I’ve been a very bad blogger lately. The most I’ve written is a little blurb about some of the things I did in 2011, and even then that barely equated out to a page. In fact, I think that post was mostly a list-post and involved very little of what anyone would call “writing.” Truth be told, I’ve been quite the busy bee. In late December my then girlfriend and I decided to get married, something we had been discussing for a little while. To make things interesting, we scheduled our wedding for January, giving us relatively little time to plan. Surprisingly, everyone was gung-ho about the idea.

The wedding day came upon us pretty fast and before I knew it I was standing in front of a crowd of friends and family, watching my bride-to-be walk toward me down the aisle. It’s kinda crazy how everyone else seemed to fade out of the picture when Jandy took my hand; I’m sure the pictures of me can attest to that.

Speaking of pictures…

A friend of ours has her own photography business and documented the entire wedding. And when i say “she documented” I mean she captured life, love and the promise of a wonderful future and converted it to a format that could be uploaded to the web. I’m pretty sure I’m not at the level of writing where I can properly convey how amazing the photos from the wedding turned out, so instead I’m going to embed a sideshow of the whole wedding. If you weren’t there, don’t worry. Watching this will make you feel like you were in attendance!

Oh yeah, the crepes also deserve a major shout-out as they were most excellent.

And then the honeymoon happened. Jandy and I went down to San Diego to have some quality married time together as well as check out the ocean. It was quite lovely, despite all the rain. I found the patter of the rain combined with the warmth of the indoors to be quite soothing, almost akin to cozying up to a fireplace while it snows outside. Didn’t hurt that I was with such a lovely person.

When we got back from the honeymoon it was back to work for the both of us. The first thing I discovered when I sat down at my desk was that I was being offered official employment through TOMS. Holy good news, Batman! Needless to say, I was pretty thrilled. It’s not like being a temp was bad or anything, but I was sure anxious to become an official member of the TOMS Family. Not only that, but I’ve never really had official, full-time employment before, the type of employment that comes with benefits and all that mystical adult-type-stuff.

I suppose I’ve never really talked about working at TOMS yet. I know I’ve mentioned it fairly casually in all my online discussions, but never really gone much farther than that because of the slippery-slope nature about talking about your workplace online. I figure that in this particular instance I should be fine. My experience with TOMS has been nothing short of awesome. I can’t think of a place I’ve worked where there was this strong of a sense of community. Not only that, but I’ve never seen such passion and such dedication to a single idea as the whole One for One movement. I’m a cynical bastard by nature, but the people here at TOMS have really changed my tune. And frankly, directly seeing what our work means to those in need is a humbling and awesome experience. Be warned, there will probably be more posts and social network musings as I fully buy into this thing.

Yay tangents!

Believe it or not, I’m writing this post on a plane en route to Fargo for my mom’s wedding (but uploading this now, while I’m actually in Fargo). Yep, you read that correctly. She had broken the news to me awhile back when our family took a vacation it in Oregon. Her fiancé – with the assistance of my sister – took a tour through Montana and found a beautiful spot to propose. In fact, my marriage to Jandy was a bit of a thunder-steal, something my mother jokingly pointed out. That’s how I roll, folks.

So, yeah. A lot has happened as of late, which is why I’ve been bad at keeping up with the blog. Well, that and Skyrim, but I digress. I promise to start posting more stuff this year, both here and over at the Flickchart Blog. Might be a gradual thing as I also need to get this screenwriting career off the ground. That and I have a novel that I’ve been meaning to write. Also, there’s an idea that a friend and I are working on that’s got me super excited.

Stay tuned.

Jandy, I love you. That is all!

I don’t really remember when I began challenging myself to watch more films each year. It may have started when I was going to school in Chicago, or it might have been during my earlier days back in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Each year I would keep a general idea of the films I had seen and try to best it, whether by a few or by a wide margin. One year I decided to see all the Oscar contenders alongside of the films I was currently watching, something that took my movie-watching goals to the next level. The next year I added films that weren’t in my genres of interest. The year after that films during a certain decade….

I think you kind of get the idea.

Fast forward to 2011, the year I decided to keep a running tally of all the films I had seen. I had been watching my wife populate her movie list for quite some time and had wanted to do something similar, if a little less strict. What I came up with was my 2011 in Film page, where I put the posters up for all the films I had seen in 2011, dividing them by New Releases or New to Me. I also divided them up by Loves, Likes and Dislikes to give anyone who perused the page a basic idea of where I stood on the film.

Fast forward even further to the present and we’ve got this post: My 2011 in Film. I saw A LOT of movies last year and there were a few that REALLY stood out to me.

10. SOURCE CODE

I saw Duncan Jone’s film Moon not too along ago and loved it. Had all of the sci-fi trappings that I love and was able to bring out some good character moments for m Sam Rockwell, arguably one of my favorite actors. So when I heard that Jones was going to do another film, I was stoked. And while Source Code didn’t quite have the impact on me that Moon did, it certainly entertained. The premise was solid and the acting never distracted. When I left the theater, I remember turning to Jandy and lamenting that we didn’t have more adult thrillers like this in the theaters.

RANKED #222 ON MY FLICKCHART

9. JANE EYRE

I had heard of Jane Eyre before but had never really been all that interested in reading it or seeing any of the adapted films until I saw the trailer for this iteration, which promised something darker and more foreboding. I definitely like darker and more foreboding so I decided to give this one a change, and I’m glad that I did. This film is really well-done and the story took some quite unexpected turns. The acting on display from Fassbender and Wasikowska fit the period really well and I even enjoyed the brief interlude with Jamie Bell.

RANKED #221 ON MY FLICKCHART

8. HANNA

Oh god. Where do I even begin with this one? I’ve been sitting here for a good forty minutes, trying to put into words what I love about this film and all I can come up with is that I love EVERYTHING. That long-take action sequence where Erica Bana kicks everyone’s asses? LOVE. Saoirse Ronan’s escape from the military bunker with the Chemical Brothers’ pulse-pounding score? LOVE. Cate Blanchett as the villain? LOVE. Tom Hollander? LOVE. This film is an action-thriller dressed up as an art-house film, something which I never really thought was possible and something that I think I quite like. I really need to see this one again.

RANKED #213 ON MY FLICKCHART

7. KILL LIST

Kill List was the biggest surprise of the year for me. I was not prepared for this one AT ALL, and the ending pretty much knocked me on my ass. To review this one is to spoil it, so all I’ll really say is that this needs to be seen and it needs to be seen as soon as possible. If you are in the L.A. area, Cinefamily is playing the film from February 3rd through the 9th. Otherwise, there’s VOD or *ahem*download*ahem*.

RANKED #210 ON MY FLICKCHART

6. DRIVE

Drive is my first experience with Nicolas Winding Refn, and it was such that I plan on seeing the rest of his films in 2012. I wrote up a review for this film over on the Flickchart blog, which I’ve pasted a snippet of below.

I meant to write up my review for Drive last week when I had the film fresh on my mind, but I needed some time to mull it over and decide how I felt about it. You see, I’m a little fickle when it comes to car chase movies or movies in which automotive mastery is an integral part of the story. Films like The Fast and The Furious and its sequels don’t really do much for me, nor do films like Gone in 60 Seconds or Torque. They rely primarily on “high octane” action, which is not much more than fast, chaotic editing coupled with loud music to generate excitement. Drive, the latest film from Nicolas Winding Refn (Pusher, Valhala Rising), eschews that and in turn ranks as my number two film for 2011 on Flickchart.

Read the rest of my review over on the Flickchart Blog!

RANKED #204 ON MY FLICKCHART

5. RANGO

Rango is Gore Verbinski’s love-letter to Spaghetti Westerns, and I consider it to be the best animated film of the year. The character designs are grotesque, which is something I absolutely love in animation (See: Rugrats, Rocko’s Modern Life) and the voice-work is stellar. And while the plot isn’t anything new or ground-breaking, the way it’s presented feels fresh. I’ll be bummed if this doesn’t win Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards.

RANKED #173 ON MY FLICKCHART

4. CAFE DE FLORE

It’s unfortunate that this film isn’t getting distribution here in the States because it is amazing. Got to see this at AFI Fest and absolutely loved it. Pasted a snippet of my review below, which you can also find on the Flickchart Blog.

I tend to go into a lot of films at the AFI Fest 2011 Presented by Audi blind, doing little to no research beforehand. What ends up happening is that there’s a fairly even mix of films that impress and films that just don’t do anything for me. Then there are a few that just outright surprise me and end up ranking ridiculously high on my Flickchart. This would be that film.

Café De Flore has two stories happening in parallel, the first about Antoine, a popular Montreal DJ struggling with a recent divorce. Despite ruining the lives of his family with the separation he’s the happiest he’s ever been in his life. Happening in tandem to this is the story of Jacqueline, a single mother in 1960s Paris taking care of her special-needs son. Both stories are connected by the song Café De Flore and perhaps much more.

Read the rest of my review over on the Flickchart Blog!

RANKED #145 ON MY FLICKCHART

3. THE TREE OF LIFE

This film is quite divisive amongst my friends. In one camp you have the friends who think this is the dumbest film of the year, and in the other camp you have the friends who were deeply moved by the experience. Naturally the people in the second group are right. The Tree of Life is an amazing film that deserves all the praise it gets. It’s thoughtful and poetic on a universal scale and manages to weave the Brad Pitt storyline quite effectively. Similar to my experience with Drive and Nicolas Winding Refn, this is my first time with director Terrence Malick. I really need to go back and check out this guy’s other stuff. It doesn’t look like I have a huge filmography to go through either so that will make things easier.

RANKED #96 ON MY FLICKCHART

2. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

I don’t like preachy films. Naturally, films about school shootings tend to get this way or they try to cram some kind of moral down my throat that I’m not interested in consuming. With We Need to Talk About Kevin it’s different. Instead we’re given a nightmare about a mother who was never really ready for parenthood and who blames herself for birthing something that could do so much damage. Essentially this plays out like a horror film, which is why it’s so damned effective. I was shaking as I left the theater, more disturbed than I have been in awhile.

RANKED #66 ON MY FLICKCHART

1. MELANCHOLIA

And we come to my favorite film of the year, not to mention my first experience with Von Trier. Wonderfully gloomy and full of amazing performances. It’s the less-hopeful Tree of Life, which is what drew me in immediately. The performances are great and I left the theater saying “wow” repeatedly. Wrote a review for this one over on the Flickchart blog, which you can read an excerpt of below!

My first foray into the filmography of Lars von Trier happened the other night at AFI Fest 2011 Presented by Audi with the film Melancholia. Admittedly it was tough going into this screening without some degree of expectation given all the buzz surrounding the film. Pretty much everything I read up until the screening itself called this film the best of the year. As the the first few moments rolled by, I was mentally prepared to be disappointed. All you need to do is look at my ranking of the film above to see that that wasn’t the case.

Melancholia is the story of Justine, a depressed young woman who has found herself married to Michael (played effectively by Alexander Skarsgård). Try as she might, she can’t bring herself to celebrate with her family and makes multiple attempts to escape the festivities, each time angering a different member of the family. As she traipses around the lovely estate of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg, 21 Grams), she notices an odd star up in the sky. As the film progresses we find out that the star is actually a planet and that it’s on a collision-course with Earth. Naturally, this leads to a lot of drama.

Read the rest of my review over on the Flickchart Blog!

RANKED #65 ON MY FLICKCHART

Oh boy.

A lot happened in 2011. I’m still in contemplation mode, which is why I haven’t really done anything akin to last year’s Top Ten in ’10 post series. Not only that but it’s insanely difficult to come up with a clever blog series name that fits with The Year 2011. Also, a list of 11 things is kind of stupid. But I digress. I think for now I’ll just write up a list of some of the things I did this year and call it good.

THE STUFF I DID IN 2011

-Started writing for Flickchart Blog.
-Read two books (World War Z & A Game of Thrones)
-Started doing bar trivia with a bunch of my former Columbia College alums.
-Met my girlfriend’s parents.
-Left my work-from-home job to go work for a little company called TOMS Shoes.
-Saw Broken Social Scene in concert.
-Took a road trip with my girlfriend to Oregon to meet the family for the first time.
-Got into AFI Fest 2011 with a press pass.
-Moved into a new apartment with this fella and this lady.
-Cut cable out of the budget (good riddance)
-First Christmas away from my family, stayed with my girlfriend’s family.
-Joined the dark side and got an iPad 2.
-Saw a total of 103 films, 57 of which were in theaters.
-Got engaged to my girlfriend.

What did YOU do this year? Sound off in the comments. I’d like to share in the tears and the triumph and stuff…

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here to see all 50 questions in a nice and organized list. It’s such a pretty list.

TODAY: Who is your biggest movie character crush?

I loved Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World when it came out in theaters, seeing it around 2-3 times like I do for most films I love. The style of humor from Bryan Lee O’Malley, mixed with the great direction and witty eye of Edgar Wright was right up my alley. It got mixed reviews and did moderately well in the theaters, losing some box office to The Expendables, which made me really sad in the pants. But I digress. Another aspect of this film that made it so awesome was the portrayal of Kim Pine. I would say that the portrayal was SO good that I developed a huge crush on the character. Less sad in the pants.

Packed within the runtime of the film are a bunch of moments that fuel my raging crush on Kim Pine, from her deadpan, sarcastic retorts to her miming a gun and shooting herself. Luckily, I was able to find an embeddable clip from one of my more favorite Kim Pine moments.

SWOON.

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here to see all 50 questions in a nice and organized list. It’s such a pretty list.

TODAY: What film made you cry?

There’s only one film in the history of film that has made me bawl my eyes out, and it’s Where the Red Fern Grows (1974). Oddly, I don’t remember much from the film other than the dogs dying at the end and that it was perhaps the most traumatizing thing ever. And it wasn’t quite like Old Yeller where there was hope presented in the form of a new generation of puppy. There was a sense of finality in this film that my little heart couldn’t take. Maybe the main character had a better bond with his dogs in this film or something.

I couldn’t really find a trailer or one individual clip that best sums up the water-fest that’s Fern, so I embedded the first 15 minutes instead. Have I seen the remake starring Dave Matthews? No. Don’t plan on it either.

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here to see all 50 questions in a nice and organized list. It’s such a pretty list.

TODAY: What female performance ranks as your favorite?

Okay, maybe these prompts weren’t so difficult after all. Gene Wilder and now Frances McDormand from Fargo. I remember not being all that into this film when I first saw it, finally “getting it” a few years later and a few years removed from all those crazy accents I was living amidst (yes, I’m originally from Fargo, ND). Now this film ranks as perhaps my favorite from the Coen Brothers, with McDormand’s performance being the key deciding factor. She’s beyond brilliant in this and best captures the nuance of some of the more eclectic variations on “our” accents. Everyone else just borders on caricature.

Embedded below is a good sampling of the genius that’s Marge Gunderson.

“I’m not so sure I agree 100% with your police work there lou..”

I’d like to take full credit for this idea, but I can’t. All the credit goes to my girlfriend Jandy, who thought this up quite some time ago. The premise is simple: we make each other watch films that have impacted us in some way and then post our thoughts on them in a joint blog series. Since we’ve been making each other watch films already, adding the blogging element was an easy next step. We’re still working out the format some in terms of who posts when or who goes first, but the general idea will be to have these posts on both of our sites.

The Movie

Movie: Wayne’s World
Info: 1992 USA. Director: Penelope Sheeris. Starring: Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Tia Carrere, Rob Lowe.
Chooser: Jonathan
Date and Method Watched: December 3rd, at home via Zune rental on Xbox Live

He Says…

There are a few films out there that have shaped my sense of humor into what it is today. I’ll quote them without hesitation and many of their gags will make way into conversation without me even thinking about it. In college, if one of us started talking about any of these movies, the rest of us would begin barking quote after quote to try and get the other laughing. I can’t count how many times we would mimic John Cleese talking about the terrors of that evil rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail or how many times we’d try and out-quote each other from Mystery Men. But it was one film that stood out among the others in terms of defining my sense of humor, rising above the rest in quotability and being able to match my silly outlook on life; and after the fourth or fifth time I quoted Wayne’s World to Jandy without her having any idea what I was talking about, I decided it was time to share.

It’s difficult to pick one thing to like about this film; there’s so much fun to be had. The humor here is self-aware, something that I immediately take a shine to. There’s a scene in particular where Wayne and Garth tell Rob Lowe’s character that they won’t bow to corporate sponsorship, all the while being advertisements themselves. The humor is also kind of abstract, making references that not everyone my age might necessarily get. For example, there’s a scene where our heroes re-create the opening to Laverne and Shirley which gets me laughing every single time I see the film. Garth interrupts it fairly quickly to get us back to the plot at hand, which goes back to that whole “self-aware” thing. Absolute gold.

And furthermore, Wayne and Garth keep from falling into the “idiot” stereotype that plagues other buddy films (Dumb and Dumber being perhaps the most prevalent example). I tend to like my buffoonery laced with a bit of smarts and this film does it plenty. There’s a scene fairly early on where Wayne tries to woo chick-rocker Cassandra with his rather quick adoption of Cantonese. The interchange is hilarious and I usually “lose my shit” when he stops talking and lets the subtitles continue for him.

I could go on and on with this film, citing moment after brilliant moment, but I think you get the idea. What made it fun this time around was watching Jandy’s reaction to the film. None of the jokes or references were lost on her and it was kind of awesome to realize that we share much in the way of humor. It was also nice to be able to give Jandy some context to my overall silliness.

Jonathan’s Flickchart ranking: 82 out of 1174

She Says…

There are a lot of early ’90s films I missed because I was too busy watching classic films – I say that neither as an excuse nor out of elitism, but purely as a fact. Thus there are a lot of films like Wayne’s World that all my peers just assume I’ve seen, and Jon is slowly but surely helping me make sure I get around to them. I actually had written Wayne’s World off as a stupid comedy of the sort that I don’t really like – along with Dumb and Dumber, which we watched a few months ago and I enjoyed decently enough, but isn’t really my style. In fact, I had those two so closely associated in my head that my first thought when Jon suggested we check out Wayne’s World next was “will I like it more or less than Dumb and Dumber?” He assured me I would like it a lot more, and he apparently knows me well, because I really liked, borderline loved this movie.

I’d seen a couple of the skits on SNL, so I had a little bit of an idea of the cable-access show premise, though the film does quite a nice job of fleshing that out with a corporate buy-out plot with a smarmy Rob Lowe trying to cash in on Wayne and Garth’s youth demographic appeal. That’s all pretty predictable. But what makes the film so much fun is the devil-may-care attitudes of Wayne and Garth themselves, more intent on partying on and enjoying their lives (even when that consists of nothing more than hearing a band at the local club or playing street hockey in between passing cars) than anything else, and the extreme level of self-awareness the film displays. Wayne and Garth are constantly talking and mugging directly to the camera, even to the point that when another character starts giving his life story, Wayne pulls him aside, warning him that only he and Garth are allowed to talk to the camera. Other times, the pair tell Lowe in no uncertain terms that they’ll never sell out for sponsorship, while eating Pizza Hut, drinking Pepsi, and wearing Reebok apparel. It’s quite obvious there, but it’s still funny, simply because it’s so shameless about the jokes it’s going for.

I also loved how these apparently dumb and aimless characters would suddenly start saying incredibly smart and learned things. Like when Wayne learned enough Cantonese to speak to Cassandra using big words and advanced concepts, and Garth knew how to reroute the satellites to get Cassandra’s band a big audition. Of course there’s nothing truly believable here, but the film takes that and runs with it, even giving three different endings with Wayne and Garth choosing which one to show next. This is my type of fun – very meta, very knowing, playing on expectations in really unusual and interesting ways, while never really being false to the characters of Wayne and Garth as initially set up. Several of the scenes or lines were familiar to me, through cultural osmosis, I guess. It was great to see where they came from and enjoy them in context – as much context as anything in Wayne’s World has. And yeah, I see what Jon means when he cites this film as being really influential on his sense of humor. Lots of the jokes he makes are obviously in this vein. :)

Jandy’s Flickchart ranking: 527 out of 2839

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here to see all 50 questions in a nice and organized list. It’s such a pretty list.

TODAY: What male performance ranks as your favorite?

This is one of those questions that come up that I have a difficult time answering. The problem is that I don’t really think of performances in terms of favorites. There are performances that I like and there are performances that I’m not so keen about, but to try and rank them against each other is actually kind of difficult. That’s why I’m going randomly pick between a few performances I enjoy and use them for today’s prompt and tomorrow’s prompt. Today I’m going with Gene Wilder and his performance in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Gene Wilder is pretty much a comedic genius in everything he’s done and I can’t think of a single film that I haven’t enjoyed him in. What makes this one his best is simply that I saw this first. I found myself drawn to how he could go from suave to unhinged with the snap of a finger. For example, there’s a scene in the film where he goes from singing “Pure Imagination” to freaking everyone’s shit on a psychedelic boat ride. It’s perhaps this scene that seals the deal for me.

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here to see all 50 questions in a nice and organized list. It’s such a pretty list.

TODAY: What’s a film that you walked out of?

I’ve never walked out of a film. Don’t really see the point, especially with the theater prices being what they are. Not only that, but there’s never really been a film that was bad enough to make me get up out of my seat and leave. The reason I’m including The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day in this category is because if I had actually gone to see this in the theaters, I would have walked out.

Not even Julie Benz was able to save this one for me.

Made it to about the 30 minute mark.

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here to see all 50 questions in a nice and organized list. It’s such a pretty list.

TODAY: Which film was least deserving of Best Picture at the Oscars?

I’ve never taken the Academy Awards all that seriously, instead using the event as a means to socialize with other movie people online and to imbibe respectable quantities of booze. Whether a film won or lost never really affected me all that much. Well…until lately. At some point last year I decided to get all opinionated about my moviegoing and start picking out who I wanted to win. It helped that there were some really solid entries in the Best Picture category as well.

Turns out that the film I wanted to win didn’t and the film that I felt the least deserving did. There’s not anything particularly wrong with The King’s Speech, it was just underwhelming. The acting was solid, but the story never really moved me in the way it seemed to move everyone else. The term “Oscar-bait” seems apt.

Here’s the only scene from the film worth a damn (in my opinion). I couldn’t find a good clip that wasn’t already flagged for removal, so this will have to do. It seems to be a remix of sorts so everything past the “tits” is optional. Also:

NSFW ALERT