The Worst Film of the Year is...
Crash
Committed by Paul Haggis

Everyone’s racist, nobody’s racist, white people hate, black people are disadvantaged criminals, Ludicrous is such a bad actor he looks like a good actor, Tony Danza is the Devil, Paul Haggis is a sanctimonious prick... am I missing anything? In my best racist cop voice I say: Nothing to see here, folks, move along. Haggis’ social problem picture wants with every fiber of its we-are-the-world being to instruct its audience; to tell us what to feel. More than just coming off as pretentious, Crash is unable to back up its stylish aesthetic with a message that holds up when we actually examine what the film is saying. Rather, this is the kind of drama that preys on the audience's guilty and fear and damn near thrives upon the fact that we wouldn’t dare question the story's insidious intentions.

Crash is not a thoughtful movie about race, it is a car wreck.

A vaguely racist film about racism, Crash possesses a rather ugly need to vilify every nook and cranny of white America while turning everything non-white into needy victims worthy of mainstream pity and empathy. This theme is evidenced in the film’s emotionally corrupt crescendo where (A) the one sympathetic figure in the film, a young cop, kills an unarmed black man in cold blood, and (B) that young cop's older partner, the Racist White Cop, saves the very same black car wreck victim whom he sexually assaulted the day before in front of her weak willed husband who, unlike the racist cop, did not save this fragile black woman while she was in danger. So here is a film where the good guy kills based on race, the black woman is an objectified victim, the black man is impotent, and the racist white authority figure is a savior. I must be missing something because I have no idea what this is saying about the state of race in America?

As ethereal Enya music plays over fully loaded images of characters walking in slow motion –all serious like because, remember, this is a serious movie— Crash goes round and round and round and round… and it spins so fast and so feverishly that by the end the audience is dizzy, left so confused and guilt ridden that they mistake solipsism with profoundness. Within the looping multi-character universe I can honestly say that there is not one character that feels organic or acts as if they are not marionettes connected to puppet strings and at the mercy of a preachy screenwriter hovering over everybody's head. Crash is politically correct terrorism!  

I will judge you
I will protect you
I will need you
I will kill you.
-The film's tagline.  

2. Alone in the Dark

There's something endearing about a film this bad and the DVD commentary by the mentally retarded, uh, I mean German filmmaker is what seals the deal for me. Uwe Boll's film has reached a new echelon of badness that can only be described as horrend-kitsch. With a list that includes Showgirls, Battlefield Earth and Freddy Got Fingered, Alone in the Dark finds itself in company so bad its good. A key factor in upgrading this film to such high status is that the director is not only unaware of how bad his film is, he's getting ready for Oscar night in hopes of a write in for Best Director. The following is a DVD commentary quote from the stink auteur. Read at your own risk:

“They are loosing against the creatures and this is the basic idea behind the whole movie; zat it is the revenge of nature against the whole human civilization so the basic idear is zat the lights of civilization, of civilization is burning everywhere so zer’s no space anymore for the creature in the darkness hiding in the darkness and that means also that if ze balance of nature is out of control, er, people getting wrong, and people getting in, er, get not, not, people were wrong, ze climate gets wrong and we saw, for example with the tsunami in Thai Land that nature is getting out of control and we having ze South and North pole melting and the problems coming up so Roland Emmerich’s movie Day After Tomorrow was, is an example for zat what could happen basically and we learn it year after year, more and more, zat, uhhhhh, ze problems are not getting smaller and it’s not about social problems and employer-less people or whatever but, uh, nature and the, uh, uh, problems we have with securing nature and the balance between day and night, light and darkness and civilization and nature.”

I shit you not, that’s a direct quote and… wow! Wowey, wow, wow, wow, that’s some loopy shit, right? So here I was thinking I was watching an irredeemable, beyond-B CGI creature movie when in fact I was actually watching a social polemic on Manichaeism, human greed, the environment, Tara Reid’s nasty boobs and the limits of human civilization in the 21^st century. Folks, this crazy German is something special. The Ed Wood of the modern era, here is a man whose optimism is only matched by his lack of talent. A part of me wants to figure this guy out. Is he really a bad filmmaker or does he just want his films to make money because of some German tax loophole? Either way we must study and learn from this man and to do that we MUST watch Boll’s films and listen to his commentaries. This filmmaker thinks he's changing the world and by making one of the worst films of all time, in a way, he has.

I would say that there’s not a movie anywhere in here except there is… and it stars Tara Reid! As a bespectacled archeologist!! Who fights monsters!!! That would have been the funniest thing I’ve ever heard except there’s more. The film also features an endlessly dull introductory scroll text about an ancient Indian curse or some such shit, a Christian Slater voice over that covers everything that the two thousand word intro did only with sharp insights like “Fear is what protects you from the things you don't believe in,” and a fully clothed sex scene with music about “making babies” playing over the image of Dr. Tara Reid’s new boobs nearly buckling under the extreme pressure of her structurally unsound bra (apparently the only place we won’t get to see this floozy naked is in a exploitative horror film!). Sounds dumb? Well it gets even worse because, as we’ve come to find out, the less money Boll’s films make (and by extension the worse they are), the more the German government subsidizes the project. That tax loophole is good for Boll and his investors... and bad for the rest of humanity—easily Germany’s worst mistake since electing the National Socialist German Workers Party.

If you are wondering why nobody is going to the movies, these are the kind of great thinkers that are going to help Hollywood get asses in the seats. This director has two more movies coming out in 2006 and FIVE more by 2008 so… that's where we're heading. 

While I dig bad movies, you may not so sign the "Stop Uwe Boll" petition at: http://www.petitiononline.com/RRH53888/petition.html

3. Mr. And Mrs. Smith—

The Dukes, the Narnia brats, Tyler Perry… Hollywood pushed its share of irritating characters upon us but none could match the luminous doozey that Mr. Smith and his wife pulled on us. The film. Just. Grates. Brad Pitt, at his worst, has a way of coasting through bad movies on "coolness" credit—that is to say he stands around being Brad Pitt and we, for some reason, call the guy cool. The actor's preening I-Get-That-I'm-In-A-Bad-Movie-But-I'm-Having-Fun-Anyways mug (last seen fleeing the crime scene of Ocean's 11 and 12) managed to convince a lot of people in the summer of 2005 that not only was he funny, but that he was starring in a movie that is watchable. On the other hand Jolie at her worst is hard to calculate because, well, has anyone ever seen her at her best? Playing against the backdrop of a bloodless, aimless, third act-less film about an assassin couple contracted by never seen bad guys to take out… each other (the irony!), the non-stop media coverage of the on and off screen duo's nauseating love affair only made matters worse. As an action comedy the film is a complete failure (the action is missing the threat of danger and the comedy is smug) but fact that anybody cared about these two damage control playing twats and their movie is the most vexing thing of all. Instead of adopting as many brown babies as they can get their hands on, these two phony celebrity crusaders should have looked into adopting a screenwriter so he could have written them a better film.   

4. War of the Worlds—

The darkness that inhabits the worlds of Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, A.I. and now War of the Worlds should be called cleverly designed smoke screen. Spielberg, as a filmmaker, seems to be visiting darkness without ever actually experiencing it or, worst of all, without ever actually allowing his audience to experience it. This is not filmmaking, it is handholding and with War of the Worlds, it's hand crushing.

War of the Worlds is not just bad, it’s embarrassing. A science fiction film so inept in its plotting and so unsatisfying in its execution (specifically the ending) that this film qualifies as one of the director’s worst—which is ironic because this year also saw one of his best (Munich). I'll tell you what, though: since War of the Worlds is as bad as Munich is good, the two cancel each other out and I wont ever mention again how lame this film is.  

5. Diary of a Mad Black Woman

Diary is not grounded in anything even remotely resembling a human condition. Characters do "crazaaayee" things like shoot off guns for no apparent reason, say stupid-er things like "I know Tae Bo!" "And I know whoop your ass!," preach to one another about what good Christians they are, act out of character to the point where the word "character" becomes a relative concept and flounder about in hopes of getting a laugh or, worse, moralizing. The problem is that the film manages to do neither exceptionally well. As a revenge comedy that aims to amuse, the film is inept, unfunny, awkward and stupid--when the dumped wife Else asks her spry grandmother, Media, how much her wrong-doing husband owes her, Media punches a calculator for a good minute and retorts, "Girl, that man owe you 64 billion, 283 million, 974 trillion, 5 thousand, and 20 dollars and 82 cents." And as a spiritual drama the film's ignoble attempts to heap on the good Christian moralizin' comes off as a misguided character piece that ends up taking its subjects, independent women and black people, down a few notches by reducing them to shallow stereotypes. Every major critic was afraid to be harsh on the film, choosing instead to attack easy bad-movie targets like Dukes of Hazard because, well, who can resist slamming dumb southerners? Lame as Dukes is however, it is at the very least dumb for dumb's sake. This film is dumb for another sake. Dumb posing as spiritually uplifting piece of whimsy.

6. March of the Penguins—

In a year I saw What the *#@% Do We Know?, calling March is the worst non-fiction film of recent memory means something. There’s just nothing filmic about penguins standing around, mating, and being cold.  The melodramatic March not only looses points for sculpting a love-struck narrative and manipulating the audience to the point of nausea, but it gives bad name to real nature films. You know, the ones that don't feel the need to reconfigure nature into something resembling a Disneyland theme park...and a boring one at that. Comparing March to Werner Herzog’s vastly superior nature film Grizzly Man is worth doing. Both films observe nature and break the objective reality by commenting on what they see, yes, but Grizzly Man achieves a respectful and even powerful distance from the unknowable face of nature. That documentary does not seek to sweeten animals or make them human as this film does. Rather, it seeks to draw parallels with mankind with nature. This film does not study the traits of mankind and nature, it blends them, making the Penguins grotesque through shallow anthropomorphic qualities and tricks of editing. Sure, these Penguins struggle and their 70 mile journey is, on paper, as fascinating as anything to be seen in The Lord of the Rings but what makes this one of the worst films of the year is voiceover narration which panders and manipulates to a point of excess. Does the narrator really need to tell us that the footage we are watching is "a love story," does he really need to remind us that "the worst is yet to come" and do we really need to know that "the Penguin's loss is... unbearable"? No, Penguins don't know what unbearable is. Firstly, because they're fucking Penguins and second because they didn't have to sit through this film. As animal films go, Chicken Little told a more honest story.  

7. Chronicles of Narnia

Welcome to Narnia, a land where “logic” is a curse word, where polar ice caps melting is a positive thing and where Santa gives weapons of destruction to little children as gifts. Narnia is also a world where kids can't act, where animals come across looking like rejects from the Ice Age 2 waist bin and where male Lions are not only creepy Jesus figures who receive kid friendly crucificitions, but HAVE NO CGI TESTICLES.

The film, directed by a Shrek flunky, is set in a magical dimension that can be accessed, for no discernable reason, via a wardrobe closet in the English countryside during World War II. I would say the film is inferring some sort of connection between the horrors of war and the perpetually winter-y Narnia but, er, doubt that because the film is actually a celebration of war more than anything. Four feisty children find their way into this cold dimension and come up with reasons why they should go to war to fight evil circus animals lead by a Teutonic baddie who loves to accessorize her animal clothes with animal make up. Cute. The reason to fight is that there is no Christmas in this land. Huh? So for reasons that are rather thin, the children do battle with well-dressed ice witches, guys wearing bull heads (hey, look, it's Master Blaster!) and evil animals, at the end of witch the kids get to become Kings and Queens in this magical realm (ewwwww, that would mean they have sex). I would go more into how shallow, how silly, how trite with religious symbolism, how emotional distant the film’s narrative is but that would imply that I was able to get that far into the film’s icy story. Fact is, the children are so ill-equipped at bringing the audience into this fantasy realm that I was unable to find a suitable point of entry into the plot… had I though, I still would have a beef with the film.

With every inept attempt at portraying charm or adventure, Narnia proves how and where the Lord of the Rings trilogy succeeded. That like-minded fantasy, on the surface, is just as preposterous but it has a heart and the adventure serves a purpose. Most importantly I CARED about the characters because (A) they were played by people who could act and (B) because these characters were dramatic agents who made sense within the reality of their film world--a world, I hasten to add, that was created around the characters instead of the other way around.

 8. Elektra

Elektra is three quarters a mediocre movie with a final quarter being filled up by the very definition of a failed comic book concept. A bored Jennifer Garner as a OCD-rific superhero does not just phone in her performance, she cell phones it in. Green lighted despite the embarrassment that was Daredevil, this is one of those rare follow-ups that does everything it can to distance itself from the original. So why, we were left wondering, did they even bother with a follow-up? Good question because I don’t know why. You don’t know why. And I’m positive the filmmakers don't know why. This film almost seems to have been made because there was nothing else to do.

For the hell of it, I'm not going to blame Elektra on Garner but on Ben Affleck. You see, I’m already pissed at him for knocking up Garner, which directly lead to the show Alias being canceled. Beyond that for the last two, three, and four years Mr. Affleck has starred in the worst films of recent memory. The list is long so get ready: there's Gigli (2003), Surviving Christmas (2004), Paycheck (2003), Sum of All Fears (2002), Pearl Harbor (2001, the worst of the decade?) and of course Daredevil (2003). Being that he makes a cameo on the Elektra DVD deleted scene I'm going include him on this top ten list because, well, I'll be dammed if I'm going to let 2005 pass without a mention of Affleck. Ever the Prometheus figure, Affleck is not even close to being off the hook.  

9. Sahara

Behold, the worst named character in recent film history: Dirk Pitt. Part Dirk Diggler, part Brad Pitt, and all crap, Matthew McConaughey has landed himself in one fine mess of a movie. The actor stumbles through this unrefined Indiana Jones meets National Treasure knock off like a stoned Lawrence of Arabia— Allah knows, the dude probably needed to be stoned just to get through this cinematic vortex of suck-tastic quicksand. The film is tedious, dull and sand blasted with enough lame-ass implausibility's that even people who believed Indiana drinking from the Holy Grail made a certain sort of sense will be scoffing at this POS.

Songs sing of “American man,” “sweet home Alabama” and t-shirts practically scream “New York City” as these Yankees tear through an impoverished Africa, a land in which these bronzed crackers are told, and rightly so, that “you don’t belong.” But not belonging is this film's strength. Such lines of course fall on def ears because Dirk Pitt's got some adventurin' to do! Set against a backdrop of sickly natives caught up in a nasty civil war and acting as if they were the "America--Fuck Yeah!!!" puppets form Team America: World Police, Dirk Pitt and co. have no real relation to the film's setting. The insane “plot” detailing a confederate civil war bunker that floats on water, ends up in Africa, and oozes “toxins” onto the land years later could be interpreted as a sly comment on the poisonous African slave trade had the writers, director or anyone put an ounce of thought into this sun kissed mess. The film is not sly, it’s clumsy and for a $130 million price tag, enormously overpriced considering what we’re getting for our money.  

10. King Kong

As lassitude triumphs over adventure every aspect of Peter Jackson’s much anticipated King Kong feels off key. Act 1: Too long. Act 2: too much Act 3: not enough. The film is made with great skill and craft and there are no significant deal breaking flaws other than it made me tired and I couldn’t wait for it to end.

Put me in charge and I would have cut the film by almost half. The depression era first hour is an awkward fit with the material--I would cut 30 minutes here. The second act on the island in which a team of bold white men penetrate the dark, unforgiving jungle to find the last remaining mystery in the western world, while rich with Heart of Darkness symbolism, I would cut another thirty minutes. As for the final act set in New York: there is a Kong ice skating sequence. You heard me, there is a Kong…ice…skating…sequence and do I even need to say that should have been cut?

I seem to be a half-fan of the director. On its own terms, the original Fellowship does not work as a movie. It suffers from severe pacing problems. The second Lord of the Rings film, The Two Towers, however, exhibited exquisite pacing and a lot of heart. If the director’s oeuvre can be divided up by these two types of films (one indulgent, the other indulgent but fascinating), then Kong is more Fellowship than Towers. As such, it is awkward, meandering and tedious. The film takes indulgences that tested my patience. For instance, in the middle chunk of the film there are about five action set pieces in a row. An onslaught of running dinosaurs, harrowing ape battles, spider pits, more ape battles, not to mention giant bat attack sequences, the capturing of Kong, a ship wreck, a ship recovery, another ship wreck, an ass full of gun battles etc. is, quite simply, too much and for too long. The middle act of this film is akin to pouring sugar on top of an ice-cream cone.

But at least the middle section is candy.  The first section by contrast is like dried, shriveled up fruit. The historical period aspects of the first act tend to feel exploitative and the most unnecessary section of the film.  Shallow for the reasons that depression era sense of hunger and sadness exists only as a backdrop to the story. Jackson fails to return to the themes he raised in the first act—this would be like making a movie about a group of superheroes and setting the opening in a holocaust camp… oh, wait. In this respect Naomi Watts as the lead character is a flawed one because she seems to become a different character once on the island. All of her hunger and sadness was thrown away in favor of being star struck, then ape struck, then dumb struck. But even then something feels off. After being in love with Adrian Brody for an hour and a half the protagonist meets her real love and this character's slightly icky three-way relationship with Kong and Brody (playing the film within the film’s screenwriter) never adds up to a compelling romantic conflict—when Kong falls to his death, Watts gives the hero/alpha male rival to Kong an anticlimactic look of “well, I guess you’ll do.” While Watts and Kong share some memorable moments (their quiet, getting-to-know-you scenes in the jungle are the only thing about the film that works), the over emphasis on Brody only works to further muddle an already overdone story.

In case you haven’t guessed I am not a fan of the source material either. But I shouldn’t have to be, right? I’m not a fan of women’s shoes but that didn’t prevent me from digging In Her Shoes. The original Kong took the young medium of cinema to places it had never been and showed it things it had never seen. It is perhaps the first truly accomplished escapist epic... and I'm still not a fan. So why remake it? And at four hours why remake it so god damn long?  

I would like to close this rant with some optimism. I think (I hope) Jackson is done with the whole long, epic, fantasy genre. The filmmaker is too talented and smart to be so indulgent… he is NOT Michael Camino. When he indulges in a good idea (Lord of the Ring) movie history is made; when he indulges in a bad idea… well, King Kong and The Frighteners is made.

The Rest of the Worst…

The Dukes of Hazard—
Hate is not quite the word. Hating this film is like hating a retarded baby. Beating up on it is like tipping over a kid in a wheelchair. Sure you could put your efforts into these endeavors but what's the point? You'll just end up looking like a dick... righteous as you may be in hating this film, you got to let it go and forget you ever saw it for the sake of your sanity. And if you can't just drop it, and I won't blame you, you may need to bleach your brain!  

Syriana —
I would say Gagen’s Syriana gives message movies a bad name except this coy political "epic" is so maddeningly superficial that to say there actually is message underneath the self congratulatory labyrinth of mid east oil politics and evil white policy makers would be a great compliment. Syriana is not bad in the Alone in the Dark sense but it makes the list because with all the talent involved, and with all the pressing real world issues going on today the film should have been more than a convoluted game of political hide and seek... or better yet, political hide the salami. 

Stealth—
A film so bad Jerry Bruckheimer said it sucked. Posing as the Top Gun for new millennium, director Rob Cohen wanted to slide this worldview into the foreground: “Don’t think, drunk.” As the film’s three charmless leads chanted this, I couldn’t help but to chuckle. First, because that’s what it sounds like the screenwriters believed in when coming up with this high concept/low girth military thriller in which a HAL-light computer controls a high tec jet. Second, because that’s the kind of mantra the US military would just love to get into the zeitgeist. Thinking? Pah... who needs it! Beyond this box office flop’s dreary plot and tepid special effects is the simple notion that the film isn’t about anything we can grab onto or care about. If a computerized jet film bombs in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound? Stealth answers that ageless question with a resounding YES.

Paradise Now—
Hamas called, they want their ski masks back. 

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire —

The most anticipated film of the year also happens to be the most disappointing. That's usually how it works for me. While Warner Brother's Potter film franchise has never achieved greatness I was optimistic about the fourth film version because the Rowling's books, from Goblet on, has achieved greatness. The filmmaker, realizing this, attempted to include every noteworthy moment from the mammoth 700+ page novel into his two hour film. The result is a condensed, disjointed, damn near incoherent film without the necessary transitions that take the film from one action scene to the next. This is a film that manages to include all the essential plot points from the novel but none of the heart. Oh well, I'm sure they won't screw up the adaptation of book five. Right. Uhhhhhh, right?  

The Longest Yard—
The depths of Adam Sandler’s talent are tapped by this zero laugh football sitcom. I get the sense that Sandler is not too worried about tainting (with an emphasis on taint) his reputation because he is (A) rich and (B) proven to all of us that he can act and proven to all of us that he prefers comedy. After a few more forgettable comedies like this will we even care? “You don’t have to do eeet.” 

Fantastic Four —
The kind of superhero film where NOTHING HAPPENS. Characters stand around being super but the plot fails to put these characters to use. Or for that matter to do anything with these characters. Standing around and talking about their powers is the extent of their powers, and the extent of the film's dead zone creativity. The film is dull, dreary, lacking in the special effects and cheesier than it's many Burger King tie-ins. Though despite all my bitching... the fucker's still better than Spider Man. 

Elizabethtown—
Because when Cameron Crowe makes a movie, it must be acknowledged as one of the worst films to come out all year.

Innocent Voices—
Another coming-of-age social realist film in which a filmmaker depicts, with great heart wrenching realism, how bad conditions are in ___ (insert developing country here), then wallows in the misery like it's going out of style, then comes to the conclusion that America is responsible for the conditions, then ends his film with a rousing sequence in which the protagonist is saved... when he or she escapes to America. Thanks but no thanks, we got our own problems to deal with. Films like Innocent Voices are riddled with clichés and constructed upon nothing beyond their messages. You watch and you learn and you're are sad for a while and you go "gee, glad that wasn't me" but because film is such a literal medium the combo highly constructed ideological messages with the images becomes something resembling overkill. With nothing other than a message to watch there’s only so much I can be sad before I just start being bothered.

Bewitched—
More interesting than exploring why this laugh-free comedy fails is how it ever got made. Simple; the film got a “go” on its concept alone. Some ass-hole executive pitched a postmodern version of a “classic” show (that wasn’t that good to begin with) where Bewitched and its zany characters become a meta show within a meta movie. The film is tailor made to please everybody; it is cute, women will love it, its got a prime summer release date and Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman are attached. What could go wrong? Everything, apparently. With a production that could sell itself regardless quality the creative forces behind this film probably figured the film would make itself. There was a time when that ruse would have worked but this year the game has changed—or at least I hope it has. I hope that it is no accident that with The Island, Stealth and Bewitched, somehow people decided not to go to a high profile films just because they were out.

The Island—
Don’t worry Michael Bay, I’m not going to leave you out.

The Best Audio Commentaries of 2005

Frank Miller's Sin City
Audience Commentary
Listening to the raucous laughter and "oooohhhh" of excitement when Yellow Basted gets his comeuppance does not sound revolutionary. It is. Recording the audience during the Austin premiere and releasing it with the super special edition of Sin City, Robert Rodriguez's is on to something. So much so that I would say EVERY event film on par with Sin City should feel obligated at this point to release their films with an audience reaction commentary. For those of us who are socially inept and/or sick of going to the movie theaters just to be annoyed, this is the answer. I've been thinking about this type of commentary for years and watching it realized make me proud that commentaries are evolving as an art for.

Sideways
Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church
Just two guys hanging out, shooting the shit, and watching a great movie. In watching this highly acclaimed film, the playful verbiage amongst actors Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church is a thing of absurd wonder. As the two try to outmatch the other's insane description or showy vocabulary I got the sense that, for once, here are actors that are not treating the film as something sacred. As humble as it is hilarious, this is the one commentary this year that put a smile on my face.

Alexander
Director Oliver Stone
Yeah, the film was a flop. And, yeah, it was pretty lame. And, yeah, not even the streamlined "director's cut" could mask the taste of an indulgent, aimless, just plain awkward Euro trash aesthetic. But this is one of those rare commentaries that justify everything that seems bad about this epic. With this fearless commentary Oliver Stone informs the audience with cool historical tidbits and interpretations and entertains them with on-set stories and wacky-fun conspiracy theories. Stone is a smart man with a lot of good ideas and this commentary is his argument for why Alexander works. He may be wrong, but he's finally made his peace.

Batman - The Motion Picture Anthology Audio Commentary
(Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher)
All four commentaries are candid and surprisingly revealing. The commentaries not only take the audience into the process of making a franchise movie circa late eighties early nineties, but lets us know where the films went right and terribly wrong--which is appreciated. I'm not embellishing when I say Burton and Schumacher's audio commentaries are better than the actual movies!  

Point Blank
John Boorman and Steven Soderbergh
Director John Boorman and filmmaker Steven Soderbergh take fans through this blissful revenge fantasy. Soderbergh, like Scorsese, has sat in on other director's commentaries before (Catch 22 comes to mind) and he really enhances the proceedings by facilitating a mood where the director is able to freely expresses what he was going for. More so than had the director done this commentary alone because it usually sucks when an older filmmaker attempts to discuss (to himself) a film that was made however-man years ago (if they talk at all they usually just sound like they're mumbling to themselves). Rather, Soderbergh swoops in and besides saving the commentary, he really livens it up by asking the right questions and making the right observations. Oh, and the Lee Marvin stories are great, too. While listening to this commentary I could practically hear the creative juices flowing. And by juices I mean the film geek Soderbergh blowing a load all over Boorman.

Alone in the Dark
Director Uwe Boll
There's nothing funnier than listening to a director praise a film everybody knows is awful. This commentary is one big joke that everybody, except the director is in on.

In the hilarious commentary the director also insists that while Tara Reid is a crap actress, Christian Slater is a way better actor than Keanu Reeves and later takes offence to someone on the Internet Movie Database who said this film is "worse" than Alien Vs. Predator. What, exactly, does saying your film is better than Alien Vs. Predator prove? To Bowl it proves a lot and that's all we need to know about him.

The Day After Tomorrow
Director Roland Emmerich and Producer Mark Gordon
A coked out producer and crazy-ass director get together on the commentary for this mega-hit film about weather and teenagers and chase scenes with teenagers trying to outrun weather. Thought the two might actually think they made a good movie, hearing their thoughts on the production as well as a number of political digs is amusing. Most amusing of all, however, is producer Mark Gordon. In commentaries producers are normally dry, factual and robotic. Here, Gordon is, shall we say, unorthodox. Did I mention he was crazy? Like, really fucking crazy? Like, so crazy he starts barking during the scene when wolves chase the teenagers?

A Boy and His Dog
Director LQ Jones with Guest Critic
As warped as cult films get, this crazy adventure received a much needed commentary treatment. What's great about this commentary is that it is in the interview form (LQ Jones talks with a film critic), something more commentaries should aim for. The film, which is a post apocalyptic love story between, you guessed it, a boy and his psychic, talking, deranged dog, may be out-there but the commentary does a great job at contextualizing the films place in history as well as describing how such a low budget film came to be.

Star Wars Episode III
Lucas and Cronies
Lucas, for once, shows an ounce of enthusiasm toward a Star Wars film. An informative commentary worth listening to if you're into the third and last Star Wars film. If you are one of the many that doesn't then, I don't know, go blow yourself as you watch something "entertaining" like Spider Man.

Wedding Crashers
Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn
Unlike most "actor commentaries" this one provides zero insight into the acting process. If you want tips on that listen to the Being Julia commentary. If you want to know what Vince Vaughn ate for dinner last night or what WIlson's dog is like then this commentary is just for you--a hell of a lot of fun. Casual and always shooting from the hip, Owen and Vince, by simply talking to each other (not even about the film half the time), the two guys really show the listener where smooth nature of the characters came from.

Saw
Director James Wan and Leigh Weinnel
Bad movie, great commentary. As casual as it is worthwhile. Hearing how an ultra successful film was made on an ultra low budget is worth a listen.

The Aviator
Martin Scorsese
Scorsese poured his heart into this film and it show. He discusses what he was aiming for with great filmic passion and bravado. Nobody does commentaries like Scorsese.

News Radio
Cast and Crew
The best TV commentaries of the year: Check. The most underrated sitcom of all time: Check. With countless commentaries that act as a reunion piece amongst the cast and crew that made this wacky show great, watching News Radio and listening to the folks behind it makes for the most thoroughly enjoyable TV On DVD experience.

Undeclared
Cast, Crew, and Neurotic Jews
“How can you fuck me in the ass after its still in from the last time.”
 Judd Apatow to a Fox exec after they canceled both Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared.

      Everything I said about News Radio, apply here too. The better part of my summer was spent watching this amazing DVD treatment given to an unsung college series. The many commentaries really gave me a sense of how much this series meant to those involved… and of course those who watched.

Donnie Darko
Kevin Smith and Richard Kelly
Kevin Smith discusses this film with the director. An absolute must-listen for fans.

Gladiator
Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe
Ridley Scott is one of my favorite audio commentary participants. Though he already gave a (great) commentary on the original Gladiator DVD, for this special edition of the Oscar winning film he teams up with actor Russell Crowe and the two revisit their time making this film. The production (as well as end product if you ask me) was a total mess and the commentary captures what it was like making a movie without a governing vision or structure. Crowe cuts through all the bullshit and basically says whatever's on his mind--like the time co-star Phoenix was unsure of his performance and Crowe reminded him that he was an actor and to shut up. Sure Crowe is pompous but he never gives commentaries and hearing his candid thoughts on this film is greatly appreciated.

Best DVDs to Own in 2005

#1 Exorcist: The Beginning and
Dominion: A prequel to the Exorcist
Okay, here's the deal: These two titles represent the same film! Made twice! And by two stylistic opposed filmmakers, one trained in the art house tradition and the other in the slam-bang action tradition! The auteur theory in practice, the studio system in practice, and so much more than that, the implications of a film being made then remade has on film studies is, in a word, invaluable. Having recently completed a 30-page paper on Beginning and Dominion, I find myself increasingly obsessed with the fact that these films represent two fully realized productions, made as if in parallel universes. Sure both films are lacking in what I might call quality, but that is beside the point. The fact that we can see and to hold these two film oddities --the fact that Dominion was released at all!-- is what makes them so special. Not the best DVD of the year in terms of extra features or quality of production, but certainly the most important. These are not films so much as they are historical artifacts.

Star Wars Episode III
Finally we can display Episodes One through Six on our book shelves. While proudly displaying this set pretty much relegates you to a life of not getting laid, it's never been so worth it for so many fans.

Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection
No collection should be without this definitive Hitchcock set. Rewatching such Hitchcock classics as Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho along with lesser known (but class nonetheless) Rope and Torn Curtin is priceless. This newly restored prints provide a real visceral kick, too. To watch these films is to watching the very heights of filmmaking. As Hitchcock says, "I'm not making slices of life, I'm making slices of cake." Yum.

Frank Miller's Sin City (Recut, Extended, Unrated, Double the Castrations!)
Every special feature you could possibly want plus a nifty comic book is thrown into the mix. This is one of those stellar DVD editions that, despite NOT liking the film, compelled me to throw down $30+ dollars to own. It was sooo worth it.

News Radio
Is News Radio the most underrated show in TV history? Watching the first two seasons will answer that.

Sideways
The most watchable film from 2004. This is the kind of film that never gets old. Forget the DVD, there should be a channel dedicated to playing Sideways 24-hours a day.

Seinfeld
This, the best sitcom of all time, would be worth owning on DVD without any special features, transferred from a crappy VHS tape, and with the commercials still intact. Thankfully, the special features are aplenty, the quality is as good as 90s sitcoms get, and the commercials are but a faded memory. I can't wait till next year when I cam complete my 9 season Seinfeld collection. 300 dollars well spent.

F Is For Fake
From out of nowhere Criterion released this excellent Orson Welles Documentary. This film is perhaps the greatest side note to the director's oeuvre.

Angel Season 5
Bad season, great DVD. You'll be missed my little Prince. 

Music 2005

The twenty best albums of the year. Now with 100% less Kelly Clarkson!

 

 

 

 

The Best Album of the Year:

Nine
Inch
Nails

-With Teeth

 

On this singular comeback album Trent Reznor opens up his wounds to shows us what's inside. It's not pretty but it is great. The album is not as intellectual or brave as The Fragile but can be enjoyed on its own terms. If you dig through the dirt you’ll find a deeply feeling work full of blood and sweat that challenges expectations through introspection (“All the Love in the World” and “Getting Smaller”), pugilistic bile (“Know What You Are?”), antiestablishment riffs (“The Hand that Feeds,” the band's rare political song that gives a big F-you to Bush, his war and organized religion’s stranglehold over individuals yearning to be free from the chains of religion) and hypnotic beauty (the remarkable “Besides You In Time”).

Nine Inch Nails fans have grown up and this album has grown up with them. The angst has a sense of melancholy and purpose that Downward Spiral could only hint at. This unusually candid album finds an all too sober Reznor waking up from his malaise. But instead of going soft the artist has gone raw, showing his teeth by battling with his inner (industrial) demons on a vast sonic battlefield. This terse conflict can be felt in the very DNA of his 13 oddly arranged songs. On the track Only Reznor cathartically howls “I just made you up to hurt myself” and that sets the album's Jekyll and Hyde tone beautifully. Amidst the screaming match with his id, the message is loud and clear: Trent Reznor is his own worst enemy but he's not going out without a fight if this album is any indication.

Favorite Track: While “The Hand that Feeds” and “Getting Smaller” are the most catchy tracks on the album and "Besides You In Time" is the most challenging, “Only” is just about perfect. The best single of the year by far. Why? Because the song never repeats itself and it’s, like, three hit songs condensed into one. The song contains enough memorable hooks and blasting, chant like choruses to outpace the entirety of Franz Ferdinand’s new album. Besides a cool music video involving a metallic pin head Reznor blasting away a cup of coffee, the song is great because its unlike anything Reznor has put out. 

2. And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead
-Worlds Apart

Trail of Dead is the best thing to come out of Texas since, uh, well, Trail of Dead is the best thing to come out of Texas. When I picked up this album I didn’t expect much but much is just what I got. The album is, quite simply, an effortless sounding post-rock masterwork by an angsty band many thought couldn’t achieve greatness again after the much lauded release of the Source Tags and Codes album. Judging by the baffling indifference toward this new album, perhaps many were right. Fuck no, though, they weren’t. Worlds Apart is every bit as successful as Codes. Perhaps more so because by the end of the album you’ll feel like you’ve heard everything there is to hear as you are left in the band’s wake. Here is a messy epic alt rock album that spirals and meanders and surprises every step of the way; grand gestures on songs like “Will You Smile Again For Me” and “The Rest Will Follow” drape the listener with the most subtly masterful rock sounds in recent memory. And from the jaw dropping instrumental opening “Ode to Isis” to the cool rock breeze finish that was “Lost City of Refuse,” all it took was 44 minutes to turn this once indifferent listener into a life-long fan.

Favorite Track: The first and last tracks are great brackets to this first rate album.

3. Gorillaz
-Demon Days

The “last living souls” on earth are monkeys and Demon Days is the best post apocalyptic monkey concept since Planet of the Apes! Objectively speaking Demon Days really is the best album of the year. Sure Trent and those Trail of Dead Texans appealed to me on a subjective (read, personal) level, but few are calling those bands the “best” anything. With Gorillaz (also known as a Blur 2 because, really, this is just a Damon Albarn solo album), there is no disputing the role this band played on the music scene last year. Namely, they saved it by not appealing to the mainstream pop-rock-R&B-world-whatever audience. By blending notions of politics, anime, end of the world imagery and good old fashion music weirdness and by doing so with such a wicked sense of humor, this band created the must-listen record of last year. Cartoon apes are so powerful they could crush Kong with a single chord.

Favorite Track: “Fire Coming Out of The Monkey’s Head.” Sure there’s that catchy iPod song but how can anything top Dennis Hopper reading a post apocalyptic poetry set to Damon Albarn’s tunes. This song is moody, ominous and a great allegory for a sad, sad military era.

4. Beck
-Guero

Ahhh… brings back the memories. What made Beck so vital a decade ago was his willingness to challenge his listeners by penetrating their funk-free soul with scat lyrics and wild productions that mixed genres like a Baz Lhurmann film. Much as the Beck of yore is fused with my 90s era musical upbringing (Odelay is the first album I ever bought) I will be the first to admit that the album, while great, is brazenly inconsistent. For example, we hear and nod our heads to the up tempo vibe of “Hell Yeah,” then get all spoiled by soggy downer “Broken Drum” only to get reinvigorated again with a song like “Scarecrow.” This brand of artistic inconsistency (defined by a lack of musical unity) is precisely why I love Beck so much.

While I’ll also admit to being disappointed that Beck didn’t put out a few more sad sob stories in the vein of Sea Change (still the best album of the decade!) I can’t say I was disappointed after hearing this truly accomplished effort. Quite simply, Beck has grown as an artist and this dark album finds him tormented and bruised yet full of bravado.

Favorite Track: The serial killer chic “Girl” is reason enough to call this album brilliant. Bones bleaching, dead eyes, nooses, midnight hangings, landfills, making her die, taking her to “where her soul belongs.” Scientology is fucking with this guy's head .    

5. Fiona Apple
-Extraordinary Machine (Internet Leek)
-Extraordinary Machine (Studio)

The best break up album since Beck's Sea Change. In the world today, nobody with a vagina is making better music than Fiona Apple. Compare the moody, introspective, complex melodies of Fiona’s new-ish Extraordinary Machine album to the grating, annoying, tune leaching shit house music of Gwen Stefani and you’ll appreciate a solo album done right. Thank god for second chances because the fact that we can listen to the original, internet leaked Jon Biron version of the album side by side with this significantly tidier version makes Fiona’s auspicious studio release all the more triumphant. But in terms of the tense history of Fiona’s struggle to release Machine, well, that wouldn’t mean anything if the album wasn’t stellar. As it stands this is the saddest, deepest album I had the pleasure of hearing all year. The fan t-shirts pleaded “Free Fiona” and this album did just that.

Favorite Track: “Get Him Back.” A rhythmic song that builds momentum slowly but beautifully. The repetitive piano playing really complements the ambiguous revenge lyrics. “Now every other man I see, reminds me of the one man who disappoints me, wait till I get him back, he wont have a back to scratch,” who knew PT Anderson could have that effect on women? Since Fiona is trying to "figure out how to kill what I cannot catch" the dude better hide his ass.

6. Wilco
-Kicking Television: Live In Chicago

While I derive copious amounts of guilty pleasure from live or bootleg albums, I don’t usually find it proper to include them on a list of the best “albums” of the year for simple reason that the songs performed aren’t really new or relevant in the historical context of music’s place in time. That doesn’t apply here because Wilco add a vitality that unites not only the audience at the concert, but the audience at home. If you ask me, Wilco are at their most exciting when experimenting. That being said I’m more a fan of their last two albums (Yankee Hotel Fox Trot and A Ghost is Born) than their first two or three or however many they made. This live recording from a Chicago concert finds the band mixing past and present while creating something entirely new. A synthesis of the two. Sill yearning to be country’s Radiohead, a couple more releases like this and they won’t need to be yearning because they will have surpassed them.

Favorite Track: Gee, I can’t pick just one. If I had too I’d go with the band’s new masterpiece, Spiders. A great song that sounds even better live.

7. The Mars Volta
-Francis the Mute

Few would deny that the album is a mess. It ventures into dangerous waters that include aimless guitar solos, ethereal beeps, buzzes and reverberating echoes that last up to twenty minutes, and surreal lyrics so out there that the effect resembles experimental rock elevator music. Still, the ghostly vibe here is so powerful and so intense that it’s hard to look away. I found myself being hypnotized by this truly alternative rock opus--much time was spent getting lost in this album’s rough and wonderful terrain. What’s strange is that the harder this band tries not to be accessible (releasing this aimless album is a huge F-you to mainstream rock) the more Francis sold. As I said last year, Mars Volta is the most exciting rock band around and they will go down as legends… whether they like it or not.

Favorite Track: "L' Via L' Viaquez." Don’t know what the hell the band’s singing about but I do know what kind of drugs they were taking while doing so and I want some.

8. Super Furry Animals
-Love Kraft

What can I say: I’m a fan, a lifelong fan. Their last album scored a win for best album of the year while this year’s album, easily ranking the title of the band’s weakest, still soars to great heights on tracks like “Psychlone!” and “Zoom!” better known as the two exclamation point songs. While Kraft lacks the Bowie-on-acid cohesion of album’s past, it kind of does so by design. The most democratizing “rock band” album of the year, all the band members contributed and even performed their own songs and while I’m inclined to dismiss this as a gimmick, there’s no denying the power of non Gruff Rhys songs such as “Back on a Roll,” a self aware ditty that tells a self aware story about the band’s recordings going gold and, uh, cats purring. Which reminds me, SFA has never been goofier. The underappreciated Welsh band sings about Dinosaurs dying out while “tough chicken(s)” inherit the globe with as much ease and comfort as Kelly Clarkson sings about love or whatever the hell that Kerokie Queen she sings about. Nothing trite here, just the hyper-absurdist song styling of Europe’s best band.

Favorite Track: The two exclamation point songs but of course. The single “Lazer Beam” has its moments. I have a soft spot for violin driven tunes.

9. Eels
-Blinking Lights and Other Revelations

Like Nick Cave’s out of nowhere masterpiece last year, Eels released a two-disc album that blew me away. Against all odds this downtrodden act (known as E) has livened up his once stagnate sounds, which was somewhere between a homeless lout and Beck as an 80-year-old. But there’s nothing run down or tired about this album. It is a personal indie rock album full of as much life as sadness. There is no wallowing in E’s new and improved lyrics or sounds either, there is only hyper rejoicing as the songs “Going Fetal” and “Hey Man, Now You’re Really Living” prove. 

Favorite Track: See above.

10. Depeche Mode
-Playing the Angel

If you ask me I will tell you that this 1970s-2000s British rock band is better than their much trendier U2 counterparts. After you tell me I’m stupid, I’ll take this CD out and throw it at you like a ninja star. And I’ll keep doing that until you realize that this is the kind of low key, high brilliance Mode album that the cocky U2 boys are unable to deliver due to egos the size of Bono’s faux cowboy hat. Rather than finding ways to reinvent themselves, the Mode go back to what they know best. Dark synth rock that straddles the line between Goth and pop. Singer Dave Gahan doesn’t need to be Time’s Man of the Year because he’s just delivered one of the very best albums of the year. 

Favorite Track: The band’s first single is D-Mode-st awesome song of the bunch. Vintage all the way.

Ok Go
-Oh No

Power pop thats’a not grating or overly cute is a novelty at best. I would call Oh No from Ok Go a guilty pleasure except there’s nothing to be guilt about! Well, actually there is: you should be guilty for not listening. This band is taking their time getting noticed. Not sure why overrated bands like All American Rejects, Fallout Boy Boy, Yellowcard or… my, god, mainstream music sucks. Where was I? I don’t even remember.

(tie) Coldplay and White Stripes
-K and Y (he he) and Get Behind Me Satan

It takes a lot to admit that both Coldplay and the White Stripes made some of the best music of the year. Gone are both bands bombastic sounds, and in their place is a work of expertly crafted musical sophistication —these two overrated act can now, in my opinion, reasonably take on the reigns of mainstream rock. I would write more except it’s too hard for me so if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to pretending to hate the bands in 5…4…3…2…1…

Soundtrack of Our Lives
-Origin Vol. 1

Underrated. No critic gave it anything above 2½ stars. Fuck em’ because Soundtrack of Our Lives has released some of the most keenly alive tunes of the year. There’s an energy here that is unexplainable. Basically, in my opinion they tap into what made classic rock great but make it even greater!

New Pornographers
-Twin Cinema

The most downbeat happy album I’ve heard in years. While this band has been at it for a while they feel as new and exciting and, yes, melancholy as Arcade Fire did last year and the Pixies did a decade or two before.

Art Brut
-Bang Bang Rock and Roll

Look at us!

Weezer
-Make Believe

They just keep on going, and going and... well, will Weezer ever run out of catchy tunes? No… there’s no sign of slowing down. People will get sick of Weezer before they even have a chance of sucking. Granted, this album is disappointing but not due to the quality. It’s more due to the insincerity and lack of maturity. Had this same album come from a hot new band nobody’s ever heard of, it would have been universally celebrated. Every track on this album gets the job done and at 45 minutes, that’s damn near epic by Weezer standards. And woah, the band even did a song over four minutes… who said they weren’t mature.  The songs “this is such a pitty” and “pardon me” are deep and rousing relationship ballads while the song “We are All On Drugs” is mindlessly catchy.  

Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane
At Carnegie Hall

A must listen if you're into Jazz. Especially live Jazz recordings. This is, perhaps, the most important Jazz album to come out in my lifetime.

My Morning Jacket
Z

In a year without a Flaming Lips album, Z filled the void nicely. Flaming Who?

Coheed and Cambra
-Good Apollo IV…

What to make of Coheed… it’s hard to know what to say. The band is too self aware, too dorky and too fond of rock clichés. I hated the album when I first heard it but I kept listening. Then I listened again, and again, and again so how bad can it be? Actually pretty bad and say this, mind you, while listening to their third song, “Welcome Home” which is a sci-fi rock balled that sounds like Tenacious D would sound if they weren’t joking.  

Dangerdoom
The Mouse and the Mask

Like two superheroes joining up, nobody is left standing after MF Doom and Danger Mouse are done doing their thang. Rap that's not about materialism, guns or, as Dre once said, "Big screens, Blunts and Bitches." Rather, the overriding thread is, get this, cartoon characters. And not only cartoon characters but Adult Swim cartoon characters (the outcasts of the animation world). All things considered, it's no surprise that the album didn't make much of a splash... but it sure did swim. 

The Worst

Worst Album of the Year:
System of a Down
HypnoTIze and Mesmerize

When I listen to this band all I hear is “blah, booga, blah, guga, guga, blah, blah, ayeeeeeee.” An overwrought, overblown, overwritten set of albums from over the hill band that I’m so… over. This band tops the list for not just making one bad album but for making two. S.O.A.D. SODDing suck and they suckered fans into buying the same crap album twice. They’re passed their sell-by date to the point where they sound like parodies of themselves. The bug eyed ego freak Daran Malkian has essentially taken over of the band and the result is not good. Daran has ruined every past album with his bombastic sounds and now his gets to ruin all the new ones with his excruciatingly shrill vocal stylings (still love lead singer Serj though). When this Daran guy pips in with that moaning voice I just about freak out. And Daran not only ruins the sounds of the band and the voice of the band but he ruins it through his inept song writing. The lyrics stink of contrived politicized fight-atudes and they not only ruin an otherwise fun party, but they go nowhere: "Those vicious streets are filled with strays, You should have never gone to Hollywood" whatever, dude, you should never have gone either. Yeah, Armenians are oppressed and Americans are oppressive (and sad and soulless and vacant and greedy). Okay, you may be right but GET THE FUCK OVER IT and, please, get the hell out of my beloved L.A.--who needs ya! Good messages don’t automatically make for good songs but that doesn’t even matter on these albums because this band doesn’t even have good messages anymore.  

The Darkness
-One Way Ticket To Hell and Back

Fuck The Darkness. The band’s cheeky Queen-in-quotation-marks first album should have come with a warning: This novelty is good for one listen, will expire in one hour. And this is what happened. The band, simply, stopped being fun and cute and became something resembling nails of a chalk board--sounds that would be playing in purgatory if purgatory was a run down strip club with only ugly chucks. I want to back over the singer with my car I hate this band so much. Even the title of the album reeks of an old joke that wasn't even very funny in the 80s.

Gwen Stefani
-Love, Angel, Music, Baby

Dearest,
Take a year off, Gwen. Rest, relax, have a baby (instead of love, angels and music), stop carrying around those frightened looking Japanese girls, stop pretending you ooze teenage sexuality (you don’t), and, well, back off the whole scene for a while. Don’t get your picture taken, don’t let your husband Gaven appear in any movies like Constantine again, don’t go out in public wearing some craaaazy 80s inspired get up…better yet, don’t go out in public at all. There’s good news. I still like you, I still think you have talent. And, hey, more good news: No Doubt is looking really good right bout now.

Nickelback
-All The Right Reasons...

...Made for all the wrong reasons. Mainstream rock so unendurably turgid, even Creed thinks this band sucks. The song "Photograph" is like processed cheese in an aerosol can. It's bad for you... it's bad for the person standing next to you... and it's bad for the environment

Fall Out Boy
Sugar, you suck.

The Killers and The Bravery
Two good small bands that fell victim to being too big. Once that happens you hold them up to the light and all you can see is how thin their sound are. And the whole faux “feud” these two bands had going on reeked of contrived lameness because they’re both  on the same label. Good bands don’t need to feud, they’re just good bands. 

Mariah Carrey
-The Emancipation of What The Fuck Ever

In honor of Carrey being credited with the highest selling album of the year, The Emancipation of Mimi, I salute you, ho. You alone have proved that people are complete retards when it comes to music.  

Dave Matthews Band
-Stand Up

I feel duped. Who are you and what did you do to my Dave Matthews Band? This is a lazy effort by a brilliant band. This album has no heart and is strangely unmoving as far as the music artistry goes. Something’s missing here and I don’t want to find out what because I’m afraid it may be the band’s soul.

Video Games

 A great year for games. Here are the five best.

The Best Game of the 2005:
Shadow of the Colossus 

Video Games can be about more than, well, games, and Shadow is going to help legitimize the great art form of video gaming. A great lover of film, I feel that video games belong to an underrated (by the academic community) an artform that, at their best, equal film, art, music and literature. Why? Because games combine all three! In this respect, SotC isn’t merely a game, it’s an experience. A work of video game art that transports the player to a singularly unique playing experience in which they inhabit an isolated, post civilization world and slay giant beasts for reasons never made clear in words but felt in tone. The boy is on a quest that is beyond anything a typical plot can capture. The abstractly archetypal narrative is evocative in cinematic terms, something that approximates an art house version of Lord of the Rings by way of Antononi.

As you play a young boy who rides his trusty horse around a landscape inhabited by nothing more than trees, sand, mountains and these clossi, this game is breathtaking in scope and alienating in feeling. Don’t get me wrong because it’s as exciting as anything I played all year. The game strips everything away but your quest. All there is to do is ride around and find these hairy creatures but I found the minimalism quite refreshing. There are no BS side quests, weapons, or characters to distract the player from the essence of this game.  It’s just you and the Colossus and as you use a combo of strategy and mussel to climb these giant (yet strangely sympathetic) beasts, the music soars as your sword plunges into the great creature’s hide. Nothing else in video games approximated the experience of playing this majestic masterpiece.

God of War

Speaking of masterpieces...this cathartic game that blows away any action film released last year is also a game that blew away anybody lucky enough to pick up and play. The fact that a killer app like God of War can come out during PS2’s last days in impressive. More impressive is how God of War takes Greek mythos and makes an action game out of it. God of War is the kind of game you tell your friends about. While that arrogant wind bag Oprah was telling everyone they should “own” Crash (my worst film of the year) I’m one upping that bitch by telling anyone with a game system to own God of War. If you ever wondered it was like killing a God, this game will answer that.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

The final chapter in an amazing video game experience, this third POP continues the great plat forming tradition set by the groundbreaking first entry. What this third game lacks in innovation, it makes up for in design and function. This game integrates the usual jumping around and pulling levels with exciting chariot races, boss battles, fighting moves and split personality game play that kicks in when your uncontrollable id consumes you and allows you to wreaks havoc. 

While the game can be enjoyed on its own what surprised me is how efficiently this game wraps up the trilogy. What I didn’t see coming is the Prince’s character arc that has gone from innocent royalty in the first game, to running for his life in the second to a hardened warrior in the third. Progressing through this game it was great to see the character gaining one final layer that both made sense and was actually kind of emotional. By the end, when you have defeated evil, chosen love over war (yeah!) and silenced your id the game loops around to where it began two games ago. It is only then that you’ll get the true Prince of Persia experience and, let me tell you, it is a great experience.

Resident Evil 4

The Citizen Kane of zombie games, the fourth Resident Evil sets a new standard for survival horror. It’s not so much a sequel but an evolution of an idea. Resident Evil 4 is a non-stop adventure… great even if you’re not into this kind of scare-a-minute genre. To be honest, I hate horror games but even I couldn’t deny the magnitude of RE4. What I love about this game is that it doesn’t wallow in the creepy horror, as the past Resident Evil or Silent Hill games have. No…. this game is Aliens more than Alien; meaning, it emphasizes action horror more than survival horror. The only survival around here is what your undead enemies need to do after you soup up your shot gun and point it in their “ugly mother fucker” faces.  

Over the game’s blissfully creepy twenty plus hours you will be floored by the game’s ability to keep one upping itself in terms of story, graphics, game play and sheer ingenuity. This game didn’t win the equivalent of a Best Picture Oscar for video games for nothing. 

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

What else is there to say about this exemplary sneaking spy series? How bout how consistently good it is? How about how it takes the genre, tweaks and turns it into a streamlined masterpiece of thrilling espionage gamming. What makes this game so good is how seriously it takes the subject matter while at the same time how intuitive the game play is. As Sam Fisher gets dropped into enemy lines the game becomes a playground where you decide how to deal with the enemy—be it silently or with full force.

In a post Angel/Buffy world I feel no great need to write about television. While the medium is as alive as ever this year found it a bit dry. Television seems to be lacking any need to take creative or political risks. From shamefully inadequate news coverage to middle of the road fiction to trite “reality” shows… television seems afraid. The good, exciting shows that are on (Arrested Development, Battlestar Galactica) aren’t really watched while the popular shows that I watch (24, Lost, Alias) are complacent.

TV

Shows that I can stand:

1. Arrested Development (final season)—The best show on TV right now…er, the best show that WAS on TV right then.

2. Lost (season two)—In its second season, Lost has become a new species. One that dropped the whole sci-fi mystery angel to focus on interpersonal relationships, conflict and island politics. Once the characters jumped into that hatch the whole tone changed as well. Wildly disjointed and inconsistent yet still the most gripping thing on television. I can't tear myself away from this darn thing! 

3. Smallville (season five)—What a comeback! In its legendary fifth season the show has (for the most part) ditched the monster of the week crap to focus on what matters: The Superman-to-be mythology. The show has also downgraded Lana's part (thank god), added some super hot fake boobie action with the actress Lois Lane, and given Clark stuff to do. Like, superhero stuff. Also, the first half of the season added James Marsters (who played Spike) as Brainiac. Now, since he's been gone the show has suffered but I think he's coming back. I never thought I would say this but Smallville has become just about the most entertaining show on television. 

4. 24 (season four)—Jack is back! And he's doing exactly what he's always done: torture, inner turmoil and running to or from someplace. Somehow that old formula is still compelling and somehow I’m still hooked. It's all because of The Keifer. And, okay, Chloe too. 

5. The Charley Rose Show—The best interview show on the planet.

6. American Dad (first season)—Sooooo much better than Family Guy.

7. Battlestar Glatica (second season)—I love this show. I own all the DVDs and everything. Okay, I haven't exactly watched an episode yet but I just know I'm going to love it.

Shows that make me ill:

• Alias—The worst show on Television. I keep watching just to see how each episode tops itself by being worse than the next. Gone is the show's former glory and in its place is a void of lameness. Sydney's pregnant, Vaughn is dead and the show is thoroughly unable to make those two potentially interesting plotlines compelling. It is as if the writers of this show never watched an episode of Alias or, for matter, never written anything! And here's another never: Never has a show jumped the shark to this degree. 

• Extreme Makeover Home Edition— Exploitive and unbearable.

• Jay Leno—Gives a new definition to “lame.” And an even better definition of “hack.”

• Desperate Housewives—Shrill.

• American Idol—I don’t get it.

• Family Guy—I do get it but that's not helping matters. The show is lame and not funny lame, just lame lame. The flashbacks are old, the edgy humor is stale, and the characters don't feel interesting anymore. Fox should cancel the show... again.
   

 Fin

Worst

• Crash

• Alone in the Dark

• Mr. and Mrs. Smith

• War of the Worlds

• Diary of a Mad Black Woman

• March of the Penguins

• Chronicles of Narnia

• Elektra

• Sahara

• King Kong

• Dukes of Hazard

• Syriana

• Stealth
  Paradise Now

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

• The Longest Yard
  Fantastic Four

• Elizabethtown

• Innocent Voices

• Bewitched

• The Island

• ---

•  

Michal Bay Award For Worst Director

Uwe Boll Alone in the Dark

Runner Up...
Paul Haggis for Crash
Nora Ephron Bewitched
Michael Bay The Island

Worst Line

• From Diary of a Mad Black Woman:

• Woman, if I'm away from you for more than an hour, I can't stop thinking about you. I carry you in my spirit. I pray for you more than I pray for myself. I've got it so bad for you I'd... I'd go to the grocery store and by your feminine products.

•  

• Runner Up...
  Star Wars: Episode III:

• Anakin Skywalker: You are so... beautiful.
  Senator Amidala: It's only because I'm so in love.
  Anakin Skywalker: No, it's because I'm so in love with you.
  Senator Amidala: So love has blinded you?
  Anakin Skywalker: [laughs] Well, that's not exactly what I meant.
  Senator Amidala: But it's probably true.

•  

• Runner Up...

• Alone in the Dark:
  Fear is what protects you from the things you don't believe in.

•  

   Crimes Against Acting:

1. -Tyler Perry (Diary of a Mad Black Woman)
   -Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in real life, oh and Mr. and Mrs. Smith too.
2. -The Jessica Alba hat trick (Into the Blue, Fantastic Four, Sin City)
   -The siblings from Chronicles of Narnia
3. -Tara Reid (Alone in the Dark)
4. -Katie Holmes (Batman Begins)
   -Jessica Simpson (The Dukes of Hazard)
5. -Dakota Fanning (War of the Worlds)
   -Will Ferrell (Bewitched)
   -Penguin (March of the Penguins)

Most Annoying (Off Screen)

Tom Cruse... a fine actor that now must be called a fine, crazy actor. Cruse had nothing to gain by showing us his insanity. Next time, shut the hell up, Thetin 5.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie spent the year proving to us what great people they were by adopting babies and pleading for world peace. Dumb actors representing the United States and speaking on behalf of an entire nation at the UN is where I draw the line. Holy Christ, bad as Tom Cruse was, at least he only spoke to Oprah.
Ben Affleck... just because.

Best Performance in the Worst Movie Award:

Tilda Swinton (Chronicles of Narnia)
Tom Cruse (War of the Worlds)

Screenplay        

Paul Haggis for his Crash sermon.
Tyler Perry (Diary of a Mad Black Woman)
Whoever wrote Alone in the Dark... someone did write that film, right?

Worst Ending

War of the Worlds (incongruous happy ending anyone?)

The John Williams Award for Bad Music Goes To...

John Williams (War of the Worlds)

Movie that should have tanked:

Fantastic Four

Movie I want to like but can't because it still sucks:

Capote

Bad Movie that Could Have Been Great:

The Island (great first act but Michael Bay had to screw it up by being Michael Bay)

Most Awkward Moment Involving a Minor

-Santa Claws gives three minors instruments of death in Chronicles of Narnia. Note: the intense awkwardness is not so much in the fact that young children are being told to go out and kill (that's some good Christian morality after all) but that Santa Claws shows up, without irony, in a fantasy movie.

Most Awkward Moment Involving an Adult

-Crash: Matt Dillon, a cop, molests Tandy Newton on the roadside. A day later he "saves" her. Yeah, because all black women need a white man to save them.

Runner Up...
-Wedding Crashers: Vince Vaughn is tied to a bed. Christopher Walkin comes in, doesn't acknowledge the rope, talks about night terrors, then leaves the room. Huh? The moment was funny but was it supposed to be?

Most Awkward Moment Involving an Animal

-The perverse joy that went into the citification of the Jesus Lion from Chronicles of Narnia.

Runner Up...
-Endless shots of penguins standing in the snow (March of the Penguins). Fun!

Runner Up...
-Kong ice skates with a hot white woman in King Kong.
 

Most Awkward Moment Involving the Mentally Retarded

-The entirety of The Dukes of Hazard.
-Paris Hilton in House of Wax (and I haven't even seen the film!).

PC AWARDS:

Most Homophobic

-Wedding Crashers
-40-Year-Old-Virgin

Most Racist

Crash (astoundingly, this film won the African American Film Critic Association award for best picture).

Best (Inadvertent) Argument In Favor of Racism (Black Edition)

Diary of a Mad Black Woman

Best (Inadvertent) Argument In Favor of Racism (White Edition)

The Dukes of Hazard

Worst Cameo

Ben Affleck (Elektra)

Worst Overacting

Sandra Bull(c)ock (Crash)

Bad Visual Effects

Fantastic Four
Dominion: A Prequel to Exorcist
The Brothers Grimm

Trailer that I had to sit through over and over and...

Flight Plan  

Worst Poster

Serenity... great film, bad poster.

05's Worst Trend: Remakes. Not one good one this year.

War of the Worlds
King Kong    
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory  
Guess Who    
House of Wax
Yours, Mine and Ours   
The Longest Yard  
The Fog  
The Amityville Horror  
Bad News Bears    
Assault on Precinct 13
Fever Pitch  
Dark Water   
Fun with Dick and Jane

My Movie Companion's...
Most Disappointing Films of the Year

1. (tie) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire/The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
2. War of the Worlds
3. Serenity
4. Walk the Line
5. The Island
6. Syriana
7. The Ring 2
8. Kingdom of Heaven
9. (tie) Elektra/Fantastic Four
10. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -- CREEPY.