My Top 25 of the Aughts, #8

Son... Son... Son... here it comes...



Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are often compared to Bresson, but let it not be said that they dwell in his shadow, as they’re currently riding one of the hottest streaks in world cinema. The Son is above all a fascinating character study about a fundamentally decent man who comes face to face with a boy who once did him an unspeakable wrong. There’s quite a bit of plot in The Son, but the Dardennes have the rare gift for making it spring directly from their characters, and with Olivier Gourmet (giving one of the decade’s best performances) in the lead role, they make their greatest film to date.

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #9

I'm just a little person...



Like Waking Life, Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut attempts to navigate the immensity of the human mind. But while Linklater’s film portrays the mind as a playground, in Kaufman’s film it’s a labyrinth. The anti-Synecdoche contingent has painted the film as little more than unpleasant navel-gazing, but I’ve seen few films that have such a profound grasp on the paths we take in life- our bodies break down, things start to repeat themselves, and we gradually cede control of our lives to others, but all the while we strive to make a change in the world. Synecdoche is a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s truly mind-enlarging.

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #10

As we hit the top ten, we come to what is probably the least-seen movie on this list. Incidentally, the blurbs that I'll be using from here on out were originally submitted by me for James Frazier's "You Aught to Know" poll this past spring. Anyway...



One of my greatest cinematic discoveries this past decade was the world of Peter Watkins, and his epic La Commune (Paris, 1871) is one of his finest works. La Commune tells the story of the Paris Commune, who briefly took over Paris before being overthrown by the government. But instead of making a straightforward period piece, Watkins presents the Commune’s story through the lens of two television networks, one presenting the Communards’ point of view, the other voicing that of the establishment. Paradoxically, this dueling-media device gives the story a greater immediacy than a conventional telling ever would, turning a safe history lesson into a rallying cry for dissent and activism in today’s world.

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #11

Kino!



This is one of two short films on this list, by the way. No prize for guessing the one still to come...

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #12

But first, here's a link to my review of The Kids Are All Right.

OK, now mix yourself an Aqua Velva and check it out:



Also, of all the movies on this list, who would have thought that Zodiac would be perhaps the hardest one to find a suitable video for on YouTube?

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #13

If not the absolute greatest movie of the last decade, then probably the most indescribable.



Here in the U.S., the phrase "commercial director" conjures up images of high-gloss hacks like Michael Bay and McG foisting their sell! sell! sell! mindsets on unsuspecting multiplex-goers. But Roy Andersson, acclaimed by Ingmar Bergman as the world's greatest commercial director, parlayed his gift for creating vivid scenes and brilliant vignettes into two great films this past decade, Songs From the Second Floor (above) and its lovely follow up, You the Living.

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #14

Are you watching closely?



To my eyes, Nolan's best to date, with his innate cleverness used in the service of both heady ideas and poignant emotions. As awesome as Memento, Inception and the Batman films are, this is Nolan's keeper.

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #15

Bust a move, Mathieu Amalric!



Okay, so this doesn't really capture the prickly verbosity that's a trademark of Desplechin's work. And the amazing Emmanuelle Devos is nowhere to be found here. But it's certainly less heavy than most of the showstopping bits in Kings and Queen, you must admit.

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #16

How awesome is this movie? Wes Anderson even got a great performance out of Luke Wilson, of all people.

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #17

Haneke has as good a decade as any filmmaker, beginning with this one, his masterpiece to date.



Sort of a shame that he closed the decade with the disappointing White Ribbon, which had all his usual didacticism but few of his usual interesting ideas. All the same, I would rather it have taken the Foreign Film Oscar than The Secret in Their Eyes.

My Top 25 of the Aughts: #18

Shut-shut-shut-shut-shut up and watch!



By the way, this is the other filmmaker I've double-dipped. Which is pretty impressive when you consider that ol' PTA only made two movies in the last decade. The Master is gonna be so awesome...

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #19

Due to explicitness, it was pretty much either this or the credits, and YouTube wouldn't let me embed the credits, so there ya go.

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #20

I can smell you!

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #21

Nine years later...



Note: Linklater's one of two filmmakers I've included twice here. The other'll show up within the next few days.

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #22

Or 10% of the decade's most accomplished shot.



(Sorry, Alfonso Cuaron. Not sorry at all, Juan Jose Campanella.)

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #23

Silencio!



(Sorry for the subs and poor quality, which you'll just have to deal with for some of these. This is an awesome scene that isn't as ubiquitous as some of the other famous ones in the movie, so I figured I'd post it here.)

Also, honestly in retrospect I feel a little bad that I've placed this one so low. Not so much because damn near everyone else is putting it at or near the top of their decade lists, but more because it contains more flat-out awesome scenes than any movie of the past decade. And this one isn't even the best- there's also Club Silencio, the audition, the Castigliane brothers meeting, the Winkies incident, the opening jitterbug, "something bit me BAD!", and even the little phone conversation that immediately precedes and set up this scene. And let's not forget the bedroom scene- "have you ever done this before?" "I... don't know!" But on balance, as awesome as these scenes are, I'm not sure they really build up very well. Of course, that's sort of the nature of the beast, since it's a pilot that Lynch later retrofit into a movie. But consider that none of the scenes I just rattled off without so much as a second thought- oh wait, I forgot "Sixteen Reasons"- come in its final third, and that as much as anything else is my reason why this isn't in the top 5.

My Top 25 of the Aughts, #24

A one and a two...



(English subs available through the CC function, I guess)

My top 25 of the Aughts: The Countdown Begins!

It's either too late or too early for me to make a list of my favorite films of the past decade- too late because it seems like everyone else has done that already, too early because I'm pretty sure I've missed at least one major title that would warrant inclusion here. However, in the interest of posting fresh content here I figured that now was as good a time as any to do this. So for the next few weeks, I'll be posting video of my top 25 films of the 2000s, beginning at the bottom and working up. We'll start off with one we all know by now- the only Best Picture Oscar-winner to make my list. Here goes, friendo:

R.I.P. Victoria

When I brought Muriel home on Halloween 2006, it was because I needed a furry companion in my life. By contrast, I brought Victoria home so that Muriel would have a friend of her own. When I bought Victoria, I imagined that she and Muriel would get along swimmingly, chasing each other playfully around their shared cage and snuggling up next to each other when it time to sleep, which would essentially double the adorability factor of one of nature’s most adorable sights, a sleeping guinea pig. Well, that didn’t happen. From the beginning, the two new “friends” didn’t get along. I couldn’t put them together for more than a minute or so before some kind of dust-up would begin. As it turns out, this was because Victoria had her own friends that she brought with her- including the late Charlotte- to be born a month or so later.

Likewise, it took Victoria longer to get used to living with me. At the pet store, she was a sweetheart, even falling asleep in my hand while I held her. But after I brought her home, she became restless. She would take hours to fall asleep at night, and eventually I had to start putting a towel on top of her cage to help her fall asleep and turn on a fan so her late-night activity wouldn’t keep me awake. Also, there were a few instances when I was holding her that she actually jumped out of my hands and tried to run away. More than once I had to (carefully, of course) move around all my furniture in order to find her.

But eventually, she settled down. Having babies helped, I think. And once she did, I was better able to appreciate Victoria in terms of her own personality rather than as a would-be accessory for Muriel. It’s funny how guinea pigs, which seem to be little more than fur, squeak, and appetite, can fit so much personality into those tiny bodies. While Muriel was bright-eyed and ornery and Charlotte was curious, Victoria was always warm and affectionate. Of the three, Victoria was the one who enjoyed being held the most. Sometimes I would prop her front paws up on my finger and raise up her front end so that I could rub her belly, which was her favorite spot. Other times, I would simply lie her down on my chest and cradle her. Unlike Muriel and Charlotte, she wouldn’t try to jump off or poke her nose about, but simply relax in my hands.

Victoria and Charlotte were an inseparable team until Charlotte passed away earlier this year. But after Charlotte died, I began to notice Victoria open herself up more to the world. While she had previously been skittish around our dogs, she became more comfortable with them. And she even seemed to warm up to Muriel. I even began to notice her chomping on the bars of her cage when she was hungry, just like Muriel does.

Alas, that’s part of the past now, since Victoria passed on over the weekend. I buried her yesterday in our backyard under a tree, right next to her baby. It’s strange to think that a year ago I had three guinea pigs, and now I only have the one, and that one only has one eye. For the time being, I think that rather than buying a new guinea pig to replace the ones I’ve lost, I’ll content myself with Muriel. I have plenty of others to love in my life now, of both the human and furry variety. But as Angela eloquently put it, Victoria and Charlotte were there when I needed them, and for that I’ll always be grateful.

"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."

There’s a certain paradox to the notion of Christopher Nolan making a “dream-film.” Nolan’s work has always been distinguished by a Swiss-watch precision and intricacy, and this springs from his writer’s need to focus on those aspects of the film that are relevant to the story. But dreams, as most anyone can tell you, aren’t so coherent. Often, the content of dreams is born less out of specific situations in one’s life than from deep-seated desires and anxieties which manifest themselves in strange ways. As a result, Nolan’s multi-level dream narrative doesn’t come off as a dive into the unconscious so much as a complex multi-player video game, in which the participants join in with an ostensibly unified purpose but are at the mercy of their own skill sets, personalities, and limitations.

But if Inception isn’t really convincing as an according-to-Hoyle dream film, it thrills on just about every other front.

Click here for the full review.

Also, here's my review of Everyone Else.