Part 1 of Moriarty's Look At 2001!Part 2 of Moriarty's 2001 List
Published at: Jan. 21, 2002, 9:13 a.m. CST by staff
Moriarty’s End of 2001 List!!
Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
January is almost over, and I’ve spent the last few weeks catching up, seeing more movies than I can count, watching anything I could get my hands on that had even a modicum of critical buzz. There were a few titles that I missed for one reason or another, and a wicked case of pnuemonia over the last few weeks hasn’t helped, pretty much leaving me laid out. But now I think I can rest easy with the list I’ve put together, secure that I’ve made my best effort at sampling the year’s films of note, and I can say with authority that this list reflects the way I feel about the entirety of this very strange year just ending.
Of the 26 titles listed (my ten best list and the runners-up, with ties for several of the entries), nine of them were viewed at Sundance last year, a testament to just how strong a line-up of movies that was. Another three of them played at the Fantasia festival in Montreal this summer, two of them played at Butt Numb A Thon, and one of them never got a regular release in the US at all, meaning very few of these were films I saw in conventional theatrical engagements. I hate it when critics put together lists that seem to lean towards obscurity for the sake of it, but I can’t deny that these were the experiences I’ll remember from this year. These were the films that really affected me.
As always, I’ve broken things down so I can discuss the films, the runners-up, the 20 hours I want back (which isn’t to say they’re the worst films of the year... just the ones I enjoyed seeing the least), with separate discussions for the filmmakers and performances that enriched our time in the dark this year. I would remind you that the very nature of list making is personal, and this is not meant to be some sort of comprehensive "Best Of," since I don’t presume to speak of some empirical, demonstratable fact. This is all opinion, all just my particular tastes, and if it’s to serve any purpose, maybe it’ll steer you towards something you missed that you might enjoy.
With that in mind, let’s get started. I’m running backwards, counting down to my favorite film of the year.
THE RUNNERS-UP
20. CHAIN CAMERA
dir. Kirby Dick
I love documentaries. I think that’s what it boils down to. There’s something about the form that just makes me happy as a filmgoer. As much as I love handing myself over to a skilled writer/director of fiction, I also find there’s something almost intoxicating about watching someone’s best efforts to capture truth with a movie camera, a slippery process at best. It can take on almost Sisyphean dimensions of futility, since the very presence of a camera affects the reality of what we’re watching, but it’s that quandry that seems to force the best documentary filmmakers to come up with ways to try and make theselves invisible in the final picture.
Kirby Dick’s solution was to remove himself and his crew from the equation altogether. He went to John Marshall High School and handed out video cameras which were passed, once a week, from student to student, with each person spending their week putting together a video diary. When I saw this film at Sundance last January, I had no idea where John Marshall High School was in Los Angeles. Looking at the film, I don’t see anything of the daily life I experience in this city. But the high school turns out to be about a six minute drive from my front door, and this isn’t a glimpse at a world completely removed from mine. These lives are happening right now all around me, and the really remarkable thing about Dick’s accomplishment as a director and editor is how he took this mountain of rough footage he must have ended up with and somehow picked out moment after moment of simple, lucid truth. It is impossible to watch this film and not be affected by these young people. Their hopes, their fears, their goals in life... they’re all achingly recognizable, no matter where you grew up or how. The greatest films, fiction or documentary, are the ones that strike universal chords with viewers, and this is one of those movies.
Wow, am I out of step with the majority on this one. And even now, on the other side of the bloodbath, I don’t see what you got so worked up over. I’ve seen people put this on their "worst of the year" list, and that’s certainly their perogative. I maintain that this is of a piece with Darabont’s first two films, and that it fits very nicely into the filmography he’s building. I like Jim Carrey’s work in the film, and commend him for making what seems like a daring choice only when compared to the work he normally does: he is quiet in this film. There are long stretches of it where Pete (Carrey) only reacts, where he is an observer, and that’s a totally new role for Carrey. It’s in this new state of repose that Carrey becomes a real leading man.
Instead of trying to list other people’s problems and respond to them, I’m going to just restate the things that I like about the movie. I relate to Pete Appleton. It’s as simple as that. His love of movies, his desire to make movies, his ambition to write something good... those basic traits make me invest in this guy and root for him. The film is plot-crazy, overstuffed with plot, but it all coasts effortlessly by for me because of the cast and the way Darabont encourages this community of characters into Capra movie, SATURDAY EVENING POST life. He’s not making a movie that’s nostalgic for a real time and place, but is instead making a movie that is nostalgic for the trappings of nostalgia, that is in love with the shared artificial memories that movies have given us. In some ways, this is as post-modern and as self-reflexive a film as BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, and it might not even be something Darabont and screenwriter Michael Sloane, friends since high school, were aware of. I’m sorry that this particular picture postcard was rejected so harshly by so many, but remain confident that it will find its audience over time. It will be bitter irony indeed when a film that is so desperately in love with the experience of seeing a film on the bigscreen finds acceptance at home on video.
When people accuse me of being too hard on films, or not being able to enjoy a film as pure entertainment, or being too hard on the scripts of movies, I am glad something like SHAOLIN SOCCER exists that I can point at to shut those people up. This is a movie that exists only to please, and the lengths it goes to in trying to accomplish that goal (pun not intended) are amazing to behold. It’s got an efficient set-up, with a legendary soccer player named Golden Leg Fung humiliated and injured by his enemy. We flash forward to the present day, where Golden Leg (Man Tat Ng) works for his enemy, humiliated over and over on a daily basis. His fortunes change, though, when he hooks up with Sing (Stephen Chow), a gifted shaolin fighter whose brothers have all gone their different ways. Golden Leg gets the idea to teach soccer to Sing and his brothers, putting together an unstoppable Shaolin soccer team. And the rest of the movie is a standard sports-movie formula. The team gets together. They have a rough time training, but finally do find their skills. They progress to the championship. It’s difficult, but they win. Celebration ensues. You certainly won’t be surprised by SHAOLIN SOCCER when you watch it.
This makes my list because of the pleasure that one gets from watching how Chow plays with the conventions of this formula. Because of the sheer joy of watching just how much fun soccer can be with the use of CGI and some remarkable martial arts choreography. This is film trickery for one purpose: to make you smile. There’s nothing Stephen Chow won’t do in this movie to entertain. A musical number featuring Mui (Vicky Zhao) early in the film is a complete left-turn, a bizarre one-time trick that somehow works beautifully. There’s a sequence involving Bruce Lee that is totally audacious and winning. Scene after scene, reality is redefined by Chow and his cartoon eye, and it all adds up to a movie that’s as pure a piece of cinema adrenaline as ENTER THE DRAGON or TOY STORY, and exists in a world somewhere between the two. Besides... the film would make it onto the list if only for the notion of its incredible last scene, a glimpse at a kung-fu world, reshaped by the simple good-natured wish of Sing. Walking down the sidewalk of that world for that last shot, I found myself filled with almost unbearable happiness. I want to live in a kung-fu world, and I love this movie. I hope you do, too.
17. MEMENTO
dir. Christopher Nolan
No mind game proved more fun to play this year, and Christopher Nolan deserves every bit of praise and buzz he’s gotten as a result of crafting this clever mind-bender that manages to say some very profound things about memory and the weight of the past.
So why isn’t it higher on my list?
I recently sat down to rewatch MEMENTO on DVD. For the older films on this list, I made my best effort to see them again before settling on where to place them, and with MEMENTO, I found that I was impatient sitting through it again. Much of the film’s impact for me was based on the discovery of watching it unfold, the kick of piecing it together and trying to make sense of all the levels that Nolan is playing with. And it stood up to rewatching once or twice for just that purpose. But now that I know what I think happened in the film, I find that I am left with a collection of puzzle pieces I’ve already assembled. The charge isn’t the same now. This is one of the inherent dangers of working in the "brain-teaser" genre. It’s very hard to make one of these films that stands up as a dramatic experience even after it’s been solved. There is some great work by the cast in this film, and it’s beautifully directed. I think Nolan is a major talent, and this is a film that should be seen by any serious film fan. But is it one I’ll continue to revisit in the future? Probably not with any frequency.
Doesn’t lessen it’s worth a bit. Just means there were films that are ultimately more dear to me from this year.
Guess what, America? As far as Henry Bean’s blistering drama THE BELIEVER is concerned, you got screwed. Just like with BATTLE ROYALE. And you know why?
Because you’re stupid.
Or maybe you’re just not grown-up enough to understand a film that deals in shades of grey when discussing matters of religion, race, and hatred.
At least, that’s what I assume America’s distributors think of you. That’s got to be why no one had the stones to handle this complicated, disturbing look at Danny Balint (Ryan Gosling), a Jewish skinhead who wrestles with issues of faith in his own life even as he acts out against his two different communities, that of his heritage and that of his hatred. It’s an astounding performance, and manages to make us believe the self-loathing we’re watching. So frequently, self-destructive characters are romanticized in movies, made ciphers. Gosling and writer/director Henry Bean manage to put us inside Danny Balint’s head, and we can see how this troubled kid has ended up this way, spun so sadly out of control.
Ultimately, the film’s harshest critics called it a "how-to guide for anti-semitism," managing to miss the point completely. Balint’s struggle in this film eventually leads him back to some sort of grace, even if it is ragged and sad. Not every soul’s journey to salvation is an easy one, and it is the fact that Balint struggles at all that marks his story as an important one. In an age where spiritual matters are so frequently hushed up or swept aside, here’s an American film brave enough to put its soul right up front, on display. That courage is worth embracing and seeking out.
Slick, adult, dark, and fun, this features one of the very best performances, male or female, in any film this year. Ben Kingsley is a thing of true horror as Don Logan, the name that comes looming out of the past to ruin the idyllic retirement of "Gal" Dove (Ray Winstone) and his wife Deedee (Amanda Redman). Like RESERVOIR DOGS, this is a heist film where the heist isn’t very important, where it’s more about the dynamics between the principals involved in the job than the job itself.
I loved this film for the Pinter-esque wordplay between Don and Gal. I loved this film for the sense of dread that it manages to build as Don becomes more and more agitated. I loved this film for the hypersaturated world of color that Glazer created, and for the "sexy beast" nightmare creature that keeps appearing in the movie, a symbol of something swooping in to destroy the life Gal has built. This is a sophisticated trifle, a slice of nasty that was too rich to resist, and it’s worth seeking out if only to see just how badass Gandhi can be.
This one’s got it all. It’s a period drama, persuasively told, as well as a kick-ass martial arts adventure, a mystery, a horror thriller, and a no-shit monster movie. It manages to juggle all this disparate elements with a masterful touch, and it stands as a major announcement for both French director Christophe Gans and action star Mark Dacascos, whose performance as Mani exhibits a rare depth of feeling as well as a powerful physical presence.
If there’s a complaint to be made, it’s the overabundance of plot twists in the final twenty minutes or so. There’s no need for some of them, and they muddy up such a great, clear piece of visceral storytelling. Still, when a film spins out of control because of an overage of imagination, I consider that to be too much of a good thing, and not much of a problem. This one’s just now rolling out to American theaters, so run out and soak it up on the biggest screen possible. It’s worth the trip.
13. VANILLA SKY
dir. Cameron Crowe
Like MEMENTO, this is a head game first and foremost. The difference here is both source material (this is a remake of the very recent OPEN YOUR EYES from Spain) and style (this looks and feels like a mainstream Hollywood film, although it’s anything but).
What’s been fashioned here, though, is something I was quite taken by, a movie that seems to deconstruct itself even as it builds its science-fiction premise with meticulous detail. It all starts with the casting of Tom Cruise, who was smart enough to recognize the potential in the original Amenabar film when he saw it. He was good enough to produce an original film with the director (THE OTHERS) even as he was working on this remake, and he brought over one of the original cast members (Penelope Cruz), reprising her role to excellent effect in this new version. Cruise chose his key creative collaborator well, too, in the form of Cameron Crowe. They worked together once before in JERRY MAGUIRE, where Crowe took all of Tom Cruise’s typical tricks of performing and wrote a role that both played into them and played them down, forcing Cruise to a place of honesty that made him more charming than ever. Now, in VANILLA SKY, Crowe seems set on dismantling the very icon that is Tom Cruise, punching holes in the picture of perfection and showing us the asshole behind the mask. It’s knowing, mature work, and considering the personal and public changes he was going through at the time, it speaks well of Cruise to be able to focus and craft something this strong.
The film is a visual and aural pleasure from one end to the other, with a soundtrack that plays as wry counterpoint to what we’re seeing. Listen to the lyrics and the titles of the songs that go by, and it’s almost like a running commentary by Crowe. He’s got an encyclopedic knowledge of pop music, and the way he uses it here is something that is unique to him. Bending reality to the extent he does here seems to have brought out his playful side, as well. The film is overflowing with subtle detail, all of it having to do with what is or isn’t actually happening to David Aames (Cruise) and his world.
The exceptional supporting cast in the film all helps Cameron in his sophisticated gameplay, and there are particularly nice moments from Kurt Russell and Cameron Diaz, actors who are frequently underrated. The end result of all of this is a film that manages to not just stand alone as an experience, but actually enriches and informs the experience of watching the source material it was drawn from. Quite a trick.
TIE
12. MONSTERS INC.
dir. Pete Docter, David Silverman, and Lee Unkrich
12. WAKING LIFE
dir. Richard Linklater
12. METROPOLIS
dir. Rin Taro
12. MILLENNIUM ACTRESS
dir. Satoshi Kon
What is included in this four way tie is just as important as what is excluded. SHREK is, in my opinion, a very entertaining piece of pop culture, fresh upon arrival, that will date terribly. And that’s okay. Not every film has to be a classic, one for the ages. I don’t take anything away from SHREK by saying that. It’s not included on this list, though, because of that shelf-life, that big fat "2001" stamped across it. Instead, I have to give the edge to the animation I saw this year that pushed the envelope or that genuinely moved me, and I find it impossible to place any one of these four marvelous films above the others.
MONSTERS INC. is another example of Pixar’s almost preposterous mastery of building gag sequences and giving real emotional weight to digital creations. John Goodman’s Sully is as great a character as they’ve contributed to the pop lexicon so far, and his relationship with the pre-language toddler Boo is a heartbreaking delight. Anyone who wants to know why this film will last in a way that SHREK will not should be directed to two things: the exquisitely staged chase scene amidst the assembly line of doors, and the final shot, as communicative and emotional as any live-action moment in any film this year.
WAKING LIFE is a dream, an art film in the best sense of the term. Using a desktop animation package, a group of Texas animators turned rough footage shot by Richard Linklater into something beautiful and ethereal and completely new. As Wiley Wiggins makes his way through a world that may or may not be a dream, or a series of dreams, or even the afterlife itself, any number of dizzying ideas are thrown at the viewer, and the end result is intellectually exhausting and visually overwhelming, a hallucinogenic candy that managed to push the medium in a direction never seen before in American features, something few directors can claim.
METROPOLIS is everything I wanted from A.I. this summer, and would be higher on this list if only the designs weren’t so... well... cute. The story being told here is sad, adult, and complex, and it would be nice if the designs were equally solemn. Still, I understand that this is a tribute to the defining work of anime legend Osamu Tezuka, and the ultimate weight of the thing is quite moving. In addition, I have to give the film points for one of the most unexpected, incongruous, and effective uses of music all year long in regards to a certain Ray Charles tune that is played at the precise moment it will do the most emotional damage. When this hits DVD on March 12th in the US, it’s worth searching out.
MILLENNIUM ACTRESS is a delicate, almost ethereal film about memory, and at first glance, one might think its story better suited to live-action. One would be wrong, though. This is a glorious use of animation to do something that would be impossible, compromised by the frailty of flesh if trying to shoot it all for real. Considering the director’s last film was PERFECT BLUE, a giallo told anime style, it should come as no surprise that his genre bending new film works as well or even better. This time, though, he’s telling an epic romance that spans several decades as well as writing a love letter to the history of Japanese cinema. If this film had been crafted by a "serious" filmmaker, we’d be discussing it for every major award there is in international filmmaking. Instead, it’s probably going to be overlooked because it is animated, and that seems to be a real shame. However you have to, track this one down. It’s rewarding in ways that few films can hope to be.
11. GHOST WORLD
dir. Terry Zwigoff
This is one of those movies that would rank higher on my list if the whole running time was as sublime as the best moments are. It’s not, though, and there are dramatic choices made in the film’s second half that disappointed me. Scarlett Johansson ends up marginalized, which is a shame, but almost to be expected based on how charismatic Thora Birch is as Enid, the greatest geek-girl ever captured on film. I’ve known many Enids in my day, and I have a soft spot in my heart for each and every one of them. Seeing Birch’s performance here, she seems to have captured them all in one fell swoop.
There is a wonderful easy rapport between Enid and Seymour (Steve Buscemi at his most likeable), and it unbalances the film, even if it is obvious why Terry Zwigoff (whose early documentary CRUMB remains one of the finest films of the ‘90s) and Daniel Clowes got distracted by them. The film has a deceptively simple conclusion, but it’s the little things that make it ultimately affecting. Zwigoff’s loves and Clowes’ quirks combine to create something that is both hip and completely free of guile, much like Enid herself.
