Against The Hype

Unlike most critics, I don’t get to watch a whole slew of movies as they are released. I have the luxury, though, of knowing critics whose tastes dovetail with mine enough that I tend to watch good movies (or at least interesting ones) whenever I rent them. So while most critics are now gearing up to write their personal Top 100 lists for this decade’s movies, I’ll be taking up the opposite challenge of watching all the movies listed by the critics I trust most, and writing one-liner comments on each. Beginning with Tim Robey of the Telegraph, and adding other critics as they post their lists, I’ll slowly make my way through their recommendations and rank them by my own tastes. To start:

Movies I’ve seen so far from these lists (ranked in descending order):

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (’04): A patchwork quilt of relationship truths and clever scifi, culminating in the wisest romantic insight since Annie Hall
2. The Incredibles (’04): Deft, rocket-paced flexing of superheroes into crises of identity and family (full review)
3. Erin Brockovich (’00): Finally, a star vehicle that fully capitalises on Julia Roberts’ prickly edges
4. Julia (’08): You won’t find a more sober and disciplined director-actor pair playing so drunk, desperate and out-of-control
5. Birth (’04): Nicole Kidman thrives in close-ups and in being profoundly disturbed; this movie indulges her
6. The Bourne Supremacy (’04): Whip-smart, breakneck spy thriller that sustains Jason Bourne’s clear-headed urgency while suffused with the pain of his loss
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (’01): Epic worldcrafting, with actors and designers attuned to the demands of old-school myth
8. In the Mood for Love (’00): Aestheticised within an inch of its life, which fits brilliantly its tale of yearning and suffocation in ’60s Hong Kong
9. Before Sunset (’04): Sadness and self-absorption jostle in this narrow Parisian sequel to the gloriously expansive and romantic predecessor
10. Synecdoche, New York (’08): A heartfelt meditation on self-centredness and ageing; relies on your capacity for deadpan humor, sadsack-watching and between-the-lines editing
11. Kill Bill Vol 1 (’03): Candy-coloured pop fantasia of actresses and Japanese action movies, with a drop in mid-film momentum from Uma’s ineptness with bimbo humour
12. The Hurt Locker (’09): More realistic, tense sequences of warfare than you’ll find elsewhere, though the soldiers teeter a bit towards broad enigma
13. There Will Be Blood (’07): Fiery tempests wrought from the earth’s depths, Jonny Greenwood’s alien strings, and Daniel Day-Lewis’ oil baron. But things can get un-illuminatingly loud
14. Memento (’00): Gimmicky collage of noirish scenes, blank-slate grieving and emotional manipulations held fast by a punchy existential twist
15. Sideways (’04): Depends on your mileage for sadsacks, especially when they’re insulated by narrative perks, e.g. sex with the luminous Virginia Madsen
16. Adaptation (’02): Depends on your mileage for sadsacks, especially when they’re insulated by narrative perks, e.g. being fictional
17. No Country for Old Men (’07): Cleaves too easily into standalone scenes of well-edited tension and recycled caricature-humour to truly earn its mopey “bleak” ending
18. King Kong (’05): Fanboy-wank remake bloated with CGI, wrapped around a cross-species romantic core that should have ventured beyond mere gestures at empathy
19. Mysterious Skin (’04): Alternates between its boring and its exploitative plots, though Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s hustler gets a few emotionally raw/tender encounters
20. Hunger (’08): I’m tired of arthouse exploitation as an excuse for male nudity, or vice versa; hurling shit-stained walls and clichéd police brutality at me doesn’t help

(The movies I have yet to see, or don’t remember enough to write about, can be found after the jump.)

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