Donnie Darko and Zombies Among the Best Independent Films of the Decade

Posted by Jason Ihle | 1 Comment

Continuing my list of favorite films of the decade, here are 5 indie films I really enjoyed. The next post will top off the indies before I close out the list with some final prestige pictures.

28 Days Later… (2003) dir. Danny Boyle – This was really one of the most frightening filmgoing experiences I’ve had. It’s up there with John Carpenter’s Halloween and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Boyle shot the film entirely in digital employing a lot of handheld shots. The fear is visceral, particularly the flat tire in the tunnel scene and the final action sequence which borrows heavily from Apocalypse Now. I also really like the subtle jab at animal rights advocates by having their blind activism be the first cause of the outbreak of the disease.

Brick (2006) dir. Rian Johnson – What a surprising and exciting film this was. It’s a neo-noir, a James M. Cain style crime story transplanted to suburban high school. There’s a detective character, played wonderfully by Joseph Gordon Levitt; a femme fatale; and an über-criminal (who can’t resist his mother’s cookies). What could have been a truly bad idea for a film turns out to be clever, original, inviting and darkly hysterical. The dialogue is written as if it’s a 1940s detective noir written for adult characters. Gordon Levitt speaks like a hard-boiled detective along the lines of Sam Spade. This is what the disastrous, though incredibly popular, Cruel Intentions could have and should have been.

Donnie Darko (2001) dir. Richard Kelly – In retrospect this film has a major flaw in its obsession with being “deep”. But I can’t deny that I thoroughly enjoyed it the first time around and still think it’s a truly interesting movie. This is the film that put Jake Gyllenhaal on the map and his real life sister Maggie had a small role as his on screen sister. Patrick Swayze was brilliantly cast as a smarmy (and sick) self-help guru.

You Can Count on Me (2000) dir. Kenneth Lonergan – Laura Linney had already been on the map with small roles in films for a few years, but this was the performance that launched her to the forefront. Ditto Mark Ruffalo, who was touted as a modern Marlon Brando. A traditionally crowded Best Actor field kept him from getting a nomination that year, but I’ve little doubt his time will come. This film got well-deserved nods for Linney and Lonergan’s fantastic screenplay. One of the best-written films of the decade. Note of interest: Linney also got an Oscar nomination for another film about a dysfunctional brother/sister relationship, 2007’s The Savages, with the brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman playing opposite.

Roger Dodger (2002) dir. Dylan Kidd – Sharp dialogue carries this film and its main character, Roger Swanson (a great performance by Campbell Scott), on a night out in New York as Roger tries to get his young nephew a woman to sleep with. Roger is all brash ego and confidence. Great fun for some of the best misogynistic writing ever.

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