As far as "influential" in the 10s I think we have to step outside of individual films and talk about groups/movements/studios. Here's my personal take on the 2010s (spoilered just b/c it's long).
1. Two Korean titans with end-of decade masterpieces. Burning and Parasite were the two best films of the 2010s. The director of the latter, Bong Joon Ho, also gave us Snowpiercer and Okja, and if we split hairs Mother, made in 2009 but released in the US in 2010. Burning’s director, Lee Chang-Dong, has only directed a handful of films in over 20 years, and every new one feels like a must-see the way arthouse films used to be events. The Koreans are dealing with modern malaise and wealth inequality better than anyone else in cinema (we are still celebrating and voting with our wallet for phony populist pablum here, sound familiar?), and those are issues that look primed to carry into the 2020s.
2. Netflix as prestige studio. Originals like The Irishman with its exhausting run time, and the Ballad Of Buster Scruggs which brought a quirkiness that not even the Coens could get a traditional studio to finance, and the aforementioned Okja and its two hours of anti-capitalism, and Roma (my god was it good), and Private Life with Giamatti and Hahn acting their buns off, and Happy as Lazzaro (which would prob make my list of 10 best individual films of the decade), and finishing and releasing a lost Welles film, and that Dylan “biopic” where Scorsese goes full-on Welles circa F For Fake. A24 and Neon put out a lot of quality as upstart studios this decade but Netflix came probably second hardest after A24. Amazon is now in the game and hustling to catch up.
3. A mini revival of 70mm. Some of the films I loathed (Hateful Eight), some of them I thought were so-so (Dunkirk), some wonderful (The Master), but they all looked fantastic and I’m grateful to their directors for giving us films on film in all its glorious detail instead of the synthetic digital productions that have taken over the industry. Shout out to the Star Wars folk for making the new round of those on film. A handful of people literally saved Kodak.
4. Charlize Theron. She was a badass in Mad Max and Atomic Blonde. She was the voice of Morticia Addams. Young Adult and Tully were great, she carried them both, small and moving movies about specific adult human issues. She was in a Seth Rogan romcom in which she elevated the “girl part” in Seth Rogan romcoms to a new level—she carries Rogan’s film, he’s charming and funny but she’s a fully formed Movie Star. She’ll play Megyn Kelly at Christmas in that Roger Ailes movie from Jay Roach. Charlize Theron pretty much did it all in the 2010s and did it at a really high level. She’s proof that a female in Hollywood need not always look pretty for us (Tully, Young Adult, Mad Max), or play the traditional girl part.
5. China, for better but mostly for worse. In 20 years they’ve gone from a country that spends a collective $100 million at the box office to almost $9 billion. They have a thirst for everything, the big films and the arthouse stuff. When a Lebanese movie about a 12 year old boy in prison that was runner-up at Cannes a couple years ago debuted the same weekend as Avengers, it finished second at the box office. On the one hand, we will get more 200 million dollar sequels to reboots of robots blowing stuff up made on computer screens, but we should also get more independent stuff since the China market makes it easier now to make money on movies.
6. Reversal of the whitewashing of American movies, the #metoo movement, greater diversity in general. That movie with ScarJo that got killed b/c she was supposed to play Japanese, the one with Tilda Swinton that died at the starting line. That Birth of a Nation film that got killed over the filmmakers’ alleged sexual assault. Weinstein getting the boot. Films with Asian-Americans raking in box office dough and Netflix streams. Trans actors playing trans people. Lady Ghostbusters. Bridesmaids and the insertion of women into raunchy comedies as something more than the object of lust--Melissa McCarthy especially helped usher this along. Jordan Poole’s twin masterpieces of black horror.
7. Small, touching indie movies about women. Booksmart. Lady Bird. Frances Ha. Young Adult. Tully. Support The Girls. Still Alice. 20th Century Women. There were some really great movies for women in the 2010s.
8. The comedy concert film. Netflix is throwing gobs of cash at everyone. Handler, Cummings, Birbiglia, Chappelle, Aziz, Gadsby, Slate, Brennan, Minhaj, so many of them. So many are working the form, from that utterly brilliant Three Mics thing Neal Brennan did to Birbiglia's hyper-personal storytelling to Dave Chapelle Smokes Cigarettes And Makes Friends With No One, it's the best time in history for the comedy concert film. Amazon is also hustling to catch up in this game.
Last edited by 33anda3rd on December 3 19, 4:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Watched "Official Secrets" and "The Project" (on Amazon)....both we're really good. It's becoming pretty evident that the United States isn't one of the "good guys".
I watched The Irishman last night. Pesci's performance stood out the most to me. Really good. Pacino seemed to be doing a caricature. I don't remember Hoffa being a bug-eyed overactor just this side of dumb-as-a-stump but I was a kid at the time so who knows.
Joe Shlabotnik wrote:I watched The Irishman last night. Pesci's performance stood out the most to me. Really good. Pacino seemed to be doing a caricature. I don't remember Hoffa being a bug-eyed overactor just this side of dumb-as-a-stump but I was a kid at the time so who knows.
I wanted to love The Irishman, but I merely liked it. All the pieces were there but I found the de-aging tech to be very distracting. The ending was super strong and arguably better then his previous gangster movies. The film feels like closure to Martin Scorsese crime films. Much like Clint Eastwood and westerns with Unforgiven.
