One More Nick on the Teens

Many things have changed in the long stretch since I first started putting my cultural musings here. But one that has not is my stubborn belief that quantities are gathered from 1 to 10 and not 0 to 9, and unless you are an astrophysicist there is no such thing as Year Zero. Therefore the Teens began in 2011 and ended on this date today. There may be long stretches of silence here as I go about other demands of the world, but there is something to be said that I've kept this blog operating long enough to post a second Best of the Decade list, and there are still correspondents who will read it, especially knowing how much of an ornery cuss I am in sticking to this unpopular system of counting. So thank you up front for finding room in your heart for this fussbudget; everybody needs a little love.

And with love comes...

THE BEST MOVIES OF THE DECADE

13. INSIDE OUT

While it seems that some lustre has fallen from the Pixar brand since, like any other enterprise, they have been tapping into their existing characters to offer audiences comfortable familiarity, when they choose a challenging topic, they still prove themselves peerless in rising to the opportunity. After all, what has felt more impenetrable for generations of parents than unlocking the workings of a young child's mind? Pete Doctor and his brain trust spent years making sure the psychology was accurate, and integrated some of their own self-reflection into the plotting, and that intensity yielded a entertaining and, pardon the pun, thoughtful recognition of how all emotions do ultimately intersect for the better.

12. FAST COLOR

When it comes to the spectacle genres, there are several examples of Black-fronted action-adventures and horror stories, but very few fantasy outings, a particularly frustrating matter in light of how popular such material has been with Black viewers. So on that low metric this would already be a welcome contribution. But what director/co-screenwriter Julia Hart does to elevate this to greatness is present a compelling generational drama among its main characters that would sustain an entire movie without any supernatural element, combine it with a new contemplation of a superhero origin story, and finally subvert the kind of expected showdown climax with a cathartic theme of rapprochement and hope that feels earned and not contrived.

11. PHOENIX

Beginning from the source novel RETURN FROM THE ASHES, depicting a woman after WWII re-seducing the lover that does not recognize her (and perhaps betrayed her), which previously inspired one of my favorite unsung films, then essentially rubbishing it and starting from scratch in the manner of Coppola with Mario Puzo or P.T. Anderson with Upton Sinclair, director Christian Petzold and screenwriter Harun Farocki keenly take escapist pulp and expand upon it to depict characters, and thus a nation, that for decades, lost the very notion of pulp, pop culture, and escape. What long ago had been conceived as an an entertaining but not exceptional spin on the "who's going to die last" question to which many potboiler stories hinge upon becomes unforgettable by flipping the question instead to become "how do you go on living."

10. ELLE

As an uneasy but necessary discussion about women's sexual abuse and trauma took focus in the tail end of the decade, many were shocked at the hardened observations of some women of earlier generations and life experiences, where they in effect shrugged off horrifying events they endured. In the heightened but all-too-plausible environment created by Paul Verhoeven here, we get a significant taste of the minefield such women have steeled themselves to navigate and rise above, with allusions to the manner in which years of outside hostility and interior stewing create such a mindset, delivering on themes that were previously touched on in SHOWGIRLS but ultimately muddied in its disjointed blend of camp and grit. 

9. BOYHOOD

In the 90s, after watching the first batch of films Richard Linklater directed, my roommate said, unprompted, "I think he's a got a THE GODFATHER in him." While the idea of a family epic sounded odd for a filmmaker finding drama in the outwardly bland incidents of people, consider that Francis Ford Coppola had earned praise for similarly small intimate films as YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW and THE RAIN PEOPLE before making that iconic film. As such, Linklater did fulfill that prediction, demonstrating how, over the span of years, moments that seemed inconsequential impact and loom large in the formative time of adolescence. And by taking it further with shooting in yearly installments to cement the verisimilitude, took the kind of bold production risk that Coppola probably contemplated in his own youth. To say that ordinary life is complex sounds quaint, but when presented in this chronicle, the evidence hits home.

8. YOUNG ADULT

Back in 2011, where most of the attention in the film community was taken up either by the complacent nostalgia of THE ARTIST and THE HELP or the existential questions of THE TREE OF LIFE and MELANCHOLIA, director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody, reteaming after their successful collaboration on JUNO, took the truly ballsy step of asking audiences to find kinship and empathy with a destructive monster who seemingly could not or would not repent for their damage. Roger Ebert famously said that the gift movies provide is to allow viewers to experience lives they would never know, and even though this protagonist, mired in self-loathing over the failed promises of the past, is a person one would hope to never know or emulate, this glimpse into their broken heart is as much a moving revelation as any comparably upstanding character.

7. DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME

If Bill Morrison had decided to make a documentary just on discovering hundreds of nitrate film reels in a remote Yukon outpost, that probably would have been an interesting story in itself. Or if he'd told the story of that former Great White North boomtown, that would have been informative also. But by taking the time to look deeply into both their their histories, how they mirrored each other, and the unexpected tangents they steered into, he was able to lay out a larger, sprawling tale of ambition, capitalism, hubris, and for some involved parties, recovery, taking this beyond the realm of dry information about the past, and into a stunning hypnotic odyssey. It stands as a grounded cautionary tale and a dream narrative.

6. PARASITE

Bong Joon-ho has been swinging for the fences from his first feature forward, and to have a resume where MEMORIES OF MURDER is your second film is what every auteur dreams of. PARASITE is the culmination of years of telling energetic tales of suspense infused with exploring the ripple effects of class disparity in THE HOST, MOTHER, and SNOWPIERCER. This edition however stands out thanks to its mastery of switching from fear to comedy and back, its mounting stakes leading to a cathartic finish, and yet never letting its pronouncements get larger than the prime focus on its characters and our rooted interest in them. As he has demonstrated in all his best films, no matter the chaos outside, there is always time to stop for family meal.

5. SMALL AXE QUINTET

I would proffer that the reason some chroniclers resist counting a series of films as a single unit is because they rarely get released in the span of one calendar year; the last time I can recall one making that window was Kieslowski's THREE COLORS trilogy. And the puritans screaming, "It's TV!" aren't helping things either. But any sensible cineaste can see that Steve McQueen's collection of overdue stories about West Indian lives in '70s England - their loves, challenges, epiphanies, and activism - have the meticulous composition of all of the director's previous works, and with Amazon's bullish support of other iconoclast artists and desire for theatrical respect, they would have readily released them in cinemas were they not shut down in 2020. Structured like a mixtape, with the strong start of MANGROVE, the bold increase of LOVERS ROCK, the reflective descent of RED WHITE AND BLUE and ALEX WHEATLE, and a conclusion in EDUCATION that makes you want to start the whole thing over again, this may well be McQueen’s stamp on the canon.

4. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU

Satire may be what closes on Saturday night, but when it's done right, it captures all of the troublesome parts of a time and place and manages to present it to you in a way that doesn't make you want to regret your existence. And Boots Riley calls out multiple sources of grief of this past decade, and acknowledges how some of them manage to stay indestructible, without leaving the viewer feeling completely pessimistic, deftly blending the "pilgrim's progress" surrealism of O LUCKY MAN! with BLUE COLLAR's still relevant maxim, "They'll do anything to keep you on their line...Everything they do is to keep us in our place." It's laughing to keep from screaming bloody murder, but when the jokes come as quick and correct as they do here, you understand why comedy matters in a bleak time. 

3. GRAVITY

While a case can be made that his longtime friend and peer Alejandro González Iñárritu engages in production stunt work meant to draw attention to itself, Alfonso Cuarón has always figured out how to make technical virtuosity still be in the service of a story and not take it over. In this film, he presents astounding visuals (especially when viewed in its native 3D), the kind that audiences seek when going to a big screen event picture, but constrains them to focus almost exclusively on one person and her real time life-or-death crisis above the Earth; effectively staging a literal THE HUMAN VOICE in Space! The existential struggle of the micro of a single soul against the ultimate macro of the vast infinite has rarely been more wondrous, terrifying, and emotional, and Cuarón shows how that balance can be met in craft and in life.

2. O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA

If anyone not already familiar with the recent history of this country wanted an explanation for the disease that has devoured so much of this decade, this bravura documentary, that unrolled with a furious speed that belied the 7.5 hours of its theatrical release version, is the primer I would offer them. Addressing the longstanding open racial animus Los Angeles law enforcement unleashed upon its Black citizens, and the more covert racial animus that slowly poisoned a once shining hero of the community, and the ugly series of events they spawned, you hear from many people with a stake in the saga, many of whose voices either lacked amplification or got distorted during that maelstrom. And as the participants have some benefit of hindsight in their present to recognize mistakes made, viewers of today will likely all too well recognize how those mistakes led to even worse mistakes in our present. 

And after all of that, what could be the one film to represent ten years' worth of thousands of dreamers putting their visions forth on screens of varying size, to sum up everything that was exciting and moving about the art form, and set up a homestead in your head for weeks, months, years after the first viewing? Well, for me, there is only one answer...

1. HOLY MOTORS

I don't know if I could roust the uninitiated with a sober recitation of the basic outline of this movie - an actor capable of complex changes of appearance travels by stretch limousine to perform a wild array of scenes over the course of one day - because this is a movie that is inebriated with the joy of immersion in other worlds for a short spell. Action, fantasy, discord, regret, death, rebirth, and even a little song and dance - the emotional moments we seek entertainment to reenact for us from the comfort of a cinema seat, whether you're the loner at a matinee wanting a good cry over lost love, or the wide-eyed naif at a midnight show looking to discover some way out sheeit. Like rambunctious children playing house one minute, cowboys the next, and monsters afterward, anything is possible and no ideas are wrong. To invert that old beer commercial, it is Everything You Always Wanted in a Movie...and More. 

Or, to libarally quote from my more erudite friend and colleague Alonso Duralde, "It's a movie [that] if you feel like interpreting it, it's open to a lot of things...is this a movie, is this a dream, is this a movie having a dream of being a movie...it just goes into wonderfully weird directions and you have to just kind of stop asking questions after a while and just go with it and follow its own rhythms, but it's rewarding if you allow yourself to do that...this is a movie for movie lovers who really love all kinds of movies and are willing to go on all kinds of rides with a movie...there's a story here if you want there to be one, or not if you don't..."

For a decade that's definitely been a long and suspenseful ride full of inextricably tied instances of elevation and humbling, despair and comfort, fear and hope and the Whole Damned Thing...and no good answers about what is coming next...how can it not be represented by HOLY MOTORS?

Thus I close the door on this year and this decade, and send you my wishes for a grand '20s run, and my promise to help make them grand for you.

For All of the Nought

Contrary to popular belief, it is no easier doing a Best of the Decade list than it is doing a Best of the Year list. Many think it's just a matter of plucking all your number ones and then ranking those, right? Wrong. For example, some movies I saw missed deadline for their calendar years thanks to evil release strategies (a notorious crime around the holidays), and it's too unwieldly to, say, tell everyone "Okay, you know what I said was number one? It ain't anymore - you have to shove everything down and put this new thing on top." I did that once, and after all the confusion it caused, I decided ya know, I gotta stand by the list I made that year, because that's where my head was, because THAT'S WHAT THE MAN SAID YOU HEARD WHAT HE SAID HE SAID THAT... That mindset has orphaned some great films, to be sure, and had I the same privileges Oscar voters get for early viewing I could have written a better list for that year, but I can't rewrite history. I wrote and presented those lists, right or wrong. Thus, a decade list is a chance to right the wrongs done to some modern classics. Also, not every #1 of each year constitutes the decade's best. Some calendar years yield more than one stupendous creation that just overshadow what the best of another year was. Frankly, you could almost sum up the decade's best with films just from 2007, but I'm not that lazy, although I did take two for mine. And some movies that ranked lower for a certain year rank higher when viewed in the prism of history, either by their influence on later works or repeat viewing, or even the gauntlet they throw down for the future, in the case of one of my choices. As I assembled this list, it occurred to me that many of these choices affected me in their undertones about the strength of art. Whether they are exploring the way it can provide escape from oppression, or a means to beat depression, or heal real-world suffering, or even triumph over evil, when movies are able to cleverly dramatize all the baggage which came with us to the theatre, they're doing something extremely special, and that's to be rewarded. So now, it can finally be told: THE BEST MOVIES OF THE DECADE

  13. WALL-E

The history of the Pixar studio seems to be taking one unusual premise after another, and making those stories succeed beyond the wildest expectations of their creators. And none could be more difficult to sell than one that begins with the ostensible end of Earth as livable planet, a non-human leading character, and almost no dialogue for at least an hour. Yet instead of the somber canticle the premise would suggest, Andrew Stanton treated us to a joyful voyage of discovery, of finding the flower in the desert, of learning that no matter how far removed one is from a point of origin, there is always the ability to start over.

  12. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Blending his post-modern skills with classic action structure, Quentin Tarantino makes the WWII movie that could never have been made in that time, but which every grunt in a foxhole or homefront girl on a factory line or expatriate in a cinema dreamed of in their mind. An epic where victory is determined not by generals in smoke-filled rooms or lucky hits dropped from planes, but the cunning and raw will of a few scrappy savages and one femme fatale. Not many filmmakers could get away with a war movie with little actual warfare, or an American-made movie that is half-subtitled from other languages, or a historical movie that blatantly disregards history, let alone all these contradictions, and make it appeal to a wide audience. The fact that he pulled it off cements Tarantino's place among the great filmmakers.

  11. SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD

More than just a exercise in nerd culture or dating metaphors, Edgar Wright captures the nature of what it is to be young and not-completely-worldly, where you initially think yourself the hero of your own movie, where every unpleasant emotion feels like a near-death blow because you have no previous point of reference to measure it against, and where you do co-opt the language of your favorite distractions to express yourself, with a unique editing style that captures the speed and leaps of time which life seems to take in your twenties. As Bava achieved with DIABOLIK or Friedkin with TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., Wright has created a film that is both an artifact of a date and time, and a universal emotional ride that will endure after the references get older.

  10. MULHOLLAND DRIVE

Not since BLUE VELVET has David Lynch found a means to blend his respect for the classical storytelling of the glamourous star vehicles he grew up on with the non-narrative impulses of mood and fantasy that he made his reputation upon. Rather than put us through the numbers and bullet points of resolving a plot, we linger in those moments of discovery, of uncertainty, of regret, until we think less about figures in a landscape or players in a play, and more about how their actions would affect us in those moments. What is "real" and what is "dream" is ultimately irrelevant, it is the emotional response it stirs in yourself that Lynch is after. And no matter the answers we have to the whos, whys, and whatevers we have seen in this filmic fever dream, all of them are right.

  9. TARNATION

While it will certainly be blamed for a subsequent flood of recorded internet navel-gazing by attention-starved narcissist depressives, Jonathan Caouette's groundbreaking dissection of his mother's years of mental illness and the ultimate effect it had on his evolution, intercut with home movies and found footage, was a stunning presentation. There is a lot to do with death in this movie - of joyful spirit, of innocence, of beauty, of lucidity, the literal end of life, but most importantly, the death of pessimism. For all the tragedy that engulfs this true story, it's never depressing, glum, or pathetic; Caouette demonstrates that there will always be difficulty, but gives us the sense he has put much of that horror away for good...for all metaphorical and literal interpretations of the word "good." A grand story of taking responsibility, and artistic channeling, that demonstrates how sometimes the most universal stories are the most personal.

  8. AVATAR

James Cameron took his sweet time to invent, and then use, the technological paintbox he needed to create a new universe, which in the process, is the mirror by which the often-criticized storyline might be better judged. Much as Martin Scorsese was an asthmatic child who dreamt of leaving a small home to play cowboys on the open plain, or Stephen Hawking transcended the frailty of his body to contemplate the wonder of the infinite, Cameron has not just recycled "the hero's journey," but encapsulated the notions of what drives our great dreamers, how their vision can be in sharp contrast to our outward notions. It is old-fashioned spectacle to get moviegoers off the sofa spiced with the modern capabilities of the present. Poo-poo the finished product if that is your honest opinion, but do not mock the ambition.

  7. GHOST WORLD

Similar to SCOTT PILGRIM in its graphic novel origins and young adult protagonists, Terry Zwigoff's tart comedy is definitely a much darker look at growing up. In this era where the youth seem to be jaded before their time, this film puts a human face and soul on the situation. Depicting a society where it seems everyone is either banal or aloof, we watch two best friends who, while initially bonded in their goal to beat the system, will ultimately drift apart because one learns how to make peace with the strangeness, while the other's fear of picking wrong leaves her completely disconnected. Biting but not mean, satirical but not nihilistic, this is the snapshot of a generation: if you know or are raising a cynical kid, this story has probably encapsuled their adventures.

  6. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

Charlie Kaufman has been responsible for many unconventional screenplays in this decade, but this is probably the most emotionally accessible, and thus the best. And through the playful, elastic universe of director Michel Gondry, the surreal seems downright sensible. Taking off on the notion of literally eliminating someone from your mind, we see how truly difficult such a task can be, not only because we loath to lose the good memories as well as the bad, but also because that person becomes so embedded with other incidents and aspects of our psyche we feel a void if they're not around, and because we know in our heart our imprinting is such that to forget those "mistakes" would only cause us to make them over again.

  5. CHILDREN OF MEN

As BLADE RUNNER displayed the Baby Boomer fears of a future that functions at the expense of human kindness, Alfonso Cuaron displays the similar dread of our generation. But rather than succumb to nihilism like other tired science-fiction dystopias, he fights back with faith and humor, and an immediate on-the-spot momentum that, while acted terrificly by Clive Owen, often duplicates the endorphinal rush one feels from watching "COPS" or playing first-person games like DOOM, as if we are right there living the chase instead of Owen. If the England on screen feels like a Pandora's Box of xenophobia, denial, and extinction, it must be remembered that the last item to emerge from that mythical chamber was hope.

  4. CITY OF GOD

Directors Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund may have been working with an old screenplay trope - childhood friends living in poverty grow up into completely divergent paths of virtue and vice - but their striking opus made it feel like we were seeing it for the first time. Staged in actual slums of Rio with nonprofessionals, the film crackles with its roaming narrative, colorful characters, infectious music, and real-life urgency. Much like Jamaica's THE HARDER THEY COME, it directs the world's attention to a previously ignored microcosm that is enticing yet dangerous, and announces that they're ready to start telling their own stories instead of passively watching those of others.

  3. ZODIAC

Using the word "messy" as a compliment is not an ordinary thing to do, but the real-life details of the Zodiac serial killer were not ordinary and indeed very messy, and David Fincher takes that sprawl and makes it a strength. Depicting how seemingly one person was able to not only upend the security of a city, but engulf and almost ruin the lives of every person who sought to solve the crimes, Fincher crosses three decades to show the death of '60's idealism, the birth of '70's paranoia, and the growth of '80's ambivalence. We experience the weight of having to sift through promising leads and dead ends, and the frustration of knowing that some stories will never get resolved, long after they seem to have come to an end.

  2. THE FALL

Equal parts storybook fantasy and Salingerian character study, Tarsem presents not just an elegant visual feast (shot in real, not computer-generated, locations) but also an emotional chamber piece about the complicated relationship between artist and public. Using the characters of stuntman, at once the most anonymous and disposable yet indispensible members of a film crew, and young immigrant farm child, at once the most eager and vulnerable consumer of the finished product, we explore themes of the pain of creation vs. lack of recognition, of how we bring our own life's perceptions to alter the initial intentions of the artist, how self-destructive impulses almost drive a creative type to alienate their most faithful supporters, and how sometimes a work of art no longer belongs to its parent but to its audience. And so, true believers, we get to the big one. The movie that ostensibly stands for all the collective emotions, possibilities, innovations, and future of film and its audience. It's a Difficult Responsibility. But as W.C. Fields said, there comes a time in everyone's life when they must take the bull by the tail and face the situation. I've made my choice, I'm sticking to it.

 

Where Have All the Summer Cinema Singles Gone?

The following is my contribution to the ambitious Large Association of Movie Blogs' Summer Movie Blog-a-Thon, created by Kate from Silents and Talkies, and alerted to me by my ever-faithful correspondent Simon and her punchy blog Four of Them. As described by its creator, the theme of this blog-a-thon is simply to reminisce on beloved childhood movies and memories.


Egads, where to begin??? My first firm memories of going to the theatre to see stuff other than Disney movies are all summer-based. 1977 was of course the summer that yielded the two greatest movies a boy of that era ever experienced: STAR WARS and SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT; a year later, at the dawn of VCR ownership, my father even managed to obtain a bootleg VHS tape with both movies on it recorded in LP mode that I must have watched dozens of times. And from there, movies that were released during the summer carried a special magic feeling that was never quite equalled at any other time of year, not even at Christmas. Summer was when you were free from school, from curfews, and the cinemas promised you John Hughes, Jason Voorhees, Burt Reynolds, Bill Murray, Sylvester Stallone, science fiction, sexy girls, and other delights to occupy all that time away from adolt edgeamacation.

Most summer movies still promise some similar variation of that list of childhood loves. This year alone, my inner child has eagerly devoured the works of Pixar, Edgar Wright, Christopher Nolan, Will Ferrell, mutant offspring, bisexual hackers, and heck, even Bill Murray and Sylvester Stallone were still hangin' around. And before the leaves turn gold, I can still look forward to 3-D piranhas, rogue priests, Inglourious Romeans and vengeful Mexicans.

But there's one thing I know won't be forthcoming that used to be in large supply as a kid: a great summer soundtrack jam. Just as much as going to the swimming pool or the cinema, a big joy of my summer was buying '45's and albums and wearing out the grooves and tape playing the songs that were blasting in Dolby Stereo from the nearest multiplex.

I'm aware that it's one small symptom of the otherwise great musical malaise in America - major record labels clutch to outdated practices despite being in their death throes, getting a single onto any radio station is a task akin to mice belling a cat, and music lovers are so fractionalized into micro-genres that outside of the high-fructose corn syrup factory called "AMERICAN IDOL," we flat-out have no kind of American songbook or wide-appeal artist to unite behind - but if there is one thing that saddens me enormously in my middle age, it's the loss of the hit movie theme song. There are still great songs to be heard in movies, and people still buy them on CDs or mp3 downloads, but the days when you and all your friends would be listening to the radio or watching TV, and you'd hear that theme song from the fun movie you saw a couple weeks ago, and start singing along and remembering the great time you had, and maybe even think, "Hey, let's go see it again! Why not?" are gone, gone, literally gone.

Yes, if you want to be blunt, a summer movie theme is ultimately another marketing tool, just a piece of merchandising that was once effective in generating a "bandwagon" mentality among consumers and has now been replaced by newer memetics. And not every song that emerged from a movie was even that good; let's be honest, we've heard way too goddamn much of Ray Parker Jr. and "Ghostbusters" to last multiple generations. But when they were effective, every time that song came on, you could go back to your favorite scenes without buying another ticket. If it was an old song strategically inserted into a new film, you were reminded how great that song was and you bought it again and rediscovered it, and that artist got new fans and a second wind on the county fair circuit.

Not to overpower you, because lists are not literature, but contemplate this block of my childhood, from my breakout year of 1977 to starting college in 1987, and look at all these summer movies with all these songs that in varying degrees have become united in our memory and part of iPod shuffle plays and karaoke marathons...

1977
"New York, New York" - NEW YORK, NEW YORK (people forget this was a movie theme)
"Nobody Does it Better" - THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
"East Bound and Down" - SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT
"You Light Up My Life" - YOU LIGHT UP MY LIFE

1978
"Last Dance" - THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY
"Got to Get You Into My Life" (Earth Wind & Fire cover) - SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND
multiple songs - GREASE
"Ready to Take a Chance Again" - FOUL PLAY
"Shout!" - NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE

1979
"The Main Event" - THE MAIN EVENT
"Are You Ready for the Summer" - MEATBALLS
"The Rainbow Connection" - THE MUPPET MOVIE
"Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" - MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN

1980
"Fame" - FAME
"I'm Alright" - CADDYSHACK
multiple songs - THE BLUES BROTHERS
multiple songs - XANADU

1981
"For Your Eyes Only" - FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
"Best That You Can Do" - ARTHUR
"Endless Love" - ENDLESS LOVE
multiple songs - HEAVY METAL

1982
"Putting Out the Fire" - CAT PEOPLE
"Eye of the Tiger" - ROCKY III
"Love Will Turn You Around" - SIX PACK
"Hard to Say I'm Sorry", "I'm So Excited" - SUMMER LOVERS
"Up Where We Belong" - AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
"Somebody's Baby" - FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH
multiple songs - PINK FLOYD THE WALL
multiple songs - THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN

1983
"I Melt With You" - VALLEY GIRL
multiple tracks - FLASHDANCE
"Bela Lugosi's Dead" - THE HUNGER
"All Time High" - OCTOPUSSY
"Nights Are Forever" - TWILIGHT ZONE THE MOVIE
"Holiday Road" - NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION
"Far From Over" - STAYING ALIVE
"Old Time Rock'n'Roll" - RISKY BUSINESS

1984
"Ain't No Stoppin' Us" - BREAKIN'
"I Can Dream About You" - STREETS OF FIRE
"Ghostbusters" - GHOSTBUSTERS
"Never-Ending Story" - THE NEVER-ENDING STORY
multiple songs - PURPLE RAIN

1985
"A View to a Kill" - A VIEW TO A KILL
"Goonies R Good Enough" - THE GOONIES
"Man In Motion" - ST. ELMO'S FIRE
"The Power of Love" - BACK TO THE FUTURE
"Invincible" - THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN
"Tequila" - PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE
"Weird Science" - WEIRD SCIENCE

1986
multiple songs - TOP GUN
"Twist and Shout" - FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF
"Dead Man's Party" - BACK TO SCHOOL
"The Glory of Love" - THE KARATE KID PART II
"Kiss" - UNDER THE CHERRY MOON
"Sweet Freedom" - RUNNING SCARED
"Who Made Who" - MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE
"He's Back (Behind the Mask)" - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES
"Stand By Me" - STAND BY ME

1987
"Shakedown" - BEVERLY HILLS COP II
"Surfin' Bird" - FULL METAL JACKET
"La Bamba" (Los Lobos cover) - LA BAMBA
"Good Times", "Cry Little Sister" - THE LOST BOYS
"Who's that Girl?" - WHO'S THAT GIRL
"I Heard a Rumor" - DISORDERLIES
multiple songs - DIRTY DANCING

And now try to summon up half as many songs from summer movies within the last ten years that have reached the same level of mass consciousness and adoration. I'm not saying there aren't any - I can think of some from AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME, HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, MOULIN ROUGE, ONCE - but there's definitely not the wealth of them that I've listed above from that bygone era.

Sure, all is not lost; we'll always have Wes Anderson, Cameron Crowe, and Tarantino, and all the other directors who treasure their mixtapes as much as their Super 8s.

All I'm saying is that I want more than just eye candy at the movies; ear candy would be nice too. And I think I'm not the only one who believes our summer popcorn movies would benefit from a little cheese now and then...

High Moments of Low Culture for Noughts

While I'm still one of those cranky contrarians who counts years from 1 to 10 and not 0 to 9, and thus resisting a Best of Decade list, since everyone else is musing on the last 10 years and the best and worst of it, I gotta throw a few shekels into the conversation.

A couple weeks back, David Wain, a frustratingly hot-and-cold type responsible for both the brilliant DIGGERS and ROLE MODELS, and the absolutely reprehensible WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER, decided to indulge his weakness for predictably tired snark by posting his "Middle 10 Neither Best Nor Worst Movies of the Decade". Get it? They're the most mediocre! No, they're not even the most mediocre, because they're in the middle! And once again, fish are dumped into a barrel and fired at with tommy guns, because God and Godard decree that middlebrow entertainment is a capital crime, and those rubes in fly-over country must be ridiculed for even enjoying it. Apparently to Wain and his progeny, ironic detachment is valued in the same measurements most men apply to penis size.

But to give Insipid Caesar what is his, his list did provoke me to consider that elusive median of pleasure and the time I spent with it in the past ten years. I'm not talking about "comfort food" movies per se, because to me comfort food still involves home cooking, i.e. a degree of personal style and achievement. No, we are in the realm of fast food and empty calories here. Stuff that isn't quite good enough to merit serious acclaim, not bad enough to receive my angriest rebuke, and that overall, I consumed with enthusiasm, time and again. Because in my movie regimen, there's been Porterhouse steak, there's been crisp spicy vegetables, there's been large overstuffed club sandwiches with home fries...and then, as those geniuses at 7-Eleven know so well, sometimes you just need a dog. Not some gourmet concoction from the hipster truck-du-jour, or the scarred and charred soldier from the home grill, not even Frank Zappa's beloved Burnt Weeny Sandwich. No, that lonesome brown tube that's been rolling on the silver rods since half-past-who's-watching-the-clock.


So, without ranking since this is all about the middle, here are a few of the best of the ordinary, the benchwarmers that made waiting for the big-ticket players better than bearable:

THE AMERICAN PIE TRILOGY
Teen sex comedies may not have been around as long as there's been teen sex, or not even as long as when the cops stopped shining flashlights in parked cars, but the cliches surely feel like they've been around that long: jocks are stupid, nerds are desperate, and nobody seems to have any outside interests beyond the next lay. John Hughes and Cameron Crowe gave teenagers dignity, but they focused on Really Deep Thoughts of love and the future, and put a sanctity to the sex act. Back in 1999 (talk about fudging that decade timeline, huh?), the Weitz brothers had no illusions about their modern-day wild rumpus, calling it "Untitled Teenage Sex Comedy That Can Be Made For Under $10 Million That Most Readers Will Probably Hate But I Think You Will Love." But the film that resulted, and the two theatrically-released sequels that followed, sent a subtle message amidst all the shenanigans: Good kids like to fuck. It is possible to be smart, hard-working, have good moral character and a bright future and still enjoy hot, clumsy sex that doesn't result in anything more troubling than a bruised ego. And every few years later, in the dying days of summer, a visit with this gang was always a welcome opportunity. I've chosen not to watch any of the made-for-DVD "presentations" so as to not tarnish my memory, but I won't slag on them sight unseen; far be it from me to deny good guys like Eugene Levy and the Sherminator a paycheck.

THE BROKEN LIZARD GANG
They're not the funniest collective in the business. They'll never have the brains of Monty Python, or the brazenness of the Kids in the Hall, or the depth of Judd Apatow's extended company. Their movies are silly and predictable at best, uneven and sloppy at their worst. But syrup bottles on the table: while I saw tighter comedies like TROPIC THUNDER or SUPERBAD only once in theatres, I went to see BEERFEST three times, dragging a first-time viewer with me each visit. And if SUPER TROOPERS is on cable, you'll stay a while and revisit it; you or someone you know still giggles a little when the word "shenanigans" is used. Their newest movie, THE SLAMMIN' SALMON is again, not the most clever or polished comedy out there, but I laughed a lot. Ambition and danger are important to the evolution of good comedy, but never underestimate the simplicity of a funny line reading or a bonk on the head. Broken Lizard truly is good enough to fuck your mother.

DELUSIONAL WUNDERKINDS
Again, to give propers to Mr. Wain, it's not difficult to make a competent but forgettable movie. To fling poo at Michael Bay, it's not difficult either to make an incompetent but forgettable movie. But to have the absolute lack of restraint, shame, guile, or sense to make a movie that is both incompetent and unforgettable, something that if its name is uttered it brings a secret guilty smile to your face because you strangely respected the effort but enjoyed the chaotic disaster even more...now that is an achievement! Genial author and critic Alonso Duralde likes to call this "So Bad They're Brilliant." The equally jovial Dave White prefers the mantle "Awful is the New Awesome." The subversive geniuses at L.A.'s CineFamily even devote a monthly series to this notion calling it "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" And there was an abundance of This Fucking Shit like no other these years. Whether it was the late John S. Rad damning the hardship of meshing incongruent storylines shot 20 years apart in DANGEROUS MEN, or the mysterious (and possibly pseudonymous) "Mark Region" making an MRI machine out of cardboard and offering copiers you could use in AFTER LAST SEASON, or the Ed Woodian manipulation of emotionally and/or literally dead actors in ROYAL KILL...oh what the hell, I'll tip the hat to that emblem of PoMo douchebaggery gone berserk THE ROOM...peculiar people with a dream and a four-wall contract made deliciously distasteful fusion cuisine in an otherwise bland food court of film.

THE ATONEMENT OF JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME
As the new century began, while there was no shortage of action adventure and big shit exploding, there was a noticeable lack of Greco-Roman Crud-Out-of-Beating in theatre auditoriums; the dependable mid-card manly-man programmer was being cast aside for higher-priced main eventers, and thus to answer Paula Cole, all the cowboys went straight to DVD. But while Wesley Snipes burned money, reputation, and weed and Steven Segal seemed to spend more time in the restaurant than the gym, the Muscles from Brussels was using his time in purgatory to quietly and steadily become a better actor, usually with the help of a director as half-mad as himself (Ringo Lam, IN HELL) or with a solid co-star as his antagonist (Stephen Rea, UNTIL DEATH). His hard work paid off with a miraculous return to theatres in the mythbusting JCVD, where an initial comic self-deprecation turned to a legitimately moving drama about humiliation and redemption, complete with a ballsy fourth-wall-breaking confession.

THE ASCENSION OF JASON STATHAM
And speaking of breaking walls, bones, and appliances, a bald brawny bloke who was already proving to be a game ensemble player in SNATCH and THE ITALIAN JOB can thank the French for putting him in a shiny car and a sharp suit and making him a name-above-the-title kinda guy. THE TRANSPORTER begat two sequels, and THE BANK JOB, and DEATH RACE, and CRANK. Patton Oswalt was one of the first to openly declare himself as "gay-tham for Statham", and yes homo, I'm in that uncampy camp as well. So much so I can forgive being tortured by the worst film of 2009, CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE; what's a relationship that can't survive a big blunder?

So, fellow junk food junkies, who would you like to add to the roster? This is hardly complete. I already know I'm going to get flamed for not including, say, the chitlin cinema of Tyler Perry and T.D. Jakes (never seen one, can't pass judgment), and sorry to say the whole Asian horror thing kinda wore out its welcome hence the latter's absence here. So how about some more tips on where to get some hot juicy nitrates and preservatives?