RICHARD RUSHFIELD » the cinema

My Top 72 Films of the Decade

Richard — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 07:21:38 +0000

It has often been said that I don’t like anything and in particular that I don’t like any movies. To refute that, I have combed the past ten years and found 72 movies that I like enough to call them my top films of of the 00’s. Here they are roughly in order of how much I didn’t dislike them:

1. Best of Youth
2.There Will be Blood
3. The Baader Meinhoff Complex
4. Together
5. The Lives of Others
6. Wall-E
7. In the Mood For Love
8. Mullholland Drive
9. Bad Education
10. Casino Royale
11. Children Of Men
12. The Queen
13. Up!
14. Spirited Away
15. A Serious Man
16.The Dark Knight
17. Battle Royale
18. Team America
19. Letters from Iwo Jima
20. The Hurt Locker
21. Head On
22. Volver
23. Slumdog Millionaire
24. The Pianist
25. The Ring
26. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
27. Moulin Rouge
28. Ratatouille
29. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
30. Donnie Darko
31. City of God
32. Movern Callar
33. Spider Man
34. Chicken Run
35. Man on Wire
36. Shaun of the Dead
37. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
38. Lilya 4-ever
39. Michael Clayton
40. Munich
41. The Class
42, Capturing the Friedmans
43. Let the Right One In
44. The Wrestler
45. The Others
46. Gosford Park
47. Pans Labyrinth
48. Frost/Nixon
49. The Incredibles
50. Reprise
51. 49 Up
52. Requiem For a Dream
53. You Can Count on Me
54. Y Tu Mama Tambien
55. Almost Famous
56. Amores Perros
57. Nobody Knows
58. The Piano Teacher
59. The Bourne Supremcy
60. Anchorman
61. The Devils Backbone
62. Hotel Rwanda
63. Changeling
64. Good Night and Good Luck
65. Brick
66. In America
67. Sideways
68. Chicago
69. Ghost World
70. Brokeback Mountain
71.The Grudge
72. Gangs of New York

Thoughts on Fame and Baader Meinhof

Richard — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:13:54 +0000

Have seen two films this weekend about youths in the grips of obsession: the remake of Fame and The Baader Meinhof Complex. On the surface, they are very much the same movie, although one is better made, the story of young people so driven by a passion that on the surface makes sense but when you get into it is really nuts that that are willing to destory anything that stands between them and their precious abstract ideal.

In BMC, the young people go on a killing spree to bring down the fascist state.

In Fame, we see them force their family and friends at graduation watch the most Godawful spectacle of a message song about making your dreams come true, complete with students dressed up as Polynesian tribal dancers for a brief Stomp segue.

Yes, you will say, unlike the crimes of the Baader Meinhof, nobody died from having to watch that Performing Arts High graduation, but tell that to the people who sat through it who will be haunted by those memories forever. Even the extras who were there to shoot the scene.

I am not saying young dreamers should be jailed; certainly not, anyone familiar with my Idol work knows I am extremely pro-young dreamers. All I’m suggesting is we need to keep an eye on them. And know their passions can be used for evil as well as good. When they are planning a graduation scene like the “Body Electric” finale of the original film, they deserve our praise and support. But when they plan to blow up Swedish Embassies or graduations like the one in the Fame remake, then its time to step in with the full power of the state and crush them.

On a more tragic note, I lay away all night quaking from having been witness to the violence done to Alan Parker’s original masterpiece. There is no more important issue for cinema to deal with than what its like to go to a performing arts high school, and it pains me to say this film marched straight away from that responsibility.

Not only did the filmmaker strip the original text of all its pathos, angst, joy and wonder, but they added insult to injury by actually re-staging several scenes from the original, but stripping out three or four layers of meaning, as though the filmmakers were unable to understand the complexities at work in the subway scene or Coco’s “Out Here On My Own” scene.

Bruno Martelli, Leroy, Coco, Mr. Shorofsky, Ralph and most of all you Doris, my heart goes out to you on this tragic day.

But all that said, they pulled off a very creditable re-staging of the “Hot Lunch” theme that for a moment, made you feel that PA was still PA…Very effective dancing on tables and group singalong indeed.

Now let’s visit one more time to that magical moment in history, when young people’s dreams were used for good rather than twisted in hate, and we all sung the body electric.

Hollywood Gets It Right Part #001 – Sorority Row

Richard — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:57:27 +0000

Throughout film history, if you had asked filmgoers what they wanted to see, the answer would have come back almost exclusively – I want to see Audrina Partridge come back from the dead and going on a killing spree at sorority and frat houses.

Perhaps we’ve been doing something right as a nation and we’re being rewarded for it at last, or perhaps Hollywood just put two and two together, but based on the above trailer, this movie looks like a masterpiece; perhaps the only major film of this sorrowful decade.

So on the one hand – hallelujah, it’s here. But on the other hand – what took so them so long? I mean they’ve been making movies for 90 years now and it took them that much time to figure out to cast Audrina from the Hills as a resurrected…Seriously, how hard was that?