#50 - #41

Ids, egos, and superegos collide and combust – all in a “single” take(!) – on stages as concrete as the Broadway theatre and as fantastical as the imaginings of a self-obsessed actor (Michael Keaton in a career-topping role). As in the myth of Icarus, to which his script often alludes both visually and verbally, Iňárritu had high-flying ambitions for what is possibly his most personal film to date. But rather than crash and burn, his satiric slant on the artist's odyssey soars.

Much ado was made at the time of its single-shot conceit, conjured by the peerless Emmanuel Lubezki. The trick itself isn't an original one, but Chivo's magic with light and colour elevates it above the gimmick. Beyond its visual panache, the greatest virtue of this shooting style is the chance it affords us to observe the cast's uninterrupted interplay with each other. Seems appropriate for a story about ‘the theatre’, no?

Coolest award or nomination:

Golden Globe – Best Actor, Comedy/Musical (Michael Keaton)

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Relative to the dreary miserabilism of his other work – see Biutiful (2010) and The Revenant (2015) from this decade alone – Birdman marked a daring departure for Iñárritu, but not one that was unanimously welcomed. Plenty labelled it as gimmicky, artsy navel-gazing designed to appeal to actors, and the backlash only grew more recalcitrant when it flew off with the Best Picture Oscar… You could apply that last sentence word-for-word to Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist (2011). And like Birdman, it too pulls out all the stops to actively emulate the very artform its protagonist lives and breathes, plunking us in the tortured headspace of a performer grasping for relevance. Love them or hate them, no cinephile worth their salt would have missed these movies, or the chance to adulate / crucify them!

If you’re a sucker for the one-shot camera stunt, you ain’t seen nothin’ like Sebastian Schribber’s mind-blowing thriller Victoria (2015), which actually was filmed in a single take!

A less visionary director would have made this into farce, but Jonze reaches a level of profundity in this dreamlike rumination on love, loneliness, and human interaction with our technology. He establishes a sci-fi tinged setting that is not so very unlike our own present, both in terms of aesthetic (K.K. Barrett's production design cleverly anticipates what the interiors of the not-so-distant future might look like) and in terms of societal conventions.

Balancing speculative fiction and soulful poetry, he tells the story of a love that transcends the physical, and perpetually finds unexpected directions to carry it. It could have been a rote variation on the ‘manic pixie dream girl’ romance, but instead it reaches for the headier virtual space of A.I. evolution, abetted by Scarlett Johansson’s nuanced vocal performance. It's all tied together with hypnotic visuals and a mesmerizing soundtrack by indie rockers Arcade Fire.

Coolest award or nomination:

Art Directors Guild – Excellence in Production Design, Contemporary Film (K.K. Barrett, et.al.)

Also worth checking out:

Though Jonze doesn’t return to the big screen nearly as often as we’d like (only one feature this decade? C’mon, Spike!), stories involving some form of emotional pas-de-deux between human and sentient A.I. abound in modern sci-fi: Ex Machina (2015), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), even Big Hero 6 (2014)… Tell me you don’t see a pattern.

This journalistic docudrama about the Boston Globe's Pulitzer-winning investigation of pedophilia, corruption, and complicity within the Catholic Church is dense in the very best way, packing tonnes of content and character into a swift, focused procedural. In the same vein as All the President’s Men, it’s less revealing about the scandal at its centre (though it is given plenty of scrutinous attention) than it is about the Sisyphean legwork of dogged investigative reportage, and the hundreds of little victories needed to culminate in a bombshell story.

It requires your attention, but McCarthy – a fine dramatist who has long favoured intelligent, methodically observed human interaction over sensationalism – rewards that patience. Granted, it isn’t easy to make talking heads ‘jump off’ the screen, but the cast here is greater than the sum of their considerable parts. This is brilliant group acting, with each performer carving out distinctive personalities for a roster of characters who could easily have been homogenized.

Coolest award or nomination:

Academy Award – Best Picture (Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin, Blye Pagon Faust)

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Institutional smokescreens meant to hide sexual abuse have found a more prominent place in our public consciousness, with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements famously rattling the power structures of Hollywood and beyond. But well before those hashtags went viral, documentarian Kirby Dick was already crying foul with The Invisible War (2012) and The Hunting Ground (2015), both damning indictments of rape coverups in the military and U.S. colleges respectively.

Meanwhile, Spotlight’s cowriter Josh Singer – who started out as a staff writer on The West Wing – would subsequently lend his ear for political rectitude and media speak to another crackerjack newsroom drama in Spielberg’s The Post (2017).

"3000 men died here," John Du Pont proudly informs Mark Schultz of a Civil War battlefield near his Foxcatcher estate, where they hope to train the next era of Olympic champion wrestlers. That's no trifling factoid screenwriters E. Max Frye & Dan Futterman decide to include, as it immediately casts a shadow of death over the property, just like the overcast skies that linger in Greig Fraser's gloomy exterior shots.

You needn't be a wrestling buff to appreciate this stranger-than-fiction true story. Both Schultz (an intensely coiled Channing Tatum) and Du Pont (an eerily transformed Steve Carell) are chasing their own proverbial foxes, hoping to eclipse the legacy of their family names. A silent sparring session early in the first act tells us everything we need to know about Mark’s fraught, tethered relationship with his brother Dave (the superb Mark Ruffalo); And the avian ornaments that decorate Du Pont’s colonial mansion wordlessly stand in defiance of his condescending mother. As products of the "U-S-A! U-S-A!" mentality that this film stealthily satirizes, we know that such a secession will only ever happen through blood.

Coolest award or nomination:

Cannes Film Festival – Best Director (Bennett Miller)

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Miller’s sharp previous feature Moneyball (2011) (already discussed on this countdown) is another “sports movie” that’s less interested in sports than in holding an ambitious underdog beneath the microscope and finding numerous inroads into character. But its easygoing disposition would make an odd bedfellow with Foxcatcher’s dourness. Much as I hate to further obfuscate the line between cinema and television – though it did manage to run away with an Oscar before the documentary branch tightened their eligibility criteria – Ezra Edelman’s epic five-part miniseries OJ: Made in America (2016) feels right at home alongside Foxcatcher, using sports mythos to frame the tragic unravelling of a man in pursuit of the American Dream.

A disturbing af work of art that gets under your skin and stays there against your will, this grief diary told from the perspective of a school shooter's mother almost borders on 'too difficult to watch', however it's too artful to be written off as such. The filmmaking team’s bold commitment to the off-putting conceit of this project merits applause, even if admirers aren’t exactly clamouring to watch it twice (I had to wait eight years before giving it a second shot).

But multiple viewings are needed in order to plumb the hidden complexities of Tilda Swinton's near catatonic performance, and to fully absorb Ramsey's nightmarish mise-en-scène: Sanguine memories bleeding out of all speakers, each frame stained with strokes of incriminating red. Lady MacBeth herself wouldn't have had such a hard time absolving herself of the guilt.

After the echo of sirens and sprinklers recede into silence, we are left with one guttural question: “Why?” Ramsay knows better than to have Kevin offer a clear answer. There’s no making sense of this.

Coolest award or nomination:

Evening Standard and London Critics Circle Film Award [nominations] – Best Technical Achievement, Sound Design (Paul Davies)

Also worth checking out:

If you thought this one was a brutal, stifling sit (and who wouldn’t), wait until you get a load of Ramsay’s long-awaited follow-up You Were Never Really Here (2017), in which a traumatized vet tracking down abducted girls (an utterly possessed Joaquin Phoenix) descends into madness. Her aptitude for hallucinogenic fever dreams is beyond dispute.

The first image we’re met with, staring directly at us, is the face of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But this is not the Dr. King we know from the sound bites and footage that canonized him as a mighty orator with a famous dream. This Dr. King looks uncomfortable, restless in his own skin. The Dr. King he sees in the mirror is unfamiliar to him as well; All dressed up to accept an award for peace when he knows how much sacrifice and struggle is yet to be endured.

Just as he gazes at his reflection, contemplating how far he's come and how far he's still to go, so too does Selma hold a mirror up to America and ask its people to consider the same questions. DuVernay has no intention of making a cut-and-paste procedural of the protests that King (revivified in the commanding timbre of David Oyelowo) led through Alabama in the summer of 1965, nor of dampering its echoes in the troubled racial politics of today. Though set in the past, Selma is now, for every man, woman, and child; A glorious rallying cry for a movement that must continue marching forward. In an election year with a high threat of voter suppression, now is an apt time to revisit it.

Coolest award or nomination:

Cinema for Peace Award – Most Valuable Film of the Year (Ava DuVernay)

Also worth checking out:

While some films interrogate history to activate the present, others ensnare the zeitgeist more directly. The linkages between Selma’s civil rights marches and the Black Lives Matter movement may be clear but are not mutually inclusive, whereas films such as Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale (2013) and George Tillman Jr.’s The Hate U Give (2018) – the latter being especially valuable in its frank packaging of challenging ideas for young audiences – offer persuasive, contemporary dramatizations on the need for BLM mobilization.

Heller wields impeccable control over that tricky so-sad-it's-funny tone that many seriocomic dramas attempt but fail to achieve. As biographer-turned-forger Lee Israel, Melissa McCarthy hits every cutting line of dialogue and guarded reaction shot with the precision of a flawlessly timed typewriter key stroke. She and Richard E. Grant concoct a devilish chemistry that exudes genuine affection through their spiny verbal sparring.

Like all the best NYC-set movies, the city is less a ‘character’ itself than a reflection of the characters who live in that world; All its cramped Greenwich Village bookshops and cavernous dive bars are transported here back to the early 90’s with an appreciation for historical specificity and underscored with wistful jazz, perfectly channeling both Israel’s love of words and her deep-seated loneliness. Holofcener & Whitty’s screenplay boasts a command of language that Israel herself would surely drink to.

Coolest award or nomination:

Writer Guild of America – Best Adapted Screenplay (Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty)

Also worth checking out:

Flanked by Diary of a Teenage Girl (2017) and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), Heller’s first three features have announced her as one of the most incisive and formally adventurous young storytellers on the scene today. Whatever her next project in our new decade of cinema is, I’m there!

Few DreamWorks productions deign to make a movie that's more about heart than it is about lowball kiddy humour and pop culture references, but credit where it's due; DeBlois & Sanders see to it that the evolving relationship between a boy and his best animal friend is evoked with tact, emotional honesty, and – in its best moments – wonderfully animated body language.

It still rankles that the young Vikings lack the distinct highland brogues of their elders (at what age do they stop speaking American are start speaking Scottish?), but I suppose you could read that as a blunt underscoring of a generational paradigm shift, from fearful warmongering to empathy and pacifism. Valuable conversation fodder for children of any age.

No movie this decade made better use of 3D, lending credible hair-raising depth to those vertiginous flight sequences. Under the astute consultation of master cinematographer Roger Deakins, the DreamWorks team can also hang their hats on several of the most attractive frames their animation studio has ever rendered. Feast your eyes!

Coolest award or nomination:

Academy Award [nomination] – Best Original Score (John Powell)

Also worth checking out:

Though neither of the sequels quite match the lyrical simplicity of the charming first chapter, both How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) and Dragons 3 (2019) are still stirring adventures in their own right, unafraid to raise the stakes and make some weighty dramatic decisions. They nicely unify a franchise-spanning theme about the turbulent transition from childhood to adulthood, with characters who mature accordingly along the way.

For a less Americanized take on the ‘boy and his dog’ formula, Bong Joon-ho’s Okja (2017) provides a huggable human-pet bond that emanates pure sunshine amid dark overtones.

Fond, astute, sweet but never saccharine, Kore-eda's sensitive sketch of a family of cast-offs eking out an existence under society’s rug is captivating in its intimacy, and heartbreaking in its critique of rigid societal norms. Thanks to an organic ensemble performance, you never doubt that these disparate misfits would choose each other, and you never doubt that their bonds are just as strong – arguably more so, as contemplated by Nobuyo (the wonderful Sakura Andô) – than those within a traditional nuclear family.

Kore-eda’s invisibly precise direction forces us (without insisting) to make our own assessments of the numerous moral quandaries, be they trivial or life-changing, that will come to define the “Shibata” clan. He resists hollow axioms along the lines of “nobody’s poor who is rich in love”, instead illustrating how the Shibatas’ bottom rung socioeconomic status is ultimately the loose thread that will unravel the tight-knit home they’ve found in each other.

It’s a movie that I just want to give a great big bear hug at the end, and softly whisper in its ear, “This is what someone does when they love you.”

Coolest award or nomination:

Cannes Film Festival – Palme d’Or (Hirokazu Kore-eda)

Also worth checking out:

Kore-eda professedly was inspired (in part) by his own previous feature Like Father, Like Son (2013), or at least by the ponderance it raises about whether blood ties are what truly define a ‘family’. But whereas Shoplifters is more multifaceted in weaving the web of relationships between family members and society at large, Like Father, Like Son approaches the more singular connection between a man and the 6-year-old boy he raised, only to suddenly discover that due to a hospital mix-up the kid is not his biological offspring (oopsy)! But does that make him any less his son?

This unassuming drama, backdropped by the child welfare system, requires no antagonists nor overt conflict for us to develop concern and attachment to its characters. The film is populated entirely by decent people at war with themselves, their pasts, and their futures, rather than with each other. The heated arguments and violent outbursts merely open windows through which we can see the true battles that rage within. Cretton's script never gives direct face to the personal demons that loom over these kids. He only ever reveals them in the form of scars. The abuse, neglect, and social indifference that infects these youths becomes an intangible and all the more serious threat, but without pulling focus from what Short Term 12 is really about: Healing the wounds. The heart… it bursts!

Cretton was blessed with a remarkable young cast, which included future Oscar winners Brie Larson & Rami Malek, among other stars-in-the-making LaKeith Stanfield & Kaitlyn Dever.

Coolest award or nomination:

Gotham Independent Film Award – Best Actress (Brie Larson)

Also worth checking out:

Larson’s palpable magic with child actors would prove the most indispensable ingredient of her landmark performance in Lenny Abrahamson’s Room (2015), capturing lightning in a bottle with 8 year old co-star Jacob Tremblay. Like Short Term 12, it also bores into the messy ‘two steps forward, one step back’ process of healing and learning to live with past trauma. Who knew captivity could be so comforting and freedom so suffocating?