18 Great Noughties Movies You May Have Missed

Lesser spotted, but equally deserving...

By Mark PowellDec 11th 2009
16

101 Reykjavík (2000)

In A Nutshell: Boozy, socially inept Hlynur lives with his mum and spends time on too many ‘specialist’ websites, harbouring a deep-seated antipathy towards life outside his nerd pit and struggling to reconcile an infantile crush on his mum’s new lesbian partner.

Why You May Have Missed It: It’s largely a ‘by Iceland, for Iceland’ affair, the isolated nation looming large in the background and almost acting as a stoic metaphor for Hlynur’s own sense of dislocation.

It’s readily available on DVD, but the tagline (“30° below zero, five hours of daylight, what else can you do but get wrecked?”) tends to make it look like some lightweight stoner flick.

Why Missing It Is Mad: Come to think of it, on one level it probably could be viewed as a lightweight stoner flick - well, waster flick, at any rate - but Hlynur is a character rather than a caricature, and that really gives the film some crucial emotional weight.

Victoria Abril shines, or rather smoulders, as the mother’s love interest, but it’s Hlynur’s flights of fancy (look out for a wonderful daydreamed bloodbath at a stifling family dinner) that really make you warm to him in this chilly outsider essay.

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Comments

    • Hadouken76

      Dec 11th 2009, 15:39

      id like to add that zatoichi, twilight samurai, dirty pretty things, in search of a midnight kiss, dead mans shoes to that list and even though it came out in 1998 i still think legend of 1900 is an underated gem

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    • sjsmith88

      Dec 11th 2009, 18:28

      I didn't miss You and Me and Everyone We Know, I caught it. Wish I hadn't. Following your 4-star review I had it in my head that I was in for a pleasant little indie. Instead it was your run-of-the-mill pretentious art-house rubbish. Dreadful.

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    • skinjob

      Dec 12th 2009, 8:38

      I'd like to add taxidermy - not a pleasant film to watch by any stretch of a twisted imagination but worth watching for the second and third acts on its own and the climactic scene is one that will stay wih me for a long time! if swallowed - do not induce vomiting!!

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    • namedropper

      Dec 13th 2009, 14:24

      We call them Neds and not Chavs up our way and I thought Sweet Sixteen was mainly set in Greenock and not the Port! Anyway I'd like to add Dear Frankie as a movie also set in the same area. Cracking performances from all concerned but especially the child playing Frankie. Will bring a tear to your eyes! Still hoping that Gerard Butler and Emily Mortimer will get together at some point!

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    • domduck

      Dec 14th 2009, 11:21

      The Year of the Dog should be in here - and Waitress. The perfect hangover double-bill.

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