Yesterday, we completed our Best Picture race and we went through what Oscar thought of 2001...now it's my turn. In what has become my favorite series on this blog, I conclude each season with my Oscar My Ballot article with a peak into what would've happened if I had picked all the nominees.
Obviously, unlike with Oscar (where there's a finite number of films), I can't see everything that was made in 2001 or was eligible-if there's a movie that Oscar & I both skipped entirely, sound off in the comments and challenge me to see it (or possibly I just didn't like it that much). But I do make a point of seeking out a number of major films from the year that Oscar skipped but have been considered to be important...I also just see a lot of movies, and was seeing them pretty regularly in 2001, though I was still living in rural Minnesota in a town with one-theater, so I didn't quite have the breadth I would a couple of years later. With all that said, this is one of my all-time favorite years for movies (many of the Silver, Bronze, and even nominated works here would be much higher in some of the years that precede it), so take every victory as extra special. With that-please enjoy, and we'll start 2000 next week!
AI: Artificial Intelligence
Gosford Park
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
In the Bedroom
In the Mood for Love
Legally Blonde
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Memento
Moulin Rouge!
Mulholland Drive
Gold: What can I say? There are just a few films that can be name-checked as the source of why I love movies, a reason that this blog exists at all, and toward the top of the list would be Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring, a film that captures the magic of JRR Tolkien's books so well that even Tolkien himself would have to bow down.
Silver: Steven Spielberg's complicated, at-the-time-mixed-reviewed epic AI: Artificial Intelligence stands now (imho) as one of his most-important & best pictures, a wonderful spin on the Pinocchio story with a breathtaking lead performance from actor Haley Joel Osment.
Bronze: We'll do Moulin Rouge! at third (part of me wants to go Harry Potter because it was far more formative for me, but objectively Moulin Rouge! is better even if I love Harry Potter more). The best musical of this century is guided by two star-crossed movie stars (Kidman & McGregor), and a banging score that puts every other jukebox musical to shame.
Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)
Wong Kar-Wai (In the Mood for Love)
Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!)
David Lynch (Mulholland Drive)
Steven Spielberg (AI: Artificial Intelligence)
Gold: Peter Jackson starts off his six-part Tolkien epic with more subtlety than you would normally afford such a situation. You get some things held back (there's less action in this movie than the other five), but the direction isn't one of them. We get framing devices, lots of narration, & almost two hours of introducing characters, but it all works-it feels like a complete, full stop movie, not just one chapter.
Silver: We'll probably never entirely know what from AI was done by Steven Spielberg by himself and what parts had the clear guiding hand of Stanley Kubrick, but the melding of the two makes for a really brilliant film, one that blends the sweet wonder of a child for his mother with the cold, unyielding cruelty of the world that the child isn't prepared to enter.
Bronze: One of the most beautiful films I've ever seen, In the Mood for Love is picture-perfect in every frame, and delicately-structured by Wong Kar-Wai (there's a reason this is his masterpiece). It's erotic, but always romantic, and he holds back without feeling like he's cheating the audience out of anything.
Tony Leung (In the Mood for Love)
Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge!)
Haley Joel Osment (AI: Artificial Intelligence)
Denzel Washington (Training Day)
Tom Wilkinson (In the Bedroom)
Gold: Haley Joel Osment will go down as one of those great child actors who gave two seismic performances...and then kind of just stayed employed as an adult (good for him!). But his David in AI: Artificial Intelligence is the perfect encapsulation of childhood, totally nailing the way that love can oftentimes feel blind, without limits, & even ill-advised.
Silver: Just behind him is Ewan McGregor. His Christian is, like David, someone who is in the throes of love (though in this case romantic as opposed to familial). I love the way that he feels like he didn't exist before Satine, as if he was only able to truly spring forth once he met her, and the way that McGregor's face shines brightest when she's onscreen. Utterly romantic.
Bronze: Speaking of love, Tony Leung in In the Mood for Love takes love and adds the complicated aspects of desire. For a film that is relatively timid in terms of what it shows, Wong Kar-Wai's epic is maybe the horniest film I've ever seen, and that comes across in the precision of Leung's work, the care he has for Maggie Cheung & how he cannot express it, but it's burning within him.
Isabelle Huppert (The Piano Teacher)
Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge!)
Sissy Spacek (In the Bedroom)
Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive)
Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde)
Gold: Kidman had a double-header in 2001, but she's getting this win all on her Satine. A brilliant, "I have arrived" performance from the actress as Baz's muse, she brings so much complexity into her work. She's truly in love, but unlike Christian she understands the price of that love, and whether it will cost her her career (or her life). Totally dazzling, and a damned fine singer.
Silver: Behind her is Sissy Spacek, bringing back the fire after a decade in the wilderness. Spacek's performance here is calculated. She understands where Ruth has been, already having waged (and frequently lost) many battles before the opening credits play, she's cynical but still clinging to the love of her son & husband...even if that means she's given up herself.
Bronze: Watts has to play a dual role here, and I mean that both literally and figuratively. She has to find ways to inform the twist in Lynch's part, the character underneath Betty/Diane, when the other women are at our gates. Her best work-brittle, open, & always guessing.
Jim Broadbent (Moulin Rouge!)
Robbie Coltrane (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)
Ian Holm (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)
Jude Law (AI: Artificial Intelligence)
Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)
Gold: In an entirely British lineup, for the gold I'll go with Sir Ian...McKellen. Gandalf is about as perfect as you get in this (my favorite performance in any of these acting categories), projected with a robust Shakespearean bravado, but also with a tenderness & wit that would fit the most iconic character from Tolkien's first book.
Silver: Behind him would be Broadbent, in the other role of a lifetime of this bunch as Harold Zidler. In many ways Zidler is the more humane Emcee from Cabaret, willing to sell out his leading lady, but feeling somewhat bad about it. That said, the way that he combines an outlandish outer shell with a ruthless inner monologue (the show must go on!) is splendid-I wish we could've gotten more parts like this from him in the years that followed.
Bronze: It's a tough call between the remaining three (I love this lineup, my favorite of the four I amassed in 2001), but I'm going to give it to Ian Holm. Holm's another classically-trained actor who was able to bring that to his greedy, over-his-head Bilbo Baggins. He leaves a small part (giving us only a memory of Bilbo for much of the rest of the trilogy), but it's enough, showing how even the most decent of men can succumb to the power of the ring.
Cate Blanchett (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)
Helen Mirren (Gosford Park)
Maggie Smith (Gosford Park)
Maggie Smith (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)
Kate Winslet (Iris)
Gold: Mirren plays against type in Gosford Park, bringing a lot of dimensions to her work as it goes. She is deprived of the sexuality many of her most famous parts brought her, and instead has to act someone whose allegiances won't be revealed until the close. It's a tough part, but she does it effortlessly and gives the film its heart.
Silver: Blanchett didn't need to rock this role the way she did. Galadriel is not an important part of the narrative. But between the stunning narration, and then her great sense of power & understanding what side she's on in the coming war, she lands every second of this world (there's a reason Jackson brought her back for every subsequent movie even though she didn't need to be).
Bronze: Of the two Maggie Smith performances, I think the one that is a heavier lift for her is Gosford Park. Her dowager here is different than most-she knows, even as she is playing a very silly person that she must adapt to survive, her access to funds about to be cut off. The way she navigates that, and shows how being out-of-practice doesn't spell disaster, gives us one of her better pieces of work.
AI: Artificial Intelligence
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
In the Bedroom
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Piano Teacher
Gold: The Fellowship of the Ring performs a magic trick. It takes a dense, poetic source material, and creates something airy & free, moving easily throughout the confines of a movie. The way that it introduces in fast order over a dozen key characters, and they all feel unique & established to the audience is an incredible feat.
Silver: There's something so enchanting the way that the writers of AI spin the fairytale (the Pinocchio story) into this oftentimes bleak look at how we dispose of others when we find ourselves in a better situation. David's worldview stays unwavering, but our perspective changes through this story.
Bronze: One of the best examples of the turn-of-the-century "what lies beneath at the suburbs" films, In the Bedroom springs with hidden truths from the main couple after unspeakable tragedy befalls them. Bold & surprising, something you wouldn't guess at first for a family drama.
Gosford Park
Legally Blonde
Memento
Monsters, Inc.
Moulin Rouge!
Gold: Early enough in his career that Christopher Nolan was still taking notes (and thus, we get the best ending of any of his movies), Memento achieves the herculean task at its center-how do you tell a story backward without giving away the suspense of what happened previously? It's a nasty film, one that shows the cruelness of the world, but it's a gimmick that genuinely works.
Silver: Rich with overlapping dialogue (don't you love Altman?), Gosford Park seamlessly handles multiple storylines & character arcs, all the while keeping the focus on the central mystery at-hand. It's easy to see why this kind of rich character work would be end up being the source of one of the 21st Century's most iconic TV dramas.
Bronze: Musicals get a bum rap in this category, but they shouldn't. A good example is Moulin Rouge!, which gives us stories through song. Look at the way that the dialogue and plot exposition are folded neatly into a musical number like "The Pitch" or "The Hills Are Alive," us learning as we go within the songs, always feeding into the film's larger energy.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Monsters, Inc.
Shrek
Gold: In the premiere year for this category with Oscar (we will continue it into at least the late 1990's, FYI, when this category has a lot of fun potential lineups), it was a weaker lineup of films, but it's obvious whom the winner should've been. This was during the time when Pixar could do no wrong, and everything was fresh-and-exciting, and that definitely was the case for Monsters, Inc, a jewel of a film about growing up.
Silver: Though it gets lost during the era when Disney was at its deepest nadir since The Black Cauldron, Atlantis: The Lost Empire deserves better than that. With beautiful animation (especially in the titular city) and a game voice cast, it breaks no ground but gives a delightful action-adventure.
Bronze: I have complicated feelings about the film Shrek, and had there been a stronger contender (I looked for one), this would a skip. But I'm a completionist, and there are elements of Shrek worth celebrating. In particular, this is the funniest that Eddie Murphy has maybe ever(?) been...certainly the funniest since the 1980's.
AI: Artificial Intelligence
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Monsters, Inc.
Moulin Rouge!
Gold: The naturalistic sounds of New Zealand invite us into the Shire, but it's the entire ensemble of noises, including Howard Shore & Enya's wondrous music that make this feel like a complete picture. A good sound score makes you remember moments of dialogue, the way it feels within the movie, and that's what Fellowship does.
Silver: I always think of the cars in AI, the way that they feel like they're whirring past you, John Williams score ringing in your ear, but the whirring of the cars being somehow ominous. There's such care in the sound work here, weirdly even in the quiet, suburban moments at the beginning.
Bronze: You'd be hard-pressed to find a musical in the 2000's that does a better job of mixing the tunes to match the story itself. Moulin Rouge! has to blend a variety of styles when it comes to its musical numbers, pop standards reinvented for a new era. It does that while also staying true to the story (including dialogue that feels naturalistic into the film's music) which I commend the mixers for.
AI: Artificial Intelligence
Black Hawk Down
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Monsters, Inc.
Gold: The first sound I think of in 2001 is the Ring Wraiths, the winged horseman who haunt the dreams of our hero Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring. But all of Peter Jackson's epic is filled with little touches like that, the background noises of Rivendell and the clanging specificity of the men in hand-to-hand combat.
Silver: The gadgetry of AI: Artificial Intelligence is remarkable. There's this gorgeous whirling in the robots, the way that they all seem to be unfolding or moving as almost human-like that adds to the film itself.
Bronze: I love the details in Monsters, Inc. This was the first film that got Oscar to notice its sound work for a reason-it feels like a factory, like a true city, like something that has every scream & zoom & gadget collecting its own authentic sound. I loved it.
AI: Artificial Intelligence
A Beautiful Mind
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Mulholland Drive
Gold: In truly the hardest contest we've done to date in 21 seasons of this series (this is the category I wanted to use one of my three "ties" if I could have them since Oscar did), I am going to just barely give this to Fellowship of the Ring, because I think it does more to hint at the films that would happen after it, and because it tells so much of the lore through Howard Shore's music.
Silver: Micrometers behind Fellowship is John Williams' soaring Harry Potter score. This is so enchanting-it gives us a sense of magic, maybe Williams last truly legendary score to date (he's been wonderful since, but when you're talking about the maestro himself, the bar is really high). I love the festive sense that it brings-there's a reason that these movies play on ABC Family constantly during the holidays with only the most tangential connection to Christmas.
Bronze: Lost in the grand duel is that A Beautiful Mind is a really great score as well, and would've made a worthy choice in most years (this is the strongest lineup of any of the 2001 contests). James Horner's expanding score gives us a sense of John Nash's world, and the way that one can easily get lost in it.
"All Love Can Be," A Beautiful Mind
"Come What May," Moulin Rouge!
"For Always," AI: Artificial Intelligence
"May It Be," The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
"The Pitch," Moulin Rouge!
Gold: Oscar incorrectly removed "Come What May" from eligibility, but I do not have such qualms about it. After all, whatever its original intentions, when audiences first heard it, it was as a soaring love ballad that was so good it would become synonymous with Moulin Rouge! and feel at home alongside other legendary classic songs.
Silver: Not far behind is "May It Be," the anthem of The Fellowship of the Ring, and one of Enya's best songs. I love the way that it incorporates notes of Howard Shore's score, and the way it feels like a preamble to the later films..."oh how far you are from home."
Bronze: A tossup between the love ballads of A Beautiful Mind and AI, but I'm inclined to go with "For Always," if only because it comes across as the way to underline the message of the movie (that love endures, even if life doesn't), and it's so marvelously sung by Josh Groban.
AI: Artificial Intelligence
Gosford Park
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Moulin Rouge!
Gold: Again this becomes a battle between Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, and again this ends up being won by the Tolkien epic (they face off in 12 categories in the 2001 My Ballot, every one that Harry is up in, and the boy wizard only comes out on top once). I just can't help it-the looks of Middle Earth are at-once so remarkable, and unlike Harry expand into more worlds so we get a sense of hobbits, dwarves, elves, & men in the first film.
Silver: Just behind it is the fantastic looks Stuart Craig brings to the Harry Potter universe. I think the Hogwarts castle feels like it fell out of JK Rowling's books, it's so exacting and so true-to-that-world. I'm not someone that needs the book to always match the movie, but Craig does Chris Columbus a great service by making Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, & Privet Drive feel like you've walked into the novels. There's a reason this became an instantly iconic theme park attraction.
Bronze: And again, another third place that in most years would've won, Moulin Rouge! also has its own iconography to play with. Catherine Martin does a fine job of mixing the modern touches & fantastical elements in with the more conventional realities of recreating the 19th Century's most famous theater.
AI: Artificial Intelligence
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
In the Mood for Love
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Man Who Wasn't There
Gold: Cinematography isn't entirely about beauty...but it definitely helps. That's true with In the Mood for Love, which uses red to a better degree than pretty much any other film (ever). Shot as if every frame is going to be in a museum, Christopher Doyle makes magic out of this love story.
Silver: Close behind is Andrew Lesnie. Helped by having at least some practical effects (and all real sets), The Fellowship of the Ring makes each scene feel like it's an oil painting, something that was captured from the illustrated manuscripts of JRR Tolkien.
Bronze: I'll go with AI for third. Kaminski always makes Spielberg's movies look wonderful, but here I think the biggest gain is the way that he finds character in the edges of the film, and the art direction. Look at how he not only frequently films things from David's perspective, but makes so much of this world look sterile...that with technology we're void of character.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
In the Mood for Love
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Moulin Rouge!
The Royal Tenenbaums
Gold: A gorgeous mix of classic & modern, Moulin Rouge! gives us these Valentino-like designs for some of Nicole Kidman's evening wear, and dresses that could only come in a post-Bob Mackie world. When Kidman, in a high-thigh skirt and top hat, comes out to sing...you know that you're entering a realm of enchantment.
Silver: In Harry Potter, you get plucked-from-the-pages perfect looks like Dumbledore, McGonagall, Hagrid, & Quirrell that appear as if they were ripped from the books themselves. The vivid world that JK Rowling painted across seven novels feels as if it has been sprung from the collective readers' imagination at every turn.
Bronze: Gandalf & Galadriel are the top of the heap in The Fellowship of the Ring, both in the same league as Dumbledore & McGonagall they feel so full with rich detail from the novels. We also get a slew of magical beings from hobbits to elves to dwarves, a kaleidoscope of tropes to guide you through not just this movie, but the next five.
AI: Artificial Intelligence
Black Hawk Down
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Memento
Moulin Rouge!
Gold: I continue to be in awe of what Dody Dorn does in Memento. The way that she frames this, with every scene functioning as a memory and backwards, while still visually retaining all of Nolan's mystery, is totally admirable (and kind of a miracle).
Silver: Fellowship of the Ring is at once two movies, a stand-alone film that needs to function just for the audiences, and an ambitious start to Peter Jackson's six-movie magnum opus. The editors know this, and do a good job of building both continual plot for the series, while also grounding the actual story within this specific installment.
Bronze: Black Hawk Down does a great job of giving us near constant tension, and does a solid job of world-building in a universe that is, of course, our own, but also is dealing with a conflict that a lot of modern audiences might not have been as familiar with (if it's not on CNN every night...). Kudos for decently incorporating character growth as well.
Gosford Park
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Moulin Rouge!
Planet of the Apes
Gold: It would honestly get better in the next two films, where we would get an expansion into more orcs, elves, & kings, but the first Fellowship of the Ring is mesmerizing, giving us lore and canon looks of Tolkien's iconic characters that would continue decades after in every realm of Middle Earth.
Silver: I am a firm believer that you don't always need to go with an ugly or disguising situation when it comes to this category. After all, Nicole Kidman looks radiant, a dying chanteuse that is made up to be the best version of a poor musical theater hall in Moulin Rouge! (against a crew of deliciously cheap looking Lady Marmalade's).
Bronze: Similar to Fellowship, you need some credit to be handed over to Harry Potter, giving us "plucked from the book" looks at a number of different characters (Hagrid, Dumbledore, & Vernon Dursley stand out as some of my favorites).
AI: Artificial Intelligence
Black Hawk Down
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Monsters, Inc.
Gold: Similar to Makeup, Visual Effects would step up in a big way in the sequels (we have yet to even see Gollum at this point), but the Balrog battle against Gandalf, and the more impressive golden scenes in Rivendell (Cate Blanchett is MAD!) show an effects team for Fellowship that knows exactly how to immerse in this new universe.
Silver: AI: Artificial Intelligence's genius isn't as impressive as Fellowship's, but that's kind of the point. The film is about juxtaposing the comfort of a wealthy couple trying to raise a machine as a boy, and the scrappiness that comes from technology being discarded. The beat-up robots feel human, like something that we know we would toss without thinking about how we made them understand being discarded.
Bronze: I'm going to go with Monsters Inc over Harry Potter primarily because while HP had some cool effects (specifically the troll & some of the CGI expanse shots), Monsters brought forth a new level of animation. We take it for granted, but the lifelike visions of this (particularly Sully's fur, ebbing with every movement) showed just how big Pixar was about to get.
Also in 2001: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2001
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