Favorite of the decade
movies Before presenting a list of my personal best of the decade, I stumbled upon a few interesting trends. The first is that Phillip Seymour Hoffman is undoubtably the definitive actor of the decade. In the 90s, he honed his craft in many supporting roles, such as in Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and others. But it was in the 2000s that we saw him emerge more as a leading man, and do phenominal work in everything. As a supporting man, he gave a wonderfully funny performance in Punch Drunk Love as the matress man. Then, he deservedly won an Oscar for his nuanced depiction of Truman Capote, which wasn't a caricature or mere impersonation like Jamie Foxx's rendition of Ray Charles. There's also his work in 25th Hour, which is proprably one of the best drunk performances ever. He's frightening in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead and pitiful in Synecdoche, New York. These are just a few of his wonderful performances.
Another thing worth noting is that my favorite directors of the decade are Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson. Every movie they made in this decade is in my top 10. One of my favorite directors, Martin Scorsese, only has one movie in my top 10. Gangs of New York is an interesting and spectacular mess and The Departed feels much more safe than I would have liked. And then there's Steven Spielberg, the filmmaker that intellectuals and snobs love to hate because of his popular success. He continues into his 4th decade of filmmaking to prove that he is one of the most talented filmmakers the world has eveer sen and challenges himself as well as the audience emotionally and intellectually. If his name was not attached to Minority Report and Munich, those two movies would be on more top 10 lists of the decade.
I comprised a short list of about 20 movies that I tried to narrow down to 10 that was based off of memory. I then tried to revisist as many as I could to see if I still felt the same way about a film. For example, I had a smile on my face the entire time watching Punch Drunk Love, and was unsure if I would still love the movie as much now. To my relief, I still enjoyed it. I did, however, not find the performace of Adam Sandler as amazing as I once did. In the end, I think he gave a servicable performance that is some times comically brilliant and other times limiting in his skill. Another film I wanted to revisit because I only saw it once in a theater was Lost In Translation. While I still find the movie charming and the core a great love story, I was greatly bothered by the amount of cultural insensitivity that was the entire comedic aspect of the film. Instead of being asked to laugh at Bill Murray and his inability to interact with a different culture, the film makes fun of the native inhabitants with stereotypical jabs such as the difficulty in pronouncing the letter "r", the speed at which they converse, and the average height of Japanese men. While a film called "lost In translation" should deal with these issues, it doesn't, and instead continues the American depiction of mockery to foreigness and xenophobia. This doesn't discredit the film, as I can't stand people who say The Birth of a Nation or The Searches aren't great films becaues of their racism, but in this instance, it does damper my personal enjoyment of the movie.
In any case, here's the list in alpahbetical order. I'll do a proper tribute to what I think is the best film of the decade next week.