The election that dragged on forever. 9/11. War! Patriotism returns with a bang. The Middle East. Obama. The Great Recession.
This film was a financial flop, not once but twice, in two separate releases. Despite this, it received a number of award nominations.
The song marked a change of style for Dylan.
Having lost one animation team to DreamWorks, Disney teamed with Pixar to create one of the funniest animated films ever made. John Goodman and Billy Crystal were hilarious in their roles. Goodman plays his role in a deadpan manner, like an old NFL linebacker.
It’s a sort of biopic of Marshall Mathers, and I suppose it was inevitable that there would be a rap and hip-hop musical someday. I just hoped I wouldn’t live long enough to witness it.
It wrapped up Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and was both an artistic and financial success. The extended version, showing Frodo’s and Sam’s trip through Mordor, is even better. Had Peter Jackson stopped there are not turned “The Hobbit” into a bloated whale of a trilogy, the Tolkien estate wouldn’t have thrown him off further efforts to bring Middle Earth to life.
Think of it as “Young Che,” much as “Smallville” was about young Superman or “Gotham” about young Batman. It’s about Ernesto Guevara’s motorcycle trip through Argentina, where he witnessed the harsh lives of the nation’s peasants. The viewer sees what turned young Ernesto into Che Guevara – deified by college students everywhere – and Hollywood limousine liberals.
It’s about a Memphis pimp and drug dealer who is an aspiring rapper. Sounds like a police blotter entry. Enough said. We’ve come a long way from Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Henry Mancini. Hollywood signals its virtue.
It’s a documentary about manmade global warming and Al Gore, all intended to boost a 2008 presidential campaign – which was pre-empted by Obama. This was just more Hollywood virtue signaling.
An Irish musical? Yes! This unconventional film was produced on a shoestring budget and became a surprise hit.
Bollywood comes to Hollywood. It took a while for this British-Indian entry to catch on with the public, but like “It Happened One Night” and “The Graduate,” when it caught on, it took off with a vengeance and became a massive hit.
Yes, MTV has conquered India.
An alcoholic country singer meets a young journalist and turns his life around. It started out as a direct-to-video entry from Country Music Television that was acquired by Paramount for home release, but Fox bought it for theatrical release. It became a critical and financial success.
Thanks, Publius, for the hits of 2000. I really enjoyed the stories....I’ve seen none of the movies.