The Most Over-Rated and Under-Rated Films of the Decade?

The Most Under-Rated Movie of the Last Ten Years? The decade draws to a close, and most of us will be feeling a sense of surreality as we reflect on what we were doing on New Year's Eve 1999 - I was with four of my dearest friends; we had a gorgeous dinner by the fire, watched the London Millennium Dome's opening ceremony define New Labour's hubris (until a certain war in the Gulf); at midnight we literally did stand on the street and shout hello to everyone else who opened their door.  At that moment, I hadn't seen 'Magnolia', soon to supplant 'Wings of Desire' as the film-most-likely-to-be-named-my-favourite-when-you-ask (I'd say they're both pretty even now; the passage of time tends to iron out all your favourite movies into one long film marathon.  Film I've seen the most often?  Field of Dreams.  Film I'd most like to see again right now?  Hirokazu Koreeda's After Life.  Film that every time I see it becomes increasingly difficult to deny a place as 'Greatest Ever Made' TM?  2001.  Or Touch of Evil.  Or Vertigo.  Or La Regle du Jeu.  Or La Belle et la Bete.  Or Close Encounters.  Or Once Upon a Time in America.  Or Fantasia.  Or Solaris.  Or.  Or.  Or)

And now we approach the end of another decade.  The friends I was with on Millennium Eve don't see each other so often anymore; only two of the five even live in the same city, but we're still in touch, from time to time at least.  Sometimes we talk about movies.  There have been at least 2500 films released in the US, UK and Ireland since January 1st, 2000.  I've probably seen a third of them. The decade's end provides the opportunity to, as they say, discuss.  So please do join me.

My method?  Well, Top 100 lists are obvious, Top 50 too restrictive, our friend Glenn Kenny has gone for a happy medium, having just posted a Top 70 (and his comments section suggests it will be soon be a Top 71, as there's always at least one film that gets left out).  And so, emboldened by Glenn, I'll be posting some thoughts about the decade 2000-2009 over the next few weeks (My thoughts on Roger Corman's 'The Intruder', previously planned for today will have to wait).

So, if you're interested in my thoughts on ten years at the movies, let's make a start.

I'm going to do three posts on this topic - beginning with the most over-rated and under-rated films; then a 'runners-up' list; then a list of the best films of the decade.  These lists are, of their nature, entirely subjective, rooted in my particular prejudices, wounds, joys, knowledge and desire.  You may dearly love a film that isn't here; or you may loathe one that I adore.  That's fine with me - this list doesn't exist to validate or challenge anyone else's preferences (although I do want to challenge some of the accepted norms of what passes for entertainment, and to shine a light on some films that might otherwise be too easily ignored).

Some initial headlines:

• There are no films by Woody Allen on any of these lists, despite the fact he made ten films in this period.  I would list 7 of his films from the previous decade; 9 from the 80s; 6 from the 70s that I'd be happy to watch any day of the week; one of which I consider one of the wisest and most comforting films I've ever seen.  I guess I'll just say that we all want Woody to come back; and I'd be happy just to be working at 74 years old (Happy Birthday next week).
• There is only one movie by Martin Scorsese on my list of the best films of the decade, and it's not the one you're thinking.
• Ridley Scott isn't on the best-of either; he makes it onto the 'films I'm not supposed to like but did' part of the list; and he's disproportionately represented on the 'over-rated' list.
• I still haven't had the chance/been in the right zone to see the following: 'In the Mood for Love', 'Dancer in the Dark', 'Ivans XTC', 'The Pianist', 'Monster', 'The Fall', or 'The White Ribbon'.
• This decade saw the retirement from screen acting of Gene Hackman.  Having just seen the extraordinary (and troubling) Hackman-Marvin-Spacek-Ritchie thriller 'Prime Cut' for the first time last night, I am only confirmed in my view that one Gene Hackman film could have covered a multitude of 'Wanted'-types (for what it's worth, that Jolie-Freeman-Bekmambetov 'thriller's my nominee for the most graceless movie of the decade).  We also lost Robert Altman, who was making movies til the day he died and helps me understand (and feel at home in) America better than any other film-maker.
• I still wish that Kieslowski hadn't died in 1995; that River Phoenix was still with us; that Robert de Niro hadn't made any of the 19 (!) films he acted in this decade (the good news is 'Everybody's Fine', which we'll review next week; I'm not allowed to say much about it yet, but I'm sure it's ok to tell you that it's much, much better than most of us might have expected; we might even have a new Christmas classic on our hands.)
• I want someone to give Kelly Reichardt, Ramin Bahrani, Lukas Moodysson, Carlos Reygadas, Ray Lawrence, Paolo Sorrentino, John Hillcoat, Sean Penn, Rolf de Heer, John Carney, Tommy Lee Jones, James Marsh, Jason Lehel, Nicolas Klotz, Tom McCarthy, Philip Groning, and Sylvain Chomet the money to make whatever films they want.
• The best (and most diverse) career in directing in the 2000s?  Marc Forster.  Check out his filmography and let me know if I'm wrong.

And so, the lists begin:

Films of the Past Decade that I'm Not Supposed to Admit to Liking But Do

Finding Forrester: for being the only film in which Sean Connery cries without winking at the audience.

Cast Away: for a truly great central performance and honest engagement with the question of loss.

Thirteen Days: for being a political film about US foreign policy that lionises dialogue over threats; and turns that dialogue into the most exciting fuel for a thriller you could imagine.

Black Hawk Down: for trusting the audience with a recognition that war is horrifying, and that Somalis are human beings.

Crazy/Beautiful: for providing Kirsten Dunst with a platform for her considerably subtle acting chops, and giving the great Bruce Davison the meatiest role he had all decade.

Changing Lanes: for being far more intriguing about addiction and racism than its reputation would permit.

Frida: Julie Taymor's first utterly fascinating and visually astonishing film of the decade.

Across the Universe: Taymor's second.

The Hulk: Shot like a real comic book, presenting the struggle to get out from under your parents as the most titanic battle of all; best Nick Nolte rants of the decade.

Crash: It made me think about how we relate to each other; and that anything can happen.  That's what it was trying to do.  I know it's fashionable to denounce this film as if the fact that it feels staged (like a play, or, shall we say, a movie?) makes it the cinematic equivalent of demonic spawn; another way of looking at it would be to say that 'Crash' seems to have been critically mauled simply because it succeeded in what it was trying to do.

De-Lovely: The vastly undervalued Kevin Kline as Cole Porter in a film that comes alive with fantasy: perhaps the best musical of the decade.

Friday Night Lights: An American sports film which isn't afraid to let its subjects lose.

Shall We Dance: The most entertaining Richard Gere/J Lo dance flick you're ever likely to see.

Kingdom of Heaven: A much more thoughtful representation of Christians and Muslims fighting than had ever previously been filmed.

The Lord of the Rings: They're huge, they're brash, they're unsubtle, and Peter Jackson is far too quick to resort to sweeping overhead shots of battlefields and rivers.  But it actually does tell a fun story - with some archetypal meaning - very well; and you can't say fairer than that.

Inside Man: A thoroughly entertaining heist thriller with the best Christopher-Plummer-says-Dear-God scene in cinema history.  And a little bit of post-9/11 Spike Lee politicking too.

The Prestige: It tricked me, and I liked it.

Bobby: Like watching 'Airport' or 'Hotel' as written by Robert Frost with a touch of Naomi Klein.  When you're in the right mood, that's a good thing.

Apocalypto: Like being dragged behind that Raiders truck, Indy-style.  Except it was fun.

The Lost City: Andy Garcia's polemic about Castro's Cuba; politically skewed, but gorgeous to look at, and even moreso, to hear.

Kung Fu Panda: Amazingly enough, you will believe a Panda can fly.

Keeping the Faith: Amazingly enough, you will also believe that a Ben Stiller-Ed Norton/Rabbi-Priest comedy could remind you of Billy Wilder (and I've always liked him ;-))

Films I'm Either Supposed to Like but Don't; or Were Already Bad to Start With

Be Kind Rewind: The most disappointing missed opportunity ratio of trailer-to-actual-film I can think of

Watchmen: Took a brilliant piece of philosophical reflection and turned it into a blood bath that included the burning alive of an African American man by hot frying oil.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: To paraphrase Jett, I get older faster just by thinking about it.

Gladiator: Guys fight several times; there's a tiger; some guys in togas.  It's very loud.

A Beautiful Mind: Shockingly inaccurate film about serious mental health issues.

Religulous: Shockingly disingenuous film about religion.

An American Carol: Shockingly dishonest film about politics. (Great Robert Davi performance, though.)

K-Pax: Shockingly inaccurate film about serious mental health issues (part 2).

Pearl Harbor: The Second World War as fought by robots who didn't know it began before December 1941.

Swordfish: A pro-American terrorist film starring John Travolta and Halle Berry's chest.

Chicago: A film in which no discovery seems apparent: everything's in a plastic mold.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona: A film in which one of the characters is doing graduate studies in 'Chinese' but hasn't learned that there's no such thing.

City of God: A well-edited film that made the horror of childhood violence look like a music video.

Anger Management: Perhaps the reason Jack Nicholson is now apparently semi-retired.

Kill Bill: A hymn of worship to female-aping-male-violence is not pro-women.

The Life of David Gale: A film that portrays anti-capital punishment activists as willing to be executed themselves to prove the point is as nuanced in its view of mental distress as 'A Beautiful Mind'.

Man on Fire: A film that tries to make Denzel Washington look like Jesus just after going on a murderous rampage, and portrays Mexico as hell on earth before printing an apology on the end credits.  Probably the most unpleasant experience I had at the movies in the past ten years.

The Motorcycle Diaries: Like Soderbergh's later (and pretty magnificent in some ways) film, this Che biopic refuses to engage with the dark side of Guevera.  It seems so committed to playing him as an angel that telling the truth (that he killed people; lots of people; and sometimes summarily) eludes it.

V for Vendetta: One of several films that seem to think that a really cool, like, way to make people happy, like, would be to blow everything UP, man, and, like kill everyone who disagrees with us.

The Last King of Scotland: Which purports to offer some psychological insight into human evil, but turns into nothing much more than a well-crafted chase film.

And finally, a film whose awfulness speaks for itself, but whose lived experience is like sitting beside someone who changes the channels every ten seconds while hitting you in the face with a frying pan:

Antichrist, John Cusack, the End of the World and the Re-birth of Art

Over at The Film Talk we've just posted our next podcast episode in which we discuss three films that I think are hugely important - 'Antichrist', 'Gaia', and '2012'.  If you're interested in the end of the world and how to stop it; the politics of nation-building; the difference between provocation and mental illness; and in hearing about a film so good it's close to miraculous, check it out here.

The Insatiable Moon: One of the Best Films of Next Year?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmfHkB-i3fA] I’m going to turn 35 in January, which feels old enough to consider myself a man, inexperienced enough to still feel irresponsible; halfway to still being younger than Warren Beatty, alive enough to reflect on what really matters.  And what really matters?  Friendship.  If, as my amazing friend John O’Donohue often said, our identities are dependent on our memories, and how we interpret them, then who I am is inextricably linked to my memories of things I have done with friends.  Strange to think that I’ve been doing The Film Talk for nearly one tenth of my life.  Of course, if Operation Save The Film Talk is the resounding success we all hope it will be, perhaps it will outlast even me (and hey – if you haven’t signed up to support the show and site yet, please do click the link here and consider us – we have some gorgeous gifts on offer this week).  But for now, one tenth of my life still seems like a lot.

Which – in one of my patented not-all-that-subtle segues – brings me to Mike and Rosemary Riddell, writer & film-maker, former Baptist pastor and current family court judge, wearer of the most amazing hats and stylised gin afficianado (in appropriate does), a man who considers his dog a spiritual director, a woman who combines sass and spirit in measures I had never seen anywhere else before I met her, friends beyond my previous imagining of what friends could be; and people about whom you’ll be hearing a fair amount in the next year, because they are making a film whose script mingles the sensitivity of ‘Paris, Texas‘ with the humour of ‘Whale Rider‘, and hangs on the most unusual narrative hook this side of ‘Cold Souls‘: Arthur, a middle-aged homeless Maori fella with schizophrenia in Ponsonby, near Auckland, and believes that he is called to impregnate an unhappily married woman named Margaret with a view to her giving birth to the second incarnation of Jesus.  Simple enough.  He looks at the moon a lot – he made it, you see.  He thinks about life.  He gives good gifts to broken people.  Meanwhile, a cynical television reporter, doubting preacher, and friendly boarding-house owner dance their own way into a deeper appreciation of meaning.

Rosemary Riddell and Tom Burstyn on set

‘The Insatiable Moon‘ is the second best novel I’ve ever read; the script needs no such qualifier: I’ve been excited about this movie since I read the book 12 years ago.  Which means I’ve known Mike and Rose for over a third of my life.  They’re making the film at the moment, with the mighty actor Rawiri Paratene (Koro the grandfather in ‘Whale Rider’) starring as Arthur, and cinematography by Tom Burstyn, while Rosemary directs and Mike watches his words come alive.  The journey to production has been long and tortuous, with funders in and out, some well-known cast members withdrawing after the budget was cut, and only a few weeks ago a step-back-from-the-brink decision not to cancel the film altogether.

Mike Riddell, Tom Burstyn, Rawiri Paratene on set

Mike’s blogging the production here – there’s a delightful sense of a film being born; entirely appropriate, given the novel’s themes of birth and re-birth.  (You can become a fan on Facebook here too.)  The book’s been out of print for a while, but that will surely correct itself when the film is released.  So I’m sending good wishes from God is Not Elsewhere – we know how hard it is to make a film; we’re always thrilled when people put their heart and souls into cinema; if ‘The Insatiable Moon’ ends up being half the film it could be, the literary invention of Arthur in the mid-1990s will have been a gift to the world.

[The video above was made a couple of years ago to promote the fundraising for the film - but it gives a taste of things to come.]

Violence and Sentimentality in the Movies: Which is More Dangerous?

Richard Brody at The Front Row has this interesting reflection on violence and the movies/media in general:

"There does seem to be a great deal of research on the question of violence and of quantity of viewing; but very little, if any, on the subject of treacle. I do worry about the effect of violent films on children, but I worry just as much about the emotional debility, the sentimentalization of kids who watch only child-friendly works. In general, children watch much too much television and see far too many movies in which everyone smiles too much and talks as if they’re on sugar highs—or, simply, where there isn’t enough ambiguity or mystery. The oversimplification of life into tangy bite-sized morsels is as much of a danger, for individuals and generations, as stoked aggression."

I'm fascinated by the critique of sentimentality - and while some may legitimately suggest that I am guilt of such over-egging the emotional pudding myself, I think it's entirely appropriate.  At the same time, the way we tell stories in which violence plays a significant role requires sustained attention.  My starting point: Is there a qualitative difference between the violence of 'Inglourious Basterds', 'The Dirty Dozen', 'Lethal Weapon', 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Home Alone' and 'Cache'?  Of course there is.  What's the purpose of movie violence?  What are its effects?  Can it be cathartic?  Can it nurture more real-world violence? And I've come to the view that the human race can no longer afford representations of the myth of redemptive violence for entertainment's sake alone.  If you'll join me in the comments section, let's talk about why.

'For the Bible Tells Me So': Belfast on Monday Night

For anyone in Belfast next week:

My friends in Changing Attitude Ireland are hosting a screening and discussion of 'For the Bible Tells Me So', a compelling, informative and moving documentary about the experience of Christian families responding when a family member comes out.  I think this film is important because it does such a good job of showing human faces that otherwise are too often made abstract; and it makes a serious attempt at addressing some of the theological questions that are often ignored in attempts at challenging homophobia.

The showing of this movie in Belfast is organized by Changing Attitude Ireland, on  Mon 16th November at 7.30pm at the Studio Cinema, Donegall St. Visit Changing Attitude Ireland's website for more details.