Nosferatu Pix 2006

I should have known that it couldn’t last. We’ve had it too good for too long. O cruel irony - how bittersweet it is that the best year of my life would also be one of the worst years for movies. Look at this – here is the caliber of movies that were available in 2003:

21 Grams
American Splendor
Cold Mountain
Lost in Translation
A Mighty Wind
Monster
Mystic River
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Seabiscuit

Another great crop in 2004:

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Hotel Rwanda
In the Realms of the Unreal
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Million Dollar Baby
Napoleon Dynamite
The Passion of the Christ
Sideways
Team America: World Police

And in 2005, the party kept going:

2046
Batman Begins
Breakfast on Pluto
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Good Night and Good Luck.
History of Violence
Memoirs of a Geisha
Munich
Walk the Line
War of the Worlds

Then along came 2006. I think most of the film industry took the year off. And I suspect that the better movies are being released increasingly later in the year - most of the time there aren’t any interesting films to go see and then at the end of the year there isn’t time to see the ones that I want to.

However, the struggle to see all the movies that I was interested in this year wasn’t a great problem. I wasn’t interested in many new movies this year. Of the 2006 movies that I was interested in, I saw twenty of them. Actually I wasn’t interested in “Superman Returns”, but it was a hot day in San Diego and Nicole and I wanted to escape the heat. So that leaves nineteen. There were seventeen movies in 2006 that I was interested in but I missed. And most of those I wasn’t very interested in, but here are the movies that I didn’t manage to see:

All the King’s Men
American Hardcore
Apocalypto
Casino Royale
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Departed
Fast Food Nation
Fearless
Flags of Our Fathers
The Hills Have Eyes
Hollywoodland
Last King of Scotland
The Painted Veil
The Proposition
Stranger Than Fiction
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
Tideland

Oh, this is so pathetic. For the first time I have to include a disclaimer: Even though I include films like “Borat”, “Nacho Libre”, and “Pan’s Labyrinth” in seemingly complimentary categories, that doesn’t mean that I recommend them for everyone. This year especially, be sure to check into what these movies are like before you watch any of them. As I was watching “Nacho Libre” this summer, I remember thinking, “This is pretty funny, but it would never make it onto the Nosferatu Pix except in the ‘Guilty Pleasure’ category.” O how the mighty have fallen.

Best Film:
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Children of Men
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
Nacho Libre
Thank You For Smoking

Best Actor:
Jack Black (“Nacho Libre”)
Sacha Baron Cohen (“Borat”)
Aaron Eckhart (“Thank You For Smoking”)
Colin Farrell (“Ask the Dust”)
Clive Owen (“Children of Men”)

Best Actress:
Ivana Baquero (“Pan’s Labyrinth”)
Rosario Dawson (“Clerks II”)
Laura Dern (“Inland Empire”)
Helen Mirren (“The Queen”)
Maribel Verdú (“Pan’s Labyrinth”)

Best Supporting Actor:
David Bowie (“The Prestige”)
Michael Caine (“Children of Men”)
Michael Caine (“The Prestige”)
Gary Cole (“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”)
John Malkovich (“Art School Confidential”)

Honorable Mention:
Héctor Jiménez (“Nacho Libre”)
Stanley Tucci (“The Devil Wears Prada”)

Best Supporting Actress:
Asia Argento (“Marie Antoinette”)
Maria Bello (“Thank You For Smoking”)
Idina Menzel (“Ask the Dust”)
Julianne Moore (“Children of Men”)
Maya Rudolph (“Idiocracy”)

Best Music:
Marie Antoinette

Disappointments:
“Art School Confidential”
“A Prairie Home Companion”

Guilty pleasures:
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Clerks II
Idiocracy
Nacho Libre
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Nice to see them working:
Sam Elliott (“Thank You For Smoking”)
Jon Favreau (“The Break Up”)
Shirley Henderson (“Marie Antoinette”)
Jason Mewes (“Clerks II”)
Molly Shannon (“Marie Antoinette”, “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”)

Slumming:
Paul Giamatti (“Lady in the Water”)
Bryce Dallas Howard (“Lady in the Water”)
Parker Posey (“Superman Returns”)
Kevin Spacey (“Superman Returns”)

Favorite Moments:
“The Loco-Motion” dance moment in “Inland Empire”.

The homeless Asian lady’s ridiculous monologue in “Inland Empire”.

Trying to jumpstart the car while escaping down the hill backwards in “Children of Men”

Too many moments to mention from “Nacho Libre”

Nacho: “Ok. Orphans! Listen to Ignacio. I know it is fun to wrestle. A nice pile drive to the face... or a punch to the face... but you cannot do it. Because, it is in the Bible not to wrestle your neighbor.”
Chancho: “So you've never wrestled?”
Nacho: “Me? No. Come on. Don't be crazy. I know the wrestlers get all the fancy ladies, and the clothes, and the fancy creams and lotions. But my life is good! Really good! I get to wake up every morning, at 5AM, and make some soup! It's the best. I love it. I get to lay in a bed, all by myself, all of my life! That's fantastic! Go. Go away! Read some books!”

So that’s 2006. The good movies were great; there just weren’t enough of them. Hopefully 2007 will make up for it. At least the Nosferatu weren’t been reduced to including anime this year. As they say in “Logan’s Run”, “Be strong and you will be renewed.”

P.S. I forgot to mention that I also saw "The Good Shepherd", but I can't think of any category to place it in. And I also wanted to see "For Your Consideration" but I couldn't manage it.

Where’s Bau Haus when you need them?

…because they need to write a song about "Anna Nicole Smith’s Dead".

I met Nicole for dinner tonight at Fuller Seminary and she told me the news on the way to the Refectory. She said that she heard about it on Christian talk radio this afternoon (I don’t get to listen to Christian talk radio at work).

While I was still reeling and not believing what I was hearing, I noticed, for the first time, a large bronze sculpture right there on the path. It was a sculpture of Jesus lying on the cross getting his hands nailed to it by two Romans. I’m not trying to make any comparisons, but I will never see that sculpture again without thinking that the first time I saw it was the day Anna Nicole Smith died.

Even now I only have the sketchiest deals of her death, but what other facts are necessary. Could a human being have had a more miserable life than her? The answer is Yes! Of Course! Think of all the lepers of Old Louisiana! Certainly they had it rough, but tell me how many of them were miserable despite stardom, riches, and (during certain periods of her earlier history) the, eh, adoration of millions?

The lepers, and those like them, suffered from merely garden variety misery. Anna Nicole Smith saw the view from the peak of the entertainment world cess pool and then took a nose dive to the very bottom of it. She swallowed a lungful. That Kurt Cobain guy probably had a similar experience, but at least he was a person of some depth. One always assumed that Anna Nicole Smith wasn’t tuned in enough to realize that she was a miserable person. It’s horrible to realize that she was apparently affected by the death of her son - I’d rather that she induced herself into a sort of oblivion about it that I could benefit from vicariously.

I think of that Kurt Kobain and the guy from the Germs as having killed themselves after having found no big answers in life. Still no word on whether Anna Nicole Smith killed herself, but I don’t think it was lack of answers that smote her. Too much plastic surgery, too much constant, global exposure, too much depression drugs for her teen son, too much money. These are all supposed to be good things! I guess Elvis had similar problems, but he was a little older than 39 when he split, and at least he left a legitimate cultural legacy. Even Elvis was less of a freak than Anna Nicole Smith.

I can’t explain why, but somehow the party is over. And it wasn’t even my party, but all I can say is Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid, yo.