I love pointless, end of year lists, don’t you? Here’s mine: some of the stuff I felt strongly about (one way or the other) this past year. Plus a whole bunch of other things I’ve been either enjoying or hating.
MOVIES:
WINTER’S BONE–a terrific adaptation of Daniel Woodrell’s even more terrific book. Daniel, by the way, will be featured prominently in our upcoming Ozarks episode.
TOY STORY 3–If you’re going to have to watch the same kiddie movie over and over and over again (parents, you know what I’m talking about), then this is the best case scenario. It’s actually pretty scary. Really scary, in fact. And it’s probably some kind of indication that one of the best written films of last year was an animated picture about toys. By any measure, this was a really good movie.
CARLOS–A five hour docu-drama biography of Carlos “The Jackal” Ramirez. About as thoroughgoing an investigation of terrorism as exists–and superb as both history and psychodrama.
INCEPTION–How did they ever get a picture this smart, and complicated, and esoteric and expensive made? non-animated studio picture of the year.
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON–Just awesome.
WE LIKE TO DRINK-We Like To Rock and Roll: A little known indie documentary on the rise and fall and fall of disgraceful yet legendary power trio, THE UNBAND.
And while we’re talking about rock docs, be sure to catch up with the DVD of ANVIL: The Story of ANVIL (probably the best rock bio ever), as well as the new EXILE (Stones)…and the somewhat older DIG (Brian Jonestown Massacre).
THE RED RIDING TRILOGY–An almost unbearably bleak trilogy of related films–by three different directors, riffing dramatically on imagined events around the Yorkshire Ripper case of the late 70′s and early 80′s (a la David Peace’s ultra hard-boiled Yorkshire noirs). If you like grim, violent, Northern England based policiers like I do–this is pure crack.
