That is SO Last Year-Part Two

Anyone that knows me or has been able to gather from my writings is that time is an issue with me. I am everything's going down the proverbial terlet, as Archie Bunker used to call it . Okay! I admit it! It's cheap therapy and you're all invited!

indeed a slave to time. There's never enough time, time is wasted, the passage of time is cruel, I'm in age denial...etc., etc., etc. So why do I handcuff myself to these year end wrap ups? I suppose I take the opportunity for reflection to remind myself that not

2007 HIGHLIGHTS
THE SOPRANOS-Infuriating in its final hour, still one of the very best shows ever produced for television. I still maintain that the last episode was one of its weakest, but on second viewing the ending kind of grew on me. Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" playing on the diner jukebox while the Mafioso nuclear family ate onion rings? Actually, kind of sweet.
Other TV gems:
MAD MEN, ROME, JEKYLL on BBC America, the season finale of RESCUE ME, the EXTRAS finale special and MR. WARMTH: THE DON RICKLES PROJECT, the best work John Landis has produced in over 20 years.
The whole dizz-guzzting Britney fiasco did mange one bright note. A local Portland band called Nickel Arcade wrote the first pre-emptive Britney Spears memorial song "I Hope That There's Vodka in Heaven". Find the video from these lil' rascals on You Tube.
Storm Large and Wade McCollum in the Portland Center Stage of CABARET made me proud.
SPAMALOT was also a kick in the ass. So there.
The rediscovery of one of the finest film essayist around, former Portland resident Kim Morgan’s ongoing blog SUNSET GUN. read her work at http://sunsetgun.typepad.com/

BEST FILMS OF 2007 (the year they were released, if I have to adhere to the rules of time)
PAPRIKA-The first anime I've seen in a cinema was one of the great mind-trips of the year.
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE-It was exactly what I wanted it to be. For those who complained "It's ten years too late", get in your time machines, go back to 1997 and screw yourselves.
DAY WATCH-Them Russkie vampires! They sure am wacky!
Most of GRINDHOUSE-I loved everything right up until Quentin Tarantino's DEATH PROOF, which he totally botched with his now tiresome wanking.
BLACK SNAKE MOAN-Like a one long wet fever dream set to the blues, this little gem could have played the Grindhouse circuit all by itself. Craig Brewer is a filmmaker to watch.
THE HOST-A giant monster movie for the new millennium. Come on! Give it up for the Koreans! It beat CLOVERFIELD to the punch.
THE DARJEELING LIMITED-Wes Anderson makes films like no other. This may be a bit slight, but I'm a fan and probably an apologist like I always tend to be when I admire an artist.
PAN'S LABYRINTH-A sweet and sour fairy tale from a new master, Guillermo Del Toro.
The best of the year: EASTERN PROMISES-God bless David Cronenberg. After all these years, he has more integrity in his little finger than almost any one of his peers. Unflinching, uncompromising, Cronenberg's the Man. So is Viggo Mortensen.
Keep in mind that I haven't seen about ten to twenty of the rest of 2007. I gotta play catch up, that's for sure.

2007 began a rediscovery in the passion I have in the world of film. Probably one of the best gifts someone can give me is a free subscription to a home film delivery service like Netflix or in this case Blockbuster. It is also the worst I could get since I am incapable of nothing more than watching movies. I am a junkie and this fed-and nearly overfed-my habit. for the first six months of 2007. By the end of June, had seen over 100 films and I can honestly admit that enough was enough. I was full.With this fine gift, however, I found myself able to further my film education, immersing myself in as much variety as I have never have before. There are filmmakers whose work I had been unfamiliar and genres untapped by these eyes, so I took a journey around the world cinema and came home happy, but most assuredly spent.



There were some documentaries that played right into my psyche and drew me back into the filmaholic world I knew oh so well. At times I felt like the obsessive fans like Henri Langlois, whose life is viewed in HENRI LANGLOIS: PHANTOM OF THE CINEMATIQUE or Jerry Harvey, mad programming genius of the cable’s fabled magnificent obsession Z CHANNEL in the documentary of the same name, kindred spirits that made me feel not so isolated in the world. Then again, there were the wack-jobs of CINEMANIA, that made me realize that there but for the grace of God go I. But on the other hand, Langlois died an overweight pauper and Harvey killed his wife before he offed himself, so gee, where does that leave me?


So now I give you, recommendations all, the absolute best of

FILMAPALOOZA 2007

The films of Jules Dassin-NEVER ON SUNDAY, NIGHT AND THE CITY and the real jewel in the crown-THIEVES HIGHWAY

The films of the unsung French maestro Jacques Becker-TOUCHEZ AU PAS GRISBI, LE TROU and CASQUE D'OR

Incredible film noir: OUT OF THE PAST and my new favorite Robert Siodmak's THE KILLERS


Anime-mania:Hiyao Miyaki's entire catalogue and Satoshi Kon's brilliant MILLENNIUM ACTRESS

Radical Politics: THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, ASHES AND DIAMONDS and THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR

Two new entrants for the WTF Film Festival: Takashi Miike's murder musical HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS and Alejandro Jodorowsky's brilliant THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

So many classics: Bunuel's VIRDIANA, Lang's TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE, De Sica's UMBERTO D., Bergman's WILD STRAWBERRIES, Roeg's BAD TIMING, Peckinpah's RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, Fellini's I VITTELONI, Powell's THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP, Clement's PURPLE NOON, Miike's AUDITION, Chaplin's THE GREAT DICTATOR, De Palma's SISTERS, Cooper's OVERLORD

And that was just the REALLY good stuff. There was more...LOTS more.

I can always claim that in 2007, I furthered my film education. That's just a pretentious way of saying "I sure watched me a whole buncha movies!"

Yes, I gorged myself...and I am months behind on a pair of projects that should have been completed by now.

What can I say?

I ran out of time.

Blahhhhhgggggg

So how’s your summer? Yeah, me too. Everything seems to be one disappointment after another. It’s not

that I’m headed into what Robert Crumb calls “The Dreaded Depths of Despair”, but I sure could use a pick-me-up.

The news doesn’t help. After the Anna Nicole “tragedy” and Paris’ jail time, it’s all bimbos, all the time, isn’t it? If I were a religious man, I’d think it really was the End of Days. Don’t believe me? Turn on the nightly news. There they are: Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie AKA The Four Whores of the Apocalypse. Now they’re trying to force feed the Beckhams down our throats. When will this freak show ever end? Well, when we deem it so. Dennis Miller on his radio talk show has proposed public shunning of this nabobs and blights on society. When they appear, we all turn our backs and pretend that they don’t exist. This can’t be reflected in the marketplace as well. Don’t go to a Lindsay Lohan movie. Don’t watch The Simple Life. Don’t buy US or In Touch or The National Enquirer. Make it stand. It’s makes us all look bad. Guilt by association.

But hey, then there’s the new national scumbag, NFL player Michael Vick accused of illegal dogfighting. Everybody it out for this guy’s blood…even Al Sharpton. You know what that means, don’t you? It’s okay to hate a black man! Really! No, Reverend Al said so! There will be no reprisals. Not so fast there, Mr. Imus…

I guess one of the things that are really bugging me is that for the first time, someone actually guessed my age correctly. Oh and added a year besides. Tool. I thought that was why I was so lackadaisical about the current movie scene. I’ve stayed away from the three-peats of Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. I’ve also avoided The Transformers due to lack of interest. Have I finally outgrown my geekhood? Is it time to put childish things away?

Nuh-uh. If that was true, why do I venture out to see the movies I have this summer, namely the anime Paprika and the delirious Russian vampire extravaganza Day Watch? In your face, poseurs! Both of these, by the way, are as Jerry Lewis might say, “Mahvelous.’

This past year, I caught to speed on two masters of animation, both Japanese. The first, Hayao Miyazaki, is the Academy Award winning creator of Spirited Away and I have had the extreme pleasure of watching his entire catalog including Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and My Neighbor Totoro. But I also discovered Japan’s other genius, a little less known in this country next to Miyazaki. Satoshi Kon’s fertile imagination and technique has placed him in the forefront of emerging filmmakers and I would stack his work along any other director today. After watching the incredible saga, Millennium Actress on DVD, I found to my delight that Kon’s latest, the science fiction tale Paprika was due this summer. Paprika involves the collision of technology and dreams, pretty much of a metaphor of good versus evil. It jabs pointed sticks in the cutey-pie nature of Japanese consumerism (Hello Kitty anyone?) scoring satirical bullseyes left and right. Kon’s work is more adult oriented than Miyazaki’s, but together they make the current crop American CGI work (with the exception of Pixar) pale in comparison.

As for Day Watch, this the second installment of a proposed trilogy that began with Night Watch a couple of years ago. It is weird, wild stuff, with a sense of wonder and fun lacking in the last two installments of The Matrix. This has the best scene of anything I’ve seen this year, that being a crazed female vampire racing a sports car on the side of a high rise building. Impossible? Sure. Too much CGI? You betcha. More fun than a barrel full of Bolsheviks? On the money, honey. It doesn’t make a helluva lotta sense, but if you just go with the flow, you’ll find these Russkies sure make a terrific night at the multi-plex. Sign me up for part three.

Oh and by the by. Pan’s Labyrinth was my birthday movie this year. See. I’m still a geek at heart.

But I’m a geek with taste.