Real Top Ten

Just in time for the Oscars. I went to the AMC all day screening of the five Best Picture nominees yesterday. What a weird mess that was. It was cool, don't get me wrong, getting to see all five movies in a row and survive off mall food, sugar, and caffeine. But the crowd was not what I expected. Instead of raving film geeks eager to watch some of the best films from the year, it was mostly fat, middle-aged suburbanites looking to save a buck on their inevitably empty Saturday. After "There Will Be Blood," one of the fatter loudmouths got up at the end and said loudly enough so that all could hear, "I could have made that movie into five minutes" and then to her friend, "Thanks for not making me feel retarded. Terrible movie! Terrible!"

I had my own quiet revenge as the print for "Juno" was abysmal and blurry, thus ruining everyone's stupid fun. Plus, we all got free passes out of it. At the end, after Tommy Lee Jones recounts his highly important, metaphorical dream from "No Country for Old Men," the audience burst into angry interjections of "What!?" and "Ughhh!," a girl behind me declared "I'm never doing this again," and a man said, "One and a half out of five." His wife, presumably, said, "You give it 1/2 out of 5?" And he said, "No. One and a half out of the five movies was good." What a stupid fat shit. YOU CLEARLY DON'T ENJOY FILM, SO WHY BOTHER SEEING FIVE OF THE YEAR'S BEST IN A ROW????????

1. There Will Be Blood
2. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
3. Zodiac
4. King of Kong
5. Michael Clayton
6. Into the Wild
7. Hot Fuzz
8. Paris Je T'aime
9. Control
10. Ratatouille