Mr. Carnelian's Entirely Subjective Guide to 21st Century Cinema

[Wolf Kanno]

I think my fave film of 2007 was the film adaption of Persepolis, a graphic novel which is such a fun and daring take on life growing up in Iran after the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Ayatollah. I especially liked that the film did it's best to maintain the feel of the original graphic novel's art. Fun and insightful about the authur's life.

[Cell]

Going to give a shout out to This is England for 2007, cracking film.

[Bubba]

2003: Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - Perfect Piratey fun!
2004: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - The best HP film by a long way
2005: Walk the Line - I love Johnny Cash and Joaquim Phoenix was incredible
2006: Pan's Labrinth - Agree with Mr C this was a stunning film
2007: 3:10 to Yuma - My favourite western of all time

[Mr. Carnelian]

2008: Wall-E

A thoroughly charming offering from Pixar, starring the adorable Wall-E, a waste-disposal robot. All alone on a junk-choked Earth, Wall-E spends every day fruitlessly moving garbage around. But, an encounter with high-tech scout EVE leads Wall-E on an adventure across space to rescue the human race.

There's a good amount of fun to be had in the film's on-the-nose skewering of consumerism. The people on the spaceship Axiom spend all their time in floating chairs watching TV and trying whatever the intrusive advertisements tell them to try.

However, for my money the earthbound section of the film is by far the most poignant. As part of his daily routine, Wall-E picks out interesting pieces from the literal mountains of garbage to add to his collection, returning every evening to his garbage truck home to marvel at the oddities of our civilisation and try to make sense of them.

Wall E 1.jpgWall E 2.jpg

[Bubba]

Some cracking entries in 2008... In Bruges, Gran Torino, The Hurt Locker. Though I'm gonna have to go with the greatest Batman film by quite a distance...

2008 - The Dark Knight.

[charliepanayi]

The Hurt Locker was 2009

I really like The Dark Knight and The Wrestler in 2008, but my favourite from that year is the Japanese film Still Walking

[Bubba]

The Hurt Locker was 2009

No it wasn't. It was 2008.

Either way it was still a great film. Kathryn Bigelow is an amazing Directress.

[Cell]

Strange Days is my favourite Bigelow film, which always gets me weird looks.

[charliepanayi]

The Hurt Locker was 2009

No it wasn't. It was 2008.

Either way it was still a great film. Kathryn Bigelow is an amazing Directress.

OK, it's a bit of both, premiered at a festival in 2008 but didn't come out in the US/UK until 2009. It beat Avatar (released in 2009) to Best Picture which is why I think of it as 2009.

[Mr. Carnelian]

2009: Moon

Sam Bell is a miner on the Moon, all alone except for the company of an AI. An old-fashioned small cast sci-fi, Moon is a meditation on loneliness cast in the same mould as Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The interactions between the protagonist and a watchful AI, as well as the brilliantly realised retro aesthetic help to hammer home the evocation of 2001. It's to Moon's credit that it comes off fairly well in this deliberately drawn comparison, though it lacks the sweeping catharsis of the Kubrick classic.

Iin a film centred on one character, a strong performance from the lead is essential. Sam Rockwell absolutely delivers, providing a compelling performance as the isolated Sam Bell.

Moon 1.jpgMoon 2.jpg

[Cell]

Moon is a great film.

Really enjoyed Bronson that year.

[Wolf Kanno]

2008 was a pretty stellar year for films, but my fanboy is going to kick in to gear hear and I'll second Bubba on The Dark Knight being my favorite movie of that year. Fantastic performance by Heath Ledger and the film is actually just good as an actual film and not just as a comic book property.

2009, I really wanted to see Moon, I may need to rent it sometime and catch up. My choice for 2009 is easily Caroline. I love Neil Gaimen and this is a pretty eerie and well executed stop motion flick, with a good story.

[Mr. Carnelian]

2010: Black Swan

A thrilling, over-the-top portrayal of obsession and its cost. Natlie Portman delivers one of the stand-out performances of her career as a ballerina whose increasing command of her art is matched by an increasing loss of control, as she channels all of her frustrations into mastering the dual role of White Swan and Black Swan in the famous ballet Swan Lake.

Some excellent cinematography results in a pervading sense of claustrophobia throughout. Even in open or exterior spaces, Portman's Nina Sayers seems locked in, with no escape.

Black Swan 1.jpgBlack Swan 2.jpg

[charliepanayi]

Black Swan is brilliantly insane, it's a total Frankenstein's Monster of other films but it's a lot of trashy fun. 2010 has one of my favourite films of this decade in The Social Network, another drama with a heart of stone that David Fincher does so well, with an amazing Aaron Sorkin script.

[Wolf Kanno]

Totally missed out on Black Swan. I was busy changing jobs and going back to school in 2010 so I missed out on a lot of films that year. Hell, even the films I did see are all kind of trashy. I would have loved Scott Pilgrim if I didn't feel like Michael Cera was a really bad choice for the character of Scott and made the whole film feel off, and I'll give props for Hot Tub Time Machine being ridiculous but surprisingly thoughtful and "so bad, it's good" quality. I feel my only choice I can give is for Tron Legacy. While it takes some serious liberties from the source material and goes all existential on the viewer, I enjoyed the visuals and absolutely loved the soundtrack by Daft Punk. Hardly the best film of the year, but of what I actually watched, it was my favorite film of the year.