Top 100: 90-81

     Last week I started counting down my 100 favorite movies, revealing 100-91, and now this week I'm back at it again, counting down ten more movies (90-81). This week has an interesting mix of movies, leaning heavily towards newer films. After last week's heavy dose of the 1970's (seven out of the ten films were from the 1970's), I get much more up-to-date this week with half the films coming from the 2000's, one film from this year (in fact, the first film I reviewed for this blog), and all but one of the films coming from after 1990. In terms of genres, there isn't one that sticks out as much as comedy did with last week's batch, although four out of the ten films are bio-pics (biographical films). For at least three out of the four films though (and even the fourth film to some extent), they are not you're typical bio-pics. Instead of simply chronicling the events of the subjects life, each of these films mirror the personality of the subject, staying truer to the idea of the protagonist's life as an artist, which is the reason I enjoy the films so much. Finally, from the auteur's perspective, there are two films from the visually artistic Tim Burton. I'm not a fan of much of his recent work, but these two films show why he became a household name. Now on to the countdown!

90. "The White Ribbon" (2009)

     "The White Ribbon" was one of last year's competitors in the Oscar race for Best Foreign Film (along with an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography). It lost to Argentina's submission, "The Secret in Their Eyes" (also a very good film but not quite at the level of this German film), but "The White Ribbon" did not come up totally empty in the awards department, as it walked away at the prestigious Cannes film festival with the Golden Palm (the festival's highest award). Regardless of whether the film won any awards or not, it is truly a captivating movie that deserves your attention. The film tells the story of a countryside German village right before the outbreak of World War I. The village is extremely old-fashioned (almost to the point of feeling medieval), and most of the adults in village present themselves as extremely pious, good religious folk, while in reality living double lives and committing deep sins in their private lives much to the concern and dislike of the town's children. Mysterious violent incidents start occurring in the village (which were actually inspired by real incidents in Austria and Germany in the 1920s-1940s), leaving all the villagers flummoxed as to who the perpetrator could be. The film is told from the perspective of the good-natured school teacher who slowly uncovers the mysteries of the village until the disturbing final revelation.

     The film plays like a slow-burn horror flick. The sense of dread and foreboding is almost always present, almost to the point of suffocation, as the audience waits for the next horrible event to occur or another revelation about the dark souls of the villagers. The film is brilliantly directed by the lauded German auteur Michael Henke, who lets the events of the film speak on their own terms, and the haunting black-and-white cinematography from Christian Berger is some of the best work of any film in recent years and should have easily walked away with the cinematography Oscar. Thematically, the film takes on very interesting topics, giving us a penetrating look into early 20th Century agrarian Germany. The film takes a Freudian view on the effects of a repressed society, giving us a glimpse of what might have lead to some of the terrible atrocities the German people committed during the Second World War. Michael Henke worked on "The White Ribbon" for over ten years, even spending six months and seeing over 7000 children to find the right child actors to portray their pivotal roles. Many people have problem reading subtitles, and the pacing of the film is undoubtedly to slow for the average moviegoer, but if you want to see an interesting dark film, or if you have any interest in 20th Century German history, this is a must see.

89. "Man on the Moon" (1999)

     As I mentioned earlier, four of the films this week are biopics, but they're not your typical glamour films that hit all the necessary points in the subject's life. Case-and-point, "Man on the Moon". Now it is true that "Man on the Moon" does reenact the famous moments of Mr. Andy Kaufman's life (unlike some of the stranger biopics coming up), but what makes the film such a strong movie is most of it is not done from a cold objective third-person perspective, but from the point of the artist/comedian Andy Kaufman. If your not aware of who Andy Kaufman was, he was a famous comedian in the 1970's who was mostly known for his role of Latka

     Viewing life as art is an interesting perspective (if a bit drastic in Andy Kaufman's case), and the film does a wonderful job of portraying this view point. The film is directed by two-time Oscar winner Milos Forman, a very talented director more famous for directing the two Best Picture winners: "Amadeus" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". "Man on the Moon", named after the R.E.M. song about Andy Kaufman, flourishes under Forman's focus on Andy Kaufman as an artist, instead of some crazy celebrity who dies of cancer. As an audience member, you yourself are never quite sure what is going on in the unique mind of Andy Kaufman, which is exactly how Andy Kaufman would have wanted a movie about his life to be. Finally, I can't mention "Man on the Moon" without talking about the great performance given by Jim Carrey. I am not exactly a Jim Carrey advocate, but his performance as Andy Kaufman is nothing but praise worthy and is my favorite performance of his career. Given some of the dramatic performances Carrey has given, he seems pretty desperate to receive an Oscar nomination (like many comedians), and this sense of desperation may have hurt his chances, but regardless of Mr. Carrey's motivations, he absolutely deserved a nomination for this film and it is a shame the Academy failed to reward his effort.

88. "Ninotchka" (1939)

     "Ninotchka" was released in 1939, which is known as "the Golden Year" of cinema, since so many legendary films were released that year. "Ninotchka" is considered to be one of those legendary films, and while it isn't as famous as "Gone With the Wind" or "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", it holds up just as well and is a great example of an early comedic gem. The film was actually built around a tagline for the film's star Greta Garbo, with the slogan, "Garbo Laughs!", a spoof on the famous tagline for Garbo's 1929 film "Annie Christie", which was "Garbo Speaks!". Luckily the film is about much more than Greta Garbo laughing, and for a film that had a slogan before a screenplay, the script written by the team of Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Walter Reisch is quite an achievement. The film starts with a mission for three Soviet comrades to go to Paris in order to sell some of royal jewels the Bolsheviks took during the revolution. As soon as the three hapless emissaries arrive in Paris though (easily the three silliest Soviet characters you are ever going to see in any film), they quickly adapt to the lavish and free lifestyle of capitalist society and forget to do their mission. This leads the Soviets to send one of their best no-nonsense leaders in Ninotchka (Greta Garbo), who arrives in Paris a committed Communist until she falls in love with Leon (Melvyn Douglas), as her heart becomes torn between her love and her duty.

     The film is the best send-up of Communist Russia ever made (which is not actually saying much since Hollywood has made very little movies dealing with Soviet Russia, but it is meant as high praise nonetheless). Anyone who is not a far-left ideologue, has a good knowledge of Russian history (they mock things like the "Five-Year Plan"), or simply enjoys old light-hearted comedies should enjoy this movie. Ernst Lubitsch, the film's director, typically directed musical-comedies, and while there are no musical numbers in the film, the comic touch and timing is as well executed in this film as in any great modern day comedies. The cast in the movie is also terrific, with the two leads of the film especially standing out. Melvyn Douglas plays the sweet charming, but not entirely trust worthy man role perfectly, and Greta Garbo, in one of her only two comedic roles, shows that she can adapt to comedy just as easily as drama. This is a really fun, light-hearted movie, and if you're curious to whether there were any good comedies back in the day, this is not a bad film to start with.

87. "Tropic Thunder" (2008)

     War films have been around since the dawn of cinema, and over the years the cliches of war films have compiled into an almost infinite list, but because the subject matter is so serious, few are willing to poke fun at their foibles. Well, in 2008 we saw Ben Stiller had no problem whatsoever mocking the Holy Grail that is the war genre, as his hilarious "Tropic Thunder" proved. More than the war genre itself, the whole film is a shot across the bow of Hollywood and its culture, from the actors, to the writers, to the producers, to the agents, and even to the special effects guys. Ben Stiller spares no one in this tale of a big-budget production of a war film that goes astray. Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, an action star whose career is on the ropes and in desperate need of a critical and commercial hit. Unfortunately, the filming is going horribly (partly due to Speedman's inability to cry), so the film's director (played by Steve Coogan) gets the idea from Nick Nolte's character (Four Leaf Tayback), who's "life" the film's story is supposedly based on, that the only way to make the film more authentic is to put the actors in "the real shit". The director takes his advice and flies the main actors, which include Jack Black as Jeff Portnoy, a comedic actor known for his "fat suit" movies, and Robert Downey Jr. in a fantastic Oscar-nominated performance as method actor Kirk Lazarus (a mix of Russell Crowe, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Colin Farrell according to Downey), who undergoes surgery to blacken his skin so that he could accurately play the black character. The director quickly dies after stepping on a land mine, but convinced it is all part of some elaborate act, Speedman convinces the rest of the actors to follow him until they get in a tough situation with some Southeast Asian drug lords.

     According to Stiller, the idea for the film had been with him a long time and came from a bunch of his acting friends who went through "boot camp" to try to create more realistic characters. Feeling the ridiculousness of the idea that any boot camp can even come close to simulating what it is like to be a real soldier, Stiller wrote an excellent script along with actor/writer Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen (a writer from one of my all-time favorite television shows "King of the Hill"). There are so many great moments in this film, from the fake trailers in the beginning, to the scenes with Tom Cruise's spectacularly funny role as crude film producer Les Grossman, to the "Simple Jack" storyline and the conversation between Speedman and Lazarus about the right way of "going retard" to win the Oscar. The other really strong point of the film is its acting. There are an amazing amount of good actors and performances in this movie, whether its the film's three stars Stiller, Black, and Downey Jr., or the minor showy roles like that given to Cruise, Nolte, and Matthew McConaughey, or even smaller bit parts from the likes of Jay Baruchel, Brandon T. Jackson, Steve Coogan, Danny McBride, and Bill Hader, the whole cast does a great job. "Tropic Thunder" is one of the best comedies in recent years, and any one aware of Hollywood cliches in war movies should definitely check it out.

86. "The Social Network" (2010)

     If you have been following this blog, you know I am a fan of "The Social Network". It is this blog's very first review and post (click here to read the review), and the film's protagonist is the subject of my first (and so far only) "What's in a Meaning" article, where I discussed the psychological motivations behind the film's version of Mark Zuckerberg. "The Social Network" is without a doubt my favorite film of the year so far and the only film of this very young decade to make my Top 100 list. Despite my extensive coverage of this film, since it is part of the list, I feel obligated to expound on my love for this film.

     "The Social Network" is one of the four bio-pics in this week's list of ten, and in a lot of ways it is the most conventional of the bunch, but it is flawlessly executed. David Fincher is one of the best in the business right now and showcases his talents in this film, while the cast hits all the right notes. Jessie Eisenberg gives the best performance of the ensemble as the socially awkward founder of Facebook, but the performances by Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Rooney Mara, and Arnie Hammer are all memorable. The strongest part of this tale of the founding of Facebook may be its script though. It is incredibly sharp and fast-paced, and some of the dialogue written by Aaron Sorkin is instantly quotable. Here is a sample of some of the best lines:

"A guy who makes a nice chair doesn't owe money to everyone who has ever built a chair."
"You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be."
"You have part of my attention - you have the minimum amount."
And my personal favorite,
"If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook."

      If you haven't seen "The Social Network" yet, it may unfortunately be too late to see it in theaters, but do yourself a favor and rent it when it comes out to a video store near you.

85. "A Serious Man" (2009)

     This is yet another film of which I have given some discussion to in my "If I Picked the Winners: Best Picture 2009" article. In that article, I ranked this movie only behind "Inglorious Bastards" in last year's Oscar race, and while I did not hesitate in picking Taratino's WWII movie as number one, that is in no way a statement on my affection for the Coen's "A Serious Man". In another year with weaker competition, "A Serious Man" could have easily been my pick for the Academy's top prize. "A Serious Man" is the Coen Brothers in their typical black comedy mode (i.e. "Fargo"), but unlike some of their other black comedies, there is more going on here than dramatic twists of fate of the common man. The film tells the story of Larry Gopnik, a Jewish college professor in Minnesota during the year 1967. Things continually get worse for the sympathetic professor, as he learns his wife wants to leave him for another man, his tenure hearing appears less than a for sure thing, and his troubled brother and bickering son and daughter make home life far from relaxing.

     Curiously enough, the idea for the film started with a rather inconsequential scene where Larry's son Danny gets stoned at his bar mitzvah, but somehow in the obtuse minds of the Coen Brothers, this single scene morphed into a statement about the nature of God and existence. One of the interesting aspects of "A Serious Man" is it is probably the most personal of all the Coen films. It is set in late 1960's Minnesota, where the Coen's grew-up, and like Larry Gupnik, the Coen's father was a college professor. There are also small reference to things like grocery stores that existed in the area at the time, but being Jewish, one of the most interesting personal aspects is the film's exploration of Judaism (the book of Job in particular). From the film's non-sequitur parable of an opening that is completely in Hebrew, to the film's ominous close, this is a strange dark movie. If you're up for some deep philosophical thought though, you can't do much better than this Coen Brothers classic.

84. "Edward Scissorhands" (1990)

     "Edward Scissorhands" is the ultimate fairy tale. It takes the dark, gothic side of the original Grimm stories and mixes it with the sentimentalism and "love conquers all" theme of Disney's modern day version of the fairy tale. The result is some beautiful mix of strange and wholesome that is always captivating. The film is about a man/creature created by The Inventor (played wonderfully in his last role by Vincent Price) to be a human being, but before The Inventor can finish his masterpiece by giving Edward (Johnny Depp) his hands, he dies, leaving him with scissors where his hansd should be. Edward lives alone until one day when the Avon lady Peg (Dianne Weist) brings him to live in her home with her family in the suburbs. Despite his strange appearance and shy personality, at first the suburbanites warm-up to this new intruder, and Peg's daughter Kim (Winona Ryder) develops a relationship with Edward, but soon most of the town's people begin to see him as a danger as things take a turn for the worst.

     The one thing that Tim Burton is known for, if for nothing else, is that he is one of the most visually adventurous filmmakers in cinema history. This is not too surprising given Burton's background as an animator (in fact, "Edward Scissorhands" was based on a drawing Burton did as a teenager), and this strength is very apparent in the film. The contrast between the brightly garish suburban housing in the neighborhood and the black and albino look of Edward is one of the keys to setting the tone of the film. The other heavy-lifting falls on the shoulders of the film's star, Johnny Depp. Depp only speaks 169 words in the film, but the role is more about the silence than the dialogue, and Depp is more than capable of handling the task. I'm not all-in on the Johnny Depp bandwagon like so many people seem to be, but this is his best work and is really the crucial role into pulling off this odd fairy tale. "Edward Scissorhands" was a little too strange at the time to be fully embraced by a massive audience, but like many of the best films, its cult grew overtime, finally getting the praise and attention it deserves.

83. "I'm Not There" (2007)

     Out of the four bio-pics I discuss this week, "I'm Not There" is easily the most unconventional and strangest. The film uses six different actors to play the "biographical" subject, Bob Dylan (including Richard Gere as an 19th century cowboy, Marcus Carl Franklin as a young black boy version of Dylan, and Cate Blanchett doing a cross-gender version of Dylan), and the film never once even uses the name Bob Dylan, instead opting to use names like Jude for the six versions of Dylan. I'm not one of these people who worship every step Bob Dylan took or every word he spoke (although I do really like a few of his songs such as "Subterranean Homesick Blues"), but the Bob Dylan portrayed in this movie is one of the coolest people to ever exist. According to Todd Haynes' vision, Bob Dylan is a schizophrenic existential warrior, refusing to be defined by any single group or person. In real life, I'm sure Bob Dylan is nowhere near as interesting or complex, but it doesn't matter, I will take this fantasy version of Dylan any day if it makes for this good of art.

     Some of the six different story lines are better than others, and I'm not going to pretend that I completely understood all of them and their connection to Bob Dylan's life (especially the cowboy section), but the one that is the strongest and the main focus of the film is the story line starring Cate Blanchett. Before the film hit wide release, there was already a lot of buzz for Blanchett's performance and before I actually saw the film, I was pretty skeptical. It sounded like a gimmick to have a woman play Dylan, but once you see the movie, Blanchett's performance stands above all the others. Even though Tilda Swinton did a fine job in "Michael Clayton", Blanchhett should have easily walked away with the win for her Best Supporting Actress nomination. Blanchett's portion of the film deals with Dylan at a point in time when he was most rebellious against the image of himself he had created. This is a dark existential Dylan that is trying to push the boundaries of his identity. According to Haynes, each of the six sections are inspired by other films. Blanchett's section was inspired by Fellini's "8 and One-half", Gere's section was inspired by the "hippie westerns" of Sam Peckinpah's films, and Heath Ledger's section was inspired by some of Jean-Luc Goddard's films. The influence of some of these great auteurs on "I'm Not There" comes threw in the film making and is one of the reasons why this is one of the greatest and most unusual biopics ever made. In a decade filled with cliched biopics about rock and roll stars like "Ray" and "Walk the Line" (humorously parodied in "Walk Hard"), "I'm Not There" proves that a film about rock and roll stars can be more than chronicling the sexual affairs and drug habits of rich spoiled brats. Let this be a lesson to all future filmmakers wishing to make a biopic about rock stars (especially the people making the Kurt Cobain film), make the movie about the artist, not the person!

82. "Mystic River" (2003)

     As I discussed in my review for "The Town", filmmakers have recently had a love affair with the city of Boston. Now arguably the roots of this obsession with the New England city can be traced back to the screenplay for the movie "Good Will Hunting" (written by Boston natives Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) but in reality, no significant film (if any film) was set in Boston until another six years later. It wasn't until 2003's "Mystic River" was released that the onslaught of Boston movies (and Dennis Lehane adaptations) began. This is the film, under the direction of actor-turned-director Clint Eastwood, that let so many people realize the untapped potential of the city. "Mystic River", based on the Dennis Lehane novel of the same name, tells the story of three childhood friends: Jimmy (Sean Penn), Dave (Tim Robbins), and Sean (Kevin Bacon). As a child, Dave is abducted and sexually abused for several days until he is able to make an escape, scaring him well into his adulthood. Jimmy grows up to be a convict, while Sean becomes a homicide detective with the Boston Police Department. The friendship is tested to the extreme when Jimmy's daughter is found murdered. Sean is put on the case, while Jimmy vows to find and murder whoever killed his daughter. As the investigation moves on, it becomes clear that Dave is the prime suspect and as this fact is revealed to Jimmy, the tension between the two reaches a dramatic boiling point.

     Clint Eastwood is very hit and miss as a director, but this is his finest work. The visual style and pacing create an impending sense of doom, while the camera work simply lets the actors move the scenes along without any unnecessary distractions. Out of all the films recently set in Boston, "Mystic River" really gives you an insight and feel for what the life of working class Bostonians looks like. It's been done in a lot of films since then, but "Mystic River" was the first film to showcase the neighborhoods of the infamous south side of Boston with its unique style and architecture. The ensemble gives some of the best collective performances of any film during the decade as well. Sean Penn and Tim Robbins both received Academy Awards for their captivating performances, but smaller players such as Kevin Bacon, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney, and Laurence Fishburne all help contribute to fleshing out this drama. "Mystic River" is a dark heavy movie, but if you're in the mood for a character driven drama, you won't find many more powerful films than this film.

81. "Ed Wood" (1994)

     As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, the last decade has been rather forgettable for Tim Burton. Commercially, many of his films were very successful, but from an artistic stand point, only 2003's "Big Fish" stands out as an above-average achievement. The early work of Tim Burton though really stands out as unique and creative, with his two "Ed" films ("Edward Scissorhands" and "Ed Wood") standing out as his crowning achievements (now only if he could find a third film with Ed somewhere in title). "Ed Wood" also marks the fourth biopic of the bunch, as it looks at the life and times of Ed Wood, widely regarded as the worst director of all-time. Mr. Wood was the "auteur" behind such B-movie 50's classics as "Glen or Glenda", a partly autobiographical story about a man who likes to cross-dress, and "Plan 9 from Outer Space", a sci-fi extravaganza. While I have not personally seen any of Wood's films, they are well known for their terrible production values, awful dialogue, and amateur acting, and Burton's portrayal of the movies in "Ed Wood" don't make them look any better than their reputation.

     Like the other biopics in this article, this film is not your regular prestige picture. It is shot in black and white and much of the film is timed and paced as a comedy (which it succeeds at). The film also has many sweeter moments, as a good chunk of the film deals with the relationship between Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) and the out-of-work and over-the-hill drug addict Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau). The admiration Wood has for Lugosi, even at his weakest and most vulgar moments, is always touching, but the relationship is far from one-way. Both of these men are lost souls and both need the other's support and reinforcement to make their lives meaningful. The acting by both Depp and Landau is superb (enough to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Landau), and is some of the best work of their careers. Smaller roles from people like Bill Murray and even Sarah Jessica Parker also round out a good cast. "Ed Wood" is not like any other Tim Burton films, and many self-proclaimed Burton fans have probably never seen the movie and would likely not enjoy as much as his more commercial work. If you really want to see Burton at his most emotionally adventurous, in what I consider to be his best work, or if your interested in the story behind the worst director of all-time, "Ed Wood" is an absolutely must-see!

     That's my ten for this week, so until next week if you have any comments on this week's movies, just let me know in the comments section.