Best of the Decade

The gang at Gone Elsewhere have been compiling their lists of the best and worst films of the recently completed decade (I know, I know, a decade, like a century, really ends with the year ending in zero, not nine, but what are you going to do?). I thought I'd amplify my remarks here and hammer out a top-ten list.

Whether it's a reflection of my age or the quality of films coming from Hollywood, this past decade was not a great one. I can easily come up with a list of films I liked a lot, but none of them would crack my top 25 of all time. It seems that the Hollywood business model is all about tent-poles and reboots, and exhausting every last comic book hero. Creativity and originality are on the back burners, as the studios seem more interested in churning out assembly line product that is gobbled up by teenagers who really don't care what they are watching. Sixty years ago Humphrey Bogart, as screenwriter Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place, disparaging called a director he had no respect for a "popcorn salesman." It's only gotten worse.

As I look over this list, I'm also somewhat amazed and chagrined that there are no films on it that are not in the English language. Usually I'm not so provincial. I'm not sure what this says about me or world cinema.

In any event, in reverse order from 10 to 1:

10. Best in Show (2000, Christopher Guest) This one gets the last spot for being perhaps the funniest movie I saw all decade, a mockumentary about a dog show. From Fred Willard's gloriously obtuse broadcaster to two-left-footed Eugene Levy being pressed into service as a shower, this film, from the same crowd and in the same spirit as This Is Spinal Tap, was hilarious from start to finish.

9. Batman Begins (2005, Christopher Nolan) The comic-book film dominated the Hollywood landscape this decade, but as with most genres, there were good and bad films. Mostly bad, but occasionally a director understood what made comic books a part of the culture and captured it. Spider-Man 2 was very good, but the best was Batman Begins, a reboot (oh, how I hate that word!) of the franchise. This was a better film than the higher-grossing sequel, The Dark Knight, and I think it may have been because, unlike most comic-book films, it wasn't wrapped up in examining the psyche of a colorful villain, but instead focused on the nature of the hero himself.

8. Capote (2005, Bennett Miller) I kvelled both times I saw this expertly crafted story of how writer Truman Capote became obsessed with the slaying of a family in Kansas. The screenplay, by erstwhile actor Dan Futterman, may be the best structured script of the decade, and Miller's camera is always in the right place. Of course, there's also the great performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman

7. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004, Michael Moore) Moore's trilogy of documentaries in the decade--Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko are a nice encapsulation of the twisted worldview of the right wing of America, but I found the middle film, which examined how the Bush administration used the 9/11 terror attacks to push through an anti-Constitutional agenda, to be the most viscerally exciting. To be sure, Moore is not on objective documentarian, but then, who is?

6. No Country For Old Men (2007, Joel and Ethan Coen) The only film on this list that I also reviewed on this blog (which started in 2006), you can read the review here. It was a scintillatingly sinister look at evil, with a brilliant performance by Javier Bardem, and marked a spectacular return to form for the Coen Brothers.

5. Ghost World (2001, Terry Zwigoff) Marvelously mordant adaptation of Daniel Clowes graphic novel about youthful alienation, with two great performances: Scarlett Johansson, before she turned into the tongue-tied superstar, and Thora Birch (whatever happened to her). Also a great turn by Steve Buscemi, who was clearly inspired by R. Crumb.

4. Memento (2000, Christopher Nolan) Nolan is the only director to be listed twice here. This was an ingenious puzzle of a film, told backwards, about a man with no short-term memory. I have the DVD, which enables one to watch the film chronologically, which I haven't tried yet. Unlike Nolan's Inception, this film has a beating heart.

3. Sideways (2004, Alexander Payne) I love Payne's work (except for About Schmidt), and Election was on my best of the 1900s. This is a wonderfully droll study of two men on a trip to Santa Barbara vineyards. Perhaps because I, too, am a failed writer I identified strongly with the sad-sack marvelously played by Paul Giamatti.

2. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, Wes Anderson) Anderson's work is not for everyone--he can be overly precious, and stuffs his films with more ingredients than paella--but following his equally brilliant Rushmore (another on my best of the 1990s) came this endearing tale of a family of overachieving children and their ne'er-do-well father. So much to savor in this one, including one of the few tolerable Ben Stiller performances.

1. Adaptation (2002, Spike Jonze) My pick for best of the decade is this mind-bender from screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who took his own frustration at adapting Susan Orlean's nonfiction work, The Orchid Thief, into a movie and created a delirious syzygy that manages to send up the screenwriting industry ("don't say 'industry'), evokes the excitement of orchid-hunting and manages to break hearts. Kaufman's terrific move of creating a twin brother allowed Nicolas Cage, who has otherwise become a joke, to give a great performance. I watched the film again yesterday and loved every frame, especially the scene between the two brothers in the swamp--"It's who you love, not who loves you."