Thursday, 28 December 2000

THE WORST OF 2000

Ah, the joy of shredding the worst of the year.  So seductive, so easy. Even hacks like Peter Travers (who has now acquired status with me as the least trustworthy major – read "major outlet" – critic in America) can embrace the sheer joy of the attack, rambling on for page after page about how the movies of 2000 sucked while fourteen, yes, FOURTEEN loving quotes or Top Ten references appeared in this weekend's L.A. Times Calendar section. And that doesn't include his Top Three films, all of which are in release and didn't use his quotes, or the two that aren't in release.  So that's five quotes for movies in his Top Ten, and then nine for movies that didn't make the cut.  He even has What Women Want well into the Oscar hunt… even though he doesn't even mention this film in his year-end wrap-up… not a word. Stays away from Vertical Limit ("Thrilling!") too.  Travers quotes for four of the thirteen highest grossers last weekend and a fifth (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is his Number One film of the year.  Yet, the year in movie sucked. 

And I won't even start on how Travers humiliates himself by railing against Hollywood while seven of his Top Ten come from Hollywood's majors or their art arms, and the other three come from Artisan (the same people who brought us Blair Witch 2), USA Films (staying in the film business, but rumored to be exiting the art film business completely) and The Shooting Gallery, the one true indie, but also a company that came up with the release of Croupier and others as an ingenious way of stimulating the video market for overlooked art house films in which they had little or no investment.  But all you have to do is to read the first paragraph of Travers' 2000 Sucked opus and look at his Top Ten list to see that he is the kind of writer who will open by attacking Gladiator as the leader in "the weakest Oscar race since the early days of talkies" and then rank the film as the third best of the year.  Either it's worthy or it's not… you don't get to have it both ways because you want to be glib.

But enough cheap shots about cheap shot artists…

The irony of this year is that the top didn't suck -- despite Travers' protestations that "You are unfamiliar with some of the movies on my Top Ten list" -- the end of the year, from which six of Travers' Top Ten and probably at least six of everyone's Top Ten comes, is quite extraordinary.  The reason most of America doesn't know these films is that they have had no chance to see many of them.  Billy Elliot is on 245 screens, Quills on 161, You Can Count on Me on 149, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on 141 and on and on.  State & Main, Traffic, Before Night Falls and others are still in very limited release.  I'm sorry that most of you can't spend your holiday vacation seeing a dozen terrific movies, but they are out there now.

In opposition, I could find only 23 movies that were so bad that Bottom Ten consideration was fair.   I had 27 such films on the list last year.  (For a look, click here) And keep in mind that really bad movies like Music of the Heart, The Bachelor and Random Hearts weren't even bad enough to make the Bottom Ten.

What really sucked about the films of 2000 wasn't the lack of greatness or the depth of dreck… it was the softness of the middle.  It was Mission: Impossible 2, which managed to be acceptably fun and infinitely forgettable all at once.  It was the Fourth of July's The Patriot/Perfect Storm combo, neither perfect summer escape or real garbage.  It was Unbreakable, a 30-minute premise rolling out for over 2 hours.  It was The Nutty Professor and Big Momma's House and Shaft, all loaded with sparkling lead performances and almost nothing more.

2000 was not the worst year ever.  Nor is a year in which indie-style films dominate the awards such a shocker.  Look back two years to find Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line battling Life is Beautiful, Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth.  This year, it may well be Gladiator and Erin Brockovich versus Traffic, Quills and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon…. or whatever three "art" films you want to put up on the list.  Not a shocker.

Anyway, on with the list.  As always, my list focuses on major releases, both art house and commercial.  There are nine films that I think might have qualified for this list that I simply haven't seen.  They are: Bait, Bedazzled, Get Carter, Gossip, The In Crowd, The Ninth Gate, Screwed, Urban Legends: Final Cut and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas.

PAGE TWO: The Runners Up