10. Ironic Cross-Stitch.
9. Jay-Z ft. Rihanna and Kanye West “Run This Town”
8. The Pacific Northwest coast of the United States of Way-Fucking-Awesome.
7. Lady Gaga and the return of batshit spectacle.
6. The Swell Season at the State
5. Kitties!
4. Cheryl Cole “Fight For This Love”
3. White Lies plays the Triple Rock, and their debut album.
2. Having a reason to watch the Minnesota Twins other than pretty (so pretty) catchers.
1. The last 10 months of Record Party and the Uptown Bar.
FIX: The Ministry Movie shoves your ass way, way backstage with the scariest band EVER.
“FUCK THE MAINSTREAM” – might as well have been written by Al Jourgenson, founder of MINISTRY. Love him or hate him, Al and how he makes music changed all the rules. Al and all the guys he played with, paid the price and took no prisoners along the way, but they MATTERED.
No Ministry= No NIN, or Korn, or Jane’s Addiction… if you don’t believe it? Hear it directly from Trent Reznor, Jonathan Davis, Dave Navarro and many more.
COMING SUMMER 2010
Is it too early to name this the best movie of 2010?
I haven’t cared for DC Comics’s overly dark direction the last few years (Identity Crisis to Blackest Night), and it was a shame to see Grant Morrison caught up in that mess. However, his tackling of the all-new Batman and Robin is an absolute blast. I’m sure Bruce Wayne won’t stay dead for long, but for now, Morrison has breathed new life into the Bat-mythos and crafted the best new comic of the year.
- Benjamin Linus
This year of LOST struck me as its weakest season, but I was still kept enthralled due to Michael Emerson’s continually-fascinating work as Ben Linus. No moment on dramatic television was better in 2009 than THIS. And for that matter, THIS TOO.
- Eastbound & Down/Party Down
These two comedies are the best new television shows in years. Party Down is a showcase of underappreciated comic talent that features the FBI agent from Torque, and Eastbound & Down is dark comedy and Danny McBride at their finest. What more could you ask for?
- Flower
I’m not much into playing current video games much, but still try to keep up with that’s new and interesting. This year I was most impressed with Flower, which is pretty much Sigur Ros as a video game. You play the wind, collecting flower petals, and that’s pretty much it. Simple, yes, but also a unique and beautiful zen-like experience.
- Gaslight Anthem’s “I Do Not Hook Up”
My favorite band of 2008 did an acoustic cover of the Kelly Clarkson single, and it’s easily my favorite song of the year.
- J-Rock
This year was downright awful for music, but my two favorite albums both came out of Japan. Rin Toshite Shigure’sJust a Moment and Mass of Fermenting Dregs’ World is Yours E.P. show that the country currently does rock and roll far better than we do over here.
- (The Reality Behind) Lost Land of the Volcano
I vaguely remember people actually caring about science back in the 80s, but maybe I’m wrong and they actually stopped caring soon after the moon landing. Who knows, but I’m always excited to hear about the awesome new scientific discoveries that barely get press anymore. The findings and new species’ discovered around New Guinea’s Mount Bosavi were documented in this BBC mini-series, and while not the greatest of documentaries, what it shows is unbelievable in and of itself.
- Mythbusters
Speaking of science . . . I’ve always kind of held this as pretty much my favorite show ever, but finally got around to watching it religiously over this past year. It took a while, but I finally hunted down every single episode of its current 7 season run, which culminated in one of their greatest stunts; slicing a car in half with a giant blade attached to rockets going over 500 mph. Awesome.
- Record Party at the Uptown Bar
And the Uptown Bar itself, for that matter. Rich and Mojo covered Record Party last year, but it’s worth repeating the praise; I’m pretty obsessed with the idea of little folk societies (it’s a Vonnegut thing), and this is the closest to that I’ve encountered in my five years in the Twin Cities. I miss it already.
- Trylon Microcinema
Take-Up Productions has put together some of the best film series’ in the Twin Cities over the last few years, and the advent of their own lil Trylon cinema has already been a spectacular godsend to this town’s film community. And judging by their upcoming line-up, this isn’t going to change anytime soon. Way to go, Barry and co.
Style-over-substance may have started gathering steam in the 90s, but it truly defined these last ten years. This has been a decade in ridiculous excess, not just in America but in all of the countries across the world who are duplicating our flashy style to reach worldwide audiences. Countries are having their entire government-funded film budgets, once split up to smaller projects, now get pushed to one ‘blockbuster’ while small-scale filmmakers struggle to survive. It’s crippled independent film across the globe.
At the cusp of the new decade, this phenomenon has long since become a overbloated joke (albeit still an enormous money-making one), and I’ve pinpointed when this started: Torque. Both the epitome and ultimate satire of style-over-substance, Torque is a batshit crazy masterpiece that took the technique to the edge and far, far beyond. There was nowhere higher to go, but alas, it’s human nature not to move on.
To quote Hunter S. Thompson, “So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” Torque was the high-water mark, the ultimate representation of all that has gone oh so bewilderlingly wrong with cinema, and in one shining moment before it all went to hell again, made it right.
While Torque is the definitive ‘Film of the Decade,’ it doesn’t necessarily represent the ‘Greatest’ of the decade – they’re two completely different categorizations. So to add to this post, below are what I currently consider the Top 15 of the 00s . . . in alphabetical order, because creating that damn list was hard enough as it is.
Battle Royale was my very first bootleg, and I’m oh so proud of its accomplishment. You can find it anywhere! Video stores, Amazon, even Netflix rents it out! And you know what? None of it’s technically official.
Contrary to rumors of it being too extreme for American audiences, Battle Royale was never picked up because the Japanese distributor wanted too much money. That’s the same reason you rarely see the Godzilla series as midnight movies. But there was so much hype back in the day, what did we as a good upstanding country that is anti-piracy all the way? We bootlegged it anyway, and deemed it perfectly acceptable. Yay America! And all-region DVDs!
If you’re one of the five people left who haven’t seen the film, you really ought to. Quentin Tarantino named it the best film of the last 20 years, and I’d easily drop it into a Top 10 of the Decade list if I made one. On the outset, the plot sounds like campy exploitation which Japan is currently producing, but there were two secret weapons: one was pop icon ‘Beat’ Takeshi as the lead villain. Forget Daniel Day Lewis, this is the real Performance of the Decade.
The other weapon was Kinji Fukasaku, one of the greatest directors to work in Japan . . . their version of Francis Ford Coppola if I had to simplify it down. And make no mistake, Battle Royale is his Apocalypse Now. Where this would’ve been Corman-esque fodder in lesser hands, the film is both emotionally powerful and totally badass.
A random class of Japanese ninth-grade students are randomly selected by a fascist government lottery. They are kidnapped and forced onto an isolated island, where they are equipped with food, water, a map, and a random weapon. On the island, they have to compete in a violent death-match game till only one victor remains. Failure to follow the rules or participate in the death match results in death by an exploding collar that everyone has to wear.
So in conclusion, boys and girls, be wary of all that negative bootleg talk. Sometimes there are films that are worth it.
Minnewood is putting on a local film event at the Oak Street CInema this weekend which will have a Q&A session with the filmmakers after each work screens. The current line-up consists of . . .
The Shaw Brothers classic is finally re-released by Tokyo Shock.
Yang Yu Heng is asked by the government to escort a cargo of gold into a famine area. However, he must contend with the vicious Chi Sah gang who boast the individual talents of leader Golden Arm, plus Silver Spear, Iron Robe, and Brass Head. In order to protect the gold from their attentions, yang hires the services of swordsman Li Chin Ming and his girlfriend Miss Leng, the axe-wielding duo Yen and Feng, and drunk master Hai To. What follows is a battle of wits and strength between the protagonists, with the added dimension that the mysterious Iron Feet is also after the gold for his own purposes. But who is Iron Feet?
OTHER NOTABLE RELEASES
- Slow-burn horror film Carriers
- Facing Ali, a doc that talks to ten boxers who battled the legend
- Indie suburban family drama Half-Life
- Korean horror tale Hansel & Gretel
- WWE’s The Marine 2
- Dark, CG animated film 9
- The supposedly alright thriller A Perfect Getaway The Kid with the Golden Arm – Trailer
We as a people tend to define ourselves through vague adversity, and like it or not, I suppose the defining excuse for us this decade was 9/11. Not that the ideas of struggling to find your way in the aftermath of such things is anything new to be dealt with on film, but they certainly found new life. Little did most people realize, however, that the greatest exploration of this had been released one year prior.
With Eureka, Shinji Aoyama crafted possibly the most epically meditative work ever produced in cinema. Quiet, restrained, over 3 1/2 hours long, and filmed in black-and-white with sepia tones, it’s incredibly demanding on its audience. But given the time and attention it deserves, it packs one hell of an emotional wallop concerning how humanity manages to move on. As Midnight Eye puts it best, “Eureka is a film not so much about dealing with trauma and the aftermath of tragedy, but rather about the re-discovery of life.”
I’d go so far as to list Eureka as one of the ten greatest films of the decade, regardless of its lack of distribution. It’s an absolute masterpiece.
Following a deadly bus hijacking in southwest Japan, the three survivors–Makato, the bus driver; Kozue, a young girl; and Naoki, her older brother–find further tragedy in their personal lives. When the traumatized Makato eventually contacts Kozue and Naoki two years later, he moves into their home and becomes a father figure for the two children, who have stopped speaking. The trio are then joined by Akihiko, Kozue and Naoki’s college student cousin, and together this odd surrogate family embarks on a road trip across Japan.
