uh-oh

I've just arrived in Austin when I received this picture from Jessica of my dog with the outside of his bowl stuck around his head. I'm gone for a few hours and everything at home is falling apart. Sigh.

This is the jackolantern I made

A classic "one-toothed jack"

The 2008 Austin Film Festival

Hello friend-o's. 

Most of you know that my partners in crime (the infamous Ryan Martin, the devilish Adam Deyoe) and myself are going to this years Austin Film Festival to unleash our newest monstrosity onto the world: Psycho Sleepover. 

I plan on doing drunken updates as frequently as possible about the movies I've seen, the people I've met, the bbq we eat, etc. 

I have to get back on this blog-horse and ride it into the sunset, all the way to the Lonestar state. 

I probably shouldn't do this. This wasn't what this blog was supposed to be. Oh well. Here is my list of my favorite movies of 2007.

1. No Country for Old Men : This is, by far my favorite movie of the year without a question. Some people hate the ending. Those people are wrong. The ending is what separates this movie from the countless action movies with similar premises. I had nightmares about Javiar Bardem's character the night after I saw this. It's a brutal movie full of despair. It rules.

2. Once : Talk about a completely different movie from No Country. James Griffin would hate this movie. Technically it's a musical, but not in the way you're thinking. This is just a really sweet, little movie. Everything you've read about it is true. It's simple and charming and a great take on romantic movies and musicals.

3. Zodiac : I thought David Fincher ruled when I was in high school. Fight Club was my favorite movie. Now I'm 25 and that is not the case. Fight Club is a movie made for high school-age boys with too much testosterone and a simplistic view of consumerism. The fans who misunderstood this movie made me hate it.

Anyways, Zodiac is great. It's a detailed account of a group of men who become obsessed with cracking the case of the Zodiac Killer. It's not a horror movie, it's a procedural. It's slow, well thought out, and interesting film about obsessive personalities and unsolvable mysteries. 

4. Control : The bio-pic of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division. This is a classy little film. It's a beautifully shot, warts-and-all portrait of a confused, mentally-ill, young man (he was 23!) who got married too young and had a mistress. He also happened to be the singer of  a great band.

5. Rescue Dawn : Werner Herzog's most accessible movie. Here he retells the story from his documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly"  using actors and structuring it like a standard movie. Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, and Jeremy Davies do an amazing job.

6. Superbad : I was torn between this and "Knocked Up".  Here's my rationale: "Knocked Up" is the more well-made movie but I liked "Superbad" better. It's uneven. The cops were a little too over the top, but this movie is hilarious, plain and simple.

7. The Savages : This movie couldn't have been made without the involvement of Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. They do an incredible job as two mid-level playwright siblings dealing with their estranged father's losing battle with dementia and ultimately death. It's pretty funny too.

8. Juno : You know about this movie. I don't need to tell you about it. I hated the first 15 minutes of it. I thought it was Napoleon Dynamite rip off. I couldn't stand it's "hip" dialogue, but then something happened: the characters became 3-dimensional. Yes, the dialogue is a little too precious for it's own good, but all the actors do such a good job and the script always goes in directions you don't expect to go and deals with the issues realistically and satisfactorily. 

9. Hot Fuzz : These dudes rule. This movie is hilarious. I don't know what else to say. I like cop movies, I like comedies, I like satires. There you go.

10. Chasing Ghosts : You probably haven't had the opportunity to see this documentary because it hasn't been picked up for distribution because it deals with the same group of people that "King of Kong" deals with. It's about a group of video-game nerds who dominated the arcades in the 80's, achieved astronomical high scores, became sorta celebrities and then disappeared into obscurity along with the demise of the arcade scene. I haven't seen "King of Kong" so I can't really compare the to, but like "Zodiac" this is really a movie about obsessive personalities. These guys are great characters who are obsessed with learning as much as possible about whatever subject happens to interest them. They struggle with finding girlfriends, real jobs, maintaining friendships, and they are all similar in their meticulousness. It's a great character study full of awesome video game stuff.

Other movies that I liked but didn't make the list because they were either uneven, a little too long, or just didn't fit are: I'm Not There, There Will Be Blood, 3:10 to Yuma, Eastern Promises.

Later gators.

A serious question

When was the last time you in all seriousness ate a banana? Tell me. Tell me the last time you ate one without any pretenses or humor involved. The winner of this contest will win an autographed picture of me eating a banana.

This is serious. This is real. 

Talking about Rambo actually made me LESS masculine

Are you guys aware of the new Rambo? It is simply incredible. It is literally a movie about people exploding. I watched that movie and my penis grew 3 inches by the time I walked out.

Here's an example of why Rambo is the most masculine movie of all time: At one point Rambo makes a machete and then uses that machete to cut some dude's head off. 

Rambo's arms are so big that wearing long sleeves is simply not an option.

This is the BEST unintentional comedy of the past 5 years.

Anyway, last night I was at a bar talking about the various masculine things that Rambo did over the course 90 minutes when--unbeknownst to me--some large dude came up to my friend Katie and asked to use her phone. When she said no to him he hit her. 

I missed all of this. I missed my opportunity to Rambo-out on some dude (Rambo rips a guy's throat out with his bare hands).

The moral of this story is don't let Rambo get in the way of your everyday life. I think. I think that's the moral. Maybe the moral is that you should rip out someone's throat with your bare hands.

Cloverfield

Saw Cloverfield yesterday. I'm sure everyone knows what it's about. A giant monster attacks New York. It's a re-imagining of the Godzilla situation, only instead of a man in a big lizard suit it's pimped out in the latest CGI effects. I really enjoyed it. It had a some great suspense scenes. It's not campy or corny in anyway, which I appreciated. For such an outlandish plot it really felt realistic--well, as realistic as it could be. 

I don't want to ruin anything for those who haven't seen it, but one of the biggest problems I had with it was that they gave us a good look at the monster. I know that this wont be the popular consensus for most audience goers, but I thought the monster was much cooler/scarier when seen in small doses. 

I guess it goes without saying that this type of movie requires a willing suspension of disbelief. The main character's motivation for wanting to venture through Manhattan while it's being demolished by a giant beast is just plain stupid, but without it there wouldn't be much of a movie, would there? 

Anyways. I really enjoyed it. 3 1/2 out of 4 stars.