Best Films of the Decade

Ok, I've been working too hard at compiling this list. It's been very difficult to rank all of these amazing films. So just read it like this, the beginning is about as close to ranking these films in order as I can then it just descends into my free-associative insertion of the films that I think were the best of this decade. This was a wonderful decade for cinema and is about as close to the 1970's as we've gotten. It also has special importance to me as this was my first decade watching movies as a cinephile. Literally, before I befriended Alex Fu in early 2001, I had no knowledge of film and very little concern. The only films I truly loved (and still do) were Star Wars, Indiana Jones, X-Men, Disney etc. I wasn't allowed to see PG-13 movies until I was 13 and certainly could not see R. Along the way I met others who had an impact in mentoring on film from my parent's friend Harry, to my girlfriend Katie to Quentin Tarantino in his interviews and commentary on dvds. But it was my dear friend Alex changed all that in one day by screening a Kevin Smith retrospective in his room. After seeing Clerks for the first time there was no looking back. So for me as a conscious movie-goer, the decade began with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which Hell Yea, I included on this list. But, I digress.

Anyways, what an amazing initiating decade for me and film. I will go into more detail in future blogs as I highlight movies and directors from this list that may have gone underappreciated or just moved me the most. But when I think of the sheer amount of amazing output this decade it baffles me that some sites/critics will have a disclaimer in their best of the decade lists about how this decade was only ok and didn't really push film forward (as they go on to name 100 films from this decade they loved). Really? This was a decade where masterful, challenging films like The Dark Knight and Inglourious Basterds and all the Pixar films were blockbusters! Spielberg had his best decade since the 1970's producing 4 instant classics and an Indiana Jones that I still contend was a lot of fun (and I still haven't seen War of the Worlds which is supposed to be good as well). Other prominent directors from the movie-brat generation made films that grace my list as well namely, Scorsese, De Palma, Lucas and Altman.

But it wasn't just the old guys dominating the decade. A plethora of our generation of directors either new to this decade or hailing from the 90's did amazing work that definitely pushed the medium forward. Just think of the work done by Tarantino, Nolan, P.T. Anderson, Coen Brothers, Jackson, Apatow, Wes Anderson, Charlie Kauffman, Linklater, Fincher, Raimi, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, David Gordon Green, Aronofsky, Mann, Wright, Park Chan-Wook, Singer, Cuaron, Del Toro, Cameron, Spike Lee, Ang Lee, Jarmusch and many more. The future of film is very bright indeed. Anyways, here goes:

1. Inglourious Basterds

2. The Dark Knight

3. There Will Be Blood

4. No Country for Old Men

5. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

6. The Departed

7. Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind

8. Royal Tenenbaums

9. 25^th Hour

10. All of Michael Moore’s films this decade

11. George Washington

12. Zodiac

13. Almost Famous

14. Knocked Up

15. Pan’s Labrynth

16. Clerks 2

17. The Wrestler

18. X2: X-Men United

19. 28 Days Later

20. Shaun of the Dead

21. Punch Drunk Love

22. Adaptation

23. Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2

24. 40 Year Old Virgin

25. Minority Report

26. A.I.

27. Catch Me if You Can

28. Let the Right One In

29. Half Nelson

30. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

31. Pixar Films of the Decade ( Up, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Monsters, Inc., Incredibles, Finding Nemo)

32. Up in the Air

33. An Education

34. Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai

35. Grindhouse

36. Before Sunset

37. Children of Men

38. Brokeback Mountain

39. Revenge of the Sith

40. Spiderman 2

41. Wedding Crashers

42. The Hurt Locker

43. The New World

44. Drag Me To Hell

45. Superman Returns

46. Superbad

47. Oldboy

48. Cabin Fever

49. Watchmen

50. Milk

51. Waking Life

52. Revolutionary Road

53. Wind that Shakes the Barley

54. Grizzly Man

55. Hot Fuzz

56. A Serious Man

57. I Heart Huckabees

58. Hostel

59. The Prestige

60. Audition

61. American Psycho

62. Ali

63. Chappelle’s Block Party

64. Mean Girls

65. Femme Fatale

66. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

67. Ghost World

68. Lars and the Real Girl

69. Hellboy 2

70. Undertow

71. All the Real Girls

72. Snow Angels

73. Pineapple Express

74. Gangs of New York

75. School of Rock

76. Miami Vice

77. Avatar

78. Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle

79. Me and Orson Welles

80. Funny People

81. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

82. High Fidelity

83. Burn After Reading

84. Observe and Report

85. Trick R’ Treat

86. Fantastic Mr. Fox

87. Spirited Away

88. Y Tu Mama Tambien

89. Lars and the Real Girl

90. Moon

91. The Descent

92. Sugar

93. Lady Vengeance

94. O Brother Where Art Thou?

95. The Life Aquatic

96. The Incredible Hulk

97. Iron Man

98. Black Dynamite

99. Amores Perros

100. Little Miss Sunshine

101. Gosford Park

102. Sin City

103. Eastern Promises

may need some more reflecting, but probably the best year in film of this decade. It was hard to limit this to 20... some movies like House of the Devil, Zombieland, Thirst, The Hangover, Extract, Star Trek, The Informant are definitely close runner ups. I still haven't seen Parnassus, Antichrist or Sherlock Holmes but I feel pretty secure in this list.




















1. Inglourious Basterds
2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
3. Capitalism: A Love Story
4. A Serious Man
5. Up in the Air
6. An Education
7. Drag Me to Hell
8. Fantastic Mr. Fox
9. The Hurt Locker
10. Sugar
11. Watchmen
12. Up
13. Observe and Report
14. Avatar
15. Funny People
16. Moon
17. Black Dynamite
18. Public Enemies
19. Adventureland
20. The Lovely Bones/ Me and Orson Welles/Big Fan (ok I cheated)

The Wisdom of our Great Directors

If you haven't had a chance to pick up the 20th Anniversary Edition of Empire, do so. It's very classy and has kept me busy this whole week. It includes reflections from its writers/editors/photographers, the movies that "make" Empire, a Lord of the Rings retrospective, as well as Empire "icons" - actors who grew up or did their most important work during Empire's tenure. One of my favorite feature of the magazine is the "Directors of Our Lifetime", which highlights the best directors and selected quotes from their past interviews with Empire. The list includes: Tarantino, Spielberg, Fincher, Scorsese, Greengrass, Jackson, Coen Bros., Nolan, Boyle, Lucas and more. Here are some of my favorite quotes from some of my favorite directors both of my lifetime and all time.

"A movie like Fight Club is always going to come under attack from fucking pussies... violence between consenting adults is a healthy thing." - David Fincher

"I'm not from the Mike Leigh school. I want to reach the widest audience possible." - Christopher Nolan

"I want every one of my movies, even 20 years down the line, to have the same piss and vinegar, the same hard fucking dick as Reservoir Dogs. There can be no fuck-up, no weak link, no blank in the chamber for the kid to discover." - QT

"There's a point editing a film when you get really tired of it. I never got tired of Goodfellas" - who do you think?

"I don't like the name 'the Movie Brats' that much. I wish they'd called us 'the Movie Nerds'" - Steven Spielberg

and Paul Greengrass names Ken Loach as his favorite director which is awesome.

MSN's Top 10 of 2009

The MSN critics have near impeccable taste. Their list of the top 10 of 2009 will probably be the closest to mine. Much kudos to them putting Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans on their as well as them putting Inglourious Basterds so high. To make it even more legit, they also added the individual lists of their panel of critics. Big props to them putting some of the seriously underrated movies of the year Public Enemies and Observe and Report. Check out both here

Three Tomatoes are Walking Down a Street...

I post in this shit freely. No rules. Never were, never will be. This is my sweet declaration of freedom, like good ol' TJ, breaking more ground than an earthquake or a really fat person walking in a cartoon. I don't know why I get discouraged by the fact that my blog isn't read by multitudes of people. It's not like I gave a shit when the only one reading my diary back in 'nam was my charlie overseer in the prison camp. I still wrote my things down, so I guess I'll continue. Fuck it, whatever.

Anyways, can't believe I haven't posted a response upon my seeing Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. I have seen it four times in theaters as I write this if that's any indicator of the supreme level enjoyment this film gives me. Seriously, if you're in OC you have no excuse not to see this... it's playing at the Campus theater in Irvine and the Regency theater in Laguna Niguel. Herzog and Cage throw a most incendiary molotov cocktail into the stale police-procedural drama genre and it is endlessly gratifying. Herzog subverts the genre conventions by completely obliterating them. What maybe begins like your typical crime show or cop movie increasingly becomes a delightfully evil and hallucinatory story. This maybe the first time I've ever seen a POV shot from tripping iguanas or break dancing souls. Or lucky crack pipes.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is easily one of the best films this year. Cage is quite possibly the most fearless actor with the most on-screen presence working in film today. It's a testament to his work that anyone could make that statement after all the shit movies/roles he's done. But when he's on, like he is here, he's fucking on and I'd like to see anyone else try and touch him. This is a film where the plot gradually becomes irrelevant and instead we sit back and bask in the wonderfully rich and crazy world, characters, and perspective of Louisianna, cops and criminals that Herzog and Cage have provided for us.

My New Favorite Actor/Person

"According to published reports, over the years Cage bought two Bahamian islands, more than dozen houses around the world, scores of exotic sports cars as well as dinosaur skulls, meteorites and yachts (he's suing former money manager Samuel J. Levin and his firm for $20 million in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming Levin fattened his own bank account while "sending Cage down a path toward financial ruin")"

I'm a Fan of Big Fan

I loved this movie. If it is playing anywhere near you, make the trip to go see it! This is the screenwriter of The Wrestler's directorial debut, and man am I excited at his (Robert Siegel) potential. This is an excellent second offering after writing one of my favorite films ever made. Big Fan is another character study of a die-hard, verging on obsessive, NY Giants fan named Paul Aufiero played by Patton Oswalt. Oswalt packs in a powerful performance that reflects his depth and dynamism as an actor, whose as good at that as he is a great comedian.

In many ways Big Fan is a look at an alienated, poor, isolated individual with an obsession and the dangerous consequences those circumstances and personality traits produce. However, I believe that the film is largely more redemptive and sympathetic to Paul and his friend Sal (played by the equally great Kevin Corrigan). Paul and Sal's fandom is their only sense of purpose and connection in a pretty cold and alienating world. Paul in particular, writes pretty clever and insightful sports analysis and delivers this well on sports talk radio almost every night. Maybe if he had had the opportunities of a jounalism major at a nice college he could easily be a sports writer or TV/radio pundit. Either way, he still has something that he puts his heart, mind, and soul into and gets heard and respect on the radio for it.

Which leads into some of the other aspects of the film. The realism of this film is tremendous. Characters are complicated and criticized, the urban decay and poor working-class world of the Rugged Shaolin that Paul inhabits is depicted wonderfully. This world is also often juxtaposed, during scenes and moments of conflict, in contrast with the world of the wealthy. Whether it be the rich/party/night-club manhattan lifestyle of Paul and Sal's favorite Giants player or the lavish, suburban family life of his rich, sleazy, trial lawyer brother. It is also portrayed at Paul's work in a parking garage, where his rich customers in their nice cars constantly look down on him and treat him like dirt.

Paul has nothing but contempt for this world in a way, but he is still mostly concerned about Giants football. However, it obviously affects him. He is bored with his lame brother-in-law who is in management for price club and that's all he talks about. He has no illusions about his rich brother's greed and the hollow life he fashioned for himself with his stupid, mistress, overly tanned, boob and nose-jobbed, trophy wife. Yet, since he can not afford a nice house or fancy things, and chooses to not want to meet and marry gold-digging ladies, he gets criticized and condescended upon by everyone in his life. At least he has something to look forward to every day. He works, goes out and eats with his friend. It's not like he's some unemployed mooch of the family. His only flaw is that he's poor and different.

Anyways, that's where I believe Big Fan is a complicated character study that paints a dark and dangerous picture of the potential consequences of the effects Paul's surroundings, as well as his fandom, but is also sympathetic to Paul (and Sal) and critical of the values and world they inhabit. That's the brilliance of this movie, Siegel's writing/directing, and Oswalt's performance. It's sweet, sad, smart, funny, realistic and dark. I can't say enough good things about this movie, go see it if you have the chance.