Culture Blues

The Best Movies of the Decade: 50-36

As pop culture aficionados, your friends at Culture Blues are not immune to the end-of-decade lists currently overwhelming the internet. As the year comes to a close, and we get progressively lazier, please enjoy Listmania, where Culture Blues ranks their favorite shit in a bunch of different categories.

Movies are a big thing around the Culture Blues offices. We’ve all seen lots of them. Some of us have even studied them, or at least read books about them. But above all else, we are passionate about them. So, when it came time to compile a list of our favorite movies of the decade, well, things got downright contentious. We managed to come up with a comprehensive list representing consensus picks as well as personal favorites. But that didn’t make everyone happy, so in order to acknowledge that every movie has its champions and its detractors (and to try to please all of our faithful readers), every movie on our list will be praised by one writer, and then torn down by another. Get ready for informed opinions, ignorant prejudices and blatant personal insults.

PRO: The casual movie-goer might know Andrew Lau’s Infernal Affairs better as the Hong Kong version of The Departed. That's an unfair minimizing of a superior film. Look at it this way: everything that's good about The Departed was lifted directly from Affairs, and everything that sucks (like Mark Wahlberg's plastic booties) was added by Scorsese and company. Affairs is a tightly wound crime-thriller with engaging performances, particularly by Tony Leung (the Chinese Leonardo DiCaprio), and none of the quaint ideas of justice popularized by its American reimagining. (Jeff)

CON: This movie isn’t long enough and it’s too confusing and there is too much moral ambiguity and not enough people get shot in the head at the end of it. (Martin Scorsese)

PRO: Joss Whedon’s Serenity is the decade’s best example of the internet’s populist nerd power. Born from FOX's sci-fi western Firefly that was yanked from the air after only 6 episodes (some of which were even aired out of order), Serenity is essentially the series finale fans of the show never received. In his feature length directorial debut, Whedon manages to recreate the small screen charm of Firefly and infuse it with a Hollywood blockbuster sensibility (read: glossy explosions and better stunts). Fast-paced storytelling, lovable characters, and typical Whedon snark – Serenity is one of the decade’s most thrilling experiences, one both fans of the show and newcomers will enjoy. (Jeff)

CON: Where’s the “Hands of Blue,” Joss?   Where’s Book, Joss? Why did you make a movie with River Tam as the main plot point when she was the most uninteresting character on the show, Joss?   Why did you make a movie that just seemed like another episode of Firefly? Good job conning Universal into giving you a budget to make a motion picture based on a TV Show that was cancelled way too soon. Bad job in shitting out a script with a storyline that gives the “Firefly” no closure at all. (Cheese)

PRO: Let me preface this by saying that the cut of Kingdom of Heaven released in theatres was fairly disappointing.  But the Director’s Cut released on DVD is another story. 20^th Century Fox should've trusted a talented filmmaker like Ridley Scott. He was able to tell Bill Monahan’s complete story. Bill also wrote The Departed another of our top 50 films. (Spoiler Alert!)  The battle scenes and cinematography are far superior to other battlefield heavy movies of this decade like Troy and Alexander. (Cheese)

CON: A second rate sword epic, Kingdom of Heaven tries to make do with Orlando Bloom in the kind of role that Russell Crowe would normally get. It noticeably strains to not offend anyone which is pretty tough when dealing with the Crusades and you could probably describe the plot to someone in about 30 seconds even though it’s over 2 hours long – don’t even get me started on the Director’s Cut. A movie that should only be seen if you are absolutely dying for some adequate battle scenes and extreme violence. (Jeremiah)

PRO: Comedy made a comeback this decade with the rise of Judd Apatow’s clique, the emergence of bro comedies, and the popularizing of man-children. Utilizing the best elements from all those trends is Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Unabashedly a labor of love by writer/star Jason Segel, Sarah Marshall gives us the biggest laughs of the so-called Apatow comedies, but also manages something much rarer: a man-child protagonist that is sympathetic throughout. It bears mentioning that a Jonah Hill/Russell Brand pseudo-sequel is in the works and will likely tarnish the memory of Sarah Marshall. But that isn’t until next decade. (Jeff)

CON: Jason Segel’s penis. (Cheese)

PRO: Let's face it: musicals are generally fucking terrible. They're usually from an antiquated time, feature horribly saccharine renditions of melody-slaughtering songs, and often involve plots like "It's a show about putting on a show." Outside of a few examples, I consider the entire genre to be a waste. Hedwig and the Angy Inch is THE Gender Bending King/Queen of the noughties musical landscape. For those unfamiliar, Hedwig is the film adaptation of a once off-broadway show about an East German transgender singer. It's a heart-warming story about love, sex-change operations, and rock & roll that is shot brilliantly, acted superbly, and full of some truly great Stephen Trask penned songs. You should really do yourself a favor and wipe the memory of The Music Man from your brain by watching this movie. (Giovanny)

CON: What’s wrong with this? (Jeff)

PRO: I was working at a movie theatre when Pan’s Labyrinth came out and was lucky enough to watch a press only advance screener of the film a couple of months before its US release. In the middle of the week on a cold winter afternoon I sat alone in the theater and watched the movie before my shift started. I was completely absorbed. Pan’s Labyrinth perfectly embodies the transfixing sadness of reality and the magic of imagination. I laughed out loud, nervously gripped my chair and more than once found myself wiping tears from my eyes. This is what movie watching should always be like.  (Carl)

CON: What was sold as a dark, scary fantasy movie turns out to be a lame fairy tale with all the clichés: young heroine, evil stepparent, a toad. And the marketing blitz gave away the only good part of the movie, the creature designs. Can someone please tell Guillermo del Gordo to go back to making Blade movies? (Jeremiah)

PRO: Anyone with even cursory knowledge of young adult literature will know that there is no shortage of great books for teenagers.  Films, though, are another matter.  This dearth of worthwhile material is precisely what makes Donnie Darko an experience to be cherished.  Stay clear if you can’t handle movies about the big stuff - loneliness, love, mental illness, and the inexplicable nature of reality.  If you’re up for it, though, this film handles those very subjects in the most sensitive, lucid, and humane way imaginable.  The lukewarm response to Southland Tales and The Box could potentially mean that Richard Kelly will never deliver another gem of this caliber, but with Donnie, at least, he gave us one for the ages. (Kieran)

CON: In my years as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, I have had the distinct misfortune of being subjected to some absurd theories, unbelievable hypotheses and ludicrous truths; none more disheartening to me than that there are people on this celestial body that not only enjoy Donnie Darko, but believe it makes some sort of sense. Far too much mental energy has been expended attempting to decipher this movie, and of course, the director has his own interpretation. The whole "tangent universe" concept is not too far-fetched, but when combined with the pure nonsense of the "living reciever" being manipulated by a dead man in a rabbit suit via the fourth dimensional construct (water!?!?!), the logic of this movie becomes equal to that of a "baked" student wasting his parent's money as they lay out on the quad. (Giovanny)

PRO: Gun-kata. Do I need to say more than that? Okay. Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium released in 2002 on about 300 screens, stayed in theaters for all of three weeks, and barely grossed over a million dollars. The green screen futuristic settings often look cheesy and the special effects are only a grade or two above a SciFi SyFy channel production. So why number #43? Because Equilibrium is the most consistently badass action movie of the last decade. Its plot rests heavily on a made up martial art known as gun-kata whose practitioners have mastered dodging bullets, and bouncing bullets, and basically treating guns like an extension of themselves. There are also swords involved. Christian Bale, in full-on steely eyed psycho mode, shoots and slashes his way through hordes of dystopian soldiers, dispatches Taye Diggs (best part), and proceeds to one of the craziest final-fights in cinematic history. Low budget, yet limitlessly ambitious and overflowing with unadulterated awesomeness, as action movies go Equilibrium outshines all of its big budget competition. (Jeff)

CON: OK, Kurt Wimmer. So, 90% of your movie is lifted directly from our literary classics, and you’ve added an unbeatable and unflappable action hero protagonist and thrown in a preposterous firearm based martial art. Great job, wanker. (George Orwell and Aldous Huxley)

PRO: These days, detective stories are often drenched in irony, self aware references and super charged noir influences, so the straight forward plot of Gone Baby Gone is a breath of fresh air. One of the movie’s greatest attributes is that rather than present itself as just another case, or attempt to achieve an epic significance through a massive conspiracy or something, it happily sits somewhere in the middle. A case that is important to the detective without being too personal and that presents him with a final decision that seems nearly impossible to make even though the “right” choice is never in question. And it made Ben Affleck relevant again. How awesome is that?! (Jeremiah)

CON: While I am happy that Kevin Smith um… I mean Ben Affleck…  co-wrote another script, this is Affleck’s first foray into directing and for a debut it was good.  The movie had some amazingly ridiculous twists, a lot of speechifying, and the murder of defenseless children.  These are three very big negatives,  in my opinion. But that being said Ben Affleck was the shit in Phantoms! (Cheese)

PRO: While the masses in 2005 drooled over comedies about stunted male maturity (Wedding Crashers, 40-Year Old Virgin) and escapist-cinema at its best (Batman Begins, Sin City) Wernor Herzog released Grizzly Man, a film that was more grippingly serious and non-escapist than any other documentary—or film—of the decade. Herzog’s profile of the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, a hands-on Grizzly bear aficionado in the vein of animal handlers like the late Steve Irwin, effectively bent the documentary rules. The story is told in linear reverse (SPOILER: Treadwell dies within the first few minutes), it makes us care about an individual who was patently unprofessional and foolhardy in his methods, and, perhaps most impressively, it is pieced together from Treadwell’s own home movies.  It hasn’t sparked a million imitators like other documentaries of the decade (Super Size Me, March of the Penguins), but that only proves that Herzog is a master who can’t be touched, and Grizzly Man is a tour de force that can’t be duplicated. (Burgman)

CON: Frankly, Treadwell had it coming. Shouldn’t have fucked with us. Everybody thinks it’d just be so much fun to live with grizzly bears – like we’re lovable stuffed animals that just want to root through garbage and fall out of trees onto trampolines. Like we just want to wear those little Russian hats and ice skate. Sure, we’re adorable, but life with us is no picnic. We will seriously eat you. (Bears)

PRO: Simply put, The Host is the best monster movie of the decade. I suppose that isn’t saying much considering its closest competition would probably be Cloverfield, but the absolute ineptness of one only underscores the prowess of the other. The Host remembers what is most important with any horror film – giving viewers characters they can care about. The family dynamics in The Host range from hilarious to heartbreaking and lend a sense of gravity to the movie’s numerous scares. Perhaps more impressive than the human element is The Host’s inhuman element; the CGI effects are brilliant and clever (they used real world tricks, such as dumping metal weights into water, to capture the CGI monster’s effects on his environment). How often this decade could you lump such profuse praise on both a film’s characters and its special effects? (Jeff)

CON: I’m pitching a fit because my last minute lobby to get Jet Li’s Hero included in this list was a total dud. Granted, The Host is not from the same country, nor is it even the same genre. But its got subtitles and the whole time I watched it all I could think about was how awesome Hero is. I mean, The Host was an all right movie… but screw this. (Jason)

PRO: A lot of people call David O. Russell’s existential comedy I Heart Huckabees pretentious. Other, less verbose viewers, call it assholeish. I’ve never understood why. I do, in fact, love Huckabees. For me, it is always funny, something I’ve rewatched numerous times over the last decade. Nothing gets me like Mark Wahlberg’s performance as a philosophical meathead/fire fighter. He rides his bike to fires! What about Dustin Hoffman’s speech about the blanket? Or the dinner scene? What happens in a meadow at sunset? Everything. For me, I still enjoy Huckabees as much as when I first saw it, in a small theater in Buffalo with half the audience walking out and a smattering of boos.  (Jeff)

CON: I fucking hate Huckabees. What a piss poor pretentious movie for idiots who enjoy their existentialism spoon-fed to them by whining super rich white people horribly “acting” like whining middle class white people. A movie about “what it all means” should never be so blatantly obvious as to its motives. See Garden State for another example of this kind of trite bullshit. These are the kind of movies assholes take girls to so they can show how deep and sensitive they are before the roofies and the date rape. This movie should really be on the list for 50 worst movies of the decade! (Carl)

PRO: I didn’t love O Brother Where Art Thou upon my first viewing but on the subsequent fifty or so times since I have fallen deeply in love with it. Its rewatchability stems from the many cinematic gems found within. The Coen Brother’s delivered another taut and flawless script with excellent casting centered around the most charming man in the world: George Clooney. Although, extremely overrated and often annoyingly smug about his perfect life, Clooney plays the cornball main character with gusto.  The gorgeous scenery and inexplicable platinum-selling soundtrack perfectly set the stage for the Coen’s comedic magical realism.  (Carl)

CON: Kitschy restagings of classic tales are a godsend for those who have run out of ideas. This film’s awkward, stilted humor, annoying characters and dreadful pace make it a struggle to get through. Not to mention they keep singing that same fucking song!  (Jeremiah)

PRO: I personally am tired of every comedy out there being from “The guys who brought you the 40 Year Old Virgin.” Or “the guy who was the key grip in Knocked Up." How many people are eating from the Judd Apatow dinner table right now?  Best In Show is an intelligent, funny movie with colorful characters, each with their own unique voice. This is a movie that I can turn on at any point during its course and know that I will be laughing within 2 minutes. (Cheese)

CON: Christopher Guest has spent the past decade and a half trying to convince everyone that he was the main creative force behind the classic This is Spinal Tap by churning out mockumentaries that are pale imitations of the original. Wating for Guffman was good but he probably should have quit after that. From dog shows, to folk music to never-was actors, with each release the targets get easier, the bits get less memorable and the laughs get less frequent. Hang it up, Guest. You can no longer take it to 11. (Jeremiah)

PRO: Comedy is a lot like pornography.  You got a hard on?  Then it’s good porn.  You Laughed?  Then it’s funny.  Borat made me laugh.  A lot.  In fact, it made me laugh more than any other mainstream comedy released in the last ten years.  Frankly the brothers Farrelly should be ashamed.  I’ll take it a step further, though, and say that, along with being hilarious, Borat is an exceptionally clever film that is, by turns, insightful, frightening, shocking, and even touching.  Make no mistake, Sacha Baron Cohen is unquestionably the inheritor of Andy Kaufman’s legacy, and that’s just about the highest praise I can give to anyone. (Kieran)

CON: Sacha Baron Cohen is a very talented man, and The Ali G Show was brilliant. But his movies are less about his talents and more about shocking people who are too dim to realize they’re being made fun of. Some will tell you that it’s a smart satire of the world we live in. I’m telling you it’s nothing more than Tom Green redux. (Jeremiah)

The list continues with entries 35-21.

Tagged as: best in show, best movies of the decade, borat, donnie darko, equilibrium, forgetting sarah marshall, gone baby gone, grizzly man, hedwig and the angry inch, i heart huckabees, infernal affairs, kingdom of heaven, o brother where art thou, pan's labyrinth, serenity, the host