 |
| Scene from Stories We Tell |
With 2019 marking the end of a decade, it's time to commemorate the past 10 years with the help of Listmania Decades. Over this year's 12 months, the series will look at a variety of different styles of film in order to highlight everything that made this period unique and exciting. While this isn't meant as a collection of the greatest films ever released, it's more meant as a highlight of films that I would consider to be among my favorite, or ones that are worth remembering in the future. So please feel free to join me every 19th of the month to highlight a new entry that will highlight 25 films that exemplified a certain field of cinema. There's a lot of great work out there, and this list barely captures the bulk of it. Feel free to leave your favorites in the comments so that we can find more to appreciate before this year is through.
THIS MONTH: With the upcoming Sundance Film Festival, it only feels right to kick off Listmania Decades by looking at films that were made independently, or embody the aesthetic. This list was a bit difficult to narrow down, especially given the presence of prominent independent studios. It is why I'm approaching this entry on the best independent films of the decade by highlighting films that aren't necessarily that obvious. This list excises any that were nominated for Oscars or received major acclaim that would make them eligible for later entries. It may seem a little odd, but it helps to recognize the small films that missed out on the zeitgeist.
1. Frances Ha
There have been few independent artists who have made a dent on the culture as Greta Gerwig. Having gotten her start with the likes of Joe Swanberg and The Duplass Brothers, she has managed to craft a voice of intellect as she creates characters both grounded in humility, but full of humor. With her second of three collaborations with director Noah Baumbach, she has created one of the most enjoyable subversive comedies with a lexicon of quotable lines and the best visual references to French New Wave and Leos Carax, as well as the the best exploration of mid-20's milieu in a long time. Gerwig has had an incredible decade and is looking to enter the next with one of the most established and authentic voices, and it's largely thanks to her ability to make the biggest klutzes in our lives into the most empathetic, human characters.
2. Girl Walk // All Day
The music of Girl Talk may seem disposable, stapling together samples of various songs into an infectious collage. However, director Jacob Krupnick has done the unthinkable and turned his latest album "All Day" into a joy ride through New York with a group of dancers, lead by the adorable Anne Marsen (The Good Wife). There isn't much of a plot to the film, but what it does have in spades is some of the most jubilant energy of any film, managing to capture not only the thrill of dancing in public as it becomes the biggest stage, but also the extraordinary styles of the various dancers. It's all interpretive, but over the course of 70-odd minutes, it becomes an adrenaline shot that has not been matched. More films could benefit from the guerrilla style of film making, managing to create a wall of music and culture that never let up. You don't have to love the music to appreciate the film (it will change in 30 seconds), but you can't deny the hat trick it took to make this a masterful work.
3. Palo Alto
There were few depictions of the pondering of teenagers that matched the blissful awe of director Gia Coppola's debut. With a great cast of young actors, the film's meditative flow interweaves several stories into one pallet that explores the separation between childhood innocence and the drudgery of adulthood. With an excellent performance by Emma Roberts, the film feels like a poem written about those people sitting out on curbs outside a party in the middle of the night while thinking about the future. It's a beautiful film, managing to capture a moment and a feeling so well that it almost doesn't matter. This is a story that mythologizes youth in powerful ways, making one nostalgic for a time that they'd live whether last week or many decades ago.
4. I'm Still Here
Before having an incredible career resurgence, Joaquin Phoenix staged one of the greatest hoaxes in 21st century pop culture lore. He retired from acting to become a rapper and with the help of director Casey Affleck, he created one of the most incinerating satires of the decade. It worked in part because of how everyone felt duped. It also worked because of Phoenix's dedication to an extremely vapid performance, managing to blur fiction with reality while conveying deeper themes regarding our obsession with celebrity and trainwrecks. It's still up for debate how real it all was, but there's no denying that it marked one of the most original and ambitious concepts of the decade. The production company was called They're Going to F--king Kill Us, and it really does feel like that juvenile sense of antagonism runs through even the film's most faux-pretentious moment. It's a film that defies reality but totally explains it at the same time. Phoenix may have turned in a lot of great performances, but few feel as bizarre as this.
5. Under the Skin
While Scarlett Johansson would go on to play a variety of aliens, she has never done it better than in director Jonathan Glazer's sci-fi oddity. She plays an unnamed force, walking the Earth in search of meaning and companionship. It's practically plot-free, but it doesn't matter. The atmosphere is so deeply rooted in rickets that scratch on a top notch Mica Levi score and force the viewer to contemplate their own isolation. There's plenty of imagery that will stick with the viewer, creating moments that decipher humanity through a warped lens. It seeks to get under your skin and succeeds. The film may or may not make sense, but that's besides the point. It's about the experience, and few films come close to such a visceral experience that hasn't been matched. It's the quintessential alien movie of the decade, in part because what's alien is how we treat each other. It's our job to find new ways to empathize, and Johansson is our cipher into that potential answer.
6. Dear White People
As far as film franchises go, director Justin Simien hit the jackpot with a series that attempted to understand "a black face in a white place." In this case, it's at Winchester University, and the original film came out swinging with a student debate on every possible cultural divide. Where most films could feel like soapboxes being pulled out for obvious ideas, Simien's vision is one that's universal to contemporary America by starting a discourse that is just as informative as it is contradictory. The fact that the film even created new black archetypes in society is a sign of how much the film has resonated with audiences. If one wants to know how to have a civilized debate about the many transgressions of modern society, there are few films that feel as immediate and important as this. It also helps that it features a great cast that, among other things, helped launch Tessa Thompson's career. There's a lot to love and think about, and rarely has humor and intellect mixed so well within the same frame.
7. Sorry to Bother You
There have been few films so expertly designed to raise a ruckus as this economics satire from director Boots Riley, who turns Lakeith Stanfield into a comedic lead for the ages. The world that he's created is surreal, but one that isn't unlike ours thanks to exploration of racial divides, economic struggles, and how the working class are being treated like animals. It's an anarchic force of nature, and one that is just as hilarious as it is smart. For whatever vulgarities the film has in conveying its message, it makes up for with utter immediacy that bangs a drum and yells for people to act up. Whether you come for the commentary or humor, it's all there perfectly layered in a mishmash of conflicts that divide us and will continue to unless action is taken. The title is as much a plot device as it is an apology to the audience. Sorry to bother you, but this message cannot be ignored.
8. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
While the trend of vampires may be a constant throughout the decade, there were none who reinvented the archetype quite like this Iranian story of a skateboarding teenager in a pseudo-western who falls in love. It's one of those directorial debuts from Ana Lily Amirpour that is among the most exciting tales of the decade. With beautiful black and white cinematography, the story unfolds in a way that captures the viewers and never lets up. Amirpour has established herself as a director of promise, managing to create atmospheric genre films with plenty of heart and depth that creates a deeper understanding of Iranian youth culture. While The Bad Batch may have not been as great of a follow-up, she still possesses plenty of great ideas that will hopefully make her one of the best filmmakers of the next decade.
9. 50/50
Before films like The Fault in Our Stars redesigned the "sick teenager" genre, there was this film that took the director's real life battle with cancer and turn it into a drama about how it impacted his life. Lead by the never better Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the film is a great blend of humor and sadness that reflects how drastically life can change when The Big C comes knocking. With that said, the film never gets too far away from creating well rounded characters, especially as Gordon-Levitt interacts with the enjoyable best friend Seth Rogen or green doctor Anna Kendrick. For whatever it may do predictably, it makes up for with a large heart and sense of hope that eventually overwhelms the dread of potential decay. More than that, it creates a portrait of cancer that is more accessible and modern to audiences who aren't the target audience of Terms of Endearment. It has plenty of accessibility, and makes things like chemo therapy seem far less scary than they likely seem. There's so much to love, and few films capture something this grounded when dealing with subjects so drastic and sensitive.
10. We Need to Talk About Kevin
Director Lynne Ramsey may not come around that often, but she always packs a punch when she does. In her best film of the decade, she manages to turn the story of one mother's struggle in raising a child into the horror story that feels all too real. For those who discovered Ezra Miller through any other film, be glad you did. He's a haunting force here and he works perfectly opposite Tilda Swinton in a performance that blends remorse with the fading sense of control. As much as she finds guilt from society for being a bad mother, there's a sense that things were beyond her control. Even if the film's nefarious subject may lead to a familiar yet disturbing ending, it still works on a deeper level in understanding how sometimes the greatest fear isn't creating a monster, but realizing that you have no control over their path.
11. Spring Breakers
Whether or not this film was meant to have subtext, it has plenty of provocation under the surface. In this Spring Break film that feels like a chaotic party (or as one critic put it: "Terrence Malick on bath salts"), director Harmony Korine creates the ultimate antagonistic movie of the decade by casting a bunch of Disney alumni for raucous partying full of drugs and nudity. However, it's also an exploration of morality in a culture that praises recklessness and answers its questions with violence. It's a perfect distillation of chaos with some of the best cinematography and Skrillex set to classical strings. While this film may not always appeal to tamer audiences, the visceral response of the many montages is a thing of beauty for those willing to embrace such a perverted movie that simultaneously has a lot on its mind and nothing underneath.
12. The Runaways
As far as overlooked movies go, director Floria Sigismondi's music biopic's tale of Joan Jett, Cherry Curie, and pals is near the top in terms of greatness. The Runaways remain one of the most groundbreaking rock bands of all time, in large part because of how it portrayed women not only as musicians, but as commodities. Sure, the film is heavy on the themes of exploitation by a scuzzy manager (in one of many great Michael Shannon performances of the decade), but it's also one of the sweetest tales of nuclear families this decade. Kristen Stewart is a spot on Jett and Dakota Fanning's Curie is one of the most charismatic heartbreaks. As a whole, it creates a portrait that goes above the cliches and understands how a band functions as more than a vehicle for reckless music. There's a need to have something deeper, and sometimes that involves helping friends avoid going crazy on tour.
13. Super
It almost seems prophetic now, but in 2011 director James Gunn made the jump to superhero cinema with his Troma-twinged tale of a makeshift hero named the Crimson Bolt. Rainn Wilson has rarely been better than as a depressed hero doing his best to solve crime. Is he insane? Well, he's mentally unstable for sure. What the film achieves is a low budget tale that is at times the most pitch black superhero comedy of the decade, managing to find joy in its characters' demented motivations. Ellen Page has also rarely been this bizarre, managing to portray an even more screws loose hero who goes on a lot of strange path. In an era where superhero cinema (some even directed by Gunn) defines the conversation, it's strange to note that one of the craziest interpretations has a controversial but apt opinion: they're all depressed and crazy underneath. It's a confrontational film that swing a wrench at the fences, but from its brilliant opening credits sequence it delivers one of the most unique tales of why we shouldn't always trust caped crusaders.
14. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
Just when it seemed like Noah Hawley would get the greatest Fargo-related property of the decade, director David Zellner came along and created a film that's even more bizarre. With Rinko Kikuchi playing Kumiko, she goes on a journey to find the treasure hidden in the snow in North Dakota. Yes, that's the gist of the plot... and it's all pulled from excessively viewing a VHS tape. With the help of the wonderful rabbit Bunzo, the story manages to become a journey into fandom that is sometimes Quixotic, but is inherently fascinating thanks to a creative path that never lets up. Does she find the treasure in the end? Does it really matter? All that does is the fact that for a plot that sounds a bit silly on paper, it manages to become one of the most compelling journeys of the decade and is well worth exploring as more than a gimmicky movie.
15. The Witch
The thing that makes director Robert Eggers' film so powerful is that it feels genuinely like an artifact pulled from centuries ago. There's so much to the film's atmosphere that is itself haunting with the murky weather drawing the viewer into a cold world of people excised from society for unknown reasons. What is known is that this is a breakout role for Anya-Taylor Joy as a woman accused of being a witch who finds the people in her life slowly falling into chaos. The film's use of religion and classic photography for visual references creates a story that is almost too convincing. It even makes the goat Black Phillip into one of the greatest villains of the decade. While audiences at the time complained about the film not being scary, it's a tonal nightmare that sneaks up on those willing to fall into the darkness and find themselves lost in one of the few theatrical releases also endorsed by Satanists. If that doesn't convince you that the film has a great depiction of witches, then nothing will.
16. American Honey
Director Andrea Arnold returns with what is possibly the most American epic of the decade. The plot is simple: a group of lower class brats drive across country to sell magazines. In fact, there's almost nothing else to really describe. Still, with a career making performance by Sasha Lane the film has a charisma that manages to embrace the slipshod nature of driving in a van while singing Lady Antebellum and dealing with religious Texans. The film's greatest success is in how it lets a moment play out in its own time, never allowing a powerful moment slip through the cracks. The film romanticizes a culture that may not seem appealing, but there's some heart that will stick with the viewer before the final frame occurs.
17. The Bling Ring
Hell hath no fury like a teenage girl with social media accounts. Director Sofia Coppola creates one of the scariest movies of the year not by filling it with jump scares, but with a world populated by jaded, fame hungry teenagers wanting to live the glamorous life without having to work their way up. It's a performance that proved Emma Watson was more than Hermione Granger, allowing her to be a Valley Girl with a blank stare that sells her deadpan comedy. With an excellent soundtrack and supporting cast, the film works at capturing how society's values are being warped and those with access to wealth better watch out. So long as teenagers continue to have driver's permits, the chance of them stealing from celebrities like Paris Hilton will continue to remain an issue. While the film may come across as annoying, it's in part because of how real the characters feel. They have a dead look in their eyes and a desire to talk their way out of anything. They're going to be famous no matter what.
18. Tully
Director Jason Reitman teams up with writer Diablo Cody for what may sound like a spiritual sequel to the Oscar-winning Juno, but is so much more. Having had children and loads of experience to draw from, Cody has created the realistic nightmare scenario of a mother feeling the impact of stress on her life both socially and personally. The fear of a child being "quirky" causes her to toss and turn at night, and the lack of sleep caused by a newborn only makes things worse. The film's a clever fairy tale that subverts the happy ending with a deeper story on what it means to be getting older and feeling less relevant. As much as this explores motherhood with a sincere honesty, it's the performance by Charlize Theron (in one of many career best roles this decade) that feels shamelessly, painfully real and gives the film a moral center. It's a film that proves that Cody is more than a stylish writer. She's also one of the pioneers of some of cinema's most compelling, flawed women of the decade.
19. Landline
While director Gillian Robespierre's Obvious Child got more love, there should be more attention paid to what feels like the perfect hangout movie. With one of Jenny Slate's best performances, the stories of a crumbling marriage backdrops two sisters trying to find intimacy in their lives and finding disappointment instead. It's full of great character-based humor and a 90's sensibility that doesn't overwhelm the setting. It's a joyful film, and one that finds a lot to say about the power of love in every facet of our lives. If nothing else, it is just one of those fun movies that can be thrown on at any time at any spot and be just as enjoyable, though it's encouraged to watch the California Raisins scene from the beginning.
20. The Love Witch
With a retro charm, the brightly colored world in which director Anna Biller's romantic witch comedy lives features enough charm to raise a few eyebrows. It also helps that Samantha Robinson's performance at the titular character is so hungry for love that it doesn't stop her homicidal tendencies, which rub up against conflicts regarding her Wiccan ways. The film is a vibrant exploration of the supernatural and sexuality, as well as the deflating humor that comes with violence towards lovers that is maybe meant as romantic. It's a beautiful, surreal film that makes the viewer long for more films to be drenched in such violent color schemes with characters so jaded that they might just be friends with Lana Del Rey. It's strange for sure, but it's also one of the greatest revelations of the decade thanks to its totally, perfectly aloof execution.
21. Stories We Tell
It's insane to think, but it has been seven years since the two year run of director Sarah Polley's back-to-back masterpieces Take This Waltz and the docudrama Stories We Tell. The latter pushes the boundaries of what a story passed down through family actually looks like, especially as it is told from various perspectives. Polley's acceptance of such a bizarre story leads to one of the best mysteries of the decade that is in part elevated by archival footage that is both real and recreated. It's hard to tell what is real and fake, but it all benefits the idea of what it means to tell a story and why do we care. Polley is in top form here and creates one of the essential cinematic experiences thanks to an approach that has rarely been replicated since. It's hard to forget this story, even if the subject may not seem that way.
22. Blue Jay
As much as Netflix gets credit for supporting great projects nowadays, they also are notorious for burying treasures like this. In an intimate drama featuring Mark Duplass and Sarah Paulson, the story finds two high school friends coming together to explore their personal lives in ways that are painfully honest. It's a story so intimate that these characters feel real, even making a journey through a bookshelf feel like there's so much history in the selection. The film eventually develops into something more dramatic and compelling, but by that point the audience is so invested in these great performances that it doesn't matter. They are familiar in part because their friendship is not unlike the viewers, one mired in history and separation that comes with time. It's a reunion story that reveals a lot about what rekindling lost love can do and why it's important to stay rational about these things.
23. Four Lions
Considering how prominent terrorism is in everyone's everyday lives, it's amazing that this dark comedy about suicide bombers hasn't yet become uncomfortable. It's true that the comedy follows a group of incompetent men as they plan to bomb a public event in England, but what's more incredible is how this allows for such dark humor regarding the disturbing beliefs that these men have. It's an example about how dangerous comedy can be used to explore dark and disturbing subject matter as well as create a story where you can't wait for these men to die, even if that means that a living joke will soon be over. Few films are this fun and disturbing while delivering such great lines as "Rubber dinghy rapids, bro." That's an achievement that few have been able to do as well as it is done here.
24. Mr. Roosevelt
Noel Wells got plenty of acclaim for her work in the first season of Master of None and transitions to cinema with a film that uses a cat's death to explore her unraveling life. While this may seem like the start of a conventional comedy, Wells has the insight to make a story that is just as much critical of her as it is the characters that exist in her life. She populates the world with great actors, such as Nick Thune and Britt Lower, and gives them plenty of backstory to make their intimate lives feel more personal. It also deconstructs the manic pixie dream girl trope while making a character who is neither perfect nor a mess. She is merely a stressed out 20-something trying to make sense of this frustrating world. There have been many stories like this, but none feel as prescient as this.
25. The Duke of Burgundy
There is a common belief in American cinema, especially after Fifty Shades of Grey, that sexuality is gross and exploitative. What many don't acknowledge is that there is a form of sex that can explore something deeper and more vulnerable, such as this S&M drama that mixes metaphors about butterfly studies into a romance that is personal and, unlike E.L. James' definitive work, healthy. The film is a beautiful ode to how humans relate to each other through intimate moments with some of the most poignant imagery and character moments of the decade. It's a personal story, but it reveals so much about us as people that it becomes something far more beautiful and universal. Yes, it is first and foremost an S&M story, but there's so much more to what makes us feel alive that it's a film worthy of exploring and being totally surprised by.
Comments
Post a Comment