Wattching Movies: Watt A Life-The 2000's

My nostalgic journey through my favorite films released during each year of my lifetime enters the exciting new millennium, or "Willennium" as catchy theme song rap enthusiasts would refer to the era. This post will update daily as a new entry recaps another film quickly aging to the point of being a canonized classic.

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The 90's, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010's

2000: Unbreakable

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 70%

Where to Watch: Streaming on Hulu

M. Night Shyamalan rapidly became a twist happy punchline but it is impossible to overstate the heater the director was on from 1999-2002 with the trio of classics The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs. For my money this is the best of the bunch. The film was marketed as a supernatural thriller like Shyamalan’s other fare but it is really more of a slow burn character study that also happens to be one of the finest superhero films ever made. Released just 4 months after Fox’s X-Men tested the waters for big budget superhero films after the debacle of 1997’s Batman and Robin soured Hollywood’s taste on them for a stretch, Unbreakable does an origin story better than anything Marvel or DC have dropped during their current boom. It even sounds grander than most with a score by James Newton Howard who would later join forces with Hans Zimmer to produce the much lauded music for The Dark Knight. Just don’t expect any giant blue beams of light shooting into the sky or fate of the world battles. This is quieter grounded fare where it’s not really affirmed until late in the film whether the hero actually even has powers or not.

The shot selection and camera work in this movie rules. Long takes abound and you can see why during this three film stretch Shyamalan was getting some overblown future Spielberg/Hitchcock hype. It is not exactly subtle to use all sorts of reflective surfaces for shots of a character called Mr. Glass but I will still eat that shit up every time. I recreated the Rocky IV mirror shot (2:00 mark of the link) for a short I made in college and I felt not unlike a god so I can’t imagine some of the technical work that went into staging these sequences. It’s not quite Contact mirror scene mind pretzeling but it takes a lot of chutzpah to move the camera back and forth from a giant dressing room mirror or stage a whole scene in the reflection of an old rounded tube tv screen.

Reuniting with Shyamalan after the runaway success of The Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis gives his best dramatic performance. As a broken man in a failing marriage Willis displays a sadness and vulnerability that is in great contrast to his typical smug action movie persona. After giving up a football career due to a car crash, his character, David Dunn hasn’t really found a purpose. He is aloof with his college sweetheart wife (Robin Wright, always solid) and struggling to connect with his son Joseph. He works a dead end job as stadium security. His body may prove to be unbreakable but his spirit seems to have withered long ago.

Not to be outdone by his Pulp Fiction co-star, Samuel L. Jackson absolutely cooks as Elijah Price, aka Mr. Glass. Cursed with a severe brittle bone disorder, comic fanatic Elijah is fascinated with the possibility of finding his opposite, an indestructible man. Rarely has Jackson ever looked cooler than when he’s rocking a Frederick Douglas wig, a purple lined leather jacket, and a solid glass cane.

While Shyamalan isn’t in full blown thriller mode, he does still provide some great spine tingles. The scene where Joseph points a loaded gun at his father in an effort to prove his invulnerability might be the tensest moment in his entire filmography.

Stakes are lower but the drama is higher than most superhero third acts where the CGI is usually kicked into hyperdrive. David is not tasked with saving the world. Instead he is just attempting to save a kidnapped family from a deranged home invader. It culminates in a one shot final confrontation with no showy fight choreography. David didn’t learn martial arts. He just found out he’s very strong and nigh indestructible so he fights accordingly. He even gets a great practical costume in the form of his security poncho. It would not be peak Shyamalan without a great twist ending that follows revealing an archnemesis to square off against our hero.

Shyamalan would revisit these characters first with a surprise cameo that dropped my jaw at the end of his campy multiple personality horror film Split and then in the abysmal trilogy concluding Glass. The third film’s execution was likely impacted by Bruce Willis’s recent aphasia diagnosis but that’s still no excuse for Shyamalan *spoiler alert for a 3 year old movie that sucked* literally drowning one of his best characters in a puddle. Luckily we will still always have the magic of “How much did you put on there?”

Honorable Mentions: Snatch, Memento, O Brother Where Art Thou?

2001: The Royal Tenenbaums

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%

Where to Watch: Streaming on Hulu

Wes Anderson is arguably the most distinct auteur working in film today. His 10 theatrical films form one of the strongest filmographies ever assembled in the humble opinion of someone that recently found his weakest film Darjeeling Limited to be pretty good actually. He also made the best credit card commercial of all time.

Anderson’s first film Bottle Rocket is a quirky little heist comedy brimming with potential. His confident second feature Rushmore, delivered him a Hollywood cosign with Bill Murray’s involvement and a Coppola in the lead. With Tenenbaums, his 3rd picture, Wes Anderson’s aesthetic and vibe crystallizes into its platonic ideal. Meticulous attention to oddball background details, tracking shots as characters move through intricate diorama like sets, a sprawling ensemble cast of eccentrics, whip pans, futura font text, eclectic mood setting song selections, characters speaking directly to camera centered up in symmetrical framing, a place out of time costume and production design, and even the Alec Baldwin narration that SNL would latch onto for their Anderson parody trailer, it’s all here. Tenenbaums is the hilarious and whimsical yet deeply melancholic movie Anderson’s subsequent films have all strived to be. It consequently served as the perfect introduction to Anderson’s work for me after my dad checked it out from the local library and raved for weeks.

The cast is loaded with talent like Bill Murray, Owen Wilson (who co-wrote the script), Luke Wilson, Anjelica Houston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, and Danny Glover yet the movie is absolutely walked away with by one performer. That actor is the immortal Gene Hackman. A winner of 2 Academy Awards and 5 time nominee, Hackman has many iconic roles: NYPD detective Popeye Doyle in The French Connection, Lex Luthor in the Christopher Reeve Superman series, corrupt sheriff Bill Dagget in Unforgiven, Coach Norman Dale in Hoosiers, and the guy who yells at Denzel a lot in Crimson Tide. Even with all those great performances considered, his turn as ne’er-do-well Tenenbaum family patriarch Royal, is the role I will forever most associate him with.

Hackman, one of our finest living actors, gives a truly peerless performance as a grade A scuzzball. His portrayal of Royal Tenenbaum is “ain’t I a stinker” personified. It’s a testament to the charm and magnetism of a true movie star that he and Anderson can walk a very thin tight rope to create sympathy for such a loathsome but ultimately pathetic figure. An absolute rapscallion, it’s very apparent why Royal is someone his assistant Pagoda would have stabbed with a shiv yet also carried on his back to the hospital following said assault. He is a man so narcissistic he fathered three wildly successful child prodigies yet he could not care in the slightest about anything they did unless he could bet on it or embezzle the profits. Royal is a compulsive liar. He goes so far as to fake terminal cancer in a desperate effort to weasel his way back into the good graces of his ex-wife and long estranged children. He is not even especially committed to keeping up the ruse openly eating cheeseburgers and smoking in his makeshift hospital bed. Initially he still doesn’t seem particularly interested in his adult children. He is mostly just jealous about his ex wife’s recent engagement. Or is he just trying to find convenient lodging after being booted from the ritzy hotel he resided in for 22 years? It’s not entirely clear Royal even knows his true motivations.

In a last ditch effort to remain in the Tenenbaum home, Royal pleads, “The last 6 days have been the best 6 days of probably my whole life.” Right away Baldwin’s narrator hops in with one of the great lines in Anderson’s oeuvre, “Immediately after making this statement, Royal realized it was true.” This man has been spewing bullshit for so long he’s rattled to find one of his tossed off exaggerations actually contains genuine sentiment. Hackman sells that realization wholeheartedly as he pauses and his eyes sullenly wander before he exits the frame.

Late in the film Hackman conjures a genuine sadness when a stonewalled Royal asks his adopted daughter Margot, “Can’t somebody be a shit their whole life and try and repair the damage?” While that may be possible, Royal doesn’t really take any efforts to make amends. When pressed for why his son Chas should forgive him the best he can muster is “Because you’re hurting me.” His moral compass seems to operate not unlike a toddler’s. Royal doesn’t so much feel bad about what he’s done as much as he’s upset that people don’t seem to like him anymore. Yet Hackman and the script sneak in just enough glimmers of self awareness that you think maybe he could be a better man. He assures his distraught ex that she shouldn’t blame herself for her messed up children stating “I’m the one that failed them.” Of course he then swiftly pivots to “Or anyway, it’s nobody’s fault.”

Odious as it may seem, sometimes it is fun to spend some time with a person untethered from the societal mores dictated by even the most basic level of emotional intelligence. This is most apparent in the afternoon of anarchy Royal partakes in with his grandsons set to Paul Simon’s classic bop “Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard.”

That looks like the most fun day anyone has ever had. Don’t even get me started on the unmatchable enticement of his earlier inquiry, “What do you say we go down to Little Tokyo and get some fireworks?” In these moments of unbridled coolness you can see why his children were so desperate for his approval and how the lack of it broke each in unique ways.

Just 3 years after the release of the film Hackman would retire from acting. This masterclass where he is “Having a ball. Scrapping and yelling and mixing it up. Loving every minute with this damn crew” would have been a fitting final role. Thanks a lot Ray Romano.

Honorable Mentions: Monsters, Inc., Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Pledge

2002: Punch Drunk Love

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 79%

Where to Watch: Streaming on something called Tubi and you didn’t hear it from me but someone uploaded a 720p rip of the entire movie to Youtube

At the turn of the century Adam Sandler was critically written off as putting in minimum effort in the most formulaic of studio comedies. As a 9 year old card carrying member of the Mr. Deeds fan club I can’t say I agreed with this sentiment. Even now having sat through multiple trips to the Grown Ups cinematic universe, I can’t really blame Sandler for settling into pumping out largely interchangeable broad claptrap when it proved to be a perpetual money printing machine. Luckily with Punch Drunk Love his most vocal detractors were momentarily silenced and a brief window into more artistically fruitful possibilities was opened.

Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson had already received two Best Screenplay Oscar nominations for Boogie Nights and Magnolia when inspired by his love of Big Daddy he decided to team up with Sandler to brilliantly subvert the latter’s angry man child film persona. Anderson wrote the role of a sad sack novelty plunger salesman Barry Egan specifically for Sandler. Punch Drunk Love is bandied about as Sandler’s first foray into dramatic acting but it plays right to his strengths by really being more of an off kilter romantic comedy.

Here once again, Sandler plays an emotionally stunted character with anger management problems but placed in a realer, darker but no less zany world. He has 7 verbally abusive sisters that are constantly calling him and meddling in his affairs. Barry is just an absolute ball of anxiety. Sandler's portrayal depicts him as deeply uncomfortable in his own skin, constantly twitching, breathing heavily, inarticulately mumbling and glistening with flop sweat. Barry tells strings of obvious white lies out of misplaced shame to ever admit even the mildest of embarrassing truths. The best of which is telling his sister he can’t meet her coworker because he has to renew his gym membership. He frequently uses a tactic I myself often deploy when asked a question I do not wish to respond to by acting like he didn’t hear it and saying “what’s that?” as he stalls for time in fruitless hope the asker will move on.

There is a profound helplessness to Barry best expressed when he misguidedly seeks advice from his brother in law and quietly confides “I don’t know if anything’s wrong because I don’t know how other people are.” Barry deeply represses his emotions before exploding in some startling bouts of rage. These uncontrollable outbursts of violence that Sandler played for laughs in films like The Waterboy become a jarring and uncomfortable watch in a world where they read more directly as response to profound psychological trauma.

After the film’s meet cute, Barry nervously hides behind the wall of his nondescript warehouse hyperventilating before mustering up the courage to slink around the corner to sneak another peek at Emily Watson. Sandler repeats Barry’s stupid “and bye bye” line with increasing derision after offering his date a good night handshake and meek kiss on the cheek. Sandler keeps his eyes down while talking during a dinner date scene. He starts to lighten up as Watson laughs at his story but instantly tenses up when an anecdote from Barry’s sister is mentioned.

The unconventional percussion heavy score by Jon Brion ratchets the anxiety up even further. There’s no real rhythm to its sounds making everything seem off beat and random. There are moments where its cacophony of sound almost overpowers the dialogue leaving viewers in the same stressed out mindset as Barry. The sound of Sandler’s sisters all talking over each other at a family birthday has a similar blood pressure raising effect. Anderson shoots the film with lots of blown out bright lighting and lens flares as if Barry is constantly under interrogation. Safe to assume the Safdie Brothers drew a lot from this film while plotting out Sandler’s equally acclaimed high wire performance in Uncut Gems.

In addition to dealing with his crippling anxiety, Barry leads a profoundly lonely existence. One night Barry musters up the courage to call a sex line and keeps diverting the conversation back to small talk. When that phone sex line operator misappropriates his personal information, a spiral of chaos ensues. It also unleashes my favorite Phillip Seymour Hoffman performance. Just watch this phone call:

There are a couple moments in the film that hint at its version of an attractive woman inextricably in love with a Sandler character, Lena, being just as deranged as Barry, especially during their highly unconventional pillow talk. The film argues that love has the power to make cracked and broken people feel whole. As Barry states in a climactic confrontation, he has “a love in my life that makes me stronger than anything you can imagine.” Also need to quickly note that in that same confrontation Barry tells his adversary “tell me that’s that before I beat the hell from you,” which is one of the hardest lines this side of a John Wick movie. Once Barry makes the leap for love, Shelley Duvall’s rendition of “He Needs Me” from Popeye takes over the no longer chaotic soundscape of the film. Having Lena in his life gives a whole new confidence to Barry. Likewise, the critical praise around this performance sparked some additional artistic ambition that Sandler is becoming increasingly willing to tap into.

While the film did not perform commercially anywhere near the realm of his typical movies, it shifted the narrative around Sandler in circles of critics and expanded what roles he would be approached for when he isn’t busy keeping Kevin James employed. He has since worked with acclaimed directors Noah Baumbach and James L. Brooks. He got to be in the patented 2.5 hr long dramedy directed by his old roommate Judd Apatow. He just starred in a well received sports drama Hustle where he was almost as good as Anthony Edwards. The Safdie Brothers are reportedly cooking something up for another go round with Sandler after the universal acclaim for Uncut Gems. When he has restocked the war chest enough to keep Rob Schneider housed and Hooters waitresses responding to DM’s from David Spade, the Sandman is willing to take some swings.

Honorable Mentions: Spiderman, Lilo and Stitch, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Adaptation

2003: School Of Rock

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

Where to Watch: Available for Rental

This is the first movie on this list that I distinctly remember seeing in theaters. I was very excited to see it because my 5th grade teacher, who I respected greatly since he frequently rewarded displays of knowledge with cold delicious cans of Mountain Dew, had been hyping it up all week. To say it exceeded my sky high expectations would be a libelous understatement. Maybe it was because I was the exact same age as the kids depicted in the movie. Maybe it was because I’d never before experienced the true powers of rock but this movie just clicked for me like few films have before or since. Simply put, it was a revelation.

I truly don’t know how Sean Penn sleeps at night knowing he stole Best Actor at the 76th Academy Awards from its rightful holder, Jack Black. Yeah, yeah we get it, Mr. Penn really wanted to know if that was his dead daughter in there, but did he ever service society by rocking? Could he even hit the ahhhheeeeeahhhh of “The Immigrant Song?” I doubt it. Black, has never shone brighter in a role tailormade to maximize his abundant charms and abilities. At the time I think I’d only previously ever seen Black in The Neverending Story 3: Escape From Fantasia as the leader of The Nasties though I certainly did not recognize him. I left my screening with a firm understanding that the man was the very living embodiment of both comedy and rock and roll. The physicality, the go for broke enthusiasm that courses through his performance, it can’t be ignored. I must have strained every muscle in my face trying to waggle my eyebrows in a left to right wave the way Black does so effortlessly with intrigue upon viewing his student’s first music class. You would have to be made of stone to not burst into a huge goofy grin at the sight of some of the faces he makes while playing riffs or screeching out some powerful vocals. The man was a god to me. There is an infectious joy and passion on display in nearly every frame featuring Black bopping around without abandon. It put me in stitches every time a man of his build executed one of his disarmingly smooth high kicks. There is a palpable excitement on screen when he runs skipping out of the school when the clock strikes 3pm or when he gleefully hauls the instruments up to his classroom. I was so utterly assured of Black’s comedic powers I would eagerly await 2004’s Shark Tale to supreme disappointment.

I can’t quite articulate why, but it somehow makes everything even more uproarious that Black is legitimately a great singer and musician. He was robbed of an Oscar a second time when Best Original Song did not go to his acapella performance of “In the End of Time (The Legend of the Rent)” which he co-wrote with Oingo Boingo guitarist Warren Fitzgerald.

It’s puzzling that “Into the West” from Lord of the Rings won instead. I certainly don’t sing that song to myself on the first of every month when the rent comes due. Lawrence’s finger pointing keyboard solo alone should have earned the climactic Battle of the Bands tune “The School of Rock” a nomination as well.

Most kid movies tend to focus on a battle between children and the mean ole grown ups so it’s refreshing how much of this movie is spent on Black getting these uptight private schoolers to loosen up a bit and believe in themselves.

This scene is 100x more inspiring than any of that hokey “Oh captain, my captain” junk in Dead Poet’s Society.

As evidenced by the previously discussed Dazed and Confused soundtrack, director Richard Linklater knows his classic rock. He curated a perfect soundtrack for this film that pivoted me away from my stack of “Now That’s What I Call Music” CD’s (except for Vol. 4 which as we all know includes the unstoppable 1-2 punch of both “All The Small Things” and “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” and got me deep into exploring the local classic rock station’s array of The Doors and Led Zeppelin. I remember shortly after going to The Electric Fetus record store with my family on a Saturday afternoon and snatching up The Who: The Ultimate Collection double disc compilation and Ramones: Greatest Hits. So profoundly altered were my musical tastes that the first concert I ever attended was AC/DC on the Black Ice Tour with my dad and we did not hear for at least 3 days afterwards. I would replicate this cochlear damage at a Metallica show in 2016.

You’ll be hearing from my otolaryngologist Mr. Black.

Honorable Mentions: Finding Nemo, Elf, Bad Santa, Big Fish

2004: Napoleon Dynamite

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 72%

Where to Watch: Streaming on HBOMax

The chokehold this quaint low budget independent film had on American pop culture for a solid couple years will likely never be replicated. The cultural cache to budget ratio has never been higher. A $400k production budget made $46.1 million in 2004 dollars at the box office and became even more ubiquitous once it hit the DVD and rental market where impressionable youths could watch it over and over and wonder why they didn’t think of keeping tater tots in their pockets. The Paramount merchandise department had “Vote For Pedro” shirts flying off the Kohl’s rack at prodigious rates. While at 11 I may have argued that the one guy from The Drew Carey Show (Deidrich Bader) was in fact a big star, the runaway success seems unfathomable with a cast where Lizzie McGuire’s sister was the biggest name on the call sheet.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why the film connected with the American populace but somehow its incredibly idiosyncratic humor struck a nerve. I think a lot of it had to do with how different it was from every other comedy at the time. Often playing as a series of random vignettes rather than anything resembling a cohesive narrative, Napoleon was the peak of awkward deadpan humor. No one is mugging or overtly selling any of the jokes like the rubber faced studio comedy stars of the time yet the lines end up being endlessly quotable. The film’s non sequitur nature also lent itself well to a junior high demographic where the height of humor was largely just regurgitating random movie lines or Dane Cook punchlines. Much of the dialogue itself captures that very inarticulate and disconnected way teens often talk. Prayers up to every high school guidance counselor who for the next 5 years undoubtedly heard countless refrains of “Your mom goes to college.” Rex Kwan Do. Uncle Rico and his bright orange van. “Tina you fat lard, come get some dinner.” The Happy Hands Club. The John Swihart elevator muzak inspired score. LaFawnduh. It is all burned into the collective consciousness of my generation.

With the titular character, writer/director Jared Hess, co-writer Jerusha Hess and actor Jon Heder created the quintessential geek: blonde ‘fro, thrift store t-shirt tucked into beltless pants, moon boots, huge glasses over dead barely even half opened eyes, mouth breathing out of an expressionless face, and running with minimal arm movement. Napoleon spends much of his days playing tetherball by himself or doodling fantastical creatures like ligers with no real discernible artistic skill. He tells and doubles down on absurd lies like spending his summers hunting wolverines or being courted by one of the school’s many gangs for his bow staff skills. Outside of a Kanye West sampled figure skating comedy, Jon Heder didn’t really have much of a career after his audacious starring debut. In a way, it is a testament to his pitch perfect performance that he fell victim to the same fate that sometimes befalls stars of long running television series or juggernaut franchises where the public so closely associated him with the one character that it simply would not accept him elsewhere.

Speaking of pitch perfect, the final stretch of this movie is just about my favorite 7-8 minutes in any film. First up you have Napoleon’s iconic dance sequence.

Youtube launched early in 2005 and without looking it up I have to assume the genesis of its creation was America’s insatiable thirst for watching Jon Heder’s immaculate dance moves over and over again. Much to the dismay of cool girl Summer’s boyfriend with gigantic teeth, the crowd goes absolutely wild. What follows is a wordless montage of triumphs for our lead characters set to Patrick Street’s cover of the uplifting instrumental “Music for a Found Harmonium.” (As an aside, Adam Sandler literally finds a harmonium in Punch Drunk Love. I don’t know what to make of the wild coincidence that finding this obscure instrument plays a part in two of my favorite movies from this decade. It makes no damn sense. Compels me though.) Napoleon’s perpetual flat expression even stretches ever so slightly into a grin as he watches his brother Kip and the newfound love of his love board a bus out of town. Next comes the biggest triumph of all, Napoleon finally gets an opponent for a tetherball as 80’s banger “The Promise” fades in over the soundtrack.

I’m probably giving too much credit to a movie where spoonfuls of an unidentifiable casserole are flung at a llama to eat, but beyond the entertaining absurdity of Heder’s slick gyrations, there is a life affirming poignancy to these moments. There is a potential for greatness within each of us. If given the opportunity and possessing the bravery to seize it, even the biggest losers in life can score a win. For that one magic shining moment, anyone could be the coolest person in the world. It’s a message of hope to anyone that’s ever found themselves feeling like an outcast or weirdo.

Honorable Mentions: Anchorman, Dodgeball, The Aviator, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, Miracle

2005: Batman Begins

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

Where to Watch: Streaming on Hulu and HBOMax

I have always loved superheroes. As a child, I whiled away the hours on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons consuming all the animated series. I read the comics and any loosely licensed picture books the library may acquire. I had a bank sack full of DC character trading cards. I jammed the b button to beat down the terrifying looking clowns on Batman Returns for Super Nintendo. I saw all the movies, from the classic Christopher Reeves Superman series down to the tax write off direct to video 1990 Captain America. In fact, I have distinct recollections of repeatedly asking my mother to no avail during various outings if we were finally going to go see Shaq’s superhero movie Steel.

Among all the capes and cowls, Batman always stood out as my guy. This was a man with no actual super powers yet he was out there giving formidable villains the business on a nightly basis. It made him a more relatable fantasy. Could I be bitten by a radioactive spider? Blasted by gamma radiation? Probably not with the stringent OSHA regulations put in place at modern laboratories. But could I punch mentally ill and/or disfigured bank robbers dressed in various gimmicky halloween costumes? With a good enough workout regiment and health care plan, it seemed feasible.

I vividly remember seeing Batman and Robin in theaters with my family back in 1997 and being blown away. Arnold is a cool glow in the dark Mr. Freeze. Robin has a bitchin motorcycle. There are all sorts of additional goofy toyetic accessories like full blown ice skates in the opening set piece. I loved it. I had to have the light up batmobile and a vaguely George Clooney looking action figure. Critics and the general public did not agree with 4 year old me though and a planned sequel was quickly scrapped. The franchise lay dormant for 8 years while Warner Brothers plotted their next move with their rubber suited cash cow.

2005 was a transitory period in superhero movies before the big boom started in earnest with 2008’s Iron Man and Batman Begins triumphant sequel The Dark Knight. The success of the first two entries in both Fox’s X-men series and Sam Raimi’s Spider-man films showed there was a healthy box office appetite for heroes but studios were still just kind of throwing whatever intellectual properties they owned at the wall and seeing what would stick. This led to a lot of movies like this same year’s Fantastic Four where they just toss a bunch of crappy CGI people flying around on screen and hope enough kids will drag their parents to see it and snatch up the hastily made tie in merchandise.

Director Christopher Nolan, coming off his “prove it” major studio debut Insomnia, threads the needle of taking this comic shit seriously without falling into the outward embarrassment of the often kid targeted source material that led to X-men running around in nondescript leather jumpsuits rather than anything remotely resembling their animated counterparts. Begins tells a gritty and grounded origin story with as much if not more focus on Bruce Wayne than Batman, while not depriving us of the goofy comic book stuff like international ninja terrorists, stolen microwave emitters turning a city’s water supply into fear gas, or a supervillain with a stitched up potato sack on his head. This makes it the perfect movie for a 12 year old who wants to act like they are mature and above silly kid shit but would still like to see a man in a rubber suit dispense some justice.

The best illustration of Nolan having his cake and eating it too is the tumbler.

Previous cinematic batmen were out fighting crime in elongated vehicles with the turning radius of a school bus. Nolan and his team of production designers create a far more practical but just as ridiculous and cool batmobile which is essentially a repurposed tank with a jet engine. They built four of these with varying degrees of functionality and actually drove them on the streets of Chicago.

Taking this stuff seriously also meant building a serious cast of acting heavyweights. Christian Bale, then still relatively unknown, had been doing great work in Hollywood for almost 20 years after starring in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun at 13 years old. This role allowed him to tap into both the action skills he honed for the incredibly stupid “gun kata” fighting from Equilibrium as well as the slick rich guy persona from American Psycho. Nolan and company also snagged Liam Neeson, who 15 years prior starred in his own superhero film, Sam Raimi’s bonkers Darkman, for a key mentor role. Thankfully this was shot prior to Taken putting him in perpetual grumbly old guy check cashing action movie mode. In addition to Bale and Neeson, having 3 Academy Award winning actors Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman in the supporting cast adds a legitimacy and gravitas not previously seen much in superhero fare. Even small parts were given over to powerhouse character actors Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkson and Rutger Hauer.

This film’s final moments set the stage for The Dark Knight, which took Nolan’s grounded superhero fare to its pinnacle by reimaging Heat with the caped crusader and a lunatic in clown makeup stepping in for Pacino and De Niro. The success of the Nolan directed Batman trilogy would lead Warner Bros. to misguidedly conflate dark with grounded to the point that Pa Kent was out here telling Superman maybe he should have let a school bus full of children drown. After understandable critical and financial failures with that approach, James Gunn whose previous projects have shown a deep reverence for comic book storytelling yet understood their inherent goofiness has been brought in to course correct as a co-CEO of DC films. He would do well to look back at how this film’s deft touch previously put DC back on the map.

Honorable Mentions: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, A History of Violence, Brick, The Pacifier

2006: Nacho Libre

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 40%

Where To Watch: Streaming on Showtime

Before Nacho Libre was one of my favorite movies it was one of my most anticipated. Despite the indignity of sitting through Shark Tale, a loss I chalked up to Will Smith who had burned me before with Men in Black II, I still insatiably craved some Jack Black hijinx. This time Black would not only be working once again with Mike White, the writer of School of Rock (See 2003's entry) and more recently the creator of The White Lotus, but also teaming up with the director and writers of Napoleon Dynamite (See 2004). I already had an affinity for Lucha Libre from years of watching ¡Mucha Lucha! on Kids’ WB. Throw in the always cool Beck contributing to the score and soundtrack and you had a release date I counted down for months.

Like School of Rock before it, Nacho Libre understands with crystal clarity that peak Jack Black is an absolute force of nature and you need to let the man cook. For his role, Black got a perm in his long locks and grew out an absurd mustache. Just the sight of his surprisingly sprightly bowling ball body leaping around in tight spandex pants hiked over his prodigious belly is a better gag than most comedy writers could ever dream up. Black also gets to once again show off his always disarmingly impressive pipes to sing multiple seemingly improvised songs.

You take that boisterous physical slapstick humor and pair it with the Hess signature awkward deadpan humor, toss in some blatantly Wes Anderson aping shot framing, and baby, you got a stew going.

The sheer commitment on display by everyone involved is what really fascinates me. Following the runaway success of Napoleon Dynamite Jared Hess and his wife/writing partner Jerusha had a veritable blank check to make any film they wanted and they chose to loosely adapt the true tale of a Mexican priest who took to Lucha Libre wrestling to help financially support his orphanage. Filming in Oaxaca, Mexico with an almost entirely Mexican cast and crew lends the proceedings a surreal authenticity you wouldn’t expect from a Nickelodeon film production. The sunbaked cinematography of Xavier Grobet captures the palpable heat and misery of the rundown dusty stone orphanage. The movie also really leans into the long history of gonzo silliness within Lucha Libre complete with a tag team of demonic dwarfs, elaborate in ring costumes and masks that never come off the wrestlers, not even for fancy dinner parties. For supreme verisimilitude during the in ring action the production even brought in several real life luchadors including casting the legendary Silver King to play the film’s heavy Ramses.

With that commitment comes a sincerity that gives the incredibly silly film a surprising amount of heart. Over the course of the proceedings the audience is made to genuinely root for the man of faith Ignacio to succeed in his mission to improve the lives of these destitute looking orphans (the sunken eyes of Disney Channel mainstay Moisés Arias have never better been deployed). You feel a true bond between Black and the portly orphan boy Chanco that idolizes him and guards his secret double life in the ring. There’s a real pathos present that gives me honest to god chills when Black flies through the air to a reprisal of Mr. Loco’s folk rock gem of a theme song “Religious Man” to take down his belittling opponent in the climactic match. Not too shabby for a film that earlier has a character declare he has been suffering from bean induced “diarrhea since Easters.”

Honorable Mentions: The Departed, Borat, The Prestige, Crank

2007: Hot Rod

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 39%

Where to Watch: Available for Rental

Without exaggeration, 2007 is one of the best years in the history of film. In No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood and Zodiac you have 3 films that in a truly just world, would win Best Picture any year they were released. Hell, throw Michael Clayton in that same conversation as it’s one of the best written films of all time. Alongside those titanic dramatic achievements, 2007 is also the year Judd Apatow supremacy solidifies with the runaway successes of his second directorial feature Knocked Up and his executive produced Superbad. For good measure the year’s release slate also included a pair of iconic parody films in the form Hot Fuzz and Walk Hard whose cinematic accomplishments would stand tall amongst the very genres they skewer. And yet, the 2007 film that most consistently reverberates through the recesses of my mind is The Lonely Island’s magnum opus Hot Rod.

Along with other luminaries like the Whitest Kids You Know, the Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Akiva Shaffer) helped define internet sketch comedy when online video sharing first became ubiquitous. Joining Saturday Night Live in 2005, just months after the advent of Youtube, the crew would create one of the first ever viral videos for the fledgling site with their digital short “Lazy Sunday.” In high school my friends and I devoured their latest videos and later listened to their 2009 rap album “Incredibad” an unconscionable number of times. The amount of times I watched the “Jizz In My Pants” music video in a computer lab was a truly staggering failure of my high school’s extensive web blockers. Because of their internet infamy, SNL producer Lorne Michaels was able to convince Paramount Pictures to hand them the keys to a stalled Will Ferrell project about a wannabe stuntman. With Akiva directing, Andy starring, Jorma in a supporting role and all three contributing extensive rewrites to the initial Pam Brady script, the boys were given a $25 million budget and sent up to Vancouver for the summer to bring their unique brand of humor to the masses.

The supporting cast recruited for this endeavor is loaded including early film appearances from the current kings of HBO comedy Danny McBride and Bill Hader as members of Rod’s stunt crew along with Wedding Crashers scene stealer Isla Fisher as the girl next door. Will Arnett coming off the unjust cancellation of Arrested Development plays one of the greatest unrepentant douches in the annals of film. The Academy Award winning Sissy Spacek enhances the proceedings by playing each scene as Rod’s mother entirely straight as if she were in a genuine coming of age family drama and not one in which the father passed away choking in a pie eating contest. Best of all may be Ian McShane as Rod’s grizzled stepfather Frank who in the deranged central conceit of the movie Rod must raise money to save via a costly heart transplant so he can then beat him senseless in order to finally earn Frank’s respect as a man.

The film bombed at the box office, opening at #9 and only bringing in $14.4 million over the entire course of its run, and with critics scoring a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet, for myself and like minded peers whose minds had been molded by virus riddled content acquired from Limewire and countless Rickroll videos, a new comedy classic had emerged. Hot Rod was a DVD that could kill 90 min at any high school basement gathering. It’s a movie you and your roommates could jump into at any scene you came across airing on Comedy Central on a Tuesday afternoon between classes. It delivered shorthand phrases like “cool beans” and “whiskey” with an over pronounced “h” to suss out if you were amongst like minded weirdos as “The Knights Who Say Ni” did for comedy dorks of yore.

A key factor in Hot Rod’s supreme rewatchability for an internet addled mind is that nearly every single scene functions independently as its own hilarious absurdist sketch: A near shot for shot recreation of Footloose’s melodramatic warehouse gymnastics scene that leads right into the brilliance of a Sideshow Bob steps on rakes style endless tumble; a city united in inspiring song turned into a looting mob; the stupid brilliance of Arnett’s repeated line readings on “babe wait.”

This rewatchability is only enhanced by the sublime little details you pick up upon subsequent viewings: The subtle sound of Rod’s dweeby brother Kevin repeatedly getting shoved into the side of a van offscreen while Rod and Denise talk; the soundtrack including nearly every single track of 80’s hair metal band Europe’s Final Countdown album except the album’s namesake, the only song by Europe that people actually know.

9 years later the Lonely Island would get another crack at a studio feature and produce the similarly sublime Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping. This time critics started to come around to the tune of a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes but the audience still was not to be found generating an even feebler $9.5 million box office purse. People are stupid.

Honorable Mentions: Superbad, No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Walk Hard

2008: Step Brothers

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 55%

Where to Watch: Streaming on Peacock, Airing Frequently on USA/TNT/TBS/TruTV

2008 was another very strong year for film. The Dark Knight was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, won 2, and changed the way comic book movies were talked about forever. Iron Man set a fun and exciting foundation for an unprecedented Marvel Cinematic Universe that is now 30 films deep. Wall-E was one of the crowning achievements for Pixar pulling off a near wordless opening half hour on the back of stunning state of the art animation. I could also take a principled stand to passionately encourage the half dozen of you reading to all view the criminally underseen pitch black hitman comedy In Bruges from the same team behind 2022’s incredible The Banshees of Inisherin. But at the end of the day, I have to go with my heart and instead give the nod to one of the most laugh out loud funny movies ever made.

My apologies to the studio accounting services that will now need to do some journal entries to move my $5.75 afternoon matinee ticket over from The X Files: I Want To Believe’s box office total upon this admission, but Step Brothers holds the distinct honor of being the last R rated movie I ever snuck into. Director Adam McKay takes the obsession of the Frat Pack led comedies of the era with stunted man children to its logical extreme by having John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell play, for all intents and purposes, literal 40 year old children. These aren’t your name brand men afraid of committed relationships who just want to slack off with their drinking buddies but learn to minutely mature. These are physical grown ups whose mom still cooks them chicken nuggets complete with their special sauce combination of ketchup and mayo and a glass of blue Powerade so they are fueled up to do activities.

From their facial expressions, mannerisms, posture, speech patterns and even the bouncy way that Reilly walks around, the overgrown childlike nature of these characters is captured perfectly by the two stars. McKay shoots the two boys' feet pitter pattering as they scamper down the staircase with childlike excitement to go do karate in the garage. The hyperventilating delivery of “I. Think. I’m. Gonna. Throw. Up.” by Reilly at the dinner table perfectly recreates a toddler-like meltdown and Ferrell’s intonation on “Hey, you don’t say that.” is set right on tattletale. Fittingly the humor is delightfully juvenile as well. The step brothers blow a job interview with one of the longest farts in cinema history.

Adam McKay and Will Ferrell worked together on Saturday Night Live from 1995-2001 which explains a lot of the sketch feel and appeal of their joint feature film ventures that began with 2004’s Anchorman. A Billy Joel cover band that strictly plays his 80’s doo-wop songs and gets increasingly hostile when Joel’s actually good songs are requested seems like something the duo would have pitched to Lorne Michaels a half dozen times.

The family acapella rendition of “Sweet Child of Mine” complete with the husband criticizing the wife’s flat performance before distractedly swerving into oncoming traffic during their own solo and the “Boats ‘N Hoes” music video have similar standalone capabilities.

After McKay caught lightning in a bottle with the shake and bake chemistry between Ferrell and Reilly in Talladega Nights I can hardly imagine there was much more than a loose outline in place before this followup was greenlit. Improvisation and riff heavy, the film is endlessly quotable; so much so that my 10th grade yearbook legitimately had a favorite Step Brothers quote section. “Why are you so sweaty?” “I was watching Cops” earned the distinction for me.

While previous McKay and Ferrell theatrical collabs were PG-13 affairs, Judd Apatow’s recent R-Rated comedy successes allowed the guardrails to come off. Thankfully the studio executives understood the pure magic of having the wholesome and sweet Mary Steenburgen drop a “What the fucking fuck?!” or John C. Reilly announcing “We’re here to fuck shit up.” as the start to a joint job interview was well worth the marginal dip in ticket sales to minors. Kathryn Hahn revels in the opportunity to work as broad and blue as her co-stars with some of the film’s most comically deranged moments like an extended Judy Gemstone-esque graphic monologue of what she’d like to do with Reilly after he punches her dickbag husband Derek (The leather jacket clad Derek is played by Adam Scott, whose delivery of “Dane Cook. Pay Per View. 20 minutes. Let’s go!” and bragging about blowing a 0.079 when pulled over on his way to Chad Michael Murray’s Christmas party make him an all time douchebag portrayal).

McKay would get progressively more preachy after smuggling in some occupy wall street talking points into 2010’s The Other Guys before finally flatlining with 2021’s laughless preaching to the choir “satire” Don’t Look Up. What he lost sight of, so brilliantly on display in Step Brothers, is that some of the funniest things in the world come simply out of utter and complete commitment to an incredibly dumb bit. The type of commitment that makes you willing to spend $10k on a set of prosthetic testicles to have Will Ferrell defiantly rub on John C. Reilly’s beloved drum set. That is the true power of cinema. If there is any overt messaging to be found in this film, it’s Richard Jenkins delivering the heartfelt encouragement to keep your inner child fulfilled and, “Don’t lose your dinosaur.” McKay would be wise to heed these words.

Honorable Mentions: In Bruges, The Dark Knight, The Wrestler, Iron Man

2009: Crank 2: High Voltage

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 65%

Where to Watch: Streaming on Something Called "Fubo"

Crank 2 holds the distinction of being the only film I have ever fired up and watched again immediately after finishing. My friends and I had been watching action movies all day in preparation for the heavily anticipated midnight premiere of The Expendables. We’d watched undead Vietnam veterans Dolph Lundgren (sporting a stylish necklace of human ears) and Jean Claude-Van Damme do battle in Universal Soldier. We’d seen a barefoot Bruce Willis walk across glass to machine gun down Eurotrash bank robbers in Die Hard. We gave a home computer all sorts of viruses trying to download a 480p version of Rambo: First Blood Part II with ever present Indonesian subtitles. But what we had just seen was an entirely different animal. The original Crank pushed the envelope with manic energy and over the top vulgarity. Crank 2 lights the envelope on fire and snorts the ashes along with god knows what mixture of illicit substances.

I surely don’t need to remind you all, but in Crank hitman Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) was given a deadly poison with no antidote. In order to survive long enough to enact vengeance Chelios must engage in all manner of illegal activity to keep his adrenaline constantly pumping. At the end of the film he falls hundreds of feet out of a helicopter onto the LA streets below. In acknowledgement of that fact, the tagline for the High Voltage poster reads “He was dead… but he got better.” This time Chelios’s implausibly still alive body is scooped off the streets by gang members who replace his heart with an artificial heart that he now needs to keep electrically charged in order to go on a second revenge rampage to retrieve his real one. The absurdity only escalates from there.

The entirety of this film produces that same steady drip of adrenaline laced dopamine you would get watching a forbidden television program like WWE Friday Night Smackdown with your finger hovering over the “last channel” button on the remote in case your parents enter the room. The script plays out as if a can of Monster energy drink gained sentience and a WGA card. Each scene is an endless series of moments where my adolescent brain said “I did not know you could do that.” From a shotgun enema to the bad guy dropping cigarette ash into Jason Statham’s open chest cavity to Chelios charging himself up for a 2 mile run with jumper cables to a strip club shootout complete with ruptured and leaking implants to a Godzilla inspired kaiju fight at a power plant to Chelios punting the still talking severed head of his nemesis into a swimming pool, it is a unhinged sensory overload at every turn.

At one point during a foot chase scene, a “9 Seconds Later” title card and corresponding time jump occurs because writing/directing duo Neveldine/Taylor are that committed to delivering the goods at all moments.

In line with the film’s cracked unabashedly offensive ethos, the decidedly caucasian David Carradine does his best to one up the racism of Mickey Rooney’s character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s portraying asian crime boss “Poon Dong.” There are ever present subtitles on Chinese actress Bai Ling who, as offensively exaggerated as her accent may be, is speaking English the entire movie. Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite plays the full body turrets afflicted identical twin brother of his dead character from the first film. Dwight Yoakam is back from the original as well, more or less just being standard greasy and gross Dwight Yoakam as a pill peddling doctor for the criminal underworld. The film has a parade of oddball cameos like a bleach blonde mulleted Corey Haim, “The Dean of Mean” UFC fighter Keith Jardine, Linkin Park’s lead singer Chester Bennington getting rubbed up on by Statham for some static electricity and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Glenn Howerton even briefly reprises his minor role from the first film.

Despite its low moral fiber, this film taught me a lot of valuable life lessons. Most importantly the film and really the entire career of writer/director duo Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine stands as a testament to the fact that if you can display an ability to turn a profit, potentially drug addled Hollywood producers will give you $20 million to run ramshod all over LA on rollerblades busting up consumer grade digital cameras for a full month filming the craziest ideas you can possibly come up with. In this way, the movie delivers the exact kind of “anything is possible” messaging that an impressionable adolescent should be receiving as they head out into the world to define themselves.

The aforementioned midnight premiere of The Expendables more or less delivered on the promise of gathering a bunch of action stars to have fist fights and blow some stuff up. At one point Stone Cold Steve Austin even actually broke Sylvester Stallone’s back. Walking out of the movie, jacked up as we may have been by the exploits of the largely AARP eligible mercenary team, an intrusive thought consumed the minds of my friends and I. A thought that in subsequent years would accompany a viewing of many rip roaring B-action pictures, “Sure it was fun, but it was no Crank 2.”

Honorable Mentions: Up, A Serious Man, I Love You Man, Observe and Report

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