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Best of 2001Feb 06 '02 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line 2001 saw visions going to the screen uncompromised, and five films in particular that may just be ones for the ages. Hey guys. Epinions really needs to get it together in my opinion. They still have not put up an option for the best films of 2001. What is up with this guys. The year is over. Please make such an option available in the near future. thanks buds. 2001, it is my opinion, was a great, great, year for movies. Given, only ten releases did I feel really worthy of appearing on a year-end list (with Monsters, Inc., The Widow of St.-Pierre, The Others, and Waking Life, lagging a bit behind), and that number is hardly an all-time record. But what made '01 such an exciting 12 months in the life of a filmgoer was the fact that, slowly, inevitably, it became clear that the visions of directors -- and also screenwriters and actors -- were going to theaters without being compromised. I didn't like all of these visions. The Man Who Wasn't There by the Coen bros. -- usually favorites of mine -- struck me as the first of their movies to justify the frequent complaint that the boys are more clever than they are warm-hearted. Gosford Park, with the exception of one astonishing set-piece plunk in its middle, put me to sleep. But both are more excitingly personal films than more than one or two from 2000. As of this writing, I have not seen all the contenders for this list; not Lantana, Sexy Beast, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Monster's Ball. Something, though, tells me that only the second would have any real shot at cracking the final ten. Overrated -- apart from TMWWT and GP -- were Memento, Audition, the pretty-good-but-not-great Amores Perros, and the abominable Black Hawk Down, which was easily among the worst films of the year. Others that factor into the latter category -- and I'm not bothering to look back in compiling this part of the list -- were A Knight's Tale, The Tailor of Panama, The Golden Bowl, The Closet, and A Beautiful Mind. I don't feel like commenting on any of these, except to say that each and every one of them sucked badly. This was on account of incompetence, sentimentality, or being boring. Time has not done much to enhance my impressions of Vanilla Sky or Shrek, either. And I could not -- and did not -- bring myself to see Harry Potter (Chris Columbus??!) or Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet??!), despite the good reviews. Anyway, here are the ten best of the year. 10. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring It's not engaging for every minute that it runs, but when LotR works, it's downright enthralling. And the last thirty minutes -- starting with a majestic moment involving two gargantuan statues -- cohere beautifully. All the problems of the past two and a half hours -- stagy sets, a stop-and-go narrative, one too many close-ups of Ian McKellan peering into the camera, bug-eyed -- melt away. 9. Freddy Got Fingered No, I'm not kidding. The movie is spotty and problematic, and even I, one of its champions, am puzzled by the acclaim afforded to Rip Torn who is kind-of annoying; and much of the time Tom Green makes no distinction between disgusting and disturbing. But when FGF works, it's dazzlingly, jaw-droppingly, funny and outrageous. It's avante-garde gross-out comedy, and is a thousand times more clear-eyed about its subject -- a mentally unsound man's quest to win his father's love -- than any number of "charming," Oscar-geared French films starring adorable little boys trying to impress their absent papas. Among the many hilights of this movie: Tom Green dresses up as an English bobby; Tom Green sings a song called "The Backwards Man"; Tom Green goes to Pakistan; Tom Green takes his girlfriend out to dinner. 8. Mulholland Drive Plot spoiler ahead. David Lynch continues to dazzle with amazingly polished technique and his trademark atmosphere of hovering dread. The trouble here is that he's made a movie that -- like The Elephant Man and The Straight Story -- is annoyingly literal in its meaning. (Big hint for skeptics who have seen the film: The first two hours are a dream. Follow it from there). Still, there are some of Lynch's best inventions here, and one of his very greatest sequences, taking place in an underworld theater by the name of Club Silencio. And, in the dual lead role, Naomi Watts delivers a performance that does an amazing job of shifting gears from upbeat to sultry to hurtingly wounded. If so much of the story didn't feel like Lynch doing Lynch, and everything didn't get wrapped up so easily, this would be a masterpiece. 7. Moulin Rouge A crazed, orgasmic musical. I wasn't particularly moved by the story, but I was lifted sky-high by the filmmaking, and leaving the theater once the credits had rolled, I had a wonderful moment of easing back into the world outside that felt like falling into a feather bed. 6. In the Bedroom Absorbing, artful melodrama. I've seen In the Bedroom twice, and neither time did the first two acts quite thaw for me; I admired what I saw, but wasn't quite absorbed. But the stunning, extended, climax is an amazing piece of work that builds to a disturbing suppression of catharsis. This movie doesn't let you off any hooks, nor does it give easy answers. It's about the consequences of real life actions. 5. A.I. Artificial Intelligence Steven Spielberg is still the deftest storyteller in Hollywood, and A.I. is one of his best, most challenging, works. Both intellectually and emotionally, it's a woozy film; it's on a narrative level that the film is clear-eyed. The film is divided into three acts and an epilogue, each of radically different tone. I came to like the problematic last thirty minutes on a second and third viewing, and, in that time, also grew increasingly awed by the way Spielberg made such a coherent, engrossing movie from such difficult material. 4. In the Mood For Love Maybe the most physically beautiful film I've seen in theaters since 1997's Kundun and 1999's Sleepy Hollow. Simmering with a with-held intensity, Wong Kar-wai's melancholy and deeply moving story of two people in love is as simultaneously violent and tranquil in its yearning as Love in the Time of Cholera. I only caught it once, but not a minute of it has faded in mind. 3. Donnie Darko Elliptic and ephemeral, not to mention conventional and sloppy. But whenever the story slips into too-easy territory, director Richard Kelly -- making a hell of a debut -- comes back and wows you with a sequence of amazing power, like a montage that introduces us to the local high school and feels something like an exhilarating musical number; or a tense, haunting scene involving arson, a movie theater, and a giant bunny rabbit. Donnie Darko hardly works every second of its running time, but, at the end, it falls together beautifully; and try getting it out of your head. 2. The Royal Tenenbaums I saw A.I. and the film in my number one spot three times; but at four, Tenenbaums was the 2001 release I came back to the most. I was hesitant to even give it a second shot, because my first time around I disliked the movie avidly. I found it cute and self-satisfied, and was disgusted by the way it played emotional torment for laughs. But Wes Anderson's last movie, Rushmore is an all-time favorite of mind, and I felt I owed it to the man to give his latest another shot. And, on repeat viewings, I've come to see how deeply heartfelt and genuine Tenenbaums is. There's hardly a scene here I think is intended to be funny (not that artistic intent matters, any). When Bill Murray makes his eccentric first appearance, or we get to see the epitaph Gene Hackman chose for himself, I choke up. (These scenes are about the ways that people try to keep themselves from feeling the full force of their failures). And a thousand tiny moments -- a hawk flying above New York to the chorus of "Hey Jude;" Gwyneth Paltrow stepping off a bus in sync to Nico's "These Days"; a confession inside a tent; a long, unbroken pan following an aborted wedding; and the perfect, almost unbearably moving, final shot -- cause me to melt. 1. Ghost World A rich, extraordinarily humane comedy that unexpectedly morphs into something much greater in its last thirty minutes, Ghost World is a movie I feel comfortable calling perfect in every respect. The pace is quiet, near-musical, the direction does not call attention to itself; the three central performances are astoundingly true; the final shot brings tears to my eyes. Don't be surprised if, nine years down the road, this turns out to be the film of the decade.  |
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by lindaohio by Stephen_Murray
