C'est Non Un Blog

Some may complain that I don’t put enough personal info into my livejournal. To them I say,

I have no life.

Trust me, when I get laid again you’ll all be the first to know.

So, like, the O.C. is the greatest show EVER. Oh…my…GAWD!

OK, but seriously folks, why did no one tell me how cool it was sooner? After three episodes I’m now a life long fan. This show kicks so much ass.

So many of you probably remember me bitching in this forum about the guy who I bought Foxy Brown and Coffy from. Well, just to keep you updated on that nice little story, today I got Coffy in the mail. No Foxy Brown, just Coffy. Oh, and the box was from Deep Discount DVD. Wait, what? Why the hell did I buy from this guy if I could have gone directly to Deep Discount and gotten my DVD over a month ago? Dear Lord, please let Foxy Brown be in the mail tomorrow, so that I can put this awful mess behind me. Jebus.

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In other news, yesterday God made me very happy. First I get my new Entertainment Weekly and three goddesses stare back at me from the cover, Naomi Watts, Jennifer Connelly and Charlize Theron. If I weren’t lucky enough, I flip to the table of contents and there is the hottest full-page picture of Scarlett Johansson staring back at me. Score!

Then, that night was the season premiere of Average Joe 2! I kept meaning to write about this last season, but never did until the season finale. This season looks just awesome though. Let’s go losers!

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I’d like to thank all of those who stole my idea for a year end wrap up. Special thanks to Mike http://www.lyricalmunchies.com/ for giving me props for the idea. Extra special thanks to Anna for being the first to take the idea and then say “Fuck it! I ain’t telling you all about my year!” I’m just so damn flattered that in a matter of days I created a fad and then watched it implode. Sweet!

——Day for Night——

(A-)

This is a really good movie, but something just didn’t click with me when watching it. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it, I did, I just didn’t feel any strong connection to it that I was hoping for. This movie on the making of movies, or better yet the story behind the scenes that’s more interesting than the boring movie that they are making, feels a little too much like a story cobbled together from a string of interesting stories. Most of the subplots are very interesting, but the work feels more like a sum of its parts than a cohesive whole. I felt a little distance between me and the movie, which didn’t really help out in my enjoyment of it.

——Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Temple of Doom——

(A- for both)

While Raiders is the better put together of the two films and definitely the most iconic of the series, watching it again for the umpteenth time I felt a little bored. Even though it is one of the best movies of its kind, its kind is still the by the book action adventure sort, and while I still love the movie, this time it just didn’t do it for me.

Temple of Doom, however, while being inferior in some respects to Raiders was (and has been) infinitely more enjoyable for me. It’s like an amusement park after hours while on acid; funny, scary and action packed. For a good chunk of people this is their least favorite Indy movie, but for all of the reasons they would list as to why they dislike it, I would use to say how much I love it. Bugs, mine car chases, people ripping out hearts while the person is still alive, monkey brains….what’s not to love?

——Once Upon a Time in America——

(B+)

This plays out something like a Coppolla and Kubrick film, yet I’m not really sure it places in my heart at the same level as the best of those two directors’ films. Maybe it’s the fact that by switching to the gangster genre Leone can no longer utilize my favorite director’s trick of his, the slow drawn-out stand off. I don’t know, maybe I just have to watch it again, knowing what I’m in for, but this movie just felt fairly unremarkable (and yet insanely pretty) compared with some of his early achievements. The story is good enough, and yet not really mind-blowing like the Godfather movies. It’s merely (at least to me right now) a really great so-so movie.

One thing Leone did though, that I think he did better than any other director in any other movie I’ve seen was to have the child actors act and look so much like their grown up counterparts. Just by looking at them you can tell which kid turned into which adult. It’s uncanny.

——Unforgiven——

(A)

I’m happy to say that I had a much more positive second viewing of this movie than I did the first time around. Things that bothered me the first time didn’t the second, and the pacing seemed a hell of a lot better. Even my parents seemed to enjoy it more this time (than they did back when it came out). I enjoyed it so much that it just barely missed out on making my Top 20 list. Great movie.

——The Apartment——

(A)

Like Unforgiven, this was another one I just rewatched and realized I really loved. Unlike Unforgiven though, this one actually made its way onto the Top 20 list as an eleventh hour addition. There is just something about this movie. Is it a comedy? A drama? By being both it becomes incredibly poignant and touching. The ending is just top notch, and it’s one of the most believable love stories I’ve seen put on film.

——Rear Window——

(A+)

Instead of going on and on again about how much I love this movie, I’ll just relate my sisters reaction that I watched upon rewatching the movie (and she for the first time). One of the things I like the most about this movie is the voyeuristic aspect of it, and sure enough as time went on I could see my sister leaning forward more and more as time went on. Hitchcock really hits you right where it counts, and makes a fantastic movie.

——Juliet of the Spirits——

(B-)

I might have been too tired when I sat down to watch this movie, but I really didn’t click with it at all. Yeah, it is beautiful beyond words, but the whole séance/spirits crap I could just not wrap myself around. It was too confusing, too boring, too something. Also the fact that Fellini supposedly made this movie for his wife, and yet it is so something she didn’t want is readily apparent in the film when you watch it. Those two entirely different viewpoints seem constantly at war. I don’t know, I definitely need to give this a second shot on a better day.

——Manhattan——

(A)

I really liked this movie. It’s Woody at his best, funniest and most insightful. The ending I really liked too, because it perfectly capped off a movie I thought couldn’t (or wouldn’t) end properly, it would just go on and on. Very nice.

Two things though. Woody doesn’t end up with Diane Keaton? What the crap? And did anyone else find Woody’s relationship with a 17 year old just a tad bit creepy, especially considering his past? It was well done, mind you, just really, really CREEPY.

——Millennium Actress——

(A-)

A great anime not about giant robots or talking animals, but something you almost never see, a straight drama. Perfect Blue is one of my favorite animes (and still one I need to pick up sometime) and the director comes back with another film about perception very unlike all the other anime that has been coming out lately. I really liked how the actress’s movie history and filmography kind of melt into one in order to tell the story, in that you begin to realize that the two really are intertwined because her best characters are based on her feelings relating to real life. Also fun is when the interviewers start interacting with the flashback. It’s a really good way to involve the audience.

The one thing I thought was a little lacking though was depth. I liked the whole story, but I found it to be a little two-dimensional after a while. I was really hoping some of the later events of her life might have a significant impact on her story, but no, she remained the little girl forever. A tad bit disappointing.

——Paycheck——-

(C+)

This movie tries to answer that eternal question: If you already know how a movie is going to end, is it still worth watching it? I’m not asking this question because I’ve already read the story the movie is based on (because I have) but more because that even if you hadn’t read the story, you can already figure out where the movie is going to go fifteen minutes into it. Also, it is a shame that no one really seems to have their heart into making a great movie. This is definitely not a John Woo movie, and it shows in his apparent apathy in his assembly line approach to filming the action sequences.

Also interesting about this movie is how the filmmaking seems to match the plot of the script. Let me explain: The plot is about Ben Affleck getting a paycheck that is really just a bunch of random junk he saw that he would need in the future in order to get him out of tough jams. Instead of actually building up anything, he gets into a tight spot, doesn’t know what to do, pulls something out of his bag that acts as a semi-deus ex machina. The plot works in the same way. Early in the movie scenes are placed there for no apparent reason, until they become utilized later on in the film. Like why the hell is there a sequence in the middle of nowhere where Ben trains with a stick? Why does Uma decide to cause a typhoon in order to get Ben’s attention? Why all the scenes establishing Paul Gianmani (or whatever his name is) as Ben’s best friend? Because they will all be things utilized in the climax, of course! No other reason!

Also, there are insane flaws in logic everywhere. My favorite is actually solved in the short story (and leads to the cool climax, also not used in the movie). Here it is: Where the hell does Ben get all of the items that he puts in his paycheck? Remember the part of the movie where he isn’t allowed to leave the compound for three years? How does he get all of his items then (especially the lotto ticket)? In the short story you can actually pull small items out of the future using the devise. The cool twist at the end is when the villain thinks he has the item that will help him defeat the protagonist, and suddenly a hand reaches out of nowhere to pull it out of his hand. No such thing here. You would have thought the movie would have been more interesting if they kept that in.

Everyone except Uma sucks in this movie. She does the best she can, even though her role is basically non-existent. Ben sucks though, unsurprisingly. Woo seems sleepy. When the white pigeon flies out of nowhere, you know the man has finally stepped into the realm of self-parody.

——Blankman——

(B-)

By no means a brilliant movie, this movie does have a certain charm to it that makes you love it despite all of its inadequacies. At times really funny, at times a good parody of the Batman TV show, all around not something you want to own but a great movie to watch on a Sunday afternoon.

——My Top Twenty Favorite Movies of All Time——

“All Time” is a slight misnomer, since I made a similar list last year and it looks vastly different from this one. For shits and giggles, here is what my list looked like back on December 14, 2002.

1. Aliens
2. The French Connection
3. The Godfather Part 2
4. Rushmore
5. Casablanca
6. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
7. Rocky
8. LotRs: The Fellowship of the Ring
9. Seven Samurai
10. A Clockwork Orange
11. Punch-Drunk Love

OK, now it’s time for the real fun. Instead of “ten” movies, we’re working with twenty this year. Movies were chosen based on the following characteristics: the quality of the film overall, the influence it had on me, how much the movie speaks about my own tastes and how much I would enjoy watching the movie again. Throw all of that into a blender, have me apply numbers to my choices pretty quickly and impulsively, and you get my Top Twenty Favorite Movies of ALL TIME!

1. Aliens

OK, so far it does look like the last list. So sue me. While after picking Aliens as my number one the last time I couldn’t come up with any great reasons why it should be number one against all of the rest, I couldn’t really come up with any great reasons why it shouldn’t either, and I still feel the same way. No, it’s not the greatest movie on my list, but something about it hits me cerebrally in just the right way. The original Star Wars trilogy are the movies that got me into movies, but I think this is really the movie that made me want to make movies.

This movie has just about everything I could ever want in a movie. It’s scary, it’s funny, it’s touching, it’s action packed, it has amazing special effects and a good story to boot. The Alien is the second single greatest creation in film (and I’m talking about the Aliens version, the one with the holes and bumps in its head. No smooth skull for me!). Wait, you say, what’s the first? The Alien Queen of course. What could be any cooler? It should be no surprise then that one of my favorite possessions of all time is my MacFarlane Alien Queen figure I got this year. So cool.

The story is structured fantastically. Instead of one Alien there are hundreds. The Colonial Marines come in to sweep them up, the biggest, baddest bad-asses in the universe, and they are almost wiped out to the man like they were children with pop guns. Ripley has to face her fear of the Aliens and the loss of her daughter. In comes Newt. Cute and yet worldly beyond her years, she is one of the best child actors period. In the end the fight isn’t between a bunch of guns and marines against the Aliens, but between one mom against another. Ripley isn’t going to lose Newt and the Queen isn’t going to let Ripley toast her brood. Thus one of the most magnificent cat fights of all time is put to film, with one of the best fake out endings of all time added on.

It’s my favorite military movie, my favorite horror movie, my favorite science fiction movie and my favorite drama all rolled into one. The amazing sound effects still give me chills. Everything about this movie gives me goosebumps, it’s so good. That’s why it is number one.

2. Kill Bill: Volume 1

This may change slightly if when Volume 2 comes out it sucks compared to the first, but I don’t really think that will be the case. But forgetting all of that, like Aliens, if I were going to make a movie it would look a lot like Kill Bill.

The way I think and create, I like to take a lot of different influences and mix them all together, as common theme just naturally commingle in my head. The same is definitely true of this movie. Quentin Tarantino took all of these pop-trash Grind House flicks and took the best parts out of each in order to make a truly remarkable revenge movie. The story itself is pretty sparse but there is so much thought put behind each look and action that you can actually get out of the movie all of the deep story that you want without being encumbered with it when it comes time to pull out the sword. Tarantino is playing off the genre conventions very deftly in a way that helps you fill in all of the gaps where you need to so that you can enjoy what is really a pretty straightforward action movie.

But beyond that, just the fact that it has all of my favorite genres wrapped in there–kung fu, samurai sword fights, anime, spaghetti Western and so much more–and manages to fit it all together convincingly makes it worthy of being a favorite movie of mine. Hell, the final battle is even so spectacular that you really don’t care that Bill wasn’t Killed.

3. Rear Window

A simple movie so complexly layered with different themes that on any and every level you could have a great time enjoying this film. It’s a movie all about watching, which when you go to a movie that’s just about all you are doing anyway, so that there becomes three different layers to the film. There is Jimmy Stewart watching his neighbors, Jimmy Stewart’s story, and then us watching Jimmy Stewart watch his neighbors. Stewart is a camera man and a person, thus he is the audience and the movie camera all in one. When the killer comes over to his apartment or when he grapples with Grace Kelly we feel just as helpless as Jimmy Stewart stuck in his wheelchair. They are incredibly tense moments because we immediately identify with Stewart and can do nothing to alter the outcome. We can only sit and watch.

What’s really great about this film though is the voyeuristic aspect of it. Hitchcock pretty much shoots the entire film from Stewart’s apartment, and each apartment seems to have its own story that is happening independent of Stewart. As the movie progresses you can actually see people lean forward to see what is going on in the other apartments, a point where art almost seamlessly imitates life. Would the scene really be any different if that was our apartment and it wasn’t just a movie?

4. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

John Wayne may be for many the quisessential cowboy; for me it’s Eastwood. And of course I wouldn’t give Westerns even a second glance still, if it weren’t for Sergio Leone. Watching this movie is like having a stick of dynamite go off in your lap. Leone uses every bold move in the book, and it looks magnificent. Only Leone could edit together a three minute long stand-off where nothing actually happens and have it be the most compelling thing you’ve ever seen. The visual language is just fantastic. Add to that some great use of sound (is there really any greater Western soundtrack than this one? Wah-wah-wah, Wah—wah-wah) and Eastwood’s magnificent Man with No Name (squint, look cool, shoot, repeat) and you have one of the most fun movies to watch ever.

5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

This movie for me is easily the greatest slasher flick ever made. Everything about it just feels so right. The recent remake makes the mistake of (claiming to be) showing you documentary footage at the beginning and end of the film; the original felt like a documentary from beginning to end. That’s what made it so creepy. The grainy 16mm and scratchy voice over at the beginning instead of feeling cheap only elevate the mood.

But where the movie really succeeds is in creating REAL terror. All of the great moments are completely unexpected, but not of the cheap “have the music screech and have a cat jump across the screen” variety. When the girl is trapped in the house at the end, there is nothing as creepy as having grandpa try (and fail) to brain you with a mallet. The final look on the heroine’s says it all. She’s been forever changed by her experiences in that house, and I think the audience is pretty much forever changed for having watched it.

6. Rushmore

I usually hate movies with annoying protagonists. Something about this movie is different though. Max isn’t just annoying, he’s a full fledged three-dimensional character who just happens to be annoying. Add to that a quirky screenplay and direction by Wes Anderson (the story becomes very theatrical to mirror Max’s main hobby, the theater, so much so that curtains actually rise and fall at parts), and the wonderful performance by Bill Murray (where was everyone when this came out that we only just noticed with brilliance with Lost in Translation?) and you have the makings of a fantastic personal movie.

7. The French Connection

What I like about this movie is how raw and appropriate the camera work is. The movie is pretty much one giant chase sequence, and the camera-work always has that chase sequence mentality to it. There is a real sense of immediacy there as the camera looks generally in the direction of Gene Hackman’s eyes, so that we are almost always in his perspective throughout the movie. It’s gritty and hardcore. Hackman isn’t your average policeman and he definitely doesn’t act like one either. And that car/train chase has to definitely be in the top five greatest chases ever put to film.

8. Man with a Movie Camera

Never has the art of montage been used to greater effect than in this film. A lot like Rear Window this is essentially a movie about voyeurism that lets you, the audience in on that fact. Most of the movie is shots of people working and playing, but it is then interspersed with shots of Vertov shooting or of his editor editing. There is a certain playfulness to the whole thing where Vertov will get a great shot and then show you how he got it, or edit a great sequence and then show you how one edits. He’ll slow the image down to a single still shot to have us focus on the subject and the medium at the same time. He cuts in shots of a projector showing his movie and an audience watching it. We have become part of the movie and we are asks eagerly to participate in it by making associations between say, a woman opening and closing her eyes and a window shutter opening and closing out the sun, and I think this movie is entirely unique in that regard.

9. Ninja Scroll

Watch this movie for the first time and you see a video game-like story with lots of action. Watch it again and the story stands out a little more, but still it’s all about the action. Watch it again after that and you suddenly start to realize how perfectly this anime is put together, how amazing it is that the director could do so much with so little. This is action sequence 101. Learn how to put together a thrilling action sequence all through editing so that you can get away with as much as possible while animating as little as possible to save time and money. Everything is done with a look or a color or a suggestion. All the important elements are there with a minimum of fluid animation. Live action directors could actually learn more than they think from this anime director.

Did I mention that the movie is also insanely fun?

10. The Godfather Part II

For a lot of people Part I is the preferred film, but for me II is tops. The movie feels more mature and confident than the original, and I think the choice to cut together Vito’s story of his rise with Michael’s story in the present without actually tying them together until the end is incredibly ballsy and brilliant. The parallels between father and son become incredibly poignant, and yet Michael becomes misguided and loses sight of what made his father such a great man, the ties of family. That the death of Fredo comes right before the scene that presumably happens some time before the first Godfather but after Vito’s rise where the family is all together and happy does a nice job subtly and yet precisely getting across the themes of the film. It’s all about association. And it all works. This movie just has a much larger emotional depth for me than Part I, and that’s why I love it.

11. 8 1/2

This is another really nice movie where the lines between the film and reality and fact and fiction blur into an entirely enjoyable piece of entertainment. As the audience we get to look in on a film that is both fictional and autobiographical, almost documentary like and then the most fantastical carnivalesque thing you can find. There is a joy and whimsy to it, like in the sequence where the director meets with the writer to talk about how their movie feels like a pale imitation of other art, and in the background we see a scene straight out of a popular painting. Fellini is grappling with the void between his personal life and his art, and only in the final scene does he come to terms with his conflicts in an amusing scene where he, as a little boy, directs characters from his film, his life, and his memories to march around in a parade. A great, fun movie to watch.

12. Once Upon a Time in the West

I wouldn’t be surprised if in the coming years this Leone film replaced The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as one of my all time top favorites. Everything is like TGTBATU and yet at an even grander scope. The shots are more exquisitely composed, the soundtrack more epic, the editing even more spectacular. Like the title suggests this movie has a more fairy tale quality of it, in that what we are really witnessing is a trumped up version of a film about how the West was won. Just amazing. I love it.

13. Seven Samurai

This movie has for me everything that makes/made Kurosawa a great filmmaker. There is the plot, taken straight out of a John Ford Western (and ultimately taken back and made into the Magnificent Seven), of seven wandering samurai and ronin choosing to protect a poor village against bandits not for the money (because there really is none) but for honor. There are the characters. Even though there are seven of them each one is given his own time and characteristics so that they all become unique and not just cardboard cut outs. And there is the editing. The final battle against the bandits is just brilliantly put together. Kurosawa easily works on multiple levels, moving us from the personal to the epic and back again with gentle ease. A great example of how to make a movie.

14. Punch-Drunk Love

What I really liked about this movie is how it put the emotional response over the cerebral. This movie as the title suggests is about punch-drunk love, that kind of love that hits you like a sledgehammer and defies rationality. The editing totally pulls together that feeling. The movie sweeps you along just like love, and then explodes suddenly and surprisingly at times just like Barry’s temper. P.T. Anderson purposefully keeps you on edge by keeping things tense, and yet throws in humor and the love story to keep you from going off your rocker. It’s an emotional powerhouse of unpredictability, and I love it.

15. The Lord of the Rings trilogy

Rather than try to consider each film on its own, it is better to look at all the films as a whole, since that’s really how J.R.R. Tolkien intended the books to be, and since all three films were shot at the same time there is really no reason to look at them separately. And on the whole this series is one of the greatest epic series of all time. It hits all of those high and low notes perfectly, easily alternating between the epic battle of RotK to the quite character study of Gollum in TTT. Borromir’s journey through FotR, although short, is almost epic in scope, first having a man succumb to the power of the Ring only to redeem himself by saving Merry and Pippin. And then of course there is the amazing triangle between Gollum, Frodo and Sam when trying to destroy the Ring in RotK, the only thing that could ever surpass the epic battle scenes in greatness. On every front this is a great movie, so good that Peter Jackson’s vision could please the hardcore geeks and the first time viewers alike.

16. Mulholland Drive

What a weird movie. Of all of the movies on my list, this is probably the one that stays the freshest on multiple viewings, if only because it’s harder than hell to figure out what it all means. That doesn’t mean we all don’t have our theories as to what it all means, nor does it mean that this isn’t an insanely addictive and enjoyable movie. What it does mean that this is one of those most fun rides you could have watching a movie, and hell, hot lesbian sex can’t really hurt a movie.

17. Apocalypse Now

No other movie really brings out the insanity of war like this movie, which is interesting because besides a few random scenes here and there it really isn’t a war movie. It’s all about a man’s descent into madness and the setting of the Vietnam War only helps to amplify that theme. Could any of us forget the phrase, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” though? I think not. An amazing film about the decent into madness.

18. The Apartment

This wasn’t originally going to be on the list, but I watched it again last night and just had to put it there. That a comedy could be so depressing is really a good show of the versatility and genius of Billy Wilder. This is the perfect kind of romance, silly at times but otherwise incredibly poignant. It’s such a great movie, tearing at the heartstrings while tickling the funny bone at the same time. That’s the way it all crumbles for Wilder, cookie wise, that is.

19. TIE: Shaolin and Wu Tang & The 5 Superfighters

I couldn’t really choose between my two favorite kung fu movies, so I just added them both. They both have amazing kung fu in them that spans multiple styles with ease. Both have great stories and lots of humor. And both end with the main characters joining together to defeat the bad guy. And hell, both are an insanely large amount of fun. If you love kung fu, these should be the first two places you stop.

20. Kiki’s Delivery Service

My favorite of Miyazaki’s films, this one feels the most personal and down to earth of all of his brilliant films. The story is incredibly simple (young witch leaves home with her talking cat to make a life for herself) and yet the emotions involved are surprisingly complex. I love movies that just drop you into a world and yet understate the epic nature of creating an entire world. The movie isn’t about the world, it’s about the person, and Kiki is such a personal, emotional film that you can’t help but love it.

Well, that’s it. Just in case you wanted to see the list with out all the dialog in between, here it is:

1. Aliens
2. Kill Bill: Volume 1
3. Rear Window
4. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
6. Rushmore
7. The French Connection
8. Man with a Movie Camera
9. Ninja Scroll
10. The Godfather, Part II
11. 8 1/2
12. Once Upon a Time in the West
13. Seven Samurai
14. Punch-Drunk Love
15. The Lord of the Rings trilogy
16. Mulholland Drive
17. Apocalypse Now
18. The Apartment
19. TIE: Shaolin and Wu Tang & The 5 Superfighters
20. Kiki’s Delivery Service

Last night I had a dream where we were making puppies by taking these little pellets and sticking them in the microwave. A couple minutes later you open the door and a puppy jumps out. Sharon Osborn was there for some reason naming all the dogs weird names like Shatzee and Bruno. All of the puppies loved me, but there was one big grown up blood hound that whenever I tried to pet his head he would growl.

We were growing the puppies in a MASH on the front lines and I was desperately waiting for some word from home. Then I had one of the puppies under my arm and I was trying to find a rave by traveling between this weird S&M club/children’s art museum (that museum is popping up more and more lately. I wonder why?). (Note: the place wasn’t an S&M club and museum in the same room, they were different rooms surreally connected.)

I got out of there and then remembered that I had to work for the class that I had never showed up to, and while I tried to remember what the class was that I hadn’t once shown up to all semester the dogs ran around the living room while I hate pizza and Captain Crunch and watched this weird MTV-type network that was showing the new Dido video, which happened to be made up of clips from a Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh type show.

As Sharon and Britney Spears ran around trying to round up the puppies, my sister called out to leave the TV on, but I told her it was the turn of the hour and their would be no more videos, and then I looked at my homework to discover that the class I had been skipping had something to do with math/physics.

Then I woke up.

Every year everyone makes some New Year’s resolutions and no one ever keeps them, right? Well, I’ve come up with the perfect New Year’s resolution, one that even I can keep.

Are you ready?

I resolve to stay alive yet another year.

Brilliant right? No way I’ll break that resolution like the one where I exercise or stop eating sweet, delicious chocolate.

Oh wait a minute.

No one EVER keeps their New Year’s resolutions.

Fuck me. I totally jinxed myself. FUCK!

Last night I had a dream in which Bart’s (of the Simpsons fame) latest act of mischief was to get a girl pregnant, and now he had to find a way to get himself out of the shotgun wedding while MEANWHILE Bob Barker (of the Price is Right fame) thought he found Jesus reincarnated in a little girl, but couldn’t spread the word because, oh yeah, he had been falsely accused of murder and was running from the law, Dr. Richard Kimblel-style. I swear to God, I’m not making this shit up. And it only spiraled further out of control from there.

Do you go to the video store and never know what to rent? Well here are two lists that might help you out a little bit in that reguard. Enjoy!!

—Best Random Movie Moments of 2003—

A little while ago I started to jot down ideas for a list of the best (or more accurately, my favorite) movie moments of 2003 and I quickly began to discover that my favorite moments fit into two very different categories. The first category was for those moments when you are watching a film and you are like, “Wow, that’s just great film making”. The other category, however, was filled with moments that weren’t particularly spectacular, but instead were just so absurd or crazy that I just couldn’t get them out of my head. They were those moments where you talk to a friend and are like, “Holy shit, you’ve got to see this!” Not necessarily great film making, but memorable nonetheless. So the following list is made up of those completely random moments from films that I can’t stop talking about.

1. Dreamcatcher

Oh my God, where to begin. I could make a top ten random moment list just out of this movie alone. Whether it is the shit weasels, Morgan Freeman going nuts, or British accented aliens, this movie has it all. This movie is the KING of the random movie moment.

That said, the moment that probably most stuck with me was the scene where Morgan Freeman and Tom Sizemore go on a bombing mission with their helicopters, firing missiles at herds of aliens as they try to get back to their mothership. The aliens sort of morph between being quite cute and innocent to being ferocious man killers, and the scene is shot like the Nazis mowing down the Jews in Schindler’s List, making this sequence one of the most surreal things I’ve ever seen put on film. My jaw just dropped upon watching it. Utterly fantastic!

2. The Isle

Warning: I’m about to discuss the stuff that I wouldn’t when I originally reviewed this Korean film. Read on at your own risk.

This movie about people living on little houseboats was runner up for most random moments this year. The moment of no return, that moment when I looked at Harry and we both wondered what the hell it was that we were seeing, was when the main character, who has been running away from the law for committing a murder, sees the police come to search the various houseboats. Instead of getting caught, as he assumes he will be, he swallows a cluster of fishhooks in the most disturbing act of suicide I’ve ever seen. You’ve really got to want to kill yourself in order to do something like that.

Anyway, he lodges the hooks in his throats and starts to cough up blood when the girl who has fallen in love with him finds him and decides to hide him from the police. She dumps him in the water through the trap door in the floor of the little houseboat and then acts like she is the one who lives there when the police paddle up. When they leave she then pulls him out of the water, BY PULLING HIM UP BY THE FISHING LINE. Oh my God, it was the most disturbing thing ever. She then pulls the fishhooks out of his throat and the movie goes on from there.

That’s not where the disturbing ends though, oh no. Just in keeping with the fishhook theme, at the very end of the film the woman is jilted by her lover. In revenge or desperation, I’m not sure which (maybe a little of both), she takes a bunch of fishing hooks and shoves them up…OK, here’s where you start using your imagination. Imagine the most outlandish place you could stick fishing hooks. Give up? That’s right, she shoved them into her vagina. Man, oh man. Thus there is a repeat of the scene where now he takes out her fishing hooks.

This is a rather beautiful love story too, did I happen to mention that?

3. Blade of Fury

The Award for the most random moment in a movie that made me go “Oh shit, did I just see what I thought I saw?” goes to Blade of Fury for the completely random moment where they actually got a horse to run through a brick wall. How or why they did this, I don’t know, but it sure is fun to watch.

4. Strangers on a Train

This is another movie filled with weird random moments. My absolute favorite has to be at the very end where the climatic scene takes place on an out of control carousel. How did it get out of control? Well, a police officer decided to shoot wildly at the bad guy into a crowd of civilians, not to mention all of the children on the carousel, and he nails the guy operating the speed causing it to spin out of control. What the hell was that guy thinking? They really need to take away his badge. Then, while the two main characters fight onto of the carousel, and old man bravely crawls under it in order to shut off the power. It’s all some of the funniest shit I’ve ever seen. Must See!

5. Pieces

The original random moment that got me to thinking about this list came from this silly slasher movie. The main woman character walks alone down a dark alley. Things get really creepy as the director uses the stereotypical cliches to make you think someone (the killer) is following her. Then suddenly an Asian man jumps out of the shadows and starts doing several kung fu moves before falling down. The main male character hears the woman’s screaming and comes to investigate. He recognizes the man lying on the ground and says something like “Chan, what are you doing here?” To which he replies, confused, “I don’t know. Must be bad Moo Shu Pork,” and walks away. Hilarious.

6. The Night of the Hunter

Lots of great random moments in this movie. My favorite is when the little boy is fishing in the boat with his uncle, and his uncle gets a bite. In one motion he jerks the line, causing a gigantic trout to arc out of the water and into the boat, and then he starts beating it with his oar. The whole thing happens rather fast and is completely unexpected, making for a fantastic show.

7. Battle Royale

My favorite moment on this movie filled with them, is when the crazy teacher pops in the videotape that explains how you play Battle Royale. As this overly cheerful young Japanese girl talks about children killing each other like one would hot teen celebrities, the teacher responds to what she’s saying by shouting out Hello! or Thank you! at appropriate times, like a teacher would introducing a guest speaker. Even after the soldiers and the teacher kill a few of the students he and the video remain overly cheerful.

8. My Neighbor Totoro

I’m sorry, but you haven’t really lived until you see the cute and yet extremely disturbing cat bus. How anyone ever came up with this idea is beyond me.

9. Talk to Her

Anyone who’s seen this movie knows what I’m talking about when I mention the bizarre silent film made up for this film where a man shrinks down in size until he is small enough to climb inside a woman’s vagina. It’s just weird beyond what normal words can express.

10. A Nightmare on Elm Street

There’s a moment in the first nightmare where Freddy is running down the street after the girl, which is extremely hilarious. Instead of being scary, Freddy is waving his arms around in the air like a spaz, and the whole time in my head all I hear is “Freddy’s gonna getcha! Freddy’s gonna getcha!” It’s so utterly ridiculous that I love it.

A side note: In Spike Jonze’s documentary What’s Up Fatlip? Fatlip at one point starts talking about how they used to make up dances when they went clubbing, one of them being the Freddy. Three guesses as to what that dance looks like. Next time you go to the party, at least once pull out the Freddy.

—Best Movie Moments of the Year—

Looking at some of my choices for best movie moments of the year, I realize that some of these choices on the list would almost look more welcome in the Best Random Movie Moments list, but ah well, that seems to be how I watch movies. I seem to react best to those moments that smack you right in the face and ask you to pay attention, to look at how cool all of this is. I hope that helps make a little more sense out of this list, which I consider to be of those moments that most made me stand up and take notice of them.

1. Kill Bill: Volume 1

There are so many great moments in this movie that it was hard coming up with one to single out above the rest. Probably the most obvious choice would be the House of Blue Leaves fight, but upon further reflection I realized that that wasn’t the sequence that had the biggest effect on me. My favorite sequence was what I will now name the “Waking Up” sequence.

It starts brilliantly with Daryl Hannah entering the hospital and changing into a white nurses outfit (with matching eye-patch!) while we look at a motionless Uma Thruman via De Palma split screen. Meanwhile on the soundtrack Daryl Hannah’s innocent whistling turns into a creepy Bernard Herrman track, one of my favorite songs on the soundtrack. Finally Hannah enters Uma’s room and starts to inject her with something when Bill calls. Hannah’s acting here is pitch perfect, from her obvious unhappiness with hearing that she’s not actually going to kill the Bride, to her gentle cooing when saying goodbye to Bill, to her threatening the incapacitated Bride to never wake up again. That’s some of my favorite acting of the year.

Flash forward to the Bride waking up. When she jumps upright she scares the hell out of the audience, making them almost as afraid as when Bill pulled the trigger on her. Realizing how much time has gone by she lifts up her gown only to see the cesarean scar on her stomach. She then starts to scream/sob in a scene with no music or alternate camera angles that’s all Uma, and as the scene goes on twice as long as you think it should the power of the scene really hits you in the gut.

Then there is Buck, who likes to Fuck. If the scene where he describes the procedure for fucking a woman in a coma isn’t disturbing enough for you, then what Uma does to the two perverts sure will be. After tearing off the one guy’s lip in a shocking cut, the soundtrack kicks in (great original music by the RZA) and she goes after Buck. I love the slow motion pan from the reaction shot on Buck’s face down to Uma lying on the floor underneath him. Then SHKITT there goes his Achilles tendon and on more disturbing scene where Uma bashes his head in with the door, shouting, “WHERE’S BILL?” Again, great acting on Uma’s part. I love this sequence.

2. Once Upon a Time in the West

This movie has one of the greatest opening sequences to a movie ever, and if you though Leone couldn’t do any better with anticipation in the final standoff scene in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, then you’ve got something else coming to you when you watch this film. Three hoods commandeer a train station and are obviously waiting for someone (not unlike in High Noon), but you don’t know who. The camera floats around cutting between each of the three men, watching them wait. What could be extremely boring is actually extremely interesting, and the tension of anticipation just grows and grows.

Leone builds the tension interestingly by using annoyance. The one bad guy has a fly buzzing around his face, and yet he doesn’t brush it off. After a while you just want to reach into the scene and kill it for him. Another man stands under some dripping water, and you aren’t really sure why until he tips his hat to drink the collected water. Sound becomes extremely important (there’s no musical score) as the buzz of the fly, the drip of the water and the squeaking of the windmill build the mood for when the train finally arrives.

The train stops, no one gets out. The men look at each other confused, and start to walk away until they hear the sound of a harmonica and find Charles Bronsen standing on the other side of the train platform. Leone’s use of close up and long shot achieves new levels of brilliance. The untreated wood of the platform, the men standing in perfect composition with their full-length dusters on, the close ups on some unforgettable faces are all amazing looking.

The men make a comment about them being one horse short and laugh. Bronsen retorts by saying they brought two horses too many. Awesome. Suddenly BAM! an explosion of violence. Three men go down. One is still standing. I’ll give you one guess who.

3. The Matrix Reloaded

If you start with the beautiful Monica Belluci and go on until you find Neo saving Morpheus and the Keymaker from an explosion caused from two Mack trucks hitting each other you get one of my favorite sequences put to film this year. Neo takes on a couple punks with swords and runs on the walls. Morpheus’ samurai sword just passes right through the awesome Twins. An Agent jumps from one car, crushes another (causing a gigantic traffic accident) and lands on Trinity’s car, only to rip the roof off. Morpheus takes out a car with a samurai sword. Trinity drives against traffic on a motorcycle. Combine that with the banging Juno Reactor soundtrack and you have yourself the making of some damn fine white knuckle cinema.

4. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

There were a lot of amazing moments in the movie, but none hit me like the first appearance of the Oliphants. Holy shit did that look cool. Nothing quite puts things into perspective until you see one of those giants crush a horse underfoot like it was a mouse. Damn. Watching one take out a row of horses with its tusks. Fuck. Watching one take another out after taking a spear to the neck. Good Lord. The CGI animation was perfect, the direction tense and top notch, and the weight and mass of the animals perfectly palpable. Amazing. Bravo Jackson, bravo.

5. 28 Days Later

That scene at the end where he jumps down and gouges out the eyes of the soldier after setting a zombie loose in the mansion and one by one taking out each of the soldiers is just raw, brutal and shocking. It just fits the mood of the film at that point perfectly, and I commend Danny Boyle for doing it. I love the fact that nothing the zombies do is more horrible or surprising as what the humans would do to each other. Perfect.

6. Man with a Movie Camera

This is a weird favorite movie moment to write about, since it isn’t actually a moment, nor was it actually part of the original film. But I just had to give props to the excellent soundtrack created by the Cinematic Orchestra for this 1929 Soviet Silent film for so perfectly melding with its subject matter. It only took about 70 years, but finally this film has the soundtrack it has been waiting for. It also gets bonus points for uniting the segments of the film under common themes and drawing out even more the power of the editing. Watch the film silent and you’ll see a great film. Watch the film with the soundtrack by the Cinematic Orchestra and you’ll realize how great that film actually is.

7. Branded to Kill

Towards the beginning of our film our hero, Killer No. 3, gets aroused by the smell of cooking rice and proceeds to make wild love with his wife all over his flat, everywhere but actually in the bed. Seijun Suzuki puts this sequence together with such flair that it manages to be both erotic and hilarious at the same time, as when the two lovers talk about being wild animals to each other and make wild love all over the place, the camera keeps cutting back to the bed still made and unruffled and somehow manages to make this inanimate object look dejected and lonely. This whole sequence is a whole lot of fun to watch.

8. Femme Fatale

The opening jewel heist in this most recent Brian De Palma movie has it all: cool, intriguing direction, an amazing soundtrack and hot lesbian lovemaking! As Rebecca Romijn-Stamos infiltrates Cannes to steal a set of priceless jewels on a barely there dress on a hot French model, and her method of getting them off turns out to be by making love to her in the woman’s bathroom, your mouth just drops open with how cool it all is. Add that to how great the direction is and how wonderful the soundtrack is and you’ve got a triple whammy. The best part though is how they actually get the jewels out of the building. I’m not going to spoil it for those who haven’t seen the movie, but it’s definitely not what you expected.

9. Open Range

If it weren’t for the final shoot-out in this film there wouldn’t be much of a reason to watch it, but boy what a doozy of a shoot-out it is. Never have I seen such a realistic depiction of what a real shoot-out between two men against a dozen would actually look like, and it’s extremely well directed to boot. Bullets fly, people take wounds, and shotgun blasts blow people across rooms. It’s everything a good Western shoot-out should be.

10. TIE: Executioners from Shaolin and Fists of the White Lotus

What would this list be without Pai/Pak Mei? What’s not to love in a white hair-ed, bearded kung fu master who can suck his balls into his body and float away from blows like paper in the wind? I submit to you some of the greatest kung fu fights of all time to be the final fights of both of these films. As the heroes have to perfect their kung fu in order to beat him, you know there is going to be some amazing fight sequences coming your way.