Honorable Mentions and Final Thoughts

Maybe it's anticlimactic to have another post, but there were just too many movies that didn't make my list. Some that didn't even cross my mind until after I had already decided on my top 10. While I am sticking to my original decisions, these are some movies that just missed the cut.

I'd also like to thank everyone who has humored me by reading this page and dealing with its occasional snobby style. I am certainly done for a while(at least months) but if I get a non-sarcastic suggestion that I should work on this site again I will take it to heart.

Ok, here are ten runner-ups. To avoid any interpretation that this is in any order of favorites, I'll list them in alphabetical order:

Almost Famous- I expected this movie to be about how awesome it would be to follow a rock band in the 70's. And it is. I didn't expect it to show the importance of having a home to go back to. There are so many memorable scenes, such as "I am a golden god" and singing "Tiny Dancer" in the bus.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan-Yes, "Da Ali G Show" is still superior. I also don't believe that Borat is far better than Bruno, as many critics do. But if you're making a list of the biggest movies of the decade, this is definitely one that was one of the funniest as well having one of the biggest cultural effects. Remember how long people were doing Borat impressions for? Hopefully, Sacha Baron Cohen will move on from those characters and put his talent somewhere else in this new decade.

The Departed- I remember seeing Matt Damon sending information via text message without looking at his phone and thinking "This is what a 21st century gangster movie is." And even with the legendary Jack Nicholson, as well as Mark Wahlberg's Oscar nominated performance, I was wowed the most by Leonardo DiCaprio. For me, he became an incredible actor and stopped being a pretty boy the day I saw this movie.

Kill Bill: Volume 2- Yes, I am considering this a separate movie from Kill Bill Vol. 1 even though I considered Grindhouse one movie. It doesn't matter what Tarantino intended; if you release it in theaters as two movies, it's two movies. Deal with it. This is definitely the better part of the saga with its superior dialog and plot( Vol. 1 was fun but sillier with its anime and the Crazy 88's). I made myself a "no director twice" rule for my top ten list, which prevented this and Aronofsky's The Wrestler from making this list. Actually, if I did a top 25 list and I didn't have my ridiculous rule, I'd probably also put Inglorious Basterds down. The 00's may have even been better for Tarantino than the 90's. He just can't make a movie that's less than excellent, can he?

Minority Report- When people think of Spielberg they probably don't think of Minority Report, but they probably should. This is one of the greatest sci-fi as well as suspense movies of the decade. You think that the entire movie is about one event, but around halfway through it turns it around. Many futuristic movies use the invented technology for show, but the plot of Minority Report is designed around it.

Pixar movies- Fine, call it a cop-out. I felt as though I needed to mention the greatest film studio of the last decade, but I couldn't single out any specific movie for this list. But my favorites of the decade, in order of their release, are Monsters, Inc., Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up. The first half-hour of both WALL-E and Up specifically stick out as some of the greatest storytelling I've ever seen in animation.

Sideways- A perfect example of a mature love story. All of the performances are excellent and you can't help but root for Giamatti even though his character is probably not what you might call a good person. Also, it's just a great movie about wine and wine country.

Slumdog Millionaire- I cannot recall a movie this decade that had more of a public consensus of its right to be called Best Picture of the Year than Slumdog Millionaire. It was the one that everyone got behind, because no one could make a case for anything against it. Even with its corny dance ending, Slumdog was one of those inspirational movies that swept up the world and could not be stopped.

Spiderman- I know that many people prefer Spiderman 2. And I know that X-Men and Blade came before it. But this was the movie that started the genre of the decade. Superhero movies. It was the first one that I can recall which started the obsession with having the biggest opening weekend. An entire Entourage episode(which also referenced the aforementioned Almost Famous) was about the fake James Cameron version of Aquaman "beating Spidey". And it still holds up as one of the better comic book movies out there, despite the patriotic post-911 changed ending.

There Will Be Blood- Daniel Day-Lewis's role as Daniel Plainview might be the most acclaimed performance of the decade. But P.T. Anderson's film-making skills should not be forgotten, nor should the score, the setting, or Paul Dano's performance as Eli Sunday. The "I'll drink your milkshake" line became a meme, but there are so many other memorable quotes like "I am a false prophet! God is a superstition!" and "A bastard from a basket." Its slow pace may be why it never had commercial success, but it's definitely one of the greatest movies of the decade.

#1 Requiem for a Dream

Sometimes the simple mention of a certain movie can bring immediate images to your head. However, with Requiem for a Dream, despite the many incredible things that can be experienced with the eyes, the first thing that enters my head is the music. It is so memorable that it has been used dozens of times since, such as in a trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. But I don't care about how many times it's been ripped off. Just the thought of the string music that plays softly throughout the film until its eruption in the conclusion literally manages to give me goosebumps. That's how powerful this movie is.

Requiem for a Dream is about addiction. The characters all go through the physical addiction of drugs in order to attain the most basic human addictions; like love, money and fame. In that way Requiem for a Dream isn't simply an anti-drug movie, but almost an anti-aspiration movie. Not that people shouldn't go after their goals, but that they can't be delusional.

It's a very fine line to make a film with a moral that doesn't come off as preachy. Yet I think this movie attains this because the protagonists aren't bad people. Worse yet, they're scarily relatable. The movie doesn't come off as fake. It's just a man, his best friend, his girlfriend and mom all trying to make it(whatever "it" is) in Coney Island.


There really is not much that needs to be said about the plot. Not that it isn't an incredible story. Its beauty is in the fact that there's just so little to talk about. It's just like any Shakespearean tragedy. Every character wants to be powerful or loved, but their tragic flaws will stop them.

Jared Leto is Harry Goldfarb and his best friend Tyrone is played by Marlon Wayans. Harry and Tyrone are junkies who are trying to deal their way out of their addictions. The very good looking Jennifer Connelly plays Marion, who eventually has to deal her own body. All of their performances are incredible, which is something that is expected from Leto and Connelly but surprising from a Wayans brother.

Yet the most tragic character is Sara Goldfarb played by Ellen Burstyn. Burstyn's performance has got to be one of the greatest that I have ever seen from an actress. Her character's drugs of choice are diet pills. This isn't something that is given to her off the street. It's sold to her in an infomercial starring that guy who always plays the bad guy in early Adam Sandler movies. By her doctor that ignores her pleas for help when she freaks out in his office. And by her friends and a world that encourages her to destroy her mind for her body.

Sara's addiction is perhaps the most educational simply because it's legal. It is not based off of the channels that kids are told to avoid. It comes from inside the system. They should show movies like this in place of something like Thirteen in schools. But they never would.

Darren Aronofsky is a film-making god. Even if the plot of his movies, such as The Fountain, can be really convoluted, you cannot deny how masterful this man is at creating the world he is looking for. If a character is doing a drug that makes them hyper, Aronofsky recreates that sensation with fast, zoomed-in cuts, along with a perfectly timed background soundtrack. His pacing is so wonderful that you can tell how the shots in the movie change along with the characters; whether it's Sara having a hallucination or Harry and Marion being strung out. The camera, music and characters all seem to spin in the same direction.

All of these aspects lead the story to a place that may seem extreme, but is befitting for each character. It is not a spoiler to suggest that the characters never succeed in their goals. Merriam-Webster dictionary says that a requiem is a "musical composition in honor of the dead". The very title states that the characters aspirations are dead before they began. Stillborn. The dream never had a shot. And this movie is the song for its funeral.

#2 Memento

Fuck The Dark Knight. This isn't a list of the most overrated movies of the decade. Memento is Christopher Nolan's masterpiece.

Memento is all Guy Pearce. Yes, there is a Matrix reunion here with Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss. But Pearce's Leonard Shelby is totally alone. And in the way this movie is filmed, the viewer is seeing everything through a perspective that's unique to Leonard.

Leonard suffers from amnesia. While this may be an overused plot in many stories(such as basic television dramas and RPG's) Memento tells Leonard's plight in a completely unique way. Leonard's form of amnesia is the opposite form that's typically depicted. Instead of having no recollection of events that occurred before he got afflicted with memory loss(such as what his name is and what his family is like), Leonard can't remember things that have happened since.

To me this is a far worse condition. If you can't recall certain memories after having brain damage, you know that you can eventually learn things again. But Lenny(which is what Teddy, played by Pantoliano, calls him) is trapped. He keeps reliving the night that caused his head trauma. The night when his wife was raped and murdered by burglars. And multiple times, every single day, that becomes his most recent memory.

Since Leonard knows nothing beyond that moment, all he can think about is catching the killer. In this way Memento becomes a neo-noir thriller. A private eye story with a radical twist. How do you catch a guy if you can't remember your detective work?

In order to solve this problem, as the movie's title suggests, Leonard keeps mementos. Polaroids, tattoos, and notes scatter his hotel room. Those are the only things that he can trust.

The audience sees everything out of order, just so that we get a small sense of what life is like for Lenny. This isn't like Pulp Fiction out of order. Within a particular setting, time will jump. Leonard will be running and then wonder who he's running away from. Anytime he wakes up in a bed that's not his he has no idea how he got there. Nolan plays with this mechanic so well, and the other characters in Memento play with Lenny. Even an employee of the hotel overcharges him, just because he knows that he can get away with it.

Within this film there is a side story told completely in black & white. Leonard is talking to an unknown person about a man named Sammy Jankis. This story seems completely unrelated to the rest of the film until the end. Or is it the beginning?

It's very difficult to describe what makes Memento so incredible, which is why I've been left to describing the general plot. There is so much that isn't revealed until the end of the movie that its brilliance cannot be discussed without spoilers. This is just one of those movies that must be seen many times to figure it all out.

And yet, no matter how well you analyze the movie, there are still questions that remain unanswered. I will try my best to not mention specific events, but this may contain some spoilers:

-The assumption is that even though it may be out of order, there is a beginning and an end to this story. But the truth is that we don't know how long Leonard has been looking for his "John G" and how much longer after the chronological end of the movie Leonard's story will go on for.

-The connection between Leonard Shelby and Sammy Jankis is debatable. If it is as strong as some may believe, then who was Leonard's actual wife? Was she even really raped and murdered? If she wasn't, then what is Leonard really trying to do with his life?

Just as was the case with Ofelia in my previous post on Pan's Labyrinth, maybe Leonard wants to believe what he believes. Perhaps he purposely leaves clues that are ambiguous just so that it's easier for him to solve his case. If he does catch the killer, how will he remember if he did? If the only thing you could know was vengeance, would you want to convince yourself that you had succeeded, no matter what the cost? And most importantly, if you were going to keep on having that desire forever, and if no one got in the way, would you ever stop? Would you want to?



As a side note, because I had no place in this post to mention this, I'd like to add that this movie has maybe the most incredible DVD box and menu ever.

#3 Pan's Labyrinth

Fairy tales are not always designed for children. They can be very haunting and disturbing. Pan's Labyrinth represents what a fairy tale used to mean.

Pan's Labyrinth is set in 1944 fascist Spain(and is told completely in Spanish subtitles). The main character, approximately 10-year-old Ofelia, is forced to move in with her very pregnant mom to a settlement in the middle of the woods. The mom is marrying one of the fascists leaders, Captain Vidal, who is hiding with his troop seeking out any resistance fighters.

This decade has had some incredible villains. Heath Ledger as the Joker, Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh, and Christoph Waltz seems to be the front-runner to be the third straight villain to win Best Supporting Actor for his performance as "The Jew Hunter". But my favorite villain of the decade? Captain Vidal played by Sergi López in Pan's Labyrinth.

By the end of the movie, there is no smidgen of sympathy that remains for this guy. His level of cruelty somehow finds a way to shock you multiple times. You are wishing the worst possible ending for him, but you know that there is nothing that can possibly be done to him that can account for his atrocities.

While her mother is in intense pain from her pregnancy, Ofelia finds herself wondering alone and stumbles into an alternate reality. Director Guillermo del Toro does an incredible job of designing this world; which manages to use modern effects, makeup and costumes while combining it with traditional fairy tale standards(for example Ofelia must complete three tasks).

Pan's Labyrinth is also a great war movie. The skirmishes between the resistance group and Captain Vidal's army are some of the best gunfights that I've seen in a while. Additionally, the inner effort to overthrow Vidal through the spy Mercedes is incredibly suspenseful.

But what makes Pan's Labyrinth work so well is the way that it seamlessly blends the two seemingly different stories together. Ofelia's world becomes so connected with reality that, especially by the end of the movie, the audience is forced to question if what Ofelia went through was real.

But how can we judge what is real? Well, we know what facts are. The world is flat and 2+2=4. But we can only ever experience life from our own perspective. So facts are just a consensus. Objectivity is just finding a commonality among many different subjective people. It's not a coincidence that reality and relative come from the same root word.

And if your reality differs from the majority? Then the world decides that you are wrong. But what if you are never told? Your reality feels just as real as anyone else's, and nobody is letting you in on it. As movies may say, Santa Claus or fairies or any other magical creatures only stop existing when you stop believing in them. And as cliché of an expression as it is, ignorance is very often the most blissful state to be in.

This is the situation that Ofelia finds herself in throughout Pan's Labyrinth. Her real world is so barbaric that her retreats into fantasy are not only understandable, but perhaps the only method she has of escape. Is she consciously pushing herself into another world to avoid the one she's stuck in? Does it matter? All that is important is that she buys into it and that the world is true for her.

#4 i ♥ huckabees

David O. Russell might be the biggest asshole in Hollywood. Apparently, on the set of Three Kings, he started choking George Clooney. When he heard that Jude Law was leaving i ♥ huckabees (pronounced I Heart Huckabees and it will be referred to as I Heart Huckabees for the rest of this post) for a role in The Prestige, he apparently got Christopher Nolan into a headlock. And during the filming of I Heart Huckabees, he got into a couple of feuds with Lily Tomlin. If you haven't seen it or heard it, I suggest you check it out.

But the craziest people are often the smartest. I Heart Huckabees is a weird movie. But it's just so original that I don't understand how people can't appreciate it.

Jason Schwartzman plays Albert Markovski; the type of ultra-environmentalist who rides a bike to work. Albert is in charge of an "Open Spaces Coalition" and is trying to put a stop to the building of a new Wal-Mart type store called Huckabees. Jude Law is an executive at Huckabees and gets rid of Albert by wooing the coalition with his Jude Law-ish charm, and becomes their leader.

Albert is having a crisis and visits a pair of "existential detectives" played by Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman. They tell Albert that everything in the world is connected and that everything has a purpose. They pair him up with Tommy, an anti-firetruck firefighter played by Mark Wahlberg. Tomlin and Hoffman inspect every inch of their customers lives to find out what will make their clients happier.

Eventually, Albert and Tommy become disenchanted with the philosophy of the existential detectives and meet up with a woman who believes in the glass half-empty approach. After going through both groups of therapy, Albert and Tommy draw their own conclusions about how to deal with their current situations as well as life in general.

In case you didn't realize it based on the cast, this movie has wonderful performances. Everyone is incredible including Naomi Watts, who plays Jude Law's girlfriend and the voice of the Huckabees commercials. But there is something that is so interesting about Jason Schwartzmann. He's not a typical great actor. Maybe what makes him so entertaining is that he comes off as such a nice and innocent guy, despite the seriousness and passion that he puts into his acting. I don't know if Schwartzmann intends for the audience to not take him seriously, but either way, he's so much fun to watch.

Many critics blasted this movie for being too existential, nihilistic, transcendental, or whatever. But the biggest thing they missed is that it's tongue-in-cheek. Yes, the movie does go into many philosophical conversations. But it also mocks them. There is a scene where Albert and Tommy conclude that the answer to everything is smacking themselves in the face with a dodgeball. How could anybody take that seriously?

I Heart Huckabees has incredible performances, an insanely original plot, and even manages to explore the meaning of existence in a humorous, non-pretentious way.

"How am I not myself?"

#5 Donnie Darko

For any angsty teenager, Donnie Darko is an idol. He's a loner, a freak and he has to be on medication because everyone says his crazy. But he knows that he's special. He knows that he is meant for great things.

One night his beliefs begin to come true. In one of his many sleepwalks, Donnie(in a breakout role by Jake Gyllenhaal) steps outside to see a man dressed in a freaky bunny suit. The man in the bunny suit identifies himself as Frank and informs him that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds, which is on Halloween. Then, before he goes back into his house, a jet engine crashes into Donnie's room.

From this point forth, things get weirder. Donnie comes across characters such as Grandma Death and his teachers who both seem to hint at him that they can sense that something important is going on. Jena Malone, a crush-worthy teen idol in early 2000's indie films(such as The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys and Saved!), plays Gretchen, Donnie's love interest . And she must also have a feeling that he's special, because the first time that they talk she says that his name sounds like a superhero.

And Donnie begins to believe it. Frank visits Donnie more and more as Donnie, as well as the viewer, begin to question what is real and what is a dream. Donnie can't figure out who Frank really is and when he asks him "Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?", Frank retorts "Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?"

But this doesn't matter to Donnie Darko. Frank makes Donnie feel invincible as he takes on everyone that he hates in this world. This is where the teenage fantasy comes in. The inspirational speaker who tells everyone how to live their lives? He gets exposed as a fraud and a creep(played wonderfully by the late Patrick Swayze). The self-righteous teacher who does an awful job acting like a sweetheart when she's really a crazy bitch? Donnie develops the courage to speak up and show the class her bullshit. It's very hard to not identify with this movie if you're a modern, unpopular teenager.

But it's not modern. It actually takes place in 1988 and there's no aspect of this movie that captures that period better than the soundtrack. Donnie's younger sister dances to "Notorious" by Duran Duran. And according to the Wikipedia page which constitutes most of my research for these posts, there is also music from Pantera and Joy Division. But the most famous song to come out of this movie is the Gary Jules cover of Tears for Fears "Mad World". Jules specifically recorded his version for Donnie Darko , which suddenly became a big hit a few years ago.

Anyway, Donnie gets more absorbed into Frank's demands as it gets closer to the point when the world will supposedly end. Donnie begins to look into time-travel as a way to reverse the impending apocalypse. Time travel is very hard to pull off in a story for two main reasons. First of all, more so than any other science fiction theme, time travel is maybe the most improbable thing to happen in the real world and the one most subject to paradoxes. Secondly, it's been done so many times, in so many great movies and TV shows and books, that to use time-travel in an original way is not easy. But Donnie Darko pulls it off. And in the way the story ends up, things find a way to make sense.

Well, not exactly. There are many ways to interpret this movie, most of which involve spoilers. But without giving any away, there are still many things to consider. We do know that Donnie is crazy, but how much of this is in his head? If Frank is real, than what is his objective? What do the other characters, such as Donnie's therapists and teachers know?

I enjoy movies that make me think, but not movies that make me feel stupid. You shouldn't have to watch a movie multiple times to have a clue about what's going on, like in Primer, which is another time-travel movie from this decade. But it's definitely nice to see a movie a second or third time and pick up on things that you didn't notice in the first go-around. You don't necessarily feel lost after the first time you watch Donnie Darko, but if you feel compelled to see it again you might interpret the entire movie in a different way. I believe it was after my fourth watching of this movie(and after seeing the Director's Cut), that I felt that I understood everything that needed to be understood.

But maybe movies aren't supposed to be like that. Maybe they're supposed to be like paintings. Sure, the artist may have had some message that he/she wanted to get across, but it doesn't matter. Art should be for the public and not the artist, and Donnie Darko is a great example of that democratic ideal. Maybe Frank's comment about Donnie being in a stupid man suit is a statement that Donnie's life is a facade for his true self. Maybe it means absolutely nothing at all.

But who cares? Either way, it's a great line.

#6 Adaptation.

Adaptation is written by a man who writes himself as two men, one of which is writing about the writing process involved in writing an adaptation about a book written by a woman about a man.

While that previous sentence may have been a bit of a spoiler, it is probably so nonsensical to someone who hasn't seen this movie that it doesn't matter anyway. So let me try this again.

Adaptation is written by twin brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman and staring the characters of Charlie and Donald Kaufman, the latter of which isn't a real person. Okay, this still doesn't make sense but I'll keep on going.

Nicholas Cage plays both twins in his most critically acclaimed performance outside of Leaving Las Vegas. Donald is an idiot, but happy, popular, and very successful with women. Charlie is a renowned genius in Hollywood as the mind behind Being John Malkovich(as he is in real life). But he is depressed, very self-critical, bitter, a loner and despite his talent with the written word, he can barely talk to a woman that he finds attractive.

Charlie is working on his next script, but he has an incredibly bad case of writer's block. It's an adaptation of the book "The Orchid Thief" written by Susan Orlean(once again, a real book and a real person). Charlie loves this book and the way that Orlean goes into the beauty behind orchids as well as the oddity behind the main person she profiles, John Laroche. But he just doesn't see how he can make it into a movie. There's no explosions or murders. No steamy love affair and not even a real conclusion. The story is too much like real life, and no movie studio wants that.

The movie within the movie is the actual adaptation of "The Orchid Thief" itself. Meryl Streep who, despite being 60, might just be the most prolific actress in the world right now, gives a soft performance as Susan Orlean. At least at first. Chris Cooper won an Oscar for his portrayal of the orchid thief himself. He's a dirty hick and the last person who you would expect to be a genius when it comes to flowers. But his passion for plants and the way that they adapt(Ah! Now you get the play-on-words in this film's title) is so contagious that you can see why Orlean finds him so fascinating.

But that's it. Nothing happens between Orlean and Laroche, and both go back to their old lives. How can Kaufman fill up a movie with a story like that? Well, within the movie itself, Kaufman decides that in order to fill up more pages, his "Orchid Thief" adaptation should also include the story behind the writing of "The Orchid Thief". There is then an incredible scene where we see the Kaufman character narrating the exact actions that he was engaging in at the beginning of the movie. This movie is sometimes so self-referential that you feel like your brain is going to explode.

In the meantime, Donald decides that he too would like to become a screenwriter. Donald starts writing a story about a criminal, the person he kidnaps, and the cop. And the twist at the end turns out to be that they're all one person suffering from multiple personality disorder. Charlie criticizes Donald for not only coming up with such a used up twist, but for the logistics of one person kidnapping and chasing himself. In this way Adaptation is not only about Charlie Kaufman's writing process, but a great movie about the writing of movies.

While Adaptation is critical of movie stereotypes, it also acknowledges its own hypocrisy. For example, despite the Charlie Kaufman character being critical of Donald for writing such a cliché plot, the real Charlie Kaufman has written himself into the movie as two people. Eventually Charlie becomes so desperate to finish his screenplay, that off of Donald's suggestion he attends a screenwriting class(which is the epitome of everything Charlie hates about screenwriting). During a lecture the speaker informs the crowd that they should never use voice-overs. This is all of course going on in the middle of a Nicholas Cage voice-over.

Afterward, Charlie meets the speaker, played by Brian Cox, in person. By this point Kaufman has already gotten "The Orchid Thief" part of his screenplay done, as well as the part of the screenplay which described his adaptation of "The Orchid Thief" done. But as was the case with "The Orchid Thief", real life doesn't have conclusive endings. It doesn't have the stuff you see in movies. And how can Charlie adapt this book, as well as his life, in a fair way if it's not real?

That's BS, Cox tells him. In real life, everyday, people are born and they get killed. People fall in love and fall out of love. And what follows from that point on I will not spoil, but to suffice it to say, indicates that the real life Kaufman decided to follow that advice. Which means that he was either acknowledging the validity of it or making a mockery of it.

That is if anybody has any idea what the hell Kaufman is ever talking about.