Listmania! The Films of 2008, Part 2

The second part of my long-gestating List trilogy is ready to go. Man, finding pictures can take up an entire day.

Best Actor: Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, Tropic Thunder)


Honourable Mentions:

Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)
Chiwetel Ejiofor (Redbelt)
Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
Colin Farrell (In Bruges)
Michael Fassbender (Hunger, Eden Lake)

Best Actress: Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)


Honourable Mentions:

Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man)
Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)
Julianne Moore (Blindness)
Frances McDormand (Burn After Reading)
Lina Leandersson (Let The Right One In)

Best Supporting Actor: Aaron Eckhart / Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)


Honourable Mentions:

James Franco (Pineapple Express)
Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges)
Eddie Marsan (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Adam Scott (Step Brothers)
Matthew Fox (Speed Racer)

Best Supporting Actress: Emily Mortimer (Redbelt)


Honourable Mentions:

Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Dame Judi Dench (Quantum of Solace)
Laura Ramsay (The Ruins)
Amy Poehler (Baby Mama)
Wei Zhao (Red Cliff)

Best Performance by Hott Sam Rockwell: Snow Angels


Honourable Mention: Choke

Worst Actor: Mark Wahlberg (The Happening)


Dishonourable Mentions:

Al Pacino (88 Minutes, Righteous Kill)
Hayden Christensen (Jumper)
Jim Sturgess (21)
Steven Strait (10000 B.C.)
Vin Diesel (Babylon A.D.)

Worst Supporting Actor: Burt Reynolds (In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)


Dishonourable Mentions:

Tom Wilkinson (Cassandra's Dream)
John Hannah (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)
Ray Liotta (In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)
Jamie Bell (Jumper)
Tyrese Gibson (Death Race)

Worst Actress: Liv Tyler (The Incredible Hulk, The Strangers)


Dishonourable Mentions:

Kate Bosworth (21)
Camilla Belle (10000 B.C.)
Zooey Deschanel (The Happening)
Renee Zellweger (Leatherheads, Appaloosa)
Alicia Witt (88 Minutes)

Worst Supporting Actress: Charlotte Rampling (Babylon A.D.)


Dishonourable Mentions:

Leelee Sobieski (88 Minutes, In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)
Saffron Burrows (The Bank Job)
Claire Forlani (In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)
Betty Buckley (The Happening)
Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Best Performance Hiding Behind An Uncanny Impersonation of a British Icon: Michael Sheen as Sir David Frost in Frost/Nixon

Most Unexpectedly Demented and Entertaining Performance in an Unexpectedly Demented and Entertaining Movie: Matthew Fox (Vantage Point)


Most Glorious Ham: Matthew Lillard (In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)

Best Uncredited Performance: Steve Martin (Baby Mama)

Worst Uncredited Performance: Gerard Depardieu (Babylon A.D.)

Most Entertaining Actor in an Appalling Movie: Al Pacino (88 Minutes)


Most Entertaining Actress in an Appalling Movie: Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia!)

Most Depressing Performance From a Talented Actor Trapped in a Schlocky Movie: Morgan Freeman, seen here posing in front of a destroyed Loom of Fate (Wanted)


Some Loom of Fate. It didn't even see a bunch of exploding rats coming. Pathetic.

Dishonourable Mention: Kevin Spacey (21)

Most Depressing Performance From a Talented Actress Trapped in a Schlocky Movie: Joan Allen (Death Race)


Dishonourable Mention: Maria Bello (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)

Most Egregiously Wasted Cast: Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh and Anthony Wong Chau Sang (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)

"Where The Hell Have You Been?" Actor of the Year: Lance Henriksen (Appaloosa)


Honourable Mention: Brian Dennehy (Righteous Kill)

Best Director: Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)


Honourable Mentions:

Matteo Girrone (Gomorra)
David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express, Snow Angels)
Gus Van Sant (Milk, Paranoid Park)
John Stevenson, Mark Osborne and Jennifer Yuh Nelson - (Kung Fu Panda)
Darren Aronofsky - (The Wrestler)

Best Directorial Debut: Steve McQueen (Hunger)


Honourable Mentions:

Martin McDonagh (In Bruges)
James Watkin (Eden Lake)

Worst Director: Jon Avnet (88 Minutes, Righteous Kill)


Dishonourable Mentions:

Robert Luketic (21)
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Woody Allen (Cassandra's Dream)
Roland Emmerich (10000 B.C.)
Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia!)

"Where The Hell Have You Been?" Director of the Year: John Woo (Red Cliff: Part One)


Honourable Mention: Marc Caro (Dante 01)

Best Screenplay: Martin McDonagh (In Bruges)


Honourable Mentions:

Christopher Nolan / Jonathan Nolan / David Goyer (The Dark Knight)
Seth Rogen / Evan Goldberg (Pineapple Express)
David Mamet (Redbelt)
John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let The Right One In)
Matteo Garrone / Roberto Saviano / Maurizio Braucci / Ugo Chiti / Gianni Di Gregorio / Massimo Gaudioso - (Gomorra)

Worst Screenplay of the Year: Gary Scott Thompson (88 Minutes)

Dishonourable Mentions:

Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb (21)
Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire)
Woody Allen (Cassandra's Dream)
Russell Gewirtz (Righteous Kill)
Jason Richman (Bangkok Dangerous)

Best Sound Design: Ben Burtt (Wall*E)



Honourable Mention: Leslie Shatz (Paranoid Park)

Best Score: Hans Zimmer/John Powell (Kung Fu Panda)

Honourable Mentions:

Alexandre Desplat (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard (The Dark Knight)
Michael Giacchino (Speed Racer)
Tarô Iwashiro (Red Cliff)
Jeff McIlwain/David Wingo (Snow Angels)

Best Original Song: Another Way To Die – Jack White and Alicia Keys (Quantum of Solace)

Honourable Mentions:

What Happens After - Explosions in the Sky (Snow Angels)
The Wrestler – Bruce Springsteen (The Wrestler)

Most Unexpected Vocal Performance: Clint Eastwood dueting with Jamie Cullum on the title song to Gran Torino.



Honourable Mention: Ed Harris singing You’ll Never Leave My Heart over the end credits of Appaloosa.

Best Cinematography: Caleb Deschanel (The Spiderwick Chronicles)


Honourable Mentions:

Christopher Doyle/Rain Li (Paranoid Park)
Colin Watkinson (The Fall)
Sean Bobbitt (Hunger)
Claudio Miranda (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight)

Worst Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire)

Dishonourable Mentions:

Haris Zambarloukos (Mamma Mia!)
Simon Duggan (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)
Decha Srimantra (Bangkok Dangerous)

Most Disappointing Photography: Roger Deakins (Revolutionary Road)

After his stellar work last year on No Country For Old Men and especially The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, it pains me to say his work on Sam Mendes' adaptation of the Richard Yates novel left me cold. It's very nice work, and he doesn't do anything wrong, per se. It's just kinda limited. Was this Sam Mendes' fault? Or was I expecting too much after he excelled himself last year? Only one shot stuck in my mind; the bravura overlighting while Kate Winslet looks out of a window at the end of the movie. That was awesome. Other than that, I was frustrated. Perhaps it's my fault for expecting fireworks every time out, but I kept thinking about how gorgeous Antonio Calvache made suburbia look in Todd Field's Little Children, and it irked me greatly. I'm sure King Deakins will thrill me again in the future, but for now, ::pouts::

Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button


Honourable Mentions: Speed Racer, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Seriously, those effects in Benjamin Button were insane. Digital Domain and their cohorts have the effects Oscar sewn up for sure. Anyway, one more installment to go, best filed under the heading "Miscellaneous". I'll be stuck looking for more pictures again tomorrow. Oy...

Super Or Not-Super? That Was The Question, Ages Ago

I hate it when a plan doesn't come together. This poll, which was originally meant to end several months ago, got dragged beyond its natural endpoint by me because it seemed to keep attracting votes from netsurfers randomly sent here by such Google search terms as "sexxy women boobs", "January Jones bad actor", "Seth Lakeman", and, of course, "Moon Bloodgood". Of all the things that we have done on this blog, be it incurring the wrath of Torchwood fans, incurring the wrath of Bible fans, or incurring the wrath of friends of super-actor Jesse Plemons, the response to that poll, although small compared to bigger, more professional sites, was significant for us. The temptation was there to keep it up until the next wave of superhero movies comes out, which could be a while, thanks to the writers' strike.

However, Blogger decided to fuck me. Right now the poll states 65 votes have been counted, when last week that number stood at 74. Nine votes lost to the ether! WTF is that about? Perhaps that's a glitch that can be explained on Blogger forums, but I'm too distraught to check. As far as I can tell Blogger hates democracy. Someone should call Greg Palast.

Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) - 24 (36%)

Christian Bale (Batman) - 16 (24%)

Ron Perlman (Hellboy) - 7 (10%)

Huge Ackman (Wolverine) - 7 (10%)

Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man) - 3 (4%)

Jennifer Garner (Elektra) - 3 (4%)

Brandon Routh (Superman) - 2 (3%)

Halle Berry (Not-Catwoman) - 1 (1%)

Ben Affleck (Daredevil) - 1 (1%)

Patrick Warburton (The Tick) - 1 (1%)

Chris Evans (Human Torch) - 0 (0%)

Thomas "Homeless Dad" Jane (The Punisher) - 0 (0%)

The Shaq (Steel) - 0 (0%)

Nicolas Cage (Ghost Rider) - 0 (0%)

Wesley Snipes (Blade) - 0 (0%)

Ang Lee In A Motion Capture Suit (Hulk) - 0 (0%)

Anyway, before any more votes can go missing, I might as well shut it down now, and reveal the final tallies. Unsurprisingly (at least to me) the clear winner is Robert Downey Jr., who did what only a couple of other superhero actors have been able to do, i.e. take a character we thought we knew and add another dimension to them. Christopher Reeve showed Superman's fear and vulnerability, Nicholas Cage revealed that Johnny Blaze loves monkey documentaries, and Robert Downey Jr revealed that Tony Stark is funny. For too long the character has seemed like little more than an intense cypher in a suit, but Downey Jr. found the spark that brought him to life.

Of course Stark is a show-off and narcissist, traits that don't really go away even when he comes to realise what a negative effect Stark Industries has on the world. That balancing act, between playing Stark as a charming but aloof playboy and as a committed but humorless crusader, is what makes Downey Jr's performance so perfect. It's such a complete and satisfying incarnation of everyone's favourite Registration Act-supporting dickbag that, upon seeing it, I immediately hoped that he would get Oscar attention next year. Just like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, he was so great and entertaining and instantly transformed into A-list superstar material that people came to see the movie to see him as much as they did the superheroics. Add to that his amazing work on the otherwise disappointing Tropic Thunder, and it's so much his year that I'd bet his chances are higher than you'd expect. Of course, Tropic Thunder is too offensive to get a nomination for anything other than technical Oscars, so the buzz will transfer to Iron Man. The campaign is apparently in full swing, and though I still harbour natural doubts, there's hope.


Second place goes to Christian Bale, who did something subtly different than Robert Downey Jr. by showing how the character was meant to work. It's repeatedly stated in Batman comics that the character is meant to be terrifying, but the image of a guy dressed as a bat and unable to turn his head has never seemed scary to anyone. Bale (and Christopher Nolan) finally cracked how to make Batman as fearsome as his reputation demands, and while some find Bale's Batvoice ridiculous, I totally bought it, so much so that when reading the comics, I now hear Batman's dialogue in that insane raspy growl. That said, while I give multiple props to Bale's intense and customarily intelligent performances, I still hear Kevin Conroy's voice for Bruce Wayne. Fans of the legendary animated series will know what I'm talking about, especially one regular reader who loves him some Mask of the Phantasm.


Coming joint third, (unless, of course, those nine missing votes went to Shaq for his sensitive portrayal of Steel) Ron Perlman also brought his character to life, but maybe only for me. As I've said before, the character of Hellboy never worked on the page (subjectively), but once Perlman appeared onscreen, I finally understood what his appeal was. With the talented Perlman usually relegated to gruff bad guy roles, I'm immensely grateful to Guillermo Del Toro for giving him a chance to show how charming he can be, though I think it would go a lot smoother if he wrote Hellboy some funnier dialogue.


Even though joint third place is a good showing, I expected more votes for Hugh Jackman, whose fanboy-appeasing performance as Wolverine was the instant star-making role that gave the superhero genre its big break in film. More than anything else, the massive popular acceptance of this almost unknown song-and-dance guy as a feral killing machine with leaky tear ducts and a heart of gold made everyone who saw it realise there was a way to make superheroes work in serious movies. Without him and his fantastic hott torso (and the guiding hand of Bryan Singer), I doubt any of the subsequent superhero movies would have been possible.


Speaking of Bryan Singer, his random casting of Brandon Routh as Superman ended up paying off brilliantly, which makes the mediocrity of that movie all the more galling. With The Man of Steel seemingly stalled as of this moment, it's a source of almost infinite annoyance that Routh, who managed to convince many fans that he could embody the nobility and vulnerability of Kal-El, will probably not get another shot at playing the role. When DC and Warner Brothers announced the Justice League movie, they caused me much sorrow by announcing he wouldn't reprise the role, made up for it a lot by hinting that he would be replaced by Scott Porter (who is often the moral centre on Friday Night Lights), then pissed me off again by casting some other guy instead. Then they cancelled the film altogether. Whatevs. Seemingly forgotten, Routh only gets two votes, one of them from Canyon.


Though it appears to be an unpopular opinion on the net, I think Jennifer Garner is the tops. I'm pleased she got a few votes, expecting the dreadful nature of Rob Bowman's Elektra to dissuade voters. I'm not as enthused about Tobey Maguire's votes, as my initial glee at the casting of yet another serious actor as a popular superhero has waned over the course of three Spidey movies as Maguire seems to be doing almost no other work (nothing on this planet will make me watch Seabiscuit, so don't even go there), so I can't even tell whether I think he's a talented actor any more. He's just the guy who's too old to play a young loser with powers, dances badly for no reason other than to make the audience put their hands over their faces in embarrassment, and looks like a stack of wet flappy pancakes when he cries. And he's coming back for three more movies? Oy.


I can only assume that the single vote for Halle Berry as Not Catwoman was an ironic statement, because even someone utterly transfixed by her infamous beauty couldn't ignore the ineptitude and total misunderstanding of the character on display here. A lot of fanboys complain about several recent Marvel adaptations, but even the real disasters cannot compare with DC's run of terrible movies. Daredevil has its detractors, though I still maintain Affleck, with his single vote, was better than the haters say, and it at least made an effort to honour the characters. Ghost Rider was appalling but Nic Cage's total commitment to the weird saves the film from total fail. The Fantastic Four movies might be kiddie versions of the bonkers science fiction adventures we FF fans love, but even when it's hard to watch Reed Richards dancing, or Doctor Doom played like a bad guy from some 80s cheap-ass 8 frames-per-second animated shite, you've still got Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans (who received one votes in this poll, though I'm sure he had more at one point) honouring Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm with their valiant efforts.


What do DC offer us at their worst? The nigh-unwatchable Supergirl, with Peter "Go! High-Ah! Gehhhhlll!" O'Toole's career worst performance? Steel, which remains the only superhero adaptation I've been unable to finish due to overwhelming psychic pain and disappointment? Batman and Fucking Robin? I'd rather rewatch Jonathan Hensleigh's The Punisher any day, especially as Thomas "Homeless Dad" Jane is my hero, and to be honest the worst crime of the movie is to be a homage to Don Siegel-style economy in the age of Michael Bay-style excess (not that I think emulating Don Siegel is a crime, just a question of misjudging a mood). I predict a wave of reappraisal when the forthcoming sequel is finally released.


Batman and Robin would be the worst DC adaptation so far, except that it at least gave the world the line "You're not sending me to da coolah!", which is still in constant rotation in our house. It's not much, but that vaults it above the complete failure that is Catwoman. Her weakness is insensibility upon exposure to catnip? Her nemesis is an insane cosmetics entrepreneur (played with an offensive lack of skill by Sharon Stone, no less)? That this anti-feminist fiasco was made while Daniel Waters' brilliantly subversive script sits on a metaphorical shelf would make me doubt the existence of God if I didn't already doubt the existence of God. A lesser blogger than I would probably write something pun-tastic like, "It was a purr-fectly hair-i-ball cat-astrophe that you should make a fe-line to avoid." An even lesser blogger might refer to it as Scatwoman. However that kind of dismissal isn't enough for a failure this total. It's diarrhoea in the middle of the night. It's vomit in a pile of freshly washed clothes. It's nappy rash, poison ivy, tennis elbow, insomnia, and anaphylactic shock all at the same time. Never let it be spoken of again.


Zero votes for Nicolas Cage (which will sadden Johnny Blaze-fan Canyon, I'm sure), Ang Lee in a Motion Capture Suit (even after the blank Hulk Smash performance on the most recent movie failed to generate even a fraction of the character that Ang Lee did), and, most shocking of all, zero votes for Dr. Wesley T. Snipes, who kicked so much vampire bottom in the Blade trilogy? How soon we forget. Or perhaps people thought they would get hassled by the IRS for supporting him. Wimps! Haven't superheroes shown we should stand up to tyranny? I'm tempted to hand those nine votes to him, giving the Dr. of Asskicking a third place spot. Oh, and kudos for noticing poor Patrick Warburton at the bottom of the poll. I'm glad someone threw him some one vote worth of love for his heroic blue-suited silliness.

Right. I'm done. Happy now, Blogger? ::pouts::

How We Waited Out The Election

Only now, as the smoke clears and the euphoria dies down, do I realise how much the wait for November the fourth had turned my mind into a stagnant pond, a Moebius strip of re-thought thoughts, cognition turned into a chore thanks to the insane worry over something I literally had no control over (at least Canyon could vote, an act that made her justifiably happy). Two days later, and look at me! I'm all florid and shit, like what I was previous, like.

During that interminable wait, we tried to keep ourselves occupied and not just keep reading the same four websites (though we enjoyed it all) and getting even more obsessed than usual with The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Our efforts bore some pleasant fruit (the cherries and strawberries of the week) and some disappointing fruit too (mangoes, sharon fruit and unripe bananas, metaphorically speaking).

Burn After Reading

I had high hopes for this after the excellence of No Country For Old Men had erased disappointed memories of the previous four Coen Brothers movies (yes, I'm not crazy about O Brother, Where Art Thou? or The Man Who Wasn't There), but it was frustratingly slight. Being more of a fan of their hyper-weird comedies than their dramas, with The Big Lebowski at the top of my faves list and Raising Arizona close on its tail, I was hoping this would be similarly unhinged and frenetic, but instead it was like Fargo with more jokes, which is a problem considering I don't really like Fargo that much. At least, not as much as many seem to.


Of course, mid-level Coen Brothers movies still have a lot to recommend. Almost all of the performances were great (though weirdly Malkovich did my head in with. His. Stilted. Fucking. Line. Readings. And. Laboured. Fucking. Profanity.), with special kudos to the ever-wonderful Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins (who broke my heart). That said, why did they bother casting Tilda "Goddess" Swinton for a part that had about twelve lines? Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy to see her on screen in any capacity, but she seemed ill-served. Here's hoping she becomes a Coen repertory player and turns up again, except with something to do other than be annoyed with the men in her life.


Even with that cast, the film never seemed to come alive, though the central point, that of lampooning the arrogance and solipsism of a bunch of self-regarding twerps who think their pitiful lives have some greater meaning, when in fact all they are little more than a bunch of horny morons, was beautifully done, perhaps even more so than the previous times they have tried to make that point (No Country, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, etc.). I've had more fun thinking about the film than I did watching it. That said, Brad Pitt is a better comedic actor than I thought possible.


I'm grateful to the Coens for proving that.

Quantum of Solace

Casino Royale is possibly my favourite Bond movie since On Her Majesty's Secret Service, leapfrogging over The Living Daylights, The Spy Who Loved Me and Goldeneye, but poverty has delayed us going to see the latest movie. Instead I've been rewatching this over and over again.



We might still see it this week, once I've sold a kidney, following the wonderful news that Vue Cinemas have instituted over-18's only performances for people who don't want to put up with hordes of little shits treating cinemas like the local bus depot. A black man is elected President of the United States and a cinema chain (in our home town, no less) finally realises moviegoers have been staying away because of the behaviour of a bunch of oiks, all in the same week? This truly is the golden age of civilisation. Speaking of which...

Civilisation Revolution


If anything stops me blogging, it will be this game. In its previous manifestations it was already the greatest game ever made (yeah chess, thass right. What have you done for me lately?), but now it's less fussy, faster paced, and filled with endearing silliness. Canyon has been forced to put up with my wasting hours on the hellishly addictive thing, so much so that I'm now responding to her conversational gambits with a reflexive "Follum follum!" If you've played it, you know what that means.

Tropic Thunder

It's taken us way longer than we would have liked to see Ben Stiller's attack on Hollywood, and it was not even worth the wait. Despite the odd great moment, the whole ambitious exercise falls flat with upsetting regularity. Though Robert Downey Jr.'s performance is just as amazing as we had heard, he didn't actually seem have anything funny to say, and we ended up laughing at Jack Black's cold turkey shenanigans instead. Stiller's original concept for the film is hugely appealing, but the execution of it just didn't seem to click at all, with the plot drifting along from one lengthy and ultimately unfunny scene to another, seemingly without direction or purpose. It made Zoolander look like a tightly plotted Preston Sturges movie (I say that as a fan of Zoolander who thinks it sometimes ambles when it should be sprinting). While Adam McKay's movies mostly come alive in the editing room, this never takes shape, and no amount of amusing scenes with Tom Cruise dancing and swearing can save it. Dispiriting stuff, though I'm hoping to see a longer cut soon that might justify that brilliant idea, and maybe even give Jay Baruchel and Brandon T. Jackson something to do other than be straight men. Zoolander got funnier with each viewing, so maybe something similar will happen here, though I doubt it.


Compare that to Pineapple Express, which we watched again, and is now, definitely, my favourite comedy of the year. Considering it's a stoner comedy it's built with the same care that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg lavished on Superbad, progressing with logical beauty from scene to scene with only a couple of moments at the end of the second act that show they love their McKee a bit too much. It's not a deal breaker at all, though, and the Hot Fuzz-style genre mash-up of the final act is even more satisfying second time around, with kudos going to Rogen's repeated declarations of, "Nice!" whenever anything goes his way (such as the hilarious respawning machine guns in the underground lair).


In comparison, Tropic Thunder looks like a first cut mess, something you would show to a studio head to reassure them that the money is on the screen. How talented individuals like Stiller, Etan Cohen (partly responsible for the magnificent Idiocracy) and Justin Theroux could botch this is beyond me. The latter name is especially troubling. My previous excitement at his participation in Iron Man 2 has withered completely. Let's hope he's better off without the improvisational scenes between the leads that appear to have derailed the film so badly.

Justice Society of America by Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham

Is this the best comic on the market right now? In terms of superheroism, perhaps it is, though of course it has been great since Geoff Johns jumped onto the title early in the previous incarnation. Johns is always great value (especially lately; he's on fire), but JSA is better than ever, making me retroactively like Kingdom Come more than I originally did. However, the main reason is...





...OMG Hawkman is a TOTAL BADASS. Trust Goody-Two Shoes Jay to get in his way though.

Hunger

Turner Prize-winning director Steve McQueen's meditation on Bobby Sands' hunger strike has been damned by some of the UK press for daring to portray the Republican struggle in a noble light, which is hilariously inappropriate as that is absolutely not what the film is about at all. While, yes, it is set in The Maze and follows Sands' strike from conception to death, and while it shows in horrific detail the back-and-forth mental and physical combat between the imprisoned IRA soldiers/terrorists/politicians (delete as applicable) and the guards, it's pretty much an abstract exploration of what art is. Prisoners daub the walls of the cells with shit, flood the corridors of the prison with urine, and, eventually, stage a protest that turns their bodies, as depicted by McQueen, into a time-lapse photo of living, breathing decay. Even the poster shows one of the "paintings" by a prisoner (a nod to previous Turner Prize winner Chris Ofili?).


This is, as far as I can tell, the one reading of the movie that explains the peculiar structure. The first third of the film concerns a new prisoner (Davey, played by Brian Milligan) learning the ropes of prison life and the protests therein via his cellmate Gerry (Liam McMahon), the middle third is the much-debated conversation between Sands (Michael Fassbender) and his priest (Liam Cunningham) about mortality and politics, and the final third is an impassive, minimalist depiction of Sands' lengthy death with Davey and Gerry disappearing from the movie altogether. Bear in mind, except for the middle section, there is almost no dialogue, with only a minimal amount of verbally communicated information giving background on what is happening. There is barely any character development, but then that's not what the film is about. It's about their acts, their attempts to say something with little more than their bodies as the conduit of their emotion and rage. Much of what they do has little effect. The shit paintings are blasted away and the urine is washed up in a shot of audience-patience-defying length. Only the deaths of the hunger strikers seem to have any effect, though that is relegated to a few title cards at the end of the movie giving a few nuggets of information about the subsequent years.


Getting angry about the movie for glamourising the strike (shurely shome mishtake; it's nigh-unwatchable) or having a pro-IRA agenda seems wrong-headed, though I understand many people are never going to allow themselves to move on from those horrible years during the struggle. However, in the terms of the film, that struggle is less important than McQueen's interest in the way the prisoners and hunger strikers express themselves, with the only scene that debates the details of the Republican battles and the morality of politicised suicide being the notorious static art/anti-art shot of a drab room and Sands and his priest smoking and talking for twenty minutes, which, while hypnotic and superbly played, stands in contrast with the bleak, almost silent beauty of the rest of the movie. McQueen seems to be staring into his soul and wondering why he is an artist, and how his art compares to something as drastic as turning the place you live into a hellhole using only the waste products of your body, or allowing yourself to be brutalised just to make a statement and to psychologically affect those who torture you. Isn't art meant to affect the people who experience it? Isn't making a person beat you to a bloody pulp the most extreme way to do that? Where does that leave McQueen and the rest of the YBAs?


Can you tell that I thought it was amazing? There's a lot to digest (really, no pun intended), especially as it is attracting some fascinating debate, as in this excellent piece from Frieze magazine. It's definitely on my end of year best film list, and strongly recommended for anyone who can handle the body horror.

I'm unsure as to whether admitting that I spent the last couple of weeks doing all of that in addition to habitually checking on Obama's progress makes me look more or less sad. I could lie and say I also went sailing, if that helps. Of course, now we're waiting for his press conferences as if they were episodes of Friday Night Lights, as we tuned into CNN last night to see him talk about getting a shelter dog (which made Canyon almost swoon) and expressing condolences over a journalist's damaged arm (which almost finished me off). Compared to that slavish devotion to the President-Elect, acting like a couple of lovestruck groupies, six hour marathons of CivRev almost look cool.

Paging Dame Judi Dench

Is the Great Dame free at the moment? She needs to clear her schedule, as do Karl Urban and Thandie Newton, because they need to be ready to turn up for the next two installments of The Chronicles of Riddick, which Vin Diesel has announced are in the works right now.


Yes, we are as shocked as you are, Dame Dench. To many people (including at least one reader of this blog, and she knows who she is), this news is baffling, risible, proof of the delusions of Mr. Diesel. To others, me included, this is THE BEST NEWS EVER. Even better, judging from the enthusiastic responses on these pages, I now know I'm not alone. It's astonishing to find out that The Chronicles of Riddick, which has been used as a punchline for so long, actually has a fanbase. I really thought no one liked it. It's not like it set the world on fire, unlike what happens to the surface of prison planet Crematoria during daytime, if you know what I'm talking about.


Of course, Diesel is in the entertainment news a lot right now, as trailers for the fourth Fast And/Or Furious film has recently debuted, and his new movie Babylon A.D. is coming out on Friday. This is a cause for celebration for me, even though writer-director Matthieu Kassovitz is the man behind the appalling Gothika, a movie so utterly forgettable that all I can remember is that Halle Berry is in it as a ghost, or someone who sees ghosts, or as the girlfriend of a ghost, or as the lawyer/doctor of a ghost, or something ectoplasm-related. Whatever. It has ghosts in it. That much I know. Still, at least that shoot was where Robert Downey Jr. met his wife Susan, so something good came out of it (if you've seen RDJr's Inside The Actors Studio you will know how adorable they both are). As for director Kassovitz, he has been aiming his stinkeye at the cretins at Fox, blaming them for ruining his film with Diesel backing him up. Commenting on the state of the movie following its butchering in the editing suite:

It's pure violence and stupidity. The movie is supposed to teach us that the education of our children will mean the future of our planet. All the action scenes had a goal: They were supposed to be driven by either a metaphysical point of view or experience for the characters... instead parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24... I should have chosen a studio that has guts. Fox was just trying to get a PG-13 movie. I'm ready to go to war against them, but I can't because they don't give a shit.

Ouch.


Babylon A.D. has been publicised pretty poorly by Fox, so it has very little chance of doing well, something I had originally figured was related to lack of confidence in Diesel's box office pull, before I read about the difficulties the crew had. It's an easy mistake to make. Diesel is often treated like a muscular lunkhead, but in interviews he has always struck me as an interesting guy (code for "he's a gamer, leave him alone"). That he draws ridicule so readily is one of the reasons, I suspect, filmgoers have been ready to point and laugh at The Chronicles of Riddick. If they don't like it, fair enough, but it's been laughed at in much the same way David Caruso's post NYPD Blue film career was. "Look at where your hubris and arrogance took you, Diesel", seems to be the cry. Screw that. It was a crazy-bold adventure filled with imagination and demented vision. I'd never argue that it was perfect, or a great film, but it was much better than many will give it credit, and it finishes on a perfect note. I've been eager to see the next installment ever since, and would have taken it in any format, be it comic, game, or animation. I can't wait, and I know for a fact that Brian Michael Bendoom is happy about it too. Upon hearing about the potential sequels, he said:


And no one would dare argue with... BENDOOM! (For background on Brian Michael Bendis' ill-treatment of the ultimate Marvel comics villain, check out these funny pages.)

Oh Man, Two New Polls? Give It Up!

Yes, I have added two new polls to this blog, even though I still have one going. I've dragged out my superhero poll for ages because I'm enjoying watching the battle between Christian Bale and Robert Downey Jr. so much, though I am predicting a late flurry of votes for Halle Berry, whose involuntary reaction to a blob of catnip moved me so much in Catwoman. Though I should end it soon so as not to clutter the sidebar so much, I felt compelled to gauge the opinion of our readership now that the summer movie season is ending, and what better way to do that than by starting two new polls, for favourite and least favourite films of the past few months.

I'm genuinely curious about how people felt the season went, and so please ignore my childish namechanging and give me some hard data. I know The Dark Knight split opinion down the middle (not helped by the pre-release enthusiasm), and some were angry about Indiana Jones (though I thought it was probably not as horrible as The Last Crusade). I also know that one regular reader will be tempted to vote for Hancock as worst summer movie about fifty times. Don't do it, man!

Anyway, I am aware that this blog is getting awfully busy, but I hope to rectify that soon with some nifty XML alterations that will get rid of this dreary Tic-Tac Blue template. That will, of course, involve effort and understanding of code, so it won't be happening too soon, but it will. As demented genius AV Club commenter Z0diac M0therfucker would say, "THIS SHIT IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE", as former Police 5 host Shaw Taylor would say, "Keep 'em peeled," and as Diddy would say, "Vote or die." (Apologies to Sean Combs fans if I got his name wrong; I lost track of it a couple of years ago and even Wikipedia is unclear, if you can believe that.)

I'm Suffering From Poll Addiction

Yes, it's another goddamn poll, and it's a nerdy one again. I can't stop myself! Blame Iron Man. Following its preview release yesterday, the whole world has gone exo-skeleton crazy. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it's the best reviewed film of the year so far, which boggles the mind. Whether moviegoers will boycott the movie following the shocking news that Jon Favreau was horribly sceptical over Gwyneth Paltrow's on set injury is something we will find out over the long weekend. It's alright for him. Does he have to wax his legs? I don't think so. [Disclaimer: speaking solely for this third of Shades of Caruso, I'm a fan of both Favreau and, yes, controversially, the widely disliked Paltrow, who I think is talented and y'all jus jellus. I have no opinion about Chris Martin, though. Other than that he needs a drastic haircut and shave.]

I'm really hoping this turns out to be the movie that shuts people up about Robert Downey Jr.'s talent. In a perfect world he would be earning the same plaudits and $$$s that Johnny Depp does, and yet before this weekend there has been some doubt over his abilities, possibly because of his reputation as a drug-absorbing disaster area. His casting as Tony Stark seemed to cause some consternation among the fans, which baffles me. I can't think of anyone else who is more suited to the role (well, other than Ghostface Killah, obviously), and early reports about his performance seem to show popular opinion has moved in that direction. Yay! He's talented, he's smart, he's funny, he's charming, and he's hott. Get in line, people!


Plus, now that he's sorted his shit out and seems to have accepted that his notorious hellraising was not on, he's just fully en-awesomed. This is his weekend to bask in critical acclaim and hopefully public acceptance of such magnitude that it crushes Made Of Honour, starring that charmless shyster Patrick "Damp"sey, aka Dr. Drake Remoray sans laughs. However, if people are offended by Downey Jr.'s Tropic Thunder performance (which I'm staying agnostic on until I've seen the film, though it is something that makes me uncomfortable), it could be short-lived. Let's hope it works out. We need more awesome movie stars. (More than we need food or water!!!)

Anyway, enough about that. This here is a poll announcement. What is your favourite superhero casting of the last few years? I'm going to go with the most recent incarnations of these characters, so apologies for not including Christopher Reeve as Superman. That was a sad loss, but I didn't want to clog up the selection with multiple Batmen. Also, I've chosen to ignore all of the X-Men who are not equipped with deadly sideburns, or members of the Fantastic Four that don't have outrageous pecs, again for brevity's sake. Now vote! BTW, next poll won't be nerdy. I promise. Shades of Caruso has other interests, you'll be amazed to know.

Shane Black knows the score

A content-lite week, thanks to Canyon being inundated with work, and me getting dragged into the office for a useless absence management course as well as travelling to Ikea again and again in my miserable quest to replace a broken sofa. Something so simple is actually horribly time-consuming and depressing. Who knew?

So desperate was I to get something on here, I took inspiration from the last 15 minutes of Renny Harlin's The Long Kiss Goodnight (a film that truly exasperates me, what with the terrific script and the inept direction), and decided to do a quick post about cinema's best explosions, with the help of YouTube. However, instead of finding footage of the outrageously large final explosion (a very effective pre-CG FX sequence by Jeffrey Okun), I instead found out that the 9/11 conspiracy types think the film predicted the World Trade Centre bombing.


Who would have thought that multi-millionaire screenwriting supergenius Shane Black knew so much about CIA plots to screw Congress out of funding? I can't wait to read Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes now. I bet there's a whole chapter on that! Bear in mind Long Kiss was made in 1996. The fact that Evil Patrick Malahide is referring to the previous WTC bombing, the one that happened in the car park beneath the building, seems to have escaped many of the theorists on there. It's as if they're not really thinking this whole thing through and are just rushing to insane conclusions based on hearsay, bias, paranoia, and terribly flawed science. A mad idea, I know, but it bears considering.

To cleanse the crazy-tainted palate, here is one of the best scenes from Black's magnificent directorial debut, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, in which the only thing you learn is that if you meet Val Kilmer pretending to be a gay detective, you should not throw his expensive ceramic gun into the lake next to the crashed car or he will hurt your feelings with pithy insults.


And yes, I probably will do the explosions post at some point. It's either write about that or gibber, "Halo 3! Halo 3! Halo 3!" And you don't want that. Though I'll probably do that too. Sorry.