Ten Good Things That Lisa Marie Saw on TV in 2011

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Someday, I want to have my own tv network. I’ll call it Lisa Marie Television (or LMTV for short) and it’ll be like Lifetime but with the Lisa Marie difference. What’s the Lisa Marie difference? Sweetheart, if you have to ask, you’ll never know. El. Oh. El.

Anyway, as I wait for that day to come, I’m going to continue my series of posts on my favorites of 2011 by telling you about some of the best things that I saw on television over the course of the previous year:

1) The Goodbye, Michael episode of The Office:

So, this year, I’ve been kind of depressed because my former favorite show of all time — The Office — has been just awful! Seriously, don’t even get me started on why it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever that Jim Halpert would have recommended that Andy Bernard be put in charge of the office. Don’t get me started on how the show is now wasting some of the brightest comic talents available. And certainly, don’t ask me what I think about this newest subplot where Darryl is somehow suddenly incapable of talking to the new girl in the Warehouse. Seriously, I want to cry every Thursday night because when I watch The Office, it’s like looking in the mirror and finding a new wrinkle. However, The Office did have one genuinely great episode this year and that was, fittingly enough, Steve Carell’s final episode. “Goodbye, Michael” was a reminder of what made people like me fall in love with The Office in the first place and, as much as I hate to say it, it would have made a perfect finale for the entire series.

2) Sophia Shows Up On The Walking Dead..

…and Rick does what he has to do.

3) Nedd Stark loses his head in Game of Thrones.

Much as Sophia had to ultimately be in that barn, Nedd had to lose his head.

4) The Pouting Little Princess at the Royal Wedding

All together now: “Awwwwwwwww!” Actually, that would have been me if I was a member of the Royal Family.

5) Joel McHale as host of The Soup.

Seriously, Chris Hardwicke is cute in a funny, nerdy sorta way and Daniel Tosh is like the frat boy that you turn to when you’re drunk and depressed but Joel McHale is still the best.

6) South Park goes there…

…again.

7) The broadview security commercial featuring A.J. the homicidal lunatic

Okay, so this is actually about 2 or 3 years old and I don’t think I actually saw this on TV during 2011 but I don’t care. I love this commercial and A.J. is freaking hot! Plus, I love how everyone’s all like, “Who’s that?” and she’s all like, “I don’t know, just some random guy who showed up in my house…heh heh heh.” All together now: “A.J? A.J?”

8 ) Homeland

With Dexter giving us a truly awful season this time around, Homeland was the best modern-day drama on television. Claire Danes deserves every award there is for her performance.

9) The Amazing Race

Hands down, the best reality show on television.

10) Community

Dear NBC, if you fail to bring back Community, we’re done. I will leave you, I will cut you out of my life, and I hope you’ll be very happy with Whitney Cummings.

Give this man his own show!

Coming tomorrow: Lisa Marie’s top ten books of 2011.

necromoonyeti’s 10 Favorite Songs of 2011

Posted on January 4, 2012 by necromoonyeti

I want to hop on the bandwagon. It would be a little silly for me to post my real top 10; for one thing, it would include four Krallice tracks. That aside, nearly everything I’d put on it I’ve either posted on this site as a Song of the Day or included in both my review of its album and my top albums post. So to make this a bit different from my past posts, I’m going to limit myself to one song per band, stick to stuff that I imagine might appeal to people who aren’t interested in extreme metal, and keep it on the catchy side. I’ll list a more honest top 10 at the end.

10. Powerwolf – Son of a Wolf (from Blood of the Saints)

As such, my tenth place selection is about as metal as it’s going to get. Powerwolf’s Blood of the Saints might be simple and repetitive, but it’s about the catchiest power/heavy metal album I’ve ever heard. It indulges the same guilty pleasure for me as Lordi and Twisted Sister–two bands that inexplicably pump me up despite being entirely tame. It also offers some amazing operatic vocals and Dracula keyboards, the cheesiness of which can be easily forgiven. Son of a Wolf might be one of the more generic tracks in a sense, but it’s the one most often stuck in my head.

9. Alestorm – Barrett’s Privateers (from Back Through Time)

The only thing I love more than traditional folk and sea chanties is folk punk and metal. When the latter covers the former, I’m in bliss. Alestorm are emerging as the sort of Dropkick Murphys of metal with all their covers lately, and I hope they keep it up. I loved Barrett’s Privateers before what you’re hearing ever happened, and the metal version delights me to no end.

8. The Decemberists – Rox in the Box (from The King is Dead)

The Decemberists really toned it down this year. Where The Hazards of Love could be described as an epic rock opera, The King is Dead sticks to simple, pleasant folk. But Colin Meloy thoroughly researches pretty much every subject he’s ever tackled, and The King is Dead pays ample homage to its predecessors. Rox in the Box incorporates Irish traditional song Raggle Taggle Gypsy with delightful success.

7. Nekrogoblikon – Goblin Box (from Stench)

With a keen eye towards contemporary folk metal like Alestorm and Finntroll, melodic death classics like In Flames and Children of Bodom, and much else besides, former gimmick band Nekrogoblikon really forged their own unique sound in the world of folk metal in 2011. At least half of the album is this good. Stench is the most unexpected surprise the year had to offer by far.

6. Korpiklaani – Surma (from Ukon Wacka)

Korpiklaani almost always end their albums with something special, and 2011 is no exception. The melody of Surma is beautiful, and Jonne Järvelä’s metal take on traditional Finnish vocals is as entertaining as ever.

5. Turisas – Hunting Pirates (from Stand Up and Fight)

I couldn’t find a youtube video that effectively captured the full scope of Turisas’s sound in such limited bitrates, but believe me, it’s huge. Go buy the album and find out for yourselves. Unlike Varangian Way, not every track is this good, but on a select number Turisas appear in their finest form. Adventurous, exciting, epic beyond compare, this band delivers with all of the high definition special effects of a Hollywood blockbuster.

4. The Flight of Sleipnir – Transcendence (from Essence of Nine)

Essence of Nine kicks off with a kaleidoscope of everything that makes stoner metal great, while reaching beyond the genre to incorporate folk and Akerfeldt-esque vocals. A beautifully constructed song, it crushes you even as it floats through the sky. I could imagine Tony Iommi himself rocking out to this one.

3. Boris – Black Original (from New Album)

From crust punk to black metal, there’s nothing Boris don’t do well, and 2011 has shown more than ever that there’s no style they’ll hesitate from dominating. I don’t know what’s been going on in the past few years with this popular rise of 80s sounds and weird electronics. I don’t listen to it, so I can’t relate. But if I expected it sounded anything nearly as good as what Boris pulled off this year I’d be all over it.

2. Tom Waits – Chicago (from Bad as Me)

Bad as Me kicks off with one of my favorite Tom Waits songs to date. It’s a timeless theme for him, but it feels more appropriate now than ever, and his dirty blues perfectly capture the sort of fear and excitement of packing up and seeking out a better life.

1. Dropkick Murphys – Take ‘Em Down (from Going Out in Style)

In a year just begging for good protest songs, Flogging Molly tried really hard and fell flat. Dropkick Murphys, another band you’d expect to join the cause, released perhaps their most generic album to date (still good mind you, but not a real chart topper). Take ‘Em Down is kind of out of place on the album, but it’s DKM to the core, and as best I can gather it’s an original song, not a cover of a traditional track. If so, it’s probably the most appropriate thing written all year. (The video is fan made.)

If you’re interested in my actual top 10, it runs something like this:

10. Falkenbach – Where His Ravens Fly…
9. Waldgeflüster – Kapitel I: Seenland
8. Liturgy – High Gold
7. Endstille – Endstille (Völkerschlächter)
6. Blut aus Nord – Epitome I
5. Krallice – Intro/Inhume
4. Liturgy – Harmonia
3. Krallice – Diotima
2. Krallice – Telluric Rings
1. Krallice – Dust and Light

And that excludes so many dozens of amazing songs that it seems almost pointless to post it.

LeonTh3Duke’s 10 Favorite Songs of 2011

Posted on January 3, 2012 by leonth3duke

So after Lisa Marie’s list of favorite songs I decided to finally finish up and post the list I had been working on as the year closed. Obviously not everyone will like my picks. Music is a very subjective art form and all of are tastes tend to vary greatly. Still please feel free to comment.

So without further ado…

10) “That’s My Bitch” – Jay Z & Kanye West

This tenth pick was the hardest. Too be honest I probably would have rather gone with a song from an artist mentioned below, but I wanted to mix it up a bit and add something from a different album. So I decided to go with ‘Watch the Throne’ which was met with both praise and a lot of hate. I personally fall somewhere in the middle. Much of it is unbearable, even if I enjoy Kanye West and Jay Z’s solo stuff. But still a few stood out, including ‘”That’s My Bitch”, and that is almost entirely because of Elly Jackson and Justin Vernon.

9) “Paradise” – Coldplay

Many have claimed that Coldplay has sold out, maybe they are right, personally I hate that label. I also pretty much hated their latest album, but one song stood out, and maybe it is because the radio played it on a loop, ‘Paradise’ is a track I fell in love with. I think it best captures the essence of some of their greatest hits and is a joy to listen to.

8) “Hard As They Come” – CunninLynguists

Easily my favorite hip-hop group/performers around, CunninLynguists always blows me away and their new album did just that. Now I wasn’t sure which song to pick for the list, but I want to add at least one and decided to go with the one posted above. Under the production of the brilliant Kno, it is easily one of my favorite songs of the year. Can’t get enough of it.

7) “Immigrant Song” – Karen O (with Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross)

I think it is safe to say that anything Karen O releases will end up somewhere on my “best of” list of that year. For 2011 it was her rocking cover of Led Zepplin’s “Immigrant Song” that she did with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the opening credits of “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, and say what you want about the film this song nails the tone.

6) “New York New York” – Carey Mulligan (“Shame”)

I guess some could question whether this cover by Carey Mulligan for the film “Shame” qualifies for a list such as this but there is just no way I could not include it. For those who haven’t seen the film it might not be very impressive, her vocals aren’t what some would call “American Idol” worthy, but within the context of the film it is a beautiful and emotional song, and although we might not be able to see all that emotion on character’s faces as we do in the film, I still believe a lot of it bleeds through even with just the audio. Heartbreaking.

5) “Misty” – Kate Bush

So to be honest I know very little about Kate Bush, even if she has released the same amount of albums as I have fingers. What drew me to her latest album ’50 Words for Snow’ had nothing to do with its critical praise or my knowledge of her previous work, but actually it was the inclusion of Stephen Fry on one of the tracks…yes leave it to one of my man crushes to lead me to one of the years best albums which included one of the years best songs. Sadly it can only be found, without being thrown onto some weird amateur video, in a small clip but it still gets acorss the beauty and atmosphere of the dreamlike song.

4) “Two Small Deaths” – Wye Oak

I loved everything about Wye Oak’s latest album ‘Civilian’ and could have posted a few songs from it on this list, but the one that stood out was easily ‘Two Small Deaths’. Just beautiful stuff, give it a listen and find out what I mean.

3) “Surgeon” – St. Vincent

These is just something so mesmerizing about St. Vincent that I can’t put my finger on. This isn’t to say I love every song she has released, but each of her albums contain a handful of tracks that just blow me away, as did the one posted above. I find it to be so hauntingly beautiful.

2) “Holocene” – Bon Iver

As a huge fan of Justin Vernon and his atmospheric ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ it is no suprise that his latest album, ‘Bon Iver’, won me over completely. I loved every track but this beautiful and hypnotic song always stood out. I’ve listened to it more times than I can remember.

1) “I Follow Rivers” – Lykke Li

To be honest, at any different moment I could have claimed that one of the top three listed here was my current favorite and at various times during the year they definitely switched places a few time. The reason I’m going with “I Follow Rivers” for this list is that of the three it is easily the most catchy, the one most likely to be stuck in my head for about a week and although the quality of these top three are pretty much equal in my eyes, I think being the one that stuck the most should be labeled my favorite. Beautiful stuff. Love it to death.

Lisa Marie’s 10 Favorite Songs of 2011

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Continuing my series on the best of 2011, here are ten of my favorite songs from 2011. Now, I’m not necessarily saying that these were the best songs of 2011. Some of them aren’t. But these are ten songs that, in the future, will define 2011 for me personally. Again, these are my picks and my picks only. So, if you think my taste in music sucks (and, admittedly, quite a few people do), direct your scorn at me and not at anyone else who writes for the Shattered Lens.

By the way, I was recently asked what my criteria for a good song was. Honestly, the main thing I look for in a song is 1) can I dance to it and 2) can I get all into singing it while I’m stuck in traffic or in the shower?

Anyway, at the risk of revealing just how much of a dork I truly am, here are ten of my favorite songs of 2011.

1) What The Water Gave Me (performed by Florence + The Machine)

Musically, 2011 was a good year for me because it’s the year that I first discovered Florence + The Machine.

2) Only In My Double Mind (performed by Centro-Matic)

This is a great song from one of the best bands to come out of North Texas.

3) Man or Muppet (performed by Jason Segal and Walter)

Featuring lyrics from the brilliant Bret McKenzie. This song makes me cry every time.

4) Immigrant Song (performed by Karen O, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross)

Say what you will about David Fincher’s rehash of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, it had a good soundtrack. This cover of Immigrant Song made the film’s first trailer bearable. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really featured in subsequent trailers, being replaced by Daniel Craig going, “I want YOU to HELP ME catch a KILLER of WOMEN.”

5) Friday (performed by Rebecca Black)

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s a terrible song and you know what? That’s why I can’t help but love it. Listen, there are thousands of terrible song released every year but there are none quite as a terrible as Friday. The genius of Friday is that it took everything that we associate with terrible music — nonsensical lyrics, insane autotune, a socially irresponsible message, creepy rappers who show up out of nowhere and for no good reason — and then just smashed it all together into the YouTube video that refused to die. Add to that, a few months ago, me and my BFF Evelyn got like totally drunk and then wandered around the streets of Dallas singing this song at the top of our lungs and I swear, every guy who passed by yelled words of encouragement at us.

(And, by the way, if you’re going to hate someone, hate on Fred Phelps. Leave Rebecca Black alone. Life’s too short.)

6) Hold it Against Me (performed by Britney Spears)

Yeah, yeah, I know. Everyone loves to hate on Britney blah blah blah. This song is fun to sing in the shower and you can dance to it. And, quite frankly, that’s all I need.

7) Beard (performed by Burning Hotels)

This is from another North Texas band.

8) Fucking Perfect (performed by Pink)

An anthem. (Yes, I know this song came out in 2010 but it was important to me in 2011 so I’m listing it here now. So there.)

9) Love Is The Drug (performed by Oscar Isaac and Carla Gugino)

From the Sucker Punch soundtrack comes this sneakily subversive cover.

10) No Light, No Light (performed by Florence + The Machine)

Finally, what better way to end this list than with some more of Florence + The Machine.

Finally, I want to close this list with a song that came out long before 2011 but it’s an important song to me and it was sung by someone who we lost far too early this year.

Coming tomorrow: ten of the best things I saw on television in 2011.

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night: The Help (dir. by Tate Taylor)

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I actually watched several things last night, including the season premieres of The Bachelor and Intervention. However, neither one of those is an Oscar contender. The Help is, so I decided I better take the time to watch the film via OnDemand.

Why Was I Watching It?

I wasn’t planning on seeing this movie when it first originally opened in theaters because, just based on the trailer, it looked like it would be your typical, terribly self-congratulatory mainstream films. I’ve seen far too many films that promote the same old stereotypes in the name of progress and tolerance, as if good intentions can make up for bad filmmaking. But, so many of my girlfriends came to me raving about how much they loved this film and then my Aunt Kate just about disinherited me when I told her I hadn’t seen the movie (or read the book that it’s based on) and eventually I realized that I had to see the film. Add to that, chances are that this film is going to be an Oscar contender.

What Was It About

In segregated Mississippi, aspiring writer Skeeter (Emma Stone) decides to write book about the life of the African-American maids and nannies who work for her best friends. After some initial difficulty, she wins the trust of two maids (Viola Davis and Octavia Spenser) and gets down to exposing the truth.

What Worked

First off, The Help is a perfect example of a well-made, entertaining mainstream film. I laughed at the funny parts, I cried at the sad parts, and I thoroughly enjoyed the film, even though it kinda fell apart during the 2nd hour. There’s a lot of very legitimate issues that you can raise about how the film portrays life in the segregated South but the film itself is entertaining and well-made.

It’s also one the best acted films of 2011 with Viola Davis, Octavia Spenser, and Emma Stone all giving great performances. Jessica Chastain is funny playing a clueless newlywed and Bryce Dallas Howard does a typically good job playing the type of bitchy Queen Bee that we’ve all know and have all secretly hoped would end up fat and divorced. I also thought Allison Janney, who plays Stone’s mother, gave an excellent and underrated performance.

This film was directed with a perfect eye for the details needed to make even the most minor of characters memorable. If nothing else, I enjoyed watching it just to see what everyone would be wearing from scene to scene.

The film’s first hour is probably as perfectly paced and tonally balanced as any film I’ve seen. However, things fall apart during the second hour (more on that below). Luckily, the film’s ending is powerful and partially redeems the film’s uneven tone.

What Didn’t Work

The film is moves along pretty well until the 2nd hour, at which point it smashed into a wall created by the inability of mainstream film to truly honestly deal with racism. At the start of the second hour, civil rights leader Medgar Evers is assassinated by a member of the Ku Klux Klan and I found myself waiting for some sort of expression of anger (or really, any emotion other than stoic suffering) on the part of “the help.” Instead, we get a scene where both Viola Davis and Emma Stone are watching Evers’s funeral together and both are impressed to see John F. Kennedy show up. In the next scene, Davis has put a picture of President Kennedy up on her wall next to a picture of Jesus. So, in other words, this film reacts to the murder of a black man but deifying a white man. After showing us a clue of violent reality, it’s as if the film can’t figure out how to balance out the ugly realities of racism with the film’s need to appeal to the widest possible audience. As a result, the next hour of the film feels rather disjointed and uneven. Even though the film partially redeems itself with one of the best endings of the year, it’s still hard not to feel as if we’re watching a feel good film about something nobody should feel all that good about.

Like a lot of mainstream films about racism, a good deal of this film centers on the friendship between blacks and a few white people who, magically, don’t appear to have a shred of prejudice within them despite the fact that they were raised in the same racist culture as every other white person in the film. As a result, the racism seen in the film doesn’t really seem like it’s an ingranied part of culture as much as it just seems like the result of a couple of bullies acting like jerks. As a result, despite its very good intentions, a film like The Help will often unintentionally minimize just what a struggle the fight for civil rights was and is.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Needless to say, I totally related to Emma Stone’s character in this film.

Lessons Learned

It’s difficult to make a feel-good movie about racism.

Lisa Marie’s 16 Worst Films of 2011

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Now that 2011 is finally over, we here at the Shattered Lens can finally get around to listing our individual picks for the best and worst of 2011. Pantsukadasai, Necromoonyeti, Leon Th3 Duke, and Dazzling Erin have already posted some of their picks for the best of 2011 and over the next five days, I’ll be risking your scorn by listing some of my own choices.

I’d like to get things started today by listening my picks for the 16 worst films of 2011. As always, these choices are mine and mine alone. So, don’t go harassing Arleigh just because you think Another Earth wasn’t a pretentious and silly film. Instead, harass me so I can harass you back. 🙂

16) Battle L.A. — It takes a special type of film to make Skyline look like a work of art.

15) Cowboys and Aliens — Meh. This should have been so much more fun than it actually was.

14) Your Highness — I still love James Franco.

13) Shark Night 3-D — Another film that should have been a lot more fun.

12) Season of the Witch — The first film I saw in 2011 was also one of the worst.

11) The Ides of March — Hey guys, did you know that politics is a dirty business!? Oh my God, consider my fragile mind blown. Thank you for clearing things up, George Clooney!

10) Another Earth — Honestly, Another Earth probably wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the way that so many of the toadsuckers out there get so superior and condescending whenever they’re telling me that I should love this movie. If you read the comments under my linked review of the film, you’ll find a very good defence of the film from Leon and then you’ll find a more typical response from some idiot named Naresh Raj Shrestha. Unfortunately, Naresh seems to be a fair representation of most of the people who take to the Internet to defend this film. All I can say to those people is “Fuck off, kids. I’ve got real movies to worry about.”

9) Dream House — Daniel Craig. Again.

8) Contagion — So. Boring.

7) The Beaver — So. Stupid.

6) Priest — Yeah, yeah, it’s in 3-D. Yay.

5) Dylan Dog: Dead of Night — This film sucks just as much as you think it does.

4) The Rum Diary — Is it possible to make a boring movie with one of the exciting movie stars in the world? Apparently, it is.

3) The Conspirator — Self-important drivel that was released at least four years too late.

2) Straw Dogs — Tell ’em about the Southland, Rod Lurie!

And finally, here’s the worst film of 2011…

1) Anonymous — One thing is for sure. Whoever wrote Shakespeare’s plays, he was a lot more talented than Roland Emmerich.

Coming up tomorrow: my ten favorite songs of 2011.

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night: Bridesmaids (dir. by Paul Feig)

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched, via Uverse OnDemand, one of my favorite movies of 2011 — Bridesmaids.

Why Was I Watching It?

Why!? Because it’s just like one of my favorite movies of all time! Seriously, I love Bridesmaids.

What’s It About?

To put it simply, this is a movie about a bunch of bridesmaids but really, it’s so much more. Annie (Kristen Wiig) is struggling to get over the loss of her bakery and trying to find some sort of happiness in a purely sexual relationship with married Ted (Jon Hamm, at his sleaziest) when her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) announces that she’s getting married. She asks Annie to be her maid-of-honor but Annie quickly finds herself locked in competition with Lillian’s other friend, the rich and snobby Helen (Rose Byrne) as well as in a tentative romance with Nathan (Chris O’Dowd, who is so cute and adorable here), who is a traffic cop but he’s also Irish so he can be forgiven.

What Worked?

Okay, so when Bridesmaids came out this summer it was advertised as being a “gross out comedy” for girls but it’s so much more. I mean, I’m not a huge fan of gross out comedy, like not at all. But I love this movie. The film is full of great (but honest) dialogue and features some of the best ensembles of the year. Along with Byrne and Wiig, the bridesmaids include Wendy McClendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper, and Melissa McCarthy and they all get a chance to shine. Especially McCarthy, who plays the sister of the groom and who gets to deliver all of the crude, laugh-out-loud lines along with getting a great, semi-dramatic scene towards the end.

This is a very funny movie but, ultimately, it’s funny because its true. As Annie, Kristen Wiig is very funny and likable but ultimately, she’s a single woman struggling to maintain both her independence and her own sense of self-worth in a world that seems to exist just to judge, a struggle that leads her to live a little too vicariously through her best friend and try to justify being the lesser half in a degrading relationship. And you know what? We’ve all been there. I know I have. And, when you find yourself in that type of prison, sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from going crazy.

There are so many laugh-out-loud moments in this film that I don’t even know where to begin in picking out my favorites. However, a few obvious highlights: the ill-fated trip to try on bridesmaid dresses and the equally ill-fated flight to Vegas. I also have to give major kudos to the film’s opening, which is one of the few sex scenes ever to be found in a comedy that’s actually filmed from the woman’s point of view.

Finally, the film features Jill Clayburgh’s final film performance and she is hilarious. Thank you, Bridemaids, for coming out after Love and Other Drugs.

What Doesn’t Work?

Any time you have a comedy like this, there will occasionally be a one-liner that falls flat or a joke that doesn’t quite work and Bridesmaids has one or two of these. But the entire film is so likable that the jokes that don’t work are quickly forgotten.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments:

Oh my God, so many! And it would probably be TMI for me to go into every single one of them but I will say that I’ve been a bridesmaid like five times and I was my sister Megan’s maid of honor though that was mostly because I cried until she agreed to give me the job. And I actually really enjoyed it every time, mostly because it meant I got to be up at the front of the church instead of stuck sitting all anonymous-like in the back and I could stand up there and be all like, “See, I even make this dress look good.”

The second time I was a bridesmaid, I kinda got everyone mad at me because I made this gagging motion when they were lighting the unity candle but seriously, I just think unity candles are all silly and Vermont-like. Plus, the marriage eventually ended in divorce like a year later so let’s hear it for me for being honest.

Lessons Learned:

Laughter is the best medicine. Always.

Quickie Review: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (dir. by Eli Craig)

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Arleigh

One thing I like about genre films is the fact that, whether they’re good or bad, they mostly accomplish the part about entertaining it’s audience. For the good to great ones they don’t just entertain but raise the genre to new heights. For the bad ones they seem to entertain in unexpected ways. How often have one watched a bad genre film, realize it’s bad and still just roll with it, laughing at it becoming part of it’s appeal. We wouldn’t have gotten years and years of Rifftrax and MST3K without enjoying the badness of awful genre films. Then there are genre films which takes the very well-worn tropes of the genre. The very things we as an audience groan and snicker at and manages to turn it into a love-letter to the very thing they’re making fun of.

The horror-comedy Tucker & Dale vs. Evil takes the backwoods horror which has been a major staple of the slasher subgenre for over a quarter-century and tips it on it’s head to create a horror comedy that never runs out of laughs and still manages to show cringe-inducing death scenes. It stars Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine in the roles of Tucker and Dale. We have two well-meaning “hillbillies” from the backwoods of West Virginia on their way to Tucker’s recently bought “fixer-upper” of a vacation home who come across a group of obnoxious college kids looking to spend the weekend on the shore of the very lake our two intrepid heroes’ vacation also sits off of. Through some misunderstanding between the very sweet-natured Dale who tries to befriend one of the pretty college girls in the group we see the beginning of events that will see death and mayhem visited upon both groups throughout the film.

We get the mandatory story telling us about how twenty years ago during Memorial Day a group of similar college kids were massacred by a couple of hillbillies on the very shores of the lake with only one survivor to tell the tale. This tale becomes the reason why the college kids start trying to “defend” themselves from Tucker and Dale who they thought kidnapped one of the girls in their group when in fact they had just rescued her from drowning. One by one each college kid dies in horrible fashion in their attempt to take on the oblivious Tucker and Dale who begin to think the group were on a suicide pact and means to take them down as well.

The film really does a great job of playing on the well-worn conventions of slasher films and making each such scenario play out in a way that if someone caught the scene a few seconds after it had already started they would think Tucker and Dale were trying to kill these kids. Each kill have just enough gore to satisfy horror fans so used to slasher films, but also funny enough every cringe was followed up by laughs.

One thing the film also had going for it was the chemistry between Tudyk and Labine as Tucker and Dale. They play off each other quite naturally that it’s not a stretch to believe these two were truly life-long friends who would brave the rush of misguided college kids to save each other. Even the college girl with the heart of gold, Allie (played by Katrina Bowden), adds to the film’s good-natured fun as she tries to explain to her friends that everything which has been going on (all the death and destruction) was all just a misunderstanding. Another thing which helps make the two leads in the film quite sympathetic has to be how obnoxious the kids really were who look down on the so-called “mountain folk” of the region because of their appearance thus their lack of education.

Eli Craig took three years to make Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, but the end result was all worth the wait. The film follows in the great traditions of horror-comedies of the past by never winking cynically at the audience at how smart it is, but letting the basic premise of the story play out as simply as possible. It helps to have a great duo in Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine in the roles of the Tucker and Dale. This film may not make many critics running to proclaim it as a milestone in the genre but it does succeed in entertaining it’s audience and just ending up being one hilarious 90 minutes of campy horror.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: The Artist (dir. by Michel Hazanavicius)

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I was concerned before I saw Michel Hazanavicius’s critically acclaimed, silent film The Artist. This is the film that’s currently being touted as an Oscar front runner and has been acclaimed by critics the world over. Whenever I see this type of acclaim, I usually end up disappointed in the actual film because hype that positive is very difficult to live up to. (Case in point: The Descendants.) However, having seen The Artist, I can now say that this is the rare film that actually is almost as good as the critics say it is.

Starting out in a highly stylized Hollywood in the 1920s, The Artist introduces us to silent film star George Valentin (played Jean Dujardin who shows the same charm and style that he used to ironic effect in the director’s previous OSS 117 films). Valentin is the biggest star in the world and he is cheerfully dismissive of the idea of “talking” film. However, once the age of the talkies begins, Valentin finds his star on the descent while his protegé, former extra Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), becomes a star in talking films. Defiantly, Valentin continues to make silent films but is there anybody around still willing to watch them? Obviously, the storyline of The Artist is a familiar one but the film is more about how Hazanavicius tells this story than the story itself. The Artist is ultimately a triumph in pure and exuberant style.

At first, I have to admit that I was a little bit dubious about The Artist being a silent film. It sounded rather ominously like a gimmick and I was worried that The Artist would turn out to be one of those films that I felt obligated to enjoy as opposed to actually enjoying. Having seen the film, I can say that it is indeed a gimmick but it’s that rare gimmick that actually works extremely and genuinely well. Director Hazanavicius both pays homage to the conventions of silent cinema while also contrasting them against the harsher reality of loneliness and depression.

Much like the best of the old silent actors, both Dujardin and Bejo have amazingly expressive faces and they can say as much with their eyes as they could say with dialogue. Familiar character actors like John Goodman, James Cromwell, and Malcolm McDowell are also perfectly cast and used throughout the film’s narrative. Ultimately, however, the film is really stolen by Uggie, who plays Dujardin’s little dog and is just about the most talented canine I’ve ever seen on-screen. Seriously, he was adorable (and I say this as someone who is terrified of dogs both big and small) and he gets a chance to shine in a compelling sequence where he desperately tries to save his master from a fire. Seriously, Uggie gives such a great performance that I was surprised to discover that he wasn’t actually Andy Serkis under heavy CGI.

Technically, of course, The Artist isn’t really a silent film. It has a very rich and expressive musical score and there are two scenes in which Hazanavicius allows a few sound effects to be heard. Only towards the end of the film do we get to hear anybody speak and its truly jarring in the best way possible. If nothing else, The Artist makes us realize how much we take for granted the blaring soundtracks of most films. We’re so used to hearing things that we’ve forgotten how to listen. Luckily, The Artist is here to remind us.

The Most Underappreciated Film Of The Year: Joe Wright’s Hanna

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sometimes, it seems like it’s easier for me to write about the films I dislike as opposed to the films that I truly love. Case in point: I had little trouble writing up my thoughts on Anonymous and Straw Dogs but it’s taken me 8 months to write a formal review of my favorite film of 2011: Joe Wright’s pulp fairy tale, Hanna.

Taking place in a world much like our own but definitely not the same, Hanna opens in the frozen wilderness of Finland where 16 year-old Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) lives in an isolated cabin with her father, Erik (Eric Bana). In the film’s electrifying opening montage, we see that Hanna’s life revolves around training for combat, memorizing the encyclopedia, and memorizing several “false” back stories that have been prepared for her by her father. It also quickly becomes apparent that Erik has never allowed his daughter to be exposed to the real world. Finally, Erik tells Hanna that she is “now ready” to choose whether or not to open up a box containing an old transmitter that well alert the rest of the world of their existence. When Hanna finally opens the box, Erik promptly disappears and Hanna is left to fend for herself.

It quickly becomes apparent why Erik has spent years training his daughter because, by opening the box, Hanna has given away her presence to a coolly corrupt and ruthless CIA agent named Marissa (Played by Cate Blanchett and one of the most compelling villains in recent film history). Marissa has her own reasons for wanting both Erik and Hanna and she quickly sends a team to Erik’s cabin. Hanna is captured and transported to a memorably sterile CIA safehouse. In a shocking sudden burst of violence, Hanna escapes from the safehouse and finds herself having to survive in the “real world” while being pursued by Marissa.

Hanna, Marissa, and Erik eventually meet their fates in a desolate theme park that (in a neat bit of symbolism) is dedicated to the Brothers Grimm. Along the way, Hanna meets and travels with a likable family of English tourists, allowing her to have her first chance to actually experience a “normal” life and Marissa recruits Issacs, one of the creepiest film henchmen ever. Seriously. Isaacs is played by Tom Hollander and he was just so exquisitely sleazy that my skin crawled just watching him on-screen.

In many ways, Hanna may sound like a simple action film but, in the best tradition of the French new wave and the better grindhouse filmmakers, Joe Wright both embraces the conventions of the action film while unexpectedly subverting them and using them to tell a more universal story about the struggle to both establish and maintain identity in an increasingly soulless world. Much as Godard did before he gave up his artistic soul to political ideology, Joe Wright uses his cinematic talents to create a unique world that, while heavily stylized, also comments on our own existence. The Chemical Brothers, meanwhile, provide the perfect soundtrack to Wright’s pulp vision.

Hanna may be my favorite film of 2011 but it’s also the most underappreciated of the year, at least as far as Oscar season is concerned. There’s been so mention of the film’s score and a few critics’ groups have tossed a “young artist” mention or two at Saoirse Ronan but otherwise, the film has pretty much been ignored. I think part of the problem is that Hanna was released in April and not December. If the films had been released in December, I think Ronan would, at the very least, be a dark horse for best actress.

The main complaint that most critics seem to come up with when discussing Hanna is that the film is too much of a genre piece. Yes, it’s well-made and it’s well-acted and yes, it’s a compelling film with an intelligent script but, in the end, it’s just a genre piece. A fairly typical response comes from the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw who, after praising all of the film’s virtues, concluded with, “…(I)t ultimately squanders all of them, undone by a lack of subtlety and restraint.”

To this, I can only respond, “Oh? Really?” Seriously. Amazingly enough, some of the critics who criticized Hanna for a perceived lack of subtlety are the same critics who are now falling over themselves to praise the rehash of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I suppose the difference here is that The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was directed by David Fincher and is the product of the American film establishment whereas Hanna was directed by Joe Wright and was produced by outsiders.

Those who claim that Hanna is too genre are missing the simple fact that Hanna is an insightful film that uses the conventions of the action genre as a metaphor for the sometime painful search for identity that every teenager (and especially every teenage girl) has ever had to go through. Myself, I never had to flee from government agents or battle assassins when I was 16 but I did have to start discovering how to survive in the real world, away from the security and comfort of home. As opposed to the pretend feminism of Fincher’s film, Hanna is a film that truly celebrates “girl power” and promotes independence and empowerment. It’s also, as far as I’m concerned, the best film of 2011.