Matt's Favorite Films, #50 to #26.
50. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
An oddly underrated film. Given that it's the most feverishly entertaining Western of the decade, it's chock-full of Class A Hollywood performances, and that it's not really even a piece of feel-good fluff, where is the love for this movie?
There's even a brilliant scene with a black-toothed Luke Wilson. Probably your last chance to catch ol' Luke in a semi-meaningful role on the big screen (those ubiquitous AT&T adds, plus the extra 20 pounds, spell G-I-V-E U-P to me). What else can you ask for?
There's even a brilliant scene with a black-toothed Luke Wilson. Probably your last chance to catch ol' Luke in a semi-meaningful role on the big screen (those ubiquitous AT&T adds, plus the extra 20 pounds, spell G-I-V-E U-P to me). What else can you ask for?
49. Gladiator (2000)
Are we verging on Russell Crowe overload here? Probably. But when 19-year-old Matt first saw this on the big Uptown screen in DC almost 10 years ago, he really thought he had gone back in time to the Roman Empire. That first German battle scene is just overwhelming.
As for the rest of the movie, it's a massively enjoyable swords-and-sandals epic. Are the same people inclined to casually sneer at Maximus's story willing to extend the favor to Spartacus and Ben-Hur? Because from where I sit this is really no worse than those two -- at least it doesn't have the boring Christian apologetics of the latter.
Plus, we have the now-classic hands-in-the-wheat scene! The good citizens of YouTube appreciate this well, and so should you.
As for the rest of the movie, it's a massively enjoyable swords-and-sandals epic. Are the same people inclined to casually sneer at Maximus's story willing to extend the favor to Spartacus and Ben-Hur? Because from where I sit this is really no worse than those two -- at least it doesn't have the boring Christian apologetics of the latter.
Plus, we have the now-classic hands-in-the-wheat scene! The good citizens of YouTube appreciate this well, and so should you.
48. King Kong (2005)
The first hour of this movie, maybe longer, is painfully, inexplicably, unforgivably terrible. I've almost succeeded in draining it all from my memory, except for a few entrenched snippets of Jack Black attempting some kind jaunty, stylized vision of 1930s dialogue. Ugh.
But the beast. Oh, the beast! The Peter Jackson-Andy Serkis team far outdid their terrific LOTR work on Gollum in this film; their King Kong is the most physically and emotionally realized computerized character of the decade. His earth-shaking, soul-defining chest-thump; his delicate communication with Naomi Watts (also excellent here); his heroic battle against the dinosaurs; and of course his final captivity and escape -- it's all marvelous. I won't say it surpasses the original (that's silly) but Jackson and co. give this classic its heartrending due.
But the beast. Oh, the beast! The Peter Jackson-Andy Serkis team far outdid their terrific LOTR work on Gollum in this film; their King Kong is the most physically and emotionally realized computerized character of the decade. His earth-shaking, soul-defining chest-thump; his delicate communication with Naomi Watts (also excellent here); his heroic battle against the dinosaurs; and of course his final captivity and escape -- it's all marvelous. I won't say it surpasses the original (that's silly) but Jackson and co. give this classic its heartrending due.
47. Wall-E (2008)
Another fabulous 2000s computer concoction, Wall-E's problem is the exact inverse of Kong's: his debut 45 minutes are astounding and unforgettable; but once the wheels of the plot churn into motion, he disappears into a mundane series of chase sequences and hammy political satire.
Like its Pixar sibling Up, Wall-E makes its most important contribution to film inside the opening frames. Everything about the little robot's earthly abode is magnificent: the wan, yellowing smog; the ziggaurats of compacted trash; the silent insect friend; the cozily cluttered dumpster/apartment. I'm further smitten by EVE's arrival and their mechanoid romance. Only the outer-space stuff doesn't do it for me; the final resolution of the love story (fittingly, back on earth) won me over again.
Like its Pixar sibling Up, Wall-E makes its most important contribution to film inside the opening frames. Everything about the little robot's earthly abode is magnificent: the wan, yellowing smog; the ziggaurats of compacted trash; the silent insect friend; the cozily cluttered dumpster/apartment. I'm further smitten by EVE's arrival and their mechanoid romance. Only the outer-space stuff doesn't do it for me; the final resolution of the love story (fittingly, back on earth) won me over again.
46. Y tu mamá también (2001)
I still think Alfonso Cuaron's ending here (the break-up, not the make-out) is a little brusquely overdetermined, but everything else about this friendship tale works like a charm.
Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal get it right. Their charisma, and their camaraderie, is infectious; their humor fights triumphantly through the subtitles; their rivalry is potent and honest. Also: the best masturbation scene of the decade? (In fairness, I have not yet seen Ratatouille). That's got to be worth at least five ranking spots right there.
Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal get it right. Their charisma, and their camaraderie, is infectious; their humor fights triumphantly through the subtitles; their rivalry is potent and honest. Also: the best masturbation scene of the decade? (In fairness, I have not yet seen Ratatouille). That's got to be worth at least five ranking spots right there.
45. Where The Wild Things Are (2009)
Like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the hype for Where The Wild Things Are began with a wordlessly hypnotic trailer set to an Arcade Fire song. Like Benjamin Button, Wild Things was intriguingly based on a fragmentary narrative written by an acknowledged giant of American literature.
Unlike Benjamin Button, it didn't suck. From the herky-jerk camera of the opening cut to the low gurgle of James Gandolfini's chief Wild Thing, Spike Jonze stays true to Maurice Sendak's anarchic spirit while fashioning a moody, melancholy world all his own.
Unlike Benjamin Button, it didn't suck. From the herky-jerk camera of the opening cut to the low gurgle of James Gandolfini's chief Wild Thing, Spike Jonze stays true to Maurice Sendak's anarchic spirit while fashioning a moody, melancholy world all his own.
44. Yi Yi (2000)
It's hard to capture the essence of this rich portrait of the messy lives of one Taiwanese family. Seldom has an essentially domestic story seemed so epic and sprawling. It's a long movie, but it feels even longer, in the best sense.
Each member of the family is sketched in compassionate detail -- the mother, whose mother-in-law's sickness has driven her to seek meditation; the father, who has doubts about his work and has accidentally reconnected with a lost teenage love; the daughter, who is striking out on a high school romance of her own. And then there's the younger son, who is, without a doubt, a runaway winner in the decade's Cutest Cinematic Kid competition (just wait til he puts on his backpack).
Edward Yang's movie bravely risks over-earnestness and straightforward melodrama of the gooiest kind. But it lives to tell the tale. Queue it up!
Each member of the family is sketched in compassionate detail -- the mother, whose mother-in-law's sickness has driven her to seek meditation; the father, who has doubts about his work and has accidentally reconnected with a lost teenage love; the daughter, who is striking out on a high school romance of her own. And then there's the younger son, who is, without a doubt, a runaway winner in the decade's Cutest Cinematic Kid competition (just wait til he puts on his backpack).
Edward Yang's movie bravely risks over-earnestness and straightforward melodrama of the gooiest kind. But it lives to tell the tale. Queue it up!
43. United 93 (2006)
This movie opens with 45 of the decade's most thrilling and most unbearable minutes of film. The banality of the air-travel experience has never been captured more precisely. Yet because we know what's coming, even the tedium of the security line, or the boarding process, flows over with tension.
Paul Greengrass's zippity handheld camera doesn't do the trick for me in the Bourne sequels, and seems in general to be an ominous development in the evolution of action films. But here it works beautifully, vividly, chillingly well.
Paul Greengrass's zippity handheld camera doesn't do the trick for me in the Bourne sequels, and seems in general to be an ominous development in the evolution of action films. But here it works beautifully, vividly, chillingly well.
42. The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Wes Anderson should make cartoons full-time. Seriously. The whirligig preciousness, the desultory, meandering plots, the general air of unreality that undermined The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited (enjoyable films as they were nonetheless) -- all that stuff works perfectly in an animated setting.
He should stick to stop-motion animation, too. From its rapturous honey-brown landscapes to the gentle tickles of fox fur in close-up shots, the frame in Fantastic Mr. Fox is always bursting with life and interest. (And in the representation of human and animal figures, stop-motion is miles ahead of the vaguely sugary balloon creatures that permeate the Pixar universe).
Favorite moments here include the "Heroes and Villains" theft sequence; the animated Jarvis Cocker; and, of course, every time the Foxes ate a meal.
Finally, can George Clooney stick to cartoons also? After Up in the Air, this was a treat.
He should stick to stop-motion animation, too. From its rapturous honey-brown landscapes to the gentle tickles of fox fur in close-up shots, the frame in Fantastic Mr. Fox is always bursting with life and interest. (And in the representation of human and animal figures, stop-motion is miles ahead of the vaguely sugary balloon creatures that permeate the Pixar universe).
Favorite moments here include the "Heroes and Villains" theft sequence; the animated Jarvis Cocker; and, of course, every time the Foxes ate a meal.
Finally, can George Clooney stick to cartoons also? After Up in the Air, this was a treat.
36. Batman Begins (2005)
In a decade choked with superhero movies, is this one really the best? Well, it's my favorite, anyway -- the only one I saw twice in the theater. Christopher Nolan's capacious re-imagining of the Batman universe takes us from frozen-lake swordfights in Tibet to the nighttime terrors of Arkham Asylum (that stupid Scarecrow mask continues to creep me out to this day).
The film steers an entertaining middle course between the cartoony self-parody of earlier Batmans and the unrelenting seriousness of The Dark Knight. It's all absorbingly black and moody and tense, but it never forgets that it's a comic-book movie -- in the best possible sense. The League of Shadows forever!
The film steers an entertaining middle course between the cartoony self-parody of earlier Batmans and the unrelenting seriousness of The Dark Knight. It's all absorbingly black and moody and tense, but it never forgets that it's a comic-book movie -- in the best possible sense. The League of Shadows forever!
40. High Fidelity (2000)
"Sometimes I got so bored of trying to touch her breast that I would try to touch her between her legs. It was like trying to borrow a dollar, getting turned down, and asking for 50 grand instead."
There's so much to love about this movie. Jack Black's role of a lifetime. The Beta Band. Tim Robbins as "Ian." And of course, the joyful fetishization of rank-ordering and list-making in all walks of life: music, memories, girlfriends.
Sadly, the scene on the left could never happen now, in the Age of iTunes:
Dick: I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Rob: No...
Dick: Not alphabetical...
Rob: Nope...
Dick: What?
Rob: Autobiographical.
Dick: No fucking way.
There's so much to love about this movie. Jack Black's role of a lifetime. The Beta Band. Tim Robbins as "Ian." And of course, the joyful fetishization of rank-ordering and list-making in all walks of life: music, memories, girlfriends.
Sadly, the scene on the left could never happen now, in the Age of iTunes:
Dick: I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Rob: No...
Dick: Not alphabetical...
Rob: Nope...
Dick: What?
Rob: Autobiographical.
Dick: No fucking way.
39. Wendy and Lucy (2008)
Girl and beloved dog attempt to drive to Alaska for seasonal work. Girl's car breaks down. Girl has no money. Girl loses dog. Girl is fucked (no, not literally, you pervert).
This shell of a plot is really all there is to Wendy and Lucy, which, for all its ultimately irresistible poignancy, it must be admitted, has a certain traplike quality. But what a trap! Kelly Reichardt's film, and Michelle Williams's performance, weave their webs so delicately, so unassumingly, that you barely realize you're snared.
From here I'll hand things over to Jonathan Rabin, who has a wonderful essay on the film, and the book of short stories that inspired it, in the New York Review. If you liked this movie, or if you're just curious, it's a must-read.
This shell of a plot is really all there is to Wendy and Lucy, which, for all its ultimately irresistible poignancy, it must be admitted, has a certain traplike quality. But what a trap! Kelly Reichardt's film, and Michelle Williams's performance, weave their webs so delicately, so unassumingly, that you barely realize you're snared.
From here I'll hand things over to Jonathan Rabin, who has a wonderful essay on the film, and the book of short stories that inspired it, in the New York Review. If you liked this movie, or if you're just curious, it's a must-read.
38. Zoolander (2001)
Brint: Or the way Hansel combs his hair?
Meekus: Or like, doesn't, it's like, ex-squeeze me, but have you ever heard of styling gel?
Brint: I'm sure Hansel's heard of styling gel, he's a male model.
Meekus: Uh, Earth to Brint, I was making a joke.
Brint: Uh, Earth to Meekus, duh, okay I knew that!
Meekus: Uh earth to Brint, I'm not so sure you did cuz you were all 'well I'm sure he's heard of styling gel' like you *didn’t* know it was a joke!
Brint: I knew it was a joke Meekus, I just didn't get it right away!
Meekus: Earth to Brint...
Meekus: Or like, doesn't, it's like, ex-squeeze me, but have you ever heard of styling gel?
Brint: I'm sure Hansel's heard of styling gel, he's a male model.
Meekus: Uh, Earth to Brint, I was making a joke.
Brint: Uh, Earth to Meekus, duh, okay I knew that!
Meekus: Uh earth to Brint, I'm not so sure you did cuz you were all 'well I'm sure he's heard of styling gel' like you *didn’t* know it was a joke!
Brint: I knew it was a joke Meekus, I just didn't get it right away!
Meekus: Earth to Brint...
37. Gomorrah (2008)
Intercutting stories of life and death in and around the Camorra, the leading criminal organization of southern Italy. But Goodfellas this ain't: rarely has crime and gangsterism been presented so unappealingly. Even the Barksdales and the Stanfield crew seem like romantic heroes compared to these seedy denizens of these Naples suburbs, who manage all manner of extortions, illegal waste disposal, petty cash distribution, and cold blooded murder. It all takes place amid the rotting corridors of a giant, 1960s style terraced apartment complex, which rises out of the Campania wasteland like an unburied tomb. In the 2000s, it doesn't get much gritter than this.
36. Mongol (2008)
Before the release of this Central Asian epic, perhaps the most famous portrayal of Genghis Khan in the West came from John Wayne in1956's The Conqueror (Tagline: "I fight! I love! I conquer... like a Barbarian!" Alternate Tagline: "This Tartar woman is for me and my blood says take her!").
Well, we've come a long way from 1956. The first third of an expected trilogy (and man, I cannot wait!) details the great warlord's rise from tribal obscurity to the khanship of all Mongols. Director Sergei Bodrov's portrayal of young Genghis (actually Temujin, as he was called) is more sympathetic hero than bloodthirsty murderer: not precise history, maybe, but it works in the film.
What's most satisfying here is the vividly imagined and recreated universe of 12th century Central Asia, complete with rousing horseback chases, brutal battles, and drunken throat-singing. Even more powerful is Temujin's back-and-forth encounter with former childhood friend and rival clan-leader Jamukha -- a worthy origin story for this greatest of history's conquerors.
Well, we've come a long way from 1956. The first third of an expected trilogy (and man, I cannot wait!) details the great warlord's rise from tribal obscurity to the khanship of all Mongols. Director Sergei Bodrov's portrayal of young Genghis (actually Temujin, as he was called) is more sympathetic hero than bloodthirsty murderer: not precise history, maybe, but it works in the film.
What's most satisfying here is the vividly imagined and recreated universe of 12th century Central Asia, complete with rousing horseback chases, brutal battles, and drunken throat-singing. Even more powerful is Temujin's back-and-forth encounter with former childhood friend and rival clan-leader Jamukha -- a worthy origin story for this greatest of history's conquerors.
35. Downfall (2004)
This definitive "Last Days in Hitler's bunker" movie is real almost to the touch. I gather some folks have complained that the movie betrays a little too much sympathy for the devil, but really, it would be much more offensive to depict Hitler as a kind of swaggeringly evil Bond villain. The Nazis were human beings after all, which is just what makes them so terrifying, and so fascinating.
Nothing revealed the immediate plausibility of Bruno Ganz's dictator better than the runaway popularity of that hilarious 'Hitler as a Cowboys fan' video (now duplicated in numerous much-less-clever rip-offs: Hitler's take on the iPad; Hitler reacts to Avatar; Hitler gets voted off "American Idol"). It's funny because everything looks so ominous and so actual; and that's how the entire film feels.
Nothing revealed the immediate plausibility of Bruno Ganz's dictator better than the runaway popularity of that hilarious 'Hitler as a Cowboys fan' video (now duplicated in numerous much-less-clever rip-offs: Hitler's take on the iPad; Hitler reacts to Avatar; Hitler gets voted off "American Idol"). It's funny because everything looks so ominous and so actual; and that's how the entire film feels.
34. Goodbye Solo (2009)
I haven't seen Chop Shop or Man Push Cart, so I can't tell if Roger Ebert is right to proclaim Ramin Bahrani "the new great American director." But this is a marvelous movie. Solo is an irrepressibly charming Senegalese-immigrant cab driver; his passenger William is a deeply depressed older man, played by Red West (a close friend of Elvis Presley[!] and a key bit player in Road House[!!]).
Set amid the parkways and avenues and scruffy motel rooms of Winston Salem, North Carolina, the film explores their unlikely relationship. It builds real tenderness with an absolute minimum of schmaltz, and leaves us, in some ways, just where we began. But we are enriched by the journey.
Set amid the parkways and avenues and scruffy motel rooms of Winston Salem, North Carolina, the film explores their unlikely relationship. It builds real tenderness with an absolute minimum of schmaltz, and leaves us, in some ways, just where we began. But we are enriched by the journey.
33. The Hurt Locker (2009)
Pure nonstop tension. The unendurable stress of the bomb-defusal scenes is matched only by the riveting angst inside the soldiers' barracks. Mark Boal's script is so powerfully compressed that it could almost be a stage production. And Kathryn Bigelow has sharpened her particular gift for capturing explosive (sorry) masculine energy to a fine point here. This remarkable film succeeds as a knife-edge thriller, a classic war drama, and a non-didactic commentary on the perversity of modern soldiering.
Jeremy Renner has gotten the Oscar hype and the bulk of the critical plaudits for his turn as the daredevil bomb defuser, but I say it's Anthony Mackie's hard-headed, self-preserving Sgt. Sanborn that really achors the film.
Jeremy Renner has gotten the Oscar hype and the bulk of the critical plaudits for his turn as the daredevil bomb defuser, but I say it's Anthony Mackie's hard-headed, self-preserving Sgt. Sanborn that really achors the film.
32. Moon (2009)
The greatest sci-fi movie of the 2000s? Yes sir!
It's not quite Solaris, as it sort of aspires to be, but Duncan Bell's one-man lunar delight is fully competent to explore the lonely, longing miasma of space. Sam Rockwell is Sam Bell, a technician coming to the end of his three-year stint manning a mining station on the moon. As he's making arrangements to return home, strange things start happening, and his future begins to seem in doubt.
I've already confessed to my softness for one-man shows, but the underrated Rockwell's job here is the decade's best of the kind. And Moon subverts sci-fi expectations by complicating the traditional hostility between man and machine: so could it be that Kevin Spacey's most interesting performance of the decade was the off-screen voice of a computer? (Sorry, K-PAX).
It's not quite Solaris, as it sort of aspires to be, but Duncan Bell's one-man lunar delight is fully competent to explore the lonely, longing miasma of space. Sam Rockwell is Sam Bell, a technician coming to the end of his three-year stint manning a mining station on the moon. As he's making arrangements to return home, strange things start happening, and his future begins to seem in doubt.
I've already confessed to my softness for one-man shows, but the underrated Rockwell's job here is the decade's best of the kind. And Moon subverts sci-fi expectations by complicating the traditional hostility between man and machine: so could it be that Kevin Spacey's most interesting performance of the decade was the off-screen voice of a computer? (Sorry, K-PAX).
31. Elephant (2003)
Like United 93, your interest in (and tolerance for) this movie depends on how you're inclined to view a quiet build-up to a certain looming catastrophe. Here, the subject is the Columbine shootings rather than 9-11, and the pre-disaster atmosphere is a dreamy, looping ramble through the halls of a high school, not the restrained, purposeful banality of air travel.
It does the trick for me. Gus Van Sant's film captures the horror behind the headlines, and also the pain, the loss, the aching human tragedy.
It does the trick for me. Gus Van Sant's film captures the horror behind the headlines, and also the pain, the loss, the aching human tragedy.
30. Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)
I really didn't like Flags of our Fathers, but the Japanese half of Clint Eastwood's WWII phase seems to me an almost flawless film.
The relationships between the various officers and soldiers on the doomed island unfold with novelistic detail. And Eastwood's small, vivid individual touches -- from the pre-attack arrival of Baron Nishi's show-jumping horse, to the oddly moving Japenese radio propaganda, to the gruesome role of a flamethrower in battle -- almost totally transporting. Was the decade's greatest war movie really this empathetic encounter with America's most wartime bitter enemy? You bet it was.
The relationships between the various officers and soldiers on the doomed island unfold with novelistic detail. And Eastwood's small, vivid individual touches -- from the pre-attack arrival of Baron Nishi's show-jumping horse, to the oddly moving Japenese radio propaganda, to the gruesome role of a flamethrower in battle -- almost totally transporting. Was the decade's greatest war movie really this empathetic encounter with America's most wartime bitter enemy? You bet it was.
29. Gangs of New York (2004)
Oh, to be on the set during the filming of this dandy! I can see it now: Daniel Day-Lewis stomping around, answering only to his character's name, pissing the hell out of Liam Neeson, pumping Eminem in his headphones to keep his 'aggression level' up, and acting on through a fight scene where Leonardo DiCaprio accidentally(?) breaks his nose. Man.
The film itself is exactly what you'd expect to come out of that kind of atmosphere -- swollen, anarchic, quaking with violent energy. No, I don't know what Cameron Diaz is doing here either. But the rest of the movie is a near-masterpiece. From the gorgeous orange and burgundy pantaloons to the alien thrum of Bill the Butcher's Old New York accent, the movie is unrepentant in its celebration of the strangeness of the antebellum city. Whether this is all plausible or accurate (and it's not half bad) is beside the point: what counts is the ferocity and the joy of the historical vision.
The film itself is exactly what you'd expect to come out of that kind of atmosphere -- swollen, anarchic, quaking with violent energy. No, I don't know what Cameron Diaz is doing here either. But the rest of the movie is a near-masterpiece. From the gorgeous orange and burgundy pantaloons to the alien thrum of Bill the Butcher's Old New York accent, the movie is unrepentant in its celebration of the strangeness of the antebellum city. Whether this is all plausible or accurate (and it's not half bad) is beside the point: what counts is the ferocity and the joy of the historical vision.
28. Big Fish (2003)
Tim Burton's mythical-realist portrayal of a father's life story, as told to his son, strikes a universal chord: who can't relate to the unbelievable strangeness of parental stories that somehow took place before we even existed? They all feel like tall tales.
And here, Burton's individual stories (expertly told by Albert Finney, and acted by Ewan McGregor) are extraordinary: Exuberant and alive and richly, unashamedly sentimental. Yes, I cried.
And here, Burton's individual stories (expertly told by Albert Finney, and acted by Ewan McGregor) are extraordinary: Exuberant and alive and richly, unashamedly sentimental. Yes, I cried.
27. In Bruges (2008)
This hilarious, boisterous, and touching film came out of nowhere to become my second favorite movie of last year.
Two Irish hitmen are temporarily marooned in Bruges after a finished job. One of them (the ever-reliable Brendan Gleeson) is happy to be there; the other (the totally-won-me-over Colin Farrell) isnt: "Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't."
There isn't a whole lot of action -- the whole point is for them to be laying low -- but the film is coiled tight with energy. It's all in the dialogue and the performances and the accents. (And, of course, the luscious Clemence Poesy, who left me with an embarrassing internet crush for about two weeks afterwards). When Ralph Fiennes appears, and the plot bursts open in the final 45 minutes, it only gets better. Seriously, if you haven't yet seen this, crack on it at once: its highly recommended for all ages and types.
Two Irish hitmen are temporarily marooned in Bruges after a finished job. One of them (the ever-reliable Brendan Gleeson) is happy to be there; the other (the totally-won-me-over Colin Farrell) isnt: "Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't."
There isn't a whole lot of action -- the whole point is for them to be laying low -- but the film is coiled tight with energy. It's all in the dialogue and the performances and the accents. (And, of course, the luscious Clemence Poesy, who left me with an embarrassing internet crush for about two weeks afterwards). When Ralph Fiennes appears, and the plot bursts open in the final 45 minutes, it only gets better. Seriously, if you haven't yet seen this, crack on it at once: its highly recommended for all ages and types.
26. The Prestige (2006)
All previous props to The Village aside, and future love for Memento notwithstanding, I think you could make a fair argument that The Prestige offers us the decade's best twist ending. By the end, the movie's epic face-off between Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman has already veered back and forth so many times that I wondered how it was possible to squeeze in another trick, but Chistopher Nolan manages it brilliantly.
Doubles abound: Jackman and Bale; their two doomed wives; Thomas Edison and Nikolai Tesla (David Bowie, of course, is Tesla, but what '70s rock star would have been fit to play Edison? Randy Bachman?).
The whole of the film is an near-constant thrill of masking and unmasking. Yet with each reveal, you are almost sorry to know the grisly truth, from Michael Caine's demonstration of how the 'vanished dove' manuever really works, to the morbid reality behind Jackman's final illusion. The movie is stuffed, possibly even over-stuffed, with themes and ideas, but the one that rings loudest at the end gives new meaning to the idea of sacrifice in the name of art.
Doubles abound: Jackman and Bale; their two doomed wives; Thomas Edison and Nikolai Tesla (David Bowie, of course, is Tesla, but what '70s rock star would have been fit to play Edison? Randy Bachman?).
The whole of the film is an near-constant thrill of masking and unmasking. Yet with each reveal, you are almost sorry to know the grisly truth, from Michael Caine's demonstration of how the 'vanished dove' manuever really works, to the morbid reality behind Jackman's final illusion. The movie is stuffed, possibly even over-stuffed, with themes and ideas, but the one that rings loudest at the end gives new meaning to the idea of sacrifice in the name of art.