So here’s my
individual list of the 21st
Century’s Greatest Films of BBC’s Culture. In fact, it is if I was asked to
do it when they asked many film critics to do this time consuming, hair
splitting, gut wrenching exercise.
It is fucking
hard to try to pick only ten films out of sixteen years of cinema. The worst
thing in this is that I have so many films to catch up that I don’t know how
full time film critics who watch many films a day can pick ten. This is beyond
me.
At first I
looked back at my list
of the best films of the decade 2000-2009 as a starter, then I got back to my ratings of five and four stars and a
half.
Finally, I
let my judgment and my cinematic memory decide which film has to be on the
list and in which position. Sometimes, my tastes got over my judgment and
other times it was the overall quality of the film that won it all.
Final words :
are haters are gonna hate.
(Click on the links to read my full reviews)
(Click on the links to read my full reviews)
It is one of
the most divisive choices on the list, maybe, I could have included Zodiac or The Social Network instead but it was Fincher’s treatment of Gillian
Flynn novel that got me to include a David Fincher film here. This take on
the second level of storytelling and character development was my best film of
2014.
It was a
close one with The Squid and the Whale
here but the presence of Greta Gerwig
and the obvious homage to the French New Wave of Frances Ha was enough to get over the portrayal of a family’s
divorce and the difficult times that my own family, mom and dad got divorced
around the time I saw The Squid and the
Whale and since this film is almost autobiographical of my life back then.
Batshitcrazy
film of Thriller/Horror grandeur in the difficult yet beautiful world of the
New York city ballet. Along with its predecessor The Wrestler is Aronofsky’s exploration of the obsession and
dedication to a craft as demanding as art or entertainment.
7)
Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)
From filming
skateboarding movies, Spike Jonze
has always had the flair for unique films paired with the twisted mind of
Charlie Kaufman and his screenplay, you have one heck of a great film within
the film. Now this is a Nicolas Cage
I can enjoy!
It had to has
a Tarantino film on my list and it
was not difficult at all deciding which one deserves to be on here. As much as
I loved the two Kill Bill volumes, I
was not sure about the hit or miss Django
Unchained and I’m still virgin of The
Hateful Eight. For me, Inglourious Basterds is everything I love about QT,
the writing, the arrogance, the uncompromised vision.
5) Almost
Famous (Cameron Crowe, 2000)
This coming
of age story is Crowe’s masterpiece
and everything he did after was in its shadow. A crowning achievement of
autobiographical scape that link Classic Rock to films and those stranded years
we all have to live by.
4)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)
Of the few
films that can make me cry this one as the pole position. The story of a father
that lies about his health to get his family back together all that with Wes Anderson’s quirky mise en scène and signature. This is a
story that is very close to mine and I picture my own father as Gene Hackman and the tone of the film
gets me in a very particular mood despite the laughable aforementioned
eccentricities of the ensemble.
The winner of
the poll, Mulholland Dr., and
probably one of the most multi layered films of the seventy last years or since Citizen Kane, is an ode to Cinema and
Hollywood. The work of a genius and a true artist. Naomi Watts gives a performance that will haunt you for days.
A divisive
film that got me in my deepest core. One the longest reviews I ever written and
one I am most proud of. It hasn’t been often that I screamed masterpiece when
coming out of the theater but with this film I was more than sure it was one of
the most important films of all time.
1)
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
P.T. Anderson’s
film was my number one back when I put together my list of the 100 best films
of 2000-2009. It is still one of the films that left the biggest imprint in my
memory, it sums up pretty much of the American History with its religion(s),
the American Dream of the self-made man, and the obsession of oil.
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