Something Requisitely Witty and Urbane

Top Fifteen of the Last Fifteen

Taking my pass, in honor of the greatest website in the history of the internet's 15th anniversary, at my top fifteen films of the past fifteen years.  My first pass through netted me thirty films, so I had to pare them down.  The trouble picking any greatest list, is that sometimes the more obvious choices are the ones which rise to the top, and it leaves behind some great, but lesser known films.  This list is simply my personal favorites, and not meant to be definitive or exhaustive.

In no particular order:

• The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - The film that started off Frank Darabont's unique specialty of directing films set in prison's adapted from Stephen King stories, Shawshank was the unknown film everyone wanted to tell their friends about only to find they'd seen it already.  With the possible exception of The Hudsucker Proxy, the best work Tim Robbins has ever done.  Maybe Morgan Freeman too.
• Magnolia (1999) - The magnum opus by, perhaps, the greatest auteur working today.  This is a film you either love or you hate, and as one who loves it, I'm hard pressed not to call it my favorite film of all time.  For a three hour movie, it is immaculately paced, layered and acted (and one of the early films that made people realize that Phillip Seymour Hoffman was something special).  It methodically does the work required to earn its fantastical ending, which, if you let it, heightens the emotional impact of a film filled with it already.
• Chasing Amy (1997) - I'm a big fan of Kevin Smith's, but, like most Kevin Smith fans, my affection is in spite of his shortcomings as a filmmaker.  His great strengths as a dialog writer makes it easy to want to cut him some slack.  Chasing Amy was the one great film he's made.  It's edgy, even eight years later, it's smart, and the proposition at the end has found a place in the pop culture consciousness.  Though seen by some as a 90-minute argument that all any lesbian needs is a good deep-dicking, that betrays the films thoughtful maturity, quite an achievement considering it shares celluloid with conversations about oral sex injuries, woman on horse pornography, and the possible racist implications of the Star Wars films.
• Almost Famous (2000) - I can start this film at any point, and my mood lightens within minutes.  Robert Wilonsky once described the film as, "...like a classic-rock radio station programmed by an alt-rocker with a hard-on for deep cuts."  It's a series of tone poems, each of which resemble a three minute pop song whose melodies still linger in the air even as the next one begins.  May also end up being notable for being the best work Kate Hudson will ever do.
• Boogie Nights (1997) - I've heard people argue that the famous "unveiling" at the end of Boogie Nights was gratuitous and there merely for shock value, but for a story which doesn't exist without a young boy and his big dick, you have to wonder how you could leave it out.  A film so good that every scene that goes by replaces the previous one as your favorite.
• Amelie (2001) - A film so happy it could only be French.  That seems like a contradiction in terms until you've actually seen the film.
• The Fog of War (2003) - In a post I wrote about Errol Morris' look into the life of Robert McNamara, I said that it's, "[a]s if the two of them just sat around a table one day and hashed it all out, and the cameras that were rolling were incidental."  This film touches on thoughts and engages in subjects which only McNamara can truly describe, and only Morris can draw out of him.
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) - Picking which Charlie Kaufman penned film to include in this list is difficult.  "Eternal Sunshine..." gets the nod for the sheer originality and images that leave impressions.
• American Beauty (1999) - I had a little difficulty including this one on the list.  It is undeniably a classic, but I'm not sure that it has aged well.  I have to let myself remember what I felt when I left the theater after seeing this for the first time, and this is one of those films that made me want to live a better life.
• The Apostle (1997) - I know this film is critically acclaimed, but I can't believe more people don't talk about this as one of the best character studies ever made.  Not to take anything away from Robert Duvall's directing, but it's pretty easy to direct a great film when you get a performance out of your lead actor like Duvall got out of himself.
• Hoop Dreams (1994) - Great documentaries show us a side of society that aren't normally portrayed.  Hoop Dreams took it's initial concept, following two young basketball players who hope to make it to the NBA, and used it to give us a real insight into the life of poor, working families who hope for a better life.  The best documentary I've ever seen.
• Pulp Fiction (1994) - It's obligatory, I know, but there hasn't been another film in the past 20 years who's mere creation changed the direction of the entirety of pop culture.  Referential filmmaking found a champion in Quentin Tarantino.
• Malcolm X (1992) - Spike Lee has taken a lot of heat over the years for some controversial stances on race issues, but those aren't as present in his films as his critics like to imply.  Lee is, above all, a fair filmmaker.  His ambitious tackling of one of the most polarizing figures in modern American history didn't show a prophet or a demagogue, but the journey of a man who's innate passion both harmed and helped him.  Lee's films pull no punches, and this film is no exception.
• High Fidelity (2000) - I'm sure I love this because it is a film about people like me.  There are people that watch films and listen to music with very little though, and then there are people who define themselves by the films they watch and the music they listen to.  It may be a little pathetic and it may be a waste of time, but we exist and this is the only film I've ever seen that was written for us.
• Three Kings (1999) - It's easy to find fault in David O. Russell's films, but I'm not sure that there is a filmmaker who's ideas are more fully formed when he puts them on film.  Here he takes on the first Gulf War, and it has earned a rebirth because of current events.  It is also one of the few films that I ever remember being fooled by its ad campaign.  I suspect that lots of guys went to see it on a Friday night expecting a heist film set in the backdrop of shoot 'em up war.  What they got was a film which confronts the premise of the Gulf War, the methods of the media, and comes out the other side giving a much more complete idea of what war does to all of its combatants.  We could use more stories like this today.

Films that it pains me to leave off this list : In the Bedroom, City of God, Waking Life, Wonder Boys, Fight Club, Your Friends and Neighbors.

Films that probably would have made the list if I was being more definitive: Goodfellas, JFK, LA Confidential.

(First seen, and promptly avoided for fear of cross-contamination, at Chuck's place).

It Was A Felony

Momentous Birthday greetings are certainly required.

Straight outta Carollton, TX, that crazy mutherfucka named Robbie Van Winkle is celebrating his birthday today.

Vanilla Ice is 35.

Though famously the person who, just in case you didn't know, brought Miami on the scene, Ice was actually from my neck of the woods: the suburbs of Dallas.   He languished in obscurity until the hit song, Ice Ice Baby, had every white boy believing that they to could play the fade and write a hit rap song.

After about 3 months, he had us all asking questions like, "Will it ever stop?" to which Vanilla could only reply, cunningly, "Yo... I don't know."  It was truly a magical time for anyone who was around.

Of course, into every fairy tale a little night must come, so it wasn't long before Suge Knight started to mumble and he did, indeed, want to rumble.  In another DFW area confluence, Knight famously broke into Ice's penthouse in the Anatole hotel, and dangled him off the balcony, claiming he was owed money and demanding that Van Winkle give it up smooth.

After that, it was downhill for Ice.  Truly, the Dallas area died just a little bit that day.  The Cowboys went 7-9, the Rangers went 70-92 and the Mavericks went 28-54.  But mostly, the city just felt despondent, as though our brain was slowly being killed by a poisonous mushroom. Seeing our native (though unacknowledged) son going through such a dismal time was hard.

Time passed, and we soon learned to ignore our pain - though it still returns once in a while when a party is particularly jumping or we hear a cymbal and a high-hat with a souped-up tempo.  And it is during such moments, and on days like today, that I and my fellow Dallasites raise our glasses to the Iceman, a star who can be best summed up as, in his own words, anything less than the best.

Meet the New Look, Same as the Old Look

The queen of reinvention seemed to be going for the Valerie Cherish look, but she added a new nuance this weekend which appears to be a rehashing of her Sex book days, with a little "Hot and Horny Housewife" thrown in for good measure.

Yes, Virginia, I believe that is her labia.

I've Done It!

Of course, bragging about search results is incredibly passe', but this is too good to pass up.

SRWU - #1 for "Hasselhoff Sucks"

John Wayne Gacy Jr.

So, Sufjan Stevens' newest album (though it isn't that new), Illinois, is a really special recording.  I'll talk about it at length later, but I wanted to mention something.

In the song John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (listen at the link the first link didn't work but the new one does), there is a line that always stands out to me.  It is in reference to the bodies underneath Gacy's floorboards.

Even more, they were boys with their cars, summer jobs... oh my God.

It's a relatively innocuous line, in of itself.  But the melody that goes along with it turns it from simple words to heartbreaking and haunting.

I've been thinking about it for a week or so, and I can't think of a better example than this where simple words and simple melody combined make the end result so much better than the sum of its parts.  Does anyone else have any examples?

Happy Halloween

Boo!

Immolate

See... I think the Dictionary.com folks have a good sense of humor.  Today, as it was on the day Scooter Libby was indicted, the Word of the Day seems to be connected to Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court:

Immolate: To kill or destroy, often by fire.

Why did he do it?

Say what you want about Andrew Sullivan, and it is easy to disagree with him at times, but he has a way of summing up the meat and potatoes of a situation:

Libby will face a trial in which the vice-president may have to testify under oath. Political questions remain. The obvious question that still lingers is a simple one. Why did Libby lie? Why did such a smart and meticulous man put himself at risk of 30 years in jail if he had done nothing wrong in the first place?

To me, this simple question is the one that doesn't jibe with the right wing talking point that Libby wasn't convicted the crime at the heart of the investigation, but was caught up in a silly misstep of language.  Jay Tea over at Wizbang, while being critical of Libby's lies, tries to dismiss it this way:

1) From what I've heard so far, Libby is being indicted for lying about how he told the truth about a liar.

2) Apparently, the strongest evidence against Libby is the contradictions between he told investigators and his own notes taken at the time, notes that he provided the investigators. So, in essence, he "hung himself out to dry" by telling a different story from what he had documented, then turned in.

3) None of the things that Libby has been indicted for occurred before the start of the investigation. In other words, as of right now there was apparently no crime committed in the actions that triggered the investigation.

4) It looks right now like Libby was guilty of being either stupid, arrogant, or both. There was nothing criminal that needed covering up, but still he managed to obfuscate and obstruct enough about nothing to get his own ass in a sling.

While I'd, of course, disagree with point one, the rest of them are true.  They don't, however, address the central issue which Sullivan posited before.  There has to be a reason that Libby, one of the smartest minds in Washington, would be so stupid as to cough up the ball like this.

This isn't to say that there is some grand conspiracy here. I'm completely ready to accept the premise that Cheney, Rove and Libby wanted to get their knocks in on Wilson by outing his wife, and didn't think about the possible consequences.  I might even, at risk of being lynched by my liberal cohorts, be willing to accept that they didn't realize, or at least didn't think about the fact, that outing Valerie Plame was illegal.  If that is the case, then they didn't do anything illegal under the Espionage Act.

That's fine.  The fact still remains that, after the fact, they engaged in a cover-up, and even if legal problems exist, they aren't as problematic as the unbelievable political and ethical problems that have been created.  It was wrong to smear Wilson for being right (something that, I'll repeat again, the White House admitted to).  It was definitely wrong,even if it doesn't rise to the level illegal, to out a CIA agent in the process.  The right wing's dismissal of the whole situation as much ado about nothing certainly doesn't mesh with one of their other most worn memes: That the Republican Party is the party of personal responsibility, and they were to return honor and dignity to the White House. 

In the process, they have lost the confidence of the American People, including almost the entirety of their centrist support, which has resulted in jeopardizing their entire political agenda.  The Supreme Court and the midterm elections.  What I can't understand is why there aren't more Republicans who are more angry at that egregious political incompetence.

Self-Styled Messiahs

Aldahlia gives us the low down.  Just go.

Divided

From last night's SNL:

Tina Fey: Of those polled, 66% do not support the president; 34% think Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church.

(hat tip Shakespeare's Sister for the reminder).