The Academy Awards are this Sunday! Which means that sad, lonely movie fans (myself) indulge in endless discussion and bickering about which movie will win what award and why, and in the end the actual outcome affects a small handful of people we will never meet and we spend the next two and a half weeks discussing and bickering yet again about why what award was won and wasn't.

Regardless of whoever walks home with the most golden statuettes, however, the Oscars are but one facet of a very simple thing - I really fucking love movies. Here are my five favorite films of last year, in alphabetical order:


No Country For Old Men

No Country For Old Men is pure genius filmmaking, plain and simple. The Coen Brothers are so gifted and have so finely hewn their craft that they've made a film that is, well, perfect. Their script is tight, smart, and perceptive. Their visual acumen and knack for direction is first rate. And the crew they surround themselves with only aid in their perfection, from the fabulous cinematography of Roger Deakins to the outstanding acting by Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones. It's a simple story that in lesser hands would have fallen prey to formulaic crime-genre staples, Tarantin-ian excess, or worse. Instead, the filmmakers have the utmost confidence in their script, in the original Cormack McCarthy novel, and most importantly, in their audience, ending with a remarkably unpredictable, but hardly ambiguous and wholly appropriate, ending that years of Hollywood entertainment has deadened us to.


Once

It's considered a weakness, especially in men, to cry at movies. That's only because most movies evoke sympathy with the crudest and most manipulative of methods - how easy it is to depress an audience to tears, and how remarkable it is to fill them with so much joy and hope and love that they literally burst. Once has that effect, or at least it did on me. Again, the story is deceptively simple, as two aspiring musicians in Dublin "Meet Cute," get to know each other, and, we are lead to assume, fall in love. The film uses its low budget and unknown actors to achieve a kind of rawness and realism that instantly draws you to these two nameless characters, and the music, oh the music. A movie that will make your heart and soul sing.


Ratatouille

Ratatouille is a funny talking animal cartoon, with a thick gloss of Disney-approved polish and fun. What elevates Rataouille from the sequestered drawing board of its contemporaries in the CGI realm and into the grand pantheon of great filmmaking is Brad Bird's naturally-developed gifts as both an animation and writing savant. It has an endless supply of personality and charm and wit, a surprisingly astute observation of art vs. artist, and a timeless message against settling for mediocrity - all the more damning considering how practically every other animation studio is so eager to.


There Will Be Blood
There's a sick, powerful perversity brewing from the very beginning of There Will Be Blood that continues and only escalates until the film's chilling conclusion, the most engrossing cinematic portrayal of madness since Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. But while young Alex's sociopathic behavior is analyzed and deconstructed, Paul Thomas Anderson seems to revel in Daniel Plainview's special breed of contempt and rage. The film creates something totally unique out of wholly familiar elements, a bizarre meld of historical epic, period drama, and even bouts of Keaton-esque slapstick, the result being a film of outrageous scope and audacity that, astoundingly, never exceeds its grasp. Thirty years from now, There Will Be Blood will stand as a benchmark in cinema.


Zodiac
David Fincher became a household name in the drab studio apartments of trendy hipsters and wannabe anarchists after Fight Club, but Zodiac is by far his best film. It sadly gave audiences some pause with its paucity of violence and completely realistic renditions of journalistic procedurals, but the payoff is that Zodiac is more haunting and unsettling than any serial killer picture or gore-fest I've ever seen.

Speaking of Oscars, go to www.oscar.com and play the "Predict the Oscars" contest and join the group "Borders 0392" with the password "brianiscool" and you can (probably not) win some crappy prize! But you'll also be able to galavant about in movie geekery amongst internet friends, which is just as good. Unless, for whatever reason, you don't. In which I will personally be very disappointed.

Here are some doodles!!!!!! It is one of the many things I do in my spare time that are not illegal, despite what the neighborhood watch association may lead you to believe.


A self-portrait! The gnarled fingers and dazed, laconic expression are spot-on. If poorly rendered.



I sometimes wonder if I should even be allowed to draw.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a great fucking movie.

If it were a Studio Ghibli production, it would tour film festivals the world over, win near-universal acclaim, be dubbed in English with a somewhat confused but amiable all-star cast, be released by Disney in a few hundred theaters, get nominated for an Academy Award, and become a perennially solid-seller on DVD for years afterwards.

Sadly, although director Mamoru Hosoda spent quite a few years at Studio Ghibli (being the initial director for Howl's Moving Castle before leaving for unpublicized "creative differences"), The Girl Who Leapt Through Time isn't a Ghibli production.

Which is a shame, since the film draws comparisons with some of Studio Ghibli's best. It's warm, exquisitely designed, utterly charming, and wholly entertaining. Its characters and setting are distinctly Japanese, but the simply-told story, with its smattering of magic realism and otherworldly conceits, are told in the universal language of great filmmaking. It represents what is best about not just anime, but animation in general. The expressiveness and humanism of each of the characters escape the usual cartoon trappings, despite the implausible (and sometimes confusing) twists and turns of the story, and cut straight through to the bone, just like Miyazaki's towering flights of fancy or anything by, say, Brad Bird. It's the one shining example of the kind of brilliance anime can achieve once in a while, unrestrained by tight budgets, obnoxious merchandising tie-ins, or callow, puerile violence and sex.

This is a film that speaks to audiences of all ages, of surprising emotional depth and courage. It deserves and begs to be seen alongside the best animated films of the decade, which may sound like I'm "overhyping" this thing a bit, but "hype" in the context of anime is so pitiful that its honestly laughable. "Hype" is the multimedia blitz before the release of big-ticket blockbusters like Spider Man 3, or universal critical acclaim of No Country For Old Men. "Hype" isn't some asshole or two on the internet telling you that a destined-to-rot-in-obscurity animated film from Japan is really, really great.

But, once again, this is not a Ghibli production. And what's worse, the US distribution rights have been snatched up by Bandai Entertainment. Yeuchh.

Bandai's only experience in theatrical animation has been releasing the confusing Mobile Suit Gundam features into a single-digit number of theaters for a week, and aiding the once struggling Viz in their release of Jin-Roh to a then-unreceptive-to-anime moviegoing public. Which means, basically, we're going to see a lot of ads for The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in low-read industry publications like Newtype, a bare-bones DVD release in most stores, and a SUPER-DELUXE-SPECIAL-LIMITED-EDITION for only $49.99 MSRP that includes the movie, a bonus disc with maybe one or two bonus features, and some totally useless tchochke inside a box the size of the Ark of the Covenant!

Fuck that. I know that nobody of any real importance reads blogs that aren't either written by famous people or ones plastered with ads, but on the off chance somebody, somewhere, of some importance regarding the US release of this film stumbles across this: Don't screw up. Don't cheap out. This is an important film, not because it contains some kind of socio-political message, but because this is an emotionally honest, captivating, artistically enchanting film that offers the kind of warmth and intelligence that most big-budget animated features from the world over curiously lack. Get this film into festivals. Get this into as many theaters as possible. Get a professional, well-known English dub commissioned. Don't be afraid, come Oscar-season, to publicize the hell out of this movie to get an Academy Award nomination. Partner with a bigger company to distribute it theatrically. Don't be worried about the usual consensus that the hoi polloi seems to discern towards anime; allow them to be surprised by this little film's heart and character.

Please, please: don't fuck up.

A Seasonally Appropriate Blog About... Christmas!

Or, more accurately, Christmas cartoons.

In order to prep myself for the coming onslaught of assorted horrors that arise while working retail during the Christmas season, last night I arranged a sort of impromptu Christmas Special marathon to lighten my spirits somewhat. It consisted of your usual allotment of "classics" - your Grinches, Red-Nosed Reindeers, et cetera - as well as Christmas-themed episodes of my favorite cartoons - The Simpsons, Tiny Toons, Mickey's Christmas Carol, et al - but I made a fatal error in judgment:I placed A Charlie Brown Christmas at the top of the playlist. The result, of course, being that all of the following Holiday specials rang about as hollow as the blackened souls of all my ex-girlfriends. Ah, well: most of my ex-girlfriends.

Kidding aside, the Grinch and the Rankin-Bass puppet shows are fun in their usual nostalgic way, but I've yet to see or read or hear anything else outside of Dickens perfectly nail the idea of the "Spirit of Christmas" so poignantly as Charles Schultz's melancholy masterpiece.

Its perfect because its cynical and slightly subversive without trying in the least to be edgy; Charlie Brown isn't some renegade crusader out to expose the lies and hypocrisy of the capitalistic greed that has cannibalized the Judeo-Christian holiday, but rather criticizingly examining the selfish motives behind his so-called friends and loved ones during the wintery celebration, all the while trying his damnedest to figure out what, exactly, Christmas is all about on a personal and spiritual level.

Of course it culminates in Linus' wonderful rendition of the Gospel of Luke, but strangely, the rote reading of Bible verse never comes off nearly as didactic and preachy as any ham-fisted Christmas soliloquy by more secular outlets. In a brilliant move by Schultz, neither is there any explanation or further extrapolation on the Biblical text: it blindsides the viewer with the brutal honesty that, yes, Christmas is "about" the birth of Christ, but its "spirit" lies in each of us.

Which is to say nothing of its other qualities. Its still bitingly, achingly funny, with my favorite scene being Schroeder's frustration in playing his own composition of "Jingle Bells" to an adamantly ignorant Lucy, and the increasingly bowdlerized versions he performs until she finally "gets it."

Nearly every other Holiday special, movie, album, et cetera, that has since attempted to expand upon the "spirit of Christmas" sadly falls into the same class of crass, commercialist claptrap that Charlie Brown crusaded against. Which then leads me to wonder, since A Charlie Brown Christmas has been such an enduring pop-culture hit for the past 42 years: do people really "get it"? When I ride around and see opulently horrendous Christmas monoliths strewn across the bone-dry yards of uptight yuppies in Tucson Arizona, I wonder if the message has ever sank in. To say nothing of the day-to-day grind working in a mall bookstore the entire month of December. Is sweating it out with literally hundreds of other aggravated shoppers in a busy mall in order to buy your boss' wife a ten-dollar gift card really worth the irritation to yourself and others?

Nonetheless, I certainly enjoyed the other Christmas specials I watched, I guess, on a purely entertaining/nostalgic level. I have fond memories of wearing down my VHS copy of Mickey's Christmas Carol to a fine magnetic pulp, mainly because Disney hadn't cross-pollinated their stable of cartoon characters in such a way back then, and because its an unusually lavish production, especially considering it came on the coattails of the massive financial failure of The Black Cauldron. Still, though, Mickey and Goofy aren't entirely the right characters to make the many themes of Dickens' classic come to life without seeming like, well, treacle. Which is what Mickey's Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas, and virtually every other Christmas episode of every cartoon show is: overly-sentimental and distinctly Hallmark card-esque. Besides, Dickens' story was better adapted ten years prior in Richard Williams' own half-hour animated special.

That said, no amount of Peabody-winning cartoon genius can keep from bemoaning the long hours, cold weather, and general feeling of soul-crushing annoyance from idiotic, drooling customers this Christmas. Ugh, and bah humbug.

I am re-doing this blog thing AGAIN because of, well, many reasons.

The biggest one though is that for the past month or so I've been in a terrible, uncreative rut that I really need to dig my way out of. The idea of writing anything, albeit however small and flippant, has been both terrifying and hopeless, and I've hated almost everything I've put into words.

Then I realized! Nothing really gets me in the mood to flap my digital mouth on and on than to talk about things I love. So here's something dumb: albums I've listened to this year that I really like! I suppose this would be a "Brian's Best Albums of 2007" list if you would like to think of it as such. But only pretentious assholes make "Best Of" lists and nobody likes those guys. Except perhaps other such hated minority groups, like poodle groomers, pay toilet vendors, and bat taxidermists.

"Neon Bible" by The Arcade Fire

Neon Bible is so powerful, dramatic, and downright amazing that it almost defies hyperbole. It's been available since February, so if you haven't listened to it yet you sadly have NO EXCUSE.

"The Reminder" by Feist

It's somewhat sad that it takes an iPod commercial for Feist's hauntingly beautiful voice to register in the pop-culture database, but I doubt she minds the fact that The Reminder is about to hit double-platinum sales or whatever. "Brandy Alexander" still sends a chill down my spine.

"The Good, the Bad & the Queen"

The minds behind the Gorillaz ditch the pop/hip-hop credentials for a much heavier, somber adventure, and the results are downright hypnotic.

"Grinderman"

Aw hell yeah. Loud, obnoxious, and obscene. Nick Cave cuts loose and teams up with The Dirty Three for a sweaty and swear-filled good time.

"Ruff Draft" by J Dilla

So this is technically cheating a bit since Ruff Draft was originally finished some years prior, but I can include it because it wasn't officially released until early this year, some time after J Dilla's untimely passing. A shame, since even deceased Dilla produces some of the freshest and most unique sounds in hip-hop.

"The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter" by Josh Ritter

For once, I actually agree with the little blurbs on the album cover: "The Historical Conquests Of Josh Ritter is his most adventurous, fresh, and freewheeling work to date."

"Challengers" by The New Pornographers

Not one of the New Pornographers, either together or on their numerous solo projects, manage to disappoint, and Challengers is no exception. A delightful explosion of some of the best sounds in pop music, with particular standouts being Neko Case's title track "Challengers" and "Go Places."

"Writer's Block" by Peter Bjorn & John

When an old friend of mine came back from Cambridge England to visit family, he of course asked what music I was groovin' to and I replied with Peter Bjorn & John, and added, "...but, living in the UK, you're probably sick of it by now. But I still love it."

"...yeah, I guess. I could certainly do with less of the whistling. Little bit sick of hearing that."

"Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" by Spoon

Spoon is so good at writing and playing the sounds and songs that they play, they could probably release a new album of completely new material every month if they wanted. And the world would be a much brighter, catchier place.

"La Cucaracha" by Ween

Ween's been overdue for a full-length album for some time, and La Cucaracha is definitely worth the wait. It's still not everybody's cup of tea, but if you're seriously down to listen to some of the weirdest shit ever recorded and pressed onto an optical format, then check it out.