The 80 Best Movies 2000-2009

There is some debate of whether the first decade of the 2000s ended in 2009 or will end in 2010. However, enough critics are doing a best of list that I've decided to list my own top 25 favourite movies of 2000-2009, regardless if whether or not the decade falls neatly into that. Sadly a Worst of list is probably not as feasible because there's been so many that I've stopped watching and don't recall enough about them.

While some choices like Daredevil and Saw III I hope sparks debate, all movies below are films that for one eason or another I love.

In alphabetical order:
1. Absolut Warhola (2001)
2. American Psycho (2000)
3. American Splendor (2003)
4. The Anniversary Party (2001)
5. Anytown USA (2005)
6. Auto Focus (2002)
7. Avatar (2009)
8. Baadasssss! (2003)
9. Bad Santa (2003)
10. Batman Begins (2005)
11. Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000)
12. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
13. Boiler Room (2000)
14. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
15, Boxed (2002)
16. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
17. Century Hotel (2001)
18. Collateral (2004)
19. The Constant Gardener (2005)
20. Coraline (2009)
21. Daredevil (2003)
22. Dead End (2003)
23. Deliver Us from Evil (2006)
24. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) - not to be confused with Exorcist: The Beginning which uses some of the same footage
25. Downfall (2004)
26. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
27. The Experiment (2001)
28. Ghost World (2001)
29. Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)
30. Grindhouse (2007)
31. Headhunter (2005)
32. Hot Fuzz (2007)
33. A History of Violence (2005)
34. The House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
35. Incredibles (2004) - though the preceeding short film Boundin' is one of the worst of the decade
36. Ingluorious Basterds (2009)
37. Iron Man (2008)
38. Jesus Camp (2006)
39. Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)
40. Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)
41. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
42. Kontroll (2003)
43. The Last Horror Movie (2003)
44. The Lives of Others (2006)
45. The Lookout (2007)
46. Lord of War (2005)
47. Love Object (2003)
48. The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
49. Memento (2000)
50. The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
51. Offside (2006)
52. The Others (2001)
53. Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
54. The Pianist (2002)
55. Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)
56. Saw III (2006)
57. Secretary (2002)
58. Series 7: The Contenders (2001)
59. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
60. Shopgirl (2005)
61. Sicko (2007)
62. Sidekick (2005)
63. Sideways (2004)
64. The Tailor of Panama
65. This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006)
66. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
67. The TV Set (2006)
68. Unbreakable (2000)
69. Undead (2003)
70. United 93 (2006)
71: Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (2002)
72. Waiter (2006)
73. Walk All Over Me (2007)
74. Watchmen (2009)
75. Weirdsville (2007)
76. What to Do in Case of Fire (2001)
77. Wilderness Survival for Girls (2004)
78. X2: X-Men United (2003)
79. The Yes Men (2003)
80. Zero Day (2003)

DVD Caveat Emptors 1

Again shamelessly modifying an older e-mail, but there's lots of new content. Unfortunately, yes the "1" does mean I expect there will be a part 2, etc.

Most of this post relates to Wal-Mart, but there's some non-Wal-Mart material at the end.

Wal-Mart has taken to offering exclusive bonuses on DVDs, but only for the single disk versions, even if double-disk versions exist. I'll expand on this below using three examples currently for sale: Sex and the City, Iron Man, and The Incredible Hulk.

Sex and the City:
Wal-Mart is including T-shirts with select single-disks (as the T-shirts have the names of characters from the show, they're probably of limited appeal to men, but it's still a nice gesture, or would be if it was attached to the double-disk version). So...
You can get disk 1 with disk 2 OR
You can get disk 1 with Wal-Mart's T-shirt(s) BUT
If you want both disks and the t-shirts you have to buy them separately, meaning you'll have two disk-one's (plus a t-shirt with a fictional character's name across the breast area).

Iron Man
Wal-Mart is offering an exclusive bonus disk with the single disk version of the movie. :( So...
You can get disk 1 with disk 2 OR
You can get disk 1 with Wal-Mart's bonus disc (which has completely different material from the non-exclusive disk 2) BUT
If you want all three disks you have to buy both 2-disk versions separately, meaning you'll have two disk 1's (as well as a disk 2 plus an exclusive 2nd disk which isn't disk 2).

Incredible Hulk
Pretty similar to Iron Man, albeit with a slight (very slight, as I'll discuss at the end of this post) extra wrinkle. Wal-Mart is offering an exclusive bonus disk with the single disc version of the movie. :( So...
You can get disk 1 with disk 2 and 3 (more on this below) OR
You can get disk 1 with Wal-Mart's bonus disc (which has completely different material from the non-exclusive disk 2 and the non-exclusive disk 3) BUT
If you want all four disks you have to buy the 3-disk version and the single plus Wal-Mart disk version separately, meaning you'll have two disk 1's (as well as a disk 2 & 3 plus an exclusive 2nd disk which isn't disk 2 nor 3).

In all three cases I plan to wait for them to drop in price and then get the more common 2-disk versions. Wal-Mart's Iron Man & Incredible Hulk bonus disks are likely to have some scarcity appeal and I would be happy to have the extras but the "real" disk 2s have more interesting extras given that I'm forced to make a choice.

Pretty bone-headed in my opinion. An exclusive bonus disk is of greater interest to the DVD consumers who want everything. Connecting an exclusive disk to a single-disk version when a 2-disk version exists is nonsensical because the single disk buyers are generally the people who don't want to look at bonus material.

But I said I would tackle something that wasn't Wal-Mart, didn't I? Well, let’s revisit The Incredible Hulk. I said that with the non-single-disk version there are 3-disk, didn't I? It certainly announces it on the front cover. Sounds pretty exciting, doesn't it? Exciting enough that I might have bought it at over $20. Only one problem: I read the back cover.

Once you read the back cover you discover that the 3rd disk is simply a copy of the movie that you can download into your pc or iPod and... nothing else. If you'd rather just play the movie on your disk it has nothing that the first disk doesn't offer, and the first disk has additional extras (commentary and deleted scenes).

Now don't get me wrong, I'll still get this at some point. The second disk sounds like it's chock full of extras. My point is, if you're considering getting this, ask yourself if you'd buy it at the price listed if it had only 2 disks. If so, then go ahead and buy it; you'll probably be quite happy with your purchase. But if you would only buy it at the price offered if it had 3 disks, then wait until the price reaches 2-disk levels.