Not coincidence.

So I just saw Magnolia was on one of my movie channels and I turned it on and it's in the first scene where William H. Macy goes to the bar, and what song is playing? That's right. "Goodbye Stranger." DUN DUN DUN why must you mock me, Magnolia?!??!?! IS IT SEPTEMBER YET???!?!?!?!

No Country for Old Men.

I'm still not sure I understood anything that went on in that movie. But yeah...not since I saw Magnolia have I been so sure I've been in the presence of a masterpiece that I may not fully comprehend, but am not to argue with. Damn.

And because you all are lovely and I care about your readership, if you ever find a ton of money in a suitcase in the middle of nowhere in Texas, and there's a bunch of dead bodies around it, trust me: just leave it there. Your life will be much better because of it.

I have the most boring top 5 of the 90s ever.

Pulp Fiction
American Beauty
Schindler's List
Magnolia
Goodfellas

zzz. I swear I am not usually this boring. For example, you should see my top 10 of the '60s, as well as of the '80s. They're deathly sexy lists. In fact... I may post them right after this.

boohoo.

but can you
save me
c'mon and save me
if you could
save me
from the ranks
of the freaks

who suspect
they could never love anyone.

happy birthday to...

...yup. Tom Cruise. I'm the only one that'll be wishing him a happy birthday, I'm sure. And that picture above certainly makes him look like Crazy Tom Cruise. Why do I still like Tom Cruise? I try to separate actors' and directors' personal lives from their work (sometimes it doesn't always work), and Tom Cruise is seriously a good actor, or at least a decent actor with some very impressive performances under his belt (his performance in Magnolia is one of the best of all time, and I'm not kidding. He's also super in Born on the Fourth of July, Collateral, Jerry Maguire, Minority Report, and Rain Man. In Rain Man, he's actually better than Dustin Hoffman. Though I've seen him be very bland, I've never seen him be terrible.). His religious convictions and smugness are annoying, but like I said, I try to separate the actor from the person (errr. Make sense of that.). Happy birthday Tom!

happy birthday to a cinema god

P.T. Anderson directed Magnolia and Boogie Nights. That's all I need to love him, forever.

Punch-Drunk Love and Hard Eight ain't shabby either. I cannot wait for There Will Be Blood, though the trailer doesn't have me as orgasmic as some other people are. I'm sure it'll be good or great...though I do prefer P.T. in manic multi-cast mode (and without the kid who was bad in Little Miss Sunshine).

If you hate this movie, you're probably a Nazi.

Seriously.

I see how you could hate Pulp Fiction. It's got lots of cursing and blood and it's really stylized. I see how you could hate Lost in Translation. It's a little too much like real life, in that people actually have pauses in between when they talk and stuff. It's slow, too. I see how you could hate Magnolia. Like Pulp Fiction, it's incredibly stylized and long. I see how you could hate Moulin Rouge!. That movie is batshit insane. I see how you could hate Raging Bull. It's violent and hard to watch. I see how you can hate Manhattan. You...okay there's no real reason why you should ever hate Manhattan. But still.

Why the hell, though, would you EVER hate The Shawshank Redemption? Do you hate HOPE? Do you hate HUMANITY? Do you hate MORGAN FREEMAN? Only assholes hate Morgan Freeman. The Shawshank Redemption is not my favorite movie ever, but it is up there, and it is, in many ways, a perfect movie. It's just impossible to hate it.

UNLESS YOU'RE A NAZI! Or a person nobody likes.

a great article

read this stuff. it's also like part of why i am head-over-heels in love with magnolia.

here i go again. '99

'99 was pretty damn fantastic, maybe the best year of the 99-06 time period. it's not every year you get movies as life-affirmingly brilliant as american beauty and magnolia and films as uproariously daring and hilarious as south park: bigger, longer, and uncut and election and being john malkovich (which doesn't even make my top 10 list!)

Best Picture
1. American Beauty
2. Magnolia
3. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut
4. Election
5. Fight Club
6. The Talented Mr. Ripley
7. Toy Story 2
8. All About My Mother
9. The Insider
10. Titus

Best Director
1. Sam Mendes for American Beauty
2. P.T. Anderson for Magnolia
3. David Fincher for Fight Club
4. Michael Mann for The Insider
5. Spike Jonze for Being John Malkovich
6. Anthony Minghella for The Talented Mr. Ripley
7. David Lynch for The Straight Story
8. Kevin Smith for Dogma
9. Pedro Almodovar for All About My Mother
10. M. Night Shamaylan for The Sixth Sense

Best Actor
1. Kevin Spacey in American Beauty (period. Best performance of the '90s easy.)
2. Russell Crowe in The Insider
3. Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense
4. Richard Farnsworth in The Straight Story
5. Jim Broadbent in Topsy-Turvy
6. Edward Norton in Fight Club
7. Sean Penn in Sweet and Lowdown
8. Terrence Stamp in The Limey
9. Brad Pitt in Fight Club
10. Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley

Best Actress
1. Hilary Swank in Boys Don't Cry
2. Kate Winslet in Holy Smoke!
3. Reese Witherspoon in Election
4. Julianne Moore in The End of the Affair
5. Cecilia Roth in All About My Mother
6. Annette Bening in American Beauty
7. Elodie Bouchez in The Dreamlife of Angels
8. Franka Potente in Run Lola Run
9. Heather Donahue in The Blair Witch Project
10. Janet McTeer in Tumbleweeds

Best Supporting Actor
1. Tom Cruise in Magnolia
2. Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley
3. John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich
4. Peter Sarsgaard in Boys Don't Cry
5. Philip Seymour Hoffman in Magnolia
6. Alan Rickman in Dogma
7. Christopher Plummer in The Insider
8. Wes Bentley in American Beauty
9. Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Talented Mr. Ripley
10. Jason Robards in Magnolia

Best Supporting Actress
1. Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut (the only Oscar she's ever deserved, but I'd nominate her a whole hell of a lot)
2. Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense
3. Lara Belmont in The War Zone
4. Catherine Keener in Being John Malkovich
5. Melora Walters in Magnolia (oddly enough, she appealed to me far more than Julianne, who's my #11...)
6. Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich
7. Chloe Sevigny in Boys Don't Cry (I hate Chloe, but she was really good here.)
8. Sarah Polley in Go
9. Mena Suvari in American Beauty (OWNED Thora Birch)
10. Jessica Lange in Titus

Best Screenplay
1. American Beauty
2. Election
3. Being John Malkovich
4. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut
5. Fight Club
6. All About My Mother
7. The Talented Mr. Ripley
8. Three Kings
9. Go
10. The Sixth Sense

only 01, 04, and 06 to go? I kind of rule sometimes.

it's not going to stop 'til you wise up

A+ It is not a perfect film, unlike most of the A+s I would give. However, it is a testament to the utter power of cinema. It doesn't all make sense and things are left open-ended, but it's so fascinating, so utterly absorbing, so daring. And it has perhaps the best scene ever, in the history of cinema ("Wise Up," obviously).