I was recently given the opportunity to compile a list for the Waterfront Video blog – to read the entire list head here – but just to give you a little teaser, here are a few selections. Just so you know, we have a nice selection of classics and cult favorites alike here at PP.

Children Of Men (2006) – If this list were numbered, this would probably be #1 – I think i cried after this one. I think i remember driving home and just not saying anything at all. Just thinking about this one. I think for the first time in distopian Sci-fi film history, for me anyway, a film really kicked me in the nuts. Not in that sort of esoteric, rhetorical, snide way that is great too, the way the other great distopians do, like Brazil, The Delicatessen, or Terminator 2. But just a real emotional visceral, nut kick. The story was taut and the hand held documentary style camera work was incredibly unique, the acting (aside from Maude Lebowski, but we won’t go there.) was superb, and the actual future world itself, is easily the best imaged in the 00′s and an easy contender for the 5 of all time.
Gosford Park (2001) - This film is simply pure understated cinematic perfection – it’s Altman flexing his incredible film-making muscle with little to no intention other than to pay tribute to and at the same time beat at it’s own game, a handful of Hollywood’s beloved genres – period piece, murder mystery, and his very own trademark style of overlapping dialog and character arcs. All with a slight self aware wink and nod that never over asserts itself – This film can be enjoyed (and indeed, for me has been) on so many levels, snippets of dialogue, slight glances and knowing aversions of eye, all reveal themselves slowly over time and by it’s 20th viewing you realize how incredibly rich and demure a film (and homage to film) Altman crafted with Gosford Park.

The Proposition (2005)- Watching the proposition is like watching someone slowly hang to death while tripping on mushrooms. I imagine anyway. It’s also like if you could watch a bunch of Nick Cave songs, while tripping on mushrooms. But that’s fairly reductive isn’t it? It’s hard to say what makes this film so riveting – the acting, is all as good as it gets, Ray Winstone is one of my favorite actors, his beleaguered law-man and husband is so pitiful and real – “Real” that’s the word, this story, while strikingly, phantasmagorically lyrical is also one of the most flat out “real” films I’ve seen this decade. You can practically smell the flies sticking all over the faces of the corpses, man. i mean, wow man, tripping balls.