Top 10 of the 10's

I hadn't originally intended to do a "best of the decade" list, just because it seems like everyone else is and such things are by their nature a bit arbitrary. Plus, as the eggheads like to remind us, technically the new decade doesn't start until Jan. 1, 2021.

(Frankly, they can blow it out their wazoo. By this reckoning a person who's just shy of 41 can claim they're still in their 30s.)

But it's kind of fun and I like having arguments about favorite things.

Also, the "10's" or whatever we're calling it -- weird that we reached the end of this decade without coming up with a universally accepted name -- marks a full decade of The Film Yap and my blog as standalone, independent movie outlets. So I was able to just look at my annual Top 10 lists and winnow them down.

Not surprisingly over the course of a decade some films rise and fall in my estimation. Entire years are not represented -- including 2019, a below-average cinematic year in my book, which is why this piece is actually publishing ahead of my list for this year.

Fully 40% of this list is comprised from one year, 2015, which I still contend is a once-in-a-generation year for movies, like 1994 or 1939.

You might be surprised to find that in some cases movies that ranked lower on that year's Top 10 ended up higher on the decade list, while others moved down or didn't make it at all. That represents how movies wax or wane in our eyes with the passing of years.

So here's the list:

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Lady Bird
3. Blade Runner 2049
4. Life Itself
5. Spotlight
6. Hell or High Water
7. Green Book
8. The Big Short
9. Room
10. The Social Network

"Mad Max: Fury Road" has it all: reviving a cinematic icon while creating a new character who is just as compelling as he is, and surrounding them with a world that feels dense and lived-in. Much the same goes for "Blade Runner 2049," which is a completely satisfying follow-up to a film I thought defied sequelization.

"Lady Bird" is a singular movie: semi-autobiographical, specific to a time and place, with riveting performances all the way down. I was a little disappointed in "Little Women," but I'm looking forward to the next 30-40 years of Greta Gerwig films with bated breath.

More than anyone Roger Ebert determined the form of film criticism going forward: starting in newspapers, graduating to television and finding his fullest voice online. I saw no better documentary than "Life Itself" this decade.

"Spotlight" and "Hell or High Water" are the fullest expressions of very specific genres: journalism movies, for which I have an obvious affinity, and modern/revisionist Westerns.

"Green Book" and "The Big Short" are polar opposites: one seeks to comfort/uplift and the other to afflict/accuse.

Both accomplish their goals rapturously well. "Room" is still a great movie but has fallen down my list, just because seeing it for the first time is such a singular experience that subsequent viewings aren't as completely engaging. "The Silence of the Lambs" is the same way.

"The Social Network" will be studied as a terrific time capsule of our culture at the cusp of the social media/mobile device age. It's hard to describe how different our daily interactions are from where they were just 10 or 12 years ago.

I could make a tally of "almosts" as long as your arm, but I will share the other films I struggled to eliminate from this list: "Whiplash," "Her," "Prisoners" and "Pacific Rim."

Video review: "Life Itself"

The death of Roger Ebert more or less coincided with the death of film criticism as a viable vocation, and perhaps that’s part of the reason so many of the stubborn stragglers – me included – have dubbed “Life Itself” the best documentary of 2014. He was our irascible champion, wielding unprecedented power and influence, who helped bring an unabashed love of movies into America’s living rooms.

The film, directed by Steve James based on Ebert’s own book of the same title, is much like the man’s writing style: clear-eyed, unpretentious and incisive. It ably covers the rote autobiographical aspects of this Chicago son, his meteoric rise to prominence as the movie reviewer for the Sun-Times, and his ascension to iconic status as the co-host of the various iterations of the TV show he shared with his  partner/combatant, Gene Siskel.

But it also lays bare his complicated soul in unexpected ways. Ebert’s words are read by actor Stephen Stanton in an uncanny mimicry of the critic’s own voice. He talks about his struggles with alcoholism, egotism and professional jealousy.

“Life Itself” was made with the full cooperation of Ebert and his wife, Chaz, and James’ cameras follow the pair around during the final months of his life as Roger struggled with tremendous health issues, including his total loss of speech. The hospital scenes are emotionally tough to watch, as Ebert tries to carry on with his work and life despite crippling illness.

This film spotlights Ebert’s grace, but also his prodigious flaws, in a way that’s even-handed and illuminating. Few cinematic portraits of a famous person are so honest and indelible.

I think Roger would’ve loved this movie, but beyond that, I think you will, too.

Bonus features are merely OK. There are a handful of deleted scenes, an interview with director James, a tribute at the Sundance Film Festival and a television profile of the movie.

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Top 10 Films of 2014

Usually it's easy to designate an entire year as a good or bad one for cinema. You think about the totality of the films that came out, the impact they had on you and those around you, and make a subjective judgment about how they stack up to previous years.

But 2014 has been a puzzle to me.

On the one hand, I gave two films my highest score (four stars, five Yaps or an "A," depending on where it was published). That's unusual for me; I've had entire years go by -- even multiple changings of the calendar -- without awarding it once. So that would seem to indicate a very good year.

(I don't think I've ever given out three or more in a single year since I've been doing this professionally, 1995. But if I had been doing it in 1994, there would have been.)

On the other hand, once you get past my top four or five films, the list drops off dramatically for me. Essentially, I saw two great movies in 2014, a handful of very good ones, and then a bunch of stuff that was above-average but didn't blow me away. To my mind, that's indicative of a sub-par year.

When I'm making this list, I usually don't have any trouble coming up with a roster of films I think are Top 10 contenders. It generally is between 12 and 15 long, and then I undertake the painful task of deciding which will be cut and sent to the secondary list of "also rans" that I always publish.

Here, though, after I decided on my top five, I had difficulty going through the pool and deciding which were worthy of being "promoted" to the main list. If I were truly honest, I'd make a Top 5 list and stop there.

But tradition is tradition, and this is one I like to keep. So here is my Top 10 list, with a few thoughts about each. Then I'll have a roundup of 18 other films I deemed worthy of mention, in no particular order. (Normally I comment that they 'vied for a spot on the 10 best' something to that effect, but as I stated that wasn't really true this year.)

I'm not going to bother with a "worst of" list. As I've previously discussed, I usually don't see the truly awful flicks because the studios don't screen them for us, and I haven't the time to follow up on movies I know will be a chore to watch, just to report they are so.

1.  "Whiplash" -- No surprise here, as I've been singing this film's praises for months. Writer/director Damien Chazelle's tale of ambition and antagonism posits a young jazz drummer against his tyrannical conductor, who is a monster but also pushes him farther than any other teacher could. The performance of the year by J.K. Simmons; Mile Teller has great things behind and ahead of him.
2. "Life Itself" -- It's rare for documentaries to make my Top 10, but Steve James' tale of film critic Roger Ebert is a fully-fleshed portrait of a man whose gifts and faults were both prodigious. His final chapter dealing with medical challenges that robbed him of the ability to speak or eat -- two of Ebert's favorite things -- is haunting and illuminating in equal measures.
3. "St. Vincent" -- On several occasions I have referred to "St. Vincent" as my favorite film of the year, which I still hold to be true even though it is listed as #3. I guess what I mean to say is that it was my most gratifying cinematic experience of the year, and I utterly cherished spending time with these characters. Bill Murray, who I think gets called a genius too much for his own good, truly is great as a self-loathing man with a heart of gold under many, many layers of black detritus. Melissa McCarthy made me smile again, ironically in a non-comedic role.
4. "The Imitation Game" -- I predict this biopic of WWII codebreaker Alan Turing will win the Oscar for Best Picture. It simply has that classic Academy Award pedigree: historical subject, a commanding lead performance (by Benedict Cumberbatch), commentary on a past social ill with modern reverberations -- and it's British. A superbly crafted film with no weak links in the chain.
5. "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" -- Proof that summer movies can be big-budget spectacles with lots of action sequences and yet cerebral and emotionally resonant. A true watershed film in which the stars of the show are totally represented through CGI based on motion capture performances by Andy Serkis and a host of other actors. Too bad the flesh-and-blood humans were a tad dull.
6. "Wild" -- People who go off to climb mountains for no reason or trek through deserts alone are celebrated as adventurers, but they've always struck me as nuts who must have yawning holes in their psyche in need of patching. So perhaps it's not surprising I was thrilled by this biopic of a dysfunctional woman (Reese Witherspoon, triumphant) who walked a thousand miles because she really didn't have anywhere else to go.
7. "American Sniper" -- I really liked Clint Eastwood's portrait of America's deadliest soldier when I first saw it, and it's only grown in my estimation since then. Bradley Cooper, Hollywood's twinkly rascal of the day, gives a career-changing performance as a stoic man who had the mental and physical traits of a perfect killer, yet remained utterly human.
8. "Grand Budapest Hotel" -- I've been cold on Wes Anderson for awhile, particularly the glum, familiar parade of characters all giving the same deadpan delivery. (I hold this to be true: If a character finds their own existence irretrievably boring, so will the audience.) So it was great to see such an inventive, gleeful romp anchored by Ralph Fiennes giving a bounteous, emotionally layered turn. Funny, charming, a twinge sad, it almost makes me forgive Anderson for "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." Almost.
9. "My Old Lady" -- I am convinced I am the only person in America who saw this film, which is either a drama or a comedy darker than the blackest night, written and directed by Israel Horowitz from his own play. Otherwise people would be talking about the fact it's the finest performance of Kevin Kline's career, as a benighted man who comes to Paris to claim his dead father's apartment and finds it occupied by Maggie Smith.
10. "Gone Girl" -- I had reservations about this adaptation of the popular book when I saw it, but over time most of those complaints have faded. Rosamund Pike is a mystery inside an enigma as the dissatisfied housewife who disappears and is presumed murdered. Ben Affleck continues to enjoy one of the most well-deserved second acts. One of the few films I can remember where it gets better the more we grow to dislike the main characters.

The Best of the Rest

"The Homesman" was two-thirds of a great Western and contained what I thought was the best female lead performance by Hilary Swank. But a muddled last act drained it of momentum. I was delighted to see Tim Burton engage in restraint with "Big Eyes," and it served him well. I liked "Guardians of the Galaxy" quite a bit, though not as much as others, and actually preferred "X-Men: Days of Future Past" of this year's crop of comic book movies.

"The Boxtrolls" and "How to Train Your Dragon 2" were the best of a very weak field of animated films. "Unbroken," like "12 Years a Slave," was undermined by a cartoonish villain. I didn't see enough foreign films this year, but "Two Days, One Night" and "Force Majeure" were the best of those I did. "Under the Skin" proved that dreamy, nontraditional narrative movies can move you. "Foxcatcher" has two great performances, and Channing Tatum.

Beyond a harrowing tale of sickness, "The Fault in Our Stars" shone because it depicted awkward teenage love like it really is, rather than the Hollywood facsimile we're so used to. "When the Game Stands Tall" eschews every trope of the sports drama and triumphs. "The Babadook" showed that there can still be originality and imagination in horror films. Woody Allen delighted in "Magic in the Moonlight," and Philip Seymour Hoffman reminded us why he'll be so missed with "A Most Wanted Man."

"Boyhood" is a great idea that resulted in merely a good movie. It still strikes as more of an exercise than the result of a pure creative impulse. It's showoff-y and self-indulgent; it's all tell and no show. It's like a painter who decides he will only work on a painting a few strokes at a time, devoting himself to other projects in the intervening months and years. It's an amazing undertaking, but it's doubtful the result will be counted among his most memorable works.

I've always felt the most sacred duty of a critic is to champion films nobody knows about or cares about. "Labor Day" is the ultimate cinematic orphan, pulled from a Christmas opening, dumped into theaters in January, disavowed by director Jason Reitman, and even openly mocked in some circles. (It doesn't even own a year, receiving the barest of theatrical runs to claim a technicality as a 2013 film; I claim it here because, well, no one else will.) I found its delicately balanced tone and sensitive performances a marvel. Ignore the lemmings and give this one a look on video.

Review: "Life Itself"

It is a supremely satisfying full cinematic circle that Steve James has directed the documentary about the great film critic Roger Ebert, based on his autobiography, "Life Itself." After all, it was Ebert and his partner-in-snark, Gene Siskel, who first championed James' documentary, "Hoop Dreams," 20 years ago, turning it from a little-known festival entry into one of the most seminal films of the modern age.

James would not have a career, or certainly not the career he's had, without Siskel and Ebert. For more than two decades they cajoled people into loving movies while warring with each other on their iconic television show, wherein films could live or die by their up-or-down judgment.

"Two thumbs up" was their (fiercely trademarked) journalistic blessing every Hollywood producer wanted to see on the poster of their flick, while "Two thumbs down" could mark the kiss of death. Ebert and Siskel, otherwise known as "the fat one" and "the bald one" to people who couldn't recall their names but nonetheless knew who they were, spread their passion for cinema from their Chicago empire across entire generations and geographies.

"The studios started out helping us, then hating us, then fearing us," one of the longtime producers of the show says.

This of course was back in the day when film reviewers wielded amorphous but actual power, when newspapers actively sought after and promoted local voices, when people couldn't wait to hear what "their" critic from their hometown paper had to say before plunking down cash for a ticket. Inter-city battles between critics like Ebert and Siskel were the hot sauce in the soup of a community's ongoing conversation about the arts.

Sadly, most cities today, even major metropolitan centers, cannot boast one full-time movie critic, let alone two.

"Life Itself" is a marvelous movie about a marvelous man, and one for whom James and his crew are not afraid to provide a warts-and-all portrayal. Since it's based on Ebert's own writings, many of his faults are enumerated by himself: he was an alcoholic, an egotist, womanizer and occasional bully.

But he was also a natural man of letters, the sort who could dash out a fully thought-through review in a half hour. Ridiculously prodigious -- he blogged tirelessly, penned travel books, a screenplay for "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" and even a cookbook -- the words flowed out of the burly, bespectacled Ebert like water.

James' documentary satisfyingly explores every angle of Ebert's life, from the professional to the personal, the public persona of the newspaper and TV star to the private things he kept hidden.

For any erstwhile student of Ebert's history, some of the material will already be well known -- such as how the Chicago Sun-Times plucked him, a cub reporter barely into his 20s who'd only been at the blue-collar tabloid a few months, to be the movie critic in 1967. This was at a time when reviewing films was seen as such an inconsequential endeavor that the rival Tribune used a revolving door of writers who all published under the same pen name.

A lot of the story, however, will be brand new and emotionally affecting to the general public, such as how low Ebert grew during his last few years, when cancer forced the removal of his jawbone and the loss of his speech, and thus his TV career. James filmed with Ebert and his wife, Chaz, for several months prior to his death in 2013, and the footage of his ordeal in hospitals and rehabilitation centers underlines his bravery in writing openly on his blog about his travails. (I felt tears welling as a nurse suctioned out his GI tube, his face wrenched in the effort to withstand it.)

Also surprising are testimonials from filmmakers, unknown ones but also giants like Werner Herzog, who talk about how Ebert's championing their work made a difference in their careers. Martin Scorsese (who is also a producer) says that he was essentially washed up in the 1980s, until Siskel and Ebert hosted a tribute to him at the Toronto Film Festival. He says it gave him the strength to go on -- nonetheless, they savaged his next effort, "The Color of Money," something Scorsese talks about without malice.

James also includes extended discussions on the rivalry between Ebert and Siskel, which brought out the best and worst in each man. Other notable critics, like Richard Corliss of Time magazine or the New York Times' A.O. Scott, weigh in with their thoughts on how Ebert's TV work and friendships with filmmakers affected his place in the professional pantheon.

(Full disclosure: like many established and aspiring movie critics, I enjoyed a correspondence with Ebert some years ago, when he gave me some career advice, and I had the pleasure of meeting him once in person.)

Finally, there is the tender story of Ebert's late-in-life romantic blossoming, marrying Chaz at the age of 50 and expanding his lifetime of bachelorhood into an instant extended multicultural family of children and grandchildren.

Love, laughter, tragic flaws, exotic locales, antagonists who become friends, losing the ability to speak but finding a voice -- Roger Ebert's life has all the ingredients for a great movie. And "Life Itself" is that movie.