Film Review: The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)

Though his work in the '90s was not as consistently great as in the '70s and '80s, it was one of the most interesting periods of Woody Allen's career. Whether as a reaction to the tabloid furore that followed his very public and acrimonious split from Mia Farrow or as a natural extension of his evolution as an artist, a harsh darkness began to creep into his films. This reached its peak with his last three films of the decade, which ran the gamut from bittersweet (Sweet and Lowdown) to just plain bitter (Celebrity and Deconstructing Harry). It was a triptych which contains some of his most bracing and uncompromising work, for better or worse, but marked him as someone who still has a lot to say.

Film Review: Monsters, Inc. (2001)

In storytelling, there is a tendency to place too much emphasis on endings as indicators of quality. One of the chief criticisms of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is that it's a film which ends four times before it actually finishes, and even the most ardent fans of Stephen King tend to agree that his books are great right until something dumb like a giant spider shows up in place of an actual finale. These might not invalidate the rest of the story being told, which could still be a hugely enjoyable, even beautiful experience up until that point (though if you found the preceding 9 hours of little people walking through lovely locations to be interminable, I can easily see why Return of the King's stuttering finale would be hellish) but since endings are what an audience takes away, they'll be the thing that they remember most clearly.