Buy It At Amazon: CLICK HERE
MSRP: $14.99
Rated: PG
Running Time: 139 minutes
Special Features
Behind the Scenes Featurette

The Pitch

Fashion designer Coco Chanel falls in and out of
love for fifty years or so. Winds up alone.

The Humans

Barbora Bobulova, Shirley MacLaine, Malcom
McDowell, Brigitte Boucher

The Nutshell

After a troubled childhood, Gabrielle Chanel
moves from obscurity to become one of the fashion icons of the 20^th
century. Cue tumultuous affairs, sappy score and nice clothes. Everyone loves her until she’s revealed as being a Nazi conspirator. Well, it wasn’t her fault. She grew up poor and learned how to manipulate men from a young age. We get to see as Chanel burns through men and homes, as she pushes further and further into fashion history.

The Lowdown

Shirley MacLaine was nominated for an Emmy for
her portrayal of the older Coco Chanel in this made for television flick that
is about as exciting to watch as a film about a fashion designer can get. Lifetime chose to work their way around a lot of the tricky areas, while never really humanizing Chanel. A lot of these actions had to do with the House of Chanel having such strict supervision over this film. No one would dare to question Chanel’s judgment or screwing around, if it’s portrayed as romanticized journeys. I’m not going to say that Chanel was a bad woman, it’s just that she lived a life that her company wants to cover up.

The jist of the tale is fairly simple: Chanel lifts
herself from being a typical saloon singer during early 20^th century
Paris and marries into an elite family. Not content with her existence, she
rebels against her set role in life and opens a boutique. She becomes and
international sensation but follows her heart into and out of romance. What do you really expect? It’s a Lifetime movie. MacLaine
plays a French woman with nary an accent and scores an Emmy nomination.
Meanwhile, McDowell plays the poor sap that has to sit and hear her story.
Bobulova just has to read her lines. One does have to admit that Bobulova looks a hell of a lot like Anna Friel.

This isn’t an awful movie. It’s just bland, lifeless. Oh well, you can always catch Audrey Tautot in Coco Before
Chanel, or check out the new film Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, which
focuses on her relationship with the famed Russian composer. A lot of this can be found rather easily on Netflix, but you might have to do a little leg work to find some of the Chanel documentaries. There’s a fascinating world out there loaded with information on this important woman. 

The Package

It’s a made for television movie from Lifetime,
so don’t expect vibrant colors or excessive detail. The transfer does the job.
No edge enhancement to my eyes. It’s all fairly competent. The stereo track
also does the trick. There’s a five minute making of featurette which seems to
be about as long as it took for this film to even be produced.

5.0 out of 10

If the studio highs were high, their lows were pretty miserable. The assembly line nature of some of the biggest franchises means a film like Iron Man 2 (which missed the list) can go into production to meet a release date regardless if everyone is happy with the script or not. There were a number of films this year where the concept of them seemed greater than material. Perhaps this is the aftermath of the writer’s strike, as a number of films like this go into production years before release, but the number of shitty event films this year was staggering. Patton Oswalt wrote a Wired column about the upcoming (and hoped for) end of geek culture. The truth is that nerds have won, we’re all outsiders, and the studios are taking advantage of that as best they can. Sometimes it works, but more often than not you get a film like Clash of the Titans, which missed my list but just barely.

The majority of the pictures I picked for worst of the year did business. Some of it through opening weekend cash-grabbing. One was one of the most successful films of the year. But this has a lot to do with how people watch movies. The critic’s job is to respond honestly; paying audiences have a more vested interest as they’ve spent their money to see a film, which can now cost a family over a hundred dollars to do so. And sometimes a film can work on an audience without being good. People got what they went for. But the majority of these year end bad films were expensive endeavors, and that’s why I can’t forgive them. I mean, shouldn’t a film that cost $100 to $300 Million dollars at least have a functional story to tell? In the 1960’s, it was chasing the success of The Sound of Music that was ruining the studio system, what seems to be an Achilles Heel right now is that many of the event films treat their script as the least essential element of production, because the action sequences have been pre-vis’d and the cast was assembled regardless of how much chemistry any of them have together. The majority of these ten were made because there seemed to be a release date or an idea that could be capitalized on, where the quality of the end result was secondary. Fuck these movies. I can’t go all out like Nick does, but I have included The Thumper Defense, which is me trying to say something nice about each of these ten turd-bombs.

10.Furry Vengeance

Why I hate: Brendan Fraser being used and abused by animals is nothing new, but this film is remarkably free of anything resembling humanity. I wouldn’t include this waste of 90 minutes on any list if it weren’t for the end credit use of the song “Insane in da Membrane,” which I always thought was pretty clearly about getting fucked up. Brendan Fraser is out of shape, and this is a very desperate movie. Lucky for the talented D.C. Pierson, I did not see him in the film, though he is listed.

The Thumper Defense: It’s short.

9. Prince of Persia

Why I hate: A lot of these films piss me off on an ideological level, here what I’m annoyed by isn’t the whiteness of its leads, but the fact that so much money was spent on this film and so little is accomplished. This has one of the same problems as Jumper, in that the great mystical power of the dagger of time that’s the central object of mystery in the film isn’t all that cinematic. But no summer event film has the right to be this boring. This film makes High Road to China look like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That takes doing.

The Thumper Defense: Gemma Arterton isn’t hard on the eyes, and she supposedly has talent.  Alfred Molina makes for good comic support. There is some spectacle in there.

8. Paranormal Activity 2

Why I hate: This movie got a free pass because it wasn’t as bad as The Blair Witch Project 2. Wow. But the reason why I hate this film, why I think it belongs on a year end worst list is because it isn’t a movie. As a part prequel, it establishes early on that nothing can really happen to the characters who are related to the first couple from the first film, and then in the last couple minutes shit starts getting fucked up, but there’s way too much safety in this film, and also tries to create a mythology to turn this into a franchise that promises a third film. Fuck that.

The Thumper Defense: if the film fails as a narrative it does work as a haunted house movie. And the jump scares are effective.

7. Robin Hood

Why I hate: There is nothing in the world that makes me more pissed than watching a film that where at the end credits of the film, I get the sense that the real movie should begin. It used to be that action defined character, now we get films where there are no narrative chances that fuck up the possibility for a franchise. A clearly too old for the part Russell Crowe stars as the man who pretends to be Robin of Locksley, only for him to be Luke Skywalker, and destiny wants him to fight for the freedom of the people, and go fuck yourself. This also ranks higher because of the people involved.

The Thumper Defense: Mostly harmless. Great cast and the opening battle sequence is neat.

6. The Expendables

Why I hate: I was just as happy for the return of Sylvester Stallone as anyone, but come on. This isn’t a movie. I guess I can understand why some people might like seeing B list action stars play dress up and shoot guns at each other, but the film is a series of poorly drawn characters who talk and get into bad fight scenes, and then talk, and then shoot at each other. Growing up in the 1980’s, films like this were often shunned by the critical community because of their actor credentials. But films like Commando and Nighthawks are at least competent and have a compelling story and characters. This is all promise, and no execution.

The Thumper Defense: Violence! Statham and Stallone have good chemistry together. The film opens okay.

5. Tron: Legacy

Why I hate: As I’ve said, the biggest problem with the modern blockbuster – as with Prince of Persia and Robin Hood, and at least another film on this list – is that the screenplay is the least important aspect to the making of it. Few films squander as much potential and visual design as Tron: Legacy, a film where the villain’s plan makes absolutely no sense, and characters continuously do things that only make sense if you take into account they have to do what they do to have the next big fight scene. This film in summation: the main character shows up to see his father, and the two have a couple of scenes that don’t reflect the emotional weight of not having seen each other for twenty years, then when the main character makes a decision, the father decides shortly after he leaves to follow him. The main character then goes to a character who pretends to be someone else, which would be good if we had met him before under his pseudonym, and then he turns out to be a bad guy, which leads to a poorly staged action scene where support shows up in the last minute, and then the father shows up (who supposedly has god-like powers) whose great powers amount to him turning the floor different colors. Wow. Franchises like this act like they don’t need scripts. The only way Hollywood is going to learn is for this sort of film making to fail.

The Thumper Defense: The visual and aural design is delightful. Olivia Wilde is good. Jeff Bridges plays his character as a riff on Jeff Lebowski!

4. The Last Airbender

Why I hate: The film that helped kill post-conversion 3-D, The Last Airbender is all exposition, and then shitty action. M Night Shyamalan is one of the most impressive directors working today, in that each new film finds a way to get progressively worse. I thought The Village was well put together, but the ending was terrible, and a completely misguided approach to the material, while The Lady in the Water is an honest failure. The Happening was terrible, but it’s watchably bad. You can at least laugh your way through it. There’s nothing to latch on to here. Even the terribleness is more of a shrug. As that’s the case, it manages to be absolutely no fun at all.   

The Thumper Defense: Uh… It’s not as bad as The Happening.

3. Cop Out

Why I hate: When I saw Clerks, I loved it. I was a fan of Kevin Smith until Dogma, which featured career-worst performances from Chris Rock and Alan Rickman. And with that, I could no longer forgive Smith’s all too evident shortcomings. I view filmmaking as a privilege, and when you have a studio budget to play with and talented performers working for you, there’s no excuse for not knowing the basics. And if directing is based on having an eye for composition, shooting for the edit, and getting good performances out of your actors, I don’t know how you can call anything Kevin Smith did in Cop Out good or – at times – competent. The action scenes are poorly put together, stars Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis have negative chemistry together, everyone’s giving career worst performances, and Seann William Scott is supposed to be a comic ringer. Few of the jokes work, and there’s nothing good about the film to fall back on. Harry Knowles recently tried to defend Smith’s films because he liked what they said. And if Smith was judged as a writer, I can understand how his material has some interesting themes and ideas. But this many films on, I can’t defend him when Mallrats is still one of his most polished films.

The Thumper Defense: Parkour jokes, dude. Parkour jokes.

2. Alice in Wonderland

Why I hate: Again, Tim Burton is one of those directors whose more recent bad movies are starting to reflect poorly on his earlier works. Alice in Wonderland is about a world of imagination, and this film then turns that world into both an origin story, and a hero’s journey – which are the least imaginative narrative choices going these days. Add Johnny Depp in a rather terrible performance, and material that feels stale and familiar. So bascially Burton took a book about the power of imagination and turned it into the most unimaginative film of the year. That’s a pretty spectacular accomplishment. And this is his prize. Well, this and the billion dollars this film made worldwide.

The Thumper Defense: Hot Topic needs to stay in business, man.

1. Nightmare on Elm St.

Why I hate: Comparing pieces of art is nearly impossible. The majority of this list could be jumbled, and it wouldn’t make a difference. I recently interviewed Justin Bartha, and we touched briefly on Gigli. I told him that I know someone whose cousin is a huge fan of Adventures of Pluto Nash, and there are defenders of Gigli out there as well. And – to that matter – critics piled up on How Do You Know, but I found it to be charming and worthwhile, though I can see how it’s shaggy and has problems. With A Nightmare on Elm St. however, there is an actual baseline to compare it to: the original. And every single creative decision on this film was – without question – worse. Heather Langenkamp is not that great actress, and Rooney Mara was great in her supporting turn in The Social Network. And yet, Heather’s performance is better. There’s not a single moment or decision that in any way does anything that is equal of the original, and when it imitates it, it shows how much worse the new film is. From the make-up design on Freddy to their angle on Freddy to Jackie Earl Haley’s performance, everything is terrible. Few films can fairly be stacked up against another and proven to be inferior. This is just that sort of film.

The Thumper Defense: The Defense lays mute.

So what’s left to be said on this, the final day of the year? We expected 2010 to be a weak one and it has indeed proven to be fairly lackluster overall- but like any year there’s been value to be found. In fact, the stars aligned in such a way that many of our preeminent filmmakers turned out work this year, much of which was solid and some of which was great. There were some unexpectedly wonderful films scattered throughout the year as well. All that said, I found the order of my list to be much harder to determine than the collection of films that would be on it- the former was fairly easy to determine. There were few heartbreaking decisions, few films I was truly disappointed to cut, and yet… some of the good stuff is really really good.

I will say that this is the first year in which I’ve reviewed films in a professional capacity, and frankly, I only started a few short months ago. While I’d say the bulk of the year’s notable films were released or screened during that time, there’s a sizable batch of films that emerged not only before my time as an official critic began, but while I was still knee deep in college, trying to complete a thesis and nab a degree. In that time I saw fewer movies than I ever have, and while I have done my best to catch up, I’m still left with a list of unseen films that is shamefully long. While I by no means want to look back in a few years and see my entire list upended and outdated, I do hope that 2010 has a few gems remaining to share with me.

Until I discover them, let’s celebrate what was great!

15. Renn on Jackass 3D:

Even without the gimmick of employing the best use of 3D in a film this year, the third Jackass would still be a ranking highlight. Johnny Knoxville and his band of miscreants return to once again wow and disgust us with how far they’re willing to go and how clever they’re capable of being to make us laugh. Blessed with plentiful resources and a decade’s worth of experience, this third film is as dense as any of the others and has the added value of (as I called it in my review) a sense of “effortlessness.” We’ve got a shorthand with this crew now- we know their quirks, their fears, and even their laughs. We are truly laughing with them as much as we laugh at them- not necessarily so when they first started tossing each other around parking lots in grocery store shopping carts.

Mix all of this with the beautiful implementation of 3D and ultra-high frame rate photography and you’ve got the most cock and poo-filled delight of the year.

Current rating: 9 out of 10

Contributing factors: The Crew, the crew’s age/sobriety, 3D, a jet engine, enough distance from the last one for it to be exciting.

Performance to savor: The bull that slams Knoxville’s ass through his asshole.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “The only movie this year that requires them to sterilize the 3D glasses twice.”

14. Renn on Blue Valentine

This is a film I never got around to reviewing simply because trying to express my feelings toward it, or deconstruct the painful honesty that makes it function, is too much for me at this point in my life. This is the film on the list that I’m least likely to revisit anytime soon not because it isn’t wonderful, but because I just don’t want to see what it has to show me or feel what it’s going to make me feel again. All of that aside the power of the film is unquestionable, and it’s a brutally honest look at how a relationship built on genuine, real-deal love can disintegrate because of the seemingly small things that actually represent the biggest things. I’ve heard it called “masturbatory” by people who know what they’re talking about, but I would challenge that any film that can draw extreme praise or, just as easily, incite as gut-level revulsion as I’ve witnessed deserves real attention. You can’t fake that kind of honesty and understanding just by having actors scream at each other. The film is not joyless however, and you’ll find yourself smiling along with the characters during the good times. Its value has a lot to do with what you bring to it though, and in a genre that has been so brilliantly augmented by classics like Annie Hall and Eternal Sunshine (that find ways of working personality and interesting novelty into their heartbreak) it would require more than just honesty to be an honest-to-god masterpiece and climb higher on the list.

Ultimately it’s the stripped-down, raw nature of the film that makes it one of the most powerful of the year, if not necessarily the most pleasant.  

Current rating: 9 out of 10

Contributing factors: Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are running the show here, with truly incredible performances. The hand of Derek Cianfrance is not invisible though and his handheld camera and jumpy narrative have a lot to do with why the film is so potent for anyone that’s ever loved/lost.

Performance to savor: Gosling and Williams… are there really any others in the film?

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Get ready to watch the theater fill up with tears of repressed resentment, ignored discontent, and iron-hot bitterness!”

13. Renn on I Am Love

I Am Love is seriously high-class filmmaking. In the way a handcrafted Italian sports car employs the (conceptually) same engine and tires as any wood-paneled mini-van, it’s really the quality of each individual element and the care taken in every level of craftsmanship that sets it apart. Beyond its fashion magazine costuming, photography, and production design is a stunning attention to detail in the script, camera work, and editing of I Am Love. The actors are similarly high-grade, natural to the point they seem almost beyond criticism (though foreign-languages are almost always favorable to performances). Tilda Swinton is the center of a story of the adulterous and the culinary, familiar and (soap) operatic, that is told with a grace and texture all its own.

Current rating: 9.1 out of 10

Contributing factors: The look, the script, the subtle comparisons of eating and sex and the role of memory in both.

Performance to savor: Tilda Swinton, who colors her Italian with a russian accent in a bit of performance preparation that I can barely comprehend.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Man, this classy-ass movie look like it done come out of Vogue Fair or Vanity or some shit..”

12. Renn on The American

One of the quietest films of the year, the impression left by The American still rings out loudly in my mind. I’ve heard this film called “George Clooney’s The Conversation” and I think that’s a brilliant comparison. Both center on men working in professions that Hollywood would (and often will) tart up and turn into slam-bang action extravaganzas, yet in these films are shown to be quiet, highly-disciplined loners operating less on profound passion than the understanding that this is, quite simply, what they’re good at. Harry Caul was a more obviously awkward protagonist than Clooney’s inescapably dapper Jack, but this is Clooney at his least suave, no trace of Danny Ocean in site. In this universe Clooney has to pay for time with a woman as holy-goddamn-animals beautiful as Violante Placido (heir to the body that almost got Michael Corleone blown up), but it’s still Clooney, so she eventually sticks around for free. It’s Jack’s passion for the smallest details of his craft –assembling his weapon and modifying it for precision, alone in his room– that light up his face, much in the way Harry seemed at home only when manipulating faders at his desk, in his cage. There’s definitely a dodgy quality to the ending, one that might smack of last minute fairy tale-telling to some, but ultimately it’s a fittingly abrupt conclusion to a deliberately told story.

Current rating: 9.1 out of 10

Contributing factors: Brilliant sound design that is as detailed as that on any film, yet muted in a way that makes you strain for the sounds of danger the same way Jack is constantly forced to. The ethereal, dreamy quality of the location and telegraphed but well-executed climax are highlights as well.

Performance to savor: Clooney is the center here, but it’s difficult to resist mentioning the delicate performance and stunningly classic beauty of every inch of Placido. So difficult in fact, that I didn’t resist at all.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “A film starring George Clooney about an assassin’s last job which has ‘American’ in the title, even though it most certainly isn’t.”

11. Renn on The Fighter

Flashless sophistication was the name of the game for many of the best films of the year, with a number of brilliant director’s settling into a track of making extremely solid films that let performances shine, rather than making blatantly brilliant masterpieces. The Fighter is a prime example as the hot-headed David O. Russell turns in well told and well orchestrated story of family that gets the character work right, even if the boxing that drives the story leaves little impression. Bale, Wahlberg, Leo, and Adams are the hard-hitting players here, and each performance is a career best or close to it.

Current rating: 9.1 out of 10

Contributing factors: A story worth telling, the brilliantly captured family dynamics, serious ensemble greatness.

Performance to savor: Mickey O’Keefe playing himself.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Crack! Bitchy Sisters! Tramp stamps! The Fighter has it all.”

10. Renn on True Grit

The Coens take a break from the harsh vibes of cynicism and human folly to take The Dude out to the plains, end up making a great western. You could see the quality of this film a mile away, what with the whole thing letting loose Deakins on the expanses of New Mexico (standing in for Arkansas), Bridges on Rooster the ruthless and grumbly drunk of a US marshall, and the Coens themselves on the Bible-like cadence of Portis’ novel. What we couldn’t have predicted was how a 13-year-old girl selected out of an open casting call of 15,000 would outshine them all and embody the stiff-lipped, Protestant-grit of Mattie Ross with such aplomb that she steals the film from three of the strongest actors currently working. While I feel like the film is being a touch overvalued among the work of The Coens (which is literally one of the most classic collective ouvres of any filmmakers in history), there’s no disputing how wonderful Hailee Steinfeld’s performance is and how perfectly she handles that Coen rhythm. The film itself is wonderful as well, and even their more standard, crowd-pleasing effort stands tall among the best and most sophisticated of the year.

Current rating: 9.1 out of 10

Contributing factors: The perfectly re-interpreted dialogue presented in dynamite scenes of verbal sparring. Gorgeous photography. Fidelity to the thematically straightforward, powerful source material.

Performance to savor: Watch that little girl. Watch her close. Don’t be creepy about it though.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “A western directed by The Coens. Sit down, shut up, watch.”

9. Renn on I’m Still Here / Catfish / Exit Through The Gift Shop

Well wasn’t this just the year of the meta-documentary with questionable legitimacy? These three films run the spectrum from being admittedly fraudulent, to being clearly shaped and staged from real-life events, to being backed by a story steadfastly stuck to by all involved. Ironically, it is the most unbelievable of them that will probably turn out to be the most true.

Perhaps it’s cheating to select three films and tie them all together, but it’s impossible to deny that the three represent a strong trend among recent documentaries, and that they are all pointing a strikingly similar lens at complimentary aspects of our culture. I’m Still Here takes aim at our relationship with celebrity, Catfish takes aim at our relationship with identity, and Gift Shop takes aim at our relationship with art. The internet, the media, and self-reflective meta-commentary is deeply entwined with each of them, and even the one that was demonstrably staged still catalogs events that actually happened. These documentaries have all left audiences asking “was that real?” even though the central question of each of them is really, “what the fuck does real even mean?” Sure, Joaquin Phoenix dumped his career and rapped poorly on purpose, but he still did it and plunged into the cycle of celebrity meltdown full force, so where does “reality” begin or end in that scenario? Sure, Mr. Brainwash could be an invention of Banksy and his cohorts, but if his work really was sold for that amount of money and he really was commissioned to do Madonna’s album cover… you get the idea.

You can certainly argue that one or another is better told or better constructed but they all play equally fast and loose with structure, style, and technical primitiveness. Exit Through The Gift Shop has been the most overwhelmingly accepted with its more likable protagonist, but all three of the films are awfully keen on their own cleverness, and don’t mind casually glancing over the parts of their narratives that make no sense. The cheekiness is part of the point however, and it’s shocking that not one but three entertaining and watchable documentaries emerged to tackle the recursive mirror of navel-gazing that is pop-culture, identity, and celebrity in the internet age.

Current rating: 8.5 / 9 / 9.3 out of 10

Contributing factors: The conversations that follow. Each film is worth far more than their own hour and a half runtime simply from the conversations you’ll have about them. Gift Shop wins the authenticity battle though- most viewers will (and probably should) call “bullshit” on Here or Catfish, but Gift Shop straddles the line of reality just well enough to keep you on board.

Performance to savor: Each has their own intriguing central figure, but I suspect Banksy’s wry, funny commentary on Gift Shop‘s story is the reason that film has gained the momentum the other two didn’t.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “If you want to lose all faith and trust in the documentary format, I’ve got a triple feature for you!”

8. Renn on Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go is staggeringly subtle, and yet it’s the most thoroughly “science fiction” film I’ve seen this year. What sells the classical sci-fi tone of the film so thoroughly, despite its refusal to show more than a hint of the technology that sparked this alternate universe, is that the scenario is so unquestionably accepted by the story and the characters. In most science fiction films you usually feel the characters, or even the story itself, trying desperately to drag the world back to something like our own. It’s as if our reality holds some sort of gravity by which lesser sci-fi films are pulled in, forcing their characters to revolt or shift things towards a paradigm we audiences in this universe can understand. Not so in Never Let Me Go, where the system is never challenged or questioned, which is half the horror of it. Instead the film concerns itself with the story of three young people who don’t even realize how trapped they really are- they look for loopholes in the system with the same “revolutionary” spirit that you look for an extension on your taxes. They are frustrated by their circumstances and are passionate about finding a loophole, but acknowledge what’s coming as inevitable.

All of this sets the stage for a carefully told tale that is (as I described it in my review) “marked with the melancholy of youthful mistakes that stain a relationship irreparably.” The film is not without joy, but there is the sub-surface rift between characters that only comes when youthful mistakes are made that can never be explained and can never be forgotten. Love is what’s being celebrated here though, and the desperation with which we cling to it when we finally find it.

Never Let Me Go is not perfect, which is actually a shame because I’d like this to be one of those inarguable masterpieces that is important for all of history for everyone forever the end. It’s great though- absolutely wonderful and unique and gorgeous. I’ll never forget seeing it for the first time and being swept away by this melancholy little universe, in a way I hadn’t experienced since Children of Men. That’d make a great double feature in fact, if you’ve got the emotional stomach for it. These hypothetical dystopias can teach us a lot about ourselves, if we pay attention to our own human traits that are said to have gotten us there.

Current rating: 9.5 out of 10

Contributing factors: Brilliant execution of a well-trodden concept. Subtle but powerful themes. Three great performances from young actors.

Performance to savor: I have to give it to lead girl Carey Mulligan. I’m always impressed when young actors are able to pull off the wisdom and quiet maturity of age, before their time.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “The purest, quietest science fiction film of the year.”

7. Renn on 127 Hours

I’m still stunned, if not surprised, that Danny Boyle managed to make a movie about a guy pinned under a rock the most dynamic film of the year, without ever feeling like he cheated. Sure, there isn’t the narrative discipline of Cortes’ (terrible) Buried, as the film is willing to leave the confines of the canyon from time to time. It’s always in a manner that is perfectly connected to Aaron though, and there is less of that than you would reasonably expect. 127 Hours seems to have slipped from the conversation a little bit this year, but the exuberant and masterful power of this film shouldn’t be ignored. Unlike Slumdog Millionaire, which always felt a little exploitative and rose-colored about the poverty in which it played, the inherently horrifying nature of this story just serves to make the joyousness and energy of the film more vivid. James Franco’s performance is the perfect (pardon the pun) bedrock on which Boyle can stage his lively look at one man’s quest for amputation, and were this less of a stellar year for performances, Franco would be on top of the pack at awards time.

Current rating: 9.5 out of 10

Contributing factors: Dual cinematographers that find every conceivable way of shooting the story, a script that actually flies through the story and never has to resort to cheap tricks or dragged out sequences.

Performance to savor: Franco of course! Cocky without being a cock, he portrays Aaron as a youthful, joyful spirit whose spirit believably endures, even when faced with a life-threatening reality check.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Boyle and Franco don’t even need both hands to put together one of the best of the year.”

6. Renn on Enter The Void

Sometimes you have the pleasure of watching a film that seems like it’s trying to break the very concept of cinema in two, and on rare occasions you may actually come across a film that seems to succeed. Some would argue that whatever the fuck it is that Gaspar Noe keeps doing is more akin to assaulting or molesting cinema, and they may be right. Even if he is managing to cleave the art form in two, I don’t really want to think to much about what appendage he’s using to do it. Enter The Void is another film from the director that doesn’t give a fuck what you think a movie should be, how long you think a movie should run, or where you think a movie should go and yet… Enter The Void is pure cinema. An exciting, indulgent, perhaps over-long experiment in camera movement, scene transitions, lighting, subject matter, point of view, sound design, music, and naturalistic (or maybe just bad) acting that you’ve never seen anything quite like. 2001 is the clear point of approach here, but even that film ill-prepares your for Void‘s method of storytelling, for which Gaspar Noe has employed a camera that is able to shift lens length, shutter speed, aperture, focus plane, and means of movement at will, with no regard for what should be physical possible. I can not emphasize enough that the camera in Enter The Void can and will go anywhere. The story being told is recursive and fractured, told as much through memory and fantasy as actual recall, and it’s filled with symbolism so abundant that it would take a dozen viewings to catch it all, and dozen more to pinpoint their meanings.

I’ve heard some say that Gaspar Noe could change the very face of cinema if he were to focus his talents on a less indulgent project,  but that smacks to me of trying to restrain some hideously gorgeous neon bird to walking around on the ground, flapping its wings for show. Yeah, when it’s flying we can’t always see or grasp –much less follow– where the damn thing is going, but it sure is glorious and exhilarating when we can.

Current rating: 9.6 out of 10

Contributing factors: Camera, camera, camera. The thing will. go. anywhere. And the brilliant opening credits.

Performance to savor: Paz De La Huerta is the closest thing to a real actress in this film, if you notice through all of the titty.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Hey, you can’t put your camera there… oh my god, put your camera there!”

5. Renn on Winter’s Bone

Winter’s Bone is very much this year’s Brick for me, and Brick is a film that I truly, deeply love. The similarities extend beyond the noir foundations though, as they each dig into a dense, insular world that is unfamiliar to most of us. Winter’s Bone explores a location much more based in reality though, and the sickly taint of meth production coats the rural Ozarks in a very real way. Ree is unconcerned with grand issues like the squalor meth has brought on the region, or how to topple the fiefdom of redneck drug-cookers that run the area in which she lives. Instead, Ree is dealing with plain ole day-to-day poverty, and even the mystery of her father’s disappearance is less important than the mystery of how she’s going to feed her siblings tomorrow. That’s what’s so great about Winter’s Bone– the focus and importance of Ree’s goal is so deep and unquestionable, that any mystery pales in comparison. We become invested in the people of the story, rather than any superficial revelations the plot could offer us. This wouldn’t work all that well if the film didn’t boast some of the best performances of the year but it does, so it does. Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes are doing stunning work here, blending into their characters, their motivations, and their environments seamlessly. This film won’t connect with everyone, and even those that enjoy it may not all be especially impressed, but if stories about hyper-focused protagonists in interesting environments interests you, Winter’s Bone can’t be missed. It’s is undoubtedly one of my favorites of the year, and one I can’t wait to revisit over and over for years to come.

Current rating: 9.6 out of 10

Contributing factors: Lawrence, Hawkes. The script and delicate direction of Debra Granik. Michael McDonough shooting the shit out of the Ozarks, making the RED camera his figurative motion-picture-capturing bitch.

Performance to savor: Lawrence is the discovery here, but the always-great Hawkes times his performance of Teardrop pitch-perfectly. Who would have thought a meth-cooker could be made so endearing, without loosing his edge or your desire to stay at least ten steps away from him at all times.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “You’ll love this redneck noir film, set in a land where meth is the stuff dreams are made of.”

4. Renn on The Social Network

I didn’t connect with The Social Network in the same way that it seems most people did. Case in point: I was never not rooting for Zuckerberg, and I ultimately thought he came across as brilliant, visionary, and often frustratingly ahead-of-the-curve. I saw value in the examination of genius and the shrewd decisions that must be made by visionaries, and ultimately I think the film’s one flaw is the mildly on-the-nose, 1:1 connection made between Mark Zuckerberg’s motivations and his trouble with women*. It’s the foundation of the film though, and it’s the spine that makes what is ultimately an immensely entertaining political drama something more universal and classic. It’s certainly the narrative artifice that allows a classically-styled movie to be made from the life story of the world’s youngest billionaire who, all shenanigans aside, is what he is not because of bitterness towards females, but because of a unique combination of genius and luck.

I’m glad they invented that construct though, because The Social Network works best as an intense character study, and one that is relatable for reasons larger than of-the-moment social commentary. Had “the Facebook movie” been turned into an exploration of what has made the social network site such a center of our lives and our relationship with the internet… well, it probably wouldn’t be on as many Top x of the Year lists. What we got instead was a timely but timeless look at a public character that allowed for a master film craftsman and a master wordsmith to join forces and give us a great film. They should do it again sometime.

*That said (and this doesn’t reflect well on me, I suppose) I always found myself relating to Daniel Plainview to a disturbing degree.

Current rating: 9.6 out of 10

Contributing factors: It’s fun. It’s beautiful. It’s edited wonderfully. Reznor and Ross’ score is great, and the music selection is superb. Fincher and Sorkin were undoubtedly made for each other,

Performance to savor: There’s greatness all around, but it’s Eisenberg baby. Witty, dickheaded, vulnerable- it’s amazing what he crammed into a character that is so entertaining on screen, and yet shockingly reminiscent of the real Zuckerberg.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Fuck social commentary, just give me a great movie where people talk good.”

3. Renn on Inception

I’ve written a ton of words about Inception this year, including a review of my own review along with the film itself on Blu-ray! With that in mind, I think I’ll port over my conclusion from the Blu-ray tag-team which sums it up well enough:

“My mood hasn’t swung, my views haven’t changed- Inception is great. It’s Nolan’s current masterpiece, but the wonderful thing is that it promises so much more from the filmmaker. I expect virtually every element of this film to hold up in the long-term and it’s one I’m looking forward to enjoying for as long as I’m watching movies. Inception is highly unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the overall quality of the average blockbuster –we’ll mostly just have a ton of trailers cut to the recognizable cues, and most picture-edits will be done with an Inception temp-score for a while– but beyond the slight uptick in slow-motion and gravity-bending that we’ll see, there’s always the chance that it will open the door for one more big-budget film with a brain. If only one more filmmaker gets to bring his or her slightly unconventional idea to the screen with enough dollars to pull it off, then it will all be worth it. Anything like that is a bonus though- we’ve got this one. It’s in the can, it was in the theaters, and now it’s in our homes. The studio can re-release it in 3D, or push through some misguided sequel, but it won’t matter- Inception is ours now.”

Current rating: 9.7 out of 10

Contributing factors: The marriage of effects and brains, a ton of actors having a ton of fun, and a uniquely left-brained approach to depicting dreams and layered reality.

Performance to savor: Depends on the viewing, but I always go back to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s wonderful ability to step up and be a believable bringer of authority and subterfuge.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “Yo dawg, I heard you like dreams…”

2. Renn on Black Swan

Black Swan is explosive and operatic and raw and all of the things that make big bold cinema great. It makes for a wonderful pairing with it’s predecessor The Wrestler, and it’s an even better punctuation mark on what will ultimately be Aronofsky’s pre-major studio ouvre. I have a feeling that even a complete return to the low-budget indie for Aronofsky after Wolverine won’t stop his work from be classified as B.W. (Before Wolverine) and A.S. (After Swan). So we are ultimately left with a profoundly interesting, personal batch of films that represent the early work –ups, downs, and all– of one of the most interesting filmmakers currently living. Black Swan is the culmination of that early work and is his best and most thrilling look at the obsession that drives those who quest for greatness. Searches for universal understanding, money, and immortality (literally, then figuratively) have driven Aronofsky’s respective protagonists before Black Swan, and Nina’s desire for artistic perfection is the perfect cap on what could be considered Aronofsky’s “impossible personal quest saga.” Ending with the subject that is likely most personal for him –artistic expression– the filmmaker takes us to some of the darkest places he’s explored yet. What’s interesting is that Aronofsky’s ultimate conclusion seems to be that maybe some impossible quests are able to be completed- but at what cost does that resolution come?

Quite simply, Black Swan is a masterpiece and the best film of the year.

Current rating: 9.9 out of 10

Contributing factors: The multi-format photography. The brilliant staging. The remarkable score. The concussive, breath-taking finale.

Performance to savor: Kunis, Cassell, Ryder and Hershey are great, but Portman transforms right before our eyes. A cinematic rebirth, we feel the actresses real desire for adulthood and artistic maturity vibrate through her much more naive and innocent character.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “A remarkable journey, unmatched this year.”

1. Renn on Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

As I have no formal review that articulates my thoughts on Scott Pilgrim to fall back on, it was difficult to resist turning this into an overly long and ultimately late review of the film. Instead I’ll have to trust in the fact that you’ve already read excellent reviews of the film from very smart people that do a wonderful job explaining how great this film is. If not, I would encourage you to find some and then note that, yeah- what those guys said.

For me Scott Pilgrim is one of the most wonderfully cinematic movies of the year, despite being adapted from a graphic novel and its point of reference so often being video games. How could this happen? My best answer is to say that no other film this year managed to combine energetic imagery, bombastic sound, and rhythmically sublime picture-editing to such an exhilarating effect. If you connect with Scott Pilgrim, if you can tune yourself to its frequency, it’s the kind of film that gets in your blood and affects your heart rate. It makes you move and laugh and dance and cheer along with it, all through the power of visual and sonic rhythm. It’s one of those films that you can’t really be faulted for not LOVING, but those who are plugged into that same cinematic amplifier understand that it just doesn’t get any better than this. I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve played a video game for more than an hour in my life, and yet Pilgrim is a film I can’t stop watching. It’s instantly taken a place in my arsenal of films to excitedly show people who missed it.

Current rating: 9.9 out of 10

Contributing factors: Ramona, Beck, Motion Graphics, D D D D D D D, Thomas Jane, the Hammer, VS screens, pixel sword, Cera, laugh tracks, FROM MY BRAIN!, coin remains, stupid hair, Continue…?

Performance to savor: Cera, Routh, Pill, Webber, Wong, Culkin, Kendrick, Plaza, Winstead, Larson, and Evans. All of ’em.

CHUD.com Pull Quote: “He is Scott Pilgrim, and he is here to make you think about love and have fun and stuff.”

The King Speech being missing is as much a clerical error as anything, though it didn’t stick with me as much as some of the “prestige” films of this year. Four Lions and Monsters are both great films that do a lot with a little, but the former is given a bit too much credit for being brilliant and brave, and the latter just didn’t have the kick to make it one of those BRILLIANT no-budget sci-fi films I love so much. There was another batch of great docs in Best Worst Movie and Freakonomics, and I was bummed to have no room for Waking Sleeping Beauty (the touch of corporate pandering ultimately made me remove it). Cyrus, The Killer Inside Me, and Get Low all feature really really great performances, but never quite became more than the sum of their parts. Finally, animation shone brightly this year with Toy Story 3 and The Illusionist, but not quite enough to make it.

Thanks for reading!

To sum it up…

After many teases and a substantial wait, Red Letter Media’s 110-Minute HD review of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith is online for your viewing pleasure (embedded and linked down below).

Mr. Plinkett and Red Letter Media have developed a substantial following online with their thorough and ruthless reviews of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Mr. Plinkett has aimed his shockingly academic eye for story, structure, and characterization at dozens of films, including the Star Trek franchise and Avatar, and yet it is the Star Wars reviews that have become true online events for the last two releases. There’s a lot to be interpreted on that subject (as has been done in the excellent Sewer Thread for Red Letter Media) but I think it ultimately boils down to the fact that the reviews have a little something for everyone.

To elaborate- for the hardcore Star Wars geeks there is genuinely logical and dispassionate deconstruction of everything that makes the PT so frustrating- those things that many fans may not have been able to quite articulate, but have just felt for years now. At the same time, Plinkett is often shining a very favorable light on the OT in contrast and thus vindicating long time fans with the same high-level critique. It’s the ultimate geek opportunity to have one’s cake and eat it too! For the rest of us who don’t feel any particular emotional investment in Star Wars..? Well there’s rape, murder, and visualized film criticism of an almost universally familiar set of films that are crammed with enough bullshit to provide lots of material. It’s win win for everyone.

I’m currently cacheing the latest review in a Starbucks so I can take it home (where I’m suffering with broke-ass internet for the moment), and watch it with my roommates. There’s something really fun and unique about enjoying a genuinely hilarious feature-length review with other film fans, so I hope Plinkett keeps up this habit beyond the low-hanging fruit of Episodes 1-3. I’m not sure where the Mr. Plinkett character will have to go be sustainable (the whole serial killer shtick is kind of a tight-rope walk between funny and tiring), but I hope all the folks at Red Letter Media figure it out. Perhaps they will become the Pixar of long-form video film criticism!

Enjoy the third review below, and make sure to visit Red Letter Media’s website and twitter feed.

BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE
STUDIO: Phase 4 Films
MSRP: $29.99
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 81 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:

* Featurette

The Pitch

If you lose your lady at the club, she’ll become an indentured whore.

The Humans

Natassia Malthe, Sam Page and David Gant

The Nutshell

A lovely couple visits the male’s father in Spain. Screwing around in a local disco, the chick gets drugged and kidnapped. The male finds out that his dad does some seedy shit and his female hole has been sold into sexual slavery. Following the trail of the White Arab, the man unit fights his way toward his lady love’s indentured love holes. There’s a lot of crass nudity and degradation, so keep a box of tissues at hand. If you’re a lady, there’s no reason to watch this. Unless you like rooting for rape and prostitution. Am I right, ladies? Holla!

One heart. One brain. Two buttholes. I’d like to see Jane Seymour make jewelry for this.

The Lowdown

Slave is like a weird riff on Meet the Parents. A loving couple leaves America to find the guy’s dad and get his approval for their upcoming marriage. The dad has a weird past much like DeNiro’s Jack Burns, but this Focker is into drugs and whore wrangling. When the lady parts goes missing, the dude goes all Clash at Demonhead and fights back. From there, the film turns into this bizarre C-movie take on Taken. While Liam Neeson is a bad ass who blows Kraken juice in Chloe, this guy is a joke.

Apparently, the lead actor is Joan’s doctor raper husband from Mad Men. Being a non-entity apparently transcends television and moves into feature films. I don’t want to spoil the film for you, as I’m hard pressed to remember much about it. But, there’s a crazy amount of tits. You almost get a hint of front vag, but the whiff of pubic hair was almost too much to get this film through the MPAA wringer. Do you call smidgens of pubic hair a whiff? I always thought it was a hint of pubic hair, but nobody ever gives me straight answers to these questions. 

I know that a lot of you bitch about us reviewing stuff like this, but there’s someone out there that’s going to rent it. Honestly, I’d rather spend my time talking about Little Fockers. Did you see that? It was pretty fucking epic for a PG-13 comedy. You know what bugged me about it? Jessica Alba’s character was using MySpace as a Social Networking site. That’s so unrealistic, as most fuckable cheerleaders turned slutty pharmaceutical drug reps use Facebook or LinkedIn. While that isn’t the film’s worst sin, it’s a terrible oversight that must be corrected in the Special Edition release.

Back to this film, it exists. It’s no Meet the Fockers, but what is? Also, how many times have we had to endure Americans getting tortured by fucked-up Europeans? What happened to the good ol’ days of America throwing Germans out of an open window at Nakatomi Plaza? I’d blame Obama, but the problem started before him. If America would just come together and say no to these garbage flicks, we could move forward as a people. Then, we could watch more Ben Stiller comedies. That guy is the reason why Robert DeNiro is still relevant.

Robert Loggia’s little clone Stumpy.

The Package

The
DVD
comes with no extras. The A/V Quality is passable for a first-generation DVD from 1998. I would bemoan the lack of an HD release, but this film appears to have been shot on favors and stolen lunch money. If you want to watch a terrible movie tonight, I’d recommend catching Burlesque. If you want to watch an abortion, check out this film. I’d recommend a double feature with Meet the Parents. If you can’t find that title, I’d recommend checking out any part of the Focker trilogy.

I get very upset when I hear about movies with demons being “based on a true story” because it rules out the possibility there’ll be demons in the movie.

I love demons. Wish they were real. But they aren’t.

The Rite is based on a true story. And based on a book. I don’t know if its demons that Tony Hopkins the priest is going to be squaring up against, but there’s definitely some demonic possession happening and in my very crappy research I discovered that the story focuses on the politics and controversies regarding exorcisms as well as the exorcisms themselves. I’m cool with that. I like the idea of Mr. Hopkins: The Priest Edition™. I hope this is a fun, twisty, and spooky little ride through a battle of faith and science.

If you live in the Atlanta area and would like a crack at seeing this little romp before your adversaries, please use the link below and answer the questions to the best of your ability. Please include your mailing address in the email in case we use actual printed passes rather than codes.

1. This is the last screening we will be doing on this version of CHUD.com. In less than a week this place is getting a massive overhaul. The biggest overhaul in the history of the site. Brand new face. Brand new engine. Brand new forums and community features. It’s a long time coming, and I am thankful you’ve stuck with us through some tough times. What is one aspect of the site we’d BETTER retain?

2. Did you hear about GUY.com, the new site we’re launching? What do you think?

3. I personally never get tired of movies involving priests and demonic forces. Does that make me a deranged individual or just a good genre fan?

4. I always as that you subscribe to our mailing list, Twitter account, Facebook Page, and YouTube Channel… so if you haven’t, please do. And if you are a fan of useless chatter and bitchy weirdness, why not follow me too?

Here’s how it’s going to be for 2011. I’m going the ol’ Marvel Two-in-One route. Interpolation will not be housed at CHUD, but offsite at AV. To maintain my creative intentions for Interpolation, this is a legal necessity.

In total, we’re going to cover 200 songs in Interpolation. The project has grown by leaps and bounds, thus I’m still trying to hammer out creative assets for it. To be able to access Interpolation, there will be a link within the new CHUD blog posted here.

The link and Interpolation are exclusive AndersonVision IP that will not be housed at CHUD for legal purposes. As I still owe CHUD a mandatory blog for publication here, you’ll get something layered on top of the real material. Thus, returning back to the theme of interpolation.

I’m not quite sure what I’ll call it, but it will not deal with music ala Interpolation. Maybe, I’ll do a Secret History of CHUD. I’m sure that the Chewers will want to know why Sam Strange had to flee to Taiwan in 1988. There’s also the secret of Renn Brown’s rape mask. Hell, I haven’t even touched upon the best one.

David Oliver knows the location of the Hellfish Bonanza.

There’s a new year coming and it’s time to get weird.

I do not understand fandom. The difference between a good nerd movie and a bad nerd movie is so subtle and grey. You think you’ve got a lock on what they want, and they turn on you. I made you guys a Tron movie. A fucking TRON movie! I feel like an idiot just saying the word “Tron” in front of adults.

For those that don’t know, Tron is a movie from the 1980’s about neon lines in a computer. The concept is, people can literally enter a digital world and play Atari games like Pong with their whole bodies. It’s super popular with nerds because it has neon lines and David Warner.

Making a sequel to Tron with updated graphics seemed like a no-brainer. And just to recapture the original’s spirit I made sure it was a no-brainer. I did everything else I was supposed to do, too. Like Avatar, it was 3D. Like Avatar, it had CG characters. Like Avatar, it takes place in an immersive fictional world. Like Avatar, it featured a super hot non-human woman. Like Avatar, it puts its little toe into the idea of deep thought and lets you defend it from there. But for some reason you rejected this one. You people act like you’ve never seen a bad movie before, like Avatar.

So the main character in Tron is a guy named Tron played by Jeff Bridges. In between movies, Tron got old and started worrying about his legacy. So he did something about it. First, he made a kid by having sex with a woman. Immediately after, he went to his computer world and made a kid by having sex with himself.

Both results offered me wonderful opportunities for technological innovation. The computer kid (badTron) is basically a Jeff Bridges clone that never ages, so I needed to take Jeff Bridges’ soul and put it in a CG body. This marks the first time anyone has ever done this. I had Andy Serkis play Jeff Bridges’ body in mo-cap then it was animated by the people at Dreamworks because Pixar would make him look too good. It seemed thematically appropriate that he resemble a video game character, so that’s what we went for, and that’s what we got.

For the human offspring (Tron Jr.) I had to do the opposite. I had Andy Serkis mo-cap Jeff Bridges’ soul and inserted it into the body of Jeff Bridges’ real life son, Beau Jr. This marks the first time someone has ever done this. I think it turned out okay, but my perspective may be warped from being too close to the project. The kid’s like a real son to me now, and I will fucking punch your nose if you badmouth his acting.

The film begins with Tron Jr. doing stupid boring stuff with no neon lines. Eventually the Honey I Shrunk the Kids ray sends him into the computer world. Once there, he has to play gladiatorial Atari games. He wins them all because he’s human, and, as a 21st Century twenty-something, has plenty of experience with games like Pong, Frogger, and Pitfall. There’s one exciting scene where a neon-lined gorilla (Andy Serkis) throws neon-lined barrels at him while he tries to climb neon-lined ladders. Another game involves accidentally falling into large holes while accidentally collecting parts of a telephone. Tron Jr. quits this one early and pops in Custer’s Revenge instead.

Eventually, Tron Jr. meets up with badTron. At first badTron seems like a good guy because he’s wearing sunglasses. But then they fall off, and Tron Jr. sees his cold, lifeless eyes and knows he’s an evil video game. Before he can run away, he has win to a motorcycle version of that snake game that used to come free on your cellphone. He wins the game, but badTron knows how to manipulate DOS cheats. Luckily, a hot lady saves Tron Jr.’s ass and drives him to meet his real dad for the first time in 20 years.

Once there, Tron himself tells us more of that happened between movies. He and badTron worked really hard to build the ultimate SimCity. The city was so perfect, in fact, that millions of NPC’s started appearing out of nowhere. Tron realized their digital souls held all the answers to our non-digital woes. But badTron didn’t like how their spontaneity affected his stats, so he cntrl-alt-deteted their asses. Only the finest ass escaped. Since then, Tron has been spending his time sitting on a pillow with the lights off.

(For their reunion dinner, they eat some vegetables. There’s a roasted pig sitting on the table, too, but they just throw it away. That scene’s on the blue-ray.)

At this point, the film gets a plot. The two Trons and the computer girl need to get out of SimCity. To figure out how, they first need to consult Albino Ziggy Stardust. Albino Ziggy Stardust doesn’t know much, but he dances a lot and betrays them so there can be another action scene. This one’s not based on an Atari game, though. The Tron people wear hard drives on their back that also serve as weapons. So they have a kung-fu fight with their hard drives. This is me bending over backwards to realize every nerd fantasy imaginable.

After this, they hop a train to the exit. It’s a loooooong ride, but it gives Tron some much needed pillow-sitting time, while his son tries to talk to the girl-thing. For about twenty-minutes or so, we get to watch that idea awkwardly not work out.

Right around the time you start to forget what movie you’re watching, they all have a neon-line airplane fight. It’s a lot like the neon-line motorcycle fight. badTron is part of the attacking group and the only real threat. Once again he gets defeated, yet remains in the game due to his badass DOS skills.

He stays on their ass while they make a break for the big light that can take them home. Literally at the gates, Tron abruptly decides to hang back and use his admin powers to martyr himself. He takes out badTron and the entire SimCity in the process. The reason he never broke out these admin powers before is because no one was ever actually in danger of anything until now, and even now is debatable. All I know is: this is a movie and movies end with explosions.

Back in the real world, Tron Jr. Prime cuts the terrified NPC girl into tiny cubes, or “bits” and sends them to the world’s top scientists who immediately start using them to cure disease and famine and obesity and heart-break and dirt.

History has a way of righting itself
when it comes to the arts. Sometimes it restores clarity and reminds us
of the great things out there we had forgotten and sometimes things are
going too well so it’ll regurgitate something we tried to forget. But
there’s usually some sort of balance.

Occasionally something falls through the cracks.

Like Times Square.

I still see a lot of cult love for director Alan Moyle’s Pump Up the Volume and Empire Records, yet few seem to even remember his first major music-soaked effort.

Written by
Jacob Brackman (who also produced) and Moyle, and released in 1980, Times Square centers on Pamela Pearl (The Frigtheners‘ Trini Alvarado), the meek and unhappy teenage daughter of a rich politician, who meets her polar opposite in Nicky Marotta (Robin Johnson), a fiery teen runaway who wants to be famous, while both are being examined for mental illness in the hospital. Like Peter Pan, Nicky whisks Pamela away, escaping the hospital and shacking up in an abandoned building where they live out a punk rock fantasy as street scamps. Pamela’s disappearance makes headlines, and the two girls start up an unlikely relationship with Johnny LaGuardia (Tim Curry), a subversive radio disc jockey. The girls form a “band,” The Sleaze Sisters, and LaGuardia airs their rebellious music and messages for all of New York to hear. The girls immediately become legendary, but their vagabond lifestyle and personal issues soon catch up with them.

I am not surprised Times Square has been forgotten by the general populace. It’s ridiculous, over-the-top, raw, corny, melodramatic, and messy around the edges. What does surprise me is that the film doesn’t have a larger shrine in fan-land (I know it has a small following). The very attributes that prevented it from being a mainstream hit are the exact same things that should have made it a major cult fixture, especially among teenage girls. I mean, Pamela asks for a job at a strip club but refuses to strip – and they hire her anyway! Gold. I’m surprised I don’t see hipster gals wearing “Go Sleaze” T-shirts, or see this costume…

…routinely popping up every Halloween. I’m surprised there aren’t midnight screenings full of girls screaming the lyrics to “Damn Dog” and “Your Daughter Is One” along with the film.

Most surprising of all though is the trajectory that Robin Johnson’s career took after the film. A classic Hollywood discovery tale, Johnson had no acting aspirations before a casting director literally plucked her from the street to audition for Times Square. Following this film she had a light smattering of roles throughout the 80’s (including a bit part in After Hours) before dropping out of the scene after 1988’s Dennis Quaid/Meg Ryan thriller, D.O.A. She then became a helicopter traffic reporter in Los Angeles. Now she lives in Florida. It is a crying shame that Johnson did not have more opportunities. She had an intense, natural sense about her, and a clear proclivity for the art of acting. And though many jokes are cracked about how ugly she is in Times Square, her husky voice and attitude make her rather sexy. There is a great moment in the film where Nicky storms into LaGuardia’s radio
station, drunk, and demands to be put on the air to play some music, but
ends up breaking down midway through her song. In this moment you can see that Johnson had “it,” that she could have continued to grow and had the kind of career that nabbed Independent Spirit Awards, and under the right circumstances, maybe even an Oscar. Alas.

The other acting delight in the film is Tim Curry; his smarmy, lip curling power still at the height of its game. LaGuardia is an interesting character, a crusader against the establishment whose subversiveness ultimately starts to feel nihilistic. He’s a boat rocker with no true agenda.

As I said, the film is messy. That may turn others away – there is a decidedly b-movie feel here – but I think that is what makes the whole thing work. Moyle has a good eye for chaos and reigns things in when they need to be. Most importantly he gets great performances from our three leads. A punk rock movie can’t have polished edges. It needs to be punk too.

Also notable are the setting and the soundtrack. As the title should imply, the film takes place in Times Square, and was shot entirely on location. It thus serves as a grand and dirty time capsule of a bygone era, before Rudy Giuliani cleaned up the joint. The soundtrack is great, featuring tracks from Talking Heads, The Ramones, XTC, The Cure, Lou Reed, Suzi Quatro, Roxy Music, Marcy Levy, Patti Smith,  and The Pretenders. Plus some comically out of place Bee Gees, added against Moyle’s wishes by producer Robert Stigwood, who wanted to emulate the success of Saturday Night Fever.

Go Sleaze!

Some days it feels good to sing Gino Vannelli songs. Today is not one of those days.

END OF LINE

As we are mere hours from the end of the year, it’s a perfect time for year end totals. Of the top ten only Harry Potter is still in general release, which may mean an additional $10-$15 million domestic and untold international numbers. Whereas of the current releases, it seems unlikely that either Tron Legacy or Little Fockers (or True Grit, for that matter) could crack $176 Million. True Grit actually might have the best chance of such success.

Sometimes I include a top fifteen, but adding Clash of the Titans, Grown Ups, Tangled, Megamind, and The Last Airbender isn’t really interesting, though I’ll bring them up later.

FINAL SCORECARD:
Films in 3-D: 50% (60% Top 15)
Sequels: 50% (33% Top 15)
Based on known properties: 80% (66% Top 15, or 80% if Tangled and Grown Ups count)

From this list, it’s fair to say that Disney had a great year. Except that Tron Legacy, Prince of Persia, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice were franchise non-starters, though the other two had stronger international numbers than domestic. Still, they have the top two films of the year, dominating the market. Though Pixar has become a sequel factory for the moment, Toy Story 3 is not a bad #1 for a year to have, and Alice in Wonderland proved yet again that a March launch is now just as meaningful as the first week of May.

Iron Man 2 also proved the worth of a release date. The film didn’t have the same kick as the first film, but by starting the summer it managed to open big and play well enough against weak competition (like Robin Hood and Prince of Persia).It should be noted that Iron Man as a franchise hasn’t picked up any additional international support. But in that regard, international has been best to Spider-Man of the superhero franchises, while the domestic numbers were better for The Dark Knight than international. Often action films will make 2/3rds of their money internationally, but that hasn’t been the case with these films (for the most part). Those international numbers are still good, and with all of these titles the ancillaries (T-shirts, games, comics, toys, etc.) add to the endgame. Iron Man 2 did slightly better numbers than Eclipse, which is a money factory for young Summit. Eclipse had a Wednesday opening so I included the weekend/five day split in the opening percentages. Going by the five day, it’s the most front-loaded success of the year, followed by Harry Potter and then Iron Man, which is not surprising for sequels. 

It’s worth noting that most of the films in the top ten aren’t as front-loaded as they’ve been recently and this is because children’s films aren’t as typically top heavy. The same could be said of Inception’s long play, which means that the Christopher Nolan brand now guarantees a $200 million domestic gross. Perhaps this is post-Dark Knight love, but in a summer of gimmickry it sailed true. But it also had a budget, Warner’s marketing behind it and a big star.

The Potter franchise is also still a money machine, much like Shrek. Shrek seemed like a non-starter – it did great business domestic and internationally, it was just off from the last two entries. Harry Potter is in familiar numbers at this point, though – as I said – international is likely not done.

Despicable Me is the rare Universal hit and the rare original property in the top ten. It was partly timing, and partly the audience. There is an impression from these numbers that if you release four animated movies during the different quarters of the year, each can do about $250 Million or so. How To Train Your Dragon came out in Spring, Shrek in May, Toy Story 3 in June and Despicable Me in July. The summer films did better than the fall (or had more kids out of school), where Megamind and Tangled likely cancelled each other out a bit. Or both were okay, but not amazing. Or something. Rounding out the ten is The Karate Kid and like Inception and Despicable Me it’s fair to call it an audience hit.

Brand awareness in terms of cinema has never been higher, and almost all the successes came from people or titles that are known quantities. The only non-brand (Ill call Christopher Nolan a brand at this point) was Despicable, though it was animated. But once you leave the top ten, a number of the other titles aren’t going to be profitable, or if they become so it will be due to DVD/TV sales and foreign totals. Clash of the Titans did well enough to generate a sequel (or at least sequel talk), but enough animus for its star to talk shit about it. It is going to be a problem if some of the most successful films of the year don’t make money, and we’re almost to that point, but then also most of these films are built on franchise awareness, so there are – hopefully for the studios – enough ancillary material interest to make that worthwhile. But only three of the top ten cost under $100 Million dollars. As I’ve been saying lately, domestic is becoming a smaller factor. Just going by domestic numbers with the 2-to-1 ratio (since theaters do still get some of the money), only four of the top ten would have turned a profit, so international is a huge factor. The 2-to-1 is complicated because the numbers are mostly made up, and don’t usually include advertising. Since many of these films have toys to sell, the final results are beyond box office numbers. Disney will be comfortable with Tron Legacy if it breaks even if the brand name becomes viable again. Let’s see how the TV show goes…

I think the most telling thing about this year is how many of the big money makers are aimed at children. Realistically the only film targeted at the under 18 set was Inception, though an argument could be made that Iron Man 2 is a big action movie. As it is derived from comic books, that could go either way. The other big thing about the number of kids films in the top ten is that all the animated films were 3-D, and available in Imax, as were a number of the films on the list. This can cause inflated numbers, though we’ve never been in a “tickets sold” business.

2010 seems like a transitional year in a lot of ways, even if it feels like we’re in for more of the same for a while. Like a big dumb animal, it takes years for the industry to change. The Green Hornet will be one of the last not shot as 3-D 3-D movies (we’ll see what happens with Thor and Harry Potter 7.2 to say nothing of Cabin in the Woods), but with the sheer number of 3-D movies next year, we’ll see if that trend is dying, or if they figure out how to convert more theaters to 3-D. Theater owners are lazy when it comes to the newest/latest, because they’ve lived through too many fads. The bottom line is it’s much easier to produce gimmickry than quality, but gimmickry fades quicker with audiences even if they’re fooled to start.

This wasn’t a great year for most studios. Sony is finishing the year with a number of high profile flops, Universal had a terrible year, and Disney had two films back to back that were way too expensive and underperformed. I don’t know how you look at the budget for Tangled and see success or Tron and not see that it didn’t do the business hoped for. Fox couldn’t find a big winner all year (they had no picture in the top fifteen – their highest grosser was Date Night with nearly $100, but supposedly cost $55). And though Paramount had Iron Man 2, Dragon and Shrek, the former was a Marvel production, and the other two were from Dreamworks Animation. On their own they had The Last Airbender, though they scored victories with Shutter Island, Jackass 3-D and Paranormal Activity 2. The last two were smaller budgeted, which was rare for the films that did well. It seems that the year’s lower budgeted art films performed respectably, but not all that great. Cyrus, The Kids are All Right, and Winter’s Bone may have been profitable, but none fully broke out. 127 Hours never caught on (that’s not a missing arm pun, is it?) The best of these sorts of titles is Black Swan, which should do over $70-$80 at its current pace (as long as the awards and/or nominations start rolling in). Even The Fighter is performing just okay. But then here’s True Grit, which will be the Coen’s first $100 Million dollar success. Which is both an art house film, and a studio picture from a number of Oscar winners that’s also a western. That’s the cinema culture of the moment, with a number of filmmakers like Jody Hill, Todd Haynes and Frank Darabont working on TV shows and miniseries for television.  

I guess you could say that branding failed some high profile titles (like The A-Team, The Last Airbender, Prince of Persia), but not so much that it didn’t work for others, like much of the list above. Next summer promises four huge comic book movies (Thor, X-Men: First Class, The Green Lantern, and Captain America), some of which may not perform to expectations. The big summer titles are also – as has been the case – filled with sequels and known entities. And then also Tree of Life. There is always hope.

I JUST WANT TO STOP… AND TELL HOW I PREDICT ABOUT YOU, BABY

The only thing that should change between this weekend and last is the rankings. True Grit is playing to audiences more than Fockers, so it should jump to the top of the list. How long Grit runs is unknown and will be tied to award season, but it should finish this weekend near $90 Million, which means that $120 would be the lowest total it could achieve. As I said, it could do over $150 when it’s finished.

If you want to ride it:

1. True Grit – $25 Million
2. Little Fuckers – $22.5 Million
3. Tron Legacy – $12.7 Million
4. Narnia 3 – $9.3 Million
5. Yogi Bear – 8.7 Million

And then Sunday it’s a new year, and hopefully we’ll all be mostly sober by then.