Film Freak Central

Film Freak Central's Top 10 of 2000

The following Ten Best list reflects only the opinions of Bill Chambers--FILM FREAK CENTRAL's webmaster--and not necessarily those of this site's other contributors.

The Virgin Suicides (2000) - DVD

***/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras C+
starring James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett
screenplay by Sofia Coppola, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides
directed by Sofia Coppola

by Bill Chambers The Virgin Suicides is perverse, but I don't mean dirty. Everything about it is a little bit lopsided--James Woods, of all people, is cast as a henpecked husband, for instance. But its director, Sofia Coppola, doesn't play it as pop kink; instead, she strives for the reverie quality of David Lynch at his most suburban, which makes everything that's in principle out of the ordinary seem in tune, even unexotic. Watching The Virgin Suicides, a fractured nostalgia piece, is like trying to deduce the story of someone's life from a box of snapshots. It's wispy yet substantial (let's call it ethereal), and it stumbles upon a few great images and many more lasting ones.

Loser (2000) - DVD

*/**** Image B+ Sound A-
starring Jason Biggs, Mena Suvari, Greg Kinnear
written and directed by Amy Heckerling

by Bill Chambers SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. As with most of her films, director Amy Heckerling's latest, Loser, seesaws between unpleasant and artificial, and is sometimes both at once. When she tackles big issues, such as abortion in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, it's impossible to tell whether she's being matter-of-fact or glib about them (they carry an almost documentary starkness), but whatever the case, she continually refuses political comment. Such is the sitcom tendency of her work: to jeopardize the innocence of her characters and then hit the reset button. This fear of drama soured me on Fast Times..., Look Who's Talking, Clueless, and now Loser, in which Ms. Heckerling also demonstrates, for the first time, zero affinity for the milieu.