The Moment You've All Been Waiting For

It's after midnight, which means it's Monday May 3, which means the list is upon us. I've been talking about it for the whole of this week, I've been dropping hints, and now it's time to reveal the banner. Check it out




I'll explain. You know when lightning strikes where it is least expected, a nothing movie that no one believed in becomes one of the most influential films of all time, shatters the box office, has critics and fans up in arms about it and all that? And then the knock offs come as feeble-minded execs want to cash in on the magic and movies get horrible for a while. Sometimes it lasts a couple months, a year, and in some cases, it's still happening as we speak. Those are the movies this list is about: the great movies the were trailed by a bunch of pretty bad ones that did everything short of tarnishing the original's legacy. It's both a celebration of great films and a condemnation of Hollywood's tendency to repeat trends until they are utterly and hopelessly dead.

As I've said in other posts, this is a collaborative effort. Some of the entries will be written by me, some of them won't. I provided a list of films that I thought should be on such a list and some of the fine bloggers who will be participating suggested there own. I wasn't a tyrant, didn't close any possible ideas off and let the bloggers basically run free with their thoughts. If you agree, great, if you don't, let's here about it in the comments.

I will, right off the bat, apologize if the film that you thought should be in here isn't, but you know, if we looked at every film that suffered from this phenomenon, well we'd be here forever. Now that you know what's not on the list, I'll be revealing one entry per day, which will be posted at midnight (Toronto time) until we get to number one. The order, as I've posted before was left up to a vote and represents the collective opinion of everyone who cast their vote.

I hope you enjoy, I hope you comment and spark debate, tell your friends and neighbours about this list and get them to follow along too. It should be a lot of fun.

A PIctorial List of People I Would Like to See Go Away

I don't feel like writing anything today because I've been busy writing entries for the list, which is starting in two days and because I've been writing script coverages like mad (that always happens when a festival is approaching) (how much are you willing to pay to snag a copy of Albert Nobbs or the Farrelly Bros.'s Hall Pass?) Anyway, there's some celebrities who just irk me and every time I see them I expect A) that they will annoy me and B) whatever they are in or make will be garbage because, you know, it involves them. Some of them annoy me because of unwarranted ego. Some of them annoy me because they shouldn't even be celebrities and some of them annoy me because they try so hard to be funny and just flat out aren't. Whatever it is, one thing ties them all together: I wish they would all go away

Kate Gosselin-

The most insufferable person on TV

Tyler Perry-
An insult to intelligent (black) people everywhere

Lee Daniels-

Egocentric hack.

Jonah Hill-

Fat guy who will never be Seth Rogen no matter how hard he tries

Russel Brand-

Two words: St. Trinians

Tracy Morgan-

Okay you were funny in Death at a Funeral but that whole constipated donkey thing you do just gets on my nerves

I didn't include the obvious choices like Paris Hilton and all that because why waste time? Who would you throw on here?

Why Jason Patric Should Be in Every Movie

By now Jason Patric has become just about one of my favourite actors. He started out in the 80s as a heartthrob of sorts and made his name in stuff like The Lost Boys. But in 1990 he proved just what an excellent actor he is in a film that got little recognition at the time called After Dark, My Sweet. In it he starred beside Bruce Dern (another inductee in this list) as a worn out drifter who gave up a career in boxing and looks like it was maybe a good idea because he seems to have taken maybe one too many shots to the head.

Here Patric creates a perfect film noir hero. a guy who we don't quite know what to make of: is he good, is he bad, does he have alerter motives or is he really just a burned out bum? Here, as with every subsequent great performance, Patric creates characters out of his presence, not his ability as an actor. He plays things internally, letting notes stew just below the surface. He's the kind of cool, collected man who could burst out at any moment as if he seems to be folding in on himself in order to contain his hidden rage.



It's no surprise then that Patric would go on to star in one of the coldest, most uncomfortable scenes in all of American film in Neil Labute's Your Friends and Neighbours. Watch as Patric looks on, telling his story, completely oblivious to the fact that what is conveying is truly horrifying. This is a man without a pulse and Patric creates him, once again, through presence and not showmanship. He's just there, cold, heartless, empty (note- this scene is at the heart of the film so if you don't want to spoil it, and you shouldn't since it's a masterpiece, don't watch this)



Patric played it tough and gritty and the police drama Narc but it was in another underrated gem, My Sister's Keeper that he changed his tune. Once again, he relied on his presence, but this time he was the emotional heart of a film and every scene he was in was a keeper. Rarely have Hollywood films presented dads as so honestly what they are: caring, understanding, rationale and suppurating from the background. Watch what Patric's presence does to the trailer alone:



Patric belongs to the film's best scene (which appears at the 1:53 mark). Look at how he takes the scene, not by making himself the center of it, but by reacting to it; knowing what it needs and giving it nothing more than that though the look of the eyes, the slant of the mouth, etc. These are roles that many actors would take and go over-the-top with, but not Patric who is an actor who understands the concept of restraint. He finds the truth in a scene and leaves it at that.

The Losers (4 out of 5)

The Losers is based on a comic book but it looks and feels more like an action movie. It’s big, loud, violent and dumb. God bless it. It recalls a time when action movies were allowed to be fun. Remember that? When they were just as much about personality as they were action, which The Losers has plenty of regardless? It has running, jumping, fighting, shooting, and, gasp, explosions that are created through the combination of gasoline, heat and oxygen, not a mouse and a keyboard. Remember that too? The Losers doesn’t go so far as to give rebirth to the classic days of the action hero, but it does manage to wrestle the genre away from the high tech, artificial flashes of light, sound and colour that have become a mainstay as of late and give it back to the characters who occupy it. Hey, it’s a start.

The Losers are a group of skilled military men, employed by the CIA to, oh I donno, kill bad guys. But when a mission is botched by an evil insider who goes by the name Max, the group pretends they are dead and set up shop in Bolivia where they hide away and live their new life. The team is made up of the leader Clay (Jeffery Dean Morgan), the tech guy Jensen (Chris Evans), the knife guy Roque (Idris Elba), the bomb guy Pooch (Columbus Short) and the marksman Cougar (Oscar Jaenada).

The team are getting along and getting by but deep down Clay wants to find Max and take him out for blowing up 25 innocent kids with a missile that was meant for him and his team. Max, it might as well be stated, when he finally appears, is played by one-time heartthrob turned character actor Jason Patrick who manages the wonderful feat of creating a completely original villain just through the nature of his presence. A lesser actor would have flown way over-the-top in the same role but Patrick always keeps both feet on the ground. He’s so good at creating evil men that he takes the role one step further into comedy instead making him both A) the film’s most amusing character and B) all the more shocking when his violence suddenly erupts.

Into the mix comes Aisha (Avatar’s Zoe Saladana) who hunts The Losers down in Boliva and is first mistaken for a foe so that, oh I donno, the film can justify burning down a hotel room. Fair enough. Turns out Aisha has one concern: killing Max. Why she wants to is unknown to the group but hey, she’ll cop the tab and they get their names cleared. Sounds good.

That’s the plot, the rest is all attitude. It’s kind of funny, kind of exciting, and all around, you know, kind of enjoyable in its glee for pulling out all of the stops for no better reason than to pull out all the stops. You’ve got to admire that. Action movies have been so mindless and hollow for so long that you’ve got to flag the ones with good senses about themselves. There’s a scene towards the end, during the big final shoot-out between Max and The Losers where a motorcycle becomes the prop at the centre of a wonderful action sequence. Many people who value their hearts and their minds will take issue with this. They’ll call it ridiculous. I don’t know, I call it kind of inspired because for one, there’s a certain danger, and therefore excitement, in ramping a motorbike off a high incline, second, motorbikes represent speed and speed somehow always translates into excitement and third, it’s something original. Good action movies take a certain degree of creativity to pull off successfully. The Losers has it to spare.

Maybe that has something to do with the script, which was written by that valuable subverter of genres Peter Berg whose own The Rundown was another staple of action filmmaking of the highest order. Heck, it may have been the last great Hollywood action movie. Here, like there, Berg creates actual characters out of personality types which is then elevated into fruition by the actors, while director Sylvain White goes into hyper-stylist overdrive trying to make everything look as delicious and exciting as possible. Sure, it’s trash, but it’s good trash and you know what Pauline Kael said: if we can’t enjoy good trash, why bother going to the movies in the first place?

7 Movie Questions

So in between working on the list and writing a review for The Losers and another Why X Should Be in Every Movie entry so that I had some stand-up stuff before said list takes over this space completely, I was tagged by Univarn to do another one of these memes. That's fine, I enjoy them. This one was started by Movienut14. It's 7 movies questions. So here goes:

1) What was you first movie-going experience?

The first time I went to the theater was to see Tomorrow Never Dies. I've probably told this story before but I was deathly scared of blood for the longest time and so therefore had never seen an action movie before. I was at my aunt's one time and Goldeneye was playing in the background and I watched it nervously being totally excited by it but ready to turn away quickly at any sight of blood and to my pleasure none ever came. It was my birthday a couple weeks later and me and some friends decided to rent a movie so I suggested Goldeneye. Needless to say we loved it and my love of shoot-outs and explosions was born and my fear of blood evaporated. Turns out, several weeks later, Tomorrow Never Dies was opening at the local theater and we just needed to see it right away and we did and that was my first time at the theater.

2) How many DVDs do you own?

DVD Aficionado tells me I own 1212 but I know it's more than that because some are stand-up comedy DVDs that aren't on that site and some are box sets which are counted as one but you know, have like 4 or 5 movies in them, so it's more like 1250 I'd guess.

3) What is your guilty pleasure movie?

I have a lot of them because, as someone told me and as I am very aware of, I am a lot easier a critic than some of my fellow bloggers who just aren't as easy to impress. What can I saw, I'm just as much a movie fan as I am film scholar. So anyway, some that I would pick would be Hollywood Homicide, The Honeymooners, The Wicker Man remake and so on. But really, no pleasures should be guilty.

4) You have compiled a list of your top 100 movies. Which movies didn't make the cut?

I really have no good answer to this because too many wouldn't make the cut.

5) Which movie(s) do you compulsively watch over and over again?

Adaptation, Commando, FUBAR, Police Squad (that's TV I know), you know, fun ones.

6) Classic(s) you're embarrassed to admit you haven't seen yet?

Okay, let the judgement be passed. I've never seen The Godfather Part 2. I own the box set and have seen the other two but that one has just eluded me thus far.

7) What movie posters do you have hanging on your wall?

La Dolce Vita, Boogie Nights, The Godfather, The Dark Knight, Casino

Okay, on to tagging:

Wild Celtic
The Movie Snob
Hal
Vancetastic

Another List Announcement

Six days and the mystery list will be upon us. I've read a few of the entries and let me tell you ladies and gentlemen, they are good. I think I can also safely tell you that it'll be big (at one entry a day it will more than likely consume this site for the better part of a month). Although I'm still keeping the topic under lock and key I can bait your appetite a little more by telling you what films could have been on the list but wern't because, well, if we let every film on the list it could probably go on forever (or at least two months). So, can you make a connection between these films and guess what the list is about or are you scratching your head even more now and waiting with baited breath to know just what the heck this thing is about?

Last House on the Left

The Birds

Breathless

Clerks

Dawn of the Dead

The Exorcist

Fargo

The Fugitive

Citizen Kane

Persona

M*A*S*H

Dances with Wolves

Last Tango in Paris

Magnolia

Men in Black

Dirty Harry

Psycho

Yojimbo

Rosemary's Baby

Harold and Maude

The Breakfast Club

Silence of the Lambs

The Sixth Sense

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Speed

Suspiria

There's Something About Mary

Titanic

Vertigo

The Notebook

The Wild Bunch

Alright, put your thinking caps on.

A List Announcement

So if you read this space regularly you probably know that I'm compiling a list. The nature of the list and what it is counting down is a secret that will be revealed with the first entry. I can tell you this though: the first entry into the list will be posted in exactly one week, next Monday May 2, 2010. I can also tell you that one film will be revealed per day until the number one position is revealed.

I can also tell you, as I have before, that this is a collaborative effort. Each entry will be accompanied with an explanation from a reputable blogger, each of whom will also be contributing to the voting process to decide what order the films in question should appear on the list. So even if you don't agree with what number a film is presented at, well, it's not just my opinion, it's the pooled opinion of the contributors so ya know, take that.

Anyway, in order to get you excited I will reveal the list of people who will be contributing/voting in no particular order:

Ricky @ Tartan Review

Sebastian @ Detailed Criticisms

Hal @ Forget the Popcorn

M. Carter @ M. Carter @ The Movies (http://mcarteratthemovies.wordpress.com/)

Simon @ Four of Them

Olive @ Movie News First

Gringo @ He Shot Cryus

Marc @ Go See Talk

Wynter @ Cinema Scream

Travis @ The Movie Encyclopedia

Darren @ The MOvie Blog

Caroline @ Let's Go to the Movies

Chris @ Celluloid Moon

Andrew @ Andrew at the Cinema

Larry @ The Movie Snob

Aiden @ Cut the Crap Movie Reviews

Ditty @ Elizabethan Theatre

Andy @ Fandango Groovers

Ruth @ Flixchatter

So there you go. Pass the week by checking out their blogs because they are all good ones and then tomorrow I'll reveal a little more. Stay tuned.