Introduction
So, we’re back for the new year, and what better way to celebrate then a look back at the decade that passed. Yes, due to the fact that we as humans started counting years at 1 and not 0, this decade actually started in 2001 and ended on New Year’s Eve, 2010. Bet all those major publications who made their “Best of the Decade” lists a year early are probably thinking “Huh, we screwed up” now, huh? Actually, they’re probably thinking “Who is this little piss ant at some college newspaper to suggest that we screwed up? We’re Rolling f*****g Stone. We make so much money we could buy this little a-hole’s soul”. Yeah, that’s more likely.
Anyway, we thought we’d kick off our best of the decade series on the subject of movies. Hell, movies are the best place to start for this decade, since movies have been imagining these aught years for decades, whether it be the bright white dystopia of space in Kurbrick’s 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey, a post-earthquake Los Angeles of 1994’s Double Dragon, or whatever the f**k was going on in Japan’s 1979 Undersea Super Train: Marine Express. (Yeah, I did my research. There’s a lot of movies set in the 2000’s. Might I recommend Wikipedia-ing Inseminoid.)
It’s been an interesting decade for film, kicking off with flights of innocent fancy like the first Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films, and ending on bouts of bleak reality like The Social Network and The Fighter. Oh, and that second to last Harry Potter film. With the advent of HD and the re-advent of 3D, it seemed like if your movie involved some kind of “D”, you were set. Except for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. And Daddy Day Camp. Oh, and don’t forget Disaster Movie. Ok, forget that idea about the “D” thing.
The cinema suffered it’s share of losses this decade, seeing a wrap on the careers of legendary filmmakers Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Robert Altman; acting greats Katharine Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Jack Lemmon, Paul Newman; and also causing us to appreciate those who never earned the acclaim they deserved in their lifetime, be it a posthumous Oscar to the chameleon Heath Ledger or saying a last “Here’s to you Mrs. Robinson!” to the divine Anne Bancroft.
So, without much further ado, I give you our movie issue. In it, you’ll find our picks for the Best Movies of the Decade. Also featured in this issue is my overview of the…let’s say underground films of the decade (if my editors let me run it, that is. Which I‘m sure they will, since they‘re wonderful, fantastic, intelligent, insightful, and all around lovely people. Yep, I can kiss a** with the best of them), a little look at the decade’s biggest let downs, and the first installment of a new series we’ll be running, Nick Young’s 30 Subversive Pop Songs of the Decade. Bobby the Pink, our beloved comic strip, will return next week, as our cartoonist Josh Paige came down with that virus that’s been going around. That really terrible virus. Which had nothing at all to do with the food people ate, you understand? It’s a virus! And don’t you forget it! (I assure you I was not instructed to make that clarification).
Anyway, we thought we’d kick off our best of the decade series on the subject of movies. Hell, movies are the best place to start for this decade, since movies have been imagining these aught years for decades, whether it be the bright white dystopia of space in Kurbrick’s 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey, a post-earthquake Los Angeles of 1994’s Double Dragon, or whatever the f**k was going on in Japan’s 1979 Undersea Super Train: Marine Express. (Yeah, I did my research. There’s a lot of movies set in the 2000’s. Might I recommend Wikipedia-ing Inseminoid.)
It’s been an interesting decade for film, kicking off with flights of innocent fancy like the first Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films, and ending on bouts of bleak reality like The Social Network and The Fighter. Oh, and that second to last Harry Potter film. With the advent of HD and the re-advent of 3D, it seemed like if your movie involved some kind of “D”, you were set. Except for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. And Daddy Day Camp. Oh, and don’t forget Disaster Movie. Ok, forget that idea about the “D” thing.
The cinema suffered it’s share of losses this decade, seeing a wrap on the careers of legendary filmmakers Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Robert Altman; acting greats Katharine Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Jack Lemmon, Paul Newman; and also causing us to appreciate those who never earned the acclaim they deserved in their lifetime, be it a posthumous Oscar to the chameleon Heath Ledger or saying a last “Here’s to you Mrs. Robinson!” to the divine Anne Bancroft.
So, without much further ado, I give you our movie issue. In it, you’ll find our picks for the Best Movies of the Decade. Also featured in this issue is my overview of the…let’s say underground films of the decade (if my editors let me run it, that is. Which I‘m sure they will, since they‘re wonderful, fantastic, intelligent, insightful, and all around lovely people. Yep, I can kiss a** with the best of them), a little look at the decade’s biggest let downs, and the first installment of a new series we’ll be running, Nick Young’s 30 Subversive Pop Songs of the Decade. Bobby the Pink, our beloved comic strip, will return next week, as our cartoonist Josh Paige came down with that virus that’s been going around. That really terrible virus. Which had nothing at all to do with the food people ate, you understand? It’s a virus! And don’t you forget it! (I assure you I was not instructed to make that clarification).
The Biggest Disappointments of the Decade (Film Edition)
Yes, while this decade had its triumphs, it also had its failures. Its flaming, flaming failures. Now, we’re not talking failures like The Love Guru or Gigli, things that seemed doomed from the first flicker of a trailer. We’re here to discuss movies that genuinely hurt our souls, crushed our dreams, and brought us a little closer to considering a sink-cleaner cocktail. Let’s set the scene: A young 16-year old boy, let’s call him Mickey, asks a girl he’s had a crush on since the 8th grade out on a date. She’s smart, funny, dorky in the cute way, and wears a replica of Wolverine’s dogtags on her neck. So what would be the ideal movie, especially when he too is dorky (though not in the cute way)? Why not the summer’s sure-to-be-blockbuster, the revival of the greatest superhero of all time Superman Returns? Yes, the summer of 2006, when many of his peers are losing their virginities, he’s losing 154 minutes of his life to Bryan Singer’s train wreck. He is pissed. He is royal pissed. He’s already been burned by The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, has already had his first taste of superhero suck-fest at X-Men: The Last Stand,and been bitten by Jurassic Park III, Star Wars: Episode III and Terminator 3 (Mickey would later learn that destructive force the number 3 has on a movie). Surely, though, he has learned his lesson. Never again will he let a crappy movie ruin a date. That he knows for damn sure.
For his next date, in fact, this time for a different girl’s 14th birthday (let’s save the judging, shall we?), he thinks “Why not see the next film by that wunderkind M. Night?” After all, The Sixth Sense is a modern classic, Unbreakable was fun, and even Signs and The Village were…decent? Well, he’s sure this is going to be good. An engaging trailer, Paul Giamatti, where could it go wrong? Well, let’s just say the 2 hours the girl would later berate Mickey for (kind of) cheating on her were more enjoyable than the 110 minutes he and the girl sit through The Lady In The Water. “How does something like that film even come about?” Mickey wonders. He swears that day he will never again make any girl suffer through a bad film.
Well, he doesn’t. He makes her suffer through three. While later in life he somewhat regrets his junior year girlfriend suffering through his steep depression, rampant alcoholism, and Guido Anselmi-esque narcissism, he more regrets forcing this girl to endure Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Black Snake Moan, and (worst of all) a midnight showing of Spider-man 3. But he swears, never again.
Then Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull happens.
Mickey learns this decade that bad movies have their place (he has some fun in the back row of Big Momma’s House 2), but that place is not in the eyes and memories of viewers. Mickey is sure there will be no let downs this decade, as he eagerly awaits the new Spider-man, James Bond, and Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He’ll learn eventually.
For his next date, in fact, this time for a different girl’s 14th birthday (let’s save the judging, shall we?), he thinks “Why not see the next film by that wunderkind M. Night?” After all, The Sixth Sense is a modern classic, Unbreakable was fun, and even Signs and The Village were…decent? Well, he’s sure this is going to be good. An engaging trailer, Paul Giamatti, where could it go wrong? Well, let’s just say the 2 hours the girl would later berate Mickey for (kind of) cheating on her were more enjoyable than the 110 minutes he and the girl sit through The Lady In The Water. “How does something like that film even come about?” Mickey wonders. He swears that day he will never again make any girl suffer through a bad film.
Well, he doesn’t. He makes her suffer through three. While later in life he somewhat regrets his junior year girlfriend suffering through his steep depression, rampant alcoholism, and Guido Anselmi-esque narcissism, he more regrets forcing this girl to endure Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Black Snake Moan, and (worst of all) a midnight showing of Spider-man 3. But he swears, never again.
Then Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull happens.
Mickey learns this decade that bad movies have their place (he has some fun in the back row of Big Momma’s House 2), but that place is not in the eyes and memories of viewers. Mickey is sure there will be no let downs this decade, as he eagerly awaits the new Spider-man, James Bond, and Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He’ll learn eventually.
The Top 50 Movies of the Decade (2001-2010)
1) The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
There are some that will argue that Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy should be treated as three separate films. The truth is, he only released them as such because no one would release a 9 hour movie, and those that say it’s not all meant to be one film clearly have not had a Red Bull fueled LOTR marathon. LOTR was branded “unfilmable” short of a Ralph Bakshi cartoon from the 80’s. Jackson succeeded where all expected failure, and crafted a trilogy of three hour epics full of complex characters, dense mythology, and poetic dialogue, and drew massive mainstream audiences despite that. There are some that will say that there were better films this decade, but that’s like comparing a painting to the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. Perhaps little details of the ceiling are flawed, but to sit back and marvel at the achievement as a whole, it’s sheer mastery is undeniable.
2) The Dark Knight (2008)
3) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
4) There Will Be Blood (2007)
5) Children of Men (2006)
6) Shaun of the Dead (2004)
7) Brokeback Mountain (2007)
8) Kill Bill (2003-2004)
9) Spirited Away (2001)
The only non-English animated film to win an Oscar, Hayao Miyazaki’s modern day fairytale plays like poetry on film, spinning the tale of Chihiro, a ten-year-old girl who wanders into a world on fanciful creatures. Distributed here in the states by Disney (because it was better than any animated film they’d put out in a while), Spirited Away proved to be a beautiful film for any age, without even being in 3-D. Who woulda thought?
10) Mulholland Drive (2001)
11) The Royal Tennenbaums (2001)
12) Moulin Rouge! (2001)
By the end of the 90’s, the musical movie was dead in the water. That all changed when a little mad man from down under named Baz Luhrman helmed his attempt at “An English Language Bollywood-style re-imagining of La Traviata using contemporary songs”. We expected a train wreck. What we got was one of the most original, striking, and heartbreaking romantic films of all time. Who doesn’t still swoon when Christian sings “Your Song”?
13) The Social Network (2010)
14) Casino Royale (2006)
15) Amelie (2001)
One of the first “must see” foreign films of my lifetime, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s fanciful story of Amélie Poulain uses the tragedy of Lady Diana’s passing to launch Amelie into a colorful world on non-stop joy and simple, child-like happiness. Amelie allowed a lot of us here in the states in November 2001 to feel pure joy for a few fleeting moments, finding hope, as the titular character does, in the wake of tragedy.
16) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Seeing Borat for the first time was a revelation. No one had ever before pushed the envelope so far, so much, and so…smart. Never before had someone created such a clever satire as to rouse the praises of even the stuffiest critic, while being so low-brow and dirty as to make even the dumbest guy you want to high school with say “Very nice!” over and over again. Though virtually forgotten now, it’s worth the revisit.
17) Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
18) Up (2009)
19) Once (2007)
Undoubtedly the least-seen film in our top 20, John Carney’s film having a place on this list should surprise none who‘ve seen this small Irish gem. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova star in the film, as well as compose the gorgeous soundtrack, winning an Oscar for “Falling Slowly”. In a decade of pushing the envelope and huge budgets, it is a simple film made on two handy-cams, that proves to touch the most viewers.
20) Avatar (2009)
And the rest...
21.) Far From Heaven (2002)
22.) Spider-Man 2 (2004)
23.) The Bourne Movies (2002-2007)
24.) Lost in Translation (2003)
25.) Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
26.) Garden State (2004)
27.) Brick (2005)
28.) Before Sunset (2004)
29.) Wall-E (2008)
30.) The Departed (2006)
31.) Zodiac (2007)
32.) The Passion of the Christ (2004)
33.) I’m Not There (2007)
34.) Black Dynamite (2009)
35.) The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (2007)
36.) Caché (2005)
37.) The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)
38.) Batman Begins (2005)
39.) Downfall (2004)
40.) Oldboy (2003)
41.) City of God (2002)
42.) Super Troopers (2001)
43.) Donnie Darko (2001)
44.) 25th Hour (2002)
45.) 28 Days Later (2002)
46.) About a Boy (2002)
47.) The Pianist (2002)
48.) Love Actually (2003)
49.) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
50.) Bowling for Columbine (2002)
22.) Spider-Man 2 (2004)
23.) The Bourne Movies (2002-2007)
24.) Lost in Translation (2003)
25.) Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
26.) Garden State (2004)
27.) Brick (2005)
28.) Before Sunset (2004)
29.) Wall-E (2008)
30.) The Departed (2006)
31.) Zodiac (2007)
32.) The Passion of the Christ (2004)
33.) I’m Not There (2007)
34.) Black Dynamite (2009)
35.) The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (2007)
36.) Caché (2005)
37.) The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)
38.) Batman Begins (2005)
39.) Downfall (2004)
40.) Oldboy (2003)
41.) City of God (2002)
42.) Super Troopers (2001)
43.) Donnie Darko (2001)
44.) 25th Hour (2002)
45.) 28 Days Later (2002)
46.) About a Boy (2002)
47.) The Pianist (2002)
48.) Love Actually (2003)
49.) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
50.) Bowling for Columbine (2002)
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