Oscar Oddity #5: Traffic (2000)

At the 73rd Academy Awards, Traffic was nominated for 5 Oscars, including Best Picture. It won Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Benicio del Toro), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing, but it lost Best Picture to Gladiator. This makes it the only Best Picture nominee to go 4/5 and lose the top prize.

Note: However, several films, such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, Miracle on 34th Street, and Jaws, have gone 3/4 and lost Best Picture.

183. Red Dirt

183. (31 Aug) Red Dirt (2000, Tag Purvis) 52



This Southern Gothic tale of youngsters desperate to escape their dead-end town might pass for a lesser Tennessee Williams play. Beautiful photography and a schmaltzy score add to the film's old school feel.

The plot is aimless, even after a mysterious drifter, played by a marvelously charismatic Walton Goggins, wanders onto the scene. Nevertheless, it's electric whenever Dan Montgomery and Goggins are on-screen together. Their bromance brims with so much homoerotic tension it's always palpable. It's downright explosive when Goggins strips down for an outdoor shower or when the two men join hands to swear a blood oath. Only in the last twenty minutes does this truly become a gay drama. Even then, subplots dominate a film that only has one working storyline. The final moments are expected, but hugely rewarding.

Karen Black, as a loony matriarch, is out of control.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) ****

Director Ann Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) redefined what a wuxia  film could and should be.  Throughout the genre’s history there has been an overabundance of emphasis placed on the fight sequences, while the plot and/or character development aspects play second fiddle.  Lee, with the aid of an Academy Award nominated screenplay, revolutionized this thinking and created a film which is both visually striking and intellectually engaging.  It won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (and was also nominated for an overall Best Picture Oscar)--something unheard of in this genre—primarily due to: an outstanding story; spectacular action sequences; and, breathtaking cinematography.

Based on Wang Dulu’s novel of the same name, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a hard story to define. At times, it is a revenge tale. Master swordsman Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) is determined to kill Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-pei), the murderer of his Wudang master.  But then, it is also a story about female independence and empowerment. When Jen (Zhang Ziyi) steals Li Mu Bai’s treasured sword, the Green Destiny, we learn she is an accomplished Wudan warrior who wants desperately to escape her pre-determined role as the docile wife of a man she does not even know, let alone love.  But then there’s more—it is also a love story—well, actually two love stories.  There is an unfulfilled peaceful love story between Li Mu Bai and his longtime friend Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) that runs throughout the film.  And, then there is also the fiery relationship between Jen and Lo (Chang Chen) that inserts itself midway into the movie.  All of these elements combine seamlessly to create an engrossing story that comes to a tragic metaphysical conclusion. There is no clear-cut understanding of the ending—each viewer will have their own interpretation. While I’m usually against this type of ending, it works here, and, I think it is what cements this as an exceptional film.

Yet, when most people who haven’t actually seen the film hear Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon they envision clips of the magnificent fight sequences. That is to be expected, as these are what are highlighted in YouTube videos and promo clips.  Acclaimed fight choreographer Lee Wu-Ping used wires (and nothing else) to allow his fighters to skip across rooftops, treetops, and even water.  Not since King Hu’s spectacular fight sequences in Come Drink With Me (1966) and A Touch of Zen (1969) have I seen such wuxia artistry.  It is obvious that Wu-Ping was a fan of Hu’s because he pays homage to both Hu’s famous teahouse scene and his famed bamboo forest showdown. Yet, Wu-Ping brings his own particular artistic vision to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, too. For one, the swordplay is both powerful and serene at the same time.  As I said above, there is a metaphysical feel to the film, and I think Wu-Ping developed his fights to accentuate this fact.  There is no barbarism here. Instead, there is tranquil violence, which I think makes the action sequences appear both beautiful and reflective.

Now, if you are going to have a metaphysical film packed with eye-catching fight sequences you better have a good cinematographer.  Peter Pau won an Academy Award for his spectacular cinematography.  Whether he was shooting the Gobi Desert, a tree-topped forest, or the interiors of Peking, each image is full of color and texture.  Working alongside Tim Yip’s Oscar-winning art direction, Pau created a visual blueprint for future wuxia cinematographers—which is kind of ironic, as he wasn’t even Lee’s first or second choice for the film.  (It is obvious that Pau’s work here influenced Christopher Doyle’s work on Hero (2002) and Xiaoding Zhao’s work on House of Flying Daggers (2004).) The vast expanse shots he creates of the Gobi Desert are spatially mesmerizing, and his work in the bamboo forest is supremely stellar.  While it is the story that I love most about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it is Pau’s images that are forever implanted in my mind.

For a wuxia film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon did pretty darn well with critics and audiences.  It was nominated for ten Academy Awards (taking home four) and earned over $200 million worldwide in box office gross.  It also revolutionized the wuxia genre, and raised the bar for future films.  It, alongside its greatest benefactor, Hero (2002), are two of my all-time favorite action films.  It proved that a movie can be a great action film and still merit artistic and philosophical significance. 

045. The Next Best Thing

045. (05 Feb) The Next Best Thing (2000, John Schlesinger) 35



So this is what would've happened if Will & Grace had been piloted with Madonna and Rupert Everett and they had a kid in the first episode. Considering its reputation, The Next Best Thing isn't that bad. It's just a wacky sitcom paced and written rather hideously. There's no consistency in tone whatsoever. For stretches it's a weird comedy and then a sappy, sentimental romance before turning inappropriately dramatic.

Rupert Everett is rather charming while Benjamin Bratt is wannabe dashing. Madonna repeatedly steals the show with a performance always attempting to be sincere and rarely succeeding.

In the last act, she blindsides Everett by essentially kidnapping their six-year-old son. It's a moment that's truly jarring, messing up the film's entire dynamic by making her unfathomably unsympathetic. It also turns out she's been lying about paternity for years, offering up a scene that's straight out of a soap opera. The melodrama in the last thirty minutes is surprisingly well-acted and totally engaging despite some very bad writing.

Had the finale taken a lighter approach, this would've surely been a cult classic. Instead, it's just a weird, deeply depressing misfire.

045. The Next Best Thing

045. (05 Feb) The Next Best Thing (2000, John Schlesinger) 35



So this is what would've happened if Will & Grace had been piloted with Madonna and Rupert Everett and they had a kid in the first episode. Considering its reputation, The Next Best Thing isn't that bad. It's just a wacky sitcom paced and written rather hideously. There's no consistency in tone whatsoever. For stretches it's a weird comedy and then a sappy, sentimental romance before turning inappropriately dramatic.

Rupert Everett is rather charming while Benjamin Bratt is wannabe dashing. Madonna repeatedly steals the show with a performance always attempting to be sincere and rarely succeeding.

In the last act, she blindsides Everett by essentially kidnapping their six-year-old son. It's a moment that's truly jarring, messing up the film's entire dynamic by making her unfathomably unsympathetic. It also turns out she's been lying about paternity for years, offering up a scene that's straight out of a soap opera. The melodrama in the last thirty minutes is surprisingly well-acted and totally engaging despite some very bad writing.

Had the finale taken a lighter approach, this would've surely been a cult classic. Instead, it's just a weird, deeply depressing misfire.