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.

Killshot: Resurrected From the Depths of the Weinstein Vaults

Yet another shelved movie comes to light on DVD this week in “Killshot.” You already know the Weinstein routine – reshoots, delayed release dates, editors removing a major character (Johnny Knoxville), producer Quentin Tarantino removing his name, and a theatrical release covering a pathetic five theaters. What’s left is a movie gutted to just 90 minutes – essentially a straight to DVD release.

Mickey Rourke plays Armand ‘The Blackbird’ Degas, a half Native American hitman for the Toronto mob. Blackbird’s first rule on the job is that you kill anyone that sees your face. (Except for Rosario Dawson because he loved her in “Rent.”)

During a job in Detroit, Blackbird manages to royally P.O. his former boss by snuffing “one of his best girls.” (Bros before Hos, gentleman. Bros before Hos.) So he runs to the sticks, where a pseudo-psychotic small-time criminal named Richie Nix (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) attempts to relieve him of his wallet and car. These two knuckleheads bond over the experience and decide to team up, Captain Planet style. Richie hatches an elaborate scheme to extort some cash from the owner of a real estate agency by – wait for it – threatening to kill him if he doesn’t pay. (Why didn’t I think of that!)

TV Casualties Rating:

Run Time: 95 minutes

Directed by: John Madden

Written by: Hossein Amini, Elmore Leonard

Starring: Mickey Rourke, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Diane Lane, Thomas Jane

Theatrical Release: 01/23/09

DVD Release: 05/26/09

Production Budget: N/A

Domestic Gross: $18,000

Metacritic Score: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: N/A

As in all pulp crime stories, the plan goes horrible awry. The two miscreants arrive at the real estate office during lunch hour (Classic mistake!) and confuse a realtor’s husband, Wayne (Thomas Jane), with the man with the deep pockets. Wayne makes short shrift of the criminals, of course, defusing their plan, saving his lovely wife and breaking pretty much every window in the building – all with one length of pipe.

Wayne and his wife Carmen (Diane Lane) made a grave error during the bungled heist, though: they looked at Blackbird’s face. (Let’s not forget Bird’s very clear “See my face – shoot your face” rule.) The couple enlist in witness protection and head to Missouri for a few bland scenes before we get to the big confrontation.

“Killshot” is more style than substance, and even the style loses its luster after 15 minutes. The characters are paper thin and boring, and even though this is a talented cast, the performances are equally dull. Gordon-Levitt plays the only character with any color, but he goes so far over the top, you’re begging Blackbird to put a cap in his face after five minutes. Rourke has solid moments but spends most of the movie talking in an annoying clipped English (to prove he’s part Indian, I guess). Similarly, Jane speaks with a ludicrous accent that I can only assume is his attempt at sounding like a Detroit-native. Instead he sounds more like the “Da Bears” skit from SNL. Despite the fact that Lane graces the posters and DVD cover, she’s the least compelling of all.

If the Weinstein’s were going to give “Killshot” such a non-existent release, why bother with all of the editing and reshoots in the first place? When a movie is stripped down for a straight to DVD release like this, I always wonder what could have been. What exactly was in the 30+ minutes they left on the cutting room floor? How would Johnny Knoxville’s character have fit into the plot? We will likely never know.