End of the year list time: Movies

It looks like it's time for end of the year lists, with a list of the year's best movies. It seems a bit early, but that might be because the end of the decade lists are coming up (yes, the decade is over already).

I have to admit, I have only seen one of the movies on the top ten list (Funny People) and about five movies total -- One of which was the most recent Fast and Furious movie and another of which was Terminator: Salvation. Neither will make anyone's top ten list -- not even mine and I didn't even see ten movies.

So what were your top movies of the year?

NYT Mag explores Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are"

I have a feeling that this is going to be a great movie that is a tremendous flop at the box office.

But this sounds intriguing:

“It’s in the visual language of, like, some sort of fantasy film, and it is a fantasy film to some degree,” [Spike Jonze] acknowledged, “but the tone of it is its own tone. We wanted it all to feel true to a 9-year-old and not have some big movie speech where a 9-year-old is suddenly reciting the wisdom of the sage.” He hadn’t set out to make a children’s movie, he said, so much as to accurately depict childhood. “Everything we did, all the decisions that we made, were to try to capture the feeling of what it is to be 9.”

And just for the hell of it, here's Jonze's video for the song Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, with some bonus footage at the beginning and end:

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day trailer

Check it out:

The Onion AV Club's least favorite movie cliches

I have to say, I agree with... well, just about all of these, especially this one:

Jason Heller

There are two clichés in particular that really irk me—probably because they’re both staples of one of my favorite genres, science fiction. First is the monolithic, evil corporation that always seems to come complete with a malevolent CEO, a cadre of sadistic scientists, and an army of faceless storm troopers. The most recent example I can think of is the fictional entity Multi-National United from District 9; granted, there is plenty of evil perpetrated by military-industrial contractors, but the world is just way more complex than that. But even worse, cartoonishly evil corporations make for lousy drama: It’s pretty much the same as the mustache-twirling villain, no ambiguity or complexity. Another sci-fi cliché that gets on my nerves is the plastic, antiseptic vision of the future in the vein of Gattaca or A.I.—which, besides being played-out and hard to swallow, seems to stem from some antiquated, Boomer-era paranoia about suburban conformity rather than any plausible prognostication of tomorrow. Human systems and societies are fluid and messy, not the homogenous lumps that writers and directors often sculpt—and even when their creations’ dark underbellies are inevitably revealed, the overall shape is usually far too simple.

Fan made trailer for Ferris Bueller's Day Off

This is pretty cool, even if the first song ("Shimmy Shimmy Ya" by Ol' Dirty Bastard) is incredibly misplaced in one of the quintessential 80s movies of the time.

The Dude abides

Jim Caple, writing about Lebowski Fest taught us that real "The Dude" didn't bowl, only drank White Russians for too long and never met up with nihilists.

"They called me up and said they were doing this movie and had cast it with Jeff Bridges and John Goodman. And I'm like 'Uh oh,' worried because I'm on the cusp, and it could go either way, with Jeff Bridges or Goodman [playing me]," Jeff (The Dude) Dowd told Caple.

If you like the movie, it's worth reading.

Transformers breaks Guinness World Record in NM

Via @aaronjhoward on Twitter.

The second Transformers movie (which, to put it lightly, Roger Ebert didn't like) broke a Guinness World record here in New Mexico.

The N.M. scene now officially holds the Guinness Book World Record for the biggest explosion on film with actors present.

Why Sacha Baron Cohen is funny

It appears some people are angry at Sacha Baron Cohen's portrayal of a gay European for his upcoming movie "Bruno." Cohen is the guy behind Borat, which, as you recall, spawned its fair share of controversy.

Luckily, this blog can tell us why what Cohen does is funny:

In fact, what makes the movies so hilarious is that the character is SO OBVIOUSLY a joke, a silly collection of quirks that could only be created by a comedian playing a prank on dumbasses.

Tim Burton retrospective to be held at Museum of Modern Art

If any readers happen to be in New York City between November 22 and April 16, they can catch a Museum of Modern Art retrospective of Tim Burton.

I always thought that Burton was a bit overrated (Big Fish and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in particular, both weren't very good). But he still has an interesting style that is all his own, so the retrospective should be interesting.

In addition to his movies, the New York Times reports, the retrospective will look at some of his lesser-known stuff:

The exhibition will contain more than 700 drawings, paintings, puppets, costumes and other artifacts from Mr. Burton’s film career, as well as displays of his early nonprofessional and student films, artwork from his Web animation series “The World of Stainboy,” book projects like “Tim Burton’s Tragic Toys for Girls and Boys” and severed-head props from “Mars Attacks!” A film series is planned to accompany the exhibition.

I know that my friend Matt would love to see the severed-head props from Mars Attacks!

The Onion: New Terminator Movie Brings J.D. Salinger Out Of Hiding

Another reason I love The Onion:

In an interview granted to The Paris Review, The New York Review Of Books, Time, Newsweek, and Us Weekly, Salinger called Christian Bale "the most badass version of John Connor yet" and described the film's postapocalyptic war with the machines setting as "totally mind-blowing."

...and...

Although the sole film made from Salinger's work, My Foolish Heart, based on his short story "Uncle Wiggily In Connecticut," was considered by Salinger to be such a bastardization of his prose that he never agreed to another adaptation, he now states that "if McG wants to do any of my stuff—'A Perfect Day For Bananafish'; Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters; hell, all of Nine Stories—he has my complete permission. Anything. Anything he wants."

Why I want to see The Hangover

If there was nothing else that I'd heard about this movie, if I didn't know that the hilarious Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms were in the movie along with the underratedly funny Bradley Cooper, this one sentence from an interview Galifianakis gave to Newsweek would convince me to go see the movie:

I think the filmmakers needed a bridge while we were waiting for the roofies to kick in with the tiger.

Sold. Where do I buy my tickets?

100 great movie lines in 200 seconds

Via NewMexiKen:

You can argue with a few of the lines ("This is Sparta!" doesn't belong on the list for sure), but it's still a cool video. I'd say that I recognize about 95 of the lines, even though there are many movies that I haven't seen.

Fifteen word movie review for Fast and Furious

I saw Fast and Furious at the second run theater. Wasn't worth the two dollars.

Ghostbuster the video game

Ghostbusters 3 is still in the early stages of development. Rumors are flying around all over that everyone from the original cast is coming back (which is the only way to do it, really).

As long as Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Sigourney Weaver are in it and Ivan Reitman directs it, I think it will be fine.

But well before then -- in just about two weeks, actually -- Ghostbusters the video game will come out. And the New York Times has a great profile of the Ghostbusters franchise in advance of the new video game.

So should we be worried about the typical the-video-game-of-the-movie-nearly-always-sucks concerns (the same is true of books based on movies)? From the NY Times article:

Hoping to break with the decades-long litany of slipshod interactive movie tie-ins, Atari, the game’s publisher, has approached Ghostbusters: the Video Game as a major production in its own right. In a reversal of the traditional entertainment food chain, the game, to be released June 16, will come to market even as planning for the long-awaited third “Ghostbusters” film remains in the earliest stages. The expectation is that the game will both revitalize and expand interest in the franchise ahead of a new movie.

If their plan was to "revitalize and expand interest in the franchise ahead of a new movie" they would probably not release it three years ahead of when the movie is actually made.

So how involved were Ramis and Aykroyd (who wrote the first two Ghostbusters movies)? Well... kind of. But not as much as you might hear in the marketing.

“The crassest way I can put it is that they couldn’t have paid us enough to give it the time and attention required to make it as funny as a feature film," Ramis told the New York Times.

Spock:Obama::Kirk:McCain?

In the New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg takes the "Obama=Spock" meme one step further, and says that not only is President Barack Obama analogous to Dr. Spock (the Star Trek one, not the children's health dude), but Captain James T. Kirk is analogous to none other than John McCain.

Kirk is a wise-ass and a troublemaker. He’s reckless and insubordinate. He’s a skirt chaser. He relishes getting into fights. He wrecks cars. He’s a flyboy. He’s rebellious. He doesn’t do things by the book—he’s a maverick.

The latest revelation comes after Hertzberg read a Newsweek article in which Obama said the last movie he saw was Star Trek (I still have yet to see it, making me the last person under the age of 30 in the United States to not have seen the movie yet).

And the last movie you saw?
Now, movies I've been doing OK [with] because it turns out we got this nice theater on the ground floor of my house … So Star Trek, we saw this weekend, which I thought was good. Everybody was saying I was Spock, so I figured I should check it out and—[the president makes the Vulcan salute with his hand].

Very good.
Yes, absolutely.

Did you watch that when you were growing up?
I used to love Star Trek. You know, Star Trek was ahead of its time. There was a whole—the special effects weren't real good, but the storylines were always evocative, you know, there was a little commentary and a little pop philosophy for a 10-year-old to absorb.

Mark Cuban is a very smart guy

Bill Simmons did some podcasting with Dallas Mavericks owner and overall successful entrepreneur Mark Cuban yesterday.

They spoke for about 50 minutes (mp3) about business, basketball and everything in between.

Cuban not only owns the Mavericks, but he also owns HDNet, Landmark Theatres and the search engine Ice Rocket. He also is a blogger, over at Blog Maverick.

He made the Mark Cuban Stimulus Plan.

Sure he can be annoying at times, but he is good at just about everything he puts his fingers on. So listen to what he has to say.