It’s coming up, the close of another 10 year period, and I’ve decided to take a hard and honest look back at the movies from 2000 to 2009. There’ve been ups and downs, thrills and spills, blockbusters and bombs. I’ll list year by year my favorite and least favorite movie. Now, these are the movie’s I’ve personally watched, so if there’s a bigger bomb out there, I managed to avoid it. (I, for instance, have been spared Gigli. WOO HOO!)

2000

Easily outstripping all competition for me in this lackluster year was Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. Wonderfully shot, with the bad effects unnoticable to me as he kept my eyes on the action, not the background, Russel Crowe puts up a performance of a career here.

Easily bombing harder than any other movie, ever, is Battlefield Earth. I intentionally set up a Battletech game where, unbeknownst to my friend who inflicted this upon me, five people had agreed to gang up and shoot his ‘Mechs down in the first round giving him nothing to do. I will now list all the bad things about the movie: Everything.

2001

Jocking for the top spot was a whole host of movies. I enjoyed A.I., Enemy at the Gates, Harry Potter 1, Monsters Inc, The Fast and the Furious… but all were going to be swept away by the first movie in the juggernaught franchise: The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. I, literally, had been waiting for this movie all my life, and while there were some problems, it did a decent job in capturing the feel of the novels, and felt like the EPIC MOVIE I’d been waiting for. Sean Astin begins, what I felt, was 3 concecutive shoo-ins for best supporting actor. He owned that role.

Last place had NO competition. Pearl Harbor got bombed again. Expecting a FX feast coupled with at least a story as good as Midway (we wanted Tora! Tora! Tora!) we got Titanic 2: The Arizona. God, I can’t think of a time where I left the theater more disgusted with a movie.

2002

Another big year in film, bringing me Eight Crazy Nights, Equillibrium, Harry Potter 2, Kung Pow!, Men In Black 2, and Spiderman, it’s a forgon conclusion that in December with my girlfriend and mom, my butt would be in the theater for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The bombs remained big, however. Known in the household as “Nytol on DVD”, 2002 gave us Star Wars: Episode II: Send In The Clowns. After seeing it in the theater, I’ve never once made it through the movie again, it is that boring.

2003

I know, we all know the top film here has got to be Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Still, let’s give credit where credit is due. 2 Fast 2 Furious was a fun movie, and so was it’s twin Bad Boys II. Finding Nemo touched hearts, and Pirates 1 made me like the unholy trinity of Depp, Disney, and Bruckheimer. And Kill Bill 1 was a masterpiece of modern art.

There was a sort of tie for loser movie of the year. The Matrix was cool… but it spawned The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions. The action scenes were amazing, cinematic eye candy of the highest sort. Aside for those 15 minutes, however, you’re left with content that made George Lucas feel a little better about Episode 2.

2004

Featuring Harry Potter 3, Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow, Kill Bill 2, and a suprisingly good remake of Walking Tall, top props had to go to Warhammer 40K: THE MOVIE The Chronicles of Riddick. Vin Diesel does a great job in this action role, and the grimdark sci-fi setting was what the world needed to recover from the mind rapes of the last two years.

NOTICE: BobRichter pointed out that my list-generator omitted the real top spot of this year: The Incredibles. Frankly, I’m embarrassed. I’m also suprised that Marvel went ahead with the Fantastic Four movies, as they couldn’t have hoped or prayed to beat this movie. Phenomenal cast, Pixar’s fine graphics, and a story that can’t possibly not move you, coupled with the best animation director since Don Bluth equaled pure win. My apologies.

Bad movies abounded, however. Alien vs. Predator, Eurotrip, Mean Girls, Napoleon Dynamite, and Oceans 12 all tried to hit bottom. One movie, however was not to be denied, and I didn’t talk to my sister for two years after she put on White Chicks at a family get together. There’s nothing wrong with offensive comedy, IMO, but this movie forgot the COMEDY part. This was a movie I tried to avoid, but rolled a fumble and got critted.

2005

Batman relaunched, Narnia was discovered, Harry Potter found a goblet, Vin showed his Pacifier side, and Kurt Russell went Sky High. Too bad they all needed to look up the proper formula for best movie in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A superb cast pays perfect tribute to Douglas Adams’ work, coupled with breathtaking SFX (the Malgaretha Floor quite literally did this for me, I’d love to see a Theme Park Dark Ride based on it) made this the talk of Comic Con, and the event of the year. It remains the last film I paid full price twice to see.

The turkey of this year was a movie that should have been called “Tom Cruise Runs with a Blank Look on his Face, While Carrying a Screaming Dakota Fanning.” Obviously, that doesn’t fit too well on a poster, but I’m at a loss for why they called it “War of the Worlds“. We may never know. This made it easy to beat out the horrible remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tony Scott’s Domino disaster, Star Wars III (as a gift to Lucas, I suppose) and the stilted Robots.

2006

While I enjoyed A Scanner Darkly, the top spot was a race to the finish. Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift was actually a nice piece of movie, but the imports couldn’t keep up with American Muscle. Framed on one of the absolute best pieces of nostalgia, Route 66 gets animated in Cars. I’ll admit, I didn’t have a chance with this movie, what with the long road trips my father used to favor. But it also reminded us of fair play and humility while not shying away from the benefits from being the best.

While another childhood memory got trashed in Charlotte’s Web, and a franchise disappointed in Pirate’s 2, only one movie could nearly kill my girlfriend’s love for Marvel. Even as I watched it, I knew I was watching the dismantling of a beloved continuity and franchise, and with Brett Ratner at the helm I even knew why. X-Men 3: Oh God, Why? started off as wrong as Clear and Present Danger and the crap just kept coming. With a story telling style that made Star Wars III look like Lord of the Rings 1, we felt nothing about the characters except on how Ratner evidently never figured out which mutant was what.

Incidently, this was the most boring year for films. Ever.

2007

2007 was filled with “average” films, with few standouts… and few bombs. While Live Free or Die Hard (mostly) brought John McLean back to us… out of bullets, hehehehehe… and Across the Universe (for me) was an excellent piece of musical storytelling which I think needs to be explored more, this was finally… FINALLY… Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix‘s year. Despite all the directors, and the loss of beloved actor Richard Harris, the movies have remained tight, enjoyable, and suprisingly enough, aged with the young actors involved.

The two bombs dropped on us were Pirates of the Caribbean 3, which was edged out by the banal National Treasure 2. The frantic treasure hunt feel from 1 is all lost in this badly concieved sequel, and Nick Cage doesn’t fill out an adventure’s outfit as well as Ford or Jolie. And less Jon Voight, the better!

2008

2008 had too much of one thing: Grit. Sure the movies were great but you had Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Hellboy II, Indiana Jones 4, and Gran Torino all in the same year. All excellent movies, but I’m going to shock you. I don’t think any of them were my favorite of this year. One movie gave me fun, humor, action, and a positive message. The movie of the year for 2008 was an apology for Matrix 2 and 3, and a fantasically animated movie it was, as Speed Racer zoomed past all the tough guys to finish in first place. John Goodman gets all kinds of props for a fantastic job as Pops Racer.

Yes. Read it again. Best movie: 2008? SPEED RACER. I’ll wait a moment for you to compose yourselves, you should have more control than that, and the language…

Now the losers were a tight pack too, Cloverfield’s shaky camera made it so frankly I still don’t know what the movie was about. Get Smart felt dumb. Pixar finally fell through for me with the terribly over-preachy, doldrumish WALL-E. But all that faded before the shear stupidity and incompetence behind Harold and Kuumar go to Guantamano Bay. I put this on my Zune to watch it… thank god I bought the warranty, because it grew legs and jumped into Lake Isabella rather than show it again.

2009

I’m not going into depth here, but this looks like another year for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, aging like a fine wine, the actors all making us feel a part of the make-believe. Watchmen was pretty good and Star Trek wasn’t the complete fiasco I expected.

Now, I’ve intentionally missed a lot of films, so one day this line might change, but of the ones I watched the most disappointing one was: Fast and Furious. I thought, wow, they did so great with the first three, keep it up. This seemed recycled, trite, and frankly it was more than a little boring.

Recap:

So the best film of the decade? Yeah, I’m going to make everyone mad again. I can guarantee I will be watching Speed Racer more than any other film on this list. It’s that damned fun, and the only objective standard I recognize. You don’t watch movies you don’t like, and you rewatch movies you do like more, right?

Worst film? The decade started off in the Marianas Trench, there’s no where else to go but up. Anyone who says Battlefield Earth wasn’t the worst movie since the end of 1999 is lying, or has seen Gigli. Those that have seen Gigli will say Battlefield Earth was the worst movie to cover up the fact they saw Gigli.

Yes, and I’m not just talking about the small costs of flying him back, setting him up before a judge, and then incarcerating him for the 12 minutes that the LA system could probably hold him. It establishes an important precedent: France wants our child molesters.

Think of all the money we’d save, not having to incarcerate them, track them and re-arrest the ones who don’t learn their lesson. Child molesters are simply sentanced to live the remainder of their lives free. In France, which may or may not be a punishment all on it’s own, but it’s an individual basis kinda thing. They’d be put on a plane, sent to Paris or Lyons or what not, and that’s the last we have to deal with them, they’re the gendarmes’ problem now. Of course, this might endanger France’s children, but apparently living in France cures you of that, we’ve got one test case, that’s good enough.

On the other hand, if we do keep our child molesters, we could open up a new revenue stream: Fail to extradite French theives who’ve not harmed anyone. “Oh, we want our Mona Lisa back” would cry Paris, and we’d respond with “But why? It’s not like he hurt anyone, like raping a 13 year old kid…” Free Mona Lisa! WOOT!

Now I shall stand by and be pilloried. Oh, how will I survive without the respect of Hollywood?

Damn. As being the resident CBT folk-music junkie here, I must say a few words.

A good portion of my youth was traveling up and down California with my mom and dad, and, in the interests of familial harmony, they carefully selected music they both could enjoy. Their tastes, for the most part, overlapped a great deal, and being raised in the early sixties, a fair portion of it was folk music. There are many places I can remember hearing the work of Peter, Paul and Mary, and they are indelible in my memory. The family singing Puff the Magic Dragon as we wound our way through Big Sur, the mist giving credence to the idea of a dragon. Hearing 500 Miles as we rolled through the straight and flat country from Williams to Red Bluff, a train track to our right. Sitting on a rock in Pismo, perplexed, trying to puzzle out the lyrics to Too Much of Nothing. My first introduction to life long friends Gordon Lightfoot and John Denver in “For Lovin’ Me” and “Leaving on a Jet Plane”. The breaking of a rainstorm at Sonora Pass to “The Day Is Done.”

As long as we remember, they can always be.

Sorry there’s been no updates lately. I decided to try to enjoy the hell out of my three weeks off instead of staying cooped up in my home, so that’s why there’s been little on any front. I don’t think I spent more than ten waking hours at home in the last three weeks, so I’ve gotten the stir crazy out of me, for the time being, I think. That said, it’s time for the unavoidable.

Three upper division classes.

*UGH*

First, the easy one, is Doc M’s Modern America class. 1 ten page paper. 2 hard-ass but passable tests. I’ve seen this movie before, and I could mail this puppy in. But I won’t. Why? It’s Doc M. He makes the class interesting, tells it like it is, and he deserves the best. So he’ll get some original research and another A effort.

Second, the suprisingly not hard one, is Doctor C’s Civil Rights/Liberties class. He’s this old guy from Ohio, and it’s a little like being taught by a cross between Bill Cosby and Dennis Miller. Quite amusing, and there’s little chance of falling asleep in this one. Better yet, he’s axed the research component… it’s good to be the Dean… and rather than 1 long paper, he wants three position papers, he wants to see us think. That’s fun for me.

Finally, the killa: Senior Seminar. 12-25 pages. Mexican-European connections. One of the hardest teachers. Night class. This is going to be brutal, just brutal. I’m thinking about doing something on the Mexican Navy, if my suspicions hold up and they bought their boats from the Clyde. Tonight, I’ll find out when I dredge up my copy of Jane’s 1917.

Blood pressure’s up, but weight is down. Let’s see if we can’t get the other one down too. Peace out.