A Perfect Getaway

Whenever I'm out of Seattle and away from the near-endless supply of filmic entertainment available from the Seattle Public Library and Scarecrow Video, I make a point of reactivating my usually latent Netflix account. Maintaining a Netflix account that I hardly use is sort of silly, I admit, but I find it comforting to know that a massive DVD catalog is readily available should I choose to relocate for a month or two.

Last June I traveled to Georgia to visit my sister, who is good enough to put a roof over the head of a sizable HD television as well as it's close pal, the Blu-ray player. Naturally, one of my first orders of business was to reactivate the Netflix account and set its default format to Blu-ray. Knowing my time in GA was limited, the obvious next step was to move as many seemingly decent films available on Blu-ray to the top of my queue. One of those 'seemingly decent films' turned out to be A Perfect Getaway. (I don't know exactly what possessed me to think this movie looked decent, but I think I gave it a chance based on the fact that I like Steve Zahn. Anyway, I can't come up with another, better reason.)

Fast-forward to January 2011. I had suspended my account but forgotten when it was set to automatically reactivate (Netflix only allows you to suspend your account for three months at a time, at the end of which it will reactivate automatically should you fail to log on and prolong the suspension. Some real Columbia Record Club-style bullshit.) I come to find out at the end of the holidays--via an unexpected charge on my bank account, of course--hey, I'm a Netflix subscriber again! I decide to make the best of it and start rejuggling my queue in order to get some new movies I wasn't able to see in theatres, but not before the two DVDs at the top are shipped my way, one of which is A Perfect Getaway. I'm less than psyched about this turn of events since it doesn't look nearly as 'decent' as it once did, but the movie has already been delivered and I'll be goddamned if I don't watch it.

Which brings me--mercifully, I know--to my... well, review would be a huge overstatement, so let's just call them thoughts:
...To start simply, this movie is bad. You can sort of tell it's going to be bad based on the premise and the DVD menu, so this isn't really news.
...Badness aside, the movie rebounds remarkably at about the halfway point. Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich (and by Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich I mean the characters portrayed by these actors, characters whose names I've already forgotten) are on their honeymoon in Hawaii. They've just arrived in Kauai from Oahu and are troubled to learn that some fellow honeymooners were just murdered in Honolulu. It comes to light that the suspected killers are a young couple, so all the other young couples our protagonists come across from then on are immediately suspect. From there, things get pretty wacky and over-the-top, but in a sort of fun way. "Are these punky newlyweds capable of murder?!" "Or are this mega-commando and his former meat-cutter of a girlfriend the more likely maniacs?" "Holy shit, we're gonna die! And we only just started this wonderful life together!"
...This movie actually gets pretty exciting/amusing once it puts the cinema references aside (Steve Zahn's character is a newly-minted screenwriter so we get to hear all about how film plots work... exciting) and starts getting into actual plot twists. It's all absurdly ridiculous, of course, but for the purposes of absurd ridiculousness, you could do a lot worse than A Perfect Getaway.
...One last thing: the aforementioned mega-commando is played to great effect by Timothy Olyphant. Seriously... shades of old-school, Aliens-era Bill Paxton. Good stuff.


Coming soon... More thoughts(!): Blue Valentine! Alamar! Etc! Yay.

SOMEWHERE

Starts slow. Real slow.
Primarily pretty pictures.
Truly beautiful father-daughter relationship.
Gorgeous girls galore.
Los Angeles light looks great on film. (Washington Winter-gloom antidote?)
Black Ferrari.

BLACK SWAN

Over-the-top horrorart cinema.
Better than The Wrestler.
So many mirrors!

The rest of the Best of the Decade. (Remember when this was happening?)

About a million years ago, give or take a coupla days, I started counting down what I think to be the best movies created between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2009.

#10-6 look like this:

10. In the Mood for Love

9. United 93

8. Sexy Beast

7. The Royal Tenenbaums

6. INLAND EMPIRE

In the interest of wrapping this sucker up before 2010 officially ends, I've decided to go ahead and lump the Top 5 together here in one post. Pretty silly for me to throw the Top 5 together in one ugly entry when I've already gone to the trouble of making separate entries for the "Bottom 5", isn't it? Yeah, I know. But it would be a whole lot sillier to not finish this thing at all, I think. But then silliness is relative. Anyway...

Starting from the bottom!

#5. Children of Men (2006) ...Dir. Alfonso Cuarón

Alfonso Cuarón is one of my favorite filmmakers working today, and I believe this to be his best film. Clive Owen is quietly terrific. Michael Caine is better still. By far the best dystopian future movie made in a decade, and miles better than the novel upon which it is based (a claim which can only rarely be made with any confidence). And let's not forget those unthinkably long follow shots; massive props to DP Emmanuel Lubezki for his contributions.

#4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) ...Dir. Michel Gondry

I was a highly lost freshman in college when Eternal Sunshine was released. I vividly remember receiving a voicemail from my dad who called immediately after seeing it to enthusiastically recommend I do the same. Eventually I did, with my future (and now former) girlfriend. And really, I think it affected me more immediately than any movie has done. When a powerful piece of art enters your life at a particularly critical moment, one which might push you one way or another or another, that experience sticks with you. For my money, Charlie Kaufman is the most important filmmaker since 1999--especially impressive considering he's only had directorial control of one of his films. (Admittedly, Kaufman hasn't been a total hit factory [e.g., Human Nature, which I like but realize is far from great] but he's hit far more adventurous concepts way out of the park than any other filmmaker I can think of over the past decade-plus. Anyway, I think he's a/the champ.)

#3. No Country for Old Men (2007) ...Dir. Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Hands down, the best made film of the past decade. In fact, No Country is likely the most flawlessly constructed film I've ever seen, period. It is a perfect adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel remarkable for its sparse efficiency, the story of which could easily have been stripped of all meaning and still made for a thrilling film. The Coens are better than that, though--so in command of their craft, they exploit cinema's potential completely and without any apparent effort; it's dumbfounding. I watched this movie twice in a row (that is, one screening followed immediately by the next when it was in theatres). If not for social importance(#2) and personal favoritism(#1), No Country would be the best film of the past decade by a long, long shot.

#2. 9/11 (2002) ...Dir. Jules Naudet, Gedeon Naudet, and James Hanlon

I never know what to say about this movie. In September 2001, the Naudet brothers were in NYC shooting a documentary about Manhattan fire fighters. On the 11th, two passenger jets were flown into the Twin Towers. We all know how this ends, yet it becomes easier with each passing year to put it out of our minds. This film--the best I've seen regarding 9/11--is not just a reminder of what happened but also a window into what it was like to be on the ground that day in Lower Manhattan. It's almost purely observational; what good will commentary/voiceover/interviews be once you're in the thick of a surreal living nightmare? I hope you'll forgive my preaching, but I sincerely believe that 9/11 ought to be required viewing for every American. Yes, we all know the story and don't particularly want to live it again... but what this film comprises is unfathomable until you've seen it for yourself.

#1. Synecdoche, New York (2008) ...Dir. Charlie Kaufman

When I made my Best of 2008 list two years ago, this film topped it, and the write-up I conjured then can be found here. Synecdoche is still neck-and-neck with Kieslowski's Blue in the race for the best film I've ever seen, and for good reason. Blue is perhaps the most beautiful piece of art I've ever experienced, but Synecdoche remains the richest, most complete depiction of one human being's attempt to comprehend and cope with his life. Fortunately, I don't have to consider Blue as a part of this particular countdown, so I can say with zero hesitation that Synecdoche, New York is the best film of the past decade. And then some. Watch it three times... it will change you.

Again: I apologize for the low-rent nature of this second half of the countdown. Thank you for checking in. With any luck and due diligence, I will be a decidedly more attentive movie-blogger in 2011. Stay tuned to find out!

I interrupt the regularly scheduled Most-Painfully-Drawn-Out-Movie-Countdown-of-All-Time to bring you...

...my Oscar picks! I'm admittedly doing some of these at the last minute, so regrettable decisions may be made. But time's a-wasting--The Academy waits for no man.

(Quick disclaimer: Just because I include "A better choice" with most categories doesn't necessarily mean that I think my predicted winner is undeserving. For instance, Jeff Bridges' performance is terrific. Of the nominated actors, he's the cream. But his wasn't the year's best performance. That's all.)

[Winners highlighted in red.]

LEADING ACTOR

• And the winner will be: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
• A better choice: Sam Rockwell, Moon

LEADING ACTRESS

• And the winner will be: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side (...Don't get me started.)
• A better choice: Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

SUPPORTING ACTOR

• And the winner will be: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
• A better choice: Anthony Mackie, The Hurt Locker (...That Mackie wasn't even nominated is criminal.)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• And the winner will be: Mo'Nique, Precious
• A better choice: Not possible.

ANIMATED FEATURE

• And the winner will be: Up
• A better choice: Fantastic Mr. Fox (...Let's face facts: they're both great movies.)

ART DIRECTION

• And the winner will be: Avatar

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• And the winner will be: The White Ribbon

COSTUME DESIGN

• And the winner will be: The Young Victoria
• A better choice: Guess who doesn't give a shit about costume design. This guy.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• And the winner will be: The Cove
• A better choice: Anvil! The Story of Anvil

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

• And the winner will be: China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province

FILM EDITING

• And the winner will be: The Hurt Locker
• A better choice: Precious

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• And the winner will be: The White Ribbon
• A better choice: Hunger Sin Nombre (I'm a dummy...Hunger is in English. But it is the best movie I saw last year.)

MAKEUP

• And the winner will be: Star Trek
• A better choice: The bedsore makeup in Hunger was pretty damn convincing.

ORIGINAL SCORE

• And the winner will be: Michael Giacchino, Up
• A better choice: Clint Mansell, Moon (...Probably my favorite film score not composed by Jon Brion since Air did the Virgin Suicides score more than ten years ago.)

ORIGINAL SONG

• And the winner will be: "The Weary Kind", Crazy Heart

SHORT FILM - ANIMATED

• And the winner will be: A Matter of Loaf and Death
• A better choice: Logorama (...Probably a bit too "adult" for the Academy's taste, but most definitely the best of the bunch.)

SHORT FILM - LIVE ACTION

• And the winner will be: Kavi (...Speaking of shots in the dark.)

SOUND EDITING

• And the winner will be: Avatar

SOUND MIXING

• And the winner will be: The Hurt Locker
• A better choice: Revanche (...Best sound design in recent memory. I'm not positive that great sound design equals great sound mixing, but whatever.)

VISUAL EFFECTS

• And the winner will be: Avatar (...Duh.)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• And the winner will be: Up in the Air
• A better choice: Gommorah (...Having read the book after seeing the movie, I feel completely confident in this one.)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• And the winner will be: Inglourious Basterds
• A better choice: Moon (...A great, story-driven sci-fi movie with nary a monster or fancy, high-tech special effect in sight?! That's good writing, homey.)

DIRECTOR

• And the winner will be: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
• A better choice: Hard to argue with Bigelow. She deserves it. But suffice it to say that there a number of directors to whom I would give this award before I'd give it to her. Too many to list, even. Ya feel me? I thought so.

BEST PICTURE

• And the winner will be: The Hurt Locker
• A better choice: See #'s 1-8.

So the Oscars have this crazy new voting system for Best Picture. Per ew.com:

"In the past, once the nominees were announced, Academy members voted only for the one film they thought should win the award, and the film with the most votes won. But with so many nominees next year, it’s feasible that a movie could have won Best Picture with only 11 percent of the vote, which seems crazy. So now, once the 10 nominees are named, voters will rank the films from 1 to 10. All the No. 1 votes will be counted, and if no film has more than 50 percent of the vote (which will certainly be the case), the last-place film will be eliminated and the voters who voted for that film will have their No. 2 votes counted instead. That process will continue until one film has a majority of the votes. As Pond points out, there is a chance that the film that ends up winning won’t actually have the most No. 1 votes, but will instead emerge the victor in the second, third, or fourth rounds."

This could wind up being a total clustercuss, of course. But I think it sounds kind of fun. So much fun that I'm doing my own fake vote! So, from 1 to 10, here is how I would vote for the Best Picture nominees:

1. Precious
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Inglourious Basterds
4. An Education
5. A Serious Man
6. Up
7. District 9
8. Avatar
9. Up in the Air
10. The Blind Side (The only one of the ten I haven't seen. I seriously doubt that it would be any higher on this list were I to give it a shot.)