And A Little More...

I realized I didn't fit everything in that I wanted to, so I'm doing a little bit more. I first wanted to include what I feel to be the 20 best performances of the decade.

To help, I've split them up into 2 different categories: Performances for a "good guy" character and, the much more interesting, performances for a "bad guy/anti-hero" character. And there are 10 in each, so they are essentially two Top 10 performances lists that I will then sift through for the Top 10 performances of the year list (hope that made sense). And I won't bother with an explanation... I'll just let the youtube videos do the talking (some clips were harder to find than others... some of these I had to use trailers). That being said, let's get to it.

Top 10 "Good Guy/Gal" Performances of the 2000s

10. Tallahassee - Woody Harrelson (Zombieland)



9. Tony Stark - Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man)



8. Dae-su Oh - Min-sik Choi (Oldboy)



7. Laura - Belen Rueda (The Orphanage)



6. Ulysses Everett McGill - George Clooney (O Brother, Where Art Thou?)



5. Joel Barish - Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)



4. Amelie Poulain - Audrey Tautou (Amelie)



3. Park Il-sun - Rain (I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK)



2. Randy "The Ram" - Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)



1. Trevor Adams - Ben Foster (Bang Bang You're Dead)

Top 10 "Bad Guy/Antihero" Performances of the 2000s

10. Richard B. Riddick - Vin Diesel (Pitch Black)



9. V - Hugo Weaving (V For Vendetta)



8. Alonzo - Denzel Washington (Training Day)



7. Anton Chigurh - Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men)



6. Vincent - Tom Cruise (Collateral)



5. John "Jigsaw" Kramer - Tobin Bell (The Saw Series)

Note: Whether you like the films or not, you can't deny Tobin Bell's acting is freakin' fantastic, and one of the only reasons even the less lenient fans keep coming back. Even I would have to say that if it weren't for Tobin Bell, this series wouldn't have lasted as long as it has. This particular clip (not so good quality) is from Saw II and features John talking to Detective Matthews.



4. Severus Snape - Alan Rickman (The Harry Potter Series)

Note: Rickman completely embodies Snape, and it wouldn't be the same with anybody else. But the video I want cannot be embedded, so follow this link. It's one of my favorite Snape scenes--the extended cut of Harry's first Potions class, which is so much better than the original cut, of course. Also, random fun fact, 2 of the 3 things Snape talks about toward the end of the clip come back in Half-Blood Prince.

3. Rorschach - Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen)

Note: This scene is also refusing embedding. Probably for the better, as it's a pretty graphic scene. Anyway, here's the clip.

2. Hans Landa - Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds)



1. The Joker - Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)

Note: And, again, another clip that can't be embedded. It's the scene that made everybody fall in love with the character: The pencil trick. Check it out.

Top 10 Overall Performances of the 2000s

10. Joel Barish - Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
9. John "Jigsaw" Kramer - Tobin Bell (The Saw Series)
8. Amelie Poulain - Audrey Tautou (Amelie)
7. Park Il-sun - Rain (I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK)
6. Severus Snape - Alan Rickman (The Harry Potter Series)
5. Rorschach - Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen)
4. Randy "The Ram" - Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)
3. Trevor Adams - Ben Foster (Bang Bang You're Dead)
2. Hans Landa - Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds)
1. The Joker - Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)

Runner-Up: This movie didn't make any of my lists, but it probably should have. Hard Candy was a brutal thriller, and Ellen Page's performance is outstanding, better than anything else she's done yet. So I thought I'd give it a shout-out here.


The last thing I need to post is one thing I had nearly forgotten about: The worst films of the decade. No, I won't be doing an elaborate list here. It's just a decade list. Why? Because I don't go out of my way to see bad movies. So this list compromises the top (bottom?) ten films of the 2000s that I've actually seen. I'm sure there are far worse films than some of these out there. But these are pretty bad, too.

Worst Movies of the 2000s (That I've Seen)

10. The Strangers (2008)

This is one of the most overrated horror films ever. It's not scary. It's not even moderately creepy (at least after the first 10 minutes). It's just... bad.

9. Jumper (2008)

I was so looking forward to this movie. It turned into a total waste. They should have stuck with the younger actors that portrayed the characters before they went however many years "later."

8. Date Movie (2006)

Around the middle of the "Movie" Movie craze, right when they started getting unbearably bad (The "Scary Movies" were at least decent... but when they branched out, they just went downhill fast). Poor Alyson Hannigan.

7. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

Not even Brendan Frasier could save this movie. Bad story, bad acting, bad special effects... it was just bad all around.

6. Dragonball Evolution (2009)

I'd been waiting for a live Dragonball movie since the 90s. And then they give us this travesty. It doesn't follow the Dragonball universe almost whatsoever. I do have to give them props on James Marsters as Piccolo. That was actually brilliant casting, and they even made Piccolo look pretty good with the makeup and whatnot. It's just unfortunate he had maybe 5 minutes of total screen time. It was just all wrong and all bad. This is one movie in serious need of a reboot.

5. Anything by Uwe Boll (2003-2009)

You can't have a worst-of list for the decade and not include Uwe Boll. Of his films, I've seen 2 (House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark). And that was more than enough. At least House of the Dead could be considered a so-bad-its-hilarious to watch and riff with friends. But the others... just terrible.

4. Diary of the Dead (2007)

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Romero used to be at the top of the horror field. And then he gave us this. It's terribly acted, and it can't even properly do the "found tape" style of movie. One of the characters actually tells you "I edited this movie after the fact and added tense music and some sound effects to help with the tension" (or something along those lines). Now that's just sad.

3. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)

This is why video game movies have a bad rep. Crap like this. I was literally embarrassed leaving the movie theater, hoping nobody was watching me leave this travesty of film. No kidding. I had never before nor have I ever since left a movie feeling embarrassed for having publicly seen it... not even the Twilight films. Bad. Bad bad bad.

2. The Spirit (2008)

The only reason my friend and I didn't walk out of this mess is that we were having too much fun riffing on it. This is a perfect riff movie, and I'd be tempted to buy it (from Amazon or some other non-public store) just to make my own personal rifftrax. It is so terribly awful that words cannot describe it. If you go back and look at my review for the movie after having seen it... I literally couldn't find the words to give a proper review. This is by and far one of the worst movies I have ever seen... but not the worst.

1. The Room (2003)

That honor goes to this gem, which I just saw this year. This movie is either a work of terror or a work of pure genius. Tommy Wiseau is either a total moron or the greatest filmmaker of our age. He has either given us the world's worst modern film or the greatest practical joke ever pulled on film. Words cannot describe this movie... it's probably best to go and listen to a previous LAMBcast where it's discussed (I'm not involved, however, as I hadn't seen it at that point). With classic lines like "Hi doggie!" or just his amazing laugh, "ha ha ha ha." The movie is classically, possibly even brilliantly, terrible.

Short Review: Diary of the Dead.

I'm a huge zombie fan (and therefore huge Romero fan). I heard a lot of bad things about this movie. Didn't expect this.

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Premise: A bunch of film students that are filming a horror movie get caught up in the beginning of the zombie apocalypse and decide to film all that they can.

Starring: Nobody known.

My Reaction: The acting was horrible. The writing and dialogue was horrible. The narration was horrible. The characters were horrible (and no Texan from San Antonio speaks like that). The use of first-person camera and everything about it was horrible. Practically everything in the movie was horrible, if you haven't gathered that yet. And Romero was trying way too hard on adding a relevant social commentary to it. Way too obvious and in-your-face (to the point of annoying). There were one or two cool, though brief, shots in the entire movie, such as a bunch of zombies in a swimming pool. Otherwise, the movie was awful, and it really isn't worth seeing even for those one or two good shots, as they're only one or two seconds long at most. Shame on you, Romero. Shame.


She's Gone From Suck to Blow!

LKMYNTS: [REC].

So when I heard of a new movie coming out called Quarantine, I watched the trailer, was highly intrigued, and decided to look into it further. When I did, I found out it’s a remake of a Spanish film that was made only last year called [REC] (short for Record or Recording, in this instance), and all reviews I read stated how terrifying it was. I was more intrigued. And then I saw it was a zombie movie. I tracked it down as quickly as possible… which was very difficult, as it isn’t available for Region 1 DVD. Fortunately, albeit not in the most ethical approach, I found a copy uploaded on YouTube of all places. I’ll just leave it at that.

[REC] is about a young television reporter, Angela (Manuela Velasco), and her cameraman Pablo (never fully shown, but voiced by Pep Sais), who are filming a night in the life of the local fire station. She teams up with two of the firemen, Alex (David Vert) and Manu (Ferran Terraza), and discovers how firehouse life is actually quite boring on average. But when they get a middle-of-the-night call to an apartment complex about an elderly woman giving blood-curdling screams, Angela, Pablo, and their firemen acquaintances make their way to the building. However, upon reaching the place, they discover something else much darker than they were expecting is happening. The elderly woman bites a policeman and one of the firemen, and the entire complex suddenly find themselves in the middle of a government quarantine with no explanation as to what is going on or why. But all they know is that there are two dying men who need to get to a hospital and a very sick little girl who apparently has tonsillitis. And everything slowly becomes more and more chaotic from there.

I have to say, this movie was intense. It started off kind of slow, but once they reached the apartment complex, the pace picked up considerably before dropping off for a little bit, and then hitting hard again non-stop to the end. My adrenaline was constantly pumping, my heart going fast, and I even jumped a few times. However, one of the movie’s major downfalls is that it focuses primarily on the intensity and not the characters. The only characters I really had any kind of feeling for were Angela and Pablo. There are a few introductions to characters during the middle slow part of the movie, but not enough to really get a good feel for them. You know they’re just there to raise the body count. The movie would have been much better had they extended the incredibly short length of the movie (it clocks in, without credits, at less than 80 minutes) in order to focus more on character development.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, this movie is shot in a similar fashion to The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, and Diary of the Dead (except it was out before the latter two). But as I said, it didn’t have the same character focus that, say, Cloverfield had. I didn’t care about Pablo in the same fashion that I cared about Hud. But enough about the characters.

The visuals of the movie are really good. There are some cool shots and angles, and quite a few less-is-more approach shots, in which you only see quick glimpses before the camera pans away, or you only hear noises. There are some great uses of the camera, as well, such as the night vision and the camera light (much like in the subway scene of Cloverfield). Though there was a rewind/fast-forward sequence that didn’t make sense, because as far as I’m aware (though I could be wrong), you can't record yourself rewinding and fast-forwarding.

As for the zombies, they look really creepy from what you see of them (like I said, quick glimpses). Though they’re almost more like The Infected from the 28 _____ Later films, except I would moreso argue that these are actually zombies, unlike the ones in those films. The origin of the zombies is somewhat attempted to be explained, but isn’t fully done so, which I think is nice. Movies that try to explain their monsters sometimes end up hokier than they would have been otherwise. Instead, it leaves it more up to speculation.

The acting is done really well, mostly from the lead actress, Manuela Velasco. I really didn’t notice many (if any) parts that really brought me out of the movie due to poor acting. The ending somewhat confused me, though I think I understood it for the most part. And it’s also a rather abrupt ending, much like Blair Witch and Cloverfield. I’m not too sure what else to say. From the Quarantine trailer, it looks almost identical to [REC], except in English. Even down to the position of the camera and the reaction of the character to certain things. Hopefully, though, this could be one of those rare instances where the remake actually builds on and makes better the original version. If the American version is longer than 80 minutes, I’ll start getting really excited. But until then, I’ll just anticipate both that version, and for whenever [REC] comes to DVD in the US.

A Keanu 'Whoa'

(P.S. I also just found out that my main man Doug Jones is gonna have a cameo appearance in Quarantine, so I'm there even more).

Random Ramblings of a Demented Doorknob…

Also known as R2D2 (No relation). I just have time to kill before class, I’m bored, and I have a bunch of things on my mind that wouldn’t really fit under any cohesive article… therefore, I have this! So here I go.

- Diary of the Dead comes out next month! George Romero claims that he hasn’t been this excited about one of his movies since the original Night. That makes me excited. Also, there’s gonna be a contest to go along with it where you make a horror movie short and send it in, and Romero watches each one, picks a winner, and the winner gets to go on the Diary DVD. I’m insanely tempted to try for it.

- How the hell does Uwe Boll still keep getting funding AND big name actors? His movies have never done anything but bomb horribly. His latest, In the Name of the King, didn’t even make the top 10 box office over the weekend. One of my co-workers saw it—and we don’t always exactly have the same opinion on movies (sometimes we do, but a lot of times we don’t)—and even she thought it was crap. Also, how do you pronounce the dude’s name? Is it ‘you’, like one of those sheep things, or You-Hey, or You-EE?

- Cloverfield comes out this weekend! I’m excited. It’ll either be really awesome or the hype will have killed it. I’m half inclined to really want it to actually be the stay-puffed marshmallow man like that one spoof trailer shows.

- What is it about movies when really good characters die at the end, and you go through the whole movie hoping that the ending will be different this time around, even if you’ve seen it hundreds of times already? (I watched Cube last night again, and I always hope that the one person who dies at the end doesn’t). Or am I just crazy and the only one who ever feels that way?

- I’m both excited for and wary of the upcoming The Eye. I saw the original Asian version a few years ago and it’s an excellent movie. It’s creepy and suspenseful. That elevator scene is intense. And then the ending is just mind blowing. But now it’s being remade with Jessica Alba. That’s the first thing that worries me. I mean, the girl is great to look at, but she’s not the best actress out there. On the other hand, it looks like they still have the elevator scene AND they’re keeping the same ending, so that’s good. Anyway, it comes out next month, I think, so I’ll keep an eye out for it (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

- The song from the second half of the Hellboy II trailer (assuming it’s a different song from the first half) is freaking awesome.

- I just found out that one of my favorite Horror/Comedies, Feast, is getting two sequels: Feast II: Sloppy Seconds and Feast III: The Happy Finish. And they both have sexual related names. I find that funny. Feast went above and beyond the B-Movie/common horror genre. It did what was highly unexpected in how things happened and who lived/died. Every Hollywood horror law is broken in the movie, so you never know what’s gonna happen next, and that’s exciting. And the sequels are being written and directed by all the same people, which is a plus. I so cannot wait.

- Is anybody else super hyped for Jumper? I heard it’s almost nothing like the book, but hey… I haven’t read it, so I don’t care! :P

- Has anybody else heard of the upcoming My Name Is Bruce? It stars the legendary Bruce Campbell… as himself… and some people mistake him for his character of Ash from the Evil Dead series and ask him for help to fight a town of monsters. It looks so freaking cheesy awesome. Classic Bruce Campbell.

- Did anybody else catch the 2-night season premier of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles? This show looks like it’s gonna rock the house. And Summer Glau is so hot. How can you not love this picture?

- I’m so upset that the character Michael is coming back to Lost. I was so happy when he left the show. He got on my nerves so bad. I’m upset now.

- While we’re on the subject of TV and people stuck on islands, the castaway list for the next Survivor was released a week or so ago. For those who don’t know, this season is going to have Fans vs. Favorites, where favorites from previous seasons come back to face true fans of the show. Well, I have no idea who I’m gonna root for now… because Yau-Man, Ozzy, AND James are returning. And even Johnny Fairplay is coming back. I’m not rooting for him, but he’ll be fun to watch. This is gonna be an awesome season.

Anywho, that’s all I can think of for right now. I’ll leave it at that. Later!