From The Times, November 7, 2009Art house or Blockbuster? Juno or Jason Bourne? Is The Bourne Supremacy really better than Brokeback Mountain? And if Finding Nemo made it, what the hell happened to Shrek? Tell us where we got it wrong, or right, and post your alternative lists below
Last King of Scotland: one of the great performances of the decade
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Tim Teeman, Kevin Maher, Wendy IdeSpecial offer: Get 20 per cent off when you buy any three of these DVDs at zavvi.com/thetimes
100 The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006)
Meryl Streep begins her own populist career reinvention (soon to be followed by Mamma Mia!) by playing a tyrannical and thinly disguised version of Vogue editor Anna Wintour in this satirical yet soft-centered account of life among the fashionistas.99 Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000)
The worst school kids in Japan are dumped on an island, fitted with exploding neckbraces, equipped with weapons and told to fight it out between themselves. Deliberately lacking in PC credentials but ultimately, it’s a provocative and challenging film.98 Crash (Paul Haggis, 2004)
This surprise Oscar champ of 2004 inspired myriad syrupy “We are all, like, totally connected” imitators (see The Air I Breathe), and yet the savvy narrative chicanery and superlative performances (including Sandra Bullock’s racist housewife) lift this LA-set ensemble far above the crowd.Related Links
97 Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-Wook, 2005)
The third of Park Chan-Wook’s fervid, savage revenge trilogy, Lady Vengeance ends with a sombre acknowledgement of the futility of revenge. But not before buckets of blood have been spilt.96 Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, 2002)
One of Scotland’s most acclaimed and offbeat filmmakers, Ramsay (Ratcatcher) here transforms Alan Warner’s cult novel into a thing of woozy, meditative beauty. Samantha Morton stars, in the title role, as the emotionally withdrawn checkout girl who profits from her boyfriend’s suicide.95 Amores Perros (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2000)
This smouldering powder keg of a movie launched a new generation of Mexican talent. Gael Garcia Bernal stars in the first of three stories which are linked together by a shattering car crash.94 An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006)
A user-friendly slideshow about global warming, combined with a revealing personal profile of presenter Al Gore, becomes a box office behemoth, an Oscar winner, and a brand leader for all future eco docs.93 House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004)
Probably the most satisfying of the big budget martial arts crossover movies of the past decade, it combined ridiculously ambitious action set pieces with lush, colour-saturated imagery.92 Dirty Pretty Things (Stephen Frears, 2002)
A Nigerian doctor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in London double-jobs as a cab driver and hotel porter while uncovering an illegal trade in human organs. This quietly polemical work humanises the immigration debate.91 Lantana (Ray Lawrence, 2001)
This intelligent drama is so much more than a murder mystery — it’s an impeccably acted exploration of human relations at their trickiest. Meticulously constructed and rewardingly realist in tone.90 Wedding Crashers (David Dobkin, 2005)
It could've been a frat-boy sex comedy but Wedding Crashers achieves that miraculous balance of crude and cute, wild and witty. Two charismatic central turns help, from Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, playing the eponymous cads with sex on the brain but romance on the cards.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
The 100 Best Films of the Decade
From , November 7, 2009Art house or Blockbuster? Juno or Jason Bourne? Is The Bourne Supremacy really better than Brokeback Mountain? And if Finding Nemo made it, what the hell happened to Shrek? Tell us where we got it wrong, or right, and post your alternative lists below
Last King of Scotland: one of the great performances of the decade
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