The End of my Favourite Cup

I just walked down to the kitchen to find my favourite cup of the last seven years on the bench, it was broken. Why? Was someone merely clumsy? Or is there more sinister elements afoot? Revenge for the mug I broke a couple of days ago maybe?

There was nothing I liked more than to drink ginger beer from that cup. With its blue swirls and frosted style it once belonged to a whole family of four... or six of these beautiful cups which were systematically destroyed until only one remained... man, I wish I named him/her. That cup lasted a good while after its brothers and sisters and has always had a place with me in my flats.

So, I need a new favourite cup. What to do?

On totally unrelated news, I just finished watching the final episode of Arrested Development - now that was one nice way to end the series. Could it be the most incestuous show ever? (with maybe the exception of some soap operas)

Best Movies of 2000

Wow. Weak year. The Coen Brothers grab their second top spot though O Brother is probably the weakest of all the top films so far (with the possible exception of No Country For Old Men - but that needs time to fully cement itself in place. Fact is, the Coen Brothers did their best work in the 90s)

1. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel & Ethan Coen)
2. State & Main (David Mamet)
3. Memento (Christopher Nolan)
4. Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe)
5. Best In Show (Christopher Guest)
6. Chicken Run (Peter Lord & Nick Park)
   
7. High Fidelity (Stephen Frears)
   
8. Small Time Crooks (Woody Allen)
9. X-Men (Bryan Singer)
10. Dinner Rush (Bob Giraldi)
    

Best Movies of 2001

2001 is the biggest year so far - I've considered 20 films from that year to be noteworthy. The top film, Amelie, would be one of most important films for me ever.

1. Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
2. Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly)
3. The Royal Tenebaums (Wes Anderson)
4. Gosford Park (Robert Altman)
5. Monsters Inc. (Peter Docter, Lee Unkrich & David Silverman)
6. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki)
7. Shrek (Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jensen)
8. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch)
9. Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff)
10. Moulin Rogue! (Baz Luhrmann)
11. Waking Life (Richard Linklater)
12. The Man Who Wasn't There (Joel & Ethan Coen)
13. Ocean's 11 (Steven Soderbergh)
14. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson)
15. Zoolander (Ben Stiller)
16. Y tu mama tambien (Alfonso Cuaron)
17. The Closet (Francis Veber)
18. Rain (Christine Jeffs)
19. The Score (Frank Oz)
    
20. Buffalo Soldiers (Gregor Jordan)
    

Best Movies of 2002

Those first four films on the list are so deliciously weird, 2002 certainly provided some excellent "weird" films that I love so much. Oscar winner Chicago rounds out that top five. Adaptation is the film that made me interested in film, before that I was a fairly apathetic film viewer.

Adaptation and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind makes the second and third Charlie Kaufman penned film to make the top five. George Clooney and Paul Thomas Anderson also make their second apperance in the top five as directors.

1. Adaptation (Spike Jonze)
2. Secretary (Steven Shainberg)
   
3. Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson)
4. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (George Clooney)
5. Chicago (Rob Thomas)
6. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Peter Jackson)
7. City of God (Fernando Meirelles & Katia Lund)
   
8. Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg)
9. The Hours (Stephen Daldry)
   
10. The Bourne Identity (Doug Liman)
    
11. Dirty Pretty Things (Stephen Frears)
    
12. One Hour Photo (Mark Romanek)
13. Ice Age (Chris Wedge & Carlos Saldanha)
    

Best Movies of 2003

Until recently, Scarlett Johansson could have secured herself a second first place finish after Match Point in 2005 but The Triplets of Belleville - an amazing animated french film has displaced her from that honour. Me repeating myself doesn't stop there - Finding Nemo is the third Pixar film to end up in the top five and the fourth to appear in these lists. Tim Burton and the Coen Brothers have also now made two apperances in the top ten.

1. The Triplets of Belleville (Sylvain Chomet)
   
2. Lost In Translation (Sofia Coppola)
   
3. American Splendour (Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini)
   
4. Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich)
   
5. Shattered Glass (Billy Ray)
   
6. Big Fish (Tim Burton)
   
7. Kitchen Stories (Bent Hamer)
   
8. Intolerable Cruelty (Joel & Ethan Coen)
   
9. Goodbye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker)
   
10. 21 Grams (Alejandro Inarritu)
    
11. X2: X-Men United (Bryan Singer)
    
12. Matchstick Men (Ridley Scott)
    
13. School of Rock (Richard Linklater)
    
14. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Gore Verbinski)
    
15. Bad Santa (Terry Zwigoff)
    

Best Movies of 2004

Ahhh, 2004. My first year of university. Though with the exception of Eternal Sunshine, Mean Girls and Shrek 2 I saw the majority of these films the next year. I remember it as the year of Fahrenheit 9/11 and the Passion of the Christ. Two films that greatly disturbed my experiences with cinema that year, the former for its horrible documentary practises and the latter for highlighting my preference to not watch a film that was solely about someone getting cruificied. 2004 nevertheless turned out to be an important year of cinema for me - especially the film that came in first - one of my most favourite films of all time.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)
2. I Heart Huckabees (David O. Russell)
3. The Incredibles (Brad Bird)
4. In My Father's Den (Brad McGann)
5. Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess)
6. Sideways (Alexander Payne)
7. Night Watch (Timur Bekmambetov)
8. A Very Long Engagement (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
9. Mean Girls (Mark Waters)
10. Garden State (Zach Braff)
11. Shrek 2 (Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury & Conrad Vernon)
12. The Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass)
13. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (Wes Anderson)
14. Primer (Shane Carruth)
    
15. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azakaban (Alfonso Cuaron)
    
16. Team America: World Police (Trey Parker)
    

Best Movies of 2005

Finding a list of movies was a bit harder for 2005 than it was for 2006. Though I haven't seen the most popular film at the Oscars that year: Brokeback Mountain or any foreign film it seems. Nevertheless...

1. Match Point (Woody Allen)
2. Serenity (Joss Whedon)
3. Me & You & Everyone We Know (Miranda July)
4. Good Night & Good Luck (George Clooney)
5. Sin City (Robert Rodrigeuz & Frank Miller)
6. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Nick Park & Steve Box)
7. Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan)
   
8. Capote (Bennett Miller)
   
9. The Squid & The Whale (Noah Baumbach)
   
10. The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Garth Jennings)
    

Top Movie of 2010?

I'm going to make a bold useless prediction right now. The Yiddish Policemen's Union is going to be the best movie of 2010.

Fresh off watching the awesome No Country For Old Men, I was reading up on the Coen Brother's next film: Burn After Reading (trailer below - looks promising) when I found out that a couple of projects down the line, the Coen Brothers intend to adapt Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union which I'm in the middle of reading. I must say, that this is a match made in heaven - I was thinking as I was reading how perfect it will be if the Coen Brothers made a movie from it - it's scheduled to be released in 2010 but knowing reality will probably be delayed - especially as two of their movies will be released before we get to see this. This is one project I'm excited about.

Best Movies of 2006

Looking back at 2006 I think it was a pretty good year for movies. I've managed to come up with a nice big list of cool movies that I quite liked from that year - and still plenty of quality movies I'm sure are out there. Of course these movies all have the benefit of being fresh to me. Most of them I saw only last year. It'll be interesting to see if these movies can handle five years of time.

1. Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
   
2. Thank You For Smoking (Jason Reitman)
   
3. The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry)
   
4. The Prestige (Christopher Nolan)
5. Day Watch (Timur Bekmambetov)
   
6. The Departed (Martin Scorcese)
   
7. Scoop (Woody Allen)
   
8. The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
   
9. Casino Royale (Martin Campbell)
   
10. Brick (Rian Johnson)
    
11. The Bothersome Man (Jens Lien)
    
12. A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman)
    
13. V For Vendetta (James McTeigue)
    
14. Stranger Than Fiction (Marc Foster)
    
15. Cars (John Lasseter & Joe Ranft)
    
16. Running With Scissors (Ryan Murphy)
    
17. Fast Food Nation (Richard Linklater)
    

Best Movies of 2007

One thing that obsesses me is the constant battle of ranking my favourite things. So I've decided to embark on a journey of ranking my favourite movies of all time. I'm going to do this at a painfully slow pace - year by year. I'll start with last year - not that this list means much as I've yet to see a lot of 2007 movies. I rarely venture to the theatre and mainly watch movies by renting them on $3 or $1 days at the rental places. I've seen a few though - enough to put together a collection of more than ten movies that I enjoyed last year. So I haven't started too badly.

1. No Country For Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen)
   
2. Ratatouille (Brad Bird)
   
3. Juno (Jason Reitman)
   
4. Sweeney Todd (Tim Burton)
   
5. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson)
   
6. Eagle vs. Shark (Taika Cohen)
   
7. Planet Terror (Robert Rodriguez)
   
8. Death at a Funeral (Frank Oz)
   
9. Sunshine (Danny Boyle)
   
10. The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass)
    
11. Zodiac (David Fincher)
    

Favourite Movies Project

This is going to be an index page for my favourite movies project. Where I intend to track my favourite movies of all time. I'm going to go year by year. I can't remember why anymore... but here's all the links...

Decade by Decade
The 2000s

Best Movies By Year
2007 - No Country For Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen)
2006 - Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
2005 - Match Point (Woody Allen)
2004 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)
2003 - The Triplets of Belleville (Sylvain Chomet)
2002 - Adaptation. (Spike Jonze)
2001 - Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
2000 - O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel & Ethan Coen)
1999 - Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze)
1998 - The Big Lebowski (Joel & Ethan Coen)
1997 - Deconstructing Harry (Woody Allen)
1996 - Fargo (Joel & Ethan Coen)

Linky. Well. One Link.

Awesome post on Brain Stab.

Clean Day.

One exam down!

Yesterday saw me finish off my first exam - Economics of Health and Education - and I now have a nice week and a half before my next three - which occur in two days, otherwise known as hell.

So today is Clean Day, my room needed a good clean and it now smells like vacuum cleaner and spray and wipe. My axolotl, Napoleon also needed a clean so I spent an hour doing that. He's now completely stressed out as he hates anyone interfering with his kingdom.

It was also cool how Barack Obama secured the nomination last night. About time - now we got to get onto the election - what an epic one that shall be.

Finally, Arrested Development quote of the moment from the third season. By my favourite character Tobias: Okay, Lindsay, are you forgetting that I was a professional twice over— an analyst and a therapist. The world's first analrapist.

May in Movies

I watched a lot of movies in May. 21 to be exact, that brings my total for the year up to 86. The best movie I watched was The Triplets of Belleville which scored a perfect 10/10 for me.
Coming up next would be the Akira Kurosawa film The Hidden Fortress. This is only the third Kurosawa film I've seen and I must watch some more.
Coming up in third place tied with a 9/10 rating are The Lady Eve (review), To Be or not to Be and No Country For Old Men.
And some special consideration for: Planet Terror (review), Raiders of the Lost Ark (review) and There Will Be Blood.

Happy June

I woke up this morning to the news that we have hit a new month: June. This fact scares the shits out of me. What the hell am I going to do when this month is over? I'm going to be so fucked.

I watched Hairspray last night. I must say that I admire the campy fun, everything else just seemed so forced - the acting, the script, the songs, the computer generated helicopter shot at the start. How are you supposed to have fun when you're being forced to?