Best and Worst of 2007 in No Particular Order

So, I know what you’ve been thinking. Big. Where’s the obligatory best and worst films of 2007 blog? I tell you where, below!

Keep in mind that this isn’t a necessarily fair list, as I haven’t seen everything – I only counted things I have seen, except in the matter of Codename: The Cleaner. This is a VERY safe bet.

10 BEST

300

This is the rare occasion where the film is an improvement on the comic. I always thought that the Frank Miller Graphic Novel was mediocre at best, but the movie really popped. It’s an overly testosteroned goofy cartoon about the battle of Thermopylae with a ridiculous amount of blood, abs, and hooters – but in a good way.

The Lookout

Joseph Gordon Levitt is amazing in this thing. Between this film and last year’s Brick, I think he can finally put Third Rock from the Sun behind him.

Levitt plays a night porter at a bank after a car accident leaves him mentally impaired. A group of good-for-nothing ne’er-do-wells manage to bully him into serving as a lookout while they pull a robbery at the bank where he mops nightly. Levitt’s character must work extra hard to sabotage the heist while at the same time anticipating his own shortcomings in order to stay one step ahead of the scoundrels.

It sort of reminded me of Memento in that the main character had a self-awareness about his own condition and had to work a step ahead of himself in order to succeed.

Grindhouse

A rare cinematic treat. The campy fun of sitting in the theatre while this double feature ran with the fake trailers and all was awesome. A visionary endeavor – so terribly unfortunate that it didn’t hit.

Hot Fuzz

What Shawn of the Dead did for Zombies, this did for the action film. Simon Pegg is brilliant.

Gone, Baby Gone

When I first read that Ben Affleck was directing a film, I cringed - the kind of cringe where someone walks over your grave. Deep, bone-chilling dread. Imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to find that… he’s actually a pretty good director. The film had great pacing, nice character development, and a compelling, thought provoking, tragic story. I only hope it encourages him to do less acting. His brother Casey, on the other hand, was fantastic in the movie.

Juno

About fifteen minutes into Juno, I was thinking how plain it was. The dialog was really over-written, particularly in the case of Juno’s best friend, who was maybe just not a good enough actress to make the lines sound unclumsy. Either way, the peppy "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" zippy lines could have been toned down a tad. They work on Buffy because it’s basically a cartoon.

Anyhoo – the charm and wit and depth of the characters really creeps up on you to where you’re very invested by the end. The main characters aren’t as two-dimensional as they started out to be and I found myself wishing I was a teenage girl, because I was so in love with Michael Cera.

Sidenote: When Michael Cera prepares to go running, he applies runner’s glide to his inner thighs. It’s a product that prevents frictional chafing. I only mention it because it tends to get a pretty good laugh out of the crowd, who undoubtedly thinks it’s deodorant. Spread the word.

No Country For Old Men

Coen Brothers crime picture. Tommy Lee Jones. Javier Bardem. Tough to go wrong.

Best picture of the last few years, in my opinion.

The Lives of Others

East Germans spying on its citizens. This is the story of a police sponsored voyeur who gets too close to his subject. I liked it a lot.

Superbad

First off, everyone went to school with McLovin. This is why the movie works. A few things didn’t work as well, but overall, it was good for a laugh or two.

Ratatouille

Pixar’s like… really good at making animated movies. I think this one ran a little long, it may not have worked so well for younger kids, and I could have lived without the country cabin prologue that really didn’t give you any information that you couldn’t have been given later – BUT, when the food critic chomped on the ratatouille and had the flashback of eating the dish as a child, NAIL ON THE HEAD.

10 Worst

Codename: The Cleaner

Clearly a terrible movie – don’t need to see it to know it.

Primeval

A huge alligator eats people. It’s Lake Placid, without Betty White.

Hannibal Rising

No one told them that nobody cares anymore.

Norbit

Only saw a little bit. Strange and somewhat offensive that it’s so acceptable to make fun of the overweight.

Ghost Rider

Almost that good kind of bad where it’s so bad, it’s good? But not quite – mostly just bad.

28 Weeks Later

I think I may have already blogged about this, but this movie lost me in the first scene.

This group of people are bunkered down at a structure that is quite nearly describable as a castle. It is a British country mansion with four wings that complete a square, surrounding and enclosed courtyard in the center. This troupe of zombie apocalypse survivors however, stay in the super exposed corner of the manor with rags stuck between crudely built walls to hide from the zombies. I mean this is undoubtedly the servant quarters. They’re basically hiding in Helm’s Deep’s out-house. Stupid.

Then a bunch of shit happens and zombies attack while people repeatedly make spectacularly poor decisions.

Bug

This was a play that was adapted to a film. Here’s the problem – it’s really stupid.

The play, I could see working. At a live performance, you have to use more of your imagination. If the actors are screaming about bugs everywhere, you can wonder whether of not they’re crazy. In a film, what you see is what you get.

Couple that with the spectacularly absent acting chops of Ashley Judd and you may as well forget it.

I Know Who Killed Me

Lindsey Lohann is kidnapped.

She’s found days later, missing a limb or two or something.

Her personality is much more whorish than when she vanished.

Come to find out - this was her twin, who was separated at birth. When the first Lindsey Lohann was being dismembered by the killer, her twin, who was a stripper in another town, experienced sympathy amputation similar to stigmata.

No shit – that’s the story.

Shoot ‘Em Up

Terrible.

Love in the Time of Cholera

Like watching paint dry. Actually like watching paint that is already dry... in the time of cholera.

Not That Anyone Cares What I Think

I know what you’ve been thinking. What’s Big been up to? Well, I’ll tell you: Nothin’.

I mean, I’ve been drawing breath and going to work and eating, but nothing huge. Mostly, I’ve been watching movies and reading comics. You know, what any 38-year old does.

So, thus far into the television season, here are my recommendations:

Pushing Daisies

Mostly, this show is just too cute, but I kind of have to watch it. Chi McBride of Boston Public is probably the highpoint of any one episode and Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene as the vaudevillian aunts are pretty cool.

The Office

Still a power-hitter, though if I were running it, I’d have drawn out the Jim and Pam thing a little more. They’ve become a little boring and some of the storylines seem a touch forced, but this is a really funny show and worth the effort to catch.

30 Rock

Not as funny as last year so far, but the “me want food” stuff is pretty funny. Couple that with Alec Baldwin’s cookie jar fetish and you have comedy gold.

Things I tried, but won’t continue to watch:

The Bionic Woman – Too dumb.

Journeyman – I like Kevin McKidd, but I don’t care.

Heroes – Dumb.

The Big Bang Theory – From the makers of Two and a Half Men. Without the quality.

Back to You – Just… bad

Comics I’ve read recently:

Thor

One through three are really good. Watching Thor beat down Iron Man was pretty bad-ass.

Green Arrow: Year One

Up to # 3. Not great. Not terrible.

Ultimate Spiderman Trade Volume 1

I’ll take my Uncle Ben without the ponytail and my Green Goblin skinny with bombs thank you! The Ultimate brand is the gayest.

Killing Girl

Up to # 2. Art is really cool. Writing is pretty well structured, but really trite.

The Ride

I like.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8

Love it. Fuck off. You don’t have a guilty pleasure?

The New Avengers Trades Volumes 1 through 4

Started out pretty good, aside from the same scene played out every time Captain America recruited a new member. Went poorly after the Civil War came into play.

52

Why does DC have to make everything about twelve million different realities and timelines and dimensions? One thing I’ll say about the Marvel Civil War event – I didn’t have to keep Earth prime Iron Man straight from golden age Iron Man and the original Iron Man or the evil bizarro Iron Man.

I recently read The Watchmen for the first time. It’s really fucking good. Makes the Dark Knight Returns look like Mary Worth.

And for the record, if I may step off topic: Fuck Ellen and her stupid dog drama. Moms and Mutts should sue her cunt off.

MOVIES

First, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. More of the same.

Second, Transformers. I have officially decided that Transformers is bad ass. It has the most ridiculously stupid story in the world, which is exactly what I wanted. I wanted nothing at all except robots, turning into trucks and trying to kill each other. My only gripe is that it took forever for the Autobots, specifically Optimus Prime, to show up in the first place. And the 'bots in the garden scene was pretty gay.

Live Free or Die Hard. Miss the foul-mouthed "R" rated John McClane, but still what you'd expect from a Die Hard movie. Lots of "no-thinking" shit blowin' up.

Ratatouille. The moment the critic flashes back to his childhood when biting into the ratatouille at the end is well worth enduring the rest of the movie. Good though a bit long. The short in front is very good too.

I Know Who Killed Me. I know who owes me two hours of my life back.

The Simpsons. Seemed longer than it was, but it's the Simpsons. Very funny, but mostly on the front end.

And finally, the movie I was really hoping to like, but hated - Sunshine. To put it in perspective, Michael Bay making a movie about robot-cars is bound to be stupid, but pretty. Danny Boyle making a thoughtful sci-fi picture heightens the bar of expectation. Light on the "sci" - heavy on the "fi".

Spoiler alert.

So, the premise of the movie is that the sun is dying and the Earth's survival depends on tossing a bomb into the sun to reignite it. This is a pretty bitter pill to swallow, because as we know from TMBG, the sun is a mass of incandescent gas and it's so hot that everything on it is a gas. Basically, you really can't get close enough to the sun for any of this stuff.

However, if future technology were to allow such a venture, you surely wouldn't send the seven stupidest people on Earth to complete the mission. Not only that, but the crew has zero cross training. It's like working in an office where only one guy can operate the copier. Cillian Murphy's character is rescued at all costs because he's the only crew-member who can deliver the payload of the bomb. Even McDonald's trains a guy on register, fries, and grill. Furthermore, Murphy's expertise is apparently typing in a password and hitting a "launch" button.

Also, there's a computer system that has the ability to override commands for safety purposes, but seems to do so selectively with no rhyme or reason. The ship has no redundant systems and suffers fatal design flaws such as storing all the oxygen in one place. I could go on and on.

That being said, there are some genuinely intense and beautifully shot scenes. Just a shame the story decisions were so painfully flawed.

WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING?

So I stop at the store on the way to work, just to grab some coffee... maybe some fruit.

A lady near the milk section waves to me. This means one of two things - she knows someone standing just behind me; she thinks I work there.

Guess which one.

I didn't wave back. I made no indication to her whatsoever.

"Do you..? "

"No. I don't."

Now, I'm already choking back anger. At this point, she does the unthinkable. She waves dismissively and audibly grunts with an, "Aaaaaagh!"

Not, "I'm so sorry - that was so presumptuous of me." Not, "Sorry - all the managers at this grocery store are drop dead sexy... just like you." And not, "I not mean to - me retaaaaaaaarded."

I could have fucking choked her to death. The only thing I could do was to shoo her right back with a grunt of my own.

Tick. Tock.

Seriously?

Charlie, You're Dead, Brothah!

So, the television season is winding down, and I thought I would give a quick recap to the shit I've been watching.

First, this hunk o' dung:



Let me sum up Heroes for you. Each episode introduces no less than one new character who is then generally killed by the villain, Sylar, who absorbs their powers by eating their brains. Then, a bunch of stuff doesn't happen and then... the end?

The thing that I liked about the show from the first episode, was that it introduced some interesting characters and suggested some potential story-lines. The problem is that it kept that formula - every episode started shit, but nothing ever got resolved.

The height of absurdity was the staccato marketing campaign of "Save the cheerleader, save the world!" which should have been, "Save the cheerleader... or not. I can't imagine how it could matter!" Furthermore, the heroes go on to regularly forget that they have powers or that their powers may be of some use. Particularly the end scene in the finale where Nathan Petrelli, who can fly, must fly his brother (Who can also fly) high above the city in order to keep Peter's burgeoning A-bomb power from destroying New York. Also, the character Hiro who is undeservedly sired by Mr. Sulu, can't seem to understand that while he can teleport himself quicker than Sylar in order to rescue his friend, he can't teleport a big sword into Sylar's face. I can't believe I wasted 23 hours on this thing.

Now, Lost. Spoilers follow, so if you aren't up to date on your episodes - leave now.
I have to admit that when this season started with its six episode mini-season, I was about to quit the damn thing. I mean the only thing that kept me going, was the line, "Well, lookie there... you got yourself a fish-biscuit!" When the show returned from haitus, things finally started to happen outside of the bear-cage. And the two-hour season finale was awesome.

Now, if you're familiar with the show, you know that there are generally two story-lines to follow; one in the form of a flashback to a passenger's pre-crash life, and one in the present where the survivors of the plane crash saunter about the island. In the finale, they turned that formula on its ear and it was brilliant.

I am sad to see Charlie go, but this show keeps you guessing, so who knows. He was able to determine before kicking off that the boat they'd been struggling to contact wasn't what they thought it was...














A quick nod to The Gilmore Girls, which despite a lackluster final two seasons, ended well. Although the soft spot I have for this show doesn't help dispel rumors of homosexuality, I insist that despite its subject matter, it had extremely strong writing for most of its run and a great ensemble cast that was firmly anchored by the always wonderful Lauren Graham and my God, was the performance each week from Kelly Bishop amazing.

And - the reason television was invented - American Idol.

Tonight, we saw (Well, most people saw - I turned to Lost and my DVR cut off the end) the crowning of Jordin Sparks as this year's Idol. The top spot that carries nearly as much stigma as it does prestige.

Oh, and how about this guy!


I used to refer to Elliot Yamin as "Fists for teeth" (See top photo), but now - he's clearly going to need a new name. I'm using "Jazz-hands for teeth" currently, but I'm open to suggestions.

And my favorite quote of the season came from this guy. "Simon said I can't sing, and I look like a monkey!"



And in the weeks ahead, we will witness the end of The Sopranos. It has been remarkably good this season and I can't wait to see how it turns out.

June 15th

I'm Very excited today because I realized in a few weeks, I will be able to put this on the theater marquee:

Dave's Long Box

I added a link to Dave's Long Box. I have no affiliation, but I think is blog is pretty top-knotch and I like it, so I thought you nerds would like it too.

Now suck it.

Update

Okay - I saw another movie. I thought it was really fantastic. It actually came out last year and I just caught it on cable the other night. It's called "Brick" and it's just an amazing film noir story. Check it out, queers.

Also - here's a quick story...

So we have a 12:01 a.m. show of Spiderman 3. At 2:45 in the morning, a douche-bag approaches me and asks, "What's your guys's's' refund policy?"

Not wanting to discuss the refund policy, I said, "Was there a problem?"

"That movie really really really did not live up to my expectations," he said hemply, "Or my friends." He added the hypothetical of his friends which were nowhere to be found, but apparently added an exclamation of authenticity to his argument.

"Well that's too bad, but unfortunately I don't really have any domain over people's expectations." Honestly, what did he expect? It is a story about a guy in spandex fighting a superhero costume from outer-space and a guy made out of gravel while another dude throws bombs at him from a flying snow-board. I mean, I have a near and dear spot in my heart for Spiderman as well, but Christ - let's keep it in perspective people! We're adults!

"But it was terrible!" he persisted.

"You ate the whole sandwich."

"What?" he said like - who said anything about a sandwich?

"If you'd have eaten half a sandwich and decided it wasn't for you, then maybe. But you ate the whole sandwich."

"Sandwich?"

"You ever do any drinking at Alley Cats?"