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.

31 Days of Horror – October 11th – “Doomsday”

In 20o7, a deadly virus pandemic breaks out in northern UK. The British government’s solution is a massive quarantine over all of Scotland. Those left in the quarantine area are left to fend for themselves, which doesn’t go over so well.

Fast forward about 20 years later and enter our badass leading lady, Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), complete with eyepatch. The Reaper Virus is back, and the Big Kahunas send an elite group of soldiers into No Man’s Land formerly known as Scotland to see if they can find anything that might lead to a cure. Who is selected to head up the task but our one-eyed heroine… who, coincidentally was one of the last few lucky people to make it over the wall the night they put the quarantine into effect.

I was mega excited to see this “Doomsday“, having enjoyed both of Neil Marshall’s previous films (“The Descent” and “Dog Soldiers“). The opening scene had my interest piqued- massive disease pandemics are high on my creep list.  About twenty minutes in, the movie takes a more bleak, post-apocalyptic angle. Right on! I’m thinking “Fallout 3 meets Half Life 2: The Movie”, and I’m ready for some action! About thirty minutes in, the movie makes a 90 degree turn for the 80′s. Complete with the psychotic bad guy, Sol, with his silly punk rock hair-do and spiked jacket. Sol does a jig on stage, eats some human flesh, and I’m lost.

TV Casualties Rating: out of 5

Run Time: 105 minutes

Directed by: Neil Marshall

Written by: Neil Marshall

Starring: Rhona Mitra, Craig Conway, Sean Pertwee

Theatrical Release: 03/14/08

DVD Release: 07/29/08

Production Budget: $33 million

Domestic Gross: $11 million

Metacritic Score: 51/100

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 48%

The confusion doesn’t end there, either- there’s still a “Gladiator” scene, a car chase scene that looks a little more like a car commercial than anything else, and the neatly packaged ending.

There’s so much wrong with “Doomsday“, and so much that could have been right. Either the disease pandemic angle or the bleak post-apocalyptic angles could have been awesomely scary. And if Marshall wanted to do an 80′s action/apocalypse homage, that’s cool, too, but pick a genre and stick with it. I’m not necessarily a big fan of the medieval-meets-cheesy-punk-rock apocalypse style, but I’d tolerate it if the movie at least made sense.

“Doomsday” has a disconnected feel, as if it were written in 10 or 20 minute chunks that wind up not really corresponding to one another. Eden’s eye patch, for example, disappears after her first scene.

This was Marshall’s first big budget movie, and think a lot of directors get dollar sign fever when they finally get the big budget. They forget the old adage that “less is more.” Hopefully Marshall will get back to basics for his next feature.

31 Days of Horror – October 7th – “Dog Soldiers”

“Dog Soldiers” puts itself ahead of the pack right off the bat by coming up with a realistic reason for a bunch of people to be stranded in a dire situation. There’s a challenge in coming up with a premise that isolates the characters in some kind of horror hell. So many movies half-ass the set-up that they immediately fall flat.

A group of British soldiers embark on a training mission in the Scottish wilderness… and find they’ve bitten off more than they can chew when they discover most of a Special Ops group torn to pieces at a nearby camp. It’s 50 miles to the nearest town, and night is falling quickly.

Lots of good old fashion gore, not to mention a decent, comptent story (another horror rarity), follows. There’s an action scene towards the middle of the movie that comes off like a bunch of boys playing War, perhaps not helped by the incredibly fake sounding gunfire. But for the most part, the performances are solid. The dialogue is relaxed. A lot of (bad) horror movies are a little too aware of the fact that they’re horror movies, and the exchanges are forced and stiff.

TV Casualties Rating: out of 5

Run Time: 105 minutes

Directed by: Neil Marshall

Written by: Neil Marshall

Starring: Kevin McKidd, Sean Pertwee, Emma Cleasby

Theatrical Release: 05/10/02

DVD Release: 09/4/07

Production Budget: N/A

Domestic Gross: N/A

Metacritic Score: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 79%

The monsters reminded me more of the Egyptian god Anubis than your standard werewolves, which wouldn’t necessarily be bad, except they just look a little silly. Considering the budget, I have to cut the movie some slack. However, what a lot of movies don’t understand is that the unknown is scarier than the known, so not showing too much of the monster works to their advantage. This is especially true when the special effects are subpar. So even though I’ll forgive “Dog Soldiers” for the low budget effects, I think it would have been scarier had they not shown quite so much of the big dog heads.

Just to give you an idea of how low budget we’re talking, the movie was originally shot on 16mm and blow up to 35mm. For such a low budget affair, it’s a damn good movie, and no surprise that writer/director Neil Marshall went on to make “The Descent“, which is probably my favorite horror movie.