10. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
9. Saltburn
8. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
6. Killers of the Flower Moon
5. The Holdovers
4. May December
3. Asteroid City
2. Godzilla Minus One
1. Oppenheimer
Once again, I did a bad job last year of watching new movies that weren't about super heroes punching each other. I don't go to the theater very often because it's so easy to watch movies at home, and most of the movies I watch at home tend to be a little older. I stand behind everything on this list, though. They're all really good movies I'd like to watch again.
Best of 2017
10. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Super hero movie as bonkers space opera. Volume 2 is not as fresh and exciting as the original was a few years ago, but James Gunn recognized that he had a good thing going and didn't mess with it too much. He just made another solid, hilarious, original space adventure movie with decent dramatic chops. Family is a pretty common theme in modern action movies that try to have a heart, and this one tackles the idea head-on. It has what you would want from a sequel. More of what was cool about the original, without feeling like a retread and adding new characters and twists. Add another good soundtrack and you're all set.
9. Blade Runner 2049
There's lots of doom and gloom going around about the state of the movie industry, but I love that things like this can still get made. 2049 is a very long, slowly paced, big budget, R-rated science fiction movie. Worldwide, it probably lost the studio money. But it exists, and nobody can stop it from existing. The original Blade Runner is still revered, and its best assets were its sense of style and mood. I think 2049 captures those aspects well, with gorgeous cinematography, a soundtrack that feels both familiar and new, and an extension of the concepts of life and identity that are pretty familiar at this point. I think the movie works best as an exploration of tone and texture more than story. It tells a decent sci-fi noir mystery, but the best moments are just taking in the lavish sights and sounds. Plus it's the most tolerable Jared Leto has been in years.
8. Spider-Man: Homecoming
Super hero movie as teen comedy. Spider-Man is my favorite comic character, and it's great to see him in a movie that actually explores the original idea of a high school student juggling his powers and hunger for action with his everyday worries. Tom Holland is already my favorite actor to take the role, and he and his supporting cast create a great, fun atmosphere that backdrops the action. It really is a comedy more than anything else, though Michael Keaton's Vulture is a surprisingly good villain, with a few scary moments and exciting action beats. The movie doesn't totally follow through on the idea of responsibility that are the character's core, which is why it's not higher on this list. Still, I had a great time watching it.
7. Logan
Super hero movie as violent neo-western. I liked The Wolverine more than I think a lot of people did, and Logan goes even further in exploring the character of James Howlett and giving a different perspective on the cinematic X-Men universe. The movie takes place in a dour future where most of the famous mutants are gone, and the ones we recognize are really getting old. Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart both give standout final performances as their iconic characters. It's very R-rated, with lots of curse words and graphic violence in the action scenes, which are infrequent but always land with an impact. It's sort of the end of an era, but it also opens the door for other possibilities with the franchise. The question is whether any of that gets explored or if it all gets absorbed into Disney after recent corporate dealings.
6. Thor: Ragnarok
Super hero movie as broad cosmic farce. I enjoyed the first two Thor movies, but this is the first time the character has felt truly vital and relevant. Chris Hemsworth drips charisma and has great comic ability, and the whole cast and crew lean into that as they produce a movie that is not only grander than previous entries in the series, but also far sillier and more entertaining. It's a wonderful ensemble, with Bruce Banner, Valkyrie, Korg, and Jeff Goldblum's very Goldblum-y Grandmaster all making strong attempts to steal the movie. And while once again the villain doesn't get as much time to develop into a full character as we might like, Cate Blanchett is clearly enjoying the hell out of the role. It's a solid movie from start to finish, the best in a very strong year for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
5. Get Out
Not all racism is overt. It's not all slurs and hostility. Sometimes it's just a clear change in attitude in response to a person of another race being around, or saying what you think is a compliment but comes off as another stereotype. Or sometimes it's being victim to a system of violence because people simply care less when racial minorities are targeted. Get Out takes the familiar scenario of a black man meeting his white girlfriend's family and turns it into a horror story. They're all friendly enough, but what are they really thinking and hiding? Being a true horror movie, Get Out obviously goes a bit beyond reality with the events that follow, but the scariest part of the movie is how close to reality it stays in certain aspects. This is Jordan Peele's first time directing a film, but it sure doesn't feel like it. The movie is funny and scary when it wants to be, and his style is assured at all times. I already liked him as an actor, but I'm definitely interested in anything else he tries behind the camera.
4. John Wick: Chapter 2
I enjoyed John Wick, but I did not love it to the extent that a lot of action movie fans did. It felt like another Taken with only a couple of new ideas to differentiate it. John Wick 2 though? John Wick 2 is extremely my shit. It's a combination of things, I think. The action choreography felt further developed from where it was the last time. Close up head shots are cool, but close up head shots while performing complicated martial arts takedowns are cooler. We also see a bigger variety of weapons and situations, including a fantastic succession of scenes between Wick and someone who's actually close to his equal in skill. The story had more depth to it than the functional but simple revenge tale of the first. This ties into another thing I liked, the expansion on the strange alternate universe the series takes place in, where things seem normal on the surface but there's an underground society of high rolling hitmen and codes of honor and gold coins and hobo spy networks. The situation isn't as black and white for John, as he has to decide what he's willing to do to protect himself, and considers the cost of the actions he takes. I really liked the movie more than I expected and I would love to see a third.
3. Baby Driver
Edgar Wright's fifth film is his first that wasn't based on another work or co-written with Simon Pegg, so it's an interesting look at what his personal talents and interests are. If he has a weakness, it's probably creating women characters that stand on their own, but I enjoyed the hell out of most of this movie. It's an odd hybrid of action heist film and musical, where most of the chases and shootouts are timed to match the background music, which was chosen from an eclectic variety of periods and genres. The cast is pretty outstanding, and there are unexpected twists on the pretty familiar story of a criminal with a heart of gold who just wants to get away and live a simpler life. Almost every moment just works, and it has a sort of fairy tale tone that I liked. There's talk about a sequel, and I have no idea what that would be, but I'd definitely see it.
2. Dunkirk
Dunkirk is further proof that Christopher Nolan can take any type of story or setting and turn it into a taut, tense, non-chronological, clockwork puzzle box. The Dunkirk evacuation is one of the most famous events of World War II from the British side, and this movie examines it from the perspectives of soldiers waiting on the beach for rescue, civilians recruited to retrieve them across the English channel with their own boats, and fighter pilots protecting both groups from slaughter by the Germans. Each perspective is on a different time scale, and it can get complicated trying to keep track of events you see from multiple perspectives that can occur out of order based on that timeline. You kind of can't help but smile as Nolan pulls this off in what could have been a straightforward war movie. The film is greatly buoyed by Hans Zimmer's score, which uses a ticking clock as a constant motif and keeps the tension ratcheted at all times as Nolan cuts between scenes of various intensity but a nearly constantly sense of impending doom. It's a good thing the movie's under two hours, because if it was closer to standard war movie length it might become unbearable. As it is, it's one of my favorites of the genre, without relying on the intense violence and gore that's been so common since Saving Private Ryan.
1. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
After buying the franchise rights from George Lucas, Disney released Star Wars: The Force Awakens to get people to trust that they knew what they were doing. It's a pretty good movie that hits on familiar story beats, introduces a very likable new cast of characters in addition to some familiar faces, and really doesn't do anything to rock the boat. The Last Jedi is different. It's a movie that defies expectations, tears down false beliefs, and pushes in new directions. Very much unlike The Force Awakens, it provoked strong reactions on both sides. Personally, I loved it. Following in the footsteps of The Empire Strikes Back, the best Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi allows its characters to fail. But in failure, they learn things and find out more about who they really are. How does Poe handle discovering that his piloting skills aren't enough to truly lead the resistance to a meaningful victory? Can Finn find something bigger to believe in than just the safety of himself and the people he's close to? How does Rey handle realizing that there's more to the force than magic tricks and fighting skills, and that just because a bad person is conflicted, it doesn't mean that they're capable or worthy of being saved? I think there's honest quibbles you can make about many of the moments in the film, but the questions it was asking and how they were answered felt far more important to me. It rejects things I really didn't like about the prequels or The Force Awakens, and finds a new path forward for the series that I'm looking forward to seeing explored in future sequels. Mark Hamill gave probably his best ever performance as Luke Skywalker, and I thought the handling of that character fit perfectly with the themes and scope of the story. It also has some of the best action scenes and most astonishing imagery the series has ever had. I wasn't sure there would be another great Star Wars movie again, but I believe this one was.
Delayed Entry
This is the best movie that wasn't released in 2017 but I didn't see until then.
Arrival
Denis Villeneuve directed Blade Runner 2049, but his best science fiction movie is Arrival. It starts with first contact with aliens and explores the nature of language in interesting ways, and expands from there into broader examinations of the very basics of perspective, communication, and life itself. It plays with the nature of storytelling brilliantly, showing you how basic assumptions can be wrong, all of which ties into the basic plot itself. You add in Villeneuve's skilled direction and a terrific cast and you have a pretty amazing movie.
I didn't manage to see a few movies I know I really should have, most notably Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty. Still, I managed to do a better job of getting out of the house and seeing good stuff than I usually do. Here was the best.
Best of 2012
8. The Dark Knight Rises
It was always unlikely that people were going to love this as much as they did The Dark Knight, and when the movie finally came out it seemed practically predestined to have a mixed reaction. I liked it a lot though; Tom Hardy's Bane is a wonderfully scary villain, Anne Hathaway is a pitch-perfect Catwoman, and it's just fun watching the elaborate schemes and action scenes Christopher Nolan puts together, even if it's easy to poke holes in their logic later. I kind of wish it was a bit more grounded, but it still manages to be the third part of the first ever superhero film trilogy that's good the whole way through.
7. The Cabin in the Woods
Usually when a movie sits on the shelf for a couple years like this, you expect bad things. But based on the people behind it and the seemingly reasonable explanation for its delay, I was pretty sure I'd like The Cabin in the Woods, and I turned out to be right. It's a horror movie that basically applies the reasons people like horror movies to the story itself, and what results is a movie that is at times genuinely frightening, but more often hilarious in the way it plays with and subverts expectations. I imagine you might get more out of it if you spend a lot of time with the genre, but even if you don't there's a lot of great moments and surprises.
6. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
I was okay with Peter Jackson and company splitting The Hobbit into two parts for their film adaptation, since I knew they were adding material from the countless additional notes and writings of Tolkien, and it's not uncommon for studios to do that these days. Three parts seemed like a stretch, though. Still, I couldn't help but find myself again wrapped up in the world of Middle Earth, and enjoyed all of the time the movie took developing its new characters and really telling the story of the book without many gaps. Who knows if I'll get tired of it before the end, but I thought the first Hobbit movie was very well cast, as faithful to the book as you could hope, and just a pleasant thing to watch.
5. The Raid: Redemption
You hear a lot of people tell you how much an action movie kicks ass. It's hard to tell just from a description how much it actually kicks ass. You kind of have to take it on faith that it kicks ass. Believe me when I tell you that The Raid stands above most other movies when it comes to whether it kicks ass. No one's in it that you've heard of, and they use an Indonesian fighting style with less of a history than kung fu, but the movie still kicks ass. There's not much else to say about The Raid, which takes place entirely within a single apartment complex and doesn't have much of a story, but it doesn't need anything else because it really, really kicks ass.
4. The Master
Paul Thomas Anderson sure has changed a lot over the course of his career. You can definitely trace a line from movie to movie, but while movies like Boogie Nights were certainly different, it was still essentially understandable and often very entertaining. The Master is one of the most challenging movies that I've ever seen. I know basically what it was going for, and I know the three central performances were great, and I can remember specific scenes that were as entrancing and gripping as any that have been filmed. But I still find it difficult to love, and I don't get the feeling the movie really wants to be loved. It wants to be considered, and it deserves to be examined for a long time. It's an important movie, but you should only see it if you know what you're in for.
3. Lincoln
I'm not sure what else there is to say about Daniel Day-Lewis. He's probably going to win his third Oscar as a lead actor soon. He doesn't just say his lines well in this movie, he essentially reinvented the way I'm going to picture Lincoln looking, sounding, and acting for the rest of my life. He leads a truly outstanding cast in a movie that avoids overly lionizing the man, the war, or the time period, as it instead focuses on all of the political dealings and double-dealings that led to the passage of the 13th Amendment. Steven Spielberg doesn't try to do too much, he just lets the actors handle the great script and just seems to know where the camera should be. It's one of the best films in his long and profoundly good career.
2. Looper
Looper is one of those movies that comes along once in a while that you wouldn't expect to get made in the current Hollywood system. It's an R-rated science fiction movie with a budget large enough that it doesn't look cheap. It's also a really, really good one. Joseph Gordon Levitt (this is his third movie on the list, by the way) is more convincing as a young Bruce Willis than you'd guess based on the slightly distracting makeup, and he does a great job of making you care about this honestly pretty unbelievable world, where the mob gets rid of annoyances by sending them back in time to be executed. The story takes turns you don't expect, and in the end it's really not the action movie it looks like it's trying to be. It might be better than that though, with characters you get attached to and a story that can make you think about a lot of different things. Just make sure to take Bruce's advice when it comes to time travel logic.
1. The Avengers
It's not the edgiest or most sophisticated choice, but darn it if this isn't the best time I had in a theater in 2012. Pulling together the heroes from four different movies and making them argue, bounce off each other, and finally come together to achieve a common goal seems like an almost impossible task, but they nailed it as well as I could hope. And it's even more satisfying because it was done by Joss Whedon, someone who went from a beloved but relatively unknown creator of cult television shows to the director of one of the biggest movies ever. The cast is great, the dialogue is smart and funny, and the story is solid enough to hold up a bunch of sci-fi silliness and exciting action scenes. I'm really looking forward to what else they can do with this suddenly gigantic franchise.
Delayed Entry
This is the best movie that wasn't released in 2012 but I didn't see until then.
Brick
Rian Johnson directed Looper, one of my favorite movies in 2012, but I actually liked his first movie more, the low budget thriller called Brick. Joseph Gordon Levitt stars as a hard boiled 40s detective stuck in a modern teenager's body, holding together a film that inserts Film Noir elements into a high school setting much more effectively than you'd think possible. It's really one of the best neo-Noir films ever made, and I'd even hold it up to the real classics of the genre. The story hits every note perfectly, and it's incredible how Johnson manages to match the cadence and rhythm of Noir dialogue to phrases and topics high schoolers would discuss. Inventive filmmaking from start to finish.
Martin Scorsese is one of the best directors who ever lived, and I think that Christopher Nolan is on his way to earning that distinction. In the last week I've watched the few remaining movies by both of them available for streaming on Netflix.
The Age of Innocence
Love stories are often passionate, but few let that passion boil just under the surface as much as it does in The Age of Innocence. Daniel Day-Lewis plays a lawyer from a wealthy family in 1870s New York City (only a few years after the chaos and violence depicted in Scorsese's other film Gangs of New York) who becomes engaged to a woman played by Winona Ryder, but when her cousin played by Michelle Pfeiffer returns from Europe, he realizes how much stronger his feelings are for her instead. Wealthy families always want to avoid scandal though, and Pfeiffer is already damaged goods since she's considering divorce from her powerful husband, and they struggle with whether to take a chance or avoid causing a stir. Innocence is a well made movie with really good lead performances, but because it's so wrapped up in that distant old wealthy people mode, I didn't really find it gripping for most of its duration. A good movie, but I didn't find myself very invested.
Boxcar Bertha
Boxcar Bertha was Scorsese's first film that wasn't connected to his student projects, and it took a while for me to figure out what was off about it. Eventually though, it hit me - it's an exploitation movie. Not a terrible one, and it's one based on unusual concepts for that sort of thing, but it's still an exploitation movie. It uses issues like labor unions and race relations to make a movie about a girl who gets naked sometimes and robs banks and shoots people with her partners. It's sort of a second-rate Bonnie and Clyde with worse acting. I don't want to be too harsh on the movie, because it does some interesting things that most B movies you'd compare it too wouldn't. But it still never reaches very high, so even its solid execution results in a movie that's decent at best.
Following
Following is Nolan's first film, shot independently in black and white on a very small budget. It concerns an unemployed aspiring writer who decided to start following random people to learn about them and get inspired. Eventually he repeatedly follows the wrong guy, and gets pulled into a world of small-time burglary and betrayal. Much like his next film Memento, Following has a complex plot that is further complicated by the script's non-linear approach to structure. It jumps back and forth between time periods, always revealing things that end up clarifying or contradicting what came before. The actual truth behind what's going on when it's finally revealed can be looked at in two ways. On one hand, it's really kind of an absurdly complicated scheme to resolve what wasn't that difficult of an issue, and it's sort of unlikely that the whole thing would come together correctly. But on the other hand, it's still a really fun mystery to unravel, and the fun of noir movies is always that moment of realization when it all finally makes sense. It's a really good first effort.
Insomnia
Insomnia is the only film Nolan's directed that wasn't based on his own screenplay, and it shows a bit. He was proving to studios that he could handle a larger budget and more recognizable cast, and he does a good job of that, though the movie underneath is merely solid and definitely the least interesting thing that he's done. It's pretty much a boilerplate detective story with a plot that wouldn't be out of place in a random episode of most cop shows, but there are a few things that make it work. The first act twist that provides Al Pacino's Detective Dormer with an internal conflict does a good job of complicating an otherwise standard plot, and the ensuing insomnia that plagues him adds a lot of flavor to the whole movie. The acting by him and Robin Williams is good, and it's a really well-shot film, particularly in a few really tense sequences that are unlike what you'd usually see in this type of story. Hilary Swank's character seemed really badly written, and there are a few other hiccups, but mostly it's an above average Hollywood mystery/thriller. Nolan's best asset is probably his screenwriting, but I think with Insomnia he shows it's not the only thing he can do.
The Last Temptation of Christ
Based on a book besides The Bible, The Last Temptation of Christ tells the story of Jesus Christ in a very different way than we're used to. Willem Dafoe's Jesus is tormented by his knowledge and his communications with God, and he is a much weaker man than he is ever depicted as being in the New Testament. The movie hits a lot of the expected notes from the few years that he worked as a prophet, from his wandering in the desert to his sermon on the mount to turning water into wine to the healing of the sick and of course, his arrest and crucifixion. But it shows these moments in different ways than we're used to, and considering these stories in a different light, seeing them as the actions of a man with weaknesses and desires that he must sacrifice rather than an all-knowing and serene son of God is very interesting. The most memorable and controversial sequence comes near the end, when we see Jesus as a man who raised his own family rather than one who died for our sins, but the resolution of this sequence, when everything finally comes together, is extremely powerful, and strikes me as something that would restore faith rather than challenge it. Definitely one of the best religious movies I've ever seen.
As far as prestige films go, I really didn't see anything this year. The Coen brothers' latest work would almost count, but it's actually probably their most accessible film since O Brother, Where Art Thou? a decade ago. But that's okay. I watch movies to be entertained, and I had plenty of fun with a number of mainstream releases this year, including a couple of the best blockbusters I've ever seen.
Best of 2010
7. Let Me In
If I had never seen the film that this one is based on, I probably would have given it a lot more credit. As it is, it's still a more than competent remake of one of my favorite horror films ever, with at least a few things it does better or on its own that are almost as impressive. Some of the technical aspects are problematic, but what's important is that it's a well shot version of a creepy, interesting story.
6. Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2 isn't as good as its predecessor, but it's still one of the most enjoyable non-Batman comic book movies in a long time. The cast is absolutely overflowing with talent, and they all contribute to a really fun, comedic atmosphere that compliments the series' tendency to go for the bombastic when it comes to action scenes. Far from a subtly told tale, but it was a lot of fun for a couple hours.
5. Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World
Few movies can match Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim in terms of just pure visual style and creativity, and he did a great job faithfully adapting the crazy setting and plot of the comic while massaging it to make sense in two hours. In addition to being very funny, it also had possibly the best action all year - well choreographed fights that you could actually see what's going on in. Another huge cast, and almost everyone fits their parts.
4. True Grit
I guess it's not that surprising that this is now the Coens' biggest box office success ever, and it's nice to to see them make a film that audiences at large actually like. True Grit is not really one of my favorite films by them, but as a simple exercise in pure genre filmmaking, it works out really well. I'm not even sure if I want to see the first film based on the same work, lest it dilute my memories of what they did here.
3. Shutter Island
It wasn't that long ago that I despised Leonardo DiCaprio as a pretty boy actor, and here we are with this as only my second favorite movie he starred in this year. Martin Scorsese's creepy thriller wasn't his most nuanced work, but it was remarkably sure of itself and marvelous to look at, with some of the most purely haunting imagery I saw all last year. The ending managed to be effectively moving despite its predictably, and the care with which it was made elevates it above what it could have easily been.
2. Toy Story 3
If I was a hack, I'd write something using the words "Pixar" and "'Nuff said", and then move on. But yeah, Pixar makes consistently excellent family-friendly (not kid-friendly) animated films, and this might be my favorite of them all. Hilarious, visually brilliant, and disarmingly emotional in places, it's impressive that they managed to not only meet the success of the first two movies over a decade later, but totally surpass them.
1. Inception
Probably my favorite action movie since The Matrix, and for many of the same reasons. The characters are well cast and likable, the story is heady and exciting to think about, the action itself is genuinely exciting, and it could turn out to be extremely important when it comes to effects in big movies. Whereas The Matrix sort of helped bring along a tidal wave of heavily computer-aided action movies, Christopher Nolan did as much of Inception as possible in camera, and it was all the more effective because of it. Hopefully filmmakers realize they can dazzle audiences without spending millions on animation, and put that money into things that our brains aren't all hardwired to immediately detect as fake these days. Hopefully.
Before I talk about the movie itself, I just want to say how glad I am that it exists. A summer action movie with a huge budget that's not only based on an original idea, but a complicated one, that isn't really explained in the trailers and actually asks the audience to think? It's a miracle that this was made. I have some amount of respect for Avatar for doing a similar thing, but the whole story was so broad that anyone from children to senior citizens could easily understand it, which was its intention. But Inception has the complexity of a low budget, mind-bending labor of love destined to release in a dozen theaters inside the shell of a blockbuster crowd pleaser. I guess it's too bad that Christopher Nolan had to make Warner Bros. six hundred million with The Dark Knight before he was allowed to do it, but I can live with that.
And the best part is that the film delivers. It's not perfect, but no movie really is. It is successful at doing pretty much everything I wanted from it, though. The extraction/inception concept in elegantly realized, giving you the basics in the twisty opening sequence (No punches are pulled; after a couple studio logos in the beginning, Nolan dives right into the story and demands you have your brain on immediately) explaining itself more as necessary, and playing out as expected, following its own rules all the way. Several critics of the film have complained about the film's interpretation of "dreams", saying everything is way too orderly and logical to accurately represent a true dream state. But the movie isn't about a true dream state - it's about something artificial, similar to dreaming but not actually the same, that allows for it to be designed and shared by multiple people. People criticizing the film for not being dream-like didn't understand what it was about. Not that everything is entirely orderly - there's obviously the scenes with the city folding over and exploding around the characters, but what's clever is that all these money shots for the trailer happen when the stakes aren't really that high - it's there to explain the potential of control within the dreams, but the real "heist" in the movie is generally more orderly beyond the different touches that show the way dreams can affect others.
I was actually surprised by how much action there was - I imagine if Nolan had complete creative control there might have been a bit fewer guys with guns running everywhere to focus a bit more on the story, but he made sure to fill it up with shooting and explosions to keep the studio happy. Not that it's ever too distracting, and it's generally pretty well filmed and exciting. I felt a bit of fatigue by the time they get to the snowy area from the trailer but I appreciated the attempt to mix it up a bit. Where the action really shines is one scene in particular, a sequence in a hotel hallway that's tumbling over, which completely captures the potential of the moment and to me was the most striking image in the whole film. Nolan has always been more of a craftsman than a stylist when it comes to his filming technique, and that holds true even in sequences like these, but somehow it makes the crazy story work. I imagine that someone more inclined to wow you with the crazy shit he can come up with might lose the thread, whereas Nolan keeps his insane ideas grounded enough with his studied film work that it all seems to make perfect sense.
Beyond the action and heist movie elements, there's also an emotional core to the story. The whole reason for Leonardo DiCaprio's character Cobb accepting the job is a personal one, and as we learn more about his dark past over the course of the film, it becomes clear how tragic the implications of all this escaping into dreams is. He's the only one who really gets this sort of development, as everyone else is mostly there to serve the story, but without that aspect the film would merely be a brilliant executed one and not so powerful. It's a really good if understated performance by DiCaprio, and it helps that pretty much everyone else is fantastic too. Ellen Page comes the closest to understanding his character, and she does a great job as the audience surrogate to whom everything is explained, something which isn't always the easiest to do, especially with a concept as heady as this one. Marion Cotillard gives another really damaged performance, and she's quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses in the game. Michael Caine shows up for his fourth Nolan film, although it's really a bit part that he doesn't have much time to do anything with, yet he's still his charming, wise self. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy are really great as members of Cobb's team, charming and badass as required, and I definitely need to see more work by both of them. Ken Watanabe plays a pretty critical role, and does a good job despite an accent that's a bit difficult at times. The rest of the cast is solid as well, though they didn't really jump out.
In the end, I wasn't sure how I really felt about the film. It impressed the heck out of me, but I wasn't sure if it hit me like the other truly great movies that I've seen. Then I spent the rest of the time from leaving the theater to sitting down for this review doing little other than thinking about what I had seen, and continuing to marvel at how well its best parts worked. Screw it, this was a fantastic movie, and it will likely end up in my top ten of this decade easily. It wasn't flawless, but I feel like many of the criticisms were from people who just weren't seeing what they expected to see, and the vision on display is astounding. It's clearly designed for repeat viewings, the ending was perfect, and it was probably the best combination of new ideas, visual ingenuity, and well executed action since The Matrix. If our summers were filled with things like this instead of remakes, sequels, and adaptations of every successful property under the sun, the world would be a better place.
Written in participation with Bryce Wilson's Chris Nolan Blogathon at Things That Don't Suck...
After I saw this film yesterday and loved it for the most part, I realized I had to finally decide where I stood on Christopher Nolan. It's a bit of an awkward position because on one hand, he has made two of my favorite rewatch films, i.e. movies that would probably be better or at least as interesting in a different way if you see them again knowing fully what's going to happen, and also two of the best super hero films from a decade full of them. That right there is enough to make him one of my favorite directors, given my limited experience with some of history's great auteurs. There are a couple other things I have to acknowledge, though. Despite saying Memento would be a great rewatch film and having it on top of my list for best movies of the 00s... I haven't actually seen it more than once. And while he's made several great movies, I feel like his strength is pulling good work out of big name actors and writing good scripts, not necessarily shooting a scene. His work is consistent and competent, I'm just not sure he has enough style or ability to make a scene that isn't inherently compelling into a marvel like Scorsese or the Coens or Tarantino. Not that there's anything wrong with making good use of your cast and director of photography to put a brilliant story on the screen, it's just something I've thought about.
But yeah, the movie... it's really good. Strong thematically, as it's about two magicians who become rivals over time, and the film itself is mostly a magic trick as much as anything that happens on the screen. It basically invites you to try to figure it out before the two hour running time is over, and while I managed to puzzle out at least one aspect of its mind bending conclusion, there were still major pieces that managed to surprise by the end. Movies with twists can end up disappointing when you watch them again, if the twist isn't woven into the fabric of the entire story. Twists should leave you kicking yourself every time the movie basically tells you the secret, and it should tell you about a hundred times before it actually tells you. The Prestige definitely works on that front, with the sort of details littered around that make you slap your forehead shouting "oh!" hours after you've seen it, lying in bed. One unexpected factor is that the movie mostly presents itself as a plausible if extraordinary story, but there is one key plot element, introduced by Nicola Tesla himself (played by David Bowie, who is so perfect in the role that I somehow missed that it was him), which is impossible and you're just going to have to accept to enjoy the movie. But if you can, it's worth it.
And while I do have questions about Nolan's ability to carry a film, The Prestige is definitely well shot and well acted. Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman are both good as the main magicians, neither quite filling the role of protagonist or antagonist. They are both driven and tormented, and neither comes out for the better as the result of their rivalry. Jackman's American accent is a bit better than Bale's English one, but there were only a few times that it stuck out to me as false. Otherwise, they both do strong, passionate work that sells the unreality of what they're doing. Michael Caine is great as always in the mentor role for both men, Scarlett Johansson is again competent as a stage assistant who gets caught between the two men, and Andy Serkis manages to sell another slightly unusual character as Tesla's right hand. One of the main strengths of the story is how it's told, with a non-linear style that gives you information when you need it, and helps with the whole image of the film as an elaborate illusion by the filmmakers. For a movie about a couple of guys who like to do magic tricks, it's a pretty amazingly dark story with some pretty brutal implications, definitely worth seeing for any fan of films that make you think.
Some people also said this wasn't a great year of movies either, but when I compiled a list of what I saw it easily featured the most solid titles of any of the three times I've done this. I feel comfortable going all the way to ten this time. Not making the cut included such films as Cloverfield, which I thought succeeded at doing exactly what it wanted, Tropic Thunder, a fun collaboration by a bunch of funny guys, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, another likable film in the Apatow repertoire.
Best of 2008
10. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
More here for being so amazing visually than a great film. I can't quite tell whether del Toro is a great filmmaker or just has an uncanny knack for neat effects, although I can't say I'm not terrible excited about what he could do with The Hobbit.
9. Valkyrie
I guess in the end I did quite like it. Wonderfully filmed, takes the subject matter very seriously, and it's a sad story that people should know about. A good tribute to the men who tried to stop the world's greatest evil.
8. Pineapple Express
Rogen and Franco are great together in the perfect fusion of buddy stoner comedies with an action film, albeit a mostly grounded one. Although I kind of wish the whole thing lived up to the opening scene with Bill Hader and Dexter's dad a bit better.
7. Burn After Reading
Far from the best Coen film, but far from the worst too. Not quite what I hoped for but a nice entry in their kookier milieu. Am I even using that word right? I can't believe I used that word. What the hell.
6. The Wrestler
I haven't blogged about it yet, but I watched it yesterday so give me a break. Mickey Rourke's performance, which won a Golden Globe (haha) on Sunday, is the most notable aspect, but I thought it was a very good film in general.
5. Quantum of Solace
A lot of people complained about the editing in the action scenes, but they're all a bunch of dopes. There, I said it. I'd be fine with it if every violent film for the next ten years was styled exactly like this one.
4. Iron Man
The runner-up for best comic book-based super hero movie about a man with a heritage to live up to who fights crime by using his vast wealth to create a special suit instead of an extraordinary power of his own. I love Robert Downey Jr.
3. In Bruges
I was a bit surprised to see Colin Farrell won a Golden Globe for this, not because he wasn't good, but because it wasn't really a "Comedic" performance. Really good movie, funny but still with a strong emotional depth.
2. The Dark Knight
The best comic book-based super hero movie about a man with a heritage to live up to who fights crime by using his vast wealth to create a special suit instead of an extraordinary power of his own. All three films featuring a Golden Globe-winning male performance appear on this list. What does that tell you? Nothing, really.
1. Wall-E
And the best movie of the year's only dialogue from the two leads consists basically of "Wally!" and "Eva!" over and over again. It really did touch me though, with a strong message, gorgeous visuals, and heartfelt story. One of the best family films ever.
