January 2010
31 posts
Daybreakers (2009)
FUCK IT, LET’S HAVE A BARBECUE.
by Ed Herro
The question driving Daybreakers is fantastic: What if vampires took over the Earth? But the reality of Daybreakers is painful. The movie clocks in at 98 minutes, which is approximately 89 minutes too long. The first seven minutes of the film and the last two minutes are beautiful pieces of cinema. But more on that later.
Let’s start at the...
The Book of Eli (2010)
GRIZZLY MAN
by Chris Cantoni
With the amount of post-apocalyptic fiction out there, it’s clear we live in a culture obsessed with our own, some say inevitable, demise. With the economic depression, multiple wars, tragic natural disasters (You can still Donate here), and the looming, irreversible approach of climate change, it seems as though artistically we have little choice but to look...
Amadeus (1984)
IN WHICH THE PRINCIPAL FROM FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF IS THE UNDISCERNING EAR OF THE PUBLIC
by Matt Wyatt
When I was little, I’d stand in my room in front of my stereo and conduct. I’d pop in a tape (later a CD, or if I was alone in the house, a record on the big downstairs sound system) of whatever was at hand - Mozart, Beethoven, Holst, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Huey Lewis -...
Whip It (2009)
WHIP IT REAL GOOD
by Anais Escobar
Recently, I sat in a theater for #4 on my list of favorite afternoon activities (the top three being sex, napping, and reading a book, in no particular order), watching a movie. I let the rollicking fun that is Whip It wash over me and I soon realized two things as I tapped my boots against the empty seat in front of me:
1. I can relate too much to this...
David Lynch Week: Wild at Heart (1990)
THIS WHOLE WORLD’S WILD AT HEART AND WEIRD ON TOP
by Anna P.
The recent hubbub over Tarantino got me thinking about David Lynch, in particular Wild at Heart (1990). The two are similar directors, known for shocking audiences and stirring-up controversy, and I often can’t help but compare them while watching their films. David Foster Wallace (that posthumous internet ...
David Lynch Week: Blue Velvet (1986)
WHAT YOUR BLUE VELVET COCKTAIL SAYS ABOUT YOU
by Danielle Lee
In addition to being a brilliant, surrealist exploration of American conformity, disease and nuclear family fall-out, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) proves an excellent guide to the kind of woman, man or sociopath you are based on what you drink:
Budweiser ”The King of Beers”
You are as American as your...
David Lynch Week: Dune (1984)
DUNE IS TERRIBLE
by Christopher Cantwell
When I found out we were going to do David Lynch Week, I asked to write about Dune. I’d never seen the movie, didn’t know what it was about, and asked in the same way a guy might yell to his friends, “Hey, watch this!” moments before jumping off a cliff to his death. There was a nervous titillation to my self-imposed assignment—“I’ll write about...
David Lynch Week: Mulholland Drive (2001)
IT’LL BE JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES.
by Letitia Trent
David Lynch is interested in women. No, I take that back. David Lynch is interested in ideas about women. Like the innocent blond in ankle socks and the seductress, dark-haired and red-lipped. And I, too, am interested in ideas about women. I like tarot cards, not to tell the future, which doesn’t exist to tell, but because...
David Lynch Week: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me...
I WANT MY GARMONBOZIA
by marginal gloss
‘Do you think that if you were falling in space, that you would slow down after a while or go faster and faster?’
‘Faster and faster. For a long time you wouldn’t feel anything. Then you’d burst into fire. Forever. And the angels wouldn’t help you. Because they’ve all gone away.’
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me got the worst reviews of Lynch’s career,...
David Lynch Week: Twin Peaks (TV pilot,1990)
THE TWIN PEAKS PILOT EPISODE: Or, You Didn’t Know Laura Palmer
by Elizabeth Wilcox
April 8, 1820: A peasant named Yorgos Kentrotas discovers a strange piece of marble buried in the ancient city ruins of Milos. The marble is excavated (in two pieces), cleaned and nearly sold to Turkey—when a French ambassador, recognizing the importance of the discovery, stops the statue from being...
Waking Life (2001)
A DIALECT OF ALIENS
by Brandon Habermeyer
I recall the first time I watched Waking Life I was in the company of a good friend and a somewhat ineffable feeling. It was a strange and overwhelming experience, the type that drowns you in a sea of information but starves you of its meaning. To paint an illustrative analogy, watching Waking Life for the first time is like stepping foot on an alien...
Four Christmases (2008)
THROUGH THE LENS OF THE KÜBLER-ROSS MODEL
by Michelle Said
This morning, I woke up in my shoebox apartment in Alphabet City, angry. When I say “morning,” I mean that it was in the A.M. sometime between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Some guys were yelling outside, probably drunk. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. It was loud and annoying. Also, I didn’t understand why they were outside when...
Bell, Book, and Candle (1958) / The Lady Eve...
PERHAPS YOU’D LIKE TO GET ORDINARY WITH THAT MR. HENDERSON
by Sarah Malone
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) assures us from the first bongo-strewn strains of “Jingle Bells” over its opening titles that we’re going someplace slightly off-kilter where we don’t need to worry about things going seriously wrong. Snow is falling on a Greenwich Village sidewalk. Pedestrians—almost all of them...
List for a Decade: Chris
My most important films of the decade (in order, but not in an order that can’t be completely rearranged at any given point).
by Chris Cantoni
Traffic (2000)
I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you how important this movie is to me. It probably doesn’t belong at the top of this list. Plenty of people don’t think it deserves mention on any decade list. But Traffic left me breathless. ...
List for a Decade: Jessie
by Jessie. V
I just approached this list as my top favorites, not necessarily as something I thought might objectively be the best and I will judge you if you disagree. They all just moved me somehow. It’s a tough list, and if I could, I’d add Caché, Amores Perros, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Children of Men, Dogville, Inglourious Basterds, Monster, Far From Heaven, and Traffic.
But Chad...
List for a Decade: Danielle
by Danielle Lee
10. Before Sunset (2004) The perfect bookend to 1995’s Before Sunrise (nearly a decade earlier), Linklater’s effortlessly romantic day-long snapshot ended on an ideal note (and after several of Julie Delpy’s). 9. The Dark Knight (2008) The pinnacle of this decade’s new look at the superhero (initiated by 2002’s more human Spiderman), Christopher...
List for a Decade: Amanda
Top Ten-ish
by Amanda McCleod
In the last decade I’ve graduated from middle school, high school, and college. I went from calling Spice World my favorite film to preferring those films that deal with existential crisis or the blurred line between dreams and reality. I’ll be the first to admit that lists are not my greatest strength, however I’ve decided to take a look back at...
List for a Decade: Sarah
by Sarah Winshall
For the past week I have been mulling over what my Ultimate #1 Blue Ribbon Movie of the Decade should be. Whenever I think I have finally decided, I change my mind. It is a difficult assignment to make because I have not seen many of the films from the last decade that I would like to. And because my memory can only stretch so far. And because my taste is so dependent on my...
List for a Decade: Erica
A top ten list of sorts.
by Erica U.
Here’s the truth: Best of Lists make me incredibly anxious. In choosing the top contenders in any arena, you are cutting ties to and devaluing - nay, rejecting! - thousands of others that you might love, could probably love if you just saw it again, read it again, heard it again. What if I was just in the right mood to fall in love with a film the...
List for a Decade: Chad
I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO CHANGE THE ORDER OF THESE AT ANY TIME (or: How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Love the List)
by Chad Perman
10. There Will Be Blood
9. I Heart Huckabees
8. Almost Famous
7. Inglourious Basterds
6. Synecdoche, New York
5. The Royal Tenenbaums
Though I’m admittedly biased to Wes Anderson films, having loved both Bottle Rocket and Rushmore before it, The...
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List for a Decade: Tess
THAT’S BASICALLY YOUR WHOLE ADULT LIFE
by Tess Lynch
I should first mention that if I could bend time to fit my needs, I would have pushed American Movie into the 2000’s. Since I am a factual scientist of list-making, I will acknowledge that it was released in 1999 and not include it in my list. I’ll just mention it at the top, here, so you know that I really, really liked...
List for a Decade: marginal gloss
MY TEN FAVOURITE FILMS OF THE NOUGHTIES, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER (OTHER THAN THE ORDER THAT THEY HAPPEN TO BE IN)
by marginal gloss
Mulholland Drive
David Lynch’s dream-vision of LA is a spiritual successor to Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust, retold from the position of the hopeful starlet in love with an idealised world. It’s a film that is by turns frightening and funny, but above all,...
List for a Decade: Meaghan
The Best Movies I Saw in the Last 10 Years, in order of how immediately they occur to me.
by Meaghan O’Connell
Annie Hall: Oh yeah, cause it’s the best fucking movie ever made.
After college I bought Annie Hall and brought it to our family reunion and forced my 15 year old cousin to watch it. It was one of those sort of selfish, failed attempts at forcing someone to...
List for a Decade: Elizabeth & Chris
A different kind of list.
by Elizabeth Wilcox and Christopher Cantwell
Filmosophy asked its contributors if they’d be interested in writing up best-of-the-decade lists. We the undersigned (Christopher Cantwell and Elizabeth Wilcox) decided the interests of our audience would be best served by a list chronicling the Best Movie Deaths of the Decade. Below, you will find the result of...
