In case you’re just now tuning in:

25. Shaun of the Dead

24. Gladiator

23. Sideways

22. In Bruges

21. Lost in Translation

20. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

19. Mulholland Drive

18. Gosford Park

17. O Brother Where Art Thou

16. There Will Be Blood

Next Wednesday I’ll continue with numbers 10-6, and then the following Wednesday with 5-1.

Let’s get right to it…

15. SNATCH – 2001

"Don't go to England..."

I wrote about this one already as part of my top 100 Countdown. In fact several of these upcoming films made that list.

In the case of “Snatch” I think you have a film that is a) highly enjoyable b) highly stylized, and c) highly influential. The fact that Director Guy Ritchie was able to pull off all three at the same time merits inclusion on any “best of” decade list. This film is nothing more than a showpiece for a director with a particular style at the top of his game.

“Snatch” doesn’t contain anything that will alter the way you relate to the environment around you. There are no elements of plot, style, or action that will cause you to question reality as you know it. You’re not going to walk away from “Snatch” feeling anything except entertained. That I feel it’s perfect at what it does is why it’s here.

Many films try, and fail, to manage a cast of characters this large. Ritchie not only manages them, he makes them all unique, and gives them all entertaining personas that he lets shine through their interactions. A convoluted narrative is actually braided together in a way that makes the final product look much neater than the collected strands. The soundtrack choices sizzle, and actors deliver enjoyable performances all the way around. Personally, I don’t think Brad Pitt has ever been better than he is here, as a gypsy-like Pikey traveler with a talent for bare knuckle boxing and a hot-headed zest for doing the wrong thing.

To me other highly-stylized films like 300, Sin City, and Kill Bill don’t merit inclusion over “Snatch.” In “Snatch” the stylish elements enhance the characterizations, humor, and entertainment value of the film instead of overshadowing it. There’s a fine line between style for entertainment’s sake and style for style’s sake. In “Snatch”, Ritchie boldy stands with one leg on each side of that line and does a dance. Not a second of the film feels wasted. None of the interactions or plot lines don’t raise the overall entertainment level of the film. There are other films even on this list that are landmark films in some respects, but landmark films with warts. “Snatch” has really only one flaw: the lack of any female characters of merit.  But everything Ritchie does try succeeds. Everything he does enlivens and enhances the film’s entertainment value. It’s a rare film where nothing falls flat, and nothing falls flat in “Snatch”. In fact things soar, and that’s why it checks in at number 15.

14. BORAT – 2006

This is another one I wrote about as part of my top 100 Countdown.  The only thing reflection has done is enhance my view of it.

I don’t think there was better filmed satire in the last 10 years. “Thank You for Smoking” is close, and “Shaun of the Dead” is on this list not for being a satire, but for twisting the knob just so, to the point that something wonderful comes into focus between satire, romantic comedy, and horror film.

But as pure comedic satire, nothing matches the levels that Sascha Baron Cohen gets to with “Borat”. That he was able to do so gradually, via improvisation, to create an emerging thru line of satire about the way Americans of various stripes treat outsiders, is honestly nothing short of genius.

This film is dripping: with vulgarity, with humor, and with true cinematic genius. There’s really no satire in two fully nude men fighting in a hotel room and into the halls and ballrooms, but when I first saw it I laughed until I got so dizzy I was worried I was going to pass out.  There’s no genius in a Jew taking subtle potshots at Eastern European Anti-Semitism, but they come off as hilarious when he brings them up in conversation. And there’s no vulgarity in a hilarious pre-rodeo national anthem, but there’s true satirical comedy.

I previously wrote that Cohen is a modern day Groucho Marx, and that’s what he reminds me of. His go to reaction in interactions is to find comedy, just like Groucho’s was. But Cohen does it not through witticisms, but through satire. His go to way of finding comedy is instead to think of how to turn it so that it’s a send up of reality. It’s both creatively amazing and comedically genius. It’s not so much that he has a satiric wit, it’s that he’s able to transform all of his interactions, even mundane ones, into satiric statements about the United States.

VERY NICE!

Cohen inhabits every aspect of a character in ways most actors won’t be able to on their best day. And he does so as a comedian – with gangly gait and stick-straight posture when “on camera”. And the results are the stuff of legend. A vulgar, often-immature, but generally-genius legend. He never has to say anything about Americans, we do it for him in our interactions with him.

Some people criticize the film as being narrow in its portrayal of Americans in that (they claim) Cohen sought out the ripest targets and let them run wild. But some of my favorite sequences in the film have naught to do with any political or social message, and instead just let human interactions rule the day. A hotel clerk being forced to read a message to a possibly-distraught Borat about his wife and a bear, a driving instructor having difficulty trying to explain that Americans might drive differently that those from other cultures. Etiquitte instructors and feminist scholars, humorists and news anchors, easy targets in their own right, but still presenting a fairly hilarious overall (not narrow) view of how different Americans relate to foreigners. Trying to hug a stranger in a big city, and watching that stranger run away screaming in primal fear? Now that’s funny, and is in no way related to finding an easy target for ridicule.

Cohen has also taken shots for his portrayal of Khazatstan. But if the situation were reversed, and he gallivanted across Europe as a broadly stereotypical American to see how Europeans reacted to the stereotype, he wouldn’t be accused of digging on America.  (also I just wrote the sequel to Borat) The Kazak Borat exists simply as a stage on which the Americans play the comedy. And it’s probably the best and the brightest pure comedy of the last 10 years. Man, it’s filthy though. But ain’t that America?

13. THE DARK KNIGHT – 2008

There’s this I wrote about The Dark Knight (warning, here be spoilers) when I first saw it.

Then there’s this from my Top 100 list.

I find that I don’t have much more to say. I think this is the best superhero movie of all time.  I think it’s also one of the best action movies of all time. It is pitch perfect in capturing the ultimate paradox at the center of Batman: that only a man driven by darkness could go as far as he does in the ways that he does to do the things that he does.

I find Christian Bale to be mostly-pedestrian as Bruce Wayne in this film—he’s given the right things to say but he says them in a kind of bored and offhanded way. There’s not enough darkness in his Wayne, but there’s plenty of darkness in the film, so it more than makes up for his performance, which isn’t so much weak, it’s just, not strong. He’s better than he is in this film, hell, he was better as Wayne/Batman in “Batman Begins”.

Fortunately, everything else in this film is outstanding. I think what I like best is how the film spins on a series of paradoxes, with the ultimate message that the line between “good” and “evil” in the modern city is blurred to near-confusion. It’s both a defense and criticism of vigilantism. It’s highly-literate but also highly-entertaining. And it contains one of cinema’s legendary villainous performances.

Really, read what I already wrote if you want to know more of my thoughts on this one…

12. SPIRITED AWAY – 2001

This is a riser on my list. I had only seen it once when I compiled my Top 100 List several months ago. But in preparing this list I decided to give 10 or so films another look to see what I thought of their staying power and if, on additional viewings, they’d merit consideration. Some of these films I’d not seen since release, and so they were not fresh on my mind.

“Spirited Away” is one of two films that I watched that merited more consideration on a second viewing. And I’ve concluded that not only does it merit consideration, it actually earns its spot in the top 15 films of the last decade, and a breath away from the top 10. Coincidentally, the other film is just ahead at number 11. And there’s only one Animated film I’ve ever felt is better, look for it between numbers 10 and 6 on this list…

“Spirited Away” is filled with undeniable qualities. I could watch it for days on end. The characters and sequences are honestly and truly timeless. I think I’ve found I prefer the English dubbed version because it seems slightly off, and the voice acting isn’t the typical over-the-top American Animated film voice acting. It only adds to the sense of detachment and wonder that you don’t have to hear Jack Black trying to be funny, or recognize some big star trotting out something for the kiddies.

In Japan, the childrens have no noses.

The little girl’s voice is slightly annoying, sure, but you can’t help but feel bad for her, and before long you’re seeing the film through her eyes completely, which has the dual effect of making you feel like a child, and making your feel FOR this child.

This is a film of indelible beauty and ageless grace, like an ancient river. It’s of no coincidence that rivers figure so heavily into the plot, and it’s no simple feat that creator Hayao Miyazaki is able to capture those feelings in word, thought, deed, and picture on screen. There’s a moment, midway through the film when the heroine has just gone through a major ordeal and finally gets some credit and a chance to rest, that she looks out over a flooded plain that has engulfed her reality. A train passes by. The hue in the sky slightly changes. The soundtrack under the image warms the soul. It’s a breathtaking moment, perhaps THE breathtaking moment, in a film filled with them.

It’s a film of morals and messages, but one that doesn’t beat you over the head with them in any way. The morals and messages are not tightly wrapped up like an Aesop’s fable—the film’s messages have some of the same abiding themes as those enduring fables, just updated with modern issues, and with effervescent  charm instead of on-the-nose presentation.

And yeah, I can’t say it enough, it’s a gorgeous film in every way. Pan’s Labyrinth is a similar film, which is close to meriting consideration on this list. But Pan’s Labyrinth is more taut, waaay darker and more violent, and less beautiful as a result. It has a sense of wonder, but that sense of wonder is forever affected by a cloud of doom and despair that hangs low over the whole piece. Sometimes it’s ok to just be swept away into a fantasy world, and not be so heavily drained by the world around you.

“Spirited Away” in contrast to “Pan’s Labyrinth”, takes place in a world tinged by both the fear AND the goodness of the power of magic, and our heroine’s own spirit here is the biggest light in the film. “Pan’s Labyrinth” is mostly depressing. “Spirited Away” is almost entirely uplifting, even in it’s darkest moments. Part of that is the beauty of the score, part of it is the beauty of the image, and the rest of it is due to a timeless story, in the hands of a true master. One of the best films of any decade, and possibly the greatest animated film of all time.

11. THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS – 2001

Another film I’d rank among the best of all time, this is quite simply Director Wes Anderson’s masterpiece.

Anderson is one of the true auteurs in Modern American Cinema. He visualizes his entire project from script to screen, including editing, song choices, set dressing, and specific emotions and reactions from actors. He’s a movie megalomaniac, but luckily he has fantastic vision and creativity. He understands how to create greatness without copying it like, say, a Quentin Tarantino.

Never before, or since, has Anderson’s talent been on display like it is in this film, which concerns the decades-long quirky interactions between a family of child prodigies and childish parents. Anderson understood that the rich backstory of the characters, much of which would not make it to the screen, was heavily influential on how they characters acted now. So instead of having hours of flashbacks, their backgrounds are revealed in snippets, and take shape in the design and makeup of their childhood dress and bedrooms. This is a fantastically rewarding film visually. Every picture hung on a wall, every outfit, every decoration on the set, says something about one of the characters. More thought was put into this film than the entire series of “Saw” movies plus the entire television run of “Two and a Half Men” plus all of “Twilight” and both “Transformers” movies. Combined.

Particularly with this film, Anderson is able to capture both complete insanity, and something close to real humanity. Hell, maybe the two aren’t that far apart. The actors are nearly all at the top of their games, Gene Hackman, in particular, delivers what I honestly feel is the performance of his career. The music of the film is fantastic, providing both a soundtrack to the film and THE soundtrack to these crazy characters’ lives.

Look at that Old Grizzly...

Anderson has a way of making the offhand seem hilarious (like Gene Hackman calling Danny Glover “Coltrane” or “Old Grizzly”) and making the mundane seem entirely depressing. He has a touch, and never is it more evident in this film. Others of his films, like “Rushmore”, feature characters that fail to strike a balance between quirkiness and likeability. Here, even the most outrageously emotionally-offensive characters, like Gene Hackman’s or Owen Wilson’s, invite moments or entire films of sympathy.

This is a film about a wholly-dysfunctional family struggling, after all those years, to find function. How they find it, if they find it, and why they do are don’t make this one emotionally powerful and pitch perfect.