The Bicycle Thief

The story of The Bicycle Thief is a simple one: a man needs a job to feed his family. He gets one hanging posters because he owns a bicycle. The first day on the job his bike is stolen, flushing away any dreams of returning for a second day of pay. The man spends an entire day trying to track down the stolen bicycle with his young son, Bruno, at his side. The father and son share a journey that ends in one of the most beautifully startling climaxes in cinema history.

A simple plot for a movie that is so complex. Many talk of the film’s place as an important asset in the Italian Neorealist movement, but above all that, Vittorio De Sica’s film is simply a great character piece. The interaction between father and son, husband and wife, and man and society are all explored. The hero is broken down and driven to investigate the very depths of human indecency; and it is a dramatic, funny, thrilling, and altogether human experience along the way. A great picture.

The Bicycle Thief on IMDB.

The Best of the Aughts..the 00's...the zeros...

10. The Dark Knight

The blockbuster of the decade. Christopher Nolan perfectly blended intelligence and entertainment. Powerhouse performance from Heath Ledger.


9. O Brother, Where Art Thou?

The most quoted film of the decade. Beautifully shot by Roger Deakins (a film where every shot involved a visual effect), and full of the Coen’s usual quirky characters. George Clooney found a wonderful home at the helm of the Coen Brothers' tales.

8. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

What a grand-sweeping trilogy. No other epic is quite as complete as Peter Jackson’s trifecta-feature.



7. The Royal Tenenbaums

Wes Anderson created some of the best character-driven pieces of the decade, and none better than this tale of a man trying to reconcile with his family.


6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Another imaginative screenplay from Charlie Kaufman; inventively brought to life by the direction of Michel Gondry.








5. There Will Be Blood

Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance was the second best of the decade; right behind Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York. Beautifully shot and featuring the best score of the decade. Paul Thomas Anderson paced this gem perfectly, and made it entirely worthwhile to stick around for the monumental ending.

4. City of God


The best foreign film of the decade. Fast-paced and relentlessly intriguing.




3. Children of Men


The most brilliantly choreographed film ever made. Realism at its absolute best.



2. No Country for Old Men

The Coens achieved perfection in this ideal blend of suspense and humor. Fantastic performances from Oscar winner Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and all the secondary parts and extras, as well as my favorite performance of the movie: Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom. This wonderfully thematic film had a tenuous hold on its audience from Deakin’s opening shots that were blended with Jones’ biting narration. The result was one of the greatest films of all time about America, violence, and man’s relationship with the two.



1. Memento


Quite simply the most original, taunt, and splendid screenplay of the decade.Christopher Nolan didn’t use his jumbled narrative style as a worn device, but instead as a way to drop his audience into the mind of his main character. The most original film idea of the decade, establishing Nolan as a directing force in Hollywood and the most prolific director of the decade.


Honorable Mentions:

Sideways, The Departed, Mystic River, Talk to Her, Minority Report, Little Miss Sunshine, Snatch, Where the Wild Things Are, Michael Clayton, The Incredibles, Chicago, Munich, Gladiator, Traffic, The Darjeeling Limited.

Facts about the List:

Only two of the films won Oscars for best picture. In fact, only three were nominated.

Two Chris Nolan films appear on the list, as well as two Coen Brothers’ films.

Roger Deakins (the best cinematographer around) shot two films on the list.

Youth In Revolt

Youth in Revolt tells the story of Nick Twisp, played brilliantly by Michael Cera, and his quest to remain with the girl of his dreams, Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday). After a short summer fling with Sheeni, Nick must return to his hometown, once again a girlfriendless virgin. In order to get back to the girl that rules all his obsessions, Nick plans to commit unruly deeds and get kicked out of his mother’s house so that he can move in with his father whom landed a job near Sheeni. He plans to do so by employing the help of a supplementary personality named Francios Dilinger, played once again brilliantly by Cera. With his mischief, Nick sets off a series of seriously funny events that seem to complicate his situation at every turn.

Sounds like your typical teen flick, right? Well this certainly is not your typical teen flick. It is a finely crafted, original film. The scenes with Twisp’s alternate ego are wonderfully staged, not making any excuses or explanations. It’s just plainly presented and the audience has no choice but to accept it. The cinematography is subtly brilliant. All-in-all the film is frequently funny, and the story moves with twists and turns and ends with a great character arc.

Youth In Revolt in theaters tomorrow.

Best Movies of 2009

After what I refer to as a “down year” in 2008 (and a fantastic prelude to that in ’07), 2009 sported some of the finest cinema of the dwindling decade. Without further ado, here is my list of the top five films of 2009:

5. The Informant!

Steven Soderbergh continues to search for different and inventive ways to present cinema to the masses, shooting this film entirely in digital. Cinematography matters, but in this film it takes a big backseat to humor, storytelling, and the powerhouse performances lead by the fantastic Matt Damon. Damon was utterly human and hilarious as Mark Whitacre, an agir-business VP turned government informant. Nothing in the film world was funnier this year than Whitacre’s fast-paced, sporadic inner-monologues that Damon zipped through in rat-a-tat-tat fashion. Damn funny. Damn smart. Damn Good.

4. A Serious Man


You do not have to be Jewish to enjoy this film, which is yet another cinematic treasure from the Coen Brothers. The story of Larry Gopnik’s search for answers was such a poignant black comedy, a genre the Coen’s are true virtuosos. Gopnik searches for answers to questions we’ve all asked: “Why do bad things happen to good people? What does it all mean?” Amongst Jefferson Airplane, stagnant rabbis, and the amazing storytelling of the Coens, Gopnik searches, and finds little. The point is, well, what’s the point? Because in the end, I think it was Rabbi Marshak or maybe it was Grace Slick that said: “When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies…then what?” Well, at least we’ll always have the Coen brothers.

3. The Road


(See Previous Review)

2. Inglourious Basterds


I did not have more fun at the movies all year than while viewing Quentin Taratino’s glourious return to great cinema. Basterds was pure entertainment: funny, exciting, and spine-shatteringly intense. This film simply had some of the most memorable scenes of the year (the opening to the film, introduction of the “Bear Jew”, another Mexican standoff from Tarantino but this time in a basement, and let’s not forget the image of Shosanna Dreyfus being projected onto smoke from beyond the dead over some ill-fated Nazis). Those are simply a few of the images that make this film memorable, and QT’s best movie since Pulp Fiction. The humor and Leone-esque suspense more than make up for Tarantino’s usual long windedness. Since Pulp, most of his dialogue has seemed trite and forced, but in Basterds, the dialogue is interesting and moves the story along at a suspense-filled pace.

1. Where the Wild Things Are


Anyone who grew up skimming Maurice Sendak’s book about the imagination in all of us can agree with me here. No other film captured the childhood spirit that we all long for after the age of about thirteen than Spike Jonze’s masterpiece. And who other than Jonze could have directed such a radiant picture? Mixing his realist style with one of the most imaginative and beloved stories ever, Jonze created the dark and emotional world of the wild things. This kid’s movie for adults taught us so much about life, including what’s inside all of us: that wild thing from childhood, just itching to get out and roar its terrible roar.

Honorable Mentions:

Up in the Air- A great film about needing people.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox- As one of the finest directors around, and certainly the most underrated, Wes Anderson crafted this masterpiece in stop-motion animation, infusing his signature quirk and fantastic humor into a timeless Roal Dahl story.

Contenders yet to see: Nine, A Single Man, Precious, The Hurt Locker.