Plenty of good movies to be had in 2001

Geoff Carter

Friday, Dec. 28, 2001 | 9:49 a.m.

Ten-best lists are fast becoming so much noise. Every movie critic in America has one -- and when you consider how many Dopes on Film there are, flying their freak flags in print, television and Internet, that's no small number of laundry lists. With a website, a sliding-grade scale and a willingness to alienate your friends, you can have a list, too.

That said, there's an awful lot of good movies out there to grade. In making my list, I left off "Shrek," "A Beautiful Mind," "Waking Life" -- a good number of films I enjoyed, but couldn't quite feel. Feeling a movie may not be other critics' sole criterion, but it is mine. Remember, if we're not seeing eye-to-eye, there's always the next guy's list.

10. "Ghost World" -- Terry Zwigoff's film opens on a literal high note: footage of a wild dance routine from an old Bollywood picture, choreographed to Mohammed Rafi's delicious "Jaan Pehechaan Ho." Dancing wildly with the video is Enid, a snotty art-goth played to type by "American Beauty's" Thora Birch. In essence, the sequence flops your basic feel-good movie: The characters start in triumph and struggle to fail.

Enid and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) are the main wraiths of this note-perfect adaptation of a Daniel Clowes comic, but are ghostly only in attitude: They pass through the world on a cloud of contempt, barely touching humanity for fear of assimilation. When Enid meets a second-hand record dealer -- a heartbreaking performance by Steve Buscemi -- the real world comes on strong and the girls fall to earth; they grow away from each other and in unexpected directions in too short a time.

It's a truly human film, and a much-needed antithesis to every teen movie of the last 20 years. And on a personal note, I like the idea that a hardcore record geek can score a hipster babe, even for a week or so. It's so true.

9. "Serendipity" -- John Cusack is to romantic comedies as Madonna is to sex-bomb boogie. Every year he releases a new model that tweaks the formula, straying close to familiar territory but never crossing the line into Nora Ephron's depressing status quo. And we like them, sometimes more than they deserve, solely on the basis of Cusack's bumbling, yet levelheaded, regular-guy charm. He is truly Jimmy Stewart's heir, Jim Carrey's posturing to the contrary.

In any case, with "Serendipity," Cusack perfects the formula. His efforts to reach a fate-obsessed British girl (Kate Beckinsale), both literal and figurative, are as endearing as they are flat-out funny. Eugene Levy and Jeremy Piven offer strong comic support. An underappreciated gem.

8. "In the Mood for Love" -- Set in Hong Kong of the mid-1960s, "In the Mood for Love" is "Breakfast at Tiffany's" as Truman Capote wrote it -- a beautiful non-romance, a bittersweet love story in which the lovers don't share so much as a peck on the lips. Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung play cuckolded spouses, trying to understand where their marriages failed and fighting to deny the persistent chemistry between them.

In a interview with Giant Robot magazine, "Mood" director Wong-Kar Wai said, "Asian people are cool." His film proves as much and more. Compared to the characters in Cameron Crowe's laborious "Vanilla Sky," Wai's lovers are what Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz would like to be -- a flawlessly successful failure, and as cool as cool gets.

7. "Training Day" -- In which Denzel Washington plays the Devil. His gleefully corrupt narcotics cop attempts to train an ambitious rookie (Ethan Hawke) in "street justice" -- in essence, smoking laced marijuana, taking one payoff after another and beating suspects senseless as a matter of routine.

Considering that his previous efforts included such junk as "The Replacement Killers," "Training Day" is little short of a triumph for director Antoine Fuqua. Similar to Washington's Mephistopheles, there's a real rush in watching the film go off the rails: Standard cop movie cliches are introduced only to be dismissed, and to the last you're never sure who's in the right.

6. "Ocean's Eleven" -- It's funny, it's slick and it's guileless -- and believe me, if all heist movies came as easily to directors as this one came to "Traffic" director Steven Soderbergh, everybody would want to make one. George Clooney adds wattage to his starlight, Las Vegas looks better on film than it has in years, and Soderbergh continues a hot streak that should be the envy of every high-roller in the world.

5. "Memento" -- Director Christopher Nolan's stunning breakout is an uncoventional thriller that erases its own footprints. The narrative runs backward and forward at once, it exists in its own moral universe, its protagonist (a riveting Guy Pearce) isn't even sure if he should like or trust himself.

Pearce's confused Leonard Shelby knows only two things: He can't form short-term memories and he has to avenge the death of his wife. His convoluted, inventive story is the reason for movie theaters and film schools alike.

4. "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" -- Epic is back. We're talking a cast of thousands, an otherworldly setting realistic enough to require its own government and a three-hour running time that's packed solid with action and plot. Charleton Heston never had it so good.

Peter Jackson directed this installment of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Rings" trilogy in concert with the other two, which means the next episode, "The Two Towers," will likely be on this list next year. A beginning this strong and assured is a cinematic rarity -- in fact, if the other films prove as strong, it may well be a first.

3. "The Royal Tenenbaums" -- Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, the writer and director of "Rushmore," strike the same gold with "The Royal Ten- enbaums" -- but much more of it. An ensemble comedy with a dysfunctional streak and a sweetly sardonic edge, "Ten- enbaums" is, quite simply, a bunch of people doing some of their best work. Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston and Gwyneth Paltrow may have been funnier in other films, but for the life of me I can't think of what they are.

2. "Amelie" -- It's in French, it's in color and it's incomparable. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's modern-day fairy tale makes you feel so good about being alive that you almost feel separation anxiety when it's over. Audrey Tatou stars as the title character, a bistro-bred Pollyanna who goes about making other people's lives better, and her own a good deal weirder.

"Amelie" is so lyrical and so affecting that you almost don't need the subtitles to follow it. And Tatou's performance -- equal parts Audrey Hepburn and Felix the Cat -- is practically a special effect.

1. "Moulin Rouge" -- Baz Luhrmann isn't a director so much as a ringleader. "Moulin Rouge" brings together so many elements -- musical, comedic, dramatic and visual -- that the film flirts with chaos; he cracks the whip just before it lunges at the audience, leaving us with only with the thrill of proximity.

The story of a young bohemian poet (Ewan McGregor), the courtesan he falls for (Nicole Kidman) and the characters of the movie's namesake nightclub, "Moulin Rouge" brings the movie musical up to date in a sneaky fashion -- the songs are popular hits by Madonna, David Bowie, Elton John and the like, and are sung by the characters as if they made them up on the spot.

That trick, coupled with matchless production design and solid performances (Kidman and Jim Broadbent deserve Oscar nods) make "Moulin Rouge" the most unique thing that happened in movie theaters this year. It's all you can do not to put on a costume and try to crawl through the screen. That's not the only aim of good film, but an admirable one -- at least from where I'm standing.

archive