Lessons of Darkness

1992 science-fiction documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Herzog films burning oil fields in Kuwait and the workers trying their best to put the fires out.

Entirely engrossing piece here. Herzog narrates (at first, I thought, unnecessarily) and places the burning oil fields in a different context, almost like a disturbingly cautionary sci-fi movie, capped by a disturbing final line that for whatever reason stuck with me until I went to sleep. The imagery is spectacular, almost like a mixture of 2001 and somebody's home video of their vacation to hell. Swirling operatic music accompanies the startling nightmarish images of apocalypse, and it's all very very effective.

Hellboy

2004 comic book movie

Rating: 10/20 (Mark: 11/20; Amy: 12/20)

Plot: Near the end of World War II, Nazis are in Scotland trying to do something. While that something is about to take place, something else happens which somehow releases Hellboy, a red surly ape baby with a deformed hand. The government puts him somewhere with some other freaks for some reason and try to keep citizens from knowing about him but for various reasons occasionally unleash him. Other than that, he just sits around grinding his horns and complaining. Fifty years later, the same Nazis return and attempt to do something else (or maybe the same thing) and Hellboy and his fish friend and fire girl have to save the world.

Another one of those movies I needed to have explained to me. I'd been thinking about seeing this since hearing that the sequel is pretty good, so when my brother mentioned wanting to see it, I decided to make the trip across town to watch it with him. It's got elements--some pretty cool characters (my favorite being the guy with the gas masks) and sets and lots of style, at least at the beginning. Unfortunately, it's also got one really obnoxious character poorly played by the apparently useless Selma Blair, far too many comic book tough guy one-liners that really make Hellboy seem too worldly, and a final half hour that turns into a cartoonish mess. Special effects are fine but inconsistent, and there's one scene involving Hellboy running that made me laugh out loud and scare a cat. Perhaps the biggest problem here is that I didn't really like the Hellboy character. He was just too grumpy and looks sort of silly. And any movie that forces me to imagine something that looks like Hellboy having a sexual encounter with Selma Blair automatically loses points. I had to give the point back for Jeffrey Tambor though. I've got no real interest in seeing the sequel but probably will at Mark's place eventually.

Fata Morgana

1971 oddball documentary

Rating: 14/20 (but could quite easily be a little bit higher or way lower)

Plot: None really. Herzog films lots of stuff, mostly, I'm guessing, in Africa. He films jets landing, desert landscapes, mirages, the carcasses of airplanes or other vehicles, the bones of dead animals, people in goggles, people without goggles, some animals, and some unidentifiable things. He throws it all together in three parts titled Creation, Paradise, and The Golden Age. Throw a female voice narrating a creation myth and some weird poetry and you've got yourself a documentary!

One of the most bizarre documentaries I've ever seen, Fata Morgana (Mirages, apparently) is sort of like a low-budget Koyaanisqatsi mixed with Errol Morris's glimpses at eccentrics. I'm not sure it all adds up to much; it really looks more like a dada-documentary or something. But it does have some moments of true beauty and even more of those fantastically entertaining "What the heck?" moments and it's for the most part entertaining. And it does capture this world that may only exist in Herzog's editing room but that is nevertheless worth exploring. This documentary seems to become more and more unhinged as it progresses although there's not exactly anything normal about starting out with five or so minutes of airplanes landing and following it up with the weird creation myth and images that seem to have nothing to do with that creation myth. But by the end, you've got the natives pointing and looking confused, a strange musical duo (a pimp on drums and distorted vocals and a woman on piano) that according to the commentary was filmed at a brothel, a guy with a ukulele who can't control his laughter as another guy reads poetry, and a turtle expert who informs us about where the food enters and leaves the turtle. And those goggles in the above picture with the guy holding the lizard? Herzog forced those goggles upon no less than three people he encountered. I rewatched some of this with commentary provided by Herzog, some other guy, and Crispin Glover. It was not exactly enlightening.

Year Recap--the awards post

Important things first--2008's Midget of the Year was a tight race. After all, out of 365 movies, 52 of them had a midget. The candidates:

Don't Look Now had one creepy midget. So did The Brood, but that movie was absolutely terrible.

The Holy Mountain and Simon of the Desert both had crippled midgets, and both movies were a whole lot better than It's a Wonderful Life which had no midgets.

The Terror in Tiny Town had all midgets, and early on, I figured Billy Curtis was a shoe-in for Midget of the Year. He was terrific as the diminutive cowboy hero.

But the prize goes to Peter Dinklage from Death at a Funeral. I still can't think of that scene without laughing hard enough to fall down and hold my stomach. I did just that last night at a grocery store, right next to the pickles, and an elderly woman asked me if I was ok. I said, "Yeah, just laughing at the exploits of a midget." She looked up and down the aisle and, seeing no midget, scooted away, likely figuring that I was a drug addict. It's a scene that has to be seen to be believed. And set your vcr's, for Dinklage is going to be on the upcoming episode of 30 Rock which is a show everybody should be watching anyway. He also played the bad guy in Underdog which was a movie I had forgotten that I watched this year. So he's sure been busy. I'm sure winning my midget-of-the-year award is a highlight of his career though.

Other stuff:

I saw 22 Japanese movies which seems really low. I saw 27 French movies, 11 Italian movies, and 10 movies from Hong Kong.

I saw 36 documentaries on a wide variety of subjects. 32 movies I watched were animated or had animation. I saw 48 comedies, another 37 movies that were supposed to be comedies but weren't funny, and 14 movies that were funny but weren't supposed to be. I saw 22 horror movies and another 15 that were supposed to be horror movies but turned out to not be scary at all. There were 33 science fiction movies and a large bulk of "romantic" movies, 88 to be exact. According to the labels, I only saw 21 silent movies, but it sure seems like a lot more than that. 32 movies I labeled as "surreal" and I really tried to use that term correctly. I saw 7 movies with Vincent Price, 1 movie with Shirley Temple in black face, and 1 Sylvester Stallone movie that he actually wasn't in (Ran). I also saw 23 kung-fu movies and 11 samurai movies.

Looking at the other labels--I saw 17 movies with handlebar mustaches, 84 movies with ill-fitting pants/underpants, 15 movies with eyepatches, and 17 movies with cannibalism. The 79 movies I watched with nudity lends credence to my wife's claim that I seek out movies with nudity. The fact that I saw 27 movies with male frontal nudity (if I gave an award, Ewan McGregor's junk in that dull Peter Greenaway movie) and only 23 kung-fu movies likely means that I'm a homosexual. Suprisingly, I only saw 8 movies with puppets. I saw a whopping 224 movies with violence but only 154 movies with blood.

Jen only picked out 10 movies, including the huge surprise that was The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. My children picked out 12 more.

I paid for only two movies this year--the new Indiana Jones movie cost whatever two tickets costs, and I got the poker comedy The Grand from the dollar rental machine at the grocery store. Wall-E, by the way, is only the second Pixar movie I haven't seen in a theater.

I gave out three 20's, but two of those were for El Santo movies. The rating I gave out the most was a 16. I gave 57 movies a rating of 16. I only gave two 1 ratings. My average rating, assuming my math is correct, was a 12.978.

One of those was the worst movie I saw all year, the dreadfully offensive Facing the Giants. A runner-up, even though it had a rating better than Manos: The Hands of Fate, would be the terrible remake of The Wicker Man.

My best personal discovery of the year--The Lone Wolf and Cub series. Also worth mentioning would be the movies of Guy Maddin, Mario Bava, and Preston Sturges.

Here are the best movie experiences of the year. I'm including only movies that I had either previously not seen or have not seen bunches of times. That elimates favorites like Rear Window, The Gold Rush, Mr. Hulot's Holiday, Duck Soup, The Triplets of Belleville, The General, and The Big Lebowski. And The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly which I didn't want to include in the above sentence because it would have forced me to use semicolons.

The best bad, all highly entertaining and highly recommended:

Manos: The Hands of Fate
Night of the Ghouls, which I watched on my birthday because I couldn't find The Big Lebowski and continue my tradition.
The Beast of Yucca Flats
The Happening

The best good:

The Passion of Joan of Arc
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
The Falls
The Holy Mountain
Viridiana
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Woman in the Dunes
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Days of Heaven

Finally, one last statistic. Amount of shane-movies readers? Four! I hope to double that in 2009!

The Shawshank Redemption

1994 movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Fancy pants banker Andy Dufresne is sentenced to two life terms in prison for killing his wife and her lover. It's a crime he claims he did not commit. "And how am I going to serve two life terms anyway?" he says, tears rolling down his babyish cheeks. "I've only got one." He attempts to adjust to prison and the frequent invasion of his anus and befriends another lifer, a black Irishman called Red. Red, serving a life sentence for sexually abusing penguins, learns from his new buddy all about how hope can set one free.

"What is your malfunction, you fat barrel of monkey spunk?" Captain Hadley had all the best lines. Actually, the writing is part of what I love about this movie, and I'm not just talking about lines involving monkey spunk. This is, after all, the movie that introduced "pinch a loaf" to my vocabulary. Some of the dialogue taken on its own might seem hokey, but with quality acting, it manages to sound smooth and natural. Morgan Freeman seemed born to play Red, and Tim Robbins is, as usual, very good although he probably has the largest and most distracting forehead in Hollywood. There's nothing all that spectacular about this story, but it's one that's told very very well. The film looks beautifully gritty and is stuffed with some truly great moments--the Mozart, the birdman, the warden's conversation with Robbins' character during inspection, others. Jen thinks this movie is predictable. I'm amazed that a movie can have so many Hollywood moments, things that really should make me sick to my stomach, but that it all still manages to work extremely well.

Note: Now that I think about it, Tom Hanks' forehead is by far more distracting. I can't even attempt to explain what's going on with that thing.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

2007 wizard romp

Rating: 13/20

Plot: It's year five for Harry Potter, and Lord Voldemort is causing problems. So is the Ministry of Magic. Following the tragedies of the last movie, both Harry Potter and Dumbledore are no longer trusted heroes. Harry nearly gets himself expelled (drugs) and the new Dark Arts Defense teacher, straight from the ministry, is a pain in the arse, giving the students meaningless book work and refusing to allow them to use actual magic. Eventually, she takes control of the school. Harry and his friends form Dumbledore's Army, a covert posse that trains in a secret room in order to protect themselves from Lord Voldemort--a freaky noseless guy who is invading Harry Potter's mind--and the other evil wizards. Harry turns emo.

This is a step up from the last movie, but it still has the same fundamental problem--the books are too long and too detailed, and so much gets cut that I'm not sure the movie makes complete sense. The result is a (still-long) sketchy story with lots and lots of interesting scenes that wind up feeling unconnected and unresolved. At least there wasn't any of that Quidditch nonsense in this one. I don't know who the new director David Pate is, but he does a good job and I'm glad he's finishing the series. Already being four deep into a series like this, some of the ideas and imagery that seemed whimsical or fresh back in movie one would be difficult to make whimsical or fresh, but there are some nice touches in this one. It doesn't quite have the look of the third in the series, but the special effects look a lot more realistic than the other movies, even that rubbery giant guy. But there's so much going on and so many characters and so many things that just seemed tossed in either to continue a thread from a previous movie or prepare for something in one of the next three that this just doesn't work completely. And it's hard to criticize a movie just because Richard Harris died, but I really liked him. One thing I really liked was the commentary on education--school's leadership and the government's involvement, the emphasis on standardized testing, etc.

The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer

1965-1992 animated shorts

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A collection of Czech stop-motion surrealist Jan Svankmajer with images yanked from twisted dreams and perverse memories. "A Game of Stones" is about rocks. "A Quiet Week in the House" is about an intruder drilling holes. "Meat Love" is about meat engaged in coitus. "Food" is about breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There are two Edgar Allan Poe stories. "A Trip to the Cellar" is about a little girl trying to get a basket of potatoes. "The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia" details the autopsy of a statue of Stalin. Etc.

Surrealism doesn't get more fun than this. Unforgettable imagery ranging from the hilarious to the grotesque and occasionally managing to be hilariously grotesque or grotesquely hilarious. Lots of "What the hell?" moments countered by amazing "How'd he do that?" moments. I love how in the later shorts, Svankmajer begins using people, stop-animating them just like he would his puppets or clay sculptures although I probably like the earlier shorts best. Likely unlike anything you've seen unless strange late-night dietary habits somehow fuel funky nightmares. Or you've got some wires crossed in your head. Recommended if you do have wires crossed in your head or if you've ever wanted to watch furniture have sex or enjoy voyeuristically watching vegetables rot.

Kung Fu Panda

2008 animated kung-fu movie

Rating: 12/20 (Jen: 13/20; Dylan: 6/20; Emma: 5/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: The title panda is the (adopted?) son of a soup cook who just happens to be some sort of bird. He enjoys eating. His dreams involve him evolving into a kung-fu master alongside his heroes, the Furious Five, who I believe got their name from an 80's rap group. When the turtle and mouse decide that it's time to pick a dragon warrior, all the villagers flock (some hop) to the top of a mountain to find out who it will be. The panda is (perhaps mistakenly) chosen, much to the chagrin of the monkey, the tigress, the snake, the stork, and the bug who have trained all their lives in order to someday become action figures and get their visages on boxes of fruit roll-ups. Meanwhile, a deadly kitty cat breaks out of prison and threatens to steal a scroll. Can the chosen panda be trained in time to defeat the deadly kitty cat? Oh, snap! He's too chubby!

Well, I like the idea of the movie better than the movie. As expected, it borrows heavily from traditional kung-fu movies, but it does so fairly clumsily, and the lack of character develop leaves me not really caring about what happens to any of them by the end. The movie looks fine even though the action sequences sort of blitz by and lack any of the real beauty of real martial arts movies. I was really hoping for an homage rather than a parody; unfortunately, this feels more like the latter too often. It's got that Dreamworks feel, but it at least doesn't have a bunch of unnecessary pop culture references. I'm not really sure what the problem was with 2/3 of my children although I do know that one of them is in a pretty bad mood and the other is always surly. Two of them are currently practicing their kung-fu while the third is making fun of them. One of them broke a tiny Christmas tree with some kind of rolling kick thing. Jen thought there were too many similarities between this and the Star Wars movies, but I think that might be more because of the similarities between the Star Wars movies and Kurosawa's samurai movies.

Ok, this makes 365 movies for the year 2008 alone. The Big Lebowski was the 365th movie from last December 27th. Take your pick with which movie completes my goal.

Steamboat Bill Jr.

1928 romantic comedy

Rating: 18/20

Plot: William Canfield, a steamboat owner/operator, hasn't seen his son William Canfield Jr. since he was a baby. He's thrilled when he learns that his son is coming to see him. His excitement vanishes when he realizes that his son is a flamboyantly homosexual twerp with a fancy moustache and a gay hat.

Every bit as good as The General (maybe?), this one's got some terrific physical comedy. Some of those stunts, especially during a climactic storm sequence, look extraordinarily painful. This is the movie with the famous side-of-the-building-falling-down-but-luckily-Buster-is-standing-right-where-the-window-is-so-nothing-hits-him scene, a scene so dangerous that half the crew refused to even stick around to see it. But that's not the only classic scene as rubbery, invincible Buster is bounced around like a Warner Brothers' cartoon character. The plot's pretty standard, but the comedy's great and Keaton's at the top of his game. Definitely a recommended silent comedy.

The Kid

1921 silent comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The Little Tramp stumbles upon an abandoned baby boy (the love child of a struggling artist and an aspiring actress) and after initially trying to get rid of him, finally decides to raise him as his own. Five years later, the tramp and the kid are working hard just to get by. The mother, now a successful performer, wants her kid back.

A bit overly sentimental, definitely a product of its time, with too many scenes that are just a little too precious. Most of the comedy works though, and I did laugh out loud, especially during the infamous "giant erection" scene. This stuff's timeless. In an age where everybody overacts, it's really an impressive performance from Jackie Coogan who, as a child actor, you'd almost expect to overact. At one point (still before he was ten), Coogan was one of the highest paid actors. The Kid doesn't seem as complete as the later Chaplin movies, and there's a dream sequence near the end that I absolutely can't stand. It seems tacked-on and completely unnecessary even though Charlie Chaplin flies during it.

Notes: Don't believe everything I type here. The "infamous" "giant erection" scene seems made up. Jackie Coogan being highly paid might be true. Flying Chaplin? That just sounds like a terrible band name.

La Joue (The Wheel)

1923 silent melodrama

Rating: 18/20

Plot: Sisif's been workin' on the railroad all the live long day. A tragic train accident occurs, and he rescues an orphan named Norma and raises her along with his son Elie. Fifteen years pass, Sisif continues to work on the railroad, and Elie becomes a maker of violins. Both men become infatuated with the blossoming Norma who also catches the eye of other eligible bachelors. This leads to some problems that apparently can't unfold in less than four and a half hours.

The pros: Stunning cinematography. Gorgeously experimental. Heavily philosophical and occasionally very moving. There are some shots here which could arguably be the best in film history, and that's not even an exaggeration. The use of rabid-fire montage (predating Potemkin seemingly) is ahead of its time and very effective in adding an excitement to the action--the train wreck scene, fisticuffs. The characters are lovingly developed, and the film as a whole is a poetic and beautiful experience.

The cons: The son of a bitch is 270 minutes long! 270 bleaker-than-bleak minutes!

Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Food, Death. . .and Insects

2007 documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Cult favorite Robyn Hitchcock rehearses and records and tours with some friends and discusses his songwriting, his career, and other things.

This is really more for fans, but it's really cool to see the enthusiasm this guy has for his work and the joy he gets from working with other talented musicians. Lots of interesting philosophical nuggets that may help uncover the truths behind the surreal absurdism of Hitchcock's lyrics. It's hard to rate this because Hitchcock has been my favorite musician for about 20 years, so I'm automatically going to like this a lot more than most people. I will say that I think I like this more than Storefront Hitchcock, the Demme-directed performance video, because Hitchcock is a lot looser and more comfortable and more himself here. Storefront Hitchcock is ok as a typical Robyn show, but there was something stiff about it.

365: The Big Lebowski

1998 movie

Rating: 20/20

Plot: Jeff Lebowski, a bowling slacker better known as "The Dude," has his rug urinated upon by a Chinaman which sets off a whirlwind of an adventure involving giggling artists, his seed, kidnapping, severed toes, double crossing, recreational drugs, lots of White Russians, a pomeranian, Jesus, theft of a car, a kid flunking history, a ringer, the Vietnam War, nihilists, known pornographers, a million dollars, and lots of bowling. But not The Dude. You don't get to see him bowl.

Seriously. He doesn't roll a single ball throughout the entire movie.

Rear Window

1954 thriller

Rating: 19/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: A magazine photographer named Jimmy Stewart is cooped up in his apartment because he broke his leg jumping off a bridge to save an angel in another movie. With lots of time on his hands and nothing else to do, he sits in his wheelchair and spies on the neighbors across the courtyard. He also tries to figure out whether his girlfriend, a stylish socialite, is somebody he should marry. With one week to go before the cast comes off, he notices one neighbor acting very suspiciously and begins to suspect that there's been foul play. He gets help from his girlfriend, his nurse, and a detective pal.

Is there another movie where we get to see Jimmy Stewart's nipples? My favorite things about this movie--Miss Torso and the cigarette burning in darkness of Thorwald's apartment. My least favorite things about this movie--the flashbulb thing at the end and the fact that Jimmy Stewart's nipples are only displayed twice. I really like how the little stories in each of the windows unfold and how each seems to represent a different part of the protagonist's psyche--lust, fear, desires, creativity, hunger. I'll have to think about that more, but those little stories seem to characterize Stewart's character as much as his actions and words do. One of Hitchcock's best.

Maybe I should change the name of this blog from 365 Movies to Jimmy Stewart's Nipples.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

2002 fantasy movie

Rating: 15/20 (Dylan: 14/20)

Plot: The two hobbits, Dildo and Bongo, continue their journey to the jeweler to have their ring appraised. They meet with a tiny filthy old man who has some sort of bipolar disorder who tells them that he knows a shortcut, a really good one where they can walk across swamps with dead bodies submerged in them. Unfortunately, he's completely insane and doesn't have any idea where a jeweler might be. Meanwhile, the bearded guy, the grumpy midget, and the homosexual look for the other hobbits. The old man miraculously comes back to life and declares that he's no longer Gordo the Grey but instead Gonzo the White. The others shrug and roll their eyes because they have no idea what the hell he's talking about. "Is everybody in Middle Earth wacko or what?" inquires the bearded guy. Meanwhile, the other two hobbits, the ones who don't seem to matter to the story anymore, take some hallucinogens and have extended conversations with trees. The bearded guy, the grumpy midget, and the homosexual go clubbing because the bearded guy wants to meet some chicks. He hooks up with the help of his wingmen but then remembers he had a girlfriend in the first movie. They forget where they park their car, a 1984 Chevy Sprint, and spend the rest of the movie roaming Middle Earth searching for it. Christopher Lee gets all pissy about something and sends the ugly guys out to ruin everybody else's night out. Then the next movie is ready to begin.

This one really doesn't go anywhere, does it? And did I not watch closely enough and miss a tower? I'm only counting one tower here. I almost knocked this down another point to a 14 just because of the scene where the homosexual slides down a staircase on a something flat (a shield) and shoots arrows at the ugly guys. That was stupid. Large parts of this movie had to be explained to me by Dylan. I'm sure he got tired of me asking, "Where'd Gordo run off to?" or "When's Gordo coming back?" I'm not really looking forward to watching the third installment again. I'm just not sure I have the stamina for these bulbous fantasy movies. I think the guy who played Gollum overacted a bit, by the way. Peter Jackson should have gotten Don Knotts to play Gollum. That would have bumped my rating up to at least a 22.

My Precious...