Avenue Kurtodrome

Time now for our annual tradition of our Summer Check-up of This Year’s Movies. Alright, so I’ve never done this before, but every annual tradition has to start once, no? Seven months of 2008 have flown by, let’s look at the good films they’ve given us so far.

1. JUNO (8)
Best film of the year? I hope not. But we can be certain of one thing: when I saw it in the theatre, I was very lucky. Right after Easter, the room loaded with girls the same age as Juno and a couple of older men. The first 15 minutes of the film are dreadful: the dialogue seemed fake and intentionally funny (you know, the “you better start laughing now cause I’m telling you a joke” sort of humour), but then the movie found its soul. The laughter didn’t come from the older men in the room, but from the girls in the crowd. And at one point, when “All The Young Dudes” was playing, a man who had been a young dude at the time of the recording started singing along to the music.
And let’s not forget Ellen Page, who was an excellent choice for Juno (those who’ve seen her as daughter Lilith in ReGenesis might’ve expected that.)

2. ONCE (8)
Is this a trend? I also hated the beginning of Once, where busker Glen Hansard chases someone who tried to steal his money. After this fake start the story of Hansard (him) meeting Markéta Irglová (her) and eventually jamming plus recording with her looked a lot more sincere. Above all human.

3. TBS (8)
Dutch movie about a psychotic (played by stand-up comedian Theo Maassen) who escapes from prison and takes a 13-year-old girl (Lisa Smit) hostage. When he went to prison, noone wanted to believe he battered his father to death because his father was abusing his sister. Will the girl believe him? Can he find people who’ll back up his story? Or isn’t he as innocent as he claims to be?

4. ATONEMENT (7,5)
Atonement is a good movie with an occasional brilliant scene (e.g. the scene on the beach), but its brilliance doesn’t linger. And in general it was hard to find scenes that could turn a good movie into a classic, mainly because they aren’t there. And of course a bad ending (oh, how horrible) leaves a nasty aftertaste. Pity.

5. ELDORADO (7)
Even if it only takes three hours to drive from one side to the other side of the country, 2008 seems to be the year of Belgian road movies. And coincidentally, one was made in Wallonia, one in Flanders.
Eldorado is the Wallonian effort and is just that bit better. One night Yvan (actor and director Bouli Lanners) comes home and finds a burglar (Fabrice Adde) hiding under his bed. Eventually Yvan pities the poor sod and offers to drive him to his parents (the young man lived in the city, but is penniless and wanted to find money to pay for his journey home). When this odd couple runs into car trouble, they’re helped by a nudist (who claims his name is Alain Delon). Just one of the many funny scenes in this movie. Sadly, the movie is a bit uneven and some scenes are boringly overlong, but Eldorado contains more than a handful of scenes that are so funny you’ll still chuckle about them after a week.

6. IN BRUGES (7)
Read my longer review here.

7. SMALL GODS (6,5)
The Flemish road movie of 2008 (released six months before Eldorado). The six and a half you’ll see here is also part of our sympathy for this movie, which dared to be different. Sadly, someone should’ve revised the script properly and taken out all the horrible scenes. It starts early where a man is interrogating our female protagonist. She talks about her odd story and he manages to utter: “So it’s as if you were watching a movie?” Oh, how meta can one go! The woman was abducted by a young man and make a trip through the country together with a runaway girl. Why did he do it? Why was she under arrest in the hospital? We’ll find out, eventually.
Blurry vision galore and an impressive score (by Millionaire’s Aldo Struyf) and soundscapes (by Noise Reduction). It’s a shame it’s occasionally so pseudo-intellectual because it contained many lovely scenes that would make it as popular as the odd Icelandic movies that are so popular around here. Who’s to blame? Mainly the financial film committee, who didn’t want to give money to a film that was so outrageously different from the Flemish movies (read: turds) we normally get to see. This had the potential to become a cult movie, but noone wanted to back up the two brothers who wanted to make their debut movie and so the movie had to do without a firm hand and the control needed to turn a couple of good ideas into a cult movie. That’s right, kids, blame the government!

8. THE STRANGERS (6,5)
Reviewed here.

9. EL ORFANATO (6,5)
Reviewed here.

10. THE DARK KNIGHT (6,5)
Batman and I will never become friends, but Christopher Nolan managed to put another movie to the short list of sequels that are better than the original. Gone is Katie Holmes, who really deserved an award for Worst Performance in 2006 for Batman Begins, and in comes Maggie Gyllenhaal. Whom I like, so that’s good. The movie is fleshier and Heath Ledger is very good as the Joker (even though his performance is overhyped). Christian Bale manages to give Batman/Wayne so gravitas and it’s a shame the death of Ledger made people overlook how good Bale is in this movie. Sadly I had to think of Mark Kermode when I watched one of the many chase scenes in the movie. Kermode mentioned that, during the finale, he noticed he was liking what he was seeing but that he didn’t feel anything. The movie may look great, but there’s emotion missing. And yes, that’s what I felt too: I wanted to be involved more and I know there were many opportunities I should’ve felt more, but I didn’t.

Hands up if you’ve seen the Oscars. I’m not doing that because I want to count how many people tuned in, I just want to rob you from your money for doing that. Just like you’ve already been robbed from your soul by watching the awards show.
All kidding aside, the award ceremony wasn’t broadcast in my area (well, not if you don’t count a subscription-based movie channel owned by evil people whose phone number does not end in 666 for no reason, I assume) and I was left to view red carpet footage (two hours of “Who are you wearing?”) and a montage offered by Daily Show fora (as Jon Stewart was this year’s host).

The Oscar ratings were the lowest ever recorded and most of this has to do with 2007 being not a very strong year. In fact, the only nominated movie to make more than $100 million was Juno.

So let’s avoid the Oscars once again and focus on a more prestigious award ceremony: The Kermodes.

Movie critic Mark Kermode used BBC2’s Culture Show once again to give his own prize away. The winners received a statue and their names will be remembered forever. Here’s the list:

Best Actor: Sam Riley (Control) (Kermode: “And I can’t even stomach Joy Division.”)
Best Actress: Anamaria Marinca (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days)
Best Music: Jonny Greenwood (There Will Be Blood) (banned from the Oscars for including a previously released track)
Best Foreign Language Movie: Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
Best Director: David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises)
Best Movie: Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)
Lifetime Achievement Award: Ken Russell

Now how’s that for a list?

Okay, so we’re already a couple of days into this new year, but we haven’t put up a list of my favourites of 2007. (Not that anyone would lose some sleep over that if I wouldn’t post them.)

* F * I * L * M *

As it’s a film site after all, let’s find out who made it to my top 10 there. 2007 wasn’t the most inspiring of years, I’ve noticed. A lot of the films I watched didn’t get more than 5 out of 10. Maybe I missed out on some movies. Like The Assassination of Jesse James By The Rest of That Very Long Movie Title I Can Never Remember: that one got quite some praise, but sadly just didn’t play long enough for me to go and see it. But I did have time to go and watch Notes of a Scandal (oh, the horror).

Anyway, enough chit chat: here’s the list.

MOVIE TOP 10
1. PERSEPOLIS
2. EASTERN PROMISES
3. CONTROL
4. PAPRIKA
5. DAS LEBEN DER ANDEREN
6. INLAND EMPIRE
7. FAY GRIM
8. NAISSANCE DES PIEUVRES (WATER LILIES)
9. OBER
10. MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS

(I chose a picture of Water Lilies to accompany because that’s the only movie in my list that didn’t get a single mention on DV. The full list, albeit in Dutch, can be viewed here.)

* B * O * O * K * S *

Before we get to the music, I want to remind you that my book of the year was Paul Merton’s Silent Comedy. I did get time to read lots of other books and one I never had gotten round to before but that I was manage to crawl through in 2007 was Mark L. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. I beg your pardon, House of Leaves.
If you aren’t an avid reader, I’d advise you to stay away from this. But if you like to read and don’t mind a gigantic challenge: try that one out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves

And if you’d like some music with that, here’s my 10 favourite tracks of the year.

* M * U * S * I * C *

1. TUNNG - Bullets
2. COCOROSIE - Japan / Rainbowarriors
3. BLONDE REDHEAD - 23
4. THE FIERY FURNACES - Ex-Guru
5. LOW - Breaker
6. BEIRUT - Cliquot
7. FEIST - Sealion
8. THE RAVEONETTES - Aly, Walk With Me
9. LCD SOUNDSYSTEM - Get Innocuous
10. ARCADE FIRE - Black Mirror

Please visit the special Democratische 99 page on my website to find the entire list (all 99 tracks) plus lots of MP3s and YouTube links.

No New Year is complete without a look back at the year that was… 2006 brought us movies, films and books. As Delirium Vault is mostly a movie site I’ll just mention the books and music I feel should be mentioned and then we’ll go to my personal movie favourites of 2006.

BOOKS
- Fiction: Thomas Pynchon - Against The Day
Pynchon released a new novel in 2006 and this time we only had to wait nine years! 1085 pages of postmodernist nonsense, a book spawning from 1893 to just after World War I. The good airship Inconvenience will guide the Chums of Chance through their adventures, cameos of Tesla and Groucho will pop up, Icelandic spar, people drowning in mayonaise… Pynchon’s latest novel is impossible to describe (that’s 1085 pages chokeful of characters), but oh what a joy to read.

- Non-fiction: Joris Luyendijk - Het Zijn Net Mensen (They’re almost people)
Former news correspondent for the Middle East Luyendijk has published a book about his experiences as a media man. His analysis of the region: the more you learn about the Middle East, the less you understand. Neatly describing how the media work in countries governed by dictators, the way the media distort the news and the Israeli-Palestinian media wars… this book is so essential to read it’s well worth learning Dutch for.

MUSIC
Usually I publish a list of my favourite tunes, but 2006 proved to be a bit too busy to listen to a lot of music, so I think I’ll skip one year. Which doesn’t mean I can’t make a top three:

1. The Fiery Furnaces - I’m In No Mood (album: Bitter Tea)
2. Stereolab - Interlock (album: Fab Four Suture)
3. Sufjan Stevens - Dear Mr Supercomputer (album: The Avalanche)

And now it’s onto the movies…

1. El Laberinto del Fauno (9,5)
I’ll discuss this movie, better known as Pan’s Labyrinth, later on DV. Let’s just say, for now, it’s definitely the best movie of the year. And I’ll only let you disagree with me on this one if I’m in love with you.
2. Zwartboek (9)
Paul Verhoeven came back to Holland and what a comeback Black Book is! People are finally understanding why I’ve been saying Carice van Houten (pic) is an incredibly talented actress. Stylish, fun and good…
3. United 93 (9)
Paul Greengrass already directed Bloody Sunday and proved to be the best man for the job to make a movie about the hijacked plane that didn’t reach its target on 9/11. Thanks to the talent of Greengrass the movie stays sober and good. Let’s face it, this could’ve easily become a sad work of propaganda. Worst error: the scene where the terrorists tape a picture of their target onto the steering wheel. I didn’t know we knew for sure what the target was. See, there’s always a bit of propaganda with this sort of film.
4. The Secret Life of Words (8,5)
I’ve already discussed this on DV. Please scroll back.
5. Good Night, And Good Luck (8,5)
I’ve already discussed this on DV. Please scroll back.
6. Children of Men (8,5)
Utterly mind-blowing when you see it, but you do get a feeling of “it wasn’t that great” after a few hours and days. Nevertheless, notice how long certain scenes in this movie are and you’ll just have to admit this movie was a product of a lot of talented people coming together.
7. Slither (8)
Not the most original movie of the year, but one with its heart on the right place. References to Slugs, Shivers, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Yuzna and Henenlotter are never far off. Who said horror couldn’t be fun??
8. Capote (8)
Hoffman is amazing, the film is good.
9. Walk The Line (7,5)
Oh, how Reese Witherspoon deserved her Oscar for this movie. Phoenix and Witherspoon are so good you get to feel the love between Johnny and June. They even sing the songs themselves and get away with it.
10. The Descent (7,5)
I’ve already discussed this on DV. Please scroll back.

Bubbling under…Brick, The New World, An Inconvenient Truth, The Inside Man and  Tideland.