192 - Some Top 5's

A few of my Top 5's:

My Top 5 TV Shows
1. 24
2. Seinfeld
3. The Simpsons
4. The Shield
5. Lost

My Top 5 Favorite Novels
1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

My Top 5 Favorite States
1. Texas
2. Iowa
3. California
4. Misssissippi
5. Nevada

My Top 5 Political Issues
1. Gun Control/Rights
2. Taxes
3. Health Care
4. Defense
5. Immigration

My Top 5 24 Finalies (the last four episodes of a season)
1. Day 1
2. Day 4
3. Day 2
4. Day 5
5. Day 3

My Top 5 Films (when pressed)
1. Memento or Star Wars
2. Rashomon or Sling Blade
3. North by Northwest or Vertigo
4. The Big Lebowski or Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
5. The Maltese Falcon or The Graduate

My Top 5 Presidents of Interest
1. George Washington
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. Andrew Jackson
4. Theadore Roosevelt
5. Ronald Reagan (sorry every single reader I have except one)

My Top 5 Martin Scorsese Films
1. Taxi Driver
2. Casino
3. Raging Bull
4. Goodfellas
5. The Aviator

My Top 5 Films Made in the Year of my Birth
1. The Terminator
2. Beverly Hills Cop
3. Sixteen Candles
4. 1984
5. Ghostbusters

My Top 5 Westerns
1. The Wild Bunch
2. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
3. Unforgiven
4. High Noon
5. The Searchers

The 5 Best Years of my Life
1. 2006
2. 2001
3. 2005
4. 1993
5. 1992

My Top 5 Seinfeld Characters
1. George Costanza
2. Cosmo Kramer
3. Jerry Seinfeld
4. Elaine Benes
5. Cosmo Kramer

My Top 5 Favorite Performances by an Actor or Actress
1. Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront
2. Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer in 24
3. Billy Bob Thorton as Karl Childers in Sling Blade
4. Jeff Bridges as Jeffery "The Dude" Lebowski in The Big Lebowski
5. Rinko Kikuchi as Chieko in Babel

My Top 5 Video Games since 2000
1. Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (PC)
2. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2)
3. Combat Mission: Afrika Korps (PC)
4. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS2)
5. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox)


If anyone would care to suggest a Top 5, I'll make one for pretty much anything other than "Top 5 Lays" or something like that. Because there are far too many remember, I mean.

191 - Annapolis review

Annapolis occupies an unusual space in the history of military films. Made post-9/11, it does not once mention the world-altering event, nor are the words "Iraq" or "Afghanistan" mentioned even once. Being in the armed forces is shown to be the most noble pursuit in the history of man, yet the characters have nothing whatsoever to say about patriotism or a good word to spare for their country. It’s as if two different writers with wildly different philosophies took turns writing ten pages at a time on the screenplay, except that they both share a love of decades old movie cliches.

James Franco stars as Jake Huard, a Naval Academy student who shows how edgy he is by giving everyone the evil eye, or maybe he was just constipated, I don’t know. He gives up his day job of shipbuilding across the Chesapeake Bay in order to fulfil his mother’s dying wish, which is that he go to Annapolis and become an officer. His father (Brian Goodman, who was once memorably executed by Jack Bauer in 24’s second season) quietly disapproves, but don’t worry, he’ll eventually give Jake a firm nod of approval.

Despite terrible grades and a serious attitude problem, he gets in, because there’s no way you could center a movie about a Naval Academy recruit around a realistic character type. The audience can only feel empathy for a jerk who rejects the aid of his peers and doesn’t have a good reason for being there in the first place.

Once in the Naval Academy, he goes to work learning about all the things a good officer should know: scrubbing toilets until they’re spotless, feuding with your bunkmates, scoring with your hot superior officer (Jordana Brewster), feuding with your black superior officer (Tyrese Gibson), and boxing. The trainers simulate combat deaths by making Jake stake the meals of his comrades on trivia questions. I once read that the United States Navy have these bizarre devices that float on water, carry important things, and shoot missiles at our enemies, but those must not have anything to do with the Naval Academy, which in Annapolis is strictly concerned with obstacle courses and boxing.

While Jake trains hard to kick his superior officer’s ass in a climatic boxing match, he also helps his roommate Twins (Vicellous Reon Shannon), a guy fat enough to make me look thin, work out in order to complete the obstacle course. Twins hides Twinkies in his drawer and blubbers about how disappointed everyone in his redneck town will be when he flunks out of Annapolis, which raises the legitimate question of how a man his size would pass his physical. But James, you might say, Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket featured a grossly overweight recruit, and I just love that fucking movie. Two points there:

1. Private Pyle was incredibly fat, and look at what happened to him. And poor Sergeant Hartman.

2. When Justin Lin, director of Annapolis, makes a movie half as good as the average Kubrick film, I’ll let it slide.

1.5 out of 5

190

Sorry again for the lack of updates. Today is my last day as an undergrad, and this last week has been the worst ever.

I'm looking forward to the summer. I've got far more goals than I can possibly accomplish, but at least I can try. Road trips, exercise, video games, target shooting, script writing, I hope to do it all.

It remains to be seen whether or not I'll still write reviews for the Northern Iowan, as I'd have to go to graduate school at UNI in order to continue. Nonetheless, I will continue writing reviews. I have had the bad feeling lately that the quality of my work has generally decreased as of late, which could be the result of any number of things: burnout, less interesting films, my imagination, or whatever. I'm excited to start writing reviews again where I have all the time I want to think everything through and revise for long periods before posting. Also, I fell out of the habit of peddling my reviews to places like Blogcritics, a mistake I intend to remedy.