The best and worst of 2001
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by Thomas Delapa (buzz@boulderweekly.com)

Will Hollywood be the Grinch who pinched Christmas, or will there be holiday cheer under the holly this year? Here's the rap on the major movies unwrapping in local theaters this week:

One thing's for sure, the year 2000 won't be remembered as a new millennium for the movies. The summer was a bust, the fall frail, and there have been few surprises during the holiday season. If I sound like the movie Grinch, it's because the cinema continues to show sparse signs of life, box office returns to the contrary. Who knows, maybe the imminent Bush regime will herald a Hollywood revival. First to get the green light: a farce called How the Supreme Court Stole Florida.

Here's my list, checked twice, of the year's best and worst, in alphabetical order:

CHEERS

Beyond the Mat
Going above and beyond the call of filmmaking duty, Barry Blaustein pinned down an unexpected expose of the American scene in his documentary on the seamy world of professional wrestling. Blaustein follows around such present and former stars as "Mankind" and Jake "the Snake" Roberts, both willing victims to the seemingly rapacious middle-American taste for made-for-TV mayhem.

Butterfly
Arguably the best foreign film that appeared in the Denver area this year, Butterfly soared in its precious, ultimately shattering re-creation of life in a Spanish village on the eve of the fascist Franco regime. Working from stories by Manuel Riva, director Jose Luis Cuerda fashioned a drama that took off as both history and allegory. It also featured a superb performance by Fernando Fernan Gomez as an elderly teacher who introduces his students to the wonders of nature.

Chicken Run
In their cracked The Great Escape, British animators Peter Lord and Nick Park hatched a cartoon coup in their delightful story of a revolt by hens in a 1950s chicken coop. Pixar and its cyber competitors can cluck about computer animation all they want, but Lord and Park's astoundingly detailed "claymation" feature was no chicken at the box-office either.

The Cup
A tip of the cup to this bittersweet treat written and directed by Khyentse Norbu, a Tibetan monk. Deceptive in its comic tone, the story was set in an isolated Buddhist monastery in India run by and for Tibetan exiles. Among the new arrivals is an impish boy whose idea of nirvana would be to watch the finals of the World Cup soccer matches on TV.

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
Aviva Kempner's documentary covered all the bases in examining the life of the Detroit Tigers baseball great. Battling vicious anti-Semitism in an inspiring career that lasted from the 1930s to the 1940s, Greenberg became the sport's first Jewish superstar. Kempner's film scored as both biography and as cultural history of the storied American game during the Depression decades.

Meet the Parents
Don't laugh. Not only is this the best comedy of the year, it may be the best American movie of the year, period. Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller play off each other with priceless precision in the story of a male nurse named Focker (snicker) who visits his girlfriend's folks for the first time. From the zaniness of a toilet-trained cat to the perils of airline travel, a raft of daft disasters follows. Despite the occasional dips into bad taste by director Jay Roach, the meaty laughs in Meet the Parents were unbeatable.

Rear Window
Helping to bring up the rear was the revival of the year. Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 thriller starring James Stewart continues to be one of the most profound of the director's sly studies on the voyeurism and movie-watching. Never one to look at life through rose-colored glasses, Hitchcock was prophetic in his portrait of the archetypal American as armchair Peeping Tom.

Thirteen Days
Thirteen wasn't an unlikely number for Kevin Costner, who may have finally ended his multi-movie losing streak. He plays a chief White House adviser to John F. Kennedy during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. While Costner bridles a bit under his Boston accent, it's Bruce Greenwood's JFK and the boyish, blue-eyed Steven Culp as Bobby Kennedy who keep Roger Donaldson's tense drama (due to open Jan. 12) on the critical path to success. If not for these cool heads, we'd now all likely still be digging out from World War III.

Two Family House
Never heard of it? Frank De Felitta's tender little 1950s drama was demolished at the New York box office, which is why it arrived in most of the country orphaned by its studio. What a shame. I can't imagine why audiences didn't respond to De Felitta's heartfelt, evocative film on the risky romance between an Italian-American man and a Irish mother-to-be. The lead performances by Michael Rispoli, Katherine Narducci and Kelly McDonald were something to write home about.

Honorable Mention: The Filth and the Fury, Croupier, Jesus' Son, Judy Berlin, Shadow of the Vampire.

American Psycho
No, not the George W. Bush Story. Almost as scary was a slicked-up Christian Bale taking a power drill to his victims in Mary Harron's sick satire of the Reagan yuppie years.

Autumn in New York
What can you say about a deathly ill, but still cute, 20-year-old girl (Winona Ryder) who falls in love with a playboy (Richard Gere) 30 years her senior? How about "Pass the barf bag."

Battlefield Earth
You ignored the book, now skip the movie. Searching the universe for a Scientology convention, ten-foot-tall aliens called "Psychlos" invade Earth in the year 3000. L. Ron Hubbard disciple John Travolta is revolting as the alien leader.

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
Director Joe Berlinger took one of 1999's biggest hits and supernaturally transformed it into one of the year's biggest busts. So bad Sabrina the Teenage Witch boycotted it.

The Cell
In honor of Roger "great films generate great feelings" Ebert. Psychologist Jennifer Lopez ventures inside the mind of a serial killer, and finds a young, abused Ebert in a closet typing out the first draft of his eventual masterpiece, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Hollow Man
Kevin Bacon sizzled, sort of, as an arrogant scientist who goes insane after he takes an invisibility serum. Look at it this way: For half the film, you didn't have to look at him.

The Next Best Thing
The next bext thing to a spinal tap. Madonna reinvented herself (for the the tenth time) as a mother-to-be when she's accidentally impregnated by Rupert Everett, typecast once again as every girl's gay best friend.

Pay it Forward
Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment went trolling for Oscars in the jerkiest tearjerker of the year. One step backward for the movies, one giant leap for all mankind.

Scary Movie
To wit, nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public-especially its untold numbers of numbed teenagers.

Unbreakable
Director M. Night Shyamalan broke records for pretension in his fractured follow-up to The Sixth Sense. Amazing plot twist: Bruce Willis discovers he's Superman, concentrates all of his powers on getting his hair to grow back.

Dishonorable Mention: Hanging Up, Reindeer Games, Final Destination, The Klumps: Nutty Professor II, Road Trip.