October 15, 2007
cinema quant: the update
37) Smokin' Aces (nothing)
36) Factory Girl (wasn't Smokin' Aces)
35) Paris je t'aime (didn't have Hayden Christenson)
34) Waitress (Cheryl Hines' micromonologues, Nathan Fillion's smile)
33) Shoot'em Up (Clive Owen not in fact charismatic enough to make shit smell like roses)
32) The Nanny Diaries (Giammati plays exact same role as in Shoot'em Up, seen from other perspective)
31) Severance (theatre was quite clean)
30) No End In Sight (anti-war doc's breakout star, Seth Moulton, turns out only to want a better war)
29) Stardust (nice swordfight-played-as-videogame scene)
28) Dreamgirls (the club sets; Eddie Murphy's Marvin Gaye skullcap)
27) Avenue Montaigne (the one brief image of the young Dani)
26) I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (It's funny, see, cuz they're not gay!)
25) Ocean's 13 (Soderbergh's knack for shooting Vegas so you can't tell if it's a set or not)
24) Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten ("White Riot" a capella)
23) The Brave One (a satisfying if false portrait of a Radiohead fan)
22) Notes on a Scandal (Bill Nighy dancing)
21) Hot Fuzz (lighting in British supermarket)
20) Ratatouille (sugarhigh!'s mother notes this is Singin' In The Rain)
19) We Own the Night (have you noticed that all Joaquin Phoenix's characters have the same scar?)
18) Resident Evil: Extinction (the cinematic ontology of helicopters remains to be written)
17) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (pleasure of SRO crowd in huge theatre)
16) The Kingdom ("Let us do our job....We're good at this." Yeah, in what universe? Meanwhile good parts are all Blackhawk Down)
15) Superbad (Not-so-superbadinage; this is what became of Tarantino's New American chitchat)
14) Sunshine (Soderbergh's Solaris plus 28 Days Later divided by Nietzsche)
13) Blades of Glory (ambient Ferrellage)
12) Disturbia (strange racialized decision to have best friend recreate the standard John Cho performance)
11) Alpha Dog (Justin Timberlake in general)
10) The Bourne Ultimatum (Steve on Julia Stiles' role: "in like a magic bullet, out like a cigarette butt")
9) Shooter (Mark Wahlberg dressed as a frickin' yeti for the final showdown; Ned Beatty's career-long conversion into Buford T. Justice)
8) Backstage (Isild LeBesco's facial physiognomy; plausibility of such drecky pop being huge in France)
7) Grindhouse (Fake trailers, muscle cars, and a wrecker named Killdozer)
6) Knocked Up (Seth Rogen's delivery, the jokes about Martin's beard, Paul Rudd's three smiles)
5) 28 Weeks Later (Goodbye Dover Beach...)
4) Transformers (has entire theory of American history, plus robot fights)
3) The Host (brief familial hallucination of feeding the lost child; Kang-ho Song's facial expressions)
2) Children of Men (blood on the lens for long tracking shot; Clive Owen's slumped shoulders)
1) Pan's Labyrinth (Spanish Winona Ryder; Harold & the Purple Crayon riff; title better in English)