The 100 Best Films of the Decade, Part 4

70. Shrek (2001) - Sure, Shrek 2 was flat-out hilarious, and Shrek the Third was a rehash of left-over pop-culture gags and crude jokes, but the original still stays with me. I loved how this sweet and funny-as-hell spoof took every fantasy fable from The Three Pigs to Rapunzel, used every universal, cliched and worn-out trick from said stories and made this kid's story about a isolated ogre and his ever-chattering ass trying to rescue a princess for the short-stature prick of a king, adult friendly as well. Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz bring the funny and touching romance in Shrek and Fiona, but Eddie Murphey is the side-splitting standout of the bunch as Donkey, and is easily the best comic sidekick this decade.

69. Superbad (2007) - It's the moment when Seth (Jonah Hill) is pointed out that the girl he was dancing with at a house party just used his pants leg as a tampon, when I realized what this raunchy high school flick was: my generation's version of American Pie. Two best buds Seth and Evan (Michael Cera) attempt to buy booze and score with their dream girls Jules (Emma Stone) and Becca (Martha MacIssac) on the last night of their high school lives. Add in a nerd even Napoleon Dynamite wouldn't hang with in Fogel (the brilliant Christopher Mintz-Plasse) tagging along as under the now-infamous McLovin', two incompetent cops (Seth Rogen and SNL funnyman Bill Hader), and artful dick drawings, and you get a vulgar, crude, hilarious and honest look at teenage boys being teenage boys.

68. Punch-Drunk Love (2002) - The only thing stranger than this oddball romantic comedy from Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) about a salesman and the Brit executive (the charming Emily Watson) who sees something deeper, past his shy and sometimes pent-up violent nature, is the fact that Adam Sandler shows his acting chops. Yes, the same person who starred in Billy Madison and The Waterboy, brings more than just his regular idiot-boy shtick. Sandler bristles with insecurity, isolation, humor and inconsolable rage - sometimes, all at once in Barry Egan. He's a knockout.

67. Traffic (2000) - Of all the films Steven Soderbergh has done this decade (Erin Brockovich, the Oceans 11 trilogy, The Informant!, Che, to name a few), his no-bull look at the drug war is my favorite from him. Interlocking stories - the segment about the newly-appointed anti-narcotics czar (Michael Douglas) fighting two wars, America's War on Drugs and the one at home with her daughter's decent into freebasing addict status (Erika Christensen in a heart-wrenching performance); the San Diego-based drug lord (Stephen Bauer) and his wife (an excellent Catherine Zeta-Jones), oblivious as to how hubby makes his money; and a Tijuana narc officer (Benicio Del Toro) caught in a trap between his duties and the corrupt officials who work for the drug cartels - all serve their purposes without preaching to anyone, except weaving a story in which the characters affect everyone without meeting face to face.

66. Ray (2004) - Much like with Adam Sandler in P.T. Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, who here thought comedian Jamie Foxx could give a brilliant performance as the late and great Ray Charles, much less act? Those who didn't raise your hands, look to his breakout role as a cab driver in Collateral, but I digress. Foxx doesn't just play Charles, but so much as nail every nuance and gesture. Watching him struggle through blindness and drug addiction is harrowing and haunting, and Foxx completes the journey with one of the most powerful performances this decade.

65. WALL-E (2008) - Common sense wold dictate that after making animation landmarks with Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille, that Pixar Animation Studios would finally run out of gas and release a mediocre, cliched animation flick. 30 wordless minutes into writer-director Andrew Stanton's WALL-E, in which a robot is programmed to clean up after Earth becomes uninhabitable for human life to continue on living, the wizards at Pixar show no signs of letting up or slowing down anytime soon. WALL-E is a gorgeous, and heartfelt, and haunting picture that stays with you long after the credits roll. Gorgeous, because it's what Pixar does best with their animation; heartfelt, for the romance between WALL-E and EVE (the dance outside the Axiom spaceship is one of the most moving scenes i've seen a film since Maya talking about her love of wine in Sideways); haunting, because of the film's vision of planet Earth as a garbage wasteland after both corporate greed coupled with humanity's ignorance nearly destroying their home.

64. Batman Begins (2005) - In the hands of Christopher Nolan, he breathes life into a franchise that looked like it had nothing left. As haunted, playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale gives him and his alter ego Batman, the film's grieving heart and battered soul. Nolan doens't head straight for the Batsuit or the Batmobile. We go to the source of Wayne's troubles: his traumatic childhood - from the fall in the well full of bats to the moment he witnesses his parents shot in cold blood - and his search to find justice and himself in the Himalayan mountains.

63. School of Rock (2003) - Probably the coolest, most kick-ass (though fictional) rock band i've seen....and they're only in grade school! The lead singer? A 30-something deadbeat faking it as a teacher for a private school academy for a chance to play in Battle of the Bands. It screams idiocy and borders on near-pedophilia, but kudos to screenwriter Mike White, and director Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise) by keeping the story between the young characters and their teacher, (an off-the-walls comedic performance by Jack Black) about them, and the sick music they play. Rock on, kids.

62. The Last Samurai (2003) - Say what you will about Tom Cruise (an ego-driven dick who's part of a crazy, brainwashing cult), but as Capt. Nathan Algren, an alcoholic soldier ashamed of the sins he's committed against an indigenous tribe, it's his finest hour as an actor. His job now is to wipe out the samurai, led by the rebel Katsumoto (an excellent Ken Wantanabe) in order to modernize Japan with the West, only to become captured and end up joining Katsumoto's cause. Critics say Edward Zwick's moive was nothing more than a romanticizing of federal Japan. That's the point. The Last Samurai is a sweeping, romanticized tale of the waning days of a world we now only remember in history textbooks, and to that regard, it's one powerful period piece with stunning cinematography work and a mesmerizing score by Hans Zimmer.

61. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) - Confession: up to seeing Woody Allen's funny, sexy, and heartbreaking comedy, I have never seen anything by Allen. Afterwords, I snatched up all the work he's done this decade (Match Point, Scoop, Whatever Works, Cassandra's Dream). This is easily my favorite. I love the sexual tension between Scarlet Johannson, Javier Bardem, and Penelope Cruz, and I loved the dialogue between all of Woody Allen's characters. What I loved most of all was Cruz as Maria Elena, who is literally, lightning in a bottle. She's funny, wildly seductive, and quietly heartbreaking.