What is the iconic movie of the '00s?

There's also Mean Girls. Concerns youth culture, is still heavily quoted... maybe lacks defining scenes.

I can answer that question for the '70s, but not for the '00s, other than to say it would probably be a film with some connection to Bush II and/or CGI.

wall-e

Superbad maybe?

I dunno. I realized recently that I have no real concept of the '00s as a decade in the way that I have pretty firm concept of pretty much every decade of the 20th Century. I don't know if it's just that we're too close to it still to have any real perspective on it or if there really was less of a unifying cultural thread than in decades past. I mean, yeah, Dubya and 9/11 are kinda the looming spectre of the decade in America, but I don't have a firm grasp on how that figures into pop culture. It isn't as clear to me as Reagan and Thatcher's influence on '80s pop culture, f'rinstance.

yeah, was just going to mention that. is there anything that could be said to be capturing a post-911 feeling, or can be said to be a product of it?

and yeah, defining the mass-culture vibe music-wise is tricky... there's post-Britney pop, rnb, crunk, post-grunge, emo

Donnie Darko kind of tapped into the emo/Hot Topic zeitgeist I guess - although again - and maybe it's fitting (not for emo but for the 00s) - it refers back to another era

I thought No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood closed out the Bush years perfectly--not sure I can explain why without sounding corny--but I don't know if they speak to the decade in any larger sense.

One of the Fast and the Furious films. Probably the first one.

I can answer that question for the '70s, but not for the '00s, other than to say it would probably be a film with some connection to Bush II and/or CGI.

I hear what you're saying, and I'd be perfectly fine with Harold & Kumar Escape from Gauntanamo as well.

how about just a movie that gives a sense of a bloated, out-of-control capitalism heading over a cliff? just looking at the production value of something like Transformers (which someone mentioned already I think), or even its imagery... these massive, idiotic, grossly over-budgeted, catch-phrase spouting, shifting, industrial war machine abominations smashing into each other and crushing cities. I mean, films like that are still being made but there's kind of this sense now of it being made by and for people living in denial of the state of things maybe

as food for thought, here are the highest grossing movies/franchises of 2000-2009 that were not sequels or adaptations of something already well known by the end of the 20th century: Avatar, the Shrek movies, the Harry Potter movies, Finding Nemo, Up, the Twilight movies, Inception, the Meet The Parents/Fockers movies, The Hangover, The Incredibles, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Cast Away, Signs, Hancock, the Bourne movies, Wall-E, the National Treasure movies, How To Train Your Dragon, The Da Vinci Code, Kung Fu Panda, 300, The Fast And The Furious movies, Wedding Crashers, Ratatouille, The Mummy movies....

some of those debatable as far as the 20th century caveat goes, but whatever, you get the idea

lol what a decade

As far as America's collective dream-life in the 2000s, Hostel and Hostel: Part II.

It goes w/out saying we're talking American, mainstream and mersh, right?

War of the Worlds

or Munich

if not, what would it be? Cache?

War of the Worlds. I like the Transformers argument as well.

though if we're totally honest, it would probably be Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

War Of The Worlds isn't even as iconic as its promotional junket

Yeah, Harry Potter not entirely unknown in 1999. Bourne as well, but that is more of a niche.

Also there is to be a fair a distinction between "reflects the times" and "reflects what people went to see" - Reality Bites did well, but got about 5% of The Lion King's gross in 1994.

actually Bourne films probably pretty good.

I think this question would best be answered by somebody in his/her 20s or 30s. When I thought about my No Country/There Will Be Blood answer, I realized that that's exactly the kind of answer you'd expect from a 50-year-old whose frame of reference is Nashville-era films. The people who are suggesting the likes of Harold & Kumar, The Hangover, Wall-E, etc. are undoubtedly in sync with the past decade in ways that go right past me. (Not meant as a Morbius-like dismissal, just an acknowledgement that I have only an intermittent connection with the zeitgeist or whatever you want to call it these days.)

How is Transformers different from Armageddon or Independence Day? Also in what way would it not work if it was set in, say, 1986?

Haha Christ is it Cloverfield?

I think there is a difference between 'iconic' in a 'wow that's a really good representation of life in that era*' and iconic as 'that film was thematically on board w/ bigger issues of that period'. like breakfast club vs wall street.

*for young white people

so 8 Mile in both cases

I'm sort taking it as "Lazy sitcoms of 2030 will use 'you look like you stepped off the set of _______' as a way to signify 'you look very 00s'"

Also yeah iatee completely otm regarding we are being asked to guess who will have 'won' the 00s, there were lots of other 70s/80s/90s.

trying to get a grasp on the 00s... so maybe 911, Paris Hilton, Reality TV, Internet 2.0, mega-Capitalism/pre-recession/bubble, Crunk, Post-Grunge, autotune, Emo/Scene/Mall-__, meme culture, Napster/file-sharing, digitalization, movie/tv remakes, teenpop, RnB, country, American Idol, and a growing awareness of/argument around hipsters/'indie' culture...

oh yeah, and 'metrosexual'

there's probably a Scary Movie sequel that covers most of those bases for you

Lil Jon sticks head out of Paris Hilton's vagina, screams YEAH

No, hold up, I got this:

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTc5NjA0MjM3Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTIwOTkwNQ@@._V1._SY317_CR5,0,214,317_.jpg

Bah

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTc5NjA0MjM3Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTIwOTkwNQ@@._V1._SY317_CR5%2C0%2C214%2C317_.jpg

What sprang to my mind on reading the title befor I'd got the thread open was Avatar.

Knocked Up maybe. Or Remember Me (though it's 2010).

Oh, who are we kidding. It's Twilight.

Lil Jon sticks head out of Paris Hilton's vagina, screams YEAH

― some dude, Saturday, April 21, 2012 12:48 PM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

think we have a winner

wall-e

― iatee, Saturday, April 21, 2012 11:56 AM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Upon reflection, I think it might be really telling that the task of ferreting out a clearly iconic, low-key iconic comedy/drama film of the '00s is nigh-insurmountable given the huge number of big, dumb, and loud action movies that infiltrated the popular consciousness of the decade.

Avatar is interesting to me because despite being THE BIGGEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME it feels like kind of a lower-mid sized on the pop culture icon radar, like everyone vaguely remembers there were big blue people hahaha but it doesn't actually come up as a reference much since like 3 months after it left theaters

Team America?

Paul Haggis is reading this thread and crying.

apparently there was a movie called Remember Me, which was not aptly named

If you want to know why Transformers wouldn't work in 1986, watch Super 8.

Visually the Transformers films are basically impressive feats in CGI (and, to give Bay credit, shot composition) but have no understanding of editing, sense, or narrative cohesion. The encapsulation of Chaos Cinema, which is much more advanced than even Armageddon's nonsensical style and far more Head-Crushing than Independence Day (which relied a lot on models, which seems so quaint now).

It's also an update of that Spielbergian/80s boy-and-his-alien/robot story, only now the boy is an entitled, annoying late-teenager who complains about the car his father buys for him, and finds something to complain about constantly from there on out (there's a scene where he's riding a bike and its played for lols). Instead of using his alien/robot to understand something about himself, he just defines all of his importance by his association with those aliens (it's also how he wins the girl). Speaking of girls, every female is presented as though she were on a Maxim shoot - all fetishized hotness and cold, sleek machines.

Also you have the gung-ho, hoor-ah military-industrial complex glorifying, and the first two films feature bad-ass but NOBLE American Soldiers kicking ass in the Middle East while making nice with the locals, who love them and the fact that they are there.

So soulless consumerism replaces more traditional heroic virtues, all of which is wholly inconsequential because the entire purpose of these films is bash the audience over the head with SPECTACLE and OH SHIT AWESOMENESS.

Not to mention that this is based on a toy, and its sequel was basically rushed into production and filmed without a finished script. 00s was defined by sequels and genreal studio cowardice when it came to backing original properties.

As far as America's collective dream-life in the 2000s, Hostel and Hostel: Part II.

― caro's johnson (Eazy), Saturday, April 21, 2012 2:18 PM (34 minutes ago)

^^^ One of the Saw or Hostel movies was my first thought.

Looking back in a decade or so, Idiocracy may stand out as iconic of the decade. Although obviously not exactly part of the popular consciousness of the time.

'gerry' or 'brand upon the brain!'

In a decade or so, even Mike Judge isn't going to be able to remember Idiocracy.

Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle

this is the correct answer.

'borne movies' is also the correct answer.

is there any '00s movie star who's as iconic of their decade as Travolta for the 70s or, like, Brad Pitt for the '90s? Mean Girls prob gets points for being a time capsule of Lohan as star-not-trainwreck

Although I have trouble thinking of a single movie from the '00s with a soundtrack that stands out in the iconic way that, say, easily a dozen '80s movie soundtracks did.

See this is where Philip Nunez's suggestion of sneaking in The Matrix works...

Zeitgeisty by fiat: High School Musical.

But yeah I don't think music in film works the same way as it used to, though I couldn't say why right now.

hmpf u know the right answer 2 this is prob Borat

But yeah I don't think music in film works the same way as it used to, though I couldn't say why right now.

As with so much else, the short answer is "the internet."

I hate to say it. Garden state.

yeah trying to think of a movie that was known for its soundtrack or a particular (new) song, and all I can think of is maybe Garden State with that Shins song

as far as something more pop, eh maybe Fast and the Furious w a Ludacris song or something?

I dunno, maybe the 00s are an unusual case, because as open-minded as you want to be, pop culture from the Hilton/reality tv era may have been so lame/embarassing/insubstantial/moronic/derivative that what mattered really wasn't at the center, and looking there could be missing the point... (I like Ludacris, but the bloated crossover dreck the film industry produced for the pop audience in the 00s seems to be the kind of bloated trash you can only enjoy in the way that you might enjoy a big budget Nic Cage flick. hard to say still, but I think that the 80s were maybe just objectively better at making loveable pop movies)

Less Than Zero (80s)
Fear (90s)
Havoc (00s)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Souw6eHCruU

hmpf u know the right answer 2 this is prob Borat

― johnny crunch, Saturday, April 21, 2012 6:35 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh man Havoc is terrible

Is Havoc JGL?

OK wait Barbara Kopple of Harlan County USA fame directed a remake of Thirteen starring Anne Hathaway as Evan Rachel Wood?

By the screenwriter of Traffic??

Channing Tatum AND Laura San Giacomo? What?

Does Havoc get all Crazy/Beautiful at any point?

I think this question is difficult because there are a shitload of movies from the 00s that are actually consciously reaching for iconic status, if not in a Saturday Night Fever way then certainly in a Breakfast Club/Ferris Bueller's day off way. Donnie Darko being probably the most obvious example. There are also films like Superbad that have an iconic character but aren't necessarily iconic in their own right.

This is excluding the massive blockbuster action adventure films because it clearly isn't one of those.

Napoleon Dynamite is a pretty good call actually. If there's any one cinematic or socio-cultural narrative I'd use to sum up the 00s it's 'geeks inherit the earth'.

Juno is a good nom for 'modern zeitgeisty soundtrack. I went to see my friend's high school students perform music and short plays at a downtown street fair on Friday. That anemic little Moldy Peaches song from Juno came on between plays and EVERY SINGLE KID sang along with it really loudly. I thought, oh shit, it's a generation anthem (surprising to me since the song sounds like it's embarrassed to exist, but these kids were BELTING IT).

Yeah, I feel like we should probably be deferring to teenagers on this one. I doubt somewhat that the olds in the '80s were suggesting The Breakfast Club as an iconic movie of that decade ("Well, clearly, the correct answer is Hannah and Her Sisters.")

the scene in havoc where anne hathaway and bijou phillips sing along to "can i get a..." is definitely emblematic of *something* about the 00s.

we should probably be deferring to teenagers on this one.

Yeah. They have more of a tribal identity thing going, so they are more likely to even have an answer to this question. For contrast, would any of us be able to pick an 'iconic movie' for the decade of the 1930s? And if we did name one, would anyone who was alive then agree with us?

My own sense of the 00s is completely disengaged from the few movies I saw in theaters. To me they were just a means of spending 100 to 130 minutes being entertained. I never expected to be given a dose of the zeitgeist for the price of my ticket.

I suggested people in their 20s/30s--I think you need some historical perspective for a question like this.

ask generation spongebob, the answer will be spongebob.

isn't it more comforting to find that there is no longer a single movie to speak to a generational audience, though? i'd feel really bad if any of sat night fever, breakfast club, or reality bites encapsulated anything about me or my peers.

http://allthatcomeswithit.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/8003-262282.jpeg

This is a really puzzling question. All of the biggest grossing films tend to be pulp exercises. In that Roger Corman documentary by the end of it they say that Hollywood has focused on previously cult-level exploitation pop films.

King of Kong

My personal answer for this is STEALTH because the ridic intelligent plane is suddenly "downloading all the music on the entire net!" Or maybe Fast & The Furious first for similar reasons, remember the VW dude was famed for being able to "find out anything about anyone on the internet."

Based on this, I would say that the most "LOL 00s" movie is Live Free or Die Hard, where the bad guys are able to manipulate to entire American infrastructure, including every traffic light and some random lights in a traffic tunnel, via hacking them through the internet. Also, it's a sequel that turns a late 80s/90s action hero who was defined as an everyman character into a cool, badass übermensch, which seems apt for 00s blockbusters.

Batman!

Anyway, Reality Bites might've been the 90s movie for Americans, but for Europeans it was surely Trainspotting, right? I can't remember any other movie whose themes, style, soundtrack, etc were so iconic of its era.

otm

So true. CF every student's bedroom wall.

(Reality Bites was a tongue in cheek suggestion though right? Like, even back then wasn't it seen as try-hard..?)