The Top 50 Films of 2000-2009:#10-1

10. Almost Famous (US, 2000)

"The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool," Lester Bangs advises William Miller in the latter stages of Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous.  It’s the lesson William slowly comes to terms with as a faux-journalist covering 70’s rock-and-roll band Stillwater.  Most of the film’s genius stems from Crowe’s adept script, which seamlessly combines the playful elements of the coming-of-age story with a “Behind the Music”-esque rock storyline.  With this development, Crowe is able to stimulate intriguing parallelisms between the desperation of being cool in both stages of life.

In many ways, the story of a group of immature musicians trying to become gods of their industry is the perfect metaphor to coincide with a teenager’s experience with his own growing pains.  Almost Famous is a glorious nostalgia trip, based on Crowe’s personal experiences on the road as a boy, and clearly takes a sentimental approach to a bygone era in rock mythology.  It’s a thoroughly entertaining ride, full of memorable moments, unforgettable performances, and loaded with charm and charisma.

Memorable Moment: The entire cast belts out the lyrics to “Tiny Dancer” while riding on the Stillwater tour bus.

Photo from Scene Stealers

9. Waltz w/ Bashir (Israel, 2008)

One would think that the horrific memories of war would never leave the minds of the men who experienced them first hand.  For Ari Folman, a former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces in 1982, his memories of the Sabra and Shatila massacre are boiled down to one continuously haunting image that he can’t understand.  And he can’t remember anything else.  Setting out to converse with fellow comrades, Folman slowly pieces together what happened that day through an animated documentary filled with talking heads interviews and vivid flashbacks.

Almost entirely conceived in animation, Waltz with Bashir’s non-fictional storyline seems initially devalued by the vibrancy of the film’s colorful moving images.  When a sudden change in form occurs at the end of the film, however, and the real life images are juxtaposed with the initial imagery, the results are staggeringly illuminating.  As the Iraq War moves further and further from the front page of the newspapers, it’s important that films like this one remind us that these kinds of conflicts have consequences.  To forget is to lose what makes us fundamentally human.

Memorable Moment: As Folman’s memory comes full circle, the film makes a startling transition from animation to real documentary footage.


Photo from Reverse Shot

8. The Royal Tenenbaums (US, 2001)

Wes Anderson is a creature of paradox.  His films are such elaborately whimsical constructions - vibrant, colorful, and distinctly photographed - that sometimes his gorgeous aesthetics overshadow how powerful a command he has over emotionality.  The Royal Tenenbaums is his most ambitious production, his most elegantly adorned offering, and his most weighty thematic work.  The family drama is populated by a daunting ensemble cast of characters with all sorts of quintessential quirks and eccentricities.  The real beauty for Anderson is how he is able to make us care what happens to these people. 

His typical creative flourishes are evident throughout (sweeping camera movements, a 60’s rock soundtrack), but they’ve rarely been used with such purpose and intensity.  Devout fans may miss a bit of the whimsy that is replaced by the film’s darker subject matter, but The Royal Tenenbaums is such a perfectly balanced mix of comedy and pathos that it’s hard not to see it as anything other than the most audacious entry in one of cinema’s most audacious bodies of work.

Memorable Moment: A narrator’s opening montage introduces us to members of the Tenenbaum family.

Photo from Slant

7. City of God (Brazil, 2002)

You don’t have to be a film enthusiast to recognize early and often while watching City of God that its wide-ranging, highly ambitious narrative structure is propelled by a tour-de-force visual style.  What’s most shocking is that it never feels showy or unmotivated.  Director Fernando Meirelles is in such powerful command of his storytelling strategies that every tracking shot, quick pan, and frenetic cut feels absolutely essential to plot and character.  It’s an exhilarating rush, and one of the decade’s most welcome surprises.

From the chaotic opening sequence to the jaw-dropping conclusion, City of God is in a league of its own.  Its graphic portrayal of drug violence may not be for everyone, but those wiling to experience the beauty involved in its presentation will be handsomely rewarded.

Memorable Moment: The opening sequence, a frantic chicken chase, sets up the world, the pacing, and the energy of the film.


Photo from We Are Film Geeks

6. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (New Zealand, 2001-2003)

I’d be hard pressed to come up with a more influential group of films over the last ten years than Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy.  Setting the stage for hundreds of big budget wannabes with CG armies and “We have to save the world” plotlines, there’s no doubt in my mind that The Lord of the Rings changed the way movies were made in astronomical ways.  Just take a look at the trailer for the remake of Robin Hood for glaring evidence.

There are many reasons why these movies are important historical documents and dollar signs are only a fraction of them.  Jackson was able to keep the spirit of the original Tolkien mythology while at the same time carving a distinct identity for his own work.  The films are impeccably crafted with minute attention to detail, meticulously composed and irrefutably iconic.  Character names like Frodo, Gollum, and Gandolf are as readily recognizable as any other name and it’s rare for me not to hear someone making Smeagol impressions amongst friends (“The precious!”).  Then again, I hang out with a bunch of nerds.

Memorable Moment: Frodo tries to leave on a boat with the ring without Sam, but the stubborn hobbit makes a teary promise to never leave his side.


Photo from Free Webs

5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (US, 2004)

For a brief moment in time, two of the most innovative and unique artists collaborated on a project so breathtaking it’s a shame that the tandem never worked together again.  I’m talking of course about screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry and their masterwork, Eternal Sunshine.  Gondry was the perfect choice to helm Kaufman’s quirky, highly imaginative pages about a man who seeks an appointment to erase the memory of his ex-girlfriend from his mind, has the procedure, and then desperately tries to prevent its execution after realizing he had made a mistake.

Headed by glowing performances by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, the film is one of the greatest screen romances of all time.  Gondry and Kaufman continue to work on projects separately from each other, still showcasing their tremendous individual talents through solo projects, but they severely lack the immediacy of their past work (see Kaufman’s overwrought Synecdoche, NY or Gondry’s wandering The Science of Sleep).  Let us hope that the day will come when they decide to rekindle their creative duo’s spark.

Memorable Moment: Joel and Clementine lie down on the ice and point out the constellations.


Photo from Ed Harriss

4. There Will Be Blood (US, 2007)

The best way to approach Paul Thomas Anderson’s inexplicable creative anarchy expressed through There Will Be Blood is to break it up into smaller pieces and dissect their value.  For starters, the film contains two of the most over-the-top ridiculous acting performances of all time.  Daniel Day Lewis and Paul Dano are clearly striving for something new here, unrealistic and unclassifiable.  The score composed by Jonny Greenwood (lead guitarist for Radiohead, the decade’s best rock band) is the decade’s most inspired soundtrack, so essential to creating the film’s menacing tone and maintaining a sense of pace.  Greenwood is constantly cuing us that we are watching something important.  Then there’s the cinematography by Robert Elswit, who manages to photograph Anderson’s insane script with one of the most virtuoso displays of mise-en-scene I’ve ever witnessed.  These sentences may seem like strained hyperbole, but after watching There Will Be Blood, it’s impossible not to speak about it without using extremes.  It’s an exciting, bold mess of experimentation that brings to mind the ambitions of a young Orson Welles.  Daniel Plainview may not be Charles Foster Kane, but he’s pretty close.

Memorable Moment: Daniel is baptized at the church.  He admits to abandoning his child.  Scary veins show up on his forehead.


Photo from Giant Bomb

3. No Country for Old Men (US, 2007)

If we’ve learned anything from the events of 9/11, it’s that the most horrifying villains are the ones we don’t understand.  Their evil stems from a worldview we cannot comprehend, absent of logic and clear motive.  Anton Chigurh, the antagonist in the Coen Brothers’ film No Country for Old Men is a living, breathing embodiment of this kind of evil and the sheriff in town (Tommy Lee Jones) knows it.  According to him, this is a new brand of killer, one that cannot be interpreted under normal terms.  Even though he’s investigating the case, we get the sense early and often that the sheriff feels overmatched.  To catch a killer, you have to think like one.  But what if the killer doesn’t think?  What if he just acts?

The Coen brothers seem fully aware of the relevant themes that emerge from their subject matter.  Reorienting Cormac McCarthy’s original novel from its more explicit Vietnam War perspective, the filmmakers tone down the temporal referencing to make their narrative more relevant to modern times.  In many ways, their western is a war film, consisting of many battles with little progress.  After all, you can’t win a war when you don’t know what you’re fighting.

Memorable Moment: Chugurh flips a coin with a gas station attendant.


Photo from Scanners

2. Pan’s Labyrinth (Mexico, 2006)

It’s awfully hard not to get lost in the imagination of Guillermo Del Toro.  Pan’s Labyrinth, a hauntingly violent horror fairy tale for adults, is unlike any other film I’ve seen.  It has no peers.  It has no contemporaries.  Instead it is entirely independent, on its own, void of derivation.  The fact that the film’s themes of anti-authoritarianism and free-mindedness coincide with that description makes for some delicious analogies.

Otilia, Del Toro’s protagonist, is an unstoppable force, a refuser that rejects the circumstances of her claustrophobic surroundings.  With her in the lead, Pan’s Labyrinth is ultimately a film about rebellion, whether it be physical or spiritual, and Del Toro’s central female is a leader of her mind’s own imaginative revolution.  The director is also a renegade.  His film’s tone is so oppressive it’s a testament to his artistic vision that the it never falls under the weight of his overbearing ambitions.  His resistance to telling his story any other way other than his own vision is something that can be admired and replicated. 

Memorable Moment: Otilia defies the rules of the fawn and eats some food off the table, awakening a terrifying monster.

1. United 93 (US, 2006)

To select a film with a direct 9/11 relationship as the defining film of the decade seems like a bit of a cop out.  Yes, choosing the decade’s defining moment as subject matter for a potent action packed thriller is something of an unfair advantage.  I don’t care.  Paul Greengrass, the decade’s great action director, set out to create a film that accurately portrayed the events of that day in a way that would pay tribute to those who died while at the same time captivating audiences with a visceral docu-drama.  It’s a success in all areas.

Greengrass’ dedication to accuracy is unparalleled.  He wrote the script based off of interviews with the families of the victims.  He also populated his cast with people who were connected to the real event (Ben Sliney, the FAA operations manager on 9/11, plays himself in the movie).  In a decade where “realness” became the chief mode of storytelling (reality television, The Office-style faux documentary, and The Hurt Locker all being accurate examples) United 93 stands out as the tallest representative artifact of its time.

The decision wasn’t just a cultural one.  United 93 is also decisively well-made.  It turns the phrase “on the edge of your seat” into a recognizable reality.  Greengrass doesn’t embellish a thing.  He doesn’t need to.  All he does is tell the chaotic story of a chaotic day with controlled precision, assured camerawork, and breakneck pacing.  There are no sub-plots.  There are no main characters.  The film lives entirely within the moment.

No film left a larger emotional impact on me.  Repeated viewings do nothing to dull my response.  It remains a stunning reminder of the power movies have in bringing us together to share ideas and memories, moments in time that directly/indirectly impact us all.  The goal of this list was to promote that dialogue.  United 93 is the keynote speaker.

Memorable Moment: American Airlines Flight 11 disappears off of an air traffic control specialist's radar.

Photo from The New York Times