My top animated movies from 2000-2009 in no particular order

The Incredibles
Ghost in The Shell Solid State Society
Tekkon Kinkreet
The Triplets of Belleville
Ratatouille
Howl’s Moving Castle
Monsters Inc
Spirited Away
Cat Soup
Finding Nemo
Persepolis
Metropolis
Coraline
Happy feet

100 of my favorite movies from 2000-2009

24 hour party people
Amelie
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
Control
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
The Darjeeling Limited
The Dark Knight
Donnie Darko
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle 2004
Harry Potter Series (2001 – 2010)
Hellboy Series -2008
The Lord of the Rings series (2001-2003)
The Host 2006
Iron Jawed Angels 2004
Juno 2007
Let the Right One In 2008
Lost in Translation
Ripley’s Game
Secretary
Shaun of the Dead
Stardust
Wristcutters
Battle Royale
Billy Elliot
Black Snake Moan
Bridge to Tarabithia
Brother
Cecil B. Demented
The Devil’s Backbone
Frida
Ghost World
Ginger Snaps
Grandma’s Boy
Hot Fuzz
The Hours
King Kong
Kontroll
Kung Fu Hustle
The Last King of Scotland
Last Life in the Universe
Lemony Snicket: Unfortunate Events
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Memento
Memoirs of a Geisha
Moulin Rouge
Muholland Drive
No Country for Old Men
Ong-Bak The Thai Warrior
Mirrormask
The Queen
Big Eden
The Brothers Grimm
The Royal Tenenbaums
Russian Ark
Shadow of the Vampire
Slither
Slumdog Millionaire
Special
Spun
The Station Agent
Superbad
Sweeney Todd
Tropic thunder
X Men
You Can Count On me
Zack and Miri make a Porno
The 40 year old virgin
Across the Universe
Best in Show
Gosford Park
The Devil’s Rejects
A Dirty Shame
Erin Brokovich
Infernal Affairs
In the Mood for Love
Jackass The Movie
Kinsey
Little Miss Sunshine
Mean Girls
A Mighty Wind
Million Dollar Baby
Monsoon Wedding
Moonlight Mile
Napoleon Dynamite
O Brother Where art thou?
Oldboy
Open Range
Real Women Have Curves
Requiem for a dream
Saved!
Sky Captain and the World of tomorrow
Sin City
Spider Man
V for Vendetta
Vanilla Sky
Wall-E
The Whole Nine Yards
Wonder Boys

Hotels Motels and whatnot..

Recently I found myself re-watching Four Rooms for the first time since it was originally released. My husband hadn't yet seen it and so we spent an evening watching it, and it was appropriate since we'd been on a Tarantino kick.
It led me to ponder memorable hotel based movies, and here are my most memorable hotel movies.
Psycho
It truly is the last hotel you'd ever want to stay at. A horror standby and a solid film all the way around. The hotel itself is creepy and empty and ancient.

Mystery Train
An old favorite of mine. It's basically about three sets of people in a hotel during one night in Memphis. I love the Japanese couple in this film and I love Joe Strummer in this. A deft film from Jarmusch. In fact, it's the Jim Jarmusch film I recommend the most and usually first. I've always felt it's the most accessible.

Four Rooms
This, as I was reminded recently, was quite a funny film. It really shows the good and bad of the hotel business. Funny, filled with surprises and some deeply dark comedy, worth the time.

The Shining
Really a "What not to do" example of the hotel business. Also tops in the horror genre and will forever make those big hotel lobbies forever creepy.

Okay, so that's my minute list. Let me know if you can think of some great films that revolve around hotels, motels and inns.

My personal top favorite vampire films

My Best friend is a vampire (1987). I admit it, this is a guilty pleasure, all the way. I love Robert Sean Leonard. Plus, it's very 80s.

Let the right One in (2008). Well done. I found it most impressive though not deeply moving. It was the oasis in a sea of really bad recent vampire flicks, in my opinion.

Near Dark - 1987's other superb vampire offering. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. I love this film. I wish I owned this. The bar scene is hands down the most memorable. With a cast ripped from Aliens featuring Lance Henricksen, Bill Paxton (Does he ever survive a film?) Jenette Goldstein, and Adrian Pasdar (more widely known for his recent performance as Nathan Petrelli from Heroes). It is a dark film done well. The vampires aren't sexy, just dangerous and dirty.

The Hunger (1983) How could I not love this? Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, Susan Sarandon, Bauhaus. Beautiful, edgy, tragic vampires. Now, the thing is, although I love this film I have to admit I love this film because of its camp factor in my universe. I don't love The Hunger because it's an exceptional vampire film, I love it because it's such a cultural icon at this point. This film deserves to be on this list because it covers the vampire/lesbian/death quota for all vampire movie lists.

Shadow of the Vampire (2000) - a movie that is a take off of the original Nosferatu from 1922. A brilliantly filmed and acted film. If you are familiar with Nosferatu (1922) you should be set. If you haven't seen this film, see it. It's great. I loved the performances given by John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe. Amazing actors in a fine film.

Nosferatu (1922) The classic. Worth every minute. For me at least a horror classic. I like my vampires deep down creepy.

The addiction (1995) - Strangely disturbing. Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, Annabel Sciorra and Edie Falco round out the cast. I love Lili Taylor and have since her turn in Say Anything. She's great and powerful, and in this she's pretty disturbed. I love that this film was shot in black and white. The blood and needle scenes are upsetting. Again, fine performances by all, with a premise that vampirism is an addiction. Throw in some existential pondering and suffering and you have this film.

Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) I love this film, it is a fun mockery of the past 20 years of Dracula movies. I'm a big Mel Brooks fan. I also love Peter McNicol's version of Renfield. My favorite Renfield is Tom Waits, but it's because I love Tom Waits and his music and anything he's in.

Okay, so these are just my top vamp flicks. What are yours and why?

Great Gory Eyeball Popping Scenes Of Greatness

I've been contemplating movies and themes lately and think I've started something here. As my partner-in-crime, my husband, is a gorehound I've been subjected over the years to an amazing number of rather gory horror movies. In this process I've discovered that a popular method of torture/death in said gory horror movies is eyeball popping. So I've come up with a list of movies with great eyeball centered gore. If there are more you can think of, please add.

The Beyond by Lucio Fulci - Ah, The Beyond's tarantulas eating eyeballs. Truly disturbing and memorable and chock full of eyeball eating.

Evil Dead - Having seen this again on the big screen recently I was reminded of how funny and gory this film is. The eyeball popping is not the most memorable, but there is a noted scene.

Marebito - there is an early eyeball stabbing scene.

Phantasm 2 - Some of my husband's favorites from back in the day. I actually sat through all 4 of them. These movies may have been something when they came out, in retrospect - not so much. The fact that blood was banana custard color didn't help. Eyeball popping however, did. One of the few films that the gore did help.

So - what are your favorite eyeball popping, gouging, poking, eating, rolling scenes in horror cinema?

Attack of the Killer Food!

I woke up the other day with the song Attack of the Killer tomatoes in my head and promptly wandered about the house humming the tune. It got the ideas of attacking food in my head. I decided that this list needed to exist.
Here it goes, my list of best movies with attacking food.

Poltergeist - the meat from the fridge. Disturbed me beyond belief as a kid. How could it not? I didn't want meat for months after that film.

The Stuff - could make you swear off yogurt for years. I first saw this when I was about 9 in Tucson with Claudine and her sister and mom.

Young Sherlock Holmes - the cream puff attack.

Better Off Dead - the food isn't exactly attacking, but I felt this was a memorable food movement for 3 reasons 1) the burger dancing scene is one of the weirdest scenes. It creeps me out to no end. 2) the mom's cooking of octopus 3) the moving dish.

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters - I was reminded of this by a cousin. A prime example of attacking food.

Honorable Mentions: The Curry attacking in Red Dwarf, Pizza the Hut in Spaceballs. Both funny and interesting versions of attacking food.

I don't know about you but I feel I should also mention that I hate ads for food that have dancing or talking/singing food. The California Raisins disturb me as do the Chips Ahoy! dancing cookies.

So - let me know. What food in the movies or tv scares you?

Amelie

First let me say, I wasn't always a fan of this crew. I viewed City of Lost Children first, ages ago, right after it'd been released. It was twisted and dark and I didn't like it.
I saw it again a few years later, and loved it. I don't know what had changed, I suspect it was an instance of "Bad Movie experience". You know - bad company, or I was cajoled into watching the movie, I chalk it now up to general malaise. I later loved the film, bought the soundtrack and often recommend it to others. At some point between my first and second viewing my appreciation of its surrealism developed. I enjoy the camera angles, the ideas in the film especially the twins and the flea circus. But I digress.
I didn't see Delicatessen until last year.
Somewhere between the those films I saw 2 Jean-Pierre Jeunet movies - Amelie and Alien 4.
Amelie being the far better movie. The less said about Alien 4 the better.
Amelie though. What a ride!
It's hard for me to pinpoint what I love more, the camera angles and fast zippy shots or the color.
I love Jeunet's use of the colors red and green. I love the pleasant atmosphere he's placed his regulars (including, Dominique Pinon) in, The Two Windmills and Montmartre. The quips and facts and non sequiturs are great. There are brilliant little moments in the film that still, this many years after first watching it still make me stop everything and watch. Audrey Tautou is lovely and easy to watch, she does doe eyed wonder with ease. I like this film, it's an easy modern day fairy tale with gorgeous use of color and brilliant shots.
It's an easy story to watch, a young sheltered woman starts to live in the world. She meets people, helps people, meddles in other people's lives and all in all starts to get out more and risk a little. It's a film about dreams and love, what's not to love. The acting is superb, the dialogue is quiet and thought out and it's all brilliantly shot.
It's eye candy at its finest.
Enjoy!