RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #15 & THE ARISTOCRATS

As I mentioned a couple days ago, I have watched The Aristocrats thrice over the past month. Now, most people would hear a statement like that, and with the barest knowledge of information regarding the film's subject matter: that is, the delineation, history and constant retelling of a very old, very worn-out joke of vaudevillian origins and disgusting comportment, one would guess that I found the movie amazingly hilarious. Well... no. Honestly, I didn't laugh a whole lot during the film, and especially not at the sections dealing with the telling of the joke, wherein a father goes to a talent agent, tells them that he has the most amazing family act, proceeds to outline to the agent the disgusting lengths that the family goes to impress the audience, all of it involving every form of bodily excretion, incestuous sexual combination and orifice prop insertion imaginable, and then tells the agent the name of the act, which, in most versions, turns out to be "The Aristocrats". Stunned silence? It's not that great a joke. On the surface.

The truth of the matter, while the film is so in your face with its outrageousness, most of the tellings of the joke by comedians both famous and infamous end up kind of flat, because the joke is really a sort of "you had to be there" experience. And the place you had to be is backstage at a comedy club, or the back room at Sardi's, or on the road with a group of riffing comedians taking a swing at stand-up's version of a jazz standard, blues jam, or tap dance challenge. It's an inside joke, or rather, a backstage joke, and whether comedians deny they know the joke or not, they all do, and with feigned reluctance on the part of some, they will then launch into a joke detailing the places where a crap-encrusted tampon should not go on a family member.

Now that I think about it, this film was hilarious; just not in the ways I expected, and not in the "laugh out loud" way. What is fascinating about the film is the way in which you get an idea of the true breadth of style in stand-up comedy. What is amazing is the sheer variety of ways that a person can tell the same joke, with each one adding their own unique personal style to the affair. The expectedly graphic and sadistic manner that you expect George Carlin to tell the joke is not the same as the rambling way Jake Johannsen tells it is not the same as the stuttering, almost apologetic way that Paul Reiser tells is not the same way that... well, you get it. And it's certainly not the same way that the street mime, in full view of an ignoring crowd, enacts every horrible act on a boardwalk. Or the way the ventriloquist keeps messing up the joke, so his dummy reprimands him with increasingly vulgar insults and tells the joke properly. Or the way Tim Conway tells the joke in a very clean fashion (his "old man" character falls asleep at the beginning after taking five minutes to walk towards the camera). Or the way... oh, see it for yourself.

Now, despite my reputation for saying the worst things at totally inappropriate times, on purpose and often for shock value (no sacred cows in my world, up to and including sacred cows), and despite the fact that I am the first and most unswervable proponent of the First Amendment, I need to make something clear here: just because you have the right to say unbelievably filthy words, doesn't mean that you should necessarily say those filthy words. Like many people, I can swear up a storm, but ideally, I like to pick and choose my moments. I like to say things when they are going to get the most impact. A few friends and colleagues are shocked by how "clean" my blogs have turned out to be (though some may have noticed that I did quote from Darkman yesterday, and that the quote describes something your father is saying to your mom right now. Yes, especially is she is dead...) This is out of choice, and the fact that I am writing for myself, and while decorum is not the standard here, it is just the way things are. Besides, I yell the "C-word" out loud between each and every paragraph...

Here in The Aristocrats, though, there is no valve that switches the blue language off and on, and if there is, it is obviously in need of some loving from some WD-40, because it's decidedly stuck in the on position. There are jokes that you share with everyone in your life: people at work by the water cooler, people at the bus stop, neighbors,whatever; and there are jokes that you share only with friends, people that you are secure enough with to be able to let loose and rip out whatever lame, filthy, disgusting joke and know that it is, most likely, given the circumstances, gonna kill. "The Aristocrats" is one of those jokes: a backstage between-the-comedians construct used to test the limits of other comedians, a jazz riff for the potty-mouthed. And in this film, we are given a look into that weird, backstage world; we are taken behind the scenes of bars, clubs, restaurants, and sometimes into the homes of the comedians themselves. Onstage, where the joke is perpertrated very rarely, it decidedly does not kill. But backstage? Half of them deny the power of this "awful" shaggy dog joke, but they all have a version of it lurking in the wings, ready to pounce, full of excretion, eager to burst upon the unsuspecting and willing alike.

Just be warned: if you are at all insulted by ANYTHING IN THE WORLD, you will find it in this movie. If you are sensitive to dead baby jokes, this movie is not for you. If you are even a smidgeon of what I like to call "a pussy", you will not be able to get through this film. Now, when I told this caveat to my co-workers, all of them very nice, seemingly normal people, the general reaction was "What? I've gotta see that!"

Which is precisely the reaction for which I hoped. My evil work continues unabated...

The List:
V for Vendetta (2006) - 7; The Aristocrats (2005) (DVD) - 7; Thank You For Smoking (2006) - 7; Mammoth (2005) (Sci-Fi Channel) - 4; The Invisible Boy (1957) (TCM) - 5; Mule Skinner Blues (2001) (Sundance) - 6; The Odyssey (1997) (Sci-Fi Channel) - 6; Jason and the Argonauts (2002) (Sci-Fi Channel) - 6; Shallow Grave (1994) (IFC) - 7.

FIVE DISCS OF DEATH #1

Martin (1977)
Dir: George A. Romero
Cinema 4 Rating: 7
The third Romero film that I ever saw, after the opening two Dead films, and while it is not on a par with those two classic walking-dead fests, it is certainly a most unique film of its own right. Look past the sometimes amateurish acting, a common factor of many of Romero's homegrown films, and get into the strange story of a young, very disturbed man who might or might not be a vampire: are his blood-drinking ways proof that he is a modern Dracula? If he is, why is he not susceptible to the things that normally spell a vampire's ruin: the sun, garlic, crosses, holy water? Is he really having this much difficulty acquiring blood, or is everything in his head? With an opening sequence that made me fall off the couch, literally, the first time I watched it; it's well-filmed, but that wasn't the reason, but rather the fact that I was still a relative neophyte in the world of the psychotronic, and really wasn't prepared for such a scene. And of course, acting, recognizable stuntwork and makeup effects by Tom Savini; a triple bonus. And is that a vibrator in the glove compartment?

Darkman (1990)
Dir: Sam Raimi
Cinema 4 Rating: 7
Some people say that this is Sam Raimi's first shot at the superhero genre, but then I ask: what the hell is Ash? Sure, he has no superpowers, but neither does Batman, the Punisher or a host of other "superheroes". He fights the Evil Dead -- sometimes becoming them, true -- but he always rallies to fight the threat of soul-swallowing evil off. He also uses gadgets to fight the evil, too, just like Batman, and you can't tell me that Ash hasn't taken on the iconic persona of a true superhero. Of course, it was the film after Darkman that truly sealed that deal, Army of Darkness. But, in Darkman, Raimi had all the moves of a comic book down already; a true fan obviously, and one who wasn't afraid to dabble in the silliness inherent in the genre, while still paying obeisance to its serious side, as well. Liam Neeson is fine as the obsessed and quite mad hero, though he seems to be mad already before his accident, but it is Larry Drake who makes the biggest impression as the evil Robert G. Durant, he of the finger-chopping cigar-cutter. Also: gratuitous Ted Raimi, cameos by Jenny Agutter, John Landis, and in a big surprise, that Ash guy... uh, Bruce something... "Take the fucking elephant!" Nuff said!

Dark City (1998)
Dir: Alex Proyas
Cinema 4 Rating: 8
I loved this movie so much when it came out. It became one of those films that I would drag more and more people to see just so I have an excuse to go again. (Most of my friends like to do the "40 people at a time" version of film-going; that has its moments, but I prefer my way, just in case I run into a film that I just have to share. Again and again, that is...) Strangely, I purchased the DVD when it was first released years ago, and after that initial home viewing, I haven't watched it since. Perhaps the time is ripe for a revisiting. Rufus Sewell is one of those guys that I just knew was going to become a huge movie star, and it never really happened, though he does get some ripe villainous work here and there. (He is English, after all...) And why Richard O'Brien doesn't work more is beyond me. Mr. Hand is so devilishly creepy, which O'Brien has specialized since he brought the beloved Riff-Raff into the world in Rocky Horror. It also affords the viewer one of the last decent looks at Jennifer Connelly before she got too freakishly thin (i.e., unattractive). Time for a fresh viewing...

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)
Dir: Larry Blamire
Cinema 4 Rating: 7
Sure, it's cheaply filmed, and seems to be one-take on many scenes... that's the point, people! How I wish that this film were around when I were young; it would probably be my favorite film by this point. Proof of its brilliance? Watch the American Cinematheque Q&A session with director/writer/star Larry Blamire and see him unblinkingly describe the plot to his now-in-production followup, Trail of the Screaming Forehead, in an almost deadpan fashion, as if a film about an invasion of crawling alien foreheads was such an obvious, natural choice for a film. Watch for the stultifyingly pitch-perfect faux 50's sci-fi dialogue; aliens who face a life-and-death struggle ascending a simple set of stairs; a peachy dance sequence with aliens Kro-bar and Lattis; the sultry four-animal mash-up Animala, who makes me have many illicit thoughts; the cutest killer monster in the last forty years of bad monster costumes; and the phoniest and funniest villainous laugh in eons. (Note: Still need to get Jen to watch this, even though we first saw the trailer together when we flew to Seattle from Anchorage to see Bubba Ho-Tep. That's right: we flew thousands of miles to see it...)

La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast) (1946)
Dir: Jean Cocteau
Cinema 4 Rating: 9
THE CRITERION COLLECTION #006
If not the best, then one of the best film adaptations of a classic fairy tale, and certainly tops in the Beauty and the Beast race. (Sorry, Disney nuts. That film is fun, but this one is true art.) A painterly (unsurprising, given the background of groundbreaking artist Cocteau) vision of impossible romance, lush in design, cinematography, costuming, choreography, and film technique; and painfully enacted by leads Jean Marais and Josette Day in a love story for the ages. For the horror-minded: technically, a lycanthopy film, as are all versions, but the thrust in this story is on the romance and the magic in the Beast's castle, not on the supernatural aspect of Avenant's transformation into the Beast. (I've actually read people who counted this as a borderline werewolf film.) Every step of the way reveals more and more wonders, but a caveat: the transformed prince is a schlub. Garbo famously dismissed the ending as disappointing, and it is to a certain degree. But what a journey to that ending! Essential for anyone interested in film history, not just fairy tales. And if you like human-hand light fixtures...

THERE'S A RIOT GOIN' ON... #1

Over at the Cel Bloc, where I have all the fun to myself, the concentration for the last week or so has been on Max Fleischer's Color Classics, which I have been reviewing from the excellent Somewhere in Dreamland 2 -disc DVD set that I recently procured on the internet. I already owned several of these on some public domain discs of ill repute, so it was nice to locate some slightly finer and, in some cases, even terrific condition. Not that any of the original film elements are on display; those are vaulted away by an evil film studio of whom I wish a pox upon. There are several evil film studios which I wish a pox upon, but for now, I will settle with cursing the likes of Republic Entertainment for withholding important cultural artifacts. Shame...

It is far too common an occurrence these days, where series like the wonderful Fleischer Popeye cartoons are almost wholly unviewable (except for a handful of public domain Squinties that have sneaked through the cracks) because of a protracted dispute between Turner Entertainment, who are apparently preparing to release the films the instant everything clears up, and King Features Syndicate, who own the actual copyright to Popeye and cast. King Features should be forced by the courts to give up their rights for the desecration that they have made of Popeye over the last 50 years via bad television shows and a bland comic strip. I know there is no such law that can retract a character for corporate misuse, but if ever there were a case that could create such a law, this is it.

Now, I own many of these cartoons from taping The Popeye Show and Late Night Black and White for several years on that channel that used to show good cartoons, but now is blustery and whiny in its defense for switching slowly to execrable live-action fare like Saved By the Bell. (I keep waiting For such an animation fan, I watch very little of a station that still shows mostly cartoons. Why is that? Of the current schedule, the only shows that I watch with even middling frequency are Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Home Movies, Full Metal Alchemist, Samurai Champloo, and reruns of Futurama. Most of the rest is crap -- no hold barred -- crap, though occasionally some other decent anime series do get shown, and I still am interested in checking out Moral Orel. But on the whole, the station is, by my count, about 73% unwatchable. But, up until a couple years ago, they still showed the occasional Popeye short, albeit around 4 in the morning, but at least they showed them. But, where does find them now? Nowhere...

Three corporations: Republic Entertainment; King Features Syndicate; The Cartoon Network.
Three poxes wished upon them: 1; 2; 3.

Do right by animation fans, jerks. Your audience is there -- cater to them. In the case of the two studios, you'll make more money releasing Official DVD Editions of the cartoons than you will letting them languish on the shelf gathering more dust. Your profits may be smaller than if you released a huge blockbuster film, but there is a definite audience out there waiting to hop on a Complete Fleischer Popeye set. Check out what Rhino does with their Handmade series of short run CD soundtracks. You don't need to make a run of 836,000 copies; a small, finite run will do, but release something. The fans will appreciate a job well done, and believe me, the animation community will celebrate and, more important to you suity types, we will publicize such an event.

The past week on the Cinema 4: Cel Bloc:

• Sunday, April 16, 2006: Poor Cinderella (1934) Cel Bloc Rating: 7
• Monday, April 17, 2006: Little Dutch Mill (1934) Cel Bloc Rating: 6
  
• Tuesday, April 18, 2006: An Elephant Never Forgets (1934) Cel Bloc Rating: 6
  
• Wednesday, April 19, 2006: Song of the Birds (1935) Cel Bloc Rating: 6
  
• Thursday, April 20, 2006: Dancing on the Moon (1935) Cel Bloc Rating: 7
  
• Friday, April 21, 2006: Somewhere in Dreamland (1936) Cel Bloc Rating: 6
  
• Saturday, April 22, 2006: The Little Stranger (1936) Cel Bloc Rating: 5
  

PYLON: RESET, REFOCUSING AND RETUNING

"If you're gonna do something, do it! If you fall in the mud, maybe you'll come out a gorilla!" - Beanie Andrew, Mule Skinner Blues


It's been over a month since I posted on the Pylon. It's been almost six weeks since I zipped through my three-day Oscar weekend blurpost, catching up on all manner of Hollywood effluvia and star worship, racing to get my picks up in time for yet another semi-disappointing under-event. In the six weeks since then, I have only gotten to the movies twice, both with great success: V for Vendetta and Thank You For Smoking. I have only watched about five movies on DVD in that period, and one of them, The Aristocrats, I watched three times over a four-week period. Netflix must hate me for hanging onto films so long. I have three others sitting here in my apartment that I have had for over a week, and I have yet to work up the compulsion to watch them. That's the one problem with a program like N-Flix: you return one that you have watched, and a new one shows up a couple days later -- but what if you don't feel like watching a movie at that time? The movie sits there on your coffee table, nagging at you to watch it, day and night, and soon you just begin to resent its prescence in your home. So, you keep not watching it, and it sits there longer and longer -- until finally, you simply return the thing unseen. I, too, have done this in the last month.

So, what's up with the non-movie watching? Oh, I've been watching movies on TCM and Sci-Fi (no real way to watch any movie, this last one -- but, oh well...), and as said, I really zeroed in on The Aristocrats. No, it's not that I'm boycotting movies or anything of that ilk. I've just really only been attracted to really strange films lately; and by strange, I don't mean that they fall into the psychotronic range exclusively, which is the area where I normally prefer my films. No, by strange, I mean that I've only been checking out films lately that skew about 180 degrees from the place where my head is at that particular moment. It's my way of having cinematic adventures without keying into one genre. And this often means that I am incredibly selective about what I want to watch, though I am unable to plan ahead on what I watch.

But, I've been watching a lot of movies, actually -- it's just that they are short, little movies. Short, little animated movies. I've been concentrating on cartoons, people. And I've been writing about them -- a lot. I have been spending a large portion of my spare time working on posts for my other blogsite, Cinema 4: Cel Bloc. The thrust of the project is simply to engage myself in an exercise that keeps me writing each and every day, and thus far, I have been successful in that regard. Each day I post a review of a different cartoon: some famous, some not so, and I have tried to mix the varying studios so as to not get stuck in a rut with one character for too long. Sometimes, I have themes running, though: the last week plus has been a focus on the Max Fleischer Color Classics, and just before that, I posted several days of Bosko cartoons.

Which brings me to this blogsite. I am trying to rev up a few new regular columns within the Pylon, and one of them will be THERE'S A RIOT GOIN' ON, which will consist of a weekly recap of the previous week's Cel Bloc Reviews. Nothing much to it, but a transparent attempt to drive traffic to the other site.

Another new feature will be one called SLIPPED DISCS, where I will focus on a movie which has always been a particular favorite of mine, but which has fallen into the cracks in regards to my retaining a copy in my collection, either VHS or DVD. Sometimes, it will be a call for a favorite film to be released on DVD. But it will always shine a light on a movie near and dear to my heart, whether good or bad, whether neglected big studio picture or fringe obscurity.

Desert Island lists are always popular, but I can't choose just five films for such a list, no matter what I do. Yes, I have five films that I could name right off, but I would have an incredibly hard time stopping. Besides, my life now feels like I am on that desert island, so secluded from my friends and family, and once I departed with about 80% of my videotape collection, my DVD collection became my reservoir of cinematic happiness. Unlike the VHS collection, where I would tape just about anything that even mildly interested me, the DVD collection has been, for the most part, carefully selected most of the way, with only the films that I truly desire to rewatch and study making their way into my Hall of Fame. Perhaps "Hall of Fame" is a little too hyperbolic as a descriptive, because there are some pretty crappy films in the mix, too -- but, like anyone, I have bad movie favorites, too.

Thus, I am starting a non-chronological, non-alphabetical, non-ordered-in-any-way revisitation of the films in my DVD collection, and in honor of the Desert Island theory, I will call the feature, FIVE DISCS OF DEATH. Nothing grand; just quick-hit little paragraphs on each disc recounting exactly why and possibly how each disc found its way into the Canon. Of course, I said this same thing about the proposed brevity of the reviews on Cinema 4: Cel Bloc, and we all know what happened there.

Oh, you don't? Well, then... click here.

See you tomorrow...

MINYA (MISSES HIS DAD)

My Favorite Films of 2005: Not Quite a "Best of"...

I don't watch films the way everyone else does. No two people watch films the same way. Everyone brings to the theatre all of the knowledge and pain and memories and weightiness of their lives, and when they view a film, all of this baggage ricochets around the cargo holds in their brains as they process the imagery before them. Their opinion will depend entirely on their previous life experiences. Some people don't like to think at all when they go to the movies, and would like to deny this behavior, but they are wrong. All forms of art, including film, are dependent upon the understanding and opinion of the observer, and that opinion is formed by the individual's personality, which, in turn, is forged by their life experience. Because of this, no two people agree about everything.

Jen and I don't agree on every film. We agree on a lot of them, but not all, and we sometimes agree but for entirely different reasons. I know that some of my favorite films of the year are hers, too; but not all of them. Since we are unlikely to get her to post a list of her favorite films of the year, this means that you, dear reader, are left with my humble list. You may not agree with all of them, and if you don't, feel free to comment. I will listen to your opinion, as long as it is reasonable, but my list is not changing. Unless I forgot something...

In alphabetical order, since I don't like numbered lists, are my choices:

BATMAN BEGINS - Christian Bale and Christopher Doyle give me renewed hope for the franchise containing my favorite comic book character of all time. And by this, I mean Bat-Mite... Great villains, gloomy and sometimes scary atmospherics, the right Bruce/Batman (finally), and Michael Caine's perfect Alfred sum up the experience: sublime. Still can't buy Katie Holmes as a D.A., unless it means "Dumb Ass," but you can't have everything and she's cute. Comic book movies are supposed to leave you wanting more, but this is a case where it is completely warranted. I am almost literally drooling over the possibilities that this series could yield up on the screen; unfortunately, wrongheaded rumors are driving me crazy almost daily, and I have had to cut off my pipeline of these mumblings. I will simply wait, be patient, and watch this film endlessly for the next three years. Hope the disc holds up...

CAPOTE - Read many of Capote's works growing up; seen Capote in a lot of interviews and a couple of movies, too. Still not prepared for the voice that Phillip Seymour Hoffman brought to the role. (I don't mean his literal "voice", but that is terrific, too; it is far more than mere impersonation.) A mind-blowing, painful performance, but everyone in this film gives one, including Catherine Keener, justly nominated for playing Capote peer and assistant Harper Lee. But Hoffman is the real show, and he proves this throughout, especially in the later prison scenes where his guilt slowly eats away at him.

THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN - The funniest film of the year, and the second most romantic on my list ( has that title, but only by the narrowest of margins. (Brokeback Mountain is probably the deepest and most painful romance story, and it is very good, but it is not on my list because it has little second viewing power over me.) It seems at first, like the similarly wacky Wedding Crashers, to be just a gross-out guy's movie, but like that other swell comedy, this one is really a romantic comedy in disguise. I just liked this one a bit more than Crashers. Virgin never downplays Steve Carell's geekiness, but neither does it allow him to become the butt of the joke, either. His geek is an engaging, cheer-worthy hero; likewise, a very sexy Catherine Keener plays the hell out of her MILF role. This is the sort of film that could make the world safe for R-rated comedies again.

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK - Would have been my favorite film of the year if I hadn't already been entranced by the Cronenberg flick below. I grew up with a tape of Edward R. Murrow's London recordings, and they fascinated me as I listened to them at night before bedtime on countless occasions. (The cadences of his voice still ring as very fresh in my mind.) Having read a couple biographies of the man, and being ashamed of our government's behavior in not just the McCarthy era, and fully agreeing with the ties that director George Clooney is making to our current corrupt administration and gutless news media, I might seem like I am a ready-made target audience for this film. And you would be right on all counts, but you can also throw in that I am a sucker for black-and-white films, too. Guilty as charged.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE - David Cronenberg knocks one of the park, and it's a tape measure shot. That this film is not up for Best Picture, and that D.C. won't be riding home with the Best Director award under his arm are vicious slaps in his face from the Academy. As much as Capote begins with Murder in the Heartland, this film internalizes that concept to the point that the protagonist, played with surface-bubbling intensity by a stellar Viggo Mortensen in the best role he will ever get, doesn't either know, remember or wish to remember that he was once Murder's most adept spokesman. Cronenberg has always been about mankind's evolution into a sleeker, crueler beast; here the New Flesh is grown on the inside, and growling and waiting for its call back to action.

KING KONG - No surprise here. Peter Jackson pulled off the impossible: impossible for anyone else but him, that is... His new Kong will now live happily in my mind next to the 1933 original, not so much as a remake as much as it is a re-visioning. It is not designed to wipe out the memory of its older cousin, but merely to complement it (except for that stupid running down the mountain with the dinosaurs scene). And Naomi Watts? Yet again, robbed of Oscar glory...

SERENITY - This one saddens me, because no one went to it, even with all of the publicity surrounding its revival and release. This is exactly the sort of film that all of the Star Wars geeks have been wanting out of Lucas for the last 20-some years, and the critics loved it almost to unanimous acclaim, and then it shows up... and NO ONE FUCKING GOES TO IT!!! Screw you, American audiences!!! Hope you enjoyed Flightplan in its second week, assholes, because you certainly helped that far lesser movie beat out Serenity on its premiere weekend. I still haven't seen if Serenity has been released in the Pacific Rim areas, because I suspect it will do pretty well there, but the damage is done. The franchise has probably been killed off for good, and if there were a couple of other films to come, they are most likely over now. Serenity is what the original Star Wars would have been if it had made now. So, go ahead and cry that no one makes great sci-fi anymore, because you freakin' missed it...

SIN CITY - Brilliant. Savage. Disgusting. Hilarious. Heartbreaking. Gorgeous. I haven't bought the DVD yet (much like Kill Bill, because I was waiting for a Special Edition, which has now come out for this film but not the Tarantino epic), but when I soon do, I know I am going to watch it about a trillion times over. The acting by the cast is nervy and fun, even Jessica Alba (who is proving to at least be a special effect of her own), and is even better considering just how little the actors had to interact with in filming it. More so than any of the latter Star Wars flicks, this is the film that proves that digital filmmaking can push films in general into exciting new directions. It's not the tools, George, it's how you use them... Robert Rodriguez can make great films, not just fun action films; this film is the proof. And welcome back to Mickey Rourke, whose role of Marv (thanks, Mr. Lowe -- see comments box for proof of my idiocy) went unrewarded by Academic mention. Just another place where they are dead wrong... Kill 'em all, Marv...

WALLACE AND GROMIT IN THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT - I called The 40 Year Old Virgin the funniest film of the year, which I stand by, but this one sent me into equally dangerous fits of laughter, as well. I haven't seen Howl's Moving Castle yet (a horrible error in timing on my part), but I would give this film the Oscar for Animated Feature simply because Miyazaki already has one (though he should get an Honorary one for each and every film he has ever made). Of course, Nick Park already has three Oscars for animated shorts, so call it a toss-up... just like the bunnies flying about inside the vacuum tube in this film. The film is just too much fun to believe. It's a shame that it will always be labeled a "children's" film... most of the children that I know don't deserve the honor.

That's the list, folks. There are many stragglers that I haven't seen yet, like Broken Flowers, North Country and The Aristocrats, so my list is always up for revision. If there is, you know where to find it. It is only an accident that there are ten films on the list; it could easily hold twenty or more if I felt like sitting here and making it that long. And also if more films deserved it. It's called "The Best Films of the Year 2005" not "All of the Films of the Year 2005". You gotta stop somewhere, but I could add a couple more when all is said and done.

See you at the Oscars...

RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #14 (PRE-OSCAR CATCH-UP)

We are trying desperately to catch up on the Oscar-nominated films still in theatres at this time. Why? I guess it's mainly because we want to have seen most of them before the ceremony comes on television. You know, that time of the year that the news media spins crazily overboard reporting on the nonsense (and also overprojecting the amount of people actually watching it); Barbara Walters grunts out another log of half-bakedly "sincere and probing" questions to another quartet of people, three of whom we likely won't give a nod to in five years time; and idiot runway reporters, most of them D-list celebs or most likely models who would never get work except for the fact that they are supposedly "perty" even though most of them wear waaaaaaayyyyyyyy too much makeup and are probably troll-like underneath (unlike Mena Suvari, who is troll-like both with and without makeup), stalk the red carpet at the ceremony drooling over anything that anyone is wearing, no matter how much of a schlub their target actually looks to the rest of the audience. Oh, yes... they will dish on the crappy clothes once the target has walked off. And, oh yes, many of the wrong films will win in many of the categories.

That said, I love the Oscars. It is my Super Bowl (especially now that the Super Bowl, and the sport that it represents, are now basically unwatchable, and unwatched by me. Even the commercials, an excuse that even non-football shooting junkies could tout as the reason that they go to the overrated parties, have become unwatchable, though this is due mainly to the declining talent pool and shrinking imagination of the marketing industry.) I don't necessarily need a Super Bowl, but this is the one that I have got, and I'll stick with it. People say that it is overlong, and I disagree with this; it is Hollywood's annual tantric orgasm, so sit back and enjoy it with the rest of the hoi polloi. And, you never know... Sting might come out on stage and tell you exactly where to place that finger to prolong it even further.

People (idiots I might add), like to get all up in the grill of any host that isn't Billy Crystal, and I disagree with this, too. Billy was fine, and even excellent the first few times, but even Billy knows that it has run its course. He is a seasoned performer, and he knows when to cut off the encores, and also when it is time to make another entrance. (By the way, Jen just saw him live onstage in 700 Sundays, and she was highly underwhelmed by him in person.) He needs some time off of the chore, because that is what it is, for the most part: another job, albeit an amazingly high-profile one. Steve Martin, Whoopi Goldberg, even the much put-upon David Letterman did just fine (Martin is actually my personal favorite); and Chris Rock did exactly what Chris Rock does: call it like he sees it. You should know what you are getting when you hire the man to do the job. The fact that he got a rise out of the usually staid, politely-clapping audience was a bravura moment for the Oscar telecasts. On a night when every celebrity dreams of being coddled, it was great that a few of these pampered nimrods were kicked in the pants.

As for Jon Stewart, his Daily Show is the brightest thing on television night in and night out, and it is no surprise that The Road to the Sublimely Funny currently leads right to his door, with both The Office and The Colbert Show (one featuring TDSw/JS alum Steve Carell (more on him in a bit), and the other produced and co-conspirated with Stewart and crew) racking up the yuks with pinpoint precision each and every show. I have nothing but absolute certainty that he is going to do a fun and witty job. Even if most of the Hollywood goons won't get a lot of it.

However, I keep thinking (as with Rock) that this is exactly what the Oscars need to shake things up and loosen the ol' necktie of the boring ol' ceremony. I don't understand why a group of people notorious for partying like mad whenever they are not on the set (and some of them that do on the set) get into the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion or the Kodak Theatre or wherever the thing is being held this year and practically sit on their hands and glower at the cameras as if they are being forced to watch their own young being fed through a meat grinder. I know that there is an attempt to make this a high-class event; after all, they call it The Academy, so naturally they would like to imply a more hoity-toity professorial tone to the proceedings, but come on! Loosen it up a little! Have some fun! Don't just put on your fake smile and laugh after the host cold-cocked you with a reference to a film that you probably have a very fuzzy memory of making, if you remember making it at all through all of the booze and painkillers. That said, here are a couple changes that they should make to the Oscars right now, though only a one of them is actually an atmosphere-changer:

• ADD ALCOHOL: Steal some of the fun from the Golden Globes. There, people whoop it up, pull all kinds of wackiness with their speeches, stumble from their tables, run off to the bathrooms at inappropriate moments, and, if you are Ryan Phillippe, practically knock your wife (Reese Witherspoon) across the room when slapping her on the back in congratulations for winning Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. (I remember I laughed my ass off all the way through Walk the Line.)
• ADD A "BEST CAST ENSEMBLE ACTING" AWARD: There are some people who think this will cheapen the main acting awards by allowing a full cast from a film to rake in a boatload of Oscars, and then "3rd Officer Worker" in scene 27 will be able to put on their resume that they won an Oscar for their work. Bullshit. The Academy can determine which actors in a cast should be up for the honor (the number can vary from film to film), and the cast can be given smaller versions of the Oscar, just like they used to give to the 7 Dwarves back in the 30's or to Shirley Temple. It's not like the Oscars have always been immune to evolution. The ceremony has changed in countless, small ways over the 75-plus years of its existence. Why not try something new?
• ADD "STUNTWORK" TO THE AWARDS: Absolutely, since most of the dreck coming from Hollywood these days involves crazed and outrageously dangerous stuntwork, why shouldn't they get an Oscar? Why is Oscar hiding from these people? Here's how you solve this problem: tell the stunt coordinator that they have won an Oscar, but have another award, perhaps called the Yakima (after Mr. Canutt), that sort of looks almost like the Oscar but has the wrong haircut, and perhaps a cast on its leg, and have it stand in (on a crutch) for the Oscar. That way, the stuntguy gets to hang with his people, and Oscar didn't give out a precious Oscar to "the wrong people". These people are putting their lives on the line for Hollywood, something real "actors" rarely do... unless they are named Vic Morrow.
• ADD "MOST SHOCKING CAMEO" AS A CATEGORY: This is only on here so I can talk about Anne Hathaway's breasts. Of all the "shocking" things that I have heard bandied about regarding Brokeback Mountain, no one told me that Anne Hathaway's took her titties out in the film, let alone informed me she was even in the film. Maybe then, I could have at least thought maybe she would get nekkid. Michelle Williams was in the film, and I was pretty damn certain that she would bare 'em at some point... BUT ANNE HATHAWAY? The Disney-appearing, Princess-Diaries-1 AND 2-acting goodie-two-shoes-seeming girl? She's in a car with Jake G. and they are making out, and I am expecting only some PG-rated necking and then a jump-cut to their wedding day, but then PAH-WANG!!! Off comes the bra, and there they are, poking your eyes out: ANNE... HATHAWAY'S... TITS! I'm not judging on quality, though they are fine; I'm going for shock value. I knew that going in to Brokeback Mountain that there was going to naked man-ass and various other male body parts flappin' about in the breeze; I was prepared for that... BUT NO ONE EXPECTS ANNE HATHAWAY'S TITTIES!!!
  
• Biggest of all, ADD "COMEDY" AS A CATEGORY, OR START VOTING FOR COMEDIES AND COMIC ACTORS: I know that the Academy is afraid of marginalizing their awards ceremony, but since they generally refuse to vote for comic actors or take the genre of comedy "seriously", perhaps it is time for them to take the plunge that other awards shows have and break the awards up into categories for dramas and comedies, at least for the acting awards. Nothing is more egregious than the Academy's snubbing of Steve Carell in The 40-Year Old Virgin, a smart, moving and funny performance in a smart, moving and funny film. It happens time and again that comic brilliance goes unrewarded in Hollywood, at least at the Oscars; this year, they even snubbed Virgin in the Screenplay category, where I felt for sure its creators (including the multi-tasking Carell) would be honored with at least a nomination. Whatever you do though Academy, don't make it "Comedy or Musical", because not all musicals are comedies, as I previously mentioned about Walk the Line (which isn't even really a musical) or as you should take from the examples of say, oh, Cabaret, Chicago or Rent.
  

None of this means that I will ever stop watching the Oscars; it just means that I will badmouth and personally marginalize the awards as much as possible until the Academy has its walkers kicked out of its liver-spotted hands.

Tomorrow night, we are going to go see Munich, the last of the Best Picture nominees that we need to see before the ceremony. Most people go hoping they will see a dynamic, thought-provoking well-directed Steven Spielberg picture; I'm going to see if Eric Bana has more than the one dopey "I'm serious" expression that he wears on his face in every scene in which he has ever acted. Even the "romantic comedy" that I saw recently in a test screening that I swore I would not talk about until it was properly released. And I'm still not talking about it; I am only talking about his face and its one expression. I swear, if he ever won an Oscar, I'm going to think that there is a Comedy category, because, just like Keanu Reeves, I can't take his "I'm serious" face seriously...

THE LIST:
Winchester '73 (1950) (TCM) - 8; Capote (2005) - 8; How to Draw A Bunny (2002) (IFC) - 7; After the Sunset (2004) (DVD) - 5; The Constant Gardener (2005) (DVD) - 7; Shura-yuki-hime: Urami Renga [Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance] (1974) (DVD) - 6; Koroshiya 1 [Ichi the Killer] (2001) (DVD) - 6; Sahara (2005) (DVD) - 5; Wonder Man (1945) (TCM) - 6; Brokeback Mountain (2005) - 7; The Filth and the Fury: A Sex Pistols Film (2000) (DVD) - 6; Cinderella Man (2005) (DVD) - 6; Hustle and Flow (2005) (DVD) - 7.