The best:



Y Tu Mamá También - on the surface it sounds pretty meaningless: a sexy, funny, sad film about a road trip where three people learn about life and themselves but here it's done in a realistic, emotional and frank manner (including the sexual content) without resorting to cliche or pandering. This is a film that means a lot to me.



Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance - probably the most depressing film I have ever seen but one which perfectly encapsulates the idea of meaningless cyclical revenge in a beautiful way. It's perfectly acted and it looks wonderful too.



Katalin Varga - a mythical, almost fairy tale like film with some of the most haunting and downright alarming music (by Nurse With Wound) coupled with beautiful still shots of the Romanian countryside suggest there's something more, something otherworldly to this rape-revenge thriller than its simple plot suggests. Hilda Peter's performance is one of the best performances of anyone in the last decade.





The worst:



Proof - one of the most smug, self-congratulatory films I have ever seen where well to do characters whine about their lives while the plot goes nowhere fast. It also has the double bill of Sirrrr Anthooonnny Hopkins and Gwyneth 'bay-zil' Paltrow so the bland smug-o-meter is off the scale. What poor Jake Gyllenhaal is doing in this nonsense is beyond me.



The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - a bloated sanctimonious film that somehow manages to take three hours of a freakish, scientifically important man ageing backwards while 20th Century US history around him changes a lot and make it boring and meaningless. Bravo!



Garden State - another film where characters whine and moan for the sake of it, except this time they're quirky and kooky and zany and incredibly irritating and I really want Michael Myers to come in and start stabbing them all.

Best 3:

1. Sin City - The ONLY film I would give 10/10 to since 2000

2. Dead Man's Shoes - Best piece from Shane Meadows

3. Let the Right One In - Exceptional (& the remake wasn't too bad either!)



Worst 3:

1. Transformers 2 (BANG BANG BANG BANG)

2. Sex & The City 2 (What? How? Why?)

3. The Happening (Just... awful)



- Robert Ashton

I wish I could edit that. It's dreadfully written with lots of word repetition so I apologise.

best

1 Adaptation

2. Dead Man's Shoes

3. The Wrestler





worst

1 Taken

2 The Expendables

3 Hannibal Rising

Hi Mark, I'm a Student from Lewes (near Brighton) I'm studying Film, Drama & Science and I hope to be a director some day; and thought i'd give you my best & worst films from the past 10 years.



I won't be able to listen live as I'll be in my last exam of the year.



My Best 3 Films of the Last 10 Years



-City Of God (2002)

-Precious (2008)

-There Will Be Blood (2007)



My Worst 3 Films Of The Last 10 Years

-Planet Of The Apes (2001)

-Alvin & The Chipmunks (2007)

-The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008)



Cheers

Worst 3 films:



Meet the Spartans: Not funny, made pop culture references that weren't funny either and spent 90 minutes trying to make you laugh an dit made me angry.



Transformers 2: I know I am copying market. However torture would be preferable to this piece of bilge.



Halloween: Took a great horror film, made one of the most disgusting and frankly bad horror films I have ever seen.



The Best 3 films:



Waltz with Bashir: A masterpiece of artistic rotorscoping and documentary. It is extraordinary. I think no mater what your posiiton on the issues it deals with, it is a moving piece on the human condition.



Inception: Took the bad wasteland of blockbuster entertainment and moved it twenty paces forward. Look at the films that have had a mainstream release since Inception was a hit. I thsows that intelligence and mainstream cinema need not be enemies.



Le the Right one in: One of the most glorious experiences. Its about growing up and childhood loniness and how we can be corrupted by that. I think the vampire is a manifestation of adulthood and of never engding childhood were as ther helper is the old flesh who is throw when not needed anymore. I think its excellent.

Best:

1. No Country For Old Men

2. The Assassination Of Jesse James

3. Pan's Labyrinth



(Wanted to include so many more:

Zodiac, Shaun Of The Dead, Hero, There Will Be Blood, Old Boy, School Of Rock, Lost In Translation, Children Of Men, Eternal Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire)



Worst:

1. Synechdoche New York

2. Gran Torino

3. Lady In The Water

3 best in random order



Pan's Labyrinth - enough said



Apocalypto - A long time favorite of mine, I do think that amidst the teeth-clenching action there is a powerful and lasting message. Also, the cinematography is mindblowing, and James Horner's soundtrack is fantastic.



Moon - Touching, beautiful, depressing, moving



3 worst



Napoleon Dynamite - featuring the most disgustingly annoying characters in cinema history. Yes, worse than the Sex and the city vermin.



The Happening - Shmellyamalan really needs to get another job



Transfomers 1,2 and without the shadow of a doubt, 3

3 Best:



Shaun of the Dead - Proving a zombie film can be hilarious without belittling the genre. Still Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's best work by far.



Batman Begins/The Dark Knight - Best comic book movies ever made. Nolan invigourates the Batman film franchise and makes it better than ever by giving it some much-needed brains.



Inception - A film that proves that 'intelligent blockbuster' isn't an oxymoron. Again, Nolan proves (to me at least) that he is the most promising contemporary director.



3 Worst:



Anything from the '*Insert genre here* Movie' franchise. Films that are less funny than the films they 'parody'.



Transformers 1+2 - Need I say more? Michael Bay proving yet again he has the intelligence, attention span and talent of a five-year-old.



Cop Out - Mirthless, boring, depressing piece of buddy movie schlock. What happened to Kevin Smith?

BEST

1. Revolutionary Road (2008)

2. Capote (2005)

3. Lars and the real girl (2007)



Worst:

all the fast and the furious films (not that i watched them, but one can only assume they would/should, win this award)

10 Years! Wow!



My three best films are:

1 The Dark Knight

2 Lord of the Rings

3 Anchorman



Three worst:

1 Halloween II

2 Son of the Mask

3 Revolver





Rob Carson

I'd like to create a new category for the most appalling new movie term to have appeared over the last decade.

This award goes to "re-imagining" - thank you Tim Burton - closely followed by "re-boot".

And in this spirit I also nominate "Thunderbirds" as my most disappointing movie of the century - although I could never find the heart to actually finish watching it.

For that piece of garbage I'll also nominate 'director' Jonathan Frakes as the person least qualified to sit behind a camera. Shame on the man.

I don't have 3 worst films as I tend to avoid stuff I don't think I'll like but my 3 favourites could include:



Perfume. Story of a Murderer 2006. Mesmorising film - couldn't believe someone had written a book based on such an amazing premise. And Tom Tykwer visualised it perfectly, with a brilliant central performance by Ben Whishaw. It's a flawed film but I can forgive it that as it's such an audacious concept.



Primer 2004. Just for its weirdness and not feeling the need to explain itself.



About Schmidt 2002. Why, you ask? Well, why not? I like weepies ok! I'll think of something better later.



Congratulations on 10 years of Wittertainmnet!

Best Films:

Slum-dog Millionaire

Casino Royale

Black Swan



Worse Films:

2012

Epic Movie [& Co]

Pirates of the Caribbean 3



By Adam Price

Best:



1. Anything by David Cronenberg.



2. Zodiac



3. Black Swan/The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans



Worst:



1. Anything by Zack Snyder.



2. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem/Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen



3. Spider-Man 3

Best: catch me if you can

inception

hot fuzz



worst: spiderman 3

transformers 2

knocked up



congrats on 10 years

Best:

Cache (for significance and intelligence)

Oldboy (for pure entertainment)

Capturing the Friedmans (for brilliant documentary-making)



Worst:

One of the tedious Lord of the Rings films

One of the tedious Pirates films

Benjamin Button



JamieR

This is a tricky one to pin down 3 great & not so great movies of the last 10 years, but here goes:



3 Favourites:



- Batman Begins: Great Cast, Great Story, Great Director. Nolan showed

Hollywood just how to make a comic book films be successful

both critically & commercially.

- The Fountain: OK so not a lot of people have either (a) seen this or (b) liked

it but certainly a personal favourite just for Clint Mansell's

stunning score alone.

- Children of Men: Can understand how this was overlooked by so many people.



Bottom 3



- Rachel Getting Married: Arghhhhh even typing those words makes my eyes &

ears hurt..

- Seven Pounds: Will Smith begging for on Oscar in this totally predictable &

at times laughable so called drama.

- The Tourist: Enough said really!!

Best:



Zodiac

The Assassination of Jesse James

Collateral



Worst:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Transformers 2

Quantum of Solace

The three best:



1. Mesrine



2. Hot Fuzz



3. John Pilger's The War on Democracy



The three worst:



1. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith



2. Knocked Up



3. Pirates of the Caribbean 3

Best:

1) Toy Story 3 - This is one of the only movies that made me cry. I love Pixar and I love Toy Story. The characters and so likable, the animation is top notch, and the care is so evident in the amazing plot and the satisfaction you get when you watch this true masterpiece. It is the reason I love film.

2) Donnie Darko - This movie was so smart, like Eternal Sunshine and Inception, but I just fell in love with the offbeat humor and characters. I think that this is Jake Gyllenhall's best movie it is as good as S. Darko is bad.

3) Pan's labyrinth - It has some of the most beautiful set pieces that I have ever seen in a movie. The demon with the eyes on his hands is so haunting but at the same time beautiful and majestic. Truly it is Guillermo Del Toro's masterpiece and a movie that everyone should experience, in Spanish.



Worst:

1) "S. Darko" - I loved "Donnie Darko" and when I learned that there was going to be a sequel, I thought that it was a terrible idea. The end of "Donnie Darko" was so complete that a sequel didn't make any sense. It was disjointed, unorganized and just useless. I hate the day I had to watch that filth.

2) "Transformers 2 Revenge of the Fallen" - This movie is the antithesis of "Inception", "Eternal Sunshine" and even "Donnie Darko". It is a thoughtless and awful movie. I loved transformers, the cartoon, and when I learned they were resurrecting the series, I was excited. But then I got a bad, but fun "Transformers", they made a rotten sequel. Michael Bay has ruined my childhood over and over again. Shame.

3) "The Ring" - I hated this movie not because it was especially bad, but I hated it because the original Japanese version was so good and so scary. This was not good or scary, and it even lessened my opinion of the original. Notable mention is the American remake of "The Grudge"

I'd like to second the vote for Primer. I honestly think it's up there as one of the best SF films ever made - Kubrick would have been proud...

There are way too many amazing films from the last ten years to pick a top three so I will pick one American, British and Foreign Language film as well as honorable mentions (I'm not including documentaries as that's a whole other list in itself).



American: There Will Be Blood

(No Country for Old Men, The Royal Tenenbaums, Donnie Darko, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford)



British: This is England

(Moon, 28 Days Later, Children of Men, The Descent, Atonement, Submarine)



Foreign Language: Let the Right One In

(Pan's Labyrinth, City of God, Hero, Oldboy, Belleville Rendezvous, Spirited Away)





As for the worst films. As someone mentioned above, I tend to avoid films I don't think I'll like. Yet I did start to watch Transformers 2 and The Last Airbender and couldn't make it past the first half hour for either.

1. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

2. Lost In Translation

3. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

---

X. Transformers

Y. Transformers 2

Z. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Top Three



1. There Will Be Blood. Not only one of the best films of the last 10 years but quite possibly one of the best films of all time.



2. Mulholland Drive. This is probably Lynch's best work (outside of Twin Peaks) and shows that no one does woozy, unsettling horror like Lynch.



3. Spirited Away. Not only one of the best animated films of the last decade but one of the best full stop. Like the two films mentioned above this takes the conventions of cinema and gleefully destroys it, while still maintaining a sense of structure, rhythm and beauty.



The worst.



1. Revolver. The worst film ever made ever. How Guy Ritchie ever came back from this I will never know. Thankfully he did (just).



2. Death Proof. Why would you go to the trouble of casting Kurt Russell, staging a CGI-free, epic car chase and making something deliberately trashy, only to produce one of the dullest films in recent memory? Somehow Tarantino thought that was a good idea.



3. The Happening. Being a fan of M. Night Shyamalan’s work but preparing for the worst, I watched The Happening with an open mind. Turns out it’s as bad as everyone says, and then some. It's like Mark Wahlberg turned up on set and forgot how to act.

for me the best three have got to be



in bruges(2008) funny moving great performances the packag



layer cake(2004) clever entertaining really shows how great british gangster films can be when they try



28 days later(2002) really great thrilling zombie movie and another great film to add to danny boyles flawless carrer



but the worst three



babel(2006) self important film making at its worst even worse than 21 grams



kidulthood(2006) terribly written thinks it has a message to say but just doesnt



avatar(2009) purely for the fact everyone said it was great but it just wasnt

Best:

1. Spirited Away

2. Zodiac

3. Pan's Laybrinth





Worst:

1. Last Days

2. Bloodrayne

3. Good Luck Chuck

My best 3 films in no particular order



1) The Dark Knight

2) Pans Labyrinth

3) Memento



The worst is harder since the real tripe doesn't get watch for obvious reasons. However, those that I unfortunately happen to watch are...in order



1) Eden Lake - Not actually the worst film per-say, but one that offended me beyond what I could think was possible. It is the most stupid, horrid, pointless with some of the most ludicrous moments ever committed to film ever!!!



2) The Day The Earth Stood Still - So Keano Leaves ( see leaves, trees, wood, wooden actor...oh never mind ) comes down to tell how awful we have been and we must do better. Though actually doesn't actually tell anyone that, so no-one knows what must be done to be left alone. Utter rancid bile



3) Bitch Slap - erm, what is going on? Absolutely no idea what so ever.





An incredible decade of Wittertainment, please don't ever, © Edmond Blackadder

Best:

1. The Dark Knight - a film that really shows that you can take superheroes seriously and you can treat them with the respect that they deserve which most filmmakers refuse to give films (i.e Batman and Robin) and Heath Ledger gives the second best villain performance of the decade (best being Sergi Lopez as Captain Vidal in Pan's Labyrinth).

2. The Prestige - Yes, two Christopher Nolan films, I can't help it he is a very intelligent filmmaker who treats the audience with respect. This film is really intelligent, when I first watched it I didn't see any of the twists in the characters, great performances all round and a great look into the mindset of magicians from the 19th Century.

3. WALL-E - a film which shows just how good visual storytelling can be, the scenes on Earth with no dialogue are beautiful to watch and you can see the care that Pixar puts into their films through the design of WALL-E and it provides a break from the blow-everything-up sci-fi films mostly released.

Runners Up: Iron Man, Shaun of the Dead and Inception



Worst:

1. Mega Piranha - The only film which I had to stop watching in fear that I would go insane otherwise with awful acting, editing, directing and everything else, no redeeming qualities.

2. Epic Movie - A comedy film with no laughs, a complete misinterpretation of epic, terrible acting and awful spoofs, due to films like this I pine for films like Airplane which are actually funny. An epic fail.

3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - Michael Bay and Megan Fox, need I say more.

Runners Up: You Got Served, Shrek the Third, Hey Arnold: The Movie

Best -



1. Mulholland Dr.

2. Before Sunset

3. Oldboy

3 best:



1. There Will Be Blood (2007)

2. The Departed (2006)

3. The Social Network (2010)



(From what I've seen) 3 worst:



1. What Happens In Vegas (2008)

2. Sex and The City (2008)

3. The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)

Best

- Pans Labrynth

- A History of Violence

- There Will Be Blood



Worst

-Any three films that involved Danny Dyer in anyway way shape or form (In particular 'Pimp')

Best films of the Last 10 years of Kermode and Mayo

The Top 3 Films are:

1.Inception

2.United 93

3.This is England



The Worst 3 films are:

1.The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

2. Righteous Kill

3.Battlefield Earth

It's funny because I think the best film ever made and the worst film ever made fit into this time period:



Mulholland Drive & Transformers 2



Last time I'll ever use them in the same sentence.

Best 3 (in no particular order)



1. The Lives Of Others

2. Let The Right One In

3. The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada (just ahead of No Country For Old Men)



Worst 3 (again, no particular order)



1. Doghouse (didn't know Danny Dyer was in it till it was way too late!)

2. Southland Tales (more a grave disappointment than a disgrace)

3. Transformers 2 (only watched this out of curiosity after Dr. K's review and, yes, it really is that bad)



Ade, Kilmarnock

Best:

1) Snow Cake

2) Belleville Rendez-Vous

3) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind



Worst:

1) Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

2) Date Movie

3) Colin

Best



1. Pan's Labyrinth

2. Juno

3. Let the Right One In



Worst



1. Let Me In

2. Bride Wars

3. Big Tits Zombie

Best:



1) Pan’s Labyrinth. Each viewing is as rewarding as the last. The acting is wonderful (Sergi Lopez in particular) the story is passionate, moving and captivating. The landscapes magnificent and the ending is heartbreaking and I just love Javier Navarrete great score, Mercedes lullaby is beautiful.



2) City of God- Better than The Godfather, what more could be said?



3) Lord of the Rings Return of the King. Caps off the best trilogy of all time, not Toy Story or The Godfather but Lord of the Rings.



Worst.

1) Pearl Harbour. 175 minutes long. 175. Michael Bay for 175 minutes is a horrible experience. One minute with Michael Bay is a horrible experience.



2) AVP2. Awful. However one piece of dialogue cracked me up, whether it was intentional is debatable, ‘What!? The Government would not lie to us.’



3) Clash of the Titans. Only because I spent £10 on a 3D movie which was not in 3D. Oh and it was boring.

Best

The Fall (How did the good doctor miss reviewing this masterpiece?)

Pans Labyrinth

Where The Wild Things Are



Worst

Transformers

best films of the last ten years in reverse order kandahar (2001) a film stranger and more mysterious than anything in lord of the rings. No mans land (2002) the finest film about war i have ever seen. City of god (2003) A complete knock out searing, vibrant and violent. Honourable mentions go to touching the void,talk to her,the diving bell and the butterfly,the man who wasnt there and mesrine. Worst films Hannibal (2001)A film so bad it cost Ridley Scott an oscar. The guru (2002) This film claimed to be a comedy well i wasnt laughing. Donkey punch (2006) So completely lacking in tension or suspence im convinced the director never turned up on set and the crew shot it without him. I dont see many stink bombs as mark suffers enough for both of us.

Best:

1. No Country For Oldmen

2. Donnie Darko

3. Martyrs



Worst:

1. Avatar

2. Twilight

3. Transformers

Congrats and thanks for ten entertaining years - looking forward to many more!



My Best 3:

1. Mulholland Dr

2. Inception

3. Zodiac



Worst 3:

1. Lady in the Water

2. Swept Away

3. Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen (hell any Michael Bay film will do)

Best

#1 - The Proposition. John Hillcoats bloody, brutal, beautiful, barren debut is as unnervingly unflinching as it's anti-hero trio from an opening that starts with a very literal bang to the last death rattle of a conclusion.

#2 - Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Park Chan Wook's most underrated and best work. A symphony of spiralling catastrophe shot with a beautiful, touching, tragic eye. The film Shakespeare would have written if he lived today

#3 - Black Swan. I recall it instantly turning my expectations inside-out with a sinister undertone and a militaristic edge that reminded me of the first half of Full Metal Jacket. Superb cinema.

-Honourable metion- Martyrs. Whether you're a horror fan or not, this masterfully atmospheric and surprisingly existential masterpiece is a textbook example of the power cinema still holds.



Worst

#1 - Tron Legacy. Literally the worst film ever made. The 3D added nothing and only meant that the tissue thin attachment to the unrelatable characters was shattered every twenty seconds by a stupid gimmicky parlour trick. Inpentrably dull from start to finish

#2 - Machete. After seeing this film I had to watch Heat to convince myself that Robert DeNiro could actually act

#3 - Aliens Versus Predator. How can a film about two extremely deadly alien races fighting to the death be so utterly dull? Oh wait, slapdash fake effects. The monsters would be more tactile if they were cardboard cut-outs.



Thanks to the Good Doctors, I only see a stinker when I ignore their advice.

WORST MOVIES



3) Cyrus - Dull Lifeless and Rubbish

2) Catwoman - The Worst Superhero Film Of All Time

1) Epic Movie - Proof That Cinema could potentially be trash. Proof that there are souless people that have interest only in money. Proof that bad films can be really bad.



BEST MOVIES



3) Toy Story 3 - Pixar Films have made Family Films universal and warm again. The First time i cried at a film and Long may I be a fan of Pixar. Fans Old and Young can appreciate just how much Pixar have changed films over the 2 decades. Long live Pixar and its films.



2) Up In The Air - My Feel Good Film. A film i love because its something i can relate to. Wonderful Direction and Acting and hope that it garners new fans for years to come.



1) Inception - The film that caught the world's imagination. Proof That Cinema is art. Proof that Christopher Nolan is the future of the business and Proof that Cinema will always be something that will never die.



Happy 10 Years Simon & Mark.

Best:

1. Mulholland Drive

2. There Will Be Blood

3. Pan's Labyrinth



Worst:

1. Battle Los Angeles

2. The Expendables

3. 300

3 Best:

1 - Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno

2 - Brick

3 - The Lives of Others



It's so hard to pick just 3 best - I had to leave out Sleep Furiously; The Hurt Locker; Scott Pilgrim; Nine Queens; GitS 2; Happythankyoumoreplease; Louder than a Bomb plus so many more.



3 Worst:



1 - Crank 2

2 - Alice in Wonderland

3 - Signs



I still find it amusing that Michael Bay has films in the Criterion Collection.

Instead of putting the three best films of the decade, seen as i have loved so many, I would like to put the three filmmakers which have made the most impact over these ten years;



1) Edgar Wright - Starting with the fabulous tv series Spaced, Edgar Wright has made three genuinely amazing films, all three in my all time favourites: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. The former two have combined genres to great effect, the latter being proably the best cult movie of the last 10 years (I know some people hate it and I'm fine with that, makes it more perversely entertaining for me) and all have helped create a greater global impression of the British film-making scene.



2) Christopher Nolan - Probably the biggest director of the last 10 years and rightly so. From Memento to his Batman series to Inception he has given us great film-noir, heist films and blockbusters which never seems to patronise the audience, treats his target audience like intelligent people and manages to entertain and excite us with new technological formats (IMAX not 3D). Roll on The Dark Knight Rises.



3) Darren Aronfsky - Any film maker who starts the decade with a masterpiece of drama like Requiem for a Dream (a film which one of my best friends watched recently and decided to stop taking drugs because of it), and ends with Black Swan, one of my favourite films of last year, is a fantastic director in my book.



P.S I know not all of these comments will be read out on the radio show, so will Mark please take some time to do another blog response as well. really interested to hear his thoughts on some of these films?

Best 3...

1. No Country For Old Men (just stunning)

2. Inception (I know you agree)

3. Moon (unique and engaging)



Worst 3...

1. The Happening (....)

2. Mamma Mia (couldn't get through more than 30 mins when my mum and sister made me watch it)

3. Transformers 2 (just a load of nonsence jiggerish)

Best:

1. You, The Living - 2007

2. The White Ribbon - 2009

3. Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days - 2007



Worst:

1. Paranormal Activity - 2007

2. Death Proof - 2007

3. Revolver - 2005

Best:



A History of Violence (2005)

The Fountain (2006)

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)



Worst:



The Wicker Man (2006)

Transformers (2005) (note: I did not see Transformers 2)

"Irate"s of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) (Such a great year for movies, but it couldn't save us from this terrible, terrible film)

@ Steven Dinnie, The Proposition if not actually John Hillocat's debut. He made a film called Ghosts.... Of The Civil Dead in 1988, that had the fantastic Nick Cave in a leading role. He also made a film in 1998 called To Have and To Hold, ub which Rachel Griffiths starred.



Top 3:



-The Road.

-The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford.

-Cold Mountain



Bottom 3:



-Let Me In

-Mamma Mia!

-Pearl Harbour

*in which Rachel Griffiths starred.



an unforgivable type o.

Best: (in no order)



Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

Let The Right One In

The Incredibles



Worst: That's tough. As has been mentioned, I usually don't see the ones reputed to be really bad, and I don't feel like slagging off mere mediocre disappointments, when I am sure there are far worse offenders that I didn't see. But I did give in to the temptation to try just one true stinker.



Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

BEST:



1) Mulholland Drive- (Lynch at his finest)



2) There will be Blood



3) Inception



WORST:



1) Smart People



2) Funny People



3) World's Greatest Dad



I guess I prefer psychos in great stories rather than people in ill conceived premises.

BEST



The Motorcycle Diaries



With a biopic of this nature it is very easy to draw a large and broad audience. However creating something credible that will stand the test of time like the subject matter does is something else. Salles pulls this off magnificently and to me, The MCD is the best of its kind. The film isn't just saying 'this is what Che did before the Cuban revolution'. Instead its a character study of how he developed his ideals through his relationships with Alberto and the people he met on the journey. The scenic shots are incredible but not so long as to remove you from the film's world. Immaculate mis en scene. Subtle use of soundtrack that compliments not dominates.



Inland Empire



An amalgamation of all the concepts, characters and stylistic qualities Lynch has cultivated over the years and possibly the closest one can get to entering his mind. It took me 3 attempts to finish watching because of how deeply disturbed I became. Its a shame that subsequently, in the abysmal 'Catching the Big Fish' Lynch wrote of how people's pain and suffering are good things to make films about but are like poison to artists.



Into The Wild



Having only watched this a few days ago, maybe its just the proximity effect or the fact that I have just finished my degree, or because I have been wanting emigrate to mainland Europe for some time now, but this film has already had a profound effect on the way I view society and the supposed role I have in the society of which I am a part of in London/Britain. It seems to express all the issues I have with the world that have been building up in me on an exponential level. Emile Hirsch is great and I remembered appreciating his acting skills in the somewhat underrated Taking Woodstock.



WORST



The Wickerman



Awful remake of possibly my favourite horror film. Only got 20 or so minutes into the film before turning off. Saw some later scenes of the film in the 'Nicholas Cage losing his s**t' youtube video that more than corroborated how I expected the film to pan out. The Wickerman could have been done in an American context a la Texas CM, but of course that remake was almost as bad itself.



Planet of the Apes



Another terrible remake of one of my favourite sci-fi films this time. So many elements of the original lost: The atmospheric brilliance of baron landscapes, disparaging settlements and abrupt changes in pace, have been replaced with much of the film taking place in sets similar to those of John Carpenter's films when his style became decidedly outdated (Escape from LA, Ghosts of Mars). The original paradoxical concepts have mostly been disregarded. There are no dark and shocking moments, such as Taylor realising his friend has been labotomised. Charlton Heston replaced with Mark Wahlberg?



Greenberg



Major disappointment. I loved The Squid and The Whale and felt it was an original take on the effects of divorce that avoided the associated cliches. All the characters were well written, being likable in their own ways but possessing individual flaws that humanised them. In some ways I prefer this to films made by Baumbach's affiliate Wes Anderson, as often Anderson's characters come across as empty or plastic. In short, Greenberg is centered around a single character who is not at all likable or endearing and has no redeemable features. The events that unfold are not captivating in any way and it isn't funny. I just wonder as to the point of making such a film.

Hey Mark,

I'll go ahead and wish you (and Simon) a happy 10th from sunny Florida (which isn't so sunny today). I discovered the podcast (and your blog) a little over a couple of years ago and it has been easily my favorite show, audio, video or otherwise ever since. I hope to be still listening to it 10 years from now. It's that enjoyable.



My Top 3:

3 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - The first of two written by Charlie Kaufman. Jim Carrey's best performance in a film.

2 Children of Men - A great film about hope when things are hopeless.

1 Adaptation - Best film about writing, writer's block and flowers ever made. Nic Cage proves he's a great actor in a dual role.



and the Bottom 3:

3 The Wicker Man - Wow. Just wow. Nic Cage proves he's an actor only as good as the direction and script. I was able to make it to the end, though. It took supreme constitutional fortitude.

2 Max Payne - The first film I ever walked out on. I've only done that three times in my life and all of them came from that year.

1 The Spirit - The second film I ever walked out on. I have tried watching this on DVD and got further than I did at thetheater. But at some point I unconsiously tuned it out and began doing household chores. When I realized that I once again had missed the ending, I found that I did not care. It's disappointing that Will Eisner, a cartoonist who was all about the process of storytelling, had his most famous creation assaulted onscreen by a so-called comics legend (and supposed friend) Frank Miller. Miller turned a snappy, cleverly written, upbeat quasi-superhero strip into a humorless, migraine inducing snoozer unintentionally on par in camp value with Roger Ebert's Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls. He could not have made a worse film if he had actually tried to.



Taken from Top 100 of the 2000s : https://crashlanden.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/crash-landens-best-100-movies-of-the-decade/



And my Worst 10 of the 2000s:

https://crashlanden.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/crash-landens-worst-10-movies-of-the-decade/

Immeasurably difficult to pick a Top 3 but coincidently they also happen to be my top 3 films of all time:



3) Donnie Darko- A film that never gets old or less fascinating and absorbing the more times you see it. Shot beautifully, a perfect 80s soundtrack and its tough to categorize status only adds to its alluring mystique



2) The Dark Knight- A towering, majestic and essentially flawless masterpiece that not only shatters the glass ceiling of the book-ended "comic book movie" genre but film as a convention itself. Superb acting, a wonderfully complex, twisting and turning and engrossing plot and a film that deftly pulls off social commentary that is not rammed down your throat.



1) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street- A purely personal choice here. This film just has everything I want, dark shadows, gallows humour, great songs, over-the-top performances and admittedly a silly plot that doesn't take itself seriously and proof that Burton is at his best when scheming and taking delight in the darkness



Sad I can't include: Nightmare Before Christmas, Shaun of the Dead, Inglorious Basterds, Requiem for a Dream, [REC], Inception, Memento, Pan's Labyrinth, In Bruges, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Black Swan, Monsters, Moulin Rouge!, Buried, Battle Royale, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Pirates of the Caribbean 1, American Psycho, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Coraline, Mulholland Drive and Control



Worst is FAR easier:



3) Clash of the Titans: Whilst I throughly agree with Mark at just how abominable the Transformers films are, at least in them you do actually know the names of the people or "things" you're supposed to be caring for (maybe it's because they scream them all the time). But this totally unnecessary, soulless money spinner where the cast might as well have been replaced by trees to be more compelling and tragic when they get cut down, to me is THE definition of what makes a terrible and stupid summer-blockbuster.



2) The Village: FINALLY the film that made people take note just how God-awful M.Night Shawoddywoddy is as a director. A twist as clear as day and an entire cast of hollow mannequins for whom you felt no empathy whatsoever. It is simply inconceivable to me how people thought that a bunch of porcupines in hoodies could be considered scary.



1) And the worst film of all time: The Ugly Truth- never before have I seen a film with absolutely no merit whatsoever but this film seems to enjoy wallowing in it's filth of the most offensive and sexist stereotyping that offends both men and women, no matter what race or creed. Butler and Heigel are both so disgustingly smug that you just want to reach through the screen to punch them. This film is just poison.

TOP 3 - 1. Brokeback Mountain

2. Wall-E

3. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind





Worst 3- 1. The Watchmen

2. I love you man

3. Norbit

Best:

1) Pan's Labyrinth

2) Up!

3) Whale Rider

Worst:

1) Superman Returns

2) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

3) Despicable Me

Bottom 3:

1) The Matrix Reloaded - absolutely the worst film I have ever seen (that said, I've not seen FRED: THE MOVIE)



2) Lady In The Water - I think Shyamalamalamalan deserves special mention for worst career decisions of the last 10 years...



3) Pirates of the Carribean 2 - because I liked the first one, and the crushing sense of defeat and tedium was even worse due to higher expectations



Top 3:

1) The Station Agent - I can't believe I'm the first to mention this gem of a movie! Maybe not the best of the decade, but one of the sweetest, most touching and engaging films I have ever seen, let alone in the last ten years.



2) Hunger - because few films have had such a visceral effect on me, and because it presents an almost unfilmable situation so vibrantly (and again, how am I the first to mention it?)



3) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - ditto the two above - incredibly moving and heartfelt, and one of the most cinematic films of which I can think despite the situation.



Personally, I thought Of Time And The City was this decade's highlight, but I'm guessing Dr K will mention that regardless.

Best 3:



I'm really not sure, there have been SO many great films released in the last decade, so I decided to select three from across genres, they are in no particular order and they really just popped into my mind first.



1. Toy Story 3

2. Casino Royale

3. The Descent



I've been fortunate not to have had to see many terrible films, but the ones I have go here:



1. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Lying, dishonest, badly made anti-science trash.



2. Transformers. So very loud and stupid.



3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. A truly terrible film, so long and so dull, without any point to it whatsoever. As you said in your review, Mark, to paraphrase: "So, it's about a man who lives his life backwards. Ummm... what can we take from it?". This belongs in my 'worst' list because it is from a director who really should know better.

My top three would be:



1. Hot Fuzz - Marginally better than Shaun of the Dead. Possibly the best spoof movie of recent years and a masterclass in how to make a comedy film that is full of action and brilliant humour whilst still remaining quintessentially British. This film has James Bond shooting at a car containing two British film nerds who once made a zombie spoof. For that reason alone, it is genius.



2. Black Swan - It's an utter masterpiece. Balances its masterful storytelling and gorgeous visuals with the ability to freak me the hell out. Natalie Portman's performance is utterly captivating and wow... just wow.



3. Kick-Ass - It's hilarious, brave and I don't think you'll see a film as original as this in the next ten years, let alone the last ten.



My bottom three would be:



1. Epic Movie - It's the worst film ever. Not even slightly amusing.



2. The Golden Compass - The very bottom of the league of awful book-film adaptations that have become vogue in recent years. Messy, boring and lacking the better parts of the book it took its story from.



3. Angels & Demons - It's hateful. The plot is clunky, the acting awful and they spend the entire movie running around explaining the plot. And then the plot itself is so hopelessly sci-fi that it can't fail to be anything but really funny.

Best of the last 10 years...



Let The Right One In.



Not only the best film of the last 10 years, but one of the best films (not just horror) I've ever seen. To paraphrase a comment you use Mark, if I can get a film like this every so often it makes up for some of the awful ones I see inbetween.



Serenity.



Proof that you don't need to spend a $100+M on a film that can be funny in places, exciting and action packed. There may have been better films in the past 10 years, but for pure entertainment? Serenity is hard to beat.



Lord Of The Rings



Sorry Mark, this is the best trilogy ever made. Peter Jackson deserved all the awards that came his way for pulling off making these films.



The worst



Halloween II



Possibly the most ill-judged, nasty, poorly conceived sequel to a poor remake ever made.



The Wicker Man



Three words : Worst. Remake. Ever.



Captivity



A wannabe Saw rip-off (and before you say anything Mark the first Saw film was actually pretty good), that is absolutely terrible. Poorly acted, poorly written, poorly directed, it's hard to believe this was made by Roland Joffe, who directed The Mission and The Killing Fields. Where did it go wrong?

Conga-rats to you Dr K and Dr S on 10 wonderful, wittertainment years together.



So many superb choices of excellent movies everyone has already mentioned. Many of which are my favourites.



However, my top 3 in no particular order are:



1. Up - "Squirrel"! Nuff said.

2. Lantana - pushes your buttons in the right way.

3. Crash - Paul Haggis Oscar winner.



My three worst movies are all dross, so they're equally of little value and all at number one on my worst list:



1. Eat, Pray, Love (Vomit) or as I alliterated it: Barf, Bilge, Bonk!

1. Transformers 2 (why oh why was such an atrocious sequel EVER made)!

1. The Da Vinci Code AND Angels and Demons (can't have one without the other).

Accepting this is just a bit of fun at best, a fool's errand at worst, and that films I'm inclined to mention have already got a lot of attention...



LOVED: A Serious Man, Amélie, Nacho Libre



LOATHED: Spider-Man 3, Street Dance 3-D, Wanted

Damn you Mark possibly the hardest list I have had to put out but here goes



Best chronological order



Mystic River (2003) Arguably Eastwood's meanest and absorbing work, ordained with terrific performances from its leads.



500 Days of Summer (2009) A mesmeric piece of generational romance, lush in look, sound and feel.



Inception (2010) I went to see this 7 times at the cinema, worth every second - Enough said



Worst

300 (2006) A film? Questionable. A collection of shot of Oiled up topless men Gurning angrily in slow motion? No doubt - Horrible



Norbit (2007) How does Eddie Murphy get away with offending his own people, and repeatedly destoring his own career? - utterly vile.



Righteous Kill (2008) To use a boxing analogy this is looks like to punch drunk boxers stumbling around a ring. Al and Bobby grow old gracefully please? Dont taint my many positive memories of you both.

Best:



1. There Will Be Blood - The only true masterpiece I've seen from the last ten years, PTA's astonishing film is an utterly flawless American classic in the tradition of John Huston and Orson Welles. Career best performance from Daniel Day Lewis and phenomonal score from Johnny Greenwood. It's magnificent.



2. Inglourious Basterds - Tarantino's love letter to cinema may have re-written WW2 history but it's his best film to date.



3. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly - One of the most important books ever written gets a very faithful adaptation with a remarkable central performance. Superb film.



Worst:



1. 2012 - How can the end of the world be so dull?



2. Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy - Horrifically unfunny and self congratulatingly smug with it.



3. Inception - A tedious, entirely poe-faced and totally boring cliche fest which makes heroes out of mind-rapists, not at one point questioning the ethics of the protagonsists' actions. Hans Zzzzzzimmer's score may be a contendor for the worst of all time too.





Happy Anniversary Doctors.

Congratulations on your ten year run, Dr. K. I have been a regular listener since your days with James King on Radio 1 (when I was a mere teenager) and have been following you guys ever since. Here's to another ten years.



Top 3



1. Spirited Away

2. Pans Labyrinth

3. Let The Right One In



(Honorable mentions: Inception, Mysterious Skin, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.)



Bottom 3



1. Little Man

2. Transformers

3. The Squid & The Whale



(Dishonorable mentions: Step Brothers, Alice In Wonderland, Norbit.)

Correction to #43. It isn't John Hillcoats debut. I have chastised myself thoughoughly for my lack of knowledge. And my lack of full stops.



Thank you @ewen griffn

Moving right along... hoping the sense of déjà vu will not permeate the upcoming comments, and deprive them of public disclosure;



The Best:



#1 - There Will Be Blood (happy to have spotted it in several "best" lists);



What's more to say? Well you know what, that's the great thing about this movie: there's always more to say about it. It is the true American masterpiece of the decade, brilliantly combining, thematically and visually, all that evokes this land of paradoxes that are the United States. The meshing of religion, the almost pathological need to accumulate capital, the man-dwarfing landscape, the inability to deal with family-related emotions... It's all there, and, as the Good Doctor perfectly pointed out in his review, if you don't want to dig into the heavy stuff, you can just lay back and be overpowered by the visual mastery on display - reminiscent of Kubrick or Ford -, and by the Huston-esque performance of Day-Lewis. Just a great film, and a film that made me leave the theater with a huge beam on my face: masterpieces are clearly not an extinct species.

Special kudos to Robert Elswit for his astonishing compositions. They look like some of those sun-drenched Turner paintings.



#2 - Road to Perdition



A very personal choice; saw it with my dad when it first came out, and it was one of the most powerful viewing experiences of my moviegoing life. Sure the dead bodies start to amount with an almost clockwork logic, sure it has a somewhat predictable outcome. But it's an incredibly moving tragedy, featuring one of Paul Newman's very best performances, the best classical score of the decade (imo) by Thomas Newman, and the best cinematographic work of the decade, by the great Conrad Hall. Newman's rain-drenched death scene, in the 30+ times I've seen it, always makes my eyes well up.



#3 - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly



Probably one of the most visually challenging experiences of the decade. Schnabel's painterly view of what a man cursed with locked-in syndrome can see and dream of, is breathtaking and disturbing at the same time. This is a respectful, beautiful, touching, funny, and heartbreaking tale, which begs the thought: maybe the only way to explain Mathieu Amalric in Quantum of Solace is the inevitably liberating sense you get from leaving a wheelchair after 6 months of forced immobility. You end up playing a cheesy villain. Haven't we all gone through this at some point ?



The ones not quite eligible for Best:



#3 - Meet the Spartans, Epic Movie, Date Movie... whatever.



This is an epidemic, and it must be contained. They truly represent what is rank and unkempt in what Hollywood seems to think of as entertainment, but really is just a sinkhole of tawdry values. Badly shot, gross, unfunny, and teeth-gnashingly awful. It's fake spoof, and faux droll.



#2 - Transformers 2



I think the Good Doctor has gone on long enough about those. I'll just say this: Transformers was dumber 'n a box of stones to be sure, but did fill the Waow-tank by at least a third. Transformers 2 is a threat to civilization, and a celebration of toy-vomit, product placement-orgy, pea-brained militarist ignorance. And it lasts 150 minutes. Oy vey...



#1 - Renegade (aka Blueberry in France, my home country)



One of the most disconcerting things about this one is, Vincent Cassel considers his work in it to be among his best. Yeah, right, okay. Pass on the reefer.

This is obviously a choice close to my heart, if not something else. The ugliest, most nauseating movie I have ever seen in a movie theater (being that I was born after Salò, Caligula, or Cannibal Holocaust). Not because of any type of graphic violence, but because of its intrinsic visual sense. Jan Kounen (the director) does not know how to shoot a movie with any sense of grace or poetry. Dobermann, Renegade and 99 Francs are proof of this undeniable truth. He's the cinematic equivalent of a freak show artist. I say, go get a gig for BodyShock, or make porn. You're the poor man's Gaspar Noé.

Best



these must be the ones where I am happy to go back often and watch them again, especially if it is possible just to pick a random point, to watch a small part, and enjoy the technique on display (visual/music/acting/words - as with 'Heat'), and these are the ones that most offered this:



Birth - just so perfect and stylish, in that super-controlled Kubrick way, and that long close-up on Kidman's face is a modern coup de theatre (like de Niro's in the car driving away in Heat, thought processes drawn on the face). Best opening - and opening music - of a film, for sure. It is strange that Alexandre Desplat was not even mentioned in the film music discussion.



The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi - another where the music is so important it is physically woven into the action on several occasions. Total aesthetic control again. The final dance music would make a great ending for your music concert, if you could get the orchestra to clap and tap-dance.



The Prestige - Are you watching closely? - another good opening. Every time I re-watch this I discover that almost every action and line contains half-hidden clues to where the story is going, although I'm sure most people would have guessed some of the big twists before the end on the first run through. The Dark Knight and inception don't have the same detailed and disciplined control of the logic of the story (perhaps because here it was someone else's), or the complex leaps backwards and forwards in time in the storytelling, or the relentless references to the world of illusion.



(close calls on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a massively entertaining, witty and smart reflection on the movie business, and The Lost World, not all great but the last 15 minutes is for me the best single bit of film-making of the the 10 years - transcendent).



Worst



I have a big tolerance for trashy films, but one stands out - The Love Guru (was Austin Powers actually no good all along?)



I even enjoyed watching The Lady In The Water and The Happening, but The Last Airbender should be mentioned for lacking anything of that strange vacant style.

Almost impossible to choose but for the best it would have to be...



3rd: The Descent (still the only horror film i've ever seen where someone in the cinema has screamed out loud...a rarity these days, and with regards to tension and suspense, comparable to Alien I think.)



2nd: Man On Wire (gloriously entertaining documentary or a tense heist movie? I actually cant think of a bad point of this film)



1st: City Of God (better than goodfellas, in fact beter than most other gangster/crime films I can think of, it's utterly compelling and totally believable. I cant remember being so transfixed when watching something for the first time)



Notable mentions though to eternal sushine of the spotless mind, sunshine, 28 days later, valhalla rising, mesrine and casino royale.







Choosing the worst was suprisingly easy...



3rd: Norbit (I'm actually ashamed at admitting that I've seen this, but more ashamed that I didnt walk out.)



2nd: Sex Lives Of The Potato Men (truly truly abysmal, there is literally nothing more to say about this film)



1st: Elizabethtown (100%, the absolute crowning glory of vomit inducing cinema, and that's just orlando bloom. I dont know what's worse, the performances, the characters, the sickening tone of the the whole film from the word go... or Susan Sarandon dancing by herself!! The fact that this was made by the same man who made Vanilla Sky is actually beyond me. Shame on everyone involved with this film).



I havent seen either of the sex and the city films but im sure they deserve a mention anyway, as do the saw films which is just gore for the sake of it. They're not horror films, its just watching people die. That's not entertaining.

Also...2012!!!





Congratulations on 10 years!!!!!

Best (In no particular order)



The Wrestler - I am a huge wrestling fan and an independent wrestler myself, I've seen just about every real documentary there is to see about the sport and I was sceptical about this film. But I was proved wrong a million times over, to see the business portrayed in such a true to life manner was unbelievably moving to me. This film wasn't afraid to show the dark side of wrestling, even the most depraved and horrible elements that I'm personally not fond of. In a world where the oscars are almost never right, snubbing Mickey Rourke of a deserved win has got to rank up there as one of their worst.



The Lord of the Rings movies- I know I'm cheating by counting them as one but I think that these movies are a testament to practical effects and true filmaking in a time in which that seems to be dying because of people like Michael Bay. Not a single person miscast, even Orloondo Bland is tolerable and a true sign of a great artist working with something he loves.



Dark Knight - The film that made people take comic book characters seriously, Christopher Nolan has done for superheroes in film what Alan Moore did for comics in literature. No one else has come close to his vision of what a comic book character can be, but he has legitimised the superhero film and the evidence of that is still around today with the continuing marvel universe of movies and the continual casting of a-list actors to wear the brightly coloured spandex and that, in my opinion as big comic book nerd, is a great thing for filmaking.



Worst (Again in no particular order)



Moulin Rouge - I'm sure I won't make any fans here but I hate this movie, and that's not something I say very often. I've never been a huge fan of musical but can appreciate when there are done well, like Chicago, this barely qualifies as a musical in my mind as all the songs are a bunch of other songs shoved together, completely uncreative. Not only that but the message of the film is terrible, the 'love conquers all idea has never rung true with me, maybe it's because I'm too much of a realist but the fact that this whole movie was based around this one idea made it boring, boring, boring. Truely one of the worst films to be so strongly oscar nominated along side Titanic and Shakespeare in Love, I haven't even mentioned half of my gripes with this movie in this short review and it's already gone too long, in short this film is utter tripe from beginning to end and undoubtedly one of the worst films of the last decade.



Transformers 2 - Exactly the sort of vapid anti-filmaking I was talking about earlier, Michael Bay at his most obnoxious, Shia LaBoef at his most dull, Megan Fox at her most shameless and probably the worst robotic designs ever. I saw this film for free and I still walked out after the first 90 minutes or so and wanted to ask for my money back



The 'Movie' Movies - The poor excuse for film comedy that these piles of garbage are is only more greatly highlighted when you watch films such as Naked Gun or Airplane which these films are desperately trying to emulate and realise how wonderfully well written and acted they are in comparison to these piles of unrelenting unfunny drivel. A testament to the utter stupidity of the movie going public.

My worst 3 movies are as follows.

3. Australia. because it was big, it seemed ambitious but it was directed like a travel commercial. No it was a travel commercial. A clichéd badly acted 3 HOUR travel commercial.



2. The Wicker man. All I can say is... Why, Why, Why, Why?



And finally



1. Pearl Harbour. Michael Bay finally had a chance to make an important historical account of to quote Roosevelt. " A Day that will live on in Infamy".

And that's what he did to my Sunday back in 2001... You know where I'm coming from professor.

Somewhere this list got a bit out of hand…



Including only films I have actually watched:



Worst films:

Saw IV

The Matrix Revolutions

Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius



(Special mention: The Golden Compass and Eat, Pray, Love and Wanted)



“Bad” movies which I strangely enjoyed:

Van Helsing

Planet Terror

The Sweetest thing



(Special mention: 300)



What “blockbusters” should be like:

The Host

Children of Men

City of God



(Special mention: Zatoichi, Moulin Rouge, Moon, Sin City)



What serious entertainment films should be like:

Amelie

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Let the Right One In



(Special mention: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, There will be Blood, No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Adaptation)



What (all) mainstream animation should be like:

Persepolis

Mary and Max

Fantastic Mr. Fox



(Special mention: Wall-e, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, A Town called Panic. I want to put Chico and Rita here, but I just can't)



What “political” films should be like:

Amen (Costa-Gavras)

Fog of War

No Man’s land



Best films about the making of art:

Exit through the gift shop

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno

The Devil and Daniel Johnston



(Special mention: Man On Wire)



Best documentaries:

Too many to count.



Favorites for personal reasons:

Before Sunset

The Taste of Tea (Katsuhito Ishii)

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… And Spring



(Special mention: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and Whale Rider)



Best films made in the “West”:

Mulholland Dr.

Beau travail

La Mujer sin Cabeza (Lucrecia Martel)



Best films made in the “East”:

Syndromes and a Century

Tropical Malady

What time is it over there?



Pantheon:

Spirited away

The New World

Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse

Congratulations to Kermode. Don't care too much about the Mayonnaise fellow, though. But Kermode is aces and a class act - the only thing that makes this show so popular.

Congrats!



Best – so hard...

- Dead Man's Shoes

- Donnie Darko

- Spirited Away



Worst

I have a very hard time remembering films I didn't enjoy and I'm pretty good at avoiding films I feel I might not like. But a three that I recall...

- The Wackness

- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull



Here's to the next ten years!

Best:

-Brick - Quite possibly the best film i've ever seen and one of the few masterpieces of the last 10 years in my opinion

-The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - I wouldn't have seen this film had it not been for the good doctors recomendation, I remember seeing it with my grandad in an empty local cinema...cinematic bliss!

-Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban - I've always agreed with the good doctors comments on PoA as it is head and shoulders the best potter movie and it also succeeds as an individual piece too.....you could show it to someone who has never seen/heard of harry potter and they could follow it.....plus Alfonso Cuaron shows why he is one of the most interesting directors around and the cinematography is amazing....this film will be seen as cinema tipping point in years to come!

-Son of Rambow - had to mention this as it is one of the best 'proper films' i've seen in the past 10 years, watched it the other week and its amazing just how much of the film works, the soundtrack is amazing (and relevant seeing as 80's music is back in fashion) the acting is great, special effects used well (the animation sequences rock) and the story is engaging, funny and sweet....what more could you want!



(Honourable Mentions: Inception, Watchmen (Marmite film but I loved it) The dark knight/batman begins, war of the worlds (came close to my top 3) The village, scott pilgrim, HP7a, Monsters, where the wild things are, plus many many more)



Worst:

-The Golden Compass - Should have made a very bland book into an interesting film.....failed miserably (plus its a crime to waste Daniel Craig in a movie!)

-Pineapple Express - Eughh, just awful .....and I like Seth Rogen but this movie just stinks!

-The Bounty hunter - Gerard Butler should be funny....and he just isn't .....this film should be funny.....and it just isn't! :(



(Dis-honourable mentions: Narnia 3, there aren't many I don't think....always try and avoid obvious stinkers!)

Let's not deal with negatives...



BEST



1. Superbad

2. Napoleon Dynamite

3. DiG!

I'm going to go with my 3 favourites rather than best (which'd probably be Inception, The Bourne Triolgy, Pan's Labyrinth)



1) Batman Begins.

Much prefer it to the Dark Knight. Few Villains, better story and any movie that involves the hero training in a Tibetan monastery in the mountains gets my vote



2) Solaris

Not sure why I like this movie so much, but I do. It's got an amazing ethereal soundtrack, interesting characters and has continues to make me think about the nature of love and existence.



3) The Bourne Ultimatum

From the series which quite simply re-invented action movie. Perfect popcorn fodder. I've put the last one because after all the hype over sequels and restarts over the last 10 years (Matrix, Star Wars, Transformers, Pirates, SATC etc) this, for me, has been the only one to live up to the hype and deliver. MATT DAMON!





and the worst...

1) Transformers 1. (Still haven't seen the 2nd one)

2) Pirates 3 (I stared slack jawed at the screen when the credits started to roll)

3) Twilight 3. (Sorry Mark, it just didn't connect with me in any way.)

Best

28 Days Later

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (just makes it in)

Gladiator (If only for Oliver Reed and for channelling Zulu in the opening)



Worst

The (not)Happening

The Day the Earth stood bored

Anything made in the 3d revival

Best-

Inception-see Dr K's review.

Dead Mans Shoes-chilling and proof that with a great writer you don't need a massive budget.

Crash









Worst-

Troy- four hours of my life I want back thankfully I didn't pay for it.

Starwars 3- for destroying my childhood memories. this also applies to the A-team, indiana Jones and the crystal skull, Tron and a special mention to terminator 3!

The Wanted- I'm prepared to suspend my belief and have fun with an action movie but please bending bullets and watching James Mcavoy lose all creadibility.

The Best:

1.) INCEPTION - A beautiful and stylistic blockbuster. All hail Christopher Nolan!

2.) OLD BOY - Crazy and Mesmerising.

3.) SHAUN OF THE DEAD - This film hilariously pays homage to, as opposed to "spoofing", the inherently great zombie horror genre.



From what I have watched all the way through to the end credits, in no particular order the worst:

X.) MY BOSS'S DAUGHTER - I must've been thirteen. I want Ashton Kutcher and Tara Reid to give me those minutes back.

Y.) LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER (2) THE CRADLE OF LIFE - I had more interest invested in that brief CGI shark, than both the symetrical Angelina Jolie and the boring Gerard Butler put together.

Z.) EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS - I don't mind Adam Sandler at quantum-sized moments, but this animated film brang pointlessness to a new altitude.

The Best-to me this means that something you can watch any number of times and still be fascinated, entertained and surprised by new elements of the film.

1. Million Dollar Baby

2. There Will Be Blood

3. Inception

These films are in for their use of language, vivid atmospheres and complete engagement with the aim of the film.



The Worst-not just poor films like Transformers 2. That's just useless. The very worst make you feel depressed and queasy.

1. Sex and the City - the series, both films.

2. Norbit

3. The Hottie and the Nottie

These three highlight all that can be wrong with human beings. They are shallow in a nasty manner, self-satisfied, immature, and puerile. None of which would matter if they were not so mean and callous in every facet of its making.



Thank you for your reviews over the years, I can't believe I was only 14 when you started!

My top three movies of the past 10 years are all fairly recent, them being:



Sin city – which shows how comic book movies can be very dark and quite a bit more disturbing than the average commercial stuff. Its one of the most artistically well done interpretations of the comic medium I have ever seen.



Inception – A rapid storyline, nice themes and tries to add a sense of realism to it’s world. Well played Christopher Nolan



Toy story 3 - Toy Story 3 is a very solid conclusion to one of the best trilogies of all time that needs to experienced solely for the last beautifully gratifying act with the gang that I grew up with.



Street fighter legend of chun li – It managed to be worse than the Jean Claude Van Damme, that takes some doing so well done to the director!



Fat slags – Naomi Campbell, Geri Halliwell, Angus deayton, Les dennis, Eamonn Holmes. All shoehorned into this movie, how does the end product turn out? by just reading the above names Im sure you can work that out for yourself.



Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever – The fact that the video game based on it is wholly regarded as being better than the movie is self says alot. Also they work together in the movie so it should be Ballistic: Ecks and Sever vs. Whoever.

The bottom three from My last comment are the worst sorry for the confusion.

Hi, many congratulations on 10 years of wittertainment!



Best films:

Toy Story 3

Inception

Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkhaban



All brilliant, moving and multi-faceted in their own ways. No more to be said! Would love to say Pan's Labyrinth, but through the cruel machinations of fate I've never yet actually seen it all the way through ...



Worst films:



Lord Of The Rings Return Of The King - for goodness sakes *hurry up*! Throw the flipping ring in the flipping volcano and go home! And then, when they finally get home, it still takes another half an hour after that for the torment to finally end! My wife and I both dutifully sat through the whole three and a half months of this snails-paced pompous repetitive drivel in the misplaced-loyalty belief that the other one of us was remotely interested in it.



Matrix Revolutions. I'm not ashamed of the fact that I actually quite liked Reloaded, but Revolutions was just *awful*.



Star Wars (whatever the first one of the three new ones was called). Oh deary deary me, talk about taking every good thing about a series and throwing it away.

My best:



WALL-E - utterly beautiful, and what an amazing decade Pixar have had (though Toy Story 2 is still their best, and that was in '99).



A History of Violence - masterfully controlled, haunting film-making filled with incredible performances.



There Will Be Blood - it feels so old and new at the same time: good-old-fashioned men-in-waistcoats-glowering-at-each-other drama mixed with some kind of wild, impressionistic fresh style.

ok lets start with the worst films, reading the other posts on this subject i realise that there is a theme running through many posts, probably from people about my age (33 by the way) about the sheer heartbreaking disapointment of childhood memories made into films that could have been brilliant. Transformers 1 & 2, Thunderbirds, Starwars 1,2 & 3, the A-team.



dishonorable mentions:- the hangover 2 (in fact any american "comedy" there are many), pirates 3, the davinci code,



now the best, for me definatly the lord of the rings trilogy, an example of a film that absolutly pays justice to the book, brilliant performance by andy serkis as gollum.



no country for old men - great film i keep on watching again and again



toy story - a gamechanger (if i can use an americanism)



honourable mentions also go to shaun of the dead, apollo 13, inception and there will be blood.

A lot of my favourite movies have already been mentioned (Mark got my top two in his video) so here's three that haven't.



Another Year

I was totally knocked out by this when I saw it last year, it's an incredibly small story full of big ideas and gut-wrenchingly moving.



The Darjeeling Limited

Wes Anderson's best film by a significant margin, he's a great director but all his other films are let down by dull stories or unengaging characters.



A Prophet

A classic prison drama but with modern cynicism, exceptionally well crafted and totally riveting.



Thanks to Mark and Simon's show I've been to see mercifully few bad films at the cinema so I have nothing to add for the worst three.

BEST:



1. Pan's Labyrinth. Best movie of the decade.

2. The Lives of Others - although Pan's deserved the Oscar I think it's closer than Dr K did, and the two movies share themes of loyalty and integrity. Both beatiful, profoundly moving films.

3. Gosford Park - difficult choice, as There Will Be Blood, Eternal Sunshine and History of Violence are also knock-out, but I'm a huge Altman fan and think this is his best work since the '70s.



Worst:

1. Pirates 3. One of the worst blockbusters I've ever sat through (and I like the original).

2. Terminator Salvation. A truly idiotic trashing of a once-great series.

3. I award this place equally to every stupid horror remake that has come out of Hollywood in the last ten years. I can think of almost no good American horror movies from this last decade, and we've still got remakes of "The Thing," "Fright Night" and (wtf?) "Suspiria" to look forward to, while the best horror movies all came from abroad ("The Orphanage," "Rec," "Dark Water") or in the case of "The Descent," from here.

Maybe not the 'best' 3 but my favourite 3 would be...



Children of Men

Spirited Away

City of God...



although I wanted to mention Dead Men's Shoes too.



the worst is even harder to choose but of the 3 films I've had the misfortune to pay to see in a cinema I would say...



The Number 23

Pirates of the Carribean 2

Transformers

Ok, so here goes.



Top 3 Best Films of the decade:



Four Lions

Dogtooth

This is England



Top 3 Worst -



Devils Rejects - ARGHH!

The Room - ARRRRGGHHHH!

I'm Still Here - ARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

The best three films of the last 10 years at the time of writing:



1. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring



The first and the best. Should have won Best Picture in 2001.



2. City of God



Welcome to Rio. A story about hope amidst hopelessness with style to burn.



3. There Will be Blood



Power, ambition, greed and the performance of a lifetime by Daniel-Day Lewis

1. There Will Be Blood

2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

3. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly



I wish I could remember more and be more interesting. But they're great.

Punch-Drunk Love, No Country For Old Men, Pan's Labyrinth, The Orphanage, Rescue Dawn too. There's plenty more. Very obvious ones.



The worst are Sex and the City 2 and Pirates 3.



Up's the most overrated.



The Matrix Reloaded might be the most underrated.

I'm a big fan of lists, but even I had a hard time narrowing it down to 3.



They would be:



Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Probably one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen.



Eastern Promises - Dark and riveting, second favourite film of all time.



Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - Had the books read to me from a very young age, and the trilogy and this film in particular are truehly magical.



Honorable Mentions

Pan's Labyrinth

Let the Right One In

Children of Men

Lost in Translation

Atonement

Well this is easier than I thought:



Best:



1. There Will Be Blood - quite simply the masterpiece of the last ten years without a shadow of a doubt. Daniel Day Lewis earns his superiority over De Niro with a performance that shook the entire cinema auditorium of the BFI Southbank (I wish you were all there).



Paul Thomas Anderson has proved that he is the top of his class. Having matured from Boogie Nights and the Altman worshipping Magnolia he has with There Will Be Blood earned his place in the hall of the Classic American Cinema Artists next to: DW Griffith, John Ford and Billy Wilder.



Such an assured hand behind the camera has not been seen since since the Godfather - yes that one!





2. Eastern Promises - Cronenberg's formidable gangster film that was one of the few films to actually capture modern-day london as it is. After his sci-fi cult classics he has now found a wonderful niche with Mortensen, were he's opted to tone down the gore palette and concentrate more on subtle character depth than he has done previously. Such a master of craft that he is, in every film he makes we really have no idea how the film is going to end and that's saying a lot in modern day cinema.



3. Inland Empire - There is only David Lynch! Perhaps the definitive tale of the age old story about the nightmare of the actress who went to Hollywood with dreams of being a star.



This film brilliantly follows Sunset Boulevard and to make things worse on our actress heroine - she's not even shot on film!



Lynch is perhaps the only director to embrace the bog standard digital video medium and actually master it. Proof that a filmmaker in the modern age needs nothing but a good story and a good cast. Inland Empire is a film that will change with each watch - a dark pit that you'll never find the bottom of - only David Lynch can give you that!





Worst:



1. The Edge of Darkness - quite simply the definition of wasted film. Perhaps it was the screening of this movie that turned Mel Gibson mad and caused him to go off the rails? It would not surprise me!



2. Sex and the City - an unintentional tragedy that almost plays like a satire about a lost generation. People who have traded their souls for a new pair of shoes. The death of the nuclear family and western society all in one movie.



3. Watchmen - Zach Snyder proves Alan Moore one hundred percent right! Sadly this means that the movie has destroyed the Watchmen mythology across mediums. I like the book and no I cringe at the mention of Watchmen.



Copying every frame of a graphic novel does not mean you are staying true to the material Mr Snyder! Please leave difficult material like this to a Gilliam, a Ridley Scott or a Christopher Nolan.



I'll leave you in peace now to go and ruin Superman lore - ARGH!

Best:



1. Children of Men

2. Pan's Labyrinth

3. There will be Blood



Worst:



1. POTC2+3

2. Transformers

3. SATC



Honourable Mentions



Once

Moon

Talk to Her

Encounters at the end of the world

Gran Torino

Jesus Camp

City of God

Let the right one in

Borune 3

Primer

The Dark Knight

Lost in Translation

United 93

The Wave

Grizzly Man

Up

Best:

1. Inland Empire

2. Synecdoche NY

3. Of Time And The City



Worst:

1. Pirates of the Caribbean 3

2. Transformers 1

3. 300

Best (strangely high content of FL films)

Old Boy - It just knocked me for 6. So so cool yet disturbing.

The Lives of Others - You could describe it like one of those 'female friendly' films as "It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry". However it does. Very powerful. I’d even go so far as to say a modern masterpeice.

Let the Right One In - A proper grown up vampire film staring children. Perfectly judged. Brilliant in every way.



(Also Four Lions and In The Loop get honours as being very enjoyable but not really movies IMVHO)



Worst

The Human Stain - Did this film actually have a point?

Dreamcatcher - You Steven King fans will watch any old rubbish won't you?

Benjamin Button - A dismal worthless waste of time, talent & concept.