Best of 2018 (Part One)

Well, it's finally that time of year. I always try to post my Best Of lists around the time of the Oscars - it makes everything feel officially official. But it's been rough this year trying to determine my final five in a LOT of categories. If I'm being honest, I don't think 2018 was one of the best years for movies or anything, but there were a lot of individual achievements that transcended the films that housed them. And in many categories, the distance between fifth and sixth (and, in some cases, seventh and eighth) places is infinitesimal. But I wouldn't be a movie blogger worth my salt (to the extent that I am one at all, heh) if I did not make the difficult decisions and made my end of year Best Of lists, so.... without further ado... I give you my "below the line" awards:

Best Makeup & Hairstling

Border

The Favourite

Mary Queen of Scots

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

Suspiria (WINNER)

The film itself may have been overdone to compensate for an undercooked script, but the fanciful character designs in Nutcracker really stood out as fantastic character creations. Beauty has never looked more wicked, and wickedness never more beguiling, than in The Favourite. Those unbelievably complicated braided hairstyles in Mary Queen of Scots are just gorgeous... all the better to contrast with Elizabeth's pox-marked face. Look at the lead actress of Border, and look at her character in the film. The transformation is unreal, and doesn't impede her ability to emote even one iota. All of these pale in comparison, though, to the monumental feat of makeup that was Suspiria, a film with so much great makeup in such varying styles, that I wrote a whole article about how it deserved the industry's highest honor.

Best Costume Design

A Simple Favor (WINNER)

Black Panther

The Favourite

If Beale Street Could Talk

Mary Poppins Returns

The use of color throughout If Beale Street Could Talk is exceptional, nowhere more so than in its beautifully wearable costumes. Sandy Powell's gorgeously fanciful, colorful creations for Mary Poppins Returns are the polar opposite of the technically ambitious, boldly black-and-white creations she designed for The Favourite, which is even further proof that she is the greatest working costumer we have. Ruth E. Carter won the Oscar for her wildly rangy, vividly memorable costumes for Black Panther, and deservedly so - they were perhaps the biggest piece of the puzzle of making Wakanda feel vibrantly real. That said, there were no more iconic costumes this year than the looks served up by Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in A Simple Favor. The costumes alone tell you everything you need to know about these characters at first glance - and watch how Lively's Emily is always putting on or removing layers... just like we do with her character over the course of the film. It's highly covetable, genius-level, film-elevating work.

Best Visual Effects

Annihilation (WINNER)

Aquaman

Avengers: Infinity War

First Man

Mission: Impossible - Fallout

God bless practical stunts, and God bless Tom Cruise for continuing to insist on doing all his own, especially when it comes to the Mission: Impossible series. The HALO jump in Fallout is just mind-blowing, to say nothing of that helicopter crash. The practical effects are maybe even more impressive in First Man, for how emotionally impactful they are. Infinity War contains probably the most visual effects of any film this year, and many of them are stunners, but Thanos is maybe the most impressive motion-capture performance to date. No film this year had more fun with its visual effects budget than Aquaman, creating a believable underwater world and characters with lots of personality. No film had more mesmerizing visual effects this year than Alex Garland's under-appreciated Annihilation. The shimmer itself is impressive, but once we're inside, the scenery, the animals, and the heart-stopping finale all make a huge cumulative impact.

Best Production Design

Annihilation

Hereditary

Isle of Dogs (WINNER)

Mary Queen of Scots

Sorry to Bother You

That cave/palace in Mary Queen of Scots is maybe my favorite set of the year, a gorgeously rendered, authentic-feeling place that sets a perfect tone for the film. Sorry to Bother You goes to some crazy places, and the production design is key to keeping everything grounded in some kind of believable world. The miniature dollhouse aesthetic of Hereditary is stunning, and key to the look of the film, creating a living space that traps the characters, who are being manipulated and moved about by unseen forces larger than themselves. Annihilation's production design is responsible some of the most striking images of the year - those plants in the shape of people, that exploded body in the pool, the lighthouse - and all built from concepts moreso than actual things. Wes Anderson has a VERY unique aesthetic, and Isle of Dogs once again proves that animation is the perfect place for it. The sets on that trash island are indelible, meticulously crafted and lovingly shot. 

Best Sound

Annihilation

A Quiet Place

First Man (WINNER)

Roma

Suspiria

I don't think a single sound mix this year had a more immediate effect on me than Suspiria, which wrapped me up and brought me ever deeper into its madhouse of horrors. A Quiet Place is all about sound, and the way the film plays around with what we can hear, and when we can hear it, is brilliant. Roma's sound mix is one of the most immersive I've ever heard, putting you right in the middle of quiet domestic scenes so that when the big moments come, they're even more overwhelming. The kinds of sounds we hear in Annihilation run the gamut from ordinary to extraordinary to WTF, that creepy bear-thing parroting a dead friend's last words being far and away the most impactful. The chaos of First Man's flight sequences are key to selling Neil Armstrong's character as the calm at the center of the storm, and the sound works in perfect concert with the editing and cinematography to sell it - the most vital sound work of the year.

Best Original Score

Eighth Grade

First Man (WINNER)

If Beale Street Could Talk

Hereditary

Mary Poppins Returns

Hereditary's creepy score is key in keeping the audience off-guard and unsettled throughout, until that hymn-like underscoring to the final scene as the film plays its final card, a brilliantly counter-intuitive choice. Marc Shaiman had the unenviable task of composing a follow-up to the greatest classic Disney score, one of the Sherman brothers' most tuneful, and he did so in magnificent style, creating something that feels at once familiar and completely new. If Beale Street Could Talk had the most beautiful score of the year, as perfect a rendering of young love as has ever been heard in the cinema. I've never heard anything quite like Anna Meredith's score for Eighth Grade, which feels so perfectly like the music playing inside the main character's head through all her shifting moods. But nothing else this year can quite compare to Justin Hurwitz's grand, grandiose score for First Man, which feels ever-so-slightly out of place until we blast off into space, perfectly mirroring Neil Armstrong's emotional journey.

Best Original Song

"Hearts Beat Loud" from Hearts Beat Loud

"Hollywood Ending" from Anna and the Apocalypse

"I'll Never Love Again" from A Star is Born

"The Place Where Lost Things Go" from Mary Poppins Returns (WINNER)

"Wrapped Up" from Vox Lux

Anna and the Apocalypse is one of the most unsung films of the year, and "Hollywood Ending" is a perfect encapsulation of everything it does well - there's teenage ennui, a perfect pop backbone, an earworm of a chorus, and some sly humor. "Hearts Beat Loud" is a real winner, and the scene where father and daughter collaborate to make it is one of the best scenes of the year. All of Sia's songs for Vox Lux have her typical polish, but "Wrapped Up" fits so perfectly with the character's story - it feels like a song a teenager would write after a scarring personal tragedy, and that the nation would embrace as a generation-defining hit. Not all of A Star is Born works, but the highly emotional, kinda-throwback-styled "I'll Never Love Again" finale goes a long way towards selling the impact of the central romance. It took a while, but after multiple listens, "The Place Where Lost Things Go" revealed itself as the most elegant, beguiling song of the year, starting with the fantastic line "Nothing's gone forever, only out of place," which perfectly encapsulates the film's ethos. And Emily Blunt sings it so perfectly.

Best Editing

A Star is Born

The Favourite

First Man (WINNER)

Hereditary

Suspiria

Movies in 2018 didn't get much meaner than Hereditary, and the brutal editing is one of its most important elements, constantly keeping the audience off their guard. Even if the rest of the editing was terrible, A Star is Born would earn its place on this list for those last two cuts alone; thankfully, it's pretty great throughout the rest of the film as well. Editing is an underrated tool for comedy, and The Favourite is incredibly smart about how it uses editing to either underline its jokes or to create its own off-kilter humor out of seemingly nothing. If there was a meaner movie than Hereditary, then Suspiria was it, and the editing of its dance sequences alone is filled with a sick, twisted energy that heightens the horror of what's happening. No film in 2018 made you feel like you were right there alongside the characters quite as much as First Man did, and the jaw-dropping editing of its flight sequences were key in creating that feeling.

Best Cinematography

The Favourite

First Man (WINNER)

If Beale Street Could Talk

Roma

Widows

The Favourite is one of the most distinctive-looking films of 2018, but not without purpose - those fish-eye lenses not only distort the images to add to heighten the absurdity of the film, but to make the characters feel alternately boxed in and very much alone in these gigantic spaces. Widows contains the best tracking shot of the year, outside of a car as it drives from a low-income Chicago neighborhood to a high-income one, a stunning feat in and of itself, but the nighttime cinematography is strikingly beautiful, allowing us to see all the action painfully clearly. Alfonso Cuarón clearly learned a lot during his many collaborations with Emmanuel Lubezki, as Roma is full to bursting with stunningly lit, crystal clear imagery and effortlessly complex camera movements. If Beale Street Could Talk is the most beautiful film of the year, and James Laxton's cinematography is key to the film's warmth; the use of color is simply stunning. But First Man is something else on a visual level, simultaneously intimate and epic. The switch to the full IMAX screen once Armstrong sets foot on the moon is the best use of the format in cinema history. Great final shot, too.

Best of 2017 (Part Four)

AT LONG LAST!

PRESENTING!

DAN'S TOP TEN FILMS OF 2017!

10. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino) After seeing this for the second time, I kept trying to write a review and couldn't. The best review, I think, was my reaction on first seeing the film: I had found the first half or so a little too slow for my tastes, but when the lights came up at the end of the credits, I realized that I had been physically holding myself together so as to keep from falling apart in the crowded cinema. The cumulative power of this film is incredible, thanks to the patient observations Guadagnino makes and the stunning performances from the leads, especially Timothée Chalamet.

Best of 2017 (Part Three)

And finally, we are here! My Best Films of 2017 list! KIND OF.

I tend to judge a year in film by how many films I saw that I want to own on DVD/Blu-Ray. 2017 was not as strong as 2016 in that regard, but there were a lot more movies that I really liked (but didn't love) this year than in years past. In other words, my Top Ten was really easy to come up with, but my Top Twenty was VERY DIFFICULT. I kept moving things around and trying things out in different slots, and ended up deciding the agony just wasn't worth it.

But I still wanted to pay tribute to all the films I saw last year that I felt deserved it. So here is my way of doing that - a VERY expanded list of "Honorable Mentions" and "Runners Up" (in roughly ascending order) to my Top Ten. That list will be posted next week. Promise.

THIRD TIER

The Lost City of Z - So much more thoughtful than most other adventure epics. Gorgeous cinematography and a much better than expected performance from Sienna Miller.

The Lure - A bit slow, but few movies this year could match the creativity on display in this horror-fantasy musical drama, and the songs are actually pretty great.

A Ghost Story - Gorgeous and original, even if it didn't have the emotional impact on me it clearly wanted to have.

Wonder Wheel - Kate Winslet's barn-burner of a performance is more than enough to recommend this.

Stronger - Touching, raw portrait of PTSD with fantastic performances from Gyllenhaal, Maslany, and Richardson.

Best of 2017 (Part Two)

And the summary of my 2017 Moviegoing continues! Be sure to come back next week for the thrilling conclusion, including my favorite films of the year!

Best Adapted Screenplay

Atomic Blonde

Call Me By Your Name (WINNER)

It

Lady Macbeth

Molly's Game

Atomic Blonde comes up with an actual last-second reveal that manages to make sense - and even more so on a second viewing, which is no easy feat! It may have been motivated by the desire for a sequel, but the decision to only adapt the first half of It was the first good decision that team made, followed by the focus on the coming-of-age elements and liberal doses of humor - it's a very smart adaptation all around. There are a couple of scenes in Molly's Game where Aaron Sorkin falls into his worst tendencies, but no one can match his propensity for sparkling dialogue. Lady Macbeth is a lean, provocative take on the Russian novel, spare in dialogue but rich in meaning. James Ivory's work on Call Me By Your Name, though, is a sterling case study in how to adapt a novel - what to take out, what to leave in, how to capture the feeling of all that prose without all those words, and what to copy directly because it's absolutely perfect as is.

Best of 2017 (Part One)

It is my firm belief that the Oscar nominations are Christmas Morning and the Oscars themselves New Year's, so now that the Oscars have happened, it is officially time to put 2017 to bed, regardless of what I have or haven't seen. And to be honest, I've seen pretty much all of the 2017 releases that interested me. So what you see here represents my totally biased take on last year in film. It was an interesting year for me - while I didn't love nearly as many films as I did in 2016, I really liked a lot more. In other words, there wasn't a lot of competition for my #1 film of the year, but there was a TON of competition for my Top Ten. Of the 63 films I saw, there are some truly special films that find themselves ranked in the 40s, which means it must have been a very good year for film.

Let's take a look at some Oscar correlative categories, shall we?

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

It

I, Tonya

The Lure

The Shape of Water (WINNER)

Those mermaids in The Lure are quite the beguiling creatures, even before they glam up with '80s makeup, and the patrons of the club where they perform are styled to be perfectly sleazy. Everyone on the I, Tonya hair and makeup team must have had a blast if we're judging by their exuberantly big '90s styles. The team on It deserve all the credit in the world for re-imagining Pennywise so effectively, and their work on the kids is subtly perfect. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 is even more out-there than the first one, and the hair and makeup team responded in kind, perfecting the look of existing characters and flawlessly executing the new ones (particularly Mantis). Nothing beats the outstanding creature work on The Shape of Water, though, and the work on the human characters is just as strong - look at how Sally and Octavia's hairstyles tell you everything you need to know about their characters. And not to mention Michael Shannon's steadily blackening finger.

Mt. Rushmore of Movies Blogathon

SOOOOOOOO.... I saw these posts on Dell on Movies and Rambling Film and I thought to myself "Mt. Rushmore? OF MOVIES?? I MUST WRITE!" And then I realized I had only a day to decide on a topic and pick the ultimate FOREVER four. And such things are usually NOT easy.

But then I realized I had one. THE one. The one where I could pick the absolute indisputable four for ever and ever of all time to be carved in stone and displayed for the masses. So here we go:

THE MT. RUSHMORE OF MOVIES WHERE

THE ROMANTIC LEADS DON'T END UP TOGETHER

(aka, The Great Three-Hankie Weepies)

Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) That entire last scene at the airport is just beyond perfect: "...the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Here's looking at you kid." ...AND CUE TEARS.

Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945) How cruel that these two don't even get a proper goodbye: "I must go." "Yes you must," and his hand on her shoulder. CURSE YOU, Dolly Messiter and your awful timing!

Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998) Another absolutely perfect final scene: "You will never age for me, nor fade, nor die." "Write me well." And she lives on, as his heroine for all time. Glorious.

In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000) This one hurts differently than the others. This one hurts after our two lovers have taken their leave, as he whispers his secret love into a hole, covers it with mud, and leaves it there, never to be shared or spoken of again.

...no, YOU'RE crying! I just have a piece of grit in my eye...

Best of 2016 (Part Two)

AND NOW! We move on the more marquee categories - the actors, actresses, writers, and directors who made my favorite contributions to their films in 2016.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Arrival

Elle

The Little Prince

Moonlight

The Handmaiden (WINNER)

Everyone and their mother has attempted to adapt Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince to film, but this was the first that truly captured the spirit of the novel, with the stroke of genius of making it as much about the act of reading The Little Prince as it about the plot itself. Elle is yet another example of why we should call a novel "unfilmable" at our own risk. Arrival's screenplay plays its hand so subtly that the big reveal both is and isn't a total surprise - a pretty neat trick! Moonlight's words are pure poetry, but never sound writerly. But how anyone could read Sarah Waters's Fingersmith and make The Handmaiden, which aside from completely changing the time and place of the novel, is actually even crazier than the novel, is mind-boggling.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Hell Or High Water

The Lobster (WINNER)

Manchester By The Sea

The Witch

Zootopia

Even setting aside the perfect use of period language in The Witch, it unfolds at a perfect pace for maximum scariness. Zootopia may be a little bit TOO on the nose, but damn if its insightful political commentary doesn't play like gangbusters, as does its clever comedy (sloths at the DMV!). Hell or High Water has the year's tightest, most quotable script, if not the most groundbreaking. Kenneth Lonergan continues to prove that he understands human beings and how they grieve better than just about any other writer with his near-perfect script for Manchester By The Sea. And in The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos found a perfect vehicle for his pitch-black sense of humor and deadpan, with an allegory that will touch anyone who has ever been single deeply.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Mahershala Ali, Moonlight 

Tom Bennett, Love & Friendship

Alden Ehrenrich, Hail, Caesar!

Ralph Fiennes, A Bigger Splash (WINNER)

Lucas Hedges, Manchester By The Sea

Lucas Hedges brings a great "real-kid" quality to his performance, and his nervous breakdown is as heartbreaking as it is hilarious. We can feel Mahershala Ali's presence long after his character is gone from Moonlight, such an indelible character does he create in such limited time. The rhythms of Tom Bennett's speech patterns in Love & Friendship are completely unlike anything else I've ever heard - a truly original comic creation that left me needing to pause and replay his scenes after I had stopped laughing. Alden Ehrenrich would make this list even if the only scene he had was "Would that it were so simple," but he does so much more. But his scene partner Ralph Fiennes truly outdid himself in A Bigger Splash, playing one of those annoying people who always has to be the center of attention, and gets it through the expenditure of lots of energy and volume. It's a tour de force you can't look away from, even if you wanted to.

 BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Olivia Colman, The Lobster

Naomie Harris, Moonlight (WINNER)

Lupita Nyong'o, Queen of Katwe

Molly Shannon, Other People

Michelle Williams, Manchester By The Sea

Everyone in Manchester is always doing their best work when in a scene with Michelle Williams. That's not an accident. Whatever emotional impact the film has, it's all due to her performance. Lupita Nyong'o gets to show lots of range in Queen of Katwe as the titular chess prodigy's young mother, and she tops even her great Oscar-winning performance in 12 Years a Slave, telling us all we need to know about this woman just by the way she walks. Olivia Colman is the perfect vessel for Lanthimos's deadpan dialogue as the Hotel Manager; thanks to her, you'll never look at a toaster the same way again. Even though her character is dying of cancer, Molly Shannon makes sure she comes alive, bringing her natural good humor to bear, equal parts defense mechanism and genuine good feelings. Pity poor Naomie Harris, though. Were Viola Davis not fraudulently competing in this category at the Oscars, her fierce, raw portrait of an addict mother at three stages of her life would likely have swept awards season, and justifiably so.

BEST LEADING ACTOR

 Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins

Ryan Gosling, La La Land

Connor Jessup, Closet Monster

Peter Simonischek, Toni Erdmann

Denzel Washington, Fences (WINNER)

Jessup lets us see the genuine fear and longing battling it out for dominance in his sensitive portrait of a damaged gay teen coming of age. Ryan Gosling does it all in La La Land - sings, dances, plays piano - and he does it all with the same effortlessness that marks his off-the-charts chemistry with Emma Stone. Grant's bottomless charm goes a long way towards making St. Clair a sympathetic character, but he's also sneakily funny as Florence's devoted husband/failed actor.  Jack Nicholson sure has big shoes to fill in the godforsaken Toni Erdmann remake, since Simonischek is so effortlessly sympathetic and weird simultaneously. It's a tricky balance that he pulls off to perfection. No one this year can touch Denzel's Troy Maxson, though. He's a true force of nature in Fences, swinging the entire world over to his axis wherever he goes. This is the best he's been in ages, and it's not like he's ever been one to phone it in.

BEST LEADING ACTRESS

Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane

Viola Davis, Fences (WINNER)

Krisha Fairchild, Krisha

Isabelle Huppert, Elle

Natalie Portman, Jackie

The opening and closing close-ups of Krisha Fairchild's face are astonishingly precise - and the rest of her performance as a recovering alcoholic whose return home does not go as planned packs quite a wallop.  Isabelle Huppert has the trickiest part of the year in Elle, but thankfully the character couldn't be better suited to her gifts, and hot damn does she deliver as a woman who isn't sure what she's feeling, or even what she should be feeling, after getting raped. Jessica Chastain gets to sink her teeth plenty of scenery as the year's ultimate "nasty woman", and since she never lets subtlety get away from her entirely, it's a perfectly satisfying four-course meal. Natalie Portman was born to play Jacqueline Kennedy, but her portrait of a first lady in mourning isn't just about her perfect voice and looks, it's about the modulations in her speaking tone that speak volumes, and in how hollow she goes behind the eyes as she moves through her grief. But no one this year gave a more volcanic performance than Viola Davis in Fences. She's so disarmingly fun and flirty with her lout of a husband in the opening scenes that when the big snot-filled breakdown monologue comes, it's like a tidal wave hitting the audience. As she unleashes the full force of her pent-up anger and fear and love and grief, and stands up for what she deserves, it's not just Rose Maxson doing so - it's every woman who has ever been taken for granted and taken advantage of, for every woman who has suppressed her own hopes and dreams for a man, for every marginalized person who has watched and patiently waited and suffered in silence as others simply took what they wanted. She is all of us. And we will not be ignored.

BEST DIRECTOR

Park Chan-Wook, The Handmaiden

Damien Chazelle, La La Land (WINNER)

Barry Jenkins, Moonlight

Yorgos Lanthimos, The Lobster

Pablo Larraín, Jackie

The totality of Larraín's vision for Jackie is absolutely stunning. Would that all biopics could be this focused and powerful. Barry Jenkins made Moonlight one of the most thematically, visually, and sonically beautiful films ever. No one else could have made The Lobster, one of the year's most unique films in terms of plot and tone, and Yorgos Lanthimos shepherded every single element together to make something completely singular. The Handmaiden is one of the most demanding films of the year - it's also one of the most purely enjoyable, so fleet on its feet and so willing to go where few other films would dare. Park Chan-Wook also makes sure all the technical elements are impeccable. Damien Chazelle made La La Land a technical dazzlement that feels entirely current despite using a form and technique rooted in the past. It's a perfect blend, reinvigorating the musical by going to places modern-day audiences aren't used to going. This was his dream project, and you can see the thought and care put into every frame.

Best of 2016 (Part One)

So many movies are released every year that it's nearly impossible to see them all within the confines of January 1 - December 31. So I usually give myself until the Oscars to see everything. After all, that's when the year in film truly ends, right?

Anyway, I'll post my Top Ten (or whatever it is this year) tomorrow, on Oscar day. But for now, let's look at all the other things Oscar will be awarding tomorrow. Starting with the tech categories...

BEST MAKE-UP & HAIRSTYLING

 Closet Monster

The Dressmaker (WINNER)

Florence Foster Jenkins

The Handmaiden

Sing Street

Florence Foster Jenkins is the showiest of these, what with all the period styles and sick makeup for Meryl, but there's careful attention paid to the differences in class and how people of different social strata present themselves. Sing Street gets to the performative, shifting nature of identity that occurs in adolescence in fun ways. The Handmaiden is mostly here for the wonderful hair creations that sit atop Lady Hideko's head - each one some new gorgeous marvel. Closet Monster and The Dressmaker both have makeup as central to the story. Closet Monster's looks appropriate for a talented teen, but The Dressmaker wins for how it underscores the film's central themes about the power of outer transformation.

LIST - Best of the Century(?) Thus Far

...so, the internet did that thing it does at least once a year again the other day, when The BBC published a critics' list of the Top 100 films of the 00s. They say "The 21st Century", I say "the 00s", because they include films from the year 2000 in the list, which is objectively incorrect (the century technically began in 2001), but who am I to argue?

Anyway, it's an interesting list, made more interesting when you look at the individual lists and notice that everyone was only allowed to choose 10 films. 10? Really? That's IT? Which of course begs such questions as, "People really think Movie X is one of the 10 BEST films SINCE 2000?!?"

But of course, these things always even out in the end, and the Top Ten at any rate is pretty unimpeachable (actually, I would only question one), even though you may quibble with the order. And in case you haven't heard, that order is:

1. Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001)
2. In The Mood for Love (Wong, 2000)
3. There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2007)
4. Spirited Away (Hayao, 2001)
5. Boyhood (Linklater, 2014)
6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
7. The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011)
8. Yi Yi (Yang, 2000)
9. A Separation (Farhadi, 2011)
10. No Country for Old Men (Coens, 2007)

And of course, I looked at that list, said "Well, there's that. Everything seems to be in order here," and moved on with my day.

Except people wouldn't shut up about it, and I found myself in the position of feeling the need to come up with my own "corrective" Top Ten of the 00s just because everyone else was (jeez, peer pressure is really something, isn't it?). The shocking thing was, it came out rather easily. Almost too easily, actually. So I figured, why not post it on the blog and elaborate a bit? So strap yourselves in, folks! Here are my...

TOP TEN FILMS OF THE '00S

LIST: The Funniest Films

So, over at The Film Experience, Nathaniel posed the question to readers of what movies make us giggle the most. And honestly, I sort of randomly picked the first one that came into my head, but I could feel the floodgates opening, and then I had the kind of day at work today that made me need a really good laugh, so I decided to just do the damn thing and make a list! So here it is: My totally arbitrary, not at all thought through, probably missing a ton of titles, not in any particular order (but maybe it is...) list of....

THE FUNNIEST FILMS EVER

 1. The Thin Man (Van Dyke, 1934)

2. The Producers (Brooks, 1967)

3. Airplane! (Zucker/Abrams/Zucker, 1980)

4. Bringing Up Baby (Hawks, 1938)

5. Clue (Lynn, 1985)

6. A Shot in the Dark (Edwards, 1964)

7. Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959)

8. Waiting For Guffman (Guest, 1996)

9. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Gilliam/Jones, 1975)

10. Young Frankenstein (Brooks, 1974)

...and more! After the break!

My Best of 2015

I toyed with a million ways of posting this list - charting where I diverged from Oscar, a post of nothing but gifs, Tweet-length opinions - but in the end, nothing seemed to satisfy me as much as a good old-fashioned fully written-up LIST. I'm just sorry it took this long!

I kind of wanted to do the "Top 15 of '15" thing, but then I would feel compelled to do a similar thing every year, and it would just get ridiculous after a while (is anyone going to do the "Top 21 of '21"? Really?) so I decided to keep it at an even 10. But if you're a completist, you can look at my entire list of Best Films of 2015 on my Letterboxd page here.

Yes, there are a few notable exceptions. Despite half a dozen tries, I just could NOT get myself to go see The Revenant. It just wasn't a story that interested me, and reviews generally confirmed that it was not the way that I would most enjoy three hours on any given day. I also didn't see Creed (I haven't even seen Rocky yet - boxing movies just aren't my thing) or Bridge of Spies (again, the subject matter just doesn't interest me enough, despite the presence of Tom Hanks, who I love, and my idol Mark Rylance). I know I SHOULD see them at some point. But time and money are at a premium recently, and I'm very careful how I spend mine.

So with that said, let's get to the runners-up, shall we? Hovering just outside the Top Ten, in ascending order, are Guy Ritchie's easy-breezy-sexy-cool The Man From U.N.C.L.E.; Christopher McQuarrie's stellar entry in the Mission: Impossible series, Rogue Nation; the best sequel in many a year, Magic Mike XXL; Alex Gardner's astonishing debut Ex Machina; and of course the year's biggest blockbuster Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

...and then there were TEN...

10. Tangerine (Sean Baker) Taking indie film back to its punk roots, making it feel alive and vital again, Sean Baker's trans hooker Christmas comedy tears through the screen just like Kitana Kiki Rodriguez's Sin-Dee Rella tears through the streets of Los Angeles looking for her cheating boyfriend/pimp Chester. Which is to say, this is the most raucous, wild, touching comedy of the year. And it was shot entirely on an iPhone with two non-professionals in the leads.

9. Spy (Paul Feig) The Melissa McCarthy-Paul Feig collaboration reaches its apex in hilarious fashion. A note-perfect spy spoof from its first frame (complete with an inspired Bond-ian theme song and credit sequence), Spy is minute for minute the year's funniest film. The script is standard-issue spy stuff (as befitting a spoof), but it's the cast that really makes this great. McCarthy finds the perfect way to make Susan Cooper feel like a complete character, Jude Law makes a case for himself as the next 007, Rose Byrne develops her comic gifts even further (on a second watch she was even funnier than I remembered), and Jason Statham steals the show by leavening his bad-ass persona with a grand sense of comic timing. Spy is a perfect example of the modern style of improv-based comedy and deserves a spot in the annals of great spoofs, as well.

8. The Martian (Ridley Scott) It's easy to write off just how difficult it is to make a film as breezily entertaining as The Martian, especially one with such comparatively tiny stakes as this film has (come on - did you really think they were going to let Matt Damon die?), but director Ridley Scott knows what he's doing, and he had a hell of a helping hand from pop-savvy screenwriter Drew Goddard, who took Andy Weir's very science-heavy novel and turned it into a near-perfect slice of entertainment. Matt Damon gives a central performance good enough to restore your faith in movie star charisma, and the rest of the ensemble perfectly fills each of their stock roles with just enough personality to make you root for them. Is The Martian a bit slight? Maybe. But then again, what was the last mainstream Hollywood blockbuster that valued resourcefulness, intelligence, and our common humanity as much as this?

7. I'll See You in My Dreams (Brett Haley) There is so much in Brett Haley's touching, gentle film that feels anathema to movies today: Senior citizens, late-in-life love, quietness, female friendship, women in general... If that were all it had to offer, we should be grateful. But it also boasts a spectacular turn from Blythe Danner in the lead, a rich, sympathetic, lived-in performance that reminds us that neither talent nor beauty fades with age. I was far more charmed by this than I ever would have thought, given the film's title and subject matter, and I will continue to recommend it to everyone I meet, regardless of age. Because good films know no boundaries.

6. Chi-Raq (Spike Lee) The most boisterous, outright messy film on this list, but also the most potent, important film of the year, from a director whose prime seemed long past. I have been saying for YEARS that the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, about women who put an end to war by withholding sex from their husbands, was due a modern retelling, and lo, it turned out to be Spike Lee who gave it to us. The script is as perfect an adaptation as we could hope for, capturing the raunchiness and profundity of the original while updating it to modern-day Chicago, known as Chi-Raq because of the prevalence of guns and shootings there. He even keeps the rhyming poetry of the speech without it feeling put on. Samuel L. Jackson pimps it up as the Greek Chorus narrator, Teyonah Parris and Nick Cannon spit fire as Lysistrata and her gang leader beau, and Angela Bassett gives the film the rage it needs as the leader of the elder generation. Chi-Raq is perhaps the least great of the year's best films, but it's far and away the most important, and a film that is impossible to sweep under the rug.

5. Inside Out (Pete Docter) The most creative, ingenious film of the year. The most colorful film of the year. The most "best scenes" of any film this year. The most surprising film of the year. Pixar's latest triumph is all of these things, and features a perfectly cast ensemble of voices giving indelible performances. Its whole may not be as great as the sum of its parts, but moment to moment it is incredible, and I probably remember more of this movie than any of the others in my Top Ten.

4. Grandma (Paul Weitz) Lily Tomlin is an absolute knock-out as the title character of this film, giving the quirk of Paul Weitz's script (written specifically for her) just the amount of acid-tongued realism it needs to land potently. Tomlin's Elle may have a lot of baggage, and she may have lived a lot of life, but when her granddaughter comes to her needing money for an abortion, the aging lesbian feminist puts all that aside - as much as she can, anyway - to help the cause. And make no mistake, it is a cause, for Elle and Sage and thousands of women across the country, to have the power to make their own decisions about their own bodies without any authority other than their medical professional telling them otherwise. That the film treats the abortion as a mostly not controversial thing is revolutionary in its own right, but Grandma is just as much about one generation passing on its torch to another, and learning from each other. It's about what family means in this day and age, when we're "more connected" but somehow even farther apart. And it also happens to be one of the funniest films of the year, too.

...and now, my holy trinity of 2015.

3. Carol (Todd Haynes) Immaculate, crystalline perfection. Every frame of Todd Haynes's masterpiece is crafted to such brilliant beauty that I almost feel inadequate talking about it. Perfectly cast, deliciously designed, and swoonily scored, Carol had me from its very first frame. Some may call it chilly, but that's only because it so perfectly captures the feeling of New York in the winter. Elsewhere, Carol is full of warmth - watch the ice surrounding Rooney Mara's heart slowly melt, watch the fire spewing forth from Kyle Chandler's and Sarah Paulson's eyes as they battle over Cate Blanchett (who has never looked better thanks to genius costumer Sandy Powell), watch how Haynes makes a simple touch on the shoulder mean the world. Queer desire has never been this fragile, this impactful, this romantic, this... beautiful. Carol is the truth.

2. Room (Lenny Abrahamson) Nothing in 2015 makes you feel as much as this, and nothing was made with such tight constraints of space and perspective. A model of adaptation, Emma Donoghue's script of her own novel retains the unique voice of young Jack, born and raised in an 8'x8' room where his Ma has been held prisoner for years, even without him narrating the whole thing. The actors develop an incredible shorthand when in Room and believably navigate new sensations and relationships in the tricky world outside it. And in between those spaces is the most tense, electrifying scene of the year, as Jack makes a thrilling escape. Lenny Abrahamson had the most difficult job of any director this year and pulled it off with style, aplomb, and lots of heart.

...BUT BEFORE WE GET TO NUMBER ONE!

I must announce the winner of my "Jury Prize". That's a special citation I always give the film that I am in awe of as one of the most well-made films of the year, but that I had trouble actually enjoying all that much, thus making it impossible to properly "rank" the film. For context, previous winners include: Under the Skin, Before Midnight, and Amour. This year's winner is:

Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra) Completely unlike any film you're ever likely to see, Guerra's trek through the Colombian Amazon in search of a legendary plant follows two white explorers thirty years apart, led by the same man. Utterly mesmerizing and stunningly shot in black and white, this is one of those films that shows you a world you wouldn't be able to see otherwise, and in some cases, maybe shouldn't see. At times equally a ripping adventure tale, a vicious anti-colonialist screed, a squeamish psychological horror film, and a study of the emptiness and loneliness that comes from being the last of one's kind, Embrace of the Serpent is, in many ways, why we go to the cinema.

AND NOW! The moment we've all been waiting for...

1. Brooklyn (John Crowley) I make no bones about it, this one meant more to me personally than any other film this year. It is perhaps inevitable that John Crowley and his team of designers and technicians and craftspeople got little love for this, the most deeply felt film of the year. Brooklyn is a film that practically begs for the label "old-fashioned", but happens to be the rare film for which that descriptor isn't in any way a bad thing. This is solid, old-school Hollywood filmmaking of the first order, in service of a story that only seems slight because it was released in a year full of louder and more overtly Important films. But I ask you: In the current political climate, what is more Important than reminding everyone that ALL of our ancestors were immigrants once, and that it is possible to love your new home even more than your place of birth? Nothing. And Brooklyn is the most beautiful, heartwarming reminder of that.

LIST: Top 40 Dance Videos (Part Four)

Here we are, at the top of the pyramid. The Top Ten. I hope you like all these as much as I do.

BUT! Before we move on to the business at hand, allow me to remind you up front that this is a list of the best dance videos, NOT the best video dance routines. If that were the case, then you would have seen a lot more from Madonna, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, and more. I had to draw the line somewhere, and I decided I couldn't classify something as a Dance Video if the dancing took up less than half the video. Believe me, it was HARD cutting "Beat It" from this list. It was in my top three until I actually went and watched the video again... and found that the dancing doesn't even start until almost two-thirds of the way through. And the more Michael videos I watched, the more I realized that even though what dancing there was is still stellar, there wasn't nearly as much dancing in them as I remembered. In fact, the one that had the most was the edited version of "Bad", which I... <runs for cover>... HATE (I just never bought that persona from Michael).

Anyway.

Rest assured, were this a list of greatest music videos of all time, or of the best dance routines, there would be a LOT more MJ (and Madonna) on this list. But as it is, this is how the list stands. At this point, most of the videos speak for themselves, but I will still try to articulate why I think they're the best of the best.

10. OK Go - Here It Goes Again

I wrestled with myself over whether this actually counted or not, and finally decided it did. This treadmill routine (choreographed by Trish Sie) is a gimmick, sure, but WHAT a gimmick. It's super clever, superbly executed (in ONE TAKE!), and still mind-blowing. I still watch it in a state of "What the... How did they... Oh. My. GOD! AWESOME!" every single time.

LIST: Top 40 Dance Videos (Part Three)

Inching ever-closer to the top spot....

20. Paula Abdul - Straight Up

Have you ever seen the full video of this? Because I thought I had, but then I watched it for this, and.... PAULA TAP DANCES. A CAPELLA. WTF. She also lands a triple pirouette with no help from editing tricks. Figures, since David Fincher directed this chiaroscuro beauty. This video is also proof that a good teacher (Paula) doesn't teach her students (Janet Jackson) everything she knows (if you didn't know, Paula choreographed all of Janet's early videos, and was even in the video for "What Have You Done For Me Lately", which features the most amazing shoulder-ography from Ms. Jackson).

LIST: Top 40 Dance Videos (Part Two)

Here we go, #30-21...

30. Ed Sheeran - Don't

Phillip "Pacman" Chbeeb is positively dripping with charisma - has been since his very first audition on So You Think You Can Dance. So what a treat it is to just watch him do his thing in this video. I'm not really a fan of Ed Sheeran, so I will often watch this with the volume turned waaaaaay down, but it's still incredible to watch as he walks around a California neighborhood in his patented liquid-like popping style.

LIST: Top 40 Dance Videos (Part One)

Lists are, if you'll pardon my French, fucking DIFFICULT. I hate making them with a flaming passion. But I also LOVE them. They feel so representative, so orderly, so... SATISFYING. But compiling them? They're hard enough to order as it is outside of a few selections near the top usually, but then just when you think you're done you realize you completely forgot something and it screws up everything, or you realize that one thing dominates more than half the list, or you can't find a crucial piece of info or even proof of the existence of one of your entries, causing you to question your sanity... NIGHTMARE.

But sometimes, you just feel the need and come hell or high water or no sleep, you HAVE to make a list. And so here we are.

Because of that one episode of Hit Me With Your Best Shot a few weeks back, music videos have been on my mind recently. Mainly in an "Are they still a thing?" way, but I felt a list coming on, so I decided not to fight it... only there were entirely too many videos to choose from when making a list of the greatest of them all. But then I went back to my roots and decided to do a list of the Best DANCE Videos, and everything fell into place. Kind of.

Granted, you could make a list that consisted entirely of Michael and Janet Jackson videos and it would arguably hold water, so dominant are they at creating dance-centric clips... but a list of dance videos without Madonna? Without Paula Abdul? Inconceivable!

But on the other hand, there are AT LEAST six Janet videos that could be considered definitive for her, compared to one for pretty much everybody else, and they all pretty much trounce the competition. Leave it to Janet to always bring the next level shit - the tilting dance floor in "Doesn't Really Matter", the mixture of Afro-Cuban dance, breakdance, and stepping in "Escapade" - and also to show the young-uns how it's done ("All For You" and "All Nite" are some of the most intricate, stylish dance videos of their respective eras). I mean, yes, "Rhythm Nation" is her best overall video, but can you really put it on a dance-centric list above the incredible solo in "Pleasure Principle" or the killer chair routine in "Miss You Much"?

Anyway, this has been on my brain for long enough. So I finally decided to throw caution to the wind and just publish the damn thing already.

I had only one criteria for this list: The dancing has to be the star. So any clips in which dance plays a supporting role ("Chasing Pavements") or in which the dance routine just doesn't get enough screen time ("Marry The Night" and pretty much anything else by Lady Gaga) had to go, unfortunately. Videos that were one-take wonders got extra consideration due to degree of difficulty. I decided to cap it at 40 because Top 40 is a big deal in music. If there's enough interest or if I feel like it, I'll post ten Honorable Mentions to bring it up to 50. I'll be posting 10 a day until it's done.

Let the countdown begin!

LIST: Directors Who Should Have Directed Fifty Shades of Grey

I read Fifty Shades of Grey. I saw Fifty Shades of Grey. It didn't suck. But I can't seem to stop myself from thinking about all the other, potentially better versions of that film we will never get to see, so I decided to entertain myself. Whose version of Fifty Shades would have been, if not better, then at least more interesting, than Sam Taylor-Johnson's? Here are my Top Ten, in alphabetical order:

Pedro Almodovar - Law of Desire is one of the sexiest films ever, and if it's bondage you want, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is where you should go. Almodovar has also dealt with the book's major themes of identity and coming of age in various films, most notably All About My Mother and Bad Education.

Lee Daniels - At the very least, his version would have been an entertaining mess. Daniels plays around with form a lot, and I can't help but wonder if he would have found a cool way of visualizing the novel's (admittedly, hilariously awful) conceit of the dialogue of Ana's "inner goddess".

David Fincher - Let's be clear: I don't think this would have happened in a million years, but Fincher's cool formalism would have been a good match for this, and as Fight Club and Gone Girl have shown, he knows his way around a strange sex scene. Plus, he got his start making sexy as hell music videos for the likes of Madonna ("Express Yourself") and Paula Abdul ("Cold Hearted").

Adrian Lyne - The master of the erotic drama, Lyne is the man behind Unfaithful (which boasted an Oscar-nominated performance from Diane Lane), Lolita (with Jeremy Irons), Fatal Attraction (another Oscar nominee), Indecent Proposal, Flashdance, and 9 1/2 Weeks (the big screen's big kahuna for kinky sex). Basically, his name on a project is a guarantee of well-made, steamy sex scenes.

Madonna - Hear me out. This is the woman who recorded "Erotica" and made it a hit Billboard single. The woman who made a coffee-table book called Sex. The woman who, in her fifties, posed in leather dominatrix gear on her album cover. Yes, W.E. was terrible. But if there's one thing Madonna knows, it's sex. And if you think a woman who has exerted this much control over her image throughout her career hasn't learned something about capturing hot, rough sex on film, you're crazy.

Nicolas Roeg - Three words: Don't Look Now. The 70s film was banned for the too-sexy sex scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. Perhaps the guy's still got it?

Steven Shainberg - Don't recognize the name? I don't blame you. Shainberg is the man behind the 2002 film Secretary, in which Maggie Gyllenhaal gets involved in a BDSM relationship with her boss James Spader. It's sexy and darkly comic, which would be a good tone for a film adaptation of Fifty Shades. Of course, he's also the director of the terrible Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, so who knows about his taste level... but the fact remains that Secretary is a near-perfect calling card for this gig.

Lars von Trier - DUH. If you wanted a no-holds-barred, NC-17 version of Fifty Shades, this is the man who was most likely to deliver it. Granted, he probably would have had Charlotte Gainsbourg play Ana, and it's is very likely that his version would have also been the misogynistic, anti-feminist version the haters of Fifty Shades want it to be, but of all the directors on this list, he's probably the one whose version of the film I would want to see most.

The Wachowski Siblings - One word: Bound. They're now known for their action spectacles in the wake of The Matrix, but they got their start with this incredibly sexy neo-noir starring Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon. And as we've seen from the Matrix films, they know how to make leather fetish gear look good on film. If they bring on their Cloud Atlas collaborator Tom Tykwer, then so much the better!

John Waters - If you wanted the camp disasterpiece version of Fifty Shades, this is the only human being alive who could have possibly delivered a good one. His filmography revels in it, while never ever shortchanging his characters. Unless they deserve it. I actually REALLY wish this had happened.