The Best Films of the 2000s and more.
Posts tagged Dramedy
The Maid (2009)
Aug 22nd
Starring: Catalina Saavedra, Claudia Celedón, Mariana Loyola
Director: Sebastián Silva
Country: Chile, Mexico
Genre: Foreign, Drama, Comedy
The Maid is a film about the struggles between different social classes, about the vague lines that are sometimes drawn working relationships, and a great look at humanity. These issues are ever present in everyday life whether its a relationship with the local coffee shop employee or the live-in maid that cleans your house and knows all of your secrets.
Raquel has been working for the same family for over twenty years. She’s watched the kids grow up, hell, it could be argued that she raised them. She’s spent the better part of her life developing a routine, and in her mind, and to some truth, a bond with the family that employs her. But a strain starts to show on the relationship as tensions start to rise between Raquel and the eldest daughter, which leads the family to hire extra help. Jealousy overtakes Raquel who has a tendency to act out, usually locking the new maids out of the house.
This is one of the best character studies of the last decade. It’s sharply written and relentless in its examination of its subject. So often in films like this the filmmakers would be prone to show the self-destruction of a character, but Silva seems to know better keeping the film light and surprising. Perhaps the greatest thing about the film is Saavedra’s performance as Raquel. It’s absolutely fearless and penetrating. As an actress that has been around for nearly two decades, it’s impossible to think she’s spent her time anywhere else but working as a maid. With a biting commentary on working relationships and the concept of family, The Maid is a great film.
American Splendor (2003)
Jun 28th
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis, Judah Friedlander
Director: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Country: USA
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Most original mix of reality and fiction of the decade.
Biopics are a dime a dozen. Most of the time they are overly dramatized excuses for an actor to be a candidate for Best Actor. But American Splendor takes a far different approach. It’s part documentary, part adaptation of a graphic novel, part dramatized biopic. It’s a movie about a movie being made about a man who has written a comic book about himself. The funny, and perhaps most impressive thing is, it never comes off self-indulgent. Harvey Pekar, the film’s subject, is known for his blatant truth-telling and the film stays true to that. It blends animation with interview footage and traditional scripted scenes. Paul Giamatti puts in a splendid performance as the depressed hygiene-handicapped comic book writer.
Top 10 Dramedies of the 2000s
Apr 21st
Unlike the other top ten lists on this site, I’ve decided to go about it a bit differently and list the top ten chronologically instead of ranking them from #10 – #01. This is not out of laziness, but rather because of my instinctual nature of resisting the pressure to say one thing is better than another. All ten of these films are above and beyond amazing films and should be enjoyed equally. Perhaps that’s cheating, but it doesn’t change which films I’ve chosen.
As always, this list is subject to change and as it does will be updated appropriately.
Greenberg (2010)
Apr 19th
Starring: Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans
Director: Noah Baumbach
Country: USA
Genre: Dramedy
He plans on doing nothing.
Noah Baumbach’s films aren’t necessarily the easiest to like. The Squid and the Whale is about a fractured family of selfish asses, Margot and the Wedding is equally about selfish, even dislikable characters who constantly complain about their current situation without doing much about it. But the characters, likable or not, are rooted somewhere very deep and real. Their negative attitudes are born of insecurities. Really, these films are about people who are just trying to fit in to their surroundings. Greenberg fits nicely into this family of films. Stiller puts in one of his best performances as the afflicted Greenberg. The common thing in these films seems to be that the characters don’t undergo glorified life altering changes that Hollywood loves to sentimentalize, but rather something far more real and subtle. It’s hard for someone to change their entire point of view in life, people fall off the wagon constantly, relapse. Baumbach seems to be able to capture the nuance of chaos in dysfunctional lives better than any other screenwriter/director around.
Adaptation. (2002)
Apr 1st
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper
Director: Spike Jonze
Country: USA
Genre: Drama
Convolution has never been so sweet.
The term “film within a film” is nothing new, but a “script within a script” is a different story (no pun intended.) Adaptation. is a mind-bending (nose-bleedingly) idea on an adaptation of an unadaptable book. Only from the mind of Charlie Kaufman could we get such a neurotic brilliant mess of a writer who writes himself into a script based on a novel about flowers after writing in the author of the book he’s trying to adapt and realizing that there’s no way to craft it into the story he wants without selling out his ending. It’s a case of art imitating life, but the art is in fact the life that it’s imitating and thus another layer is added. Spike Jonze masterfully captures this bizarre concept on two levels, one) for those who are just watching the surface as an entertaining two hours, and two) relaying the information needed to those who look deeper and realize just how skillfully complicated the story actually is.
Top 10 Coming of Age Films of the 2000s
Mar 30th
Coming of age stories have been a corner stone of cinema for decades upon decades. The French New Wave really popularized the personal tales with films like The 400 Blows and Murmurs of the Heart (to name two.) While the coming of age tale was a presence in Hollywood with films like Rebel without a Cause, it really picked up in the late sixties and haven’t let up. Filmmakers like Hal Ashby and Peter Bogdanovich are still an influence on directors and writers of today.
Independent cinema has proven to be a breeding ground for these personal tales of simple human growth. But every once in awhile Hollywood still pumps out a gem. Below is the list of the ten best coming of age films released between 2000-2009.
*Note: this list is subject to change and if it does it shall promptly be reposted with the appropriate information.
#10. The Visitor is only Thomas McCarthy’s second feature, (though in all fairness he’s been in the film world quite awhile as an actor,) and he crafts a very poignant and simple film about a man lost within his own life rediscovering passion in the most unexpected place. It turns the coming of age tale on its ear and looks at it from the “it’s never too late to start” perspective. It’s a re-coming-of-age story with an Oscar nominated performance by the always wonderful Richard Jenkins.
I Heart Huckabees (2004)
Mar 14th
Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Lily Tomlin
Director: David O. Russell
Country: USA
Genre: Comedy
I heart I Heart Huckabees.
Despite the infamous on-set battles that David O. Russell seems to get himself into, he has created some of the best character driven films in the last quarter century. I Heart Huckabees boasts one hell of an ensemble, all bringing their A game to the over-the-top characters. The film is an exploration on the question “why are we here?” and the answer seems to be an optimistic one, that is if we have a sense of humor about it all. It’s a zany existential farce. While every aspect of the film plays its part well, the score by Jon Brion is what really brings out the joy, and even sadness. Instead of a typical score, Brion’s music becomes a character itself, sometimes relaying information through a typical pop song, other times commenting on the silliness by evolving into a pseudo silent film score. The film is rude, it’s crude, it’s hilarious, it’s touching, it’s everything that life is.
