Hall of (Not So) Awesome: The Worst Films of 2008

I'd like to say I did a fairly good job of weeding out the bad movies beforehand, thanks to sites like The A.V. Club and Rotten Tomatoes. But I still found myself subjected to some truly horrible movies this year, and though I was thankfully spared from dreck like The Happening and Witless Protection (the A.V. Club's top two worst movies of the year), I was still able to find five films unworthy of the celluloid they were printed on...

5. Hancock (dir. Peter Berg)

Let me begin by saying that Hancock itself was not a bad movie. Rather, the second half of Hancock is a bad movie. For the first hour, we are presented with a wildly funny, wholly unpredictable look at a reluctant superhero being molded into something more presentable by a struggling PR man. That PR man is played by Jason Bateman, who needs to be in more movies, the opposite of which can be said about Charlize Theron, who is practically invisible throughout the first half, but sadly dominates all of the second, going so far as pushing star Will Smith out of the spotlight. While more of the blame needs to go to the screenwriters for making Theron spout all this unnecessary back story and superhero mythology, claiming that (SPOILER) she and Smith are immortal alien lovers, even though nothing resembling chemistry occurs between the two actors. Bottom line is Hancock was one or two rewrites away from being a solid superhero movie. Close, but no cigar.

4. Saw V (dir. David Hackl)

I got to hand it to the Saw guys; they keep finding imaginative ways for Tobin Bell to reappear in films, even though he was killed off in the third one. His demise came too early, anyway; he always seems to be the only good actor to appear in these new installments. Saw V certainly didn't do anything to change that theory, with Costas Mandylor taking over Bell's role as the new Jigsaw killer, making Shawnee Smith the 2nd Most Boring Person to Replace Jigsaw (there have only been two). It doesn't help that the killer and the protagonist (Scott Peterson) look a lot alike, and are both equally flat actors. The film does a nice job revisiting the haunted house motif that made Saw II tolerable, but it's simply a case of too little, too late. Just reanimate Bell's corpse already!

3. Mamma Mia! The Movie (dir. Phyllida Lloyd)

Yes, I somehow found myself in a screening of Mamma Mia!, which brought the average age of the audience I was with down about 20 years. It was a clear mistake, too, as a film in which Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan walking to the bank to deposit their paycheck for working on this film would've been much more entertaining. They would've retained their dignity, anyway, as Mamma Mia! required most of the cast to flail around like idiots (and not just during the dance numbers), scream incessantly whenever meeting someone, and in the end credits, donning the most misguided costumes ever conceived:


I know I wasn't the target audience for this film, but then again, I wasn't the target audience for Hairspray either and I loved it.

2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (dir. Steven Spielburg)

I almost feel sorry for including this movie on the list; haven't Spielburg and Lucas suffered enough for their crimes?

No, no they haven't. As long as this film contains CGI prairie dogs, nuclear bomb-proof fridges, sword-wielding Russian psychics, a failed attempt at a sidekick franchise, and the award for Worst Use of John Hurt in a Movie, no punishment will be too harsh for this disaster of a film, not even South Park's scathing attack on Lucas and Spielburg in the episode "The China Problem":



1. Deadgirl (dir. Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel)

If I had seen this film during my time as a programmer for Cucalorus, I would've given it a bad mark and that would've been that. But somehow this film went through our screening process unscathed and was given a prime midnight slot at this year's festival. Anticipation was high and everyone was excited about seeing the next word in American horror movies. Well, we're still waiting for the next word, because all we saw were two guys having their way with a female zombie in an abandoned insane asylum. That's the entire movie.

The guys stumble across the titular character, one of them decides to keep her as his sex toy, and mayhem ensues. At no point does the audience sympathize with anybody (except maybe the poor actress playing the dead girl), and directors Sarmiento and Harel keep creativity and originality to a bare minimum as they bombard the screen with all manner of sex and violence, ultimately signifying nothing. Some of the women in the audience were enjoying themselves, apparently finding some misguided sense of empowerment from scenes in which the dead girl gets her revenge on the male protagonists, but by that point, I simply wasn't up to watching the rest of this bloody train wreck, so I ended up leaving the theater, ashamed that the people I worked for and trusted had decided to screen this horrible excuse for a movie.

Coldplay's Christmas Wish (with Simon Pegg)

Coldplay gave their fans an early Christmas present with a free download of the Thin White Duke remix of "Viva La Vida," as well as this video of the band performing "Jingle Bells" with dueling harmonicas by Chris Martin and special guest Simon Pegg:

Hall of Awesome: 5 Movies We're Looking Forward To in '09

1. Watchmen (dir. Zack Snyder)
I don't think I need to explain why this is the most hotly anticipated superhero movie since...well, The Dark Knight. The original graphic novel is one of the most fascinating books ever made, pictorial or otherwise, and while I believe that director Zack Snyder is anything but "visionary," I do believe he is good at faithfully adapting comic books, so this one seems like a pretty good fit. Plus, no big name actors to distract us from all the awesome visual effects. I also have to give Snyder credit for keeping his fans in the loop, with his comprehensive video blog and free stuff on iTunes. Release Date: March 6

2. Coraline (dir. Henry Selick)
Henry Selick is the true genius behind Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and this time, he's teaming up with fantasy writer Neil Gaiman (Stardust, Mirrormask) for this homemade tale of a young girl whisked into a parallel world where everything is the same...yet completely different. Stop-motion animation always gets me excited, and the filmmakers have been gracious enough to provide fans with a slew of footage and featurettes to whet our appetite. Release Date: February 6

3. Up (dir. Pete Docter/Bob Peterson)
As usual, Pixar has kept a tight lid on their latest creation, only recently debuting a trailer (shown below) and plot summary, which looks like it was pulled out of a Chris Van Allsburg short story. If this is half as good as WALL•E, I'll be impressed. Release Date: May 29

4. 9 (dir. Shane Acker)
Animator Shane Acker created a surreal little short back in 2005 called 9, in which a little human-ish creature (kinda like those felt things in LittleBigPlanet) has to defeat a robot bug thing and save the souls of his lost friends...or something. Anyway, it caught the attention of Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Night Watch) who produced a feature-length version, keeping Shane Acker as the director and hiring an all-star cast (including Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly and Jennifer Connelly) to do voicework. We'll see if the intimate little short film can blossom into a multi-million dollar blockbuster, but if the trailer is any indication, it should be quite interesting to watch. Release Date: September 9

5. Duplicity (dir. Tony Gilroy)
Tony Gilroy took everyone by surprise when he suddenly went from "guy who wrote all the Bourne screenplays" to "guy who wrote and directed the Oscar nominated Michael Clayton." Now, he's back with a slightly more comical look at corporate corruption, as Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play ex-spies who decide to double-cross their respective employers (played by Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti) and collect $20 million. Looks like Ocean's Eleven meets The Bourne Identity, and with Gilroy at the helm, I wouldn't want it any other way. Release Date: March 20

Devin's Merry Little Mixmas! This Wednesday!

I'll be doing one more show for WUAG 103.1 FM on Christmas Eve, from 1 to 3 PM. To listen to the show on your computer, open up iTunes and from the Advanced menu, select Open Audio Stream and type in the following URL:

http://152.13.184.64:8000/

I'll be playing ONLY Christmas songs during my set, but they'll be mainly indie-based, including Holiday cheer from Goldfrapp, Beth Orton, Death Cab for Cutie, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Chris Walla, The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers, and selections from the BRAND-NEW SUFJAN STEVENS CHRISTMAS EP that leaked onto the web last Friday. So this Christmas Eve, grab a glass of spiked eggnog, cozy up to the fire, and crank up the volume!

One Christmas Compilation Worthy of Your Cash

Last year, I neglected to mention that the excellent blog Hard to Find a Friend posted an indie Christmas compilation entitled Peace on Earth, featuring new music by Chris Walla, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, and my good friend Perry Wright and his band, The Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers. Well, I'm not making the same mistake this year, as they've debuted a second volume of Peace on Earth, with much of the same artists back with more holiday cheer, plus new recordings by American Analog Set, Oxford Collapse, Bodies of Water, and Jason Collett of Broken Social Scene. The whole thing costs less than a movie ticket, and 100% of the proceeds go to the Children of Uganda, so you get the double satisfaction of getting some kick-ass Christmas tunes and helping out a worthy cause. Volume One is still available, too, with all proceeds going to Toys for Tots. Seriously, guys; it's a win-win situation no matter which one you buy.

Hall of Awesome: 2008 Mixtape

Every year, I select my top ten albums of the year, and every year, there are always a ton of other albums that may not be deserving of that list, yet still have some amazing songs on them. That’s where the 2008 Mixtape comes in, taking those individual songs and stringing them together in a futile attempt at coherence. Thanks to the people over at La La, you can stream the whole thing for free in the blog sidebar. Here's the full tracklist, along with my comments on some of my selections:

1. The Decemberists, "Valarie Plame"
   Colin Meloy and Co. put out three singles this year, each with some pretty solid tunes on them, but it begs the question: Why didn’t they just release one six-track EP instead of spreading them out over the course of three months?
   
2. The Magnetic Fields, "California Girls"
   
3. Gnarls Barkley, "Who's Gonna Save My Soul"
   
4. Beck, "Chemtrails"
   Danger Mouse gets a double feature this year, and here's hoping 2009 will prove to be an equally productive year for the man.
   
5. Oasis, "The Shock of the Lightning"
   
6. The Explorers Club, "Forever"
   Even though I wouldn't stop talking about this album, it didn't blow my mind enough to appear on my top 10 list this year. It still remains an impressive collection of Brian Wilson-influenced beach pop that is definitely worth a listen.
   
7. Chairlift, "Bruises"
   Someone give the guy who picks the songs for Apple ads a raise.
   
8. The Hold Steady, "Constructive Summer"
   
9. Flight of the Conchords, "Ladies of the World"
   This album would've easily made my top 10 list if Flight of the Conchords had bothered to include ALL of the songs from season one. Oh well.
   
10. Fleet Foxes, "Blue Ridge Mountains"
    I got into this album extremely late in the game, so it won't be topping my list like some others, but this song immediately caught my ear and refuses to let go of it.
    
11. Keane, "The Lovers are Losing"
    
12. Ben Folds, "Bitch Went Nuts"
    I'm willing to forgive Folds for some of the filler on his latest album, mainly because the Ben Folds Five reunion concert kicked so much ass.
    
13. Music Go Music, "Light of Love"
    Yeah, I thought it was ABBA, too, but it's not.
    
14. Death Vessel, "Bruno's Torso"
    
15. Of Montreal, "An Eluardian Instance"
    
16. Antony & The Johnsons, "Shake That Devil"
    I've always thought Antony was too weird for his own good, but this song really blew me away. The awesome part takes over at about 2:30.
    
17. Benji Hughes, "Baby, It's Your Life"
    
18. Conor Oberst, "Souled Out!!!"
    
19. Peter Gabriel, "Down to Earth"
    This final track should serve as an indicator of what my favorite movie of the year is going to be.
    

Hall of Awesome: Top 5 Music Videos of 2008

Just hit play in the YouTube player below and enjoy all of my music video picks for '08, from five to one! Descriptions and critiques are to follow:



5. Mogwai, "Batcat" (dir. Dominic Hailstone)
Mogwai took a decidedly different direction for their lead single off 2008's The Hawk is Howling, even going so far as to hire Chris Cunningham-protégé Dominic Hailstone for the terrifying video. It makes up for Cunningham's video hiatus, and it stands up very well on its own as an unsettling distortion of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale.

4. Radiohead, "House of Cards" (dir. James Frost)
Eyebrows were raised when Radiohead announced their new video for "House of Cards" was made without a camera, but instead with a series of lasers and motion capture techniques that captured Thom Yorke's face, among other things, making for a cool-looking video for an excellent song. But props must also be given to all the animators and directors who worked on videos for Radiohead's contests, my favorites being "Nude" by James Houston, "Weird Fishes" by Tobian Stretch, and "Reckoner" by Clement Picon.

3. Justice, "Stress" (dir. Romain-Gavras)
Even though '07 was the year Justice released their self-titled debut, '08 was the year for them to deliver on the hype surrounding that release. They had a wildly successful tour, a killer live CD/DVD, and two new videos: the awesome "guess-that-logo" video by So-Me, "DVNO," and "Stress." Heavily influenced by the 1995 French classic La Haine, with its gritty, documentary style camerawork and controversial subject matter, the video follows a nameless group of delinquents (decked in jackets with Justice's cross logo emblazoned on the back) as they cause all methods of mayhem and chaos, from assault to vandalism to carjacking. The directors raise the question "Is this for real?" by including nice touches like having the gang wait for the sound guy before they take off in their stolen car, or in the video's finale, where the gang turns against the cameraman and break bottles over his head.

2. Gnarls Barkley, "Who's Gonna Save My Soul?" (dir. Chris Milk)
What hasn't been said about this amazing video? Evolves from a somewhat corny breakdown of post-relationship depression to a fascinatingly surreal performance piece as an animated heart with the voice of Cee-Lo Green sings into a piece of broccoli, while the diner's customers and employees (including Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse) look on in shock. I never get tired of that ending either.

1. Björk, "Wanderlust" (dir. Encyclopedia Pictura)
Back when Michael Jackson ruled the airwaves of MTV, the debut of a new music video would often be hailed as an event that was not to be missed. Björk and the geniuses over at Encyclopedia Pictura brought a little bit of that magic back when they announced the debut of a new, eight-minute odyssey set to Volta highlight "Wanderlust." They held a premiere screening, gave away tons of 3D glasses to eager fans, and posted 30-second "sneak previews" of the video on Björk's YouTube page. Luckily for them, the video surpassed the hype, as "Wanderlust" takes the viewer on a journey through a world seemingly made out of animated strings of Play-Doh, as Björk and her herd of buffalo travel down a steady river and do battle with a water god and a clay doppelganger that grows out of Björk's backpack. Yeah, it's pretty fucking weird.

Movie review: Fear(s) of the Dark

You gotta hand it to the French: they sure do love a good anthology. Last year’s Paris Je T’Aime had the considerable task of taking over fifteen short films from a wide range of directors (including American favorites like Joel and Ethan Coen, Wes Craven, Alexander Payne, and Gus Van Sant) and stringing them together in a multi-faceted look at France’s most cherished city. Now, Fear(s) of the Dark attempts to take the French anthology feature to the darkest points of the imagination, using an extremely limited color scheme (black, white, and various shades of gray) and a variety of talented animators of many nationalities.

Of course, the unfortunate truth is that Fear(s) of the Dark varies wildly in terms of quality and enjoyment. The biggest mistake that the curators of this miniature film festival make is chopping up three of the six entries and interspersing them throughout the program, making it hard for the audience to discern when (and if) those entries have reached their conclusion. Pierre di Scuillo’s short, in which a woman rambles on about her many fears while abstract images morph on the screen, works as a good transitional device, but shorts about a Japanese samurai ghost and an evil man with four vicious attack dogs would’ve had more impact if they were shown without interruption. Though this might come off as a little bias, the best shorts were the ones from the Americans, cartoonist Charles Burns and animator Richard McGuire. The former’s story, about a socially awkward college student with an unhealthy fascination of insects, does an exceptional job of creating a protagonist that has to earn its sympathy from the audience, as the young man (voiced by the late Guillaume Depardieu) changes from willing participant to hapless victim.

While most of the entries in Fear(s) of the Dark qualify as unsettling or disturbing in some way, McGuire’s short (the last in the program) is the only one that is downright scary. McGuire’s minimalist animation style makes the previous entries seem flamboyant by comparison, as he relates the wordless story of a man taking shelter in a house during a snowstorm, only to find that he may not be alone. So while Fear(s) in the Dark, as a whole, may not be a sweeping success, it does make me wish that new installments would show up each Halloween as opposed to new Saw films.

Criterion give away (some of) their movies (for a month)!

The supergeniuses over at The Criterion Collection (with a little help from film forum The Auteurs) recently gave their website a complete overhaul, and in addition to an offering users the opportunity to watch some of their films online for five bucks (which will go towards the cost of the DVD if you decide you want to own it), they've had IFC Films sponsor a monthly online film festival, in which six Criterion films are available to watch online for ZERO DOLLARS!

This month, they've selected one film from each of the first six Eclipse series box sets, including an early work by Ingmar Bergman, a documentary by Louis Malle, a color feature by Yasujiro Ozu, and classics by Raymond Bernard and Samuel Fuller. Witness the awesomeness.

Become a DiMattiaFan®

So, I'm sorry for updating this blog so sporadically. Hall of Awesome '08 is on the way, so that oughta inspire me to get my act together. In the meantime, click on the "Follow this blog" link in the sidebar to become a follower of DiMattiaFilms, or a DiMattiaFan® as I've taken to calling them. This will make it so updates to this blog will immediately pop up in your Dashboard, and it will also help convince myself that there are people who actually do read this blog on a regular basis. Please...the inflation of my ego depends on it!

Music Review: Justice, A Cross the Universe

In 2007, a new French electronic duo, one that didn’t dress up in robot suits and shoot lasers out of a pyramid, released a debut album with a symbol instead of a title. It was considered one of the most promising new releases of the year, and a massive tour of America soon followed. That band, Justice, and that tour are documented on the new CD/DVD package A Cross the Universe, which includes a 64-minute documentary shot by Romain Gavras and So-Me, the directors of Justice’s provocative and wildly entertaining music videos (none of which are included on the DVD). The accompanying CD includes a full live performance from San Francisco, capturing Justice at their most raw and unhinged, carelessly mashing up bits and pieces from every song off their debut album, †, as well as snippets from sources as varied as Franz Ferdinand, Soulwax, Simian, and even Metallica.

However, it’s the DVD that shows exactly how Justice stand apart from their closest relatives, Daft Punk. For starters, it would be very hard to imagine Thomas Bangalter smashing a glass bottle on a fan’s head mere minutes before he was to take the stage, or Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo getting hitched in Vegas, only to have his new bride vanish the following day. Given one of the director’s penchant for staged misbehavior (one look at the video for “Stress” will tell you all you need to know), it’s hard to discern whether or not any of the mishaps Justice find themselves in are scripted. The supporting cast is quirky enough, from their tour manager and his obsession with firearms (an obsession that gets the band arrested at a local diner) to their bus driver’s desire to break the Guinness world record for singing the lowest musical note. There’s not much in the way of live footage, but there is plenty of pre and post-show antics, almost as if Justice had taken the mantra of their song “Tthhee Ppaarrttyy” to heart. Ultimately, A Cross the Universe makes for an attractive package, a gloriously fist-pounding live listening experience, as well as an amusing (and somewhat startling) look at the two guys behind the beats.