Reelin' in the Year's Best - Updated

2008: A Top 20 Films Countdown

Addendum: Going through my film journal (yes, I keep a film journal - I'm that much of an obsessive-complusive/anal-retentive geek!), I realized I completely missed - and hence inadvertently dissed - a number of great films I saw over the last year that I must add to my Top 20 countdown. Not that anyone cares, but at least it'll assuage my (obsessive-complusive/anal-rententive) conscience. There, I feel much better now.

OK, for what's it worth, here are my picks for the best movies I saw in 2008. If you don't see any comments after the title, it's because the critics have already done my work for me.

1. Slumdog Millionaire
(UK, 2008, dir. Danny Boyle) - quite simply: a masterpiece
2. Gran Torino
(USA, 2008, dir. Clint Eastwood)
We all know Clint Eastwood's "Walt Kowalski" character - every family's got one, the curmudgeony old John Wayne red-white-and-blue conservative. In fact, Clint's retired Korean War vet/Detroit Factory Worker grump is a throwback to John Wayne's obsessive
xenophobic soldier in John Ford's The Searchers: a hateful, ugly racist - who comes around to seeing the folly of his ways and appreciating the beauty of cultural differences (though John Wayne and Walter would never put it that way!). Product Placement Bonus: Clint drinks nothing but Pabst throughout the movie!
3. The Wrestler
(USA, dir. Darren Aronofsky)
Rocky with brains, professional acting and a rockin' '80s hair metal soundtrack.
4. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
(USA, dir. Woody Allen)
Beautiful city, beautiful people and an introduction to an amazing new actress, Rebecca Hall. What's not to like?
5. The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite)
(Germany-Turkey-Italy, 2008, dir. Fatih Akin)
Another gem examining East vs. West cultural mores from the Turkish-German director of Head-On. Plus iconic Fassbinder vet Hanna Schygulla!
6. The Orphanage (El Orfanto)
(Spain, 2007 but released here Jan. 2008, dir. Juan Antonio Bayona)
A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, where she opens an orphanage for handicapped children. Before long, her son starts to communicate with an invisible new friend - then goes missing. As the freaked out mother Belen Rueda (The Sea Inside) gives a career-defining performance better than any Oscar-nominated actress this year.
7. Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in)
(Sweden, 2008, dir. Tomas Afredson)
Forget Twilight; this was the year's best vampire film, a creepy and thought-provoking cult film that had me scratching my head and inspired friends to seek out the novel to try to figure it out. We're still talking about it.
8. Tell No One (Ne le dis à personne)
(France, 2006 but released here 2008, dir. Guillaume Canet)
Fantastic French thriller that borrows The Fugitive motif of a wrongfully accused doctor out to set the record straight about his dead wife, with a fascinating foray into France's displaced ethnic subcultures.
9. Transsiberian
(UK-Germany-Spain-Lithuania, 2008, dir. Brad Anderson)
This criminally under-marketed international thriller from the director of The Machinest (El Maquinista, 2004) and Next Stop Wonderland (1998) boasted an all-star cast of Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer, Ben Kingsley, Kate Mara and rising Spanish star Eduardo Noriego (check out his starring turn in 2002's cerebral sex romp Novo). Why did I have to see it at the little second-run Rotunda Theatre? As Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt observed, the film is a throwback to "the thriller-mystery set aboard a train" genre, which has almost disappeared from movie subgenres in the Jet Set Age, but Brad Anderson "brings it back to robust life in Transsiberian, a vigorous, fast-paced tale that entwines plot with character and psychology set against an incredibly exotic backdrop." And Ben Kingsley's got the Eastern Euro Badass Thing down pat.
10. The Savages
(USA, 2007 but released here Jan. 2008, dir. Tamara Jenkins)
Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman play a sister and brother facing the realities of "family responsibility" when they have to care for their ailing father. As we age, it's something we all have to think about - if not deal with - and is hardly the type of escapist yarn people go to the theatres for, but it's real life, and I like that. The performances are powerful and Jenkins masterfully offsets the emotional with humor to deliver a film that is about real people and real life dilemmas that we can all relate to. The hospital scene at the end made me cry, recalling a similar beside moment when they pulled the plug on my mom. Not for everyone, though, in a way, it really is.
11. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le papillon)
(USA, 2007 but screened here Jan. 2008, dir. Julian Schnabel)
Julian Schnabel has always struck me as kind of pretentious art school ass, but I give props where they're due: this artist-turned-director makes good movies (Before Night Falls, Basquiat) and, with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, even great ones. Based on the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby, a worldly fashionista jetsetter who suffered a stroke and was completely paralyzed except for his left eye, it says much about the human condition and our ability to find hope in the worst of times and dignity in the smallest acts - even in the blink of an eye. Left with nothing but the inner world of his memories, Bauby (portrayed masterfully by ace actor Mathieu Amalric) has to struggle to express himself, while time allows, as he attempts to reconcile his life and say goodbye to the people and world he loves. Perhaps no one but an artist, trained to see the world in terms of light, exposure, and shades of color, could pull off the translation of Bauby's minimal words (exhaustively dictated to a secretary by a coded blinking system) except someone like Schnable, whose blurry, experimental camera techniques make us see exactly how the world must have looked to someone like Bauby. A beautiful, innovative, insightful and touching film.
12. Persepolis
(France, 2007 but opened here Feb. 2008, dir. Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi)
OK, it's really a 2007 film - in fact it was nominated for a 2008 Oscar as Best Animated Feature (losing, inexplicably, to Ratatouille!) - and I had heard about it before that from a French friend who caught it on its debut in France, but I saw it at Charles in February 2008, so there you have it. This "poignant coming-of-age story of a precocious and outspoken young Iranian girl that begins during the Islamic Revolution" was based on Satrapi's graphic novel and is brimming with humor, insight and the best ever non-ironic use of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger."
13. The Band's Visit (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret)
(Israel-France-USA, 2007 but released here 2008, dir. Eran Kolirin)
Reviewed previously in this blog; read full review here.
14. I've Loved You So Long
(Il y a longtemps que je t'aime)
(France, 2008, dir. Philippe Claudel)
Brit ex-pat Kristen Scott Thomas delivers a career-best performance as Juliette Fontaine, a former doctor recently released from prison after serving a long sentence for murdering her child. For most of the film, those cold, hard facts are all we know about her, but neither the director nor Thomas' icily aloof performance (nominated for a Cesar, the French "Oscar") attempt to soften the blow and let us sympathize with her. But we learn that nothing in life is a simple as black and white, and it's the eventual revelation of the gray areas in between Juliette's story that make this film so rewarding. After accumulating all the critical honors Hollywood and Britain had to offer (winning Olivier and BAFTA awards and getting nominated for two Golden Globe and Academy Awards), it looks like Thomas is ready to start collecting French Cesars now. No wonder the French goverment awarded her the Légion d'honneur in 2005.
15. Roman de Gare
(France, 2007 but released here 2008, dir. Claude Lelouch)
A stylish return to form for the French master featuring both beauty (hottie newcomer Audrey Dana) and the beast (Dominique Pinon, the ugly dude from Diva). Read my full review here.
16. Changeling
(USA, 2008, dir. Clint Eastwood)
Other than Angelina Jolie's fine, understated performance, Eastwood's historical drama (based on a true story about a child that went missing in Los Angeles in 1928) was virtually overlooked by the critics. I'm glad my cultivated Polish pal Dr. Durlik recommended it to me ("In Europe, Clint Eastwood is considered an artistic auteur, not just an action star") because it's a quite little gem. Basically, it's a sticking-it-to-the-man championing of little people against unchecked and corrupt authority. I think Dr. D. liked it because whether it's people fighting against a corrupt police department in Depression-era Los Angeles or Solidarity toppling a corrupt authoritarian regime in 1980s Poland, empowerment in the face of oppression is a timeless and universal theme.
17. Constantine's Sword
(USA, 2007 but screened here June 2008, dir. Oren Jacoby)
An exploration of the dark side of Christianity, based on the book by former priest James Carroll, who tries to reconcile his Catholic upbringing with the Church's involvement with anti-semitism. It still amazes me how much anti-semitism still exists in Poland, home of the most infamous death camps; for example, a young priest there who speaks out agains the Church's complicity with the Nazis during WWII is ostracized. And Carroll/Jacoby reminds us, via newsreel footage, of the Church's amazing Vietnam War championing of bombing Hanoi. Amazing.
18. Milk
(USA, 2008, dir. Gus van Sant)
Sean Penn, James Franco and James Brolin are great, but it's hard to get overly excited about this biopic if you've already seen Rob Epstein's Oscar-winning 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. Great performances notwithstanding, ain't nothing like the real thing baby.
19. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
(USA, 2008, dir. Alex Gibney)
Best ever doc on the Doc by Oscar-winner Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room, Taxi To the Dark Side)
20. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
(USA, 2008, dir. Marina Zenovich)
A film so powerful, it got a California judge to consider dismissing the case if Polanski returns to LA for a ruling!

Yes, that's right: two of the films on my list were directed by Clint Eastwood (my new favorite Yank director) and two of the French films feature Kristen Scott Thomas (I've Loved You So Long, Tell No One) - who, like Charlotte Rampling, is another Brit actress who's gone for an extended career swim across the Channel - but who's counting? (Obviously not me, as I just now realized I left out Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, which turned me on to the delightfully charismatic Sally Hawkins; all apologies!)

Addendum Redux: (3/5/09)

I didn't see Frozen River at the time of this post. I subsequently did, and it's an awesome example of what indie filmmaking's all about and also a timely picture for our current economic "tough times" (and it certainly makes this list!).

Honorable Mentions:

Many of these films were seen at the 2008 Maryland Film Festival.

1. Reprise
(Norway, 2006 but released here June 2008, dir. Joachim Trier)
Two competitive friends, fueled by literary aspirations and youthful exuberance, endure the pangs of love, depression and burgeoning careers - set against a hip Scandinavian black metal soundtrack. Variety summed it up best: "Fluent editing by Olivier Bugge Coutte and nimble structuring by screenwriters Eskil Vogt and Trier just about manage to keep script's copious subplots airborne, dropping just a few balls as it reaches the home stretch. Like many another first-time director, Trier seems to be straining to say everything he's always wanted to get off his chest in one go about his generation, creative rivalry, friendship, women (who, on evidence here, he and Vogt still don't quite get), music, and cinema. Final result, with its peculiar happy ending that may or may not be a further fantasy, may leave some auds feeling more drained than satisfied. It's a bit like spending 105 minutes with a litter of frisky, mischievous puppies." But hey, I like pups.
2. Wall-E
(USA, 2008, dir. Andrew Stanton)
You gotta love a film that depicts Americans as fat-faced chair-bound slugs subsisting on carbs and big screen TV entertainment. And I do.
3. Goliath
(USA, 2008, dir. David Zellner)
In the same year that critics went ga-ga over a film about a down-and-out slacker gal losing her dog (Wendy and Lucy), Austin's Zellner Brothers released this funny indie classic about a down-and-out dipshit losing his cat. And no one outside the festival circuit noticed. Where's the justice?
4. I.O.U.S.A.
(USA, 2008, Patrick Creadon)
Wordplay's Patrick Creadon directs this doc boasting local connections (it's based on the book Empire of Debt by William Bonner of Mt. Vernon's Agora Publishing) that depressed me beyond tears. Given our current economic crisis, I'd say it was rather prescient.
5. We Are Wizards
(USA, 2008, dir. Josh Koury)
This year's requisite "geek doc" looks lovingly (not snarkily) at the Harry Potter fan community, specifically Harry Potter tribute bands like Harry & The Potters.
6. Waiting for Hockney
(USA, 2008, dir. Julie Checkoway)
Doc about local MICA grad Billy Pappas who spends 10 years drawing a picture of Marilyn Monroe in the hopes that it will validate his career and gain David Hockney's approval is fascinating not for what it says about art or how much of a dick Hockney is, but what is says about Baltimore's tight-knit working class Greek families. Billy's mom Cookie is the real star of this doc that could have been called My Big Fat Greek Canvas.
7. The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
(USA, 2008, dir. Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath)
This doc about a family forced to emigrate from Laos after the chaos of the secret air war waged by the U.S. during the Vietnam War opened up a world I never knew before: that of Laotians and, here in America, Laotian street gangs. I later saw Gran Torino, which also confronted the issue of Southeast Asians displaced by the Vietnam War and the unfortunate appeal of gang culture to alienated Asian youths here. Nominated for both an Oscar and an Independent Spirit award, but lost out to James Marsh's way-overrated Man on Wire.

Reelin' in the Years Best

2008: A Top 20 Films Countdown

OK, for what's it worth, here are my picks for the best movies I saw in 2008. Many of the documentaries listed here were seen at the Maryland Film Festival.

1. Slumdog Millionaire
(UK, dir. Danny Boyle)
2. Gran Torino
(USA, dir. Clint Eastwood)
3. The Wrestler
(USA, dir. Darren Aronofsky)
4. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
(USA, dir. Woody Allen)
5. Milk
(USA, dir. Gus van Sant)
6. The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite)
(Germany-Turkey-Italy, dir. Fatih Akin)
7. Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in)
(Sweden, dir. Tomas Afredson)
8. Changeling
(USA, dir. Clint Eastwood)
9. I've Loved You So Long
(Il y a longtemps que je t'aime)
(France, dir. Philippe Claudel)
10. The Band's Visit (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret)
(Israel-France-USA, dir. Eran Kolirin)
11. Tell No One (Ne le dis à personne)
(France, 2006 but released here 2008, dir. Guillaume Canet)
12. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
(USA, dir. Alex Gibney) - best ever doc on the Doc by Oscar-winner Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room, Taxi To the Dark Side)
13. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
(USA, dir. Marina Zenovich) - a film so powerful, it got a California judge to consider dismissing the case if Polanski returns to LA for a ruling!
14. Wall-E
(USA, dir. Andrew Stanton) - you gotta love a film that depicts Americans as fat-faced chair-bound slugs subsisting on carbs and big screen TV entertainment. And I do.
15. Goliath
(USA, dir. David Zellner)
In the same year that critics went ga-ga over a film about a down-and-out slacker gal losing her dog (Wendy and Lucy), Austin's Zellner Brothers released this funny indie classic about a down-and-out dipshit losing his cat. And no one outside the festival circuit noticed. Where's the justice?
16. I.O.U.S.A.
(USA, Patrick Creadon)- Wordplay's Patrick Creadon directs this doc boasting local connections (it's based on the book Empire of Debt by William Bonner of Mt. Vernon's Agora Publishing) that depressed me beyond tears. Given our current economic crisis, I'd say it was rather prescient.
17. We Are Wizards
(USA, dir. Josh Koury) - this year's requisite "geek doc" looks lovingly (not snarkily) at the Harry Potter fan community, specifically Harry Potter tribute bands like Harry & The Potters.
18. Waiting for Hockney
(USA, dir. Julie Checkoway) - doc about local MICA grad Billy Pappas who spends 10 years drawing a picture of Marilyn Monroe in the hopes that it will validate his career and gain David Hockney's approval is fascinating not for what it says about art or how much of a dick Hockney is, but what is says about Baltimore's tight-knit working class Greek families. Billy's mom Cookie is the real star of this doc that could have been called My Big Fat Greek Canvas.
19. The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
(USA, dir. Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath) - this doc about a family forced to emigrate from Laos after the chaos of the secret air war waged by the U.S. during the Vietnam War opened up a world I never knew before: that of Laotians and, here in America, Laotian street gangs. I later saw Gran Torino, which also confronted the issue of Southeast Asians displaced by the Vietnam War and the unfortunate appeal of gang culture to alienated Asian youths here.
20. Roman de Gare
(France, 2007 but released here 2008, dir. Claude Lelouch) - a stylish return to form for the French master featuring both beauty (hottie newcomer Audrey Dana) and the beast (Dominique Pinon, the ugly dude from Diva).

Yes, that's right: two of the films on my list were directed by Clint Eastwood (my new favorite Yank director) and two of the French films feature Kristen Scott Thomas (I've Loved You So Long, Tell No One) - who, like Charlotte Rampling, is another Brit actress who's gone for an extended career swim across the Channel - but who's counting? (Obviously not me, as I just now realized I left out Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, which turned me on to the delightfully charismatic Sally Hawkins; all apologies!)

From the Ridiculous to the Primetime

The 2009 Independent Spirit/Academy Award Shows

"Poverty, Poetry, and new Titles of Honour make Men ridiculous."
- Poor Richard's Almanac

It's that time of year again, time for the film honorarium shows. So here are my reflections on this weekend's festivities, in reverse order of watching...

It's Academical!

Sunday, March 22
I usually don't keep a close watch on the Academy Awards telecast because other than seeing Chuck Workman's annual film montages, I have no interest in an event that is basically a commercial orgy of Celebrity Culture. I mean, who cares what Angelina Jolie's reaction is to seeing Jennifer Aniston onstage or vice versa? I much prefer the politically incorrect Independent Spirit Awards, where you can always count on seeing John Waters and hearing industry folk talk freely - and cuss worse than sailors. But this year I watched the whole shebang (except between 9 and 10 when I switched over to see the new episode of Shameless on the Sundance Channel) and was pleasantly surprised to see that this time, the Academy pretty much got it just right. Justice, for the most part, was served.

Dog Day Evening

I thought Slumdog Millionaire was easily the best movie and Danny Boyle (who I just realised bears an uncanny resemblance to late-period Morrissey) the best director this year and, while I personally would have gone with comeback kid Mickey Rourke as Best Actor for The Wrestler, I can't really quibble given the equally brilliant performance Sean Penn delivered in Milk.


Sean Milks it for all it's worth

Everyone knows Hollywood likes to get behind an "issue" film and this was this year's Boys Don't Cry; I'm not complaining - I thought Sean Penn's acceptance speech was very poignant and timely (given California's recent passage of the anti-gay Proposition 8) - I just saw that one coming, that's all. That's why I'm glad the Academy saw fit to reward Slumdog Millionaire over Milk as Best Picture because, well, a biopic's a lot easier to write and direct than making up something from scratch, and Slumdog Millionaire employed a truly imaginative narrative technique to tell both a love story and a socio-cultural history of India itself. And that's just two of the eight awards that Slumdog took away this night.

Naturally, Baltimore's City Paper got it wrong. The same paper that fell in line with the Hipster Elite in proclaiming the Dogme 95/mumblecore exercise Wendy and Lucy "an essential, even inspiring movie" (inspiring to what? To sleep in one's car, wear retro grunge fashion, and bath in gas station bathrooms?) just had to get all snippy in its review of Danny Boyle's best film since the ground-breaking Trainspotting, saying "compared to his earlier works, it just doesn't add up." CP Report card: F (as usual) for Fawning Free Press Flunky.

OK, following are some of the best Oscar highlights (other than Mickey Rourke's hair)..

Best Oscar Acceptance Speech Ever

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto:

- Kunio Kato quoting Styx as he accepts Best Animated Short award for La Maison en Petits Cubes (Tsumiki no Ie)

The Japanese Empire (Performing Arts Division) is back, baby! In this, the very same year as Tokyo Gore Police hit these shores, Kunio Kato was the first of two English-challenged Japanese filmmakers to be recognized by Hollywood on the night. Yojiro Takita's Departures (Okuribito) was the very first Japanese film to receive an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. (Most people assume Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon got an award for Best Picture, but it only got a 1952 Oscar for "Best Art Direction" and also an "Honorary" award from the Board of Governors as "the most outstanding foreign language film released in the United States during 1951"; Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto also won a special award in 1955, but the BFF category was not officially established until 1956.) Yosh!

As Takita and lead actor Masahiro Motoki accepted the award for Departures, Takita said in (cautious) English to the audience, "I am here because of films. This is a new 'departure' for me. And I will, we will, be back. I hope."

Kunio Kato's La Maison en Petits Cubes was Japan's first ever Oscar in the Best Animated Short category, the nation's only other animation success coming in 2003 when Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away won in the category of Best Animated Feature.

Best Lines (Delivered Onstage, Not Snorted Backstage)

"How did he do it? How did he land all those straight roles all these years?"
- Robert DeNiro to Sean Penn

- "I wanna thank all you homo-lovin', commie sons of guns out there!"
- Sean Penn on accepting his Best Actor Oscar for Milk

"All my life I had a choice of hate and love...I chose love and I'm here."
- A. R. Rahman, Best Song Oscar winner ("Jai Ho," from Slumdog Millionaire)

Other Oscar Observations:

I revile Rap and I hate Hip-Hop, but I was truly impressed when Queen Latifah sang a straight-up torch song-style "As Time Goes By." Queenie may be losing her Jennie Craig "Battle of the Bulge" but this sister sure can sing!

Anne Hathaway looks Beyond the Pale. A lovely woman, but the Heroin Chic/Goth Gal pallor's gotta go! Try some earth-toney foundation!

Indy - Not Windy!



Saturday, March 21
Flipping through channels, I caught the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards on the Independent Film Channel and, spying John Waters face, sat down to watch. What a fun awards show! Cussing, off-color jokes and politically incorrect musical numbers featuring Robyn Hitchcock and many of the nominees were the order of the day at this Alternative Oscars held annually on Santa Monica Beach. Or, as Ben Kingsley put it: "When the first thing you're offered on your way in is a Jameson on the rocks, you know you're not in for a boring afternoon."

Especially not with Steve Coogan hosting. I loved his musical number in which he pitched a script to Jonathan Demme and I liked his line about how he hoped “milk” wouldn’t become a new homosexual code word appropriated from the English vernacular like “gay” or “fist”. And I thought of my Bolton-Baiting Buddy Big Dave Cawley (King of Cilantro-Hating Men) when I saw Michael Bolton in the audience, an unwitting butt of yet another Coogan joke when Coogan said that Mickey Rourke borrowed Michael Bolton’s shorn mullet for his mangy lion's mane in The Wrestler.


Mickey to Mikey: "Thanks for the loaner!"

The Spirit Awards also feature each Best Feature nominee getting a song sung to the film's plot and this year's performances were highlighted by Taraji P. Henson (Best Actress nominee for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) singing the crack-gats-and-teen-pregnacy plot of Ballast to the tune of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” (Taraji can sing!) and The Office's reigning nerd Rainn Wilson (sporting Bolton's versatile mullet and with his beer gut spilling out over skin-tight leotards) spoofing Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler - the latter performance causing Rourke to comment "I don't know who that little guy was singing, but I'm gonna beat his ass after the show!"

Old Dog learns New Tricks

And speaking of Mickey, his acceptance speech was the highlight of the evening. As Entertainment Weekly reporter Carrie Bell observed:

While F-bomb-laden acceptance speeches seemed to be practically encouraged, Best Actor winner Mickey Rourke took his to a whole other level. His profanity-laced thank-you spiel included botched studio head and co-star names, references to past escapades with the Santa Monica police department, and a reminder that not all women can climb a stripper pole equally well. (“Melissa--er, Marisa [Tomei] had to do all this with a bare ass and she brought it,” he said of his Oscar-nominated costar.) The room was rolling, including Philip Seymour Hoffman, who presented the award to Rourke. “It’s been a while and Mickey had a lot to say," Hoffman told EW afterward. "And he covered it all.”

Here it is Rourke fans:



For the record, here's how the plaudits went down in Santa Monica:

2009 Independent Spirit Award Winners:
Best Feature: The Wrestler
Best Director: Tom McCarthy, The Visitor
Best Male Lead: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Best Female Lead: Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Best Supporting Actor: James Franco, Milk
Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Best First Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Best First Feature: Syncodoche, New York
Robert Altman Ensemble Award: Syncodoche, New York
John Cassavetes Award: Search for a Midnight Kiss
Best Documentary: Man on Wire

And that, my friends, is a wrap!

Tokyo Gore Police ** 1/2

Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu
Directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura
Japan, 2008, 109 minutes

"The Japanese have singlehandedly fine tuned the art of making freakishly bizarre cult movies that defy logic." - General Disdain, thecriticscritics.com

On the recommendation of my ex-GF Elisa (who has impeccable good taste - except when it comes to men like me), I added this to my NetFlix queue. Here's the cartoonish plot summary from IMDB: "Set in a future-world vision of Tokyo where the police have been privatized and bitter self-mutilation is so casual that advertising is often specially geared to the "cutter" demographic, this is the story of samurai-sword-wielding Ruka and her mission to avenge her father's assassination. Ruka is a cop from a squad who's mission is to destroy homicidal mutant humans known as "engineers" possessing the ability to transform any injury to a weapon in and of itself."

Now when she suggested it, El Lisa probably was thinking back to the days when we would laugh out loud watching similarly themed Asian gorefests like Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky and, to be sure, I would recommend it as a great background flick at a large party. If you want gore, look no more. But these days I'm past being shocked by gross-out gore films of this ilk. I've seen Riki-O, Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo, the Iron Man and even more recent vintages of the genre such as Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror. I've been there, done that, and I'm sated thank-you.

Not that there isn't much to recommend in Tokyo Gore Police. This movie is stylishly directed, beautifully shot, smartly edited, and stars Eihi Shiina (the creepy acupuncturist from Takashi Miike's Audition, a former Japan Chanel model and a captivating presence of whom director Yoshihiro Nishimura has said, "She is the only actress in the world who can look so beautiful just standing in the midst of a gushing spray of blood" - which is high praise, indeed), but at 11 minutes shy of two hours it overstays its welcome; it should have ended after about 70 minutes. The special effects and make-up people had too much say in the final product. (OK, I just Googled the director's name and found out - surprise! - his background is in make-up and special effects!) If you've seen one decapitated torso gushing geysers of blood, you've pretty much seen 'em all and don't need to see the trick repeated a half dozen more times. We get it: gross (i.e., cool), right?


To see Audition's captivatingly strange Eihi Shiina...


...one must also watch lots of this

Director Yoshishiro Nishimura makes a number of nods to Western films and directors (especially Lynch and Dali), from Darryl Hannah's kicking/screaming death scene in Bladerunner to repeated references to Paul Verhoeven's fake commercials in Starship Troopers. Of the latter, I loved the hari-kari knife ads and the "Wrist Cutter G" ad targeting trend-conscious teenage schoolgirls:



That said, Tokyo Gore Police isn't for everyone, as its gore borders on the pornographic. So if the sight of a genetically mutated penis shooting out of a guy's pants like a bloody, javelin-sized sheesh kabob sounds a little too extreme, this one's not for you (having already seen Tetsuo and Urotsukidôji: Legend of the Overfiend, I merely yawned and fetched a beer; the Japanese - like many male porn stars - love the penis-as-weapon motif). As critic General Disdain observed "This blood infused nod to a George Orwellian future proves [the Japanese are] still on a plane of existence few can think of ascending to." Or would want to! In fact, right after seeing this I read The Onion spoof article "Japan Pledges To Halt Production Of Weirdo Porn That Makes People Puke" and I thought, that's about right as far as the extreme Japanese film mindset goes!

A De-Lux World

Lux Interior (Oct. 21, 1946 - Feb. 4, 2009)

Chris Campbell just alerted me to the sad passing of Erick Lee Purkhiser, aka Lux Interior, frontman extraordinaire of cult psychobilly rockers The Cramps. Lux was 62 and reports suggest he died from heart complications. It's hard to explain The Cramps if you've never seen them, so I've included their definitive live performance from the great (and still unreleased) music documentary Urgh! A Music War (UK, 1981).



As you can see, Lux successfully merged the personas of Elvis, Iggy Pop, Bela Lugosi and Alice Cooper into one bare-chested pogo stick of flesh and crammed 'em all into a pair of Jim Morrison's tight-fitting leather pants - which he had trouble keeping up above his kneecaps!

My pal Tom Lehr turned me onto The Cramps back when we were in college and I can still recall my first "exposure" to Lux in Washington, DC at the old 9:30 Club (then known as the Atlantis Club). This was probably their April 1978 appearance there, so I guess the lead guitarist was occult kook Bryan Gregory, who died following a heart attack in 2001 (since Gregory usually buried his face under a Veronica Lake-style cascade of white-streaked hair, I can't visualize his face with absolute certainity!). The place was packed and, as was the punk fashion at the time, fans were wont to storm the stage after getting riled up in the mosh pit. What struck me about Lux was that he was scary and unpredictable: some guy got up onstage while Lux was singing and Lux nonchantly turned around, bashed the guy in the head with the mic stand and kicked his bleeding ass off the stage! I remember thinking that the poor sap probably suffered a concussion. Needless to say, that ended the stage storming.

In 1977, fellow cult star Alex Chilton (who produced their early recordings) christened The Cramps "the greatest rock'n'roll group in the world." They were kind of like The Who in that they balanced the intensity of their manic frontman (who by himself matched the combined energy of Townshend, Daltry and Moon) with the deadpan calm of a two-headed John Entwisle, in their case Lux's gum-chewing honey "Poison" Ivy Rorschach and stoic one-handed drummer Nick Knox (Knox actually had two hands, but one was perpetually holding a cigarette while the other pounded out The Cramps' signature plodding caveman beat, like a metronome drenched in molasses).

I also caught The Cramps when they visited Baltimore's Marble Bar in March 1983, a visit captured in a great Flickr photostream by "Jack Of Hearts" (I wonder if this is former Katatonix bass player Jack Heineke?), as shown below. (Whoever "Jack of Hearts" is, he has some awesome photos of shows and bands playing around Baltimore in the '70s and '80s at gone-but-not-forgotten rock venues like The Marble Bar, Parrot Club, etc.).


The Marble Bar turned Luxurious in March 1983

This was back when The Gun Club's Kid Congo Powers was playing guitar alongside Ivy. My former bandmate Adolf Kowalski - Baltimore's answer to Lux Interior (hey, he had the hair!) - and I were planted right in front of Lux (whose leather pants were hitched up on this occasion) when, in the midst of singing "Human Fly," the singer reached out and snatched Adolf's sunglasses off his face and plopped them onto his. I think he later tossed them off and they got smashed under the crush of the crowd. Adolf didn't seem to mind - after all, Lux Interior merely stole his cheap sunglasses (a much better rock star interface than getting your head smashed by a mic stand!), which Adolf took as a compliment to his fashion sense.

On another local note, I would be remiss without mentioning that Frederick, MD's own resident artist extraordinaire Stephen Blickenstaff famously drew the Lux caricature that appears on the cover of The Cramps 1984 LP Bad Music for Bad People.


Steve Blickenstaff's Good Art for a Good Band

Oh well, time to dig those Cramps records out in remembrance of a great rock and roll star, a wildman who gave it his all every time he took the stage. Until his heart gave out. I think the UK's Guardian summed up his passing best when they wrote: "It's hard to think of Lux Interior as dead, despite what reports say. Then again, it was always hard to think of him as alive."

Related Links:
www.thecramps.com

DEAD AIR: The End of Analog Party

Atomic TV is Part of the End of Analog Video Exhibition



DEAD AIR Video Exhibition (Feb 17 - Mar 22)
Metro Gallery, 1700 N Charles St
www.themetrogallery.net
www.mypspace.com/metrogallery

Exhibit Opening: THE END of Analog Party (Feb 17, 2009)
Metro Gallery, 1700 N Charles St
Doors 8pm, Show 9pm; $6, Light snacks, Cash bar
Bands: Lo Moda, Plans Plans, and Edie Sedgwick
VJs: Joe Reinsel, Chris LaMartina, and Guy Werner
Exhibiting Video Artists: Vin Grabill, Atomic TV, Phil Davis, Kristen Anchor, and Preston Poe



What a fitting event for an Atomic TV retrospective: a farewell party for the archaic medium of analog video featuring a long dormant TV show that's been pretty much dead and decomposing for the past 4 years (Atomic TV, b. June 1997 - d. February 2005)! Atomic TV's heyday was roughly 1997 to 2000. In the New Millenium, Scott Huffines and I only turned in a few sporadic "holiday" and "special" episodes ("The Thanksgiving Episode" "The Black History Month Episode" "Atomic TV Shorts," "The Mark Harp Memorial Episode," and the "2004 Election Political Episode"), a result of various factors including unemployment, new employment, spending too much time at the racetrack, and The Rape of the Tapes Incident (when some feckless and unapologetic city cable employees tossed out about 30 Atomic TV episodes that were stored in their offices). Plus, the rise of Internet video streaming technology, viral video sites like YouTube, and the whole conversion from analog to digital technology took its aesthetic and financial toll and made us kind of redundant(Atomic TV was mostly shot on S-VHS video and edited on "cuts-only" S-VHS VCRs). Whatever. Atomic TV got derailed and only through this event have we gotten back on track to put together a "gallery background video clips" reel. This event has given us the opportunity to go back and dig through the hundreds of hours of video muck we created and find the best slices of the mud pie we hurled at Baltimore's late-night cable TV audience back in the day. It's been fun and we hope you think so too.

Here's a trailer for our part of the party:



The Gruesome Twosome:
Atomic TV's Scott Huffines and Tom Warner


Tom and Scott figures from the "Atomic TV Colorforms Play Set"

Here's the official event press release from Kristen Anchor (CAmm) and Metro Gallery:

Good-bye analog, hello digital! 11:59:59pm February 17, 2009 is currently the legal deadline for TV broadcasters to switch from over-the-air analog broadcast to digital, leaving traditional TV sets unable to receive broadcast TV. Dead Air marks this momentous cultural and historical occasion taking a look back at analog and forward to digital — how we use it, abuse it, love it, and hate it– the flaws, joys, (dis)advantages, and beauty of it all.

We kick off the exhibition on Feb 17 with THE END of Analog Party, a rock ‘n roll multimedia circus including music by Baltimore’s art rock super-stars Lo Moda and Plans Plans plus DC’s Edie Sedgwick (Discord Records), with original site-specific visual accompaniment created by Joe Reinsel, Chris LaMartina and Guy Werner.

Baltimore underground weirdos and movers-and-shakers mix with indie music videos, Mexican wrestling, classic commercials and other ephemera. News anchors meld, stutter, and fight static in rhythmic gestures. George Bush slowly morphs into Barack Obama. Garbled, static-y footage follows a man in a suit on an ambiguous chase. Dead Air presents five single channel video works by artists Vin Grabill, Atomic TV, Phil Davis, Kristen Anchor, and Preston Poe.

THE END of Analog is coming. Are you ready?

Related Links:
www.atomicteevee.com
Atomic TV Trailer