28 FEBRUARY, 2002: Well, this’d probably be the latest I’ve ever done the “year in review” column; most of the 2001 wrap-ups have long come and gone, and this year I can’t blame the tardiness entirely on the long wait for year-end Oscar contenders. In all honesty, I could have written this anytime after February 9, when I saw “Monster’s Ball”. I just didn’t. I’m lazy. I hereby resolve, as my Late New Year’s Resolution, not to take so long between columns this year.

My second resolution is that if I fail at the first, I won’t start the occasional column with another stupid apology and explanation of why I haven’t updated in so long. That’s tiresome.

To get to the point: I’d intended, as stated in my last piece, to write a full column just reviewing “Ocean’s 11” and “Vanilla Sky”, two of my favorites from last year. Well, they’re both a good three months in the rearview by now, so I’ll just cover them thoroughly in this piece. I also usually write two Oscar columns: one an immediate reaction to the nominations, one a picks and prediction piece. When I’m not writing very much, I shouldn’t be doing in two columns what I can do in one. I’ll have an Oscar piece in a couple of weeks, though I’ll bitch and moan some here.

What kind of a year was it? Tough to say. I can find movies to like in almost any year, and most of the year-end wrap-ups I read, even by critics I admire, contained the same tired-ass “it wasn’t much of a year for movies” that we got last year. Face facts: In any year there’s a lot of shit, and you have to sift the good stuff out. End of discussion.

For my part, I found more overrated movies this year than any in recent memory. “A Beautiful Mind”, “In The Bedroom”, and “Gosford Park”, for example, are all okay movies, but none of ‘em knocked my socks off like I’d heard they would. Add the monumentally overpraised “Moulin Rouge” and “Lord of the Rings” (which, I must confess, I’ve not yet seen. Sorry.) and you’ve got the most uninteresting group of Best Picture nominees since 1995, when “Babe” and “Il Positino” were nominated over “Seven”, “Leaving Las Vegas”, and “Dead Man Walking”… but I digress. Later for that.

In general, there were plenty of terrific flicks this year, plus a fair share of guilty pleasures and… well, either I saw fewer bad movies, or knew better which ones to stay away from (“Black Knight”, anyone?). So, to start, here’s the best of the (now two months gone) year:

THE TOP 20 OF 2001: 20. “In The Bedroom”: Yes, it’s overrated, but worth seeing nonetheless for the terrific performances, particularly by Tom Wilkinson. Director Todd Field handles his opening and gripping closing well, but it just plain lags in the middle. And it’d probably be much higher on this list if I hadn’t heard such amazing things about it going in.

19. “Amelie”: A wonderful vanilla dessert from France that manages to combine a warm, whimsical story with first-rate, inventive effects. Imagine that, Lucas.

18. “The Anniversary Party”: Widely praised and quickly forgotten, this loose, messy ensemble comedy/drama from writer/director/stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming was entertaining and fascinating, and featured terrific digital videography by John Bailey.

17. “Sidewalks of New York”: I was absolutely taken with Edward Burns’ valentine to New York (and Woody Allen’s “Husbands and Wives”)—by turns funny, warm, and harsh, this is Burns’ most accomplished film to date.

16. “Training Day”: So what if the third act is entirely implausible. Supporting Actor nod notwithstanding, this is a fierce, flashy one man show for Denzel Washington, reminding us that within the Poitier-like noble black man we’ve been seeing for the last few years, there still lurks an actor capable of explosive surprises.

15. “I Am Sam”: Wasn’t supposed to like it. Did. Sorry.

14. “Hannibal”: One of the many love-it-or-hate-its on this list: Ridley Scott’s dark, creepy love story (and that’s what it was, and the people who didn’t like it didn’t get that) with another superb turn by Sir Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore doing the impossible: making me forget Jodie Foster.

13. “Heist”: A welcome return to form from writer/director David Mamet, doing what he absolutely does best: tough guys, bad broads, cons, twists, lots of profanity, and career high work by Gene Hackman and Ricky Jaye.

12. “Bridget Jones’s Diary”: A perfectly constructed, marvelously executed, right-on adaptation of one of the funniest books in recent memory, with Renee Zellweger in perfect form (her Best Actress nom was the second best surprise of the morning—see below).

11. “Ali”: I’ll say it again—I’ll just claim this island for myself. I seem to be the only guy who found Michael Mann’s quiet, elegant biopic to be brutal, insightful, sweeping, and brilliant. That’s fine. Fuck the rest of you. I’ve got this one all to myself.

10. “Hearts In Atlantis”: Another one that got some praise (from the less jaded critics) and made no money and disappeared as quickly as it surfaced (I could make some lame Atlantis similie, but I choose not to). Warm, funny, and heartbreaking, this was one of two movies to make my cry this year, which gets it a high spot no matter what.

9. “Vanilla Sky”: Cameron Crowe’s deliciously strange, exquisitely overstylized “Open Your Eyes” remake would have been even closer to the top of my list had it not stepped wrong and gone on about fifteen minutes too long. If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I mean: it should have ended when the elevator doors opened, before they proceeded to explain everything. I know the mass dumbass audience would’ve hated an ambiguous ending, but that’s what I wanted, and they hated the movie anyway, so why not? At any rate, the worst ending imaginable (which, don’t get me wrong, that wasn’t) couldn’t have spoiled the spell Crowe weaves, thanks to top-notch performances and his usual razor-sharp music choices.

8. “Mulholland Drive”: Quite simply the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen, and to this day, I can’t get its haunting images and unanswered questions out of my head. Who was the monster behind the diner? How was the hitman connected? Who is the cowboy? Who is the dead girl? What is Club Silencio? And exactly what the fuck happened around the 100-minute mark? I’ve got my theories (though they’re full of holes). If you’ve seen the movie, you’ve got yours. Writer/director David Lynch tells us nothing, and that would be irritating as hell were the film itself not so intoxicating.

7. “A.I.”: Another one that was widely misunderstood, predominately by schmuck mainstream audiences who weren’t prepared for a challenging, strange, experimental film—Spielberg’s riskiest to date. Their loss. Yes, the film is too long. Yes, some sequences do not work. But these small failures are what make it fascinating. Usually, Spielberg thrives on perfection, but chanelling a filmmaker whose aesthetic is decidedly different than his has given him the freedom to make a looser, more fragmented, and in some ways more interesting film than the ones he’s made previous to it.

6. “Ocean’s Eleven”: The general tone of criticism for the latest from director Steven Soderbergh was tired, tired, tired. Here’s every review: three stars, entertaining, nothing to write home about, Soderbergh wastes his talents. Apparently once you’ve stepped into the arena of social commentary, you can’t step out and go back to making fun films, even if (and maybe I’m in the minority here, but I don’t care) your “fun” films are better than your “important” ones. Surprisingly, the one critic that seemed to “get” this one was Entertainment Weekly’s Owen “O, Brother Where Art Thou Was 2000’s Worst Film” Glieberman, who correctly pinpointed it as the slick, entertaining treat that it was, and gave it a very high spot on his year-end list. For once, Mr. Glieberman, I concur.

5. “Ghost World”: While I may have seen (very few) better movies this year, this is the only one I can think of that I was already looking forward to seeing again before it even ended. That's something to aspire to. Zwigoff and co-screenwriter Daniel Clowes (adapting his wonderful graphic novel) perfectly capture the shaky transition into adulthood, or at least out of high school, for their heroine, Enid, thanks to spot-on performances by Thora Birch, Scarlett Johanssen, and the great Steve Buscemi.

4. “Black Hawk Down”: Frightening, suspenseful, thoughtful, and brilliant, Ridley Scott’s second great film of 2001 was the anti-“Pearl Harbor”—an intelligent war movie with a minimum of flag-waving and bullshit.

3. “Monster’s Ball”: This is a tough fucking movie. There are no easy answers (or questions, for that matter) in director Marc Forster’s brutally pensive mediation on love, loneliness, racism, and the sins of our fathers (and sons). Career high performances by Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thorton, whose lack of nominations this year is an unforgivable oversight by the Academy.

2. “Memento”: A gloriously intelligent little wind-up toy of a movie, a film that pulses with the excitement of filmmakers who are getting away with something great, and know it. It has the same kind of giddy fun that “Run Lola Run” and “Pulp Fiction” had—cheerful disregard for the rules, warm embracing of new ideas in form and formula. It was my fave of the year right up until the end, when I saw…

1. “The Royal Tenenbaums”: I’ve tried to put into words exactly how and why this movie worked for me on every conceivable level. I can’t. Sometimes great movies are like that. I will say this: Watch the scene outside of the house with the firetruck. In that one scene (in one shot, in fact), you can not only see what makes this movie great, but what makes all movies great.

HONORABLE MENTION I also enjoyed and recommend these movies, which were solid but didn’t quite make it to the top. In no particular order: “Shrek”, “Monsters Inc.”, “A Beautiful Mind”, “Gosford Park”, “Spy Kids”, “The Others”, “America’s Sweethearts”, “Save The Last Dance”, “The Score”, “Shallow Hal”, “Spy Game”, “Blow”, “K-PAX”, “Serendipity”, “Bandits”, “Kiss of the Dragon”, “From Hell”, “Joy Ride”, “crazy/beautiful”, “O”, “Life As A House”, “The Deep End”, “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion”, “Made”, “The Majestic”.

PURE ENTERTAINMENT And some movies that I almost feel like I should apologize for enjoying: “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”, “American Pie 2”, “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”, “Legally Blonde”, “The Mexican”, “Down To Earth”, “Zoolander”, “Heartbreakers”, “Evolution”, “Rock Star”, “Iron Monkey”, “Osmosis Jones”, “Swordfish”.

THE FIVE WORST OF 2001: 5. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”: Sorry. I’m not into the books, so maybe that’s why this movie never engaged me on any level whatsoever. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

4. “Pearl Harbor”: Hokey, goofy, and absolutely cliché-ridden. I can’t add much to general consensus on this one.

3. “Scary Movie 2”: If ever a movie felt thrown together, it was this miserable, unfunny mess, slammed into theatres a year after the original and stinking with the greed of the brothers Weinstein. I turned to Mac during the end credits of this 78-minute slog and noted, “You’d think with eight writers, they coulda come up with a longer movie.” He replied, “You’d think with eight writers, they coulda come up with a FUNNY movie.”

2. “The Fast and the Furious”: To be fair, I only saw the first twenty minutes of it. But as my old granddaddy used to say, “You don’t have to have the clap your whole life to know it’s fuckin’ awful.”

1. “Moulin Rouge”: And to be fair, it’s probably better than the rest of the movies on this list. But I disliked this movie so intensely, that the more awards and nominations (Best Picutre? BEST FUCKING PICTURE?) it gets, the more I hate it. Busy, scattered, braying, and over-edited to a fault, "Moulin Rouge" is a big, loud, empty movie that makes a lot of noise and goes to a lot of trouble to say absolutely nothing.

TWENTY MOVIES I DIDN”T SEE BUT BET I WOULD HAVE HATED: “The Mummy Returns”, “Joe Dirt”, “Black Knight”, “See Spot Run”, “Hardball”, “The Animal”, “Sweet November”, “Corky Romano”, “Bones”, “Josie and the Pussycats”, “Summer Catch”, “Valentine”, “3000 Miles to Graceland”, “Joe Somebody”, “Double Take”, “Monkeybone”, “American Outlaws”, “Texas Rangers”, “Out Cold”, “Extreme Days”. Fuck, maybe this WAS a shitty year.

THIS AND THAT:

* BEST ACTOR: Gene Hackman, “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Heist”. RUNNERS-UP: Denzel Washington, “Training Day”, Billy Bob Thorton, “Monster’s Ball”.

* BEST ACTRESS: Thora Birch, “Ghost World” RUNNERS-UP: Naomi Watts, “Mulholland Drive”, Rene Zellweger, “Bridget Jones’s Diary”.

* BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Steve Buscemi, “Ghost World”. RUNNERS-UP: Brad Pitt, “Ocean’s Eleven”, Heath Ledger, “Monster’s Ball”.

* BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Gwyneth Paltrow, “The Royal Tenenbaums”. RUNNERS-UP: Jennifer Connelly, “A Beautiful Mind”, Emilly Watson, “Gosford Park”.

* WORST ACTOR: Paul Walker, “The Fast and The Furious” and “Joy Ride” (which was good in spite of him).

* WORST ACTRESS: Anna Farris, “Scary Movie 2”.

* WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Your choice of Wayans in “Scary Movie 2”.

* WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Michelle Rodriguez in “The Fast and the Furious”.

* BEST DIRECTOR: Chris Nolan, “Memento”

* BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, “The Royal Tenenbaums”.

* BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff, “Ghost World”.

* WORST DIRECTOR: Baz Luhrmann, “Moulin Rouge” (a tough call, since “Fast and the Furious” director Rob Cohen also did “The Skulls”.)

* WORST SCREENPLAY: Gary Scott Thompson, Erik Bergquist, and David Ayer, “The Fast and the Furious” (it took three motherfuckers to come up with such gems as “Man, that guy’s fast!”)

* “FIGHT CLUB” AWARD FOR WORST THIRD ACT: “A Beautiful Mind”

* BEST TRAILER: “Ali”

* WORST TRAILER: “Black Knight”.

* BEST SCORE: David Holmes, “Ocean’s Eleven”

* WORST SCORE: John Williams, “Harry Potter”—Hey, John, I think we’ve heard this before. Oh, I guess that applies to all your stuff.

* BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Robert D. Yeoman, “The Royal Tenenbaums”.

* WORST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Steven Bernstein, “Scary Movie 2”

* MOST UNDERRATED: Here’s the part where I lose you all: I didn’t think “Town & Country” or “Freddy Got Fingered” were all that bad. Not great, mind you, but not all that bad.

* MOST OVERRATED: “A Beautiful Mind”.

* WAY TOO LONG: “Harry Potter”, “Pearl Harbor”, and… Jesus Christ, this column. That’s it! On with 2002!