I’m not quite sure what went on in writer/director Alan Ball’s neighborhood as a child (or what’s going on in his neighborhood presently) and I’m not sure I want to know. Between penning American Beauty, devising Six Feet Under and now adapting and directing Towelhead, Ball has secured a place in American culture as the only filmmaker with the potential to make director Todd Solondz uncomfortable. Towelhead is a bizarre choice for a film on a top ten list because I absolutely hated watching it. It was, by far, the most unpleasant viewing experience of the year. This is saying something because I also screened Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Eye this year. And I didn’t simply hate viewing Towelhead; watching it ruined my day. It ruined the majority of my week, actually. Ball takes his camera inside a year in the life of the 13-year old, Lebanese-American, Jasira Maroun (Summer Bishil) with such smooth motions and disturbingly well-planned out sequences that it is hard not to be impacted by the events unfolding on-screen. I didn’t think that anyone would be able to come close to achieving the same level of awkwardness and want-to-look-away-ability that Solondz has in his films Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness, but Ball burst onto the scene and, for all intents and purposes, topped Solondz in his very first effort. It takes a lot of work to imbue a movie with emotion and even more for a director to get hardened audience members to squirm uncomfortably in their seats.
I might have wanted to shower and scrub the smell of Towelhead off me after the screening and for most of the month of August, but this can’t camouflage the talent and filmmaking acumen that went into creating this tale… that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that anyone ever see.
4) LEATHERHEADS
director: George Clooney
I am a selfish hedonist. I enjoy feeling good, being entertained and experiencing pleasant encounters. All things considered, it’s probably for the best that I’ve never gotten into coke or heroin. I’d be dead about fifteen seconds after I did my first line. Leatherheads earns its spot on my top ten list for being one of the most warm, genuinely satisfying movie-watching experiences of the year. Along with The Hammer, Leatherheads was one of a very select grouping of films that I felt truly comfortable in. Not quite a period piece, not quite a sports film and not quite a romantic-comedy, Leatherheads, however you wish to label it, is an exceedingly amusing yarn about the very early days of professional football. George Clooney and Renee Zellweger deserve praise for their risky, over-the-top performances here as well—Clooney seems to be channeling Tom from Tom & Jerry throughout many of the football scenes in a bizarre approach that works wonders with the source material.
As I sat in the screening room, I found myself unconsciously checking my watch. For once, I wasn’t doing this because the movie was bad, mind you, but because I didn’t want the movie to end. I needed to brace myself for the movie’s inevitable conclusion and the disappointment that I felt would (and did) arrive once the movie had ended. If there’s ever a four-hour, extended director’s cut of Leatherheads, I will be the first in line to get it.
3) WALL•E
director: Andrew Stanton
Attempting to describe the plot of Wall•E to people who haven’t seen the movie is one of the year’s most challenging cinematic tasks. (Kabluey takes the top honor in this category. After seven starts and stops, one is finally reduced to saying, “God, I don’t know…. Just watch it, it’s good). Ostensibly, Wall•E is about a robot—named Wall•E—who, uh, inadvertently helps save mankind, I think, because he, well, wants a friend. Sort of. What’s most interesting about Pixar’s latest film is that the joy of watching it has nothing to do with the plot material. This stands to reason: when you can’t ably describe a film’s plot material, it’s a good bet that the filmmakers aren’t putting a whole lot of weight on that being the project’s main selling point. However, things get that much stranger at this point in time. While the movie is extremely satisfying to watch, it’s hard to verbalize why. After much thought, I decided that Wall•E is the adult version of The Teletubbies. As Wall•E played, I sat. I starred. I was transfixed. I enjoyed. I cannot begin to explain why. Unfortunately, people ask why and that conversation goes like this:
OTHER PERSON: So Wall•E’s funny, huh?
ME: Not funny, really. It’s warm but not really funny. It’s more—
OTHER PERSON: Well, the robot's funny, right? He’s really likable.
ME: Um, yeah… I mean, he is likable and all, but he doesn’t talk—he kind of makes sounds that can be interpreted as communication—and he’s a robot so—
OTHER PERSON: Wait, Wall•E doesn’t talk?
ME: No, he doesn’t. The first line of dialogue comes about 45 minutes in.
OTHER PERSON: Did you just say that there’s no dialogue for 45 minutes?
ME: Yeah. There’s source sound, but the two main characters are robots who don’t really talk, so there’s not a whole lot of chit-chatting.
OTHER PERSON: What goes on if there’s no talking?
ME: Well, Wall•E sorts trash and tries to figure out whether a spork is a spoon or a fork and hangs out with a cockroach and—
OTHER PERSON: (sarcastically) Oh sure, I’m running right out to see that.
ME: God, I don’t know… Just watch it, it’s the year’s third best film.
2) CLOVERFIELD
director: Matt Reeves
My love of Cloverfield knows almost no boundaries.* Cloverfield is the only movie the year that I paid to see in theaters… twice. I couldn’t stop talking about director Matt Reeves’ film for weeks. It got to the point where my girlfriend told me that my constant monologues about Cloverfield had to go, or she would. I knew I had a problem talking about the film when my mother cut me off at dinner one night and, mimicking me, said, “Yes, we get it. You love Cloverfield. It is a completely new take on a monster movie. A lot of people will overlook Matt Reeves’ style of direction, but it’s incredibly important to the project because no one would really aim a camcorder they were holding at a monster—and frame it correctly—while they were running for their lives. We get it. You. Love. Cloverfield.” I find the art of filmmaking to be absolutely and endlessly fascinating. From the choice of lens to the camera angle to the length of the shot to the determination if and/or when CGI images should be added to the mix, there is almost nothing that goes into the preparation of a scene that I don’t enjoy pouring over. Reeves’ movie is a film geek’s dream playground. Every five minutes of Cloverfield gives the viewer something new to dissect and enjoy. And so I did. When Cloverfield came out on DVD, only the threat of being late to meetings put an end to my viewings of it. How more has not been written about this movie is beyond me.
* Outside of naming it the film of the year.
1) THE HAMMER
director: Charles Herman-Wurmfeld
When I sat down to write my top ten list for 2008, opinions, feelings and comical observations poured out of me with a free-flowing precision for nine of the ten movies. There were no hiccups, no problems, nothing. I had zero trouble writing about movies ten through two on my list. Then I got to The Hammer and I hit a roadblock. Check that. I hit a brick wall while trying to break the land speed record on the salt flats. Billy Joel may also have been driving. I could not think of one thing to say about The Hammer. Yes, it is amazingly good and yes, I spent all of five seconds debating about whether it would be the film of the year. In spite of these qualities though, I couldn’t come up with any words to write about it.* * I actually fell back to my number one trick when I get stuck: namely, I write about how I got stuck.
Hollywood likes quick, easy sells. Pitching a Green Lantern, Flash or Family Guy movie would be an insanely simple task; the executives know what they’re going to get and everyone moves forward. The delights of The Hammer are not as readily verbalized. Its plot material is standard sports-movie stuff—an underdog tries to overcome the odds—but the execution of all those involved in the making of the film is impeccable. And that is what truly makes this film. Adam Carolla and Kevin Hench’s script is tight, funny and supremely entertaining, Charles Herman-Wurmfeld’s camera work and style of direction are a perfect match with the subject material and Carolla, Heather Juergensen and Harold House Moore’s performances are spot on.
After much thought—entirely too much thought—I realized that the root of my writing block originated from the fact that what separates The Hammer from the grand majority of other films out there is the way it positively revels in the little things. The movie is good, but the little things give The Hammer its charm, flavor and personality. There were the interstitial shots of Carolla bouncing a tennis ball against a wall, his lecture on toggle bolts, Juergensen’s surprisingly horrific inability to throw a Frisbee, the scene involving the two extremely likable leads going on a ‘day first date’ and pondering what, if anything that means, Carolla's character's fascination with the La Brea Tar Pits and so on.
It may not sound sexy or glamorous to suggest that The Hammer, like the San Antonio Spurs, earns its position at the top for out-hustling and out-executing the other films of the year, but this is precisely the case. This is a truly wondrous movie.
5) TOWELHEAD