Best Films of 2000
Best Films of 2001
Best Films of 2002
Best Films of 2003
Best Films of 2004



Best Films of 2005
Best Films of 2006
Best Films of 2007
Best Films of 2008
Best Films of 2009



Requiem for a Dream
The Gleaners and I
The Son
Twilight Samurai
Twentynine Palms



Keane
Inland Empire

BEST FILMS OF 2001
by Mike Lorefice

'R XMas
Abel Ferrara

***

15 Minutes
John Herzfeld

***

ABC Africa
Abbas Kiarostami

Kiarostami is perhaps the only director who could make an optimistic and joyful film about the African AIDS epidemic without it seeming to be a cheat in any way. It's not one of his masterworks because it lacks any focus, which may sound odd considering Kiarostami is a director whose deceptively simplistic works seem to be relatively plotless. Like his features the journey so to speak is the plot, but in this case rather than that making them different (since they are nothing like road movies) it makes this into a travelogue. That said, beyond the most superficial aspects it bears little resemblance to any travelogue I've seen. It contemplates the reasons for being there and as always every scene anyone else would cut is included and any scene anyone else would include is cut, making it an exciting and experimental work that has a lot more purpose than I've probably made it sound like. Certainly if you are interested Ugandan life and culture, an outsider wanting to look in as the director does, this is the documentary for you. Kiarostami doesn't burden you with too much information about AIDS or the difficulties of the orphans he's focusing on because he is no expert on the subject, but he understands how to capture the humanity of the people and ultimately that is more moving than any horrible statistic. Here he gives us a lot of singing and dancing, and true to form never hides his relationship with the film or the dynamics of it (well off filmmaker filming poor subjects) from the audience. Kiarostami manages to get one of his repetition jokes in by showing the same condom billboard in many different places. But it's much more than that, giving an idea of the shifts in culture and religion as the one in the catholic section is half censored by a black box. Kiarostami's films are always connected, and the best segment here has Kiarostami and his crew proving that you can't get used to not having electricity when it's only for a brief time. They are caught out of their rooms after the power is turned off at midnight, and have to find their way back without a flashlight. On the other hand, those who have to live in those conditions constantly like the girl who milked the cow in Wind Will Carry Us learn to adapt. The second half, which contains more referential scenes, is much better as it's more philosophical than the more standard earlier portion. [1/9/06] ***

Alias Betty
Claude Miller

The original title Betty Fisher and Other Stories is a much better one for this complex work by the unjustly neglected Claude Miller. Adopted from Ruth Rendell's The Tree of Hands, for once we have a film that utilizes a more elaborate narrative structure than the novel it was based on, telling a couple stories more or less simultaneously. When the little boy of successful novelist (Sandrine Kiberlain) dies, her disturbed mother (Nicole Garcia) goes to the slums and kidnaps an unwanted little boy from a waitress/whore (Mathilde Seigner) to serve as a replacement. The novel is largely about the transformation of Kiberlain's character, who goes from rejecting the child to becoming his new mother. Miller's story is more about the meaning of motherhood and love or lack thereof for children. It doesn't side with any of the three mothers, rather it crosscuts between them as well as the potential fathers, showing things from their perspective so we can see the chain of effects on everyone involved. Most of the characters don't really know each other, but still every little action by one leads to a new deception by another, whether or not they realize it. Though maternity is the focus, class is refreshingly as much of an issue. I originally assumed that was coming from Rendell, as it was the backbone of Claude Chabrol's brilliant La Ceremonie (adapted from her novel A Judgement in Stone). However, Miller uses class to explain the indifference of Seigner's character rather than making her a terrible mother who already had 2 children taken away from her. His big change is making her boyfriend (Luck Mervil) a black immigrant (in the book he was an Irishman in the UK, but it's not like they were suspecting him of being in the IRA or anything). The novel is from the perspective of Kiberlain's character so she is more likable and less disturbing, but the movie is very detached and judges her more harshly. Mervil's character winds up being the most likable for trying to make the best of life despite everyone looking down on if not harassing him because he's an unemployed outsider. Everyone is up to no good, but use motherly love or poverty to justify their actions and by simply presenting a world where this is the norm Miller is very successful in making us complicit in their amorality without us even realizing it. As usual in condensing 9 hours into 100 minutes none of the characters are particularly well developed, but in this case the main two are so screwed up, Kiberlain zombified by shock and Garcia getting tests for her blood imbalance, their parameters are squeezed from the get go. Still, one feels more could have been done with them if Miller wasn't trying to be too clever. The story is far too improbable at times, and has a finish that can only be described as a ridiculous set of contrivances. [1/9/06] ***

The Anniversary Party
Jennifer Jason Leigh & Alan Cumming

***

Baby Boy
John Singleton

***

The Believer
Henry Bean

****

Big Shot's Funeral
Xiaogang Feng

***

Blow
Ted Demme

***

Bully
Larry Clark

****

The Cat's Meow
Peter Bogdanovich

***

The Center of the World
Wayne Wang

***1/2

The Closet
Francis Veber

***

Dark Blue World
Jan Sverak

***

Das Experiment
Oliver Hirschbiegel

***

The Deep End
David Siegel

***

Donnie Darko
Richard Kelly

****

Enigma
Michael Apted

***

Fat Girl
Catherine Breillat

***1/2

Full Movie Review

The Fast Runner
Zacharias Kunuk

***

Firefly Dreams
John Williams

***

Frailty
Bill Paxton

***

The Girl From Paris
Christian Carion

Rare contemporary farm film has single Parisian (Mathilde Seigner) escaping the loud boring polluted city and buying a farm from an elderly man (Michel Serrault), with the condition he be allowed to stay in one of the houses for the first 18 months. Perhaps the basis of the film - the independent woman conquering obstacles and the odd couple getting past their prejudices and forming a bond - is nothing original, but the film is unpredictable because it doesn't subscribe to a particular ideology or fall into the typical traps. It's a clash between young and old, present and past, and neither the man nor the woman is overly likable though it's easy to identify with either because almost everyone believes "their" way is correct. Though not nearly as outstanding, the work and role of the legendary Serrault will remind people of another slow nuanced sensitive non sexual relationship movie, Claude Sautet's great Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud. [5/6/06] ***1/2

Gosford Park
Robert Altman

***

Heist
David Mamet

***

Human Nature
Michel Gondry

***

I'm Going Home
Manoel de Oliveira

****

In Praise of Love
Jean-Luc Godard

****

In The Bedroom
Todd Field

***

Intimacy
Patrice Chereau

***

Kandahar
Mohsen Makhmalbaf

***

Lantana
Ray Lawrence

***

Late Marriage
Dover Kosashvili

***

Life and Debt
Stephanie Black

****

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Peter Jackson

***

Lost and Delirious
Lea Pool

***

Lovely & Amazing
Nicole Holofcener

***1/2

Light of My Eyes
Giuseppe Piccioni

***

The Man Who Wasn't There
Joel Coen

***1/2

Millennium Mambo
Hsiao-hsien Hou

***

Mulholland Drive
David Lynch

***1/2

Murder on a Sunday Morning
Jean-Xavier de Lestrade

***

My Father & I
Anne Fontaine

***1/2

Full Movie Review

My Wife Is An Actress
Yvan Attal

***

The Navigators
Ken Loach

***

No Man's Land
Danis Tanovic

***1/2

Nowhere in Africa
Caroline Link

***

Full Movie Review

The Piano Teacher
Michael Haneke

***

The Pledge
Sean Penn

****

Porto of My Childhood
Manoel de Oliveira

***

Scotland, Pa.
Billy Morrissette

***

Silence... We're Rolling
Youssef Chahine

***

The Sleepy Time Gal
Christopher Munch

****
Full Movie Review

The Son's Room
Nanni Moretti

***

Spirited Away
Hayao Miyazaki

***1/2

Startup.com
Chris Hegedus & Jehane Noujaim

***

The Tailor of Panama
John Boorman

***

Tape
Richard Linklater

***

Things Behind The Sun
Allison Anders

***1/2

Training Day
Antoine Fuqua

***

Under the Skin of the City
Rakhshan Bani Etemad

***1/2

Unfinished Symphony: Democracy and Dissent
Bestor Cram & Mike Majoros

***

Va Savior
Jacques Rivette

***

Waking Life
Richard Linklater

****

Wendigo
Larry Fessenden

***

Full Movie Review

Winged Migration
Jacques Perrin, Jacques Cluzaud, & Michel Debats

***