The Decade So Far: The Top 25 Films + Honorable Mentions

Criteria needed to make the list:
just be good. Please. Be good.

Criteria not needed:
Awards
Critical Acclaim
Popularity



BEST OF THE DECADE SO FAR

25. I Saw the Devil

A relentless story of revenge that put Wu Jin Kim in the pantheon of such great Korean directors like Bong Jon Ho and Park Chan Wok.

24. Birdman

Keaton's best performance since his Ray Nicolette. It addresses a multitude of problems in the industry and does it in an exhilarating style.

23. The Sunset Limited

Two men. One room. It's as simple as a movie can get. When it's based on the words of Cormac McCarthy, it can also be the most soul searing. This is a little gem that has more power in dialogue and ideas than most of the scripts Hollywood churns out. There's times in my life where I identify with the Professor and times when I smell the lingering scent of divinity as Sam Jackson's character would say. Point being, this is a conversation starter.

22. Nebraska

The road movie that Alexander Payne was born to make. As a genre, it allows characters to reflect on their conditions, what lies ahead and what they are leaving behind. Payne's world is one where just about everyone is over 60. Buildings are boarded up. Houses are left vacant so that they can be filled with memories of yesterday. This is the setting we find Bruce Dern (who earns his character in one of his strongest roles) in as his character wanders through these vestages of his past.

21. The Wolf of Wall Street

Greed, misogyny and unchecked ego are things that still exist today. It still exists in the workplace. So when Scorsese's 3 hour film about Jordan Belfort faced claims of misogyny, I really had to wonder where these claims were coming from. For 3 hours we watch him consume enough drugs to knock out a horse, abuse his wife, his friends and butt heads with the FBI. It is exhausting. I'm sure people in the audience were waiting for the big "Shame on you" moment where Jordan Belfort, a truly vile human being, looks into the camera and says how addictive the lifestyle was. There's no Henry Hill slamming a door in your face. No old, weary Sam Rothstein telling us "that's that". There's simply a new generation of people waiting in line to hear what someone like Belfort has to teach them. Grim.

20. Martha Marcy May Marlene
                                     
Durkin's script allows the movie to weave in and out of past and present creating a crippling state of paranoia that runs through the veins of the main character.

19. The Interrupters
                                      
I live in Chicago and luckily in the suburbs. It is well known just how bad crime has gotten in the city. The Interrupters shows an organization from the city called Cease Fire. This organization brings together people who stepped away from violence and hope to stop violence in their community. Gang violence, angry kids, and scared kids are a part of the range of situations the group tackles. There's no conventional structure here. No talking heads. We are given raw and intimate portraits of heart wrenching stories. As powerful as anything as Steve James made. And he made Hoop Dreams.

18. Incendies

After Prisoners, Villeneuve's name was branded into my brain. I sought out this picture to find that he is not a one hit wonder, he is the real deal. Incendies opens with a elegant use of Radiohead's You and Whose Army and doesn't let up until it final haunting revelation.

17. The Babadook

How do you accurately portray grief? How can your main character cope? What if you were tasked to create a picture that stands as a metaphor for that grief? Jennifer Kent's debut feature answers all of these questions with an assured confidence that many debut filmmakers don't exhibit. It also stretches back all the way to the silent period to underlie how horror can be depicted in a visually striking way. Murnau, Christensen and Dreyer knew it back then. Kent knows it now.

16. The Hunt

The Salem Witch Trials are a subject that absolutely fascinate me. You can even see the mindset at work in modern day society with the West Memphis Three documentaries. It's that brand of psychological horror that scares me more than any monster. It's on full display in Thomas Vinterberg's picture. Only this time you see the source of the lie and track its destructive trail that attaches to the protagonist like a cancerous tumor.  Mads Mikkelsen turns in his best performance here.

15. Upstream Color

Carruth directed, produced, edited and scored this film. Proof that if your vision is unique and as singular as your passion and drive are, nothing can stop you.

14. Killer Joe

Friedkin's most assured film since Sorcerer also contains a terrifying performance from Matthew McCoughnahey.


13. Amour

The best film Haneke has done involves an aging couple. Emmanuelle Riva gives my second favorite female performance so far this decade and Jean Louis Trintignant reminds me why he is one of the most gifted actors out there. We see their struggles, warts and all as the camera asks us to simply observe these two in what is, for the most part, a single location. The deterioration of memory and the physical body is captured in raw and naked honesty.

12. It's Such A Beautiful Day

The shortest film on the list but also the one that has the most ideas.

11. Take Shelter

Witnessing a person's mind slowly breaking apart is a truly terrifying scenario. Michael Shannon gives a startling performance in the film that announced both him and Jeff Nichols as serious talents that should be looked at.

10. We Need to Talk About Kevin

A deeply unsettling film about motherhood and how a tragic event pervades one's psyche. Swinton gives my favorite female performance of the last five years. The connection to images of both past and present through editing, as well as the repetition of details, is something we really haven't seen done to this extent since the films of Nic Roeg.

9. Enemy

Enemy fulfills the promise of Prisoners from a year before that Villeneuve is a force to be reckoned with. Gyllenhaal also peaks here after giving us great performances in Prisoners and Nightcrawler.

8. A Separation

The dissolution of a marriage kicks this movie off. Along the ways, we are given haunting revelations about class divide, Iran's laws and religion, relationships and all the gray areas in between. No single character could be labeled as bad nor good as everyone here is morally flawed. Few films have the patience and compassion as this one.

7. Inside Llewyn Davis

For a film set in the winter, ILD proves to be the Coens' warmest film since Fargo. It also distills the essence of folk music in its gorgeous cinematography and brilliant screenplay.

6. Whiplash

Drumming, out of all the other professions in music, always seemed to most fascinating to me. The endurance and timing it all requires. Whiplash, only the 2nd film from Damien Chazelle, manages to go beyond just drumming and showcase how far the limits of ambition can be pushed. 

5. Blue Is the Warmest Color

For three hours we can't help but be pulled into this film's orbit. It's exploration of maturation, eroticism, and manipulations of the heart is raw and uninhibited.

4. The Act of Killing

I would like to think that this is "the horror" that Kurtz spoke about in Apocalypse Now. It hasn't really been since that film that a piece of art cut to the marrow of the notions of good and evil. Chilling doesn't even begin to do it justice.



3. The Master

Twenty years from now, people are going to look at this film as a masterpiece.

2. Interstellar

I've yammered enough about this masterwork from Nolan. 

http://www.reflectionsonwire.blogspot.com/2014/11/interstellar.html


1. Boyhood

I remember seeing the near unanimous praise from critics when this film hit theaters. The 12 year project seemed to pay off in spades for Linklater. Then came the dissent.

Films about time and aging are ones I especially connect with. Synecdoche New York, The Up Series, Linklater's Before Trilogy. They are universal in their theme. The astonishing thing about Boyhood beyond its challenging of traditional narrative, is the collective power of it.


THE TOP TENS

2010
Incendies (Denis Villeneuve)
I Saw the Devil (Kim Ji-Woon)
Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)
The Social Network (David Fincher)
Mother (Bong Jon-Ho)
Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Submarino (Thomas Viterberg)
True Grit (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noe)


Note: In all my years of moviegoing, this was probably the worst year I experienced. If the rest of the decade was like this, I would have given up. Thankfully, 2011 was far better.

2011
Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynn Ramsay)
The Interrupters (Steve James)
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin)
The Sunset Limited (Tommy Lee Jones)
Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan)
Shame (Steve McQueen)
Warrior (Gavin O'Connor)
Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)

Honorable Mention: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Tyrannosaur, Snow On Tha Bluff, Red State, Oslo August 31st, Into the Abyss, Kill List, Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2012
The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer)
The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Killer Joe (William Friedkin)
It's Such A Beautiful Day (Don Hertzfeldt)
Amour (Michael Haneke)
The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg)
West of Memphis (Amy Berg)
Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
Skyfall (Sam Mendes)
Flight (Robert Zemeckis)

Honorable Mention: Cabin In the Woods,  Pain and Gain, Rust and Bone, The House I Live In, The Dark Knight Rises, The Imposter, Central Park Five, The Grey, oom 237, Looper, Prometheus

2013
Blue Is the Warmest Color (Abdetallif Kechiche)
Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen)
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)
Upstream Color (Shane Carruth)
Nebraska (Alexander Payne)
The Counselor (Ridley Scott)
Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve)
12 Years A Slave (Steve McQueen)
Like Father Like Son (Hirokazu Koreeda)
Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)

Honorable Mention: Gravity, Le Passe, Before Midnight, The Great Beauty, Lords of Salem, Short Term 12, Her

2014
Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
Enemy (Denis Villeneuve)
The Babadook (Jennifer Kent)
Birdman (Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu)
Mommy (Xavier Dolan)
Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)
Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)

Honorable Mention: The Grand Budapest Hotel, Citizenfour, Tusk, Gone Girl, Snowpiercer, Blue Ruin, Life Itself, Force Majeure, The Guest

Shootin'

Top 15 Mad Men Episodes

WARNING: There are spoilers in this post. Read at your own risk.

15. NIXON VS. KENNEDY

This was the first 'fun' Mad Men episode. What I mean by that is after 11 episodes with these characters, the show allowed an episode like this to have so many characters mingle with each other and have it set against the Kennedy/Nixon debates. There's also a crucial backstory where we learn how Don Draper became Don Draper.

14. FAR AWAY PLACES

Roger and LSD. Don hallucinates he's back in Disney's Tomorrowland. Add to this, the brilliant use of Beach Boys' I Just Wasn't Made For These Times.

13. 5G

We knew Don had secrets. That was revealed to us by the structure of the pilot. The power of this episode lies in just how deep those secrets lead. Don's refusal to be attached to anything related to his past is heartbreaking.

12. THE JET SET

Stranger in a strange land. This episode takes Don to Palm Springs. Where he meets a group of people whose identities are as anonymous as his. This episode proves that Don is the master chameleon. Even in a place so far away from home, he can find a way to fit in. Oh, and Laura Ramsay.

11. MEDITATIONS IN AN EMERGENCY

The biggest draw to watching this show in the beginning (for me, at least) was to see how characters bump up against the turbulent times of the sixties. Here we see the Cuban Missile Crisis become the final punchline to many of the scenes. Ones in which the emergencies in the character's lives, no matter how in control of them they think they are, find a way of sneaking up on them in unexpected ways.

10. LADY LAZARUS

AV Club did an excellent review in which they likened this episode to the story of the blind men and the elephant. In a sense, every series can attest to this. Where an episode is only a piece of a larger whole. The thing about Mad Men though is that so many moments that would seem to have relatively no significance in a show that was more packed with thrills, contain an abundance of pathos. Don looking down an elevator shaft. The window fog. It was at this stretch of episodes where few could rival Mad Men in storytelling.

9. IN CARE OF

Season Six was Don acting as the proverbial bull in a china shop. So its fitting storywise to see the cards fall so far out of Don's favor towards the end of the season. A moment at the end of the season finale has Judy Collins' Both Side Now play as the final shot lingers and it is outright devastating. Perhaps the show can best be summed up in the lyrics of this song.

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

8. GUYS WALKS INTO AN ADVERTISING AGENCY

There is a moment in season 2 where Pete sits in a chair and reflects while holding a gun in a montage. Nothing happens. It's a piece of a larger whole and in lesser hands, this gun would have been used. This says a lot about the show. Mad Men is all about subtext. Which leads it to not be nearly as action packed as Breaking Bad or filled with liberal gunplay as The Sopranos. And it doesn't have to be. This episode solves the dilemma of "nothing really happening on the surface" in a unique and macabre way. There's also other great moments: Joan Harris and her husband's future, Ken Cosgrove's happy obliviousness, Roger's name not even being on the slide chart of heirarchal power.


7. SIGNAL 30

Every show has that season. The one where you wish the quality from episode is strongly consistent for its entire run. Signal 30 kicked off a stretch of some of the best episodes of this show. This is a strong episode for Pete Campbell. A character who at one point, made me say "Fuck this show and its dirtbag characters" in my head. Season 5 is where I returned after a long hiatus and not only was that bitter aftertaste gone, it gave me new perspective on characters like Pete. Also an integral part of this episode, Lane Pryce. Whose character arc comes to a conclusion this season in a very macabre and sad way. Above all else, the episode will be remember for Pryce Vs. Campbell.

6. PERSON TO PERSON

Series finales can have a profound sense of closure (Six Feet Under) or end on an ambiguous note (The Sopranos). We've seen so many variations of the finale that to see what Weiner pulls off for Mad Men, it feels fresh. 

Don Draper's existential crisis throughout the series saw him go through two divorces and covering up his real name. So when the the two episodes leading up to the finale had him leave the office and go on a journey towards self discovery, it felt like the only logical way for Don's story to come to a head. I thought it would end in an office. A suicide, most likely. That seems like the thing they would do. I am so happy they did not go that route. 

Person to Person manages to make each major character's story have a logical sense of closure. You don't want these people to go their separate ways. Yet that is where their respective destinies carry them. 

For some it is coming to the realization that the person who they have been working with for years if someone they deeply care for. For others it is reigniting the flame of their long time love and embarking on a new home. 

Then there is Leonard and Don Draper. Two people who have never met before but share a feeling deep down that they have to carry. That moment between these two strangers was the most cathartic in the series for Don's character. 

But Weiner doesn't stop there. He doesn't fill in the blanks during the last 5 minutes. We can do that ourselves. What results is the work of sheer genius. As much as I wanted to see what these characters were doing in the 80s, the finale simply says: that doesn't matter. Mad Men was about a time an a place. Where ad executives created campaigns while assassinations, the threat of nuclear warfare, and the Vietnam War flickered on the television in the other room. 

Mad Men was about the about connecting as societal discord was prevalent. Giving people hope in a time of crisis.  

You know, the things in life that are free. The real things. 

5. WATERLOO

Apollo 11 landing on the moon marks this episode in the same way the Cuban Missile Crisis marked Kennedy Vs. Nixon. Only this time the crisis here becomes a resolution.

Jim Cutler was the thorn in my side this season and I was happy to see him leave after this episode. As a whole, this episode (the first half of season 7, actually) was all about the future. Looking forward. The beats of these stories had a finality to them. Which makes them all the more important in learning where our characters are going to end up.

Bert was right. The best things in life are free.

4. SHUT THE DOOR, HAVE A SEAT

I'd be hard pressed to say there is another episode of Mad Men as enjoyable or as entertaining as this one. All the core characters who work at Sterling Cooper Price up to this point- Don, Roger, Bert, Lane, Peggy, Pete, Joan, Harry- take action against the recent absorption of Putnum Powell and Lowe, which in turn allows McCann Errikeosn to buy out their company. Everyone here is at the top of their game. It's an Ocean's Eleven kind of episode that also sees the bickering and on-life-support marriage of Don and Betty come to a climax. This is how you write a season finale.

3. THE WHEEL

"I'm walkin' down the long, lonesome road, babe. Where I'm bound, I can't tell."

Everything comes down to Don's pitch for a slide projector called Carousel. In his peach he talks about nostalgia and how it's original meaning in Greek means the pain from an old wound. If I had to tell someone what Mad Men was about or just show them one scene from the show to hook their interest, this would be the one.

2. THE OTHER WOMAN

Joan. Megan. Peggy. These three women are the main threads that create one of the strongest episodes of this or any other show. Each one is backed into a corner and forced to make a decision that changes them. For Joan it's a means to sign Jaguar to the company. For Megan, it's her pursuit to continue to do what she wants: acting. Peggy's decision, while not nearly as frightening as Joan's, sees between two doors: past and future.

Mad Men may be set in the 60's, but the sexism that was present in the workplace continues to this day and asks us how far have we progressed?


1. THE SUITCASE

If I had to make a list of the ten best episodes of television, this would make it in. From the beginning Don and Peggy had a chemistry in the workplace. Peggy had just started as a secretary and she quickly rose to Creative Consultant. They are the fan favorites. So to see an entire episode devoted to them is every fan's dream. Anything could happen.

Pick out the seventh episode out of any season of this show and you will see just how willing Weiner and company are willing to experiment with story structure. The seventh episode of the fourth season is a bottled episode in the vein of Breaking Bad's Fly. Subtext turns into text as the characters say things we have been wanting them to say as the show progressed. Both Don and Peggy are people who long to escape who they are. The overarching melancholy of the show carries them to the direction they only know how to go- forward.

Season 1

Season 4

"I saw a shadow touch a shadow's hand on Bleecker Street"

Going Clear: The Book and the Film

Before I jump into this, it's worth noting that the book has a bunch of information that was not in the documentary. Prompting many (including me) to believe  it could have been better suited as a mini series like HBO's The Jinx.

Here is what the documentary left out that I wish was put in:
  -L. Ron Hubbard driving his son Quentin to suicide after setting all his levels back to zero
  -Pat and Annie Broeker being given leadership roles after L Ron's passing.
  -More information on Tommy Davis and Anne Archer
  -More information on the members who suffered from mental illness
  -Shelly Miscavage's disappearance

There's three main reasons why I find Scientology so interesting and this documentary answered all three well:

1) Why do people join such an organization?
2) What keeps them from leaving?
3) What happens to ex members once they leave?

There's a bait and switch that goes on. If you asked anyone in the church about Xenu the galactic overlord they would laugh at you. The thing of it is: this information is not disclosed until a person reached OT Level 3. Until a scientologist is spiritually and ethically prepared to handle such information, it is considered restricted. That's the deal. Once you are that committed, the information comes less as a shock to the system. You don't runaway laughing, you dig deeper.


But say you did decide to leave. What would they do to stop you? Well for one, all of the auditing sessions you take are recorded in books. All of your secrets are kept on file. So if you do defect, they can hold the secrets over your head. It's technically not blackmail because an exchange of money is not involved, but it does belong to another pattern that is already becoming familiar: abuse of trust.

The one story in the documentary that was the most heartbreaking was from Spanky Taylor. Spanky was a part of the Sea Org. An elite unit of Scientology that signs billion year contracts and do manual labor 7 days a week for little to no day. They are also not allowed to have children. A total shift in environment from the treatment Scientology grants celebrities like Tom Cruise. Spanky Taylor is just one of many stories that need to have light shed on to stop such abusive treatment from this organization.

After watching the documentary, I surfed youtube and found even more affected ex members of the church including the niece of David Miscavage and relatives of L. Ron Hubbard.

Ex members are stalked, harassed and made targets of several websites that attack their character. Many of these defectors still have family members in the church. What happens is that anyone who has negative thoughts regarding this belief system is labeled a Suppressive Person. Members are told to Disconnect from these people. Families are split apart. Mothers from daughters and fathers from sons. No contact whatsoever.


Scientology's backlash against the film isn't nearly as vocal as you'd think it would be. But it's there. The church has produced several videos smearing each interviewer in the documentary and tags them all as "embittered obsessed zealots".


Until then, this is your Suppressive Person signing off.

Lake Shoot 2