2001best

Moulin Rouge!
This year's love-it-or-hate-it. For those that hated it, keep in mind that its
purpose was in presenting a bombastically ambitious style. For those that
loved it, they had good reason. In Nicole Kidman's truly better 2001
performance she shines as Satine, a doomed nightclub singer and one of
recent cinema's more memorably tragic characters. With Kidman and
Ewan McGregor doing their own singing, the mix of modern music with a
classical setting made the film just that much more provocative and surreal.

Ghost World
Steve Buscemi is excellent as this year's most pity-inducing yet
thought-provoking loser. Thora Birch is also excellently droll as high school
graduate-going-nowhere Enid, who attempts to forge an unusual relationship with
a man twenty years her senior. The film's sparse style imbues the theme that
unless you make something happen, it never will. What draws these characters
together is almost inexplicable, yet the emotion they convey is undeniable.

Gosford Park
Robert Altman is back in fine form directing his best film since
1993's underrated Short Cuts. Feauturing a who's who of
contemporary British screen actors, the film weaves in and out
between the scandals and affairs of the classist upstairs-downstairs
hierarchy. Standouts include Kelly MacDonald as a novice Scottish
servant, Maggie Smith as a pompous countess, and Emily Watson as
a wisened (and wise-ass) valet.

The Royal Tenenbaums
Collaborators Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson mastered their
trademark quirkiness and gathered a dream cast for a fable about
what heartfelt parenting truly means. The best comedy of the year
by far.

The Man Who Wasn't There
It's deeply cynical, but it isn't a true comedy. It's about a man who wasn't
there, yet the man is there but never speaks. It's also Billy Bob Thornton's
best performance to date, hands down. The Coen brothers, not known for
their subtlety, send up the film noir genre while paying homage to it
through Roger Deakins' gorgeous black and white cinematography. Extra
points for the performance of Scarlett Johansson as a keen neighborhood
schoolgirl caught up in the mix. With this and Ghost World under her belt
in 2001, she's the young actress to beat in independent film.

Waking Life
The most original film to be released this year. Writer-director Richard
Linklater and effects coordinator Bob Sabiston animated over footage they
had already shot to create a dreamy, ethereal feel. The film itself is a
treatise on consciousness, and watching it is the closest thing yet to
capturing the essence of human dreams on the screen.

Mulholland Drive
Perhaps David Lynch's greatest film. With a two-act structure that
completely reverses logic in the final half, the movie can be seen as both
a satire on Hollywood power-playing and one of the strangest love
stories of the year. Breakout Naomi Watts steals the show as a naive
country girl arriving in LA only to discover a seedy underside of
betrayal, lust, and a mysterious cowboy.

Memento
You must see this movie two or three times in order to fully appreciate its
twisted logic. It's the story, told in reverse order, of an amnesia victim
hunting for his wife's killer. The most cleverly written film since Being
John Malkovich and the most temporally lopsided since Pulp Fiction, it
constantly plays with the audience's preconceived notions of memory and
reality. It's a nearly undecipherable puzzle, and the best film of the year.

						*The 10 Best Films of 2001*
									By Anthony Kusich


							*The Fellowship of the Ring* I have never read a word of Tolkien, but the pure epic scope of this vibrant adaptation made it unnecessary so that non-Hobbit fans could enjoy it. With a towering performance by Ian McKellan at the heart of the film, director Peter Jackson paints a wonderfully lush portrait of middle earth. Best moment: Gandalf declaring "You shall not pass" to an evil lord while crossing a narrow bridge between steep cliffs. Almost biblical.
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								*In the Bedroom* Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson excel as grief-stricken parents enduring the private torture of losing a child. Much of what the film attempts to say about loss comes through when no words are spoken at all -- the quietude of smoking a cigarette, the scornful glance at someone you've resented for years. Human dramas like this, with such raw feeling, come along far too infrequently from Hollywood's blow-em-up mindset.


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