Another Two Fistfuls of Favorites! (Brad's Picks)

For the last two years, Matt & I have been constructing a list of our Favorite Films.  My personal Top Ten came to me quick & easy; those films have ranked as my all time favorites for several years.  My Top Twenty was a little tougher to crack, but I got their after minimal struggle.  However, formulating my Top Thirty Favorite Films was downright brutal.  A couple of them sprung to mind (#s 21 & 30 were obvious), but I spent several hours over the course of this week pursuing my DVD shelves, selecting & rejecting various movies for whatever reason.  I Love All Of These Films...and so much more.  I cannot guarantee you in a week, let alone a year, that this list will remain - How can The Monster Squad not be in my Top 30 Favorite Films!?!?!  That seems ridiculous to me, but a fact nonetheless.  So take the ranking below with a grain of salt.  I love 'em, but my confidence is not as strong as it was for Movies 1-20.

30.  King Kong (Merian C Cooper & Ernest B Shoedsack, 1933):  Monster movies, this is where it all began.  Frankly, I love all three versions of this movie, as well as the crappy sequels & the Hong Kong knockoffs.  King Kong is one of those rare movies (maybe the only movie) that I'd like to see remade every decade or so, and I find myself positively giddy over the upcoming Skull Island.  It's delightfully simplistic, and eternally relevant.  "It was beauty that killed the beast." This is the ultimate Man Fucks Over Nature story.  We see something beautiful, dangerous, AWEsome and we've gotta have it - even if that means destroying it in the process.  A terribly sad movie, but also one filled with wonder and exceptional cinematic craft.  No King Kong means no Ray Harryhausen, which means no Steven Speilberg, George Lucas, Joe Dante, etc - which means one crappy childhood for this guy.

29.  In The Mouth of Madness (John Carpenter, 1995):  This was the first Horror movie I ever saw in the theater.  Hellraiser was the film that sparked an interest in the genre, and that film led me to the works of Clive Barker & Stephen King.  I remember vividly when I caught the trailer for In The Mouth of Madness on TV, and the Stephen King namecheck immediately peaked an interest.  Who is Sutter Kane?  The concept of a world driven mad by Fiction, was both terrifying & infuriating.  It's a plot spit forth from the mouths of your parents, your teachers, your politicians.  Horror will rot your brain, kids.  Sam Neil has never been better, and his journey from dismissive suit to screaming believer is utterly unsettling.  He steps into frame thinking he's Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity, a cocky insurance investigator bored of the game, but a "chance" encounter with an axe-wielding madman sends him scurrying down dark alleys populated by unnamable horrors.  If you're reading this blog post than you already know how this film had an impact on both Matt & myself.  It introduced me to John Carpenter & HP Lovecraft - after such an encounter how can one not become a full fledged horror fiend?

28.  Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988):  There is simply no better action film.  A good, but flawed man fights his way through a slew of bad men in an effort to reunite with true love.  And all set to the backdrop of the Ho-Ho-Holidays.  The 1980s were bogged down with countless bloody shoot 'em ups, but few had as much charming character as Die Hard.  Bruce Willis is exceptional as the everyman.  He's fun, witty, goofy, and absolutely badass when he's got a gun in his hand.  Yipee Ki Yay for the Energizer Bunny, the man takes a beating and keeps on ticking.  After a half dozen sequels, it's hard to find excitement for the "regular Joe," but you can't hate on the studio for trying to recapture the magic of the original.

27.  The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (Wes Anderson, 2004):  As much as I enjoyed Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums, it was not until The Life Aquatic that Wes Anderson's mastery over his dollhouse filmmaking hit perfection.  Words like "quirky" and "whimsical" get tossed around a lot when discussing his films, and I find them to be frustratingly reductive.  Anderson does not wish to recreate reality.  He's not interested in Oscar Bait.  He strives for the artificial, for style, for the storybook.  But to say there's no truth in the artificial is absurd.  The Life Aquatic is layered in familial heartbreak.  Bill Murray is an artist soaked in despair, a man desperate to believe in fatherhood when the chance presents itself, but also incapable of expressing love.  Owen Wilson is equally adrift as the son in question, but manages to force himself into this gruesome adventure of oceanic revenge while deflecting the jealously of Zissou's crew.  Ultimately, The Life Aquatic is about getting beyond your emotional baggage, and accepting the imperfect people around you.

26.  The Professionals (Richard Brooks, 1966):  Last year, in the wake of The Lone Ranger, I put together a list of my Top 5 Favorite Westerns, and The Professionals ranked at number 4.  Well, as I warned above, I've changed my mind.  It now sits as my third favorite western & my 26th favorite movie.  Lists are stupid.  But I love them.  Ralph Bellamy's Texas tycoon hires Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, & Woody Strode to charge down into Mexico to rescue his wife from Jack Palance's crazed revolutionary.  But as plot demands, things are not as simple as they seem.  I've spoken about it before, but perhaps the most stunning feat about The Professionals is Lancaster's ability to steal the show from Marvin.  His rapscallion is not so much an outlaw as he is a man who let his disgust for humanity crush his own morality, and the result is a gleaming devil worth rooting for.  Lee Marvin is simply a badass...he's great at being a badass, but it's also kinda expected.  The Professionals is certainly Lancaster's show, but there are few films with as strong a cast - each man (and one lady) gets their moment.  Imagine The Wild Bunch minus the grotesque i.e. violence as Adventure!

25.  Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005):  One of my many reoccurring rants around here is my stance against Superhero Origin movies - they're boring!  Been there, done that.  'nuff said.  So, why in the world is my all time favorite Comic Book movie an origin story???  Well, because in the 75 years of Batman's time on Earth, we've never been given the full story on Bruce Wayne.  Yep, before Batman Begins even the comic books only told a partial story.  Not to mention the fact that because we've had so many incarnations of Batman over the years, an origin story was actually a fresh approach to the character.  I love The Dark Knight, I dig Rises, and I even appreciate the Clooney travesty.  The Brave & The Bold and "Holy Adam West, Batman!"  But this is Bruce Wayne's story.  No other film comes close to that kind of human focus.  Plus, the way Nolan & Goyer snake the theme of fear through the story is outstanding.  A child's fear leads to his parents' murder, that fear becomes the child's armor, and that armor becomes Gotham's Knight, it's savior from the forces of darkness.  The first time I saw Batman Begins will go down as my All Time Favorite theatrical experience.  While attending the Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con, I was one of a lucky few who won tickets to see an advanced IMAX screening of Batman Begins.  I've never been more thrilled to be part of a crowd; several hundred nerds cheering, rooting, and screaming as the caped crusader finally got his story told proper.

24.  First Blood (Ted Kotchef, 1982):  The story of two generations of soldiers, the good war vs the bad war.  I know it's hard to imagine in this Expendables era, but once upon a time Sylvester Stallone was considered a Renaissance Man.  Before he got 'roided & sequeled out, Stallone made a career out of emotionally gripping character pieces.  First Blood was the last one...or at least, the last successful one.  A Vietnam vet wanders through town after discovering his last war buddy has died a lonely cancerous death.  A Korean War vet turned constable scoops him up, and attempts to shuffle him down the line so he may not soil the town scenery with his long dirty hair.  An act of disrespect that leads to rage-fueled domestic warfare that's as sad as it is understandable.  John Rambo began his career in cinema as a symbol for the lost, the disaffected, and the traumatized.  This is not the badass action film the sequels would eventually attempt.  First Blood is the story of hurt, and a damn fine one.

23.  Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1943):  I only saw this film for the first time six years ago.  "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine."  I'd seen all the clip shows, read all the critic's lists, and I thought I knew what Casablanca was.  Nope.  More often than not, classics are classics for a reason.  Humphrey Bogart is a lost American hiding from himself as much as the war when an old flame walks into his club, and causes all sorts of Nazi trouble.  Bogart is cold & cool in The Maltese Falcon, a cocky braggart in The Big Sleep, and the shlubbiest sadsack loser in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  Rick, though, is Bogart's great performance.  He's a selfish jerk, a master of slick wit, a (self)forgotten patriot, and a doomed romantic.  If all you know is the soundbites, do yourself a favor, and treat yourself to one of The Great Movies.

22.  Robocop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987):  An action film, a gorehound's delight, a Frankenstein parable, and a painfully funny satire of 1980s consumerism.  Robocop is one of the strangest bits of outsider art to sneak into mainstream cinemas.  Peter Weller does Karloff proud as a man slaughtered by criminals, and butchered further by corporate scientists.  He's given very little to emote with (a facial slit & Mr Roboto body language), but the film succeeds thanks to Weller's ability to pull the humanity from the cyborg. Then you have Kurtwood Smith & his gang of goons.  Never has there been a better collection of psychopathic villainy.  Verhoeven revels in the monstrosity of man, he takes glee in showcasing the vile & despicable, and then he projects triumph through violence.  Politically correct?  Hell no!  It's cool though.

21.  2001 - A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968):  My experience with this movie is probably like a lot of folks my age.  At 15, I didn't "get it."  At 20, I thought I liked it until it went Beyond The Infinite.  At 25, seeing it for the first time on the Uptown's Big Screen, I was in awe of the cinematography and the pulsating soundtrack.  At 35, I worship it's attempts at understanding the question of man via science fiction & metaphor.  I don't claim to understand the Star Child any better than I did at 20, but maybe in another decade or so I will.  I certainly look forward to rewatch after rewatch.  2001 is a rare event, a film that evolves as you do.  You gotta cherish that.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (1/12/14-1/18/14)

Wow, I really knocked em out this week.  A double feature of Dr. Strangelove & Buckaroo Banzai at The Alamo on Sunday launched me into a Peter Weller-A-Thon I was not expecting to partake.  But then the retail plague took over my life, and I pretty much bunkered down in the apartment, and did nothing else except watch movies.  Not too different from my normal day to day activities, just accelerated.  Next week I need to get back to my comics, gotta finish Sailor Twain for book club, and Grant Morrison's Animal Man is singing her siren song.

Dr. Strangelove Or - How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb:  Yikes.  This is one angry film.  Behind every snarky laugh, or straight up goofy punchline, you can feel the daggers of Stanley Kubrick's white hot rage.  Not at the (doomsday) machine, but at the careless dolts who run it.  The underground politicians, the meek military minions who should know better, the marching order pilots with the bomb between their legs - there are a million and one scenarios that could save us from total annihilation, but we can't be bothered to back down.  Dr Strangelove is a tremendously silly movie with bumbling fools named Jack D Ripper & Bat Guano helping our way to THE END, but every chuckle is accompanied by a pang of guilt.  On this latest rewatch I was reminded of the recent assault from Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street.  Both films are comedies by way of auteur wrath - searing condemnations against America's head-in-the-sand populace.  No wonder Strangelove drove The Wife to tears, as the credits rolled she could not bring her self to eek one giggle while a Nazi Scientists sprung to life, and mushroom clouds littered the landscape.  Hi-Larious?  God no.  But...yes.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension:  James Bond.  Indiana Jones.  Buckaroo Banzai.  The holy trinity of cool.  These are the guys 8 year old Brad wanted to grow up to be, role models for my developing morality and lady killer destiny.  The thing is though, he may not be as popular these days, but Buckaroo Banzai has Bond & Jones beat in the coolness department.  Not just a super spy or a nazi smashing archeologist (although I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Banzai's done a bit of that too), Buckaroo is a bestselling rock 'n' roll scientist neurosurgeon adventurer who breaks dimensional barriers as easy as ringing a bell.  Possibly the first film to truly understand the appeal of a comic book universe, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai drops its audience into its wild world of Red Lectoids & watermelons, and lets you catch up rather than explaining its peculiarities.  That's a lesson more movies should learn; it's not about the origin, it's about the hero in the thick of it, whether it's Buckaroo Banzai, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Superman, Spider-Man, or The Wolverine.  So, is the world finally ready for a rebooted Buckaroo Banzai Against The World Crime League?  Probably not.  The 1980s seems like the only decade to properly spring such oddball fruit, but I'm willing to watch if you're will to try Hollywood.

Leviathan:  Such a wannabe film.  John Carpenter's The Thing + James Cameron's Aliens = nice try.  But it's fun to watch George P Cosmatos work out his aspirations.  Peter Weller is obviously the best thing about this movie - his One Minute Manager struggling to handle his asshole minions (I'm looking at your Daniel Stern!), and that's before the fishy genetic monstrosity starts downsizing the staff.  It's a goofy movie with an obviously shoddy practical effect hiding in the shadows, but there is enough charm in the players to make Leviathan a passable movie night.  The question remains, is Deep Star Six the superior aquatic retread?  It's been a decade or two, but I think I'll side with Leviathan - gotta snag Deep Star for the rewatch.

Robocop:  "Somewhere there is a crime happening."  How many times have I watched Robocop?  50? 100?  A lot is the answer.  I don't even know how to talk about it anymore.  It's hilarious.  It's badass.  It's genius.  Paul Verhoeven directed both a sendup of consumerism and a righteous action film filled with the best bloodwork of the 1980s.  Kurtwood Smith and his gang of tyrants are possibly the scariest batch of hoods in cinema history, and I find it impossible to separate myself from the first time I saw them butcher Officer Murphy with their cackling shotgun fire.  It's the first murder on screen that truly disturbed me as a child, and for years I could not watch the movie without fastforwarding through the opening execution.  I don't know what Jose Padilha's remake has to offer, but a PG-13 shoot 'em up seems to miss the point of Verhoeven's massacre.  Robocop is a heightened attack on Gordon Gecko's America, and if you loose yourself in the torrents of red, you might miss the giant middle finger stretching out from the Netherlands.  But it is also undeniably a glorious genre picture with cyborgs and CEOs.

Of Unknown Origin:  Certainly one of the strangest forgotten gems of yesteryear.  Peter Weller is Bart Hughes, a yuppie businessman climbing the corporate ladder while basking in the success of his recent town house renovation.  Everything is just gravy until a beastly little rat tears a hole in his dishwasher's drainage line.  A small beginning that quickly escalates to all out war between vermin and man.  Don't believe the trailers or the poster.  Yes, this is a horror film.  But there is not mutant monster here.  No supernatural terror.  The villain here is simply an NYC rat and Peter Weller's deteriorating sanity.  As much as I enjoy films like Tombstone, Cobra, Leviathan, and First Blood Part II, Of Unknown Origin is George P Cosmatos's masterpiece.  This is a claustrophobic siege film in which the terror burrows up from within, the rat in the walls as well as the one nibbling inside Weller's brain.  Another film scratching at the villainy of greed, and possibly the best character to showcase Weller's talent - the entire film thrives on his ability to crumble in front of us.  No one talks about Of Unknown Origin, but now is the time for its moment in the sun.  The DVD is long out of print, but you can snag one pretty much anywhere for less than 10 bucks.  It's worth the blind buy.

Lone Survivor:  This is a tough movie.  And it sparks complicated emotions from this viewer.  It's a helluva story.  Based on the book by Marcus Luttrell and ghostwriter Patrick Robinson, four Navy seals battle it out against a hundred Taliban soldiers in the mountains of the Kunar provence, after they release a shepherd and his two sons from their custody.  The film is absolutely punishing.  Obviously, the title is a spoiler, and you go into the story knowing that these guys are doomed.  It's nearly a sadomasochistic act waiting and watching these guys catch bullets in their bodies and crash down the mountainside.  My heart was in my throat for the entire film, but when the Afghan Villagers took up arms against the Taliban I suddenly felt the pangs of the "Based On A True Story" hypocrisy.  All films are fiction.  Whether their narrative or documentary.  A camera is present, so is a storyteller.  There might be truth to be found, but Lone Survivor is not a FACT, and it bothers me when people react to "True Stories" as Truth.  The machine gunning villagers just felt wrong, and the movie absolutely fell apart for me at that point.  Marcus Luttrell committed a noble act in bringing this story to the public.  He wanted to tell the story of those friends he left on the mountain.  But it's also big business now.  He's making a lot of money on this tragedy, and however virtuous his action may be, that collection of wealth bothers me a little.  And the liberties the film takes nag on me.  The film Lone Survivor is certainly a rousing saga of military triumph, and I'm weary of criticizing something that has become so (wrongfully) politically charged.  But Lone Survivor is a fiction - like Saving Private Ryan, The Dirty Dozen, and Battleship.  Filmmaker Peter Berg seriously loves and respects the armed forces, so do I, but I'm reaching a point where our blind belief in the True Story distracts from what should simply be a Good Story.  And I recognize this as a weird (possibly hypocritical) point of view coming from the guy who put Pain & Gain on his Top Ten Films last year.  Like I said at the start, complicated emotions here.

Bottle Rocket:  In anticipation of the March release of The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Wife and I decided to work our way through Wes Anderson's films in chronological order.  She had never seen Bottle Rocket before, and my last (& only) experience with Anderson's first movie was a negative one.  Not sure what my initial problem was, but on this second go-round I really took to Luke Wilson's romantic plight - it feels like a dry run on to the mentally fragile heartache found later in The Royal Tenenbaums.  Is there another actor out there who can pull of Sweet as perfectly as Luke Wilson?  Every expression, a bird's broken wing.  Owen Wilson is also fantastic as the film's bad influence.  He's an imp, a sad creature desperate to remain attached to his childhood buddy.  I'll take a million Dignans over one You, Me, & Durpee.  It's impressive how well formed Wes Anderson's world already is in this first venture into filmmaking, even when he's still working out his artificial world - the slomo, the soundtrack layering, the color palette.  Some herky jerky story beats, but Bottle Rocket succeeds more often than it fails.

You're Next:  John Carpenter's name gets thrown around a lot when talking about this festival crowd pleaser, but it's less Michael Myers then it is Assault on Precinct 13.  What begins as a run-of-the-mill stalk & slash cabin film quickly transforms into a root 'em, toot 'em table-turner in which Sharni Vinson steps up to the predatory challenge.   In that regard, the film actually feels like a tip of the hat to Ridley Scott's Alien - a haunted house picture in which the likely heroes are dispatched and the audience is left with one badass Final Girl to cheer on.  You're Next is not a peek-from-the-cover horror, it's an action fist-pumper worthy of your raucous popcorn screams.

Short Term 12:  VODed this in the middle of the week, and I'm left curious as to why this film ranked at the top of several critic's Best Lists last year.  Brie Larson is the lead supervisor of a residential treatment facility, not quite juvenile detention, and certainly not a hospital.  Got a problem child?  Dump 'em here.  Shortly after college I spent some time teaching English & Creative Writing at a private school for troubled kids, and I felt a lot of those frustration pangs rise to the surface while watching this movie.  However, I never connected with Larson's relationship troubles or her twenty something worries.  I don't flat out reject this film the way I did Frances Ha, but I also recognize that the psychological troubles of youth do not interest me anymore (if they ever did).  There is sweetness in this story, and some strong performances.  It probably is Brie Larson's best work to date and I look forward to future roles.

Thief:  "Lie to no one."  After penning some solid teleplays for shows like Starsky & Hutch and Police Story, Michael Mann entered cinemaland with a straight up crime classic.  James Caan's journeyman thief has a lot in common with Richard Stark's Parker series - he's just there for the job.  Don't get in his way, and he'll pay you no nevermind.  Stand between him and his score, or him and prison, and you'll get dropped quick.  Mann is obviously entranced by the process of burglary, and his camera lingers on the minutia of the job.  The director is obsessed with getting the fiction right.  He goes as far as placing known thieves in the roles of detectives, and actual Chicago cops in the roles of henchmen (the most famous being Dennis Farina).  The film is slick as hell, with some gorgeous night shooting that tingles with Tangerine Dream's neon synth score.  I've seen this film a handful of times, but the 4K Restoration on the new Criterion Blu Ray reveals an array of details I'd never noticed before (ex. Caan's sideburn scar), and it's essential for fans of the underworld subgenre.

Elite Squad - The Enemy Within:  Picking up several years after the first film, Wagner Moura is still heading up Rio De Janeiro's Elite Squad despite a dissolved marriage and a son drifting into liberal ideology.  His second in command Andre Ramiro is a Frankenstein Monster of sorts, and when a prison riot escalates into a quick-trigger assassination the Brazilian people turn against Moura's necessary fascism.  Just when you though Rio was a Dante-like Inferno, the government corruption sinks to new horrific depths, and no white shining morality goes unscathed.  The Enemy Within is a solid sequel to the original horror show, but I feel about it the same way I feel about The Godfather Part II - I got the gist in the first film, and I pretty much already saw where this film was going to take its demons after the original's credits rolled.  Again, the message being, don't go to Rio.

Twenty Feet From Stardom:  For the first time ever, I have already seen all of the Best Picture films nominated for the Academy Awards.  The only categories I need to bone up on are Best Actress & Supporting Actress (gotta see August: Osage County), Best Animated Film (haven't seen a single nom), and just two films in the Best Documentary Category - both of which I tackled this week.  Twenty Feet From Stardom is a fluffy, glorified VH1 Behind The Music about the unsung background singers behind Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Ray Charles, etc.  It's fun enough.  Lethal Weapon's Darlene Love naturally being the highlight for me.  However, the idea that this is the frontrunner, when powerhouse docs like The Act of Killing & The Square (see below) are standing next to it seems like another idiotic example of America's head-in-the-sand mentality.  After all, another feel-good musical, Searching For Sugarman, took home the gold guy instead of the far superior, socially conscious docs like 5 Broken Cameras & How To Survive A Plague.

The Driver:  "I'm going to catch the cowboy that's never been caught...dessssspperado..."  Ryan O'Neal is an impossible to catch getaway driver who captures the dogged determination of police detective Bruce Dern after one too many successful robberies.  Too bad Dern is not the star.  His wildman cuckoo routine is endlessly watchable, but O'Neal is a big sack of human boredom.  His dead eyed stares are less cool then they are annoyingly dull.  The man has no emotion.  He drifts through the screenplay, playing googoo eyes with the mysteriously sultry Isabelle Adjani, but things don't get exciting until he hands the reigns over to the stunt drivers.  Walter Hill knows how to crash a car.  When the engines are racing, and the various array of cardboard boxes are getting smashed, The Driver is certainly watchable.  And again, Bruce Dern spitting foul hate and screaming whacko at his mollycoddle partner is delightful.  Watch his movie, ignore O'Neal's, and you can have a good time with The Driver.

A Fantastic Fear of Everything:  Simon Pegg plays a disgraced children's author who abandons talking hedgehogs for London's most vile serial killers.  Unfortunately, his exploration of the Jack The Rippers of this world has driven him into a catatonic state of agoraphobia (as well as various other maladies).  Who doesn't love Simon Pegg?  Assholes.  But I gotta admit that he makes poor picture choices outside of his Edgar Wright pairings (Star Trek & Paul not withstanding).  A Fantastic Fear of Everything has its moments thanks to Pegg's commitment to fear, but the story deteriorates into a mediocre mystery involving launderettes and finger chopping.  I wanted to love it, but after I finish typing this sentence, the film will most likely drop from my memory immediately.

The Square: In 2011, Egyptian filmmaker Jehane Noujaim was determined to document the people's revolution, in which thousands of Christians & Muslims gathered in the Tahrir Square in Cairo in an effort to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak.  But once they succeed...The King Is Dead, Long Live The King.  Noujaim had several years to record these events, and The Square practically takes us up to the present day, and thanks to Netflix it can stream into your home tonight.  Idealists find their cause shaken, but not shattered.  What is victory?  What is loss?  It's a powerful piece of journalism, and if not for the revelatory experience that is The Act of Killing, I'd give Oscar to The Square.

Drive:  "You look like you're hard to work with."  What is this?  My tenth rewatch?  Sounds about right.  This time around I can't help but see the influence of both The Driver & Thief.  The opening scene is a straight up lifted from Walter Hill, and Ryan Gosling's anonymous wheelman has the facebashing meanness of James Caan mixed with Ryan O'Neal's don't-give-a-shit blankness.  Drive is homage cinema, and I'm not sure it quite elevates it the way a Tarantino film can sometime achieve.  But it's slick, cool, and twisted.  It respects its characters enough to take them through the black hole of violence and leave them appropriately shattered.  Until that last breath in the second to last shot.  Hope?  In a Refn picture???  Yep.  This is also my first time through the film post-Breaking Bad & Inside Llewyn Davis, so I found myself paying close attention to both Bryan Cranston & Oscar Isaac.  Cranston's gimpy Shannon is light years away from Walter White, a soft low-rent entrepreneur who shakes hands with all the wrong people.  Almost from the moment he walks on screen you know he's fish bait.  Isaac's reformed convict is just a puppy dog.  It's a cliche story the audience doesn't bother to sympathize with because it's simply the catalyst to spring Gosling's Driver into action.  Still, I believe every word he says at his Welcome Home party.  Drive is a fun crime film.  But it's no Only God Forgives, a film that currently ranks at the top of Refn's work for me.

The Dark Knight Trilogy:  "There are many forms of immortality."  Are you ready?  Christopher Nolan's Batman Saga is my absolute favorite cinematic trilogy.  Sorry to Star Wars, The Godfather, and The Lord of the Rings.  All fine films, but The Dark Knight Trilogy is the only set of films that takes its material as seriously as the comic books.  This is Frank Miller's world, Neal Adams's world, Jeph Loeb's world, etc, etc.  Batman Begins is still my favorite of the batch.  It's the only story (including comic books and animated series) to truly detail the psychology of Bruce Wayne.  The use of fear is exceptional - young Bruce's fear of bats essentially kills his parents, that fear becomes his weapon, and Ra's Al Ghul uses it to assault the people of Gotham.  Of course the Scarecrow has to be involved.  The Dark Knight is the only comic book film to up the villain ante and succeed.  The Joker is Gotham's response to the presence of The Bat Man and the dream of Harvey Dent's savior smashing upon the rocks.  And The Dark Knight Rises takes the saga to its epic heights with the siege of the city dropping its players into a Dickensonian nightmare.  The films are not without their flaws, like any trilogy, but I can forgive the exposition and the questionable shakey cam battles and even the leaps in logic.  I am simply thankful for the gravitas Nolan grants these characters.  An epic worthy of David Lean.

--Brad

A Fistful of Cinematic Resolutions 2014! (Brad's Picks)

Last year I attempted to stretch my cinematic muscles and fill the gaping gaps in my 34 years of movie watching.  It took almost an entire year, but I finally consumed Singin' In The Rain, 8 1/2, Gone With The Wind, The African Queen, and Birth of a Nation.  I know, shameful, right?  I'm not here to make excuses.  I could mock you for not having partaken in real art like Starcrash or The Monster Squad, but I'm not a snooty A-hole like you hipster jerkwads obviously are.......yeah...ok...I'm obviously dealing with some not-so-latent film fanaticism ego issues.  It feels good to finally have those films under my belt.  I mean, Birth of a Nation - that is one astonishingly evil film.  We all know it's the product of some serious institutionalized racism, but I actually found it more palatable than the horror show on display in Gone With The Wind.  I kinda hate that film now.  I think the argument could be made that Gone With The Wind is no less vile than Birth of a Nation with its happy slaves and slap crazed Scarlet O'Hara.  And I didn't particularly take to Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 either.  I can appreciate the pain of the creative process and Marcello Mastroianni is certainly intoxicating to watch, but the film equaled little more than a reference point for The Great Beauty.  I never emotionally invested.  The African Queen was fun.  But I'll take The Maltese Falcon for my Bogart/Huston love.  As it turns out the film I enjoyed the most out of last year's resolutions was the one I was anticipating the least - Singin' In The Rain.  That is one joyous outpouring of love for cinema, and it slapped a massive smile on my face.

New year, new resolutions.  I filled out this current batch with a fistful of movies I'm sick & tired of hearing about from family & friends.  There is some stuff for cineastes as well as the VH1 crowd.  I've done a little cheating, pairing a couple of films as a means of completing filmmaker legacies.  There are certainly a few flicks here that I'm ashamed for having missed so far.  It's impossible to see all the movies, but that doesn't mean we can't try.  These are the musts for 2014, but I'm still working my way through Roger Ebert's The Great Films as well as sailing full steam ahead with those unwatched Criterion's sitting next to my television.  I've got my fingers crossed that some of these Resolutions find their way to the AFI Silver or The Alamo like they did with Gone With The Wind and 8 1/2, but I won't hold my breath either.  I've already procured blu rays for everything here with the exception of the Number One spot.

5.  Saturday Night Fever/Grease:  I've been talking to a lot of folks in an effort to determine the other big holes in my cultural knowledge.  The film most people seemed shocked to discover that I've never seen all the way through is Grease.  Why is that?  Most people seem to follow the conversation to a place where they mock the film's morals, but still support the music.  This leads to other talk surrounding Travolta and that disco behemoth known as Saturday Night Fever.  So, this is obviously where I have to start my New Year.  John Travolta.  Blow Out.  Pulp Fiction.  Look Who's Talking.  This man has made some of my favorite movies.  Will I add two more to the list?

4.  Tokyo Story:  This film ranks #3 on the BFI's 50 Greatest Films of All Time; right behind Vertigo & Citizen Kane.  Those are two films that proved to live up to their hyperbolic praise, so here's hoping.  In college, all the hardcore film freaks geeked at the genius of Yasujiro Ozu, but in 1998 I was more concerned with the genius of Clint Eastwood & John Carpenter to be bothered with the arty-farty.  I'd like to think that I've made great strides in the last decade, but Tokyo Story has remained a dead zone.  Criterion's recent blugrade gives offers No Excuses.  The film might not contain any noble samurai, but I look forward to some real-deal cultural enlightenment.

3.  Duck Soup:  Comedy, like musicals, has never been my thing.  I'll bust a gut for movies like The Blues Brothers, The Big Lebowski, or even Your Highness, but I've never bothered to explore the history of the genre.  A funny thing (pun intended) has happened in the last couple of years though.  Again, thanks to those good folks over at Criterion, I've discovered a great fondness for Charlie Chaplin & Harold Lloyd.  Pratfalls and bad luck are timeless.  Some of the biggest laughs I had last year were watching Chaplin navigate the tortures of the rich in City Lights.  And now it's time to branch out from the Criterion Cult - get into the Talkies.  It's impossible growing up to avoid The Marx Brothers completely.  I may have never seen one of their films, but I've certainly encountered Groucho in Looney Tune homage.  He sure does have a goofy mustache.  But it's time to peek behind the curtain of iconography and delve into a classic.

2.  Spartacus/Lolita/Barry Lyndon:  I'm probably more disgusted with myself for having not seen these three films than any other on this list.  Stanley Kubrick - The God Of Film.  You can't call yourself a movie lover without bowing down to the supremacy of 2001 A Space Odyssey.  With the exception of these flicks I've seen every single one of his films.  Some I don't get (A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket), some I ignore (Fear & Desire, Killer's Kiss), some I like (Paths of Glory, Dr Strangelove), some I love (The Killing, The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut), and one I worship (the aforementioned 2001).  Is he the single greatest director to ever craft a film?  I'm sure that's debatable.  But it's a debate I cannot partake in until I seen Spartacus, Lolita, & Barry Lyndon.

1.  The Other Godzillas:  Similar to appreciating Kubrick, you cannot call yourself a movie maniac without loving Godzilla.  It's a fact, look it up.  I've watched Gojira a dozen times by this point in my life, but I've only seen one other member of the Godzilla franchise - Ghedora the Three Headed Monster (thanks to Co-Dork Matt actually).  Having recently devoured and obsessed over James Stokoe's Half Century War, and with the upcoming Summer reboot from Gareth Edwards, it's time that I got down and dirty with Ishiro Honda.   I'm not committing to all of the Godzilla films; I'm letting Matt pick the essentials for me.  I might have to get creative with acquiring some of these films (OOP folks is a real bummer), but I'm planning on seeing Rodan, Mothra, Mothra Vs Godzilla, Invasion of the Astromonster, Godzilla Vs The Sea Monster, Godzilla Vs Hedorah, Godzilla Vs Megalon, Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla, and Terror of Mechagodzilla before the May 16th release date of the new film.  Better get hot, that's a lotta movies.

--Brad

Dork Art: Justin White's Rated G - The Sequel

Here's another helping of Justin White's devilishly cartoony genre makeovers.  Rated G - The Sequel will be showing at Gallery 1988 through September 14th.  Again, why does LA get to have all the fun?  The 2001 monkey madness print might be my favorite, but the smiley American Psycho is a close second.  You can buy some of the prints on the Gallery 1988 website, and you can explore other Mickey Mouse interpretations over at Crome Yellow.  Good stuff.

--Brad