Don't make me choose! And I say I don't have to choose, goddamn it. These movies, with their desolate locales, portrayals of boundless evil and the meatgrinder logic of capitalism, their similar visual brilliance, and the fact that they both rocked my ass, will always be linked in my mind. I've written about how awesome these movies are before: ya'll know it! The only thing I want to point out is that the end of There Will Be Blood is sheer genius, and those who deny it can lick my butt. Also, "I'm finished" doesn't refer to Daniel Plainview's life, it refers to his dinner.
3. Grindhouse
This is a case of the whole being much, much greater than the sum of it's parts. Planet Terror is a fun gorefest, and Death Proof is a nifty genre deconstruction with a bunch of talking, but taken together, in a theater, with some hilarious fake trailers thrown in courtesy of folks like Eli Roth and Edgar Wright, and you've got a singular cinematic experience. Yes, you can knock it for being a shallow exercise in mimicry, but it's SO MUCH FUN.
4. Zodiac
I saw this movie for the first time at a packed preview screening, and one of the most memorable theater experiences of my life was the hugely audible exhalation of disappointment that burst forth from the audience over the final title cards. It's a whole film built around failure, obsession and lack of catharsis, where the brilliant structure and subject matter come together in such a way that the lack of closure on a story level actually achieves catharsis on an artistic level. Plus, the Lake Berryessa murder scene is one of the most chilling in recent film history. A bright sunny day, a beautiful lakeshore, a young couple at leisure...and who's that guy walking behind that tree? Getting serial murdered has never felt so awfully plausible.
5. Hot Fuzz
You know how Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg made Shaun of the Dead, and were able to hilariously send up the zombie genre while still delivering genuine zombie delights? They did it again with the action genre in Hot Fuzz. They also solidified their status as the makers of the most complete comedies out there. The plot isn't a necessary delivery system for jokes: every scene builds on the scene before it, with allusions, callbacks and parodies thick in the air.
Honorable Mentions in the best film year of the decade:
Margot at the Wedding, Into the Wild, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Michael Clayton, I'm Not There
Biggest gap between talent of filmmakers and quality of film: Charlie Wilson's War. Tom Hanks? Aaron Sorkin? Philip Seymour Hoffman? Mike Nichols? How the hell did this crew, which as collectively made dozens of good to great movies, completely and collectively forget how to make a film altogether?
"Modern Classic" I just can't get behind: Atonement. Half of a great movie.
Best all-time performance by an Affleck: Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. This is a beautifully shot movie with moments of pure visual poetry, bu the most memorable part of it is Casey Affleck's turn as the hero-worshiper turned murdered Robert Ford. He manages to convey a 21st century relationship with celebrity while still being credibly Olde Timey.
Best monster attack: The Host. When the amphibious mutant in The Host runs riot through Seoul, the scene is shot without any of the usual tricks and tropes of the monster-attack genre. It takes place under the bright light of day, and the creature is not shown in bits and pieces in close up. No, long range shots of the whole ghastly creature smashing shit up, filmed more like something from an Animal Planet documentary than Godzilla.
Justly-famous scene of badassery: the naked sauna fight in Eastern Promises. Fighting with edged weapons with your junk in the wind is the very definition of badass.
Underrated scene of badassery: bullet-hand scene in Shoot 'em Up. Clive Owen has been shot to hell, his arm is like Swiss cheese, all he's got to defend himself against the villain are some loose pistol shells and a working fireplace. What does he do? He shoves the bullets into his arm wounds, then sticks his arm in the fire to ignite the gunpowder.
Line of the Year: "Edith, I told you, I can't build you a candy house! It will fall down. The sun will melt the candy. It won't work!" --Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
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