Favorite Movies of the Aughts

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These are the films that brought me the most interest and pleasure this decade---and ones that I believe I'll still be watching with interest and pleasure ten years from now:


1-3:
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Pride & Prejudice
Twilight

There is no way I can choose between these three for my favorite movie of the decade, so I've listed them in chronological order. All three are based on beloved books that really mean something to their fans.

Fellowship of the Ring was a movie that I was dreading. It could not be done well, and it would be inescapable---ridiculous images of these characters that meant so much to me would be everywhere. But I began to feel a glimmer of hope when I saw some stills and then some previews: Frodo looked the part, Sam looked the part, and the early scene when the hobbits hide on the side of the road from the Black Riders captured perfectly the terrible foreboding of the same scene in the book. After not one but several reviews called it a "masterpiece," I was ready to take the risk and see it. And from the very first moments of the movie, from the credits, really, with that watery font and atmospheric music, I knew this was something special. And then the voice of Galadriel starts to speak, and the story of Isildur and his great battle is told, and you are already experiencing something rare and wonderful. By the time that prologue ends, you feel that you've already seen something complete that was worth the price of admission.

Pride & Prejudice is one of the greatest stories ever told: the story of learning what you really want (an interior process) and then getting it (an exterior process). When what you really want is a person, and that person wants the same, and obstacle after obstacle is surmounted, and you leave the realm of loneliness and enter the realm of intimacy . . . that's a love story, my favorite story of all. The artful direction (for example, the sadness that accompanies the scene of Bingley's house at Netherfield being closed up after he departs, dashing Jane's hopes), the touches of realism, and the unbelievable chemistry and acting genius of the two leads makes this one of my favorite films of all time.

Twilight is another love story, and it's again the story of a young woman determining what she wants and what she believes. Catherine Hardwicke is one of my faovrite directors, and she was the perfect director for this movie in particular. Like Peter Jackson with The Lord of the Rings, her most pivotal contribution was a deep respect for the source material. Like Jackson, she told a story of fantasy as if it were really happening; found actors who perfectly embodied their characters; provided a rich ensemble of supporting characters and comic relief; and employed an atmospheric, gripping narrative style. Like Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen created a character who seemed real and particular without sacrificing any of the nobility that is the core of his nature. I'll never tire of this movie, and I can only hope that some of the other movies in the series live up to its artful beginnings.


4. Sideways
Alexander Payne is another of my favorite directors, and Sideways has everything: humor, observation, pathos, realism. The movie begins with a middle-aged man who is late to meet his friend, but sits in the bathroom reading the New Yorker and then stops at Starbucks, because these things are, you know, essential. Later that character has to stand in front of his ex-wife and her new husband and absorb the news that she is having a baby; the pain in his face and how he deals with it is one of my favorite moments in film. Sideways is episodic, but adheres. It feels rich rather than fragmented.


5. Casino Royale
Another movie in which everything is done Just Right. Another movie in which any of several extended scenes (the foot chase in Africa, the resort scene in the Caribbean, the airport scene in Miami) would be worth the price of admission alone. And yet you get through all of these scenes before the main action even begins. The action, the feel, Daniel Craig, Judi Dench . . . it is for me the best action movie ever made.

6. Love Actually
One of my favorite comedies of all time, along with Hairspray (the original) and several below. Funny, rich, and moving.

7. Amelie
Although I'm not a big fan of French drama, I love French comedies and thrillers. This romantic comedy starring the luminescent Audrey Tautou left me feeling a sense of wonder at the world and reawakened to all the possbilities that life and human creativity offer.

8. Bridget Jones’s Diary
Structurally perfect and very, very funny.

9. Y Tu Mama Tambien
The acting of Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna in this road trip movie is unbelievable. As teenage friends full of themselves and bursting with wild energy, they make you marvel at how real cinema can be.

10. Into the Wild
Lyrical, beautiful, joyous, sad. This telling of Chris McCandless's years roaming the U.S. unmoored from society gives perfect due to his poetic soul, the wondrousness of his experiences, and the cruelty he inflicted on his family.

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