Cru Jones Society

 

As if you couldn’t tell from the incessant “Merry Gapmas” commercials and the increasingly powerful green and red merriment hurricane coming at you, December is here. And this December is special because we arrive at the end of the aughts.

That’s right, it’s the end of the decade, and that means weary columnists everywhere thank the gods of worn out article ideas for the gift bestowed upon them: Best of the Decade Lists. (And for those of you who quibble that a decade actually runs from 01-10 because there was no year “zero,” shut up. It’s our website and writing the year changes from 200_ to 201_. So there.) In that spirit, your faithful Cru Jones Society authors are compiling their own Best Of… lists.

However, since we’re in no position of critical authority to judge best of anything, and considering we spent most of the first half of this decade totally plastered, we’re modifying the theme slightly. We’re choosing five of our favorites over the next three weeks in three categories. Next week is music. The week after is television. This week we start with movies. And since there are only two of us, with three days of feature articles to fill, we’re turning over the reins each week to three special guest columnists. Who are they? You’ll just have to wait and see.

So, let’s get started. Here are E Dagger’s 5 Favorite Films of the 00s.

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As I approached this list, I realized I’m at a disadvantage for writing it. I was in college from 2000-2006. While this may seem like the optimal time to watch a buttload of movies considering you’ve basically got nothing else to do (Study? Piss off), I spent those first three years in bad relationship hell and the next three drinking away the damage from that relationship. Virtually all of my disposable income was tied up in alcohol, which presents another unusual problem.

The movies I did see weren’t exactly highbrow cinema fare. I saw approximately 11 movies in theaters during that six year stretch; and one of them was Walking Tall starring The Rock and Johnny Knoxville. So that gives you a fair idea of where my tastes were as a younger man. That’s not to say I’m completely devoid of taste, and to prove it, here are my five favorite movies of the decade:

High Fidelity (2000)

This is perhaps the most confident movie ever made. Unable to find the words to express this properly myself, I turn to Roger Ebert who summarizes the movie thusly: “‘High Fidelity’ has no deep significance, does not grow exercised over stupid plot points, savors the rhythms of these lives, sees how pop music is a soundtrack for everyone’s autobiography, introduces us to Rob and makes us hope that he finds happiness, and causes us to leave the theater quite unreasonably happy.”

It’s that part about how the movie “savors the rhythms of these lives” that resonates most with me and makes this movie so confident. The filmmakers get all the details right in this universe from the ways the guys dress and pass the time at a no-traffic used record store by naming the Top 5 whatevers to the way John Cusack derisively asks the bouncer before entering a club “Is that Peter f*cking Frampton?” Whereas a lesser movie would rush us from plot point to contrived plot point, High Fidelity saves moments for the characters to move and breathe and give us little moments like Barry singing “The night Laura’s daddy died” which results in one of the funniest slappings ever caught on film.

And while this movie has no deep significance, as Ebert says, it’s a movie that’s deeply important to the characters in it. More than most movies, this is a story about people in real life. I know these people. I worked with these people at the radio station. I’ve had intensely important conversations about seemingly meaningless crap like Evil Dead 2 like these people. I make tons of mix tapes. I obsess over my relationships. In short, this is MY movie. And for a whole subset of geek culture, it’s THEIR movie too.

Chicago (2002)

From a quirky personal movie about people you’ve certainly met in real life, we come to a lavish Broadway musical brought to the big screen about the stylized underworld of the 1920s. I fully expected to hate this movie since normally I abhor musicals. Nothing about a musical makes sense, but when it’s done right, no one cares because it’s just so damned entertaining.

Chicago goes big and succeeds grandly. The song and dance routines vary from the grandiose opener “All That Jazz” to the muted and melancholy “Mr. Cellophane” managing to hit all the right notes the whole way through. Richard Gere, Renee Zellweger, and Catherine Zeta Jones serve up pitch perfect performances, but John C. Reilly steals the show as cuckolded sap Amos Hart. His aw-shucks self awareness of inconsequence is at once heartbreaking and captivating. He serves as the perfect understated counterpoint to the bravado of his fellow characters.

Whereas the manic, assaulting, in-your-face direction of Baz Luhrmann turned me off from Moulin Rouge, Chicago balances over the top theatrics with just enough underplayed moments to make a complete movie. It’s thoroughly satisfying on a number of levels – fantastic dance routines, catchy and entertaining songs, a touch of humor – but most importantly, watching Chicago is just plain fun. And when art of the highest order like this makes even a skeptic like me think, “Hey, I had a good time during that!” you’ve succeeded admirably. And that’s why Chicago is here. If you haven’t seen it, I can guarantee you will find yourself grinning like an idiot damn near the whole way through.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

When you watch “Saturday Night Live,” one of its purest joys comes from seeing one of its players grow as a comedian and prepare to break out. Will Ferrell became an absolute force of nature on SNL with his ability to inject hilarious weirdness into every sketch in which he appeared. Cracked.com counted down Ferrell’s 10 best SNL sketches in 2006, and damned if this feature doesn’t still make me laugh. Whether he was feeding cereal to a stuffed ram (?) in a sketch where Robert Goulet (??) tries to shill his new rap CD (???), or showing up as an old prospector during a meeting of an elite fighting force in Afghanistan, you could always count on Will Ferrell to make you laugh freakishly hard 3 times per show.

That’s why Anchorman was so rewarding. Too many promising SNL cast members found themselves in cinema hell with movies ill-fitted to their talents. Anchorman puts Ferrell in the perfect position to succeed allowing his brilliant portrayals of cocksure ignorance, his nearly unmatched ability to comedically shout with rage, and his general off-kilter weirdness to take center stage and reach their full comic potential.

The movie takes place in the 1970s, without a doubt our weirdest decade, and puts Ferrell into the already ridiculous milieu of television news anchors. Anyone who’s worked with anchorpeople for any amount of time can tell you these people are some of the most vain morons on the planet, so when combined with the rampant sexism of the 70s and general absurdity of the decade, there is absolutely no better set-up for Ferrell to deliver his many talents.

This movie is loaded with quotable lines from all six of its primary characters, and Steve Carell shoplifts the entire movie as the clueless Brick Tamland. I’d be amazed at that considering how great Ferrell is as Ron Burgundy, but anyone who can turn the line “I love lamp” into three of the funniest words ever spoken on film deserves to steal the movie right good.

I suspect we’ll all remember this movie as the film where everything crested perfectly for Will Ferrell. He was at the height of his comic powers, had the perfect supporting cast, a perfect setup to show off all of his gifts, and an eager public ready to consume his delightful silliness.

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

As I walked in to Brokeback Mountain, I worried about the inevitable gay sex scene between Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. As the movie progressed, I worried that we wouldn’t ever see another one. Before you get ahead of me, what I mean is that this movie roped me in so thoroughly, I worried that Jack and Ennis wouldn’t ultimately end up together and the story would end tragically. It wasn’t that I wanted to see a second awkward man-on-man swordfight, it’s that I hoped these two could overcome a society not yet ready to accept them and live happily ever after.

Alas, I was wrong, and this is one of the most heartbreaking movies of recent memory. It wasn’t until I watched Heath Ledger for the 20^th time during The Dark Knight that I truly appreciated what a good actor he is. He disappears inside his roles and never even gives you a hint that he’s in there the whole time. The AV Club says “Ledger’s performance captures the bone-deep agony, loneliness, and unrequited desire of an old-fashioned guy who can’t follow his heart.”

While the story of two gay cowboys certainly doesn’t sound timeless, the story of “an old-fashioned guy who can’t follow his heart” sure does, and that’s what makes Brokeback Mountain so freaking good. It’s an intensely personal story where the details may not square up with your own life, but the sentiment behind it probably does. Everyone has a dream they just can’t follow for whatever reason, and Brokeback gives you the aching, tortured canvas with which to paint your own experience on. As a result of its deeply personal story, Brokeback becomes that much more universal. And therefore, one of my favorites of the decade.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

You didn’t think we’d get through this whole list without me gushing about Quentin Tarantino, did you?

Compared to the 1990s, Tarantino in the new millennium fell sort of flat for me. I’m not into kung fu movies, so I didn’t LOVE the Kill Bill series as much as I loved Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown (which are all in my Top 50). Likewise, I found Death Proof overly long, way too talky, and ultimately dull as hell. From what I’ve read, Tarantino was inspired by movies like Vanishing Point and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! both of which I’d never even heard of before watching Death Proof.

So when Inglourious Basterds was announced, I was torn. It was Tarantino, but it was also World War II which has been done to death. But I remained cautiously optimistic.

Inglorious Basterds incorporates all the things Tarantino does well and mixes them with a few surprises along the way. And what does he do so well? Builds palpable tension through seemingly innocuous conversation. Extracts everyday humor out of extreme situations. Wrenches your gut with brutally lucid and often disgusting imagery. Lets a scene breathe and grow and swell. And no one loves the Mexican standoff more than him.

Inglourious Basterds drags a bit (quite a bit, actually) in the middle, but one thing saved the movie again and again. I never expected one of the actors to transcend Tarantino’s beloved dialogue and steal the whole f*cking movie. Christoph Waltz is positively mesmerizing as Col. Hans Landa, and if he doesn’t win an Academy Award this year for his work here, there is no justice in the world. Landa is quietly menacing, coldly calculating, and unnervingly ingratiating. His disarming politeness belies measured malevolence, so every scene he’s in has an undercurrent of dread running through it which makes the movie one of the most unusually exhilarating experiences you can have at a theater.

Whenever I discuss film with anyone and they ask me why I like Tarantino so much, I always respond with the following statement: Whenever I watch a Tarantino movie, when it’s over I’m exhausted because Tarantino movies always run the gamut of human emotion. You’ll likely experience everything you could ever possibly feel – love, fear, hilarity, romance, joy, disgust – and feel them intensely in the span of two hours. There’s something to be said for a film that’s able to pull that off each and every time.

Tomorrow: Lee S. Hart’s 5 Favorite Films of the 00s

Until then…

edagger@crujonessociety.com