My Favorite Films of the Decade 2000-2009

Here is my Top 10 list of my favorite films seen in the last decade, from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2009.

1. The Lord of the Rings. The pure cinematic achievement of Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings is absolutely stunning. The films were box-office blockbusters and universally critically acclaimed, even by people who had never read the book(s). I first read the book(s) at the age of 9 and loved these perfect filmic realizations even more than the original(s). Director: Peter Jackson. Released: 2001, 2002, 2003.
   
2. Memento. I still remember the sense of wonder and amazement I felt during and after watching Christopher Nolan's debut feature film. My mind was blown but I knew that I wanted to see it again, and that I would make sure to see everything this director would ever release in the future (The Dark Knight, The Prestige, Batman Returns, Insomnia). Director: Christopher Nolan. Released: 2001.
   
3. Avatar. Yes, believe the hype! James Cameron confounded all the doubters who refused to believe that the director of Aliens and Titanic could (again!) reinvent the cinematic experience with an(other) original story. I saw the film twice in the first weekend of release and know that I will see it again several times. This is the current generation's Star Wars: a film which restores the sense of wonder to cinema. Director: James Cameron. Released: 2009.
4. The Incredibles. From the director of the instant classic The Iron Giant and the wizards at Pixar came this incredibly poignant and action-filled story of a family of superheroes. The Incredibles, like Finding Nemo, Up, WALL-E and Ratatouille demonstrate that animation can be as emotionally powerful as live-action. Whenever I see this film on TV I must stop what I'm doing and watch it all the way to the end. If I believed in God, I'd pray for a sequel! Director: Brad Bird. Released: 2004.
5. Tell No One (Ne Le Dis A Personne). An innocuous little French thriller that grabs your attention from the first scene and leaves you breathless at its satisfying conclusion. The story is adapted from Harlan Coben's thriller "Tell No One." It also does a very good job of illustrating contemporary life in Paris, subtly challenging preconceptions that ideal living standards must be American. Director: Guillaume Canet. Released: 2006 (France), 2008 (United States).
6. House of Flying Daggers. Although Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was more widely acclaimed (winning the 2000 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and being nominated for Best Picture) I think that this film is the more amazing cinematic achievement, although this is admittedly a very close and somewhat arbitrary call. Together with this director's Hero, this trio of films (all featuring the incredible Zhang Ziyi) are must watching for anyone who likes martial arts and gorgeous spectacle. Director: Zhang Yimou. Released: 2005.
7. Dreamgirls. Who said the musical was dead? Openly gay writer-director Bill Condon achieved the impossible by adapting the thinly veiled 80s-era musical about the 60s supergroup The Supremes and finding someone who could handle the tsunami posing as a song "(And I'm Telling You) I'm Not Going." Jennifer Hudson won a well-deserved Oscar in her debut movie role and Beyoncé showed that she was born to inhabit the role of Miss Diana Ross. Director: Bill Condon. Released: 2006.
8. Spirited Away. This is not a Disney cartoon! Any serious student of film in general and animation in particular knows the name of Miyazaki. The Japanese filmmaker makes emotionally resonant films with curious stories that contain heart-stoppingly strange and beautiful images that are hard tp forget. In Spirited Away Miyazaki is at the top of his game and we are all the richer for it. Director: Hayao Miyazaki. Released: 2004.
9. Far From Heaven. Written and directed by Todd Haynes but animated by Julianne Moore's heart-wrenching performance as a 1950s-era wife married to a man with a secret played by a surprisingly good Dennis Quaid, this film is like a nearly perfect confection: short and sweet and leaves you wanting more. Director: Todd Haynes. Released: 2002.
10. Brokeback Mountain. The first film to have millions of gay men leave the theater shattered at finally seeing an emotionally true depiction of homosexuality in a major motion film. The relationship between Heath Ledger's Ennis Delmar and Jake Gyllenhaal's Jack Twist is the core of the film but it is the story and beautiful direction that really twists the knife. And, yes, I'm still bitter it didn't win Best Picture! Director: Ang Lee. Released: 2005.

And since I couldn't just mention only 10, here are ten more (not in any order) that should not be forgotten.

Honorable Mentions: Pan's Labyrinth, Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, The Prestige, Finding Nemo, Juno, Slumdog Millionaire, Kill Bill, United 93, Milk and Moulin Rouge!

BOOK REVIEW: Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD

Cormac McCarthy's The Road was clearly The Book of Year in 2007: Although it was published in 2006, the following year The Road was an Oprah's Book Club selection, won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The book will be made into a "major motion picture" starring Viggo Mortensen released this year. McCarthy's novella No Country For Old Men was adapted into a movie by the Coen Brothers which in 2008 won them Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay and a Best Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem.

The Road is the story of a post-apocalyptic world in which A Man and his Son are walking along The Road to The Sea (the West Coast of the United States). The reader is never told the age or names of the main characters. The actual apocalypse is never explained, but the reader is left to make conclusions from tantalizing clues like "a blinding light in the distance" and the fact that there are no longer any birds or animals visible or audible from The Road.

The prose is separated into short, vivid scenes of a few paragraphs in length. It is a mind-numbingly dark and depressing tale.


The book makes the reader confront questions of life and death and attempt to unpack the individual's understanding of hope. For example, what would you do if 99% of the world's population was killed and you were still alive in a world where civilization had broken down completely? Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Would you fight to survive against all odds or would you just give up to "the inevitable"?

I probably wouldn't have read the book if it wasn't the choice for a Gay Men's Book Club that I was invited to. Happily, it is quite a quick read. In some sense it is hard to put down once you start it--but I wouldn't exactly call it an enjoyable experience. I am glad that I read the book, since I was curious about his book that was both an Oprah's Book Club selection and a Pulitzer Prize winner. I'm not so sure that I would recommend it to others, however.


OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+.

PLOT: B.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

DVD REVIEW: Eastern Promises

The movie Eastern Promises was one that I missed in theaters but had heard good things about. It was directed by David Cronenberg (A History of Violence, Bad Lunch, The Fly, Dead Ringers) and stars Oscar nominees Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts.

The movie was in the list of top rated movies released in 2007, and although I saw a lot of the 2007 movies, somehow I missed this one.

After winning an online Oscar prediction contest my prize was a free subscription to Netflix. I had wanted to try the service for awhile so I was excited to discover what my prize was. The first movie that arrived was Eastern Promises.

The movie is interesting. It starts slow, and has a simple plot. Naomi Watts plays an obstetrics nurse named Anna who takes care of a teenaged mother who dies giving birth to a child on Christmas. The mother leaves no identifying information behind except for a mysterious diary written in Russian which (surprise!) Anna's uncle may be able to translate. There's an address in the book which leads Anna to a popular Russian restaurant where she unwittingly runs into the local head of the Russia mafia (played by Armin Muehler-Stahl) and his vicious (and stupid) son played by Vincent Cassell whose driver is played by Viggo Mortensen.

The most amazing scene in the film is the bravura nude fight sequence where Mortensen's character is in a public bath/sauna wearing only a towel and is attacked by two large assassins armed with knives. It's an incredibly choreographed and thrillingly executed sequence which was probably the primary reason why Mortensen received his first Best Actor Academy Award nomination for the film.

Overall, the emotional impact of the film is somewhat deadened by the fact that the chemistry between Watts and Mortensen is infinitesimal and although Watts' character is sympathetic her actions are so non-sensical that the viewer becomes annoyed and emotionally disconnected to the character.

Mortensen is always interesting to watch but the film is less intellectually stimulating than his previous collaboration with Cronenberg, 2005's A History of Violence.

GRADE: B+.