Yes, I am unoriginal. I am compiling a list of the 25 best movies of the 2000-2009. I know every hack writer and unoriginal pod caster is doing this, but I think this is a great way to reevaluate what are some overlooked movies and remember what makes movies great. Movies made my list based on several things.
1. Were they great movies? When I left the theater or finished watching them did I think they were just great movies?
2. Did I have emotional event? Did watching this movie have an emotional impact on me or did the movie just glaze me over like I was a Krispy Kreme doughnut.
3. Did the movie take a chance? Did the writer/director/actor take a chance when making the movie or did they stick to a generic movie formula.
4. Was there a purely amazing element of the movie?
5. Did the movie have a scene that if they flashed 5 seconds of it on a TV screen would you know it instantly? Meg Ryan saying Yes! Janet Leigh screaming in the shower. Charleton Heston seeing the Statue of Liberty.
6. Did the movie have a great script or at least a very memorable monologue/line? “I’m out of order! You’re out of order!” “You can’t handle the Truth!””Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
7. Did the movie make you think?
8. Did the movie being made have a lasting impact on other movies going forward? All romantic comedies have elements of Annie Hall. All gangster movies have elements of the Godfather. Except for the movie Mobsters. That movie sucked!
9. Great soundtracks pushed some movies into the list.
10. Movies also lost points for being overrated, having a noticeably very bad acting aka the Sophia Copola exception, being too cliché and for being a life support system for special effects.
Here are some movies that did not make the list:
1. Avatar – amazing special effects, solid acting and technology that could redefine the future of movie making. The toughest cut. The story was too simple.
2. Rocky Balboa – yes, all the rocky movies are clichés. But like being proposed to at the Eifel Tower, some clichés are still pretty good.
3. Gangs of New York – not a truly great scene.
4. One Hour Photo – very touch omission. Robin Williams took a chance on a very evil character. Gary Cole did an amazing book end performance as a manager. This would be an amazing movie to watch after Office Space.
5. There Might be Blood – an amazing performance by Daniel Day Lewis. His exemption hurts. He did some of the best acting of the decade and his two best performances did not make my list.
6. Gladiator – very good, but it never connected with me the way it did for other people.
The goal is to have three movies from my list be posted each week. Let me know what you think. Some of my choices will not be popular and I hold the right to have a tie with some of my numbers.
The current lists has three foreign language films, two documentaries, six comedies, no cartoons, two based on comics, one mini-series (it is from HBO Films so there is sort of an asterisk), the star of my number one movie of 2000 is also the start of my number 2 movie of the 1990s. It is not Russell Crow, Tim Robbins, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Clint Eastwood, or Jack Nicholson. Only one director appears on the list twice.
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