The MoFo Top 100 of the 2010s Countdown

I have one particular memory about Silver Linings Playbook. About 10 years ago, I started watching it with my mom. Maybe 15-20 minutes in, I told her that I just can't continue because the film is so atrocious it was unwatchable. She responded that the film isn't that atrocious. Well, we put on another film anyway. This speaks volumes because I rarely ever stop watching a film. I usually force myself to finish even the largest turd. I failed with Silver Linings Playbook. But hey, I used to have much higher standards, so maybe I should finally force myself to watch it, eh? It's just that I'm not feeling very masochistic at the moment.

I've seen Inception 12 years ago so I can't say anything substantial about it. (Not that anything I say about other films is substantial.) Apparently, I found it painfully mediocre but watchable enough not to warrant the lowest ratings. Which kind of applies to most of Nolan's filmography safe for Memento and Dunkirk which manage to rank a tad bit higher than the rest of his output in my personal ranking.

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Love and purity are the most important things in life.

I see this complaint a lot: that the characters that are meant to evoke emotion for the main character, or that the main character is supposed to feel strong emotional connections to, are more of an intellectual abstract used as a storytelling device than real people.

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Well, I don't know. It might be if you only look at the mainstream.

I haven't seen Silver Linings Playbook. It's not much of a priority on my watchlist, but I might get to it at some point.

I have seen Inception, which I found to be alright. I somewhat elaborated on my issues on the film back when Interstellar when revealed, but I'll rehash them again. The more I thought about Inception, I began to realize that Cobb's conflict with Mal, his inability to let her go, and how her presence colored the dream fabric of the film was the real emotional core of the film. I found this to be the most emotionally resonant aspect and it stuck with me the most. Yet, if you look around the internet, you'd see that most people spend their times trying to deciphering the dream world rules and calling it a great film due to those plot mechanics. To me though, this all feels secondary to the actual emotional core of the film. In a film like Memento, the plot mechanics are all at the heart of the main character's amnesia, but with this film and Interstellar, they feel like MacGuffins. If you were to remove the dram world rules, the emotional core of Cobb's conflict with his wife wouldn't be negated. The dream world rules also don't improve that conflict either. They're both separate from each other and one of those two aspects is constantly trying to overshadow the other one. Anyways, I know it sounds like I'm just trashing the film, but I will grant that the technical craft, the mix of cgi/practical effects, the music, the aforementioned emotional core, and the final minute are all top notch, so I don't think it's a bad film by any means. It's just that its more impactful moments have to put up a big fight to not be overshadowed.

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Silver Linings Playbook is one I had given up hope would show on the collective, but I had it on my ballot at number nineteen, accounting for seven of its 198 points. I saw it multiple times when it was released theatrically and quite a lot since. Structurally it is a Romantic Comedy but the darker edges and the damaged characters make it something of its own. I love the humor in it juxtaposed to the tragedy without being glib, yet still enough of a romantic fantasy for the ending to work. For this viewer, anyway. Cooper and Lawrence are terrific together and all of the supporting parts fit perfectly, from DeNiro and Jacki Weaver to Anupam Kher, John Ortiz, Chris Tucker, Paul Herman, and Julia Stiles. It would have been even better juju if this had been revealed last Saturday when the Philadelphia Eagles were playing the New York Giants in the playoffs as we could have all had a parlay on the outcome, but Top 25 is a terrific spot. Excelsior.

HOLDEN PIKE’S LIST
4. Incendies (#30)
5. Take Shelter (#67)
6. The Artist (#87)
8. Silence (#43)
10. The Revenant (#53)
11. The Favourite (#61)
14. Nightcrawler (#55)
15. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (#72)
19. Silver Linings Playbook (#24)
21. Room (#97)
22. True Grit (#40)


That makes eleven of mine and I should have another nine coming in the top twenty-two, which will mean only five of my choices won't make the cut.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Spent all day working on some art, so I'm watching Spider Verse now while working on the art (dual focus technique, HOO-AH!) As far as Inception goes, I only saw it once. I remember a critic I once met, Mark S. Allen, as having said that the plot was difficult to follow. But I caught onto it just fine because I love dream stories.

I'm past the first 20 minutes of Spider Verse. So far, I need not add to the constant praise of that animation direction. This is gift-from-God gold here. But I gotta say that since we got so many Spider Man stories in so short of a time, the "discovering my Spidey powers" bit has to be SAVED by the animation and humor for lack of story originality, and the humor itself still needed some work. Still, having just come off the back of Ultraviolet, this is the definition of what a movie-comic should look like (as opposed to a comic movie). Looks like Sony Animation redeemed themselves after Patrick Stewart's Stool: the Movie.

I didn't like Silver Linings Playbook (I watched only the first 30 minutes, so maybe at the end it got better.)

What turned me off was: I found the characters to be unbelievable in the way they looked, acted and talked. If I can't suspend my disbelief during a film then I'm not 'in' the story and I lose interest. Both Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence looked liked 'movie stars' in this, not characters in a story.

I was also put off by the overuse of the F word all the time. Maybe girls talk differently today,. but when Jennifer's character says F.... every other sentence and then says to Cooper, 'do you want to come inside and f.... me'....I thought to myself, people do not talk that way, not all the time. So I didn't believe her dialogue.

The film also lost me when Bradley Cooper goes ballistic in his parents bedroom when he first comes home. That was too much and too extreme too be funny. If that scene was done in a serious drama it would have had punch, but done in a comedy it's not funny.

The director relies on shocking the audience to create his 'comedy' and that's not the hallmark of a good director.

This is such a weird list.

Anyway, I actually really enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook back on its release and I’ve been meaning to revisit ever since. I finally did rather recently and I still liked it but not quite to the extent of the first watch. But it’s a fine film, it just has no business being this damn high.

As for Inception, it’s one of the last Nolan’s I truly enjoyed. And I still like it a lot actually. He hasn’t completely gotten lost in big scale big ambition chaos just yet. He was getting there though. But this still had some emotional moments and had a decent balance. Unlike, say, Tenet.

I don't mind these lists being varied but I'm starting to get really surprised at some of the entries here and how high they're placing, when faced with the reality that only six of my films are going to make it

I liked Silver Linings Playbook when I first saw it. Didn't really enjoy it the last time I did. Same with Inception.

65/78 seen.

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I learned long ago not to get caught up in the order of these exercises, not just here at MoFo but when magazines and other websites do them, too. Just alphabetize them in your mind and appreciate the width and breadth of the choices.

We have one MoFo with Silver Linings Playbook on his ballot, and two admitting to placing Inception. We were up fairly high on the countdown - where are all the people that voted for these films? I see a lot of vitriol and not much praise and we are in the top 25!

Then again, these just went up - perhaps the later day/night MoFos will arrive and start praising the films.

Confession: I think I'm halfway through the Silver Linings Playbook. I haven't been compelled to finish it. Chris Tucker has some moments that work for me. Jennifer Lawrence (difficult as she can be in real life) kind of works as Tiffany, the kooky, flawed dance instructor and possible love interest. But I think my largest issue is the shrugging off of the bipolar disorder of Pat (Bradley Cooper). I mean, he just got out of a mental institute at the beginning and fine. But it feels like it takes secondary shape to the dance practices, the family drama, the Eagles. And his attempts to win his ex-wife do come across as a bit stalkery. I mean, hello, restraining order?

I mean it's not as bad as what I imagine that Music would be. But it didn't look like it was all that good either.

I mean, I have a DVD copy and poster on Inception. It was a lot of fun to watch, to unfold. You could argue maybe it's a little too simple as Ariadne (Elliot Page) serves as the audience surrogate as people explain things to them. The concept of stealing and planting secrets in the mind is fascinating...even to me who has seen Paprika. It manages to work as an intellectual exercise and as a film with heart as Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) tries to get closer to his loved ones and deal with his ex Mal (Marion Cotillard). It even made us wonder about a top for a while. But that didn't make my list.

This is true, and to me, this is the same reason why Prometheus failed. Two movies that try to build a thematic film on a (largely) hard sci-fi foundation. Every event gets pulled in two different directions because the writers didn't want to commit to abstraction.

The Cell does a much better job of portraying the kind of dream world excursion Inception goes for in an interesting way. A secret represented by an envelope in a safe; come on Chris. Do better.

Inception is one of those films that gets worse the more you watch it. After the 5th viewing I decided I'd be OK with never seeing it again.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

I try my best As I said, I might have a little moan, but overall the variety is a good thing. Even if I don't like a film, I get enjoyment out of reading other people's posts explaining why they made their personal lists, especially your own.

I seen Inception...meh.

But it was a great decade for 'content'.

Oh yeah I forgot Silver Linings Playbook was a thing. I saw it once and liked it back in the day.

Had to double check my list to see if Inception made it or not. Looks like it squeaked in at 23. It’s an incredible and inventive take on an action heist movie. The big problem is on rewatches all the exposition in the first half is a chore to sit through since we already know the rules from previous viewings.

When Tenet came out someone making fun of Nolan mentioned that complicated rules for your world doesn’t make a smart movie. I think that kind of implies to Inception too.

Many women use cuss words in regular speech. A lot. It's normal.

Signed,
A Woman Who Cusses A Lot

P.S. - The movie still sucked, but Lawrence's profanity isn't why.

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