Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s

71. Sicario (2015, dir. Denis Villenueve)





Villeneuve elevates what could have been a pretty standard cartel drama with his sonorous overhead shots and crafting one of the most tense highway shootout set pieces ever. But the real draw is Benicio, a moral scorpion who updates for this modern western the perfect reincarnation of Lee Van Cleef's 'Angel Eyes'. Ideally, the film should really revolve around his character, as his is the most complex, alluring and gets the best climactic scene. The sequel, also worth watching, deepens this character, but it suffers from not having Villenueve's deft touch.

70. Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010, dir. Edgar Wright)





A deliriously entertaining comedy adventure, wonderful throwback bouillabaisse of 8-bit challenges, anime girlfriends and indie rock salvation. Full of cameos and short-attention-span seizures, but most importantly it has Ramona.

69. Isle of Dogs (2018, dir. Wes Anderson)





I could go on and on about the exquisite stop-motion craft, the signature warm melancholia of the characters, those cats who are clearly behind the whole thing that yet no one ever mentions, blah blah. But instead, I'll share a great example of woke-fail by a critic accusing the film of cultural appropriation. The reviewer in question is a Japanese woman, who doesn't speak Japanese. (You know who does speak Japanese? Wes Anderson, who just made a movie that's 90% spoken in Japanese.) But, hilariously, after several paragraphs of humping the pump, she throws the question to her friends in Japan. The verdict?: "Japanese people love Wes Anderson!" She buried the lead there.

I thought the ending was bad but I also thought that, for all the visual and sonic grandeur of the film, it actually kinda hadn't promised me a better ending anyway. Which was a shame.

68. Blade Runner 2049 (2017, dir. Denis Villenueve)





An admirable attempt to get that lightning back in the bottle (is that how it goes?), we can all sigh in relief that it wasn't, I dunno, Tron: Legacy or Force Awakens or something. This is a film where the filmmakers did not rest on the strengths of property recognition and expensive CGI alone, but tried to expand the story and themes in intriguing, imaginative and even subversive ways that go beyond fan service into complicated philosophical implications. I still have to admit, as beautiful as the film looks and as honorable as the film's ambitions are, there's lots of little things I can quibble, and it doesn't quite feel as complete a world and experience to me as the original. But I can't ask for much more than this.

I liked this less than I'd hoped but more than I would have thought knowing now what it actually is.

Helluva movie. Really. Doesn't get nearly enough praise in my opinion. Del Toro is ridiculously good in this. Chilling. But with uncommon realism. Blunt and and Brolin are also excellent.

67. Pariah (2011, dir. Dee Rees)





Excellent debut for both writer/director Dee Rees and cinematographer Bradford Young, a poignant and powerful indie that exemplifies how independent voices can present new facets for age-old dramas of rebellion and self-discovery. The humanity transcends political cliche.

66. Ad Astra (2019, dir. James Gray)





I'm an astronomy buff, with a deep-seated interest in the marvels we've gleaned just in the last 25-30 years thanks to the wonders of Hubble, Kepler, Spitzer....and of course the "V'ger"s, the granddaddys. I could be said to have a "head in the stars". The question is where the line is drawn when such auspicious aspirations become toxic, emotionally, environmentally? At what point does the strength of masculine stoicism become emotional paralysis? I don't believe that what could be called the pioneering spirit, the quest of discovery, is simply an extension of ego, but the line blurs at a high rate of speed once you've reached a certain distant perimeter. I enjoyed this dark heart incarnate, and I felt it handled all of these sympathetic questions far more effectively than the more flaccid First Man.

Wat


No


You must have me confused with someone else.


I love Frances Ha. Probably helped that I was going through a lot of the same feelings as the lead character when I saw the movie. Everything most detractors hate about the character are things that wrung too painfully true on my viewing.


In Greta I trust.

I didn't like the sequel when I first saw it, but came around on a rewatch last year. There's a low key exploitation movie vibe going through the whole thing, and I can't say no to more Benicio.

Mm. Must have. I threw a "mo Greta fo me" clapback on somebody, maybe BadLieutenent. You hate Spring Breakers. I have to keep the hate distinct.

This choice. I question it.

Never forget!

It's slipped off my list, so its cool. No need to get 'spicious or start spitting on silver teeth.

Don't forget that great scene where Sure; basically,

Yeah, I'd put it in the category of a "good enough" movie that still didn't live up to its potential; it was pretty impressive on a sensory level, yes, but it also tried too hard to force the illusion of having greater emotional depth than it really did, by having Pitt just ramble directly to us about how unhappy he was in that "poetic" voice-over for half the movie. You'd think that for the obvious influence that 2001 had on it, that Gray would try a little harder to show, and not just tell with his storytelling. Anyway......while No Country For Old Men Junior didn't leave a particular impression on me besides that extradition sequence, 2049 is still a movie that's grew on me upon rewatch, since I feel that Villenueve's style is better-suited to big, ambitious Science-Fiction, so I agree with most of what you wrote about it, particularly about it not just repeating what the original did, but finding sensible ways to expands upon its world (although I actually like it better than the original currently, as I find the central couple in it a lot more compelling as characters). Anyway, the best Villenueve I've seen from last decade has still yet to pop up, so fingers crossed for that one.

That's a good reading. Well put. I didn't think of that.

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I didn't either, since it was originally @ThatDarnMKS's point, but thanks anyway.

Unless I missed it, curious about your views on "Boyhood". My favorite of the decade.