So here goes:
First, the plug: the FFC 2007 Annual is on sale now. Please buy one. I held my first one today in the basement of Denver's Mayan Theater because, in Colorado, Landmark is carrying the book at all its locations. Call your local Landmark and ask why they're not doing the same. We get this thing viral and suddenly we're in business for another ten years. It's also the first time, by the way, that I read the complete Neil LaBute preface and. . . holy shit.
Seriously.
Okay - business at hand: just turned in my Top Ten for the year - let's hear your Bottom Ten.
Ground rules: let's not kick the hapless; let's go after the genuinely vile. People ask me what my favorite movie is all the time and that's easy - people ask me what my most-hated is at all time and I say that it changes every year. Flip? Yeah. But I sort of mean it. I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
Happy New Year.
58 comments:
I don't make enough money to watch bad films, but one I just had to watch (sneeked in for a second go so at least I didn't pay for it) and is undoubtedly the worst film of 2007:
TRANS-fuckin'-FORMERS
Michael Bay is a fuckin' cancer.
-- HMSM
p.s. Let's see the list
Well, I've been roughly compiling a Bottom 10 in tandem with my Top, and I was thinking for the first time that a lot of sitting ducks were genuinely awful, like UNDERDOG, LICENSE TO WED, and CAPTIVITY. I wish PUNISHMENT PARK had actually come out, 'cause that's one I can work up a lot of froth for. I'm not sure I saw a worse movie all year, though, than CATCH AND RELEASE.
i haven't thought out a bottom 10 at this point, but the 3 movies that made me physically angry were:
Hannibal Rising
Margot at the Wedding
300
300 put me to sleep.
Thomas Harris proved with Hannibal Rising that he's a terrible writer who was only able to catch lightning in a bottle once.
I thought that Margot was about as ugly as a movie can be, in all facets. I wanted to leave before it ended, but I stayed so that I could hear the elderly women behind me making fun of it. That's probably the first time in my 22 years of existence that I actively wanted to hear the ramblings of prude, old women over anything.
I don't think any movie this year made me as angry as Superbad...which made em retroactively angry towards Knocked Up...
and I only made it 3 minutes into Death Proof before turning it off. (Disclaimer: I don't think I was in the right mood to watch it...may give it another shot)
I guess I avoided most of the truly vile movies released this year, but I couldn't stand We are the Strange for being completely soulless and void of anything substantial.
And the overly indulgent Noe and Clark segments in Destricted ruined it as a whole for me, even though the other pieces were much more insightful.
Damn, Anti-Superbad & Death Proof? Not sure what there is to hate in either of those.
I don't think the order is important, but in case you want one...
10. Mr. Woodcock – because of the title alone
9. Hannibal Rising – see the poster above. I also read the book and died of boredom. Yes, this is me writing from the afterlife, and it's the fault of Mr. Harris.
8. Hitman – because I still believe someone, someday will make a good move out of a video game.
7. Arthur and the Invisibles – because unlike Bratz, this movie-length advertisement has a big name to it.
6. Ghost Rider – even Cage couldn't save that shit. Though granted, his face was digitally removed some of the time, so it wasn't a fair challenge.
5. Evan Almighty – why the Christian outrage machine protested Golden Compass and not this one I will never understand.
4. License to Wed – because Robin Williams should be disallowed from starring in anything that even touches on trying to be funny.
3. The Ex – Zack Braff: please, just stop.
2. Norbit – I'm starting to doubt that Eddie Murphy has ever been funny.
1. The Reaping – Why hire a skeptical investigator when it will turn out to be a mystical godly shitstorm after all? Also, contains token character who is punished so the white heroine may see the light – good to see God is reliable that way.
This is what I've seen so far. I try to avoid guaranteed stinkers, though someone might drag me to National Treasure: Book of Secrets yet.
10. Shoot 'Em Up - I didn't hate it, but if you're going to tell us that the only reason I'm watching your movie is to see some fun action, make it fun, and make sure it's really, really well done.
9. I Am Legend - The first two acts have moments ranging from decent to pretty good, but the last act descends into utter, detestable nonsense.
8. Talk to Me 1.5 - Great performances don't redeem the biopic tropes this adheres to religiously. Could've been alright if it had stopped about halfway through.
7. The Golden Compass - Weitz's lack of trust in his ability to adapt the material he loves fumbles everything completely.
6. Fido - Please, please, please pick an internal logic and stick with it.
5. Blades of Glory - Every little physical or verbal tic Will Ferrell engages in is a testament to the man's comedic ability. Every other choice made in the movie is wrong.
4. Ming Ming - Style? Substance? Neither.
3. Severance - It'll be like Shaun of the Dead meets The Office! But sap everything good out of either!
2. Enchanted - Morally reprehensible and confused in its storytelling.
1. Black Sheep - Premise alone does not a movie make.
Huh. I have liked some horror comedies. I swear.
Given that I always check here and Rotten Tomatoes, I try to avoid movies deemed generally bad like the plague. But here are the ones that I either a) was forced to see, b) went in with semi-high hopes and left frustrated, or c) didn't give enough of a shit to protest seeing.
In somewhat chronological order...
Hannibal Rising
Reno 911!: Miami - Was really looking forward to this. Had to buy a large Mr. Pibb to keep myself awake through it's 75 minutes.
Because I Said So
Norbit
Ghost Rider
Planet Terror
License to Wed
Chuck and Larry
Avoided all the political crap (Elah, Rendition, Lambs, etc.) and The Golden Compass. Saw National Treasure, which wasn't so much awful as it was pathetic.
Rick,
I wouldn't say I'm anti-Death Proof...I just don't think I was ready for it that night.
But Superbad? Man, I had such high hopes for that thing. It turned me from an Apatow supporter to a rapid hater. (I know, he was just the producer...but it still has his name on it)
Comedy is supposed to be well-constructed and tight. Superbad was funny during the first 25%...and then it dragged...and dragged...and when it was dragging more, the characters kept saying "McLovin" as if it were supposed to be hilarious.
Gee, Michael Cera acting awkward? Hadn't seen that before.
Ultimately, I thought it was a lot of hype and ended up being nothing new.
Any movie with Apatow's name on it seems to be completely unwieldy in length and horribly overrated.
Gee, Michael Cera acting awkward? Hadn't seen that before.
Haha, very true. But you have to admit, he's pretty damn good at what he does, even if he is a one trick pony. Plus, he seemed to generate some chemistry and play off Hill's character, so it doesn't seem apparent that his roles are completely interchangeable.
And no Good Luck Chuck for the year's most vile? I take it no one could sit through that one.
Figure most of y'all have been spared the Canuck- monstrosity that is "Young Triffie" but rest assured, if faced with this title on a cold night in the video store, "Catch and Release" is indelible, Sturges-calibre whimsy by comparison ("Catch and Release" also in my year's worst---egads)
For sheer awfulness, depressing success and the most loathsome ensemble--featuring reasonably talented sorts--look no further than "Wild Hogs".
Worst prestige pic--"Legally Blonde 3" (aka-"Rendition")
Grotesquely overrated-"Knocked Up" and "Death Proof"
Worst Grindhouse movie: "Grindhouse"
Best Grindhouse Movie:
"I Know Who Killed Me"
FYI, I meant *PARANOID* PARK above. Make that error often.
Surprisingly, Captivity and I Know Who Killed Me were better than I had been led to believe. Neither movie works, but they aren't some of the year's worst. Hostel II, on the other hand, was one of the year's most disappointing failures. How Roth devolved from Cabin Fever to this crap... blech. It must be the over-inflated ego.
Otherwise, Transformers was nigh unwatchable, the direct-to-video cheapie Unholy (starring Adrienne Barbeau) absolutely fumbles some promising ambition, Gracie is a boring retread, Fracture is lifeless and idiotic, Redacted is painfully naive and regressively misanthropic, Black Sheep is retarded, Ocean's Thirteen is as smug and ugly as it is boring, and As You Like It made me want to punch Branagh in the dick.
After the pleasant surprise of I KNOW WHO KILLED ME I was really looking forward to CAPTIVITY, but man, there's just no there there.
Mr. Brooks
What a schizophrenic screenplay, what bad performances (excepting William Hurt as Kevin Costner's killer Id), what total nonsense from start to finish. To quote fellow critic Charles Tatum: it was as appetizing as "a ham sandwich floating in a steaming bowl of urine".
Captivity isn't easy to defend, but honestly, I mostly appreciated how surreal it was willing to be, and how effective it was in immersing the viewer into its scenario by refusing to go the Saw route with flashbacks. Hell, there is a 20-minute stretch during which almost no dialog is uttered, which is impressive. It's also refreshingly unpretentious about its "live by the camera, die by the camera" subtext, which links it thematically with I Know Who Killed Me. The vigilante ending is insulting though, without question.
As for Mr. Brooks... it was too entertaining in its exuberant retardation for me to dislike. I call that the Mindhunters Syndrome.
I guess I avoided most of the truly vile movies released this year, but I couldn't stand We are the Strange for being completely soulless and void of anything substantial.
And the overly indulgent Noe and Clark segments in Destricted ruined it as a whole for me, even though the other pieces were much more insightful.
Huh? What?
Did I hallucinate this comment?
Seriously, I haven't seen anything as bad as the undistributed Sundance pic Low and Behold all year. Are we allowed to be snarky then? I hate this movie so much that if it was a pregnant woman I would kick it until it miscarried.
Though We are the Strange does come close. As far as films most people could have plausibly seen however Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer, has a spot snug inbetween them at number 2. It's not just that it's a stupid movie, it's that it's proud of its stupidity. It reminded me of when Ryan Seacrest said something like "More people voted in this edition of American Idol than all presidential elections combined". What the hell? Why would the host of the show think that was something worth sharing?
Admittedly, I did get most of my bad movie viewing done at Sundance. Absolutely hated Fido and Hounddog.
Really hated Death at a Funeral. That was absolute hell for me, and I wouldn't want to meet the person who thinks that's a good night at the movies.
Ghost Rider and Evan Almighty were terrible if endurable. Whatever they were trying to do in Ghost Rider it just didn't work. And Evan Almighty is just kind of a nothing movie. I couldn't find one laugh in it. And why did he need all those animals anyway?
As far as overrated; I think that Once, in a very real sense, signals the death of the cinema. Just a very dead, self-indulgent, meaningless piece of drivel.
There were a few good sequences in Waitress, but it really is offensively misandrist and, I feel qualified enough to say this with five years of marriage and a bachelor's degree in the subject under my belt, very dumb about romantic relationships.
Ah, and Enchanted is just as bad as the trailers lead us to believe it is. A satire of fairy tales where the fairy tale princess arrives in a PG-sanitized New York and falls in love with a guy she only knows for three days (as opposed to one day, which is how it happens in fairy tales).
I probably have at least ten entries here:
10. Enchanted
9. Once
8. Evan Almighty
7. Waitress
6. Fido
5. Hounddog
4. Death at a Funeral
3. We are the Strange
2. Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer
1. Low and Behold
Yeah, Ghost Rider won't make the cut.
Was kind of surprised by Chuck and Larry. Definitely has more heart than brains, but the Gentleman's Agreement stuff where they genuinely take offense to homophobic slurs and prejudice because they have identified as gay (and particularly Sandler's comment that we shouldn't use the word "faggot" because that's "like kike for me"), I found that all genuinely heartfelt. And the seperate interviews during the court room scene make fairly explicit the homoerotic undertones to their buddy relationship; pretty edgy.
Also, I dunno, the action sequences (?!), high royalty songs, Jessica Biel's breasts, the overall flashiness of the thing kind of won me over.
Worst scene in the movie was when they are leaving the nightclub and all these protesters are there sloganing "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve". And they cut to a couple of drag queens crying. What the hell? Just because they're gay doesn't mean they're complete pussies. That far into accepting their gayness and they haven't learned to contextualize this sort of thing? Couldn't somebody have just shouted back at them, "You tell 'em honey, show those faggots who's boss?"
While we're at it we could also easily complain that the only gay in the movie is flamingly gay. No normal people just oriented into preferring the same sex.
No argument from me that the film is paternalistic, but I guess Sandler had set the bar so very low that that represents great progress to me.
These aren't the worst, but a tie for the most obnoxiously overrated would be Knocked Up and The Simpsons Movie. The former has about half of the laughs and charm as The 40 Year Old Virgin, and there are easily well over 100 episodes of The Simpsons with more laughs and convincing pathos than this movie, and those average around only 24 minutes in length!
Sorry, I suspect I am a made-sense-in-my-head kind of guy, let me rephrase:
Hated:
We are the Strange
Destricted
Sorry, I suspect I am a made-sense-in-my-head kind of guy, let me rephrase:
Hated:
We are the Strange
Destricted
No, the comment made sense. I'm just surprised you saw them.
Oh, gotcha.
I saw We are the Strange online mainly because I have a thing for 8-bit video games and Megaman music, but not even misplaced sentimentality could get me through that mess, whatever it was.
I ordered Destricted because I am a huge Noe fan, I love I Stand Alone, but his segment was a huge letdown. And like you previously stated, that strobing did have a techno-like hypnotic effect on me, but despite the overall visual appeal I think his other work has a hell of a lot more to say. Plus, in Clark's short, his questioning of his subjects didn't seem to go anywhere or reveal anything, I believe he just was creating filler before getting to the payoff. I would have rather heard less softball questions, and possibly more condescending interactions to try to get to the real reason why they were there. (roots of self-destruction, child of divorce, etc).
Oh, and maybe Payne's contributions to Chuck and Larry somehow injected some heart into that premise.
And lastly, Alex, you should try to get ahold of Taxidermia. Very up your alley. Original, funny, subversive, beautifully shot, and grotesque.
The Kingdom. I absolutely hated that pile of shit. Which is sad too coming from Peter Berg who brought us the light but watchable Run Down and the notable television series (at least the first season anyway) Friday Night Lights.
The Kingdom was the first movie I walked out of the theatre on.
I also despised Southland Tales and defy anyone to rightfully justify the credibility of the film other than to say it was "daring" or "original"
I mostly avoid movies I'm sure will suck, but I can say that The Number 23 is the most idiotic, soulless movie from a director for whom "idiotic and soulless" has become a calling card. Transformers was less technically inept, but way more offensive with or without self-deprecating quotation marks around every scene. Oh, and I saw The Game Plan because I worked on it as an extra. It's awful, but you don't need me to tell you that.
I really hated "Walk Hard" and have discovered that upon a second viewing I didn't laugh out loud once during "Knocked Up" or "Superbad". Maybe they aren't the kind of movies best viewed alone, but still...depressing. Most of my other targets are pretty easy except maybe "Year of the Dog", I wanted to scream "look how you are behaving now wonder your dog is the only one who liked you and he got sick of your shit and went to kill himself out of embarassment."
"Alvin and the Chipmunks" and "Underdog" lead me to believe that the pairing of Jason Lee and CGI animals is a match made in comedy hell.
"Premonition" really sucks alot, too.
I didn't think Premonition was that bad. Not a good film, but if you were to consider the reputation it's getting you'ld think it eats babies or something.
Forgot to include the sitting ducks, Epic Movie and Grandma's Boy. Won't include Grandma's Boy on my list as I consider it a marginally better film than Once, but you can put Epic Movie on there at number 6.
Grandma's Boy was 06.
Either I'm lucky or just not worldly enough, but the least good movie seen this year was 30 Days of Night. And that one was mainly just weak, rather than full-out bad. 2007 has been an extremely good year for film.
The Kingdom gets a bad rep because it treats its troop characters as CSI supermen, but it really takes time to equate the social problems in Saudi Arabia to those in the US. It's extremely critical of neoconservatism beneath it's rah-rah exterior, and I'm not just talking about the twist at the end.
It's not a great movie, trying a bit too hard to please everyone by staying superficially "moderate", but it also wasn't the propaganda reel it's made out to be.
Probably unfair to do so, but if I am just getting to know someone and see either Grandma's Boy, The Boondock Saints, or Super Troopers in their personal DVD collection, I immediately sum that person up and dismiss them as a short term acquaintance. Those are three reasons I will never glorify the frequent use of marijuana.
Grandma's Boy was 06.
Ah, so it was. So it was. Didn't need to apologize for forgetting then.
I liked The Kingdom quite a bit though. Better than something like Babel; the common thread of humanity between the United States and the Arab world proves to our love of good ole-fashioned Eye-for-an-Eye justice. That and our contempt for the people we hire to mow our lawns.
Found it kind of brilliant actually.
True that it would be damn near impossible to find any rational defenders, Alex, but the basic idea behind Epic Movie comes but once a year, and it never fails to piss me off anew--outright discouraging its audience to form opinions on popular entertainment, and using that as an invitation for blank laughter. But for all of their arguments of "it's supposed to be stupid!", these movies need to feel smarter than someone--what with the word "dumbshit" being so prominent in Epic Movie's vocabulary. (The 2008 model is Meet the Spartans, for anyone who hasn't heard or is still not tired of "this is Sparta" jokes.)
Similarly, Across the Universe ranks pretty highly on my incomplete list, it being the Bizarro/populist version of I'm Not There. Comparing those two films, you can pretty easily gauge the level of popular discourse concerning the artists they cover. I mean, I grew up on The Beatles, but Across the Universe's general disinterest in actually investigating what made them great is symptomatic of a mentality forged by decades of Lennon martyrdom and VH1 100 Greatest lists. A lot of stuff happened during the '60s, that's for sure, but this retrospective stance has afforded no sense of uncertainty or self-exploration--naming a Vietnam vet after "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and not exploring PTSD just seems like willful ignorance.
Grandma's Boy wasn't as bad as I expected. Allen Covert is a reasonably likable lead presence, and at least the movie embodies its slacker ethos by being absolutely unpretentious. It's infectiously goofy, and it ultimately seems to actually like its characters, lightly skewering them without stooping to outright condescension. The direction sucks, but hey, so does the direction in these Apatow movies.
I'm shocked that in the Meet the Spartans preview they didn't dub over "Hey, it's Brittney Spears!" in post. Those movies seem think the audience is too dumb to get any kind of references, no matter how obvious. The funniest scenes in Walk Hard were when they spoof that brand of condescending attitude of filmmakers towards their audience.
This one seems pretty damn repulsive, potentially suited for the most sickening of 2008.
Dammit guys, you have completely wiped clean all my dreams for a great 2008.
The chief thing that I'm getting from Meet the Spartans is that movies are getting way too easy to make. That's a pitch perfect recreation of 300 for a really stupid barely thought out joke. Which proves that 300 was really pretty easy to make.
Definitely, Maybe, the suggestion of Ryan Reynolds hitting on a pool of insecure suicidal women to find a date looks like it could have been a kind of brilliant attack on the romantic comedy genre. The emotional cruelty of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Failure to Launch taken to its logical extreme. If only that was what the film was about.
What creeps me out even more is the degradation Patrick Wolf's "Magic Position" is going to suffer in association.
I thought the brief interview segments in Clark’s “Impaled” adequately revealed just how naïve and delusional those guys are. Granted, in the case of someone who likes to parade porn on six (!) TV screens inside his car, there’s probably some pre-existing damage made manifest, but the effects of growing up in a world where porn is not only readily available, but most of the time free to view are all too apparent. You listen to these kids talk about pornography as something “one has their heart set on,” or wondering if they could ever “please a women on camera” and it reveals such shocking lack of perspective as to what the business really is and an almost unbearable loneliness on the part of the “contestants.” Which makes the calamity of the “payoff” that much more vital. It’s probably the greatest demystification of the porn industry ever filmed, without the primetime style focus on drugs and STDs. It’s sad and cruel and depressing. The species would only benefit from it being mandatory viewing in High School
I thought the brief interview segments in Clark’s “Impaled” adequately revealed just how naïve and delusional those guys are.
I totally agree, but his questioning never leads to why they have such a mindset, it more just shows the viewers that they DO have a warped and disconnected mindset. And Clark seems to "reward" the least conspicuous male by picking him to be in the final scene. And the awkward interlude of the sex scene is the only thing to suggest that showing us the whole sex scene itself is not exploitation. ( Similar to the scene in Ken Park with Maeve Quinlan, which seems to be the demystification of disconnected sex in general). But like Ken Park, he always dwells on the actual sex scenes, which seem to contradict his previous distinctions of fantasy versus reality. Clark has flashes of brilliance, but he never seems to hammer home the message starts, and never fails at getting sidetracked.
I'd say Meet the Spartans is the death knell for mainstream cinema but then I'd have to take into account how great this year was for movies. I must admit, ashamed, that the Spears gag in the trailer made me chuckle, mostly because it's played in a way that approaches the abrasively grotesque, and I'm sure the movie has already blown its one "heh" moment with that. (Also, why the fuck is Azamat in every movie now?)
W/r/t Walk Hard:
It's not that funny overall, but at least it has a certain level of intelligence and a perspective on the genre conventions it's spoofing, and Dewey Cox's Bob Dylan period had me in hysterics and made me swiftly download Royal Jelly as soon as I got home. (If you don't find "Mailboxes drip like lamposts in the twisted birth canal of the coliseum" to be hilarious, then you are an alien to me.) Still, I was disappointed that it wasn't played straighter like the others in the Apatow brood.
I totally agree, but his questioning never leads to why they have such a mindset, it more just shows the viewers that they DO have a warped and disconnected mindset. And Clark seems to "reward" the least conspicuous male by picking him to be in the final scene. And the awkward interlude of the sex scene is the only thing to suggest that showing us the whole sex scene itself is not exploitation. ( Similar to the scene in Ken Park with Maeve Quinlan, which seems to be the demystification of disconnected sex in general). But like Ken Park, he always dwells on the actual sex scenes, which seem to contradict his previous distinctions of fantasy versus reality. Clark has flashes of brilliance, but he never seems to hammer home the message starts, and never fails at getting sidetracked.
I dunno. I kind of liked that he didn't really go into it expecting to really uncover anything. I particularly found it fascinating how he (rather quietly) blended together the "fantasy" and "reality" elements simply by filming the sloppy sex scene in a slick professional manner and with a beautiful actress.
Not sure if I would have liked it as much if I watched it piece meal, but as part of the entire film I thought it helped to do something relatively conventional to help put those themes of hyperrealism, gender/power dynamics, and infantile sexuality in the proper context and to give a little room to breathe besides.
Shit, I really love that film. Seemed like too much to invest in a region-free disc player just to see it again though, particularly when I don't really need to stray out of Region 1 when I have so many films I've yet to see.
FYI y'all, our Top 10 list is up.
Happy New Year. Fuck you, 2007.
Hey Bill, I seem to remember at some stage there was a review of The Wire Season 1 DVD on FFC, but now I can't find it - am I delusional and insane, or was it here? Or both?
Actually LG, we've never reviewed any season of "The Wire", to our embarrassment.
I was dissapointed in There Will Be Blood ( I think Ed Gonalez got that movie so right) and I think Grindhouse is Tarantinos first misfire (to many long boring passages) Overall 2007 had some great movies (No Country for Old Men, Sweeney Todd), but it is dissapointing that Anderson and Tarantino didn't deliver.
Last thing regarding Destricted, probably should have taken it for what it was, rather than wishing that Clark and Noe would dig a little deeper, rather than just presenting and leaving the driving theories very wide open to interpretation. Clark's message seemed to start and end with the idea that the existence of porn itself leads to the actual belief in a tangible, male-dominant fantasy wonderland, when there are many more individualistic, psychological factors being ignored.
And after looking at Walter and Bill's top 10s, in retrospect it seems like 2007 was a very strong year. I think Margot at the Wedding and a few other gems could have made a top 10 any other year with ease.
Walter, I see Stephen King had "The Terror" by Dan Simmons listed in his top 10 books of the year. Was that your #1? (signs point to yes, as indicated from a previous posting)
I was dissapointed in There Will Be Blood ( I think Ed Gonalez got that movie so right)
Thanks for, that, anonymous. Sheesh, there's always got to be someone, right? "Citizen Kane wasn't good after all, here's the arbitary reason why!" Did There Will Be Blood lack the transforming robots your dumb ass desired? Or did it lack the racial "insight" that made you love Babel? Jerk.
We've got anonymous-on-anonymous violence!
Thomas Harris proved with Hannibal Rising that he's a terrible writer who was only able to catch lightning in a bottle once.
Technically, he's caught it twice - people always forget about BLACK SUNDAY (terrorist hijack Goodyear Blimp at the Super Bowl).
I was dissapointed in There Will Be Blood ( I think Ed Gonalez got that movie so right)
I'd like to kick you and Ed Gonzalez both in the teeth, and then in the nuts, and then back in the teeth. His 2007 Top 10 List was the most portentious list since... his 2006 Top 10 List.
Oh... and Citizen Kane blows Llamas. Here's the arbitrary reason why... it loves Llama semen.
Transformers was a special kind of awful. It literally felt like my family was being raped in front of me, only to have the assailant turn around and say, "This would have never happened if you'd have joined the war on terror!" Blech.
Onto things which don't suck...if any FFCers are in the NYC area, the Film Forum is screening a new print of "Last Year At Marienbad" from the 18th to the 31st. It's gonna be "the balls", as they say.
Cheers.
Ed's list was "portentious"? That sounds bad.
Ha... caught me there.
Spellings aside, (to pick on spellings is fairly portentous in itself) give me Nick Schager's list anyday. Gonzalez has always been like Rosenbaum for me, strangely fascinating in his taste but may as well be a fucking alien. His list is portentous because it sets itself apart not as a natural extrapolation of its identity, but for the sake of setting itself apart. Its what I like to call "poke you in the eye while I blow you" list.
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Mayhaps "pretentious"?
por·ten·tous :
Marked by pompousness; pretentiously weighty.
puffed up with vanity; "a grandiloquent and boastful manner"; "overblown oratory"; "a pompous speech"; "pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and pontifical hooey"
When I googled it, it said,
"por·ten·tous
–adjective
1. of the nature of a portent momentous.
2. ominously significant or indicative: a portentous defeat.
3. marvelous; amazing; prodigious."
looking deeper, I also find your meaning. Huh. So do you mean amazing or pompous?
I'm haunted by that conjured image of llama semen. Just when I thought I'd heard every dismissive kiss-off line...
And of course my word verification is "ufuxe." (Think about it.)
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