We’ve seen quite a bit of filmmaking over the last 10 years, especially thanks to the House of Mouse and its MCU adventures. My piece here is going to be a short look at my favorite artists and work since 2009.
Film: “Max. My name is Max. That’s my name.”
2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road is a movie about a car chase. It’s also a movie about how good movies can be, and about how movies rock. Fury Road is the kind of movie like Jurassic Park, or Terminator 2, or The Matrix or the Lord of the Rings where you finish it and say “yeah, that’s exactly why I like watching movies. Because they’re fucking awesome.” George Miller returned to the silver screen with an absolute masterpiece and what will be recognized as his greatest accomplishment. A non-stop action spectacle that comes along once every decade. Every shot, every word, ever piece of the set put there to tell the story as efficiently and as mesmerizingly as possible. The fight scenes are crunchy. The engines are loud. The soundtrack puts you on strings and forces you to move up and down in your seat. Many people missed out on this bombastic piece of filmmaking and many also didn’t “get it”, but I can’t say enough. This one is going to go down as one of the greats, not just of this decade.
Film: “Max. My name is Max. That’s my name.”
2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road is a movie about a car chase. It’s also a movie about how good movies can be, and about how movies rock. Fury Road is the kind of movie like Jurassic Park, or Terminator 2, or The Matrix or the Lord of the Rings where you finish it and say “yeah, that’s exactly why I like watching movies. Because they’re fucking awesome.” George Miller returned to the silver screen with an absolute masterpiece and what will be recognized as his greatest accomplishment. A non-stop action spectacle that comes along once every decade. Every shot, every word, ever piece of the set put there to tell the story as efficiently and as mesmerizingly as possible. The fight scenes are crunchy. The engines are loud. The soundtrack puts you on strings and forces you to move up and down in your seat. Many people missed out on this bombastic piece of filmmaking and many also didn’t “get it”, but I can’t say enough. This one is going to go down as one of the greats, not just of this decade.
Director: This was my hardest choice, as I really don’t have an intense faith or following when it comes to Directors. I’m simple and cliché in my thinking. To me, Steven Spielberg is and will always be the greatest filmmaker of all time. The strokes of genius the man has accomplished, collectively, across his entire career, will make any filmmaker blush. If I have to choose any filmmaker from the past ten years as my favorite, however, I’m going to go with Christopher Nolan. Not that I think he makes better films than anyone else, but more that his films are consistently the kind of films that I think someone like Spielberg was pursuing at the peak of his career. Incredibly grandiose, high-minded thrillers done at a level that no one else is really doing. From Inception, to the Dark Knight Rises, to Interstellar, and Dunkirk, we have relative facsimiles of ambition reminiscent of Minority Report, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters, and Saving Private Ryan. Nolan is definitely the director of the last ten years who has done the absolute most to make a name for himself in the average consumer’s household and that speaks to me on the level of pure artistic ambition.
Actor: Since I’m sure that he won’t be winning any awards from the Academy, I’d like this to be one fan’s acknowledgement of the absolutely brilliant performance we received from Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark for the last 10 years. To portray a character so consistently over a decade, with so much revolving around this central arc, and to pull it off without a hitch is truly commendable work. There have been better performances by better actors, even this year, but I think it’s going to be a while before we get the level of committed character portrayal we saw here. For big, dumb, action spectacle, I can’t help but tear up at “and I am Iron Man”, knowing what it means for the character, knowing it was Robert Downey Jr’s ad-lib in the first movie. Yes, Robert, you are Iron Man. Thanks for saving the Universe. Thank you for helping make the last 10 years of epic cinema happen.
Actress: She came on to the mainstream circuit with 2010’s Wolfman reboot misfire. She played another romantic interest in the tonally confused Adjustment Bureau. Then she was given a chance to prove her range by Rian Johnson in 2012’s Looper. Since then, Emily Blunt has become an incredibly magnetic presence in Hollywood. Edge of Tomorrow proved her action chomps. She sympathetically navigated the moral fog of war in Sicario, survived monsters as a capable and loving mother in A Quiet Place, and she was rightly picked to portray Mary Poppin’s in the Disney franchise’s reboot. Clearly a master performer, I’m down for anything starring this amazing actress. I’ve believed her in every role and I can’t wait to see her in more. To put it bluntly, give me more Blunt.
Breakout Star: This is going to be a duo, as it’s really hard to pick among the upcoming talent. Oscar Isaac has leading man qualities, and the guy can act. It wouldn’t be surprising to me to see him end up in another major franchise once his turn with Star Wars has ended. Additionally, Spider-man and Euphoria actress Zendaya is looking at a majorly high-profile move with 2020’s Dune. Playing the dorky and aloof MJ and the troubled Rue in Euphoria has already demonstrated her impressive range and, like Oscar, I can see her at the top of many lists for larger productions going forward.
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