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Original Material
GHM Staff's Top Movie Pics of 2000
Barry's
Top Five Movies of 2000
1. Almost Famous
2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
3. X-Men
4. Ghost Dog
5. Quills
Jennifer
Hill's Top Movies of 2000
- American
Beauty
- Magnolia
- X-Men
- Girl
Interrupted
- Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Movies I Saw At The Theater
1. Unbreakable
2. X-Men
3. Gladiator
4. Titan A.E.
5. Chicken Run
DVDs Purchased
1. Toy Story Ultimate Toy Box
2. Seven
3. Gladiator
4. American Beauty Awards Edition
5. Walking With Dinosaurs
6. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
7. This Is Spinal Tap
8. Jurassic Park/Lost World Collection
9. Timecode
10. Scary Movie
My Most Loved Movies of 2000
Webmistress/Carrie Michael
1.
Patriot – For showing another side to
war.
2.
Gladiator – For putting Russel Crow on the
screen for more than 2 hours of drooling on my part.
3.
The Story Of Us – For making me blubber like a pathetic PMSing woman.
(didn’t that come out in 2000?)
4.
Meet The Parents – For showing that I am
not the only total loser sometimes.
5.
Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo
– For making me laugh at complete foolishness.
6. American Beauty – For shocking me.
Andrew’s Top
Television Shows of 2000
10. Becker- not Cheers, but not bad, either
9. Survivor-
a reality show that gripped the nation
8. Sex in
the City- insight into a female’s ideal world?
7. Will
and Grace- a sitcom with a message that doesn’t sound like it has a message
6. CSI-
best new show of the season, realistic or not
5. X-Files-
Robert Patrick made the show intriguing again
4. King of
Queens- the best sitcom on the air
3. Dawson’s
Creek- a wonderfully guilty pleasure
2. Sopranos-
a ‘Godfather’ for the Gen-X crowd
1. Simpsons-
the funniest season in years
Andrew’s
Top Movies of 2000
10. The Family Man- a heartwarming ‘what if’
9. Pitch
Black- one of the most imaginative sci-fi concepts in ages
8. Frequency-
Dennis Quaid deserves to be a $20 million per film actor
7. Wonderboys-
Michael Douglas in the performance of his life
6. Erin
Brockovich- and Julia Roberts in hers
5. Remember
the Titans- a football movie with heart
4. Traffic-
Another masterpiece by Steven Soderbergh
3. State
and Main- Mamet never disappoints
2. High
Fidelity- the guy lives for lists, what’s not to like?
1. Unbreakable- the best film in years, not just this year.
LWK’s
Top 5 Movies for 2000
1 - Shaft
2 - X-Men
3 - Gladiator
4 - Next
Friday
5 - Godzilla
2000
Of course, I think those are the ONLY 5 movies I saw this
year...
LWK’s Top TV Shows
of 2000
1 - Friends
2 - The
NFL on Fox
3 - Anaheim
Angels Baseball
4 - Monday
Night Football
5 - Sunday
Night Football
Umm, that’s really all I make an effort to watch,
except for Buffy and Angel, which I mostly use as an excuse for The Princess to
come over and cuddle with me.
The Princess adds: Awww,
honey :) Ok, now, Buffy and Angel
rank for my in
the number two spot, which knocks on Sunday night football.
Which is ok for
me, I never watch it. Otherwise,
I’d have to agree with LWK on about this
whole damn list. I am, apparently, not up with the times :P
-by
Mike Yaremko (yes, the prodigal son returns to GHM)
I
guess I’ll put “The Sticky Fingers of Time” at the top of my list; true,
it made its film festival debut in 1997, but as far as I know, it wasn’t
released until late ’99 or early ’00, when I saw it. On a nothing budget,
first-time writer/director Hilary Brougher has created one of the best science
fiction films in years; time-travel paradoxes, love and writing mix in a truly
rewarding film. Writer Tucker
Harding (Terumi Matthews) walks out of her apartment in 1953 only to find
herself in New York’s East Village in 1997 where she tries to figure out her
own murder, a nasty time traveler from the future and a blossoming love with
Drew (Nicole Zaray), whose suicidal tendencies would come to fruition if she
could just come up with a good suicide note. I don’t have any idea what
Brougher has done since, and I don’t know if “Sticky” has been or will be
released on video or DVD, but if you won’t regret seeing it if you get the
chance.
All
right, what else?
“Gladiator”:
Fantastic CGI work on the battle and crowd sequences do not upstage or intrude
upon the story, which is more than just men chopping at each other with swords;
although there’s a good deal of that, too.
Forget
the Nic Cage claptrap, Rachel Griffiths finds out what might have been in “Me
Myself I,” with a fairly un-Hollywood ending.
“Wonder
Boys” is as good and deserving of Oscar consideration as you’ve heard.
Michael Douglas gives a great performance as a writer who confronts whether or
not his best is behind him over a cold, wet, dreary weekend. But his performance
wouldn’t be as good if he didn’t have such great supporting players to
bounce off of, including Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr. and
Katie Holmes.
“Ghost
Dog: The Way of the Samurai”: Jim Jarmusch needs to make more action movies.
“Unbreakable”
didn’t have quite the resonance with audiences as writer/director M. Night
Shamylan’s “The Sixth Sense,” but it is a decent film.
“Requiem
for a Dream” gets picked mostly because I was surprised how much I actually
liked it. I was pretty sure Darren Aronofsky’s hyper-kinetic, surreal
storytelling would make the style of the film good, the actual story of four
drug addicts was actually very engrossing, as well.
Tim
Robbins does a great job of telling disparate, but not unrelated stories of
censorship and paranoia in “Cradle Will Rock.” Robbins rewrote a bit of
history and just plain made some things up to tell the story he wanted (and the
painting of anti-Communists as just a bunch of paranoid fascist sympathizers
turned my stomach a bit), but as it stands, it’s a fine piece of filmmaking
whose reputation, I think, will increase over time. (so what if it came out in
99)
I
liked “X-Men,” it was a good start to the franchise. But, it should have
been longer; characters come in, fight and are gone; we just don’t know who
they are or why we should care. Or, as the case with the final battle, most of
the heroes are literally just standing around as the action is going on. Let’s
hope the studios continue to get good directors and let them pursue their ideas.
This series could hit the shitter pretty damn fast.
I
haven’t seen “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “O Brother, Where Art
Thou?” “Traffic,” “Castaway,” or “Shadow of the Vampire” yet, but
they look pretty cool from the trailers. But then, so did “Dracula 2000” and
“The Sixth Day” so what do I know?
Top Television Shows of 2000
(Because
GHM Doesn’t Have a TV Section)
-by
Mike Yaremko
“Buffy,
the Vampire Slayer”: Reigning champion. Fast paced, action filled stories full
of wit and some pretty poignant moments. “Buffy” also has the best drawn
characters, anyone of whom could carry an episode on their own.
“Angel“
shares the same clever and intriguing writing as its parent show, “Buffy,”
but I’m a sucker for the long, drawn out stories and huge casts.
“Roswell”
A new emphasis on conspiracy and science-fiction elements in its second season
should serve the show well, although the latest season doesn’t seem to have as
much focus as the first one did.
“The
Simpsons”: Okay, okay. It hasn’t been the great MUST SEE that it was a few
years ago, but it’s always good for a few loud guffaws.
“Friends”
and “The Drew Carey Show“ are still pretty funny, too.
“BattleBots”:
I can’t help it; remote-control robots beating the hell out of each other. By
the way, a great sociological study could be done by comparing the U.S. and
British versions of the show. The Brits seem to like lots of pushing and shoving
from their robots, while we Americans tend to favor hammers, saws and spikes.
“Law and Order” still throws a
good one over the plate more often than not.
Jesus, TEN T.V. shows? Well, I
still always look forward to reruns of “Seinfeld” every night, no matter how
many times I see an episode.
Uh, the USA Network shows “Ned and Stacey” reruns every morning.
Copyright©2000 GrayHaven Magazine and contributors