2010: A Year of Extremes

2010 is over. A Kraken was released. A totem was spun. 3 people ended up not heeding Dante's warning & were attached ass to mouth. Dirk Diggler decided he was not gonna fight for you, you or YOU. Even the Dude himself wanted to channel his zen through a daft punk lightshow. It seemed that waiting for a good movie to come along was almost as futile as Mark Zuckerberg waiting for Erica to accept that friend request.

Last year, limiting it to only 10 movies was a bit of a challenge. This year I had a hard time putting in 10 worthy films.


I'm wondering why I bothered with 3/4 of what I ended up seeing in the theater this year. I miss having a great theatrical experience. & two out of a handful of times that happened this year were from the theatrcial re-releases of The Exorcist & Back to the Future. Films that sweep the floor with what most of this year had to offer.

Here's to hoping that 2011 will be a cure for the diseases that 2010 brought us.

FILMS SEEN IN 2010:
Youth In Revolt, The Book of Eli, The Wolfman, Shutter Island, Kick-Ass, A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Human Centipede, Iron Man 2, Splice, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Ghost Writer, Toy Story 3, A Prophet, Inception, Dinner For Schmucks, The Other Guys, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, The Expendables, Machete, The Town, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Mother, The Social Network, Jackass 3D, 127 Hours, Black Swan, Tron: Legacy, The Fighter, True Grit, Leaves of Grass, The King's Speech

This list is incomplete as there are still a number films yet to be seen: Animal Kingdom, Dogtooth, Blue Valentine, I Love You Philip Morris, Trash Humpers & Rabbit Hole.


1. The Social Network
A social network created by a someone who does not know how to communicate properly in the real world. The oil that makes this whole film run is perspective. We are given multiple views on what actually happened instead of one concrete view. Fincher & Sorkin never favor one over the other and lets the audience make up their own minds as to what really happened. Something that is drastically missing from cinema these days. Along with that he brings a restrained style and lets Sorkin's beat-perfect scripting take the reigns.

2. A Prophet
The stylistic choices that director Jacques Audiard employs (freeze frames, names of characters on screen) should not deter one's enjoyment rather enhance it. The most intense moment I've experienced from a film released this year goes to a scene involving the lead character Malik and a razor blade. You'll know it when you see it.

3. Black Swan
Repulsion meets Mulholland Dr. dressed up as The Red Shoes? That's what some people seem to be saying. Swan cuts deep. A spiritual successor to The Wrestler. If that one was from the heart, this is from the mind.

4. 127 Hours
The time compression of 127 hours to a mere 95 minutes taking place in a single setting may sound like a daunting task. Boyle managed to ratchet it up enough to make a story we already know the ending to seem riveting.

5. Enter the Void
'That was fucking trippy.'

6. Mother
Bong-jon hoo continues his perfect track record with a harrowing thriller chock full of heart wrenching scenes.

7. Toy Story 3
By far the darkest film Pixar has put out. Yet there is a warm sentimental vibe that is inviting.

8. Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage
As a longtime Rush fan, this doc had me grinning from ear to ear. They may not be the hippest band out there. Rolling Stone & the Rock N' Rill Hall of Fame shamefully snub their noses at them. But let's be honest. Why should they try to adapt to the mold when they got a good thing going for them already?

9. Best Worst Movie
A look into the lives of those responsible for Nilbog. It was quite revealing seeing people's reaction to fame in this light.

10. Shutter Island
Seeing the director dabble on the 'genre picture' canvas is something to be highly admired. Not without its flaws but good nonetheless.

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(Decided to do a little something extra this time around. Hopefully it will kindle one's interest toward these directors.)

THE PITFALLS & THE POSSIBILITIES: MY (ONGOING) FLING WITH UNDERGROUND CINEMA

I got hit hard with the film bug this year. It's sting is still being felt as of this moment and it looks like there will no curable diagnosis anytime soon. As a result I went out of my way to look for filmmakers that lurk beneath the radar. While the year in film may not have been very good, these filmmakers made it more than worthwhile when digging into their back catalogs. A first was discovering directors who have yet to tackle a feature and have only done shorts. Short films are usually forgotten or pushed to the side. Yet within a compressed amount of time, some of them are able to pull just the right amount of punch that a full feature does.

Early on in the year, horror/exploitation became a big obssession. Pretty much from January straight through April. Delved further into the Giallo subgenre to discover D'Amoto & Bava (both Mario & Lamberto) along with some classic Val Lewton films from the 40's. Opened the crimson stained door to French horror to discover some truly gruesome cinema. Inside & Martyrs among them. One could say I opened the door a little too wide in terms of horror.

Morbid curiosity got the best of me this year. I was steered in two directions for the first half of the year: experimental & extreme horror. The former involving the discovery of some truly mindfucking experiences. Begotten & Gozu in particular. In Begotten's case, it's hitting your head on the ceiling of how far surrealism can go. This may be a bold statement, but it just may be more surreal than Eraserhead.

Then there's extreme horror. The problem here is, testing the limits of what one can endure. Mine was sure as hell tested in 2010 more than any other year. Thanks in part to straying along some paths leading to some really grisly stuff. Wanting to knock out all the sickest stuff out there. Only to find a big bright sign marked DEAD END. & I'm not talking Cannibal Holocaust. That's a film I admire, as brutal it may be. There we ever some really effective shorts I came across. Most notably: Cutting Moments. The problem I'm talking about is crap like August Underground. Because honestly, everyone has a breaking point. Not so much in tolerance of the stomach, but in tolerance of the mind. You can only go so far until you end up becoming a parody of yourself. I got to thinking: Do I really need this in my life right now? Why look to the bottom of the barrel for a possible goody when there are so many great things at the top of it. Exploration need not be in just one direction but several.

I can only point to the things leading to it. Curiosity. We all have fears. Chances are people who are afraid of the dark turn off all the lights in their house. Or people who are afraid of heights want to go up in skyscrapers. We want to understand our fears in an attempt to decipher a better understanding of ourselves. In the process of doing so, our will is put to the test. So we dive further. Into an almost Neitzschean realm of our subconscious. Failure to extract anything new in our quest of discovery is the lynch pin of the whole thing. & it's what ultimately led me to a dead stop in this futile process of discovery for this particular genre of cinema. Telling as it may be, the films that furthered my adoration to the art form (the Kieslowskis, the Finchers, the Kubricks) helped put me on a correct path. To be sure, exploitation is not entirely dead to me. I still love the Coffys & the Pieces. Besides, lovers of exploitation watch a film like 5 Fingers of Death for one reason: entertainment. I enjoy gliding along the edges of fringe cinema. Hopefully I won't make the same mistake and fall off the deep end again. I'm looking at you Serbian Film.

Note: From the Fringe will become a regular feature on this blog. Where I hopefully introduce you dear reader, to some of the offbeat films of the underground.


I. THE FILMS
Here is a list of Non- 2010 films I saw.



II. THE DIRECTORS

Some of these directors will put your limits to the test. Some will subtly comfort you. One thing cannot be denied: It impossible to go through these director's works unscathed.

Call it more of a rediscovery. I had seen El Topo before, but didn't really get big into his stuff until earlier this year. If you think Lynch is as weird as it gets, go watch The Holy Mountain and get back to me on that. His films are for fans of the surreal. So Lynch fanatics, good news for you. What differentiates Jodoworsky's work from Lynch however is an almost fantastical presentation of images. The colors seem more prescient. Jodorowsky's films stick to your subconscious like hot tar.

Good news for fans of Jodoworsky in 2011: the out of print Santa Sangre will be released on DVD & Blu-Ray by Severin Films on January 25th.


Not just that "other Canadian director". Egoyan has crafted some of the more critically acclaimed films to come out of Canada. Along with Cronenberg he is showing that above us, we have some true artists at work. He's also probably the only sane director on the list with the exception of David Gordon Green. Well....make that three sane directors if ya count the next one.


Once a music video director for the likes of Radiohead, Glazer took his stylized vision and infused it into his films. Sexy Beast is pretty much The Limey of heist films insofar as being a bold stylistic experiment. Birth took it one step further with incredibly Kubrick-like direction. It breathes like a cross between Eyes Wide Shut & Barry Lyndon. Interested in his next feature for sure.


Most may know him from Pineapple Express, but his earlier films (George Washington, All the Real Girls, Undertow) have a striking small town feel to them. His films have been called the best films Terrence Malick never made. Being a Malick fanboy & after seeing Shotgun Stories as per the recommendation of Hare Media, it was inevitable that I'd watch the rest of the catalog. You feel like you know some of the characters in the world of DGG. In addition, he captures a Southern gothic vibe in the regions he films in. The last two efforts including the upcoming Your Highness may be a bit more mainstream, but I would love for him to get back to his indie roots again.


Their short films are a true testament to showing just how far stop motion has come since Ray Harryhausen. Principle among their works is a fascinating short called Street of Crocodiles. Anyone who wants to get into stop motion animation, these are the directors you put at the top of your list. The identical twins Timothy & Stephen are able to tap into a collective unconscious through a fascinating yet deeply unsettling mix of visual, musical and cinematic influences.

Recommended DVD: Phantom Museums.


All I can say is, watch Survive Style 5. It's a trip. Think Snatch on acid. Ichi the Killer's Tadanobu Asano stars in one of the four stories. As does Snatch's very own Vinnie Jones. Another one that may be a little hard to find as the copy I have is an import. It's not a 5 star knockout in my book but it's the type of film you need to see at least once just to witness the manic energy put forth by this director.


The 4 hour Love Exposure was described by Mitch Davis (co-founder of the Fantasia Film Festival) as "a hurricane of adoration and hysteria, poetry and perversion, humor and horror". Can't really put it any other way. Sit down. Press play. Get lost in its beauty. If you have a multi-region DVD player your hunt for this DVD will be rewarded.


For those disappointed in Iron Man 2 this year (i.e. everyone), I offer a much more satisfying alternative-- Tetsuo: Iron Man. It is described as Videodrome meets Eraserhead, so naturally I couldn't resist. Tsukamoto's films simmer with an almost mechanical like vibe to them.


From his short film alone, Morgan has proved to be an immense talent. You can also find The Separation on the fantastic short film compilation Small Gauge Trauma that was released through Synapse Films.


Which finally brings me to the weirdest discovery of 2010. You're probably thinking, how the hell can it get any weirder than the above films? Well....

There are sequences (particularly the opening) which include some of the most stomach churning and nightmare inducing things that you couldn't possibly imagine. It takes a lot to affect me when it comes to horror films, but this one damn near scarred me.


HALL OF SHAME
Worst film I saw in the theater: A Nightmare On Elm Street. What can I say, I'm an Elm Street completist. This movie exemplifies everything that is wrong with horror nowadays.


TELEVISION

1. Breaking Bad
Season 3 proved to be an incredible intense and dark ride. The stakes were raised as was the drama with a potency that is as pure as the crystal meth processed by Walt & Jesse. The twin cousins should hands down be named villians of the year.

2. The Walking Dead
Instant love with a series after only seeing a Pilot is rare with me. This one did it. Some storylines could have been dropped. (i.e. the one group taking care of the elderly) Fantastic score by Bear McCreary.

3. Lost
Say what you will about the finale. The one question that people looking for everything to be tied up in a neat little bow should be asking themselves is just that: Why am I watching a show that thrives on mystery? It was a Rorschach test for people who love ambiguity. It will be missed.

4. Boardwalk Empire
Sopranos scribe Terence Winter takes on Jersey again but from a different perspective-- prohibition-era. Steve Buscemi, Michael Shannon, Michael Pitt & A Serious Man's Michael Stuhlberg are all given time to shine and in the case of the last 3 actors, show that they are seriously undermined talent in Hollywood.

As The Stranger would say, that about does 'er. Here's to a great 2011.

Momentum II: Hard Eight

we're back. ready for Round 2.


During the 90's, the independent cinema saw its burgeoning talents create debut films on small budgets. Clerks & Reservoir Dogs gained cult followings amongst fervent film fans. Hard Eight was a film that had flew below the 'cult radar'. Anderson doesn't start off his film with people talking about Like A Virgin. Nor does it start off with a 15 minute opening without dialogue....or a long tracking shot into a club...or an anthology of short stories. No. PT kicks his first film off with John C. Reilly sitting with his back against a restaurant exterior and Philip Baker Hall offering him cigarettes and coffee.




The script for Hard Eight was originally titled Sydney and was written within the span of 2 weeks. The whole notion behind the idea of Sydney was "What if James Cagney hadn't died in White Heat? What if he had something to pay for down the line?" This theme of redemption will come into play several more times in Paul's work but Hard Eight acts as a blueprint for it. The notion of family and the need for belonging is also prevalent in Hard Eight and would be fully fleshed out in the multi storied Boogie Nights.

The inspiration for the film stems from Jean Pierre Melville's sublime noir Bob La Flambeur. Like Melville's film, it is key that we know who these people are in this seedy underbelly of Reno, Nevada. But what's more, how are we going to create the look of Reno. Cinematographer Robert Elswit plays a key role in PTA's films. The gambling casinos in Hard Eight have more in common with what you would expect in Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas than Ocean's Eleven. Now putting faces to the inhabitants of this seedy underworld...that's the tricky part. Tasked with that, it's important to find the right actors who are willing to play out these roles.

Anderson uncovered a lost treasure in Philip Baker Hall's acting. Hall is best known for his role in Robert Altman's one man (!) show Secret Honor as Richard Nixon, a role he had played in the theater several times. Hall has stated that when working with Paul the work is done for you. This allows the actor to bring their A game to the set. Anderson first met Hall at the age of 16. He got a job on a PBS movie about an English professor who was accused of racism. Hall would later land a role in the short Cigarettes and Coffee and get a lead role in Hard Eight.

Another actor in the director's stable is John C. Reilly who makes his first major role in this film. Gwyneth Paltrow plays cocktail waitress Clementine and Sam Jackson playing Jimmy rounds out the cast. His character of Jimmy provides a backbone to the the character arc of Philip Baker Hall and allows for the slowly brewing pot of suspense to simmer. Jackson, being the only bankable actor in terms of marketing, helped obtain the film's financing. PT would go onto state that he had a horrendous time financing the film being that the financier's roots were in television.

The interplay between John C. Reilly and Philip Baker Hall comes off natural and never forced. Even the role of Clementine played by Paltrow called for the actress to shed her habits and inhabit the part. One actor who makes a brief but memorable cameo is Philip Seymour Hoffman. Having caught the director's eye with his role in Scent of A Woman, Hoffman brought a considerable amount of improv to his role. It's a trademark PT character that's in the background of his films, like Henry Gibson's Thurston Howell in Magnolia. The scene is pivotal because it is the first time we see a crack in Sydney's armor. It's when the movie starts becoming a real movie.

From there, the film takes us to a hotel room scene between the three actors Hall, Reilly and Paltrow. This is another key scene of the movie. It's the game changing scene in a sense that each character is allowed for an emotional outburst. PTA wisely holds off on showing what went down in the hotel just long enough. He stated on the DVD commentary that it's fun to watch an audience member go "Show me! Show me!". It's the rules of suspense and in the hands of another director, this whole scene would have flown apart at the seams.


















The original cut of the film came in at 2 1/2 hours. One of the scenes that didn't make the cut was the 'Clementine turd story'. From the interviews I have read, PT said that the footage got lost. At a brisk 101 minutes, I'm glad it got the trimming. Pacing wise, the scenes play out in a mostly ecomonical and unsentimental fashion. Where some scenes could be trimmed because of their length, others, I felt had an appropriate beat to them. In particular the exchange of dialogue between John & Sydney in the car. Jon Brion, another frequent collaborator, scored his first composing gig on the film. Parts of his score for this film would turn up in Boogie Nights.













Hard Eight is a film intent on focusing on interactions between characters, the sudden gestures and the mishaps. Anderson is not so much interested in the crimes taking place but in how the people interact with each other. There's the unease of tension in the scene between Sam Jackson and Philip Baker Hall in the car. Or even focusing on people handing each other money. His knack for capturing people's interesting behavior is on full display here. Of course, we'll see Anderson go "balls in" with an ensemble narrative in his next film, but you can already see the building blocks in place. The script is smart. The acting is great. Robert Elswit's cinematography certainly helps craft a particular vibe, and Jon Brion's score helps cement it. His debut feature shows he has a patience with how things play out naturally. It's the most subtle of his works and as a result, leads to it being the one that is overlooked. In a filmography filled with grand character moments and sweeping narratives, Hard Eight is the calm before the storm.



I'm wondering, what was the first PTA film you saw? What struck you the most about his style? And finally, what are YOUR impressions of Hard Eight?

Momentum: A PT Anderson Retrospective Pt. 1

OK...first off, I was a bit hesitant in even doing a retrospective on PTA. With only 5 films, there are barely any books dedicated to the director's work, which for better or worse is the big reason why I decided to go ahead on doing this retrospective. But perhaps an even bigger obstacle was: How in the blue hell do I even begin on writing about Magnolia or There Will Be Blood. Besides, the website Cigarettes & Red Vines has already done an astonishing job collecting interviews, press junkets, articles, etc. on each film. So I decided to comb through their archives as well as the DVD commentaries and other resources to present an assembled critique/analysis of the films. Hopefully, this masterclass will serve two parties: those who have yet to discover the director's work & those who are already familiar with the films and are looking for tasty little tidbits on them.

Second -- I plan on posting Pts. 1-3 this month and Pts. 4-6 in November. That schedule is subject to change. I'll be doing another Director Retrospective in January.

And finally, I do have to rant a bit. It's bizarre seeing all the comments online calling him the next Kubrick, Altman or Scorsese. I can't help but stop and roll my eyes. His films may have the STYLE of those directors and of course invite the comparison as far as style goes. But the director has written all of his films so he is already different than those directors. If ever there was a more idiotic way to label a filmmaker, it's "THE NEXT" (Fill in the Blank). It's trying to put a familiar name on something new. It's not the way to look at art. PT Anderson is the first PT Anderson. And that's that.

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BACKGROUND
Paul Thomas Anderson was born June 26 (one day before my birthday), 1970 in Studio City, California to Edwina & Ernie Anderson. His father was a late night horror movie host known as "Ghoulardi". Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, he got into filmmaking at an early age. He attended a number of schools: Berkeley, John Thomas Dye School, Campbell Hall School, Crushing Academy, and Montclair Prep. He briefly attended New York University, but would drop out of it.

Anderson became apart of the VCR generation along with Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith and Richard Linklater. These independent mavericks were trained not so much in the classical way but by watching zillions of films. With currently only 5 films under his belt, Anderson has become regarded as one of the great writer/directors of his generation. The fact that he made his first feature at 25 is all the more intimidating. There's a reason why Paul Thomas Anderson has such a small body of work. You have to wait for one of his films because he takes time to craft something like There Will Be Blood. He's not a director who feels the need to put out a movie on a yearly basis (take note, Woody Allen). & I think the body of work speaks for itself. I'd much rather wait till 2011 or even 2012 for The Master or whatever it turns out to be, than for him to rush it.


THEMES & INFLUENCES
His films depict suburban alienation on an intimate level. A theme tackled by Steven Spielberg in Close Encounters & E.T. as well as Tim Burton in Edward Scissorhands. In a response to the question of "Do you think of yourself mainly as a writer, director or filmmaker"? Anderson responded: filmmaker. "Because I think I direct in a way that's technical and show-offy. And that's not generally said about writers that direct. With those sort of writers who direct, like Woody Allen or David Mamet, you don't usually think of them as applying alot of cinema- in the Scorsese or Oliver Stone kind of way- to their movies." Being technical and show-offy is a major criticism the director's detractors love to bring up. This director is of course not going to please everybody with his films. But you would be hard pressed to find a director who finds a better balance of subtelty and audacity in their work.

His primary influences stem from three directors: Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese and Jonathan Demme. What struck me the most was when PT cited Demme as such a major influence on his work. One would not think to look for it to begin with. But what does stick out with this connection is both director's distinct use of music. Demme is known for shooting The Talking Heads 'Stop Making Sense' concert film as well as the 1991 thriller Silence of the Lambs and his follow up film Philadelphia. Both films have distinct sequences in which the music underscores the mood the filmmaker is trying to create -- whether it's Q Lazarus' Goodbye Horses or Bruce Springsteen's Streets of Philadelphia.

Anderson's camera is constantly on the move in a good number of his films. Scorsese, whose been influenced himself by the moving camera of Jean Renior and Max Ophuls, is cited amongst many filmmakers of the 90's as a major influence.

In terms of ensemble narrative, both Boogie Nights and Magnolia owe a lot to the late Robert Altman. Anderson for me became a gateway drug to Altman. It's like going up to a film geek and saying "Wow, how can someone juggle 9 stories so well?" And then their response being "Oh yeah? Wanna see someone juggle 20?" Without films like Nashville and Short Cuts, we would not have a film like Magnolia. But I'm getting ahead of myself. It's time to zip back in time to PT's humble beginnings.



THE DIRK DIGGLER STORY
So it's 1987 and some guy named Paul Thomas Anderson decides to pick up a camera and make a short little 32 minute film. What's so incredible about it? He's 17 years old when he writes it.

Anderson had a connection with the industry from the beginning. His father was Ernie Anderson, who did voice overs for ABC. So it makes sense that he would use an experienced actor like Robert Ridgeley in his short. PT's influence for the whole short fell into two categories. In terms of the format he was looking to do something akin to Woody Allen's Zelig and Spinal Tap -- a mockumentary of sorts. Content wise, it's about the rise and fall of a pornstar named Dirk Diggler. The original approach to Boogie Nights was to expand the mockumentary. It's a good thing his maturity as a filmmaker allowed for him to expand it in many other directions as opposed to strictly the mockumentary format.

Even looking back on the Dirk Diggler Story, it's interesting to see how many things are ported over to Boogie Nights. There's the whole "You Got the Touch" scene of Dirk Diggler massacring the song. The most striking thing is the content that Anderson is tackling as well as the advanced sense of dark humor and sarcastic wit he has at the age of 17. It's important to note -- the visual acrobatics PT's films are known for are obviously not present here.

CIGARETTES & COFFEE
Created at the Sundance Lab, Cigarettes & Coffee is a much more accomplished piece of filmmaking. The narrative weaves around three stories taking place. The first deals with two friends, one in trouble, the other being the wiser (played by Phil Hall); the second: a young couple on their honeymoon; the third: a shady hustler. The way Anderson spins these threads into a collective whole is still rough around the edges. His canvases would become alot more polished and expansive as his career goes on. When screening the short at the Sundance Film Festival, producer Robert Jones approached Anderson about expanding it into a feature.



SO NOW, WHAT THEN?

Right now this artist is more or less dipping his toe in the water. Feeling out certain beats & rhythms to ideas & motifs. What works? What doesn't? He would end up diving straight in with his debut feature. But I'll save that for Pt. 2.

The 2000's: A Retrospective Pt. 2

"The absurd lengths of modern studios and it's CGI capability go to in order to save the audiences the bother of imagining anything themselves is probably having a crippling effect on the mass imagination. There seems to be an audience that demands everything to be explained to them. That everything be easy. And I don't think that's doing us any good as a culture. The ease in which we can conjure anything with CGI is directly proportional to how uninterested we are becoming in all of this. Most films that i see are having a level of criticism that one would attribute to a fireworks display. It's all ooh's and aah's. I think we are in store for a period of cultural re-evaluation. If not, then we are in for a period of cultural damnation. I think we're fairly headed to hell in a hand basket and we gotta change our priorities" -Alan Moore, author of the graphic novels Watchmen & 300

This quote never rang more true when I was sitting in the theater at the end of No Country For Old Men. By the end, I heard more boos and complaints coming out of a theater than walking out the theater for Transformers 2...a movie in which the audience clapped and cheered by the end. I have scanned several blogs, film websites and listened to podcasts decrying the decline of quality in cinema for the last decade. There are 2 reasons for this. First of which is based around Hollywood. The second of which is more along the lines of the aforementioned quote.

Hollywood has become the nightmare that Robert Altman predicted in The Player. It basically thrives on fear. In the 90's the scripts for Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump were both rejected by several studios before finding a studio that would distribute them. Now, it has become even worse. Had Tarantino not been as known as he is today, a film like Pulp Fiction would never get a theatrical release in these times. It's becoming harder and harder to push an original film through the studio system these days. Movie fans have the filmmakers like Joel & Ethan Coen, Tarantino, PT Anderson, Linklater, Soderbergh, Aronofsky & Fincher to fall back on. But where are the new filmmakers who will pave the way like the aforementioned ones did in the 90's?
We are looked upon by Hollywood as consumers and demographics.Not film savvy or smart.

Flashback to the year 1999. Entertainment Weekly declared it as the "Year That Changed Movies." You need proof? Here's an excerpt:: "The whirling cyberdelic Xanadu of The Matrix. The relentless, rapid-fire overload of Fight Club. The muddy hyperrealism of The Blair Witch Project. The freak show of Being John Malkovich. The way time itself gets fractured and tossed around in The Limey and Go and Run Lola Run. The spooky necro-poetry of American Beauty and The Sixth Sense. The bratty iconoclasm of Dogma. The San Fernando Valley sprawl of this winter's Magnolia." Not to mention we were given excellent works from veteran directors like Stanley Kubrick (Eyes Wide Shut) and Michael Mann (The Insider) as well as a satire on the workforce known as Office Space. We were even offered more than adequate work from other veterans: Spike Lee (Summer of Sam), Woody Allen (Sweet and Lowdown) and Martin Scorsese (Bringing Out the Dead).

Looking back on the decade as a whole, I found a steady decline (for me anyway) in coming out of the theatre having seen a great movie. Foreign films and independent cinema became a shelter from the fodder of remakes, sequels, and adaptations. Some original voices were heard in the midst of the storm (Charlie Kaufmann, Christopher Nolan), some good directors got caught up in it by the end of the decade (Wes Anderson, M. Night Shyamalan). CGI reached lower standards than ever before and the so called 'innovative' nature of 3D has yet to be found. It's depressing surfing the movies news sites with story after story of remakes of movies I grew up on. It's twice as bad being a horror fan.

Now the blame can't solely be put on Hollywood. After all, why did a film like Grindhouse or Zodiac tank at the box office and yet Meet the Spartans charts number 1? We as audiences are the reason that's why. And for all the money given to the next Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street remake, original screenplays are given the axe in favor of sequels to those remakes. How can you argue to make more creative and interesting films when the average audience member who is going to the movies just to kill time doesn't really care? I am of the opinion that audiences, having been raised on more movies than the previous generations, are getting smarter. A recent example of a quality film that was succesful has given me some hope. That film is Inception. These are not people that "go to the theater opening week and then watch it drop off the map the next weekend". These are people going back for repeat viewings.

The studio only looks at a price tag. Not a finished product. That has to change and when that does, alot more Fight Clubs and Pulp Fictions will filter through the system again. There needs to be more risk. As Francis Ford Coppola said "There can't be art without any risk. It's like expecting there to be children without having sex."

It's that old quote about the every other decade phase. The 70's saw the New Hollywood movement take hold, the 80's saw Hollywood wipe away the grittiness and add a new slick polish to its look, and the 90's gave birth to a new independent cinema whose many filmmakers are burgeoning today. Maybe, just maybe this decade will be what the 90's were to the 80's. One can only hope.

Out of the many movies seen, I narrowed it down to 15. The years 2002 & 2007 in particular were exceptional and a good amount of the films in my best of list ended up being from those 2 years. I find it so hard ranking films. On any given day, these rankings could change because all of these films are so different. And that is what I love about them. These are films that I kept finding myself going back to and each subsequent viewing has left a greater impression than the last. For now, this is how they stand.


15. About Schmidt (2002, Alexander Payne)
Regret. What have I done with my life that is so important? This is something we've all felt at one point. The story of Warren Schmidt excels in giving us those themes through Jack Nicholson's honest and heartwarming portrayal. The voice of this film is soft and comforting but it's only after you've heard what it has to say, that it's all the more profound.

14. The Wrestler (2008, Darren Aronofsky)
Aronofsky bounces back from the overblown dissapointment of the Fountain to create a film that is more along the lines of a John Cassavetes character piece. It should also be noted that Mickey Rourke gets the comeback performance of the decade award here.

13. Adaptation (2002, Spike Jonze)
Having recently caught up on this one, I'm sure it will jump higher in the rankings. The manic energy of this story is a delight and will always have me coming back to it.

12. Inglourious Basterds (2009, Quentin Tarantino)
I've always loved the men on a mission movie and when I heard Tarantino was doing one, the anticipation was high. What I ended up getting was way more than I expected. Yes, the men on a mission story was there. But also apart of the package was the tragic story of Shoshanna, a brilliant performance by Christoph Waltz and some of the most gripping dialogue scenes in Tarantino's catalog. And that my friends, is a bingo.

11. There Will Be Blood (2007, Paul Thomas Anderson)
Greed, religion and capitalism propel this intense portrait of an oilman. Very slow and methodical. Watching this in the theatre, a bunch of people behind me kept laughing at the performance of Daniel Day Lewis toward the end. Before I could tell them to shut the hell up, the movie did it for me.

10. 25th Hour (2002, Spike Lee)
"Champagne for me real friends and real pain for my sham friends."
Kudos to Spike Lee for being one of the first directors to set a film against the backdrop of post-9/11 New York. There's no action or bad guys here. Just Monty Broman, a character who has hit rock bottom and is coming to terms with the realities of what he's done. Edward Norton gives the performance of his career and is backed by other sublime performances by the always excellent Philip Seymour Hoffman, the delightful Rosario Dawson and Barry Pepper.

9. Zodiac (2007, David Fincher)
The amount of information on the Zodiac case and how Fincher was able to assemble and present it within a 2 1/2 hour film makes for an engrossing viewing experience. This is not a 3 layer cake. This is a 3000 layer cake.
My full review can be found here: http://reflectionsonwire.blogspot.com/2010/07/zodiac-2007.html

8. Children of Men (2006, Alfonso Cuaron)
Underneath the simplicity of the storyline of a man trying to get from point A to Z are alot of layers and ideas that make it more than just an average story. There are a few scenes here that are completely jaw dropping. A perfect marriage of style, tone and story.

7. Almost Famous (2000, Cameron Crowe)*
As a huge fan of 70's classic rock, I absolutely fell in love with this film the first time I saw it. Its many things, a memory piece, a tribute to some of the greatest music ever made, a great coming of age story. But its also one of the saddest examinations of art there is. A deconstruction of the myth that it can be enough, that it can shield you from the pain of life completely, that when you get lonely “all you have to do is go to the shelf and visit a few of your old friends.” It takes apart the easy lie that art can ever, or should ever, be enough.
*Note: This applies to the director's cut Untitled. It incorporates even more depth into its already rich characters.

6. Memento (2000, Christopher Nolan)
When I first saw this film I was simply amazed at the director's ability to tell a story in such a unique manner and with such finesse. Nolan has since gone onto direct bigger budget fare, but Memento is still his masterpiece. Although The Dark Knight comes very close.

5. Synecdoche, New York (2008, Charlie Kaufmann)
Kaufmann's scripts have always been unique and completely original, but here he outdoes himself. This is another one that demands the viewer to see it multiple times. It reveals more and more layers as you peel back the onion.
My full review can be found here: http://reflectionsonwire.blogspot.com/2009/03/film-review-synecdoche-new-york.html

4. OldBoy (2003, Park-Chan Wok)
Revenge films have existed for so long in cinema. Here is a rare revenge film that deals with the consequences of it all.

3. City of God (2002, Fernando Meirelles)
Hailed as the Brazilian GoodFellas, it's similarities are there. But the difference in the world of this film is that people on the slums of Rio de Janiero are not given any choice in regards to following a life of crime. Even more tragic is how children get caught in the crosshairs of this ugly world. This is the only film on here where I find myself having a hard time grabbing off the shelf because of it's raw and devastating power.

2. No Country For Old Men (2007, Joel & Ethan Coen)
"Is this guy suppose to be the ultimate badass"
To answer Llewlyn's question: Not only is Anton THE badass, but No Country is the ultimate Coen Brothers film. Gripping, edge-of-your-seat thriller that delivered more suspense than most horror films of the last ten years. The Coens plumb Cormac McCarthy's novel and create a meditation on mortality, freewill and living in a world whose values are in decay. A film that opens and closes on a quiet note that is as haunting as anything this decade.

My full review can be found here: http://reflectionsonwire.blogspot.com/2010/06/no-country-for-old-men-2007.html

1. Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch)
Another Lynch film. Another world to get lost in. Mulholland Dr. functions as a career summation for everything Lynch has done to date, incorporating the 50s style and naïve heroines of the Blue Velvet era and blending it with the experiments in narrative subjectivity from Lost Highway. The ingenious narrative structure has been widely dissected, but it’s notable that even as he plunges through layers of subjective reality, he keeps a coherent emotional throughline so that you can have no idea what happened, but you can understand exactly how it felt. The best thing Lynch has done since Eraserhead and the best thing to come out of the 00's. You will see me one more time if you agree. You will see me two more times if you don't.


HONORABLE MENTIONS
Inland Empire, Waking Life, Wall-E, Up, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Unbreakable, In the Bedroom, Minority Report, Battle Royale, The Dark Knight, A Serious Man, Requiem For A Dream, 21 Grams, Traffic, The Devil's Rejects, Donnie Darko, The Royal Tenenbaums, Punch-Drunk Love, Before Sunset, Monster, The New World, Kill Bill Vol. 2, I'm Not There, 28 Days Later, The Departed, Bubble, Memories of Murder, Collateral, Shaun of the Dead, A History of Violence, Munich, Once, District 9

The 2000's: A Retrospective Pt. 1

This decade for me was important in terms of exploring filmmakers (both past and present) and genres. Pre 2000, my favorite director at the time was Steven Spielberg. There was a childlike wonder he bestowed upon people with films like ET and Close Encounters and then changing it up with Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark & Jurassic Park. Then even going further by tackling epics like Schindler's List & Saving Private Ryan. I remember just sitting in the theater and seeing that beachhead sequence in Saving Private Ryan and having my jaw on the floor.

HIGH SCHOOL YEARS
Between 2000 and 2004 I came across a number of films I considered to be favorites without even knowing they were by the same director. I looked at the credits of both Back to the Future and Forrest Gump and they said 'Directed by Robert Zemeckis'. By then I started to track the directors I liked. Diving into their back catalog and seeing how someone like James Cameron went from Terminator to Titanic.

By 2003, I started getting interested in the works of David Fincher. Se7en was as terrifying as anything I had seen before and Fight Club was a complete visual assault.

COLLEGE YEARS
Upon graduating high school in 2005, I would discover two of my favorite directors: Stanley Kubrick and Paul Thomas Anderson. I had seen a couple of the former's films (The Shining, 2001, & Dr. Strangelove) and was hooked. The Kubrick box set then made it's way into my grubby little hands and it was set in stone that Kubrick had become my new favorite director. The versatility he showed in hopping from genre to genre with relative ease and the ability to create a masterpiece in each genre was stunning.

The latter (PT Anderson) was a director I had found out about on a site called the Mike Portnoy Forum (forum for the drummer of the band Dream Theater). I ended up checking out Boogie Nights and was surprised at how well it balanced dark comedy, drama, and tension....sometimes all at once in a single scene! Not only that, but there was an exuberant energy running throughout the film. Even more surprising was how old Anderson was when he wrote the script...18. Then I got hit with the film Magnolia and the rest as they say, is history.

Oliver Stone made his way onto my radar after seeing Platoon. I had already loved 20th century history and I thought it was cool that a director devoted so many of his films to the history of that period. The director's box set which compiles his work from Salvador through Any Given Sunday is the type of DVD set I wish was released more often.

Along the way I made many more great discoveries: Joel & Ethan Coen, Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Michael Mann, Richard Linklater, Spike Lee & Kryzstof Kieslowski.

I'm always anxious to discover new directors and different ways stories are told. As a friend once said to me: "There's so many films but there's so little time to see them all."

Stay tuned for the 2nd part of this retrospective. It's a hell of a lot darker than than this one.