10 movies that should have been on the list, and a creepy musical guilty pleasure...

Okay, I've had a couple of days to think about this while buzzing the list, and I have my ten films that should have made the list.

In no particular order:

1. Miracle Mile - originally concieved as a segment of the ill-fated Twilight Zone film but kicked out as too dark, this film asks the question "What if you picked up a pay phone that was ringing and the guy on the other end says the world is coming to an end?" Anthony Edwards goes through the LA night to find Mare Winningham, who he's just met and fallen in love with. Well shot, ultimately dark but worth it because you care about the characters. Plus it has a great Tangerine Dream score.
2. Velvet Goldmine - A great film about David Bowie, but not really, Todd Haynes' film about glam rock is flashy and fun and anchored by a great performance by Ewan McGregor as the film's ersatz Iggy Pop. Ultimately a bit gay for most people, but if you like glam rock, and don't mind it being performed by Thom Yorke and Thurston Moore, this is the movie for you.
3. A Shock To The System - Michael Caine stars as a milquetoast middle management guy who finds out that he can kill his way to the top. A clever whodunnit that features a crackling Caine performance and a great turn by Peter Riegert.
4. The Crimson Rivers - Phenomenal French mystery starring Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel. It'll keep you guessing right up to the end.
5. Princess Mononoke - Japan's top grossing film until Titanic came along, fumbled badly by Miramax, which saddled it with a terrible dub and then virtually ignored it. Miyazaki is the only director who can still make a 2-D animated film that people will see.
6. 24 Hour Party People - The story of how one man invented rave culture, quite by accident. Flouts all the conventions of normal films, but does so in such a way that you're so engrossed in this mildly shaggy-dog story that you don't care. Fabulous soundtrack, also.
7. Kafka - Steven Soderburgh took all the goodwill he got from Sex, Lies and Videotape and wasted it on this kooky, half BW/half color experiment featuring Jeremy Irons playing Kafka as patent clerk who lives his fiction. Great fun, not on DVD but it should be.
8. Dead and Buried - finally on DVD after being out of print for years, this creepy, creepy horror movie from the guys who wrote Alien is a great early 80's classic. Features Robert Englund before he was Freddy and Jack Albertson in his last film role.
9. The Salton Sea - odd neo-noir about crystal meth addicts and cops and Vincent D'Onofrio re-enacting the Kennedy asassination with mice. Phenomenal performances abound. Stylish and very twist-filled.
10. Real Genius - More Val Kilmer. He could have been a phenomenal comedic actor, and this is witty, witty stuff. A cable staple in the late 80's, and one of my favorite movies of all time.

On to music. I'm pretty much all over the place taste-wise, from Zappa to Blind Guardian, Miles Davis to Opeth, and mostly everything in between(except neo-country. Bleah.) I spend a lot of time in Home Depots for my job, and I spend a lot of time listening to Depot muzak. Recently, one of my favorites has been a song called "Invisible", by American Idol 2 runner-up Clay Aiken. I liked the chorus and the slightly rock tinge to the song. Then I listened to the lyrics a little closer.

This is a song about stalking:

What are you doing tonight
I wish I could be a fly on your wall
Are you really alone
Still in your dreams
Why can't I bring you into my life
What would it take to make you see that I'm alive

[Chorus]

If I was invisible
Then I could just watch you in your room
If I was invisible
I'd make you mine tonight
If hearts were unbreakable
Then I can just tell you where I stand
I would be the smartest man
If I was invisible
(Wait..I already am)

I saw your face in the crowd
I called out your name
You don't hear a sound
I keep tracing your steps
Each move that you make
Wish I could be what goes through your mind
Wish you could touch me with the colors of your life

(chorus)

I reach out
But you don't even see me
Even when I'm screaming
Baby, you don't hear me
I am nothing without you
Just a shadow passing through...

(repeat chorus to fade)

Creepy, huh? And 12-year olds love this song, and this guy. Video's pretty priceless. He's singing the song on an L.A. streetcorner somewhere, and all the girls are freaking out. He sings to a fat girl who's crying. They're working his image pretty hard. But he's as whitebread as they come. He may, in fact, be more whitebread then my boy Bacon, the Modern Puritan, and that's saying something.