Top 20 Movies of the Decade (2000-2009)

After waiting a year (almost) for the movies of 2000-2009 to fully sink in, we’re finally prepared to unleash our best of the decade list. Hold on to your butts.

20. Memento – The infamous “backwards movie” that really launched Christopher Nolan’s career (The Dark Knight, The Prestige, Inception). Nolan packs enough action into his movies to satisfy most everyone, but at the root of his best movies are unique story/narrative concepts that are fully developed and realized via complex plots. Hard to believe that some thought of him as a “gimmick” movie maker when Memento first came out.

19.  Cloverfield – A documentary style horror movie, effectively crossing Godzilla with The Blair Witch Project. Maybe not completely beloved by critics, but beloved by me. Cloverfield‘s faithfulness to its point of view gives the unfolding horrors a sense of realism that heightens their impact.

18. Nine Lives – Nine loosely connected, interwoven vignettes, written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia, son of famed Latin American author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

17. Dogville – Lars Von Trier’s controversial 2003 movie starring Nicole Kidman and set on a stage with no props, backdrops, or scenery. Very dark.

16. Adaptation – Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin, Donald, attempt to adapt Susan Orlean’s  The Orchid Thief.

15. The King of Kong – This documentary tells the story of the all-time Donkey Kong arcade game record, which is surprisingly dramatic. There’s sabotage, conspiracy, and an antagonist so villainous, you wouldn’t believe it if it wasn’t real. Plus a lot of hilarious nerds.

14. O Brother, Where Art Thou? – The Coen Brothers teamed up with George Clooney to make a Depression-era retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey.

13. The Man Who Wasn’t There – Billy Bob Thornton stars in this barber shop Noir. My favorite Coen Brothers movie of the decade, even if it’s not the most critically acclaimed.

12. Brick – This is what happens when you view a high school drama through a Noir lens.

11. The Descent – A horror movie that rises to the challenge of having an actual story with real characters, while remaining truly scary. (Side note: In seventh grade, I made it to the southwest semifinal spelling bee for my state, and I got out on my first word. Descent. Ever since, the word has terrified me.)

10. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Charlie Kaufman’s “what if we could pay to erase our bad memories?” movie, starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet.

9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – Peter Jackson’s fantasy trilogy is probably the best execution ever in this genre.

8. Let the Right One In – Swedish vampire movie that on the surface sounds similar to the plot of something like Twilight, but in reality works as a totally unique, quirky horror movie.

7. Inglourious Basterds – Most critics prefer the Kill Bill movies, but despite many openly sophomoric elements, Basterds struck me as Tarantino’s most mature movie, and it’s my favorite of his from this decade, and maybe my favorite over all.

6. A Tale of Two Sisters – This Korean horror movie combines a “what the hell is going on” plot with a variety of creepy visuals.  It has stuck with me for about 7 years.  (It also was remade into the horrible American horror movie “The Uninvited“.)

5. Shotgun Stories – A blood feud erupts between two families in a rural Arkansas town, and it’s not long before both sides go too far.

4. Amelie – A French story about an eccentric girl and her first secret adventures after a childhood of isolation.

3. The Station Agent – A lonesome dwarf inherits an old train station building in rural New Jersey and befriends some of the locals.

2. The Best of Youth – Originally made for Italian TV, this 6 hour mini-series/movie tells the story of 2 brothers, covering from their high school years up through adulthood.

1. Grizzly Man – The life and death of Timothy Treadwell – the guy who voluntarily lived among the bears in the wild of Alaska for months at a time – filmed by Treadwell himself and pieced together into a documentary by Werner Herzog after Treadwell’s death.  I watched this over 5 years ago and still think about it a lot. It didn’t win the Oscar, in fact it wasn’t even nominated, but it’s number 1 in our book.

Ranking the New Shows: #6 – Nurse Jackie

In an early, draft of this list, we had Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie” ranked as high as #2, but over time it slid down to#6.

The show: “Nurse Jackie“

Synopsis: A Vicodin addicted nurse tries to balance a hectic work life with a messy love life

Debuted: June 9th, 2009

Our take: I started out really enthusiastic about Nurse Jackie, but by the end of the season my interest had petered out. The way the characters were first introduced was great- nursing student Zoey hovers awkwardly until Jackie snaps. Jackie manipulates her boyfriend into giving her drugs without him realizing that’s all she’s interested in.  And then the show seemed to be dragging it’s feet, which is bad news when your episodes are only half an hour long. The half hour format in itself is an odd fit- I think they were going for a Weeds-style dark dramedy, but a lot of the humor after the first few episodes didn’t work.

For the first few episodes, Nurse Jackie was “gray”- she was snorting pain killers and unabashedly using her boyfriend to get more (behind her husband’s back, of course), and you’re not really sure how you feel about all of this. Mid-season Jackie becomes almost two separate characters- in some scenes she’s clearly written so the audience is with her. In others we’re meant to be against her. There’s something ballsy about putting a character out there that you’re not entirely sure how the audience will react to, and I feel like the writers of “Nurse Jackie” lost their nerve. They write to manipulate, knowing how the audience will react to every scene. A better and more consistent “gray” character can be found in Mad Men’s Don Draper.

What it would need to do to keep me watching: Bring sassy, cynical, verging on angry Jackie back, and let us decide whether or not we’re disgusted or not by her behavior. Oh yeah, and leave the weird slapstick comedy moments out.

Ranking the New Shows: #7 – Eastbound and Down

Danny McBride’s HBO comedy, “Eastbound & Down,” comes in at #7.  Of the 3 half hour comedies in our top 10, this is easily the foulest.

The show: “Eastbound & Down“
Synopsis: Former professional baseball star returns home in shame to teach a high school gym class before mounting his comeback attempt.
Debuted: February 15th, 2009
Our take: There are fairly consistent laughs, mostly coming from McBride and his trusty sidekick Stevie (Steve Little).   The show is largely adlibbed, which winds up being a gift and a curse.  When it works, it’s pretty much hilarious and completely unique.  The problem arises in that it misses just as often, and it comes off as lazy and uninspired.  There are stretches where it seems like no one is trying.  There are also scenes where it seems like the actors are fighting each other for attention, hamming it up to be the funniest one in the scene and those fall really flat as well.  We were also a little disappointed in the way that former “Deadwood” star John Hawkes was used (or should we say wasn’t used?)

What it would need to do to keep me watching: The first season was only 6 episodes.  It’s hard to imagine where the show will go from this point.  It almost has to change directions to some degree, so that could be interesting.  If it showed a little more discipline, it could be one of our highest rated.

Ranking the New Shows: #8 – True Blood

Crap! Fall is here and we’ve falling behind on our rankings.  Let’s try to speed this up.
“True Blood” is up at number 8. The show is incredibly faithful to the whole vampire thing… and by that I mean it sucks.

The show: “True Blood“
Synopsis: Girl bangs vampire.
Debuted: September 7th, 2008
Our take: It’s a good thing for HBO’s “True Blood” that I ranked these shows before the second season came out. While the show’s Nielsen ratings have doubled from last year, they lost at least two viewers in the TV Casualties screening room.

I gave the show 14 or 15 episodes before I threw in the towel. Looking back, the pilot struck me as mediocre, especially considering the talent behind the series. From that point, the series went downhill quickly. I was such a big fan of Alan Ball’s “Six Feet Under” that when I first heard about HBO developing this series, I ran out and read all of the books it’s based on.  I haven’t hated a show this much since “Nip/Tuck,” and I might hate this one more because I had so much invested in it.

What it would need to do to keep me watching: There’s so much wrong with “True Blood” that I can’t imagine it surviving any of the surgical removals I’d recommend. Mainly Anna Paquin. I can’t recall encountering a more obnoxious, irrational, and just plain dumb main character in any book, show, or movie.

The Acolytes: Underground Horror from Down Under

Part serial killer thriller, part good teens gone bad, Australian indie “Acolytes” is the kind of horror movie they should be making more of. I’m pretty hard to please when it comes to this genre, and I was pleasantly surprised by this one.

Mark (Seb Gregory) wanders into the woods one day and spies a man burying something. He and his friends James (Josh Payne) and Chasely (Hannah Morgan Lawrence) decide to unearth the buried treasure, but instead of money, they discover the body of a young woman.

Here’s where the movie takes a turn for the “Kids do the darndest things when they find a body”, and I start wondering if I ever really want to procreate. Instead of reporting the body to the police, Mark and James cook up a scheme to find the murderer and blackmail him into killing an evil scumbag kiddie rapist (Michael Dorman) who has recently been released from prison. Schemes like this in thrillers never play out as planned, so things go from bad to worse pretty quickly for Mark, James, and Hannah.

TV Casualties Rating: out of 5

Run Time: 91 minutes

Directed by: Jon Hewitt

Written by: Shayne Armstrong, Shane Krause

Starring: Sebastian Gregory, Joshua Payne, Hannah Mangan Lawrence

Theatrical Release: 05/15/08

DVD Release: 07/28/09

Production Budget: $4 million

Domestic Gross: N/A

Metacritic Score: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 83%

With a small budget of only four million dollars, “Acolytes” has a great visual style and excellent performances by the cast, especially considering their age. Unlike most teen horror flicks, the characters in “Acolytes” are handled as real people instead of hash marks on a killer’s bed post.

You’ve probably seen movies that have one twist too many. The theatrical release of this movie has four or five too many- so many twists piled on top of one another is overkill and takes away from the overall impact. The ending is a bit of a cliché for a thriller, which is the biggest let down of all. (The DVD features two alternate endings.)

Overall, “Acolytes” is a movie I would certainly recommend to fans of the horror/thriller genre. It’s dark and disturbing and has just the right kind of jump-out-of-your-seat tension. The DVD became available in the U.S. today.

Ranking the New Shows: #10 – Royal Pains

Number 10 comes to us from the USA network – a fairly new entrant into the legitimate television drama game.

The show: “Royal Pains”
Synopsis: An unemployed doctor, Hank Lawson (Mark Feuerstein), and his sleazy brother Evan (Paulo Costanzo), enter the realm of the ultra-wealthy when a billionaire in the Hamptons hires Cliff as his concierge doctor.
Debuted: June 4, 2009
Our take: The key ingredients for a great show are here, but it doesn’t quite come together. The dialogue is quick and witty, and Feuerstein and Costanzo have some chemistry and are likeable as the leads. The premise, while not necessarily riveting, is open ended enough to allow a huge variety of stories. The show bogs itself down with some sentimental cheesiness here and there, though, that undermines its strengths. The good guys, even the loser brother, are a little too good. Nobody wants their source of sleazy humor to actually have a heart of gold. My only real complaint beyond that is that the medical details and jargon seem a little careless and melodramatic.
What it would need to do to keep me watching: Tighten it up. If this was just a little more focused on being entertaining and avoided those cheesy manipulative moments, I’d be a fan. Not every disease has to be a super obscure disaster, and the doctor doesn’t always have to ride in on a white horse to stop injustice and save lives left and right. If they made it a little more believable and emphasized the humor, it’d be a good show.

Ranking the New Shows: #11 – Dollhouse

Fox’s “Dollhouse” was one of the most anticipated new series this year, but many feel it was lucky to be picked up for a second season. It lands just shy of the Top Ten on our list.

The show: “Dollhouse“
Synopsis: The Dollhouse is an underground organization that uses new technology to program “actives” – people that have had their personalities wiped – to fulfill a wide arrange of missions. Contrary to standard Dollhouse procedure, Echo (Eliza Dushku) seems to be remembering more and more of her pre-Doll life, while FBI agent Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) races to expose the organization and save the girl.
Debuted: February 13, 2009
Our take: “Dollhouse” had a lot of problems before it even aired- a complete halt in production, a pilot that was canned (the original will be available on the DVD), and continuing conflict between the network and creator Joss Whedon. The final product reflects those problems. I spend a lot of my time watching “Dollhouse” trying to figure out what the writers are going for. What is the hook? What is it that they can’t wait to unleash on the audience? Nothing here really grabs me. Whedon’s previous work, like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel“, thrived on quirky humor and major plot twists. “Dollhouse” takes itself more seriously than either of those but doesn’t have the dramatic impact to back it up. The comedy primarily comes through Topher, the nerdy Doll programmer, whom finds himself so amusing it’s way more annoying than funny. The plot twists fail to surprise. I keep waiting for something bigger to happen, but the suspense is non-existent. Perhaps the biggest problem with “Dollhouse” is that the starring role doesn’t fit their lead actress. Dushku doesn’t have the chops to pull off a role that requires her to play a different character every week. She mostly winds up looking constantly confused. It’s highlighted further because the other two Dolls (Sierra and Victor) show tons of range and pull off a variety of characters convincingly and entertainingly. The writers addressed this issue somewhat after the first few episodes by simplifying Echo’s role and focusing more on side characters.
What it would need to do to keep me watching: “Dollhouse” has been a frustrating viewing experience so far, but I stuck with it through the first season, and I’ll give it a chance next year. The show did improve over the course of the first run of episodes, but I’m sticking with it more out of faith in Joss Whedon than anything the show has done.

Ranking the New TV Shows: #14 – Glee

The 14th best show is something of an anomaly in that the pilot was released this spring, but the rest of the series will not air until next fall. With just one episode to judge, it probably got docked a few points. Looking purely at potential, we could have put it a few spots higher. Either way, from 14 on is a huge step up from the bottom of the rankings. All of the shows from here on out show a lot of promise.

The show: “Glee“
Synopsis: A quirky version of “High School Musical” for Prime Time television from the creator of “Nip/Tuck“. Teacher and all-around great guy, Will Scheuster (Matthew Morrison) fights to keep the Glee Club alive and recruit new talent in a high school focused on popularity, cheerleading, sports, etc.
Debuted: May 19th, 2009 (Official Series Premiere: September, 16, 2009)
Our take: The show is pretty funny, with humor ranging from Jane Lynch’s macho cheer coach to the eccentricities of the nerd crowd.  The primary core of characters each have a distinct voice.   There’s the Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron), the super achiever who’s got the perfectly contradictory balance of insecurity and overconfidence.  Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) is the yin to her yang as the nice guy jock who dares to join the uncool Glee Club to the chagrin of his fellow football players. It goes on like that with other characters. Each one has their own idiosyncrasies and comedic style. On the other hand it’s a little black-and-white with the good guys and bad. The puppet strings are obvious. Will is too nice, and his wife is clearly an excuse for an obstacle, not a real person.
What it would need to do to keep me watching: The pilot of “Glee” climaxes, of course, with a big song and dance routine. I felt they missed a huge opportunity to show the talent of the cast by way overproducing it. Earlier musical numbers stood out because they seemed (and were) real. I know they wanted to really blow everyone away with the grand finale, but the outcome was phony. This was a chance to stand out from other tv shows and even movies by having an organic vocal performance that the audience could connect with. They could have had a comedy series with a touch of Broadway. Instead they have a comedy series with a touch of Britney Spears. Will I watch next year? It’s iffy.

Ranking the New TV Shows: #15 – The Life & Times of Tim

We’re back with Number 15, which happens to be our only animated offering of the year.

The show: “The Life and Times of Tim”
Synopsis: Tim is a normal guy (for a cartoon), who finds himself in many an awkward/inappropriate situation. It’s kinda like an animated “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” or “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Debuted: June 2008
Our take: The first episode has a few laugh out loud moments, but there seems to be a lack of editing that drags almost every scene down. It’s clear that much of the show is improvised, which is a blessing and a curse. (If there’s a script at all, I’d guess it’s very loose.) The blessing comes in the form of natural delivery that gives the dialogue an awkward edge. Many of the funniest part of the show are a direct product of that. The curse, on the other hand, is essentially dead air. The stammering, the jokes that fall flat, the bits of small talk- all of it is left in, which leads to scenes that are too long and huge gaps between laughs.
What it would need to do to keep me watching: It needs to be quicker, tighter, and more disciplined. “The Life and Times of Tim” would benefit greatly from an editor that can discern the funny from the not. “Raped by a bum” is funny once or twice, and then it’s time to move on.