The Best Movies of the 21st Century (so far)

Let's face it, the 21st century has really sucked so far. It started off with a contentious election and then the worst terrorist attack in American history. We had two unnecessary costly wars, a pandemic and introduction of the worst two-word phrase in the English language: President Trump. But what has been great is our art, namely movies ... hence I've come up with this list of the 100 best films of the century so far. I love making lists. 

Coming up with a list like this is a Herculean task. I started it about a year ago. I did spill over to 104 because I couldn't decide which four films to knock off the list, so I just left them there. I also included 2025 and 2000 so, technically, it is 26 years. 

My biases show on this list. A good many of these picks have a sci-fi / supernatural element to them. Seven in the top 11 have either vampires, aliens or elves.  I gave up on the vampire genre quite a while ago because it was getting very tiring and formulaic, but there were three great vampire films so far in this century: Sinners, Let Me In and Let the Right One In. The latter two are basically the same film; one is American and the other Swedish. I am back in on vampire films. 

I adopted a child a few years ago, so my other bias is there are fantastic children's films on the list this is mostly due to the fact I am watching more of them. You may also notice there are some obvious exclusions: no Star Wars, Star Trek or Avatar. I didn't forget these. They just didn't make the cut along with Gladiator. Not a fan. 

Another bias: there are five Marvel films and only two DC. This is because Marvel is so much better than DC ... obviously.

No doubt I have forgotten some and will want to revisit later. Enjoy! 

1. Get Out
2. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
3. Lord of the Rings: The Followship of the Ring
4. Moonlight
5. Sinners
6. Amelie
7. Fantastic Mr. Fox
8. Almost Famous
9. Let the Right One In
10. Let Me In
11. Arrival
12. Sideways
13. Midnight In Paris
14. The Lives of Others
15. Y tu mamá también
16. Anora
17. The Florida Project
18. Lost In Translation
19. Birdman
20. Parasite
21. The Big Short
22. Training Day
23. Inglorious Bastards
24. Spiderman 2 (2004)
25. Memento
26. Guardians of the Galaxy
27. Bugonia
28. Spotlight
29. The Visitor
30. Lady Bird
31. Best in Show
32. School of Rock
33. Up
34. Vanilla Sky
35. Black Hawk Down
36. Beasts of the Southern Wild
37. The Road
38. Black Panther
39. Gravity
40. Pan's Labyrinth
41. Moneyball
42. Roma
43. Donnie Darko
44. Kill Bill Vol. I
45. The Big Sick
46. The Martian
47. Room
48. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Danish version)
49. 12 Years a Slave
50. Zone of Interest
51. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
52. Mean Girls
53. Knocked Up
54. In the Loop
55. Billy Eliot
56. I, Tonya
57. True Grit (2010)
58. Adaptation
59. Hugo
60. Interstellar
61. Blue Jasmine
62. Whiplash
63. Thank You for Smoking
64. Lars and the Real Girl
65. American Psycho
66. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
67. Edge of Tomorrow
68. Manchester by the Sea
69. Mud
70. High Fidelity
71. The Cabin in the Woods
72. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
73. Hotel Rwanda
74. Slumdog Millionaire
75. Moon
76. The Ring
77. Boyhood
78. Anatomy of a Fall
79. Whale Rider
80. O Brother Where Art Thou
81. Life of Pi
82. The Worst Person in the World
83. District 9
84. Django Unchained
85. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
86. Avengers: Endgame
87. Inside Out
88. Wadjda
89. Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
90. Little Miss Sunshine
91. Paddington 2
92. September 5
93. Palm Springs
94. Joker
95. Shrek
96. A Complete Unknown
97. Knocked Up
98. Shop Girl
99. Garden State
100. Watchmen
101. Half Nelson
102. Kick Ass
103. Quiet Place
104. I Am Legend

The Great Tune-Out

Louis C.K.'s comedy is based on how completely disgusting he is. When it was revealed that he was actually a disturbed and disgusting person no one should have been surprised right? Of course not, people freaked out anyway and he was cancelled. People are weird this way. He said exactly what he was, and people laughed, but when it was revealed that it was true, I guess not so funny anymore. Woody Allen is a similar story. He told us exactly who he was. In Annie Hall, he portrays a self-obsessed neurotic who is clearly him. In Manhattan, he was a pedophile. Why is anyone surprised when he ends up being exactly that? I see this same phenomenon with Trump. He told us exactly who he is and what he was going to do. Yet now that he is in office, they seem surprised about what he is doing. Why? He doesn't hide how awful he is. Why is anyone surprised?

During his first term, he had strong opposition in Congress. He couldn't get anything done. He had no capacity to do so. He wasn't a politician. He had no idea what he was doing. He was a bad businessman, a complete fake, out of his league in the public sector. A little boy in a big chair. Trump 2.0 is a bit different in that Republicans control both Legislative chambers and, arguably, the Supreme Court. He basically has a sycophantic, negligent and complicit Legislative branch. The Republican party's motto should be: lean over, open anus, thank you sir may I have another. 

When Trump won his second term, my first reaction was to tune out. For at least a week, I stopped listening to my current event and political podcasts. No radio news. Music only on the road. I deleted my NY Time and Washington Post emails, immediately, unread. I knew it was coming but it didn't stop me from going into shock when it happened. This is the country I live in, I guess. They would rather to be led by an incompetent, hateful egomaniac than ... say ... anyone else. I'd be happier, or more likely, less miserable with anyone else. We voted for the worst person in our country to be President, probably the most powerful person in the world, a second time. The first time wasn't a fluke. We are actually that awful! 

I slowly started up again. I started by reading the titles of my podcasts. Two weeks after the election, I listened to a few. By December 2024, I was completely ensconced in my news-junky lifestyle again. I know many people who are still tuned out. I understand, it is overwhelming. That is what Trump wants, right? For the people who hate him to tune out. He floods the zone so that there is so much going on that you cannot complain too much about one thing, here comes another and another. When it time to start paying attention again. Wake up! 

Filter out the shit and concentrate on the important stuff ... and, man, there is a lot of shit. If you tune out everything, he wins. Tune out the shit: the impotent comments, the juvenile arguments, the social media stuff. 

What he actual does, as opposed to what he says, is more important. 

Here are the bullet points:

• appointed a person who thinks vaccines are bad to be in charge of vaccines.
• claimed to hate entanglements in the Middle East, withdew from Iranian Nuclear agreement in his first term because it was Obama's, tried to get Iran to sign virtually the same agreement in his second term, and then bombed them because it looked cool when Israel did it. 
• alienates our allies
• cozies up to dictators
• claimed that Ukraine started the war with Russia (Orwellian scariness).
• tries to impeach judges that rule against him
• deports people, some who are actually citizens, without due process
• pardoned the January 6 terrorists
• cut funding of public media, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America. 
• over 1,000 grants cancelled funding scientific research. 
• over 100 lawsuits filed against his administration
• his Big Ugly Bill cuts funding to Medicaid and Food Stamps (aka the poor) to fund tax cuts for billionaires.

Approximately 135,000 government employees have either been laid off or left voluntarily. About one third of them were hired back (oops, we need those people). So efficient! 

I always assumed that I would slowly become more conservative as I got older but they aren't letting me. Between W and Trump, all the awful things I have said about Republicans throughout the years ... just weren't awful enough. I've been too nice. This current Republican party is not exactly conservative, not the conservative ideals I grew up hearing about from Eisenhower loving Republicans. Those Republicans respected the law. This shit we got here is new. It is not conservativism. It is just bullshit and it needs to be stopped. 

Courier Journal - Fall/Winter 2024

As it turns out, working as a courier in the deep of winter in Northern New England is exhausting. I was doing this job last winter, but that was an unseasonably mild winter. This winter kicked my ass. Working a job that you can sometimes walk over 18,000 steps in a day, my being in my 50's and having worked a desk job most of my life ... you could say it was rough. This is my explanation, my excuse, for not putting out a Courier Journal for Fall 2024, I was too exhausted to write. Not only that, but the heater in my living room went on the fritz. For the last month, the room where I do my writing has been freezing cold. 

Fall in Vermont elicits images of idealistic scenes of leaves changing, people raking and lots o' pumpkins. For us locals it means leaf peepers driving slowly and pulling over to take pictures of their trips north. We've gotten so used to the foliage, we often don't notice. You really have to watch your driving this time of year. You can turn a corner on a rural highway and come up on someone pulled over taking a scenic picture. Visitors don't always know how to drive on these roads. It reminds me of how bad I drove in Ireland. As it turns out, round-abouts are extremely confusing when you drive on the left side of the road. My brain doesn't work that way. I had to take several revolutions before I could get off. I have to remind myself of this, when I get pissed off at tourist drivers. 

Ever since I've moved to Vermont, I've noticed something very weird about Vermonters. They talk about Burlington like it is unsafe. I just don't get it, and it annoys me. It appears to me to be the safest city I've ever been in. Maybe it is an example of people not having travelled and not having experiences with any other cities, but it seems so preposterous to me. Business Insider magazine recently rated all of America's cities based on safeness. Burlington came in #4 while its neighbor, South Burlington, was #1. I am very lucky in that I work in both of these municipalities. New England fared well with Warwick RI, Nashua NH and Portland ME all making the top twenty.  

Crime isn't the only factor that is included on this rating but suffice it to say, I am safe when I walk around town or into people's backyards carrying packages for the good people of Burlington. It is not only a safe town but a happy and friendly place. People say "hi," smile and sometimes hold the door for me. One day recently, a woman on Church Street saw me carrying a very heavy package and walked along with me so that she could hold the door for when I got to the storefront I was going to.  One of my coworkers recently said that he feels like he needs a "bulletproof vest" when he delivers in BVT.  (No, he really said that.)  This is just completely fucking bonkers to me, but I lived in Boston for ten years and I never once felt unsafe, so maybe I am the one that isn't normal.  

Another thing I really appreciate about Burlington is this:

That's right porta-johns. Here's another:

I drink a lot of coffee so I have to pee a lot. Having these spread around the city is a godsend. The first one is in Battery Park. The second is on the corner of North Prospect and Loomis, I think. There are quite a few of them and not all of them are on construction sites. I love this town. 

Courier Journal - Summer 2024

Twenty four years ago, when I moved to Vermont, a Boston friend told me that I'd be back. I would get bored. She could not be more wrong about me moving back. I defend boring as a lifestyle. Of all the times of year, Summer in Vermont is the least boring. It is full of tourists and construction and a ton of things to do that are not accessible in the Winter ... like kayaking, hiking, wading in mountain streams. It is my favorite time of the year. Working as a courier in Vermont for the Summer is also great. Sure, it is hot, but Summer in Vermont is by no means as hot as most of our country.  Burlington gets a wind off of Lake Champlain that is quite lovely. 

Burlington vs. South Burlington: When I first moved to Vermont, I was surprised that it wasn't as liberal as I expected. Having moved from Boston, I am not sure what I expected but the people I was getting to know were not as liberal as I expected. Then someone explained to me that it was because I was working in South Burlington, that is where all the Republicans in Vermont live. I have not found anything to back that up. The county that both towns are in, Chittenden, is quite blue. The conservatives live up in the Northeast Kingdom not here in liberal Chittenden, but South Burlington is definitely more conservative than its larger neighbor to the north.  

Burlington is Vermont's largest city. To put things in perspective, it has a population of 44.5 thousand people. This is when school is in, the University of Vermont and Champlain College are in session. It gets significantly smaller in the Summer. South Burlington, a suburb of Burlington, is actually the second largest city in the state at 21 thousand people. Colchester, a town, is third with 17.5 which is also a Burlington suburb. The point I am making: Vermont has very few people and most of the people that live here, live in this county, Chittenden. Burlington is the funky college town. South Burlington is its mildly more conservative neighbor to the south that has no real downtown and a couple of malls. When college students move here and fall in love with the place, some of them stay. When they get older and grow tired of the city, they move into the Suburban city, South Burlington or the cozy lake town of Colchester .... hence they are slightly more conservative. 

People seem less happy in South Burlington than Burlington. I have no data to back this up, only anecdotes. When you don't have hard data, by all means, rely on anecdotes. What else do you have? I deliver in Burlington Tuesdays through Fridays, part-time. I work one full-time day and that is in South Burlington on Mondays. I deliver to doctor's offices, law firms, retail outlets, big corporate and government buildings and residences in both municipalities. In general, people in Burlington are a joy to deal with. They seem to be happy with what they are doing whether at home or at work. The woman that runs the bagel place on South Union St. or the people on the loading dock at the Red Cross ... they are a joy to deal with. I can't say that I run into anyone in Burlington that seems to hate their job or life in general. I can't say that about South Burlington. Some people are very pleasant, but I deal with some truly miserable people in that city. The joy is not there, just one zip code number away. My imagination or bias, perhaps. Take it for what it is worth. I've never liked the burbs so perhaps it is I that is miserable in South Burlington.

The problem with horns: One day I was approaching an intersection. I realized that I was in the wrong lane. Right directional on, I tried to change lanes. Visibility isn't great in a cargo van. The rearview mirror is blocked; the only reason it has one so that you can have a reverse camera. So it has a significant blind spot. I was taking a long time to change lanes. I heard a horn, someone was really leaning on it. When I heard the horn, I thought I was driving into someone that I couldn't see. So I pulled back into my lane. But I wasn't. The person beeping was just angry with me because I was taking so long. Because I didn't understand his beep, I took even longer. The problem with horns is that they don't come with explanations. A horn that says "you are going too slow" sounds exactly like one that says "you are about to crush me." Maybe someday we'll have a solution to this but until then. We will just have to be patient with each other. My rule about horns is that if I am using it in anger, then I probably shouldn't be using it. 

Fall has come. Students are back. Tourists (aka leaf peepers) are still here. Life is back to normal in Vermont. 

How Jim Rice Cured Me of Racism

I grew up around a lot of racism. We were a neighborhood of mostly white, working class Catholics of French Canadian origin. The N word was used often and not ironically. Awful Jewish jokes were told involving ashtrays. The term Puerto Rican was used as a term that meant someone couldn't follow the rules of a game or a lazy person. Stereo-types of the Polish, Asians and Portuguese were accepted as truth. I found myself buying right into it, because I was a kid I didn't know better. I remember an internal dialogue of trying to figure out what it all meant and how true it was. I didn't really have anyone strong in my life to set me straight.

At the time, in the 1970's, the media didn't help. We watched a lot of television, which was three networks of mostly crap with a lot of racisms mixed in there (along with a lot of other isms). We had the natives on "Gilligan's Island," the natives on "F Troop," or the Chinese on "Kung Fu." In serious shows, black characters were pimps and prostitutes like Sugar Bear on "Baretta." Occasionally we had a show that had a diverse cast of complex characters, I remember "Barney Miller" being one of them. The one real thing we had on television, that was not scripted, was sports. In my house, it was baseball.

1974 was the year Judge Garrity ordered Boston schools to be desegregated and forced busing began. For four years, he was kept under guard for his safety. Protesters burned him in effigy outside his home. Boston was a very racist city. In 1975, the Boston Red Sox were in the World Series. On that team were two amazing rookies, Fred Lynn and Jim Rice, often called the Gold Dust Twins for their able to cover each other in the outfield. Lynn won rookie of the year that year, Rice placed second. Lynn also won Most Valuable Player and Rice was voted third. They were an amazing team. If not for the slightly more amazing Cincinnati Reds (aka the Big Red Machine), they would have won the World Series. One year later, 1976, was the year I became a Red Sox fan. I knew nothing of their history.

The Red Sox, historically, was a very racist team. There is no denying this. They had early opportunities to draft Jackie Robinson and Willy Mays and did not do so because of their race. They were the last team to integrate, doing so in 1959 with Pumpsie Green twelve years after Robinson joined the Dodgers. This nonsense was so bad that at one point, they wouldn't even allow anyone on the team who wasn't Catholic. This explains why they were so bad for a long time. Their losing ways was mostly their own making. They were not alone in this, every team in Major League Baseball was doing it, but the Red Sox were one of the worst. It is our cross to bear as Red Sox fans. 

I didn't know it at the time, because children have no sense of history, but when Jim Rice became a star in Boston sports, this was a big deal. He was the first black star in Boston. He was the first of many to come. He was not just an incredible player and future Hall of Famer, but he was a gentleman and truly gentle spirit. Any time I heard a racist comment among my friends and at school etc., my go-to-black-man was Jim Rice. I'd ask myself is that true about Rice. Of course not. How could say that this guy was lesser than anyone else? This guy:

That was that. From there on, racism was nonsense, an embarrassment really. His soft spokenness, his classiness, on and off the field, his friendship with Lynn, Yazz and Dwight Evans, his amazing athleticism ... that's all it took.  I was cured. 

In 2016, I mourned David Bowie by playing nothing but Bowie for at least a week. My wife was a little irritated particularly with the obscure stuff. When Bob Dylan passes, I have no doubt, much to my son's displeasure, I will react in kind. When Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007, I walked around saying things like "So it goes" for at least a week. When Woody Allen dies, I foresee a moviefest even though his private life seems ... well... disgusting. Along with Walt Whitman, all their works have been formative in how I think, see the world and lead my life. Yet not a tear will be shed when they pass. I am not so sure about Jim Rice. I dread the day I hear about him passing; I get weepy just thinking about it. 

Trumps Second Term: Worst Case Scenario

I have always been a bit of pessimist. It is more of defense mechanism than anything. If I assume the worst is going to happen, when it doesn't, it feels like good news. When I was younger, during the Cold War, I'd wake up each day expecting Armageddon was coming. I'd put the radio on to catch the news, when the missiles weren't on their way, whatever I heard was happening in the world, yay, good news. We weren't all going to die today. 

When Trump was elected in 2016, this served me well. While others were shocked, stunned, and/or pissed off, I was thinking, "I knew it." In 2024, I do what I can to prevent him from being elected, but if it does happen, I will be prepared, emotionally anyway. What will his second term look like, I assume the worst of course. 

In 1934 Germany, an event took place, under Chancellor Adolph Hitler, often referred to as the Night of the Long Knives. I apologize for bringing up Hitler, but it is difficult not to when Trump is using words like "vermin" when he refers to Americans that disagree with him and is threatening retribution. For a three day period, Hitler's thugs (aka "brown shirts") went on a killing spree, executing Hitler's political opponents. The official number of victims is eighty but some say it was as high as a thousand. The real number was lost in the fog of war that was soon to come. It is something like this, that I see as a worst case scenario. Trump's "brown shirts", either under his direction or not, go after his political opponents. Not just other politicians, like Harris, Biden and Pelosi etc., but judges, lawyers, journalists, maybe even bloggers. He'll claim he had nothing to do with it and he'll get away with it. 

Trump's language at his rallies suggest that I am not too far off. He said some really disgusting things about fellow Americans, about me and probably you as well, and his crowd of supporters cheer him on. Some have even elevated him to a religious icon. What saved us from his first presidency is his administration's incompetence. Their total lack of direction was their ball and chain. This time around he already has more direction with Project 2025 backing him up. He also had a lot of traditional conservatives around him preventing him from going completely off the rails. His second administration, according to him, is going to have no such people in it. He has talked about a loyalty oath and firing anyone that won't sign it. 

Hopefully, I am wrong about all of this. Kamala Harris seems like a decent and capable person. Since, I'd vote for anyone running against Trump, she definitely has my vote regardless. 

My Grieving for American Democracy

American democracy is dying. It has been dying for quite some time, a long slow painful death. After this past week, one could pronounce it dead. Dead on arrival the moment Biden first talked at the presidential debate last week and showed us all how badly he had declined, intro to Diminished Joe. DOA at the moment that Trump told his first lie, first of many. If that didn't convince you, then certainly when the Supreme Court decided that the president couldn't be prosecuted for anything he/she did that was broadly related to their job ... certainly that killed democracy for you.

The first stage of grief is denial and you could say that is exactly where I was for the past decade or so until Thursday night when I laid down into bed to watch the debate. My wife already started it without me and within a couple of minutes I said "We are fucked" and she said "yup." This is when denial turned into anger, stage two of grief. I am angry that these are the two candidates we have to choose from. We are stuck with them: Biden, who looked like he was going to die on stage and couldn't put a coherent sentence together, and the unhinged Trump, the worst person in America ... a convicted felon, racist, sexual predator, a pathological liar and someone we already know was a truly awful president. 

I know what some of you are thinking, "but Mark, we have more than two choices. There are third party candidates." I have already considered this. The most popular and viable third party candidate, Robert Kennedy Jr., is just as bad of a choice as these two guys. Kennedy is a paranoid nut. If both my father and uncle were victims of public assassinations, I would probably be paranoid as well. He may be younger than our two octogenarians but his health is no better. He is just a notch better than Trump. 

I was on the Biden bandwagon until the debate. Joe has been an excellent president, one of the best in my lifetime. Originally, in 2020, I voted for Joe because I was voting against Trump not for Biden. As his administration progressed, I noticed a lot of good things happening: green spending, Judge Brown, childhood hunger going down, infrastructure spending, student loan debt loopholes sealed, bi-partisan deal on the border (that Trump killed) and elegantly walking a fine line in two foreign wars. His many years in the Senate has really paid off, but is he up to the job. I would like to point out that I still take Biden on his worst day over Trump on his best. The debate performance may have been Biden on his worst day, but for all we know, he has had a lot of these and his staff is just hiding it from us.

The most frustrating part of this is that both party have good and, some, young alternatives. Why are we stuck with these guys? The Democratic party has had plenty of opportunity to address this. Back in February, 2024, special counsel Robert Hur referred to Biden as "an  elderly man with a poor memory." Hur is not a political hack. He spent several days with the president. Why didn't they see this as a red flag? We have some great candidates that all poll well against Trump: VP Harris, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (MI), Gov. Gavin Newsom (CA) and Sec. Pete Buttigeig are all excellent candidates. We still have time before the convention to resolve this. Even the Republicans have some reasonable candidates. Both Mitt Romney and William Weld are still alive (my northeast bias is showing here). 

The next president will probably have two Supreme Court nominations. This is it folks. If you don't like what the Supreme Court is doing, we can't have another Trump presidency. Before I go into the next stages of grief: bargaining, depression and acceptance, lets try the defib pads one more time and see if we can resuscitate this Democracy ... unless you think Emperor Trump is good idea.