Still More 00s Movies 1: 200-2003

I'll be adding to this as I go along.  Nice to be in the 2000s again by the way.  The 90s and all of its direct-to-VHS fare can be a slog.

1. The Cell (2000)

It's easy to dismiss this one as "The Matrix meets Silence of the Lambs," but the director put a lot of thought into the visuals and the story is both well-paced and absorbing.  

I miss this phase of Jennifer Lopez's career.  Around this time she was more focused on acting, and her music career, her modeling career, and her public image didn't factor so much into the equation.

Fun Fact: Matrix comparisons aside, a lot of this movie was inspired by 1984's Dreamscape.

2. Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

I was surprised by how much I liked this movie.  Texas-born Renee Zellweger (who I often confuse with Reese Witherspoon), should have won an Oscar playing the lead, but oh well, she won an Oscar years later for Judy so I guess it doesn't matter now.  Hugh Grant and Colin Firth (another Oscar-winner) play stereotypical roles as Bridget Jones's competing suitors, but they do a lot with the parts they're given.

Fun Fact: Colin Firth also played "Mr. Darcy" in a TV adaptation of Jane Austin's novel, years before Bridget Jones entered production.

3. The Opportunists (2000)*

Christopher Walken stars as a safecracker forced by circumstance into one more job.  It's very low budget but I never felt bored by it.  The scenes between Walken and costar Cyndi Lauper are the highlight of the film.

4. Lakeboat (2000)

Life aboard the Seaway Queen, a freighter plying the waters between the U.S. and Canada.  Lakeboat was adapted from a David Mamet play, it very much feels like a David Mamet play, and even though I'm not a big fan of either David Mamet or plays I still found myself charmed by Lakeboat.  Some of the dialogue is surprisingly funny and Robert Forster is great as a man adrift in more ways than one.

5. Princess of Thieves (2001)

Keira Knightley plays Robin Hood's daughter in this lower budget Disney TV movie that tried and failed to ride 1991's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' coattails.  It's not bad so much as extremely derivative.  I'm guessing much of the budget went toward costumes, props and horses.

This movie is very early in Knightley's career.  Many consider her breakout role to be 2002's Bend It Like Beckham, and aside from a few brief appearances Princess of Thieves was her third feature film.

6. Cor, Blimey! (2000)

An intermittent love affair develops between an older actor and a much younger actress in this British TV movie.  The events depicted in this film reflect a real-life relationship between Sid James and Barbara Windsor, two cast members from the Carry On series.  I found the accents a bit difficult, but the performances are good and its bawdy humor still resonates.

7. Get Carter (2000)

Sly Stallone stars as a Vegas tough guy back in town to solve the mystery of his estranged brother's murder.

It's an incredibly forgettable movie, and I wouldn't be surprised if I'd seen it before and somehow forgotten.  Stallone does his Stallone thing throughout, and while he's doing it you can't help but wonder "Why?" as the minutes tick by.

It's a remake of a 70s classic which featured Michael Caine, who also appears briefly in this updated version.  Just go watch the original -  it's miles better.

Fun Fact: Stallone is convinced, to this very day, that his version is better than the original.

8. The Animal (2001)

Rob Schneider gets animal powers and fights crime.  It's a movie that knows exactly what it is and who it's for.  In tone it's a few notches less manic than the Ace Ventura movies, though its relatively sedate pace is more a negative than a positive.  I didn't laugh, not even once, but at least it was over quickly.

A quarter of a century later a sequel is still in the works

9. Britannic (2000)

German saboteurs try (and possibly succeed) to sink a British hospital ship in this TV movie.  Bonus points for Jacqueline Bisset, but the dialogue is unconvincing and those responsible for the script don't seem to have understood the time period.

For the record my grandpa served in the Air Force during World War II, and yes, that was the subsequent world war, but still.  Espionage?  That wasn't a subject to be taken so lightly.

Fun Fact 1: Working this gig got the director his following job, helming Megiddo: The Omega Code 2.  That movie sounds so terrible I've GOT to see it.

Fun Fact 2: This film was largely an effort to cash in on Titanic's popularity.  The Britannic and the Titanic were sister ships.

10. Sacrifice (2000)

Michael Madsen stars as an escaped convict out to avenge his daughter's murder.  I have no idea what Madsen was like as a person, but as an actor he deserved better than this.  Then again, maybe it paid the bills between Quentin Tarantino movies.

R.I.P. Michael Madsen: he passed away last year.

11. The Right Temptation (2000)**

Rebecca DeMornay (or is it "DeHornay") stars with Dana Delaney (remember her?) and Kiefer Sutherland in this half-assed attempt at an erotic thriller.  Some of the dialogue in this one is TRULY cringeworthy, and worst of all are the flashbacks detailing DeMornay's troubled past.

Fun Fact: This movie was filmed in Utah!  I had no idea!

Related Entries:

Still More 90s Movies 5: Oscar Winners and Nominees

Some Other Movies From 2026

Still More 90s Movies 4: 1997-1999

Still More 90s Movies 3: 1995-1997

*Wikipedia lists 1999 as the release date.  It's a British-American production, so it's possible that it came out a year earlier or later in either country.

**Wikipedia lists 2001 as the release date.

"Trilobites & Other Stories" by Breece D'J Pancake (1992)

"I walk until I see a stumblebum cut into a passage between two buildings.  He has got his heat in him and he is squared away.  I stop to watch this jake-legger try to spread out his papers for a bed, but the breeze through the passage keeps stirring his papers around.  It's funny to watch this scum chase papers, his old pins about ready to fold under him.  The missions won't let him in because he is full of heat, so this jake-legger has to chase his papers tonight.  Pretty soon all that exercise will make him puke up his heat, and I stand and grin and wait for this to happen, but my grin slips when I see her standing in the doorway."

If you haven't heard of Breece D'J Pancake I'm not surprised.  He took his own life at the ripe old age of 26, and only lived long enough to see a few of his short stories published in magazines such as The Atlantic.  He was a product of West Virginia.

He was trying, I suppose, to be the voice of both his home state and the small town he came from.  His fiction hearkens back to the history and geography of that region, and his stories reveal a measured love for small town people living small, thwarted lives.  His stories are populated by men's men doomed to failure, and by cunning women doing whatever they can to escape loneliness,  poverty or both.  Over them all hangs the agricultural toil experienced by generations, and also a burning desire to either flee from or flee back into this same mode of existence.

Overall I liked this story collection, though there are times when the author strays a little too close to Faulkner territory.  Of course it's hard to be a Southern author and avoid that comparison, but I think that for the most part he manages to do so.

My favorite story was "First Day of Winter," which details the struggle of a poor farmer living with infirm parents.  This story was excellent, and the stories in this collection that aren't excellent were at least very good.

Related Entries:

"The Shining" by Stephen King (1977)

"Four Friends" by Robyn Carr (2024)

"The Secret" by Lee and Andrew Child (2023)

"Lies and Weddings" by Kevin Kwan (2024)

Still More 90s Movies 5: Oscar Winners and Nominees

This will be the last "Still More 90s Movies" entry.  For this entry I'll be delving into some of the Oscar winners from that decade.

By way of introduction I'm approaching this topic thusly: first, I'll be visiting the Wikipedia entry for every year listed below, and second, I'll be working my way down through the lists of Oscar winners until I find a) two movies I haven't seen before, and b) two movies also available on YouTube.  Yes, I could get movies through a variety of other legal and illegal methods, but these entries are intended for a more general audience, and some of the streaming services and torrents don't work as well in certain countries.

Besides all that I'm lazy.  Using VPNs, torrent clients and sites which force me to click off a thousand pop-ups is exhausting.

...oh, and one more thing -- since I'm basing this on the Academy Awards, be aware that all of the movies below came out the year before they won the award.

1990

1. Best Actress (Nominated): Pauline Collins: Shirley Valentine

The "middle-aged woman unsatisfied with her life thus far" movie is at this point a genre unto itself, but lead Pauline Collins, who played the same role in the stage production, pulls it off like nobody's business.  Shirley Valentine is a very charming, very funny movie with much to recommend it.

Director Lewis Gilbert, who helmed everything from Sink the Bismark! to Educating Rita, should be more widely known than he is.  My favorite of his movies is still, for all its ridiculousness, Moonraker, but Shirley Valentine also stands out in his long and accomplished filmography.

2. Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Nominated): Marlon Brando: A Dry White Season

An indisputably good movie, but in stylistic terms it feels like it belongs to the previous decade.

In A Dry White Season Donald Sutherland stars as a South African history teacher investigating his gardener's murder.  Most of the "action" in this film revolves around the securing of various documents, but it still manages to generate a fair amount of tension.

Sutherland's costar Marlon Brando is memorable as an attorney doomed to failure, but I think that Denzel Washington, who won Best Supporting Actor for Glory the same year, had much more claim to the award.  Brando was great in so many movies, but his role in this one is very abbreviated.

1991

1. Best Actor (Nominated): Richard Harris: The Field

Director Jim Sheridan is better known for his collaborations with Daniel Day-Lewis, but The Field, which follows his first movie My Left Foot, is still an impressive piece of work that should be better known.

To be fair it does meander a bit in the second half, but Richard Harris is outstanding as an Irish farmer with supposed blood rights to a local field.  Critics weren't kind to this movie, but I think they were too harsh.  It does feel a little too much like a play, but so do a lot of other movies, many of which have won Oscars.

2. Best Written Screenplay (Original Material) (Nominated): Whit Stillman: Metropolitan

A young man from the other side of the tracks befriends a group of Manhattan socialites.  The writer, director and producer of this film could have done with a bigger budget, but I appreciate the work he put into it.  The finished product is a triumph of resourcefulness.

1992

1. Best Documentary: In the Shadow of the Stars

I can't abide opera, but this documentary on the artform offers some interesting takes on what it means to be a singer in an opera chorus.  Did it change my mind about opera?  Not in the slightest, but I appreciate the work they put into what they do.

2. Best Documentary (Nominated): Death on the Job

An analysis of the three most hazardous professions, these being commercial fishing, construction (particularly tunneling) and anything in the petrochemical industry.  This documentary doesn't state much beyond the obvious, but the numbers and testimonials it puts behind its statements are well worth considering.

1993

1. Best Foreign Language Film (Nominated): Daens

A Belgian priest and social reformer tries (and largely fails) to assist textile workers in his parish.  As a historical account it rings true, but I don't think they managed to flesh out the priest as a character.  Making his personal struggles more central to the plot would have made this film much better.

2. Best Documentary: The Panama Deception

More American adventurism in Central and South America.  In this instance the U.S. props up the Noriega regime, which quickly grows to big for its britches.  The result is a highly staged intervention in that country's affairs, much of which is quite gruesome.

1994

1. Best Actress (Nominated): Debra Winger: Shadowlands

Anthony Hopkins stars as the celebrated Narnian C.S. Lewis, with Debra Winger as an American poet visiting the author.  In some ways this movie is almost too subtle for its own good, and I'm not surprised that Winger didn't win the Oscar.  She's great here, but more bombastic films and performances usually take the prize.

Slight Disappointment: I would have enjoyed a glancing shot of J.R.R. Tolkien at one of the Oxford functions.  He and Lewis were friends at the time.

2. Best Foreign Language Film (Nominated): Hedd Wyn

How many Welsh language movies have you seen?  In my case Hedd Wyn brings the grand total to one.

This movie is... OK.  I had trouble understanding what the big deal about the national poetry chair was, and also why it was of such overriding importance to the protagonist.  Absent that understanding I was left with yet another film in which our hero, wounded in battle, reflects back upon his life.  This life isn't in itself that interesting, and I think that the Academy made the right decision in passing over Hedd Wyn in favor of Belle Epoque, the Spanish nominee and winner from the same year.

1995

1. Best Foreign Language Film: Burnt by the Sun

Suicide, totalitarianism and paranoia in an idyllic Russian dacha.  This movie tested my patience early on (in particular the annoyingly precocious child), but its conclusion is satisfyingly weird.  Those able to wade through books like The Master and Margarita or The Gulag Archipelago will find a lot to like in Burnt by the Sun.

The two sequels to this movie were also very well received.  I'll watch them if I can track them down.

2. Best Documentary (Nominated): Freedom on My Mind

Notes from the civil rights struggle in Mississippi.  Many of the lessons (almost) learned from this chapter in U.S. history remain very, very relevant today, and learning more about the backgrounds of many participants adds another dimension to the events they took part in.

1996

1. Best Supporting Actress (Nominated): Mare Winningham: Georgia

Jennifer Jason Leigh.  She's one of those actors/actresses who chooses well.  If I see her name in the opening credits I know that the movie will be good, maybe even great.

Georgia I'd put in the "good" category.  Leigh played a similar role four years earlier in Rush, but there's enough of a difference between that role and her role in Georgia to overlook the similarities.  Mare Winningham is good as her older (and more famous) sibling, but in terms of story I couldn't quite figure out why people are so drawn to Leigh's character, and what kind of hold she has over them.

I think that Leigh taking the role showed a lot of courage, especially since her character is so often a source of embarrassment, but I would have liked more of this movie from the older sister's point of view.

2. Best Foreign Language Film: Antonia's Line

Several generations of women transform a Danish village.  Antonia's Line has been described as "a feminist film," and yeah, the men in this movie don't amount to much.  I enjoyed the first third of it, but found the second two thirds a little pretentious and hard to follow.  If you're familiar with films like Hospital of the Transfiguration or The Hotel New Hampshire you'll have a larger frame of reference for Antonia's Line.

1997

1. Best Foreign Language Film: Kolya (a.k.a. "Kolja")

An aging Czech bachelor looks after a Russian boy abandoned by his mother.  Unlike, Antonia's Line (above) this film isn't trying so hard to make a point, and instead offers a gripping story full of well thought-out characters.  Many of Kolya's reflections on the Russian presence in Czechoslovakia are also very funny.

I've seen a few Czech films in the course of writing these entries, and I'd have to say that Kolya is the best I've seen so far.

Fun Fact: 1984's Amadeus is, to some extent, a product of Czechoslovakia.  It was filmed there, much of the crew was Czech, and director Milos Forman immigrated from that country.

2. Best Documentary: When We Were Kings

An account of the "Rumble in the Jungle" bout between Ali and Foreman in Zaire.  I'd already been introduced to this event in 1974's Rumble in the Jungle, a much earlier BBC documentary.  In my opinion When We Were Kings adds little more than what was offered in Rumble in the Jungle.

1998

1. Best Director (Nominated): Atom Egoyan: The Sweet Hereafter

Ian Holm sells this movie like nobody's business (he really should have been nominated for Best Actor), but I had trouble with several aspects of his character.  For example, where is his office?  And why isn't he recording those home visits?  And how likely is that conversation on the plane?  And why isn't the plane moving?

Aside from Holm the perennially underrated Bruce Greenwood appears as the tormented father of two dead children, the rest of the cast being then (and now) relatively unknown.  I liked the first third of this movie, but after that point it seemed very implausible.

I can remember thinking that Atom Egoyan was overrated at the time.  Extra points for style, but not so many for substance.  My opinion on the matter remains unchanged.

Huh?: The director viewed this film as a metaphor for the Armenian Genocide.

2. Best Foreign Language Film (Nominated): Beyond Silence

A young girl born to deaf parents aspires to be a musician.  Those watching this movie in 2026 (or thereafter) might be reminded of 2021's CODA, which tackled similar themes.  The 2014 French film La Famille Belier is credited as the inspiration behind CODA, but as CODA, La Famille Belier and Beyond Silence all explore similar ideas it's hard to say which chicken came before which egg.

1999

1. Best Supporting Actress (Nominated): Brenda Blethlyn: Little Voice

It took me a minute, but as I watched Little Voice I slowly realized that I'd seen it before.  I'm not buying the turnout for "Little Voice's" debut concert, but once this hurdle is cleared it's not a bad movie.  The "breakdown" Little Voice experiences is probably the highlight of the film.

2. Best Documentary: Dancemaker

A study of the famed choreographer Paul Taylor.  I liked its inclusion of interviews which spoke against some of its subject's legacy, and the footage of the performances was well done.

Related Entries:

Some Other Movies From 2026

Still More 90s Movies 4: 1997-1999

Still More 90s Movies 3: 1995-1997

Still More 90s Movies 2: 1992-1994

NOTE: Some of the above movies won or were nominated in other awards categories.  The category listed is the first I came across.

"The Shining" by Stephen King (1977)

"Something - luck, fate, providence - had been trying to save him.  Some other luck, white luck.  And at the last moment bad old Jack Torrance luck had stepped back in.  The lousy run of cards wasn't over yet."

Stephen King has been discussed here many times before.  Will he be discussed here again?  I'm not sure, but after wading through The Shining I don't have much desire to read its sequel, Doctor Sleep.

And as I bring up Stephen King and The Shining, another figure looms his way into this one-sided conversation, this figure being none other than Stanley Kubrick, who directed the movie adaptation of Stephen King's novel.  

But first, the book.

In The Shining down-on-his-luck writer Jack Torrance (who is in no way, shape or form a stand-in for Stephen King) gets a job as caretaker at an old Colorado hotel shutting down for the winter.  Along for the ride are his wife, Wendy, and his psychic son Danny.  Danny's presence in the old hotel piques the interest of the sinister powers inhabiting it, and this interest, coupled with Jack's troubled past, is the source of much distress between the three family members.

The Shining was an early work for King, and the third of his books to be published, following Carrie and Salem's Lot, both of which were also adapted into movies.*  Carrie and The Shining were very much in line with the late 70s craze for psychic powers, a craze signified by everything from the In Search of... TV show to Project Stargate.

The Shining rode this telepathic wave to the bestseller lists, and its subsequent popularity led to a movie version which hit theaters in 1980.  This film version, though greeted with some skepticism at the time, has since become a horror classic.  It's also one of director Stanley Kubrick's best remembered films.

The problem being that Kubrick wasn't entirely happy with the story as laid out by its original author.  He rejected King's initial draft of the script, and instead rewrote the story with the help of Diane Johnson.  Kubrick, it should be said, wasn't a big believer in the supernatural, and he wasn't fond of King's ending.  His and Johnson's script is more a mix of gothic horror and Freudian psychology, two elements that King was somewhat removed from when writing his novel.**

Kubrick was, moreover, very dismissive of King's book in the interviews which followed the movie's release, a development which rankles The Shining's author to this day.  "Not part of great literature," said Kubrick, who went on to describe the novel as "a very bad book" and also "quite pretentious."

King returned the favor, dismissing the film in his own interviews.  King's biggest issue with the movie is Kubrick's ending, which diverges sharply from what he'd written years before.  I won't divulge either ending out of consideration for those who haven't yet seen the movie or read the novel, but I can tell you that the conclusions of the two narratives are very different.  Kubrick's movie ends in a more nihilistic manner, while the ending of King's story is a confrontation with the unknown and unknowable.  I think that both endings work, but I have to say that Kubrick's ending makes a more lasting impression.

As a novel I found The Shining rather hard to get through, and of the Stephen King books I've read I'd rank it near the bottom.  Like many of King's books it's really too long, and as I was reading it I kept thinking about sentences, paragraphs and entire chapters I would have excised were I its editor.  It's not bad so much as long-winded, and I think the tension it was trying to generate would have been more present if the author had skipped over certain parts and limited the amount of foreshadowing in earlier chapters. 

Related Entries:

"Four Friends" by Robyn Carr (2024)

"The Secret" by Lee and Andrew Child (2023)

"Lies and Weddings" by Kevin Kwan (2024)

"The Redbreast" by Jo Nesbo (2000)

*Salem's Lot first appeared as a TV miniseries, but nowadays most people would be watching it in a single sitting.

**There is a section in the book where Jack and Wendy take Danny to a doctor.  After a cursory examination this doctor offers a rational/scientific explanation for Danny's psychic powers.  This explanation, however, is later dismissed by both parents.

Some Other Movies From 2026

I'll be adding to this as the year progresses.

1. Send Help

I'm always down for some Rachel McAdams, and I still regard director Sam Raimi's output with guarded optimism.  Send Help is... good, but of course not Spider Man 2 good or, going still further back, Evil Dead 2 good.  It reminded me of many other movies, mostly Triangle of Sadness, but also Cast Away and Misery.  Even so it's its own entity, and entertainingly gross to boot.

Every ticket purchased for this film puts Melania further in the hole, and I'd recommend it for that reason alone.

2. Goat

A goat dreams of playing professional "roarball" despite his diminutive size.  I went into this one with zero expectations and walked out pleasantly surprised.  It's predictable but it's also eccentric enough to be interesting.

3. Rental Family

This one had a 2025 release date in the States, but in Taiwan it arrived this month.

Oscar-winner Brendan Fraser stars as an actor living in Japan who finds work impersonating other people's friends and relatives.  The last of Fraser's movies I saw was the decidedly depressing The Whale, and I was happy to see him in something a lot more lighthearted.  Rental Family is a very solid movie, and although it wasn't a big hit at the box office (on either side of the Pacific) I could see it becoming a cult classic in the future.

4. Crime 101

Bruce Banner attempts to catch Thor before he steals a bunch of diamonds and/or cash with Storm's help.  Oh, and The Riddler's in their somewhere.

Sorry, wrong cinematic universe.

I think that Chris Hemsworth has, by this point at least, proved that he's more than Thor several times over, and the rest of the cast were well established in Hollywood long before we fretted over the next Avengers or whatever Sony might or might not be doing with the Spider-Man films.

Crime 101 isn't bad.  I think it could have been edited down to a leaner two hours, but it's not bad.  In terms of recent movies I've seen recently Rental Family is way better, but as crime thrillers go Crime 101 is a tightly constructed tale of thieves, cops and rich guys with too much money on their hands.  It's not Heat or anything, but Barry Keoghan goes a long way toward elevating whatever movie he deigns to appear in.

Woah: Nick Nolte is now 85 years old.

Yet Another Comic Book Connection: Pedro Pascal was originally slated to star opposite Hemsworth, but dropped out to star in Fantastic Four: First Steps instead.

5. War Machine

A squad of trainee Army Rangers faces an alien killing machine.  It'll remind you of Edge of Tomorrow, it'll remind you of Predator, but star Alan Ritchson is a good actor and the ending, although predictable, is very satisfying.

Related Entries:

Still More 90s Movies 4: 1997-1999

Still More 90s Movies 3: 1995-1997

Still More 90s Movies 2: 1992-1994

Still More 90s Movies: 1990-1992

"Four Friends" by Robyn Carr (2024)

"'I'm not taking advantage of him.  I'm sure he's keeping very careful records.  Believe me, when we get to the official splitting of the sheets, all my expenses will be carefully deducted from my side of the chart.  And there will be plenty left." She grinned, 'California law.  No fault.  Community property.'"

Those who've been reading this blog a while are probably questioning my gender, my sexuality, or both.  Let me take this moment to reaffirm the fact that I'm still a heterosexual male who enjoys sports, nunchucks, and vehicles that go fast.  I read books like Four Friends because my wife (who is also heterosexual, if not male) passes them on to me.  I'll read almost anything if given the opportunity.

The author of Four Friends, Robyn Carr, has written dozens of books, none of which have their own Wikipedia entries, and some of which have made the New York Times Bestseller List - for whatever that's worth.  She's been writing books since the mid-70s.

Four Friends follows the personal dramas of - you guessed it - four friends living outside of San Francisco.  There's Gerri, the CPS worker who's recently discovered her husband's infidelity, Andy, a teacher who's separated from an unreliable spouse, Sonja, a personal wellness coach abandoned by her husband, and BJ, a secretive new arrival who is - again, you guessed it - recently single.  What do these four women have in common?  Hm, let me think it over...

Four Friends, it should be said, is an extremely white kind of book for whiter, more affluent kinds of people.  There's nothing wrong with that.  It shows that the author knows her audience.  It's unsurprising as Women's Fiction goes, and you can be sure that by the end of this novel the friendships between the four women are reaffirmed, and that these friendships will last forever.

I'd just like to ask BJ: when you say that's how "they" stay so thin while eating the exotic food known as "sushi," what do you mean by "they," exactly?

Related entries:

"Lies and Weddings" by Kevin Kwan (2024)

"The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd (2002)

"The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein (2008)

"The Marriage Lie" by Kimberly Belle (2017)