2001: Favorite Films

2001 is a rather interesting year to discuss. You have films from many different genres that made splashes on our cultural landscape. From untraditional comedies like The Royal Tenanbaums and Wet Hot American Summer to films challenging more difficult material like Black Hawk Down and Monster’s Ball. Animated films like Shrek and Monster’s Inc. debuted to huge box-office and critical acclaim, solidifying that computer-animation had overtaken 2D animation for good. And of course the start of a trilogy that I happen to like very much.

Also one film came out, considered a cult classic, Donnie Darko. However, I have to name it as my least favorite movie of the year. Maybe I didn’t get it, but I was just either bored, confused, or both during the entire movie.

Here are 10 films we think deserve to be named with the best of 2001:

• Black Hawk Down
• The Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
• Monster’s Inc.
• Ocean’s Eleven
• The Royal Tenanbaums
• Shrek
• Snatch
• Training Day
• Wet Hot American Summer
• Zoolander

Now with my pick:

Moulin Rouge!

First off, I believe the marketing of a film plays at least some part in the overall quality of it and/or at least influences our perception of it as has been the case with The Dark Knight and District 9 most recently. On that note, I have to say that the poster for Moulin Rouge! is the kind of iconic image that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

From a movie standpoint, no film from 2001 moved me more than Moulin Rouge!. Whether it was the gorgeous music, reinterpretations of modern classics or the original “Come What May” which was named to AFI’s”100 year’s…100 songs”. The most surprising thing is that all of the actor’s did their own singing, and McGregor and Kidman don’t just make the songs passable, but jump from the screen.

The film is led by the superb performances of Ewan McGregor, Jim Broadbent and Nicole Kidman in the role of her career. McGregor’s portrayal of a struggling young writer is something that could have easily been overdone, but McGregor plays it with a brooding that isn’t overbearing and a charm that makes you root for him as our hero.

However, the movie would be nothing without the magical designs and direction from the mind from the always audacious, sometimes brilliant, Baz Luhrmann. He finds the right tone for the film that mixes so many elements of drama, romanticism, and obviously music.

Moulin Rouge! has everything you want in a film, and has to be listed with at the very least the best of the decade, and in my opinion, definitely the best of 2001.

By Ryan Hoffman

A Second Opinion

Spirited Away

Though it was released in America in 2002, Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is one of those movies that hits you like a dream. You wake up two hours later with very little idea of what really happened, or what it all meant, but you know it’s something very unique. It’s a hard movie to explain or even summarize, but I suppose you can sum it up best with this:

“A girl and her family stumble across an enchanted land and her parents turn into pigs. She has to get a job at a bath house that serves spirits in order to save her.”

See? It defies explanation. But because of the magic of Miyazaki, it works. Almost everything in this movie is a complete invention—the way the water at the bath house is served, the woman who runs the bathhouse. The spirit who eats everyone—but for whatever reason, it all works. It doesn’t hurt that the art and animation is absolutely breathtaking.

It may not be for everyone (but that has yet to be proven) but Spirited Away is a powerful treatise on the power of animation, and what happens when you can unhinge your imagination and break free from the confines that seem to plague many, more traditional domestic animation studios.

By Dan Angelucci