What are your favorite films of the decade?

Do you see a potential career opportunity here, tsar? Combining business with pleasure.
You do write very well!

You could become the Pauline Kael (sp?) of the noughties!

Thanks msolga that could be a direction for my stalled blog.

Could be the direction for a good job, tsar.
Seriously.
Think about it.

(I promise I won't harangue you about this again. You just seem to really underestimate your skills & your knowledge, that's all.)

Incidentally, speaking of films & reviews ...... Did you ever read any of Danny Peary's "cult movies" books? They were great. Terrific reads on obscure & known movies, as well as really good guides to films one might want to check out.) A really informative & engaging writer. I think I still have 3 or 4 of them on my shelves. But they might be a bit before your time. Possibly out of print, even.

For me, the film of the decade was:
"Wallace & Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit"

I really liked Anvil: The Story of Anvil. I didn't expect to like it, but it turned out to be a lovely story about youthful dreams, real friendships and aging into reality. Highly recommended.

Wallace and Gromit? What a pitch perfect pair of best friends on the silver screen!

I never heard of the author Danny Peary.... I'll look and see if he's owned by the NYPL....

THAT film, The Barbarian Invasions, is on the top of my list.

The decade has been a great source of documentaries both political and cultural. Many documentaries are scarier then their genre brethren horror films.
1. My Architect (2003)
2. Deep Water (2006)
3. Bowling for Columbine (2002)
4. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
5. Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)
6. Rivers and Tides (2001)
7. Valentino: The Last Emperor (2008)
8. Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye (2001)
9. Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2004)
10. Manufactured Landscapes (2006)
11. Super Size Me (2004)
12. Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
13. Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001)
14. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008)
15. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
16. My Dad Is 100 Years Old (2005)
17. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
18. Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006)
19. The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003)
20. Food, Inc. (2008)
21. In the Realms of the Unreal (2004)
22. A Decade Under the Influence (2003)
23. Why We Fight (2005)
24. The Yes Men (2003)
25. Control Room (2004)
Tied with/ This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)

Great list! I'm still working on my list for serious message films -- it's difficult to separate message from pretense in so many movies. "Crash" was the worst of the pretentious and stylistically a carbon copy of Altman's "Short Cuts" and Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia."

Without a doubt, two films that every American MUST see.

l. Milk

2. Tea and Sympathy( an old one, I know,but it made me cry)

Gus van Sant made a very watchable biopic with Milk. Surely, Sean Penn gave his finest performance as well.

Yes, so I discovered, fbaezer. But only after trying unsuccessfully to recall the title for hours & only after the tsar had actually found it.

Looking at your list, I see we have quite a few favourite films in common. You have such impeccable taste!

The Barbarian Invasions is such a wonderful film. I'm feeling inspired to buy a DVD copy & watch it all over again! It's been quite a while since I first saw it.

So do you . Out of your list I rated four 10s, two 9s (American Beauty and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and four films not seen (but now on my to watch list).

So, you wanna go to the movies, then?

(It'd be great not to have to argue & negotiate about which film to go see ... then end up with a compromise choice which no one actually wanted .... )

Just finished watching my newly acquired DVD of The Barbarian Invasions. That is such a good film!

I find it cominal how the actor, in this case, Ed Harris was all arty and serious. Val Kilmer as De Kooning cracked me up. I thought the picture was just okay vering towards dumb. It was way more interesting to read about Warhol going to party and peeing in the fire place then it was to see it rendered in the movie.

The only movie about art I've seen so far that's worked was "I shot Andy Warhol" mostly because Warhol was a caricature himself and the whole topic was treated tongue-in-cheek.

Pollock did get drunk and peed in Peggy Guggenheim's fireplace. I don't recall Warhol doing same. "Pollock" was a good film, not a great film, and Ed Harris did a reasonably accurate portrayal, although if you want playing drunk, Nicholas Cage did a much better job in "Leaving Las Vegas." Pollock, incidentally, was about as interesting to meet as your local plumber.

When it comes to lives of artists, my preference runs to the documentary side rather then the biopic.

EG.:
Rivers and Tides (2001);
Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye (2001);
In the Realms of the Unreal (2004);
Any documentary with master glass sculptor, Dale Chihuly;

Way toooo scary !!! Couldnt watch it for fear of bedwetting and nightmares.