The MoFo Top 100 of the 2010s Countdown

→ in
Tools    





I think Sinister is the great one. The Conjuring is the good one, and Insidious is crap.
In fact, Sinister is my #4. It just stayed with me. Very chilling. The Boogeyman lives rent free in my head.
Sinister could easily have been in the bottom ten of my ballot, too. I don't even remember if I just forgot it or if it was consciously pushed out by other films. I even rewatched it a year or so ago and still liked it.
__________________



One from my list (at #23) that I thought might just have an outside chance was Kubo and the Two Strings, a visually stunning, heartfelt mish-mash of fantastical action and well-realized family dynamics. It's incredibly impressive and moving from beginning to end, and it has the nerve to end its story in a very complex, slightly-melancholy place. It's a kids movies that doesn't pander or assume that children can't handle emotional complexity and a bit of sadness.
I like the similar dynamic of the How to Train Your Dragon movies. The fact they treat its viewers with respect and allows them to deal with tough subjects in a mature way.

It sounds like the sort of animated film I'd enjoy.



To keep my personal reveals in pace with the actual countdown, I think I have to post the next two now.

#12 - The Dark

This Austrian horror indie is like a companion piece to Let the Right One In; it's just more about the trauma and survival than loneliness and friendship.

#11 - Freaks

An indie take on superheroes or at least something like that. Maybe Firestarter meets Logan with a fraction of the budget.

Seen: 43.5/96

My ballot (this far)  



La La Land is another movie where it's pretty clear that others see something I just don't. For me, there was just a lack of genuine soul to it.

I just reread the review I wrote when I first watched it, and I still feel much the same way.

While I liked the movie overall, it ultimately felt a bit . . . empty. There were quite a few sequences that were technically put together in a very strong way, but just failed to spark for me. For a musical, I didn't feel that many of the musical sequences added that much to the film. If you cut out every single song I actually think the film would have flowed better. (I did like "City of Stars", the song which won the best original song Oscar. But I honestly couldn't even hum a single other song from this film and I literally just finished it.)
.
.
.
I really wish that more of the musical numbers had been willing to go over the top and be more bold. Overall the film is just too gentle and tentative. There's a lot of people just stopping to sing their feelings with some nice, but predictable, choreography thrown in there.

Gosling and Stone are good in their roles, though their relationship is pretty shallow. I couldn't tell you why they fell in love or why they are a good match. They are the leads, so they fall in love. I wanted them to be happy, but the film never makes an argument for why they belong with each other. Even outside of their relationship, there's not a ton of character development.


Not mad about it being here (okay, unless I look at some of the films that didn't make the countdown at all, LOL), but again kind of indifferent.



La La Land is another movie where it's pretty clear that others see something I just don't. For me, there was just a lack of genuine soul to it.
Pretty much my feelings toward the only Chazelle film I've seen, Babylon.



I enjoyed La La Land, especially the production and set design. The two leads didn't have a lot of chemistry together, and their dance numbers were too amateurish. Also to my taste the ending was inconsistent with a good musical.


I may have been impressed with the idea of the film rather than the film itself.



Still, I put at my #18.



Society ennobler, last seen in Medici's Florence
Continuing with some more of my ballot... at #20 and #21, I have two titles from Scandinavian countries (Sweden and Iceland), released in one and the same year:


My #21. A Man Called Ove (2015)

Written and Directed by Hannes Holm
Starring Rolf Lassgård



---


My #20. Fúsi [Virgin Mountain] (2015)

Written and Directed by Dagur Kári
Starring Gunnar Jónsson



Although I've doubted some of these to be voted for by someone else, I couldn't omit these movies, being kind of representatives. This decade, I've paid considerable attention to the new Scandinavian cinema (including the television series).

Fusi is a very amusing film, touching and sad at the same time. It follows the hard and lonely every-day life of an uncouth well-padded middle aged man, constantly ridiculed by the people around him.

A Man Called Ove is an often researched drama about a recently retired man, a widower who experiences deep problems meeting the waves of the new generations and their chaotic disrespectful mode of living.



My List  


Welcome back. And it's time to reveal my #20 which was Best of Enemies.

For all the talk about why can't we get along with each other, I think you can point to the 1968 conventions as the genesis of that idea. ABC came up with the idea of having a series of debates between conservative commentator William Buckley and liberal author Gore Vidal...it probably helped that the alphabet network was in third place in the Nielsen ratings at the time. The results as you can expect were explosive. The two debaters made personal and political exchanges on each other as their vitriol hit the airwaves. As the tempers flew, so did the ratings for ABC. This documentary explores the long term ramifications of those debates and how it affected the participants. Another fascinating doc.



Welcome to the human race...
I didn't vote for La La Land. I've seen it twice and my assessment so far is that it's a perfectly fine film and nothing more - I can understand doing a more upbeat and romantic variation on the perfectionist terror of Whiplash, but that also has its limits. I do want to give it a third chance after being surprised by Babylon (itself a sort of cynical sister film to this one when it comes to depicts the highs and lows of trying to make it in Hollywood), but I'm not in a hurry.
__________________
I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



I forgot the opening line.
5. La La Land - I really never realised that La La Land was valued highly here - I've always been getting the impression that musicals are this forum's least liked genre, and while I haven't seen too many on Countdowns, here comes this way up at number 5. I like it well enough - I've seen it more than once and have it on DVD, but that second viewing confirmed that it's not going to be up amongst my favourite musicals from here on out. Well made, even spectacular, but the music doesn't quite do enough for me, and neither does Gosling or Emma Stone. I'm not criticizing them - they're all pretty good, but just not hitting me in a way that would shift this from the "yeah - okay" pile into the "wow - I love it" pile. Perhaps I should have seen it in a cinema. Anyway, I don't begrudge those who love it - music can be as subjective a thing as comedy, and the film has a visual style that won it a Best Cinematography Oscar - very much deservedly.

Seen - 88/96

My #14 - Berberian Sound Studio



Well, Berberian Sound Studio is kind of hard to describe. It's a film that has many interpretations - and I don't think it's a spoiler to say that my interpretation is that main character Gilderoy (Toby Jones) has died and is in hell. It's a very surreal kind of bizarre film - Gilderoy is a sound engineer that has been employed by an Italian studio to work on their giallo films, but the more he does there, the stranger things become. He finds himself actually inside the films he's helping make, and reality keeps on fracturing and changing on him. It's an awfully interesting and fun film, with a lot to interpret and make sense of. I love films like that, and this Peter Strickland movie really delivers a crazy instance of free-thinking dream-like meaning with each odd moment. One of my all-time favourites.
__________________
Remember - everything has an ending except hope, and sausages - they have two.
We miss you Takoma

Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



One that I knew had no chance, my #20, Upstream Color



One night while she's out at a nightclub, a woman is abducted by a man who seems to have hypnotized her by forcing her to inhale a tape-worm like creature. After using his control over her to steal all of her money and then surgically removing the worm from her body, he puts her back in her home. The film follows this character, Kris (played brilliantly by Amy Seimetz), as she tries to figure out what happened to her, eventually connecting with a man who had a similar experience.

This film, about trying to understand a trauma/experience that the characters can't even name had a huge impact on me when I first watched it and on subsequent viewings. As Kris tries to make sense of everything, often treated with disbelief or disdain (including a terrible and harrowing visit to the hospital), she must try to find a way forward.

If I'd made my top 25 list ten years ago (okay, that would have still been in the 2010s, whatever!), this movie would have been at or very near the top of my list. It's not just that I've seen other great movies in that time, but unfortunately the way that real life intrudes into my enjoyment of art has dealt this one a blow. Shane Carruth (who wrote, directed, and stars as the man Kris meets and teams up with to figure out what happened to her) was in a relationship with Seimetz and, um, was apparently horribly abusive to her. It's really impacted my ability to watch the film and enjoy it, knowing what he put her through.

Still, there are aspects of the film I find undeniably powerful--including the lead performance from Seimetz--and so it didn't feel right to bump it from my list.



My #14 - Berberian Sound Studio



Well, Berberian Sound Studio is kind of hard to describe. It's a film that has many interpretations - and I don't think it's a spoiler to say that my interpretation is that main character Gilderoy (Toby Jones) has died and is in hell. It's a very surreal kind of bizarre film - Gilderoy is a sound engineer that has been employed by an Italian studio to work on their giallo films, but the more he does there, the stranger things become. He finds himself actually inside the films he's helping make, and reality keeps on fracturing and changing on him. It's an awfully interesting and fun film, with a lot to interpret and make sense of. I love films like that, and this Peter Strickland movie really delivers a crazy instance of free-thinking dream-like meaning with each odd moment. One of my all-time favourites.
Huh. Literal hell? I personally never took that reading. Work hell, some type of purgatory. But tied very much to the physical world.

Well, I guess I'll keep revealing them as other people mention them.
My #11: Berberian Sound Studio



This Argento-homage, work-place dark comedy, atmospheric horror movie is about a special effects sound engineer Gilderoy (Toby Jones), going to Italy to work on a low budget Italian horror movie (I just assume this is set in the 70s). One learns quickly that this isn't the type of movie he normally works on. Gilderoy is clearly not doing this movie out of preference, and is clearly a fragile man in some ways that has been damaged. Stuck on a movie production that will never end, in which it's questionable if he'll ever get paid, his work starts to take an effect on him, breaking him even more, getting under his skin.

Did I rate this higher than I probably should have? When looking at some of the movies I ranked it over, maybe. But I've watched it what feels like a lot of times and just love it so much.

Pretty colors, dark comedy, the pathos of a broken man. It was custom made for me.

My Ballot  



Victim of The Night
What about The Music Man? If you enjoyed Bringing Up Baby, you might enjoy that one.
I love The Music Man. Like, a lot.



Victim of The Night
Of those, The Conjuring is the best of the three...it helped that Lili Taylor was in it as well.
Agreed.
Though I thought Sinister was just awful.



At the time of sending in the ballot, La La Land was my number six. Afterwards, I re-evaluated it and forgot to adjust my new ballot towards that re-evaluation. Anyway, La La Land is a well done musical with a heavy-hitting ending and a lot of spark. But I still feel that Babylon is the better Damien Chazelle film.



Old Ballot:
1. The Avengers
3. The Lighthouse
4. Endgame
6. La La Land

8. A Separation
10. Blade Runner 2049
11. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
15. Gone Girl
16. Django Unchained
18. Inside Out
19. Incendies
22. Black Swan
24. Her


New Ballot:
1. The Avengers
3. The Lighthouse
4. Endgame
7. A Separation
9. Blade Runner 2049
10. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
14. Gone Girl
15. The Shape of Water
16. Django Unchained
19. Inside Out
20. La La Land

21. Incendies
22. Interstellar
25. Midnight in Paris


Seen 59/96



I need to check The Conjuring then. I just checked which is which, and I remember thinking Sinister was merely ok, and Insidious being pretty bad.


I loved La La Land Ryan Gosling was fine in it, but I especially loved Emma Stone and I love her in practically anything she does and her beauty is only part of the equation. No, really! But no vote from me.

List so far:
#2. Moonrise Kingdom #37
#4. Silver Linings Playbook #24
#5. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri #44
#6. True Grit #40
#7. Arrival #12
#9. Brooklyn No chance for it.
#10. Hell or High Water #73
#11. Zero Dark Thirty #58
#13. The Nice Guys DNP #103
#15. Edge of Tomorrow #68
#24. Gone Girl #65
#25. Heaven Is For Real Will not place.
__________________
"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."



Victim of The Night

THE FAVOURITE: Haven't seen and probably the one I feel worst about not seeing. Was just chastised by an ex for having not seen it yet. In her opinion "you liked all that guys other crap films...and you skip this one". Yeah, that's basically me in a nut shell.
This genuinely made me laugh in my living room.



One that I knew had no chance, my #20, Upstream Color



One night while she's out at a nightclub, a woman is abducted by a man who seems to have hypnotized her by forcing her to inhale a tape-worm like creature. After using his control over her to steal all of her money and then surgically removing the worm from her body, he puts her back in her home. The film follows this character, Kris (played brilliantly by Amy Seimetz), as she tries to figure out what happened to her, eventually connecting with a man who had a similar experience.

This film, about trying to understand a trauma/experience that the characters can't even name had a huge impact on me when I first watched it and on subsequent viewings. As Kris tries to make sense of everything, often treated with disbelief or disdain (including a terrible and harrowing visit to the hospital), she must try to find a way forward.

If I'd made my top 25 list ten years ago (okay, that would have still been in the 2010s, whatever!), this movie would have been at or very near the top of my list. It's not just that I've seen other great movies in that time, but unfortunately the way that real life intrudes into my enjoyment of art has dealt this one a blow. Shane Carruth (who wrote, directed, and stars as the man Kris meets and teams up with to figure out what happened to her) was in a relationship with Seimetz and, um, was apparently horribly abusive to her. It's really impacted my ability to watch the film and enjoy it, knowing what he put her through.

Still, there are aspects of the film I find undeniably powerful--including the lead performance from Seimetz--and so it didn't feel right to bump it from my list.
I'm a huge fan of this one. I hung to it for a while, but eventually let it go, but I'm glad you mentioned it.
__________________
Check out my podcast: The Movie Loot!



Sorry to Bother You was my #12
This is another one I strongly considered. Bold filmmaking, especially considering it comes from a rookie director.