Cinematic Throwbacks: January 2001/2011

Yeah, technically most of these movies were December releases, but I didn't see them until January. And frankly December was already loaded. 

2001:

Traffic hit during the peak Steven Soderbergh run, when he was hitting that sweet spot of critical acclaim.and box office success. Soderbergh pulled off the upset at the Oscars for best director. 

I will say that, watching it now, the film feels more than a little surface level regarding its sprawling war on drugs story. It doesn't really have great insight. It's just a very well done film.

Benicio Del Toro won the Oscar here, and he does have probably the most compelling part here. Michael Douglas is really good too though, and I could have gone for an entire movie of Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman's DEA agents. I thought at the time that Erika Christensen was going to blow big from this, but that never really happened.

The Gift was a really big movie for me at the time. Primary reason was this was the peak of my Katie Holmes fandom. Dawson's Creek was at its zenith, and she was showing up in great movies. This film was so feverishly anticipated by me that I refrained from even naming my favorite movie of 2000 until this came out in January and I could see it. Ultimately this more or less worked out as I loved the film.

Now, 20 years later it is not my favorite movie of that year. It's not even my favorite Katie movie of 2000 (that would be Wonder Boys). Katie is not even the best part of the film (her infamous topless scene is probably her lone memorable scene).

Still a very good movie though. This was Sam Raimi's last film before Spiderman, and the last time for a long time that he did anything small. He did a great job setting the mood for this drama, written by Billy Bob Thornton.

Great cast. This was probably the 1st thing I saw that really sold.me on Cate Blanchett. Keanu Reeves was legitimately scary in one of his only bad guy roles. 

This film I definitely had not watched in years. I tend to find it hard to watch subtitled films at home. Ah, but turns out the DVD has an English dub, so there you go.

This film was a really unique thing at the time. To have a foreign martial arts movie also be a major awards film was kind of unheard of.

I think for most people this is where they learned who Ang Lee was. I still think this is probably his best film. It's just a really involving story, beautifully shot, with fight choreography that often defies the laws of physics, but never in a way that you care about. Characters are just flying, or running up trees? Okay, cool.

Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh get the meatier storyline, but I left the film gaga over Zhang Ziyi, who was (and probably still is) one of the most gorgeous women I ever saw. She had a run of a few years where she was a big deal. She even did a couple more superb crossover martial arts films. See you in 2024 on this blog for recollections of Hero and House Of Flying Daggers. (Please no)

Kevin Costner + Kennedy equaled one of my all time favorite films once. This isn't in that class, but it's a really solid film about the Cuban Missle Crisis.

It's not a film with a lot of action. It's mostly just watching all the parties involved meet and strategize. But it's very compelling.

This film kind of just came and went with little fanfare. It didn't win any awards. It wasn't a big hit. But it's better than a lot of films from that year that did get awards attention. 

No, this is not a classic. But it's a movie I have a lot of nostalgia for. I saw this movie with my then girlfriend the day after the 41-donut game.

The teen movie boom was already kind of on the way down by this point, but this one still holds up for a few reasons. 

One, it was one of the few good leads Julia Stiles ever got. She's super fucking cute in this, and really good. It's kind of stunning how her career really just did not go anywhere. Her post 2001 filmography is just bad.

This film also more notably launched Kerry Washington. She outperforms the character she is given.

It's a time capsule movie for sure. The soundtrack is inescapably of its time. And it has a lot of those "Hollywood does an inner city high school" tropes (you figure Dangerous Minds is taking place the next classroom over). 

2011:

Arguably still a career peak for all major parties. 

Blue Valentine is a great film. It certainly is not a fun film. It's rather damn depressing. Probably the reason I hadn't watched it in years. It's not like you sit there and randomly decide to watch Blue Valentine.

Now, this may just be my guyness taking over, but I have always felt the Michelle Williams character was just a horrible human being. Ryan Gosling's character has issues too, but Williams is borderline sadistic. I felt Gosling was a victim for the most part. Williams is just awful towards him and the only hint as to why seems to be that he isn't making enough money.

I don't see that as a knock on the film though. And the performances are stellar, especially Williams, who in literally any other year I would have been rooting to win Best Actress. Just not in the Year of Natalie.

Speaking of...

Man, Natalie really took some heat at the time when, smack dab in the middle of her Black Swan awards run, she dared to appear in this silly little romcom. There was even talk that it was going to cost her the Oscar, as the legend goes that Eddie Murphy lost for Dreamgirls because Norbit came out right after. 

Obviously that didn't happen, nor should it have. NSA is not a comedy classic. But it was easily better than Friends With Benefits, which came out a few months later. And it's got some laughs. The casting was damn sharp, getting Greta Gerwig and Mindy Kaling in there before they got big. Abby Elliott is in it. Jake Johnson is in it.

And Natalie is pretty funny in this. Nat has done it all in her career but I feel like comedy is still a largely untapped skill. Granted it's an absurd premise than an absolute goddess like her would seek a NSA relationship. And the movie is both a little too tame for the subject matter and succumbs to a few too many romcom tropes. But it's enjoyable.

Other movies that I deem unworthy of deep dives (as if the preceding were deep)

2001:

Sugar and Spice: The other high school cheerleader comedy. And the far inferior one.

The Wedding Planner: I found this decent at the time, at least as far as romcoms go. I did not know this was going to be the last passable movie Jennifer Lopez would do for many, many years. 

2011:

The Green Hornet: "Let's turn Seth Rogen into a comic book franchise star" was one of those ideas doomed to failure.

Next month...well, THIS month...

Hey I might actually catch up this time. Cause February is a pretty barren movie month, at least in the years in question.