Javier Bardem as an unstoppable hit man in "No Country for Old Men."

Decade’s top films stand test of relevance

Armed-and-dangerous characters played prominent roles in many of my favorite films of the past decade, and I hesitate to seek professional analysis of my taste for movie mayhem. Is it vicarious fulfillment of vengeful desires in the wake of 9/11? A lot of moviegoers seemed to be looking for a Superman in the frustrating aftermath of that turn-of the-century tragedy, making huge box-office heroes out of Spidey and the Caped Crusader in the process. Others escaped into the fairy tale pleasures of Pixar.

But many of the decade’s most relevant cinematic offerings featured anti-heroes and bristled with guns and knives and grittily realistic lessons in the violent nature of humankind. Also, thankfully, there were a few disarming works that flashed no weapons at all.

1. “No Country for Old Men” (2007) — Writing-directing brothers Joel and Ethan Coen are the most original partners in crime the genre has to offer when they aim their brilliantly devious minds in that direction (“Blood Simple,” “Miller’s Crossing,” “Fargo”), but they outgunned even themselves with this grim adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel of incorruptible good (Tommy Lee Jones’ classic world-weary, frustrated Texas sheriff), unstoppable evil (Javier Bardem, winning an Oscar as a truly frightening, soulless killing machine) and an opportunistic fool caught in between (Josh Brolin excelling as a shiftless cowboy who stumbles across ill-gotten gains). This is easily one of the most mesmerizing, suspenseful and memorable treks through the moral badlands I’ve seen in years.

2. “Brokeback Mountain” (2005) — Director Ang Lee’s elegiac story of forbidden love featured a pair of courageous, poignant and heart-grabbing performances from Heath Ledger (arguably the pinnacle of his short career) and Jake Gyllenhaal as hard-luck cowboys who take on a lonely sheepherding job in the majestic Wyoming mountain country of 1963 and find camaraderie, then a deeper intimacy that must withstand not only the bitter cold mountain nights but also the hard climate of social intolerance in the America of the ’60s and ’70s. Based on a short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx and adapted for the screen by Pulitzer Price-winning novelist Larry McMurtry (“Lonesome Dove”) and Diana Ossana, this was a tragic and towering testament to the enduring power of love in the face of extreme adversity that was unjustly stood up by Oscar in the best picture category (losing to “Crash”).

3. “The Departed” (2006) — Martin Scorsese directed a high-caliber cast in this gripping, gritty crime epic of a good cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) working undercover within Boston’s Irish-American mafia and a bad cop (Matt Damon) serving as the mob’s mole in the upper ranks of the Massachusetts State Police, each seeking to discover the other’s identity. Jack Nicholson’s over-the-edge performance as the criminal mastermind who runs both their lives should have scored him a supporting actor trophy, but justice was blind on and off the screen that year.

4. “A History of Violence” (2005) — Another high-concept thriller fraught with guns and graphic gore came from dean-of-darkness director David Cronenberg, teaching a profoundly effective lesson in what is real and what is illusion in the lives of an ordinary American Midwestern family, and what unseemly traits can rise to the surface when their normal existence is strained by sudden, deadly violence. Viggo Mortensen’s low-key portrayal of a small-town community pillar with an unsavory big-city past was dead-on, while Maria Bello exhibited impressive emotional range and vulnerable sexuality as the wife at once repulsed and aroused by the discovery of her husband’s hidden, dangerous side. Ed Harris has never been more menacing as the heavy who comes calling, and William Hurt brought a memorably chilling touch of pitch-black comedy to the final showdown scene. This one pulled all the right emotional triggers with killer accuracy, but it wasn’t for the squeamish.

5. “There Will Be Blood” (2007) — Daniel Day-Lewis’ unforgettably ferocious portrayal of a ragtag prospector turned self-made oil giant was reason enough to rank this one among 2007′s best, even though writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s (“Magnolia,” “Boogie Nights”) loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s “Oil” felt ponderous at times and overlong. This epic tale of American-style greed, power, religion and vengeance also featured a fiery performance from Paul Dano (“Little Miss Sunshine”) as a corrupt young preacher who clashes mightily with Lewis’ towering Daniel Plainview. There would be gold for Lewis at the Oscars.

6. “Memento” (2001) — In one of the most original surprises of the decade, writer-director Christopher Nolan took us on a wild ride in reverse through the mind of a man (Guy Pearce) afflicted with short-term memory loss who uses memos to himself, Polaroid snapshots and even reminders tattooed or written on his body to keep him on course in his relentless hunt for his wife’s killer. “Memento’s” gimmick of starting at the end and working its way back to the beginning effectively threw the audience into the protagonist’s disoriented world and made for one of the most unusual and riveting thrillers in recent — or long-term — memory. Now a modern cult classic, it allowed its upstart indie creator to move on to big-budget Batman blockbusters.

7. “Kill Bill — Vol. 1” (2003) — Writer-director Quentin Tarantino reaffirmed his perverse love for pulp fiction and grindhouse action with this daringly over-the-top revenge tale that raised trash entertainment to high pop art. Uma Thurman claimed the all-time action-heroine crown as “The Bride,” a martial-artsy, samurai-sword-slashing, one-woman army on a worldwide hunt for her former colleagues in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, who shot her and left her for dead on the eve of her wedding to a normal civilian. The gutsiest aspect of this comic-book epic is that the audacious auteur divided it into two parts and left us waiting breathlessly for the final installment which, in retrospect, was a bit of a disappointment. But I hear Vol. 3 is on the storyboards. You’ve gotta love Tarantino’s .44-caliber brass.

8. “Million Dollar Baby” (2004) — Clint Eastwood took his best one-two shot as director and actor in this knockout drama of an irascible gym owner who reluctantly agrees to train a dirt-poor waitress consumed with dreams of glory in women’s boxing. Hilary Swank brought Oscar-winning emotional punch and sweet toughness to the role of Maggie Fitzgerald, a woman determined to rise above the low standards of her shiftless family, and the ever reliable Morgan Freeman went for the gut as an ex-boxer, the Eastwood character’s right-hand man and conscience, and the narrator of this stunning tale of courage, heroism and life’s hard knocks.

9. “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2000) — The polar opposite of “No Country,” Joel and Ethan Coen’s eccentric re-thinking of Homer’s “The Odyssey” — setting it in Depression-era Mississippi and centering it around three hapless chain gang escapees, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson and a rib-crackingly hilarious George Clooney — was comic genius of the highest order. Clooney’s vain, pomade-wearing (“I’m a Dapper Dan man”), stubbornly optimistic, wide-eyed, disaster-prone, homespun philosopher will stand as one of the great comedic turns of this decade and many more to come.

10. “Lost in Translation” (2003) — Bill Murray gave his smartest, subtlest and most moving performance to date as a fading Hollywood leading man reduced to making whiskey commercials in Japan to supplement his income — and he still made us laugh. In the surreal environs of showbiz Tokyo, he finds a soul mate, and potential lover, in the unlikely form of Scarlett Johansson, equally fine as the lonely young wife of a neglectful, career-climbing photographer. The sensitive, amazingly accomplished screenwriting and direction by Sofia Coppola — telling this wistful and often funny story of two lonely people finding solace and hope in each other’s company — no doubt made daddy Francis proud.

Social anxieties played out on decade’s silver screen

If the character of a decade is reflected in the mood of its films, then the 2000s, or the aughts, were about anxiety over a future that looks more and more like dystopia, and a desire to escape from our present into a sun-dappled rock ‘n’ roll past, the Middle Earth of our fantasies, the underworld of our nightmares or the clinic that can erase our inescapable failings. Strange days are difficult to live in, but the great art created during those times can far outlast the chaos.

1. “Almost Famous” (2000) — What is there to love about “Almost Famous”? To begin with, everything. Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiography about a teenager following a midlevel band in the 1970s is possibly the greatest film about rock ‘n’ roll ever made, but it is also about journalism, the quasi-religion surrounding music, the complications of family and the exquisite pain of first love. Every frame is true and believable as are the performances, especially Patrick Fugit as William Miller, the stand-in for Crowe’s real-life experiences, and Kate Hudson as Penny Lane, the queen of the “band-aids.” Anyone who does not understand why some people, present company included, cannot pull their minds out of rock ‘n’ roll must see “Almost Famous.” The film explains why the first notes of some songs cause immediate dopamine rushes. In the process, the film elicits a sustained one of its own.

2. “Minority Report” (2002) — Steven Spielberg understands that the future does not look like “The Jetsons.” It is far more likely to look and feel like “Minority Report,” a future-shock whodunit about the complications of government intrusion through a program that predicts crime before it happens, and its false implication of a high-level police officer, John Anderton (Tom Cruise). Like “Blade Runner,” the other great adaptation of a Phillip K. Dick story, “Minority Report” carries identifiable vestiges of current life and juxtaposes them with exciting and alarmingly feasible visions of days to come. Since “Minority Report,” some of the technological developments it predicted have come true, such as Microsoft Surface and elements of the iPhone. Ignore the rest of its prognostications at your peril.

3. “No Country For Old Men” (2007) — Joel and Ethan Coen’s masterpiece took Cormac McCarthy’s allegory about the certainty of death and made it uncomfortably visceral and impossible to shake. No other screen villain of the decade exudes the controlled menace of Javier Bardem’s Anton Chiguhr, a hit man with almost supernatural skill at tailing his prey, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a day laborer who stumbles on some bloody drug money and immediately seals his fate.

4. “Memento” (2000) — Christopher Nolan’s breakthrough film about a man with short-term memory loss trying to find his wife’s killer tells its story entirely backwards, in bursts of tantalizing, brain-twisting edification. “Memento” succeeds because its internal logic is rock-solid, as is Guy Pearce’s superb performance as a man who must rely on a baroque tapestry of tattoos to remember where he is, who he is and whether he is following or being followed.

5. “Children of Men” (2006) — Much like “Minority Report,” Alfonso Cuaron’s 2027 looks alarmingly like an extrapolated version of the present day, effectively imagining a world without any responsibility to future generations, and the terrible life left to an infertile humanity. Clive Owen stars as a burned-out civil serviceman who must transport the first pregnant woman in two decades to a scientific compound that might not even exist. From its use of present-day geopolitics to its grimy, familiar-looking imagery, “Children of Men” is the stuff of well-reasoned nightmares.

6. “Lord of the Rings Trilogy” (2001-2003) — Peter Jackson proved that J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterwork was filmable after all, fully capturing the elements that had haunted and thrilled teenage bookworms for 50 years. Jackson’s adaptation is precise and affectionate, the casting and performances are note-perfect, and the use of motion-capture technology in bringing Gollum to life helped pave the way for cinema’s present (notably “Avatar”) and future.

7. “The Dark Knight” (2008) — Beyond Heath Ledger’s extraordinary performance as The Joker, “The Dark Knight” plays in parts like a writ-large epic, a la “The Godfather,” and at other times like a gritty Sidney Lumet crime drama. Christopher Nolan proved he could reinvent a mistreated film franchise with “Batman Begins,” then proceeded to make possibly the greatest comic book adaptation of all time.

8. “Zodiac” (2007) — Speaking of Lumet, David Fincher channeled both the “Dog Day Afternoon” master and Alan J. Pakula’s “All the President’s Men” in this epic telling of the Zodiac Killer case, in which a series of murders terrorized the San Francisco area in the 1960s and 1970s, and its perpetrator was never conclusively identified or brought to justice. “Zodiac” follows obsessed reporter Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) and a legendary detective (Mark Ruffalo) as their obsessions with the crimes come to define them. Fincher’s zeal in capturing the mind-set that makes great journalists and police officers comes to define “Zodiac” itself.

9. “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006) — Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy follows young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) as she is pulled into a dark netherworld as a phantasmagoric escape from the torture of her family life in post-civil war Spain. Few recent cinematic images are as harrowing as the Pale Man (Doug Jones), and “Pan’s Labyrinth” proved that del Toro was the perfect director to helm Peter Jackson’s upcoming, two-part production of “The Hobbit.”

10. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004) — Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman deeply explored the psychology of lost love and whether losing the memory of a traumatic experience is worth the eventual price. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet were superb, but the stars of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” were the fertile, convoluted imaginations of its writer and director.

Filmmakers move key part of compelling story from Oklahoma to Nebraska

Even Oklahomans who can forgive the filmmakers for snubbing our capital city will find “Extraordinary Measures” a less than extraordinary cinematic experience.

The first big-screen effort from CBS Films, the leaden family drama plays like a big-budget, star-studded TV movie.

Screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs and director Tom Vaughan do little to innovate or elevate “Extraordinary Measures” beyond the overcoming-the-odds formula used in dozens of Lifetime and Hallmark Channel telefilms.

Billed as “inspired by a true events,” the film follows the desperate efforts of real-life dad John Crowley (Brendan Fraser) to find a treatment for Pompe disease, a rare genetic muscle-wasting disorder afflicting two of his three children, Megan (Meredith Droeger) and Patrick (Diego Velazquez).

When we meet the Crowley family, Megan is celebrating her eighth birthday, and her father’s dread is growing, since the typical lifespan for Pompe patients is nine years. While perusing Pompe research, he reads about University of Nebraska scientist Dr. Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford), whose work seems ahead of the field.

The frantic father travels to Nebraska to seek out Stonehill, who is as socially inept as he is brilliant. The crabby researcher doesn’t have the money to turn his Pompe theory into a working drug, so Crowley promises to raise $500,000 for that purpose.

Crowley falls well short of his goal. But his tenacity impresses Stonehill enough that the scientist talks Crowley into quitting his high-paying corporate job so they can launch a biotech startup and develop the drug.

The often-clashing pair face many obstacles to developing an approved treatment, hoping against hope that they will get to a clinical trial in time to save Crowley’s kids.

While the story has surely been compressed, the film still gets bogged down with too many investor meetings and laboratory face-offs, dreary conflicts that distract from the race against time that provides the real drama.

Fraser seems to struggle with the script’s movie-of-the-week dialogue, delivering a rather uneven portrayal. Steady as ever, Keri Russell gives a solid performance as Crowley’s supportive wife. But Ford, who also executive produces, makes the film worth watching with his unbridled turn as a mercurial scientist.

Ford’s Dr. Stonehill is a composite character based on several researchers, but only one started a company to develop a Pompe treatment with the real-life Crowley: Dr. Bill Canfield at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. As a native Oklahoman, it stuck in my craw to see important research that happened in Oklahoma City even fictionally relocated to Nebraska.

Geography aside, “Extraordinary Measures” includes some memorable moments but doesn’t live up the stirring real-life story that inspired it.

— Brandy McDonnell

PG
1:45
2 stars

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Harrison Ford, Keri Russell. (Thematic material, language and a mild suggestive moment)

Films that define decade are not just favorites

'Finding Nemo' among Brandy McDonnell's decade picks

When it comes to defining a decade, the word “best” takes on a weightier meaning.

Assigned to name my choices for the 10 (or so) best movies of 2000-09, I didn’t want to just list my favorite films of the past 10 years. Instead, I set out to select exceptional films that were difference-makers, movies that set or shattered a trend, raised the bar for a genre, represented a new phase of development for a director or simply changed my life in some way.

Here is that list:

1. Pixar’s masterpieces — Pixar Animation Studios produced four four-star movies — “Monsters, Inc.” (2001), “Finding Nemo” (2003), “The Incredibles” (2004) and “Wall-E” (2008) — during the ’00s. Pixar started revolutionizing animation in 1995 with “Toy Story,” but the storytelling geniuses really came into their own at the turn of the 21st century, with a stunning series of animated films that garnered stellar reviews, made huge box-office bucks and shared tales and characters that stayed with viewers.

2. “Cinderella Man” (2005) — Biopics were among the dominant movie trends of the aughts. Ron Howard used what he had gleaned from making his Oscar-winning 2001 biopic “A Beautiful Mind” to craft an even better fact-based film about Depression-era boxer Jim Braddock. And Russell Crowe’s pitch-perfect performance surpassed even his Academy Award-earning turn in 2000′s “Gladiator,” though the Aussie star’s bad behavior (remember him bashing that hotel employee with a telephone?) kept “Cinderella Man” from getting the notice it deserved.

3. “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2000) — The Coen brothers’ Great Depression-set take on Homer’s “The Odyssey” made me truly fall in love with Joel and Ethan’s filmmaking ingenuity, not just respect or enjoy their films. And my adoration developed with time to spare before the brothers created their dark masterwork, 2007′s “No Country for Old Men.”

4. “Kill Bill: Vol. 1” and “Kill Bill: Vol. 2” (2003-04) — Quentin Tarantino took the cinema-loving, over-the-top, darkly humorous vision he set to film in the 1990s with “Pulp Fiction” and gave it a whole new epic scope with his dual-volume revenge tale. He in turn used what he learned on The Bride’s two-part mission to craft his magnum opus, 2009′s “Inglourious Basterds.”

5. “28 Days Later” (2002) — British director Danny Boyle proved there is no genre he can’t handle with his terrifying, haunting and meaningful horror film, which brought zombies back into a vogue they continue to eat up. He then won multiple Oscars and made one of my all-time favorite films with 2008′s “Slumdog Millionaire.”

6. “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy (2001-03) — I never got around to reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings until Peter Jackson’s adaptation of “The Fellowship of the Ring” debuted at Christmastime 2001. I then quickly devoured all three volumes, and when “The Two Towers” opened a year later, I had even read “The Hobbit” aloud to my older son. By the time “The Return of the King” earned a whopping 11 Oscars, I was a full-blown Tolkien fan.

7. “Once” (2007) — The aughts featured the revival of the big-time movie musical with the likes of “Moulin Rouge!” (2001), “Chicago” (2002) and “Dreamgirls” (2006). But the emotional strength of this low-key, modern-day Irish musical lingered long after the others’ song-and-dance numbers faded.

8. “The Hurt Locker” (2009) — Kathryn Bigelow deserves to become the first woman to win the Academy Award for best director for creating one of the best combat films of recent memory. Her heart-pounding and thought-provoking drama is set in the Iraq war, a conflict that overshadowed life in the ’00s and produced a startling number of bad films.

9. “Batman Begins” (2005) and “The Dark Knight” (2008) — Auteur Christopher Nolan took the superhero genre, which went through a resurgence in the 2000s, to a new plane and then made the sequel even better. Not even the dazzling reboot of the James Bond series with “Casino Royale” (2006) and “Quantum of Solace” (’08) could compare with the fresh start of the venerable, oft-abused Batman franchise.

10. “Juno” (2007) — Jason Reitman took his place among the decade’s top filmmakers with his sophomore effort, a comedy about a bright, offbeat teen (Ellen Page) dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. He elevated his game even higher for the 2009 drama “Up in the Air.”