All Things Super

Part 1: How The Avengers Took Over the World

When I was a kid, I had a Captain America action figure. I don’t remember ever reading a Captain America comic book but I liked that action figure so much, my next birthday party was Captain America themed. I liked him because… I liked him. That was all there was to it. I just knew he was awesome, maybe even instinctively. You didn’t have to sell Little Steve on the idea.

Leaving the theater after seeing Thor last summer, I felt as though I had been handed one of those cheap plastic toys you get in a Happy Meal with “Collect All Four” printed on the package. There wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with the movie (and I’ll admit Marvel Studios is currently making some impressively flashy toys) but it left a bad taste in my mouth. The movie didn’t seem to care whether or not I enjoyed it, only that I had bought a ticket.

Well, not just one ticket. Six tickets (and counting!) if you’re keeping score. Each Marvel Avengers movie is entwined in a massive and knotty marketing campaign as staggering in relative size and ambition as the Large Hadron Collider. They have all been part of an ambitious setup building to The Avengers, which is really just a setup for The Avengers 2 anyways. And so we wait with bated breath for the next movie, which will then tell us what exciting movie is in store for us next. And so on.

Now, I’m being cynical and probably not giving these movies their full due. I’ve enjoyed most of them (Robert Downey Jr. has successfully carried two Iron Man movies, and Captain America had a giddy charm to it). Marvel’s mega-marketing scheme would hardly have paid off if the films weren’t entertaining. Still, there’s a nagging corporate agenda at work here that, at least for me, leaked into The Avengers and kept me from enjoying it. The movie never tried to win me over; I had already bought a ticket so why would it?

Part 2: Your Friendly Neighborhood Blockbuster

A number of people I have spoken to had similar feelings about The Amazing Spider-Man and several critics wrote perfectly reasonable reviews that mirror my own reaction to The Avengers. The latest Spidey adventure is a clear studio cash-grab; in order to keep the rights to the character, Sony had to make another movie. It is a faithful reworking of Sam Raimi’s 2002 film with just enough superficial differences to distinguish it from its predecessor – a new villain, a new cutie for Peter Parker to kiss – but it breaks no new ground.

What can I say? I fell for it anyways. Give me two likable romantic leads and throw them in a zippy energetic action movie and I’m happy.

But is this the best we can hope to get from superhero movies in 2012 and beyond? New versions of the same old and a fresh, young cast to replace the actors who have outgrown their roles? I don’t have the answer and as long as superhero movies are as fun as The Amazing Spider-Man, I’ll be too busy having a good time to even ask.

Part 3: The Dark Plight of the Superserious

There is, however, at least one filmmaker who believes superhero movies can give audiences more than disposable entertainment. Christopher Nolan has done an admirable job taking superheroes to a whole new level. In his hands, Batman, who had been languishing throughout the 90s in increasingly goofy (and decreasingly watchable) movies, gained some much-needed emotional heft and narrative sophistication.

Batman was always a childhood favorite of mine – Saturday mornings, I was reliably glued to the TV watching reruns of Batman: The Animated Series – and Christopher Nolan’s movies take the character every bit as seriously as I did when I was a kid. 2005’s Batman Begins and 2008’s The Dark Knight (still the high-water mark of the genre) are dark, brooding stories but they’re also great popcorn movies. Little Steve would have loved them.

With The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan has taken his series to its inevitable conclusion. Most everyone I know has been satisfied by its ending. It is a breathtaking movie and certainly one of the best-looking summer blockbusters in years. As Gotham City descends into anarchy in the dead of winter, its snow-covered streets are as gorgeous as they are ominous.

But Christopher Nolan gets so caught up in his bleak tragedy of a dying city that he neglects Batman. There is a half-baked love triangle and a full circle moment about falling to learn to get back up again, but these inclusions feel peripheral to the main story. The movie loads one grim development on top of another until it risks collapsing under its own weight. It may well be a satisfying finale to a gloomy series but somewhere in the middle of it, Little Steve walked off and started playing with a different toy.

- Steve Avigliano, 7/25/12

REVIEW: The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises (2012): Dir. Christopher Nolan. Written by: Christopher and Jonathan Nolan. Story by: David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan. Based on characters created by: Bob Kane. Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Morgan Freeman. Rated PG-13 (Gloomy brooding and brawling). Running time: 165 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

Eight years have passed in Gotham City since the events of The Dark Knight, when the Joker plagued the city, turned Harvey Dent into Two-Face and raked in hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. Gotham is a safer place now: the streets have been rid of organized crime and there is no need for the Batman, that masked vigilante the police mistakenly accused of murdering Harvey Dent.

On the streets, however, there is still belief in the Bat. The streets of Gotham also, for the first time in the series, actually feel part of a real city, one with food vendors and school playgrounds, suited investment bankers and cabbies. And director Christopher Nolan populates his city with some intriguing, well-developed characters.

Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is back, a tired man who’s probably getting too old for this sort of thing but just believes in it too much to quit. Gotham is in “peace time,” as one officer puts it, but Gordon has seen it at war and remains wary. It is his diehard commitment to justice that caused his wife to take off with the kids, leaving him alone to defend a city that does not currently need him but could at any moment.

Perhaps he is not alone though. John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a young and ambitious officer, appears to be on hand to pick up the Commissioner’s torch of idealism. As an orphan, Blake looked up to Bruce Wayne, the parentless billionaire, but even more so, he idolized Batman. He has since lost faith in Wayne but still believes in Batman.

Speaking of Batman, where is he? He mysteriously vanished from Gotham following Dent’s death, we are told. (He also mysteriously vanishes for sizable chunks of this movie.) The man behind the suit, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), is still alive, living in self-imposed exile in Wayne Manor. Tending to him as always is the Wayne family butler, Michael Caine. Er, I mean, Alfred.

There is also Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a leather-clad femme fatale with hair so silky smooth you’d think she was strutting through a Pantene commercial. Selina is a cat burglar. She robs jewelry off the wealthy and while the movie is sneaky in the way it avoids flat-out calling her Catwoman, we know better by that sly, twinkling Hans Zimmer theme that accompanies her on the score in several scenes.

Coy though the movie is about her, she is one of the best parts of it. Ms. Hathaway is a nimble actress, both physically in combat scenes but even more so when playing the role of seductress, and she is a lot of fun to watch. She is the only glimmer of the wisecracking playfulness that was once (long ago) a hallmark of the superhero genre.

The rest of that freewheeling fun is buried deep under a heap of rubble by Bane (Tom Hardy), the joyless antagonist of The Dark Knight Rises. Bane is a terrorist who was excommunicated from the League of Shadows, that nefarious organization Batman worked so hard to defeat in Batman Begins. Bane, like Batman, wears a mask, except his only covers his mouth and distorts his British accent into a hissing Darth Vader-esque growl. This makes for an intimidating presence but also obscures roughly half the actor’s lines so that he sounds as though he is talking through a washing machine.

Bane seeks to burn Gotham to the ground and punish its citizens for their decadence. In turn, Christopher Nolan punishes us with an overlong and supremely decadent second half, which disappointingly goes on autopilot. The Dark Knight Rises is undoubtedly Mr. Nolan’s sloppiest script (he co-wrote it with his brother, Jonathan Nolan, from a story by David S. Goyer). It labors early on with expository backstory and neglects to surprise in its final act. The absence of surprise is the most lamentable aspect of this cheerless movie. Mr. Nolan is usually so good at keeping us on our toes; here he bores us by plodding through every plot point his characters have promised us will happen.

Much has been made of the dark tone Christopher Nolan adopts in his Batman films. That somber mood does play a crucial role in the success of the first two movies but even more important is the grandeur Mr. Nolan lends them. He treats these comic book stories as though they are classical myths.

But there is a fine line between grandeur and pretentiousness and The Dark Knight Rises hurtles right over it. Aside from Gordon and Blake (Gary Oldman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are Mr. Nolan’s two most valuable and underused assets), the movie is dominated not by people but by symbolic avatars used to bludgeon us over the head with the film’s thematic intent. Bane stands for anarchy. Batman stands for some vague notion of justice.

What made 2008’s The Dark Knight so much fun was its identity as a thrilling comic book movie elevated to the level of a crime epic. The Dark Knight Rises is all elevation and no entertainment. During that dreary slog of a second half, Christopher Nolan wants us to sit and be impressed by his movie, to be overcome with awe. I sat. I was impressed. Awe? Eh.

- Steve Avigliano, 7/20/12

Kick-Ass and the Future of Superhero Movies

Superhero movies have been so popular in the last decade it’s almost difficult to imagine what our summer blockbusters were about before they seemingly all became about caped crusaders. There were, of course, hits made from superheroes before 2000 – Richard Donner’s Superman (1978) and Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) were both huge – but it was Bryan Singer’s X-Men (2000) along with Sam Raimi’s Spiderman (2002) that confirmed what had already been proven by those earlier films. Superheroes are ingrained deep enough into our pop culture consciousness that even the so-so ones have a decent shot at scoring a profit in their big screen adventures.
 

In 2010, superhero films are still going strong, but for how much longer? When will a lot become too many? Are superheroes headed for overexposure? Next summer, there will be three big ones. Thor comes out in May, followed closely by Captain America: The First Avenger in July, and sandwiched in between them will be Green Lantern in June. Thor and Captain America will both set up characters for the super-sized Marvel crossover, The Avengers, to be released the following summer. All of the aforementioned films will be released in 3D, which means studios anticipate audience members spending up to $45 on superheroes at the cinema next summer, not counting repeat viewings.
 

And those are just the summer offerings. There will be The Green Hornet in January and an X-Men prequel titled, X-Men: First Class to be released sometime in 2011. In the following year, there will be Christopher Nolan’s third and final Batman movie, as well as a Spiderman reboot from Mark Webb, the director of (500) Days of Summer.

With all these movies still before us and many more behind us, it’s no wonder there have been some less conventional takes on the superhero genre. I’m tempted to label them “post-superhero” movies if it weren’t for the fact that they don’t offer much that’s truly contrary to the more traditional superhero tales.

The long-awaited adaptation of Alan Moore’s cult classic Watchmen (2009) had potential to give us something new, but under 300 helmer Zach Snyder’s direction, the film was underwhelming and confirmed many fans’ suspicions that the book was unfilmable.

The ads for Hancock (2008), an original story, suggested that Will Smith’s title character would be a change-of-pace from the typical, morally upstanding heroes. A film portraying a superhero as a drunk suffering from a poor public image was intriguing, but a sloppy script gave the film a muddled tone. As it turned out, even this supposedly tongue-in-cheek superhero movie succumbed to having a big-budget action finale.

Then there’s Kick-Ass, which I missed when it came out earlier this year but recently had the opportunity to watch on DVD. Kick-Ass is directed by Matthew Vaughn (who also directed the excellent pre-Bond Daniel Craig vehicle, Layer Cake) and based on a graphic novel that creator Mark Millar always intended to become a movie.

Kick-Ass begins as a satirical take on the genre, introducing Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) as a high-school nobody obsessed with comic books. He wonders why anybody hasn’t tried to be a real-life superhero yet and wants to be the first. He dismisses the way comics always give Joe Shmoe superpowers as a result of some freak accident, or how Bruce Wayne is able to afford all that cool equipment that doesn’t exist in reality. So he takes a DIY attitude to crime fighting, buys a wet suit and some nunchucks online and practices badass one-liners in the mirror. Like a true teenager, he calls himself Kick-Ass.

These scenes are wonderful as are the high school scenes, which take more than a few cues from Superbad (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, a.k.a. McLovin, is even here as the son of a wealthy mobster). There’s some funny stuff about how Dave unwittingly becomes the pseudo-gay friend of the girl he has a crush on, and some smart jokes about what a society populated with superheroes would really be like in the age of camera phones and online social networking. When Dave’s first successful scuffle with a couple of street thugs becomes a YouTube sensation, he wastes no time in creating a MySpace page for his alter ego and revels in the glory of the friend requests that come pouring in.

But Kick-Ass quickly breaks its own rules. After getting struck by a car, most of Dave’s bones are replaced with metal, and a lack of nerve endings allows him to get punched without feeling a thing. Maybe this twist is part of the film’s self-awareness and there’s a bit of irony in the fact that this miracle occurs after an embarrassing first attempt at heroism, but mostly it just takes the wind out of a clever premise. Then there is Damon Macready (Nicholas Cage) who goes by the alias Big Daddy and his daughter Mindy a.k.a. Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz). Much like Bruce Wayne, whom the film pokes fun at earlier, Macready sinks countless dollars into buying heavy artillery and trains his daughter in martial arts. Early in the film, there’s a joke that mocks the way superheroes are always given cheesy motives of vengeance, but Kick-Ass doesn’t hesitate to turn around a few scenes later and give Macready just that. He seeks to avenge the death of his wife, for which he blames the mobster, Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong).

Hit Girl is another source of problems for the film. I realize, yes, that the character is supposed to be provocative and controversial, but she’s all shock. Her father has trained her to be the perfect killer, which explains the violence, but why all the vulgarity? Macready notably avoids such language in her presence, giving her cutesy pet names even while he trains her to take bullets as she wears a Kevlar vest. That scene gets some laughs because of the disparity between Macready’s words and actions. Wouldn’t Hit Girl have been funnier if amidst all the carnage she paused every once in while and acted like the little girl she is? Then there might have been a dash of irony added to a character whose actions are just gratuitous. We watch as Hit Girl pumps lead into bad guy’s heads and slashes them up with knives bigger than she is, and the film expects us to laugh simply because it’s a little girl doing all this.

The performances are mostly good. Aaron Johnson brings the right mix of everyman qualities and teen perviness to the role, Nicholas Cage strikes a balance between understatement as the father and pure camp when he dons his mask, and Chloë Grace Moretz, for what it’s worth, has a lot of onscreen charisma.

Still, once we reach the blood-splattered finale, the movie is no different than the superhero films it parodies in the earlier scenes. Everyday characters achieve great physical feats in the name of awesome fight choreography and a complex plot is resolved with simple action. The movie wants to have its cake and blow it up too.

Kick-Ass was relatively cheap to make and did well enough at the box office to spawn a forthcoming sequel in graphic novel and movie form, but are movies like this the future of superheroes? I’m still waiting for someone to make a true anti-superhero movie, one that really skewers the conventions of the genre and commits to its satire.

In the mean time, there is a host of traditional superheroes lining up to receive our money in the form of ticket sales. My prediction though? After The Avengers and the third Batman movie come out in 2012, the Golden Age of superhero movies will end. They’ll still exist for sure, but will no longer be dependable megahits for studios. That day will be a bittersweet one. Fresh, new stories will hopefully find their way to multiplexes, and our favorite costumed heroes and heroines will return to the pages from whence they came. Before that happens, movies like Kick-Ass will no doubt try to change the direction of the tide, but will effectively only push us further into a superhero overload.

- Steve Avigliano, 8/19/10

The Hype Monster vs. The Great and Powerful Backlash

Hype is tough to avoid. The dutiful moviegoer and friend that I am, I like to recommend a good movie when I see it. Plus, if a good film does well at the box office, there may be more of its kind down the road and less garbage wasting screens at my local theater. There’s a difference though between a recommendation and hype. A recommendation says, “See this, I liked it and you will too.” Hype builds the anticipation to levels a film could never possibly satisfy. As a result, people who didn’t see the movie the opening weekend and aren’t riding the hype train feel underwhelmed when they finally do get to the movies. Thus, backlash ensues.

This happens with movies of all kinds from summer blockbusters to the Oscar-nominated. It happened with Avatar last year, The Dark Knight two years ago and it’s starting again with Inception right now. All of the above are critically acclaimed and the first two have become megahits with the latter likely to follow suit. I enjoyed all of them too, but it’s important to keep things in perspective.

Critics and moviegoers alike were hailing Avatar as a game-changer. Movies would never be the same, they said. Six months later, Avatar hasn’t had nearly the cultural impact of Star Wars, which the film was repeatedly compared to, or even Cameron’s own Terminator films. For better or worse Avatar has popularized 3D and proved it to be a profitable investment for studios. Yet I’m at a loss to quote a single good line from the movie and I can only think of one memorable scene off the top of my head. (I rather like the scene when he first gets into the avatar and feels the dirt under his feet.) For me, Avatar remains in my mind what it was when I first saw it theaters: A visually stunning and creative but poorly written sci-fi action movie.

When The Dark Knight came out two years ago, there didn’t seem to be any other movie out that summer and were people so wrong to treat it as such? The Dark Knight is the best superhero movie yet (though Spiderman 2 is a close second for me) and I admire the way director Christopher Nolan gave his film the tone, structure and grandeur of a crime epic. Is it a great film though, in the Citizen Kane, Godfather or Fargo sense of the word? Probably not. That didn’t stop me from championing it as such at the time, of course, but I have to be honest and look at the film in perspective. Heath Ledger deserved every bit of hype he got, but Christian Bale’s grunt can be a bit much and I wish the movie didn’t end with such an obvious sequel set-up. (That last shot of Batman on his motorcycle was cool at the time, but it’s more frustrating than anything else now.) Still, I look forward to one day showing Nolan’s Batman movies to my kids the way my father showed me Richard Donner’s Superman movies. As a piece of pop culture, The Dark Knight is a classic. But remember, that’s pop as in popcorn.

Now Nolan is at it again with Inception, a movie that everyone and their grandma have been calling a “mindfuck.” I’m still not sure what that means and how the word qualifies as a recommendation but I think I understand the intentions. Personally, I prefer the way a Charlie Kaufman movie makes sweet love to my mind and doesn’t just leave the next morning but to each their own, I suppose.

Since Inception’s release, some critics have laid out reasonable critiques of the film, mostly arguing that the movie’s action sequences and set pieces lack the mystical and amorphous qualities of real dreaming. This is true. I admire all of the above-linked reviews, particularly the A.O. Scott one, but I think some of these critics are missing the point. Christopher Nolan set out to make an action movie sprinkled with thoughtful ideas, not the other way around. If he did, he would’ve made it more Waking Life than The Matrix. Those are two more movies I like, but for very different reasons.

Movies operate on a sliding scale of ambition and Nolan has succeeded wonderfully in making a brilliant action movie. That little trick about how ten seconds in one dream equates to twenty minutes in another and an hour in a third is ingenious and I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s an inventive little cheat to give our heroes more time and who cares if it doesn’t hold up to anything resembling logic in the real world?

Those proudly waving the flag of backlash are shouting that the movie is not a visionary masterpiece. Who said it was? Certainly not Nolan. Ah yes, that snow-balling monster of hype did, giving a perfectly entertaining action blockbuster labels it never wanted.

When I searched for a synonym for "hype" in my computer’s thesaurus, I got "ballyhoo" as an option. I like that word more because I think it captures the ridiculousness of people's tendency to overrate. See Inception and see it again but please, let’s try and keep the ballyhoo in check.

- Steve Avigliano, 7/19/10

LIST: The Best Films of 2008

For various reasons, it took me a while to catch up with last year’s releases, and I’ve only just finished watching 2008’s more prominent films. Fortunately, just about all of these movies are now out on DVD for your renting, Netflixing, or I suppose, torrenting pleasure. Since the list is arriving late, I thought I’d make this part 1 of a two-part post. The following are my Top 10 films of 2008, with my favorites of the first half of 2009 to be posted in the coming days.

Honorable Mention - a few films that just missed the list, but I still feel a great deal of respect or affection for:

Doubt for creating drama out of the unsaid and the ambiguous.

Gran Torino because Clint Eastwood growled (and unfortunately sung) in an excellent performance.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall for introducing non-HIMYM fans to Jason Segal’s smart, self-deprecating brand of humor.

Revolutionary Road for its brutal depiction of broken dreams in suburbia.

Synecdoche, New York because it’s confusing, maddening, possibly brilliant -- and I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

And now, the list...

10) Burn After Reading

I never had much intention of seeing Burn After Reading a second time, but it was on TV and thought I’d watch the first few scenes. Ninety-six immensely enjoyable minutes later I realized I had watched the whole thing straight through again. I used to say I wasn’t a fan of the Coen Brothers’ slapstick comedies, but this is a slick ride through a series of misunderstandings, coincidences and absurdities that moves so effortlessly it’s no wonder I didn’t notice I’d watched the whole thing again. Burn After Reading has a fantastic ensemble cast and is the second Coen Brothers film in a row (No Country For Old Men) to feature virtually perfect editing.

9) Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) proved here that despite working within starkly different genres, he has a kinetic visual and storytelling style all his own. The film bounces from the comedic to the tragic in a touchingly human story that proves the strength of emotion (and game shows) across cultures. Jai Ho all the way.

8) Vicky Cristina Barcelona

This breezy film from Woody Allen may have the feel of a minor work from the prolific writer/director, but it’s not to be dismissed. The film is one the best latter-day Allen films: an examination of interpersonal relationships affected by adultery with a healthy dose of cynicism. Pénelope Cruz steals countless scenes in an Oscar winning role, but it’s Rebecca Hall’s breakout performance that had me hooked. Add some beautiful shots of scenic Barcelona and crackling writing from Mr. Allen and you’ve got a film that is very hard to resist.

7) Waltz With Bashir

This “animated documentary” from Israel follows a filmmaker through a series of interviews in pursuit of memories from his days in the Israeli army during the Lebanon War of 1982. Using a stylish animation (“Not rotoscoping!” insists the animator on the film’s DVD) to bring former soldier’s accounts to life, Waltz With Bashir is an explosion of color and shape. It examines how the human mind deals with war and what happens to those memories years later. An emotional and intelligent film, equal parts war action and psychology.

6) In Bruges

Deepest apologies to Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Pineapple Express (both of which I enjoyed), but In Bruges is my favorite comedy of 2008. The blackest of comedies, this is a foul-mouthed, violent movie about two hitmen killing (pardon the pun) time in the tiny tourist trap of Bruges, Belgium. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson boast the comfort of a classic comedy duo in their banter and Ralph Fiennes shows up at the end for an extended cameo that brings the film to bloody, but oh so wonderful finale. For those who love the politically incorrect or hearing the f-bomb in an Irish accent, a better film doth not exist.

5) Happy-Go-Lucky

A charming character study of the carefree and seemingly air headed Poppy (Sally Hawkins in an energetic and absorbing performance). Largely improvised, Happy-Go-Lucky follows Poppy as she hangs out with her friends, teaches kindergarteners, dates and (most memorably) gets driving lessons from an authoritarian instructor (Eddie Marson). Avoiding a standard plot, writer/director Mike Leigh chooses to follow several threads of Poppy’s life, in an effort to show all sides of her. The final result is not only representative of Poppy’s life, but also rings true on a more basic, human level. It is, at turns, laugh-out-loud funny and quietly poignant.

4) The Wrestler

The fourth film from Darren Aronofsky departs from such highly stylized films as Pi and Requiem for a Dream, choosing instead to simply observe its subjects. The film immerses the viewer in an honest portrayal of the life of a (fictional) former pro-wrestling star, Randy “The Ram” Robinson. Despite the sometimes brutal violence that occurs in the ring, The Wrestler reveals pro-wrestling to be a supportive community of men that share a common interest and the film gets to the heart of what this man wants and needs in his life. I became more emotionally involved in Mickey Rourke’s performance in The Wrestler than any other this year, following his elation and depression with strong emotions of my own. The film examines how people can extend "fake" personas into their personal lives, and the very real effects that result. Exceptionally written, brutally directed and brilliantly acted.

3) Milk

By seamlessly combining historical footage with its dramatized portrayal of gay rights activist Harvey Milk, Milk has an authenticity few biopics possess. Director Gus Van Sant moves the movie at a fast pace, but finds the time to closely examine a man during a politically charged moment in history. Both entertaining and informative, Milk is an enjoyable experience that holds huge relevance for the current times. It also features a superb performance from Sean Penn who always impresses me by absorbing himself so thoroughly in his roles and a strong supporting role from Josh Brolin who has been building an impressive body of work as of late.

2) WALL-E

No other film this year showed more creativity both visually and narratively than WALL-E. It’s a touching story wrapped in an intelligent science-fiction film and might just be Pixar’s finest yet (although I still hold a candle for Finding Nemo). The environmental message never upstages the innocent romance that takes cues from old Hollywood films. WALL-E also pays tribute to such sci-fi classics as 2001. It is a hybrid of all these things, but mostly it’s just irresistibly charming.

1) The Dark Knight

There are very few things I can say about The Dark Knight without resorting to hyperbole or repeating what seem to have become clichés (“the greatest superhero film ever!” “a gripping crime epic!” “iconic!”). All of those things are true, but The Dark Knight gets my #1 spot because it is the most entertaining film this year. Because it is smart and stylish and just plain awesome. Because it has more quotable and memorable scenes than any other movie in recent memory. Because it unearthed an excitement in me not felt since childhood. As a fan of Batman, movies in general, and all of American pop culture, I embrace The Dark Knight with cape-soaring, coin-flipping, pencil-stabbing glee!

- Steve Avigliano, 7/31/09