2001 in movies: Ron Howard redeems himself in my eyes, and 10,000 points for Gryffindor

 

Something occurred to me during this, my third or fourth viewing of Harry Potter and Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, the box-office winner for 2001: Daniel Radcliffe will be, but is not yet at this age, a good actor; Rupert Grint has one acting move here (his mugging), but he's so good at it he's forgiven other youthful deficiencies; and Tom Felton has a couple of sublime moments but is otherwise short of material to work with. 

But Emma Watson? Watson arrived as a complete actor in child form in this movie like a spiritual successor to Kirsten Dunst. 

Speaking of Felton, and more specifically Draco: part of what leaves me cold about the first three movies, and most especially the first two, is how everything works in Potter's favour and falls into his lap. Part of that is that he's got Ron, who is somewhat clever, and Hermione, who is brilliant. Malfoy, on the other hand, is managing to keep stride with Potter, despite everybody favouring Harry over him, and who are his lieutenants? Yeah, Crabbe and Goyle, who offer nothing and he knows it. 

What I'm saying is that Potter is the chosen one, sure, but Draco outworks him and would have made a better wizard under different circumstances.

Now, Ron Howard is no indie, experimental, gonzo filmmaker. You're going to get something sweet, with a happy ending, and a minimal amount of tension. But when he's on, he can expertly toe the line between Hallmark movie-of-the-week and, in the case of A Beautiful Mind, a Best Picture winner.

The fact that this movie was his follow-up to How the Grinch Stole Christmas pretty well sums up his limited range - or maybe, to be fair, it's a limited interest on his part.

Here's the thing, though: I love this movie. I remember seeing it in the theatre by myself and taking my wife to see it the very next night. It's built for re-watches, because you'll be spotting things placed as red herrings or disguised in some way all throughout the film. 

Crowe did an expert job of dismissing his toughness in place for mannerisms that Kirk Lazarus would have surely applauded. I don't know if it's reductive of a life and a divergence, but it's a great performance in a wonderful movie. 

2001's top-selling book offers a sequel to the Bible

I've never read a book quite like this before, nor had quite the reading experience such as this. 

If, like me, you're not familiar with this best-selling book of 2001, you'll probably at least have heard of the series Left Behind, if only because you, again like me, became vaguely aware that the heroically-cool-in-the-80s Kirk Cameron grew up to star in a series of movies based on that book series about those "left behind" after true believers were ushered off into heaven. 

This is the ninth book (!) in the series of sixteen books (!) but, since some later books were written as prequels, this is actually the twelfth book chronologically. Keen readers will note that when I realized that two Pulitzer Prize winning books by John Updike were actually the third and fourth part of a quadrilogy, I felt that I owed it to the series to read all four.  I did not feel that same pull with Desecration, so I jumped right into the middle of the story, and I imagine this is what it must have felt like for someone to watch Avengers: Infinity War without having seen anything from the MCU ahead of time.

The first five pages feature quick introductions to twenty-one characters so you could have some hope of following the story. This whole series must have been one of the greatest "what if?" pitches with the idea that the Rapture (that's the transported to heaven part) is really happening. It's a great pitch because it's an intriguing twist on a 2000-year-old book, and it's a great pitch for readers who would love to hear a tale of the Rapture happening in contemporary times with people named Buck and Mac fighting for the rest of humanity from the Antichrist.

As a book, it does its essential work of moving a story along just fine, and maybe I would have to read the entire saga to fully appreciate the breadth of artistry it takes to craft such a long tale, but it ultimately feels like it's playing to a pre-determined audience and already knows it's guaranteed their attention - and I'm just not in that audience.

2001 in video games: arcades adapt while Final Fantasy, Pokémon, and The Sims all march on

The number-one arcade game for 2001 shows that times were a-changin', because it's not an arcade game: it's a photo booth.

A couple of names of these number-one "games" popped up in my research: Canvas Shot and Flash Shot, but I couldn't find actual images of either machine, and obviously no gameplay, either. Even the runner-up game, certainly the number-one in North America, was Derby Owners Club, a horse racing game that didn't operate like what had become a standard arcade game.

(photo source in link)

I couldn't find a gameplay option for that one either, but that's because it relied on player cards that you would insert to register your horse in a race and could play it on different machines. It had a huge video screen and seated gameplay console monitors, and looks more like one of the 1970s cabinet games that I was researching at the start of my project. 

In either case, whether it's a photo booth or an oversized racing game, what's clear is that in 2001, after nearly twenty years of home video games stealing more and more of their quarter-paying customers, the arcades were ready to rely on hooks and gimmicks that a PlayStation couldn't offer, just like movie theatres have been doing since coming out of quarantine and trying to woo people back to the cinema with ScreenX, 4DX, and popcorn buckets. 

Meanwhile, on the home front, Pokémon Gold and Silver continues its reign as the best-selling handheld game for the Game Boy Colour (and OG Game Boy, too), while The Sims also keeps its hold on the top spot for home computer games.

On the PlayStation 2, Final Fantasy X makes the leap that I experienced between FFVII and VIII feel like a minor upgrade compared to what was waiting for me in watching this gameplay. And yes, I watched a gameplay video for Final Fantasy X, partly because I was again struggling to find a site that hosted it and partly because the video I found was a crazy forty-something hour-long full playthrough. It's hard to even tell how long it is because it breaks the YouTube counter about two-thirds of the way through.

I won't even pretend that I watched the whole thing, but I did stay with it for the first several minutes and then jumped around to a few different parts while staying away from the ending because, you never know, I might play it someday.

Again, the leap forward is astounding and I'm retroactively really happy for all of the Final Fantasy fans who must have been blown away by this game. 

2001 in music: P!nk and Diana Krall are the big winners

It has been a long time since I've listened to M!ssundaztood by P!nk (sure, I'll go along with the stylizations; after all, I went years typing out variations of O{+> for Prince) and, while I still enjoyed parts of the record immensely, it didn't feel quite as groundbreaking as I remember. Obviously, part of that is that I'm not listening to it in 2001, so I guess I'm really saying that parts haven't aged that well. Also, it's probably safe to say that it was more groundbreaking for P!nk and not as an album on the whole. 

My favourite hit remains the same, which is Don't Let Me Get Me, and the best non-singles are probably the back-to-back Respect and 18-Wheeler. After that, the album starts to feel a bit long. I never really dug the duet with Steven Tyler, and Dear Diary is just an odd song that has her spend part of the time explaining how a diary works and then the rest of the time doing the opposite of that.

Then again, don't listen to me: it was the top album of 2001 for a reason.

I've never, to my recollection, listened to this whole album by Diana Krall which would win the Juno for Best Album. It's a prototypical throwback and a lovely set of songs (Cry Me a River and The Night We Called It a Day are my standouts), but I can't help but wonder if the Juno award came as a result of its uniqueness in a field including Sum 41, Our Lady Peace, and Nickelback up for the award. Even Nelly Furtado's debut, also up for Best Album, was positively headbanging compared to Krall's gentle collection.

Or, maybe it's just a great album! I'm actually slightly alarmed by how both of my reviews in this post are a bit sardonic. That had better not be because I'm at the halfway point of the project and getting to be a cranky old man.

2001 in TV: Friends claims the top spot

 

As Friends wrapped up its seventh season and rolled into its eighth, it topped the ratings for the first and only time in its ten seasons, presumably fuelled by both the finale and premiere featuring Monica and Chandler's wedding.

Although I didn't watch the show on live TV much after the first season, I did eventually catch up on the whole thing on DVD. I felt then, as I did in this re-watch of these episodes, that this gang was getting a bit old to be caught up in the high school-ish shenanigans of who likes whom and oh-my-gosh-she's-pregnant-but-who's-the-father?