My 50 Favorite Films of the Decade: 2010-2019

I was a bit of a latecomer to loving movies.  I first got really interested in film around 2007 when I was a teen, but it wasn't until the start of this decade that I truly started watching films avidly.  And as the definition of who can make movies and how they can make them has expanded, there has been so much cinema to consume, and I've tried my best to soak it all up.  There are still blindspots on my list -- I wish there were more international films on it, as well as films directed by women and people of color -- but I think it still represents many different genres and styles.

The rules: My albums list had a limit of only one album per act, but that felt a little restrictive for films, so I loosened it up to have a maximum of two films per director.  There are a few examples of that on this list.  Did I make the right choice?  Who can say, I love my auteurs!  A small change from my year end lists is that I always use the American theatrical release date of a film to determine its eligibility.  Since that's a little harder to track and remember as time goes by, I'm just going by the year listed on IMDB, which will sometimes be the year before the theatrical release if the movie premiered at a festival.  With that in mind, the eligibility window is a world premiere between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2019.  This doesn't factor in often, but one example is Dogtooth, which had a theatrical release in 2010 but is not eligible because its world premiere was in 2009.

2015 Academy Award Predictions

Award shows are ultimately meaningless, but no other one assigns as much prestige to meaninglessness as the Oscars do.  While the Grammys mostly stick to populist affairs and the Emmys remain stuck in the middle of commercially successful and critically acclaimed, the Academy Awards try to give off the impression that they're awarding true "Art."  (Yes, that means we live in a world where Crash is considered "Art.")

Part of that could come from the voting body itself.  Much discussion was had about the demographics of the Academy when the nominations rolled out and they were whiter than a picket fence in St. Petersberg, Missouri.  You see, 94% of the Oscar voters are white, 74% are male, and the average member is 63 years old.  And what are the two things old white dudes love the most?  Taking themselves too seriously and not recognizing people of color.  In all seriousness, I know one of those old white dudes in the Academy, and not only is he a cool guy, he has great taste in films too.  Mostly, though, it seems like the voting body consists of people like this.

For the past few years, I've been making predictions about these awards, because it's fun and the trendy thing to do.  In 2013, I got 21 out of 24 of the categories correct.  Last year, I got 22 out of 24 correct.  Will I get 23 correct this year?  Probably not!  Below I've listed each category, with all of the nominations in said category; along with what I think will win (meaning: my actual prediction), what I want to win, and a brief explanation of both answers.

My 20 Favorite Films of 2014

My end of the year list for films is always my most incomplete list, because so many films come out at the end of the year in New York and Los Angeles and nowhere else, simply to qualify for the Academy Awards.  So as always, here is a list of films that could have made my top 20 if not for the fact that I have no ability to see them yet: Mr. Turner, Inherent Vice, Selma, Two Days One Night, Song of the Sea.  This pisses me off.  And until I quit making this list, die, or move to New York or LA, I will keep complaining about this.  I mean, I can't see Inherent Vice and Paul Thomas Anderson is my favorite director.  It's an outrage, I tell you!

Looking back at my top 20 list from last year, I noticed that there were more heavy-hitter directors that popped up.  Paul Greengrass, Edgar Wright, Martin Scorsese, The Coen Brothers, Steven Soderbergh, Woody Allen, Noah Baumbach, Richard Linklater -- they all appeared on my list last year.  While 2014 doesn't have the pedigree to match that, I'd say that it was still a pretty great year for film, and I'm very satisfied with my top 20.

The rules: As long as a film got an official release in 2014, it was eligible for placement on this list.  This is an important thing to remember, since many of the films that appear in my top 20 premiered at film festivals in 2013, but didn't get released in theaters until this year.  And in the case where a film got no theatrical release, then a VOD debut in 2014 will make it eligible.  Now that all of that has been cleared up, on to the actual list...

Boyhood? Boyhood!

Richard Linklater is no stranger to experimentation.  He flexed his creative muscles with oddities like 2001's Waking Life and 2006's A Scanner Darkly, which used a custom made rotoscoping program to create a visual style that landed somewhere between animation and live-action.  His real accomplishment is the Before series, a sequence of films, released nine years apart from each other, that depict the complicated relationship between two lovers.  1995's Before Sunrise, a lovely film about strangers meeting and forming an instant and powerful connection, was a great enough movie on its own.  But the true surprise came when Linklater picked up on Jesse and Celine's story nine years later in 2004, with Before Sunset.  Each installment is an examination of relationships, taking a snapshot of the two characters at a certain period in their lives, and 2013's Before Midnight effectively explored the difficulties of maintaining a marriage.  Part of the brilliance of the series is the fact that viewers watched these characters grow and change over the course of 18 years.  It's all about the accumulation -- each movie carries more weight because audiences have mapped the characters' shifting worldviews, and the dulling or reignition of their passions.

His latest film, Boyhood, attempts to accomplish all of that in the span of one 166-minute film.  Shot in pieces over the course of 12 years, it tells the tale of one boy's life from 1st to 12th grade.  Mason (Ellar Coltrane) starts off as a six year old in a small Texas town, living with his mother (Patricia Arquette) and older sister (Lorelei Linklater).  Each year of his young life is portrayed in a few snippets, which depict him as a curious, introspective, well-meaning child.  But the film also deftly sketches him out through signifiers of the era.  Mason loves Dragon Ball Z, he waits in line at midnight on the release day of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and he watches viral videos on Funny or Die.  (To add to that, the passage of time is usually punctuated by a popular song of the given year.)  Anybody who grew up against the backdrop of the 2000s will recognize Mason because he is them.

Yet despite the specificity of its timespan, Boyhood crafts a universal narrative about aging and familial relationships.  The film is able to say so much with its editing, mapping the forward march of time through new haircuts, increased heights, and location changes.  Mason looks on as his mother embarks on a few unsuccessful marriages: one with a college professor whose drinking problem causes him to violently lash out, and later with an Iraq war veteran who disappears offscreen.  Meanwhile, he only gets to see his wayfaring father (Ethan Hawke) on weekends and special occasions.  Everyone -- regardless of the era they grew up in -- can find something relatable in that feeling of being at the mercy of decisions outside of one's control or understanding.

Like with the Before movies, the film's script was a collaborative process with the four leads.  As a result, every voice and perspective feels authentic.  While other films usually struggle with making young characters sound and feel believable, Boyhood manages to accurately capture the speech patterns and thought processes of every stage of Mason's development.  Linklater adapted the script to fit the actual changes in Coltrane's interests over the years, making Mason's progression from a pensive kid to an artistic teen feel less like transformation for the sake of story and more like organic growth.

That growth doesn't just occur in front of the camera, but behind it as well.  By the time filming began in 2002, Linklater had already made impressive films like Slacker, Dazed and Confused, and Before Sunrise.  But Boyhood is an exercise in watching a filmmaker hone his skills and become a more confident director over the course of nearly three hours.  Because the story doesn't fit a conventional mold, it's difficult to pluck out an arc at first, and those early scenes are a little less tightly composed.  But much like it's hard to find significance when looking at life under a microscope, this movie comes together after pulling back and picking out neat themes and patterns.  It's a collection of moments because life is a collection of moments -- the meaning comes from the way they fit together.

Boyhood is a very overwhelming film.  It hits you with wave after wave of small emotions that build upon each other.  By the time you've watched Mason go off to college, you've seen one boy's entire youth in almost three hours.  Once the credits roll, it's hard not to think about the profound change that you've experienced throughout your own life and wonder where all that time has gone.  The fact that this massive endeavor was carried out to completion would make it worthy of praise alone, but Richard Linklater's ability to concoct a profound, compelling narrative out of an experiment is what makes Boyhood the best film of the year so far.