More Than One Lesson

As a child, Sam Mendes was told the story of a messenger surviving through No Man’s Land during World War I. The story was told to him by his grandfather, Alfred Mendes who was in fact that messenger. In his autobiography, Alfred stated, “The snipers got wind of me and their individual bullets were soon seeking me out, until I came to the comforting conclusion that they were so nonplussed about seeing at seeing a lone man wandering circles in No Man’s Land, as must at times have been the case, that they decided, out of perhaps a secret admiration for my nonchalance, to dispatch their bullets safely out of my way.” Aside from being potentially the most dryly British sentence ever written, it serves as the inspiration for Sam Mendes’ new film, 1917, which presents a far more harrowing view of a trip into No Man’s Land.

For a film to effectively evoke 19^th century gothic, literary horror, it must be unified visually and tonally. The Sonata, the debut feature film by director Andrew Desmond, also manages to evoke the narrative sensibilities and structure as well.

Rose Fisher, a prodigy violinist, successful but unfulfilled, inherits the estate of her late father, who was also a world-renowned musician. Her relation to the legendary composer had been intentionally kept a secret, even from her displaced and curious agent, until his passing prompts a reclusive retreat for her to spend time figuring out what she wants from her future. What she doesn’t know (at least at first) is that her father killed himself rather violently and that he left behind a strange sonata, which would surely ignite the composing world but may also bring about the literal antichrist.

Building a top ten list encompassing an entire decade in film (particularly one as dynamic as the 2010s) is remarkably daunting. My approach to this list abandoned considerations of objective quality, or even of personal favoritism.

I wanted to assess the films that have come to affect me the most, either personally or creatively: the films which have most frequently populated my conversations and arrested my imagination. So, in that spirit, ranked by degree of impact, here are the ten most important films of the decade to me, and why they matter to me…

In this bonus episode, Reed and Nathan discuss Star Wars.

Three episodes into the new Disney+ series The Mandalorian, I wrote, “Given how divisive the films have become, Star Wars needs something that unites the fans in a positive way. Right now it looks like The Mandalorian could end up being just that.” Now that the first season of the series is complete and The Rise of Skywalker has been released, it appears that The Mandalorian is indeed the thing that has united the Star Wars fanbase more than anything else in this Disney era. There have been a few bumps here and there, but overall series creator Jon Favreau’s dive into the seedy underbelly of the Star Wars universe has focused on character while telling relatively small scale stories well. Compare that to the noisy, busy, and unfocused The Rise of Skywalker and it’s practically night and day. As much as J.J. Abrams’ film is an attempt to appeal to fans of the original trilogy, it’s Favreau who has made something that actually feels like those films in the ways that truly matter, which is in regards to character development, tone, and pacing.

In this episode, Reed and Nathan discuss It: Chapter Two.

10. The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)

A film that manages to be both straightforward yet oddly dreamlike, this film by Derek Cianfrance stars Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, along with a stable of great character actors. The lives of a novice bank robber and an ambitious cop crash violently into each other, with ramifications that echo into the next generation. An engrossing meditation on the ghosts of the past and our decision to let them dictate our actions in the present, The Place Beyond the Pines is an intimate film of epic proportions.

In this episode, Jacob talks with Spencer T. Folmar about his latest film Shooting Heroin.

Twenty years ago, Adam Sandler was famous for playing a variation on the same character in virtually every movie he was in. Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and The Waterboy all existed as vehicles for Sandler to play a man who never matured past the age of 8 and who could be given to sudden bouts of unbridled rage. Even in movies such as The Wedding Singer or Big Daddy, the characters he played never strayed far from his comfort zone and the writers and directors who tailored those films to his style never challenged him. Enter Paul Thomas Anderson in 2002, coming off of his 3 hour, 8 minute operatic ensemble drama Magnolia. 

In this episode, Tyler discusses the Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems and John Cassavetes’ The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.