Chronologically
2000
High Fidelity
O, Brother Where Art Thou?
Almost Famous
For how little music I liked that was released in 2000, it was a great year for soundtracks! All three movies have some of my favorite soundtracks of all time. John Cusack is at his adult best in High Fidelity as a jerk who we fall in love with as he reminisces about girlfriends, music and what a lameo Jack Black is.
O Brother Where Art Thou? is probably one of the most creative/best adaptations ever, earning both a stop in our hearts and the 9th grade English curriculum.
Almost Famous, annoyingly pretentious and hipster or adorably endearing and indie? Critics are still arguing. But whatever. I love Kate Hudson and if-you-blink-you-will-miss-them Anna Paquin and Zooey Deschanel. I still listen to the vinyl Bookends so I can pretend that I am Zooey Deschanel. And I dream about a singalong in a bus of '"Tiny Dancer." But I think everyone does after watching that movie.
2001
Gosford Park
The Royal Tenebaums
Amelie
Altman's last great film that was his own doing as Prairie Home Companion was tainted by Lindsay Lohan. A great ensemble film, as all of Altman's best are, Gosford Park is really just so good. You have to watch it multiple times to get all the dialogue. The story line is great and Maggie Smith, Kristen Scott Thomas, Jeremy Northam, Helen Mirren, Derek Jacobi, Emily Watson, Sophie Thompson, Ryan Phillipe (a little random, but he is annoying and supposed to be so it works) and Clive Owen. They are all wonderful and it shows that Altman is an actors' director through and through.
Ah, Wes Anderson--you are amazing. He may be seen as pretentious and overrated. I don't care. I love his movies and The Royal Tenebaums is probably his best. It captures what he does best, showing a family in turmoil, with no actually likable characters but the viewer ends up falling in love with all of them. AND ANGELICA HUSTON! Could she be more perfect? I want to look like her now, much less when I'm 60.
Amelie is the best of what it is. What it is in a sweet, endearing movie that doesn't make much sense plotwise, or logicwise. But with Audrey Tautou's page boy hair-cut and knowing smile, the viewer willing gives up logic and stick her hand in the coffee beans.
2002
Chicago
The Hours
Chicago is one of the best movie musicals of our time. I love stage musicals, it's true. But I really love movie musicals, and that may offend the purists, but I love seeing how a director captures new things from the music and choreography. And this ones works the best. Except for maybe Oklahoma!
The Hours-I really am sucker Virgina Woolf, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman. WHOA. This movie was made for me. One of the best adaptations of a novel I've seen.
2003
Finding Nemo
Lost in Translation
Pixar's best of the decade, Nemo is both visually engaging and so emotionally endearing! Marlin and Nemo and Dory are so sweet, and they are fish, but some of Pixar's most human.
Sofia Coppola return to sanity and good movie-making entered her into Hollywood's favorite circle of directors with a little indie whisper. ScarJo before her chest was more famous than her major acting chops. and Bill Murray is his best role to date.
2004
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I Heart Huckabees
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Motorcycle Diaries
Danny Deckchair
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle
Three of my favorite surreal movies in one year! Sunshine, Huckabees, and Life Aquatic are in my cycle of fun indie films that make me feel like a little hipster. Of course these movies do have cinematic value as well. Jim Carrey when he isn't funny is at his sweetest and Kate Winslet! If I could two sets of movies to watch for the rest of my life it would Katharine Hepburn's canon and Kate Winslet's. she is just so wonderful. Huckabees is trippy, but really humane and fun, and Jason Schwartzman's character is one of my all time favorites. Then my favorite Wes Anderson film. Rushmore was more influential and Tenebaums was a better movie but Life Aquatic is so funny and quotable, Bill Murray in my 2nd favorite role of his is deadpan and hilarious.
2005
Walk the Line
Reese at her best and Joaquin before the crazy fully settled. I love June Carter and Johnny. They are so damn cute in the most destructive relationship way ever.
2006
Little Miss Sunshine
Stranger Than Fiction
Little Miss Sunshine- My first reaction was GRAPES OF WRATH. Which it totally is. And Steve Carell is so funny when he isn't being funny. Dwayne is the love of my indie life and I've adored Toni Collette ever since she portrayed Harriet Smith in Emma.
Stranger Than Fiction got a lot of crap about being too out there or whatever. But Emma Thompson is so serene as an actress in any role. And again features one of my favorite things, comedians not being funny. Maggie Gyllenhaal could be better. probably had her character been played by Zooey Deschanel. But Dustin Hoffman is sweet too.
2007
Juno
Once
Watching Juno now, I don't like it nearly as much as I thought I did when I was a junior in high school, but is changed what being a teenage protagonist meant. All of the sudden Juno was short, brunette, saucy and pregnant. She wasn't a fallen Christian girl, or a slut who needed to find the way. She was 16 and pregnant and herself. And that's why everyone took notice. Not to mention Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman's stellar performances as the yuppie adopters!
Just recently saw Once, and I felt like I had been punched in the stomach by the gods of music and love. or god of music and love; this movie makes it seem like they are the same. Again like Juno, Once is really real. Guy and Girl aren't perfect for each other, but perfect for each at that moment, which is a fact of humanity that is glazed over a lot in romances that create the idea of "the one." Once provides an alternative the cleanliness of that version, something truer and deeper and more congruent with the lives that we lead.
2008
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E
Another punch movie. Except Slumdog punched me in the face. Part Bollywood musical, part low-budget endearment, part sappy bildungsroman, Slumdog changed how I looked at movies. Before any indie movie I found was something I happened upon and liked in a little niche of my existence, like Wes Anderson films, that are rarely accepted into the wide canon of great movies, only to be praised by little hipsters. But Slumdog captured the country and made them love and not look away from the torture, game show or Bollywood dance number. Everybody loved to love Slumdog because it was just that good.
WALL-E will forever be known as the Best Picture that shoulda been. Oh well. Maybe it was the shout out to Hello! Dolly or the Fred-and-Ginger dance between WALL-E and EVE or the silence in which WALL-E commits all his actions, but WALL-E felt so retro, except of course it takes place in space and in the future. The retro and modernity gave Pixar their best film of the decade, and Toy Story a run for its money as the definitive Pixar film.
2009
Up
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Two animations in one year and no live action movies. Granted I haven't seen my pick of Best Picture right now (Up in the Air) yet, but these were my two favorites of the year. Up and Fantastic Mr. Fox were the most humane movies of the year. They addressed human issues of family and loss and love and that's what I love most about movies. Identifying with the characters, or feeling pathos for them. I felt more connected to George Clooney as a fox than I have a character in a long time. and if you didn't cry during Up, I'd suggest you go back to your charger or home planet because you are obviously either a robot or an alien.
Still Haven't Seen
Up in the Air
An Education
A Single Man
Invictus
Sherlock Holmes
