#25 Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)

More money, more problems

I don't want to know what would have happened if Dune was a big success, but lucky for me, it tanked and David Lynch started spending the big budget fame has brought him on licensing rights to Nina Simone songs, a ton of Russian whores, and elaborate bunny-sitcom sets.

My problem with contemporary, independent directors is how almost all of them prove themselves disingenuous with the pictures they make following their success. Either the quaintness no longer seems sincere (Noah Bambauch’s Margot at the Wedding, Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited) or the notoriety corks them into becoming the breed of director whose grand-scale movies are the antithesis of what made them likable and distinctive in the first place (Fernando Meirelles’ Constant Gardner, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Babel). They direct like gifted children who do not know how to spend their money wisely, act above the status quo from the onset and capitulate into the melodramas their efforts were working against.

Independent directors of yesteryear, like Lynch, the Coens, and even to some extent, Steven Soderbergh still know how to direct with a little man’s vision of greatness, not the Napoleonisic rise I see from the young directors of the 2000’s who have become the name in film, I assume, they always saw themselves as deserving from day one.

25. The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006)

Sophie FIENNES

"Oh! My god, what am I doing?"

This should come as a surprise to most, and as an embarrassment to me.

The embarrassment is admitting that I like Slavoj Zizek this much. Enough that I would be willing to leave off many deserving films (or fee-lems, as Zizek would say) in order to put this documentary here. The truth, though, is that this film has grown on me more and more since I first thought of it in this context. In addition to the wonderful commentary from Zizek, there’s the amazing choice by Fiennes to put Zizek inside the scenes he interprets. The moment of the film, undoubtedly, is the Slovenian psychoanalysist attempting to steer a speedboat through the San Francisco bay, declaring, “I am thinking, I want to fuck Mitch!”

If I am accused (and rightfully so) of choosing The Pervert’s Guide as a sneaky way to honor films of the previous decades in this list, than so be it. The ultimate reason this movie is here is because of what Zizek says in part three about modern film: that it is ultimately all about “the problem of film.”

With that, I announce the theme of my entire list, “Film: the Problem of Film.”

The Top 25 Films of the Previous Decade

As film is the most important art form left in our time (other than pornography), my partner and I felt it fitting to commemorate the most important decade of our collective youth by informing the world what the greatest 25 films of that decade were.

Every week, for the next 25 weeks, you will find a new, phenomenal film listed by both Death Mask and myself.

There are no averages here, only events. And as we all know, events are truths.

Etc., etc.