Tag: Almost Famous

Top 10 (well, 11) Movies Of The 21st Century

This past week, The New York Times published a list of what their critics consider the 100 best movies of the 21st Century, with Parasite topping the list. At a cursory glance, I’ve seen 97 of the 100 on the list, and probably agree with a number of them. I myself did not participate in the poll (which was open to readers) because (a) I no longer subscribe to The New York Times (they normalized the current occupant of the White House, which I find intolerable), and (b) more to the point, as per usual, I was unable to narrow my list to 10. However, I’m happy to play along, so here are my choices of the top 10 (well, 11) of the 21st century. If Claude and I talked about them, I will include a link to that podcast episode:

(1) The Tree of Life (2011) (Terrence Malick) (link to follow)

(2) Children of Men (2006) (Alfonso Cuaron)

(3) Almost Famous (2000) (Cameron Crowe)

(4) Zero Dark Thirty (2012) (Kathryn Bigelow)

(5) Drive My Car (2021) (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

(6) There Will Be Blood (2007) (Paul Thomas Anderson)

(7) Roma (2018) (Alfonso Cuaron)

(8) (tie) Broker (2022) (Hirokazu Kore-eda), Parasite (2018) (Bong Joon-Ho)


(9) Brokeback Mountain (2005) (Ang Lee)

(10) La La Land (2016) (Damien Chazelle) (to be discussed in an upcoming episode, where we will also be talking about The Independent)

Reel 48: A Fan’s Eye View

Strap in, kids, this is going to be a long one.

It took forever for Sean and I to get to this particular episode, and both of us have been dying—DYING, I tells ya—to talk about Almost Famous. It may be Sean’s favorite film that doesn’t involve music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It’s certainly one of the eleven films in my Top Ten. (See, that’s two pokes I took at him, there. I’ll be paying dearly for this soon, I’m sure.)

At any rate, this time around we’re looking at a couple of films where it’s a fan of the music who gets the insider’s view. And that fan is the audience surrogate for much of the action that takes place.

First up is 2000’s Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical love letter to 1970s-era Rock and Roll. It’s got everything you want in a movie: some laughs, some drama, some tension, a little sex (mostly implied), an amazing soundtrack and a genuine feel for the era in which it takes place. We were so anxious to talk about this film that it’s probably the longest segment we’ve ever recorded for one movie.

Likewise, in Part 2 we have 24 Hour Party People, a 2002 film by Michael Winterbottom. In this film we get a peek into a specific slice of the early days of the 1980s New Wave era. Likewise, Winterbottom puts us in the middle of the action and while we’re told outright that some of the events in the film didn’t actually happen the way they’re presented, this has a documentary feel that has you buying every last bit of it. And you already know it wasn’t like that!

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 
Next time around we’re looking at some butt-kicking female thieves. First up is Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon from 2000. Less well-known but still really good is Widows, a Steve McQueen film from 2008 that will grab you quickly and suddenly turn on a dime into a much different story.