by Arpad Okay, Kate Kowalski, and Jarrod Jones. *Reading Watchmen upside-down* Oh, hello! I didn’t see you there. *Sets book down* Did you know that DoomRocket, your second- or possibly third-favorite review site, launched 10 years ago this month? 10 years! That’s a long time to do anything, let alone write opinions meant for strangers. We’ve sure reviewed a lot of things in that time — some we liked, some we didn’t, and some we loved. This feature is about the stuff we’ve loved, whether we’ve written about them previously, or not.
DOOMROCKET TOP 10 is how we’re going to celebrate 10 years of this site. Put simply, it’s our way of sharing with you all the things that gave us a charge of excitement and comfort — or, at the very least, kept us going for the last decade. To kick off this minor event, we here at DoomRocket have put on our nostalgic, rose-tinted shades to reminisce over the last 10 years’ worth of the movies that rocked us, in ways both big and small.
OUR FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE LAST 10 YEARS
Mandy. (Panos Cosmatos, Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache, Bill Duke, et. al; RLJE Films) It’s easy for me to love Mandy: it’s baffling, violent, has unnecessary (but no less glorious) Heavy Metal animated sequences, and its soundtrack fuckin’ rips. But these things are just the icing on this magenta-hued, gorehound psycho-thriller confection. It’s the way Cosmatos establishes little details of a life lived between two quiet people who like oddball TV and dreamy paperbacks, set in the most perfect home I’ve ever seen, that’s the structure upon which cinematic love is built. Which, naturally, makes the pain yet to come hurt that much more. — JJ
The Tale of Princess Kaguya. (Isao Takahata, Riko Sakaguchi, Aki Asakura, Kengo Kora, et. al; Toho) Only Isao Takahata could take a folk tale about a baby spirit who was found in a bamboo shoot and then promised to a prince, and use it to tap into the crushing modern urban relationship between time and money. Takahata’s dream is a wake-up call: it’s now or never. It’s a period piece done in a breathtaking, shifting array of styles. The finished work has the uninhibited vivacity of a sketch or a storyboard thumbnail. But Princess Kaguya is nothing if not elegant. Watercolor paintings come to life embody the fleeting joy of creating art, and of being alive. — AOK
Sorry to Bother You. (Boots Riley, LaKeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler et. al; Annapurna Pictures) Absolutely bonkers in the best way. This surrealist film hones in on the absurdity our society has devolved into as we go through the day-to-day worship of corporate personalities, inadvertently supporting war crimes when buying groceries, and living in constant surveillance — not from a Big Brother but from each other (trying to capture the next big meme). The production and set designs pop off, and the color palette really hits the spot. We can sit back and laugh about the state of our world through this gorgeous piece of arthouse cinema, and maybe some will take it to heart as a wake-up call. More wackiness and more unabashed activism in our films, please. — KK
Good Time. (Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie, Robert Pattinson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, et. al; A24) Uncut Gems might be the Safdies’ most-gabbed-about movie, but give me Good Time any day. Two brothers out only for each other, set adrift by shit life choices that amount to an astonishing, acid-washed quagmire, this one hits me in places I can’t describe. An NYC fuck-up caper set to an absorbing Oneohtrix Point Never score that pulses to the clenching jaw of Robert Pattinson — who is incredible in this, by the way — Good Time is knock-your-teeth-out cinema that runs to the beat of a sad, golden heart. — JJ
The Wailing. (Na Hong-jin, Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee, et. al; 20th Century Fox) A stranger comes to town, and people start falling ill. Not sick, madness. Killing their families, burning their lives to cinders. The officer trying to put the pieces together needs a shaman, but when word gets around… It’s a restrained movie that banks on atmosphere and a depth of performance that, in the case of the Japanese photographer, actually gave me nightmares. Real Steppenwolf production intensity. The Wailing is a Korean Exorcist, with Na Hong-jin taking a page from Friedkin’s mesmerizing emphasis on realism as well as craftsmanship. Remarkably shot and lit, with a velvet pudding taste for rich color saturation. — AOK
Arrival. (Denis Villeneuve, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, et. al; Paramount Pictures) No other film has made me contemplate so deeply the power of language and how it shapes our perception of reality. Arrival was made for linguistics nerds, science fiction junkies, and Amy Adams fans (for which she should have at least been honored with a Best Actress nomination). But beyond the exciting speculations about how extraterrestrials could arrive and, more importantly, how they could communicate, the film is a meditation on time and how fragile it renders the human experience. Every time I rewatch it, the opening shot — a window looking out onto a lake, a seemingly simple moment in time — makes me weep. — KK
Mad Max: Fury Road. (Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult, et. al; Warner Bros. Pictures) Thank the maker that George Miller felt he had at least one more Mad Max picture in him because it came at a time when action cinema needed a proper kick in the tush. You could feel filmmakers the world over collectively get their shit together as they observed, wild-eyed, the glory of Miller’s in-camera ballistic insanity, which flings steel and human flesh around like a thresher designed to make mincemeat of our brains. People use the term “old-school” like it represents anything meant to be appreciated just before it’s forgotten. When we entered the theater to witness the balletic stuntwork and operatic wonders of Mad Max: Fury Road, the wise knew class was in session. — JJ
Neptune Frost. (Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman, Elvis Ngabo, Cheryl Isheja, Kaya Free, et. all; Kino Lorber) A love story and an anti-government story. A defector and a hacker find a place hidden from the world of ownership and borders and then turn the power on. Neptune Frost is poetry turned into a musical. Already a transmutation of emotions and ideas into raw communication, giving it form on film is like Pixie Smith illustrating the tarot deck. Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman are broadcasting a warning regarding what happens if we repeat the past — an enticement to divest from a system of exploitation and cruelty. Psychedelic and essential. — AOK
MIdsommar. (Ari Aster, Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper et. al; A24) Ari Aster’s second feature film has become the definitive “good for her” film. An absolute fright in daylight and a visual delight, Midsommar captures the horror of loneliness and loss and depicts how one could be driven into the arms of an insane cult (and out of the arms of a shit boyfriend). The opening sequence alone is one of the most gut-churning scenes in film only to be outdone by horrific happenings in an idyllic field of wildflowers. Female rage and grief are portrayed powerfully, with several iconic scenes becoming shorthand for such feelings in personal and online discourse. The phenomenon of Midsommar has influenced the psyche of any woman who has encountered it. We will continue to study its cultural impact for years to come. — KK
Pig. (Michael Sarnoski, Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin, et. al; Neon) I am aware that there are two Nicolas Cage films on this list; accept that he starred in two of the best films made in the past 10 years.
I wasn’t ready for Pig. I’d just heard it was good. Good is subjective; I call this great. The final, silent moments of young Michael Sarnoski’s debut feature, made with the sort of understatedness packed with meaning that even the most learned of filmmakers would find difficult to pull off, my emotions feel like they’d just encountered a 13-course. I was full of feelings, some of them painful, some of them transcendent. And when I wiped those tears from my splotchy cheeks, I laughed, because I had just seen something truly memorable. The harsh terrain we walk in the pursuit of home, that’s Pig. — JJ
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