Sam’s Top 42 Films of the Decade
Just for the sake of my own sanity and desperate need to have these written somewhere, I give you my favourite forty-two films of the past decade. There are at least fifty-six other films I would like to put onto a list, but I think I need to forcefully prevent any more decade-based listmaking as quickly as possible. So beneath is the top ten list, along with a sentence or two on each film and then thirty-two, out-of-list-order, films which I had to include.
Let the Oscar Buzz Begineth!!
As we are prone to do, it feels like to kick-off the Oscar buzz season as awards from major film festivals begin to roll in and the ceremony approaches. I realise that this may feel like the kind of wishing-life-away feeling that it given as you walk into shops in mid-September and see Christmas stock out all over the place, but these will get more frequent as we get closer and can begin to actually predict what could win. This is more to provide an interesting gauge of how buzz works, how it changes and how wrong we could well end up being by the time the awards come around.
So, just for the big few categories, here’s what seems like it’s going to cause a stir this year: Continue reading →
Trailer for The Road
The trailer has shown up for The Road, the John Hillcoat-directed adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy masterpiece. The film, starring Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron and the always great Garrett Dillahunt, has been much-delayed but is now due to hit cinemas in the US at the end of this year and probably the UK a few months later.
The trailer, for those who have read the book, seems to play up a great deal of action which always seemed more implied than explored. The book is much more a study of a post-apocalyptic landscape and the relationship between father and son roaming the empty planet. I’m not sure I completely dig that feel but, with amazing source material, a superb cast (including The Wire’s Michael K Williams) and director (of The Proposition) and assurances from Esquire’s Tom Chiarella of its importance, I’m willing to put my trust in the production for the time-being. Check out the trailer below.
Cronenberg Talks Eastern Promises 2
David Cronenberg, speaking during an interview with MTV, has said a sequel for Eastern Promises is going forward.
“We are moving forward with it,” said Cronenberg. “We are all excited about the idea of doing a sequel.”
The film, a good but not masterful story of double-crossing Russian gangsters, earned Viggo Mortensen an Oscar nomination for his stunning lead performance, on he is seemingly set to reprise in the follow-up.
Cronenberg goes on to talk about his plans to meet with screenwriter Steven Knight and producer Paul Webster, both alumni of the original, to talk through ideas for the follow-up.
“We are going to have a meeting very soon between me, Steve Knight and Paul Webster to discuss what the script would be. I have some very strong ideas about what I would like to see, but I would like to hear what they have to say as well. And then after that, if all goes well, Steve goes away and writes a great script. If we all like it, we make it”.
For those horrified/intrigued over the move by Cronenberg to make a foray into sequel territory, he does say this is the first time for him to even consider making such a move. He continues:
“I’ve never had the desire to do that before. But in this case, I thought we had unfinished business with those characters. I didn’t feel that we had finished with Nikolai and we had done a lot of research that was more than we could stuff into that one movie.”
It seems like a pretty decent idea. Eastern Promises does grow with further watches, especially if you can avoid expectations of strangeness creeping in. This, for all intents and purposes, is a fairly straightforward film, but it does hold some nice touches and a return could well give Cronenberg a chance to further imprint his personality on the story.
More exciting though, given the immense A History of Violence and Eastern Promises itself, is the possibility of a new hook-up between Cronenberg and Mortensen, a very fertile partnership thus far and one which could eventually bring Mortensen his well-deserved Oscar.
The Movie Overdose 
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