Film Faves 2001
A Beautiful Mind – Despite being directed by Ron Howard, I expected very little from this film. I knew nothing about it, aside from the fact that it had won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I not only liked, but loved the film. Howard does a great job of visualizing some very non-visual concepts here and Russel Crowe is wonderful as the tormented numbers whiz, John Nash. But it's the amazing score by James Horner that brings it all together and puts it over the top for me. The moment the titles begin and the score kicks in, I'm in the world of the film completely. On a side note, this is the performance Crowe should have won Best Actor for, instead of the the highly (IMHO) over-rated Gladiator.
Black Hawk Down – This film is a great companion piece to Mark Bowden’s book about the 1993 operation in Mogadishu that left 18 American soldiers dead. The book was an amazing read and Ridley Scott does a tremendous job re-creating the central events of the story, specifically the intense firefight on the ground and the downing of the Black Hawk helicopters. (NOTE: If you’re unfamiliar with the book or the events that inspired it, I highly recommend getting the 3-disk deluxe edition on DVD. The set includes the documentaries The History Channel Presents: The True Story of Black Hawk Down and PBS Frontline: Ambush in Mogadishu, two very good primers to get you up to speed before watching the film. Most people will ignore this advice, but it will help put the events depicted in the film into proper context, so you understand the greater story being told. The film takes a soldier’s eye view of the events, but the political and social issues involved are important to seeing the bigger picture.)
Bridget Jones’s Diary – My favorite romantic comedy since When Harry met Sally. Renee Zellweger is absolutely charming as the (now famous) British singleton Bridget Jones, Hugh Grant is a surprisingly convincing slimeball and Colin Firth plays Mark Darcy with the same deceptive stoicism he showed in his first portrayal of the character. And is it just me, or does Renee Zellweger look better when she's carrying her Bridget Jones weight? She doesn't look fat to me, simply normal. Oh well.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – My favorite film of 2001. I wrote a lot about my relationship to The Lord of the Rings films in this post on my old blog. Fellowship remains my favorite in the film trilogy to this day. From the amazing opening montage that explains the world of Middle Earth to the wonders of Moria on through to the intense final battle that splits the Fellowship into three groups, it’s a wonderful film experience. I just wish the other two movies had captivated me as much as this one.
Monsters, Inc. – If you’d have asked me in 2001 which film was my favorite of the year, it would have been this one. But Fellowship of the Ring has grown on me since then, and bumped this animated gem from the top spot. That being said, this is still a great film, one of Pixar’s best, IMHO. Visually, it’s an absolute treat. The world that the filmmakers have created here is wonderfully unique. The chase in the Door Vault is one of my favorite moments in any film of 2001 and something that could only happen in the universe of this movie.
-Otis
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