Top 10 Lists

The Manifesto is counting down its Top 25 Movies of 2011. If you missed Part I, check it out here.

15. Crazy, Stupid, Love. A happy mess of a movie, Crazy, Stupid, Love. skates nimbly across the surface of a number of genres, from coming-of-age story to midlife-crisis mania to the lothario with the heart of gold. But underlying all of these stories is a core of genuine sweetness, and it’s that sincerity that elevates the film from a disposable pleasure to a singular snapshot of contemporary romance. Dan Fogelman’s screenplay, which features its share of legitimate surprises, has a warm regard for its characters, and the inordinately talented cast (Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling co-headline as sap and stud, respectively, with Julianne Moore and Emma Stone providing superlative support as shrew and sex kitten) imbue their parts with undeniable humanity. Directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa put the players through their humiliating paces – most memorably in a hilarious slice of farce – but they also undergird the playfulness with real pathos that only rarely stumbles into sanctimony. In the end, the film is a winning reminder that, while love may indeed be crazy and stupid, movies about it can be smart and true. Read More

What a year.

Formerly an annual vehicle devoted exclusively to analyzing the Oscars, the Manifesto has now been running in blog format since 2008, meaning this marks the fourth time I’ve dedicated a specific post to the best films of a particular year. On each prior occasion, my tone in those would-be celebratory posts was vaguely alarmist; even as I trumpeted a handful of great movies and exhorted readers to see them, I lamented that the vast majority of that year’s films failed to excite me. Such involuntary pessimism annoyed me, because the last thing I want is to come off as one of those stodgy, the-cinematic-sky-is-falling critics who constantly grouses that movies aren’t what they used to be. Still, I couldn’t escape the gnawing sensation that, as much as I enjoyed going to the movies and always would, cinema as a whole was settling into a state of pleasant, disposable entertainment rather than reinforcing its stature as a vital medium for energizing the public.

Not in 2011. As of today’s date, I’ve seen 166 movies released during 2011 (77 in theatres, plus another 88 on Netflix and one original HBO production). If you include the honorable-mention selections, the forthcoming three posts will highlight a whopping 34 of these films, good for over 20%. Admittedly, not all of these movies are masterpieces – rather, they’ve ranged from “flawed but intriguing” to “pretty damn good” to “fucking great” – but they are all worth watching. And that’s worth celebrating.

On to the list. Here are the Manifesto’s Top 25 Movies of 2011: Read More

If you missed Part I of this list, you can check it out here. Moving right along, here are the Manifesto’s Top 10 Movies of 2010:

10. Fair Game. As befits a film based on books by Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, Doug Liman’s political thriller is overtly partisan, bristling with outrage from its authors and scorn for the Bush White House. Politics aside, however, Fair Game is a canny, invigorating piece of muckraking cinema. Tightly plotted, crisply edited (remember, Liman made the first and best Bourne picture), and laden with verisimilitude, the movie swiftly and efficiently paints a portrait of both a country in turmoil and a marriage in crisis. Naomi Watts is typically sharp as outed CIA operative Plame, but it’s Sean Penn who provides the film’s real force. Bringing his considerable talent to bear, Penn portrays Wilson as part righteous firebrand, part weary husband, a confident, decent man lashing out at the institutions who have failed him. Fair Game may inspire heated reactions (perhaps if anyone actually saw it), but it’s a reminder that hushed conversations and shadowy figures can form the backdrop for a movie as gripping as any blockbuster. Read More

Movie critics are supposed to publish year-end top 10 lists. It’s part of our job (and while I receive no income for holding this alleged “job”, I’m still labeling myself a critic and that’s that). Sure, you can grouse about how it’s morally objectionable to rank subjective works of art against one another or how 10 is an arbitrary figure (I particularly enjoyed New York Times critic Manohla Dargis seething that our habit of composing 10-item lists functions as tacit approval of the Ten Commandments), but readers have a ravenous appetite for easily digestible summaries of the year that was, and it’s our duty to oblige them.

Back in 2007, I defied this silent edict and published a list of the top fifteen movies of the year rather than my usual decathlon. My rationale was entirely laudatory – there were simply more stellar films than there was available space on a catalog of 10. And while I couldn’t quite label titles such as Charlie Wilson’s War or Juno as one 2007’s 10 best films, I couldn’t in good conscience exclude them from my commemoration of the year’s superlative features. I had no choice: I had to expand the list to 15. Read More

Before getting to the best films of 2009, a quick recap of my Oscar performance. (Yeah, from four months ago. I’ve been busy. Or lazy. Whatever.) Of the 21 categories I predicted, I hit correctly on 17 of them, or 81%. That’s my high-water mark since 2003 (when The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was such a juggernaut that it could have turned Grady Little into Nostradamus), so I’m reasonably pleased overall. I’m disappointed that I missed on Best Original Screenplay, where Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker held off Tarantino’s edgier script for Inglourious Basterds, and I’m shocked – shocked – that Precious defeated Up in the Air for Best Adapted Screenplay. But otherwise, it’s hard to complain about shooting over 80%. For what it’s worth, I’m completely confident that my success rate will dip dramatically in 2010.

O.K., on to everyone’s favorite feature, my Top 10 list for the year in film. Looking back on the year at the movies as a whole, I have to regard it with a sense of apathy that’s becoming alarmingly familiar. I saw 88 different movies in the theatre in 2009, and very few of them generated true enthusiasm from me. Don’t get me wrong, I liked a considerable number of the films that I watched. That’s normal for me – if I didn’t like most movies I watched, I wouldn’t watch so many. But I don’t want to like movies. I want to love them. And whether it’s a result of a shift in my personal ideology (could my taste as a critic actually be maturing? I doubt it) or a decline in the quality of both studio and art-house fare (a more disturbing theory), I’m having a hard time loving movies these days. The simple truth is that, while I’m frequently content with what I see, I’m far less likely to actively stump for the vast majority of it. And that’s a shame, because I want other people to see movies. They’re my primary passion in life, and if people stop seeing them, then during conversation I’ll be forced to resort to riffing about the majesty of Jon Lester’s cut fastball in order to keep myself entertained. Read More