My Top Ten Movies of 2011: Part One

Note: I originally planned to do one post detailing my picks for my favorite movies of 2011, but as I was writing the first part of the post it began to get bloated and long-winded, plus it was taking awhile to write.  In order to produce a more manageable and readable post that I could publish in a reasonable time frame, I decided to chop my list in half and split it into two parts.  This is the bottom half.  Enjoy.

Hey.  It is that time of year again when we take a moment to pause, look back on the previous year, and evaluate.  For many people, including me, this year-end evaluation often gives leads to the creation of self-indulgent lists of faves which we then post online for the world to see.  It's fun.

I meant to post my top ten list of favorite films from the past year a while back, but I was distracted by various things.  But I'm here now and I'm ready to unveil my picks.  That being said, a few disclaimers/comments are necessary before we proceed.  First thing is that you should check out my friend El Lobo's top ten list on his blog before, after, and/or while reading my list.  Between our two blogs El Lobo was the pioneer in end of the year list making, so I need to give him credit where credit is due.  I probably wouldn't have thought to do this post without him, so props to thee Senor Lobo.  Next thing I want to address is the rather obvious fact that I didn't see every movie I wanted to see this year.  This is unfortunate, but with so much to see and limited release schedules and the like it's pretty much inevitable.  Some notable high profile titles that I missed out on include Drive and Hanna.  I also skipped out on seeing some of this year's most critically acclaimed films simply out of a lack of interest (the most notable examples of this are The Tree of Life and The Descendants).  So yeah, there's that.  Also before we start I just wanted to emphasize how shitty I thought this year was.  So many new entries to franchises that nobody in the right mind actually gives a shit about (examples include the new entries in the Twilight, Transformers, Happy Feet, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Cars franchises).  And yet, when I look over my list I think I was able to assemble a pretty solid top ten.  I even had to cut some stuff I loved out of my list simply because there wasn't enough space.  Now don't get me wrong I'm not a 2011 apologist, I just want to emphasize that while this year was bad, it wasn't all bad.

Anyway, I've rambled on way more than I intended to, so let's start this.  In reverse order my picks are:

10.  Love in Space

You might assume from my ardent love of Japanese gore movies that I'd be opposed to romantic comedies, but that wouldn't be completely accurate.  Yes I'm often quick to talk shit about Hollywood's contemporary romcom output (with the vast majority of my ire being directed toward Katherine Heigl's filmography), but I'm not fundamentally against silly, cutesy, popcorn movies.  Which is why I adored Love in Space.  It's a straight-up slice of romantic cuteness with all the boring extraneous drama cut out.  Love in Space is a Chinese romcom that tells the story of a widow and her three single daughters as they all enter into and progress through unlikely romances.  One of the things I loved most about Love in Space was how its sense of whimsy influenced everything from the plot to the costume design (see image).  The film's candy-colored visuals and fantastic elements (for example, a romance that blossoms between astronauts in space) add a strong sense of fantasy to the film and lower your defenses against the movie's saccharine cuteness.  Love in Space is this year's most delightful bit of romantic comedy.

9.  My Week With Marilyn

Despite my aversion to the film's male lead (who was given a rather dull, shallow characterization), I still thoroughly loved this movie.  It's hard not to fall for Michelle Williams' portrayal of Monroe as a charismatic enigma plagued by insecurities.  Add to this a rock solid cast (including Judi Dench and Hermione Granger) and gentle comic moments and you've got a charming film worthy of its admission price.

8.  Project Nim

I am no documentary aficionado, but I found this documentation of the life of a chimpanzee to be a rather gripping, and oftentimes tragic, tale.  Nim was the chimp selected for a 1970's experiment which sought to discover if a chimpanzee would be capable of communicating with humans via sign language if it was given the proper training.  Like a train wreck, this experiment would prove disastrous and damaging, yet it's still fascinating to watch the story of ineptitude play out.  Project Nim is also notable for the uncanny ways in which its story mirrors that of the summer blockbuster Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  Sometimes truth is stranger, and infinitely more tragic, than fiction.

7.  Young Adult

This Diablo Cody penned film probably won't be for everybody, but I loved it for its strong characterization and exquisite moments of dark humor.  The film stars Charlize Theron as an ex-high school it girl, now living out an emotionally stunted life in Minneapolis as a ghostwriter for a popular series of teen novels.  I liked the movie for its sympathetic approach to its characters.  I loved that the film allowed us to both laugh at and sympathize with both the high school prom queen and the class outcast (Patton Oswalt).  We all have emotional baggage, and the most interesting stories recognize this.  The film is also commendable for the way in which it so perfectly captures the intricacies of humdrum suburban life (the girl at the hotel desk was a hilarious, spot-on characterization).

6.  Rango

In a year in which Pixar's only output was another entry in the abysmal Cars series, Rango did an excellent job of filling the void.  With stunning character design, intelligent and mature dialogue, loving shout outs to the westerns of old, and some eye-popping action sequences, Rango was easily the highest quality computer animated film to hit theaters this year. To characterize this as a children's film would be almost unfair, as it feels way too visually accomplished to be reduced to strictly children's fare.  Though that isn't to say that it holds no appeal to kids, because I feel like I would have gotten a huge kick out of the film's vivid visuals and eccentric characters if I had seen it as a child.

5.  Winnie the Pooh
Another immensely entertaining animated film, albeit in an entirely different vein that Rango.  Whereas Rango possessed thrills and a bottomless wellspring of coolness, Pooh delights its audience with gentle humor and quiet odes to the imagination of childhood.  Again, while this film is sure to entertain the pre-school set, its appeal is not limited to this demographic.  Any adult possessing any sort of nostalgia for the Hundred Acre Wood posse will surely find much to celebrate here.  For more on my opinion of this title, you can check out the post I wrote last summer.

And there you have it.  Stick around for Part Two, in which I reveal my absolute faves, the creme de la creme of last year's output.

Splatter: Naked Blood

I promise not to dwell on the topic of weird depictions of self-mutilation in films for too long, but since we're on the subject let's talk about Splatter: Naked Blood.  As I was reading the previously mentioned Asian Horror book (see the my last post if you don't know what I'm talking about), I came across the description of a title that just sounded too weird to pass up.  The title in question is one Splatter: Naked Blood, a bizarre Japanese horror film from 1996.  Splatter concerns the scientific misadventures of a bright but misguided young man named Eiji who develops a painkiller that transforms pain into pleasure.  At this same time, Eiji's mom, a scientist in her own right, is testing a new contraceptive on three young female test subjects.  Unbeknownst to mom, Eiji injects his newly invented painkiller into these three ladies to gratuitously nasty results.

Reading about the absurd and gratuitous subject matter alone convinced me that Splatter was just too bizarre to pass up.  The film's pedigree, as described by writer Andy Richards in Asian Horror, also promised exquisite weirdness and perversity.  Richards describes Hisayasu Sato, the film's director, as follows, "Sato was one of the major players in the Japanese sex film industry of the eighties and nineties, with over 50 movies under his belt...Splatter: Naked Blood is, in part, a remake of his pinku eiga from 1987, Genuine Rape, which also explored the boundaries between hallucination and reality."  Now I realize that a headline like "From the director of Genuine Rape..." would not normally be a selling point, but I was intrigued by the idea of seeing what kind of depraved horror film that somebody with such a storied and sketchy filmography would be capable of creating.  Plus, in Asian Horror the author later goes on to casually mention that Sato also directed the 2005 zombie comedy Tokyo Zombie.  Tokyo Zombie was a movie I watched a few years back and found to be generally enjoyable (albeit in a rather innocent and decidedly non-sleazy/sketchy way).  So there was the name recognition factor as well.

So my long winded story aside, I received Splatter a handful of days ago and had the opportunity to watch it today.  I have to say that it wasn't quite what I expected.  For a film called Splatter: Naked Blood, the beginning is surprisingly rather dull and utterly devoid of gore.  Not that this is necessarily a bad thing.  Even a movie that sells itself on its extremity and depravity doesn't necessarily need to feature non-stop blood and guts for me to enjoy it.  But even with that in mind I can say in honesty that even with its slim 75 minute runtime there are parts of Splatter that tend toward the dry and the dull.  And yet, when the film picks up and the blood starts to flow you are in for some of the most inventive, bizarre, and just plain fucked up horror movie moments you will ever see.  Which means that if you're a person who's into that sort of thing, then you gotta pick this title up, even if for just one watch.  If, on the other hand, you're the type to shy away from blood and guts, this will be an irredeemable piece of entertainment for you (but, then again, what did you expect?)

The most mind blowing moment of depravity in the film comes in the form of a moment of autocannibalism.  You see, one of the girls who was injected with the painkiller is a total glutton who relishes in the consumption of food in vast quantities (all of the personalities and character flaws of the three female leads are established succinctly in an early scene in which the three dine out at a restaurant).  Whilst cooking up some tasty tempura, her hand gets covered in batter.  She then proceeds to the next logical step of dunking her hand into burning oil, frying it, and then taking a delicious bite.  Watch a clip of that scene here.  The gal's cannibalistic frenzy continues later in the film as she slices off and nibbles on a nipple, until finally plucking out her eyeball and chowing down.  The special effects in these sequences are not necessarily the most convincing.  The eating of her tempura hand is especially rather fake looking.  And yet, in a case like this, the scenarios on display are just so outlandish and fucked up that you just kind of have to step back and (a) admire that someone's brain actually came up with these scenarios and (b) they had the guts to capture their weird ideas on film for posterity's sake.

The scene of autocannibalism in Splatter represents an instance of the human imagination gone wild and it's hard not to love it for that very reason.

P.S.- It would be tragic if I concluded this post without giving a shout out to the awesome Japanese action/comedy/revenge movie The Machine Girl, which did its own take on the tempura arm.  It was predictably hilarious.

Reliving a Brilliant Moment From Mirrors (2008)

I recently read a book about Asian horror films entitled, appropriately enough, Asian Horror.  Written by one Andy Richards, Asian Horror is a slim but serviceable volume that details the history of the horror film in Eastern Asia.  After reading the book I jotted down my opinions of it.  As my opinion still stands I shall simply cannibalize my old writing and quote my initial reactions to the book here, "An informative (albeit brief) primer on Asian horror movies, with an emphasis on Japan's horror output. While some of the chapters could have used some beefing up, I generally enjoyed this title and found it to be a useful summary of the history of the horror film in East Asia. And hey, it nudged me into checking out some movies I wouldn't have otherwise, which is always a plus. So in summary it's not a definitive guide, but this book serves as a decent starting point to those looking to learn about the genre."

With my opinions on the book out of the way let me explain the real reason why I'm posting today.  I am posting because one of the latter chapters in Asian Horror, the one about Hollywood remakes of Asian horror films, reminded me of a sublime moment of gore from an otherwise mediocre film.  My friends, I am speaking of the jaw dislocation scene from the 2008 film Mirrors.  

Mirrors is an American remake of the Korean film Into the Mirror.  I've never seen Into the Mirror, but in this case that's alright as it is tangential to the point I want to make.  While I can't comment on the original film I can say with confidence that Mirrors was a mediocre movie at best.  It did however contain one death so outrageous and bloody that the price of admission was (almost) justified.  Those who have seen the film will already know of which scene I speak, but for those in the dark I will explain the outrageous brilliance of the moment.  As  mirrors contain supernatural and malevolent powers in the world of this film, in this scene a woman's reflection rips its own jaw off, causing the flesh and blood victim's lower jaw to dislocate from her face and hang limply in the blood soaked bathwater.  But a picture's worth a thousand words, so rather than just read my description of the death watch it here (those with a weak constitution need not apply, obviously).  

I'm sorry, but this scene is just too brilliant.  There are so many reasons why I love it, but its primary appeal lies in the absurdity of its premise and the unflinching way in which the bloody aftermath is shown in all its glory.  You gotta love that limp tongue dangling from the wreckage.  That's a classic touch.  Also how about those crunchy sound effects that emanate from our victim's shattered jaw?  It's all wonderfully grisly, bloody and explicit, yet the outrageous premise that the kill is based upon lends the scene a dark sense of humor and absurdity.

In conclusion, thank you to Asian Horror for reminding me of this wonderfully random and gratuitous moment from an otherwise forgettable film.

Quality Programming: My Strange Addiction

I am normally not a fan of the crap that gets broadcast on TLC.  I despise their non-traditional family shows such as the Duggars with their multitude of children and the creepiness of the Sister Wives.  And I think plenty of people will agree with me when I say that I'd rather gouge out my eyes with a rusty nail than watch that Toddlers and Tiaras shit.  My problem with these shows is two-fold.  First off, they're boring.  Most of the time there's not really a whole lot of driving conflict and everything's just kind of...whatever.  And secondly, and perhaps most egregiously, they are massively sleazy and exploitative.  Now to be honest I don't necessarily have a problem with sleaze in entertainment, but the combo of boring and exploitative is just too much.  At best I just tune out and at worst I find such lowbrow TLC fare to be actively annoying.

But as always there is an exception to the rule and its name is My Strange Addiction.  Over the winter break I had the pleasure of hanging out with my friend El Lobo, who introduced me to the cringe-worthy, yet oh so awesome ride that is My Strange Addiction.  Now full disclosure, I've only watched one full episode of the show (season 2, episode 3, "Adult Baby/Eats Dryer Sheets"), yet I feel that the plethora of clips I watched on TLC's site gives me full authority to comment on the show.  Plus, if the episode I watched is any indication, the conflict resolution at the end of each episode is rather minimal and unsatisfying.  So really the perverse joy of Addiction comes from the set-up.  Everything after this is more or less filler.

But the set-ups are pretty spectacular, so it's all good.  Just browsing a list of the episode titles is a feast for the mind as each description sounds more sick than the next.  Here are some sample show titles to whet your appetite: "Rampant Rats", "Carrying Her Husbands Urn", "Married to a Doll".  My Strange Addiction is almost Daily Mail-esque in its sensationalized presentation and relentless pandering to gossipy gawkers.  But that's why we love it so.  It's definitely sleazy, but there's some undeniable entertainment value here.

My favorite moments from show come from the clips I've watched online. One of my favorite segments is the one in which a woman carries the ashes of her dead husband everywhere with her, even humorously taking him out to the movies and asking him what he'd like to watch on TV.  Her behavior quickly crosses the line as she begins to dip her hands into the urn and lick her hubby's ashes off her fingers.  Taking the urn to the movies is vaguely acceptable as quirky indie dramedy behavior, but eating the poor fellow is rather fucked up and I hope she was able to break the habit.  My other favorite segment of the show was from the aforementioned "Married to a Doll" episode.  In this show a character by the name of "Davecat" chats about his close relationship with his life-like sex doll named Sidore (whom he's affectionately nicknamed Si-chan).  While clearly eccentric, Davecat is considerably more articulate and self-aware than the show's other subjects.  In fact I actually found Davecat to have a decent presence in front of the camera and I'd love to see a show chronicling the adventures of Davecat and Si-chan.

Have I sunk to a new low by blogging about a TLC show?  Perhaps, but it was totally worth it.

Links I Loved Part 2: Enya, Torture, Etc.

Okay so a little less than a month ago I wrote a post highlighting various articles that I had found and enjoyed along my Internet travels. Click here to revisit that stellar piece of writing. Anyway, in that article I decided to send a shout-out to my audience to comment if they would be willing to see more articles in the same vein latter on in my blog writing. And since my loyal reader El Lobo was cool with seeing more link based posts, I think I'm going to run with the idea and make such posts a regular part of the blog. So without further ado, here's a miscellaneous collection of Internet based stuff that I have enjoyed:

Daniel Craig on Enya and Torture:  Hands down one of my favorite moments from the David Fincher remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was the use of Enya's "Orinoco Flow" in the background as Daniel Craig's Mikael Blomkvist is being tortured by the film's killer.  It was such an excellent, unexpected juxtaposition.  Curious as to what others thought of this scene I did a quick search online to find more information.  As a result I found this short article that explains how the vintage Enya track was selected to accompany the crucial scene. I'm not going to summarize the article here as you can read it for yourself in like five seconds, and you should as it's a rather entertaining tidbit on one of my favorite movie moments of the last year.  Now can somebody get Enya herself to comment on the scene, 'cause I'd love to read that.

On a related note, check out this New York Times article from the mid-1990's which chronicles the trend in film of juxtaposing scenes of brutality with innocuous pop tunes.  This article is made all the more interesting by the fact that it was written well over a decade before The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  It's thus a testament to the film that the Enya torture scene felt as fresh and effective as it did.  Or maybe I'm just a sucker for these types of juxtapositions.

The Grey trailer:  Okay, I realize that a dude vs. wolves movie would normally sound pretty idiotic, but you stick Liam Neeson in the lead and suddenly it seems worthy of a watch.  I'm not saying it'll be a cinematic masterpiece, but I personally can't wait to see Liam Neeson continue to develop his badass action persona of Taken fame.  Humorously, there was at one point even Oscar buzz for Neeson's role in The Grey.  Check out this article about the film's release date which writes, "...most of the buyers who previewed some 30 minutes of footage from The Grey are describing Neeson's lead turn as pure 'Oscar bait'".  Personally I couldn't care less about acting chops.  I just want to see some wolves get their asses kicked in the most outrageous way possible.

Retro Polish and Czech posters for kaiju movies:  As the title says, here's a collection of posters for Japanese monsters movies from Poland and Czechoslovakia.  The posters date back from the late 1950's to the early 1980's and they are obscenely cool.  The Polish Godzilla vs. Hedorah poster from 1971 is particularly awesome with Hedorah's eyes and body pattern in the shape of Godzilla's distinctive silhouette.  It's very cool and iconic looking.

The Seventh Seal

I recently had the opportunity to see the 1957 Swedish film The Seventh Seal in theaters.  I jumped at the chance to see the film as I had heard great things about it, especially from my trusted friend El Lobo who has mentioned the movie a few times in his blog.  The Seventh Seal was written and directed by the acclaimed filmmaker Ingmar Bergman.  Truthfully, my knowledge of Bergman's career and life history is rather lacking.  The only previous movie I'd watched from the man was The Virgin Spring, and I gave that one a go simply because of its well-documented influence on the 1970's horror film The Last House on the Left.  But this was part of the reason I wanted to see The Seventh Seal, to broaden my knowledge and to experience a classic for the first time in a theatrical setting (rather than watching it alone on my grungy laptop screen, for example).

The Seventh Seal is in the medieval Europe during the plague, where the ever-present threat of sickness and death loom large.  The film begins with Death approaching a knight (played by Max von Sydow) on a shoreline.  Death has come to take the knight's life, but in a clever effort to delay his inevitable death, challenges Death to a game of chess.  Death agrees, choosing to play the black pieces ("It becomes me well", he says).  I loved the imagery of the hooded and robed figure of Death standing against the shore.  At the risk of sounding like a 15 year-old goth, I have always found personifications of death to be both incredibly interesting and appealing.  The representation of Death on display in The Seventh Seal appealed to me through its clean, iconic look as well as its playful characterization (the idea that Death would acquiesce to a game of chess with a mortal is innately intriguing).

The character of the knight, dubbed Antonius Block, is also an intriguing personality.  Disillusioned by the events around him, Block desperately wants to believe in a god, but is continuously frustrated by the lack of evidence supporting the existence of a higher power.  The knight's crisis of faith is well illustrated in the confessional scene in which Block laments, "What will become of us who want to believe, but cannot?  And what of those who neither will nor can believe?", to the figure of Death who Block mistakes for a priest.  The knight's struggles for certainty in his beliefs raise interesting questions about the nature of faith.

And it's easy for the audience to sympathize with Block's crisis of faith as the harsh realities of life during the Black Death leave many people vulnerable to manipulation.  This is hauntingly illustrated in the film during a scene in which a young girl, accused of causing the plague through her relationship with the devil, is burned at the stake.  Unable to face the up to their bleak reality, it is all too easy to displace one's problems onto a scapegoat.  But this is one of the things that makes the film's medieval setting so fascinating.  It is interesting to watch what happens to people's beliefs and convictions when disease and death become a major part of the reality of everyday life.

Thanks again to El Lobo for recommending The Seventh Seal.  I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and found that the images and themes presented in the story gave me plenty to mull over and think about for hours afterward.  I look forward to reading more about the film, and discovering more about the environment in which it was written, filmed, and released.

New Year's Resolutions

With the inevitable passing of 2011 now behind us, I took some time to reflect on my life in the past year and scheme on how I want the upcoming year to play out. But I refuse to participate in those cliche New Year's resolutions relating to exercise and finance and the like. Instead I have composed a list of goals for the upcoming year which are considerably more nerdy, obsessive, and trivial in variety. I thought these goals would make for some great Zombie Baby fodder as they place undue seriousness on matters of trivial minutia. But what could be a greater way to plan out your life, you know?

Let me start out by describing what I'm going for here. As a mortal, I am aware of how finite time is, and I'm all about having maximum fun in the inevitably limited time I have on this earth. And being a being a human of the geeky persuasion, maximum fun means watching as many movies and reading as many books as possible. I don't want to be lying on my deathbed thinking, "Damn, I wish I'd watched Tokyo Gore Police more often". So with that in mind I'm always up for maximizing my free time and making the most of it. It is all too easy to waste hours on the Internet. Such activity provides some basic entertainment, sure, but the emotional and intellectual payoff of web surfing is minimal at best.

Tokyo Gore Police

So I try to be conscious of my free time and to wield it with care and caution as any responsible slacker ought to do. So with that in mind, I've calculated the number of books and movies I would like to consume in the upcoming year, as well as the number of blog posts I'd like to produce. The numbers are as follows: I would like to watch 500 movies, read 50 books, and write 100 blog posts in 2012. I came up with these numbers by examining how I spent my free time in 2011 and by calculating roughly how much more I could feasibly cram into my leisure time. Those interested in 2011's numbers can look at the lists I kept online of what I watched and read. Click here to see what I watched and click here to see what I read in the past year. Naturally you can simply look at the blog archives to see what I previously wrote (and why wouldn't you want to revisit my old posts? That shit is gold!).

I should probably add that I won't be posting regular updates on my progress on these goals on this blog, but those interested in such things can track what I watch here and what I read here.  I always find it fun to peek at what other people read and watch, so here's me giving back.

So how about you guys, what are your plans for the upcoming year?