Saturday, December 12, 2009

Megan's Decade: 2001

I spent most of 2001 wandering through college not sure what to do with my life. I loved movies but it hadn't dawned on me yet that I more than enjoyed movies, I didn't realize I had a passion for them.

A Knight’s Tale: Paul Bettany plays the absolute best character in this film, but if you miss Heath Ledger this is definitely a film to watch. It is unique, fun and a movie that I think of every time I hear certain Queen or David Bowie songs.

Moulin Rouge!: Baz Lurhman can do no wrong, and this movie is his best. When it didn’t get nominated for a best directing Oscar Whoopi Goldberg called the Academy out during the broadcast with one of my favorite one-liner’s ever on an Oscar broadcast – “Moulin Rouge, apparently the film that directed itself.” I also still remember that while this film was in limited release it was not advertised as a musical. The musical was dead. So when Christopher & I found a theatre playing it we were thrilled but within the first 5 minutes of the film people started to walk out of the theatre...Lurhman got the ultimate revenge of course. When the film hit wide release it was a hit.

Oceans 11: Soderbergh really managed to bring the coolness of the Rat Pack to a modern film. This had the coolest cast of any film in 2001 and not only that, it’s a dang good heist film. This film also launched the working relationships of many actors, and George Clooney is the Man and always will be.

Snatch: This is Guy Ritchie at his best, before Madonna, before Swept Away and before 9/11. He does the heist film new glory in this twisted, hyperbolic tale of British underground boxing and the multitude of con-artists that fund it, and if you have the DVD you can have fun by subtitling the Pikey.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Never saw A Knight's Tale until much later when it was on cable but I liked it. A lot of people thought the modern music was jarring in a period piece but its no different from The Alan Parsons Project doing the score in Ladyhawke.