The year is MILLENNIUM... by our calendars anyway, the computers did not crash the air planes, or activate nuclear missiles, we are all still here. HURRAY! Time for some good movies then.

(I started out thinking I was going to do a top 10, but then some years were not that good to get a top 10, except 2001, but I'm not there yet...)

2000

Battle Royale (Batoru rowaiaru)

Tagline(s) -

Could you kill your best friend?

One Dead. 41 To Go.

42 Students, Three Days, One Survivor, No Rules.

Today, I killed my best friend.

Have you ever killed your best friend?


Based on the novel by Koushun Takami , and directed by Kinji Fukasak.

Battle Royale takes place in an alternate timeline?Japan is a national socialist state, known as the Republic of Greater East Asia . Under the guise of a "study trip," a group of students from Shiroiwa Junior High School in the fictional town of Shiroiwa (Kagawa Prefecture) are sleep-gassed on a bus. They awaken in the Okishima Island School on Okishima, an isolated, evacuated island southwest of Shodoshima, also in Kagawa Prefecture. They learn that they have been placed in an event called The Program. Officially a military research project, The Program is a means of terrorizing the population, of creating such paranoia as to make organized insurgency impossible. According to the rules, every year since 1947, fifty 3rd year junior high school (14-15 years old) classes are isolated, and each class is required to fight to the death until one student remains. Their movements are restricted by metal collars, later identified as Model Guadalcanal No. 22, around their necks which contain tracking and listening devices; if any student should attempt to escape The Program, or enter declared "danger zones", a bomb will be detonated in the collar, killing the wearer. If no student dies in any 24 hour period, all collars will be detonated simultaneously.

 

 

 

Final Destination

Tagline(s) -

Most people have dreams. For Alex, this is real.

Face Your Deepest Fears... Before They Face You.

No Accidents. No Coincidences. No Escapes. You Can't Cheat Death.

Death Doesn't Take No For An Answer.

Can You Cheat Death?

Death is coming.

I'll see you soon.

Next stop, it's you...

Are you ready to match wits with the Grim Reaper?

 

From my favourite X-File (and Space Above and Beyond) writers/directors Glen Morgan and James Wong came a movie originally pitched as an episode of the X-FIles. A Supernatural thriller where young Alex is shown the future when he boards a plane to Paris for a school trip.

The opening of this movie is understated, ominous as Alex and his friend Tod prepare for baording and joke around trying to get Tod next to some girl he has the hots for. Then we witness a horrible airplane explosion in the air, and it's all so real until your back in the plane with Alex and the plane has never moved. It was all in his mind. He freaks out, shouting the plane's going to explode and in the process his best friend Tod gets off with i, leaving his brother behind, Carter and his girlfriend Terry are escorted off when Carter (Kerr Smith) trieds to make Alex sit back down, caught up in the middle of it trying to get to his seat is Billy (played to perfection by Seann William Scott) and finally Clear River (really THAT name? Played by a brunette Ali Larter) finds it all so fascinating that she believes Alex's rantings and follows them off. A teacher, who isnt very good at French, Val Lewton (played by Glem Morgan, Kristen Cloke, look out for her in anything these guys make) gets off too, to watch the kids and get a later flight with them.

 

Back in the departure lounge, they argue butas Alex tries to explain what he saw.

I saw it, I-I don?t know? I saw it, I saw it on the runway, I saw it take off, I saw out my window, I saw the ground a-and the cabin starts to shake a-and the left side blows up and the whole plane explodes, a-and it was so real just like everything happened, you know and then KABOOM!!!! (outside the plane they just got off explodes in the air)

As the movie goes on Alex gets more clues into peoples deaths who cheated death by getting off the plane, but Death has to come back around and finish what it started and make sure the survivors all meet their fates.

 

O Brother Where Art Thou?

Tagline(s)

Sometimes, you have to lose your way to get back home

They have a plan, but not a clue.

My favourite Coen Brothers movie, with a great feeling soundtrack.

TRACK LISTING

1. "Po' Lazarus", arrangement by Alan Lomax; performed by James Carter and The Prisoners ? 4:31
2. "Big Rock Candy Mountain", written and performed by Harry McClintock ? 2:16
3. "You Are My Sunshine", written by Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell; performed by Norman Blake ? 4:26
4. "Down to the River to Pray", traditional; performed by Alison Krauss ? 2:55
5. "Man of Constant Sorrow" (radio station version), arrangement by Carter Stanley; performed by Soggy Bottom Boys and Dan Tyminski ? 3:10
6. "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues", written by Skip James; performed by Chris Thomas King ? 2:42
7. "Man of Constant Sorrow", traditional; performed by Norman Blake ? 4:28
8. "Keep on the Sunny Side", written by A.P. Carter; performed by The Whites ? 3:33
9. "I'll Fly Away", written by Albert E. Brumley; performed by Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch ? 3:57
10. "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby", arrangement by Alan Lomax, T-Bone Burnett and Gillian Welch; performed by Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, and Gillian Welch ? 1:57
11. "In the Highways", written by Maybelle Carter; performed by Leah, Sarah, and Hannah Peasall ? 1:35
12. "I Am Weary, Let Me Rest", written by Pete Roberts; performed by The Cox Family of Cotton Valley, Louisiana ? 3:13
13. "Man of Constant Sorrow", written by Dick Burnett; performed by Dan Tyminski, Harley Allen and Pat Enright ? 2:34
14. "O Death", traditional; performed by Ralph Stanley ? 3:19
15. "In the Jailhouse Now", written by Jimmie Rodgers; performed by Soggy Bottom Boys and Tim Blake Nelson ? 3:34
16. "Man of Constant Sorrow" (with band), arrangement by Carter Stanley; performed by Soggy Bottom Boys and Dan Tyminski ? 4:16
17. "Indian War Whoop", written by Hoyt Ming; performed by John Hartford ? 1:30
18. "Lonesome Valley", traditional; performed by The Fairfield Four ? 4:07
19. "Angel Band", traditional, performed by The Stanley Brothers ? 2:15

The soundtrack CD became a best seller, certified eight times platinum as of October 2007 with sales of 7,421,000 copies in the United States up to November 2008. It won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals (for singer Dan Tyminski, whose voice overdubbed George Clooney's in the film on "Man of Constant Sorrow", Nashville songwriter Harley Allen, and the Nashville Bluegrass Band's Pat Enright), and the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for "O, Death" by Ralph Stanley.

Some of the artists on the soundtrack played a concert at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, which was recorded in the documentary film, Down from the Mountain.

In 2006, the album ranked #38 on CMT's 40 Greatest Albums in Country Music.

The movie was based on Homer's The Odyssey - "Ulysses Everett McGill, known as Everett (George Clooney), Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro), and Delmar O?Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson) escape from a chain gang and set out to retrieve the $1.2 million in treasure that Everett claims to have stolen from an armored car and buried before his incarceration. They have only four days to find it before the valley in which it is hidden will be flooded to create Arkabutla Lake as part of a new hydroelectric project. Early on in their escape, they try to jump onto a moving train with some hobos, but fall off due to Pete's inability to get on. They then encounter a blind man traveling on a manual railroad car. They hitch a ride, and he foretells their futures, similar to the oracle of Homer's Odyssey."

The film received a 78% on Rotten Tomatoes.