Heather does The Past Decade

It’s odd for me to try to do an article looking back on the decade; being so young I feel almost unqualified. Also, when I think on the fact that  X-Men came out in 2000 I  suffer a mild panic attack at how quickly TEN YEARS went by.

A lot happened these past ten years. I graduated high school, got married, followed my husband around the world while trying to keep up with college….I climbed Mt. Fuji! There’s lots of other stuff (most of which happened in Japan) but I’m getting distracted by all the awesome, so let’s move on.

Movies were instrumental in creating some of the funniest, scariest, and saddest moments I’ve experienced over the last decade, and now I want to recognize the movies that impacted me for better or worse (and oh, there IS a worse on this list). I have a little award for these ten movies. Now I’m too broke to give out a real award, unless you consider my accolades to be of ultimate worth (and I know I do), so let’s just pretend something shiny is there. Make little “bling” noises or something, I don’t know.

Year: 2000

Movie: The Emperor’s New Groove

Award: “Punched Me In My Pride”

This movie knocked my pride down a notch. When I saw trailers for this I thought it looked like a waste of time and subsequently snubbed it.  If it weren’t for a fateful day of babysitting at my sister’s house, trying to find a cartoon for my nephew and finally settling on this, years ago I may have never seen this.  I immediately loved it and laughed from beginning to end, watching raptly as my nephew got bored and found some toys or something to play with. I pride myself in quality childcare.

This weird, hilarious, colorful film is one of my favorite Disney movies of all time and I still regret not catching on the big screen.

Putting in a hard day's work.

Year: 2001

Movie: Session 9

Award: ” A Good TV Movie?”

Yes, Session 9 is a made-for-TV movie. No, really. It came out on the USA channel. It’s still difficult for me to wrap my head around that, as this is effectively one of the creepiest films I’ve ever watched in my life. Great performances, great film quality, minimal special effects done very well, a plot that will have you guessing the whole way through to the stomach-wrenching end; these are marks of a fantastic film, something that is a rare jewel amongst all the Lifetime weepers and embarrassing “comedies” filled with Z-list actors desperate for a buck.

Year 2002

Movie: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Award: “The Sequel That Didn’t Suck”

Looking over a list of this year’s movies it seems I didn’t take in a lot at the theater, or even on DVD.  Despite a handful of awesome, this was mostly a lackluster year for films with any depth. I mean, it’s a wonder that the world didn’t implode the year both Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Vin Diesel become certified movie stars.

In that little handful of awesome The Two Towers stands out above the others for being a sequel of the best kind. Being drawn from the second book in the series it had a jump start on other sequels that are just mindless attempts to cash in on the success of the first. But much more than continuing the story, the movie does its job really well. We stay involved with the characters, the action just gets better and better, the quest more epic, and more importantly everything flows perfectly from where the first film left off. Once the end comes the audience is left drooling for more, and that is what is supposed to happen in a series of films.

It also helps to have a good-looking cast.

Year: 2003

Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean

Award: “Something That Never Should Have Worked”

One of the biggest box office successes of the decade is a movie that just sounds completely moronic on paper.  A pirate movie? Who makes pirate movies anymore? There’s a great cast, yes, but it’s based on a Disney theme park ride! You’ve got to be joking. Get out of my office!

And yet the movie was doing anything but joking. We all know that if not for Johnny Depp’s intriguingly strange and comedic portrayal of the rogue pirate Sparrow the movie probably wouldn’t have become nearly as popular. That being said, there were still great moments of comedy, an AMAZING performance by Geoffrey Rush and nearly a complete absence of onscreen violence shot in a way that still made a person wince, but hey, the kiddies could watch too! Also pirate culture just EXPLODED onto the scene. Arr!

Disney pulled off the perfect non-animated family film with this one.

I'm always searching for another excuse to look at this picture.

Year: 2004

Movie: Dawn of the Dead

Award: “I May Never Sleep Again”

I did finally end up sleeping again, but 2004 was the first year, since I was a little girl, that I came away from a horror movie locking my doors and keeping a television on when I was home alone trying to sleep. DOTD was the first “running zombie” movie I ever saw.  The idea of zombies always terrified me, probably because it played on my claustrophobia. I would literally have day-mares about being trapped in some basement or other closed in space with legions of the hungry dead awaiting me with only a shotgun, a few shells and a machete left for my defense. My ONE consolation, what kept my fantasies in check, was that zombies are A: Pretty stupid and B: SLLOOOOOOOOW.  Zack Snyder goes and turns them into friggin’ Olympic athletes and suddenly I’m not sleeping, but instead having horrible visions of opening my bedroom door and seeing that bloody, undead  little girl standing on the other side, ready to rip my throat out with what few teeth the tooth fairy left in there. GAH!

Oh yeah. That's toally going to be a normal baby pops outta there and not at all a zombie spawn. Nope.

Year: 2005

Movie: A Lot Like Love

Award: “Hey, Look!  A Romantic Comedy I Don’t Hate!”

ALLL is one of the first romantic movies I’ve liked, ever. Ashton Kutcher, normally completely annoying, did a great job being a sweet guy that couldn’t give up on the woman of his dreams. Amanda Peet does really well going from a young and vibrant woman to an older, tired person that keeps settling rather than going for the one person who makes her feel young and vibrant.  There are sweet, beautiful scenes (especially the New Year’s Kiss) and genuinely funny moments that really pull you in and make you care about these two succeeding as a couple. ALLL goes easy on the ridiculous “romcom” cliches that turn most of us off and instead paints a more realistic couple than I had seen onscreen in years. The final twist was well done and a perfect end to an uplifting movie. Also there’s a rockin’ ’90s soundtrack and an amazing song by Aqualung, so there you go.

Totally realistic couple except for the fact that they're 99.5% prettier than us. I rounded down to reduce the depression factor.

Year: 2006

Movie: V for Vendetta

Award: “Hey, Look! A Political Movie I Don’t Hate”

V for Vendetta. How could I possibly not award this movie? It is one of my all-time favorite films and one of my best-loved comic book (or graphic novel, whatever) films. I know it takes its liberties, as does nearly any film taken from the written word, but I just don’t care. Get over it, Alan Moore. There’s never been a “political” movie that I’ve much cared for, much less one that makes me want to beg ALL of my friends to see it. This dystopian story of a government gone out of control while having all the control, and one man who inspires the masses to take their lives back, is some truly fantastic cinema. Also I’ve never been in love with anyone’s voice like Hugo Weaving. His performance as the perpetually masked “V” was truly amazing.

Year: 2007

Movie: Epic Movie (It hurts just to type that title)

Award: “AARRRRGGG My Soooouuuuul”

Oh it was epic, alright. This is the first film I have ever sat through and actively tried to go to sleep and make the hurting stop. I was just praying that my friend would look over and say “Let’s leave”, but I thought she was enjoying it. Turns out she thought I was enjoying it. So we sat through the most torturous film of our entire lives. There is a specific noise we always seem to make when someone mentions Epic Movie in our presence and I’ve come to believe it’s the sound of our souls weeping.

You get the smallest picture in the article because I hate you.

Year: 2008

Movie: Let The Right One In

Award: Now This Is A Vampire Movie

LTROI is a masterful telling of the story of two kids who need each other desperately, one for rather…uncommon reasons. No bats, no garlic, no morphing into cat-faced creatures, NO GUYLINER! This is a chilling tale of a child vampire named Eli, probably centuries old, who befriends a young bullied boy named Oskar. Eli is sad and tortured about what she has to do to stay alive, but not so much so that she won’t attack the nearest unlucky villager when she needs nourishment. The relationship between the two children is at times sweet, a little sexual, and a lot unsettling. It also reveals a total and complete trust on Eli’s part as she demonstrates  just exactly what happens to a vampire if she enters a house uninvited. In the end I was left very creeped out, with a renewed interest in the vampire genre.

Year: 2009

Movie: Zombieland

Award: Now This Is A Zombie Movie

Here we go with the running zombies again, but just what I LOVE about a zombie movie, this film has in spades. Sympathetic cast? Check. Post-zombapocolyptic world? Oh check. The characters having an awesome time blowing away the hordes of undead with all manner of weapons, INCLUDING carnival rides? My MY YES!  The best thing , period, to come out of this zombie craze since Left 4 Dead and Shaun of  the Dead. The entire theater was laughing uncontrollably, holding our collective breathes as we waited to see what was behind that bathroom door, and gasping out loud when a zombie popped out (and subsequently had its head blasted off). It was almost as if the movie wasn’t going to give us a break to breathe. Wonderful, wonderful movie.

Just don’t forget to double tap.

Thanks, movies (except for you, you know who you are)! Lookin’ forward to another fantastic decade.