Now that my annoying cousing Braydon is back in the O.C. doing whatever it is he does (he wanted me to pass on that he, like everyone else in America, has a new weblog up, address is www.braybay.blogspot.com) I can finally start my annual year in review in which I share my opinion about the best and worst of the past year in TV, movies, music and pop culture and you lap it all up like hungry kittens at a bowl of milk.
Just keep in mind that you can't feed cow's milk to cats. They love the taste but it's very, very bad for them. Kind of like this blog.
But before I launch into Part One of the year's best movies, I have something to get off my chest about reality TV, and believe me, I'm not proud to be a part of this problem...
Flavor Flav, Jeff Conaway and Better Therapy Through Television
My g.f. and I are watchers of reality television. Like all TV, there's good reality TV, bad reality TV...and then there's sheer trainwreck reality television like VH-1's Flavor of Love and Celebrity Fitclub 3. You want to look away, but you can't because you can't believe what you're seeing. But I'm here to say, we SHOULD look away before this thing gets completely out of hand.
I won't bore you with all of the deails, but a little background is in order. Flavor Flav, the once and I presume current clown jester of the seminal rap group Public Enemy has become a sort of freaked out reality mascot for VH-1, the onetime music video channel. He first appeared in the popular "reality" series, The Surreal Life in 2003, the show which puts six or seven C and D-list stars (example: Charo) into a house for a month, has them do stunts and activities for charity and then films the happenings and interactions. In Flavor Flav's stint, one of the "happenings" was his apparently sincere attempt to romance housemate Brigitte Nielsen, the titanic, Teutonic bombshell and onetime Mrs. Sylvester Stallone. This led to perhaps the first spinoff reality series in history, which took us inside the ups and downs of the romance between Nielsen and Flav as they jetsetted back and forth between New York and Italy, between upscale Eurotrash snobbery and ghetto fabulous sensibilities. As ridiculous as this all was, the race and class subtexts of the show had an undeniable fascination and while they are both no doubt attention whores, Nielsen and Flav made for riveting television more often than not.
Which brings us to The Flavor of Love. This show casts Flavor Flav as "The Bachelor" choosing from among a cast of 20 lovely young ladies to "find the perfect mate". After two episodes it can safely be said that this show makes the original The Bachelor look as quaint as the old Love Connection and as tame as an afterschool special. If the producers selected these women for Flavor--half of them run the gamut of the type known as "golddiggers", the other half are as shallow and blank as a thought bubble above President Bush's head--then they must secretly hate him. If he selected these women, then he's in for all the trouble he deserves and then some. And the Black women on this show? Seriously, every stereotype of Black hoochie mama is represented to the ghetto (or country) extreme, enough so that the NAACP ought to look into launching a formal protest. But what's worse is that the g.f. and I sit there and watch this for 60 minutes each week. Why? Partially to feel superior I suppose, partially because we're too agog to turn the channel. If this is where television is headed, then please, stop the iPod TV downloading craze now because we don't need to carry this crap with us.
Then, as if that's not enough, right after that is Celebrity Fitclub (Ver. 3). What would possess eight washed-up, semi-obscure and/or not-ready-for Prime Time "celebrities" to sign up for ten episodes of being abused by a former Marine drill sargeant, dissected by an impossibly hot female psychologist and condescended to by a diet-plan pushing medical doctor while showing off their layers of flab on national TV is well-beyond me. But then to go on the show with a drug dependency, a death wish and a self-help book's worth of psychological issues? You'd have to be either the most clueless person alive, or one of the most vain, or both. And that, my friends, fits the description of Jeff Conaway, former co-star of TV 's Taxi and the movie version of Grease (as he's fond of reminding everyone) as well as several bit parts on stage and screen. While it's undeniably fascinating to watch Conaway unraveling before our very eyes, it's hard not to do so without feeling dirty about the whole thing--like accidentally catching your Uncle Pete touching your sister in an inappropriate way and being paralyzed because you're not sure what you should be doing right at that very moment, knowing time is of the essence and the whole thing is just sick, twisted and evil. And yet there you are, still watching...
The answer, of course, is to turn the television off, then set fire to it and run far away without ever looking back. But there are a surprising number of GOOD things on TV (as will be revealed shortly in this blog), not to mention old, harmless habits like pro football or Iron Chef and, every once in a blue moon, important news and information--which TV still does a better job of than anybody else, including the Internet (which is now better at analysis of the news, especially politics). I sincerely hope Flavor Flav finds true love--or at least, a really good shag, which a guy as ugly and weird as he is can certainly be appreciative of. And I do hope that Jeff Conaway gets the help he needs, although I'd prefer he did it as far away from any TV cameras as possible.
The Year's Best In Film - Honorable Mention and Positions 6 - 10
Now that I've babbled on for about ten thousand words, let's get to the point of this blog which are my choices for the best movies I saw in 2005 and a few mercifully brief thoughts about each. Full disclosure: I haven't seen four of the best reviewed movies of the year in North Country, Jarhead, Munich and Memoirs of A Geisha, and my schedule being what it is, I didn't want to wait until March or something when I saw them all to put out my list because, frankly, the whole point of this exercise is to give anyone who reads this blog a head's up on who to pick in the Oscar chase (and, to a smaller extent, to shine the light on a few overlooked movies I may have stumbled across). So, of the 50 or so odd movies I saw last year, here's what stood out to me with apologies for those movies I have so far missed:
Honorable Mention - Definitely Worth Seeing in the Movie Theater: Good Night & Good Luck., Me, You & Everyone We Know, The Interpreter, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, War of the Worlds, Wedding Crashers, Wal-mart: The High Cost of Low Prices, Hustle & Flow, Grizzly Man, Sin City, In Her Shoes, The History of Violence, Serenity, Brokeback Mountain, King Kong, The Squid and The Whale.
10. Mysterious Skin - Written and directed by Gregg Araki. Stars Joseph Gordon Levitt, Michelle Trachtenberg, Brady Corbett and Elisabeth Shue. Haunting, moving look at how sexual abuse sent two Little Leaguers in completely different directions in life, each trying to sort what happened to them in a completely different way. Third Rock from the Sun's Levitt emerges as a serious movie actor to watch in this one.
9. Syriana - Written and directed by Stephen Gaghan. Stars George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Tim Blake Nelson, Christopher Plummer, Amanda Peet, Alexander Siddig. From the writer of the award-winning Traffic comes a similarly structured look at the world of big oil and the U.S. government's role in ensuring we have access to it. Serious minded, well-acted by everyone although it does play a bit cold and dry at times on the screen. People rave about Clooney's role, but Damon does his best work since Good Will Hunting in this one.
8. The Upside of Anger - Written and directed by Mike Binder. Stars Joan Allen, Kevin Costner. Mr. Binder, you are now officially forgiven for your HBO travesty The Mind of the Married Man. This funny, occasionally poignant, sometimes scabrous look at an alchoholic mother trying to keep her family and her sanity together after her husband disappears was one of the overlooked treats of last spring. Allen cements her position as one of the best film actresses working today.
7. The 40-Year Old Virgin - Written by Judd Apatow & Steve Carrell. Directed by Apatow. Starring Steve Carrell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Jay Kogen and Romany Malco. Yeah, it had dick jokes. So what? It was as funny as Wedding Crashers, but with deeper, more well-developed characters and a final reel that's as good as the first two. Between this and the American "The Office", Carrell is emerging as a real comic genius.
6. Cinderella Man - Written by Cliff Hollingsworth and Akiva Goldsman. Directed by Ron Howard. Stars Russell Crowe, Paul Giamatti and Renee Zellweger. I thought I would be immune to this period weepie about a light heavyweight boxer who captured the heart of America during the Great Depression, but the movie is just too damn well made and well-acted to be dismissed. Give it half a chance and you'll fall prey to it's charms too.
The rest coming in the next couple of days along with my favorite acting performances of the year. Until then, peace and Happy New Year, you freaks!
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