HELLO DOCTOR NAME CONTINUE YESTERDAY TOMORROW

I had really hoped that my list of the top 10 films of the decade would be more surprising. Or perhaps I just assumed that I was less predictable. I thought about a lot of other films, some of which you’ll see in my runners-up rundown at the foot of this article, but these are the ones that stuck with me over the past ten years.

There Will Be Blood

I have a theory about Paul Thomas Anderson. He’s not the new Scorsese, as Hard Eight and Boogie Nights made us think. He’s not the new Altman, as Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love might have indicated. I’m pretty sure that, as time goes by, we’ll realize that he’s the new Kubrick. Bold words, I know, but I can’t think of a more towering, timely, unique - in other words, exhilaratingly Kubrick-ian - American movie from the past ten years than There Will Be Blood. So there.

Mulholland Dr.

Figuring out this story of the dreams that end up in the tailing pond of Hollywood’s dream factory doesn’t lessen it impact, or my admiration for the way in which David Lynch wrings existential horror from the most mundane images and situations. The tensile strength of this film is so great that it can even withstand a cameo appearance by Billy Ray Cyrus, and the fact that it began as a pilot for an ABC/Disney television series makes it loose threads more tantalizing than frustrating (or some combination of those adjectives).

The Queen

A film I nearly didn’t see - only a friend’s dyslexia brought me to it - The Queen has as much to say about the 2000s as about the era in which it’s set - the days and weeks immediately following the death of Princess Diana. It’s an unexpected story of how the media, conservativism and privilege collide and collude, and one tough old lady. Frost/Nixon was an admirable follow-up for writer Peter Morgan (The Other Boleyn Girl, not so much).

25^th Hour

It’s not about the shadow of the twin towers, it’s about the shadow that’s no longer there. The opening credits - which feature twin floodlight beams pinioning the New York skyline in lieu of the WTC - drive it home: this is a movie about shedding light, about seeing yourself clearly, even if it happens too late to make a difference.

Grizzly Man

Was Timothy Treadwell asking for it? Probably. But that doesn’t make his story any less compelling, or the scene in which Werner Herzog listens to a recording of Treadwell’s last moments any less chilling. When we lie to ourselves, the universe finds out, if nobody else does, and this film makes a strong case for Herzog’s contention that “the common character of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility, and murder.”

The Royal Tenenbaums

Although the best line of dialogue in Wes Anderson filmography comes from Rushmore (“These are O.R. scrubs.” “O, R they?”), The Royal Tenenbaums is where it all comes together most successfully for me. How Anderson manages to deliver that much genuine emotion in such a nakedly artificial  package is kind of a wonder, and probably has something to do with the fact that this is the last of his films to have the leavening touch of Owen Wilson on the screenplay. This film is stuck like a BB under my skin.

Adaptation.

I needed to pick something by Charlie Kaufman for my list. While Being John Malkovich is, I think one of the purest horror films in recent memory (just take a moment to think about what actually happens to Malkovich), it’s out of the running since it’s from 1999. And I’m a screenwriter, so I give the edge to Adaptation. over Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. There are a lot of things to admire here, but perhaps none more than the period placed at the end of the title. Besides, my mom called it “psychologically taut”.

The Dark Knight

I wrote an article about this, which you can check out at your leisure. But suffice it to say that, in the decade of superhero movies, this one was, to employ an overused quasi-descriptor, a gamechanger - a film that immolates the superhero genre even as it becomes its highest achievement.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

A witty rejoinder to every screenwriting manual that tells you not to use voiceover, Andrew Dominik’s follow up to Chopper is another brilliant meditation on self-made and self-perpetuated legends, and adds to it a fascinating look at the weight of celebrity (the casting of Brad Pitt is perfect, given this). Add to that Roger Deakins’ sky-collapsing cinematography, and this is 160 minutes of your life you won’t want back.

WALL-E

Pixar films generally really are as good as they are popular (the only exceptions for me have been A Bug’s Life, which I should probably revisit, and Cars, which just left me cold). As the rest of Hollywood scrambled to keep up, this was Pixar’s decade, and this was their finest moment.

Runners up: Cache, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Lives of Others, Barbarian Invasions, Hustle and Flow, El Aura, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, When the Levees Broke (It’s not TV, it’s HBO!), Primer and Before Sunset.

Command+s.

Ian Driscoll was David Bowman.

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