Steady Diet of Film

Best Films of 2009

Best Documentaries
The Beaches of Agnes (Varda, France)
Collapse (Smith, USA)
The Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi (Olds, USA)
Food, Inc. (Kenner, USA)
Good Hair (Stilson, USA) (pictured)
La Danse (Wiseman, USA)
Oblivion (Honigmann, Peru)
Rip! A Remix Manifesto (Gaylor, Canada)
Tyson (Toback, USA)
Zombie Girl (Marshall and Johnson, USA)

Best undistributed docs: Cooking History, Shadow Billionaire, Bloody Mondays Strawberry Pies.



Best Narratives
A Serious Man (Coens, USA)
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Herzog, USA)
Hunger (McQueen, Ireland)
Hurt Locker (Bigelow, USA)
Hump Day (Shelton, USA)
Inglourious Basterds (Tarantino, USA)
The Messenger (Moverman, USA)
Moon (Jones, UK)
Pontypool (McDonald, Canada) (pictured)
Snijeg/Snow (Begic, Bosnia-Herzegovina)

Also enjoyed: The Orphan, Il Divo, Whip It, Drag Me to Hell, Police Adjective.

Discoveries of 2009, not from 2009: Larisa Shepitko's Wings (1966) and Ascent (1977) released by Criterion's Eclipse series, both undeniable masterpieces, totally unknown to me before this year.  

"The Runaways" trailer now online!

Okay, I promise Steady Diet of Film is not becoming a blog that updates you every time a new piece of marketing is made available.. unless movie studios start making it a habit to release biopics about artists that were formative influences in my life. Unlikely!

Floria Sigismondi's long-awaited telling of the life and times of the 70s all-girl rock'n'roll band The Runaways has finally finished shooting and will hit theaters March 19th 2010. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, this is kind of like Avatar for cool chicks.

Many purists have complained about the casting of Dakota Fanning (Coraline, War of the Worlds) as the deeply troubled lead singer Cherie Currie and Kristin Stewart (Twilight, Adventureland) as uber-dyke, rock legend Joan Jett. But Fanning and Stewart are exceptionally talented, age-appropriate and their bankability is what got The Runaways out of turn-around hell. Plus, I'm excited for all the little girls who have grown up watching these actresses to have their minds blown the way mine was when I first saw Satisfaction (hopefully The Runaways will age a bit better than my introduction to the Rolling Stones and Debbie Harry has).

The Runaways' real life manager Kim Fowley is allegedly also involved with the project. Can we assume then that the film will de-emphasize the child rapist elements of his life? The casting of go-to weirdo Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Shotgun Stories) points to 'no' but only time will tell. Enjoy the trailer!

SXSW2010 panel voting is now open!

It's that time of year again, when the SXSW film festival opens up their panel discussions selection process to the public to vote on which topics they find the most interesting. Audience polling accounts for approximately 1/3 of the decision-making process.

If you feel so inclined please vote for my proposal: Animating Reality: The New Frontier for Documentary Film and maybe I'll see you at SXSW next year!

Professor Kingsfield's Holiday movie quiz

 

Dennis Cozzalio over at the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule has posted his latest movie quiz, this time holiday-themed! And I, as per usual, would rather accept a flunking grade than give a witless answer. Hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday this year, preferably with a lot of movies!

1) What was the last movie you saw theatrically? On DVD or Blu-ray?
Tell No One, House Bunny and I'm choosing to just say no to Blu-Ray until I own a tv that I didn't find on the street.

4) Favorite actor/character from Twin Peaks
David Bowie.

5) It’s been said that, rather than remaking beloved, respected films, Hollywood should concentrate more on righting the wrongs of the past and tinker more with films that didn’t work so well the first time. Pretending for a moment that movies are made in an economic vacuum, name a good candidate for a remake based on this criterion.
I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but I just saw Samuel Fuller's Underworld USA and it's totally a predecessor to the Wire. That would be a fun one to see modernized.

6) Favorite Spike Lee joint.
Do the Right Thing, a cliche choice because it's true! She's Gotta Have It is also pretty amazing.

8) Are most movies too long?
Yes!! But not because there's anything wrong with a long runtime. I just don't need to sit through 2+ hours of something that's dumb and repetitive.

9) Favorite performance by an actor portraying a real-life politician.
John Travolta & Emma Thompson as the Clintons in Primary Colors.

12) Why would you ever want or need to see a movie more than once?
Because it rocked? Because there's nothing on tv? There's plenty of great reasons so long as it's not New Years Eve.

13) Favorite road movie.
Daytrippers.

16) Favorite opening credit sequence. (Please include YouTube link if possible.)
American Psycho [link], I remember the whole theater was (in on the joke and) loving it and laughing.

18) Jean-Luc Godard once suggested that the more popular the movie, the less likely it was that it was a good movie. Is he right or just cranky? Cite the best evidence one way or the other.
The answer to the question 'is Jean Luc Godard just cranky?' is always "yes". In any context. Dude, take a pill. And preferably not Adderall, kthnx!

19) Favorite Jonathan Demme movie.
I really hope someone says the Manchurian Candidate re-make.

21) Favorite use of irony in a movie. (This could be an idea, moment, scene, or an entire film.)
I'm not even sure what irony means anymore but the scene in Children of Men where Clive Owen's cousin says "I just try not to think about it" still gives me the giggles. Also, everything Slavoj Zizek says in A Pervert's Guide to Cinema.

23) The best movie of the year to which very little attention seems to have been paid.
881, it's a crime this film doesn't have US distribution. RIP, Tartan. I also loved FLOW: For Love of Water but a documentary about the impending water crisis is a tough sell.

25) Favorite movie about journalism.
Shattered Glass is really under-rated.

26) What’s the DVD commentary you’d most like to hear? Who would be on the audio track?
If Hitchcock was still around I think he'd have a lot of fun with them. People forget how funny he was. Also, I don't know why Mira Nair never does them, there's a dvd extra on the Namesake of a lecture she gave and she's brilliant & engaging.

27) Favorite movie directed by Clint Eastwood.
I loved Gran Torino but clearly the answer to this question is Unforgiven. Play Misty For Me is also sublime.

29) Your clairvoyant moment: Make a prediction about the Oscar season.
5 million people will Twitter "I didn't know Hugh Jackman could sing and dance!" Twitter will crash. Then 5 million people will complain about Twitter crashing because no one bothered to do their research on Hugh Jackman.

30) Your hope for the movies in 2009.
I hope the indie producers and distributors that have managed to hang on this long are able to weather this economic storm we're facing. Also, I'm inexplicably enthusiastic about the Friday the 13th remake.

31) What’s your top 10 of 2008? (If you have a blog and have your list posted, please feel free to leave a link to the post.)
TBA!

BONUS QUESTION (to be answered after December 25):

32) What was your favorite movie-related Christmas gift that you received this year?
Movie tickets and a book on the works of Andrezj Wadja are pretty awesome but hands down the best was my grandmother giving me 3 copies of my dvd she had purchased because none of her friends wanted them as gifts.

Alphabetical favorite films meme: Documentary mash up edition

This Alphabetical favorite films meme has been circulating, and I am certainly not impervious to its charms. But inner Tracy Flick feels the need to kick it up a notch and pair up my favorite narratives and documentaries.

Dear readers, I invite you to imagine what some of these double features might feel like..

All That Jazz / American Movie

Battle Royale / Blue Planet

Conformist / Control Room

Deer Hunter / Doing Time, Doing Vipassana

Elevator to the Gallows / English Surgeon

Funny Face / FLOW: For Love of Water

Glengarry Glen Ross / The Gleaners and I

High Noon / Hearts of Darkness

I Want to Live! / Incident at Oglala

Jacob's Ladder / Joseph Campbell: Myths

King of Comedy / Keep the River on Your Right

Lifeboat / Living Museum

Marie Antoinette / Mondovino

Night of the Comet / No End in Sight

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest / Our Brand is Crisis

Primary Colors / Protagonist

Quid Pro Quo / ???

Red River / Rivers and Tides

Silkwood / Shut Up And Sing

Terminator 2 / The Thin Blue Line

 

Under the Sand / Up the Yangtze

V.I. Warshawski / Vertical Frontier

What a Way To Go / When the Levees Broke

Xala / ??

Your Friends and Neighbors / The Year of the Yao

Zoolander / Z Channel

Professor O’Blivion's Memorial Day Film (and tv) Quiz

 

Over at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, Dennis has posted his Memorial Day getting to know you quiz. In internet memes, as in life, I skipped the questions that were too hard or I couldn't come up with funny answers for.

1) Best transition from movies to TV (actor, actress, producer/director, movie/show)
Traci Lords.

2) Living film director you most missing seeing on the cultural landscape regularly
Samuel Fuller (I wish he could get the years back that were wasted trying to convince people he wasn't crazy or evil), Allison Anders.

4) Fill in the blank: “I pray that no one ever turns _____________ into a movie.”
Nothing, everything's better as a movie. Deal with it!

6) What was the last movie you saw in a theater? On DVD? And why?
American Teen at SFIFF and Feed on dvd. I'm apparently a 1992-aholic.

 
7) Name an actor you think should be a star
Tasha Smith, the scene stealer from many Tyler Perry movies. She's in Charles Burnett's forthcoming period drama and I'm looking forward to see her do something so different. And Sarah Chalke, I can't believe she started out as "the replacement Becky" on Roseanne and is now the funniest thing about Scrubs and single-handedly carrying the Britney Spears stunt casting storyline on How I Met Your Mother. Even her underwear commercials are hilarious.

8) Foxy Brown or Coffy
Coffy! Can't beat the knives in the hair. Also a woman walking alone on the beach is my favorite way to end a film, see also: Under the Sand!

9) Favorite TV show still without its own DVD box set
Models Inc.

11) What movies would top your list of movies you need to revisit, for whatever reason?
I just went back and watched Primary Colors after 'craving' it for several months. It still holds up.

12) Zodiac or All the President’s Men
Both.

13) Using our best reviewer-speak, what is an “important” film comedy? And what is to you the most important film comedy of the last 35 years?
Great question, I have no idea. And The Jerk. But I also want to mention the greatness of What a Way to Go a screwball/fantasy comedy from 1964 that includes the most incredible costumes Edith Head ever did (seriously) and a scene where Robert Mitchum (drunk on moonshine) tries to milk an ox.

14) Describe the ideal environment for watching a movie.
With a purse full of Taco Bell.

15) Michelle Williams or Eva Mendes
Both!

16) What’s the worst movie title of all time?
Ugh, anything with bad spelling or numbers.
 
20) Most memorable/disturbing death scene
Susanne Biers's Brothers, Sophie Scholl: Final Days. Cathy and I recently tried to remember if the kid who gets curbed in American History X dies. The final scene of Doom Generation.

22) A good candidate for Most Blasphemous Movie Ever
Dudes, clearly the answer is Dogma. Alanis Morrissette as God?

23) Rio Bravo or Red River
Red River, a million times over!

24) Werner Herzog is remaking Bad Lieutenant with Nicolas Cage—that’s reality. Try to outdo reality by concocting a match-up of director and title for a really strange imaginary remake.
That is medically impossible.

25) Bulle Ogier or Charlotte Rampling
Rampling.

26) In the Realm of the Senses— yes or no?
Definitely yes.

27) Name a movie you think of as your own
A lot of girly ones and Lost Highway.

28) Winged Migration or Microcosmos
Winged Migration, easily.

29) Your favorite football game featured in a movie
Offside.

31) Dirtiest secret you have that is related to the movies
I first saw Lynch's films on tv.

32) Name a favorite film and describe how it is illuminated and enriched by another favorite film.
Lost Highway is one of my favorite movies of all time, I love how it was basically a remake of Detour filtered through the OJ Simpson trial.

34) Your best story about seeing a movie at a drive-in
What's a drive-in?

35) Victor Mature or Tyrone Power
Tyrone!

36) What does film criticism mean to you? Where do you think it’s headed?
This recent Filmbrain post can say more about this than I can.

Happy Mother's Day!

To celebrate Mothers Day this year I put together a list of Great Moms in Movie History.

 

The Understanding Mom: Dianne Wiest's earthy compassion grounds the hyper-whimsical Edward Scissorhands, making a story about a man born with scissors for hands (by Tim Burton, no less) seem more Boo Radley and less Freddie Kruger. Before she became the poster child for troubled celebrity youth Lindsay Lohan was all streaky hair, freckles and charm in the 2003 re-make of Freaky Friday. She and Jamie Lee Curtis bridge the generational divide with great comic aplomb. In the 1977 melodrama Turning Point, Shirley MacLaine plays a former ballerina who left the dance life to raise a family and when her former best friend/top competitor (Anne Bancroft) comes into town; a Dynasty-esque catfight ensues.

Read the full list at Greencine.

Inexplicable sex scenes

In a recent article in the NYTimes author-professor Linda Williams stated, “We’re stuck in this dichotomy of pornography’s un-nuanced pleasure and simulated sex, which does not allow certain kinds of representations”. Hollywood is usually eager to improve the formula until this year when most of the top prestige films (Assassination of Jesse James, There Will Be Blood, 3:10 to Yuma, Into the Wild) barely even had women in them.

Plenty of bloggers are happy to discuss what constitutes a good sex scene, I'm here today to discuss the inexplicable sex scenes.

Inexplicable Sex Scenes:
Under the Sand (Francois Ozon) - Charlotte Rampling has a threesome with the ghost of her missing husband and new lover.  Oh, Francois Ozon! You've done it again!

Shadowboxer (Lee Daniels) - Cuba Gooding Jr and Helen Mirren play a team of hitmen related by marriage who hooked up after his Dad dies.   I have no words. 

Blue Velvet (David Lynch) - Really technically a rape scene and therefore doesn't belong on this list.   However I can never pass up an opportunity to discuss and asthmatic Dennis Hopper's "baby likes to fuck" monologue.

Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven) - Okay, an easy shot to take in a gravely misunderstood film that introduced us all to the concept of water epilepsy.

11:14 (Greg Marcks) - A teenage hellion (Rachel Leigh Cook) bones a guy to death... in a cemetery!

Where the Truth Lies (Atom Egoyan) - The entire films revolves around a foggily-remembered night when a bisexual comedian (Kevin Bacon) spurns his long-time lover (Colin Firth) to have overly voice-overed sex with a journalist (Alison Lohman).  Just odd.   

Body Double (Brian DePalma) - Cheating girlfriends, naked neighbors, Melanie Griffith as a porno star! And this was DePalma's headier days?

Inexplicably Bad Sex Scenes:
Gigli (Martin Brest) - Okay nothing about Ben Affleck is even approaching sexy but Jennifer Lopez not being able to salvage something about this scene is just tragic.  Gobble, gobble.   

Taking Lives (D.J. Caruso) - I suppose it's just a matter of playing the odds, Jolie's had many great sex scenes (Gia, Original Sin, Cyborg 2) but Ethan Hawke . 

Black Dahlia (Brian DePalma) - Scarlett Johansson and Josh Hartnett are young and hot (and a real life couple) but their improbable seizure sex in this clunker could be bottled as the cure for sin. 

9 Songs (Michael Winterbottom) - It's real! Unsimulated! Really! And it still doesn't work at all. 

Monster's Ball (Marc Forster) - Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton are just uncomfortable, unbelievable, forever marred by Ocar's terrible choice that year.

Fur: an Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (Steven Shainberg) - Robert Downey Jr. and Nicole Kidman, so attractive and credible... so awkward and unsexy!

Fear (James Foley) - Essentially the abstinence-preaching equivalent of Showgirls (with an alternately laughable and unsettling interplay of possessive ownership of Reese Witherspoon's virtue between bad-boy boyfriend Mark Wahlberg and her father played by William Petersen). Witherspoon and Wahlberg going to second base on the roller coaster = LOLLERSKATES.

Under-rated sex scenes: 
History of Violence (David Cronenberg) - Marital bliss and angst are depicted here with memorable economy.

the King (James Marsh) - Gael García Bernal came on the sex scene with Y Tu Mama Tambien in a very different turn here as a delusional, manipulative (and still manically sexy) man rejected by his long-lost father the scenes between Bernal and Pell James provide a sweet reprieve between the shocking and saddening moments in this little-seen film.

Unfaithful (Adrian Lyne) - In an under-rated film, with an under-rated actress by an under-rated director. Unfaithful's visceral sex scenes of infidelity provide a springboard into a third act marital discord spinning into a feverish, frenzied nightmare.

In the Cut (Jane Campion) - Meg Ryan and Marc Ruffalo in a post-feminist fairy tale.  Also just Marc Ruffalo handcuffed to a radiator in general.. 

40 Year old Virgin (Judd Apatow) - Elizabeth Banks' bathtub masturbation scene was playful and sexy. Viva!

Fun with YouTube

M.I.A.'s "Jimmy" from her new album Kala.

'

Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls, Evan Almighty) in a Lean Cuisine ad... PRE-FLAT IRONED HAIR!

Gwen Stefani performing "Wind it Up" in a Muslim country.  Note the differences between the wardrobe in Malaysia and...

The same song from the same tour performed in the States from the forthcoming dvd.

Love Kanye West's single "Stronger"? Me too.  Check out this fan-made video of the sampled Daft Punk song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger".

And while I'm at it, enjoy the semi-official video for Kanye's "Can't Tell Me Nothing" featuring Zach Galifianakis and Will Oldham on what appears to be Richard Linklater's ranch. 

"Someone forged my name!"

You can now watch mini webisodes of "the Cosby Show" on the YouTube!

My favorite episodes are the ones where Vanessa got in trouble.