From: Josh_G.
To: dmraphael@hotmail.com
Subject: dan needs help...josh will help...
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 17:02:45 -0500
Comments galore! Hooray!
1. Rushmore - What to say. A fantastic movie that seamlessly
weaves a quirky
world-view and a familiar yet blazingly original plot. You always
have the
feeling of being in the hands of a storyteller who knows exactly
what he's
doing. The acting is flawless, the soundtrack a revelation, and
Bill Murray a
godsend. Actually manages to make good on the promise shown in
Bottle Rocket,
itself a great little film. No irony in Rushmore, no cynicism,
no 90's ennui --
just good old-fashioned sincere and timeless quirks and character.
Lots of
character.
2. Being John Malkovich - Loved it! For some reason,
Yana hated it, thinking that it just wasn't that
inventive and was kind of dark. When I told her I loved it, she
asked if I was
stoned when I saw it. When I answered yes, she seemed to think
that that
explained that. Bah! Also my parents hated it. I thought it was
pitch-perfect --
dark and weird, but loopy enough that you never really took it
seriously. Also,
if you have time, you MUST check out the production assistant's
diary of working
on the film, at:
http://www.beingjohnmalkovich.com/pajournal/index.html
The font is hard to read, but the entries are so rewarding
that your hard work
will pay off. Sample entry, referring to filming in a run-down
part of L.A.,
surrounded by homeless people:
I can only imagine the violence and looting that will ensue
when these forgotten and desperate people catch wind of our movie
shoot; lord knows if I ate cardboard
every night and slept on a bed of soup cans I would find comfort
and
solace in smashing a 17,000 dollar
camera over the head of a movie star earning 1000 times more in
a week
than my entire block's gross annual
income, sprinkling his body with heroin and Night Train, and eating
his
heart and brains raw. Our paltry and
unprepared security force is laughable when juxtaposed with the
thought
of hundreds of Skid Row denizens
descending on our vainglorious art-party, and even if a small
percentage were picked off like the proverbial
zombies returning from the dead, certainly the remaining barbarians
would be sufficiently annoyed by our
futile defense to really give us a good dutch rub. Make no mistake,
I'll serve Cameron Diaz on a plate to a
bunch of blood-thirsty C.H.U.D.'s before I go out like a sucker.
Save
yourselves, pampered thespians, I'm only
making 10 dollars an hour.
Good shit, no?
3. All About My Mother - The thing I loved about the story
in this film was that it started out like a
melodrama cliche (mom grieves over death of son) and then before
you know it,
Pedro throws in drugs, whores, and transgenders. But somehow he
includes them in
the melodrama feel. How does he do that? From now on, whenever
I'm watching a
boring melodrama movie, I'm going to hope that it throws in some
whores and
transgenders.
4. Run Lola Run - Absolutely fucking fantastic movie.
Saw it three times, and I can't remember the
last film I saw three times. Did a great interview at work with
Tom Tykwer where
he talked about how usually movies compress a lot of time into
a short hour and
a half, and he wanted to see what happened if he took a little
amount of time,
like 20 minutes, and expanded it to fit. Pretty damn intellectual.
5. Election - I just saw this a couple of weeks ago on
video and was totally blown away. I
thought it would be a simple Rushmore rip-off, but Payne knows
what he's doing
-- he pretends like it's going to be a normal high school movie
and then he
tweaks and tweaks it until it's unrecognizably dark. Favorite
moment: when
Matthew Broderick gets stung by the bee. Unbelievable. Still think
Citizen Ruth
was better though.
6. American Beauty - Freaking fantastic. Saw it twice,
and the second time I felt like I could write
a thesis on it -- saw something notable in every scene. Interesting
side note: in
the City Paper's year-end wrap up, not one, but TWO of the reviewers
retracted
their former good reviews of this movie and replaced them with
a "I guess I was
fooled...it's not that great a movie." Those lame-os. Yeah,
it's cliche, and
yeah, the characters are a bit one-dimensional, but that's kind
of the point --
it's a sitcom that's been allowed to spend some time in the real
world.
7. Blair Witch Project - I resisted seeing this in the
theatre, because I know nothing can top that night
I saw it with John Speargas after you left. Yiiiiikes.
8. The Matrix - Another film I saw twice. 1999 was a year
to see films more than once for me. So
pulp, but so fantastikly fun. Reminds me a bit of Beck in its
ability to take
lots of well known elements of the past, throw them in a blender
and come up
with something that is both new/old but seems completely NOW and
relevant.
Keanau is the manau.
9. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - Second best
preview of the year
(second only to The Messenger) and luckily a great film to go
with it. Reminded
me of Shakespeare (Shakespeare?) in the plotting -- main action
mirrored by that
of the fools (Barry and Garry), a complex cast of many characters
who are
nonetheless split into their various "groups" to keep
track of them, violence and
pontifications on the nature of life, crazy language. Defined
the word
"hyperkinetic," this one paid off, with characters to
love. Admittedly owed a
bit of a debt to Trainspotting, but was never derivative.
10. Life is to Whistle - An amazing film from Cuba that
is sort of about
coincidences and fate and how the various strands of life all
come together to
form something beautiful. Or something like that. If you ever
get the chance,
see it!
11. Lovers of the Arctic Circle - An amazing film from
Spain that is sort of
about coincidences and fate and how the various strands of life
all come
together to form something beautiful. Or something like that.
If you ever get
the chance, see it! I saw it on the plane on the way back from
Bolivia, and it
was without a doubt the most amazing film I've ever seen on a
plane (discounting
the time Jeannine and I saw The Perez Family without the sound).
12. Black Cat, White Cat - I laughed my ass off at this
film. You forget how funny slapstick can be, until
you see some funny gypsies trying to do things and falling over!
Hee hee hee!
Plus, I couldn't get enough of the limo guy whose theme was "He's
a BULL DOGG
Terrier!" Hee hee! And dead people, and old people, and people
hiding in tree
trunks, and big blocks of ice, and grenades, and a guy falling
into the
poophouse! Whooooooo-eee! Americans seem to have forgotten how
funny that stuff
can be!
13. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut - Was this
film really as funny as all
that? Yes, it was. Laughing 'til I cried, they reminded me why
I like South Park
before it got South Lame. And the songs! Pitch perfect parody
is hard to do, but
they nailed it. Bonus fun: watching it on DVD so you can turn
on the subtitles
and watch "Uncle Fucka" over and over and over again.
14. The Dreamlife of Angels - More than just hottie,
this film did something where it sort of lurked in my
subconscious for ages after I saw it. You rarely get a good solid
film that just
seems to be about life, and how it can get 'cha. How could they
hate it? What
the hell is wrong with them!
14.5. Three Kings - Thought this was great! A Spanking
the Monkey for the late 90's! Spike Jonze
replicates Jeremy Davies' strange relationship-ness down to a
"T" and George
Clooney plays a surrogate "mother" to his cadre of young
boys, who eventually
"sleep" with him as they respect his decision to go
all noble and help those
refugees! And the visual look was unbelievable -- almost as unbelievable
as the
fact that they David Russell 50 million dollars and George Clooney!
15. Felicia's Journey - So good. A similar meditation
to Sweet Hereafter, only instead of exploring
spiritual pain and redemption, he explores Bob Hoskins' creepiness
and
redemption. Loved all those slow pans down from the sky. Really
really loved the
scene where Felicia is in the pub talking to her Irish boyfriend
and they keep
cutting between them, but never showing the 2 of them in the same
shot (I am
such an editor geek).
16. Boys Don't Cry - Saw this with my friend Mike Roscoe.
I started off thinking "Why is this film
such a big deal. It seems pretty boring and ordinary." but
finished the film
feeling like I had seen something pretty special. Mike felt the
opposite. BY the
end, he said he was thinking "Alright, finish it already!"
Loved all the
timelapse stuff.
17. Rats - Jim Felter's crazy documentary about the
rat problem in DC is really
about the crazy people that live in DC. He follows a couple of
homeless guys
around, talks to a wacky gay couple who believe that the condos
next to their
building should be re-built as a building for homosexual couples,
and the city's
vermin inspector who makes himself look like a complete idiot.
Check your local
film festivals.
18. Three Seasons - Really poetic film about Vietnam
with Harvey Keitel in a
small role. I remember really really liking this film, but I don't
have a
concrete idea of exactly what I loved about it. It was very slow-paced
and
beautifully shot, and the stories were interesting from a cultural
study point
of view, and it was fascinating to see what modern-day Vietnam
is like.
19. The Talented Mr. Ripley - Agreed. As soon as he
enters the scene in that car, throwing his hands in the
air, I am sold. I will buy shares in Philip Seymour Hoffman and
sell them later
to make an extravagant profit. Beautiful visuals of Rome, a pretty
good remake
of Purple Noon, and the amazing Jude Law. Every girl wanted to
be with him, and
every boy wanted to be him. That face, that voice, and he loves
jazz! No wonder
Shakespeare's girlfriend dug him. Damon, on the other hand, turned
in a
performance that called for him to transform repeatedly from psycho
to geek to
smooth guy. Unfortunately, I didn't really believe him in any
of the roles. Nice
to see he finally lost weight though.
20. Varsity Blues - Yes, I was under the influence when
I saw this movie. Yes,
I thought it was visually fun. Yes, I thought it looked like the
actors were
having a great time (particularly Jon Voigt, who chewed scenery
left and right).
Yes, it was chock-a-block full of cliches. But trust me, imbibe
of your favorite
drug, don't take the cliches too seriously, and see it on the
big screen, and
you'll be a believer too. Trust me.
21. Bringing Out the Dead - Oh c'mon, it was still pretty
cool. I think if this had come out instead of Taxi
Driver, people would be shitting themselves over how cool it was.
All the film
stuff was a blast, the editing was fabulous, and Nicolas Cage
reminded us that
he can act. You're just reacting to the fact that it explored
the same themes as
Taxi Driver, came to a more mature conclusion, and didn't do it
as explosively.
If you forget about the Taxi Driver comparisons for a moment,
you'll see that
it's pretty good. Dig it.
22. Buena Vista Social Club - Fun to see Cubans. Fun to
see Cuba. Fun to see Wim Wenders use a really cheap
camera and make it look all color-y and neat-o. Decent film, but
the album's
better, and you can go get a coke while the album's playing. And
have a
conversation. And smoke a cigar.
23. Austin Powers 2 - Best movie to see with a group of
friend in a crowded theatre and then not see
again. Worst movie for your friends to get on DVD so they can
watch scenes over
and over and memorize lines and then use them in conversation
and crack each
other up while you have no idea what's going on. Fuck.
24. The Harmonists - An interesting look at a real-life
group of German singers
during the advent of WWII. Some of the singers were Jewish, so
, you know, they
had to deal with all that. The only problem I had was that the
Nazi menace and
violence towards the Jews seemed to happen mainly offscreen --
you never really
got a sense of the fear that was going on. My parents claim that
that was done
on purpose because that's kind of how it was. Who knows. Pretty
good, but not
stellar.
25. The Insider - First off, way way too long. I was
exhausted by the end. Great
performances from Russel Crowe and even Pacino manages not to
go too far over
the top. Also nice the way Michael Mann tones down the big explosiveness
of Heat
to create a claustrophobic, shaky world of nervousness. Russel
should have nixed
that accent though.
26. Blue is Beautiful - A short documentary about the
Make-Up, this film never
lives up to it's promising beginning. It begins with the Make-Up
entering
Canada, seeking "political asylum." When the border
guy asks what they're
fleeing from, Ian deadpanly replies something like "A country
that won't let us
pursue our dreams. A plot to get us...maybe imagined, maybe a
hallucination,
maybe not." and rambles on and on in that vein. Hilarious.
The rest is boring.
If I want to see the Make-Up play in a small club, I'll go do
that, I don't have
to watch it on film, for crying out loud.
27. Go - Like cotton candy, I enjoyed this movie when
I was eating it, but after it felt
all nasty. Sure, a good and flashy story (and a cast full chock-a-block
of
cuties) but after I came out, I realized that I really didn't
give a shit about
any of the characters. I felt it was a pale competitor to the
superior
labyrthine plot-fest that was Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels,
which I had
seen a week earlier.
28. The Acid House - Even if you've got access to a
fantastic book by Irvine
Welsh, Ewan Bremner, and a low budget, it don't mean you're gonna
make
Trainspotting. This film was so-so ho-hum o.k., but I think only
due to the fact
that it's based on some kick-ass stories. One of the best portrayals
of God I've
seen in a long time. Ewan Bremner seems like he's having wayyyy
too fun a time.
Read the book instead, it's better on the mind, and easier on
the eyes.
29. Bowfinger - What the fuck was all the hype about
this movie? I saw it and was continually
pissed off that it forsook the wild and antic energy it desperately
needed. I
guess Steve Martin is no longer a wild and crazy guy. Eddie Murphy
was good, but
I think that he was just playing a parody of himself (a la Malkovitch
-- they
need a new Oscar category of Best Actor Playing A Parody of Themselves).
Bah! On
the other hand, you should definitely see Steve Martin's play,
Picasso at the
Lapin Agile -- now that's fucking good!
30. Fight Club - I almost liked this film. I think it set
up a lot of interesting problems in
terms of what it means to be a man in contemporary society, but
then when it
came time to come up with a solution, it side-stepped the issue
with a flashy
plot twist. Fuck you, Fight Club. Interesting trivia to amaze
your friends with
at parties: David Fincher, the director, also directed George
Michael's Freedom
video...the one with all the sexy models lip-synching the song.
31. The Sixth Sense - I guessed the twist about 20 minutes
in, and not happy to just keep it to
myself, I leaned over and whispered it to Yana. I thought that
if I waited until
after to tell her that I figured it out so early, she'd never
believe me, so I
had to PROVE it. What an asshole. Bruce Willis's hair should get
a Supporting
Actor nod. I agree the kid was good, but how the fuck did this
movie make so
much money?! What's wrong with people! Plus, a big Fuck You to
anyone who calls
themselves "M. Night Shamalayan."
32. Am I Beautiful - A German film that tried to be
a kind of Robert Altman
film. It had a large ensemble cast, and was kind of about how
all these
beautiful losers go through life. But it didn't really work. You
found yourself
not really caring about the characters very much -- things would
happen in one
character's story and you'd say "Whatever." and then
they'd come back to another
character, and you could tell that you were supposed to be all
excited that they
came back to that story, but you didn't give a shit. Really the
only notable
thing about the film was that one of the stars was Famke Something-or-other,
a.k.a. Lola from Run Lola Run. She has a particularly cringe-inducing
scene
where she sings something in Rome, and it's just oooohhhh, terrible.
And
actually, that was one reason I was initially reticent to see
Run Lola Run,
because, as Jeannine pointed out, "You know it stars that
terrible woman from Am
I Beautiful..." Luckily I saw R.L.R. anyway. Whew.
33. The Bone Collector - Why did I see this? Why did
anyone see this? It was on
during Thanksgiving, and Annapolis don't have that many movie
theatres, so I
went with Mike and Becky. Sure, Denzel's a good actor, and what's
her name's
lips are good, but if you have a movie that uses the line "I
see you have a
natural talent for forensics." and uses it in the first 15
minutes, and uses it
DEADPAN...well then you've got a problem, buddy.
34. Phantom Menace - Agreed. I mean what the fuck? It
certainly didn't have to be that horrible, did
it? Maybe it did. Favorite bit: if you shut your eyes during the
pod racing
scene, you can imagine that you're not at a movie at all, but
at some kid's
house, playing Super Nintendo. If you're smart, you won't open
your eyes until
the movie's over.
35. Midsummer Night's Dream - Got free tickets from
work, and figured maybe I
could focus on Stanley Tucci and Kevin Kline and ignore Ally McBeal.
Alas, twas
not so. Most strangely memorable moment: Ally McBeal waking up
topless in a
forest with (literally!) two flower petals covering her less-than-ample
bosom.
36. The Messenger - Usually I go to a Luc Besson movie
knowing what to expect:
a flimsy but fun plot, and some crazy whacked-out French visuals
that will keep
me entertained when the plot and/or characters get boring. Somehow,
Luc forgot
his usual formula and instead made a boring boring boring brutal
film that was
over 3 hours long! Milla was over the top, but I don't blame her,
'cuz I think
Luc made her do that. The only fun to be had was imagining that
she was playing
the same character from Dazed and Confused, and that she was just
stoned when
she had those visions. Still wins my award for best preview though.
37. Carrie 2: The Rage - Saw this over a lunch break
with some people at work.
We thought we'd be able to go to it and make fun of it, thereby
having a good
time. But some films are just so bad that you can't even make
fun of them. We
walked out of this film, and, on a dare, went to the box office
and demanded our
money back. When they asked me why I wanted my money back, all
I could think of
to say was "Ummm...it wasn't what we expected it would be."
To our surprise and
delight, they refunded us! Try it kids, it works!
Did I really only see 38 movies this year? Hmmm. Quicken, my
financial tracking
software friend, tells me that I spent $357 on movies in 1999,
but I'm not sure
if that includes videos as well. It might. Anyway, that's all
I can remember,
but I'm gonna keep track this year, 'cuz year-end wrap-ups are
fun!
Jjosh
DAN adds: rushmore was from 1998 though!