In 2001 I was thirteen. It was a year of slumber parties, bar and bat mitzvahs, lounging by the pool without any care in the world. It was also a year that we rented a lot of movies.
Save The Last Dance
White girls can dance hip hop too! No really they can! Julia Styles had already worked her way into our hearts with 10 Things but this just made us all love her more. The story of a ballet dancer who moves to the south side of Chicago, and achieves her dream of attending Juliard, and meets a hot black future doctor! Actually it's a really sweet little across the tracks love story with some nice characters inside of their ghetto stereotypes.
Sugar and Spice
I was very into cheerleading in middle school. This movie was about a cheerleading squad who's captain gets pregnant and so they rob a bank. It's really funny. Diane, the pregnant one, and her boyfriend Jack (get it?) are clueless and perky about their situation. Also Jack is played by a young James Marsden. So there's that.
Get Over It
Before HSM there was Get Over It. It could be filed into the strange world that was late 90s early 00s teen comedies, but this movie, which was actually a full blown musical is much better than that. It's transcended by Martin Short as a crazy kept down drama teacher. Not to mention the fact that the production they're working on is A Midsummer Night's Rocking Eve, an adaptation of Shakespeare that feature such great numbers as "It's fun to be a fairy," and "Hermia, why don't you love me?" Also, Sisquo of Thong Song fame is the token black guy. And Shane West does a really bad English accent.
Josie and The Pussycats
I was Val for Halloween this year with two of my friends being Josie and Melody. Obviously, I look the most like Rosario Dawson (that's a joke, by the way!) But this is one of those movies that you love when you're a tweener, and then watch again once you understand that it's actually a satire of the music industry and laugh even harder. Plus the soundtrack is pretty rocking.
Moulin Rouge!
It brought musicals back to life. Or it was at least the first jolt. Plus who knew that Obi-Wan and Nicole Kidman could sing? Another one where the music is unbelievable. "Tango Del Roxanne" is incredibly powerful and the original song "Come What May" is as touching a love duet as Broadway has come up with in the past twenty years.
Shrek
Remember when Shrek was like really cool and slick and new and funny? Before they ran it into the ground. My sister and I saw it in the theater and we could not stop laughing. Eddie Murphy's performance as Donkey just made everything better.
Pearl Harbor
This movie always gets the short end of the stick. Sure it's a little overblown, but aren't epics always that way? I still get choked up just thinking about the end when Rafe and Evelyn are standing on their farm and the little boy runs out and he says, "Danny, do you want to go up?" Weeping!
Legally Blonde
Another movie that was brilliant and then ruined by lesser sequels and a Broadway musical that we don't talk about. (I don't CARE how good it was! Was Reese Witherspoon Elle? Don't care!) Everyone fell in love with Elle Woods and the fact that she solved the big case and got the guy (not the guy she came for, but LUKE WILSON!) and then graduated from law school, all while being herself was great. Plus you know, "The other day I saw Cameron Diaz at Fred Segel and I talked her out of buying this really heinous orange sweater. Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously deranged!"
Ocean's Eleven
Coolest movie ever. George Clooney in a tux 80% of the time. Brad Pitt and George Clooney call Matt Damon "The Kid" most of the time. This is the movie that got Matt promoted to the cool kids table. (I have this theory that Hollywood is just like middle school. See, Ben and Matt used to sit at the nerdy table, with Kevin Smith and Jason Lee and the other Askiewers. Ben's back there...except for when he's with his cool girlfriend. Matt doesn't talk to them in the halls anymore, because then George and Brad wouldn't invite him to the cool parties.)
Coming in 2002: The Divine Secrets of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood, 8 Mile and Chicago.
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