and they wouldn’t have added the crowd pleasing non-amusing licks that Spielberg has that take away all seriousness this film attempts to deliver.
    Tom Cruise, as John Anderton, is nothing special in this movie. He basically plays Tom Cruise, which isn’t a stretch. Collin Ferrel, who was great in Tigerland, should focus on only doing sequels to Tigerland. His character has no weight. One minute he’s an evil sunuvabitch, the next he’s the guy next door. He reads his lines like they’re on a cue card. And Max Von Sydow’s character shouldn’t even be in the script!
    The special f/x are nothing special, and by now we realize that 99.9% of all special f/x look fake anyway. The action sequences made me wonder if Spielberg had anything to do with the ballistic, balls to the wall carnage in Saving Private Ryan. The action sequences blow! Tom Cruise delivers a shallow line like, “I’m going to run.” Then he runs around in the future and Spielberg adds some humorous elements like a black kid playing a sax and some upsidedown yoga instructors and the audience is like, “What the fuck?” Is this movie supposed to be serious? Then why is the guy from Fargo playing someone from a bad David Lynch rip-off?
    Minority Report is all over the map. It goes from engaging to preposterous to silly to plain dumb to plain awful to get me outta the theater. It seems that they just threw everything into a pot and stirred it up without thinking. The last half an hour of this film actually is worse than the last half hour of A.I. After every good thing the film sets up, it shatters them and ruins everything with a popcorn blueprint that made me wish someone other than Spielberg had made this picture. He ruined it. He took a good idea and set it ablaze.
    There is one four star scene in this muddled mess, however. Just as there are good scenes in both Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones (and in Jack…okay, just kidding). Tom Cruise holds a female close to him. Their eyes are looking opposite ways, but the camera frames them perfectly so that you can read both of their emotions. The room is dark, but you can read their eyes. Perfect, elegant, serene.
    Minority Report is a big disappointment. Although going with any summer film, it fits almost to a T. The majority of summer films are all disappointments. They’re silly and dumb and you want a good ride but the car just can’t get out of the station. You can taste the hill and the drops and the loops and see the careening vortex and camel back hump, but you’ll never get that far You’re stuck, and it is over.
    Spielberg, I’m sorry, but your reign as a good director has come to a close. Go direct Indiana Jones 4, and leave the bold, new ideas to the fresh fishes at Sundance. You had a good run, now go walk into the sunset. It’s over. Goodnight. *