The MoFo Top 100 of the 2010s Countdown

Trailers

__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd

Trivia

MoFo Reviewers

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Read the full review here.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

No user reviews exist for this film right now. However, I did find a few Letterboxd reviews of the film, so I'll link them here instead:

ScarletLion: https://letterboxd.com/smallclone/fi...-lady-on-fire/

Allaby: https://letterboxd.com/steveallaby/f...-lady-on-fire/

Thief: https://letterboxd.com/thief12/film/...-lady-on-fire/

I haven't seen either of these.

My aversion to anything that looks heavily estrogen influenced has kept me away from Portrait of a Lady On Fire. I've always had conflicting thoughts about Into the Spiderverse. My animation loving side has always been a little interested but my superhero hating side has always been very much disinterested. So far the superhero hating side has won.

__________________

I guess the guy who put avengers at his number one has to see Spider-Verse today, because I haven't seen either. So by the end of the day I'll have seen 47/76.

This is a pair that I think are pretty good, but find vastly overrated by cinephiles. I think the draw is that they are both unique compared to their thematic counterparts. I don’t find that enough to elevate them to the position they are in. This is a pretty disappointing pair for me this far into the countdown.

There's the 2 shockers. Had a feeling it was coming.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a pretty cool film. Gorgeously animated, thematically strong, and great voice-cast. However, I didn't feel it hit me as hard as I was expecting, based on all the hoopla around it. Therefore, it didn't make my list. I've been meaning to rewatch it, see if it clicks more, but either way, I enjoyed it, and I'm glad to see it here.

On the other hand, Portrait of a Lady on Fire was one of those I couldn't shake off for days. Not only is it gorgeously shot, but it is also beautifully acted. There is a patience to Sciamma's direction and how she lets the relationship between the two leads unfold, but also an organic chemistry between both actresses. A great mixture of beauty and tragedy, with a last act that packs an emotional punch. I think this was one of my very, very last cuts, and I'm pretty sure I cut it because I knew it would make it anyway, and I wanted to give more push to a more underseen film. So take from that what you may. I loved this film.


So, here's where I'm at, including the chances for the rest of my list...

Seen: 55/74

mark f

I couldn't find any ratings/reviews mark f wrote for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Neither film made mark f's ballot.

That's somewhat my reaction to both films as well. I enjoyed them both, but I didn't love them.

Ah, here are two of mine at last. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is pure pop fun, my second favorite animated film of the decade and my favorite superhero film. I grew up on the Peter Parker Spider-Man (and it was nice to see him here) but the Miles Morales version is a worthy successor. My #19.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire was my #5. Beautiful and intense. The power of looking, and seeing.

LOL, unfortunately I only had a quote in there but if anyone's interested for more of my take on it, you can check out these two episodes of my podcast:

Episode 18, where I briefly talked about it after watching it (around the 15 minute mark)

Episode 69, where I listed it among my Top 5 films directed by women (around the 1:15:00 mark)

Enjoy!

I agree.

Although it looks like I actually gave Portrait a very high score. Oh well. It hasn’t truly stuck with me though I do remember it okay. I feel like it had amazing moments but maybe not perfect overall. I don’t know.

Spider-Verse I’ve seen a couple of times and I just don’t love it. I feel like I should but I don’t. Also a slightly higher rating than I remember I see.

Well, both are really well made movies still.

One vote.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire was my #6. One of the few times in recent memory that I can remember being palpably surprised by a film is when I had to catch this at a festival because the film I had intended to see, Little Monsters, had unexpectedly sold out and I needed to find a backup choice. As it turns out, this became one of my favourite films of the decade and Little Monsters became one of my least favourite. Anyway, the film. Though its central narrative regarding the romance that unfolds between an artist and the noblewoman she's been commissioned to paint arguably deals in the usual conventional concepts of passionate romance forbidden by the restrictions of social mores and other machinations outside their control, such a tale is told with extreme cinematic verve. The subject matter also makes the matter of referring to each frame and composition as "painterly" a little trite and certain scenes are staged in such a way to invite that comparison, but it's a by-product of exerting such control so as to fully express not just the relationship that develops between these two women but also how it fundamentally changes them as people - a woman as worldly as Marianne can still learn much from the cloistered Heloise, for instance. They are not artist and muse, but collaborators on a work that will come to define them regardless of how much they are living on borrowed time together.

I've seen Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse a couple of times and think it's a reasonably fun and creative ride, though not something I think is quite as much of a modern classic as its reputation suggests. Still, I think it's good enough that I'm hoping it's the last superhero movie to make this list because I'm having trouble thinking of what else could come afterwards and actually seem like it's better.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0