Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

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I was thinking of what kind of thread to start, and inspired by the earlier 2010 lists from Holden Pike and Daniel M, and because I happen to have had a preliminary list at hand for easy tweeking, this is a good opportunity to lay out my recent tastes, at least. I'll use some wiki art, because I'm cheap, and list them as a countdown with a few words for each to make a modest case that I actually watched most of them. I appreciate any suggestions, concerns or pithy snark.

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

I'll bring the pithy snark.


Or the macaroni salad. Whatever feels more essential

I'll take the pith on rice with chutney, please.

Oh, this is one of those fancy chutney threads.


Thanks for the forewarning. I'll put some shoes on.

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

I'll just say good luck, we're all counting on you...

Hello.

Love these lists. Looking forward to it

100. Hugo (2011, dir. Martin Scorsese)


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I think he looks just like Ben Kingsley, and, like Hugo, Kingsley is an amazing actor and faithful companion of enormous resource and versatility. Hugo may be a very charming children's film, one that feels like fantasy, but at it's core, it is a Georges Melies redemption tale in which Kingsley is pitch perfect as the father of fantastic cinema, and it's his story, rather than little Hugo's, where you can feel Scorsese's inspiration to keep the illuminated flame burning. It's also interesting how much the film feels like something made from a Tim Burton, Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson at a time when they were all producing the worst films of their career.


HM: The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet) - A similarly charming, precocious and subtlely moving children's "fantasy" (depending on your supension of disbelief) that was originally shot in 3D but is nonetheless perfectly entertaining without it. Practically ignored on release due to being buried by Harvey Weinstein because Jeunet refused to make cuts, making it one of Weinstein's last crimes against humanity before he retired to a new life as a confiscated scum bag.

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

I already know that Birdemic is going to top this list, but I'll be reading anyways.

It's OK. I have an extra cummerbund you can borrow.

Do you know what it's like to fall in the mud and get kicked in the head with an iron boot? Of course you don't, no one does. It never happens.

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

I'm guessing I was stuck in my Scorsese ways with all the mobsters, gruff boxers, struggling comedians, ambulance drivers that Hugo just didn't stick with me when it came out. I feel like I might feel different about it today.

99. High-Rise (2015, dir. Ben Wheatley)


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This is an extremely messy adaptation of a classic, and notoriouly unfilmmable, JG Ballard novel about class dissolution, but the messiness isn't entirely unwelcome. The film would have been more effective had it been made a couple of decades earlier, and preferably by Terry Gilliam, but I still can admire much about its quasi-Gillam air and materialistic disdain.


HM: A Field in England - Wheatley's previous venture about spores and religion, it's more polarizing than his other films but also a lot more fun than Sightseers.

98. Anomalisa (2015, dir. Charles Kaufman)


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Honestly, maybe the weakest of Kaufman's films, channeling Malkovich puppetry to typically Kaufman depictions of monothematic delusions and reduplicative paramnesia - fancy terms for his long-standing exploration of the fantasy/reality schism and the paradoxical desire for absolute control and absolute transcendence. However, I think most other Kaufman film do it better, and I can all but guarantee that I'm Thinking of Ending Things will rank higher on the future 2020s list.

97. I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016, dir. Oz Perkins)


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This is how out of touch I am, perhaps, with modern audiences, but this kind of slow-burn and mostly frill-less old school ghost story is exactly the kind of horror film that I find exciting while it puts everyone else to sleep like Nyquil. Sure, it isn't particularly scary and it doesn't even try to be very dark in the sense that we've come to expect, but it's simply a well-told gothic tale in the Shirley Jackson-M.R. James tradition which relies on stillness, dust and the secrets of an unknown past to carry the sense of eerie unease.


HM: Under the Shadow (2016, dir. Babak Anvari) is another horror film that is more psychologically intriguing than it is terrifying, with a political subtext that's probably a bit too obvious to be provocative, but still an impressive debut from the Iranian director.

Under the Shadow is pretty good. Tak and I had a discussion over it during Siddons 31 day Halloween challenge.

96. The Nice Guys (2016, dir. Shane Black)


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A fine comedy filled with memorable moments, but the plot ain't one of them. More fun than funny, but you can't deny the appeal of the leads, with maybe three really classic set pieces. I still can't help but feel a little empty afterwards.


HM: Ryan Gosling's comic height for the decade was The Big Short ("Jacked to the ****!!!"), a surprisingly sharp primer on the '08 financial collapse. But I also have a slight issue with Adam MacKay and his similar follow-up, Vice, which is that, although I generally share his politics and outrage, he has a nasty habit of alternately being condescending and scolding to his audience which makes him look a lot less intelligent than he thinks he is, and turns him into an insufferable hybrid of Michael Moore and Oliver Stone.

Nah, he was just taking the pith.

Bingo.

At least, I think "Bingo", if you mean that Hugo is like the worst Burton, Raimi, and Jackson films, which is exactly how I feel about it.

With rice. And chutney.