Sure, I'll play. Going with a Top 10, for tradition's sake, although there's so many films I haven't gotten to (like, say, <I>No Country for Old Men</I>, which I suspect might be an inclusion if I had). The contingencies also seem to have favored films from the past year, perhaps because my reactions to them are freshest in my mind, or because my continual shifts in my world view make me able to judge them best by whatever criteria I might now be operating on. A little more centered on an indie-sensibility than I hoped for, but then those are the films that most escape box office demands. Not an ordered Top 10, though, save for the first two.
1.
Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007)
Possibly the best film about art - what it takes to make it and criticize it - that I've ever seen. Anton Ego's monologue - delivered in Peter O'Toole's parched baritone - is beautiful.
2.
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
Consistently astounding and spell-bounding dialogue and imagery makes for Tarantino's masterpiece. Great performances, especially from Waltz and Laurent.
3.
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
Like a few of the films on this list, it's about isolation. Day-Lewis is one of the most charming misanthropes put to screen. I still don't know what this film is really saying, but it leaves me wanting to come back for more.
4.
Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004)
Four people come together in wine country, and a little bit of hilarity ensues. It's funny because it's human; it also manages to make a romantic ending work, probably because we don't actually know what happens just after the last scene.
5.
The Queen (Stephen Frears, 2006)
There's been a lot of ink spilled writing fiction about English royals. Mirren's great, but it's actually Michael Sheen's Tony Blair that I find most fascinating. A media satire that succeeds because it's actually a sincere personal drama about people in power.
6.
The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
There's something great about a smart and human thriller. It's a bit like <I>Rear Window</I> in reverse; a Stasi agent who's supposed to be listening in on a couple for signs of insidious activities comes to know and like them better than anyone else in his isolated existence.
7.
Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, 2009)
A profoundly sad film masquerading as a predictable indie romantic comedy. There's something perverse about a film that seems to keep showing you which way its going and then goes someplace entirely different and exactly right.
8.
Up (Pete Docter, 2009)
Not as tightly plotted as many of Pixar's efforts, but any film that can get audiences choking back sobs in its first ten minutes must be doing something right. Makes a great companion piece with my #8, actually, as they're both films about finding, or failing to find, family and home while in flight.
9.
Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, 2006)
Has an entire wave of films following to answer for, the same way Jaws and Star Wars have to answer for the summer blockbuster, but there's a reason it's been emulated. This story about 6 losers that's about the American obsession with winning fully justifies its moments of exuberance by making us care about these people first.
10.
The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
The first one was a lot more focused and gave proper focus to the Bruce Wayne/Batman dynamic, but this one proved the resiliency of this sort of take on a comic book story, and with more compelling antagonists to boot. Ledger's Joker got all the press, not undeservedly, but at the expense of Aaron Eckhart, which is a shame: it's really Harvey Dent's tragedy. The other shame is the incoherence of the action sequences, but the tone might require that.
I spent a lot more time on this than I either expected or intended to, mostly because I had to work to find 10 movies from the decade I liked enough. I don't think that's snobbery, though - I just don't see enough, and there's a lot of things that are pleasant but aren't necessarily good. A couple of them might even be on this list.
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