Jeremy Beck, Author at MovieManifesto

The Best Films of the 2000s (Part II)

February 26, 2010May 16, 2022 Jeremy BeckTop 10 Lists

(Quick note before I conclude my rundown of the decade’s best films: In addition to this list and my compendium of the Best Performances of the 2000s, I also considered compiling a list of the decade’s best individual scenes. I worked on this briefly before determining such a monumental task to be untenable. First of all, while these superlative-style lists tend to focus on recognizing excellence – hence the moniker “Best of” – even bad movies have good scenes (see: this scene in Crash), making such a catalog somewhat incongruous. More importantly, while I’m reasonably confident that I can remember all of the great movies I’ve seen over the past 10 years, I’m equally confident that in no way can I recall every great scene. I’ve just watched too many films, meaning I’d inevitably leave out a terrific set piece, and then I’d hate myself. So, no dice.

I can, however, with absolute certainty, declare what would have been my number one choice had I followed through and created such a list. It’s this one. Nothing else even comes close.)

Alright, in the words of Kurt Russell in Tombstone, let’s finish it. If you missed Part I, revealing slots 11-25, check it out here. And now, for the Manifesto’s 10 Best Films of the 2000s: Read More

These predictions are five by five …

February 3, 2010January 26, 2020 Jeremy BeckOscars

What could the Manifesto’s Oscar nomination predictions possibly have to do with the classic television show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”? I shall explain.

One of my favorite things to do as I walk through life is to make references to my favorite movies and TV shows whenever possible. It is, I find, one of the ways in which I add value to the world. For example, one of my proudest moments at my old job occurred when I pretended to stumble into a meeting and mock-screamed, “It’s O.K., I’m here, we can start the meeting now!”. My buddy Pat recognized the reference to Anchorman. He laughed. It was funny.

Alright, maybe you had to be there, but the point is that my brain tends to operate on this level, and I know I’m not the only one – everyone appreciates a well-timed movie reference. Of course, I recognize that, if abused, this technique can go from “amusing” to “tedious” to “I’m going to kill your family if you quote ‘Seinfeld” one more time”. (Judd Apatow recognized this as well, which is why for his brilliant TV show “Undeclared” he created a character who spoke exclusively in movie quotes and drove everyone around him completely crazy.) But for the most part, whilst in conversation, the spontaneous delivery of a pertinent movie reference constitutes an incredibly high form of humor. Like dick and fart jokes. Read More

2009 Oscar Nomination Predictions

February 1, 2010January 26, 2020 Jeremy BeckOscars

In the words of See-Threepio, here we go again.

The nominations for the eighty-second annual Academy Awards will be released this Tuesday morning (by Anne Hathaway!), meaning Oscar season is officially upon us. As Hubie Brown might ask, what does that mean? Well, in theory, it means that the Manifesto will kick into high gear over the next month and generate detailed, category-specific posts, each laden with cogent analysis, prescient predictions, and my trademark “Oh great, he just made another fucking Harry Potter reference” witticisms. In practice, it’s entirely possible that my brain will short-circuit while trying to balance my blogging responsibilities with my academic duties, and my family will stage an intervention and fit me with an electronic collar that zaps me with 500 volts whenever I even think about the Oscars. We’ll see what happens – it’s really 50-50.

Alright, before I get to my nomination predictions, I feel obliged to address one of the ballsiest decisions the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has ever made, and no, I’m not talking about selecting Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin to co-host the show (terrific move, by the way). Earlier this year, the Academy announced that it was expanding the Best Picture category from the usual five nominees to a more hospitable 10. In historical terms, this was akin to FDR deciding, “Screw it, just because the first 31 presidents respected the unwritten rule of two term limits doesn’t mean I’m leaving the White House”. For anyone who follows the movie industry, this was, to say the least, a big deal. But the question is, was it a good decision?

The answer: No. But not for the reason you might think. Read More

The Best Films of the 2000s (Part I)

January 29, 2010April 28, 2019 Jeremy BeckTop 10 Lists

Well, that was grueling.

Alright, in case you missed it, my Best Performances of the 2000s post articulated my attitude toward lists, namely that they’re inherently absurd but also compulsively readable. That list was also incredibly difficult to make, but compared to my next task, it was easier than playing Seeker while high on Felix Felicis. A top 10 list of the best movies of the entire decade? Now that’s intense. In terms of the most nerve-wracking, pressurized, “I feel like Ron Burgundy reading the news without a teleprompter” moments in my life, creating a list of the decade’s 10 best films fell somewhere between “Taking the LSAT” and “Shooting two free throws with my team down two and no time left on the clock”.

And I failed. Miserably.

I’m sorry, I just couldn’t do it. I can’t precisely quantify how many movies I’ve seen over the past 10 years, but I’m guessing the tally is around 800. Do you honestly think I can coherently assemble a compendium representing the best 1.25% of those films? It would be like being tasked with choosing the 10 best baseball players of all-time, or the 10 best Emma Watson moments in film history. You can’t possibly do it without omitting contenders that merit a mention. It would be a moral violation of all things just and true. Read More

The best performances of the 2000s

January 3, 2010April 28, 2019 Jeremy BeckFeatures

Lists are idiotic. I love them.

O.K., so I know that’s one of those glib contradictions that invariably results in eye-rolling, but it really does represent my paradoxical attitude toward lists, at least when it comes to ranking works of art. In a sense, lists are an extension of star ratings because they provide a hard-and-fast method of numerical comparison; movie #7 is ranked higher than movie #8, so therefore, movie #7 is better by definition. And this notion, taken in its purest form, is simply farcical. The reason I’m so staunchly opposed to grading movies with star ratings (for the record, I hereby solemnly vow that you will never see a star rating at the Manifesto) is that I firmly believe that the notion of assigning a quantitative value to a work of art is profoundly stupid. I recognize that one of the primary functions of a critic is distillation – we’re supposed to condense our thoughts on a two-hour movie into a reasonably short, readable piece that concisely and clearly represents our overall opinion – but there’s a line between summing things up in a handful of paragraphs and just picking a number that mystically functions as a conclusive evaluation. Adherents of the mechanism will stress that star ratings supplement the text of their review instead of merely substituting for lucid writing, but how many readers, when given the option, choose to skip the words and glance at the number? It’s the easy way out.