Best of the Decade

#2

I first saw Memento (2000) when it came out on dvd. I didn't love it the first time but it has since grown on me and inspired me as a writer and a filmmaker. It wasn't solely the backwards narrative that makes this movie special, although it is a great exercise in keeping the audience guessing, but rather the old fashion movie making that makes it great. Christopher Nolan now is on the top 25 twice, but this is his masterpiece and I don't know if he will ever make a better movie. Not to mention a great lead performance by Guy Pearce.

Best of the Decade

#3

There was one point where Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000) was my favorite film. I have always said that the most difficult thing to do in film is to make a great life affirming film without it being cliched. Crowe accomplishes just that in this film about an aspiring rocker writer and the band he follows. For Crowe this was a love story to rock and roll, for me this was about William Miller and experiencing what life has to off at the most important point of his life. The combination of music and images are what makes great cinema and with Almost Famous you can play it from any point in the movie and see that on display perfectly. I never lived in the 70's but every time I watch this film its like hanging out with old friends. And it must be said that Kate Hudson is perfect as Penny Lane, one of the few cinematic women I fell in love with.

Need money, Kidnap a kid (done)

I had been hearing a lot about Tilda Swinton's performance in an independent film called Julia (2008). I even heard it compared to Daniel Day Lewis's performance in There Will Be Blood, so naturally with that type of hype I had to check it out. Swinton is good, the movie isn't horrible but the film falls short as a good thriller for a multitude of reasons.

The film surrounds Swintons Julia, an alcoholic, floozy who gets so drunk every night that she wakes up not knowing who she's with or where she is. She gets fired from her job, do to her indiscretions. So with no money and no job she is forced into an AA meeting where she meets a clearly crazy Elena who eventually tries to get Julia to kidnap her son back from her "evil' but rich grandfather.

Though the plot is intriguing, why it doesn't work is because you never buy into caring about Julia's character or the relationship she does or does not form with the kid she kidnaps. Great thrillers have the audience on the edge of their seats wondering what is going to happen next. Julia has none of the apprehension or sure handed direction needed to make it successful. I just wanted the poor kid to get back to his family, but he didn't even make that easy to do because of the lack of acting by Adian Gold as Tom.

Movies like Julia are not bad enough to excuse them, but not good enough to justify their existence. This film has no real unique characters (seems to me that people just bought into the talents of Swinton and didn't realize her character is not memorable), no nerve racking moments, and an ending that isn't really a pay off.

**

Every time you hear a bell ring, someone kills themselves (or something like that)

Although there is a picture of it to the right, pretend you don't see it and tell me what movie I am describing. A man at the end of his rope, his business is about to fail, he may be arrested any moment, everything he has worked for has failed, he screams at his wife and kids while their just going about their daily life, he throws things in a rage at the wall, scaring his entire family, making them cry. He then runs out on them, drinks himself into oblivion, gets in a fight, drives drunk into a tree, survives, then decides to jump of a bridge killing himself for the insurance money. I am not describing a Coen brothers movie, but instead the family holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

I hadn't seen It's a Wonderful Life in years and as you can tell it really struck me by how dark the movie was, and I really liked that aspect of this film. George Bailey is a desperate man, a man that seems to have it together until one thing goes wrong and he falls apart. Jimmy Stewart gives maybe his best performance here, watch him as he starts to get angry, he is truly terrifying. As much as I always liked Stewart I have complained that he tends to go through the motions, that is not the case here, I've never seen him have such range.

So is It's a Wonderful Life a classic Christmas story? I don't think so. It takes place during the holidays, its got an angel, and an uplifting ending. It has some classic direction by Frank Capra, but I didn't find it all that Christmasy. I think it is just a classic film.

Not everything about this film works however. More specifically I don't think the beginning or the end work, which when it comes to films those are the two most important parts. I didn't need talking stars to tell me about angels coming to earth, I would have figured it out. Also, the ending is a bit too convenient and tidy, but I can forgive it.

This is my favorite Capra movie and my favorite Stewart performance and that combination deserves praise.

****

Best of the Decade

#4

Sentimentality is allowed when choosing my own personal top of the decade. I am not saying High Fidelity (2000) is not a great movie, because it is, but it is also a deeply personal choice. Yes I have heard that this is a romantic comedy made for guys, but I think it goes deeper than that. It is the most realistic (to the point where it can be painful to watch) portrayal of the male mind in relationships when it comes to dating and love. High Fidelity is the reason I can forgive John Cusack for any bad movie he has ever made or will ever make. Cusack is an every man and he is able to play a jerk without losing his charm and like ability. I have not seen High Fidelity on any other best of the decade lists but it sits proudly as my number 4.

Best of the Decade

#5

So far I have mentioned many of the great directors of the modern era, Scorsese, Tarantino, Eastwood, Nolan, Mann and Scott, and at number 5 comes the great Steven Spielberg with his Science Fiction (although fiction may be able to be argued in a few years time) masterpiece Minority Report (2002). It is everything science fiction strives to be, it is haunting, it is cautionary, it is mind bending and visually stunning. The stories structure is so perfectly crafted that even though you know the events about to happen you are surprised when they do. I can't say enough good things about this film or about the direction from Mr. Spielberg. And if you want to know why I like Tom Cruise, this is why, he does movies like this or Collateral which also made my top ten of the decade.

Best of the Decade

#6

What would a best o the decade be without a Quentin Tarantino movie, and despite my adoration for Inglorious Basterds, and on a smaller scale Death Proof, by far his best film of the past ten years is Kill Bill Volume 2 (2004). I like to take the Kill Bill movies as a package, because neither would be as good without the other, but as a piece of filmmaking Volume 2 is a masterpiece. The way he blends his signature love for cinema with emotion, revenge, and perfectly structured script is why Kill Bill Volume 2 lands at # 6. I must also mention my favorite supporting performance of the year from the late David Carradine as Bill.

Best of the Decade

#7

Adaptation (2002) is one of the best screenplays ever written and Spike Jonzes superb direction only added to what is now a classic. Charlie Kaufman will hopefully go down in cinema history as one of the greatest writers ever to live. Nicholas Cage was great as both Charlie and Donald Kaufman and Chris Cooper absolutely deserved his oscar for this film, and if you round all those characters out with a great performance by Meryl Streep you get the #7th best movie of the decade.

Best of the Decade

#8

Some films are great but are not perfectly made, No Country For Old Men (2007) is both a great film and a perfectly made film. I can and have just sat and watched the aesthetics and choices that the Coens made during this movie. Did I love the ending? No. But it doesn't matter, this film is so engaging and thrilling with a perfect minimalist style that it absolutely deserves the #8 spot of the decade. Not to mention one of the best film villains of all time in Javier Bardem's, Anton Chigurh. Had I loved the ending this would be in the top 5 if not number 1.

Best of the Decade

#9

Gladiator (2000) is the decades first best picture winner and deservingly so. There has not been a sword and Sandal movie made since that has matched this perfectly structured gem from director Ridley Scott. It is true that Russell Crowe probably got a make up Oscar that he should have won for The Insider but he was great as the General Maximus. If you watched this movie there is only one thing I have to ask you "are you not entertained?"

"You are Dangerous"

Everything I like about independent cinema can be summed up in Rian Johnsons Brick (2005). It is a stylish, noir thriller set in a modern day high school. If that sounds like a formula for disaster, well it could have been but Johnsons sure handed direction saved it from making a joke of itself.

I saw Brick in theaters when it first came out and couldn't bring myself to appreciate the sharp dialogue being laid out because it was being delivered by high-schoolers. If you can get over that aspect (because hell it wouldn't make sense for adults to speak this way) then you will thoroughly enjoy all the slang and banter that harkens back to the great noir films of the 30's and 40's.

Johnson had a great script and made it work because he knew exactly what he wanted. There is nothing fancy about any of these shots but they are cinema at its finest, they simply tell the story and show us everything we need to know. We aren't trying to solve the murder along with Brendan but we are enjoying watching him put the pieces together. Anyone with a small budget and a good script should watch Brick and study how he puts his shots together.

Johnson also had a great score provided by his cousin Nathan Johnson. The melodies along with the dialogue remind us of just how great film noir is. I hope other filmmakers take a page out of Johnsons book and make a fun self conscious movie using the basics of filmmaking. Brick is a film I can watch over and over again and never get sick of. I hope people seek it out and watch it.

****

Best of the Decade

#10

Collateral (2004) is a film that took a second viewing to really appreciate. It is Michael Mann's masterpiece of digital cinema. The look and the LA surroundings fit this structured bad ass story perfectly. Tom Cruise is at his best as a robotic assassin, for anyone who doesn't think Cruise can act, check this movie out ( I wouldn't want to meet Vincent in a dark alley). The structure of this film may seem to convenient at first but it grows on you and really works.

You are what you eat

There wasn't to much in Food, Inc. (2008) that I didn't already know, but that may because the subject of what we eat has fascinated me in recent years. For anyone who may be curious about what they are putting into there body, this documentary is a great and entertaining starting point. It covers a vast area of subjects from the what to the cost to the who.

What I like about Food, Inc. so much is that it is not trying to turn you into a vegetarian or necessarily scare you (although it can have that effect) but more or less do what we have not done for ourselves which is educate. If you ever wonder what is in the ketchup your putting on your burger (hint, its probably not just tomato), this movie will start to unravel those questions. And I can imagine to a lot of people be quite eye opening.

What I don't like to hear is that when people start talking about food choices it some how becomes political, or about animal rights. It is not! It is about your health and how the human body consumes and breaks down the things you put into it.

As a film Food, Inc. is bottom line; effective. It is well constructed, but definitely has a message and part of me wishes the ending didn't offer so much of a solution but a suggestion. It does vilify the corporation Monsanto, but its hard to argue against that.

Food, Inc. is one of those rare films that is a must see not because it is a great film, but because its subject matter is so important and so universal (we all eat and there is a lot of us, there are consequences to that).

***1/2

Best of the Decade

#11

So much has been said about this film from Heath Ledgers haunting and fun performance as the joker to Nolans mastery of a genre that used to just be fun summer fair. The Dark Knight (2008) is both highly entertaining and thought provoking. One of the few movies I have seen twice in the theatre and now multiple times on dvd.

A title you will never be able to spell

Morvern Callar (2002) is a UK release that I saw on a couple critics top of the decade list, and being the type of person that doesn't want to miss anything I immediately put it on the top of my Netflix que. I need to apologize for those 499 movies Morvern Callar jumped so that I could see it before the end of the decade.

The title is the main characters name Morvern is played by Samantha Morton an actress I have always enjoyed but have never given to much thought to. In this review I want to concentrate on three main points, 1. the morality of this character, 2. Samantha Morton performance, 3. what's the point.

Many times with these independent beautifully shot dramas you get absolutely no judgement on the main character and their actions, there is no difference here other than we not only get no judgement but we almost don't even get any acknowledgment of her flat out despicable actions. Time after time this soft spoken women will do things that the film very purposely seems to just ignore, its almost as if we as the audience put the blinders onto what she is doing as much as she is putting on the blinders to her own actions. It is a very unusual perspective to take, one I have never really seen before.

One of the main reason's this film evokes such an odd fleeting tone is because of Mortons performance here. Had I never seen Morton in another film I would have not thought she was acting here, and that she really was this loner, on the run type character. It is one of those performances that is so understated its almost catatonic. I feel nothing from watching her, I just watch. You compare this performance to something like Ryan Goslings in Half Nelson, you at least know he is acting and going for something, where as Morton seems to be putting all her power into going for nothing. Now the debate becomes is this great acting or is this stripping the process away. Knowing how good Morton is in other roles I tend to vote for the first option.

So far I have listed a couple reasons why at least this may be a movie worth checking out, but as a whole I found myself asking what was the point. Mortons performance, the tone, the loneliness, I don't feel like it ever served a bigger purpose. The character never finds anything substantial, the film never really asks any questions. I don't know why it exists other than to show off some interesting if not pretentious cinematography and to frustrate the audience. Part of me thinks it is some sick experiment by writer, director Lynne Ramsay to see what messages people will interpret from this seeming-less blank slate. And apparently according to those critics who's best of the decade list includes this film she may have succeeded. I wonder if maybe by my response and how long this review is, if Ramsay may have succeed with me too.

**

Best of the Decade

#12

Pixar has become everything Walt Disney attempted to be and succeed with when he first conceived of his production company in the mid 1930's. Pixar is a production company that is synonymous with quality and family entertainment and in my opinion their crowning achievement is Wall E (2008). Wall E is perfect cinema, a film that tells its story almost entirely through just pictures and music, its like a silent film and painting combined. It also is highly entertaining, moving and socially relevant. Here is to Pixar continuing its great run through the next decade.

Best of the Decade

#13

Man on Wire (2008) is a film about going and achieving your goals. Going into the film I wasn't very interested in the subject matter but the film transcends a story about a tight rope walker and turns the story into something bigger without having to make it a story about the Twin Towers.

Best of the Decade

#14

It is only a coincidence that Mystic River (2003) comes on the heals of my review or Clint Eastwoods Invictus. I mention in my review for Ivictus that Eastwood would be my Director of the Decade. Between, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Changeling, Letters from Iwo Jima and Invictus he has not only been proficient but outstanding. I chose Mystic River over Million Dollar Baby because it perfectly combines structure, acting and plot. It is Shakespearean in its content, and Sean Penn gives one of his many great performances of the past ten years. The ending has its detractors but as a whole Mystic River is an engaging and emotional who done it. Here is to Mr. Eastwood making movies for the next ten years!

A good poem can help you win the world cup

If I had to chose my favorite all around director of the past decade it would be Clint Eastwood. No other director has put out as many quality films as he has the past ten years. Invictus (2009) is not his best film, but it certainly is another solid effort from the great director.

It is always difficult to do sports movies because the film has to be more about the process then the end result of the game. We watch sports because they are not scripted and we don't know what is going to happen, here you have a film about a tournament and a team where we already know the end results. So Eastwood's challenge here is to elevate the film to another level, beyond the sport, and he has mixed success with this. To try and achieve this he cast his old friend Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and shows us a sliver of this mans life during the 1995 world cup and what the tournament meant to Mandela as a person and as the leader of South Africa. Freeman is spot on as Mandela and surely deserves another Oscar nomination. Where the film could have done more is to give us a better understanding of the politics of the South African nation beyond the racial problems we saw represented through the Rugby team. The film made Mandela seem like he had a bit of tunnel vision when it came to all the problems he was certainly dealing with.

Matt Damon has never been better as the captain of the Springbok rugby team and the man that Mandela projected his hopes onto. Damon plays this character with a subtle weight of the world demeanor, but never goes over the top with outwardly emoting what he is certainly feeling inside. Damon should be sure to see a supporting actor nomination come the Oscars.

Despite my enduring love for Eastwood as a director, my criticism of his has always been the same, he depends to much on exposition and sometimes goes overboard with his sentimentality (I never want him to change because when it works it is great). In Invictus Eastwood sometimes tips the scales towards the overly sentimental way, especially during the last Rugby game. There are a few times he plays a cheesy song with slow motion and you wonder if your not watching Mighty Ducks 4. However Eastwood is a master director and despite the few times he goes over the top there are also many genuine moments that rang true and were inspiring. You know you are in the hands of a great director when your watching a political movie about Rugby (a sport I know nothing about) and am never once bored.

Should Invictus win best picture? No. But Eastwood should be proud of this film, and it is another notch in the great directors belt. I hope Eastwood can continue to make movies for another 20 years.

***1/2

Best of the Decade

#15

Darren Aronofsky has certainly made a career for himself since coming on the scene in the late 90's. His best work is still probably his mood picture Requiem for a Dream (2000). It is a film that launched a thousand quick cuts while taking pills. It has one of the best scores of all time and an innovative style that marked Aronofsky as an auteur. It may not be an easy watch but it certainly doesn't glorify any drug use. It also marked a tour de force performance from Ellen Burstyn.

I'm on the Bus

Again, I don't always know why I get certain movies from Netflix, but regardless I sat down to watch Spike Lee's Get on the Bus (1996) after it came in the mail. Its a Spike Lee movie through and through, at points I just wanted Spike to come on screen and tell us exactly how he feels about the blight of the black man in modern society. But one of the reasons Spike Lee is more than just a polarizing figure is because he is a storyteller first and foremost and he is able to somehow transcend his preachiness and give us an enjoyable character study.

Get on the Bus surrounds a group of black men from all different walks of society taking a long bus ride to Washington D.C. for the million man march in 1996. What makes this film work is the great acting and the characters that Lee gives us. These characters walk a fine line between being pawns in Lee's social point and being three dimensional characters. There is a biracial cop, a documentary filmmaker, an old timer, an actor, a gay couple, two different bus drivers, the ring leader, and the black republican to name a few. All of these characters serve a purpose both as points to be made and in the story itself.

There are times when the dialogue goes overboard, speeches are made, reactions are had that seem false and contrived but in the end the film is just as much about the people as it is about its message. Lee raised money and shot this movie quickly on 16 mm. I think if he had more time or money this film would have fallen really flat. It has an energy and sense of purpose that works well, more time and precision and I probably would have hated this film.

A couple standout performances are from the great Ossie Davis and Andre Braugher, two characters that are at the opposite end of the spectrum. Get On The Bus feels like a slice of life at a time that may not always be remembered. Yes all these characters are larger than life, but this film isn't a documentary it is a sense of heightened reality. It is very difficult as a filmmaker to make a 2 hour movie where the camera stays on a bus the whole time and all we do is listen to conversations, but Lee pulls it off and I have to give him credit for that.

***

Best of the Decade

#16

Todd Fields In The Bedroom (2001) was sort of a benchmark American film for realism and tension mixed perfectly together. It has two great performances, one by Sissy Spacek and the other by Tom Wilkinson, both of whom I believe should have won the Oscar. In The Bedroom is a film about grief, revenge, and the subtleties of human life.

None of those pieces were easy

I get the sense from a lot of films of the late 60's and 70's that filmmakers wanted to capture that feeling of restlessness or unease that we all get in our twenties and sometimes later. Five Easy Pieces (1970) is one of those films, and like The Graduate that preceded it, it gives us no discernible answers just more questions, like a great movie should.

Jack Nicholson plays Robert, we first see him in the oil fields toiling and working hard. He is dating a waitress played by Karen Black. He lives about as rural a life as one would expect. Fun activities include hanging out with his local friends and going bowling. There is one scene early on in which Robert lashes out at his friend, when he compared their lives in a similar manner. We don't understand at that moment why, (they seemed to be on the same level). We soon come to find out that no, Robert doesn't belong in the oil fields. He is from a very well to do musically gifted family. Robert is always trying to escape from his families past, whether it be because he wants his own path or because he feels like a failure, of which is the truth I am not sure.

Five Easy Pieces is essentially about that universal longing to be your own person, to carve out your own destiny. Robert uses his upper middle class values when he needs too, but most of the time tries to separate himself from them. He never seems to quit know what he wants but he always knows he doesn't have it.

I had seen Five Easy Pieces previous to this review, and it had much more of an impact on me this time around. Bob Rafelsons direction is very subtle and open ended, and it works really nice in a film like this. Nicholson gives one of his best performances here because he manages to reign it in when needed. 70's cinema is know for its wondering loners, and here is one of the best.

****

Best of the Decade

#17

Ben Affleck had a roller coaster decade. He went from a joke actor too being the director of one of my favorite films of the decade. Gone Baby Gone (2007) is a Boston based, tension filled, crime drama that has my single favorite final shot of any movie this past ten years. There is certainly still room for improvement for Affleck but Gone Baby Gone is one of the best directorial debuts and I hope he can continue this type of filmmaking as he continues to get the opportunities behind the camera.

Best of the Decade

#18

Half Nelson (2006) is a superbly made independent drama. A lot of indie films like this one that deal with drugs, have a way of being to melodramatic, but Half Nelson creates a perfect tone and Ryan Gosling gives one of my favorite performances of the decade. I always say the best endings are the ones you could never have guessed but once you have seen them their is no other ending that would work. With one exchange of looks, Half Nelson provides that type of ending and provides me with the #18 best film of the decade.

"His soul is still dancing"

I love unapologetic movies! A lot of times certain aspects don't work, but what does work is that much better. The Bad Lieutenant:Port of Call New Orleans (2009) is one of those films, and despite what works and what doesn't work it is very entertaining.

It takes place in a New Orleans slightly after Hurricane Katrina, nothing is glamorized about the city or its inhabitants. The film isn't gritty in the realistic cinema verite' sense but instead pulpy and dynamic. The director is Werner Herzog a filmmaker that has made it on this blog a lot lately. Herzog is a director that does what he wants to do, weather it is be touching and poignant like in my number 24 best film Grizzly Man or sentimental and ethical as in Invincible. With The Bad Lieutenant Herzog is exploring the line between sanity and insanity and whether it even matters if the final results are positive. And of course there is the crazy Nicolas Cage who takes this already daring film and adds a performance that is brilliantly over the top and unapologetic. If it wasn't for Cage most of the laughs wouldn't hit, and the film would delve into a somber state that would be hard to bare.

Cage plays a drug addicted and obsessive gambling police officer that is simultaneously looking for his next fix as well as solve a murder. He is dating a prostitute played by Eva Mendes (in what is probably her best performance), who runs into troubles of her own, that Cage needs to solve. Ironically though, this movie is not about its plot, which is very tight, but more about Cage's characters process and lifestyle.

Not everything Cage does works perfectly (about half way through I noticed he started talking like Jimmy Stewart for some reason), but as a whole his choices are perfect for this film. I don't think that Cage will be recognized by the Academy for this performance or neccessarily should be, it elevates this film, but when taken by itself it isn't a game changer.

The Bad Lieutenant:Port of Call, New Orleans is one of those rare films where the perfect balance of crazy and pulp works together. There is no way to teach this or any formula to tell you how to balance all these elements to make them work, you just have to go for it and hope for the best.

****

Best of the Decade

#19

Martin Scorsese almost returns to his peak in his crime thriller The Departed (2006). This is a film that gives us all the patented Scorsese music and cinematography, mixed with a great performance by DiCaprio that finally made us realize he could play something other than a young boy. It is an energetic film that shows us a immoral society where there is no principles anymore. I am hoping in the future that Scorsese can give us a few more films like The Departed but I also think a lower budget would help the director return to his roots. Regardless this film finally netted Scorsese his much deserved Oscar (even if it was a make up award).