My Favorite Movies

A year ago, I seemed certain that Malick's The New World, ponderous, grand, and romantic in all senses of the terms, would remain the pinnacle of cinema for me.

For those who know me well, they also would know that I regarded the best performances of all to be under the belt of the nonetheless superb Ralph Fiennes.

Well, Paul Thomas Anderson reached into the depths of his imagination and conjured this motherfucker, and I'm not sure I'll be turning back any time soon.

Simply put, this is the new pinnacle of cinema for me. At once it pulls you into a sense of brooding uneasiness, the kind of dirty dawn-of-the-20th-century look that films like The Proposition perhaps overkilled in style seems to be the perfect setting for the monster we come to know as Daniel Plainview, in what isn't so much a performance as an act of God as Daniel Day-Lewis laces up his acting boots and engages us with quite possibly the greatest individual performance ever put to celluloid.

Daniel Plainview is a character that simmers. He is distrusting, paranoid but confident. Hard-working, you never see him not working in some way, shape or form. He is determined, and he is also a product of a broken childhood, though we never see this.

At the start of the film, we are subjected to fifteen minutes of dialogue-free silver-mining as Daniel Plainview suffers a nasty fall, breaking a leg but discovering silver in the aftermath. He literally claws his way to civilisation from his remote mine just to pick up some money, and discovers that the habit of sleeping on the floor is a lot more preferable to that of sleeping in a bed. The habit stays throughout.

Some years pass, and Daniel Plainview has decided to focus on the blossoming oil industry. A coworker dies and he adopts his son, a "bastard from a basket", and raises him as if he were his own blood. He starts his own business and starts looking for ways to expand his enterprise.

Of course, this opportunity comes in the form of Paul Sunday, who may or may not be the brother of a later character in Eli Sunday... he could be the same person? Enticed by the idea of rich oil fields, Daniel moves to a remote town where he buys out all the land, promises them all a great future from the oil industry, and subsequently ploughs in, making a mint despite his adopted son's subsequent deafness in an accident that bursts his ear drums at an oil mine.

Daniel's relationship with his adopted son H.W. is complex in that he clearly cares for him, and clearly shows some love for him, but the love gradually erodes as he starts to express seething hatred for the people around him. He utterly despises people, seen by him to be devoid "of any good".

He is murderous when it comes to mocking his family, and he never goes back on his threats. His charisma is unparalleled, his work ethic ruthlessly efficient, and his loyalty to himself in every way scary. You literally walk from the cinemas shivering after quite possibly the most disturbing final line in any movie.

Daniel Plainview is the representation of a good man driven to evil things by greed as a result of ambition, and his lack of faith in anything but money. He is a pitiful, self-loathing wreck at heart, and his fall from grace is detailed by his slow deterioration into maddening distrust, his riches peaking with his anger.

Not nearly challenging his performance, but challenging his character, the Eli Sunday character, played by Paul Dano, is a hysterical and wretched evangelical pin up boy who throws his mock church into any normal day situation, and interjects into Plainview's oil business with religion aplenty (responding to a wailing sermon by Eli, Daniel Plainview remarks "that was one God damn Hell of a show!") and yet equally, as you will see later on, tainted by his desire for money, he and Daniel are the perfect enemies, both driven by money, but using different excuses to attain it ? religion and business respectively ? which is perhaps not surprising that it evokes subtle hints at present day political climates surrounding both the oil industry and the religious sects of the world.

There Will Be Blood slices into your soul and draws crimson aplenty. It shimmers with its magnificent imagery and its score, minimalist in approach by the talented Jonny Greenwood, accentuates this flawless imagery.

By the end of the film, you keep figuring that it's a film for and about Daniel Day-Lewis. He just owns it. He lights up the screen and occupies everything that matters about the film on his own. He destroys the people around him both in character and in terms of performance. All the best dialogue in the film belongs to Daniel Day-Lewis, and the biggest impressions made on the audience are by Mr. Day-Lewis.

The last era covered in the film is particularly heart-breaking, and Day-Lewis is given his ultimate chance to shine, uttering what could well become the most famous film line of all time in order to mock and belittle the visiting, doomed Eli Sunday, "I... drink... your... MILKSHAKE!"

The last scene showcases the kind of character vintage Jack Nicholson would've relished taking a shot at, though not even he would've been able to have pulled it off with quite the finesse of Daniel Day-Lewis, proving once and for all that crafted thespianism rewards, and that Day-Lewis could well be the best actor of his generation.

There Will Be Blood takes everything that was good about the epics of decades gone, and everything that's good about films of new, and turns it into an ultimatum on film. It's perfect. It's genius. It's flawless. The performances are pitch perfect, with a lead who just couldn't NOT blow you away if he tried.

This is the absolute best cinema has had to offer, and may well have to offer. In a magnificent year for films, this emerges the best, and subsequently the best film I have ever seen.

Never before has there been such a blatantly visual experience like this. Doing away with typically overglorified dialogue and exploding with the kind of subtle references to modern day events, we are drawn to the idea of a pure, innocent love between two vastly different people whom have no common language.

Their partnership stretches across the globe, with all the mumblings of John Smith to go with his eerily powerful philosophies on the "primitives" of America.

On the other hand, Christian Bale takes a character that could've been unlikeable and makes a truly sympathetic, loveable character out of him.

But the film belongs to the radiant Q'Orianka Kilcher. Her youth and brilliance in what is her debut feature film role is so perfected in its lengthened gazes and caring embraces that you seem intoxicated by the idea of this primitive girl adjusting to this... the "new world".

Amazing. I don't think I ever felt this way about a film since I was a child. I am at Terrence Malick's command... THIS... THIS is sheer mastery.

The greatest film ever made.

The kind of adventure that oozes of all aspects in life. Hirsch surprises in his career-best performance, with Penn's direction and interpretation of a much pondered story breathing inspiration into the hearts, no doubt, of all who watch it.

So perfect it hurts.

Quoted as Wong Kar-Wai's stylistic peak, I can see why it may be so.

Being a newcomer to Kar-Wai's work, I cannot comment on how consistently masterful he may be. However, I can comment on this film for what it truly is: a masterwork.

Drowned in its own poetic approach to the past, and its contrast to the future, the colourful cast of characters that cross paths with this prolific erotic author only accentuates the overall feeling of domesticated obsession, the clashing of unrequited love and longing for those "loaned" to another. It's a triangle of love that never seems to avoid adding another three angles to the fray when the train gets further and further from 2046.

So here it is, people, a tale of oriental magic that seems to lose itself in the mystifying trivia takes of the number 2046, where death, rebellion, and love at its most obsessive is incomparable to that of any other feature.

A special heads up to Sabina for recommending this film to me.

Absolutely spectacular. No words can describe it.

Touching, and one of Fiennes' best performances.

Three hours are worth it.

Without a doubt one of the most powerful dramas to have ever existed, and István Szabó's best picture by a long shot.

A quietly moving and infinitely powerful statement on the long lasting effects of 9/11, and how tragic the most distant of subjects from the day of sadness really are.

Edward Norton explodes in a role if not tailored then written for him, and Philip Seymour Hoffman bumbles effectively... but it's Barry Pepper's obnoxious, arrogant, and very egotistical Wall Street worker friend of Norton's Monty Brogan (a drug dealer on the backlash after being caught out by the DEA), heading down the path of no return when it turns out to be he whom is most affected by Monty's conviction.

The story is simple: Monty Brogan (Norton) has just 24 hours before he goes to prison for seven years. Seven years wasted because of the lives he has affected by dealing narcotics since he was young. The unforgiving authorities show no sympathy, and despite the fact they are unlikeable in how they handle Monty's sympathetic man, we know deep down that they are right, and have every right to treat Brogan with the contempt that they have for him.

In the end it's this film, this quiet success, that decimates the rest of Spike Lee's career and defines the subject matter in its truest form. This is the most poignant statement on September 11 and the state of New York today, and it could not be handled by a better director.

Yet another triumph for the incomparable Ralph Fiennes. This love story breaches the boundaries of allegiance and honor, and reveals human attraction for what it truly is, an entirely personal, and desperate fact of life, that must be fulfilled. Fiennes proves why he is the most human performer that ever was, is, and ever will be. Astoundingly perfect in every way.

Mezmerizing, haunting, absolutely astounding. It's easy to see why many called this film a mess, but I find nothing wrong with the flawless surreality to this masterpiece. It captures the madness of any war situation, let alone the Vietnam War. Brando is astounding.

I don't think five stars can justify just how ground-breaking and true this film is. Damn it, I don't think I've seen a film this sad before, and I probably never will see another like this.

Lars Von Trier, you are a damn magician.

Rising up from the dust of incomprehensible arthouse, David Lynch batters away ruthlessly at the story of a man like no other:

This is a story that will tear your heart in two, a story so beautiful and transcendant, yet painful and disturbing... that you will fall in love for the aptly named "Elephant Man", a man so deformed and depraved that people take advantage of him for financial and otherwise cruel purposes. But when Hopkins' Doctor Treeves takes him in and provides him with a good life, he becomes obsessed with the idea of "sleeping like normal people", a trait that he can never complete because the deformities on his head would cause his neck to snap should he ever sleep in such a way.

John Hurt pulls his performance off with the needed subtlety, and Hopkins provides for the professional compassion of a man seemingly %u2014 initially %u2014 obsessed with taking advantage of The Elephant Man himself.

Still, in what has to be one of the saddest climaxes in film, making for one of the most heartbreaking films ever, I can comfortably commend this film as David Lynch's best.

By far.

The opening stretch of shots personifies the elegant elongation that this film stands for. In essence, it's another suburban fable where something much darker lurks beneath the seemingly innocent surface. But unlike the otherwise superb American Beauty, this makes less ham-handed or over-the-top-American attempts at wrenching our heartstrings where it counts.

This just does it through the sheer power of a well written script and tour de force performances from a top cast.

Timothy Hutton, for example, takes a character that could've been seen as whining or "emo" and turns him into something scarier and more real: he turns him into the personification of who we are or were when we were his age. Hutton has struggled to even skim the magnificence of his performance here, and likewise the strong support from Sutherland and Moore adds to the building tension of the family's horribly internal situation.

People often whine about this winning Best Picture over Raging Bull, but when you pierce through De Niro's iconic role in that particular 1980 film, you find a film that is indeed inferior to this.

This sets a standard for suburban tension that I believe only Haneke's Caché has dared attaining a reputation for challenging in terms of surpassing.

Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece. A pinnacle of cinema. It succeeds in giving a powerful glimpse at the future. Not necessarily the year 2001, but sometime ahead. It uses multiple metaphors and basic understandings of humanity as we know it, and as we have known it, and takes us on a journey that acts like a simile to any emotion we've ever felt as human beings. A testament to who we are as men and women, and the closest any film has come to understanding the meaning of life. A widely interpreted, wildly freelance piece that allows the imagination to take hold in this, the ultimate experience of art in cinema.

The greatest action epic to have ever graced the silver screen. A testament to movie making, and battle scenes that transcend laws of film making and redefine them.

Never before have I been so profoundly disturbed and enlightened at one particular time. A gripping view of a future not necessarily of 2000AD, but beyond... and a fitting end to arguably the greatest anime series of all time: Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Beautiful. A darkly powerful film that thrusts Brad Davis into arguably his best performance ever (the retrial-speech will remain in my mind as one of the angriest I've ever witnessed) and sends him into a horrific downward spiral into madness and insanity that is peaked by an outrageously satisfying yet maddeningly horrifying scene in which he literally destroys a fellow inmate, finishing him off by graphically tearing out his tongue.

The supporting cast is spectacular, and the pain you feel for Davis' character is as obvious as the pain you feel for, say, Hurt's character. Madness and hatred peaks within the Turkish prison, and by the end of this masterpiece, you won't wanna even consider drug-smuggling as a profession...

Sets the standard for political-paranoia films and executes its propaganda well. It may not be entirely factual, but Oliver Stone never meant it to be. Costner plays Garrison with a reliability on what is happening around him, and he does it well. This is one of the scarier films about, not for its shock-horror-boo-scares, because it contains none, but because it effectively tackles a single event and appropriately bloats it to a level where we can all question it maturely. It reminds us who we are as human beings, and who we are as citizens, not necessarily of the United States, but of the democracy that we rely on. This film leaves us with one question strongly etching at our innards: "Could democracy betray the people who built it?"

What a depressing feature. And yet, through all this well-paced (yet over three hours long...) dramatic chaos... we are given a smile.

And that, dear ladies and gentlemen, is what convinces me that "everything's just going to be alright."

A nightmare to watch, but one that must be endured to truly understand. I wish everyone I ever cared about would see this film, and if not to stop their drug addiction (of which this film has the power to prevent such abominations...) then to see Ellen Burstyn's superior role, which I say with no embarrassment, drove me to tears as the final act thrusted into its final plummet.

Heart-wrenchingly powerful. In contrast, this is not a conventional film. Very much an artpiece. But it is an astounding artpiece, and without a doubt Nicolas Cage's greatest performance, and perhaps a display of acting ability that ranks up there with Fiennes' Amon Goeth and Burstyn's Emma Goldfarb. Speaking of Goldfarb, by comparison, this is very much an alcoholic equivilent of Requiem For A Dream, only even more effective. Considering the power of RFAD, this is a brilliant achievement in itself. I thoroughly recommend.

A searing, violent tale of revenge that puts Kill Bill (or any Tarantino flick for that matter) to shame. Probably the best cinematic twist since "The Usual Suspects".

It's a haunting picture of the Australian outback as painted by Hillcoat and Cave. Pearce gives a performance that is suitably restrained and assists in making the best Western since The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Even better than Unforgiven.

David Lean's masterpiece is thoroughly entertaining. Though nearly four hours long, the film is so coloured by a sense of epic excitement and the kind of classic David Lean gripping-feel that you'll wonder where the time went. Omar Sharif stands out the most from this amazing cast.

Grim, dark, depressing and endlessly miserable.

This is the kind of dystopia Gilliam couldn't make. Brilliant performances, touches of humour amidst an otherwise completely dull and black British thriller that hearkens back to 28 Days Later. Lubezki's cinematography is gritty, shaky-when-necessary, and absolutely stunning. Very little to disappoint. An instant classic.

A spectacular emphasis on the corruption that besieges the world as we know it. Must Fiennes be held back any longer? Him being shunned for an Oscar Nomination while the far inferior performance of Rachel Weisz leaves us assured that she'll win in her Supporting Actress Category. Nonetheless, it IS superior to City Of God, no contest, but the cinematography, while absolutely mind-blowing, may bother those less accustomed to visual taste. Shame on those who rate this masterpiece (and simultaneously one of the best films of 2005 by any standards) any lower than 4 stars.

The sequel to the "Dollars" films, and superior in every way. Eastwood is fantastic and Van Cleef is enjoyably evil. This is violent, yet accessible, so if you don't enjoy it, then one could safely assume that you enjoy the company of Hilary Duff.

Wow... just... wow. This is it. This is the one. This is the crowning achievement that may contend even Requiem For A Dream in terms of its subject matter. A true Romeo & Juliet of the modern times, with drugs and petty crime to back it up.

Not only is the cast superb (Heath Ledger is a revelation in what is easily his best performance yet, Abbie Cornish certainly isn't straying below her Somersault mastery, and Geoffrey Rush WILL win the AFI Award for Best Supporting Actor) but the whole third-split-structure that separates the darkness of each act. Heaven, Earth, and Hell.

As the couple and their addictions send them into a downward spiral, so too do their positions in this mortal coil, right into the depths of Lucifer's lair.

You will fall for this couple. You will fall WITH this couple. You will fall OVER this couple.

You will laugh with them, feel with them, live with them, and you will cry when they pass the fiery gates of hell and descend into what is quite seemingly an impossible-to-return-from depth no human-being should lower themselves into.

Forget the foetal fright of Trainspotting, this film has a miscarriage that will shock you. Forget the whirlwind of montages from Requiem For A Dream, the nervous breakdown that accompanies a wall-to-wall story written in paint and lipstick will overcome you. Forget the institutionalizing of Sara Goldfarb from the latter, Candy's crushed future will leave you numb.

Candy is a revelation. A masterwork. And I had to hold myself back from crying.

Neil Armfield, I am your fan.

Fiennes achieves the near-impossible, he outmatches Peter O'Toole's depiction of T.E. Lawrence and goes beyond.

The opening staredown is an anti-ultimatum of shattering power, his words emanating with the clear booming of Fiennes' distinct voice.

What we have, instead of glorious sands, is a battle of politics inside the labyrinth of council chambers as Lawrence battles for Arabia's ownership of Syria. The villains are distinct, yet they follow the law better than Lawrence could ever hope.

What we are left with is a cold, hard, lawless man whose ambitions are nobler than that of those politicians aiming for a future after WWI.

Don't pass it up. It neither rises nor lowers away from the quality of the original Lawrence Of Arabia, but in all honesty, that is a good thing.

A multi-layered film of exquisite complexity as executed in a fashion only Iñarritu could pull off.

From the bustling metropolis of Tokyo, through the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, to the sweltering heat of the watchful sun peering down on the American-Mexican border... Babel brings three very different stories together through a wide array of characters, taking the most intimate details of their lives (including a Moroccan child's exploration of his sexual urges, a rebellious Japanese teenager rejecting all intimacy from his father, and the party-animal like instincts of Berñal's otherwise unlikeable role) and bloating them into larger, bridging events that do, at some point, llnk all the stories together.

It's a powerful comment on the contrast between the developing and third worlds, and how the inability to have a common language between the people eventually causes human beings to rely on the deceitful nature of their eyes. In the end, it all becomes a matter of interpretation and how one FEELS having seen otherwise small excerpts of these peoples' lives (each character is really only covered in detail over the span of 48 hours, but they are not the same 48 hours for each character...), and the final image... that of Rinko Kikuchi's deaf-mute teenager, embracing her father while wearing nothing at all... is poignant and deep at the same time. Looking out at a man who has the benefit of clothes (in this case, hearing) and his daughter, who has no clothes (cannot hear), and gazing away into a barren, dark, canyon of skyscrapers... and how very fitting it is. Indeed, one of the most indelible cinematic images I have experienced yet.

Do not pass this up.

Dark, mystical and imaginitive, it's a wonder Guillermo Del Toro has never neared this wonderful piece about preserved innocence in the wake of horrible war, what with his fairly under-par previous efforts. Nonetheless, he has taken what could've been a child's film, and made it into a film about being a child, one that only adults should (and must) watch.

For a start, the performances are intriguingly well executed, with the minimal CGI doing little to distract performances. The violence is gory, bone-crunching, and as bloody as a film can get, and yet you can't help but cringe at its relation to the world of Pan's Labyrinth.

There's the most important point, the imagination utilised. Thanks to Del Toro, the Pale Man now officially lights up my dreams, and the faun itself was creepy enough. It only skims the surface of the "underworld", but really it's about what's going on in the real world for the girl, and how that forces her to long for what is totally imaginary. And suitably, it would seem, our young protagonist is the centre of our attention for the gripping and admittedly heart-wrenching finale. It's one of those rare endings where you are uplifted at the same time as you are saddened.

It's innocence, forever preserved.

A wonderful and charming collection of all-round great short films chronicling small events in different areas around Paris. While Doyle's Porte de Choisy remains the most surreal of the bunch, it's Cuáron's effort in a single shot twist-in-the-tale that highlights this fantastic co-operation between world cinema's top filmmakers.

Politics and teen-angst-ridden-gore collide for an actually very smart and very well thought out film where the usual teen worries and problems collide in a proverbial "Big Brother" battle where you must kill your best friends and be the last kid standing. Stay away from the sequel, though.

The fundamental differences between science and religion are all here. The circle is complete. Mankind is defined in its most flawed form, and we are forced to decide what is best for ourselves when it really counts.

So, let us begin, then.

Capa (Murphy) is a Physicist who is faced with the highest priority and trust in regards to the mission. The mission? To revive the dying sun after a first and near-identical attempt had failed.

Each decision is made based on scientific influence, but they lead to a stream of catastrophic events that ultimately finds the chance of accomplishing their mission ? let alone surviving ? impossible.

As such, however, Danny Boyle (director of 28 Days Later and Trainspotting) takes the surreal nature that defined 28 Days Later and turns up the heat on it, literally, so that each shot makes you feel the sunlight as it slowly burns Searle's (Cliff Curtis) skin (in fact, as the film progresses, his obsession with the sun results in noticable changes in his skin, and ultimately leads to a suitable conclusion).

The message of the film is about as bright as the sun "at 4% brightness". We cannot see it completely, because it will only burn our eyes if we try. We can't grapple onto it, but we can try.

The ending has been controversial among viewers... in fact, some have deemed it disappointing. "Why?" I ask them. "Why?"

The ending alludes to the spiritual nature that resides in all humans, and it allows us to truly become one with the otherwise distanced character of Capa as he's progressed throughout the course of the journey that has been afforded his crew on the Icarus-2. The end of the film (which I will cease to explain for spoilers purposes) allows for us the ability to see the universe for all its mysteries, defined by its beauties. We may not live forever, but we will live and then die wondering...

It could do with a better title, but Sunshine allows us to wonder. It's not a horror, it's barely allowed to be called a thriller (and it has a sequence riddled with well-executed subliminal images that, admittedly, creeped the fuck out of me), and it's not by any means an action (all the action that takes place is between Capa and Chris Evans' Mace in two separate personal disputes), but it is ? so far ? the best film of 2007.

In some ways, a disgusting attempt to rewrite history, but in others, painfully disturbing, and quite easily deserving of its awards not for its story, but for Ralph Fiennes' brilliantly complex and well performed Amon Goeth, whose inner demons haunt the viewer far more than any of the horrific killings that he personally carries out. If you see "Schindler's List" for one reason alone, you don't see it for Spielberg's attempt to re-enact something that occurred very differently from his depiction... you see it for the greatest performance of the 90s, Ralph Fiennes, in a role that isn't just a villain... but a spirit of its own.

Highly relevant satire with the needed seriousness of Fiennes and Sutherland, creating a surreal vortex of mixed humor and misery, leaving you VERY impressionable.

It's right there in the vein of Gilliam's Brazil, and nothing about it really flaws. Hollander's Junior is the light of the party despite his outrageousness ("It's because you're a fag... yeah, a big fag... no! I'm kidding!"), and his antics are accentuated by the generational changes affecting the News Anchor that gives us grandiosely humoured reports of different events, often touched up with exceptionally out-of-place advertisements that are tasteless... but in the right way.

Comparisons can be made here to everything and anything, and I've never really known Fiennes to have a family-like vibe to him: despite the thin background on his wife and child, the way he performs screams intimacy, and there is no emotional barrier between him and his daughter like there was between his Todd Jackson and Jackson's daughter in the somewhat disappointing White Countess.

The real standout, however, is Donald Sutherland, whose faecal-mural-painting playwright of many quotes develops himself into a modest and nigh-on terrifying second dictator of a tongue-in-cheek narcissism gives him the brilliance he needs in the performance that defines the film as a seminal-satirical masterpiece by first-time-fiction Director Robert Edwards.

The critics who branded this as tasteless schmutz are morons, and their taste (or lack thereof) is defined by badmouthing this, quite possibly the best film since the dawn of the new Millenium.

Haunting and powerful on all levels. Defeats Saving Private Ryan as a superior war film with more grip, more substance, and more humanity amongst the ranks. The final freeze-frame is the most haunting image in Australian cinema, and it will linger in your head for a long time to come. One of my favourites, even if the argument is one-sided, and the Turkish soldiers are one-dimensional and almost invisible. Nonetheless, a crowning Australian achievement, and one of the only Mel Gibson films worthy of credit.

Masterful, the best film of the year, and Ray Lawrence just keeps getting better.

The spirituality is there, and it is astounding on poetic levels. Can you say the film is better than Lantana? No, you can't, but you can't say it's worse. They're two different films by the same director.

And for the metaphorically impaired, notice the opening shot... the barbed wire fence "polluting" the Australian landscape, which symbolizes the European poisoning of the authentic Australian land.

That shot sums up the feeling for this wonderfully compelling film with stunning performances by Linney and Byrne (both are Oscar-worthy).

A beautiful study of a woman so many could relate to. Horrifying climaxes bridged with wonderfully executed and controlled sexual sequences that allow the subject of the film to release her building anger without... say... stabbing a difficult woman in the arm with a fork.