25 Best Movies Of The Decade: 18

"The sixties are an important and exciting time!"

18. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story(2007)

2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000. Every year this decade, a big name biopic has netted at least one Oscar for performance(Seriously, look that shit up).

I don't mind biopics. Some can be really, really good(see: Gandhi), but lately there has been an absolute glut of biopics. So I suppose it's good to see the shit shot out of them.

Walk Hard is brilliant in that instance. Everything you could possibly think that they would do in a biopic, they do in this movie. The terribly tragedy(slicing his brother in half with a machete), the choice to see how young an actor can play(in this instance, John C. Reilly starts playing Dewey at the age of 14), even the way the main character encounters important figures from that age.

That's one of the thing that really shines about Walk Hard. As Dewey Cox ages, he consistenly runs into the famous people of the era. The most chuckle-worthy being his encounter with an unintelligible, karate-chopping Elvis Presley(played by musician Jack White) and Dewey taking his band on a meditation trip to India with The Beatles(portrayed absurdly by Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Jason Schwartzman and Justin Long).

The music is equally amazing. Dewey's musical evolution from goofy pop singer(the sugary "Take My Hand" which incites a riot and people claiming it's the "devil's music") to bitter country superstar(the Johnny Cash-like "Guilty As Charged" underscoring a dark period in his life) to political folk singer(the offensive song of the people "Dear Mr. President" and the nonsensical Dylanesque "Royal Jelly"). The music perfectly reflects every musical biopic where all the music really means is "HERE IS THE YEAR."

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention John C. Reilly. Reilly is one of my favorite actors and the kind of actor I aspire to be. His ability to balance being an excellent comedic actor and an excellent dramatic actor is only enhanced by his incredible singing voice and great use as a go-to character actor. I don't even have to describe why I loved his performance of Dewey Cox. I've talked enough about Reilly himself to have you know why I liked the role.

25 Best Movies Of The Decade: 19

"Now, I don't know about y'all, but I sure as hell didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily and then jump out of a fuckin' air-o-plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass murderin' maniac and they need to be destroyed."

19. Inglourious Basterds(2009)

After the dismal performance of the Grindhouse double feature(which is a shame because I fucking loved Grindhouse. Both films and all the trailers), it easily could have been thought that Quentin Tarantino was bound for another long dry spell between movies. Then all of a sudden, came the Basterds.

A World War II fantasy piece, Basterds explores a Spaghetti Western in the middle of Nazi-occupied France. In 1941, Col. Hans Landa, "The Jew Hunter" kills a family of refugee French Jews, leaving only Shoshanna Dreyfuss to run free. Flash-forward three years to American's involvement of the war and we meet the titular squad: a fierce Jewish fighting force led by Lt. Aldo Raine and including former Nazi Hugo Stiglitz and Donny Donowitz, whose vicious attacks with a baseball bat has led the Germans to dub him "The Bear Jew."

While most Tarantino works rely on more modern styles of cinematography, his direction in this one keeps it more related to the old war films of yesteryear. Scenes are held for absurdly long times to escalate moments to amazing tenseness. The writing as well shows a difference in style for Tarantino, as the characters are less verbose(especially Brad Pitt's Lt. Raine, who keeps things to a minimum, vocabulary-wise).

The acting especially shines. Both Pitt's portrayal of Aldo "The Apache" and Eli Roth's Sgt. Donowitz are hilariously over-the-top as every other word out of their mouths either instill fear or laughter. But for all the brilliance of the Basterds, the non-Americans seem to shine the most.

Shosanna, played by Mélanie Laurent, is absolutely amazing as she lives under an alias in Paris as a cinema operator, slowly working out her plan for revenge on the Nazis that killed her family. Laurent's performance masterfully blends the fear and anger that many Jews in hiding possibly could have felt. Then, there's Hans Landa. Cristoph Waltz exudes intensity as the slimy over-the-top Colonel and when he finally comes face-to-face with Aldo Raine in his captivity, he's able to balance the drama of the scene and Tarantino's ever-present use of comedy.

Inglourious Basterds is the greatest film with a misspelled film title I've ever seen.

25 Greatest Movies Of The Decade: 20

"I like the way I feel. I like thinking about the red dress and the television and you and your father. Now when I get the sun, I smile."

20. Requiem for a Dream(2000)

Legitimately one of the most disturbing, depressing films I have ever seen in my lifetime. Requiem for a Dream revolves around the lives of four individuals and how addiction ruins them. One by one, being toppled by the reality that shatters their illusions of life.

As Harry Goldfarb, his girlfriend Marion and his friend Tyrone all abuse and sell heroin for profit so they can fulfill their dreams, Harry's mother Sara slowly becomes addicted to diet pills in a desperate attempt to fit into an old red dress before an appearance on motivational speaker Tappy Tibbon's infomercial. All of them are splendidly performed by their actors(yes, including MARLON WAYANS as Tyrone). And as with this stuff, things seem to be fine at first, until moments slowly unravel and by the end it all falls down. Tyrone has been jailed and left alone, Marion is selling her body for drugs, Harry had to have an arm amputated and Sara is forced to undergo electroshock treatment after the diet pills and her own anxiety about her weight leaves her losing her sanity.

In Requiem for a Dream, there is no fairness, only truth. And Darren Aronofsky's direction shows it through a lens of fear and isolation.

25 Best Movies Of The Decades: 21

"Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, 'Rain Man,' look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sho'. Not retarded. You know, Tom Hanks, 'Forrest Gump.' Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. Peter Sellers, 'Being There.' Infantile, yes. Retarded, no. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard."

21. Tropic Thunder(2008)

Sometimes Ben Stiller can really be insanely funny(The Ben Stiller Show, for example). Since his minor role in Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun," Stiller has been writing this comedy. And it was only released two years ago.

The film is about the making of "Tropic Thunder," based on a book about the horrors of the Vietnam War and how its prima donna actors are dropped into the jungle, forcing them to play the roles without a comfy film set. Of course soon after the director gets killed and the actors(convinced it was a set up) try to continue acting until one of their own is captured by a Vietnamese drug gang.

While the plot and writing is pretty good, it's the characters that are actually the focus of the film, as each deals with their own deep-seated insecurites. Stiller's Tugg Speedman is a past-his-prime action star who's about to release the sixth film in his "Scorcher" franchise, looking to save his career and find a way to be taken seriously after his first dramatic role, "Simple Jack" about a magical and mentally disabled farmhand, fails miserably. Jack Black's Jeff Portnoy is an overweight and drug addicted comedy star, also looking to be taken seriously who feels people only love his films, like the flatulent sequel "The Fatties: Fart 2," for the crude jokes.

Lastly, there's Kirk Lazarus, who I've written extensively about previously. Robert Downey Jr's character is a multiple Academy Award-winning Australian method actor who gets so deep into his character's that he doesn't drop them until after DVD commentary. In this case, he performs African-American Sergeant Lincoln Osiris, a role for which he underwent a controversial "pigmentation alteration" surgery and speaks through most of the film in a stereotypical 70s black voice. While it seems at first that Lazarus is only in character, by the end of the film it's revealed that for all his knowledge of the roles he plays, he has no idea who he is.

The whole film is an excellent middle finger to the entirety of the film business, from the agents to the executives to award ceremonies.

25 Best Movies Of The Decade: 22

"What are you doing? We don't stop here."

22. Mulholland Drive(2001)

Do not ask me what this movie is about. I do not know what this movie is about. There's an amnesia plotline, Billy Ray Cyrus is in it, there's some kind of crazy burnt face lady that's really scary and Naomi Watts makes some sweet love to another woman for like the last half hour of the film. It's a mind fuck.

But like most of David Lynch's works, it's a beautiful mind fuck. It leads you down paths that make no sense and nothing is ever solved because life is weird sometimes or whatever. It's in this expression of surrealism that Lynch's oeuvre always manifests, creating dreamlike worlds out of realistic settings. Always deeply disturbing, always entrancing.

Don't...don't actually ask me to explain anything about David Lynch's films.

25 Best Movies Of The Decade: 23

"Sauron's wrath will be terrible, his retribution swift. The battle for Helm's Deep is over. The battle for Middle Earth is about to begin. All our hopes now lie with two little hobbits, somewhere in the wilderness."

23. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers(2002)

The middle film of a trilogy tends to be equal to the sum of its two other parts(see: Empire Strikes Back, Spider-Man 2. Although, Temple of Doom is an exception to the rule) and Two Towers exhibits the greater parts as a middle as opposed to the humble beginnings of Fellowship and the 18 different wrap-up endings of Return of the King.

The film exhibits a greater strength of story as Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship split apart after the death of Gandalf. As Aragorn(Man), Gimli(Dwarf) and Legolas(Legend of Zelda character) set out to save Merry and Pippin from a pack of Uruk-hai, Frodo and Samwise are still on the trail to Mt. Doom to destroy the ring of power with a strange, schizophrenic little creature named Gollum who has one personality that wants to help his new Hobbit friends and the other that simply wants to murder them and take his "precious"(the ring) back.

I've never been one to focus so much on CGI, but Peter Jackson knows how to wield it better than anyone. The centerpiece of the film, the battle for Helm's Deep is one of the most expansive, jaw-dropping scenes I have ever seen in my life and it's basically one of the first of its kind. As 10,000 Uruk-hai storm the Rohan stronghold of Helm's Deep, a massive fight ensues for what seems like forever. There is so much going on in that scene that it's absolutely amazing.

And of course, there's Gollum, who I've written about before. It seems odd that what could have been a shoddy, dead-eyed CGI character(Zemeckis), but look at that face up there. It's absolutely amazing the way Jackson and his team(including actor Andy Serkis who provided the motion-capture and voice of Gollum) were able to fully flesh out a character who exhibits the oldest conflict of man(well, former Hobbit) vs. self. Gollum is able to garner our simultaneous sympathy and hatred, especially in the scene where the innocent half, Sméagol makes a desperate attempt to banish the Gollum personality.

25 Best Movies Of The Decade: 24

"I'm sorry...was that like a secret pudding?"
24. Punch-Drunk Love(2002)

Adam Sandler plays Barry Egan, a man who owns a company that markets assorted novelty items including "fungers," which are humorously themed toilet plungers. Welcome to an Adam Sandler film!

As opposed to your standard Sandler fare, though, "Punch-Drunk Love" is all about more genuine emotion. Paul Thomas Anderson once again shows how he can get the best out of any actor(see: Burt Reynolds, Tom Cruise) and gives Adam Sandler the darkest performance of his lifetime. Barry is a repressed, violent man with a perverse way of showing love and affection and who may or may not be borderline insane. He's basically a standard Adam Sandler character if that character existed in the real world: a dangerously unbalanced man whose passiveness underlies a stewing rage.

"Punch-Drunk Love" is one of the most surreal love stories you'll ever see and it's more than excellent in that regard.

25 Best Movies Of The Decade: 25

"Remember Sammy Jankis..."

25. Memento(2000)

Getting this out of the way by saying I hate the new Batman films. Everything is too stupidly "gritty" for my tastes and Christian Bale is a boring Batman and there are plot holes everywhere all the time.

That being said, those movies still look pretty good and that's because of Christopher Nolan. Memento is still Nolan's best work and it's in part of his own direction and in part Jonathan Nolan's writing.

Leonard Shelby is looking for the man who murdered his wife. The only problem is he suffers from anterograde amnesia, a condition that means he cannot retain memory of recent events, leaving him to tattoo information all over his body and documenting things with a Polaroid camera.

Of course, at the beginning of the film we see Shelby actually killing the man who killed his wife and the rest of the film plays backwards, almost mirroring Leonard's own short-term memory loss as it makes you encounter the same things he does while entirely in the dark. Well...wait, okay. Only half of the film is backwards. The part in color is backwards and the part in black and white is told chronologically, the story only meets in the ending. An ending, I might add, that gives a great twist to the entirety of Leonard Shelby's existence and an ending that only leaves us with knowledge of the future of Shelby and his friend Teddy.