What Are We Gonna Do With All This Trash?: The Yearly Movie Entry

December 10, 2010

The Yearly Movie Entry

So, Inception, right? For like six months I could not wait for that movie, declaring my love for it sight unseen. Then I saw it, thought it was awesome, and completely forgot about it. Perhaps it was the overwrought fanboys or the weird blog race to declare it the best thing ever, but something about the reaction to Inception caused me to like the movie less. Whatever. Below are my five favorite movies from this past year.

Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer - Educational, insightful, and funny. Alex Gibney (Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) has fast become one of my favorite filmmakers.

Kick-Ass - You know how good this movie is? I love it despite the fact that Nicholas Cage has a huge part in it. That's how awesome Kick-Ass is.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World - A funny, visually fun, inventive, and sweet film that looks like a video game comic book, and has indie/garage pop songs written by Nigel Godrich. I have a crush on nearly every girl in this movie, too.

Exit Through the Gift Shop - Street art. A crazy French guy with a camcorder. The meaning of art. Hype vs. talent. Mr. Brainwash. One of my favorite movies, ever.

The Social Network. I've seen this movie now three times and I want to see it again soon. I was shocked by how good it was, so I went back to see if it held up. It did -- and then it got better.

Like many awesome American films, The Social Network is ultimately about loneliness. Mark Zuckerberg is shown as an asshole genius, somebody with the creativity and talent to create the world's most popular website, but completely unable to maintain a relationship, even with his only friend. Zuckerberg's character is constantly shot alone in the frame, and during various big moments in his company's history, he is shown apart from the action, watching others celebrate the success he had provided. It's a beautiful movie, all Fincher-y dark with extremely shallow focus. That characters regularly fall in and out of focus may subtly suggest the inherent emptiness of the electronic social system the movie centers around, but it is the characters and the pristine, empty worlds surrounding them that make this movie so great.

It's also really funny.

Movies I Didn't See But Know That I Will Love

The People Vs. George Lucas
MacGruber

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A History Of Trash

Trash, at first, was a pretty cool guy. You know, he’d come over with some beers, and you’d hang out and have a couple of laughs. Maybe Trash brought some weed with him, and you guys tried to sync up Dark Side Of The Moon with The Wizard Of Oz until you remembered you lost your VHS copy of that movie sometime in college and that you fucking hate Pink Floyd. Good times were had, nonetheless.

But then, you don’t know what changed, but Trash started to overstay his welcome. He’d just linger for hours, never taking the hint you wanted him to leave, no matter how many times you yawned obnoxiously or mentioned how early you had to get up tomorrow. Trash just didn’t get it. You were getting older. You didn’t have the time anymore to stay up until 3 a.m. to talk about the Port season of “The Wire” or how much you miss Jawbox. Eventually, you just stopped taking Trash’s phone calls and no longer replied to his group e-mails about sneaking into abandoned mental hospitals.

Last time you saw Trash, he was smoking alone outside a local dive bar, looking down at his decaying and mismatched shoes. You hoped he had been doing well. You hoped he had not been hurt by the disintegration of your friendship. And if he had, you wanted to comfort him. You wanted to tell him that even though people move on with their lives, it doesn’t mean they stop caring. You wanted him to see in your eyes a sincere appreciation for the time you shared, because all the relationships in our lives help make us who we are, and even if you weren’t the best of friends anymore, you wanted him to know that there would always be a piece of Trash in your heart.

But instead, you looked away and crossed the street. You were with your new girlfriend, and you really didn’t want to have to explain Trash to her. She’d never understand.