"but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness"

it's that time again, i reckon. considering that the Academy has all but lost its credibility by now, i hereby submit the following top ten list for your consideration (as a slightly more succinct alternative to that bogus whatsit ceremony they insist on holding each year).
without further ado, here are tylergirly's 10 favorite movies of 2008 (10 being the arbitrary number that i don't remember ever agreeing to. like, why must favorite movies come in denominations of ten, or even be grouped by calendar year, for that matter? okay, that's enough ado. let's jump right in, shall we?):

oh, and none but numbers 1-6 are in any particular order. sorry if that creates logistical problems for some of you. i'm starting now, i promise:

...ahem.

10. THE WRESTLER
i hesitate to put this title very high on my list, though i concede that it definitely belongs in the bunch. this is the sort of movie i typically don't enjoy. washed-up professional something-or-other works out his inner demons and reflects on past mistakes to finally find that maybe he's still lovable after all. but this incarnation is a bit different, owing almost entirely to mickey rourke's fearless performance. if i'm honest with myself, the whole thing wouldn't have been half as satisfying had rourke not mercifully snatched the role from nick cage. marisa tomei is always a privilege to watch, and i was thankful for her part in what turned out to be a significantly above-average bittersweet personal redemption tale.

9. GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON
this documentary was a nice little surprise for me. i hadn't been aware of its impending arrival, so it was that much more thrilling to witness. if there's anyone i'd like to request a posthumous visit from at this point in my life, it's hunter thompson. ideally, he would conduct his half of the conversation from behind a protective screen while i sat safely on the other side. so that theater setup was totally perfect.

8. WALL-E
as i've stated before, my evaluation of most films is based on my decidedly nonintellectual visceral experience during the actual act of viewing. in the case of WALL-E, i must consider the fact that i wept during roughly 90% of the running time.

7. MILK
despite a few structural flaws, this was an endearing and beautiful collection of snapshots. each of the performances want for nothing, and a few of the images will be imprinted on my mind for some time to come.

6. THE DARK KNIGHT
maybe you've heard of it?

5. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
just for this adorable gem of a vampire horror flick, i'm willing to push aside my crippling hatred of house cats (i think i hear one whining outside even as i write- i can has hatchet?).

4. MAN ON WIRE
it made me laugh (a lot) and cry (a lot) and wish i had (a lot) more conviction. this is a must-see and something i hope i never forget. it's levity and gravity, folly and wisdom, faith and disillusionment, all wound into a tightrope.

3. VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
i've blogged on this before, so i won't repeat myself. but i think i shall never grow weary of this insane little film.

2. SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
this masterpiece is really a compilation of countless thrilling little nuggets (masterpieces?) which just so happen to add up in quite a satisfactory way. like, deeply affecting and tremendously insightful and challenging, but i'd watch it again and again just to see maria (jennifer jason leigh) trip over her own feet before quickly regaining her balance.

1. REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
i've thoroughly accepted that it's my favorite of 2008. i'd like to urge you all to see it NOW while it's still in theaters, if you can, but i can't really offer a strong case for my endorsement. most of the coherent things i'd like to write about this film have been tragically lost in a jumble of raw joy and agony which is now and forever lodged in the pit of my stomach, if that makes any sense. so for now, i'll just say, "leo + kate forevs LOL. best. movie. EVAR."

so there you have it. i do realize that there are a couple of movies i still really want to see that may possibly have cracked the top ten if given the chance (i suspect that SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is not among them, though.).
finally, i'd like to add IRON MAN, DOUBT, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO, CLOVERFIELD, and IN BRUGES to the honorable mention category and award dishonorable mention to GRAN TORINO, SCHMACHEL SCHMETTING SCHMARRIED, and SEVEN POUNDS for failure to meet my already low-ish expectations.

*sigh*

i really miss Vassar sometimes...



Friday, November 14th:

Marx in SoHo, Today at 8:00pm

"Marx in SoHo," a play by Howard Zinn, produced by Catalyst and Unbound. Come see Karl Marx rant and rave over contemporary society. Performed by an ensemble cast using multimedia to bring to life Karl Marx, the person. the icon, the communist, the original hipster. In Main Building, 5th floor lounge.


Philaletheis Play, Today at 8:00pm

Susan Stein Shiva Theater

The Philaletheis Society presents "Popcorn," a sensational play that examines our mediatized world with a satirical eye.



Gayme Night, Today at 10:00pm

Gayme Night.

Sick of Lady Marmalade? Come play games at the LGBTQ Center instead! LGBTQ Center (College Center, room 235).



Moulin Rouge, Today at 10:00pm

College Center, Villard Room

Moulin Rouge, Main's reincarnation of last year's smash all-campus party is back again! Join us in the College center for a night of merriment celebrating love, the bohemian lifestyle, and Paris nightlife circa 1899. Music throughout the night by DJ Respire, gogo dancers to keep the party alive, a movie screening of the 2001 film Moulin Rouge in the MPR, and all sorts of other goodies you'll just have to come see to believe!

My God is Good.

"...only unfulfilled love can be romantic..."

if i've likened the experience of viewing woody allen's romantic comedies to taking a walk in the park, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a blissful stroll through the winding streets of Catalonia. the prolific director's latest offering is refreshingly apt- a decidedly mature film that, true to form, is at once light and tragic. it's more than what i would have expected from the auteur after years of creative atrophy (ok, Match Point, while certainly laudable, is little more than a fleshed-out subplot from an earlier and much more complete opus). i guess, for the time being, he's back; i say we welcome him with open arms.

(i suppose this is the part where i warn of !SPOILERS AHEAD!, though i recognize that this will reduce my already-negligible readership drastically. oh well, continue at your own peril.)

anyway, i usually refrain from writing conventional movie reviews, as they are now more ubiquitous than ever (everyone's a critic, blah blah), so i'll call this a personal recommendation instead. also, my approach to cinema is an irrational one, as i rely largely on my visceral reactions to guide my opinions about each work. in this case, i liked the movie because it fed me (like carrie bradshaw skipping her dinner and buying Vogue instead), it taught me a practical truth, and it overloaded my senses in a most pleasant way. never happier am i than when provoked visually, mentally, and emotionally all at the same time.

in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, deceptively ham-fisted dialogue belies the film's deeper message, which was just outside of my reach up until the final frame. perhaps distracted by the unorthodox narration, bright colors, and beautiful soundtrack, i lost myself completely in the diegesis and did not come up for air until that climactic fade-out. ultimately, this was a story about romantic love and the human folly that prevents it from ever reaching its true destination.
it's apparent that the characters' relationships are basically a series of tragic misfires. vicky (rebecca hall) is ready to marry a boorish WASP, presumably because it never occurred to her that she might one day find a more exciting prospect (yes, she's dull as well, but we get the feeling that years of tedious company has stripped her of any imagination she might have once possessed). best friend cristina (scarlett johansson), who aspires to a sort of sophomoric bohemian lifestyle that would enable and encourage her flights of fancy, finds herself in over her head when she just can't handle a polyamorous relationship with juan antonio (javier bardem) and maria elena (penelope cruz).
maria elena, for her part, would have ended up with juan antonio's father in an ideal world, the two being the only genuinely gifted artists in the bunch (her unique style having been co-opted and his pearls-before-swine poetry left unpublished and kept hidden from the world). juan antonio is a charming but parasitic hedonist who would benefit from years of solitary reflection (which his restlessness would prevent), but vicky is arguably most suited for him, though circumstances keep them apart, of course.


miscommunication, bad timing, thwarted attempts at romance- such is the nature of this film. though tragic and disheartening in ways, it remains a joy to watch. even if it's true that after thousands of years of civilization, human beings have never learned how to love (as juan antonio's father suggests), at least we can learn how to appreciate the irony.

butterflies are free- wordle

"look at this tangle of thorns."

ladies and gentlemen of the jury, i must begin by confessing that though i often fancy myself a writer (of sorts), i am not a frequent reader of fiction, and i am certainly not a fan. even as a young person, i always considered fiction-writing a waste of time, vain indulgences of authors' imaginations (as unreasonable as this notion may be). i recognize that my aversion to novels is quite ironic in light of the fact that i almost indiscriminately consume films from most genres. if i can appreciate an excellent screenplay, why should i continue to avoid the fiction aisles? having said all of this, i must add that there are many notable exceptions to this rule, and if you care to know about the single most important one, please read on.

actually, i don't really care to describe my favorite novel or even to expound on the merits thereof. i will resist the urge to suggest that you all read it, for i fear that my words will be as pearls before swine (the swine, in this case, being those of you who will make a note of it and completely forget a couple of hours later). plus, this book is old and infamous enough that it wouldn't be a novel recommendation on my part (how's that for wordplay, Mr. Nabok-...oooh, too soon for the reveal!). ok, so if i don't want to add a title to your summer reading list, and i don't want to give you notes on the plot or argue for a heretofore undiscovered subtext (which i certainly couldn't do, anyhow), what am i here for? well, my goal this evening is to suggest to you, gentle members of the jury, why the precious and delicate Lolita could never survive the onerous journey to the screen. here is my appeal.

i am indeed aware that Nabokov's novel was adapted not once, but twice, to film. the author himself wrote much of 1962's screenplay (along with Kubrick), and James Mason did all he could to bring our Humbert Humbert to life. the brilliant Jeremy Irons proved just as game in Adrian Lyne's 1997 version, which nevertheless falls more flat than its predecessor. so when i say that Lolita could never survive the trip from page to screen, i do mean that it has not and will not ever reach the screen intact, no matter who handles the script or how hard they work on it. so, my answer to the movie poster's famous question is that they never did make a movie of Lolita, and they really never should have tried.

i have known and loved this book for no more than five years, and although i have read it in its entirety at least thrice now, i feel that i have only just begun to scratch its surface. this is a work of art which can be viewed and appreciated from untold angles; one day the sunlight hits it just so but the next day the wind is coming in from the south, and the same phrase is blown off its feet and on its side. this is the only book that does not sit on my shelf but dwells there, making a modest home between her much lesser neighbors, with whom stimulating interaction is rendered impossible by virtue of their inertia.

but then, i promised i would not sing its praises or aim to tempt the uninformed. those of you who have already known her will (hopefully) agree with my assessment of the text. this is an elusive puzzle, a challenge, a provocateur. the subject matter alone was enough to make the public cringe in 1955, and it is no easier to digest several decades later. and even those readers with strong enough stomachs to take the plunge occasionally find themselves shuddering upon the turn of the page. after all, our protagonist is a liar, a criminal, a confined madman. we are left at the mercy of this detestable narcissist, and his account is all we are given. the thoughts, actions, and words of each character are filtered through Humbert's grotesque mind, so we know that our belief is best left un-suspended for the duration of this "curious tale."

when our dear Humbert refers to Charlotte Haze, "she of the...massive thigh," as his "large-as-life wife," we know that it is only in comparison to Lo, her "nymphet" daughter, and the "seaside of her schoolgirl thighs," the "blond down of her brown limbs." we can never know what Mrs. Haze looks like in any objective sense, because she is older than fourteen, and thus is an unappealing, crude, and nagging blob. furthermore, ever the unreliable narrator, Humbert describes himself proudly at one point as possessing a "clean-cut jaw, muscular hand, deep sonorous voice, broad shoulder," only to state a few pages later, "I am lanky, big-boned, wooly-chested Humbert Humbert, with thick black eyebrows and a queer accent, and a cesspool of rotting monsters behind his slow boyish smile." when his own self-perception is forever subject to the childish whims of whatever girl he lays his gaze on, how are we to trust his fickle moods?

Humbert's lengthy and schizophrenic written appeal to the court is not only rife with dubious claims and descriptions but also littered with the crumbs of his fragmented and uncensored compulsions. he leaves almost nothing out and is quite fanciful in his telling. his "fancy prose style" is seductive enough that we quickly begin to welcome the descent into his twisted psyche. his sharp wit and impish nature deceive us into forgetting his moral depravity, if just for a few moments at a time. he conjures images in our minds, and stirs emotions, that we have not prepared for. and how would we have known to? each one of us must quietly work out our unique relationship to his story. how do we feel when Humbert describes the first time he laid eyes on Lo ("...my knees were like reflections of knees in rippling water, and my lips were like sand...")? i was entranced by the first reading, and then repulsed upon the next; Humbert himself seems to understand both reactions equally.

there are countless reasons why there can never truly be a faithful adaptation of Lolita. the author's incredible use of english (his second language), which begs a second, third, and fortieth reading of the book, is high on the list.
but in the end, because each of its characters is a delusion and each line is poetry, we must never substitute a film, gorgeous as it may be, for this timeless piece of literature. when a frustrated Humbert exclaims, "I only have words to play with!," we must concede.

my 2 cents on 4/20/08

let's reconsider the facts,
http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

view a short timeline,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/etc/cron.html

start a dialogue,
http://www.nojailforpot.com/

and
let's challenge our paradigms and ill-advised doctrines,
breed understanding, peace, freedom, and community.

and let's please get my people out of jail.

be SAFE, everyone.

L