Roger Pavelle's Top few and bottom one

I don't think I've seen 10 movies this year that I think would constitute a best of. Here's my top 3:

1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Incredible effects, story, fight scenes, cinematography. This is one that I would definitely recommend to anyone (hell, even my parents recommended it to me!)

2. The Legend of Bagger Vance - If there's one thing you can count on with Robert Redford's films, it's that they will look gorgeous. In this case, however, it's also a solid story about discovering who you are and what you want from life.

3. Keeping the Faith - A nice romantic comedy about a priest, a rabbi, and a power-executive. Just a lot of fun to watch.

As for the ones that don't make the list (of the ones that I have seen):

1. Gladiator - The dream sequences bothered me, the characters were incredibly shallow, and they didn't have the statue of Nero outside the colliseum.

2. Almost Famous - Just didn't grab me. If I wanted to give a pithy reviewer's headline it would be "Almost Worth Seeing"

3. Chicken Run - I'm not sure if this was ruined by the hype/reviews but I just thought it was OK. It wasn't funny enough to be a good comedy and wasn't serious enough to be a drama. What was left is really great animation (or whatever you call the stuff they do) and a lot of homages to good movies.

4. The Patriot - I thought this one was a lot better than Gladiator in every way but doesn't really stand out as a great epic movie.

5. X-Men - I think I want to see the version with the 20 minutes added back in. Maybe that would include the explanation of why Magneto acted so out of character. Also, I felt the stunts looked too much like they were using wires.

Worst Movie Of The Year - probably Mission To Mars, although I hesitate to say this since it was also probably the most enjoyable movie-going experience I had this past year, sitting around with everyone for 2-3 hours afterwards ripping the "science" and "plot" to shreds.