Best Picture: 2001

[dylanfan23]

Where are you going to post them criddic

A.I. is one of the best five films of this year....it did not dissappoint. This was a pretty darn good year...my top five were a beautiful mind, a.i., gosford park, royal tennenbaums and ghost world. With in the bedroom, mulhollund drive, business of strangers, monsters ball and deep end rounding out my top ten...well i'll give my awards for that year since i'm asking for criddics choices.

Picture
A.I.
A Beautiful Mind***
Ghost World
Gosford Park
Royal Tennenbaums

Director
Robert Altman - Gosford Park***
Ron Howard - A Beautiful Mind
David Lynch - Mulhollund Drive
Christopher Nolan - Memento
Steven Spielberg - A.I.

Actor
Russell Crowe - A Beautiful Mind***
Gene Hackman - Royal Tennenbaums
Haley Joel Osment - A.I.
Guy Pearce - Memento
Tom Wilkenson - In the Bedroom

Actress
Halle Berry - Monsters Ball***
Thora Birch - Ghost World
Stockard Channing - Business of Strangers
Sissy Spacek - In the Bedroom
Naomi Watts - Mulhollund Drive
(in any other year this decade i would have nominated tilda swinton from the deep end and renee zellwegger from bridget jones diary)

Supporting Actor
Paul Bettany - A Beautiful Mind
Steve Buscemi - Ghost World***
Jude Law - A.I.
Ben Kingsley - Sexy Beast
Jon Voight - Ali
weekest year of the decade for this catorgory

Supporting Actress
Jennifer Connelly - A Beautiful Mind
Helen Mirren - Gosford Park***
Julia Stiles - Business of Strangers
Emily Watson - Gosford Park
Kate Winslet - Iris

[Sabin]

They're not aliens, goddammit! They're advanced machines. As God is to us, we are to machines. That's the point of the movie. The creators will be so fully replaced by our creations that all trace of us will be removed from the planet, and I cannot think of another movie that dares to suggest this inevitable truth. I was so bowled over with emotion by the film's end, not sadness or happiness, but astonishment. There's nothing happy about it and to suggest that Spielberg took the film that Kubrick was supposed to make and changed the ending is totally insulting. This is the ending to 'A.I.'. The screenplay forwards itself to this point logically.

'A.I.' is the great film of the decade, in the greatest year of the decade. 'The Royal Tenenbaums'. 'In the Mood for Love'. 'Mulholland Drive'. 'Waking Life'. 'Memento'. 'Ghost World'. These are movies that would crown any other year this decade.

Although I think the trilogy is pretty fantastic, 'The Fellowship' doesn't hold up on repeat viewings nearly as much as 'The Two Towers'. It certainly deserved to win over 'A Beatiful Mind' and 'Moulin Rouge!', but I prefer Altman's rich filet. I seem to be in the minority in thinking that 'Moulin Rouge!' is a good movie, too interesting for me to ignore or dismiss but crippled by a bullshit final act. It's really entirely downhill from 'Roxanne', as a bunch of cartoon cut-outs grapple for a gun that feels as outlandish as anything in '1941'. The joyous fizz of the first two thirds runs out (and I greatly enjoyed a lot of it), and you're left with a dead fish on the screen, as cold and scaley as Nicole Kidman, who really is pretty grossly miscast as a fiery vixen. If anybody deserved a nomination for this movie it's Ewan McGregor for pretending to find her so transfixing, instead of just throwing his arms in this air two thirds in, "#### all this, right here!"



Edited By Sabin on 1165868313

[FilmFan720]

I loved the opening section, detested the Jude Law section (but I tend to detest most of Jude Law's work) and then was indifferent to the final section. To be honest, I don't remember enough more about the movie to comment much further.

[Okri]

The only part of the film I liked from AI was the middle section.

[Penelope]

I have to agree with Sonic; it's certainly not a happy ending, indeed, it's a very bittersweet, tragic ending, one of the most beautifully ironic of the past decade, on par--imho--with the ending of Brokeback Mountain. It's the first time a Spielberg film has made me cry honest tears.

For me, the biggest flaw in AI was the middle section, with Jude Law--mainly from a set and costume point-of-view--it looked like some cheezy 80s epic.

[Sonic Youth]

I will never understand people who say the ending to AI is a happy one, how can anyone say that, etc.?

It's not a downbeat ending, but it's wholly ambiguous. The newly-created mother wasn't a full-fledged human being or a long-term robot, but a simulation with a very short life-span. One is only programmed to love the other, which in turn is programmed to reciprocate, and they're both gonna die anyway. Nothing joyous about that.

Did Spielberg tack the ending on? I thought the story was adapted. I don't know Kubrick wouldn't have ended it this way. Eyes Wide Shut had a happier (yet still ambiguous) ending.

And were those aliens? I could be wrong, but I thought they were advanced mechas.

[OscarGuy]

My meaning is that it's not the Kubrickian ending it should have been. Kubrick never would have done what Spielberg did. It was laughable. I literally CRINGED for that entire tacked-on-feeling ending.

[dws1982]

Okay, I should reword: If you just watch the two endings, then Munich's is definitely more unhappy, probably Spielberg's most clearly unhappy ending. But if you think about it for awhile, I don't see how A.I.'s ending is any happier.

[Sonic Youth]

He can't let a film end on an unhappy note.

Even Munich, which leaves its protagonist isolated from his wife and from his homeland (no one can tell me that's anything but an unhappy note), has a happier ending than A.I.

Now, let's not get carried away.

[dws1982]

He can't let a film end on an unhappy note.

Even Munich, which leaves its protagonist isolated from his wife and from his homeland (no one can tell me that's anything but an unhappy note), has a happier ending than A.I.

[rudeboy]

It was every bit the spielberg. It was happy. He can't let a film end on an unhappy note. Not to mention the fact that he MUST include aliens in movies where they don't belong.

I never saw it as a 'happy ending' as such. Sure, David is reunited with the mother figure, but only very temporarily, and then that's it. It's downbeat and melancholy and a far cry from, say, Schindler's mawkish breakdown or the dreadful modern day bookend scenes to Saving Private Ryan.

Off the top of my head the only Spielberg movie I can think of with a similarly bittersweet ending is Empire of the Sun.

[OscarGuy]

It was every bit the spielberg. It was happy. He can't let a film end on an unhappy note. Not to mention the fact that he MUST include aliens in movies where they don't belong.

[rudeboy]

How can anyone say the let-down that is AI is the best movie of a decade? I'd agree the film is great until the last half hour but any quality the film builds to that point is destroyed by Spielberg's need for a glossy ending. End at the bottom of the ocean and leave it at that.

I think the ending to A.I. works perfectly, and has a wonderful eerie, haunting quality that lingers long after the credits roll. It was risky and decidedly odd, certainly not glossy - very non-Spielbergian in fact.

[OscarGuy]

How can anyone say the let-down that is AI is the best movie of a decade? I'd agree the film is great until the last half hour but any quality the film builds to that point is destroyed by Spielberg's need for a glossy ending. End at the bottom of the ocean and leave it at that.

[Damien]

Maybe I should give Moulin Rouge another chance myself.

Oh, God, man, no! Don't do it buddy!!