Somehow I got the notion that The White Ribbon is meant as an explanation of Nazism, probably because I’m an idiot.  It isn’t that, but it does provide some food for thought about the relatively recent roots of authoritarianism and oppression. Set in the Greater Fatherland Area around the turn of the century, our thoughts naturally turn to Hitler, who the kids in the story would likely grow up to support.  With rigid totalitarianism on the brain, we notice nuances of life in German village upon which we might not otherwise immediately focus. Particularly, when authority becomes pernicious in such a setting, there isn’t really anywhere to appeal. Dad is diddling the daughter? She will just have to deal with it. The alternative is to create a modern, liberal social structure, establish a child welfare agency, invent the telephone and use it to call them. And even then, she will still have to deal with it.

At the center of the film is an unsolved mystery as the village is afflicted by several acts of naked cruelty. The mystery remains unsolved and is meshed with other acts of negligence, malice and abuse of power. For variety, there is a charming, old world love story set under the guidance of a kind and benevolent patriarch. Loving Dad, Rapist Dad: it’s all in the luck of the draw. One of Haneke’s big points is that the abusers of power and freelance sadists will almost invariably get away with it, because it is so difficult to produce a suitable response. Without going into detail, several of his films seem to involve the ease with which we can destroy someone and the near impossibility of justice, if justice is action that restores some kind of equilibrium. From the Nazis down to one sexually terrorized daughter, whether some of the perpetrators are hanged or they live to beat off to the memories of their crimes in old age, there isn’t any way to really counterbalance irreparable harm.

We can, however, fuck things up even further by reinvesting in still greater authority, hoping that the newly strengthened social hierarchy will finally protect us or at least make things right again. In this film, that means a culture based on severe Protestantism that comes with more abuse. When the kids grew up, they’d try to double down on dad yet again. The historical context is only one of multiple, conflicting sources of tension in this film that provide the quality of a complex thriller. The cinematography is so impressive that you could use it as a tiebreaker in determining this to be the best Haneke film. Maybe Haneke uses disabled children because they represent the most basic level of injustice, but some of the shots of a retarded boy in this movie just seemed like a cheap way to be unpleasant, which is my only complaint.

#1 Big River Man

Matt has been singing the praises of John Maringouin’s earlier work, Running Stumbled, since he saw it at some festival. But because of legal concerns, it’s very difficult to track down a copy by hook or by crook. I did find Big River Man, however, though I’m not sure if it was by hook or by crook. Whichever the bad one is. It’s lucky that I did so, because even though I haven’t seen all that many of 2009’s films, I can award first prize with total confidence. Willie, you can throw out the other projects.

My first inclination is to just copy down this entire move word for word and post about 150 screen caps. Like this:

Many Slovenians are drunk and drivers. We are top in Europe by statistics. And my father, Martin, is one of them.

But I’m pretty sure that is illegal, and it is certainly unethical and the last thing I want to do is provide you with an excuse for not seeing The Best Film Of The Year (keep an eye out for it on The Discovery Channel). Maybe even The Next Step In Documentaries. The film is about a Slovanian endurance swimmer, Martin Strel, and his attempt to swim the length of The Amazon. Strel has repeatedly shattered his own endurance records, including swims down the polluted Mississippi and the horribly polluted Yantze, where he was sharing the water with corpses. Given that Strel is in his 50s, quite overweight, an alcoholic, subsists largely on horse burgers and has an old country, slavic way of thinking, the entire film is basically one great quotation, abundant in the kind of hilarious idiosyncrasies that recent “independent” films have failed so badly, so frequently to simulate.

“If piranha, for example, start attacking or something like that, we would threw bucket of blood, or whatever, on the other side and the piranhas will just redirect there.”

Comparisons to Herzog are pretty obvious, as this is a doc focusing on an unusual individual, struggling against nature (Grizzly Man) and the Amazon in particular (Aguirre, etc.) and I don’t think there is any disputing His influence. Also, like Herzog, Maringouin intentionally leaves his fingerprints all over the subject and it is anyone’s guess how much of it he has orchestrated.  But this is an Anglo version of Herzog’s approach with a layer of self awareness and and playfulness of which the mirthless German mind is incapable (see The White Ribbon). Martin claims that he is largely motivated by promoting environmental awareness, which leads to one of the film’s masterstrokes. One reason for the destruction of the rain forest is the value of mahogany, often used in musical instruments. As this information is shared, Marnigouin mixes deadpan documentary technique and an ironic juxtaposition of images that could well be rooted in this very same internet, to solemnly accuse rock stars with over-sized guitars of being a major cause of deforestation.

Another stroke of genius has a deeper impact on the film. Rather than narrate the film himself or God fucking forbid, have a celebrity handle the job, Maringouin has Martin’s son, Borut, narrate, a decision that adds tremendously to the film with maximum economy. Instantly, the film also becomes a study of a father son relationship and we have a narrator with extensive, firsthand insight into the other elements of the story. We learn that Borut is the one man PR maven behind his dad’s enormous local fame, which makes him a natural for the role, explaining, for example, how Strel’s status allows him to park on sidewalks, or anywhere else he likes, while driving around hammered, practicing breathing exercises, eating and listening to instructional English tapes without fear of a ticket. Given that Borut’s English, while good for general purposes, is a cut below the normal standard for narrating a 100-minute documentary, there is a whole new level of humor and charm brought to the narration. This is like a great Simpsons episode. It’s so entertaining and it nails all of the glib elements so hard that most people will overlook the fact that this film is enormously sophisticated and that Maringouin as a grand master at this particular game of discourse.

The Fall of Tiger Woods

Never has an athlete fallen so fast, completely, and satisfyingly. Touted at once as a history-changing black man and the whitest man on the planet, he has managed to disappoint his most ardent supporters by being, well, black in their eyes. In the course of a long weekend he went from being the bright-eyed savior and living embodiment of the game of golf to a tabloid joke sending sports writers like Rick Reilly into hissy fits and hand-wringing worthy of a neurotic Jewish grandmother. Read between the lines of the commentary and you’ll find the khaki and loafer crowd dipping their heads in disappointment as the one black guy to whom they could all relate let them down by having even worse taste in whores than they do.

Andre Agassi’s Open

Most jock books follow a basic formula of airing some dirty laundry about fucking broads on the road, telling a coach to fuck off, and doing drugs in the bullpen. Rarely do they eviscerate the essential myths that hold up the construct that being a professional athlete is a dream come true. Andre Agassi’s blistering portrayal of himself is nothing less than exhilarating and refreshing and gives me reason to enjoy the sports world again. For all the bullshit and pomp we’re subjected to, sports are not simply unscripted competitions that challenge the essence of human endurance and focus, they are entertainment for the masses. Agassi’s frank admission that he not only spent an entire year on the ATP tour smoking and snorting meth while he tanked matches, but absolutely loathed the game of tennis, is an affirmation that not only is the grass not greener on the other side, but that your neighbor’s yard hides far more bodies than you would care to imagine.

LeBron James: King of the NBA

The general conceit is that professional athletes are childish dunces incapable of making any decision that does not revolve around choosing which club trollop they want to bring home each night. LeBron James is the best and brightest hope for destroying the myth that because you can play ball you cannot make moneymen do your bidding. Shortly after entering the NBA, James fired his professional handlers and agents and replaced them with friends and associates who were deemed amateurs and rubes. Now, one year away from free agency, those same rubes and supposed hoodlums have helped put James on everything from billboards to Nike commercials while helping to put him in position for the greatest free agent contract in the history of the NBA. Make no mistake; James is the greatest business talent to enter the NBA. Michael Jordan needed David Falk. James only needed himself.

18-1

Hubris is the enemy of success and the Patriots, of all teams, should have known better. Never before had a team come so far and done so much only to lose it all when it mattered most. The New England Patriots were on the doorstep of becoming the greatest team the NFL had ever seen, but they spent the lead up to their Super Bowl match up with the New York Giants inviting them to their victory party and talking about how the trip to Arizona was more like a vacation than a business trip. Whereas John Matuzsak and the Raiders spent the week before Super Bowl XV taunting the Eagles by brandishing their cocks and drinking Jack Daniels on Bourbon Street, the Patriots spent theirs granting interviews to Sports Illustrated behaving as if greatness was owed to them and speaking as if the Giants were rejects from the USFL. When they lost, Bill Belichick didn’t even have the decency to shake Tom Caughlin’s hand proving that the character of a man is displayed best when he fails, not when he is successful. Especially when he brings it upon himself.

Kobe Fucks a White Girl in the Ass

In the summer of 2003, Kobe Bryant traveled to Colorado to undergo some routine surgery on his knee. At the time, he was as big as Tiger Woods. He was doing McDonald’s commercials in Italian and was gracing Wheaties boxes, but after he fucked Katelyn Faber in the ass after she made it clear that her pussy would suffice, he was reduced to a childish dipshit who blew his slim chance to supplant Michael Jordan as the most popular basketball player of all time. Then, after the Lakers traded for Karl Malone and Gary Payton and financed the private plane rides back and forth to Colorado to deal with the courtroom drama, Kobe had the nerve to make public comments about Shaq doing the same sort of the thing but just paying the women off. In the end, Kobe got what he wanted – being the man in Los Angeles – but he lost everything he could have been.

Barry Bonds

Oh, Barry, my old friend, every time I think of you I smile. Sometimes I think back to that magical season in 1998 when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were stealing your thunder. Remember how you were the best player in the game, but two piece-of-shit hitters with huge holes in their game supplanted you in the press and dominated the headlines? Remember when you literally said, “fuck it,” in 1999 and did what every other asshole in baseball was doing and decided to go on the juice? I do. I loved every page of the leaked grand jury testimony that I read. I loved every second of the BALCO scandal. And I was in absolute rapture as you broke both the single-season and career home run marks while Bud Selig sat watching helplessly. And my heart sings every time I think of you because, without you, I never would have gotten to hear some pontificating dummy named Lance Williams from the San Francisco Chronicle tell me that it is crude to think that athletes will do whatever it takes to win no matter the legal consequences or the threat to their image or legacy. Barry, you will always be my hero.

The End of The Curse

Losing is an art, and for 85 years, no one did it with more style, class, panache, and inventiveness than the Boston Red Sox. Giving up game-winning home runs to overgrown midget shortstops, bumbling managers starting an ace on two days rest, letting Bob Stanley warm up – much less pitch – in a World Series game, selling Babe Ruth, humiliating Jackie Robinson during a tryout; yes, that was the Red Sox. However, in 2004 the greatest practitioners in the art of choking, fucking up, blowing it, and shitting the bed came all the way back from a 3-0 deficit to the Yankees in the ALCS to shock every sports fan on the planet before easily winning their first World Series since 1918. In game four, after decades of bad jokes and horrendous insults, you could actually hear the baseball gods say, “Enough is enough” and swing the momentum Boston’s way. Before anyone knew it, the Yankees were on the wrong end of the greatest comeback in the history of sports leaving their fans in the Bronx depressed and physically ill. That role reversal made for easily the most tangible proof that the world is not all evil.

Charlie Weiss: Charlatan, Con Artist, Fat

Notre Dame never knew what hit them. After being part of a coaching staff that won three Super Bowls in four years, Charlie Weis parlayed devising offensive game plans for Tom Brady into running one of the crown jewels of college football. After the Irish dumped Tyrone Willingham three years into a rebuilding project, Weis was feted as though there was a bidding war for his services even though no other team in football showed the slightest interest in hiring a guy who just had bariatric surgery and needed to be driven around in a gold cart. During his first two years, using talent procured by Willingham, Weis managed to convincingly lose two BCS bowl games and secure a 10-year multi-million-dollar extension. Over the next three years he embarked on a journey of mediocrity and failure that ended with him alleging on national radio that Pete Carroll was shacking up with 20-something-year-old grad students at the beach while he, of all people, was hounded by 60 Minutes for using foul language. There’s bitter and disappointed and then there is just plain classless, untalented and dumb, with Weis illustrating perfectly that success is not dependent on saying the right things at your first press conference. Not bad for a guy who never even played Pop Warner football.

The Oakland Raiders

Warren Sapp, sage, said it best: “Al Davis knows football. 1970’s football.” The problem with historical success is that when failure comes, you think it’s not your fault. Surrounded by pathetic enablers and yes men, Davis has provided some of the finest entertainment in sports by essentially firing Jon Gruden, re-hiring Art Shell, drafting JaMarcus Russell, and gracing us with the spectacle that is Tom Cable. Davis was once an iconoclast whose instincts and willingness to gamble brought him enormous success, but his dementia and his family’s unwillingness to put him a home has reduced the Raiders to a laughingstock on par with the Clippers. It’s sort of sad to see his corpse propped up and dressed in tacky tracksuits, but there is no better window into what the future ultimately holds for Jerry Jones.

Roger Federer is a Boring God

Not since Bjorn Borg wielded a wooden racket and wore grape smugglers has a player so dominated the game of tennis the way Roger Federer has. Though he is now on the wrong side of his prime, but still formidable, there was a five-year stretch where he was simply unbeatable. While players like John McEnroe, Borg, Andre Agassi and Jimmy Connors were painfully human and easy to root for because of their respective emotional outbursts and personal foibles, Federer has cultivated a business-like persona centered around the calm perfectionism, faux class, false modesty, and rigid professionalism that oozes from his perfectly tailored warm up suits and monogrammed socks. Winning his 15th Grand Slam title rocketed him into the stratosphere of the greatest professional athletes. His game is versatile, well-rounded, effective on all surfaces, and essentially perfect, but watching him – save for his matches against Rafael Nadal – is passionless, boring, disaffecting, and devoid of soul, making Ivan Lendl look like a rock star by comparison.

Adendum: Sports Related Youtube of The Decade

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a work of the most supreme audacity. A Western with little action, a history lesson without any heroes, and a character study that uses contemplative silence rather than the roar of gunfire, the film is everything I had hoped it to be and more; one of the few movies all year that actually got better as it went along, reducing its 160-minute running time to a mere flash of brilliance. Who could imagine that in 2007, a time when Hollywood is in such an advanced state of decay that every move seems pre-approved by focus groups and teams of cautious lawyers, we would be honored with such risk and bold artistry? After all, here’s a film concerning one of the most famous figures in history, an outlaw known by young and old alike, and rather than pander to the obvious with a romp of hard riding and gunplay, that very man is reduced to a supporting character; a symbol, yes, but not at all the driving narrative force. Thankfully, blissfully, this is not a tale of bank heists and train robberies, showdowns at high noon, or cat and mouse dramatics that reduce the untamed frontier to clever criminals and no-nonsense lawmen. Instead, this is a film about nothing less grandiose than America itself — its myths, its illusions, its raw, wounded identity — with the necessary sense of wonder to pull it off. Such ambitions are fraught with peril, of course (resentful glances and accusations of unjust pretension, to name a few), but each and every frame is a testament to the overall success, and by the final act — a coda concerning the days and nights of Robert Ford after the infamous assassination that stands as some of the finest filmmaking I’ve ever seen — we are not exhausted, or burdened, or bereft, but thankful at having lived to see it all. The decade has seen its masterpiece.

The Wrestler (2008)

Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, a film that on its face doesn’t sound like much at all, is not without convention, or cliché, or even a hint of familiarity, but its brilliance is not in its ability — or desire — to revolutionize the medium. Through one simple character, the washed-up slob that is The Ram, America itself is laid bare (and where Jersey has never looked so Jersey). And who knew that when the chips were down, Mickey Rourke would come to set things right? His performance is a revelation to be sure; a realization so penetrating, wise, and achingly authentic that it deserves to sweep Oscar off its feet. It is greatness in raw, unflinching defiance, both as a physical embodiment and through sheer emotional resonance. It’s the epitome of the Method’s still unsurpassed approach to the art. Rourke never overreaches, or plays to the cheap seats, or asks us to find him appealing. His faded has-been is a bastard through and through, as well as the sort of man incapable of breadth, scope, or even a moment where he isn’t out to prove his worth through the channel of an appalling self-loathing. His is the vanity of utter stasis; where, preserved in amber like a prehistoric insect, he bathes in nostalgia to keep the world from penetrating his tomb. He lives as he did, stunted for all time, unable to grapple with the parade that long ago passed him by. He’s a muscular, scarred Norma Desmond; the ring his musty, cobwebbed estate.

United 93 (2006)

It’s the film that was never supposed to work. It simply couldn’t. Every conceivable minefield was glaringly apparent; it would function as little more than propaganda, a rallying cry, a spur for Bush’s approval ratings, or a perverse, exploitive justification for invasion and revenge. Heroes would be oversimplified, villains even more so, and the audience would be invited not to observe and recoil as we must in the face of unthinkable tragedy, but bare its teeth and believe, absurdly, that we would have acted more forcefully ourselves. No, this is not that movie, and for that alone, it deserves recognition as the most restrained account of actual events ever filmed. It would be more fitting to describe what we see, what we hear, and hell, what we feel, as just shy of cinema verite; a peeking behind the curtain of an event we think we know from top to bottom, when of course we could not possibly have any idea. It’s all terrifyingly real, for we know the grisly outcome, and the film wisely presents every moment leading up to the actual hijacking as routine, banal, and just this side of boring. It had to be. Our perspective, so viciously unfair as the worst sort of hindsight, screws the tension tighter than we can handle, and we wait it out; a death watch that damn near drives us to the brink. But again, and why this masterpiece will last beyond the raw wounds it portrays, this is above politics, and war, and terrorism itself; these are human beings, fragile and fearful, confused and astoundingly brave, doing whatever they could, which, sadly, was very little, to simply survive. Simply, when it’s everything? But fight on we do, brutes of a single-minded devotion, even when the whole damn enterprise is doomed. More so.

A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

It’s the sweetest example of a cinematic valedictory – Robert Altman, aging, frail, yet still teeming with wit and insight – faces the cold breath of mortality with A Prairie Home Companion, a delightful ode to endings; some happy, some not, but all unfailingly inevitable. Given that I was not at all familiar with Garrison Keillor’s radio broadcast (nor much of his career, period), I expected little from the movie, and must admit that I was moved to go only out of an obligation to Altman, one of the true giants of the art form. I figured that at best I would be distracted by a few corny jokes, a silly song or two, and that unmistakable overlapping dialogue that has been much imitated, but never equaled. Who knew that Altman (along with Keillor’s charming script) would focus so intently on the matter-of-factness of death itself; that while it will come for all of us, it need not be the only way in which to punch that final clock. In many ways, the film understands that before we’re carted off for the last time, we can release ourselves from the passions that drive us, and the noblest among us know when it’s time to give it a rest. This may in fact mean the end of life for many, but stepping aside can be as simple as a gesture; the nod of agreement that yes, my time in the sun is no more. There are others waiting for their shot. And there always will be.

Before Sunset (2004)

As the rarest of birds – an intellectual engagement between two adults without a trace of pretension or suffocating irony – the film stands as the decade’s most insightful romance, even though our couple remains physically uninvolved throughout. More than unrequited love, or a revisiting of what could have been, these are two older, and not necessarily wiser characters who have arrived at true adulthood with little but quiet resignation to bind their wounds. Jesse and Celine, perhaps the only cinematic pair that warranted a sequel, have an effortless grace together, while their hesitations and despairing glances reveal not the will of a screenwriter, but the hazards of the engaged life. It’s all talk, yes, and elevated beyond our normal unbearable exchanges, but the words rely not on the esoterica of the self-appointed elite, or the instant wit of the smirking wiseacre, but actual ideas learned not in the armchair of youth, but through experience and survival. It’s as if these two, slightly hardened by idealism’s inevitable decline, come together to spend a few hours in a cocoon slightly more tolerable than the ones they already inhabit. Marriage and family, as Jesse has discovered, are not “what adults do” per se, but are the only acceptable escapes left us in a world ever-intolerant of genuine solitude. Celine and Jesse work, such as it is, because they’ve never faced the actual scrutiny of life beyond the glow. At last, a film where one listens, one learns, and one recognizes all too well that our accidental encounters make the routine bearable.

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.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2006)

In many ways, the treatment of the mentally ill has made great strides over the years, resulting in scientific breakthroughs and enlightened attitudes that have genuinely improved lives. And yet, despite understanding much more than we ever have regarding the human brain, we have reversed course once again and threaten to move into a new barbarism, though one that avoids stigma, physical abuse, and grotesque warehousing. Instead, we have reached a critical new low, where in fact we so romanticize the mentally ill that they become objects of amusement, rather than desperately sick human beings in need of care. In our desire to remove the pain that comes with diagnosis, we believe that these people are no different than anyone else, and are simply in possession of “quirks” or “eccentricities” rather than deep, and often dangerous afflictions. It’s a bizarre cultural turn than once had good intentions, but now does far more harm to the patients themselves, as they are encouraged to so indulge their sickness that it becomes confused with “brilliance”. The Devil and Daniel Johnston is, in fact, one of the most vile symbols of this new course, as it takes a sad, demented individual (likely a schizophrenic, but surely a severe manic depressive) and rather than pull him aside for hospitalization, turns him into a hip rock star; a cult hero whose music and drawings reveal a genius that hasn’t been seen since Dylan’s basement tapes. Or so his former manager would have us believe.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008)

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.

Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2004)

Think of the possibilities — filmmaker Andrew Douglas picks up a classic Chevy convertible and takes us on a journey through the deep, deep South, where the Pentecostal religion oozes out of every pore, and the music stands as a reflection of their sorrow, woe, and passion for life. What would we find on this bizarre trip? Snake-handlers? Faith-healers? Murderous fundamentalists? Yes, we found the nuts, the losers, the freaks, and the schizos, but Douglas, rather than genuinely explore their lives with critical detail (or at the very least, detached objectivity), has genuine fondness for these people, believing that they and they alone have found authenticity in the American landscape. As such, the trip becomes a loving valentine to a people; the very sort who deserve our unending scorn for failing to evolve beyond the 18th century. Admirable? Why, because they believe in a literal heaven and hell? That running water is a tool of the devil? And because Douglas is such an irritating guide, he makes it as much about him as his subjects, which leaves me with absolutely no one to care about. But here’s the kicker — we explore Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Kentucky, and at no time (and I mean AT NO TIME) do we see any black people. Not one man, woman, or child. That would be like filming a documentary about Los Angeles without finding a single Latino. Honestly, can anyone hope to understand Southern music without blacks? Are you fucking kidding me? That glaring omission pissed me off, and caused me to question the director’s motives. Conclusion? He’s a racist asshole who would rather spend time with some drunk lunatic with a hard-on for Jesus than an old bluesman.

Tarnation (2004)

Ignore the hype, disregard the bullshit regarding the film’s budget ($218 my ass), and prepare yourself for one of the most unpleasant (gay) experiences you’ll have in front of a movie screen. Do I say this because the film concerns a young (gay) man’s portrait of his nutty mother, in addition to the abuse, the foster homes, and the pain? You know me better than that. I enjoy depressing films, and am usually dissatisfied unless someone worthwhile dies violently. Jonathan Caouette’s (gay) movie stinks up the joint not because of its honesty, but rather because of its fundamental dishonesty. Far from a cathartic experience, this is (gay) narcissism in its ugliest form; an 88-minute excuse for a wannabe (gay) actor, wannabe (gay) filmmaker, and wannabe (gay) All-American star to stick his pathetic (gay) mug before the camera at every opportunity, all in the hopes that he’ll get noticed by someone at the William Morris Agency. Even the scenes of (gay) despair seem staged, as if (gay) Jonathan knew that the best way to attract attention to himself was to emote like some (gay) method actor. As the format is limited — Caouette pulled together photographs, (gay) home movies, answering machine messages, and (gay) phone calls, and slapped them together on his home computer — any (gay) meaning must be extracted from what are obviously disconnected items. But the only theme I could find was that whenever there was something to be filmed, (gay) Jonathan was there. And hey, anyone who films every last detail of their (gay) life from age 11 is clearly someone who has planned for (and expects) fame to drop in his (gay) lap at some future moment.

Are you a Positive Penelope?  Check out Matt’s best docs of the decade.

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While perhaps disappointing to those expecting a skillfully edited montage of bodies breaking apart on the waves while power chords drift and moan, The Bridge is much more than a voyeuristic death rattle. The images of human beings jumping from San Francisco’s famed Golden Gate Bridge are undeniably wrenching, but this is not exploitation. We watch because we must; these stories, told by friends and loved ones after the sad events have taken place, need that final act to lend credence to the words of the survivors. Their anger, sadness, and sense of betrayal deserve the big leap, for what other cruel reminder could suffice to let us know that for that brief moment, a monstrous selfishness won out over the feelings of others? One’s death is one’s own to be sure, as we’re the ones who have to experience it, but to watch these people — men and women, young and old alike — pace, pause, reflect, and finally jump, could only lock down the understanding that suicide is vanity’s last gift to the world; a final kiss of hoped-for infamy that will force civilization, even an extremely small portion of it, to never be able to forget. Why else would anyone commit suicide in this manner?

Cocaine Cowboys (2006)

Corben’s film is so damned exhilarating because of its self-conscious, hip style, but the facts of the matter are what sell this glitzy package. There is no shortage of interviews, news accounts, archival footage, and anecdotes to punch it all home, but its guiding theme — much like the nostalgia we feel for the older, better, mob-driven Vegas — transforms mere journalism into a grand sociological statement, irrefutable in its logic. Is the American dream — our dream — on par with the brutality and greed of barely literate, amoral gangsters? Not line for line, of course, but there stands that brilliant, glass-filled Miami skyline — a testament to economic power and success — and what else brought it from dirt and dust but the billions of dollars generated by drug sales? No one’s denying that cocaine country was a brutal, rigged game that enriched but a chosen few (no parallels to the “legitimate” economy, eh?), but their money (and theirs alone) bought the houses, drove the cars, paid the bills, raised the clubs, the restaurants, and the bars, and, most of all, was laundered through dozens of wildcat banks, which in turn promoted a construction boom unlike anything the area had ever seen. Throughout, cops, politicians, and all those deemed “respectable”, knowingly turned away. It’s worth noting that while the rest of the country suffered through a recession in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Miami maintained its time in the sun, as if walled off from reality by a haze of addiction. Snowblind, indeed.

Darwin’s Nightmare (2006)

The cinematic arts are often meant to inspire, instruct, and entertain, but on those rare occasions when the mood has but one direction, they are meant to produce a level of disgust and outrage so overwhelming that it’s all one can do to get home in one piece. Darwin’s Nightmare, Hubert Sauper’s new documentary, is so punishing in its bleakness, in fact, that it acts as a white flag for all further endeavors. The liberal humanist in me always wants to believe that mankind might improve, or that through various political actions, despair and exploitation might be tempered with a bit of justice, but after today, I can’t point to a single shred of evidence that justifies my cautious optimism. After 107 minutes of such pain, cruelty, savagery, and callousness masking itself as “the laws of business,” I’m not sure how to approach each and every hour of the coming days; where I am constantly reminded that we in the West — fat, content, and so blissfully successful that we have to invent problems in the absence of real troubles — must either check out via the blade, bullet, or pill, or else find a way to live with hypocrisy and crushing guilt. As I’ll still be here tomorrow, I know I’ve made my decision (I’m no saint), and I’m not nearly sanctimonious enough to judge others for joining me on my well-trod path. The world suffers, whereas I do not, and I’d be lying if I claimed to be doing anything real about it. That said, Darwin’s Nightmare is a perfect repudiation of the idea that anything can be done at all, absent altering man’s essential nature. With atomic weapons.

Deep Water (2006)

I’m convinced that no one returns from the sea unchanged, and more than any other form of adventure available to the ever-curious human animal, it holds the greatest risk of madness and death. The lust for exploration is built into our very DNA, and we the timid owe a great deal to those who pushed beyond their borders to better the lot of mankind. But now that the conquering spirit has been tamed by our modern age, all that remains is adventure for its own sake — contests, competitions, and collisions of ego that might hold vicarious thrills for spectators, but by and large are little more than senseless trips of vanity. So if we are to concern ourselves with these stories any longer, there must be an insight into the human experience that moves beyond mere winners and losers. Thankfully, Deep Water is just such a tale; a documentary that begins with a now-forgotten competition (a 1969 London Times-sponsored event that would bestow a cash prize upon the first man to complete a solo boat trip around the world), and winds up as an examination of man’s fragility so profound that it leaves us stunned.

Grizzly Man (2005)

Werner Herzog’s decidedly unromantic vision of the natural world and the foolish vanity of man was the year’s most thought-provoking work; a hammer blow to a curious self-absorption that pits the lust for relevance against an indifferent habitat that knows only survival. Timothy Treadwell, the poor sap in question, just might be insane, but there’s a touch of innocence in his quest to devote his life to Alaska’s bears, which is precisely what gets him killed. In this realm, after all, only cold-eyed realism will suffice. Herzog, as expected, is fascinated by this man’s obsession (he is our best chronicler of human beings at the extremes), and while he refuses to judge from a privileged position, the narration speaks to a differing point of view that makes Treadwell’s account seem hopeless by comparison. And no film better captured the unique intersection of sadness, thrill-seeking, and delusion so often found in individuals unable to find their place in an increasingly alienating world. At the end, we can safely assume that Treadwell wanted to die — on his terms — for martyrdom quickly supplants all else in the mind of a narcissist. In all, a devastating account, and it deserves to be recognized as among the finest documentaries ever made.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

Ali vs Frazier. Bird vs Magic. Borg vs McEnroe. Wiebe vs Mitchell. Of all the great rivalries of sport, it is arguably the latter that best defines the American experience, despite being the least recognized, as well as the only one that did not actually involve head-to-head competition. But don’t be distracted by the absence of a field, rink, or stadium, or even a blood-filled trench of athletic endeavor, because these two men, far, far away from arenas packed with roaring crowds, did battle in garages, basements, and lonely arcades, where only the nerdy and nostalgic do not fear to tread. The game is Donkey Kong, the warfare is real, and by the end, we have witnessed a film with as many twists and turns as the boldest fiction, with heroes atop noble steeds and dastardly evildoers in black hats to match. Seth Gordon’s The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters travels through these minefields of obsession, compulsion, arrogance, and unholy competition, but above all, takes the lives of two men — Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell — and the classic video game that has consumed each for the better part of the past quarter-century. It is a heartfelt, unflinching look at a bizarre, almost grotesque subculture, but more than that, it channels the drive to escape anonymity and mediocrity that afflicts high and low alike. And while we might recoil in horror at the utter seriousness by which these gamers live out their days, it is impossible not to end the screening in hysterics. Above all, this is a riotous, supremely entertaining work, and through style, music (Leonard Cohen has never seemed more appropriate), personality, and the complete absence of condescension, it becomes one of the best films of the year.

Overnight (2004)

As an exploration of hubris and unrestrained ego, I’ve never seen a more blistering portrait than Overnight, and I doubt I’ll ever encounter a viler monster than self-proclaimed genius Troy Duffy. A Shakespearean villain who would have both Richard III and Lady Macbeth for breakfast, Duffy was Hollywood’s new “Golden Boy” back in 1997, when his screenplay for The Boondock Saints sent movie executives scrambling for both dollars and superlatives. Given the opportunity of a lifetime (a generous contract to direct the film, as well as a record deal for his band The Brood), Troy lost it all not because of unfortunate circumstances or the cruelties of fate, but due entirely to his own bitterness, stupidity, arrogance, and unparalleled vanity. The film is both a document of a poor boy’s rise to the top (the filmmakers were initially asked to chronicle a “star in the making”), and a complete meltdown that might have been perceived as tragic had Troy had an ounce of human decency. About fifteen minutes in, we know what’s coming (Troy is a prick to everyone, especially the most powerful people in the business), but the ride down is never anything less than a laugh-filled, entertaining riot; the most glaring example of schadenfreude ever witnessed. I’d sooner trust my fate to Hitler, Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao or Pol Pot than Mr. Duffy, the most putrid stain on humanity since the earth first cooled. I defy you to spend 81 more pleasurable minutes in the presence of something that isn’t naked.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003)

Everything filmmaking should be: passionate, exhilarating, dramatic, and spirited. This documentary about the attempted coup in the spring of 2002 against Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected President of Venezuela, contains the pure, heart-pounding excitement of a summer action movie because we are witnessing history (and life) as it unfolds; raw and unscripted. Originally, the filmmakers (Ireland’s Kim Bartley and Donnacha O’Briain) were in Venezuela to make a film about Chavez alone, but a military coup began as they were filming and their cameras continued to roll throughout the crisis. We are taken right into the heart of demonstrations, behind the doors of the Presidential palace, and into the minds of both the participants and those defending the Constitutional order. The film does not shy away from its sympathies for Chavez and his radical reforms, which posed a great threat to the ruling elite as well as an American government heavily dependent on Venezuela’s oil. After witnessing how little respect conservative forces in that country have for democracy and the rule of law, we can make connections to our own country — whenever an election doesn’t go their way, right-wingers seem hell-bent on reversing the “unfortunate” outcome, regardless of morality or simple legality. And based on how much American corporations had to lose from Chavez’s nationalistic and redistribution policies, it stands to reason that America strongly endorsed — if not outright aided — the coup attempt. But again, politics aside, this is filmmaking at its finest: literally edge-of-your-seat fire and anger swirl about, leaving the viewer dizzy with outrage. Easily one of the best films of the year and frankly, a masterpiece of the documentary form.

Running Stumbled (2006)

Johnny Roe, Jr. and his common-law wife Virgie Marie Pennoui, once beautiful, talented, and full of life, are now the scariest, most bizarre human beings you’re ever likely to see; two lost souls so pathetic, so riddled with addiction, abuse, and self-loathing, that not even John Cassavetes, tortured by visions of Grey Gardens and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, could have conceived of characters so demented. They are sick, vile, appalling, and unnaturally cruel; dancing around a relationship that long ago ceased to be anything other than sadomasochistic dependency, crossed with a heavy dose of murderous rage. Only they’re real — all too real — and their passion play is set before Johnny’s estranged son, rather than an indifferent director. Having not seen his birth father for over 25 years (he was taken from the home after his father deliberately crashed the car they were riding in, bringing forth charges of attempted murder), he has brought his camera to a dirty, dank home in Terrytown, Louisiana in order to exploit the living hell out of people he has never really known. And thank fuck for that, as what transpires is a hilarious, gut-busting treat; not only one of the best films of the year, but one of the most entertaining visions of hell in the history of the cinema. The truest test of its greatness lies in the fact that at 83 minutes, it’s not even remotely long enough, and I could have watched this bloody train wreck for dozens of hours, if not days. Hell, let’s cut to the chase: it’s damn near a masterpiece for our times. Seek it out immediately if you value all that is honorable and true.

The Staircase (2004)

I hadn’t experienced an emotional reversal of fortune this dramatic since discovering that the soft-featured prostitute devouring my member was, in fact, a transsexual named Robert. Like that moonlit night long ago, an orgasm is still an orgasm, but it’s forever tempered by disgust and shame. Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s documentary The Staircase, then, is a cinematic wonder of technique, insight, and suspense, though after a bit of research within minutes of the film’s conclusion – I had neglected such things prior to the screening, so as to avoid ruining the surprise – I was forced to undertake an immediate reassessment tantamount to a thunderous rug-pulling. While the film played – all six hours of it, spread out over three nights – I was enthralled, stimulated, and even pushed to the brink, but now that I know the facts of the case, the film becomes a hollow exercise in manipulation, deception, and outright falsehood. I’ve been hoodwinked and bamboozled, ladies and gentlemen, and I feel like an utter fool. No, the film portrays an actual case (this is no mockumentary) with flesh and blood human beings occupying the frame, but instead of taking us through the intricacies of the event, the filmmaker instead operates from a position of contemptible bias; using his film to fulfill a sinister agenda, rather than shed light on an infamous murder trial.

Are you a Negative Nathan?  Check out Matt’s worst docs of the decade.

Why aren’t there more science and nature docs?  Because they’re here, idiot.

Whether your holiday festivities will consist of eggnog salted with tears and drifting off with fervent wish that Santa brings you a stocking full of not waking up, family gatherings in which ceremony thinly veils supernovae of loathing, cowardly religious rituals in which you prostrate yourself, begging to be rescued by an especially silly comic book character or being given the cheapest, crappiest chocolate permissible by law because you are a Jew, we have several recommendations to kill the vast stretches of time between football and NBA games. If, however, you need one more nudge, a dash of myrrh to break the camel’s back and launch you into the ranks of holiday suicides, we can help too because few bad movies are as bad as bad Christmas movies. We’re not big on the holidays, but these films have been good or bad enough to inspire us.

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