JamesG
12-11-2009, 07:14 PM
10. Almost Famous (2000)
Cameron Crowe's best film to date made good use of his memories as a teenage writer for Rolling Stone magazine.
The movie made a star of Goldie Hawn's only daughter, Kate Hudson, and reminded us of how great an actress is Frances McDormand, who received the third of her four Oscar nominations for her portrayal of the young reporter's harried mother.
9. No Country for Old Men (2007)
The Coen brothers have made a career of genre-hopping and their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's contemporary Western is one of the best of their remarkable collaborations.
8. The Pianist (2002)
Adrien Brody's Oscar-winning portrayal of a Jewish musician trying to survive the Holocaust in Poland was one for the career books, but the Oscar for fugitive director Roman Polanski was excessive largesse for the unrepentant pedophile.
If the movie were released this year, with details of Polanski's1977 rape of a drugged 13-year-old model being recalled thanks to his arrest in Switzerland, I doubt that the voters would have been as forgiving.
Still, the movie is what it is, a heart-wrenching story of a man's will to live.
7. The Dark Knight (2008)
A better movie than Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire by miles didn't even get nominated, a slight that prompted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to double this year's number of Best Picture nominees.
It's the best written and directed of all the Batman movies and the posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Heath Ledger was quite simply an award for one of the greatest portrayals of a screen villain ever.
6. Sideways (2004)
The movie that made pinot noir almost as popular as pink zinfandel also made an unlikely star of Paul Giamatti, playing a cranky oenophile traveling through California wine country with a skirt-chasing buddy (Thomas Haden Church) who wouldn't know a pinot from a pine nut.
5. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
If conservatives had been compelled to watch Ang Lee's moving melodrama about modern-day cowboys in love, most of those failed gay marriage bills might have passed.
In any case, its heterosexual stars -- Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger -- confounded 'experts' who predicted a pox on their careers, which amounts to at least one victory for common humanity.
4. Mystic River (2003)
I could include two other Clint Eastwood movies on this list -- Million Dollar Baby and Letters from Iwo Jima -- but I don't want to get too greedy on his behalf. I'll just say that for a septuagenarian throughout the decade, no one had a better record of high-quality work.
This film, adapted from Dennis Lehane's novel about three life-long friends thrown into turmoil by a random murder, features three of the decade's greatest performances, from Oscar-winner Sean Penn, nominee Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon.
3. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
I introduced Ang Lee's martial arts love story at a pre-release screening for a film club in upscale Scarsdale, NY and came away happy the audience hadn't brought tomatoes with them.
One guy reacted so angrily to my prediction that the film would receive multiple Oscar nominations and break box office records for a foreign language film that I was looking for the closest exit. Where are you, ya-hoo?
2. Chicago (2002)
Just watched this for the umpteenth time the other night and I may watch it again as soon I finish this list. Who knows why one musical claims your soul while others leave you cold?
I admit to an affection for dark comedy and this yarn about a pair of murderous femmes fatale and the slick shyster who gets them off in 1930s Chi-Town is wickedly dark.
The music, written for the stage by John Kander and Fred Ebb and expanded for the movie, never ages and the performances of non-dancers, non-singers Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere are almost pitch-perfect.
1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
Made during one long production shoot in director Jackson's home country of New Zealand and released as back-to-back-to-back Christmas presents, this stunningly imaginative and faithful adaptation of J.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth masterpiece ranks as the most ambitious and most accomplished film series ever undertaken.
Each of the movies -- The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King -- was as good as the one before or after it and fans coughed up more than $1 billion to see them in the U.S. and Canada.
http://insidemovies.moviefone.com/2009/12/07/top-movies-of-the-decade-2000s/
Cameron Crowe's best film to date made good use of his memories as a teenage writer for Rolling Stone magazine.
The movie made a star of Goldie Hawn's only daughter, Kate Hudson, and reminded us of how great an actress is Frances McDormand, who received the third of her four Oscar nominations for her portrayal of the young reporter's harried mother.
9. No Country for Old Men (2007)
The Coen brothers have made a career of genre-hopping and their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's contemporary Western is one of the best of their remarkable collaborations.
8. The Pianist (2002)
Adrien Brody's Oscar-winning portrayal of a Jewish musician trying to survive the Holocaust in Poland was one for the career books, but the Oscar for fugitive director Roman Polanski was excessive largesse for the unrepentant pedophile.
If the movie were released this year, with details of Polanski's1977 rape of a drugged 13-year-old model being recalled thanks to his arrest in Switzerland, I doubt that the voters would have been as forgiving.
Still, the movie is what it is, a heart-wrenching story of a man's will to live.
7. The Dark Knight (2008)
A better movie than Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire by miles didn't even get nominated, a slight that prompted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to double this year's number of Best Picture nominees.
It's the best written and directed of all the Batman movies and the posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Heath Ledger was quite simply an award for one of the greatest portrayals of a screen villain ever.
6. Sideways (2004)
The movie that made pinot noir almost as popular as pink zinfandel also made an unlikely star of Paul Giamatti, playing a cranky oenophile traveling through California wine country with a skirt-chasing buddy (Thomas Haden Church) who wouldn't know a pinot from a pine nut.
5. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
If conservatives had been compelled to watch Ang Lee's moving melodrama about modern-day cowboys in love, most of those failed gay marriage bills might have passed.
In any case, its heterosexual stars -- Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger -- confounded 'experts' who predicted a pox on their careers, which amounts to at least one victory for common humanity.
4. Mystic River (2003)
I could include two other Clint Eastwood movies on this list -- Million Dollar Baby and Letters from Iwo Jima -- but I don't want to get too greedy on his behalf. I'll just say that for a septuagenarian throughout the decade, no one had a better record of high-quality work.
This film, adapted from Dennis Lehane's novel about three life-long friends thrown into turmoil by a random murder, features three of the decade's greatest performances, from Oscar-winner Sean Penn, nominee Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon.
3. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
I introduced Ang Lee's martial arts love story at a pre-release screening for a film club in upscale Scarsdale, NY and came away happy the audience hadn't brought tomatoes with them.
One guy reacted so angrily to my prediction that the film would receive multiple Oscar nominations and break box office records for a foreign language film that I was looking for the closest exit. Where are you, ya-hoo?
2. Chicago (2002)
Just watched this for the umpteenth time the other night and I may watch it again as soon I finish this list. Who knows why one musical claims your soul while others leave you cold?
I admit to an affection for dark comedy and this yarn about a pair of murderous femmes fatale and the slick shyster who gets them off in 1930s Chi-Town is wickedly dark.
The music, written for the stage by John Kander and Fred Ebb and expanded for the movie, never ages and the performances of non-dancers, non-singers Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere are almost pitch-perfect.
1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
Made during one long production shoot in director Jackson's home country of New Zealand and released as back-to-back-to-back Christmas presents, this stunningly imaginative and faithful adaptation of J.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth masterpiece ranks as the most ambitious and most accomplished film series ever undertaken.
Each of the movies -- The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King -- was as good as the one before or after it and fans coughed up more than $1 billion to see them in the U.S. and Canada.
http://insidemovies.moviefone.com/2009/12/07/top-movies-of-the-decade-2000s/