Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Century’s Top 20 movies: Part One
Recently, Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott, film critics for the venerable New York Times, put out a list of what they consider the best 25 films of the 21st century to this point. While the exercise, as with many such things, could hardly be called definitive — even if they are two of the best critics we’ve got, they still only represent a small fraction of thought on the subject — it is fascinating to see what they consider the films that will collectively define the first decade and a half of the new century.
It is also hard to resist conjuring one of my own, so, here’s my crack at a Top 20, because 25 feels a bit overbearing to do alone. First, some caveats: Obviously, this list is based on films that I have actually seen, and while I’ve averaged several hundred flicks a year for a while now, I have absolutely, positively not seen everything that purports to be a worthy entry. What I’m saying is, naturally, this is a completely subjective collection: If there’s a film you don’t see
listed that you think is an outrage for me to have snubbed, it is entirely possible I just haven’t seen it yet.
Next, some of these selections don’t entirely sync up with my end-of-year lists — with certain more highly ranked films giving way to films lower on the annual list. Consistency being a hobgoblin for some of you, I will only say that none of these opinions are ever locked in granite. In fact, the truest test of the quality and power of a given film is how well it stays firm in your mind long after you’ve seen it. One of the glories of being a film critic is that you are always in the process of updating and reassessing your opinions on such matters.
Finally, there are several filmmakers whose output over the last 17 years could easily yield more than one entry, but I have limited myself to one per director (with the exception of films that are contiguously linked) in order to make the biggest spread of possibilities. This week, we’ll cover 20-11, and next week, the Top 10.
20. Whiplash (2014) Damien Chazelle has gotten (properly) lauded for his scintillating La La Land, but his debut — which took Sundance by storm in 2014 — was a phenomenally sure-handed sign of things to come. It starred Miles Teller as a young jazz drumming student, obsessed with his craft, and J.T. Simmons as his malevolent, demanding instructor, who does everything in his power to break his young squire in order to push him into greatness. Explosive and gripping, the film spoke to the nature of art and sacrifice with the rapid-fire potency of a Buddy Rich triplet. 19. Gravity (2013) When this premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013, it hit like a meteor fragment and immediately became the buzz of the festival, causing the line for the press screening to double back on itself so many times that many of us were initially shut out. Fortunately, the good folks in Toronto quickly added an additional screening. The hype turned out to be fully justified, as Alfonso Cuaron’s deep space adrenalin rush proved to be 91 minutes of breathless, overwhelming spectacle. Eventually, of course, there came a backlash against the script — which was admittedly sort of thin — but the supremely talented Cuaron knew exactly what he was doing, and produced a film tailor built for the IMAX age.
18. Deep Water (2006) Some of the best documentaries tell you a story you’ve never heard before. This film, from Louise Osmond and Jerry Rothwell, explores the fateful solo around-the-world yachting contest put together by England’s Sunday Times back in 1968. In the process, it documents the withering travails of Donald Crowhurst, a vastly inexperienced amateur yachtsman who mortgaged his family’s financial future to enter, utilizing a hastily constructed radical boat design that turned out to be a disaster. I will say no more as to what happens, but suffice it to say the film — which utilizes recorded audio and 8mm film taken by the competitors themselves during their voyage — remains indelibly etched in your head.
17. James White (2015) It would be extremely difficult to sustain a steady diet of similarly searing dramas, unless your emotional receptors were so badly caked over with the gunk of internet flash culture you couldn’t fully register them. Josh Mond’s semi-autobiographical cinema verite with Christopher Abbott as a wayward son who has to return to New York to take care of his cancer-ravaged mother, played by real-life cancer survivor Cynthia Nixon, is at times so nakedly raw you actually feel guilty for watching, but you absolutely cannot take your eyes off the screen. I hadn’t known Abbott’s work in anything but his minor role in the first season of Girls, but I make a point to see anything he appears in ever since. 16. The Witch (2015)
It’s one of those cautionary tales about a terrifying spectacle that lays to waste a lot of good, hard-working people. I refer, of course, to the film’s misguided marketing — which pegged it as some kind of 16th-century jumpscare parade — when it was actually a carefully crafted film soaked in pure atmospheric dread. Robert Eggers’ meticulously rendered folktale — based largely upon existing stories, and utilizing dialogue taken from actual writings of the time period — is perfectly horrifying and relentlessly unsettling, but people expecting something more blunt and obvious were anything but amused. A24 is generally one of the savviest studios when it comes to the presentation of its exemplary catalog, but this is one time it probably missed the mark. In any event, amend your expectations accordingly if you need to, but definitely still see it. Black Philip insists. 15. Ratatouille (2007) Pixar has made a handful of truly brilliant kids’ films — I would include Toy Story 2 & 3, most of Up, and the genius Inside Out — but for my money, they never did it better or more satisfyingly than with this Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava-directed film about an extraordinary rat whose culinary genius causes a sensation in food-mad Paris right up until people realize just who has been behind their heavenly plates. Featuring the irascible Patton Oswalt as Remy the rat, and a truly inspired Peter O’Toole as the menacing French food critic Anton Ego — my favorite ever on-screen critic. The film is sweetly funny, but also has a strong message about staying true to yourself, even if the path that takes you on is completely untrodden. 14. There Will Be Blood (2007) Ranked much higher on the Times list, the film is by P.T. Anderson, one of those directors whose work could almost always be considered for such a list. I went back and forth between this and his equally transfixing The Master, but I went with this epic about an oil baron’s ascent and moral decay for its completeness of vision, and for the absolutely riveting performance of star Daniel Day-Lewis (who just announced his retirement from acting after the release of Anderson’s next film, Phantom Thread). Just as “I drink your milkshake” became part of the common vernacular, the film stands in as a perfect analogy for the rise and eventual moral turpitude of the United States during its industrial infancy. In the crony capitalist age we live in now, the film’s message could not be more relevant.
13. Requiem for a Dream (2000) Darren Aronofsky’s American nightmare dirge — based on the equally miserable novel by Hubert Selby Jr. — created its own cinematic language in order to represent the quick-fix nature of post-millennial society, that hit drugs, TV, sugar, or even love. It was a surprisingly masterful follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut, Pi, and proved he was far more than a flash in the pan. His trio of stars, Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans and Jennifer Connelly all bleed for the film, but it is Ellen Burstyn’s performance (one for which she was utterly robbed of an Oscar by Julia freaking Roberts — don’t get me started) that is nothing short of revelatory. Watching her doomed character descend into pure, unsalvageable madness made for one of the more authentically distressing journeys I have ever witnessed.
(Editor’s quibble: The 21st century actually began Jan. 1, 2001.)
12. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) I hate typecasting myself, but my adoration of the Coens has been firmly in place since their debut in 1984’s Blood Simple. Again, I could just as easily have chosen A Simple Man, or No Country for Old Men, both of which I absolutely adored, but this film, about a folk singer in New York’s West Village in the early ’60s, finds their usual pitiless treatment of their protagonist leading to a deeply significant observation about plying the craft of your art — in which, as they say, timing is everything. The film also earns bonus points for a superb soundtrack, and a spectacular performance from the then-little-known Oscar Isaac as the ill-fated Davis.
11. The Tree of Life (2011) Speaking of creating a new cinematic language, Terrence Malick’s semi-autobiographical odyssey about evolution, growing up in rural Texas, and space-time, utilized a brilliant schema to re-create the effect of youthful impressionism, as parents speak in whispered parentheticals off in corners, and odd physical details dominate all but the deepest recesses of consciousness. The moment when young Jack (played by Hunter McCracken) inexplicably turns against his own nature and starts acting contrary to his soul remains one of the sadder moments in 21st-century cinema. The film would have been better off without Sean Penn’s scenes as the disenchanted adult Jack, but it remains one of Malick’s masterworks.