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I've always been drawn to radio on the big screen. It seems antithetical -- a sound format being so perfect for a medium full of sound and imagery. Video killed the radio star ... right? Nevertheless, radio leads to wonderfully aural expression that gives film that extra little something, whether that be the perfectly pitched voice of a radio DJ delighting in word play or the perfectly placed song that evokes any number of emotions. Word play and great music -- they've always been my weakness.

Therefore, naturally, I'm all sorts of excited for this week's cinematic slate, which not only includes disasters, tough women, and fantastic foxes, but also a little flick called Pirate Radio. This ensemble comedy has been a long time coming. In fact, it's been almost a year since we first got to see a trailer for the film that not only features a cast including Nick Frost and Bill Nighy, but also marks the return of Philip Seymour Hoffman to the retro radio seat. Oh yes, Lester Bangs is back, only this time he calls himself The Count.

To get you in the mood for true pirate radio living on a tried and true ship, check out five great on-screen radio moments after the jump. (Warning: Some are NSFW.)

Earlier today we brought you Rotten Tomatoes' list of the 100 worst reviewed films of the decade. Now, though it might be a little premature (considering that we still have a little while to go before we hit our next decade), the good folks over at I Heart Chaos have decided to get the ball rolling on those end-of-decade lists by shoveling out what they believe are the Top 50 Movies of the 2000's. Usually these kinds of things start to gain in popularity towards the end of the year, but I guess the early bird does get the worm, so let's get right to the chase and find out who made the cut.

When you've got a a list of 50, there is plenty of wiggle room, and it's a pretty comprehensive list that manages to find room for cult faves and foreign flicks. But I'll admit, even though Chaos has put together a solid list, I was a little surprised that the #1 film for this decade is Quentin Tarantino's Samurai/Cowboy epic, Kill Bill -- though that's the beauty of a list, everyone wants to have a little friendly debate, I guess. You can read the entire list over at Chaos, but rounding out the top five are The Dark Knight, No Country for Old Men, and Kinji Fukasaku's adaptation of Battle Royale.

The great thing about a long list like Chaos' is that it makes room for all kinds of movies that sometimes you just don't have room for in streamlined lists of five or ten entries. But I love a challenge, so I decided to put together a list of my top films of the 2000s ... although I've cheated just a little.

After the jump: my nominations for the top films of the 2000s...

If ever there was a director who truly loved rock and roll it's Cameron Crowe. The man started his illustrious career as a rock journalist and as a film maker, and he also made one of the greatest rock movies of all time, Almost Famous. Grunge legends Pearl Jam and Crowe go way back; the band appeared in his film Singles, and Crowe helped put together Pearl Jam's Single Video Theory back in 2000. Now, Crowe has made music videos in the past, but this has to be the perfect combination of band and director because nobody respects rock and roll more than Crowe ... and nobody takes it more seriously than Pearl Jam.

Back in May, the band showed up at Seattle's Showbox for a surprise concert with Crowe behind the camera shooting a commercial for a deal between the band and the discount retailer, Target -- and yes, you just read that right. I guess everyone involved was happy enough with the footage -- so happy that it became the basis for the music video for their new song, "The Fixer", included on their upcoming album Backspacer, which will debut via iTunes and Target on September 20.

Pearl Jam had infamously refused to make music videos back in 1992, and other than an animated creation for Do the Evolution (courtesy of Todd McFarlane) they have stuck to their word. I have to admit, as much as I admired their principles, I kind of missed seeing the band in action. Maybe I've been out of the Pearl Jam loop for a while, but dang if this isn't a happening little track and a pretty cool looking video -- and the coffee-drinking, flannel wearing gal who still lives somewhere inside me couldn't be happier.

After the jump: Pearl Jam's The Fixer...

Mother's Day is bittersweet for me because my own mother passed away 11 years ago. In recent times, though, the sweet far outweighs the bitter, because I have wonderful memories of our time together watching -- and loving -- movies. When I'd come home from school in the afternoon, we'd talk and watch old movies on a tiny, black and white TV. When everyone else in my family thought I was crazy for waiting in line for hours to see Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, she told me about waiting in line for hours as a young teen to see Gone With the Wind. When she was dying of cancer and I visited for a couple of weeks from out of state, we spent hours watching old movies together.

In honor of all of our mothers, I've compiled a list of seven of the most awesomest movie moms. But this isn't a competition; it's just a list, and it's just a highly personal reflection of my own thoughts, so please feel free to share your favorite, most awesome movie moms in the comments.

1. Geena Davis as Samantha Caine / Charly Baltimore in The Long Kiss Goodnight

As Elisabeth Rappe rhapsodized recently, "the charm of the movie is that her psychotic nature is buried within a happy-go-lucky mom who enjoys baking muffins and wearing ugly Christmas sweaters." Home-made muffins are nice and all, but wouldn't it be cool if your mother could assassinate those bullies who keep beating you up after school? Not saying she would, of course, though that would have been a tantalizing prospect for me. Of course, the flip side is that you'd better behave ... or else!

You know how there are certain roles an actor or actress takes on where, no matter what they do afterward, you'll always reserve a place in your heart for that one movie, that one role, that one moment in film history. Well, for me, Kate Hudson as Penny Lane in Almost Famous is a prime example. It doesn't matter what she does now, or what she did right after Almost Famous, this girl is (and will always be) golden in my mind. I loved this movie, I loved her in this movie and I loved the above scene in which Penny took a whole lot of something and pretty much passed out. Luckily, William (Patrick Fugit) showed up to save her, even though he kind of used the opportunity to tell her the one thing we've known all along. Only Cameron Crowe could make a scene like this romantic and sensual. So, in honor of Hudson returning to screens this weekend in Fool's Gold, we present you with this little gem from a film which featured my gal's greatest performance. Enjoy!

What's your favorite Kate Hudson role?

First off, it pains me that I cannot bring to you the 18 or so stills from The Dark Knight that hit the net overnight. Pains me! While you can still find them on the smaller movie blog ... s, Warner Bros. has requested that the pics come down from larger sites. And since I'm going on vacation in 24 hours (coupled with the fact that it's Friday), I don't feel like dealing with any lawyers at the moment. But they're around ... you just gotta look.

That being said, my impending two-week voyage overseas has got me thinking a lot about road trip movies lately. Plus, it's summertime, and if you haven't taken in a screening of National Lampoon's Vacation at some point within the last two months, then you should be ashamed of yourself. So last night, as I was casing my DVD collection for something to take on the trip with me, I came across Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown. I have no problem saying how much of a Crowe fan I am -- the guy has a way of turning me to mush with his dialogue, and I've openly wept on occasions (the scene in Almost Famous when William bursts out of the restaurant in search of Penny Lane, while Elton John tells us "The New York Times said God was dead," is one example).

So why Elizabethtown? Well, this was a strange film for me because, when I first saw it, I was at a preview screening with my father. This was the first and only preview screening I've ever attended with my dad (who's love for movies turned me on to writing about them in the first place), and when we walked out of the theater, I was convinced Elizabethtown was my favorite film of the year. I've since watched the film three more times, with each viewing depressing me more and more. The problem with Elizabethtown (a road movie about a guy coming to terms with his father's passing) is that, as with most Crowe films, it's based on his own experiences. Thus, him being too close to the subject matter caused Crowe to make a "Cameron Crowe Movie," instead of another enjoyable, original piece of work. So what we get in Elizabethtown are pieces of Maguire and Famous smashed together, with the shell of a real-life story somehow trying to pop out from time to time.

Why did I like it so much after that first screening? I've come to the realization that it wasn't so much the movie as it was experiencing it with my father. Knowing that some day he'll pass on, and I'll most likely be on the road somewhere attempting to come to terms with our own relationship. Which brings me to this question for you: Have you ever let a movie experience taint your feelings on the movie itself?

Although the audio tape is pretty much dead, people still love making mix tapes, even if they now come in CD form. It's funny how this ritual of appreciation has transcended age and time. We used to scour radio stations for the perfect mix of songs, and now we whip up aural delights from thousands of mp3s. Mixes were useful to tell that certain boy or girl that you liked them in school, and today we often send mixes to say hello, or to gently shake a person and show them all the good music that they are missing.

There's also no short supply of movies that have absolutely fantastic soundtracks that work like a visual mix tape, sending the viewer through an optical pathway of music, sometimes even bringing new meaning and depth to the tunes that are played. While I would love to gush about Beethoven's music set to drama in Immortal Beloved, or even the brilliance that is Simon and Garfunkle in The Graduate, this space is reserved for the films with varied soundtracks full of a myriad of sounds and artists, which somehow all morph together into a cohesive and enjoyable whole. Sometimes they are just great collections of music, and sometimes they completely make you rethink something you might have heard many times before. If only I could list 14, or even 21! But I can't, so here are 7 films to inspire you into a mix-making frenzy:

High Fidelity

This almost seems like cheating, being such an obvious and no-brainer sort of choice, but you really can't talk about the power of mix tapes and movies without talking about the film that is all about creating musical mixes that portray slices of life. John Cusack stars as Rob Gordon, the music store owner who is at a crossroads in his life -- his serious girlfriend is leaving him, and through music, he delves into his less-than-desirable relationships with women. The beauty of this movie's soundtrack is how many different slices of music it tastes -- from the melodic Dry the Rain from The Beta Band to Aretha Franklin's Rock Steady. The old is mixed with the new, introducing us to what we might not have heard, while reminding us of songs we might have forgotten.

I'm not sure whether Dane Cook is moving up in the big-screen world, or down. So far he's gone from Jessica Simpson (Employee of the Month) to Jessica Alba (Good Luck Chuck) and, now, to Kate Hudson for his upcoming comedy Bachelor No. 2. Well, one thing's for sure -- he's decided to ditch the Jessicas. Variety reports that Hudson has signed on to star opposite Cook in the film, which was penned by Jordan B. Cahan and will be directed by Howard Deutch (Pretty in Pink). Production is set to begin this August in Boston (Cook's hometown, I believe) with Manangement 360, Terra Films and Cook's Superfinger Entertainment producing.

In all fairness, I think Cook finally found a role that suits him perfectly; one that allows him to utilize the raunchy style of comedy that made him famous in the first place. In Bachelor No. 2, he'll play a guy hired by men who have recently been dumped to take out their ex-girlfriends and show them a miserable time. The idea is that they'll be so disgusted and turned off by what is out there, they'll immediately run back to their old boyfriend who'll lovingly welcome them with open arms. However, problems arise when Cook's character is asked to take out the ex-girlfriend of his best friend who, I assume, will be played by Hudson (the ex-girlfriend, not the best friend). The two hit it off, he screws over his best friend and the moral of the story will be ...

I've always had a thing for Hudson (she was my celebrity crush in our Cinematical/Moviefone poll), but the girl is killing me with all these romantic comedies. Do something different Kate! I really want to pimp your skills, but you're giving me absolutely nothing to work with. You, Me and Dupree? Raising Helen? Alex & Emma? And what's next -- Fool's Gold with Matthew McConaughey? I guess I'll just have to keep watching Almost Famous over and over until the girl finally gives us a role worth talking about.