I will kick this blog off with a top ten list, always my favorite article format to write with, so here goes. I've been debating for a few weeks now just which films will be looked back on from this current decade as true masterpieces. Certainly the cinematic experience in the last nine years or so has been defined by big blockbusters, exceedingly impressive special effects usage (to the point that the most memorable character of the decade so far may be the computer-generated Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy), and film series that capture audiences and deliver huge pocketfuls of cash to studio executives who will continue to back sequels with funding so long as the audience is captivated.
Can we expect these epic film series to truly be considered the legends of the cinema once this decade has ended and film historians begin to reflect on the era from an adequate distance? My argument is that the best films of the new millennium thus far are those that have relied not on huge funding or massive amounts of special effects, but the projects that have insisted on preserving the old values of film making: savvy direction, compelling acting, thoughtful cinematography, meticulous writing, and all the little frills that make films so beloved. My list is of course not 100% complete, I'm sure there are hundreds of films from the current era that are deserving to be on such a list which I have not seen yet. Thus, I open this topic up to discussion. Tell me what I'm missing and why, perhaps we can all point each other in the direction of some great movies.
Here are my picks for the top ten best films since the year 2000:
Mulholland Dr. is the greatest anti-Hollywood film since Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard taught us just how nasty tinsel-town can be to those naive enough to put faith in it. Naomi Watts' career really took off after her haunting performance as bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Betty Elms in this dreamy noir by veteran director David Lynch. Lynch gave us his most compelling film since Blue Velvet and earned a best director nomination at the 2001 Academy Awards for it. There is no doubt that this movie represents the world of dreaming better than any film in existence, as it operates according to dream "logic" for more than three quarters of its running time. Lynch used a handful of long-forgotten Hollywood has-beens to fill out his supporting cast and in doing so added authenticity to his nightmarish depiction of Hollywood. It might take a few repeated viewings to understand exactly what Lynch has achieved here, but it's worth your patience; the payoff that Mulholland Dr. delivers rivals any great mystery denouement, including the best that Hitchcock ever gave us.
2007 was a knockout year for film, perhaps the strongest of this decade, but also the year of the biggest Academy Award and Golden Globe mistake: paying more attention to the overrated Juno rather than the nearly-perfect Knocked Up. This movie is the culmination of Judd Apatow's impressive career and a star-making vehicle for the genuinely hilarious Seth Rogen. I dare you to find a comedy with more heart; the acting is top-notch and the fact that Apatow uses the same loose cast for nearly all of his projects helps to make the interactions in this film almost eerily believable. While Juno won hearts with its PG-13 spunk, Knocked Up rides its R-rating so hard that the line gets crossed several times, most memorably with a "crowning" scene that will give you high school health class deja vu. Jason Segel, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, and Martin Starr are brilliant and believable as the group of weed-smoking devoted friends, while Apatow's wife Leslie Mann and his two adorable daughters pair well with Paul Rudd to make up the supporting cast for Heigl's Alison Scott. Add a cameo by Harold Ramis as Rogen's dad and this movie transcends modern comedy. A classic tale of unexpected gifts and unexpected love.
Put aside your homophobia for a few moments (or forever!) and accept this movie for what it is: one of the most overwhelming romances ever committed to film. One cannot say enough about the performance by Heath Ledger in this movie, one that was described by current acting laureate Daniel Day Lewis as "perfect". Gyllenhall and Ledger endured months of being spit on, yelled at, and generally harassed for having the balls to put themselves into career-elevating roles that are hardly found in mainstream cinema. In the long wake that followed the death of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming, America waited for a piece of art to sublimate our frustrations with homophobia into something beautiful and affecting, some statement that homophobia is a poison of our times, an ignorance that we must no longer withstand. Brokeback Mountain is that statement. More than that, though, it is a love story that transcends sexual orientation and gets right to your heart. Ang Lee's best film, apologies to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
By 2006, Martin Scorsese probably had lost all interest in finally winning a Best Director Oscar; the award had eluded for longer than three decades and must have seemed an impossible feat, especially considering he had not been given one for Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, or Goodfellas, all films that deserve a spot among the greatest in the history of cinema. However, his Best Director statue did finally come in 2006 for the thrilling crime saga The Departed. Using an ensemble cast in a way that Scorsese never really has before, The Departed explores betrayal, loyalty, and deception, while delivering some of the best performances of these actors' careers. Hands down this Leo is at his best in this movie, making his Titanic performance look like child's play. His vulnerability and slow-breakdown should have earned him a best actor nod. Supporting players Alec Baldwin and Martin Sheen are spot-on, while Wahlberg has us drawn in to hear every word he fires off as we cheer for his loose-cannon attitude. In a decade where great crime dramas took place in Boston and not New York, The Departed is head and shoulders above most other crime flicks. It's a slick movie that keeps you guessing until the very, very end.
"Did you think your song and dance and your superstition would help you, Eli? I am the Third Revelation! I am who the Lord has chosen!!" In this timely throwback to John Ford era filmmaking Paul Thomas Anderson explores the roots of oil greed as California real estate at the turn of the century becomes a hot commodity in the eyes of "oil men". Released during a winter when gas prices had reached an all time high, There Will Be Blood is biblical, mythical, and enormous. The cinemotography captures the American West as if has not changed since the century turned and the dawn of the automobile revolutionized America forever. Anderson's exploration of themes such as religiosity and greed find that the two are never very far apart, while man's search for meaning can be completed neither by spirituality nor economic prosperity lest the heart of that man is the right place. The ultimate cold-hearted villain, Daniel Plainview, is portrayed by Daniel Day Lewis in a performance that is enormous and unforgettable. Daniel Day Lewis, famous for his transformations into film characters, crafted a man here that is the absolute embodiment of oil greed and the belief that you must step on whoever you can to get to the top of the economic food chain. Capitalism, baby. With an impending financial crisis, war raging over oil in the Middle East, and ever growing salaries for corporate CEOs, There Will Be Blood was a perfectly timed historical drama, a sign o' the times that just happens to take place in the years leading to the great depression.
While the 2000s will undoubtebly be remembered for the musical contributions of Chicago and Moulin Rouge, there is no doubt in my mind that the true musical masterpiece of the decade is Dancer in the Dark, the story of a Czech immigrant factory worker in 1964 trying to earn money so that her son can get an operation to keep him from going blind, while she herself slowly loses her vision to the point of complete blindness. Bjork's performance is stunning; she sings, dances, and portrays Selma as the innocent, loving mother that we hope against all hope can just succeed in saving the eyesight of her young son. The first musical number, in which the sounds of the factory are incorporated into an industrial showtune that doubles as a showstopper, is one the audience is likely to never forget. Von Trier, famous for co-authoring the Dogme 95 manifesto, sees his dream of realistic aesthetics in cinema realized with this film. This film is overachieving with being overreaching; when we sit through the overture at the beginning (the first film to have an overture since 1979), we do not feel like this is a pretentious piece of work, but a well crafted, authentic one. That the Academy found Ridley Scott's overwrought Gladiator to be a superior film in 2000 is a travesty; Dancer in the Dark broke with convention and traversed genres to win a cult following that is ever growing. I dare you to watch this for the first time without choking up.
Mystic River is an emotional tour de force that will crush you every time you watch it, and the movie that started Clint Eastwood's run as the greatest director of the 2000s (no apologies to Peter Jackson). It is my humble opinion that this film was robbed of the 2003 Academy Award for best picture, an award that went to the over-wrought, over-produced Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Sean Penn, who won the best actor award at the 2003 Oscars, plays Jimmy Markum, a south-end Bostonian who has just lost his daughter to an anonymous murderer in a heinous crime. Kevin Bacon plays homicide detective Sean Divine, a childhood friend of Markum's who, along with his partner Whitey Powers (Laurence Fishburne), is assigned to track down the killer of Markum's daughter. Tim Robbins plays the haunted Dave Boyle, a second childhood friend of Markum who returns home to his wife (Marcia Gay Harden) the night of the murder covered in someone else's blood, explaining to his wife that he may have killed a man that tried to mug him. As the film digresses, we learn more about each of the three childhood friends, two of whom watched as their buddy Dave Boyle was driven away by two child rapists, kidnapping him in plain daylight. This movie is multi-layered, rich with powerful performances, timeless dialogue, and a haunting score. By the time we finally see characters interact with the Mystic River and Jimmy Markum explains that "we bury our sins here ... we wash them clean", our breath has been taken away countless times. Perhaps the greatest Boston film ever.
"Innocence has a power evil cannot imagine." The tagline sums up what makes Pan's Labyrinth so beautiful, and yet comes no where near an explanation of what this film achieves. Set during the time just after the Spanish civil war in 1944, the movie begins with the important words "Once upon a time...", words which set the viewer up for the spine-tingling experience of true magic realism. We follow young Ofelia as she travels with her pregnant mother to a fascist outpost in the Spanish wilderness where her new stepfather the fascist Captain Vidal is awaiting. The outpost is filled with soldiers who are fighting off a small remaining faction of dedicated anarchist fighters hidden among the wooded hills. The historical setting, like in any good work of magic realism, is second in importance to the fantastic events that befall the innocent Ofelia. Everything about this movie is perfect. Del Toro uses color wonderfully, blending dark blues and greens and then juxtaposing them with red or brown creatures. The makeup work won the film a deserved Academy Award, as did the cinematography and art direction. Like most great works of historical fiction and fantasy, there is a tragedy that we almost cannot fathom lying at the very emotional core of the film. However, this is movie of hope, of the vast power of childhood innocence, and of love, true love for family. Unlike The Lord of the Rings, this fantasy is never far from the harsh realities of the twisted world we live in, making it not an escapist piece, but a rumination on the nature of man and the corruptions that destroy his goodness. Like Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, Pan's Labyrinth is the story of a child thrust into a horrible situation where the odds are against her, and yet who triumphs over adversity like a true hero. Incredible, in a word.
Gorgeous. Hilarious. Relentlessly Romantic. Everything clicks in this movie about culture shock and the longing for companionship. Bill Murray gives the performance of his career, while Scarlett Johansson ups her status from little known to leading lady. Coppola's screenplay won an Oscar, while her direction was robbed by Mr. Peter Jackson (damn those Lord of the Rings movies) but completely deserving of every accolade it was given. When Bob Harris whispers into Charlotte's ear, her eyes welling up with tears -- her head nodding as if to agree, Coppola withholds whatever it is he says to her from the viewers. We are left wondering forever whether the two have decided to meet up somewhere in America, whether they have agreed to never see each other again, whether Bob simply told her to carry on with her marriage, the possibilities are literally endless. Moments like these are the very magic of cinema and are few and far between these days. Coppola forces us to use our imaginations to fill in the open-ended conclusion she has given us. Take note of the little nuances and subtleties that make this movie so great: the Japanese commercial director gives Bob very descript directions in Japanese, "You are sitting quietly in your study. And then there is a bottle of Suntory whiskey on top of the table. You understand, right? With wholehearted feeling, slowly, look at the camera, tenderly, and as if you are meeting old friends, say the words. As if you are Bogie in Casablanca, saying, "Here's looking at you, kid," -- Suntory time!", and yet the interpreter simply tells Bob "He wants you to turn, look in camera. O.K.?". It's a great example of things easily being "lost in translation". The most stylish movie of the past decade and my pick for the best romance, Lost in Translation is likely to be remembered as one of the true masterpieces of the 2000s, even if it did have to compete for attention with Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and Mystic River when it premiered in 2003.
The movie that led to the reification of the "spoiler alert" and led me to cry every single time I saw it. Even now, I cannot get through this incredibly moving film without shedding at least a few tears, and I've seen it at least twenty times. This movie is every aspect we love about cinema wrapped into one perfect feature, the only glaring omission is perhaps the romance story which would have no place in this stark film. It's a sports underdog story on the surface, but it's done just as well as Rocky, or any other film from the genre for that matter. The boxing scenes are shot with precision and accuracy as Maggie Fitzgerald (Swank, in one of the greatest female performances ever) blows her way through each level of female professional boxing like a nasty hurricane. This film is a great example of several Hollywood stars convening at the height of their talent for a true opus; Eastwood's direction, action, and subtle musical score establish him as one of the true artists of the past hundred years, while Morgan Freeman narrates and acts his way to an Oscar winning performance. There's not much I can say about this movie without absolutely ruining it, except that it really is in my opinion the best film of the 2000s, and one of the five or so greatest films of my lifetime.
"If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you." -Eddie Dupris (Freeman)
"Frankie likes to say that boxing is an unnatural act, that everything in boxing is backwards: sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step back... But step back too far and you ain't fighting at all." -Eddie Dupris
"Frankie, I've seen you at Mass almost every day for 23 years. The only person comes to church that much is the kind who can't forgive himself for something." -Father Horvak
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