7. Mean Creek
Year of Release: 2004Director: Jacob Aaron EstesMean Creek was a title that I stumbled upon a few years ago and immediately took a shine to. Its a depressingly poignant film that wont be for everyone but its riveting and never exhibits a lull in its powerful storytelling. As you might expect, it focuses on teenagers and children who each come, full to the brim with their own personal baggage and issues. Its beauty is the way it builds to a point, lures the audience into a false sense of security, before opening up the baggage and spraying the contents in all directions in a full-on frenzy. Essentially, it begins as a revenge story. Josh Peck, yes the guy from
Drake and Josh, plays George, a schoolyard bully who picks on the little kid, Sam. Sam is a bright kid, innocent and old beyond his years. He and his brother, along with two friends, devise a plan to get their own back on George by enticing him into the woods, stripping him down a peg or two (and literally) and leaving him stranded. The plan backfires brutally. Each character displays such a deep and intriguing personality in the film; each one of them masks a sense of loneliness which they do well to keep hidden in the early periods of the film. Marty, whose Father killed himself, is amusing and confident, as is Sams brother, Rocky. In two wonderfully directed and acted scenes late in the movie, both Marty and Rocky manage to switch gears so quickly and so obscenely, that its frightening.