The best of the decade

In the first decade of the new millennium, Hollywood finally got serious about the fantastic. Wizards, vampires, robots, superheroes, hobbits and other mythical creatures emerged as box office stars, while filmmakers showed they do not have to sacrifice artistic vision to entertain.

My picks for the best movies released from 2000 to 2009 are as follows.

1. The Lord of the Rings (2001-03)
 
Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s revered fantasy trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001; The Two Towers, 2002, The Return of the King, 2003) stands as one of the great achievements in film history—grand, thrilling, heartwrenching pictures unlike any others. From the stunning visuals to the assured storytelling to the impeccable casting, Jackson maintains complete command of the sprawling tale (surpassing 11 hours if you watch the extended versions), his vision direct and true.

The top 9 of '09

The year drawing to a close has not been the most memorable one at the movies. The biggest blockbuster of 2009 was by far the worst movie I had the misfortune of seeing (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen). But Hollywood also showed it still knows how to entertain on a level that only it can.

I have not yet had a chance to see many of the films making the rounds as awards season heats up (including The Hurt Locker, Precious, Up in the Air), so those will be considered as they expand into wide release or become available for home viewing.

Here are the best of what I have seen in 2009.



1. Avatar

Sherlock Holmes

Purists beware: Sherlock Holmes bears the stamp of its director, Guy Ritchie, much more so than that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author who created the famed British sleuth and his trusty sidekick, Dr. Watson.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing—Ritchie’s film is an entertaining romp through 1880s London with just enough of the grit and grime he typically brings to his modern British gangster movies (which include Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch) to counteract the largely computer-generated cityscape.

As the title character, Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t look the part and, in fact, he doesn’t even play the part as written by Conan Doyle. Important characteristics are there—Holmes’s deductive reasoning, his focus on seemingly insignificant details, his ability to form a short biography after briefly observing an individual, his need for constant brain activity (he fills the void between cases with drink, as opposed to morphine and cocaine as in Conan Doyle’s stories), his ongoing game of one-upmanship with Scotland Yard.

Avatar

Filmmaker James Cameron proclaimed himself the “king of the world” when “Titanic,” which had already sailed to the top of the all-time box office, won 11 Academy Awards. Twelve years later, in his first narrative film since then, he may not be the king of THE world, but he’s certainly the king of A world.

That would be Pandora, the alien setting of “Avatar,” a movie that raises the special effects bar to a new level. It’s actually a moon dominated by lush forests, floating mountains and exotic creatures—all bathed in a gorgeous neon glow and all the work of the computer wizards of Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning effects house, WETA Digital. The level of detail is unprecedented. It is not just pretty scenery for us to “ooh” and “ah” at—Pandora is alive. It looks a feels like a real place with real inhabitants.

Did You Hear About the Morgans?

The opening of “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” sets the tone for the entire film.

Simple white titles appear on a black screen. We hear the voice of Hugh Grant as Paul Morgan leaving voice mail messages for his estranged wife, Meryl. Separated for three months, he begs for a chance to see her and talk to her.

Since the movie is ostensibly a romantic comedy, I presume this is meant to be funny, especially when Paul runs out of time on his first message, then calls back and continues. The problem is, I couldn’t picture a desperate husband while I heard this; I saw Grant sitting in a studio, reading from the script.

The Blind Side

Question: When is a sports movie not about sports?

Answer: When the story behind the sports is as compelling as the life of Michael Oher, currently a starter in his rookie season with the Baltimore Ravens.

Based on the 2006 book of the same name by Michael Lewis, “The Blind Side” is an overwhelmingly sentimental movie. But thanks to earnest storytelling by director John Lee Hancock (“The Rookie”) and a knockout performance by Sandra Bullock, its emotions are honest and earned.

Life was hard for young Michael Oher, known for obvious reasons as “Big Mike.” One of 13 children born to a drug-addicted mother, he grew up in Tennessee knowing nothing other than poverty, receiving little education and spending time both in foster homes and on his own.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

I was 13 in 1992 when I saw "Bram Stoker’s Dracula," and it changed my life.

Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the classic 1897 vampire novel might not be the definitive film version that its title suggests (another studio owned the rights to the simpler title "Dracula"), but it is a gorgeous motion picture, an immersive experience that presents the infamous count and his tale as never realized before.

Coppola, stinging from the critical and fan backlash against "The Godfather: Part III" (1990), originally intended his "Dracula" to be a small, low-budget film with the goal of winning him some measure of independence from the Hollywood studios. His ambition, though, could not be contained, and his little movie grew into a $40-million, centuries-spanning epic.

Zombieland

A movie titled Zombieland brings a certain set of expectations with it. There will be zombies—lots of ’em. There will be blood—lots of it. And there should be a healthy dose of campy humor. What you do not expect is character-based comedy and genuine human emotion.

We get all of that and more from Zombieland, the debut feature by director Ruben Fleischer. As soon as the beautifully filmed slow-motion opening title sequence—set to Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls”—starts to roll, it’s apparent that this is far from your run-of-the-mill, B-movie horror flick.

When the movie opens, the zombie apocalypse, caused by a virus, already has occurred. There are survivors, and two of them—obsessive-compulsive, cowardly, college-age Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg, Adventureland) and Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a free-wheeling cowboy-type for whom zombie-killing is a sport—meet on the road. They link up with the wily sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), and make for Pacific Playland, a Southern California amusement park rumored to be zombie-free.

The Invention of Lying

You don’t realize how important lies are until you can’t tell them. I’m not talking about deceitful, hurtful lies that can ruin relationships and lives, but the small fibs and half-truths that we all use—often unconsciously—to brighten each other’s days.

The Invention of Lying takes place in a world very much like our own, except that no one has ever told a lie. Instead, everyone always says exactly what they’re thinking, no matter how embarrassing or mean it might be. Without the ability to lie, there is no imagination, no fiction. Lecture Films, where Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) is a screenwriter, produces movies featuring a single actor reading stories from history, such as Napoleon 1812-1813 and The Invention of the Fork.

Surrogates

-->Though there is not a single original idea in Surrogates, the ideas and issues it presents are deep and intriguing enough that it could have been worth 88 minutes of your time. “Could” is the operative word, which means that it is not.

Instead of exploring what it means when, in the near future, people spend virtually their entire lives in their homes, living vicariously through robot surrogates, or “surries,” that they send out into the world, director Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3) and screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Brancato (adapting a graphic novel by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele) wallow in an uninvolving and underdeveloped whodunit.