Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

A good friend has egged me on for years to watch “Wet Hot American Summer,” a 2001 send-up of 1980s summer camp films that is splendidly offensive and dead-on, not just of every “Porky’s” type film ever made, but camping in general, and being a dumb ass teen. The movie sports early-career Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, and Paul Rudd, along with Janeane Garafalo, David Hyde Pierce, and Molly Shannon. Like the very best satires, “Wet” smashes the fourth wall and plays with the audience directly. My favorite scene is a throw away: The camp baseball team forfeits the big final game because it will only end in cliché, the underdogs beating the snotty rich kids down a ways. I laughed my ass off. A-

Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Monsters University (2013)

Animation wise, Pixar was knocking out instant classic year after year in the early 2000s, and “Monsters Inc.” stood tall among many gems. The fantastic story: All those shadowy monsters we saw in our closets and under our beds as children are real, and they live in monster city powered by the screams of bed-frightened youth. The kicker: The monsters fear children. Kids are considered toxic, and woe the hairy freak who gets a toddler’s sock stuck to his back. 

The top “scarer” is James “Sully” Sullivan, a massive blue-and-purple horned guy with the voice of John Goodman and a sidekick/manager/BFF named Mike Wazowski that looks like a giant eyeball with legs and arms, and the voice of Billy Crystal. (Just dig the names: Right out of any Philly neighborhood from my childhood.) All is well for these guys until Mike lets in a babbling toddler who mistakes our scary man for a big kitty. Mayhem ensues, with smart genre spoofing and asides as Ray Harryhausen’s name becomes that of the top spot to eat in town and medusa is, umm, a hot lady at work. For Mike no less. 

Every moment – especially John Ratzenburger as an Abominable Snowman with self-esteem issues – is magic, and the film empowers children to not cry but laugh at the dark. How unfathomably cool is that? Besides “Incredibles,” Pixar has no better action scene than a long fight between our heroes against a lizard-like color shifter snidely voiced by Steve Buscemi among thousands of racing, shifting closet doors, each leading to the “real” world. 

 “Inc.” pops and crackles with glee, with Randy Newman’s jazz score tying the knot on the present. The last scene kills.

The sequel, “Monsters University,” is a prequel as we jump back in time to see James and Mike meet during their freshman year of college. Are they pals? No. Rivals. The gist of the story: Our heroes are at college to major in scaring children to land jobs at the power company Monsters Inc. James is a natural, coasting in on his family name, while Mike has mud in his eye, not the slightest bit scary. 

The duo find themselves on academic skids after destroying a prize possession of the dean (Helen Mirren, turning on the intimidation to full blast as a dragon-like scorpion). Along the way Mike and James join the Omega Kappa (O.K.!) fraternity, a bottom drawer of geeks who live with one of their own mothers. Will Mike and James and the team succeed against all odds? Yes! They will. (Debate: Is cheating OK? Well…) 

Pixar is coasting here, railing on “Revenge of the Nerds” jokes and our own love for the first film. Oh, there are laughs -- I dug the old lady librarian from Mordor – but the jazz pop of “Inc.” is sophomoric.

Inc.:  A University:  B+

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” is a train wreck masterpiece I love all the more because it derails, because the guy who some critics continuously dismiss aims for the sun and misses, but comes oh so close. And leaves us stunned, too. Spielberg could coast on every film he makes. In “A.I..,” he spins wild chances and smashes down a scene midway through so devastating, it leaves one reeling flat, near in tears. 

Inspired by “Pinocchio” and a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick –- a master of cold dread –- Spielberg’s tale follows a humanoid boy (Haley Joel Osment) adopted by a couple (Sam Robards and Frances O’Connor) whose own son lies in a coma. Young, perfect David is a little boy balm until the “real” son Martin (Jake Thomas) reawakens. 

David is programmed to be loved. Martin wants to mommy to himself. Two events paint David as a family danger, and so mommy –- here’s the killer scene -– abandons David in a forest; she weeps, David begs, and Spielberg lays bare every child’s worst nightmare: Your parents do not truly love you, you are a fake. 

From there, the film flies high and nose dives hard as David falls into a nightmare world that involves grisly robot gladiator arenas, needless voice cameos (Chris Rock? Robin Williams?), and a search for the Blue Fairy to make David a “real” boy, just like … Martin? 

I won’t spoil more. Much of it works and a good bit does not as Spielberg takes on The End of the World, but really is pulling out the end of childhood innocence, that blind-faith moment when children firmly believe mommy and daddy are good, and will always be there, keeping you -- all that matters in the world –- safe. Which is more tragic?  

Osment is so amazing. I still bristle he did not get a Best Actor nomination. Unnaturally warm and bright, unblinking, desperate to please, and able to regurgitate a call, he is flawless, yet unmistakably eerie. Early in, tricked by Martin into cutting their mother’s hair, David pleads, “I just wanted mommy to love me. More.” That quick pause, before the word “more,” is true horror for the youngest of us, scarier than any death in “Jaws.” 

Speaking of that classic Spielberg film, John Williams provides the score here and it’s truly one of his best, and with certain beats recalling the wonder of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” A-

Oblivion (2013)

Futuristic thriller “Oblivion” is a surprising effort from Tom Cruise and director/writer Joseph Kosinski for all the wrong reasons: It’s a dud film timed for Earth Day. Every scene, fight, character, and reveal is recycled from better films in my DVD collection. 

Cruise is Jack, a memory-wiped repair guy on a wasted 2077 Earth who looks after massive machinery that provides energy for humanity, now stored up on a spaceship and ready to bolt for distant refuge. Jack is alone but for his monotone (and ginger-haired) companion (Andrea Riseborough) who runs his life. A robot in high heels, her.

“Oblivion” is a knock-out artistically, but it’s also -– in case you haven’t been paying attention -– a nonsensical awful reverse of “Moon,” a new-classic sci-fi films. Yes, Jack meets another Jack. Really. Duncan Jones could sue. Also lazily ripped: “2001,” “Star Wars” and “Independence Day,” among others. No moment of this thriller thrills, it rehash future where reveals land like bricks.

When Cruise’s hero inexplicibly (mind wipe!) recalls a football game, I forgot I like him as an actor. Kosinski made “Tron: Legacy,” another great-looking sci-fi epic stuck in the past. Pattern? C

Gosford Park (2001)

Robert Altman’s art-house hit “Gosford Park” has been high in interest for the past three years thanks to Brit series “Downton Abbey,” both written by Julian Fellowes and concerning early 20^th century England where wealthy, connected families made caste system upstairs/downstairs a way of home, and of thought. 

Here, an aging benefactor (Michael Gambon) hosts a shooting/dinner party, bringing in family, friends, and hangers-on from local lands and across the pond in America. After the feast, a hunt, and other stuff you or I don’t ever do, the old man ends up murdered, and suspicion abounds. 

Among the cast: Kristin Scott Thomas as the wife, Maggie Smith as an (imagine!) uppity bird, Ryan Philippe and Clive Owen as footmen, Bob Balaban as a filmmaker, and Helen Mirren as a head house-woman. 

“Park” is purposefully slow as we follow these people in their routines before the murder pops every one’s bubble. Watching the film now, it’s a cool gift to see characters and dialogue lifted for “Downton,” and Stephen Fry brings the comedy as a bumbling detective. But it’s often a check-your-watch sit. 

The cast is marvelous, working for a film master sorely missed. B+

Heist (2001)

Heist films – and this one is called “Heist” – are as contrived as any rom-com: The old crook is on one last score, has a big screw-up whoops, and gets strong-armed by a higher-up villain pushing a real final game with a massive pay day, all seasoned by double crosses, switched vehicles, fake outs, shoot outs, the sad but quickly overlooked death, and the coup de grâce gotch’ya. David Mamet, he of the pen is mightier than the sword school of film, serves up no different a dish here. Gene Hackman is the old crook, and Danny DeVito is the higher-up (so to speak) villain. Much of “Heist” is clever, and the dialogue stings and slings, and bruises. Yet, it barely gets the heart pumping as we wait for the next surprise and shock, none surprising or shocking. There’s little joie de crime here as in “Ocean’s Eleven,” or spastic blood-letting as in “Reservoir Dogs.” The opening 1940s-era Warner Bros. logo is meant to recall storied classic film noirs, but the movie never rises to the occasion. All praises to the cast, especially Hackman and Delroy Lindo, who carry the film. B

Shrek (2001)

After nine years, “Shrek” still is Dreamworks’ best animated film. Here’s a tale that can play in the same park as MVP Pixar, even as the filmmakers (many ex-Mouseketeers) give a swift, knowing and hilarious kick to Disney’s sparkly animated shins. Every animation junkie young and old knows the plot backward: Shrek (Mike Myers, going Scottish) is a green ogre who finds himself on a classic fairy tale princess rescue mission as part of a deal to get his swamp back from a tiny tyrant (John Lithgow, deliciously sinister). “Shrek” spoofs and dissembles every fairy tale even as it gleefully plays by the genre’s rules. It also is the only Dreamworks film I’ve seen that builds a story on and around strong characters, ones with heart and brains, not just lazily hangs a plot on snarky cynical jokes. Eddie Murphy as Donkey is genius. He’s firing on all cylinders and having a blast. How can that not be infectious? A

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Ron Howard’s “A Beautiful Mind” is another good, but not great, film that somehow landed a bookcase full of Academy Awards. I can see it: It’s a harsh, but feel-good movie about a genius math professor (Russell Crowe) married to a stunning beauty (Jennifer Connelly), but thrown under the train of life by a horrific disease (Schizophrenia). Fictionalizing the complicated, not-romantic biography, “Mind” follows socially inept John Nash, the guy under the train who becomes lost to paranoia, visions and delusions of grandeur – that he, Nash, is a top secret Cold War spy. The cast is perfect, especially Crowe, who preens with striking intelligence in one scene and drowns in utter confusion and despondency during the next. Yet, the screenplay (by Akiva Goldsman) gets lost in sentimentality (a climatic speech, a heart-to-heart talk with open palms). As well, it drags out the delusion scenes long past credibility, and makes them too literal. Yet, it’s rarely dull, always looking deep into the eyes of its actors. It’s not high art. It was made as Oscar bait and succeeded. B

The Musketeer (2001)

“The Musketeer” pitches Dumas’ famous story as the gritty tale of a novice hero (Justin Chambers of “Grey’s Anatomy”) who must spur the outlawed, drunken Musketeers back to French grandeur. I don’t have the will power to go further into detail. See, it takes a moron king to ruin Damas’ work, and director Peter Hyams (“Timecop”) excels at the challenge. Action scenes are shot haphazardly and, in many cases, in utter darkness. Tim Roth, listlessly marching through his umpteenth psycho role, is the most interesting actor on screen by default. That’s because everyone else, including three guys I don’t know as the most witless, drunken Musketeers ever imagined, are void of any personality. How’s this for a seller? Mena Suvari has top billing as a chambermaid. The film reeks like a nightly bowl she'd empty. F

2001: Best and Worst

The Best
1. Memento
2. Mulholland Dr.
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
4. Moulin Rouge
5. Black Hawk Down
6. The Devil's Backbone
7. (Tie) Monsters Inc. & Shrek
8. Amelie
9. Gosford Park
10. In the Bedroom

The Worst
5. Planet of the Apes
4. The Mexican
3. The Musketeer
2. Behind Enemy Lines
1. Blow Dry

Memento (2001) and Ghanjini (2008)

"Memento" is the ultimate puzzle box film, a dive into a mind where the narrator is not only untrustworthy, but he may be completely mentally unstable. Nine years out, it is still Christopher Nolan's masterpiece, far and above "Insomnia" or "The Dark Knight" and "Batman Begins."

Guy Pearce ("L.A. Confidential") stars as Leonard Shelby, a former insurance investigator who was attacked in his home some years ago and as a result of a head injury, cannot form new memories. His whole life relies on Polaroid photos, scribbled notes, the testament of others, and tattoos that cover his body. Leonard is out to find the killers of his wife, murdered in that same attack. Or so we are told.

Nolan and his brother Jonathan, who wrote the film, tell their story backward - with an alternating forward motion in black and white -- so that we are as off balance as Leonard. Every next scene is the actual previous scene. Mark Boone Junior, Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano play the regulars in his life, all not to be trusted.

The beauty of this film, besides Pearce's mesmerizing, should-of-have-been-a-star performance, is how Nolan toys with the viewer's mind. And our morality. Does memory make a person, or does a person make their memories? How reliant are those memories? A brilliant twisting film that demands multiple viewings, "Memento" may be my favorite film of the decade. It can be watched a 100 times and remain fresh. A+

How's this for a mind-melting film? "Memento" was remade as an India Bollywood musical laced with noir, revenge film, mystery, slapstick comedy, romantic comedy, music, martial arts epic, college-romp girl mystery, rags-to-riches journey and western showdown. The result: "Ghanjini" -- written and directed by A.R. Murugadoss, with Aamir Khan as Sanjay Singhania, a rich CEO in the place of Guy Pearce's investigator.

Asin is the dead lover for whom Sanjay seeks vengeance. The backbone of the film is the same: A man, attacked by goons, cannot form memories, but nonetheless seeks revenge for his murdered beloved. But this film throws in every genre and is, by God, the most kinetic, insane, over-the-top, go-for-broke film I've seen in ages.

It isn't great, though: It's way overlong at three hours and has cheesy music that would make Menudo blush. But the absolute love, joy, thrills and action -- the heart -- of this film is undeniable. Khan is amazing as the romantic, determined business man and bumbling hero/singer turned muscle-bound mad man with whoop butt skills that would turn Ahnuld, Bruce and Sly all melt into jelly.

I can't help but like it, flaws and all. If only half the American films had this much energy. For sheer nutty joy. B+