I pretty much endorse this list, over at Big Hollywood, of the 10 worst films of the past 10 years, although I am sure Samizdata readers will come up with some more for their own lists. I did not see No Old Country For Old Men, which is one of the derided films on the list, but the way that certain reviewers wrote about it, meant I just knew it was the sort of pretentious, nihilistic waste of several hours that the writer in the article I have linked to said it was. Plus I happen to think the Coen brothers are a bit over-rated anyway, although I quite enjoyed Fargo.
As for the best 10 films of the past decade, name your choices. For my part, I would say that two films I saw last year – The Wrestler and Gran Torino – deserve to be on such a list. Here are my other choices:
The Aviator – the biopic of Howard Hughes.
Serenity – Okay, it helps to have seen the Firefly TV series first, but even so, a fine film.
Casino Royale – Despite some flaws, it marked a triumphant reboot of 007 on the screen. Ian Fleming would have approved.
Sideways – A funny comedy set in California’s wine country. My tour of Napa and Sonoma was not quite as eventful.
Spirited Away – Proof that Miyazaki remains one of the world’s greatest animators and film artists.
The Incredibles – I loved this film and much of its sense of life. The “designer” character is a hilarious combo of fashionista and Ayn Rand.
Gladiator – “Upon my signal, unleash hell”. The film that made Russell Crowe a megastar.
The Lives of Others – Brilliant film set in former East Germany, demonstrating the utter evil that is done in the name of the “surveillance state”.
I, as an amateur film critic and young person generally, with little to commend my opinion beyond my own self confidence that my thoughts are the right ones, must step forward and say; No Country For Old Men is one of the greatest films of the last decade. I can only surmise that it was a typo that caused it to appear on the opposite side of the commented upon list. While it is certainly nihilistic, I find it hard to call it pretentious, and it is certainly not a waste of anyones time.
Having now perused the rest of the list, I have to say that Kurt Schlichter and I do not see eye to eye on films, or much of anything else I would hazard. While some of his choices for most overrated (the Departed, Crash etc) are more than justified, having Children of Men, No Country for Old Men and Pan’s Labyrinth in there just undermines his position beyond repair. Both Children of Men and Pan’s Labyrinth are visual spectacles which are almost unrivaled in imagination and technical prowess. For one second take of your Libertarian thinking cap and just watch. No-one expects films to be the most thought provoking and intellectually stimulating medium, books took that trophy, and hold onto it unassailed for all time. I think Mr. Schlichter needs to find his inner child and have some heart to heart time. Both of these films are jaw droppingly spectacular. White Knuckle, edge of your seat emotional roller coasters that don’t use big explosions and loud subwoofer noises to achieve their goal, but instead fantastic set pieces and unique visual imagery. The Pale Man is a marvel of engineering and imagination, wound together to create a truly eerie creation who’s like has not been seen before or since. As for the 2 standut scenes in Children of Men where you have a seamless shot over an extended period and an extended distance which manages to capture a previously unseen angle on tired events. These are the films that will shape the future because of what they achieved technically.
I have strayed. No Country For Old Men; If you didn’t like the book, then you probably won’t massively enjoy the movie (I tend to find this is the case with all book to movie conversions). If you haven’t read it, or either enjoyed it, or didn’t mind it, then I implore you, watch it for yourself, and formulate your own opinion instead of allowing Mr. Schlichter to form one for you. I personally felt it was one of the crowning moments of ‘the noughties’ (we have to top that, I refuse to refer to a decade and bad innuendo at the same time), a film that manages that rare feat of never being too unrealistic, never being too far fetched that up until the credits roll, you never question what is occurring, you are just absorbed with the characters and the situation. It is a stark and mirthless film, and maybe that goes against it coming from the famed Coen brothers, but please, don’t allow a sad, joyless man who has forgotten the majesty of cinema in his cynicism guide your opinions, make them for yourself!
I would include Master And Commander in my top 10 of the decade. I would also include No Country For Old Men. I am still educating myself on libertarianism but I would be surprised if there were no Cormac McCarthy fans in your ranks.
I would like to commend The Reader. One of the very few films which has made me think.
No Country For Old Men – I had to rewind it twice as I thought I’d missed something crucial, but no, it’s just stupid.
I enjoyed Lost In Translation as a depiction of what it feels like being bored in a foreign hotel, but I can see that’s a bit thin. Still, not exactly The English Patient in the boring-film-with-reprehensible-characters stakes.
I find it odd the way no-one dares mention the Lord of the Rings films when remembering the decade. Well, I will. Indisputably the cinema event of the decade, however uncool.
I’d also put all of the Pixar films on any best-of list.
I’ll agree in part, with both of the above comments; “Master and Commander” is an excellent film, but “Pan’s Labyrinth” completely nails it, in terms of dark, surreal and nightmarish, while retaining wonder and whimsy.
Still, on every level, for the readership here, the film of the not-over-quite-yet decade, has to be “Team America: World Police”.
Since 1989 I have been boycotting the movies to protest their leftist mindsmog.
I refuse to pay to see movies and will only go if I have a good reason to go, i.e. a friend is involved in the making of the movie or if there is a good reason to go . i,e, free tickets to the main event at the Cannes film festival , which happened once.
If there is a good movie such as the Incredibles I can wait and see it on TV.
The money I save all goes to good food, good booze and good books.
Interesting idea: that one could be able to rate enough movies in a short enough time, that the “ten best in ten years” could be stated as a list!
Perhaps I’m just the wrong person to ask, not going to enough films these days or trying to see them fast enough at a high-enough data-rate, but I’d say, for the last 60 years, in no special order:
(1) The Lord of the Rings part I (The Definitive Great Movie of Our Epoch)
(2) The Dambusters…I was in a class taught A-level physics (mechanics specifically) by HIM…it’s said by some that he was asked if he’d play himself, but said he couldn’t face going through it all a second time – I have no other evidence of this and in fact he half-indignantly denied it when asked by us boys. They hired Michael Redgrave instead.
(3) The Hunt for Red October
(4) The Lord of the Rings Part III
(5) The Train (Burt Lancaster 1964)
(6) Night Crossing (John Hurt, Kay Walsh, etc)
(7) Octopussy
(8) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
(9) Top Gun
(10)Battlestar Galactica
Am I the only person here who’s exceedingly Bored of the Rings? (Sorry for the bad pun, but I’ve never gotten why so many people go gaga over Tolkein.)
Gay Fatal Attraction (aka Brokeback Mountain) is another terribly overrated movie.
Bored of the Rings(Link) is pretty funny, if you can find a copy of it.
I didn’t even bother to see the Gay Fatal Attraction (heh, love the re-naming).
Master and Commander was excellent. The Dark Knight was very good, although a bit too long. The first Craig Bond was awesome, the second was good. I also love the Identity series, Damon is a great actor and the films are very effective action thrillers. The Oceans 11 series is very entertaining. The Departed was very good. Tarantino keeps disappointing since Pulp Fiction. The Rings is not my cup of tea. Cohen bros. are hit and miss, I didn’t bother with NCFOM, but I intend to see the latest (the name eludes me now).
I thought Pan’s Labyrinth was excellent, even if it was a bit confused on the fact there were no good guys in the Spanish Civil War.
But if Kurt Schichter could not understand the story, he was not trying very hard or he just ain’t that bright.
The “designer” character is a hilarious combo of fashionista and Ayn Rand.
Her resemblance to real life doyen of all Hollywood costume designers Edith Head has been much commented on, too, and writer/director Brad Bird has also mentioned Q from the James Bond films and writer Patricia Highsmith as influencing the character. Bird voiced the character himself, suggesting she was as much fun for him as she was for us. Apparently he asked Lily Tomlin to voice the part, but when he demonstrated the way he wanted the part spoken, she suggested he just do it himself.
Tolkien writes about heroism and the courage of one’s convictions, in the face of astonishingly powerful and unfathomably deep wickedness, as exemplified by GramscoFabiaNazism.
Although he always refuted, in his lectures and elsewhere, the hypothesis that his work was allegorical, he could not avoid writing about what he did in the way that he did.
One thing he said, which is important also, is that he felt that The English suffer, in a way no other folk-tribes of the world do, by not having a complete or coherent mythology-legend-system (call it what you will.) He wanted to try and craft one for them if he could, and inevitably it was cast with the colour of the times in which he wrote.
I forgot to add Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings part II” to my list of ten given above.
I can’t argue that these belong on a “Best of the Decade” list — but the Russian movies “Nightwatch” and “Daywatch” are definitely worth viewing. Netflicks has them with English subtitles.
The films are adaptations of a fantasy trilogy, which means one has to stay sharp to follow the convoluted plot. Light versus Dark in an uneasy truce. Dark is evil, but is Light really good? The imagery is gripping too — from Tamerlane’s assault on a Medieval fortress to the total destruction of modern Moscow. Although my favorite bit was a snippet of ‘Buffy the Vampire Killer’ dubbed in Valley-Girl Russian.
I think that every list of ghastly, overrated movies, regardless of the contemporaneity, needs, MUST include Titanic.
Just bought a christmas pressie of Miyazaki’s complete works for my philosophy major senior at Hillsdale College.
Didn’t bother with Titanic either.
Alice, thanks for the tip, I’ll look them up.
I think your list of good films is a good one. The one I would leave off is Casino Royale, which was better than most other recent Bond films but that is not saying much.
I think that the Big Hollywood list is guilty of the same thing it accuses some of the filmmakers of, however, that of being a bit too concerned with the politics of the film than its artistic qualities. I would agree that some of the films on the list are overrated, but there are only a couple that I would really describe as bad.
Actually film by film:
The Departed: the comment that the academy is rewarding Scorsese now for brilliant films of some time ago is probably fair. That Goodfellas lost out at the Oscars to as big a piece of crap as Dances With Wolves still astounds me. (I agree with you that his best recent film is The Aviator). The Departed is a remake of a better Hong Kong film: Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs.
I think In The Bedroom, and Lost in Translation are quite good, but are about mood and move slowly. I think it is more that the author of the list dislikes a certain kind of film than that they are bad. (I think Sofia Coppola has a fine light touch, possibly even more on display in The Virgin Suicides than Lost in Translation. And Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson are both very good in Lost in Translation. That said, I think Bill Murray is even better in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore.).
I was a little surprised myself by the acclaim for Mystic River. Eastwood is a great director, but he has done a lot better. Million Dollar Baby, and Grand Torino, and … (add about twenty other films). The plot was too improbable to be believable, too.
I haven’t seen No Country for Old Men, but I have seen other to me incoherent movies from the Coen Brothers that everybody else seemed to love. (Miller’s Crossing, most notably). Fargo is a wonderful film, and I can watch The Big Lebowski again any time.
I haven’t seen Superbad, but it sounds like it is barely worth worrying about one way or another. Crash is indeed an unbelievable load of simplistic drivel, and is the one film on this list I would really apply the word “bad” to, over and over again.
I have mixed feelings about Children of Men as well, as much as anything because it so completely misunderstood P D James’ fine novel, and I think it gives entirely the wrong answer to the question of “What would happen if there were no children”. I think it quite works as a film on its own though.
I could not disagree more about Pan’s Labyrinth though, which I personally think is one of the best films of the decade. It does have left wing politics and possibly has a rosy view of the Spanish Republicans, but it is a film set in the Spanish Civil war as much as being about the Spanish Civil war. It does contain an evil fascist, but that’s not exactly unrealistic. (More than being about left and right, it contains an evil man, and they do exist and certainly did in that time and place). It’s about how adulthood overwhelms the dreams of childhood, about how people are asked to make terrible choices, and over everything else it is about how “I was just following orders” is not a defence.
For me, the film is at least as much about the Holocaust as about the Spanish Civil War, and (particularly when viewed as a companion piece to Del Toro’s other Spanish Civil War movie “The Devil’s Backbone”) it is about the general question of how morals become degraded on all sides in a lengthy struggle. In that sense it could be read as a criticism of ongoing conduct in America’s War on Terror, which might upset American conservatives, but if you want to see it that way, the aspect of American conduct being criticised (the use of torture, amongst other things) is worthy of being criticised.
And on top of that it is a beautiful, dark fairytale. The best fairytales are both those things.
The Devil’s Backbone was much less seen than Pan’s Labyrinth in English speaking countries, but is just about as good a film and I (very) highly recommend it, by the way.
BTW, anyone here saw Avatar, and what say you?
I’ve seen Avatar. It’s spectacular, nothing like it has ever been seen on screen before, and as a cinematic spectacle it is worth seeing.
The downside is that the plot is Dances with Wolves in space.
Serenity sucked – just cos it had a libertarian plot didn’t make it a good film
Gladiator – also sucked apart from the opening story, Spartacus much much better
My top five ever…
1. Serenity
2. City of Lost Children
3. Das Boot
4. Cypher
5. Avalon
My most-over-rated-must-kill-the-director flicks ever…
1. Pearl Harbor
2. Independence Day
3. Braveheart
4. Titanic
5. Hero
Only one frakin’ mention of Battlestar Galactica! Unacceptable. No movie or TV show has ever come close to the brilliance of BG.
so glad to see nightwatch/daywatch mentioned as it saves me the trouble of explaining what they’re about. I was a little disappointed that the fantastic stylish subtitles didn’t make it to the dvd though.
what about ‘a scanner darkly?’ wonderfully faithful version of philip k dick’s best work (imo) and full of surveillance state subject matter to boot!
For Pearl Harbor to be overrated, someone somewhere needs to have liked it, and I am not sure any such person exists.
This is one reason for loving “Team America: World Police”, of course.
Battlestar Galactica is bloody good, i’m working my way through the box-set as i type this.. but does it count as a movie? I thought it was more a feature-length first episode…
(stands well back)
wh00ps,
You’re right, but I am comparing every movie and TV show I have ever watched to BG based on enjoyment derived watching it and quality of it. I might as well add book to my comparison…and art of any sort… 😛
Darthlaurel wrote:
I enjoyed Titanic.
Oh, you meant the James Cameron version….
Nobody’s mentioned the documentary Spellbound either; it’s a really fun movie, with the kids being much more well-adjusted than the parents.
No Country for Old Men was about Tommy Lee Jones’ character. [i.e. the old man of the title] It his personal transformation that is relevant. His deep fear of a world changing to something beyond his comprehension and his retreat from it in response is the core of the movie.
It’s not my favorite Coen brother movie. I liked “A Serious Man” much more, but that movie does not seem to resonate with gentiles, so I can’t recommend it.
I don’t really have a big enough sample from the last decade to make a properly informed decision either, but I’d probably plump for The Dark Knight, if pushed.
The trouble I had while cheering the conservative/libertarian message in the Incredibles was that I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that it had slipped in by mistake while the filmmakers were attempting some kind of multicultural, anti-whatever-ist, hands-around-the-world schtick. Leaving all that aside and just watching it as a daft cartoon, it was pretty good though; Pixar can barely do any wrong.
Really? I think it might be the only Bond film I’ve never seen. Casino Royale was good, but then I liked Quantum of Solace too, so what do I know?
And since we seem to be straying into “best ever”, rather than just the last decade, I have to put a word in for Brazil. Maybe not the best movie ever (“flawed masterpiece” seems to cover it quite nicely), but definitely up there.
The trouble I had while cheering the conservative/libertarian message in the Incredibles was that I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that it had slipped in by mistake while the filmmakers were attempting some kind of multicultural, anti-whatever-ist, hands-around-the-world schtick.
There are two kinds of Pixar movie: those directed by people who developed their craft inside Pixar, and which have the sensibility developed by John Lasseter, and those directed by and with the sensibility of Brad Bird. The two films in the second category are The Incredibles and Ratatouille. The first category is everything else.
Bird was a pretty much fully formed filmmaker before he got to Pixar, being previously responsible for the wonderful (but commercially unsuccessful due to Warner Brothers being run by idiots) The Iron Giant and some of the more subversive bits of early seasons of the Simpsons. Lasseter at Pixar was smart enough to understand how good he was, hire him, and then more or less just let him get on with things, so one suspects he has more freedom than Pixar’s other directors. I think this is why one sees more about individualism and less of the green, one world stuff in his films than in the studio’s other work.
This is not meant as criticism of the studio’s other work – on the whole I love it to bits – but Bird’s work is *different*.
David Jones said
“No Country for Old Men was about Tommy Lee Jones’ character. [i.e. the old man of the title] It his personal transformation that is relevant. His deep fear of a world changing to something beyond his comprehension and his retreat from it in response is the core of the movie.”
Yes, the “Signs and Wonders” comment is key, as well as funny. His conclusions are rebutted though, by old Barry Corbin i.e don’t kid yourself, things have always been bad.
In the meantime though, there is an exciting manhunt to push the movie along. The Coens are not whimsical or self-idulgent with this film, they respected the source novel more than I had expected and I can’t say that I found any aspect of NCFOM stupid.
..and yes, Brad Bird is a genius.
I don’t see many movies (and have seen relatively few on either list). But I have to go on record as expressing my amazement that “The Aviator” is on anyone’s “best” list. Leonardo diCaprio is such a terrible actor I couldn’t sit through it all.
I didn’t care much for the last two Bond movies, either, not because Daniel Craig is a bad Bond (he’s fine), but because neither movie contained a whiff of humor, which is a crucial ingredient in any action movie.
I did like “Master and Commander” and the Ring Trilogy; they would certainly be on my “best” list.
As to the question about “Avatar”, it’s a thoroughly pedestrian movie with extraordinry special effects. Unoriginal and predictable story line; “Dances With Wolves in space” about nails it. It didn’t come within parsecs of living up to the hype.
I loved pans labyrinth, but i did find the sympathetic portrayal of the Communist partisans a bit grating. It was a convenient hook for the director to hang his good/evil hat on though.
I did have a bit of sympathy for the evil father/head fascist though. His pursuit of an honorable death fighting for his “good” cause struck me as a bloke who knew hed fail if peace broke out.
I would have appreciated a bit of evil on the communist side as well, but the nearest we got to that was the (justified?) cold blooded execution of the captain at the end.
Haven’t seen the devils backbone, its been on my list for a while, but I haven’t spotted it yet.
Brazil is one of my all time favorite flawed gems…
The LOTR movies were good, brilliant in places.
Has anyone seen “let the right one in”? Ive read a bit about it but again, haven’t seen it yet.
Id also like to bring up the documentary The Fog of War, possibly the best Ive ever seen, no bells or whistles, just a bloke trying to justify what he did with the wisdom of hindsight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War
Macrocephalic, tin-voiced DiCaprio’s huge head casts such a shadow that I can’t see a thing when trying to watch “The Aviator” (and don’t quite understand what he’s squeaking about). Otherwise great list.
Numbr 1 – Metropolis
In no particular order –
Tales of Ordinary Madness
Blue Velvet
Harold and Maude
Cool World
Allegro non Troppo
C’mon people, a little individualism please.
A bit of taste and style as well.
The Lord of the Rings, Sunshine, The Aviator and The Incredibles were good in different ways – but of those, the only one I might possibly want to see again is Sunshine. Oh, and Infernal Affairs – not the Departed.
Just about every other film I saw in a cinema this last decade was either trash I got roped into seeing (e.g. Spiderman) or forgettable (e.g…..?) , but the worst offenders were the utterly disgusting 21 Grams and the pointlessly gratuitous Saw. I have heard that The Audition is even more disgusting.
What I want most out of a film is an essentially moral story (that I agree with!) but which is interesting in other ways and is well told by the cameras and the acting. The 70s and 90s had a lot of films in this mold, whereas this last decade was maybe a bit more like the 80s.
Ah,
Sorry, last ten years.
My bad.
In that case, no opinion.
LOL, I hereby consider myself warned:-)
I’m so glad Perry mentioned Avalon, even though it is about 20 years old.
Speaking of Craig (the new Bond), I would like to recommend Defiance for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
Mike: thanks for pointing out Sunshine – I’ll look it up. I hadn’t seen Szabo’s film in eons.
Speaking of Szabo, Klaus Maria Brandauer is sorely missed.
Alisa: It’s a good film; visually very good, Fiennes is at his best, but the historical path of the film is what most set it apart for me.
However, my memory of it is vaguing into yellow now, so I’ll have to get around to watching it again at some point. Oh and I just realized it was a 1999 film, so technically off-topic!
A personal favorite of mine over the last several years was 12.08 East of Bucharest, a small scale Romanian movie.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0809407/
If The Lives of Others was the (so far) definitive study of Eastern European communist paranoia, then 12.08 East of Bucharest is the definitive study on post communist paranoia and how the region has yet to come to terms with the communist period.
It’s not really a major movie but I can’t think of a single movie over the last 5 years (at least) that’s gotten into my head as much.
The first half set up is slow (but worth paying attention to) and the second half of the movie, a real time tv call in show with the three protagonists is just amazing.
excerpt with English subs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hpj8wILzGI
another
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FKG0ZMdKJA
excerpt of part of the call in tv talk show that makes up the second part of the movie (subs in Portuguese)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-gYLo9INgo
Alisia, I mean this Avalon… which is all about “what is real and what is not”… indeed that is also what Cypher is about
Heh Perry, now it makes much more sense:-)
Lives of Others
The White Ribbon
Lilya-4-Ever
Pan’s Labyrinth
Goodbye Lenin
Now that we’re safely in ‘best ever’ territory, I’d like to add my 2¢-worth.
Brazil.
The Long Good Friday. Best gangster movie since Cagney and Bogart quit makin’ them.
Local Hero.
The Green Mile.
North by NorthWest.
Master and Commander.
The Shootist.
Dr Strangelove.
Twelve Angry Men.
The Godfather.
The Third Man.
Fargo.
and a special mention for
Band of Brothers.
llater,
llamas
I can only mention one film worthy of watching from the last couple of years: Red
It’s a very good film with some great performances from Brian Cox and Tom Sizemore; not an epic or visually stunning, no “action” to speak of but ticks along at a fair pace. Watch it – you won’t be disappointed..
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0972883/
My favourite five, no order:
Watership Down
Vertigo
For A Few Dollars More
Casablanca
Godfather II
I have seen four of these films.
The Aviator.
Serenity (and NO I do not agree that one has to have seen the Firefly series).
The Incredibles.
And Gladiator.
I thought all four (in their different ways) were very good.
By the way Gran Torino is also good – I was moved to write a review of it.
As for the ten worst films – I have not seen any of them.
Their leftist politics seemed (according the fawning reviews I came upon) to be a big point of the films – so I avoided them.
I would rather watch a film like “The Brave One” – even if both the studio (Warner Brothers) and the main person in it (J. Foster) acted as if they were ashamed of it.
I liked it for the same reason that they went around apologizing for their own movie – victim stands up and hunts down criminals.
Since Saw has been bashed, I will stand up for it: It is a work of brilliance. Along with, of course, both Hostel films. The only complaint about Saw offered was that it was gratuitous – yes it was, that is the point: The killer’s entire motives were about what a person would be willing to do, to themselves or others, to live, to actually value life. The sequels are superfluous and best ignored (especially since the fact that the killer is dying whilst others, who don’t value life are living, is the motivation for his actions in the first film, and are thus undermined by him surviving for three sequels!
The Hostel films are excellent studies in evil, in what would motivate people to commit atrocities. They provide thought experiments as to what we would really do, if we really thought we could get away with any action. But not only do they express evil in the form of the bloody sociopathy of those that perform the killings, they express the type of evil one found in those that run concentration camps – those who deal with death as a job, a routine, who are not exploring pleasures that can be gained from evil acts, but are passionless about what they do, like a factory worker is about their product.
To this list of great modern horror films I would add The Descent, too (and its sequel wasn’t as bad as it could have been, either).
Nick wrote,
I can only mention one film worthy of watching from the last couple of years: Red
That’s based on the book by Jack Ketchum, right? There are other films based on his books (“They,” and “The Girl Next Door”), but I’ve not seen any of them. He is, however, an underrated author (probably because he writes in an underrated genre).
“No Country For Old Men” – Immediately after watching it, I felt confused and empty. Later, I realised that this movie is awesome.
“Let The Right One In” – Beautiful and stark. The vampire genre is so overdone, it’s refreshing to see such an original take. Long, quiet, almost Bergman-like stretches, puncuated by a few effective violent bits. Also, fantastic ingenuitive low-budge special effects.
“A History of Violence” and “Eastern Promises” – I can’t freakin believe no one else is gaga over these two Viggo Mortensen/David Cronenberg films. Cronenberg took everything he’s learned in his long and excellent sci-fi directing career and made two incredible real-world films about individuals who have to become their own heros. Viggo Mortensen is at the top of his game. He is one of the great leading men who is helping pull us out of our “Frankie Avalon” period and into a new “Bronson-Eastwood” era.
“House of 1,ooo Corpses” and “The Devil’s Rejects” – Rob Zombie payed loving tribute to the classic campy slashers, then suddenly, towards the end of “Corpses” went down the rabbit hole and twisted that tired style into something wholly modern and awesome. “The Devil’s Rejects” dominates modern slashers, hands down.
And, by the way, I’m tired of the “Tarantino has been going downhill since Pulp Fiction” thing. Go back and watch “Jackie Brown” again, this time with the volume up. The movie grooves like nobodies business.
“The killer’s entire motives were about what a person would be willing to do, to themselves or others, to live, to actually value life.”
That was obvious, but what was not obvious was why that question had to be raised in such an arbitrary and disgusting manner.
Actually that reminds me – perhaps the best film I saw at a cinema in the last ten years was Touching The Void, which went to the same point (what would you prepared to do to survive), but was, for me, far superior in both moral and horror value to Saw.
Past decade (I love nerding out on this crap):
1. Oh Brother Where Art Thou?
2. The Wrestler
3. Serenity
4. Eastern Promises
5. Let The Right One In
6. Lagaan: Once Upon A Time In India
7. Amelie (It takes quite a man to admit that!)
8. Eulogy
9. The Devil’s Backbone
10. A History Of Violence
Honorable Mention: The Magdalene Sisters, Divided We Fall
Absolutely.
Oh, and following Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, even though it was good as a stand-alone, was a huge disappointment for me. But this all comes down to personal taste, of course.