39 / Wreck It Ralph / Rich Moore

Wreck-it-Ralph is a perfect film. I've honestly tried to come up with some kind of fault, but really cant. I loved every second of it. Ok Maybe not every second, the song during the credits was kind of annoying. Although the animation of the credits more than made up for it. When that's all I can come up to be critical about, a shitty song in the credits you know this has to be a good film. It's just such a perfectly crafted little film. The attention to detail is beyond amazing. I could gush and gush about all the tiny little things I loved about the animation  the way the characters of nice town had limited movements like their sprites, how even the disney logo at the end of the credits was glitched out and just on and on and on. That attention to detail with the animation would have been enough to sell it to me really, but on top of that is a really beautifully told story of humanity and heart break and rejection. With these kinds of films you can normally see how to stories going to end up from the first act, but I was genuinely shocked by the 'twist' at the end and yet it made perfect sense. I should stop gushing now, you get the picture that this film is amazing. It gave me the same kind of feeling I get watching the Toy Story films, it was smart with a huge heart and just beautifully made.

38 / Happy-Go-Lucky / Mike Leigh

For some reason Happy-Go-Lucky has been sitting in my to-watch list for an extremely long film. It was one of those films that would always come up in the list when people where over, 'oh we could watch that Mike Leigh film, Happy-Go-Lucky' but it was never picked, so it just kind of stayed there. I'm glad it's finally out of that list now as it's a damn good film. I'm no Mike Leigh expert, I've only seen a couple of his films, but I have a hell of a lot of respect for him. He's a filmmaker who just has such a way with creating completely three dimensional and believable characters and Happy-Go-Lucky is a perfect example of this. It works less as a narrative film and more just as a character study. You're introduced to all these characters and just get to watch them live. Which is a hell of a lot more satisfying than it sounds. Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsen especially are breathtaking good in their roles. Overall the film just had a really uplifting effect on me, I wasn't exactly having the best day but it made me laugh and smile and feel good about life.

37 / Dead Man / Jim Jarmusch

I don't like Johnny Depp. I used to think he was the greatest thing ever when I was 15, and yes he's made some great films, none in the last 10 years though (don't cite me on that, he probably has and me in my ignorance have just missed them) I always just feel like he ruins a film. Just by being himself. You're constantly aware 'oh this is Johnny Depp I'm watching here, isn't a quirky man!' which removes any chance of actually getting emotionally invested in characters he plays. This wasn't my problem with Dead Man. He's actually really quite good in dead man. My problem with Dead Man lies with Jim Jarmusch. A director I have a lot of respect for. Down By Law & Midnight Train are some of my favourite films, I normally love his gritty bluesy approach to film making. Not here though. In all honestly Dead Man bored me. I found the style jarring, I didn't get why it kept fading in and out, it ruined any sense of pacing for me. It felt more like a pastiche to me. There was nothing authentic about the 'wild west' that was displayed in the film. Which really surprised me, Jarmusch is normally a master at authenticity. Not here. I stopped caring after about 40 minutes in. Yes it was a really nicely shot film and the way the score started out kind of sparse and slowly grew throughout the film until at the end you had this really beautiful shoegazey fuzz during the final moments was really great. But I had no emotional investment in any of the characters and this wasn't Depp's fault. Depp's performance was actually quite understated and nuanced, it's a shame the film wasn't. It just seemed like it was trying really hard to be deep, but in the end just felt extremely shallow to me.

36 / Bukowski: Born Into This / John Dullaghan

I'm no Bukowski expert. I've read post office and always love his poetry when ever I come across it so going into this I wasn't really sure what to expect. The film was made after his death so is mainly a collection of really great archival footage of Bukowski and the typical talking heads. For me the legend of Bukowski has always been kind of more prevalent than is actual work in my mind, before I'd ever read any of his work I was aware of him as some misanthropic anti hero (mainly thanks to that one Modest Mouse song.) The film though manages to kind of distance itself from that legend. Well not distance itself per-sae, but it manages to show Bukowski for what he was, a very complex man.  As much as he obviously was a brash and at times, rather unlikeable human being there's something to him that you just can't help but be utterly charmed by. Which I think is kind of the essence of his work in general, he's crass and horrible but still manages to so perfectly capture really true and beautiful moments and emotions. There's one moment in the film where he's being interviewed in his home and is asked to read a poem and as he read his poem The Shower he starts to tear up and get extremely emotional then afterwards you can sense his embarrassment as he lets his hard exterior come back up and it's extremely moving to see him be vulnerable for a little bit.

35 / The Terminal / Steven Spielberg

There's something me that is especially susceptible to the films like The Terminal and just the kind of films you normally associate Tom Hanks with. As much as a lot of the times I try to have this deeply analytical and critical outlook about everything, when it comes to a good sentimental open hearted film like this that all just melts away and I turn into a ball of mush for 2 hours. It's kind of like the similar effect that 80's rom coms have on me, and anything associated with Jim Henson. I just can't help but want to connect to the kind of world these kind of stories create. Deep down I'm just a big romantic who want's to be the good guy, want's to fall in love, wants to go on some meaningful quest. I know that sounds so completely and utterly ridiculous. and I'm not that person and the world isn't that simple but damnit I like to be able to inhabit a world where that is the case for a little bit and The Terminal is a great little iteration of that world. I think it works so well because it's so contained. You're stuck in such a small environment so there aren't too many outside influences screaming at you, 'this isn't how it is!' you're just allowed to live in this character and that's pretty much it. And yes Tom Hank's broken english is cringey and the whole thing is terrible cliched, but I couldn't give a shit! I loved it and I cried and smiled and it made me feel good, and sometimes that's all you need.

34 / Synecdoche, New York / Charlie Kaufman

Charlie Kaufman was one of the first names I took note of when I started seriously taking notice of films when i was about 13, I remember watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and being so completely blown away by it that i looked up everyone who had anything to do with it, thus discovering, probably my first two 'arty' filmmakers, Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry. I remember going round spurting there names all over the place as if the fact I knew of them made me some great intellectual. Yes I was an unbearable teenager. I still have a lot of respect for both of these men and they are great artists, but my interall embarrassment over my unbearable teenage self has always kind of put a barrier up around their work since then. After watching Synecdoche, New York I regret this greatly. At least in the case of Charlie Kaufman. Well I do and I dont. I'm kind of glad I didn't watch this film when it came out, and I was 18. I don't think it would have has great an impact on me as it did now. I'm going to try my best to verbalise that impact, but as seems to be the case lately I keep getting hit in the face by these big films with big ideas and not really knowing how to construct any thoughts in a sentence. I'll do my best though.

Where to start? There's an interesting parallel I couldn't help but keep coming back to in my mind when I was watching Synecdoche, New York and that's to a scene near the end of Annie Hall. When Alvey breaks up with Annie he goes back and makes a play about the whole experience and there's a scene that shows their final moment but he's changed it so it has a happy ending, they kiss and make up and she moves back to New York with him. After this he looks to us and says "Well what do you want it's my first play. You know how you're always trying to make everything come out perfect in art because it's real difficult in life." and it was this sentiment that kept coming back to me while watching Synecdoche not because it has any bearing to the film but because it is the exact opposite of what Caden is trying to do. Whereas Alvey tries to save everything with art and make it perfect, Our main character in this film is desperate to do the exact opposite. He wants to use art to get lost in his own suffering and is determined to show everything exactly as truth. As the film progresses this becomes more and more a prominent theme and to me that's where the film got really interesting. There are these scenes of Caden directing himself, directing himself in this play that no one can watch in a huge warehouse. Which I don't know, to me is just such a breathtakingly beautiful idea. This constant feedback loop of human life happening in the name of art. No course correcting, no happy endings, just pure life. I love how the whole thing grows naturally. Not the film, but Caden's project. He's desperately searching for meaning in this thing, trying to hide away in this warehouse, but then he needs another warehouse to escape in, and another. I think it says something really interesting about art and how easy it is to use it as an escape mechanism. A catch all to deal with life. Obviously not this extent but the whole concept just resonated really strongly with me.

It helped that the film was so beautifully made, and Phillip Seymour Hofman is nothing short of miraculous (as usual) as Caden. He manages to age so quickly in front of you in a completely convincing way. I love the way the film dealt with time. It's not obvious how much time is passing at anytime, the whole thing is in a constant sense of flux just like life. You're led to believe that only a couple of days have passed but then it's subtly dropped on you that, no actually, it's been 5 years since his wife left him. It's devastating

I think, as I said earlier I'm just in the right place to see this film. I'm experiencing these things. trying to save myself with art, trying to figure out what the hell I want to do with my life while everything passes by too quickly. I think it's been a week but really it's been six months. I know I'll look back on this little review thing in like five or ten or however many years and think to myself, jesus christ how embarrassing what was I thinking. I was 22 how self indulgent and nihilistic of me to think I understood this world and the problems I face. Which I guess is kind of fitting and is just another step in that feedback loop of existence.

33 / Say Anything... / Cameron Crowe

I'll admit it, I have a real soft spot for 80's rom com's like this. They're just so fun and comforting. I feel like I should try and flex my critical brain and come up with some deep analysis of Say Anything... as that's kind of what this whole thing is for. But honestly I don't really want to. It's just a fun teen comedy. A really well crafted one that's well written, well acted and really sweet. It has a great heart and was the perfect film for a lonely night while cat sitting in a strange house with a couple of beers.