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Year's Best Not All That Great
Jonathan Foreman's picks for best films of 2001
The New York Post, December 14 2001
By JONATHAN FOREMAN

If you're sifting for trends through the mess of this year's films, you'll discover that it was a year for movies about time travel ("Just Visiting," "Black Knight," "Kate & Leopold"), movies in which you couldn't tell dream from reality ("Vanilla Sky," "Mulholland Drive") and films about oppressed women (and men) in Afghanistan and Iran ("The Circle," "Kandahar," "Baran," "Jung in the Land of the Mujehadeen," "The Day I Became a Woman").

It was also big year for movies about war, especially World War II. These included the expensive and crass like "Pearl Harbor," and the small and intelligent like "Charlotte Gray" and "Dark Blue World"

But mainly it was a big year for bad movies. Even before the horrors of Sept. 11 made movies feel like a trivial subject, it was a depressing task to review an endless sea of lousy sequels, remakes and copies and to be confronted again and again by an industry that seems more cynical and contemptuous of the public than ever.

You could be forgiven for wondering if the medium - and not just the art of screenwriting - was on its last legs.

Although a few good films were released close to Christmas to qualify for Oscar nominations, there's nothing to compare with last year's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

It's actually rather hard to come up with a top 10 list that doesn't include four or five movies drawn from a long list of merely OK productions that would never have been considered in a more competitive year.

  • GOSFORD PARK: It's such a pleasure to come across a film that is not only beautifully shot, acted, written and directed, but which also combines humor with a generous humanity.

The others, in no particular order:

  • IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE: Wong Kar-wai's gorgeous, dreamy tale of adulterous love in 1960s Hong Kong was easily the most glamorous and elegant film of the year.
  • THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS: Wes Anderson's third film is wonderfully smart about both selfish '60s parents and their puritanical, uptight children.
  • DINNER RUSH: Too few people saw this wonderful ensemble comedy-drama that brilliantly captures the atmosphere of a restaurant at full steam.
  • THE ENDURANCE: This spectacular documentary about the Shackleton Expedition is such an epic tale of leadership and survival it should be shown in every school in America.
  • AMORES PERROS: The destinies of three sets of dog owners collide violently - and brilliantly - in Mexico City.
  • A BEAUTIFUL MIND: Director Ron Howard finds a subject, a star and a screenplay that bring out his full talent and his dark side.
  • SEXY BEAST: The best - and most moving of all the hard-boiled Brit-crime movies of recent years and a triumph for Ben Kinsgley.
  • BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY: Renée Zellweger and Hugh Grant changed their respective images and pulled it off in what turned out to be the year's best romantic comedy.
  • APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX: The "new" sequences mostly added little but length and distraction from the film's main themes, but the painstakingly restored colors and soundtrack brought out the beauty and power of this classic from 1979.