mooooovies (#8) (playing catch-up)

The Ghost Writer (dir. Roman Polanski, 2010)
Anyone hoping for an Auteurist reflection on Polanski's legal flare-ups (are those people out there? I'm prolly just strawmanning) probably won't find much here, but it's definitely a solid thriller that falls apart in the last act (fucking Google) but is still totally worth it. MacGregor is fine, but Brosnan is great whenever he shows up as either a patsy or a master conspirator who's losing it or both. Olivia Williams is great too and Tom Wilkinson comes in at the end to grab a scene with his teeth and take it the hell away from Ewan. Finally, the score is ill.

Leaving Las Vegas (dir. Mike Figgis, 1995)
A few Sundays ago I went to a bar at 11am to watch Liverpool play, then took a cab to a different bar to watch the Bears play, then went home and roommate Sarah wanted to watch this one, which she had on Netflix. I hadn't seen it since the first time I saw it, at which point I was probably way too young to see it. The fact that Nic Cage won an Oscar for this amazes me, cynical Oscar obsessive that I am, because he's really not holding back any of his ridiculousness. The exchange about whether Ben is drinking as a way of killing himself or killing himself as a way of drinking is awesome in how the movie acknowledges the line's cleverness and dismisses it at the same time.

The 19th Wife (dir. Rob Holcomb, 2010)
Of course we were gonna watch a Lifetime Mormon Murder Mystery, though we probably could also have predicted that it might get boring after a while. It did. I'd rather be watching Big Love for my LDSploitation kick (though we are watching TLC's Sister Wives tonight).

Piranha 3D (dir. Alexandre Aja, 2010)
Aja is a talented dude (even Mirrors had like 2 good things in it) and it's nice to see he can do horror-laughs as well as tragic murder/rape/burning alive scenes. This was pretty much exactly what I wanted it to be, and Jerry O'Connell is surprisingly hilarious as Joe Francis. The only disappointment is (SPOILERS, but not ones that should make much difference ) that the main character doesn't end up leaving Jessica Szohr (not any more fun here than she is on Gossip Girl) for Kelly Brook. Elizabeth Shue is suitably heroic.

Greenberg (dir. Noah Baumbach, 2010)
I don't think the advertising for this accurately portrays how much of an asshole Ben Stiller's character is. So, for a while, I avoided the movie, thinking, though I don't know why I was being so pessimistic, that they gap between what the movie would expect me to feel for the character and my actual opinion would be huge. It turns out, Stiller's Roger Greenberg is a monster of a character prone to ill-timed freak-outs and being completely inappropriate, and he's not all that charismatic or charming, but Stiller plays him well enough to allow some empathy. and Rhys Ifans and especially Greta Gerwig are king-sized in this. Looks pretty too.

Catfish (dir. Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, 2010)
Whether it's faked or not (and if I had to bet money I would bet that at least some of it isn't exactly on the up and up), I'm kind of split on Catfish. On one hand, it does have an interesting subject (the one the fillmmakers "stumble upon", not the protagonist, who is not at all interesting) that raises some good questions about what we do with reality in the virtual space. On the other in hand, the more I think about the movie the more I think that the filmmakers could do better with it. The visual style that constantly reminds you that the movie is about the internet could go, for one. But the worst part for me is the narrators and how, once they find a subject that is obviously more interesting than their original subject (co-director Ariel Schulman's little brother Nev), they can't pull back a little and take themselves further out of it. I would still probably recommend this, but it would probably be better as a short subject that cuts a lot of the stuff with Nev out of it.

Kick-Ass (dir. Matthew Vaughn, 2010)
Kick-Ass has an oddly similar problem to Catfish, in that if it dumped it's main character for a movie about the endlessly more entertaining Hit-Girl and Big Daddy (the latter played by Nicolas Cage, so obviously he's awesome), it would probably at least stand a chance. As it is, I really disliked most of this. I've never read the graphic novel this is based on and I haven't read Wanted either, so maybe it's just a coincidence, but I think after these two movies it's safe to say that if you're adapting a Mark Millar book for the screen, you should probably just find a way to cut out the voice-over narration.

The Town (dir. Ben Affleck, 2010) (SPOILER below)
I had pretty high expectations for this after Affleck's excellent Gone Baby Gone, and I'm happy to say that I liked it a lot. The acting is the best part, especially from Jeremy Renner as a little pitbull of a man and Affleck as a local-boy-makes-good-makes-bad-tries-to-just-even-out. Blake Lively is a pleasant surprise too, more or less playing a younger version of Amy Ryan's Gone Baby Gone character as filtered through J-Woww. There's a good car chase, the heists are well-staged, and while Affleck is playing with a lot of types here, the characters work. Just like in Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone, the concept of neighborhood is a major theme here, and I really dug the kind of optimistic fantasy of the ending, which has it both ways as Affleck's character is forced/able to leave the neighborhood but is still able to contribute to the neighborhood by donating money to build a new hockey rink. Considering the harsh moral decision at the end of Gone Baby Gone, it caught me off guard in a good way. If Ben wants to keep adapting crime novels or Boston novels or whatever, let 'em do it.

mooooovies (#7)

Machete (dir. Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez, 2010)
A few weeks after The Expendables comes another long-awaited B-action movie and on the whole this one is probably a little better. Everyone here is king-sized, Michelle Rodriguez (once finally revealed in the eye-patch/leather ensemble) making as striking of an entrance as Trejo. But Trejo is great, no doubt about it; just like the Expendables wins by focusing on the faces of Stallone, Rourke, Lundgren and co., Machete makes the most of every wrinkle in his face (along side his comic timing, which is awesome, but not nearly as awesome as Cheech Marin, who is as funny here as he has been in a while). Also, the way Jeff Fahey's (villainous) character eats Mexican food at lunch ("pass the salsa") without comment is a better than anything in (the bad) Crash or Babel by far. (okay so the deaf club scene in Babel was pretty great).

the Crazies (dir. Breck Eisner, 2010)
It's kind of a sum-of-its-parts Horror Movie (let's see if I can make this work), by which I mean that the overarching concept isn't revolutionary or super-interesting (it is a remake, and I haven't seen the original but don't really know anyone who loves it), but the horror scenes themselves are so well done that it all works wonderfully. American Horror movies (dramas too obvi) have been mining the terror of rural Americana for almost half a century, but Eisner uses the grey landscapes more effectively than I've seen anyone do in a while. Farm equipment and (especially) a car wash are also used well, and hey, I guess I do pretty much like Timothy Olyphant.

mooooovies (#5)

The Beat That My Heart Skipped (dir. Jacques Audiard)
I should note that I watched this in two parts about 3 weeks apart, but I enjoyed this Audiard crime flick almost as much as his Oscar-nominated Un prophète. Like that movie, The Beat... focuses on the development of a young criminal, in this case a not-completely-legit real estate broker named Thomas Seyr and played by Romain Duris with a great nervous grin. Seyr's never altogether realistic dream is to escape a life of shady business to follow in his mother's footsteps as a concert pianist.

The way Audiard, who also co-wrote the movie, uses music is a great variation of a kind of cliche in which a troubled urban character is calmed and refined by art. Seyr never seems as nervous terrorizing squatters as he does trying to get his Bach piece right. Overall, it's an interesting portrayal of the difficulties of changing one's life, more specifically reconciling what one really thinks one wants (concert pianist like yr dead mom) with what one is used to (crook like one's dad, played here by Niels Arestrup, who is good but doesn't quite steal the show like he does in Un prophete).

The Brood (dir. David Cronenberg, 1979)
I'm going to slowly work my way through all the Cronenberg I haven't seen in the fall, I think. I guess it would be spoiling to say who the villain here is exactly, but the way his/her psychological damage is manifested is awesome. The colors, the blood, Oliver Reed's menace, the terrifying children, yes this is very good end-of-the-70s horror.

Quick word on poor M. Night Shyamalan and stock

Saw Scott Pilgrim this morning (liked it ok, review to come), but funnier than almost anything in the actual movie was what happened during the trailer for Devil. Not having heard of it yet, I was enjoying the preview, thinking that it was something I might be interested in, and then came the magic words "a new nightmare from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan" and I, along with like 8 strangers in this movie theater full of like 17 people, audibly groaned (and then laughed heartily at the fact that we had all groaned together). Poor M. Night.

YMD's Super Sweet Sixteen: HORROR EDITION

So it's the end of the year, and that means lists. And if you haven't noticed, we're also moving into a new decade which means even more lists. And we're not gonna do some bullshit "TOP THOUSAND MOVIES EVER MADE" bullshit, because in addition to that being beyond retarded, we also don't like those squeaky clean numbers. Oh, you're going to do a Top 100 Movies of the Noughties (cute) London Times Online? Well fuck you, you included Crash. Our answer to that nonsense? Many lists of 16. The 16 Best Reality TV Characters of the Decade, 16 Documentaries, 16 Action Movies, 16 Albums, and the like. We're kicking this list BONANZA off with the Top 16 Horror Films of the Decade. There were a lot to choose from and sadly, I had to leave some of my favorites out. Sorry House of Wax, you may have impaled Paris in her lacy underpants, but you didn't make the cut.

16. House of the Devil - dir. Ti West, 2009
This teeny tiny sleeper (does it count as a sleeper if it's still sleeping) that came out a few weeks ago absolutely deserves a spot on this list. Babysitting, Satanic Cults, filmed on Super 8, 80s music. In the way that Far From Heaven perfectly replicated the 1950s melodrama genre, House of the Devil is so over the top copycat of movies like Prom Night and Stepfather that it puts those two films' remakes to shame. I really hope someone else besides me and Maciej would see this movie (and soon) so we could have someone else to talk to about it with.

15. Frailty - dir. Bill Paxton, 2001
File under: movies whose twists have actually shocked me and weren't preposterous. Also might be filed under: movies involving Matthew McConaughey that don't make me want to pick up an axe and recreate some of the scenes in Frailty

14. Slither - dir. James Gunn, 2006
ATTENTION PRODUCERS OF MOVIES, PLEASE PUT JENNA FISCHER IN MORE MOVIES. THAT IS ALL.


13. Session 9 - dir. Brad Anderson, 2001
Pre-CSI David Caruso as asbestos remover in abandoned Massachusetts insane asylum. I think this movie was probably made for under $10 (again, eat shit and die Parashitty Actsuckity) but very possibly frightened me more than any other movie on this list. Driector Brad Anderson went on to later make The Machinist and Transsiberian which blurred the lines between drama, thriller and horror pretty well in my book. Do yourself a favor and Netflix this movie you've never heard of, and then give me credit when you can't sleep.

12. Vacancy - dir. Nimród Antal, 2007
This movie (which I initially thought I was going to hate) had me so terrified of the black stain on my motel room ceiling in central Pennsylvania last month that I was almost certain the nice Indian family running the place was going to make me into a snuff film.

Before you judge me, this was from like 6:30 in the morning, OK? Wasn't looking my best.

11. The Host - dir. Joon-ho Bong, 2006
Monsters in the sewer+Korean social commentary on pandemics=#11 on this list.

10. Cabin Fever - dir. Eli Roth, 2002
Another in the horror-com genre on this list, although Maciej so astutely points out that this one includes director Eli Roth's precious social "sub"-text. Also it includes the grossest sex scene ever filmed. Or thought of. God, Eli. Ew.

9. House of 1000 Corpses - dir. Rob Zombie, 2003
Here's what Rob Zombie is good at: making a horror movie that is yes, very very campy, but also so startlingly gruesome and gritty that it makes you feel bad for ever thinking that violence is fun to watch. He's also good at writing and recording the song "Dragula."

8. The Devil's Backbone - dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2001
There's del Toro, and there's Almodovar. Aaaand then they make a movie together. Done.

7. Inland Empire - dir. David Lynch, 2006
Maybe this is stretching the limits of what one might call a horror movie but have you seen this movie? HAVE YOU? The sounds in this movie are more horrifying than anything the Saw franchise could even dream up. And they thought up someone getting steamed to death people, think about THAT. Also, there's this:


6. The Descent - dir. Neil Marshall, 2005
I have never been so scarred by a second viewing of a movie. Word to the wise, the DVD ending is so hopeless it may leave you clutching yourself and rocking back and forth.

5. Let the Right One In - dir. Tomas Alfredson, 2008
There are two movies in which dubbing the voice of a little girl have worked and the other one is The Exorcist (Mercedes McCambridge ftw). Also, I could talk about the lighting in this movie for hours. I have. In a lighting class.

4. Three...Extremes - dirs. Fruit Chan, Takashi Miike & Chan-wook Park, 2004
This documentary about how Bai Ling stays young on the flesh of aborted fetuses really gets to you. She's fucked up.

3. Martyrs - dir. Pascal Laugier, 2008
As an avid fan of this blog, I read about a lot of movies that sound awesome...and then never come out in the US (STILL waiting for that Kerri Russell cannibal movie). This film and the following one I waited for for almost a year to be released on Region 1 DVD. This was the ultimate payoff. A confusing, if not frustrating explanation of the plot in the final 15 minutes? Yes. But the buildup is so impressively creative and terrifying it negates the curious ending.

2. Inside - dirs. Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury, 2007
A woman gets chased around for two hours while a maniacal woman in a black gown tries to give her a C-section with various kitchen appliances. You'd want to see that movie right? You should.

1. The Hills Have Eyes - dir. Alexandre Aja, 2006
I was sick on my 22nd birthday. Like tonsillitis, fucked up on steroids, at home in Connecticut and miserable sick. So my mom, in her infinite kindness, suggested I leave my couch and go to the movies with her. "We can go see anything you want," said Donna. "OK, take me to see a horror movie," I replied. Then we spent a couple of hours in a theater watching the most unpleasant movie either of us had ever seen. By the time that dude who played Jame Gumb in Silence of the Lambs got burned alive on a stake while his family watched, we had realized this. I made my mother sit through mutant rape. I still feel kinda bad about that. But this was by far, the best horror movie of the last decade.

You're not the babysitter?

The homeboy Matty and I got to the Angelika (you know, the one where you convince yourself that the subway rumbling just adds to the atmosphere) right as it was opening today to catch Ti West's The House of the Devil, an 80s-set Satan movie that burns slow and delivers throughout. I was kind of wary because I've been burned in the past few years by horror movies seemingly recommended simply because they are not torture porn (see Bug) (actually, don't ever see Bug, it's terrible), but this isn't that. This is beautifully paced, lovingly rendered horror, with good acting (Tom Noonan should be in everything and Jocelin Donahue is a silly and likeable) and a solid payoff. See that shit.