PARADE OF SUBJECTIVITY, PART II

I realize I'm getting around to posting my worst and best movie awards of the past year almost two months after 2008 ended, but unlike usual, I actually have a good excuse. I'm going to be taking the GRE on March 2nd, so I've been putting in a lot of quality time with the Princeton Review's Cracking the GRE. Maybe I'm just starting to lose it, but those Princeton Review guys are HILARIOUS! I mean, they're exactly right about the quant comp goblins popping up when you least. . . Okay, maybe I am losing it.

Anyway, on to the movies!

First, the best. . .

Best Action Movie
Iron Man (2008)
I know I'm not the only one to say this, but I could have watched an entire movie of Robert Downey Jr. simply being Tony Stark. All the mech suit fights and gagetry were nice and shiny and exciting, but Robert Downey Jr. is really the element that lifts Iron Man above your average Spider-man/X-Men fare. And honestly, I'm so tired of the whole Frank Miller-dark-action-hero-glorification-of-pointless-violence thing that it was nice to see the writers of Iron Man working in some darker themes related to current events without straying into slow-motion decapitation territory. That isn't to say that there isn't any violence in Iron Man, but it doesn't revel in it the way, say, Sin City does. It's an action movie, and it goes on to the action without getting bogged down in gratuitious torture scenes. Hooray for everyone involved in Iron Man for setting out to make an action movie and doing it exactly right.

Best Horror Movie
Let the Right One In (2008)

Do you like your vampires sparkly, sexy, and full of remorse for their evil ways? This is not he movie for you. Let the Right One In is full of old-school vampires that drink human blood, kill without conscience, burst into flames in the sunlight, and are undead in a decidedly not-sexy way. The movie is set in Sweden, and focuses on the budding love between a lonely boy named Oskar and his new, mysterious neighbor who arrives in the middle of the night, doesn't feel the cold, and boards up her windows against the sun. The movie is full of genuinely creepy visuals, but the building realization of what the relationship between Oskar and the girl will become is what makes the film horrific on a psychological level, as well. Don't see this movie on a date.

Movie I Thought I Would Hate, But Ended Up Loving
This is England (2006)
I originally didn't want to see this movie, because I thought it was going to be a depressing account of an adolescent boy's descent into hatred and involvement with a skinhead gang in Thatcher-era England. And while that's exactly what the second half of the movie was, it was also the story of the main character starting to come back from that hatred. It also delves into the skinhead movement's roots in a multicultural appreciation of reggae and ska music, and the slipt that formed between white skinheads and the children of Jamaican immigrants. Watching that rift form among the group of friends in the movie is part of what makes the movie so achingly sad and so worth watching.

Most Frothy Fun
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)
There isn't much to say about this movie, except that Amy Adams manages to make anything she's in - even something set in World War II Britain - fun and charming. Sit down with it when you want something that won't make you despair about humankind.

Best Thing I Saw All Year
The Wire (2002-2008)
The Wire isn't a movie, strictly speaking. It's an HBO series about the drug war on the streets of Baltimore. During its five-season run, it explored how the drug trade and political corruption affect every aspect of our society, from junkies, dealers, pimps, and kingpins, to schoolteachers, homicide detectives, local politicians, and newspaper reporters. It ultimately makes the point that our system is irrevocably broken, but it's also the only thing holding our society together. It's alternately intense, funny, heartbreaking, and frustrating, and it's probably the most true-to-life story ever caputred on film. Unfortunately, Jeremy and I agreed that it has ruined us for all future police procedurals. Go to your local video store or sign up for Netflix and watch this show.

And now for the cinematic eviscerations!

Most Snarkworthy
10,000 B.C. (2008)

I saw a lot of bad movies this year, but this was, by far, the most easy to snark. Is it the silly names? The cavemen with white-boy dreads? The mysterious girl with - gasp! - blue eyes? The lack of understanding of human physiology? The racist saber-tooth tiger? Oh, yes. It's the racist saber-tooth tiger.

Most likely to elicit a WTF?
I Know Who Killed Me (2007)
I saw a lot of Ken Russell movies and Hon Kong action flicks this year, so maybe one of them should have gotten the WTF award. But no. None of them featured Lindsay Lohan as a one-legged stripper with an identity crisis, twins separated at birth, a blind, piano-playing serial killer obsessed with the color blue (how does he know?!!!?!!!), pointless, intermittent blue filters, a rip-off of a scene from Ken Russell's Gothic, and the most unintentionally funny sex scene you've ever seen. This thing made less sense than Russell's Lisztomania, which featured a giant phallus, robot Nazis, and Ringo Starr as the Pope. Ken Russell makes movies that are intentionally weird. Imitating him poorly and involving Lindsay Lohan gets you a WTF.

Movie That Made Me Want To Shove Grapefruit Spoons Into My Eyes
Stepbrothers (2008)
This is the most dreadful thing every committed to film, and the fact that it drags Mary Steenburgen through the muck with it only makes it worse. (Why, Mary Steenburgen, why? Are you hard up for cash? You can share my ramen noodles!) Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play two 40-something spoiled man-children who are forced to live together after their parents (Mary Steenburgen and and Richard Jenkins) remarry. After nearly an hour and a half of Ferrell and Reilly demonstrating how thoroughly unlikable they can possibly be, the pair realize they need to grow up. Apparently, growing up involves developing a taste for Longhorn Steakhouse and wearing a suit, no other criteria required. I laughed exactly one time during the movie, somewhere around the 80 minute mark when John C. Reilly momentarily transforms into a centaur, but it was more of a surprised laugh than an amused one, and the previous 79 minutes weren't worth those feeting seconds of mirth.

The whole "immature guy is forced to take responsibility for his life" premise was hilarious in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and cute and kind of understandable in Knocked Up, Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle, and Superbad, but I think we can take a break from it now. Between this and movies like Old School and Blades of Glory, Will Ferrell has officially beaten the genre to death.

Most Disappointing
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
(Warning: spoiler and rant alert!)
I absolutely loved the Indiana Jones movies as a kid, almost as much as I liked Star Wars. (My longstanding crush on Harrison Ford probably has something to do with both.) One of my favorite characters in the first Indiana Jones movie was Marian Ravenwood. Sure, she was a love interest, but she could hold her own against Nazis, drink men under the table, and generally kick ass. The first thing she does when she sees Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark is sock him in the jaw for up and leaving her years before. So, when I heard she was coming back for the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, I was psyched. Marian Ravenwood, my hero!

Imagine my disappointment when I found Marian had been transformed from fiesty heroine to mere damsel in distress. When she sees Indiana Jones for the first time in 20 years, after he left her once again (and pregnant with Shia LaBeof, no less!), wouldn't that be the perfect moment to revisit our original introduction to Marian Ravenwood: "Indiana Jones. You've got a lot of nerve coming in this place." Ka-POW!

But no. Instead she goes all twinkly-eyed and fawns over him for the next hour and a half, all the past apparently forgotten. Ford and Shia LaBeof get all the action scenes, with Ford looking like he'd rather be lounging on a beach somewhere, and LaBeof miraculously carrying the show. They're fighting communists and aliens this time, instead of Nazis, both of which exist in far too gray a moral area to make very good villans. Sure, Cate Blanchett's KGB dominatix character is sporting lots of black leather, a sword, and a hint of telepathy, but she never gets to display much of anything but her rather severe haircut. Lots of people complained about a silly bit with some CGI prarie dogs, but this movie had more fundamental flaws than a failed attempt at animal humor. Granted, it's hard to please a person who walks in expecting all her nostalgic wishes to be fulfilled. At least Spielburg wasn't as far off the mark with the fourth Indiana Jones movie as George Lucas was when he crushed everyone's childhood dreams with Jar-Jar Binks & co.

Harrison Ford would rather have his chest waxed than be in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Lest you despair that the cinematic arts are not what they used to be, here are some other movies I saw this year that are definitely worth watching:
Atonement
John Adams, HBO miniseries
The Dark Knight
Fingersmith
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
The Orphanage
Juno
Lust, Caution
Marie Antoinette
Eastern Promises
Waitress
Persepolis
Duck Soup

And finally, for the intensely curious, here are all the movies I watched in 2008:

-Let the Right One In

-Stepbrothers

-Death to Smoochy

-The Bank Job

-Mr. Magoo's Christmas Special

-Atonement

-Pushing Daisies, Season 1

-John Adams (HBO miniseries)

-Duck Soup

-Doomsday

-This is England

-Weeds (seasons 1-3)

-Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

-Iron Man

-Burn After Reading

-Lars and the Real Girl

-The Wire (HBO series)

-Near Dark

-Sanjuro

-Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

-The Dark Knight

-Mad Men , Season 1

-Ken Russell's Gothic

-Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

-Fingersmith

-Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

-Charlie Wilson's War

-Labyrinth (woo! David Bowie!)

-Hancock

-10,000 B.C. (now with racist saber-tooth tiger!)

-The Beast with a Billion Backs (Futurama movie)

-The Royal Tenenbaums

-TransAmerica

-Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle

-Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

-Heavenly Creatures

-Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

-The Orphanage

-Escape from New York

-The City of Lost Children

-Juno

-Lust, Caution

-Marie Antoinette

-Eastern Promises

-Sense and Sensibility

-Salome's Last Dance (Ken Russell moveie based on a play by Oscar Wilde)

-Across the Universe

-Superbad

-Waitress

-3:10 to Yuma

-Shadow of the Vampire

-Nosferatu

-Persepolis

-Alexander Revisited (bloated Oliver Stone epic)

-The Tudors (Showtime series)

-A Room With a View

-Stiff Upper Lips (a parody of Merchant Ivory films)

-The Last Unicorn

-Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark

-The Seventh Curse (weird mash of Indiana Jones, Rambo, James Bond and police procedural wrapped up in a Hong Kong action movie)

-Black Books - Season 1 (a BBC TV series about a crochety, drunken London bookstore owner)

-Doctor Who - Season 3 (of the relaunch)

-Futurama - Season 4

-I Know Who Killed Me (Lindsay Lohan is a one-legged stripper with an identity crisis? Count me in!)