Mark's Favorites: Top Ten List 2000-2009

Mark's Favorites: Top Ten List 2000-2009

1. 21 Grams (2003, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)

Poets should compose odes to 21 Grams. Colleges should offer majors in 21 Grams. This is a great film, my all-time favorite. The male and female actors of the decade are in
this film. Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. Toss in the great Benicio Del Toro and 2009 Spirit Award winner Melissa Leo and you've got an ensemble not to be beat. It's the second film in Inarritu's trilogy of intersecting story lines, time shifting masterpieces (Amores Perros and Babel). Watts, who can simply do it all, from the gut wrenching realism of this film to over the top melodrama (King Kong) to absurdist comedy (I (Heart) Huckabees) should have won her second Oscar of the decade for her performance. 21 Grams rings true at every turn as the characters struggle with desire, loss, grief ...they seek redemption and revenge and love. This film is brilliant in all aspects.

2. All About My Mother (2000, Pedro Almodovar)

The official release date may have been 1999 but I cheated it up to make this list. You should check out all films by the great Spanish director, Pedro Almodovar. This one is my favorite. It has all the classic Almodovar elements of sharply written dialogue, sharper colors, frank sexuality and intriguing twists. The guy is good.

3. Wendy and Lucy (2008, Kelly Reichardt)

Yes, that Lucy. Lucy the dog shares title roles with the equally talented but certainly no dog, Michelle Williams. Lucy is a discriminating actor/dog, appearing in only two films this decade, as far as I know, this and Reichardt's brilliant 2005 film Old Joy. Word is Lucy had an inside track as she reportedly lives with Reichardt, but her brilliantly understated yet heart-felt portrayals make her a deserving winner of Mark's More-Than-Human Actor of the Decade Award. Congratulations Lucy, your fans hope you are doing well. While we're at it, let's make Reichardt the director of the decade for these two films (also check out her 1995 debut feature River of Grass). Reichardt's style makes her the quintessential indie director. I would call her filmmaking "organic". Her use of natural light, ambient sound and her use of real time, lingering shots capturing the essence of a place in that time (these shots are not allowed at the multiplex) are striking and beautiful. Wendy and Lucy is the definitive film to address the compassionately challenged mainstream culture we faced in the first decade of the 21st century. Let's discuss that nice Christian boy who insists on busting Wendy for shoplifting.

4. Moulin Rouge (2001, Baz Luhrmann)

For originality, fun, fabulously staged and performed musical numbers, a great, heart breaking love story and for revitalizing the big movie musical, this sparkling diamond of a film makes the list. It paved the way for Chicago, a far less ceative musical endeavor to win an Oscar.

5. The Assasination of Richard Nixon (2004, Niels Mueller)

Talk about your overlooked films, how many of you have never heard of this one? It's Penn and Watts again, but this one belongs to Penn (Watts plays a small role). If you've ever felt you just don't belong in this world; how can the people around you act like that, feel that way?... this film talks to you. Penn, as he does, loses himself in this role and nails the alienation of a man who can find no context for himself in this world with a realism and sincerity that others have attempted but have fallen far short in comparison.

6. Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch)

A classic Lynch labyrinth featuring the single best performance of the decade by the here-to-fore unknown Watts. In the A-Star-Is-Born-Take-Of-The-Decade Watts delivers chills when her character's alter ego peers out from the naïve starlet façade in the stunning audition scene. Watts should have won her first Oscar for this performance (she has won none). She carries Lynch's twisted Hollywood tale with her simultaneous portrayal of innocent starlet wannabe and jaded, ambitious actor slapped down by reality. At least that's my take, with Lynch you never know.

7. Requiem for a Dream (2000, Darren Aronofsky)

I've had identical reactions from more than one person to whom I've loaned the DVD of this film: "Don't ever send me a movie like that again." They meant it as a compliment. Yes, it's brilliant, it's moving, engrossing, but it's just so damn disturbing. A story of addiction and the pursuit of happiness, or at least painlessness, these characters are doomed, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it but sit transfixed.

8. Little Children (2006, Todd Field)

As skillful a skewering of suburban ennui as you will ever see. The line of the decade, voice-over from Kate Winslet as she sits with the moms at the playground: "I'm not really one of them, I see myself as an anthropologist." But wait, some of these characters actually grow, and redemption may be possible. Or not.

9. The Lord of the Rings (the trilogy, 2001,2,3, Peter Jackson)

Okay, not exactly an indie struggling for distribution and it cost like a zillion dollars, and yeah, upon repeated viewings it starts to get a little schmaltzy. But it was a huge gamble that paid off, making all three films at once, an achievement for the decade if not the ages. But most of all it did what fans of the books thought impossible, it did the story justice. After the first film you just sat there and said, "wow, he did it".

10. Across the Universe (2007, Julie Taymor)

Put your cynicism to bed, stay up late, slap this in your Blu Ray player, grab your bong and plop yourself in front of your 50 inch flatscreen. Enjoy. Again and again. It's a musical, all Beatles songs, and a love story with the backdrop of political and social turmoil of the 60's. Make it an annual event, on John Lennon's birthday or something, enjoy the interesting interpretations of Beatles songs and all the clever Beatles references. If you like singing and dancing, interestingly choreographed musical numbers and the Beatles, you'll love this wildly entertaining film.