Year's Best 2000-2005

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Review Quickies

I remember watching the first film to ever be shot from a character's point of view. The film is called Lady in the Lake, a 1947 Raymond Chandler adaptation of a Phillip Marlowe story, and the film nearly drove me crazy. As this viewer found himself trapped inside Marlowe’s stiff body he finally knew what John Cusack must have felt like in Being John Malkovich. The feeling was one of suffocation as well as a stiffening sense of annoyance that such a stylistic gimmick would be performed by a director just because. Baring a few exceptions (like that classic Robert Zemeckis episode of Tails from the Crypt that was told from the perspective of Humphrey Bogart's dead body), Lady in the Lake proved that films just can't sustain the first person shooter vibe effectively. Until now.

I began The Diving Bell and the Butterfly not knowing that a significant portion of the story would be told through the POV of its protagonist and I'm glad I didn't because I would have doubted its ability to inspire through internal monologues and soaring visuals. There is a scene in Julian Schnabel's story where a middle aged man, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric from Munich and Kings and Queen), is recovering from a stroke (with a coma chaser), and can't do the simplest of things. He can't speak, can't move, can’t chew… can't do anything… and we're stuck with him, feeling what he feels for every moment of his journey. He is called a vegetable on a few occasions and I don't think I've ever understood the reality of that term as vividly until I saw Diving Bell. The scene I speak of occurs as patronizing hospital workers are trying to get this man to say the alphabet. The artful Julian Schnabel (whose credits includes Basquat and Before Night Falls) swiftly cuts away from this hospital room to a Biohazard-esq shot of a deep see diver—a figure with all the pressure of the ocean upon him. As the metaphor denotes an ocean crushing a man’s very being in an abysmal abyss of darkness, the man tries to express what he’s feeling and says "My head weights a ton, my whole body is encased in a kind of diving suit. My task now is to write the motionless travel notes from a castaway on the shores of loneliness." Simple yet somehow poetic, Schnabel gets it! The filmmaker he made something that is entirely true to its subject matter.

Diving Bell is told from a man's limited sight-line and felt from his mind's eye (with gorgeous, sun bleached flashbacks to his former life juxtaposed with blurry visions of his horrifying anxieties and subconscious) and it feels more open and spontaneous than most films I've seen all year. As the man’s wife stands by him despite his womanizing past, it is also one of the most heartbreaking love stories of the year. By turning this bleak situation into a requiem for humanism, Schnabel has fashioned what I can only describe as art out of suffering. The theme of human perseverance in the face of many obstacles (of what happens when one’s body literally turns into a prison), as well as the film's uncanny ability to alchemize motionlessness into something intellectually and visually rousing, is thrilling in its own right, but to make us experience what it means to live again --from the smallest utterance to the most miniscule facial movements-- is an extraordinary thing to behold. And all this... for what? we're meant to ask as the story of Jean-Dominique ends. The answer to the film’s central existential, or, shall I say we-live-because-we-suffer and suffer-because-we-live question occurred to me as I walked out of the screening to realize, in a very physical way, how wonderful it to WALK out of the screening. To live. Many films strive for this effect, with only a few ever truly achieving it, and practically none achieve it in such a visceral way.

Grade: A

Articles

• Screamfest Wrap-Up Blog
• Gone Baby Gone

Reviews

• Redacted: C
• No Country for Old Men: A
• Before The Devil Knows You're Dead: C+
• Reservation Road : C
• Into The Wild: B-

Review Quickies

Lars and the Real Girl
Antisocial man named Lars (played by Ryan Gosling) gets a girlfriend. (So far so good.) Only thing is, Lars' girlfriend is not human, she's a sex doll, a "real doll" to be exact. (Hum, interesting reversal of romantic comedy conventions; I'm still totally hanging in there.) The aloof Lars is an innocent little lamb that uses his shiney new doll for companionship, hanging out, dinner parties and, well, basically everything except for what it's designed for. (Odd ball character study are cool!) Family, friends and basically EVERY. SINGLE. small town denizens tries to help Lars' precarious post-human situation by indulging his fantasies and pretending his "girlfriend" is real. (What, why, wait: WHAT!) And Lars actually thinks she's real... for two hours he does as everyone plays along, and along, and along in this screwball indie disaster. By the end, lofty themes relating to life lessons, civic unity, and sexual acceptance within the religious community ripped out of some rusty Capra page book result. (F-that, homes, count me out.) I don't think this film works. In fact, I KNOW it doesn’t. It doesn’t work on any cinematic level. It is a total failure as a comedy and as a character study it remains hugely unsatisfying and incoherent due to a lack of attention towards the character in question. I don't even think this film would have worked as a two minute short, let alone a full length feature. This idea certainly didn't work when the film was named "Dummy" and had basically the same plot.

My feeling is that "Lars and the Real Girl" is a fun(ish) sort of concept that, like communism, works best on paper and in theory. Its overly precious small town "magic," however, disappears entirely when the concept tries to go beyond the page and into the literal. I'm all about untraditional love stories (I just saw a movie in which a zombie named "Fido" falls in love with a housewife... and it totally works!) and I even tend to enjoy one-sided, crazy stalker love stories ("Taxi Driver"), so the film's unique approach is not the problem here. The film establishes a through-line of real world logic only to abandon it as it expects us to fill in all the many gaps in the characters behavior. The contrivances begin when the local doctor (Patricia Clarkson) tells Lars’ concerned brother to “play along.” A lot in this film is excused because it's set in a small town and I guess that's where people work differently (read, insanely), or so we are meant to believe. Lars' supportive family, neighbors and even priest exist to help his childish delusions as if that's all there is to their life. These people warm up to Lars' strange deal way too easily and pop in like sitcom characters without ever coming across as real or funny or anything beyond a backdrop. "From her wheelchair, Bianca reached out and touched us all in ways we could never have imagined" the unbelievably patient Priest says during a church service. Is this moment meant to be funny?

I have no idea what "Lars and the Real Girl" is going for tonally. Just about the only thing I do know is how insincere and false it is. It's a horribly confused creation from director Craig Gillespie and screenwriter Nancy Oliver that suffers from as much of an identity crisis as Lars himself. I hate that Ryan Gosling is so good in this film because the movie, and execution of the movie’s central idea, is so bad. The principal irony here is that Gosling's interpretation of Lars' psychosis is at times very compelling. This becomes the film's fatal error character because Lars is far too underdeveloped for my liking. For example, much of Lars' interaction with his sexy Real Doll gal-pal from South America takes place off screen, in his imagination or from a different character's point of view. This is not so much a film about "Lars and the Real Girl" as it is about "Small Town and Lars and The Real Girl." That, my friends, is what I call a mouthful. And speaking of full, this film is full... of shit! Grade: F

Lust, Caution
Anger, boredom. Along with superheroes, Ang Lee has to give up his forbidden love period movie trip because his latest is the world’s most uneventful spy film. The film consists of characters positioning themselves (in ways you can’t even imagine) and observations made but not spoken and period movie sets that look like sets, and agendas and costumes and hair and hours of freaking mahjong. The sex is hot, in a twisted-body Kama Sutra sort of way, but the plot, dealing with two lovers (Tony Leung and Wei Tang) who are on opposite sides during the Japanese occupation of China circa WWII (think of this as Casablanca meets Todd Haynes’ Far From Hong Kong), does not ignite with any spark of imagination. Lust, Caution is top-notch production that plays like a textbook example of how to do a period movie. But textbooks are inert. Oh, well, at least the score by Alexandre Desplat is subtle and effecting and relays more emotion than what’s on screen. Aaaand the cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto (Inarratu’s guy) is brilliant in a Good German sort of way because it expertly uses an obvious self-aware noir style. Even Lee as a director is a pro when it comes to handling intimate moments that have a way of being interrupted by small bursts of violence and/or sex. C+

December Boys
Daniel Radcliff comes of age… again. And an orphan… again. And without magic! Regardless of who plays the orphan, though, we know the story. Why has everyone growing up in the movies experienced the same damned childhood? And why does every narrator have to be so sentimental while describing his sun-drenched adolescence? And why should I care? Bad nostalgia coming-of-age movies made by lame baby boomers for lame baby-boomers must come to an end!!! Not only are they using up all our social security but they're also leaving behind a legacy of bad movies. C-

Summer 07: My Favorite Films
I have an unpleasant record for being cranky in the heat and throwing some major SPF on summer movies. In fact, I can't remember the last summer I was anywhere close to pleased with Hollywood's solstice offerings. That is, not until this weekend when I looked back and thought about my favorite films of the season. This summer, like the year in general, is replete with worthy titles.

1. Danny Boyle Produced/Rose Byrne Films 

Yes, Rose Byre. That gal from Troy? Yup, the very one! And she wasn't just in the top two Summer films, she's just about in in the top two films of the year, period. In Sunshine she plays the emotional core of a scientific expedition to save earth. In both films she works for the American government, in both she pouts and in both she risks her life to try and save humanity. Literally. First off, the hottest film of the summer was Sunshine. Gwah, had to do that. Seriously, Danny Boyle's meticulously made Sunshine is a staggering achievement that's way more brilliant than the lackluster reviews ("unoriginal"???!!!) and pitiable box office tally indicates. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey and last year's overlooked (even by me) The Fountain, this is studio science fiction filmmaking at its cerebral finest and financially riskiest. Sunshine is not only an exciting genre movie (that adds a second genre at the end, horror) but a fantastic allegory for man's ability to control nature and resist fundamental religious tendencies that seek to damn and devolve mankind with their archaic beliefs. One of the first true science fiction films that's pro science.

Not so much "pro" on the science side is 28 Weeks Later, a zombish panopticon thriller that exposes the dark side of mankind, not through zombies but through mankind's inhuman reaction to zombies. This is a zombie film for the surveillance age. It may also be the most relevant film in the genre to date.

This summer producer/director Danny Boyle has managed to surpass everything he's ever done (and maybe ever will do).  
Both: A

Hostel 2
Just Hostel 2. It's that upfront about what it is; no need to hide its sequel status with semicolons, (Hostel: Back to the Chopping Block this is not) or big stars. I respect Eli Roth because he doesn't rehash the first and didn't feel the need to make the same film with a bigger budget. Roth attempts to get inside the mind of madness to explain, as best a film like this can, the connection between bloodlust and commerce. I loved it! 

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
An unpopular opinion but the third Pirates is by far the best in the series. Hear me out: it takes risks, it's way convoluted for a mainstream franchise film and has no qualms --none at all-- about ripping that thumping heart out of Davie Jones' chest to wear it on its sleeve. Gore Veribnski, a true stylist with a great eye for compelling visuals (loved the Bunuellian desert sequence), has turned in a baroque high seas adventure fully of romanticism. The response was largely negative. Well of course it was! Verbinski took a big risk and didn't pull a Matrix Revolutions by watering down the series (punny)! Verbinski instead went overboard (another pun!) and included just about everything he and his creative team could up (Depp's Being Jack Sparrow shtick is classic). These everybody-pleasing genre shifts occur naturally. At World's End is the best stand alone story in a trilogy whose confusing elements come together in an essential second viewing (can't wait for the DVD to see it a third time). It does not redefine the Pirates series but, rather, defines it for the first time. Grade: A-

My Best Friend
Mine too.

Rattoultue  
If, as the posthumous specter says in this film, that "Everybody can cook" is true, than it is also true that everybody can enjoy. And enjoy I did. This film puts storytelling first and animation for kids second, or maybe third. It's also the best Pixar film to come out since the first Toy Story. And least condescending of all. Grade: A-

1408
For me, the biggest and most unexpected reward of the summer was spending 90 minutes with a crazy John Cusack in a room. Show me another actor who would have made this film work?

Spider-Man 3
Gets the award for best big budget studio film without Pirates. By no means flawless but by all means fun. And, hey, I finally liked a Spider-Man film. Joy! Adjusted Grade: B+

Superbad
No, Super-Good. Spermicidal lube!!!??? McLovin! This is the most quotable (and fun... and funniest) film of the summer. Superbad, or as I'm calling it, the After Hours of teen flicks, takes on a no-condescending, no pandering stance and sticks to the subject matter to the end. It reminds me of the time when Richard Linklater was a good filmmaker. It's the kind of film I wish Apatow would have done post Freaks and Geeks. But he hasn't. Oh well, at least Seth Rogen has carried the freewheeling vibe of that show into this amazing teen sex comedy. Hum, this isn't exactly a "sex comedy," though, it's a sex-talk comedy. Grade: B+

Transformers: Bottom line, Transformers don't translate well to live action. When boring, jive talking CGI robots transform, the effect feels phony enough to make me wish the rest of the film was animated. Still, I hand it to Bay for including some really great moments with his human actors including LaBeouf and his parents--no jive there.

Worst Film of the Summer: No film was bad enough to qualify. Yay! Though, I should mention that I failed to see I Know Who Killed Me, that new Larry the Cable Guy film, Who's Your Caddy and of course Rush Hour 3. Can't wait.

My Personal AFI Top Fifty American Films

   1. Pulp Fiction (Tarantino)
   2. Citizen Kane (Welles)
   3. Crimes and Misdemeanors (Allen)
   4. JFK and Nixon double feature (Stone)
   5. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
   6. The Man Who Would Be King (Huston)
   7. Sunset Blvd. (Wilder)
   8. His Girl Friday (Hawks)
   9. Alien (Scott)
  10. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse (E. Coppola)
  11. The Empire Strikes Back (Kirshner)
  12. Magnolia (Anderson)
  13. Mr. Arkadin (Welles)
  14. Mulholland Dr. (Lynch)
  15. Network (Lumet)
  16. The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles)
  17. Underworld USA (Fuller)
  18. Barton Fink (Coen)
  19. Fight Club (Fincher)
  20. Planet of the Apes (Schaffner)
  21. Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2
  22. The Conversation (Coppola)
  23. Die Hard (McTiernan)
  24. Heat (Mann)
  25. The Thin Red Line (Malick)
  26. The Lord of the Rings: Trilogy (Jackson)
  27. Jaws (Spielberg)
  28. Singing in the Rain (Doen/Kelly)
  29. A History of Violence (Cronenberg)
  30. Dawn of the Dead (Romero)
  31. High Noon (Zinnemann)
  32. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Peckinpah)
  33. Out of Sight (Soderbergh)
  34. The Graduate (Nichols)
  35. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Roy Hill)
  36. My Dinner with Andre (Malle)
  37. Starship Troopers (Verhoeven)
  38. The Last Temptation of Christ (Scorsese)
  39. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Schrader)
  40. Sullivan’s Travels (Sturges)
  41. In a Lonely Place (Ray)
  42. Hamlet (Branagh)
  43. Body Double (De Palma)
  44. Purple Rose of Cario (Allen)
  45. The Lady in the Window (Lang)
  46. Double Indemnity (Wilder)
  47. Rolling Thunder (Flynn)
  48. Fantasia (Alger/Armstrong)
  49. The Omega Man (Segal)
  50. Rear Window (Hitchcock)

Note: I’m excluding silent films and films I feel to be intrinsically British such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, David Lean’s “American” films and The Third Man.

McClane vs....
John McClane vs. John Rambo: McClane
John McClane vs. Martin Riggs: McClane The Batman vs. Spiderman match-up of the action world. And I've maintained McClane's supremacy over Mel Gibson this for over a decade!
McClane vs. Osama bin Laden: McClane. and I know this because Willis took Osama out in Planet Terror. 
McClane vs. Passenger 57: McClane, easily.
McClane vs. Axel Foley  : No contest,  McClane
McClane vs. James Bond: Bond and McClane  McClane would wipe out Moore, Lazenby, Dalton and Craig no problem but have considerable difficulty with Connery and Brosnan, IMO.  
McClane vs. Ash: Tie They would fight only to realize that they could hang instead--maybe even be lovers. 
McClane vs. Ellen Ripley: Ripley She beat a mother alien!
And most importantly: John McClane vs. John McCane: McClane

AF-Oy
AFI films I wound have left off the list
Observations: Many of the AFI films are good but not relevant (Sophie's Choice) while most are relevant but flawed films that caused a case of near-sightedness in voters (for the love of god, Forrest Gump?!), IMO.  Also, there is a clear 60s/70s bias at work that has all but ruined the credibility of the AFI for me. A whopping 35 out of a 100 placements for this era is egregious in my opinion. That's almost half! Get this, the 1940s and 1950s (arguably the dominant period for American cinema) only got 23 films on the list!!!!!!!!! And the last two decades, huh, forget about it because apparently only Steven Spielberg and M Night Shamalyn have made worthwhile films in my lifetime. I contribute this to the average age of those voters who grew up in the bullshit American Graffiti era and think that the world revolves around The Godfather, that The French Connection is the best action film ever made and that The Deer Hunter is any good. Tomorrow I'll list an equal number of American films that should replace the following...  

98. Yankee Doodle Dandy--I love me some Cagney, but for some reason not in musicals. There is no explanation for this other than he just doesn't pull it off. 
95. The Last Picture Show--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick. Gets more credit than it should. I think they listed this just to get Bogdonovich to talk to them. 
93. The French Connection--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick. Hey, I love Hackman and Friedkin but this is a film of its time. 
91. Sophie's Choice--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick. A good performance but that's it. Plus, this is higher that Pulp Fiction?
89. The Sixth Sense--of all the great films released in the last ten years this is one of the best? Especially now we know that Night is a hack. And if you ask me, if you're going to praise a film of his, praise Unbreakable.
86. Platoon--I'll take Born on the 4^th  of July any day over this Stone film
85. A Night at the Opera--I dislike the Marx Brothers, sorry, what do you want me to do? They're not funny, they're lecherous and creep me out.
84. Easy Rider--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick. One of the worst films of all time. Bad message movie, bad filmmaking, bad acting, bad experimentation, bad, bad, bad.
83. Titanic--not bad necessarily but the film doesn’t hold up compared to L.A. Confidential released the same year. Still, I give the films props for it's impact.
77. All the President's Men--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick.
76. Forrest Gump--again, one of the worst films of all time. Glad the people are finally backlash
75. In the Heat of the Night--another so-so seventies film.
74. The Silence of the Lambs--all this film is is a good thriller. But their are better ones, how about The Game.
71. Saving Private Ryan--Maleck's The Thin Red Line should have been in place of this overwrought war film.
70. A Clockwork Orange--I don't consider this American, no way
69. Tootsie--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick.
63. Cabaret--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick.
62. American Graffiti--AFI sixties/sev471enties poo-poo pick.
60. Duck Soup--even I can't deny this film's relevance, but still....
54. MASH--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick.
59. Nashville--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick.
57. Rocky--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick.
47. Streetcar Named Desire
45. Shane--a middling Western at best. How about noticing an Anthony Mann western instead?
43. Midnight Cowboy--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick. Did anyone actually re-watch this film.
37. The Best Years of Our Lives--another relevant film that did an honorable and necessary thing but it doesn't hold up.
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestAFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick.
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington--the totality of the American way reduced to one, big, phony lie used to comfort Americans into thinking politicians actually care about the people. 
25. To Kill a Mockingbird--they don't make em' like this anymore. Thank god.
24. E.T.--perhaps my least favorite film of all time. My hate for it knows no boundaries. Die E.T.!
23. The Grapes of Wrath--relevant for the time but try watching it today. 
20. It's a Wonderful Life--the patriarch of overrated feel-good pap.
19. On the Waterfront
8. Schindler's List--yeah, off Schindler's list
7. Lawrence of Arabia--not American!
4. Raging Bull--AFI sixties/seventies poo-poo pick. (okay, it's 1980 but close enough). Never been a big fan of this film and I've never been able to articulate why. It's well made, of course, and brilliantly acted but not even close to Scorsese's best.

The End Is Nie: The Final Episodes of The Sopranos

• Episode 8 (Blue Comet)
  The most intense and subtlety disturbing episode of The Sopranos episode to date. This episode feels almost like a Greek tragedy in which the fates finally catch up with the flawed hero. Aesthetically, two moments stand out and they're not typical. One is when Dr. Melfi is reading about sociopaths titled "The Criminal Personality" and the words relating to  Tony's condition jump out at her (and us) in a startling fashion. In an extreme close-up the words pound the viewer with big blocks of condemning letters like "THE CRIMINAL" cut "USES INSIGHT." cut "TO JUSTIFY" cut "HEINOUS ACTS." The second is a miniature train store murder that takes the POV of one of the zipping trains. I was floored by the Kubrickian flair taken up by director Alan Taylor. From his psychiatric analysis ending in failure ("the talking cure only helps them become better criminals" means that Tony's time with Melfi has made his "sickness" worse!!!) to the breakdown in his moral code (the magazine snatching is a small "crime" but says a lot), this is it...  A
  Episode 9 (Made in America)
  ...almost. It all comes down to this. It feels like the world is ending. And for Tony, it is. All the energy and building sense of dread in previous episodes carries over in this aptly titled series ender that ends the mob saga not with a bang-bang but with something infinitely more complex, allegorical and thought provoking. As directed and written by series creator David Chase, the man his put his series to bed in a way only he could--Chase, in my opinion, has tied all the narrative threads without resolving anything. Life goes on. 
  Having not partaken in reading analysis and internet grumblings, my opinion/take on the ending is as follows. First, it's brilliant and that screencap above represents one of the best and most ambiguous sequences in Television history. My take, then: that life will never be easy for Tony and the life he leads. That the family will never quite be together (this is made clear in the penultimate scene with Uncle Junior and of course the final shot with Meadow juuuuuuuusssssssttttttt opening the diner door, at the presuppose of... nothingness, somethingness, and what-the-fuckingness). That death is just around the corner (literally, he may be in the bathroom of the diner!).
  On a final note, I think this episode proves that this show should never again be underestimated. I myself believe that The Sopranos is far from perfect as a complete series but there's no denying it's place and impact on popular culture and, well, me. It's changed the way we look at television. The headlines had it right, the end of The Sopranos is the end of an era. This episode, particularly the final scene set in a restaurant with all the strange faces and looming sense of dread (which should be juxtaposed with the restaurant-set season one ender where the family existed in harmony amidst the metaphorical storm outside), ensures that people will be talking about this show forever. Tony and what he represents (the decay of capitalism, industry, God, family, and the self... and that's just this episode) marks the departure (or shall I say The Departing) of the premier mob archetype. Better than Goodfellas. Better than Godfather. Hell, better than God. A+

Catching Up: Two Summer Films

Shrek The Third: C+
The phenomenon of Shrek has eluded me all these years. The first film struck me as a half-hearted, post-mod children's film that reveled too obviously in its subversions of fairy tales and has jokes that were innocuous at best, forced at worst. And the second film included more of the same tee-hee fart jokes and dreary allusions. Now here we are with Shrek 3 and, oddly enough, as with Spiderman 3, I find myself intrigued by a franchise that underachieves because when overrated films achieve, I heave. Shrek The Third is the funniest most relatable of Shreks because it’s the most relaxed and un-forced outing. On top of that, the animation is top notch—finally the visuals in a Shrek movie catch up the high concept. The film is far from groundbreaking but now that it’s gotten past how cute it is, the film has plenty to say about revisionist story telling, fairy tale feminism and, well, itself. I appreciated the metafictional subplot in which the antagonist Prince Charming conquers the land of Far Far Away and his first edict as a dictator is to put on a play about Shrek. The film may not be great but it's not as bad as everyone says. 

28 Weeks Later: A-
Not reviewed due to my schedule but, trust me, one of the best films of the year. Picture Children of Men with Zombies. Picture a sequel that blows away (but also enhances) the original. And while you're at it picture one of the smartest and most intense zombie films ever made with something to say about imperialism, government surveillance/civilian containment, America's fascist military, the decline of Western civilization and, why not, the anti-Christ in the form of a really innocent boy with multicolor eyes. I can't believe how well this sequel turned out; this can only mean that I must see it again before say anything further on the matter. Two zombie movies down, one to go... I'm looking at you Resident Evil: Extension!

Most Anticipated Mainstream Summer Releases

1. Resident Evil 3—You can have your Shreks, Bournes, Sparrows and Parkers. Of all the many number-3s coming out this summer this is the one I'm most excited about.
2. The Simpsons: The Movie—I'm hearing horrible things about the first Simpsons movie and it's depressing me. Perhaps it's the trailer, which I've been avoiding? Still, with a plot like "Homer must save the world from a catastrophe he himself created," this seems like the foundation for any great Simpsons TV episode so I'm going into this film on faith. Come on, Homer, you can do it, bro.
3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—The last Potter was all over the place but this new one, I feel, should improve in the plot and acting departments. And directing, too, because Mike Newel isn't in charge. The source material, IMO, represents the best of the Potter books due to its dark, psychological subject matter. As a bonus, there will be more Gary Oldman. Huzzah! 
4. Live Free and Die Hard—Not exactly anticipated because it looks any good. It doesn't. It looks like every horrible Bruce Willis movie to come out since Die Hard. Not only is there the baldness factor to deal with but the annoying Apple guy is in it. However, since I love the Die Hard formula I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt.
5. Transformers—Okay, okay, hear me out... na, I got nothing. There's no excuse for wanting to see Transformers. I never even watched the show (I'm a Go-bots guy myself) but how can I pass up alien robots?

The Worst Films of 2006
I finally saw enough bad films from last year to finish my worst of the year list. You know a year sucks when films like Eragon and Snakes on a Plane didn't even make my top twenty. Here's what did...

1. Clerks II
2. Hard Candy
3. Media's Family Reunion
4. Little Man
5. When a Stranger Calls
6. Larry the Cable Guy
7. Poseidon
8. The Departed
9. Click
10. Blood Rayne
read on...

Nine Inch Nails (Year Zero) As much as I liked NIN's last album, With Teeth (best album of 2005, that's how much), the band's newest effort, as a whole, is the more confident, edgy and assured album. Even though no singles match "Only," this album is fuller and more cohesive. The concept deals with a nation ruled by violence and religion follows the line all the way to it's own eventual destruction in stunning tracks like "In This Twilight" and "Zero Sum." I found myself drawn in by the post apocalyptic doom and paranoia ("watch the sun, as it crawls across a final time"). Also, here's some good news: this the most "industrial" Reznor has been since his Fixed masterpiece. And more good news: Trent seems to feel more on this album than perhaps anything he's ever done.

The Host
Korea's brilliant new monster movie The Host is so good, in so many different ways, that it's hard to know where to begin. The film being good is a great place to start but, okay, beyond that, just look at the title: The Host. This is not a reference to the monster's Alien-like incubation period. It's actually referring to the panic caused by its mere presence. Here is a monster --created by the toxic waist of the government-- that triggers a national crisis in which the government assumes the beast is spreading the very "biological virus" that they caused with the help of the American military. This threat soon becomes an opportunity for the system to storm in, silence the voice of all those who are "infected," imprison them and basically do what all governments do when bad things happen: make things worse. The Host gets what's funny about this situation. But, just as vital, it also gets what's tragic about it, what's fantastical about it and what's down right terrifying.  Read On...

Ranking Fincher

1. Fight Club
2. The Game
3. Zodiac
4. Panic Room
5. Seven
6. Alien 3

Unedited, stream-of-consciousness Oscar Journal
-Written During the Telecast

Phase One

00 Ellen’s on. Hey, look, she’s wearing a suit. What are the odds of that? Didn't laugh once: expected. Thinking “she’s so bad I’m even missing Billy Crystal at this point”: Unexpected.

5:00 She’s still going. I'm so bored that I keep staring at that piece of tape she's supposed to be standing on. Who likes her? The audience does, that’s who—these are the same people who were cold to the funny John Stewart. She’s like a lesbian Bob Hope.

10:00 Oh, god, now she’s dancing. Wake me when this is over. 

12:00 Okay, I’m up. The first award of the night. Wha, they start with art direction? Wake me again when something interesting comes along.

8:00 Huh, technical awards montage. Who produced this show? Ziskin.

23:00 More singing and dancing. We learn, through song, that comedy is underrated. John C. Riley is awesome. Boogie/Tallhega Nights forever. 

29:00 “I liked notes on a scandal… Dame Dench is having ‘knee surgery’ on her eyes” Oh, Ellen, you so edgy, girl.

30:00 Kids announcing animated SHORTs. Get it.

31:00 Will Smith’s kid is a dope.

32:00 Danish Poet wins. Film Looks like it was hand drawn by Daniel Dey Lewis’ right fucking foot. That's right, not even good enough to be on his left one.

32:00 Will Smith’s kid fucks up again. Where’s you’re life of privilege now.

34:00 West Bank Story wins. Go Jews!

42:00 "Elements & Motion," an impressionistic tribute to… sound mixing??? I get hit with an orchestra of well dressed people making space shuttle and wind sounds. If that weren’t bad enough, they didn’t even include the guy from Police Academy. Michael Winslow, you will  be in my heart forever.

44:00 An ode to sound editing is followed by a bad sound editing joke made by Greg Kinnear when the editors cut his mike off. Silent hailarity ensues on screen and in my room. I realize that 44 minutes in and nothing has happened. Am I watching the Oscars or an episode of form Lost’s third season?

46:00 Sounding editing from Iwo Jima guy is a robot.

47:00 Jessica Biel hooks us up with an Al Jolsen shout out. Kill me now!

50:00 Someone else pulls out that dreaded little white “thank you” sheet. They should ban those.

51:00 Elsewhere, Greg Douglass finishes his TGI-Fridays Jack Daniel ribs, fries and fudge avalanche cake. Feels full, happy and also kind of sick. Reaches for the nearest moist towelette.

53:00 Alan Arkin wins. A moderate surprise. Cool and all but the guy reads from a sheet of paper. And he was in the movie for, like, two seconds. But he rocked both of them. Still, I forgive double-A because he beat Eddie Murphy.

55:00 A toothbrush joke? Hooray, for Ellen’s safe comedy.

56:00… Goodfellas meets Big Momamas House = Goodmamas. Martin Scorsese pretends (I hope) to laugh at her humor. Ellen’s on fire. Or, at least, I wish she was. Literally speaking.

56:00 Ah, good, more dancing. Just what we were missing.

57:00 Another bonus. “A special performance by Randy Newman and James Taylor” is coming up next the announcer says. Can’t wait… to die.

Phase 2

1:05 Song numbers all sucked. Listen, I don’t’ want to be cranky about all this but can you blame me?

1:12 GEORGE MILLER! Yeah! Finally something happens. Maybe he'll carry the momentum of this win all the way to a fourth Mad Max.

1:16 Montage time. But a good one about writers in film. I never noticed but pretty much every film about a writer is good. Where’s the Wonder Boys love, though?

1... (didn't catch the time) “Valium does work.” Line of the night from William Monahen, writer of The Departed. I like the guy now.

1:33 Ha! Tom hanks just  made fun of the MTV announcer. Blah, blah, blah, “It’s going to be a fun night…” Hanks looks at him with golly-gee contempt and says “You bet, Chris!” Hasn't been that funny since Ladykillers.

1:47 Another creepy silhouette moment. Look, honey, contortionists from a circus are making the shape of a car out of their twisted naked bodies? Shivers. It’s like a Circ De Sole skit.

1:58 Hey everybody, foreign films are great! Another random montage.

2:00 Expletives flew when the awful, sub par Lives of Others (a preachy, unambiguous German film) won best Foreign film over Pan’s Labyrinth. So, okay, Pan won three Oscars but not for foreign film?

2:03 Ellen joins in on the creepy fun by doing a dumb silhouette joke about Snakes on a Plane. After Lives of Others, I’m so much in the mood for any kind of humor let alone Ellen’s.

2:06 Supporting Actress. I braced myself for this moment. Talk about not being in the mood for bad news. First Lives of Others now Jennifer "stiff line reading" Hudson. Bitch can't act, people! Next up, Dr. Uva Boll gets an Oscar for editing. Now Roberto Beninini and Hudson have Oscars. Kate Winslet: ZERO. Jennifer Hudson: 1.

2:14 Film about AIDS in China wins. Well of course it does. They cut to a shot from the film of a kid looking sad. He must have just gotten the news about Jennifer Hudson winning an Oscar.

2:15 Friday's has its revenge. Greg's stomach hurts. Shouldn't have had that cake so soon after the ribs.

2:16 Seinfeld presents and does some shtick. And he's pretty funny. Brings back memories.

2:20 Al Gore is a saint. I love him. Cut to Larry David looking pissed for some reason. Be happy, your wife produced An Inconvenient Truth. Oh, maybe he was pissed about Jerry presenting.

2:21 Marconi is the best composer ever. Nothing could spoil this moment…

2:26… except for Celion Dion singing to one of his songs. What a momentum killer. Marconi looks more bored than Larry David. 

2:39 So… Lives of Others…Jennifer Hudson… and now Gustavo Sandkjfkdjfkj for Babel’s music (that I can swear I heard on the season one Deadwood DVD menu). This is not my night. Why is god punishing me. Babel’s music sucked. Hated his Brokeback’s score and hate Babel even more. What’s next…

2:45 oh, of course, Michael Arndt winning for his sitcom script of Little Miss Sunshine. It wasn’t a total loss. The voice over gal informs us that Michael Arndt "quit his job as an assistant to Mathew Broderick to become a writer." The only thing that could make me feel worse is…

2:47… more creepy contortionists. This time they’re morphing into the shoe from the Devil Wears Prada poster.

2:51 Announcer jumps in and says says here's “an excellent reason for high definition television… Jennifer Lopez.” I scream back: no, she's excellent reason for the mute button. Then Jennifer Hudson comes on, all singing and shit, and I really just found a reason for mute. Thank god for TIVO.

Phase 3: The Final Stretch

3:02 Hold that thought. At hour three my system just bumped the Oscars broadcast to tape an episode of Rome. Why are you doing to this me, God? The mute button thing was just a joke.

Two Hours Later
3:07 Okay, went to my friend’s house with my laptop to finish watching. Just in time to see a “diversity” clip. So: conserve energy and be nice to minorities. Got it.

3:25 Lots of people died this year. I envy them at this point.

3:26 “I prefer to keep my feelings to myself” Mirren’s Queen says before winning. Finally, something goes my way. Or, should I say, it went the way of the “Indian hand reader” that the announcer tells me foretold that she would win. This is some trippy announcing.  

3:29 Three seconds later, my elation doth been spoiled again by those circus ass-clowns. They’re making the shape of a gun shooting bullets. I cringe then...   

2:15... run to the bathroom. I'm staying away from TGI-Fridays for a least a week.

3:38 Forest Whitaker is a space cadet. Dude’s now getting all metaphysical. He’s hoping he wins an Oscar in his “next lifetime” (for a better film I presume).

3:38 I love George Lucas’ chin. When he talks it wobbles. Hypnoti....... 

3:40 Marty just won. Goddamn, not a fan of the film (or Marty that much) but I’m happy for the little guy. I love when he says how other people told him he should have won by now. Also love his line about "great Asian cinema."

3:45 Best Picture time! As I predicted, Departed won. But Jack Nicholson, the star of the film, was presenting. Hum, conflict of interest? As Jack's Costello would say: No One Gives You A Oscar, You Have To Take It. I think he rigged it. Somehow, though, I’d rather this film win than the moderately better Sunshine and Babel. I have no idea why. “Martin Scorsese’s Departed,” we are told by that crazy announcer, is “the first movie he ever did with a plot.” I have no idea what that means? I’m not so mad about the film winning. It’s cool that a genre picture still has a chance. Maybe next time a good genre movie with a "plot" will get it. 

Conclusion

All and all, it was a decent night. Lots of ups and downs (more downs than ups). The show wasn’t produced very well and Ellen was just a rug-munching hair better than Billy Crystal and Whoppi Goldberg (not a compliment), but lots of mini-upsets made the Oscars fun. Also, the high-def TV and recorder helped. Especially when it came to the resolution on Lucas' crystal clear chin. Also especially when it came to the mute and fast forward button. But not so much when it came to the not taping the last hour part.

So How'd I Do: Not good. Not good at all. I got about half right.  
13 out of a possible 24 (Pan's Labyrinth threw the curve by wining most the categories I didn't predict and loosing the one that I did).
But 7 out of 8 in the top categories isn’t so bad. Now I get to go to bed and not obsess over the Oscars for at least two weeks. Wonder what will win this year…  

The Worst Scenes from the Best Pic Nominees this Year!
ranked on order of lameness

1. Little Miss Sunshine—The corpse scene in the hospital. A perfect encapsulation of the film’s arch contrivances. Why not just leave a family member to stay there and come back to the hospital a few hours later? Or why didn’t the Hoover clan just… leave. Oh, because this atrociously written film needed the scene where the cop stopped the family in the honking car. And the final touch where Kinnear just unloads the body to a deliver mortician guy (huh? Is this a pizza?). Almost as bad is when the whole family jumps on stage and dances with Olive.
2. Babel—Adraiana Barazza makes out with a Mexican cowboy. Then she leaves two kids in the desert. Then looses them. Then, somehow, it’s America’s fault because we wont let this maniac back in. God I hated this character.  Also off-putting is the Moroccan boys subplot. The little, gun toting perv just masturbates all over the damn place. Including (A) to his sister and (B) off a cliff before his brother is shooting off as well, not his dick but his gun… at people. Is jerking off all there is to do in Morocco? Come to think of it, if Babel wasn’t directed by a Mexican guy we’d all be calling it racist because “foreigners” act really dumb in this movie.  
3. The Departed—Hum, how about every scene? Okay, if I had to pick three, at the top of the list would be when a certain character falls off a roof and splats. Then Leo --over-emoting of course-- just kind of stands there and looks stressed. Almost is bad is Jack Nicholson’s dialogue. I love the guy but his lines seemed like overly Jack-ized. “You do well in school?” he asks a kid. “Yeah” the kid says. “Good. So did I. That's what you call a paradox.” WTF, I get what it means but nobody would be calling that a good line of if weren’t Nicholson uttering it? And, finally, the rat at the end of the film is just one last F-you to the audience. I get the significance (and Shakespearian wink) but the film’s coyness and dismissal of its own story just didn’t sit well with me. 
4.  Letters from Iwo Jima—The weaker flashbacks (i.e. all flashbacks). So obvious and so labored. Oh, here’s the guys wife. Oh, now he doesn't want to shoot a puppy. This otherwise brilliant film was taken down a notch by a needless plot device. I blame Paul Haggis.  
5. The Queen—Okay, best film of the year and all but I wasn’t too keen on the family scenes involving Tony Blair. His house was too normalized. Kids, toys, half-eaten food and a general feeling of sappy domesticity.

Note: I would dedicate a positive list to best moments from this year’s Oscar nominees but then I’d only be able to mention The Queen and Letters.

It took forever but my favorite films of the year are finally in. 2006 is officially over for me (well, almost, I still have my worst of the year to do). What I learned about film from this year:

1. Horror is unstoppable.
2. Superman is stoppable.
3. Children's films are getting worse (unless they're R-rated and called Pan's Labyrinth).
4. Mexican directors are getting better (unless they're Iñárritu).
5. Superhero films are getting boring (unless they're... nope, they're all boring).  

Best Video Games of 2006
1. Final Fantasy XII (PS2)--Involving narrative, great game play, no random battles, addicting side quests... and I'm only half done with it! The best Final Fantasy outing since the underrated VIII.
2. Dead Rising (360)--The best zombie game ever. The only zombie game ever.
3. New Super Mario (DS)--The title says it all. Old school Mario made, somehow, new. Run and jump, collect some coins and save the princess. The Mario formula is the purest in all of videogamedom.
4. Splinter Cell: Double Agent (Xbox)--Not the best Cell outing but a solid entry into this amazing sneak-and-kill series. I loved the whole prison/double agent aproach.
5. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)--This 2D series can't go wrong. 
6. Brain Age (DS)--Not a game rally, just a series of memory puzzles. Makes the list because the bonus version of Sudoku sucked my life away.
The Ledged of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Wii Sports (DS)--Would be on the list if Nintendo was smart enough to release the system to regular gamers, not just maniacs willing to call Best Buy every five minutes or wait in line for eight hours for the "chance" at a system. 
Best System of the Year: Nintendo DS
Worst System of the Year: Play Station 3

Best Television Shows of the Year: Television had its best year since Buffy hit its stride. Three shows on the top five had flawless seasons. That has never happened as far as I can recall. 

1. Battlestar Galactica
2. 24
3. Venture Brothers
4. The Cobert Report
5. Lost

Battlestar Galactica
No debate; this is the best thing on television. Okay, the now famous "one year later" plot jump went nowhere in my opinion and, sure, the best character on the show, Gaius Balter, stuck on an alien space ship and three-waying all over the place, isn't being utilized to the best of his snaky ability. Whatever. This it's still the best fracking thing on television. The show rebounded from (another) Cylon invasion on (another) planet named Caprica with great political furry and sci-fi gusto. These two genres have spent the last year battling it out for domination and just when I think the politics is taking over, creator Roger Moore and his top notch crew dazzles me with fresh new plots; like the episode suggesting that Adama may have been the first to start the war with the Cylons by invading their space. For the most part the quality of writing, directing and acting returned to a perfect storytelling mode that defined the last half of season two. Humanist, provocative, more topical than TV news and just plain exciting, this is the best science fiction show of all time... perhaps, I might be able to say one day, just about the best sci-fi story period. 
Season 2.5: A+
Season 3.0: A

24 (Season Five)
Has there been a more vital mainstay on television this decade? This is television's best kind of formula--a show that began as cutting edge and, five year's into it's run, is not even getting close to being exhausted. Just when you think you've seen Jack do it all... Jack does it all again, without changing a thing. And it's still great! As played by Sutherland, the character was a hawk this season. The guy never wasting a single moment and never lost sight of his goal, to avenge the death of the former President and "friend" (we know what they really were). I don't even think Jack left himself time to blink this season. Honestly, I never thought 24 would match the quality of its earlier seasons where everything seemed fresh and exciting. But It has. And in a big way. In fact the show, now entering into its sixth season (or should I say day) has hit some sort of demented stride by having Jack go up against the President of the United States. Style wise, this visceral show has always offered superior thrills but this season's upsurge in creativity should chiefly be attributed to the writing and story development crew who, week after week, offered up new ways to keep Jack on the run and torturing to his heart's content. (Me in my Buffy crazydom: I give writer David Fury, who stated on Buffy, moved to Lost --a show that never recovered upon his departure in the first season-- and ended up on this show, a lot of credit.) But the added element this year is that, beyond Jack being the coolest guy on television making escapist fascism fun again (even for liberals), we actually are made to care about the plot. A first! The story, no longer utilitarian, was actually quite engaging from an emotional standpoint. This season belonged to Gregory Itzen and Jean Smart as the shady President and first lady. These supporting characters attain instant classic status in my mind. The President went from being wormy and annoying in season 4 to tragically flawed, selfish, ruthless and down right Shakespearian in his villainy in season 5.  I could go on about how great season five was and how much I love Chloe's scrunchy scowl, but if you've seen it you know and if you haven't, one bit of advice: watching a full day's worth of season five DVDs will convert.
Season Grade: A+

Venture Brothers (season one)
Go team Venture!  This is my favorite new show. The subversive laughs never end. Imagine the superhero bravado of Tick mixed with the sicko family dynamic of Family Guy and you'll almost have an idea of how brilliant Venture is. Nothing about this show is routine even though it plays out like a retro superhero family cartoon. It constantly surprises me.

The Cobert Report
I can't think of anybody who could sustain a character for this long. Maybe Alan Partridge but he wasn't on the job four days a week. And he didn't have to pretend to believe in O'Riley-logic. Of all the episodes I saw last year, Cobert didn't have an off-night.  And not one tested my belief that the mock-conservative Cobert is one of the best characters on television (Cobert should get an Emmy for being Cobert). Last year's highlight: Cobert's denial then meltdown during the November election was followed by the declaration that, now that the Dems have control of the Senate and Congress, they're the ones loosing the war. More than Borat, by posing as an ignorant, Cobert reveals then revels in the dark side of American culture.

Lost (season 2-3)
Never has the show's title been more appropriate. Okay, okay, I'm not going to complain about the every steady decline in quality since Lock and co. went down that hatch at the end of season one. I  still love Lost. I will watch it until the end and I know I can do it because I stuck in there with X-Files.    

Special Mention: Alias
Okay, I was hard on Alias last season when I named it the worst show on TV. In my defense, it was in the sense that it was the one show last year that suffered the biggest decline in quality. But the show picked up after it found out of its cancellation. Good characters found their place again, bad characters (Spy Mom and my man Rifkin) were made bad again and boring characters were flat out killed off. Even the plots actually started to mean something. All things considered, the show went out with some dignity. So long, Syd.  

Worst:
Grey's Anatomy--Unwatchable.
Entourage--Yeah, okay, Piven's exempt.
The Late Show With Jay Leno--Always.
The Wire--Every television critic put it on the top of their list. This season was indulgent, preachy and far too cluttered. I don't get where the love is coming from.
Disney Channel Musicals--Cheetah hurls.
The Sitcom Format--Officially dead now.

Best Museic of the Year:

1. Muse
Black Holes & Revelations—
Muse has made the edgiest and angriest album of the year sound like the most beautiful. These boys didn't just fulfill the Radiohead-didn’t-put-anything-out-so-we’ll-have-to-settle-for-BLANK requirement for 2006, they did something far more impressive. The other British band surpassed what has become an obligatory yearly category by delivering a fully realized rock album on par with the best of Radiohead’s recent work-- forget Radiohead, Muse is Radiohard, he he! The science fiction flavor that empowers fantastical cuts like “Starlight” and “Supermassive Black Hole” are filled with stunning arcade-sounding strobe light riffs that capture the imagination first and get the blood boiling soon after. I downloaded the album expecting an middling Brit-rock effort on par with the two Ks, Keane or Kasabian, but got back the most adventurous album I’ve heard in years. Here's how much I liked Black Holes: I actually bought the album after illegally downloading it! In the opening track, singer Matthew Bellamy chants in his menacing falsetto “You will burn in hell” over and and over and, wow, while I don’t know who exactly Muse wants to burn in hell, the intensity behind those words tells its own story. The rest of this grandiose album follows in a similar fashion. The culmination of which, “Knights of Cydonia,” in particular sounds like nothing else on rock radio. "You and I must fight for our rights/You and I must fight to survive" remains the most powerful and rousing chant of the year. The luminous energy that emanates throughout the ten songs leading up to this audacious moment is totally (and tonally) in keeping with the album’s black hole imagery because, like an imploding star mass, Black Holes and Revelations only gets strong and more powerful as time goes on. A true revelation.

2. Tool
10,000 Days
Sci-fi rock gives way to Sci-fi metal on this year's list. In truth this is also my favorite album of the year. I listened. I studied. I obsessed. But I can’t let every new Tool album dominate my life and I shouldn’t let them dominate every list. With each album Tool becomes more esoteric and nuanced, exploring strange new sounds to from the inside-out. By focusing their ever-maturing talent inward and shunning radio friendly sounds so they can indulge in dense/abrasive/math metal rock trips that the listener really has to sit with and take in to appreciate, Tool has made an album of great, uncompromising complexity. The reason each new Tool album takes half a decade to make is that every second is meticulously designed and orchestrated. The stunning opener “Vicarious” begins with the sound of an alarm clock and quickly turns into a smashing eight minute hard rock diatribe against television making “zombies” out of all. Tool is telling us, in their own inside joke of a way, that it’s time to wake up and for the remanding hour-plus running time the band provides the perfect, third-eye-opening soundtrack to our lives. The album captures unarticulated feelings of modern alienation while also being able to laugh at it. Speaking of laughing, you got to check out Maynard’s speed talking 12-minute tempo shift opus “Rosetta Stoned,” a song about an psych ward hippie who, after over dosing on LSD (blame Hoffman, the inventor of LDS), is told he’s “the chosen one” by an extra terrestrial (presumably, the same ones behind the invasion that ended Lateralus). Just as this drugged out patient is about to receive a heads-up on his role in the coming invasion, the dude realizes that he has forgotten his pen and, well, the punch-line of the song is that he "shits the bed." Only Tool could pull off this number. Come to think of it, only Tool could pull of any Tool song. They are the key to their own lock. This band is one of a kind, and one of the best. 
Download: Rosetta Stoned, Wings part 2, The Pot.

3. Gomez
How We Operate
Another great album from a band incapable of delivering anything short of amazing. Along with the shopping carts, Gomez decided to abandon the style and experimentation of Split the Difference and In Our Gun so they could go in a different direction, accessibility, the exact opposite of my number 2 pick. This album preferences catchy hooks to the usual alt-jamming rock/blues gems the band is known for. However, far from selling out the band pulls off this palatable new song pallet. The fact that I was able forgive Gomez for licensing their shit out to the craptastic Grey’s Anatomy is proof of just how endurable and charming How we Operate is. The songs “How we Operate,” “See the World,” "Cry on Demand" and “Hamoa Beach” are the warmest and catchiest songs of the year. Selling out has never sounded so fun. 
Download: See above.

4. Jarvis
Jarvis
I don’t want to live in a world without Jarvis Cocker. Which is funny because ironic and self loathing albums like this self titled gem seem to indicate that Jarvis Cocker wants to live in a world without Jarvis Cocker. But as long as the gloomy rocker continues making music this passionate and cathartic we’re not going to let Jarvis off the hook by ignoring his histrionical pleas to be ignored. My favorite touch: the album cover features a picture of the bespecticled musician with a giant arrow pointing at him, reminding us of his name. As if we could ever forget it.   
Download: Quantum Theory, I Will Kill Again and Running the World

5. The Knife
Silent Shout
What? Could this actually be a Pitchfork favorite (their number of the year) that I agree with? Like, OMG! It’s hard to describe what makes The Knife’s chilly new album so special. And harder to define what makes it scary. The demonically filtered vocals by brother and sister band mates seems like a good place to start. The strange and mysterious house beats are another. The metal clanging—yeah, that too. And the Scandinavian synth lugubriousness is the pièce de résistance. All great things but what do they add up to? I honestly have no idea. Once I’m in this album’s space (that’s the only way to describe listing to it), I’m not even sure what to do with it, either. It’s too unsettling to relax to. Too ambiguous and varied dance to. And it’s too esoteric --not to mention European-- to lend to friends unless you want them to think you’re some sort of freak. So I guess you can't do anything with this album except listen to it. And I’ve done just that more times than a lot of albums on this list. I love it, but I’m also afraid of it. Silent Shout is like a David Lynch movie with beats.
Download: Neverland and Silent Shout

6. And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
So Divided
Trail of Dead's ambitious World's Apart album goes down in my book as one of the most underrated albums of the decade. From World's Apart to So Divided, the band’s new album finds the band dislocated. If the title of their last two albums didn't give it away, what does is the best track on the new album (“Wasted State of Mind”) that repeats the lyric “caught in a stasis/feels like I’m wasted all the time.” That song perfectly captures the band’s state of mind going into this effort. I think the Trail of Dead may have actually listened to music critic’s (unjustified) complaints about the “unfocused” World’s Apart and the result is a self doubting new album (intended as a EP) that contains some of Apart’s grandeur, playfulness and daring experimentation but at the same time So Divided is just that: divided. The extreme sense of self conscious ends up curbing the album’s wildness via dialed down songs that seem to be playing it safe in hopes of returning to the Source Tags days and being liked by critics again. This equivocation, while disappointing, sill makes for a powerful record.
Download: Wasted State of Mind and Stand In Silence

7. Herbert
Scale
From The Knife to Hot Chip, to Nathan Fake to my Brit home boy Herbert, the electronica genre has seen its best year since Fat Boy Slim praised us like he should. This usually obtuse style of music has grown on me this year by delivering sounds that are as accessible as they are danceable. Soulful as it is escapist.  Isolating dance beats and monotonous samples are but a 90s memory when bands like Herbert provide lyrics that enhance electronica without taking its essence away. This is electronica at its most functional. Herbert's dazzling work on Scale is even on par with Basement Jaxx's superb recent work. Oh, and being that I'm a sucker for string instruments, this album atomically makes my top ten for taking the violin to some amazing places in the songs "Something isn't Right," "Down," and "Movie Star." 
Download: Something Isn't Right and The Movers and the Shakers

8. My Chemical Romance
Welcome to the Black Parade
I don’t want to talk about why I like this album except to say it grew on me more than anything else this year. I started off hating it and, well, let's just say I changed my mind, okay! So forget I ever placed this thoroughly wrecked guilty pleasure 70s-goth-emoish-Queenish-Greendayish  “concept” album so high. 
Download: Mama

9. Badly Drawn Boy
Born in the U.K.
A whopping FIVE out of the ten albums on this best-of list are British. And this one's really British. In the opening track, Damon Gough discusses nationalism with a very special guest. “Do you think it matters where you’re born?” he asks. The answer he gets back is, “No, not really, it only matters that you can be proud from where you came from.” Uh, huh. Can this be as stupid as it sounds? Its got to mean something, but not in the national identify sense (even though this does provide a decent thematic structure to the album). Rather, it’s the fact that the beanie wearing Gough is TALKING TO HIMSELF that gets me. I got the impression he was doing the same thing with the last album he put out but this time it all out there in the open. And instead of flutes and kid choruses, young Damon Gough relies on a heavy piano sound to drown the listener in his up-tempo melancholy. Born in the U.K. is BDBs most unassuming effort to date and it only proves my assumption that, next to Jarvis Cocker, Badly Drawn Boy makes the best lonely-man indie-pop in music today. If not in all of music then at least in England. 
Download: Promises

10. Mastodon
Blood Mountain
One line is from J.R.R. Tolkien and the other is from the metalheaded Mastodon. Guess which one is from the band: Hunt for ogres and dwarfs/Run with death or An Elvin maid of old/A shining star by day.  
Download: Colony of Berchmen

Beirut (Gulag Orkestar)—Gypsy! Give me your tears! If you will not give them to me, I will take them from you!

Springsteen (We Shall Overcome)—Until this album came along Bruce came in two packages. E-street rocking Bruce and sallow acoustic Bruce. We Shall Overcome invents a third: exuberant Banjo playing Bruce. The trilogy is complete.

Sparta (Threes)—A beautiful effort from a band living in Mars Volta's jagged shadow. The album that proves that Sparta is not Mars Volta’s bitches. Why? Because Threes outdoes this year’s disappointing Volta album.

Mars Volta (Amputechture)—Disappointing, but still dazzling as all hell. This impenetrable album, which adds afro-jazz to the usual hodgepodge of sounds, marks the height of Mars Volta’s indulgences. The band has gone too far but in going too far they have created the year's most recklessly fascinating curio. At this point Mars Volta only seems to be making music to only amuse themselves but it’s great to be able to listen in on the apex of a band’s brazen self love. I have nothing but love for The Volta but, still, three consecutive years of overly (but incredibly) ambitious albums indicates that maybe Cedric and Mr. Lopez should take a breather. 

Built to Spill (You In Reverse)—Bloated and overlong--that only means there's more for me to love. 

Thom Yorke (The Eraser)—Yorke has made a great, haunting Radiohead album; except it's a bit pale. It appears that the soul has been sucked out. That this shell of a Radiohead album could still land in the top 20 is proof of his craft. What fills this noticeable void is Yorke’s determination to explore new sounds through an ever increasing reliance on technology and the usual accoutrement of sonic alienation. As a musician, Tommy boy’s inability to compromise lands him at the top of his game. Yorke does not make new music as much as he evolves it. The Eraser is not perfect but it’s something almost as interesting: unpredictable.

Yo La Tengo (I Am Not Afraid of You And I Will Beat Your Ass)—Not wanting to get my ass kicked by a trio of aging indie nerds with wire rimmed glasses, I'll put the album on the list.

Bob Dylan (Modern Times)—Making everyone’s top ten this year. Not mine, but close. As his last three “masterpieces” go, this is Dylan's best. The legend seems freer and unencumbered. He's actually having fun. This time around Dylan is tells stories and creates moods rather than penning solipsistic and, frankly, meaningless poetry as he did with Love and Theft. "Working Man Blues #2" in particular is worth listening to for both the music, story and irony inherit in the fact that Dylan is pretending to know what it’s like to be a working man (even funnier than when Springsteen does!). Modern Times is Dylan’s knee slapping return to form.

TV on the Radio (Return to Cookie Mountain) —I’m putting it on the list for the sole reason that I would be stupid not to. Along with Gnarls Barkley's work, Cookie Mountain became the critical darling of this year because it's playful and sounds different. Good enough but I should admit to not being the least bit passionate about the Cookie. I am however fond of it's artistry. One thing really annoyed me, though: why did TV have to sing over David Bowie's vocals on Province?

Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny—Loving the D this year! First, I was psyched about the new D film. No, not because of its god awful trailer –making the film look like a bad Kevin Smith comedy— but because (A) I bought the Tenacious D album (not as good as their first but better if you’ve seen the film and put it into the context of a concept album) and (B) I had the pleasure of seeing these goofs live and they put on a show that brilliantly balanced theatrics, comedy and surprisingly good tunes. As fun as live shows get, the  D's concert started out in the band’s apartment and follows the “greatest band on earth” through bitching about the government, hanging out with Lee, their mortal death, and trip to the underworld as the two join Charley Chaplin, Col. Sanders, and Jesus (or is he the antichrist?) to form a satanic band. One forged in the fires of Mount Doom to go head to head (fully aware of the pun there) in a rock showdown against the dark prince himself. The stakes: Kyle Glass' anal virginity. Oh, and eternity in hell. Sure the album is not as vivid or charming as the live show but it manages to hold on to the band’s charm. Needless to say, the film was not nearly as exuberant or inventive as the live show or album but, once again, it does succeed in capturing the essence of a beer belly band who are at once a joke band as well as a really earnest rock band. This is one of those films/albums/and movies that one must to specify and qualify before praising. You have to say things like, “it’s great for what it is” and “it’s great if you’re a fan.”
Live Show: A
Movie: B

Best Live Concerts
Tenacious D
Nine Inch Nails
Trail of Dead
Belle and Sebastian
New Pornographers

Best Live Album
My Morning Jacket, Okonokos, but only because Hasselhoff didn't release a live album.

Best Soundtrack
Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny
Nick Cave, The Proposition
Leonard Cohen and co. on I'm You're Man

Best Use Of An End Credits Movie Song
Thom Yorke's "Analyse" was the perfect song choice for the end of The Prestige.

Worst Song Before and During a Movie
Rascal Flatts singing in "Life Is a Highway" in Cars. The song was bad before... now it's murder. Also, I had to sit through the awful ten minute Cars music video promo of Flatts playing this abhorred cover before every movie I went to last year. I'd rather watch Nascar than that video. And that video before Cars. And Cars before anything Rascal Flatts has ever done. 

Best Reissue
All the Pulp reissues released in the U.K..

Best Rap Album
T.I. King.

Best Country Album
Neko Case Fox Confessor Brings The Flood.

Best Cover Art
Two innovative covers this year: Tool 's whacked out, 3D package concept and Beck's blank, design-it-yourself cover that came with a ton of odd stickers. My design was simply Beck standing in the corner with a black storm cloud hovering over his head. Seemed fitting.   

Worst Cover Art
The Who's 80s inspired Endless Wire cover art. A worse crime than Pete's penchant for underage porn.

Best Debut
Since I'm not counting Jarvis Cocker's first solo album the best debut was Grizzly Bear's The Yellow Room. Wildly overproduced but the band shows great promise on this experimental rock album. Inspired, it seems, by the Beach Boys as much as the band's love of chimes. This isn't the last we've heard from Grizzly Bear. If they focus more their next album can only get better.

Best Comeback
The Strokes, First Impressions of Earth. The best thing this album does is prove that The Strokes are not a fad. Neither trendy noir forced sounding this is easily the New York band's best work to date. The arcade car racing "Juice Box" is one of the best songs I've heard in years. "You Only Live Once" is another sold track. 

Best Super Group
Army of Anyone

Worst Super Group
The Raconteurs. Followed closely by Audioslave. 

The Most Overrated Albums of the Year:
Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I am That's What I'm Not--So, you're NOT an overrated band, Arctic Monkeys. Got ya! 
The Raconteurs' Broken Toy Soldiers
Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere
The Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America
Love by the Beatles

Worst Albums of the Year:

Top 10 Worst for 2006
1. Panic! At the Disco (A Fever You Can't Sweat Out)
2. Dixie Chicks (Taking it the Long Way)
3. Angels and Airwaves and +44
4. Hinder (Extreme Behavior)
5. Gwen Stefani and Fergie (The Sweet Duchess Escapes)
6. James Hunter (People Gonna to Talk)
7. Los Lonely Boys (Sacred)
8. Red Hot Chili Peppers (Stadium I Don't Careium)
9. Evanescence (The Open Door)
10. Anything American Idol (In High Pitch Eric Voice: Who's Kelly Pickler?)

1. Panic! at the Disco
(A Fever You Can't Sweat Out)
One of the most popular new bands of the year sounds like a teen version Counting Crows. Never saw that coming. Panic! even won MTV's Video Music Award award in 2006 for shooting sexy/fierce/metro looks into the camera at a crazy circus wedding in the "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" video. The only question left to ask is, what genre does Panic! butcher most: emo, goth or punk? Emo kind of always sucks and these guys sink it even lower, so there’s that. Goth can work, even fake cosmetic Goth (see Manson, My Chemical Romance) but when it’s as put-on as this, with the eyeliner and Victorian shirts, it’s a sad joke that would even make Amy Lee or some Hot Topic hoochie laugh. And punk can be awesome but it can also go as wrong as Blink 182, Greenday duets with U2 and Billy Idol crooning Christmas songs. While the worst album of the year, at least Panic! provided us with the funniest moment of the year: Pussy! At the Concert. Here be yet another reason to love England in 2006--I owe you one. 

2. Dixie Chicks (Taking it the Long Way--oh, please)
Those poor Dixie Chicks martyrs had to take it (in the ass) the schlong way this year. Wwwwwaaaaahhh!!!, a few southerners didn't buy enough copies of our last album and we're not as rich. WAH!!!, we're "not going to play nice" so now y'all have to pay tribute to us by watching and listening to our righteous self promotional movie and record chronicling how brave we are because we were the only ones speaking out against that idiot Bush's dumb war. If it wasn't for the Chicks I never would have known Bush was a fool and the war was a mistake. With such wisdom, though, one would think the band would realize that the biggest mistake of all is this unlistenable album.

3. Angels and Airwaves and +44
Blink broke up. I celebrated. But like that insidious broom in Fantasia that, upon destruction, only multiplied, we now have two Blink 182's to contend with! Remember what I said about bad punk when talking about Panic!, well here’s two worse examples. Angles tries to be new wave but Tom DeLonge's ineptness at sounding like a singer pierces through his faux new wave Postal Service meets U2 sparkle. While a total failure, at least DeLonge tried to branch out. +44 gets a minus in that catagory and delivers an album just as awful. +44 embraces their neo-pop-punk suckyness but, let’s see, that also means they embrace sucking.

4. Hinder (Extreme Behavior-RAWK!!!)
I read an interview with these tough guys in Rolling Stone. When asked about today's music scene, they joked that the band OK Go were what's wrong with music because they're all gay and shit for jumping on treadmills and doing choreography. First, Ok Go did that as a joke—like Creed and Evanescence, humor is apparently something missing from Hinder’s limited vocabulary. Second, if any band is “gay” it is these not-even-good-enough-to-be-Nickelback twats with their emo rock BS as they crawled out of some swamp to sing about lips of angels to Middle American troglodytes.   

5. Gwen Stefani (The Sweet Escape) and Fergie (Duchess)
Nothing sweet about her anymore. The escape part she gets right, though. When I saw the crew of midget Japanese girls she kidnapped from her last synthetic tour dressed up this time as Teutonic alps from Sound of Music I thought, not only is Gwen recycling her own material, but she, like Madonna, takes, takes, takes from pop culture without every providing a purpose or giving much back. Gwen is a self parodying sponge at this point and I hate her music. Everything about this artist, from her look to her hair to her purposely annoying party sounds, is on the surface and soulless. Gwen is a bad commercial jingle artist. All this is made worse by the fact that underneath the designer sunglasses and fake wigs is a speck of talent.

As for Fergie. Apply all of the above, subtract the speck of talent part, add a pee stains part, and it's basically the same crap. 

6. James Hunter (People Gonna to Talk...)
...about what a transparent nostalgia trip James Hunter is ODing on. The justification that it's good because it sounds old is, to me, insufficient. In fact, like a bad Nora Jones album it makes things worse. This is an album full of retro-soul disasters that sounds like "Stand by Me" covers done by Otis Redding in white-face with Van Morrison done up in black-face thrown in for good measure. But the thing of it is: I don't even like those guys so what would that make Hunter's album? Easy, music that makes me want to take a hand full of sleeping pills then jump out a window just in case the pills don't kick in quick enough. This album is... worse than Starbucks music. 

7. Los Lonely Boys (Sacred)
Zzzzzz.

8. Red Hot Chili Peppers
(Stadium I Don't Careium)
The Chili Peppers are well on their way to creating a legacy of band. This agonizing double album of sameness is creatively empt... okay, I’m tired of going off about how lame RHCP are. Like the alien in Ripley’s life, they’ve been around so long and are so valued by sinister corporate interests I can’t imagine a world without them. If I tolerate RHCP it's only because I'm too tired to resist.

9. Evanescence (The Open Door)
And congratulations to Evanescence for making an album that is far from terrible. It is completely bland, mediocre, and forgettable. This high mark makes The Open Door the best thing this popular Christian-Rock-Pop group has ever put out. My favorite music related line of the year came from the frontman of The Hold Stead who heard Amy Lee's bloated, poorly sung single "Call Me When You're Sober" and told Spin "See, that's the problem. If I'm sober, there's no way I'm calling this chick."

10. Anything American Idol
From Aiken to Hicks to Daugherty to McPhee to that idiot singing about having a bad day. Anything from anyone that has ever been anywhere near American Idol gets a placement here. Music is dying and these guys are holding the bloody knife. Note: this is now apparently an annual category for my ten worst list. 

Later this week I'll post my favorite songs of the year. And after that... the best movies of the year.
Oh, and the first quote is from Mastodon.

Ranking Lynch:
Twin Peaks (TV series)
Mulholland Dr.
Eraserhead
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Inland Empire
The Straight Story
Elephant Man
Blue Velvet
The Short Films of David Lynch
Lost Highway
Dune
Wild At Heart

Critics Who Have Subbed For Ebert Post-Surgery
A.O. Scott--One of the most pragmatic and consistent film critics writing today. Easily my favorite print critic. If Tony ever gets comfortable in front of the camera he's pick for permanent host if Ebert ever decides to retire. And Roeper, stop cutting the guy off, he's way smarter than you.  A
Kevin Smith--Okay, Smith's two stints as guest host on Ebert & Roeper surpass anything he's ever done in the film world. If Smith was smart he would give up the directing gig (cuz...just isn't working) and do TV film reviews professionally. I love how he always says Roeper has "a black heart" when he applies adult logic to kids movies like Open Season. A
Harold Ramis--Awesome. Ramis delivered harsh criticism with a surprisingly strong undercurrent of gentleness.  A-
John Ridley--As a non-personality host, Ridley was surprisingly competent. His skills as a novelist and screenwriter really pay off in his deft presentation. B+
Peter Segal--I hate the NPR show Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me but Peter Segal handles himself very well opposite the numbskull Roeper. Unlike Roeper, Segal's delivery is smooth and confident (without being smug), and his insights are often clever. B
Michael Phillips--Mr. Grumpy Pants gave everything thumbs down. Everything! He's the anti-Ebert. B
Mario Van Peebles--Way too laid back. It's like the Van-Man was in his living room, and didn't know there was a camera filming his review, and he just smoked a joint and he STILL didn't want to say anything bad about any film ever made. Actually, this approach is refreshing. And it's funny watching Roeper fumbling to give the fist and other fancy handshakes after ever review.  B-
Jay Leno--Unlike his own show, Leno didn't totally embarrass himself as a guest host. I could tell that Jay missed Kevin's ubiquitous "ohhhh, Jay" retorts.  B-
Aisha Tyler--Aiiiiiiiiesha! B-
Zorianna Kit--No more bubbly local news girls, okay? Get a real female film critic to host, may I suggest the great Lisa Swartzbaum? C+
Fred Willard--Obvious and awkward. C-
Toni Senecal--Scary and unsettling. I think she's a robot. D-

Best Bonds

1. Goldeneye (the videogame)
2. The Spy Who Loved Me
3. From Russia With Love
4. Thunderball
5. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
6. The World is Not Enough
7. Never Say Never Again
8. Goldfinger
9. Casino Royale
10. Dr. No

Review--Fur
Wolfmen selling hair to make wigs, depressed housewives who fall for the aberrant, pelt selling socialites, strange photoshoots, bunnies, nudists, midgets and... romance? A lot of people who see Fur will call it unusual. It’s actually not. Strange, yes, but only superficially so. Once you sort through all the hair and repression and Nicole Kidman's amazing ass, you’ll find a rather clichéd and clumsy look at the troubled artist and her muses. The approach here is a sort of biopic prequel in which we see a fictionalized account of the circumstances that created the artist to be, Diane Arbus. The film doesn't work at all but I give this biopic approach credit because it doesn't routinely blaze past the subject’s life a la Ray. So this is novel approach to a tired genre but, even still, the back story that is Fur indulges in a different kind of routine. Predictable drama. In the way Fur looks outside the box it's entirely by-the-book to mix metaphors. Steven Shainberg directs the film with a lot of interesting visual touches but he doesn't do much with the visuals besides present them. In terms of Kidman's performance, Fur may be called a companion piece to Birth but that film flirted with the absurd and succeeded in capturing the elusive, the enigma, the subtly horrific existence of a grieving housewife. Fur, instead, window shops all those things and of course walks away empty handed. Robert Downey Jr. plays the mysterious stranger who moves up stairs from Kidman and her boring husband and while Downey is the more compelling character he’s also covered in a blanket of hair and a dignity so solemn as to render the character dull and formless. Downey is reduced to a one note figure who speaks in romantic sound bites, falls in love with a married woman and, ugh, has a illness that starts with a wheeze and turns into a full-on gasp. Like the character, the film also doesn’t seem to be getting enough air.
Grade: C-

As We Reach The Final Stretch--Looking Forward To:

1. Pan's Labyrinth December 29--Number one on my list. Guillermo Del Torro is one of the most creative directors out there and this may be the film that finally gets everyone else to figure that out. The film looks like it has mixed elements of Alice in Wonderland and Spirited Away, with the qualities of the director's impressive earlier work Cronos, and with the visuals of his later ones. 
2. The Good German December 25--With Soderbergh and Clooney pairing up again what could go wrong? Ocean's 11? Yeah, that was the only... Ocean's 12? Okay but he.... Ocean's 13. Damn you!   
3. Casino Royal November 17-- What a relief: We've been hearing good things about Casino these last few days. Plus, this is the last real event movie of the year. That's right, no Narnia this year. Note: I put this at number three because Tarantino didn't direct it.
3. Venus December 15--As Stunt Man and My Favorite Year proved, when Peter O'Tool plays actors or industry folk, the result is good. And I'm counting it as a bonus that Venus comes from the director of Changing Lanes.
5. The Good Shepard December 22--Looking to be this year's Syriana only, you know, good. I hope, at least; it was directed by De Niro who is 0 for 1 in the directing department. It also stars Jolie who annoys the hell out of me. But I'm still excited! 
6. Dead or Alive December 8--Because Uwe Boll isn't putting out a film this winter.  aready

The Best of 2003
The Best of 2002
The Best of 2001
The Best of 2000

Archives II (past sidebar subjects)
Archives

    2007 Reviews

Resident Evil: Extension

After the Wedding
Grindhouse
The Host
The TV Set
Red Road
The Condemned
Waitress
Paris J'Taime
1408
Black Sheep
My Best Friend
Death at a Funeral
Dedication

300: B
The Condemned: D+
Death Proof: A
Eastern Promises: A
Epic Movie: D-
Fay Grim: D+
Ghost Rider: D
Harry Potter V: B-
The Host: A
Hostel 2: B+
Hot Fuzz: A
Knocked Up: B-
The Lives of Others: C-
Live Free or Die Hard: B-
Paprika: A-
Planet Terror: C+
Red Road: B-
Reno 911: Miami: C-
Seraphim Falls: B
Shoot 'em Up: B
Spider-Man 3: B-
The TV Set: B
Transformers: C
You Kill Me: B
Waitress: D+
Zodiac: A-

also seen...

The Messengers: C-
It’s come down to this J-horror fans, haunted farms. Haunted farms! From the makers of The Eye comes a film that makes me wish I had no eye because they I wouldn’t have to watch young girls reaching into dark spaces and getting scared. Still, when that young girl is Kristen Stewart from Panic Room I found myself being a little more patient. She’s got to get out of the house, though.  
Norbit: D+
A film so bad the poster alone cost Eddie Murphy his Oscar (and thank god for that).
Stomp the Yard: D
As characters get all serious and "man up" in perpetration for synchronize dancing as if it's a fight, nothing can mask the absurdity of the real-life-through-dance situations presented in this film. When one dancer disrespects the protagonist, the troubled youth says "yo, straight-up that dude is whack, man." Then they have a dance off to win the honor of a girl. Then they fight after the dance. That's redundant, why not just skip to fighting? And when the protagonist almost gets suspended for dating the dean's daughter (original), a last minute reprieve allows him to stomp for the big game. The team leader's inspiration pep speech is as follows: "we are TNT and that's one of the most powerful explosives known to man! That's what you are, that's what you are, and that's what you are. And that's what we have always been. Tonight, can we be explosive?" YESSSSS--wait, what does that even mean?  Even without the sports/college /teen/dance movie clichés, this film would suck the yard. 
Lucky You: C
Halfway through Curtis Hanson pleasant but unremarkable Lucky You I had to use the restroom. A few minutes later I come back to my seat and ask my friend "what did I miss?" She whispers back "nothing."
Duck: C-
I now know what the D in Umberto D stands for: Duck! Instead of a neorealism film with homeless man and his dog, though, Duck stars Phillip Baker Hall as a homeless man who embarks on a journey with an orphaned duck. The plot --if you can call it that-- follows this saggy nomad as he lugs a squawking duck around and roams the streets, getting into what Jules from Pulp Fiction would call "various adventures." The film could have been low key and told in Umberto D's vein of stark realism but instead feels corny and trite. It's also a failed comedy. Or is it? I'm still not sure if Duck is a poorly made film school project or some freakishly brilliant piece of Lynchian surrealism so I'm going to hedge my bets, grade it down the middle and leave the film with the thought that I've never seen anything like it. See it if you yearn, like I did (note the past tense), to see Phillip Baker Hall talking to a duck for two hours. 
Smoking Aces: D+
Besides aces (and ace-holes), what the hell was Joe Carnahan smoking? As post True Romance slam-bang schmorgisborgs go, tis a fine line between Way of the Gun-good and Guy Ritchy, Lucky Number Sleven, Domino (etc. etc.)-bad. The one thing this film is not is Way of the Gun-good. Jeremy Piven plays the "great white whale of snitches" in a crime film so cluttered with characters, cameos and (faux) coolness that it's rendered, like Piven the shark, dead in the water.
The Lookout: B
Fargo meets Memento and about half as good as either. A flawed but compelling neo-noir thriller with some great character moments from Levitt as a brain damaged security guard. Thanks to writer/director Scott Frank, this modest story is not as predictable as one might think. Give it a shot on DVD.  
Color Me Kubrick: C+
Obviously, great concept. Malkovich, going around England pretending to be Stanley Kubrick, is brilliant in a way only Malkovich can be. But there's not really a film here.
Blades of Glory: B-
This year's Dodgeball. More homoerotic than 300--and a lot funnier, too. John Heder's effeminate character is comically inconsistent (as are most of the gags) but Ferrell single handedly saves the film from choking, Sasha Cohen-style.  
The Hitcher: D
Bad Bean!

Music This Year
Check Out My List Here

!!! (Myth Takes): B+
Air (Pocket Symphony): B
Lilly Allen (Alright Still): B
Arcade Fire (Neon Bible): B+
Battles (Mirrored): B+
Andrew Bird (Armchair Apocrypha): B+
Blond Redhead (23): A-
Boris (Rainbow): B
Bright Eyes (Cassadaga): B
Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah (SLT): B
Deerhoof (Friend Opportunity): B+
Deerhunter (Cryptograms): B
Charlotte Gainsbourg (5:55): B-
Grinderman (self titled): B+
Fall Out Boy (Infinity On High): B-
Feist (The Reminder): C
The Field (From Here We Go Sublime): B
The Good, The Bad & the Queen (self title): A-Gruff Rhys (Candylion): A  
Linkin Park (Minutes to Midnight): B (not a typo)  
Modest Mouse (We Were Dead Before...): B-
Moskitoo (Drape): B+
Nine Inch Nails (Year Zero): A+
Of Montreal (Hissing Fauna): B-
LCD Soundsystem (Sound of Silver): B
Peter Bjorn and John (Writer's Block): B+
The Twilight Sad (Fourteen Autumns): D+

2007 TV/Film Log

2007 Best Picture Oscars

2006

The Black Dahlia: B
Borat: B+
Casino Royale: B+
The Child: B+
Children of Men: A
Clerks II: F
Cock and Bull Story: A
Da Vinci Code: C-
Dead Man's Chest: C+
The Departed: D+
The Devil Wears Prada: B+
Don't Come Knocking: D+
Dreamgirls: C
Flags of Our Fathers: B-
For Your Consideration: C-
Half Nelson: B-
Hard Candy: D-
Inland Empire: A-
Inside Man: B+
Jesus Camp: B
Lady in the Water: D+
Little Children: C-
Little Miss Sunshine: C
Marie Antoinette: C
Miami Vice: C+
Mission: Impossible III: B+
The Night Listener: C
Nacho Libre: C
Night Watch: B
Notes on a Scandal: B
The Omen: C-
A Prairie Home Companion: C+
The Prestige: B+
The Queen: A
Running With Scissors: D+
Running Scared: D+
A Scanner Darkly: B
Scoop: B
Snakes on a Plane: D
Superman Returns: D+
Talladega Nights: B+
This Film is Not Yet Rated: B-
Three Burials: B+
United 93: A-
Ultraviolet: D-
Underworld: Evolution: C
V for Vendetta: B-
Volver: C+
X-Men: The Last Stand: C
 

seen but not reviewed:

The Good German: B-
Crank: B
Venus: B-
Rocky Balboa: B
Apocalypto: C+
Ice Age 2: C
Strangers With Candy: B-
Click: D+
Cars: D+
The Break-Up: C+
Sweet Land: B
Lucky Number Sleven: D
The Last King of Scotland: D
Confederate States of America: C-
Sketches of Frank Gehry: B-
Scary Movie 4: D
Poseidon: D-
Silent Hill: D+
You, Me and Dupree: C+
My Country, My Country: C+
World Trade Center: C-
Find Me Guilty: B
Bubble: D
Eight Below: D
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children: D
Basic Instinct 2: D+
Glory Road: D
The Hills Have Eyes: B-
Big Momma's House 2: D   
The Pink Panther: C+
Underworld Evolution: C
Bloodrayne: D-
Over the Hedge: C
The Proposition: A
When a Stranger Calls: D-
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance: A-
Hostile: B
Art School Confidential: B+
Brick: B+
Cache: A-
Looking For Comedy...: D

Music This Year

Top 10 for 2006
1. Muse (Black Holes & Revelations)
2. Tool (10,000 Days)
3. Gomez (How to Operate)
4. Jarvis (Jarvis)
5. The Knife (Silent Shout)
6. Trail Of Dead (So Divided)
7. Herbert (Scale)
8. My Chemical Romance (Welcome to...)
9. Badly Drawn Boy (Born in the UK)
10. Mastodon (Blood Mountain)

Springsteen (We Shall Overcome): A-
Bob Dylan (Modern Times): B+
Thom Yorke  (The Eraser): B+
Yo La Tengo (...Beat Your Ass): B+
TV on the Radio (Return to Cookie...): B+
Beck (The Information): B+
Sparta (Threes): B+
The Mars Volta (Hard To Spell Title): B+
Graham Coxon (Love Travels...): B+
Built to Spill (You In Reverse): B+
Grizzly Bear (Yellow House): B+
Flaming Lips (At War With The Mystics): B
Gnarls Barkley (St. Elsewhere): B
Artic Monkeys (Whatever People Say...): B
Cat Power (The Greatest): B-
The Hold Steady (Boys and Girls...): B-
Keane (Under an Iron Sea): C+
Rihanna (A Girl Like Me): C+
Zero 7 (The Garden): C-
Red Hot Chili Peppers (Stadium...): D
Evanescence (The Open Door): D
Angles & Airwaves (We Don't Need...): F
Los Lonely Boys (Sacred): F

2005 Reviews

A History of Violence: A+
Match Point: A
Broken Flowers: A
Star Wars ep. III: A
Grizzly Man: A
Munich: A
Pride & Prejudice: A
Last Days: A-
Land of the Dead: A-
Weather Man: A-
Serenity: A-
Howl's Moving Castle: A-
Layer Cake: A-
Good Night & Good Luck: A-
Wallace and Gromit: A-
Brokeback Mountain: A-
Melinda and Melinda: A-
The Matador: B+
Nine Lives: B+
King & Queens: B+
In Her Shoes: B+
The Constant Gardener: B+
The Aristocrats: B+
Batman Begins: B
Cinderella Man: B
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: B
Balzac...: B
Flightplan: B
Red Eye: B
40-Year-Old Virgin: B-
Wedding Crashers: B-
The Upside of Anger: C+
Aliens of the Deep (Imax): C+
Skelton Key: C+
Syriana: C
Constantine: C
Harry Potter 4: C-
Capote: C-
The Island: C-
Elizabethtown: C-
Innocent Voices: C-
King Kong: C-
Sahara: C-
March of the Penguins: C-
Fantastic Four: C-
Elektra: D+
Chronicles of Narnia: D+
XXX: State of the Union: D Stealth: D
Longest Yard: D
Bewitched: D  
Dukes of Hazard: D
Mr. and Mrs. Suck: D-
Diary of a Mad Black Woman: D-War of the Worlds: D-
Alone in the Dark: D-
Crash: D-
 

*2005 Music*

Super Furry Animals
Love Kraft****
The best band that nobody’s ever heard of. And never will hear of if they keep making out-there rock epics like this. The beautiful and accomplished Love Kraft is quite ambitious, even for this notoriously abstract band. I loved every wacky minute of it.

Coheed and Cambria
Good Apollo...**
Tremendously generic, Jimmy Eat World-esq  music with pretensions of epic sci-fi grandeur. I read that the album is about a boy who survived an apocalypse (or something) but I just don’t see it and even if I did, they still sound like Jimmy Eat World. This album is like calling your dick the Eiffel tower. You could but what the hell good is that going to do?

Kanye West
Late Registration **
His last album was great, his new album is a chalk outline where great should be. “Gold Digger” single aside, Kanye has to stop worshiping himself and start worshiping the concept of a cohesive album.

Ok Go
Oh No***
Ok Great.

Gorillaz
Demon Days****
Why even call it Gorillaz? Why not just call it a Damon Albarn solo? Completely usurping an experimental, eclectic ensemble band is a ballsy to be sure, but a move that pays off for the egotistical Blur front man. An album that grows and grows on you.

Nine Inch Nails
With Teeth*****
For what it is... perfect. This album saved my summer from a downward spiral into complete disrepair. It's full of life and anger. Nothing short brilliant.

Coldplay
X&Y***
The band's best album to date. Musically, Coldplay is beginning to finding out who they are. As they refrain from ripping off old school Radiohead, the band creates interesting sounds that, above all, don't mug for attention. Subtle and affecting. "Fix You" is the album's highlight. 

White Stripes
Get Behind Me Satan***
The White Stripes have finally released an album I can stand listening to! Instead of pompous kitchen sink experimentation, Jack White’s bitchy voice and creepy incest themes, this new album is melodic, exciting and, well, Jack White’s voice is still bitchy and the incest is still there (in the song Passive Manipulation Meg sings about not knowing the difference "between a father and a lover." Insert puke here ___) but, well, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, the album: it’s good.

Weezer
Make Believe ***
Sure Rivers sounds trendy that he out-Dashboards Dashboard Confessional, but in the process he also under-Weezers Weezer. Not the band’s best album (they’re trying too hard to be liked) but a solid effort compared to what else is out there. It takes a couple listens, but afterwards you realize how durable this band is and how timeless their hits are. Their songs are like classics right out of the box. Simple but effective. The album’s highlight: We Are All On Drugs

System of a Down
Mesmerize**
Daron ruins it.

Eels
Blinking Lights****
Like Beck but with bark--the Eels' best album to date. I didn't know they had an album like this in them. The songs “Going Fetal” and “Now You’re Really Living” are impossibly upbeat for the band.

British Sea Power
Open Season***
BSP are read to pop… they just haven’t popped yet and probably never will. Too bad because this band, like a more stable Radiohead, go to places that sooth and amaze.

Dave Matthews Band
Stand Up**
As a fan of the ban, I’m not so sure what to make of Stand Up. It’s not as commercially catchy as Everyday, not as ambitious as Before These Crowded Streets, and not as liberating as Busted Stuff or all their outstanding live albums. So what is it? Their worst album to date, that’s what. This album has no identity and it feels like the band is at a place where they don’t know where to go.

LCD Soundsystem***
Electronica may be dead (or dying) but LCD revives the genre with great glee. A fantastic album by any standards. The song “Yeah” is bottled energy, ready to explode. This goddamn album has had me singing "Daft Punk is playing at my house, my house" for months. With no end in sight!  

Fiona Apple
Extraordinary Machine ***
Still unreleased by the record company, let’s hear it for sticking it to the man and downloading this album a la Dave Matthews Band’s Lillywhite Sessions.

Beck
Guero ****
I miss the sad Beck of Sea Change but, what can I say, the artist returning to his funky surreal Beckisms delivers an impossibly skilful scat session that ranks somewhere between Midnite Vultures and Mutations.

Queens of the Stoneage
Lullabies to Paralyze ***
Everything you’d expect from a Queens album but lacking a certain essential something. I can’t quite place what though. It’s more a Homme solo album than a follow-up to Songs For the Deaf.

The Soundtrack of Our Lives
Origin Volume 1 *** 
Call it “Beatles-esq,” call it “Who inspired,” call it “not as good as their last album,” call it whatever you like but I call it great.  

Doves
Some Cities ****
Their most upbeat album to date. Not their catchiest but a solid effort full of wonderful sounds.

Trail of Dead
Worlds Apart ****
Innovative, challenging and playful. From the intense opening track to the smooth closer, this album took me for a ride and showed me some many wonderful new things. It’s a minor rock revelation--not only the band’s best but one of the year’s best!

The Mars Volta
Frances the Mute ****
The kind of transcending experimental album that proves yet again that MV don’t care about who’s listing and only care about making what’s true to them. 

Bright Eyes
I’m Wide Awake… **½
A poet trapped in a crap singer’s body. Despite that this album has some nice tunes. 

Thievery Corporation
Cosmic Game ***
The TC doing what they do best. Some nice musical guests appearances by Flaming Lips and David Byrne.

Joanna Newson **
Nice harp work but that baby voice ruins it!

Arcade Fire
Funeral ****
As beautiful as it is skillful and elegant. I’m glad this Canadian band is getting noticed.  

2004 Films

• Kill Bill Vol. 2: A+

• Sideways: A

• Fahrenheit 9/11: A

• Dogville: A

• The Ladykillers: A

• Million Dollar Baby: A

• Intimate Strangers: A

• Eternal Sunshine...: A-

• The Aviator: A-

• Spartan: A-

• The Manchurian Candidate: A-

• I ♥ Huckabees: A-

• Kinsey: A-

• Touching the Void: B+

• The Bourne Supremacy: B+

• Stander: B+

• Collateral: B+

• Birth: B+

• The Corporation: B+

• Hellboy: B

• I, Robot: B

• Secret Window: B

• The Alamo: B

• Resident Evil 2: B

• Shaun of the Dead: B

• King Arthur: B

• Troy: B-

• Harry Potter III: B-

• Super Size Me: B-

• Starsky & Hutch: B-

• Anchorman: B-

• Garden State: B-

• Finding Neverland: B-

• The Incredibles: B-

• Dawn of the Dead: C+

• Ray: C+

• Mean Creek: C+

• Saved!: C+

• Good Bye Lenin!: C+

• Alexander: C

• Ocean's 12: C

• The Big Bounce: C

• Hero: C

• Blade: Trinity: C

• The Chronicles of Riddick: C

• Club Dread: C

• Harold and Kumar: C

• The Village: C-

• Taking Lives: C-

• Van Helsing: D+

• National Treasure: D+

• Sky Captain: D+

• The Terminal: D

• Shrek 2: D

• Team America: D

• Spider-Man 2: D

• Polar Express: D-

• Scooby Doo 2: D-

• Surviving Christmas: D-

• Jersey Girl: D-

• The Day After Tomorrow: D-

• Maria Full of Grace: D-

• The Forgotten: D-

• The Passion of The Christ: D-

• The Grudge: F

• Spanglish: F

 ***The Best Films of 2003***
***The Best Music of 2003***

*Music This Year*

Gomez Split the Difference: A
The Mars Volta De-Loused...: A
Nick Cave Abattoir Blues/Orpheus: A
Green Day American Idiot: A
Badly Drawn Boy 1+1=1: A
Phish Undermine: A-
Elvis Costello Delivery Man: A-
Elliot Smith From a Basement...: A-
Bjork Medula: A-
Eminem Encore: A-
PJ Harvey Uh Huh Her: A-
The Futureheads Self Titled: A-
Black Keys Rubber Factory: B+
Air Talkie Walkie: A-
Cafe Tacuba Cuatro Caminos: A-
Sparta Porcelain: A-
Eternal Sunshine... ST: A-
Black Keys Rubber Factory: B+
The Bad Plus Give: B+
Franz Ferdinand Self Titled: B+
JC Chasez Schizophrenic: B+
REM Around the Sun: B+
Tom Waits Real Gone: A-
Brian Wilson Smile: B+
Modest Mouse Good News...: B+
N.E.R.D Fly or Die: B+
The Streets A Grand....: B
Tears for Fears Everybody...: B
Incubus A Crow...: B
Godsmack The Other Side: C+
Norah Jones Feels Like Home: D

• Super Furry Animals Best Of: A+
• Spiritualized Complete Works 2: A+

Angel Reviews

1. Conviction: B+

2. Just Rewards: A-

3. Unleashed: F

4. Hell Bound: A-

5. Life of the Party: C

6. The Cautionary Tale...: B

7. Lineage: B+

8. Destiny: A

9. Harm's Way: B

10. Soul Purpose: B-

11. Damage: A-

12. You're Welcome: B

13. Why We Fight: B

14. Smile Time: B+

15. A Hole Through The World: A-

16. Shells: B-

17. Underneath: D

18. Origin: B+

19. Time Bomb: B-

20. The Girl in Question: A

Films reviewed in 2003

• Songs From The Second Floor: A

• Bad Santa: A

• The Return of the King: A Best of 03! 

• Kill Bill: A

• Lost In Translation: A

• Rules of Attraction: A

• Nowhere in Africa: A-

• Mystic River: A-

• Winged Migration: A-

• Open Range: A-

• Girl With a Pearl Earring: A-

• American Splendor: A-

• Man on the Train: A-

• Lost In La Mancha: A-

• City of God: A-

• The Magdalene Sisters: B+

• Anything Else: B+

• Master and Commander: B+

• Once Upon A Time In Mexico: B+

• 21 Grams: B+

• X2: X-Men United: B

• T3: Rise of the Machines: B

• Down With Love: B

• Shattered Glass: B

• School of Rock: B

• The Dancer Upstairs: B  

• Finding Nemo: B

• Phone Booth: B

• Bend It Like Beckham: B

• The Cuckoo: B

• The Hunted: B

• 28 Days Later: B-

• Freddy Vs. Jason: B-

• American Wedding: B-

• The Last Samurai: B-

• Identity: B-

• The Italian Job: B-

• Thirteen: B-

• Bad Boys 2: B-

• A Mighty Wind: C+

• Matrix Reloaded: C+

• Shanghai Knights: C+

• Big Fish: C

• Elf: C

• The Life of David Gale: C

• S.W.A.T.: C-

• Hulk: C-

• The Recruit: C-

• Whale Rider: C-

• Pirates of the Caribbean: C-

• Matchstick Men: D+

• Confidence: D+

• House of 1,000 Corpses: D+

• Underworld: D+

• Daredevil: D+

• 2 Fast 2 Furious: D

• How To Lose A Guy...: D

• Anger Management: D

• The Good Thief: D

• Cold Mountain: D

• The Core: D

• Mona Lisa Smile: D

• Uptown Girls: D

• Monster: D

• Bruce Almighty: D

• Alex and Emma: D  

• Paycheck: D

• The Cooler: D-  

• Matrix Revolutions: D-

• Legally Blond 2: D-

• The Fighting Temptations: D-

• From Justin To Kelly: F

• Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle

• Gigli: F

Note: All films are listed in order of what I perceive to be quality... except the straight A films which are listed in the order I see em'.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer
season seven guide  
 

Series finale Chosen A+

*2003 Music*

• Blur Think Tank:  A
• Super Furry Animals Phantom Pow:A
• Radiohead Hail to the Thief:  A
• Spiritualized Complete Works:  A
• Chris O'Riley True Love Waits:  A
• Flaming Lips Fight Test (ep):  A
• Spirited Away Soundtrack:  A
• Spiritualized Amazing Grace:  A-
• Dave Matthews Some Devil:  A-
• Perfect Circle The 13 Steps:  A-
• Damon Albarn Mali Music:  A-
• Andrew WK The Wolf:  A-
• JJ72 I to Sky:  A-
• Coldplay Live:  B+
• Marilyn Manson Grotesque...:  B+
• Basement Jaxx Kish Kash.:  B+
• Robbie Williams Escapology:  B+
• Dave Gahan Paper Monsters:  B+
  Outcast Speaker Box:  B+
• Michele Branch Hotel Paper:  B
• Godsmack Faceless:  B
• The Strokes Room on Fire:  C+
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs Fever to Tell:  C+
• The White Stripes Elephant: C-
• Metallica St. Anger:  F

*2002 Music 
*2001 Music

***Films released in 2002***

• The Pianist: A

• Far From Heaven: A

• The Two Towers: A

• Punch-Drunk Love: A

• Spirited Away: A Best of 02

• One Hour Photo: A

• Salton Sea: A

• 13 Conversations...: A

• Changing Lanes: A

• Adaptation: A-

• Panic Room: A-

• Y Tu Mamá También: A-

• The Last Kiss: A-

• Solaris: A-

• Metropolis: A-

• Adaptation: A-

• About Schmidt: A-

• Max: A-

• Talk to Her: A-

• No Man's Land: A-

• Star Wars Episode II: A-

• Chicago: A-

• Unfaithful: A-

• Signs: A-

  ---

• Die Another Day: B+

• 40 Days & 40 Nights: B+

• About A Boy: B+

• Frailty: B+

• 8 Mile: B+

• Simone: B+

• The Hours: B+

• Read My Lips: B+  

• Possession: B+

• Monsoon Wedding: B+

• Harvard Man: B+

• Lagaan: B+

• Orange County: B+

• Super Troopers: B+

• Reign of Fire: B

• The Bourne Identity: B

• 25th Hour: B

• Auto Focus: B

• Dragonfly: B

• Spy Kids 2: B

• The Cat's Meow: B

• The Ring: B

• Austin Powers 3: B

• Insomnia: B

• Bella Martha: B

• Hollywood Ending: B

• The Accidental Spy: B

• Harry Potter II: B

• Catch Me if You Can: B

• Roger Dodger: B

• Gangster #1: B

• Blade 2: B-

• Rode to Perdition: B-

• The Rookie: B-

• Full Frontal: B-

• Murder by Numbers: B- 

• City by the Sea: B-

• My Big Fat Greek...: B- 

• The Sum of all Fears: B- 

• Resident Evil: B- 

  ---

• The Tuxedo: C+

• Scooby-Doo: C+

• Storytelling: C

• Gangs of New York: C

• Red Dragon: C

• K-19: C

• Blood Work: C

• Minority Report: C

• Queen of the Damned: C

• Death to Smoochy: C-

• High Crimes: C-

• Birthday Girl: C-

• Hart's War: C-

• Count of Monty Cristo: C-

• Spider-Man: C-

  ---

• Slackers: D+

• Big Fat Liar: D+

• Men In Black II: D+

• Star Trek Nemesis: D+

• Swept Away: D+

• Bad Company: D

• Collateral Damage: D

• I Spy: D

• Showtime: D

• Ice Age: D

• Rollerball: D-

• The Scorpion King: D-

• Who is Cletis Tout?: D-

• Blue Crush: D-

• We Were Soldiers: D-

• The Sweetest Thing: F

• Crossroads: F

• The Time Machine: F

• A Walk To Remember: F

• XXX: FFF (worst of 2002)

• Mulholland Drive: A Best of 01

• Sexy Beast: A

• Memento: A 

• Waking Life: A

• Vanilla Sky: A

• Moulin Rouge: A

• Gosford Park: A

• Amelie: A

• Monster's Ball: A

• Final Fantasy: A

• Jay and Silent Bob: A

• The Royal Tenenbaums: A-

• Made: A-

• A.I. Artificial Intelligence: A-

• Donnie Darko: A-

• Startup.com: A-

• The Widow of St. Pierre: A-

• Caveman's Valentine: A-

• Black Hawk Down: A-

• The Golden Bowl: A-

• The Deep End: A-

• Lantana: A-

• In The Bedroom: A-

• Open Your Eyes: A-  

• The Tailor of Panama: B+

• Ghost World: B+

• Sidewalks of New York: B+

• Swordfish: B+

• Training Day: B+

• The Man Who Wasn't There: B+

• Bully: B+

• L.I.E.: B+ 

• Not Another Teen Movie: B+

• Angel Eyes: B+

• The Mexican: B+

• Spy Kids: B+

• Time and Tide: B+

• Joy Ride: B+

• Harry Potter: B

• Amorous Perros: B

• The Pledge: B

• Enemy at the Gates: B

• Planet of the Apes: B

• Spy Game: B

• Kiss of the Dragon: B

• Josie and the Pussycats: B

• Crazy/Beautiful: B

• Last Orders: B  

• Baby Boy: B

• From Hell: B

• Heist: B

• A Beautiful Mind: B

• Osmosis Jones: B

• Bridget Jones' Diary: B

• Tortilla Soup: B-

• America's Sweethearts: B-

• Lord of the Rings: B-

• Hannibal: B-

• Zoolander: B-

• The Crimson Rivers: B-

• K-Pax: B-

• Rat Race: B-

• The Million Dollar Hotel: B-

• Fifteen Minutes: B-

• Together: B-

• Monsters, Inc: B-

• Kate & Leopold: B-

• The Others: B-

• American Pie 2: B-

• Ali: B-

• The Score: C+

• The Glass House: C+

• Don’t Say a Word: C+

• Heartbreakers: C+

• Capt. Corelli's Mandolin: C+

• A Knights Tale: C+

• Iris: C+

• Monkeybone: C+

• Exit Wounds: C+

• The Forsaken: C+

• Life as a House: C+

• Tomb Raider: C

• The Dish: C

• Blow: C

• Bandits: C

• An American Rhapsody: C

• Atlantis: C

• Hearts in Atlantis: C

• Curse of the Jade Scorpion: C

• The Mummy Returns: C

• The Body: C

• Evolution: C

• One Night at McCools: C

• Down To Earth: C

• 3,000 Miles to Graceland: C

• Tomcats: C

• Save the Last Dance: C

• Jurassic Park 3: C-

• Serendipity: C-

• Behind Enemy Lines: C-

• Summer Catch: C-

• Someone Like You: C-

• Along Came a Spider: D+

• Ocean's 11: D+

• The Princess Diaries: D+

• Valentine: D+

• Driven: D+

• Domestic Disturbance: D

• Antitrust: D

• The Last Castle: D

• Joe Dirt: D

• Sugar and Spice: D

• Rush Hour 2: D

• Freddy Got Fingered: D

• Shrek: D

• Jeepers Creepers: D

• Get Over It: D

• The Musketeer: D

• Scary Movie 2: D

• Say it Isn't So: D-

• The Animal: D-

• The Wedding Planner: D-

• Soul Survivors: F

• Legally Blond: F

• Cats and Dogs: F

• I Am Sam: F

• Pearl Harbor: F (worst of 2001)