Movies By the Year: 2001-1999

One more movie post and then I’ll take a break for a day or two.  I’ve gotten some feedback here and on Facebook – some agreeing with me, some disagreeing, and either way I love it.  Keep the opinions coming!

2001’s Top  10 (I liked a lot of movies in 2001)

1. The Emperor’s New Groove
2. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
3. Donnie Darko
4. The Royal Tenenbaums
5. Memento
6. A.I.
7. Blackhawk Down
8. Waking Life
9. The Others
10. Monster’s Inc.

What I got wrong: Not enough room in the Top 5 – or even in a Top 10 – for all of the movies I liked. Did I really like “A.I” & “Blackhawk Down” that much?  My memory of “A.I.” now is that it started strong, was deeply flawed, and ran about an hour too long.  I’d rather have “Ghost World”, “The Deep End” or “No Man’s Land” on my lis.

What I hated: “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” & “Saving Silverman” They were equally boring and stupid.

2000’s Top 5

1. You Can Count on Me
2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
3. Chicken Run
4.  Almost Famous
5.  Return to Me

What I got wrong: It’s a new millennium! What wonders does cinema hold? Actually, if you go a little further down, this year gets pretty embarrassing. A Top 10 would include “Erin Brockovich” and “Remember the Titans”. I take that back. A young Ryan Gosling notwithstanding, “Remember the Titans” didn’t deserve Top 10 status.  Neither did Julia Robert’s cleavage.  But perhaps “Unbreakable” did, and I should have rated it higher.

What I hated: “Misson to Mars”, with a white hot anger. The thing is, this movie featured Gary Sinese and Don Cheadle – two of my favorite actors. And it was such a terrible, terrible, terrible movie! What a criminal waste.

 1999’s Top 10

Oh, my. I thought 2001 was a big year, but there were even MORE movies from 1999 that got high marks. It pains me to limit this list to ten.

1. American Movie
2. The Iron Giant
3. The Color of Paradise
4. Not One Less
5. Rushmore
6. The Sixth Sense
7. The Straight Story
8. The Talented Mr. Ripley
9. Three Kings
10. Toy Story 2

What I got wrong: Difficult choices abound. I should have rated “Magnolia”, “Galaxy Quest” and maybe “American Beauty” higher than “The Sixth Sense”, “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and “Three Kings.”

What I hated: It’s a rich selection of bad movies, as well. But the bottom three were definitely “The Haunting”, “Sleepy Hollow” and the ridiculous “eXistenZ”. Yep, that’s actually the way the title is supposed to be written.  It’s David Cronenberg, very meaningful, very important things to say about technology and humanity.  Don’t care.  Hated it.  There’s a blurb on the movie poster:  “Makes ‘The Matrix’ look like child’s play.”  If by child’s play you mean something that’s fun and not tedious, I completely agree.

But here’s something that is fun!  1999’s delightful “American Movie”.

The trailer makes me so happy, I think I’ll go watch the whole movie again.

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