Kimberley Jones

Near Misses
State and Main, High Fidelity, The Virgin Suicides, Jesus’ Son, Erin Brockovich

Most Overrated Films
Gladiator, Quills, Shadow of the Vampire

Most Underrated Films
Road Trip, The Cell, American Psycho

Acting Kudos — Female
Björk (Dancer in the Dark), Ziyi Zhang (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich)

Acting Kudos — Male
Benicio Del Toro (Traffic, Snatch), Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Almost Famous, State and Main)

Best Director
Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich), Julian Schnabel (Before Night Falls), Michael Winterbottom (The Claim)

Best Screenplay
David Mamet (State and Main), Elizabeth Cuthrell and David Urrutia, adapted from the book by Denis Johnson (Jesus’ Son), Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous)

Worst Film
Whipped. The celluloid airings of a serious woman-hater, billed as a “romantic comedy.” Yeah, if you’re a humorless misogynist who thinks: Romance is dead! Bring on the banging! I still feel dirty six months later.

Best Trend
Home runs by second-time directors. Guy Ritchie (Snatch), Darren Aronosky (Requiem for a Dream), Julian Schnabel (Before Night Falls), and Alison Maclean (Jesus’ Son) all prove the first try may be a marvel, but the second and third times are the charm.

Worst Trend
Helen Hunt

The Year’s Biggest Film Story
The absolute dominance of Steven Soderbergh … and yes, he deserves it.

Wild Card
Most wonderfully absurd final shot of a film: A lhasa apso happily humping a doggie-shrink’s leg in Best in Show.

This article appears in 2000.

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Marjorie Baumgarten is a film critic and contributing writer at The Austin Chronicle, where she has worked in many capacities since the paper's founding in 1981. She served as the Chronicle's Film Reviews editor for 25 years.

A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...