My Top Ten Films of the Past Decade


Hi. Boy, do I love movies. However, if your taste is some highbrow "Sense and Sensibility" or "The English Patient" stuff ... I'm afraid you've wandered into the wrong room. No Merchant Ivory productions here, pal.

But some darned good flicks, nonetheless. Enjoy.

1. Pulp Fiction



Tarantino's effort dwarfs all before it in style, wit and originality (the violence didn't hurt much either!).*grins* Favourite scenes include the discussion about hamburgers in France (!), the visit to the apartment to recover Marcellus' suitcase, the dancefloor, the rednecks in the basement, the standoff in the restaurant ..oh what the heck..ALL OF THEM ARE GREAT!

2. The Sweet Hereafter



Atom Egoyan's poignant depiction of life in a Canuck town, in the wake of an horrific accident, is a haunting portrayal of guilt, blame, and, ultimately, absolution. Creepily superb.

3. Planes Trains and Automobiles



Not a lot of 'hilariously funny!!!' films make me laugh, but Steve Martin and John Candy had my tummy hurting from so much chortling over this beauty. Comedy as it should be. Wanna see Steve Martin being unfunny? Try Father of the Bride or a lot of his other recent efforts.

4. The Player



Tim Robbins is ultra cool in this Hollywood behind-the-scenes look at the shallowness of moviemaking. Get a load of Altman's great opening shot that goes on for , like, ages! (OK, I know everyone talks about that scene. Get over it.)

5. Reservoir Dogs



Okay, so I'll join the bandwagon and put a second Tarantino effort into my list. A few have copied the "heist gone wrong" scenario since (most recently Kevin Spacey's Albino Alligator), but this is the best since Al Pacino's great turn in Dog Day Afternoon many moons ago.

6. Fargo



Just coz The Sweet Hereafter AND Fargo are in this list doesn't necessarily mean I have a special fondness for films set in bleak snowdrifts (coz if I did, Grizzly Adams would be in here somewhere!).No, another key ingredient is a high body count. Just joshin' ya. No, seriously, Frances MacDormand (Mrs Joel Coen) is great as the feisty cop in this Coen Bros offbeat pic. And any movie with Steve Buscemi in it has gotta be a plus.

7. 12 Monkeys



Terry Gilliam (he of Monty Python fame) directed this sci fi puzzler about time, reality and sanity - and their flipsides. I usually like Bruce Willis, and here he discards his normal wisecracking style for a bemused, guilt-ridden role as a time traveller from the future. This is a little beauty of a sci fi pic - at the very least the equal of other masterpieces of the genre like Blade Runner, Men in Black and 2001: A Space Odyssey ... and certainly streets ahead of rubbish like Stargate, Independence Day and Mars Attacks!. You see more little features of this movie with each viewing.

8. Falling Down



Michael Douglas portrays the frustration of "everyman" (so I guess that includes me *chuckle*) in this pic of urban desperation. He has the lot to deal with: a lost job, a failed marriage, a traffic jam, fast-food outlets, punks and hoods at every streetcorner, immigrants, toffee-nosed golf club members, unfair retail pricing ... the lot. I identify with all this. I cope with it on a daily basis; Michael Douglas' character's solution is to run amok with a virtual armoury as he walks from one side of Los Angeles to the other.
He's a loner, a loser, and he's mad as hell. Good on 'im. *grin*

9. Titanic



Well, what can I add to the screeds of stuff that has been written about the 1997 blockbuster?? Among those who went for the teen romance, versus those who went for the re-creation of a fascinating slice of history ... count me among the latter. If I see it again I'll be facing the challenge of fast forwarding through all the Dicaprio/Winslet scenes, in order to enjoy James Cameron's masterly technical production. (That could be quite a task, too: the camera seems to linger longingly on Dicaprio's cheesy face for most of the film *grin*.) I unashamedly cried; what a series of fateful coincidences, what a series of errors, what a tragedy of humanity. The world was indeed, never the same afterwards.



10. From Dusk Till Dawn



Okay, okay, so this is a bit of a dodgy choice, but we are down to number ten, and I was getting a bit desperate to fill the spot. So .. nothing too surprising in my selection, I guess, based on my earlier Top Ten films ..Quentin Tarantino wrote the screenplay and Robert Rodriguez (of Desperado fame) directed. It's a bloodfest, but a funny, goofy one. Some cute movie in-jokes, some nice dialogue, some wild special effects, make it a worthwhile watch. E.R.'s George Clooney was (unexpectedly) a delight ... he caught the tongue-in-cheek tone brilliantly - although his role is, on the surface, the straight man.

Of course, the greatest motion picture of all time is certainly Casablanca.


In the meantime, if you wanna email me to violently disagree with my choices, please feel free to do so ... email Steve

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