Azzam's best of the decade

Azzam’s Best of the Decade: Best Film: Green Room I can’t lie this was hard. I originally planned on going with The Big Short which is a film I love deeply but after mulling it over I decided on a personal note as well as a level of test Green Room was the best film of this last decade. Green Room is the best horror film that isn’t built on mystical B.S or great mystery. It is real horror that real people fear. If you don’t know the plot of Green Room, it is the story of a hardcore punk band who randomly ends up playing at Nazi Punk Bar in a secluded location and on their exit they discover a body in the green room forcing them to survive the night. As a guy in a Metalcore band with another contributor of this site it feels like the best example of heavy music culture, shows, nazi/skinhead punk culture I have ever seen. It doesn’t baby around the fact that most band are nice sweet people but those who are violent are monsters and builds around something every musician knows well, a sketchy venue.

Best Director: The Safdie Brothers Tension is everything in films. It’s why Tarantino has been able to have career for as long as he has had copying other people’s work. So I feel The Safdie Brothers are taking the tension baton and running with. These guys are making the most honestly New York films I have ever seen. I believe they are making better films about the city that never sleeps then Spike Lee and Scorsese have in a decade. These movies are a confrontation on what is possible to make on a small budget. On what framing is, on what blocking is and how to make an audience feel what the characters are feeling. In the Nu-20’s I can all but guarantee that this duo will be setting the standard on crime and I believe eventually action cinema.

Best Actor: Micheal B Jordan This man is going to win an Oscar in the Nu-20’s! I know this with great confidence. He not only became a star but proved he could take a thankless role and make it something incredible. Fruitvale Station is one of the best films I have ever seen. Creed made me care about franchise I often would say is overrated and gave Stallone a scene partner that actually forced him to show up. Even in awful films like That Awkward Moment and Fantastic Four (I’ll talk about that in a second) he is the best thing. Jordan could be an actual movie star in a time when they aren’t allowed to exist. 

Best Actress: Lupita Nyong’o Can you name an actress with a more varied filmography who already has an Oscar? Don’t worry I can wait. The answer is you can’t. Lupita on her second film ever won an Oscar. Then she followed that up joining Disney Star Wars franchise in a role that didn’t even show her face that is so committed and character forward I didn’t even know it was her. She gave the second best performance in her life in Queen of Katwe which since everyone had Disney+ yall should be watching as it is the best Disney Sports Drama not about sports since Invincible! Honestly when the weakest films in your filmography are Non-Stop and Black Panther you are really at the top of your game and she has so much more career to go! 

Best Breakout Star: Chris Pratt If you could have picked an actor out of the cast of Parks and Rec to become a full-blown movie star would you have picked Pratt? I sure as shit wouldn’t have but apparently the universe blessed this strangely religious man. Honestly ghe had probably one of the best decades of any actor I have ever seen. Dude went from being like 6th billed on a workplace sitcom to being in two best picture nominees (Her and Zero Dark Thirty) as well as multiple billion dollar club films (Jurassic World and Avengers Endgame/Infinity War). Pratt is charming, humorous and just generally likable and guy now has the ability to pick whatever he wants to do. Pratt is a movie star and those are rare these days. 

Worst Film of the Decade: Fantastic Four (2015 film) History will remember this film as being the film that killed a man’s promising career. A film that wasted a talented cast and a great IP to make something broken and underwhelming. Fantastic Four is a movie I want books written about, documentaries in twenty years because it is a confounding production, release and just all around film. For those who don’t know Director Josh Trank burst onto the scene in 2012 with Chronicle. It was a massive hit against its budget and a critical hit as well. This is the early 2010’s where franchises were starting to gain strength and if you had success you could get offered every property under the sun. Trank decided to take his talents to Fox and make Fantastic Four. Now on paper this was shaping up a great choice. Trank wanted to make Cronenberg Body Horror take on the Fantastic Four pushing them younger, smarter and further from the awh’shucks gumption of the comics. He got a wildly talented cast Miles Teller, Michael B Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, and Toby Kebell. Instead of getting a fresh take we got an abstract of failure. The plot made no sense. The characters were bland. The pacing was ass. It just felt like someone took a hack saw and super glue to it then took the remaining money to shoot inserts from a porn parody of the original with the actual cast! This decade will end with this film forgotten. It shouldn’t be. We cannot forget this film because it should be a message to every young filmmaker. Don’t take on a franchise if you aren’t ready.