A year of film's big bombs and little hits

It was generally a year of big, bad films and small, good, local ones, writes RUSSELL BAILLIE.

Given the significance of the date in cinematic lore, you might have thought that 2001 would have arranged itself to be a vintage year at the movies.

In the big wide world, things didn't work that way.

Here, fortunately, it was a different story.

Yes, there was the first of Peter Jackson's back-to-back The Lord of the Rings films which show early signs of becoming a critical and commercial mega-hit - we think it's the film of the year and that possibly he has the title wrapped up for 2002 and 2003 as well.

But in the far more modest local league, there were triumphs as well.

The three movies which dominated this year's New Zealand Film Awards - Stickmen, Rain, and Snakeskin - all figure in our picks for the best flicks of the year.

It's not because they're local and, therefore, deserve our "support" - but because we genuinely liked them as movies. Crooked Earth wasn't too bad either.

Yes, it may have helped that this year there was so much to genuinely dislike as far as the imported stuff was concerned.

We really wanted to like A. I. Artificial Intelligence - the long-cherished project of the late Stanley Kubrick which he gave to Steven Spielberg to bring to the screen. But the resulting long-winded sci-fi fairytale about a boy robot wanting to do a Pinocchio couldn't satisfy admirers of either director and certainly left the box office unimpressed.

It certainly wasn't the only big movie with weighty expectations upon it that disappointed. Actually, has Hollywood ever produced a worse blockbuster season?

Arriving mid-year, Pearl Harbor might have seemed prescient given the events of September 11.

But it was still a three-hour recruitment poster for a war that was won a long time ago.

It wasn't quite the flop it was thought to be but its reputation as a major stinker is still much deserved.

The year's hall of shame had started filling earlier and kept packing them in. There was Hannibal, which gave new meaning to the term "not as good as the first". So did Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes remake which was described as a "reimagining" of the original - not a term Hollywood marketeers will be using again soon.

Then came The Mummy Returns (is there an opposite to the term "special" effects?), Rush Hour 2, Dr Dolittle 2, Jurassic Park III, and American Pie 2.

That last one reminds us that the year might have finally seen the teen gross-out comedies and horrors off the premises and back on the straight-to-video path where they belong.

But this just in: the third in the Scary Movie series will be Scary Movie 3: Episode I - Lord of the Brooms which will attempt to spoof LOTR, Star Wars and Harry Potter.

Add to that list most anything starring either Nicolas Cage (Family Man, Captain Corelli's Mandolin), Robert De Niro (Men of Honor, Fifteen Minutes, The Score), Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Original Sin), Gwyneth Paltrow (Bounce, Duets), Ben Affleck (Bounce, Pearl Harbor), Julianne Moore (Hannibal, Evolution) or J. Lo (The Wedding Planner, The Cell).

Even digital performers weren't immune. Shrek may have deservedly triumphed as the year's out-of-nowhere hit. But Final Fantasy, The Spirits Within, with computer-animated real-looking people in its adaptation of the PlayStation game, lost its makers a whole lot of money. It looked impressive ... well the bits we were awake for did.

So who had a good year then? Well, Nicole Kidman defrosted a little in the dazzling if gimmicky Moulin Rouge and then did her best Grace Kelly in horror The Others. Renee Zellweger is in our top-20 twice for Bridget Jones's Diary and Nurse Betty.

And, of course, David Manning - the fictitious film reviewer created by two Sony Pictures advertising executives who featured in ads for the studio's lesser movies. He would have had a really good year with so much bad stuff.

Still, if it was a year of movies made by muggles, at least it ended with a couple of wizards - and one of them our very own.

2001 – The year in review