Editorials > Infuriatingly Great Films

Have you ever seen a film that was so well plotted, well acted and well directed that it actually pissed you off? Wannabe-filmmakers probably deal with this far more than regular filmgoers – it's hard to convince yourself you'll be hot shit twenty years from now when Alfonso Cuaron keeps shitting out brilliant flick after brilliant flick today – but the sheer goddamned quality of the following films ended up irritating me more than the results of the 2004 presidential election.

Children of Men

Even ignoring the fact that it includes two of my favorite modern actors (Clive Owen and Chiwetel Ejiofor), Children of Men's ubiquitous use of long, unbroken tracking shots literally made me want to punch the first person I saw after leaving the theatre. Whether we're talking about the first bomb explosion, the ambush in the car, or the final trip through a wartorn battlefield, Children of Men feels completely real. It's impossible not to feel utterly immersed in the horror of Cuaron's way-too-realistic dystopia; this would be a lot easier to handle were it not for the fact that Cuaron makes the whole thing look so goddamned easy.

Since there are very few cuts, every shot gives the impression of being totally spontaneous, as if Kee just happened to be framed through the broken glass of an elementary school during a dialogue scene, or Theo just happened to time his walk through a battlefield in time with all of the numerous explosions and squibs which go off, the film manages to be meticulously crafted without looking like it. The whole damn thing looks so effortless that I wanted to punch Alfonso Cuaron right in the chest after watching it.

Love, Actually

When most films play up the interconnectedness of their multiple protagonists, they usually make a really big show out of it: the characters interact in bombastic, forced ways, and we're meant to think about how interesting it is that the world is so interconnected. Love, Actually plays up the interconnectedness thing, but without being bombastic or forced. When the audience finds out Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant are related, it's not played for shock value: it's just something that sort of happens, and it flows very naturally – to the point where it seems almost entirely coincidental that the screenplay just happened to connect all these people in unique and interesting ways, while simultaneously developing all of them. Which is, in turn, what pisses me off about it: we've got no less than nine different subplots going on at any given time in the film, and they're all interesting.

We care about all of the individual characters (with the possible exception of the guy with the cue cards who wants to bone Keira Knightley, who evidently thinks he's performing community theatre), we're interested in all of their stories, and our genuine sympathy with all these events never feels anything other than totally natural. Given what a structural nightmare writing this script must have been, it's nothing short of incredible that Richard Curtis managed to pull the whole thing off with such ease and vigor.

What an asshole. 

Ocean's Eleven 

Ever since I first saw Ocean's Eleven, I've been rewatching it on a bi-yearly basis, waiting for the jokes to become stale, or the actors to lose their charm, or the plot to lose its incredible pacing.

It hasn't happened yet, and I'll never forgive Steven Soderbergh for that.

Something about the fast-paced, whip-smart dialogue never gets old ("I'd never been to Belize."), and, save for the bits with Julia Roberts in them,  every scene has something funny and/or interesting which makes it goddamn impossible not to enjoy yourself (unless you don't actually like this movie, in which case you can move on). My family members watch this film quite frequently, as well, and I've found it next to impossible to walk by the TV and catch a line or two of dialogue without wanting to sit down and watch the rest of the film to its conclusion: even after you know how the heist plays out, something about the pacing and breezy execution of the whole thing makes this the single most watchable film I own. 

Still, I take some solace in the fact that even the filmmakers didn't know how to replicate the glory of Eleven; with the exception of the scenes from Ocean's Thirteen where Casey Affleck wears a mustache and speaks broken Spanish, I've only watched the two sequels one time each. 

No Country for Old Men

It's a fair bet that a significant amount of the people reading this may have not found the time to actually see No Country for Old Men yet, so I'll try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible. Suffice it to say, though, that No Country is one of the best acted, most impeccably structured, frightening, hilarious, intense, exciting, and life-ruining films I've ever seen in my life.

With the exception of one scene which neither I, nor the combined "minds" on No Country for Old Men's IMDb board can really understand (it involves two characters meeting at a crime scene, and one character somehow disappearing completely without explanation), every single bit of No Country for Old Men inspires a reaction out of the audience, whether it be shock or laughter or literal edge-of-your-seat suspense. All four of the lead actors are absolutely superb (Kelly MacDonald needs to stop being adorable, Scottish, and really good at faking a Texan accent), and while the plot changes gears and intentionally robs the audience of a slam-bang, Hollywood action finale, it becomes infinitely more meaningful and affecting in the process. 

If you haven't seen it, do so. Now.