The Worst Movies of the Decade

These movies have robbed me. They have robbed me of my time and they have robbed me of joy. They are insulting. They are offensive. They are bad.


1. The Sweetest Thing - A horrible violation of an experience. The worst kind of girl comedy. Disgusting and stupendously stupid. Cameron Diaz should be embarrassed by her performance in this huge piece of garbage. Unfunny as can be. It's grotesque.

2. Bad Boys 2 – Bloated nonsense. This is the king of bad Michael Bay movies. Transformers 2 doesn’t even come close. So much action has never been so boring.







3. Alexander – Sorry Oliver, but Alexander is 3 hours of torture. Terrible, terrible dialogue and silliness all around. I think this one killed Val Kilmer's career.







4. Stealth – The people who made this do not have one shred of taste. Director Rob Cohen also made my worst 10 list of the 90s with Daylight. He also directed such other classics as The Skulls and The Mummy 3. They should retire his ass.

5. Southland Tales – I couldn’t take it. Pretentious to the max. The worst cast in any film this decade. Richard Kelly wrote and directed Donnie Darko. That will be his best film ever. I don't know how it could be possible, but I hope it doesn't get worse than this.






6. Step Brothers – Painful, painful, painful to sit through. I hated every character in this movie. I just wanted them all to stop.

7. Fast & Furious – Ridiculous.








8. Elizabethtown – Everything is bad. Kirsten is bad. Orlando Bloom’s American accent is seriously bad. The writing is bad(sorry Cameron Crowe). A romantic comedy where I desperately did not want these two people to end up together. It almost makes you not want to date.






9. Spider-Man 3 – Should’ve walked out. How many times is Peter Parker going to weep? Why did I pay to see this bad romantic movie when I paid to see a Spider-Man movie? The scene where "evil" Peter Parker dances in the club is one of the most embarrassing things I have ever witnessed.






10. Blade Trinity – Awful. At one point Jessica Biel's character puts on her headphones so she can listen to her iPod while she fights vampires. I think I freaking yelled at the screen when that happened. It is a stupid, stupid, stupid movie.

Dishonorable Mentions: The Darjeeling Limited, The Lovely Bones, The Matrix sequels, Patch Adams

Worst Comic Book Movies: Elektra, Wolverine

Worst Comedies: Anger Management, Year One

Worst Animated Movie: Shrek 2

Worst Sequels: Star Wars Episode II: The Attack of the Clones, Be Cool, Men in Black II, XXX:State of the Union, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Quantum of Solace

Where'd My Career Go?: The Farelly Brothers, Josh Lucas, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Cruise, Bryan Singer, Helen Hunt, Ashley Judd, M.Night Shyamalan

The Worst Movies of 2009

1. Fast and Furious – WTF is going on here? Why do we need The Fast and the Furious 4? Everything is ridiculous, especially those “dramatic” scenes. All of these actors' careers are so lousy that they needed to cash in on this fourquel. It’s an embarrassment. It’s awful. I hate this movie.

2. Year One – 97 minutes of nothing being funny. Nothing! I can’t imagine how awful it would’ve been to be locked in a theater with this one. Jack Black was tiresome a while back, now Michael Cera is as well. I'd prefer water torture or someone pulling out my fingernails. I can't believe how bad this was.

3. The Lovely Bones - A colossal failure from Peter Jackson. The worst screenplay of the year. Some of the worst acting of the year. A misfire of consistently bad choices from beginning to end. I hope to never have to see it ever again.

4. Dragonball Evolution – Street Fighter:The Movie is The Godfather compared to this one.

5. Duplicity – Everyone is trying to be clever, everyone is not. They are all annoying. The worst kind of white upper middle class comedy. Who cares about anything that is happening. It's all a waste of my time. The very opposite of charming.

6. The Spirit – You couldn’t pay me to watch this one again. It is horrendous. Gabriel Macht is a good actor but he is one boring ass leading man. Frank Miller should stick to writing comic books because he is a supremely crappy director.

7. Wolverine – A flaccid silly mess. Boring as freak. I think it’s worse than X3. At least X3 had Ellen Page. Add Wolverine's marriage to the list of dullest relationships in movie history. Enormously grateful I did not see it in the theater.

8. The Ugly Truth – Ugly is right. Ho this movie is bad. Is this what people want in their romantic comedies? I was dying for these characters not to get together in the end.

9. Away We Go – Sorry Sam. This one stinks. Why is everyone acting like their insane? Why is no one in the movie from planet earth? Why are John Krasinski's movies so bad? (Leatherheads made my worst 10 list last year) Why did I watch this!

10. Angels and Demons - Ron Howard has made good thrillers before. What happened? How can Tom Hanks be so uninteresting? It's amateur hour. Shame on you Ron.


Worst Actor: Jack Black in Year One
Worst Actress: Malin Akerman in Watchmen
Worst Cast: The cast of The Lovely Bones
Worst Director: Peter Jackson for The Lovely Bones
Worst Trailer: The Blind Side
Worst Studio: 20th Century Fox. Still the bottom

Weekly Recap 12/26/09

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: A Knight's Tale (impossibly fun) District 9, It Might Get Loud, The Abyss, Aliens, Terminator Salvation, In the Valley of Elah, Kingdom of Heaven, State of Play
The Bad: 500 Days of Summer, Cinderella Man, Family Guy: Something Something Dark Side
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: Avatar
Actors of the Week: Paul Bettany, Laura Fraser, Ben Affleck, Russell Crowe
Directors of the Week: Paul Haggis, Brian Helgeland

TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
Kick Ass. My name is Hit Girl


Despicable Me

The Top Ten Movies of the Decade

The first decade of the 2000s wasn't as strong as the last decade of the 1900s. The decade was dominated by a lot of CGI, tons of mediocre independent films, and small movies surprisingly becoming big hits (Slumdog Millionaire, Paranormal Activity). That being said, there were still a lot of great films by a lot of great directors. Here are my favorites of the decade and other lists.


10. Oldboy (2003) Visceral is the word. It re-defined Korean cinema as vibrant, contemporary and fearless. More than a revenge film, it's a heart-breaking tragedy. Ferociously directed by Chan Wook Park. The Oh Dae-Su vs. many fight in the middle of the film is a masterpiece. So potent it scars.

9. Zodiac (2007) Fincher’s most personal film. Personal being intimidating in its intelligence and mercilessly unsentimental. I doubt if another movie has ever been so meticulous. Possibly the best police procedural ever. The smartest movie of the decade and for me, one of the most satisfying.






8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) #4 of the series and it’s the best. The best story, the best set pieces, the best character scenes. The Yule Ball, the Tri-Wizard Tournament, the return of the big V. Entertaining to no end. Big credit goes to director Mike Newell for bringing a fantastic high energy British boarding school touch to Hogwarts. The one movie I’d like to step into and spend time in. A joy.

7. Once (2006) Falling Slowly. When Your Mind's Made Up. Say it to me Now.
The best movie about music ever.







6. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003) A powerhouse. So much so that it’s in burned into our pop culture consciousness like Star Wars. Everyone has seen it and they should. My favorite is The Two Towers, but as a whole, they are hard to beat. It has ruined all other fantasy films that have come before or after it. It is the best of its kind.

5. Amelie (2001) Not many movies can be described as magical. Amelie is entirely magical. Audrey Tautou(what a discovery) is a pixie sweetheart. There is Paris, things I like/things I hate, the stunning special effects, the warmth of the whole movie. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.

4. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Everytime I see it I laugh. It was randomly playing at a place I rent from and I started laughing. Loudly. It's Wes Anderson at his peak. Everything from costumes to the Tenenbaum home is perfect. The music is perfect. Gene Hackman is awesome. "That's the last time you put a knife into me! You hear me!"

3. Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) It’s insanity. A Kung Fu/Samurai/Revenge movie with a Pussy Wagon. Tarantino created a new language for the martial arts film. That anime sequence is king. The whole thing is a wonder of style and cool. 6 years between this one and Jackie Brown. It was worth the wait.

2. Moulin Rouge (2001) A crowning achievement of artistic risk. Pop songs, high comedy, big melodrama, all contained in the best musical I have ever seen. I am in true awe of how Baz Luhrmann came up with it. Nicole Kidman is unbelievable in the film. Look at all of the things she has to do. Ewan McGregor’s voice is amazing. There is simply no other movie like it.

1. Before Sunset (2004) My absolute favorite of the 00s. Maybe my favorite of all time. I don’t want to talk about it with anyone nor do I ever want to hear what anyone has to think about it. It's too special to me. One of the best screenplays ever. I love, love, love this film.

Baby, you are gonna miss that plane.
I know.




Honorable Mentions:
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)
The Girl in the Café (2005)
Children of Men (2006)
The Departed (2006)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
Slumdog Millionaire(2008)
Inglourious Basterds (2009)


I Loved, No One Else Saw: Little Children, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, In the Valley of Elah

Everyone Liked, I Did Not: Up, 300, 3:10 to Yuma, Kung Fu Panda, Batman Begins

Favorite Comic Book Movie: Wanted

Best Animated Movies: Wall-E, Flushed Away, Waking Life

Best Documentaries: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Murderball, Bowling for Columbine

Best RomComs: Wimbledon, Fever Pitch, Music and Lyrics

Best Sequels: LOTR: The Two Towers, Rocky Balboa, The Bourne Supremacy

Best Comedies: Knocked Up, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Borat

Best Boxset: The Lord of the Rings Extended Editions. 12 discs

Best DVD Extra: The behind the scenes doc Under Pressure: The Making of the Abyss

Best Audio Commentaries: Screenwriter David Koepp and guest William Goldman's commentary for Panic Room, Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett's hysterical commentary for Pearl Harbor where they make fun of everything including themselves

Best Thing that Happened: DVD becomes the standard


Best Lines
"I am in a glass case of emotion!" - Will Ferrell in Anchorman

“Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money." - Danny DeVito in Heist

"I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be the center of attention. I wanted the glory, I wanted the fame. I wanted the pretty girls to come up and say, 'Hi, I see that you're good at Centipede.'" – Walter Day in The King of Kong

"I don’t really know what kind of girl I am." – Ellen Page in Juno

"Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn't have f___d with? That's me.” –Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino

“Hey girl, you like magic? Well abracadabra, you’re pregnant.” –Will Ferrell in Semi-Pro

The best are from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Chocked full of great lines
Robert Downey Jr. as Harry. Val Kilmer as Gay Perry.

Perry: Look up “idiot” in the dictionary. You know what you'll find?
Harry: A picture of me?
Perry: No. The definition of idiot! Which you f____g are!

Perry: Did your dad love you?
Harry: Only when I dressed up like a beer bottle, how about you?
Perry: Well, he used to beat me in morse code, so it's possible, but he never said the words.

Harmony: Well, for starters, she's been f___d more times than she's had a hot meal.
Harry: Yeah, I heard about that. It was neck-and-neck there for while, but then she skipped lunch


The Best Trailers of the 00s http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2009/11/best-of-00s-trailers.html

The Awards http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2009/12/awards-of-00s.html

The Top Ten Movies of 2009

38 trips to the theater. 742 DVD Rentals

I think it’s been year of a lot of very good movies,.

10. Pirate Radio (The Boat that Rocked in the UK) I love Richard Curtis. There's the opening sequence set to The Kinks’ All Day and All of the Night. The wedding sequence set to The Turtles’ Elenore. Young Carl’s sad sequence set to Leonard Cohen’s So Long Marianne. Those 3 scenes alone might be enough to put the movie on this list. Britain in the 60s has never been more warm, loving and inviting. When you want to spend more time with movie characters when the movie is over, (something good has happened. (Review)

9. State of Play These sorts of movies aren’t made much these days. They’re maybe too upper middle class. Even the subject of newspapers seems white bread. But director Kevin MacDonald(The Last King of Scotland) revs up the tension and mystery in this very smart thriller. How many "smart" movies did you see this year? It’s old fashioned in a great way.

8. Public Enemies Michael Mann doesn’t make many films (he’s only made about 10) but when he does he pulls out all the stops. His re-creation of the 30s is incredibly thorough, immediate, and alive. Christian Bale gives one of his best performances (he’s probably more suited to Mann’s style than Depp), Marion Cotillard is so strong and memorable here, and I have to once again mention Stephen Lang as a Texas Federal lawman who magnificently closes out the film. It suffered a bit on second viewing, but I can’t deny it’s power.

7. The Hurt Locker Tense as hell. White knuckle, forearm bruising. Kicking the trunk to get it open, the unbelievable sniper sequence with Ralph Fiennes, and a great, great final moment walking down the street, back into the zone. 365 Days Left in Delta Company. Director Kathryn Bigelow hopefully will get nominated. A great one to watch in the theater.

6. Revolutionary Road Although released last year, I didn’t see it until ’09. Raw, brutal, and honest. Dicaprio gives an absolutely monster performance (his best ever), Kate Winslet is wonderful as always, and director Sam Mendes hooks us in with “beautiful” images of suburban family life in the 50s. It’s a tragic warning.

5. Whip It How did a movie about roller derby get on this list? I had high hopes for Juno, but it turns out this is the Ellen Page movie I really love. I so connect with it what it's about. Even though I’m not a girl and I don’t want to roller derby. Drew Barrymore does a heck of a job directing the action and more importantly all of the many great characters that populate Whip It. From Bliss’s work manager Birdman to her dad played wonderfully kind by Daniel Stern. There’s so much heart packed in the movie. Even in the end credits are a blast. And Ellen Page just keeps getting better and better. 1-2-3 Kick ass! (Review)

4. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince I’m biased for sure, but so what. I love Harry, Hermione, and Ron and their great friendship drive the movie more than anything. It’s a gorgeous film with great sequences of Quidditch and even better scenes of Hogwarts dating. I think it's the film in the series that captures best what it would be like to be at Hogwarts for an entire school year. It’s funny, very sweet, and a great lead in to the last two films. Saw this one three times in the theater. Can’t wait for The Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2.(Review)

3. Brothers A great drama in a year of very few dramas. The best acted film of the year, with particular emphasis on Jake Gyllenhaal who is becoming one of the finest actors we have. Three compelling characters, great dialogue, tasteful restraint, and enormous emotional impact. Overlooked and underrated. (Review)

2. Star Trek The most fun at the movies this year. Starships shooting at each other in space. What could be better? Star Trek is probably better than Star Wars in one respect – its characters, and they’re great from start to finish. Bones, Spock, Sulu, Scotty, and big credit goes to Chris Pine who is amazing as Captain Kirk. JJ Abrams deserves a lot of credit for reinvigorating the dying franchise and creating a real emotional and freaking exciting movie. It's a huge accomplishment. Cannot wait for #2. (Review)

1. Inglourious Basterds I’ve written a lot about this one. It’s special in a time where a lot of movies aren’t. A World War II Nazi thriller comedy is the best movie of the year. I have never nor will probably ever see another movie like it. I have to mention Christoph Waltz again as the Jew Hunter Col. Hans Landa. It’s a legendary character and performance written with such joy by Quentin Tarantino. He wrote the best screenplay of the year. Jackie Brown is the one I watch the most, Pulp Fiction is the watershed film, but this one just might be a masterpiece. (10 More Thoughts)

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Up in the Air, Watchmen, I Love You Man

Best Supporting Actresses
Rinko Kikuchi in The Brothers Bloom
Emily Blunt in Sunshine Cleaning
Emma Watson in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Jessie Cave(Lavender Brown) in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Anna Kendrick in Up in the Air

Best Supporting Actors
Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds
Jason Segel in I Love You Man
Christian Bale in Public Enemies
Jackie Earle Haley in Watchmen
Seth Rogen’s voice in Monsters vs. Aliens
Jake Gyllenhaal in Brothers

Best Actresses
Marion Cotillard in Public Enemies
Ellen Page in Whip It
Sasha Grey in The Girlfriend Experience
Melanie Laurent in Inglourious Basterds
Natalie Portman in Brothers

Best Actors
Chris Pine in Star Trek
Matt Damon in The Informant!
Seth Rogen in Funny People
Leonardo Dicaprio in Revolutionary Road
Tobey Maguire in Brothers

Best Cinematography
Dan Mindel for Star Trek
Robert Richardson for Inglourious Basterds
Lance Acord for Where the Wild Things Are
Steven Soderbergh for The Girlfriend Experience

Best Directors
Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker
JJ Abrams for Star Trek
Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds
Drew Barrymore for Whip It

Disappointments: The Soloist, The Brothers Bloom, Red Cliff, Avatar

Surprisingly Good: Terminator Salvation, Taken

Guilty Pleasures: Confessions of a Shopaholic, Push, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Avoided like the Plague: The Proposal, The Blind Side, Obsessed, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Night at the Museum 2, Hanna Montana the Movie, Bride Wars

Missed: Twilight: New Moon, Precious

Will See: Nine, Sherlock Holmes, An Education

Everyone Liked, I Didn’t: Up, Ryan Reynolds

I saw, No one else saw: Cold Souls, Moon, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Best Rentals: Priceless, Yes Man, Monsters vs. Aliens

Great Titles: The Informant!, The Hurt Locker, The Hills Run Red, Drag Me to Hell

Terrible Titles: Love Happens(really, does it?), Hotel for Dogs, The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Last House on the Left, The Uninvited, Nothing but the Truth, Law Abiding Citizen, The Baader Meinhof Complex

Best Opening Titles: Watchmen

Best Trailers of the Year: http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2009/12/favorites-of-2009-trailers.html

BEST LINES:
“Shoot him again. His soul’s still dancing!” - Nic Cage in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

“Did you just ask me if I like music? That’s like asking me if I like food.” - Aubrey Plaza in Funny People

"You got guns on us, you decide to shoot, we're dead. Up top, they got grenades, they drop 'em down here, you're dead. That's a Mexican standoff and that WAS NOT THE DEAL." - Brad Pitt in Inglourious Basterds

"You know something Utivich? I think this might just be my masterpiece." - Brad Pitt in Inglourious Basterds

Top 10 of 2008

Avatar

2 stars. James Cameron makes great films. Terminator 2, Aliens, The Abyss, Titanic. And it's been 12 years since his last feature and apparently he spent the better part of the last 5 years putting Avatar together. He helped design the 3-D cameras they shot with and he probably had a hand in every bit of design in creating the world of Pandora. It's his film from top to bottom.

The thing about it is, I don't care about blue people. Photorealistic CGI, motion capture suits, whatever, I don't really care about blue people. About 70-80% of Avatar is spent with the blue Na'vi running around their psychedelic forest and for all that Cameron tries to wow me, I sadly wasn't in awe once. For a film that is supposed to break new ground, everything feels very familiar.

First, lets talk about the story. I didn't realize I had actually seen this movie before. It was called Dances with Wolves. Military man is supposed to learn about the natives, he does, he learns to love them, and he fights against the very people who sent him there. It's the same story, down to the romance and the hostility he experiences at first that later gives way to respect. Even both main characters have problems with their legs.

The Na'vi are unfortunately way too similar to Native Americans. They may have yellow eyes, but there's the chief, the 2nd in command warrior, horses, bows and arrows. Their culture just isn't interesting. They might have some biological connection with nature, but none of it feels particularly special. And it wouldn't be a big deal, but we spend so much time in the forest with them that I was hoping at some point I would start to connect with them. But I didn't. They are the big conceptual creation of the film and they are woefully unimpressive. Even their cat-like design is not very appealing. They just aren't memorable enough.

And I am not a nature person. I like buildings and cities and hardware. For all of the sweeping shots of alien landscapes, I'd rather have stayed with the Marines and their awesome spaceships and Robotech machines. Planet Pandora is a big part of the movie they spent so much money on but I just didn't react much to the multi-colored beasts and the florescent jungle. Again, we spend so much time there, but after I while I felt it was all kind of dull.

What about the characters? What about them. There kind of aren't any real characters in the movie. There are personalities. Sigourney's a smoking doctor, Michelle Rodriguez is a helicopter pilot, Stephen Lang is a Southern Marine, Giovanni Ribisi is a corporate suit, but who cares. Nobody feels three dimensional. There are the bad guys, there are the good guys. Guess which ones we're supposed to be rooting for. Even the Na'vi are underwritten. None of them are distinct. They are just tribesmen with some hokey spirituality. Sam Worthington is a good actor, but I found him 10x more interesting in Terminator Salvation than I did here. From the moment he enters that Avatar, you know where his character is going. Unfortunately he doesn't really start from anywhere either. It's a weak character arc, and he's charismatic enough to hold interest, but I doubt Corporal Jake Sully will be remembered.

No matter what, real human actors are still the thing that we connect to when we watch movies. As much as animators try to recreate human behavior, nothing will replace the raw human face in its complexity and expressiveness. It's not about movement and pixels, it is about the thousands of emotions that are there that no one can calculate or put some sort of equation to. Ultimately, that's the weakness of Avatar. Too much time with fake aliens, not enough time with red blooded people.

As for the 3-D, some of it is very cool, some of it is still unfocused. This is the first real shot at live action 3-D and it is fine, but I don't really see how it adds to the experience. Movies are about getting lost in them, and forgetting that you're watching a movie and completely immersing yourself in that world on screen. With the glasses on, I was reminded that I was watching something and at times it took me out of the movie. One of the limitations of 3-D is what you can't do with the camera. There aren't many interesting shots in Avatar since 3-D wouldn't film them in the same way. I doubt anyone can really resist not seeing it in 3-D, but I kind of wish I had seen the regular 2-D version.

The last battle is cool but a lot of it reminded me of Return of the Jedi. This nature vs. technology battle has been done time and time again and nothing's new here. People die, but I didn't feel for them. I didn't feel the weight of these natives' home being destroyed. It all happens at a distance. And as for that weighty Middle-East/Oil allegory, the movie tries so hard to spoon feed me its message I can still taste the metal in my mouth. Also, "unobtanium"? Couldn't they have chosen a better name?

All this being said, it's more of a letdown than a bad film. It is just not what I hoped it could be. The dialogue is mediocre to bad, the lighting is so-so, and sorry James Horner but this isn't one of your better scores. I admire Cameron's artistic riskiness, but this is one time where everything didn't pay off.

Weekly Recap 12/18/09

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: Inglourious Basterds, The Hurt Locker, Hunger, Crimson Tide, Beauty and the Beast, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Lost Season 5, Star Trek Deep Space Nine Seasons 6-7
The Bad: Julie & Julia, Extract, Withnail & I
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: None. After 3 trips last week
Actors of the Week: Ben Affleck, Christoph Waltz
Directors of the Week: Quentin Tarantino, Kathryn Bigelow

TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
Robin Hood. Ridley Scott. Russell Crowe. Cate Blanchett. Looks f'ng awesome.


Iron Man 2. My goodness


Clash of the Titans


Alice in Wonderland

December 2009 Reviews (The Hangover)

The Hangover 3 ½ stars Things didn't start off well. There was a lot do with banal shots of the wedding cake and guys trying on tuxes and that all seemed average. Even the introductory scenes in Vegas were so so, with a lame and unfunny toast on the rooftop of Caesar's.

Then cut to the next morning.

They wake up, hungover, tiger in the bathroom, and the movie really takes off. One thing about comedies is that their plots are almost unnecessary. Someone needs to drive across country, someone likes a girl, blah, blah. But with The Hangover, the plot is the best thing about it. I mean, WTF did happen last night? It's a great narrative that propels the entire film forward. I wouldn't say all of the scenes are hilarious individually, but somehow they build upon on each other and the movie gets funnier and funnier as we go along.

I really feel good for Office regular Ed Helms. Other cast members have tried movies, but he turns out to be the one with the biggest hit. Also happy for Heather Graham who is funny and very sweet in a small role as the stripper he marries. Originally Lindsay Lohan was offered the role but she turned it down because apparently she didn't want her career to be revived by one of the biggest comedies ever. It made $277 million domestically. The money shocker of the year. It's a funny movie. As for the end credits, I was dying.



Extract 2 1/2 stars. Disappointing. I like Mike Judge. I loved Office Space. I liked Idiocracy. But this one feels unfinished. Jason Bateman is basically playing Arrested Development's Michael Bluth now managing a flavor extract factory. Mila Kunis's character is confusing and underwritten. Kristen Wiig is sort of funny and surprisingly in great shape. The best character in the movie is Ben Affleck as Bateman's best friend. He's a bartender/herbalist/drug pusher and he is awesome. Affleck is much better at these character roles (Dazed & Confused, Good Will Hunting, Hollywoodland) than being a leading man. Office Space was great in its detail and observations about office life. None of that is here. It's all kind of about nothing. Sorry Mike, this one is no good.

Julie & Julia 2 stars. I like Nora Ephron. She's smart and witty and she wrote When Harry Met Sally. But her last two films have been really off. Bewitched and now this. There are some good elements, but I didn't care about any of it. This girl and her blog about Julia Child is fairly dull stuff. And for a movie about food, it didn't make me interested in the food in it. The best movies about food are still Tampopo and Big Night. Even the always lovable Amy Adams can't save this one. A trivia factoid is that this is the first movie that was based on a blog. Hope they can make a better one next time.

Taking Woodstock 2 stars. Every once in a while Ang Lee makes a bad film. Lust Caution, Ride with the Devil. It's strange since when he does make a film, they are usually great. Crouching Tiger, Brokeback Mountain. Maybe he's not suited for comedy. This movie about the 60s and Woodstock feels too sitcomy for its own good. It's broad and silly and who cares. The best movie about that time period and its music is still The Doors by Oliver Stone. That film captured the madness, joy, and frenzy of what I imagine it was like to be alive in the 60s. This one is boring as freak.

Inglourious Basterds 4 stars. The third time around I noticed how much the movie is actually about movies. Sure it's a lot about Nazis and Jewish commandos, but so much of it is about cinema. Shosanna runs a movie theater, the British operative is a former film critic, Shosanna and Frederick Zoller's first conversation is about German directors, double agent Bridget Von Hammersmark is an actress, and a climactic scene takes place in a projection booth. It's a subconscious thread that made this particular viewing enjoyable in a completely different way. It's still a genius film of style and tension and it is gorgeous. Cinematographer Robert Richardson(my favorite) outdid himself with that lighting. And Brad Pitt's choice of a Tennessee backwoods cadence could not be more awesome. "I don't blame you. Damn good deal!" I don't care what you think about it. I don't care if you like it. It's plain great.

Check out my original review http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2009/08/inglourious-basterds.html

And 10 more thoughts http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2009/09/10-more-thoughts-about-inglourious.html

Awards of the 00s

As this list is long I thought I'd make a separate post from the Top Ten, which will come next week. Technical awards, actors, actresses, and directors. These are the best of the decade.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESSES
Cate Blanchett in I’m Not There (the best actress of the decade)
Natalie Portman in Closer and Garden State (the 2nd best)
Rinko Kikuchi in The Brothers Bloom (the coolest)
Sarah Bolger in In America
Faye Wong in 2046

BEST SUPPORTING ACTORS
Brad Pitt in Snatch
Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men
Thomas Haden Church in Sideways
Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds (can't wait to see what he does next)
Jason Segel in I Love You Man
Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain and Brothers

BEST ACTRESSES
Julie Delpy in Before Sunset
Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge (the most demanding role. Singing, dancing, comedy, tragedy. Nicole's amazing in this one)
Audrey Tautou in Amelie
Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones’ Diary

BEST ACTORS
Ethan Hawke in Before Sunset
Leonardo Dicaprio in Revolutionary Road and The Departed
Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums
Tom Cruise in Collateral
Nicolas Cage in Adaptation and Matchstick Men
Tony Leung in Infernal Affairs and In the Mood for Love
Seth Rogen in Funny People (the best version of this type of character I have seen)

Special Mention: Hugh Grant. His comic timing is unmatched. I will see anything he's in

BEST ENSEMBLES
The cast of The Departed (Matt Damon, Dicaprio, Alec Baldwin, Wahlberg's best performance, Vera Farmiga, Jack Nicholson, the list goes on)

The cast of the Harry Potter Series (nearly every great British actor out there has been in at least one of them)

Best Score: Ocean’s Twelve by David Holmes, Sunshine by John Murphy and Underworld, AR Rahman for Slumdog Millionaire

Best Opening Titles: Domino, Superbad's low tech dance sequence, Catch Me if You Can

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Steven Soderbergh(as Peter Andrews) for Ocean’s Twelve
Dan Mindel for Star Trek
Harris Savides for Zodiac
Roger Pratt for HP and the Goblet of Fire
Emmanuel Lubezki for Children of Men and The New World
Robert Richardson for Inglourious Basterds and Kill Bill Vol. 1 (my favorite cinematographer. JFK, Natural Born Killers, Casino, and on)

BEST SCREENPLAYS
Memento by Christopher Nolan
Before Sunset by Richard Linklater Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke (the naturalism of that dialogue should be studied)
Brick by Rian Johnson
Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino (genius)
The Girl in the Café by Richard Curtis
Ocean's Eleven by Ted Griffin

BEST DIRECTORS (other than the ones in the Top 10 or Honorable Mentions)
Tom McCarthy for The Visitor and the Station Agent
Ridley Scott for Black Hawk Down
Zach Braff for Garden State
Wong Kar-Wai for In the Mood for Love and My Blueberry Nights
Paul Greengrass for United 93 and The Bourne Supremacy
Alexander Payne for About Schmidt and Sideways
JJ Abrams for Star Trek

The Lovely Bones

1/2 star. I was excited. I bought my tickets online for the midnight screening at the Arclight and was all set. It was about an hour in, with an hour left to go, when I thought to myself, "This is a bad movie."

And you know what, it is. It is a bad movie. Peter Jackson is a supremely talented director but sometimes the best directors are the only ones that can make films this bad.

All of the trailers and the TV spots have already explained how Susie Salmon is 14, she's killed, she's in some limbo between the real world and heaven. All the while, her killer is out there and her family cannot cope with not knowing what happened to her.

The concept itself is uninteresting. It is flawed from the start since any murder mystery is chiefly concerned with finding who did it. But in this case, we already know exactly who it is right from the start, so we have to slog through 2 hours waiting for everyone in the movie to figure it out.

More than anything, the script is awful. I don't know how the screenwriters of LOTR wrote this script. The characters are universally dull. They are given nothing to do or say that is remotely compelling. Mark Wahlberg's character is an accountant who builds ships in a bottle. Wow. Rachel Weisz's character reads books and cooks dinner. Amazing. What a freaking boring family to spend time with. Even Susie herself, she is shallow and ditzy and there's so little time spent with her that it's hard to even invest in what she's going through.

A lot of this movie is so sappy and cheese. They hug, they cry, but so what. There's no real sense of what it would be like if your daughter died. Everyone is behaving like actors who are trying behave like their grieving. It doesn't mean anything. No new ground is discovered here. It's the same cliches. The same scene where the cop says he's sorry and the parents silently weep. It's offensive is what it is. And then there's Susie's endless tedious voiceover narration which spends way too much time explaining everything everyone is feeling and thinking so the movie doesn't actually have to have scenes where they dramatize what people are feeling and thinking. It's the worse kind of writing.

As for the murder investigation, it is a major plot thread through the film, but it is so sloppy and unfocused that no one cares. Scenes were apparently supposed to be tense, but they do not feel so in the least. Stanley Tucci does a good job of being creepy but there's no real insight into his character. And every major incident in the investigation occurs because of some mystical gesture from Susie in the afterlife. If she has this power, why doesn't she just point everyone to this guy's house? Why bother having a mystery? It's infuriating.

And as for that afterlife, it is underwhelming. There's something real and beautiful when you look at a photograph. The image can almost feel alive. Here I felt like I spent half the movie in a screen saver. A bad one at that. Peter Jackson is no Tarsem. His strengths are not in abstract imagery. If you're interested in that, check out a much better movie called What Dreams May Come directed by another New Zealand director Vincent Ward. That film is awe inspiring to look at. This is just green screen photoshop bs.

Lastly, if you asked me to explain to you what the characters actually learned in the movie, I'd say nothing. I don't know one bit of what they learned from Susie's death. The movie is a complete and utter failure on that aspect.

Only my respect for Peter Jackson kept me in the theater. I so wanted to walk out at the midpoint but I didn't. And that was unfortunate since the movie only got worse. The resolution, not to give anything away, but it is so unbelievably unsatisfying I felt like booing. This is a terrible movie. One of the worst of the year. I haven't felt so violated by a bad film in a long time. I feel like I need to take a shower and wash its badness off of me.

Weekly Recap 12/11/09

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: The Hangover, Along Came Polly, Brodre, Moonlight Mile, Star Trek DS9 Seasons 4-6,
The Bad: Blood Work, The Girl in the Park, Thank You For Smoking, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, Taking Woodstock
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: Up in the Air, Brothers, The Lovely Bones
Actors of the Week: Anna Kendrick, Bradley Cooper, Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman
Directors of the Week: Jim Sheridan

TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2009/11/best-of-00s-trailers.html

The Best Trailers of the 00s

I love trailers. I love that they've gone online. Thank you Flash and Quicktime. These are my Top Ten trailers of the last decade in alphabetical order. I emphasize they are my favorite trailers since some of the movies are pretty bad. If I had to pick the best of the bunch it would be Pineapple Express. I think it's a perfect trailer.

Adaptation. The trailer is extra funny once you've seen the film. "...or guns, or car chases, or characters overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end!"



Alexander. Ironic since the movie is so terrible. The trailer is so good it almost convinces me to watch the movie again. But I will not.



Casino Royale Teaser. How could you not get excited about the new Bond?



Charlie Angels: Full Throttle. The movie is ridiculous. This trailer is great.



Domino Teaser. Tony Scott films always have great trailers.



Garden State Teaser. Why hasn't Zach Braff directed another film?



Jarhead Teaser. Jesus walks.



Kingdom of Heaven. Exceptionally edited.


Pineapple Express. Again, probably the best of the list. Whoever chose that MIA song is a genius.


Star Trek. A great first trailer, but they were firing on all cylinders on this one.