#31 — Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017) A common failing of first-time feature directors is a tendency to put every last notion they have into a film that can’t possibly hold them all. The opportunity to make a full-length movie … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-One
#32 — Looper (Rian Johnson, 2012) Violence begets violence. In the longstanding cinematic algebra that posits the swinging of fists and the pulling of triggers as the readiest and surest solutions to all manner of problems — such as the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Two
#33 — Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015) In the nineteen-fifties, a young woman from Ireland moves to the United States. Ellis (Saoirse Ronan) has few prospects and only the slenderest of connections to other Irish immigrants in the big city she … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Three
#34 — True Grit (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2010) The primacy of language in the work of Joel and Ethan Coen makes invites speculation about the meaning of the outside authors they choose to associated themselves with through their … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Four
#35 — Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012) It takes a peculiar skill to make a movie that’s utterly bonkers and yet marvelously lucid, simultaneously reckless and tightly controlled. French director Leos Carax went a long time between films before Holy … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of 10s — Number Thirty-Five
#36 — Short Term 12 (Destin Daniel Cretton, 2013) After Destin Daniel Cretton graduated from college, he worked in a group home for at-risk youth. Firsthand experience with depicted subject matter isn’t entirely necessary to make a compelling feature film, … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Six
#37 — Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Edgar Wright, 2010) In adapting movies from other works, fidelity to source material can trip up even the most skilled directors. There’s a natural instinct to hew closely to whatever is being transferred … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Seven
#38 — Hugo (Martin Scorsese, 2011) Martin Scorsese has long been a more versatile filmmaker than he is given credit for. Much as everyone reveres the tales of thugs and gangsters (and I am among the dutifully reverential), Scorsese has … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Eight
#39 — Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010) Fittingly, Certified Copy had its genesis in a ruse. Lore has it that Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami was chatting with his friend Juliette Binoche, disguising a fictional story he’d concocted as an anecdote … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Nine
#40 — Coherence (James Ward Byrkit, 2014) Of all the recurring quandaries of modern fiction, one of the most consistently compelling seeks to determine how human beings will handle themselves when everything starts to fall apart. If a couple globe-spanning … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Forty
Coffee for Two 