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Top 10 Movies of the Decade

I learned something about movies in the past 10 years. That being that movies (and indeed all things) are made for very specific markets. Typically movies are made for males aged 19-30. The great thing about the past 10 years is that I was 19 - 28 throughout them! I was the target market! As a result a lot of movies I really liked came out. Some of my favorites actually. Basically it was like movie companies were like "what do these people like James enjoy?" For the most part their answers were zombies, transforming robots, and 'splosions. Plenty of that stuff in the past ten years. But, beyond that, there was also some really great writing. Perhaps some of the best from many decades before it.

So, anyways, I took it upon myself to find the best movies of the past decade - my movie decade. But, since there were so many choices, I left it up to another marketing juggernaut of the past decade: Facebook. I set up a poll, and a LOT of movies were suggested. 158 movies to be exact. Of that 158, the 10 most mentioned became this list. It's a pretty well-rounded list with a lot of genres covered, all of them awesome. So, here they are - the top 10 movies of the aughts!

10. Star Trek (2009)

This is a movie that caught a lot of people by surprise. Sure, the usual fare of Trekkies were set to like it (actually, they were divided, but let's face it - it IS a Star Trek movie - they were gonna like it), same with sci-fi geeks, but this movie was liked by EVERYONE. People that had never watched Star Trek were raving about this one. And it was so simple! Take a formula that you KNOW is successful (it's hard to deny that the ST franchise is a successful one) only make it more interesting! It took them so long to make a Star Trek movie that didn't have diplomacy, or a wedding, or something like that to throw people off.
Plus it was just cool to see all the very well known characters and things in a completely new way.

9. District 9 (2009)

When this movie was running ads, I had no idea what it was. The ads totally worked on me. If you'll recall, they were set up in a documentary format - on top of that, a documentary about illegal aliens, foreigners, etc. People that weren't "us." I gotta admit, I was starting to lose interest. Then the reveal: oh, the illegal aliens are ALIENS! Like from space. How the hell were they gonna make this work where people would just treat aliens like "some other people that are occasionally in the way." Now I was very intrigued.
And the explanation was a great one: time. Sure, aliens WOULD be quite a novelty. But, after a while of them just sitting around, they'd probably become a bit tiresome. Beyond that, the movie became a brilliant metaphor for racial separation and political power struggles all while having REALLY cool looking aliens. Totally believable ones too. Not just in look but in attitude. Not enough alien movies make the point of showing that even though aliens are, well, alien to us, they are still distinct individuals. Super.

8. Clerks 2 (2006)

I gotta admit, I was a bit surprised that this movie popped up on the final list. I liked it okay, but I wasn't completely taken with it. It's definitely not Kevin Smith's BEST movie. Really what this movie has going for it, in my opinion, is nostalgia. Stuff from Clerks 1 revisited with some fun new stuff.
The thing that I DO love about this movie is Randall. In Clerks 1, I hated Dante and Randall (more so Dante, but Randall wasn't much better). When Clerks: TAS came out, I completely loved Randall. He just became more... Randall. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's what I thought. Then in Clerks 2, Randall came into his own. Clerks 2 is a GREAT vehicle for Randall. Randall.

7. The Wrestler (2008)

I think this was another surprise movie. Sure, when it came out it was getting rave reviews due to the acting and whatnot, but before that it was just "a drama about a washed up Hulk Hogan wannabe." Weird. Again, all the ads worked on me. I liked Mickey Rourke (and NOT Rooney, as I previously typed) in Sin City, so I wanted to see him in this one too. And it was basically exactly as advertised - a drama about a washed up Hulk Hogan wannabe. Only, this was another movie made for the specific market. There were elements of pretty much every memory I have of watching wrestling in the 80s (from which a number of the characters came) and worked brilliantly. For everybody else there was some REALLY good acting. AND a really good story. So good that it really made the idea of pitying and caring about and worrying about Hulk Hogan if he lived in a trailer and couldn't make ends meet seem totally reasonable.
Plus the music was awesome. Plus the friggin' no-holds-barred match was INSANE!

6. 300 (2006)

This movie has become one of my favorite all time movies. It is just so incredibly entertaining. A lot of people debate the merits of this movie - most saying that it's not "historically accurate." True - it's not. Hell, the actual story from the actual time period isn't historically accurate. That almost seems like the point of the movie. It's supposed to be a story to stir people. It's supposed to be huge, and wildly exaggerated, and mythical and unrealistic because that just makes it more entertaining! How fun would be to see an army of like 1000 guys lose to an army of like 10,000 guys (which is much closer to the actual numbers)? Not very. How cool is it to see 300 guys ALMOST take out the million-strong army of animals and weird creatures and Kurgan? Very cool. Very.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about this movie is this: I cannot think of a more violent, bloody, pro-war movie that almost everyone I know described as being "beautiful." Which it is.

5. WALL-E (2008)

I must have been one of the last people to see this movie. When it first came out, I thought it looked fun; like an okay movie. A really nice looking CGI movie about a nice little robot. Kinda looked like ET. Then people started talking about how it was Oscar worthy. Then that it was one of the most touching movies they'd ever seen. Then that the characters of the little robots was phenomenal despite the fact that they couldn't talk. That's the point that made me really want to see it - people were comparing WALL-E to Charlie Chaplin. That seems interesting.
And it was all true. It was touching, it was Oscar worthy. The characters of the little robots WERE phenomenal. But the thing that did it for me was the seemingly contradictory message of the whole thing. This CGI movie which clearly relied on some very high-tech stuff to make it look so nice and so complete had the message "don't rely so much on technology. Go outside and take a walk." This was the nicest movie I had seen in about seven years about going for a walk.

4. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

This, on the other hand, is THE nicest movie I have ever seen about going for a walk. It's very well established that the whole LOTR trilogy was great. Amazingly well done, brilliantly acted, beautifully shot, etc, etc, etc. The story is amazing to start with, but there was already a LOTR movie, and it was practically a joke. So, why is this movie so good?
The reason being that it really looks like every single person in this movie REALLY knew what they were doing, They really knew the source material (ie Tolkien's novels). How is this clear? It's clear because every person I've talked to about this movie (many of whom are some pretty hardcore Tolkien fans) said the exact same thing: "what happened on screen was EXACTLY what I pictured in my head when I read the books." Characters, places, objects all looked perfect! Friggin' fields and grass in the Shire REALLY looked like fields and grass in the Shire.
Another big thing with this one - I dislike a lot of CGI in live-action movies. It usually looks like it doesn't belong, or just really fake. With this movie (and series) I really couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. And in a movie where about 95% of the people are orcs or trolls or shooting magic-missiles at one another, that's saying something.

3. 28 Days Later (2003)

The movie that reinvented the genre. Which genre, you ask? Several actually. First of all, zombie movies. This made zombies (yes, I've accepted it - for all intents and purposes, they're zombies. Fine. Done.) seem like a very possible, very real threat. Next, horror overall. Horror didn't have to be loud noises and constant stabbings anymore. Horror could be subtle. Horror could be downright quiet. Next, and perhaps most importantly - the disaster movie. Yeah, 28 Days Later might not seem like a disaster movie, but think about the past 10 years. Think about swine flu, and SARS and bird flu, etc, etc, etc. 28 Days Later - with the super Rage virus - is practically THE DEFINITIVE disaster movie of the decade. Yes, disease is going to kill us all. And soon. The end IS extremely fucking nigh.
Plus this is another movie that is just visually amazing to watch. The whole introduction to Jim as he walks the streets of London: completely destroyed and filthy and... vacant. It looks as though they completely vacated one of the largest cities in the world just to make this movie that could have VERY easily fallen in as a b-movie. No name actors, not a huge budget, and zombies. The thing is, with the low budget, there weren't a lot of really big effects. No CGI that I can think of. Which makes the fact that everything looks really, really real turn really, really creepy.

2. Shaun of the Dead (2004)

I love that this movie comes next. The complete antithesis of 28 Days Later. Zombies aren't scary - they're kinda fun. Sure, they'll try to kill/eat you, and most people you know and love are dead, but if you take it with a fun approach, it's just a different day out. This movie is perhaps responsible for the wave of "let's put zombies in things other than zombie movies." First was this "Romantic Comedy – with zombies," now we have a slew of zombie literature (from 'World War Z' - a fictional historical look at the zombie-wars, to 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' which is exactly what it sounds like).
Beyond that, Shaun of the Dead was essentially a parody. You can see elements of almost every other zombie movie in it - including 28 Days Later - but it's done right. There's no wink to the camera, there's no over the top cultural references, there's no terrible cameos. It's a parody - a spoof or satire might be a better word for it - with its own story and characters. And somehow on top of being a zany romantic comedy (though I prefer the buddy-comedy angle in it) with a bunch of zombies running around, it actually gets serious! No one saw that coming! Between Shaun and 28 Days Later, zombies became cool again over the past 10 years.

1. The Dark Knight (2008)

The Dark Knight won this contest by a pretty wide margin. Almost every second person put it on their list. And it makes sense - it's a great, great movie. For a lot of reasons, too. I'll get through the most talked about one first to get it out of the way: Heath Leger's Joker. He was amazing. It was the Joker - a character that is almost, if not more so recognizable as Batman himself - done in a brand new way. Only, it wasn't REALLY a new way. That's the best part. It was just a combination of two existing elements. One is the character of the Joker himself - he's purely a psychotic. No background, no reasons, no goals - just a psychotic guy doing whatever he wants. That part was captured. The second part is the gritty, realistic approach that this new Batman series has taken. Take that psychotic fella and paint him in a gritty, realistic light and you have a pretty scary-assed character.
I really enjoy Christian Bale's Batman - I don't even mind the voice, I think it makes sense. He's supposed to be scary and angry! The voice works, leave it alone. Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart and Michael Caine are always great, and added so very much to this story. But, my favorite part of the movie is not Joker, or Batman or Dent. It's Gordon. Gordon was so good in this movie! He stole the movie, in my opinion, from the other three. Batman, the Joker and Dent were all kinda working in the one story, and Gordon was as well, but he also had all this other development - at work, with his family, etc. It was great.
I've said this since Batman Begins came out - this series gets Batman. This movie nailed that point home in the last scene; in Gordon's awesome speech to his son - Batman doesn't care if he's the good guy. He doesn't need to be the good guy. He's there to get the job done. So, in a way, Batman's character under went a major shift that isn't seen all that often - he's not a hero.
Man I can't wait til the next one comes out...
Another reason this movie belongs in this spot is because it is a super-hero movie. The past decade saw so many super-hero movies. A lot of them were really good, and a lot were really bad. The point is, there were a lot of them, and The Dark Knight was definitely the best of them.

And that's it. Ten amazing movies from ten somewhat amazing years. I would really call them the highlight of the decade. Which is sad really. Oh well.

10. Star Trek (2009)
	This is a movie that caught a lot of people by surprise. Sure, the usual fare of Trekkies were set to like it (actually, they were divided, but let's face it - it IS a Star Trek movie - they were gonna like it), same with sci-fi geeks, but this movie was liked by EVERYONE. People that had never watched Star Trek were raving about this one. And it was so simple! Take a formula that you KNOW is successful (it's hard to deny that the ST franchise is a successful one) only make it more interesting! It took them so long to make a Star Trek movie that didn't have diplomacy, or a wedding, or something like that to throw people off. Plus it was just cool to see all the very well known characters and things in a completely new way.
9. District 9 (2009)
	When this movie was running ads, I had no idea what it was. The ads totally worked on me. If you'll recall, they were set up in a documentary format - on top of that, a documentary about illegal aliens, foreigners, etc. People that weren't "us." I gotta admit, I was starting to lose interest. Then the reveal: oh, the illegal aliens are ALIENS! Like from space. How the hell were they gonna make this work where people would just treat aliens like "some other people that are occasionally in the way." Now I was very intrigued. And the explanation was a great one: time. Sure, aliens WOULD be quite a novelty. But, after a while of them just sitting around, they'd probably become a bit tiresome. Beyond that, the movie became a brilliant metaphor for racial separation and political power struggles all while having REALLY cool looking aliens. Totally believable ones too. Not just in look but in attitude. Not enough alien movies make the point of showing that even though aliens are, well, alien to us, they are still distinct individuals. Super.
8. Clerks 2 (2006)
	I gotta admit, I was a bit surprised that this movie popped up on the final list. I liked it okay, but I wasn't completely taken with it. It's definitely not Kevin Smith's BEST movie. Really what this movie has going for it, in my opinion, is nostalgia. Stuff from Clerks 1 revisited with some fun new stuff. The thing that I DO love about this movie is Randall. In Clerks 1, I hated Dante and Randall (more so Dante, but Randall wasn't much better). When Clerks: TAS came out, I completely loved Randall. He just became more... Randall. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's what I thought. Then in Clerks 2, Randall came into his own. Clerks 2 is a GREAT vehicle for Randall. Randall.
7. The Wrestler (2008)
	I think this was another surprise movie. Sure, when it came out it was getting rave reviews due to the acting and whatnot, but before that it was just "a drama about a washed up Hulk Hogan wannabe." Weird. Again, all the ads worked on me. I liked Mickey Rourke (and NOT Rooney, as I previously typed) in Sin City, so I wanted to see him in this one too. And it was basically exactly as advertised - a drama about a washed up Hulk Hogan wannabe. Only, this was another movie made for the specific market. There were elements of pretty much every memory I have of watching wrestling in the 80s (from which a number of the characters came) and worked brilliantly. For everybody else there was some REALLY good acting. AND a really good story. So good that it really made the idea of pitying and caring about and worrying about Hulk Hogan if he lived in a trailer and couldn't make ends meet seem totally reasonable. Plus the music was awesome. Plus the friggin' no-holds-barred match was INSANE!
6. 300 (2006)
	This movie has become one of my favorite all time movies. It is just so incredibly entertaining. A lot of people debate the merits of this movie - most saying that it's not "historically accurate." True - it's not. Hell, the actual story from the actual time period isn't historically accurate. That almost seems like the point of the movie. It's supposed to be a story to stir people. It's supposed to be huge, and wildly exaggerated, and mythical and unrealistic because that just makes it more entertaining! How fun would be to see an army of like 1000 guys lose to an army of like 10,000 guys (which is much closer to the actual numbers)? Not very. How cool is it to see 300 guys ALMOST take out the million-strong army of animals and weird creatures and Kurgan? Very cool. Very. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this movie is this: I cannot think of a more violent, bloody, pro-war movie that almost everyone I know described as being "beautiful." Which it is.
5. WALL-E (2008)
	I must have been one of the last people to see this movie. When it first came out, I thought it looked fun; like an okay movie. A really nice looking CGI movie about a nice little robot. Kinda looked like ET. Then people started talking about how it was Oscar worthy. Then that it was one of the most touching movies they'd ever seen. Then that the characters of the little robots was phenomenal despite the fact that they couldn't talk. That's the point that made me really want to see it - people were comparing WALL-E to Charlie Chaplin. That seems interesting. And it was all true. It was touching, it was Oscar worthy. The characters of the little robots WERE phenomenal. But the thing that did it for me was the seemingly contradictory message of the whole thing. This CGI movie which clearly relied on some very high-tech stuff to make it look so nice and so complete had the message "don't rely so much on technology. Go outside and take a walk." This was the nicest movie I had seen in about seven years about going for a walk.
4. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
	This, on the other hand, is THE nicest movie I have ever seen about going for a walk. It's very well established that the whole LOTR trilogy was great. Amazingly well done, brilliantly acted, beautifully shot, etc, etc, etc. The story is amazing to start with, but there was already a LOTR movie, and it was practically a joke. So, why is this movie so good? The reason being that it really looks like every single person in this movie REALLY knew what they were doing, They really knew the source material (ie Tolkien's novels). How is this clear? It's clear because every person I've talked to about this movie (many of whom are some pretty hardcore Tolkien fans) said the exact same thing: "what happened on screen was EXACTLY what I pictured in my head when I read the books." Characters, places, objects all looked perfect! Friggin' fields and grass in the Shire REALLY looked like fields and grass in the Shire. Another big thing with this one - I dislike a lot of CGI in live-action movies. It usually looks like it doesn't belong, or just really fake. With this movie (and series) I really couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. And in a movie where about 95% of the people are orcs or trolls or shooting magic-missiles at one another, that's saying something.
3. 28 Days Later (2003)
	The movie that reinvented the genre. Which genre, you ask? Several actually. First of all, zombie movies. This made zombies (yes, I've accepted it - for all intents and purposes, they're zombies. Fine. Done.) seem like a very possible, very real threat. Next, horror overall. Horror didn't have to be loud noises and constant stabbings anymore. Horror could be subtle. Horror could be downright quiet. Next, and perhaps most importantly - the disaster movie. Yeah, 28 Days Later might not seem like a disaster movie, but think about the past 10 years. Think about swine flu, and SARS and bird flu, etc, etc, etc. 28 Days Later - with the super Rage virus - is practically THE DEFINITIVE disaster movie of the decade. Yes, disease is going to kill us all. And soon. The end IS extremely fucking nigh. Plus this is another movie that is just visually amazing to watch. The whole introduction to Jim as he walks the streets of London: completely destroyed and filthy and... vacant. It looks as though they completely vacated one of the largest cities in the world just to make this movie that could have VERY easily fallen in as a b-movie. No name actors, not a huge budget, and zombies. The thing is, with the low budget, there weren't a lot of really big effects. No CGI that I can think of. Which makes the fact that everything looks really, really real turn really, really creepy.
2. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
	I love that this movie comes next. The complete antithesis of 28 Days Later. Zombies aren't scary - they're kinda fun. Sure, they'll try to kill/eat you, and most people you know and love are dead, but if you take it with a fun approach, it's just a different day out. This movie is perhaps responsible for the wave of "let's put zombies in things other than zombie movies." First was this "Romantic Comedy – with zombies," now we have a slew of zombie literature (from 'World War Z' - a fictional historical look at the zombie-wars, to 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' which is exactly what it sounds like). Beyond that, Shaun of the Dead was essentially a parody. You can see elements of almost every other zombie movie in it - including 28 Days Later - but it's done right. There's no wink to the camera, there's no over the top cultural references, there's no terrible cameos. It's a parody - a spoof or satire might be a better word for it - with its own story and characters. And somehow on top of being a zany romantic comedy (though I prefer the buddy-comedy angle in it) with a bunch of zombies running around, it actually gets serious! No one saw that coming! Between Shaun and 28 Days Later, zombies became cool again over the past 10 years.
1. The Dark Knight (2008)
	The Dark Knight won this contest by a pretty wide margin. Almost every second person put it on their list. And it makes sense - it's a great, great movie. For a lot of reasons, too. I'll get through the most talked about one first to get it out of the way: Heath Leger's Joker. He was amazing. It was the Joker - a character that is almost, if not more so recognizable as Batman himself - done in a brand new way. Only, it wasn't REALLY a new way. That's the best part. It was just a combination of two existing elements. One is the character of the Joker himself - he's purely a psychotic. No background, no reasons, no goals - just a psychotic guy doing whatever he wants. That part was captured. The second part is the gritty, realistic approach that this new Batman series has taken. Take that psychotic fella and paint him in a gritty, realistic light and you have a pretty scary-assed character. I really enjoy Christian Bale's Batman - I don't even mind the voice, I think it makes sense. He's supposed to be scary and angry! The voice works, leave it alone. Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart and Michael Caine are always great, and added so very much to this story. But, my favorite part of the movie is not Joker, or Batman or Dent. It's Gordon. Gordon was so good in this movie! He stole the movie, in my opinion, from the other three. Batman, the Joker and Dent were all kinda working in the one story, and Gordon was as well, but he also had all this other development - at work, with his family, etc. It was great. I've said this since Batman Begins came out - this series gets Batman. This movie nailed that point home in the last scene; in Gordon's awesome speech to his son - Batman doesn't care if he's the good guy. He doesn't need to be the good guy. He's there to get the job done. So, in a way, Batman's character under went a major shift that isn't seen all that often - he's not a hero. Man I can't wait til the next one comes out... Another reason this movie belongs in this spot is because it is a super-hero movie. The past decade saw so many super-hero movies. A lot of them were really good, and a lot were really bad. The point is, there were a lot of them, and The Dark Knight was definitely the best of them.