On Film

I. What I Like In A Movie

My tastes in music and movies are quite similar: I favor things that aim for the mainstream or mass acceptance, while avoiding all of the easiest cliches and devices normally associated with such product. There's certainly something to be said for experimental or art cinema, but I often just don't find those movies satisfying. In general, if a film spends all of its time running around the idea of expressing emotion vividly -- if it's just too icy or reserved, as I find so many intellectual-oriented films to be -- I just can't love it. I can appreciate it, but I can't love it. As someone who considers themselves to be a writer, I also obviously tend to be more script-oriented (plot/dialogue) in my evaluation of whether or not a given movie is any good; acting, directing, and overall tone matter a lot, but I can rarely forgive bad dialogue.

As far as my technical eye goes, I do OK, though I'm by no means an expert on such things; I'm reluctant to say I'd like more "training" in such devices, since it can't help but affect the way you watch movies profoundly. I'm already cutting up comic books in my brain that way; it's nice to have a medium where I don't have to be as focused on the nuts and bolts at all times. Of course, I have coworkers who are serious movie snobs (we are talking about a dude who sees an average of more than one movie a day over the course of a year, almost none of them distributed by a major studio), but I can more than hold my own in a conversation about film with, you know, 99% of normal people. I'd be lying if I said not being a true snob wasn't sometimes frustrating. Believe me, there are few looks one human being can give another that is more poisonous than the look I get from some of the people I know when I tell them that Pirates Of The Carribean: Dead Man's Chest was one of my favorite movies of the year. There's always a part of you that aspires to be seen as more intellectual than everyone else, even if it is a false distinction; but fuck it, I likes what I likes. I'm pretty proud of the formula I managed to boil my taste down to on my MySpace profile:

"Anything with dinosaurs in it; anything with Catherine Keener in it. Also My Beautiful Laundrette, which contains neither."

II. How I Like To Watch Movies

There really is nothing better than a good movie theatre for watching a movie. There's nothing worse than a bad one, of course, and there are so many factors that can kill the moviegoing experience -- uncomfortable seats (especially tough on tall folks like myself), horrendously rude patrons (i.e. about 70% of Americans), shitty projection, poor facilities -- but when it goes right there's no better way to watch a movie. If I'm watching something on DVD at home, my attention span can't help but waver (my laptop is always nearby) and it's not like I have a particularly impressive home theatre setup, so quality of experience always takes a hit. I'm an anachronism as a music industry consumer (yes, I still buy almost all of my music on CDs; I am, at the most recent count, the absolute last American male under 35 to be doing so), and I'm an anachronism as a consumer of films as well, since I hate BitTorrenting them (video just looks like shit on a computer, there's no way around it) and I prefer not to watch at home when possible. Of course, I do have Netflix, but I've downgraded myself to a one-disc-at-a-time plan because I simply do not go through them fast enough to justify anything more expensive. It takes me an average of a week and a half, or even two, to summon up the will to sit down in front of the television for two hours and watch a movie. Of course, I'm perfectly happy to stare at the internet for five hours; why the double standard, I do not know.

Also, allow me to take this opportunity to bitch about how poor Netflix's social-networking features are if you're not going between Netflix members. I would kill to be able to link you to my queue page, but unless I'm a total dumbshit, I just don't know how to do it in a way that allows all comers to see it. I also wish they had some kind of API for outputting reviews and ratings to one's website in a relatively pain-free way. Sigh. I couldn't agree with Adam more about this idea.

III. The Movies I Love

First off, there's the formula above, which obviously accounts for, well, My Beautiful Laundrette, plus all three Jurassic Park movies and Being John Malkovich. (And how bad do I want Catherine Keener to appear in a Jurassic Park movie herself? SO BAD.) But I'll throw a big ridiculous list out there anyway (which will veer into alphabetization at the moment I started looking at my DVD rack for inspiration): Fight Club, Rushmore, South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, Network, Moulin Rouge!, Chinatown, Do The Right Thing, Edward Scissorhands, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Glengary Glen Ross, Good Night And Good Luck, Monty Python And The Holy Grail, The New World, Twenty-Four Hour Party People, Alien, Blade Runner, Hedwig & The Angry Inch, The Rocky Horror Picture Show... you're starting to see what I mean when I say my tastes are horribly mainstream, aren't you?

IV. The Movies Of 2006

I saw a lot of movies in 2006, many of them a result of participating in The Movie Binge, and not all of them were good. At all. But you can imagine how pissed I was to have seen so many movies and then, when the Oscar noms were announced, to have only seen two of the Best Picture nominees, *none* of the Best Actor performances, etc. etc. Indeed, they nominated out the wazoo a film I desperately steered clear of, since it looked terrible, sounded terrible, and was reported to be terrible by people I trusted (Babel). I have since learned that the Academy really is fucking clueless and I was right to avoid most of the movies I avoided. But still, it's the principle of the thing.

Anyway, here for posterity is a complete list of the 2006 movies that I've seen. They're not ranked, just grouped by quality, and the order within the groupings is irrelevant. Half Nelson is on its way to me today from Netflix, and God knows I'll probably break down and see Babel before the big show on the 25th (maybe I will just download that one, since it really doesn't strike me as a film I need to be supporting with my cash), so I am still trying to get that much more coverage purely as a parlor game, I guess (though I am really looking forward to Half Nelson)...

Loved It:
TRISTRAM SHANDY
TALLADEGA NIGHTS
CHILDREN OF MEN
THE DEPARTED
A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION
VOLVER
CASINO ROYALE
PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST

Liked It:
THE HISTORY BOYS
V FOR VENDETTA
SHORTBUS
THE QUEEN
BORAT
QUINCEANERA
THE DESCENT
BRICK
FRIENDS WITH MONEY
THE WAR TAPES
THE PRESTIGE
THE PROPOSITION
THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

Just OK or Not So Good:
MIAMI VICE
SUPERMAN RETURNS
WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?
X-MEN: THE LAST STAND
LITTLE CHILDREN
MARIE ANTOINETTE
TIME TO LEAVE
CARS
WORDPLAY
THE ILLUSIONIST
STRANGERS WITH CANDY
PEACEFUL WARRIOR
HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS
KEEPING MUM
RENAISSANCE
THE FOUNTAIN
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

Terrible:
LADY IN THE WATER
THE MOSTLY UNFABULOUS SOCIAL LIFE OF ETHAN GREEN
SNAKES ON A PLANE
CLICK
JOHN TUCKER MUST DIE
PULSE
TRUST THE MAN

Didn't See But Wanted To:
INSIDE MAN
DAVE CHAPELLE'S BLOCK PARTY
HARD CANDY
UNITED 93
A SCANNER DARKLY
THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP
INLAND EMPIRE
PAN'S LABYRINTH
BABEL
NOTES ON A SCANDAL
APOCALYPTO
HALF NELSON
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS