10 Greatest Films of All Time

Every 10 years, Sight & Sound magazine names the 10 best films of all time. While the recent announcement of the latest Top 10 has led to much controversy - Vertigo dethroning Citizen Kane as #1 all time - I decided to make my own "best films" list. These lists - no matter who makes them - are always so subjective that it's wise to take them with a grain of salt. Not only is there no tangible criteria for deciding such a list, but also it's extremely hard to not be biased by including one's own personal favorites in it. Thus, my list below does not necessarily mean my 10 favorite movies, but rather the 10 that I consider to be the most well-made - films where the director, writers, actors, etc. just got everything right, films that have made a significant artistic and/or cultural impact. At first, the list consisted of over 50 films, but somehow I (painfully) narrowed it down to just 10, leaving out some films that I hold near and dear to my heart.

10. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee)

9. Network (Sidney Lumet)

8. Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica)

7. The Searchers (John Ford)

6. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz)

5. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson)

4. Chinatown (Roman Polanski)

3. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)

2. The Godfather Part I & II (Francis Ford Coppola)

1. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola)

Keep in mind, this list is very incomplete because I'm still young and naive in terms of film diversity. I've only seen two Hitchcock movies, but fear not, I'm taking a class in the fall that's solely devoted to the guy. This is just a compilation of the films I've seen so far, so perhaps next year (and every year after that) my list will be completely different. It's funny how your opinion of a film can change as you get older. Maybe in 20 years something as odious as The King's Speech will be my new #1 (doubtful). You may notice that there's only one foreign film on the list - the reason is that I just haven't seen that many international films yet.

Tomorrow, along with Shot of the Week, I'll be posting commentaries on each of these films, plus Honorable Mentions that barely missed making the list.

Shot of the Week: The Brave Men Stay

Everybody loses the thing that made them. The brave men stay and watch it happen. They don't run.

God, what a struggle I had with this. So many incredible shots in this film - which I chose for reasons stated in my review below - and yet, like Highlander, there can be only one.

As her father lay dying and fellow residents flee, Hushpuppy goes against the grain (when does she not, honestly) and stands up to the monstrous Aurochs. She stares one of them right in the face, and a haunting silence ensues until the beast kneels before her out of respect. Hushpuppy faces the Auroch because she faces the death of her father - "the one who made her". She faces the end of her community, her way of life in The Bathtub, which also had a hand in "making" her. She doesn't run from the uncontrollable forces of nature and death that threaten these things, she stays and watches them happen. The massive problems that threaten her manifest themselves in the Aurochs, and at this moment in the film, we come to realize that Hushpuppy can and will face whatever the universe throws at her.

Aesthetically, the image is beautifully lit, and I was particularly impressed by the visual effects in creating the mythical beasts with such a small budget.

Review: Beasts of the Southern Wild

I FINALLY got around to seeing Sundance and Cannes indie hit Beasts of the Southern Wild, a swampy backwoods folk tale made on a shoestring budget by first-time director Benh Zeitlin and featuring a cast of nonprofessional actors in the Lake Charles, Louisiana area. That's the problem with not being in NY or LA - you have to wait centuries before an indie movie comes to your area. Only three more weeks til I'm back at school though. Alas, here's my take on the film.

Hushpuppy on her daddy's makeshift boat

One of the most important things I learned about cinema was taught to me by a film professor named Drew Casper. He said that the purpose of cinema is to transport you to another world and place you in a life, a person, a story that you have never seen or experienced before. Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild, to me, fits this description beautifully. The film is pure magic, like watching poetry on screen. Cinema, among other things, should be just that - a visual representation of a feeling or thought. Never in my life have I seen this represented so perfectly than when watching this film.

I won't tell you anything about the plot, because it's best if you go into this without knowing anything about it, which is what I did and was truly astounded and surprised by every moment. The film transports you to a community completely cut off from the rest of society, called "The Bathtub" after having been flooded by the construction of a levy to protect the civilized societies from storms. The film's two leads, a little girl named Hushpuppy and her brutish yet loving father Wink, are played beautifully by nonprofessionals Quvenzhane Wallis and Dwight Henry, respectfully.

Wallis is especially brilliant as the film's soulful protagonist, a folk hero raised virtually in the wild who must come to terms with both her father's terminal illness and the ever-changing world around her as The Bathtub becomes subject to overflooding, decay, and the arrival of mythical beasts called Aurochs. These beasts, frozen in ice for thousands of years, have reappeared as a result of the melting of the polar ice caps. A testament to man's effect on nature, the beasts serve as a cautionary consequence of human carelessness and ignorance towards the natural balance of the universe.

Hushpuppy faces an Auroch head on in one of the best moments of the film

If this review seems like a stream-of-consciousness musing on an impossibly complex theme, it's only because this is exactly what Beasts is: a poetic collage of images, words, and sounds that have no straightforward narrative. The film is an absolute mystery in the best way possible - I waited three days after seeing it to write this review because that's how long it took me to really process it. There's so much that Zetilin leaves open to interpretation that each scene and image can be analyzed differently depending on who you ask. Needless to say, the film is ripe with beautiful and haunting moments - Hushpuppy running towards us with sparklers in her hands, facing and ultimately humbling the enormous Aurochs, learning how to catch a fish with her bare hands.

This review, lengthy as it is, still doesn't do the film justice. All I can say is see the film without any knowledge of the plot and let it transport you to another world, a world of magic and poetry and true wonder. The cinematography is gorgeously grimy, the art direction immaculately detailed (it could almost be considered a character of its own in the film), the performances so natural and real that you don't even realize you're watching a film. Hushpuppy's voice-over narration is filled with poetic musings and childlike wonder, and Wink serves as nature incarnate: tough and unforgiving and untamed, but nonetheless nurturing and fiercely protective.

Hushpuppy and Wink

Truly the most original film I have ever had the pleasure of seeing, Beasts is something that is nearly impossible to describe in words. If the goal of cinema is to place the viewer in another world and speak to the human experience, then this film more than accomplishes it. A modern-day folk tale with more imagination in 91 minutes than any other work of art I've seen in my lifetime, Beasts of the Southern Wild proves that great American movies, like the titular Aurochs, are not completely extinct.

Life of Pi Trailer

Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) is back with this adaptation of Yann Martel's best-selling novel. Obviously the cinematography looks breathtaking and stunning, but can Lee pull off the narrative aspects of this seemingly "unfilmable" work? We'll see when it hits theaters November 21.

Shot of the Week: Why Do We Fall?

Every Friday I'll be posting a shot that I particularly liked, either aesthetically or thematically or both, from a recently-watched film. This week's entry comes from none other than The Dark Knight Rises, a film that I won't review on this site (a little late, plus there's a zillion other reviews already out there) but what I consider to be tied with Moonrise Kingdom as the best of the year so far. For the three of you in the world who haven't seen this movie yet, this shot comes at a pivotal point in the story. Bruce has been placed in a mysterious, hellish underground prison in India and must escape by climbing up a pit in order to save Gotham from Bane - only one person has ever accomplished this climb.

If you remember Batman Begins, the first of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, you'll instantly recognize this shot as a mirror image of the well in which a young Bruce Wayne fell. "Why do we fall, sir?" asks Alfred - the answer being in order to pick ourselves back up. In Begins, Bruce is trapped in the well and terrified by the swarm of bats inhabiting it. In Rises, Bruce must learn not to overcome his fear, but control it to his advantage. This shot represents Bruce climbing up the depths of his fear and "picking himself up" in order to save Gotham, and not only is it beautifully lit but it also displays the sheer brilliance of Nolan in making his Batman trilogy. There are so many elements and shots in TDKR that harken back to the previous two installments, leading one to believe that Nolan - and thus the audience - is treating this trilogy not as three separate films, but rather one complete story.

I'm Back

Yes, after a disconcertingly long hiatus mainly due to laziness and lack of motivation, your favorite film school student/struggling screenwriter/occasional blogger is back. I decided to revive Film Schooled from the dead (which was accomplished by saying "Beetlejuice" three times) because my two older sisters have started their own blogs/companies and repeatedly urged me to continue mine. So, here I am. To all four of you who followed me faithfully last year, I'm sorry for dropping off the face of the earth, and I hope we can still be friends. So basically, this is my official announcement that you all should start reading my blog again because, like Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises, I'm back from the dead and ready to save Gotham. Well, not Gotham, but rather naive filmgoers.

First Article

Here's a link to my first article for At the Movies, the online blog of the Daily Trojan.

http://dailytrojanbeta.com/2011/08/30/it-takes-two-festivals-to-kick-off-oscar-season/

Hiatus

Good news and bad news (and more good news). Good news: I just got a staff writing job for the school newspaper - The Daily Trojan - and will be writing for two of their online blogs: At the Movies and Trojan Review. Bad news: this means I will not be able to post new things on this site (I just don't have time). But there's more good news too: this also means that you can still read things that I've written, it's just that it will be on a different website. You can go to dailytrojan.com and click on the Blogs tab to find my work, and I will also be posting links to my Daily Trojan articles on the FilmSchooled site. Keep following me on either FilmSchooled or Daily Trojan to read all about the latest movie news as well as weekly reviews of films and TV shows. Thanks!

Top Ten Tuesday: Disaster Movies

In honor of the freak-earthquake felt all along the Eastern seaboard this afternoon, I give you the ten best disaster movies of all time:

10. Outbreak
9. San Francisco
8. The Day After Tomorrow
7. The Poseidon Adventure
6. Twister
5. The Perfect Storm
4. World Trade Center
3. The Towering Inferno
2. Titanic
1. United 93

"Carnage" Trailer

Roman Polanski's adaptation of the hit Broadway play "God of Carnage" stars Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster, and John C. Reilly. This was included in my most anticipated of the year, and with good reason. It boasts an impressive cast and this is somewhat of a passion project for Polanski. The trailer makes the film look a little stagey but hopefully Polanski and the cast will be able to make it more cinematic.

Most Anticipated of 2011

As summer comes to a close and awards season takes off, I give you my 10 most anticipated movies of the fall/winter. In no particular order:

J. Edgar (Leo DiCaprio, dir. Clint Eastwood)
We Bought a Zoo (Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, dir. Cameron Crowe)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Daniel Craig, dir. David Fincher)
50/50 (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, dir. Jonathan Levine)
Moneyball (Brad Pitt, dir. Bennett Miller)
The Ides of March (Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, dir. George Clooney)
Carnage (Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly, dir. Roman Polanski)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Gary Oldman, dir. Tomas Alfredson)
War Horse (Jeremy Irvine, dir. Steven Spielberg)
The Descendants (George Clooney, dir. Alexander Payne)

Apologies

Sorry for the hiatus. I've been swamped (and without a computer) the past few days moving into my new apartment at school. I'll post something today and will continue trying to post every day. Thanks.

Emmy Predictions

Since it's way way too early for Oscar predictions, I've decided to give you my winner predictions and thoughts for the upcoming Emmy awards, airing on September 18 at 8:00 pm on FOX. For a list of all the nominees, check out this article at the Huffington Post.

DRAMA


Best Drama Series
Boardwalk Empire

It's a close race between this and Friday Night Lights, the fan-favorite and recently-canceled series that has gone overlooked for years now. Emmy loves it some Terence Winter though, so I'm going with the HBO critical darling for now.

Best Actress, Drama
Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife

I've honestly never seen this show nor do I have any interest in it, but I've heard good things about Margulies and she won the Golden Globe for her performance two years ago.

Best Supporting Actress, Drama
Kelly McDonald, Boardwalk Empire

Right now I'm banking on Emmy's love for Boardwalk Empire to spill into the acting categories. This category is always a toss-up so it's always smart to go with prestigious HBO dramas when in doubt.

Best Actor, Drama
Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire

Buscemi won the Golden Globe for this last year, and I'm expecting him to claim the Emmy also since this is the show's first year of qualifying for the awards. Friday Night Light's Kyle Chandler and Justified's Timothy Olyphant are dark horses that could possibly upset Buscemi, so watch out.

Best Supporting Actor, Drama
Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones

I'm torn between Dinklage (my favorite supporting TV performance of the year) and the perennial nominee John Slattery in Mad Men. Voters might consider him overdue, but right now I'm going with the wildcard pick of Dinklage because he is so much fun to watch on screen.

COMEDY


Best Comedy Series
Modern Family

The show won the top prize last year and is easily the funniest show on television right now. Better yet, it received 6 acting nominations and 3 directing nominations, so clearly Emmy loves the show too.

Best Actress, Comedy
Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation

This one usually goes to either Tina Fey or an HBO-show actress, but I'm feeling pretty ballsy with my predictions today so I'm picking the fan-favorite for the win.

Best Supporting Actress, Comedy
Jane Lynch, Glee

I hate to admit it, but I've seen all of Glee Season 2. And trust me, I will not be watching it next year, for reasons that I will probably explain in a future Random Rant post. Lynch's Sue Sylvester character was a lot of fun to watch in the show's first season, but come season 2 it felt like the writers had no more storylines or fun scenes to give her. She's still the favorite to win, however, because Emmy loves their Glee. In a perfect, Glee-free world, Julie Bowen would win this in a cakewalk.

Best Actor, Comedy
Steve Carell, The Office

Normally Jim Parsons from The Big Bang Theory would win this, but Emmy won't be able to resist giving the award to the grossly overdue Carell in his final season as one of the most iconic characters in TV history.

Best Supporting Actor, Comedy
Ty Burrell, Modern Family

Statistically speaking, one of the Modern Family nominees is highly likely to win since 4 out of the 6 nominees hail from the ABC sitcom. Last year it was Eric Stonestreet, but this time I around I'm going with Burrell because I think Emmy will want to spread the Modern Family love around.

Review: "Apes" Rises

Rupert Wyatt's Rise of the Planet of the Apes is hands-down the best movie of the summer, and could quite possibly go down as one of the best of the entire year. Not only is it a pulse-pounding action movie (which doesn't come into play until the third act) but also a thought-provoking and incredibly heartfelt science-fiction drama.

The story revolves around Will Rodman (James Franco), a scientist at GEN-SYS who has dedicated his life to finding a cure for his Alzheimer's-afflicted father (played beautifully by John Lithgow) by testing a retrovirus on chimpanzees. The virus affects the chimps' neurological systems, giving them an advanced, humanlike level of intelligence. When one of the super-intelligent chimps is killed, Will is charged with taking care of its child, Caesar (Andy Serkis), who has inherited his mother's intellect and strength but remains a loyal pet to Will and his father. Soon, however, Will is unable to control Caesar, who spearheads a spectacular escape from a holding facility and leads his fellow apes on a rampage through the streets of San Francisco.

This film is so much more than an action movie with monkeys. In fact, the climactic ape invasion doesn't even happen until the third act, as the first two thirds of the film set up the human characters and their relationship with the apes. Wyatt adds a great amount of emotional depth to the story and does the most important thing one can do in a movie: make us actually care about the characters, both human and primate. We care about Will's undying determination to cure his dying father. We care about Caesar wanting to break free from domestication in order to realize his full potential. And most of all, we care about the scientist and his primate friend's special bond and, ultimately, their inevitable separation.

During most of the movie, you find yourself actually rooting for the apes to escape their confines and wreak havoc across the human population, which is no small feat considering the eventual human enslavement that takes place in the original Planet of the Apes film. At the end of the story, as the apes find refuge in a national redwood forest and the seeds are planted for human devastation, we feel a haunting sense of defeat as the humans realize that they are no match for the hyper-intelligent apes. Man has foolishly tried to control nature, and nature has won.

Rupert Wyatt's direction is top-notch. The film goes by fast enough that it isn't a bore but slowly enough that we have time to get a feel for the characters and understand the ethical implications of what is happening. Even more impressive, however, is the film's special effects. Using motion-capture technology, the CGI apes look incredibly realistic. Every tick and facial expression is perfectly captured, adding to the film's sense of disturbing realism. The performances range from bland to one-note to absolutely extraordinary. Freida Pinto plays the totally useless and unnecessary role of Will's love interest, but tries her best to keep us interested nonetheless. Franco does his best "Frankenstein's monster" impression, playing Will as a well-intended but totally misguided idealist who, in the end, comes to realize the devastation he has unwittingly unleashed. John Lithgow's portrayal of Will's Alzheimer's-suffering father is one of the better performances in the film, as Lithgow is able to portray the disease in a beautifully subtle way rather than going the showy, over-the-top route.

But the top prize goes to Andy Serkis. Known best as the motion-capture specialist who played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings series as well as King Kong in the Peter Jackson film, Serkis performs a modern miracle in portraying Caesar. Never have I felt such a strong emotional connection to an animal, and it's to Serkis' credit that Caesar is easily the most engaging and interesting character in the entire film. In a perfect world, Serkis would snag at least an Oscar nomination for depicting a primate with such precision, but sadly it seems that the Academy (as well as fellow actors) has yet to embrace motion-capture performances.

Part action blockbuster, part thought-provoking sci-fi parable, Rise of the Planet of the Apes takes the crown as the best movie of the summer thanks to its spectacular action sequences, profound emotional depth, and an incredible physical performance by Andy Serkis.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog ladies and gents! I created Film Schooled in order to share my passion for film (and occasionally, television) with fellow film lovers. I hope you find this site entertaining enough to continue viewing on a daily basis - I promise you won't be disappointed! You'll laugh, you'll cry, you might even learn something along the way (like how not to start a blog?). I will be posting daily (or at least semi-daily) about the goings-on in the entertainment world, featuring reviews, articles, random thoughts, and top-ten lists every week! If you like what you see, click "follow" on the sidebar so I can keep this site going. If you look at my picture and like what you see, my phone number is 123-456-7890. Just kidding (or not?).