MichaelMoore.com

Ten years, ten films

Sydney Morning Herald

After a few years of best and worst annual analysis, and a few hundred passionate responses, we interupt your New Years' frivolities for two final lists, one final retrospective blog for your reading pleasure, analysis and response:

The ten best and worst films of the 'noughties'.

Realistically there is one qualification for consideration in either list. The film had to have a cineama release, in the decade from 2000 - 2009, in Australia. In the instance of record / memory failure, IMDb is taken as the authority. Interestingly 1999 appears to have been an incredible year for cinema if the sheer number of frustrating releases that you really wish qualified, is anything to go by.

An interesting observation. In ten years of intense cinema going, DVD watching, Foxtel IQing and totally legal downloading a few truths become self-evident:

- Clearly, you will never see all the films in a decade. You will also never manage to see all the films you 'should' see from that era. So no matter what films are included in the list, someone will always respond with a film you haven't got to yet. This isn't a failing on the part of the list, it's more an incentive to go and see it. For example, here's an admission: The author still has not seen No Country For Old Men yet from what everyone has said it would otherwise have made for serious consideration.

- There were a lot of really good films made in the last ten years, no matter what your grandparents / parents / film school graduate friends tell you. They may not make them like they 'used to' or they 'should' but dang, some of them are good.

- Making one of these lists is the most subjective thing you will do today. Two people pretty much cannot agree on a top ten list. It's like taking a group of people to the DVD store and asking them all to agree on one film. If people still went to DVD stores that is.

So let's go. And remember, if you're response to this list is of the "You're wrong", "You're mad" or "You should be shot" variety - then the response is "Well, yes" and "Challenge extended: Show us your list then!"

CATEGORIESTo try and give a variety of films a look in, the following list is broken up very roughly into genres. There are of course way more than ten categories of films so to say some very dis-similar films have been shoe-horned in together would be a gross misunderstatement. As such more than one film is mentioned at each tier, and any that are named deserve a spot in the list.

So without further ado...

THE TOP TEN FILMS OF THE NOUGHTIES
Biopics
The Queen
Steven Sodeburgh kicked off the decade with Erin Brokovich and biopics have played a major role in the box office and awards ceremonies ever since. Many incredible tales of Queens (Young Victoria), politicians (Frost/Nixon, Milk), criminals (Chopper) and amazing individuals (Capote, A Beautiful Mind, Good Night and Good Luck) later, there is a great deal of evidence that fact is not only stranger, but at times also more gripping, compelling and entertaining than fiction.

Of all these amazing films though, the stand out, and our first entry, saw Helen Mirren sweep every awards ceremony with her incredible performance as the reigning monarch - a daunting task for any Brit - conveying an extraordinary array of meaning, explanation and humanity from behind a famously inexpressive persona.

SPECIAL MENTION: Michael Sheen who stood up to both a Queen (as Tony Blair) and a President (as David Frost) in one short decade and was excellent on both occassions.

Action
The Bourne Trilogy
In a decade that saw too many great action franchises (Die Hard, Indiana Jones, The Terminator) rehashed to produce financially successful but vastly soulless sequels, and a threat to the entire genre from the comic book heroes come to life, there were a few extraordinary additions to the Big Boys Book of Blokey Biff-flicks. Children of Men excelled with extraordinary cinematography, the new-old Bond of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace breathed new life into Fleming's ulitmate hero, Gladiator brought award-winning acting to the action flick and Avatar gave true life to 3D after Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon broke all the rules of 2D.

The stand out action man of the decade though is without a doubt Jason Bourne. Matt Damon's bewildered amnesiac blew us away with genre-redefining car chases, stunts and tension, and then even broke the rules of the trilogy. Not only were they all good, but the third one technically ended before the second one did!

SPECIAL MENTION: J.J. Abrams Star Trek for brining this great franchise to the people, while keeping the Trekkers happy.

Foreign Language
City of GodThere is no possible excuse for having a Rest of the World category, other than the daft conceit of a list of ten films. Nor can they possibly be compared in any real way. Amelie gave life to garden gnomes. The Motorcycle Diaries made Che Guevara more than a T-Shirt logo. Let The Right One In showed us how teen vampire films should really work. Pan's Labyrinth turned the world upside down.

Yet one did stand out. City of God was simply incredible. A mind-boggling tale of life on the streets of Brazil. Worth its spot alone for the best cut to black of any film ever.

SPECIAL MENTION: Clint Eastwood for creating the extraordinary Letters from Iwo Jima literally out of the ashes of the far more ordinary Flags of our Fathers.

Australian
Moulin Rouge!
For the most part, this was an Australian decade of quantity more than quality, with Australians both in front of and behind the camera in movies around the world, while most of our films were mere extras at the box office. Weren't the exceptions worth it though? Lantana, Balibo and The Black Balloon were outstanding dramas. Kenny and Crackerjack great comedies. While Wolf Creek and Happy Feet both had the kids screaming - though admittedly, for very different reasons.

Conveniently for this list's purposes Moulin Rouge! was also the best musical of the decade (sorry Chicago), which makes it even more extraordinary to remember that Dancer in the Dark aside, serious filmmakers didn't make musicals back then. Until our Baz strolled into the middle of Disney straight-to-video heartland and delivered the film that had every Australian house party singing for the next three years.

SPECIAL MENTION: Ten Canoes to Samson & Delilah, indigenous stories and film makers continue to put our "mainstream" industry to shame.

Documentary
Bowling for Columbine
Morgan Freeman gave the nature documentary new life with The March of the Penguins, Al Gore made a lecture into an Oscar with An Inconvenient Truth while the likes of Man on Wire and The September Issue defied anyone to call documentaries dull.

Many felt Fahrenheit 9/11 was the zenith of Michael Moore's decade, but it was the far more artfully crafted Bowling for Columbine, arriving out of the blue that not only smashed doco box office records, but redefined the genre in the process. From South Park style cartoons to NRA antagonism, this film had it all.

SPECIAL MENTION: United 93. No it wasn't a documentary. Nor a biopic. How could it be. Then again how could it be left out? Arguably the most harrowing final ten minutes of any film of the decade.

Franchise
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Towards the end of the twentieth century, studios outgrew individual sequels. The massive amounts of money that blockbuster adaptations cost (and earned) demanded multiple sequels be contracted in to the deals, if not made concurrently. And so we experienced a decade of six Harry Potter flims, two great Spiderman (1 and 2) and Batman (Batman Begins and The Dark Knight ) films, and great Transfomer and Iron Man beginnings.

Peter Jackson and his team brought together an extraordinary adaptation, a wonderful cast, the beauty of New Zealand and the talent of WETA to justifiably claim to have made the perfect films of the best story ever told.

SPECIAL MENTION: Steven Sodeburgh's Oceans flicks (Oceans Eleven onwards). Almost the anti-franchise, these films began at number eleven, paid their cast peanuts and usually ended with the revelation that we'd been lied to all along, but the cast were so loveable and were having so much fun that we did too.

Indie Comedy
Best In Show
The quirky comedy used to be an Australian specialty, but none of the decade's best were ours. Juno made teen pregnancy wonderful, Little Miss Sunshine did the same for tween strippers. While The Royal Tenenbaums, Sideways and Lars and the Real Girl all made broken people the best kind to watch and laugh with.

Way back in 2000 though, Christopher Guest, the man behind Spinal Tap, took on the mutts and bitches of dog shows, delivering Best In Show a film that couldn't be less rock 'n' roll if it tried, but which totally reclaimed that great mockumentary's spirit.

SPECIAL MENTION: Simon Pegg, falling somewhere between mainstream and indie, Pegg first created the zom-rom-com with Shaun of the Dead, then the village cop caper carnival with Hot Fuzz. Both genre-defying and monumentally hysterical.

Mainstream Comedy
Zoolander
Too many too choose from! The Devil Wears Prada had Streep and Tucci, Team America: World Police had Matt Damon and puppet sex. Love Actually had the sacchrine sweet capacity to be the most divisive comedy ever. Nick Hornby had About A Boy and High Fidelity, teen girls had Legally Blonde and Bring It On and we all not-so-secretly loved The Wedding Crashers.

Any good comedy has quotable lines. Great comedies have lines that are still pop-culture friendly ten years on. But only one comedy has launched a look. For Blue Steel alone Zoolander would make a podium finish. With the added strength of the decades worth of great comedies this talented cast went on to make together, Stiller's model mania gets the nod.

SPECIAL MENTION: Will Ferrell. If one film could be constructed from the bodies Anchorman, Taladega Nights and Blades of Glory the decade might well have a new champion.

Indie
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
This list could very easily just read Memento, Syriana, Being John Malkovich, In Bruges, Requiem for a Dream, Donnie Darko, Gosford Park, Punch Drunk Love, Almost Famous, Slumdog Millionaire. That's ten. They're all excellent. The all warrant SPECIAL MENTIONS so it goes to them all. But, there has to be one.

For having a name chosen specifically to be impossible to remember, and still overcoming it to be one of the most memorable films ever made, Charlie Kaufman's incredible tale takes the cake...

Animated
WALL-E
...sitting on top of that cake though, is a little plastic figurine. Only apt, as the winner for all audiences over the decade was the animated flick. This was the decade where we met Shrek. The best animation could be in claymation like Coraline or hand drawn like Persepolis. But the best animation, and the best film of the decade is really any choice between Pixar's efforts. Ratatouille or Finding Nemo? Up or The Incredibles? All were amazing, making choosing a favourite a very personal decision.

From a silent first half to a history of art credits, WALL-E was simply perfect. Better than Up? Probably not. But just as good, and by a hair the preferred one to rewatch on DVD.

SPECIAL MENTION: Hayao Miyazaki warrants special note here. Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away and Ponyo would have had Miyazaki heralded as the saviour of animation in any other Pixar-free era.

Special Mention Category: Horror
It's impossible to include one of these in the top ten list, but there have been some great scary films in the last ten years that rate a mention such as The Orphanage, The Strangers and The Others. The best, though distorted by its numerous sequels is Saw, still a truly terrifying and disturbing film.

There you have it, the top ten. In summary:
The Queen
The Bourne Trilogy
City of God
Moulin Rouge!
Bowling for Columbine
The Lord of the Rings
Best in Show
Zoolander
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Wall-E

And now, the shorter, bitter-er list.

THE BOTTOM TEN FILMS OF THE NOUGHTIES

NOTE: Any film by Jason Freidberg and Aaron Seltzer (Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans etc) any Wayans Brother (Little Man, White Chicks, Sorority Girls) or involving Rob Schneider in any capacity (Big Stan, Deuce Bigalow) was automatically eliminated from consideration as any of these three could fill all ten spots.

Australian
10. The Man Who Sued God
Dishonourable Mention: Too many to mention. Any that started bleak and got bleaker (yes, we're looking at you Candy).

Epic
9. Alexander

Scary
8. The Happening
Dishonourable Mention: Prom Night

Action
7. Pearl Harbour
Dishonourable Mention: The Wind Talkers

Franchise
6. Catwoman
Dishonourable Mention: Elektra and Daredevil

Sequels
5. Matrix Reloaded / Revolutions.
Dishonourable Mention: Spiderman 3, Basic Instinct 2

Musical
4. Glitter

Sci Fi
3. Knowing
Dishonourable Mention: K-Pax, Battlefield Earth

Romantic Comedy
2. Gigli
Dishonourable Mention: Swept Away

Comedy
1. The Love Guru
Dishonourable Mention: Pluto Nash