Jinn's 100 Films of the 2010s

gosh that movie is really funny lol and loved the bloopers lol

Just want to add that I've seen Thomasin McKenzie in a couple of films now and I think she's a future A-lister. Calling it now.

(it's also possible that she's already a star and I'm just too out of touch to know it. In that case disregard this post.)

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Captain's Log
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I can't speak to the particular case of Jojo Rabbit, having never seen it. Those points were just specifically related to Sedai claiming to have heard people shame even the attempt of making Nazi's the subject of humor, which is inherently ridiculous on its face. And they are claims I've also heard in relation to the movie. Not that there might not be legitimate complaints as to how its attempts at satire might miss the mark, but anything I've personally seen written as a criticism on its mistakes usually seem pretty poorly thought out or articulated.

So while I've never seen Jojo Rabbit, I have seen a film which has recently found some similar controversy (Death of Stalin). While it is not about Nazi's, it is about murderous fascists, and I've seen some people get upset over how its depictions of the higher-ups in Stalin's party are not accurately portrayed, making them seem considerably more harmless and buffoon like then they were in real life. But those complaints (which at times sound eerily similar to frustrations thrown at Jojo) seem to completely misunderstand how satire functions. Historically, satire seems to consistently be misinterpreted as either an endorsement for what it is lampooning, or simply being cruel by daring to bring humor into a 'not a laughing' matter. While, as said, I don't know how these criticisms shake out in relation to Jojo, there is a very bad track record for people getting up in arms as a reflexive reaction to jokes being lobbed at understandably sensitive subject matter. On a completely emotional level, I get why people can get angry at these things. I just personally get frustrated when this anger is then used to shame those who might see a function in the satire, and dare to find it funny. Or important.

As for your mention of making a Nazi redeemable or sympathetic, I think that there is a difference between portraying the Nazi Party itself as being sympathetic, and portraying an individual in the party the same way. To turn each person who was complicit in what happened in Germany circa WWII into little more than a one dimensional avatar of evil, is to remove humanity in general from culpability for what happened. It's extremely important for us to always remember it wasn't 'nazi's' that murdered 8 million jews. It was people. And, more often than not, people who were fairly regular and probably not at all genocidal before the war. Sure, they may have had the seeds of some bad ideas in them that were exploited through propaganda and perverted notions of patriotism, but to treat Nazism as a disease which only afflicted the most abhorrent and irredeemable of us, is to put blinkers on to how this is was an event that, if a bunch of black stars aligned themselves perfectly again, could happen anywhere. Now, maybe Jojo Rabbit misplaced its sympathy in how it portrayed some of its particular characters, I don't know, but I'm not against the notion of injecting some sympathy simply on principal. Sympathy is actually one of the ways we can understand the realities of the horror. And satire is the way of draining some of the poison.

Speaking as one of the haters, I don't Jojo's failings are that it makes the Nazis too sympathetic, but that its caricatures are lazy and broad, outside of the Rockwell character. (The Rebel Wilson character basics hangs over my memory of the entire film.) The Death of Stalin navigates the territory much more astutely, imo.

While I wouldn't call myself a hater, I agree with this.

Taika's Hitler simply doesn't work outside of broad humor. He's incongruous to what Jojo is shown to identify with fascism (wanting to be strong, tough, etc) and is instead a goofy, unicorn eating, effiminate ball of silliness. There's nothing pointed, inciteful or scathing in him being a parody of Hitler. He could essentially be a parody of anyone and they would hardly have to change anything save for the mustache.

And there's so much to make fun of Hitler and fascists for but it's just not present in the film. It's frustrating because the coming-of-age elements and war drama stuff work very well for me. The butterfly/shoes scene is an incredibly effective piece of film.

Though I think you're a little too hard on Wilson. The potato masher/"give him a hug" bit was solid war crime comedy.

But yes, Death of Stalin is far better.

Totally agree.

So what you're saying is... Stalin > Hitler

On mustache authority alone, there's no comparison.

Now you've really surprised me.
Virtually no acting takes place in that entire scene. It's a long series of stunts with some wide-eyed surprise thrown on for "emotion". His stunt-double could have done the scene. Mel Gibson's stunt-double could have done the scene.
The scene itself may be more high-action than the old Mad Maxes because it's a different era, but that has nothing to do with Hardy or Gibson.
I would take the Thunderdome scene over that one any day of the week and twice on Sunday. And in that case, a big part of it actually is Gibson.

Agreed. Stalin didn't manage to ruin a style of mustache for everybody after.

For some strange reason, he didn't even manage to ruin the reputation of an ideology. History, winners, etc., I guess.

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More like Tom Hardly, amirite?


I think Tom Hardy is a fine actor. I'm confused by any suggestion that the definiteve Max Rockatansky isn't Mel Gibson. I don't know if this is a retrofitted reaction to our more recent discovery that Gibson isn't a very good human being. We saw this with Kevin Spacey, where people want to pretend that these guys have been bad actors all along. It's nonsense. Young Mel Gibson was a force to be reckoned with - Mad Max, Gallipoli, Year of Living Dangerously - all before he was 25, arguably hasn't been better since. The only recent actor who I think can come close to capturing Gibson's specific qualities on screen would be Michael Fassbender.


Stu is confused about the distinction between "presence" and "intensity". They are not the same thing. An actor with natural screen presence does not have to appear to try so hard. It's a fairly rare and star-making quality. Gibson's Max conveyed far more information about his character by doing very little, yet his Max is a distinctly formed character. He can seethe with his eyes rather than with his spit.


Another example would harken to what I mentioned about OUATIH, and the contrast between DiCaprio and Pitt. The characters are perfect analogues of their styles. Pitt is the more effortless presence on screen, his natural charisma makes it seem that he's not working as hard. With DiCaprio, as accomplished an actor that he obviously is, we can see the work. He's getting better, he doesn't rely on the high-pitched affectations as much anymore, but Pitt's aloofness, a quality he's groomed since Thelma and Louise, is a large part of his appeal. That doesn't make Pitt the better actor necessarily, but it does make him more suitable for certain roles. OUATIH would not work had the actors switched roles.


I appreciate Hardy's impossible attempt to channel his own version of Max, just as I sympathize with Alden Ehrenreich's impossible task of channeling Harrison Ford (another naturally charismatic force of nature) and winding up halfway to Dennis Quaid instead. I think it would be equally perverse for someone to say that Ehrenreich topped Ford as it is to say that Hardy bested Gibson.

In my defense, Death of Stalin was the last film entered into my list, having just watched it this past July, and I may have been guilty of simply finding it a spot where I could squeeze it in. It could very well be way too low on this list, but, outside of maybe my top 5, the list has proven to be very fluid.


I'm not a List Nazi, is what I'm saying. Feel free to liberally shuffle the deck.

I dunno. I guess I like 'em a little dark. The only other Chang-dong I've seen was Poetry, and as lovely as it is (and if I wasn't mistakenly thinking it was 2009, I would have considered it) it didn't quite make the same impression.


Also to my shame, I've had Peppermint Candy on my watchlist for about three years now

It's ok, we know it's because you love Hitler more.*Mustache and all.*

Well put.*I will say that Hardy goes for a different enough portrayal that the comparison is a non-issue for me.*His choices here work well enough in the movie even when theu can be distracting elsewhere (I think Legend is a good example of Hardy at his worst, although he does fight himself at one point). I think Ehrenreich is going too obviously for the same notes as Ford that he can't help but come up short (even when I find his movie one of the less offensive Disney Star Wars joints).


And agreed on Pitt and Di Caprio (although I'd say the latter puts in some of his best work as well, getting much more smoothly into his character or making the work part of the performance, as in the western scene). 2019 might be the year of Peak Brad.*

This is precisely why I avoid doing anything remotely in order with my lists. Outside of maybe the tip top, my favorite films are an amorphous blob depending on my mood at that moment.

How can I choose between Three Amigos or Tree of Life?

But it was extremely convincing emotion that suited that particular scene perfectly, and it's just one example from that film; you also have scenes like the one where Max holds Furiosa and the "wives" hostage at gunpoint, doing things like giving orders by just impatiently snapping his fingers while staring distrustful daggers into every one of them, where Hardy really, fully embodies the character with his eyes, body language, and every ounce of his performance. However, Tom isn't just the maddest Max of them all in Fury Road, but he also transforms into a very caring one at the end...



...showing that it's not just a one-dimensional take on an old character, as he shows a broad range of emotions in the film, which leads into one of my other points; it's not so much that Hardy's Max is better because I feel he's better at acting than Gibson (as I honestly don't know which one I feel is a better actor anyway), but because he has more of a chance to shine due to his starker overall characterization, as his Max gets to be more animalistic than Gibson ever was (who, while anti-social in The Road Warrior, still remained quite calm throughout), while also getting a stronger arc in rediscovering his humanity, which felt a bit lacking in the original trilogy, which is why it feels like Miller choose to redo the character's arc with the overall soft series reboot that was Fury Road in the first place. I'm not saying Gibson wasn't a good Max in the original trilogy (because he was), and I'm not putting Hardy over him now because of subsequent scandals jn his personal life (which is an absurd conclusion if anyone's trying to imply that's what I'm doing here), but he just didn't leave as much of an impression as Hardy because the material he was given wasn't quite as strong, IMO.

I think Poetry and Peppermint Candy are both darker than Burning, certainly the former. Although it's all subjective. Oasis is also very very bleak but brilliant and contains some of the best acting I've seen in modern Korean cinema. All down to personal taste though.

Well, I agree with you, and your point about DiCaprio is well-taken. I agree that he is getting better, in fact I thought "the best acting I've ever seen" was actually pretty good acting, but normally he does seem like he's working. Pitt has been really bad at times in his career but he seems to have settled into his groove and his screen magnetism has never been in question. I thought he was great in OUATIH.

I watched Siskel & Ebert's 1987 review of Lethal Weapon this morning and it's a great example of what you're talking about. In the scene that introduces Mel Gibson to the audience (and Murtaugh, actually), Gibson does not speak at all and is only in the scene for a moment at the end. But his screen presence is so powerful and his chops so strong that it feels like a major arrival just from the look in his eyes. He doesn't grimace or growl or actually do anything "intense", it just seethes from his eyes.

Hardy never had a chance to match that.