As I write this, it's a New Year so apparently I didn't watch any more movies before the end of the year. In 2000 I watched 57 theatrical movies, more than any other year so far. Now, I don't pick a best movie of the year until a year later; the theory being that I'm more likely to only remember the truly good movies after that period of time. I'd have to say that the best movie of 1999, in a year where I saw 30 movies, is "Shakespeare in Love". And as I look back at the other movies of 1999, none of them truly impresses me and gives "Shakespeare" a run for its money.

Since there were so many movies in 2000 and only one will be named Best Movie, I've decided to do Best Movie awards in several categories for this year. The categories are sort of arbitrary and based on my tastes and in one case I had to split up the very broad catch-all Drama category into Drama and Drama (Human and Relationships). Not every movie fits perfectly into each category, and I'm sure some people will disagree with some of the placements. But this is my journal so without further ado, the first category.

Action. Every movie has multiple facets, but almost every movie has a primary genre that it fits into. Action movies focus on the action: fights, gunfire, explosions, high-speed chases, and other things that get the blood rushing and the adrenalin pumping. Most action movies don't have in-depth explorations of human nature or serious romance because there just isn't any time. You only have two or so hours to present your movie so you can't include everthing in it. Fight scenes take time away from other elements, hence action movies tend to be a bit shallow in the deep thinking department.

In any case, I saw a dozen action movies this year. They are the Wesley Snipes high-tech "The Art of War"; an entertaining remake of a 70's tv show in "Charlie's Angels"; the abysmal in-name-only game-to-screen adaptation "Dungeons and Dragons"; the big-budget Russell Crowe "Gladiator"; the remake car-theft movie "Gone in 60 Seconds"; another tv remake and a sequel that's actually better than the original in "Mission: Impossible II"; a martial arts movie with MI2-like special effects in "Romeo Must Die"; yet another tv show remake, although this time it follows from the show rather than redoing it, in "Shaft"; the martial arts western "Shanghai Noon"; four veteran actors in the space shuttle movie "Space Cowboys"; Pierce Brosnan doing 007 oh-so-well in "The World is Not Enough"; and for once an entertaining adaptation of a Marvel comic book in "X-Men".

The criteria for Best Action Movie should be a movie that keeps you at the edge of your seat. The action flows smoothly and the plot leads to each action scene without looking arbitrary. With all that written, the best action movie that I saw in 2000 was "Charlie's Angels". When I heard that the three ladies didn't want to use any guns in the movie, I thought "oh oh". But having seen the movie I can say that it doesn't detract from it at all. It has a good plot for an action movie, great fight scenes, cool gear, beautiful women, and Bill Murray which I thought was a bit too much. Certainly a movie I would watch again.

The next category is the small Animated/Kids movies category, of which there are only two entries, the hilarious "Chicken Run" and the Lion-King-with- Dinosaurs "Dinosaur". It's an easy choice to choose "Chicken Run" because for a kids' movie it parodies the great WWII prison escape movies and has humor that only an adult would appreciate. The claymation is first-rate. "Dinosaur" unfortunately seems like another Disney-formulaic film. It has excellent computer generated graphics, but that's no longer really innovative. It was not a movie worthy of best film, though it's certainly entertaining.