werner herzog's THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (2009)

the one thing i feel like i can say about Herzog's Bad Lieutenant (besides that Nic Cage's hunched, manic performance is my very favorite in a career full of fifty awful performances and a handful of truly Great ones) is that it's the best full-concept gag since Antichrist; under the guise of a cop movie, Herzog presents us with a cartoon character study that goofily challenges our ingrained relationship to a cornered hero (or even a more run-of-the-mill antihero) with the odds stacked impossibly against him. in most cases these situations intend for us to wonder just how the protagonist is going to get out of this mess, and to pull for him every step of the way, while here we only wonder which particular hue of flames Bd. Lt. McDonach will end up going down in, and how many people he will end up taking with him. (hell, we are actively rooting for it to happen, because he deserves every one of a spectrum of horrible fates.) but Herzog sees nothing so boring as tragedy in this story -- it is not only a comedy, but one of the year's funniest -- and thumbs his nose at our spoiled expectations, ending the film with a conspicuously whiz-bang reverse house of cards as fearlessly, determinedly and downright gleefully amoral as anything i've seen in a long while. goddamn, what fun.

patrick lussier's MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D (2009)

louis leterrier's THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008)

so now that it's all done with, was this really necessary? Iron Man's unqualified creative success tipped the scales on whether or not the Hulk reboot might be worth my time (i am, after all, a fan of both Norton and Leterrier), but i'm sad to say my initial reactions were correct: The Incredible Hulk is a waste of time, money, and talent, and does not one thing better than Ang Lee's version. the action sequences are bigger and more plentiful, sure, and the TV series' Banner-on-the-run premise is a superior frame for a good Hulk story, but the overwhelming emotional ineptitude makes much of the film very nearly boring. (few seem reluctant to label Lee's Hulk as a snoozer, but at least there was something going on upstairs.) on its own terms The Incredible Hulk is a B- comic book movie, but following a previous, just-fine version by a few years and a flawless, intertwined crowd-pleaser by mere weeks it's nothing less than a failure.

michael haneke's FUNNY GAMES (2007)

it's hard to shake the feeling that writing about (or indeed even thinking too hard about) Funny Games is in and of itself a bit of a trap; from Haneke's point of view, nose-thumbing intellectual dissonance seems the funniest game of all. but it's still fascinating, and its contradictions are central to that even as they perhaps hold the audience at arm's length from the heart of the matter; we're given a spry, stern lecture on screen violence and traumatic-miserablism-as-entertainment, wrapped up in a slick, tense box unequivocally and unapologetically learned in the finer points of both. Haneke, of course, knows this, and isn't afraid to let us know that he knows, but as compelling as his film is (for all of these reasons and more) there's a smugness to the whole thing that undermines the sincerity of its ideas long before its textual clashes have the chance, and in that regard Haneke and his Funny Games are unsuccessful - such games are a lot more fun when the dealer doesn't show his hand.