And now for a look back at some of the greatest things in 2009.
AMY ADAMS - With SUNSHINE CLEANING, JULIE AND JULIA, and even NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2, Amy Adams once again proved why it was worth going to the multiplex.
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM’S SEINFELD REUNION - While the overall season of CURB was a bit hit and miss, the reunion scenes made you realize just how much TV comedy has suffered over the past ten years without Seinfeld. Who ever knew you could become so emotional just seeing that diner set once again?
TED DANSON - Was there a more entertaining performance this year than Ted Danson in HBO's BORED TO DEATH? His George Plimpton like publisher was the funniest character on TV this year, and Danson’s best role since CHEERS. There shouldn't even be any voting, just give him the Emmy.
EXPECTATIONS VS REALITY - The (500) DAYS OF SUMMER party sequence. From it’s use of music (“Hero” by Regina Spektor) to the split screen, one of the finest movie scenes of the year.
NEIL PATRICK HARRIS - The man can do no wrong. From hosting the Tony’s (the best of the Award shows this year) to hosting the Emmys, to continuing his role as Barney on HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (which is having its best season currently), he is one of the true stars of the year.
MIRANDA LAMBERT - With her third album, Miranda Lambert proves that there are real musicians making music today.
REGINA SPEKTOR - A favorite of critics for years, I finally caught up with Regina this year, with her new CD, and even getting to see her live. She has quickly become a new favorite, with “Dance Anthem of the 80’s” possibly my favorite song of the year.
THE WEDDING DANCERS - Already parodied on THE OFFICE, with over 36 million views on YouTube, I haven’t gotten sick of this yet. I still love it. The Best YouTube Video of the year.
KRISTEN WIIG - SNL, ADVENTURELAND, EXTRACT and WHIP IT. Another great year for Kristen Wiig.
2009 has been one of the better years for films. Not that it was filled with masterpieces, in fact, I really can’t think of one masterpiece being released this year. However, there were plenty of great films that made it to theatres.
For the first time in several years, I have made up a ten best list. I have seen most of the major films, with a few minor exceptions.
The list is in order of their release. I’m not going to attempt to rank them.
Here are my ten best films of 2009.
I LOVE YOU, MAN - Paul Rudd and Jason Segal in the funniest comedy of the year.
SUNSHINE CLEANING - Amy Adams and Emily Blunt starred in this wonderful offbeat family drama.
ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL - The documentary on a heavy metal band that refuses to give up on their dreams. Even though I'm not a heavy metal fan, I loved this film.
ADVENTURELAND - Greg Mottola’s look back on summer jobs of the 1980’s. A perfectly realized look at the era.
THE COVE - Part documentary, part suspense film, this look at the dolphin trade in Japan was one of the most horrifying and thought provoking films of the year.
THE HURT LOCKER - The best of the recent Iraq war films, although I hesitate to say that as it is so much more. This is one of the most suspenseful films of the past decade. And, one of the best.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - While not a perfect film (I could have done without every scene involving the overacting Brad Pitt) this was Quentin Tarantino’s best film since JACKIE BROWN.
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER - A romantic comedy for those that hate romantic comedies. It features the year's greatest scene, the “expectations vs reality” party scene.
WHIP IT - When I made up my ten best list, I added this to my first draft. Then I thought “Wait, do I really want to add Drew Barrymore’s roller derby film that no one saw?” Then, I realized, “Yeah, I do. It was that good”. Since then, I’ve seen it turn up on other ten best lists. It may turn out to be the year’s most underrated film.
UP IN THE AIR - George Clooney’s best role in years in the year’s most timely film.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:FANTASTIC MR. FOX,THE ROCK-AFIRE EXPLOSION
You may know Lucas McNelly from his blog 100 Films. Or you might have seen his earlier film GRAVIDA.
His latest is BLANC DE BLANC. This is his first feature. And, it is his best film yet.
This was made as an experiment, as part of a Twitter project where a group of filmmakers around the world made films in only two weeks. Lucas took part and BLANC DE BLANC is the result.
Without giving too much away, the film is about a relationship that develops between a seemingly homeless man and a nurse.
The film is beautifully shot making excellent use of Pittsburgh locations. Starring Rachel Shaw, the star of his previous film GRAVIDA, this shows that Lucas is working at a much higher level than the mumblecore filmmakers. Where the film goes, the way the mood of the film changes, it is always unexpected.
Lucas agreed to do an interview about the film and his process.
How did you get involved with the 2 Week Movie?
One of the first things I noticed when I joined Twitter is that there's this circle of filmmakers working on small budgets who pretty much spend large chunks of their day talking about films, the filmmaking processes, and all of the various things filmmakers talk about when they're all in a room together (only, they're all bored at their day jobs).
Basically, the idea came from an off-hand comment from Reid Gershbein about how the best way to prevent the logjam of trying to get projects going was to just make a film in 2 weeks. Everyone laughed, but then as we started talking about it, we realized it wasn't the worst idea in the world. I thought about it for a day or two and decided that if I could find an idea that would work, I'd give it a shot.
What were the rules?
The idea happened near the end of April, and we decided that the 2 weeks had to finish (basically, a fine cut) by the end of May. So basically we had 3 weeks for pre-production and started filming on the 14th of May. When this started, we had no story, so we had to completely start from scratch.
The #2wkfilm versions of all three films (mine, Reid's, and Mike Peter Reed's) all screened as part of the Portobello Film Festival in London.
Was it a difficult process?
Oh yeah.
We were flying blind for most of the project. We cast the actor who played Matt out of sheer necessity. I called every actor I could think of and they were all busy, so Josh, who was one of the crew members, volunteered at the last minute. We called to get locations a half hour before we shot there. We came up with scenes off the top of our head. We had equipment failures, crowd control problems, location problems, you name it.
Basically we shot five days that were nearly 20 hours each without a script. Then we got to a fine cut in 11 days. Then we tweaked it to clean everything up. It was only days ago that I thought the film might actually work for audiences.
It was absolutely insane.
You and the two leads are credited as the writers. Was this film improvised?
We wrote probably 20 pages of a script in those 3 weeks, but it was mostly an outline and a couple of scenes to serve as a general structure. The three of us brainstormed the outline together. Jason wrote a couple scenes. I wrote a couple of scenes. And, basically we just put them all together. But we were re-writing the outline all the way until we wrapped shooting. There were scenes where they were improvising and I was sitting on the floor next to the camera with a Sharpie, changing the outline.
The story idea came from my girlfriend, Jen, and there's a great deal of backstory we wrote related to the story that isn't obviously on-screen, but the actors are improvising based on that information, so it sort of bleeds through the film. Joshua Thomas, who worked extensively on the film, commented to me the other day that he was noticing clues to the story the fourth time he watched the film that he'd never seen before.
I should mention that the film contains a central mystery that's never explained. Now that it is over, is there anything you would like to change about the film?
Every time I watch it, I notice something I'd do differently with more time, but I think part of the allure of #2wkfilm is that if I took the time to do everything perfectly, we'd still be waiting to start filming.
But I figured with my first feature, I'm going to make a thousand mistakes, so why not make them on a project where people will more easily forgive them?
What was the budget?
The budget was zero dollars, but we spent $970. We shot on a Panasonic HVX that we borrowed from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and another one we borrowed from a fellow filmmaker (but not at the same time). We shot some of the exteriors on a different camera, a Sony something with a different Codec and all that (tip: don't do that). Oh, and we had a boom mic fail on us one day, so we shot several scenes with the camera's wild mic. We recorded ADR in the rafters of a church auditorium.
I edited it in Final Cut on my super old G5 and a 17" monitor. We did a 2 day sound mix at Widget Studios in Philly. They were nice enough to donate their time, because they're awesome.
As we were shooting and editing, Jerome Wincek (who's song plays over the end credits of GRAVIDA) was composing the score in a different city, basically working off of edits and notes I'd send him. The fact that his score works so well is a real testament to his ability to read my mind.
We called in a lot of favors on this film.
I really had no idea where this film was going to go. It has elements of romance, mystery and at one point seems to almost turn into a horror film. How would you categorize it?
I tend to think of it as a mystery stripped down to a character drama, which is really the most interesting part.
How did you find Rachel Shaw, who also starred in GRAVIDA?
Rachel and I went to college together (she majored in theater, I think), only I didn't really get to know her that well until a couple of years later. She's kind of my go-to actress these days.
There are several scenes set in this sort of archway in the city. Just what is that exactly?
That's the Pennsylvanian, which is now a high-end apartment complex. But, essentially, the Amtrak station is right there and the bus station is across the street and a lot of the buses that come into downtown, go right by there. So, it seemed like a natural place to start a film about a guy who's just arrived in town. Plus, it looks fantastic.
The story behind that is I called the film office (who I've never dealt with before) and they said to call the Pennsylvanian, who politely told me that they never allow filming there. Of course, that didn't stop us in the slightest, just forced us to rush the shots. Two weeks later there was a Nick Nolte film shooting there for two days. The prevailing movement in film is the whole "mumblecore" / DIY movement. You would seem to be in the same category, yet unlike those filmmakers, you seem to take time to set up your shots, making the film look interesting. What are you thoughts on the mumblecore gang?
Honestly, I watch mumblecore and a lot of the time, I'm bored. Just swinging a camera around watching people talk about nothing isn't all that interesting to me. Film is just a wide and varied art form, that it seems foolish to mostly disregard the visual aspect of it. I mean, how is that different from watching a play?
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of interesting stuff going on, but to compare mumblecore to something like the French New Wave, for example, is to give mumblecore way too much credit. From the beginning, it struck me as a transitionary movement to something else, something that will use the visual language to dramatic effect.
And I think mumblecore will lead to something potentially great, but by the time it gets there, it won't look at all like mumblecore anymore.
With PARANORMAL ACTIVITY being a big hit, do you feel hopeful for the independent film movement?
Yeah, I think it's promising. Sure, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is a bit of a lottery ticket that hit, but maybe it makes things a little easier for everyone. Really, our salvation isn't going to come from the studios buying our films anymore, but the success of something like that makes the DIY distribution a little easier. It makes VOD a little easier. I don't know that it's the game changer everyone's making it out to be, but it may open a few doors.
What is next for you?
Sleep?
I'm working on a few ideas for a next film, but none of them are ready to go just yet. Honestly, I'm not sure which one is closer to the finish line at this point. I'm also starting to toss around the idea of directing someone else's script, mostly because I think the ability to direct something I didn't write is a key one in my growth process. Plus, it won't take me 6 months to write, which is nice.
One of the scripts I've been working on for years and it still isn't ready. I'm kind of picky, which is what made this project so liberating.
You can read more about BLANC DE BLANC and buy a copy of the DVD at his website. You can also follow him on Twitter.
Showbiz Pizza was one of the most important cultural institutions of the 1980’s. That is, if you were a kid.
It was part pizza place, part arcade, and part live concert. The game room was divided with one wall being skee ball, the other being the light gun games and the rest all video games. (Later they added a little kids section with whack a mole and rides).
Showbiz was around during the height of video game mania. This was the era of Pac Man and Dig Dug, when games only cost a quarter and were fun. They survived through the introduction of Dragon’s Lair (the Don Bluth animated game played on laserdiscs) and even had commercials advertising the fact that they now had the game.
Friday and Saturday nights, I would often go with my family and I loved it. We’d order the pizza and wait in the dining room. There, they had a stage show with audio animatronic animals playing music. The band was known as THE ROCK-AFIRE EXPLOSION. I always loved Fats, the gorilla on keyboards.
Watching Billy Bob, the bear, and his friends in the stage show we would look at the monitors for our number to be called telling us the pizza (that was actually good) was ready. After we ate, we would be allowed to run off to the game room, only returning to get more money for tokens.
We would go regularly up until I was in middle school in the mid 80’s. By that time, I had grown out of it. Plus, the multiple token games had taken over. Arcades were slowly dying out.
That Showbiz I visited was eventually converted into a Chuck E. Cheese. It is still there today in the same location, over twenty five years later. In fact, after my sister had her first child, we couldn’t wait for her to be old enough to take there. Unfortunately, when we went, it wasn’t the same. While the dining room and stage show were still similar, the game room was cut in a fifth, sold off to another store in the strip mall. There were less than a dozen games, and only three skee ball lanes. And the pizza? Terrible.
The new documentary THE ROCK-AFIRE EXPLOSION brings all this back to me. This is a look at Showbiz and the fans of the restaurant that try to keep the magic of the house band alive.
Chris Thrash loved the band enough that he has bought an entire stage show and set them up in a builidng behind his Alabama house. He programs new shows for the band, and posts them on Youtube. This brought the memories to life for many around the world and created a new fan base for the band and characters.
The Rock-afire Explosion was created by an inventor by the name of Aaron Fechtner. Fechtner had previously created the Whack A Mole game in the mid 70's, only to have it stolen from him. After experimenting with audio animatronic characters, he developed Billy Bob and friends. With a group of developers, Showbiz Pizza was born in the early 80’s, and by 1983, there were 200 restaurants across the country. And then the company ran out of money.
THE ROCK-AFIRE EXPLOSION follows these characters and others, talking about their love of Showbiz. The fans long for the simpler time of the 80’s, where they could look forward to their trips to the restaurant.
In recent years, there has been a new genre of films, the “obsessive fan” documentary. From AMERICAN MOVIE, TREKKIES, CINEMANIA, CHASING GHOSTS and THE KING OF KONG, these have become some of my favorite films of recent years. THE ROCK-AFIRE EXPLOSION is a worthy entry into this genre.
This is a surprisingly moving documentary, with an extremely effective music score. There is a sequence toward the end where Fechtner gives a tour of the now abandoned warehouse where his designers, fired decades before, created the characters, that is just heartbreaking. Tools have remained in the same place for years, molds for the characters are still on the shelf. There are even crates containing unopened Rock-afire Explosion shows that have been unsold since 1983.
Will this film appeal to those that have no memory of Showbiz Pizza? I can’t answer that. Showbiz was such a big part of the early 80’s for me that I may be more of its target audience than most.
If you know the restaurant and remember Billy Bob, this is a wonderful film.
WHAT IS ON THE DVD?
The DVD contains forty minutes of deleted scenes. All of these are worthwhile. There is a lengthy and fascinating bit with Thrash giving a behind the scenes tour of how the band is set up, showing how the air compressors work and how he programs the shows. Also Fechtner tells the story behind Whack A Mole and how it was stolen from him.
SHOULD I BUY IT?
If you remember Showbiz, you must see this film.
THE ROCK-AFIRE EXPLOSION is available on DVD exclusively from their website, www.rockafiremovie.com.
