Best films of the decade.

As you might not already know, I have a torrid love affair with the cinema, additionally having a proclivity to foreign films which exposes me to the spicier film life of Europe and abroad. Before the Great Blogger Crash of 2011, I had developed a region-specific listing for best films so you could pick and choose in the same manner as a restaurant, but that's all washed away now so I leave you with a general listing. The list has become quite bloated, and come in quite late since I heard that the decade was over years ago. However, I'm counting all films 2000-2010.

The decision of how good a film is, is made is by the number of different emotions I felt during it's viewing, multiplied by an index of how much sex, drugs and violence it carried. Those are simply all the qualities I use to assess films. If it carries any artistic merit then surely it will translate into an emotion.

I'm a pretty pretentious person and often use foreign phrases to enhance my pointless speaking. "How's the dinner?" -> "Tres bien!" and I'll say that with a  straight face and all the guttural tics that Frenchies garnish their rhotics with. In the spirit of pretense, I have left all the names in the original languages when it suits me. The "blurbs" I have added are unfortunately useless to gauge a film. I can only hope the included picture captures the aura of the movie.

You've probably seen half of these films already, so... watch them again. Or preferably, you could buy them and leave the cases of serious foreign films scattered around the house in a effortless display of intellectualism. [Some films are marked M, because they are only for viewers of extreme mental fortitude and hardy emotional stability. Also by each film is a count [e.g. x1, x2, x3] denoting how many times I've seen said film.]

I Heart Huckabees

Have you seen I Heart Huckabees? It's one of my favorite movies-- and I only like approximately 5 movies total, so that's saying a lot.

The plot is as follows: The main character wants to get to the bottom of some crazy coincidence, and hires two existential detectives (who he found via weird coincidence) to help him. In the process, he learns about the nature of existence, finds solace in contradicting existential theories, and continues to question the universe.

I know of no single mainstream or widely-viewed movie where there is a female protagonist questioning existence, in a way that doesn't relate to boys, fashion, or a cliched superhero stereotype.

There are no leading female characters that one is meant to take seriously out there. Women are still being treated as an accessory, even on television and in movies. It's not a myth. And when feminists argued, we got over-compensating nonsense that's almost worse.

I found myself quite literally stricken with sadness upon coming to this realization. Being un-, or under-represented in mainstream media does, eventually, turn personal. And it's really depressing.