The Dark Knight, Rush Hour 3, & The Simpsons Movie

The Dark Knight is something I really don't need to say much about. Like with the original Spiderman, I was there the first weekend, contributing to the largest weekend box office ever. I have some serious problems with the film: the Bat-Sonar fight was confusion to an extreme, the film was far too long, Christian Bale was somewhat disappointing, and the turning of Two-Face made little to no sense, let alone him being wasted in what was clearly Joker's film. And this was Joker's film. As good as Gary Oldman is (and this cast was friggen amazing, with Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Aaron Eckhardt all being quite good), Ledger owned the film. The Joker is one of the classic comic book villains. And I also want to say, again, that Edison Chen is an ass. His role had to have been slightly bigger before that happened. The film is clearly cursed, with Ledger's death, Bale's arrest, and Chen's sex scandal. Even with all this, I liked the film, it's slightly better than Batman Begins, but it's not the best film ever, IMDB. What the hell, nerds?

Rush Hour 3 should prove, once and for all, how masochistic I am when it comes to movies. I knew it was going to suck when the words "Directed by Brett Ratner" were first announced. He's a terrible, terrible person. And Chris Tucker should, umm... stop making movies? Please. That all being said, the stunts were crappy, it was depressing to see the constant stereotyping (Youki Kudoh as "The Dragon Lady"? You couldn't even be bothered to give her a name?), and Jackie Chan is too old to be doing this. There are others in the cast I like, like Max von Sydow, Yvan Attal (quite possibly one of the luckiest men on the planet), Philip Baker Hall, Roman Polanski (well, I don't like him, but I think he's a great director), but this movie was just even worse than the second one. Partly because that one had Zhang Ziyi. But Ratner is just making crappy movies as an excuse to sleep with attractive women and do enormous amounts of blow. I hate him. Only partly because I want to be him. Not the blow part.

The Simpsons Movie just depressed the hell out of me. It's basically like three episodes of the series strung together. But not the good series (I recently watched a couple of early episodes on TV, and loved them again, but I stopped watching the show back in 2002), the recent stuff, of which I rarely crack a smile when watching and never laugh. I only catch it when others are watching and I happen to be there. But the movie was just crapping all over my memories even more. This is the reason that shows need to be cancelled. I can count the number of shows that didn't have enormous drop offs in quality: those are the ones that got cancelled. No scripted show has ever deserved twenty seasons. There's such a thing as diminishing returns, when you run out of ways to make it fresh. They ran out years ago.

The King Boxer, My Young Auntie, & Hana & Alice

The King Boxer had me convinced in about five minutes that I was being had. And I was. See, I thought this was King Boxer, aka Five Fingers of Death, the classic Hong Kong martials arts film. Instead, I got a crappy VCD version of The King Boxer, a mediocre at best martial arts film made a year earlier and about the only thing to recommend it is the music, which Sbug was enjoying even as I was saying that this was an elaborate joke on me. And that it's a weird metaphor for World War II, with the Japanese guy going around being evil and the Chinese and Thais needing to band together to kill the Japanese dude who has help from Chinese collaborators. I'd go into more detail, but I was pissed. Damnit.

My Young Auntie, on the other hand, made up for that entirely. Quite, totally, awesome in every sense of the word. There were six main fight scenes, and each were outstanding in their own way. The first, starting with Kara Hui (as the titular auntie) kicking ass beginning while sitting on a pedicab, while the second was funnier with the Auntie fighting her grand nephew. The third, however, was where the film kicked into overdrive. The auntie was from the boonies, and goes into the city to shop. And ends up in a gorgeous white cheongsam and high heels, neither of which she is used to. And proceeds to kick the ass of some mean men. While having problems with the heels, and the dress having problems staying down. It's just a funny and well-done fight. To get back at the auntie, the grand nephew gets her to dress up in a 18th century dress and a blond wig to go to a masquerade where they end up having to sword fight some ponces with everyone in ridiculous costumes, most of which isn't that much better than well-executed slapstick, but the Kara Hui bits with her fighting with a Chinese sword against a guy in a mask with an épée were excellent. The next fight is the last one that Kara Hui participates in, which pissed me off, since she is gorgeous and graceful (with her studies as a dancer), but she and her grand nephew try to break into a house, and end up having to fight a guy who is basically impervious to weapons. Very, very well done. The last one is a little disappointing, but that's mainly because the previous one was so great. Sure, there was a lot of slapstick, most of it wasn't very funny, but the fight scenes... wow.

Hana & Alice is a film directed by Shunji Iwai, who also did All about Lily Chou-Chou, another film that is a little long and episodic. This one, however stars Japanese actress Anne Suzuki, who first came to prominence in the US in Snow Falling on Cedars, and then in Initial D, but the only Japanese film I've actually seen with her in it (before this one), is Steamboy, a good looking but hollow anime, but I think I saw that in the dubbed version, so not even her voice. This one is about two Japanese schoolgirls (and isn't pornographic) who fall for the hot guy who bumps his head and loses his memory, thereby allowing one of the girls to convince him they are dating. But of course this just causes a lot of strain between the two girls.

Brideshead Revisited, Color Me Kubrick, & The Queen

Brideshead Revisited is a British TV miniseries (again Granada, not BBC, like The Jewel in the Crown) that my parents have been telling me to watch for a long time. They recently rewatched it as well, alternating that with discs of the first season of The Wire. Sometimes my parents are actually sort of cool. It's number ten on the list that had The Jewel in the Crown at 22. I've actually seen quite a number of these, or at least the ones that are not just news-y things. This one has Jeremy Irons (who has never not looked old (he was only in his early 30s in this, and he was playing a college student), who is quite excellent. It also had Laurence Olivier, Claire Bloom, John Gielgud, and Diana Quick, so the acting was uniformly strong. I did not mean to watch this right before a theatrical film came out, and only discovered the existence of that film when I first IMDB'd this one. The book is all about Catholic repression and British upperclass repression. It's all a big bunch of repression.

Color Me Kubrick is John Malkovich playing a gay con man, Alan Conway, who convinces people he's Stanley Kubrick. I sort of wish that Kubrick had actually been able to make some of the movies described in the film. I do recall reading about this guy back in the 90s, especially after the Frank Rich scene, which just jogged that in my mind. Malkovich is, as normal, quite good, and the director, Brian W. Cook actually worked with Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut, The Shining, and Barry Lyndon. A brief bit of fun for those interested in a weird-ass story.

The Queen was about the Royal Family and Tony Blair's week after the death of Princess Diana. I was never a big fan of the Royal Family, or Princess Diana for that matter, and Tony Blair's been permanently lowered in my estimation by his love affair with W, but the movie still worked very well. Even as an anti-monarchist, I felt myself siding with Blair against Campbell and getting sort of teary when the Queen came to her senses. Stephen Frears is an immensely talented director, and he does quite a good job, although the stag bits were a little heavy-handed. But the use of archive footage, blended seamlessly with the footage made to look archive was quite excellent. I do want to say that naming your female child Laurence (as in Laurence Burg, the Princess Diana stand-in in the film) is just going to make me think that there was a weird message being sent, but nope, just a woman with a man's name. Silly French. Also, weirdly, there was a film called The Deal made in 2003, that stars Michael Sheen as Blair and was written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Frears. I wonder if all that was a coincidence...

Harry Potter

Being in the United States and 18, I hadn't heard of Harry Potter when the first book was released (September 1998, the beginning of my freshman year), and wouldn't have heard of it until the first movie was close to coming out, had I not participated in Toys for Tots my freshman year in college. I had a choice of a book and a toy to buy from a prescribed list, and when I went to the bookstore, the clerk recommended the first book. So I took the advice, and didn't think of Harry Potter until the first movie came out, and people started to compare it to The Fellowship of the Ring. Being a huge nerd (but not one remotely familiar with the book, but with Chris Columbus's history of filmmaking), I came out very clearly on the Tolkien side. After seeing the film in college, I was even more sure. From the lost blog on March 25, 2002: "I went to see "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" last night. I know that this is going, at least, to annoy some of the readers of this, but that movie was 2.5 hours of the biggest crappy-ness that Hollywood could throw at me. I am positive that it's a combination of Chris Columbus's no-talent directing and J.K. Rowling's derivative book. And what's with the Deus Ex Machina ending? It apparently wasn't in the book, but they decided to include so much of the book, and then change the ending to something that pissed me off more than the entire crappy CGI of the Quidditch match? The movie was complete tripe. At least I didn't completely piss Brady off by being too vocal in my scorn in front of her brother. I think that the book is probably a little better than the movie, but not much, as it's so derivative of the Star Wars trilogy and LOTR that I hated it. I mean, I really like the cast (as it's English), but dear god, that was 2.5 hours long. I remember sitting there looking at my watch and saying, "Dear god, there's 45 more minutes of this crap?"" So you can see, umm, I really didn't like it. Even with that horrible reaction to the first film and quite a few more screeds against Harry Potter when the second movie and the fifth book came out, when I saw Mean Girls in May of 2004, I wrote this: "I was actually hoping that the new Cinderella story was the new Harry Potter trailer. I'm tempted to see it, because Cuarón is a very talented director. Oh well." Cleary, my mind had changed.

In 2005, I finally saw Chamber of Secrets, as I am a huge fan of Alfonso Cuarón, and will see anything he's done (A Little Princess and Great Expectations are gorgeous films, even if not as good as Y Tu Mama Tambien), so his directing the third one made me need to have some background. And yes, I enjoyed Prisoner of Azkaban. So clearly, after watching the second and third ones (and accurately predicting the release of the 7th book in 2007), I was planning on reading the books. I watched Goblet of Fire in the theater with my family later in 2005, again hoping for faster writing of the last book. I finally saw the fifth one (in HD on my fancy TV, which is so awesome, by the way) in the midst of reading the others, and man, if my nerdiness didn't make me get a little annoyed at all the changes made, even though I had only read the books once and that was in the two weeks right before watching the film. And still, the thing that annoyed me most was making Cho Chang's role smaller, because I want more attractive Asians with accents, please. Anyway, seeing the movie was a little ahead of where I was in my story.

So back in late June, I was unceremoniously dumped by email late on a Friday when I was at work. I went home, and instead of sulking like I normally do when this occurs (some of my sulks are better than others), I started to read Harry Potter. I made it through the first one in a day, the second one in a couple more, the third by the end of the first week, the fourth over that second weekend, the fifth over the next week (it's long and I can't read all day when I'm at work), and the sixth one made it a little over a day (I had to watch the fifth movie first). And somewhere after I started to read I noticed that Tweaks (it's a long post but you got mentioned), had two copies of the fifth book but no copy of the seventh. And those two Order of the Phoenixes were the English version (so no pictures at the chapter headings, boo! but I liked reading the English version anyway). So I really tried to hold off on the sixth one, but I was into it and epic fail. And everyone else in DC I knew who read it didn't have their copies of the books, and so I had to wait for four days to get to start reading the seventh book. Which is nothing compared to the two years for everyone who read it when the books came out, but I was getting a little antsy anyway. And I finished the seventh by staying up until almost 3 am after Tweaks's birthday party and 2 am the next night (couldn't stop reading with so little left). So I was a little less social than I would have been over the last few weeks, and now you know why I haven't actually posted too many movie reviews lately.

Now to the actual books: I liked them. Certainly not the deepest or best written books I've ever read, but they're extremely enjoyable, and probably quite good for an early teen. Not being an early teen, the bits of self-censoring and willful ignorance (you're putting a whole bunch of boys and girls, ages 11-17, in rooms without any kind of watching besides some kind of charm that makes a noise when a guy tries to enter the girls dorm, and there's no sex? Really?) made me question how realistic it really is, but then again, it's a story for youngsters, and as much as I know that sex happens among those under 18, encouraging it probably isn't the best social policy. Now that I've gone off on that tangent... well, I knew that the books would end with some bad things happening, but with an ultimate happy ending, because man, you can't give a story with a down ending to kids. So my major problems with the books were that I was too old for them, which makes sense. A little more depth for some of the characters, and possibly less sullen Potter in the last few books, and I would have been even happier. If you haven't read them, I recommend them, but the movies are basically the same: suffer through the sort of basic first two, and then they get better. I was sort of surprised how much of the books were set up in the first one, although some of that was due to the almost constant repetition of the important plot points from the previous books when necessary near the beginning of the book. So again, my problems with the books were more about the fact it wasn't written for someone my age.

So I want to thank Tweaks (for the first six books), Vermonstrous (for the last), and all my other friends who suggested I read them (going all the way back to this Alicia in college telling me that they weren't crappy kids books and told me to give them a chance). I can, without a doubt, say that Harry Potter are good books, and worth reading.

The Beast with a Billion Backs, The Last King of Scotland, Fay Grim, Notes on a Scandal, & The Family Stone

The Beast with a Billion Backs is the second Futurama movie, and as such, there are countless flamewars across the internet about whether it's better than Bender's Big Score, but it's still going very far into the "we're not on network tv so we can do crazy sex jokes constantly" thing that makes them very enjoyable. I think a little bit of the novelty of new Futurama wore off a little, and I probably need to rewatch this (which will be very easy once it arrives in my grubby little hands), but I sort of preferred Bender's Big Score to this. Maybe I just didn't care for the Kif-Amy plot.

The Last King of Scotland's compressed timeline bothered me. You really are never sure what year it is, and the expulsion of the Asians was well before the hijacking, but that's just nitpicking. James McAvoy was quite good, as was Forest Whitaker. I have to say that McAvoy's character was a moron (not just for his blind eye towards Idi Amin, but his utter inability to fall for an available woman, or even one that isn't just a stupid idea, as the first woman on the bus he has sex with, and then the two married women). But I liked it, even with the liberties it took with the facts.

Fay Grim is Hal Hartley's follow-up to Henry Fool, a film I watched years ago, in a brief bit of Hal Hartley-itis, and it had been a long time since I had seen a true Hal Hartley film (No Such Thing wasn't nearly as much of a Hartley film as Henry Fool or Trust or Amateur), so it took me a while to get into the rhythm of his language, which is far more unnatural than David Mamet. It's also far more plot driven than I was expecting, which a very international setting, Jeff Goldblum, and quite a bit about the dangers of terrorism. Definitely not a movie for all tastes, and I'm not sure whether rewatching Henry Fool would have increased or decreased my interest in the film. Hartley is fascinating, and I like that he's working, but I'm not as sure that I like him.

Notes on a Scandal is quite good, although the evil twist in the film just pissed me off. SPOILER! I hate that gay people in films are either the comic relief or are some evil twisted person bent on destroying some straight person. Why must you do that? END SPOILER. That being said, Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench were quite good, and I will always love me some Bill Nighy.

The Family Stone is another film that I watched due to a roommate. And man, I hated it. Although I do think that there's absolutely no choice between Sarah Jessica Parker and Claire Danes. And I won't object to Rachel McAdams ever, although Luke Wilson can be very up and down. And Craig T. Nelson and Diane Keaton are also in a very solid cast that is in a very unsolid film. I also want to point out that it was utterly unnecessary to see Diane Keaton's scarred chest from her double mastectomy. That was just bushleague. I do like the pro-gay message of the film though. Gay deaf people are people too!

The End of Summer, The Bow, Les Enfants Terribles, & The Sorrow and the Pity

The End of Summer is another Ozu film, and basically the same plot as the others. Family struggles with a variety of issues, this one being about a father who has a mistress, possibly an unknown daughter (who dates white boys! Shock! Horror!), and the three daughters who have to figure out what to do. It's quite as good as the other films in the late Ozu collection.

The Bow is a Kim Ki-Duk film, and it's just as f'ed up as most of the others. An old guy has found a seven year old girl, and instead of trying to find her parents, he raises her on a fishing boat until he marries her on her 17th birthday. And then she falls for a boy who goes on one of the fishing jaunts. Oh, did I mention that there's almost no dialogue, he drives men away from the girl by shooting at them with a bow and arrow, and that he tells fortunes by shooting at a buddha on the side of the boat with the bow as the girl swings back and forth in front of it? Kim Ki-Duk, you're crazy.

Les Enfants Terribles is an early Jean-Pierre Melville film, although it isn't nearly as good as his later ones. And it's clear whose fault that is: Jean Cocteau, who sabotages the adaptation of his novel by putting a completely inexpressive male lead in the film. Otherwise, it's an interesting story about two siblings who drift through life getting everything they want and being evil, evil people. And, of course, how they're not emotionally healthy due to that.

The Sorrow and the Pity is a 260 minute long French documentary about a town, Clermont-Ferrand, during World War II, and the collaborators who lived there. Did I mention it was 260 minutes long, in French, and a documentary including people justifying their collaborations with the Nazis? Why the hell did I think it was a good idea for me to watch it? Stupid Annie Hall.

Meme-ifying Me

I'm doing the meme of the best album of each year since my birth with only one album from each band allowed, which leads to some crazy things. Basically, I had some years that just had to have that album listed. And others were much more difficult. Also, I listed only albums that I have, not single songs or anything. This was actually a little hard for some of the years, especially 1990 and 1993, where there wasn't an album that stuck out as utterly awesome. Which led to less good ones getting the nod.

1980: Elvis Costello & the Attractions' Get Happy!!, with a special bit of love for The Feelies' Crazy Rhythms

1981: Mission of Burma's Signals, Calls, & Marches

1982: Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska

1983: Talking Heads's Speaking in Tongues

1984: The Replacements' Let It Be, although The Smiths' eponymous and Bruce Springsteen's Born In The U.S.A. are both very good

1985: The Jesus & Mary Chain's Psychocandy, with The Replacements' Tim getting edged out

1986: The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead

1987: U2's Joshua Tree, although I'm sorely tempted to pick either Sonic Youth's Sister or Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel Of Love

1988: Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, although My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything and Pixies's Surfer Rosa are both up there

1989: Pixies's Doolittle

1990: Fugazi's Repeater/Galaxie 500's This Is Our Music, with Yo La Tengo's Fakebook, Jawbreaker's Unfun, and Pixies' Bossanova being very good

1991: Pavement's Slanted & Enchanted, with Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend, Fugazi's Steady Diet of Nothing, Nirvana's Nevermind, Superchunk's No Pocky for Kitty, Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque, and U2's Achtung Baby

1992: My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, and then Superchunk's On the Mouth, Sonic Youth's Dirty, The Magnetic Fields' Wayward Bus, and Luna's Lunapark all had the definite unfortune of being released in the same year

1993: Velocity Girl's Copacetic/Björk's Debut, and then Archers of Loaf's Icky Mettle, Nirvana's In Utero, The Breeders' Last Splash, The Flaming Lips' Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain, and Yo La Tengo's Painful

1994: Superchunk's Foolish/Jawbreaker's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, and then Built To Spill's There's Nothing Wrong with Love, Guided by Voice's Bee Thousand, Jeff Buckley's Grace, Luna's Bewitched, The Magnetic Field's Holiday & The Charm of the Highway Strip, Velocity Girl's Simpatico, Weezer's eponymous

1995: Radiohead's The Bends, and then Guided by Voices' Alien Lanes, Archers of Loaf's Vee Vee, Björk's Post, The Flaming Lips's Clouds Taste Metallic, Elliott Smith's eponymous, Jawbreaker's Dear You, Luna's Penthouse, The Magnetic Fields' Get Lost, Portastatic's Slow Note from a Sinking Ship, Superchunk's Here's Where the Strings Come In, and Yo La Tengo's Electr-O-Pura

1996: Weezer's Pinkerton, and then Belle & Sebastian's Tigermilk & If You're Feeling Sinister, Guided by Voice's Under the Bushes Under the Stars, Jawbox's eponymous, Modest Mouse's This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing To Think About, and Wilco's Being There

1997: Yo La Tengo's I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, and then Beth Orton's Trailer Park, Björk's Homogenic, Built To Spill's Perfect from Now On, Elliott Smith's Either/Or, Radiohead's OK Computer, Sleater-Kinney's Dig Me Out, and Superchunk's Indoor Living

1998: Jets To Brazil's Orange Rhyming Dictionary/Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane over the Sea, and then Air's Moon Safari, Belle & Sebastian's The Boy with the Arab Strap, and Spoon's Series of Sneaks

1999: The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs/The Faint's Blank-Wave Arcade, and then Wilco's Summerteeth, Beth Orton's Central Reservation, Built To Spill's Keep It like a Secret, The Dismemberment Plan's Emergency & I, The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, Sigur Rós's Ágætis Byrjun, Sorry about Dresden's The Mayor Will Abdicate, and Superchunk's Come Pick Me Up

2000: The New Pornographers' Mass Romantic/Crooked Fingers' eponymous, and then The Clientele's Suburban Light and Spoon's Girls Can Tell

2001: Ted Leo & the Pharmacists' The Tyranny of Distance, and then Crooked Fingers' Bring on the Snakes, Fugazi's The Argument, Superchunk's Here's to Shutting Up, New Order's Get Ready, and Quruli's Team Rock

2002: Spoon's Kill the Moonlight/Sleater-Kinney's One Beat, and then Beck's Sea Change, Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It in People, Consonant's eponymous, Crooked Fingers' Red Devil Dawn, Destroyer's This Night, Imperial Teen's On, Jets to Brazil's Perfecting Loneliness, The Postal Service's Give Up, and Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

2003: Portastatic's Summer of the Shark/The Notwist's Neon Golden, and then Belle & Sebastian's Dear Catastrophe Waitress, Bishop Allen's Charm School, The Exploding Hearts' Guitar Romantic, The Ladybug Transistor's eponymous, Metric's Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, The New Pornographers' Electric Version, Radiohead's Hail to the Thief, The Rosebuds's TheRosebudsMakeOut, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists' Hearts of Oak, and The Wrens' The Meadowlands

2004: Arcade Fire's Funeral, and then A.C. Newman's The Slow Wonder, Air's Talkie Walkie, Charlotte Hatherley's Grey Will Fade, Franz Ferdinand's eponymous, Modest Mouse's Good News for People Who Love Bad News, Puffy AmiYumi's Nice, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists' Shake the Sheets, and Wilco's A Ghost Is Born

2005: The Rosebuds' Birds Make Good Neighbors/Robyn's eponymous, and then Crooked Fingers' Dignity & Shame, The Decemberists' Picaresque, Metric's Live It Out, The New Pornographer's Twin Cinema, Portastatic's Bright Ideas, Sigur Rós's Takk..., Sleater-Kinney's The Woods, and Spoon's Gimme Fiction

2006: Asobi Seksu's Citrus, and then Belle & Sebastian's The Life Pursuit, Camera Obscura's Let's Get out of This Country, The Decemberists' The Crane Wife, Destroyer's Rubies, The Essex Green's Cannibal Sea, The Long Blondes' Someone To Drive You Home, The Pipettes' We Are the Pipettes, Portastatic's Be Still Please, Snowden's Anti-Anti, and Yo La Tengo's I Am Not Afraid of You & I Will Beat Your Ass

2007: Stars' In Our Bedroom after the War/Jens Lekman's Night Falls over Kortedala, and then Radiohead, In Rainbows, Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, Bishop Allen's Bishop Allen & the Broken String, The Broken West's I Can't Go on, I'll Go On, The New Pornographers' Challengers, Of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, The Polyphonic Spree's The Fragile Army, The Rosebuds' Night of the Furies, Shout out Louds' Our Ill Wills, and Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga