Intolerable Cruelty

I’ve had testicles on the brain this week. Y’see, I live with a little dwarf bunny named Rex, who arrived with my girlfriend when she moved in, and a week ago he was neutered (so we can get him a little friend that won’t get humped into oblivion). This has meant multiple trips to the vet, checking the area where his two peas in a pod used to hang out, keeping his cage extra clean and spending more money on the whole procedure and follow-ups than I’d care to admit.

The whole ongoing thing got me thinking about groin injuries, and how that act of testicular violence exists simultaneously at very opposite ends of the fun spectrum. The movies illustrate this perfectly. Lo and behold, the IMDb has multiple crotch injury listings. For example, there are 286 titles under “hit-in-crotch,”156 entries for “kicked-in-the-crotch,” 50 titles in the “shot-in-the-crotch” category and seventeen “punched-in-the-crotch.” (And for the record, none of them seem to involve rabbits in any way.)

There are countless films that use and overuse getting hit in the groin as a cheap, but often effective, gag.

It really takes some effort to put a new twist on the ole ball gag. My personal favourite is from Monster Squad, when Horace dispatches the Wolf Man with a swift punt to the hairy Christmas ornaments, after which he proclaims in astonishment, “Wolf Man’s got nards!”

(Note: an excellent variation on the theme comes from The Jerk, in the scene where Steve Martin’s character injures his foot by booting “Iron Balls McGinty.”)

Then there’s the absolutely horrific use of crotch injuries in film. I’m thinking of the penis severing in Hostel II or I Spit on Your Grave, the shotgun blasts to the babymaker in Pulp Fiction and True Romance and, well, pretty much any of the other ones listed here. But at least these are generally perpetrated against bad guys. Some of the most sickening uses of groin mutilation are against innocents, and merely talked about secondhand, as they’re so awful. I’m thinking of the boys in both Candyman and The Exorcist III, who we get descriptions of as having their genitals violently hacked off. Just the very idea is horrifying. (And you though castration anxiety caused angst… .)

That said, the ultimate undercarriage disaster scene in my books isn’t from a horror film, but from an action movie. In action films, the lower torso trauma is sometimes played for laughs, and sometimes played for pain to either show someone who fights dirty or a hero who’s evening the odds (check out this Chuck Norris maneuver).

Or there’s the one that makes me wear an armoured-plated cup and never leave the house: the whack-a-nut torture sequence in Casino Royale. In case it isn’t already seared into your brain as one of the most horrendous examples of man’s cruelty towards man, it’s the sequence in which a naked James Bond is tied to a chair that has had the seat cut out of it; then the vaguely-European-bad-guy-with-a-scar proceeds to smash his underside with a heavy length of knotted rope. Just typing that out makes me queasy. Here’s a link to the sequence, but I’ve chosen a version where someone has inserted comical nut-cracking sound effects – just to take the edge off a bit. Still hurts to watch, though. Unlike the other examples, this one is all too real, probably used in actual torture and much to easy to imagine in aching detail.

Of course, tough guy Bond takes the massive egg-cracking wallops and even manages to squeeze out a couple one-liners through the pain. But there is no way anyone could really endure that. (Well, maybe eunuchs, castrados and my rabbit, for obvious reasons.) Not even Double 0’s double 0’s are that resilient, If you were taking that much punishment in the nether regions, you’d scream so loud and hard, your ancestors would fly out of your mouth.

And you certainly wouldn’t go back to your loverboy spy shenanigans. Without that movie magic, Bond would’ve spend the rest of the film icing himself with a pack of frozen veggies the size of a beanbag chair and trying to breath without crying.

Well, unless, of course, he was actually Iron Balls McGuinty.

[photo sourced from here]

 

-Dave Alexander

Late Night's Alright for a Fight

Blame Haiti. I don’t think this whole late night television feud with Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno and NBC would’ve gotten so much play if the media didn’t latch onto it as a diversion from the constant misery inherent in the humanitarian disaster in the country.

Or perhaps it would’ve gotten even more attention – I don’t have cable and I haven’t followed the late night talk shows, aside from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, for a while. The whole thing is irrelevant to this movie blog, of course, except that reading about O’Brien’s acrimonious exit from NBC got me interested enough to watch the made-for-HBO movie The Late Shift, the story behind Jay Leno beating out David Letterman to become Johnny Carson’s successor as The Tonight Show host in 1992.

The movie is based on the book of the same name by Bill Carter, a New York Times media reporter. I vaguely recalled this film and was pleasantly surprised to see John Michael Higgins playing Letterman. You probably don’t know Higgins by name, but if you’ve seen any Christopher Guest films, you’d recognize him immediately; in Best in Show, for example, he’s part of the silk bathrobe-wearing gay couple, along with Michael McKean. In The Late Shift, he nails Letterman’s mannerisms and speech, even if he is about fifteen years younger.

Leno is played by Daniel Roebuck, who you probably wouldn’t recognize, especially because he’s wearing a prosthetic chin. According to the film, which begins with the message “Believe it or not, the following is based on the truth,” both Letterman and Leno love the Tonight Show deeply, both are insecure and intimidated by Carson’s legacy, but Leno needs to grow a backbone – particularly when it comes to his manager. Kathy Bates won a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of Helen Kushnick, a woman whose repertoire of negotiating tactics ranged from strong-arm to steamroller. She’s seen as being the cause of Leno winning the Tonight Show and Letterman jumping ship from NBC to CBS.

Some background. Before Carson retired, Letterman had followed him for a decade on The Late Show, his dream since he was a boy, apparently, that he would one day host it. Due to Carson’s health issues, Leno was a frequent guest host on The Tonight Show and proved popular. At the same time, CBS’ late night talk show run had failed miserably with the The Pat Sajack Show, and they were looking for someone. Knowing that that CBS would be eager to give Leno a show in the coveted time slot, Kushnick used this as leverage (some would say a threat) to get Leno in The Tonight Show chair and herself on as executive producer. As Letterman grapples with his disappointment and gets himself a powerful agent for a new show in a competing slot on another network, Kushnick bullies her way right to the top of everybody’s shit list. (On a side note, the real Kushnick sued Carter and was given a settlement; she died of cancer at age 50, the year the film was released.)

A bunch of recognizable faces play the various agents, executives and other suits in the flick, including Treat Williams as Hollywood Michael Ovitz, who becomes Letterman’s agent; Rich Little, doing his spot-on impersonation of Carson; plus other Chris Guest collaborators Bob Balaban, as NBC bigwig Warren Littlefield, and Ed Begley, Jr., as a CBC exec.

The Late Show is rife with studio politics, dirty backdoor dealing, power struggles, head games and the-secret-lives-of-stars-type stuff yet comes off as only slightly more dramatized than reality. In one sequence, Leno is even depicted as listening in on NBC executives through the wall, and apparently this really happened. Although he comes off as a nicer guy than he is in the press right now (which is downright dickish), there’s a weasel-y quality underneath the version of him in the film. (That irritating high-pitched voice doesn’t help matters, either.) The movie definitely sides with Letterman, and he’s shown to be a deserving guy who got a raw deal because he didn’t have a ruthless agent.

Although it’s a decent TV movie that offers a good background to the pre-Conan era, I was surprised to read that The Late Shift was nominated for seven Emmys. It’s decent but definitely has that TV movie staginess to it.

Regardless, after seeing it, you get a better idea of why O’Brien was quick to tell NBC to leave his Tonight Show alone or he’d leave altogether. It was a win-win for him – he either keeps his show, or he gets a fat payout and another show on a different network, and both the network and his competition look bad. Worse for NBC, they get stuck with Leno, who’s obvious brand of punch line humour is about as funny as an episode of Corner Gas – the edgiest thing the guy’s got going for him is his chin fer chrissakes.

See – that’s a total Leno-style gag. His A-game wouldn’t even make Conan’s playbook. Well, at least to the best of the knowledge of a guy without cable.

 

-Dave Alexander

Aaaaaannnd Rounding Out 2009…

To put a cap on 2009, here are some picks Best/Worst picks for last year in movies, to go with my previous top fifteen of last year list. Voila!

 

The Five Worst Films of 2009

 

Friday the 13th

This is a Michael Bay production, which is really all the warning you need to stay away. A typical example of how studios obnoxiously approach horror remakes, I cringed at the unnecessarily fast editing, slick “dirty” production design, a pro-wrestler-sized killer, dialogue that suggests anyone under the age of 23 is horny, self-obsessed moron, and a cast members that look like they’re auditioning for a porno version of The Hills. Not even the kills were inspired. It’s a paint-by-numbers film – using mostly the boring colours, and not enough red.

 

Halloween II

It’s astounding that, A) Rob Zombie has been allowed to continue making such awful movies. B) He seems to be getting worse as a filmmaker. (Seriously, how does he do that?) Across the board, this horny, juvenile, ham-fisted nonsense will make you scratch your head. The laugh out loud white horse dream sequences, the teen girl dialogue (“Hey world, guess what? I'm Michael Myers' sister! I'm f**ked!”), a hobo Michael Myers eating a dog… raw – this is easily the worst film of the year. That said, while a bunch of people left the theatre during the screening, I was dying just to see what our generation’s Ed Wood would cook up next.

 

Ninja Assassin

Dammit, I was hoping this one would spark a ninja movie revival, but alas, all it did was waste a lot of CGI trying recast ninjas as some kind of a cross between unstoppable slasher movie killers, ghosts, superheroes and Rocky. I get, it’s a ninja movie, it’s supposed to be pretty dumb, but there was no reason to turn it into a cartoon with a video game plot. Director James McTeigue really Bruckheimered the hell out this one by cranking everything up to eleven so you’re forced to tune it out. Like a blow-dart of suck to the neck.

 

Terminator Salvation

I didn’t have to wait until the CGI Schwarzenegger to get the point that this just wasn’t the Terminator prequel it could’ve been. Over-plotted and overwrought, it felt like a Frankenstein of poorly stitched together ideas. (According to this Wikipedia entry, it was.)  All they had to do was make a kick-ass action-sci-fi film showing how it all went down, but instead a bunch of shallow subtext and lame drama about the humanity of a machine ruined everything. The ending, where John Connor receives the heart of a cyborg to save his life, is so asinine that I started cheering for Skynet.

 

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I’m fairly certain this embarrassing X-Men spin-off was actually written by one of Hugh Jackman’s sideburns – there’s that much effort on display. Given the decades of story material available out there in comic book bins, there’s no excuse to turn the Wolverine story into a series of special effects set pieces and action movie clichés populated by characters that you don’t know well enough to really care about. And the effects seemed only half-complete sometimes – seriously, what was with the creepy computer-animated Professor X at the end? Or worse, what about the real-life Ryan Reynolds as annoying jack-ass Wade Reynolds/Deadpool? X-fail.

 

Five Films from 2009 That I Hope to Never Ever See

 

Angels and Demons

The sequel to the conspiracy movie that boring people think is mindblowing – no thanks.

 

G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra

Stephen Sommers, you’ve never made a good film, so I’m not going to let you ruin my childhood with this one.

 

Old Dogs

May anyone involved creatively with this project be reincarnated as a herpes sore.

 

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Same answer as G.I. Joe, but with Michael Bay.

 

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

This could ruin both vampire and werewolf movies for me; can’t take that chance. Also, I’m not a fourteen-year-old girl.

 

Three Under-the-Radar Films Worth Checking Out

 

Dead Snow

Nazi zombies in a snowy Evil Dead-style gorefest – sold!

 

Les doigts croches

Great little Quebecois period comedy about failed gangsters finally getting their big payoff, if they can become changed men through an epic pilgrimage.

 

Adventureland

This was blip on the theatrical release radar but nevertheless a solid retro coming of age film, set before cell phones and online social networking. Jesse Eisenberg headlines a great cast, the late-‘80s soundtrack sets the tone and there are plenty of character-driven laughs, courtesy writer/director Greg Mottola (Superbad).

 

Most Overrated

 

Avatar

Yes, it made my fifteen best films of the year list, purely for its technical achievements, but it also just won the top prize at the Golden Globe Awards? Smurf Cats best film of the year? Ah ha ha ha ha! Hardly. Look past the eye candy, people – it’s a remake of Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves crammed with clichés and riddled with awful dialogue.

 

Guiltiest Pleasure

 

2012

Big, dumb and cliché in every expected Hollywood way that it can be, but damn if it isn’t fun to see all that stuff get wrecked.

 

 

Better Than it Should’ve Been

 

Funny People

Not that this necessarily should be bad (Adam Sandler proved he can do dramatic in Punch Drunk Love), but considering it’s basically two different films, in which the protagonist changes part way through the story, it works surprisingly well.

 

Not as Good as it Should Have Been

 

Where the Wild Things Are

One of the greatest kids books, adapted by of the most exciting directors out there (Spike Jones), should’ve transported us to a fantastic world, but the realm of the Wild Things was kinda drab and Max’s journey seemed to drag. Not bad by any means, but not the re-watchable classic I wanted it to be.

 

Film That I Most Felt Like a Chore While Watching

 

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

It didn’t help that I watched it on a tiny airplane screen, but by this point the magic has kinda worn off, so to speak. Plus there’s so much backstory to remember that I felt like an old man with dementia trying to recall all the grandkids’ names. “Harold? Harrison? Harry? Is it Harry, son?”

 

Worst Title

 

Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel

There is a Pun Hell and the jackhole who thought up the awful title for this awful movie will surely go there to be burned and tortured for an eternity by, like, Luci-fur.

 

Best Title

 

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Damn – I’m laughing, I’m curious, I’m kinda hungry…

 

Best Performance

 

Inglourious Basterds

It’s a tie between Christoph Waltz, as the Nazi heavy Col. Hans Landa, and Denis Menochet, as French farmer Perrier LaPadite for the tenser-than-tense scene in the farmhouse at the beginning of the film. These guys own the screen.

 

Most Insane Performance

 

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Nicholas Cage goes completely over the top as the cranked up, cracked out, smoked silly, pill pooped Terence McDonagh. Bug-eyed with a back problem and enough drugs in him to kill all of Detroit, the character is a classic. Cage put his usually stilted cartoonishness to good work here and the results and hilarious.

 

Most Enjoyable Ass-Kickings

 

Taken

Can’t help but love me a simple, bloody revenge film, and this one delivers a bounty of brutality throughout. Liam Neeson makes a fantastic ruthless tough guy.

-Dave Alexander

I Love it When a Trailer Comes Together

When I was but a wee lad, I prayed to the Gods of Prime Time Network Television for the most awesome show an eight-year-old could fathom; what they sent me was The A-Team. Over the course of 98 episodes, from 1983 to 1987, Hannibal, Faceman, Murdock and B.A. Baracus drove around in an awesome van, wore disguises, welded together all kinds of cool machines from random junk and blew up so much stuff that dynamite almost went extinct.

I loved this show so much that each week I would put on my camouflage pants and hat, grab one of my toy guns and tune in completely wide-eyed, imagining that I was actually along for the adventure. I had the action figures, comic books, stickers; I borrowed the book adaptations from the library; and I proudly wore an A-Team sweatshirt that my mom got at Zellers. I even recall recording the theme song off of the T.V. with a cassette recorder. Now that’s devotion! (Or possibly pre-teen mental illness – hard to say, really…)

A twinge of that excitement returned this week when the trailer for the movie adaptation went online. I’ve watched it a half-dozen times so far, done a little research and concluded that, although it’s looking a little too Jerry Bruckheimer in the cheesy action department (that parachuting tank bit at the end is lame and poorly animated), there are good reasons to be excited about it if you’re an old school A-Team fan like myself. In fact, here are five reasons I’m looking forward to the A-Team movie.

 

1. The Casting

On paper Liam Neeson stepping into the shoes of George Peppard to play Hannibal is hard to get your head around, but it seems to work. He’s not the Hannibal we know (he’s more, um, Irish) but don’t want to see a carbon copy of the original. After seeing The Hangover, I’m onboard with Bradley Cooper as Faceman, and I loved Sharlto Copely in District 9. These are inspired choices, as is picking former UFC fighter Quinton Jackson as B.A. Not the obvious choices, granted, but that’s half the fun – unexpected casting that works. There were all kinds of different actors rumoured for the roles, including Bruce Willis and Hannibal and Ice Cube as B.A., and even the fans had their own picks – just check out this trailer featuring George Clooney as Hannibal, Brad Pitt as Faceman, Jim Carrey as Murdock and Terry Crews as B.A. Baracus.

 

2. The Director

I’ve been a Joe Carnahan since seeing his gritty cop drama Narc. He’s got a knack for action sequences and tough guy characters, which appears to translate well here. I like the shots from the prison van escape sequence in particular. If there’s one thing an A-Team movie needs, it’s action. Lots and lots of car-flipping, gun-firing, you-name-it-exploding action.

 

3. The Look of the Characters

Though it takes some getting used to seeing Neeson done up as Hannibal, I’ve warmed up to him, especially the way he chaws on that cigar. The toughest one to update, I imagine, is B.A., as the original look of sleeveless denim jackets, a fuzzy mohawk and so many gold chains that it looks like a pimp exploded on his neck is way too ‘80s and wouldn’t translate well. I like Jackson’s close-cropped ‘hawk and more sensible duds. The character’s all about the attitude and this helps sell it.

 

4. Nostalgia

The filmmakers know that, at least on some level, we want to be transported back to our childhood, and they pay plenty of lip service to the original A-Team, with the shot-up logo, the familiar military-style music, the voiceover narration, the van and classic lines such as “I love it when a plan comes together.” I may just have to go out and buy a whole new camouflage pants ‘n’ hat combo before opening weekend.

 

5. The Van

Everyone knows that, although it wasn’t the best choice if you’re trying to keep a low profile as fugitives on the run, the signature black and red, GMC boogie van will always be the A-bomb. I’m overjoyed that it’s back for the movie. Hello there, old friend, are you ready to kick some serious ass with the A-Team? I sure am.

 

-Dave Alexander

Vampire Weekend

You gotta see Daybreakers, it's a blast. Click here to read my interview with the Aussie twins, Peter and Michael Spierig, who wrote and directed (and did a whack of the special effects on their home computers) the ambitious horror-sci-fi-action film. It earned $15 million this weekend, which is pretty solid for a $20 million movie. It's good to see vampires being vampires again. Daybreakers is strictly in the no-sparkle zone.

Two Gentlemen of Lebowski

"Our ringer was a ringer for the same
In odious Lebowski’s rotten game."

If Shakespeare wrote The Big Lebowski.

The Dude doth not protest...

My 15 Fave Films of 2009 (11-15)

Annnnnnnd we're back for the final third of my favourite movies of 2009 (in alphabetical order). Cue horns, disco ball and confetti cannon...

Monsters vs Aliens

Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon

A lot of critics picked Up ss their animated fave of the year, but Monsters vs. Aliens is more fun in my book, mains because it features monsters… and aliens… versus each other. No brainer – like chocolate and peanut butter. Of course, an awesome premise is only a starting point; Monsters vs Aliens also has a load of great gags, the lion’s share coming from B.O.B. (voiced by Seth Rogen), the cycloptic, blue blob simpleton whose enjoys a game of handball with his own eye, is not above falling in love with a jelly salad and occasionally forgets how to breathe. A stellar voice actor line-up, including Reese Witherspoon as Ginormica, Hugh Laurie as Dr. Cockroach Ph.D., Will Arnett as The Missing Link and Steven Colbert as the President of the United States, breathes much personality into these secret government “monsters.” And watching them battle against the forces of scheming extraterrestrial Gallaxhar (Raine Wilson) – especially in colourful 3D – made me feel like a kid. Although there’s plenty of clever dialogue here for adults (Missing Link: “It feels warmer than I remember. Did the Earth get warmer? It would be great to know that... that would be a very convenient truth.”), the focus is the important kid’s messages about difference, acceptance and friendship, which are rolled nicely into a narrative where the “scary” guys get to be the heroes for a change.

 

 

Red Cliff

John Woo

This is an oddity, as it’s one of the best films of the year, but you’d be a fool to go see it in the theatres. Unless of course you were in a country that showed it in its intended two parts – totaling over four hours – and not the cobbled together singular version that opened in North America. Taking full advantage of cheap labour and other production costs in Asia, director and co-writer John Woo made the most sweeping epic since the Lord of the Rings trilogy extended director’s cuts. After wasting fifteen years in Hollywood making garbage action films such as Hard Target, Face/Off and Paycheck, he returned to the Chinese film industry to make a movie based on the historical Battle of Red Cliff, in which a massive land and water battle involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers took place hundreds of years ago. Set at the end of the Han Dynasty, way before guns, it sees the powerful 800 000 Han army attempt to roll right over a coalition of two warlords that it outnumbers more than ten-to-one. The coalition, with the help of military strategist Zhou Yu (Tony Leung), must outsmart its seemingly unstoppable opponent by using creative warfare tactics, anticipating the enemy’s moves and relying on nature to aid them. The battles are beyond epic, the performances classically very dramatic, the action unparalleled and the militaristic visuals pretty damn mindblowing (horizons filled with soldiers, for example). It’s more than enough to forgive Woo for Windtalkers.

 

 

Star Trek

J.J. Abrams

A lot of sci-fi fans – and not just Trekkers/Trekkies – groaned when it was announced that the Star Trek franchise was getting a reboot by the guy who created Lost. Thing is, though, the sacred cow needed to be put out to pasture even before the last two movies and the lacklustre Enterprise TV series. Still, I didn’t think it could’ve been this great. For starters, J.J. Abrams managed to set up a new timeline without ignoring the old one, and he include the original Spock without it seeming forced. There’s intergalactic eye candy in almost every frame here, too, from the ballsy destruction of the entire Planet Vulcan to the harrowing spaceship battles. However, none of that would matter much if the characters and the casting weren’t so great. Chris Pine as a cocky, reckless young Kirk, Zachary Quinto as the human-Vulcan hybrid coming to terms with his dual nature, Karl Urban as the comfortably jaded Bones, and even comedy actors Simon Pegg, as Scotty, and John Cho, as Sulu, slid into their roles effortlessly. I paid extra to see this at the pimped-out AMC theatre in downtown Toronto and it was completely worth it, as the booming bass and fast-paced action sequences made the audience feel like we were on the bridge of the Enterprise. (I probably even checked to make sure I wasn’t wearing a red shirt at one point.) This is how to restart a time-honoured franchise the right way.

 

 

Trick ‘R Treat

Michael Dougherty

If you’re wondering why you can’t recall seeing ads for this coming to theatres, it’s because it didn’t play on the big screen (aside from at festivals and a few other one-offs), and that’s an injustice. Mike Dougherty, who previously contributed to the scripts of the Superman remake and the X-Men franchise, took his childhood fascination with Halloween and turned it into a Creepshow-style film with intertwining spooky tales set in the same Rockwellian town on Halloween night. The insta-classic has the undead, monsters, killers and other ghouls doing their thing to great effect, and in the more human category there are top-notch, appropriately cartoon-like performances from a cast that includes Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and Dylan Baker. The colourful, nostalgic atmosphere, sharp direction and funhouse plot twists makes Trick ‘r Treat highly re-watchable (saw it four times this year, in fact). Almost everyone I’ve shown this underdog film to has fallen in love with it, while the horror fans have been scratching their heads at how Warner Brothers would deny this the theatrical release it so desperately deserved. Apparently there are various political reasons behind it (to learn more, check out my interview with Dougherty here and here), but regardless, it’s something you should be popping in the DVD or Blu-ray player for years to come around October 31st, along with Disney’s Headless Horseman, Halloween or The Great Pumpkin. It’s timeless.

 

 

Up in the Air

Jason Reitman

George Clooney is front and centre again in another one of the year’s best, but Up in the Air is a lot less upbeat and fancy free than Fantastic Mister Fox. (These two titles, plus the well-reviewed The Men Who Stare at Goats – the guy can do no wrong.) In Jason Reitman’s often subtle character study of a guy who flies all across America as a hired gun to fire people, Clooney is a free spirit whose commitment to a no-strings, no settling down lifestyle comes into question when he meets a young female go-getter determined to change the way things are done at his company, and a woman who he thinks is his female equivalent. It’s poignant stuff for sure, with plenty of memorable scenes where Reitman proves he’s very talented at character development (e.g. Clooney’s character uses his people skills to convince his sister’s husband-to-be to not get cold feet on the wedding day). But what adds a punch in the gut is that the narrative takes place against the backdrop of the recession, where we see people from all walks of white collar life coming to terms with the news no one wants to hear about his or her job. It’s pretty heartwrenching at times without being hyperbolic or sentimental. Up in the Air is simply well executed all around and achingly timely.

-Dave Alexander

My 15 Fave Films of 2009 (6-10)

Now that you’ve got over your ringing disappointment of not seeing Paul Blart: Mall Cop included in the first five entries of my alphabetical list of 2009’s best movies, according to me, let’s continue the countdown…

 

 

Food Inc.

Robert Kenner

The last few years have seen an explosion of food-related docs (Supersize Me, King Corn, The Future of Food, etc.) that’ll make you want to hurl your nearest McDonald’s into a black hole, but Food Inc. may be the most important of them because of how effectively it delivers a whack of disturbing yet necessary info. Although the ominous music and some of the conspiracy stuff could probably go, for the most part, this is vital look at exactly where most North American food comes from, what kinds of creepy-ass processing it’s subject to, who owns most of the means of production, what working/growing conditions it’s produced under, how all of that has changed in a few decades and why, and so on, right down to interviews with the scientists that bugger around with its molecules. It demystifies the field-to-table process, scaring the bejesus out of ya in the process. This one tested my gag reflex with ruthless corporations (imagine getting sued because a company’s patented seed blew into your field and started growing!), way too dangerous production conditions (from falling carcasses at meat plants to deadly salmonella outbreaks caused by sewage contaminating fields) and too much general yuckiness (factory-chlorinated entrails, disgusting chicken coops, freaky amounts of corn sugars in, like, everything…). OK, that sounds doom ‘n’ gloom, but colourful personalities (I loved the barnyard intellectual organic farmer), some technical polish (check out the cool credit sequences) and some hopeful alternatives (e.g. a successful organic dairy) make for a very well-rounded documentary meal (cut me some slack, I kept it to one food metaphor, OK?). Food Inc. is a film that everyone needs to watch.

 

The Hangover

Todd Phillips

For what’s basically a film version of the slogan “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” there’s a helluva lot going on in The Hangover. And I don’t just mean the usual drug/drink/gambling/women/lawbreaking excesses of Sin City that are celebrated in so many a film set in its neon abyss (although, there’s plenty of that in film, of course). Like Swingers and Very Bad Things before it, The Hangover is really about the mysterious world of men. Surround us with temptations, destroy our sobriety and see what happens. Do we turn into animals? How far will we go for our brothers? How many lies do we tell to save our asses? At what point do we face our darkest insecurities? Why the hell is there a tiger in the bathroom? Director Todd Phillips covered this ground before with Old School, but The Hangover is less SNL and more Judd Apatow in its depiction of guyness and character-driven humour. Ed Helms (the cautious, whipped nerd), Bradley Cooper (the reckless, take-charge leader) and Zach Galifianakis (classic raging weirdo – with a man-purse) play off each other without slipping from “identifiable” to “stereotype.” Add a hilarious plot structure (the amnesiacs must retrace their steps from the night before to find the missing groom-to-be), a hilarious celebrity cameo (Mike Tyson and his massive punch) and sidesplitting, yet unexpected, gags (didn’t really the angry-naked-gangster-in-the-trunk attack coming, and who doesn’t enjoy seeing a baby get hit in the head with a car door?). The film is totally worth all the party-starved 30-somethings that will inevitably die trying to duplicate its stellar shenanigans.

 

 

The Hurt Locker

Kathryn Bigelow

Who’d have thought the director of Point Blank and Strange Days would make this very mature character study of military explosive disposal experts in Iraq? Not friggin’ me, which made Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker such a nice surprise. In fact, it’s really an anti-Hollywood film, a war movie about detonations in which most of ticking bombs are internal. Jeremy Renner brought serious weight to his damaged, soldier with a death wish, while supporting turns from the likes of Guy Pierce, Ralph Fiennes and David Morse kept him on his game. Aside from that, the film is absolutely wracked with tension. Everything’s a potential trap, you don’t know which of the locals are trying to kill you, there are snipers on the rooftops, your own guys are about to snap and – oh yeah – there’s a massive roadside shrapnel piñata that needs disarming, so chop-chop, soldier. Bigelow’s creates a raw, dusty, alien world full of danger, while screenwriter Mark Boal’s dialogue feels natural and honest, which makes things all the more harrowing when the proverbial dung hits the fan. It was also a breath of fresh air to see this one during summer blockbuster season when stupid often rules the box office. Sadly, that’s also most likely why the film only made a lousy $16 million worldwide. Hopefully all the awards nominations it’s been getting will score it a much deserved second life on DVD, because this one deserves better than to earn the equivalent of the catering budget for Transformers 2.

 

 

In the Loop

Armando Iannucci

This is the one on the list that you’re least likely to have heard of, yet it was word-of-mouth title that had me laughing hard enough to almost blow snot rockets all over the screen. Imagine if Ricky Gervais wrote Wag the Dog and it’s a close enough approximation to the mercilessly sharp-tongued British wit and political malfeasance that characterizes this spin-off of the U.K. television series The Thick of It. Shot pseudo-doc style, like The Office, it has a British politician and his entourage travelling to Washington D.C. as American and Britain are on the verge of declaring war in the Middle East (it’s not meant to mirror actual events, just use generalizations of the insane political climate). Conniving warmongers, inept politicians, scheming aids and the odd pain-in-the-ass private citizen make up the players in this often nuanced farce. David “Sledgehammer” Rasche is classic as an unflappable spin machine congressmen and James Gandolfini makes for a fantastically jaded general who’s trying to head off the ill-planned aggression. But the highlight is Scottish actor Peter Capaldi, whose impossibly hot-headed character turns insults, foul language and tantrums into an art form that should be housed in a museum somewhere, preferably in the F-You Collection. There are so many A-list tearings of a new one throughout the whole film that I missed half of them because I was laughing so hard at the previous one. If you ever doubted the Brits’ uncanny ability to dish epic insults, In the Loop proves that you’re, well, a total wanker. Some gems: “Was it you, the baby from Eraserhead? “You know, if I could, I’d punch you into paralysis!” “You stay detached, or else that's what I’ll do to your retinas.” AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Jerk win!

 

Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino

After the clustermuck of inane dialogue, bad performances and talking head filler that was Death Proof, I wasn’t holding out a lot of hope for Tarantino’s latest experiment in genre. But then – BAM! – he makes what may be the best film of his career. And he tricked us by promising a schlocky war flick with cartoon characters and exploitation action, and then delivering a story that really doesn’t feature the Basterds much at all (rather it focuses mainly on one woman’s, much more compelling revenge plot against the Nazis), but does have a bunch of Oscar-worthy performances. The tense opening scene alone demands Academy Award nods for both Christoph Waltz, as charismatic Nazi no-good Col. Hans Landa, and Denis Menochet, as French farmer Perrier LaPadite. (Brad Pitt as Lt. Also “I want my scalps” Raine, on the other hand, played it too far over the top me thinks). Suddenly Tarantino proved that he can pen completely absorbing dialogue that’s just as fun and as the sudden outbursts of violence that pepper the narrative. And by disregarding the actual facts of history – in a big way – he also delivered a very satisfying, blood-soaked revenge fantasy like nothing we’d ever seen before. Because the film was set during WWII, it also meant that the director couldn’t as easily get tripped up with self-indulgent pop-culture references – huge bonus. This is the ambitious, satisfyingly unusual movie that proves Tarantino is in fact a major talent and not just a guy who made some popular crime capers in the ‘90s.

 

-Dave Alexander

My 15 Fave Films of 2009 (Picks 1-5)

Slap your hands rapidly on your knees in a drum roll fashion… Presenting, in alphabetical order, the first five of my fifteen favourite movies of 2009.

 

Anvil!: The Story of Anvil

Sacha Gervasi

Spinal Tap-style rock clichés are hilarious, underdog stories are compelling and documentaries that get this close to their subjects are rare – that’s the winning formula here. After influencing a load of bands, including Motorhead and Metallica, nearly making it big, and then struggling in obscurity for 25 years, Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner, childhood best friends and founding members of Toronto metal band Anvil, were perfect documentary subjects. Director Sascha Gervasi, a former Anvil roadie, captured some slices of true hilarity (e.g. Lips' less than glamourous day job, Robb’s turd painting) and knife-twisting heartbreak (notably the band getting screwed over during an Eastern European tour and Lips and Robb fighting) while surveying the life of a good-natured but pretty clueless working class Canuck band, including the guys' somewhat bewildered yet touchingly supportive families. Damn, I can’t recall ever rooting so hard for anyone in a film, as did for these hard rock hosers. It's like watching FUBAR twenty years later, but it's real and the subjects are genuinely motivated! The fact that you don’t have to like rock, know who Anvil is or even be Canadian (although it helps!) to appreciate Anvil!: The Story of Anvil means that this doc has transcended its niche like few others. Translation: it rawks.

 

Avatar

James Cameron

If you read my somewhat negative last post, you’re probably surprised to see this here. I stick by it, as, yes, there’s plenty to complain about in James Cameron’s Smurf Cats, notably the storyline ripped off from Pocahontas, the bad dialogue and kinda cheesy aliens, but, BUT, when the unparalleled 3D sequences featuring the fantastically realized flora and fauna of the Pandorum planet are making sweet love to your eyes, it’s forgivable. So, as much as I cringed at the clichéd dialogue and New Age clap-trap, I went to the film twice just to take in all the cool 3D critters and landscapes. Plus, Sigourney Weaver, as resident egghead Dr. Grace Augustine, and Stephen Lang as the heavy, Colonel Miles Quaritch, are both solid in the film, especially considering that they have to compete with all that eye candy. And, who doesn’t like seeing a neat gunship or mech suit, too? Or what I should say is: who doesn't like seeing a neat gunship blowing things away from the air or a mech suit blowing things away from the ground, too? Like many a Hollywood blockbuster, technology wins over narrative, but this time it wins in such a big way, you can see that you're watching more than just G.I. Joe for epic stoners. You're watching the best possible ever G.I. Joe for epic stoners, and that's sayin' somethin'!

 

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans

Werner Herzog

Herzog is my main man, an enigma with the power to make Nicholas Cage not just not suck, but deliver one of the most unhinged, entertaining performances since, well, maybe Nicholas Cage in Wild at Heart. The fact that this in-name only sequel to Abel Ferrara’s 1992 Bad Lieutenant actually got made, by one of the world’s greatest European arthouse directors/documentarians, with a cast that also includes Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes, Fairuza Balk, Jennifer Coolidge, Brad Dourif and Xzibit, seems like some sort of drunken bet that turned out better than anyone could’ve expected. Sure, there’s enough of a police procedural plot to qualify as a cop story, but the real fun is watching Cage’s character perform an operatic downward spiral in the most darkly comedic way possible, all while Herzog is thrusting random lizards, hallucinatory break dancers and enough onscreen self-abuse into the frame to make Keith Richards join the priesthood. Only a mad cinematic genius could pull this off with such aplomb, and I can’t think of another director who could come close. (I gotta say it again: the filmmaker actually uses Cage's tortured mugging, creepy mannequin hair and baffling line deliver for good, instead of evil!) There isn’t a film this year that I’ll be revisiting as much as this BL. I shudder with anticipation at how absurd the commentary will be on the DVD.

 

District 9

Neill Blomkamp

James Cameron had something like $250 million to create the world of Avatar, and first-time feature director Neill Blomkamp $30 million to create the world of District 9. While the former is an eyegasm of 3D goodness, the latter is light years more intelligent. Using photorealistic effects and a documentary realism style, D9 tells an surprisingly original story, in which aliens landed on Earth decades ago, in South Africa, only to be herded into ghettos and abused by the military-esque powers that be (a private security company interested in harnessing the alien weaponry). Yes, sci-fi can have a meaningful subtext and killer special effects; computer animation that both looks good and serves the story. Plus, star Sharlto Copely, as a dimwitted company man accidentally exposed to a DNA-altering liquid, deftly balances the mix of horror and humour in his character. Producer/mentor Peter Jackson obviously knows an artist with original ideas when he sees one, and this is just crammed full of imagination, from the look of the grubby, tentacled aliens to the sweet intergalactic weaponry that blows things up in the most fun, video game-style possible. It’s a good-strange feeling to come out of a sci-fi film, knowing that you watched something that stimulated both the brain and the senses equally. Now, if Blomkamp would only get to make to that Halo movie he was originally tapped for…

 

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson

I’ll see anything Wes Anderson does, as he’s one of the great filmmakers of the past decade, although his last effort, The Darjeeling Limited, was probably his least effective film. Well, Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of his best, however, there’s just no way to properly market this one, so it’s already almost gone from theatres and has been unfairly overlooked despite critical acclaim. Part of the problem is that this classic stop-motion animation-style adaptation of the famous Roald Dahl tale about a cunning fox that starts a war with some very determined farmers, is not a kid’s film at all. Rather, Anderson puts his droll dialogue, a resigned hero who lets down his family, sibling rivalry and a hip soundtrack in the mix. The filmmaker also likes bright colours, neat little props and bold gestures – all of which work really well in animation. The film is much funnier that I expected, as well, with the idiosyncratic dialog making a nice counterpoint to the stop-motion mayhem. George Clooney as the title character, Meryl Streep as his wife, plus Anderson staples such as Bill Murray (as a law-practicing badger!), Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson, all get solid laughs. And, although, this isn’t a “kids” movie per se, I know I’d have loved all the zany antics of the forest creatures, even if I didn’t understand dialogue such as, “Why a fox? Why not a horse, or a beetle, or a bald eagle? I'm saying this more as, like, existentialism, you know? Who am I?”

 

-Dave Alexander