Dec 29 2008
My Top Ten of 2008
So here is my best of the year. What a strange year it has turned out to be. Two of my top films are comedies, one of which is written, directed and STARRING Ben Stiller, whom I normally HATE. The same film also stars Jack Black, who I also normally hate! I also have two comic book films in the list and only one underground movie (though to be fair I didn’t see that many this year). The worst list was actually easier to make. I stopped at five but could have kept going with no problem. Also over the next few days I have invited some of my friends to write me some of their top ten lists as well and I will be posting them on here too.
On with mine!
10. Reality Bleed Through – Jimmy Creamer aka Screamerclauz to all you East Coast rockers, made this intelligent and visually arresting underground horror/sci-fi drama about the end of the world. It deals with Government take over, religious cults, and the destructive belief in god. The visuals in the film are far beyond most at this level but are outdone by the ideas presented. Sure its rough around the edges. But it is MILES beyond most micro-budget epics.
9. Harold And Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay – I liked the first Harold and Kumar movie. It is silly fun with some huge laughs. But this one is another beast altogether. As politically savvy as it is hysterically funny this is one of the most biting satires of the Bush administrations politics ever. This movie takes shots at the over riding racism of the war on terror, the uselessness of current drug laws, and the facade that is The Patriot Act, all within the confines of a raunchy teen comedy.
8. The American Drug War: The Last White Hope – This actually aired on Showtime at the very tail end of 2007 but showed up on DVD in 08 and was widely seen then. It is a harrowing and sobering look at how cocaine and then crack was distributed into America with the aid of the CIA and the US Government and disseminated onto the lower income streets of L.A. This movie names names, gives dates, shows histories and uncovers the facts. Those who like to call this kind of thing conspiracy theory can be directed right here.
7. [REC] – Jaum Baleguero and Pace Plaza’s intense “hand held” horror film is still technically unreleased in the United States, which is a shame because it is one of the scariest films of recent memory. It was a HUGE hit in its native land of Spain and was immediately remade here as Quarantine, which is a shot for shot, moment for moment remake. Naturally the Studio’s are keeping the original off the shelves here. I didn’t bother with the remake because the original is such a potent and harrowing beast. Why dilute it by seeing something inferior?
6. The Strangers – Yet another truly scary horror film that did great business. Then horror fans turned around and took a big old shit on it. It wasn’t scary they cried. It was stupid they said. It made no sense, they whimpered. Did you guys see the same movie? This was tense, well drawn had likable lead characters in a relatable situation, and a climax that just crushed you. Until the coda that felt tacked on anyway. I don’t get modern horror fans. You give them something good and they fall over themselves to trash it as if that makes them feel better. I sometimes think they deserve the other crap they get.
5. The Dark Knight – Most have called this the movie of the year. On a technical level I certainly cannot disagree. Everything is in place. It moves with grace and honor. The performances are pitch perfect, especially Heath Ledger who gives us The Joker that we’ve always dreamed someone would deliver. There’s depth here that the other comic book movies have all lacked. It is undeniably a great movie. But… There is just something that doesn’t quite work for me. The lack of Batman’s conflicted soul, or at least a focus on it, really left me wanting. I felt like the movie around it was an incredible well oiled monster, but the soul of the piece was just a little bit not there. Which keeps it out of my top.
4. The Tracy Fragments – Canadian Bruce McDonald directed this intense, experimental character study of a teenage girl gone over the edge into mental instability when her mentally handicapped little brother has turned up missing. Ellen Page does easily her best work to date, which says a LOT after Hard Candy. She switches from hurt little girl, to hyper sexualized nymph, to schizo on the edge of breakdown, sometimes all at once and sometimes only with just her big brown eyes. She’s amazing, and easily the brightest acting talent of her generation. The movie is told through all split screens, sometimes dozens at once, representing her rapidly disintegrating psyche. The style is totally called for by the story and is hard to deal with at first, but ultimately works FOR the film, and is a landmark use of technology as well.
3. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army – I was only lukewarm on the first Hellboy movie. I thought the characters where cool and some of the occult mythology was well done and interesting. But I felt like the studio held Gullermo Del Toro back from really cutting loose. Well, they DIDN’T this time. This movie is simply wonderful, full of imagination, and colorful spectacle but always, ALWAYS, backed by genuine warmth, heart and humanity. Del Toro does something for his creatures that almost no other director does. He genuinely loves them and gives them not only life, but entire worlds to live in. The scene in this movie where they visit the Troll Market is one of those great scenes from a fantasy film that has that rare ability to completely transport you into a complete world. The characters, even the most inconsequential ones, are rich and alive in this movie. There is humor, but never at the expense of said characters. The movie only falters at the end when it presents a climactic wrap up that is something you see coming.
2. Tropic Thunder – Who the hell knew? I never in a million years would have thought that a movie made by and starring Ben Stiller, with Jack Black would be not only so funny, but so good. This is easily the funniest movie of year, with a more laughs per screen time ratio than any movie I can name, but it is to my shock and awe, probably the smartest too. It just savages the Hollywood machine with relentlessness. This would be career suicide in most people’s hands, but Stiller not only pulls it off, he gets the best performances of their careers from Robert Downey Jr., Tom Cruise, and Jack Black. And Nick Nolte pretty great too.
1. Wall-E – Another shocker for me that my favorite movie of the year would be a Disney movie. I still firmly believe that Disney is the devil. But somehow this incredible Science Fiction critique of corporate consumerism culture got through the cracks. This is subversive filmmaking at the ultimate degree. Robert Anton Wilson would have loved this had his rascally ass lived to see it. This is a lovable, cuddly animated kids film from the biggest studio on the planet that ruthlessly SAVAGES the entire idea of our culture of idiocy, greed and consumerism. The idea that the first 20 minutes of the movie as a silent tone poem that defies all modern film conventions, that takes several huge swipes at Walmart is just huge. It is also a frightening cautionary tale about what we are doing to our planet and ourselves with our reckless trash filled lifestyles. Plus it is a heartwarming love story about loneliness and finding someone. Just about a perfect film in damn near every way.
Honorable Mention:
Return To Sleepaway Camp- When I saw the first Sleepaway Camp as a teenager I remember just sitting there in shock. The movie literally hurt my head. The strange mixture of general bad filmmaking, weird characters, sexual loathing and just fucked up stuff was just unlike anything I had ever seen. I’ve seen lots of stuff since then and it still stood on its own. Robert Hiltzik the original director has unleashed a second blast of anal wind from the Camp, and by god if it doesn’t smell just like the first! I think the man is certifiably insane. There are no other movies like these two. Not the purposefully campy Sleepaway Camp sequels, nor any other slasher movies. These things are from planet bizarre that only Hiltzik lives on. This movie is utterly terrible, and what a way for Isaac Hayes to end his career, but I cannot recommend it enough!
And Now The Worst!
5. Snuff: A Documentary About Killing On Camera - This Delirious piece of Shit was reviewed here on Exploitation Nation in an earlier blog so I don’t need to ramble on too much about why it sucks so bad. Suffice to say that it reveals almost nothing about the topic at hand that any one interested in in the subject wouldn’t already know. Plus it trots out a group of “experts” that are so questionable and annoying that you keep hoping that a snuff film featuring them will pop up at any minute. Dig this fucking trailer with stories featuring details that do NOT appear in the final film.
4. Day of the Dead - I’m no fan of the modern remake of Dawn of the Dead, though many people are. But this piece of crap directed by the talent barren Steve Minor makes that thing look like a masterpiece of terror and wit. Any horror movie starring Mr. Maria Carrey, Nick Cannon is off on the wrong foot anyway, but casting Mena Suvari as a hard ass soldier is just lunacy. Then the filmmakers not only break any rules of zombie films (since when do zombies disintegrate in CGI bursts like in BLADE?) but logic in general when they start crawling on ceilings and shit. This is the kind of movie that actually makes you dumber after you watch it.
3. Lost Boys The Tribe - I’m not one of these horror fans with a nostalgia boner for the original Lost Boys. I liked it when I was fifteen. Then I got older and realized it was pretty dumb and mostly aimed at teenage girls. Though I still like most of the music. Apparently so did the writers of this bomb of a sequel because they based the entire story around that “Cry Little Sister” song. Literally what little story there is this time out is based on the lyrics to that song! This time they gotAngus Sutherland, Kiefer’s younger and far less talented half brother to step into the vampire lead. It’s pretty obvious when he got the half of the Sutherland gene pool the acting talent part was left out. The two Coreys are back, with Feldman looking creepily the exact same as he did twenty years ago as Edgar Frog. Haim shows up in the last scene pulling a Jan Michael Vincent, clearly so stoned they have to prop him up to get the shots done. I could rattle on and one about all the ludicrous shit that is wrong with this movie, but it is still better than the next two on this list…
2. Cloverfield - This is what happens when you have a great trailer sucker people into a theater. I still can’t believe there are people who liked this mess. It is like being stuck at a party with a bunch of assholes you fucking hate for several hours. Who cares about the monster, the mass destruction etc. I hated those annoying, self absorbed, wall street wannabe ass jockeys! I actually had to break the movie into two sittings because I hated the characters so much I gave up on it once. The first half hour of the angsty whining is interminable and makes you want to hurl things at the screen. The kid they had “running” the camera should have been called ” Hey Rob” because that is all he fucking says repeatedly for the whole running time. Over and over and over he is going “Hey Rob! Hey Rob! Hey Rob!” Until you hope someone will smash him in the god damn face. The movie gets marginally better when the monster shows up, but then a whole new layer of stupidity arrives with it. Truly a movie so in love with itself that it is painful to watch.
1. The Love Guru -Just look at that poster for more than a minute. I dare you. If you can do that with out an emergency bowel evacuation, or punching your monitor than you are made of strong stuff or brain damaged. Even the poster evokes rage and feelings of uncomfortableness due to the enlarged ego on display. This is a resoundingly unfunny, painful movie that is almost an attack on the senses. Chronicling everything wrong with this would just be reliving it. I will say I did not choose to watch this, I was forced into it on a challenge. It wasn’t worth it in the end. To show there is some justice in the world this bombed at the box office. So naturally Mike Meyer’s is crawling back to the Austin Powers series to make that suck even more than it already does.
Unfortunately there are important movies I have missed this year that probably would have ended up on my list, such as Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, and The Strange Case of Benjamin Button all of which I want to see but have gotten past me at this point in time. Considering the end of the year is only days away I don’t see me catching up to them in time. So this list will have to suffice.
So watch this space in the next few days for some of my friends lists. It should be interesting reading to see what they have to say. They have eclectic tastes that differ from mine, so it should be interesting.
See you in 2009!
Andy C
