Matt's Blog

1. Match Point, Woody Allen

2. Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney

3. Pride & Prejudice, Joe Wright

4. Junebug, Phil Morrison

5. A History of Violence, David Cronenberg

6. Sin City, Robert Rodriguez

7. Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan

8. Walk the Line, James Mangold

9. Wedding Crashers, David Dobkin

10. The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach 

Blind Spots: Munich, Serenity, King Kong, Shop Girl, Crash, The New World, The Excorcism of Emily Rose, Brokeback Mountain, Last Days, Cinderella Man, Jarhead 

So far, this year is the best of the 00's to me (...so far). The films had higher ratings overall than other years and a few I really enjoyed didn't make the cut (Garden State, Spanglish, Ray, The Bourne Supremacy). And my blind spots include some pretty notable pictures that would probably make the list if I would just sit down and watch them.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry

2. 2046, Wong Kar Wai

3. Before Sunset, Richard Linklater

4. House of Flying Daggers, Yimou Zhang

5. Man on Fire, Tony Scott

6. The Aviator, Martin Scorsese

7. Kill Bill Vol. 2, Quentin Tarantino

8. Collateral, Michael Mann

9. The Motorcycle Diaries, Walter Salles 

10, The Life Aquatic, Wes Anderson 

(tie) Napoleon Dynamite, Jared Hess

Blind Spots: Million Dollar Baby, Sideways, Shaun of the Dead, Saved!, The Lady Killers, Maria Full of Grace, The Sea Inside, Layer Cake, The Village, Being Julia, Vera Drake

Well, we have quite a mix here. From the serious to the disturbing to the comical. But that's movies, right?

1. Old Boy, Chan-wook Park

2. Elephant, Gus Van Sant

3. Kill Bill Vol. 1, Quentin Tarantino

4. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Peter Jackson

5. Love Actually, Richard Curtis

6. Mystic River, Clint Eastwood

7. Seabiscuit, Gary Ross

8. The School of Rock, Richard Linklater

9. Pirates of the Caribbean, Gore Verbinski

10. Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola

(tie) Elf, Jon Favreau

 Blind Spots: Big Fish, 21 Grams, Dogville, Master and Commander, Identity, The Cooler, Cold Mountain

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Peter Jackson

2. Far from Heaven, Todd Haynes

3. Heaven, Tom Tykwer

4. Talk to Her, Pedro Almodovar

5. Insomnia, Christopher Nolan

6. The Bourne Identity, Doug Liman

7. City of God, Fernando Meirelles

8. About Schmidt, Alexander Payne

9. Narc, Joe Carnahan

10. Catch Me If You Can, Steven Spielberg

    (tie) Panic Room, David Fincher 

Blind Spots: The Hours, The Pianist, Spider, In America, Infernal Affairs, Spirited Away, Hero, Sunshine State, Russian Ark 

OK. We are in 2001 now. For your information, the way I have ranked things is by giving a score from 1-100 for each movie in the categories of Story, Visual Presentation and Acting. I then combine the scores for each movie I have seen in the given year. After tallying up the top scores I present them here. Obviously my personal taste and experience plays a huge part. I am not trying to be too academic about it. Be sure and let me know if I have spurned a favorite of yours. 

1. Blackhawk Down, Ridley Scott

2. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Peter Jackson

3. The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson

4. The Others, Alejandro Amenábar

5. Ocean's Eleven, Steven Soderbergh

6. In the Bedroom, Todd Field

7. The Man Who Wasn't There, The Coen Brothers

8. Scotland, PA, Billy Morrissette

9. Moulin Rouge!, Baz Luhrmann

10. Gosford Park, Robert Altman

Blind Spots: Ghost World, Fat Girl, Mulholland Dr., The Devil's Backbone 

I have been trying to rank movies that I have seen. I started with the 2000s and so over the next few days I will list my top 10 for each year of this decade. There are several movies I have yet to see, so I will list my blind spots also. Let me know if, in your judgment, I have put something on here that is crap or left something off that is genius. 

1. In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar Wai

2. The House of Mirth, Terence Davies

3. Amores Perros, Alejandro González Iñárritu

4. George Washington, David Gordon Green

5. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Ang Lee

6. Sexy Beast, Jonathan Glazer

7. Wonder Boys, Curtis Hanson

8. Snatch, Guy Ritchie

9. Traffic, Steven Soderbergh

10. (tie) Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe

     Before Night Falls, Julian Schnabel

 Blind Spots: Yi Yi, You Can Count on Me, Dancer in the Dark, American Psycho, Chuck & Buck, Billy Elliot, Iris

My name's Matt and I work in the Marketing Department at Klipsch. I do graphic design work on the print side (as opposed to the web side) of things. I am a Ball State grad and have been at Klipsch for about four and a half years. My wife and I welcomed our first child (a little girl) into the world in November.

I really enjoy movies and so this space will primarily be used to discuss them in some form or another. Typically that will be simple reviews, favorite director biographies, or lists of my favorites. But from time to time I would also like to write posts on movies that involve music performances in the plot somehow. Called "Chapter and Verse," I will discuss the movie scene and the piece of music in it, and I will give you the DVD's chapter number so you can find the scene easily if you wanted to. I thought this would be a fun excersise and would incorporate both mediums that we at Klipsch enjoy so much.

So hopefully I will get the chance to write with some kind of frequency. And hopefully you will get the chance to check in from time to time.