Ted Knight in Caddyshack

The movie industry was in transition in 1980 – away from the auteur-driven seventies golden era and towards the age of the eighties blockbuster. Ringing out the old guard were duds like Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, which became shorthand for out-of-control directorial hubris and Robert Altman’s Popeye which made a better soundtrack than a film. Representing the new were high-concept low IQ sequels like the troubled Superman II and the execrable Smokey and The Bandit Part II, each of which were hits out of all proportion to their quality. Kneel before Zod indeed.

However there were plenty of fine films from all over the spectrum in 1980 and here are the 20 that I think are keepers (after the jump) :

20. Foxes

Part of a cycle of bad girl films that also included the more popular but inferior Little Darlings, Foxes is helped by having Jodie Foster in the lead and a delightfully seedy and nihilistic take worthy of L.A., not to mention co-star Cherie Currie of The Runaways. There isn’t much of a plot to speak of, just loose vignettes of drinking, doping and doing it and the parents who are too self-absorbed to care. Enlivened by an era-appropriate cheese and sleaze rock soundtrack.

19. Return of the Secaucus Seven

This is John Sayles first film and it has a warts and all quality consistent with its ultra-low budget. It’s also a charming character study ripped off thanklessly for Lawrence Kasdan’s glib The Big Chill a few years later. The premise is the same, a group of counter-culture inclined pals from the 60s reunite now in their early 30s – aimless and struggling with an adulthood they once mocked. The main cast remains pretty anonymous today but they all give solid natural performances. On the fringes are Clark Gregg as an idealistic politico and David Straithairn as a goofy townie who has more depth than first appears.

18. Caddyshack

Maybe not a great film as a whole but as a collection of riffs it’s pretty dynamite. A sort of battle of the comedy stylings you get Ted Knight doing the classic haughty slow-burn, the great Rodney Dangerfield in a star-making turn as a sort of one-man Marx brother, Chevy Chase doing his louche smug deal, and Bill Murray doing the kind of off-the-wall character work that would be emulated by the likes of Will Ferrell years down the road. And a kick-ass Kenny Loggins song.

17. The Elephant Man

The film that catapulted David Lynch into the mainstream for a brief moment. The Lynchian weirdness is there in the very subject matter and the obsession look in the eye of Anthony Hopkins, as well as the choice to film in lush black and white. Yet it also passes as costume drama of a sort if you put aside the strangely unnerving soundtrack. Produced by Mel Brooks, and not coincidentally featuring a wonderful turn by his wife, Anne Bancroft.

16. Ordinary People
Robert Redford showed his mettle as a director by taking on this tricky film which succeeds for the most part in exploring a young man’s difficulty growing up and adjusting to a terrible family tragedy that is tearing his parents apart. The acting is what puts this over the top with Timothy Hutton rightly praised for his seamless work in the lead, the lovely Elizabeth McGovern as a fellow teen, and Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore who are fantastic as the parents. Moore in particular is as far as she can get from her sunny Mary Richards character on TV – brittle, wounded and wounding it’s a great and brave performance.

15. The Stunt Man

Richard Rush is one of the great almost-was Hollywood directors – praised by Truffaut but with a maddeningly scattershot body of work. At his best though here and to a lesser extent the 1974 cop buddy movie farce Freebie and The Bean his satire was both cutting and prescient. The Stunt Man was actually made in 1978 but languished until Rush could find a studio to release it, just in time for it’s twisted view of the mashup between fiction and reality to find it’s ultimate expression in the election of a b-movie star as President. Peter O’ Toole is the film director who seems to enjoy controller and manipulating everything, including Steve Railsback as a paranoid Vietnam vet pulled into the orbit of the film and leading lady Barbara Hershey. Naturally this entertainingly Machiavellian look at film making was only able to find a cult audience but it’s a cult that endures.

14. My Bodyguard

A sweet quirky tale enlivened by fine performances and well delineated characters. I shudder to think of what someone would do with a remake today – you would lose the charm of Chris Makepeace as the bullied rich kid and the layered menace of Adam Baldwin as his bodyguard for hire. Then there’s a young greaseball named Matt Dillon who has more charisma is his slicked-back hair than Taylor Lautner can muster with his perfectly chiseled abs.

13. Stardust Memories

Considered something of a letdown after Manhattan, Stardust Memories fuses the coldly abstract European experimentation of Interiors with the warm and schticky New York relationship comedy of Annie Hall. The effect can be disorienting and self-indulgent but it’s also fascinating. Woody was accused of treating his fans like dirt for the scenes of hero worship that are clearly played for putdowns but their is as much self-loathing those moments as there is misanthropy. Consider it Woody’s White album, a meandering, frustrating, sometimes brilliant mess.

12. Melvin and Howard

Jonathan Demme broke out of the genre pic ghetto with this delightful retelling of a story that may be true or may be a tall tale. He never judges or pushes the scales on the subject of speculation, the real-life Melvin Dummar who claims to have befriended Howard Hughes when he picked him up as a hitchhiker on a Nevada highway. Paul LeMat is perfect as Dummar, a man who takes his passenger (played to the hilt by Jason Robards) to be a bum until Hughes dies and apparently leaves him $150 million. Or does he? Mary Steenburgen won an Oscar as Dummar’s wife who is desperate to win some dough given the constant financial pressure they find themselves in. A classic.

11. The Shining

After the torpid costume drama of Barry Lyndon it was unclear where Stanley Kubrick would go next – he’d done high satire with Dr. Strangelove, a war movie with Paths of Glory and sci-fi with 2001. What genres were left? Horror, naturally. While Stephen King may have lamented the changes his source material underwent this remains a classic – not least of which because of Jack Nicholson’s unhinged lead performance. Part of what some folks objected to was the hint of menace already apparent in Jack before he even hits the winding road to the Overlook Hotel with wife and son in tow. The point Kubrick was making was that the ghoulish resort was the catalyst but the rage and derangement was there to be tapped into – in everyone but especially men.

10. Breaker Morant

Not an easy film to watch but Bruce Beresford’s epic telling of a true story is riveting as a drama of miscarried justice, prejudice, and the travails of war. Set during the Boer War it concerns three Australian officers serving with British forces in South Africa in the 19th century. While acting under their understood rules of engagement they kill a group pf Boer prisoners including, it turn out, a German. When the German government protests the British government decides that the easiest remedy is to court martial and execute the three Australians. Beresford doesn’t shy away from exploring the different racial and cultural differences that come into play, from Boer collaborators to African tribesman to the very real disdain in which the British held the Australians. Bryan Brown and the late Edward Woodward are both spectacular. Their sacrifice can’t help but echo in our own time of war crimes that are condoned by the brass while only the rank-and-file are held to account.

9. Used Cars

A final kiss-off to the malaise years, this is one of the great American satires, worthy of Preston Sturges. It’s the work of Robert Zemeckis, on his way to blockbuster fare like the Back To The Future series, but before he became too besotted by CGI technology to take an interest in actual people. Of course it’s hard not to take an interest when you have Jack Warden playing a dual role as conniving twin brothers who run adjacent competing used car lots. Or Kurt Russell at his slippery best as a fast-talking salesman who stashes cash in his fridge in preparation for a run for office. The scene where a typically dour (actual!) Jimmy Carter speech is jammed to make way for a ribald guerrilla TV spot is priceless.

8. The Blues Brothers
If Used Cars was a farewell to an era of diminished expectations than The Blues Brothers was a sly, overstuffed paean to two of the biggest tropes of 70s filmmaking – the car chase and the antihero. Every great populist work of the closing decade featured one, and ideally both of these – see for instance Smokey and The Bandit, Convoy, Billy Jack, the Dirty Harry series. Director John Landis and stars Belushi and Ackroyd pump both ideas up to ridiculous abstraction. Yes the Blues Brothers are anti-authority outcasts but really, they’re on a mission from God (compare this to the conflict between “Dirty” Harry Callahan’s moral code and the letter of the law his superiors keep citing.) You thought the car chase in French Connection was cool? Try a full half-hour plus of cars backflipping, crashing, balletically colliding and converging on Chicago’s downtown en masse. Plus some fine music from Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin and Cab Calloway. And Aretha can act!

7. 9 to 5

Like The Blues Brothers this verges quite literally into cartoon territory but it’s delicious satire of gender roles in the workplace was grounded in a reality that still rings true. Granted there are more women in corporate leadership roles now than at the time of this film but the progressive solutions to making a better workplace advocated by Lily Tomlin’s Violet still are rare in most offices today – onsite day care, time sharing etc. The film’s a hoot – in addition to Tomlin there’s Jane Fonda cast against type as uptight Judy and Dolly Parton who is more than just the curvy body her co-workers and boss see her as. Dabney Coleman would make a career out of playing chauvinists like Franklin Hart, who sees each of these women as appendages to his career or his libido.

6. Airplane!

Don’t judge Airplane! by the pale, unfunny films it inspired, include it’s own sequel. Zucker Abrahams and Zucker or ZAZ as they are known to the faithful wrote and directed a deeply inspired and silly takeoff of self-serious 70s disaster flicks like Airport. The real genius is that it is nearly a scene for scene remake of straight-faced 50s disaster movie Zero Hour – even some of the dialogue is retained. Another great move was casting such icons of probity as Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and Lloyd Bridges in key roles. The final coup de grace was taking an actor known for his stolid portrayal of bad guys who had never done comedy before – Leslie Neilsen – and casting him as the doctor. This one film changed his entire career and made him a bigger star than he was ever destined to be. Everyone has their favorite bit of dialogue or sight gag. Mine include telling an operator to put Hamm on the line and to hold the Mayo (clinic, natch) and a mirror that turns out to be a doorway.

5. The Empire Strikes Back

Is this the best film in the Star Wars series? It’s the one I most enjoy watching, that’s for sure. There’s something about the middle film in a trilogy – it’s the meat in the sandwich when done right. (Don’t try to tell me it’s a sextet – the latter three films that have been appended to the beginning of the story should be best forgotten.) There’s a bit of the feel of a World War II era film, something like Casablanca, where the outcome of a great struggle was less than clear and the feeling of impending doom and sacrifice give everything an extra frisson. It’s the most adult in the series with plenty of juicy conflict, genuine frights and surprises, and a gratifyingly downbeat ending.

4. The Big Red One

Sam Fuller spent years trying to get this film made, a fictionalized account of his own World War II experiences liberating Italy. Ultimately the casting of Mark Hamill hot off of Star Wars helped shale the studio funding loose that he needed to complete his masterwork. Fuller had already proved himself a master of efficient war dramas like The Steel Helmet but never had he had a scope as large as this epic work which follows an American platoon through bombed out villages. At heart it’s a piece that celebrates bravery while simultaneously mourning all the humanity that war strips away.

3. Coal Miner’s Daughter

One of the best music bios ever, Sissy Spacek does her own singing and fairly becomes country legend Loretta Lynn while Tommy Lee Jones is magnetic as her husband and manager. It’s a fascinating and moving portrait of a rise to stardom but also of the marriage that gets pushed and pulled in every direction on the way. The depiction of poverty in the Appalachians is acute and devastating and no punches are pulled when it comes to the machinations of the music biz as well.

2. Raging Bull

The apogee of the DeNiro/Scorsese collaboration, Jake LaMotta could be one of the characters inhabiting Malle’s Atlantic City by the time he’s shown here as a would-be entrepreneur ex-boxer gone to fat. Michael Chapman’s black and white cinematography give the film the feel of 40s pulp photography come to life and Scorsese’s delight and knack in the knockabout rhythms of Italian-American discourse makes every scene zing. This was the first introduction for most film buffs to  Joe Pesci, who plays LaMotta’s scrappy brother. Cathy Moriarity is also great even if her age range is less believable than her co-stars.

1. Atlantic City

Leave it to avowed Frenchman Louis Malle to tap into the psyche of an America poised to elect Ronald Reagan after a decade of disappointment and malaise. Atlantic City the setting is depicted as a past it’s prime fantasy land degenerated into drugs and sleaze. All over the signs of the old Atlantic City are being obliterated by the wrecking ball, making way for a future 80s of corporate casinos and hermetic entertainment. Burt Lancaster is the walking embodiment of this decay and by movie’s end, a renewal that might be a hollow reflection of youth. It’s easily one of his best performances. Equally good is Susan Sarandon as Sally, the younger woman who he feels compelled to protect but who herself is driven to learn from the world around her.

Children of Men

The decade that’s ending has the ignominy of following the 1990’s, an era that will be looked back on as a creative peak rivaling the 1970’s for cinema. This is not to say the 00’s sucked as there were some great films and wonderful talents that emerged all over the world.

Pixar proved that the Toy Story movies were merely the tip of the iceberg when it came to animation that was artistic and commercially successful. Judd Apatow may have faltered of late but he also found a way to freshen the comedy genre and inject a sometimes Cassavettes-like realism into broad can-you-top-this flicks. Superhero films were abundant but Sam Raimi with Spider-Man and especially Chris Nolan’s two Batman films showed a new level of complexity within an often two-dimensional genre.

Then there was the aftermath of 9/11 and the ongoing nightmare of the Bush presidency. The films that grappled with this best were the ones that did so obliquely, even sub-texturally. The Dark Knight comes to mind here as well with a Wall Street Journal editorial even claiming to see a vindication of Bush in the film’s vision of Batman as over-surveilling rule-breaking vigilante against an amoral enemy. Or consider the TV in the background of one of Sideways most discomfiting, riotous scenes as Paul Giamatti sneaks into the bedroom of an amorous, thieving couple while Donald Rumsfeld talks on the screen behind them.

While undoubtedly I missed a few trends here are the 100 films that I truly enjoyed this decade, in rough order of release. Let the arguing commence!

Aardman's Chicken Run skewered WWII escape dramas

1. Chicken Run


You Can Count on Me didn't let us down

2. You Can Count on Me


Best in Show was no dog

3. Best in Show


High Fidelity celebrated a lost world...and lists like this one

4. High Fidelity


Cameron Crowe's autobiographical Almost Famous put a band-aid on it

5. Almost Famous


Wonder Boys brilliantly adapted Chabon

6. Wonder Boys


Gladiator asked if we were not amused...

7. Gladiator


Harron's American Psycho taught us about business cards... and plastic tarp

8. American Psycho


Memento fractured and reversed narrative ... what was I saying?

9. Memento


Peter Jackson's Tolkein trilogy ruled them all, bringing the epic to new heights

10. The Lord of the Rings: Trilogy


Ghost World made the planet safe for nerd girls and the Buscemis who love them

11. Ghost World


Shrek was Eddie Murphy's best performance of the decade (yes, including Dreamgirls)

12. Shrek


The Closet was workplace farce at it's best

13. The Closet


Donnie Darko proved impossible for Richard Kelly to follow-up (though he keeps trying)

14. Donnie Darko


The Royal Tenenbaums was Wes Anderson's ode to family

15. The Royal Tenenbaums


Waking Life had us flipping light switches to make sure we were awake

16. Waking Life


Moulin Rouge mashed up styles of music and cinema into a sumptuous treat

17. Moulin Rouge


Spirited Away was a modern Through The Looking Glass

18. Spirited Away


Ripley's game suggested that Matt Damon might age to resemble John Malkovich

19. Ripley’s Game


About a Boy proved that Hugh Grant is best as a (lovable) cad

20. About a Boy


Talk To Her showed that Almodovar could combine a new maturity with a Volkswagen-sized vulva

21. Talk to Her


Adaptation had Cage's two best performances of the decade

22. Adaptation


The Kid Stays in the Picture made us feel bad for losing Ali MacGraw to that McQueen guy

23. The Kid Stays in the Picture


Spider-Man wasn't related to Morris Spiderman D.D.S.

24. Spider-Man


About Schmidt gave us a vulnerable Nicholson

25. About Schmidt


24 Hour Party People took us to Madchester with the brilliant Steve Coogan as ringmaster

26. 24 Hour Party People


The Bourne Identity proved action movies didn't have to be edited by a Benihana's chef

27. The Bourne Identity


Y Tu Mama Tambien was some sad, sexy, slyly political stuff

28. Y Tu Mama Tambien


Rivers and Tides let us into the genius of artist Andy Goldsworthy

29. Andy Goldsworthy – Rivers and Tides: Working With Time


Finding Nemo immersed us in an undersea world

30. Finding Nemo


Errol Morris' Fog of War lifted the veil on Robert McNamara

31. The Fog of War


Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation whispered in our ear and introduced us to Suntory time

32. Lost in Translation


Infernal Affairs was good enough for a Scorsese-helmed remake

33. Infernal Affairs


American Splendor bought multi-dimensional Harvey Pekars to life

34. American Splendor


The Triplets of Belleville pedalled us across the Atlantic

35. The Triplets of Belleville


My architect looked at the professional and very personal legacy of architect Louis Kahn

36. My Architect: A Son’s Journey


The Weather Underground supplied talking points for the Republican campaigns of '08

37. The Weather Underground


Whale Rider showed us how to make our warrior face

38. Whale Rider


28 Days Later showed us where monkey rage leads

39. 28 Days Later


The Kill Bill films kicked our asses in a tracksuit

40. Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2


Brad Bird's The Incredibles was the American Beauty of the animated world. Think about it.

41. The Incredibles


Alexander Payne's Sideways burrowed into the heart of male middle-aged ennui

42. Sideways


End of The Century showed us the broken hearts of The Ramones and broke our hearts at the loss

43. End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones


Gondry and Kauffman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind taught us the difference between Pope Alexander and Alexander Pope

44. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind


Vera Drake showed that bravery doesn't always announce itself

45. Vera Drake


Shaun of the Dead introduced us to pale, lumbering Brits and the zombies who want to eat them

46. Shaun of the Dead


Who better than Alfonso Cuaron to introduce hormones into the Harry Potter universe in the best film of the series so far.

47. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban


Dig made The Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Masacre actually seem like interesting bands

48. DIG!


Tom Dowd and the Language of Music allowed us to hear classic soul and rock with new ears

49. Tom Dowd and the Language of Music


Team America introduced us to full-on puppet nookie- with strings attached

50. Team America: World Police


Wallace and Gromit get a full-length film worthy of their legacy

51. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit


Good Night and Good Luck made us mourn for journalism while marveling at Straitharn's masterful performace as Murrow

52. Good Night. And, Good Luck


Grizzly Man made us hope that Werner Herzog would steer clear of narrating our life story. Oh, and avoid bears.

53. Grizzly Man


After Innocence was a devastating look at the American judicial system

54. After Innocence


Kung Fu Hustle put the slap back into slapstick, and a few kicks too

55. Kung Fu Hustle


We couldn't quit Brokeback Mountain

56. Brokeback Mountain


World, Amy Adams. Amy Adams, meet world. Now play nice...

57. Junebug


A History of Violence repped a new era for Cronenberg

58. A History of Violence


Apatow's 40-Year-Old Virgin ushered in the Apatowization of American film comedy

59. The 40-Year-Old Virgin


Batman Begins was origin story as high adventure

60. Batman Begins


Kiss Kiss Bang Bang bought us our Robert Downey Jr. back, and Shane Black's cool factor

61. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang


Walk the Line was the best in a slew of music biopics

62. Walk the Line


Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room was a preview of coming attractions for the nation's Bush-era economy

63. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room


Pan's Labyrinth made fascism really, really scary

64. Pan’s Labyrinth


Casino Royale emerged from the surf, dripping wet, as the best Bond movie since the 1960s

65. Casino Royale


The Lives of Others eavesdropped on the menaing of art and surveillance

66. The Lives of Others


A Scanner Darkly had Keanu Reeves' most animated performance in the most faithful Philip K. Dick adaptation ever

67. A Scanner Darkly


The Departed was grand guignol drama from Scorsese

68. The Departed


Children of Men took us into a bleak future

69. Children of Men


Block Party took Chapelle to my old neighborhood to put on a star-studded show

70. Dave Chappelle’s Block Party


Borat showed us that Sascha Baron Cohen may not have the balls of co-star Ken Davitian

71. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan


Greengrass staged United 93 as a straightahead pseudo-doc - and it worked

72. United 93


Little Miss Sunshine showed us the clutchless running van start

73. Little Miss Sunshine


Tristram Shandy hilariously adapted the "unadaptable" post-modern classic

74. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story


Half Nelson was all good with a great performance by Ryan Gosling

75. Half Nelson


Ratatouille made the kitchen an acceptable place for vermin

76. Ratatouille


Persepolis told Marjane Satrapi's life with indelible imagery

77. Persepolis


The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men flipped a coin to decide our fate

78. No Country for Old Men


The Bourne Ultimatum was a series best

79. The Bourne Ultimatum


Juno taught us that in China they shoot babies out of t-shirt guns

80. Juno


The Diving Bell and the Butterfly could read our blinks

81. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly


There Will be Blood drank our milkshake

82. There Will Be Blood


Knocked Up suggested we consider a smashbortion

83. Knocked Up


Michael Clayton was just a janitor - a dreamy George Clooney janitor

84. Michael Clayton


Fincher's Zodiac nurtured a deep consuming obsession

85. Zodiac


3:10 To Yuma was a rare remake that bested the source

86. 3:10 to Yuma


Eastern Promises totally kicked our ass, naked

87. Eastern Promises


2 Days in Paris showed their family a compromising picture of us with a balloon

88. 2 Days In Paris


We were strung along by Man on Wire

89. Man On Wire


WALL-E was the sweetest post-apocalyptic movie ever

90. WALL-E


The Dark Knight asked why so serious?

91. The Dark Knight


Milk was here to recruit us

92. Milk


Iron Man needed a scotch

93. Iron Man


Happy-Go-Lucky taught us to drive

94. Happy-Go-Lucky


Synecdoche, New York created a smaller version of our lives in a warehouse

95. Synechdoche, New York


Inglorius Basterds demanded it's Nazi scalps!

96. Inglorious Basterds


Up broke our hearts in the first 15 minutes and named us Kevin

97. Up


In The Loop found new and creative ways to curse us out

98. In the Loop


The Hurt Locker defused our bomb

99. The Hurt Locker


Spike Jonze's adaptation of Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are began the wild rumpus

100. Where The Wild Things Are

mmm-MMMM

Every year at this time, we here at Mallination try to bring you a new list of Thanksgiving Turkeys – films so bad they can only be compared to a dumb, flightless, tasty, “jive” bird.  As an added bonus I’ve invited guest blogger Sean McDonald to contribute his own list of 5 to my list of 5 , forming a combined “super-list” of 10. Please note, Sean’s opinions are entirely his own. In other words I liked Munich despite the egregious use of intercutting during the penultimate love scene.  Enjoy the bad cinema, and happy Thanksgiving!

Noah’s List:

Two Much

My wife actually saved this for me on our DVR knowing that it would be a turkey shoo-in and she was right as always. Three of the most expressive actors of a generation, Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, and Daryl Hannah, team up to star in a film that starts with the premise that Banderas is going to pull off a con by pretending to be twins. The twins are thoughtfully names Art and Bart and can be distinguished by whether Banderas is wearing his hair down and has his glasses on or a ponytail and no glasses. Naturally Art is an artist (or should I say “artist”) and Bart, well, surprisingly doesn’t work for Bay Area Rapid Transit given the literal-mindedness of the rest of this would-be screwball comedy. The lowlight is  a scene in which both Bart and Art have to be in the same room at the same time. Employing a handy doorway, some pacing and a quick hand at whipping off glasses and pulling hair back Banderas plays both characters at once. It’s indeed, Two Much.

The Power

George Hamilton plays a scientist (!) in the boringest movie ever about telekinesis.  As the members of the Human Endurance Committee (of which the film’s audience should be inducted into as honorary members) gather to puzzle over vague “test” results that suggest one of them has extraordinary powers, strange murders begin popping up. While half the cast overacts their pants off, the other half attempts to compensate by woefully underacting. Even stranger are the inept attempts at Hitchcockian set pieces like an inadvertently hilarious desert sequence that finds be-suited and tanned Hamilton struggling woodenly with a large, sweaty, Jeep driver before being attacked by jets on a bombing range. While these may sound like exciting activities you may find yourself wishing for the mind control to zap director Byron Zaskin into another dimension.

Octaman

Pity beautiful Pier Angeli, the Italian actress who compounded her drug overdose at the age of 39 with the fact that this piece of cinematic effluvia stands as her last film. Monster creation legend Rick Baker also got his start in this low-budget atrocity and judging by the incredibly lame Octaman costume a career in Hollywood was less-than assured. While still not as disturbing as the real-life Octomom, Octaman concerns Mexicans (fake), scientists (woefully fake), and a mutated half-man, half-octopus creature(ridiculously fake). For some reason two of the full-grown Octaman’s tentacles are suspiciously arm-like, and his slacks are quite something. It’s also worth noting that he has compound eyes for no other reason than that was the trick lens that they rented for the shoot.

88 Minutes

The titular 88 Minutes of this crap fest reference not just the 88 Minutes Al Pacino is informed he has left to live, but the 88 minutes of the viewers life that will sadly never be returned to them by this film that would barely rate as a subpar episode of Jake and The Fatman (look it up, kids). Pacino plays your everyday, average, super wealthy forensic psychologist/teacher who keeps having his dull serial killer seminar interrupted by a rude cell phone caller. And then he goes back to teacher. Thrilling! Leelee Sobieski does what she can to make things worse and Alicia Witt should be angling to get that cell phone away from Pacino so she can call her agent.  The best thing about the film are the heights to which it has inspired reviewers – “Al Pacino’s festival of hair” from the Chicago Tribune’s Michael Phillips is a particular favorite. Nominated for “Best Goatee”.

The Doors

Kyle Maclachlan, Meg Ryan, Kevin Dillon, and Val Kilmer combine all the worst parts of the acting styles in a film that also highlights the worst kind of glib, truthy-but-not-truthful, self-serious film making Oliver Stone is capable of.  The dialogue is actually worse than Morrison’s poetry. Kilmer gives a performance that captures all the self involved assholiness of Morrison without ever diving underneath. Ryan is woefully miscast as the love interest. Stone treats every scene with the kind of reverence usually reserved for a nativity pageant.

Sean’s List

I have a soft spot for bad movies. The kinds of movies that gleefully accept they are bad, that wink and smile through 95 minutes of glorious silliness. I think that Stephen Sommers’  Deep Rising is the Citizen Kane of great bad movies. There is another set of movies that are so easy to target (I am looking at you Paul W.S. Anderson) that wasting any more time one them is pointless. Then there is the third category of bad: Films that made me ANGRY as I watched them.

The Quest

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s directorial debut, my least favorite movie of all time and according to IMDB, Roger Moore’s least favorite of his own films. The primary problem is that this movie claims to be 95 minutes long. Let’s just say that 95 minutes has been artificially augmented. Every fight scene is soaked in unnecessary slow motion, “Scorsese stretches”, use of the same shot from multiple angles (don’t want to waste anything) and of course JCVD getting the crap kicked out of him, only to come back strong and win the fight. The clip barely does justice to what may be to worst edited film of all time. (Side Note – Did you know that James Remar has 111 acting credits? And his most memorable role was as Samantha’s boyfriend from TV’s Sex and the City?)

How The Grinch Stole Christmas

This was the cinematic equivalent to the scene in Mad Men (Season 2 spoiler alert!) when Joan’s fiancé forced himself on her on the floor of Don Draper’s office. Despite her pleas to stop and attempts to restrain him, he keeps on going and she quits resisting. I stared away at he wall blankly for the first 30 minutes of this, eventually willing myself to sleep. F you Ron Howard. (Side note – did you know the little girl now plays one of the leads in Gossip Girl? No, I didn’t care either).

Strange Wilderness

Truly one of the un-funniest “comedies” I have ever sat through (it was a rental, but still). What is truly amazing is that this clip STILL makes me laugh every time  -

- but it is the ONLY funny moment in this entire misbegotten disaster. There is no story, are no funny characters and no other funny moments. I have already put more thought into this paragraph than the filmmakers did on this entire 87 minute piece of horseshit (Side Note – Did you know that horseshit is Tom Hanks favorite swear word?)

The Last Kiss

What I find the most shocking about his most is that the great Paul Haggis wrote this. This movie basically took Chris Rock’s “New P***y, Old P****y” monologue, layered on a thick measure of anxiety and slapped you in the face with this sock full of man-angst for 103 minutes. I am not sure what kind of influence Zach Braff had on this movie, but any good will he built up with Garden State got flushed away. (Side Note – Paul Haggis’s first writing credit is from the original Love Boat TV series).

Munich

Look, I love Jewish Revenge Fantasies as much as the next guy (Marathon Man and Inglorious Basterds were great), but Munich ranks at the top of my list of movies that sent me over the edge. This is a thriller that is not thrilling. A “history” movie that feels very revisionist. A lead that was the least convincing Jew of all time. The worst sex scene of all time, replacing the pool scene from Showgirls . This movie starts strong, but by the end, you feel much like the leads. Empty and unsatisfied. (Side Note – Munich star Mathieu Kassovitz is a terrific French director who made the criminally underrated Crimson Rivers).

Related articles by Zemanta

• Farkakte Film Flashback: Bio-picky Edition (popdose.com)
• The Worst Movie Biopics and Five That Are Pretty Darn Good (cinematical.com)
• 5 Reasons Against a Ramones Biopic (spin.com)

Pixar's Up

The image of a squarefaced old man dragging his hovering house behind him through a dreamscape  jungle feels pulled straight out of the deepest Fruedian recesses of the unconscious. Pixar’s latest triumph, Up , is packed with such images, along with the considerable voice talent Ed Asner as the old guy, Carl Fredrickson.

One of the great things about Pixar’s best films is the sense that they are oxymorons – big-budget, auteur flicks with wide-ranging appeal. From the first moments of Up, which mimic a pre-World War II newsreel, the sense that pure imagination is at work predominates. Imagine a meeting at most major studios where the word “newsreel” is used in reference to an animated big-budget tentpole.”Kids don’t know what that is!” “We need to start with a bang!”

Up does start with a bang all right, but it’s an emotional one – a 15 minute long sequence that plays almost as a riposte to Synechedeche N.Y.’s sprawling discourse on how art can represent a human life. Up director Pete Doctor encapsulates the entire history of Carl Fredrickson and his wife Ellie, packing it with emotional resonance, all without saying one word. There was barely a dry eye in the house.

This prelude is so powerful that it threatens to unbalance the rest of the film, but it also gives an emotional weight and meaning to the house, the mailbox, a soda pop cap, that otherwise might seem forced or contrived.  This in turn leads to Fredrickson attaching the hundreds of balloons to his house that allow him to fly off, with a roly-poly kid stowaway aboard.

This sets up a secondary psychological struggle as Frederickson has to struggle with his hero worship of a long-lost explorer while also coming to grips with his life as a widower. Oh, and there are talking dogs and a magnificently plumed bird named “Kevin.”

Don’t get the wrong idea though – this isn’t heavy going. The movie is as bouyant as it’s title, helped in no small measure by it’s snappy pacing and witty screenplay.

11. The Lion in Winter

In the previous post I wrote about the feminist message inherent in Rachel, Rachel, Rosemary’s Baby and Funny Girl. The Lion in Winter joins the parade led by the indomitable Katherine Hepburn as the scheming trophy Queen, up against Peter O’ Toole as her scheming King, young Timothy Dalton as a scheming pretender to the throne and young Anthony Hopkins as one of the scheming princes. Indeed Hepburn would get an Oscar for her performance. O’Toole is Henry II, convening a Christmas Eve family conclave to decide on an heir. Christmas With The Kranks this ain’t.

12. The Thomas Crown Affair

Though Bullitt gets all the action typical of a Steve McQueen flick in 1968, it’s little more than a spectacular car chase with a movie appended to the beginning. The Thomas Crown Affair is something else, with a cerebral McQueen masterminding a tense romance with Faye Dunaway and a daring caper. Mercurial director Norman Jewison is at his best along with editor and future director Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude, Shampoo) and cinematography wunderkind Haskell Wexler. The use of split-screen was groundbreaking and the trio throw every modish effect at the screen like a compendium of late 60s angles and tricks. Though it’s a film about brainy planning, it’s best enjoyed with the cerebellum in neutral.

13. Targets

Peter Bogdonavich however, approaches film with the proto-Tarantino-esque eye of a student of the form with a deep knowledge of its history. Targets, his first film, is one of those accidental works of art turned out by Roger Corman’s exploitation factory. Corman launched a lot of careers (Jack Nicholson’s being only one of the most notable) and he inaugurated Bogdonavich’s by gifting him 20 minutes of footage from a Boris Karloff film he had on the shelf and Karloff himself who still had two days left on his contract with Corman.

From this is launched the haunting story of a washed-up horror movie actor making a personal appearance to promote his latest schlock film, and the real-life horror of the all-American boy next door who seems to like guns a bit too much and people a bit too little. Karloff gives one of the best performances of his career.

14. Witchfinder General

British director Michael Reeves was just 29 when he died in 1969. Before dying he left one masterpiece starring another actor better known for schlock horror and like Targets released in the United States with Roger Corman’s help. Vincent Price is terrific, controlled and ham-free in the disturbing Witchfinder General, a film about the evil inherent in religious fanaticism. Dick Cheney ought to pay close attention to the undertones here where torture and brutality and the rightness of might all signify the work of the devil.

15. If…

Bad schoolboys! Lindsey Anderson’s dark satiric gem guts British society from the inside out, using a prestigious private school as it’s stand-in. Who better than young rebellious Malcolm MacDowell to lead a band of students in escalating acts of transgression which are met by increasingly outrageous punishments. The ending is shockingly prescient for today’s viewers though considered over-the-top at the time. Totally brilliant.

Compiled by Noah Mallin

In an ongoing cultural project here at POSAS I’m delving into the past to bring flashbacks from pop culture’s musty byways. We’re starting 40 years ago with 1968 and the best movies of that year. They are in no order except the arbitrary whims of yours truly. I have of course called in friend of the blog Cletus to weigh in as well. To the list!

1. The Producers

The story of The Producers is not unlike…well… the story of The Producers. The film flopped on its original release but subsequently garnered a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for Gene Wilder and a win for writer/director Mel Brooks in the screenplay category. It has since gone on to great success as a hit Broadway musical and a not-so-hit film version of the play. The difference is that, as far as anyone knows, Brooks didn’t plan it this way.

Zero Mostel plays Max Bialystock, seedy down-on-his-luck producer who resorts to seducing old ladies to fund his shows. Gene Wilder is nebbishy Leo Bloom, the accountant who muses that one could actually make more money from a flop than a hit. From that seed comes Bialystock’s final solution: a Broadway musical called Springtime For Hitler.

2. Planet of The Apes

Planet of The Apes is one of the archetypal sci-fi as social commentary films. In a year when it seemed the world was falling apart, riven by assassinations and wars and riots, Charlton Heston lands on a faraway planet where the men are speechless beasts and the apes are in charge. Franklin Schaffner’s film was a massive hit, in no small part because the action and the spectacular visuals allow the socio-political implications to remain strictly optional – at least until
the unforgettable ending.

3. Petulia

Richard Lester’s Petulia, shot by Nicolas Roeg, is an all-but-forgotten gem. The film is a time –fragmented dark romantic comedy that is also a cutting dissection of consumerist American society at the height of the Vietnam War. The quick-cuts and flashy editing are of the time but can also be seen as influences on directors both good (Almodovar, Soderburg) and bad (Michael Bay). Julie Christie is at her best as the offbeat title character, looking for deeper meaning in a shifting world, George C. Scott is her older lover and Richard Chamberlain is deeply creepy as her husband.

The Vietnam War on people’s televisions contrasts with their Great Society surroundings and San Francisco in all it’s counter-culture fault lines. There is also some notable footage of both Big Brother and The Holding Company and The Grateful Dead performing live.

4. Once Upon a Time in The West

Sergio Leone finally got a big American budget to match his John Ford-esque ambitions with Once Upon a Time in The West. A big long epic, it’s a film stuffed with the contrast between the tiny detail and the sweeping long view that are the hallmark of Leone’s style. There’s no Eastwood here as in Leone’s three previous spaghetti western classics but Henry Fonda is superb cast against type as the heavy, versus Charles Bronson as Leone’s prototypical existential hero.

5. Night of The Living Dead

George Romero’s Night of The Living Dead is the low-budget flipside to the big-budget ’68 hit Planet of The Apes. Like Apes, Night of The Living Dead is a genre film that also packs a great deal of social commentary into its wrapper. It’s also the blueprint for the modern zombie film as carried on by the likes of 28 Days Later, among others.

Here’s the actual factual Bass’ sequence for It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World:

And his famous Anatomy of a Murder:

New Line started off distributing off the shelf films and midnight movie fare by pioneering auteurs like John Waters. The 80s saw them scoring with genre fare like the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Their biggest triumph came with Peter Jackson’s ambitious Lord of The Rings trilogy which grossed billions worldwide. Shaye would subsequently have a very public falling-out with Jackson over profit reporting that grew to entangle the possible Hobbit prequel.

ANIMATED FEATURE
“Persepolis” – (Sony Pictures Classics) Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
“Ratatouille” – (Pixar; Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Distribution) Brad Bird
“Surf’s Up” – (Sony Pictures Releasing) Ash Brannon and Chris Buck

This is a tough one, mainly because of Persepolis and Ratatouille. I agree with the sentiment that Ratatouille could have been a best picture contender, it’s certainly a better film than Aladdin, but then so is Persepolis. Persepolis has more timely political and personal themes, dealing as it does with the Islamic revolution in Iran and the effect it has on one woman growing up. Ratatouille also had strong resonance though, dealing as it does with creativity and in remarkably similar ways to Persepolis, issues of identity and gentrification. In the end, I’m giving my Soundie to Brad Bird’s Ratatouille based on the stunning animation and the scope of the themes the film covers. Once again he proves that big budget animation doesn’t have to mean tired pop-cultural references and lame singing and dancing interludes. Surf’s Up simply isn’t in the same league as the other two films, despite not being bad at all.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Paul Thomas Anderson – “There Will Be Blood”
Ethan & Joel Coen – “No Country for Old Men”
Christopher Hampton – “Atonement”
Ronald Harwood – “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
Sarah Polley – “Away from Her”

Another tough set of choices, each of these have something to recommend them. Atonement is hamstrung in most categories by being the most conventional pick, though Away From Her is also fairly straightforward. Sarah Polley, who is better known as an actress, both wrote and directed Away From Her and this is a chance to reward her for pulling off a tough hat trick. In the end though, I have to give it up for the Coen brothers, simply for the audacity to end their film the way they do and to confound every expectation set up by No Country For Old Men.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Brad Bird – “Ratatouille”
Diablo Cody – “Juno”
Tony Gilroy – “Michael Clayton”
Tamara Jenkins – “The Savages”
Nancy Oliver – “Lars and the Real Girl”

The Oscar word is that first timer Diablo Cody is a lock to win this, if only to see what outfit she’ll wear. To be fair Juno is an excellent screenplay with a whole host of memorable lines. Bird’s Ratatouille is expertly constructed as both entertainment and thoughtful meditation, able to charm an 8 year old or an 80 year old, no mean feat. Then there is Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton, a film the veteran screenwriter was able to use as his directing debut and which expertly subverts the thriller genre. I’m a fan of Tamara Jenkins and the personal nature of her storytelling and I enjoyed Lars and the Real Girl though I don’t know if it’s central high concept is quite enough to warrant inclusion here. In another tough one, I’m giving the Soundie to Gilroy for his delicatly balanced Clayton.

DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson – “There Will Be Blood”
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen – “No Country For Old Men”
Tony Gilroy – “Michael Clayton”
Jason Reitman – “Juno”
Julian Schnabel – “The Diving Bell And The Butterfly”

Gnahhh! How to choose between these?! Schnabel is stylish and makes some clever choices but the lack of a best picture nod is a tipoff that this isn’t quite there. Juno is very well made and young Reitman does an admirable job balancing the tricky tone of the material. Clayton is a remarkable debut, filled with smart set-ups and shots and sequences like Clooney’s Graduate-esque taxi ride. Blood is an expertly shot and conceived epic that still finds time for claustrophobic mania. This brings us once again to the Coens, who manipulate sound (or it’s absence), light (or it’s absence) and the audience with an uncommon skill. The Soundie goes to No Country .

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (Warner Bros.)Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild” (Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment)
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War” (Universal)
Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)

Casey Affleck has had a very good year, both in the western with a title nearly as long as its bloated running time and in big brother’s directorial debut Gone Baby Gone. Philip Seymour Hoffman won for Capote in a performance I found to be just short of dreadful yet he too has had a very good year in both The Savages and War. Hal Holbrook is touching in Into The Wild, and it could be the very last time voters get to mark him off. Tom Wilkinson is extraordinary in a film full of great performances, walking the fine line between lucidity insanity fueled mysticism. Then we come to the favorite, Bardem. Sometimes the favorite is anointed for a reason and Bradem utterly transforms his charming handsome self into a dead-eyed, bowlcut killer. His performance is likely to become iconic.

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There” (The Weinstein Company)
Ruby Dee in “American Gangster” (Universal)
Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement” (Focus Features)
Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone” (Miramax)
Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)

I’ve always thought kids should get their own category for acting. Every year some tyke like Haley Joel Osment gets nominated and gets one step closer to peaking too damn early. So Saoirse Ronan is out. Blanchett is making a career out of impersonations of famous people — look out Rich Little! That being said her Dylan is pretty damn great. Ruby Dee is wonderful, but she’s in that movie for maybe 5 minutes? Amy Ryan is always dynamite in my book — you want layers? She’s got ‘em, plus she’s worked her butt off in the industry and according to The Onion’s AV Guide dropping off her laundry is the only sign of “making it” she’s noticed. This brings us to Tilda Swinton’s gimlet-eyed clammy skinned performance in Michael Clayton, in its own way the counterpart of Javier Bardem’s bad guy in No Country. Except where Jardem is playing an elemental force of nature, Swinton is all-too human. Swinton gets the Soundie.

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (Universal)
Julie Christie in “Away from Her” (Lionsgate)
Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose” (Picturehouse)
Laura Linney in “The Savages” (Fox Searchlight)
Ellen Page in “Juno” (Fox Searchlight)

The relative thinness of this category suggests that Hollywood really does have a dearth of good roles for woman. It’s also notable that two of the big Best Picture noms have very small roles for women. Cate Blanchett is always a treat but this film was bad and she has been and will be better in better films. Laura Linney is terrific and funny and messed up in the sibling tragedy of The Savages. Marion Cotillard does a remarkable job of transforming herself into Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose. Julie Christie is always a welcome presence onscreen, and carries Sarah Polley’s Away From Her with a tough performance. Which leave this year’s ingenue, Ellen Page, who will have a hard time topping her acerbic yet vulnerable performnce in Juno, which gets the Soundie.

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
George Clooney in “Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)
Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (DreamWorks and Warner Bros.,Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah” (Warner Independent)
Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises” (Focus Features)

Mortensen did the accent route in Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, not to mention the whole nude fight scene approach. It’s a brave performance. Tommy Lee Jones also had a strong year but his nomination comes for the wrong film, as touching as he is in Elah. Depp sings, he dances, he sports his bride of Frankenstein hair — it’s another fine turn for the ex- 21 Jump Street-er. Clooney gives a sensitive and tricky performnce in Clayton, his scene with the horses was one of the best of the year. Which brings us to Daniel Day-Lewis. Some people found him a bit hammy in Blood but this physically challenging, bravura role shows why the man commands the screen. He’s magnificent and magnetic, garnering himself a Soundie.

BEST PICTURE
“Atonement” (Focus Features)A Working Title ProductionTim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Paul Webster, Producers
“Juno” (Fox Searchlight)A Dancing Elk Pictures, LLC ProductionLianne Halfon, Mason Novick and Russell Smith, Producers
“Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)A Clayton Productions, LLC ProductionSydney Pollack, Jennifer Fox and Kerry Orent, Producers
“No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)A Scott Rudin/Mike Zoss ProductionScott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)A JoAnne Sellar/Ghoulardi Film Company ProductionJoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi, Producers

Atonement is the kind of film that used to be prime Oscar-bait years ago. The truth is that among the more innovative films in the category this year it comes up short. Juno is a wonderful film, funny and sweet, but it lacks the impact of some of the heavier films in this category. Any of the remaining three would be great choices but I have to give the Soundie to Blood with it’s brutal dissection of greed.