There are more notable filmmakers working now than at any time before. It’s just a matter of access. It is still harder to make a film now than to paint a picture in the 19th century, but there are a fuckton more people who are in a position to pursue a career in art. So I often wonder which films and filmmakers will be remembered during the impending dystopia, after the baby boomers finally collapse civilization under the weight of their greedy retirements. If I could take action on such things, I’d give you very short odds on Alexander Payne. While I can’t identify some special stroke of genius that separates him from any of the dozens of equally celebrated auteurs, he does have a central and universal theme that he has made his own. Payne is the poet laureate of the mediocre. That is, the vast majority of us, usually overlooked, especially by artists. I don’t know why Payne, who went to Stanford and then found some success with his first film and increasingly more with each one to follow, has taken an interest in, neither serial killers and drug addicts, nor presidents and revolutionaries, but in mid-level insurance men, high school civics teachers and novelists who are almost good enough to be published by small presses. However, he is clearly fascinated and nails every detail, from the cars his characters choose to the McAllisters’ bottled salad dressing in Election. Maybe his films are so funny because of this unusual choice in subject. In Sideways, Giamatti and Church are funnier in their pretensions, for example, because there is a seed of justification to them. Bagging a fat chick in the San Joaquin Valley who remembers you from an old soap opera role that led nowhere is funnier than, say, a total loser passing himself off as movie star to a dumb blond. Everything is perfect when Virginia Madsen lobs herself underhanded, right over the heart of the plate while out on the porch with Giamatti, only to have him freeze up and take a called third strike. Would the scene have worked if Giamatti had a National Book Award? Or even if we thought he might win one down the line? Would it have been so frustrating if he was just a joke or a junkie? Obviously, I think not, and the result is one of the most empathetic romantic scenes or record, as we connect completely with both characters simultaneously, as they disconnect. Payne realizes that the struggle between “good enough” and “not quite” is just as fruitful a source material as any. I doubt it’s a coincidence that his own film making tends to be just right, rather than revelatory or jarring. Maybe it’s because he went to Stanford and so forth and doesn’t share, with 95% of living creative types, the delusion that he is Charles Bukowski. Anyway, it’s good.

Best Gangster Saga – Election and Election 2

While the aughts will be remembered as the decade of television, the gangster epic of the decade is not “The Sopranos” by any criteria. It seems like, perhaps in the wake of “The Wire’s” greatness, more people are realizing how flawed David Chase’s opus was. You can’t blame anybody for being blown away by the absurdly high level of the acting and writing at the time. But by now you should be able to look back and see the moral, psychological and narrative impossibilities that culminated in a final season or two that was often unwatchable. The defining scene is when Tony–a minor mob boss–is sent a private luxury jet to fly to Caesars in Vegas to hang out and maybe gamble a few grand, the staff at Caesar’s supposedly having taken the same holiday from sanity and common sense that we were to take in giving a fuck if AJ would get into college or about Meadow’s feelings. With characters like this, at some point, you have to face the fact that they are murdering psychopaths controlled by greed. That is the driving force of the really great gangster films, beginning in recent history with The Godfather and The Godfather Too! , continuing through Goodfellas and the even better Casino (that’s right). Perhaps this sequence of films rounds off in Election and Election 2 (AKA Triad Election). Johnnie To’s films proudly pay homage to these predecessors, particularly in the final murder in Election, which is Fredo’s death combined with the deaths of Nicky Santoro and his brother.  Unlike most other HK flicks, including To’s own, there is a mastery of the techniques and material rather than an apprenticeship. If you agree with me that the greatest Godfather moment is Hyman Roth, Michael and some cronies cutting up a cake shaped like Cuba, while discussing how to slice up the people and resources of the country; if you wanted to see more of the decrepit, Machiavellian, Midwestern bosses hashing things out in Casino (”why take a chance?”) you’ll be absorbed by the focus on endless back room dealings and machinations in these films .

Everything is cold calculation; strategy driven only by self-interest and self-aggrandizement. Some abide by a system of honor, but it quickly becomes evident that the system is revered as a method for stability and profitability as an alternative to constant war. With sufficient corporate streamlining, even these ethics can be cast aside and buried alongside their adherents. These men have nothing in common with the Flintstones. Their families don’t humanize them. Contrast an early scene of our protagonist having dinner with his son to another of his son watching him bash in a friend’s head with a rock. If anything, these men drain away any sympathy we might be inclined to feel for their innocent family members. And it is getting to the true ruthlessness of the gangsters that makes this line of films so compelling. We have moments of understanding, of course–they are still human. But perhaps the guilty pleasure in such films is that the coldness of accurate depiction gives us the emotional distance to happily watch psychopaths position themselves and bump each other off like game pieces. And there are some magnificent bump-offs, from quick and brutal daylight hits to a very convincing argument made with sound reasoning, a sledge hammer, a meat cleaver and some German shepherds. Even when a kung fu guy chops up multiple attackers (they had to do it once, they are Asians, after all) the tone isn’t broken. To’s powerful visuals are evidently at their best when applied solemnly, though there are spots of dark humor. The Hong Kong setting–often a pleasure, even in the hands of hacks–gives the gangster epic a fresh surface. The history and the traditions of the Triad are seamlessly integrated with the traditions of Scorsese and Coppola to create something new. And finally, these HK crime epics are well written. Whereas many (or most) of the more celebrated HK films work around the script, these films realize great scripts. It’s said that you can watch them independently, which is true. But you’ll miss some interplay, including direct and subtle allusions, and lines of thought left for the viewer to take up. Watching the films a year apart, it might not occur to you that the viewpoint of Big D, the destructive hot head in Election, is largely vindicated in Election 2. As good as Casino, Goodfellas and the first two Godfathers? Nobody said anything about “films of the century.” But there’s a viable epic here, which I never would have believed.

Best Biopics – Sun

On the one hand you’ve got Sun, Soukrov’s praised but still underrated piece on the downfall of the emperor of Japan. Some found the film dull, perhaps because it is emotionally hollow, but the beauty of the filmmaking more than makes up for that. Anyway, emotions are for girls. After meeting the Hirohito to negotiate some details of his part in the surrender, MacArthur says what I had been thinking. “He’s like a child.” The Emperor agrees to disavow his divinity–an act that highlights the absurdity of the Japanese arrangement. You can’t agree to stop being the son of a god, you can only agree to stop pretending. Though the Emperor is extremely intelligent and refined, unchecked indulgence has indeed fostered a perpetual child who collects photos of movie stars (why do all dictators love Hollywood?) and practices “marine biology” by dicking around with a microscope while his country lies in ruins. He’s aware of internal tensions, but doesn’t really grasp the external realities, as evidenced by his nightmarish visions of aquatic monsters bombing Japan. Hirohito plausibly theorizes about the reasons for Japan’s defeat, but fails to see that, at the heart of each bad decision, is an antiquated social structure based on personal status and deference, rather than the competition of ideas, and that he is the center of the broken system. All of this is captured in one of the decade’s most subtly great performances by some Japanese guy. The unceremonious MacArthur offers him a box of Hershey bars as a consolation prize.

American Splendor

On the other hand, you have American Splendor, about a schlub of slight notoriety. The mixing of media might seem obvious or trendy after the fact, but it’s perfect and seamless in the movie, as when Harvey’s eventual wife looks for him at the train station, imagining different depictions from his comic books, brought to life with animation. The inclusion of Harvey and his friends works so well because the film is the conclusion of the story. Giving them major roles magnifies the effect the film has on itself. Not only have these dorks from Cleveland, who inhabit a world in which Robert Crumb is fucking Lincoln, occasionally reached the periphery of public attention; there’s a Hollywood movie about the whole thing now, and they’re in it. What makes the film great–apart from stuff like the acting and direction–is that it chooses to focus on a small success story from within a small subculture. Not that Ruthless is on par with a moderately successful series of independent comic books (someone, please cut the breaks on my car tonight), but I was only a bit less shocked to see this site mentioned in The Guardian than Harvey was to get a call from a Letterman producer. Every DIY dork who’s almost died from a boner over selling 500 CDs or getting an article into an obscure magazine that they liked will understand what such small victories mean. It’s not only finding an audience, but finding an audience among people who share your unusual tastes and therefore must be brilliant and discriminating. The film is also a suitable requiem for, and a fun look back at all of that DIY shit, from ‘zines to obscure record collecting. Nerds will compile limited editions and misprinted Wheaties boxes ’till the end of time. But now such practices are marketing ploys and symptoms of social disorders. They were back then too, but they were also part of how unheralded forms of expression forced new outlets. The days when there were veins of creative material only obtainable through “underground” social networks are pretty much gone, unless you’re into kiddie porn, and it’s fun to look back.

Best Crime Film: Bubble

Who says social realism requires the threat of starvation? In America, the joyless existence of the underclass is best represented not by a bicycle thief, but by wares of The Hamburglar. Soderbergh and writer Coleman Hough glean every idiom and detail for his portrait of the struggling middle American. So, as an added perk, this will always be a window to what it’s like in a time and place, which is the most underrated quality a movie can have. I’ve been to New Baltimore, Michigan and New Hartford Falls, Iowa plenty of times. If you want to soak it in without actually having to visit, here’s your chance. The experiment in dialogue must have been tried 20 times per semester at every film school in the country–”I know you’re not an actor, Chase, just talk like you do on the quad. I’m capturing… reality!” But pulling it off so well is fresh and memorable and hinges upon the all of the awkwardness and pointlessness being perfectly designed. There are many moments where we can tell that a character is saying what experienced judgment tells them is the right thing to say in order to fill up a that particular space. The relationships and motivations underlying the mundane and the murder are likewise, sparse but perfect. Martha, our killer, is not only a stepping stone, but one that would only be slightly missed and has already nearly sunk in the mud. Her clumsy and irrelevant gestures around the time of crime–like some random gifts, given in a final effort to inject herself meaningfully into the life of her “friend”– verify that, even as a murderer in a small town, she’ll be forgotten in a year’s time. As an irrelevancy who killed a trivial person who was kind of a bitch anyway, Martha will be denied even infamy.

Man Getting Hit By Football: Punisher: War Zone

Originally, I was going to make this into an 80’s Action Legacy award of some kind. But, if I did that, I’d feel compelled to give the spot to the impeccable Rambo, which is the better movie and also has Rambo in it.  But in this case, I’m going against the more cerebral work and with the movie that had me grinning like an idiot the whole time. Yes, Punisher: War Zone has some flaws, including the characters and the story. But then we must also consider what a mighty achievement it is to salvage the fucktastically ridiculous “Loony Bin Jim” character with a single line: “Let me axe you a question.”  Another motivation here is that I know most of you have denied yourselves this film, though I sense that it is creeping towards becoming a cult fixture. It is a fact that every single person who has ever seen this film has enjoyed it, and I want you to share in that enjoyment. I’m being serious now.  If you are going to see a movie for the action, why would you see some pile of shit like Iron Man, rather than Punisher: War Zone?   Iron Man is a story (that makes absolutely no sense) for little boys about some guy who flies around in a magic robot suit. The action is not cartoonish.  It is cartoons.  I defy anyone to make a significant, qualitative distinction between the CGI cartoons of guys in stupid, magic, robot suits slugging it out at the end of Iron Man and the CGI cartoons of, say, Shrek arguing with Donkey.  What, Shrek is cuter? And that makes it OK? Hell fucking no.  Look, if you’re going to see Shrek, by all means, see Shrek. It’s a better and far more intelligent film than Iron Man, Fantastic 4 or, for that matter, The Anal Rape of Indiana Jones. But, if you are going to see an action movie, see shit get properly fucked up. In this movie, while it does contain a bit of comic book silliness, The Punisher decapitates an old lady!  He jams the leg of a chair through someone’s eye! He runs a man through a glass recycling machine! I’m pretty sure the script is just a string of such exclamations, but director/kickboxer/woman of the century, Lexi Alexander, realizes it beautifully with tension, surprise, humor and some pretty slick filmmaking.  Perhaps Ebert’s condemnation is the best recommendation:

“The Punisher: War Zone” is one of the best-made bad movies I’ve seen. It looks great, it hurtles through its paces and is well-acted. The soundtrack is like elevator music if the elevator were in a death plunge. The special effects are state of the art. Its only flaw is that it’s disgusting.”

Best of all, it looks like real action, not a super glossy version of the Saturday morning shit I outgrew at some point during elementary school.  I get that we Americans are too pussy to see images from the actual wars we start that kill actual people. But goddammit, at least our fake violence should be real and it should include sadistic heroes, one liners and a novelty death every twelve frames. Football in the groin, not nerfball in the stomach.

Best Horror Film: The Descent

The Descent is about an international group of hot women in their late twenties to early thirties who go on annual adventures. This year, they’ve chosen to explore caves in the Appalachians of North Carolina. One of the girls, hoping to create a truly special experience rather than a run through a “tourist trap,” tricks the group into going into totally unexplored caves, rather than taking the tour they have mapped out. In these unknown caves, they find an enclave of creatures that are kind of a cross between bats and humans–having evolved to survive in total darkness and remaining undiscovered for millennia, though they sustain themselves by preying on whatever animals stumble into the caves. Now, this is a horror movie, so of course you have to suspend disbelief. I mean, a bunch of hot chicks banding together to escape male attention so they can be supportive of each other and pursue their collective interest in geology? But it’s worth letting these things slide to get to some great horror. What sets the movie apart is that it is an excellent thriller even before the ghouls show up, to the point that it doesn’t even need them.  The underground setting is beautiful and dangerous, the interactions between the characters seem real and the danger they face is already terrifying. They could plummet to their deaths, be instantly crushed, or they could be trapped and die of starvation, during days of total darkness. It’s also a good problem solving movie, as the women devise plans and utilize tightly fixed resources to maximize their limited chance of survival.  When the ghouls show up, they actually could have ruined a good movie. But instead, they make a great one.  They are scary, there is not too much CGI and the creatures’ strengths and weaknesses don’t wildly vary depending on if the story’s need for them to be fought off or not. The rest of the film follows the formula, but with some nice twists and one that I think is exceptional. Much has been made of the different endings, one for North American rubes, the other, the original. Though the original ending is immediately darker it’s kind of disjointed. The American one (as I’ve heard it described) still works.  Without getting into details, I kind of like the idea of a survivor left to tell the tale, never believed, and to carry the memories of the horror. It’s like the renegade cop who leaves one hoodlum alive and says, “Tell Mendoza. I’m coming.”  Either way, I think the real gut punch of the film comes in what the women do to each other in the cave. One mistakes a friend for a ghoul in the dark, and another finds out what happened without knowing the reason why. Some other stuff happens in between.  The way this story line unfolds is ice cold, but conflicted.  So this shit is just relentless. Woman against nature, against monster, against woman… there are multiple points of tension at all times. Oh shit. I forgot to say, “spelunking.”

Best Movie That Is Just A Bunch Of People Standing Around And Talking–On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate

To the best of my knowledge, the French invented this kind of film and Eric Rohmer perfected it. Nothing earth-shattering happens. People sit, walk, eat and talk and we have a window into pretty unremarkable lives. It’s surprising that this can work as well as it does. It’s even more surprising that, once a few filmmakers figured out how to make it work, very few others were able to successfully emulate them. And no approach to drama is more excruciating when it fails. The formula only works with good (but not necessarily great) acting, understated direction and seemingly organic story and dialog. It is best if the characters are attractive, intelligent and interesting, but none are astronauts, and you probably know 20 people who’ve been through more “drama,” especially if you are homosexual. The key seems to be the writer/director’s ability to convey what is going on in his characters’ heads, without doing anything intrusive or interrupting the natural flow of events. Ultimately there should be an illusion that the main creative force behind the film is merely trying to stay out of the way, even when he is slipping small cues into beautifully framed shots. Then, you just get sucked in by the these characters and their stories for no immediately obvious reason, as you are to Sang-soo Hong’s soap operas about nothing. An Occasion for Remembering The Turning Gate has a betrayal, remorse, and requited lust that turns into unrequited love (or at least longing), but these things happen in a few, key moments. The rest of the film is the pedestrian shit that leads up to and comes after the “big” events. It’s the unspoken jockying for position between romantic rivals, the manipulations of suitors by the desired and the winner immediately weaseling out of commitments after the game is over. There are also ancillary events that don’t really lead to anything, but might have. The characters are sympathetic, or not, depending largely on the tendencies of the viewer. The important thing is how real they seem. You can argue that Hong’s films, much like Asian people in general, are all pretty much the same, and I’ve found a couple others more entertaining. I just picked this one because it seems like an answer to a favorite Woody line: that the only love that lasts forever is unrequited love.  True, but because we idealize them at some point, all loves wind up feeling at least partially unrequited and this lingers into future relationships. This is one reason you will never be happy. I assume the final shot of the gate in a downpour is meant to evoke, not only the titular myth about a princess ditching an infatuated peasant to execution, then ditching him again after he finds her in reincarnation as a snake, but also, Rashomon. Each relationship is a potential version of the protagonist’s love story.  It’s not so much the same events perceived differently from different individual perspectives, as the individual wavering between his own perceptions of what has been, could have been and could be. For example, towards the end of the film, the protagonist runs into a girl who he saved from bullies when they were children. It sounds like the beginning of a Kate Hudson movie and he and she are suitably intrigued.  He decides that maybe there’s a reason he didn’t remember her (plus, she is married) and gives up after a brief pursuit, but only reluctantly and wondering.  All of this is sedate to the point of being relaxing and conveyed mostly through conversation and static shots. And some graphic, bareback banging.

Best intellectual exercise: Inglourious Basterds

I have only have a little to add to Matt’s review. That is where you should start. I read it before I saw Inglorious Basterds, which, based on the trailers, I had been leaning against, as the film looked like it overestimated our willingness to savor the suffering of an otherwise unknown man because he wound up fighting for an evil cause. So I luckily had my eyes open early on, when The Jew Hunter gives his little speech about how we hate certain beings without really considering why. If it didn’t dawn on you until later that QT was massively fucking with the audience, and everything else that the film touches, it’s worth rewatching. Basterds is also worth another look because it is fucking great. Anyway, rather than regurgitate or slightly tweak too many of Matt’s points, I just want to reiterate how special an achievement the film is because there are so many who would to diminish everything Tarantino does. I remember the one film class I took in college, when the professor said that Tarantino was not so much good at making movies, as at stitching together other people’s movies. This is a common criticism. The justification is that he–holy shit!–is influenced by other filmmakers and often reworks what they’ve done. I sat in intimidated silence, not wanting to be like some kid who struts into ethics 101 (or any other class), proudly touting Ayn Rand. But I really had to wonder which little Asian film, known only to QT and his critics, had so pithy, smooth and entertaining a commentary on how we are “fooled by randomness” as Pulp Fiction’s sequence in which Jules is luckily missed by gunfire at close range, becomes a man of faith, and then doesn’t flinch when his ally, Marvin, is shot dead by a freak discharge midway through his personal conversion. So, these people who want to diminish Tarantino’s work are generally the people who go to museums where you eat a piece of candy and they are like, “that’s the art!” I actually enjoy conceptual art and the idea of playing with interaction between the artist and viewer. But you can’t have it both ways and celebrate the museum piece and disparage one of our great filmmakers because the wrong people like him, especially in this case. If you saw Basterds with an audience of more than a dozen, you almost certainly saw people in a movie theater sadistically hooting and cheering at the deaths and suffering of characters on the screen. They were so delighted because they despised these characters who were… sadistically hooting and cheering at the deaths of characters on the screen of the movie theater they were in. Tarantino actually gets the audience to act out the parts of the villains on screen, the very characters they were cheering the deaths of, to the point where it felt like someone is flipping a switch back and forth between the two, making one cheer, then the other. And the attackers of the hooting, Nazi audience in the movie are the filmmakers, who reveal a message of condemnation covertly slipped into the film, before attacking from behind the screen and from within the projectionist’s booth. Tarantino is playing with his audience, but is he condemning them? The characters are actual, fictional Nazis, but the audience is just watching a movie and it’s not like Tarantino opposes violence in cinema. Maybe he’s just making fun of all parties for not being able to make the simple distinction between real suffering and actors playing with fake guns and blood. In any case, out of the millions of attempts to incorporate the audience into the art, you’d be hard pressed to find one so slyly yet directly successful and you won’t find one on such a massive, international scale. And, it wasn’t like, “that’s the art!” That was one flourish of art incorporated into an entertaining movie that was full of them, including one legendary acting performance and a few very good ones, a few laugh out loud moments and Tarantino’s, now barely noteworthy command of both dialogue and the visual. You can weave interpretations forever about the film as the end of the historical film, or a critique of propaganda, a commentary on the nature of terrorism and a Godard-inspired deconstruction and a bookend to his Les carabiniers and on and on, and you’d be right to do so. But I doubt Tarantino had some central, propaganda point of his own in mind. He just puts so many cards on the table that he must be playing more than one game at once–or at least some game I can’t totally decipher–about movies, their relation to real life, history, war and violence. Just take something small. Did Tarrantino, who can have any actor he wants, chose Eli Roth (Hostel, the “torture porn” discussion) for a big role in this film about movie violence just because they are pals? Quite possibly. But that’s just one card on the table.

Best Zucker Movie:  OSS 117: Lost in Rio

Obviously, the real David Zucker caught syphilis, went insane and made An American Carol, so the torch must be passed, but only after it is used to burn the script of the upcoming Scary Movie 5.  The OSS 117 movies are celebrated like few others in our forums, but I’ve found only one English review of OSS 117: Lost in Rio online and it was written by a gorilla. The online review claims that the OSS films rely upon “a refusal to go for the easy joke” which is the exact opposite of how they work. The films take every easy joke that comes their way, though they usually finesse it to perfection.  The “easy” jokes are mixed with more subtle humor, wit, parody and satire in equal parts.  There is no less original film on this list.  The OSS films are based on a real OSS 117 series of  “serious,” Bond-style spy capers from the 50’s and 60’s.  They owe a lot to the Zuckers and Jim Abrams. Obviously, making fun of spy movies and the “hip” film techniques of the 60’s is nothing new. It was actually being done during the 60’s.  Nor is the guileless, political incorrectness of the bungling master spy, Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, particularly innovative.  It is impressive, however, that the films take so many influences and approaches to humor and blend them into a perfect cocktail. Michel Hazanavicius’s films wouldn’t be David Zucker films if they didn’t misfire here and there, but that’s part of the charm. Jean Dujardin stars and is one part the actor you wish Bruce Campbell had become, one part Leslie Neilsen. I don’t think humor translates across language and cultural barriers as well as people like to pretend it does, but Dujardin really does git r done here with a comic performance bordering on genius.   Doubtless, some of the humor is still lost in translation, but I was laughing out loud pretty much throughout the film. Americans will appreciate how La Bath’s imperial arrogance mirrors the caricature of the Ugly American. Take the film as an overture to mend the resentments between the two countries. Frenchmen and Americans are both self-important pricks and this should be a cause for unity.  There are two films in the series so far, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio.  I probably chose the latter, more recent film because I just saw it.  However, it also refines the OSS 117  blend even further. Like Austin Powers, OSS 117 borrows much of the earnest appeal of the very films it parodies, including exotic settings. There are some beautiful, and hilarious uses of the Rio setting here. And, yeah, it’s meant to be a joke that the oafish spy is swimming in scantily clad, model-caliber ass, but it’s by design that the audience gets a good look as well. So for hot chicks in leather costumes and cheap jokes about Chinese accents, you turn to little-known French films. For winding deconstructions of film, violence, war and war and violence and film that integrate the reactions of the audience into the movie itself, you turn to $100 million-grossing Brad Pitt movies. We’re in Rand McNally, people.

Hubert Selby Jr: It’ll be Better Tomorrow, is a solid film about a writer I’ve never read but would probably like.  He dropped out of school after the 8th grade and became a merchant marine during WWII and therefore a drunk.  We’re told that he only turned to writing after narrowly escaping death and being debilitated by TB.  Selby’s most famous book was Last Exit to Brooklyn which sold a bunch of copies, largely because of two idiotic obscenity trials.  He made a bunch of money and squandered it on drugs before rebuilding his life, continuing to write and becoming a popular teacher at USC.  The part of the film that actually sets out to tell his story does so quite well.

However,  about a third of the film irritated the fuck out of me, not because of unusual sins, but because of typical ones found in the biographical doc.  If you’ve watched any number of “Real Men of Genius” documentaries such as Sketches of Frank Gehry, or Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes; Crazy Sexy Cool you’ve seen the breathless fawning and hyperbole and, depending on the time in which the person lived, the celebrity hob-knobbing and circle-jerks.  Look, Henry Rollins has injected himself into the situation in act of self-promotion number 10,000.  Here’s Anthony Kiedis for no reason.  Selby overcame a drug addiction, so let’s get Robert Downy Jr. to narrate.  That’s how good a writer Selby was.  Huh?

The truth about greatness is that it’s a matter of increment, rather than orders of magnitude.  This is most clear in more objective endeavors like sports.  The most commonly cited example is golf, where one stroke separates Tiger from the field and the field from the club pros.  I like the example of football though–bear with me you unclean foreigners.  Football is a multi-billion dollar industry and meticulously scouted athletes conform to a narrow range of physical attributes.  You can rule out 99.99% of the population from a given position just by watching them run ten feet.   Yet the differences between the greatest of all time and the home town heroes are so subtle that you could build a team almost exclusively of first tier, all-time greats who weren’t even noticed by college scouts and wound up at barely-known programs.  Build an offense around Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Randy Moss, Jackie Slater, Larry Allen, Gene Upshaw and a properly sedated Terrell Owens and you’re in pretty good shape.  Steve McNair is probably your quarterback and though, he’s “only” a borderline hall of famer, he wasn’t even a Dvision I player and your team would still score 80 points per game.  Yet nobody could tell that any of these guys were good enough to play for Iowa.

Within the arts and academics, where success is more subjective, greatness is just as hard to spot and narrowly achieved.  You probably know that Confederacy of Dunces was only published under improbable circumstances after the author committed suicide as a failure.  There must be hundreds of such books that were never discovered. Marconi and Tesla tied on inventing the radio.  Leibniz and Newton tied on inventing calculus.  A bunch of other people would have also tied with them, except they died at age seven because they crapped in their drinking water.  Only a handful of living filmmakers will be remembered through the centuries, but nobody really has a clue which ones.  Will future generations believe that Sokurov is ten times better than Scorsese?  Will there be hundreds of professors specializing in “The Simpsons” or “The Wire” who look down their nose at film from this era?  Will Hubert Selby Jr. be completely forgotten? It all seems possible.

Again I don’t have a huge problem with the strictly biographical elements of this film and the footage chosen of Selby.  Nor is my argument that the great people who are separated by timing, chance and marginally better ability are any less great or interesting because of it.  In fact, the things that make up those little differences are far more interesting than the scenario of the typical hagiography, wherein the genius is a comic book hero.  If some people just popped out of the womb with IQs of 300 and the ability to throw a 180 MPH fastball, their stories would quickly become boring.  Warranted hagiography is fine, but what are the nuances and idiosyncrasies that allowed the subject to shine?  Selby talks about his style, but only briefly.  There has to be more to say about the man and his work that could be included at the expense of cameos testifying to his freakish genius.

In fact, with rare exceptions, other celebrities should usually be excluded from these films.  Anyone who’s ever listened to a DVD commentary knows the mechanism at work here.  Celebrities, though usually talented and deserving, have still just scraped past other talented and deserving and people to achieve their status.  Insecure and unwilling to face this fact, they establish a tacit contract whereby all parties wildly exaggerate each others ability.   Maybe the producers casting the voice of ALF thought it was a coin toss between the guy who got it and the next guy at the time.  But now, we can see that he was unbelievably fucking brilliant!  I’m not saying that Selby is the same as the ALF guy, but I did want to throw up when an actress from the film of his Requiem For A Dream declared that the chance to give voice to his words was “one of the great gifts of my life.”

The best part of the contract is that even those giving out the blowjobs benefit.  Not only is there the understanding that they too will be blown down the line (the guy who did the voice of ALF will talk about the stunning vision of the producers of ALF),  there is the implication that they have earned the right to understand and opine on the genius by being brilliant themselves.  Why is Richard Price in a film about Selby for like fifteen minutes?  So he can say, “Hubert Selby is a Genius.  I ought to know… I’m Richard Price.”  And Michael Jordan loves Ball Park Franks.  They plump when you cook ‘em!  Obviously Rollins, who is a genius at tricking people into believing he’s not an idiot, is the more gratuitous example.  But it’s specifically because I’m fine with Price that I mention him.  I know Price deserves a spot on the totem pole that is invisible from my own.  But, apart from perhaps a few words on Selby’s influence, that has absolutely nothing to do with Selby the man. Long after it’s explained to we uninitiated why Selby was great and what he did, we still hear from Price and the like.  Give me more from his students at USC.  His mailman.  Hell, maybe the guy himself.  There’s a decent amount of footage with Selby, but seeing as he is the subject of the film, maybe he should be in it more than Darren Aronofsky.

Apart from just being fed up with this hagiography approach in general, I think it irked me so much in this particular film because Selby comes across as unbelievably modest and unconcerned with stratification of status.  He wasn’t a monk, but it seems like if he knew a film was being made about Robert Downy Jr, it would never even occur to him to involve himself.  When he called for a job at USC he wasn’t sure they’d have one for him because he never seemed to realize that, according to one testimony, there should be a wing of the Harvard library named in his honor.   So I doubt he’d believe that his legacy is best conveyed via celebrity endorsements.

Franklin Pierce, 14^th President, 1853-1857

Though dashingly handsome by the standards of the day (more than one source has called him the only real “Hunk-in-Chief”), Pierce was cursed from the moment he defeated his whale of a rival, Winfield Scott, in the 1852 election. On January 6, 1853, a few months before Inauguration day, Pierce and his family were involved in a train accident near Andover, Massachusetts, one in which the only fatality happened to be Pierce’s beloved son, 11-year-old Benjamin. From that moment on, Pierce spent the remainder of his days drinking, sighing heavily, and being routinely snubbed by his psychotic wife, Jane, who wandered the White House screaming obscenities. Between bouts of ham-fisted drunkenness and blind rage, Pierce summarily ignored the impending slavery crisis and growing clouds of war, dismissing Bleeding Kansas as a “mere trifle” that would somehow work itself out. “Just leave me the fuck out of it,” he is rumored to have grunted. His legacy is further hampered by having appointed full-tilt traitor Jefferson Davis to head the War Department. His Vice President, Jimmy Buchanan’s fabulously tippy-toed lover William Rufus King, had the good sense to drop dead fifteen minutes into the whole stinking mess; though, as was custom, no one bothered to suggest a replacement.

James Buchanan, 15^th President, 1857-1861

No wonder the gay lobby has been trying to secure
Lincoln in its rainbow camp these past few years, what with this disaster standing as the one and only homosexual ever to hold the nation’s top job. If you suspect rumor and innuendo to be behind history’s judgment, I suggest a cursory reading of the Buchanan/King letters, most of which read like Penthouse Forum, only with a great deal of “wooing” standing in for golden showers. Still, few doubt the real meaning behind the era’s “Lancaster Steamer.” Besides winking that delightfully wonkish eyeball in the direction of Washington’s most eligible bachelors, “Bucky,” as he was known to the K Street bathhouse elite, spent his torturous four years pretending the nation was continually on the cusp of a new birth of freedom, except, of course, for that pesky slavery thing. From the Dred Scott case to the Panic of 1857, Buchanan was on the wrong side of history in every way that counts, up to and including his failure to wipe the scourge of Mormonism from the fucking globe when he had the means and justification to do so. As stated, James had a wild affair with W.R. King, Pierce’s running mate, who died soon after taking office. According to legend, Buchanan was inconsolable, though he managed to sneak into the VP’s closet from time to time in later years to sniff his topcoat.

Woodrow Wilson, 28^th President, 1913-1921

Ignore his landmark first term, complete with more Progressive reforms than even the presumed standard-bearer, Theodore Roosevelt, can claim as his own. From 1915 on, Woody, at heart an old fashioned minister from the humorless, tight-lipped, self-righteous school of messianic ambition, bathed, dined, and slept with every manner of munitions manufacturer, banker, and war monger to ensure the country’s leadership in creating Nazi Germany. In addition to being solely responsible for no fewer than 75 million deaths during the middle part of the 20^th century, Wilson used the mandate of a second term to deny civil rights, empower J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI (then in its infancy), jail dissenters, and turn the country over to the merchants of death; a vice-like grip that has, to this day, never relented. Wilson’s ego, perhaps rivaled only by LBJ’s, was so colossal and warped that even after suffering a near-fatal stroke, he refused to resign, spending his final years in bed, curtains drawn, while handing over his duties to his young, sex-obsessed second wife, Edith, whom he married while attending the funeral of his first wife, Ellen. Other than ruining the world and wiping his ass daily with a copy of the Constitution secured from the National Archives, Woody confused Birth of a Nation for a documentary and ordered dozens of black men lynched as a precaution.

Warren G. Harding, 29^th President, 1921-1923

Some might think that spending a little over two years drinking, screwing, and holding round-the-clock poker tournaments constitutes a successful presidency, but Harding went and fucked it all up by dying too soon to really embarrass himself. Though surrounding himself with crooks, liars, thieves, and barbarians, Warren himself stood above the din, the first truly dimwitted chief executive who could be excused with plausible deniability. What’s more, he knew it. Whether banging cocktail waitresses and flappers in Oval Office closets, sending hush money to a slew of past and present lovers, or being present while prostitutes were being murdered at wild parties, Harding presided over a delightful mess of an abbreviated term, having the decency to die of a “heart attack” in
San Francisco just two years in. History has made its judgment, but true believers still know he was felled by his hysterical wife, Florence, the real power behind the throne, who saw trouble ahead and couldn’t bear to watch him impeached. Still, despite the scandals and incompetence, Harding damn near stayed off this list for being one of the chosen few to come within a hair of murdering a member of his own cabinet, one Charles Forbes, after choking the bastard for stealing a fortune from the Veterans Bureau. Harding was also known for his matinee idol good looks, upbeat personality, and rumored Negro ancestry, best typified by his garbled syntax.

Andrew Johnson, 17^th President, 1865-1869

Illiterate well into adulthood, the first President Johnson also has the distinction of being the only man to send the usually affable Abraham Lincoln into a shit-faced rage after showing up drunk to his own Inauguration as Vice President. Having escaped assassination by being the one guy to draw the coward of the conspiracy, Johnson used his single term to alienate everyone around him, including his own wife, servants, cabinet, and coachman. So irredeemably racist as to give Nathan Bedford Forrest pause, Andy worked tirelessly to veto each and every attempted reform by the Republicans, only to watch his work go up in the flames of the dreaded override. He escaped removal from office by a single vote, and though the charges were trumped up at best, history has proven that he alone warranted impeachment simply for being an asshole. He broke his promise of holding the treasonous South accountable and, despite appearing progressive in the early days, ending up doing more to destroy Reconstruction than the shiftless freedmen who cluttered up Congress with the cries of raped white maidens and clatter of stripped chicken bones. Dumber than a half-empty box of rusty nails, Johnson venerated the farmer beyond all reason, believing the “simple man” to be the nation’s future. As such, he favored states’ rights, white supremacy, and swift defeat of the 14^th Amendment. To his credit, he tried to restore his image with a national tour, but quickly gave up and slept away his remaining days; broken, humiliated, and still achingly stupid. He is buried with a copy of the Constitution, presumably to serve as an eternal reminder of what he opposed every waking second of his sad life.

Mickey Rourke accomplishes much more than a mere comeback; his Randy “The Ram” Robinson is one of the cinema’s finest achievements, a performance that deserves to stand proudly with the best of Brando, Dean, or Clift in the Method’s hall of greats. In fact, it’s one of the most fully realized characters in decades. Sure, a case can be made that Rourke rises above the material, which, to be fair, is not without its flaws, but at no other time all year was I more invested in a man’s plight. And for once, a screenplay takes the inevitable familiarities inherent in such a story and uses them not to milk unjust emotions, but explore how this man – and all men like him – are seemingly unable to avoid living the trite and true because the they don’t know how to survive without the fantasy. And most strikingly, The Ram is likeable not because he wins, or reaches out to his daughter, or anything even related to his time in the ring, but rather out of his defiant, pig-headed refusal to change. He’s broken, battered, and pathetic, and he hasn’t the will or imagination to consider an alternative. As such, he becomes the most relatable Everyman of all. Fortunately, the film tempers its shadows with a delightful sense of play, coming alive with an infectious spirit during the wrestling sequences, as well as the musical trips down memory lane. Raw, sad, and thoroughly engaging.

2. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

A brutally depressing documentary that not even my hard heart could refuse. At first, the study of a decent, roly-poly young doctor who is murdered by his psychotic ex-girlfriend, it shifts gears to become about life, love, family, and the almost mythical degree of strength exhibited by the victim’s parents in the face of unspeakable tragedy. In addition to being well-made, exacting, and unabashedly manipulative (the film is not above using a red herring at the film’s outset that becomes horribly apparent as the story pushes forward), it delves into the lives of all involved with a level of detail usually trivialized or unnecessarily sensationalized in lesser efforts. While the film flirts with sainthood for Andrew Bagby, the young man in question, it always pulls back just in time to reveal an additional level of pain and misery. Unlike so many stories of this kind, there’s no way out for Dear Zachary; we can’t stop the slide and we hate ourselves for forging on. But as we do, we come face to face with the complexities of our own lives, and consider above all the oft-ignored concept of empathy. We may not approve, but we understand, and it’s one of the thornier issues under discussion: when the course of justice runs dry, what of extra-legal means? Can they ever be justified? Still, this is far from political axe-grinding; this is life as lived, with the crushing despair that remains hanging in the air like the last words of a dead child.

3. Wendy and Lucy

Finally, a film with such respect for the audience that it leaves its meaning, and everything in-between, hidden away for ripe discovery. This is a movie where silence itself becomes a character, and rather than melodramatic twists and turns that inject the unreal into the everyday, inaction and boredom become the very essence of storytelling. Anything more smacks of manipulation. Wendy is given no back story, no real depth of any kind, and yet far from a weakness of the screenplay, this is instead a tribute to the director’s bold risk: can you relate to, feel sympathy for, and care about someone who remains a stranger? In that sense, it’s the test of us all, for how else do we dismiss the suffering of the unseen than with a shrug of indifference? It’s how we step over the homeless, after all, or judge with self-righteous fury those who don’t conform to our expectations. There are decisions made, choices to consider, and people who can either comfort or condemn, but nothing here runs according to a predictable
Hollywood structure. Wendy does not meet with salvation, or a job, or even a sense of self. She’s lost, uncertain, and cast adrift, and she’ll likely remain so for the duration.

4. The Class

One of the few films about education that gets it right, this winner of the Palme d’Or remains in the arena of the classroom alone, and its battles are not about grades, tests, or getting to college, but the essence of a nation on the verge of losing its very identity. But more than a meditation on
France in the age of assimilation and immigration, the movie has the courage to avoid blame for education’s dire predicament, suggesting that we may have reached the point of no return for all involved, teacher and student alike. The class in question is diverse, mixed, and full of that undeniable spirit of youth, but as the final moments prove, not a single kid learns anything save the depressing lesson that no one can be compelled to give a damn about anything outside the impenetrable walls of self. For the teacher, a patient, though exhausted young man who long ago traded away his idealism for survival, his most persistent challenge remains the narcissism of the age, met with an official political correctness that resists cultural interrogation. It’s the excuse kids pull from their hip pockets when asked to move outside their comfort zones. Thrown together in a mix of competing egos and backgrounds, chaos ensues, with little respect for order. The metaphor is obvious, but the movie never is, resisting political score-settling and instead letting the noise and conflict of the day carry weight. There are no answers to be found, and it’s just enough to admit that stagnation may yet triumph. Let this be our canary in the coal mine. One of many.

5. Man on Wire

Philippe Petit is one of the more fascinating people you’re ever going to meet, even if he’d likely drive you crazy inside of an hour. Still, it’s a testament to the documentary form that we can spend an entire film with his sheer reckless abandon and not be pushed over the edge. As a typically self-involved artist, Petit thinks only of his next challenge, which, in August of 1974, involved scaling a tightrope fastened between the two towers of the World Trade
Center. The audacity is obvious, and the cheek almost beyond compare, but Petit’s charm makes us believe he can accomplish anything. And so he does. The story of how and when he lugged up the equipment, cased the joint, and eventually put one foot in front of the other makes for high drama, and at no point does anyone discuss the current absence of said towers. And though unspoken, we realize that the feat will remain forever unmatched, and likely the crowning achievement of athletic derring-do. One can’t really describe an unnecessary artistic statement as “brave,” but when we see him out there, a solitary figure atop a great, bottomless chasm, we find few other words that could describe something so wonderfully insane. And finally, a documentary not about the trials of war, or abuse, or death, or even the bloody Holocaust, but simply the unadulterated pleasures of risk. For its own sake, at long last.

6. Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story

The test of any great documentary is whether it inspires the viewer to pursue further study of the subject at hand. Using that standard alone, Spine Tingler is a rousing success; a fun, lively, stylized look at one of cinema’s forgotten heroes. Since the film’s showing at this year’s Denver film festival, I’ve visited four Castle classics (including the hilarious The Tingler) and for what’s it’s worth, I’ve loved every one. To some, he was a mere carnival barker; a Barnum-esque showman who trafficked in schlock and did little to elevate his craft above the din. But as the movie demonstrates, Castle took his work very seriously, and believed entertaining the public was the noblest of virtues (imagine that). From Emerge-O to the “Fright Break,” buzzing seats to Illusion-O, Castle pulled out all the stops to pack the theaters, which he did year after year. The doc is wonderfully generous with film clips and archival material, as well as interviews with friends and family alike, all of whom testify to the wit, dedication, and spirit of this most unique filmmaker. And, most refreshingly, Castle hides no skeletons in his closet (except the ones he flew over the audience), and the film avoids the expected “decline” that so often burdens subjects with cheap psychoanalytical detail. He was simply a man with a dream, one who pursued it to the end of his days, and though ambitious, was one of the few who seemed to make no real enemies along the way. Perhaps a bit romantic by half, it’s a great ride into what for me was the unfamiliar, and I’ll be forever thankful.

7. Trumbo

The 1950’s blacklist is far from untapped cinematic territory, but rarely have the personal losses of the McCarthy era been so vividly expressed. Dalton Trumbo, one of Hollywood’s most prolific talents, lost years of his life, as well as his freedom, but throughout this film, he is redeemed at last, proven to be the sort of hero America no longer produces: a prisoner of conscience. Thankfully, the film also highlights Dalton’s humor, open-minded parenting, and prickly charm, proving that one need not be stoic and saintly to earn history’s commendation. Not a strict documentary, it also “re-creates” the man’s words using actors, repeating the method employed by the source stage play. Most importantly, the film never wavers in its righteous fury over the political methods used against men of the Left, reminding us that far from “long ago,” it would be all too easy to repeat the horrors in our own time. A stinging, powerful rebuke to traitorous scoundrels like Ann Coulter, who use vile revisionism to try and rehabilitate McCarthy’s life and career. True, he was far from alone in the assault on civil liberties, but he must never be allowed to escape judgment.

8. Rambo

Is this hyper-violent, blood-soaked mess really deserving of a year-end mention? Perhaps not, but in a year that witnessed the rebirth of Mickey Rourke, how on earth could we forget that Sylvester Stallone managed, in successive years, to bring back both Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, with big-ass balls intact, no less? More than yet, he erased the stink of Rocky V and Rambo III, proving again that if you throw an overdue bone in the direction of 80’s Action, it’s bound to hit greatness. Let’s face it, guilt-free entertainment is an underrated quality at the cineplex, and how often are we given the opportunity to slap our knees in delight at so much mindless death? Fuck yeah, it’s cartoonish and insipid, but who on earth would have it any other way? The plot, such as is, is unimportant, the characters range from thin to extremely thin, and the dialogue is little more than a series of screams, groans, one-liners, and gibberish, but Sly knows that giving the audience what it wants is far from simple pandering. In its own way, it’s cinematic genius. Running away from any attempt to reinvent his career, our favorite lug is conceding the obvious at last and going back to the only well that ever gave him life. Pray to the god of your choosing that he unearths from mothballs that long-delayed Cobra sequel.

9. Trouble the Water

The beauty of this sobering, first-person account of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath is that, because we see things through a single eye, we must challenge our own prejudices to find the empathy within. Kimberly Roberts, the film’s voice, as well as its conscience, is not an easy person to like, to say nothing of her family and neighbors (many of whom are addicts or criminals), but given what is going on around her (she is stuck at ground zero as the waters rise, finding refuge in a shaky attic), only blind hatred would keep anyone from remaining unmoved. Again, having a saint for a subject would make this a rousing, life-affirming greeting card instead of the powerful human document it was and will remain so long as we look to the movies for wisdom. In many ways, this is the final word on the subject (though I’m sure we’ll see many more in the years to come), as it strips away the news accounts, talking heads, and political spin to focus exclusively on the moment-by-moment fear, disgust, outrage, and loss. This is the grit, grime, and defiant hope of New Orleans as we’ve never seen it before, and though Roberts and her ilk are a bit too Jesus-obsessed for my taste, they are the overdue authenticity more detached accounts have previously lacked.

10. Gran Torino

Wait a minute, you might be asking; didn’t this also appear on my worst of the year list? Indeed it did, and it deserved to in spades. But as bad as it was – melodrama has rarely been laid on so thick, believe me – it never failed to satisfy, understanding that for the past fifty years, all we’ve ever really wanted is for Clint Eastwood to puke racial epithets and kick fucking ass, even though he’s just shy of eighty. I have no doubt that Clint saw this story as one of redemption, which is preposterous on its face, of course, for how is dying for your next-door neighbor (a sad young man to boot) anything but a complete waste? No matter, as his death is one of the year’s most self-indulgent entertainments, as is the machine-gun pace of Clint’s unchecked racism. Sure, I knew every plot twist, story turn, and character arc (as would anyone in possession of a functioning brain), but that’s not the point. This is the old man’s arrogant, well-earned middle finger to the rest of us who ever dared question his abilities over an endless career. He seems to suggest that in the twilight of one’s years, if a man can’t violate every social norm currently choking the life from an oversensitive culture, what’s the point of going this far? I have no doubt this film will grow in stature as the years pass, and each and every time it hits cable – morning or night – I’ll be there. With that same big dumb goofy grin, I’d imagine.

The Best of the Rest:

• Let the Right One In
• Bigger Stronger Faster
• Frost/Nixon
• Milk
• Boogie Man: The Lee
  Atwater Story
• Vicky Cristina Barcelona
• Frozen River
• Rachel Getting Married
• Witch Hunt
• The Visitor

Forget the grade school pageant acting, or the insidious Chick-fil-A propaganda, or even the brain-bleeding notion that this film’s obscene profit margin will ensure more and more of its type. This monstrosity from the twisted mind and blackened soul of Alex Kendrick sweeps through and captures the year’s most dubious prize because with
Hollywood product at an all-time low of social relevance, Fireproof still managed to portray the most ridiculous human relationship ever captured on film. Not only is love not possible without an oil-soaked Jesus occupying center stage of your respectable suburban home, it can be destroyed in a moment’s notice by nothing less than a failure to have a piping hot dinner ready and waiting for your hard-working man. And god forbid you forget to wash the stray dish that sits in the sink like an oozing boil of defiance. So retrograde as to render the Eisenhower era an orgy of long-haired rebellion by comparison, you watch in horror as it checks off all the expected boogey men of a fundamentalist’s fevered mind. Porn kills the spirit, working outside the home turns women into short-skirted whores, and anything but 2,000-year-old texts written when women were property and the idea of love a ridiculous fantasy are wholly irrelevant when trying to heal matrimony’s sting. Worst of all, it’s awful without being the least bit funny, save for Kirk Cameron’s belief that “pissed the fuck off” is all one should take from acting school.

2. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Who knew that Ben Stein, that sad-eyed, monotone little man from the silver screen, harbored a heart so black and so twisted that he – not Pat Robertson or James Dobson – would argue, without a trace of irony, that Charles Darwin was directly responsible for the Holocaust? The scene where Stein stands before a statue of the great thinker – you know, the one where the soundtrack features the exact same music as that which filled the screen during shots of Europe’s death camps – is so morally and ethically insidious that I couldn’t help but wonder why Mama and Papa Stein had been spared during the period. As expected, every possible scientific argument is twisted to serve Stein’s agenda, and interviews are selectively edited to ensure that the scientists themselves are turned into stammering clowns. Stein, though a Republican, always struck me as a man who was reasonably intelligent at the very least, but having decided that his inane Jewish heritage is suddenly more important than the whole of Western thought, he has joined with the mouth-breathers and truth assassins at last. More than a shot across evolution’s bow, this is a no-holds-barred war against the Enlightenment and all it hath wrought through the ages. Depressing, mean-spirited, and devious to its core, Expelled celebrates stupidity as the American virtue.

3. Revolutionary Road

The trouble with Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road is that, for all of its claims to Oscar respectability and assumed depth, it never quite understands how ridiculous it is. Playing it straight without a touch of irony, the film is akin to a wax museum; wholly divorced from reality and lacking the good sense to milk its melodramatic excesses for much-needed hysterics. Tucked away in this self-described “examination” of 1950s suburban malaise is a tale of great humor; an exercise in full-frontal camp that could have dismantled much more than an over-analyzed era’s hypocrisies. Only Mendes chooses not to take this road, believing instead that the shouts, tears, and overturned tables of Frank and April Wheeler’s improbable marriage are not only to be taken seriously, but act as a universal stand-in for marital discord itself. Funny, then, that the two leads are not even remotely up to the task, substituting hyperbolic emoting, gesticulating, and mannered excess for any semblance of genuine character. It’s like a high school freshman inhabiting the skin of Lear for the spring’s dramatic offering. The little guy can hit his marks, remember his lines, and even don the robes, but it’s all a pale imitation; there’s no life beneath the artifice to convince you he means it. Self-importance has never been so agonizing.

4. Four Christmases

Beneath the slapstick, poop jokes, and copious amount of baby vomit, lies the season’s most reactionary hit. At bottom, no greater evil exists than the young, carefree couple who travel, eat at fine restaurants, fuck like rabbits, take dance lessons, read without interruption, and play board games at all hours. They must be targeted and destroyed, lest their sense of self spread like a plague to an unsuspecting
America. Hell, I’m used to Christmas films exploiting our sentimental attachment to family, but unlike more benign offerings from the past, this little nugget seduced the softer minds among us with madcap hilarity, only to take our rebels (emasculating the gent and feminizing the lady in turn) and insist that until you breed, life is a complete waste of time. Worst of all, our heroes failed to put up a fight from the get-go, as Reese Witherspoon’s resistance to the lure of a cooing infant approximates an AIDS patient amidst a flu pandemic. The film also turns on an axis of reverse-snobbery, where there’s no greater insult than to actually care about the finer things in life. And you best not rub in your education or success when around family, especially when they shop for gifts at the dollar store.

5. The Love Guru

Once upon a time, Sir Ben Kingsley was Gandhi. Now, he’s Tugginmypudha, a cross-eyed guru whose idea of enlightenment is to train young recruits in “Stink Mop,” whereby a man grabs a mop, soaks it in a bucket of Ben’s urine, and slaps fellow competitors across the face. Again and again. Still, why blame Kingsley alone? Why not Justine Timberlake, who plays Jacques “Le Coq” Grande, a goalie for the
L.A. Kings who steals a star player’s girl with his Clouseau-like accent and massive genitalia? Or Mike Myers, the star and writer, who apparently thought his comeback should include 36 references to, or jokes about, penises, balls, or nutsacks (yes, I counted). Just to be safe, he also added 10 distinct fart jokes, Verne Troyer as Coach Cherkov (say it fast, but say it no fewer than three dozen times in an 87-minute film), cameos by Jessica Simpson and Val Kilmer, and a personal assistant named Richard Pants. The Guru Pitka, played by Myers himself, hails from Harenmahkeester, which might have been amusing had Mel Brooks not already mined it for laughs in the Catskills a good half-century ago. Add to that topical jokes related to The Electric Company, 9 to 5, and Steve Miller, and you have the makings of a guaranteed hit. And did I mention that the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup, but only after two elephants fuck at center ice to a Chris Isaak tune?

6. Miracle at
St. Anna

Oh, that Spike Lee. Bitching and whining for years that the cinema has never seen fit to memorialize the heroism and sacrifice of African-Americans in battle, he at last gets that chance and has no fucking clue how to distinguish his mess from hundreds of other clichéd war pictures having the good sense not to be nearly three goddamn hours long. Grating for all the expected reasons, it infuriates that much more because it assumes skin color alone is reason enough to justify the experience, which for Lee, was thought to result in a shower of awards and praise. Little did he know, wisdom would prevail among the critical elite, and the film would leave theaters under a storm of yawn-filled apathy. Every character is a painfully obvious symbol, not flesh and blood, and Lee undermines his own case by insisting that the army was so desperate for men they’d enlist the aid of a certified retard with an obesity problem. Add to that a cheap, sentimental spirituality, horrifically awkward framing device, and jaw-dropping climax that wouldn’t make sense on Mars, let alone planet Earth. Still, it’s somehow reassuring to know that Lee hasn’t surrendered his heavy hand, or his propensity for filling every fucking frame with the deafening tunes of Terence Blanchard. Just stick to obnoxious
Madison
Square Garden appearances, Spike, and we’ll all be better off.

7. The Happening

Though not nearly as bad as Lady in the Water (what on earth could be?), M. Night Shyamalan’s latest is just another reminder of his rapid descent from the heights of imagination to regurgitated camp. I’m not sure even Paddy Chayefsky could salvage the story of killer plants and the suicidal impulses they inspire in mankind, but had Shyamalan understood the inherent humor in such a premise, he might have left us with a minor classic. Instead, he saw his story as a warning; a lecture for us all about the horrors to come, that is, unless we change our ways and help save the planet. As expected, the condescending tone bored audiences to tears, and left them wondering why anyone would choose Mark Wahlberg to be the vessel for anything so dire. Yes, Wahlberg’s performance is among the year’s worst, for I doubt even M. Night intended us to howl with derision during each and every reaction shot. Never before has a lack of range been so fatal to an already wafer-thin character. Did I mention he’s a science teacher? Again, only the somber Indian would fail to mine that shit for comedy gold. Also starring Zooey Deschanel, just to rub a few pounds of salt in an already gushing wound.

8. American Teen

Nanette Bernstein can go straight to hell. Instead of a probing, investigative look at the rot passing for American youth, this “documentary” filmmaker saw fit instead to celebrate the pastiche of quirkiness that has all but swallowed our civilization alive. More than that, the movie is a lie from the opening bell, as the director has clearly re-created scenes, assigned dialogue, and fashioned scenarios that would fit with her pre-conceived agenda. As such, authenticity takes a backseat to a “good story,” which might apply if the only criteria were a platform for self-obsessed monsters lusting for martyrdom. And let’s not forget Hannah Bailey, my selection as the year’s most vile creature. Among her many sins, she rails against the beautiful people, yet joins them the first chance she gets, and despite claiming to be above it all, is sidelined with depression the moment she isn’t noticed by the guy of her dreams. And oh how she dances! Yes, she’s one of those obsessively creative types who wants to act, sing, write, paint, sculpt, and build not for the inherent worth of art, but to be noticed, praised, and handsomely paid. I haven’t hated someone so completely in years, but Bernstein thinks she’s a star; a worthy young woman who should garner our sympathies and hugs. I hope for a sequel, but only if it centers on the little cunt’s funeral.

9. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The year’s most colossal fraud, all dressed up with Oscar buzz and star power, though, for its three endless hours, it most assuredly has nowhere to go. Mark my words: if any film will give the wildly overpraised Slumdog Millionaire a run for Best Picture, this is it. Though epic in scope and intent, it fails to deliver a single coherent or meaningful scene, believing that the Hallmark card wisdom of “nothing lasts” is enough to warrant its
Lawrence of Arabia-style ambitions. At bottom, it’s nothing more than a shameless, sentimental gimmick that sends Oprah’s audience into full swoon, but leaves everyone else cold. When you clear away the directorial flourish, visual splendor, and self-important narration, all one is left with is an appallingly uninteresting romance; the kind of “love” that might suit the mentally ill, but no one who truly understands the human heart. It’s Forrest Gump all over again, complete with a passive dullard at the center who lacks the wit to put any of his experiences in any sort of context. I would have disliked the thing regardless, but my mild rebuke moved to hatred due to its insipid framing device, one that inexplicably exploits Hurricane Katrina and our naïve hope that we’ll secure closure on a hospital death bed.

10. Gran Torino

Remove Clint Eastwood from the equation, and what you’d be left with is a half-assed effort so predictable and pointless that few audiences would survive to the midway point. With him, it’s still a disaster, but with the added bonus of watching a cinematic legend spit epithets at everyone not nailed down. Dirty Harry as George Wallace, and who on earth could resist his charms? By far the year’s most entertaining “important” movie, it would be dishonest to overlook its flaws, which color even the more riotous sequences with a light coat of hackery. No matter; Eastwood’s presence alone makes this a glorious ride, complete with more chuckles per square inch than anything
Hollywood burped forth all season. Even the non-actors, cast to lend authenticity to the proceedings, are so bad that they make Clint a stand-in for Laurence Olivier by comparison. Fully intentional, no doubt. Clearing away the brush and bramble, this is two hours of grunting, groaning, squinting, sneering, and teeth-grinding, and not an ounce of actual character development. And Clint’s suicidal act? The one that’s meant to be nobility and self-sacrifice personified? I’m still wiping away grateful tears, earned not by sentiment, but the hilarity only good intentions can provide.

The worst of the rest:

• Twilight
• 88 Minutes
• Synecdoche, New York
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Beer For My Horses
• The Reader
• The Dark Knight
• Pineapple Express
• The X-Files: I Want to Believe
• Slumdog Millionaire

Meeting and exceeding expectations beyond my wildest dreams, 2007’s most dynamic cinematic treat hit every mark and fulfilled every promise on its way to sheer perfection. There’s not a scene I would change, or performance I would alter, and standing above the crowd is Casey Affleck, inhabiting the very soul of an American loser who, despite his relative anonymity, changed history not through cleverness, guile, or talent, but rather the only way open to his ilk — the barrel of a gun. For this is less a story about the rise and fall of a Wild West icon than an immersion in Ford’s misguided narcissism, making him the undisputed father of many a sad idealist, be it Czolgosz, Oswald, Sirhan, or Bremer. All are bound together, then, as those who sought the infamy of the powerless. Whether as a history lesson, character study, or somber meditation on identity and loneliness, this is that rare movie where artistic ambition meets narrative skill with a resulting genius for the ages. As a Western it challenges the our need for heroes; as a revisionist fable it dares question the official lies that permeate our collective memory; and as sheer craft, it seems to reinvent the medium right before our eyes, recreating a new and believable world almost without parallel. And that final act? After Ford has committed his dastardly deed? As good as anything committed to celluloid in 100 years. American mythology has rarely been so tenderly torn asunder.

2. Persepolis

Stark and moody, dark and brooding, this memoir of Iran succeeds not because it tells us what we already know — that life under religious fundamentalism is an unrelenting nightmare — but rather because it does so with wit, charm, and a quiet humanity so often missing in portraits of the Middle East. And as animation, its sharp lines and deep blacks blast away the silliness of talking animals and overwrought bursts of color. Because this tale is told through the eyes of a child, we get every emotion under the sun, as well as the shifting loyalties and identity confusion that speak to a universal experience. As both the Shah and the post-revolutionary regime feel the sting of satire’s lash, no one could ever accuse the filmmaker’s voice of harboring a secret romantic longing for an idealized past. In that sense, this is one of the few odes to freedom that avoids grandstanding and political demagoguery. What this young woman seeks, and what she cannot find in the country of her birth, is the right to fail, which is just as vital as the right to succeed. Using her experiences in an Austrian boarding school, Marjane tries on various hats almost at will, liberating the imagination in ways religion seeks to eliminate through dry repetition and unthinking ritual. In the end, what saves her — and what can save any civilization locked away behind the walls of tyranny — is a vulgar expression, a sexy remark, or even a bit of loud music to release the fires of aggression. Perhaps, even, a feisty grandmother’s bosom. It also makes one hell of a case for instituting “Eye of the Tiger” as our national anthem. Though now, it belongs to the world.

3. Away from Her

It had every right to fail. It should have failed. Is it possible to make a film about Alzheimer’s that avoids cheap sentiment, phony uplift, and mawkish displays of emotion? I never would have thought so, but in 2007, young Sarah Polley managed a feat few could ever hope to equal. In a shot, and seemingly overnight, she has cast herself among the world’s great filmmakers, establishing a maturity and breadth of vision that usually require a lifetime to acquire. To the film’s credit, this is not the story of two sweet old birds who make goofy eyes at each other until one starts forgetting to flush the toilet. Instead, the husband and wife of this tale are flawed, angry people who share a deep and abiding love, but only because it’s one of the few cinematic portraits of such love that harbors no illusions. There has been betrayal and boredom in these lives, as well as despair and retreat, and each are beyond thinking a greeting card is going to solve the issue before the final credits. This is a somber, adult film; a deep, unsettling look at what it really means to spend your life with a single person, and how we’ve so degraded the idea of acceptance that most of us fail to recognize its true implications. Both Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent give towering performances, and the supporting players do much to flesh out unforeseen emotional turns. And yes, it ends perfectly, without any sense of triumph, but simply the quiet realization of life’s punishing mystery.

4. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days

Now standing as one of the leanest, most authentic portraits of authoritarian rule ever filmed, this bleak Romanian character study is no mere advocacy picture. An abortion is sought, but no placards are forthcoming, and no one shouts from the rafters what most of us are thinking. Instead, this brutally honest movie considers freedom and its absence, and the ways in which human beings adapt to even the most heinous of circumstances. Lacking any real political axe whatsoever, it takes its time concentrating on small, near imperceptible gestures; glances and nods that pass for dialogue in a nation that long ago lost its mind. And yet, as is the case with all repressive regimes, the official story does not capture the citizenry body and soul, proving that as unforgiving as life can be behind walls, it often forces us to tap hidden reserves of wit and intelligence that are crucial for survival. And yet, despite the lack of overt gestures, one cannot help but watch in horror during the abortion itself, not because of any “pro-life” massaging of truth, but rather out of the recognition that when tyranny strikes, it first seeks to control reproduction. As a consequence, women suffer first and most often. Is this a feminist screed, then? Hardly, though one may apply those standards if one chooses. In line with its advocacy of freedom, the film respects our intelligence and lets us gather the data on our own. Above all, it is a consideration of the abortionist that hits the harshest note. As abortion will exist whether or not is receives the sanction of the law, it goes without saying that without protection, fear and clinical detachment will replace the necessary compassion and care so vital at such a time.

5. I’m Not There

A distaste for Bob Dylan likely kept many away from this bizarre, wholly unique exploration of the elusive artist, but as much as an appreciation for his music is necessary, this could just as easily be about a fictional creation as an actual man. And so the rub. Director Todd Haynes just might be admitting that Mr. Dylan doesn’t really exist at all, at least in any form we can understand from the cheap seats. Dividing his life into “acts” while using a diverse roster of talent to portray the icon, Haynes is admitting that a traditional arc would not only cheapen the overall story, but also fail to capture the essence of a slippery personality who works as much on resisting labels as he does his music. Hell yes, this is a scattershot, maddening, frustrating mess of a thing, and as likely to alienate as entertain, but who else would have the balls to admit that the nature of the artist is to confound, rather than clarify? Dylan is a musical genius to be sure, but he’s also a humorless bastard when the mood strikes, and his contempt for audience and fellow man alike is legendary. But how else to handle such monumental fame, and how else to remain engaged in a laborious, often tedious way of life? And yet, this is far from a pitying, self-indulgent tragedy of artistic sacrifice. We can love the man, or hate him, but let’s stop pretending we know a thing about him, especially when he knows so little about himself. Maybe I’m guilty of admiring this film more than actually liking it, but when so many movies limp forth, dry up, and blow away without registering a single chord, how privileged, then, to stand in the face of true audacity and risk.

6. Charlie Wilson’s War

Political movies rarely work these days, either clearing theaters with an elitist sneer, or so dumbing down world events that all relevance is lost. In the end, it took Mike Nichols to get it right. Peppering his smart script with sly wit, Aaron Sorkin maintains the proper balance of laughter and thoughtful drama, always remembering that ultimately, politics is the triumph of the ridiculous. As played by Tom Hanks, Mr. Wilson is a slave to his passions (women, liquor, and cocaine, to name a few), but thankfully, he is never made to apologize for his sins. Seeking no redemption, Wilson instead channels his remaining energies into fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan, albeit under the table and behind the scenes. Using his seemingly innate talent for the game, he makes deals, cuts corners, and even sleeps with born again right-wingers to secure the necessary support. He’s a bastard, but few Congressmen have been so delightful in their descent. Philip Seymour Hoffman adds a measure of sad-sack wisdom as a weary CIA agent, once again demonstrating that as much as we’d like to imagine our nation being defended by neatly tailored James Bonds, the rumpled, sleep-deprived cynics actually carry the day. And while the film connects the necessary dots from support of the Mujahideen to the events of 9/11, nothing is ever forced, or revealed with a told-you-so smugness.

7. Zodiac

Released during the dead days of early March, David Fincher’s superb achievement was ignored by audiences, but has received some overdue respect by the critical establishment at year’s end. It’s easy to see why theaters remained empty, however. Long, detailed, and more a think-piece than slam-bang thriller, the film masterfully recreates an era while maintaining a healthy respect for the rigors of investigation, be it journalistic or through more legal channels. Graphic killings are reproduced, but this is not a dime store analysis of yet another quirky madman; this is a story from the other side, and how a failure to catch a killer destroys those obsessed with closure. Mark Ruffalo and Jake Gyllenhaal throw much into their roles, always flirting with madness, but it is Robert Downey Jr. as a hard-living newspaperman who steals the show. Whenever he appears, everything around him falls away, and we are left watching an actor at the peak of his powers, seemingly without peer. And while the film stays true to its vision of the hunt, there’s a commentary lurking at the edges, speaking to our collective obsession with death, just so long as the clues keep coming. Whether these men are driven to the depths of despair by the failure to prevent additional killings or simply the ego drive of being outsmarted, one can never know. But Fincher’s modern classic doesn’t hazard a guess, as it too prefers ambiguity to the absolute. We love a good crime drama, but can’t seem to live with the one that gets away.

8. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Billy Mitchell, despite being a wizard with a joystick and one hell of a hot sauce mogul, is, unlike the dictator of your choosing, the true villain of the 20^th century, even managing to spill over a bit into our own time. With an ego way out of proportion with his actual achievements, he has the strut and swagger of a man who has never been challenged, if only because one must actually interact with other human beings to be so pressed. Even his video game records, the envy of many a geek throughout the globe, are curiously suspect, as this man has all the desperate sincerity of a used car salesman facing termination. That, and he lies as a matter of course. Still, as hateful as he is, there are few who would make so fascinating a subject for a documentary, and his story (along with his rival, the comparatively normal Steve Wiebe), despite inhabiting a world few of us might recognize, is arguably the archetypal American tale. Believing fame to be our birthright, we seek to be the best at something, no matter how trivial or obscure, in order to stand out from the faceless masses. Still, as insightful as this film is, it also takes us through the riotous days and nights of life with Donkey Kong, from the practice sessions to the arcade competitions, which would have all the electricity of a heavyweight bout if anyone worth knowing gave a shit. No matter, as we come to care — and care deeply — because the documentary wisely avoids a superior tone. Without mockery, there’s pathos afoot, and despite the lives devoted to sheer nonsense, much more appears to hang in the balance.

9. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

On its face, it’s a three-hanky weeper. A cheap melodrama. An embarrassing, life-affirming mess. If made in America, perhaps, but under the steady, methodical, and Frenchified hand of Julian Schnabel, this is a mere recitation of fact, not emotional rape. Handsome, carefree magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby suffers a massive stroke, leaving him completely immobile with the exception of his left eye. Possessing only the ability to blink, he learns to communicate, eventually writing a book about his experiences. Even in the telling, it sounds hopelessly maudlin, but take my word for it: this is an unguarded, straight shot into the heart of hell, most realized in the opening scenes, where we take Bauby’s perspective from his inescapable tomb. Without even the ability to commit suicide, Bauby is left with blurry visions of a world he can no longer affect, or contribute to in any meaningful way. It’s the ultimate disempowerment. Still, there is no pity, no pleas to a deity, and no sense of heroism to be found. Here’s a man who suffered a tragedy, and here is what he does during the course of each day. Through such minimalism, the film beats back the notion that the sick and the lame must necessarily act as fountains of wisdom for our emulation. Bauby was a shallow jerk in life, and though gaining some perspective through a health crisis, he hasn’t been transformed in any artificial manner. Lacking grand pronouncements, it was sheer exhilaration to watch something as simple — and as mind-numbingly laborious — as dictation between patient and nurse. And speaking of that nurse, one Marie-Josee Croze, there are few who could make the alphabet so damned erotic. In a film without God, she’s as close to an angel as we’re allowed.

10. Joshua

Guilty pleasures, as the term implies, are still pleasures, and despite their reputation as cheesy, often unwatchable disasters, they can often illuminate aspects of the culture that more high profile releases studiously avoid. Of all the movies released in 2007, this one had the cold eye and hard heart to take a Louisville Slugger to hearth and home; all but promoting despair and abandonment as the only sane reactions to the poison of wee ones. Little Joshua — proper, studious, and yes, more than a little odd — is hardly the apple of his mother’s eye, and his father, the adulterous, selfish lout, has no idea what to say to the lad. And as revolutionary as any movie is that dares question the sanctity of family, the most curious turn remains with Joshua himself. He’s smart, savvy, and precocious, and as such, he knows his parents are not up to the task. Faced with such a depressing reality, why not so orchestrate events that you can dispatch with the dead wood and choose the most suitable guardian, who in this case is a raging queen with snooty tastes? A homosexual as the last, best hope for our most gifted children? My god, it’s practically a declaration of war. More than that, though, this is a clever, well-crafted drama, one that shifts from cackling hilarity to unsparing horror in the span of a single scene. Above all, though, the scenes involving the crying newborn and the sleepless nights just might be the most effective means of birth control yet devised.

The Second Ten:

11. Bug

12. The Hoax

13. Into the Wild

14. Confessions of a Superhero

15. Sicko

16. Audience of One

17. No Country for Old Men

18. My Kid Could Paint That

19. Strictly Background

20. Machete trailer from Grindhouse

Smug self-satisfaction has all but become our national language these days, so why not make yet another so-called independent release that traffics in little else? Ellen Page is a genuine talent, and an actress to watch in years to come, but as this little nugget will likely snag her an Oscar, she’s bound to be typecast as a surly, improbably articulate hipster with the requisite heart of gold. Here’s hoping I’m wrong. And while she does her best, she’s saddled with some of the worst dialogue ever put to paper, though it’s exactly what we’d expect when a fame-obsessed nitwit from the blogosphere (Diablo Cody, if that is your real name) finally gets her big break. Contrived, false, and about as earth-bound as any of the Star Wars disasters, this film fooled the critical establishment from top to bottom, apparently because it happened to be the one film all year that paid homage to both Soupy Sales and the Thundercats. Overwritten to a degree once considered impossible, the movie is obnoxious, hateful, instantly grating, and chock full of so many applause lines that it becomes a stand-up routine, almost against its will. Perhaps there never was a chance for the movie, as I despised it inside of ten minutes, but if this is what passes for wit and insight in our increasingly hopeless pop culture landscape, we might as well give up the ghost and move on to a new hobby. And did I mention that the little whore has a hamburger phone?

2. Factory Girl

Edie Sedgwick was a no-talent, drug-addicted tramp who deserved to die early and alone, but at no point did she warrant a motion picture devoted to her hapless existence. Apparently, director George Hickenlooper thought otherwise, and here we have one of 2007’s most unendurable messes; a witless, self-important act of war against entertainment that, for all of its crimes, manages to make Andy Warhol even less sympathetic than before. Lacking any real focus or purpose, the film asks us to watch scene after scene of tears, narcissistic preening, and obscenely shallow human beings exploit the hell out of each other for their own amusement. And when Hayden Christensen strolls by for an appalling imitation of Bob Dylan, it’s all we can do to remain seated. For brief flashes I thought the whole thing might have been a savage satire of an empty man (Warhol) and the insanity he hath wrought, but just as quickly, that feeling subsided and I was left with a request for sympathy and understanding. Sienna Miller is an attractive woman to be sure, but I’m not certain she can act, unless the purpose of said craft is to inspire homicidal rage in members of the audience. On that score, she succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.

3. Evan Almighty

Hollywood cozies up with the right-wing yet again in this offensive ode to God, though it tempers its religious mania with a few rebellious touches; i.e., the heavenly father is a Negro, and he’s more than willing to murder thousands of human beings to save his favorite valley near the nation’s capital. Still, despite an environmentalist deity, the movie is a feature-length guilt trip that only armchair liberals can pull off. In other words, the greatest crime possible for a father is not alcoholism, or infidelity, or even relentless abuse, but rather taking care of duties at the office instead of taking the brood on a family hike. The most ridiculous part of this is, of course, that the kids’ bitching occurs on dad’s first day as a Congressman, but more than that, it wags a crusty finger in the faces of the poor who have no choice but to skip frivolous weekend jaunts for fear of, you know, losing the house or not eating for a month. Elitism aside, the movie is a monotonous bore; a lecture set to music no one wants to hear, especially when overdubbed with a flood of unnecessary CGI effects. Broad, laugh-free, and militant, the script hasn’t a clue how real people live, nor does it even remotely understand politics in the modern age.

4. Transformers

Big, dumb, and arguably the loudest movie ever made, this summer 2×4 to the chops is everything it had to be, unless of course you aren’t a freshman in high school who moves his lips while reading comic books. There are babes, big guns, explosions, and the usual forced attempts at humor, but it’s never acceptable to be assaulted at the movies, even if we’re asked to leave our brains at the door. Sure, I can understand the impulse to remove the stink of the original cartoon made back when these toys were first popular, but who on earth asked that it come twenty years later, when the very people who might remember the things are now carrying mortgages? Is this what nostalgia has become for the children of Ronald Reagan? And as gay as the movie could be when it let its hair down and remained honest with itself, it greatly disappointed those of us who expected even stronger erections and more overt phallic imagery. Action films have always been about oiled men using physical warfare to distract from their desire to fuck, but here, such verities gave way to timid indulgences that could have been dismissed as accidental. Still, the stink bomb made an ocean of cash, proving yet again that America’s youth will see anything so long as it’s shiny and jingoistic.

5. The Reaping

Atheists may have had their day in the publishing world during 2007, but once again, they saw their cause belittled at the box office. Hilary Swank, slumming as always after an Oscar win, is the typical representation of non-belief in Hollywood’s narrow world: she still believes, but “hates” God because he let her loved ones die a horrible death. So yes, friends, atheists are spoiled children who are throwing tantrums because they expect Jesus to keep all tragedy at bay. While impossibly oversimplifying the absence of belief (fine, distorting it to an unrecognizable state), it is also couched within an overwrought script that uses just enough Biblical prophecy to be dangerous, while exceeding the quota for stupidity in the first five minutes. God’s wrath is afoot, don’t you see, and with all the locusts, lakes of fire, frogs, and boils about, it’s all a person can do to remain defiantly skeptical. She tries, but eventually gives in (as all atheists must, the fiends) as it becomes apparent that good must battle evil for the soul of mankind. Or something like that. The film is thick with bayou atmosphere and cracker zealotry, but rather than take a novel idea — God actually hates his creation and likes nothing more than punishing it again and again — and run it to its logical conclusion, the script is content with standard scares and spooks that stopped being interesting thirty years ago.

6. Evening

What if the great secret of your life, one you could only reveal as you lay dying, was one so insignificant and uninteresting that upon its release, disappointed friends and family, having gathered around in tight-lipped anticipation, attacked your withering corpse and tore it to ribbons like wild dogs upon a wounded fawn? While the film in question lacked the balls to end in so spectacular a fashion, it would have been warranted, as Ann Grant (played by both Claire Danes and Vanessa Redgrave) is the last person on earth we’d like to hear discuss any random five minutes of her boring life, let alone ramble on about it in full. What’s this, she loved another? The man she truly cared for was not the one she married? Good god, the tragedy! The pain! The regret and longing! One day, Hollywood executives will realize that the so-called wounds of the entitled classes might move book clubs to tears while they ingest cucumber sandwiches, but they come across as profoundly trivial in the face of true suffering. Still, there will continue to be movies made about the sorrows of those who own 8,000 square-foot beach houses, even if they lack the cynical wisdom of Fitzgerald. No, the characters of this piece are to be admired and honored, not pitied or mocked with justifiable derision. In all, this time-waster plays like a parody of the genre, and I half expected the otherwise luminous Redgrave to wink at the camera to let us know she was around solely to pay off a few bills.

7. The Darjeeling Limited

Thank you, Wes Anderson, for yet another exercise in audience contempt, where your private passions and solipsistic obsessions can be mounted on an expensive canvas for all the world to misinterpret as genius. As always, Anderson has brought to life a menagerie of characters who couldn’t possibly interest anyone, yet here they are, rambling on in affected tones, assuming that their mutterings bear any relation to real life. Anderson’s universe is a decidedly closed one, and through these three brothers (taking a train through India to find their mother), we learn nothing at all about the human condition save Anderson’s belief that ugly midgets can get laid almost on command. Curiously, the anger was muted this time around, though substituting boredom is hardly an acceptable alternative. While I scratched, stretched, and occasionally yawned, I waited patiently for all the obligatory scenes: the slo-mo walk while some cult song played on the soundtrack, the explosion of color to mask the empty script, and the gimmick, which in this case are Owen Wilson’s head bandages. At this point, Anderson is on auto-pilot, and he’d better learn how to tell a real story soon before he’s swallowed alive by his fanatical need to be quirky and bizarre for their own sake, rather than to any purposeful end.

8. 300

Of all the films I have ever reviewed for Ruthless, this one received the most reader feedback by far. To a man (or should I say, cloistered, socially inept boy), these responses were vicious, mean-spirited, hateful, and often threatening. While time has been kind to my interpretation of the Bush parallels (future generations would do well to cite my canary in the coal mine), it is breaking the nerd taboo that seems to have gotten me in the most trouble. While it is an irrefutable fact that nerds are closet militarists who worship violence as a means to wreak havoc on a world that has left them in the dust of their own failure (the Virginia Tech murders proved this, if any doubters remained), they are also the world’s most loyal fetishists of the male form. Nerds may “choose” to dress poorly and shun exercise on principle, but deep in the recesses of their conniving minds, they lust for the physical perfection of masculinity with near fanatical devotion. This graphic novel brought to life was, if anything, a perfect realization of where the nerd psyche has been tending. As such, it will stand as a lasting social document of their world for centuries to come. As a movie, though, it’s so bombastic and silly that it deserves a fair share of condemnation, even if it is the opening salvo of fascism’s latest assault on civilization.

9. Waitress

Yet another 2007 release that acted as if abortion were but a fantasy cooked up in the diaries of unshaven feminists, this slice of Southern hospitality fashioned characters so unsympathetic and unreal that it’s no wonder most of America fell in line. Old coots are actually obscenely rich sweethearts in disguise, and by gum, they’ll have a check ready at just the right time to make sure a dippy whore gets exactly what she wants. An intelligent, successful doctor with a wonderful wife can throw it all away for a trashy, spread-my-legs-for-a-shot-of-Jack type who couldn’t read her way out of an outhouse, solely because the lame brained script demands it, not out any fealty to reality’s call. We also have stuttering goof balls who recite on-the-spot poetry, abusive husbands who lack all shading that isn’t mean as an old, rabid coon hound, and a director (Adrienne Shelly) who, to my knowledge, was murdered because she kept singing the praises of her inept screenplay around her apartment building. With a film like this — small town life and a heroine whose plight reflects all too many in Dixie’s heartland — it’s all about tone, and so stacking the deck that we feel obligated to care is the first way to ensure my contempt.

10. Superbad

For all those who objected to my negative assessment a few months back, go watch the scenes with the two Keystone cops again. Yes, all of them. All the way through now, and don’t hit scan. All done? Good. I accept your apology.

Honorable Mention #1 – Josh from Type O

For the love of Horgh, check out that tumbleweed! Poor Josh; he’s been playing those songs for so long his jellied brain can’t do anything but spur robotic headbanging. I mean, the guy can barely keep his eyes open at this point. And what exactly is that nicotine-stained baby seal pelt hanging from his face? It’s time to throw in the towel, gents.

Honorable Mention #2 – Kimono Dragon

Dude, no. Please stop. I asked the man for his picture and this is the pose he struck, as if it were his everyday attire, as if I had no reason to be snapping his photo. Seriously, the guy is wearing a kimono, for heaven’s sake. Black belt metal!!! Then I saw the kilt and I knew I’d found Wacken’s biggest deadbeat. Words are senseless here. All I can do is just shake my head and try to forgive myself.

#10 – Neo

I just don’t even know anymore. As if parading around in those metallic, Hot Topic clodhoppers wasn’t bad enough, this kid decided to go ahead and make his “unplugged” statement. Fuck you! The first movie is tolerable, I’ll give you that, but the other two are simply monstrous. To celebrate The Matrix is to celebrate all that is despicable about Hollywood. On that note, Germans sure talk a lot of shit about America, but my do they have their mouths clamped firmly around our assholes, gobbling up our shitty blockbusters like bad liverwurst. Surely he’s staring into the hay, contemplating the fate of Zion. Also, Rammstein shorts? Fuck you twice! Do us all a favor and plug yourself back in, Bozo.

# 9 – George and Lennie

Had these yokels actually tattooed the inverted crosses on their backs I would’ve given props, but no, they taped them on. Taped! Wait, what? And that’s no ordinary stroll, dear readers, no casual swing of the arms, that’s a fucking purposeful strut! On my initial glance, I thought the short guy was a topless woman, and I was certain we had a #1 finisher. Sadly, it wasn’t the case, but he does appear to be Goliath’s bitch. The best part is that you know they taped each other up in their tent. My advice to the longhair: Take your best friend to the river and shoot him.

#8 – Unfettered Scum

What dumpster full of rotten schnitzel did this asshole crawl out of? Is it really surprising to find out that he was sitting alone? He’s so hammered that he couldn’t even keep eye contact with me. Is that a patch of chest hair, manure or mud? Cats is playing on Broadway, dude, not the true metal stage. And pay no attention to what’s written on his stomach, that’s just German for “I’m a fucking idiot.”

#7 – Spider Schweine

The only explanation I have for these guys is that the Simpsons movie had already come out in Germany prior to Wacken, and for some reason, the spider pig scene was a huge hit. I heard “Spider Schwein” being chanted all fucking weekend, and it drove me mad. Anyhow, what sort of half-assed shit is this? More like Hulk, the dude on the left is clearly too big for his britches; he’s got the top stitched to his Spidey shorts. Now, it’s my job to look these photos over carefully, examining everything that might be exploited for humor, so I’m just gonna say it — take a good look at the big guy. I mean, a good one. Is that his COCK??!! Fucking hell man!!! It looks horribly, painfully displaced by the pressure of the spandex. I should probably mention that it was only about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and the Spidermen were done for the night.

#6 – The Gimp

What in the holy hell? How on earth is this at all metal? I can somewhat understand if you’re on stage, or you know, at an Amsterdam fetish club, but why? I want answers! Does he wear this all the time? Is the neck hole there in case of an emergency tracheotomy? He’s obviously taken a strap-on harness, turned it upside down, and made headgear out of it. Stop casting furtive glances at the guy next to you! It’s making me ill. And, like, if you’ve already got a nose opening for air, what’s the mouth opening for? Oh yeah, a big, sweaty, vein-encased dick. Fucking weirdo.

#5 – Vikings

Vikings are always good for a solid Top Ten showing, so these two drew out for the prestigious #5 slot. They’re both uglier than sin, both equally pathetic, and they both just basically rule. So who wins in a fight? I got my money on Corndog; the fucker looks like he can take a punch. Anyone who has been to Wacken knows the guy in the plastic helmet. He generally never leaves the beer garden unless he’s fumbling around strumming his pink blow-up guitar. The second guy, equally fat, thought it was a good idea to pack on an additional 40 pounds of chainmail, which turns into a skirt. He’s also got fingerless gloves. Hold on, someone sound the Bennett siren. To bulge through chainmail like that is no easy deed. Also, I believe that’s his wife standing by the pizza booth.

#4 – The Falkirk Failures

Not one of these mongrels is a day over 16. This is like a kitchen version of GWAR gone horribly wrong. Let’s start from left to right: Fatty has committed the ultimate metal transgression by wearing his New Balance cross-trainers. If he had any imagination he would’ve covered them with foil. His microwaveable dinner-on-the-end-of-a-stick-axe is worse than anything we’ve seen from Immortal. The next kid appears to be holding up some sort of shoddy tomahawk, or a ham sandwich. Tin man in the back is not having fun, because he is a heartless son of a bitch. Cowboy appears to be relatively normal, which means he must be the leader. Unlike the jackass from #6, the kid in the gimp mask really is a gimp. Who else would drop to their knees like that on command? Next is your requisite midget, and behind him is the Brazilian immigrant who either wandered into the picture or was too self-conscious to dress up in foil. Lastly, is Rob Roy on his cell phone?

#3 – Conan and The Destroyers

OK, so I caught a glimpse of Conan standing by himself and knew what I needed to do. Moments later, I saw him bludgeoning his friends with a Beck’s blow-up guitar, as there were no camels available to punch. Just before a full-fledged brawl broke out, I asked for a photo. What I received is the little piece of awesomeness you see before you. Think for a moment, what would prompt a man to wear nothing but a ripped pair of daisy dukes, a spiked armband, and boots? Yes, metal. He sort of looks like a younger, bulkier Bruce Dickinson with two beers in his left hand. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was naked behind that guitar. Their sad friend to the left just couldn’t get his guitar blown up fast enough. You snooze you lose, fucko!! And who’s the seven-foot giant back there? Conan is sloshed and will totally kick his ass. Finally, please take note of the empty Beck’s beer holders on the ground. Could this crew be trashier?

#2 – Lestat

Oh dear. Last time I checked, the devil had only two horns, ya fuckin’ homo!! What are you, deaf?? How about those pants? What band other than Moonspell could’ve lured this poor soul down from his mother’s attic? I didn’t know whether to squeeze his pudgy little cheeks or plunge my Wacken pen into his throat. The ruffles, the hat, the flowing facial hair — it’s all out-of-control gay. No, fuck that, the very epitome of unhinged, blazing gayness! That costume must’ve cost him hundreds of euro, and here he is, soiling it in muddy cow country. This shit is really getting difficult to bear.

#1 – Abbath

To hell with Michael Flatley, Abbath is Lord of the Dance!!! Did you really expect anybody else? He’s older, and fatter, and just as ridiculous as ever. Perhaps the pose is his homage to Shiva, only now it’s Abbath the Cosmic Dancer! I keep staring at the picture waiting for him to do a jumpkick. By the look on his face, he’s clearly pulled a hamstring but doesn’t want anyone to know. Posturing aside, the spandex is there, the corpsepaint is in tact, but those shinguards need some serious work. Hell, those are more like kneepads. Disappointing. I’m convinced Immortal only have a “comeback” show when they need the kind of cash that can bring them the shinguards of old. Hopefully we’ll have an Abbath/Horgh photo session in the near future. Until then, I think I’ll hang myself.

IT (Abruptum/Ophthalamia) in one of his Via Dolorosa-era photos cleans up in the #10 slot. Does Sweden have Indians? He looks like a fuckin’ black metal Comanche! Or better yet, John Rambo. After all, he’s in a cave with a large hunting knife, but by the way that thing is glowing, you’d think Orcs were near. Go, black metal Frodo, go!

#9: Fenriz

Fenriz (Darkthrone) is probably the most dramatic of all black metalers. In almost every choreographed photo, he’s either kneeling in the woods, got his arms outstretched, or is looking into the sky, no doubt cursing Jesus for not giving him enough money to record a decent album.

#8: Gorgoroth

Wait, are those suspenders? Oh, fuck, you gotta be kidding me. And he’s got his hair in a ponytail. Not only that, but I believe he’s carrying a scythe. He’s a fucking black metal farmer! Jesus Christ, this picture is gay. What’s up with the hooded avenger in the back? And who is that goliath motherfucker? Holy shit, that guy is huge! Don’t fuck with Gorgoroth, man!

#7: Old Man’s Child

Damn right these guys look old. They’re all fucking bald! Did Crowbar turn into a black metal band when I wasn’t looking? Apparently, baldness has found a niche in the black metal scene. It’s OK to be bald if you’re in a black metal band, because being bald evidently means you are evil. And don’t wear your own band’s t-shirt to the fucking photo shoot, dude, that’s just a metal faux pas.

#6: Dark Funeral

Don’t get me wrong, Dark Funeral is the shit. But this photo is not. Actually, I should say they were the shit until David Parland took off. Anyway, Lord Ahriman is fucking fat. Notice his belly hanging out from under the leather-daddy vest. His generic, upside-down-cross shin guards are pretty fucking absurd too. What’s up with the bondage theme, anyway? How about those chains on the ground? It’s obvious that the band is going to tie up and fuck the guy on the left. He’s already waiting with his hand on his crotch. Hell, maybe this should have been #5.

#5: Dimmu Borgir

The bald guy makes this picture #5, hands down. This is some seriously shoddy corpse paint on everybody, especially for a photo shoot. Look at the bald guy. Just look at him! Is that supposed to be intimidating? He looks like a fucking alien! As with Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir’s pics have gotten more ridiculous with time, i.e., the presence of top hats, vampire teeth, capes, etc. Terrible!

#4: Dani Filth

Dani from Cradle of Filth comes in fourth only because he is so incredibly gay. First of all, there is no black metal band that has sold out quite like Cradle of Filth. Secondly, there is no other black metal band that loves to have pictures taken of them as much as Cradle of Filth. And lastly, Dani always has to be doing something stupid and/or gay in virtually all of the band photos. Why? Well, he’s obviously watched Interview With a Vampire one too many times. The theatrics just need to stop. This is one of his few un-Photoshopped pics. STOP IT! Also, Cradle of Filth is from Helsinki, Sweden.

#3: Immortal

What exactly is going on here? Is this the new WWF tag team? Horgh looks like he’s ready to swan-dive off the turnbuckle. And what is that leather guard holding his gut in? He’s been drinking too much Smirnoff Ice (that’s what they drink backstage, by the way). Abbath looks like he just saw the fucking boogey man and doesn’t know whether to run or stay and shit his pants.

#2: Immortal (again)

Immortal take the #2 spot with this pic, and for good reason. LOOK AT THOSE FUCKING SHIN GUARDS! Since when did Satan have his own ice hockey team? Horgh wins #2 for the evil goalie look. But that’s not all. What about Abbath’s weapon!? What the fuck is that? It looks more like the Bat Signal than an axe. I just don’t know what to think, actually. Last but not least is Iscariah. The leather pants. The chainmail. The belt that turns said chainmail into a skirt. Ask, but I think Bennett developed that look in Commando. The only reason why this photo didn’t make #1 is because of the lack of taxidermy.

#1: Satyricon

This is the most ridiculous black metal pic for three reasons. One, the stuffed eagle. C’mon, guys, you’re not fooling anyone. Two, Nocturno Culto, who is notorious for taking tacky black metal pics. And three, for Frost’s homemade arm bands complete with 10″ carpentry nails. Seriously, it looks like he punched a fucking porcupine to death. Not to mention his tight spandex pants. That’s not very black metal. Or maybe it is.

Bonus Pic:

Just when you thought the black metal pics couldn’t get more ridiculous, Abbath unzips his fucking pants! Holy Mother of God, this is horrible! Apparently, he did the entire photo shoot with his fucking fly down. He’s covering his crotch in the number #2 picture, but here, in all of his unholy glory, Abbath bares it all for the fans. Seriously, he may as well have done the picture nude. I just don’t get it. I mean, the ax is bad enough, but this just flat-out destroys the attempt to be evil. I think this might be the first instance where a black metal icon has posed in a provocative, sexually inviting manner. Abbath, dude, you’re not gonna get the ladies with this one!

Gregory Peck as Atticus? Dignified, steadfast, and impossibly handsome. The story? A masterfully acted and scripted morality play that elevates honor, courage, and human decency above all else. It’s a great film, fondly remembered, and one of the few cases where the adaptation exceeds the source material. So what’s the problem? Whenever anything is this unceasingly noble, it becomes standard; not simply one of the most beloved classics of all time, but the one movie that aspiring politicians cite again and again as the bestest, most favorite they ever did see. Honest! For inspiring several generations of pandering, no-account, gutless politicos from North to South, East to West, Republican to Democrat, to rip open their shirts and show that they too have a beating, colorblind heart, I lay all blame at this movie’s doorstep. At bottom, it taught all of us to believe that safe, feel-good, impossible-to-hate entertainment represents a tough choice on the campaign trail, when in fact nothing could be more market-tested and predictable. Also the top pick of every vanilla, glad-handing milquetoast and soccer mom clogging up the bleak, uniform suburbs of our land.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Frank Capra, unabashed champion of the little guy, master of
Americana, ruined the world in so many unimaginable ways, but not so despairingly as with the eternal Jimmy Stewart classic about politics, small-town gumption, and the corruption of the big city. For force-feeding us the maniacally populist pap that “the people” know best, this is the movie that started it all; an aw-shucks slab of balderdash that so twists and distorts reality that it ends up promoting a form of democracy that, if it actually came to pass, would reduce the national landscape to a sewer of small-minded ineptitude. Only buffoons and simpletons want Boy Scouts literally stalking the halls of Congress, but that’s exactly what we have in Jefferson Smith (Stewart), an idealist from the old school who actually believes that business as usual can be changed simply by wishing upon a star. It’s a monstrous, insidious lie, and because of this movie, everyone eschews the so-called “professional” politician, elitism and all, in favor of the one who would have us believe that inexperience, naiveté, and good intentions are enough to tackle the complex issues of state. We’ve been paying for it ever since.

Fatal Attraction

It was the real shot heard ’round the world. When Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) took a bullet in the tub for having the audacity to invade hearth, home, and marriage, conservatism’s decade-long ascendancy finally reached its peak. Alex — single, unloved, sans children — had to die so that heterosexual, monogamous unions could once again rule the culture. Adultery will bring you pain and violence, stay-at-home wives and mothers are nobility and stability incarnate, and women are never so dangerous as when uncoiled sexually; fiendishly unburdened by restraint and custom. Independent women are hysterical, shrewish devils in disguise, and they will use all the cunning at their disposal to hunt, trap, and kill all unsuspecting prey who dare stray from the sanctioned family unit. More than that, though, it linked sex itself — at least the variety that traffics in uninhibited pleasure, rather than ritualized, procreative brain death — with all that is evil in the world, and let us know in no uncertain terms that the guardians at the gate were watching, waiting to punish with an unforgiving force. It took at least five years before sex could be mindless and fun again.

Pretty Woman

The hooker with the heart of gold has always haunted the cinema, but no movie has done more lasting damage to the expectations of johns everywhere than this insipid fantasy from Garry Marshall. High-priced escorts working in Washington, D.C., or the corporate world might have the cleanliness and stature of Julia Roberts, but the average streetwalker? Where are the cigarette burns, nappy wigs, C-section scars, and glassy-eyed stares resulting from crack addiction? Men everywhere have every right to get their dicks wet for a reasonable price, but part of the exchange is that Wal-Mart prices always produce chicks at least no better than the average Wal-Mart greeter. And who the hell has ever fallen in love with a whore, except perhaps a serial killer bent on adding sliced butt cheeks and bloody scalps to his basement collection? Prostitutes exist to be probed, punched, kicked, and left in seedy motel rooms to clean up their remaining teeth from the roach-infested floor, not wined and dined like royalty. Two-bit tramps were never as uppity as in the years following this film’s release.

Knute Rockne, All-American

He was on-screen for all of 15 minutes, but Ronald Reagan’s star-making turn as George Gipp led not to the grave as a just universe would have allowed, but rather the
California governor’s mansion and eventually the White House. When Dutch, wasting away in bed, uttered the immortal line, “Win one for the Gipper,” exploding debt, SDI, Iran-Contra, and Antonin Scalia were born. At that moment, he captured our hearts, emptied our minds, and never looked back. And as came Reagan, so came Bush Senior, Bush Junior, and eventually our total loss of credibility around the world. Just as bad, though, was the film’s establishment of the sports hero as secular saint; the elevation of the “tough but fair” coach who helped transform us all into breathless dolts wanting (needing) the big score to define our lives. Look here for an early source of the paralyzing practice of reducing all of life to a sports metaphor, and the notion that true honor is to be found on the field of battle.

The Color Purple

While frustrating beyond belief, this is not the place to debate director Steven Spielberg’s sanitizing of Alice Walker’s decidedly lesbian underpinnings, nor is it the time to blast the unnecessary slapstick that compromises the emotional power of the epic story. No, this film ruined the world because it gave us Oprah Winfrey: eternally aggrieved, victimized, martyred, and eventually cast in bronze as an untouchable hero. As bad as it is, though, one can only imagine the egomaniacal ravings that would have resulted from an Oscar win, rather than a mere nomination. From this point forward, Oprah relentlessly and firmly inhaled the world as her personal playpen and self-help seminar. As a result, emotion triumphed over intellect; suburban hausfraus emerged from mom-jeaned shame to pound the pavement each and every time their sense of self was violated; and politicians, entertainers, and professionals were judged not on their wisdom or talent, but rather how “right” they were with the chocolate messiah. And you best be spiritual, girlfriend, lest Oprah excoriate you in front of her Roman Colosseum of a studio audience. Careers were killed not for lack of ability, but an unwillingness to kiss copious ass.

Love Story

Sure, there have been far worse chick flicks that have been inflicted on unsuspecting viewers since this film’s release, but given this weeper’s critical and commercial haul, the genre’s legitimization started here, forcing otherwise good men everywhere to endure hysterical crying fits, unfair romantic fantasies, and the enduring lie that there’s nothing more tragic than an attractive female dying young. Clearly, the movie’s establishment of the “Ali McGraw Disease,” whereby a woman gets sexier the closer she is to the grave, helped send cinema into a tailspin of melodramatic excess, but civilization itself felt the pinch, as we learned how to deny death with good cheer and care only for the pain of rich, empty-headed drones. “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” is surely one of film’s most ridiculous taglines, but it simultaneously killed the modern romance, as our imaginations stopped considering any other couples-related activities save walks through the meadow, giggle-filled ice skating, and standing up to mean-spirited in-laws. And no, rich guys and poor chicks do not interact unless a
Bangkok madam is involved.

Top Gun

While aiding the cause of homoerotic love well into the next century, much to the delight of 80s action fans everywhere, no film signed on to President Reagan’s military juggernaut with such gusto as this jingoistic madhouse of horrors. Stopping just shy of justifying a full-tilt invasion of the Soviet Union, China, and the entirety of Latin America, Tom Cruise and his well-oiled pals single-handedly boosted military enlistments during the decade, while also inspiring a generation of young men to believe warfare was no different than a video game, both in execution and moral detachment. One can rail against Tony Scott’s slick, vacuous direction as ushering in an era of MTV entertainment disguised as cinema, but never before or since has a single motion picture so encapsulated – and promoted –
America’s arrogance, illusion of invincibility, and engorged-cock sense of global entitlement. And in terms of the armed services, we got all of the cool without the requisite bloodletting and social upheaval. Tragically, grown men could never again play volleyball without declaring their buried desires for ass.

Easy Rider

Reducing the self-indulgent 60s generation to a charred motorcycle might have kept this all-too-influential time capsule off the list, but rather than celebrate the death of the hippie, Dennis Hopper’s acid trip laments his passing, as if the world lost its opportunity for greatness with those whose firmest social stance was the refusal to sink into a weekly bath. In terms of the cinema, this movie nearly killed the industry outright, as it gave every stoned prick with a silly dream the inspiration put his rambling thoughts on camera, but more than that, it romanticized – into eternity, apparently – the very sort who nearly brought the country down with indolence, narcissism, and wasteful hypocrisy. Sadly, the movie’s self-important tone also helped fan the flames of conservatism’s counter-revolution, and it is impossible to imagine President Reagan or the Moral Majority without it. In many ways, we’ve never escaped the substitution of untenable idealism for rational thought, and all social change has been doomed to failure in its wake.

Forrest Gump

As obvious a pick as it is, the film nonetheless hits the trifecta of reprehensible cinema: demonizing social awareness and activism, lionizing apathy and outright retardation, and reducing all of American history to quips, clips, and humorous anecdotes. That it transforms a supreme dolt to the level of hero is beyond debate, but who knew it would also set the table for the presidency of George W. Bush, a man who, like a feather, floated along until being thrust into events he couldn’t possibly understand? Civil rights marches, anti-war protests, and even literacy itself led one to drug abuse, violence, disease, and death, while an all-consuming self-absorption typical of the brain damaged brought down the angels from their heavenly perch. Arguably the most reactionary motion picture ever conceived, it ruined the world most of all because it made deep, unshakable idiocy acceptable, even valued, in our families, our neighbors, and yes, even our world leaders. Still, the most appalling image of all remains Forrest’s shameless mugging while George Wallace blocks the schoolhouse door from the forces of integration. Now, instead of equating Wallace’s act with vile, pandering hatred, we have cheap laughs to carry us home.