The Duke's Thirteen Best Of 2003
The Duke has been debating what the hell was the best film of 2003 since mid-November. It has, alas, taken until now to decide that I can't decide, and so instead present The 13 Best Films What Have (2003) Next To The Title.
As per usual, each film in the list has been graced with a Mondo Irlando Award for its particular expertise.
Congratulations, Thirteen Best Films Of The Year, keep up the good work.
IRREVERSIBLE
Best Performance Of The Year By A Fire Extinguisher
Gasper Noe is one of the most fucked-up motherfuckers to ever have been fucked up. First, he gave the world I Stand Alone, about a man wants to screw his daughter and stuff. Then he follows it up with this here, about a man wants to kill a man with a fire-extinguisher on account of he raped Monica Bellucci for 9 minutes. It might have been made a little more approachable had it featured a laugh-track, but this is mere speculation on my behalf.
What we do get, instead of the laugh-track, is a bass rumble utilised by the authorities to break up riots by way of making the upstarts in question puke themselves silly. Noe obviously felt that the whole fire-extinguisher to the skull and nine-minute anal rape tomfoolery just wasn't disturbing enough.
Irreversible, though, probably against Noe's wishes, turns out to be the best rape-revenge film ever made. Granted, there aren't many in the genre that reach anything approaching even mediocrity, never mind greatness, but well done to The French anyway.
By beginning with the revenge, Noe denies us the troubling sense of vindication usually granted by these scenes of "justified" slaughter. The film runs backwards, and so we get the rape half-way in, and then a load of talking and lying about naked in bedrooms, with the two young lovers heartbreakingly unaware of the whole rape / fire-extinguisher malarkey just around the corner.
Irreversible talks about the inanity of revenge, and denies the viewer the ability to experience the retaliation in relation to the initial outrage. We just see a bloke gets his arm broken, and then a fire-extinguisher crushes a skull. What the hell's up with these crazy Frenches, we're thinking? It's singularly uncomfortable, and is also by some way the most effective horror film released in the last 12 months.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - visualsimplicity
Am I being weird here or did you use the word "what" in place of the word "that" in at least 5 different places?
2 - Chris Kent
Am I being weird here or did you use the word "what" in place of the word "that" in at least 5 different places?
lol.....Welcome to the World of Duke, it's a lovely land populated by dark-eyed Ian Holms where trees throw apples, zombies dance and Hulk is considered one of the best films of the year......though I do believe an Arachnid Hall of Fame is in order....
An excellent list.
3 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Sorry visual simplicity. I work hard on my grammar but still i screw up on occasion. Man, that grammar. It's a harsh mistress but i love like what i love a fine zombie film by the Lucio Fulci's.
Thanks Visual Simplicity.
Chris! Rising to the dukes defence! Good for you! Gosh, all these nice words (and so good with the grammar) and going to get me all blushified. Thank you!
4 - Eric Olsen
Indeed, what is the deal with "what"? Are we working idiomatically? I fear such usage is going to confuse the kiddies.
Very interesting list, by the way. Thanks!
5 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Arachnid hall of fame - Those 8 legged freaks would be in there. They were very good as far as the duke is concerned. Also, Arachnophobia had an abundance of the little bastards what have the eight legs. Tarantuals - The Deadly Cargo had plenty of the tarantulas, even though they cant really kill you unless your allergic, but hey, that didn't stop Michael Caine getting stressed as fuck on account of the bees. "The bees have always been our friends"
Harry Potter Part 2 - The Chamber Of The Secrets had great spiders.
Did i mention i'm arachnophobic? And still these things draw me towards them. Filthy arachnids.
Eric, thanks for the kind words and please don't worry about the whats and the thats, its all language man, give peace a chance as john lennon said one time before they shot him.
6 - Eric Olsen
On a serious front, you are an excellent, prolific, and erudite contributor and I wouldn't want anyone to take you less seriously - or be confused like our poor VisSim here - due to eccentric usage.
7 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Point taken Eric, although i don't know what i can do about it. It's the style, y'see, but yes, this particular article had more of the what/that swinging than the others. possibly on account of the length. Who the hell knows. Maybe i'll make an opening statement - "The Duke has read many novels, some of which were originally Russian, and he knows a thing or two about Thomas Middleton and the Shakespeares so don't worry when he starts waxing anti-grammatically, it's all part of his charm, and a fitting substitute for a disastourously inefficient manhood."
Eric, i don't want to put no one off, but when you get into a style-type thing with the old writing and such, it's hard to abandon it, even if it is one what makes folks think you're thick.
8 - Eric Olsen
It's up to you, but I assure you that you would be no less charming in standard English.
I have written idiomatically in the past and was told by editors that a very little bit - like in dialogue - goes a very long way in conveying attitude and perspective without creating a jarring disconnect. I was told to "have faith in the appeal" of my writing on its own terms. In other words - why limit yourself?
9 - Chris Kent
I see El Senor Duke's grammar simply for what it is. He grew up a Droog and he just can't rid himself of the street slang.
Very, very horrorshow....
10 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Chris, once again you've nailed it. You may have seen the film what Stan Kubrick made about me, by the name of The Clockwork Oranges. I had a hard life growing up those many years ago in the future. Now my grammar is all messed up on account of the oranges. Plus, they leave your hands all smelly when you peel them. Damn them oranges.
11 - JR
I vote for jarring disconnect. A reader needs that once in a while.
12 - sheri
I think Duke's grammar is charming!
I see little pot bellied dudes with pipes, and big red noses, frolicking about in the four leaf clovers, beckoning me to come and spend my American tourist dollars to see the home of (some of them anyways) my ancestors.
That way, everyone has an excuse to get drunk, and and make fun of me for being proud to be half breed Irish :0)
13 - Chris Kent
I see little pot bellied dudes with pipes, and big red noses, frolicking about in the four leaf clovers....
Are we still talking about Duke's horror film list here? I don't know about ye guys, but this description has pretty much scared me shitless.....
Anyway Duke, yet another convert....!
14 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Thanks JR and Sherri and any others who thought the same stuff but didn't comment on account of they feel insecure and all shy. It's ok, guys, come on ahead and comment. I would be honoured as a motherfucker.
Thanks hypothetical non-commentators.
Thanks real commentators.
Sheri, hehe. Yes, and also, if you visit The Duke, i do a great exchange wereby your fat american dollars can be turned into these really cool beans what grow into beanstalks. They're great, and more than worth the price of that cow my mum sent me to get. I mean come on, mum, its a motherfucking beanstalk! To the sky? Hello?
15 - visualsimplicity
Yes, and also, if you visit The Duke, i do a great exchange wereby your fat american dollars can be turned into these really cool beans what grow into beanstalks. They're great, and more than worth the price of that cow my mum sent me to get. I mean come on, mum, its a motherfucking beanstalk! To the sky? Hello?
Hey you alternated. Where's the consistency? Just when I was getting used to the "what" you go and change on me.
16 - Eric Olsen
The ways of the Duke are mutable and mysterious, eh what?
17 - Chris Kent
lmao....
18 - sheri
Welll, Chris, I had to get it outta of ya somehow...just kidding just kidding !
Duke, and I be climbing that beanstalk, all the way up to God's office, God Himself that is, and I'd be asting Him WHAT'S up. I was tolt that He doesn't get mad at me for gettin' mad at Him, jus' as long as I believe.;0)
19 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Sheri, did Mel Gibson tell you that? I wudn't trust him if i were you. Yeah, sure, he talks real nice and says his R's correctly, but he also led a rebellion in scotland one time, and painted his face blue. Obviously folks liked listening to The Cure back then too.
20 - duane
Obviously, the Duke, who gets away with referring to himself in the third person, is effecting an idiomatic style for the sake of playing a very entertaining character. It's perfectly fine to botch the grammar, as long as it's intentional, and as long as it's consistent. The Comment Police are watching you, Duke, and, so far, they like what they see.
21 - sheri
umm. Kind of, Duke. Only Mel Gibson, he says I get to God's office by way of the Queen Mary Mother Of God's office. Only Brandon Lee, he tells me that I just got to believe.And every night I burn every night the dreams the same.*sigh*
22 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Nah, Sheri, like many of us, Mel Gibson lost his faith in Madonna after American Life. I mean come on, it was just embaressing. And after she married Cliff Richard, that was too much, and then that film about the sand. Hell the hell cares about sand? It's course and it gets in your eyes. Its irritating. Not like you Padme.
Who the hell's Padme
Sorry Madonna
Thanks Sheri
23 - visualsimplicity
Obviously, the Duke, who gets away with referring to himself in the third person, is effecting an idiomatic style for the sake of playing a very entertaining character. It's perfectly fine to botch the grammar, as long as it's intentional, and as long as it's consistent.
Ah but see, I've also been meaning to point out that The Duke seems to be inconsistent in referencing himself. It's one of the only times where I've read someone refer to themselves in the third person in one sentence, then in the first person in the very next. It's odd, but also entertaining.
24 - JR
"Yes, and also, if you visit The Duke, i do a great exchange wereby your fat american dollars can be turned into these really cool beans what grow into beanstalks. They're great, and more than worth the price of that cow my mum sent me to get. I mean come on, mum, its a motherfucking beanstalk! To the sky? Hello?"
Hey you alternated. Where's the consistency? Just when I was getting used to the "what" you go and change on me.
They are two different words.
The first highlighted word is a conjunction or some kind of a pronoun or something; it could legitimately have been replaced by "which" (or in some cases "who" (actually, I've seen that idiomatic substitution too)). Since its function is mostly structural, you can get away with substituting something unusual without screwing up what you're trying to say.
The second word, however, is an adjective and has a specific meaning which would be lost otherwise. That one you can't substitute.
Hmmm, looks like whereby was misspelled.
25 - sheri
If you were to come visit me, I would be sure and speak in proper english, with as little of my southern accent as I could.
However, stay around long enough, after we get kicked back and all comfy, I might slip into my natural way of speaking...accent, vernacular, the whole works, if I want you to get a true sense of who I am.I will even mix it up.And when I really get going people from others parts often can not understand me at all.
I have found the same thing happens to me when I'm communicating on the interent.Aside from Duke's misspelled words, or "incorrect" usage,(who hasn't done that?) I feel it is the same with him, and because of that, he seems a much more real person to me.