The Final Chapter: The Royal Tenenbaums; The Return of Robert Altman; Sofia Coppola Achieves Greatness

Posted by Jason Ihle | 1 Comment

Finally, the last post in what has seemed to be a never-ending series. With this post highlighting what I’m dubbing the “Prestige Pictures” I complete my list of 70 films I enjoyed most from the ’00s.

If anyone’s actually been following along, I hope you’ve enjoyed it and perhaps even added something new to your Netflix queue as a result.

You can revisit the full list of films alphabetically on my new blog Mostly Movies. To anyone who’s been regularly reading my reviews, Oscar commentary and other thoughts, I invite you to bookmark my new venture. This is the first step in what I hope will be a long term project. This is something I had wanted to start before I moved to Spain and it has been on hold ever since. I’ve finally decided to just jump in and go for it. I hope I’ll be able to find the time, energy and inclination to post often enough to keep people interested. But I’ve got some big changes coming in my personal life that may set me back. We’ll see what happens.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) dir. Wes Anderson – I loved Rushmore, but this is really my favorite Wes Anderson movie. Choosing the right soundtrack music is sometimes essential for helping an audience connect with a film. Anderson’s films always feature pop songs that I am unfamiliar with (often from bands that I do know), but which manage to drum up an emotion that fits the mood of the scene just right. This Wes Anderson film probably has the best soundtrack of any of his six films to date. I could talk about how funny the screenplay is and what quirky characters he creates with Bill Murray studying a bizarre brain disorder and Owen Wilson with a drug problem (made impossibly funny), but for me it’s the songs that stick out in this film. Gene Hackman is fantastic as the ostracized father and ex-husband who fakes a terminal illness to reconnect with his estranged children.

Lost in Translation (2003) dir. Sofia Coppola – I saw this one close enough to my visit to Japan to have understood to some extent exactly the feeling being evoked by Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray as they wander lost in Tokyo. Both are there for different reasons, but neither really wants to be there or feels particularly comfortable in their surroundings. As Murray arrives and drives through Tokyo, looking around at the incredible flashing lights, bizarre spectacles and huge number of people, I couldn’t help but empathize with that feeling of being completely out of place. Having visited dozens of major world cities in many different countries, nothing has struck me as so completely different and unusual as Tokyo. This film gets that feeling just right. Apart from that it’s got great performances from the two leads, it’s wonderfully written and Coppola’s direction is restrained and masterful. A remarkable feat for her second feature.

Sideways (2004) dir. Alexander Payne – Payne just keeps making the little gems about real people living in the real world. Paul Giamatti was famously snubbed big time by The Academy in its epic failure to give him an Oscar nomination for this brilliant portrayal of Miles, a failed novelist and borderline alcoholic still longing to reconcile with his ex-wife. He takes his best friend on a pre-wedding bachelor weekend to California wine country where they meet two women. The pinot noir speech scene may come across to some as a hackneyed metaphor, but I think it so perfectly encapsulates the movie.

The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) dir. Joel Coen – Probably the most cerebral Coen Brothers film to date, this is an existential exercise, shot in beautifully crisp black and white. It has the look of a noir film from the 40s where cigarette smoke is an integral part of the atmosphere. Billy Bob Thornton’s performance oozes with existential futility. He is the Everyman and No man simultaneously.

The Fog of War (2003) dir. Errol Morris – I don’t necessarily disagree with the decisions to firebomb all of Japan or to use nuclear weapons on two of their major cities. I don’t believe it was misguided or wrong to invade Vietnam (regardless of our ultimate failure there). But Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under JFK and Lyndon Johnson, makes a rather convincing case that the US committed grave errors and possibly war crimes in those events. This is a fascinating portrait by Errol Morris of a man who has reached the twilight of his life and looks back with deep regret over the influence he had over presidents and the decisions he took in those times. This is a great companion piece to another film on my list: Thirteen Days

Gosford Park (2001) dir. Robert Altman – It’s endlessly satisfying that Altman delivered one more great film before his death. His period of greatness fizzled in the 80s and he experienced a short-lived resurgence in the early 90s with The Player and Short Cuts but from there it seemed to be downhill until this period film set in an English country house in the early 30s. It explores the differences and similarities and all the intricate relationships of the wealthy and the people who serve them. Once again, he masterfully directs no fewer than 24 speaking roles bringing the setting alive and really making you feel like you know these characters. I knew it was great the first time I saw it, but I didn’t really warm to it until I’d seen it a couple more times. Every viewing adds a little bit more.

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