Best Movie of the 2000s Update #3
TOM HAD THESE WRITTEN A MONTH AGO and I just ignored my writing responsibilities for weeks on end. I have no excuse. That being said, this was an awesome mix of movies!!
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Tom: Only the Coen Brothers could make a movie about Homer’s Odyssey with three idiot convicts played by George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson and have the soundtrack also win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It makes absolutely no sense but it makes perfect sense. This one’s very out there, like most other Coen movies - including a direct run-in with the Ku Klux Klan - and while they can be sometimes hit or miss for me, this one was pure entertainment the whole way through.
Erin: I remember that my dad absolutely hated this movie when he watched it, but I liked it! It’s quintessentially Coen and the soundtrack is absolute 🔥. The big song is totally iPod worthy!!
Gosford Park (2001)
Tom: If you’re into British people (of various social classes) being savage to each other in different rooms of a mansion, coupled with a murder mystery and an all-star cast (Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Charles Dance, Clive Owen, Helen Mirren, Richard E. Grant, the list goes on and on), then this is for you. If you like Downton Abbey, this is also for you. After all, Gosford Park was written by Julian Fellowes, who wrote and created Downton Abbey. It’s like that mixed with Knives Out. I liked it a lot.
Erin: This was another unique one. V Downton Abbey but I must say I was a little confused because like five million of the characters looked the same. It also started super slow with the big crime happening over an hour into the film. That said, Maggie Smith is amazing of course.
The Hours (2002)
Tom: Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman are three of this generation’s best actresses, we all know this. While your preference may differ (my #1 is Moore), you can’t deny that any movie with these three is going to be top notch in the acting department. And it was - all three characters exist throughout different eras of time, connected either literally or metaphorically by the novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (played by Kidman in the film). Ed Harris, John C. Reilly, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, and more bolster the supporting cast and create a thoughtful drama and study about what it means to live a happy life amid battles with depression and feeling like a square peg in a round hole.
Erin: Oh yes okay so this one I was a little mixed on. I actually found the Virginia Woolf storyline sort of pointless?? I know Nicole Kidman won the Oscar for it, but I found the other two stories so much more fascinating and fleshed out. There’s a really good reveal at the end of this one, which pulls two of the stories together really well.
Big Fish (2003)
Tom: I’m not a big Tim Burton guy, but since this movie was about a guy who seemingly makes up fantastical stories about his life, Burton’s dreamlike, gothic style fit it perfectly. At its heart, the movie is about the relationship between Will (Billy Crudup) and his father Edward (Albert Finney), who is apparently on his death bed. Will realizes that throughout all of the entertaining stories Edward told throughout his life, Will didn’t know anything about him, and as Burton peels back the layers of the story through absurdist anecdotes featuring the likes of Ewan McGregor, Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Buscemi, and Danny DeVito, the movie’s central relationship brims with heart and the movie is super entertaining and interesting.
Erin: I thought this one was the very best of Tim Burton. It was quirky and off-the-wall, but that is exactly how it should have been considering the subject matter of a dad’s life of tall tales. Also Albert Finney 🥵 hahahahaha just joking I mean 🥰.
Shaolin Soccer (2004)
Tom: If you haven’t seen this movie, it’s basically like Dodgeball except it came out in Hong Kong four years before Dodgeball hit the U.S.. It’s an out-of-control comedy about a team of guys who come together to use their Shaolin kung-fu skills in a soccer tournament. It apparently served as some of the inspiration for Avatar: The Last Airbender because of the ridiculous special effects the filmmaker used for much of the soccer played in the film. Nothing about this movie is intended to be realistic even in the slightest - it’s extremely campy and I love movies like that. Plus, the main villains are named Team Evil which is hilarious.
Erin: This movie is wiiiiiild and stupid! I really liked it! I wish more people in the US would have seen it because I think it had to have been super influential over the past few decades.
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
Tom: I did not like the book Pride & Prejudice, though I was in high school when I read it, so of course I didn’t. I appreciate the story more now than I did then, but I am not a fan of Mr. Darcy, and I believe that if this weren’t a story where he was positioned to be the romantic lead, we wouldn’t like him nearly as much as we do. I don’t think the relationship with Elizabeth is earned whatsoever. Regardless, Keira Knightley is the best, and I’m a Donald Sutherland stan until I die. Our goal here at MPM is to get Sutherland an Oscar. Hop on the train or get run over.
Erin: Obsessed with this forever. I have loved this movie since high school. The cinematography is so lush and beautiful. It’s, like, very sunlight focused. I will say though, my eye twitches anytime I hear that score because I listened to it so much while writing papers in college. 🥴
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Tom: So many people my age LOVE this movie, and I get why. It’s not quite my movie, since there’s a lot about it that I just don’t get at all given that I have zero interest in fashion, but I can at least appreciate how great Meryl and Hathaway are. I’m a newly reformed Hathaway defender, as you’ll recall from my blurb about Rachel Getting Married, so I’m not going to say a bad word about her from here on out. Emily Blunt in this is also fun, but I’ve seen her do so much more that her role as Emily in this didn’t do that much for me. That being said, it’s a good movie.
Erin: I really liked this movie when I was in high school but I remember it made me so nervous. I got secondhand panic thinking about how mean Miranda Priestly would be. The HARRY POTTER SCENE OMG I’m still biting my nails off.
Juno (2007)
Tom: I can’t believe I never watched this. I think it’s because it was during that time where Michael Cera was in everything and I was just sick of him (see also: me not watching Scott Pilgrim vs. The World until we started MPM). But this movie rocks. I love that two actors who went on to play extremely domineering, abusive parents (or parental figures) in J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) and Allison Janney (I, Tonya), played the sweetest parents in this, and I really got the impression that both of them had a legitimate relationship with Elliot Page offscreen. They seemed to really enjoy each other, and that makes me happy. Page is excellent in this and I love that he got a Best Actress nod for it. I’ll rewatch this many times.
Erin: My first date ever, I was a baby sophomore in high school, and I picked Juno as my movie of choice. A mere ten minutes into the film, dude turned to me and said, “and you picked this because…?” There wasn’t a second date. Juno is so great.
Milk (2008)
Tom: While I’m not a big fan of standard biopic fare, I think this one works for various reasons. One: it’s about a woefully under-covered topic, in that it covers the LGBTQ struggle in San Francisco in the ‘70s. Two: Sean Penn is absolutely in. While I like to think that if this movie were made today, it would feature actually, you know, gay actors, the performances that we got in this one were really strong. Harvey Milk was a true icon and it’s truly a tragedy that he was murdered, because he could have done so much more to advance gay rights, including many breakthroughs that it took many, many years to achieve. In my opinion, this movie did him justice because Sean Penn was excellent.
Erin: I agree that this is a bit standard biopic-y, and I was like, “eh” halfway though. But I actually think it’s a super important film and it is a really good look at San Francisco during the 1970s. Sean Penn was fantastic as well.
State of Play (2009)
Tom: I love me a good political thriller, and that’s what this was. The cast rules: it’s a committed Russell Crowe alongside Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Jeff Daniels, Jason Bateman, and Robin Wright in a story based on a BBC series that clearly influenced movies about political intrigue and journalism that came after it, including House of Cards, Spotlight, and The Post. It was also definitely where David Fincher got the idea to cast Affleck in Gone Girl. Crowe and McAdams investigate the death of a congressional staffer who’s pushed in front of a train and its connection to other murders that took place around the same time. I won’t say anything else - go watch!
Erin: Fun fun fun!! I literally never heard of this movie! I guess because at age 17 I wasn’t really going for Russell Crowe political thrillers. Now I know way too much about Washington DC intrigue junk, so it was a roller coaster of “whoa.” Def check it out.