Year in Movies, Mark Cummins

So I just got done reading a bunch more entries, cause I didn't want to be affected by them while I was writing my own. But I'm having a lot more fun listening to music already. Thanks everyone. Grizzly Bear with Michael McDonald was great!

And because I just saw how long my previous entry was I'll try to keep this one short--except woah, lots of great American directors had new movies this year: Wes Anderson, James Cameron, Jonze, Coens, Greg Mottola, Tarantino, Soderbergh (x2), Jason Reitman, Andrew Bujalski.

Out of all those folks, Inglorious Basterds was my movie of the year. All the known pleasures of cinema in the service of a cockeyed trash premise. An incredibly satisfying experience. Honorable Mentions goes to Avatar (imax 3d, $17), which has all the novel pleasures of 3d in service of a cockeyed trash premise. Reading the James Cameron profile in the New Yorker was almost as good. And one issue of that only costs three dollars. And to A Serious Man, a funny, unusually structured movie, which is to say it's a Coen Brothers movie. Complex and modern like Burn After Reading, but with heart. I had no idea where it was going. This trailer should give you a taste.

Double Features:
I'm gonna explode/The Good Times Kid: Two movies from Gerardo Naranjo. New Wave film and a Post-Punk one. I'm looking forward to more movies by this guy.

Where the wild things are vs. MGMT Kids video: I liked WTWTA, but didn't love it. Props to Gandolfini's performance. The most distinctive breather in the business. The Kids video has an intensity WTWTA falls short of.

Billy the Kid/Overnight: The most likable and most loathsome documentary subjects respectively I've so far encountered (the latter barely beating out Robert McNamara). Quotables for days.

Girlfriend Experience/The Informant!: Two interesting movies by Soderbergh. The former seems much more current than Up in the Air where The Informant! is like a retrospective for the 90's and how stupid we used to be. Best narration of the year, and great use of allusion to Michael Crichton novels.

Adventureland/Zombieland: Jesse Eisenberg guns for that top nebbish spot. Without hyperbole, Zombieland has one of the best cameos ever, goes straight from 7 to 9 in a flash. Adventureland is just a solid movie with likeable characters, beautiful shots, and a sick soundtrack. Highly recommended.

Up in the Air/Mad Men (final episode): I liked Up in the Air, but have several reservations. Mad Men's finale was maybe my favorite hour of TV ever (right up there with Omar Little taking the stand). Don Draper spends most of season 3 hating the idea of being tied down until he discovers "I want to work. I want to build something." Me too. Balls to your modern anomie, Up in the Air.

Lastly, I don't know what to say about Bad Lieutenent. I've never seen a plot wrap up all its loose ends with such insane glee. Kilmer, Cage, Xzibit. Shoot him again, his soul's still dancing.

Duds: Taking Woodstock, Tetro, Beeswax, 500 Days of Summer (aka Zooey Deschanel's just not that into you. Oddly, she is into a blond-haired doucher). The Highline (architecture)

Some of my favorite movies of the decade:
There Will Be Blood
T tu mama, tambien
Yi Yi
I Heart Huckabees
I'm not there
In the Mood for Love
Eternal Sunshine
The New World
Sideways
24 Hour Party People
Incredibles
Squid and the Whale
The Lives of Others
Knocked Up
Michael Clayton
Hot Fuzz
Bourne 2 and 3
Most Underrated: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Morvern Caller
Biggest Disappointment: Gangs of New York