the best movies of the so called Noughties ('00s!)
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- DirectorMichel GondryStarsJim CarreyKate WinsletTom WilkinsonWhen their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a medical procedure to have each other erased from their memories forever.might add blurb later
- DirectorNoah BaumbachStarsOwen KlineJeff DanielsLaura LinneyFollows two young boys dealing with their parents' divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s.might add blurb later
- DirectorMiranda JulyStarsJohn HawkesMiranda JulyMiles ThompsonA lonely shoe salesman and an eccentric performance artist struggle to connect in this unique take on contemporary life.Everytime when the wind blows strongly I think about this movie. In my neighbourhood there's some kind of flag pole which starts making ticking noises when the wind reaches a certain strength. (I think a rope hits the iron mast) It sounds exactly like the old man in this movie, who magically makes the sun dissapear. (With a little help from a coin and a lamp post.) During the movie the youngest of the numerous young characters ponders where this sounds come from. The solution is so simple, yet has a little bit of magic, that even this minor event could be symbolic for the world Miranda July evokes. Everytime this movie gets a mention I think about that brilliant opening scene, which makes beautiful use of the minimalistic soundtrack by Michael Andrews (his best ever, probably). A burning hand and a sad father.
Also: this movie introduces a multi-cultural family without making any hassle about it. Good. - DirectorAki KaurismäkiStarsMarkku PeltolaKati OutinenAnnikki TähtiM arrives in Helsinki only to be viciously attacked by thugs and pronounced dead by medics. He revives but with no memory of his past or his identity. He rebuilds his life from scratch, but the past inevitably catches up with him.Kaurismäki, cinematic painter of the highly stylized and fantasized Finnish world full of working class losers reached a natural conclusion with The Man Without A Past. His most succesful movie (in all possible meanings of the word.) And fully deserved. Sure, he made movies after this one, but here it all comes together. Kati Outinen is such a regular in the works of Kaurismäki that all of the other women start to look like her. She portrays a "soldier" in the Salvation Army, helping out a poor man who has literally lost everything (including his memories). It's a modern fairy tale, it's full of human kindness. It's the Helsinki equivalent of Steinbeck's Cannery Row.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsTimothy TreadwellAmie HuguenardWerner HerzogA devastating and heart-rending take on grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, who were killed in October of 2003 while living among grizzly bears in Alaska.Just like Woody Allen (another one of my heroes) Werner Herzog means business. He works his a** off! The comic super hero of German cinema has an extensive oeuvre full of fascinating movies. (Herzog himself seems easily fascinated by a wide range of subjects!) Grizzly Man wouldn't be nearly as good without the philosophical voice-over by Herzog himself. The images (shot by mr Grizzly Man) are stunning as well. The Alaskan landscape, makes you feel small, must be a reason why people who like to be crushed (i.e. have a death wish) like to go Into the Alaskan Wild) Treadwell (the bear lover) is such a bizarre guy, you couldn't make that up in fiction. I like to think he is a typical modern guy, sort of a softie, also dragging around cameras like a shield against the naked truth. Don't watch yourself, film your experience. ('Did you see that', he asks the viewer, what viewer you might think, since the recordings are mostly for his own pleasure) The brilliant Herzog touch comes in te way the director handles carefully and slowly the long await introduction of Treadwell's girlfriend (who accompanied him sometimes.) She's like an angel of death here. The horror.
- DirectorWes AndersonStarsOwen WilsonAdrien BrodyJason SchwartzmanA year after their father's funeral, three brothers travel across India by train in an attempt to bond with each other.I like all Wes Anderson movies, they guy can do nothing wrong in my book. He started with Bottle Rocket and his movies have been stylish and fun ever since. The Darjeeling Limited feels like a very personal movie to me and it might be his most serious. (Also Owen Wilson's depression is brooding here) It's tense. On the other hand (and with a little help from Bill Murray and Natalie Portman's beautiful butt) Wes Anderson still has that magical touch, where after 5 minutes playing time you feel like: 'man he could just have the characters walk around and play a Kinks compilation and I'd be happy as a baby for 100 minutes'
- DirectorDavid FincherStarsJake GyllenhaalRobert Downey Jr.Mark RuffaloBetween 1968 and 1983, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree.Zodiac is one of the few movies where it I don't mind it rushing through decades. (In general I say a movie should stick to a couple of days, it's no coincidence After Hours is my favorite movie ever.) Zodiac's triumph starts with an amazing cast. Gyllenhaal and Ruffalo are both excellent. But the numerous supporting roles are very enjoyable too, thanks to (amongst others) Philip Bakker Hall, Chloe Sevigny and Robert Downey Jr. I think Zodiac is Fincher's deepest and darkest movie. Fincher usually provides intellectual entertainment, but this time his characters really come alive, with real fears. Gyllenhaal plays a cartoonist (also a 'loser') who gets totally obsessed over the Zodiac serial murder case. With every new 'clue' the case gets more hopeless and complicated. There's no shortage of great scenes in Zodiac but I like to single out the moment where Dirty Harry premiers. Even though we onlyu see a few glimpses it's almost like getting a bonus movie! Of course Dirty Hare was based on the same case... And sometimes facts can be close to fiction. Police detective Ruffalo and Gyllenhaal meet each other in the cinema, both still haunted, and very ill at ease.
- DirectorLodge KerriganStarsDamian LewisLiza Colón-ZayasJohn TormeyA disheveled man desperately searches New York City for his young daughter.One of the most haunting films I've ever seen. The virtually unkown Damian Lewis should have won an Oscar for this role, he brings an intensity that matches the level of Daniel Day-Lewis. Seriously. I also like the fact that Lodge Kerrigan (in a Terrence Malick way) actually reshot a film he had made ten years earlier. He bet he's happy with the results this time. Semi-related fact: Kerrigan was a script consultant for Haneke when he re-shot Funny Games in America. (Kerrigan definetely has something similar creepy going on in Keane.) Keane is a man full of fears, a paranoid imagination, and in desperate search of his daughter (we have no idea if she really exists.) During the film this man befriends a lonely woman (AND her daughter!) Well you can guess this will be one emotional ride, with the young child seemingly sadder and wiser than Keane himself.
- DirectorDagur KáriStarsJakob CedergrenNicolas BroTilly Scott PedersenA young man spurs romance and helps his friend and himself go through times and struggles of their ordinary life in Denmark.Truly the Dark Horse in this list. Call me a sourpuss but a comedy purely for laughs irritates me. Comedians don't act, they just do their routine on screen. A Scandinavian black comedy, that's more to my liking! Icelandic director went to Denmark after filming Noi Albinoi and made a much lighter movie, even though it's in black and white. Full of magical realism. You can do anything on celluloid so why not do it; elephants! Dark Horse features my favorite joke of the entire decade. A lovesick man laments: 'I suffer from the oldest disease in the world.' The reply: 'Tuberculosis?' Another very inspired moment is the glimpse of color, suddenly we discover the beautiful main actress has stunning red hair. For fans of Jim Jarmusch!
- DirectorRyan FleckStarsRyan GoslingAnthony MackieShareeka EppsAn inner-city junior high school teacher with a drug habit forms an unlikely friendship with one of his students after she discovers his secret.I've said it before, but i always enjoy school as a film setting. Even one the first movies I recall watching (and enjoying in a sort of 'wow this is cinema'-mood) took place on a proper English boys' school. (The Browning Version, 1994, with a great Albert Finnney) Back then I was still a school boy myself, and already nostalgic? Maybe I just like to be taught things? Anyway, Ryan Gosling is by no means your average teacher in Half Nelson, and he surely needs to 'explain' a thing or two when a student discovers that our hero is on crack. Of course, they develop a risky and tender friendship. Half Nelson is a very down to earth film, no abrupt artifical plot changes or actions. And I think the ending has a literary quality.
- DirectorHayao MiyazakiStarsDaveigh ChaseSuzanne PleshetteMiyu IrinoDuring her family's move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches and spirits, and where humans are changed into beasts.Quality and recognition for once went hand in hand with this one. The highest grossing movie in Japan ever. And an Oscar for best animation. Deserved of course, this is Miyazaki's magnum opus, I sometimes think everything he did before was just prep study for this. (Especially My Neighbor Totoro comes to mind) The world he creates here is so richly detaild, so thought out, almost like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings when it comes to perfectionism of an author! Beautiful characters like the old guy in the basement, running the hotel's energy supply (with help of cutesy animals). Also the train ride to Sixth Station has to be the most melancholic scene in an animated movie, ever. (Thanks to Joe Hisaishi as well, who wrote a superb soundtrack!
- DirectorCameron CroweStarsBilly CrudupPatrick FugitKate HudsonA high-school boy in the early 1970s is given the chance to write a story for Rolling Stone magazine about an up-and-coming rock band as he accompanies them on their concert tour.I like how this 'music movie', does not commit itself to a real band, or people. So it can concentrate purely on the fairytalish mood of the seventies, being in a band, fights and discussions, touring, more fights. And of course: groupies. I don't think I ever want to see Kate Hudson is another movie, she's so perfect here. (Side note: I bet that Black Crowes guy thought the same thing and married her just to feel Almost Famous forever, well, as long as their marriage lasted)
Also: Is this the only movie about a pop journalist, ever? I am glad Cameron Crowe didn't write a book about his experiences as an underage journalist, growing up in the world of rock and roll. He recreates it so much better on screen. - DirectorJean-Pierre DardenneLuc DardenneStarsOlivier GourmetMorgan MarinneIsabella SoupartA joinery instructor at a rehab center refuses to take a new teen as his apprentice, but then begins to follow the boy through the hallways and streets.I do dig European arthouse, as well though! As a Dutchman one could get jealous over the Belgian Dardennes freres, who are (deservedly) well known in the world of cinema. Their brooding and gray world of Wallonia, works beautiful in all of their films, but never as neurotically tense as in Le Fils (The Son). There's violence in the air, at all times, and there's a work place full of axes and saws, potential murder weapons. But most of all it's about The Confrontation.
- DirectorTom McCarthyStarsPeter DinklagePatricia ClarksonBobby CannavaleWhen his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss.Kind of a silly statement, maybe, but I dig American arthouse that trades in the typical European mumbling and silences-style for, well, more of a Hollywood-attitude. (Only toned down, a little.) I think it fits the theatrical American heart and spirit. The Station Agent is a good example, and a little wonder of a film. A depressed trainspotting "short man" seeks solitude, but (of course!) finds friends in a village, including Patricia Clarkson as a painter, and the Cuban hotdog vendor Bobby Cannavale. The interaction between him and main character Peter Dinklage is hilarious and so touching.
- DirectorCorneliu PorumboiuStarsMircea AndreescuTeodor CorbanIon SapdaruA local talk show host organizes an alcoholic professor and a pensioner known for playing Santa Claus to decide whether there was ever a revolution in their town Vaslui.In the second decade after Ceauşescu's death, Romania suddenly arrived at the international movie scene, virtually out of nowhere. (Or so it seemed to me) A proper Romanian wave. Lots of great movies to pick from, but my favorite is this comedy full of tristesse. It's a bit like Goodbye Lenin, but more serious and funnier, at the same time, ridiculing people who were so-called heroes in the revolution, and others longing back for those days. I also like the lo-fi setting of the film a lot, a cheap tv-program!
- DirectorGus Van SantStarsElias McConnellAlex FrostEric DeulenSeveral ordinary high school students go through their daily routine as two others prepare for something more malevolent.It's quite tough to say something about this one. A high school should be a safe place, but sometimes it isn't. And when it isn't, you just cannot believe it. I think Gus van Sant captures this dreamstate of disbelief really well in meandering long shots, and when terror strikes the dark red color of blood is incredibly shocking and confronting.
- DirectorJared HessStarsJon HederEfren RamirezJon GriesA listless and alienated teenager decides to help his new friend win the class presidency in their small western high school, while he must deal with his bizarre family life back home.Guilty pleasure alarm! Of course Napoleon Dynamite is a very very goofy and quirkily funny comedy, but I also think in some mindboggling way that it is a great high school movie. (Not an easy genre!) Just think of the Queen Bee (played by Duff). I am sure you knew girls like that in high school, just as I did. And what about the losers, always pondering and brooding on some plan to become a high school hero! (And get their moment of glory, plus, hopefully, respect of the girls!) And if you're lucky you'll find a wallflower, creative kind of girl like Tina Majorino. <3!
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsNaomi WattsLaura HarringJustin TherouxAfter a car wreck on Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesiac, she and a Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality.I like how one can never tell if David Lynch is fooling us all! Is he a genius or a rambling idiot? Mulholland Dr is a puzzling film, to say the least, almost like a computer game, endlessly searching for clues. Lynch gives us just enough hints to keep us 'in'. The scenes in and around a bar are amongst the creepiest and scariest I've ever seen. A Freudian mindbeep!
- DirectorBahman GhobadiStarsSoran EbrahimAvaz LatifSaddam Hossein FeysalNear the Iraqi-Turkish border on the eve of an American invasion, refugee children like 13-year-old Kak (Ebrahim), gauge and await their fate.Studying my list you can guess I admire serious adult films with important roles for children. Turtles Can Fly is another one, and this one almost crosses the line of too much pathos and drama. But you'll just have to see it (and keep watching) for the great main role. Satellite! Sattelite! A boy who's needed everywhere, running around with his troupe of children, taking care of needs big and small. Exhausting himself. And does his troubles get him somewhere? Does it matter if the Americans will arrive? (Which is a constant rumour)
- DirectorKore-eda HirokazuStarsYûya YagiraAyu KitauraHiei KimuraIn a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.Koreeda is an interesting and daring director, and this is simply his best. A bit like Grave of the Fireflies (a manga animation) Nobody Knows is about a couple of deserted children. The oldest (who is heartbreakingly you himself) has to take care of the little ones. And that's a tough job, to say the very least. Koreeda registers it all, calmly and very very slowly, to the point that it all seems a hallucination.
- DirectorSofia CoppolaStarsBill MurrayScarlett JohanssonGiovanni RibisiA faded movie star and a neglected young woman form an unlikely bond after crossing paths in Tokyo.I readily admit I tend to enjoy big budget arty Hollywood flicks. (Mystic River, Donnie Darker and Vanilla Sky are some other examples) Lost in Translation might be full of 'Westerner in Japan'-cliches, I still enjoy this movie a lot. It must be the combined femini touch of Coppola and Johannson (you only wish she would work again with a director like Coppola) Plus, I just dig the noises and sounds of the Japanese arcades, the look of the neon-lit streets, perfect for film!
- DirectorHarmony KorineStarsDiego LunaSamantha MortonDenis LavantIn Paris, a young American who works as a Michael Jackson look-alike meets Marilyn Monroe, who invites him to her commune in Scotland, where she lives with Charlie Chaplin and her daughter, Shirley Temple.Michael Jackson died in the last year of this decade, and this film almost saw it coming. In Mister Lonely we meet a MJ-imitator. Making his moves on empty streets. But we also meet Charlie Chaplin, and Marilyn Monroe, Abraham Lincoln and so on. All sad and tragic characters in their own way, but also heartfelt, sweet and warm. Mister Lonely has a shimmer of a story, it's not about plot, it's about strange magical moments, like nuns flying in the sky. (And Werner Herzog commenting on this phenomenon!)
- DirectorBong Joon HoStarsSong Kang-hoKim Sang-kyungKim Roe-haIn a small Korean province in 1986, two detectives struggle with the case of multiple young women being found raped and murdered by an unknown culprit.The Korean cinema is coming! I like how Memories of Murder is both a very exciting (and creepy) police thriller about the obsession to find a killer, and a history lesson, in the eighties Korea was some kind of shady state, sometimes literally, when the lights got cut off. (Which happens a lot in the movie!)
- DirectorWolfgang BeckerStarsDaniel BrühlKatrin SassChulpan KhamatovaIn 1990, to protect his fragile mother from a fatal shock after a long coma, a young man must keep her from learning that her beloved nation of East Germany as she knew it has disappeared.Yes, somewhat of an Ossi-hype, and feeling nostalgious for a dictatorship is kind of itchy BUT i've never laughed so hard in a cinema, during wild and amorous quests for old jars, hidden somewhere in old and rundown houses. Add to this a perfect soundtrack by Yann Tiersen, and you end up with a German version of Amelie.
- DirectorKatsuhito IshiiStarsMaya BannoTakahiro SatôTadanobu AsanoA spell of time of a rural family's slightly surreal life.And another bizarre (and bizarrely funny) Japanese trip. Probably a tribute to manga, which (I feel) had its Western breakthrough in the noughties. Watching The Taste of Tea is like watching the animation world of Miyazaki come to (real)-life. The same kind of melancholy of rain, public transportation, and the beauty of nature. And in the midst of it all is a young girl, in Wonderland.
- DirectorRebecca MillerStarsDaniel Day-LewisCatherine KeenerCamilla BelleA father and daughter isolated on an island off the East Coast and living on a once-thriving commune grapple with the limits of family and sexuality.Before they met again in There Will Be Blood (which didn't make the list) Paul Dano and the great Daniel Day-Lewis met in this subtle smaller scaled movie. I've always felt the lauded Day-Lewis was sort of underappreciated in this specific role (maybe because his wife directed and the reviewers thought 'well that's the only reason he's here)
Nonsense of course, because he is heartbreakingly intense as usual, as a father who loves his daughter just a little too much. - DirectorJoel CoenEthan CoenStarsGeorge ClooneyJohn TurturroTim Blake NelsonIn the deep south during the 1930s, three escaped convicts search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them.I think cinema historians will eventually conclude the Coen bros peaked in the nineties, and you could consider this a late nineties entry. I like how this film is both very accessible, as intelligent, interweaving the old myth of Odysseus, with old southern tales and other American folklore.
- DirectorHany Abu-AssadStarsKais NashifAli SulimanLubna AzabalTwo childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.There was a lot of controversy around this movie, a plot about the preparations for a suicide bombing, but that's not what makes this movie good or fascinating. It's visiting the town and people of Nablus, on the Palestinian West Bank. It's a dusty and messy place, but the meandering mood of 'doing nothing', smoking the water pipe, for a short while it feels comfy and cosy. Until you start realizing how trapped those citizens must feel. They cannot leave this place, it's hard to improve their lives, etc. A haunting struggle to keep your spirits up, hoping for better times.
- DirectorAbdellatif KechicheStarsHabib BoufaresHafsia HerziFarida BenkhetacheIn southern France, a Franco-Arabic shipyard worker along with his partner's daughter pursues his dream of opening a restaurant.The French cinema provides us with a steady output of usually solid movies. La Graine et Le Mulet is an effortlessly brilliantly, slices of life multi-cultural drama. You can almost smell the sea and the couscous dish.
- DirectorMike LeighStarsTimothy SpallLesley ManvilleRuth SheenIn a poor working class London home, Penny's love for her partner, taxi driver Phil, has run dry. When an unexpected tragedy occurs, they and their local community are brought back together.Probably the best British director of the last 2 decades, and certainly a guarantee of quality is Mike Leigh. One of the best creators of realistic characters in cinema. All or Nothing is raw and sad and has Timothy Spall's definitive role as a taxi cab driver. (And all around failure)
- DirectorDito MontielStarsRobert Downey Jr.Rosario DawsonShia LaBeoufComing-of-age drama about a boy growing up in Astoria, New York during the 1980s. As his friends end up dead, on drugs or in prison, he comes to believe he has been saved from their fates by various so-called saints.Montiel's very personal take on growing up in NYC, a city everyone seems to love. (Every cinephile certainly does!)
- DirectorMahamat-Saleh HarounStarsAli BarkaiYoussouf DjaoroAziza HisseineChad, 2006. After a forty-year civil war, the radio announces the government has just amnestied the war criminals. Outraged by the news, Gumar Abatcha orders his grandson Atim, a sixteen-year-old youth, to trace the man who killed his father and to execute him. Atim obeys him and, armed with his father's own gun, he goes in search of Nassara, the man who made him an orphan. It does not take long before he finds him. Nassara, who now goes straight, is married, goes to the mosque and owns a small bakery. After some hesitation Atim offers him his services as an apprentice. He is hired then it will be easy for him to gun down the murderer of his father. At least, that is what he thinks...Film buffs are always on the lookout for 'New Waves'. You got to wonder if an African wave is coming soon, maybe the next decade? In the meantime Daratt is an African variation on Bernard Malamud's The Assistant (a lovely novel). The jewish grocery becomes a dusty African bakery... The boss is a war veteran with a destroyed voice, the new employee is a young boy who's not there by accident, and the silent ending fittingly says more than a 100 voices could.
- DirectorRay LawrenceStarsAnthony LaPagliaGeoffrey RushRachael BlakeThe relationships of four couples unravel after the discovery of a young woman's body in Lantana bush in suburban Sydney.The best Australian movie of the decade is a tasteful variation of Magnolia (Lantana is a flower as well) No overdosing on melodrama or pathos here. What I like about those mosaic structured movies is that you basically get a tv series of 8 episodes, compressed in 2 hours. If done well, that is. (And that's the case here, obviously)
- DirectorSatoshi MikiStarsJoe OdagiriTomokazu MiuraKyôko KoizumiTakemura has no friends and no family. He's a law student but he doesn't have any particular ambitions. A thug offers to pay Takemura's considerable gambling debt if the student accompanies him on a trip across Tokyo.This last is mostly American-orientated, but that's doesn't mean I doesn't love Asian cinema, and especially Japanese. Always coming up with offbeat gems in all kinds of genres (mostly all mixed together!) And you really feel you get to know those tough to decipher Japanese (just a stereotype, I know) Tenten is some kind of road movie (except the travel distance might be a couple of miles, on foot!) You got to love the weird haircuts and the slowly evolving friendship. (While eating some jelly)
- DirectorAndrew StantonLee UnkrichStarsAlbert BrooksEllen DeGeneresAlexander GouldAfter his son is captured in the Great Barrier Reef and taken to Sydney, a timid clownfish sets out on a journey to bring him home.Pixar were the kings of CGI for kids of all ages, this decade. Ratatouille had the best animation, Wall-E's first half was heartbreakingly beautiful, but the best all you could possibly want from 1 serving came with Finding Nemo. The colours, stoner jokes, cute characters, you name it. I've been kicking on Under the Sea vibes since Ariel the Mermaid. Too bad Pixar don't do songs, minor nitpicking though, fun movie!