Top 15 Films of the Decade: No. 12

12. Mysterious Skin (2005)

In 2005, Greg Araki’s Mysterious Skin became something of a milestone for the filmmaker, in that it was his first film that was a good one. But, more than that, it was also kind of brilliant. Thrusting Joseph Gordon-Levitt into the serious-actor-with-serious-talent-to-back-it-up world, Mysterious Skin is a terrifyingly personal, and utterly damaged examination of pedophilia--and, even more so…fucked up youth (to put it eloquently). The film is all together graphic, beautiful, and disturbing, but it never really strives to be any of those things; and there’s the give away. It’s Araki’s total lack of pretension and complete respect for the subject that elevates it above his usually socially satirical drivel. He approaches the film with such focus and beautiful directness, that it becomes a sort of graceful rumination on the sinking feeling of regret, and the realization of imperfect sorrow.

Top 15 Films of the Decade: No. 13 (Tie)

13. Royal Tenenbaums (2001)/ Down With Love (2003)

So, I have arrived at my first and only tie on the list...and it's pretty random. Now, these two films have nothing in common (except for maybe the varying degrees to which they are perceived) but I kind of like their pairing here, nonetheless. On one hand, you have probably one of the most increasingly popular "indie" sacred cows right now in Royal Tenenbaums; on the other, a criminally underrated bomb that walks the line between overbearing superficiality and bona fide charm in Down With Love. With Royal Tenenbaums, you find Wes Anderson and his disaffected, stoic archetypes at the height of their effectiveness with a wonderfully dizzying tale of a formerly affluent and respected family of "geniuses," and their slow climb back to normalcy. Despite the film's primary conceit of a father faking cancer in an attempt to get closer to his estranged family, the film is, of course, not as plot-y as all that. It's more free-form, and has an air of character study to it that aids in its overall resonance. And, in a way, Down With Love is just as subversive in how it draws you in with one idea, and takes the concept to substantially greater heights by losing that sense of itself. Like previous entry Wet Hot American Summer, Down With Love satirizes a very specific genre and again succeeds so well because it creates a wholly unique aesthetic for itself while still skewering with a keenly impressive eye. Its presentation of lop-sided sexual politics rings no less apt when set within its own heightened 60's reality, and carries a hefty weight within a modern context as well.

Top 15 Films of the Decade: No. 14

14. Adaptation (2002)

There’s something perfectly heartbreaking about a film that is as self-indulgent as Adaptation being made that much more brilliant by result of said indulgences. Adaptation is just as much of a bat-shit insane, half-assed adaptation of The Orchid Thief as it is a neurotic, self-deprecating journey through the very process of artistic creation; but because there is such an unhinged (but still beautifully choreographed) poetry that the two concepts evoke, you are easily sucked into all of its lovely insanity. Spike Jonze directs Charlie Kaufman’s routinely manic screenplay with the kind of reigned in elegance that provides its central pathos the visionary grace that doubles as a fairy tale of real world insecurity and common existence.

Jumping the Gun: The Top 15 Films of the Decade

Maybe I'm a wee bit early here. But, hey, when have I ever talked about film on this blog? I thought it could be a nice chance to work out the kinks I have while talking about film. Plus, what geek doesn't love making lists? I'm gonna do this slow-like, one film at a time. However, my rudimentary GRAPHICS should keep you enthralled in the absence of actual content, I am sure.

I absolutely cannot speak intelligently on the social significance of the films of this decade--certainly not with any kind of relevance in regards to all the previous decades. So, really, this is, without much pretense, a list of the films that I feel have been the most impressive (for one reason or another) and resonant to yours, truly. Pretty simple, really. I have obviously loved MORE than 15 films this decade, but I had to pick a number that I could manage. I am, after all, kind of a lazy bastard.

Enjoy!

P.S. I brought comments back. That means you, CULT ICON!

15. Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

A weird choice, I know. But I recently saw this film for the first time…and then almost immediately watched it again. And, now, a third time. While I can understand how Wet Hot American Summer can ultimately be seen as a silly film to make this type of list, that really discounts what a wonderfully kinetic exercise in surrealism and parody that it is. Being such a specific satire of such a specifically asinine genre, it has the responsibility of not losing its head too far up its ass, and does so in the most irreverent and spastic ways. A lot of the jokes are actually hit or miss, given the collaborator’s sketch comedy origins, but there is something irrefutably sweet and comically perfect about the sentiment that remains in tact even while the most savage lampoons are taking place. This is a shockingly brilliant farce that takes into account its sparse cultural relevance as much as it does all of its 80’s pop signifiers.