Oscars Live Blog!

It's that time of the year again, friends. It's that time when we gather all our friends, movie nerds and non-movie nerds, together, in one room, to watch the Academy Awards. This involves drinking movie-themed drinks, like Chris's Avatar-themed margaritas, Avatar-themed Jones Soda cans, and more. This also involves making fun of the constant JCPenney commercials that always seem to dominate the awards. Seriously, JCPenney, peace signs in your logos are soooo 1998.

We did a lot of live-tweetin' of the Oscars last night (at least until the laptop battery went haywire) so you can find most of the room's Oscar-related thoughts here (twitter.com/theblogulator) but here are some general impressions:

• Hooray for a non-Avatar-related sweep. Longtime Blogulator commenter Papa Thor will be happy that it didn't win because so many different sci-fi writers could have written the screenplay to make it better.
• The hosts in general, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were pretty m'eh.
• That break-dancing-to-musical-scores thing? Out of control! What! Were! They! Thinking!
• Peter Saarsgard's speech introducing Carey Mulligan by saying "Carey Mulligan!" in the CREEPIEST VOICE EVER was pretty weird.
• Man, I really need to see, like, all of the movies nominated this year. I watch way too much TV. (On that note, what was HBO thinking scheduling Big Love's season finale on Oscar night? Then again, what was Big Love thinking, like, at all this season? Maybe the reason they only got nine episodes was because HBO wanted it to be over sooner. Just a thought.)

What did you all think?

Off The Couch And Into The Theater: March 2010

There are a crapload of movies coming out this month. I don't even know why, other than maybe hoping spring break rushes kids into the theaters to see a whole bunch of mediocre retread? You know Hollywood's going down the tubes when the most promising wide release in the next thirty days features time travel via jacuzzi. And judging by my past month of movie-going habits when I had tons of Oscar bait options in my mist and still failed to see more than a few flicks, I am not going to do any better at attending the cinema with the following schlock at my fingertips. Or does it actually mean I'll be more likely because I actually hate myself and somehow revel in flocking to the theater for so-so films? Anyway, my February viewings of Crazy Heart, the Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts, and Precious were all kind of a wash anyway. They all had their definite upsides (good acting, well made, etc.) but none really stood out to me in any phantasmagorical way except the Denmark-made "The New Tenants" from my Oscar shorts excursion, which better win Sunday night or I will cry like the big dumb baby that I am. Here are your March 2010 releases (with "Will I See It?" percentages in parentheses):

Mar 5th: Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (73%) looks like one more in a long line of old story-rehashing with an overdone creepy aesthetic that is more boring than it is engaging. Even if it is in 3D this time. Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, and Ethan Hawke all play cops with intertwining personal dramas in Brooklyn's Finest (34%), which sounds as appealing as rewatching any of those actors' other mainstream films, though I am a sucker for watching cop movies by myself on Nerdflix years later. Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer (48%) unfortunately has nothing to do with the PBS kids drama about a ghost that helps you solve crimes through writing and therefore I see little to no reason to see it, except that I can't help but be curious by Polanski's inability to make a good movie post-1980. St. John of Las Vegas (4%), which was supposed to come out last month, finally gets its release this weekend, and I still don't care about an over-stylized Steve Buscemi as an insurance fraud investigator trying to win the heart of Sarah Silverman.

Mar 12th: Paul Greengrass for some reason decides to cast Matt Damon as a character just like Jason Bourne (oh yeah, probably because those movies were hits) but isn't in Green Zone (56%), which I might see just because I remember liking that last Bourne movie. Edward Cullen shows he can be sad and romantic but not a vampire this time with Emilie de Raivin in Remember Me (10%) and I don't really know what it's about but it really doesn't matter, does it? Jay Baruchel somehow landed a leading role in She's Out of My League (61%), which is a bland romantic comedy that I will most likely see just because of the tangential Judd Apatow connection. Our Family Wedding (8%) is a wide release film starring Forest Whitaker that is a pretty self-explanatory light drama that I had never heard of before until just now. A Prophet (82%) is an Oscar-nominated foreign language film about an Arab man who becomes a Mafia kingpin when sentenced to a lengthy prison term, so since I'm watching The Sopranos now and am in the midst of teaching The Godfather, this one's a given. The Red Riding trilogy (55%) looks like it has potential even though somehow one of the cops from Hot Fuzz is the main detective in this dark historical noir, but I am not sure how I'll be able to see three movies within a few weeks time and so I might wait until DVD altogether. A Town Called Panic (64%), an stop-motion animated flick with cowboy and Indian figurines, could either be riotously awesome or dreadfully dumb. Finally, the fourth film opening at the arthouses this weekend is The Yellow Handkerchief (13%), in which strangers played by William Hurt, Kristen Stewart, and Maria Bello somehow end up on a road trip through Louisiana together. Snoozefest alert!

Mar 19th: Somehow not a generic action flick, The Bounty Hunter (1%) is this year's requisite Gerard Butler offensively sexist romantic comedy, this time co-starring Jennifer Aniston. Diary of a Wimpy Kid (15%) is yet another mainstream release that I didn't know existed until now, and apparently it's based off a popular book about a smart-ass junior high kid. Steve Zahn is in the mix somewhere I guess. The Runaways (90%) is the Joan Jett and co. biopic, following Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, and more as they pretend to be punk rock chix. The tepid reviews from Sundance are the only thing keeping me from seeing this otherwise entertaining-looking flick. Repo Men (35%) is unfortunately not the sequel to the non-plural Emilio Estevez cult fave, but rather an action-version of Repo! The Genetic Opera, about illegal organ hunting starring Jude Law and Liev Schreiber. Sounds trashy, possibly fun, and definitely terrible. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (49%) is an indie thriller, so it automatically bypasses the 40% mark, but it looks dull because it's about a computer hacker, so it can't quite break the halfway threshold. Fish Tank (42%) looks like it may be a hipster mumblecore pain in the ass, but then again, those movies also always have potential because they are sparse and haunting as much as they are boring. This one's about a 15-year-old whose mother brings home a new boyfriend. Mother (45%) is once again an indie thriller, but is also Asian, which gives it bonus points, but also sounds like your typical revenge flick (mother looks for revenge on son who was framed for murder) so it also doesn't quite make the halfway mark. Art of the Steal (78%) looks like a fascinating documentary (not always an oxymoron) about how somebody tried to legally seize the art gallery fortunes of a man who voraciously fought for having a museum in the Pennsylvanian countryside rather than in a sterile downtown setting.

Mar 26th: The best Dreamworks can come up with combat Avatar is How to Train Your Dragon (14%), which looks like a mopey animated-for-kids version of just the dragon training scene from the aforementioned blockbuster over and over again. Hot Tub Time Machine (97%), as much as I may hate to admit it, will definitely get seen even though I still haven't laughed at anything in its trailer. And so goes the sad inevitabilities of life. Greenberg (86%) is the latest Noah Baumbach (The Squid & The Whale, Margot At the Wedding) creation and thus I will most assuredly see it, especially since it seems to be Ben Stiller's chance to redeem himself and do something more low key for the first time in years. Terribly Happy (73%) is a Danish cop flick, so it gets way more percentage points than any American cop flick, and it involves a policeman who's prone to nervous breakdowns, so that makes it introspective, thus even more points. Neil Young Trunk Show (2%) is a Neil Young concert film that's finally getting its arthouse release and although I respect the man's talents, I have never clicked with his music. Chloe (67%) is Atom Egoyan's latest melodrama, and I'm glad I finally saw last year's Adoration, so I'm going to put more of an effort into catching this one in the theater. Lastly, City Island (26%) is yet another family comedy drama, this time taking place on Staten Island and starring Andy Garcia as the patriarch, so it really doesn't bear any grand interest to me.

The Quest Continues: The Blockbuster Jams Of 1998

I'm so weary about 1998. I mean, the purpose of this Quest for the Single Finest Film of Our Generation is to find the film whose nostalgia value equals its current re-watch value. These two requirements (nevermind the fact that the Quest officially ended months ago with Home Alone ultimately clinching the title, thanks to your votes) coupled in my mind with the films of 1998, a year when most of us started legally driving cars, either with or without parental supervision. This is a significant year (don't worry, we'll go back to the 80s next month, or you can vote for 1988 here, but I must air these grievances before they make my head explode) because either movies started sucking entertainment value-wise or my brain started idiotically maturing and craving pretentious artsy stuff. Case in point: Saving Private Ryan, A Bug's Life, The Waterboy, and Doctor Dolittle. These four films, all top ten box office grossers for the year in question, all sucked (full disclosure: I never saw A Bug's Life). Sure I gobbled up Spielberg's war epic like everyone else, but I don't think I ever had a desire to see it again or talk about the suspense-riddled battle sequences. Other than that though, I did not enjoy my time at the theater for any of these films. However, I was able to find five films in the top ten that did tickle my proverbial cinema pickle that year, and they are laid out (vote for your fave!) below...

Armageddon: My admiration for this atrocious film proves that I was not as smart as I wanted to be as a 15-year-old, and thus suggests that 1998 does deserve to be a year included on the journey of the Quest (redundant?) as I originally thought (1998 was considered in my original post that kicked off the Quest, but ultimately ignored as the Quest dwindled to its first close). Where's the proof? Well two things come to mind: 1) I once cried at the ending, when the courageous Bruce Willis gave his life so his daughter Liv Tyler could marry Ben Affleck (paging Dr. Freud) as I viewed it for the third or fourth time while sick from school my junior or possibly even senior year, and 2) it was presented in my first college film study class as "the worst movie ever made" with a lot of good arguments made, including the fact that no shot lasts for more than 2-3 seconds, providing a launchpad for the ADD generation that was to follow. Too bad that just made me like the film more. Thus, my official vote goes to Armageddon.

There's Something About Mary: I won't lie. I absolutely loved my first time seeing this movie. Saw it with my brother at the hometown theater on a hot summer weekday afternoon when there were approximately six other people in attendance. The movie had been out for a while at that point and I was excited to finally see that movie that critics both acclaimed and called "gross" simultaneously. A rare treat for teen film dweeb boys. Upon my first viewing (which I'm emphasizing multiple times here on purpose) I was geeking out alongside my brother at all the disgusting gags that (deservedly or undeservedly is up for debate) the Farrelly brothers got away with. That said, upon repeat viewings the only thing that stands up is the Brett Favre joke and Jonathan Richman as the town troubadour. Other than that, it's a big mess of a movie, lacking sympathetic characters and timeless humor, especially because it's the sad kind of funny that can easily get one-upped a couple years later by the next "breakout comedy" - cough cough The Hangover.

Rush Hour: Okay, get over it. I remember vaguely liking Rush Hour when I first saw it. I was one of those pre-teens that went to see those dubbed Jackie Chan movies, so when he finally got a starring role in a big-budget English-language flick, I was interested. Also, Chris Tucker's portrayal of DJ Ruby Rhod in The Fifth Element is one of my favorite performance of all time; nostalgia doesn't even play a factor in that decision. So I just assumed I would think Rush Hour was a hilarious buddy action flick reviving the great tradition of Lethal Weapon or Beverly Hills Cop. Well, I was wrong, and I was also very wrong. But this grand illusion in my 15-year-old brain at least held strong through 1998, and I still have guiltily fond memories of the racist "Do you hear the words that are coming out of my mouth?"-type moments as Chan and Tucker glazed through an uber-mediocre script and came out as two of the worst contributors to late-90s cinema. They shall never be forgiven. [Prediction: Tucker wins an Oscar in 2019.]

Deep Impact: Even as I google image search Deep Impact I swear some of the results are stills from Armageddon. It's too bad because while it doesn't have the laugh-a-minute re-watch value of its more successful competitor, as recent as two-ish years ago I probably would have told you it's the better movie. And in many ways, it is. It's more thoughtful (even if it's equally as saccharine), it's less tacky (even if its emotional manipulations are just as gaudy), and it has freaking Morgan Freeman as president. All that aside, I don't remember anything about this movie and I think I only watched it one additional time when it came out on video. However, I do remember being more touched by it (rather than, say, exclaiming "hellz yeah Amerika!" in my head) than its more brutal and star-studded counterpart.

Godzilla: This is a very bad movie. Very bad. I remember watching it on video a few times when putting together a music video project for my high school Radio & TV class (showing the Chrysler building exploding to stupidly 'symbolize' the lyric "A man drives a plane into the Chrysler building" from Soul Coughing's "Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago") and thinking to myself, I wish this was just a movie about Matthew Broderick's character, and no big monster destroying New York City. On the same token, it was the big event movie of the year and it was also the death knell of big event movies for the next couple years. In that way, it was kind of important I guess? Roland Emmerich went to the ends of the earth special effects-wise (oh the soundtrack too was a sort of death knell of event movie soundtracks, with the Puff Daddy rap over Led Zep's "Kashmir") and still came up short. Nevertheless, I remember being entertained in the theater much in the same way I was during Rush Hour and only harbor minor ill will toward it. As a blooming pretentious kid, I also thought the fact that two characters bearing the resemblance/nomenclature of Siskel and Ebert was clever at the time, although now I just see it as mean-spirited.

Fan Mail!

Hello readers,

I think it's about time that I take a look into my fan mail bag and answer some of your letters. Here's one from Stephanie K. of Richmond, VA. Stephanie writes:

Dear Brigitte,
Hi! Long time reader, first time writer. I love your reviews of MTV reality shows, and I especially loved your write up of 16 and Pregnant. I was just wondering--have you been watching the follow up show, Teen Mom? They just had their season finale special last night with Dr. Drew (I love him!). I've been reading every week and I keep waiting for you to blog about this series, but I haven't seen anything in your blog posts about Teen Mom (at least not for a long time) and I was just wondering: do you watch the show? What's your take on it? Do you think it's really helping any kids by showing the grim reality of raising a baby as a teenager, or do you think it's in some ways glamorizing teenage pregnancy? Or is it just exploitative of these young girls? Personally I'm a fan, but I'd love to hear your take.
Sincerely,
Stephanie

Thanks for the letter Stephanie. Yes, I do watch Teen Mom--in fact it's one of the few shows that I've been watching regularly as it airs each week. I know, it's been awhile since I've written about this series, and I apologize. I've been so absorbed in my Avatar craze that I haven't had time for much of anything in my life. In fact, I've recently sunk into a deep depression because I will never experience living in Pandora. It's so beautiful...why was I created never to experience such beauty! Damn you, James Cameron. I've only recently stopped attending the "It's OK that I'll never experience the Titanic's maiden voyage and tragic shipwreck" support group, and now this! I was depressed enough when the I came down from the high of watching Titanic and settled back into my own bleak, pointless reality.

After first seeing Titanic back in 1997, I knew that my day to day life would never be as compelling or as tragically romantic as the love that existed between Rose and Jack. I knew that I would never face something as historically significant as those passengers aboard the Titanic did that cold, dark night. I knew I'd never feel the icy water surrounding an iceburg. The only thing that made me feel again was watching Titanic, over and over. I began to neglect my family, friends, school...and after awhile, even watching the movie wasn't enough. I would take pour bags of ice into my parents bathtub and sit in the icy cold water until my mom wondered what was taking me so long in the bathroom and I ended up in the emergency room. I would dress in turn of the century clothes and a life vest, but still it wasn't enough. I never thought I'd be able to experience beauty in my own life after viewing something as awesome as Titanic. But time passed, I got involved in a good support group and started seeing a therapist twice a week, and slowly, things got better. Little by little, the world around me began to come alive once again. I began to date real men instead of just writing letter after old fashioned letter to Jack, assuring him in each that I would never let go. I did let go, however, and I was making real progress. And then Avatar came along.

I knew I shouldn't go see it. I didn't want to. I figured that I already knew the plot, the characters would be one-dimensional and predictable, and really, 3+ hours seemed like a long time to sit in a movie theater.

Oh, how wrong I was.

I could have sat in that theater for 33 hours, until I finally lept from my seat into the magical world of Pandora. And now I find myself in a predicament very similar to the one I was left in so many years ago. Why, James Cameron, Why?! I was just moving on with my life!

I'm sorry...what was the question? Oh yes, Teen Mom. Well, I don't think it's necessarily making teenage pregnancy seem glamorous. I think that the series certainly tries to show how difficult being a teen mom really is, and how many sacrifices these young people have had to make. As to whether or not this series is making any strides in preventing teenage pregnancy...who knows. Probably not. Is the show exploitative? Does a Na'vi average three meters in hight and chose a mate for life? I think that answers your question.

Stay tuned for more fan fiction next week. I was just too depressed to write any this week, but I promise that my next post will be entirely devoted to my fan fiction...one of the few things that gets me out of bed in the morning.

[Ed. note -- the pseudo-exploitation will continue next Summer, as MTV has announced Teen Mom has been renewed for a second season! Also, Bentley is the cutest baby ever.]

Off The Couch And Into The Theater: February 2010

Before we head into the releases for the upcoming month, a quick review of films viewed in January: the largesse of Avatar was undeniable and yet it also contained some of the most revoltingly offensive/hypocritical messages and lazy storytelling tactics of all time. So depending on what mood I'm in, I'll tell you it's awesome or it's terrible. The truth is, it's both, though as time passes, my fondness for the film's sheer entertainment/immersiveness value wanes, like my fondness for most popcorn movies do nowadays. That said, Brigitte's weekly fan fiction proves that Avatar's existence has a worthwhile purpose. Youth In Revolt was a surprisingly decent entry in the pretentious indie teenager genre, often making up for its manic and amateur qualities with magnetic dialogue and great supporting performances from Ray Liotta and Fred Willard. An Education, which I'm still not sure how I ended up buying tickets for, was (as I could have predicted if it weren't for the positive critical buzz) a bore, a chore, and didactically confused, to say the least. A small interesting nugget of 60s feminism frustration gleamed through its sluggish script and unsympathetic characters, but never enough to actually say something coherent. Peter Saarsgard is still one of my least favorite actors (creepazoid city!) and the movie's ending made me text DoktorPeace, "Adventureland is wayyyy better than An Education." Now here are February's releases (mostly crap) with Will-I-See-It percentages in parentheses...

Feb 5th: Amanda Seyfried over-narrates the latest Nicholas Sparks ocean-tide-as-metaphor-for-everlasting-love adaptation Dear John (4%) alongside Channing Tatum, who is an actor that deserves an award for being even less recognizable than Sam Worthington. John Travolta apparently went straight from the Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 set to the sound stage for his new action flick From Paris With Love (42%), where he plays the exact same villain with the exact same bald head and goatee. Too bad this time he's opposite Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who was kind of like the Channing Tatum of the 90s (but with an accent!) instead of Denzel. At least Denzel knows how to scream convincingly. Dubbed as "Open Water on a ski-lift", Frozen (54%) is -- uhh -- about people that get stuck on a ski lift, possibly with some kind of murderer involved. Don't care enough to research it, but am interested enough in the gimmick to tip this over the halfway percentage mark. I'm nonsensical like that. Over at the indies, District 13: Ultimatum (39%), which has no relation to last year's District 9, is Luc Besson's (The Professional, The Fifth Element) umpteenth attempt at regained relevancy, and while I'm sure it's pretty and action-packed, you're going to have to be more creative than just "urban sector run by gang bosses needs a hero", sorry Luc. The trailer for Creation (33%) has Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin touching his fingers gently to a monkey's fingers with his mouth agape as a bright light swells behind them. It's hilarious. I'm glad trite indie biopics are finally getting the parody treatment. Wait, it's not a parody? Speaking of biopics, The Last Station (12%) is about Tolstoy something something (falls asleep). Sorry, I know I'm an English teacher, but man, what a drag. I really don't care about watching Christopher Plummer in a ratty beard pontificating all actorly-like with James McAvoy for two hours.

Feb 12th: From the depths of editing, focus group, and re-shoot hell comes Benicio Del Toro as The Wolfman (70%), which I will probably see and get sad about, even though I'm fine with An American Werewolf in London being the only good lycanthropic film in history. Valentine's Day (28%) is like Love, Actually but like, you know, less deep? Is that even possible? Another dilution of hyperlink cinema, it follows various intertwining couples as they break up and make up, surely in a very fluffy manner. Yawn. Meanwhile, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (31%) rides the Harry Potter coattails with its chosen-tween thematics, this time with Poseidon's son getting the reins to do something completely magical and dramatic while the wind blows in his hair/fins. I'll admit, for a movie aimed at 10-year-olds, it looks vacantly entertaining. Kurosawa's classic Rashomon (78%), otherwise known as the original Vantage Point by idiots everywhere, gets an epic re-release at the Minneapolis arthouse, and if you haven't seen it, I'll probably talk you into going if we're not too busy catching up on our Oscar nominee consumption. Lastly, St. John of Las Vegas (52%) is one of those unfortunate insufferable indies with a great cast and a disgusting sheen of quirk and self-deprecation smeared across its film stock. Former gambling addict, current insurance fraud investigator Steve Buscemi gets talked into returning to Sin City with his partner Romany Malco by his boss Peter Dinklage, all the while longing for his co-worker Sarah Silverman. It could be so good, but its horn-inflected soundtrack and brightly-lit cinematography ensures us it will be unbearable.

Feb 19th: Marty Scorsese doesn't get much competition this weekend as he releases the long-awaited Shutter Island (100%), which has him returning to his less serious, more pulpy Cape Fear side. This is exciting for me because I think the best thing about The Departed was its sly and clever dialogue and pacing. Let's hope he gets equally outlandish here, all while making the suspense taut and gritty, like Affleck did with previous Lehane source material in Gone Baby Gone, not like Eastwood did with Lehane source material in Mystic River. The one other official release of the weekend is the German/Austrian film North Face (6%), about two Nazis who tried to climb an insurmountable mountain once. If I could never have another mountain-climbing movie come out in theaters in my lifetime, I'd die a happy man. The weekend will also be blessed with the annual indieplex release of the Oscar Nominated Shorts (98%), which have become a staple tradition amongst the Minneapolis Blogulator staffers, though with ticket prices soaring and award-nominated short films coming to iTunes faster, I'd say there's a slight possibility that we'll just hole up in somebody's apartment with a laptop and enjoy them sometime before the big show.

Feb 26th: For the final weekend of the month, which is apparently also wacky movie title weekend, we start first with The Crazies (:-/%), about a small town that gets infected by a dangerous toxin that turns everyone...you guessed it, cuckoo for blood. Timothy Olyphant is in it, if that matters to you, and it's based on a 1973 horror shlock flick of the same name, but I think that after The Strangers, I'm done with modern mainstream slasher flicks. Formerly titled A Couple of Dicks, Cop Out (63%) has Kevin Smith trying out the action-comedy genre, surely with intensely failed results. Even with genre mainstay Bruce Willis and co-star of the imaginary genre flick White Cop/Black Cop ("One does the duty, the other gets the booty!"), Tracy Morgan, I don't see how this could turn out anything but an overly self-aware cliched mess. Nevertheless, I'm curious. And finally, we have 44 Inch Chest (48%), a flick with some powerhouse actors like Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, and Tom Wilkinson who team up to kidnap and torture the not-so-secret-anymore lover of Winstone's wife. It could be interesting, and definitely sounds like something 16-year-old me would want to see, but in a post-torture-porn society (is it too premature to use that phrase?), I don't know if I could stomach it.

What are yallz excited 'bout? Now that the Oscar noms have been announced, which ones must you see before the big show in March?

The Quest Continues: The Films Of 1988

So here's where things start getting tricky. I only believe I saw two of the films below in the movie theater. But the other three were such monumental staples in my cable TV watching habits as young 'un that they deserve the extended nomination as well. On the outset of the chosen five of the top box office champs of 1988 are two films that I did indeed watch without much concentration one or twice some rainy afternoon: Twins and Rain Man. I believe they deserve mention here, because some of you out there might want to make an argument for them. I do not. Judge Wapner and hilarious mix-ups at birth never tickled my fancy. But if they did for you, let it be heard. For now, let's look at my personal suggestions for the first round of standouts from 1988, after a particular stinging defeat of Honey I Shrunk The Kids by Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. What will join the ranks of the classic Harrison Ford and Sean Connery team-up vehicle? Let's take a look-see...

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: As usual, let's start with what gets my vote. Let's face it. Not only was this revolutionary (though can it really be called revolutionary when the only movie that tried to follow in its wake were Cool World?) piece of cinema the original Avatar, where people oohed and ahhhed at something newfangled that the technology of the movies brought to our eyeballs, but gosh darnit, this movie has a great story behind it too, unlike the other. Bob Hoskins proved he could carry a film (though it would be his last time) as a rather dark alcoholic anti-hero (to think I was watching glimpses of film noir when I was only five!) and Christopher Lloyd proved he could be one of the scariest villains ever (my stomach still reels at the thought of that shoe being lowered into that vat of cartoon-killing acid!) and in between them both were layers and layers of intrigue and mystery. Man I wanna watch this right now! Which is exactly the kind of feeling that should be considered most when voting for The Quest.

Coming To America: Then again, we shouldn't just ignore the power of TBS. The network had a profound effect on me as a child, introducing me to the gargantuan subgenre that is the 1980s adult comedy. And yes, the film was largely neutered to the point of inanity, but that's where the video store came in handy. You'd see a film like Eddie Murphy's Coming To America, the first of his movies (by the way) to feature the man playing multiple characters, a motif that America would love for years to come (often, if not always, with little to no reason), and you'd giggle at the way the main characters smiled and didn't understand the ways of the modern world (because he was from Africa, you see, where people talk funny and marvel at consumerist conveniences), but it seemed so harmless. Then you got your mom or your friend's mom to rent the unedited version from Blockbuster for you so you could see the boobs. Double-score!

Big: I think this was more often seen on TNT, often alongside Turner & Hooch (which I hope will be covered at some point during The Quest). Now I've always appreciated the whimsical fancy of Big just as much as the next guy, but I was never really bowled over by it. Even to pre-teen me, I just always found the story and its execution so...vanilla. There's was nothing outstanding to it, nor was there anything particularly unappealing about it either, but it was just there. The FAO Schwartz scene is memorable, yes, as is the jumping-on-the-bed-as-an-adult revelation (I continue to do this at every hotel I frequent to this day), but other than that, Tom Hanks and Penny Marshall seemingly teamed up for a simple, serviceable parable that would attract parents and their kids simultaneously, and for that, it's an admirable business achievement. It's just that it's almost so universal of a tale that it gets bogged down in its lack of definable personal connection. That said, I would love to revisit this in a non-casual non-cable-on-a-laundry-day setting someday to properly evaluate it.

Crocodile Dundee II: Yup, this was one of the highest grossing movies of 1988. And yes, I saw it. In the theaters. Twice. Both with my mom. I was five! Once when it first came out (the original Dundee was a favorite of my dad's, apparently, right next to his favorite film, Das Boot - what a weird spectrum of movie-loving, huh? - so I think we kind of went just out of solidarity for my dad's taste in movies) and another when it was at the second-run Budget Cinemas. I remember busting a gut ten times over...both times. I remember my mom busting a gut ten times over...both times. I don't remember a single thing except for Paul Hogan's leathery tan. Do I ever want to see this movie again? I don't think so, but I wouldn't change the channel if I came across it.

Die Hard: I remember getting little to no echoed sentiments re: Die Hard With A Vengeance after the ill-fated 1995 entry of The Quest, so it is with much trepidation that I even bring up the original here. But by Jove, this little flick (so much more so than any of its successors that it's almost ridiculous) should be viewed at least five times by anyone wishing to call themselves a fan of the bloated American action film. It's such a simple premise (skyscraper held hostage, down-on-his-luck detective has to save the day) that has been done over hundreds of times by now, but none has equaled its brutality, its balance of humor and terror, or its layers upon layers of potential film geek analysis of how Hollywood peaked at its representation of American/foreign economic relations in the 1980s with this movie (sorry, CSCL 1920 is still the best class I ever took!). John McClane is the action genre's most lovable eff-up and Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber still tops the list of best action villains. Yippe-kay-ay, motherlovers!

I'm Back!

Hey fans! It's been awhile since we've corresponded. I've missed you, too! No, I've missed YOU more! No, I've missed...OK enough of that. Let's get down to business.

What's new in Brigitte's life of pop culture? I'm glad you asked. Make it or Break it and Secret Life of the American Teenager are now back with new seasons (does it count as a new season if the last one ended in the fall? Can seasons just start and stop whenever networks want?). SLAT is still totally unwatchable. Sadly, Make it or Break it has become less watchable, too. After only a few weeks, I've already lost interest. I'm not sure what has changed...maybe the lives of young gymnasts only really holds my interest over a summer. Now that the premise of the show has lost its novelty, I'm not sure that there is enough to keep the audience (read: me) interested. I'll give it a couple more weeks, but what I really need is Gossip Girl to return and save my Monday nights.

Remember that pregnancy pact scandal that happened way back in 2008, when 9 high school girls got pregnant at the same time in the small town of Gloucester, MA? Well, Lifetime does! And now it's been turned into a movie, appropriately (if not creatively) titled Pregnancy Pact. It airs this Saturday, and I have moderate expectations. Look for a review next week.

Qualler and I got a PS3 for Christmas, which means we have a blu-ray player! And we purchased our first blu-ray disc, Edward Scissorhands. This movie is one of the earliest theater-going memories I have. I saw it in theaters in 1990, at the tender age of 7. And boy was I freaked out. After two months of nightmares and a lot of reassurance that Johnny Depp did not, in fact, live in my closet, I moved on and tried to put the nightmarish experience out of my head. It wasn't until years later when I revisited this film as an adult that I really fell in love with it.

Like everyone else, I saw Avatar...and loved it! Or did I hate it? I'm not going to waste your time with a review, readers. What I will do, however, is write a bit of Avatar fan fiction with each blog post. Here's a little sneak peak:

After waking up in his new, alien body and surveying the landscape and people that had united to defeat the humans, Jake Sully embraced Neytiri. "We did it, Jakesoolly," she whispered, her beautiful eyes glistening. "We did it." He held her tighter, and sighed. "Yes," he said, "but there is still so much work to be done..."

Neytiri's eyes moved from Jake's kind, worried eyes to his handsome brow, then beyond him to the dying landscape. Yes, the war had ended, but will they survive what must come next?

"Hey," Jake whispered, lightly brushing Neytiri's face and stooping to meet her gaze. "It's going to be OK." She met his eyes and feigned a smile. He held her tighter. "I promise you," he said. "We can get through this." She knew that he meant it. She wanted to trust him; she knew that if anyone could lead her people through this difficult time, he could. She believed in him, but she was still afraid of what the future would hold for Pandora. Would this attack be the last? Would her people and her home move beyond survival and begin to thrive again?

"You need to say something, Jakesooly," she said, piercing his eyes with hers. "You must build their hope. You speak, and I will translate."

Jake nodded. He knew what he had to do. He had been a leader through war, and now he had to lead his people to peace and comfort. After the wave of relief which passed through the land after the last human left subsided, a new kind of fear had set in. He had to be even stronger for them now than ever before, and he knew what he had to say. He rose and turned to face the people--his people.

Stay tuned for more as the untold chapter of Avatar unfolds!

The Blogulator's Top 10 Movies of 2009

10. Antichrist [Written and Directed by Lars von Trier]

Make no mistake -- I never want to see this movie again. Disturbing, troubling, and nightmarish are all words to describe this pretentious art-house dreck from Lars von Trier. And yet throughout all the dank interiors, foggy forests, and genital mutilations (yep, genital mutilations), there's a haunting sense of beauty shot through the visuals and through the intense performances of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe. Whether von Trier made a defining piece of modern Gothic art or is just f***ing with the audience is up to the viewer; needless to say, it's not a film I will soon be forgetting. [Qualler]

9. Sugar [Written and Directed by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck]

You don't have to be a baseball fan to enjoy the fictional story of Miguel "Sugar" Santos (although, it really, really helps). The rags-to-riches-to-rags story of his rise through the minor league system of the MLB is fascinating in its detail -- everything from visits from his pitching coaches to work on his mechanics to the intricacies of cross-country travel by bus are documented. The hours of research Boden and Fleck put in when writing and directing this film shines through in the detail. But this is not simply an ultra-realistic piece of fiction; it's also a heartfelt rumination on the immigrant experience in general, set to a soothing ambient soundtrack and gentle cinematography. An all-around beautiful film that doesn't take a total baseball/pretentious film lover like I to appreciate. Although, if you love baseball and pretentious movies in equal volume, you'll appreciate it even greater. [Qualler]

8. Up [Written and Directed by Pete Docter & Bob Peterson]

Officially my favoritest Pixar movie ever. It combines the best elements of all the best Pixar pictures while completely retaining its own unique voice, and in doing so, it becomes the most youthful and wise animated feature I've ever witnessed. There's the father-son dynamic of Finding Nemo, the crumbling fantasy of The Incredibles, the hardened effects of aging of Ratatouille, and the heartache and loneliness of WALL-E. Plus, more so than just comparing it to films of its ilk, it transcends its own pigeonhole by communicating a deep sense of sadness and a profound sense of friendship that I rarely see in movies with live human beings. The painstaking detail, which animated films of the highest quality always get praised for, is just one aspect to Up. There's so much depth and pure joy in this movie that it could shake a house from its roots and make you believe a hundred balloons could indeed transport you somewhere, and where that place is in completely unpredictable. [Chris]

7. Jennifer's Body [Directed by Karyn Kusama; Written by Diablo Cody]

Jennifer's Body confused me at first, because it wasn't your typical horror flick, and parts of it seemed calculated to appeal to the horny teen boys they marketed the film to (even though 60% of horror film tickets are purchased by women, who don't generally respond to Megan Fox licking her lips on a movie poster dressed in a Catholic school girl uniform), but I got where Juno scribe Diablo Cody was going for, even if I thought her methods were slightly gratuitous, and both Fox and Amanda Seyfried shone in their respective roles. The movie never took itself too seriously (toeing the line of self-parody, maybe, but that's the risk you run when you become famous for your unique voice), and was one of the most self-aware, unique films I've seen in a long time. [OHD]

6. Star Trek [Directed by J.J. Abrams; Written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman]

Okay I can't honestly say anything grandiose or moving about Star Trek. I didn't even vote for it in my personal top ten. But here we are, making a list, and no one's around to write me a blurb for it. Even DoktorPeace, who voted for it, admits that he doesn't remember it but only remembers the feeling of liking it after having seen it. Same here. I actually remember being mesmerized by its snarky quick-edit lens-flare mania, but don't remember anything of the actual movie or why it is considered "good." And honestly, I think Brigitte and Lady Amy only voted for it because it featured hot guys acting like nerds and wearing tight uniforms. JK JK. Not that there's anything wrong with that though. I'm just saying, I'm at a loss here. But the three of them are indeed right that there's something about it that was...just...whoa. You know? [Chris]

5. District 9 [Directed by Neill Blomkamp; Written by Terri Tatchell & Neill Blomkamp]

District 9 is about what it means to really be a man. This is a weighty theme. This movie lifts those weights and strengthens it to the core. Enter South African dude, totally nerdy and with a hot wife. He works for Big Bad Evil, the corporation of a nightmare. What can our nerd do but work hard to appease his jerk dad-in-law? But when the alien refugees infect him with black ooze that slowly turns him into an alien-man hybrid, all heck breaks loose! This movie is a non-stop thrill-ride. Heads exploding? Yes, please! How about weak dude rising up to destroy the top jerks and defend the weak? You bet. This is a movie you love. It will change your life. Watch it. Watch it again. P.S. Political message included. Sort of. [Sean]

4. (500) Days of Summer [Directed by Marc Webb; Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber]

If 2009 has taught us anything, it's that it is painfully difficult to make a truly great romantic comedy. (Either that, or America's taste for the rom-com genre has gotten a lot worse in recent years, a la the worst reviewed movie of 2009, All About Steve, or anything starring Katherine Heigl.) So this movie was a revelation in its winning formula of joy, comedy, heartache, visual tricks, impromptu musical numbers, and really, really attractive lead actors. Seriously, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschenal are hot! Until I saw Avatar, I hadn't had a more fun time at the movie theater all year. One could do worse than ripping off Annie Hall to make a romantic comedy. [Qualler]

3. Away We Go [Directed by Sam Mendes; Written by Dave Eggers & Vendela Vida]

At some point, we all start thinking about leaving. Especially when we're in our twenties. College is over and has been for longer than some of us would like to admit. Weddings are becoming an annual tradition. Babies are popping out all willy nilly. Some of us want to move closer to our parents, some of us want to get further away, and some of us just want a change. What's holding us down besides the recession and a frumpy no-good lack of motivation? Well Away We Go couldn't have come at a better time for people like us (read: me). Add this personal connection to Sam Mendes' best film in approximately ever and you've got a quiet firecracker on your hands. It seems like it should be cloyingly precious, but it's really just precious. It seems like it should come off as painfully wandering, but it just wanders, and wanders the exact way I'd imagine all of us wish we could do without second-guessing ourselves. It's the ultimate realist fantasy film: all it takes is buying a plane ticket, and yet, it's a titillating enough thought that to see it on screen turns the simple notion into a wide-eyed imagination destination. [Chris]

2. Inglourious Basterds [Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino]

I'm always hesitant to step onto the Tarantino bandwagon. The man himself comes off as a huge d-bag, and it's sometimes hard to breathe through the suffocating, self-aware self-satisfaction of his dialogue. Nevertheless, I'm not afraid to admit that I greatly enjoyed Inglorious Basterds. Somehow, the tired story of WWII (from an entertainment perspective) ended up being a perfect setting for the Quentin brand of extended exposition. Twenty minutes of genuine conversation between axis and allies in a small French tavern expertly intensify the inevitable bloodiness to follow. This is fan fiction at both its campiest and finest, featuring (for my money) the best acting performance of the year courtesy of polyglot Christoph Waltz. And so what if I used the word "polyglot"? It's all good so long as it's supported by the context. [DoktorPeace]

1. A Serious Man [Written and Directed by Joel & Ethan Coen]

I, like so many film nerds, love the Coen bros. But I particularly love these guys when they both love and torture their characters with equal amounts humorous curiosity and dread-soaked existentialism. My other favorite film of theirs, alongside this one, is Barton Fink, in which a screenwriter tries to write a script about a boxer in a yellow wallpaper hotel room and gets deeply wound up in absurdist chaos with a suspicious traveling salesman. Now the great thing about A Serious Man is that the Coens use this same basic premise, but invert it so it no longer is a piece of manic genre theater, but is basically real life, unpeeled and unadorned with any evidence of filmmaking flourish. It is naked for the viewer to see in all its ugly yet honest glory. And yet, the Coens manage to make it even more uproariously funny than the version with John Turturro's big hair and John Goodman's big voice, specifically with nary a recognizable actor in sight. We are all alone and there's nothing we can about it other than try. And love. Even when that burns us and brings us tornados and divorces. And how freaking hilarious/eye-opening is that?! [Chris]

Off The Couch And Into The Theater: January 2010

Okay, so before we dive headfirst into our 2009 listomania here at The Blogulator (stay tuned for a relatively no-frills series of posts running down our cumulative favorites in movies, music, TV, and more from last year), let's take a quick look at the upcoming month of January's releases (with "Will I See It?" percentages in parentheses). A couple of years ago I started referring to January as the "dumping grounds" month of the year for the studios, because, well, they are. It wasn't so much a coinage of terminology on my behalf as it was an acceptance of something perceived as truth by many well before my virgin eyes. Yes, it's true. As the Oscar forerunners trickle back in re-release form, here be the movies that actually kick of his bright shiny new decade of ours. Take a look with me, won't you?

Jan 8th: Vampires run out of humans to get their suck on with in Daybreakers (23%) and Ethan Hawke looks a little less creepy than he did in Tape and a little more creepy than he did in Hamlet (looks like he didn't change his wardrobe either). Michael Cera creates a personality that is mustachioed and a tongue-in-cheek ladies man for Youth in Revolt (84%), which is still annoyingly being touted as "co-starring The Hangover's Zach Galifanakis". If it wasn't for the unexpected split personality Adaptation-esque detour, I would give a rat's patooty about this movie, but it does look kinda clever, especially when piled up aside the rest of the month's offerings. Leap Year (58%) is the most agonizing type of prototypical mainstream romantic comedy in that the entire plot is explained in the trailer (minus whether or not she marries the guy from Party Down or the dopey potato peeler) and yet, it looks eminently watchable, if only largely because Amy Adams is the most attractive and vivacious lady currently congesting the silver screen. A 2009 holdover at the arthouse coming this weekend is The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (95%), which will almost assuredly both disappoint and astound, as is Terry Gilliam's modus operandi nowadays, not unlike Richard Kelly, but Kelly's only been at his unique slapdash mindfuckery for less than a decade and Gilliam's been ramming it down our throats (sometimes to gorgeous avail and sometimes with complete and utter confusion and annoyance, a la The Brothers Grimm) for over two generations now. Oh well, it will still be a fun trainwreck to witness.

Jan 15th: Apparently Jackie Chan is in a movie called The Spy Next Door (1%) and even though the email was right in front of me telling me I could have free passes to an advanced screening this weekend and had a very short paragraph explaining the plot of the film and I knew I was going to be covering it a few hours later in a blog post, I automatically pressed delete just out of sheer reflex. So instead of spending the time to look it up on IMDb, I leave you with wondering with bated breath on that one. What would you say if I told you The Book of Eli (47%) was a post-apocalyptic thriller starring Gary Oldman and Tom Waits directed by the Hughes Brothers, of Menace II Society and From Hell fame? You'd say it at least had potential, right? What if I told you the lead actor was Denzel Washington and it looked like it had the subtleties of a Bruckheimer flick? Ruins all the other promising things, huh? Tricky sequences of questions ruin everything, don't they? Meanwhile, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil (Too%) apparently got made in some alternative universe in which the first completely forgotten poorly-rendered CGI fairy tale spoof flick was actually enough of a success to warrant a theatrically released sequel. Luckily, the indieplex release of Crazy Heart (93%), aka this year's The Wrestler, except with an aging country music singer, will save this week's releases from total and utter failure, although this is another 2009 holdover, so, yeah...2010, you've got some work to do. There's also the domestic drama The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (12%) starring Robin Wright Penn and Winona Ryder, about a woman nearing a nervous breakdown, which was miraculously transported via time machine to 2010 from the year 1993, when those actresses and a plot like that actually garnered an audience. (Not really.)

Jan 22nd: Even stranger than that Book of Eli movie is that when I saw the trailer for the fallen angel epic battle flick Legion (71%), I was very much aware of its ridiculousness, of its brash chintziness and overly basic Braveheart-with-angels-in-the-desert set-up, and yet for some reason I really wanted to see it. I can't explain why, but researching that the only past directing experience helmer Scott Stewart has is a short film version of the great Raymond Carver story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love"; what the connection is I have no idea, but it must have something to do with why I want to see this bizarre action/fantasy film. The infamous poster that has stained movie theater hallways for way too long now for Tooth Fairy (4%) tells us with a single image everything we need to know without actually knowing anything: The Rock in ice skates, knight's armor, a pair of feathered wings, and his burly hands on his hips. Need I Google more for you? Extraordinary Measures (6%), after further consideration, is indeed not the same thing as either the 1997 Hugh Grant/Gene Hackman medical thriller Extreme Measures nor the 1998 Michael Keaton/Andy Garcia medical thriller Desperate Measures. Instead, it is merely a 2010 Brendan Fraser/Harrison Ford medical melodrama. Way different.

Jan 29th: More IMDb trivia! Did you know the director of Ghost Rider, Simon Birch, Daredevil, and this month's Kristen Bell romantic comedy vehicle When in Rome (29%) is from Hastings, Minnesota? How about that! Useless knowledge pushing educational theory/ideology and/or fond family memories from my childhood out of my head! Hooray! Seriously though, Kristen, if you're ever up this way visiting the great Mark Steven Johnson (what a name, am I right?), stop by my place; I've got scripts better than "unlucky girl finds herself overcome with suitors during a trip to Rome" up the wazoo in my apartment. Really. Mel Gibson stars in Edge of Darkness (32%), a remake of a TV miniseries about a cop who investigates the suspicious death of his daughter, and while I yawn and think about, once again, the 90s (specifically Gibson flicks that even teenaged me thought were time-wasters like Payback and Conspiracy Theory), at least back then the thrillers had a sense of humor about them. He was still coming off of playing Lt. Riggs, so he had to crack a lame joke to keep us from caring about the generic plot. Now it's just sad, even more so given the fact that this is no longer the MG we remember, in so many ways, even if that one back then wasn't that entertaining either. Lastly, probably the only surefire flick to satiate my need for pretentiousness, is Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon (99%). From the twisted mind that brought you The Piano Teacher and Funny Games (also, though, the more reserved and therefore better Cache) comes a black-and-white tale of a small conservative village circa the years before WWI and how mysterious gruesome acts begin to plague the citizens. Sounds and looks like the perfect balance between boring gorgeousness and titillating anxiety-ridden shock cinema, which is exactly how I like to close out a month of Grade-F garbage.

The Quest Continues: 1989, Or The Year Before The Beginning

What's that, you say? You thought The Quest For the Single Finest Film of Our Generation was over? Well, think again. I just couldn't let go of what quite possibly was the highlight of my 2009 blogging year; I had to bastardize it into an ongoing series. Kinda like when they tried to make a television show out of The Crow. Remember that? Yuck. Ooh, though that move might get a mention when and if we come back around to 1994. You see, what I'm planning to do is just explore years both left undiscussed during the original Quest and those that brim with possible nominees. But we're no longer searching for one particular film to define our ear of cinema adoration. No, we are simply marauding through the ocean of films that in some way helped shape our youth, dropping anchor every month or so to say, "hey! that movie was a blast to watch when I was 10 because ____." If it feels like I'm cheapening the original journey, I'm sorry, but there's just too many pieces of nostalgia to cover in one five-month blogging feature, as ridiculous as that sounds. So once again, I'm going to start with the biggest box office successes of each year I talk about, and work my way down if I come back to that year. Let us start with 1989. Vote for your favorite of the five in the comments and we'll either pretend it will mean something later or if I get ambitious and there's a lot of participation, I'll do another tournament-style face-off of the ten winners after we go through ten more posts!

Batman: My first memory of this film is fuzzy at best. I remember Batman Returns a lot more vividly as it freaked the bazonkers out of me in the theater and as I still maintain to this day that it's Tim Burton's most fully realized fantasy (and should have quit attempting to recreate that for years to come). But other than Jack Nicholson as The Joker, nothing really stands out to me about the original Batman, to be completely honest. But despite Heath Ledger's recent one-upsmanship of the character, up until then I think we can all agree, that Nicholson was the center of attention in this film as well. Let's admit it; Ledger outdid him simply by the fact that he doesn't act like The Joker in public or in other films, whereas Nicholson does, admittedly often to the point of obnoxiousness. But between the years of 1989 and 2007, Nicholson's already solidified persona combined with the mythical excitement of a character like The Joker inside a mainstream flick with flashes of an iconic style that Burton was in the midst of developing is what I believe sparked the Batman character film craze in the first place. Which is prolly pretty important.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: I'm going to be honest - I had much better memories of the Indiana Jones series in general before Crystal Skull was unleashed upon us, including an exciting recollection of Temple of Doom. Revisiting all three films in preparation for the fourth's release was probably one of the lamer things I've done in recent years. Raiders still has a little appeal because it started the whole thing and the most famous feats of adventure sequences were in the original, I finally realized why Temple was a joke to most people, and watching Indy and his dad bicker back and forth was entertaining for all of the first 20 minutes of Crusade and that's it. I thought the familial relationship and the sentimental-yet-suspenseful Holy Grail ending made this movie especially memorable not more than a year-and-a-half ago, but Spielberg's half-assed foray back into the legendary character completely ruined all that. Well, maybe I should thank him, otherwise I would have gone on thinking these movies would still be fun to watch 15-20 years later. They're not, and it's sad. But we must move on.

Lethal Weapon 2: Now here's what I'm afraid of. Richard Donner comes out of retirement (oops, my bad, he made 16 Blocks in 2006 starring Bruce Willis as Riggs and Mos Def as Murtaugh) thinking that the Lethal Weapon franchise needs a reboot. Only this time it's not too amiable and arguably talented people like Willis and Def, it's hot young things like Chris Pine and Nick Cannon. Oh how my heart would break. But, at the same time, I would also certainly put myself through a marathon of the original buddy cop movie trilogy (maybe even Lethal Weapon 4 if I found the gall) as I eagerly anticipated the return of the famed line "I'm gettin' too old for this shit!" I am deathly afraid that if this happened, we would have a repeat of the Indiana Jones fiasco. I'm particularly fearful because I cannot tell the difference between any of the first three other than the fact that I know Pesci isn't in the first one. On the other hand, in my head, they're all awesome, full of bomb diffusing, random shootouts, and hilarious quips between two best friends, one of which is the lovable family man and the other the archetypal depressed rogue agent, who inspired everyone from Jack Bauer to Mike Lowery (that's a Bad Boys reference!).

Look Who's Talking: A baby that talks. Voiced by Bruce Willis. And if that doesn't drive you away - his parents are John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. Still interested? Really? Interested enough that not only will you help make the #4 grossing film of its year but also your $4 evening ticket (srsly, isn't THAT depressing?) will go directly toward inspiring TriStar picture to greenlight not one but TWO sequels, the first of which will also feature a baby voiced by Roseanne, and the second of which will feature talking DOGS. Mega-sigh. I deeply regret, America, that my mom and I contributed to the disease known as the Look Who's Talking trilogy not once, not twice, but THRICE. Wow I sure am CAPITALIZING a lot of words in this paragraph! Maybe I'm pissed because this film made almost six times as much money as Sex, Lies, and Videotape that year, or maybe it's because I actually remember laughing hysterically while also being disturbed by the idea of talking sperm along with my mother, but mostly I just think it's because this movie and its sequels plague my memory more so than any of the other movies nominated here, except...

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: Thank God for Rick Moranis. That's all I have to say. Well, no, it's not, but that's just an expression anyway, right? This is my official vote for this bank of five nominees for 1989. The giant lego, the giant oreo, the giant ant (I shed tears when he passed, SPOILER ALERT), and more all contributed to this being one of, if not the most, eye-widening and deeply entrancing fantasy worlds of my youth. I still remember sitting in that Hartford, Connecticut movie theater and straining my neck to fully take in the enormity of the entire backyard as our protagonists traversed it, inch by adventurous inch (much like how it feels in general for a child in a movie theater full of gigantic figures and special effects, I might add), back into the arms of their parents. Out of all the movies discussed herein, this is the one that I have the most urge to fire back in the DVD player and enjoy with everyone from start to finish, reliving all those glorious moments of mind-boggling absurdity and harrowing escapism. I think I could definitely get back into that groove with ease. Anyone up for trying this one out again with me?

Off The Couch And Into The Theater: December 2009

Here we come, cinema. The final month of the year. I officially have my Top 10 in place, but this is the time in which dramatic shifts can happen and year-end upsets boot out films I really liked but don't remember much anymore from the first quarter of 2009. The November releases that surely did not make it into that final list, however, include The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was excruciatingly middling as a comedy, much less political satire or character study, and Antichrist, which despite me thinking I was overhyping the shock value for the film's first half, quickly cursed myself for not entrusting somebody as screwed (literally!) as Von Trier to turn my life into a walking nightmare for a good two weeks after viewing. Effective? Yes. Does it deserve accolades? Probably, but not from me. I'm too much of a wuss. No, the only film I've seen in the past month that squeaked into my faves of 2009 was the divisive The Box, which was a Lynchian paradise of spooky non sequitur scenes and carefully obtrusive over-acting. It's the perfect blend of the brilliant imagery of Kelly's genuinely brilliant Donnie Darko and the kooky absurdism of his more (justly) hated second venture Southland Tales. If you like nonsense cinema that's as gorgeous as it is abstract and loony, go see The Box. Now to our final month of releases before we head into the January dumping grounds...

Dec 4th: Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, and other actors that should no longer work star in Armored (28%), which yes, is indeed about an armored car robbery gone haywire. Looks like somebody must have let their "guard" down! [Foghorn.] My love-hate relationship with melodrama continues with the release of Brothers (80%), where the world finally shares my confusion over the difference between Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal. I can only hope that there's a Fight Club-style twist and turns out they're the same person coming back from war and Natalie Portman cheated on her husband WITH HER HUSBAND! You see what they did with the title to the heartwarming family holiday comedy Everybody's Fine (21%)? They tell you Robert De Niro and his grown children, including but not limited to Kate Beckinsale, are fine, but in reality, I bet they're not. I bet there's a dollop of dysfunction gravy with some chunks of peppermint pet peeves bark. And therefore, they're both fine because they love each other, but not fine because being a family is harrrrrd! A quasi-National Lampoon installment called Transylmania (3%) arrives in theaters about five weeks after Halloween for some reason, but oh well, never too late for college babes getting nekkid while studying abroad in Dracula's hood! George Clooney looks solemn and tries once again to cover up his Syriana Oscar with a stab at the airplane-themed Up in the Air (92%), directed by Jason Reitman of Juno and Thank You For Smoking fame. I'm hoping so hard that this is more like the latter and less like the former, even though TYFS is still not that great of a movie. Why must I be part of the Oscar bait crowd?

Dec 11th: Disney gets maybe racist with The Princess and the Frog (64%) and Jerksica and I surely won't be able to resist the allure of a 2D animated feature gettin' back to Walt's roots. Invictus (68%) somehow combines Matt Damon playing soccer and Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela, so I give it largely the benefit of the doubt despite its ambiguous premise, but then again, we all know what happens when a biopic isn't starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Peter Jackson does his first post-LOTR picture with an adaptation of The Lovely Bones (72%), which I haven't read, but I'm sure OHD has and I hope can say good things about, because the cinematography looks stunning and very un-Middle Earth-like, and that gets me excited. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (100%) will almost undoubtedly skyrocket into my top 10 list with Herzog's frenzied yet restrained direction, Nic Cage's zany performance, and iguanas! So many iguanas! The Strip (36%) is an indie comedy in which electronics store manchild employees deal with a co-worker getting married. Yeesh that sounds too much like Judd Apatow directing The Hangover. Yes, even I am tiring of the man after Funny People. Me & Orson Welles (83%) displays the talents of once forgotten thespians such as Ben Chaplin and Claire Danes, but the one who's really getting the buzz in this semi-biopic is...Zac Efron? Yessir. Hey, if it's about Orsy boy, I'm up for anything. ANYTHING.

Dec 18th: The movie that gives me the biggest knot in my stomach this month is Did You Hear About the Morgans? (1%), where Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant are a bickering upper-class married couple forced to live in the boonies via the Witness Protection Program. Hilarity/migraines ensue! I'm kind of ashamed to admit that the latest trailer for Avatar (65%) actually makes the James Cameron monstrosity at least look entertaining with not as glaringly distracting CGI effects as the first teaser. Plus James Cameron gets everyone's money. It's just part of being an American we all have to live with. William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (64%) is a terrible title for a movie if you're interested in not putting people to sleep, especially a documentary, but the subject matter is actually compelling, chronicling the life of the lawyer of MLK, Jr. and Malcolm X. Getting married to a soon-to-be lawyer should make this a strangely perfect date night flick. Also at the arthouse is the foreign comedy The Maid (46%), which I'm sure will contain a lot of cute musical cues as a sad old woman tries to keep her job serving the bourgeoisie. Oh class differences! Young Victoria (4%) is an old clothes movie that reminds me why I put a ban on seeing all old clothes movies in the first place. A young Queen Victoria goes through trials and tribulations of love and power. Barf me into a coma!

Dec 25th: Christmas day releases are always interesting because they're either a) Oscar bait, b) benign family fare, or c) annoying as eff. It's Complicated (20%) falls into category B, because my mom and every other mom in the universe loves Meryl Streep and remembers Steve Martin from Father of the Bride and thinks Alec Baldwin is gruff yet amusing despite his presence in that strange sitcom on Thursday nights. Nine (93%) falls into category A and even though I wasn't a fan of Rob Marshall's minimalist populism in Chicago, I can't deny there was an appeal to it that at least held my attention. The same will happen with his new musical Nine, possibly even more so because it stars Daniel Day-Lewis and is about famed Italian film director Frederico Fellini. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (Eep!%) falls into category C of course and I swear to all that is squirrelly that I thought someone from The Blogulator made up that this movie with this specific title existed. I can't believe they're following through with that. Sherlock Holmes (71%) is largely benign family fare, and of course I fall victim to the Robert Downey, Jr. glamour as much as anyone, but it's also pretty annoying I do think. Since when does Sherlock DO KUNG FU?!?! Man that trailer makes it look fun/annoying. Broken Embraces (68%) is Pedro Almodovar's new flick and once again stars Penelope Cruz, and while his constant refusal to cast anyone else in his movies is both annoying and brilliant (because she's gorgeous and a pretty amazing actress, you see), I never have really latched onto a single Almodovar movie yet. They're all good mind you, and this one about a film director and his lost muse sounds cutely meta, but his style always feels at once distant and overly personal, which is tragic. The trailer for A Single Man (89%), however, might be one of my favorites of the year. It's so deliciously pretentious and artful that you'll prolly need a double-wide straw to swallow it all up, but once again, melodrama, especially at the arthouse, is kinda my new love. But I hate it. But so pretty! But grrr so many emotions! But what wonderful scoring! And so on...

The Quest For The Single Finest Film of Our Generation.

[Cue "The Final Countdown".] Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today to pay special tribute to the films of 1990-1997. Over the course of the past four months, we have discussed together choice box office blockbusters of this particular time period that we do not hold a special place for in our hearts because they are fine works of art, but rather because they are spectacles of the soul. Many may argue about the value in trying to recapture, re-document, or even understand the past, but everyone I believe can agree that the vivacity of nostalgia, the bold currents of electricity that jolt our minds into tizzies of wonder with the thought of a pleasant memory, is strong enough to at least tempt us. And succeed it shall in its temptation, for what other purpose does a pop culture blog hold than to celebrate a life of appreciating the stories that bound us together as a universe of awkward adolescents, the special effects that wowed us with awe, or the sentimental heart string-pulling that let us know emotions could be felt in the safety of a large dark air-conditioned room? Now it is your final task, if you so choose, to declare one of the ten final nominees below as the Single Finest Film of Our Generation in the comments. I bid you good luck and Godspeed, and hope we meet again, in future attempts to hold in our minds (if only for a moment) the unadulterated joy of entertainment cinema...

Home Alone (1990): In an attempt to not repeat myself and also because there's fricking ten movies to talk about here, these blurbs will be short and sweet. Click the title links to revisit the post from which the nomination was originally made. In many ways, it's appropriate that our first nominee on this cumbersome (but totally necessary) list of ten is the famous Macaulay Culkin vehicle. Foremost, I think we all found such a strong connection to the misadventures of solitude that Kevin McCallister endured in 1990. Just like our protagonist did not fully understand the consequences of a life of loneliness until he experienced it firsthand, we only fully immersed ourselves in ultimate fantasy fulfillment when we witnessed the child without the parents, the boy without the adults, alone in our own little world of escapism in that movie theater during the holiday season.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990): Pushed in by a one DoktorPeace (and rightfully so) during the last-minute wild card round. I believe I originally claimed it ineligible due to what I remember being an astonishing amount of artfulness for a movie about anthropomorphic amphibians. And while that deduction still rings true, it does not preclude the very true fact that it is indeed still a movie about naked 14-year-old turtles whose fetishes include early-90s surfer slang, a killer combo of pepperoni and extra cheese, and Judith Hoag (a veritable human hottie). Arbitrary art vs. entertainment debate aside, the original TMNT does indeed deserve proper consideration for your vote because not only is it the quintessential action figure/cartoon/comic book adaptation from our youth, but because as much as we were amused and fueled by little boy testosterone to watch it umpteen times, in its quite literal interpretive translation, there was a turtle living in a sewer, trying to do good, in all of us. Some of us were natural leaders, some of us were tantrum-prone jerks, some of us were goofy class clowns, and some of us were...uhh...Donatello. But the one thing we all had in common? We had yet to become accepted by surface-dwelling adults who had shed their shells long ago.

Point Break (1991): Okay, so forget the whole "brief" thing. I'm just gonna write what I want. Deal with it. Moving on, I'll be honest. Point Break is the only movie on this list of ten that I did not see in the theater when it came out. I didn't see an R-rated movie in the theater until The Crow in 1994 with my brother posing as my "legal guardian." But he was also my gateway into the world of screen violence (and as he told me early on, "the mandatory sex scene") present in the glorious universe of Restricted cinema on home video. The Keanu/Swayze surfing bank robbers action bromance had no resonant emotional connection to the younger, more impressionable version of myself like the aforementioned films, but its ability to morph throughout the years in different capacities of "entertainment" should be noted and considered, as it very well may have been the first 90s action film to successfully retain its seriousness while simultaneously becoming 100% unserious 17 years later.

The Mighty Ducks (1992): You guys voted for this one; not me. I held steadfastly on the strength of Encino Man, and while my ardor for that film has diminished, I can still firmly say that if I had to eliminate one nominee from this otherwise practically flawless list of ten, this would be the one. I'm sorry, folks, I know many of you wear your love for Emilio and his gang of misfits on your sleeves, but I have to be honest here. I only offered up TMD as a possibility in the first place because I felt some kind of vague obligation to do so, like I would be banished from Childhood Film Recollection Club if I had left it off the table for discussion. Did it instill some kind of underdog belief system in so many of us at such an influential age that to leave it in the past would be some kind of heinous act against our own code of ethics? Possibly. Or maybe it's just that it really is the perfect "buck up, nerd!" story of our youth and to deny its supremacy is to deny our own former selves. Maybe.

Jurassic Park (1993): I think we all know it sticks out like a sore thumb, and unlike my dissent of the only film to inspire a professional sports team name, I can speak to little to no ill of the one, the only JP. I, like so many others, had been fascinated by all things dinosaur years prior to Spielberg's stab at the subject, so much so that one of my mom's favorite stories is when our priest asked me once "do you have any questions about what you're learning in Sunday School?" and I responded, "no, but why did God kill off the dinosaurs?" I don't think he answered my question, but I knew the answer some years later when I sat in a sold-out theater, mouth agape with Milk Dud residue on my teeth, scared out of my wits that Newman would get eaten by those oil-spitting creatures. If God didn't kill the dinosaurs, we wouldn't have Jurassic Park eons later. And thus, for a brief moment in time, the cinema became a twisted house of prayer.

Speed (1994): For everything Point Break did for the action genre three years earlier, Speed arguably did better only three years later. So much so that, as Qualler has pointed out, it may even transcend entertainment value and head into downright art territory. But we can't dwell on this kind of nonsense too long. The truth of the matter is that Speed is possibly in my opinion, Jurassic Park included, the only film on this list with infinite re-watch power. Its distinct three gimmicky acts (elevator, bus, subway) are so meticulously crafted with such an endless supply of taut tension combined with the dopey heroism of Keanu, the manic obnoxiousness of Sandra Bullock, and the crazed villainy of Dennis Hopper that its magnetism is impossible to deny, much less quantify. It was childish and kooky enough to wrap me into its tentacles of velocity and intensity, but also masterful enough in its ridiculousness to admire as an adult, and hopefully, for years to come.

Batman Forever (1995): The second and final last-minute addition to the list of nominees due to a well-justified double-vote in the wild card round. Bravo and kudos to Unspar and Qualler for their incredibly thoughtful cases presented in favor of including the death of the greatest superhero franchise ever began into the Quest. They opened my eyes to understanding, nay, appreciating, what was once viewed by many (present company included) one of the worst pockmarks on the history of American cinema (which in my experience, included only the films of the 90s, and some from the 80s). It is, still, without a doubt, one of the most heartbreaking memories of all time, going to see Batman Forever on opening day, waiting in line, and hearing some jackass say "Batman dies in the end!" as he leaves the theater. Possibly more heartbreaking? Batnipples. But as Unspar points out in his comment nomination, the very reasons Batman Forever seemed so terrible back in the day are what make it so appealing to revisit again today.

Bad Boys (1995): Okay, so screw you guys. I know it has no chance whatsoever at winning, and would inevitably place last if these ten films were ranked amongst us all. And I know I threw a little bit of a hissy fit when seemingly no one besides myself had even seen the should-be infamous buddy action flick starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence during the original Quest of 1995. And I know no one should really be exulting and waxing nostalgic about the film that catapulted Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay into Hollyweird's spotlight. And I know it's just a watered down version of 48 Hours, the Lethal Weapon series, and Beverly Hills Cop, all of which are B-grade action flicks from the 80s. But C'MON! This was MY watered down buddy action flick starring former sitcom actors with hyper-stylized editing and flashy gunfights and subpar quips only made notable by the volume and density of cuss words delivered by Smith and Lawrence's characters. I mean, seriously, C'MON! Where WERE you people in 1995?!

Independence Day (1996): It wanted to be the event of the decade so bad that it practically willed itself into being such. If Will Smith didn't get his just desserts a year earlier in a drug bust/machismo cop flick, he surely did as the dude with an underdeveloped bromance with Harry Connick, Jr. and a knack for punching squid aliens directly in the face. Basically this, Vivica A. Fox's dog somehow jumping out of the path of a booming city-wide fireball at the last second, and Bill Pullman's "thinking face" remain the most memorable points of this generation-defining film, even after dozens and dozens of viewings. A less thoughtful me would vote ID4 with unyielding enthusiasm and blind joy, but upon further inspection, while it is and forever will be a high point of my movie-going youth, it by no means is a masterpiece, either in the moment, or in retrospect. But then again, maybe that's exactly what makes it the Single Finest Film of Our Generation? [Slight pause.] Naw.

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997): And once again, if these films were ranked, as we faded from the glory of pure movie enjoyment in this final year post-ID4 apex, Kevin Williamson's prime example of "coattail cinema" would surely be toward the bottom, just above the film that no one besides me saw during the 90s. Was the slasher boom of the late 90s that followed this formulaic yet admittedly satisfying both terrible and awesome? Surely. Can the source that it's attributed truly be the Single Finest Film of Our Generation? Surely not. As we officially became teenagers as the teenagers of this film got killed off one by one, we as well died a little on the inside as we came to coat a new lens of film appreciation and analysis over our eyes, so as a turning point, IKWYDLS is the perfect transition piece. But like the falling action of every movie's plot, the falling action of our most viciously vivid love with the silver screen is not as notable or enjoyable, but is necessary. So thank you Mr. Williamson, for partaking in our journey through the years; be proud enough to be the man that killed our youth and let us enter into a new dark and scary world of endlessly trying to recreate our salad days.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." -F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby