On its third week of release, Nicholas Winding Refn’s much-praised, pseudo-80’s neon noir Drive has slipped out of the US box office, having made a relatively modest $27m so far.

In many ways this is a frustrating figure for a film which has been almost universally praised by critics, but it’s perhaps unsurprising why it hasn’t made that breakthrough to a huge mainstream crowd. It isn’t the action-heavy delight fans of the Fast & Furious series may have been expecting, and its bursts of ultra violence, coupled with a sometimes languid, studied pace, means it clearly sits outside of that traditional Hollywood model.

Similar cineaste-friendly fare has often stumbled at the box office (last year’s Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a recent example) but sometimes a film comes along which manages to appease both camps and against all odds, rakes in the big bucks whilst satisfying those who have ventured to experience the more obvious esoteric delights on offer. Below is a small selection of those films:

Black Swan

It’s safe to say that no one could have predicted the huge financial success and audience love attributed to Darren Aronofsky’s twisted psychosexual thriller earlier this year. It was a film which the director struggled to scrape the money together for (leaving plenty of time for star Natalie Portman to train like crazy) and watching the beautiful young star’s decent into a Polanski-esque spiral of madness and schizophrenia (all framed within the rather cold and austere world of ballet) hardly screams “audience-friendly” either. But ultimately the film did find a rather substantial crowd, and which went on to gross an unprecedented $329 million worldwide.

Part of this must be attributed to Portman’s riveting, nervy performance snagging her an Oscar nod and ultimate win, added to that all-important (in the studio’s eyes, at least) prestige to the project. This was also the director behind the resurrection of Micky Rourke the previous year, giving audiences a refreshingly open and ego-free glimpse at a seasoned performer who had struggled to make any real impact on screen for a while (which to a certain extent, mirrored Portman’s own career trajectory prior to Black Swan).

Memento

For a film entirely constructed of a narrative told in reverse chronological order, the challenges faced in initially winning over a cinema-savvy audience must have proved pretty high, let alone eliciting the interests of the traditional popcorn crowd. It’s to Memento’s great success that many fans of the film hailed from both ends of the cinematic spectrum, and even if some were initially confounded by the material, a great many were unanimous in their praise of it (the film sits at 31 in the independent, fan-led IMDb Top 250).

The film opened the Hollywood floodgates for director Chris Nolan, and like his huge hit from last year, Inception (another film which has a rightful place on this list), the many themes and ideas which the director explored in his sophomore feature were every bit as prevalent in that slice of big-budget action-tinged escapism.


Napoleon Dynamite

Ostensibly, Napoleon Dynamite may have looked like another quirky, coming-of-age teen comedy, but its kitsch, DayGlo aesthetic and deliciously off-kilter humour wasn’t necessarily appealing to the types of cinemagoers who were flocking to the latest American Pie incarnation at the time. Nevertheless, the film found a healthy-sized audience (it earned over $40 million in the US) which is all the more impressive when compared against its initial production budget of just $400,000.

A large part of it’s success was certainly derived from the outstanding performance by lead Jon Heder as the socially-awkward, perpetually perplexed-looking protagonist, but a strong supporting cast of comic characters and eminently quotable dialogue helped to propel the film into the big league, causing vast numbers of fans across the land to purchase ginger perm-like wigs for fancy dress parties and sport the now iconic ‘Vote for Pedro’ t-shirts. 

Produced by MTV Films (it’s hard to imagine the company taking a punt on similar material nowadays), news that an animated TV series in now in the works from Fox, featuring many of the original cast members (including Heder, Efren Ramirez as Pedro and Jon Gries as the wonderful Uncle Rico) is a testament to the enduring charm of the film.

Pan’s Labyrinth

A post-Spanish civil war, fairytale-infused adult fantasy yarn probably doesn’t sound like an easy sell, but Pan’s Labyrinth became that rare beast – the foreign art-house genre crossover hit. Critics positively gushed (Mark Kermode hailed it “the Citizen Kane of fantasy cinema”) and both fans of foreign language cinema and fantasy film enthusiasts came together to sample the wondrous meshing of a real-world political struggle with a gothic fable (perfected, arguably to a greater degree, in director Guillermo del Toro’s earlier work, The Devil’s Backbone.)

 It says everything about the currently financial state of Hollywood when a master like del Toro is forced to abandon his James Cameron-backed dream project (an adaptation of  H. P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness) due to budgetary concerns, while this modest Spanish creature feature went on to gross $80 million worldwide.

Pulp Fiction

Nowadays it’s easy to forget the success and influence Pulp Fiction had over the industry following it’s release, but the fact is, this was a low-budget crime flick ($8.5 million) which went on to make over $200 million at the world-wide box office and singlehandedly enabled the Weinstein Brothers to establish their powerhouse indie-centric studio, Miramax (or as eldest sibling Harvey would put it, “the house that Quentin built”).

Again, Pulp was another film which refused to play by the traditions of the genre, and made audiences put a little work in between being thrilled and entertained by the lovingly-crafted dialogue and career-defining performances on offer. Its convoluted narrative jumps and unconventional approach to storytelling proved to be a huge draw, even building to a ‘Gimp Vs Gump’ stand-off during the 1995 Oscars, when the film was up against the more obviously appealing mainstream Forrest Gump. It was the perfect example of audiences being able to embrace a film outside of the norm and celebrate that fact.

You’ve really got to hand it to the Spanish. They know how to make a classy-looking, nerve-jangling thriller, and it comes as no surprise to see that one Guillermo del Toro has put his weight behind the film here (he’s credited as one of the producers).

Following both Pans Labyrinth and The Orphanage (although set in a slight more realistic milieu) Julia’s Eyes also features yet another powerful performance from an incredibly beautiful and sensual-looking actress, this time in the form of Belén Rueda. She plays the titular character whose twin sister seemingly commits suicide in the opening scenes. Both siblings suffer from a rare degenerate eye disease, which is attributed to the demise of Julia’s sister, although she believes there to be foul play at work and sets out to investigate the real cause.

As her own vision begins to fade, she struggles to retain her grasp on reality and if what she’s seeing is real or imagined, and even her supportive husband begins to doubt her claims of seeing a shadowy figure following her every move.

Julia’s Eyes may not offer much in the way of originality, but director Guillem Morales certainly knows how to craft and shoot a decent Hitchcockian murder mystery. A large part of the film’s success is derived from the young director’s insistence on not over-egging it when it comes to the visuals. Julia’s increasingly deteriorating POV is subtle and feels very organic. An American remake (there have been whispers of one already in the works) would probably be tempted to CGI-it up and use all swirly and trippy visuals, but Morales lets the action unfold using old-fashioned suspense tools like dramatic lighting and voyeuristic camera moves, and is able to wring much tension out of the scenes using these methods.

All this is very much designed to place the audience in the same vulnerable state as the heroine, and those techniques are further solidified in the latter half of the film, where the director uses a creatively bold and effective framing device, where one of the main character’s features are hidden from us for a sizable chuck of the narrative. The end showdown (which borrows a visual cue from The Silence of the Lambs and cranks it up to an abstract level) is very effective too.

What stops Julia’s Eyes from being a 4-star film and puts it slightly further down the ranks from those aforementioned examples of highly-accomplished Spanish fantasy cinemas, is a dénouement which begins to feel a little stretched and tiresome after the initial, shocking reveal. Also, although well-acted and suitably dramatic, the chain of events and incidents from mid-way are played out in such a compressed timescale that it’s a big ask for the audience who has invested their time into the film and its intriguing premise, to then accept large leaps and holes in character’s actions and logic.

There’s still much to recommend here however. Rueda gives it her all, and the more intimate scenes between Julia and her husband (played by veteran Spanish actor Lluís Homar) are very touching and offer a genuine glimpse of true love.

If you’re in the mood for some good old-fashioned, pulpy scares, Julia’s Eyes may just be what you’re looking for, but don’t forget to make sure you turn a blind eye to some of the contrived and improbable elements of the second half.

***~~ (3/5)

Here at HeyUGuys, we aim to provide you with an all-encompassing look into the world of film. Whether you’re a fully-fledged cineaste, or just possess a casual interest, there’s something for anyone with our alternative A-Z of cinema, which starts today and runs through the week.

If you’ve ever wondered just what it is an Executive Producer does, or maybe if you’ve heard the ambient sounds of Tangerine Dream in an 80’s film favourite without knowing who you were listening to, this is the list for you!

Underground Film is a label which refers to a feature which exists outside the mainstream either in its style, genre or financing. The first use of the term was coined in a 1957 essay by famed American film critic Manny Farber, entitled Underground Films.

In the late 1950s, underground film was used to describe early independent filmmakers working in San Francisco, California and New York City. Leading figures who grew out of that era included Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas, Jack Smith and Bruce Conner. By the late 1960’s filmmakers within the movement began to employ terms like avant-garde or experimental to describe their work.

Through both the 1970’s and 80’s the term would still be used to refer to the more countercultural fringe of independent cinema. Pink Flamingos (John Water’s transgressive tour de force from 1972) is an example of an underground film that, due to its notorious content, found a bigger, cult-like audience and become a permanent fixture on the Midnight Movie circuit.

Vittorio Storaro (1940-) is widely regarded as one of the masters of modern cinematography. By using and adapting the premise inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s theory of colours (which focuses, in part, on the psychological effects different colours have) throughout his own work, Storaro has influenced a whole generation of DoP’s.

One of his most famous and recognised work is in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam odyssey, Apocalypse Now. While many of the cast and crew were losing their heads (director included) Storaro soldiered on, imbuing the film with a bold visual landscape which undoubtedly attributed to a large part of it’s success.

Other equally productive collaborations with filmmakers from Coppola’s era have included Bernardo Bertolucci (Storaro shot his 1970 masterpiece The Conformist) and Warren Beatty. His oeuvre also includes the likes of 1900 Last Tango in Paris, Bulworth, The Sheltering Sky and Dick Tracy. He received Oscars for Reds (1981) and The Last Emperor (1987).

Waking Life is a 2001 feature from Slacker director Richard Linklater which explores the nature of dreams and the sub-conscious. Like his aforementioned 1991 debut, this film has a similar loose and free-wheeling structure, which is composed of various scenes where people muse over their place in the universe and what their purposes are within it.

The film is also known for its use of the rotoscoping animation technique. To achieve this, the animators overlaid the live action footage shot by Linklater (frame by frame) with animation, lending the film a surreal and dream-like quality of its own. Linklater fans will also note that the director has a couple of familiar faces amongst the ensemble. Dazed and Confused’s Wiley Wiggins plays the protagonist, while Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reprise their characters from Before Sunrise for one scene.

Waking Life premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2001, and Linklater would later apply the same effect (with a bigger budget) for his 2002 Philip K. Dick adaptation, A Scanner Darkly.

X-rating. The original X certificate in the UK was issued between 1951 and 1982 by the British Board of Film Censors. From 1951 to 1970, it classified as being “Suitable for those aged 16 and over”. From 1970 to 1982 it was redefined as “Suitable for those aged 18 and over.” The X certificate was replaced in 1982 by the 18 certificate.

In the United States, the X-rating originally referred a film with extreme content that was for adults only, with no concessions made for minors.

Midnight Cowboy (1969) is the first and only X-rated film ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Cult sci-fi comic book shoot em’ up RoboCop was originally given an X rating by the MPAA for scenes of “excessive violence” and director Paul Verhoeven (no stranger to controversy) had to remove the blood and gore from the most violent scenes for the film to receive an “R” rating.

Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too) is a 2001 Mexican coming-of-age/road movie. Directed by Children of Men’s Alfonso Cuarón, it follows the exploits of two male horny adolescents who end up taking a trip with an older woman to a beautiful, secret beach called Boca del Cielo (Heaven’s Mouth). During the journey, the duo’s playful and care-free outlook of life is challenged as painful truths are revealed and untapped emotions surface.

As well as being known for its frank and refreshing depiction of sexuality, it also launched the careers of both Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal, who teamed up again in 2008 for comedy drama Rudo y Cursi. Their companion on the trip is played by Spanish actress Maribel Verdú, who was Ofelia’s weak-willed mother in Pan’s Labyrinth.

The film was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards (Cuarón co-write it with younger brother, Carlos), as well as receiving a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globe Awards that same year.

Zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words “zoe” (which means life) and “tropos” (turning).

It consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. Beneath the slits on the inner surface of the cylinder is a band which has either individual frames from a video/film or images from a set of sequenced drawings or photographs. As the cylinder spins the user looks through the slits at the pictures on the opposite side of the cylinder’s interior. The earliest elementary zoetrope was created in China around 180 AD.

American Zoetrope (the studio founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1969) was named after the device. In 2008 a UK visual effects house built a 10 meter wide, 10 tonne zoetrope for a Sony promotional exercise, which has since been declared the largest in the world by Guinness World Records.

Check out P-T here.

As we enter the eighth week of the IMDb250 Project it’s becoming clear that the experience has completely changed our tastes, our appreciation and our knowledge of movies and movie making in general after only 20 films viewed each so far, that is something truly incredible for us personally and a real positive for attempting this project which could easily have become a chore watching so many movies in such a short period.

If you want to check out the previous weeks 1 – 7 click here for a rundown of our previous progress in the project but for now I bring you my next five films for the project of which three I had never seen before, one I haven’t seen since I was very very young and the final one is such a phenomenal a personal favourite movie of mine that I wish I could watch it again for the first time so I get that feeling I had when I first experienced it.

Of the five films, The Apartment was my favourite and how I’ve never seen it is a mystery. I suppose a lot comes down to what I grew up with as a majority of the older films I’ve seen in my life were ones I viewed with family during my youth and if my folks didn’t own it then our trusty VHS recorder would copy off the TV a limited selection depending on my families taste. I couldn’t afford to buy films for myself until I started working in the mid 90′s and by then a lot of films passed me by and I started my own taste in movies, but now I’m so glad I have the chance to see these incredible films, Old and new.

No.98 – The Apartment – Rating 8.3

Dark comedy really doesn’t get better than this. The brilliant Jack Lemmon memorably stars and Billy Wilder directs one of the best films on the list so far, It’s just one of the most wonderful films and although some would choose the perfect comedy ‘Some Like it Hot’ or the deliciously dark ‘Double Indemnity’ as their Billy Wilder movie of choice, I will now always say The Apartment is mine.

Lemmon stars as CC ‘Bud’ Baxter a bachelor who unknowingly makes the unethical attempt of climbing the corporate ladder by ‘loaning’ his apartment to members of his management chain so they can entertain their ‘women on the side’. As he makes friends in the right places he falls for elevator operator Fran Kubelik played by Shirley MacLaine who turns out is the mistress of his boss Jeff Sheldrake, the superb Fred MacMurray. Baxter climbs to Vice-President but is tormented by Miss Kubelik being an other women to his boss and has to choose his career or his dignity especially as Miss Kubelik attempts suicide in his apartment.

The film just works perfectly with the entire cast stunning, especially Jack Lemmon in the self pitying tormented Manhattan apartment owner who adds a perfect contrast of humour and compassion that makes his character so brilliant and endearing to watch. The dark humour is some of the best around and the chemistry between Lemmon and MacLaine is wonderful especially after her suicide attempt as they bond in his flat as he brings her back from the desolate mood.

There is a wonderful scene, and one of my favourites, where Lemmon gets drunk in a bar on Christmas eve and eventually brings back a lady to his flat, it’s such a great moment as the drunken depressed pair stare into a mirror at each other making empty hilarious small talk in the bar, dancing cheek to cheek and then heading back to his place where he finds the lifeless Fran Kubelik, it’s just great cinema.

The Apartment is just one of those classic films you just have to see and with Lemmon putting in arguably his greatest performance, and should have won the best actor Oscar for it, and Wilder winning Best Director and Best Picture in 1961 it fully deserves its place for all time in the best 250 films.

No.16 – City Of God – Rating 8.7

City of God or its real title of Cidade De Deus, Another first time film for me and one I have always wanted to see since its Oscar nomination for Best Director in 2002, unluckily up against Peter Jackson (Return of the King), Sofia Coppola (Lost In Translation), Clint Eastwood (Mystic River) and Peter Weir (Master & Commander) that year, so he never realy stood a chance which is a shame as I think it was the best film out of the five release that year.

The basic story is straight forward but it’s explained using fascinating multiple interweaving story-lines that is based on actual events that occurred in Rio de Janeiro during the 1960s and 1970s. A young boy named Rocket who narrates the film lives in the slums of Rio De Janeiro and is determined to make it as a photographer, fear and an instinct for self-preservation keep him from joining the gangs that rule his neighbourhood but a childhood neighbour named Li’l Zé (Leandro Firmino da Hora) grows into the ghetto’s godfather and the film follows these two and the different paths their lives take.

For all the stylish camerawork, amazing locales and incredible entertainment value, the movie is grounded by its true to life origins which is taken from Paulo Lins fact based novel, the brilliant performances of an almost entirely non-professional cast is nothing short of incredible as a majority were recruited from the streets. The stark realistic horror of life on the streets of Brazil is perfectly captured and the complex journey the film takes is mesmerizing as we are introduced to numerous characters that all impact on the lives of Rocket and Li’l Zé and how the two’s lives eventually meet again at the end.

Shocking, thrilling, entertaining and at times funny, City of God has it all and never stopped pulling me in and it’s easy to see why It has been described by some as the Brazilian Goodfellas, movies don’t get more exhilarating than this.

No.140 – Into The Wild – Rating 8.1

Directed by Sean Penn, Into the Wild is one of the lesser known movies of the list for me, I had never heard of it never heard anything about it or know anything on the origins of the movie.

Taken from the Jon Krakauer’s best-selling novel Into the Wild the film tells the remarkable true story of Chris McCandless, an honors graduate who walked into the Alaskan wilderness in 1992 to find himself but the film turns into a truly sad journey of discovery but also a beautiful journey into nature and self dependence.

Into the Wild is Penn’s most accomplished and emotional work as director and screenwriter and was just wonderful to watch especially for the stunning performance by Emile Hirsch (Lords of Dogtown) who gets so far into Chris’ psyche that it’s one of the finest performances I’ve seen from the IMDb list so far. During the film’s long two hours and twenty odd minutes, Hirsch gives an award wining performance of incredible depth and humanity that made me believe in his character and emotionally bond with which made it all the more difficult to watch as it reaches its harsh ending.

Nicknaming himself Alexander Supertramp, Chris sets off on his journey making stops at a farm in South Dakota run by Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaughn), Taking a kayak trip down to Mexico, meets similar trailer trekkers Jan (Catherine Keener) and Rainey (Brian Dierker) who he connects with deeply, has a romance with underage Tracy (Kristen Stewart) in Slab City, an RV camp in the California desert, and most movingly of all a short relationship with a widower called Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook) who was nominated for an Oscar for his short and emotional role. Chris finally heads to Alaska and endures the final four months of his isolation there until his starved body, Hirsch actually lost forty pounds for the visually impacting scene.

The film was beautifully shot in the same locations that Chris travelled to which adds to the stark reality of it all and although being a deeply upsetting movie as it reaches the end, the journey getting there is a truly remarkable story.

No.190 – Harvey – Rating 8.0

James Stewart makes yet another appearance in the IMDb250 List and in Harvey he gives easily one of his finest.

No.69 – Pan’s Labyrinth – 8.4

Guillermo Del Toro’s masterpiece. Pan’s Labyrinth is everything you could want from a film and one that would be in my Top 25 films of all time easily.

Pan’s Labyrinth is set in Spain in 1944 and stars the young and incredibly talented Ivana Baquero as Ofelia, a girl who moves to an isolated military outpost with her pregnant mother (Ariadna Gil) and her new stepfather, the horrible and probably one of the greatest movie villains of all time, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez).

Whilst exploring her new home and searching the nearby area Ofelia discovers a stone labyrinth and finds a faun (played by the stunning Doug Jones), who promises her that she’ll be returned to a magical land if she can complete three magical tasks as she is the reincarnation of a princess. Ofelia attempts the tasks but fails to follow the Faun’s rules for the second task where she ventures into lair of the Pale Man, one of the most visually striking and scary characters in any fantasy film i’ve ever seen, and she eats from his table of food when told not to, this awakens the child eating Pale man who chases her. It’s one of the most well crafted and memorable scenes of the film and Doug Jones portrayal of the Pale Man and even the Faun gives the characters an elegant and dominant presence.

The film continues with Ofelia seeking a return to the apparent fantasy world whilst her step father battles the rebels as well as being desperate for the birth of his son from Ofelia’s desperately ill mother. As Ofelia’s mother dies from birth the movie heads to a shocking conclusion as the Faun demands Ofelia to bring her newly born brother to him as the final task which will let her escape the real world to her fantasy one forever and as she flees and the rebels draw in the evil Captain Vidal gives chase that leads to a fitting and heart breaking ending.

The set design is incredibly imaginative, particularly during the fantasy sequences and Guillermo Navarro’s stunning cinematography creates a powerful and intense atmosphere that makes it so visually gorgeous throughout. Del Toro has created something truly special and a film that deserves to be higher in the list. Roll on the Hobbit!

That concludes my five movies, check out the site next week for Barry’s next five films.

Don’t forget you can follow our progress in this project at www.twitter.com/baz_mann and http://twitter.com/gary_phillips_

With HeyUGuys recently posting the Top films of the Decade as voted by you the reader, I thought I would look back into noughties myself and do my own top 10 films of the last decade as I was a bit disappointed with a majority of the top 10 choices like Kill Bill, There will be Blood and Donnie Darko.

Searching for my Decadian film winners was a great experience, going through vast amount of films from the last 10 years (which has flown by) and picking my personal 10 favourite films. It was a difficult challenge choosing them and also coming up with my 10 runner up movies from each year as there were so many quality films to pick from and I had to make some difficult choices in letting some stunning films miss out like Children of Men, District 9, Hurt Locker, Let the Right one in, The Departed etc. And so here are my choices, starting with the year 2000.

2000 Winner - O Brother Where Art Thou

The classic Coen Brothers film that created a new found love for Bluegrass and traditional Folk music for many people after seeing this film as it went on to win a Grammy for best album. George Clooney stars with Tim Blake Nelson and Coen regulars John Turturro and John Goodman in a film loosely based on Homer’s Epic Poem “The Odyssey”.

Visually it’s stunning, shot using digital colour correction to give it a sepia tone look which makes it fit the Southern America 1930′s period brilliantly. The comedy is typical Coen Brothers and probably some of the best they have written and all credit should go to George Clooney for delivering the best lines in one of his finest ever performances.

The story is brilliant as we follow Everett Ulysses McGill (Clooney) and his companions Delmar (Nelson) and Pete Turturro breaking free from a chain gang and going on a mis-adventure to find some buried loot before its lost forever in four days when a valley is flooded to create a lake. The trio come across a variety of excellently portrayed characters including a cyclops, Sirens, the KKK, a blind prophet, a musician who sold his sole to the devil and many more that all add to this stunning movie that will always raise a smile when ever you watch it.

Entirely entertaining and easily the winner of 2000 for me.

2000 Runner up – Unbreakable

One of my favourite superhero films ever made with some of the most stylish shot scenes. M Night Shyalaman’s finest film. Bruce Willis plays David Dunn, a man who is the only survivor of a train crash who comes to terms that he is ‘Unbreakable’ and unable to get hurt. The complete opposite to him is Samuel L Jackson as Elijah price and the film covers the story of being a real life superhero. It has unpredictable twists and turns and a very entertaining plot, although not positively received everywhere it was definitely one of my favourites of 2000.

2001 Winner - Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the ring

Quite possibly the most outstanding filming achievement of all time as Peter Jackson filmed all three Lord of the Rings movies in one go and released one of the most outstanding trilogy’s ever.

The Fellowship of the Ring was released first and is for me the best of the trilogy as we are introduced to the heroes of the film and the start of their journey through Middle Earth and even at three hours in length was the most enjoyable film of that 2001 by far.

Lord of the Rings gave another reason to look forward to Christmas with it’s annual December release date and nothing was more exciting than seeing the battle in the Mines of Moria as the music cuts just as the battle commences or Aragon taking on numerous Orcs and Boromir falling to the arrows of the Uruk-hai. It was perfect and exciting cinema that will never be achieved again to such detail and passion.

2001 Runner up – Amelie

Got to No.4 in the Heyuguys best film of decade poll and deservedly so. Jean-Pierre Jeunet masterpiece is visually beautiful, stunningly told and emotionally perfect. One of my all time favourite films ever, always makes me smile.

2002 Winner – Punch Drunk Love

Paul Thomas Anderson gets Adam Sandler to act seriously (but still a bit crazy) in this brilliant and hugely underrated film. Sandler stars as Barry Egan a small business owner who’s unlucky in love, mainly due to his abusing seven sisters, and gets his chance of love with Lena (Emily Watson) but due to a previous conflict and exploitation from a phone sex company things don’t go to plan.

It’s subtly Funny, it’s brilliantly acted and is so different from what Adam Sandler and Paul Thomas Anderson fans would expect from these artists.
The script is brilliant, as with all of Anderson’s films, and Sandler really carries the film well considering his slapstick and physical comedy roles previously and shows a really excellent side to his acting.

Punch Drunk Love was a surprising success for me and confirmed my love for Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies and with superb supporting performances from the ever excellent Philip Seymour Hoffman and Luis Guzman it made it the best film in 2002 for me.

2002 Runner Up – Phone Booth

An amazing and original film Directed by Joel Schumacher with a simple plot that worked perfectly. Colin Farrell stars as a slimy publicist who answers a ringing payphone to be held hostage by a sniper with a grudge against him. Tense and very very clever.

2003 Winner - Old Boy

Chan-wook Park followed up the incredibly dark film Sympathy For Mr Vengeance with OldBoy and what a film it was.

The story is horribly bleak, the ending disturbing, the action is brutal and Min-Sik Choi’s turn from miserable average man to intimidating crazed killer is one of the most amazing character changes in movie history, you are barely able to tell it’s the same actor.

Dae-Su Oh (Min-Sik Choi) is kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years and then suddenly released without explanation with just new clothes, a mobile phone and money to his name and the lust to find who did this to him and why. So off he goes in a story of revenge that is one of the most stunning and visually brilliant movies of 2003.

There are a couple of stand out scenes, but the one that impresses most and is probably one of my favourite all time film moments is the jaw dropping and beautifully shot corridor fight. Shot in one long continuous take, Dae-su Oh rampages his way through something like a hundred thugs, armed only with a hammer and the desire to make up for the 15 years he lost. It really is the perfectly shot scene of all time and the best film of 2003.

2003 Runner up – Mystic River

An emotional roller-coaster of a film that shows Clint Eastwood at his best. Childhood friends Jimmy Markum, Sean Devine and Dave Boyle reunite following the death of Jimmy’s oldest daughter, Katie. Sean’s a police detective on the case, gathering difficult and disturbing evidence; he’s also tasked with handling Jimmy’s rage and need for retribution. Tim Robbins and Sean Penn won Oscars for their roles and it was nominated for four other Oscars. Brilliant film.

2004 Winner – Shaun of the Dead

The finest British Comedy, Horror film ever made and the film that launched Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg into Hollywood’s radar. Edgar Wright learnt a lot from the Spaced TV show which helped make Shaun of the Dead so successful and he took a risk having Simon Pegg to act the lead role for the first time in a motion picture, but what a result. Simon Pegg is outstanding and played the part of Shaun better than anyone on the planet could have done, Nick Frost as Ed was the perfect sidekick to Shaun and their real life friendship made it even more believable and enjoyable to watch and with the supporting cast all adding brilliantly to this genius film, it made Shaun of the Dead as near to perfect comedy/Horror as you could possibly imagine.

The film is basically about the relationship of Shaun and his girlfriend Liz and how their breakup and getting back together is set during the outbreak of a Zombie apocalypse. It’s a satirical take on the Zombie film that pokes fun and fully embraces the genre and adds it’s own spin on it by making a comedy of it. The film succeeds on all levels and surprisingly became a hit all over the world and received praise from Mr.Zombie himself George Romero.

There are some truly stunning moments and my favourites are the scene in the pub after Shaun breaks up with Liz where the banter between Ed and Shaun is so so funny. When Shaun goes to shop at the start of film pre-apocalypse and then again post apocalypse mirroring the previous scene as Shaun walks past all the destruction and walking dead oblivious to it all, it’s subtle and so well done. It’s just such a good film that never gets boring no matter how many times i see it. You’ve got red on you!

2004 Runner Up – Downfall (Der Untergang)

A German film brave enough to confront its country’s history head on. Downfall is both a history lesson and a knife-edge drama/thriller that astounds in it’s depiction of Hitler during his last days as his secretary, Traudl Junge, tells of the Nazi dictator’s final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII. Bruno Ganz is the reason I loved this film, there has never been a performance like it. Incredible film.

2005 Winner - Batman Begins

Christopher Nolan was a great director before Batman Begins but i never thought he could do a Superhero film as good as Batman Begins. Restarting the Batman franchise was a dangerous task, especially after the monstrosities of Batman & Robin and Batman Forever, so the only option was a reboot ignoring everything that came before and giving Batman an origin movie showing how he came from nothing to a martial art trained superhero and used his wealth to fund proper legitimate weapons and the best Bat-Mobile of any Batman film ever.

Bruce Wayne heads off to the mountains of Asia to join the league of Shadows lead by Ra’s Al Ghul where he is trained by Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson). Bruce having different views on what the Shadows fight for returns to Gotham to fight crime and uses Wayne Enterprises to build the tools to create his secret identity of Batman. The story is incredible and hardly flawed, the characters are all well written and superbly performed by a stellar cast of Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Cilian Murphy, Morgan Freeman etc and never has a film helped the comic book genre improve it’s quality output as much as Batman Begins did.

It had everything you could want in not only a superhero film but in any action film. A plot that was exciting and smart, characters that worked well against each other, and when you saw the Batman Tumbler Batmobile for the first time  you instantly smiled and thought “that is the dam coolest thing I’ve ever seen” and when it roared as Wayne put his foot down, you instantly forgot the neon absurdities from the last Batman movie. You can’t help love the Batman.

2005 Runner Up – History of Violence & Howls moving Castle

Howls Moving Castle is a masterpiece in animation from the legendary Studio Ghibli and  incredibly talented director Mayao Miyazaki who’s animated films stun in their beauty and originality. Howls Moving Castle is based on the novel by Dianne Wynne Jones and is a sublime story that is nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Stunning movie and it’s hand drawn animation at it’s best.

2006 Winner – Pan’s Labyrinth

The stunning film by Guillemo Del Toro. Not enough praise can be heaped onto this film as it walks away with the best film of 2006 where Del Toro creates a wonderful story, incredible characters and a stunning fantasy world set alongside war torn 1944 Spain. We follow a young girl and her love of fairy tales as she desperately creates a fantasy world to escape the harsh realities of her life.

Everything about Pan’s Labyrinth works, stuns, fascinates and astounds as it drags you into the world and makes you question what is fantasy and what is reality as we reach the climatic conclusion of probably the most outstanding film of the decade so far.

The fantasy creatures the little girl, Ofelia, comes across are brilliant but none are as intimidating and terrifying as the Pale Man that guards over a table covered with food who she has to steal a dagger from, she disobeys the order not to eat the food and is chased by the Pale Man, it’s so dam scary but that’s mainly due to the excellent Doug Jones portrayal as the creepy child eating monster.

Great film, really can’t wait for Del Toro’s Hobbit.

2006 Runner up – Little Miss Sunshine

Little Miss Sunshine was the surprise hit of 2006, Nominated for four Oscars and winning two it would have easily won 2006 if it wasn’t for the incredible Pan’s Labyrinth. A brilliant cast and a brilliant story of a families road trip across America to get their daughter to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Hilarious, satirical and very moving. A real joy of 2006.

2007 Winner – Ratatouille

Pixar created one of the best animated movies of all time in 2007 with Ratatouille. It’s a story that is beautifully told and so amazingly animated that it just dazzles and astounds. Each time Pixar release a film you feel it can’t be bettered but they always raise the bar with each movie and Ratatouille is no exception.

It’s about a Rat named Remy that has a taste for fine food and a natural talent for cooking and so when he comes accidentally separated from his huge trash eating family he ends up in Paris and gets involved with a talentless garbage boy named Linguini who works at a once famous restaurant called Gusteau’s. They team up and with Remy guiding Linguini to cook and to get Gusteau’s back on the map as the famous restaurant it was.

It’s wonderfully made and puts a lot of films that year to shame with it’s quality and touching story that is brilliantly voiced by the actors and with such high level of detail used in every aspect of the background, foreground, character animation, facial expressions etc everything has so much love poured into it creation that there is no doubt that Pixar is the most brilliant and successful film making company of all time.

2007 Runner up – No Country for Old Men

The Coen Brothers Quadruple Oscar winning masterpiece that is up there with the best suspense thriller movies ever made. Javier Bardem stands out amongst the stellar cast that also include Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones who all take part in a story that just stuns from start to finish. Bardem rules the screen as one of the most terrifying movie bad guys of all time and Josh Brolin is brilliant as the luckless hunted nice guy who gets mixed up in all the chaos surrounding a drug deal gone very wrong. Stunning stuff

2008 Winner – The Dark Knight

The overall winner of the Heyuguys best film of the decade and rightly so in my opinion too. The second film on my list by Christopher Nolan (Memento and Insomnia also coming close to making my list) which I think proves that Nolan is the Director of the decade too as he has created original and exception movies throughout the noughties and looks to be starting this new Decade in similar style with the incredible looking Inception.

The Dark Knight had everything Nolan did right with Batman Begins and tripled it to create not only one of the greatest comic book movies ever but one of the greatest crime thriller movies ever and with one of the finest villain performances of all time from Heath Ledger everything came together perfectly.

Having some of the most exciting set pieces of action of any film throughout the noughties the Dark Knight raised the bar for every film to come after it. The performances from everyone involved added to the quality of the film and I can’t fault anyone. The film ran for around 2.5 hours but could have easily gone on for more because it was so dam good.

Can Batman 3 really get better than this? who knows, but there is no doubt it’s going to be the most anticipated films of this new decade.

2008 Runner Up – Wall-E

Another Pixar classic and if it wasn’t for the Dark Knight it would have won the 2008 film. Wall-E is a wonderful film that again raised the bar of the expected quality in animation that’s matched to a stunning grownup story that appeals to both children and adults alike.

The first half hour stuns in it’s simplicity with hardly any dialogue and when the story progresses to space it continues to entertain with wonderful characters and an excellent story. It’s emotional, funny and a perfect example of just how talented the folks at Pixar are.

2009 Winner – Moon

The surprise film of 2009 for me. Never did I believe Moon was going to be as good as this but it was and so much more. Sam Rockwell proved again what a brilliant actor he is and fully deserves more credit for what he does, His performance as Sam Bell makes the film work and was nothing short of perfect.

Duncan Jones made an incredible debut film that was high in quality, claustrophobic, thoughtful and just visually stunning that has made him one to watch in this decade with everyone waiting to see whats coming next. Kevin Spacey adds his perfectly cast voice to Gerty the computer assistant that runs and maintains the space station and adds an air of unpredictability and doubt to the film. It’s quite brilliant.

Set on the Moon, Sam Bell is coming to the end of his three year contract to mine the Moon for Earth’s primary source of energy, he’s starting to get ill and become delusional and as he is looking forward to returning home to be reunited with his wife and child he has an accident whilst out in his lunar buggy. When Sam Bell awakes he eventually ventures out to find a lunar buggy crashed into one of the harvesters and finds something that looks like Sam Bell inside and takes him back to base. The film then deals with who or what is Sam Bell, is he imagining it? is he going crazy? It’s a beautiful brilliant movie and a real joy to watch.

2009 Runner up – Inglorious Basterds

Tarantino at his best, Inglorious Basterds was just one of the most enjoyable movies of 2009 with a great cast, incredible story and some truly unforgettable moments. It’s brutal in it’s violence, enjoyably funny at times and introduced one of the most scariest evil villains of movie history in Hans Landa, a character that deserves an Oscar for te best supporting actor role as the evil Jew hunting Nazi. The opening scene of Inglorious Basterds was the highlight of the whole film for me but the rest of it was never as good but still incredibly enjoyable.

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