Mike’s Top Ten of 2004
2004. Quietly amazing year. I mean, yes, I’m partial to most of the years of the 2000s just because they were my teenage years and that’s when I was most impressionable. So I made the strongest connections to movies during these years. That said, there are some really awesome movies this year.
Part of the top ten list is a very consensus set of movies. But I guarantee there’s at least one almost no one’s heard of or would think to put on their list, one that is very specific to me that most people probably won’t agree with, and a third that I don’t think enough people get that most people wouldn’t have anywhere near their list. But that’s what makes my lists unique. You get my favorites, and not what everyone else would put.
Wouldn’t it be crazy, though, if my #1 movie was Welcome to Mooseport? Don’t laugh, I considered it. (more…)
Pic of the Day: “Leon, what exactly do you do for a living?” “Cleaner.” “You mean you’re a hit man?” “Yeah.” “Cool.” (25th Anniversary)
Mike’s Top Ten of 2003
Love me some 2003. This is the 2000s sweet spot for me, where I was really all in on movies and really understood everything I was watching, who was making them, and really felt fully aware for the first time.
This is an interesting list in that it’s got not one, not two, but three Christmas movies on it. It’s got one franchise that ends, one that begins, and part of a two-parter in it. It’s a very outlier kind of list. It’s hard enough to get a single Christmas movie, but three? In the same year? That’s nuts.
There’s also some really cool stuff in the lower tiers as well. A lot of hidden gems that I feel like not enough people go back to or never saw in the first place. It’s a good year. (more…)
Mike’s Top Ten of 2002
This is one of my favorite years of this decade. This is quite possibly my strongest top ten list of the 2000s. I’m not gonna go so far as the proclaim it the strongest year of the decade (that’s probably 2007), but I think this is arguably the strongest of the top ten lists. Every movie on it is great.
What’s great to me about it is that almost all of it (save one) is something I saw right as it came out and loved from the jump. I always appreciate those lists, because it means I’ve lived with the films more and have a certain closeness to them that I don’t necessarily have with something I only came to later on.
What’s also great about this list — here are the directors in the top ten: Spike Lee, Spike Jonze, Doug Liman, Steven Spielberg (twice), Martin Scorsese, Peter Jackson, Roman Polanski, Paul Thomas Anderson and Sam Mendes. Not bad company, right? That’s why I think this might be the strongest list of the decade. (more…)
Mike’s Top Ten of 2001
2001 is the turning point in my life when it comes to movies. It was the year I stopped regularly going to the movies and instead started branching out on my film education, and watching all those big early movies that every film person watches in the early days. It’s also the year I got into the Oscars in full. So for me, that stuff will always be the big takeaway from this year over any of the films.
Though I will say, there’s some great stuff that happened this year. What’s interesting to me is how the list is bisected between stuff I saw that year and loved immediately versus stuff I saw years later that became my favorites. What’s also interesting is that there are the starts of three franchises on this list, plus another that’s a kind of institution in its own right.
This is also one of the final years with what I call the ‘films of my childhood’, which is a lot of stuff that I remember very well from that age that defines my taste as a kid before I truly got into movies. So for that, I’ll always have an affinity for this year. (more…)
Mike’s Top Ten of 2000
2000 is probably the height of my pre-teen movie-going years. I would say that I was probably at a movie theater with my friends almost every single week that year. I can go back and look at the release calendar and go, “Saw that, saw that, saw that, saw that.” And anything I didn’t see in a theater, I probably saw from my family’s wonderful “hot box” (which, for those young folks reading this, is slang term for illegal cable hookup that got you all the Pay Per View channels. Which… for you young folks reading this, is basically what would become On Demand on cable, only there were like five Pay Per View movie channels and they all played the same movie on a loop every single day for a few weeks until a new movie showed up).
I saw so many things from this year at age 11/12 that I probably shouldn’t have. But because of that, there’s a lot of stuff that has since stuck with me and become some of my favorite movies because of it. I can’t really gauge just how strong or weak a year this is for cinema, because there’s that whole “I was in middle school and almost all of it is now permanently engrained in my head as being a great time” thing.
But there is not a single movie in this Top Ten that I don’t love, and there’s a lot great stuff below too. So I think this is one of the stronger years of this decade. (more…)
Pic of the Day: “I’m your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over!” “That’s the way Pop wanted it.” “It ain’t the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!” (45th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Does Big Brother even exist?” “Of course he exists.” “No, I mean… does he exist like you or me?” “You do not exist.” (35th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “I always get a great kick out of that part of the Declaration of Independence. You’re not gonna have a country where these kind of rules work, if you haven’t got men that have learned to tell human rights from a punch in the nose.” (80th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “That’s an endangered species at most. What would be the scientific purpose of killing it?” “Revenge.” (15th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Enough talk, Remus! C’mon, let’s kill him!” “Wait!” “I did my waiting! Twelve years of it! In Azkaban!” (15th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Hello Peter, what’s happening? Ummm, I’m gonna need you to go ahead come in tomorrow. So if you could be here around 9 that would be great, mmmk… oh oh! and I almost forgot ahh, I’m also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too, kay.” (20th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “I’m telling you, brother, it’s a frightful sight for what goes on Halloween night.” (70th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Your father and I were just discussing his day at work. Why don’t you tell our daughter about it, honey?” “Janie, today I quit my job. And then I told my boss to go fuck himself, and then I blackmailed him for almost sixty thousand dollars. Pass the asparagus.” (20th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Nate, if you’re thinking about winning this game, then you’re as crazy as he is.” “Well, maybe so. But you spend fourteen years in this tank, you begin to understand that you’ve only got two things left they can’t sweat out of you or beat out of you… Your balls. And you better hang onto them, because they’re about the only thing you’re gonna have when you get out of here.” (45th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Now, shut up! Shut up, all of you! Now listen to me, you hicks. Yeah, you’re hicks too, and they fooled you a thousand times like they fooled me. But this time, I’m going to fool somebody. I’m going to stay in this race. I’m on my own and I’m out for blood.” (70th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “You’re right, I’ve got a lot of problems… But they belong to me.” “You think they’re yours, but they’re not. Everybody that walks in that door becomes part of your problem. Anybody that comes in contact with you. I didn’t want to be part of your problem, but I am. I’m leaving my husband, and maybe I would have anyway, but the fact is, is, I’m doing it now, and part of it’s because of you. You’ve had an effect on my life.” (30th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: ♫ “Someday, I wish upon a star / And wake up where the clouds are far behind me / Where trouble melts like lemon drops / High above the chimney tops / That’s where you’ll find me / Somewhere over the rainbow / Bluebirds fly / Birds fly over the rainbow / Why, then oh why, can’t I?” ♫ (80th Anniversary)
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