Best Movie of the 2000s Update #4
MORE MOVIES! We watched Tom Hanks act against a volleyball, Denzel try to stop a bank robbery, a Meryl-Amy Adams-Philip Seymour Hoffman drama about the Catholic church, Jack Nicholson (undeservedly, in my eyes) wooing Diane Keaton, and a documentary about a guy who got eaten by a grizzly bear. This was a nuts set of movies! And that’s even without the movie featuring Johnny Depp as a mass-murdering barber. Here they are:
Cast Away (2000)
Tom: I watched this movie a lot when I was a kid and even though I’m notably not a huge Tom Hanks guy, I think it’s some of his best work to make a good movie while acting opposite a volleyball. I also found it very interesting that it focuses on the aftermath of the event just as much as it does the actual event. Very ahead of its time. The ending, with Helen Hunt and then the “crossroads”? Not as much. Wilson forever.
Erin: This is one of those movies I never actually saw, even though I knew the ending (no clue why or how!) and I ended up really enjoying it. Okay, the crash scene was legitimately SCARY what the heck!!! Tom Hanks is flexing in this one, being the only actor through like half of the thing. A great watch.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Tom: Listen, all I heard was how bad this movie is and about 20 minutes in (during the “Lady Marmalade”/“Smells Like Teen Spirit” mash-up…at a cabaret…in 1899) I turned to Erin and was like…this is certifiably insane and I love it. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie-musical that kept me on my toes waiting for the next song more than this methamphetamine-infused experience did.
Erin: I started this movie in high school and hated it so I turned it off after twenty minutes. This time? Loved the certifiably insaneness of it all. I have never watched a movie like it, and it is really crazy to me that it was such a mainstream hit!
The Ring (2002)
Tom: I always thought this was the stupidest concept, but I ended up really liking the movie. It sort of felt like a waste of Naomi Watts at times, but I enjoy when horror films contain a reason for the horror and this one tied together all the little mystery crumbs very well while providing some true scares. Also, this was a DreamWorks movie? And the girl who played Samara also played Lilo in Lilo & Stitch right before this? Crazy.
Erin: I think that 2002 is the perfect year for this remake to come out. Not just because of the VCR tech, but because nowadays I think the bar for horror films is set super high. Often, the horror genre of today has a deeper meaning or message attached to the jump scares. This one? It’s an horse girl filled with revenge and that’s cool with me!
Something’s Gotta Give (2003)
Tom: I am all for Jack and Diane - Nicholson and Keaton are such a great pairing that it’s hard not to root for them to get together in this one. But come on, Keanu is the one who gets the short end of the stick here and he totally doesn’t deserve it. As a character, his Julian is way better than Nicholson’s Harry is in this. Come on Erica/Diane.
Erin: I feel like this film and all Nancy Meyers’ movies are “hygge” all day long. Cream colored and cozy, with the scent of very fancy and expensive croissants wafting through the air. This one is a blast, especially with the acting power of Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton.
Vera Drake (2004)
Tom: MPM queen Imelda Staunton (Pride, The Paddingtons, Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter series) stars as a blue-collar woman who performs abortions in 1950s London. It’s a human portrayal of “illegal” abortion and resonates given some of the laws recently passed around the United States sixty years later.
Erin: This was a fascinating movie starring goddess Imelda Staunton, lending sensitivity and humanity to a difficult topic. I read somewhere that only Imelda knew what the movie was actually about, so the rest of the cast were truly surprised when the big climactic scene happened. I really do not know how that could be true, but it’s super cool to think about!
Grizzly Man (2005)
Tom: This was the first Werner Herzog movie I’d seen. It’s a fascinating documentary about a man named Timothy Treadwell who thinks he can live with grizzly bears and spent hundreds of hours filming his life doing so. Of course, as you learn the second you meet him, he eventually was killed by one of the bears, and the rest of the film unpacks not only the events that led to Treadwell’s death, but the antisocial psychology and triggers that led him down the path. For example, losing the role of Woody the bartender in Cheers to Woody Harrelson. That’s not a joke. This documentary is amazing.
Erin: LOVED THIS!! Also I first heard of this documentary when I listened to the True Crime Obsessed episode about it years ago, and watching the actual doc didn’t disappoint. Werner Herzog is my king.
Inside Man (2006)
Tom: When I first really started getting into movies back around 2010-2011, I went on a big Denzel kick, as one does, and this was one of my favorites. It remains an awesome twist on a heist thriller with only a few elements that stand out as a Spike Lee film. Outside of Denzel and a surprisingly up-to-the-task Clive Owen, it doesn’t do all that much with its secondary cast of Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, but it’s a super bank robbery movie that keeps your attention from the pulse-pounding start to a twisty finish.
Erin: This was a super fun movie!! I would watch Denzel Washington in anything at all. There is also a pretty neat-o twist that I really want to spoil so SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER. <— isn’t that great???!!
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Tom: Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movies really just don’t do it for me. Depp was fine in this, but I think the real stars were Helena Bonham Carter as Nellie and Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin. I liked the grayscale of it all and I thought it was a cool Sondheim-glazed vigilante concept, but I never really bought into Sweeney Todd’s character like I think Burton expected. I didn’t root for him or against him, I just kind of thought the character was ill-formed. I didn’t hate it though, it was still a fun watch for the absurdist excess blood, Carter, and Rickman’s and Timothy Spall’s carbon copies of Harry Potter’s Snape and Wormtail, respectively.
Erin: I’m v split on this. I think the concept is totally genius. Like, old school music, old timey setting, and it totally devolves into a cheesy slasher film. My beef (lolz?) is that the songs kinda sucked 😔 and when the big stuff happened I was like, “okayyyy??” It was just low stakes, so I’m like, “he’s sort of a really major murderer so I don’t root for him…”
Doubt (2008)
Tom: Since we’ve started watching 2000s movies, I have gotten more familiar with some of the work that made Meryl Streep into what she is in the pantheon nowadays, and this is a good example. Her performance in this opposite three other incredible actors (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and, for a brief moment, Viola Davis, all of whom were nominated for Oscars for this) provides such human insight into a did-he-or-didn’t-he Catholic priest molestation story and sets up the alley-oop for what Spotlight would slam dunk just a few years later.
Erin: MERYL MERYL MERYL. I think this is my favorite performance of hers that I have seen so far. This is a wonderful movie. It’s subtle, character focused, and the cinematography (Deakins, baby!) is so gorgeous. Plus I kept thinking about how the makeup and hair people probably loved working on this movie because nun glam seems like a walk in the park.
Adventureland (2009)
Tom: Greg Mottola’s follow-up to Superbad wasn’t a box office smash and perhaps got left behind in the cultural zeitgeist, but it’s a great rom-com-dram (my phrase) starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, and Bill Hader, among others. Erin and I are firm believers that famous actors are famous for a reason, meaning that there’s at least one role where they’re top notch. If you aren’t a Kristen Stewart fan, you should watch this anyway: this is the one (along with Still Alice) that makes me a believer. This one isn’t about early-onset Alzheimer’s though, so if you’re looking for a Friday night movie, I’d go with this one over Still Alice. (Also, Stewart believes she’s only made five good movies anyway, so she probably agrees with you).
Erin: Yeah I liked this one too! It’s sort of that sad-funny vibe that a lot of those movies had in the late aughts, and the casting was spot on. Plus I love the iconicness of the employee uniforms—a t shirt stating GAMES GAMES GAMES GAMES GAMES or RIDES RIDES RIDES RIDES RIDES. It’s called fashion, sweetie. Look it up.