my list of the ten best films of the year along with a few honorable and dishonorable mentions.
10. PINEAPPLE EXPRESS – david gordon green
There was really no reason to think that David Gordon Green had any business directing a comedy. I guess there might have been a laugh or two in his previous films (George Washington, All the Real Girls and Snow Angels) but he seemed much more interested in making movies that dealt with The Big Questions of Life than in poking fun at 80's action flicks. But I guess anyone that loves movies enough to want to devote their life to making them (ahem) probably loved them from an early age. And if that early age was the 1980's then of course Green would have loved (and seen a hundred times) such nonsense as Red Heat, Cobra and Road House. And seeing how silly those movies look now, the only way to really pay tribute to them is make fun of them.
09. IRON MAN – jon favreau
For my money Favreau gets very little credit for this film being as entertaining as it is. I think the joys of this film owe much more to the wonderful performance by Robert Downey Jr. The best bits in the film aren't the big action sequences (the ridiculous battle sequence that closes the film, for instance, where the big explosion that destroys Iron Monger leaves Iron Man and Pepper totally unharmed) but the small character ones like Downey's Tony Stark making all the reporters sit on the floor before the press conference upon his return from Afghanistan or the way he delivers a line like, "Yeah, I can fly." Without him the movie is just a decent superhero film. With him it's a worldwide phenomenon.
08. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN – tomas alfredson
Certainly among the most original takes on vampires in a long while (and that's saying something when a handful of vampire films are released every year), the genius of Tomas Alfredson's decision to make the vampire a child is that it allows him to focus solely on what is lost when a human being is turned into a vampire. Too often vampire books and movies (Twilight, True Blood) make being a vampire seem like the coolest thing in the world. But the most compelling aspect of the vampire myth, to me anyway, has always been the sense of loss a vampire must feel when they see people all around them doing things that they can no longer do themselves. This film revels in those moments and is all the better for it. Plus, it's the only vampire film I know of that actually shows-- in perhaps the year's most haunting scene-- what happens when a vampire enters a home to which they have not been invited.
07. HORTON HEARS A WHO! – jimmy hayward
I had started to believe that only Pixar could make a "children's movie" that wasn't horribly insulting to adults and / or had a message that wasn't downright offensive (e.g. Shrek's message that ugly people should stick together). Horton Hears a Who! has happily proved me wrong. It's just an all around fun movie that preaches understanding and tolerance for other cultures whether you actually interact with them or not. And on top of that, it's also the first film to come anywhere close to visualizing the joy and irreverence Dr. Seuss so perfectly captured in his books.
06. QUARANTINE – john erick dowdle
Every year sees the release of a half dozen major studio horror films and probably a hundred others that are independently produced. And even though I'm a fan of the genre, I count my blessings if I can find even one that isn't completely derivative of classics like Halloween or so insipid that the only reason the events in the film even happen is that the characters are so stupid that they constantly make the wrong decisions. What a surprise then that Quarantine was as fascinating as it was (especially given the horribly misleading trailer). It's the sort of film (like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield) that purports to be one person with a camera filming something incredible. But unlike those (very bad) films, Quarantine's man with the camera is actually a professional cameraman. Thus his continuing to carry around the camera and record everything that happens makes total sense. That small change alone is enough to make the film worth a viewing (for fans of the genre anyway). But that it's also suspenseful, well acted and well executed makes it one of the year's best.
05. THE WRESTLER – darren aronofsy
Enough ink has been spilled about Mickey Rourke's outstanding performance that I'll only add that he immerses himself in the role with such verisimilitude that I've started to believe that he's probably like that in real life. I wish that Aronofsky had allowed a tiny bit of hope into the last fifteen minutes of the film (having Marisa Tomei's Pam show up at the worst possible moment right at the end strikes me as particularly manipulative because, really, how else could that moment have played out?) but that doesn't negate the power of the first half of the film. Aronofsky and Rourke depict this aging former superstar with such poetic sadness that your heart can't help but break for him.
04. WALL-E – andrew stanton
Much like The Wrestler, Wall-E's pleasures are all in the first half of the film. Once the humans show up the film becomes predictable, shallow and not terribly interesting. But oh, those first forty-five nearly wordless minutes! Wall-E wandering the abandoned earth then discovering and falling in love with EVE are perhaps the saddest moments in any mainstream film this year. That they are also simultaneously some of the most adorable is a testament to just how amazing the creative team at Pixar is.
03. THE DARK KNIGHT – christopher nolan
The true greatness of The Dark Knight lies in the fact that it really didn't need to be very good at all. It was going to be a monster hit if it was merely decent. Nolan and Co. did not need to shoehorn a treatise on life in our depersonalized, take-no-responsibility culture into a big summer popcorn film. In fact, if they were really being smart about it, they wouldn't have done anything of the sort. And yet they did. And in the process they validated legions of fanboys' slavish devotion to the caped crusader. Finally there is a comic book film for which no excuses need to be made. No qualifications like, "It's good for a comic book movie" need to be applied. The Dark Knight is a towering work of art whose themes and subtext run much deeper and richer than most prestige pieces trotted out by the studios at the end of the year in hopes of garnering awards. The Dark Knight is one giant step forward in comic books' fight to be taken seriously as an art form. And it once and for all has made certain that no one any longer thinks of BIFF! POW! and "Holy shark attack, Batman!" when they think about the dark knight.
02. TELL NO ONE – guillaume canet
The ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances has been a staple of thrillers (literary and filmic) for decades if not longer. Hitchcock built an entire career on them. And for one reason or another this is a type of film that is really only popular in America. Perhaps it has something to do with how we like to see ourselves (i.e. anyone can do anything as long as they have the drive and put in the effort). But because this kind of film is so commonplace in America, there usually isn't much reason to see them. You know how the story's going to turn out before the first reel has finished unspooling. But put that genre in the hands of a Frenchman and something wonderful happens. Guillaume Canet has obviously read and watched dozens of thrillers. He internalized them and then, with this film, re-fashioned them for the twenty-first century. There's no car chases through a major city. No hanging off of a national monument. No shootouts in a crowded market. All the action in the film is small, at human scale. And it is all the more affecting and suspenseful for it. It's a reinvention and reinvigoration of the genre. And that's only half the fun. It's also a mystery. And a love story. And, just as the protagonist everyman doesn't have any idea what's around the next corner, the audience is similarly blind. There's no roadmap for this film and in a genre as over used as this one, that's really saying something.
01. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – david fincher
More than simply an investigation of what would happen if youth weren't wasted on the young (though it's certainly that as well), David Fincher's technical marvel of a film attempts to deconstruct what we fear about old age and death and what we celebrate about youth and life. We celebrate the promise of youth while simultaneously lamenting that it can't be properly appreciated until it has been squandered. And we fear death because we have no idea what it holds in store for us until it is too late to do anything about it.
It would seem that a person aging backwards would have been given the perfect gift: being at his wisest just when his body is in its prime. But to Fincher's way of thinking the wisdom of old age is only achieved through the long journey our minds and bodies take together. Without the perspective forced upon us by our weakening and ever-changing physiology we might never gain any wisdom at all.
But perhaps what's most impressive about the film is that outside of all that Big Question stuff Benjamin Button is one hell of an entertaining movie. I could get lost in the craft of the thing for hours. It's so meticulously constructed, so perfectly shot and edited while also maintaining a sense of playfulness and life. Too often movies that are so rigorously created have an artificial museum-like quality. They're often interesting and thought provoking but hardly ever intoxicating and invigorating. That Fincher managed to maintain an exuberant sense of humanity throughout the film is a testament to what these amazing new CG film techniques can do when a truly gifted filmmaker is at the helm.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that twenty years from now, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is going to be a landmark film. It's really the first film to so completely incorporate such a large number of computer generated images without any characters having superpowers, casting spells or blowing up buildings. A couple decades from now we'll routinely see actors looking ten years younger on screen than they do in real life. Every film will have at least a few CG sets and backgrounds. And we'll look back at this film as the one where the artistic use of CGI as just another tool in the filmmaker's arsenal (like lighting or costuming) finally came of age.
HONORABLE MENTION:
MILK – gus van sant
It's a well-made film but aside from the terrific lead performance there's nothing about it that makes it different or better than any number of other biopics that come out year after year (from Ray to Walk the Line to A Beautiful Mind).
HANCOCK – peter berg
Admittedly the last third of the film is an unmitigated disaster. But there's enough interesting commentary about race relations in America in the first half of the film to warrant a mention. Don't believe it? Watch the press conference where Hancock agrees to go to jail and instead of Will Smith picture Terrell Owens. And in place of Jason Bateman picture Owens's agent Drew Rosenhaus. Then carry that analogy out over the first half of the film. Suddenly a lot more interesting, isn't it?
THE FALL – tarsem singh
Borrowing liberally from the much superior Pan's Labyrinth, The Fall nonetheless has some truly indelible imagery. It's a lot of sound and fury signifying not very much but, man, is it pretty.
DISHONORABLE MENTION:
(these aren't necessarily the worst films of the year, just the most egregious offenders)
RACHEL GETTING MARRIED – jonathan demme
Like watching the unedited wedding video footage of some boring pretentious couple you've never met.
TWILIGHT – catherine hardwicke
Basically an apologia for domestic violence, Twilight has probably the most dangerous message for young girls I've ever come across. Just the sight of Bella makes Edward want to attack her. But she's "in love" with him so she completely subsumes her personality to his every desire and whim, taking great care to make sure that she never gets him riled up. That's how a woman living in an abusive relationship behaves. And the idea that legions of young girls believe that's what love looks like is very troubling indeed.
