The 10 Worst Movies of 2008

This is an annual tradition here at Crushed by Inertia - one of the few I've managed to keep up - and so even though I've been blogging less lately, I wasn't going to skip it. (Also stay tuned for my "Best Movies of the Year" list, which is currently being written. (I still have to see a few big, Oscar-buzzy end of the year films before it's finalized as well). I know I say this every year, but it feels like 2008 had a higher-than-average number of truly awful movies. Some really good ones, too, but...holy shitballs...I mean...wow...

MOVIES I DIDN'T SEE BUT THAT I'M SURE WERE HORRIBLE

The Love Guru

One of the least appealing trailers I have ever seen. I couldn't even watch this film just based on Myers' atrocious accent.

Bangkok Dangerous

I've seen the original Thai version of this (the American one is made by the same guys, the Pang Brothers), and it sucked. Now it sucks with Nicolas Cage, which likely makes for a deeper and more nuanced level of suck. But I think I can safely skip it anyway, unless it develops a Wicker Man-esque cult-like reputation for sucking so bad, in which case I'll have to check it out after all.

Vantage Point

I have completely lost all interest in these kinds of "race against the clock" thrillers. Seriously, they never add up to anything more than gimmicry. Has any movie in this genre - and I'm thinking of stuff like Nick of Time or Snake Eyes here - been good in decades? Seriously...decades...

Superhero Movie/Disaster Movie

STOP! Please, stop! I can't take even hearing about the existence of these any more. The parody movie is unfortunately dead. You have killed it. Let it rest in peace, you bastards.

Smart People

Oh my God, I'm so urbane and Caucasian...It's awful...Please listen to me whine about my chronic depression and my intimacy issues for two hours while I make informed cultural references...What if I bring Juno along? That do anything for you?

Meet Dave

Hey, it's "Herman's Head" meets Pluto Nash! Who wouldn't want to see that?

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Really? I need another entry in the Brendan Fraser Mummy series like I need another Fast and the Furious sequel. Wait, really? They're doing another one of...with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker again...Are you fucking serious? Ugh.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Yeah, I just don't care any more. I even liked Revenge of the Sith, too. But it's just overkill now. Congratulations, LucasFilm. In the course of one year, you made me bored with both Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Fortunately, you've got so many other great properties to work with...I'm anxiously awaiting the big Radioland Murders follow-up.

Righteous Kill

It has been so long since either of them were relevant, it's hard for me to even remember being excited about the prospect of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro sharing the screen. Now, it just invites grim mathematics...if two guys whose films are routinely awful star in a film together, with their awfulness cancel one another out, or make the film doubly awful? My bet was the latter.

The Duchess

I can't take one fucking more pouty-yet-defiant Keira Knightley bland-fest. It's just not in me. I'm done.

An American Carol

I watched the Ben Stein documentary. Isn't that enough? I'm not sure I can handle Kelsey Grammar as General Patton, okay? I'm delicate.

Seven Pounds

Will Smith's annual venture into treacly earnestness never interests me. This movie looks so earnest, I hear they digitally added Jim Varney into a couple of scenes, just for the sake of consistency.

You Don't Mess With the Zohan

This was a recommendation from @britsilverstein on Twitter. Adam Sandler making a bad comedy based solely around a wacky accent and a wig is pretty much an annual event any more. He's on a rather amazing streak, really: It's almost impressive (almost!) how steadily drab and uninspired his films have been for more than a decade now. (What was the last one that actually worked as a film at all? Wedding Singer? That was 1998!

And now...

THE 10 WORST FILMS OF 2008

10. Rambo

Okay, the film is complete nonsense that takes itself very seriously. Fine. I could deal with that. But it also feels the need to realistically recreate in the most fetishized, off-putting, gruesome manner possible, acts of deplorable violence against innocent men, women and even children. I'm not a prude when it comes to movie violence BY ANY MEANS. I've even defended Hostel on this blog. But there is a huge difference between cartoonish movie violence, designed to elicit chills or even laughs, and brutal recreations of genuine international conflicts. Do we really need to see wave after desensitizing wave of villagers cut down in vividly gory detail to recognize that Sylvester Stallone's character is heroic?

From my original review:

Once we arrive in Burma, the movie is essentially a carnage promo reel. Think "Satan's Screen Saver." The Burmese army enters villages, rapes women and children, and generally just turns every living thing into CG-enhanced red goo, much of which is splattered directly into the camera. Then we get some scenes of Rambo laying waste to the bad guys, and then the film's over.



9. Jumper

It's hard to even write anything about this movie, because I remembered so little about it 10 minutes after it's over. The narrative is garbled, clunky and confusing - I suppose you could follow it if you were really determined, but who would want to actually devote the energy? Something about a war between Samuel L. Jackson and other actors who don't yell quite as loudly as Samuel L. Jackson.

I will say that I distinctly recall hating the film's protagonist, a man who can teleport at will and uses it to non-creative ends like robbing banks and impressing ladies. I suppose it's somewhat realistic that a young guy would use these powers in that fashion, but that doesn't mean I'm going to root for him when a bad guy wants to put an end to his journey of greedy, perverted self-discovery. Doug Liman once made good, or at least watchable, movies. Now he turns in woeful turds like Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Jumper. Did we anger him somehow? How can I make this right?

8. Get Smart



The wit of the original TV series "Get Smart" never once surfaces in this wretched, embarrassingly-unfunny homage, which is a shame, because Steve Carrell could have worked as Maxwell Smart in an actual adaptation.

I'm not sure anyone who was involved in making this film has ever seen the series "Get Smart." Neither the characters nor situations in this film not resemble their original counterparts in any way, and they don't even make any sense and behave inconsistently from one scene to the next.

Does The Chief like and respect Agent 86, or does he think he's an idiot? What about Agent 99? I'm not even sure if Max is supposed to be smart or dumb in this version. The movie hasn't even figured that out! He's sort of like Ace Ventura - brilliant in one moment, then talking with his butt the next. I didn't think that character worked too well either, but at least Jim Carrey was completely unleashed to do his thing in every moment of every scene, squeezing out all the laughs he could from a murky, uninteresting premise. Here, Carrell's given a bunch of lame, unfunny dialogue and a stupid spy plot to navigate and never gets to open up and have any fun with it at all.

What results is a 90 minute comedy without a single actual funny joke. Pathetic.

7. The Ruins

I swear to Christ, the plot of The Ruins involves a bunch of teens on an outdoor adventure that get chased to the top of a temple and then are not allowed to move around or leave! Seriously, THAT sounds like a fun romp. I mean, maybe as a set-up for a STAGE PLAY, that could work. But as a movie? It's like "Samuel Beckett's Existential House of Horrors."

Possible tagline: "A nightmare may be just around the next corner...too bad you're stuck on that stupid sound-stage looking Aztec-like ruin, fuckstick."

I'll also add that this is the latest in a spate of recent horror films that confuse "scary scenes" with "scenes showing people in excruciating pain." Now, sometimes a scene that is scary also happens to feature an individual that's in excruciating pain. But JUST because you're showing someone who's hurt real bad doesn't necessary mean that the scene is going to be exciting, frightening, or spine-tingling for the audience. Just maybe difficult to watch, if anyone's sensitive to that sort of thing. I'm not sure why this is so confusing for this new upcoming generation of horror movie directors, but here we are.

6. Teeth

Watching Teeth, I got the impression that writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein read about the archetypal concept of "vagina dentata" (or "toothed vagina") somewhere, laughed for 20 days or so, and then wrote this "movie" in a weekend. The thing is, if you've matured to a point where the mere concepts of penises and vaginas no longer make you howl with laughter, you're probably a bit too grown-up for this movie. Which means the ideal audience for the film's humor is too young to actually get to see the film, which includes a few close-ups of its favorite organs and is therefore inappropriate by the contemporary standards of American parents.

A movie about a girl whose vagina bites off weiners could potentially be clever, I guess, though I'm tempted to say that 99% of the time, it would quickly devolve into sophomoric, Troma-esque "gross out" schlock or camp, as it does here within 10 minutes. Even worse than the fact that he's just retelling the same dick and pussy joke for the length of a feature, though, Lichtenstein actually thinks he has something to say about sexually repressed religion-obsessed Middle Americans or something. He doesn't.

5. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Yes, I actually watched it. (Hey, it's streaming free on Netflix). Suffice it to say, Ben Stein should stick to hosting game shows and eye drop ads. His anti-evolution screed (let's not mince words, "Intelligent Design" as a theory and this movie as a propaganda item are nothing more than rejections of evolutionary theory) is both offensively and bafflingly stupid. There is a difference.

Insultingly stupid is when someone says something stupid that you secretly think he or she doesn't really believe, just to see if they can make YOU believe it. For example, when Ben Stein implies that the theory of evolution is responsible for the Nazis.

Bafflingly stupid is when someone says something stupid that you think he or she really does believe, and you're stunned that anyone could possibly hold this position. For example, every other scene in this movie.

Stein's constantly trying to make the case that his viewpoint has been PURPOSEFULLY LEFT OUT of school curricula across the nation, as if this is somehow rare and his beliefs have been singled out. He's of course never able to reasonably make his case in this film, because it's dumb. Most things that could possibly be taught in schools aren't actually taught there, because of time constraints or a lack of consensus or a million other factors, not because of deep-seated prejudice towards them or those that believe them. So Stein just kind of hopes you won't notice this glaring hole in his argument and never addresses the issue of just why we should give his particular viewpoint more credence than any of the other hundreds of thousands of personal philosophies on the origin and nature of the universe that Americans might hold.

4. The Women

The opening titles of The Women credit the screenplay to Diane English, a human person, but this can't be right, because none of its characters have any genuinely human qualities, or behave the way real people would. It's like watching Russian spies try to recreate "Sex and the City" using sophisticated robots.

Like "Sex and the City," we have a diverse cast of four well-off ladies who are good friends. Only these women don't share any chemistry, or really anything in common, and the film can't be bothered to establish their friendship before the "plot" kicks in anyway. "They like each other," the movie seems to say. "Just go with it."

Actually, now that I think about it, the film can't really be bothered to establish anything about anyone in it, and that's why it's impossible to care what happens to them. English just relies on tired dog whistles and lazy sitcom shorthand - the home-wrecking floozy loves perfume and expensive clothes, the busy career-woman is always on her cell-phone, the brilliant writer is a troubled lesbian...Blurgh.



Also, I hate to say this, but Meg Ryan's horrible plastic surgery is making it hard for me to buy her in any movie roles any more. She's made it so she can really only play "over-the-hill actress who got a lot of unfortunate work done" believably any more.

3. The Happening

M. Night Shyamalan went from being one of the most promising up-and-coming American filmmakers to a national joke REALLY fast. It's bewildering. I don't think his downward slide is going to stop until he just stops getting money to make movies. Considering his level of name recognition, I'm doubting that will happen any time soon, which is really too bad for all of us.



I can't really recap his latest bit of mawkish, self-aggrandizing claptrap any better than I did in my original review:

Not only does The Happening lack any kind of tangible antagonist or enemy, it lacks any kind of conflict whatsoever. There are two types of scenes - scenes in which Wahlberg finds out something about the "happening" second-hand and scenes in which Wahlberg watches people in the middle distance kill themselves in increasingly laughable ways. You may notice, neither of those scenes involves any kind of conflict.

The most compelling bit of dialogue in the entire film is played between Wahlberg and a potted plant...At a random point, the film just ends, without purpose or explanation or any kind of pay-off or showdown or denouement whatsoever. The last scene is meant to be chilling, but it's so obvious what's coming and so silly by that point that it actually plays like a joke. And that first credit - "A Film By M. Night Shyamalan" - is the punchline.

2. Speed Racer

I think we can all agree that something can be an innovation without necessary moving things in a positive direction. Many people I've spoken with want to give Speed Racer a pass because it is trying to do something new with computer-generated imagery in films, to take a live-action movie and meld it with an animator's sense of color, pacing and motion.

I will happily grant that I have never seen another film that felt or looked like Speed Racer. But that's a good thing, because this is the cinematic equivalent of eating a tub full of cotton candy and then riding the Tilt-A-Whirl until it becomes up a regurgitated pink mass in the center of your favorite shirt. I've never seen a movie animated exclusively with human feces either, but that doesn't mean I want the Wachowskis to give it a shot...just to see if they can...



That this ugly mess is 2.5 hours long makes me think the Larry and Andy may have been in league with Donald Rumsfeld and John Yoo. They couldn't have intended this for use on American audiences, could they? It makes the Matrix sequels look sparse and unassuming.

1. The Spirit

I thought FOR SURE when I beheld the grotesquerie that is Speed Racer that it would be my pick for Worst Film of 2008. I was POSITIVE. 100%, not a doubt in my mind, that I'd hate it more than any other film this year. I found it physically painful.

But, no, Frank Miller's attempt to reinvent the Will Eisner comic The Spirit outdoes it, and at a far more efficient 90 minutes to boot. This movie hits every single "bad movie" note RESOUNDINGLY:

- It makes absolutely no sense and displays shockingly little narrative continuity
- It is hugely, massively shrill and irritating
- Ceaselessly gimmicky, the movie never stops dicking around to even attempt something mundane like storytelling
- The dialogue is atrocious
- The performances are excruciatingly broad

Miller's amateurish writing and direction here is actually kind of shocking. The story's so incomprehensible, he constantly has the Spirit explaining the plot directly to the viewer, either in voice-over or actually by TALKING TO HIMSELF in the middle of a scene. Looney Tunes-style sound effects and not just impossible, but impossibly silly, physics spoil all of the action and fight scenes. The comedy falls ENTIRELY flat, and suffers from both an intensely juvenile sensibility along with poor timing and a tendency to make references that no one besides a hardcore comic book dork would appreciate. Many of the scenes resort to having Samuel L. Jackson yell random phrases ("egg on my face!!!!!!!!") while mugging for the camera.

And as for the visuals, it looks like a poorly-shot Sin City with really bad production values. Check out the make-up and costumes:



What the fuck is that? That supposed to be funny?

The Spirit is a complete disaster. The whole time I was watching it, I tried to imagine the level of dread and panic that must have set in among executives when they started seeing the first dailies. I don't think there's a single minute of footage you could take from out of this nightmare to even simulate the existence of a decent movie.

Top Thirteen Albums of 2008

Okay, usual disclaimers: These are just my favorites, and in no way definitive. There's lots of good stuff this year that I haven't heard (and some that I'm still getting into, like Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid and the new Blitzen Trapper). Blah blah blah, you see where I'm going with this.

Also, be sure to check out Jonathan's list at Country Caravan. It is far longer, more insightful and better-written than mine, and he clearly listened to more new music this year.

Now on to the lists, with less commentary, cause I don't really know what I'm talking about.

FAVORITE ALBUMS

13. Deerhunter, "Microcastle"

This song is called "Agoraphobia." It's the track that really sold me on the album, which definitely took me a few listens to fully appreciate. The entire second bonus disc is good enough to stand alone, making this really one half of the year's best double-album.



12. Los Campesinos!, "Hold On Now Youngster"

The song is "You! Me! Dancing!" Really fun, energetic, upbeat music. There's too little like that in my personal collection.



11. Lil Wayne, "Tha Carter III"

This track is "Lollipop," chosen because it gives the best insight into the album's sound of any of the singles. But my favorite song, "Mr. Carter," didn't get a video. Shame.



10. Wolf Parade, "At Mount Zoomer"

It seems like there was a lot less hoopla/interest/hype for this year's Wolf Parade album compared to Apologies to Queen Mary, but it wasn't due to a dramatic dip in quality, near as I can tell. These guys also put on one of the best live shows I saw in 2008 (the other being the band coming in at #1).



9. Vampire Weekend, "Vampire Weekend"

Serious blowback to this collection, and I can't figure out why. It's incredibly likeable. I'm sure it's very difficult for a bunch of American kids to tackle an African sound without coming off as pretentious or silly. (Okay, this LP IS a little silly, but in a good way.)



8. Fleet Foxes, "Fleet Foxes"

I got into these guys after seeing the video below, an episode of the awesome "Takeaway Show." I figured the songs would sound very different on the album than they do in this setting, but it's not really so. Such a simple, throwback folk sound. It's not at all difficult for me to understand the appeal of Fleet Foxes to a public tired of over-produced, cheesy pop songs and grinding, unimaginative nu-metal.



7. Department of Eagles, "In Ear Park"

An acoustic version of "No One Does It Like You" is embedded below. This was the Song of the Year for me. Not necessarily because it was the Best Song, but because I couldn't get it out of my head from the first time I heard it, this fall. Still can't, really.



6. My Morning Jacket, "Evil Urges"

I really, viscerally disliked "Highly Suspicious," the first song I heard from "Evil Urges," for at least a month. It sounded shrill and screechy and utterly unlike the My Morning Jacket I loved and remembered. Then, something finally clicked, and now when I listen to the whole album, I can't even hear the thing that once bothered me any more. Weird. Anyway, it sounds different at first, but "Evil Urges" boasts the same fantastic songwriting that has marked every MMJ album since "At Dawn." Simply one of the best American bands of the moment. Embedded below is "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Part 2," though if you asked me, they're clinically insane not releasing "I'm Amazed" as a radio single.



5. Beck, "Modern Guilt"

Beck's best since Midnite Vultures. He hasn't made an album this consistently engaging, interesting and diverse since his heydey. "Gamma Ray," embedded below, and "Walls" are my favorite tracks.



4. No Age, "Nouns"

These's a kind of sound that I've just always liked in my rock music, ever since I first started listening to the stuff in the early-to-mid '90s. It's kind of a fuzzy, lo-fi, thick, hazy guitar sound, of the kind you'd hear on Dinosaur Jr. albums. No Age captures this sound perfectly. It's so rich and busy, I'm constantly surprised these songs are performed by only two people. Here's "Teen Creeps." I also think "Things I Did When I Was Dead" is awe-inspiring, though.



3. Cut Copy, "In Ghost Colours"

I mean, just listen to it. Pure ear candy. This was the year's most infectious collection of songs. Below is the single, "Lights and Music," but just about every song on the album is this good.



2. The Walkmen, "You and Me"

This track is called "Four Provinces" on the album, but is here titled "Hey, Leah." I love this live performance, but my favorite track on the album is probably the haunting "On the Water," which will always remind me of 2008.



1. TV on the Radio, "Dear Science"

I think these guys are the only band which has produced by Favorite Album of the Year twice since I started keeping track of such things. (Radiohead, maybe? OK Computer and Kid A? It's possible.) Dear Science is their best work yet, which is pretty staggering considering how much I like their older music. A unique, layered even, dare I say, whimsical record. This is my favorite song, "Golden Age":



FAVORITE EP's

Eagle Seagull, "I Hate EPs!"

Fleet Foxes, "Sun Giant"

Professor Murder, "Professor Murder On a Desert Island"

FAVORITE SONGS NOT FEATURED ON FAVORITE ALBUMS

These are in no particular order.

"Waving Flags," British Sea Power from Do You Like Rock Music?
"White Shoes," City Center


"Gotta Cheer Up," Cotton Jones from the unreleased Paranoid Cocoon


"Sex On Fire," Kings of Leon from Only By the Night
"With a Heavy Heart, I Regret to Inform You," Does It Offend You, Yeah? from You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into
"Airplanes," Local Natives
"Mister Jung Stuffed," Man Man from Rabbit Habits
"Electric Feel," MGMT from Oracular Spectacular (below is the amazing Justice remix)


"Share the Night," The Clientele from That Night, a Forest Grew
"Ready for the Floor," Hot Chip from Made in the Dark
"Regarde," Monade from Monstre Cosmic


"Think I Wanna Die," Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin from Pershing
"Tell the World," Vivian Girls from Vivian Girls
"In the Aeroplane Over the Sea," The Chairs from November EP


"Honor Amongst Thieves," These United States from Crimes
"Quarantined," Atlas Sound from Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel


"Echoplex," Nine Inch Nails from The Slip
"Demon Apple," Tapes N Tapes from Walk it Off

Top 15 Movies of 2007

I always wait until a bit into January before publishing my yearly Top Movies list. It's the only way to be sure I don't miss anything crucial, though I tend to end up missing crucial films regardless. Once again, if a foreign film opened in America in 2007, I consider it fair game. And even if it didn't, but I saw the film in 2007, it counts. Just so you know.

15. Hot Fuzz

There's a lot to like about Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's loving parody of overblown Hollywood action films, from the deliriously over-the-top violence to the bevy of sly, unexpected cameo appearances - but what I mainly remember all these months later is the fantastic, scenery-chewing supporting performance from Timothy Dalton. The precise quality that made him the worst James Bond EVER (and I'm including George Lazenby here) - the self-conscious smarm - makes him the ideal foil for Pegg's beyond-high-strung hero cop. It runs about 20 minutes too long and starts to wear out its welcome, but it is an homage to Michael Bay movies, after all, so perhaps it's not even overlong enough.

[Read the original review here]

14. Juno

I've heard several people - friends and film critics alike - refer to Juno MacGuff as an unrealistic portrayal of a teenage girl. Now, I agree that the sarcastic, snappy comments Diablo Cody has provided for actress Ellen Page on every page of the Juno script don't always seem to fit the gravity of the situation in which the character finds herself. But that's not the same as saying that the character herself doesn't seem realistic. I'd say Juno is one of the year's most compelling, genuinely human protagonists. Plenty of sharp teen girls have this kind of offbeat, smartalecky personality, if memory serves. Not every teen is the vapid sort you'd see in...well, in almost every other movie.

Also, I'd like to note that, in response to this idiotic argument raised in certain segments of the blogosphere, claiming Juno as a pro-life movie because she considers having an abortion and then doesn't go through with it, the movie is very clearly pro-choice. No one at any point states or even implies that the decision to have the baby is anyone's but Juno's - her parents, the baby's father, the State, NO ONE ELSE voices an opinion on the matter. To claim that a film in which a woman goes through with a pregnancy is automatically pro-life suggests that the pro-choice side roots for abortions. "Why aren't any girls in movies these days getting abortions? That's why I don't go to the theater any more! Too few abortions!"

[Read the original review here]

13. Rocket Science

Rocket Science is about a stutterer who joins the high school debate team to get closer to a girl, which is an extremely silly high-concept premise. That description makes it sound like the latest edition of those reprehensible direct-to-DVD American Pie sequels.

American Pie: Master Debators! Oh, shit, I'm writing that down...No one steal that...

Instead, Rocket Science is a minor-key, extremely heartfelt and personal story about a likable kid who gets in way over his head and then decides to follow through anyway. (Granted, as a former awkward, shy teenager and high school debater, I probably found the movie more relatable than most will, but that doesn't make me doubt its quality as a motion picture).

[Read the original review here]

12. Eastern Promises



At first, I was a it disappointed with David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, which had easily been among my most anticipated 2007 films. I think it's because I'm used to Cronenberg films working on multiple levels at once - most of them are esoteric, cerebral films that function on a superficial level as genre exercises. Eastern Promises, on the other hand, is just a genre exercise. It doesn't really go any deeper than that. But it's an exceptionally well-made genre exercise, and it would spiteful to ignore its pleasures merely because of its limitations.

The script is unfortunately structured and takes some rather outlandish, unnecessary turns. The central character (an unusually stiff Naomi Watts) isn't particularly sympathetic and lacks proper motivation to embark on a dangerous journey through the Russian underworld. The film is kind of all over the place, and winds up telling several different, moderately interesting stories at once rather than a single, relentlessly gripping one.

But Cronenberg's eye and innate understanding of the mechanics of suspense are as sharp as ever, aided by Peter Suschitzky's claustrophobic cinematography. Together with a very brave Viggo Mortensen, they craft the year's most memorable fight scene, a virtuoso, single-take bit of savagery in a Russian steam bath. It's entirely possible Cronenberg made this entire movie just so he could shoot this scene.

[Read the original review here]

11. The Lives of Others

This was the first film from writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, and it's a surprisingly accomplished work for a debut, successful both as a thought-provoking allegory about free will and oppression and as a Hitchockian thrill machine. This is a story of a True Believer who gradually realizes he has been taken in by a grand, sinister lie, and the gradual awakening process is navigated delicately, without a lot of melodramatic speeches or heartfelt confessions, such as you'd get with a Hollywood version of the same story.

It has about 2 endings too many, but The Lives of Others has stuck with me all year, since I first saw it back in March.

[Read the original review here]

10. Rescue Dawn

Herzog's latest adventure film isn't as big or as personal as his standard fare. Like Eastern Promises, this finds a great and idiosyncratic filmmaker sublimating his usual techniques and just telling a story simply, on its own terms. Sure, it's still got some Herzoggian grandeur and fascination with man's struggle against the power of the natural world. Christian Bale and Steve Zahn play U.S. soldiers (based on two real guys) who escape a POW camp through the Vietnamese jungle, and when they're not in imminent danger of discovery by the enemy, they're falling victim to the perils of their unfamiliar surroundings.

But this movie is a true story (previously related by Herzog in the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly), and obviously one that holds a lot of personal interest for Herzog himself, so instead of Aguirre 2, we get an old-fashioned survival story, gloriously shot and filled with some terrific, small moments.

[Read the original review here]

9. Ratatouille



Can Pixar continue improving on the quality of their animation in each successive film forever? Implicit in the concept of computer animation is that the computer gets smarter with every project. That's just technology. But eventually, it feels like these Pixar films are going to reach maximum gorgeous, colorful detail. In fact, the swarms of rats invading Parisian kitchens in Ratatouille may be too perfect-looking - I could see patrons avoiding some of the city's fine dining establishments after the realism of these kitchen sequences. It'd be difficult to eat a really amazing, authentic ratatouille for me now without imagining some rodent who sounds like Patton Oswalt preparing it with his grubby little hands just out of sight.

What's great about Pixar, and particularly Brad Bird's two films with the studio, is that the amazing technology works in service to warm, funny and smart storytelling. There's kind of an awkward, almost Randian quality to Bird's The Incredibles - it's a great, funny, visually-dazzling film with a peculiar, somewhat elitist moral compass. Ratatouille is not only charming but genuinely uplifting. Anyone not at least a bit touched by the conclusion of villainous food critic Anton Ego's storyline should just give up on movies now...you're never going to get it...

8. Grindhouse

It's a real shame that Planet Terror and Death Proof have been split up on DVD and made into two separate films, as the entire experience of Grindhouse works better all put together. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, whether intentionally or not, took 180-degree, diametrically opposed approaches to the task of updating the Z-grade cinema that once ruled the questionable movie houses of New York's Times Square, and the sensory overload of seeing them together - along with some funny fake trailers - was half the fun.

Rodriguez, in Terror, used contemporary technology to essentially "replicate" the look of an old movie, but with a scale and a style that would not have ever been possible for a low-budget film in the '70s. His zombie horror film is essentially more-retro-than-retro; it looks more like we'd imagine an insane Late-Night UHF creature feature than a real Late-Night UHF creature feature.

Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, on the other hand, inverts the formula, turning his movie into a lament for a dying era in cinema, when everything was fashioned by hand and a market still existed for movies made by amateur outsiders. (Like the real films of the era, Death Proof sags in the middle, filling time with pointless dialogue that doesn't really go anywhere. He's so committed to replicating a lost genre, he's actually willing to make his movie kind of boring for 20 minutes or so!)

He does everything he can, really, to actually make the movie like he's an exploitation director with no budget in the '70s, to limit what he can accomplish until the whiz-bang car chase conclusion. And when that conclusion comes, it's both a tearful goodbye to and a sendup of the grindhouse - he mocks the casual misogyny and perverse humor of these old movies while conceding that they have an authenticity that Grindhouse itself can't even touch.

[Read the original review here]

7. Black Book

Paul Verhoeven's Black Book is like some kind of miracle - a realistic, serious WWII film that's never maudlin, even when the story takes a tragic turn. This story of a Jewish spy (an amazing Carice van Houten) working for the Dutch Resistance is an adventure movie for adults, one that's too busy kicking ass for gauzy Hollywood pathos. In fact, the sadness of its characters and the seeming futility of their cause are brought into greater relief because the film's suspense is so relentless. We don't hear about their desperation; we come to feel it, as they do, with each close call and narrow escape. This is Verhoeven reinvigorated, working with some material that's worthy of his gifts, rather than this embarrassing Hollywood sci-fi bullshit he's been doing.

[Read the original review here]

6. Wristcutters: A Love Story



An intriguing premise executed perfectly, Wristcutters is what Defending Your Life would have been like if Albert Brooks could just get over himself for 10 minutes and make a real movie. I'd love for this movie to inspire a mini-trend in American independent film - the mundane fantasy film. This is the Mumblecore Lord of the Rings. The plot, in a nutshell: Zia (Patrick Fugit) thinks better of slitting his wrists over a girl when he discovers the afterlife is just like Earth, only a bit more overcast and dreary. Now, he's stuck in a city filled with other suicides, working a dead-end (literally!) pizza delivery job and afraid to try killing himself again for fear of where he might end up. When he hears word that his lost love has also killed herself, he sets out on one last road trip to find her.

Writer/director Goran Dukic (working from a story by Etgar Keret) has filled this entire world with memorable eccentrics: Tom Waits as Kneller, leader of a ragtag afterlife commune, and Will Arnett as the wannabe cult leader The Messiah are the recognizable faces, but Shea Whigham really steals the show as Eugene, Zia's partner in crime whose entire Russian family have all found themselves in the same disappointing eternity. A fantastic character (who, according to IMDb, is inspired by Eugene Hutz, the lead singer of Gogol Bordello and a friend of Dukic), Eugene bops around this odd world like he finds the afterlife refreshing, a break from his former life even though it's remarkably similar.

5. You, the Living

I wrote about this surreal, plotless Scandinavian dark comedy at length earlier this week when I saw it at the Palm Springs Film Festival. You can go read that review here. It's a breathtaking, haunting and atmospheric flight of imagination, unlike any movie I've ever seen other than Andersson's previous effort, 2000's similarly-brilliant Songs From the Second Floor. This guy is like David Lynch's jocular, perfectionist cousin.

4. Zodiac



Quite simply one of the best police procedurals ever made, this is not a film about the Zodiac investigation specifically, but about the nature of investigation itself. How an investigation quickly involves and even implicates those doing the investigating. The characters in the film stare a bit too long into the abyss of the Zodiac murders, and it sucks them in one by one, obsessing them with its endless string of facts and details and observations and contradictions.

It's hard to find fault with any of David Fincher's decisions here. The music is impeccably chosen, particularly Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man," which becomes the killer's theme music, classic hippie rock rendered ethereal and vaguely sinister. Harris Savides' digital cinematography - this is the first Hollywood film in history made without any film or video tape - is glossy and pristine; it resembles the films of the '70s, but if they had been shot with modern cameras. And everything is so detailed; accurate to the actual Zodiac crimes and making this entire world feel complete and lived-in on screen. Fincher went so far as to use CG blood, so that it would always look exactly right, and even shot some scenes in greenscreen, going back and artificially recreating '70s San Francisco in a computer because the real thing looks too different now. Amazing.

[Read the original review here]

3. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Andrew Dominik's brooding Western is, without a doubt, the year's most underappreciated film. Roger Deakins shot both this film and the one at #2, because he's a genius, and he gives Jesse James the look of a fading photograph; awkward and uncanny and beautiful. It's a long movie, and really something of a slow-motion chase movie, with James pursuing enemies real and imagined, and Robert Ford pursuing James, desperate to share a bit of the legend's glory. It's also the first of three Westerns sitting atop my Top Films list this year, a definitely surprising and clearly unprecedented event. (Not only have I never found 3 Westerns at the top of my list of favorite films, I can't think of any year in which any one genre so dominated the year.)

[Read the original review here]

2. No Country for Old Men



After Ladykillers, I genuinely entertained the notion that the Coen Brothers were lost to us forever. I've put up with longer dry periods from other directors than the one-two punch of crap that was Intolerable Cruelty and the aforementioned Tom Hanks catastrophe...

But the Coens had been so good for so long, just churning out strange, unexpected, perfectly-realized classic after classic, one every few years since 1984's Blood Simple. Their career had almost come to feel like "Guitar Hero 3" - one split-second's miscalculation could throw off their rhythm, and the whole game would be ruined.

Fortunately, the Coen Brothers' filmography is nothing like "Guitar Hero 3" - or at least, me when I'm playing "Guitar Hero 3" - because No Country for Old Men is one of their greatest achievements, and it succeeds on the same strengths the Coens have been exploiting for years: Unbelievably clever dialogue (this is easily the year's best screenplay), an extrasensory skill at pacing and designing set pieces and an ability to coax career-best work from talented character actors.

Many were turned off by the film's abrupt, low-key and intentionally anticlimactic ending, and it's certainly not a conventional way to close out this story. So much of the film is about what we can't know and can't understand: What drives a man like Anton Chigurh? Where does the money come from and to whom does it belong and why are all these people willing to die for it? What is the nature of Llewelyn Moss, who seems alternately sympathetic and repugnant, or for that matter, Ed Tom Bell, a sheriff who doesn't maybe try as hard as he could to solve crimes any more? It seems only fitting that we'd be left with more questions than answers, that we'd forcibly change perspective the moment the pieces actually fall into place, and once again have to readjust our viewpoint on the film's violent events.

[Read the original review here]

1. There Will Be Blood



Not much of a surprise here. I've been raving about PT Anderson's latest and greatest for a while now to anyone within earshot, and have seen the film twice theatrically. It's a masterpiece - quite possibly the best American film of our present decade.

What makes it so good? Well, I have to tell you...I'm not 100% sure. I mean, I could go on here at length about the film's qualities: how Jonny Greenwood's spastic orchestral score compliments the unpredictable and hazardous work of drilling for oil or the way Daniel Day-Lewis can make a long, pregnant pause both FUNNY and TERRIFYING. I could spend at least a good paragraph on a single shot, in which Day-Lewis watches oil burn in the distance, his smudgy red face the only thing visible in a sea of blackness.

But I couldn't really tell you why the life story of a lonely, misanthropic, greedy alcoholic, an intense and provocative character study of a horrible man, effected me on such a deep level. Perhaps I sympathize with the angry atheist Daniel Plainview, forced to abide and respect the religious majority in order to get by while secretly disgusted by their self-righteous piety? Perhaps my love of historical films, Daniel Day-Lewis films and Paul Thomas Anderson films just collided in a Perfect Storm of Shit That Appeals to Lons?

Or maybe 2007 was just the right year for There Will Be Blood. A year when a movie about a desperate, empty sociopath, fueled by a bitter distaste for humanity and an insatiable lust for wealth, status and power, felt suddenly relevant.

[Read the original review here]

The Worst Movies of 2007

[SPOILER ALERT: These are all bad movies. Sometimes, I will ruin them for you. I'll let you know before I do, but if you actually want to see one of the movies I'm discussing and don't want to know how it ends, probably you're safer just skipping that section and moving on.]

I started at Mahalo last January, so unlike in previous years, I didn't have the benefit of free movie rentals in 2007. Yet I still saw more than enough horrible movies to fill a Worst of the Year list, complete with runners-up. You know...in case you were worried...

First things first, the year's worst movies that even I was not brave enough to see. The "Doomed to Fail" list:

Reign Over Me

The log line on this movie seriously makes me want to barf:

"A man who lost his family in the September 11 attack on New York City runs into his old college roommate."

And that's even before I tell you the tragic case at the heart of Reign On Me is played by Adam fucking Sandler! And that it comes to you from the genius behind HBO's short-lived "Mind of the Married Man"! Nooooooooo!

In the Valley of Elah

In Crash, Paul Haggis bravely told you that racism is teh l4m3z0rz. Now, in In the Valley of Elah (great title there, by the way, PH), he boldly takes on the Iraq War. Hmmm, I can't help but wonder if he'll have any useless, generic bromides to share with us...

Dan in Real Life



Has the "uptight dad terrified his daughter will get laid" genre ever given us an actual good movie? When you find yourself mining the same comic territory as Tony Danza, that's when you know things have gone horribly, horribly awry.

Wild Hogs

I don't really even feel the need to elaborate on this one. At this point, I greet trailers for new Tim Allen comedies with roughly the same enthusiasm as new Osama bin Laden videos. "Oh, shit, what's he going on about this time...What an asshole..."

Kickin It Old Skool

Now I've thought long and hard about this, and I'm pretty sure Jamie Kennedy's wigger persona is the lamest schtick in which any comedian on the fucking planet is engaging at this precise moment in history. Bear in mind, this means I find it less inventive or funny than Carlos Mencia's "look at the wildly gesticulating, racist Mexican who's not even really a Mexican" routine, Larry the Cable Guy's "look at the ignorant backwoods good ol' boy who's not even really a good ol' boy" bit and Michael Richards' "walk into a room full of black people and say deeply insulting things" schtick. Seriously, it's that bad...

Delta Farce

Well, as long as we're talking Larry the Cable Guy...He did manage to get some more work this year. Presumably from people who didn't see Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector.

The Bucket List

The more I find out about this movie, the more I hate it. I hate the way it totally ignores the truth about terminal illness, and pretends you could do stuff like motorcycling across the Great Wall of China while wasting away from cancer. I hate how it reveals our disturbing inability to deal with the plain truth of our own mortality in this country. I hate that it reduces the once-legendary Jack Nicholson and the great Morgan Freeman to sub-sitcom "wacky old people" cliches. But most of all, I hate the very notion of such a "list of generic activities" these two simply must engage in before they die. Most of them (at least from what I can see in the trailer) are unimaginative and predictable, and all of them require spending a lot of money. Well, isn't that just the ideal holiday fantasy? Blowing through a wad of cash on pointless shit you don't need, then dying.

License to Wed

Wins the award for the Worst Trailer of the Year:



I think I talked about this before, but I HATE comedies that rely on one of the main characters being completely insane and another character having to do everything the insane one says. That's such a pathetic, desperate way to write a movie, and because we realize immediately that the entire movie is based on needelssly forcing sane people to act insanely (because we're never provided with a GOOD REASON for such a scenario), we realize there are no stakes and essentially give up. Oh, and Robin Williams cloying, vapid blathering doesn't help matters.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium



Don't remake Toys, you fools! No one liked that the last time!

----------------

Okay, that's quite enough of that. Let's move on to the bad movies I actually took the time to watch:

THE WORST FILMS OF 2007

16. Paris J'Taime

20 different directors contribute 5-minute films to this anthology about romance in Paris, and I can't honestly say a single one really comes together or demands attention. Each one of the films, in its own way, feels half-baked and tossed off, and with a few exceptions, we're only be able to identify the directors involved because they're named at the beginning of each segment. Many of them are shot well, but none of them are compelling, despite the relative freedom of the concept. (Characters in love or falling in love in different neighborhoods of the city in five minutes...that's it.) It might have been tolerable for a while, but 2 hours of this is far far far too much.

15. Bug

Perhaps Bug just works better on a stage. Tracy Letts adapted the script from her own play, and I guess, at least from the level of performance, its teeth-gnashing theatrics might work in a live setting. But William Friedkin's film version is just absolutely ludicrous. Rather than watching Agnes and Peter slowly go mad together in a crummy motel room, we see them discover a new romance, start to get along, and then suddenly FREAK OUT in a mad, overripe frenzy of schizophrenic horror. Now, of course, it's not really about a couple going insane in the midst of a bug infestation. I understand that weightier themes are involved, about desperate co-dependency, the terror of hopeless loneliness, all that...But it's impossible to take the drama seriously, what with all the funhouse lighting and open sores.

14. Mr. Brooks



In this movie, William Hurt plays the physical manifestation of a voice in Kevin Costner's head urging him to kill. Together, they match wits against blackmailer Dane Cook. Do I need to keep going?

13. Vacancy

Okay, I'm putting my foot down. No more "car fatefully breaks down during already-poignant/emotional road trip" horror movies. I can't fucking take it any more. You guys keep making them and I keep watching them and they're all pointless and lame. This movie actually asks us to tremble with fear at the thought of being attacked by a relatively unarmed Frank Whaley. ("You can't run...you can't hide from...The Nerdy Pervert! Rated R.)

12. Smokin' Aces

Perhaps the ultimate reminder that stunt casting for its own sake is lame, and that few things are more painful than unfunny cameos. Many many members of Hollywood's semi-famous B-list ranks pop up for a scene or two in Joe Carnahan's miserable action-comedy Smokin Aces, most of them playing hitmen determined to wipe out Jeremy Piven. (Unfortunately, we're tasked with rooting against them.) None of them does anything even remotely amusing throughout the entire film; the only moment, in fact, that seems to get any kind of reaction from the audience is when several annoying characters die suddenly and mercifully disappear from the film. That earns a round of applause.

11. Factory Girl



Is this film a really sly, subversive homage to Andy Warhol? A simple-minded, superficial tribute to a brazenly and defiantly superficial mind? Maybe, but it's more likely Factory Girl is simply unable to provide any fresh insight into its already-familiar cast of characters nor any sense of the significance of these artists and their experiences. It reduces the story of Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan and the New York art world of their time to the most pedestrian level possible - celebrity gossip. "Did you know that this socialite floozy fucked Bob Dylan? And he thought Andy Warhol was, like, totally using her, and Andy Warhol was all like totally jealous, and she got all messed up on drugs and needed rehab?" And of course, the movie itself was tabloid fodder because of Sienna Miller's highly revealing nude scenes, her crushed award-season hopes and her tumultuous romance with Jude Law. Ugh.

Oh, I didn't mention Hayden Christensen's so-bad-it's-hilarious take on Dylan, who didn't allow the filmmakers to use his name or music in the film because he didn't like their take on his relationship with Sedgwick, probably because it's stupid and poorly-conceived. Having Anakin to impersonate Dylan's highly idiosyncratic manner of speaking poorly throughout the entire film was just a horrible choice by director George Hickenlooper. It makes the whole film feel like a bad SNL sketch. I'll take Cate Blanchett, thanks so much.

10. Spider-Man 3

Raimi had always resisted putting Venom in the Spider-Man films, but the rabid fanboy enthusiasm won out in the end. So we got a Venom movie from a guy who clearly doesn't understand or enjoy the Venom character. (I can't say I blame him...I've never really found Venom all that compelling as a character.) Every decision made on that end just sucked, from casting Eric Forman to play the character to featuring Tobey Maguire in heavy guyliner, trudging around in alien-symbiote-inspired angst like a backup dancer fired from a Fall Out Boy video. The effects were terrific as always in this Spider-Man, but everything else felt turgid and empty.

[Read the original review here]

9. The Number 23

Wow, 2007 fucking SUCKED. I can't believe this piece of shit is actually coming in #9. I picked EIGHT MOVIES as worse than this piffle? This piffle, I should add, directed by one of my all-time least favorite directors, a guy nearly guaranteed a spot on my Worst of the Year list any time he releases a movie, Mr. Joel Schumacher. Joel can't even make it into the Top 5 this year...Damn...

Anyway, I don't want to blow the whole thing for you necessarily, but the entire mystery behind Number 23 is intensely insulting. The set-up: Jim Carrey and wife Virginia Madsen discover a weird book in a rare book shop. It seems to describe aspects of Carrey's childhood and life, details it would be difficult for someone else to know. Also, the book describes a character who grows obsessed with the number 23 and its significance in probability, the universe, etc. That's all fine, I suppose. Mysterious enough I guess, even though it's punctuated by weird, really irritatingly-shot, overexposed "dream sequences" or whatever in which a tattooed Carrey alter-ego stalks around acting generally menacing. But the ending just feels so gratuitous and rushed, like it occurred to the screenwriters five minutes before their pages were due. A movie like this lives or dies by the last five minutes. If you don't have a great final twist, why write a thriller that spends 90 minutes building up to a final twist?

8. Pirates of the Caribbean 3

This movie was awful in a really weird way. I mean, how could you possibly fuck this one up? The first movie is really good, I personally think the second is even better...and then, this aimless, ceaselessly perplexing final chapter, which seems to purposefully ignore all the charms of the first two films? Really? 20 minutes of Depp, with visible flopsweat, desperately dicking around in front of a plain white backdrop? All of the lively, interesting characters sidelined, and newcomer Chow Yun-Fat killed off near-instantly, in favor of some snooty aristocratic Englishmen in powdered wings and their various double-, triple- and quadruple-crosses? The Kraken, the coolest adversary in the entire series, killed off-screen between films? Like I said, just...weird...One of the year's great disappointments.

[Read the original review here]

7. I Know Who Killed Me



As ridiculous as I found the conclusion of The Number 23, Lindsay Lohan's foray into the serial killer genre actually earns the dubious Worst Twist of 2007 award. It's so dubious, they actually have Art Bell appear on-screen during the movie to assure us in the audience that, in fact, these claims are possible. Trust me...they are not. Twists aside, this is just an extremely dark, muddy and unattractive film about a suburban good-girl slasher victim who wakes up after her attack minus an arm and under the impression that she's a stripper. It's just as nihilistic, unpleasant and grim as it sounds, not just brutally violent but also disgusting and lurid. It's trying to shock you, which doesn't make it shocking...Just sad...

6. Southland Tales

This movie's a gigantic mess, and really my respect for Richard Kelly's ambition is the only thing keeping it out of the Top 5. It feels like the work of someone caught up entirely within a world of his own creation. He has no idea how to bring others into this creation, to help us understand the significance of these bizarre characters and random, dimly explained goings-on, to him or anyone else. These images and concepts just sit there, on screen, sometimes coalescing into something approaching satire and other times defiantly refusing to make any sense at all, and after a short time, I found it completely impossible to even pay attention to them.

[Read the original review here]

Interestingly, this is yet another 2007 film with a giant cast of unimpressive, B-level celebrities, many of them "Saturday Night Live" alumni. These kind of deep comedian rosters are like a Grand Tradition truly bad movies. Anyone remember Rat Race? Of course you don't...

5. Stardust



When whimsy fails, it EPIC FAILS. Like farce, whimsical fantasy has to be done with an extremely deft touch. Miss the right tone/tempo/attitude/style/performance even by a bit, and the whole thing's just off. Stardust misses all of the above and MANY MANY MORE. In addition to woefully amateurish special effects and an essentially inert non-romance drearily stretched out to feature-length proportions, Stardust features the least-likable cast of characters in any recent fantasy film. Just when you're thinking no protagonist could possibly be more boring than the Orlando Bloom wannabe they've cast as Tristan, here comes Claire Danes as the whiny Star Girl Yvaine. Oh boy!

The worst of all is, of course, Captain Shakespeare, the friendly mincing sky pirate who pretends to be a tough guy in front of his men even though, when left to his own devices, he's a right dandy! He's played by Robert De Niro, who's obviously in dire need of funds to pay for his grandmother's operation.

[Read the original review here]

4. Transformers

It's not that I had high expectations for Transformers, you understand. I knew it was going to be terrible. It had nothing going for it from the first, save perhaps the corporate, almost entirely non-creative input of producer Steven Spielberg. I mean, a Michael Bay adaptation of an '80s toy concept involving truck-robots scouring the Earth for energy cubes. Suddenly the Lindsay Lohan as the forgetful dismembered stripper concept doesn't sound so bad.

What I wasn't prepared for was the migraine-inducing "action" scenes, which were not entertaining at all but did manage to exactly replicate the POV of a kitten that has been placed inside a dryer along with some Hot Wheels. I wasn't prepared for the "comedy" scenes, in which Optimus Prime bumbles around Shia LaBeouf's backyard like he's starring in some kind of anime Preston Sturges homage. I wasn't prepared for the seemingly endless sub-plots that went nowhere and were suddenly dropped in the last half-hour anyway, padding an already-overlong film into a bladder-decimating 150 minute ordeal. Watch as I instantly transform into someone who doesn't pay for Michael Bay movies any more!

[Read the original review here]

3. Shoot Em Up

Yet more proof that Chuck Jones was a fucking GENIUS. This movie is obviously trying to be live action Looney Tunes, yet director Michael Davis is unable to devise a single joke or set-up that's half as memorable or inventive as any random Warner Bros. classic short. Seriously, to set your expectations this low - a movie with essentially no plot that's just a bunch of random gunfights and cheap chauvanism - and still utterly fail to hit the mark, that's when it's seriously time to consider a new career path. Why would Clive Owen do this to us?

[Read the original review here]

2. 300



Go back and read the full review to get my extensive thoughts on this horrifyingly offensive, Western-supremacist war porn abomination. The popularity of this film and the fact that so many of my countrymen have defended it and lauded it with praise this year seriously makes me feel badly about where we are as a society. This kind of self-congratulatory, bloodthirsty propaganda, disguised as history of all things, just reinforces - and not in a suble way - a great mass of negative, destructive ideas. Homophobia, the fetishization of war, the demonization of foreign peoples...it's all in there, and you don't have to look particularly hard to find it.

For those of you about to write me angry messages in the comments about how 300 is based on a graphic novel from years ago about a war thousands of years ago, and thus can't possibly relate to anything in 2007, let me just say that you might want to read some books without drawings now and again.

[Read the original review here]

1. Revolver



Guy Ritchie's Revolver was produced and released in Europe years ago, but it only made it to America in 2007, because it's clearly one of the worst movies ever made. Here's what Roger Ebert said:

"Revolver" is a frothing mad film that thrashes against its very sprocket holes in an attempt to bash its brains out against the projector. It seems designed to punish the audience for buying tickets.

He's far too kind.

Word on the street is that Ritchie was inspired by his wife Madonna's Kabballah religion, and if that's the case, those people are easily as fucked up as the Scientologists.

Ritchie's movie constantly promises to lead to something, and then keeps turning you around and showing you what you've already seen. (Get it? Revolver? Ha ha, this obvious pun excuses all my film's repetitiveness!) A convict is freed from jail. There's a gangster after him for some reason. Two mysterious guys come to his aid, but keep asking him to pull crappy errands for them in exchange. Are these the same two guys he got to know through the walls of his prison cell, who had long planned how to pull off the perfect crime? I still have no idea, because the movie doesn't so much answer questions as ask them over and over and over again. Eventually, you stop caring about getting any answers and just want to get as far away from the DVD of Revolver as possible. You may even lose your will to live. Who knows? Results may vary.

[Read the original review here]

My Favorite Albums of 2007

[Start checking out the Favorite Songs Lists here with Part 1]

Let's get right to it, shall we...This was extremely difficult to compile. I must have listened to at least 50 good-to-great albums in 2007 that were considered for this list...

21. White Rabbits, Fort Nightly

These guys make experimental indie pop that's also totally accessible. I'm thinking this might even be easy to dance to if I had any natural ability in that area. On first hearing this album, I was reminded of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, but this is better than that band's 2005 debut (and far better than their lame 2007 entry, Some Loud Thunder). Long-time readers will also recall my bias towards rock with piano, which helps explain my immediate fondness for The Rabbits.

20. Calla, Strength in Numbers

This is a heavy, brooding guitar rock that's remarkably consistent, both in tone and quality. I love the fuzzed-out, distorted, almost tortured guitar noise on "Simone" in particular, which sounds like a Garbage song performed by a less self-conscious, male lead singer.

19. Windmill, Puddle City Racing Lights

I can't tell if I like this record in spite of its cheesiness or because it's so unapologetically cheesy. They're operatic to such an extent on every track, Windmill somehow moves beyond cheese, like U2 did on Joshua Tree (and Achtung Baby, and then never ever again.) I mean, take the song "Fit." It's ridiculously sweet and also ridiculously silly, from the swelling horns at the opening to the "Guitar for Dummies" riff over the chorus. It's hard to imagine Windmill even performing it with a straight face. It sounds like something from a musical. And not a rock musical. Like one of those Tim Rice jobs.

18. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible

Probably my most anticipated album of 2007 (I didn't know Radiohead had anything coming out), so I guess it's surprising this comes in so far down the list. Some songs are great - "Intervention," "Keep the Car Running," "Windowstill" - but there's also a sameness to a lot of the songs that got to me after a while. It certainly didn't hold up to repeat listens like the band's phenomenal "Funeral" from a few years back. And I'm sorry..."No Cars Go" is just a bad song, and the band has now put it on two separate albums.

17. Ween, La Cucaracha

These guys don't get 1/8 of the respect they deserve, so I'm always eager to shower them with praise...but even a superfan like myself must concede "La Cucaracha" was not their best-ever effort. Opener "Fiesta" is just boring, the falsetto on "Spirit Walker" grates after a listen or two and the suitably brown "Blue Balloon" goes on about two minutes too long. This album, in fact, makes the list because of three songs: "Your Party," which made my Favorite Songs of the Year list, "Object" and one of the most hilarious filthy tracks in the band's entire discography, "My Own Bare Hands."

16. Aesop Rock, None Shall Pass

There's so much going on in this album, lyrically and sonically. Even if it weren't so entertaining and listenable, you'd have to admire the sheer amount of effort that went into None Shall Pass. Aesop's rhymes are the polar opposite of the party anthems and club music that dominates the radio - intricate, detailed, absurdist, reference-heavy narratives and rants alike, they could probably be transcribed and published as a short story collection.

15. The New Pornographers, Challengers

First off, the Dan Bejar (aka Destroyer) songs on this album are among his best contributions to any New Pornographers album to date. "Myriad Harbour" in particular. The remainder of Challengers feels a bit less ambitious than Twin Cinemas, my favorite of their LP's, but does include some great indie pop songs. "Failsafe," "All the Old Showstoppers" and "Mutiny, I Promise You" are the highlights.

14. Busdriver, RoadKill Overcoat

Most of the albums on this list won over a lot of fans this year besides me. Many of them made Pitchfork's Best of the Year List, and a slew of other Top 10's from around the Web. But RoadKill Overcoat came out really early this year, and I'm not sure I've heard anyone praise it other than myself. (Granted, I haven't been paying close attention). Anyway, I know Busdriver raps very fast with a very weaselly, high-pitched voice, and that half of the songs on here find him leaving his comfort zone and singing, but I still can't imagine why this isn't more popular, at least with music bloggers.

13. Blitzen Trapper, Wild Mountain Nation

Blitzen Trapper pull off a wide variety of sounds and styles on Wild Mountain Nation and never once sound less than totally confident. You'd swear the title track was written by Jerry Garcia, then it segues neatly into the contemporary indie pop of "Futures & Folly," then suddenly you find you're listening to lo-fi garage rock (interrupted by a harmonica solo) and on and on and on. All Music Guide refers to the style as "schizophrenic," but that implies that it's somehow out-of-control, when nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the band sounds incredibly accomplished and tight here, particularly Erik Menteer on guitar.

12. Dinosaur Jr., Beyond

I was a bit young for Dinosaur Jr. the first time around (You're Living All Over Me dropped when I was 8 years old), and actually only discovered the band after developing something of an obsession with bassist Lou Barlow's follow-up project, Sebadoh. So this Dinosaur Jr. "reunion" is actually my first chance to be a real fan - seeing them play together at the Wiltern was definitely the best time I had at a rock show in '07. And it's all particularly gratifying because the new songs are so good, reminiscent of the music they've always made but not outdated or predictable. The Dinosaur Jr. Reunion kicks The Pixies Reunion's ass.

11. Feist, The Reminder

The Reminder sounds like a lost gem from another era. It's hard to believe the same airwaves crowded with shrill, guylinered emo bands and fucking Fergie nightmares actually broadcast these simple, perfect little Feist melodies. I liked Let It Die largely because of Karen Feist's beautiful vocals, but The Reminder gets pretty much everything right.

10. Okkervil River, The Stage Names

Not much to say about Okkervil River I haven't said before. These guys continue to impress with their expert musicianship, Will Sheff's phenomenal singing and deft lyricism and their outsize ambition. This may not be quite as memorable as the haunting Black Sheep Boy, but it's fantastic nevertheless.

9. Battles, Mirrored

I really should have put "Tonto" from this record on my Favorite Songs list. Not sure what I was thinking on that one. Anyway, it's an understandable mistake, because I never once put on an individual Battles song - I always listened to the entire album straight through. It's so easy to just get into the groove of these songs and let my mind drift, I had to remind myself after giving Mirrored about 10 listens to actually pay attention to what I was hearing. The way these guys just develop little melodies and then let them play out and mutate over the course of 7, 8 minutes is truly awe-inspiring at times.

8. The Ponys, Turn the Lights Out

Hands down, the guitar-rock album of the year. "Everyday Weapon," "Small Talk," "Poser Psychotic"...those are my favorites, but Jered Gummere and Brian Case just shred their way through 12 straight tracks. By the time they finish with the epic 6 minute plus finale, "Pickpocket Song," I typically need a nap.

7. The Fiery Furnaces, Widow City

A fine return to form for The Furnaces after several years in a kind of experimental daze, lost in the Friedberger Siblings esoteric and frequently unlistenable artistic impulses, like King Lear if he'd taken become addicted to ether during his travels. Only two songs, "Clear Signal from Cairo" and "Navy Nurse," drift around between several melodies and tempos like Blueberry Boat or Rehearsing My Choir. But rather than allowing the more clipped style to limit their palette of styles and sounds, the Furnaces just zip around more quickly. It makes for an exhilarating, always intriguing hour of music.

6. Bat for Lashes, Fur and Gold

This is late-night music, to be listened to on headphones with the lights out. I'm not sure how Natasha Khan put together such a delicate, quiet collection of songs that's this riveting. Also, what the hell is up with "The Wizard"? " Trembling midnight lands/I travel with the wizard/
Drink his blood and he's our leader"? It scares the hell out of me, and yet I can't stop listening to it.

5. The National, Boxer

I'm not sure what these guys do that other bands don't do, but I can listen to these songs A TON and not get tired of them. "Mistaken for Strangers," "Ava," "Guest Room," "Apartment Story"...I'm not even close to getting tired of these songs. Also, as they did on Alligator, The National have managed to put together a collection of songs that feel like they're about a common theme...but damned if I know what that theme is. And what it has to do with boxers. Also, I don't know how to talk about Matt Berninger's singing without making it sound like I have a mancrush on him. So let's just leave it at that.

4. M.I.A., Kala

At work, my friend Travis and I were both listening to this album obsessively all year, and it felt almost wrong somehow. Like this intensely immediate, exciting music - full of violent anger but also this powerful optimism and humanity - being listened to by a couple of guys sitting near-motionless at computers all day. But it's not really all that strange, because in addition to a good soundtrack for a convenience store robbery and/or block party, Kala is also the most compelling album of 2007, rewarding careful listening and close attention. A fucking masterpiece.

3. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Maybe Spoon's best album ever, there I said it. This is seriously up there with Girls Can Tell and Series of Sneaks, people. Every single song is good, and quite a number of them are exceptionally good. In fact, the four songs that close it out - "The Underdog," "My Little Japanese Cigarette Case," "Finer Feelings" and "Black Like Me" - are my favorite part of any album of the year. How's that for obsessive listing!

2. Radiohead, In Rainbows

Radiohead's best album since Kid A. I'm sure you're all sick of hearing me talk about Yorke, Greenwood & Co. at this point, so here's the Safety Dance.



1. Panda Bear, Person Pitch

Yes, I have the same #1 album of the year as Pitchfork. I am a poseur. But seriously...listen to this 6 or 7 times, and it just automatically becomes your favorite album of the year. It's that good. Person Pitch is like a puzzle box - at first it's confusing and you don't know what the hell's going on, and then you slowly start to investigate and figure things out and then, suddenly, everything falls perfectly into place. "Oh, wrapped up tightly inside all these sound effects and stray noises are warm little pop songs!" Gradually discovering Panda Bear's hidden melodies was one of the highlights of 2007 for me.