MOVIES: Top of the Top 10s still worthy of acclaim
Sometimes hindsight can be a painful thing. Sometimes it’s merely embarrassing. (As when you pore over old yearbook pictures and wonder why that girl with the long, frizzy hair is smiling so earnestly.)
Thus I was grateful to discover that, in a review of my annual Top 10 lists, the titles I’d chosen form an honor roll all their own.
Here they are:
2000 — “You Can Count on Me”
2001 — “Moulin Rouge” (pictured)
2002 — “Far From Heaven”
2003 — “American Splendor”
2004 — “Sideways”
2005 — “Brokeback Mountain”
2006 — “United 93”
2007 — “No Country For Old Men”
2008 — “WALL-E”
2009 — “The Hurt Locker”
Not a ringer in the bunch; some of them are on my all-time list of unforgettable cinematic experiences.
If I had to choose which movies I love the most, “Moulin Rouge” and “Brokeback Mountain” would probably top the list. Hardly a surprise, considering that musicals and Westerns are my two all-time favorite movie genres.
And some of these movies are so unforgettable (“United 93,” “No Country For Old Men”) I haven’t seen them since their initial release — and I don’t know that I ever will (or need to), because they’re so permanently branded on my brain.
Some of my also-rans aren’t too shabby either; the runners-up include such winners as “Croupier” (2000), “Memento” (2001), “Finding Nemo” (2003), “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004), “A History of Violence” (2005), “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006), “Sweeney Todd” (2007), “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (2008) and “An Education” (2009). As for 2002’s No. 2 pick, “Gangs of New York” it hasn’t worn as well through the years; worthier alternatives for that year include “The Pianist” and “The Hours.”
And because I don’t include movies on my list that don’t play Las Vegas theaters in any given calendar year, such standouts as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Traffic” don’t show up on my annual lists. (My attitude is, if you can’t see ’em, it’s not fair for me to include ’em.)
Most years, it’s a struggle for me to come up with 10 movies; it’s an arbitrary figure. I’d rather highlight the annual standouts, however few or many there are.
But reviewing my Top 10 lists for the Zero Decade just past has also reminded me of a lot of movies I still love after all these years.
Rockin’ comedies (“Almost Famous,” “High Fidelity”). Swooningly romantic melodramas (“In the Mood for Love”). Animated flights of fancy (“Spirited Away,” “Ratatouille”). Sci-fi thrillers (“Minority Report”). You-are-there docudramas (“Bloody Sunday”). Deadpan spoofs (“A Mighty Wind”). Tales of workaday people struggling to get through the day (“Frozen River,” “Happy-Go-Lucky”). Family dramas (“The Namesake”). Biopics (“The Queen,” “Capote”). Documentaries (“Fahrenheit 9/11,” “Grizzly Man”). Even musicals (“Once”) and Westerns (“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”).
And if relatively few big studio releases show up on my lists — well, that seems to be the tenor of the times.
When I first started studying film, during my college years, it was the ’70s — and artistic achievement was not only compatible with box-office success, it was almost synonymous.
For example, in 1972 — the year I graduated high school and headed off to college — the nominees for the best picture Oscar were “Cabaret,” “Deliverance,” “The Emigrants,” “The Godfather” and “Sounder.”
The following year, the competition ranged from Ingmar Bergman’s “Cries and Whispers” to “American Graffiti,” from a pre-“Star Wars” George Lucas.
And speaking of “Star Wars,” it won a slew of technical Academy Awards in 1977 — but the best picture Oscar went to Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.” Does anyone imagine that would, or could, happen now?
Yes, hindsight sometimes can be a painful thing.
Yet because hope springs eternal, here’s to a new decade — full of great moviegoing.
I can dream, can’t I?
