Best Movies of the Decade

I don't watch "At the Movies" much (since it isn't Siskel and Ebert anymore) but did catch it the other night, and they were counting down the "Best Movies of the Decade".  Since each critic had his own selection, and we were at #2, that's a total of 18 films.  I have seen none of them.  My wife has seen only one of them.  Maybe we are really out of touch.  Several of them I haven't even heard of.  For what it's worth, which isn't much, only one (Million Dollar Baby) won the Academy Award, though several were nominated.

I'm really wondering about their choices next week for the best film.  For them to have any credibility with me, it has to be one of the Lord of the Rings movies.  But these guys are really into filmaking and art - maybe they will be like the the Editors at the Modern Library who didn't even rate Lord of the Rings in the top 100 novels of the last century, instead preferring more "literary" works like Ulysses, Lolita, and Sons and Lovers, while the common people voted for books people actually read, like Ayn Rand, Tolkien, To Kill a Mockingbird, and, in a particularly insightful pick, H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness.  Some of the popular votes are dubious and repetitive (there's way too much Ayn Rand and Hubbard), but, all in all, I think they did a better job than the "pros".

So, drum roll please...  Here are my picks for the ten best movies of the last decade

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - my favorite of the three
2. Heaven
3. The Wrestler
4. Walk the Line
5. The Bourne Identity  - again, my favorite of the three, though all were strong
6. Bend It Like Beckham
7. Finding Nemo
8. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
9. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World  (if only for the music)
10. Little Miss Sunshine

Plus a few honorable mentions (the two critics get 20 total)

• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 
• The Fountain  this one was weird and ultimately baffling, but had wonderful visuals and tried to be something
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?  it's bonafide!
• The Bank Job
• Legally Blonde  (a guilty pleasure)