Amherst Lane

I didn’t watch as many movies as I would have liked this year. I’m sure some really amazing pieces of cinema didn’t make on my list. Here are my top fifteen movies without the five best. Just as Rene said in his post, you’ll have to wait for the podcast for those. And, since I’m a punk, I’m going to one-up Rene. I’m adding a little comment of why these movies are on my list.

6. Beerfest-
The funniest movie I’ve seen in a long time. (I love you Broken Lizard)

7.V for Vendetta-
It’s easy these days to miss the message of a story when you we have such amazing special effects. This one got it right. (Even if Alan Moore hates everything about Hollywood, it doesn’t stop him from letting them make the movies.)

8. Little miss sunshine-
Just watch this one. That little girl is precious.

9. Lady in the Water-
Not M. Night’s best movie, but it still made my top 15

10. Slither
Nathan Fillion is my new Bruce Campbell.

11. Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny
THE D !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

12. The Descent
Rene and I cringed through half of this movie together. One of the only scary movies I enjoyed last year.

13. Nacho Libre
I can’t get enough Jack Black in stretchy pants!!

14. superman returns
Everyone who knows me, knows I’m an Uber Dork for superhero movies. X-3 made me want to cry. At least Bryan Singer brought back our beloved boy in blue. Superman was not the best superhero movie I’ve seen, but I definitely see good things in the future for this franchise.

15. An Inconveniant Truth
I’m not sure how scientifically proven Al’s information is, but he throws one hell of a slide show. I guess politics sucks all the fun out of the room, because he’s actually kind of funny in this movie.

-Tony-

Hey everybody, the following list is not going to contain the top 5 of the year for me, because we are planning on doing a podcast with our Top 5 films of the year 2006. So here they are in descending order.

15. Slither
14. Little Miss Sunshine
13. The Fountain
12. Half Nelson
11. Casino Royale
10. The Departed
9. Miami Vice
8. Stranger Than Fiction
7. Brick
6. Borat

Stay tuned for our Top 5 Films of the year on the podcast.

-Rene-

Guillermo Del Toro has been one of my favorite directors for a while. I think it’s his love of horror and darker themes that attracts me to his work. His current masterpiece is Pan’s Labyrinth.
The story centers on a young girl Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) who is uprooted and taken to live with her pregnant mother, and a military captain in the rural countryside. The setting is Spain in 1944, where the captain (Sergi López) is actively hunting down the last resistance to the new fascist regime. Once arriving to their new home, Ofelia begins to have supernatural experiences. She meets a faun who tells her that her true nature is that of a princess from another world. He also explains that by completing three tasks, she can return to her world and regain her throne.

The most interesting aspect about this movie to me, is how brutal it is. Ofelia is living in a war torn conuntryside, fatherless and uprooted from her home. The captain is a sadist who almost revels in his ability to inflict pain. One scene in particular has him beating a man’s face in with a bottle. The act is unprovoked, and Guillermo does not turn the camera away. I feel that although disturbing, these scenes are necessary to setting the backdrop for Ofelia’s visions. She is surrounded by pain and loneliness. The faun represents an escape from the dark world that she lives in.

Interestingly enough the “labyrinth” actually plays a secondary role to the reality of which Ophelia is part of. Anyone expecting an alice in Wonderland will be sadly disappointed. This movie is so much more than a fairy tale, it cuts deeper to what makes us human. Most of the characters are faced with decisions of life and death. Del Toro spends most of the movie exploring the characters and their motivations. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a director become so involved with the mental state of his characters, including The evil and misguided captain.

Pan’s Labyrinth is an exploration of humanity in times of despair. It is neither forced nor contrived. It is a glimpse of one girl’s sliver of hope for a better world. I give this movie a solid “own it when it comes out on DVD”. -Tony

I have to say that this is a beautiful film. Everything about this movie is a work of art, from the acting, to the music, to the amazing cinematography.

The Fountain is a story about a doctor (Hugh Jackman) who is desperately trying to find a cure for his wife’s brain tumor (Rachel Weisz). In the process his wife is writing a book called the Fountain, where she contemplates the meaning of life and death through the eyes of a Mayan myth about a dying star.

The movie is full of symbolism. There are recurring themes of life, death, and rebirth that are bound together in a non-linear fashion, and rooted in the tree of life. This is the fabled tree of life, that is supposed to possess the ability to give transcendence beyond death.

The story jumps between three time periods that are connected by the tree, past, present, and future. In every time-line the male character is on a quest to save his love. I won’t tell much more about the story, because it is a movie that should be experienced, and not told. One of the aspects of the Fountain that struct me so hard is the acting. This above all is a love story. Weisz and Jackman bring this story home. The main struggle for Tom is Isabel’s slow journey to death. Aronofsky focuses on their love and how they both differ in the way they approach her dying.

What I enjoyed most about this movie is that it’s meaning is not necessarily clear. The underlying themes are there, but they aren’t spoon fed to the audience. This is usually the aspect that can make or break a movie with the average viewer. It was definitely one of those movies that left me thinking, and that’s the sign of a good movie to me. -Tony

I am what you would normally consider a positive person. I don’t like to say bad things about people or their works of art. But today, I am going to have to make an exception for the movie I rented last night.

An American Haunting has got to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Even the presence of acting veterans such as Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek could not save this flop.

An American Haunting is based on the true events of the Bell family, who lived in Tennessee. I won’t really go into the details of the story too much. I would prefer to focus on why the movie was so bad. If you would like to know more about the real story, just google “the Bell witch.”

The movie actually started out pretty good, but went South very quickly. First off, this movie has terrible sound design. Most of the surprise scenes are met with this awful cymbal crash. I’ve never heard this in a modern movie, and now I know why. Also, there are supposed to be ghostly whispers that torment the family. The whispers are so hoaky that they are almost comical. A teenage girl on a cell phone would have been more terrifying.

Also, the camera work is extremely annoying. I don’t blame this on the cinematographer, it was probably the director’s idea. Most of the scenes are shot really well. It’s the point of view of the entity that is so annoying. The camera sweeps around the room focusing on the faces of the family, capturing their reactions. This trick might have worked once, but it is driven into the ground after the fifth time. Also, while looking through the spirit’s eyes, the color switches randomly back and forth from color to Black and White. this was so poorly done, that it made me want to check the connections on the DVD player.

The main reason this movie is terrible is it’s ending. Granted, you can choose between four alternate endings…all of them bad. The biggest problem with Hollywood is that they feel the need to explain the movie for the audience. (A hallmark of bad story-telling,) This movie not only subjects you to an unnecessary explanation, you actually get it twice! The ghost actually materializes and tells the audience everything. Then there is a flashback sequence that shows you everything that happened.

I for one would have preferred the movie without all the explaining that takes up the last ten minutes of the movie. At least I could have felt confused by the bad story-telling, instead of nauseous about the worst ending in movie history.- Tony