30. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, 2016)
It’s
not an easy feat to make a three-hour comedy that keeps the comic momentum for
the entire runtime, but Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann manages to pull off that
trick. One of the reasons why it works is because the film is so layered, and
takes on so many different topics, and there is a thread of melancholy
throughout. I’ve heard the film described the film as Homer
Simpson visiting a grown up Lisa – and that’s a great description of the film.
In one of the great performances of the decade, Sandra Huller stars as a
successful German businesswoman, on a trip to Bucharest – when her strange
father Peter Simonischek shows up, posing as a businessman, to try and get
close to his daughter. The film crams so much into its run time – misogyny,
feminism, globalization and depression among many other things. And yet,
miraculously, the film never feels overstuffed – never feels like it’s biting
off more than it can chew. The film is great throughout – but truly becomes a
masterwork in the last hour, with one standout sequence after another (the karaoke
is probably the best – but who can choose). One of the truly great comedies of
the decade – please Hollywood, don’t mess this one up.
29. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
There
was no better pure action film this decade than George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury
Road – hell, you can argue that as far as straight ahead action movies, almost
nothing in cinema history can match this film. It is basically one huge action
sequence from beginning to end – featuring Mad Max (Tom Hardy) fighting on the
side of right once again – but giving even more weight to the female characters
– particularly Charlize Theron’s Furiousa – an action heroine with no equal. The
film is one mind boggling action sequence after another – full of stunts and
action choreography that is unequaled in modern cinema. The film is a technical
achievement on a level that even other master filmmakers have no idea how
Miller pulled it off (listen to Steven Soderbergh talk about this film to see
just what the difficulty level of this film was). And yet, it’s more than that
– it is a feminist action masterpiece – and not matter how I describe it, I
cannot do it justice. Just watch it – and then watch again and again.
28. Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson,
2015)
One of
my top wishes of modern American movies is that Charlie Kaufman would make more
films. He seemed to on a role as a writer in the early 2000s – from Being John
Malkovich to Adaptation to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (among others)
before making his directorial debut – Synecdoche, New York (2008) – which was
better than all of them. And yet, since then, all we’ve gotten in Anomalisa –
this bizarre, brilliant stop motion animated film about a lonely man
(brilliantly voiced by David Thewlis) who is sleepwalking through life while on
a business trip to Cincinnati. Everyone looks and sounds the same (the great
Tom Noonan does the voice of everyone else in the cast) – with the exception of
Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh). For a brief, shining moment Lisa brings joy to his
life – the two connect, talk, flirt – and yes, have sex. But lasts only such a
short period of time, before it’s all back to grey. Kaufman teamed up with Duke
Johnson to better find the brilliant animated style of this film – basically,
its puppets again. This is slow, sad nightmare of a film. Yes, you can question
the gender politics of the film – but are those the films, or the lead
characters, a sad, lonely pathetic little man who will never find joy. This is
certainly the most original animated feature of the decade.
27. Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
We
need David Fincher to make more movies – he is taking too long between his
projects, and that is really a horrible thing. His most recent film is Gone
Girl – which was misunderstood by too many people, who saw the film – like they
(mistakenly) thought the bestselling book – as high end trash. It is actually a
pitch black comedy and satire, posing as a thriller – and features the best
performance ever by Ben Affleck as a dolt, and an even better one by Rosamund
Pike as his wife who becomes a dark feminist anti-hero. This film may have been
a little too early – imagine this film coming out in the #MeToo era, and the
response would have been deafening. Still, this film works as a pitch black
comedy, a moody thriller, and a brilliantly directed, written and acted film
that gets to the heart of the difference between men and in women, in one
brilliant, stylistic package.
26. Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
You
have to admire Richard Linklater, who spent 12 years making Boyhood – filming a
few scenes every year with the same cast and crew, to come up with a wonderful,
intimate portrait of growing up. There has never quite been anything like this
in film history - - films like Francois
Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel’s series, or the Michael Apted Up series, which also
followed the same people over the course of years – but they did that in a
series, not in one package. What’s even better about this film is that
Linklater mainly focuses on the smaller moments in their lives – not the big,
dramatic moments, but those quiet ones that we remember for reasons we cannot
always explain. He perfectly cast Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as the
parents, who go through their own development over time – he from an
irresponsible mess, into a real family man, her picking up the pieces of her
life, but wondering where it’s all gone. Young Ellar Coltrane is great
throughout – he hasn’t done as much since, but he is terrific here, and perfect
as kind of the quiet presence at its core. This is the type of film that will be
remembered, and studied, forever.
25. Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)
Carol
is one of the great cinematic love stories of all time – a beautiful film set
in 1950s New York when a young artist working in a department store (Rooney
Mara) locks eyes with a rich, beautiful, bored housewife (Cate Blanchett)
across the store, and nothing is the same for them ever again. Haynes has
always been an expert stylist – bringing the style of the past to the present,
and this may be his best example of that yet. Blanchett is brilliant here – it
is a bold performance, one that deliberately calls back to a style of acting
that has fallen out of favor in the decades since the 1950s, but is perfect for
this film. Mara is even better – it is a quieter, more sensitive and realist
performance. The screenplay is by Phyllis Nagy – the first not written by
Haynes himself in a film he directed (although the film seems custom made for
Haynes) – based on a great Patricia Highsmith story – a rarity of lesbian
literature, is it doesn’t all end in tragedy. The film is one of the most
erotic I have ever seen – with lust running through every scene, every glance.
As with all of Haynes films, the film looks beautiful – the costume design and
production design are excellent, Edward Lachman’s cinematography is perhaps the
best of his long career, and the great Carter Burwell score adds immeasurably
to this film. And then it all ends with the perfect final shot. A true
masterpiece – perhaps Haynes’ best films, but it says something that there are
probably three other films in the running for that title.
24. Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015)
One
could argue that one of the reasons why I love Inside Out as much as I do –
that I named it the best film of 2015, and it ranks second (behind Wall-E) as
my favorite Pixar film of all time is because I am the father of two daughters,
who at the time were 5 and 2, and watching the film with them next to me made
me think of them growing older – and how everything we’ve done up to that point
in their lives is destined for the dustbin of their memories. Which is why the
film moved me so much – which is why Bing Bong’s final moments had me weeping
like no other film I can think of. But I also think that Inside Out is a unique
film – a bold film – that centers on the emotions of a pre-teen girl, when
everything feels like life and death, and how all we (as parents, or her
emotions) wants to do is hold onto the happiness. But happiness and sadness are
both needed to lead a full life – and that’s something this film knows all too
well. It is also deliriously entertaining and visually stunning from beginning
to end. So yes, I cannot divorce my feelings for this film from my feelings for
my daughters – but I don’t have to (or want to) to know this film is a
masterpiece.
23. World of Tomorrow (Don Hertzfeldt, 2015)
The
only short film on this list – Don Herztfeldt’s wonderful 17-minute animated
film is as densely packed as any feature film, and has more to say than almost
all of them. Visually, it’s a strange mixture of simple stick figure a child
could draw – a staple in Hertzfeldt’s films – and a mesmerizing computer
animated background. The story is about a clone coming back from the future to
talk to Emily Prime about the hellscape they currently live in – the problem
being that Emily Prime is a toddler, and has no idea what the hell is going on.
As she innocently plays, the dystopia is described to us. The film is
hilarious, but it’s also a brainy sci-fi film. It’s an unbearably sad film – or
would be if it weren’t so funny. Hertzfeldt made a follow-up a few years later
– and its great as well – but not up to the level of this film, which really is
one of the greatest short films of all time, and certainly the best of the
decade.
22. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015)
Was
there a stranger film this decade that Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster – a
dystopian satire about a future in which every person is required to partner up
– you can be gay or straight, but you cannot be alone. If you reach a certain
point and have yet to find a partner, then you are turned into an animal, and
set free in the wild – but hey, you get to pick whatever animal you want. The
film stars Colin Farrell, who is going to a hotel for a month for his last
chance to find a partner – it’s a hotel that is designed to help you find just
that. And if he cannot find love, then he has chosen to become a lobster. The
film is a wicked and dark satire – the first half takes dead aim at society’s
obsession with love and marriage, forcing those partner up. The second half –
outside the hotel, mainly in the forest, takes aim at the exact opposite, as
the rebels are just as dogmatic in their extremism as society at large. Farrell
has never been better than he is here – it is a masterclass of deadpan
hilarity. It also has one of the best final shots of the decade – one that
answers everything, and nothing at the same time. Lanthimos has become one of
the best directors in the world – and so far, The Lobster is his masterpiece.
21. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)
For
me, Paterson was the perfect film at the perfect time – and I cannot separate
it from the first time I saw it. My wife and I were in New York – we got
tickets to Hamilton, and planned a weekend around it – and while she wanted to
do some shopping, I wanted to see Paterson – which hadn’t opened in Canada yet.
The weekend we happened to be in New York was on the same weekend Trump was
being inaugurated – and I happened to watch Paterson at the exact same time
Trump was giving his speech. So while the world listened to Trump talk about
American Carnage, I was watching this incredibly quiet, gentle film about a bus
driver named Paterson in Paterson New Jersey, and his love of poetry – both the
stuff he writes himself, for himself, and the work of others. Adam Driver
delivers his best performance – one of the very best performances of the
decade. He plays Paterson as a man of routine – he likes his routine – but this
isn’t a film about a man in a rut – it’s about a man who is truly content in
his modest life. The pictures of him as a Marine give you some sense as to why
he may like a quieter life – but the film never expresses that literally. This
is a quietly profound film – one that I loved, but underrated at the time (I
published my top 10 list for the year right after coming home from New York,
and had Paterson at # 8). It is the best film Jim Jarmusch has ever made – and
like all of his best films, it needed to time to percolate for its true
specialness to come through.
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