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Best of the 'OOs

With the decade officially half over, some bloggers -including Matt Yglesias- are bandying about the question of what the decade's best films have been. I'd been meaning to do an official list but never got around to it; I remember I wrote a "Top 50 Films of the '90s" list in my college newspaper column* that engandered lots of controversy, mostly because I left off 'Shawshank.'

As for the current decade, I have no choice to put Tim Burton's "Big Fish" in the #1 spot- the film is an absolute masterpiece that has profoundly affected me each of the three times I've seen it- and the fact that in a 50-or-so-post thread not one person mentioned probably says something about Matt's commenters.

Then again, I'm always a sucker for father-and-son stuff- which is just one reason that I rank Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums" very high. Meanwhile, my dating-theory-obsessed-single-guy self mandates the inclusion of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," and "High Fidelity." Rounding out the top ten- Spielberg's "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" (the most underrated and misunderstood film of the past ten years- ask Armond White if you don't believe me); "Almost Famous," "Mulholland Drive," "Road to Perdition," ""Y Tu Mama Tambien," and "Capturing the Friedmans."

Watch for a more formal list sometime in the next few months.

(*On my '90s list, "Silence of the Lambs" was #1, in case you were wondering, followed by "Goodfellas," "Saving Private Ryan," "Schindler's List," "Pulp Fiction," "Fargo," "Dead Man Walking," "L.A. Confidential," "Forrest Gump," and "Good Will Hunting." I had "Wayne's World" at #50, which more than one friend said was way, way, too low. I'd link to the list, but The Justice deleted all their pre-2002 online archives a few years ago. Maybe they should hire third-world labor to transcribe all 56 years of back issues, like Harvard did.)