The Top Ten Films of 2001
May 28 '02
The Bottom Line This is how I feel about the films of 2001.
Borrowing a page from ignysdayoff (one of my new favorite film reviewers here at epinions), I've decided to use the heading 'top ten films of 2000' to roll out my list of the top ten films of 2001 - as epinions for some reason has yet to create a category for the best films of last year. As always, this is a completely subjective list, my opinions being those that my amateur eyes reflect back to me, views influenced by my own personal life, beliefs, hopes, dreams, and views on what art should be. This is also a very unstable list, and really only reflects how I feel today, right at this very moment, and could easily change, with the exception of the number one film on the list.
To get it out of the way right off the bat, here's a brief list of films that would have made it if I was making a longer list (i.e. 'runners-up' 'honorable mention' etc.):
In the Bedroom, Tape, The Others, Bully, The Man Who Wasn't There, Monster's Ball, Memento, Freddy Got Fingered (really), In the Mood for Love and Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.
And now, onto the list...THE TOP TEN FILMS OF 2001...
#10: Gosford Park: Altman is one of my all-time favorite directors, and Gosford Park reminded me just why that was. Like the best of his work (Nashville, California Split, McCabe and Ms. Miller, The Long Goodbye), Gosford Park is a wonderfully conceived film that most any other director would have made a complete mess of. The whodunit being merely an artificial entry into the study of British class wars at the turn of the century, Altman (along with screenwriter Julian Fellowes) takes a genre I normally equate with sheer boredom and makes it one of the most intriguing pictures of the entire year.
#9: Vanilla Sky: Though much maligned by critics, and frequently confusing to the average moviegoer, I strongly believe that Vanilla Sky will find its audience in good time. Some attacked it for its star (Cruise), some for its supposed Scientology connections (utter rubbish), some simply because it was a remake of a (very very good) foreign film. However, Alejandro Amenebar, the man who wrote and directed the original film on which Sky is based - 1997's Abre Los Ojos - admits to liking the film an awful lot himself. And to be sure, it is not the same film, though it plays around with most of the same themes. This is a Cameron Crowe film, filtered through different sensibilites, but nonetheless personal and powerful. It should be required that you see this twice before deciding how you feel about it.
#8: Amelie (aka "Look at me - I'm including foreign films on my top ten list! I am so intellectual! I am so film literate! I am so sophisticated!"): A wonderful, put a smile on your face and leave it there French confection from a delightfully unique director working near the peak of his form. Romantic comedies are not supposed to be this much fun, nor are they supposed to succeed so overwhelmingly. However, time and again, Amelie manages to do both. Easily the best foreign film that I saw last year (though I have yet to see the Oscar winning No Man's Land.
#7: Mulholland Drive: David Lynch's surreal, dreamy, twisted, confusing masterpiece. Takes everything I like about Lynch's films and throws it all up on the screen. Amazingly, it all sticks (I would say it all 'fits', but it really doesn't, not in a linear fashion anyhow - which only adds to its dream-like beauty). If nothing else, it introduced most of the world to Naomi Watts, who was robbed of an Oscar nomination. Originally shot as a pilot for an ABC television series (a la Twin Peaks, the network ultimately neglected to pick up the series, leaving Lynch with a lot of wonderful footage and nowhere to show it. Thankfully, he added more scenes and turned it into a feature film that is considered one of, it not the best film he has ever made. ABC: oops.
#6: Ghost World: Oh how I loved this movie. Sitting alone in the theatre, watching Terry Zwigoff's first foray into feature films, I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of feeling in the thing. The writing is so true it almost hurts at times, makes you fall down laughing at others. The cast is universally great, although Steve Buscemi - another actor criminally robbed of an Oscar nomination - steals the show in his perfomance of a lifetime as the sad, lonely Seymour. And did I mention the soundtrack?
#5: A.I. : Like watching a glorious marriage at times, an awful train wreck at others, this Spielberg/Kubrick hybrid was unlike any other film released in 2001. Victim of an especially poor marketing campaign - somehow deciding to pass the movie off as some sort of ET type movie that kids would enjoy - this dark, daring film finally shows us the side of Steven Spielberg that we all knew existed somewhere. Haley Joel Osment easily tops his Sixth Sense performance as David, and Jude Law imbues his limited role with a charisma that you can't help but get caught up in. This Pinocchio tale for adults left audiences confused and disoriented - especially as a summer blockbuster film - but I loved every single second of it. Even the much maligned ending.
#4: Waking Life: As much as I love writing, love to use words, they fail me almost completely when trying to describe this brilliant animated film from Richard Linklater. Visually alive (and unlike anything you've ever seen before), intellectually stimulating, and wonderfully envisioned, Waking Life explores our lives and our dreams through the wonderings of the main character (Wiley Wiggins) as he moves through the film, trying to wake up from his lucid dream. A novel's worth of ideas - written off as pretentious by some, not willing to just take the whole experience in - this is a brilliant, vital movie that too many people didn't get to see.
#3: Donnie Darko: I've seen this film more than any other from last year (four times and counting) and I'm still in love with it. This stunning debut film from writer/director Richard Kelly is one of the most audacious, wonderfully inventive debut films I've ever seen. Set in the late 1980s, though refusing to use its nostalgia as anything other than in service of its plot, Donnie Darko draws us into the world of its mentally troubled main character (Donnie) as he attempts to figure out if the world is really going to end in just 28 days. Science fiction, romance, and coming-of-age drama all at once, this film reminds me why I love going to the movies. Yes, the ending is frustrating and somewhat confusing, but it's worth the effort to figure the whole thing out.
#2: Moulin Rouge: Baz Luhrman's hyperkinetic retro-modern Bombay musical set deep in the heart of Paris at the turn of the twentieth century overwhelmed and delighted me through and through. It's mad desire to go so far over the top with its logic and emotions allowed little room for a middle ground of opinion; you either loved this one or you hated it. I loved it.
#1: The Royal Tenenbaums This was never in doubt, in any version of any list I could draw up for 2001, this is the best film of the year. Though I'm admittedly biased to Wes Anderson films, having loved both Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums hit me at in even deeper level. This time around, Anderson tackles both humor and sadness head on, his Tenenbaums failing time and again to make their lives worthwhile, despite their promising beginnings. Set to a soundtrack painstakingly perfect, The Royal Tenenbaums is such a complete film, such a beautiful film, such a funny film that I never wanted to leave the little world that Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson had created. Head and shoulders above the rest of the class, this was my favorite film of 2001.
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Member: Chad
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