Well, folks, another year at the movies is coming to a close, and it’s time for this critic to shine a spotlight on films that made this year memorable and reassuring at a time when so much mainstream cinema is little more than filler and advertisements for other products. Here are 10 films that kept quality a top priority in the face of ever-lowering consumer standards, 10 films that will be remembered-should be remembered-10 films that mattered. Here are my 10 favorite films of 2003.
1. “Lost in Translation”-Sofia Coppola’s second film as a director is sad, sweet and richly funny, and it’s every bit as quietly affecting as her debut feature, “The Virgin Suicides.” Bill Murray is an aging and increasingly disillusioned actor making some easy cash by shooting a whiskey campaign in Japan. There he repeatedly crosses paths with a lonely young newlywed played by Scarlett Johansson, and their interactions grow in only a few days from casual barroom banter to cab-hopping misadventures through the insanely bustling streets of nighttime Tokyo. Coppola’s original script is a joyful amalgam of travelogue, character study, culture clash comedy and mostly a love story between two people who find each other at a time when each needs reassurance that life is more than an endless series of happy accidents, idle chit-chat and empty hotel rooms. Johansson is outstanding, but Murray is perfection, turning in the most nuanced and emotionally arresting performance of his career as the December half of the central romance. It’s a beautiful film, airy and bittersweet, haunting and occasionally hilarious, and it cements Coppola as one of America’s finest burgeoning purveyors of independent film.
2. “City of God”-This true story is a brutal and unflinching recollection of a time and place when disco ignited dance floors and teenagers ruled the slums of Rio with tempers flared and guns blazing. Directors Katia Lund and Fernando Mierelles deliver a blood-curdling horror story in human terms, a study of a mad, fear-driven community in which manhood can only be determined through violence. Nothing hurts like the truth, and this film feels unsettlingly true, so unsparing and harrowing in its depictions of murder and chaos that it may knot the stomach of even the most impervious audience member. A sober eulogy for the lost and stolen childhoods of its protagonists and a heated condemnation of the society that would allow their situation to reach epidemic proportions, this film is unforgettable.
3. “All the Real Girls”-David Gordon Green’s ode to the awkwardness and fragility of young love is pure cinematic poetry-an achingly earnest and personal study of small-town romance that is most astounding for its uncanny ability to capture the feelings and hyperbolic emotions of first honest love. Green’s knack for naturalistic dialogue makes the exchanges between leads Paul Schneider and Zooey Deschanel seem playfully off-the-cuff and bracingly intimate.
Deschanel is particularly effective in an ingenue turn that feels more like existing than acting, and the great Patricia Clarkson dominates the film in her brief scenes as Schneider’s concerned, sad-hearted mother. Moody and intoxicating, this battered valentine lingers in the memory long after it is over.
4. “Whale Rider”-There’s something magical and magnetically watchable about director Nici Caro’s lyrical rumination on the disintegration and potential rebirth of Maori culture. Young Keisha Castle-Hughes is splendid as the girl who believes she is destined to lead her people, despite the disapproval of her gruff grandfather and the tribal tenet that only allows a man to be chief. The mythical and the modern collide as the film takes audiences on the girl’s moving emotional journey from rejection to redemption in an awe-inspiring finale that’s mysticism is grounded in just enough reality to make it all feel perfectly natural.
5. “The Station Agent”-Diminutive Peter Dinklage is a marvel of dignified restraint as the protagonist of this affectionate indie. Dinklage stars as Fin, a train-obsessed dwarf who inherits an abandoned depot in a sleepy New Jersey town and wants little more than to keep to himself and watch trains barrel across the bridge spanning the local creek. Bobby Cannavale and Patricia Clarkson are superb as the two lonely locals who infiltrate Fin’s solitude in writer-director Tom McCarthy’s simple fable of second chances and new beginnings. Laced with gentle humor and dramatic without ever being sentimental, this gem is a pleasure to watch from beginning to end.
6. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World-Master director Peter Weir adds another stunner to his rsum with this maritime adventure based on Patrick O’Brien’s beloved book series. Russell Crowe is as masterful and commanding as the title implies in the titular role of Brit naval captain “Lucky” Jack Aubrey, and Paul Bettany is Oscar-worthy as Jack’s closest seabound friend, the ship’s surgeon who’d rather be studying wildlife than patching up sailors. Weir’s small, humanistic approach has rarely had a more expansive canvas than this large-scale Hollywood production, and the director’s results have rarely been this insightful and entertaining at the same time. An allegory, a Napoleonic-era action spectacular and an unabashed art film about the friendship between two strong-willed, middle-aged men, this film truly is a unique and rewarding cinematic experience.
7. Mystic River-Ensemble acting doesn’t get any better than in Clint Eastwood’s brooding tragedy about three childhood friends whose lives are forever marred when one of them is abducted by a pair of ruthless child molesters. Things get even more bleak years later when one of the trio’s daughters is murdered. Another of the trio is assigned to investigate the case, and the other seems to be the prime suspect. The boys are played in their adult incarnations by Kevin Bacon, a violently imploding Tim Robbins and, in one of the best performances of the year, Sean Penn as the grieving father with revenge on his mind. Brian Helgeland’s lacerating script adaptation, Eastwood’s artful direction and great performances from the male leads and supporting actress Marcia Gay Harden add up to a bleak, challenging film as powerful as anything to come out of Hollywood in recent memory.
8. Seabiscuit-Part Hollywood dream, part history lesson, and all entertainment, this true story is old-fashioned crowd-pleasing at its best. Tobey Maguire is good as the hobbled jockey hero, Chris Cooper is great as the crusty horse whisperer and Jeff Bridges is larger than life as the visionary businessman whose wealth, blind belief, and showmanship helped rally a nation in support of the broken nag that would go on to become one of America’s most improbable and most beloved sports icons.
9. Kill Bill Vol. One-Visceral, bold, brilliant. Quentin Tarantino’s ultra-violent paean to martial arts and ’70s exploitation proves that style can be fully captivating with only an afterthought of substance. A paper-thin revenge plotline is merely a set-up for immaculately choreographed and gorgeously photographed fight scenes, with Tarantino’s usual grab bag of pop, pulp and pathos all but spilling over with mischief and invention.
10. Better Luck Tomorrow-Writer/director Justin Lin paints a penetrating and often darkly comic portrait of teenage and Asian-American angsts in this tale of a high-school overachiever coming to terms with his hormones and his ethnicity while falling deeper and deeper into a seductive life of small-time crime. A fresh-faced cast and razor-sharp script make Lin’s debut hum and pulse with palpable adrenaline.
And that’s it ’til next year, movie fans. Have a safe holiday break and I’ll see you in The Reflector next semester.