"A Candy-Colored Clown They Call The Sandman..."

With the release of "Inception" this week, Christopher Nolan joins a milieu of filmmakers who have tried using the subconscious as a dramatic platform. Specifically, the exploration of dreams has fascinated both writers and directors, giving no limit to visual style or story structure. It's a world where symbolism and setting rule over plot or progression, and meaning could be hidden anywhere. So, in honor of this narrative motif, I'll give my top 10 "Dream Films." (note that I didn't organize these movies in order of their overall quality, but how well they used the idea of dreams in them. Also, under normal circumstances I would include "Mulholland Dr." on this list, but since it topped my last list, I'd rather go for variety.)

10. Dreams (Akira Kurosawa, 1990) - 'Dreams' is an appropriate enough title to start off this list, and it really is all in the title. Kurosawa's film consists of eight separate vignettes, each based off of a dream that he had at some point in his life. The stories range from a young boy mourning the loss of his peach orchard, which are enchanted back to life by mysterious dolls, to a nightmare about a family withering away in a nuclear holocaust. The colors and cinematography are beautiful, and Kurosawa plays out every scenario with poignant care.




9. A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984) - Wes Craven might be best known now for consistently shitting on the already floundering horror genre, but it's important not to overlook his gem of a slasher flick, "A Nightmare on Elm Street" for giving us something truly original - Freddy Krueger, a character who can kill you in your dreams. What Craven really did was put a playful shift on the genre - scary movies are made to give you nightmares, but here it's the nightmares themselves that he scares us with.





8. Paprika (Satoshi Kon, 2006) - In the realm of anime, Kon is the king of psychological suspense, and with "Paprika" he delves directly into the world of dreams. The movie is based around dream therapy, in which the main character, Dr. Atsuko, uses a device called the "DC Mini" to enter peoples dreams as her alter-ego 'Paprika' and analyze them as a psychiatrist would to cure mental ailments. Things go awry when the DC Minis are stolen and the thieves use the devices to invade peoples' dreams and cause them to commit suicide, go insane or do their bidding. As the movie progresses, the distinction between dreams and reality becomes increasingly blurred, and the climax is one beautiful clusterfuck to behold.

7. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Buñuel, 1972) - Buñuel, probably the best surrealist director in history, had a vicious sense of humor, and it's never more apparent than in "Discreet Charm." The movie is about a group of bourgeois friends who have gathered to eat but find that no matter how hard they attempt to do so, they cannot. At first it's due to simple things, such as making reservations on the wrong night or being out of food, but the hindrances become increasingly absurd - the French military invades in one scene, and in another the guests find that the living room is nothing more than a stage for the audience (us) to watch them. Buñuel uses this constant interruption to peel back the refined exterior of the bourgeois, revealing them as nothing more than immoral savages when robbed of their petty rituals. The ultimate farce of the movie is on itself, though, when it is revealed that the movie is all the dream of one guest who just happened to be hungry in his sleep.

6. Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999) - Kubrick's final feature, his most sinful cerebral drama, deals with the crisis of a couple dealing with the temptation of infidelity. The film works on two levels, the first with Bill and his real encounters of seduction and provocation with a multitude of women, and Alice, who is at home with their daughter, but is plagued with lust for a sailor she only met once, but fantasizes about constantly in her dreams. The film unfolds these parallel states together, equating them with each other, suggesting that a couple must be faithful in both mind and body to remain devoted. And what's the best way to reaffirm that devotion? A little of the ol' in-out in-out. Also if you like reading, try checking out this.

5. Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) - The real world of "Inception" is never well established, but it never needs to be - the only thing we know as an audience is that a top-notch group of dream-delvers must convince a man to break apart his father's company without knowing he was forced to do so; in other words, they have to plant the seed in his subconscious. The plan they create to accomplish this is completely insane - it is literally a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream scenario, wherein each realm of his psyche they push him both to come to terms with his father and himself. The real treat is the distortion of time (time in dreams is much longer than in actuality, and it grows exponentially longer the further into the subconscious you go), out of this world action sequences, and the invasion of the team's composed dream with the unstable memories of one team-members dead wife, who wants to steal him for the dream world.

4. The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) - Perhaps the most classic use of a dream in cinema is "The Wizard of Oz," and it's probably because it is honestly one of the most memorable and magical ones. Dorothy's dream plays out like an allegory of her life, but like most dreams, things are twisted and blown out of proportion - the grouchy Miss Almira is now the evil Wicked Witch of the West, and the bamboozling Professor Marvel who read Dorothy's fortune is now the fraudulent and deceptive Wizard of Oz. The jump from sepia-toned black-and-white reality to the technicolor dream world is a great use of the medium to show how bright and animated dreams can be, but Dorothy's final revelation that there's "no place like home" is the film's ultimate message - you don't need to escape to dreams to fulfill your heart's desire - it's often there all along.

3. The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975) - This movie, like many others, including Fellini's "8 1/2" and Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad," is never explicitly stated to be a dream, but flows as a dream-like state, like a novel written as a stream of consciousness would. I chose Tarkovsky "The Mirror" over others because it has the most personal flair, taking flashes from the director's own past, weaving timelines through each other, portraying life not as one long thins string, but a decorated pleat. I see this movie as the dreams of a dying artist, an old man panning for meaning from the substance of experiences, only to be thrust back to the same insecurities of chilhood. Good thing Tarkosvky was such a great artist.

2. Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001) - A dream documentary? That might be the best way to explain "Waking Life, " a trip down into a young man's mind to venture what a dream really is, and how these dreams correspond to the reality that we perceive. The film was made using the technique of rotoscoping, giving it its strange, disorienting proportions while still having the appearance of something that is ingrained in reality. The protagonist wanders his own thought-space, striking up conversations with the people he encounters on topics ranging from the paradoxical nature of free will to the meaninf of life - often with real-life experts of the field. It's a feast for the eyes and brain, and might convince you to get that minor in Philosophy.

1. Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buñuel, 1929) - Here it is, the infamous silent film that started it all, the mad concoction from the minds of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. The title doesn't make sense, the images don't make sense, there is no plot, and then there's the gruesome eye-cutting scene. Buñuel and Dalí got the idea for the movie when they were sharing the inanity of each other's dreams and decided that they would take the bits and pieces they remembered and compilate them into a short film. Sure, the film only has a 16 minute running time, but served as the basis for every dream sequence in every movie to come. Also, as far as remaining true to the often nonsensical nature of the mind, it has never been topped - but then again, how could you top the images of ants crawling out of a man's hand or a man dragging pianos with dead, rotting donkeys on top? Psychoanalyze that.

Last but not least, here's a short film one of my good friends from college made for the Berkeley Campus Movie Fest about so-called 'dream police' - Enjoy!

I'll save my breath

And now time for some Jean Luc Godard quotes:

♦ All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.

♦ I don't think you should feel about a film. You should feel about a woman, not a movie. You can't kiss a movie.

♦ To be or not to be. That's not really a question.

♦ I pity the French Cinema because it has no money. I pity the American Cinema because it has no ideas

♦ To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body. Both go together, they can't be separated.

♦ Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

Aaaand, my favorite:

♦ Your camera movements are ugly because your subjects are bad, your casts act badly because your dialogue is worthless; in a word, you don’t know how to create cinema because you no longer even know what it is.

In the words of Agent Smith, “It is inevitable...”

Alright, so I guess I've been holding this one off for a while, but being the list-frenzied movie-critic douchebag that I am, I simply have to do it. So here we go, in reverse order, my 10 favorite movies of the 2000-2009 decade with a short description why for each:

10. The Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003), for bringing a new scale to fantasy movies and David Lean-esque epics, and giving our generation a worthwhile trilogy to revisit for the rest of our lives.

9. Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007), for being the best and most pervasive indie flick to pin itself into pop culture.

8. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006), for giving the sci-fi genre the neo-realist kick it has needed for years.

7. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008), for proving that blockbusters can still be daring and successful, and epitomizing the Joker as the ultimate badass villain.

6. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001), for setting new standards of imagination and animated storytelling (a standard that Pixar has thankfully upheld for American audiences).

5. Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000), for striking the perfect balance between drama and art-house, giving meaning and beauty to every little detail of life.

4. City of God (Fernando Meirelles/Kátia Lund, 2002), for being the best blend of style and substance since Tarantino's “Pulp Fiction.”

3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004), for giving Hollywood's most perfectly imperfect couple, redefining love and relationships in a time when both need to be reexamined.

2. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007), for putting a modern lens on the American classic and giving one of the most memorable characters in modern cinema – Daniel Plainview.

1. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2002), for giving a surrealist pop dream that is as irresistible as it is confounding, raising a huge middle finger to Hollywood conventions while never compromising entertainment.

Others I Liked (in no particular order):

The Royal Tenenbaums - No Country for Old Men - Lost in Translation - The Hurt Locker - Kill Bill Vol. 1 - Amélie - Before Sunset - Y tu mamá también - Cache (Hidden) - Pan's Labyrinth - Brokeback Mountain - In the Mood for Love - Adaptation - The New World - Memento - Donnie Darko - The Incredibles - Primer - Knocked Up - Casino Royale - United 93 - Man on Wire - Almost Famous - Grizzly Man - Ghost World - Fantastic Mr. Fox - Oldboy - Black Hawk Down - Elephant - 28 Days Later... - Capturing the Friedmans - Inland Empire - The World

10 Pets I Want to Own

1.Red Fox because foxes are the coolest fucking animals on the Earth. And "Marlfox" was my favorite book of the Redwall series.

2. Hedgehog because invasive species have never been so cute and adorable. Take that California!

3. Dog so that I can be a true American.

4. Cat so that I can teach it to go to college.

5. Gollum so that whenever anyone asks me who my least favorite pet is, I can say "I hate to have to decide, but It would probably have to be Gollum."

6. Not a Pet Rock because those things live, like, forever and I don't want to have to put it through the trauma of finding another owner after I die.

7. Horse so that I could feel like Paul Revere anytime I felt like it.

8. Fish so that I could have at least one pet I can flush down the toilet when it dies.

9. Shark to keep my fish company in the oft lonesome aquarium.

10. Willem Dafoe so that I can finally train him not to pee on sofas.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: or The Midnight Movie Monopoly

The idea of a midnight movie is great - in a time when the acceptable part of society is in cozy slumber, all of the backward, reprehensible characters in the dark pits of our souls can come out and enjoy a short celebration of light-hearted debauchery together. The movement originally started on TV in the 50s, but the 70s brought it to public movie theaters, solidifying the nature of "cult movies" and bringing with it a slew of surreal mindfucks and B-movies from Alejandro Jodorowski's "El Topo" to John Waters' "Pink Flamingos." However, fast forward 40 years, and the only movie your likely to see showing late at night in your local, seedy independent theaters is "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," and it seems like it has been that way for as long as most people can remember. So what happened?

I guess for starters, Rocky Horror was the most successful and popular midnight movie of its day, debuting in 1975 and cementing cult status in 1976 because of it's sexual depravity and frank absurdity. It helped that it was perhaps the most fun of the midnight movies, displacing abstract drug-addled conceits with ridiculous dialogue and character interactions and catchy showtunes. But definitely the main reason for its popularity is the aspect of audience participation, which didn't really begin happening until the late 70s. What likely began as a few well placed jokes from audience members and theater workers as the result of weekly showings at local theaters eventually evolved into a tight-knit script. Together with the hazing of the "virgins" who have never seen the midnight show, the live actors on stage performing all of the scenes in the movie, the use of props and all of the audience cross-dressers, there's no question that Rocky Horror was and is the king of cult entertainment. But this is where the problems begin. Nowadays, movie theaters tend to stick solely with showing Rocky Horror, and this leads to interesting consequences. This mostly dawned on me when I went to a showing in Albany this past weekend, and the crowd was divided into distinct groups: those who had never seen the movie and those (mostly the cast and theater workers) who had clearly seen it way too many times. In particular, there was one guy who happened to be sitting right next to me (clearly drunk, but that's a given) who took it on himself to not just make fun of the movie, but make fun of the fact that they have to make fun of the movie. Apparently, this was to actually make watching it two times a month for 15 years endurable, where the lyrics to the Time Warp are actually "Let's do the same shit again!" and a particularly unfunny running joke about fucking the criminologists chin. This left first-time watchers completely in the dust, not knowing what to make of either the movie or the audience. My question is: if, at this point, having to sit through this movie is that difficult for even the biggest of fans, why stick with it? If I had to guess, it's for two simple reasons - it's familiar and it's easy. But for a movement that's meant to cater to the bizarre and filthy, does it really make sense to turn it into a routine?

I guess this is just my address to theaters that are still clinging on to the midnight movie only for the sake of Rocky Horror: you're doing it wrong. If you're going to open up your venue to the outsiders, at least give them an option. I'm sure you'll find an audience down to watch "Eraserhead," or even something modern, like "REPO: The Genetic Opera" or "Shortbus." For now, though, I guess we'll just have to do the time warp again.

What We Have To Apologize For

As I've gotten older, I've noticed a growing trend among the Baby Boomer generation to become increasingly apologetic for the state of the world that they are leaving to my generation. Whether they're saying “It's really our fault that climate change is happening because we all blindly guzzled down oil without thinking of the consequences, and now it's up to you to fix it. I'm sorry” or “We just put too much trust into our government and the stock market and now everything has fallen apart and now you can't find a job and I'm sorry,” one thing is certain – they feel bad that they left a lot of shit for us to take care of. And this makes me think – what are we going to have to apologize to our children for 20-25 years down the line, once we screw things up even further? This is an especially interesting question for me because I firmly believe that in the next 10-15 years Earth will be overtaken by really huge aliens, and in this scenario I don't believe the aliens will kill us, but will instead completely oppress us and use us as slaves to do their bidding. So, in 25 years time when humans become nothing more than alien sex toys, I'll have to be like “Sorry kids, we really dropped the ball on that one.”

The 10 Best Documentary Villains

I think it's safe to say that though the documentary style of filmmaking has been around for a while, it has taken an unexpected rise in the 21^st century, and a whole slew of recent documentary films have become beacons for specific social and political movements like never before. This newly popularized style of muckraking is no doubt powerful, and the most effective of these films really bend and fold the reality into a dramatic narrative in a way that speaks directly to its audience. But at the root of every problem is an antagonizer, someone or something that pulls the strings, and it's usually the role of the documentary to call these adversaries out and expose their wrongdoings to the entire world. When done right, these evildoers enter the realm of some of the greatest and most memorable movie villains ever – Hannibal Lecter, Dracula, Darth Vader, HAL 9000, and so on. So, here it goes – my list of the 10 best documentary villains:

10. 'Kids on Fire' School of Ministry, from “Jesus Camp”

“Jesus Camp” recounts the experiences of three kids who attend a religious summer camp called “Kids On Fire,” aimed to train children to become little less than warriors for God. It is an eye-opener for Christians and atheists alike as the film repeatedly shows clips of the camps lessons and ceremonies, which are less about spiritual enlightenment than about brainwashing these children to become an affecting army for their political causes, encompassing everything from fighting abortion rights to denouncing global warming. It is no wonder that shortly after the film was released, the summer camp was closed down.

9. Leopard Seals, from “March of the Penguins”

There's no question about it – penguins are cute, and in 2005 they became all the rage because of this quirky little French documentary narrated by the master of all narrators, Morgan Freeman. It's hard to believe, but seeing all the struggles these little guys have to go through to simply stay alive in the harsh conditions of Antarctica, let alone their startling determination for filial responsibility, the Emperor Penguins captured the hearts of everyone. And then there were the Leopard Seals: these godless, soulless beings who don't even think twice about gobbling up our adorable friends in an instant, especially when the penguins were just trying to return home to feed their hungry chicks.

8. President George W. Bush, from “Fahrenheit 9/11”

Michael Moore released his most political-charged film to date on the brink of the 2004 presidential election, directly targeting President George W. Bush in an effort to make him look both incapable of running this country and, even further, harmful to its welfare. And boy does it get its job done. It may not be the best of Moore's efforts and it may be preaching to an already converted audience, but the way he chronicles and tabulates Bush's every misdeed and shortfall during his first term, it's irrefutable to say that as a nation, we screwed up. Two big issues the film hits on are evidence of ties between the Bush and bin Laden family before and after 9/11 and reinforcing the point that the Iraq War was being fought on the false premise that Saddam Hussein was manufacturing nuclear weapons. The film is ripe with satirical wit, but is filled with sad truths that all point the blame to one person – the leader of our nation.

7. Arnold Friedman, from “Capturing the Freidmans”

What was first meant to be a documentary about birthday party clowns ended up being one of the darkest and foreboding films of the decade when filmmakers found out that family entertainer David Friedman's father and brother were arrested on child molestation charges. The film details the sting operation that first exposed Arnold Friedman's collection of child pornography and the eventual trial that ensued. This is interchanged with contradictory interviews from the alleged victims and news stories that blew up the case into a full-sized “witch hunt.” Still, the heart of the film isn't the trial, but the home videos taken during the whole ordeal, which painfully shows the disintegration of a family and the weakness of a discovered criminal backed into a corner.

6. Enron Heads, from “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”

By the end of 2001, after being exposed for all of its wrongdoings, Enron was certainly the most hated company in the US. What this documentary does is pick apart every front of the biggest corporate fraud in history, and at the heart of every guise and lie is the insurmountable greed of the top executives. Everyone from Jeffrey Skilling, the Head C.E.O. who came up with the idea to use “mark-to-market accounting” which would allow the company to mark future profits before they were actually achieved to Andrew Fastow, who disguised Enron's deficits by creating fake off-balance-sheet partnerships and diverting the losses to them (and soaked up any potential gains for himself) had their hand in the cookie jar. What is really scary is how smart all of these people are and the strategies they came up propped up the failing company for years, and the idea of compensating someone for a good idea is really only useful if that idea is carried through. The resulting downfall left a terrible wake, crushing everything from supportive bank investors to the entire state of California.

5. Monsanto Company, from “Food, Inc.”

Robert Kenner worked together with Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser to explore the modern world of corporate farming and food production and unearthed a world of issues that envelops everything from the basic economic structure to consumer health. Though other food companies carry their own guilt, the biggest and baddest villain of all is Monsanto Company, whose patent on genetically modified foods has completely demolished the ability of small independent farmers to conduct business. Not only do they restrict farmers from possessing their plant seeds, but they will actively seek out farms for crops containing their patent (which, of course, inevitably happens naturally with crossbreeding). Once discovered, the company files massive lawsuits for patent infringement, which it has already done to over 150 farmers, putting most offenders out of business. It is a complete rupture of free market economics and a mockery of the legal system, but for now Monsanto Company still stands tall and crushes all opposition.

4. Humans, from every Liberal Guilt Documentary

It's no secret that most documentaries have progressive roots and agendas, and it's simply because these are the easiest and most pressing issues to address to the public. Even further we have entered into the era of “Liberal Guilt”: feeling bad for the things we have because, well, having things means taking from something else. The more issues that are examined, the more one point shines with perfect clarity: humans really suck. It's shown in everything from “An Inconvenient Truth” which tells us that humans are responsible for dumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ever before (which, if continued, will have irreversible affects on global climate) to “Who Killed the Electric Car?” which reveals, when it really comes down to it, was everyone. Very recently, documentary filmmakers have become fixated on the idea that most of the problems with the world today are caused by one giant culprit – us.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2009/06/eight-best-documentaries-to-turn-you-into-a-green.html

3. Rupert Murdoch, from “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism”

This film is a thorough, unabated attack on the Fox News Channel and media mogul Rupert Murdoch for their right-wing agenda and biased coverage despite the slogan “Fair and Balanced.” Fox News is the sole subject, but the movie hits on something bigger – the death of honest news to the whims of subjectivity and opinion for the sake of ratings (it even brings up the 1976 classic “Network” as a startling voice of reason). At the head of this bastion of misinformation is Rupert Murdoch, the enabler who knows that people would sooner listen to constant reinforcement of their own beliefs rather than any reality that will challenge them, leading to a network whose purpose is not to inform but to incite. At its core, Fox News is propaganda at the basest of forms, and it is still continuously the most watched cable news channel in the United States, which simply means that for now, Rupert Murdoch has won.

2. The Japanese Fishermen, from “The Cove”

The most recent winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary is a thrill of a film; it not only reveals a chilling reality about the Japanese whaling industry, but it takes us on a journey along with the filmmakers as they work against the seemingly impossible odds of trying to get the film made. Ric O'Barry heads a team of activists trying to document the slaughter of an estimated 23,000 dolphins by the Japanese fishermen every year during the hunt for amusement park dolphins. Though this seems to be a straightforward task, his team is met with constant opposition from the entire town of Taiji. They overcome incredible obstacles to set up cameras in the infamous cove where the massacre takes place, evading constant surveillance from the police and local volunteers who will apparently do anything to prevent any footage from escaping the cove. What is especially infuriating is the way they block our heroes with the utmost arrogance and scorn, making the audience hate everything about them. The footage that the group is finally able to obtain, and the astonishing truths that they reveal is little less than amazing.

1. Billy Mitchell, from “King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters”

Most other villains on this list are not single persons but huge conglomerates that have in some way or another harmed the public. However, my number one most evil villain for this list is just one person, a person hwith a would-be innocent background: Billy Mitchell was famous for setting the all-time high scores for a number of classic arcade games, most notably Donkey Kong. However, when his score is challenged by Steve Wiebe, a nobody from Washington who crushes Mitchell's all-time high score from his garage, Mitchell releases a fury of vengeance. Wiebe's Donkey Kong console is sabotaged by affiliates of Mitchell, and Mitchell uses influence on the official tracker of gaming high scores, Twin Galaxies, to completely defame Wiebe. Perhaps it's because Steve Wiebe is such a tragic hero – an ex-Boeing employee who is now a humble science teacher, a star pitcher who fell short of fame due to an injury, a defeated soul who still has the drive to do anything he sets his mind to; or perhaps it is because Billy Mitchell is such a familiar antagonist – the bully who is too big and powerful for you to do anything when he carelessly sweeps you aside and shames you in front of everyone, but Billy Mitchell is certainly a villain, and in the context of documentaries, the most effective one in my books.