25. "WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE" (2009) Co-Written & Directed by Spike Jonze
The most recent release on the list and what an achievement, as it is easily the best film about childhood I saw this past decade. Spike Jonze, co-writer Dave Eggers and their collaborators fashioned an inner epic that is artistically challenging and emotionally satisfying while also being enormously entertaining. Recalling more impressionistic films aimed at children, like 1980's "The Black Stallion," there is not one false, crass, cynical or callous moment. There are no pop-culture jokes or forced toilet humor on display. It also brilliantly discovered how to make a nearly two-hour film from a ten minute book. "Where The Wild Things Are," a film of profound understanding and sadness, gives audiences, and younger audiences in particular, a film that is not disposable but one they can continuously have a relationship with. This is a film to savor, explore, grow with and cherish.
24. "SPIRITED AWAY" (2001) Written & Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
I never saw this film in the movie theater and not for any reason that I am able to recall. When I did finally see it at a dear friend's house, I was so overcome with its fantasy and beauty that I rented it from my video store the next day to see it again two more times and then, I ended up purchasing a copy within a week. Miyazaki's tale of a somewhat spoiled 9-year-old girl's surreal journey towards self-discovery, inner strength and resolve was triumphant proof that the great animated experiences of the 21st century are not solely computer driven as his hand-drawn jewel of a film is as lush and vibrant as anything the wizards at Pixar can produce. In addition, Miyazaki is a masterful storyteller combining whimsy, grand humor, dark visions and sublime emotional power through characters and situations that are often poetic in their knowingness and beauty.
23. "THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN" (2005) Co-Written & Directed by Judd Apatow
I wish that the genre of comedy received more respect than it normally does as it is truly one of the most difficult genres to pull off successfully. Think at all of the movies you have seen and how many of those movies are comedies--not movies with comedic elements but flat-out comedy films in the fullest of their intentions. Now that you have performed that task, how many of those comedies have actually been funny and continue to be funny, even if you have seen them endlessly? Comedy is a deeply subjective format as it is all comes down to a matter of taste. Like the previous entry, I actually did not see this film in the thetare as I had been burned one too many times by alleged comedy films during which I laughed intermittedly to not at all. Once I did discover this film upon its DVD release, I kicked myself for not having seen it in the theater as I could not stop laughing--and after having seen it several times over the years, Judd Apatow's debut feature film as a director ranks as the funniest film I saw during this past decade. The comedy holds up strongly as I am still discovering new and priceless lines of hysterical dialogue, created jointly through improvisation by the film's brilliant cast and the terrific script by Apatow and the film's star Steve Carell. And yet, the film exists as much more than a string of gags. It celebrates and respects the film's hero by never making his predicament something to laugh at while also perceptively probing into a man's private sexual fears. You root for him, his romance with Catherine Keener and the fact that he sticks to his principles and just doesn't lose his virginity to anyone makes this film one of the finest romantic comedies of the decade as well.
22. "CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON" (2000) Co-Written & Directed by Ang Lee
Director Ang Lee has consistently proven to be one of our most challenging and diverse filmmakers as he jumps from one stylistic genre to another, all the while exploring his constant theme of repression-something he explored extremely well with his unique version of Marvel Comics' "Hulk" from 2003 and of course, the groundbreaking "Brokeback Mountain" from 2005. Yet, I felt he expressed it at his absolute finest with this dazzling hybrid of gloriously choreographed and executed martial arts, evocative mythology, and mostly, the painfully poetic love story of missed opportunities, tragic loss and of course, repressed emotions of characters who can literally fly to the tops of trees yet are unable to speak their true feelings to the ones closest to their hearts.
21. "I'M NOT THERE" (2008) Co-Written & Directed by Todd Haynes
This is one of perhaps two or three films I saw this decade that I felt was a bit ahead of the curve, as if it was something that most modern filmmaking needs to catch up to. I was definately confounded when I first saw this chronologically and narratively jumbled exploration of Bob Dylan, featuring no less than seven actors--including a striking and eerily perfect Cate Blanchett--portraying Dylan or his personas during seven specific sections of his life between the 60's to perhaps the mid 70s. It is alternately and often inscrutible, glorious, poetic, infuriating, challenging, demanding, open, and impenetrable...much like Dylan's music. In fact, the film feels like you are swimming inside of a Dylan song, with perceptions and meanings shifting with each listen or viewing, as the case is with this film. It requires revisiting and intense scrutiny but also, it is audio/visual trip that you can easily allow to wash over you.
20. "INTO THE WILD" (2007) Written & Directed by Sean Penn
Sean Penn's greatest achievement as a filmmaker arrived with this spiritually haunting film based on the true story fo Christopher McCandless, a young college graduate, who donated his entire savings to charity, and made a two-year hitch-hiking journey towards Alaska to live in the wilderness. Emilie Hirsch gave a performance of such intensity, weight, daring and fearlessness that nothing in his prevous roles had even suggested he had the ability. Additionally, Penn's muscular filmmaking took full advantage of Hirsch's performance coupled with its masterful cinematography to present the unforgiving aspects of nature while also ultimately being a film about the complex nature of forgiveness.
19. "NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN" (2007) Written & Directed by
Joel and Ethan Coen
In a film career of eccentric, varied and usually excellent and unparalleled quality, the Coen brothers' thriller stands near the top of their nearly unequaled ouvre. It is a film of daring existential bleakness as it seemed to be about the escalating nature of violence in our country and the unending, unrepentant, ever-shifting and increasingly incomprehensible nature and face of evil. Javier Bardem's chilling performance is one of film's most terrifying villains and the Coen's dark vision has rarely been more uncompromising, intense and brutal.
18. "Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN" (2001) Co-Written & Directed by Alfonso Cuaron
The presentation of movie sex was altered superbly with this film as it often was so uncomfortably real and raw that I felt like a voyeur, witnessing acts not meant for my eyes. At the same time, it never felt pornographic, a feat due to the bottomless emotional honesty on display in a story about two teens who embark upon a life-changing summer road trip with an enigmatic older woman. In addition to sex, the film exposed truths about love, loss, mortality and even detailed the last embers of an adolescent friendship. The film never made any false moves or blinked at its own daring. This was a film meant to transport and transform and it accomplished both tremendously...and, I must say most movie sex on screen since this film is comparatively trite in its unrealistic, plastic glossiness.
17. "MOULIN ROUGE" (2001) Co-Written & Directed by Baz Luhrmann
Now, that's entertainment!!! The star-crossed and tragic love story of courtesan Satine and romantic poet Christian went far beyond just being a movie. This ultra-musical was an EXPERIENCE of the tallest order where everything was presented in CAPITAL LETTERS, with the BIGGEST, BRIGHTEST colors of them all. This film had supreme confidence to go along with its high style. It was unafraid to be the grandest spectacle on the planet by artistically swinging for the fences and having a heart as big as the world. This was one of those movies where I nearly forgot I was sitting in a movie theater as it was enveloping and all-encompasing.
16. "THE DEPARTED" (2006) Directed by Martin Scorsese
From one of the greatest American filmmakers of all time comes a crime thriller that showed effectively that when Hollywood wants to get it right, they can do it brilliantly. Here was a film where absolutely everyone brought their "A" game and weaved a complicated symphony of a crime epic with Scorsese as the feverish meastro, holding it all together and making the proceedings sing with beautiful profanity, explosive violence, excellent performances from top to bottom, and an air-tight screenplay that unfolded one incredible surprise after another.
15. "SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE" (2008) Directed by Danny Boyle
I nearly kicked myself for waiting to see this film for as long as I did. Truly one of the greatest film experiences I had over the past ten years, as Boyle's harrowing fable re-defined what modern motion pictures could be. The story plunged deeply into my heart as the cinematography, editing, music, performances and ingenious screenplay made this film take flight and soar higher than most films I have seen. From the title you already know the outcome but it was the journey that made the film unique and lead towards an uplifting conclusion that was hard-fought and earned.
14. "THERE WILL BE BLOOD" (2007) Written & Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
From one of my favorite filmmakers came another film I thought was ahead of the curve as its storytelling approach seemed to look back and simultaneously move a few steps ahead of all other modern releases. Daniel Day Lewis gave a performance of volcanic maleavolence in a movie which seemed to be an exploration of capitalism's birth in our country and the spiritual decay left in its wake. The final 30 minutes fly into near Stanley Kubrick territory, with a bizarre and disturbingly cold finish that made me question if God himself had been symblically and effectively destroyed. Bold, brilliant, unapologetic filmmaking, masterfully executed and in full demand of subsequent viewings.
13. "HIGH FIDELITY" (2000) Directed by Stephen Frears
It is quite rare for any movie based upon a novel to rise to any level of strong quality as a work that not only represents the source material well but stands up as an excellent work in its own right. Stephen Frears' adaptaion of the great, great, great Nick Hornby novel is the prime example of such a rarity emerging lovingly into pristine focus. John Cusack starred, co-wrote and produced the story of a Rob, a music and list-making obsessive, record store owner and recent breakup casualty, trying to make sense of his romantic life as he ages into his 30s. Beyond being one of the best romantic comedies of the decade through its sometimes uncomfortable honesty and simple truths about men and the devotions they have to their obsessions, this was a film that compassionately spoke to a generation, all attempting to find meaning and sigificance in their work, lives, and loves. Transplanting what I thought was quintessentially British material to my beloved and gorgeously represented home town of Chicago, lost not even one note in this terrific translation.
12. "RATATOUILLE" (2007) Written & Directed by Brad Bird
11. "VANILLA SKY" (2001) Written & Directed by Cameron Crowe
This section of my Top 25 will conclude with a film that was one of the most polarizing of the decade and one that just missed the Top 10 by the skin of its teeth. I revisit this film at least once a year and I always find some new detail or insight that I had not noticed during the previous viewing. Cameron Crowe fashioned a reverential and deeply personal remake of Alejandro Amenabar's excellent "Abre Los Ojos" from 1997, which details the melancholy, darkly existential tale of a playboy who figuratively and then, literally sleepwalks through his life as he slowly discoveres the value of all that is real in the world. Tom Cruise gave a fever dream of a performance as David Aames, a man who is slowly growing aware of the futility of his too charmed lifestyle only to be undone by the consequences of his own recklessness. With this adaptation, Crowe brilliantly took the feverish, nightmarish pace of the original and slowed it down to create an unshakeably haunting resonance. Also, Crowe added a strong commentary of our relationship with all manner of pop culture and how it works to define us, our feelings, our relationships and how we see the world. Additionally, the film was a treatise to the emptiness and non-existence of casual sex as well as a heady mind-trip of a movie that dovetails through sequences of suicide, murder, lost love, failure, science-fiction, and nightmares and heading all the way to an ethereal ending that also reached a near Stanley Kubrick level. Perhaps people bying a ticket to see a Tom Cruise film didn't expect something so challenging but really folks, I have seen this film so many times and the rewards I have received from it are endless. Maybe I should put it in my DVD player right now and I hope you do as well...
Coming soon...THE TOP 10 FILMS OF 2000-2009!!!
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