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2001

Millennium Actress

I only saw this anime film for the first time a couple of weeks ago but I have no compunction saying that it was one of the best films released in 2001. Directed by Satoshi Kon, who died in August of this year at the age of 46, it tells the story of a film crew who go to visit a retired actress to ask her about the destruction of the studio where she made her name. What then happens is that she recalls her life, both on- and off-screen, and the film mixes together fact and fiction as the film crew find themselves acting out the plots of her most famous movies. It's sort of like an animated version of Citizen Kane crossed with Adaptation and it is wholly brilliant.

The Royal Tenenbaums

I've always found Wes Anderson to be pretty hit and miss. I don't think any of his films are bad, but there are some that resonate with me and there are some that leave me completely cold. The Royal Tenenbaums is the former. A hugely funny, deeply affecting film about a dysfuctional family of geniuses, it was my introduction to Anderson and my occasional disappointment with his work since is almost certainly because I'm always expecting him to reach the heights he reached here again.

Spirited Away

If I were ranking films, rather than going year by year, Spirited Away would be my number 2 for the decade without a doubt. It was my introduction to the work of Hayao Miyazaki, a film-maker whose work I have subsequently hungrily devoured (my favorite of his films is My Neighbor Totoro, but we're in entirely the wrong decade to talk about that beautiful, beautiful film) all because this one was so mind-blowing to me. Gorgeous animation, a complex and clever story that creates a new fairytale as it is telling it, and some of the most stirring music I have ever heard.

2002

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

When I compiled my own, non-BOP approved best of the decade list last year, I included the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy because I'm just crazy enough to do it. Also, I didn't break it down by year. Rather than include all three films, even though all three were among my favorites for their respective years, I'll just include the second one because it is my favorite of the three. Freed from world-building of the first installment and without any of the baggy resolutions that weigh the third one down like so many complex carbohydrates, The Two Towers is a triumph of spectacle and storytelling. Peter Jackson leaps nimbly (and that's the only context in which you will ever read that sentence) between the myriad storylines, in the process delivering the most compelling character conflict of the series (Gollum's battle with Sam and himself over Frodo and the Ring) and the most exhilarating action set piece. (The Battle of Helm's Deep)

Punch-Drunk Love

On one level I'm glad that I didn't see this film until I was in my 20s, since I really don't think I would have appreciated it, but on another level I wish I had seen it when I was 16, just because it would have been so hilarious seeing how different the movie I got would be to the movie I expected. "Hey, let's go see the new Adam Sandler movie! Ha, all of his sisters are nagging him at the party and he's getting really frustrated. And now he's...smashing all of the windows. Ha? Oh, he's on a date! This is sure to be hilarious! He's so nervous, he's going to go to the bathroom! And now he's...smashing up the bathroom and it's really, really disturbing." Working with Paul Thomas Anderson, Sandler inverts the stunted man-child that he usually plays and shows what that character would be like if he wandered into the real world - or at least Anderson's slightly heightened world. The real thrill of the film is seeing how Sandler takes a persona that is so familiar to millions of moviegoers and makes it into something dark and strange.

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