Top Movies of the Decade

Trying to cram all the best movies of the past decade into a single top 10 list is a completely futile exercise. After all, we're talking about a decade that comprised the entirety of my high school and college years, when I first began seriously watching movies. If I'm being honest with myself, most of my favorite movies come from the '00s (just click my info for proof). But being the crazed list-maniac that I am, I couldn't help but try anyway after reading so many others. Plus, what else am I supposed to do on a bus ride home for the holidays?

Now, it would seem the easiest way to do this would be to look back on my #1s from the past 10 years. But I quickly realized that some years are just stronger than others. If you're curious, here's what I picked at the time:

2000: Almost Famous

2001: Memento

2002: Punch-Drunk Love

2003: Lost in Translation

2004: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2005: Munich

2006: Children of Men

2007: There Will Be Blood

2008: The Dark Knight

2009: Still deciding between The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air

Anyway, it was clear I had to go a little deeper. But since I'm too indecisive to stick to 10, I cheated and slipped in 5 more.

15. The Departed

How often do you find a remake of a foreign film that so perfectly Americanizes it that both still stand as independently great movies? More importantly, The Departed was a return to the kind of hugely entertaining crime movies that made Scorsese a name, and deservingly won best picture in one of the '00s strongest years (2006 is well-represented here).

14. The Incredibles

No list of the best of the '00s could be complete without a Pixar movie, and I've got two. With such strong attention to story and character, Pixar's technological achievements are the last thing anyone talks about. But it wasn't until The Incredibles that I realized Pixar was more than kids' stuff. A mid-life crisis movie that borrows from Watchmen and features a joke about drinking games, The Incredibles proved Pixar's audience is well beyond the Happy meal crowd.

13. Punch-Drunk Love

One of P.T. Anderson's shortest movies, and also one of his least appreciated. Yet it features some truly odd and memorable moments (many involving a miniature piano), a career-best performance from Adam Sandler, and a love story that helps ground what could otherwise have just been too out there.

12. Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2

The decision to split the movie in two may have seemed like pure Tarantino hubris at the time, but it's amazing how well they hold up as separate movies. Vol. 1 features quite possibly the best action sequence of the decade and is dripping with Tarantino-trademarked cool, while Vol. 2 ups the ante by giving the Bride a name and a more complicated relationship with her target. Along with Inglourious Basterds, Kill Bill ensured Tarantino would have nearly as much influence on the '00s as he did on the '90s.

11. Pan's Labyrinth

A movie so good I saw it twice in Spanish without subtitles. The visuals are so impressive you can understand why Peter Jackson would trust Guillermo Del Toro with The Hobbit, but it's the juxtaposition of a child's imagination with the horrors of the sadistic Capitan that make the movie so powerful. Plus an ending that even the Brothers Grimm would find dark.

Ok, now for the real top 10:

10. Talk to Her

It's odd that the only Pedro Almodovar movie on my list is one of the least intrinsically Almodovarian movies of his career. But Talk to Her proved he understands lonely men just as well as women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And if the relationships of the central characters aren't enough for you, how about the cheekiest silent movie never made?

9. Mulholland Drive

Who knew a network passing on a pilot could be such a blessing to cinematic history? The first two hours play like Twin Peaks set in Hollywood, and make for David Lynch at his most accessible. Then the last half hour completely fucks with your mind. The result is one of the decade's most entertaining brain-teasers, and hopefully left ABC kicking itself for the bad call.

8. Memento

There's a lot of trends in '00s filmmaking that Memento has a hand in: stories told out of sequence, anti-heroes, characters with memory problems, and the reemerence of neo-noir. On its own, it's the best kind of cult movie, completely sucking you in while leaving you guessing til the very end (or beginning). To call it The Usual Suspects for the '00s is as appropriate a compliment as I can find.

7. Wall-E

If The Incredibles showed Pixar could make movies equally for kids and adults, Wall-E seems more just for the adults. How else to explain a movie that's largely silent for its first two acts, that heavily uses 1960s musical Hello Dolly, and that contains one of the most unusual and heartwarming romances of the decade? The last act is criticized by some, but it still strikes me as one of the most creative dystopian scenarios that writers have come up with. Who knew a cartoon could make one of the biggest statements of the decade?

6. There Will Be Blood

Daniel Plainview may be one of the most despicable characters of the decade, yet he's also the center of P.T. Anderson's epic. His complex relationship to his son (paternal love or business tool?) keeps us behind him as he ruthlessly buys up land and picks fights with the local preacher just because he can. The oil tower meltdown is a pretty incredible image, but the movie will mainly be remembered for its horrific ending. Don't try to drink his milkshake.

5. The Lord of the Rings

Peter Jackson took the most read and beloved pre-Harry Potter books of all time and turned them into three of the biggest movies ever made. If I had to pick just one it would be The Fellowship of the Ring, as Jackson and his co-writers actually improved on the text by cutting the long forest section and adding on Boromir's death for a better ending. But I'd prefer to honor it as a single achievement, successfully fusing action and character to create a satisfying visualization of what we all imagined as kids.

4. The Dark Knight

One of the most promising trends of the '00s was putting well-respected indie directors in charge of big blockbusters. Sam Raimi got Spider-Man, Bryan Singer got X-Men, and Christopher Nolan got Batman. He did the superhero justice in Batman Begins, but The Dark Knight elevated Batman well beyond his comic book roots and into the category of epic crime classic. And there's no way to deny Heath Ledger's Joker as the villain of the decade.

3. Almost Famous

At the time, this was considered the personal movie Cameron Crowe got to make as a reward for Jerry Maguire. Yet who today doesn't see this as his superior film? Almost Famous may not have the same filmmaking showmanship of There Will Be Blood, but as a celebration of rock's golden age and the best coming of age movie I've seen, Almost Famous is the movie that gets the most play in my DVD player.

2. Children of Men

Alfonso Cuaron was already having a good decade, between Y Tu Mama Tambien (which barely didn't make this list) and the third Harry Potter movie (which is still my favorite). Children of Men is so much more than a sci-fi film or a dystopian movie. Those two one-shot scenes have been studied more than anything else this decade, and great actors like Clive Owen, Michael Caine, and Chiwetel Ejiofor got to do some of their best work. By infusing every shot with the problems of today without the speeches a lesser movie would use, Children of Men proved the ideal model of what a political allegory should look like.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I know, I know, it's a totally predictable choice for best of the decade, but there's a reason: cause it is. Charlie Kaufman showed his chops at brainy screenplays in Being John Malkovich and Adaptation (which would have been my #16), but here he went the extra distance by giving it heart. Just try to hold it together when Joel loses Valentine at the end of their first memory, or when they decide to give the relationship another try. Eternal Sunshine brings together many themes of the '00s (ill-fated romances, time-jumping, etc.), but does it so much better than the rest that it's secured as a classic for the decade.

Obviously there's a ton I've left off of here (my first list was 29 movies), and I'd give strong honorable mentions to Adaptation, Garden State, Before Sunrise, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, No Country for Old Men, and The 40 Year Old Virgin.

Now your turn. What am I leaving off? And what were your favorites from the decade?

TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2008

Ok, I realize this list is coming about a month and a half (or more) too late for anyone to really care. Even with the extra time I still didn't get to every movie on my to-see list. This may not be among my strongest top 10 lists, but those top four can hold up to any other year. Let's get to it.

1. The Dark Knight
The Academy may have dropped the ball, but The Dark Knight is still the movie of 2008. Sure, Heath Ledger's Joker is already one of the greatest movie villains of all time, and yes, Christopher Nolan managed to make perhaps the most politically resonant movie of the year using comic book characters. But the real reason The Dark Knight is my #1 is because when you rewatch it, and see how all the instantly iconic scenes build and build for two and a half hours, it's clear what the movie is: a classic.

2. Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog may just be the straight-up most enjoyable movie of the year. Blending Dickensian storytelling, Bollywood dancing, and just the tiniest dash of neorealism, it ends up transcending all labels. All those torture and eye-removal scenes just make the fairy tale ending all the more satisfying.

3. Wall-E
The other brilliant blockbuster of 2008, Wall-E somehow managed to be a biting critique of civilization while simultaneously showing hope for humanity...and did so with robots in love. With only a few well-placed "Waaaall Eee"s and "Eeeeeeevaaaas" for dialogue, Wall-E and Eve were the most touching couple of the year. Pixar has animated many things - fish, cars, toys - but it was the low-vocabulary robots that really came alive.

4. Milk
How often does a movie make you want to go out and take action at exactly the right moment in history to do so? The passing of Proposition 8 may have given a somewhat tragic air to Milk, showing how little has changed in the past 30 years. But there's just so much hope, and belief in the power of the political process, that you know Harvey Milk's story isn't over yet.

5. The Wrestler
For me, The Wrestler is at its most powerful in that final scene. We've gotten to know Randy so well and seen so much of his life in the past two hours, that we know exactly what that final Ram Slam means to him, heading into that heartbreaking Springsteen title song. A look at the fakery of pro wrestling and a career-best Marisa Tomei add to the movie's greatness, but it's Mickey Rourke's incredible performance that anchors it.

6. Revolutionary Road
Revolutionary Road may be the anti-Titanic, bitterly showing the dissolution of love instead of its beginning, but what better way to take advantage of the chemistry between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet? Forget Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt, this was the powerhouse acting battle to watch in 2008. With beautiful production values and a scene-stealing turn by Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road shows how to turn an unadaptable literary novel into a great film.

7. Synecdoche, New York
This movie is so deeply flawed that I can't wholly stand behind it. The second half doesn't even make any sense. But the parts that do work are just so brilliant that it's impossible to ignore. Whether a surrealist comedy, a serious meditation on life and death, or a brainteasing puzzle, Synecdoche, NY was easily the most original movie of the year. And confusion goes down a whole lot easier with such a talented ensemble cast.

8. Rachel Getting Married
It's not just the handheld camera that makes you feel like you really attended this wedding. As dysfunctional as it may be, the family feels more believable than in any Hollywood wedding movie I've seen. Black sheep Kym could easily shatter that authenticity, but Anne Hathaway plays her so genuinely that you believe every drug-addled story about her you hear. Playing against type never felt so good.

9. Frost/Nixon
The better of the two theatrical adaptations, Frost/Nixon wins by taking advantage of the screen. The "how he did it" before the interview is engaging enough, but it's the key moment when Nixon falters that makes the movie. Like all good history tales, it works past and present: Frank Langella will make you completely rethink Nixon while letting you imagine what it would be like if someone nailed Bush the same way.

10. Burn After Reading
The Coen Brothers love to play with old Hollywood genres, replacing Bogart with The Dude in The Big Lebowski. Well, here the concept was "what if we took a spy movie and made the McGuffin worthless?" Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and the rest of the top notch cast take that concept and run with it, making for one of the Coens' funniest movies. CIA Chief JK Simmons' line pretty much sums it up, "Report back to me when it...you know...makes sense." That wouldn't be nearly as fun.

Best Picture: The Dark Knight
Runners-Up: Slumdog Millionaire, Wall-E, Milk

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Runners-Up: Sean Penn, Milk; Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road

Best Actress: Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Runner-Up: Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Runners-Up: Emile Hirsch, Milk; Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Supporting Actress: Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Runners-Up: Samantha Morton, Synecdoche, NY; Viola Davis, Doubt

Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Runners-Up: Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight; Gus Van Sant, Milk

Best Original Screenplay: Rachel Getting Married
Runners-Up: Milk, Wall-E

Best Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire
Runners-Up: The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon

Best Animated Film: Wall-E

Best Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire
Runners-Up: The Dark Knight, Milk

Best Original Score: Slumdog Millionaire
Runners-Up: The Dark Knight, Wall-E

Best Original Song: "The Wrestler," The Wrestler
Runners-Up: "Down to Earth," Wall-E; "Jai Ho," Slumdog Millionaire

Pandas, Freckles, and Gossip, Oh My!

You might ask why I bothered watching Kung Fu Panda. It's a fair question. But after the Panda beat Wall-E in all the Animation Guild's awards, I was curious to see what would be losing to the robot come Oscar night. Getting past its obvious inferiority to the Pixar masterpiece, it's a surprisingly enjoyable watch, as far as straight-out kids movies go. Certainly if I was to take a kid to a movie, I could do far worse. The movie's best selling point is the animation. The various animated fight scenes do look really, really cool. I'm sure that's what the animators saw in it.

The Panda also stands out for its rather odd voice casting. Jack Black brings a little too much Tenacious D to his titular slacker. Angelina Jolie's voice has little enough personality you might think her Tigress is animatronic. Dustin Hoffman isn't the first name to come to mind when you hear "kung fu master." Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu are the token Asians in a movie set in China. And David Cross and Seth Rogen are clearly just there for the paycheck (seriously, Monsters vs. Aliens will be Rogen's 3rd animated movie. He really loves the easy money). Kung Fu Panda's not necessary viewing for anyone, but it's a perfectly nice way to waste some time.


Now to shift gears completely, Entertainment Weekly's TV critic, Ken Tucker, wrote this morning that he considers Jack's partner, FBI Agent Renee Walker, to be 24's weakest link this season. He calls her a "wimpy sentimentalist," a "sap," and even goes so far as to call her this season's Kim Bauer. Now, I personally think he's being rather hard on Freckles. Finding it difficult to hold a mother and baby at gunpoint seems like a rather reasonable response. Jack used to have some conscience issues once upon a time as well.

Now, I'm not saying she ranks on the list of memorable 24 characters, but how can you call her the weakest link with so many others to choose from? All Monotone does is make googly eyes at Uglier Sarah Jessica Parker and annoy everyone. Boring Boss seems to be the most extreme justification of torture, just because you'd never want to agree with someone like that. But the award for this season's Kim Bauer goes to the First Gentleman. Acting stupid and getting himself kidnapped? No contest.

Quick recap of Monday night's episode: Jack tries to become besties with his 3rd US president. Do you think when he asked President Taylor to "ask around" about him, he was referring to the dead and possibly dead Palmer brothers? Who else does he know that's still alive? Taylor eventually gives Jack his directive: find the First Gentleman within the hour. I like when 24 episodes have hourly goals; it gives them purpose. Plus, it meant the promise of a shoot-out at the end.

Meanwhile, Taylor lets Buchanan stick around and make policy decisions because she doesn't dare question the hair. Boring Boss enters the Jack Bauer Club...just to lecture everyone for the 8000th time about torture. Jack kills a guy because he's Jack Bauer. Freckles questions her desire to be Jack's torture apprentice for approximately one minute, 49 seconds. And Dubaku goes to confront his waitress girlfriend's wheelchair-bound sister for....reasons unknown. Seriously, does he actually plan on seeing the waitress again? Also, I think Uglier Sarah Jessica Parker is the mole. Otherwise what does she do?

Finally, the weekly gossip on Grey's Anatomy (why is the gossip so much better than the show? Watch any given episode to find that out). Costar James Pickens Jr. (The Chief) told Us Weekly that TR Knight and Katherine Heigl will both be leaving the show. Spoiler King Michael Ausiello at Entertanment Weekly says it's not a done deal, but it will likely happen sometime early next season.

Now, my first thought is to be happy for the actors. TR Knight's George has probably had around three lines an episode since episode four this season. Characters like "Nurse #8" have more screentime. Katherine Heigl's Izzie has had one of the stupidest subplots I've seen on any TV show in recent memory (you know which one I'm talking about). Watching the way these once-likable characters have been tossed aside is just sad, and both of the actors deserve to move on to bigger and better things.

But if they really leave, and only three of the original five interns remain, what's the point of even continuing the show? The show seemed to introduce a major new character every week, but the only one who survived was Army Doc. After another season, will there even be any Greys left? All I can say is I'm glad I stopped watching when I did.

Watch the Best Original Song Nominees

While most Oscar categories require you to actually see the movies to make an informed opinion, all you need for best original song is youtube, especially when you can find the scenes. Yes, if Springsteen's "The Wrestler" had been nominated it probably would have and should have won, but that doesn't stop these three songs from being worthy. Catch these fast, cause I don't know how long the powers that be will let these vids stay online.

"Jai Ho," Slumdog Millionaire
WARNING: This plays at the very end of the movie with clips from throughout, so if you haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire yet, you may be spoiled.



"O Saya," Slumdog Millionaire
This is one of the first scenes of the movie, so enjoy spoiler-free.



"Down to Earth," Wall-E
I could only find the song with credits in French, but that shouldn't matter.

Last Post of the Year

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! On my last post of 2008, I thought I should do some kind of reflection on the year. I have to see a few more movies and catch up on a few more shows before I can do my top 10 lists, but they are coming. As for what else is coming up: tomorrow is blog resolutions, Friday is a midseason TV preview, and next week will be season premiere recaps. Now back to 2008:

It's a really good thing Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, since that's about the only thing that kept it from being The Year That Sucked. Just look at today's news stories. In real news, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has come back full force, and controversy over disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich's senate pick will spill far into 2009. In entertainment news, a Viacom/Time Warner dispute could mean no Daily Show for the forseeable future, while a SAG strike is still a possibility. And that's just this week.

Here's just a few things we've dealt with this year: the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the fall of Wall Street, the beginnings of the fall of Detroit, record-high gas prices, terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Russia's invasion of Georgia, the Eliot Spitzer scandal, the Rod Blagojevich scandal, a writer's strike that led to one of the worst TV seasons in memory, and a very weak year for movies.

But there were some bright spots, mostly in the election. From the epic Hillary/Obama primary battle to the conventions, debates, and Sarah Palin, the 2008 election was THE entertainment event of the year. People who never voted in their lives were suddenly political junkies, checking daily poll results and tracking debates like play-offs for the World Series. The election even spilled over to real entertainment, giving The Daily Show and The Colbert Report tons of material, and revitalizing Saturday Night Live with Tina Fey's instant-classic impersonation of Sarah Palin. And best of all, it had a happy ending.

While the overall field of movies and TV shows this year may have been weak, the best were comparable with any other year. The Dark Knight was the best superhero movie ever, one of the best crime epics ever, and featured one of the best movie villains ever. Wall-E was so much more than Pixar's best film, being as well a definitive look at our era. Slumdog Millionaire's frontrunner status for best picture may come out of lack of competition, but it would be at the top in any other year too. I'd put these three above my top three movies from last year, easily.

As for TV, I may not have added any new shows to my dvr in 2008, and a lot of my old favorites may have disappointed, but that didn't stop shows from continuing to wow. Lost, already the best tv show ever, proved it more by changing up the formula with flashforwards. Mad Men avoided a sophomore slump by going even deeper into its characters in year 2. And Dexter showed it could still be suspenseful without as compelling a central device as the Ice Truck Killer or the Bay Harbor Butcher.

So 2008 wasn't ALL bad, just mostly bad. On January 20th, 2009, Barack Obama gets sworn in as president. I certainly hope that means my final post for 2009 will be very different from this one.