Iran has pussy-bombed a U.S. airbase near Doha, but where’s the big boom-boom-boom…where’s the light show? The target was Al Udeid Air Base, the largest US military installation in the Middle East. Forward headquarters for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) — houses approximately 10,000 US troops. Here’s hoping U.S. casualties, if any, are minimal.
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163 Greatest Films of the 21st Century
N.Y. Times staffers are in the process of posting their roster of the 100 finest films of the 21st Century.
For comparison’s sake, HE is hereby re-posting its own grand list of the 163 best films of the century. Yes, that’s right…one-six-three.
HE’s list is all broken up into sections. It over-emphasizes certain years and under-counts others…a mess. But at least it’s comprehensive.
And unlike the Times list, HE’s films have been chosen without the slightest regard for woke bonafides..…no attention yea or nay paid to sex, race, identity, LGBTQ or trans credentials. Measured solely by cinematic chops, emotional wholeness, unity, vigor, reach, poetic simplicity, etc.
42 Best of the First Decade (’00 to ’09): Zodiac, Memento, Traffic, Amores perros, United 93, Children of Men, Adaptation, City of God, The Pianist, The Lives of Others, Sexy Beast, Avatar, There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton, Almost Famous (the “Untitled” DVD director’s cut), 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Collateral, Dancer in the Dark, A Serious Man, Girlfight, The Departed, Babel, Ghost World, In the Bedroom, Talk to Her, Bloody Sunday, No Country For Old Men, The Quiet American, Whale Rider, Road to Perdition, Open Range, Touching the Void, Maria Full of Grace, Up In The Air, The Hurt Locker, Million Dollar Baby, The Motorcycle Diaries, An Education, Man on Wire, Revolutionary Road, Che and Volver. (42)
Best of 2010: The Social Network, The Fighter, Black Swan, Inside Job, Let Me In, A Prophet, Animal Kingdom, Rabbit Hole, The Tillman Story, Winter’s Bone (10).
Best of 2011 (ditto): A Separation, Moneyball, Drive, Contagion, X-Men: First Class, Attack the Block (6).
Best of 2012: Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Barbara, The Grey, Moonrise Kingdom. (7).
Best of 2013: The Wolf of Wall Street, 12 Years A Slave, Inside Llewyn Davis, Her, Dallas Buyers Club, Before Midnight, The Past, Frances Ha (8).
Best of 2014: Birdman, Citizen Four, Leviathan, Gone Girl, Boyhood, Locke, Wild Tales. (7)
Best of 2015: Spotlight, The Revenant; Mad Max: Fury Road; Beasts of No Nation; Love & Mercy, Son of Saul; Brooklyn; Carol, Everest, Ant-Man; The Big Short. (10)
Best of 2016 (So Far): Manchester By The Sea, A Bigger Splash, The Witch, Eye in the Sky, The Confirmation, The Invitation. (6)
Best of 2017: (1) Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me My Your Name, (2) Chris Nolan‘s Dunkirk, (3) Greta Gerwig‘s Lady Bird, (4) Ruben Ostlund‘s The Square, (5) Matt Reeves‘ War For The Planet of the Apes, (6) Darren Aronofsky‘s mother!, (7) Michael Showalter’s The Big Sick, (8) Martin McDonagh‘s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, (9) Edgar Wright‘s Baby Driver, (10) Sean Baker‘s The Florida Project, (11) John Curran‘s Chappaquiddick, (12) Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s Loveless, (13) Guillermo del Toro‘s The Shape of Water, (14) David Lowery‘s A Ghost Story, (15) David Gordon Green‘s Stronger, (16) David Michod and Brad Pitt‘s War Machine, (18) Joseph Kosinski‘s Only The Brave, (19) Jordan Peele‘s Get Out and (20) Denis Villneuve‘s Blade Runner 2049.
Best of 2018: Tied for first place: Bjorn Runge‘s The Wife (Sony Pictures Classics, 8.17) and Paul Schrader‘s First Reformed; 3. Ari Aster‘s Hereditary; 4. Stefano Sollima‘s Sicario — Day of the Soldado; 5. Chris McQuarrie and Tom Cruise‘s Mission : Impossible — Fallout; 6. John Krasinski‘s A Quiet Place; 7. Eugene Jarecki‘s The King; 8. Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma; 9. Peter Farrelly‘s Green Book; 10. Lynne Ramsay‘s You Were Never Really Here, 11. Tony Zierra‘s Filmworker, 12. Andrej Zvyagintsev‘s Loveless, 13. Jeremiah Zagar‘s We The Animals, 14. Tony Gilroy‘s Beirut, 16. Wes Anderson‘s Isle of Dogs; 16. Bo Burnham‘s Eighth Grade; 17. Morgan Neville‘s Won’t You Be My Neighbor; 18. Ryan Coogler‘s Black Panther; 19. Matt Tyrnauer‘s Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood; 20. Betsy West; Julie Cohen‘s RBG; 21. Spike Lee‘s BlackKKlansman; 22. Antoine Fuqua‘s The Equalizer 2; and 23. John Curran‘s Chappaquiddick.
Best of 2019 (16)
1. Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman,
2. Todd Phillips‘ Joker,
3. Kent Jones‘ Diane / “All Hail Diane — 2019’s Best Film So Far“, filed on 3.27.19.
4. Lulu Wang‘s The Farewell / “The Farewell Is Among Year’s Best,” filed on 7.3.19.
5. Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse / “This Way Lies Madness,” filed on 5.19.19.
6. Craig Zahler‘s Dragged Across Concrete / “All Hail Dragged Across Concrete,” filed on 3.21.19.
7. FX’s Fosse/Verdon / Fosse/Verdon (Theatrical, Exquisite, Pizazzy, Deep Blue,” filed on 4.25.19.
8. A.J. Eaton and Cameron Crowe‘s David Crosby: Remember My Name / “Crosby Doc Hurts Real Good,” filed on 1.27.19.
9. Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood / “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood Is…‘, filed on 5.21.19.
10. Russo Brothers‘ Avengers: Endgame / “Okay With Nominating Endgame For Best Picture Oscar,” filed on 5.4.19.
11. Ari Aster‘s Midsommar / “Midsommar Inevitability,” filed on 6.25.19.
12. Martin Scorsese‘s Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story / “Rolling Along With Scorsese/Dylan” filed on 6.10.19.
13. Olivia Wilde‘s Booksmart / “This Time SXSW Hype Was Genuine“, filed on 4.25.19.
14. Celine Sciamma‘s Portrait of a Lady on Fire / “By my sights as close to perfect as a gently erotic, deeply passionate period drama could be,” excepted from “Midnight Panini,” filed on 5.21.19.
15. Dan Reed‘s Leaving Neverland / “After Tomorrow, Jackson’s Name Will Be Mud“, filed on 3.2.19.
16. Mads Brugger‘s Cold Case Hammarskjöld / “Riveting, Occasionally Oddball Cold Case”, posted on 1.29.19.
HE’s top films of the 2020-2025 period thus far: (1) Roman Polanski‘s J’Accuse (which premiered in Europe in late ’19 but wasn’t pirated for U.S. consumption until early ’20), (2) Sean Baker‘s Anora, (3) Joachim Trier‘s Sentimental Value, (4) Steven Zallian‘s Ripley, (5) Edward Berger‘s Conclave, (6) Steve McQueen‘s Mangrove, (7) David Fincher‘s The Killer, (8) Pedro Almodovar‘s Parallel Mothers, (9) Reinaldo Marcus Green‘s King Richard, (10) Tran Anh Hung‘s The Taste of Things (The Pot au Feu).
Second Grouping of Ten: (11) Guy Ritchie‘s The Covenant, (12) Joseph Kosinski‘s Top Gun: Maverick, (13) Hasan Hadi‘s The President’s Cake, (14) Janicza Bravo’s Zola, (15) Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, (16) Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, (17) Eva Victor’s Sorry Baby, (18) Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, (19) Bradley Cooper‘s Maestro, (20) Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers.
Third Grouping of Ten: (21) Audrey Diwan‘s Happening, (22) Jasmila Žbanić‘s Quo Vadis, Aida?, (23) Errol Morris‘s The Pigeon Tunnel, (24) Ali Abbasi‘s The Apprentice, (25) Alice Rohrwacher‘s La Chimera, (26) Anders Thomas Jensen‘s Riders of Justice, (27) Jon Watts‘ Spider-Man: No Way Home, (28) Peter Jackson‘s The Beatles: Get Back, (29) Cristian Mungiu‘s R.M.N., (30) Todd Field‘s TAR.
Last Licks: (31) Alejandro G. Iñárritu‘s Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths; (32) Aaron Sorkin‘s The Trial of the Chicago 7, (33) Judd Apatow‘s The King of Staten Island, (34) Michael Winterbottom‘s The Trip to Greece, (35) Diao Yinan‘s The Wild Goose Lake, (36) Chloe Zhao‘s Nomadland, (37) Jon M. Chu‘s In The Heights, (38) Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story.
Masterful vs. Mediocre
I’m going to say this plain and straight and no bullshit. I hate (i.e., am totally bored by) Ennio Morricone‘s score for John Carpenter‘s The Thing (’82), and all my life I’ve completely worshipped and adored Dimitri Tiomkin‘s score for Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby‘s The Thing From Another World (’51).
Crestfallen
This video of Brad Pitt and g.f. Ines de Ramon was shot yesterday in Manhattan. It immediately sent me into a tailspin of depression.
One, the poor guy looks awful — at least 15 or 20 pounds heavier that I’ve ever seen him before, and his hair all but completely shaved off. I’m presuming this is because Pitt has been playing a former Navy SEAL in David Ayer‘s Heart of the Beast, but nobody wants to see a handsome movie star looking all bloated and grunted up.
Even worse is Pitt’s ghastly baby-blue velour suit — oversized, extra-baggy pants. Plus he’s wearing a beige-yellow striped shirt that looks like he snagged it at a Goodwill store…what the hell are you doing, man?
I was going to call this post “Fat Pitt”, but that would’ve made me feel worse.
Obviously Unfunny, Hand-Me-Down Humor
If there’s one genuinely funny gag in this whole film, I’ll eat my gray, Chinese-made cowboy hat. Because it’s understood that this reboot will lean heavily on the same kind of gags that defined the old Leslie Neilsen versions. We know the newbie won’t even flirt with being truly subversive.
Witness testimony from a guy who’s seen it: “The O.J. Simpson gag is ostensibly the biggest laugh in the film, but I will give credit to a protracted sequence centering around Liam Neeson and Pam Anderson innocently making dinner in a kitchen while being observed through infrared surveillance equipment that makes it look like they’re having wild, savage sex. When they bend over an oven, the device translates it into something really funny visually. That bit felt fresh while the majority of the jokes are Antediluvian Marx Bros. one liners like ‘Would you like a chair?’ and ‘No, I have one at home’, and set within uninspired, rote situations.
“And there’s really no social commentary on law enforcement, save for one passing gag in a bar that hints of race relations. This entire film smacks of Seth MacFarlane’s patented derivativeness. He was obviously brought aboard to imitate instead of create. The studio wanted a redo of the first film and got that.
“Neeson< seems too old to start lampooning his serious action career, so there’s a sadness in watching him in this, but Anderson does really well. Her character isn’t a dimbulb like Priscilla Presley since she possesses a personal vendetta against the villain, a tech giant, and wants payback. THAT felt like an update.
“What I groaned at most were some puerile toilet jokes, something the original films never reveled in, as well as misplaced attempts at ‘warmth’ as Neeson pines for his lost ‘old man’ meant to dovetail affection for the late Leslie Nielsen. At least Neeson doesn’t mug as much as Nielsen increasingly did. Oh, there’s a touch of topicality from a driverless car and AI references. The bag guy invokes Elon Musk, and not just his technology but personal life.
“At one point, they were going to call this NAKED GUN: DREBIN’S INFERNO, which hints of where the finale goes. This is a cheapjack ‘in name only’ sequel. There’s some breaking of the fourth wall in the third act that aficionados will recognize as lifted from a few Monty Python episodes. This film looks so cheaply made that they’ll probably eke out enough money the first weekend, especially if there are review embargos, but this feels very much like the sort of sequel that normally Netflix would debut since a living room couch is more forgiving than a theater seat. Consider this a warning shot for the 2nd SPACEBALLS as well.”
Sly Stone’s Glorious Seven-Year Peak
All hail the late Sly Stone (aka Sylvester Stewart), whose racially integrated, mixed-gender, brass-drums-and-guitar band was one of the greatest things to happen in pop music ever, certainly between the mid ’60s to early ’70s (the band enjoyed a seven- or eight-year peak) but throughout the span of the 20th Century.
I’m feeling it all over right now…”Dance to the Music” (’68), “Everyday People” (’68), “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” (’69), “Wanna Take You Higher” (’69) “Family Affair” (’71), “Stand”, “If You Want Me to Stay” (‘3), “There’s a Riot Goin’ On (’71).
Alas, sometime in the mid ’70s it all started to drift away. “Sly never grew out of drugs,” his ex-wife Kathy Silva was quoted as saying. “He lost his backbone and destroyed his future.” It was reported five years ago that Stone was living out of a van.
Riot Goin’ On
I’ve been mulling over the ongoing anti-ICE, immigrant-rights street protests in Los Angeles (now in their fourth day) and last night’s San Francisco solidarity demonstration, and I’m starting to suspect that anti-ICE sentiments are just the nominal motivators.
The underlying emotional fuel, I believe, is coming from pools of serious rage that many (not just progressive lefties but sensible liberals and perhaps even a smattering of centrists) are feeling about Trump’s bully-boy authoritarian regime. Trump’s troops are about manufactured televized theatre…basically about conveying brutality…a message being sent not just to malcontent scruffs but everyone.
Do I personally believe it’s a bad thing to round up alleged illegals and send them down to Guantanamo or otherwise deport their asses? Not entirely. Do I suspect that a sizable percentage of the targets are bad guys? I wouldn’t know but some of them probably qualify. (It would surely be naive to assume they’re all pure as the driven snow.) Is Trump exploiting this unrest for his own ends? Obviously. Was it really necessary to send in the National Guard? Of course not. These disturbances should be handled by California authorities, not the feds.
Do I admire Governor Gavin Newsom for standing up to Trump and ICE chief Tom Homan, and daring them to arrest him? Yeah, kinda. Given that Trump is Benito Mussolini in the 1930s, it’s better overall for people to shout and shriek and stomp around than to sit indoors and cower and play video games. At the end of the day activism (even the car-burning kind) is better than passivity.
Newsom: “Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out. Come and get me, tough guy. I don’t give a damn.”
Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out.
Come and get me, tough guy.
I don't give a damn.
It won’t stop me from standing up for California.pic.twitter.com/DvVQljAgir
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 9, 2025
Come Again?
I’m sorry but for the last few months I’ve been under a distinct impression that everyone hates the obnoxiously aggressive Blake Lively for trying to destroy the life and career of poor Justin Baldoni.
So what’s going on here? “Accusations of sexual harassment” are “legally protected”? But trying to destroy a man’s career with questionable claims and agitated #MeToo hyperbole is cool?
Will someone please explain this dismissal to me in “regular guy standing on a sidewalk and eating a hot dog” terminology? Like I’m a six year old? King Henry II to Thomas Becket: “I’m an idiot then! Talk to me like I’m an idiot!”
Peru-ism Is Nothing If Not Tenacious
In fact….
Woke terror — the U.S. version of China’s Great Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and early ‘70s — became a thing in ‘18, and it absolutely ruled the culture until it started to ebb in the middle of last year.
The first indication that the culture had said “enough!”…the blessed event that told me the tectonic plates had shifted…was when Lily Gladstone didn’t win the Best Actress Oscar during the 96th Academy Awards.
Woke terror hasn’t been fully eradicated as we speak but at least it’s been losing its grip, thank God. Six and a half years of twisted insanity! And you know why it’s taken as long as this for the string to run out? One reason is people like Bobby Peru saying “there IS no woke terror….its all in your head.”
Posted by N.Y. Times contributor Jeremy Peters on 11.2.24:
Which Films Blazed a No-Opening-Credits Path?
The first feature film to forsake opening credits was Walt Disney‘s Fantasia (’40), but this version has been jettisoned. Yes, the original 1940 theatrical cut was credit-less, but brief credits were added for an early ’90s home video version.
There were no opening credits for Mike Todd‘s Around the World in 80 Days (’56), although I have a memory of a 1.37:1 introduction about the eternal thirst for adventure and modes of 19th Century travel, narrated (I think) by Edward R. Murrow. But that was a pumped-up, high-tech travelogue movie + a reserved-seats roadshow thing…the first film to be presented in 30-frame-per-second Todd-AO, etc.
In fact the first general audience popcorn movie to forsake an opening credit sequence was Kirk Douglas and Richard Fleischer‘s The Vikings (’58). All the credits (above- and below-the-line) were confined to an animated sequence at the very end.
The next big-deal film to blow off opening credits was Robert Wise‘s West Side Story (’61).
And yet these the last two announced their titles at the very beginning. The first film to completely ignore a title acknowledgment was Francis Coppola‘s Apocalypse Now (’79). The 70mm roadshow version didn’t even present a closing-credits sequence, although the 35mm general release version did.
I’m Sorry But This “Bugsy” Scene Makes Me Feel Refreshed, Cleaned out
On a certain level I am Warren Beatty with the green shirt, and Richard Sarafian‘s Jack Dragma represents all the HE pisshounds packed into one dumpy bod. God, this is delicious.
Obviously A Problem
Andrey Diwan‘s Happening (IFC Films, 2022) remains one of the most sobering, harrowing and artful abortion dramas I’ve ever seen– only Cristian Mungiu‘s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which premiered in Cannes 18 years ago, can be fairly ranked as a higher achievement.
My question is how and why could a seemingly mediocre, clumsily written softcore flick like Emmanuelle…how could Diwan have directed it? It doesn’t calculate. Happening was too good, too bracing.
Emannuelle has been kicking around since ’23. Where did I derive the idea that it would be a sapphic variation on Just Jaeckin’s 1974 original? I guess because star Naomie Merlant played lesbian characters to persuasively in Portrait of a Lady on Fire (’19) and in TAR (’22).
In any event Emmanuelle appears to be a hetero thang. Oh, and no theatrical — straight to streaming.
