2001
Noah’s Barks pages relating to the year 2001.
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Mazinkaiser
"Crash on crash!" Vintage super robot Mazinger Z receives a fresh, diabolic coat of paint in ‘Mazinkaiser,’ an exciting, hilarious OVA. (read more)
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Millennium Actress
Directed by Satoshi Kon, ‘Millennium Actress’ is a fictional drama about a legendary actress’s career and personal life, with the two narratives interweaving into one kaleidoscopic, romantic journey. (read more)
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The Man Who Wasn’t There
The “series of unfortunate events” plot and dark humor through irony that’s so constant in the Coens’ writing starts to run very thin. It’s frustrating to know how every scene, how every line of The Man Who Wasn’t There will play out as soon as it begins. Ed Crane is a mediocre character, and even… (read more)
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Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive works because David Lynch finally bends his surrealism around a storyline instead of shoving the storyline into the surrealism. Because Mulholland Drive is fairly straightforward, it provides the audience a tangible mystery and characters to motivate the deciphering of its plot. Amidst the chilling confusion are several memorable scenes that keep attention throughout… (read more)
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Amélie
The romance of France blooms alive when paired with the bright pastel colors and the light, string-heavy score of Yann Tiersen, but Amélie herself is quite unlikable. Audrey Tautou’s awkward movements are all with self-satisfied intent, each flick of the wrist coming across as planned instead of natural. It’s no surprise, then, that Amélie managed… (read more)
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The Angelic Process – “…And Your Blood Is Full of Honey”
AlbumThe Angelic Process’s first album is a bit amateurish and sounds like a collection of demos of songs that were never fully realized. The oppressive sound is still there, more than a match for the extremely low fidelity recording job that came with the band being so underground and having to keep a tight budget.… (read more)
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Manic Street Preachers – “Know Your Enemy” (2001)
Know Your Enemy is actually my favorite Manic Street Preachers (MSO) album after The Holy Bible. I don’t quite understand why it’s hated. Well, okay; I know what the criticisms are: 1. It’s different from their work from Everything Must Go and onward to this point. Why is that a bad thing? Those albums were different from what… (read more)
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Astrobrite – “Crush”
Crush by Astrobite is by-the-numbers shoegaze. It’s too same-y and mediocre to be worth your time. Good luck telling the tracks here apart. Sure you’ve got your fuzzy, noisy crunchers and ethereal, cyclical, slow songs, but those are your only two modes. Also, the vocalist thinks he’s Kevin Shields—but no one is! I don’t know… (read more)
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Madrugada – “The Nightly Disease” (2001)
I can see where people are making the connection to latter-career Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, but I think Madrugada sound like a rockier Tindersticks. As such, The Nightly Disease (TND) is great gloomy, nocturnal music to down your liquor to. The non-depressed folk will still be able to get along with Robert S. Burås’s suave… (read more)
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Katatonia – “Last Fair Deal Gone Down” (2001)
Katatonia gets consistently more commercial with Last Fair Deal Gone Down, adopting more of the time-tested “soft verse, loud chorus” pop songwriting. I don’t mind it if I like the songs enough, but I can’t put my finger on why I don’t like this album as much as their others. The hooks don’t really register… (read more)