In general, 2003 is a so-so year at the movies. There’s probably a good reason for that though. Hollywood, nay, the planet, could only see one movie this year. One movie to rule them all. One movie to blind them. One movie to bring them all, and at the Oscars bind them!
Though Bong Joon Ho gets all the overseas praise, Park Chan Wook is no slouch himself, making nearly as many interesting films. Consider this twisted tale, a strange weird mystery that grows in fascinating perversion very quickly. Korea’s version of a dark joke is really messed up.
The classic sports movie, just with horses. Gary Ross wonderfully ties in the underdog horse into the era he raced in, and interesting characters around him, played by great actors like Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper and Tobey Maguire that will make everyone leaving the theater satisfied.
From regular horses to sea horses. Pixar’s luscious, lovely tale of a father fish searching for his lost son uses pieces of Disney past to paste together something fresh and modern. Plus Ellen Degeneres’s Dory is one of the great animated characters in recent memory.
As a freshmen in college at the time, I was the perfect audience for the movie. Doesn’t matter though, cause Todd Phillips got Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and especially Will Ferrell as their careers were all taking off, and in the hands of Phillips, one of the funnier dudes in Hollywood, this movie’s packed with laughs and quotes aplenty. You’re my boy Blue!
This movie is an original little delight. Nicholas Cage plays a con man with OCD, who learns over the course of the movie that he has a daughter from an ex. The movie plays it irreverent for a long time, letting Cage do his thing with reckless abandon.
For many Christmas is a time of love and empathy. This movie is not for those people. It’s for the douche bags, jerk offs, and a holes who still exist around Christmastime and choose to punch someone under the mistletoe instead. Props to Billy Bob Thornton and especially Lauren Graham, playing one of the more twisted comedic creations in recent memory.
Everyone’s been a fish out of water at some point in their life. Lost in Translation is Sofia Coppola’s empathetic love letter to those folks, and the simple joy in those situations of finding another lost soul and connecting with them. ScarJo officially became a thing because of this movie, and Bill Murray was robbed of his Oscar; this is arguably his best dramatic performance.
This movie is the proof that Charlize Theron was not just a pretty face. Playing the murderer Aileen Wuornos, Theron walks a tightrope of playing the woman as someone capable of violence and a completely empathetic tragic figure who acted because of a life of being hurt by others.
The only worthy competitor to #1. Fernando Meirelles’s masterpiece is Brazil’s version of Goodfellas. Except instead of older Italians, this movie looks at the children in Rio’s favelas. The movie walks this incredible line of being compellingly watchable and honest, horrific and bleak, a rare feat only the greatest of films can pull off.
There’s a reason this film swept the Oscars: it’s the culmination of the 2 films preceeding it. This movie improves upon the world building and character development of The Fellowship of the Ring, the amazing battles and set pieces of The Two Towers, and adds the emotional heft and catharsis a finale brings. Fantasy filmmaking will never be better than this masterpiece. That’s why it’s my favorite film of all time.
