This is a list of the 40 movies of the last ten years that affected me the most. They aren’t the “best” movies by any stretch of the imagination (Even the stubborn narcissist in me can’t call movies 22, 23 or 27 “good”), just the ones that moved me, entertained me, and enlightened me. They are the 40 movies I will remember, and care about, from the 2000’s.
The hope is that reading this list will help you to learn more about Jason Matthews (aka “The Jay’). It shouldn’t be an exercise in bashing my taste. Cause we all like some really bad pop culture (hey Keanu!), and no one should be judged by their guilty pleasures. The idea is not for me to tell you what to like or what you should think. I’m not making a case that my list is any better or valid than any of the other indulgent Best Of The Decade lists (which all suck) that are overloading the Internet right now. I didn’t pick these movies to make you think I’m some cool, with it know-it-all. Frankly, all that doesn’t matter to me.
I’m simply saying, for me, these were the ones that mattered. For whatever it’s worth.
40 – Mean Girls
Was the catalyst for the rise (and fall) of Lindsey Lohan: failed actress, successful tabloid whore, ginger person; introduced the world to Rachel McAdams; tried to make “fetch” happen. This movie had a lot going on.
39 – Collateral
Tom Cruise is more fun to watch as a villain. Consider: Magnolia, Interview with a Vampire, Tropic Thunder, Vanilla Sky. Wait, he wasn’t the villain in Vanilla Sky? But then why was he trying to eat my soul with his mis-aligned upper teeth, serial killer mask and frightening intensity?
38 – High Fidelity
Lloyd Dobler grew up, got way into music and became a manic-depressive. A happy ending? Not quite. But it did result in a smart, hyper-literal movie with Tim Robbins getting a long-deserved beat down, totes supes CZJ side boob, Lisa Bonet singfucking us some Peter Frampton, Jack Black being actually funny instead of the not funny he’s become, the obliges John Cusack standing forlornly in the rain shot and maybe the hottest sex scene of the 2000’s (starring, shocker, Tim Robbins).
37 – Juno
Is it obnoxious writing? Yes. (I considered writing ‘honest to blog there, but didn’t really want to throw up on my keyboard, so you know.) Is Ellen Page too precocious by half? Correct. Is what the movie has to say kinda offensive? Pretty much. But I can’t take away the amazing work done by Jason Bateman, Jen Garner (her scene in the mall is a killer) and Allison Janney. And any movie that makes its male lead a Cross Country and Track star is all right by me.
36 – Old School
“He’s gonna do one!” Nuff said.
35 – Unbreakable
The best comic book origin movie that you didn’t realize was actually a comic book origin movie ever. I miss M. Night’s fastball.
34 – Atonement
If only for the score, the library sex scene and BRIIIIOOOOONNNNYYY! Also? Everything else about this movie.
33 – Moulin Rouge!
I can sing both parts of Elephant Love Medley by heart, nine years later. That has to count for something.
32 – Sideways
I hated this movie for a long, long time. And I can’t forgive the movie for causing a fungal rash of sad bastard men movies to be made (mostly all starring Paul Giamatti or PSH, obvs). But the movie got people into wine, my favorite hobby, and shined a light on Santa Barbara Wine Country, my favorite place in the world. And despite my issues with the story, THIS is amazing writing:
“I like to think about the life of wine. How it’s a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing; how the sun was shining; if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it’s an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I’d opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it’s constantly evolving and gaining complexity. That is, until it peaks, like your ’61. And then it begins its steady, inevitable decline. …And it tastes so fucking good.”
31 – The Queen
A stunning picture, credits to credits. Gets extra credit for making me want to do to horrifyingly sexual things to a septuagenarian. (What? Helen Mirren is HOT. #fact)
30 – The Bourne Ultimatum
For the Waterloo Station sequence alone.
29 – Mission Impossible 3
Secretly the best action movie of the decade. And easily one of the best action movie teasers of all-time.
28 – Pride and Prejudice
The film that made me turn the corner on Keira Knightley. It’s a beautiful adaptation, has the most sweeping camera work, and the ensemble brings it with powerful yet subtle acting. Loved this movie.
27 – The Perfect Score
A perfect 80’s teen movie, twenty years too late.
26 – The Blind Side
The best movie of 2009. And it’s not even close. Saw it in theaters twice, cried both times. The best work Sandy has ever done, and she’s done a lot of great work. Hollywood doesn’t make movies like this anymore, but they should.
25 – Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Shane Black at his sardonic, quippy, violent action best, RoDoJu bringing the funny, Val tapping into his Real Genius performance, AND Michelle Monaghan topless? How was this movie not a GIANT success?
24 – Zoolander
The movie I have quoted the most this decade. It isn’t a particularly good movie, but there’s not a person I know who doesn’t, every so often, cough lightly in public and say “I have the black lung, pop”.
23 – Taken
“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”*
*Gets extra credit for being the only time I went to the Bridge Cinema and didn’t have the worst movie-going experience in my life. What is WRONG with those people? Take your idiot conversations, text messaging and general hooliganery OUT of the theater. There are people trying to watch Liam Neeson kill foreigners here!
22 – The Core
Quite possibly the dumbest disaster movie Hollywood has ever put out, and that includes the one where Dennis Quaid runs away from weather, but I can’t help but love something that knows how stupid it actually is. And I can’t help but be charmed by a movie that has its hero pitch a full-on temper tantrum AT his love interest. That takes balls.
21 – Iron Man
The most fun of any blockbuster in the last ten years. Gets props for casting RoDoJu right off of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, when no one thought he had a Franchise in him. Made Gwyneth Paltrow fun again (no easy feat). And the scene of Stark testing out the flying mechanism in his workshop is an underrated special effects stunner.
20 – Minority Report
If for this scene alone:
You may weep now.
19 – The Aviator
As someone who has fought (and occasionally won) the battle of obsessive-compulsive disorder, I can relate to this film on a molecular level. And I could watch Leonardo dress down Cate Blanchett every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
“Don’t you ever talk talk down to me! You’re a movie star, nothing more!”
18 – No Country For Old Men
Was the Best Picture in the best year for Best Pictures of the decade. And putting this here means I get to link to my Javier Bardem Oscar post, one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. Done!
17 – Ocean’s Eleven
A compulsively watchable flick, the best star cast of the decade, an instant TNT New Classic and just plain, good old-fashioned fun. Brad Pitt eating in every scene, the wink wink lame ‘happily ever after’ kiss at the end, Julia emailing in her performance, “Whisky and a whisky”, the all of the everything that is Topher Grace and Matt Damon FINALLY making me like him (if not so much his pig nose).
16 – Catch Me If You Can
Some of the best work Spielberg has done in two decades, and it all feels tossed off, making me love it all the more. Haunting, genuine work by Christopher Walken (not easy at this point, if you think about it), the best knock knock joke ever, a game Tom Hanks, my favorite opening credits of the decade and Leo being Leo. There’s something about D-Cap’s work in the 2000’s that hit me hard. He played guys missing answers and trying desperately to find them, which I heart. You’ll notice that starts to be a recurring theme from here on out.
15 – Punch Drunk Love
A mesmerizing movie, if only for the pillow talk.
14 – Mr. & Mrs. Smith
The schadenfreude alone qualifies the movie for Best Ever status. Smith has no business being good, considering its troubled production, and the fact that the movie could have just put a close up on Brangelina’s faces for two hours and called it a day and we would have ate it up, and yet it is. Very good, in fact. The Brad on Angelina fight was fantastic, the freeway gunfight with Truths Revealed sequence was electrifying (“Art?” “History! It’s reputable.”), Vince Vaughn was stellar, Adam Brody got beat up (counts for a LOT), and I can’t get enough of Brad telling Angelina she “looked like Christmas morning”. I’m on Team Aniston, for the real, but this movie almost makes up for her trauma.
13 – Bring It On
The Citizen Kane of cheerleader movies. Also, the only movie Kirsten Dunst has EVER been likable in. And, um, hello, Eliza Dushku in a bikini, washing cars. My work here is done.
12 – Kill Bill ½
Part 1 is ultra-badass, Part 2 is exhilarating filmmaking. Would rank higher if QT had taken out the anime sequence (not interested, thanks), reduced the time Uma was trapped in a coffin (my greatest fear), and eased back on the foot fetish. We get it, Uma has great toes! Can we get back to the swords and exploitation now?
11 – The Notebook
I get that I’m a guy and therefore shouldn’t have this on my list. But you can’t tell me this wasn’t a seminal movie of the decade. That it didn’t change things. You can’t. Gosling and McAdams were the most watchable lovers in any movie of the last ten years. Period. I loved this movie the first time I saw it, and when I rewatched it again for this list, you know what I found out about my love for it? It wasn’t over. It’s still not over!
/makes out with this movie in the rain
10 – X-Men
I saw this movie in theaters five times, maybe the most I have ever seen any movie in the theaters. The movie is not without issues: the ending is small, Halle Berry is atrocious, Anna Paquin makes me Ralph and the pace is like an injured turtle. But man alive, Hugh Jackman’s arms. Hugh freaking Jackman’s. Arms.
Please excuse me while I go do 150 push-ups.
9 – Garden State
I make no apologies for this movie. It’s trendy to bash Garden State because of the weak, cliché writing, but you know what all you people? Go fuck yourself. This movie is GREAT. The Coldplay, the slow motion zooms, the WIDE establishing shots, the Natalie Portman, what’s not to like? Guys ding this movie unfairly because they are jealous Zach Braff got to make out with Natalie Portman in the rain, which is (not so) secretly our greatest wish in life. But we need to get over ourselves. And wannabe filmmakers hate this movie because they believe they could do it better. But if they could, they would, and they haven’t. Braff may be a King Douche, but he gets credit for doing it. And the doing is the whole point.
8 – The Royal Tenenbaums
Wes Anderson, irritating storytelling warts and all, is a singular voice in American filmmaking. This is his best work, and it’s not even close.
“The crickets and the rust-beetles scuttled among the nettles of the sage thicket. “Vámonos, amigos,” he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.”
7 – Wedding Crashers
Any film that opens with a ten minute montage of partying, bare boobs, cake and great dialogue, and then gives us Walken being an oddball, McAdams being luminous, Jane Seymour MILF-ing it up, Bradley Cooper playing a character named Sack Lodge, and the everything of the all that is the stage-5 clinger Isla Fisher, with a truly hilarious Will Ferrell cameo to boot, automatically makes me Top Movies of the Decade list. Hey, I don’t make the rules, I just obey them. So no excuses, play like a champion.
6 – Anchorman
I submit to you the following:
Any questions?
5. Brick
It could be the dialogue. It could be the style. It could be the camera work. It could be the score. But really, it’s about the journey. Of a guy looking for answers. A guy who refuses to just leave it be. A guy who needs to know. And who pays the price for that information.
4 – Harry Potter 3 and 5
Parts one and two are kids movies. Four is easy to digest mainstream snore. Six is too insular for its own good. But 3 and 5, Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix? They’re about something. They have something to say. They are filmmaking of the highest order. Two harsh, magnificent, brutal chapters in the life of a tragic boy, who wants nothing more than to be normal, happy and loved, and continues to suffer for wanting those things and having the gall to ask for them.
It’s easy to write this franchise off because of its popularity, but never forget that this is a story of a boy whose parents were murdered, a boy being hunted down every moment of his life, a boy with the literal world on his shoulders, a boy who can relate to no one, but who never backs down for a fight and will stop at nothing to protect those he cares about, even if it means dying. Let’s see Team Bella do that.
3 – Spartan
I’m a doer. I see a job that needs to get done, I do it. No complaints, no questions. I will go to the ends of the Earth to make it happen. Spartan is a movie made for people like me. Gripping, intense, honorable and the best Mamet dialogue an aspiring playwright could ask for.
And if you ever wanted to pull life advice from a movie, this is the movie to do it.
“You had your whole life to prepare for this moment. Why aren’t you ready?”
“The hardest thing, y’know what it is? It isn’t going in the door, it’s coming out.”
“Why would I want to know? I ain’t a planner, I ain’t a thinker. I never wanted to be. You got to set your motherfucker to receive. Listen to me. They don’t go through the door, we don’t ask why. That’s not a cost, it’s benefit. Because we get to travel light. They tell me where to go. Tell me what to do when I get there.”
2 – The 25th Hour
I tend to respond the most to movies about conflicted characters reflecting on their past, trying to figure out where things went wrong, and considering how to fix it going forward. This is the finest version of that story.
I dream of writing something as beautiful as the last ten minutes:
1 – Before Sunset
I look at my Top Ten and I see a pattern. And the pattern is me. We love movies for all sorts of reasons, but the ones that matter to us, tend to matter for one specific reason. Their story, in a fashion, is our story.
I started this decade as a freshman in College. All optimism, energy and naïveté. I was a hopeless romantic, with not an ounce of practicality. I had done nothing, but believed I felt everything. I end this decade a professional. I am hardened, realistic, unlike that 18 year-old boy in every way. I spent ten years searching for answers. Trying to discover the right path to happiness. And I haven’t found it yet. But I can look back, see the course of my life and understand how things fit. Why they went the way they did. Why I am here, in this place, in this moment, today. Which is good.
But that doesn’t mean I like it. And it doesn’t mean I accept it.
Before Sunset is that story. Tracking your life across a long span, deciphering the choices made, from love to career to everything else. Seeing so clearly how it all went down, but being powerless to alter things for the better. And then, in the most perfect cinematic way, two people are given a second chance. They are given an opportunity to get it right, this time, knowing now what they wish they knew then. And it’s on them to make it happen.
Before Sunset is an escape in the best way possible. It’s fun imagining I’m Neo or Riggs or John McClane or the guys from Wedding Crashers, shooting guns, being a hero, getting laid, etc. But it’s better, and more fulfilling, to imagine getting that second chance. To imagine saying all the right things in all the right ways to the right person. And hearing them say all the right things back to you.
It’s a movie about hope, the one thing I take with me the most into the new decade. The hope that I will figure it out. The hope that I won’t need that second chance, because when it counts, I will get it right the first time.
Movies are and always have been my education. I learn who I am from what I watch. These 40 movies, more than any others, taught me the most about myself this decade. And I will take the knowledge I have gained into the next decade and try to better myself, little by little, every day.
I am smarter, stronger, kinder, and more able to survive and thrive. What’s the job? Find me. I’ve had my whole life to prepare for this moment.
I am ready.
Bangarang!
(Follow me on Twitter @jasonamatthews)
I took one for the team on Friday and took a date to see Enchanted. And while I had no real problem with the movie other than the fact that it was for six year-old girls and not twenty-six year-old guys, the one thing I could NOT stomach was the trailer for P.S I Love You that preceded the movie. I was so traumatized by watching King Leonidas pussify it up and woo Steve Sanders’ ex-girlfriend that I couldn’t even concentrate on the royal pompous awesomeness of The Patrick Dempsey Pompous Coiffure of Awesome Pomposity (tm The Jay), the note-perfect tongue in cheek performance of James Marsden or the coming out party for Amy Adams, a.k.a. the New Queen Of The Awesomely Hot Redhead Actresses Club (it’s her, Kate Walsh, Isla Fisher, 
Better words will come from better writers today, and as such, I will not attempt to editorialize on the impact of 9/11 nor its unending societal reach six years later. I am not a newsman or a pundit, I’m not a D.C. blogger nor a member of a political party. I lost no one in 9/11 and I know very few people that were even remotely affected by the tragedy. 
I’m not much of a thinker a-header (NOTE: totally grammatically correct). I like to, as Garth Algar advises, “live in the now, man”. I prefer to focus on what’s directly in front of me and mentally note things in the future that may rock. But as we sit today in the doldrums of Summer, I can’t help but gaze down the road at what’s to come. 
I now care only about the fall season. I’m gonna consider the next few weeks a complete wash. Hell, I’m gonna consider most anything a wash unless it concerns Veronica Mars sharing screen time with HRG and Peter Petrelli. The levels of casting kickassitude contained in this development rival just about anything short of full cast sequels to A Few Good Men, Airborne, Rad, The Monster Squad and True Romance or that long rumored Arnold, Bruce and Sly action movie. I love me some summer, but g-damn, bring me that fall! This pop culture geek just got himself a new countdown!
Sunday, Sept. 9th – Opening Day of the 2007-2008 NFL Season. A day for much rejoicing, beer drinking, Fantasy Football pool killing, debt collecting, buffalo wing consuming, testosterone flaring, wives and girlfriends despairing, Sportscenter watching, YouTube clip embedding, sports blogging, TiVo commercial double-blooping, porn ignoring, fav team cheering, buddy high-fiving and general wonderment. I can’t wait to eat myself retarded while cheering on my Miami Dolphins as they bring the teal all over the Washington Redskins. Ronnie Brown is gonna be a golden god this year. Trust The Jay.
Tuesday, Sept. 18th – 
Monday, Oct. 8th – The most likely date for the first appearance of Kristen Bell on Heroes.
Sunday, Dec. 30th – Lakers vs. Celtics at the Staples Center. I am dying to see the new big three in green take on Kobe and whatever bunch of idiots they picked up off the street to pass the ball to Kobe. Jesus Shuttlesworth, insane-person Kevn Garnett, Monica Seles-wannabe Paul Pierce and old man Reggie Miller duking it out with acquitted Hershey Highway driver and ballhog extraordinaire Kobe Bryant, all while Jack Nicholson looks on form the front row and leers at the Laker Girls? It’s gonna be the biggest LA sports event of the fall, and I’ll be in the cheap seats taking it all in.
I’ve figured out their tricks. When a comedian wants to prove his worth in a drama all he really does to convey “acting” is lower his voice, tone the hyperosity level down to “5”, keep his clothes on and frown for two hours. It’s a simple switch of facial ticks. Instead of crane lifting their eyebrows to the comedic heavens, they arch them in to convey sadness and/or regret and/ or whatever emotion they think will look good on their Golden Globe nomination clip. As for the eyes, comics tamp the bulging down 40% so it looks like they are surprised by some dramatic revelation (like being the star of your unwitting TV show, or seeing a picture of a gorilla head on a stick being held by a PA which will later be turned into a glorious CGI creation of pixels and box office non-magic) as opposed to being surprised that Cameron Diaz’s dog just bit them in the nuts. I don’t automatically buy their dramatic license just because they successfully pulled off imitating a dramatic actor, as opposed to actually being one. Half the time I feel like all I’m watching is a cheap, extremely drawn out, unfunny SNL sketch (or comparatively, any sketch on Studio 60).
This isn’t merely an unfunny dramatic movie headlined by a comic, it might be the most depressing dramatic movie headlined by anyone, ever. And it’s not depressing in that good, touching, well crafted way that makes for Best Picture winners either (Forrest Gump comes to mind). I get that Jim was frustrated by getting snubbed for The Truman Show and Man on the Moon (despite winning Globes for each one), but he went way too far with this piece of ham-fisted Americana garbage. You want to be unfunny Jim, fine, make another Grinch movie, or cast Tea Leoni in another one of your “comedies”. But if you think you’re getting a golden boy by mooning around on-screen in high water pants and lamenting the tragedies of the McCarthy era, you got another thing coming (besides, you’re Canadian, so cram it with your anti-communism Hollywood 10 sympathy). They’ll give one to Ashton Kutcher before they show you love for this type of tripe. And frankly, if this is what you’re going to offer us, I’d rather see Kelso win one anyway. He was quite poignant in The Guardian (and by poignant, I mean he looked constipated. And yet still better than the whole of The Majestic).
I get it. I do. He finally wins an Academy Award and decides he can’t go back to doofing around in crap like Flubber or Father’s Day. Completely understandable. But making a movie about death, absolutely devoid of humor, is a total breakdown in career management. At least Robin got to crack some jokes about the Unabomber and airplane blowjobs in GWH, but he’s so humorless in this, that even when he’s flying around in the totally painted on blue screen backgrounds, I was wishing for him to fall into some Mrs. Doubtfire shtick (I hate that movie with the passion of a thousand racist Kramer tirades). 
The badass character Top Hat (played by uber-gravelly-voiced Michael Wincott) in the movie The Crow once said this: “My father always said, childhood is over the minute you realize you’re gonna die”. While I agree with that statement for the most part, and think it’s completely badass (natch), I’d like to offer up a different childhood ending moment. There’s just nothing else quite as awkward, disturbing and equal parts squirm and vomit-mouth inducing as watching a drugged up Mike Myers asking Ryan Phillippe if he can “suck his cock”. Cat in the Hat on DVD is never quite the same once you’ve seen Wayne Campbell beg 
There are in fact people who think Jack Black was great in this film. I call those people “idiots”. It would have been nice if they had been right, though. I’ve been a fan of the better half of Tenacious D since his days in low-rent teen rollerblading epics, where he was accusing people of mixing “too much Drano in their fruit punch”! But come now, there isn’t a soul alive who didn’t think Jables was out of place for every frame of the movie that he mugged up with his muggy face. It got to the point where his performance was distracting me from how bad the actual movie was (which is difficult, in and of itself, considering how frippin’ boring the first 70 minutes are). Speaking of which, who actually needs a King Kong extended edition? Was there really anyone clamoring for 38 more minutes of half-cooked Brody-Watts non-chemistry, Jack Black face mugging antics and repetitive Kong growling? And to think, I used to think the nineteen hour Bored of the Rings extended editions were the apex of gratuitousosity (btw, the making up of that word in my head was more fun than the entire King Kong movie. Mostly cause in my head, during the invention, Jack Black was in a corner holding his nose because I socked him in the face. Try dramatically mugging your way through a bloody nose, ass! Now go rip me a tasty chord and sing me a funny song, clown!) 
Sandler has always towed the line between barely subdued pathos (think the first half of Punch-Drunk Love) and sudden near-psychotic bursts of violent rage (think any moment of Happy Gilmore or the entirety of The Waterboy). His balancing act creates a rather attractive portrait of dramatic potential, should he find the right avenue to explore his demons. Click was a fairly honorable attempt at that, though a maudlin, middling effort that only wrings audience tears by cutting away from Kate Beckinsale’s desirable posterior and only brings the funny when Sandler is either farting in The Hoff’s face (who didn’t want to see that?) or kicking Samwise Gamgee in his Goonies (lord knows I’ve wanted to do that since his insufferable turn in Rudy), it turned out to be. Spanglish, on the other hand, is a complete disaster. Part of the blame can be put on Spanish actress Paz Vega, who is so wildly attractive that any semblance of reality is shattered the moment she puts the googly eyes on the schlump from Mr. Deeds. But what I think kills his performance, aside from his decision to play the role as a whiny, pussified, low-talking mouth breather, is the scene in the bathroom where he puts the grope on Tea Leoni. Um, Adam, I know you like to cast insanely hot girls as your love interests (Anger Management, not withstanding), but can you please take your grubby hands off of Nora Wilde? She was the angry chick in Bad Boys, show some respect. It’s bad enough you get to make out with every B-list actress who ever graced the cover of Maxim, how about you don’t cop a feel on an actress I actually like and respect. Go back to cold clocking game show hosts, where you belong.
I like the Gus Van Sant remake, but for reasons entirely immaterial to the quality of the actual film (that being “lacking”). I like it because it proves that imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery. I like it because it shows that doing an imitation is only a good idea when it’s being done in an extremely broad way (like say Darrell Hammond doing Bill Clinton). I like it because no matter how famous Vince Vaughn gets by playing obnoxious, fast-talking jackasses, I can always point to this movie and call shenanigans on his whole career. People forget because he ruled hard in Old School and Wedding Crashers, but after Swingers broke him big and Spielberg gave him a talent hummer, Vaughn thought he was gonna be the next Brando. Between Swingers (1996) and Made (2001), Vaughn made eight consecutive dramas, each more unwatchable than the next. In that time, instead of introducing us to motor-boating or teaching us about the powers of “earmuffs”, Vaughn was boringly doing illegal drugs in Thailand with Joaquin Phoenix, wearing a licorice suit and traveling into Vincent D’Onofrio’s head with J.Lo, and most disturbing of all, masturbating to then-lipstick lesbian Anne Heche through a peep hole in the manager’s office of the Bates Motel. That was his “addition” to the role made famous by Anthony Perkins. Apparently, jacking off was the one thing Hitchcock forgot to put in his masterpiece. Vince Vaughn is a huge guy with a quick grin and an even quicker vocabulary. He’s practically sculpted by the comedy gods. Why he ever thought he was odd or pervy enough to play a schizophrenic, transvestite serial killer is beyond me. But maybe it’s like 
One year ago today I posted the first article on the re-launched TheJay.com (You can read that first post 
In January I made what some would consider an ill-fated decision to 
The third post I ever wrote was called “
Up until that point I hadn’t tried to market or advertise the site. For one reason or another I didn’t think I had written anything worth making a fuss over. But the Tom Hanks piece turned out really good. I happened to chance on the blog site for 
The answer, in short, was Keanu Reeves. I had long since been a fan of The One, and had been defending him to my friends and family for years. After seeing the success of writing about a quirk of a celebrity near the time of the release of their new movie, I knew it was time to write a Keanu piece, in time for his new (quality draining) Sandra Bullock weepfest The Lake House. So on June 6, 2006, late in the evening I posted “
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