Top 5 Films of 2009

As the first decade of the new millennium is coming to a close (Again, I understand that technically 2010 will be the last year of the decade, but no one seems to recognize that so I join in with the rest of the herd), 2009 has proven to be a pretty decent year for movies. Decent, not great. Some critics call it the best year of the decade. Not even close. 2007 was the best year, bar none. There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton, Assassination of Jesse James, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, No Country For Old Men, Zodiac, the list goes on and on...

That's not to say 2009 didn't see its share of masterpieces. After the usual crap fest released during January and February, the studios' dumping ground post-Oscar season, the year started strong in March with a surprisingly faithful adaptation of "Watchmen", the first and (probably only) truly adult superhero movie. The summer season, full of tent pole blockbuster fare, was a sore disappointment to say the least (With one glorious exception), especially considering 2008's one-two punch of The Iron Man and The Dark Knight, arguably two of the best superhero films ever made.

This year's impressive big budget fare? We unfortunately saw McG Double Whopper Jr.'s abhorrent Terminator: Salvation (It's bad news when your film makes Terminator 3 look like T2). We watched Hugh Jackman cash in his gigantic check for two hours with X-Men Mediocrities: Wolverine. And we had our senses obliterated, our common intelligence significantly lowered, and lost all hope for humanity with Transformers 2: Revenge of The Sub Woofer, one of the worst movies of the decade. The only saving point was scored by JJ Abrams and his fresh take on Star Trek, the aforementioned glorious exception.

After the mind-numbing summer, we again hit a dry patch with September, the studios' second dumping ground. Then, we hit the ground running with the start of the awards season and we haven't slowed down since. An Education, Up In The Air and Invictus were welcome surprises (Especially Up In The Air, considering I hated Juno). At this point, I still haven't seen Bad Lieutenant, Crazy Heart, Me and Orson Welles and Moon, which I predict might have a shot at The Top 10, if not The Top 5.

So here it is, The Top 5 Films of 2009:

5- The Hurt Locker:

The fact that The Hurt Locker takes place during the current Iraq war is almost an afterthought. It could have taken place during the crusades and it probably would be just as effective.

Katherine Bigelow's powerful film about the lives of an elite bomb squad in Iraq is fully immersing and empathetic with its characters, without plunging too much into unnecessary exposition.

We practically live with these soldiers for two and a half hours, yet we never really know who they really are. We never find out anything really specific about them, much like the way personal relationships must be between soldiers in the field.

This was one of those rare war films that examine the soldiers' state of mind during the war rather than the politics of the specific war itself. It does what many other lesser films try to accomplish: It throws a controversial quote at us at the beginning and actually manages to fully examine the meaning and the ramifications of that quote through the rest of its running time. Yes, to some people war is a drug. It doesn't matter what side they fight and why. After a while, as crazy as it sounds, it becomes the status quo.

The Hurt Locker was the most visceral and horrifying movie going experience of the year. Bigelow handles the many bomb threat scenes with adequate suspense and bravado, yet they are never showy or arrogant.

"The Curse of The Iraq War Movie", which guarantees any fictional film made about the Iraq war will fail at the box-office, inevitably caught up with The Hurt Locker, but there is at least a good chance it will receive a best picture and director nomination. One can hope.

4- Where The Wild Things Are:

How you react to Where The Wild Things Are depends a lot on your personality. The film is, quite simply, what it is. It is a journey into a child's imagination, a wondrous and carefree land created by the child as an escape from the real world. Of course, that's not to say it is perfect. The real world always finds a way of creeping inside even our most seemingly carefree fantasies.

There is no forced plot, or a hero's journey. Max, the boy, and the wild things, are not sent away to retrieve a powerful ring, or a pair of magical shoes needed to bring Max back to his real world. Max can return any time he wants. There is no manufactured antagonist, an evil wizard, or a bad wild thing, strayed away from the pack, swearing to exact revenge. There is only Max, and his imagination.

Since the film is stripped of all conventional plotting or narrative, we are given freedom to delve into our imagination alongside Max's. Therefore, like I mentioned above, unlike many other films, your personality will determine whether or not you'll enjoy Where The Wild Things Are.

Either you think it's a wondrous and endlessly creative land full of fun and imagination, or you think Max is a brat who needs to suck it up and face his responsibilities. Both reactions would be correct in their own way. And some, like me, will not really know how to feel but will acknowledge it as one of the most unique and daring children's films to be made in ages, and one of the best films of the year.

3- Avatar:

Yes, it is a somewhat condescending white male fantasy driven by white guilt. Yes, it is Dances With Wolves in space. Yes, it is simplistic and cliched at times. And yes, we complain way too much.

What happened? Is it that classic American tradition of "all or nothing" creeping back in? Are we forgetting that the highest grossing film of 2009 before Avatar was Transformers 2, one of the dumbest films ever made? Here are a couple more yes':

Yes, it is an exhilarating adventure in the most classic sense. Yes, it restored my faith in big budget event film making. Yes, it is endlessly entertaining and breathtaking. Yes, it raises the bar in special effects in previously unimaginable ways. Yes, every frame is a wonder to behold. Yes, it creates individual characters and gives clear, universal motivations to them and then lead us into grand action set pieces where the end result actually matters, instead of randomly banging a bunch of CGI metal together. Yes, it creates a brand new world with its own set of rules and sticks to those rules instead of reinventing itself as it goes along. And yes, is it fun to watch, from the first moment to the last. Keep complaining, Transformers 3 is around the corner.

2- A Serious Man:

This was a hard choice. Is A Serious Man the best film of the year, or is it the second? The only way I was able to make up my mind was to remind myself how arbitrary list making can be sometimes. In many cases, just because we put a number on something does not necessarily mean it's better or worse than the numbers before or after it. So, A Serious Man is the "second best" film of the year. But I will not argue with anyone who claims it's the best. In many ways, it is.

Here's what I wrote about it in a previous post: "What an amazing film this was. In the middle of this shit storm of mediocrity full of bland superhero movies, bad toy/video game adaptations, sequels, franchise re-boots, unapologetically benign cutesy indie flicks, A Serious Man is truly a breath of fresh air.

Every single minute of this film is unpredictable, honest, genuinely funny, genuinely sad and original, a word that couldn't be used to describe an American film for a long, long time."

Still true.

1- Up:

I've written so much about this miracle of a film in both Turkish and English, that I'll let my blurb from the Top 10 Best Films of The 2000s (In which it placed 7th) do all the work:

"The decade ends with 2009's Up, a true animation classic. One that not only presents an endlessly exciting and breath taking adventure, it also accomplishes something seldom seen in American animation: It has real characters, with real feelings, dreams and motivations. Even though it is part of a format generally marketed to kids, not one frame of it has even a speck of that familiar pandering and condescension observed in countless animated films, especially ones that were released during the 00s.

Underneath the delightful fantasy of Carl Fredericksen, a cranky septuagenarian, voyaging to Paradise Falls with his flying house to fulfill a promise to his wife Ellie, lies a beautifully told story about a man's personal journey into dealing with his own grief and finding new purpose in his life, executed with endless empathy and compassion.

Directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson go out of their way to crush every children's film cliche known to man. Russell, Carl's unwanted child companion, is not treated as an adult in a child's body, the way children are depicted in almost every family film, but as a real child, confused, goofy and sometimes even annoying. The talking dogs don't have human characteristics or mannerisms, they simply articulate a dog's thought pattern. Balls are good, squirrels are bad. This is, quite simply, a wonderful film."

The Low 5: Five Worst Films of The 2000s

Last July, right around the time Transformers 2 came out, I read a letter someone wrote to Roger Ebert concerning the compounded amount of time lost watching Transformers 2. This person took the number of people who have seen the movie around the world and multiplied it with its mind-numbingly brutal two and a half hour running time and came up with the world-wide, communal time wasted on this piece of shit. The result was something like 300 years. Four lifetimes, wasted on Transformers 2.

We usually discard any bad movie going experience immediately after the experience itself, saying something along the lines of "That was horrible. Let's go have some drinks." But do we realize how much time we really waste sitting through moronic, inept (or unapologetically mediocre), morally corrupt, nausea and/or headache inducing and downright terrible films in any given year, let alone a decade? If we did, I'm sure we'd be much more careful with our film choices. Just this year alone, I had to sit through Gamer, G-Force, Final Destination 3D, Transformers 2, Terminator: Salvation, Night at The Museum 2, Fast and Furious... Already, that's almost an entire day. An entire day out of my year, lost.

About the time wasted during the entirety of the 2000s watching terrible movies, the number is probably too painful to bare, so I won't even attempt to find that out. But it is without a doubt that the first decade of the 00s has seen its share of crap. It is near impossible to pick only five films as the worst films of the decade when there are so many to choose, but I did my best.

Bear in mind that that the films below are ones that I find to be truly depressing, demoralizing and upsetting experiences. The kind where I used that disposable cliche, "I just wasted two hours of my life", and truly meant it. The kind of films that can actually make me lose hope in humanity and our future as a whole.

So, just as an example, The Room, which is without a doubt the worst film of the decade in the most technical sense, has brought me so much joy in the past year that it does not belong on this list. This low five is reserved only for those rare film going experiences that left me feeling disgusted, depressed and hallow. So here they are:

5- Charlie's Angels:

The first multi-million dollar movie directed by a McDonald's menu item. Here's your first clue: Any talentless, clueless, hip goatee-wearing douche bag music video director who insists on calling himself McG, will not a good director make. Combining this moron with a big screen remake of one of the dumbest shows on TV history, now that's just cruel.

For a long time after it's release in 2000, Charlie's Angels set the bench mark for utter, relentless stupidity in both action and comedy. For those of you who wondered why Terminator:Salvation sucked so much, you don't have to look any further than McG's freshman effort.

The action scenes are basically comprised of a combination of random slo-mo and bad wire-fu while McG shuffles his "hipster playlist" to blare out yet another painfully recognizable hit from the 90s. The attempts at "humor" are so obvious and inept, one scene actually involves the angels in drag. Of course, no mention of the terrible acting is necessary. All I'm saying is that when Tom Green delivers the best performance in your film, you're in deep trouble. Charlie's Angels is dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Repeat that for two hours, you'll have a better time.

4- Date Movie:

There's a scene in Mike Judge's underrated Idiocracy, when we find out that the highest grossing film in a future populated entirely by morons is a masterpiece called "Ass". Ass, which won many Oscars the year it came out, is composed entirely of a man's ass, farting every five seconds.

If there are any movies from this decade that proves beyond a doubt that this is where we're heading, it's the "Movie" movies by the mentally challenged "comedy" team Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. The fact that I didn't even double-check to find out how their names are spelled when I shouldn't even know who these people are makes me feel incredibly depressed.

Trying desperately to cash in on the mildly successful Scary Movie franchise (Which wasn't a masterpiece but at least it contained what could be called "jokes"), the "Movie" movies such as Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet The Spartans (Change of pace here, the only original move by the team) and Disaster Movie are paler than pale imitations of the spoof genre. Rather than actually exploiting the loopholes and the cliches of the popular genre they are "examining", the craptastic team merely show us random pop-culture icons of the day and have stuff fall on them.

For example: A bad actor poorly imitating Borat shows up out of nowhere, ineptly recites a line directly lifted from his movie, and a cow falls on him. Repeat until movie's over. The films are not only devoid of any sign of intelligence, or wit, or any coherent thought for that matter, they are also shameless scams designed to suck out any hard earned money from their core dumber-than-a-bag-of-dumb-bricks audience.

The films are shot on a very low budget (Which shows), they are barely 70 minutes long (With the team trying desperately to stretch out the running time with excruciatingly long credits sequences that involve very unfunny out takes) and they shamelessly grab onto any opportunity to use product placement, no matter how obvious.

If you consider that merely 30 years ago, comedy masterpieces like Blazing Saddles and Airplane were considered to be the lowest form of entertainment, we are not too far away from Ass: The Movie. By the way, the only reason I single out Date Movie is because it's the one that started this crap fest, and is therefore more responsible than the rest. Otherwise, the films are interchangeable.

3- Wolf Creek:

The 00's will go down in history as the decade that killed the horror genre. Seriously, what happened to the fun in watching a horror movie? What happened to popping in a good horror film and being thrilled and scared, while all the time realizing it's made for "entertainment"? These days, after watching a horror movie, I'm either bored beyond belief, or I feel the need to take a long shower to wash the filth off.

The two genres of horror that dominated the 00s decided to go to two opposite extremes. The slew of Asian horror remakes (Dubbed J-Horror) relied entirely too heavily on suspense without much payoff, and since they were all PG-13 it created a new audience for Horror that Hollywood could exploit. On the other side, the so-called torture porn sub-genre that became popular with the surprising success of Saw and Hostel, sucked out all the wit, fun, and the underlying dark sense of humor of the genre in order to bring us nothing but long, overdrawn, brutal killings.

I thought long and hard about why I hate Saw and Hostel (To be fair, the first Hostel is not "that" bad. At least it has some sense of humor), and all their sequels, spin-offs and knock-offs, and why I love older, sometimes much more violent and graphic horror franchises like Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and even Scream. I think the main issue is that those films, no matter how violent, asked us to identify with the victim and feel their terror when they are chased by the kitchen knife wielding masked maniac.

Torture porn, on the other hand, asks us to identify with the killer, and to take pleasure out of the brutal killing of the victim. The issue is never how terrifying the murder is, it's how clever Jigsaw is in the way he drowned his victim in a tub full of pureed rotten pig corpses. How fun.

Any Saw movie could belong on this list. The reason I picked Wolf Creek, Australia's worst import since Kangaroo Jack, is because it's equally dull and despicable. NOTHING happens during its first hour of running time, and I mean nothing, absolutely nothing, nada, zip, nothing. We just watch a bunch of bimbos (One male, two female) driving around the Aussie outback, barely mentioning an almost non-existent sub-plot involving one bimbo sleeping with the other bimbo behind the third bimbo's back.

After director Aussie G'daymate, or whatever the fuck his name is, has enough time jerking us around a "story" he must have realized only merits about 10 minutes of running time, has our bimbos meet their killer. After that, we are asked to watch a girl walk over broken glass on her hands and knees for half an hour straight.

Another reason why I hate Wolf Creek and Hostel II more that their counterparts is because I do have a very big pet peeve about being asked to take pleasure in watching women brutally raped, tortured and killed in long, drawn out sequences. There must be a reason why, after the killer starts his butchering, that the director focuses entirely on the killing of the two girls and forgets about the male victim. There must be a reason why (Spoiler, if you give a shit) only the male character makes it out alive. To be honest, I don't want to know the reason.

2- Transformers 2: Revenge of The Fallen:

Unfortunately still fresh in my mind, there isn't much more I can write about this headache-inducing, proudly stupid, Ass: The Movie Part II, than my original review published a couple of months ago. I believe you'll find enough evidence there regarding my utmost disdain for this "film":

Click here to read my review.

Above: Mudflap and Skids. Michael Bay's response to Amos 'n' Andy.

1- Wanted:

Now we're in The Twilight Zone. Not only did this disgusting excuse for a film made a lot of money, it actually gathered some pretty positive reviews, praising its "dumb action". Roger Ebert gave it three stars, Richard Roeper raved about it. Many critics loved it. I really, really hope that they were all paid off. Because the thought of anyone liking Wanted is depressing to me.

A lot of people do like it, crazily enough. I got more hate mail regarding my incredibly negative review of the film on beyazperde than about any other review. Week after week for almost half a year, I received many facebook messages calling me a hack, a cinematic hate monger, an art-house film critic who has lost touch with the movie going public. If this is where the movie going public's pulse is, I'd rather be out of touch.

On the surface, Wanted is a colossally stupid film. It has no narrative or visual direction. The story is beyond ridiculous (Hired killers who can inexplicably bend bullets read about their assignments through messages hidden in textile), the acting is flat, and the action scenes have absolutely no purpose but to look cool, oh so fucking cool, so fucking awesome, aren't they awesome cool gnarly fucking awesome?!! So why does this single out Wanted as the decade's worst, when clearly dumber action fare was released in the last ten years?

The first reason is because in the middle of its humongous stupidity, director Timur Bekmambatorovotovodorobor (Cheap shot I know, but I really hate this guy) tries desperately to inject his film with fake artistry and make it look like something edgier and grittier and therefore worthy of more respect and cool points, when all we're watching is just another dumb action movie.

The second and much more important reason is how morally corrupt the story is. According to its protagonist, a lowly desk clerk who becomes a hired killer, we are all losers unless we become ruthless, soulless killers, brutally murdering people we don't even know just because their names can be read through a secret code in TEXTILE, FUCKING TEXTILE!!! GOD DAMN IT, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!?

Sorry, lost it there for a second. Yes, according to Wanted, we are all losers, unless we become part of a fascist killing machine and do not question authority. So much for individuality, huh? I would love for Wanted to fuck off and die but with a new video game on the shelves and a sequel in the works, not much hope of that. I am in The Twilight Zone.

Top 10 Movies of The 2000s, Part 2

Continuing from the previous article counting down the best films of the 00s, numbers 10 through 6, we now move on to the Top 5 Movies of the 2000s.

Numbers 10 through 6 were:

10- The Weather Man

9- Almost Famous

8- There Will Be Blood

7- Up

6- Adaptation

5- Michael Clayton:

Boy, was this a big surprise. Michael Clayton, written and directed by screenwriter Tony Gilroy as his first directorial effort, was marketed as a standard legal thriller a-la John Grisham, but proved to be something more, much more. It stars George Clooney in one of the most subtly nuanced performances of the decade as the title character, a corporate "fixer" whose own life is in the crapper.

When his ex-partner Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson in the only performance I can think of that even comes close to competing with Peter Finch in Network) loses his marbles during a billion dollar corporate poisoning lawsuit, his law firm brings in Clayton to "fix" the situation. As Clayton finds out more about Edens' case, he realizes that Edens had a lot to be insane about. Pretty soon, he's in over his head and he has very little time to figure out where his loyalty lies.

Sounds like standard Grisham-fare, doesn't it? On the surface, Michael Clayton is a great conspiracy thriller. But underneath, it's about the search for one's soul within a world that has lost its grip on the simplest of human morals for the almighty buck. Corporations can do almost anything to get ahead, to reach that bottom line, but what toll does it take on the souls of the people it trusts to make that happen?

Tony Gilroy's screenplay and direction is impeccable. Not one single piece of information is wasted. It's characterizations and structure are perfect. The script is the kind that should be studied and analyzed in screenwriting classes. Michael Clayton is a great film about the insanity of modern society and business and deserves to be compared to other similar masterpieces like The Insider and yes, even Network.

4- Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King:

If there is one genre that made its mark on the 00s, it was the big-budget fantasy franchise based on an established best-seller. From Harry Potter to Narnia and many knock-offs that are already forgotten (Does anyone actually remember Lemony Snicket?), fantasy was the name of the game in the new millennium.

But none of these efforts to cash in on the craze came even close to the awe-inspiring majesty of Peter Jackson's colossal undertaking of The Lord of The Rings. In all fairness, number four on this list should belong to the whole trilogy, but if I have to pick a specific film, Return of the King is without a doubt my first choice.

As a 4-hour-long third act to Tolkien's sprawling epic, The Return of The King is immensely entertaining. It does not lay to waste the six hours we spent watching The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers and presents us with one of the most spectacular finales to any fantasy epic.

3- Children of Men:

2006 saw the release of three influential films by three influential Mexican directors known as The Mexican New Wave. Alejandro Gonzales Inarittu's Babel was well received by critics but somehow did not connect with me. Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth was a fascinating adult fantasy that came really close to claiming a spot on this list.

Children of Men, on the other hand, is a different story. Alfonso Cuaron's ferociously raw and powerful masterpiece of speculative fiction is that very rare gem that comes along once every decade: It's a truly adult science fiction film that uses its futuristic world to hold a mirror to our contemporary society. The film's depiction of a childless world shows us both the depths of human ugliness and depravity and the little glimmer of hope that can emerge from the seemingly endless onslaught of fear and paranoia.

The look and feel of the film is magnificent at every turn. It contains not one, but three of the greatest single take shots in film history. The 10-minute, single-take sequence where Theo (Clive Owen) searches for Kee, the only pregnant woman in the whole world, through a full-blown battle between the army and the refugee insurgents was made to be analyzed and picked apart by film classes. Children of Men is a truly great film.

2- A.I.:

I can hear the whining and groaning. I don't care, Kubrick and Spielberg's Artificial Intelligence belongs on this list.

If The Weather Man is the most underrated film on the top 10, then surely A.I. is the most misunderstood. I can't tell you how many times since its release in 2001, I engaged in heated discussions and arguments about it, more than usually concerning the final 20 minutes.

Before we even get to the "Spielberg ruined Kubrick's vision by sugar-coating the material" argument, bear in mind that Kubrick wanted Spielberg to direct A.I. He felt the story was closer to his sensibilities. After working on the film for three decades completing a considerable amount of pre-production, Kubrick passed the torch to Spielberg and passed away shortly afterwards. That's why I prefer calling it Kubrick and Spielberg's A.I., as opposed to crediting Spielberg alone.

It's no wonder that most audiences were lost on A.I. and did not connect with it. Kubrick fans thought it was too cute, Spielberg fans thought it was too dark, and everyone else was just plain bored and confused. This is part of the reason I love A.I. so much. To me, it represents a perfect cocktail of two of my favorite directors.

It's a Spielberg film that has a very clear edge and attitude that doesn't exists in any of his other work, primarily because he was compelled to stay true to Kubrick's vision and could not sugar coat the material too much. At the same time, it is a perfect Kubrick film in many ways, without his usual cold detachment against human feelings and emotions. In fact, considering that the story's about a robot who tries to become human and therefore have "real feelings", it's no wonder Kubrick tried to pass it off to Spielberg.

Even though it looks like A.I. is already forgotten, there are still articles being written about its many underlying themes, metaphors and subjects. And I'm sure movie nerds everywhere still engage in heated arguments about it. Most of these articles and arguments focus on the final 20 minutes of the film. Much like the last 20 minutes of 2001, the ambiguity of the final scenes have been scrutinized to no end.

First of all, Kubrick wanted that end. It was not fabricated by Spielberg to give the film a family-friendly, cookie-cutter happy ending. Second, it is not, I repeat not, a happy ending. I could write a doctorate paper on why the film's final act is not a happy one, but to save time and space, I would just advise anyone who bitches about the end to watch it again and again until they get it. It's really the only way.

As our technology progresses in a stupefyingly accelerated rate and the line between machine and human becomes thinner by the day, A.I. will take its place as one of the most prophetic and profound science-fiction films in ever made.

1- Wall-E:

Why is Wall-E the best film of the decade? Because it's the best animated film, the best science-fiction, the best adventure, the best romance, the best criticism of consumer culture, the best environmental message movie and overall the most purely enjoyable and breathtaking film of the 00s. Not to mention it has the cutest, most adorable, most ingenious creation of the decade: The hapless romantic trash compacting robot, simply called Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class, or Wall-E.

Written and directed by Pixar's Andrew Stanton, who previously helmed the great Finding Nemo, Wall-E is truly a wonderful anomaly. Smashing through the children-and-families-only confines of the American animation format, Wall-E soars, much like its protagonist near the middle of the movie, to become one the most universally cherished films of the 00s, and easily one of the ten best animated films ever made, maybe even the best.

The first half of the film takes place on a deserted planet Earth. After being unable to handle the escalating trash problem, the people of the planet fly away in luxurious space ships that resemble expensive cruise liners. The job to clean up the planet is left to Wall-E units. After 700 years, only one Wall-E unit remains active. While still doing his job, Wall-E dreams of a world beyond the stars. But mostly he dreams of love. The kind of love he learned from an old VHS tape of Hello Dolly. Soon, his world turns upside down as he's visited by a sleek and sexy Earth research robot by the name of EVE.

Andrew Stanton and the Pixar team do not hold back any punches concerning the visual depiction of the trash-infested Earth, nor do they even try to fit it inside a cutesy, non-threatening family-friendly mold. The planet is dirty, dusty and unpleasant. A tone of gray dominates the color palette while the obligatory bright pastel colors usually seen in so-called family entertainment is nowhere to be found.

This is a bold move for Stanton, but his gamble pays off in spades since the bleak look of the film allows the endlessly creative and wonderfully endearing back-and-forth between Wall-E and Eve to shine. The scenes between Wall-E and EVE almost completely silent, reminding us once again that film is above all a visual medium. The rest of the story, a magnificent adventure aboard the space cruise liner Axiom, is the visual polar opposite of the first half, with its clinically clean and bright look. The final five minutes of the film are equally heartbreaking and full of joy. Wall-E is a wonder to behold, and it is the best film of the decade.

Top 10 Movies of The 2000s, Part 1

I realize that this is kind of cheating. But I was in the process of creating my 10 best films of the 2000s article for beyazperde.com and I came upon a minor writer's block. So I thought I'd try it first on this blog as a more free-form first draft. Also, since the beyazperde article is going to be in Turkish, I kinda like the idea of having a more detailed English version on hand.

So how does this belong in Top 5 Movies? After all, I did set for myself the rule that all of the blog entries will involve some form of top 5 about movies. Well, the way I get around that this time is by posting the first five entries in the list, plowing through numbers 10 through 6, and then presenting the grand finale involving the "real" top 5 in another entry. Technically, this counts.

Right off the bat, I have to admit that this was my idea. I contacted my editor and suggested a Top 10 Films of The Decade article. So in a way, this is not really an assignment. It's more of an interest. I know the 2000s officially end with 2011 but the reason I thought of doing this now is because every other critic already started posting their lists, so I didn't want to be left out. Also, I like making movie lists, hence this blog.

Looking back, how does the first decade of the new millennium fare compared to the older decades? Pretty good, actually. Browsing through various favorites from the 00s, I came across many masterpieces. Great movies that will be remembered for years to come.

In retrospect, 2007 was the best year of the decade. I remember referring to that during conversations with friends months before the year even ended. That's how you know it was a great year. Although I'm sure this happened completely by coincidence, 2007 saw a surprisingly strong return to the dark, edgy, brutally honest yet joyfully stylized character driven films of the 70s, the best decade for American cinema.

2004, on the other hand, proved to be the weakest year. In fact, 2004 was so weak, I could not find a single film worthy of a spot on the list, so I opted on picking two titles from 2007. No films from the worst year, covered by two films from the best. It seems fair to me.

Otherwise, there is exactly one film on the list per year. I simply picked my favorite film from each year and made a chronological list. That was the easy part. The excruciatingly hard part was to measure their greatness. In many different ways, these films are equally great. I just had to go by my gut reaction ("Go by the gut" is a proud credo of The Colbert Nation) regarding how much I love each film, so here you go.

The best films of the 00s, entries 10 through 6:

10- The Weather Man:

In my humble opinion, this is easily the most underrated gem of the decade. When The Weather Man was released in October 2005, it kind of passed through theaters without much recognition from the audience, who probably did not know how to react to what looked like a big Hollywood drama with a big Hollywood star (Nicholas Cage) that was surprisingly unconventional and brutally honest.

The Weather Man did have a large budget and impressive star power, but it had the soul of a character-driven indie drama. In lots of ways, it's better than all the critically-acclaimed indie darlings of the 00s. It had a very dry sense of humor, yet it did not overdo it by adding the sugary sweet "quirk factor" that spreads like a cancer on almost all indie dramas. It was a reflective study of a man lost in his mid-life crisis, but it wasn't unnecessarily gloomy or depressing.

In its core, The Weather Man is about the search for a man's place in life. It's about that time in our lives where we really start asking ourselves, "What am I doing here? What is my purpose? What am I good for?"

Local Chicago TV Weather Man Dave Spritz (Nic Cage) might be financially successful without having to do much work, but his respected author father (Michael Caine in what might be his greatest performance) doesn't respect him, his ex-wife loathes him and his children barely know his name. He is not really a likable man. He always looks mopey, is usually rude to people and sometimes he can't even get the most basic tasks done, as seen during the brilliant flashback scene about "The Tartar Sauce!" Yet we sympathize with him because deep inside, he yearns for the most familiar basic needs: The need to have a happy family, the need to be respected, to be loved.

Instead of building a traditionally cynical sob story about this guy, screenwriter Steve Conrad and director Gore Verbinsky (Who directed all three Pirates of The Caribbean, go figure) intricately construct the story on a series of small moments, reminding us that the big answers about our lives usually lie in the little details. The Weather Man deserves to be sought out and rediscovered.

9- Almost Famous:

Cameron Crowe started the 00s strong with 2000s Almost Famous. He also crashed and burned with 2005s Elizabethtown but I choose to focus on his glory days as opposed to his later embarrassments.

Based on Crowe's own experiences as a 15-year-old reporter for the Rolling Stone, touring with bands like Led Zeppelin and The Who (A.K.A. The Luckiest Teenager Ever), the film follows (surprise, surprise!) 15-year-old William Miller's (Patrick Fugit) often exhilarating, sometimes frustrating journey with the fictional band Stillwater and their "band-aids".

Since it's based on real life experiences that are obviously very near and dear to Crowe, the film immediately instills in us an intimate feeling of familiarity. Every step of the way, we feel like we personally know the characters. We feel as if we are watching our own memories (Wishful thinking, I know).

It's an endlessly endearing film, full of life and energy, much like the music.

8- There Will Be Blood:

If there is one film on my list that will remain a bona fide American classic and will be discussed in film schools in 50 years, this is it. With its impeccable direction full of perfectionist touches that would put Kubrick to shame, its awe-inspiring, "freeze-a-random-frame-and-hang-it-on-your-wall" cinematography and its powerhouse lead performance that will crush all other less-worthy powerhouse performances (Daniel Day-Lewis in the best performance of the decade, bar none), There Will Be Blood is a film lover's heroine, pure and uncut. Primo stuff.

That's not to say it's an easy film to warm up to. As remorseless and cold as his protagonist, it took me a couple of views before I could even get to grips with the film's visceral power. After I saw it in the theater near the end of 2007, it didn't even make it on my beyazperde Top 5 list for the year. After watching it again and letting its mastery wash over me, I can safely say it is one of the most powerful American films ever made. Who knows, maybe after watching it a couple more times, it might move up on this list as well.

7- Up:

The decade ends with 2009's Up, a true animation classic. One that not only presents an endlessly exciting and breath taking adventure, it also accomplishes something seldom seen in American animation: It has real characters, with real feelings, dreams and motivations. Even though it is part of a format generally marketed to kids, not one frame of it has even a speck of that familiar pandering and condescension observed in countless animated films, especially ones that were released during the 00s.

Underneath the delightful fantasy of Carl Fredericksen, a cranky septuagenarian, voyaging to Paradise Falls with his flying house to fulfill a promise to his wife Ellie, lies a beautifully told story about a man's personal journey into dealing with his own grief and finding new purpose in his life, executed with endless empathy and compassion.

Directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson go out of their way to crush every children's film cliche known to man. Russell, Carl's unwanted child companion, is not treated as an adult in a child's body, the way children are depicted in almost every family film, but as a real child, confused, goofy and sometimes even annoying. The talking dogs don't have human characteristics or mannerisms, they simply articulate a dog's thought pattern. Balls are good, squirrels are bad. This is, quite simply, a wonderful film.

6- Adaptation:

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman made his mark on the 00s with his own brand of off-beat, self-referential, post-modern work. Kaufman has a knack for wryly examining the deepest regions of the human soul. Some critics are already calling Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I thought was over-written and too Gondry-fied, one of the best films of the decade.

I think Kaufman's best work is the delightful Adaptation. When he couldn't find a feasible way to adapt Susan Orlean's non-fiction book The Orchid Thief, Kaufman inserted himself into the script, created a fictional twin brother and used this wide palette to examine everything from sexual frustration, writer's block, sibling rivalry, Charles Darwin and of course, orchid thieves.

Much like the ouroboros, a symbol of a snake that eats itself, referenced in the film by Charlie's simple-minded-yet-more-sexually-active brother Donald, Adaptation devours and recreates itself as it moves along. The film bashes certain storytelling gimmicks constantly used by Hollywood such as voice-overs and action-oriented finales full of fist fights and car chases, only to conclude with a ridiculously conventional ending that utilizes every cliche in the Hollywood playbook, including ending with a (you guessed it) car chase and a heart-warming pop song ("Happy Together" by The Turtles).

I know Nicholas Cage has made some bad choices during this decade. Ghost Rider and The Wicker Man are the first ones that comes to mind among a double-digit list of crappy films. But the fact that he gave two of the best performances of the 00s more than makes up for his sins.

His personification of the morbidly neurotic Charlie Kaufman and his goofball brother Donald are pitch perfect. Cage's take on these two characters are so distinctive, we can always immediately tell which brother we're looking at even though no make-up was used to visually distinguish them.

Adaptation is one of those films that is surprising and unpredictable at every turn. So far, this is the final pair-up of director Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman along after the almost equally brilliant "Being John Malkovich". Even if this is their final effort together, it's certainly not a bad end.

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Top 5 Best Uses of a Classic Rock Song in Contemporary Films

If you want to know my thoughts on The Coens' latest masterpiece A Serious Man, you can check out my previous post. Needless to say, I happen to think strongly about how fascinating, thought-provoking and, most importantly, original and unpredictable it is.

Out of everything the film gets right, one of the most curious is how well it utilizes its classic rock soundtrack. The use of 60s counter culture psychedelic rock against the backdrop of the repressed, traditional Minnesotan Jewish society does a perfect job of contrasting the dull and dreary images with fresh, new (at the time) and daring music, full of vibrancy and life.

It also reminds us that while these characters were living their monotone lives in their little social bubble, the world outside was changing and evolving at a highly accelerated rate.

Of course there are lots of films that utilize music to contrast its images. The first and the easiest example that comes to mind is Kubrick's use of classical music during scenes of brutal graphic violence in A Clockwork Orange (It also includes the famous performance of Singin' in the Rain which forever ruined the wholesomeness of the song).

What makes A Serious Man even more special in that context is how well the music fits melodically with its images and pace. The opening credits sequence seamlessly takes us from the old 19th century (I'm guessing) shtetl into the ear canal of an adolescent boy in 1967, listening to Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love". The song becomes a thematic string that ties the story together the way "Fight The Power" did for Do The Right Thing. It does a great job of introducing us to the bizarre world of the film.

Kudos to Carter Burwell for his score that leads into the song. His dedication to using the same instruments and recording style of the period was so good, I thought I was listening to an unused intro from 1967.

The best use of classic rock in the film, and what inspired me to write this article, was the perfect synchronization of Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun" during the sequence where the middle aged rabbi tells Larry the story of "The Goy's Teeth". With each revelation the dentist in the story comes upon concerning the goy's teeth, the song's fast, hard-hitting drum beat provides us with an aural exclamation mark. It's definitely one of the best uses of a Hendrix track in a movie.

So that got me thinking: What are some of the best, most original uses of classic rock tunes in recent films? Films that go back up to about a decade or so. So here it is, off the top of my head, without any particular order, the top 5 uses of a classic rock song in contemporary films:

1- "Tangerine" by Led Zeppelin from Almost Famous:

I'm not entirely sure about this but short of a concert film like The Song Remains The Same, I believe Cameron Crowe's ode to his days as a 15-year-old rock journalist carries the honor of being able to use the most Zeppelin songs in a feature film. Just off the top of my head, "Misty Mountain Hop", "That's The Way" and "The Rain Song" comes to mind. But the one that made the biggest impression was Crowe's use of "Tangerine" as we see a montage of Stillwater back on tour before the end credits roll. It perfectly encapsulates the warm, nostalgic feeling it tries to create about the good old days of rock, before it turned into a multi-billion dollar business. Try to get your hands on the extended, "Untitled" version of the film, where Crowe lets the song play out till the end over a black screen before laying out the credits.

2- "The Seeker" by The Who from Religulous:

Bill Maher's incendiary anti-religion documentary where Maher searches for meaning in faith and organized religion starts with a credits sequence montage of people from various religions practicing their faith, set to "The Seeker". The lyrics of the song does a good job of accentuating the film's themes and Pete Townsend's guitar helps start things off with a bang.

3- "In The Court Of The Crimson King" by King Crimson from Children of Men:

Alfonso Cuaron's topical, bleak and visually exhilarating masterpiece was not only the best film of 2006, it's also one of the best science-fiction films to come out in a long, long time. During the scene where Theo is on his way to visit his minister (of the arts?) cousin in order to secure transit papers for a mysterious young girl, he looks out the window of his government limo into a lost and frightened England, a country still trying desperately to hold onto whatever semblance of pride and privilidge left in its soul. The dark and depressing tone of "In The Court of The Crimson King" by prog-gods King Crimson succinctly conveys the mood and setting.

4- "Like A Rock" by Bob Seger from The Weather Man:

I guess the Bob Seger classic doesn't technically count as a classic rock song. It's probably more in the vein of southern rock, or maybe even classic country, depending on who you ask. But its use in the vastly underrated The Weather Man definitely deserves to be mentioned. Unlike the other entries in the top five, the song does not blare out of the speakers and takes the foreground to emphasize on the emotions of the scene. Instead, it quietly plays out of a car stereo in the background during the most powerful and touching scene of the film.

During his successful writer father's living funeral, Chicago TV weatherman Dave Sprizt, played with masterful existential angst by Nicholas Cage, can only get through the first line of his eulogy before the power cuts out. All he manages to say is that when he thinks of his father, he thinks of Bob Seger's "Like A Rock". Days later, everyone forgets he even started his speech, except his father, played by Michael Caine. He plays the song for his son in his car, not understanding what this rock song has to do with his life. What follows is a scene of profound honesty and the forming of a bizarre yet surprisingly emotional connection between the son and his dying father.

5- "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin from School of Rock:

We opened with the mighty Zep, it's only fitting we close with them. It's not a secret that Page and Plant frown upon the use of their songs in movies and rarely give such permission to filmmakers. Knowing their reputation regarding this matter, director Richard Linklater actually shot a piece of film where Jack Black literally pleads for permission to use "Immigrant Song" in front of thousands of cheering Zep fans. Linklater sent the film to Page and Plant, hoping it would persuade them to give permission. The plan worked and Linklater was able to use the song in a crucial scene where the band of school boys led by Black rock on in a van after wining a spot on The Battle of The Bands. As the relentlessly harcore infamous riff bangs away, it signifies a sort of liberation for the characters, from the drudgery of school work, into a world where their ideas, talent and emotions can run free.

Top 5 Ways People of Faith Can Enjoy "A Serious Man"

What an amazing film this was. In the middle of this shitstorm of mediocrity full of bland superhero movies, bad toy/video game adaptations, sequels, franchise re-boots, unapologetically bening cutesy indie flicks, A Serious Man is truly a breath of fresh air.

Every single minute of this film is unpredictable, honest, genuinely funny, genuinely sad and original, a word that couldn't be used to describe an American film for a long, long time.

On top of all this, A Serious Man is an agnostic's wet dream (Say it loud! I'm agnostic and I'm proud!)

As a loose study of The Book of Job, the film has absolutely no pretense towards explaining exactly why such horrible things happen to Larry Gopnik, an ordinary man who tries so hard to be a serious man, someone who is strong against any adversity. Someone who has a firm grip on life. But try as he might, no answers come in any form.

The film doesn't go out of its way to prove that everything happens for absolutely no reason, that everything is random, and that we truly are alone in this universe, nor does it even attempt to give any hints towards the existence of a God that controls everything, a God that has a grand plan for all of us, a God who works in mysterious ways.

How you react to the film defines your worldview. After the brilliant prologue spoken entirely in Yiddish, either you believe the old man who visited the couple is indeed an evil spirit, and the woman saved her family. Or you believe she's a disturbed, delusional person who just did a horrible thing to a sweet, innocent old man.

Even though A Serious Man is one of the best reviewed films of the year, it does receive a lot of contempt from a specific group: People of faith. I'm talking about people who have a fundemental belief in God and his word. People who wholeheartedly believe in the monotheistic faith of their choice or upbringing and, most importantly, in a God who is in control of everything, who has a plan for us all, blah, blah.

There are lots of articles out there branding the film as God-less, since God's mighty hand does not interfere with anything that happens in the film and conveniently solves everything (Like He does in real life, right?). Some of these articles go as far as calling the almost entirely Jewish-made and Jewish-acted film Anti-Semitic.

They think since the three Rabbis depicted in the film are not superheroes who solve all of Larry's very serious problems with a wave of their awesome Rabbinic wands (Does that not sound right or do I just have a filthy mind?), they are portrayed as unrealistic and cartoonish.

So, as a public service for our friends with blind faith, I've come up with five ways you can enjoy A Serious Man:

1- Instead of watching the film as a thought-provoking study on life and God, watch it as a how-to guide on killing dybbuks.

2- Convince yourself that the phone call Larry recieves at the end is God's way of punishing him for committing a sin in order to help his "wicked" brother.

3- Try to remember that the Rabbis depicted in the film are not actually buffoons. They are men who genuinely try their best to explain things using personal experience and scripture. The 5-year-old Rabbi Scott's speech about the parking lot actually makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. Rabbi Nachtner's teeth story was mesmerizing to say the least. And what the older-than-time Rabbi Marshak finally says after we desperately wait for him to impart some of his wisdom might be the coolest thing I've heard in a long time.

4- Adulterers are always punished by God, even if they did not do the deed but obviously had impure thoughts.

5- There's a scene where an attractive woman sunbathes in the nude. Just saying. God will forgive you.

Top 5 Shittier Titles for The Turkish Version of Where The Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are is a wonderful, wonderful film. It's fun, exciting, thought-provoking, dark, scary, emotional. You know, the way a kids movie is supposed to be. It's even a bit dull at times, and I mean that in a good way.

Being a child can be dull and repetitive, and the film manages to find beauty even in its dull moments. There are lots of reviews and feedback from critics and audiences saying it's either too dark and intense for kids, or it's too boring.

I think we got too sensitized from the modern so-called children's entertainment, where everything has to be fun, positive, colorful, dumbed-down, and safe.

God forbid there's a childrens' film out there where the young protagonist doesn't have a clear goal or a conveniently fabricated bad guy to fight against. God forbid we let children see a film that explores and shares their own imagination in an inventive and endlessly creative way.

Anyway, I'm going on a tangeant. There was a point to all this. Oh yeah, the title. I think the English title of the book and the film perfectly describes both pieces in their own way. I say the English title, because guess what name the Turkish distributor thought best described this complex and beautiful film? Are we ready? Drum roll...

"My Friend The Monster"

That's how important a title is sometimes. After changing around a mere couple of words, we have gone from a modern kids' classic to mediocre, straight-to-DVD crap. I just pity the parents who are going to drag their kids to see "My Friend The Monster", thinking it's going to be just another asinine distraction like G-Force.

I'm sorry but I believe any parent who will be willing to drag their kid to a movie called "My Friend The Monster" is not going to be smart enough to appreciate "Where The Wild Things Are".

But, just so I don't have several vital veins pop in my neck due to intense frustration, I once again remind myself that things could be worse, a lot worse. So without further ado, here are Top 5 possible titles even crappier than "My Friend The Monster":

1- That Darn Subconscious.

2- As long as we're doing straight-to-DVD sounding titles, why not a made up title that grown-ass men think kids will find fun and interesting, like Ooby, or Gooby, or some shit like that. They can even change the name of one of the wild things to Gooby. Oh FUCK, I just found out that there actually is a movie called Gooby. Fucking Hagrid as the voice of Gooby The Bear. God damn it.

3- Kid Bites Mom (There has to be a fetish porn with this title somewhere in the underground porn industry of either Thailand or Japan).

4- WWTA (Complete with Michael Bay-style glossy, metallic, boring-as-fuck military font with nothing else on the poster but the huge-ass title so that Bay's target audience, illeterate hilbillies, can at least tell it's gonna be kick-ass, since the title's all big and stuff).

5- Michel Gondry's Where The Wild Things Are Whimsical and Cute in an Artsy and Eccentric Way and Stuff Because I'm French and I'm Artsy and Eccentric and I Use VHS Cameras to Shoot 50 Million Dollar Projects So It Looks All Artsy and Eccentric.

Top Five Alternate Endings for "Wages of Fear"

(SPOILERS APLENTY!!!!)

"Wages of Fear" is a great thriller. A roller-coaster ride that was made before the roller-coaster was even invented (That information is based on absolutely no factual evidence and is probably false). The story of four desperate men who are willing to drive two trucks full of nitro to an American oil rig is both a scathing criticism of American capitalism (It was made by the French, what do you expect?), and an extremely intense nail-biter to say the least.

But there is one teeny tiny issue I have with the film, and that involves the final 30 seconds. Just like any Hollywood movie from the 50s can not have a downbeat ending no matter how implausible (The original ending of The Bad Seed, anyone?), a French film from the same era can not have a happy ending no matter how many story elements lead us in that direction. Therefore, I took it upon myself to re-write a 56-year-old masterpiece and come up with five alternate endings. Enjoy.

1- While driving the empty truck like a careless fucktard after having been through the most nerve wracking experience any human being can go through, instead of driving off a cliff, Mario swerves and runs over Alfred Hitchcock, who inexplicably decided to take a stroll along the nameless South American countryside. Clouzot comes out from behind a rock and urinates on Hitchcock's lifeless body while shouting "I'M BETTER THAN YOU!!" (Not a sentiment shared by yours truly but they did apparently have a bitter rivalry).

2- Mario, played by Yves Montand, reaches the town, kisses Linda, the girl he has been inexplicably cruel towards during the entire film, and breaks into a song-and-dance number that involves all characters from the film, alive or dead. It would be hilarous to see Jo flagging around his flat, limp legs to the beat of the song.

3- Mario returns to town and decides to take a shower, only to find Jo emerging slowly from the water-filled tub. Mario has a heart attack right there on the spot and dies. It turns out Jo faked his own death, along with the mutilation of his legs (I don't know how that's physically possible but go with it). Jo and Luigi (Who also faked his death) knew of Mario's weak heart and planned all along to kill him and steal his $2.000.

4- If you really want a tacked-on tragic ending, Mario is hit by a truck full of nitro coming from the opposite direction.

5- Mario returns to town (once again) and meets a 22-year-old Roy Scheider. He tells Roy, "One day, you will be in my place. And no one but the most trivia-obsessed movie nerds will know what that means."