30. Zodiac
Master filmmaker David Fincher’s Zodiac is a film about obsession. It is the cinematic equivalent to a sore on the roof of your mouth, than you can not stop tonguing. Eventually the sore gets bigger and begins to bleed- yet you keep licking it anyway. This is what political cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gylenhaal) does over the course of the film.
The movie features many grisly murders, but more than anything it is a simple detective story. The cops are hunting a serial killer that is taunting them with ciphers, encrypted messages using symbols. From the moment Graysmith cracks one of the Zodiac killer’s ciphers he is obsessed. We follow him through the film, see him lose his job and family, and confront the killer- who may not be the killer after all.
The real life Zodiac murders remain to this day unsolved. Zodiac infers and suggests that it may have the answer, but in the end it has almost as much as Graysmith. While viewing the picture we understand that the story is real, and we join in on Graysmith’s obsession.
29. Requiem for a Dream
This is what pain looks like. The destructive nature of drug addiction has never been explored more deeply than in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream. The film follows the lives of a boy, his best friend, girlfriend and mother as they all destroy their lives for their drugs. Screw D.A.R.E, McGruff the Crime Dog, or commercials involving fried eggs- this is the motion picture that every student in junior high should see.
This is not a film about the dangers of pot, but the consequences of hardcore cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine consumption. What starts as a relatively happy unit ends with death, complete sexual humiliation, amputation, lies, deceit and despair. This is not a movie that you really need to see more than once. Aronofsky never falters in his skill as director, constantly putting the camera where the addiction is. The jump cuts, quick edits, and sounds all represent the spiraling, circular behavior of addiction. This is one of the scariest films ever made.
28. Y Tu Mama Tambien
One of the greatest things about this decade has been the emergence of the new Mexican Cinema, helmed by filmmakers Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo Del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. These three filmmakers above any others are showcasing Mexico as the home of some of the best filmmakers the world has to offer. Cuaron’s Y Tu Mama Tambien marked the beginning of this new Mexican cinema, and it is one of its best examples.
Told in the formula of a traditional road trip picture, Y Tu Mama Tambien is about 2 boys, a girl, friendship, and sexual awakening. There are moments are joyful as scenes from a John Hughes movie mixed with passages of sadness and profound understanding. As we travel with Julio (Gale Garcia Bernal) Tenoch (Diego luna) and Luisa (Maribel Verdu) towards the beach, we get the sense that this is a picture about realism. The boys are angry, confused, and constantly horny; the woman their lover, friend and mother. The film is renowned for its honest and realistic depiction of sex. The sex is not glamorized or exaggerated for the sakes of sensationalism on the screen- it is just there because in reality, teenagers have sex. This film is less interested with that truth than with the emotional implications of the characters actions. This is a movie about the feelings of adolesence, and could be perhaps the most honest depiction ever created about what it is like to be a teenager.
This is a movie that is hard to classify- a true experience.
27. King Kong
What a spectacle this is! King Kong is certainly one of the great entertainments of the decade. This remake surpasses even the original in terms of adventure and energy. The special effects are among the best ever done, and more importantly, they are all in the interest of the story. The performance by Naomi Watts is kind of brilliant, and I am still surprised that every time I watch this flick I relate to Kong. More than anything, I love how the film builds for the first hour and takes its time with the character development, only to have the final 2 hours filled with non-stop action. Sure the movie is long, but I am not one to complain about too much of a good thing.
The energy of the film is astounding. Jackson directs each scene effortlessly as we experience everything from a domino effect of Brontosauruses to large, maggot like creatures that eat human beings alive. And then there is Kong himself, expertly played using motion-capture technology by Andy Serkis. When Kong is on screen he is not just there, like in the previous Kong films. He is a character in his own right, with body language, facial expressions, and even deep looks in the eye. Kong is nothing short of a technical triumph.
What makes Jackson’s King Kong a great film is not just the spectacle, but the heart. We feel for the beast that has fallen in love with the woman. In all of the previous Kong pictures he was the villain, the monster in the monster movie. In this film it is us who are the villains, that ravage his natural habitat, kidnap him, and force him to climb the Empire State Building. In the end, King Kong becomes a tragedy of almost Shakespearean beauty- quite a feat for a film that spends over an hour in a place called Skull Island.
26. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is my favorite movie musical. There is none other like it. Tim Burton has created a London in this picture that goes perfectly alongside the worlds he has created in such films as Edward Scissorhands, and then meshes it perfectly with the lyrics to Stephen Sondheim’s classic Broadway production.
Johnny Depp (probably the decade's most entertaining actor) gives one of his best performances as Todd, while Helena Bonham Carter (Burton’s wife and muse) is an absolute show-stopper as Mrs. Lovett. The tale is certainly macabre; images of headless corpses falling to their doom and crumpling on the floor are still, to this day, stuck in my memory.
Sweeney Todd showcases some of the best songs I have seen in a musical. The music works in relationship to the story, and not just to exist for a new song and dance number. This is what always bugs me about musicals. You will have a perfectly good story, with reasonable characters, and then all of a sudden they start singing like idiots. Sweeney Todd is more operatic that musical, the songs subdued, with the action going along at the beat of the music. None of the cast are overwhelmingly impressive singers, but this is actually a good thing. We feel the emotion come through in their voices, and we listen to the lyrics instead of being impressed by the big picture.
This is certainly Tim Burton’s best film. Always expressionistic, ranging from somber, to deadly, to terrifying, to light. The ending is a real tragedy, for sure, but with a beginning and middle like this- what else is there to expect?
