Team Top Ten: Best Directors of the 21st Century

Steve McQueen didn't make the list but Fassy still loves him (as do many of our contributors)Amir here, to bring you the first edition of Team Top Ten, a communal list by all of Film Experience’s contributors that will sit in for our regular Tuesday Top Ten list once a month. For our first episode, we’ve decided to rank the best new directors of the 21st century. These are all directors who have made their first film after 2000. (Short films, TV and theatre work didn’t render anyone ineligible. Only feature length fiction and documentary films were considered.)  

I had a blast compiling the 18 lists of our contributors to arrive at the final ten because their submissions were incredibly eclectic and surprising. I’d made a bet with myself that Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame) would top the list, and lo and behold, he failed to make the cut altogether, though by a very fine margin. Korean director Bong Joon Ho was also left off, despite showing up on more than a handful of lists. Jason Reitman, Joshua Marston, Rian Johnson and David Gordon Green all came very close too but this was a tightly contested race, evidenced by the three-way tie for our tenth spot. Overall, 71 directors got at least one vote. We travelled all the way from Japan to Portugal, from Greece to Mexico, via documentaries, comedies and superhero films. We loved stories about Muslim families, gay romances, World War II and the beautifully painted worlds of Sylvain Chomet. What we didn't like very much turned out to be actors-turned-directors, as current Oscar champ Ben Affleck got only a single vote, and George Clooney and Tommy Lee Jones failed to manage even that.

In the end, these are the twelve men and women Team Experience considers the best (thus far) of the 21st century crop:

=10. Michel Gondry
Human Nature, Eternal Sunshine, The Sciene of Sleep, Block Party, Be Kind Rewind, etcetera

Gondry's films are shaggy fantasies powered by a boundless imagination. They're more than a little goofy, speaking quirky as if it were a language, and they have an endearing handmade quality, with their maker's fingerprints visible around the rough edges. Bent as they are toward romance and optimism, Gondry's miniature worlds provide a little solace from reality.
- Andreas Stoehr

11 more directors after the jump

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"Holy Motors" Tops The Inaugural Team Experience Awards

Amir here, welcoming you to the first ever Team Experience Awards.

Before going any further, let me assure you that the Film Bitch Awards that we all know and love so much aren’t going anywhere. Nathaniel will be posting them as usual and everything will be intact. But we thought it’d be a good idea to experiment with something new and add to the site’s annual roundup. With so many regional critics’ group adding their opinions to the conversation, there’s no reason our eclectic Team Experience should hold back.

The Holy Motors Experience?

What you see here is the result of compiling the imaginary Oscar ballots of all contributors at the website (except Nathaniel.) Twenty films won citations as winners or runners-up, though an astonishing 163 films were mentioned in one category or another during the voting.

The winner of our best picture prize was… *drum roll* … Leos’ Carax’s Holy Motors. It was a tight race all the way and the runners-up finally tied, both falling short of the French enigma by just a few points. The Master was the biggest favorite across the board, finishing in the top three in almost every category it was eligible for. Another favourite was Benh Zeitlin’s vibrant bayou-set drama, Beasts of the Southern Wild, though it doesn’t show up in any of the main categories here. Consensus titles naturally take over most of the awards, though you’d be surprised to know there was strong support for less expected films like The Kid with a Bike and Take This Waltz.

Full list of our winners and curiously popular vote-getters click to continue

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Team Experience: The Master

I'm out and about again (finally!) so my greedy eyeballs will be on The Master soon. I challenged Team Experience to describe the film in three words since so many critics can't even settle on what it's even about (I'm avoiding reviews but the non-consensus as to meaning is out there).

Four brave souls took me up on the challenge...

Matt Zurcher writes:

Fevered heart need.
The intensity of The Master is impossible to understate. The style itself is unhinged -- crazy, even. The characters are bloated visions of Freudian extremes. The Master is filmmaking of the highest order, yes. But it's also cinema that works on its own terms, so full of cocky flair and delightful self-indulgence that the audience has no choice but to follow it wherever it wants to go. Anderson's fable can seem alienating or disorganized on first viewing, but a second reveals the director's compassion. Joaquin Phoenix's face is a shattered one, but his tears are so heartbreakingly believable. The passion and need that these two men feel for each other begs to be known. And in all the intellectualization of this film that we're going to see, let us remember that it's really just about two people who need each other and who love each other. It's the best love story I've seen since Punch-Drunk Love.

You can read Matt's full review here.

Beau McCoy writes:

Opaque Rabid Jazz

"The Master" makes "Cosmopolis" look as accessible as a Spielberg film. Purposely distant and muddled; what are we watching and why? Ferocity abounds in its many forms and incarnations. Moves like a jazz solo; we don't know where we're going. Why should it matter? Premature.

Alexa says:

Disappointing Beautiful Molasses
There's a truly great film here waiting to be pulled out of the molasses...

You can read more of her thoughts, here.

Finally, Jose was even more succinct but I suspect it's something of a spoiler so I'm putting it after the jump...

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Summer Survey. Katey & JA (Pt. 2)

To recap... now that summer movie season 2012 is a wrap, we're polling contributors, friends and YOU about your favorite and least favorite things of the summer. It's just a glass of something light and bubbly to raise, gulp down quickly and bring a little closure before the heavier stuff hits.

In Part 1, we heard from a few good men and here's two more voices for Part 2. Parts 3 and 4 are the podcast this weekend!

KATEY
who you know and love from Cinema Blend and the occasional podcast here...

Best Movie I Saw All Summer: 
I'm surprising myself by answering Magic Mike. It's got more confidence, more imagination and more willingness to let it all hang out than most anything else the studio system produced all year. 
Scenes I  ♥ So Much I Thought My Heart Would Burst: 
1) Natasha's interrogation scene at the beginning of The Avengers-- I've always been wishy-washy on Whedon but his feminist credentials are unbeatable. 2) Norman's confrontation with the witch at the end of ParaNorman, some of the most dazzling and daring animation for kids I've ever seen. 3) The completely insane vampire-chase-on-horseback scene in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, a not-very-good movie that I admired for its insane ideas all the same.

Major Summer Crush(es): Emma Stone (she really can liven up anything, even something as ungainly as The Amazing Spider-Man), Michael Fassbender (that Peter O'Toole impression just slays), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (I stand by him being the best thing in The Dark Knight Rises), and Chris Hemsworth (he seems to be the only person with a pulse in Snow White and the Huntsman) 

Princess Merida, Katniss or Hawkeye? 

Merida! Brave didn't get nearly enough love for all the things it did really well
At Least The Theater Was Air Conditioned: 
Hit & Run. Bad, self-indulgent filmmaking coupled with an awful audience that laughed at every dumb joke that made me cringe. 
If Only "Hulk" Had Smashed...: 
Battleship, to save Taylor Kitsch from himself. 

 

Mash-Up ~Two Summer Characters I'd Like to Introduce: 
Hushpuppy from Beasts of the Southern Wild and Snow White from Snow White and the Huntsman, to teach her a thing or two about making your way through nature and asserting your power in a world that wants to shove you down. 

Best Old Movie I Saw For the First Time This Summer - Go Me! : Metropolis! When I found out the restored version was on Netflix Instant it seemed a crime to ignore it, and it turns out it's mesmerizing even on the tiny laptop screen. 
Rank the  "Magic Mike" Strippers:  
I actually wrote an article with this exact ranking!

Line Reading That Stuck In My Head...

 Jiminy Cricket, he's flown the coop!"
- Edward Norton in Moonrise Kingdom

 

JA of MNPP
Best Movie I Saw All Summer:
Moonrise Kingdom, which I only fell even more in love with on a second viewing. Everything feels just right, from Frances McDormand's sweater over house-dress ensembles on up. Or maybe Todd Solondz' Dark Horse, which broke my heart into fifty thousand little pieces.
Scenes I  ♥ So Much I Thought My Heart Would Burst: 
The Lovecraftian C-section to end all Lovecraftian C-sections in Prometheus and all of the stripping sequences in Magic Mike (although it wasn't really the "heart" part of my anatomy that was fit to burst....)  
Things I Actually Learned (at summer movie camp!)
1) Joss Whedon should direct every superhero movie from now on (I figured as much beforehand but The Avengers circled and underlined my suspicions)
2) Woody Allen should probably only make a movie every two years.
3) Prostate exams and currency debates can totally add up to sexy.
 

Princess Merida, Katniss or Hawkeye? 
Only one of these people twirled a dress right into flames, and as much as Jeremy Renner wishes, it wasn't him. 

Choose only one archer! Katniss, Princess Merida or Hawkeye

At Least The Theater Was Air Conditioned: 
The Dark Knight Rises

If Only "Hulk" Had Smashed...
Christopher Nolan's camera
Best Old Movie I Saw For the First Time This Summer - Go Me! : 
I bet this is the first time that David Lean's "Kate Hepburn takes Venice" movie Summertime has ever tied for anything with Squirm, the 1976 earthworms-run-amok flick, but that's just how I roll. 

Major Summer Crush(es):
BOMER. CHARLIZE.

Rank the  "Magic Mike" Strippers 
Mike beats Ken only because Channing can out-dance everybody else put together. From there it's The Kid, Dallas, Tito and Tarzan.
Mash-Up ~ Two Summer Characters I'd Like to Introduce: 
Bane and Jackie & David Siegel from The Queen of Versailles, for obvious reasons

Line Reading That Stuck In My Head...

I don't really like the word 'depressed'. I prefer to say I'm in a tailspin."
- Greta Gerwig in Damsels in Distress

And that's it for us until the podcast! If you have your own blog, answer the questions in a post and I'll link up. Otherwise, what do you think of JA's and Katey's summer summaries? The "Katniss, Merida or Hawkeye"? question is such a roscharch. No two answers are quite the same!  

Summer Movie Survey. We Celebrate! (Part 1)

How was the summer for you? Did you shove tips in Magic Mike's loincloth at the Xquisite or strap on utility belts to fight for Gotham's soul? Maybe you freaked out in outer/auteur space with Ridley Scott, or demonstrated super popcorn-eating powers with Joss Whedon and The Avengers or devoured art house offerings as enthusiastically as Hushpuppy cracked those crab shells in Beasts of the Southern Wild? 

We totally want to hear your great takeaways from summer movie season, so we'll go first. Sharing Time! I sent my frequent contributors a little questionnaire -- a "Summer Report Card" if you will -- to get the thingie about their summer at the movies to get this comment party started and here's what I got back.  I had such fun reading these and I hope you do too. This weekend I'll be joined by my podcast mates Joe Reid and Nick Davis on a two parter answering these same questions. If you answer these questions on your blog I'll link up. Or just use the comments as your own "what about me?!" personal space.

So here we go...

AMIR
Best Movie I Saw All Summer: 
Beasts of the Southern Wild, closely followed by those wild beasts of the south dancing at the Xquisite

Moment  I  ♥ So Much I Thought My Heart Would Burst: 
It wasn't just my heart bursting, it was all my insides spilling out as Noomi Rapace cut herself to deliver her baby monster in Prometheus. 
At Least The Theatre Was Air Conditioned:
Killer Joe
Best Old Movie I Saw For the First Time This Summer - Go Me! : 
Though I ended up missing that episode of HMWYBS, thanks to Nathaniel I finally caught up with Dog Day Afternoon. What a superb actor Al Pacino used to be.
 

Major Summer Crush(es)
Few things in the world are as attractive as women riding motorcycles, or women dressed in spandex. Few people are as attractive as Anne Hathaway. Anne Hathaway riding a motorcycle wearing spandex? *faints*
 

Line Reading That Stuck In My Head...

The law says you cannot touch, but I think I see a lotta lawbreakers up in this house tonight."
-Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) in Magic Mike

JOSE
Best Movie I Saw All Summer:
Prometheus
Princess Merida, Katniss or Hawkeye?
Katniss!
Thing I Actually Learned (at summer movie camp! ;): 
Rachel Weisz is not the poor man's Kate Winslet anymore even if she was doing Revolutionary Road redux in The Deep Blue Sea.
Major Summer Crush(es): 
Noomi Rapace and Charlize Theron in Prometheus; Princess Merida in Brave; Emma Stone in The Amazing Spider-Man; Thor's biceps in The Avengers
 At Least The Theater Was Air Conditioned: 
Total Recall 
If Only "Hulk" Had Smashed...
...everything in Dark Shadows, except for Chloe, Eva and Michelle. 

Moment I ♥  So Much I Thought My Heart Would Burst:
"Hit Me With Your Best Shot" as performed by CZJ in Rock of Ages. Don't judge.
Best Old Movie I Saw For the First Time This Summer - Go Me! : Les Diaboliques.
Line Reading That Stuck In My Head...

Peter Parker: "I've been bitten"

Gwen: "So have I"

MICHAEL

Best Movie I Saw This Summer:
Moonrise Kingdom

Moments  I  ♥ So Much I Thought My Heart Would Burst: 
The floating brothel from Beasts and the Wal Mart shopping trip from Queen of Versailles

Thing I Actually Learned (at summer movie camp!)

If you are fighting with a guy who relies on an elaborate face mask to live you should probably punch him in the mask

Major Summer Crush:
Alison Brie from Five Year Engagement. Just when I thought I couldn't be more in love with her she goes and adds a flawless English accent.
Princess Merida, Katniss or Hawkeye? 
Merida. Better form than Hawkeye. Better personality than Katniss. Better hair than anyone, ever.

If Only "Hulk" Had Smashed...:  
That pale humanoid guy from Prometheus. Right when he came back to life and had the smug look on his face. How satisfying would that have been?

Mash-Up ~ Summer Movie Characters I'd Like to Introduce (and why): 
David from Prometheus and The Avengers. David deserves a better franchise and The Avengers could use someone who is not such a drama queen.

Best Old Movie I Saw For the First Time This Summer - Go Me! : In researching a post about cinema's greatest cinematographers I watched Mikhail Kalatazov's The Cranes are Flying, 1958's Cannes winner and Wow. How did I miss this film for so many years? A stunning masterpiece that should be talked about more.

At Least The Theater Was Air Conditioned:
Snow White and the Huntsman. No more movies where the lead character is "the chosen one". I'm begging. 

Line Reading That Stuck in My Head...

After you die I'll go to your grave and eat birthday cake all by myself."
- Beasts of the Southern Wild

...also, all the lines Charlize Theron randomly YELLED in Snow White are still ringing in my ears but I don't think that's what you mean.

 

Continue to the answers from Katey Rich from Cinema Blend & JA from My New Plaid Pants

P.S. I heartily endorse Michael's love for The Cranes are Flying, Amir's hot and botheredness for attractive chicks on motorcycles, and I wanted to second Jose's endorsement of CZJ in musical form again but the movie let her down!