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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

Shane Black affectionately parodies the movies (e.g. Lethal Weapon; The Last Boy Scout) that made him rich. Robert Downey Jr began his comeback; Michelle Monaghan began her ascent; and Val Kilmer, sigh, Val will just have to settle for the warm inner glow that comes from giving a great comic performance. For all of its lurid thrills, there has been a life-altering consequence from KKBB: I now make it a habit to apologize to the nice folks in the Midwest for saying fuck so much.

Bully (2001)

Larry Clark’s “ripped from the headlines” feature - a darkly comic tale of teens ganging up on one of their own clique - is both repulsively exploitative (Clark will stick his camera right in on a young woman’s naked torso as needed) and unexpectedly moving. In the midst of the physical and emotional violence is a tender almost-romance between two of the teens that plays like Romeo and Juliet reimagined as gutter poetry. The epilogue to it all is a courtroom payoff that may have you laughing through you tears at the absurdity, and the waste.

In Bruges (2008)

Is there anything left to be said about bungling foul-mouthed hit men and the lives they lead? Playwright Martin McDonough proved there was, if they were crafted as unique individuals, with very conflicted feelings about the violence they commit. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson were the best odd couple of the decade, and Ralph Fiennes matched them as their increasingly short-fused superior. The key surprise was how deeply McDonough treated his themes of penitence, atonement, anguish and strict moral codes, managing to shoehorn them in in-between scattergun satirical shots at pretty much every target in sight. There is also a business allegory in all of this, too: If CEOs who bilked over their employees and destroyed their lives had an ounce of the honor that Fiennes demonstrates at the end, the world would be a better place.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

I love this movie and yet I am always forgetting how much I love this movie. I imagine this may pop up in some of my fellow BOP-ers lists, so I only wish to highlight a few things about The Royal Tenenbaums that always make me want to hug myself: 1) Owen Wilson’s use of the word “presuppose”; 2) Danny Glover’s perfectly timed pratfall; 3) Gwyneth Paltrow wielding a hatchet at a back wood chopping block; 4) Luke Wilson giving up his professional ghost and laying prone on a tennis court; 5) Alec Baldwin’s narrational voice. How wonderful life would be if he were to provide a running commentary for each of us.

Wendy and Lucy (2008)

There’s a small amount of hometown pride for this movie, filmed in and around NE Portland and based on a short story by a local writer. But I also feel immense happiness and love for Kelly Reichardt’s short and bittersweet look at a nomadic young woman and her dog, the only friend she has in the world. When the dog goes missing and her car breaks down, Wendy feels her already condensed world closing in on her and must decide what to do next. Reichardt avoids easy sentimentality and unnecessary plot complications and lets emotions take center stage. Michelle Williams finds the perfect note of grace for her performance and carries it from the beginning through to the end.

And finally, though I saw them both only once a few weeks ago, I would throw Toy Story 3 and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on here as well. I commend the former (via director Lee Unkrich) for staying true to the world of Andy, Buzz, Woody et. al, and seeing that world through to its logical conclusion, and for maintaining its heart and hilarity, even as it saw fit to set my tear ducts to constant flow at about the three-minute mark. I praise the latter for Edgar Wright’s full-throttle willingness to make a film so stylistically packed to the gills it may send its viewers into epileptic shock, and for trusting people to be up for the journey. And also, Scott Pilgrim? He’s kind of an asshole, I was shocked to find, which I think Michael Cera realized as well and played accordingly. Is this a Molotov cocktail to the hipster scene or a revelation of what really goes on in Canada? Either way, it rocked.

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