AV Club Wrap Up and Analysis

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that The Onion's AV Club was doing a Best of the Decade in various media categories - best movie, tv show, album, book, other stuff.  I promised that once they had wrapped everything up, that I would give their lists a quick run through.

So I am.

Movies...

• I'm impressed with their list.  Very much a list of the world, not just American and European films.  Sadly, however, I've missed pretty much every non-American film on the list.  That's what I get for not driving to the Neon or the Esquire enough, I guess.
• #47 - Moulin Rouge - excellent choice...wonderfully original concept of marrying lyrics from new songs to melodies entirely unrelated to their originals but perfectly woven to tell the story.
• #43 - Brokeback Mountain - one of the best love films of all time...so calm, so small, so slow, so gorgeous...admittedly, the sex scene left me really uncomfortable - certainly because of the male-on-male nature, but the arc of Heath Ledger's character is heartbreaking in its restraint and emotional rawness
• #41 - The Dark Knight - How can you rank this against the other films?  We're so trained to look at a drama and wonder if it's Oscar worthy but to look at an action film like this and wonder if it's going to make a billion dollars - which it did.  Great acting, easily the finest adaptation of Batman or the Joker on any screen, ever.
• #36 - Pan's Labyrinth - one of the oddest experiences I've ever had in a theater (missing the first ten minutes of this film which set up the entire movie)...once I got that cleared up, however, I recognized the mastery that del Toro had worked, creating an entire fantasy world from one little glimmer of imagination...the previews did the film no credit suggesting that it was a fantasy/horror film - it isn't...it's a story about the power of imagination, and it's del Toro's finest melding of the gorgeous fantasy/creature work and a moving, tight story
• #33 - Punch Drunk Love - another surprisingly moving love story...good to see this film - easily Sandler's best acting - getting some love...the tale of two damaged people attempting to connect with each other - told between Sandler's explosions of rage - is emotional and engaging to a fault...wonderfully small story
• #18 - Mulholland Drive - No...it's too cryptic, too impossible to follow, too weird...just, no...
• #17 - The Royal Tenenbaums - I love Wes Anderson's works...this is easily his high point
• #16 - Almost Famous - so far, this is the most open, inviting of the films on the list...rare to have such a huge crowd pleaser, such an open, inviting film resonate so well with its audience...this is the most fun film on the list even though there aren't moments of open laughter, over the top comedy at any point
• #13 - Grizzly Man - I think this one's oversold at #13.  I don't know that I would have inculded it in my top fifty of the decade at all.  Yes, it's a moving portrayal of a man looking for hope and projecting much of that hope onto animals who clearly were not what he wanted them to be.  It's a good film, it's an excellent documentary.  But it's not one of the top fifty films.
• #12 - Before Sunset - I couldn't possibly see what Linklater and his stars could say after Before Sunrise, but he topped the first film with this one.  He's hit some out of the park.
• #10 - Children of Men - Another fine choice...Clive Owen's great parformance, Julianne Moore's supporting part, the brilliant, nearly silent climactic scene as the battle suddenly stops raging, and te heartbreaking ending...stunning from the first moment to the last
• #7 - Kill Bill, Vol 1 - I love this.  I enjoy nearly every moment of it.  But it's not nearly deserving of this ranking.  As time passes, the film reveals itself to be more and more derivitive.  Tarantino didn't craft an original film as much as a pastiche of an entire genre - something he seems so good at doing.  Plus, Basterds is a better film.
• #6 - Spirited Away - The decade's best non-Pixar animated film, hands down.  One I can watch a hundred times and be amazed with every second.  It's alternatingly terrifying and tender, touching and tragic.
• #5 - Memento - I should see this again.  I've only seen it once, and that's been years.
• #4 - No Country for Old Men - How could the directors of O Brother ever come up with this?  Where O Brother was brilliantly comedic and welcoming, this is equally dark and tough.  
• #3 - There Will Be Blood - Here we part ways.  90% of this film was excellent, but the ending scene was so ridiculous, so over the top, so out of character for the rest of the movie that it was ruined for me.
• #2 - 25th Hour - It's getting tougher and tougher to choose Spike Lee's best film.  He continues to improve as a director, having blown this decade away with 25th Hour, Inside Man, When the Levees Broke - none of which have more than a glimmer of heavy handed directing of Lee's first films.  He has turned out to be one of the finest directors working, able to craft a gorgeous film - which this most certainly is - by getting out of the way of the story.  In this, he draws out Edward Norton's finest performance, and that's saying something, too.
• #1 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - the weirdest love story on the list...a fine choice for the top spot, however, as it was very much of the era (Charlie Kaufman is the most distinct screenwriter of this decade) as well as being a brilliant film.

I have very few complaints about their list other than that I now have so many new movies that I need to see.

My favorites from the list...in various combinations...

The films I would most want to watch again...

• 25th Hour
• Before Sunset
• The Dark Knight
• Pan's Labyrinth
• Moulin Rouge

The films I haven't seen on the list that I most want to see...

• Wall-E (shut up, I know I should see it)
• The Prestige
•  American Psycho
• The Man Who Wasn't There
  
• Audition

 The films that I think were robbed because they weren't on the list...

• Hero
• Up 
• Brick
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?
• Dogville
  
• The Fog of War
• Munich
  
• Lost in Translaton

The films I didn't enjoy...

• The Squid and the Whale
• There Will Be Blood (mostly for the ending)
• Adaptation
• Traffic
• Oldboy
  

Things I noticed

• Not a single Jud Apatow film is on here.  I'm very much okay with that.
• Little Miss Sunshine  wasn't anywhere near the list.  I'm very much okay with that - neither was Crash, also a good thing.
• Apparently the AV Club thinks the best picture Oscars went to the wrong films as only one of the ten winners (No Country) made the top fifty.  In fact, only five of the fifty nominated films made this list.
  

Other Sites that I consulted for this later stuff...

• Paste Magazine
• I Heart Chaos
• Rolling Stone
• Times Online