2000best

Best in Show
Fred Willard steals the "show" as the play-by-play announcer for a
Westminster-like dog competition in the funniest movie of the year. The
Waiting for Guffman cast reunites as various canine lovers going to great
lengths to ensure their pets win the big prize. The "best" of the mix includes
a lesbian millionaire heiress (Jennifer Coolidge), an easily flustered woman
(Parker Posey) who investigates the possibility of dog psychotherapy, and
an insecure husband (Eugene Levy) who literally has two left feet.

Wonder Boys
An adult drama with one of the best supporting casts of the year. Katie Holmes,
Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, and Robert Downey, Jr. are all somehow
contributing to Michael Douglas' downfall as professor Grady Tripp -- a man with
an unfinished second novel, his boss' dead dog in his trunk, and no sense of
direction as to where his life is headed. Director Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential)
captures the mood of these conflicted characters with ease and style.

Amores Perros
Three stories, three diverse endings, three sets of dogs. The title, a Spanish
expression meaning "love's a bitch," applies uniquely in each of the film's tales.
With intercutting that resembles Pulp Fiction, the movie merely uses dogs as the
backdrop to sophisticated digressions of familial trust, outer beauty, and the
frustrations of regret. As 2000's other great canine picture, it proves again how
foreign films are able to develop and explore human emotion in ways many
American films never do.

Dancer in the Dark
It's a shame that Bjork announced this film would be her final
acting performance, because she carries the weight of the drama
entirely on her shoulders. As Selma, a Czech factory worker who
is trying to save her son from a blinding disease that has stricken
her, she escapes into musical fantasies reminiscent of old
Hollywood blended with Shakespearean tragedy.

Almost Famous
Cameron Crowe has a way with words. Jerry Maguire gave audiences
"You complete me" and "Show me the money!" Here, the writer-director
offers up "I am a golden god!" to describe the drunken lure of 1970's rock
music as told to a teenage Rolling Stone reporter. Based on his own
experiences of touring with Led Zeppelin and the Allman Brothers Band,
Crowe paints a warmly humorous picture of adolescent innocence with
simple love of the music.

You Can Count on Me
Family dramas are rarely written as honest as this. Without a note of
cynicism or pretension, writer-director Kenneth Lonergan culls excellent
performances from Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo as siblings struggling to
reunite years after their parents' death. Their acting is so good it's almost
non-acting; they become their characters so convincingly that a deep-rooted
compassion and earnest frustration emerge from simple facial expressions
and the heartfelt dialogue. And Rory Culkin (brother of Macaulay) delivers
the best child performance of the year.

Traffic
It would be hard to devise a more gritty and realistic take on America's failing drug war
than this Steven Soderbergh epic, with numerous storylines interweaving at any given
moment to suggest the complexity of the issue. The entire cast deserves top honors,
especially Erika Christiansen as a drug-addled teen, Don Cheadle as a disillusioned DEA
officer, and Catherine Zeta-Jones as an image-altering druglord's wife.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Take away the amazing high-wire stunts and you would still have one of the most
emotional films of the year. An epic in the old-fashioned sense, it has lush
cinematography, a sweeping score, and good vs. evil battles of amazing technical
accomplishment. Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh are centerpieces in an old world/new
world struggle that threatens their lives and their preordained ways of life. But love
and sacrifice remain obstacles to be conquered as ardent as any enemy they face.

Requiem for a Dream
It had a singular vision, a gut-wrenching style, and the two best female
performances of the year in Ellen Burstyn and Jennifer Connelly. Darren
Aronofsky's dark odyssey about the horrors of heroin could not make the
message more clear. With rapid-fire editing, in-your-face camerawork, and
dream sequences that really are nightmares, the viewer is transported into the
world of the junkie without ever being led back. It screams "just say no"
defiantly and excrutiatingly -- and is the best film of the year.

					*The 10 Best Films of 2000*
							By Anthony Kusich



10						*The Cell* Say what you will about Jennifer Lopez's acting, the visual style of music video veteran Tarsem is what's really on display here. The Silence of the Lambs-esque plot finds Lopez on the hunt for a comatose serial killer's hideout, where his last victim will die in a matter of hours. Virtual reality allows her to enter the killer's subconscious and ask him herself -- but what lies inside is both terrifying and mind-bending. In what could've been a standard thriller, Tarsem warps the imagination with some of the scariest dream sequences ever filmed.


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