10. Mystic River (2003) dir. Clint Eastwood-- The man's masterpiece. As clear of a statement as I can make. Clint Eastwood has made many films that can be called great on one level or another, but this one's his best in my eyes. I felt as if I had been put through the ringer when I first saw it. The film stayed with me days after my initial viewing. I couldn't get the story, characters, somber mood, or overall theme out of my head. I remember having dreams about it before AND after I saw it. People talked it up for weeks leading up to my viewing it to the point that I was having dreams based upon what I thought the film was about. I had seen the trailer and I knew Sean Penn was going to give a knockout performance and, of course, he did. I just didn't realize that I would be taken so much by Tim Robbins' performance. He was astounding as the abused Dave. I felt uneasy the entire time as I watched him slowly unravel, strand by strand. It hurt a little, because I knew what inevitably was going to happen to him.
Eastwood, the director, has been know to cast Eastwood, the actor, in many of his films and I'd say for the most part, it worked. I was perfectly fine with him in Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby and I even got a kick out of Space Cowboys if you can believe it or not. I found, though, that his ability to step back and let some of America's finest screen actors take the reins and truly make this an actor's movie was a big step for the silver-haired giant. This is maybe why I favor Mystic the most. Like Junebug, this film is steeped in setting. Shooting entirely on location in Boston was so important to Eastwood that he even wrote, performed, and recorded the original score there. The broken sidewalks, the duplexes with all-vinyl siding and the chain link fences were only a smattering of important details that brought this story of child abuse alive. We hear the "Southie" accents and we know exactly the people we're dealing with. They're working class and they're proud of it. This film operates as if tragedy is only a misspoken word away. I can't say enough about it. One of the finest dramas of the last quarter century.9. The Fog of War (2003) dir. Errol Morris-- A documentary's main charge is to expose its subject for the t
ruth and, then, allow the audience to make a final judgment. Whether it's something obvious like Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will or presented with varying shades of gray like Jeff Fuererzeig's The Devil and Daniel Johnston, we, the audience, are always left with a sense of judicial entitlement. We've looked at every piece of evidence and now we want to hand in our final verdict. The brilliant thing about Errol Morris is that he probably has formed an opinion going into a number of his interviews, but there's not a trace of that while we're watching it. He can look directly at a convicted murderer or a topiary gardener or a pet cemetery owner, all, with an open mind. This is what makes him the best at what he does. Never more did he accomplish this than in his interview with the late former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara.McNamara, of course, was the Secretary of Defense during the beginning and height of the Vietnam War and thousands upon thousands of individuals personally wanted to see to it that he was put to death. His public persona was viewed as cold and superior. He didn't have a lot of supporters at the time and didn't when he passed away only a few short months ago. Morris was probably one of those thousands upon thousands, thus giving him the perfect opportunity to clear up his own doubts about McNamara's humanity. What we ended up getting was an objective rediscovery of the very scenarios that led to President Lyndon Johnson's decision to invade. We get a man who warned not only Johnson, but President Kennedy against ANY involvement in Vietnam. I was completely staggered by the information that was placed in front of me. I felt dizzy and by the end I realized that I was looking at a man, who in his own way, was making amends. Morris once said that it's tough to apologize for the deaths of over 50,000 American soldiers and few more million Vietnam ones, but I think he and McNamara made it possible to forgive. I guess judgments vary in their own way.
8. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) dir. Wes Anderson-- I think Wes Anderson might be the closest thing to cinema's version of a classic children's novelist that I've ever seen. I've tried my best to rationalize his stories and I can't come up with a damn plausible thing. His mind exists on a completely different plane of thought than any other filmmaker, past or present. The worlds he's created are very closely related to Roald Dahl or Shel Silverstein.
He showed flashes of genius with his rookie effort Bottle Rocket and his second film Rushmore, but he blossomed into the auteur we know today with his third feature, The Royal Tenenbaums. With co-writer, Owen Wilson, Anderson took the most ridiculous scenario for a family living situation and made it tangible and sympathetic. Each character is wounded and they go about dealing with their pain in very specific ways. Each of the three children, grown up though they are, react to situations in a childish manner, none moreso than Ben Stiller's character, Chas. He holds on to an old, deep-seeded resentment towards his neer-do-well father, Royal (played brilliantly by Gene Hackman), and with the recent death of his wife, he easily transfers all of his anger and sadness onto him. The other two siblings, Richie and Margot, internalize their feelings which include a secret love for one another.
I've always loved how Anderson frames his shots. They look like photographs. It's as if everything within the shot requires an equal amount of attention. A car parked across the street in the background holds just as much importance as the main action going on in the foreground. His camera work serves the best interest of the story. There's a shot at the end of the film that sums up the sequence of events before it. It's a long, tracking shot that surveys the aftermath of a wedding ceremony in which many disastrous things have occurred, including the death of Chas' dog. In one shot, every character gets his or her own line of dialogue, which also includes Royal purchasing a dog for Chas and giving it to him after the death of his old one. On delivery, the adult Chas has never looked more like a child. He's not behaving like one this time. He simply looks like one. Royal stands over him as Chas pets the animal and after all the turmoil and despair he's lived through, he finally says, "I've had a rough year, Dad" and I swear it brings me to tears everytime. It's one of the most touching moments I've seen in a movie and, yet, it's so simple. Anderson works with so little to present so much and Tenenbaums is the best-represented of this idea.7. Juno (2007) dir. Jason Reitman-- I'm not sure whether it takes patience or a suspension of belief or what, but to enjoy a movie like Juno, you have to have at least one of those
. It's almost impossible to believe that a sixteen-year-old speaks quite like the title character, but there I was not giving a damn. There was a group of moviegoers who couldn't stand Juno and there was a group that found her utterly charming. I was one of the ones that found her charming. Ellen Page was really the one that made Juno the three dimensional character that she was. Say what you will about Diablo Cody's quippy dialogue, but without the right actress, Juno was going to be an annoyance. Of course, I'm sure she was that, anyway, to the first half that I just mentioned, but she wasn't to me. OKAY?! Now that we've cleared that up let me say that this movie is fun. It's smart, it has economical directing from Reitman, and it never lets up on the nine-month journey we're taking with this girl and her wild cast of family and friends.The family and friends. My goodness, the family and friends. What a strange bunch of people to be collective rocks in your life. Juno has a father and stepmother who, beyond all of their quirks, love her
and want her to do what she feels is best. That's what I took away from the parents: they were willing to say, "Hey, you put yourself in this adult situation? You're gonna figure out the best adult solution." Parents are rarely written with this much intelligence and care in a teen comedy. And what about her two best friends? Leah, played by Olivia Thirlby and Paulie Bleeker, played by Michael Cera. These two can be viewed as extensions to Juno's personality. Leah is much more of a "girl" and Paulie is much more reserved and internal. They really fill out Juno more than anything. Every encounter that Juno has with a character feels like an enlightening experience. She's too misfit-like to have never met a stranger, but she's got a honed-enough sense of humor that you wouldn't know that. Maybe she wants to be a misfit, but through these important months, she finds that she's as much of a teenager as any of her peers. The joy in her knowledge that Paulie is as close to a soul mate as she'll ever come across is the most beautiful aspect of the film and that very last shot is as fitting of an ending to a film that I've seen.6. Lost in Translation (2003) dir. Sophia Coppola-- One of the highest compliments I can give to a film is its p
lace of setting can make me yearn to go there. Lost in Translation does exactly that. I felt a strong urge to drop what I was doing and hop a flight to Tokyo. More than anything, the film tapped into the feeling of alienation and the hope that someone else felt the same way. I can imagine it would be frightening to be in a different country, especially Japan, where the cultural differences are astronomical. One can easily find comfort in a mutual longing for familiarity. Enter Bob and Charlotte, played by Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. Bob is a film actor shooting a whiskey commercial in Tokyo and Charlotte is a newly-married twentysomething tagging along with her photojournalist husband. For the first half hour, they appear to be on a collision course to a soul-searching experience.They spot each other in various places including an elevator, the lobby of the hotel where they're both staying, and a restaurant, where Bob finally works up the nerve to try and "rescue" her from shallow Hollywood schmoozing with her husband and a B-list movie act
ress. Solitude is something they both appreciate above all else. They have disarming senses of humor that allows them to react accordingly to the people they find ridiculous. On the surface it seems smug, but it fits with their situation. They're in a strange place, so it makes sense that they might act out as a defense mechanism. I've previously shared my views on a particular scene where Bob and Charlotte lie in bed together and talk. I've used quite a few different adjectives throughout this countdown and it's becoming tiresome to me, but that one scene...LOVELY! My God, it just gives me friggin' goosebumps every time I watch it. And what about the very last scene? He's able to properly say goodbye to her after a meaningless "so long" the first time. He's in the cab on his way back to the airport and he spots her walking down a street. He tells the cabbie to stop the car. He gets out, runs her down and whispers something to her that we, the audience, cannot hear. I accepted after the second viewing that whatever Bob tells Charlotte, it's something that I wasn't supposed to hear. The effect is there, though. She cries, they kiss, he gets back in the cab and it's very satisfying. Imagination can get you the rest of the way. Maybe nothing happened, but to bastardize a classic line, "They'll always have Tokyo."
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