A Far Less Knowledgeable 10 Top Films of the Decade

I've made a career out of being a day late and a dollar short, so it should come as no surprise that I finally got around to compiling my favorite ten films of the past decade a week after we entered the 2010s.  As a cautionary note before I begin, I was a kid when the decade started and am just starting to enter full-fledged adulthood now.  As such, what might have been particularly effecting ten years ago would probably strike me in an entirely different manner now.  I've also seen probably one tenth of what Rosemary has seen, so please reference her list if you're looking for something approaching respectability.  Now, in reverse order...

10. 28 Weeks Later (2007), Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
I've got a certain affection for the zombie genre that was detailed way back when I reviewed Zombieland months ago.  This decade revitalized the genre, with the undead morphing from lumbering goofs into Olympic sprinters capable of dismembering a victim in seconds.  In short, zombies were made scary again.  Danny Boyle deserves a modicum of credit for this sea change with his overrated 28 Days Later, but the often overlooked second work of Spanish newcomer Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is the rare example of a sequel that surpasses the original in every filmic sense.   The opening 10 minutes of this film are some of the scariest and most technically brilliant moments put onto the big screen this decade.  The rest of the film doesn't give one too much time to relax and is quite well done.  The firebombing of an infected London in particular puts most Hollywood effects to shame.  It's too bad that Boyle is rumored to be behind the upcoming 28 Months Later, because I'd like to see what Fresnadillo would have done with it.  The young director has only one other film to his name (the flawed but fascinating Intacto), but he's already climbed into my pantheon of must-see directors. 

9. Lord of War (2005), Andrew Niccol
Niccol's film is a most matter of fact look at gunrunning and just how bad Africa has been screwed over in the past two decades.  I love great openings, and the opening scene here following a bullet from production to target from a single vantage point is one of the more innovative ever.  The Constant Gardener touched on similar material and could have had this spot, but Nicolas Cage's utterly believable performance as an arms dealer puts Lord of War over the top.

Nicolas Cage is certainly one of the odder actors going.  On one hand, his understated style has been brilliant here and in films like Adaptation and Face/Off.  Last year, he teamed with Wernor Herzog in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans to deliver a performance on par with Klaus Kinski's best. Conversely, Cage will act in any piece of crap (looking at you Ghost Rider) in order to feed his disgusting need to buy any and all material goods under the sun.  The man owns a British castle, a Caribbean island, and numerous mansions throughout the States.  Keep on buying Mr. Cage, I guarantee it won't make your life feel any more meaningful. 

8. Bamboozled (2000), Spike Lee
Bamboozled has some noticeable flaws, but Lee's story of the rise and fall of a modern day minstrel show sticks with me years after I saw it.  Lee's refusal to pull any punches is commendable, and his critical look at both the black power movement and "Uncle Toms" makes its point about the dangers of selling yourself out and adopting a false persona for money and fame vividly.  Satire is rarely done as well as it is here, and while the issue of race and the media may be uncomfortable it is well worth examining.  Finally, Terence Blanchard's beautiful piano backing provides a fitting mood for the film, and rapper Mos Def steals the show as a dim-witted black power figure.  Look up "Blak iz Back" on youtube to see the film's fictional "Mau Maus" led by Def perform one of the Top Ten hip hop singles of the decade.

7. The Triplets of Belleville (2003), Sylvain Chomet
A.O. Scott describes The Triplets of Belleville far better than I could when he praises the film as "a hallucinatory amalgam of Paris and New York."  This is an animated film, but it's a far cry from the Disney films one sees as a child.  This is animation that Dali and Buñuel would love, a film told entirely in caricature, sound, and music.  There is little dialogue to speak of, but the surreal world created is deeply engrossing.  "Belleville Rende-vous," the film's title song, is a perfect fit for the chaotic world of The Triplets of Belleville.  It's nice to know that an animated film this brilliantly weird can be made.  Rarely have such ugly on-screen representations made for such a beautiful film.

6. The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Joel & Ethan Coen
It's been a good decade for the Coen brothers.  They made four excellent films and won their first Oscar for No Country for Old Men in the 2000s.  What's more, the brothers have enough gravitas to literally attract any actor looking for a "serious" film at this point.  The Man Who Wasn't There is a departure for the Coens, a neo-noir film so true to the film noir of the past that it could easily pass as a mid-1950s release.  The simple story follows the downfall of a normal man, a theme common to the brother's work.  What makes the film so enjoyable, however, are the simple cinematography and attention to detailwhich give The Man Who Wasn't There the look and feel of a film made fifty years in the past. 


5. Shaun of the Dead (2004), Edgar Wright/ Tropic Thunder (2008), Ben Stiller
Intelligent comedies are few and far between in an era in which Will Ferrell reigns supreme.  Comedy works best when it is both absurd, inappropriate, and slightly uncomfortable.  Both Shaun of the Dead and Tropic Thunder are huge successes based on these criteria.  Shaun uses the standard zombie theme to great comedic effect in following the story of loser Brits through the zombie apocalypse.  Slapstick humor is rarely funnier (or gorier) than it is in Shaun of the Dead.  Tropic Thunder uses a more complicated backdrop than Shaun of the Dead, but ends up succeeding all the same.  Ben Stiller for all his terrible films must actually be intelligent because in directing Zoolander and Tropic Thunder he has made the only two decent American comedies in recent memory.  Tropic Thunder  is well worth seeing if only for Robert Downey Jr's performance as a black man.  It should have notified studio heads that utter inanity can make a film hilarious if it is well-written.  Sadly, I think that message probably fell on deaf ears. 


4. Syriana (2005), Stephen Gaghan
Syriana is one of the bevy of films dealing with the Middle East that Hollywood has put out since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  Following the actions of the Central Intelligence Agency, the film follows American maneuvering in the fictional state of Syriana.  While the scenario presented is fictional, the incredible plausibility of the film gives it emotional weight.  Syriana points out that as long as the United States has any standing in the world, we'll use our influence and military might to intervene in other countries.  More often than not, these interventions will have an underlying economic purpose and will not be of any benefit to the country in question.  Syriana is able to examine this tenet of American foreign policy in a crisply shot and fast paced "Hollywood action thriller" sort of way.  That it succeeds both as a film and in making a point makes Syriana well worth viewing. 


3. A Very Long Engagement (2004), Jean-Pierre Jeunet
As far as moving love stories go, you'd be hard pressed to find anything better made in the last decade than A Very Long Engagement.  This story of a girl holding out hope that her fiance has survived World War I is on this list thanks to Audrey Tatou's performance and the incredible cinematography of Bruno Delbonnel.  The overhead shots of battlefields in particular are spectacular. Every person who loves The Notebook should see this and see how moving a film can be when it is this well crafted.


2. Spirited Away (2001), Hayao Miyazaki
Where The Triplets of Belleview made the viewer appreciate the beauty of its hideous caricatures, Spirited Away does the exact opposite with its animation.  Hayao Miyazaki's story of a girl passing into a spirit world is told with some of the most beautiful hand-drawn animation ever created. The whole film is sort of an oblique Alice in Wonderland.  Just as in Lewis Carrol's tale, Spirited Away's world is fascinating, but it also contains a simultaneous dark undercurrent that provides it with infinitely more depth than the standard coming of age story.  Miyazaki's mind has produced some of the most beautiful combinations of image and narrative seen on screen over the course of his career, and Spirited Away is his masterpiece to date. 

1. Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Guillermo del Toro
I'm sure a psychologist could have a field day with the fact that my two favorite movies of the past decade are coming of age stories involving thirteen year old girls (I chalk it up to mere coincidence).  I do have an extensive review of del Toro's work with a particular focus on Pan's Labyrinth and its sister film The Devil's Backbone coming up sometime down the road, so I'll save most of what there is to say here.  Suffice it to say that I readily believe del Toro when he says this film nearly killed him, as I've never run across a work so obviously personal and painstakingly filmed.  There are layers and layers of texture in Pan's Labyrinth, and the interplay between the "fantasy" and "real" worlds is fascinating.  It is not, Rosemary, simply an escapist fairytale.