The Decade's Best

Here are my 10 best films of the past decade, I tried to spread out the years and vary in genres and I'm sure as soon as I post this I'll remember a film that should have been included so I'm giving myself permission to post revisions.

Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)

Lord of the Rings - Trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001/02/03)

28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002)

City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2002)

The Station Agent (Thomas McCarthy, 2003)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)

Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005)

Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)

No Country for Old Men (Coen Brothers, 2007)

Since I'm indecisive and couldn't really narrow it down with out at least mentioning my other favourites here's a (long) list of my Honourable Mentions

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Coen Brothers, 2000)

Y tu mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)

Royal Tennebaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)

The Bourne Trilogy (Doug Liman 2002, Paul Greengrass 2004/07)

Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)

Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)

The Motorcycle Diaries (Walter Salles, 2004)

Me and You and Everyone We Know (Mirand July, 2005)

The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)

There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, 2007)

Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)

The Visitor (Thomas McCarthy, 2008)

Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008)

I didn't pick any from this year as I thought I should give those films a little bit more time to see how they age, so to speak, but I will be making a best of 2009 list shortly.

30 Best

I love lists. Best of lists, that is. I'm not a fan of worst of lists, as previously mentioned on this blog. With the year coming to a close soon the lists have started rolling in and this year marks the end of the decade so there's the added bonus of best of the decade lists.

We get things started with TIFF's 30 best films of the decade, not sure why they picked 30, and there are actually more than 50 films on this list because of ties, but, hey, it's their list. So, 60 film historians, archivists and programmers from around the world voted for their favourites and here's what they came up with.

1. Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand) – 53 votes
2. Platform (Jia Zhang-ke, Hong Kong, China/China/Japan/France) – 49 votes
3. Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke, China) – 48 votes
4. Beau travail (Claire Denis, France) – 46 votes
5. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, China) – 43 votes
6. Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, France/Thailand/Germany/Italy) – 38 votes
7. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, Romania) – 35 votes
Werckmeister Harmonies (Bela Tarr, Hungary) – 35 votes
8. Éloge de l'amour ( In Praise of Love ) (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland/ France) – 34 votes
9. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, Romania) – 33 votes
10. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/France/Netherlands) – 32 votes
11. Russian Ark (Alexander Sokurov, Russia/Germany) – 31 votes
12. The New World (Terrence Malick, USA) – 30 votes
13. Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, France/Thailand) – 29 votes
14. Le Fils ( The Son ) (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France) – 27 votes
15. Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa, Portugal/France/Switzerland) – 25 votes
16. Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse ( The Cleaners and I ) (Agnès Varda, France) – 24 votes
In Vanda's Room (Pedro Costa, Portugal/Germany/Italy/Switzerland) – 24 votes
Songs from the Second Floor (Roy Andersson, Sweden/Denmark/Norway) – 24 votes
17 . Caché ( Hidden ) (Michael Haneke, France/Austria/Germany/Italy) – 23 votes
A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, USA) – 23 votes
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, France/USA) – 23 votes
Three Times (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan) – 23 votes
18. Rois et reine ( Kings & Queen ) (Arnaud Desplechin, France) – 21 votes
19. Elephant (Gus Van Sant, USA) – 20 votes
20. Talk to Her (Pedro Almodovar, Spain) – 19 votes
21. The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran/France) 18 votes
YI YI (A One and a Two) (Edward Yang, Taiwan/Japan) – 18 votes
22. Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, Spain) – 17 votes
23. L'Enfant ( The Child ) (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France) – 16 votes
The Heart of the World (Guy Maddin, Canada) – 16 votes
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan/France/Austria) – 16 votes
Star Spangled to Death (Ken Jacobs, USA) – 16 votes
24. The World (Jia Zhang-ke, China/Japan/France) – 14 votes
25. Café Lumière (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Japan) – 13 votes
The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/Spain/France/Italy) – 13 votes
L'Intrus ( The Intruder ) (Claire Denis, France) – 13 votes
Millennium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan/France) – 13 votes
My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, Canada) – 13 votes
Saraband (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden) – 13 votes
Spirited Away (Hiyao Miyazaki, Japan) – 13 votes
I'm Not There (Todd Haynes, USA) – 13 votes
26. Gerry (Gus Van Sant, USA) – 12 votes
27. Distant (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey) – 11 votes
Dogville (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/UK/France/Germany) – 11 votes
The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, USA) – 11 votes
28. Alexandra (Alexander Sokurov, Russia/France) – 9 votes
demonlover (Olivier Assayas, France) – 9 votes
29. Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner (Zacharias Kunuk, Canada) – 8 votes
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan) – 8 votes
30. Longing (Valeska Grisebach, Germany) – 7 votes
Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea) – 7 votes
Vai e Vem ( Come and Go ) (Joao Cesar Monteiro, Portugal) – 7 votes
Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, USA/France) – 7 votes

The ones in blue are the ones that I've seen. Thirteen of them. Not many. Definitely not as many as I would like.

My own list would undoubtedly have way more English language films on it. That's not because of preference it's just because that's what I'm exposed to. A good number of the titles on TIFF's list I haven't even heard of and would probaly have trouble finding to rent. I'll try though.

I'll also try and put together my own best films of the decade list, so check back for that.

The Future is Nigh

Alright there's a company in Japan that called itself Cyberdeyne - which is from this movie - and they developed a product called "Hybrid Assistive Limb" or HAL - which is from another movie. Both of these movies served as warnings about reliance on technology. They must have known this, it can't be a coincidence. Here's a picture of HAL

Using bio-electrical sensors attached to the user's skin it is able to analyze how much power the user intends to generate and then the power units generate torque and assist the user's limbs.

While that's pretty cool, it worries me a tiny bit. Things didn't go too well for the humans in those films.

The Mercury Men

I don't often watch web serials but this looks cool.
Here's the official website.

More Shorts

Why aren't short films more popular?

It's the World Wide Short Film Festival here in Toronto and I attended a screening last night of Official Selection 5 What You See is Not What You Get. Overall the quality was good, some were better then others with the top ones in my opinion being Top Girl, The Kinda Surtra and Section 44 - all very different but all very good. But the screening wasn't even half full. Now I must admit that this is my first time attending the festival so I have no idea if this is the norm but I have attended the shorts program at TIFF and they were packed. Is it just that TIFF is bigger and can attract more viewers? I enjoyed the shorts last night more than I did the ones at TIFF so I don't think it's a quality issue. Or is it just that people aren't that interested in watching shorts? As someone who is making some short films now this question intrigues me.

I think overall the film industry could do more to promote the short medium. When I was in Ireland the Irish Film Institute would couple a feature and a short together at every screening and I thoroughly enjoyed that. Perhaps we could start that here, sort of like what they do at festivals but do it for every film.

Sore Red Palms

I saw Robert Lepage's Lipsynch on Saturday and was blown away, yet again by this man. Lipsynch explores the human voice and it's a nine act play featuring nine actors that lasts about 9 hours - including breaks.

What a fucking show.

There are some ridiculously beautiful moments. The incredible staging and shear theatricality had me audibly gasping. Some parts were stronger than others but I'm sure the weaker ones will tightened and honed as they continue to work on the piece. I've read some reviews of earlier production and it seems like a fair amount has changed since those incarnations so I think it's safe to assume the piece will continue to grow.

Even now though, the highs far out weigh the lows. If you get a chance go and see it but be warned you'll walk out with sore red palms.

Am I illiterate?

It's Hot Docs time in Toronto and, while we've bought tickets to a few films, we've only seen one so far. It was Peter Greenway's film Rembrandt's J'Accuse. The film is a forensic like investigation into Rembrandt's painting Nightwatch.

It was an incredibly interesting film, told in a sort of essay style with Greenway's own floating head narrating. I'm still amazed by the opening sequence, which you can see here (and also get an idea of what I mean by floating head).

Through this investigation Greenway argues that people today are visually illiterate. The layers of information included in something like Nightwatch is lost on the average viewer. It's an interesting concept, especially considering the shear volume of images we are bombarded by everyday - which is a likely cause of our illiteracy. Of course, not all (hardly any) of the images we see daily are going to have the depth of a Rembrandt painting, and having the time and resources to fully explore the context, history and motivation behind the painting is an incredible asset (luxury). But I've personally stood in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of images and only taken a cursory glance.

I need to read (the image) more.