Peter Rainer in New York Magazine:

Gosford Park
Robert Altman's best movie in years, a period murder-mystery set at an English estate, is satisfying as a whodunit but also as a whydunit that features a dream cast that includes Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, and Alan Bates.

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/news/articles/01/2001inreview/movies.htm

plus from his full length GP review:

"...Jeremy Northam's Ivor Novello, the real-life English matinee idol who croons darling ditties at the piano with unembarrassed panache..."

http://www.nymag.com/page.cfm?page_id=5518

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New York Times December 23, 2001

STEPHEN HOLDEN'S PICKS

The Year in Movies

5. `GOSFORD PARK' Robert Altman's finest film in years is a triumph of ensemble acting for a mostly British cast that includes almost everyone who's anyone. The sociologically acute vision of upstairs-downstairs relationships at an English country estate in 1932 is also a whodunit spilling over with juicy revelations and family secrets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/movies/_23HOLD.html?searchpv=nytToday

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New York Times December 23, 2001

A. O. SCOTT'S PICKS

4. `GOSFORD PARK' In his best movie since "Short Cuts," Robert Altman turns the conventions of the English country house murder mystery inside out, offering a piquant anatomy of class divisions and imperial decadence. At 76, Mr. Altman has not lost a step, and he directs with the exuberance of a passionate entomologist who has just discovered a curious new species of ant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/movies/_23SCOT.html?searchpv=nytToday&pagewant\
ed=print

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A perilous cruise through the heart of 2001 The year was a near disaster, but here are 10 films
(13, really) that did deliver. By David Sterritt | Staff writer The Christian Science
Monitor December 21, 2001 NEW YORK - Let's face it, friends in movieland: The year 2001 was a lot less exciting than the movie "2001," which didn't even get the wide-scale revival it deserved. Month after month brought disappointment after disappointment - a diverting romp here, a mildly original story there, but little that clung to memory once the final credits had faded. Compiling a 10-best list is challenging on such occasions. But hey, I'm a film critic, so danger is my business. Although some of the pictures chosen here were let-downs when I saw them, at year's end they stand out as the best of the crop. I've listed them in alphabetical order, except for the Iranian films that close the roster with a four-way tie...................

--Gosford Park. Robert Altman's rambling satire takes a not-so-discreet peek at just about everyone in an English mansion during a hunting-party weekend about 70 years ago, almost beating the TV classic "Upstairs Downstairs" at its own class-conscious game. A key
figure in modern American film, Altman helped invent and refine this sort of large-canvas comedy in pictures like "Nashville" and "The Player." While this doesn't quite reach their level, it has high-spirited humor and thoughtful subtexts to spare.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1221/p18s1-almo.html

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