The Best Movies of the 2000s

The headline says it all. The top choices are placed in order of preference, with their directors in parentheses. The runners-up are listed alphabetically. The list will be updated as I see more movies from the era. Get your Netflix queue ready and enjoy!!

2000:
You Can Count On Me (Kenneth Lonergan)
The House of Mirth (Terrence Davies)
Dancer in the Dark (Lars Von Trier)
George Washington (

Richard Sandler's Brave New York and Sway

New Yorkers, especially the seasoned ones, will be in for a bittersweet taste of the city's old way of doing things when Richard Sandler's artful documentaries Brave New York (2004, 56 minutes) and Sway (2006, 33 minutes) screen at the Sixth Street and Avenue B Community Garden on Friday, August 22nd, starting at 8:30 pm. Given Sandler's singular talent behind the camera, this is truly an event

Farewell, Black Moses: Isaac Hayes (1942-2008)

A few months ago, in my town of New York City, I wandered into the Caffe Reggio. I love that place. It's a beautiful little coffee grotto on well-traveled MacDougal Street, near Washington Square Park. It's always supremely relaxing for me to sit there in its low light and contemplate the taste of a black espresso while basking in the outside street scenes, the rich-toned woods, the antique

Paul Newman

There is no celebrity calamity in my recent time--and I am including Stanley Kubrick--that has affected me more deeply than learning of Paul Newman's recently announced, soon-to-be fatal bout with lung cancer. It's difficult to imagine a world without Hollywood's greatest humanitarian and actor, but I suppose it's a feat we're all going to have to achieve. Today, it was announced that soon we

My screenplay.

I'm lucky enough to have an incredibly kind friend who sent me a link to a great, simple, perfect screenwriting program (a description that doesn't do it justice) that's enabling me to get my thoughts down on paper as I have never been able to do before. I hate FINAL DRAFT, as it is clunky and unmanagable. But CELTX is the best. So, over the next few weeks, I'll be working on my long-gestating

!!!My 100th filmicability Post: Side Orders #5

Thought I'd celebrate by keeping my post brief. Here are some of my favorite scenes:The truly creepy, nightmare-causing dungeon elevator ride taken by Hans Conried, Peter Lind Hayes and Tommy Rettig (where can I get a beanie like that?) in Roy Rowland's adaptation of Dr. Seuss's The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. This is kind of a scary movie for kids, I think, but it's cool because of that. Imagine

Film #73: Used Cars

Years before his Forrest Gump became the cultural touchstone that it is, director Robert Zemeckis was assaulting movie audiences with a recognizable, hard-edged yet invariably slapstick form of comedy. His first film, I Wanna Hold Your Hand (soon to be reviewed here on filmicability) frantically followed a bunch of New Jersey Beatles lovers and haters as they travel to New York to see the Fab

Film #72: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Throughout the 1950s and 60s, director/producer Stanley Kramer was well-known for his more socially-conscious brand of moviemaking, signified by heady "important" films like Judgment at Nuremburg, The Defiant Ones, Inherit the Wind, On The Beach and The Caine Mutiny. However, in 1962, he was itching to do another movie with his favorite leading actor Spencer Tracy. But Tracy was fighting a long

Film #71: The Last Waltz

After a lifetime on tour and in the studios, The Band--Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson--decided to call it quits on Thanksgiving Day, 1976. But before they blew the scene, they staged one massive goodbye party at San Francisco's Winterland Theater...and Martin Scorsese--devoted fan and confidant of Robbie Robertson--was invited to film it all, lucky for

Film #70: Voices

This is a short review of a film I haven't seen in a long time, and would like to see on DVD as soon as possible. It's 1979's Voices, the only big-screen effort from television producer/director Robert Markowitz and TV writer John Herzfeld. Now that I think about it, given this pedigree, I suppose the film is a little tv-movie in quality--the visuals don't pop out at me much as strong memories.

Film #69: Streets of Fire

1984's schizophrenic sci-fi-tinged action musical from writer/director Walter Hill marked the beginning of the filmmaker's downward slide. Hill was once the heir to the Peckinpah throne, the action master of 80s classics like Southern Comfort, 48 HRS, and The Long Riders--and let's not forget his 70s classics like Alien (as producer and co-writer), The Warriors, Hickey and Boggs (as writer), and

Film #68: Saturday Night Fever

John Travolta created a huge stir in late 1977 with his Oscar-nominated role as Tony Manero, king of the Brooklyn dance floor, in Saturday Night Fever, the now-legendary hit directed by John Badham (WarGames). Manero (get it--MAN-ero?) is a hardware store worker who reconsiders his station in life when he meets Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney), a poorly name-dropping Manhattanite also striving for

Film #67: Duel in the Sun

Duel in the Sun, as shameless and vulgar as it certainly is, remains one of producer David O. Selznick’s most watchable post-Gone With The Wind motion pictures, even when one considers his infinitely more valuable productions like Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 40), Gaslight (George Cukor, 44) and Since You Went Away (John Cromwell, 44). The film also represents Selznick’s most blatant and