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.

Documentary December – Last Train Home

In many ways, life in China is almost incomprehensible to the average American. Lixin Fan’s documentary, Last Train Home, gives us a glimpse, a sometimes disturbing one, of life in China through the lens of one family of migrant workers.

TV Casualties Rating: out of 5

Run Time: 86 minutes

Directed by: Lixin Fan

Starring: Zhang Changhua, Chen Suqin, Qin Zhang

Theatrical Release: 09/5/10

DVD Release: 2/22/11

Production Budget: N/A

Domestic Gross: $272,556

Metacritic Score: 86/100

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 100%

The movie opens with a shot panning across an endless crowd of people – I’d guess in the six figure range – standing outside of a train station in the rain. Every year 130 million migrant workers head home for the Chinese New Year, which, we’re told via text on the screen, is the largest human migration in the world. The subjects of the film, Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin, have been making this annual trek for roughly 20 years – starting when they were just 16 years old and dropped out of school to find work, a decision which they not only regret but seems to consume them – even after 20 years, they bring it up constantly. The couple spends the rest of the year living in a tiny bunk down the hall from the factory where they sew jeans and other garments to be shipped to the Western world.

They arrive home at the family farm to spend time with their 16 year old daughter, 10 year old son and the grandmother that is raising the children with the financial help of the factory money. Their visit is awkward. Spending around 51 weeks a year away at work, they don’t know their own kids very well. Their daughter, Qin, is openly angry at her parents and rebellious. Ironically, and against all the parental advice she’s ever received, Qin drops out and gets a factory job similar to that of her parents. Her parents are confused and upset by her decision. Her mother says, “I’d rather work even harder than have Qin work.”

While there are many differences from American life to be seen, in some ways the similarities are more striking. The first words out of Qin’s younger brother’s mouth when his parents show him the cell phone they bought Qin are, “Does it have games?” During an argument with her mother, Qin says, “I don’t care what you say.” Teen angst and rebellion, it appears, are universal.

If the most important thing in someone’s life is spending time with the people they care about, the economic situation in China has removed this aspect of life almost completely. Last Train Home doesn’t beat this idea over your head, but by the end you realize that’s what it’s all about.

Documentary December – Winnebago Man

Jack Rebney is the Winnebago Man – an oddly eloquent yet obscenity laced orator that rose to Youtube fame for the outtakes of an early 1980′s Winnebago promotional video that featured him losing his shit repeatedly and swearing up a damn storm. (My personal favorite quote is “My mind is just a piece of shit this morning.”) As a truly eccentric character – he has lived in the woods alone for the past 15 years – with a flair for hilarious dialogue, he is a kickass subject for a documentary. Director Ben Steinbauer, however, took this great subject and made a merely OK documentary.

First of all, take a look at the original video:

The movie begins with Steinbauer following in the footsteps of “throw it together” documentary filmmakers like Nick Broomfield that essentially make a movie about themselves trying to make a movie. They run down leads and try to get interviews. The narrative follows the filmmaker’s journey rather than the subject’s journey, and the story is told to the audience by the director via lots of voice over rather than letting the footage show us the subject and their story. In this case, Steinbauer talks about his personal history with the Winnebago Man video, which actually dates back to the pre-Youtube era of funny videos being spread via hand copied VHS tapes. He then details his early efforts in finding Rebney and setting up an interview with him. In an already very short movie (less than 90 minutes), this is fluff, and there’s an annoying “golly gee, funny videos make everyone happy” quality to the early voice over segments to make it a little worse.

TV Casualties Rating: out of 5

Run Time: 85 minutes

Directed by: Ben Steinbauer

Starring: Jack Rebney

Theatrical Release: 07/09/10

DVD Release: 11/02/10

Production Budget: N/A

Domestic Gross: $181K

Metacritic Score: 71/100

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 91%

As the film progresses, we meet Rebney and he’s exactly the same guy we’ve seen on youtube – sure, he’s older, in his mid to late 70′s, but just as intense, quick-witted and foul-mouthed as he was that day in the Winnebago 20 odd years ago. And here’s the film’s real flaw – we ultimately don’t see a ton of footage of Rebney just being himself. Steinbauer fights with him about talking about his childhood and opening up to people, which Rebney has no interest in. Rebney is extremely skeptical of Youtube and his so-called fanbase, whom he misunderstands and assumes to be laughing at him rather than being amused by his turns of filthy phrase.

Rebney’s dream is to write books about politics and philosophy. He agrees to work on Steinbauer’s project merely for the chance to spread his ideas. Winnebago Man reveals almost none of the content of his message and all the footage is condensed into showing him being defensive about “opening up to people.” Without revealing the ending, the “opening up” storyline does pay off in a satisfying way, and I did feel like Rebney was changed by the experience of making this documentary. Still, I wanted to know Rebney better, not in a superficial “what was your childhood like?” way, but in an adult “what are you genuinely passionate about today?” way. Instead I got a Rebney reduced to a hermit caricature to fit Steinbauer’s sappy ode to the power of funny videos. Golly gee, that’s swell.

Documentary December – The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia

It’s the Appalachian equivalent of Jersey Shore.  The opening minutes of Julien Nitzberg’s documentary, “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia“, give a rapid fire family history of the film’s subject, the White family of Boone County, West Virginia.  A gun shot sound effect punctuates.  The patriarch, D. Ray White, was a clog/tap dancer, growing famous both for his unique performances as well as his outlaw lifestyle that ultimately resulted in him getting shot and killed.  His sons attempted to follow in his footsteps, perhaps finding more success in terms of achieving the outlaw lifestyle than anything else. One died a violent death at a young age, one fled the area to keep out of trouble, and the most famous, Jesco White, has brain damage from “ten long years of huffing gasoline.”  He isn’t sure if the damage is on the left or right side of his brain, but does recall the doctor saying that in essence he has a hole in his brain where the remaining tissue is like cigarette ash.  (Jesco is the subject of a 1991 PBS documentary called “Dancing Outlaw” which we plan to review later in the month.)

TV Casualties Rating: out of 5

Run Time: 84 minutes

Directed by: Julien Nitzberg

Starring: Jesco White, Hank Williams III

Theatrical Release: 05/05/2010

DVD Release: 10/26/2010

Production Budget: N/A

Domestic Gross: N/A

Metacritic Score: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 50%

In many ways, this super quick opening summary is the most compelling part of the film.  The outlaw life and death is dramatic and intriguing from a distance.  It all gets uglier upon closer examination.

After the shock of the family’s violent history, Nitzberg moves into the day to day life of the Whites, which is an all you can eat, smoke and snort buffet of prescription drugs, whiskey and weed. We watch a new mother chop and snort oxycontin off the hospital room end table a few hours after giving birth.  We see two 50-60 year olds blow smoke in their 85 year old mother’s face during her birthday party.  We meet a lot of family members that talk way slower than Tommy Chong.

The Whites have a histrionic streak about as wide as the New River Valley Gorge.  Family members trade off bragging about using and selling drugs or committing acts of violence.  They take an enormous amount of pride in their fame and the attention they get for being so dysfunctional.  The infamy and death are glorified as much as possible.

But generations of this lifestyle lead to a value system that a normal person can’t really comprehend until they watch this.  Drugs and violence have been such a part of the Whites lives now for so long that they have no real sense of the negative effects they can have, even in the case of guarding their kids from them.  There are scenes of one of the 5 or 6 year old kids drinking 6 or 7 cans of Pepsi and bouncing off the walls.  How many years until it’s something more serious? In later scenes, the same child threatens to murder his estranged father. His aunt’s response is something along the lines of, “You wanna go to jail? Don’t say that kinda stuff on camera.”

In the end, there isn’t really a single clear cut good guy among The White clan.  Jesco may be the most articulate and charming, which is insane considering his aforementioned brain issues.  The family is fascinating on a certain level, but there is ultimately no real substance to their story.  The violence of a train wreck is visceral and thrilling, but the aftermath, the reality, is no fun.

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.

Trailer Trash: Weekend of 7/3/09 Trailers

Public Enemies:

Johnny Depp and Christian Bale in a 30′s gangster flick based on the John Dillinger story.

Ice Age:

The third installment of the animated “Ice Age” series.

I Hate Valentines Day:

I hate this movie already.

First clip of Johnny Depp and Christian Bale in “Public Enemies” Out Now

The first clip of “Public Enemies” has been released.  The gangster movie starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale is due out July 1.

You can check out the theatrical trailer here:

DVD Trailers, 6/16/09

Here’s a look at the best of this week’s DVD releases:

Burn Notice: Season Two

This is one show I really need to get caught up on. I’m glad to see that it’s currently ranked the 7th best selling among DVDs right now on Amazon, with Season One not far behind at #46. You can also get $12 off if you buy the Season One and Two bundle.

Family Guy, Vol. 7

The new “Family Guy” DVD set covers the last four episodes of Season Six and the first nine of Season Seven. It’s loaded with extras like commentaries on every episode, deleted scenes and featurettes, including one with footage of Comic Con 2008.

The Seventh Seal (Criterion Collection)

One of the best movies of all time finally gets the Criterion treatment plus a Blu-ray release.

Friday the 13th (Extended Killer Cut)

The remake hits the shelves with an extended cut.

Terror at Blood Fart Lake

The title caught my eye. You be the judge.

Trailer Trash: Weekend of 6/19/09 Trailers

This weekend’s theatrical releases ranked in the order I’d like to see them from most to least:

Year One

This is the first trailer that’s made me laugh in a while – thanks to David Cross. Jack Black and Michael Cera star as essentially the first lazy men in history.

Under Our Skin

This documentary about Lyme disease looks pretty alarming.

Dead Snow

Nazi zombies in the snow.

Whatever Works

Woody Allen directs Larry David. It looks fairly funny, though Evan Rachel Wood seems pretty annoying.

$9.99

Animated comedy about the meaning of life based on the short stories of Etgar Keret. Geoffrey Rush does one of the voices.

End of the Line

This is a documentary about the effects of overfishing. It’s like an anti- “Deadliest Catch.”

The Proposal

I propose that I will never watch this. Ever.

First Michael Moore Teaser Released

Michael Moore has a new, as yet untitled, documentary about what caused the economic collapse – what Moore calls “the biggest robbery in the history of this country” – as well as the subsequent federal bailout. The film is due out October 2, 2009.

The trailer played in a few theaters this weekend, and ushers walked the aisles with cans to collect money for the needy CEOs Moore speaks of in the commercial.

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