The Adjustment Bureau (2011, George Nolfi)

The Adjustment Bureau, like many films taken from the works of Philip K. Dick, has a great concept: there is a bureaucratic agency governing every decision you make, and if you stray from The Plan, they will step in and adjust your life. The film is also promising because it stars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt as lovers who were never supposed to meet but who are determined to find  a way, predestination be damned. Unfortunately–and you knew there was an “unfortunately” lurking around the corner–under the anonymous, visionless direction of George Nolfi, the lovers and their story are denied any real passion.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010, Woody Allen)

Do you know the last year there wasn’t a new Woody Allen movie? 1981. That’s right, since 1982, he’s directed a film a year, something which has made him both a cinematic treasure and a bit of a cautionary tale. Just take a look at the last five years, and the last five films, of his career: the glorious Match Point, a career highlight which transformed the NYC vet into a European transplant; the sort-of-amusing Scoop; Cassandra’s Dream, a middling drama; the low-key success Vicky Cristina Barcelona, with an outstanding Penélope Cruz; and last year’s Whatever Works, Allen’s irritating return to New York starring Larry David, the king of irritation. The reason this workaholic approach to filmmaking makes Allen a legend is that he has indisputably staked out his own cinematic territory, with its easily recognizable visual language and dialogue. The reason that same approach makes him a cautionary tale is that, unlike his hero, the similarly prolific Ingmar Bergman, he appears totally unable to separate the wheat from the chaff.

What’s Up, Doc? (1972, Peter Bogdanovich)

There’s a scene early on in What’s Up, Doc? where Dr. Howard Bannister (Ryan O’Neal), in town with the hopes of winning a grant for his musicology theory, goes to a shop and begins testing rocks for their tonal quality. Too bad Dr. Bannister wasn’t on this film’s crew, or else it might not have ended up so tone-deaf. It’s an homage to the old screwball comedies, attempting to bring the genre into the modern world of the 1970’s. It fails, as these films often do. There’s something about the magical aura of the screwballs of the 1930’s and 40’s that simply can’t be captured and bottled up; you had to be there. A couple years ago, George Clooney copied the exact mannerisms and timing of the great screwballs in Leatherheads, but it felt strangely inert. What Peter Bogdanovich does in What’s Up, Doc? is much worse still.

Dirty Harry (1971, Don Siegel)

Clint Eastwood had already perfected badass in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, but it was probably Dirty Harry that cemented his badass status among the American people. As Detective “Dirty” Harry Callahan, Eastwood is a brutal, unforgiving cop out to wield justice in a way that breaks laws and infuriates superiors, but gets the job done. It’s easy to see how Dirty Harry paved the way for The Shield‘s Vic Mackey, though while Vic’s outrageous behavior was mostly a way to use his power to threaten and intimidate others for personal gain, Dirty Harry is basically a good cop. This is, of course, allowing that your definition of “good cop” does not include humane treatment of unrepentant psychopaths. Then again, who could be humane toward such a disgusting creature as the Scorpio Killer (Andrew Robinson)?

Dead Poets Society (1989, Peter Weir)

Let’s face it. To a young adult male, poetry can be pretty gross. I remember when I was in eighth grade, I had to take a certain number of elective classes, and I gave it to the counselor straight: “I’ll take any of the English classes except poetry.” As much of a fairy tale as he is, who wouldn’t have wanted John Keating (Robin Williams) as a poetry teacher? In his first lesson, he instructs the class to rip the introduction from their textbooks, because some boor actually had the audacity to create a formula for evaluating a poem’s value, the kind of thing which would boil the blood of anyone with even a passing respect for the arts. Keating teaches not the technicalities of poetry, but its passion and liveliness; he’s the only teacher to take his students outside, and he encourages them to do other such reckless things, like to stand on their desks.

The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights (2009, Emmett Malloy)

During Under Great White Northern Lights, Jack White says that he once read a review which stated, “The White Stripes are the most fake band in the world, but they’re also the most real band in the world.” That sentiment couldn’t be truer; they constrict themselves to certain styles, certain colors, certain subjects (the number 3, red-headed women, etc.). A White Stripes song is a very particular kind of song. You’d never mistake a song by the Raconteurs or the Dead Weather, Jack’s other bands, for a White Stripes song, even though both of those bands are bluesy and Jack sings much in the same yelping/tender way. And he plays one goddamn mean guitar, no matter what band he’s in (even if he mostly sticks to drums in the Dead Weather). But their songs are so real and raw and moving that, again and again, you ask yourself, How can two people sound better than most full bands? Meg: “We make a lot of noise between the two of us.”

Le Doulos (1962, Jean-Pierre Melville)

Snap brim fedoras. Flowing trenchcoats. Withheld truths. Light. Shadow. This is the French underworld of Jean-Pierre Melville, who so loved America that he changed his name from Grumbach in tribute to Herman Melville. In such films as Bob le Flambeur and the masterful Le Samouraï, Melville took the distinctly American trappings of the gangster movie and made them distinctly French. Watching his movies, you never think that he’s a Frenchman taking on an American genre; he owns it so thoroughly and with such confidence that it doesn’t seem like its origins belong to anything but the French New Wave.

Brooklyn’s Finest (2009, Antoine Fuqua)

Sal (Ethan Hawke) and Carlo (Vincent D’Onofrio) are sitting in a car by the railroad tracks. Carlo’s telling a story; about what, I can’t remember, but that’s not important anyway. It’s about the telling of the story. With great enthusiasm, Carlo describes a tale that seems tall, but one he insists is true down to the finest detail. From movies and TV we know that Vincent D’Onofrio is one unhinged nutball, so we take him at his word and just listen to him unspool his yarn. Then Sal shoots him in the face and absconds with his cash. He just shot Vincent D’Onofrio! Who is this fearsome robber, this murderous titan? Oh, he’s just another conflicted cop on another set of dreary New York City streets in another Antoine Fuqua movie. There are three of those in this particular Fuqua film.

Persepolis (2007, Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi)

Persepolis does things with animation that put most American films to shame. There are still great animated American films, most of them by Pixar, but even those are mostly keeping in line with what Walt Disney was doing when Snow White came out. In short, they don’t really help themselves to everything that animation offers. Persepolis, on the other hand, opens itself up to expressionistic techniques that allow for marvelous flights from scene to scene and subject to subject, and fourth-wall-breakers that put us close to the minds and hearts of its characters. It even has a jubilant musical sequence that reminded me of the one in (500) Days of Summer. It made me laugh just as much, too.

Alice in Wonderland (2010, Tim Burton)

I think it’s time for Tim Burton to retire the Tim Burton style. Three years ago, he made his best film, Sweeney Todd, which was a toned-down sort of Burton film but still very much of his sensibilities; there were the great sets, the sunken-eyed make-up, the wild hair, all the morbid eccentricities. But, like another of his films, Ed Wood, it was surprisingly mature. All the fun of a Tim Burton movie, but with real pathos. This is not to say that his usual style hasn’t resulted in some great movies: My Beetlejuice VHS was one of my most prized possessions as a kid, and Edward Scissorhands remains a favorite. But he’s run it into the ground, and the candy-colored nightmare Alice in Wonderland is close to its worst possible application.