Placenta Ovaries

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

Just in time! Christmas Reviews, part 2.

12/8

Home Alone (rewatch, 1990, Chris Columbus, dvd) - 8
Macauly Culkin's family leaves for vacation, and accidentally leaves him behind, and Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern try to rob his house thinking it's empty, but Macauly fucks their shit up. It's a good movie.

12/9

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (rewatch, 1992, Chris Columbus, dvd) - 7
Pretty much the exact same movie as the first one, but in New York, and without any attempt at realism. I didn't really understand why he was dealing with the criminals in the first place. He finds out they're gonna rob a toy store at midnight, and rather than just calling the police to let them know, he first lures them to a booby-trapped house so he can torture them. It's not done out of self-defense, he's just a fucking sadist. Which possibly makes it a better movie, I don't know, but I wasn't as into it.

12/9 and 2/2

6 Films to Keep You Awake: A Christmas Tale (2008, Paco Plaza, download/dvd) - 9
A group of kids find a woman dressed up as Santa in a hole in the woods, and at first, they go to get the police, but then when they find out she robbed a bank, they decide to leave her down there and starve her until she gives them the stolen money. It's really fucking great.

12/12

Two Front Teeth (2006, Jamie Nash & David Sckrabulis, dvd) - 1.5
I don't think I've ever known I was about to hate a movie as quickly as I did this one. It was literally only like 3 seconds in, with the first line, and I could already tell that the acting and humor were gonna be excruciating. The plot seemed good enough, with killer elves, ninja nuns, and an evil Santa, but everything about it just came out fucking irritating.

12/14

Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (1977, Jim Henson, download) - 3
An otter and his mom are poor, and they try to win some money through a music competition thing, and they don't end up winning which was sort of awesome, but there's still a happy ending. It was really bad. It's too fucking saccharine all the way through, and I think any good kid's movie has to have something sad or dark in it.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Santa Claus (1993, Jim Mallon, download) - 5
Sometimes I can't get really get through MST3K unless I just have it on in the background. I was watching this at work (the security job I no longer have), with nothing else to do, and I thought it was pretty boring, and not funny nearly often enough. It might have just been because I've seen Santa Claus without their commentary, and it's a pretty horrible movie, so it was hard to separate myself from that.

12/15

Three Godfathers (1948, John Ford, dvd) - 5
John Wayne and two other guys are running from the law, and they come across a woman in labor who dies giving birth, so they have to watch over the baby. It was pretty stupid.

A Charlie Brown Christmas (short, 1965, Bill Melendez, dvd) - 7
Charlie Brown is directing a Christmas play, and then he buys a pathetic tree, and there's something about commercialism being bad and Jesus being good. I liked it, I guess. I love the soundtrack a whole lot. I also watched A Charlie Brown Kwanzaa on youtube, which was sort of amazing.

It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown (short, 1992, Bill Melendez, dvd) - 6.5
I loved that this starts off with Charlie Brown going door-to-door trying to make some money by selling Christmas wreaths. Way to learn the lesson from the first movie. Other than that, I don't even remember what this was about.

The Animaniacs: Helloooo, Holidays! (1992, vhs) - 8
A bunch of Animaniacs skits relating to Christmas. A couple of them were godawful, but most were really great.

the best fucking films I watched in 2008

The Top 25 Greatest Movies I Watched In 2008

1. Torque (2004, Joseph Kahn)
2. The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984, Frank Oz)
3. The Room (2003, Tommy Wiseau)
4. Vixen! (1968, Russ Meyer)
5. Vampire's Kiss (1988, Robert Bierman)


6. Flesh+Blood (1985, Paul Verhoeven)
7. Stagefright (1987, Michele Soavi)
8. Selena (1997, Gregory Nava)
9. Django (1966, Sergio Corbucci)
10. Phase IV (1974, Saul Bass)


11. Trailer for Massacre Mafia Style
12. Passage à l’acte/Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy/Pièce Touchée (1993/1998/1989, Martin Arnold)
13. The Godfather Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
14. Times Square (1980, Allan Moyle)
15. The Iron Giant (1999, Brad Bird)


16. Mad Love (1935, Karl Freund)
17. Casino Royale (2006, Martin Campbell)
18. Brainscan (1994, John Flynn)
19. The Collector (1965, William Wyler)
20. Mandingo (1975, Richard Fleischer)


21. Score (1974, Radley Metzger)
22. Hands on a Hard Body (1997, S.R. Bindler)
23. The Night of the Hunted (1980, Jean Rollin)
24. Unfaithfully Yours (1948, Preston Sturges)
25. The Beastmaster (1982, Don Coscarelli)