Top 50 Films of the Decade: # 1 - 10

10.) Undertow (2004)Directed by David Gordon Green It’s no surprise Terrence Malick produced David Gordon Green's mythological road picture, about two brothers on the run from a greed-obsessed uncle (who may be their father, too), Undertow. His influences are just as evident here as the influence of Night of the Hunter, and it’s refreshing to see another filmmaker, who like Malick, doesn’t just film something beautiful for beauty’s sake. There is a purpose to cinematographer Tim Orr’s shots,...

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Top 50 Films of the Decade: # 11 - 20

20.) Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)Directed by Miranda July Miranda July's whimsical fairy tale about fractured romance and oddity being sexy is probably the most memorable Sundance darling to be released this decade.  It's just quirky enough to be interesting without being grating, and it's just dark enough to delve into some humorous situations that are only funny because they're handled without vulgarity.  The film's opening, a father (the great John Hawkes...why doesn't he...

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Top 50 Films of the Decade: #21 - 30

30.) Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (2000)Directed by Jim Jarmusch As he did with his oddball western Dead Man, Jim Jarmusch mashes up another genre and produces an esoteric look at the gangster film as seen through the eyes of a hitman who lives by the ancient code of the samurai. It's a bizarre film (especially the moments of dialogue between our protagonist and a French ice-cream salesman) that I think is meant to be seen as more a cartoon than something super serious (characters are frequently...

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Steve McQueen Blog-a-thon: Junior Bonner

The Steve McQueen blog-a-thon begins today over at Jason Bellamy's place, The Cooler.  Make sure to keep checking in as it runs through Friday, and there are sure to be a lot of great entries submitted throughout the blog-a-thon's run.  The full review of the 1972 western Junior Bonner can be found at the western blog I contribute to, Decisions at Sundown. "I'm workin on my first million. You're still workin on 8 seconds." This line spoken by Curly (Joe Don Baker) Bonner to his brother...

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Top 50 Films of the Decade: #31 - 40

40.) Eastern Promises (2007)Directed by David Cronenberg David Cronenberg re-teams with Viggo Mortensen to create one of the darkest, most bleak, and yes, interesting movies about the criminal underworld (I will refrain from the term organized crime, because these Russian mobsters don't seem all that organized). Family members kill important people without consulting their father (the head of the family) and alliances are made behind peoples back. Booze is not stolen, but purchased cheap, but possibly...

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Top 50 Films of the Decade: #41 - 50

Before I get started with this I just wanted to point you all towards a great review by Tony Dayoub of Cinema Viewfinder. He reviews Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar, one of my favorite cult westerns, over at our western blog Decisions at Sundown. Check it out. Onto the countdown...     50.) The Claim (2000)Directed by Michael Winterbottom Michael Winterbottom's western is completely indebted to its great cinematography by Alwin H. Kuchler which evokes the greatness of the film's most...

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Halloween II (2009)

Rob Zombie's sequel to his 2007 re-imagining of John Carpenter's classic Halloween is like all other Zombie pictures: maddening. Not because of the content, but because of Zombie's lack of consistent style. Here's a horror film that feels fresh and scary and ruthless and brutal for all the right reasons one moment, and then the next moment it feels gratuitously ruthless and brutal with laughable acting. Halloween II picks up right after Laurie has shot bogeyman Michael Myers on Halloween night…you...

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Top 50 Films of the Decade: Introduction (and the other 50)

In what I hope will be something that I can complete before I go back to school and work here is the first entry in my 'best of the decade' series. I'll unveil a new top ten with each entry. Here are my initial thoughts and 50 other films that make the back-end of a top 100. Remember, these exercises are entirely arbitrary, and I could probably find a good enough reason to reposition a lot of these choices. Feel free to discuss in the comments. Enjoy. I don't feel like I can put some of my...

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The Box

Richard Kelly's attempt at an enigmatic morality play with The Box is about as frustrating a masterpiece as you're bound to come across. Here's a film that feels like it's easily one of the best films of the year as you're watching it, but when you go back to think about what it was you just watched you tend to be more amazed that the story didn't collapse under all of the weight Kelly puts on it by dipping his toes into so many deep themes that range from the sociological to the political and...

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Punch-Drunk Love

Barry Egan is an isolated man who sits alone at a desk, dwarfed by the interiors of a giant warehouse he works at selling novelty toiletries, wearing a blue suit that seems out of place for his business setting. We are introduced to Barry in long shot as he is talking to someone on the phone about a loophole in a frequent flyer mileage promotion. After hanging up the phone we follow Barry out of the blasé warehouse and into shadows before we hear the sound of a steel door opening, and we're left...

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Other People’s Money

Other People's Money on the surface seems like another throwaway early 90's comedy (it even has a musical score that is eerily reminiscent of comedies like Trading Places and films of that ilk); however, here is a film with two performances that standout as highlights in pretty established careers, and a satire that seems spot-on for the economic situation we find ourselves in today. The film is a mix of ideals: it's part Oliver Stone's Wall Street and part Frank Capra film. Both sides getting...

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Three Films by Woody Allen (and Ingmar Bergman)

My HD Starz and MGM channels offered up numerous Woody Allen choices a few months back. I just got to them on the DVR, and of the three films I decided to record – Interiors, Husbands and Wives, and Deconstructing Harry – Interiors was the only one I had seen. I was excited to fill in some gaps of my list of Allen films I have yet to see (there's still probably 10-15 on the list), and even though I didn't love all of the films, I was certainly glad that I experienced them. Coincidentally I recorded three films that share one thing in common:...

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DVD Review: Not Quite Hollywood

As an unabashed fan of exploitation cinema I have to say I feel pretty ashamed to admit that I had no idea there was an Australian subgenre out there that is like my favorite subgenre Italian horror. The documentary Not Quite Hollywood paints an interesting portrait of "ozploitation", and for fans of this particularly polarizing subgenre this documentary is a treat: a plethora of rental ideas of forgotten (or maybe never discovered) grindhouse cinema from down under. Quentin Tarantino is interviewed...

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