The Badger Herald

ARTSETC.

Rewinding through past DVDs, pausing on best

by Alex Garens

Monday, May 5, 2008

Since this is my last column, since any new DVD releases worth reviewing have already been covered in theaters, since summer-themed movies seemed trite and since everyone already knows which summer blockbuster hits to watch for (the new “Indiana Jones,” “WALL-E,” and “The Dark Knight”), I’m going to reflect on the movies I’ve reviewed for this column as well as all the rest.

Although several movies came close, the mark of film perfection — those five holy stars — remain pristinely untouched. A good critic ought not dole out perfect scores willy-nilly or they’d soon lose their supreme value. What then, are films worthy of being ranked the “best of the best?” In my (somewhat humble) opinion, and based only on the few hundred movies I’ve seen and can recall, here are a few categories of “the best.”

Best Director

Perhaps I’m particularly harsh on directors, but typically speaking they’re simply good or they’re bad — the bad ones almost always continue spewing garbage while the good ones seldom make a flop. (Though one need not look further than Guillermo del Toro and Ang Lee for respective exceptions.) While Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Clint Eastwood and the like are some of the most consistently impressive directors, Tim Burton, Hayao Miyazaki, Sophia Coppola and especially the notoriously eccentric Lars von Trier are among the directors who have managed to add a distinguished and nuanced variety to film in ways much more interesting, yet less acclaimed, than the Coen brothers’ simple lack-of-narrative tricks.

Best Composer

Perhaps one of the most underappreciated aspects of any film is the score, which is essentially the pulse that sustains the rest of the film. Although it’s been proven a film can thrive with a minimalist score or even no score at all, the industry’s top composers are truly modern-day Mozarts in their own artistic right. Soundtracks are capable of becoming incredibly potent cultural agents; the Imperial March and the “Jaws” theme are extreme examples, but even most people today would recognize many songs from “Harry Potter” or “The Lord of the Rings.” Aside from the industry legend, John Williams, some of the most striking contemporary scores include Philip Glass’s work on “The Hours,” Howard Shore’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy scores and Hans Zimmer’s work on “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Tear Jerkers

There is no contest that the two saddest movies I’ve ever seen are “Schindler’s List” and “Hotel Rwanda.” What could be sadder than genocide? A close call and sadder than most war movies, “Letters to Iwo Jima” is also quite a downer. Lastly, the saddest nonhistoric film goes to “Dancer in the Dark,” in which a young mother (played by Björk) losing her eyesight falls victim to the basest depths of human greed and hate. “House of Sand and Fog,” “Nobody Knows” and “Requiem for a Dream” are also mercilessly depressing with their depictions of humans struggling to merely exist in this bleak world of ours.

Funnies

While humor is arguably much more subjective than gloom, a few of the better comedies include Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall,” perhaps the only movie ever to be based off a board game, “Clue,” the very dark-humored “The Upside of Anger,” the existentialist “I Heart Huckabees” and horror-comedy “Shaun of the Dead.”

Scariest

When it comes down to sheer gross-out and the I-can’t-believe-what-I’m-seeing factor, Alexander Aja’s “The Hills Have Eyes” remake and “High Tension” are unbeatable (and almost unbearable), though “The Descent” will have you scared shitless as well. Also high on cheap yet effective scares are 2004’s “Dawn of the Dead” and “Wolf Creek.”

For a more classic effect, “Rear Window” and its modern adaptation “Disturbia” deliver a tense, creepy paranoia, while classics “The Shining” and “Silence of the Lambs” are timelessly unnerving. And although nearly all the subsequent Asian-horror remakes have been terrible, “The Ring” remains one of the creepiest movies I’ve ever seen.

Best Animated

While there are plenty of great animated films by Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and other animation studios (“The Lion King,” “Mulan” and “Finding Nemo” among the better ones), the category carries the unfortunate stigma of being somewhat childish. While this has yet to be defied in American cinema, Japanese directors Hayao Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon have shown time and time again that animated movies can carry very potent adult themes, amounting to more than childish fun. Notable works from Miyazaki include “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “Princess Mononoke,” which tackle themes of war and the destruction of the environment, while Kon’s “Millenium Actress” and “Paprika” are cautionary stories about blurring fantasy and reality too much.

Well, there you have it. I hope you’ve added at least a few of these to your Netflix queue. If not, you’re probably too busy watching Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell movies anyway. Thanks, dear readers, for tolerating my opinionated column this last year.

Have a pleasant summer, and keep in touch with questions, recommendations, denunciations and whatnot at agarens@badgerherald.com.