<<Please here to insert additional playful banter about list being so long I had to separate it into multiple posts to pad out the week.>>
Silver Medals
Donnie Darko – Like watching a new cult being born. I will never hear ‘80s music the same way again.
Brokeback Mountain – One of those movies that moved me deeply, but which I never want to see again. Some things are a little too powerful.
Amelie – Jean-Pierre Jeunet should have fixed America’s romantic comedy problem. A movie about love, Amelie makes you acutely aware of how shamelessly and cynically formulaic our rom-coms are. And yet, somehow, they got progressively worse as the decade went on. Sigh.
Lost in Translation – Like a tone poem. This movie could’ve been played without the voice track and lost nothing. Sofia Coppola uber alles.
Oldboy – Hammer fight. ‘Nuff said.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army – A sequel to a movie based on a semi-underground comic book. We have no right to expect anything this good will ever be made for such culturally dubious source materal ever again.
Moulin Rouge – One of the bravura spectacle movies that helped bring musicals into the now. Boy is it cheese, but try not to love it. I heart Ewan McGregor SO. MUCH.
Juno – You don’t want to hear me gush about Juno. It’s embarrassing. I’m a grown-ass MAN, for Christ’s sake.
Punch-Drunk Love – There was a time when I liked Adam Sandler movies. Then I fell in love with PTA’s Punch-Drunk Love. And now, I hate any Adam Sandler movie that isn’t THIS movie. Is that a good thing?
Almost Famous – God what a clever movie. It captures a moment like few movies I’ve ever seen.
Inglorious Basterds – I’m not sure there’s any point to making any more World War II movies after this. QT tossed all the war movie clichés out the window and created something entirely new here out of bits and pieces of the generations that came after The Greatest one.
Tomorrow: The Gold Medalists!