(via bbg)

(via I Watch Stuff)

Although, really, it’s not a contest.  Collaboration, maybe.  Curious, definitely:

The thesis pursued in this article is that this strong thematic aspect of The Dark Knight finds its roots in a short story by the labyrinthine Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges.

(via monochrom)

In lieu of a numbered list, here you’ll find a bulleted list — well, several of them — covering my favorite books and movies of 2008.  And, because I’m slow, a goodly number of them will be of items released before 2008.  But that’s when I saw them.  So there.  Enjoy!

In Theaters:

• Let The Right One In – Easily the best vampire movie of 2008, and likely the best of the past few years (if not longer).  ’Let The Right One In’ was bizarre, brooding, bloody, and just right — if frequently in an uncomfortable, awkard sort of way. [imdb]
• The Quantum of Solace – ‘Casino Royale’ set a high standard, of which Quantum fell short; but it was still worlds above the most recent Bond movies prior to ‘Casino Royale’.  Also, I tend to have a soft spot for supervillains with credible plans (which is to say, impossible plans, but at least plans that don’t aim for total world domination… right away).
• There Will Be Blood – I was sold from the opening dissonance.  Not an easy movie by most standards, but well worth the challenge.  Dry, solid, menacing.  Powerful.
• The Dark Knight - What’s to say?  It’s mostly been said.  Superb.  Almost pitch-perfect, although I could have done with a slightly more subtle Two-Face.
• Tropic Thunder – I was completely startled by ‘Tropic Thunder’, which I did not expect to like at all.  Not only was the movie hilarious, but — well, mostly it was just hilarious.  Disconcertingly so.  Also, disconcerting.
• Tell No One – Not necessarily what you’d expect from an American mystery re-written for France… but surprisingly excellent.  The premise — a widower, years after his wife’s death, receives an email (sort of) indicating that his wife might still be alive — starts off weak, but is worked into the otherwise tightly spun plot.  Tension-filled, confusing, and humane. [imdb]
• Iron Man – This was just spectacular, big screen superhero sci-fi fun.  Well put-together, well told.  And shiny.

On DVD:

• The Man from Earth – I watched this based on a recommendation, but without knowing what it was about.  You should too. [imdb]
• Triplets of Belleville – An off-kilter cartoon, at turns sad and brilliant, that takes you on a brilliant romp.  Worth it for the dog alone.  The dog!  The animation is gorgeous to watch, and the scenery (and plot) is wild. [imdb]
• The Orphanage – Standard-issue horror movies tend to be crap — sometimes by design (which can work quite well), but just as often not; it’s the rare horror movie that’s earnest and atmospheric and really compelling.  The Orphanage is one such movie.
• Redbelt - I will say right away that I’m a fan of David Mamet.  I enjoy the unique… cadence of his dialogue, and his films.  Some people do not warm to the style, and ‘Redbelt’ is likely not for them.  I enjoyed ‘Redbelt’ quite a lot.  By comparison, I’d say ‘Redbelt’ is better than ‘Spartan’ or ‘Heist’, but not as complete as ‘The Spanish Prisoner’ or ‘House of Games’. [imdb]

Books

There are few stand-outs from among the books I read in 2008.  Unusually, I have few fiction recommendations to pass along — and none that were published this year.  I look forward to reading through some outstanding fiction this year.  We’ll see how that goes.

• Gang Leader for a Day, by Sudhir Venkatesh [nonfiction] – Despite not having read Freakonomics (which, apparently, uses anecdotes from Venkatesh in its telling), I was intrigued by the premise of this book — a sociologist drawn into a gang.  I was surprised by how humanizing and “impartial” (though that’s not the right word) Venkatesh manages to be while still remaining true to the basic facts of the places he hangs out.  You’d think “visits” would be a more appropriate verb, but you’d be wrong.  A surprising book, if not totally worldview-shattering.
• A Night in the Cemetery, by Anton Chekhov [fiction] – (Mostly) early short stories by Chekhov, stories of foreboding and murder and mystery.  A collection of crime stories that manages to be much more.  A really solid group of stories.
• Traffic, by Tom Vanderbilt [nonfiction] – Maybe you spend enough time in traffic during the day, and couldn’t care less about why it exists — and maybe you wonder.  Maybe you’re curious why people drive like they do; sure, you know why you drive the way you do, but–well, maybe you don’t.  A fascinating look at traffic, built on anecdotes and research, stories and experiments.  A (startlingly) fun read, quick, entertaining, and quite possibly useful.
• The Year Million, edited by Damien Broderick  [nonfiction] - An anthology of speculative nonfiction examining what the far future will look like.  Not 100 or 200 years into the future but, as the title suggests, orders of magnitude more.  The writing is uneven — not surprising, given the wide assortment of authors — but the unabashed creativity and imagining is not: regardless of what ends up being true, the writers here have created a magnificent (and daring) work of speculation.
• Out of Eden, by Alan Burdick  [nonfiction] – You may hear people speak disparagingly of alien mussels and invasive shrubs and non-native weeds.  It’s doubtful you’ve traveled as many places as Alan Burdick has specifically to talk about those things, however.  And you probably haven’t uncovered the nuances between the terms, or the tensions among different groups of people and how they conceive of such species.  If you’re concerned about invasives, you’ll learn a lot from this book — although you may walk away from it with a more sophisticated appreciation for the different ways species mix in our world.
• The True History of the Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey [fiction] – True history is misleading, though the book is based on a historical figure — 19th Century Australian outlaw/folk hero/bandit Ned Kelly and, you guessed it, his gang.  Told in many different ways, in wildly creative “dialogue” (and dialect), ‘True History’ is a compelling, fast read.  (Although you ought to look at the first few pages, and see if the style is something you can tolerate — because if it’s not, the book will be truly unbearable and, worse, unfinishable for you!) 
• Wild Trees, by Richard Preston [nonfiction] – A look at the eclectic communities of climbers and researchers structured around the mysterious, giant trees of coastal California.  You wouldn’t expect the world’s largest things to be as secret as some of them are — it turns out to be much more difficult to figure out the height of these giants than you’d imagine.  A curious turn for the writer of The Hot Zone, but one to which he’s clearly committed — the time and effort spent on this book are clearly impressive.

…so much Ninja Terminator!

(via BeaucoupKevin(dot)com)

via io9, a graphic showing the steady-ish uptick in the frequency of zombie movies, and “mapping” it (very roughty) to incidences of war (click below for a larger image):

Correlation not being correlation, blah blah blah, everything else aside, it’s still a fun chart.

(via io9)

(2008) dir Guillermo del Toro – w/ Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Doug Jones & Doug Jones, James Dodd, Jeffrey Tambor, Anna Walton, Briane Steele, and John Hurt.  Why did Mr. Wink have to be Evil!

Synopsis: Evil elvy-type wants to take back earth from greedy, selfish humans.  Wants to do so through battle.  Using magical invincible robot sorts of things (the Golden Army).  Selling point: it’s an invincible army.  Cons: wake of utter destruction.  Secret illegal task-force to the rescue!  (Hopefully.)  Hellboy & Co. spring into action.

Review: What’s surprising is that Hellboy II did not in fact have ten times the production budget of the first Hellboy — because that’s what it feels like.  The creatures are astonishing, as is the detail of all the characters.  You could cut out the audio and dub in pretty much any movie’s dialogue, and Hellboy II would still be worth watching.

Which is good, because the story actually isn’t all that great.  Story-wise, I’m actually more fond of the first Hellboy.  Hellboy II has some interesting, intricate points, but is generally quite derivative, predictable, and bland, even.  The dialogue is occasionally phenomenal, and some scenes are ridiculously awesome–but then the movie gets dragged down by other scenes, and by awful, stilted dialogue.  Then there’s a fight, or a new monster, or a new world, and the story doesn’t actually matter that much.  Because the creatures are spectacular.

Hellboy II is actually okay, and I enjoyed watching it a great deal.  But given the performance of the first movie, and given some of del Toro’s other recent excursions, I’d expected much more.  Still, I’d sit through a Hellboy III.  And IV.  We’ll see about a V.

Rating: [•••½] out of [•••••]

(2005) dir Paul Tarantino – w/ Benjamin John Carillo as would-be upwardly mobile insurance agent, Mark Aiken as Dougie, Kristi Clainos as Sarah, and Ralph Lister as, apparently, “The Man”.  I don’t really remember who that might be.

Synopsis: A happy office drone wants a little more out of his workplace environment, and feels he might get a better job elsewhere.  No troubles so far.  He gets recommended a headhunter by a client/friend, and figures–why not!  It can’t hurt to look.  Naturally, he gets a new job right away.  The new headhunter really did the trick!  The hours are a little bit… strange.  And the co-workers are… well…  They’re strange, too.  But the money’s good, am I right?  What’s a little curse, when you’re laughing all the way to the bank?  Or grave…  Puns, horror, and camp follow.

Review: As you might guess from the DVD cover, this is not a high-production-value film.  It’s not, say, Rosemary’s Baby. So what I’m about to say may come as a surprise.

This is an excellent film!

Not exactly good.  But simultaneously earnest and campy, in all the right places.  “Headhunter” knows when to downplay the supernatural, and traffic in innuendo and good old-fashioned story-telling instead.  (Don’t worry–there are some special effects.  And they are very special.)

You have your standard murder curse haunting story, more or less.  The people involved do stupid things, but not unreasonably stupid things. (If it were a true story, and you believed in curses, their actions would be 100% believable.)  Most of the movie takes place in office buildings and parking lots and very ordinary places, and without any special effects whatsoever.  Which is one of the movie’s saving graces; it’s campy when it should be, and silly, and ridiculous (the baby? the lightning?!) — but restrained at other times.  There are a number of scenes that are surprisingly effective despite the lack of any special effects; one scene involves a cursed key-chain.

I have to say, this is a kind of hidden treat.  (I was actually expecting it to be unrelentingly awful, and found myself drawn in, and completely entertained.)

Rating: [•••½] out of [•••••]

Extra: It’s also a little bit adorable that the quote from the movie that someone saw fit to add to imdb’s “memorable quotes” section is:

Ben Caruso: I need you to do a little poking around.
Scott: That’s my speciality.

Because, really?