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April 01, 2008

Two Thousands and Seven Pennies.

April Fools!

My moving-going in 2007 was way above 2005 and 2006, and a hair above 2004 when I started keeping track of such silly things. 36 flicks, all told (300, 1408, An Unreasonable Man, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, Beowolf, Blades of Glory, Blood Diamond, Bourne Ultimatium, Breach, Charlie Wilson's War, Darjeeling Limited, Death at a Funeral, Disturbia, Evan Almighty, Helvetica, Hot Fuzz, I Am Legend, Into the Wild, Juno, The King of Kong, Knocked Up, Live Free or Die Hard, The Lives of Others, The Namesake, No Country for Old Men, Paprika, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Ratatouille, Rescue Dawn, Sicko, The Simpsons Movie, Spider-Man 3, Superbad, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, There Will Be Blood, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story). The increased outings were probably partially due to there being a lot of good movies out, and partially due to me sneaking into a lot more films since I've moved to New York (hey, at $12 a pop, it's almost like they want you to).

Anywho, a quick rundown of the year before getting on with the show...

I saw Zodiac on DVD, and it was good, but I probably wouldn't have put it on this list... despite my love for Fincher flicks.

I didn't see No End in Sight or Taxi To The Darkside, but I did see Sicko, and I was unimpressed.

I did not see Pan's Labriynth or The Host, but I did see I Am Legend. And while I wish it were on here, I just can't do it... the bad CGI bad guys were just bad. In a bad way. Not in a bad way.

I feel bad that I'm leaving out "good" movies like The Lives of Others and Into The Wild in exchange for a bunch of Apatow, but, well, that's where we are as a society.

Likewise, I feel bad leaving out Wes Andersony goodness in the form of The Darjeeling Limited, but, well... eh.

I also feel bad leaving out Hot Fuzz, but it was no Shawn of the Dead. It does make me want to see Point Break again, though. And Point Break Live!

Of the Best Picture/Best Director Nominees (they're almost one in the same), I've seen 3 of the 6... although I doubt Michael Clayton, Atonement or The Diving Bell and The Butterfly would have made the cut anyway.

As for worst movie of the year, it was a close race between Evan Almighty, Spider-Man 3 and Beowolf. (Interestingly, I saw all three at the Lincoln Square Cinema on 68th... hmm.) None of them were particularly bad per-se, but I had expectations for each, and none of them lived up to those expectations. That said, I think I'm going to have to give it to Evan Almighty. Spider-Man 3 was entertaining, and I saw Beowolf (in IMAX 3D!) for free, so it could have been worse. Evan Almighty was just bad... and to top it off, the only reason I saw it was because I couldn't sneak into Sicko.

Finally, I'd also like to point out that Sweeney Todd gets the honorary 11 spot, since it was pretty awesome, but just not quite there. Sorry Megan.

Anyway, to the list:

#10: No Country For Old Men - Mostly on here so Javier Bardem scares the shit out of me and if he got word that I didn't put him on my top ten list he'd blow out my brains with compressed air. I think that's fair, don't you? The Coen Brothers are in a dark place, man. Check out The New York Times article about the music (or lack thereof); it's pretty spot on.

#9: The Bourne Ultimatum - I'm hoping this wraps up Herr Bourne's story. It made a pant-load of money, however, so I'm sure they'll bring him back at some point.

#8: There Will Be Blood - Or, as I like to call it: "White Dudes: Doing Crazy Shit For Oil Since 1898." Or, alternatively "White Dudes: Doing Crazy Shit for Jesus Since 1898." Either works. Seriously, though, good stuff. As much as I love the Coen Brothers, I disagree with the Academy, and I think this was the better film between it and No Country For Old Men. Despite the awful music. (And despite not enough Paul F. Tompkins.)

#7: Superbad - More like Supergood! Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night. Here we have both Michael Cera and Jonah Hill making their first of two appearances on this list. I wish high school was more like this when I was growing up. In actuality I suppose it was, I just wasn't a part of all of these hijinks and shenanigans. I was too busy being a nerd. Glad I fixed that in college. Although I didn't get into Dartmouth. Goddammit.

#6: Knocked Up - Seth Rogan was probably my favorite part about The 40 Year-Old Virgin, a Judd Apatow saw that and said "I'm going to make a movie based entirely around Seth Rogan." Thanks, Judd. But also, like The 40 Year-Old Virgin, the main character's friends pretty much steal the show. And I mean "friends" literally, since they're all pretty much playing themselves (to the point where their characters' names are the actors' names).

#5: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - Pre-heat your oven, grease up your Walk The Line pan, put in one part Naked Gun, another part This is Spinal Tap, throw in some Apatow, sprinkle on some excellent cameos, add a pinch of Tim Meadows and wrap it all in John C. Reilly. Cook for 96 minutes and serve. There you have Walk Hard. If only for Tim Meadows. And a lot of sinks. Oh, and entirely too much full frontal male nudity. Yet simultaneously not enough. Weird. The unrated DVD (which is inevitable) is going to be unbearable.

#4: The Namesake - I love me some Kumar. Err, Taj. Err, Kal Penn.

#3: Ratatouille - Fucking Pixar. They just can't be stopped. They made a movie about a rat who wants to be a chef in Paris into a phenomenal film. Wha? After this and Cars, I've just given up... they're an unstoppable menace. Even Disney knows it. Prediction: after Wall•E, their next movie will be about a group of sentient boulder people who adopt a orphan meerkat and teach him the ancient art of origami. It will gross 800 million dollars.

#2: Juno - About five minutes into Juno you start asking yourself whether you can put up with an hour and a half of teenage girls saying "honest to blog?" and other bullshit. By about the 10 minute mark though, the film has already won you over and you just sit back and enjoy it. J.K. Simmons as always, represent.

#1: The King of Kong - "You're the best! / Around!" King of Kong is such a good movie it hurts. If you don't know what it is, let me give you the one sentence summary from the website, because the summary itself is genius:

King of Kong Follows a middle school science teacher as he battles a hot sauce mogul for the Guinness World Record on the arcade classic Donkey Kong.

It's really excellent. I saw it at the Tribeca Film Festival and it was one of the best movie-going experiences of my life; the crowd really got into it... they laughed, the booed, they cheered, they loved it. I then saw it again at its official New York premiere and met the director, the producer and on of the stars, Steve Wiebe... also awesome (Steve signed a Donkey Kong cartridge for me "I've never signed a cartridge for someone before" he said). Then I saw it a third time in Times Square, after which I snuck into two other films... but really, I should have just watched King of Kong three more times. It's just that good. And it's a travesty that it wasn't nominated for Best Documentary. (Maybe it was submitted for best picture... because it should have been.)

It's worth noting the film does have its detractors, but that just makes the whole thing more interesting to me. I say see the movie, do some reading, and decide for yourself what the real story is. Regardless, it's the most entertaining movie about competitive Donkey Kong playing you're bound to see. I promise you that.

Posted by pat at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)