So it's New Year's, and I thought I'd put together my version of the list that I've seen nearly everywhere else, of the top movies of the year. But as I sat down racking my head, I realized that I simply didn't see as many movies in the theater as I've done in years past, which I blame entirely on my HDTV Home Theater system. Still, despite advanced technology, nothing equals the spectacle of watching films in a theater, so the following are the ones I enjoyed:
"No Country For Old Men"- When I left the theater, I realized that my back and shoulders were incredibly sore. It was because I had spent the preceding two hours gripping the armrests of my theater seats through the Coen Brothers' exercise in unrelenting tension. Javier Bardem played the most disturbing monster I've seen on screen in quite some time, with his presence even dominating the scenes in which he wasn't even in. He should be a shoo-in for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and the Coens should win for Best Adapted Screenplay. And did anyone notice the complete lack of a score? And how creepier the lack of score made the film?
"Pan's Labyrinth"- A fairy tale for adults, and, yeah, keep the kiddies away from this one. Sergi Lopez's Capitan Vidal may have been the most gruesome character I saw on film prior to Bardem's Chigurh. His gut-wrenching portrayal of a sadistic fascist army captain doing his part to create Franco's "New Spain" was a performance that defied your efforts to resist squirming in your seat. It made the Pale Man met by the intrepid heroine in the film seem positively cuddly. On a whole, completely deserving of all the critical acclaim- and numerous Oscars- it received.
"Superbad"- Just as worthy of the acclaim it received. I believe I laughed more in any ten-minute stretch of this film then in all the rest of the movies this past year combined. (Though I tend to not see comedies in theaters.) But despite the over-the top raunchiness and the best penis cartoons I've ever seen on the big screen, it can't be denied that this film- similar to other Judd Apatow productions "Knocked Up", "The 40 Year Old Virgin", and his tender but overlooked TV series "Freaks and Geeks"- hides a heart under the characters' over-worked and unchecked testosterone. I'm looking forward to "Walk Hard: The Dewy Cox Story." And Michael Cera is my new hero. I'm looking forward to him in "Juno." Oh yeah, and this film probably had the best soundtrack of the year.
"The Mist"- Wow. They're still making Stephen King movies? Even twenty years after "Firestarter", "Cujo" and "Christine" cemented King's name as the personification of schlocky 20th century American horror. Surely the films- or even the content- can't still be good, right? I mean, he was responsible for the dreadful "Dreamcatcher" back in 2003, and William Goldman's career is still attempting to recover, right? But, no, "The Mist" is King at its best, a simple monster tale about a group of people trapped in a store, battling the baddies out in the mist and the even worse demons trapped in the store with them. I've been waiting for this movie ever since I read the novella years ago, and wasn't disappointed. King and Director Frank Darabont had teamed up in the past for "The Shawshank Redemption"- arguably the greatest film, ever- and the snooze-fest "The Green Mile." Luckily, "The Mist" is more the former than the latter, with more genuine horrific effects thrown in. Supposedly, Darabont held off making this film until he was able to get the ending he wanted. Luckily he did, as it is one of the most searing endings to a film I've ever seen.
"Planet Terror"- Robert Rodriguez has long been a hero of mine, and he's never let me down. (Though "Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl" got poor reviews, I wasn't really that movie's target demo so I'm not too concerned about that one.) Yeah, he may have gotten confusing like in "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" but when it seemed like the plot was going to be too much, he threw in the perfect amount of bullets to remind you not to take it seriously. And this zombie film- his half of the throwback to 1970s exploitation films in "Grindhouse", along with Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof"- is a textbook example of how to have fun by playing up the key elements in a horror film, all the while ensuring that both the filmmaker and viewer have their tongues planted firmly in cheek. This film quite nearly has it all: a Black Eye Pea-turned-zombie fodder, a menacing cameo by Bruce Willis, the hottest one-legged zombie killer, and a performance from Tarantino that inspired his own action figure. And he kept the plot simple this time: zombies. What else do you need? As much fun as this film was, however, it may have paled in the two-minute joy that was Eli Roth's faux trailer for "Thanksgiving," inserted between Rodriguez's and Tarantino's films.
"30 Days of Night"- If you weren't sure what kind of films I enjoy seeing in the theater, I'm pretty sure a trend must be making itself clear by now. "30 Days" was an adaptation of a graphic novel about a group of vampires "moving in" to Barrow, Alaska- an isolated town well above the Arctic Circle that enjoys (if that's the right word) a month of darkness each winter. It's an ingenious idea, and although I'm not familiar with the source material, the film does a great job providing a high dose of thrills. At times claustrophobic, and at others filled with violence that forces you to flinch, "30 Days" is hard to describe as 'fun.' But a good movie none the less. And it's good to see a film with Josh Hartnett and Melissa George- the Australian hottie who played Vaughn's sham of a wife in "Alias"- that didn't suck.
"The Golden Compass"- I didn't read the books, so I don't have anything to rail about the adaptation from the source material. I'm not a Catholic, so I'm not going to protest a movie I know nothing about. (And which indeed say the words "Catholic" and "church" all of zero times.) In the end, I'm just going to enjoy this fanciful yarn with special effects, including gyro-scoped bicycles and cool metallic zeppelins. And the best fight of talking polar bears I've ever seen in a movie.
"Czech Dream"- Yeah, you've never heard of it. This is a real documentary about the making of- well, the ad campaign behind- a fake hypermarket in the Czech Republic called Czech Dream. It skewers the whole practice and industry of advertising, and at the same time shows just how our consumer society has appropriated nearly every aspect of our lives. As one family said in the film, "If we weren't going to the hypermarkets on the weekends, we'd be cleaning or working in the garden. Much rather be shopping."
"Spider-Man 3"- Yeah, so it's two loud hours of gee-whiz special effects and they did try to cram three story lines into one movie, but who cares? It's still the greatest filmmaker alive, Sam Raimi, doing the greatest comic book character ever. This was rumored to end the "Spider-Man" series, but after it made the gazillions of dollars they always make, supposedly the key players signed up to keep milking the cash cow, which makes sense. As long as it's Raimi at the helm, I'll always be seeing any "Spider-Man' film at the theater. Until the next one, however, will be Raimi's big-budget version of "The Evil Dead" which is planned to hit the theaters in 2009.
And... that's it for movies this year. Wow. Not even enough for a 'Top 10.' I could compile a list of films I was looking forward to seeing yet still somehow missed that's twice as long. Oh well. I blame it on the HDTV. And now that I got the 5.1 surround system for Christmas, this list may even be shorter....
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