#5 Gangs of New York (2002)

Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kennthe Lonergan.

Trailer

Daniel Day-Lewis hurls himself at his beast of a role—Bill “The Butcher” Cutting—with such fire, passion, and staggering bravura that his presence alone might have eclipsed the rest of the film. Fortunately, his volatile energy is equally matched by Scorsese, whose zip and whiz as a director also makes a “spectacle of fearsome acts,” and by Scorsese regulars Thelma Schoonmaker (editor), Michael Ballhaus (cinematographer), and Dante Ferretti (production designer), who help bring 1862 New York City to operatic, primeval life. The film is at once a bake-off and then a jam session. Watching these artists in love with their craft and in heedless abandon is enough to make it the single most exciting movie experience of the decade.

And what an epic labor of love it was. Inspired by Herbert Asbury’s famous 1928 study of gang activity, xenophobia, and political corruption in the “Five Points” district of Lower Manhattan, Scorsese carried the project with him since the 1970s. After surviving a troubled, two year production, cuts, and delays, the film was released with much ballyhoo during the Oscar season of 2002, only to be deemed everything from a flawed, auteurist masterpiece to a star-studded, $100 million disappointment. Even with its messy script and uneven supporting performances, I can’t imagine a more mesmerizing foray into the Civil War-era underworld. Our guide is Irish orphan Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo Di Caprio), who mobilizes resistance against Bill and his anti-immigrant “Natives,” the criminal bedfellows of “Boss” Tweed’s Tammany Hall. The other familiar faces include Cameron Diaz, John C. Reilly, Brendan Gleeson, Liam Neeson, Henry Thomas, and Jim Broadbent as Tweed. As much as The Aviator (2004) and The Departed (2006) rocked my senses, Gangs stayed with me like a great concept album. This is American historiography written in blood, sweat, thunder, and lightening, as only the medium of cinema could render.

Read Chuck Rudolph’s review at Slant.com

#6 No Country for Old Men (2007)

#7 Munich (2005)

#8 Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

#9 Mulholland Dr. (2001)

#10 [tie] The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and Casino Royale (2006)

#11 Road to Perdition (2002)

#12 Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

#13 Public Enemies (2009)

#14 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

#15 Snow Angels (2008)

About the list

#6 No Country for Old Men (2007)

Directed and written by Joel and Ethan Coen

Trailer

Earlier in the decade, Joel and Ethan Coen delivered their most entertaining screwball comedy (O Brother, Where Art Thou? [2000]) and one of their most sophisticated films noir (The Man Who Wasn’t There [2001]). No Country for Old Men, from Cormac McCarthy’s hard-boiled novel of the same name, is a taut, spare, Southwestern thriller that tops both films and pretty much everything else from the weird world of the Coen brothers. Seemingly their most distilled genre exercise to date, at the same time the film transcends genre altogether, staring violence and death right in its ghostly face.

And who could forget the face—or hair—of Javier Bardem as sociopathic killer Anton Chigurh, one of the most disturbing incarnations of ineffable evil I’ve ever seen in a film (“Call it, friendo”). On the other side is nearly retired sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), confronting crime in post-Vietnam West Texas he can’t begin to understand. Armed with a cattle gun, Chigurh leaves a trail of dead bodies as he stalks an ordinary man (Josh Brolin), who made off with two million dollars from a botched drug deal. The film buries itself under your skin with calculated sound and image techniques, only to throw a sucker punch in the end as an elegy. Among its eight Academy Awards include Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Bardem), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture, marking one of the few years in recent memory when I was in basic agreement with the Oscars.

Read Richard Schickel’s review in Time

#7 Munich (2005)

#8 Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

#9 Mulholland Dr. (2001)

#10 [tie] The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and Casino Royale (2006)

#11 Road to Perdition (2002)

#12 Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

#13 Public Enemies (2009)

#14 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

#15 Snow Angels (2008)

About the list

From the cinematheque vaults: Twin Peaks

My pick this month is not a film, but the cult television series Twin Peaks, which originally aired on ABC for two seasons from 1990 to 1991. With the exception of the two-hour pilot, you can watch the complete series online here. I'm currently working on a seminar paper about the feature film prequel Fire Walk With Me (1992), which I'll be presenting at the 2010 Film & History Conference in Milwaukee, WI, so I've been trapped in the Black Lodge for the last couple weeks.

The series emerged as the perverse brainchild of David Lynch and Mark Frost. One of the names behind Hill Street Blues (1981-1987), Frost was no stranger to television. Lynch, however, was a less likely participant, best known at the time for his controversial, critically acclaimed thriller-cum-melodrama Blue Velvet (1986). Lynch and Frost served as executive producers and co-writers on the series, and Lynch even directed select episodes.

In the wake of a media frenzy, the pilot aired on April 8, 1990 as a mid-season replacement for Gabriel’s Fire. Greeted by critical praise, it earned a 16.2 rating,* ABC’s highest ratings in four years for a program scheduled in the 9 p.m. Thursday timeslot (Carter D8). U.S. television audiences were unanimously asking, “Who killed Laura Palmer?” Intrigue quickly spread to Log Ladies, backwards-talking dwarfs dancing in Red Rooms, giants imparting cryptic clues, and, of course, damn fine coffee and cherry pie. The primary investigator of these mysteries was cheerful F.B.I. agent Dale Cooper (Kyle Mac Lachlan), who arrives in the sleepy lumber town of Twin Peaks, WA when the raped and murdered body of the local homecoming queen washes ashore.

ABC’s senior vice president of research, Alan Wurtzel, attributed the success of the pilot to what he called the “water cooler syndrome,” suggesting that people will talk about a distinctive series the next day at work (Carter D8). Beating NBC juggernauts Cheers (1982-1993) and The Cosby Show (1984-1992), the series was primed to help the then struggling ABC lead in primetime the next fall, along with America’s Funniest Home Videos (1989-present) and Doogie Howser, MD (1989-1993). Although ABC renewed the series after the subsequent seven episodes, ratings dropped significantly after the pilot, eventually leveling off to reveal a small but dependable viewership of 18 to 19 percent of Thursday night audiences (Carter D1-D14). The series was demoted from Thursday to Saturday night for almost the entirety of its second season beginning September 30, 1990.

Even then, The New York Times reported that “Twin Peaks brought to weekly television the quality of movie directing, with unusually deliberative pacing, surrealistic themes, bizarre characters and unpredictable humor,” signaling a creative originality in television that the industry hoped to sustain as it developed new programming formats (Carter D1). In addition to receiving copious media coverage and favorable reviews, the series also generated a bevy of merchandising tie-ins: novels (The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer by Lynch’s daughter, Jennifer, and The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper by series writer Scott Frost), audiotape of Cooper’s dictations to “Diane,” a soundtrack album (Thompson 156), collectible cards, and a “guidebook” to the town (Lavery 10).

Once Laura’s murder had been solved in the second season, ratings continued to drop as the show began pursuing even more outrageous and esoteric stories involving Cooper and the homespun residents of the town. ABC eventually pulled the series from their lineup in February of 1991 and canceled it in May, airing the last six episodes intermittently on Thursdays from March 28 to June 10. The two-hour series finale earned a meager 6.7 rating, coming down from the series’ 21.7 during the winter of 1990. Oh, what might have been.

*Each rating point equals 921,000 homes with televisions.
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Carter, Bill. “At ABC, Several Motives For Keeping ‘Twin Peaks.’” The New York Times 21 May 1990: D1, D14.

—. “‘Twin Peaks’ May Provide a Ratings Edge for ABC.” The New York Times 16 Apr. 1990: D8.

Lavery, David. “Introduction: Twin Peaks’ Interpretive Community.” Ed. Lavery. Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1995. 1-21.

Thompson, Robert J. Television’s Second Golden Age: From Hill Street Blues to ER. New York: Continuum, 1999.

“‘Twin Peaks’ Finale Draws Low Ratings.” The New York Times 12 June 1991: C18.