A DRIVE ALONG 'MULHOLLAND' LEADS THE PACK.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

Earlier this year, I wrote a piece celebrating (although that might be too joyous a word for the task) 25 years of summer movies, ranking the past quarter-century's popcorn offerings in terms of quality. I mention this because judging by the anguished outcry from film critics this year, you'd think that they had just died and gone straight to hell (i.e. the neighborhood multiplex).

All the hand-wringing was a little overwrought, in my book. While it is true that most movies today are tentative, stupid and bland, it should be noted that this was the case 10, 20 and 40 years ago, too. Any summer that gives us ``Ghost World,'' ``Shrek'' and ``A.I.'' is better than, say, 1990, which boasted ``The Adventures of Ford Fairlane,'' ``Another 48 Hrs.,'' ``Gremlins 2,'' ``Back to the Future Part III,'' ``Robocop II,'' ``Die Hard 2: Die Harder'' and ``Flatliners,'' with ``Ghost'' and ``Dick Tracy'' being the only middling pleasures.

And just as this summer gave us some great movies, so did all of 2001. There was an abundance of enjoyable independent films and foreign movies released this year, and the studios chipped in their share, culminating in the wondrous spectacle of the new ``Lord of the Rings'' movie.

In fact, this year's list was much easier to compile than last year's. That and the knowledge that there will be a new ``Rings'' saga in theaters this time next year gives me some hope for the future.

1. ``Mulholland Drive'': A sexy, fantastic fever dream that is, among other things, about dreams themselves, specifically the fantasies that Hollywood promotes and fabricates. David Lynch takes his familiar themes and bizarre indulgences and coalesces them into a haunting movie that combines surrealism and film noir into a genre bound only by imagination. Added bonus: Naomi Watts' amazing breakthrough performance as the oh-so-conflicted ingenue.

2. ``Memento'': Christopher Nolan's brilliant thriller was more than a one-trick pony masquerading as a substance-over-style movie. If nothing else, the movie was a savvy comment on the temporal nature of memory in our postmodern society where headlines (and our recollections of them) are as disposable as a summer blockbuster movie. Guy Pearce should nab an Oscar for his work.

3. ``Ghost World'': A one-of-a-kind coming-of-age movie that perfectly captures the awkwardness of adolescence as well as the huge chasm that exists between individualism and the Wal-Mart conformity that rules our land. Playing the film's alienated heroine, Thora Birch (``American Beauty'') demonstrates again her talent for turning a beautiful loser into a real winner.

4. ``The Royal Tenenbaums'': Wes Anderson's wry masterpiece mines territory - dysfunctional families, uneasy reunions - that's not exactly new, but the film plumbs the subjects with such extraordinary inventiveness and imagination that it feels fresh and alive. The Tenenbaums may not be instantly relatable - Anderson doesn't even bother trying to make them so - but by the film's end, this family's journey packs such an emotional wallop that you'll need to sit through the closing credits just to recover.

5. ``In the Mood for Love'': The year's most erotic movie was also its most melancholy. War Kar-wai's tale of two neighbors who learn their spouses are having an affair smolders with mood and atmosphere, repression and longing, creating a dreamlike meditation on the nature of lost love. Positively mesmerizing from beginning to end, if this movie doesn't get you in the mood for love, you need to have your libido checked.

6. ``The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'': The rare epic with authentic beauty and passion to spare, Peter Jackson's spectacular adventure succeeds precisely because it was made in New Zealand, light-years (not to mention several time zones) away from the dumbed-down mandate of Hollywood. As such, it is a miracle of a movie that not only meets our high expectations but actually surpasses them.

7. ``Shrek'': It's DreamWorks' bad luck that, in the first year of a newly created Oscar category for animated movies, it released a film that is deserving of winning the whole shebang. Smart and funny and strikingly animated, ``Shrek'' skewers classic fairy-tale stories while spinning its own sweet yarn about a lovable and lonely ogre looking for love and proving that ugly is in the eye of the beholder.

8. ``Amelie'': A feel-good movie that earns its audience's love, this charming French film is as much about movie magic as anything else, a joyful, visually dazzling work that celebrates humanity in a way that doesn't manipulate or bore you to tears. And, in this era of cloying romance, that counts for a lot.

9. ``A.I.'': The haunting collaboration between Steven Spielberg and the late Stanley Kubrick polarized audiences, with most folks coming down on the ``hate it worse than having my fingernails yanked one by one'' side. Their loss. ``A.I.'' combined epic adventure, apocalyptic prophecy, a love story and a futuristic rewriting of the ``Pinocchio'' fable into a wondrous fable bursting at the seams with imagination and feeling. Note to Spielberg: People hated ``The Wizard of Oz'' when it was released, too.

10. ``Lantana'': Of the three movies that used murder to survey the concerns of middle-age adults (``In the Bedroom'' and ``The Deep End'' were the others), this one worked the best, probably because it had a sense of humor about its subject. It's an elegant movie about love, infidelity and loss of identity, and you won't find a better ensemble cast in any movie this year.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1) ``Mulholland Drive''

(2) ``A.I.''