Movies of the Decade: 2001-2002

Continuing with my Movies of the Decade list, of movies I find particularly memorable for one reason or another over the last ten years.

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

Movies of the Decade: 2000-2001

It's year end, and that means LISTS! In the next two weeks I'll be posting each day, alternating between my Movies of the Decade and my Songs of the Year countdowns.

Movies of the Decade is not about the best movies of the decade, because I have no real standing to judge what is 'the best'. It's mostly a list of movies I find particularly memorable for one reason or another over the last ten years.

So let's start at the very beginning (I hear it's a very good place to start):

American Beauty (1999; d. Sam Mendes)

This squeaks into my list because it was released early 2000 in Australia. I remember walking out of the cinema already heatedly debating moments from the movie with my best friend. She stayed the night, and we talked about it into the wee hours of the morning, we were that rapt in it. I haven’t seen it since then, but even after almost ten years, I can still see iconic moments from the movie in my head. Strangely enough, for a story that is about Kevin Spacey’s Lester Burnham, it is the women I remember most: Mena Suvari draped in the rose petals on the ceiling, Thora Birch lifting her shirt in front of her bedroom window, Annette Bening breaking down in the immaculate house she’s trying to sell.

Billy Elliott (2000; d. Stephen Daldry)

This was the first movie I saw post-HSC. Maybe it was the timing, but the theme of dreaming big and defying your family and expectations resonated with me; however, I have seen it a few times since then and I still love everything about this movie, from the opening credits with Billy jumping and dancing on the drab beds of his house to T-Rex, in slow motion and yet conveying so much free energy; to the graceful, almost stilted drama of the last scene. The movie handles the relationships in this so beautifully, from the slow implosion of the tension within Billy’s family, to the way Billy finds and provides support to other misfits around him.

Bring It On (2000, d.Peyton Reed)

I will not hear a bad word about this movie. It is bold and splashy and fun, and it doesn’t try to intellectualise or dumb down its subject and its character; they just are, imperfectly human and a little bitchy but ultimately good people. The romance is sweet, the leads are charming, and there’s a lot of very quotable lines and memorable moments. Not to mention the cheerleading sequences are fabulous to watch. One of my favourite pick-me-up movies still.

Gosford Park (2001, d. Robert Altman)

The first time I watched this I went in with the wrong impression; I was expecting an Agatha Christie-like country house mystery, like the box seemed to promise, and I came out a little disappointed. But I watched it again; and then again; and each time I discovered something more, a new way to read the scenes, different facets of the (large) cast of characters. I came to an appreciation for how Altman allows scenes to flow almost naturally, conversations and interactions tumbling over each other; while structuring each scene just so, such that it carefully eases into view a new piece of the social puzzle each time, revealing bit by bit the manners and mannerisms of the house, the secrets and lies underneath. It’s a smart, beautiful film, bolstered by some great performances from a cast that reads like a who’s who of British film; I particularly love the slow burning tension and attraction between the Mary the maid (Kelly Macdonald) and Clive Owen's Robert.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001; d. John Cameron Mitchell)

The music is great – it’s hard to come out of it not singing the songs – the acting is great – John Cameron Mitchell is funny and heartbreaking and scary and scared and wonderful in channeling Hedwig – and it manages a lot visually on a low budget. I don’t have the words to describe this one, but this New York Times review by Stephen Holden basically articulates everything I wish I could.

What were your favourite/most memorable films from 2000 and 2001?

Tomorrow: Songs of the 2009 part 1