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The Decade's Best and Century's Most Ambiguous

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The Decade's Best and Century's Most Ambiguous

POSTED: Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 1:51 PM

Carrie Rickey, Film Critic

Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl: Helen Mirren as QE2 in "The Queen"

Some links worth reading and debating over the holidays:

1) It's debatable whether the current decade began January 1, 2000 or January 1, 2001. Likewise ripe for debate is the Times of London's 100 Best Movies of the Decade. Unsurprisingly the list skews British and includes Stephen Frears' The Queen (Helen Mirren, as QE2, pictured), a poignant portrait of the crowned head of England.

While lists of "vital titles" (as we call 'em around the house) are useful to movie geeks who want guidance with what to watch, more interesting to me than ranking the movies of the decade is teasing out their meaning. Movies of the first decade of the new millennium are distinguished in their interest in how technology informs and deforms human relations (Cache, Grizzly Man, The Lives of Others, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Not unrelated to this is how advances in technology have made possible certain effects-laden films (think The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Gladiator). Your thoughts? Nominations for vital titles?

2) Over at Scanners, the erudite Jim Emerson gently mocks moviegoers who complain about the ambiguous endings of films such as Lost in Translation (what did Bill Murray whisper to Scarlett Johansson?) and No Country for Old Men (how do you interpret Tommy Lee Jones' dream) by compiling a list of "11 worst ambiguous endings," tongue firmly in cheek. Your nominations, sarcastic or otherwise?

3) While basting the bird, you might want to talk turkey, and consider this list of Thanksgiving-themed films from a 2007 Flickgrrl blog post. Which titles am I missing?

Happy holidays.

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Comments (3)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 8:45 PM, 11/24/2009

I know it's tv (no, it's hbo, isn't that how the commercials go?) but the sopranos had a controversial and ambiguous ending. also, recently (if a year ago is recent) both the wrestler and doubt had ambiguous endings. i'm actually opposed to most ambiguous endings. writers are getting paid too much to give the cop out "it's up to the viewer to decide." then give me part of your paycheck, knowwhati'msayin'? take a stance one way or the other, i say.

— eaglesfillthesky

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 5:48 PM, 11/28/2009

Sorry Carrie, with all due respect to your usually insightful analysis, there is no debate about when the current century started - January 1, 2001. Just because a majority of people believe in a falsehood, does not make it true- flat earth ring a bell to anyone? There was no year ZERO, therefore, the end of the last century was December 31, 2000 and the current one started on January 1, 2001. Case closed.

— NYC sucks

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 1:38 PM, 12/13/2009

I'd like to see any Top 100 list include a couple films I didn't see in the interesting British list: the biopic "Ray" and the Pixar animated "Ratatouille"

— HowardBHaas