The Village Idiots

I didn’t see very many movies at all in the second half of the decade because I was working on my M.Ed. Still, I saw enough to compile a respectable list, though I suppose others would disagree. I suppose, too, that as I see more films this list will need to be revisited and revised, but if I delayed making the list until I felt I’d seen the decade’s every notable film, this list would never get made. So with that caution, I present my Twenty Best Films of the Decade, starting with the best of the best and working down to number twenty.

Taken as a whole, the Lord of the Rings trilogy is everything I love about the movies, minus romantic love. It’s got unique, memorable characters. It’s got themes of alienation, of sacrifice, of a higher purpose. It’s got spirituality. It’s got beautiful women. It’s got politics. It’s got the reluctant hero. It’s visually beautiful. It’s got tiny moments of great profundity. And when it’s all over, it leaves you with a feeling that this ending is the only possible ending. In so many ways, it reminds me of Casablanca, the greatest movie of all time, and yet it’s nothing at all like Casablanca. I can’t think of anything I enjoyed more in movie theaters these past ten years. Someday, I will tell you (in person) the Moaning Gandalf story, a weird memory I have of the time Tony and I saw all three films in one day at the Ward Theaters on the day the final film premiered.

Speaking of higher purposes, is love the highest purpose of all? Perhaps not according to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, another visually stunning masterpiece that I think of quite often. Asked to recount the story or memorable details, I would have a difficult time. Yet in a culture that seems to celebrate trying your best so that things work out in your favor, I often think themes such as those presented in this film get overlooked: if everything’s supposed to work out for the best, why are so many people so screwed up and miserable? If our own happiness matters most, at whose expense should it come? And in a world where people describe themselves every day as “meant to be together,” and “soulmate,” how is it possible that too many people who should be together are not in fact together?

Though the Harry Potter series, which I lump together at number 3, has been uneven from film to film, one is encouraged by the beauty and storytelling in the most recent installment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It will be a sad day in my life when the final two films have been screened and the credits roll up for the last time; not only do I feel a deep attachment to Hogwarts and its most famous students as they exist in the world of J.K. Rowling’s novels, but I’ve developed a nearly equal fondness for the characters as they appear in the movies, something not easily said about filmed versions of other cherished works. I might even cry when this is all over. I will not, however, moan passionately throughout the final movie’s showing.

“Shakespearean” was the word I kept hearing when critics talked about Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, one of those movies that reminds me of what I love about the movies. With excellent acting in every nook and cranny, the tragic downward spiral of a plot is still strangely uplifting in the way the truth can be, once it is allowed to be set free. The fact that there is injustice even in bringing forth justice sounds like a cynical thing, but isn’t that the theme even of the Greatest Story Ever Told? While I won’t go so far as to call any figure in Mystic River a Christ figure, it is that kind of redemption I am talking about when I call it uplifting. In a film so full of wonderful performances, it is tough to pick a favorite, but I think Tim Robbins and Marcia Gay Harden are just too good in this beautiful, beautiful picture.

I’m sort of famous among my friends for appreciating good dialogue above just about everything else in a film, yet here is a movie with almost no dialogue at all. Cast Away is everything the film’s hype promised: a fairly unique movie-going experience, terrific acting, and a deep sense of loneliness and longing. Who else could have played this role? I have tried to think of someone but it’s impossible to imagine anyone communicating the kind of joy and heartbreak, almost from one minute to the next, that Tom Hanks shows here. I love, too, the way the Hanks character is just screwed by life, by events he is completely not at fault for. Sometimes life just screws us. What do we do? Just keep breathing. On a more personal note, I was so inspired by this film that I grew a ridiculous beard for a time, as a reminder just to keep breathing. It was long and it was ugly. I also picked up a used FedEx jacket at a thrift store. You should see all the zippers and stuff this thing has. You could wrap yourself up in it and a firehose could spray you and your clothes underneath wouldn’t feel a drop.

It’s the Sam Mendes and Conrad L. Hall team with Tom Hanks and Stanley Tucci and Paul Newman. Geez. You don’t even have to see Road to Perdition to know it’s killer. But I did see it. Twice in theaters on consecutive days. There are so many things about this movie to love, the performances certainly not the least of them, but what does it for me are the colors. This was Hall’s last movie before he died, and he fills the canvas with blues and greys and sudden, surprising moments of white. It is visually one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

If you missed In the Bedroom, it is one of two pictures on this list (the other being Mystic River) that I hold up as examples of what I love in a movie. It is a quiet film that takes its time; it doesn’t answer every question it suggests, and it allows its characters to occupy the moments they need in order to think and communicate. Some of its best moments are silent pauses, and I’m not a very patient movie-viewer, so that might tell you something about how well done this film is. It is one of the few films Reid and I have agreed so whole-heartedly on, and I discovered recently that one of the things he loves is a rather complex interpretation that never even occurred to me. Does it say something good or bad that even without the bigger meaning, the larger purpose of the film, I still loved it more than anything else I saw that year?

Holy cow, what a flick. Stylized as heck, with crazy camera turns and unexpected jump-cuts, Traffic is the ensemble picture that best makes the case for an ensemble Academy Award. Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Catherine Zeta Jones, Benicio Del Toro, and Erika Christensen are just a terrific, well-orchestrated cast (Del Toro won the Oscar for best supporting actor, ‘though it is Cheadle who makes the film for me, and the actors all do great work). A drug movie that takes a look at the issue from a governmental point of view, a law-enforcement point-of-view, and a users-in-the-streets point of view. All together, it is a beautiful piece of film and Steven Soderbergh’s Best Director Oscar is well-deserved.

I guess it’s clear that I have a fondness for movies that take their time and give their characters interesting conversations that don’t necessarily advance plot but instead develop character. Lost in Translation presents a main character (played by Scarlett Johansson in a fall-in-love performance) who is lonely, aimless, kind of hopeful, and confused about being married. She has probably married too soon, a situation that makes her feel as out of place as being in Japan, stuck in a hotel while her young husband runs around and shoots photos. She develops a quick, platonic friendship with Bill Murray, also in Japan against his better wishes. They are two aimless people helping each other through a few rough days. Are they better off when they part ways, or are they exactly where they were? It is a question that adds to the richness of the film.

My fondness for Sideways is well-documented. I could list a hundred things about it that are exactly as they should be, but the one I wish people would pay attention to is the scene where Miles, having stupidly broken the mood with Maya on the porch (he wusses out and steers the conversation in a safe direction just as it’s getting kind of hot and heavy), flees to the restroom where he looks at himself in the mirror and calls himself a bunch of unforgiving names. When he psyches himself back up and returns to Maya, it is of course too late. It is a scene of heartbreaking realism (a scene that strikes very, very close to home for me, because I do that mirror-talking thing all the time) and spot-on acting. How the Academy could live with itself after not nominating Paul Giamatti for best actor is a mystery to me. A wonderful, wonderful movie.

The less you know about this amazing movie before you see it, the better, ‘though it is a testament to how well it is made that someone spoiled a HUGE part of it for me while I was in line at the concession (you’d think that of all people, patrons at the Varsity would know better) and it still blew my mind. It is a tricky, tricky thing that the film-makers do here, yet they do it in a way that doesn’t strain your brain. Rather than try and keep up with what’s going on, you instead enjoy the ride. This is not to say it’s not a challenging film; it is, and your brain will enjoy its many origami-like folds, but the folds are not hard to stick with. I love what Richard Roeper says about Memento: The only thing better than seeing it the first time is seeing it the second time.

When there’s a really, really bad situation and the person who is sort of the cause of it is completely not at fault, what is supposed to happen? An injustice is either going to continue or a different injustice is going to be done; one party is going to continue hurting or the other party will be newly hurt. House of Sand and Fog gives us opposing characters, all of whom we like and sympathize with, but no safe way out for any of them. This is quite nearly a flawless movie. People always talk about Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly, who are both fantastic; however, it is only because people don’t know who Shohreh Aghdashloo is that they don’t mention her in the same breath. She was (rightfully) nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, losing to Renee Zellweger. When people ask me for a film recommendation, this is one of the first ones I think of because I think it escaped so many people’s notice.

The Station Agent is probably a movie that everyone who knows me read the synopsis for and thought I should go see. That’s pretty much how I came to see it: Reid read me the synopsis and I said, “I have to go see that movie.” So we saw it and I hate to repeat myself, but it is a gentle, quiet, pretty picture that takes its time, that lets its characters breathe and get to know each other. I’m going to quote part of Wikipedia’s synopsis because I think it does such a good job: Finbar McBride, a quiet, withdrawn, unmarried man with achondroplasic dwarfism, has a deep love of everything related to railroads. He works in a Hoboken model train hobby shop owned by his elderly and similarly silent (not to mention only) friend Henry Styles. Because he feels ostracized by a public that tends to make fun of his size, Fin keeps to himself. When Henry dies unexpectedly, Fin is told that the hobby shop is to be closed forever. However, he also learns that in Henry’s will he had left him a piece of rural property with an abandoned train depot on it. He moves into the old building hoping for a life of solitude, but he quickly finds himself reluctantly becoming enmeshed in the lives of his neighbors. Come on, now. Does that not, all by itself, make it one of the most interesting sounding films of the decade? It is ultimately not as satisfying as I think it could be, but because I love the characters so much, I’m okay with looking past that. Put it in your queue!

Would you get rid of your unpleasant memories if part of the cost was the loss of your good memories too? If that were all there was to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it would be okay but not great. How the main character (played terrifically by Jim Carrey) tries to save those good memories even while laser-wielding apprentice scientists are trying to zap those memories from the brain in his sleeping body is what turns it into a carnival ride. Lest you think Carrey gets props just because it’s not a mugfest and he plays it (mostly) straight, check him out in that scene where he realizes he doesn’t want to lose every memory of his ex-girlfriend. Great acting in a great scene, and this is Charlie Kaufmann’s only script that leaves the viewer satisfied. And don’t forget Kate Winslet, an actress whose work in my lifetime is celebrated more than anyone else, save Meryl Streep.

Spiral, spiral, spiral, spiral. I have a feeling I’d love Million Dollar Baby a lot more than I do if it hadn’t been preceded the year before by Mystic River, a film I consider a masterpiece. This might be any other director’s masterpiece, but it doesn’t compare favorably to Mystic River and is not quite as rich and layered, ‘though I’m sure some would disagree. Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and (especially) Hillary Swank are just about perfect in a film that seems at first to be about boxing but really has very little to do with boxing.

Spellbound is not just a documentary about the National Spelling Bee. It is a documentary about education in America and about how different people see their piece of the American Dream. The film-makers follow eight kids from their regional bees through the national finals, and we see an interesting cross-section of American families. There are two interviews that stand out for me. The first is with the father of the Indian-American boy, the one who has private tutors in German, French, and Spanish, whose older sister was a finalist a few years earlier. This father, who seems to be pushing his son a bit too hard in this bee thing, says, “I want my children to understand that in this country, you can achieve anything you want if you work hard. This is not true in every country.” The other resonant interview is with the pronouncer, the guy at the bee who reads the words. Asked what the bee is really about, he says, “It hearkens back to a time when we thought spelling well meant good learning, which of course is not true. But it is tribute to the way a nation values and celebrates education.” One could shoot all kinds of holes in either of these statements, but the point is that however flawed we are, we still believe in (a) the Protestant work ethic and (b) the importance of education. I dragged most of my teacher friends to the theater to see this and they all loved it.

Oh, it is so easy to forget how good Minority Report was. First, it was a science-fiction thriller. Second, it starred Tom Cruise, who had the kind of second-half of the decade that made it easy to forget anything good he’d ever done. Cruise’s personal life aside, he made some horrendous choices these past ten years, but here is one choice that really shone. A fast-paced moral dilemma kind of a film with the kind of frenetic actor who could keep up, it is a much better film than you probably remember. I am not much for thrillers; however, I was thoroughly engaged by this excellent picture.

I have an unabashed weakness for literary mysteries, so my fondness for the genre might lead one to think that it’s purely bias that includes Possession on this list. Although it has little in common with another favorite of mine, The Remains of the Day, it reminds me of it. Perhaps there is something mannered about the way Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart work together on the mystery that reminds me of Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins; whatever it is, I think the principal actors here glow quietly in a very nice, romantic film.

This screened at the Hawaii International Film Festival a few years ago; I think it was at Roger Ebert’s recommendation. In any case, he did introduce Nowhere in Africa just before it played, and I think he later named it as his most overlooked film of the year. A quietly tense movie about Germans living in exile in Africa, it focuses on small relationships set against the big landscape of Africa. The characters are lovable, as are the actors who play them. This is another film I often recommend when people ask me. I don’t know if any of them have ever actually gone and watched it following my recommendation, but I persist.

I don’t remember very many specific things about Gosford Park, the best of the few Robert Altman films I’ve seen, but I remember big generalities with much fondness. It is like a huge, elaborate game of Clue, complete with secret passages, with an enormous cast of excellent actors. Some of the characters are the wealthy front-of-house people, while others are the working-class back-of-house people, and they inhabit the world of this film in separate halves. The way the dialogue and action move from one realm to the other is a thing of beauty, reminding me of an elaborate basketball play. The language is sharp and clever, almost a thing of beauty itself. I need to see this picture again.

Honorable mentions go to Bowling for Columbine, Wordplay, Finding Nemo, Up, The Hours, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Hotel Rwanda, Almost Famous, and American Splendor.

Overrated and not even close to making my list: Slumdog Millionaire, Pan’s Labyrinth, Collateral, Erin Brockovich, Training Day, Y tu Mama Tambien.