My Picks for the top 30 movies 2000-2012 day 3

Well since I'd done my top 15 movies of the past year, I decided I would give my picks for the 30 best movies spanning from 2000-2012. Picks # 20-16.

20.  Shaun Of The Dead-(2004). Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's first big screen team up after their classic British television comedy, Spaced.  This is their homage to Zombie movies.  I love Edgar's Wright's visual style and his and Simon Pegg's writing is just flat out hilarious.   It's the story of a shiftless guy who really has no motivation to make anything of himself and just walks through life being content in his rut (in essence a "zombie" himself).  His girlfriend breaks up with him after tiring of his lack of doing anything with his life.   He goes out drinking with his best friend, Ed (played by Nick Frost, also from Spaced, and every other Wright/Pegg collaboration since) trying to get over his depression. Before he goes to bed/passes out, he decides to really start changing his life around and win back his girlfriend.  Unfortunately the next morning when he wakes up, the world has been taken over by zombies.  However, even after a walk to the grocery store, oblivious to all the carnage that is all around him, he doesn't notice until Ed notices a girl in the garden, that they initially believe is just drunk.   Quickly they find out, she is, in fact, NOT so drunk as much as she is dead.  As it ends up turning out, the zombie apocalypse ends up being the very thing that gives his life purpose.   Very, very funny movie, one of my all-time favorites.   All three of the movies that Edgar Wright, Pegg and Frost have been hilarious, and if you can catch Spaced, it's great too, but this is my favorite collaboration..



19. WALL-E (2008)- Pixar's movies are all amazingly well written movies filled with awe-inspiring animation.  WALL-E is probably my favorite out of all the ones released in this 12 year span, although Ratatouille is a VERY close second.  The fact that a good portion of WALL-E has no dialogue, is a testament of how well of storytellers the folks at Pixar actually are.  The movie is a  love story between two robots.  One is the last functioning robot given the task of cleaning up Earth after years of human abuse of it have forced them off of the planet to live in a Space Station. And another robot named EVE who is dropped off on Earth looking for signs of life.  She comes across WALL-E and they end up falling in love..

WALL-E was part of a groups of robots sent to clean up the Earth so humans could finally return home.  But the planet was so bad that the government shut down the program and decommissioned all the robots, aside from WALL-E, who every time he has a mechanical issue, he just fixes himself from parts from all the other decommissioned robots and keeps just doing his job.   He has a pretty happy life living off the little scraps of trash that he's kept and taken to where he stays at night and powers down . Using an Ipod and Magnifier to watch Hello Dolly as if it's a television.   It's fun catching all the little trinkets that Pixar have put in the background of WALL-E's "home".  I'm a sucker for a love story (don't tell anyone) and I have to admit, robots or no, I got choked up in parts of this.   And don't even get me started at the beginning of their movie UP.  Amazing special effects/animation.  Pixar is just a brilliant studio filled with amazing talent, and even as a 43 year old man with no children, I will pretty much see anything they do and don't feel ashamed one bit.



18. Safe House-(2012) A fast paced action movie starring Denzel Washington.
Denzel plays a former CIA agent turned criminal, who after a turn of events in South Africa has to turn himself into the American Consulate to escape people trying to kill him for receiving sensitive files from an MI-6 operative.   He is transported to a Safe House populated solely by a newly promoted CIA agent (Ryan Reynolds), dying to do ANYTHING to escape the boredom that this uneventful location presents day after day.   His wish to have something exciting to do will pretty much start from about the moment he meets Denzel.   Once a group attacks the safe house to kill Denzel the movie does not let up.   Denzel and Reynolds have a great chemistry together and this movie was very good at not letting up with the action until the very end.   This was a tough choice for me between this and Deja Vu, another Denzel movie.   That movie also had a time travel element that I am almost always a sucker for.   I ended up picking this one in the end, I think mainly because the action is pretty much a constant, but it's a hard choice.  My suggestion is to watch them both as a double feature. =)



17. Gran Torino-(2008) Clint Eastwood masterpiece about a Walt Kowalski, a racist, Korean war veteran, who's wife has recently passed away.   He spends most days drinking beer on his porch lamenting how his neighborhood, formerly filled with blue collar, middle-class white people, is now populated by a poor Asian community and now filled with gangs.  He feels no connection to his family and feels as if they are just waiting for him to die to get his possessions.   He also has lung cancer and is seen coughing up blood and tells no one.      His next door neighbors are a Hmong family who have a son who coerced into attempting to steal Walt's prize possession, his Gran Torino.  Walt catches him, and the boy's family, as a penance, talk Walt into making him work off the debt he owes him for shaming his family.   Walt originally objects profusely and verbally mistreats him (along with everyone else in the movie, pretty much) but eventually becomes friends with him and the whole family by the end.   He becomes very protective of the kid and his sister against the street gang that perpetrates some horrific violence against the family. 
This is an excellent movie.  Clint Eastwood has always been one of my favorite actors growing up, and he has turned out to be a hell of a director over the years, just getting better and better.  I cannot believe the Academy Awards completely snubbed this film when it was out.
 

16. Stranger Than Fiction-(2006) Starring Will Ferrell, Maggie Glyllenhaal, and Emma Thompson is a part comedy, part drama and part fantasy.  Ferrell stars at Harold Crick-a by the book(no pun intended) auditor for the IRS who has a daily routine that he never breaks.  Suddenly he wakes one day and hears a female voice (Emma Thompson) narrating his life and events in his head.  That day, on his way home, Harold's watch stops working and he resets it using the time given by a bystander; then the narrator says, "little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death".   Panicked, he tries to find out if he's going crazy, a psychiatrist tells him it could be schizophrenia, but also says if someone actually IS narrating, maybe he should go see a literary expert.      The literary professor (played by Dustin Hoffman) tells him, if he IS,  in fact, in a story, that he needs to find out if it's a "tragedy" or a "comedy"

Harold meets Glyllenhaal's character, Ana Pascal, through his job, as he is supposed to audit her small business.    He insults her inadvertently and is kicked out of her shop.  However, they do eventually begin to fall for each other.   Meanwhile, Harold hears the narrator's voice in an old interview playing on the TV in the literary professor's office.  The professor tells Harold, the narrator is actually Karen Eiffel (Thompson) who apparently only writes stories where the main character dies a tragic death.   I won't spoil the rest of the movie, but it's a very creative, sad story, very smart.

I really liked the chemistry between Ferrell and Glyllenhaal.  Ferrell is not everyone's cup of tea, I realize that, but I really thought he did a great job playing a dramatic role and not being as "abrasive" as his detractors always fault him for.   I highly recommend this for even non-fans of Will Ferrell.
 

There you go, the next five.   Tune in tomorrow for #15-11!

Election Night 2008

This was something I typed up on the eve of the 4 year anniversary of my Mom's death.

 

 

November 5, 2012 at 6:37pm

 

 

4 years ago on election night, my Mom was in hospice for her second night.   I remember going up to hospice around 10pm after most of the polls were in, the nurse calling me, telling me that I  needed to get up there, because she thought she would be gone by morning.   I called my Dad and my brothers I think and told them (it's  kind of a blur), and sat with her and talked a little bit.  I remember  trying to make conversation and telling her the election was tonight. She was weak and for the last 4 or 5 months of her life, she could only talk in  a whisper. I could barely hear her asking me something, but made out something  along the lines of "Who won?"  I thought it an odd question coming from  her, because she never mentioned the election prior to that, and our family was  never really into politics, but I thought she was just making  conversation.  I told her, "Obama." and she kind of gave me a look I didn't understand and drifted off without responding.  I don't remember if we talked much more that night or she fell asleep.  The next two days, I never heard her speak again, just her breathing. until she passed away on Nov. 6th, 2008.    That damn question she asked me for some reason bothered me for two days afterwards, until it finally hit me like a ton of bricks.

I got my knowledge and love for pop  culture/TV, Movies...etc. from my mom, so it suddenly made sense why she had given me that look, It was the look of "That's not the question I was asking when I asked, "Who won, but I'm too tired to ask again and be  clearer."   All of the previous conversations we'd had on the phone recently and basically since I'd moved out of the house always started, "Did you see, "such and such the other night?" and then we'd have a conversation for what  seemed like an hour over what we'd both watched for the past week or  two.
So at this time, she was REALLY into "Dancing  With The Stars"...  I felt horrible that i didn't know what she meant  when she asked, "Who won?"    She couldn't have given a crap about who won the election....all she wanted to know was, who got voted off on  Dancing with the Stars.
Well I couldn't have told her anyway, because  since the elections were that Tuesday, the results show wasn't on until Wednesday and by then it was too late.   So, Mom, I had to do some research, but in answer to that question 4 years ago..."Susan Lucci got voted  off."   I love you, mom.


...and fuck you, Cancer.

The "Siskel" to my "Ebert".

The "Siskel" to my "Ebert"

April 5, 2013 at 8:16pm

 

This was a tribute to my movie buddy Shannon, written shortly after Roger Ebert's passing last year:

 

 

Just a few days ago, my friend Shannon asked me, who i would consider myself, Siskel or Ebert?    Shannon asked me this of course, because we have been fellow movie lovers since we met back in 1998.   I, of course, sarcastic, pitch black/dark humored/shock value A-hole that i am, asked: "Are we talking about pre-brain tumor Siskel or post surgery Siskel?" My reasoning I said was, because before the tumor, Siskel,... in my eyes, was known for not liking many movies unless they were art house, serious films.  I know that wasn't necessarily true, but as a preteen, teen and early 20s, that's what it seemed to me easier to classify his tastes in film as.  Post-brain tumor, I saw Siskel say that "Babe, Pig in the City" was the best movie of 1998 at their Best of the Year program they did annually in Dec or Jan.   I knew Gene was probably not long for this world after that comment, his speech was slower, and, and he did actually die in Feb, 1999.  

I know as callous as that sounds, I loved Gene Siskel and still mourn the man to this day, and I also equally loved Roger Ebert as well and will tremendously miss him the rest of my days.   I have spent the last few years feeling so sorry for Roger Ebert and what he'd had to overcome, but equally feel so proud of what he did after his bout with cancer and never once letting it stop him from doing what he loved to do, talking about and reviewing movies.   Between the both of them they shaped many things about me and my love of film.

I remember watching them on Sneak Previews on public television as a young kid, then "At the Movies", then "Siskel & Ebert At the Movies" and then just "Siskel & Ebert".   I loved the bazillion times I watched them on Letterman together, each time they were on, alternating who would sit next to Dave.  EVERY time they were on, talking over one another, insulting one another, picking at each other, but knowing deep down these two loved one another and if the other wasn't there, their lives would be empty.

My friend Shannon and I go see movies regularly, sometimes once a week, sometimes 2 times a week, sometimes we won't go for a few weeks if we can't find anything we're remotely interested in. But regardless, there's no one I go see movies with more in a year.   My friend Shannon and I went and saw The Matrix in 1999 and came out of the theater, talked about it a few minutes and without any arm-twisting on either side, promptly walked back in, plopped down our money and watched it all over again.

There have been several times when we've went to one movie and gone back in for another.  There was a time last year, when i was really down about something, and we went and saw some movie I can't seem to recall, in the early afternoon.   We went home, talked on the phone later and hearing the deep depression i was still in, asked me if I wanted to go see Safe House with Denzel Washington, because I'd been talking earlier in the day about wanting to see it.   So that night we drove all the way across town to "our" theater and watched ANOTHER movie, because that's how we fuckin' roll.   =)   There are few people who are that nuts about movies like I am.   I didn't know Shannon in 1988, but I'm thinking in that summer I could have probably talked her into a few of my 11 theatrical viewings of Die Hard.   Her seemingly undying hatred now of everything Bruce Willis, notwithstanding.

I'm a little less picky than she is about movies that I want to see, I am pretty much up for anything.  Which would explain how she got me talked into seeing Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters a few months ago.

So in answer to her question, I said without a doubt, I would consider myself Ebert.  In my mind, Ebert seemed like he could almost find something he liked in any movie no matter if he didn't like the movie, itself.  Which is what I do when I come out of a movie, which seems to frustrate Shannon.  She asks me after every movie, what did you think?   Jokingly asking, because she knows 98.99 % of the time I'm going to say "I liked it"  Eh, I like movies.   There have been a few that we've agreed on sucked, but overall It always feels i like everything and that she's picked the movie to death like a buzzard on a bloated prospector's corpse in the middle of the desert.

To me it felt Ebert went into a movie optimistic that the movie would be good, and then adjusted his opinions after the movie if it disappointed him overall.   Siskel seemed like he was pessimistic he was going to like the film and then if it surprised him, he's adjust his opinions afterwards.  These are all my unfounded opinions and I'm sure couldn't be farther from the truth, but in my mind growing up it's how I perceived it.  Roger Ebert and I didn't always agree on movies, (his scathing review and hatred for the movie Blue Velvet is one I would debate him) but i always felt more like him than Siskel.

I had one of those Ebert Video movie companion books from the late 80s, Early 90s, that I absolutely loved and treated almost like my "bible", it was my go to guide for I don't know HOW many years.     I'm sure it's a dog-eared, yellow paged, mess of a book now, but I do still have it packed up somewhere.

I loved you, Roger Ebert, and I will continue to miss you like I have Gene Siskel for almost 15 years now.   You both were two people I wanted to meet and talk about movies for hours, as I'm sure every goofball who's ever sat in a theater, has wanted to do.  I may not have as frequently visited Roger's webpage as much as I've wanted in the last few years, but knowing that he was out there still doing what he loved and getting paid for it, made me happy.   He was an inspiration to many people and will leave a void in more people than he'll probably ever know.

As for my "Siskel", you and I share something that I cherish dearly and wouldn't trade for anything in the world.  I regret the almost 10 years where my life was too busy for us to get together other than maybe 1 movie a year for some of them, for whatever reasons.   I will take the blame for that, and i will do everything in my power to not have that happen again.    I doubt very much that Siskel & Ebert called each other (yes, i realize "Siskel" probably does much of the calling in our relationship ;P ) and talked as much as we do(sometimes 2am in the morning), and/or have the warped conversations that we do, (but in my mind it's fun to pretend they do.)   I appreciate the fact you still want to be my friend, even when i frustrate you to no end. =)   I love you for not only being my "Siskel" but for being there in the times that i needed you to be and will need you to be, hopefully.

I am honored and blessed to have you as my friend and hope for the rest of our days, we'll be in our seats in the darkened theater, you chastising me if I start biting my nails, watching movies and loving every minute of it.

p.s. I think for our next movie, in honor of Ebert's passing, we sit in the "SISKEL AND EBERT" chairs.

p.p.s.  For those not in the know, the "Siskel and Ebert" chairs are those two chairs that separate the stadium seats from the front rows, that let's a handicapped person in a wheelchair sit next to their loved ones.  A loving phrase coined by my friends Jim and Jeff Duede.