Top 25 Films of the Decade: Part 1 (25-21)

So, uh, the decade's over. Well, almost over anyway. And it's actually been pretty awesome, movie-wise. Okay yeah, Disney are slowly assimilating the movie industry and the world, but hey, it's also never been easier to access so many original, thought provoking pieces of work from so many interesting filmmakers. Anyone who says that movies suck now hasn't been paying attention. And that's why this list was absolute agony to compile. I've loved so many films from this decade, and even narrowing it down to 25 was insanely difficult. Hell, my shortlist for this was 45 movies, and axing 20 of them was a downright Herculean task. But I did it (just about), and so I give you this: my top 25 films from the last 10 years. All the normal stuff applies here, this is my opinion and there's a ton of stuff that I haven't seen. These are just the films that I've loved, and I'm sure you've got some too, and I'd like to hear them! Film is a community experience and being able to share favourites is an awesome thing, so join the discussion! For now though, these are my picks for the best movies from the 2010s.

Oh also real quick before I get going, here are my many honourable mentions. I love all of these movies and so many of them just about missed the cut, or would have gotten into the list on any other day. All of them are fantastic though, and I urge you to watch them all if you haven't already:

Manchester by the Sea
Her
Four Lions
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
The Love Witch
Kill List
Booksmart
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Moonrise Kingdom
Attack the Block
Hell or High Water
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Blackkklansman
Mud
You Were Never Really Here
Us
The Artist
The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Alright, with that out of the way, let's end this decade with a bang!

25. Tyrannosaur

Paddy Considine's transition from an excellent actor to a great director has been a really exciting one to watch. Tyrannosaur, his first film behind the camera, is not an easy watch, but it is an essential piece of modern Brit cinema, a raw, completely unfiltered kitchen sink gem that hits like a sledgehammer and is totally unforgettable. Watching Peter Mullan's deeply wounded Joseph desperately wander up the road to redemption is already sobering viewing, but it's Olivia Colman's heartbreaking performance that lingers after the credits roll. She is a shining light in an increasingly harsh urban hellscape, and watching her become swallowed up by the toxicity of her surroundings is nothing short of devastating. Eddie Marsan is also on top form here, absolutely terrifying as an all too real kind of evil. The real star of this film though is Considine, who is an unflinchingly honest storyteller. He never plays it for shock value, refusing to sensationalise a story that needs to be told. His direction is delicate, allowing these deeply troubling scenes to play out one by one until they fit together in a bleak mosaic that exposes the cycles of abuse and violence that all too often go unnoticed. Tyrannosaur is powerful stuff, an intense and soul shattering scream of a film about a man's desperate final claw at something like hope

24. Brooklyn

Brooklyn could have easily been a basic period piece, slapped together and sent off for the sole purpose of winning awards, but it's to the credit of everyone involved that it's something much more nuanced, passionate and enjoyable. What could have been a two hour history lesson with a half-hearted love story in the middle is instead a uniquely cinematic recreation of one woman's life as someone stuck between lives. Its musings are gentle, its humour is natural and its sentimentality is earned, with a plot that feels like someone thawed out a history book until a story poured out in a blend of great heart and humanity. Brooklyn takes something that is all too often painted objectively and without personality and gives it a hefty injection of soul, until you're not watching a film as much as peering into a life as it was being lived. None of this would be possible without Saoirse Ronan, who is just absolutely sensational, wide-eyed, fierce and brimming with longing. This is a film full of wonder and enchantment, full of romance that is both entirely believable and utterly captivating, a spellbinding piece of historically rooted cinema that pulses with heart and energy

23. Phantom Thread

PT Anderson is a hard director to pin down, bouncing from film to film with a knack for eclectic settings and electric performances. He's also a fantastic judge of difficult men, which is exactly what this, a detailed, darkly funny, thrillingly erotic unravelling of a master dressmaker, played with panache by Daniel Day Lewis in his last(!) role, is. This is a ghost story where the ghosts are hidden, a fairy tale where the magic is unseen but ever present, and a story where love is an act of salvation, violence and chaos. Everything here is delicate, arranged just so, reflecting the careful, specific methods of Day Lewis' Reynolds Woodcock. It goes without saying that he's magnificent here, absolutely selling Reynolds' slow loss of control, but the real highlights are Lesley Manville as his steely sister and Vicky Krieps as his beguiling, chaotic muse, Alma. Phantom Thread is an odd beast, a beautifully dark creation from a director whose ability to make wildly different films from the same components is truly unmatched. It's everything you could want from Anderson, and his wonderfully sinister story matches with the lavish production design, sublime score and masterful performances to make this a film quite unlike any other, with an ending that is guaranteed to captivate and surprise. An utterly delectable study of the weird side of love

22. The Babadook

Grief is a weird thing. It's been portrayed a hundred different ways in a hundred different films, but in The Babadook, Jennifer Kent explores the sheer, life altering horror of it. Essie Davis is incredible as a scarred widow who's come to resent her son for being born the same day as her husband's death. The Babadook itself, like most horror monsters, is a metaphorical beast, embodying the dark destruction that grief can unleash. The film is absolutely terrifying, but it's only as powerful as it is because it draws from something raw, something real and primal. This is horror born of tragedy, full of doubt, and dread, and sadness, and pain, and hope. Kent isn't interested in glamorising misery, instead painting loss as complex and indefinable, and crucially, giving our heroes a note of hope and a way of moving forward. The Babadook is gut wrenching cinema, rejecting simple scares for something meatier, more disturbing but much more satisfying. The performances are wonderfully naural, and the style is effective because it's unvarnished. It feels real. This is a film about literally taming your demons, about coping, and getting by. The monster isn't something to fear as much as something to overcome, and as disturbing and as sometimes upsetting as Kent's film is, it has a deep level of satisfaction that few horrors this decade can match. Ba.....Ba....D O O K!

21. Don't Think Twice

Don't Think Twice is a film that I think kind of flew under the radar when it came out, and I don't really think that's fair. This is the rare film about comedians that's actually funny, with a cast that's beyond perfect. The balance of comedy and drama is absolutely superb, and although the story is far from original, the real strength of this film lies elsewhere. It's the small, intimate details that stand out here: the tiny moments of natural comedy, the quiet gestures that carry so much pathos, the completely human fear of failure that the film both laughs at and mines huge amounts of emotion from. Each of these people feels so real, and the film focuses on all of them kind of equally. There are no heroes or villains, no clichés and no forced drama. Just the highs and lows of a New York improv troupe, the struggle of balancing friendship with success, of dealing with failure. That scene with Gillain Jacobs preforming improv on her own is just so emotional man, and that's the power of this movie, to do so much with so little, to be so funny and so affecting and so clever. If this passed you by, seek it out. It's a cracking little comedy drama that suggests that everyone, is in some way, a performer, an idea that's as poignant as it is hilarious

Top 10 Robert de Niro Films

So The Irishman is on its way, destined to save cinema, the world, and the human race, so what better time to celebrate its star and quite possibly the greatest actor of all time, Robert de Niro? This guy is kind of awesome, able to convey cruelty and vulnerability, comedy and passion, sometimes even in the same performance. Compiling a list of his best movies is kind of difficult. There's just so much that's good, and ranking one over the other is a seriously tricky thing to do. But I tried my best, trying to focus on his performance in each one, while also focusing a little on the movie as a whole. I'm leaving some good stuff out here (I am so sorry, Stardust), but that's the cool thing about de Niro: there are no wrong answers. Except Little Fockers. One film that I had to leave out though was Brazil. Yes it's one of my favourite movies of all time, but his role in it is kind of secondary, and although he is great in it, he's just one of many great things in a film full of them, and it's hard to highlight his performance and say it's one of his best movies because of that. There's also a lot of his films that I've yet to see (Casino, Cape Fear, A Bronx Tale, This Boy's Life, Mean Streets) so do bear that in mind. With all that out of the way though, let's crack on!

10. Midnight Run

De Niro is rarely praised for how funny he can be, and my god is this one funny movie. Basically it's the story of a bounty hunter trying to bring a mob accountant across America while they're being pursued by just about everyone. Along the way though, they start to become.... friends? Okay, not quite, but the joy of this film is seeing these two guys develop this seriously mismatched relationship that goes from all out annoyance, to begrudging respect, to something like admiration. The back and forth between de Niro's tough-guy and Charles Grodin's out-of-his-depth accountant is so witty and so joyful to watch. It's made even better by the fact that, as the situation gets more absurd, they're gradually breaking each other down. The setpieces are huge and hilarious (the plane theft will never not make me cackle), but this film really excels with its quiet moments, like the conversation on the bus. A lot of this comes from de Niro, who can get a serious laugh with his deliveries while also giving this potentially one-dimensional bounty hunter so many layers. As road trip movies go, this is right up there, an odd couple story for the ages that mines the differences between these two guys for both surprising poignancy and serious laughs. It's just such a watchable movie that crackles with that old-school back and forth. And hey, who wouldn't get a kick out of de Niro poking fun at his tough guy image. Y'know, before he started doing it again, and again, and again, and again, and

9. The King of Comedy

Don't mention Joker, don't mention Joker, don't mention Joker.... DAMN IT! It's a weird time to talk about this film. With Joker drawing so much from it, it's kind of weird to talk about this story of failed stand-up turned creepy criminal in isolation. But screw it, this came first, and it's much, much better. Rupert Pupkin has to be the nastiest character that de Niro's played, because he's not your traditional tough guy thug. He's a leech, feeding off of Jerry Lewis' talk show host on his quest for stardom. He's not violent, but he is desperate, and that's actually worse, because he'll never be satisfied, and that's pretty terrifying. Scorsese is fairly uncompromising in his assault on the fame-hungry. It's a scorching satire on the entertainment industry that'll never not be relevant, with a cracking performance from its star that's thrillingly against type. It's also really dark, even with the PG rating, deftly blending some psychological thrills in with those satirical jabs. The script is laced with acid, with every laugh being so sharp that they're almost weaponised. The scariest thing though is the truth at the centre of the story, which ends on that brutally poignant observation; it's better to live like a king for a night than a shmuck for a lifetime. The world is full of Rupert Pupkins, and as long as it is, this movie will hold weight.

8. Silver Linings Playbook

Yeah, yeah, I know I disqualified Brazil because de Niro played a supporting role, but he's in this a lot more, and also plays a bigger part in the story and also it's my list and this film is lovely. This is one of the best modern rom-coms, and a big part of that is down to Robert de Niro and Jacki Weaver. Okay true, this is definitely a story about Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence's loveable oddballs and their delightfully strange romance, but in their roles as Cooper's parents is key in giving this film its quirky sensibilities. They're very much observers here, rarely leaving their house, instead offering commentary on the story from inside the story. De Niro is especially great as the gruff yet patient father, gambling to fund his dream of opening a restaurant. This is such a delightfully off-kilter film full of joy(get it because that's also a David O. Russell film)fully strange touches, among them de Niro with the charm cranked up to 100. He's obviously having a great time here, and it's that charisma that gives him such easy watchability. Is he the biggest component of this film? No. Is he the best thing in it? Most definitely

7. GoodFellas

The fact that this is only number seven should speak to the quality of this guy's output. GoodFellas is a film that needs to introduction. It's a masterpiece, singlehandedly defining and reshaping the gangster movie. It's a mad dash through three decades, highlighting how modern Americana is built on an unsavoury foundation, with Jimmy `The Gent` Conway standing in the shadows, quietly observing the rise and fall of Henry Hill. De Niro is a quietly menacing presence here as a kind of dark mentor figure, a man who changes as the world changes around him, swelling with pride in the boom and swallowed by paranoia in the bust. His rage is formidable, seen in one of cinema's best kicks, but his understated malice makes it all the worse. Just look at the way he stares Hill down in the court. It's a glimpse to see how the tough guys of 70s cinema would age, and with The Irishman promising to show how these lives come to an end, GoodFellas will surely come to be known as the perfect midpoint of the life of an American icon

6. The Deer Hunter

I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I think this film is 100% perfect, because I definitely don't. The first hour or so is completely unnecessary, and the whole thing is way too long. But when The Deer Hunter is good, it's insanely powerful, a soul-searing meditation on what turns boys into men. All of the central characters go through rage, pain and loss, but de Niro's Mike, desperately tracking down Christopher Walken's Nick in an attempt to keep him from going over the edge has got to endure the toughest ordeal. It's not an easy watch, but Michael Cimino's film is such a gut punch not because of its brutality, but because of its humanity. It contains multitudes, and all of its power and majesty are distilled into the quiet rage of de Niro's character. Deer Hunter's a flawed film, but when it hits, it's one of cinema's most scarring parables, and one of Bob's most defining roles. He's just too good to be true.

5. Raging Bull

Raging Bull, the film about Jake La Motta that's not actually about Jake La Motta. Raging Bull looks really good in 2019, with it's immensely powerful take on the self-destructive nature of the male ego. In de Niro's hands, La Motta isn't just an athlete; he's a tightly wound time bomb of rage and insecurity, and it's only a matter of time until he explodes, taking everything in his life with him. I know absolutely nothing about this guy, or boxing as a whole, but it doesn't actually matter. Scorsese takes the specific and makes it universal. This is the dark fate that awaits the alpha male, total implosion at the hands of his own insecurities. De Niro's physical transformation is the stuff of legend, training to become the fighter and piling the weight on to become the aftermath. But there's something else here, a darkness that lies beneath the muscle/fat. De Niro doesn't just embody La Motta's physicality; he draws out his demons and pits them against his dogged humanity. Inside the flabby cage lies a battered soul, an ugly bastard who's angry, violent, abusive, and deeply human. The film never justifies or excuses La Motta's behaviour, but through his involvement in the production and de Niro's unfathomably incredible turn, it ensures that there's a bruised spirit in the broken down Bronx Bull.

4. Heat

Michael Mann's Heat is so much more than a simple thriller. It's a coked-out battle of wills, a dark fable about the depth of obsession and a white-hot-LA-neo-noir-modern-western-cat-and-mouse-crime-epic that has all of the expanse of a TV series, which it actually started out as. Heat's a reworking of LA Takedown, Mann's TV pilot, and thought I haven't seen that, I do know that Heat rocks, plain and simple. True, Al Pacino's unstable cop Vince Hanna is a formidable screen presence, but it's Neil McCauly, de Niro's surprisingly empathetic bank robber that makes this film often. Here's a man who is always thinking about his escape. He's a slick, tough professional, but it's when Michael Mann scratches away at his cool surface that the film gets good. This mentality may have made him a successful criminal, but his distance from everything has let him totally unable to ever be satisfied. We're used to seeing cool, detached characters onscreen and having them completely idolised, but Heat suggests that there's actually a huge amount of sadness in there. Not superficial sadness, or hollow edge, but a lingering existential dread that's never quite done with its host. De Niro is superb here, not so much revealing layers as melding them together and playing it so naturally, and the result is such a complex fusion of traits in a character that you just have to like. Yeah he's got the scowl, the sunglasses and the machine guns (see above), but he's not just a badass. He's a man with an insatiable thirst for quick thrills and cunning escapes, always leaving everything he's got behind when the heat comes a-calling. But what happens when that's not so easy? Well, you get this absolute barn-stormer of a performance in this noir masterpiece

3. Once Upon a Time in America

WHY DON'T WE TALK ABOUT THIS MOVIE MORE? Sergio Leone's last film is possibly his best, a gargantuan epic that studies an entire life in one huge, multi-decade spanning sweep. There's a lot going on here, with the rise and fall of an empire in a country built on complexities and contradictions. This is America and its history onscreen, and one day I'll go into detail on everything that makes it so brilliant, but for now, we have Bob, in probably his most complex role. He plays the gangster Noodles at two crucial points in his life, first in his wild days of crime in the 30s, and then during his return to New York at the tail end of the 60s. Both plots are a delight in a film full of delights, but it's Noodles' deeply poignant return to the city that absolutely makes it. He relives his past, assesses his present, and ultimately, accepts the quiet uncertainty of his future. He reconciles with old friends and looks back on a life that overlapped with the tragic evolution of a nation. It's interesting that he plays this guy as two different characters, because he, like his country, the decades he lives through and the communities he's a part of, contains multitudes. In his old age, he deals with a lot of ghosts. Friends, enemies, lovers and opium (lots of opium) are just some of the spectres of his past, but what really haunts him are the past versions of himself. He's made of history, and watching as he gradually comes to terms with this is a slow burning, multi-layered treat, one that's intelligent, entertaining, strangely funny and deeply, deeply sad. From the look of it, this is something that The Irishman is going to evoke, a complex and patient musing on the men that history is made of. If it's anything like this, then we're in good hands.

2. The Godfather Part II

  
Okay yeah, the Vito storyline is just half of Godfather 2, but like, it's the best part of the film, and it speaks to the sheer quality of this plot that even in isolation, it's one of the best things he's ever done. Following the don from humble beginnings to the establishment of an empire, it bears some similarity to Once Upon a Time in America. They both run the arcs of their characters parallel to the evolution of America, but Godfather 2 has the slight edge for me. Vito goes from just another boy off the boat to the formidable godfather of the first film, but what always strikes me is his honesty. True, he's unrelenting and deadly, but his empire is built on good values, on loyalty and favours. Obviously I'm not counting any of the Michael stuff here, although the shift from Vito's honest rise to his son's corrupt descent in the 50s drives the America metaphor home: an honest foundation upon which a nation is built from violence and sin. De Niro (and his weirdly deep BrandoVoice) is at his most powerfully quiet here, playing the younger version of Brando's most iconic turn as a man of few words who values his family above all else and would do anything to ensure they have a good life. That this sees him become one of the unsung forefathers of his new home is just one of many pieces of pure poetry in this movie. His dark return to Sicily is a particular highlight, one that gives us a brief insight into his violent destiny. In this way, it's the perfect prequel, taking what we already know and reverse-engineering a story from it. It doesn't necessarily use the plot points from the first one to do this, instead playing more with the thematic weight that comes with this American tragedy, and honestly, its the best thing that Coppola's ever done. Even missing 50% of the plot, Godfather II is an absolute masterwork, telling us a story that we already know the end of to suggest that, imposing as Vito was, his beginnings were humble. His start is as a building block of New America, and it's all the more impactful because it reveals the reality of this character: that he was one of millions, and that this absolute titan of pop culture could have been any of them


1. Taxi Driver 

Obviously. Is this a copout? Not really? I mean I've gone on record saying that this is one of my all time favourite films, and it's just kind of really excellent. Scorsese's tale of nocturnal horror is made by de Niro's turn as Travis Bickle, God's Lonely Man who falls even deeper into his already destructive downward spiral. This is no vigilante tale, nor is it a celebration of violence. Instead, it's something a little harder to define. Travis was wounded before he was shipped off to war, but it's when he returns that things get worrying, and he commits social violence, convinced that he can bring some sort of balance to the neon hellscape of New York. De Niro is absolutely perfect here. He's got an intensity that I've never quite seen matched, by him or anyone else. Yeah, everyone knows the mirror monologue, but it's his quiet intensity that really stuns. And when the credits roll, it's not his brutality that lingers; it's his vulnerability. Travis isn't a hero, or an antihero. He's a wounded man taking his pain out on a city that he feels has failed him, and this slow motion explosion is as stunning as it is deeply disturbing. We're never asked to believe what he's doing is right (it isn't), or even to like him all that much. Scorsese's film is a character study, stripping away the machismo that these characters are usually portrayed with to reveal something much more interesting. Like so many of de Niro's tough guys, Bickle's no badass, instead he's a pained soul desperately, violently lashing out in a last ditch effort to make some sense of the world. Taxi Driver tells a tale of dark surrealism to show the human side of pain. It's cruel, but shockingly tender, dreamy but utterly real, and hands down my favourite film that de Niro's been in

My Thoughts on Little Monsters

Oh yes. This one's special. There's been so many awesome comedy horror films in 2019 (Ready or Not, Piercing, Extra Ordinary, Dave Made a Maze), but Little Monsters takes the absolute cake. I think every year as I stay up to date with movies, I find new go-tos. Films that worm their way into my heart, that I know I can watch over and over again. And with so many things coming out on screens big and small, I think having that experience is really, really important. Booksmart is my favourite movie of the year for a number of reasons, but the main one is that it's just so fun in a way that I can definitely see myself going back to again and again. I liked spending time with those characters, I liked being in their world and watching their adventures. That to me is one of the best things a movie can be. Little Monsters is very much that as well, blending comedy and horror with a huge amount of sweetness that I really didn't expect. This is the most heartwarming movie of the year so far, and that kind of surprises me. The trailer was awesome, but it set it up as a blackly comic gorefest about a washed up musician, a cheerful teacher, a cynical children's entertainer and a class of five year olds trying to survive in a petting zoo during an outbreak of zombies. Don't get me wrong, that stuff is there too, but, for me at least, this is the feel-good film of the year, and it left me in such a good mood skipping out of the cinema. Actually, when I went to see it the other night, I was the only one there, which was a) a pretty big shame considering how awesome and fresh it is and b) kind of really awesome because it let me just sit in the cinema and have fun with it. I laughed a lot at this one, and it's definitely one of the funniest movies this year. The humour ranges from very crass, to very dark, to very silly, often in the same scene. The absurdity of the situation is hilarious, and they get absolutely everything they can out of it. Awesome one-liners, awesome exchanges, awesome sight gags (Frogsy!), and a surprisingly great Josh Gad, who most of the time I find kind of very unfunny mean that its an absolute riot first minute to last. Add to that some pleasing gore (if not quite scares), and you've got a fun ride.

But that's not why I loved it. I love optimistic films. Not schmaltzy oversweetness, but genuine positivity and happiness. I love cinema that can find kindness and joy, that disarms any cynicism with the power of sheer upbeat energy. True, there's a lot of dark humour in this movie, but there's something here that's much stronger: pure, unashamed optimism. Lupita Nyong'o's Miss Caroline is easily my favourite character from a 2019 movie. She's a badass with one mission: protect her class from the onslaught of zombies. She's an amazingly positive hero, and it's obvious that Nyong'o (who's already having an incredible 2019 with Us) is having a great time playing her. She embodies the movie's message of kindness and positivity, and offers Dave an alternative to his miserable life, and watching him go from a cynical bastard to a happy, dedicated uncle is an awesome arc. The joy she brings in this film is what makes this film so damn special. The world's kind of a chaotic place right now, and although cinema is in great shape, I feel like sometimes there's a bit of a fear of fun. Not just in big studio productions where everything is manufactured to be just so, but even in genre cinema. Look at The Dead Don't Die, a film that was too cool to be a good time, because that's not hipster enough. Maybe it's just me, but the thrill of Little Monsters was how unafraid it was to be warm hearted and joyful, to be fun and uncynical. It was pure, sunny, unapologetically gory fun. One fun ride and very telling of what I love about cinema. It's also got the best ending of the year. This was just what I needed.

Audition: A Dark Fable

I'm a fairly recent convert to the church of Takashi Miike, but after watching Audition, I knew it was something I'd have to cover during spooky season. One of the most notorious shockers of them all, Audition is hardcore viewing, but it's also one of the most wonderfully pitched, deeply disturbing and outright intelligent pieces of horror storytelling. And it's even more awesome because, for a good hour, it's not that scary. It's actually almost a romantic comedy, with a mild-mannered widower holding a fake audition to choose a woman to be his new wife. It's a little dishonest, sure, but his son and co-worker seem to think it's a good idea, so how bad could it be? Turns out, very, very bad. Audition is a pitch black cautionary tale, where our hero's ideal woman turns out to be something a little more dangerous

Of course that bait and switch is instrumental in making this movie work as well as it does. Obviously what Aoyama is doing is seedy, dishonest and wrong, and it's doing this that leads him onto a dark path. The film is a horror movie for the entirety of its run, and while those early scenes are almost entirely innocuous, they're subliminally setting up the pieces for one of the nastiest climaxes in cinema history. Audition, like the best horror movies, is a fable. It runs on fairy tale logic, where if you do the wrong thing, something awful will happen to you. Asami is one of the best characters in horror, because she's a total metaphor, terrifying not just in what she does, but also as the consequences she represents

The caution in this cautionary tale comes from what happens to men who don't respect women. Aoyama's not necessarily a bad person, but what he's doing is so dishonest and so disrespectful, pretty much duping these women so he can marry one of them. Asami represents what happens when men treat women as something to be obtained, and punishes Aoyama for his dishonesty with unimaginable torture. What she's doing is undoubtedly wrong, and sick, and awful, and completely unjustifiable, but in the logic of the fairy tale, it actually kind of makes sense. Think of the best fables. They work because at the centre of their stories is something so nasty, so unimaginably scary, because if the consequences weren't awful, you wouldn't take them seriously. Asami is those consequences. She's the unfathomable terror that awaits those who mistreat others. She is, to put it bluntly, a monster, and like the best monsters, she's made from a scary idea

But does this film's violence have to be so extreme? Well, yeah. The gore is relatively brief here, but it proves that sometimes a short, sharp shock works best. Audition eases you into the terror, not to lull you into a false sense of security, but to tease the terror out, to make you expect the absolute worst. And you know what? The absolute worst happens. This is horror, and film in general, at its most extreme, but if it wasn't, it definitely wouldn't work so well. This movie's pitch black scares are legendary, and they work because the entire film is structured around them. After all, if it wasn't this strong, would the lesson resonate as much? In a genre of vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts and killer tyres, Audition is a chilling reminder that the scariest thing in the world is people. Not just evil people like Asami, but also the choices that anyone's capable of making. The wrong decision could lead anyone into this web of pain and misery, so chose carefully....

"kiri kiri kiri kiri kiri"

Shaun of the Dead: The Comedy and Horror of the Everyday

The spooky season is the time of the year where we celebrate the horror genre, watching and rewatching classics that remind us why it's so awesome. And of course it's the best time to (re-re-re)rewatch Edgar Wright's modern comedy-horror classic, Shaun of the Dead. There's so much I could say about how good this film is and everything that it does well, but, given the time of the year, I want to talk about how it does that stuff, how it absolutely nails such a unique style of comedy horror that I don't think has been fully replicated since. Edgar Wright is kind of a genius, and I've talked about how much I love him many times before. I guess one reason he's one of my favourite filmmakers is that he's a film buff himself, and understands how film geeks think, how they watch things, and how they interact with the things they watch. This not only gives his films great intertextuality ("We're coming to get you Barbara!"), but it also means that, in the case of the Cornetto trilogy, he's able to take a sense of humour that stems from loving movies and pop culture and relate it back to the people watching. As a result, world-conquering aliens, badass cops and flesh-hungry zombies occupy the world of the mundane, squaring up to people who are just like us. It's the film equivalent of the movie memes you see on Twitter: jokes that are funny because the people writing them are in on it, not just understanding what they're referencing and how it works, but also understanding how other people interact with these things too. That's a big reason as to why I love the trilogy, and though Shaun of the Dead may only be my second favourite, it is a really good example of this style of comedy writing, and that's what I want to talk about today. This is a movie that gets both comedy and horror just right by relating them back to the everyday, taking these over-the-top, genre flavoured elements and placing them squarely in the humdrum world of the mundane

So we'll start with the comedy. All of the jokes in Shaun of the Dead come from a familiar place. Don't worry, this isn't going to be an essay of joke explanation, because nothing strips the fun away from comedy more than explaining why something's funny, so I'm not going to do that. This is an incredibly funny movie, everyone knows that and everyone's cool with it, so we can leave that there. But I do think that the role the comedy plays in the story is interesting. Shaun of the Dead is, for all intents and purposes, a romantic comedy, about a guy who's just trying to win back his girlfriend, make his mother happy and maybe have a sneaky pint at his local. Hell, there aren't even any zombies for the first half an hour. And when they do come, it's clear that they're entering our world. That doesn't cause our society to collapse and turn the world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, it just means that everything is the exact same, just with zombies. When Shaun wakes up in the outbreak, he's still looking at the same to-do list. He's still got the same problems, and the funny stuff largely comes from the stuff that hasn't changed.

This is the comedy of the everyday, and the cyclical nature of the jokes makes that all the funnier. This being an Edgar Wright film, most of the jokes from the first half come back, only slightly differently. Pete's still a dick, the jukebox is still on random, and Shaun's still got red on him. We're fascinated with zombie stories that show the world scarred, warped and changed, but Shaun of the Dead is so genius because, well, pretty much everything's the same as it ever was. The biggest change comes at the end, where the world becomes more tolerant of the zombies, and everyone just kind of co-exists. In a way, it's the ultimate inverted zombie movie, one where none of the post-apocalyptic wish fulfilment actually happens. It doesn't go from bad to worse, just slightly dull to.... actually kind of nice. Because, realistically, you would still have the same problems. You wouldn't automatically become a badass zombie slayer. Edgar Wright doesn't take the audience out of their world, he just injects some genre-goodness into it, and then starts laughing at how dull it'd still be. It's not cynicism as much as it is clear-eyed savviness, because the anti-escapism turns out to bring its own brand of wild fun and dogged optimism. There's not much of a spectacle here, just familiar solutions to unfamiliar problems. Even the biggest setpieces work because their components are so rooted in the everyday. The jukebox scene is the perfect example, with everyday weapons (pool cues, darts, a fire extinguisher) melding with the irrefutable fact that everything can be improved by playing Don't Stop Me Now. As a spoof, it works because it sets up this crazy situation, only to present the audience with the stuff they already knew going in. The joke isn't on you, but it is all around you; made from the movies and music and video games and urban legends that you consume on a daily basis and turned into a backdrop for easily the most common what-if situation ever

So if its ordinary setting make it a good comedy, well then why does the horror stuff work? Well, kind of the same reason, actually. Obviously this isn't a straight horror movie, but like the best comedy horrors, it works because it nails both. It's not necessarily scary, but it ensures that you take the horror seriously. As a viewer, you recognise that the zombies are a legitimate threat, that they are something to be scared of. I think a lot of that comes from An American Werewolf in London, a notable favourite of Edgar Wright's. Seriously, if you haven't seen his introduction to the BFI screening of American Werewolf, do yourself a favour and check it out, because it's awesome. John Landis kind of wrote the comedy horror blueprint with that film, acing the balance that pretty much every genre mashup since has at least referenced. An American Werewolf in London works because it's incredibly funny and it's got well defined horror. As a subgenre, comedy horror is made up of those two components, and the strength of a film largely comes down to how much of  both of those they get right. Because when you absolutely nail them both, you get a third element that only comes from the other two working in absolute harmony: emotional investment. Take An American Werewolf's ending, with (INCOMING SPOILER) David dying in Alex's arms. An incredibly funny and pleasingly gory romp it may be, but, while you're watching it, you come to really care about what's going on. Again, this is a genre thing, because to find something funny or scary is to invest in it, and when both are working so well simultaneously, it lets the film unearth these emotional stings that actually resonate

Shaun of the Dead has these in spades, with Barbara's death and Ed's infection having a real impact that goes beyond the pure farce this could have been. Lesser spoofs lack that kind of weight, because they fail to tack down the legitimacy of the threat. Shaun (the film, not the guy) throws its likeable characters into a situation with real stakes. The gore isn't purely played for laughs, it's a real consequence, something that Shaun (the bloke this time) has to factor into his now considerably more difficult afternoon trip to the Winchester. Again, there aren't any concrete scares, but it roots itself into the horror genre because it fully understands what these genre trappings are and why they work before riffing on them, and the result is pretty glorious. The bonus is that, because it's still set in that painfully mundane suburban setting, the horror is fairly everyday too. I mean yeah, the zombies are scary or whatever, but the real horror in Shaun's life comes from his own failures: the pressure he faces to win Liz back and keep Ed happy and maintain his relationship with Barbara. The zombies are the horror of the story, but even they're treated as just another errand that he has to complete. That's the everyday horror of Shaun of the Dead, the fact that the horde of the undead that our hero has to face are just another responsibility for him.

It's no secret that this is one of the best comedy horrors of all time, and for me, that's because it always stays conscious of its setting. The jokes are razor sharp and consistently hilarious, and what makes them even better is the way the film absolutely understands what it's spoofing. Like with the other films in the trilogy, Edgar Wright made Shaun of the Dead a movie that understands the two worlds that film geeks live in; the glorious escapism of the films we watch, and the mundanity that we escape from. He sets this movie in the space between them, a balanced and unique brand of horror and comedy that's simultaneously outlandish and so ordinary. And it's because of this movie that comedy-horror was forever changed. 99% percent of films in the subgenre have borrowed something from this movie, and the fact that, 15 years later, it's still an awesome comic achievement is seriously cool. Stay gold, Shaun, I'll see you again next spooky season

My Thoughts on Ad Astra

Space movies are cool. That's just a fact, right? Everyone knows that if a film is set in space, it's going to be 90% better than something that isn't. And James Gray's latest film, Ad Astra, is very cool indeed. And no, I'm not going to call it Brad Astra, so don't worry, you're not going to see any of those kinds of puns. This is a story about Brad Pitt. He's feeling a bit Sad Pitt so he travels to space to find his Dad Pitt, in the hopes that things will be a little less Bad Pitt. What? I didn't say I wasn't gonna make any puns. Okay, so that might be simplifying things. Ad Astra follows Roy McBride, an astronaut with a reputation for always maintaining his cool. His heart rate never goes above 80, he always stays calm, and his success rate is incredibly high. Beneath the cool though, is a huge amount of pain that comes from his tense relationship with his father, who went missing on a mission to Neptune 16 years before. When it turns out that his dad might be alive, Roy is sent on a mission to contact him and..... well, you'll see.

It's not an especially complicated plot, but it doesn't have to be. This is a film that's all about the journey, and the things it does well are all related to the trip it takes the audience on. This is one of the coolest depictions of space I've ever seen. It's set in the near future, where the universe is a little smaller. Space travel is totally commercialised, Mars has been colonised, and technology is a bit more advanced than it is now. Every setpiece in this film reveals another part of it's mindblowing world, and the film is incredibly patient in revealing these details. From a crazy chase involving moon pirates to a scene featuring some apes that plays like something out of horror movie, Ad Astra has no shortage of awesome Pittstops on the way to its destination. It should go without saying that, with this focus on an epic journey, that the plot is a little on the thin side, but by and large, that's not really an issue. Apart from the narration, which was pretty unnecessary and becomes slightly distracting after a while, the way the film progresses its story is pretty decent. It's not great, but that really isn't the point, and pretty much everything else here is absolutely top-tier in its quality.

This film is an experience, and as clichéd as it might be to say, needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible. The scenes in space are so vast and quietly powerful that they almost defy words. The vastness is also pinned down to the intimate, interior conflict going on inside Roy, and the way that's contrasted is just fascinating. This is a film that deals in huge spectacle and powerful emotion at the same time, and the way Gray balances the big and the small is just fantastic. The closer to Neptune McBride gets, the stronger the underlying emotion in the story becomes, until it just absolutely explodes into something that's both visually stunning and really, really moving.

A lot of this down to Pitt's performance, and I'm telling you now, if this guy doesn't get an Oscar nod, there's going to be trouble. I will write the most strongly worded letter you've ever seen. You have been warned. So much of Pitt's performance is masterfully understated, which is really impressive because he's the only character you're with for most of the film. It's wonderfully interior, something which, again, is kind of spoiled by the voiceover. Look, it's not an issue for the first twenty or so minutes, but after that it became especially noticeable, and a little unnecessary. Everything great about his performance is in how quiet it is, so when he tells us how he feels, it does throw me off a little. But yeah, his performance is definitely worth the price of admission. It's quiet brilliance among the huge spectacle, and watching how his character is carefully unravelled over the course of his journey is really something special. The whole film revolves around the vulnerability under the stoicism, and watching how Gray slowly, quietly works his way to the centre of McBride is truly a joy to witness

Instead of going for the grand existential musings of any space films, Ad Astra goes inwards, which I know has been done before, but the way Gray takes that idea and maps it against a father-son relationship and then makes it Apocalypse Now in space and then makes it about male vulnerability and then adds space pirates and apes and BRAD FREAKING PITT gives it a little bit of space. The scale is massive, the philosophy is rich and the things that happen in the plot are consistently interesting and incredibly diverse. It is, to borrow from my favourite purple warlord, perfectly balanced as all things should be. Gray understands how to combine these different elements and play them off each other perfectly. It's huge size never takes away from it's poignant musings, and the crazy elements of the world never become a distraction. Everything here fits into place, everything has a purpose, and everything fulfils that purpose really well. It's a fascinating juxtaposition of the vastness of the brain and the gradual shrinkage of space, and by doing it backwards, Gray makes its ultimate conclusion all the more satisfying.

So, Ad Astra is kind of incredible. It's big and small at the same time, unafraid to go to strange places on its journey to the centre of this incredibly stoic man. It's hard to sum into words, because it's such a spectacle to witness, and so emotionally driven (I shed many tears), that it's kind of tough to articulate. It's intelligent, astonishing filmmaking, headed up by a marvellous performance from Brad Pitt. I absolutely loved this film, and it just gets better the more I think about it, because it leaves so much to chew on. The ideas, the visuals, THE SPACE PIRATES, everything in this film is beyond amazing. Yeah, it loses serious points for that voiceover, which is just so obvious and handhold-y, but even that can't detract from how stunning everything else is here. Between this and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Brad Pitt is marking himself as a serious Oscar contender, and honestly if he gets it for either then it's 100% earned, because he's amazing in that and he's incredible in this. Ad Astra, man. Ad. Astra.

My Thoughts on Ready or Not

Oh. My. God. Even though it's arriving in Ireland about a month after everywhere else, Ready or Not immediately establishes itself as one of the funnest films this year. There was no way that I wasn't going to love this movie, not with a premise like this anyway. "Woman tries to survive her wedding night while being hunted by her crazy in-laws" is a great concept for a comedy horror, and the real excitement is watching how that's explored. This is what spooky season is all about, folks, and I cannot wait to dive into it, so let's. Freaking. Go. This is a good example of a film working on the strength of its premise alone. The plot follows Samara Weaving's Grace, who's marrying into the wealthy Le Domas family (they prefer dominion). The catch for joining this board-game empire is that, on their wedding night, the family-member-to-be has to play a game. Which is fine, unless you draw the card that says you have to play hide-and-seek. Do not draw the hide-and-seek card. Grace draws the hide-and-seek card. The shit hits the fan. Hide-and-seek is a deadly serious matter for the Le Domas clan, who intend on hunting Grace down and killing her. The reason for this is a little bit spoiler-y, but rest assured, it's as gleefully nuts as you'd expect from this kind of movie

My local cinema screened this with captions on for some reason, which actually turned out to be kind of great. I tend to watch things with the captions on anyway, and in a film that hinges on its tension, it's pretty fun to know exactly what kind of noise you're hearing. And the tension here is kind of great. When the hunt begins, the film is so creative with its setpieces and their construction. This film is legitimately tense in a really fun way. Every part of this house and it's grounds is utilised, from the service corridors to the creepy-as-hell shed full of goats. The sense of location in this movie is amazing, and watching as it shifts from the joy of a wedding to the hell of the hunt is an absolute thrill. The house feels like its own character, just as tied into the sinister machinations of the Le Domas clan as any of it's members. Speaking of the Le Domases (Les Domas? Le Domasi?), they're amazing antagonists. Each one has such a distinct personality, and watching their overblown personalities expand even further as the slaughter progresses is one of the big joys of Ready or Not. Big shoutout to Aunt Helene and her intense devotion to the cause, and another one to my main man Stevens, the crazy butler who gets some of the best (and nastiest) moments in the movie

Of course a horror movie is only as good as its survivor, and Samara Weaving is such a badass. She was the best thing about The Babysitter, which, naff as it was, turned out to be the perfect showcase of her horror-chops. I genuinely can't wait for what she does next, because she absolutely tears this movie up. This is her film, and watching as she unleashes her survival skills on her murderous in-laws is a pure delight. She's got it all: the wisecracking humour, the hardened survival instinct and even the rootability of a woman who just can't catch a break. She's an awesome horror hero, balancing everything with a genuine likeability that really amps up the satisfaction factor of the ensuing bloodbath. And the crazier the film gets, the more she grounds it, ensuring that it never gets to carried away in its antics by being someone who you genuinely like and want to see succeed.

She's also a great character in the context of the film's satire. Without giving too much away, Ready or Not is critical of the über-rich and the things they do to stay that way. Like the best horror-commentary, it's genuinely scary because there's an element of truth to it. Even though everything is over-the-top, the shadowy illegitimacy of the Le Domas family's empire is eerily believable, and seeing how (almost) every member of the family is corrupted by this ethos to some extent is incredibly unsettling. Is this commentary kind of overshadowed by the crazy gore and comedy? I mean yeah, but it is there, and a lot of it does hit the mark. It's not the strongest aspect of the film, but it's sharp enough to make an impression. What makes it work better is Grace's status as the outsider, the everywoman who finds herself in this web of dark secrets with the truth of the family's wealth at the centre. This is the brain behind the fun, and it gives it a really clever edge that I'm sure will give it some serious rewatch value

For all of this though, there is one problem: it's way too short. Not only does it feel like there's not enough of it, but it also means that by the end of it, it feels like there's still a little more to be done. Without getting into too many spoilers the ending, as batshit crazy as it is, is very neat, not necessarily a problem, but it does feel like the film sacrificed more setpieces to get to there. It's a weird one: I do love how bold and crazy the note it finishes on is, but I would have liked a little bit more of an escalation. A nitpick? Most definitely, but it did bother me, because I was having so much fun with the film, and I would have liked if it let itself breath a little more. This is a sprint, not a marathon, which is fine, but it means that all of the really great stuff here does feel a tad rushed. Oh well, it's still huge amounts of fun

So Ready or Not is the crazy horror comedy bonanza that we need right now. It takes a simple idea and pumps it full of gore, comedy and stinging social commentary. It's an amped up assault on the 1%, with pleasing amounts of violence and enough knowing humour to stop it from ever tipping into excess. Samara Weaving is an absolute boss, and I'm so excited to see what she does next, because she makes this movie what it is. Throw in a wonderfully hissable cast of evil in-laws and you've got a genuine delight of a comedy horror. Yeah it's short and quick, but it's a deliriously fun ride that rarely holds back on anything. It's so exciting that we have a movie like this in 2019, exciting, bold wonderfully standalone. It never plays it safe, instead choosing to bring gloriously chaotic horror into the mainstream. More. Films. Like. This. PLEASE.