Acestroke's Top 21 films of 21st Century

 

So, it's finally happened: we've survived the first 21 years of the 21st century (sort of).  In addition to the new developments in technology of last two decades (the universality of the smart phone, which has, in addition to turning humans into mindless zombies, also transformed us into the ultimate know-it-alls, fake wise men and women who carry the entire encyclopedia of human history in the palm of our hands - literally), we've also witnessed the birth of more than a few excellent motion pictures.  

The fact that about half of the films listed below were not a product of Hollywood, but of the world outside of USA, gives me some comfort, truth be told (as it should give the same to you; and here I'm specifically addressing fanatics of everything commercial and popular who dare not watch a movie with subtitles 🤨).  

You will see that I've listed 10 foreign films, and 11 English speaking movies, an arrangement that I tried to balance as much as possible by watching three or four foreign films for every 10 Hollywood products each year.  I believe this to be the fairest of assessments of everything out there, but unfortunately, there's still loads of stuff that I never got to see, either due to lack of time, lack of availability of international cinema in the commercial market, or simple laziness on my part.

So, are there any essential movies that I failed to mention?  How many on here do not belong?  Is anything overrated? Underrated?

Comment bellow, and let's open up a discussion. 

1. Der Leben das Anderen / The Lives of Others (Germany, 2006. Florian Henckel von Donnersmark) 

In the early 1980s days of communist East Germany, government agent Wiesler (Urlich Müche) wiretaps the apartment of a writer, Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), and proceeds to listen in on the artist's life.  Loyal to his Stasi leaders to the core, Wiesler's tough exterior slowly begins to soften, as he's moved by Dreyman's writings and his music, and at the same time disillusioned by the hypocrisy displayed by his party's superiors.  The final act, in which Dreyman's Sonata for a Good Man at long last falls into the hands of the one who inspired it, should have you fighting back tears (if not, you'll need to check your pulse).  The Lives of Others may just be the perfect examination of a man who, sacrificing everything to save those he was supposed to ruin, eventually ends up finding his own soul in the most moving way imaginable.

2. Inglorious Basterds (USA, 2006. Quentin Tarantino)

You can rest assured that when Quenting Tarantino, the most original living American filmmaker, decides to change the course of World War 2 history, the result will, almost certainly, be riveting, unpredictable, and above all... just pure entertaining as hell!  In Inglorious Basterds, Lieutenant Aldo Raine's (Brad Pitt) titular group of soldiers scalp and bash the brains of any Nazi they encounter, but the real showstopper here is Hans "The Jew Hunter" Landa (Christoph Waltz), an SS officer whose charisma and multilingual skills will both charm and terrify you.  The last shot, where Raine proudly says, "This just might be my masterpiece", may as well be Tarantino talking about this film, and deservedly so.

3. The Dark Knight (USA, 2008. Christopher Nolan)

A Shakespearean tragedy masquerading as a superhero film. Or is it the other way around?  Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy elevated the Caped Crusader from a comic book mortal to a complex character who is fearful, doubtful and who eventually succumbs to extreme pain - characteristics unheard of in a hero wearing tights.  Add to the mix an archaic villain (Heath Ledger's Joker) whose only purpose and inspiration is to create "chaos", and what you're left with is a thoroughly exciting action film where the drama supersedes the spectacle.  Superhero genre (DC or Marvel) has never produced a better product  - and likely never will.

4. Oldboy (South Korea, 2003. Park Chan-wook)

A South Korean movie that truly emphasizes the old proverb, Revenge is a dish best served cold, Chan-wook's drama is, quite possibly, the most thorough movie about revenge we've ever seen.  As a man who's been mysteriously locked up in a room for fifteen years, Oh Dae-su (Choi Min Sik), upon his sudden release, is angry, confused and curious as ever for answers.  By the time he discovers who his captor was, and the elaborate reasons behind it, he, and the audience along with him, will have gone through an experience similar to a nightmarish euphoria (just an FYI: the 2013 American remake is a forgettable mess in comparison). A movie that has to be seen to be believed (that's not an exaggeration).

5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (USA, 2004. Michel Gondry)

Film critic Owen Gleiberman, upon this film's release in 2004, said, "...it's a movie that will bend your mind and break your heart...", and a more perfect description of Charlie Kaufman's best screenplay has never been uttered.  As a couple whose relationship has deteriorated to the point where Clementine (Kate Winslet) chooses to have her memories of her ex Joel (Jim Carrey) completely erased, the two leads create a love story that's so fascinating because it's the complete opposite of perfect.  Director Michel Gondry presents the memory erasure scenes as a waking dream that slowly turns into a messy nightmare, then eventually fades away with the morning sun.  Tennyson's poem, it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved of all, has never been more perfectly captured in a movie.

6. Hable con Ella / Talk to Her (Spain, 2002, Pedro Almodovar)

Two men, Marco (Dario Grandinetti) and Benigno (Javier Camara) are in love with two women who are both in a coma.  As they wait for them to wake, they talk to the women (who may or may not be able to hear them) they ponder the meaning of life, death, love, and their own existence.  Pedro Almodovar's best film is a meditation on mystery, unexplained infatuation and the lengths that some will go to sacrifice themselves for complete strangers.  It's a most lyrical love story in which loss and the subsequent recovery of that loss can fill one with an optimistic hope.  

7. Foxtrot (Israel, 2017. Samuel Maoz)

A middle aged Tel Aviv couple (Lior Ashkenazi and Sarah Adler) receive news that their son, Jonathan (Yonathan Shiray) who was serving in the army, has died. What exactly happened to him? Was he murdered, or was his death an unfortunate accident? As director Samuel Maoz takes us back to the desolate checkpoint where Jonathan was stationed, we witness the pure absurdity of the military through an accident where innocent people were slaughtered, and the ensuing cover-up that followed.  It's not until the very final shot that we realize Foxtrot's message of you reap what you saw could not have been presented more prudently.  

8. Memories of Murder (South Korea, 2003. Bong Joon-ho)

Sure, David Fincher has made some terrific serial-killer-chased-by-curious-detective movies (Seven, Zodiac), but they all pale in comparison with Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder.  In a small South Korean town, a murderer targets young women, rapes them, then leaves their corpses to be found in the vast country fields.  The detectives assigned on the case are clumsy, unsure of themselves, and even a little dull (in other words, they're all too human).  The movie's ending may leave some unsatisfied, for not everything is solved and wrapped up nicely the way it often is in Hollywood, but the stare given by the lead detective at the very end is chilling nonetheless, and all too real.  It will leave you feeling much the same way. 

9. Match Point (USA, 2005. Woody Allen)

Who would've thought that Woody Allen's best movie would be the one that doesn't feature him in any of the roles?  This tale of a failed tennis professional, Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Myers) who worms his way into the upper class London society by smooching to the rich parents of "plain-Jane" Chloe (Emily Mortimer), a girl he "likes". But once he catches a glimpse of the seductive Nola (Scarlett Johansson), Chris decides that he's gonna have his cake and eat it, too.  The complications that follow are on par with Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, presenting us with a climax that may be hard to watch and still support the protagonist's plight.  Match Point was the best movie in a year (2005) that had sooo many excellent candidates, and that's saying a lot.  

10. Mad Max: Fury Road (Australia, 2015. George Miller)

Who would've thought that, thirty years after the last Mad Max movie, a much older George Miller would go and put out something like this? Substituting Mel Gibson with the Brit Tom Hardy in the titular role, the Australian filmmaker's fourth installment in the post-apocalyptic Australian desert brings us even more enthralling car chases, mesmerizing sets of punks rocking guitars while elevated on fast-moving vehicles, and an unforgettable villain, Immortan Joe, whose appearance is part Bane, and part masked Hannibal Lecter.  Fury Road is an astonishing action spectacle, an extravaganza of speed, color and wheels that you may wanna watch with a fastened seatbelt.

11. Wall-E (USA, 2008. Andrew Stanton)

The most ambitious Pixar movie presents us with the ultimate consumerism nightmare: a futuristic Earth overstuffed with trash, leaving the whole mess for the titular singular robot to clean up, while humanity travels across the universe in a gigantic spaceship, abandoning any and all responsibility for the disaster they've left behind.  In addition to being a touching romance between Wall-E and the more advanced robot, Eve, this animated wonder also evokes the prophetic message of 2001: A Space Odyssey: that future AI machines, given enough power and leverage, may indeed overtake humanity at some point. It's a possibility certainly worth thinking about.  

12. A Touch of Sin / 天注定 (China, 2013. Jia Zhangke)

China's most audacious, most honest film presents us with situations stocked with conflicts and violence that the CCP would dare not want anyone to see (just how Jia Zhangke was able to get it made and released is beyond me).  In A Touch of Sin, a young factory worker is blackmailed by his co-workers, and also pressured by his parents to provide for them; a fed up masseuse goes all Howard Beale and decides to not take it anymore!; a furious miner goes shot-gun crazy against a company that's betrayed him by blasting everyone in sight.  The film explores the constant frustration and desperation of the lower classes, and the underlying corruption always present in Chinese bureaucracy and the upper echelons of society. By the time it's over you'd have witnessed, more or less, the microcosm of modern day China.

13. United 93 (USA, 2006. Paul Greengrass)

No modern filmmaker can reenact recent global tragedies quite like Paul Greengrass, and in United 93, his docu-drama about 9/11, he (practically literally) takes the audience on a ride on a doomed United airplane that crashed in the fields of Pennsylvania after its passengers took on the terrorists.  The movie feels so real that it creates a certain level of discomfort: during my first theatrical viewing of it, several people walked out, and those who stayed until the end were sick to their stomachs.  This is all the more credit to Greengrass, who, aware of how many innocent people were murdered on that tragic day, wanted to make the audience feel just a little of their dread.  Needless to say, in that, he's succeeded triumphantly.  As important a movie about an American tragedy as there is.

14. All the Real Girls (USA, 2003. David Gordon Green)

Along with Sunshine, this is the new millennium's most unusual, unpredictable love story.  When a small town womanizer, Paul (Paul Schneider), begins to spend more time with his best friend's younger sister, Noel (Zooey Deschanel), who has returned home from boarding school, he's suddenly forced to deal with feelings completely alien to him.  Noel is unlike any woman he's ever met, but alas, she's a virgin.  So what is this lifelong playa to do?  David Gordon Green's second movie is his very best: a drama about the maturation of a man who never really wanted to grow up, but was forced to anyway.  The viewer is left to decide whether his transformation will benefit him in the long run.

 15. Låt den Rätte Komma In / Let the Right One In (Sweden, 2008. Tomas Alfredson)   

A vampire movie to end all vampire movies, this Swedish horror/drama introduces a child bloodsucker, Eli (Lina Leandersson) who befriends a young loner, Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), and together, they develop a friendship that walks a fine line between adolescent crush and pure potential terror.  The Scandinavian setting of endless snow fields and frozen lakes only adds to the dread of the present undead lurking in the corner, and the final scene, which takes place at a school's swimming pool, is both horrifying and optimistic, if such a coalescence is even possible (it is).

16. Edge of Tomorrow (USA, 2014. Doug Liman)

This futuristic, time-shifting, alien invasion hybrid proves that, whether you like him or not, Tom Cruise's charisma can indeed elevate an otherwise average concept to larger-than-life sci-fi/action film.  As he resets the day during a monstrous battle of an alien invasion of Earth every time he dies, Major William Cage (Cruise), aided by a fitter-than-hell Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), displays emotions of despair and improvisation that completely overshadow those of Bill Murray's Phil Connors in the original day-reset classic, Groundhog Day.  Edge of Tomorrow is an invigorating, thrilling experience, and its star deserves most of the credit.

17. Jagten / The Hunt (Denmark, 2012. Thomas Vinterberg)

Hell hath no fury like a child scorned, or so Thomas Vinterberg's excellent drama would have you believe.  When a young kindergarten child feels neglected by her teacher Lucas (a superb Mads Mikkelsen), her dark imagination takes over and she accuses him of an improper sexual gesture.  Did he do it? I mean... could he have? It's not long before Lucas' life gets turned upside-down and his society nearly destroys him completely.  The closing shot, set in the woods, is both frightening and prophetic, and will likely stay with you long after the movie's over.

18. Requiem for a Dream (US, 2000. Darren Aronofsky)

Darren Aronofsky's engrossing movie, based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr., compares the addiction between pharmaceutical drugs users and the illegal narcotics obtained by fiends in the most captivating ways imaginable. Playing the mother of a heroin addict Harry (Jared Leto), Ellen Burstyn gives one of the most unforgettable performances in the history of cinema, as her character succumbs to prescribed amphetamines that crush her reality utterly.  Jennifer Connelly, as Harry's girlfriend, conveys the desperate depths she'd go through to get her next high: she'd practically jump straight to hell for a quick momentary fix.  Add to the mix an erie, haunting score by Clint Mansell, and what you're left is one of the most intense moviegoing experiences of this century.

19. Inside Llewyn Davis (USA, 2013. Ethan & Joel Coen)

Even though the Coen brothers were more celebrated for the overrated No Country for Old Men back in 2007, their real masterpiece of the 21st century was this meditation on the 1960s New York music scene, conveyed with untypical mastery by its lead, Oscar Isaac (in the titular character role), whose singing is a genius in its own right.  Llewyn Davis is talented musician, but he still finds himself on the outside looking in, witnessing lesser talents ahead of him simply because their mediocrity panders more easily to the mainstream public.  As photographed masterfully by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, Inside Llewyn Davis is a brilliant, insightful examination of a man searching for himself (and a red cat) in a sea of loneliness, snow and eccentricity (John Goodman somehow always steals every scene in every Coen brothers' film).  A movie that can be enjoyed even with one's eyes closed.

20. Cidade de Deus / City of God (Brazil, 2002. Fernando Meirelles)

Every film connoisseur knows that the defining gangster movie of our time is Goodfellas, but if any movie comes close to replicating the experience of the brutal gang underworld, it is Meirelles's sprawling masterpiece about Rio De Janeiro's inner city hoodlums.  Shot in a gritty, grainy style that resembles a product from another era altogether, City of God evokes the lyrical structure of the finest South American literature, its narrative leaping back and forth, and taking the viewer on a most extraordinary experience to the place none of us would otherwise dare to go.  Has there ever been a better movie from Brazil?  You tell me.

21. Capharnaüm / Capernaum (Lebanon, 2018. Nadine Labaki)

There are moments in Capharnaüm where two children, the adolescent Zain (Zain Al Rafeea) and an infant Yonas (a baby, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole), are spending many days (perhaps even weeks) unsupervised in a meager shack, struggling to find food, as they wait for Yonas' mother (who has been detained by authorities) to return.  Director Labaki films these scenes with such authentic grit that it's hard to imagine just how she got such young performers to appear so... real.  The central point of focus in this authentic drama about homeless children's plight in modern Lebanon are the eyes of its protagonist, Zain; Rafeea is a potential child superstar in the making, if there ever was one.  Like a post-modern Oliver Twist, he commands the screen with raw presence of the late Heath Ledger, and if he was an American actor working in Hollywood, he'd be proclaimed the next James Dean, for sure.  

Tarantino's "Hollywood" an uninspired fairytale

In his 9th feature film, the (arguably) most original living American filmmaker, Quentin Tarantino, has turned the last decade of the 1960s Hollywood upside on his head.  A loose adaptation on the Charles Manson infamous 1969 murders of actress (and wife of then Roman Polanski) Sharon Tate (played by Australian Margot Robbie), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood... mixes real people of the time with a touch of Tarantino-esque fiction (the sort he used in 2009's Inglorious Basterds, but to a much more effective result) to give us a movie that is epic in length but short on bravura excitement that the director's best works are usually known for.

As Rick Dalton, the soon-to-be-over-the-hill star of a famous 1950s Western TV show, Bounty Law, Leonardo DiCaprio does some of his best acting, portraying the frustrated actor with just the right touch of self-aware decline, alcohol abuse and anger.  It's unfortunate, however, that he inhabits a film so absent of plot. Many scenes feel absolutely pointless: Tate watching her own movie in a theatre while dangling her feet on the seat in front of her; Dalton having a heart-to-heart about life with a young female co-star; and the most superfluous of all was the long set-up (minus any payoff): Dalton's stuntman, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) asking to see an old acquaintance on a Los Angeles ranch occupied by strange hippies. Tarantino masterfully builds the tension, infusing it with foreshadowing of potential bloodshed, only to deliver us a ... flat tire (a metaphor for the entire film, I suspect).

By the time Hollywood... reaches its blood-filled (anti?) climax, most audiences are bound to be left with a similar thought: "Uhm, was that it?" The movie, sadly, never amounts to anything more than several scenes that feel as excerpts from a TV show of which no one's seen a single episode.  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood... is Tarantino as his absolute laziest: a movie that is homage to his own infatuation of a Hollywood era he worshipped as a child, but without a single thought to his audience's patience, for not every fantasy is worthy of 165 minutes of blah blah. 
C-

"Brightburn" settles for gore, not ideas

A child lands in a small spaceship on a rural farm in Brighturn (also the name of the town), and the Breyers (Elizabeth Banks and David Denman), a couple unable to have children, suddenly feel like their prayers have been answered.  Little do they know that the child they end up raising is an evil superhuman whose idea of a fun pastime is gruesomely murdering everyone - be they family or his school crush's mother - who's onto his sinister antics.

David Yarovesky's movie moves at a breakneck speed (it's one of the few instances where a longer running time may have improved it) and, eventually, ends up as an ill conceived combination of The Omen-meets-Superman.  Instead of exploring philosophical what-ifs of a world with a sociopathic, all-powerful Avenger, it settles for cheap thrills where blood is preferable to anything intellectually grandiose.  The movie's ending definitely leaves a door open for a sequel, but unless that sequel has a thoughtful script, this franchise may as well end before it ever really begins.
C

"Birds" tells epic tale of greed & pride's downfall

Rarely do modern movies resemble a folk tale about indigenous Colombian people rising from their middle-of-the-desert poverty to vast riches and power like in Cristina Gallego's and Ciro Guerra's Pajaros de Verano (Birds of Passage), a film so subtle and underplayed that it may have been a product of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's unpublished mind.  As Rapayet (first time actor Jose Acosta) attempts to marry the woman of his dreams, Zaida (Natalia Reyes), he ventures on a journey in order to gather numerous goats and cows to present her family as dowry.  This journey will sidetrack him onto an illegal drug trade that will expand exponentially and corrupt him and everyone he holds dear indefinitely.

Pajaros de Verano is a wise movie, one that paces itself ever so slowly to present us with a dilemma of people who are not so much evil as they are easily manipulated by greed and family pride that it inevitably leads to their ultimate demise.  Expanding from the late 1960s until the early 1980s, the film is almost entirely in Wayuu - an old, indigenous form of Spanish, spoken in northwestern Venezuela and northeastern Colombia - but it never suffers in communicating to us the message it so strongly holds dear: that power corrupts, and never more so than when an old tradition conflicts with modern day capitalism.  Pajaros de Verano is a film for the ages, a story that could take place at any point in human history, and still be as relevant as ever.
A

"Us" is a poor man's 'Funny Games'

Unlike his 2017 debut feature, Get Out, comedian-turned-director Jordan Peele's sophomore outing, Us, is as a family friendly "horror" film that you may find in the world of modern cinema.  In this story of a family of four who are terrorized by their own doppelgängers (i.e. apparitions or otherwise doubles of themsleves), the tension and terror that the movie's trailer promised only lasts through the first 40 or so minutes; then, once the heroine's (Lupita Nyong'o) double begins to speak in a tone and prose that resembles a mentally challenged person's version of a fairy tale, the whole thing turns... well... laughable.  Since that clearly wasn't the director's intention, for the next 80 minutes we are left to wonder why no harm ever came to the main characters, while everyone around them is dropping like flies.  Hasn't Peele learned anything from Game of Thrones?  Doesn't he know that you have to kill off at least one (perhaps even two) relevant characters in order to create tension?  And also, isn't he aware that Michael Haneke has (in a way) made this movie already - TWICE??

Us isn't only free of genuine thrills or scares; it's also the most blood-less R rated horror that I can recall (no idea why this got an R rating).  And in the spirit of Kubrick, who loved to photograph his protagonists in a close-up as they psychotically stared into the camera, Peele, in his two-movie filmography thus far, has found a shot that may one day be named after him: a close-up of the hero/heroine in a state of fright as multiple tears flow down their face.  How I wish that I had been nearly that frightened or excited by anything in Us.
C-

acestroke's Top 10 movies of 2018

I've already said that 2018 was perhaps the worst year for Hollywood cinema in recent memory, and the recent Oscar broadcast only confirms that.  Bohemian Rhapsody was a VH1 special masquerading as a meaningful biopic; Green Book tried way too hard to preach about the race relations in America; and Black Panther is, without a doubt, the MOST BORING superhero ever made - and yet it nabbed a nomination for Best Picture when the likes of The Dark Knight and Wonder Woman could not (Hollywood politics work in mysterious ways).  Of the top nominees, only The Favourite, A Star is Born and Roma represented quality cinema in a mostly forgettable year, and neither walked away with the biggest award.  But alas, I digress...

It is, once again, March 2019, and just like the year prior, I needed to give myself extra time to see everything there was to see before I could give my final verdict. These ten films stood out to me more than any other. If you have seen any of them, do seek them out soon. I doubt you'll be disappointed.


1.  Won't you be my neighbor? (Director: Morgan Neville)
For those of us who didn't grow up in America during PBS' timeless children's show Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, which aired from 1968 to 2001, this timeless documentary gave us an unforgettable insight into the former-minister turned children's entertainer. Never afraid to explore dark topics, such as death and assassinations of certain political leaders during the Civil Rights years in ways that children could comprehend, Rogers was a pioneer of shaping the minds of American youth without ever compromising his core beliefs and ideals.  We've never seen the likes of him since, and I'm afraid we never will again.

2. A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper)
A story about two musical artists, one on her way up, and the other heading waaaaay down, was the most emotionally resonant movie of 2018.  Bradley Cooper proves to be as impressive of a director as he is an actor (make no mistake, this was the best performance by an Actor last year), and Lady Gaga, well... she certainly holds her own. The songs in this third (and by far the most superior) remake (after the 1937, 1954 and the 1976 A Star is Born versions) are memorable; the romance between the two leads is genuine and touching, and the drama authentic and heartbreaking. If you're not crying after the final act, then you may just have to check your pulse.  This was the best movie-musical of the year, and not the overrated and amateurish Bohemian Rhapsody.

3. Roma (Alfonso Cuaron)
There is little doubt that Alfonso Cuaron is one of top three directors working on the planet today.  In a span of few decades, he's tackled a variety of genres - astronauts lost in space; horny teenagers coming of age; post apocalyptic England where children can no longer be born; even a Harry Potter installment (coincidentally the best one of the bunch) - and has impressed each and every time.  In Roma, he pays homage to his Mexican upbringing during the early 1970s, and the result is a lyrical, poetical journey through one woman's inner struggles, as she deals with a scorned lover and a frustrated, upper class family that employs her.  Black and white cinematography has rarely looked this good, especially in a movie where not a whole lot is said, but where so much is conveyed.

4. Hereditary (Ari Aster)
Part Rosemary's Baby, part The Omen, and all pure, authentic frights, Hereditary was the most impressive horror feature debut in many a year.  In creating a tale of a family whose descendants have some questionable worshipping choices, first-time filmmaker Ari Aster has helmed a feature that will haunt its viewers long after its last frame has perished from view - but it'll stay in their subconscious for many sleepless nights thereafter.  It's a genuine nightmare disguising in a dysfunctional family's struggle to overcome a late matriarch's recent passing, and it features the best work of Toni Collette's career. That's no small statement.

5. Zimna Wojna (Cold War) (Pawel Pawlikowski)
You won't see a more beautifully composed and shot (in classic B&W, like Roma) movie any time soon (and yes, it is prettier than Roma; sorry Cuaron fans).  Pawel Pawlikowski follows in the footsteps of his 2013 gem Ida, and creates another classically photographed masterpiece about two star crossed lovers in post World War II Poland and examines their on-and-off romance over the next decade and a half, following them around France and former Yugoslavia, through the good times and bad.  Every single scene and composition could be a giant photograph worthy of a world-class museum exhibition; Pawlikowski is clearly the modern day Krzysztof Kieslowski, but with a much better eye.

6. Mandy (Panos Cosmatos)
Greek filmmaker Panos Cosmatos' blood-soaked vengeance movie, in which a mad-as-hell Nicolas Cage plays a lumberjack who goes after a crazy cult after they brutally murder his wife, Mandy.  Led by their sick, twisted leader, Jeremiah Sand (an excellent Linus Roache), the cult group is a strangely disturbing portrayal of lost souls beyond redemption. Mandy looks - and practically feels - like a psychedellic LSD experience, and proves that, once again, Cage can be an effective actor, if cast in material that can maximize his sometimes larger-than-life on screen persona.

7. The Cakemaker (Ofir Raul Graizer)
Thomas is a gifted baker in Berlin whose relationship with an Israeli businessman ends abruptly when the latter is killed in a car accident.  When the German eventually travels to the Middle East to meet his former lover's wife and child, old wounds are opened again, but not without exceptional, uncompromising drama. A quiet, subtle film whose moments are composed mostly of glances and gestures, The Cakemaker will make you crave all things pastry, while melting your heart in the process.

8. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Coen Brothers)
This anthology Western of six vignettes about the Old American West was probably one of the more purely entertaining movies that the Coen Brothers have made in over a decade (perhaps even longer, but who's counting).  Featuring the likes of James Franco, Liam Neeson, Tom Waits and Tim Blake Nelson, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs charms us immediately with an unexpected opening number where a charismatic cowboy duels his way through an unnamed town, before being fatally shot by another "top dog" gunslinger.  Each story here represents a different iconic aspect of the Cowboy genre: bank robbing, gold prospecting, and even a wagon trail over the American West.  It's unfortunate that its final vignette, "The Mortal Remains", is the least memorable one; but when a movie this artistic and rich with so many ideas and characters blows your mind early on, its

9. Western (Valeska Grisebach)
German constructions workers arrive in a Bulgarian country side, and soon they are at odds with each other, the lack of materials necessary to complete their project, and most of all, the locals with whom they have a major language barrier.  Valeska Grisebach's movie may as well be a documentary that's quietly observing a clash of two different cultures while presenting the Balkans as an area where little economic progress has taken place in the last thirty or so years.  The leading actor, Meinhard Neumann, has the face and demeanor of an average every-man, and his friendship with the local Bulgarian Adrian is touching and authentic, despite the two men's cultural differences.  Western's subtle approach may not be for everyone, but deep down it is an insightful exploration of Western Eueope meeting Eastern Europe, composed entirely of silent moments rather than loud, bombastic confrontations.

10. The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Second film on this list by a Greek director, The Favourite plays like the darkest of comedies, as two women (Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone) compete for the affection of an often ailing Queen Anne of England (Olivia Colman).  The movie is exquisitely shot and lit, and it utilizes the ultra-wide lens more than any movie I can recall.  Weisz and Stone are both terrific, but the this film clearly belongs to Lanthimos (his best work thus far) and Colman, who, at long last, is the most deserving Best Actress Oscar winner of the 21st century.  And that's saying something.

"Romantic" is neither what it claims to be, nor funny 😬😕

Rebel Wilson, with her overwhelming Down-Under charm and in-your-face comical attitude, may yet prove to be the next generation's Melissa McCarthy.  However, in her new "comedy", Isn't it Romantic?, in which she's - for the first time, if I'm not mistaken - featured as the leading lady, she not only fails in that attempt, but also displays a desperation of wanting to star in something - anything - so badly that she never even bothered to read the damn script.  For, you see, if she had, I seriously doubt she'd have appeared in this instantly forgettable attempt at a sitcom-stretched-out-to-feature-length trash.

After a horribly awkward and humorless scene in which she is mugged by a New York City lowlife, she is knocked out unconscious and eventually wakes up in a fantasy world where all the characters and situations perfectly resemble archetypes from a typical Hollywood romantic comedy.  All the men that approach her are handsome, everything looks shiny and clean, and the extent of her problems is which of the two men (the charismatic but egotistical Liam Hensworth, or the funny, down-to-Earth Adam DeVine) will she end up with.  Even though every cliché we're presented with is done with a tongue in cheek self-awareness, the result is, nevertheless, mostly a laugh-less one (Brandon Scott Jones, as the heroine's over-the-top flamboyantly gay best friend, is solely responsible for the movie's biggest laughs, but alas, those are few and far between).

Had Isn't It Romantic? not been advertised as a "comedy" that's spoofing other romantic comedies, then perhaps I wouldn't have been so disappointed.  The movie borrows all the worst elements (literally!) from the rom-coms that preceded it, and then does absolutely nothing with them.  So, to answer its titular question: no, it's not romantic, but even worse, it's not fucking funny, either!
D