Yes, we have a Search Option

21 June 2010

THE TOP 100 MOVIE MOMENTS OF THE LAST DECADE.

100. - Taken: Liam Neeson murders every-fucking-body in Paris.

            - The body count for this barely 90 minutes long movie is higher than the body count for other 2 hours long actioners. Do not mess with Aslan or he will shoot you the fuck back to Narnia.

99. - Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children: Bahamut fight that goes on for ages!

            - Implausible. Ridiculous. Noisy. Senseless. All plastered with some androgynous teenagers and an emo wielding a massively over-compensating sword. And still it makes my eyes orgasm anytime I see it.

98. - Austin Powers in Goldmember: Tom Cruise is Austin Powers.

            - Before fake-trailers existed Jay Roach and Mike Myers created this fake movie intro where Danny DeVito plays Mini-Me, Kevin Spacey is Dr. Evil, Gwyneth Paltrow plays Dixie Normous and Tom Cruise is Austin Powers. The movie is directed by a certain Steven Spielberg.

97. - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: If things weren’t weird enough, here’s Angie!

            - Steam-Powered giant robots? Nah. Giovanni Ribisi being a good guy? Pff. Angelina Jolie wearing a dominatrix R.A.F. costume and a patch over the eye? Now that’s just plain weird…and awesome. She might be in the movie for like 4 minutes, but boy what 4 minutes!

96. - The Bourne Supremacy: Knife VS Rolled-up magazine.

            - The pen is stronger than the sword!? Bullshit! “Reader’s digest” is stronger than the kitchen knife! Minus the fuzzy editing, this is a fight made of win.

95. - Vanilla Sky: The line that makes this movie so much better than the original.

            - There were many changes in this remake respect the original Spanish version, and I have to say that all of them are actually good. But one of them stands respect the others, and that’s the line David Ames (Tom Cruise) says to Penelope Cruz: “What a couple we are. Me, frozen; and you, dead.” Even Amenabar said he wanted that in his movie.

94. - Revelation Lugia: Lugia is revealed!

            - More of a personal choice than anything, but seriously guys. I am a Lugia fan. You know. I know it. Even the bloody non-existent thing knows it. It is brilliant to see him coming out of the water…despite it’s used up to three times in the run of the movie.

93. - Planet Terror: You know, the part when Gun Lug shows up!

            - “It’s go-go. Not cry-cry”. Rose McGowan just made herself and entire movie career for performing the first strip dancer to wield a machinegun instead of a right leg.

92. - Hannibal: Brain food.

            - If cannibalism is a metaphor for something in other horror movies, it surely isn’t in this one. Let’s just say that Ridley Scott took away all the thought and fed it to the pigs. Saw what I did there?

91. - Signs: Brazilian video footage.

            - Back then, when M. Night Shyamalan still had potential he made this low-budget sci-fi B-movie about aliens invading a farm in Philadelphia. With basically no especial effects shot, all filmed in very intimate, very enclosed spaces and scenarios, the most effective moment is that where we see a glimpse of an alien in a domestic video recorded n Brazil. One second glimpse and then it’s gone.

90. - Scary movie 3: “I wonder what Ford would have done in my case”.

            - In a flimsy sequel to a very disgraceful movie series, this moment stands up for being stupidly funny. Simple double meaning, and great acting from Mr. Doctor Rumack. We need a gallery of fake US Presidents now!

89. - Frailty: “You are a good person”.

            - Not many people know about this horror movie directed by Bill Paxton in 2002, but I tell you now, it has one of the most intelligent, well written endings in the history of horror movies. If you want to be toyed with for an hour and a half, watch it!

88. - Fragile: Everything is falling apart!

            - Like in all good Poltergeist movies there comes the moment when the hero (heroine in this case) faces the evil spirit while saving the little girl. Well, how about we skip that whole “saving the little girl part”? Because, you know, we are Spanish and so not-pussies. We can kill children (in movies) and make it look good, that’s how awesome we are.

87. - The Switchblade Romance: Death by circular chainsaw.

            - French gore! Sacre-bleu! I don’t want to know how they made this, but it makes Saw look like a kindergarten movie.

86. - The Cell: Getting into the killer’s mind for the first time.

            - It is rare to see originality in movies nowadays, but when you are taken into a journey through a killer’s mind filled with sliced up horses and bondaged girls muddied up, strapped on and wearing anime masks, you might change your mind. Twisted is just little.

85. - Matrix Reloaded: Burly Brawl.

            - Nowadays, if I put this movie into my DVD Player is just to watch the Brawl between Neo and the 1.000 Agents Smith. Still, it’s not better than the Multi-Man Brawl in Super Smash Bros Brawl.

84. - Hellboy 2: Hellboy and Abe get plastered with Barry Manilow.

            - I am pretty sure Guillermo del Toro paid for this scene himself and was more excited to film it than the fight against the giant plant titan. It is glorious.

83. - The Mothman Prophecies: The Car accident.

            - Wow, another of those sleeper movies that nobody else but me watches. It’s the best example that there’s still imagination in the horror genre, as a car accident turns into a traumatic experience of sound and visuals.

82. - Kill Bill Vol. 2: The bit inside the grave.

            - Tarantino liked this scene so much that he remade it in his CSI debut episode “Grave Danger”. Claustrophobic, intense, with the music of Ennio Morricone and with a cracking up funny ending.

81. - Panic Room: Getting the cell phone back.

            - For me, David Fincher’s last good movie. There are a lot of tense moments, but the muffled, deafened scene with Jodie Foster trying to take back the cell phone rises the tension up to 11.

80. - Shrek 2: Awwwwwwww.

            - Not even the excessive use of this moment in other installments of the franchise made it less funny. It still is hilarious and adorable. Te decisive scene that made Antonio Banderas sure of voicing Puss in Boots.

79. - Common Wealth: Death by elevator.

            - In this suburban battle royale between a whole community of neighbors the nastiest, most tense and most suffocating moment is that where one of the characters gets sliced in two by a falling elevator. Very slowly.

78. - The Lord of the Rings. The Return of the King: The very last end of the 11 endings this movie has.

            - Ignore all the action and all the other CGI moments this movie has. The best part is when we see Sam Wise back to his house, as the small, circular door closes behind him, indicating the end of his journey.

77. - Kingdom of Heaven: The Towers Collapse…all of them.

            - As Salahadin tries to take on Jerusalem his towers lead a direct attack to the walls of the city…Until Balian (Orland Bloom) fires the ballistas and takes down tower after tower in a Domino fashion. There is where Salahadin realizes taking Jerusalem will take more than one night.

76. - Horton hears a Who: Huh, who lost an Anime in my CGI?

            - In quite a streamlined CGI animated movie based on the Dr. Seuss book, all of a sudden and coming out of nowhere, we have this imaginative, original, acid-driven scene where Horton fights monkeys and talking trees with pink lightning and Japanese sound effects subtitled to engrish. Instant classic.

75. - The Day after Tomorrow: Tornados do Hollywood.

            - How to make Twister better? Move it to the west coast and put them destroying the Hollywood letters, throwing buses to Porsche cars, big boobies to news reporters and leaving a trace of pure destruction behind it. Roland Emmerich’s best.

74. - Collateral: The coyotes.

            - As Tom Cruise and Jammie Foxx drive around LA at night, they stop for a moment just to see those glow-eyed, slim and raunchy Coyotes to cross right before their eyes.

73. - The Ring: That video tape.

            - Yeah you know, the one that kills you in 7 days. Do not watch it too much, as it might start making sense as you watch it.

72. - Minority Report: Who’s going to do it?

            - The intro sequence couldn’t be most thrilling, as we see the day to day of an especial police unit that stops murders before they are committed. The perfect pace and the building up music set up the tone for the rest of the movie…if it wasn’t because it decays quite a bit during the third part.

71. - Memento: “Let’s see…where was I?”

            - In a movie where everything goes backwards the most important thing to do is knowing how to piece things together. The last line expresses perfectly how the audience feels after having their brains plucked out and raped by Christopher Nolan’s evil genius. With emphasis on the genius.

70. - Casino Royale: Bond VS Super Mario.

            - What action movies have nowadays is the “Bourne Syndrome”. Shaky camera work and fuzzy editing. Not the case of this one! James Bond chases a park-our expert through a construction building as they jump, stumble, crash and slide through holes and vents, as the camera flies over the entire sequence in solid, steady and cinematic awesomeness.

69. - Lucia and the Sex: The muddied up bodies.

            - This hardcore porn movie disguised as a metaphysical love story has a lot of set pieces full of steamy sex and tasteful nude bodies. But the scene where Paz Vega gets her boobs, belly and crotch covered up in mud takes the award for hottest thing of the decade.

68. - Batman Begins: And then there was this time when Batman took his Batmobile and ran over a bunch of cops!

            - You can give all the background and seriousness to the character of Batman that you want, but when he grabs his Batmobile and runs over roof tops, police cars and rail roads then all that bullshit goes out the window. And it’s glorious. Breaking the traffic laws was never this fun.

67. - Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl: Fork in the eye.

            - I know it’s silly, with all the brilliant set pieces this movie has. The zombie pirates appearing under water, or Johnny Depp revealing himself as another skeleton, blah, blah, blah…The best part is to see that fork getting stuck in the fake wooden eye and another pirate popping it out. Classic Disney Humor right there.

66. - Hellboy: Where Hellboy fights Chtulu’s cousin.

            - It’s hack and slash when Hellboy faces a massive behemoth creature with more tentacles than teeth. Guillermo del Toro wanted to give it a feel like in the “Hercules” Disney movie, and he made it even better, fluid and beautiful. This is the real closest we will get to see a Hellboy comic coming alive, with the climax of the movie being exactly like those of the comic books.

65. - King Kong: Reptile Rumble!

            - I have no idea how long this was or how much it costed, but Jesus Christ, Peter Jackson over did himself with this fight scene. King Kong takes on three massive T-Rexes while protecting Naomi Watts. It’s a solid punch to the jaw of the movie monster genre that squares as the only salvageable thing in the entire movie.

64. - Donnie Darko: The scene in the cinema.

            - I wouldn’t even try to make sense of the entire movie, especially since Richard Kelly killed his own career by co-working with Douche Bag king David O’Russell. Still, this scene where Donnie Darko finally confronts his imaginary giant bunny friend Frank is shot with elegance. I still have to decipher what’s the relation between “The Evil Dead” and “The Last Temptation of Christ”.

63. - War of the Worlds: Revealing Tripods.

            - 2005 was a clumsy year for movies. You won’t see many of them in this list, since there were a lot of remakes and the few original ones were not that good. But this remake/adaptation of War of the Worlds was slightly above average, thanks to a very short run time (under 120 minutes, good) and very effective especial effects. Anyways, the scene where the Tripods show up wrecking up the place and vaporizing people to ash was very cool.

62. - Kill Bill Vol. 1: The fight against the 88 maniacs.

            - Tarantino’s first try at making an action movie and, hey, it is awesome! A very well choreographed, artsy and thrilling fight scene where Uma Thurman takes single-sworded an entire army of katana wielding assholes, as the image turns monochrome and then shadowy over red and blue. The fight against Lucy Liu is alright, but it doesn’t hold a candle to this one.

61. - Gladiator: Russell Crow beats the fuck out of Joaquin Phoenix.

            - After an entire movie of verbal abuse and mugging from Joaquin Phoenix, Russell Crow has had enough of him…and so the audience. We are right there with him in every single punch he throws at the face of the motherfucker, and we all push that knife down his throat. So satisfying.

60. - Bowling for Columbine: “Don’t you think it is dangerous gifting firearms in a bank?”

            - There was no need to make a full blown documentary with this line of dialogue alone.

59. - World Trade Center: Jeffrey Kerns finds Will Jimeno.

            - You can argue that Oliver Stone doesn’t get the grasp of the things he makes sometimes. He actually got mix-bagged with this movie, but you can’t deny that he got it totally right to portray how, in the middle of a disaster, there’s still hope. Good stuff.

58. - Mission Impossible 3: Bridge brawl.

            - J.J. Abrahams is famous for not getting to the point of things, or when he does he takes ages to explain what happened to get to that point. Thank God that with his movie this has yet to happen. This action sequence with a sentient plane, explosions and cars in the middle of a bridge is a highlight that leaves the rest of the movie somewhat flat. Third parts aren’t good? This one is awesome!

57. - The Others: We know who the “Others” are.

            - Think of a reverse Sixth Sense that doesn’t make you think on Bruce Willis or Haley Joel Osment. The funny thing is that I saw this scene in the screenplay, before watching the movie. It doesn’t lose a piece of tension or shock, mostly because Nicole Kidman and Amenabar carry all the weight of talent here.

56. - X-Men 2: The scrap between Wolvie and Lady Strike.

            - Comic book based movies were on the go during this last decade, and X-Men 2 was one of them. Now that we knew the origins of these characters we could move on to get a good story, and hey, that’s what we got! Wolverine gets ditched by his “creator” and is forced to fight another brain-washed mutant with adamantium nails. Nasty and brutal, with a very consistent comic-book style of shooting and a veiled reference to anime.

55. - Rambo IV: There’s going to be lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of blood.

            - This is the best antidote against the modern shoot out sequence. No bullet time, no choreographs jumping between small holes, and no fucking fuzzy editing. Just Rambo, the bandana of Solid Snake, a huge machine gun and lots of bad guys. Seeing people explode was never so fun.

54. - Shrek: Bird-day blowout!

            - How do you destroy an entire kingdom? (most precisely, Disney’s). You just have to put your princess in the middle of a forest and have her blow up a bird with annoyingly high pitched chants. This was so good…

53. - The Devil’s Backbone: “What’s a ghost? That’s what I am.”

            - Can’t explain here. You have to watch the entire movie, from start to end, or else you will never understand what really is a ghost. Never something has being so creepy and so touching.

52. - Cars: Breaks up!

            - All Pixar movies have their own Pixar moments, and this one is no exception in any way. There are more lessons being taught in the scene were Lightning McQueen stops racing and goes back to help a wrecked car than in all the after-school specials ever made. Wipe those tears.

51. - Unbreakable: The whole ending part.

            - This is the best Super Hero movie ever made before “Spiderman 2” and “Watchmen” came around, with an ending sequence that leaves “The Sixth Sense” at the height of bugs in shock value.

50. - 300: Yeah, yeah, we all know the meme at this point.

            - Gerard Butler played it so well nobody will ever forget it. “This!!! IS!!!...A tired up internet meme at this point”. Still, awesome.

49. - Blood Diamond: Djimon Hounsou reminds his son who he is.

            - After an entire movie being separated, the poor kid being submitted to kill people, take drugs, brain washed to death, his dad Djimon Hounsou tells his son who he was, in a heart-touching speech that stands out in the middle of all this destruction and explosions.

48. - Capturing the Friedmans: The family faces the victims in the Jury.

            - What started like a Documentary about clowns turns into a Documentary about an entire family being accused of sexually abusing from kids in IT Class. There are tons of moments that froze your blood, but the most tense of all is when the family of the victims face the supposed rapists in the court. It will make you dug your nails in your palms from the tension.

47. - Silent Hill: The Bathroom sequence.

            - In words of my good all friend: “The bathroom sequence was what convinced me that this movie was going to be awesome”. Silent Hill can be a bit clunky in terms of horror movie, but as a videogame adaptation is brilliant.

46. - The Incredibles: Jack-Jack kicks some ass!

            - It’s the quiet ones you got to watch. The sleeper of the family, the only super hero to have no powers, shows he is a powerhouse of badassery. A legit shocker of  a scene that mixes hilarity with awesomeness and ends with a death scene that will make sadists happy.

45. - Serenity: When they go into Reaver space.

            - The biggest complaint I have with space movies is the lack of realism. Serenity has tons of that: No aliens, no evil empires, and no sound in space! Silence is the worst thing you will hear in a tense sequence, and this one where the crew of the Serenity goes through the home planet orbit of these space zombies is the best example.

44. - A.I.: David faces his replicas.

            - A traumatic experience for this kid robot who is forced to watch, by his own curiosity, all the empty husks that will become copies of himself. It makes going to a doll shop ten times creepier.

43. - Lilo and Stitch: Lilo tells Stitch about her parents’ photo.

            - Undertone is something you used to relate Disney to. Even the biggest moments of their history are toned down (best of all, the dead of Bambi’s mom, despite all the flowers and birds epilogue). Lilo and Stitch resolves the motivations for Lilo’s personal life with one single sentence of her: “It’s a photo of my parents. They were coming back home. It was at night, raining…and the road was slippery”. You could hear a pin drop after that sentence ended.

42. - Frost/Nixon: The last interview.

            - Ron Howard is usually on and off during each decade, and this one was no exception. Everybody praised (incorrectly) “A beautiful mind”, right when the movie we all wanted to see was left in the editing room while the other version hit the theatres and the Academy Awards. What people don’t usually grasp is that his best movies are the ones that win little or nothing, and so “Frost/Nixon” is the best contribution he made to this decade. A series of interviews carried like a Boxing match that end with a crowning moment of awesome as Frost corners Nixon enough to make him slip and make a mistake: “I’m saying, that when the President does it, it means it’s not illegal”. That’s a classic already.

41. - District 9: Oh hello Halo!

            - Despite all its intelligent plot development, the thin veiled metaphors to apartheid, all that social context and its setting, I decided to pick the moment when Wikus and Christopher Johnson break into the MNU Headquarters. Not because it’s the closest thing that this about-to-be-Halo project will get to Halo, but because it’s one of those rare action scene where you are really into, mostly because you care for the characters. Something Michael Bay is yet to understand.

40. - The Terminal: So, what’s inside that peanut can?

            - It’s funny to see how everybody turns against Steven Spielberg when he doesn’t make something blow up. This minimalistic tale of a foreign tourist that gets stuck into the New York airport has more heart than it seems. As Tom Hanks’ Victor Navorsky carries the MacGuffin of the movie inside the peanut can, the moment he opens it we realize we all have been there. Waiting endless amounts of time to get something that only our heart cares about. The best thing is that it’s not dumb down with a speech about responsibility, it’s never explained with words.

39. - Shaun of the Dead: Don’t Stop Me Now!

            - Stop bringing up the part where they throw the records at the zombies. It wasn’t that funny in the first place except for poking fun at Prince. The real funny part is the fight scene in the bar choreographed with the “Don’t stop me now” by Queen. More movies should have their fight scenes tuned to Freddy Mercury.

38. - The Prestige: The “real” Prestige is revealed.

            - The best job in the world is the one that gives you satisfaction. Chris Nolan has that job, and I don’t mean being a movie maker or a screenwriter. I mean having the capacity and the media to toy with people’s minds, turn them inside out and then stuffing their empty skulls with nuts and bolts made out of villainy. The ending of The Prestige is full of these, as Nolan keeps twisting and turning your guts until you are hollow.

37. - The Sea Inside: “I heard you were here. So I came flying.”

            - Who would have thought that Alejandro Amenabar had a part of his heart not filled with darkness? We discover this pretty early, as we see Javier Bardem’s Ramón Sampedro (the role for which he should have received an Oscar) going into an oniric escapism dream, when he gets up from his bed and flies over the mountains to meet his love by the sea side.

36. - Moulin Rouge: The 20th Century Fox logo.

            - It is fun to make something cool with the company logo. Some people turn it into an steam punk statue. Other people change the numbers on it. Other people leave a letter to stand out longer than the others. And other fancy people put it on 3D. Baz Lurham was the only one who introduced the 20th Century Fox logo with an Orchestra, just like the beginning of a musical. Best. Use. Of a company logo. Since Edward Scissorhands.

35. - The Mist: That scene where even Stephen King squirmed.

            - I won’t even begin to describe the scene, I will just say three things: One, it is the ending of the movie; two, it wasn’t in the Stephen King novel, this was all Frank Darabont’s idea; and three, Stephen King himself squirmed in the seat when he first saw it. If the guy who made “The Shinning”, “It”, “Cujo” and “Needful things” squirmed, what will you do?

34. - Hot Fuzz: A very British shoot-out.

            - Never a shoot out has been so funny and polite as this one. People get shot left and right, fly over cars, fall on their faces, get their heads stuck in bear traps and their jaws impaled in Church Models. All this, without a single death. Lots of blood, but no deaths. Even if it feels you have been teleported to an episode of The A-Team, this shot out is one of the best executed action set pieces in modern cinema.

33. - Master and Commander: Paul Bettany self-surgeons his own ribs.

            - After being nearly fatality injured under the lungs by a bullet, Paul Bettany’s Doctor Stephen Maturin is taken to the Galapagos Island so he can receive some medical attention in a more stable environment than a traveling ship. The problem is that he is the only Doctor on the crew, so he is forced to open up his own wound, lift up his own ribs and remove the bullet. It’s as visceral as it sounds, sprinkled with a tone of humor. Watch it to understand it.

32. - Battle Royale: Kitano’s class.

            - I have to admit one thing. I don’t like this movie, but the premise is good. The manga in which is based on is a piece of crap, but the idea of a bunch of high school students forced to kill each other until one is left is quite fun. Though the movie is completely dull and lacking on impact, it’s Kitano’s performance what saves it from being unsalvageable. His class at the start of the movie, where he teaches the kids the tone of the test by killing two of them without even twitching an eyebrow, is an example of pacing and movie making. This man is a genius.

31. - United 93: The first 15 minutes.

            - I am not one for morbid picks, so I will leave the whole traumatic ending part that will haunt me until I die and I will just go with how this movie starts, dragging you slowly into the plane from the insides of the control tower and the confused reaction of the traffic control crew as they see the World Trade Center blow up.

30. - Super Size Me: Morgan Spurlock is scared of what he started.

            - This whole documentary is kind of a satire of a satire of what Michael Moore would dare to do if he didn’t do it already (that is, stuff his fat mouth with burgers every five minutes). But things get a twist to the cruelty that Morgan Spurlock subjects to himself when he switches on the camera and directly says: “I am afraid of what I started. I hope I can get through this. I don’t want to die”. I wasn’t shocked by the stomach reduction operation, I was shocked by that declaration of regret.

29. - Inglorious Basterds: Tarantino makes Spielberg look like a pussy.

            - You can blame this movie for dragging more than a legless horse in a dessert made of salt, but you can’t go wrong with an ending that has Hitler exploding like at the end of Bionic Commando. Overkill? Check.

28. - Watchmen: The title credits.

            - If there’s one thing that Zack Snyder does well that’s movie credits. He is one of the few directors that uses them to tell a story, rather than saying who got involved in the making of the movie. With that said, his credits for Watchmen resume a good chunk of the graphic novel in a pair of minutes, all toned to “The times they are a changing” by Bob Dylan. This isn’t the last credit title sequence directed by Zack Snyder to be on the list, trust me.

27. - Rocky Balboa: Rocky’s final round of his life.

            - Another come back from Stallone, who turns out to be one of those rare directors that give stars of the 80’s a worthy and respectable come back before giving them an ending to remember. Rocky Balboa stumbled upon our movie screen for four decades (from the 70’s to the 00’s) as he takes on the final round of his life like it’s the first one. I don’t know how Stallone did it, but I felt transported to the ending of Rocky 1. So much good stuff in here.

26. - No Country for old men: “Call it, friendo”

            - I kind of hate picking this movie, mostly because I am not a fan of the Cohen brothers. I think they are the biggest pricks in Hollywood, thinking they are oh so different and unique by telling stories nobody but them understand. Well, “No country for old men” is no exception, though it’s the most digestible of their movies, as Javier Bardem plays a chilling psychopath who kills people with a toss of a coin. Too bad that, being everyone else an asshole, you are rooting for the villain in every scene of this movie.

25. - Cloverfield: Head’s off the stadium!!!

            - An image to define a decade of Sci-Fi and Fantasy movies. That might easily be the head of the Statue of Liberty landing in the middle of a New York street, torn apart and scratched.

24. - Death Proof: The Ultimate Car chase!

            - Once again, Tarantino likes to build up his movies to the point where it hurts like somebody is pushing nails into your brain, but it’s all worthy as long as he attaches a really cool, really long and really thrilling action sequence to it. Even by itself, the car chase at the end of the movie between Kurt Russell and the three protagonist chicks is one of the best action sequences ever made. Like James Rolfe said: “This is not a car chase, IT’S A CAR BATTLE!”. Indeed it is.

23. - Mystic River: Sean Penn and Tim Robbins chat in the backyard.

            - You wouldn’t say that in a murder mystery drama thriller like “Mystic River” the best scene of the entire movie is a sort-of conversation between Sean Penn and Tim Robbins in the backyard of Penn’s house. I say sort-of because the conversation is not about what is said, but about what’s not being said. These two characters, they knew each other their whole life, so they don’t need to tell each other what they feel or what they think. They just need to say a couple of words, make a hand gesture, and it’s all being said.

22. - Gran Torino: “Shut your fucking face”

            - This movie surprised me in the most pleasant way possible. If you watched it you know it’s the story of a man who turns into the unlikely hero of an entire community by accident, but when this happens he doesn’t back off. In fact, he gets braver as he begins to stand against the thugs and gangsta’s that took over the hood. The peak point is reached when he pulls a gun to a group of these pissy douches to take a girl back home. Walt Kowalski. So Awesome, my best friend wants to be him when he gets older.

21. - Spiderman 2: Doctor Octopus wakes up.

            - Sam Raimi still knows how to cause scares and chills without dumping seventy gallons of blood on his lead character. He just needs an aseptic hospital room, four sentient mechanic tentacles and a chainsaw. Everything else is done by him and his kinetic force driven camera work. Dark, scary and disturbing. Those are the trademarks of Raimi’s film school.

20. - An inconvenient truth: Al Gore pulls a believable Carl Sagan.

            - While the entire thing was built only and expressively as a vehicle for Al Gore and his campaign against the non-existant global warming, there is a bit right at the very end of it taken directly from the Carl Sagan TV Series “Cosmos”. Somehow, Al Gore’s explanation fits perfectly into the image we are presented with. A tiny blue pixel in a sea of red and black pixels. That’s us. That’s our history, our wars, our lives. Everything contained into that.

19. - Iron Man: Let’s play Operation.

            - It’s quite curious how, in an action packed, Marvel produced, Marvel comic based movie about a guy who builds an armored suit and goes on to fight injustice and crime, that the best scene is the one where the hero’s perky assistant sticks her hand into his chest to remove a high tension cable. It’s funny, it’s touching, and it’s tense. Do not try this at home, kids!

18. - Snakes on a Plane: “I had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!”

            - Being Samuel L. Jackson an actor who goes from project to project, it’s hard to pick just one movie that was all good (remember, he was in that abortion called “The Spirit”). But “Snakes on a Plane” had enough B-Movie value to be of high quality. And of course, there is that fantastic quote. Best. Quote. Of the decade.

17. - AVATAR: “I see you”

            - Ney’tiri saves Jake. He looks at her. She looks at him. He places his hand on her face. “I see you”. For fifteen seconds, a human an a beautiful CGI creature are together, breaking the barrier between technology (of CGI / Human invaders) and nature (of real human beings / and Na’vi themselves).

16. - Big Fish: The Death of Albert Finney.

            - When Tim Burton made this scene, he was passing through the mourn of his own dad’s death. That’s heavily implied in the most touching and tear jerking scene ever appearing in a Tim Burton movie as we see how Albert Finney leaves, surrounded by everyone he “met” on his fantastic journeys.

15. - Ratatouille: Flashback.

            - As a very tongue in cheek way to mock every critic in the world, Rat Chef Remy serves cold hearted Anton Ego a dish of Ratatouille. The taste immediately causing the critic to flashback to his own childhood and his mom’s dishes. You can freeze the frame where his heart melts and returns to be human.

14. - Spirited Away: Dragon fly.

            - It’s a cathartic experience in a movie filled with ill faced monsters and spirits, when our protagonist Chihiro hops on her dragon friend Haku and flies over the skies of demon world. People would pick the oniric train ride, but I like this one better.

13. - Wall·E: The first 45 minutes.

            - Pixar hit another milestone when blurring the boundaries between animation and real action movies, as we are presented with a Planet Earth more likely to be seen in the Fallout videogames than in a movie made by the company who brought us Toy Story.

12. - Monsters Inc.: The reunion scene.

            - “Boo?”. “Kitty!”. If you don’t cry there, your heart is made of stone. The best toned down reunion scene since the end of “The Shawshank Redemption”.

11. - Black Hawk Down: The first Black Hawk is taken down.

            - Ridley Scott may have his ups and downs, every film maker has them. But what he never lost is his visual strength, the power of narrative brought by images that make emotions explode in your head. That’s with Black Hawk Down’s first Black Hawk take down. As the vessel falls in the middle of the city filled with soldiers, sand splatters like water and rotors whine like wounded animals. The strategy crumbles with the hopes of the army.

10. - Million Dollar Baby: Morgan Freeman’s last fight.

            - Two words: Morgan Freeman. While we spent the entire movie seeing how this failed boxer cleans the filth of others as he regrets not having one last fight before fully retiring, it is joyous to have him coming back, even if it’s just for one minute. “One hundred and ten…” mutters Freeman looking at his knocked down opponent. It will make you cheer, it will make you chuckle, it will show you what badass really means.

9. - Dawn of the Dead: The credit titles (seriously).

            - I told you, didn’t I? Zack Snyder’s debut can be the best remake ever made in the history of humanity, and that’s from the very start. A series of blink-based, snippets from news casts, archive footage of Vietnam bombings, riots, violence, Muslims praying (not kidding) and fake documentary shots made for the movie itself mix with the names of the people who made the movie (and the title of it) melting into drops of blood. All this with “When the man comes around” by Johnny Cash. I would watch the movie over and over again just to see this title sequence.

8. - Amelie: That movie character nobody the hell remembers but me.

            - You know it. The Piggy-Lamp. It’s a Lamp. With the base shaped like a Pig wearing a bath-robe. He doesn’t speak. He pulls the cord and switches the light off. Less than 10 seconds on the whole length of the movie, and still I can’t shake it off my head. Best. Movie. Character. Ever.

7. - .Rec: Quick! Into the creepy attic of doom!

            - The formula can’t be better: Blair Witch + Zombies + Closed space + Explicit Gore = Horror win. It also follows on the formula of every good horror movie: If things get bad, they will get worse, and if they get worse they will get a lot worse. First the lights go out. Then the only flash-light (that of the camera’s torch) is smashed, forcing us to enter into night vision. From there, it’s hell. Just, hell. Green, vile, merciless and shit-your-pants scary.

6. - Finding Nemo: In the lair of the Angler Fish.

            - I could say the whole movie is the best moment of the entire movie from this decade, but that would be unfair. Also wrong, because this movie doesn’t have the best moment of the last decade, despite it being it for me. Anyways, we descent into the abyss of the ocean as we are lured with our heroes into the jaws of the mighty electronic angler fish. As scientifically implausible as this is, the scene is filled with a kinetic force and power only Pixar knows how to deliver. Kudos to Gary Rydstroms who made the sound effects for this!

5. - Munich: Da-Da.

            - Many shocking scenes are in this movie: The hotel room blowing up and almost killing Eric Bana; the scene with the telephone bomb that almost kills a girl; the chase of a novelist who gets shot to death…There’s so many destruction, hate and murder in this movie, isn’t there any touching moment? When Bana’s character Avner calls home to talk to his wife, she puts him on the phone with his almost 1 year old daughter. “Da-Da” is all she can say. That’s enough to break Avner’s defenses and drown him in tears. It happens to us too.

4. - Pan’s Labyrinth: Are those eyes in his hands!?

            - Guillermo del Toro is famous (he already was, but now more than before) on giving his monsters unique qualities which involve providing them with limbs and organs that don’t belong to its human place. In what can be the creepiest (not scariest, there’s a difference) scene of the decade, we see heroine Ofelia getting attacked by the child eating, fairy munching Pale Man, a skinny behemoth of impossible proportions with eyes on his palms. The symbolism of child abuse and infanticide floats over the entire scene like a thick atmosphere.

3. - There will be blood: I…drink…your…milkshake!

            - Not even I, with my amateur writing and average emotion transmitting grammar can achieve the level of awesomeness this moment alone achieves. So, instead of that, check out the best dialogue ever wrote of this decade:
           
[Eli cries]
Plainview: Stop crying, you sniveling ass! Stop your nonsense. You're just the afterbirth, Eli.
Eli: No...
Plainview: You slithered out of your mother's filth.
Eli: No.
Plainview: They should have put you in a glass jar on a mantlepiece. Where were you when Paul was suckling at your mother's teat? Where were you? Who was nursing you, poor Eli- one of Bandy's sows? That land has been had. Nothing you can do about it. It's gone. It's had. You lose.
Eli: If you would just take this lease, Daniel...
Plainview: Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy. Drained dry. I'm so sorry. Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that's a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake... I... drink... your... milkshake!
[sucking sound]
Plainview: I drink it up!

2. - The Dark Knight: “How about a magic trick?”

            - The Joker, being one of the most iconic villains of every single thing that’s worth following, is one difficult character to pull off. What do you do in order to show how crazy, insane, violent, sociopathic and hilarious he really is? Well, how about a magic trick? Doesn’t sound too threatening, right? What if he makes a pencil disappear using a man’s eye socket?

1. - Up: The starting montage that will make you all cry.

            - Yes, you so knew this, don’t you? The best movie moment of the last decade had to come from a Pixar movie, it just had to. “Up” is now famous every where for being a movie that makes you cry more than any other sad movie ever made put together, and that’s because of how quick we connect with these characters. It’s that moment, the beginning of the movie, when we start establishing that relationship with Ellie and Carl Fredricksen. How they meet, how they get married and moved to their dream house. And then the montage begins. We see them sharing a book reading in the living room. How they go out for a picnic. How their intentions to have children fail. And how their dream to go to South-America fades as they get older. It ends with Carl, in the hospital, giving Ellie a last goodbye and then him alone and lost in the funeral. Usually, movies make you cry at the end, because it takes the entire length of it to make you connect with the characters. Pixar broke that rule, as watching this montage is a painful pleasure. Thank you Pixar. You made “Lion King” and “Bambi” soft in comparison.

No comments:

Post a Comment