Top 50 movies, part 3
Behold, part 3.
#20: Pitch Black (2000), starring Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, and Cole Hauser
I'm not completely up on my astronomy, but I'm fairly sure a planet can't orbit three suns at the same time. So Pitch Black isn't entirely without flaw, but the sheer awesome nature of the character of Riddick (prior to becoming a two-dimensional antihero prototype) is enough to blind (ha!) you to niggling details such as those. David Twohy directs on this really dark (ha!) sci-fi action flick, which builds a truly creepy world and inhabits it with some highly damaged characters. It keeps a nice balance between focus on the characters and focus on the situation. The special effects work deserves a mention as well.
Why it's better than #21: Mostly because I enjoy having a lot of interesting characters in my movies. Iron Man was awesome, but it was exclusively the RDJ show.
#19: Batman Begins (2005) starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, and Michael Caine
I was pretty baffled (and excited, I must admit) when I found out that Christopher Nolan was working on a straightforward superhero movie, considering his other projects up to that point. He pulled it off in grandiose style, showing the world that comic book movies didn't necessarily have to insult your intelligence. Some inspired casting and art direction really brought Gotham to life, even for people who didn't care much about superhero flicks. Also, the various scenes with Scarecrow and the fear toxin- magnificent.
Why it's better than #20: More believable, ironically, and I've always been a big fan of Nolan's work, as you'll see later on in the list.
#18: The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003), starring Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, and Ian McKellen
I realize that it's cheating to some extent to have 3 movies take up one spot on my list, but that's how they're meant to be taken- as one epic saga (not that many people would have the sheer intestinal fortitude to watch something for 9 hours). If you're looking for a more ambitious and successful translation of book to film, you can't really do much better than the Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson puts a real polish on Tolkien's (yeah, I'll say it) somewhat disjointed writing style.
Why it's better than #19: Batman Begins didn't have the line "My friends…you bow to no one." I still get a little choked up just thinking about it. *sniff*
#17: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), starring Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer
Comedies tend to be underrepresented in awards shows and in discussions by film critics of most memorable movies for any given time period. (The notable exception being when Little Miss Sunshine got a nomination for Best Picture of its year, despite the fact that it was a pretty rote indie comedy that got included in the nominees over some much better work.) I suppose the idea is that comedies are just transient, insubstantial, or base in some way. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, however, absolutely deserves to be remembered and appreciated for its incredibly sharp writing. It's a very quotable movie, with a lot of wonderful one-liners, and gives Kilmer and Downey a chance to flex their considerable comedic muscles.
Why it's better than #18: It's a much more modern piece, and I've yet to see anyone who didn't like it. Stands out as a great satire of the film noir/spy genre.
#16: Lucky Number Slevin (2006), starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, and Lucy Liu
Yet again, another comedy (well, partly anyway) cracks my top 50. Josh Hartnett is actually a pretty damn good actor in the right kind of roles, and he does a great job playing against legends like Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley in this modern film noir (I realize that's two noir movies in a row, but what can you do?).
Why it's better than #17: I give much credit to any film that has a twist I didn't see coming, and this movie has a good one.
#15: Casino Royale (2006), starring Daniel Craig and Eva Green
I never particularly cared about Bond films prior to seeing this movie. I'd seen a few, but was never impressed. Actually, as I recall, I wasn't interested in seeing this one much either, but my roommate randomly invited me when I had nothing else to do, so I went. I may be remembering that entirely wrong, but regardless, this movie is incredibly fun to watch. Daniel Craig makes the best Bond yet, and I think it's because he's well-written and believable for once. All the other Bond movies portray Bond as a man who survives basically through incredible luck and coincidence, and is somehow never in error- Craig's Bond actually has skill of his own, and makes mistakes.
Why it's better than #16: The amazing Parkour sequence in the beginning. Actually the whole movie is very well shot, switching seamlessly from action to dialogue-driven scenes.
#14: The Wrestler (2008), starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, and Evan Rachel Wood
I watched wrestling all the time when I was a kid - I was a big fan of Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, and Bret "The Hitman" Hart. I found out it was fake fairly early, but that didn't stop it from being appealing. I got older, and eventually (read: about 18 years old) I just found it to be silly, and I stopped being interested. In all that time it never occurred to me that the actors involved were people with their own, normal stories, nor did I ever pause to think about what happens to them after they get too old to do the work and have to retire. Clearly, it occurred to the writer for this, Robert Siegel (whose only other notable work is The Onion Movie, which was terrible on pretty much every level), who wrote an amazing script that seemed to be custom-made for Mickey Rourke. I don't think anyone else could have played Randy the Ram as sincerely as he did. (Ponder on this: according to IMDB, at one point Nicolas Cage was signed on to play his role.) The icing on it all is the directing work of Darren Aronofsky, who's one of the most capable, versatile, and interesting directors working today.
Why it's better than #15: It's an absolutely heartwrenching character study, especially the relationship between Randy and his daughter. (An excellent companion piece to this is Beyond the Mat from a few years back, as they used Jake the Snake's relationship with his daughter as inspiration for this.)
#13: Kill Bill (2003-2004), starring Uma Thurman and David Carradine
Tarantino's homage to Asian martial arts extravaganzas is a powerfully stylistic and nicely plotted revenge flick in its own right. Again, I'm cheating by sticking two movies in one spot, but I'm still hoping it will get released in one volume as The Whole Bloody Affair. Uma Thurman wouldn't have been anyone's pick for an action hero prior to this coming out, but turned out to be quite capable, even going so far as to do many of her own stunts.
Why it's better than #14: Watching it as one piece, it's a great fusion of over-the-top action and quiet, emotional drama- of particular merit is the scene between the Bride and…well, that would be spoilers, I suppose. It's towards the end, you'll know it when you see it.
#12: Sicko (2007), starring Michael Moore
The universal healthcare debate is something I feel very strongly about (I doubt anyone who knows me fairly well is unaware of this). In a lot of ways, it baffles me that there is a debate- it's virtually impossible for me to understand that some people view healthcare as a luxury which should be made available only to those who can afford it. It's a bit like living in a country where the fire department is privatized and for-profit, and every time your house caught on fire you had to stop and think whether you could afford to have somebody come and put it out, or if you were just going to have to use the biggest bowl of water you could find to control it and hope it goes out on its own. (See, here I go again.) Michael Moore puts it much more eloquently and powerfully than I can, and he's definitely capable of reaching a wider audience.
Why it's better than #13: Documentaries tend to stick out like sore thumbs on my list, but I find it hard to deny how personal and meaningful I find them when they speak to subjects I feel very passionately about.
#11: Kairo (2001), starring Haruhiko Kato, Kumiko Aso, and Koyuki
Kiyoshi Kurosawa writes and directs many of his own movies, and I've seen quite a few of them. They're always slow-paced (to put it very, very gently), and usually it doesn't do the film any service for being that way. This one, however, I watched first of all his movies, and I've come to find it an extremely effective technique, since the theme of the movie is the spread of apathy and the separateness from others engendered by technology. It got remade, as most popular J-horror flicks do, into Pulse with Kristen Bell. I would advise staying well clear of that one, but this isn't too hard to find (hell, I saw this on DVD at Wal-Mart a few times). There's some great use of silence to crank up the terror in its few supernatural scenes, and the actors do a wonderful job of portraying a world where everything is slowly going more and more wrong.
Why it's better than #12: Kiyoshi Kurosawa created a masterpiece of subtlety here, something Moore isn't exactly great at. (But they are meant for entirely different audiences, I should note.)
#10: Zodiac (2007), starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Anthony Edwards (and Robert Downey Jr., again)
I had to see this twice before I was convinced it was a good movie. Every time I watch it again, my opinion of it revises slowly upward, but I think this is the highest it may get. If you're the type that finds serial killers even remotely interesting, the Zodiac Killer is about as interesting as it gets, especially considering that his identity remains unconfirmed. I also really like the fact that Fincher uncovered new evidence about the case during the making of this movie.
Why it's better than #11: Being the kind of weird creature I am, I actually see a relationship between these two movies- Kairo is about apathy destroying lives, Zodiac is about obsession destroying lives. Fincher is a much better filmmaker, however, and while Zodiac is slow, it's not punishingly so.
#9: The Fountain (2006), starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz
Yet another Aronofsky film, this one wholly an original creation of Aronofsky's. The Fountain is a cross between a period piece, a scifi story, and a powerful drama, with beautiful special effects (mostly practical) and an incredible score. Jackman does an amazing job in his three roles for the movie, and you can feel a real emotional bond between him and Weisz in their interactions (which is mildly funny, since Weisz is Aronofsky's wife). Aronofsky's work as a director could be described as musical; keeping that metaphor in mind, The Fountain is a somber, majestic orchestral piece.
Why it's better than #10: Jackman's performance is beyond any found in Zodiac; I firmly believe he's one of the most underrated actors of this film era.
#8: Clerks 2 (2006), starring Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, and Rosario Dawson
People generally either love or hate Kevin Smith's work, but it's hard to deny what the man accomplished for less than 30 grand with Clerks. With the sequel, he's managed to tell a story about two friends that's intensely honest in the way it expresses frequently unarticulated feelings about what happens to some friendships when one gets married and one does not, without sacrificing any of the humor he's known for and adding a little flair. Rosario is just too cute for words here, and the weird love quadrangle between her, Dante, Dante's wife, and Randal is entirely plausible.
Why it's better than #9: It keeps the emotion while staying firmly grounded in reality. In particular, note Randal's monologue in the prison cell near the end.
#7: American Psycho (2000), starring Christian Bale and some other people
Based on Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the same name (which is also great, go check it out), American Psycho could have been a very different movie; at one point, according to IMDB, by turns Leonardo DiCaprio was set to star and Oliver Stone set to direct, or Edward Norton to star, or Brad Pitt to star and David Cronenberg to direct. I have to admit I'm curious about what those versions would have looked like, but I'm more than satisfied with the movie we actually got. Christian Bale plays Patrick Bateman, a thick coat of suave, plasticized businessman layered over a wild-eyed killer, to consummate perfection, and Mary Harron, in keeping with the joke, shoots every scene as though it were appearing in a magazine article.
Why it's better than #8: It works on many different levels; it's good as a straightforward horror movie, or as a satire of 80's Wall Street culture, and as an exploration of the loss of identity.
#6: The Ring (2002), starring Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, and David Dorfman
I've been watching horror movies since I was 5 or 6 years old, starting with the Friday the 13th series. Some of my favorite novels are horror novels, and some of my favorite video games are horror-based games. I've been steeping myself in the desire to be scared for years and years, and these days virtually nothing really leaves a lingering impression. Watching pretty much any standard horror movie, I can call nearly all the jump scares, read most of the twists before they happen, and I'm never truly horrified even when I make the effort to prime myself for it. That said, The Ring reigns supreme as the one movie to make me scream aloud in the theater, by hitting me with something totally unexpected and terrifying (you'll likely know what I mean as and when you see it). At the climax I was a wide-eyed wreck of a person, nearly shattering every bone in my (at the time) girlfriend's hand with my death grip. It was the first exposure I'd had to Japanese-style horror, and it was playing by an almost completely different set of rules than virtually any scary thing I'd seen up until that point. Of course, after its success, the American market got flooded with similar-style works, and now I'm jaded again, rolling my eyes every time I see a long haired wet girl in a white dress. But the memory of that first showing lives on, friends.
Why it's better than #7: Like I said- I actually screamed. Hard to beat that.
The final 5 should be up Tuesday sometime- certainly no later than Wednesday night. See you then.
#20: Pitch Black (2000), starring Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, and Cole Hauser
I'm not completely up on my astronomy, but I'm fairly sure a planet can't orbit three suns at the same time. So Pitch Black isn't entirely without flaw, but the sheer awesome nature of the character of Riddick (prior to becoming a two-dimensional antihero prototype) is enough to blind (ha!) you to niggling details such as those. David Twohy directs on this really dark (ha!) sci-fi action flick, which builds a truly creepy world and inhabits it with some highly damaged characters. It keeps a nice balance between focus on the characters and focus on the situation. The special effects work deserves a mention as well.
Why it's better than #21: Mostly because I enjoy having a lot of interesting characters in my movies. Iron Man was awesome, but it was exclusively the RDJ show.
#19: Batman Begins (2005) starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, and Michael Caine
I was pretty baffled (and excited, I must admit) when I found out that Christopher Nolan was working on a straightforward superhero movie, considering his other projects up to that point. He pulled it off in grandiose style, showing the world that comic book movies didn't necessarily have to insult your intelligence. Some inspired casting and art direction really brought Gotham to life, even for people who didn't care much about superhero flicks. Also, the various scenes with Scarecrow and the fear toxin- magnificent.
Why it's better than #20: More believable, ironically, and I've always been a big fan of Nolan's work, as you'll see later on in the list.
#18: The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003), starring Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, and Ian McKellen
I realize that it's cheating to some extent to have 3 movies take up one spot on my list, but that's how they're meant to be taken- as one epic saga (not that many people would have the sheer intestinal fortitude to watch something for 9 hours). If you're looking for a more ambitious and successful translation of book to film, you can't really do much better than the Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson puts a real polish on Tolkien's (yeah, I'll say it) somewhat disjointed writing style.
Why it's better than #19: Batman Begins didn't have the line "My friends…you bow to no one." I still get a little choked up just thinking about it. *sniff*
#17: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), starring Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer
Comedies tend to be underrepresented in awards shows and in discussions by film critics of most memorable movies for any given time period. (The notable exception being when Little Miss Sunshine got a nomination for Best Picture of its year, despite the fact that it was a pretty rote indie comedy that got included in the nominees over some much better work.) I suppose the idea is that comedies are just transient, insubstantial, or base in some way. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, however, absolutely deserves to be remembered and appreciated for its incredibly sharp writing. It's a very quotable movie, with a lot of wonderful one-liners, and gives Kilmer and Downey a chance to flex their considerable comedic muscles.
Why it's better than #18: It's a much more modern piece, and I've yet to see anyone who didn't like it. Stands out as a great satire of the film noir/spy genre.
#16: Lucky Number Slevin (2006), starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, and Lucy Liu
Yet again, another comedy (well, partly anyway) cracks my top 50. Josh Hartnett is actually a pretty damn good actor in the right kind of roles, and he does a great job playing against legends like Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley in this modern film noir (I realize that's two noir movies in a row, but what can you do?).
Why it's better than #17: I give much credit to any film that has a twist I didn't see coming, and this movie has a good one.
#15: Casino Royale (2006), starring Daniel Craig and Eva Green
I never particularly cared about Bond films prior to seeing this movie. I'd seen a few, but was never impressed. Actually, as I recall, I wasn't interested in seeing this one much either, but my roommate randomly invited me when I had nothing else to do, so I went. I may be remembering that entirely wrong, but regardless, this movie is incredibly fun to watch. Daniel Craig makes the best Bond yet, and I think it's because he's well-written and believable for once. All the other Bond movies portray Bond as a man who survives basically through incredible luck and coincidence, and is somehow never in error- Craig's Bond actually has skill of his own, and makes mistakes.
Why it's better than #16: The amazing Parkour sequence in the beginning. Actually the whole movie is very well shot, switching seamlessly from action to dialogue-driven scenes.
#14: The Wrestler (2008), starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, and Evan Rachel Wood
I watched wrestling all the time when I was a kid - I was a big fan of Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, and Bret "The Hitman" Hart. I found out it was fake fairly early, but that didn't stop it from being appealing. I got older, and eventually (read: about 18 years old) I just found it to be silly, and I stopped being interested. In all that time it never occurred to me that the actors involved were people with their own, normal stories, nor did I ever pause to think about what happens to them after they get too old to do the work and have to retire. Clearly, it occurred to the writer for this, Robert Siegel (whose only other notable work is The Onion Movie, which was terrible on pretty much every level), who wrote an amazing script that seemed to be custom-made for Mickey Rourke. I don't think anyone else could have played Randy the Ram as sincerely as he did. (Ponder on this: according to IMDB, at one point Nicolas Cage was signed on to play his role.) The icing on it all is the directing work of Darren Aronofsky, who's one of the most capable, versatile, and interesting directors working today.
Why it's better than #15: It's an absolutely heartwrenching character study, especially the relationship between Randy and his daughter. (An excellent companion piece to this is Beyond the Mat from a few years back, as they used Jake the Snake's relationship with his daughter as inspiration for this.)
#13: Kill Bill (2003-2004), starring Uma Thurman and David Carradine
Tarantino's homage to Asian martial arts extravaganzas is a powerfully stylistic and nicely plotted revenge flick in its own right. Again, I'm cheating by sticking two movies in one spot, but I'm still hoping it will get released in one volume as The Whole Bloody Affair. Uma Thurman wouldn't have been anyone's pick for an action hero prior to this coming out, but turned out to be quite capable, even going so far as to do many of her own stunts.
Why it's better than #14: Watching it as one piece, it's a great fusion of over-the-top action and quiet, emotional drama- of particular merit is the scene between the Bride and…well, that would be spoilers, I suppose. It's towards the end, you'll know it when you see it.
#12: Sicko (2007), starring Michael Moore
The universal healthcare debate is something I feel very strongly about (I doubt anyone who knows me fairly well is unaware of this). In a lot of ways, it baffles me that there is a debate- it's virtually impossible for me to understand that some people view healthcare as a luxury which should be made available only to those who can afford it. It's a bit like living in a country where the fire department is privatized and for-profit, and every time your house caught on fire you had to stop and think whether you could afford to have somebody come and put it out, or if you were just going to have to use the biggest bowl of water you could find to control it and hope it goes out on its own. (See, here I go again.) Michael Moore puts it much more eloquently and powerfully than I can, and he's definitely capable of reaching a wider audience.
Why it's better than #13: Documentaries tend to stick out like sore thumbs on my list, but I find it hard to deny how personal and meaningful I find them when they speak to subjects I feel very passionately about.
#11: Kairo (2001), starring Haruhiko Kato, Kumiko Aso, and Koyuki
Kiyoshi Kurosawa writes and directs many of his own movies, and I've seen quite a few of them. They're always slow-paced (to put it very, very gently), and usually it doesn't do the film any service for being that way. This one, however, I watched first of all his movies, and I've come to find it an extremely effective technique, since the theme of the movie is the spread of apathy and the separateness from others engendered by technology. It got remade, as most popular J-horror flicks do, into Pulse with Kristen Bell. I would advise staying well clear of that one, but this isn't too hard to find (hell, I saw this on DVD at Wal-Mart a few times). There's some great use of silence to crank up the terror in its few supernatural scenes, and the actors do a wonderful job of portraying a world where everything is slowly going more and more wrong.
Why it's better than #12: Kiyoshi Kurosawa created a masterpiece of subtlety here, something Moore isn't exactly great at. (But they are meant for entirely different audiences, I should note.)
#10: Zodiac (2007), starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Anthony Edwards (and Robert Downey Jr., again)
I had to see this twice before I was convinced it was a good movie. Every time I watch it again, my opinion of it revises slowly upward, but I think this is the highest it may get. If you're the type that finds serial killers even remotely interesting, the Zodiac Killer is about as interesting as it gets, especially considering that his identity remains unconfirmed. I also really like the fact that Fincher uncovered new evidence about the case during the making of this movie.
Why it's better than #11: Being the kind of weird creature I am, I actually see a relationship between these two movies- Kairo is about apathy destroying lives, Zodiac is about obsession destroying lives. Fincher is a much better filmmaker, however, and while Zodiac is slow, it's not punishingly so.
#9: The Fountain (2006), starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz
Yet another Aronofsky film, this one wholly an original creation of Aronofsky's. The Fountain is a cross between a period piece, a scifi story, and a powerful drama, with beautiful special effects (mostly practical) and an incredible score. Jackman does an amazing job in his three roles for the movie, and you can feel a real emotional bond between him and Weisz in their interactions (which is mildly funny, since Weisz is Aronofsky's wife). Aronofsky's work as a director could be described as musical; keeping that metaphor in mind, The Fountain is a somber, majestic orchestral piece.
Why it's better than #10: Jackman's performance is beyond any found in Zodiac; I firmly believe he's one of the most underrated actors of this film era.
#8: Clerks 2 (2006), starring Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, and Rosario Dawson
People generally either love or hate Kevin Smith's work, but it's hard to deny what the man accomplished for less than 30 grand with Clerks. With the sequel, he's managed to tell a story about two friends that's intensely honest in the way it expresses frequently unarticulated feelings about what happens to some friendships when one gets married and one does not, without sacrificing any of the humor he's known for and adding a little flair. Rosario is just too cute for words here, and the weird love quadrangle between her, Dante, Dante's wife, and Randal is entirely plausible.
Why it's better than #9: It keeps the emotion while staying firmly grounded in reality. In particular, note Randal's monologue in the prison cell near the end.
#7: American Psycho (2000), starring Christian Bale and some other people
Based on Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the same name (which is also great, go check it out), American Psycho could have been a very different movie; at one point, according to IMDB, by turns Leonardo DiCaprio was set to star and Oliver Stone set to direct, or Edward Norton to star, or Brad Pitt to star and David Cronenberg to direct. I have to admit I'm curious about what those versions would have looked like, but I'm more than satisfied with the movie we actually got. Christian Bale plays Patrick Bateman, a thick coat of suave, plasticized businessman layered over a wild-eyed killer, to consummate perfection, and Mary Harron, in keeping with the joke, shoots every scene as though it were appearing in a magazine article.
Why it's better than #8: It works on many different levels; it's good as a straightforward horror movie, or as a satire of 80's Wall Street culture, and as an exploration of the loss of identity.
#6: The Ring (2002), starring Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, and David Dorfman
I've been watching horror movies since I was 5 or 6 years old, starting with the Friday the 13th series. Some of my favorite novels are horror novels, and some of my favorite video games are horror-based games. I've been steeping myself in the desire to be scared for years and years, and these days virtually nothing really leaves a lingering impression. Watching pretty much any standard horror movie, I can call nearly all the jump scares, read most of the twists before they happen, and I'm never truly horrified even when I make the effort to prime myself for it. That said, The Ring reigns supreme as the one movie to make me scream aloud in the theater, by hitting me with something totally unexpected and terrifying (you'll likely know what I mean as and when you see it). At the climax I was a wide-eyed wreck of a person, nearly shattering every bone in my (at the time) girlfriend's hand with my death grip. It was the first exposure I'd had to Japanese-style horror, and it was playing by an almost completely different set of rules than virtually any scary thing I'd seen up until that point. Of course, after its success, the American market got flooded with similar-style works, and now I'm jaded again, rolling my eyes every time I see a long haired wet girl in a white dress. But the memory of that first showing lives on, friends.
Why it's better than #7: Like I said- I actually screamed. Hard to beat that.
The final 5 should be up Tuesday sometime- certainly no later than Wednesday night. See you then.