I ran across this picture today and it reminded me how much I loved
Up. It also reminded me how much I adore fat preadolescents of Asian descent.
Up – I’m in the bag for Pixar. Aside from
Cars, they haven’t made a bad movie. And I don’t mean, “for kids’ movies, they’re pretty good.” No, as films, as perfectly constructed pieces of art, Pixar is damn near perfect. They have perfected the kind of concise story and character development that immediately engages an audience, and their meticulously crafted and perfectly lit animation brilliantly illustrates how much can be accomplished within a film frame.
Up was my favorite movie that came out in 2009. It’s sad and funny and incredible.
Inglorious Basterds – It’s difficult to separate the artist from his art, especially when that artist is so full of himself and is so painful to listen to, but Quentin Tarantino made a super fun movie that plays with history, idolizes both movies and violence, and shoots Hitler multiple times in the fuckin’ face!
Observe and Report – This may be the darkest comedy I have ever seen. Not in terms of content, but in terms of characters. Not one person in this movie is good or likable in any way. Everyone is a dick, everyone will stab you in the back, and even your mom is just a drunk trying to stave off blacking out so she can drink some more. Even with all that, this movie is incredibly funny in a really pessimistic, gloomy way. Made by the dudes who made
Foot Fist Way and "Eastbound and Down."
In The Loop – A brutal British comedy about the impotence and incompetence of politicians. Funny and frightening at the same time.
The Hangover – Las Vegas shenanigans, Zach Galifianakis, and
this.
Big Fan – I
wrote on this earlier. Awesome movie.
I think that’s it. Don’t let anyone tell you that
District 9 was the best movie from last year. Anti-apartheid allegories that shoot its own message in the foot with racist content aren't all that great. I’ll see most of the year’s other top films, like that George Clooney thing and the Coens’ new one, sometime by summertime 2011.
I'm in Bolivia for two weeks. It's a landlocked Andean country rich in ancestral tradition. For example, as part of some sort of ritual related to the beginning Carnivale, groups of young boys roam the streets with bags of water balloons targeting mostly groups of young girls or passing cars that have the windows rolled down. One group in a car tried to pelt me with a balloon as they drove slowly past but missed by a mile. Kind of proves why there are no Bolivian baseball players in the majors, right? I mean, how could you miss me?
I walked around this town square in Cochabamba for almost three hours, and this dude never moved once. I hope to be him someday.
The Dark Knight made nearly $470 million in foreign box office. Half of that had to be from the guy who put this on the hood of his car. ¿Por qué tan serio?
My favorite piece of graffiti so far. I like anyone who equates the police with some sort of marching death squad. This is my kind of place.
