Movie Death Match 2007 tuh 2008

Fuck. Can't I just . . .
What if we just said that both . . .
Fuck.
Fuck it. I'm going Memento. Yes, I'm partly picking Memento because it was "different" and "creative." But I want to say for the record that I am not someone who is easily impressed by a formalistic conceit. There is no end of stories that rely almost entirely on a device for their power, and that's not usually a good thing. And telling a story backwards is not original, and I'm irritated whenever I hear someone imply that Memento was the first story to be told backwards, or that the "brains-in-a-vat" idea in Matrix was anything other than an old, tired sci-fi idea. Memento has an unlikely plot, a mostly one-dimensional character, and extreme formal constraints on how the story can be told. And I was awestruck by how well they executed it.

A devicey movie is good if you enjoy it, and it's great if you want to watch it again. Sixth sense: good. Fight club: good. Usual Suspects: great. Memento: great.

Little Miss Sunshine was also great. But Memento stands fairly alone, whereas, say, Pieces of April was at least as good as LMS, if not better.