I know I said I’d have the last two reviews for you on Friday, and now it’s Monday and I still haven’t gotten them done, but that’s the problem with setting deadlines for yourself, you’re too lenient. I will be getting them done soon, and I just recently watched one of the movies I’m going to be writing about today, so I wanted to take my time in writing about it because there really is a lot to talk about. In time, friends.

As for the show on Friday, it went well as it could have, though my voice was in terrible shape, Rick did a great job accompanying on banjo, and Alison did a great job accompanying on vocals. We sold a CD, people were nice, we played three new songs, there should be plenty more to come and maybe if we keep playing, we could have a new CD. Who knows, this world is crazy.

Anyways, yes, working on reviews. Yes, the site does lull sometimes. And yes, the reviews will be good. Good enough for you?

Because I feel like crap today and I don’t want to spend all day in a coffee shop, I’m postponing the last two movie reviews that I have. I have a ton of writing to do still, and all I really want to do is eat some eggs or something and take a nap. I’m a little nervous I won’t be able to sing tomorrow, which would suck because I would like to put on a good last show for Stuart’s, so I’m going to go home, east some eggs or something, and take a nap.

Dir. Edgar Wright | 2004
For some reason, Americans will never get the satisfaction of having such a wry sense of humor as the British. I don’t think I’ll ever hear anyone say, “That movie had a very American sense of humor to it,” unless, of course, they’re talking about something completely tedious, droll, or just plain bad. Regardless, I don’t even know if this movie would qualify as something particularly British, and even if it did, it’d be a shame to just relegate it to that one description since it’s so much more than that.

The humor, while at times is juvenile, is also very subtle. It may not even be that it’s subtle, it could just be that it’s entrenched in the horror-genre cliches like so many inside jokes. Like many of the meta-horror films we’ve seen since Blair Witch, it also toys with comedy structure and of course the blurring of reality versus fantasy. But even deconstructing it like that cheapens the whole thing. Fine comedic performances and your classic gory special effects had me laughing out loud in the theater and cringing at the same time.

The flat out funniest moments of the film are when Nick Frost is being the goofiest and most endearing loser you’ve ever met in your life, all in the midst of life-threatening situations. The first encounter with the zombie woman in the backyard is the best, I almost peed my pants in the theater as Ed grabs the polaroid and takes a picture of the zombie-woman with a hole in her stomach trying to eat Shaun. The best kinds of friends are those that take the piss out of you one second and bring you a beer the next, which is why the best interactions to watch in the film are between Ed and Shaun, not Shaun and Liz.

Surprisingly touching near the end, the tone of the film takes a few turns and loses a bit of steam here and there, but the first half-hour is so solid, I’d watch the entire movie again just for those few parts. It could be just me, too, though, because the appeal of watching slacker-losers come out on top during zombie infestations is more than enough to make me feel as if there’s hope that my life will one day gain some validity.

I mean, I can seriously kick the shit out of some zombies. Try me.

Dir. Zach Braff | 2004
Every once in a while, someone in the mainstream media, or in this case, a highly-popular sitcom, proves to be something more than just a terribly lucky individual who managed to score his own tv show. A certain fascination overtakes me when I hear that Brad Pitt is a huge Radiohead fan, and that Ed Norton is a fairly intelligent individual. To hear that Zach Braff has pretty impeccable tastes in music is an unfortunate development to those that would rather see their favorite bands toil in obscurity. All a long way of saying that Mr. Braff is part of the reason The Postal Service, Iron and Wine, Death Cab for Cutie, and The Shins all are for now, extremely recognizable brands of Indie Rock.

But for everyone else, those that welcome success for the good things they believe in, and those that are delighted by it accompanying such a film as Garden State, well, then it’s just a nice surprise.

And that was what Garden State was– Braff’s directorial and writing debut is the classic “coming of age, again” story, a romantic comedy that is carried by random sight gags, an extremely crushable Natalie Portman, every indie rocker’s dream, and a stellar supporting performance by Peter Sarsgaard.

I’ve read a lot of reviews criticizing Braff for casting himself as the lead, but ignore those. It doesn’t take away anything from the film, but again, it doesn’t really add much either. I’d say that Braff does an adequate job of playing deadpan, something that we’ve never really seen from him before in Scrubs. Really, we haven’t seen him in anything other than Scrubs, so criticizing him for appearing in his own movie is just a waste of time. That’s not the story anyway.

The script was good, it had its moments, but what I noticed most about this film was the moments that work best are the ones that are silent. Watching it at home on DVD didn’t have as much impact as it did watching it in a theater, where the starkness of many scenes really tended to play themselves out much better than at home. Even still, that is not what drew me most to this movie.

Though I hate to diminish what Braff’s done, what is freshest about this film is the timing. Every few years there’s a requirement that a movie fill the void that your average twenty-something develops because of varying elements of life events. All you need for it to become a cult-classic is a good soundtrack, a few witticisms, and good chemistry between a man and woman. It’s what Goodwill Hunting has, it’s what Lost In Translation has, it’s what Garden State has.

It’s moments like this, where the ebb of the traditional mainstream music meets the flow of good independent music and inspires someone to do something simple and effective. It’s a necessity. Braff shows great potential and I’m hoping he builds on the sense of style that is a little under-developed here and can become the type of auteur that tends to be painfully absent from Hollywood.

Dir. Brad Bird | 2004
So many top-notch aspects of this film were not even the things that everyone went ga-ga over. Sure, the animation was pitch-perfect, the voice-acting was superb, the storyline and dialogue was smart, snappy and entertaining. But did you see those end titles? The way each new little vignette brought back some part of the story and the cast and crew names looked like they were sticking out of the screen? How about the music and how each time you heard something it was totally old-school style spy music, it all sounded so familiar yet didn’t make you think that this was just a re-hash of old James Bond soundtracks.

But yes, that’s only a small part of what is overall probably one of the best films of last year. Sarah Vowell playing the part of an insecure girl that can be turn invisible? Coach as Mr. Incredible? Craig T. Nelson is almost as convincing as David Putty/Johnny Johnson, which is what makes him a better choice for the part, playing that vulnerable aging man trying to fit into a new world.

It’s funny that the new reality is that a fish out of water is the only thing people ever want to watch anymore. I’d be complaining if I didn’t like this movie so much. Tired of only seeing cutesy shit in Pixar films, this finally adds the human touch that is so prevalent in the animals and other inanimate objects we’ve seen. As long as this is the final week before the Oscars, I’ll say this: There were maybe 10 major animated pictures this year. None of them came close to being as good as this, and The Incredibles is probably better than half of the live-action films that came out this year, based on script alone. Ya heard?

Dir. Alexander Payne | 2004
Despite the fact that Paul Giamatti was seriously snubbed by the academy for his performance in this film, he pretty much made it. Church did a fine job as well, but without the contrast to Giamatti’s pathetic disposition, his wild rendering of a man on his last bachelor leg would have been more annoying than it was originally.

The problem with a road movie about a recent divorcee (and according to most popular film, “recent” constitutes as long as it takes to get over your ex-) is that they all ultimately come off the same; guy mopes, his friend takes him out, he screws it up initially because he’s still hung-up, and then finally finds the courage to go at it with sincerity because he’s found someone he sincerely likes.

Comedic moments notwithstanding, and there are quite a few of them, Giamatti has the uncanny facial expression of a man never comfortable with his own skin. He isn’t the most attractive of men, and hell, even Church has a oldness to him that makes his face look a lot more leathery than in his Wings days. The fact that both are relatively normal looking and live less than glamorous lives, well, it’s a far cry from Swingers.

Church acting like he’d fuck a zebra if it looked like it would give him its stripes was ugly but funny to watch. Watching Giamatti is just depressing. What’s more inviting about Sideways, rather than the drunk depressive or the out-of-control womanizer, is the dynamics of the relationship between Giamatti and Church, the more or less unconditional acceptance of the others flaws and respective shortcomings. And this isn’t just one or two things with each person, both characters have several, severe handicaps.

The way Alexander Payne works in this film is a lot like the others, they always start out with people of absolutely inane and poor character. Weak-willed and mopey, but eventually they break out of their shell to what may or may not be construed as “coming into their own”. In Election, we saw Matthew Broderick working as a tour guide in Washington, D.C., seemingly happier but more learned than when we first met him. In About Schmidt (which was the weakest of the three of Payne’s films), Nicholson coped and excelled past the death of his wife, but when all was ssaid and done, his wife was still dead, and Jack Nicholson was still Jack Nicholson (the same Nicholson that didn’t deserve an Oscar nomination for the same old shit).

Sideways works the same way, where the conclusion plays out of your own personal feelings about the situation. It’s not entirely an open ending, but you get the idea. The difference between these and the other films is still Giamatti. And yet no nomination.

The women in the film are for the most part, used. It’s not as bad as it seems though, because this film isn’t really about the women dealing with their divorces, deadbeat husbands or cheating boyfriends; it’s about one man’s struggle with insignificance. The best line of the entire film is “I’m so insignificant, I can’t even kill myself.” And with Church, the road, some wine and just a little spark, he builds on what little he has going for him.

It’s rare that you start with a decent script these days, and with that, Giamatti took this average coming-of-age-again road film and turned it into something that wouldn’t have gotten as much hype if someone else was cast. But if the Academy was fair, Scorsese would have gotten the Best Director award at least 4 nominations ago.

Dir. Sam Raimi | 2004
The “classic beauty” of Kirsten Dunst and the “school boy demeanor” or Tobey Maguire were what made the first film. Typically, you could narrow down someone’s opinion of the film to their relationship to either of the two characters. If you add Willam Dafoe and his brash and idiotic son (James Franco), you tend to get a little more of a negative reaction. The Goblin is just a little hokey for even this sweet and cheesy film. You take out the bad stuff, save for James Franco, who gets a small reprisal in the second film, and you get a better film. For the most part.

Molina as Doc Ock was benign, almost a side-story to Spider-man’s self-pity, -introspection, -exploration, and subsequent -re-discovery. Despite the navel gazing, something about this film helped move along the franchise, though some could view the character development as minor, it seemed adequate. What worked, stayed, namely the relationship with the two kids, and since Peter Parker has to re-learn his abilities, all Raimi had to do was re-film some of the best parts of the last film. What didn’t work, well, just didn’t.

Replacing the heavy-handed kid-ness of the first film is heavy-handed attempts at symbolism and Christ figures. The train scene was annoyingly obvious about it, and though I think Spider-man is cool and would carry a lot of responsibility, I d never really feel sorry for him. Grateful? Sure, but it’s hard to feel sorry for a guy that can climb up walls, shoot webs from his wrists, and have the balls to reject Mary Jane simply out of “responsibility”.

Dir. Jared Hess | 2004
With something so distinctly echoing Eastern Washington and Idaho, you’d assume that I’d hold a film like this close to my heart. Despite the resemblances to my high school hometown, I’m impressed by Napoleon Dynamite, but with reservations. The writing is superb, there’s several odd and quirky characters that make the film one of the most quotable from last year, but what Napoleon Dynamite fails to do is provide the type of zeal and acting that makes the characters believable counterparts to real-life weirdoes.

Napoleon’s over-the-top nerdiness and accompanying indifference to what people think about him are exactly what separates him from someone I’d care about and someone that just seems to be playing the part because it’s what he’s best at. And his silent kinship with Pedro is the closest thing to a relationship that he has.

While their interactions never beg for anything beyond the “I know you’re different but you’re my only friend so that’s fine” attitude, it’s pretty tedious to watch all these people doing funny things but never really actually doing anything at all.

That said, I think it’s hilarious to just walk around and say stuff like “I caught you a delicious bass.” or “I spent like three hours shading the upper lip. It’s probably the best drawing I’ve ever done.” An exasperated teenager huffing and puffing is the most consistently funny thing to watch, even though the sparseness and the pathos of the other characters wears a little bit on the comedy. But hey, if laughing at people that don’t understand how awful you think their lives are is something you can’t get enough of, then this movie is hilarious.

Dir. Mark Waters | 2004
My sister asked me if I wanted to see this while it was still in the theaters, and I refused, because I really was clueless. See what having Lindsay Lohan star in your film can do? Regardless, I eventually found out that Tina Fey’s involvement and it suddenly become more intriguing, her comedic sense made this movie worth seeing. Even though she flounders a bit during the Weekend Update on SNL, I’ve always found her appearances on Conan entertaining because of the dog movies she always brings with her. Lindsay Lohan does a fine job of acting the teenage fish out of water and the slightly “Heathers”-ish vibe brings a little flavor to the bland teen comedy party.

Tim Meadows plays a bit part and still makes me laugh out loud, just like Rob Schneider in practically every Adam Sandler movie. You might think that you’d get tired of all these Saturday Night Live hacks trying to make funny movies, but then you see a good one, and you thank God Lorne Michaels is an idiot sometimes.

Dir. David O. Russel | 2004
Just like any other child star, Max Fischer will forever be known as the kid from Rushmore. I’m sorry, did I say Max Fischer? I meant the drummer from Phantom Planet. How come two ex-musicians can’t be known for their burgeoning acting careers, I mean, Marky Mark has certainly come a long way from “Good Vibrations”, and his performance in this film is delightfully anarchistic, an over-the-top portrayal of liberal guilt and disassociation from patriotism in the post-9/11 world.

Lily Tomlin does her best impression of Angelica Huston in her Royal Tenenbaums role, or maybe it’s just that the only performance of hers that I find particularly memorable is in All of Me, which creeped the hell out of me as a child. Dustin Hoffman is plain and Hoffmanesque, there’s something in the way he delivers his lines so matter-of-factly all the time, probably a holdover from that Oscar win for Rain Man. Definitely, yeah, definitely, definitely.

In all, the story is a complicated test of focus on Waking Life material, all existentialism and absurdism. And there is a difference, however insignificant it may be. The philosophy is good; Marky Mark yelling, “I am not a hero!” is even better.

At moments it seems David O. Russell is trying too hard for comedic absurdism, that whole sex in the mud scene was awkward and unnatural, laughing at it felt more juvenile than ironic, while laughing at the other quirks just seemed more… adult.

As odd and funny as moments of this film are, it’s a far cry from the reality of the absurd in Three Kings, where Spike Jonze, Ice Cube, George Clooney and Marky Mark are in gunfight in the Iraqi desert while Chicago blasts from a stolen Mercedes.

“If you leave me now, you’ll take away the biggest part of me. Ooh, no, baby please don’t go…”

Now that, my friends, is genius.