Well, I’ve done the music review, I’m on a little old-fashioned cinema high, and the Golden Globe noms are out this week, so I suppose it’s inevitable that this morning I’m thinking Best Of Film. Think of this as more a free-form reflection on movies that have moved me, more than any sort of rational, critical ranking. Because while I can absolutely recognize a film like Watchmen for its technically excellent, faithful rendering of a watershed book, it didn’t get its hooks into me quite the way it did my gentleman-comic-book-lover-of-a-certain-age Man Friend. I want my movies to impress my head and tug at (or gouge or warm or break) my heart.
First, let’s give some props where some props are sorely overdue.
File under: Criminally Overlooked the following:
The films of Craig Brewer. Hustle & Flow (2005) and Black Snake Moan (2006) were both pitch-perfect films in disguise, meaty, clever, surprising, and refreshingly honest. (Read an old post on the subject here.) And as a bonus, each can be cross-referenced under Movies That Would Not Have Been Possible Without the Music.
Constantine (2005). No, really. I am dead serious. I know it’s Keanu Reeves, but remember Neo? This is the same kind of sparse dialogue this man was born to mouth. Constantine was a visually stunning, artfully directed twist on the age-old battle between good & evil. And brilliantly cast–Tilda Swinton as the archangel Gabriel? Peter Stormare as Lucifer? Genius.
Secretary (2002). One of my favorite movies of all time, easy. An unusual, authentic love story, with one of the best love (technically sex-less) scenes put on film. A copper tub, a grass bed, and a great song? Yes, please.
Brick (2005). Another unlikely concept, solidly executed. It’s a hard-boiled, noir detective yarn, set in a modern-day high school. Improbable, dense, intelligent. Great performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Stage Beauty (2004). Billy Crudup is riveting in a role that manages to explore notions of gender and performance, without ever once feeling dry or academic. Magnetic, vibrant, nuanced, perfect.
Redbelt (2008). Chiwetel Ejiofor became one of my all-time favorite actors with this one role. A very Mamet exploration of honor and duty, this film resonated long after the closing credits. Ejiofor fully inhabits his character, communicating dignity and conflict with his very skin. A pivotal scene between his character and Emily Mortimer’s quite literally left me breathless with its power, courage, and deep compassion. Very human, and, perhaps paradoxically, quite exceptional.
Our Daily Bread (2005). Completely wordless, story-less, actor-less, and music-less, this is one of the most compelling movies I have ever laid eyeballs on. A carefully composed visual symphony, with urgent subject matter.
File under: Movies That Would Not Have Been Possible Without the Music:
Once (2006). A raw and utterly real look at love. The soundtrack is one of the year’s best records.
Almost Famous (2000). A luminous and heartfelt love letter to a time and place.
High Fidelity (2000). Infinitely quotable. Lloyd Dobler, all grown up.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). Made bluegrass cool again.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001). Lovely and campy and, well, operatic.
File under: Eye- and Mind-Popping:
Memento (2000). Oh, Guy Pearce. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you in taffeta and sequins. Dark and puzzling. Put the Nolans on the map.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). I have never cared so much about two characters I absolutely could not stand. Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry both tend to be a little too clever for their own good, but they knocked it out of the park with this one.
Frida (2002). This film could only ever have been made by Julie Taymor. Her respect for her subject shows in every shot. This film bleeds in color.
Big Fish (2003). Accessing family through myth and memory. An earnest, poignant story told with a playful hand.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I didn’t think it could be done. Forgive me my doubt, Lord Jackson.
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). What fairy tales were before Disney got ahold of ‘em.
File under: Someone Had To Say It:
Team America: World Police (2004). Puppets. Blissfully unaware American imperialism. Satire sailing right over the heads of the satirizees. And did I mention puppets? Fuck Yeah!
Jesus Camp (2006). Maybe the most frightening movie of the decade. The Ring might have made me scared to turn on my TV, but this movie made me scared to leave the house.
This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006). You’ve got graphic depictions of shootings, stabbings, dismemberment, disembowelment, massacres, executions? Sure, bring the kiddies on in! But what’s that you say? Your film has S.E.X. in it? You mean, like with (gasp!) naked people? Oh, my. That just will not stand.
Religulous (2008). Bill Maher, I *heart* you.
File under: Leading Ladies:
The Hours (2002). I think Nicole Kidman bartered her acting talent for lip collagen after The Hours, because she hasn’t been nearly this good since. A triumvirate of powerful performances, in a deep, literate screenplay.
The Queen (2006). Delving into questions of tradition and celebrity and media and privacy, Mirren is (yeah, I’ll say it) truly regal as this film’s anchor.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004). I really did not want to like these films. Quentin Tarantino is insufferable, and most of his films are highly overrated (ooh, did I say that out loud?). But Uma Thurman as The Bride is undeniably, ostentatiously kick-ass. A fine, hyperbolic, frenetic, and deeply satisfying popcorn flick.
File under: Still Too Fresh To Tell:
Ask me again in 2020 if these held up, but right now here’s what’s sticking with me from this year’s movie-going…
Away We Go nailed the “are we fuck-ups?” worries of the I-guess-we’re-grown-ups-now early 30′s. Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski are wonderful together.
The Hurt Locker (along with HBO’s Generation Kill) is both a timely and honest look at the wars we’re in, and a further reworking of the war film genre. The noble rallying cry of Once more into the breach, dear friends has given way to the text-speak cynicism of WTF?
Fantastic Mr. Fox siphoned off all the love I was saving for Where The Wild Things Are (though that flick still deserves every drop). Never have I been so utterly charmed by a movie.
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