Ok, it's time to pick the best movie of 2000. As has been my tradition, I wait until the end of the next year before picking the best movie of the year. This is so that late releases that I watch aren't given higher priority because they're fresh on my mind. After a year of dormancy, if I remember a movie well then it was probably one of the better ones.

I watched a lot of movies in 2000. Fifty-seven to be exact, compared with 30 in 1999 and only 25 this year. It was the first year that I started writing movie reviews, so you'd think I'd have a better idea of the movies and would have thought about them more. But 2000 was not a year when one movie stood out head and shoulders above the others.

Unlike the Motion Picture Academy, I still don't think Gladiator was movie of the year. It's more of an action film than a drama and had no social commentary. Other than grossing well at the box office and having good special effects, I don't see see any qualifications for Best Picture. But, that's just me.

The problem with seeing a lot of movies is that there are a lot of choices for Best Movie. And there are so many movie categories. No movie is the best at anything. So the criteria becomes "what's the classic?" What movie will still be considered a good movie 20 years from now? What one movie could I recommend to people no matter who they are? Not usually the criteria I use, since I'm more concerned with "what movie would I see again?"

Now, in 1995 I picked Crimson Tide, in 1996 it was Star Trek: First Contact, and 1997 was Starship Troopers. All movies that cater to my military/science fiction tastes. 1998 saw me pick Saving Private Ryan, a great war movie. And in 1999 I picked Shakespear in Love because it's a good romantic movie and very original and witty for the 90% of U.S. kids who had to study Shakespeare in high school.

In the end, it all comes down to my tastes. And my tastes have inclined to be more and more towards romantic comedies. And my favorite romantic comedy of 2000 was Boys and Girls, so it becomes my pick for Movie of the Year. Not a favorite with everyone. Shannon didn't like it, saying it was too contrived and not a very accurate depiction of life in the Bay Area. I agree that it had some inaccuracies since we all went to UC Berkeley and live here -- that's every movie and as far as I'm concerned not extremely important for a good movie.

I didn't see any contriveness at all. A long term relationship. A boy and a girl falling in love, falling out of love, falling in love again. Of course I love Freddie Prinze Jr, he's my hero. A total geek and he's going to marry Sarah Michelle Gellar so he's not perfect :-) But Boys and Girls is the typical Freddie Prinze Jr romantic comedy and it's set at my alma mater -- what more could I ask for?

For Best Movie of 2001, Tomcats looks strong :-) Seriously, it's not going to be Summer Catch, another Freddie Prinze Jr romantic comedy. This one just wasn't all that great, though good. It's not going to be Fellowship of the Ring, the longest and most boring fantasy movie since Dungeons and Dragons. Eric asked me what's the best fantasy movie I've seen, after we saw FotR. At the time I came up blank. Nothing stands out and I don't like fantasy movies in general. Yesterday I thought, for some reason, Ladyhawke was a good fantasy movie. Probably the romantic elements.

In any case, possibly candidates for Best Movie of 2001 are: Shrek, a very funny and well animated movie with a bad ending; Pearl Harbor, a love story set during a major event of World War II; Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Angelina Jolie is the only good thing about this movie, but it's quite a good thing. Hmm, not that many possibilities, but we'll see if I change my mind next year.