MY 10 FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE DECADE!
10. CLOUD ATLAS
This may be where I lose some of you. Goodness knows the Wachowski sisters and Tom Tykwer lost a lot of the audience for their 2012 sci-fi time zooming epic. This might be the most ambitious film of the decade (Linklater's 12 years has nothing on filming Tom Hanks as a Russian gangster, Halle Berry as an old Asian man, and a Jim Broadbent subplot about escaping a nursing home?!) They all tie in to form one of the most bizarre mosaics of cinema ever assembled. I lapped up every second, all 10,320 of them. Perhaps I'm fascinated by the ripple effect of time, how maybe nothing we do is original because we've been humans for so long, but I plan on rewatching Cloud Atlas for the years to come, fruitlessly and lovingly trying to decipher its message.
9. FRUITVALE STATION
We've been blessed by a decade of Michael B. Jordan, and before franchises started deciding to put him in all their properties, he gave us the greatest tragic performance of the 2010's with his Oscar Grant III. Cops killing young black men was the biggest American headline that didn't seem to go away these past ten years, not that it wasn't happening before then. Detroit, a close contender for this very list, captured the horror of police brutality played over an agonizing night in a Michigan hotel. Fruitvale slightly gets the edge for letting us see the entirety of one man, just through New Year's Eve, and how quickly a whole life can be snuffed out in seconds. Ryan Coogler was similarly sucked into franchise world after this movie debuted; I need him to make another picture that leaves me as impacted. I had to go into the Regal bathroom to stop sobbing my eyes out.
8. THE MASTER
One of the greatest actor losses we experienced this decade was the chameleon Philip Seymour Hoffman. Whether it was the dutiful Brendt in Big Lebowski, the despicable Davian in Mission: Impossible III, or, my personal favorite, the narcissistic, explosive Lancaster Dodd in my most cherished P.T. Anderson film, The Master. We can't overlook what has to be Joaquin Phoenix's best mentally unhinged performance (something he's fallen into a niche with with You Were Never Really Here and Joker). Anderson hones in on these two men, one plagued by anger, the other a cult leader who's really the puppet of his wife, the decade's MVP Amy Adams. It feels like a study of two men hopelessly trying to interpret the world, summed up beautifully by Freddie and Lancaster's volcanic jail incarceration, where they turn into children. Anderson's movies always need a second viewing, but I urge a first one if you still haven't submitted to The Master.
7. MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
Casey Affleck's reputation has been rightly soiled by the #MeToo movement, but his performance as shell-of-a-man Lee Chandler still stands as my favorite performance of the 2010's. That it won an Academy Award, an organization that rewards showy, larger-than-life performances, is a testament to Affleck. He depicts hollowness perfectly, always donning the right shade of blue. It's the lynchpin that holds the film's innovative structure and unforced, charming dialogue together. If you ever want to see heartbreak and grief played out in agonizing recreation, look no further than when Lee runs into his ex-wife (the glorious Michelle Williams) with her new son. A tragedy that still brings you a glimmer of hope.
6. THE WITCH
I was fortunate to watch Robert Eggers' debut film on my home computer, in the dark, and with the captions on. Retrospect has me seeing Eggers loves absolute devotion and commitment to his period pieces, and seeing his Lighthouse in theaters where Willem Dafoe speaks like an inebriated pirate makes me wish I'd waited to see it at home. Who knew a film set in 17th century New England would make it this high on the list? A full dive into Crucible-like dread, where young Thomasin (probably future Oscar-winner Anna Taylor-Joy) can't shake her family's insistence that she might be the W-word. Unpretentious despite the commitment to script, and straightforward storytelling let Eggers' unravel the social horrors as well as reveling in the creepy atmosphere. Now where's the Black Phillip spin-off so we can get this cinematic universe started?
5. WHIPLASH
Originally an honorable mention back in 2014, Damien Chazelle's study of the lengths to create a masterpiece in itself created a masterpiece. Hopefully Chazelle was nicer to his actors. It may not have had the colorful punch of La La Land or the epic scale of First Man, but Whiplash resonated with me on a deeply personal level about how deep you can be pushed. I just watched Tony Zierra's documentary about Leon Vitali, Stanley Kubrick's longtime assistant who endured his bullying and incessant demands for decades. There's a man who could endure the sting of someone else's genius; Whiplash is about the man who cannot take it. Though J.K. Simmons got the golden hardware, we can't overlook Miles Teller's belabored Andrew, pushed to the point of exhaustion by his mentor Fletcher. Though one moment took me out so greatly I demoted it to said honorable mention status, on revaluation the questions aroused by Chazelle are too great to ignore. Does true art come at such a great cost? Whatever was put in to Whiplash...it was worth it.
4. THE FAVOURITE
My appreciation for Yorgos Lanthimos' subversive period piece was tripled after seeing Mary Queen of Scots a week or so later. That was a film that, while chronicling intriguing relationships concerning a monarch, colored a little too closely in the lines. The Favourite gleefully scribbles all over the place. You may not have liked it when Baz Luhrmann inserted Jay-Z into the roaring 20's of Great Gatsby, but you probably loved seeing Queen Anne swear and have raucous lesbian sex. Emma Stone gave maybe my favorite female performance of the decade and was robbed at the Academy Awards for her cunning, sexy baroness who we see progress from rags-to-riches. I think even Glenn Close would admit Olivia Colman reigned supreme as Anne, and the trio of strong female performances (can't forget Rachel Weisz too!), an irreverent script, bafflingly beautiful cinematography and Lanthimos' tight direction led to one of the most bizarre and unexpected joys of cinema I've come to encounter.
3. CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
It was an intimate setting: me, my not-quite-girlfriend, and another man and woman sitting a couple aisles in front of us in a tiny Regal theater room in the middle of January. Everything felt quiet and delicate as we're treated to 80's Italy...in fact I believe the only title is "somewhere in Italy." Lackadaisical while maintaining a complete focus on the romance, I think I called Luca Guadagnino's CMBYN the quietest movie I'd ever seen. Everything is so fragile and idyllic, the absolute perfect mood needed when describing the summer of love for an unimpressed teenage boy (an iconic Timothée Chalamet). His gorgeous Italian girlfriend isn't doing it anymore for him...enter handsome Winklevoss twin Oliver (Armie Hammer). Accompanied by the bittersweet melodies of Sufjan Stevens, the indescribable Italian landscapes, moody lighting (see when Oliver leaves and Elio is left to bathe in his longingness), and smooth, easygoing pacing...this film is simply the romance of the decade, including my #1 film, which is also a romance. I've never seen cinema really get what it's like to be in love when you're a teenager correct. This isn't the ABCFamily movie of the week, or Heath Ledger serenading Julia Stiles with the marching band. This is painful. This is staring into a fireplace with the credits rolling over your face agony.
2. THE SOCIAL NETWORK
I always credit Slumdog Millionaire for sparking my love of the Oscars and the movies, but it wasn't until David Fincher's fresh-out-the-headlines "Facebook movie" debuted in theaters that I truly realized how accomplished the medium of cinema could become, how every element could succeed into a breathless two hours. Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor's pervasive atmospheric buzzing, the kind you get when you're scrolling through Facebook for too long, aided many a bus ride to drown out the idiots around me. Aaron Sorkin's Sorkinspeak made you listen to every insult, every machine gun-fire monologue Zuckerberg rat-a-tatted, every data-code-011001 babble elevated by the greatest writer of the 21st century. It gave us the adorable Jesse Eisenberg nebbish dweeb archetype that Eisenberg himself would run into the ground by 2016. It birthed the careers of Andrew Garfield, two-time-lister Armie Hammer and actually showed us Justin Timberlake could act. A Shakespearean display of betrayal set in the digital age. Tom from MySpace could never.
1. MOONLIGHT
No mistake that the top spot should go to La La Land...Barry Jenkins' coming-of-age masterwork is the greatest film released from January 1st, 2010 to December 31st, 2019. I wouldn't have said that coming out of the theater during my Thanksgiving break of my college junior year. I thought it was a well-told, ultimately sweet story but the third act lagged, and maybe Trevante Rhodes wasn't the most equipped to handle the taxing, emotional scenes that occur late in the picture. As the buzz grew louder for Moonlight's Oscar chances, and it was screened at my school for Black History Month, I began looking up videos on it to see if there was something I missed. There was.
It was lost on me that Mahershala Ali's Juan was baptising Little in the now legendary swimming scene. The warmth of it lost on me. The fact that the majority of the film's color pallete is on the latter end of ROY G. BIV, forcing you into this melancholic state reflective of how young Chiron would have grown up in the Floridian projects. How brief Ali and Naomie Harris' performances are yet how largely their shadow looms through all of the Chiron timelines. Clearly I had not been paying full attention, or perhaps this merits exception to Jenkins and Co.'s ability to make you want to revisit this world.
A year and change later on a much smaller screen in this tiny room surrounded by obscure 20th century VHS tapes in my school's library, I finally rewatched Moonlight with a friend who'd never seen it. I'm sure I was annoying commentary; "Look at how beautiful that shot is in the bathroom!" "Look how crazy that camera movement is!" It finally clicked that Moonlight is a perfect movie, at least looking at it through technique. There is not an ounce of fat on its lean 111 minutes; lean at least for a story that covers half a man's life. James Laxton's cinematography is so specific to the moment that it lives in: in the swimming scene it bobs as if we get to witness Chiron's debut into manhood, when bully Terrel asks Kevin to knock out Chiron the camera focuses on him as his background swings, a vulture scouting out its prey. The muted blues, Chiron getting framed by the subway doors as he holds his school books, shrinking into himself. Nicholas Britell's somber keys that underline Little staring into the camera, backlit by the titular moonlight. On second evaluation, that third act doesn't drag an inch. Black's meeting with Paula is one of the most heart-wrenching scenes I've witnessed. His final meeting with Kevin in the diner is awkward and stiff...but the last time he saw him, Kevin punched Chiron in the face after an intimate beach encounter. They drive down Atlantan roads to a chopped-and-screwed version of Jidenna's "Classic Man;" perfect because of its fitting placement on Black's drug dealer persona playlist, and the song being about living up to modern masculine stereotypes. The level of detail knows no bounds.
Anywho, I'm not really telling you why Moonlight is great. I'm telling you my favorite parts. If you still haven't seen it yet, don't watch for the Oscar debacle and compare it to La La Land and wonder which one really deserved the prize. Watch because it is filmmaking perfected, a seminar in audio and visual and script and performance and tragedy and hope and how every life can be affected by another, for better or worse.
This may be where I lose some of you. Goodness knows the Wachowski sisters and Tom Tykwer lost a lot of the audience for their 2012 sci-fi time zooming epic. This might be the most ambitious film of the decade (Linklater's 12 years has nothing on filming Tom Hanks as a Russian gangster, Halle Berry as an old Asian man, and a Jim Broadbent subplot about escaping a nursing home?!) They all tie in to form one of the most bizarre mosaics of cinema ever assembled. I lapped up every second, all 10,320 of them. Perhaps I'm fascinated by the ripple effect of time, how maybe nothing we do is original because we've been humans for so long, but I plan on rewatching Cloud Atlas for the years to come, fruitlessly and lovingly trying to decipher its message.9. FRUITVALE STATION
We've been blessed by a decade of Michael B. Jordan, and before franchises started deciding to put him in all their properties, he gave us the greatest tragic performance of the 2010's with his Oscar Grant III. Cops killing young black men was the biggest American headline that didn't seem to go away these past ten years, not that it wasn't happening before then. Detroit, a close contender for this very list, captured the horror of police brutality played over an agonizing night in a Michigan hotel. Fruitvale slightly gets the edge for letting us see the entirety of one man, just through New Year's Eve, and how quickly a whole life can be snuffed out in seconds. Ryan Coogler was similarly sucked into franchise world after this movie debuted; I need him to make another picture that leaves me as impacted. I had to go into the Regal bathroom to stop sobbing my eyes out.
8. THE MASTER
One of the greatest actor losses we experienced this decade was the chameleon Philip Seymour Hoffman. Whether it was the dutiful Brendt in Big Lebowski, the despicable Davian in Mission: Impossible III, or, my personal favorite, the narcissistic, explosive Lancaster Dodd in my most cherished P.T. Anderson film, The Master. We can't overlook what has to be Joaquin Phoenix's best mentally unhinged performance (something he's fallen into a niche with with You Were Never Really Here and Joker). Anderson hones in on these two men, one plagued by anger, the other a cult leader who's really the puppet of his wife, the decade's MVP Amy Adams. It feels like a study of two men hopelessly trying to interpret the world, summed up beautifully by Freddie and Lancaster's volcanic jail incarceration, where they turn into children. Anderson's movies always need a second viewing, but I urge a first one if you still haven't submitted to The Master.7. MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
Casey Affleck's reputation has been rightly soiled by the #MeToo movement, but his performance as shell-of-a-man Lee Chandler still stands as my favorite performance of the 2010's. That it won an Academy Award, an organization that rewards showy, larger-than-life performances, is a testament to Affleck. He depicts hollowness perfectly, always donning the right shade of blue. It's the lynchpin that holds the film's innovative structure and unforced, charming dialogue together. If you ever want to see heartbreak and grief played out in agonizing recreation, look no further than when Lee runs into his ex-wife (the glorious Michelle Williams) with her new son. A tragedy that still brings you a glimmer of hope.
6. THE WITCH
5. WHIPLASH
Originally an honorable mention back in 2014, Damien Chazelle's study of the lengths to create a masterpiece in itself created a masterpiece. Hopefully Chazelle was nicer to his actors. It may not have had the colorful punch of La La Land or the epic scale of First Man, but Whiplash resonated with me on a deeply personal level about how deep you can be pushed. I just watched Tony Zierra's documentary about Leon Vitali, Stanley Kubrick's longtime assistant who endured his bullying and incessant demands for decades. There's a man who could endure the sting of someone else's genius; Whiplash is about the man who cannot take it. Though J.K. Simmons got the golden hardware, we can't overlook Miles Teller's belabored Andrew, pushed to the point of exhaustion by his mentor Fletcher. Though one moment took me out so greatly I demoted it to said honorable mention status, on revaluation the questions aroused by Chazelle are too great to ignore. Does true art come at such a great cost? Whatever was put in to Whiplash...it was worth it.
4. THE FAVOURITE
My appreciation for Yorgos Lanthimos' subversive period piece was tripled after seeing Mary Queen of Scots a week or so later. That was a film that, while chronicling intriguing relationships concerning a monarch, colored a little too closely in the lines. The Favourite gleefully scribbles all over the place. You may not have liked it when Baz Luhrmann inserted Jay-Z into the roaring 20's of Great Gatsby, but you probably loved seeing Queen Anne swear and have raucous lesbian sex. Emma Stone gave maybe my favorite female performance of the decade and was robbed at the Academy Awards for her cunning, sexy baroness who we see progress from rags-to-riches. I think even Glenn Close would admit Olivia Colman reigned supreme as Anne, and the trio of strong female performances (can't forget Rachel Weisz too!), an irreverent script, bafflingly beautiful cinematography and Lanthimos' tight direction led to one of the most bizarre and unexpected joys of cinema I've come to encounter.3. CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
It was an intimate setting: me, my not-quite-girlfriend, and another man and woman sitting a couple aisles in front of us in a tiny Regal theater room in the middle of January. Everything felt quiet and delicate as we're treated to 80's Italy...in fact I believe the only title is "somewhere in Italy." Lackadaisical while maintaining a complete focus on the romance, I think I called Luca Guadagnino's CMBYN the quietest movie I'd ever seen. Everything is so fragile and idyllic, the absolute perfect mood needed when describing the summer of love for an unimpressed teenage boy (an iconic Timothée Chalamet). His gorgeous Italian girlfriend isn't doing it anymore for him...enter handsome Winklevoss twin Oliver (Armie Hammer). Accompanied by the bittersweet melodies of Sufjan Stevens, the indescribable Italian landscapes, moody lighting (see when Oliver leaves and Elio is left to bathe in his longingness), and smooth, easygoing pacing...this film is simply the romance of the decade, including my #1 film, which is also a romance. I've never seen cinema really get what it's like to be in love when you're a teenager correct. This isn't the ABCFamily movie of the week, or Heath Ledger serenading Julia Stiles with the marching band. This is painful. This is staring into a fireplace with the credits rolling over your face agony.
2. THE SOCIAL NETWORK
I always credit Slumdog Millionaire for sparking my love of the Oscars and the movies, but it wasn't until David Fincher's fresh-out-the-headlines "Facebook movie" debuted in theaters that I truly realized how accomplished the medium of cinema could become, how every element could succeed into a breathless two hours. Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor's pervasive atmospheric buzzing, the kind you get when you're scrolling through Facebook for too long, aided many a bus ride to drown out the idiots around me. Aaron Sorkin's Sorkinspeak made you listen to every insult, every machine gun-fire monologue Zuckerberg rat-a-tatted, every data-code-011001 babble elevated by the greatest writer of the 21st century. It gave us the adorable Jesse Eisenberg nebbish dweeb archetype that Eisenberg himself would run into the ground by 2016. It birthed the careers of Andrew Garfield, two-time-lister Armie Hammer and actually showed us Justin Timberlake could act. A Shakespearean display of betrayal set in the digital age. Tom from MySpace could never.1. MOONLIGHT
No mistake that the top spot should go to La La Land...Barry Jenkins' coming-of-age masterwork is the greatest film released from January 1st, 2010 to December 31st, 2019. I wouldn't have said that coming out of the theater during my Thanksgiving break of my college junior year. I thought it was a well-told, ultimately sweet story but the third act lagged, and maybe Trevante Rhodes wasn't the most equipped to handle the taxing, emotional scenes that occur late in the picture. As the buzz grew louder for Moonlight's Oscar chances, and it was screened at my school for Black History Month, I began looking up videos on it to see if there was something I missed. There was.
It was lost on me that Mahershala Ali's Juan was baptising Little in the now legendary swimming scene. The warmth of it lost on me. The fact that the majority of the film's color pallete is on the latter end of ROY G. BIV, forcing you into this melancholic state reflective of how young Chiron would have grown up in the Floridian projects. How brief Ali and Naomie Harris' performances are yet how largely their shadow looms through all of the Chiron timelines. Clearly I had not been paying full attention, or perhaps this merits exception to Jenkins and Co.'s ability to make you want to revisit this world.
A year and change later on a much smaller screen in this tiny room surrounded by obscure 20th century VHS tapes in my school's library, I finally rewatched Moonlight with a friend who'd never seen it. I'm sure I was annoying commentary; "Look at how beautiful that shot is in the bathroom!" "Look how crazy that camera movement is!" It finally clicked that Moonlight is a perfect movie, at least looking at it through technique. There is not an ounce of fat on its lean 111 minutes; lean at least for a story that covers half a man's life. James Laxton's cinematography is so specific to the moment that it lives in: in the swimming scene it bobs as if we get to witness Chiron's debut into manhood, when bully Terrel asks Kevin to knock out Chiron the camera focuses on him as his background swings, a vulture scouting out its prey. The muted blues, Chiron getting framed by the subway doors as he holds his school books, shrinking into himself. Nicholas Britell's somber keys that underline Little staring into the camera, backlit by the titular moonlight. On second evaluation, that third act doesn't drag an inch. Black's meeting with Paula is one of the most heart-wrenching scenes I've witnessed. His final meeting with Kevin in the diner is awkward and stiff...but the last time he saw him, Kevin punched Chiron in the face after an intimate beach encounter. They drive down Atlantan roads to a chopped-and-screwed version of Jidenna's "Classic Man;" perfect because of its fitting placement on Black's drug dealer persona playlist, and the song being about living up to modern masculine stereotypes. The level of detail knows no bounds.Anywho, I'm not really telling you why Moonlight is great. I'm telling you my favorite parts. If you still haven't seen it yet, don't watch for the Oscar debacle and compare it to La La Land and wonder which one really deserved the prize. Watch because it is filmmaking perfected, a seminar in audio and visual and script and performance and tragedy and hope and how every life can be affected by another, for better or worse.
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