All That Jazz.

2After over a month I've returned here and I have some rearranging to do. Originally I wanted to put together a top ten list for each year of the 2000s as well as the top 100 list (which I was partially through). But since the decade list was taking so long it seemed I would never get back to the top ten lists so I've decided to restart the entire collection of 100 films in ascending order to combine both lists. While some movies won't make the top ten lists of each year it'll let me post both at the same time. It will also allow me to hopefully make more detailed posts about each individual film on the list rather than small blurbs in each post (though films that appear in a top ten list that do not appear on the 100 will have a short blurb about them much like the one at the end of this post). Some of the films off my favorite 100 films of 2000s have changed around a little so there are even a few new additions. Also, I hope to get around to doing large collections of posts on the feature films of animation director Hayao Miyazaki as well as a collection of posts on 40s low budget horror film producer Val Lewton.

100. Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002)

The 2002 Oscar winner is perhaps the most important Hollywood musical since the early 70s Cabaret (1972). Renée Zellweger is Roxie Hart, married to a dim but agreeable husband, she fools around on the side with a man who claims to have connections to get her into the glitz of showbiz. When things become apparent that he's only using her she turns a gun on him and ends up in a death row cell block in the Cook County Jail and that's when the real razzle dazzle begins. In the process she meets the film's array of scoundrels as the criminal justice world meets show business and the film takes a look at the susceptibility the media coverage has over the common man as murderesses become mini celebrities.

Adapted from the knockout stage musical of the same name the film is able to keep some of the stage familiarity of the musical numbers but parallel it with a more thematic telling of the story events and it all works. I don't think I appreciated the film as much as I did before I was lucky enough to catch Chicago on the stage. One thing I've never been too positive on was the cast outside of Zellweger and John C. Reilly but Catherine Zeta Jones and Richard Gere still give solid performances in their respective roles and Queen Latifah hits "When You're Good to Momma" just right.

And the musical numbers, let me tell you about the musical numbers. Not only is this a smart and brazen musical about crime, corruption, murder, sex, and scandal, it's a hell of a lot fun. With some top numbers like the seductive and blisteringly tense "Cell Block Tango" to the Gleeful and shameless "Press Conference Rag" Chicago is a real visual and musical treat, not only does this film have brains, it's got looks and the notes to match.

And.

All.

That.

Jazz.

Favorite films of 2002.

While Chicago is the last spot on my list of 100 films of the 2000s it falls in at number 9 on my list of films from 2002. So since it didn't make the list of 100 films of the decade I want to mention the movie that rounds out the number ten spot on my list from movies from 2002.

10. Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay)

Samantha Morton stars as the title character of this understated and introspective film in perhaps her finest performance to date. After her boyfriend commits suicide Morvern finds his unpublished novel and sends it off as her own. This sparks an interesting and uncommon journey both geographical and emotional. With it's presentation of Callar's passions, grief, mourning, and guilt clashing with her newly blossoming sense of individuality and personal understanding and experiencing parts of life and the world she may not have been wholly familiar with Morvern Callar is a rare diversion from the hectic high concept films from big studios. It's a little seen oddity and a unique and rewarding film for those in the right mind who happen to be looking for something new and unique themselves.


10 Films of 2002:

9. Chicago (Rob Marshall)
10. Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay)