Stephin Merritt seems like a pretty intense guy. At least that’s the impression I have of the uber-talented musician after watching Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields.

The documentary, shot over the course of ten years by directors Kerthy Fix and Gail O’Hara, gives fans of the Magnetic Fields an inside glimpse at one of the most prolific (and talented) songwriters of today’s generation: Stephin Merritt.

Merritt is the frontman for the Magnetic Fields, among other bands. With a somber voice and lyrics marinated in the richest of romances, Merritt and his band have found themselves a devoted, if niche, following.

Strange Powers, with its captivating look at the sometimes sour, always passionate Merritt, should hopefully build the bands’ fanbase.

The documentary follows Merritt throughout the course of his nearly 20-year career — including the moments where he first began to develop the sound that would soon become his trademark.

The film follows the band as they record music, providing additional framework with interviews and archival footage.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is the intense friendship between Merritt and his bandmate Claudia Gonson, a woman who sometimes acts like a wife to the gay songwriter.

As Merritt moves from New York to Los Angeles, the film captures the anxiousness of Gonson as she realizes that the relationship that has most defined her life and given her purpose over the last twenty years is being tested by a undeniable distance.

Interviews with friends and peers including authors Neil Gaiman and Daniel Handler and musician Peter Gabriel help to paint a portrait of a man whose sometimes acerbic disposition makes him hard to approach — but whose soul contains the modern day reincarnation of Cole Porter.

Not just a video blowjob to a talented musician, though, the documentary chronicles some of the warts in Merritt’s career — including accusations of racism and an aloof detachment with his own bandmates.

The documentary is a must-see for any fans of the Magnetic Fields (and really, if you’ve had the opportunity to listen to the band’s music — you should be a fan) but is also highly recommended to Magnetic Field novices. A well-put together film, Strange Fields is a fascinating portrait of a truly talented man.

At the risk of treading the same ground as every other hack movie critic come this time in April, Kick-Ass is just plain kick ass.

I’m sorry, but there is just no better way to sum up the general attitude, atmosphere and execution of Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s comic book.

While liberties were had with the storyline and some changes are better executed then others, the movie, as a stand-alone project, succeeds in what it set out to do: tell an off-beat superhero story about a loser who finds fame and nookie after putting on a superhero costume and getting his ass kicked.

Aaron Johnson plays Dave Lizewski, a high school geek who, in an attempt to provide meaning for his life, decides to become a superhero. Ordering a wet suit off the Internet and arming himself with a pair of batons, Dave takes to the streets as Kick-Ass — the world’s first official superhero (even if he doesn’t officially have superpowers).

Along for the journey are a trio of fellow vigilantes: Hit Girl, a cute-as-a-button pre-teen girl played by Chloe Moretz who will gladly rip your head off and show it to you; Big Daddy, a former cop and Hit Girl’s father played by Nic Cage in a weird amalgam of Greg Brady and Adam West’s Batman; and Red Mist, an even bigger dork then Lizewski with a dark past played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

Like I mentioned above, the move takes massive liberties with the source material — especially in the film’s climax. Fortunately, much like Vaughn’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust managed to build upon a great book to make an amazing movie, the changes in Kick-Ass don’t stick out like a sore thumb and actually lead to a pretty satisfying ending — though I do miss one particular twist about Cage’s Big Daddy character that was left out of the movie.

If you are thinking of taking your kids to see the movie because of the colorful costumes and peppy tween superhero — think again! The movie is as violent as a Charles Manson slumber party and four-letter words are thrown around more then feces at a chimpanzee retirement home.

Kick-Ass is like a cross between Quentin Tarantino and Richard Donner — a big, sweeping epic film that’s not afraid to get down and dirty with blood, guts and dismemberment.

In one particularly QT-move, the soundtrack almost exclusively of a lot of pop songs and score music ripped straight from other films. Much like it does in Tarantino’s films, this musical choice helps to build a sense of familiarity with the subject matter and makes it easier for audiences to associate with the fantastical violence being perpetrated on screen by a 12-year-old girl with a butterfly knife. Moments where 3 Doors Down’s Kryptonite blends seamlessly into Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation help to create a pop culture pastiche that easily sells a world where a teenage kid can associate so much with fiction that he decides to become a four-color crime fighter.

The movie is a blast, through and through. Hopefully it will open big when it hits theaters on April 16. The buzz that will erupt around the movie after SXSW should help in that regard.

If you’re at SXSW this weekend, watch the movie. If not, brace yourself for a very long month until you get your own chance to have your ass kicked.

Category: Headliners
Director: Matthew Vaughan
Showtimes: Friday, March 12 at 7 PM at Paramount

Inside Pulse — Movies will be on the ground at SXSW! For live coverage from the event, follow Robert Saucedo and Travis Leamons on Twitter at @robsaucedo2500 and @skipkassidy.

The South by Southwest film festival will be held in Austin from March 12 through the 20th. For more information about attending the festival and the films being shown, visit www.sxsw.com/film.

Rapid advancements in technology and the increasing acceptance of animation as a genre not limited to being solely for children has led to this being an interesting, and excellent, decade for animated films.

While there have been a lot of terrible cartoons churned out in the last ten years, there have also been some amazing additions to the genre.

Picking the top ten animated films for this first decade of a new millennium proved to be a harder task then first imagined.

With a plethora of memorable cartoons released in theaters over the last decade, it was next to impossible to whittle the list down to just ten choices — let alone put them in any kind of order.

What follows, though, is my humble attempt to pick what I felt were my favorite animated movies of the last ten years.

I don’t presume to think that this list will be the same for everybody or that I will even feel the same way in another ten years, but, in the meantime, consider this a list of ten animated movies from the last ten years worth checking out.

10. Waking Life

Richard Linklater helped resurrect the dying art of rotoscope with his 2001 film Waking Life, an introspective look at dreams, death and the in-between.

An ensemble film in the vein of Linklater’s breakthrough hit Slackers, Waking Life hopped from subject matter to subject matter providing slice of life vignettes and interviews that explored a variety of off-kilter subjects.

Proof of Waking Life’s impact on the genre can be seen in the increased use of rotoscoping in everything from television commercials to movies — including Linklater’s later stab at the technique with A Scanner Darkly.

9. Coraline

Henry Selick’s 3D stop-motion film is a smorgasbord of outlandish concepts and creepy images. Based on the young adult novel by Neil Gaiman, Coraline features the voices of Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher in the story about a young girl who discovers a hole in her wall that leads to a magical land where nothing is what it seems and a witch wants to catch her and replace her eyes with buttons.

A mostly faithful adaptation of Gaiman’s book, the movie does an admirable job of capturing the prose’s off-kilter tone and sense of wonder.

Selick has proven he does not need the support of Tim Burton when making a movie and I, for one, can’t wait to see what he does next.

8. Ratatouille

This decade has unquestionably been the era of Pixar when it comes to animated movies. With hits — both commercially and critically — released seven out of the last ten years, Pixar dominates this list and Ratatouille is only the first of the studio’s films to find its way onto my list.

Brad Bird’s culinary cinematic gem, the film is proof that, with a good script, an animated movie can be first and foremost a good movie. Patton Oswalt provides the voice of Remy, a rat who fancies himself a chef.

No bigger evidence of the film’s success can be found then in the fact that the film actually paved the way to increased popularity of rats as pets.

7. Les Triplettes de Belleville

Svlvain Chomet’s beautiful film is a masterpiece of sights and music. A co-production between companies in France, the UK, Belgium and Canada, the film is a mostly dialogue-free story about a grandmother’s attempts to rescue her Tour de France cyclist son who has been kidnapped by the French mafia. Along for the ride is a trio of washed up singers and a morbidly obese hound dog named Bruno.

The film’s music is amazing — especially the Oscar nomated song Belleville Rendes-vous.

This is not a film for children — some might be entertained by the sight gags but most wouldn’t know what to make of it but it is an amazing achievement in animation —at once both innovative and a classic throwback.

6. The Incredibles

Another Brad Bird film, The Incredibles is a wonderful homage to the Silver Age of comics — with a great post-modern Watchmen-esque twist.

After all the act of being a superhero is outlawed, the former crimefighters settle down for a suburban existence. The movie focuses on a dysfunctional, but loving, family with extraordinary abilities as they come together to save the world from a former sidekick gone insane.

The first Pixar movie to feature an entirely human cast, the movie showed audiences that you could have a family-friendly superhero movie without being overly cheesy or talking down to children.

The family dynamic on display in The Incredibles is pitch-perfect — a great tribute to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four.

Now, all we need is this movie to finally make its way onto Blu-ray.

5. Spirited Away

Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece, Spirited Away is the story of a young girl who encounters a hidden world of ghosts and monsters when her family stops at an abandoned theme park.

Smashing records in Japan, the film would receive international acclaim upon its’ release — for good reason: It’s bloody great!

As somebody who normally can’t stand Japanese animation (it all looks the same to me), I fell in love with Spirited Away. Miyazaki is a true visionary — able to create images that will stick in your head and perfectly weave social commentary into a story that any child (and adult) would enjoy.

4. Up

The third Pixar movie to find its way onto this list, Up is one of the only 3D animated films released in the last ten years to not suffer when watched in 2D.

While most 3D-enhanced cartoons rely on gimmicks to sell the experience, Up has the benefit of a top-notch story to carry it past any cool extra dimensions.

And what a story! Anybody who isn’t teary-eyed by the first ten minutes has no soul.

Carl, a widower looking to retain his hold on the past, decides to recapture his childhood fantasy of flying his house to South America. Along for the ride are Russell, a Wilderness Explorer, Kevin, a large bird with a taste for chocolate, and Dug, the coolest animated dog ever.

It’s sad, funny and a whole lot of fun — in short, a great animated movie.

3. Fantastic Mr. Fox

Oh, sweet Jesus do I love Roald Dahl. I love the books form the famed children’s book author almost as much as I love the films of Wes Anderson. It’s no surprise, then, that I loved the everloving hell out of Fantastic Mr. Fox — a film that combined the whimsy of Dahl and the visual (and emotional) sensibilities of Anderson.

With a voice cast including George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray, the film takes the best aspects of the two creators’ styles and molds a smart, witty romp that will make even the hardest of hardmen crack a smile.

Using a retro approach to stop-motion, the film retains a timeless quality — something most animated films seem to ignore as they stuff their pallets with pop-culture references and pop songs by Smash Mouth.

2. Team America: World Police

While it may not be timeless as Fantastic Mr. Fox, Team America is unquestionably one of the films (animated or otherwise) most representative of the last decade.

Made by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the duo responsible for South Park, Team America features a cast of marionettes as they drink, fight, have sex in a variety of styles and smash in the heads of the world’s most popular celebrities.

When Kim Jong-il plots the destruction of the world, it’s up to a paramilitary squad of ass-kickers to save the day — whether the world wants them to or not.

While not the runaway hit that South Park was, Team America has its share of supporters and I am most assuredly one of them.

1. WALL-E

The fourth, and final, Pixar movie on my list had to be WALL-E. WALL-E is flat-out one of the best films of the last ten years — let alone animated films.

The story of a robot left to clean the dying planet Earth, WALL-E had more heart and soul then any cartoon ought to have — but what would you expect from Pixar, the studio that has caused me to cry at more movies then any other.

Director Andrew Stanton is able to graft real human emotion onto a character that never really speaks and has limited facial expressions — a stunning feat. This was accomplished, in large part, by the enormous talent of Ben Burtt, the sound design mastermind.

The movie has everything I’m looking for in a animated film — amazing visuals, interesting characters and a powerful theme running as an undercurrent to an engaging story. That’s why WALL-E is number one in my book.

The eighties may hold a place in my heart when it comes to the films released during a particular decade but it wasn’t until I got a good look at the last ten years worth of films in preparation for this list that I realized just how good of a decade the aughts were when it came to movies.

Crafting this list was incredibly difficult as there were a ton of really great movies that came out between January 2000 and December 2009.

From the wealth of comic book movies that overran theaters to the mainstream-ification of and easy access to independent cinema to the constant stream of films from visionary directors hitting their stride, I was never more then a few weeks away from a incredible film experience at the movie theater.

While I put a lot of thought into this list (perhaps too much thought), I can’t guarantee it won’t change with time and perspective. Besides my own evolving tastes, there were also a lot of great films in the last decade that I missed out on and am slowly catching up with thanks to Netflix.

Ten years from now a list of my favorite films of the aughts could look very different. But in the meantime, here are ten of my favorite films from the last 120 months.

10. Avatar

While James Cameron’s box office record-breaking movie may have just been released a handful of weeks ago and at the tail end of the decade, it made such an impact on me at the theater that the film managed to sneak its way onto this list — even if at the very bottom.

Avatar may not be a perfect film — there are some serious issues of originality in the story — but the special effects and sheer spectacle of seeing it in the theater more then make up for any defects in the movie’s plot. Cameron knows how to craft pure, concentrated epic and Avatar delivers the goods in spades. Awe-inspiring in its scope and beauty, the film has a very strong possibility of loosing a lot of its impact on a home theater system so out of all the movies on this list, Avatar has the biggest chance of being squeezed off upon future reflection.

In the meantime, though, Cameron can rest easy with the knowledge that he delivered a movie that once again made going to the theater an event worth looking forward to. Avatar may not be high-brow cinema but it is blockbuster at its finest.

9. Stardust

The majority of film fans may prefer director Matthew Vaughan’s crime film Layer Cake to his attempt at fantasy, but for me Stardust took the cake when it comes to fantasy films of the last decade. An adaptation of one of my favorite books from one of my favorite authors, Stardust took a lot of liberties in its translation to the big screen — but it managed to retain 100 percent of the novel’s tone and wit.

Actors Claire Danes and Charlie Cox are pitch perfect in their roles as “star”-crossed lovers who find romance while on the road — kind of like a Hans Christian Anderson version of Midnight Run if Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin were lovers.

A grown-up fairy tale in the vein of The Princess Bride, Stardust was an unmistakable box office bomb when it was released in 2007. While it has not yet found its audience on DVD, I remain confident that Stardust will be discovered in the next ten years — turning it into a true cult film and not one of those manufactured cult movies that studios love to license merchandise for.

Plus, I’m so gay for the film’s theme song by Take That.

8. About Schmidt

Jack Nicholson, for my money, had no better role this last decade then as Warren Schmidt in Alexander Payne’s 2002 movie About Schmidt.

In the film, Nicholson plays a man who, after his wife dies, decides to head to his daughter’s wedding a bit early in the hopes he can persuade her not to marry a man he considers an utter loser. Hope Davis, Kathy Bates and Dermot Mulroney fill the supporting cast.

A somber reflection of a man beset with loneliness during his twilight years, About Schmidt is painful for me to watch because of how much Nicholson’s character reminds me of my own father. Watching Nicholson in emotional pain as Schmidt makes me think of my own father going through such pain. That, though, is the power of Payne.

Payne, the director of Election and Sideways, excels at working with actors to create characters that are so believable they instantly become synonymous with real people in your own life.

7. Shaun of the Dead

In the last decade, Edgar Wright has quickly become one of my favorite directors. Shaun of the Dead, the movie that, for the most part, introduced him to American audiences, is a brilliant parody of zombie films that rises above the dreck that the parody genre has devolved into and becomes something much more.

The film is really a romantic comedy that just happens to have zombies in it. Not content with just being a single love story though, Shaun of the Dead contains three love stories (a man and his woman, a man and his best friend, and a man and his mother) and gives them the proper emotional weight to make audiences actually care when zombies crash through walls and start eating the innards of the film’s heroes.

But even more the romance and violence, the movie excels at humor — righteous, laugh-out-loud humor. Shaun of the Dead is a great film and I can’t wait to see what Edgar Wright has for movie fans next.

6. Moulin Rouge!

I’ve gotten a lot of grief over the last eight years due to my love for Moulin Rouge. Yes, it’s a musical. Yes, it’s unbelievably sappy. Yes, it’s loud and obnoxious. These are all the reasons, though, why I love the film so much. It’s a grand exercise in excess — combining everything I love in movies: dazzling effects, an earnest love story and a great soundtrack.

Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman are fantastic in the film — providing both their acting chops and singing voices to breathe life into Baz Luhrmann’s crazy vision of a fantastical Paris where poets, prostitutes and dukes mingle in vibrant nightclubs.

Even if I have to turn in my Man Card, I will always stand in proud support for my favorite musical of the last decade.

5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

One of the biggest transformations in my movie inclinations from the ’90s to the ’00s was my increasing distaste for Jim Carrey. The rubber-faced actor went from one of my idols to a guy whose movies I generally avoid — with exception.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a brilliant film — largely due to the involvement of writer Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry. A mindtrip of a film about a clinic that specializes in selectively erasing people’s memories to help them cope with loss, the film proved to be a perfect vehicle for Carrey’s talents.

What I love about Gondry as a director is the clear growth of his skills on display throughout the course of his career. While a lot of filmmakers will stagnate with their work, Gondry’s evolution as a storyteller is obvious in everything he does. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a clear progression of Gondry’s work as a music video director but even more so, it was a great story brought to life in a visually stunning way.

4. Amelie

Amelie, or Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain as is the film’s full title, is my favorite romantic film of the last decade.

A wonderful exploration of destiny and optimism, the movie is beautifully filmed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and stars the lovely Audrey Tautou as a innocent girl seeking true love in the streets of Paris. Utlizing a Rube Goldberg series of events, the film’s plot sends Amelie from a series of adventures helping others achieve happiness to the film’s final adventure — a shot for Amelie to find her own happiness.

Jeunet’s whimsical style is a perfect fit to this impossibly cheery movie. There is no way you can watch this movie and not smile — unless you are secretly a demon-hearted gorgon of hatred.

3. The 40-Year-Old Virgin

While Judd Apatow has been producing movies and television series since the early ’90s, The 4o-Year-Old Virgin is the film that introduced the world to Apatow and his pals — paving the way for the majority of comedies that have been influenced by Judd in the last five years.

What sets Apatow’s comedies apart from the imitators, though, is the heart and soul that shine through every minute of the director’s admittedly long films. The film’s star, Steve Carrell, broke through and achieved true fame with his role as Andy Stitzer, hapless loser and lifetime geek. While there were plenty of dick and fart jokes to be had at Andy’s expense, the reason this movie is so high on my list has more to do with the emotional weight found in the film then the huge laughs provided by Carrell and his supporting cast.

Apatow has been responsible for a lot of great films these last ten years. The 40-Year-Old Virgin, though, is simply the best.

2. The Dark Knight

There is really not much to say about this film other then the fact that I love the movie like most people love their first born child.

A life-long Batman fan, The Dark Knight is, in my opinion, the perfect Batman movie. It is so well-crafted in its story, production value, acting and execution that I seriously question the need for any more Batman movies. That is, of course, unless Christopher Nolan wants to do more. Please say you do, Mr. Nolan.

The Dark Knight is my favorite super hero movie in a decade where there were a lot of really, really good super hero movies. A comic book nerd through and through, I would have made The Dark Knight my favorite film of the decade if it wasn’t for that little film that kept nagging in my ear…

1. 25th Hour

I did not see 25th Hour when it was originally released in theaters. In fact, I didn’t see it until almost five years after it had been released on DVD. Since then, I have watched it almost every six months — a total of well over half a dozen times.

25th Hour is my favorite film of the last decade purely for that reason — I can watch it over and over again and it never looses its freshness or appeal. Edward Norton turns in an amazing performance as Monty Brogan, a man facing immanent jail time for narcotics possession. Looking at his last day as a free man, Monty goes out for a night on the town with his best friends (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper) and his girlfriend (Rosario Dawson).

Everything from the film’s writing (Brian Cox’s final monologue is one of the most heart-wrenching scenes I have ever witnessed in a motion picture) to the direction from Spike Lee to the beautiful music by Terence Blanchard makes 25th Hour my favorite movie of the decade.

Scary stories for scary kids.

Earlier this year (when this blog was originally published) I went to see Coraline, an excellent stop-motion adaptation of a Neil Gaiman book. I was blown away by the amazing job director Henry Selick did visualizing the novel’s darker scenes. The film, while not exactly horror, was definitely creepy for a children’s movie. As I looked around the packed theater at the children seated in the audience, I saw a few covering their eyes but for the most part, a gleeful look filled their faces — they were digging the creepiness as much as I was.

When I was a kid, I was raised on a steady diet of horror movies. Thanks in large part to Amy, my oldest sister, and her video rental card, Mary, my other sister, and I watched an above-average amount of scary movies growing up. When Amy moved away to college, Mary and I did not stop our horror flick fixation. Instead of perusing the animation aisle at Blockbuster to pick up the latest Disney cartoon, she and I shopped around for a new horror movie every time our mother took us to the video store.

On Friday nights, I would stay up late and watch Joe Bob Briggs’ Monster Vision on TNT. Biggs would host a series of schlocky horror movies, offering witticisms and factoids during commercial breaks.

Thanks to Professor Briggs, I was introduced to some of the worst horror movies ever made — and I loved them. From Project: MetalBeast, an early ‘90s film that featured a werewolf with bulletproof skin, to The Gate, a movie in which a heavy metal record played backwards opens a portal to Hell, I watched every scary movie I could get my hands on.

One of my all-time favorite movies as a kid was Monster Squad, an homage to the Little Rascals that featured a group of kids who fought the Universal Monsters. During my favorite scene, in which a decidedly non-bullet proof werewolf was blown up with a grenade and began to piece himself back together (the grenade was, after all, not made of silver), I would hide behind the couch. I would jump up and down with excitement — afraid to watch but unwilling to look away for longer then 10 seconds. When the film was finally released on DVD last year, I spent a morning tracking down a copy so I could relive fond childhood memories. I’m happy to say that Monster Squad is one movie that still holds up.

During high school, horror experienced somewhat of a renaissance thanks to the film Scream. Because of the movie’s blockbuster performance, horror movies (specifically slasher ones) were all the rage – and I watched nearly all of them. As I consumed one blood-soaked 90-minute body count after another, I started to realize something — I was growing bored. Horror movies, in general, weren’t scaring me anymore. Scream had given me nightmares. So had The Blair Witch Project but that had more to do with my own imagination then the actual film. Following a long dry spell where I watched horror movie after horror movie without so much as a bad dream, I watched The Ring which managed to elicit a restless night. Since then, I cannot think of a single movie I’ve seen that has scared me.

I’m not talking about making me jump. Pop a balloon in my face and I’ll jump. I like my horror movies to still leave me scared well out of the theater and, sadly, I’ve become desensitized to scary stuff.

I don’t watch as many horror movies as I used to. Since I don’t watch them to be scared, I tend to stick to ones that either have good effects or a good story — ingredients hard to find in this particular genre. While I didn’t have nightmares about button eyes thanks to Coraline, I at least fell asleep content in the fact I watched a good movie.

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