Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Everyone's Doing Decade Lists, Film Version

  1. Wall-E
    So Tati-esque -- the use of minimal sound to create heart-aching loneliness. I love you, little robot.
  2. Legally Blonde
    The best live-action American film this decade. Read some Lacan to find out why, muah haha hah hahah.
  3. Batman Begins/The Dark Knight
    I would marry Batman.
  4. Spirited Away
    An opulent menagerie of gods, with some of the most potent film-making I've had the pleasure of crying to.
  5. Ratatouille
    The moment when SPOILER Anton Ego flashes back to childhood END SPOILER is unbeatable.
  6. Children of Men
    I try to remain skeptical about displays of technical virtuosity (polite term for indulgent wank, which itself is less polite term I use for "acting"), but damn if all of Alfonso Cuarón's single-take set pieces didn't draw me into the visceral Bourne-style dystopia.
  7. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain
    Movies have taught me one thing: my true love is a Frenchwoman (ok, Francophone-woman) with chic brown hair. She alights like an apparition once a decade into the light and shadows of film. In the '90s, her name was Valentine Dussault; she reappeared as Amélie Poulain in 2001.
  8. The Incredibles
    Wall-E and Ratatouille are in a class by themselves -- but being the best of the rest of Pixar's oeuvre is no small potatoes.
  9. Bend It Like Beckham
    Girl power forever!
  10. Secretary
    A sado-masochistic fairy tale whose main character is named Lee. How can I not go for it?

Conclusions: I am a 12-year-old girl. Michael Caine is the actor of the decade.

Indie rating: Goldfrapp - "Fly Me Away"

1 comment:

momo said...

I bought Bend it Like Beckham and Whale Rider for my daughter when they came out, even though she was too young for them yet, because there are so few good movies for young girls. We are also huge Miyazaki fans in our house. In fact, she has a burning ambition to make animated films one day.
We are now up to episode 6 or 7 of watching The Wire together (she's 15 now) and it is an interesting experience watching it with her. So far her favorite characters are Wallace (the smarter younger "hopper") and Omar (she identifies with charismatic bad guys). She says she knows some kids at school that try to act like the young kids in the pit (she goes to a great school), and the boys who have no fear of acting just like themselves. We talked a little about pressures on kids to be a certain kind of man or woman.