Review of Rachel Getting Married by Jonathan Demme

It's been 16 years since director Jonathan Demme was nominated for best picture for Silence of the Lambs...an award he also won. This year Demme has release what is perhaps his most beautiful film to date in the form of Rachel Getting Married. The film is so fluid and natural in everything from the camera work to the way the characters speak, after 5 minutes you forget its a movie and become part of the family. All the characters created here by Jenny Lumet(daughter of director Sidney Lumet) in her screenplay are distinct and wholly developed even if they have one line which can often be the situation in family gatherings. Everything is top notch and refuses to become sentimental which is the strength of this movie as it deals with dark family secrets. The true show stealer is Anne Hathaway in the form of Kym, Rachel's just-out-of-rehab sister. Hathaway plays Kym as an unpredictable hurricane of frustration, loneliness, anger, love, and sadness. Kym is dealing with more than we are let on at the beginning and more than the rest of her family can understand even if they know whats going on. Hathaway is truly a revelation in this film as she steps fully and entirely away from her Princess Diaries days as shes been trying to do for years now. Surely this film is one of the true contenders for Best Picture this year and maybe Demme can return to the Kodak Theatre.

#1 Magnolia by P.T. Anderson

Things fall down. People look up. And when it rains, it pours. Magnolia. This film stole my heart years ago and continues to shape and form who I am and how I think and see and feel and respond to the people in my life. It is important to who I am and it is one of the greatest pieces of art in the entire world next to the works of picasso and mozart. That is all I will say as this film has sat at number 1 for as long as i can remember and always will probably.

#2 The Lord of the Rings trilogy by Peter Jackson

What the Dark Knight is to the whole of the film industry Lord of the Rings is to storytelling. No matter of depth or darkness or masterful acting could surpass the excellent storytelling of the Lord of the Rings trilogy which I give one spot to as they are essentially one long movie. From our introduction to the shire to the first time we hear the nazguhl scream to battle at helm's deep to the final battle, not on the fields, but in Frodo's heart Lord of the Rings is the kind of movie I know for fact that I will show my children when I am old and gray and they will show theirs as Wizard of Oz has been passed down from generation to generation and that is a true feat of filmmaking.

#3 The Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan

I'm sure you've seen it, probably twice, maybe three times, and possibly a fourth, but yes The Dark Knight is number 3 on the countdown to my favorite movie of all time. Never have I had as much fun watching a movie as I did watching this. When you've seen as many movies as I have you begin to understand how to read the signs, you understand more how the director will work, what hollywood wants, and how far exactly a movie will go, but The Dark Knight was unreadable. Sometimes it didn't go where I expected and sometimes it went far beyond what I ever expected would come of hollywood to the point where once the joker put detonators in the hands of gotham citizens I had no idea what to expect. Beyond that Heath Ledger's performance was far away one of the superior performances of cinematic history and nothing in the film felt half-way. Everything was top-notch and it all came together to make the best film in american history. Yet it isn't my favorite.

#4 WALL-E by Andrew Stanton

Pixar has been top dog for awhile when it comes to animated filmmaking. They kicked off their shining career with Toy Story and with other greats like The Incredibles and Finding Nemo have become the reigning king of all things wonderful. It was this summer, however, that Pixar took everything to a new level with WALL-E their incredibly deep, socially conscious, and sincerely and simply wonderful tale of a little, lonely robot searching for his place in a big world. There is never moment that isn't to love and in the end we all find a new way to look at the world and each other. I remember telling people that it made me want to hug everyone for a week.

#5 Into the Wild by Sean Penn

I won't say much about this film as there is an inexpressible reason that I love this film, I just want the world to know that this one of the most important pieces of filmmaking in the past few decades.

#6 Almost Famous by Cameron Crowe

This coming of age tale is one of my favorites for its sheer amount of heart. With me a movie with a lot of heart can go a long way and it just helps that it is also jampacked with great music, Kate Hudson, and the age old road movie formula. Crowe wrote this film as his swan song to great filmmaking for the time being as he followed it up with the ambitious though confused Vanilla Sky and the sappy Garden State-wannabe Elizabethtown. Almost Famous is a movie that can reach people on all kinds of levels and it wasn't until the 6th time I saw it that it became a favorite, but from here on out I don't think I could ever lose my love for it.

#7 American Beauty by Sam Mendes

Spoiler alert! The video above is the ending of the movie so don't watch it unless you've seen the movie. American Beauty is one of the undisputable greats in American film history. It is nearly flawless in almost every way and can easily contend with most any movie thrown at it. Its message of unhappiness in a suburban wasteland is profound and universal, its lead performance by Kevin Spacey is nuanced and spectacular and the finale. My Goodness, the finale is one of the most gripping and frustrating and satisfying and beautiful and sad endings. It is everything a movie needs for it.

#8 Amelie by Jean Pierre Jeunet

Paris gets its second visit to my blog in the form of Amelie. Amelie is a delightful, quirky and ultimately feel good movie. It is Audrey Tautou that deserves all the credit for the success of this film. Her portrayal of Amelie is at times frustrating in her timidness, but always lovable for her dreamer like quality and her ability to observe and especially for the idiosyncracies our narrator reveals to us at the beginning such as her love for cracking creme brulee.

#9 Moulin Rouge! by Baz Luhrman

France has long embodied every romantic notion of any person who has dared to dream of finding love. In Baz Luhrman's 3rd feature and his conclusion to his Red Curtain trilogy he takes the wild bohemian world of the Moulin Rouge and Montmarte and transforms it into one of the most lavishly produced, gloriously sounding, and heart wrenching tales of love that conquers all things even money, power, class, and death. Satine and Christian's story is one of true emotional triumph and power. It is a movie that has long kept me dreaming and remembering the ultimate good that love can provide in any form. I will love this film come what may.

#10 Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo Del Toro

Guillermo Del Toro has created with Pan's Labyrinth what Tim Burton did with Edward Scissorhands only better. It is a fantasy based in the realities of our world and it's ignorance and hatred of good and innocence. Del Toro's film is full of beautiful imagery, heartbreaking storytelling, a haunting score, and a finale that rivals that of the cinematic greats like Casablanca or the Godfather. A memorable ending indeed to one of the best films of the past decade.