Top Film for Each Year of My Life – 2001

Wet Hot American Summer

“Well, no, why don't we say 9:30, and then make it your beeswax to be here by 9:30? I mean, we'll all be in our late 20s by then. I just don't see any reason why we can't be places on time.”

“You taste like a burger. I don't like you anymore.”

This was really a no-brainer. The only serious competition for this spot was The Royal Tenenbaums and Monsters Inc., and while they are both terrific, Wet Hot is about 100 times more rewatchable. It ranked number two on my Top Ten Comedies of the Past Ten Years list. Even though the film was shot during a wet, cold Pennsylvania spring, the performances don’t show it. Energy and joy pour off the screen.
Wet Hot is an ode to summer camp movies, but also a loving deconstruction of them, mocking the genre tropes and adding its own surreal flourishes. While I never attended overnight summer camp, I feel an intense nostalgia to be a counselor based on this movie. There’s an inherent appeal to nostalgia in all camp movies (well, maybe not Friday the 13th or Sleepaway Camp), but only Wet Hot, a parody, makes me want to work at one. Actually, I don’t want to work at summer camp. I want to live in this movie.

The cast is largely made up of members of The State whose reputation in sketch comedy is well established. Much like Monty Python, they excel at smart silliness, and Wet Hot oozes it, like when Neil (on a motorcycle) is chasing Victor (running) down a long road only to not catch up to him due to a stray bail of hay in the road. Brilliantly goofy.
In addition to the members of The State (who are great, as always) as Elizabeth Banks, Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Christopher Meloni, Bradley Cooper, Amy Pohler, Molly Shannon, and Paul Rudd throwing the all-time greatest temper tantrum in film history. With such a huge cast, one might think a few would get lost in the shuffle, but the episodic nature of the Wet Hot (all of which takes place on the last day of camp) allows for moments for everyone to shine. It helps that David Wain and Michael Showalter wrote a great script and gave everyone defined personalities.

I’d go ahead and list my favorite moments, but I’d be better served posting the script or trying to embed the whole film here. One of my favorite aspects of it, though, is that it’s so authentic that if you aren’t prepared for the over-the-top parody of it, you might just end up confused (as a friend of mine recently did). Throw this in with Freaks and Geeks and maybe the 80s weren’t so bad after all (what am I saying?).

The Ash-ian Transition

If you watch enough horror movies, you’ve seen it before. The odds are stacked against our hero and his/her friends. The characters we’ve come to love and rely on are individually being dispatched or wounded and the only person left to fight back has, hitherto, been hiding in the corner avoiding confrontation. All hope is lost. But wait. What’s this? Something triggers inside this coward’s head and he/she fights and fights hard. Where did this come from? How can someone who apparently never raised a fist in anger kill with such ease? My friends, you have just witnessed The Ash-ian Transition.

Maybe it doesn’t play out exactly like that, but the key elements are there. A seemingly wimpy, unstable, or just unknowledgeable character who is of little help to anyone in danger. Imminent threat. Shockingly abrupt turnaround into a heroic killing machine. Those are the basics. In addition to them, the character can’t be settling a score with just one enemy. He/she has to take it upon him/herself eliminate the danger. Mercy and remorse are for the week. At least while there is business to attend to. Also, there is usually some sort of physical transformation. Broken glasses, severed hand, shirtless, etc. You know, just so you know something's different, you know?

While not confined to the realm of horror, The Ash-ian Transition most often resides there (few genres offer as many opportunities for consequence free murder). If you dig, I’m certain you will find examples in war and gang/gangster films. It’s like a violent version of The Grapes of Wrath where Tom Joad kills the “cop beatin’ up a guy” and others taking advantage of the poor. Even better, it’s the horror equivalent of the ugly girl with glasses in a romantic comedy that turns out to be a stunning prom queen. Oddly, it’s not found much in Westerns, which focuses more on the fallen warrior or the killer in retirement. These men always have it in them; they just aren’t using it anymore. Wherever it pops up, though, it is always welcome and always awesome.

Now that you have an idea of what to look for with The Ash-ian Transition, let’s look at a few examples and variations of it.

The Evil Dead Trilogy

The series that gave The Ash-ian Transition its name. While not the first to portray this phenomenon, it is arguably the most dramatic portrayal in cinema history. The main character, Ash (played by The Chin himself, Bruce Campbell), goes from being unable to fight off a fallen bookshelf to leading an army against the undead in the span of two weeks, tops (and I lean more towards one week, but I don’t want to be accused of exaggerating). In The Evil Dead, he is completely useless (“We can’t bury Shelly, she’s a friend of ours.”) through most of the film until he is left alone to fight off the scourge of deadites.

In the Evil Dead II, which can kind of be spliced with the first to act as a continuation (the door to the fruit cellar becomes an issue doing this), Ash gains a lot of confidence once he cuts his hand off. Perhaps he’s trying to impress his new visitors. Regardless, by the end, he’s seeking out the deadites, even choosing to “go into the fruit cellar and carve [himself] a witch]. This is day two.

Finally, in Army of Darkness, he turns into Superhero Joe, building bombs, organizing and training an army, sword fighting like a pro, and turning the Classic (his car) into a destruction machine. Sure, he still seems a bit of a sniveling coward at times, but this Ash has a confidence that the Ash from the first film couldn’t dream of.

Straw Dogs

This highly controversial film by Sam Peckinpah is notable for a lot more than an Ash-ian Transition (it’s responsible for my most heated film-related argument to date, which was with a not-argumentative person), but that doesn’t diminish the greatness of said Transition. This is the only non-horror film on the list, unless you count personal horror, which I don’t. Dustin Hoffman plays a mathematician (NERD!) whose uneasiness with his wife’s past in his new town bubbles beneath the surface, barely concealed. He is a man of the mind, impotent and filled with rage at the dominance of his wife’s former lover and his pals, but he tries his best solve his problems without confrontation (with them at least). Finally, when his home and those dwelling within are under assault, his survival instincts kick in, accompanied by a blistering bagpipe soundtrack chosen by him, balls-to-the-wall mayhem ensues, with giant bear trap. Regardless of one’s opinion of this Straw Dogs, this scene is something to behold.

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Aside from The Ash-ian Transition, this film has another, more bizarre and jarring transition: from uncomfortable brutality in the first half to silly spaghetti western in the second half. Both of these changes occur at the same moment. Doug Bukowski, a non-entity up to this point, is out to find his kidnapped daughter, which he does, but not before encountering mutated hill-people. With the aid of a Morricone-esque score, he dispatches his assaulters and saves his child. I have no idea where this came from, but it’s the highlight of the film. Having not seen the original, I don’t know if anything similar happens, but I hope so.

The Descent

This film is interesting because the main character, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), is an adventurer at heart, but personal tragedy broke her spirit so she battles personal demons that withdraw her from the group. Her transformation is less a rising to the occasion to fight for her and her friend’s lives than the final plunge into a long-coming madness. She has nothing to lose and circumstances (being lost in a cave system with monsters/friends dying one-by-one) put her over the edge. Not only does she do some monster smashing while covered in blood, she turns on a “friend” who previously betrayed her. Depending on which ending of the film you saw, her madness saved her or trapped her.

28 Days Later

Another variation of The Ash-ian Transition. The bulk of the action in this film is spent running from the speedy, infected threat. It’s about survival, not fighting back. It’s not until we get to the military outpost that anyone needs to stand up to the threat, which it turns out is completely different than what our heroes thought it was. Every attack prior to the cadre of survivors endure en route to the outpost they are mentally prepared for. It’s only when they get to “safety” that they let their guards down and the threat becomes palpable. Jim (Cillian Murphy) is separated from the women and sent to his execution. Due to minion foolishness (always bites the bad guys in the ass), Jim gets away, determined to rescue his friends by any means necessary. He moves like a ninja, avoiding the infected, sneaking through the mansion, squishing eyes in their sockets (had to be an Evil Dead reference), and killing every soldier that the infected man he let loose doesn’t kill. It’s a massacre and we can barely tell if he’s human or infected.

Shaun of the Dead

I’ll finish up here because Shaun (Simon Pegg) is slightly different from the others. From beginning to end, Shaun is a pub-going everyman. While initially terrified by the zom… sorry, zed-words, along with his buddy Ed (Nick Frost), they overcome outright fear enough to fight back an learn to kill them (though Ed is desperately unhelpful most of the time). Shaun takes it upon himself to try to rescue not only his mom, but his recently anointed ex-girlfriend, too. While he shows initiative to beat this menace, he gains the confidence commonly associated with those who go through The Ash-ian Transition (though he may act like he has it). Shaun’s transformation is actually immense personal growth that plays out over one day. Yeah, he takes out a bunch of the undead along the way, but what he really did was learn how to live his life and be a better person and all it took was the deaths of nearly all of his friends and family.

Now that I’ve introduced you to The Ash-ian Transition, keep your eyes peeled. And if you have any that I missed, I’d love to hear about it.

Why Be Something You’re Not? – How I Met Your Mother

Upon the recommendation of a friend and the fact that I have nothing but time thus far in Portland, I Netflixed How I Met Your Mother. There’s no good reason that I wasn’t watching it already. Jason Segel is one of the stars and few people are more enjoyable to watch on television or in movies than he. Plus, there are a ton of awesome guests on the show: Bryan Cranston, Bill Fagerbakke (who is perfect to play Segel’s dad), Samm Levine, Martin Starr (!), Michael Gross, and many more. I think I stayed away because the multi-camera/laugh track-laden sitcom is tired. Why confine yourself to sets and basic camera set-ups when you don’t need to? And is anyone not annoyed by laugh tracks anymore?

Now that I am 2/3 of the way through season three, I can’t help but think that How I Met Your Mother really wants to be a single-camera show, but is hanging on to some sort of link to sitcom history by not going that route. The show isn’t filmed in front of a live studio audience (which you can tell when watching the outtakes from the show – you only hear crew laughter). Also, there are innumerable cutaways and inserts and fantasies in each episode that are almost universally the domain of single-camera shows (and they would be nearly impossible to have a live audience engage with). I’m not surprised How I Met Your Mother has won so many technical Emmy’s for being a multi-camera show, but if you have greater ambition with the editing and camera work, break free of it.

There are so many limitations with the set-up. The framing and organization of the cast always seems so staged with everyone facing the camera or the sides of their faces at most. Everything else in the show feels so smooth and natural that this aspect jumps out at me. Plus, the show deals surprisingly explicitly with sex and drugs and the old multi-camera set-up has a connotation of a certain type of content. Sure, there have been shows that dealt in these subjects before, but Friends and Seinfeld jumped through hoops to lighten the blow (yes, I know HIMYM referred to marijuana as “sandwiches,” but it’s still directly referencing pot use).

Aside from the editing and fantasy sequences, perhaps the most single-camera sitcom-y facet is that each episode builds on previous episodes. Again, it’s not the first multi-camera to do this, but the episodes are far more focused on the story moving forward (which is necessary since that’s the entire basis for the show). And while the show gets bogged down in the occasional sitcom cliché, it also does its part to point it out and mock said clichés.

Maybe that’s why How I Met Your Mother is shot this way. It can better play with sitcom conventions the closer it resembles a sitcom. Or maybe it’s just cheaper. Either way, I just can’t help but feel HIMYM would be better served as a single-camera show. The freedom that approach provides would really allow them to go nuts with some of their great gags, of which they have many (the Slap Bet is brilliant).

Three Weeks and a Sweep

My excitement about the baseball playoffs was palpable. Finally, I was going to get to watch a Red Sox game with a group of Red Sox fans. Surely people will be packing the bars to watch the playoffs. My excitement was tempered only by the fact that I had to wait an extra day to see the Sox play. Doffing a Red Sox shirt and hat, I went out looking for a bar to watch the game in. The game started around 6:30 here and much to my surprise, the bars were empty. Now, I didn’t expect Portland to be a huge baseball city seeing as they don’t have a professional team in town to cheer, but I definitely expected more than this. I wound up parking myself in a “sports” bar and watching the first few innings alone. Game one: strike out. It’s just as well, because the Sox played like shit and I decided that flipping between NBC’s Thursday night lineup and the game was more to my liking.
For game two, I went to a bar I found online that said they showed Red Sox games and local fans showed up, The New Old Lompoc. I’d gone there once before, but it was a Saturday game around noon and it was pretty empty. I wasn’t led astray this time. There were several individuals and groups of Sox fans watching the game. Unfortunately, I realized how very much I am not the type of person to go to a bar and talk to anyone. Here I was, amongst a group of like-minded people, and I sat eating my fries (too fast, thus giving me a stomach-ache which eventually led to me leaving so I didn’t accidentally throw up in front of a bunch of strangers) and drinking my cider while not interacting with my fandom brethren. However, I also learned that unless you are in a large bar filled packed with fans cheering, watching in a bar can be kind of awkward. You get two or three people shouting at the TV and trying to start chants and claps like they are at the game. It ends up more irritating than anything. We should all be talking baseball, not yelling at people who will never hear us. By the way, I made it home and never threw up.
In a devilish bit of scheduling, game three started at 9:20 out here. I didn’t even have time to ease into the idea that that this could be the Sox last game of the season and for a while, I didn’t think I’d have to. But the baseball gods had other plans and the Sox lost in heartbreaking fashion. I didn’t expect them to take it all this year, or even win this series, but I really wanted them to put up a fight. It was ugly, but due to the time, I watched it alone (a good thing) and still had the rest of the day to get over it. I took the opportunity to go for a hike through Forest Park and get my bearings on the various hiking trails, of which there are many and all within walking distance. It was a great way to clear my mind.

Seeing Fenway Park on TV instantly made me miss Boston and everything the past two years had to offer. In a way, I’m kind of glad that the Sox lost because I won’t have to experience those feelings for the rest of the playoffs. And after living a World Series championship in Boston, watching the Red Sox in the playoffs just doesn’t feel the same without being there. It’s a feeling that tells me I’m not done with the city of Boston.

Halloween Movie NIghts

In this month of terror, it’s only appropriate to spend most of it watching horror films. Unfortunately, watching them on TV strips them of their greatness (blood and boobs) and adds commercial breaks. So, in light of this and the fun of watching lots of movies with friends, I’ve created a variety of movie nights for you to enjoy. Obviously, you can pick and choose what you want, but I tried to feature some kind of theme with most of them. Also, I left off some more obvious things (Ghostbusters, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, etc) because you’re going to watch them anyway. No need for me to tell you to watch them. There’s a lot of fantastic movies missing from the following lists, so don’t forget to whimsically rent anything that looks scary. You may discover a secret classic (but stay away from Devil Times Five. I just watched it and the movie doesn’t live up to its concept and cover). Sadly, my knowledge of horror from the 30s to 60s is lacking, but getting better, so most of the movies are from the past 30 years.

An Evening of Terror

The Fog (1980)//The Mist

The link between these films is clear: a bizarre cloud creeps over the town and strange horrors lurk within. The handle the material in vastly different ways, but each is well worth watching. John Carpenter directs the former and the latter based on a Stephen King story, and while adaptations of his stuff are shaky, the one guy who consistently gets it right, Frank Darabont, directs it. We’re in the hands of horror greatness.

Evil Dead II//Bubba Ho-Tep//Drag Me To Hell

See Bruce Campbell in his greatest role, Ash. Then see him in his second greatest role, Elvis! This night is about celebrating the greatness of The Chin and Sam Raimi. Raimi directed the Evil Dead trilogy and finally made his triumphant return to horror with Drag Me to Hell. As for Bubba Ho-Tep… who doesn’t want to see an elderly Elvis and JFK dyed black fight an evil mummy in a Texas old folks home? I rest my case.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)//The Return of the Living Dead//Shaun of the Dead

A night of zombies! Instead of focusing on the scares, this collection is designed for laughs, as well. With Dawn, you get George Romero at the top of his game (plus Tom Savini supplies the gore). Return gives you the classic brain-craving and talking zombie. Finally, Shaun brings it all home with loving references to zombie history and a love story. Something for everyone.

Christine//The Hitcher (1986)//Joy Ride

Automobile madness! Christine is a love story between a boy and his murderous car, but damn if that car isn’t beautiful. Carpenter adapts King’s novel and it’s surprisingly enjoyable. The Hitcher teaches you a lesson you already knew; never pick up Rutger Hauer on the side of the road. Roger Ebert hated this movie, but he doesn’t know anything about genre movies. This is one of the great movies of the 80s. Bonus: C. Thomas Howell! Finally, Joy Ride is mindless fun co-written by J.J. Abrams. Think Duel, but even crazier.

A Marathon of Terror

Halloween (1978)//Friday the 13^th (1980)//A Nightmare on Elm Street// Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

The slasher’s are taking back the night. It makes me sad that all of these iconic movies have been or are getting remade, but that’s the way Hollywood works these days. Watch all of the classics then check out Behind the Mask for a meta look at what it takes to be a slasher villain. It’s fun to see how each film builds on the previous one (Friday the 13^th is essentially Halloween plus gore) and even more fun to see all the crazy ways people die.

The Haunting (1963)//Poltergeist//The Frighteners//A Tale of Two Sisters

Beware of any sudden drops in temperature, because ghosts are taking over. These pretty much run the gamut in terms of rating, from G to R, but none sacrifice the scares. The Frighteners breaks up the tension adding some much needed humor before the sheer suspense of the Korean A Tale of Two Sisters (subtitled, but mesmerizing).

The Howling//An American Werewolf in London/Silver Bullet//Dog Soldiers//Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Beware the moon. Some classic movies in here and some cheese-tastic (in more than one way) movies. Lot’s of laughs and lots of awesome special effects. Plus, Corey Haim and Gary Busey IN THE SAME MOVIE! One of the most all-out enjoyable nights of horror on the list.

Evil Dead//The Shining//The Thing//The Descent//Sunshine

A pretty unrelenting collection of films. Sure, there are laughs to be had in (and at) The Evil Dead and The Shining, but those are tempered with some really disturbing images. The theme with these films is isolation. Each features a small group of people who only have each other. Outside help is impossible (or in the case of The Shining, useless). Watch these with people who scare easily to get your maximum entertainment out of them.

The Monster Squad//Suspiria//The Orphanage//House//Creepshow//28 Days Later

This marathon is modeled after Boston’s Coolidge Corner Theater’s annual horror-thon. This is the only list that is not listed by release year and that doesn’t have a theme. The movies are funny, terrifying, balls-out weird, emotional, and just damn entertaining and the order is designed to take you on an emotional ride. Be prepared for some subtitles, but there’s a great time to be had here.

I hope this inspires someone to have a horror marathon, even if it’s not one I designed. There’s nothing better than a good scare, especially when there are others to drink and laugh with. Tis the season, after all.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula

One of the most disappointing things about moving to a place in which you don’t know anyone right before October is that there is no one to watch horror movies with. Sure, if I was more gregarious, I’d go a-knocking on my neighbor’s door inviting them in for some beer and a scare (but I can’t really offer them a beer because that’s not an essential expense right now). So I’m stuck watching scary movies alone, so it’s good that I don’t get super creeped out by them anymore, though the upcoming Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer has me nervous.

Of course, a bonus to being alone is that I can watch anything I like and the other day, I liked to watch Coppola’s take on Dracula. The decision was made mostly because I’m reading Richard E. Grant’s film diaries (don’t ask how I got them [seriously, don’t {ok, they were published}]) and his talk of his experience on the set of the film sparked me to revisit it. I was very surprised to discover how much of Bram Stoker’s Dracula I forgot about; especially with such vivid memories of the last time I watched it (undergrad, in Florida for baseball spring training, and in my teammates’ motel room).
But that’s not what this is about. Coppola’s take on Dracula is like a love affair to cinema history. And why not? The Dracula story has been told repeatedly since the beginning of cinema. It essentially started with Murnau’s Nosferatu in 1922 and never really stopped. So, when you know you are telling a story that everyone knows, you need something to set it apart. Instead of loading it up with the best, most modern special effects or trying to redefine the story, Coppola took the viewer back in time.

What’s remarkable about this Dracula is that nearly all of the films visual effects are in camera: done with forced perspective, miniatures, clever make-up application, etc. IMDB has an very interesting trivia item on some of the effects that I highly recommend checking out. It makes watching the film an interactive experience. It’s fun to watch the scenes and figure out how the effect was achieved. Some are very difficult to figure out and it’s no wonder that the crew struggled to figure out how filmmakers achieved some of the visuals that they did back in the early days of cinema.

The massive sets and matte paintings are incredibly beautiful. With all the location shooting done these days, once forgets how much thought had to be put into building things from scratch or the skill it takes to construct a convincing matte. The film is simply never boring to look at even when the story drags or Keanu Reeves is trying to act (with a British accent, no less).
Perhaps the best parts, at least for lovers of cinema (horror specifically), are all of the nods to films of the past. There are very obvious nods to Nosferatu, The Shining, and The Exorcist. The teardrops to diamonds trick is taken from Cocteau’s La belle et la bete and there are many references to other Dracula films. An old time movie house features prominently and actually recreates as scene from earlier in the film. Simply put, if you love movies, then watch Bram Stoker’s Dracula with cinema history in mind. You don’t even have to care about the story, which you know already. Just watch and you’ll be transported.

Two Weeks in Stumptown

When I moved to Portland with no job prospects and no friends, I expected to struggle a little. The friend thing isn’t such a big deal because it’s easy to keep in touch with people and I have DVDs to supplant my need for companionship (and now, the baseball playoffs have started). The crappy job market didn’t surprise me, either. It was one of the defining characteristics I was informed of preparing to move. Some would say that this is probably the most important characteristic, but those people no nothing of irresponsible decisions and should be ignored. What has surprised me is how difficult it is to find a place to volunteer.

Seriously, who doesn’t want free work? Apparently, everyone. In addition to the job applications I’ve sent out, I sent out about five or six volunteer applications. Unfortunately, aside from one email back saying they were full up on volunteers, I’ve heard nothing from the others. No one needs membership mailings compiled? I planned on volunteering to be my way into the industry and to help me find a real job. So far, I’ve been spending most of my time on the Foof. Don’t get me wrong, it’s as comfy and relaxing as ever, but that’s superficial. My mind is getting antsy.

To be fair, I finally found a place that is willing to take my free services. It’s a very cool old theater called The Hollywood Theater. I have to wait over a week before my first night of work, but it’s a start.

The other problem is I’m used to relatively quick turnaround about job inquiries one way or the other. I guess I’ve been spoiled in that way. Even the jobs that advertised openings only tell me they received an application, but I have no idea when they are looking at them or when to expect an answer one way or another. I can understand with real jobs that are of the “career” variety. You want someone qualified who will hang around for a while. But does REI or a pizza place really need to take weeks to figure out if it needs to hire someone to work?

It’s also a bit unusual because I know longer have to go into a place to apply. In fact, most places want you to apply online. How can I make an impression on an employee or boss pre-interview if I don’t interact with them?

It’s only been two weeks, which isn’t that much time, but when you’ve done nothing with your life for four months, it starts to feel like an eternity. Still, as of now, there is nothing to stop me from going to the bar and watching the Red Sox play some playoff baseball. Sweet.