The Best of 2001

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It's that time of year again.

The time when all the Hollywood studios release their high-end products just in time for Oscar® consideration (yawn), those limited releases that somehow make professional critics' top-ten lists even though the rest of us common people may not get a chance to see them until a couple months hence, and wonder if we're missing anything.

Also the time when we take a chance on (for example) K-Pax, or Life As a House, or The Shipping News, or any other blatant stab at "serious" conventional domestic filmmaking, and wish they might take the occasional page from the accomplished indie or foreign or classic films that actually succeeded in challenging us and giving us our money's worth. (It is a moderately pretentious cliché that avid filmgoers sooner or later find Hollywood's contemporary output lacking compared to the alternative cinematic scene, but it appears to be true.)

In the off chance, then, that any of you, when looking for something worthwhile to see, might appreciate input from a peer who spends a great deal of his leisure time in movie theaters or before his VCR, I humbly offer my version of that oft-roasted chestnut: a Top Ten List. Two, in fact: the first, of those films whose greatness was discovered during their initial theatrical release during the calendar year 2001, and those less-new creations discovered in the video store, at the repertory theater, or in their second run at the dollar theaters.

[Extra-Special-Happy-Lucky-Bonus: Where applicable, if I ever wrote a review of the movie, I've excerpted a salient blurb! You're welcome!]

2001 New Release Top Ten:

1. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, Hong Kong)
"…Watching the ravishingly beautiful Maggie Cheung walk down an alleyway in slow motion, in a seemingly endless series of identically-cut dresses, that is enough for us; or lapping up the film's lush colors and haunting soundtrack, or even just enjoying the sight of a cigarette's smoky tendrils curl around an overhead light - the stasis proves ravishing, the unrealized yearning aching in all the good ways…"

2. Apocalypse Now Redux (Francis Ford Coppola, USA)
"... Pure insanity. Overwhelming. Nothing like it…"
[Qualified praise: The original is better than Redux, but this longer version still kicks the heinies of most everything made today.]

3. Memento (Christopher Nolan, USA)
"…Leonard's trapped in his own special hell, one of a perpetual present, and he'll never be able to stop looking for someone to revenge himself on, never stop seeking out a mystery to solve. (Oh, and don't worry about the dubious morality of Leonard taking the law into his own hands: can you be held accountable for acts you can't remember? Indeed, is the experience of time necessary to have a soul?)…"

4. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, USA)
"…The usual Lynchian elements (powerful malevolent forces, a wholesome girl, horror & confusion), but this time it works!…"

5. Downtown 81 (Glenn O'Brien, USA)
"…An unfailingly optimistic picaresque follows Jean-Michel Basquiat through Manhattan squalor and turns a war zone into an urban fable, set to the sonic experimentation of frightfully ephemeral new wave bands…"

6. Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France)
"…A joyride with Sacre Coeur always in view, and accordion music always at play…"

7. Together (Lukas Moodysson, Sweden/Italy/Denmark)
"…A beaten wife drags her kids to her brother's commune in 1975 Stockholm, where feelings often collide with principles…"

8. The Deep End (David Siegel & Scott McGhee, USA)
"…Oh, if we only but knew the burdens of motherhood…"

9. Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, USA)
"…Being critical of everything and everyone sure is fun, but such destructiveness won't exactly buy you happiness…"

10. The Emperor's New Groove (Mark Dindal, USA)
[Actually released last year, but I didn't see it until early January, and loved it so much I had to squeeze it in no matter what.]
"…This is closer to the manic "Animaniacs" school of thinking, and it's an absolute bullseye, just what we needed to break the mold and restore our faith in Disney's collective and corporate talent…"

Honorable Mention: The Others, Spy Kids.

2001 Slightly Older Releases Top Ten:

1. Come & See (Elem Klimov, 1985 USSR)
"…Completely devastating. Utterly dreamlike. Probably too close to the truth, and therefore essential…"

2. Underground (Emir Kusturica, 1995 Hungary/Germany/France)
"…Underground weaves comedy and incisive critiques out of utter madness, perhaps the only sane response to a most depressing topic. 'We're all crazy,' Marko surmises at one point, 'We just haven't been diagnosed yet.'…"

3. Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000 Taiwan/Japan)

4. Happiness (Todd Solondz, 1998 USA)
"…The only thing missing from all these dysfunctional proceedings is an ill-timed laugh track (remember how chilling it was in Natural Born Killers?), and we would have on our hands the world's most twisted TV sitcom…"

5. & 6. I Am Curious (Yellow) and (Blue) (Vilgot Sjoman, 1967 & 1968 Sweden)
"…Amidst all this 60's/70's political dialogue is plenty of sex, yes, plenty of skin, plenty of comic interludes to remind you how seriously not to take it all, and, surprisingly, plenty of genuinely good acting. Frankly, I'm disappointed that this cinematic pair's reputation rests largely on its erotic escapades; I Am Curious is bold, inventive, never dull, and far from amateurish…"

7. The Plot Against Harry (Michael Roemer, 1969 USA)
"…A gem of a film that might have been completely forgotten had it not achieved notoriety for being inexplicably shelved, unreleased, for twenty years after its creation, The Plot Against Harry manages to construct a palpable world in eighty-one minutes when many movies fail to do so in two or three hours…"

8. Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett, 2000 Canada)

9. Croupier (Mike Hodges, 1998 Germany/UK)

10. Hamlet (Michael Almereyda, 2000 USA)

Honorable Mention: I Spit on Your Grave, La Chasse aux Papillons, Vampyr, Pitch Black, Bring It On, Jeanne la Pucelle, Pillow Talk, Best In Show.

[And, finally, the award for WORST film seen all year goes to: Waking Life - the first film I ever walked out of in disgust.]