Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Best films of the Decade

This isn't necessarilly the way I wanted to do this list. I wanted to go back and watch all 10 (or, technically, 12) of my top of the decade and write about them in detail. But the holiday rush and the desire to get this published before year's end didn't allow for that. No matter; there's a new project I'm hoping to tackle in 2010 where I can revisit most of them again.



The best way for me to do this list was to just initially see what titles stood out for me at the end of the decade. After all, this list is not meant to be objective--there's no way I can claim to have seen the greatest films of the decade because there are hundreds I'm sure I've missed. But even as films jumped out at me, I found myself scouring IMDB to see other films that I realized would also qualify for this list. So yes, after it's written I'm going to probably regret leaving some films off the list. That's the way it goes.



But, after weeks of careful consideration, here are the 10...er, 12...films that I think qualify as my favorites of the decade. Starting with a trilogy that, when it was first announced, I had no desire to see...





1. Lord of the Rings: I remember when I first heard that JRR Tolkien's fantasy trilogy was being readied for the big screen. I think my response was a yawn. I've never been a fantasy person. I've never cared for stories of elves, dwarves and magic. But when that first trailer came out, I was suddenly hooked. I can still remember the Wednesday opening afternoon when I saw "Fellowship of the Ring." As the film hit its cliffhanger ending, I remember that for the first time in ages I didn't want to leave the theater. I wanted the rest of the story. And over the next two years, Peter Jackson gave us 12 hours of the most ambitious and successful storytelling Hollywood has ever offered. It's a wonderful mixture of a perfect cast, unparalleled special effects (I'll take the tactile mixture of models and CGI over pure motion capture any day) and Tolkien's epic tale. The greatest thrill for me was watching the story unfold over three years and finding that, unlike many trilogies, this one stuck the landing. I personally don't think that this should be looked at as three separate movies but one long tale...although I'll also admit that I think "Return of the King" is the most perfectly told of the three movies.



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2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: On any given day, this is my favorite film of all time. Yes, on a technical level, it's near perfect: Charlie Kauffman's insane, time-and-consciousness bending script; Michel Gondry's whimsical, yet gritty, direction; and pitch-perfect performances by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet add up to a breathlessly original and mind warp of a movie. But it's the emotional resonance of this movie that levels me...we've all had people who we wish could be deleted from our memories. But with that we would lose all the beauty and joy that made the person so important to us. As I've entered into a serious relationship this year I've thought of this movie a lot, about how love is hard work and we encounter others who will not only enchant us but also frustrate, confuse and sometimes anger us. Is it worth it? The final scene of this movie hits me in the gut every time I see it. I know some who feel it's a sad ending but I prefer to look at it as hopeful...that single word, "okay," means more than any passionate kiss or declaration of love ever could. This is a great film.



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3. United 93--The one film on this list that I hate to watch. It's the understatement of the decade to say that 9/11 was the most defining day of the last 10 years. It's a day when we still tense up and our emotions are still raw. So it's not surprising at all to find that this film, released less than five years after the tragedy, hit like a sledgehammer. Paul Greengrass brought his fly-on-the-wall, documentary style to this recreation of what occurred on the doomed flight to Pennsylvania. Casting many of the same air traffic control officers who were working that fateful day, he comes as close as we will ever get to giving us a matter-of-fact, no-spin document about what occurred on Flight 93, when the passengers rallied to keep the terrorists from hitting their final target. It's a hard film to watch--the last hour is unbearably intense and the final 10 minutes are as gut-wrenching and emotionally devastating as anything I've ever seen. And that's the point: this is not a movie that attempts to dress the tragedy in sentiment or create heroes and myths of the men and women on the flight. Instead, Greengrass tells the story of a group of strangers whose fates were bound together and, as regular Americans, they fought back even though it meant their deaths. By refusing to ladle on emotion or manipulation, Greengrass actually makes the film more powerful...there was open weeping in the theater where I saw this and I found myself shaking and crying in the theater afterward. This is a movie some still refuse to watch, and I understand why. But I find it necessary to revisit it once in awhile so I will keep myself raw and wounded by this tragedy and reminded of the heroism of average individuals.



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4. There Will Be Blood: My girlfriend hates this movie with a passion. She thinks it's a portrait of evil. Oddly enough, I agree with that sentiment and it's the reason why I love this film so much. Daniel Day-Lewis gives the performance of the decade here, creating a character so callous, greedy and ruthless that we may often find our self wincing just when he speaks. If we were supposed to root for him and like him, I would probably agree with my girlfriend that this movie is not worth my time. But Paul Thomas Anderson, the only director to appear on this list twice, is well aware that Plainview is an evil man with a soul that is quickly dying. That's the story he's interested in telling--how one man's twisted ambition and greed destroy his relationships and himself. It's a film of how greed warps our heart, twists our religion and corrupts our souls. If ever a film was a portrait of Romans 1, where we see how our depraved desires lead to our death, it would be this film. In his portrait of a merciless oil man and a wicked false prophet (masterfully played by Paul Dano), Anderson shows just what human beings are capable of. It tells the Gospel by showing us the effects of life without the Gospel. And the final, brutal scene may feel tacked on at first, but it was promised to us in the title. And it's the perfect culmination of a movie that feels like the prime example of James' warning that sin, when it is fully conceived, gives birth to death. This is a sermon in a film, a fire-and-brimstone, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" warning that holds more truth and power than any scene in "Fireproof" because it treats our sin nature more seriously than any Hollywood film I've ever seen.



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5. Before Sunset: It was a sequel to a little-seen film that no one was necessary clamoring for a sequel to. No one, that is, except for those of us who saw Richard Linklater's brilliantly romantic "Before Sunrise," which featured Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as two college kids who meet one night in Vienna and spend an evening talking and falling in young love only to depart with the pledge to see each other again in six months. The film was smart, perceptive and romantic. And it would have been easy for Linklater--who also helmed the wonderful "Waking Life" this decade--to give us a frothy, dopey romantic sequel where they meet again and fall in love. But this sequel, set one afternoon in Paris, doesn't take the easy route. The characters are a bit more mature, both wiser to the ways of the world and carrying their own scars from that night in Vienna. For the film's first 50 minutes, romance and a reconnection aren't even on their minds as the brilliant script allows the characters to talk about politics, growing old and marriage with an honesty that may say just as much about the actors as the characters. But the chemistry is still solid and we're still reminded of that night nine years earlier...and the film's final half hour delivers an emotional power that sneaks up on us and asks us to consider our own old flames, missed connections and the times we put any hope of love and romance aside. All of this, of course, leads up to the movie's final scene, which may be the most perfectly-realized final shot of any movie ever made, but satisfying and frustrating in the same moment. I revisit Jesse and Celine's story at least once a year and I can safely say now that if Linklater wants to do another sequel in nine years, I'd be first in line.



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6. The Incredibles--Over the last three years, the Pixar films "Ratatouille," "WALL-E" and "Up" have made appearances on my best-of list. There is something going on at Pixar that I have never seen at a single studio...they are cranking out classics each year, each one full of heart, brilliance and poignancy. Half this list could have been filled with movies like "Finding Nemo," "Monster's Inc." and the rest and I would find a way to justify it. But I decided to pick just one movie. And I had to pick "The Incredibles." Is it the best Pixar film? I don't know; I don't even know if I could name a best Pixar film. What I do know is that it seems to be the one I love the most, filled with perfect amounts of action, comedy, heart and wit. The animation is gorgeous. The characters are brilliantly realized. And it's the rare animated film that actually tackles topics of infidelity, midlife crises, family drama and dares to say that "if everyone's special, then no one is." But above all, the movie is just an insane amount of fun, the greatest superhero movie of the decade...the film's last hour is more exciting than anything we witnessed in a Batman, X-Men or Spiderman flick. Where's our sequel???



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7. No Country for Old Men: I considered doubling this up with "There Will Be Blood" because, thematically, both movies could fit together very easily. But it deserves it's own spot. The Coens have never been better than this taut, bleak and pitch-black thriller. Working from Cormac McCarthy's novel, they weave a story that on the surface is about a man (Josh Brolin) running from a hitman (Javier Bardem) after discovering millions in drug money in the dessert. Dig deeper and it's a movie about the silence of God, how our greed leads to death, the inevitability of death and judgement and of the effect mankind's depravity has on the world. Look at the surface or dig deeper for the symbolism, it doesn't matter: "No Country" is a gut-punch of a movie, from it's perfect performances to the Coens masterful direction. Tommy Lee Jones, as a world-weary sheriff, has never been better and Bardem, in Anton Chigurrh, creates a villain for the ages.


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8. Punch-Drunk Love: I hated this film upon first viewing; left the theater frustrated and confused. It was years later before I saw it again and, for whatever reason, something on that viewing clicked. Paul Thomas Anderson's film (his second on this list) on the surface is a quirky Adam Sandler romantic comedy. But if that's all you look at it as, you're going to have the same reaction I did originally. Digging deeper, it's a comedy about a man (Sandler, in the performance of his career) who is insecure, frustrated, lonely and angry. He can't express himself, can't fit in with friends and is brow-beaten by his sister. Then he meets a girl. And it's that attraction, that love, that begins to heal him. It gives him confidence. It gives him power. Just as he begins to restore an old harmonium which, like him, is battered but can make something beautiful, Barry begins to find his life finding direction and meaning. It's a beautiful story of redemption and love and while it's subplots--involving pudding, a scheming phone sex operator and the aforementioned harmonium--may seem random, the truth is that they all are necessary to helping us understand a human being who finds his hope when he finds love. I've come from hating this film to loving it passionately, and the "He Needs Me" sequence is one of the most moving portraits of love I've seen.

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9. Lost In Translation: This was a decade of great love stories and we've already had two on the list. But how could I not include Sofia Coppola's ode to love and friendship in Tokyo? This movie has gotten me so many lonely nights and every time I revisit Bob (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johannson), I feel like I'm revisiting old friends. Two people--an actor and a newlywed--strike up a friendship while stranded at a Tokyo hotel. Do they fall in love? Coppola wisely doesn't make this a torrid romance but a friendship that seems to hint at deeper things. Like many of this decade's great love stories (I'd also include "Once" and "Lars and the Real Girl"), it's not about how they find completion in each other but healing in their brief time together. Bob, going through his midlife crisis, finds renewed passion, emotion and life. Charlotte finds reassurance that her life is not a mess and that her marriage, while tough, may just be worthwhile. And both find a friend in a place where they know no one else. If you had told me at the beginning of the decade that Bill Murray would give one of my favorite dramatic performances of the year, I would've laughed...but he's never been better than in this film. And Johannson has never topped the work she's done here. And yet, the film is so minor. Such a lovely little character piece. It's not a big, bold love story. It's a story that you tell with the same fondness you would say "remember that time...". And that's the beauty of it.

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10. Munich: It is surprising that I had to wait until number 10 to put Steven Spielberg on this list. After all, the world's most lucrative director didn't take this decade off. And he certainly wasn't slumming. In fact, the 00's saw Spielberg at his most experimental and daring, giving us light-as-a-feather comedies ("Catch Me if You Can," "The Terminal"), a flawed masterpiece (A.I.) and two dark yet thrilling sci-fi actioners ("War of the Worlds," "Minority Report."). Yes, he also gave us "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"--a film many loathed and yet I still maintain is just as lighthearted and fun as any of the other Indy sequels. But "Munich" is his most ambitious, daring, controversial and powerful film. It's about Jewish soldiers getting revenge on the terrorists who killed their atheletes in Munich. But it's about so much more--it's about the price of revenge, about how bloodlust can destroy our souls and set a course for more disaster. The parallels to 9/11 and our post-attack culture were unmistakable and this film works both as a thrilling action adventure and a devastating examination of the price of revenge...there are moments of pure adrenaline here and pure emotional torture. It's a tough film, one that left me shaken for about a week following. And it sums up this decade about as well as "United 93" did.

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30s, engaged and living in Motown. Wrestling with life, love, faith, art, film, culture and everything in between.