Placenta Ovaries

2009 Top Ten of the Year So Far

2009 is already more than half over somehow. It seemed so sudden. But I feel pretty satisfied with my productivity at least. I've appeared in one feature film (as an extra, if that counts) and one short (as an abortion fetishist), neither of which are out yet, and I'm also currently editing a new movie I wrote and directed that will be about 4 minutes and is a remake of Star Trek. I'm trying to make Popcorn Dangerous more of a movie-making collective kind of thing rather than a podcast series, and so now other people are writing scripts, too, which will be awesome. Oh, and I put together a DVD for the Vomit Trilogy as well, but it's not done quite yet.

I also watched an average amount of movies, and here is my current Top 10 for the year so far.

Top 10 Movies From The First Half of 2009
1. Crank: High Voltage
2. Drag Me To Hell
3. Observe and Report
4. My Bloody Valentine 3D
5. I Love You, Man
6. The Hangover
7. Star Trek
8. Up
9. Watchmen
10. Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Honorable Mention: The English Surgeon

Vomit Trilogy DVD Cover

I designed a DVD cover for the Vomit Trilogy. Please let me know what you think! Anything that could be improved? Re-worded? If you didn't know me, and you saw this DVD in a video store, would it appeal to you? Is there an easy way I can make room for ridiculous youtube reviews? Or is it better off without the reviews? Thanks!

(click to see it full-sized)

Also, can anybody recommend a print shop in SF that will cheaply print it on whatever paper it requires to look fancy and legitimate?

teeth

Today, I got my top wisdom teeth removed. The bottom ones are completely horizontal (I thought I was reading the X-ray wrong when I saw this), and I guess it was too risky to take them out.

As you can see, one of them was completely rotten and fucked up. It had also grown in crooked, and used to scratch my cheek all the time. And the other one put a hole in my gum on the bottom, which caused an infection and was the initial reason I finally got it taken care of, even though I'm broke right now. So far, there's not really any pain (I took some Vicodin anyway), but it's still bleeding, and the gauze is pretty uncomfortable. And one of my stitches came loose, I hope that doesn't become a problem.

I'm watching a marathon of dentist movies to celebrate.

all the tv I've watched since the beginning of the year

Rock of Love: Charm School (Mark Cronin & Cris Abrego, VH1) - 7.5
The girls from Rock of Love have to learn how to be charming from Sharon Osborne. It was a pretty good show. The episode where they were all made up to look ugly, and then got wasted was really amazing, but in every episode after it, they would show the clip of Brandi C spitting on Destiney over and over and over again, and I got sick of it really fucking quickly. Brandi M deserved to win, I guess. Sharon Osborne was ok, but Riki Rachtman was a dick.

Veronica Mars Season 3 (Rob Thomas, DVD) - 9.0
I was disappointed that the series just ends like any episode, and doesn't have some ridiculous over-the-top finale like the previous seasons. But it kind of had two finale-like episodes in the middle, so I guess it's ok, but it definitely left me wanting more.

Psych Season 3 (Steve Franks, USA) - 9.5
A typically great season, but the last two episodes, Tuesday the 17th and the finale, were both fucking amazing.

How's Your News? Season 1 (Arthur Bradford, MTV) - 9.0
Some news reporters with various disabilites interview a bunch of people, mostly celebrities. Based on the movie from 10 years ago, I can't believe it's a tv show now. I wasn't that into the new, younger reporters, but Robert Bird and Susan Harrington are incredible.

RuPaul's Drag Race Season 1 (RuPaul, Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, online/VH1) - 6.5
Kind of a combination of Project Runway and Top Model, hosted by RuPaul, and with drag queens as contestants who have to both design their own clothes and model them. I think I've been spoiled by San Francisco's Midnight Mass and Trannyshack, because I seriously had no idea drag queens were even capable of being so fucking uninteresting and irritating. Like, on the reunion show (which very awkwardly had no audience), half of them complained about receiving criticism when they lost challenges, which is insane and retarded. The only two who had any charm at all were Ongina (who was cut too fucking early) and Nina Flowers (who obviously should have won). That said, though, it was a fairly riveting show, so I did still like it. And Charro's all-too-brief adorable appearance made all of the shortcomings completely worth it.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 2 (Josh Friedman, FOX) - 8.0
All About Evil's Thomas Dekker and his mom Lena Headey and Brian Austin Green and Summer Glau continue trying to prevent the future from being taken over by evil machines. I really liked every episode individually, but would occasionally be frustrated that it didn't seem to be going anywhere. Like, have they had any effect on the future yet? They had an episode where they touch on this, but the only difference seemed to be that in the new future, Brian Austin Green got tortured by someone. So I guess they made things worse? Whatever, though, I still really like the show, and hope it continues.

Rock of Love Bus (Mark Cronin & Cris Abrego, VH1) - 4.0
Bret Michaels has to find his true love amongst a bunch of girls again, but this time they're on tour with him. All the girls were either annoying or boring. This was a terrible season.

24 Season 1 (Joel Surnow & Robert Cochran, DVD) - 10.0
Jack Bauer has to prevent the assassination of the upcoming President, and also save his kidnapped family, and also uncover everyone around him who is untrustworthy, and lots of people die, and it's tense as fuck. Because of the format of the show, the real-time thing, along with the fact that the whole season is focused on a single continuous story, it's basically a 17 hour long movie (24 minus about 7 hours for commercials). Which is fucking amazing. I haven't seen Berlin Alexanderplatz or Out 1 and I especially haven't seen Satantango, but I'm already a lot less impressed by their existence because there is no fucking way they are as awesomely entertaining as 24 Season 1.

For the Love of Ray J (Mark Cronin & Cris Abrego, VH1) - 4.5
Brandy's brother Ray J, from the sex tape with Kim Kardashian, gets his own VH1 reality love show. Ray J is just on the border of actually being mentally retarded, but is otherwise perfectly normal, so I have no idea why this show exists, nor do I really know why I watched it. He's pretty gross, and the girls were gross, too. Danger was alright, and I wouldn't mind if she got her own show, and I will say that I actually cared more about the outcome than I did on Rock of Love Bus, but yeah, it was fucking stupid.

Dollhouse Season 1 (Joss Whedon, Fox) - 8.0
Eliza Dushku is in an elaborate underground facility where her memory has been wiped out, and occasionally new memories are put in her, and she's rented out to be someone's lover or a criminal investigator or whatever, and there also a bunch of other "dolls" filling up the dollhouse, and there's an FBI agent who is trying to find the organization and take them down. I wasn't sure if that concept would really hold up through multiple episodes, but I was left fairly pleased every week. My favorite character was Amy Acker as the doctor, who looked amazing with scars across her face. And the best episodes were the last two of the season with Alan Tudyk, who was the first person to successfully bring comedy to the show.

I Love Money Season 2 (Mark Cronin & Cris Abrego, VH1) - 10.0
More trashy contestants from various VH1 Love shows compete to win money, and it's amazing to watch. The first half of the season was a little annoying, with way too much Buckwild and The Entertainer. I like them both, but there was hardly any time spent on anyone else. Everything sorted itself out, though, and I was fucking ecstatic that Angelique made it to the final 5, and It made it all the way to the final 3! I hate that this show isn't on anymore.

Celebrity Apprentice Season 2/The Apprentice Season 8 (Mark Burnett, NBC) - 7.5
Donald Trump gives a bunch of celebrities (defined rather loosely) some corporate tasks to compete in to win money for charity. Tom Green was fired too early, though he did actually fuck up that week by getting wasted with Dennis Rodman (I'm about 95% sure that they slept together). And Clint Black was not fired soon enough. Joan Rivers won, as she should have, because she's the best.

24 Season 2 (Joel Surnow & Robert Cochran, DVD) - 9.5
Jack Bauer has to stop a nuclear bomb from going off in LA, and naturally, a ton of other shit is going wrong at the same time. It had an awful lot to live up to after the first season, and it pretty much did. It's one of the best shows I've ever seen.

Parks and Recreation Season 1 (Greg Daniels & Michael Schur, NBC) - 8.0
Amy Poehler works in government and she wants to replace a giant pit with a park. There were only six episodes, but so far, I really like it. Everyone in the cast is great.

Saturday Night Live Season 34 (Lorne Michaels, NBC) - 7.0
The funniest host was definitely Neil Patrick Harris. The best skit was probably Celebrity Jeopardy on the last episode.

I've also watched all four episodes of Mitch Hurwitz' Sit Down, Shut Up, and it's fucking horrible. The pilot was one of the worst things I've ever seen, and it's barely improved any since. I tried as hard as I could to find something in the show worth appreciating, but it's time to give up. I think it's been canceled, anyway.

And I've watched one episode of New York Goes to Work, which is also horrible. She was supposed to be an exterminator, and through the entire episode, she would see something gross, scream, run away, ask the camera if it was worth $10,000, decide that it was, go back, see something else gross, scream, run away, etc. This process repeated seemingly over 100 times in 30 minutes. I'll give it one more try, but I can't imagine it getting any more tolerable.

videos

The new episode of Popcorn Dangerous is up. It's ok. We talk about the first 4 Star Trek movies. And it's only 20 minutes this time! We're working on a new format, where we'll have much shorter episodes, but also more of them.

And also, No Fatties star Doug Freedman put up his pumpkin movie on youtube. He finally gave it a title (Pumpkin and Me), and it's got a brand new ending (he always hated the epilogue, so I suggested he just cut the entire last minute, and now it ends abruptly, which works much better).

second half of January reviews

1/20

The Machine Girl (2008, Noboru Iguchi, DVD) - 8.5
A girl's little brother is killed, so she seeks vengeance, and ends up getting her arm cut off, but then some people make her a new one that she can kill lots of people with, and then everybody screams pretty much non-stop because that's how Japanese people let you know that they are angry, sad, happy, frustrated, tired, or any other emotion that exists. It's really good. I don't like cartoon-y over-the-top blood sprays nearly as much as like, Fulci-style gore, but I still admired the violent creativity this movie had.

1/21

Towelhead (2008, Alan Ball, DVD) - 9.5
A half-Arab teenage girl has to deal with terrible parents and every guy she meets wanting to fuck and/or shave her. There's some pretty uncomfortable stuff in it, but it's also hilarious, which I didn't expect. It reminded me of Todd Solondz. Peter MacDissi as her father was especially great. Everyone in it was really awesome.

1/22

Baghead (2008, Jay & Mark Duplass, DVD) - 5.0
Some struggling actors go to the woods to make a cheap horror movie, but then the movie starts actually happening. This was the first mumblecore movie I've seen. It was ok. The people in it were just barely likable, and there was a bit too much of them getting drunk and being really irritating. And it's not very satisfying as a horror movie.

1/25

Reprise (2008, Joachim Trier, DVD) - 8.0
Two best friends who are writers and who are also Norwegian send their books off to what I guess is Norway's only publishing house, and one of them gets published but the other one doesn't, and the one who does has a mental breakdown, and then they both go through some shit. The way it's told and edited was really interesting, and made it all work well.

Ace in the Hole (1951, Billy Wilder, 35mm, Castro, Noir City) - 8.5
Kirk Douglas is a newspaper reporter and he discovers a man trapped in a cave, and so he turns it into a huge story, and does everything he can to prolong the amount of time it takes to extract the trapped man. It's really great.

Cry of the Hunted (1953, Joseph H. Lewis, 35mm, Castro, Noir City) - 6.0
A cop chases an escaped con through the swamps of Louisiana. It's pretty good, I guess. Not very memorable.

1/27

6 Films to Keep You Awake: A Real Friend (2008, Enrique Urbizu, DVD) - 5.0
A young girl is an outcast, and she has imaginary friends like Leatherface and Nosferatu, who protect her from a pedophile. It's a great premise, but the execution is fucking boring, and did nothing to keep me awake.

The Harder They Fall (1956, Mark Robson, 35mm, Castro, Noir City) - 7.0
Rod Steiger hires Humphrey Bogart to help him hype up a huge boxer who can't actually fight, and they pay off a lot of other boxers to lose matches to him. I didn't get all that sucked in, but it was good.

Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949, William Castle, 35mm, Castro, Noir City) - 6.0
A cop pulls a convict out of jail to help him bust a ring of heroin smugglers, but they don't get along. It's decent. Not really worth seeking out.

1/29

The Defender (2004, Dolph Lundgren, HD download) - 3.0
Dolph Lundgren and his team have to protect some government guy from terrorists, and Jerry Springer plays the president. It's pretty boring.

1/31

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008, Kurt Kuenne, download) - 10.0
A man was killed by his crazy ex-girlfriend, so a friend of his decided to make a documentary about the guy in order to posthumously get to know him better, and then it turns out the murderous ex-girlfriend is pregnant, so the documentary serves a new purpose of being made so the son can get to know his father, and the crazy murderer mother ends up being able to continually postpone court dates and prison and also somehow gets custody of the baby over the loving and sane grandparents who can now only spend time with their grandson by also interacting with the woman who killed their son. It's all really horrible, and something about the way in which it's told completely fucking destroyed me and I cried like crazy throughout the entire movie. It's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, but I'm really hesitant to recommend it to anyone.

Nerdcore Rising (2008, Negin Farsad & Kim Gatewood, download) - 7.0
A documentary following MC Frontalot on his first tour. I was disappointed it didn't touch more on nerdcore as a whole, but instead, focused almost exclusively on Frontalot. But it was still an entertaining watch, and there are some really amazing moments of the band nerding out.

January Top 10
1. Dear Zachary - A Letter to a Son About His Father
2. Synecdoche, New York
3. My Bloody Valentine 3D
4. Towelhead
5. The Wrestler
6. Gran Torino
7. Legend of the Drunken Master
8. Ace in the Hole
9. The Machine Girl
10. Rachel Getting Married

Bottom 5
1. The Blame
2. The Defender
3. Red
4. A Real Friend
5. Baghead

twitter

I had such a good run of posting every day for like 3 whole days or whatever, and now I'm slacking again. I've been busy with lots of stuff, though, like watching the first season of 24, which is one of the best things fucking ever.

I joined Twitter, and I'm mostly gonna use it to post movie ratings. I still intend to post full reviews of everything, but if you need to know what I thought of something immediately for some reason, then follow me on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/wolfsothern
Here are a couple of exciting things you already know if you just clicked my Twitter link a second ago, but can now get some more details on:

-I'm doing a radio internship thing (more details later (possibly)) tomorrow (as in Thursday) night, and will be on the air from 6-8pm. I was told to bring in some music, and since it's a punk show, I'm gonna play Rusty Coat Hanger by The Abortionists. My high school punk band is gonna get actual radio play, which is ridiculous. Other than that, I'll mostly be playing movie-related stuff, like some hot jams from Savage Streets and Howard the Duck. I was on last week as well, talking about They Live and Point Break to promote some events the station is doing, and if you're interested, the download link is here, but honestly, it's not really worth listening to. Tomorrow should be better, though.

-I'm seeing Britney Spears in LA on Friday, with box fucking seats. My great-uncle runs a bank or something, and so he has box seats reserved, and my mom and sister casually told me they were going a few days ago, as if it weren't completely offensive that they didn't think to invite me, but it doesn't matter because they were able to take my ticket away from the 14 year old girl they had invited instead. I'm really fucking excited.

first half of January reviews

1/5

Gran Torino (2008, Clint Eastwood, 35mm, Metreon) - 9.0
Clint Eastwood is a hilarious racist who growls a lot, and he eventually ends up befriending the Hmong family next door, and caring deeply for them, while never letting up on calling them names and saying incredibly racist things to their face, and then he helps them deal with a local vicious gang.

1/8 and 1/19

Synecdoche, New York (2008, Charlie Kaufman, 35mm, Roxie) - 10.0
Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a theater director, and he gets a grant to put together something huge and elaborate and he spends like 60 years on it, and the movie goes through his whole life pretty much. I expected this to be all confusing and experimental because that's kinda how the trailer makes it look, but it's actually really straightforward and easy to follow. And also really fucking depressing. It starts out pretty funny, and somewhat light, and then steadily gets more and more grim. The last 20 minutes are fucking brutal. But in the best way possible. I loved the fucking shit out of this movie.

Return to Sleepaway Camp (2008, Robert Hiltzik, dvd) - 5.5
An obnoxious fat kid at camp gets picked on all the time, and everyone's crazy mean to him, and then people start getting killed, and also, it's at the same camp where Angela killed a bunch of people in the original Sleepaway Camp. I really wanted to like this movie, but it wasn't easy. Like, it seems like the fat kid is supposed to be the protagonist and we're supposed to feel some sympathy for him, but at the same time, he's a total asshole and a bully himself toward the smaller kids, so I really didn't give a shit what happened to him. The twist was obvious, too. I knew who the killer was the second he came on screen. And the kill scenes were mediocre, with the exception of the part where two of the kids continually look through a hole in the ground to look at a stake, until one of them finally gets stabbed in the eye, which was amazing.

1/9

Little Girls Blue (1978, Joanna Williams, dvd) - 9.0
Highly stylized porn movie about girls in high school who fantasize about fucking their teachers, and also sometimes do fuck their teachers, and also fuck fellow students. The plot was nothing special or hilarious, but the way it was shot was all art-y, in a way that totally worked.

The Watcher in the Woods (1980, John Hough, 35mm, Castro) - 7.0
A family moves into a house in the woods, and the two daughters start seeing and hearing weird shit, and find out it's connected to a girl who disappeared a bunch of years earlier. It was pretty good. Lynn-Holly Johnson was really adorable.

Stand By Me (rewatch, 1986, Rob Reiner, 35mm, Castro) - 9.0
Some friends go looking for a dead body, and they bond and have adventures, and it's a great movie.

The Candy Snatchers (rewatch, 1973, Guerdon Trueblood, 35mm, Castro) - 9.0
Some criminals kidnap a teenage girl named Candy in the hopes of collecting a large ransom from her father, but it turns out her father doesn't want her back. It's well-made and fairly sleazy. I had seen it before, but I think I liked it more this time around.

1/11

The Legend of Drunken Master (rewatch, 1994, Liu Chia-Liang, 35mm, Red Vic) - 9.0
The plot has something to do with Jackie Chan accidentally getting ahold of some artifact that bad guys want, and so he has to beat everyone up with Drunken Boxing, which is fucking amazing to watch.

1/12

Red (2008, Trygve Allister Diesen & Lucky McKee, dvd) - 4.0
Brian Cox's dog is shot and killed by some asshole kids, and after the cops prove useless, he tracks down the main kid that did it, and basically forgives him, but he wants an apology. And like, he talks to the kid's asshole dad, but the dad denies it happened, so Brain Cox just pesters them for awhile. I thought this was gonna be a revenge flick, and it really fucking should've been. Brian Cox's character is a perfectly decent person, which is admirable and everything, but it's not in the least bit entertaining to watch in a movie.

1/15

6 Films to Keep You Awake: The Blame (2008, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, dvd) - 3.0
A woman and her daughter move in with a lesbian, and the lesbian performs abortions, and then the woman gets pregnant, so the lesbian gives her an abortion, and then people start dying, and it appears that it may be the woman's aborted fetus that is killing people. Obviously, this could've been fucking awesome, but the twist at the end is that it's not a killer fetus after all, it's the woman who's doing the killing because she's been driven crazy from the guilt of killing her baby, and by the end of the movie, it pretty much feels like pro-life propaganda. Also, this is from the first disc of Spain's Films to Keep You Awake series, and I totally fell asleep in the middle of it. What the fuck?

1/16

6 Films to Keep You Awake: Spectre (2008, Mateo Gil, dvd) - 5.0
A teenager has an affair with a woman who all the locals think is a witch, and they eventually kill her because he ends up saying she raped him or something, and he returns to the town years later as an old man full of guilt, and starts seeing her ghost around. This was on the other side of Disc 1 from Films to Keep You Awake, and although I managed to stay awake through it, it's pretty fucking slow. The story was ok, but never really delivers. The twist ending seemed awesome at first, until I realized it didn't actually make any sense. Oh, and actually, there was one scene in it toward the middle that completely creeped me the fuck out, but for the most part, it was mediocre. I'd recommend skipping this disc entirely if you're interested in the series, and jumping straight to the excellent Christmas Tale on Disc 2. Both films on Disc 3 are also really good.

1/18

An American Crime (2008, Tommy O'Haver, dvd) - 8.0
Based on a true story of a mother (played by Catherine Keener) with a bunch of kids who took in two teenage girls while their parents were on the road, and ended up tying up one of the girls (Ellen Page) in the basement, and torturing her, and inviting her own kids as well as some of the neighborhood kids to torture her as well. It's a pretty disturbing story, and I thought the movie was effective. I haven't seen the other movie based on the same event (The Girl Next Door), or read the book, but eventually I will.

Top 10 Movies People Would Be Shocked I Haven't Seen

My boss at work had an idea for a new meme to spread around where you list your Top 10 Movies People Would Be Shocked You Haven't Seen. The idea is to think of stuff beyond just like not having seen classics like Citizen Kane or whatever, but things that people would be shocked that you, personally, have not seen. I liked this idea because I know that #1 on my list is seriously going to blow your fucking minds. It's a movie that you won't even be able to comprehend the possibility of anyone not having seen, let alone me of all people.

For me, I think the most surprising films I haven't seen are classic 80's films, so that makes up about half of my final list. I didn't include classics, because I think everyone has gaps there, but here are a few major ones I should probably get around to sometime: The Third Man, Cinema Paradiso, On the Waterfront, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Birth of a Nation.

And here are a ton of Honorable Mentions:
Parenthood
Coming to America
Beverly Hills Cop
Bachelor Party/Turner & Hooch/Splash
Highlander
Uncle Buck
Police Academy
Beaches
Caddyshack
Tango & Cash
To Wong Foo
Monster's Inc./Cars
Shawshank Redemption
Unforgiven
The Deer Hunter
The Adventures of Milo & Otis
Hulk (I only list this because I think it's crazy that no one even fucking liked this movie when it came out, and yet somehow, I seem to be the only person in the entire fucking world who didn't see it)
Death Wish
Reform School Girls
Logan's Run
Bullitt/Great Escape/any Steve McQueen movie
Cool Hand Luke/Hud/most Paul Newman movies
The Searchers/any John Ford movie except Three Godfathers
any Jean-Claude Van Damme movie unless you count Breakin'
any Steven Seagal movie except Out for Justice
any Chuck Norris movie except Return of the Dragon

And I should mention that if any movie is listed here, then I also haven't seen any of the sequels. Oh, and also, I only listed movies that I want to see and already know I badly need to.

So anyway, here's what I came up with for my Top 10.

10. Animal House/Blues Brothers/any John Landis movie beside American Werewolf in London
9. Lethal Weapon
8. Risky Business/Cocktail
7. Willow
6. Mannequin
5. Teen Wolf
4. Newsies
3. License to Drive/Dream a Little Dream/any Coreys movies besides Lost Boys
2. Dirty Dancing

And finally, prepare to be stunned, because I have never seen

Being an extra, and some reviews

I haven't made a post in like a month. Sorry, internet. I have all these ideas for posts I want to make, but I'm never in the mood to write anything. I'm still like a hundred movies behind on reviews I need to write, but catching up is actually fairly plausible right now because I hardly ever watch movies anymore. Before last Sunday, I had gone 9 days without watching a movie. All I watch now are VH1 reality shows, pretty much. I started The Wire, though, so at least I'm making a little bit of progress on seeing all the tv shows that everyone but me has already seen. I might try to cram in a bunch of 24 in the next few weeks, too, because I'm seeing Mary-Lynn Rajskub next month, and what if she makes 24 jokes that I don't get! She doesn't appear until Season 3 or something, I guess, so I probably won't even get that far in time.

Last week, I was an extra on All About Evil. My co-stars are Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Dekker (from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Mink Stole, Cassandra Peterson (Elvira), Showgirls' Patrick Bristow, Noah Segan (Brick), and Jack Donner (one of the Puppet Master movies). I'd like to write a full report of my two days on set, including the details of TV's John Connor flirting with me, but I probably won't get to it. It was a good time, though, aside from the hours and hours of sitting around bored. Please see the movie when it comes out, it's gonna be fucking swayze. You can spot me in the front row during the climactic movie theater scene, and also spitting up blood two seats behind Cassandra Peterson later in the same scene.

Here are the rest of my reviews for December.

12/22

Step Brothers (rewatch, 2008, Adam McKay, dvd) - 9
This movie is still great. It's about Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly becoming step brothers, and at first they don't like each other, and then they love each other, and then they fight again or whatever, and everything is hilarious. I also listened to the commentary, which they did as a musical, and it was kind of funny at first and I liked that they were trying something new, but since it was all improv, they would just go with an idea, and then run too far with it, so it would've been better if they had pre-written some stuff. Still, it was better than most commentaries.

12/23

Fraulein (2008, Andrea Staka, dvd) - 3
A woman works a job, and there's also a younger woman who works there, and that's pretty much the plot. It was boring.

12/26

Baby Mama (2008, Michael McCullers, dvd) - 7.5
Tina Fey wants a baby, but her womb is fucked up, so Amy Poehler has it for her. I guess a lot of people didn't think this was funny, but I don't know, I liked it. It wasn't amazing, but it was pretty solid. Steve Martin was awesome in it.

The Strangers (2008, Bryan Bertino, dvd) - 7
Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman are having some marital problems, and then people in masks come by and terrorize them. It was ok. I didn't understand the ending. Did they leave Liv Tyler alive on purpose, or are they just really bad at being killers? Why would they show their faces without the masks and then not make sure she was dead? Whatever. It was mostly good. This poster is amazing.

12/28

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008, Scott Derrickson, 35mm) - 7.5
Keanu Reeves is an alien, and he tells Jennifer Connelly that some other aliens are gonna destroy the human race because we're not taking better care of the planet, so she tries to convince him to convince them to not do that. It was pretty good. I haven't seen the original, but this seems like it's a pretty decent update of what I imagine the original to be. Jaden Smith was a fucking dick in it, though. Like, that's the only way to describe his character. It wasn't so much bratty or annoying, he was just a fucking dick. They should've killed him off, or like, not had him in the movie at all.

12/30

In Dreams: The Roy Orbison Story (1999, Mark Hall, documentary channel) - 8
Documentary about Roy Orbison. I actually wasn't paying that much attention, but it seemed really good. Hearing Roy Orbison's talking voice is really disconcerting.

Just BARELY made it on time. Christmas movies, part 3!

12/16

The Lemon Drop Kid (1951, Sidney Lanfield & Frank Tashlin, dvd) - 7.5
Bob Hope is a conman who needs to make a bunch of money quick, so he sets up a fake old women's home, and dresses up as Santa on the street to get donations. It's good.

12/17

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005, Shane Black, blu-ray) - 8
Robert Downey Jr. robs a store, but then he poses as an actor to escape police, but then as an actor, he and Val Kilmer end up involved in a murder mystery as research. Something like that. Some of the dialogue occasionally tries too hard to be clever, but it's mostly pretty funny, with good performances.

12/19

Cobra (1986, George P. Cosmatos, dvd/vhs) - 9
The poster tells you everything you could ever need to know about this movie. Crime is a disease, and Sylvester motherfucking Stallone is the cure. On the Christmas episode of Popcorn Dangerous (as opposed to any of the other episodes), I listed this as my 12th favorite Christmas movie, rationalizing that because there are a few Christmas decorations in the background toward the beginning of the movie, that makes it a Christmas movie. But then the day after we recorded that, I watched Showgirls again, and realized that Showgirls also takes place on Christmas, and so if I go by guidelines that loose, it would mean Showgirls is actually my favorite ever Christmas movie, which is very unfair to Silent Night, Deadly Night, which actually pertains to Christmas. So, anyway, I was wrong and Cobra is definitely not a Christmas movie, but I was right when I said that it's totally fucking awesome, which I assume I probably said during the episode, cuz it's true.

12/24

Elves (rewatch, 1989, Jeffrey Mandel, dvd-r) - 10
Speaking of awesome, Elves is fucking full of it. It's about way too many things to even bother explaining. Just watch it. Hopefully, it'll get a DVD release someday.

12/25

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (short, 1936, Dave Fleischer, youtube) - 8
Some kids at an orphanage get a bunch of fucked up toys that fall apart, so Grampy comes and makes them new ones. It's great. Thanks to for posting it all those months ago.

12/26

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964, Larry Roemer, dvd) - 8.5
I had never seen this. It's about a misfit reindeer with a red, glowing nose and a misfit elf who wants to be a dentist, and they skip town to have an adventure. It's really good.

12/31

Don't Open Till Christmas (1984, Edmund Purdom, dvd) - 8
Someone is killing people dressed up as Santa, and the police are trying to solve the case. Some of the murders are fucking awesome, and it's real sleazy. I liked it a whole lot. I also really love the poster. What do you think was in that present that would bleed when stabbed? Either a severed head or a puppy, I guess.

Susan Slept Here (1954, Frank Tashlin, tcm) - 6
For some reason, I became completely obsessed with seeing this movie before Christmas, knowing only that Frank Tashlin directed it and Debbie Reynolds starred in it. But it's not on DVD, and the video store didn't have it, and I couldn't find it anywhere to download. TCM showed it on Christmas Eve, so I set it to record, but I was out of town, so I didn't actually get to watch it until I got home. It turned out to not be nearly as amazing as I had convinced myself it would be. Debbie Reynolds plays a juvenile delinquent who, on Christmas Eve, gets arrested, but instead of taking her to jail, the cops take her to a struggling scriptwriter's house, figuring he could use her for inspiration, and they end up falling in love, but they can't get married because she's underage and he's like 40 or something, which is fucking gross. I love Frank Tashlin, and he does a decent job of making an inherently creepy premise not seem too creepy, but I don't know, I never really bought it, and it also wasn't funny enough.

2008

In January and February, I always try to catch up on as many of the previous year's movies as possible, and this year I realized that if the only thing I ever watched were New Releases and nothing else (at home, anyway, giving up rep house stuff isn't even fathomable), then I think I would just barely manage to watch everything that I'm interested in. I've seen 127 movies from 2008, which includes short films, and I also included the Will Arnett Sex Tape, which isn't really a short film, it's a sketch, but it's also one of the best things I've ever seen, and I've watched it probably over 20 times now, and it still cracks me up. Lasagna Cat is a series of short films, but I just listed it as one. There are still about 60 movies left that I want to see. And I figure I might as well keep going. It'll be kind of nice to have just one year where I've seen every single movie I wanted to. Starting now, I've gotta start prioritizing TV, though, so it may still take awhile.

Anyway, of the 127 movies I've seen so far, I liked (if not fucking loved) 109 of them, didn't like 18, and hated zero. Academy Award Best Picture Winner Slumdog Millionaire does not make my Top 100.

So here's my list of everything, which is only semi-accurately ranked. It might not even be consistent with the Nomi Awards (please read that shit if you haven't already!).

Dear Zachary, by the way, is a documentary about a terrible event, and it made me cry for like an hour even though I am cold-hearted, which is why it's ranked so high.

1. WALL·E/Funny Games

2. Timecrimes
3. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
4. Human Giant: Will Arnett Sex Tape
5. Synecdoche, New York

6. Tropic Thunder
7. Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead
8. Rambo
9. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
10. Changeling

11. Inside
12. Towelhead
13. Step Up 2 The Streets
14. A Christmas Tale
15. Snow Angels
16. Cloverfield
17. Presto
18. Lasagna Cat
19. Step Brothers
20. The Dark Knight in IMAX

21. Bigger, Stronger, Faster
22. The Wrestler
23. Home Movie
24. The Midnight Meat Train
25. PG Porn: A Very Peanus Christmas
26. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
27. Gran Torino
28. Let the Right One In
29. Bolt
30. Role Models

31. Paranoid Park
32. Milk
33. Untraceable
34. Religulous
35. Teeth
36. Transsiberian
37. Dance Floor Dale
38. Beverly Hills Chihuahua
39. The Dark Knight
40. Iron Man

41. Mother of Tears
42. The Bank Job
43. 27 Dresses
44. The Machine Girl
45. Tokyo Gore Police
46. Rachel Getting Married
47. Doomsday
48. The Ruins
49. Saw V
50. Reprise

51. Burn After Reading
52. Pineapple Express
53. Happy-Go-Lucky
54. In Bruges
55. Wanted
56. Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal
57. The House Bunny
58. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
59. Choke
60. An American Crime

61. Be Kind, Rewind
62. Definitely, Maybe
63. BURN·E
64. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
65. Speed Racer
66. Zombie Strippers
67. Boy A
68. Bordertown
69. Kung Fu Panda

70. Baby Mama
71. Standard Operating Procedure
72. Tokyo Mater
73. What We Do Is Secret
74. The Reader
75. Man On Wire
76. Diary of the Dead
77. The Day the Earth Stood Still
78. PG Porn: Nailing Your Wife
79. Quantum of Solace
80. Mamma Mia!

81. The Happening
82. The Incredible Hulk
83. PG Porn: Peanus
84. Mirrors
85. Tell No One
86. Stuck
87. Mister Lonely
88. Hancock
89. American Teen
90. High School Musical 3: Senior Year

91. Britney: For the Record
92. My Name Is Bruce
93. The Strangers
94. The Tivo
95. Frost/Nixon
96. Jumper
97. The Wild World of Ted V. Mikels
98. The Visitor
99. Nerdcore Rising
100. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

101. Four Christmases
102. Drillbit Taylor
103. Go Go Tales
104. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
105. Batman: Gotham Knight
106. Doubt
107. Revolutionary Road
108. Sukiyaki Western Django
109. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
110. Return to Sleepaway Camp

111. Slumdog Millionaire
112. Repo! The Genetic Opera
113. Transporter 3
114. Alone
115. Baghead
116. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
117. A Real Friend
118. Spectre
119. The Wizard of Gore
120. Priceless

121. Knight Rider
122. Frontier(s)
123. Red
124. The Blame
125. First Sunday
126. Fraulein
127. Hell Ride

I haven't seen shit from 2009. Only My Bloody Valentine 3D, and a couple of festival movies (Big Man Japan and Deadgirl) that are supposed to get distribution this year. I haven't even seen Friday the 13th yet.

The 2009 Nomi Awards!

Hello, and welcome everyone to the 4th Annual Nomi Awards! My name is Keanu and I will be your host for this evening, as voted by Austin’s readers. So let’s get started.

Oscar Movies

I decided to watch every Best Picture nominee this year. I reviewed Milk and Slumdog Millionaire in this post, and here are the other three.

1/16

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008, David Fincher, 35mm, Balboa) - 6.5
Brad Pitt is born old and then he ages backwards. I thought the concept was really amazing, and in a way, it definitely does justice to that concept. But that's all it does. I was really disappointed that it wasn't a good movie outside of its gimmick. I marveled at the makeup and special effects, and appreciated it's scope, but I didn't really care about anything that happened. The secondary characters, the love story, and even Benjamin himself were all really bland. And I couldn't fucking stand that it was told through flashback. What was the fucking point of that? To pad out the running time? It was totally stupid. I still kinda liked the movie overall, but it could've been so much better.

2/17

The Reader (2008, Stephen Daldry, 35mm, Vogue) - 7.5
Some kid has an affair with an older woman, and she likes to be read to, and then later, she joins the SS, and kills a bunch of people, and he sees her trial because he's in law school, and he knows something that could lessen her sentence, but he never speaks up about it, and then he feels guilty about that, and they eventually sort of reconnect. I liked it a lot more than I expected to. It was a pretty good story, and I liked the way it unfolded.

2/18

Frost/Nixon (2008, Ron Howard, 35mm, Presidio) - 6.5
A British talk show host wants to interview Nixon, so he does. It's really watchable and engrossing, but after it was over, I didn't really understand what the point of it was. That's a stupid complaint for me to make since I basically prefer movies not to have any point outside of being entertaining, but I guess I just couldn't help thinking about it because it's up for Best Picture, and it seems like such a random choice.

And here are some other Oscar-nominated movies I've seen recently, or somewhat recently.

12/26

Bolt: in Disney Digital 3D (2008, Byron Howard & Chris Williams, dlp, some theater in San Diego) - 9
A dog from a hit tv show doesn't know that he's an actor, and not actually the superhero he plays, and he ends up away from the set, and gets lost, and has to find his way back home, and come to terms with the reality of his not having superpowers, with the help of a cat and an adorable hamster, and it's very adventurous. I was way fucking into it. This movie was awesome. Fully.
Preceded by: Tokyo Mater (also in 3D) (short, 2008, John Lasseter, dlp) - 8
One of the characters from Cars tells a story about getting involved in a drift race in Tokyo. It was really good.

12/27

In Bruges (2008, Martin McDonagh, dvd) - 8
Colin Farrell and Brenden Gleeson go to Bruges to hide out after something horrible that Colin Farrell's done. I liked it a lot. It's a whole lot better than the fucking godawful trailer made it look.

1/10

Rachel Getting Married (2008, Jonathan Demme, 35mm, Lumiere) - 8.5
Anne Hathaway is let out of rehab to attend her sister's wedding, and she annoys some people, and there's some drama. I've heard a lot about the characters being really self-absorbed and unlikable, and maybe I was just too distracted by my crush on Anne Hathaway, but I didn't really notice it. The only people I thought were awful were anyone who was mean to Hathaway, who was completely charming and sympathetic. Her dad was really great, too.

Doubt (2008, John Patrick Shanley, 35mm, Balboa) - 6
Meryl Streep is a nun and she thinks Philip Seymour Hoffman molested a kid, so she accuses him of it, and they yell at each other. It was alright.

1/13

The Wrestler (2008, Darren Aronofsky, 35mm, Bridge) - 9
Mickey Rourke is a struggling wrestler past his prime, and he has to stop wrestling because of a heart condition, but he has a hard time doing anything else, and he sort of dates a stripper, and tries to reconcile his relationship with his daughter. It's really fucking great. Mickey Rourke is awesome in it. I'd like to watch it again sometime soon.

1/14

Tropic Thunder (rewatch, 2008, Ben Stiller, blu-ray) - 9.5
Some actors are making a war movie, and they end up stranded in the jungle. It was still hilarious the second time around. It's not perfect, but there's fucking plenty that's really great. I also listened to the commentaries (including one with Robert Downey Jr. where he stays in character the whole time), and they were pretty good, and I watched the making-of mockumentary Rain of Madness, and that was good, too.

1/19

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008, Mike Leigh, 35mm, Roxie) - 8
Sally Hawkins is a cheerful person, and she's a schoolteacher, and she takes some driving lessons with a cranky instructor. It sounded like something I might hate, even though I generally like Mike Leigh, but it's actually totally great. Hawkins' cheerfulness isn't overbearing or retarded or anything, it's totally realistic and funny and awesome. What's up with the Academy snubbing Hawkins, but giving this a nomination for Best Screenplay even though Mike Leigh doesn't use screenplays, and also, this movie doesn't even have a fucking plot? It should also be getting Best Costume or whatever, because I really liked the fashion.

1/26

Revolutionary Road (2008, Sam Mendes, 35mm, Marina) - 6
Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio are a couple in the 50's, and they fight a bunch. I was scared in the first 10 minutes that the whole movie was just gonna be despicable people screaming at each other for 2 hours, but there are some long stretches where the characters are very likable and I wanted to see things work out for them. But even if they had made it to Paris like they wanted, I felt like they still would've been unhappy because they weren't really right for each other. So I don't know, I changed my mind a lot while watching it about what I thought, but I guess it was mostly ok.

1/30

The Visitor (2008, Thomas McCarthy, blu-ray) - 6.5
Richard Jenkins has an apartment in New York that he doesn't use very often, and he comes home to it one day, and finds illegal immigrants living there, and he befriends them, and one of them teaches him how to play immigrant drums. It was pretty good. It'd be kind of impossible not to like this movie, I think, but it didn't really do anything special for me.

2/16

Wanted (2008, Timur Bekmambetov, blu-ray) - 8
James McAvoy is bored and frustrated with his life, but that all changes when he finds out he's a super-assassin, and he has to train to kill the man who killed his father. It's fucking ridiculous, but pretty funny, and a whole fucking lot of fun.

Here's a movie that was nominated for an Oscar last year (for Best Makeup). This is what I watched on Christmas.

12/25

Norbit (2007, Brian Robbins, showtime or cinemax I don't remember) - 4
Eddie Murphy is married to a fat woman, but he'd rather be with Thandie Newton, so this causes problems. It's not that bad, really. I didn't find it funny, but it's not painful or anything.

And here's the only movie I've seen from 2009 so far.

1/17 and 2/2

My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009, Patrick Lussier, dlp, AMC Emeryville/Century San Francisco Centre) - 9.5
Something happens at a mine, and a miner kills some people because of it, and then 10 years later, the miner shows back up (but not the same one, most likely), and kills some more people, in three really fucking gory and amazing dimensions. I am fucking sick of people saying that this movie is only good because of the 3D. Obviously, the 3D makes it a better movie. How could it not? But it is a fucking awesome slasher movie no matter what, and delivers on so many levels, as far as what I want out of a movie. It does have a missed opportunity or two. Like, there's a pregnant girl who gets killed, and obviously, they should have shown the killer pick-axing her in the stomach and pulling out the fetus, then waving the fetus out over the audience. So I was a little disappointed when that didn't happen. For the most part, though, it's fucking perfect and amazing, and you should see the fuck out of it while it's still around.
Poster: The look on the guy's face who's about to get stabbed in the dick is amazing. 9.

And also this,

January Top 10
1. Dear Zachary - A Letter to a Son About His Father
2. Synecdoche, New York
3. My Bloody Valentine 3D
4. Towelhead
5. The Wrestler
6. Gran Torino
7. Legend of the Drunken Master
8. Ace in the Hole
9. The Killers
10. Reprise

Awards

I don't have a name yet for this year's Awards show (previously known as the Adolf Awards, but this year I'm leaning toward The Swayze Awards, or possibly the Nomi's), but regardless, I need to start writing it soon. Which means I need a host! And like last year, it's up to you to decide who you most want to see, so here's a poll. Please vote before, like, tomorrow, or Friday I guess.

Online Surveys & Market Research