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.

I do have real affection for this film. Aside from being just fun, it's also a very good-looking, well-paced, well-edited, very well-acted film with a good score/soundtrack if I recall. A lot like its predecessor.

Just a fancy way of saying bread and ketchup.

I'm keeping my shoes off this time. And possibly about to clip my toenails into an ashtray.



Don't pretend you're better than me!

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

The Nice Guys has one moment I think of and chuckle about often (the scene where Gosling falls over the balcony).


The Big Short and Vice are both quite clumsy, but I think I like seeing McKay struggle to apply his dumbassed style to material clearly ill-suited to it. I like enough of his movies (although I'm in the minority of finding Anchorman really off-putting), but I've seen some weird consensus emerge that his ones with Will Ferrell are actually great satires and I mean...c'mon.

It's not the 1940s, crumb. We don't have ashtrays anymore.


If you abolutely need to, you can clip your nails on these glossy pictures of fetal abnormalities instead.

Yeah, that's definitely one of the classic bits.



I was thinking about mentioning The Other Guys as an example of McKay's humor and politics being well balanced. But, again, you have to deal with Ferrell. Going further on that limb, I think that The Campaign might be an even better example of political slapstick. But...Ferrell as well.


Is it that his eyes are small and too close together?

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

Please put your shoes back on, Crumb.


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The Other Guys is easily my favourite Ferrell performance, in that he actually tones it down. And I guess I like him in Step Brothers, which acknowledges how obnoxious and unlikable his shtick is. Otherwise, best in small doses, and John C. Reilly in Talladega Nights illustrates that you can do the same kind of dumbassery while being significantly more tolerable.

As long as I can one day be reincarnated as a cigarette smoked in defiance of the entire universe, I'm okay with the lack of ashtrays.

95. Mandy (2018, dir. Panos Cosmatos)


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I usually try to judge recent Nicolas Cage films by how confused he looks on the poster. Most of them are perplexing exercises, sure enough, but there's also a lonely howl in his eyes as if he's trying desperately, a little angrily, to remember where he put his keys, parked the car, if he paid his taxes or exactly where he last saw his career. In this poster, justifiably, the anger takes over, and suddenly the rapture becomes the least of his troubles. This is the first Nicolas Cage film since Port of Orleans that understands how to arouse and harness the raw id that has unfortunately become self-parody more often than not. (And, no, Color Out of Space doesn't come close.)

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

I wanted to like Mandy more, but it felt a little too obviously catered to things I'm supposed to like. A strange complaint to have, probably, but I like my movies a little less obviously designed. Cage is very good, and I agree that this (and his work here) is much better than Color Out of Space.

Hm. I've had the experience of a film recommended to me by someone because "you should like it" (one of them was Cage's Kick-Ass), and it's almost like an insult. Maybe that's similar to what you mean, but I still thought that Mandy felt refreshing, maybe by comparison to those others.


My apprehension is that I haven't got a read on Cosmatos. He's a wonderfully evocative filmmaker, but there's something sinister there as well, a creeping nihilism. I'm afraid that he'll turn out to be an Eli Roth with a superior color palette and compositional competence.

So, have you seen the director's debut film The Blackcoat’s Daughter (or February or The Daughter of Evil - this one's known by many names)?. While Pretty Thing is still more or less good, I think Perkins has grown worse with every film and his debut is easily his best.

Wonder Bread pffft. It should be known when it comes to my bread bag shoes, its ancient grains or bust. I like to make a dignified first impression while I'm picking through my neighbours garbage, thank you very much.

Well, excuuuuuuuse me, Mr. I Have Neighbours Who Can Afford Fancy Bread. Not all of us live in a nice neighborhood.

Whoa whoa whoa! Let's not get ahead of ourselves.


I was probably the most vocal proponent of Blackcoat's Daughter on the previously deceased blog, so some folks know how I feel about it, andd there's slightly better than a non-zero chance of it making the list here ;) and I can go into more detail then. That's a long way to say that I agree.



I'm a big fan of Oz Perkins so far, but I would agree that Gretel & Hansel was lacking. I would like to believe that this is due to studio interference, although I have no information to back that up. The film's first half is such a lovely somnambulant mix of rich mood and archetypal gothic imagery that the third act feels like an entirely different film, like one where some exec said, "We got to wrap this up under 90 minutes, so we're going to a lot of blood, fire and screaming. It doesn't have to make sense, the kids don't care about that", etc etc. Maybe I'm wrong and they really did just run out of ideas, money, whatever.

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

Oh no, not Jinn again!

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(I'll be reading)

As a die-hard lover of this film, I fully endorse its appearance on this list, even if it should be higher :heart:

This is another one I'm a fan of. As far as recent comedies go, this has been one of my favorites. Loved the chemistry between Crowe and Gosling, and Angourie Rice was superb.

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94. A Dangerous Method (2011, dir. David Cronenberg)


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This film may be a little underrated for the fact that it's soaked in psychosexual theory and yet maintains a disturbingly sober and clinical distance to the subject throughout. It may be too much to expect an emotional reptile like Cronenberg to manage a, let's say Two Moon Junction for example?, but some may have anticipated something more weird, wild or unhinged, ala Dead Ringers or Crash. Instead, Cronenberg keeps a tight leash on the proceedings, allowing the ideas, of the tension between ethics and eros, to supply the teeth (as Cassel's Otto Gross demonstrates), and the actors, all of whom are superb (definitely including Knightley, you haters), to supply the subtle steam of repression. It probably helps to be interested in both the subject matter and respective writings of the figures presented.

93. Carnage (2011, dir. Roman Polanski)


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I haven't seen this performed on stage, but about the most common criticism of the film is with this comparison. Maybe they're right. Or maybe that's exactly the kind of specious presumption made by venal urbane pseudointellectuals that are so viciously skewered here. I don't know. I do know this. This film is a petty, nasty riot of the sour veneers and barely disguised spite that passes for a banal sense of social superiority, where the only sympathy earned is by the god damn hamster. Terrible and hilarious.

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

I think I went up and down with Carnage. Liked some bits, didn't care for others. I seem to recall Waltz and Reilly being pretty good, but overall, it didn't stick.

92. The Meyerowitz Stories (2017, dir. Noah Baumbach)


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Baumbach is a bit of a naval gazer. Write what you know, right? The nadir of his selfish obsessions was probably the excruciating Greenberg (oh, I know, it's about self-obsession, got it, good job), and his work has tempered a bit since then. The golden key here is Dustin Hoffman, in his best role in over 20 years, absorbing Baumbach's writing, manners and ennui into something both ornery and approachable, a perfect fit for Baumbach's preoccupation with the affections and frustrations of affluent but neurotic Jewish relationships. I believe Hoffman's work also elevates Stiller and Sandler to sympathetic qualities beyond their standard abilities. The characters are all still borderline contemptable, but believably forgivable.


HM: Uncut Gems (2019, dir. Safdie Brothers) - Speaking of Sandler, this is his best film, well, ever, and the Safdie's have crafted a brilliant NYC style that's sparking with anxiety and chaos, and a dreadful apprehension that only Sandler's Ratner cannot comprehend. Pick this one up wih the Brothers' Good Time for some of the decade's most exhilarating debauchery.

91. Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017, dir. Dan Gilroy)


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Another one of the decade's films that I feel was undeservedly ignored on release, as well as critically, because it's a film that refused to abide by any specific genre expectations. It's not a crime drama, a courtroom drama, a dark comedy, a political statement. It has none of the sinister qualities that Gilroy was praised for in Nightcrawler. It has none of the race sermonizing of the films by Spike Lee or Boots Riley. Without a tangible criminal or legal plot, without a self-congratulatory message for the critics to applaud, the film seemed lost on most audiences.


The film is actually a deep character study, one which flirts with the genre conventions mentioned above but keeps its focus on its character, warmly realized by Denzel Washington (his best acting of the decade), an old school civil rights lawyer who is lost in an era that no longer appreciates his individualism or ideology, an adherent to "soul" and "unity" that his community increasingly considers antiquated and nostalgic values. It's the generational and political dialectic of the black community that made many critics and activists uncomfortable because the script avoids cliches and stereotypes. Israel is not some crusty Uncle Ruckus yelling about the kids today. Ultimately, the character's refusal to fit into an easy sociopolitical category is what makes him formidable, and also vulnerable to temptation as his disenchantment pervades.


HM: Sorry To Bother You (2018, dir. Boots Riley) - I've admired Boots since The Coup, but I've never subscribed to his Marxist critiques. Beyond that, however, this is such an unpredictablly bonkers and ambitious film that it has to be considered one of the most remarkable films of the decade.

Late to the party but found this one quite funny. Good pairing in the lead, that melded together seamlessly. What more do you want from a "buddy" crime escapade.

Maybe a dozen more quotable lines.

90. The Place Beyond The Pines (2012, dir. Derek Cianfrance)


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There were several indies from the decade that managed portraits of working class American struggle that avoided patronizing its subjects - Out of the Furnace, Mud, Manchester on the Sea - and Cianfrance produced some of the best examples. (Among the worst, bordering on fetishizing, would be Beasts of the Southern Wild, Hell or High Water and Three Billboards - incidentally all with better reviews than the ones I mentioned :rolleyes:)


I'm not sure what more to add for this one. The structure may be off-putting in its juxtaposition, but it's quietly complex and unnerving.


HM: Cianfrance's previous film, Blue Valentine, fits the same bill, but more focused on a relationship rather than a crime premise. Many would say that Valentine is the superior film of the two. I would be inclined to agree, except that only one of them has Ben Mendelsohn.

89. Why Don't You Play In Hell? (2013, dir. Sion Sono)


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I like to believe that this film is Sono's idea of mocking Kill Bill's ultraviolence and Tarantino's cultural appropriation. Regardless, it's an insanely gruesome take on the kind of parasitic voyeurism that Tarantino denies exists. The hyperbolic spasms of ecstatic violence are most definitely parodies of exploitation, regardless of any specific director who may or not be responsible.

88. Django Unchained/The Hateful Eight (2012;2015, dir. Quentin Tarantino)


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And yet here we are. Clearly Tarantino is a highly gifted filmmaker with an innate sense of movement and tension on screen. I can have all kinds of qualms, regarding the characters, the more juvenile tendencies, QT's clear lack of understanding (or interest) in historical context, the muddled and sometimes laughably inept attempts at Big Statements, etc, etc. What I can't deny is that he makes irresistibly entertaining films, and that his visual tastes are far more refined than his emotional tastes. The films are fun, after all, not deep.


HM: The Sisters Brothers (2018, dir. Jacques Audiard) is a quality western that disappeared overnight but well worth seeking out.

Very pleased to see this film on your list...I thought it was brilliant...not a lot of talk about it on this site, glad to learn someone has seen it other than myself.

Really enjoying this list so far though there are several films on it I have never heard of, but I will try to continue and follow it...the inclusion of Carnage definitely piqued my interest.

87. Margin Call/A Most Violent Year (2011; 2014, dir. J.C. Chandor)


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Cheating with the two-fers? Sometimes I can't help it. J.C. Chandor has had an impressive decade, from his debut ensemble drama about the '08 recession to the somewhat misleading title (which isn't violent at all, actually) of his look at the kind of organized crime that's as normalized as a strip mall. I could've added All Is Lost, a film nearly as compelling (I'm sure Redford fans would think more so), but what's clear is that Chandor has either providential fortune or a golden touch to managing his actors, extracting excellence in virtually every role.


I know some of you may point to Triple Frontier, and my condolences, but I place more of the blame there on Mark Boal, surely one of the worst writers currently working in Hollywood. This film better reflects Boal's ignorant (dishonest) jingoism than any of Chandor's prior work.



HM: Arbitrage (2012, dir. Nicholas Jarecki), a similar financial thriller to Margin Call, and only requires a certain tolerance to Richard Gere to fully enjoy.

Thank you. I'm still not acquainted enough with the site to know which films get often talked about or not. I hope to spread the word on some possibly lesser known stuff and find suggestions for the many that I'm sure I've missed.

86. The Babadook (2014, dir. Jennifer Kent)


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I like the kind of horror film that can penetrate into really primal areas of fear and inadequecy, and, like The Shining, the struggles of parenthood is prime territory for horrific impulses. This film adds complications, by having a single working mother and a child who is more explicitly special needs, and also, maybe most important, an archetypal spectre that is elusive and subjective and elemental. More than The Shining, the audience is never assured of whether our enemy is mere hallucination, manifested subliminal desire, or a truly supernatural presence, tapping into something both magical and psychological. One of the very best horror films of the decade, Essie Davis is tremendous, and, urgh, I still haven't seen Nightingale :(


HM: The two other superlative horror films that combine psychological and social archetypes would be It Follows and Hereditary, both very good, but also both have diminished for me on rewatches.

85. Snowpiercer (2013, dir. Bong Joon-ho)


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Not the most sophisticated dystopian social allegory ever conceived, this is still filled with enough verve and imagination to make it a highlight. Sections of the train are some of the most jaw-dropping action sequences of the decade, and the characters are a grotesque menagerie of banal evil. And, let's face it, it's better than the Matrix!

I think I would feel exactly the same about efforts like Django or Basterds, if I found them fundamentally entertaining... but the self-indulgent creative decisions, the relentless misanthropy, and the emphasis on over-the-top cariactures instead of well-developed characters are all cinematic turn-offs for me, so not only are a lot of QT's recent efforts not deep, they aren't even fun for me. That being said though, Once Upon A Time was finally a step back in the right direction, one that I hope he continues in for however much longer his career lasts, so I'm still somewhat hopeful for his future anyway.

Edit: I am glad to see that we won't be getting Hereditary on this list, though. :D

Well, I can't argue about the self-indulence or the over-the-top caricatures, but I'm not sure I see the "misanthropy". Arguably, the dispatching of Marvin in Pulp Fiction was more misanthropic than anything in Django.

I think the fact that Eight was Tarantino's third film in a row where someone got shot in their testicles speaks for itself regarding the misanthropy in his recent efforts. At any rate, of course his films have often had a sadistic streak for a long time now; I mean, the moment in Dogs where The difference with his best movies, though, is that you have some kind of emotional substance with the characterizations to offset the nasty ****; yes, you got the entire sequence in the pawn shop in Pulp, but you also have Jules' monologue in the diner, which probably has more character development in that one scene than every single character combined gets in Django, where most of its protagonist's internal arc is essentially finished within the first five minutes. And Jackie Brown has pretty much no graphic sadism in it at all, and is composed of nothing but character development for at least half its running time, and it's honestly my #1 Tarantino, so I think that shows that his films don't need the sadism at all, but he does need the well-developed characters... but it feels to me like he often feels exactly the opposite, which is why his filmography has been so hit-or-miss with me. But, like I said, I'm still hopeful that he's started to go back in the other direction now.

I'd put this firmly under the "juvenile tendency" category.

I dunno. There's a stark difference between Mr. Blonde (a character everyone acknowledges as a sociopath) and the pawn shop dudes who are clearly sadistic with Jules and Vincent who has the audience sympathy. With Marvin, we (the audience) are left with rooting for "the good guys" to effectively erase a human being off the planet, as a joke, and Marvin is someone who we, the audience, have no reason to see as deserving of such a fate. All we know is that he's the inside guy for Marcellus. It's different when the film presents clearly sadistic characters doing sadistic things, but the dehumanization of a random person, being cheered on by the audience for no reason, goes a lot further to normalize the indifference of human life. And anyway I still don't see that being the case in Django, where the dehumanizing acts are exclusively committed by those who will receive their cathartic comeuppance.

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

I like The Hateful Eight more than most of the Corrie crowd, I think. Even though I think it's one of Tarantino's weaker films.

The Babadook is great and is among my favorite horror films of the decade. The Nightingale can be really unpleasant at times (if you've seen it, you know what I'm referring to), but I also liked it quite a bit.

Snowpiercer is on my short list of favorite action and science fiction movies ever. It's my second favorite of Joon-ho's films.

Overall, good list so far!

Liking this so far. Heard of most of these films, including the HM. Sadly, this reminds me I have so much left to see from the previous decade. I spend so much of my time watching older films. I should remedy that.

Didn’t care much for The Babadook, or Django or The Hateful Eight. They weren’t terrible, mind you, but didn’t do much for me.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood restored my faith in QT, however.

Tomato, tomato. Anyway, I appreciate the fact that other characters admit that Blonde is a psycho, but still, when you look at Tarantino's subsequent films, his actions aren't any anomaly, but a preview of the general tone of QT's career (save for Jackie Brown, which is the true outlier as far as that goes), and, although the cop in Dogs is obviously a much more minor character in that film than Butch and Marcellus were in PF, I still felt sympathy for both of them as they were being tortured. As for Jules & Vincent's disposal of Marvin, I agree with you that it's a sadistic sub-plot, but it's not an either/or dilemma, as it's possible to find the tones of Pulp & Django both sadistic in their own way; the difference between them is, while the sadism is an obnoxious tendency with the former, it still has the theme of redemption running through it, which is explicitly delivered through one of the greatest monologues every written/performed in cinema history, while the latter has almost nothing of the sort.

And at least with Dogs, there was a sort of honesty about the nihilistic, empty nature of its sadism; with some of his historical revenge films, it just feels like he's dressing that up by appropriating the struggle of certain historically persecuted groups, by having them engage in these hollow revenge fantasies against their tormentors, which naturally results in some incredibly obvious, softball choices of villains, as if Tarantino's saying "Hey, you gotta be engaged in watching these people get their vengeance against their persecutors; I mean, c'mon, they're literally Nazis & slavemasters!". It all feels like a substitute for getting us invested in their stories a proper way, which is by actually developing his characters in compelling manners, as opposed to just using them as avatars of revenge, as far as I'm concerned.

I didn't like The Babadook that much. I don't remember exactly what issues I had with it, but I'm clearly remembering the disappointment. Nightingale, on the other hand, is good and positively gruesome at times.

Considering the previous Oz Perkins discussion, I'm interested to see what other horrors might make your list (especially as you already ruled out Hereditary which I'd describe as a Major Disappointment).

And about QT. I liked The Hateful Eight. For me, it was the first good QT in a long time. Django I found quite weak, and the only thing I enjoyed about it was Samuel Jackson. Still haven't seen his latest.

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

Out of those I've seen, I like most of what is on this list. Even those I wasn't entirely on board with (Carnage, Mandy) I respect in many ways.



Lots here I haven't seen though. Which isn't surprising because I'm usually about ten years behind on everything.

I guess I kinda agree with the structure = off-putting statement, mostly because it "castrates" the characters, but it's still executed well for the most part, and the performances are solid. My other gripe is that the last act is the weakest of the three, which kinda leaves you with that sour note in the end.

Probably my two least favorite Tarantino films, even if I still enjoyed them. I haven't seen it in a while, but I remember thinking that Django unravels a bit in its last act, while I really don't remember that much about The Hateful Eight, even though I saw it a year or two ago. It ultimately didn't stick as much as, say, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or Inglourious Basterds.

Haven't seen A Most Violent Year yet, but I really dug Margin Call. Like you said, good management of a great ensemble.

I liked this film, but not as much as most people. Kent's direction is great and the film is effectively creepy, well-paced, and patient for the most part, but I think it got a bit off her hands in the last act.

I really dug this, as heavy-handed and in-your-face as it was. Overall, I think it works well. This was the first Bong film I saw, so maybe I wasn't as attuned to his style as I am now, but it's effective.

I stopped reading when I realized you were reviewing Hugo the movie and not Hugo the doll.

Doll>>>Movie

just kidding...

Just caught this a few months ago and couldn't agree more. Denzel was terrific but I had heard next to nothing about it. I only gave it a shot because I liked Nightcrawler. I noticed it's streaming for free somewhere now, so those of you who haven't seen it are encouraged to check it out.

Jest not lest you jest yourself.


You're not wrong. Hugo has been my faithful companion since I was 7. It's unfair, nay, cruel to hold the candle of any mere motion picture to the blinding sun of thespic beauty that is the golem of glory spoken of by unwashed shamans only by the name of Hugo (tm) Man of a Thousand Faces!

He's ready for his close-up, Mr. DeMille.

It shifts narratives about halfway through, so it may disappoint those who've invested in the Gosling character to have him sidelined for the Cooper one.

SON OF A ---!

Ok I think we might have discussed this years ago but I lusted after that little mother-effer for years but Santa never came through. It's almost like my mom didn't want it in the house for some inexplicable reason. :shifty:
But yeah, the wound is still fresh. I'm jealous, is what I'm trying to say.

It was a hand-me-down from my grandmother. :shifty:

I smell an Hereditary sequel....

I know that a lot of people found the kid to be extemely annoying. And he is. But that's exactly why his mother secretly wants to be free from the responsibility for him. I'm not sure if your disappointment was along those lines?


"Disappointment" being the film or my exclusion of it?


I totally agree that Sam Jackson was the best part of Django, and as with Pulp Fiction he seems to have been the only actor not given any award attention at all.

Both of these films have stretches I like a lot, and various fumbles that are badly executed (like the third act flashback in Eight).

The film. Here's what I wrote about it back in the day:

Since you mention it, I'll point out that at the time of Basterds' release, there were some Jewish groups, mostly older and actual survivors and whatnot, who were not very flattered by the scene where they torture a German soldier. It's one thing to show Jews taking revenge on Hitler, but torturing a Nazi actually places them morally on par with the Nazis, and it either ignores or insults the post-war legacy of human rights commitment, the Geneva Convention for example, that many Jewish survivors spearheaded. I doubt that Tarantino has the maturity to discern the difference, and, being a rich white American safely ensconced in the comforts of fantasy violence, I'm sure he sees no reason why he should.

I liked it a bit more than you did. I thought the atmosphere was fine. But the plot inconsistencies, or how the "scenes don't fit together", really become accentuated on repeat viewings. I think that both of Aster's films have major issues with how he develops his stories, characters, etc.

They did kind of make it two decades earlier. Too bad it was in service of late-stage Dr. Who which had slid from its heady Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker days to that of Sylvester McCoy...the serial is called Paradise Towers if you're curious.

Will concur with A Field in England. It takes some interesting turns along the way, but it kept me watching even though I'm still not entirely sure what happened in places.

Hm. Doesn't sound like typical Dr. Who fare.


Reminds me of that scene from Don Delillo's White Noise where a fight break out between 1st class and coach on a crashing airplane. Except, in a decrepit skyscraper instead.

Peanut chutney, btw. I don't have time for tamarind.

84. The Forbidden Room (2015, dir. Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson)


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Guy Maddin has always made film to his distinct visual proclivities, usually emulating silent-era techniques to achieve a fantastic realm where dream and memory blur. Here, he pulls out all of the stops, the full kitchen apparatus of tools at his command, and the tools of his collaborator Evan Johnson, to create an intricate, inscrutable and intoxicatingly other-worldly, prismatic journey of tales within tales, images within dreams, dreams within images.


HM: Keyhole (2011) is Maddin's other feature of the decade, closer to the strictly silent-era pastiche of his better known films like My Winnepeg and The Saddest Music in the World.

Re: Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s
 

I think Forbidden Room is my preferred Madden. I've definitely got to be in the mood for him. He either captivates or annoys me, which are both probably a good things to corner the market on if you're an artist.

83. Animal Kingdom (2010, dir. David Michod)


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A devastating crime drama from Australia that sports a riveting cast (Ben Mendelsohn, Jacki Weaver, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce and James Frecheville) and assured direction from Michod in his debut. Captures the duplicity and paranoia of criminal life quite well, without the flashy trappings of most post-Goodfellas attempts. Just stark, unapologetic realism, with an astonishing finale.


(For whatever perverse reason, this was turned into an American TV show that decided to make it cool and sexy, missing the mark by miles. Avoid it with prejudice.)


HM: Michod's The Rover (2014) is almost a good, and just missed the cutoff for this list.

There is a credibility gap that I have with him where I can admire his attempt to make a film like bygone films but is still so obviously a modern film, not from nitrate with filters and high-contrast lighting. Once I can get over the, what I see as obvious, artifice, then I can start to appreciate it on its own terms.

Peanut sauce is great. Shoot it into my veins.

82. The Eyes of My Mother (2016, dir. Nicholas Pesce)


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If we judged quality horror on how sheerly disturbing a film is, then this must be one of the best recent examples. Spiritually, it's more akin to Eraserhead or Reflecting Skin, a film that quietly, unsettlingly, draws the viewer into a curdled post-traumatic sickness. It isn't repulsive in terms of shock and gore, but in behavior. And as effective as the film is in conveying its sickness, the film's primary achievement is in the compassion it provides to Francisca, or the pitiful mercy in which she believes she's acting. Powerful and emotionally exhausting film, all without seemingly ever raising its pitch above a whisper.

81. Cosmopolis (2012, dir. David Cronenberg)


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Speaking of DeLillo, and supposedly unfilmable novels, this one comes mighty close to succeeding. Set mostly in the limosine of a young rich Wall Street fund manager while he sits in traffic around Manhattan, the apocalypse looming outside, and within as well, as our scion is eaten with thoughts of suicide and cancer. The film is a mean indictment of certain culturally craven priorities. Robert Pattinson is terrific as the spiritually spent shell of a perhaps once promising prodigy. The only real flaw that I can find is that the film isn't as funny as Scrooged.

HM: Maps To The Stars (2014) is the other Cronenberg film of the decade, and it has moments, as mean a satire of empty modern American disposable culture as Cosmopolis, but I demarked a couple of points for that, um, bit by the pool. It's not a substantial complaint, but the kind of careless FX that Cronenberg should really know better than to let slide.

Great pick. Lovely atmospheric arthouse horror.

I haven’t watched Cronenberg since Eastern Promises (which itself needs me to remedy) but this and A Dangerous Method are two films I’ve been meaning to catch up on.
I liked EP ok enough, even if I had problems with Watts as a Russian, and I’m in the minority of not liking A History of Violence at all.
It’s strange. I watched a lot of his 80’s work, skipped his 90’s work, watched his output during the aughts, and skipped the past decade.
I need to catch up on him.

Pad Thai, for the win!

Takes on others on your list:

97. I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House---Although I agree that Oz Perkins can be good with the dollops of atmospheric horror, ultimately I prefer films that can deliver the steak with the sizzle. And ultimately, this fell short for me. and it’s not helped by Ruth Wilson’s insistence on speaking every line slowly (otherwise, her performance is fine).

Under the Shadow is a better example of atmospheric horror that worked. Its setting of placing it in Iran facing a war works both as building dread and in giving additional challenges to the protagonist (who faces lashes for daring to run out of a building with her daughter without proper head covering). Its decision to play things closer to the vest keeps you in suspense until the final reel. That one is well done.

90. The Place Beyond the Pines---That film by Cianfrance almost feels like it could fit in with the works of Jeremy Saulnier if you substitute its quiet contemplation for noisy messiness. It puts you in the plight of Ryan Gosling’s stunt rider character who is so desperate to provide for his wife and young son that he’s willing to break the law for them. Good performances all around in this saga of how things that occur years before can affect people years later.

86. The Babadook---Much like Under the Shadow, this works by never fully revealing what the Babadook is and whether its real or just due to pressures building up in Essie Davis’s character’s head. Plus, it features an arc showing her son moving from problem to trying to rescue her. And you’re right in that it does tap into a potent place for horror on whether what a mother can do for their child will be enough.

85. Snowpiercer---The story kind of slid some in the final act, but this heady mix of science fiction, action and drama manages to stay captivating thanks to some nice visuals and solid performances. Director Bong Joon Ho manages to feature a breathtakingly brutal fight between masked soldiers and a group of people from the lower class regions of the train. Plus it has Tilda Swinton having her picture taken with a shoe and a creepy sequence featuring Alison Pill as a teacher that seems to have seen way too much Fox News.

Definitely catch Crash if you haven't, and Naked Lunch is wonderful but you may need to have some prerequisite appreciation of William S. Burroughs to fully get into that one.

Those two, existenz and Dead Ringers are firmly in my sights. Dead Ringers is available on Amazon streaming so I’ll be hitting that up sooner.
I haven’t watched his pre 80’s films yet, either. I wonder how those hold up?

80. Beyond The Black Rainbow (2010, dir. Panos Cosmatos)


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As I said with Mandy, Panos Cosmatos is a richly evocative filmmaker with a heart of bile. This film, his debut, is visually stunning, from the opulent colors to the geometric compositions to the vintage stock grain. As Cosmatos has said, he intended to create the perfect 1983 videocassette that he wasn't allowed to watch at that age. But this is no nostalgic funfest, but a psychotechno nightmare that makes the viewer worse for the wear in how it oozes into focus. Be careful with the potency here.

Dead Ringers is classic Cronenberg.


Of the 70s, Shivers and The Brood are your best bets.

This used to be on my watchlist, but after Mandy I haven't felt the urge to see more from Cosmatos. Maybe one day I'll give it a go even though my expectations are low.

Got it. Thank you.
I think I can find those two on streaming as I recall.

79. The Death of Stalin (2017, dir. Armando Iannucci)


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I've heard some complaints, most notably from those who suffered under the Curtain, about the possible sweetening of horrific history by essentially turning these monsters into muppets, which is about what they amount to here. I don't see, really, how this makes any of these horrible men any more lovable, rather just stooges that are prime for mocking. That's my take anyway, and I found this film to be hilarious and I would never want to meet a one of them. Buscemi's Khrushchev stands out to me as an especially giddy worm.

Shivers is probably my favorite Cronenberg along with Videodrome. I think I prefer Rabid over The Brood.