Best Films – 2001

 
FILM

Gosford Park
d: Robert Altman; scr: Julian Fellowes
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
d: Ashutosh Gowariker; scr:
Mulholland Dr.
d, scr: David Lynch
 
CHECK THESE OUT
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
d: Woody Allen
Monster’s Ball)
d: Marc Forster; scr:
No Man’s Land
d: Danis Tanovic; scr:
ACTOR
Woody Allen (The Curse of the Jade Scorpion)
Gael García Bernal (Y tu mamá también / And Your Mother Too)
Rene Bitorajac (No Man’s Land)
Ricardo Darín (El Hijo de la novia / Son of the Bride)
Ethan Hawke (Training Day)
Diego Luna (Y tu mamá también)
Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge!)
Haley Joel Osment (A.I.: Artificial Intelligence)
Sean Penn (I Am Sam)
ACTRESS
Isabelle Huppert (La Pianiste / The Piano Teacher)
Juliane Köhler (Nirgendwo in Afrika / Nowhere in Africa)
Audrey Tautou (Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain / Amelie)
Maribel [...]

AFFLICTION – Nick Nolte – d: Paul Schrader

Affliction (1998)
Direction: Paul Schrader
Screenplay: Paul Schrader, from Russell Banks’ novel
Cast: Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, James Coburn, Willem Dafoe, Mary Beth Hurt, Jim True, Marian Seldes
 

 

Set in a snowy New England town, Affliction could have been an excellent study of a dysfunctional family’s cycle of violence at a time of rapid socioeconomic changes. Unfortunately, Paul Schrader’s film doesn’t quite reach those heights. Based on a novel by Russell Banks (who also penned the equally snowy The Sweet Hereafter), Schrader’s film adaptation relies on a realistic wintry atmosphere (courtesy of cinematographer Paul Sarossy) to convey the deadness inside the heart of the story’s protagonist, the angst-ridden, small-town sheriff Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte). The middle-aged Wade is intent on [...]