My Top 30 Films of the First Quarter of the 21st Century

Match Point

The title sums up this up. I don't know if I'll be around for a list of my favorites for the first half of the century and barring remarkable medical breakthroughs I won't see the end of this century. So on that morbid note here are my favorite films released between 2000 and 2024. Exactly half are in English language films and half in foreign tongues. There are two Woody Allen and two Quentin Tarantino films in the top six and two Coen brothers movies in the top seven. But the director with the most films here is Finland's Aki Kaurismäki with three. The only other director with two pictures on this list is Pawel Pawlikowski. There were four films from last year on the list, nor surprising given that I've ranked 2023 among the better years in cinematic history. The next closest was  2011 with three pictures. All told twenty of twenty-five years had a film in my top thirty. I was surprised that there was nothing from Wes Anderson though if I'd expanded the list to forty both The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom would have featured.  Two more Coens' films, A Serious Man and O Brother Where Art Thou?, also just missed.

1. Match Point (2005) Allen

2. Once Upon a Time .... in Hollywood (2019) Tarantino

3. In the Mood For Love (2000) Kar-Wai

4. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) Coens

5. Inglorious Basterds (2009) Tarantino

6. Midnight in Paris (2011) Allen

7. No Country For Old Men (2007) Coens

8. Requiem For A Dream (2000) Aronofsky 

9. Mean Girls (2004) Waters

10. Drive My Car (2021) Hamaguchi

11. Y Tu Mama También (2001) Cuarón

12. Le Havre (2011) Kaurismäki

13. Fallen Leaves (2023) Kaurismäki

14. Zodiac (2007) Fincher

15. Oppenheimer (2023) Nolan

16. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Gondry

17. Zone of Interest (2023) Glazer

18. Habla Con Ella (2002) Almodóvar

19. Personal Shopper (2016) Assayas

20. First Reformed (2017) Schraeder

21. A Separation (2011) Farhadi

22.  Cold War (2018) Pawlikowski

23. Des hommes et des dieux (2010) Beauvois

24. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018) Gan

25. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) Iñárritu

26. Ida (2013) Pawlikowski

27. Godland (2023) Pálmason

28. Anora (2024) Baker

29. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2012) Ceylan

30. Lights in the Dusk (2006) Kaurismäki

From Dark Thoughts About Eternity I Segue Into a Bit About Teaching

I’m fine. That’s what I’m supposed to say, anyway. It’s not easy work trudging through life when depression is likely to smack you down any second. But existence beats the alternative. Or so I’ve been told. I’ve never heard from anyone who has clear memories of not existing. Then how could you? How to comprehend the void? The endless abyss. Eternal darkness. Actually it wouldn’t even be dark, because it wouldn’t be.

There are times that I hold out hope for some sort of after life. I like to think you get a second chance at it all. That would be grand. Maybe you get to live your life several times until you get it right. If so I’m in still in the early stages. So many mistakes I’ve made. But maybe I’m too hard on myself. Maybe I focus on all that I’ve done wrong and haven’t reflected enough on life’s blessings and all the happiness I’ve enjoyed and my good choices. 

So some form of reincarnation might be in the cards. It makes more sense than the stereotypical Christian belief of a heaven where God sits on a throne. That all seems rather silly.

Maybe we become angels. Angels are often depicted in literature as being eternally frustrated because they can’t effect events on Earth, they merely get to look on. That’s the wonderful thing about being a living human: all the choices you get to make. It’s constant. Like moments ago I decided to write. Before that I checked my email and various websites I frequent. Later I might choose to start a new book having just finished one. 

There’s a lot of instances in which I’m not making decisions, or not new ones anyway. On work days I wake up at the same time. Get out of bed. Turn on the kitchen light. Enter the bathroom, answer mother nature’s call, shower, moisturize, dress, turn on more lights, get my tea ready, empty the dishwasher, eat breakfast, move to the easy chair etc. Pretty much the same everyday. I don’t wear the same clothes everyday, of course, so I choose my outfit for the day. I walk the same route to work and do a lot of the same things once I arrive.

Teaching is a constant whirl of making decisions. At least in teaching English to foreigners as I do. To follow a script everyday is madness. You’ve got to constantly be improvising based on what’s working, what’s not, what’s needed, what’s not. Sometimes students need you to spend more time on one topic, sometimes less. Sometimes they need to be shaken out of a rut with an activity. You call audibles.

There’s great variety on a teaching day because you’re dealing very directly with your fellow human beings. In my case anywhere from seven to eighteen (currently fifteen). In my current situation these students — though mostly in their late teens and early twenties — are of all ages. I currently have a sixty-five year old Taiwanese woman along with people less than a third her age. I have students from Peru, China, Saudi Arabia, France, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the aforementioned Taiwan. The overwhelming majority of my students are darlings. At the same time most have a serious addiction to their cell phones but that’s the way of the world and there’s no use pretending otherwise.

My students are depending on me. Though I don’t really feel it, I’m under a lot of pressure. They’re paying a fair amount of money to improve their English. I’ve got to deliver. I need to provide engaging, interesting lessons that will move their English forward. I have to tend to their individual needs and simultaneously those of the class as a whole. I also feel duty bound to be entertaining. People respond better to a teacher with a personality and sense of humor who is conscious of not boring people.

I don’t really feel the weight of my job and its inherent responsibilities. I know the drill. I’ve been at this for 38 years in one form or another. There’s no need to be philosophical about it. You just show up everyday and give a hundred percent. You know at the end of the day if you’ve done a good job or stunk the place up. I’m consistent because I care about my students and take pride in my work.

Ya know what I’ve always hated? Those signs that say: “teaching is my superpower.” Horseshit. It’s just a fucking job. My father never walked around saying: “carpentry is my superpower.” He went to work everyday and did a good job. That’s all there is to it. That teaching is my superpower nonsense grows out of a culture that feels guilty for paying teachers shit wages. It’s supposed to make us feel better that we get paid crap relative to other white collar professions. We also get national teacher’s day and sometimes we’re asked to stand and accept a round of applause at sports event. Fuck that. Pay us.

Teaching is a noble profession but so is custodial work, accounting, journalism, and bagging groceries. We’re all contributing to society. Save your applause until the end.

Am I bitter? Not at all. I’m privileged. I’ve been able to perform a job I’ve loved for a long time. I’ll be seventy-one in a month and I’m still going strong. I may be staring eternity in the face but at least I have a pretty cool job.

Before I was 20, Absolutely True Facts About Yours Truly

The author

In my early teens I thought that Grace Slick’s name was Gray Slick. Gray seemed to be such a cool first name. Imagine my disappointment when I learned that plain ole Grace was her first name.

At my sixth grade graduation three friends and I lip-synched to The Beatles. We had a drum set, guitars and all wore Beatles wigs. I was surprised and disappointed that adults laughed.

As a nine year old I went alone to a Jerry Lewis triple feature and sat in the front row.

As a child I played imaginary basketball games in my backyard featuring teams comprised of characters from my favorite sitcoms.

I’ve been told that the Paul Revere and the Raider’s song, Indian Reservation, was the theme of one of my high school acid trips. I have only the vaguest recollection of this.

When I was in high school we went on a field trip to the headquarters of the the Black Panther Party in Oakland. It was cool.

At the age of 19 I was taken before the judge of a small Northern California Valley town for hitchhiking illegally and not having a valid ID. When my identity was established via a phone call to a friend I was released.

While in high school a friend and I once snuck into a Joan Baez concert in the Greek Theater in Berkeley. She played a few songs with her sister, Mimi Farina. Both were barefoot. I thought Mimi was hot.

My maternal grandmother would make me pancakes in the middle of the day if I asked her. 

I went to high school with Lenny Pickett who went on to be the first musical director for Saturday Night Live. Prior to that he played for Tower of Power. 

I also went to high school with the son of famed music critic Ralph Gleason.

Once in high school I literally got blind drunk.

In junior high I had a long-term substitute teacher whose name was Mr. Twain and yes, his first name was Mark.

When I was a wee tyke I thought that a grand slam was achieved when a home run left the ball park.

The bully at my elementary school was named Mark Fuhrman, the same name as the chief police investigator in the OJ Simpson murder case. I once got revenge on Mark and stopped his bullying with a well-placed karate chop to his shoulder. 

As a child I thought in addition to robins, bluejays, sparrows etc, there were just plain birds. I also believed that in addition to different breeds of dogs and mutts there were just plain dogs. And I believed in addition to a cold or the flu or strep throat you could be just plain old sick. 

In the sixth grade I asked my teacher, the comely Mrs. MacDonald, what a hem was. We were the only ones in the room. She lifted her skirt just enough to show me the hem of her stocking. I went outside to lunch and told my friends. They all accused me of lying.

As a fifth grader I was the first in the school to find out that President Kennedy had been assassinated. This was because I went to my grandmother’s for lunch. When I returned to the playground and informed other students they didn’t believe me.

There used to be an empty lot in the middle of Berkeley that was covered in blackberry bushes. My brother and I used to go there and feast and bring enough home for my mother to make a pie. There have been several different buildings there since, currently it's the site of a savings and loan.

My mother used to send me to the corner store to buy a half gallon of milk. She gave me 50 cents. I was allowed to keep the change which I invariably used to buy baseball cards and/or candy.

One day in 8th grade science class I was the first to finish a test. As I brought it to the teacher’s desk she said aloud, “don’t worry students, the first to finish a test doesn’t usually do well.” I’ve hated the teacher, Mrs. Snyder, ever since.

When I was a child my father told me that there used to really be Golden Bears and the last one was killed by a Russian hunter on the exact site of Memorial Stadium in Berkeley where the University of California Golden Bears play football. I believed him.

At the end of my Cub Scout team’s baseball team I told my mother that I was the team’s rookie of the year (there was no such award). Somehow she turned this prevarication into getting me a spot in a car in Berkeley’s annual parade where I sat in my Cub Scout uniform waving at onlookers.

My Top Ten Films of 2024

1. Anora (Baker)

2. All We Imagine as Light (Kapadia)

3. Evil Does Not Exist (Hamaguchi)

4.  La Chimera (Rohrwacher)

5. The Room Next Door (Almodóvar)

6.  A Complete Unknown (Mangold) 

7. The Brutalist (Corbet) 

'8. Green Border (Holland)

9. Didi (Wang) 

10. A Real Pain (Eisenberg)

Honorable Mention: September 5; (Fehlbaum) Hit Man (Linklater); Saturday Night (Reitman); The Taste of Things (Tran); Last Summer (Breillat); My Old Ass (Park).

Best actor: Daniel Craig Queer Runners Up — Colman Domingo Sing Sing, Timothee Chalamet A Complete Unknown, Glen Powell Hit Man.

Best actress: Mikey Madison Anora. Runners Up — Anna Kendrick Woman of the Hour, Jessie Buckley Wicked Little Letters, Tilda Swinton The Room Next Door.

Best supporting actress: Carol Kane Between the Temples. Runners Up — Aubrey Plaza My Old Ass, Monica Barbaro A Complete Unknown, Natasha Lyonne His Three Daughters.

Best supporting actor: Kieran Culkin A Real Pain. Runners Up — Thomas Hardy The Bikeriders, Edward Norton A Complete Unknown, Yura Borisov Anora.

Power to the People, The Impact of the Sixties

Having written a novel set in the Sixties that is very much about that decade it is natural that I might someday be asked how that decade impacted the world of today. I here proceed to answer that question.

One can point to Nixon’s landslide re-election in ’72, the Regan Revolution George W and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and finally the Tea Party, Trumpy and MAGA and claim that the Sixties had little political impact. One could claim that the Sixties did more harm than good having caused a massive conservative backlash. But that would be simplistic and wrong.

The Sixties were consequential in positive ways.

True, us revolutionaries, leftists, hippies and outside agitators had expected to create a modern day Eden in which the US stood for peace and love and equality and social justice. True, we didn’t come close.

But since the Sixties there have also been significant (though not sufficient) gains by previously marginalized groups such as African Americans, women, and the LGBTQ + community. Our language has changed and certain terms and depictions of people have become verboten. (Yes, there has been overreach in this but making certain slurs taboo is a positive step.)

The Sixties practically codified the questioning of authority. Our institutions are under constant scrutiny and people are less likely to swallow the company line. Indeed conversations in general have opened up. There are far less topics that “are simply not talked about.” Sex for example. It is no longer such a stigma to talk about mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Religion is less likely to be swallowed whole by the gullible. With the exception of those within the MAGA movement, people’s “feelings” are taken into consideration. Though some trigger warnings seem excessive, people’s hearts are in the right place and we are recognizing the power of words.

People no longer hide from their identity and instead take pride in it. Being African American, Latino, Gay are now celebrated. Where there was once shame there is pride. Black history month, women’s history month, gay pride parades are all nationally — if not universally — recognized.

Most of the changes that came out of the Sixties were cultural. Before the Sixties, men wore their hair short. Since the Sixties all manner of hairstyles are acceptable. The same is true of clothes. Everything under the broad category of fashion and style has been freed.

The Sixties brought us a musical revolution that we’re still bearing the fruits of. From the Sixties came new forms of music such as the various derivations of rock, along with hip hop and rap. The greatest musicians of the Sixties are still popular: The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and more.

In the late Sixties there began a revolution in the movies beginning with such films as Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. The production code was replaced by the rating systems freeing film makers to create realistic stories that could include sex, nudity, drug use, graphic violence and profanity. The ramifications of these changes was felt with the film revolution of the Seventies. At the same time TV moved away from witches, Jeannies and talking horses and started telling stories that actually reflected the lives of real Americans. 

The Sixties also brought marijuana use out into the open eventually leading to its being legalized in many states. LSD also was experimented with and is today used as a treatment for depression.

What was then called the ecology movement came out of the Sixties quickly leading to Earth Day (the first was in 1970) and a much-needed awareness of the harm humans were doing to the environment. 

The Sixties were not a panacea, indeed there was a lot of violence perpetrated by both the right and the left. But the military-industrial complex was recognized for what it was (is) sadly it continues to prosper at the same time we have a growing class of multibillionaires wielding outsized influence. But the press and citizen groups remain diligent and hope springs eternal for, if not revolution, reform.

Finally it should be acknowledged that the roots of the changes wrought in the Sixties came from preceding decades. Credit goes to the Civil Rights Movement which spawned the protest movements that symbolized the Sixties. Also the beats, specifically Kerouac and Ginsberg who prose and poetry had such a significant cultural influence. So too the rock and roll stars of the fifties — Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bill Haley and the Comets — who set the tone for The Beatles and others. 

The Sixties were consequential and we owe the free spirits, revolutionaries and visionaries of that decade a great debt.