The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly 2000 Recap Edition By Matt Singer As the nine of you who read this column monthly know, I generally like to stretch my choices for movies in this column as far as they go; genres, directors, actors, and especially time periods. But since all self-respecting film critics do "Best Of the Year" columns, I feel obligated to do the same. Mind you, I don't respect myself, or like how I look in the mirror, or even wake up in the morning with a reason to go on living, but when in Rome. Anyway, here's a look at the best, the worst, and the weirdest from the year 2000. IMPORTANT NOTE: The baddest of the bad last year, Battlefield Earth, has already been covered in this column, so I am replacing it my pick for second worst of last year. Don't worry, it's still bad. And I still make fun of it, and stick out my tongue, and throw feces at it. I now resume the regularly scheduled column. THE BEST OF 2000 High Fidelity (2000) Starring John Cusack, Jack Black Directed by Stephen Frears Rated R, 113 minutes. First I should clarify. For the sake of the column, I'm calling it the best, but there are only a few people who would agree with me on that point. So maybe it wasn't the "best" movie of the year, but it was hands down my favorite. I saw it for the first time at my school where I was so affected by it, I returned to watch it again the next night. The first chance I got to buy it on VHS (just recently) I did. I loved this movie. Based on a novel by British author Nick Hornby, High Fidelity is the story of Rob Gordon. Period. More than any movie last year, High Fidelity creates a character who is very much a living breathing entity. Watching the movie I felt I was watching a real human being. The movie is an unusual monologue told by Rob to the audience, intercut with Rob's life as an owner of a used record store in Chicago. The entire film hinges on the performance of John Cusack as Rob, and he succeeds in a role that deserves an Oscar Nomination (I'd give him the damn award, but that would never happen). Everything about the movie feels right. I wouldn't change a thing. Working from the wonderful source material (Read the book too, it's just as charming as the movie), with a script by Scott Rosenberg, D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink, and Cusack himself, the movie perfectly captures the life of the introspective slacker male. Any man from age 15 to 50 can probably identify with something Rob says during this movie; or, like me, a whole lot of it. Rob's life is inhabited by more perfectly realized characters, like employees and fellow music scholars Dick and Barry (Todd Louiso and Jack Black, also perfect in their roles as uber-geeks), ex-girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle), and total prick Ian (Tim Robbins, amazing in only about 10 minutes of screen time). Each character in the movie is designed to epitomize the typical person of that kind. And they all pull it off. Anyone who's been in a used record store, a bookstore, a comic store, knows Dick and Barry. Hell, I've worked with them. Like some of my other favorite movies, High Fidelity does a great job of both faithfully translating the book to a film while improving on it. Since the book is a rather rambling narrative, the film wisely turns the prologue into the crux of the first act (Meeting Rob's Top 5 Most Painful Breakups) and makes a small plot point (Seeing them again to reconcile his feelings) into the driving force of the second and third acts. It also beefs up Rob's emotional growth, adds a great poignant touch to the ending, plus some more current choices to the impressive musical mentions. If I tried, I couldn't tell you something bad about this movie. My copy has deleted scenes, and even those are great, most of them worthy of being in the final cut. High Fidelity is a film that finds beauty, honesty, and humor in the simplicity of the everyday life for the American male. In examining all that it is to be a guy in the here and now, it both pokes fun at society, and admits that it's not just society's fault. And it makes you wonder. As Rob puts it, "Do I listen to pop music because I'm miserable? Or am I miserable because I listen to pop music?" IF YOU LIKED HIGH FIDELITY, CHECK OUT: Gross Pointe Blank (1997), from the same writers as High Fidelity, and also starring John Cusack. THE WORST OF 2000 Highlander: Endgame (2000) Starring Adrian Paul, Christopher Lambert Directed by Douglas Aarniokoski Rated R, 87 minutes. Highlander films have a certain reputation for being some of the weirdest, most confusing, and yes worst movies in cinema history. Except if you happen to be a Highlander fan. In which case, more power to you. But the rest of you, this was almost the worst movie of the year. Don't believe me? Run a search for this movie on the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com). The movie received 157 votes rating it a perfect 10 (Those wacky fans I was talking about) and 113 votes rating it a bottom-of-the-barrel 1 (The rest of us). See what I'm talking about here? To mess with Highlander fans is like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded auditorium, it's not done. If it isn't technically against the law, it violates natural law. I'd rather swallow a hive of bees after I killed their queen in front of them, than aggravate the crazy legions of Highlander fans. So to them I say, the movie was great! Just what I was looking for! (Anyone who isn't a rube, keep on reading now, I think it's safe) I saw this movie nearly four months ago, and the pain is still with me. My dreams are clouded by horrible nightmares. I wake up in cold sweats, hot sweats, sometimes I wake up in pools in different states with wedding bands on my fingers and tequila on my breath. This movie took a piece of me with it. And I want it back. Okay, so maybe I'm taking a little dramatic license here, but no more than the film deserves. After all, Highlander: Endgame is the rare movie that despite it's stupidity, terrible dialogue, incoherent plot, and incredible continuity gaffs, still manages to be boring beyond the limits of human tolerance. In the first Highlander movie there was 1 Highlander left. In this the THIRD sequel, there are literally hundreds left. The third Highlander was called Final Dimension. Yet there is now a fourth movie, entitled Endgame. Christopher Lambert plays an immortal that cannot age, and yet his character appears at least fifteen years older than he did in the first film (And the years have not been kind). Not only does he look older in the modern day footage, but in the scenes set in medieval Scotland he's aged as well. And I've heard plenty of complaints from even die- hard Highlander fans. Reciting them here would prove little to you and would, if possible, make me look even geekier than I do already. Just trust me that the movie doesn't even follow it's own rules established in earlier movies and television shows and does whatever it wants, however it wants. The fight scenes are tame by the standards of Crouching Tiger or even a Charlie's Angels. The plot is the same as any other Highlander film, except now everyone look as if they've hurt their back trying to lift up their swords. Even the sex scene is boring. The cinematic equivalent of a watermark on leather, Highlander: Endgame should never be seen by anyone who isn't insane about the series, or has a severe mental illness. INSTEAD OF HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME, CHECK OUT: Highlander (1986), which really wouldn't have been that bad a movie if it hadn't been followed by bizarre sequels and television series. THE WEIRDEST OF 2000 Godzilla 2000 (1967…I mean 2000) Starring Takehiro Murata, Hiroshi Abe Directed by Takao Okawara Rated PG, 88 minutes. Leave it to the Japanese. They build cars better than us, televisions, and basically anything electronic that works. I shouldn't have been surprised, therefore, to find that they also have surpassed their American brothers in making goofy movies too. The strangest, wildest, weirdest, funniest movie of the year was easily Japan's Godzilla 2000, the only film this year I paid to see in the theater twice. Contrary to what you're thinking, the film doesn't star 2,000 giant lizards, but rather 1 big one in the year Y2K. Made by the Japanese company Toho (the original masterminds behind the countless Godzilla flicks) rather than Sony (the makers of the incredibly lame summer blockbuster starring Matthew Broderick), it does feature the guy in a rubber suit Godzilla, modified slightly. Not enough to make it look like a real lizard, mind you, but beefed up all the same. Anywho, this Godzilla takes on an interstellar ship that's been buried beneath the sea for centuries. And it's a good thing Godzilla's ready for it, cause this ship has one really big nostril, from which it can shoot large discharges. Before I forget, I should mention there's also human characters in this thing too. There's Shinoda, the brilliant, but stupid scientist, and his daughter Io, who's brilliant, but incredibly annoying. They have to deal with Yuki, a photographer who's brilliant but also incredibly cheap. The villain's named Katagiri, the brilliant but incredibly evil mastermind behind the whole thing. See, Katagiri and his cronies want to destroy Godzilla, while Shinoda and his "Godzilla Prediction Network" (Not making that up) wish to study the beast. Cause anything that destroys whole cities like they were made of old Lincoln Logs deserves to be studied in its natural habitat. Anyway, Katagiri is easily the greatest bad guy of the year. His voice is dubbed into English with such throaty abandon that every time he answered his cell phone with a wicked "Katagiri!" the audience burst into wild applause (Okay, maybe not the whole audience, just me and some guy I paid to see the movie with me). He barks orders, hints at a homosexual relationship with Shinoda from the past (How Shinoda got that daughter is my only question), and acts really, really mean. And his confrontation with Godzilla in the film's closing frames is truly hysterical. The movie only loses steam when the guys in rubber suits start duking it out. I'd suggest you walk out on the thing, except that you really need to stick around to see the bizarre epilogue. Do not miss what Godzilla does after he is inevitably victorious, and what one character says about him while he does it. Either the Americans responsible for the dubbing were deaf, or they just thought no one would sit through the movie all the way to the end anyway, so it didn't matter what they said. Whatever the reason, I love it. IF YOU LIKED GODZILLA 2000, CHECK OUT: Godzilla (1998), the American Godzilla, if only to see how big budget and effects don't make a fun movie. Back To The Page O' Stuff!