2001: Movies I've Seen
Submitted by AJDaGreat on Sat, 03/15/2003 - 10:41
Tags:
A
- Amelie
- Mulholland Drive
- The Royal Tenenbaums
A-
- Ghost World
- Y Tu Mama Tambien
B+
- Spirited Away
- Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
- Winged Migration
B
- Intacto
- The Man Who Wasn't There
- Monsters, Inc.
- What Time Is It There?
B-
- A Beautiful Mind
- Black Hawk Down
- Bridget Jones's Diary
- Go (no, not the American movie about ecstasy and strippers with Katie Holmes; the obscure Japanese movie about a Korean-born teenager)
- Ocean's Eleven
- Rat Race
- Shrek
C+
- A.I. Artificial Intelligence
- Donnie Darko
- Gosford Park
- Heartbreakers
- Legally Blonde
- The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
- K-PAX
- Shallow Hal
C
- The Closet (a.k.a. "Le placard")
- Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone
- Moulin Rouge!
C-
- Curse of the Jade Scorpion
- Human Nature
- Josie and the Pussycats*
- American Pie 2
D+
- Evolution
- Get Over It
- Not Another Teen Movie
D
- America's Sweethearts
- The Mexican
- Rush Hour 2
- Zoolander*
D-
- The Animal
- Double Take
- Osmosis Jones
- Pootie Tang
- What's the Worst That Could Happen?
F
- The Glass House
- Out Cold
Should See
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch
- Lantana
- Monster's Ball
- The Others
Author Comments:
I really saw some stinkers in 2001.
* - Is Josie and the Pussycats really better than Zoolander? Maybe not, but my expectations for Zoolander were far too high, while Josie got universally panned and was therefore pleasantly (though not too pleasantly) surprising.
Cloned From:
Have you thought of making top tens for these years that you're going back and documenting? I also love The Royal Tenenbaums, but you seem to have missed some of my favorite films (Muhlolland Drive, The Others, Hedwig and the Angry Inch). When you can, definitely check those out.
I probably won't make top 10 lists per year, at least not for a while. If you recall, in 2002, I tried ranking all of the 2002 films I had seen in order of preference. But I was unsatisfied with my list, because my opinions of the movies kept changing, and I kept having to think, "Well, that belongs a few slots up" or "That belongs a few slots down." That's why I liked your list format of five tiers. You get a general sense of how much I liked each movie, without the nitty-gritty of whether "Amelie" was better than "The Royal Tenenbaums" or the other way around.
The other reason that I don't want to make top 10 lists is that in many of these years, I have seen so few good movies. Maybe not so much for 2001, but if I made a top 10 for, say, 1995, I'd have to dig into my third tier just to complete the list.
But if you were particularly interested in my 2001 ranking, I'll at least give you a top 5 of the movies I've seen (which, as I said, is easily subject to change):
1. Memento
2. Amelie
3. The Royal Tenenbaums
4. Ghost World
5. Ocean’s Eleven
And that really just proves my point, because I really don't like "Ocean's Eleven" enough to put it in my top 5. I just liked it slightly more than the others, and I haven't seen enough great movies of 2001.
As for your 2001 recommendations, I do want to see all of those. I have taped "The Others", I just haven't watched it yet (actually, I have about a zillion movies taped that I haven't watched yet; when I see one coming on TV, I always just tape it and figure I'll watch it later). I think my parents were averse to letting me see "Mulholland Drive", but that'll change in another 2 and a half months. I haven't been so enthusiastic about "Hedwig", but I don't know why - I've heard nothing but good things about it. They're all strongly under my consideration.
Dang, I was hoping Human Nature was decent. Should I steer clear so Kaufman can remain clandestine?
Yeah, probably best to avoid it. I guess you could like it more than I did, but my guess is that you would like it less. Especially if you're hoping for something with the same brilliance of his other work.