Today we're looking at 2002 (with a quick trip back into 2001, and forward to 2003). Yes, here's the requisite Lord of the Rings trilogy mention...
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (d. Peter Jackson)
Fellowship of the Ring (2001)The Two Towers 2002)
Return of the King (2003)
The trilogy certainly made choosing a Boxing Day movie very easy for three years, and all three years I felt the wait, and the incredible length of the movies, were completely worth it. I know they're not perfect films, but I was, and continue to be, awed by the very scale of them; an epic undertaking of an epic series. The films are beautiful too; I can still remember my glee at the the spread of flames over all those wonderful remote mountains in RotK when Pippin manages to light the beacon. That Jackson was able to make all three installments exciting and fascinating, gripping and enjoyable from a sprawling, difficult and universally loved text is testament to his abilities.
Oh, I found another RotK memory: "It was the most emotional wearing of the trilogy - I cried the most during Fellowship, but I felt more tense in this one with the constant battles and with each weary step that Sam and Frodo took to Mount Doom...I had Steph practically yelling for Frodo to look up on one side, and Emma hiding her face on my shoulder on the other, so it made me just that much more nervous." Thanks guys!
I really should dig out my extended edition set, and rewatch all three of them.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001; d. Wes Anderson)
Wes Anderson is so good at making films about sad sad people hurting their loved ones and making everyone more sad. I know that doesn't sound like a recommendation, but he manages to make his films so funny at the same time, as well as poignant and visually distinct.
This is my favourite of his films, I think, because of the sprawling cast, all those sad lives and stories, that he somehow manages to weave together so they rasp against each other and create even more stories, more ideas. I love the sense of family - the good and the bad - that I get from this even as each character projects loneliness; ideas about biological family and how they make you crazy because of some inexorable pull that binds you together even when you would do anything to be free of them, and also ideas about created family, how its not only biological ties that count but the people you take into your lives, sometimes without you even realising.
Lovely and Amazing (2002; d. Nicole Holofcener)This is a small film about ordinary lives and I love it because this intimacy and celebration of the everday. The four main characters - an aging mother who is hospitalised after a cosmetic procedure goes wrong, her two diffident daughters in their 30s, and her pre-teen adopted daughter - are well-fleshed out characters who make mistakes and hurt themselves and others but they're understandably prickly and very real. At heart it's about mothers and daughters, and how women look at themselves, and how women are looked at, and how all these things contribute to how women think of themselves. It's one of the few films I honestly relate to.
It's also a film by a woman that is truly about women. Al pointed out two articles to me today that I found great, if sad, reads (thanks Al!). The first is a piece by New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis on women in Hollywood that sets out, with the cold facts and figures, a slight increase in the number of films made by women but points out that the power women hold, and the scope and funding of the films they make, are not increasing. The second is Dargis with the gloves off, a fiery interview in which she lambasts the Hollywood system for the way it treats women, on screen and off screen and behind the scenes.
About a Boy (2002; d. Chris and Paul Weitz)
I was very conflicted going into this movie. On one hand, Hugh Grant. (My love for Hugh Grant knows (almost) no bounds.) On the other hand, my least favourite Nick Hornby book (then. A Long Way Down has taken over that title solidly.) But I enjoyed About a Boy so much that as the credits rolled and my friends turned to ask me what I thought, I was so animated in my response that I spilled an entire box of biscotti over myself.
The movie makes the characters more likeable and relatable, without erasing all the edges from them. It strikes the perfect balance in telling a potentially downer story - about a fatherless young boy (Tony Hoult), his depressed mother (Toni Collette) and the selfish slacker he adopts as an unlikely mentor (Hugh Grant, who has never used his bastard-or-nice-guy? façade to better effect) - with just the right touches of humour to leaven out the darkness.
Infernal Affairs (2002; d. Lau Wai Keung and Alan Mak)I grew up on Hong Kong movies, so I hold a great fondness for many of them despite the patchy quality. But this is a classy, beautifully composed movie; despite the (overly?) intricate plot it's tense and exciting and moving. It's far from a perfect film; the three female characters feel shoehorned into the narrative, not all the twists make sense, and it relies on the dark, absorbing atmosphere and a
pair of very good performances by Tony Leung and Andy Lau to carry it through. The scene in the picture above, a meeting of two adversaries who, at this point in time, still believe themselves to be long-ago friends, is beautifully shot and perfect in its understated direction. Ultimately, this a fine film from an industry that often panders to the lowest common denominator for the profits, rather than attempt something bold and smart for art's sake. (It is also - unpopular opinion time! - a better film than the Scorsese remake.)
Movies of the Decade: 2000-2001
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