Google
 

The 50 Best Films of the Decade: No. 31-40

December 31st, 2009 by Scott Marks

31. “Finding Nemo” / Andrew Stanton (2003)
As if to mock the great tradition of Disney single-parent cartoon families, the filmmakers kill off momma fish before the opening credits roll. I don’t care if this movie is about computer generated clownfish, there’s not a finer father and son bonding film to be found. Forgive me if I prefer Albert Brook’s Marlin over starchy Gregory Peck’s Atticus. A milestone in contemporary animation that just so happened to spawn a wealth of comedic material for Albert to mine in “Looking for Comedy.”

32. “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” / Joe Dante
Sadly, I’m pretty sure that I am the sole voice in the civilized world to include this in their decade wrap up. In just about every way imaginable (I could have done without the Wild West sidebar), “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” is everything I wanted to love about “Roger Rabbit” and didn’t. You don’t have rival studio creations vying for equal screen time. Disney has ducks and mice and cats aplenty, but only Warner Bros. has the Wabbit. And don’t give me Oswald or Max Hare. If either of those duds had taken off there probably never would have been a Bugs Bunny. Did Disney really think their Roger could even come close to taking the place of Bugs? This is the cinema’s most excellent hare, not some obnoxious, dim-witted annoyance with a voice that makes Screwy Squirrel sound rhapsodic. Dante’s peak comes close to capturing the irreverent spirit of the original Termite Terrace bad boys. Porky and Speedy lunching in the studio commissary and commiserating over their recent bouts with censorship is one of those jokes intentionally added for the grown ups in the audiences to enjoy. Alas, the older kids didn’t bring their kids and the film flopped.

33. “Black Book” / Paul Verhoeven (2006)
Paul Verhoeven’s first offering in six years, is a horror/sex film of another sort. It vividly details the life of a beautiful Jewish singer (Carice Van Houten) forced to masquerade as a Nazi for the Dutch resistance. Before it’s over, our heroine undergoes a type of defilement the screen has not experienced since Pasolini’s “Salo.” Beneath the sex and sadism beats the heart of a Hollywood studio film from the late fifties, early sixties. When I interviewed Paul Verhoeven, he balked a bit when I referred to his film as a genre picture. “What genre,” he shot back. “It’s very difficult to know. It’s a love story, a survival story, part adventure, a thriller and detective story…it’s hard to typify it.” I didn’t find it difficult in the least. “Black Book” was easily the most entertaining film of 2007.

34. “Inglourous Basterds” / Quentin Tarantino (2009)
Good old Southern boy Brad Pitt leads a group of Jewish American soldiers whose one goal is to bring back as many Nazi scalps as possible. “Inglourious Basterds” could be the most Hitlerious movie of its kind since Mel had the audacity to set Schickelgruber to music. It is also the first time that critical darling QT, a bit of a vainglorious bastard himself, has been able to set aside the in-jokes and his particular brand of pop culture babble to apply his knowledge of and passion for cinema to a coherent and wildly entertaining narrative. Judging by the trailer, this looked like it was going to be one giant rip-off of Robert Aldrich’s “The Dirty Dozen,” but it turns out to be just one of the countless films QT references. The climactic scenes in the movie theater are so precise and brilliantly executed that they almost brought a tear to my eye. Watching Tarantino film a reel change — the changeover bell, the cue mark, the projector beam switching from one booth porthole to the other — brought back cherished memories of bygone days before platters and multiplexes.

35. “The Dead Girl” / Karen Moncrieff (2006)
A clinical, almost Lynchian examination of the murder of a young crack whore. Endless hours of cable documentaries have transformed these “sainted victims” into a pathetic stock figure. Writer/director Karen Momcrieff shows us this character as a real person. Dark and deeply unsettling, the events play out in reverse order and are told from the unrelated points of view of five women somehow connected to the crime. The film houses the ensemble performance of the decade from a cast comprised of the finest actresses of the day. None are more effective than Piper Laurie who makes Carrie’s mother Margaret White seem like Ma Joad. A bedridden walrus with an odious Jackie Gleason-sized cackle, she is a non-stop torture machine. In a little more than five minutes on screen, Laurie shows us precisely how her daughter “The Stranger” (Toni Colette) turned out the way she did. The film’s hideous surfaces gradually reveal a brilliant depth of compassion and understanding. I watched it last week the day after Brittany Murphy died. This is an amazingly powerful film, impossible to shake.

Continue reading The 50 Best Films of the Decade: No. 31-40

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Filed Under Reviews

Scorsese honors DeNiro at Kennedy Center awards

December 29th, 2009 by Scott Marks

Marty and the gang got together Sunday night at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to pay omaggioto Bobby D. The Prefecture of the Pontifical House on Elizabeth Street offered His benediction before turning the proceedings over to Meryl Streep, Harvey Keitel, Sharon Stone and Edward Norton. What’s the matter? Joe Pesky couldn’t get his runty ass off the golf course long enough to pagare il suo rispetto? Disonorante…

See how Mr. Bobby Big Shot looks perched in the loges with the rest of the sweepstakes winners, Mel Brooks, Bruce Springsteen, Grace Bumbry and Dave Brubek, Is it me or is DeNiro looking a little like Robert Young in his Marcus Welby period? All he does is sit and laugh, which is pretty much what he’s been doing on screen (and all the way to the bank) for the past fifteen years.

Excuse me. What’s with those rainbow things they got hanging around their necks? They look like gay suspenders, for Christ’s sake.

And, Bob, tell me why. Why the f@*% do you have to go all the way to Washington for you to sit next to the Opera chick with the dog cone?

I’m sure Keitel first met DeNiro “on a street like this” paper mache tenement mock-up. What’s with the shitty set: a hot dog cart and a garbage can! And Ben Stiller shows up and does shtick. Look how they honor Him. Like a bum. Like a trash man.

Don’t turn it off until you see Norton’s spot on impression of Lord DeNiro.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Filed Under News

keep looking »