35 From 00: My Favorite Films From The Year 2000

Before there was the Time Traveler's Wife, Donnie Darko, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time or Kate & Leopold,
there was Happy Accidents.
A time-traveling love story about timeless love transcending the timelessness that is time.
Or is it a loving time-traveling story about the transcendence through infinity which is true love....?
Either way, in short, it's a straight-on chick-flick theme with just a twist of wormholed logic.

Pitch Black is a dark film with a plot that literally isn't all sunshine. Which is why it's called "Pitch Black".
A group of space-farers find their intergalactic journey interrupted when they are marooned on a planet of perpetual daylight, with the exception of the periodical cycles of ecliptical darkness.
And during these few shifts of nightfall,
the major form of alien life are hordes of flying meat-eating whatchamacallits.
And to these nocturnal beasties, humans make a pretty tasty midnight snack.

For me, the nineties was the golden era of independent film. It seemed like that was the decade that indies really began breaking out of the self-restrictive arthouse theaters and making their way to more available venues.
So when the new millennium started, I was even more excited about the future for non-mainstream cinema.
Even though Beautiful Creatures came off more like a watered down version of Bound, it's jagged edge story still shone enough to make me hopeful of where this style of filmmaking was going.



In the end, the 00's fell short compared to the previous decade, not to mention that it seems to be even worse during the second decade of the millennium, but that's a story for another forum.
BC maybe didn't live to the high quality of previous indies, but the mixture of dark humor and quirky shock in it's premise still served as a spark of non-conventionality in a world of ever-increasing bloated big-budgetry.

This movie showed us where the big-budget animated features were going not just commercially but artistically, also. And even tho you can notice some clunkiness to some of the computer-generated areas and the way there were fitted into the story (especially compared to today's films), the drawn parts are of the highest quality (for it's time) and, for me, still come off as quite visually impressive.
One of those moments that I'll always remember being in the theater and just being totally visually amazed by what was on the screen.

A cool psychological thriller that takes a journey into the psyche of a mind through the use of really creative, surreal and stunning visuals.
And when I say "creative, surreal and stunning visuals", contrary to what all of y'all might be thinkin', I am not referring to Jennifer Lopez's big ol' onion booty.

Most fathers like to bond with their sons through playing catch or taking 'em fishing. For this family, Dad hands you a gun and teaches you how to aim it at a squirrel and blow it's nuts off.
In this household, the family name is carried on by picking up a sniper rifle and aiming it right between a target's eyes.

  In the not too distant future, an entire grade level of high school students are planted on a remote island and forced to either kill each other or defend themselves. A class subject in which the only way to get a passing grade is to be the only one left standing.
  Battle Royale is a system of discipline that demonstrates how to respect authority and a method of teaching that could prove to be more efficient than making the kids stay after school, cleaning erasers or detention.
  But, in the end, it probably wouldn't be as enduring.
  Cuz, well then, y'know....
all the little ingrates would all be dead an' stuff.

After watching this stop-motion animated tale about a group of not-so spring chickens who are lookin' to get sprung, it made me realize that when it comes to writing about these kinds of movies, I don't always have feel obligated to use any obvious puns no matter how much they might be staring me in the face. F'rinstance, right now, I am sorely tempted to insert the phrase "flying the coup" somewhere into this description box.
But I'm not going to. That would be too easy.
So instead, what I'm gonna do is reward myself for showing such self-control by satiating the hungerous urge that I usually feel after watching this "fowl" film.
I'm going on a "chicken run".
Anybody else want anything from KFC?

In space, no one can hear an old man fart.



Space Cowboys is a movie with formula written all over it. Which, though usually that tends to be a bad thing, when done correctly, as this movie does, can act as a reminder of why the formula became a formula in the first place. With Eastwood (playing a different kind of cowboy than he usually does) leading a cast full of well-seasoned actors whose individual film credits all accumulate into a comfortability in front of the camera that allows each actor to feel just as comfortable up in space, there here film is what I refer to as a non-guilty guilty pleasure.

Return To Me is a return to the old days of romantic cinema, with just the right amount of overindulgent sweetness, just missing the saccharine mark. For the type of plot premise that this movie is, it's script manages never to cross into the realm of dialogue and lines that constantly remind the viewer that the characters live within that part of the dimension of cinema that is inhabited by the romance genre.
A formula love story done with enough maturity and with a genuinely (not to mention, metaphorically) honest heart, that I couldn't help but be swayed by it.

A solid father/son/mystery tale of reunion that actually ventures into the reality warping aspects of time travel. And despite it's far reaching plot device, it's a formula that manages to find a way to make it all work out in the end.

Before Christian Bale became Batman, the Gotham Avenger,
he was Bateman, the American Psycho.
Yep. Before he began dispensing justice to all evil doers preying on random innocents,
he was dispensing body parts of random innocents who fell victim as his prey.
And as you can probably tell,
before I began dispensing bad descriptive puns on time-wasting lists like this,
I had a life outside of the internet.
Damn you, world wide web. I want my life back.

Yes, when it comes to the level of competition in the business of dog shows, it's a dog eat dog world. And yes, I am enough of a low level mongrel (there is no pure breed in my blood) that I am willing to stoop low enough to use that over-obvious and over-used expression.
Heck, I can keep digging up a crap-load of doggie-theme phrases to help describe the premise of this movie ("sitting up" with wit, "rolling over" with laughter, etc),
but I don't want the unfunniness of those metaphors to discredit the humor of this canine comedy.

Believe it or not, it's because of this movie that I began posting up these lists in the first place. There's a scene where Forrester tells his protege to just start writing, without worry of the idea, theme or structure. All that technical stuff would come later, the important thing was to just start writing. So, as someone who has hardly ever written anything (which can be painfully obvious to anyone reading any of my posts), I decided to put that particular proccess of writing into action, starting the comments accompanying the movies within these lists.
I am now a blogger. And gone now is any semblance of a real life.

Three hillbilly chain-gangsters are on the lam and on one stop during their backwards evasivity from the law they take the time to sing and record a hit song that takes the countryside by storm.



For me, I found this flick to be, by far, the second funniest film in the movie genre of the sublimely funny hick flick. And yes, that is a movie genre. Unfortunately, there are only two movies that make up this genre-specific category so far (the Coen Brothers' Raising Arizona being the other one). However, don't let it's last place position in this burgeoning list fool you... that takes nothing away from the fact that O Brother Where Art Thou?, in its own distinctive manner, is a movie that can truly be referred to as bonafide.

Back when the world of cinema was still in it's infancy, how could a director make a film about a vampire at a time when the first CGI special effects won't make an appearance for yet another 70 years?
Easy.
Instead of an actor, hire a real-life vampire for the lead role.
*Insert your own "Hollywood-is-nuthin'-but-a-buncha-bloodsuckers-anyway" type of wisecracking analogy here*

Having failed at college, a young stock broker takes a crack at triumph in the high stakes avenues of high finance. To redeem himself not only in his eyes, but also in the eyes of his stone faced father's eyes as well.
With it's portrayal of the moral bending temptations that tend to lure earnest go-getters into stretching the laws of their field to the breaking point, Boiler Room is basically a poor man's (pun nonintentional) version of Wall Street (the movie, not the actual street). To the extent that the primary characters in this film live by the famous quote of that film, which is that "Greed is good".

Remember back in the good ol' days of cinema, when they used to make lots of gladiator movies?
Oh wait,
I forgot that I once read an article that stated that more than 70% of the internet crowd were 15 years old or younger.
So, if you're reading this, it's more than likely that you don't remember back when they used to make alot of gladiator movies.
Well, they did. Films like Spartacus, Ben-Hur, Samson & Delilah, even Hercules.



Though, I guess, the proper term that the younger generation like to use on those rare occasions that they do talk about these type 'o' flicks would be "sword and sandal" movies.
Whatever.
The point is, I miss good gladiator movies.
So for me, it's pretty cool when a sword sandal movie like Gladiator (hey! that's also the term we used to use to describe the genre....!) comes along.
It's even cooler when the film is of this high overall quality. Tends to remind me of the good ol' days.

Michael Douglas plays Grady Tripp, a college professor who teaches creative writing and whose life on campus is a slow unrambling mess that puts the directionless lives of the liberal arts majors to shame.
Tobey McGuire is James Leer, a student who lies about his family situation and is either really into Marilyn Monroe memorabilia or just likes to steal Marilyn Monroe memorabilia.
And Robert Downey Jr. is Terry Crabtree, a book agent who relies on Grady's unfinished novel to save his career and is "infatuated" with students who like to steal Marilyn Monroe memorabilia.
Together, this triumvirate of tattered tools are the guys that make up the Wonder Boys.

Even across the pond, in the world of organized crime, the primary objective of climbing ladders is to get to the top.
And no matter where on the totem pole one is, no right-minded ambitious wiseguy wants to be known simply as Gangster No. 55, Gangster No. 15, or even Gangster No. 2. The goal is to get to the top spot.
And when you're in the mob, if that means pitting your enemies against your friends, so be it. By hook or crook, the important thing is that the name plate on your desk reads "Gangster No. 1".

A partnership is struck up when a chance meeting brings two scam artists together, and thus begins a day full of grift-games, con-jobs and hoodwinking hustles.
While one trickster is well experienced, the other is still wet behind the ears. But together, they begin to learn a few new tricks from each other strengths, which eventually leads to a scheme with a potential score that's big enough to get each man stamped out of his own personal jam.



Fast-paced and simplistically complicated, Nine Queens is the type of slight-of-hand cinema that is fun to watch as layers of the plot consistently continues to unfold and non-trustworthy characters unerringly appear to come out of the woodwork.

Bruce Willis maximizes his smirking tough-guy persona as a mob hitman in the witness protection program, while Matthew Perry demonstrates his talent for aptly portraying the bumblin' dentist guy next door with a heart of gold. The end result is a funny "hit" film anchored by the two lead actors as a modern "Martin-Lewis" team that had me laughing alot more than I would've expected from this film.

Ahh, I just can't help myself. When it comes to romantic comedies dealing with schizophrenia,
I really find that I'm just a sucker for love triangles.
Even if that triangle is only made up of two people.

Jackson Pollock was a painter who gained fame in the early 50's as an artist when he started to splatter paint onto the canvas. And as this fictionalized biographical story shows, the life he led as a neurotic alcoholic was even more splattered than his artwork.



I always like Ed Harris as an actor and with this being his directorial debut, he makes Pollock a personal achievement, both as an individual accomplishment and as an indie arthouse flick that depicts the creative process of an artist and his internal struggles between demons and dollars.

"Hold me closer, Tony Danza...!"



Cameron Crowe's excellent nostalgic road trip down memory Penny Lane.

There comes a time in every young girl's life where her body starts to give off signs that she's becoming a woman.
Or a werewolf.

On July 19th, back in 1969, millions and millions of people around the world were able to watch on television the sight of man taking his very first steps on the moon. All due to a radio telescope that was located in a small town called Parkes, in New South Wales, Australia. More specifically, it was a satellite dish that was set right smack dab in the middle of a sheep farm.
A setting that is so humblingly ironic, that it was a story that practically wrote itself. With a little bit of embellishment from the makers of this movie, of course.
A quietly funny look at how mankind's biggest step was bought to you via a flock of cuddly wooly ruminants (although, I must confess, whenever I think of the word "dish" associated with sheep, it's usually because I'm thinking of something along the lines of lamb chops).

Juliette Binoche and chocolate.
Two great tastes that taste great together.
And yeah, I know I should probably get into more detail about why I think this is such a quality romance film,
but to be honest, whenever I think about of this "charmingly light-hearted food fable",
I can't get the idea of a chocolat Binoche out of my mind.
:homerdrool:

The man who once portrayed Gandhi heads to the other side of the ocean, in role about as polar opposite to a Master of Peace as one can get.
There's a caper to be pulled. And a former thief comes to realize that no matter how much he tries to convince a former associate that he's retired,
being thick as thieves sometimes means that a life of crime is a life sentence, even if you've never been caught.

?Fashion backwards a in arranged were movie this of comments the for words the if obvious too way be it would



The future director of the Dark Knight utilizes a backwards structure for this film in a manner that was exceptionally well-thought thru, making it possible for the viewer to able to be kept on his/her toes and yet still able to follow the plot thru one's own puzzle-solving skillz.

A martial arts film that decides that it's not goin to be one.
Many forms of physical combat like to brag of itself as being a form of violent ballet, but Crouching Tiger Hidden dragon is one that just wants to portray it martial arts as an art tool that blends into the majesty of the story's theme of honor, love and wisdom, that this film ends up laying claim to that dance-metaphor that the other fighting films wish they could be truly worthy of.
No character in this film, no matter how small, is colored in the simple black & white colors of good & evil, and all are duty bound by a personal sense of honor. And both men and women are equally capable in either masterfully full contact engagement or scaling the walls and even the very air in gravity defying leaps that serve more to enhance the fable-like atmosphere of the story.
Intelligent, straightforward and "martially artistic", Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is a pure fun action flick merged into a story whose simplicity is hidden behind the human depth of a group of characters who believe their respective situations to be truly epic.



A film that makes me realize just how much I luvs me some wuxia.

When it comes to flim-flam flicks speckled with heavily British accented wit and with just a touch of over-the-pond mob type humour,
I gotta admit,
I really do luvs me some Snatch.

   The year 2000 was such a good year for Steven Soderbergh, that at the Academy Awards, he actually got nominated twice as Best Director for two separate films. The Oscar noms were for Erin Brockavich (which didn't make it on my list) and of course, this one.
   When I think of Soderbergh, I think of a director who has a sleek, stylish and 
"cool" look to his craft as demonstrated by such films as Out of Sight, the Ocean's trilogy, and his first flick, Sex Lies and Video Tape. Because of this, I didn't expect to see his name on this project, whose subject matter can only be bought to lite without the slick, stylish or "cool" that I associate him with. But not only did Steve manage to cover this kind of ground with the appropiate attitude that the project required, he also did it with the level of "high" quality needed to match the scope that was, and still is, the international illegal drug trade. Ya gotta get your hands dirty if you truly want to depict the real nature of this border spanning plague and, as a result, offer any true insight at the "end of the tunnel".
An example of how this was achieved is through one of the characters in this movie, played by Michael Douglas. In  this role, he depicts a high ranking official who has been appointed to a Presidential committe whose primary purpose is to address the ever increasing drug problem in the U.S.. Near the end of the story, this character, Judge Robert Wakefield, comes to a conclusion about this issue that sums up the problem not just in his own personal case, but also, in the context of the whole country. And it's a conclusion that he comes upon not by the findings of his committee, but more by finding out that his own daughter has succumbed to the addiction that is plaguing so much of the population. In one of the final scenes, he says that in order to help his daughter to overcome this problem, he's going to have to concentrate less on his work, and focus more attention on helping her get better. Instead of lecturibg her not to do drugs, him and his wife are going to have listen more to his daughter. 
   For a movie named Traffic, in which its story takes the closest look ever captured on film at the dynamics of a giant system that is set up to readily move "product" into this country, that is a realization that looks straight into the heart of the matter and demonstrates that the "traffic" itself is just an effect. The cause is much deeper than that, not just on a personal level of an indiviual who suffers from addiction, but also, from a national level of a nation that has looked the other way for far too long.



    Featuring an ensemble cast that can be categorized both as "all star" and " some of the best of thier generation", (Benicio Del Toro, Don Cheadle, James Brolin, Luis Guzman, the aforementioned Douglas, etc), all helmed by Soderbergh, it's a sort of a minor victory in the war against drugs to see a piece of cinema handle the theme with hard truth that must be faced if we hope to ever to truly deal with it.

  By sheer coincidence, and maybe there's some irony to this, my favorite top three films at the start of the New Millenium, are all political movies. The one in the number two spot is centered around the Kennedy Administration, and is called Thirteen Days because it is about one of the darkest and/or scariest two weeks of not just of the entire Cold War, but also, quite possibly, of the whole world. 
And that is, by no means, an exaggeration.



  To be honest, this is one of those films that I refrained from seeing in theatres when it first came out because I know the whole story of the Cuban Missle Crisis from my high school American history class. However, upon hearing mostly positive reviews after the fact, I decided to give it a view when I came across it the DVD rental store. And I have to say that this is a movie that does an excellent job of depicting the build-up of sophisticated international political tension that must've filled the White House during this period of history. As cliche as it sounds, despite knowing how this story ends, this film still managed to keep me at the edge of my seat.

Back in the year 2000, the new millennium in cinema got off to a politically incorrect start with The Contender, a film about the appointment of the first VeePee with a vagee within the White House.



At the time of it's release, this film's story, while otherwise intelligently scripted, the main characters seemed to be portrayed with some pretty simplistically drawn party lines. However, in order to move the plot along, it seems understandable why it was necessary to write it that way. Little did anyone know, that that kind of monolithic level partisan mindsets would eventually be a pretty good description of the political atmosphere in the real world, recently. And is it coincidence that it would happen at a time when a woman was vying for the seat in the Oval Office for the first time ever?
Ah well, even though the idea of a female holding the Highest Office is on the verge of becoming a reality (at the time of this writing), will probably make the premise of The Contender seem a bit passe, in the end, with it's a tightly written political script and the great performances all around from each of it's lead actors, particularly by Joan Allen, who just completely pwns this movie, this is still a good movie, worthy of a position on this list.



Now feel free to exercise your freedom of speech and insert a snide comment about Sarah Palin or Hilary Clinton (depending on your own particular partisan tastes) here.