Yeah yeah yeah, no fuss no frills, here’s my top favorite movies. If something you read about on a million other lists is not here, it’s cause i probably haven’t seen it yet (no country, there will be blood).
1. Planet Terror - I didn’t enjoy any movie this year more than Robert Rodriquez’s big-budget Troma zombie action entry in the Grindhouse double feature experience. I think it’s retarded that every best of list includes Tarantino’s Death Proof over this one, which is far more exhilarating, hilarious, and ultimately more satisfying than anything I’ve seen in a long time. Death Proof seemed to be a waste of money and a let down compared to the exhilaration of this film. I don’t really understand why Tarantino made it, when all it seems he really wanted to do was tell people to go watch “Vanishing Point,” which he ripped off bigtime (sorry, homage). Marlee Shelton is genius as the nurse whose hands go numb right when she needs them the most. And say what you will about her Rose McGowan is pitch perfect - she knows her performance needs to be a little bad to make it very good. The machine gun leg is beyond genius. Loved it.
2. The King of Kong - Insane, destined to be a legendary cult film, this documentary about a rematch between a former Donkey Kong World Champion and the ultimate Underdog was probably the funniest movie I’ve seen all year, chock full of you-couldn’t-write-them-if you-tried-characters, like an old grandma who’se also a Q-Bert champ, Mr. Awesome, a gaming creep on the hunt for “poontang,” and a toddler who interrupts his dad’s world champion score by screaming for him to wipe his ass. It’s amazing.
3. Bug - After making fun of her accent and performance in the ludricrous Double Jeopardy for so many years, I was shocked to see Ashley Judd do such an utterly fantastic job playing a shellshocked woman who comes under the influence of a bizarre drifter who believes his motel room is slowly becoming infested with invisible bugs. It’s slow and labored, with quietly hilarious moments, like Ashley Judd slapping her best friend, and later ranting against dykes, and these hilarious moments balance out the sheer tension and ultimate Grand Guignol Horror that comes about at the fabulous third act.
4. Brand Upon the Brain! - Guy Maddin’s silent cinema spectacle meets avant-garde vaudeville circus was an extremely gorgeous film experience. A live narrator (in my case the unfortunately chosen Lou Reed, who though he has quite the distinctive voice, seemed bored and disconnected, and frankly didn’t seemed like he got the whole film) accompanied by live sound effects, musicians, and a supposed castrato. It was all really weird and great, and the film itself was a strange tale about a pair of siblings raised on an island orphange run by a domineering mother with a strange surveillance system built out of a lighthouse. It was one of Maddin’s best films so far.
5. Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten - Though it has some problems - the inexplicable inclusion of people like Johnny Depp, Flea, Bez from Happy Mondays, and most egregiously, Martin Scorcese, who spouts a ridiculous lie that Raging Bull was inspired by the music of the Clash (”Even though uh, the film was set in the forties, the place we went to to get that feeling was from the music of the Clash.”) - the message of the music of Strummer is explored to an emotionally honest and extremely inspirational degree. The conceit of the film, that the talking heads discussing Joe are all of his friends from his various areas of residence and stages of life, gathered together around campfires, gets more honest responses from the subjects than most rock docs, though I wonder if someone will ever - and if it is even possible to - make a rock doc that isn’t just talking heads intercut with footage….Anyway, the film is good, and will undoubtedly make you tear up at the end at the sadness of a life cut short in it’s prime. I was somewhat obsessed with rock and roll comeback stories this year, so this one was a good fit for me.
Honorable Mention (if such a thing exists): Exte - a Japanese Horror film from Sion Sono that one-ups the standard J-Horror “woman with scary long hair” ghost, by telling the strange tale of a hairdresser played by Chiaki Kuriama from Kill Bill who faces off with evil killer hair extensions that grow out of the body of a very angry corpse stolen from a local morgue by a hair-obsessed creepo.
Also Liked: Southland Tales for all the character actors it stuffed into one strange movie that’s excellent and a total flop at the same time, A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory for its forcing me to rethink the standard tales laid down by most of the Warhol books I’ve been consuming for years, the revival of Berlin Alexanderplatz at Moma (a weeks worth of moviegoing bliss), Sweeney Todd, The Orphanage, Gregg Araki’s Smiley Face for making me love Ana Faris and giving us the extremely hot image of John Krasinski jacking off in the shower (though too bad he did not eat it like in The Doom Generation), The Host for showing the US how to do CGI right, the revival of Herzog’s Cobra Verde at the IFC Center for totally fucking my brain for 2 hours, Mr. Brooks, the ultimate guilty pleasure movie of 2007, totally loved it, even though it’s insane trash, especially since you get to see Dane Cook getting killed! same with Lindsey Lohan’s needs to be seen to be believed I Know Who Killed Me (so bad it’s beyond so bad it’s good good.)
Best Revival Film Series’ : Warhol’s World at the Moving Image. Though I prefer the earlier films to his later breakdown films, the chance to see these in an audience and watch and start thinking about other stuff, and then realize what you’re thinking about, and then ponder out this strange dull image of nothing made you think about all this stuff, was exactly what I think film is all about. Also I’m a sucker for noir, so the NYC Noir series this Summer at the film forum was right up my alley. Obviously I loved the Fassbinder series at Moma that went along with the Berlin Alexanderplatz screenings, though I still want them to re-show Fassbinder’s remake of the Women “Frauen en New York”, and I loved the Gerard Depardieu series at the Walter Reade.
Best Revival Film Series that I missed completely: I was in LA at the worst film festival ever, the LA Shorts Film Festival, screening my film, but I wanted desperately to be back in New York at the Film Forum, watching the Rouben Mamoulian retro. Mamoulian directed one of my favorite movies ever, the exhilarating Maurice Chevalier musical Love Me Tonight, so it was sad that I had to miss this one. Really sad. Also was bummed that I couldn’t hit the Sam Fuller retrospective at the Moving Image at least once. Why does that museum need to be in f-ing queens yo?
Best Old film that I finally got around to watching after it was on my DVR for like 4 Months: Once Upon a Time in the West by Sergio Leone. I can’t believe I never saw this before. Completely amazing, and made me love Henry Fonda, something I had never had the slightest inclination to do.
Best Film that I couldn’t get into because it was so thoroughly sold out: The legendary Raiders of the Lost Ark remake at the Anthology Film Archives, made by three kids in the 80’s who did a shot for shot remake, finishing the film when they were in college, and subsequently selling the rights to their story to Scott Rudin. The lines for this one were around the block, and each time no matter how early I went, there was no hope at all. Sucked big time. Can someone please please please here my prayers and make this an ongoing Midnight Movie? I guarantee it would make a fortune!
Best Film of 2008: Without a doubt, it’s going to be John Rambo!!! Or Jacques Rivette’s The Duchess of Langeais!!! Can’t wait!!!
