My (and only my) best movies of the decade: The top 10

Quickly before I get into any of that, I was just thrilled to see that "The Muppet Movie," a staple for kids who grew up when I did and hopefully still required viewing in households everywhere there are kids big and small, has been added for preservation to the 2009 National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

The only question that great news gives me is why in the world did it take so long? As you can see from the list below, there are a lot of other great choices this year, and even a music video from Michael Jackson. Hey, why not? Here it is:

1. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
2. The Exiles (1961)
3. Heroes All (1920)
4. Hot Dogs for Gauguin (1972)
5. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
6. Jezebel (1938)
7. The Jungle (1967)
8. The Lead Shoes (1949)
9. Little Nemo (1911)
10. Mabel’s Blunder (1914)
11. The Mark of Zorro (1940)
12. Mrs. Miniver (1942)
13. The Muppet Movie (1979)
14. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
15. Pillow Talk (1959)
16. Precious Images (1986)
17. Quasi at the Quackadero (1975)
18. The Red Book (1994)
19. The Revenge of Pancho Villa (1930-36)
20. Scratch and Crow (1995)
21. Stark Love (1927)
22. The Story of G.I. Joe (1945)
23. A Study in Reds (1932)
24. Thriller (1983)
25. Under Western Stars (1938)

So there you have it. But here today, it's all about the final cut. Before I do my top 10 list for 2009, which I'm still putting off until the end of this week because I will finally see "Up in the Air" today, I've decided that the reigning champ isn't going to be dethroned, so I can go ahead and do my top 10 movies of the 2000s. I did, however, see one movie that will probably make the 2009 top 10 list coming Monday, Pedro Almodovar's "Broken Embraces," which is just a wildly fun movie and a valentine to moviemaking (when and if you see it, you'll probably agree that it's really a valentine to making specifically Pedro Almodovar movies, but again, why not?)

OK, with the rules being one per year, here are my best movies of the oughts, or whatever you want to call them, with some video clips thrown in just for fun.

2000: "Almost Famous"
Judging from how Cameron Crown started out the '00s, you would think it would have been the most fruitful creative period of his life, but of course that was not to be. "Elizabethtown" almost made me claw my own eyes out, but this rock 'n' roll road movie chronicling Crowe's own ride as a too-young correspondent for the Rolling Stone is as fun as it is moving, and even made me a fan of Elton John again with one of the best uses of a pop song ever, the band rebonding with "Tiny Dancer." Enjoy that clip below.



2001: "The Royal Tenenbaums"
What made "Fantastic Mr. Fox" so good was that, after two instantly forgettable films in "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" and "The Darjeeling Limited," it showed that Wes Anderson had returned to the top form he showed with this flick. At his best, Anderson has a natural gift for storytelling and an artist's eye for details that make you smile broadly if you pay close enough attention, and those two talents just converged perfectly with "The Royal Tenenbaums."

2002: "City of God"
If I had to pick just one, this would be my favorite movie of the '00s, and easily in my top 10 of all time too. Fernando Meirelles' chronicle of street life in Rio de Janeiro focuses on two boys, one who gets caught up in the gang culture that rules the streets and another who escapes to capture its harsh reality with his camera. It works as both a coming-of-age tale or a riveting gangster pic of sorts, and is just packed with searing visual images that are still burned on my brain to this day. Enjoy the clip below showing Lil' Dice transformed into the much more deadly Lil' Ze.



2003: "American Splendor"
Though Paul Giamatti had appeared in plenty of movies before this one from Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, he certainly chose the right flick to make his real impact as the star of the show. The two directors interweave Giamatti's take on the colorful character that is cartoonist Harvey Pekar with insight from the man himself, and its just a joy to watch as the lines between the two interweave. It also turns into a moving romance with Hope Davis as Pekar's love and salvation, Joyce Brabner, and Judah Friedlander is also just a hoot as Pekar's oddball buddy Toby.

2004: "Maria Full of Grace"
Still the only movie I've ever seen from writer/director Joshua Marston, "Maria Full of Grace" was ahead of its time in putting a very human face on the issue of immigration in America. It certainly doesn't hurt that that face here belongs to the simply stunning Catalina Sandino Moreno, or that the story of Maria Alvarez's role as a drug mule from Colombia and her road to redemption just make for a tremendously entertaining flick.

2005: "Hustle & Flow"
Though I enjoy straightforward musical biopics to a certain degree, I'm much more amenable to movies like "I'm Not There," "Cadillac Records" and this flick from director Craig Brewer that take the genre and twist it into something new. "Hustle & Flow" isn't, of course, a biopic at all, but with the character of struggling pimp and aspiring rapper Djay, brought to vivid life by Terrence Howard, Brewer brings all the corny joy of the rock fable to hip-hop, and though his story of dreaming big while often living small just sounds incredibly corny on paper, it works to near perfection on the big screen. In any language, this clip of Djay and Taraji P. Henson's Shug is just one of the great movie kisses of all time. Enjoy.



2006: "Pan's Labyrinth"
In the year of the three Mexicans, this flick from Guillermo del Toro still stands just a notch taller than Alfonso Cuaron's "Children of Men" in my book, though it's nearly a tie. With "Pan's Labyrinth," Del Toro explores the power of the imagination - both it's light and dark side - as our heroine, played by young Ivana Baquero, crafts an elaborate and often harrowing fantasy world to escape the harsh reality of her life in post-Civil War Spain. It revels in this talent that we all used as children but too often forget once we turn into "adults."

2007: "Into the Wild"
Sean Penn could have gone in many directions with his movie about doomed dreamer Christopher McCandless, but by keeping his own politics out of it and just letting the story unfold at a natural pace, he managed to craft a great American road movie. It's as moving as it is frustrating to watch how McCandless, played by Emile Hirsch, could have avoided his fate if he had simply let in one of the many people who reached out to him in his travels. Hal Holbrook should have won the Oscar he was nominated for with this flick, and Catherine Keener should have had her name called that night too.

2008: "Let the Right One In"
Just the other day, my brother and I were discussing the many fantastic scenes in director Tomas Alfredson's flick, and whether or not any of them will have nearly the same impact in "Cloverfield" director Matt Reeves' upcoming American remake, "Let Me In" (we both have rather serious doubts.) Alfredson's movie, based on John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel, is equal parts coming-of-age story and horror flick as it tells the tale of what happens when bullied Oskar meets the new girl next door - who just happens to be a vampire. Among the many things this movie gets rights is the moment at the pool when - after urging Oskar to stand up for himself - Eli takes matters into her own rather lethal hands. Easily the best horror movie scene of the last 10 years and more. Though I strongly watch you watch it in the movie first if you haven't seen it yet, here's a clip of that amazing sequence. Enjoy.



2009: "Inglourious Basterds"
Watching this movie unfold and just get better and better as it goes along drives home the point that Quentin Tarantino really was just treading water with the two "Kill Bill" movies and his half of "Grindhouse," because this was clearly the movie he was meant to make. It should really have a different name, because the titular "Basterds" are the weakest link in this saga that weaves together several plots to kill Hitler. Whether you call it revisionist history or revenge fantasy, it's also just wildly inventive storytelling. Two scenes in particular, the opening gambit with Christoph Waltz and a later one involving some kind of crazy game of celebrity Indian Head poker, are among the best Tarantino has ever written, just perfectly building all the tension that is finally released in that finale that I guarantee you won't ever forget.

So, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed at least some of that, and if you haven't seen any of them, I guarantee they'll all well worth a rental. And with that I'm finally off to see if George Clooney and "Up in the Air" are really worth all the hype. Peace out.

When Guillermo met Harry Potter? A dream match

A quick visit to the IMDB plus this tidbit from Comingsoon.net set my mind reeling with possibilities as to just how fantastic the final "Harry Potter" movie could really be.

As the IMDB reveals, no director has yet been named for the final installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." By launching the rumor mill full-speed, Comingsoon has gotten firmly behind a name I would endorse heartily: Guillermo (not, as I write sometimes in my early-morning haze, Benicio) del Toro.

Why would this be such a perfect match? The answer should be pretty clear for anyone who has seen del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" (and if you somehow haven't, I can't even begin to help you.) Being about as unhip as anyone on the planet, I've finally started reading Rowling's last Potter novel. So far I've only gotten to the wedding of Bill Weasley and Fleur De la Coeur, but I can tell already it will be probably be bloodier and even more magical than all the books that have come before it, making it tailormade for del Toro.

Interestingly, he confirmed to Comingsoon that he had been approached to possibly direct "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," a job which eventually went to his buddy Alfonso Cuaron. Here's what he had to say:

"They came to me once, for the third one. When I read the books before the movies were done, I always pictured Charles Dickens. They were very Dickensian. The situation of Harry Potter reminded me a lot of Pip from 'Great Expectations.' I saw them as deeper, more creaky, more corroded, but they were textured very differently when the first two movies came out. They were so bright and happy and full of light, that I wasn't interested."

"They seem to be getting eerie and darker, and I'm up to be the one who kills twenty guys. If they come back to me, I'll think about it."

Please do, Guillermo. A look at his schedule with the IMDB confirms that this would indeed be pretty perfect timing. He's currently wrapping up "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army," which is set for a July 11, 2008, release and should just be tons of fun. After that, things get murky.

He's listed as attached to direct two more movies, both of which, it would seem, would be easily movable if the right offer came along. Listed after "Hellboy 2" is "3993," which from its description would make a perfect del Toro movie. Based on the screenplay by Sergio G. Sanchez, it's described as being "a ghost story about 'the hostages left to fortune by the past' set in 1990's Spain and with connections with Spanish Civil War in 1939." Bring it on.

Then, for 2010, he's writing his own screenplay based on H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness," which I have to confess I haven't read (but certainly will before this ever comes out.) The plot is described at the IMDB thusly: "A chilling recollection of an Antarctic expedition's uncanny discoveries and their encounter with untold menace in the ruins of a lost civilization." Sounds plenty cool to me, but if anyone has indeed read this and has any insight, please do share.

Before any of this happens, however, I'm jumping right on the del Toro-for-Harry Potter bandwagon, if you can even call it that yet. Dream with me, people.

Two tidbits

Whew. That went on much longer than I had anticipated, so I'll run through the two other things that caught my eye very quickly.

More Shelly: Before she was murdered in her New York apartment by her neighbor, Adrienne Shelly managed to direct one of the most charming movies of 2007, "Waitress," and now it seems she also left us another script which will soon move toward becoming a movie too. Cheryl Hines, who starred with Shelly, Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion and Andy Griffith in "Waitress," will direct "Serious Moonlight" from a screenplay penned by Shelley. Described as a dark romantic comedy, it centers on a high-powered female attorney who learns that her husband is about to leave her for another woman, then prevents him from doing so by binding him to the toilet with duct tape. The wife's plan becomes complicated when the couple's home is besieged by robbers. Sounds a bit eerie coming from a woman who was murdered in her own bathroom, but I'm still eager to see what will come out of this.

Kudos for "Juno"

Is it rational for me to be so psyched for a movie I've never seen? Probably not, but so what? I love to laugh, and Jason Reitman's "Thank You for Smoking" made me do so harder than any other flick in 2005, and for "Juno" he's got a dream cast to work with in Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney and even Rainn Wilson, so definitely bring it on come December. And now it's beginning to pick up some early awards-season mojo, taking the top prize at the Rome Film Festival this past weekend. Huzzah!

Six minutes of Seinfeld's "Bee Movie"

Speaking of funny, I have my doubts that "Bee Movie" will be, but I've been wrong at least once before and will be perfectly happy if I am again now. Anyways, here's an almost-six-minute clip to get a taste of the flick which comes out Friday (though I'll be seeing "American Gangster" before this one, for sure.) Enjoy, and have an entirely suckfree Monday.