Our Top 10's of 2001 -- Time To Throw Down - Page 6

I'll start with my top 5, and add the last 5 very soon.

1. A.I Artificial Intelligence
2. Amelie
3. Moulin Rouge
4. Memento
5. Mulholland Drive

Still have to sort out the order of A Beautiful Mind, Fellowship Of The Ring, The Deep End, Black Hawk Down, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Others, The Royal Tenenbaums and perhaps a few others, including maybe Monsters Ball which I will be seeing this week.

Cripes, we have to drag Tino and Edwin kicking and screaming to a top 10 list.

I know it's hard to think in terms of lists, I know there are things you'd still like to see before making it final, but cripes a few people just added their top 10's for 2000 so maybe you guys could see fit to getting a "temporary" 10 together at least, we'll allow you to modify it later.

:p)

Here's the update just before the Oscar noms are announced:

376 Memento
290 FOTR
271 Moulin Rouge
239 A.I.
205 Muholland Drive

187 Amelie
178 Royal Tenenbaums
106 The Man Who Wasn't There
104 In the Bedroom
103 Black Hawk Down

Top 10 appearances

46 Memento
43 Moulin Rouge
41 FOTR
32 A.I.
31 Royal Tenenbaums

27 Amelie
26 Muholland Drive
20 Man Who Wasn't There
19 Beautiful Mind
19 Ghost World
19 In the Bedroom

Top 10 Average vote (10=1st 6=5th 1=10th)

8.2 Memento
7.9 Muholland Drive
7.5 A.I.
7.1 FOTR
7.0 In the Mood For Love

6.9 Amelie
6.3 Moulin Rouge
6.1 Black Hawk Down
6.1 Apoc. Now: Redux
6.0 Waking Life


So if Tuesday we don't see Memento as a nominee for Best Picture you can reflect on what a tragedy it is for that film. At least A.I. was considered flawed by many people and Muholland Drive is flat out weird.

The sudden slip of Amelie off the Best Pix radar is also disturbing.

BTW, Monsters Ball is just starting to make some lists since it's such a late wide release (25th overall in points right now).

1. A Beautiful Mind
2. Man Who Wasn't There
3. Memento
4. Black Hawk Down
5. FOTR
6. The Royal Tenebaums
7. Shrek
8. Ocean's 11
9. Harry Potter
10. Monster's Inc.

Gosford Park should probably be in the top ten because is an example of wonderful acting and brilliant, artistic and technically superb craft. I just didn't enjoy it that much.

Worst of 2001

Final Fantasy
Planet of the Apes
Pearl Harbor (Probably would not be in my worst list, if it had another name. Call me silly, but if a movie is called Pearl Harbor then I believe one should be able to learn something about the event by seeing it. Think of all the poor kids who don't know any better and all their knowledge of the attack will come from this movie)
Driven
Sexy Beast

I have managed to make only two posts in this thread - my official Top 10 list and this, my one and only update. My official list is now up for the very first time just hours before the official Oscar nominations are announced. You will find it in my sig file below.

2001 was a great year at the cinema. I'm looking forward to 2002.

~Edwin

[font=]I AGAIN, have changed my top 10 due to seeing Monster's Ball[/font]

Just went in to edit my list on page four. Moulin Rouge comes in at number 5, knocking From Hell out of the top 10.

Just want to mention again, looking back, what a great year for movies it turned out to be. There are still a number of releases which I have yet to see (Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, etc) which I'm fully expecting to be very good. Yet, I'm completely happy with my top ten, and would have no qualms about submitting it as a list of the year's best. This from a year which started slow, then went downhill for a bit.

Of course, I've avoided most of the overtly obvious stinkers (Tomcats, Freddie, etc.)

Joel

Okay, thanks to 4 people coming in after the film started , I went back and altered my last post to reflect these new lists or changes to lists (based on last 4 posts in this thread).

So ABM fell out of the top 10 in points and Amores Perros fell out of the top 10 in average place.

Memento's lead is bigger than ever.

At Seth's behest, I'm finally posting my list. It's about as final as it's going to get, although there is a film or two that I'd still like to see (Lantana for one). Placement isn't completely final, but it may end up staying this way. (Honorable mentions are less ordered despite being numbered.) So, with no further ado...

1. Mulholland Drive
2. The Royal Tenenbaums
3. Waking Life
4. Amelie
5. Moulin Rouge
6. Ghost World
7. Monster's Ball
8. A Beautiful Mind
9. Black Hawk Down
10. In the Bedroom

Honorable Mention

11. Panic
12. In the Mood for Love
13. Under the Sand
14. Sexy Beast
15. A.I.
16. Lost and Delirious
17. The Dish
18. Memento
19. Donnie Darko
20. The Deep End

Special Mention

Maryam--a wonderful film I saw at Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival. It follows an Iranian-born, American-raised teenage girl as she struggles with the Iran hostage crisis. The kind of smart and affecting teenage movie that rarely gets made or seen. Scheduled to be more or less self-distributed this year.

Apocalypse Now Redux--a hugely ambitious and messy film that dazzles.

Thanks Mark (despite your FOTR diss )

I'm going to go back and again edit my last listing post to reflect this added list rather than repost this week's totals.

Some note about our compiled lists versus the Oscars. No surprise that nominations didn't match our order of preferences.

However, you will note that our top 10 all got at least one nomination and our #2 got 13. Even Memento and AI got more than 1 nomination.

Our #2 and #3 are up for Best Picture.

Apoc Now:Redux was obviously not going to be up for Best Pix and In the Mood For Love got pushed out by being released to early and too small for Oscar consideration (although it sure could have used an cinematography nomination).

So of our picks only Ghost World got dissed.

When I look at our top 10-20 films I just don't see a valid reason for complaints with this year's Oscars except for the standard 1 or 2 odd nominations (Penn, Hawke and Neutron). Many of these nominations came from the films we loved, even Beautiful Mind is running at 11.

And Iris seems to have just been missed by too many people.

Seth,
Thanks for your hard work. It is appreciated

Take care,
Chuck

[font=]I have updated my list in the "Academy Awards" section, for MY CHOICES[/font]

That one will end up on my 2002 list if it ever comes around here.

~Edwin

How can something be "missed" if it doesn't come out until February 15th (except in two cities)?

Clearly the "missed" thing is just to say that the reason it's not on lists could be to the fact that no one has seen it yet. Just like Monsters has started to make appearances.

I recently ranted against the Oscar rules saying that besides the 1 week LA rule there should also be an "X number of markets before mid-Jan" rule.

Platforms for Oscar runners are getting out of hand to me. Before you know it the Oscar winner will be a summer blockbuster...the next year.

BTW...I'll prolly be updating my top ten in the next 2 days, because I'll be seeing Mulholland Drive, In the Bedroom, and Monsters Ball.

As gratifying as that would be, I kind of worry what effect that would have on the smaller films that could, hypothetically, get a boost by being nominated for an award. Documentaries, especially, practically need a nomination before getting booked winder than NY/LA.

Truth be told, it's the concentration of the American entertainment industry in basically two cities that makes the whole NY/LA opening thing practically reasonable - it is an industry award, after all. If a really significant amount of production was occuring continuously in other parts of the country, then this wouldn't happen just out of necessity. But, I don't know how you'd get that to happen unless some billionaire decides to create a major production facility in North Carolina and lures a lot of talent there.

Just for fun, here's a list of the most egregious offenders this year (release dates from filmreleases.com):

Baran - Opened December 7th In NY/LA for one week, re-opens limited March 1st
Last Orders - Opened December 7th in NY/LA for one week, re-opens NY/LA February 15th
Pinero - Opened December 13th in NY/LA for one week; re-opened limited (14 theaters) January 25th
Iris - Opened December 14th in NY/LA for one week, re-opens in limited release February 15th
Monster's Ball - Opened December 26th in NY/LA, added SF/Chicago January 25th, opened wider February 8th
Dark Blue World - Opened December 28th in NY/LA, no expansion planned

To be fair, Monster's Ball has at least been playing continuously since Dec. 26th, although I still find that "(c) Lion's Gate MMII" credit galling. The strategy doesn't seem to have done much for Last Orders, Pinero, or Dark Blue World, and may have wound up costing them screens now. The makers of Italian For Beginners may have to wonder if Miramax choosing to give Baran an early push but not their film cost them a nomination or a wider American audience.

Good point except for the abuses the large distributors do also with no "good" excuse. Pure Oscar push crap, drag it into FEB.

Sure helped 13 Days (should have been called "13 Months in an Oscar Year" )


But I agree on the small films, many bank on the Oscars. Of course if they don't get a nom it hurts them even worse I think.

What if I amend my rule to say consistent PCT expansion or theatrical coverage. So that if you only had 2 prints, you would still have to move them from city to city.

Maybe the freaking Oscars should simply happen in JANUARY after the year is up anyway. Then films would stop treating JAN and FEB as "last year".

Clearly I have no good solution for an annoying side-affect of the Oscars.

Monster's Ball - excellent film. In some ways similar to In the Bedroom except that death drives people together rather than apart, and that MB is better paced.

Is Thorton better in MB than Man Who Wasn't? Tough question, Man was more low key and dry but that doesn't necessarily mean not as good. All I know is Penn would need to be pretty damn good to have been better than either Thorton effort.

Berry is wonderful and I could respect her beating Spacek though Spacek has the momentum. Berry is at least the #2 effort I've seen this year.

Anyway, MB is likely to be near or on my top 10 list.

Gosford Park is the last front runner I need to see. Then Training Day, Iris, Ali for the actor pictures.

Updated after seeing Mulholland Drive...what a trip!

Updated after seeing Ghost World on DVD, which caused yet another retooling of my Top Ten.

Am I too late to contribute to this? I'll post anyway.

1) Black Hawk Down -- I'm really disappointed this didn't get nominated for an Oscar.
2) Fellowship of the Rings
3) Memento
4) Amelie
5) The Royal Tennebaums
6) A.I.
7) Moulin Rouge
8) In the Bedroom
9) Vanilla Sky
10) Shrek

I still have a few movies that I want to see that could change this list, including Iris, The Man Who Wasn't There, Mulholland Drive, Ghost World, and Sexy Beast.

I've updated my list on Page 3 with a couple reviews.

My Top Ten of 2001:

1. In the Mood for Love

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0...1.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

2. Eureka
http://home.attbi.com/~grimsarrow/eureka.jpg

3. Werckmeister Harmonies
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/images/werckmeister.jpg

4. Songs from the Second Floor
http://home.attbi.com/~grimsarrow/songsfrom2ndfloor.jpg

5. Cure
http://us.ent4.yimg.com/movies.yahoo...ua_/victim.jpg

6. Peppermint Candy
http://www.focus-on-asia.com/image/hon/15.jpg

7. The River
http://archive.filmlinc.com/programs...egs/river1.jpg

8. Not Forgotten
http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/programs...tforgotten.jpg

9. A Matter of Taste
http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P...8.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

10. The Royal Tenenbaums
http://us.ent4.yimg.com/movies.yahoo...ca_huston6.jpg

Perhaps a bit late to be "throwing down" but just to keep Seth busy...

1. Amélie 9/10
2. The Royal Tenenbaums 9/10
3. Ghost World 8/10
4. Memento 8/10
5. Amores Perros 8/10
6. Bridget Jones Diary 8/10
7. In the Mood for Love* 8/10
8. A.I. 8/10
9. The Princess and the Warrior 8/10
10. The Man Who Wasn't There 7/10

Have the above list in the 2001 movies thread, but putting it here(after trimming out Kaïro, that is ineligible). Haven’t seen enough of these movies multiple times, so the order is a bit rough, but the top ten is pretty solidified with the possible exception of Mulholland Drive sneaking in after repeat viewings.

Edited post (page 2) to add Ghost World and Amelie to my best of 2001 list.

Updated my list with Hedwig at #10.

Rob

Updated my list with "O" taking over the #5 spot. Very powerful.

Bruce

To those keeping records: (..ok - Seth)

Updated quite a bit - added Black Hawk Down, In The Bedroom, Monster's Ball, Ghost World and a few others I'm sure since the last time you tallied 'em up. Get to work. *crack* *crack*.

I have to say that I'm pleased with my top 10/30 list - more accurately pleased with the movies that came out this year. It looked to be a horrible year (Hannibal, 15 Minutes, Blow) but it picked up at the end.

There are still a few movies floating around out there that I've yet to see (Iris, Amores Perros, etc) and then I'll be finished. I swear. No, honestly...

One more thing. Lookie:

8.2 Memento
7.9 Muholland Drive
7.5 A.I.
7.1 FOTR
7.0 In the Mood For Love
6.9 Amelie
6.3 Moulin Rouge
6.1 Black Hawk Down
6.1 Apoc. Now: Redux
6.0 Waking Life

How many of these are Best Pic noms? Two, (#4 LOTR and #7 MR). I'd be interested in seeing the updated numbers on how Gosford Park, ITBedroom and Beautiful Mind are now doing in the HTF polls.