2001 was a bit of a renaissance for me in terms of movies, reversing a trend that started when I dropped the movie class I was taking in college on the last possible day. I'm not exactly sure why this happened but this year I rediscovered the pleasure of seeing worthwhile movies on a regular basis. Perhaps I was simply tired of being left out of the conversation whenever Marc and Dan were talking about movies. Whatever the reason, I actually made it to enough movies to make a list this year. While this is nothing to be proud of, it nonetheless seems like some sort of achievement.
One trend that shows no signs of dissipating is that my snobby, elitist tastes continue to keep me away from just about every big budget studio picture that comes onto the screen (especially anything animated with cute talking animals, anything that relies heavily on computer generated scenes or characters, or anything starring Will Smith). I will not try to defend this line of thinking. If anything it hurts my critical abilities, so this list should be viewed for what it is: a somewhat arbitrary ranking of very small percentage of all the movies released in 2001. Things like my mood, the theater in which the movie was viewed and the proximity of people talking or loudly crunching popcorn can all affect my impression of what I have seen. So here you have it, all the first run movies I saw in 2001, ranked for your pleasure:
1. Waking Life - Everyone brings a different set of perceptions to a film, and this one struck all the right chords with mine. It kept starting these thought processes in my head that would only stop when I realized I had stopped paying attention to what was going on. And the rotoscoping used to animate what had been live action gave the whole thing an other-worldly quality that the perfect complement to the action (term is used loosely).
2. The Man Who Wasn't There - It's hard to discuss the Coen brothers without bringing up their other films, and while this one fits nicely into their canon, it manages to set itself apart by establishing the proper mood from the opening and then not ruining it by being self-congratulatory. Makes you long for the days when you could light up in the theater, and asks the question: Is Frances McDormand sexy?
3. Together - Finally, someone dared to make Swedish communes from the 70s funny again. Hippies, lesbians, free love, soccer, awkward pre-teens, and a whole lot of snow. A movie that manages to never take itself too seriously even when many of the characters are. And it doesn't get much funnier than kids picketing to have meat served at dinner or "torturing" each other while pretending to be Pinochet.
4. How's Your News - A documentary of 5 people with varying degrees of mental and physical disability interviewing their way across the country. Has such a great heart that you never feel like you're laughing AT anyone - and this movie made me laugh very hard considering I was by myself in a room full of strangers. The guy who is obsessed with pop culture (and one soap opera star in particular) needs to get his own series. I defy you to get the theme song out of your head for at least a month after seeing it. Coming in a month or two to Cinemax.
5. Audition - Jim almost passed out near the end of this one, which is all the clue you'll get as to what happens. This one makes it up to #5 because I had no idea about anything going in and damn if it didn't make an impression. Starts off as a simple story of a widower in search of new love and then just goes haywire from there. The Japanese certainly have their bizarre side. What's in the bag?
6. Hedwig and the Angry Inch - OK, so now I've got Swedish commies, a group of retarded folks and a post-op transsexual whose surgery went slightly awry and who fronts a rock band that plays fish restaurants. And that's before the David Lynch movie. This one had some great Spinal Tap touches and songs that were surprisingly good. Who knew you could make a good movie out of an off-Broadway musical?
7. Mulholland Drive - How anyone thought this might end up on television is beyond me. David Lynch could make eating sandwiches seem surreal. I freely admit that I used many sources to help understand this movie after I saw it, and even then it was straining my brain. Which part was the dream again? This movie really requires about 16 viewings.
8. In the Mood for Love - You can feel the weight over the characters heads, but their words belie none of it. Most of the time it shows up in the form of rain. And the muted colors emphasize the overall tone. A very well constructed movie that really highlights the differences between East Asia and the U.S.
9. Startup.com - Man, how did so many of these morons convince people to give them so much goddamn money? And for all the hours they put in and the meetings they held, what did anyone actually do or accomplish? Where did all that money (as represented by stock value) come from? And where did it go? And why am I asking so many questions in these reviews? A case of impeccable timing on the part of the filmmakers who captured almost note for note what will become just a minor blip on history's radar 50 years from now. Anyone have change for one share of Excite? Who needs Aeron chairs? Half Price!
10. Amores Perros - Three interconnected plots all revolving around the same incident. Not the most original idea in the world, but this movie was really engaging and Mexico City seems like a fascinating place to be, but scary as all hell. Dog lovers beware.
11. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - I wanted this movie to reach out, grab me by the cojones and suck me into its world for 3 hours. It didn't happen. Maybe it was too long, maybe I have a problem with Elijah Wood, and maybe it was simply residual effects from having broken up with my Dungeons and Dragons playing girlfriend. Regardless, the movie was enjoyable, full of visual wizardry and some fun action scenes. And I AM excited for part II. Would have been better as three 1-hour episodes, but credit Peter Jackson for pulling all this together under the strain of the books, the budget and huge expectations from fantasy nerds the world over.
12. The Royal Tenenbaums - Another movie that I had high expectations for that didn't live up to them. Admittedly, I was not in the best mood when I saw this movie, but I just felt like it lacked any punch whatsoever. The characters were flat and their behavior did not deviate from the map laid out in the first two minutes of the movie. And Bill Murray was criminally under-utilized. The whole thing seemed like a big put-on devised to make people feel smart for "getting" it. Gwyneth (Dan, please note spelling) was my favorite character, but probably only because I related to her as a closet smoker. In "Rushmore", it seemed like Anderson/Wilson cared about their characters and their audience, but neither of those were true here.
13. Lantana - After this movie, we were asked to fill out a brief form. When asked whether I thought men or women would like this movie more, I checked my own box that I labeled "Australians" (where the movie was filmed). I hate those damn forms, I hate test marketing and I hate focus groups. This movie was paced nicely, had some good acting jobs in it and made me realize that Barbara Hershey has aged pretty well, but it all somehow added up to less than the sum of its parts. Moral: love hurts and marriage is hard.
14. I am Sam - I don't know why this movie called out for me to see it so much. It's got all the trappings of a film that would set off all the negative bells and whistles: sappy subject matter, moral grandstanding, precocious child, Michelle Pfeiffer. But it all came down to Sean Penn. I had to see him playing a retarded guy for two hours. There are already some pretty heavy critical divisions over his performance. I've read different sources that have called it "amazing" and "embarrassing". I thought he did an excellent job. How else was he supposed to play a man with the mental capacity of a 7 year-old? In my opinion he and his friends save the entire movie, which I thought was not nearly so cloying and obvious as it could have been. Severe negative points go to a string of simply atrocious Beatles covers throughout the movie (when will one of Michael Jackson's plastic surgeries go awry so we can get the rights to their songs back in the hands of someone capable of passing for human?), and to the two sugar-addled teens behind me who must have wandered in to get out of the cold for a couple hours and spent their time kicking my seat and whispering not-so-quietly.
15. Panic - Ah, I do love Neve Campbell (yes, I did see "54" in the theater), even if she refuses to get naked on screen, but even she and William H. Macy can't save this from a horrible, predictable end.
16. The Son's Room - I had almost forgotten about this one entirely - never a good sign. I think this was French and Marc got Jim and I in to a free screening. I remember enjoying it well enough at the time, but it was raining pretty hard when we left and the damn survey at the end was like six pages long and required too much exposition. Nice use of Hare Krishna's and the daughter getting in a fight during her basketball game was hilarious.
17. The Devil's Backbone - A ghost story that's not scary and characters that are just crying out for more depth. It did make me want to learn more about the Spanish Revolution, for whatever that's worth.
18. Shallow Hal - Hung over at 11am is not the ideal condition to see a movie, but blaming Hal's crappiness on that is too easy. Had its amusing points, but felt excessively like a long sitcom pilot. Doesn't give me a whole lot of hope for Jack Black being able to save "Orange County". He seems better off just turned loose without a script.
19. The Last Castle - My God, but this sucked. I was originally supposed to see "How's Your News" on this night, but that fell through, so I ended up here. The thought process went something like: "It can't be THAT bad can it? I mean Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo - these are quality actors. They are not going to be in some lame, trite, overwrought piece of studio trash, right? Right?" Oh, but they will and they are. By the end, I just wanted the whole damn prison to be crushed by an asteroid. Speaking of which, when does "Armageddon 2" come out?
20. Black Knight - OK, I didn't see this movie but I wanted an even 20 and c'mon - is it even possible a worse movie was made this year? This movie completely negates any good that came out of the studio system all year. Doing some quick math: $31 million in gross receipts so far, divided by a nationwide average of $7.50 per ticket (this is a very rough estimate) means that 4 million people or so saw this movie. Anyone who saw it twice needs to be institutionalized, and everyone else should be herded into Wyoming and forced to wear a tracking collar. It did provide one moment of unintentional comedy: as Dan and I were exiting another movie, we heard one kid say "I didn't get all the jokes. Who's Rodney King?". Kid, you're going to love it in Cheyenne this time of year.
