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2003: A Year in
Review
by
Ian Waldron-Mantgani, December 31, 2003
In the real world, the big news was the war in
Iraq, as we saw Georgey boy get to play with his toys and his nervous little
buddy Tony go grey finding rationalisations to hop alongside. At the movies,
on a whole other note, I noticed an unwholesome trend of disappointing
threequels. "Spy Kids 3-D", "Terminator 3", "The Matrix Revolutions" and
"American Pie: The Wedding" were all surprisingly sucky. "Once Upon a Time
in Mexico" was fun, but could have been better. The new Harry Potter movie
didn't even come out. The year ended, thankfully, with "Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King", which was so good it felt like a finger to the
screw-ups.
But anyway. My top ten of the year:
1. The
Hours
It moves along with a lot of fancy cuts and swirling music. It has anguished
issues laid bare on the surface. It could have been phoney, or silly and
melodramatic. But it's so beautifully put together, so empathetic, that it
feels like a long gaze into the souls of the characters. Stephen Daldry used
to be a theatre director, and he assembles a fine cast of players -- Nicole
Kidman won an Oscar as Virginia Woolf, Julianne Moore is the 50s housewife
reading "Mrs. Dalloway", Meryl Streep is a modern-day version of the Dalloway
character, and there is also Jeff Daniels, Ed Harris, Claire Danes, Stephen
Dillaney. Still, this is no vanity showcase or theatrical piece of boredom;
it's alive, cinematic and shatteringly soulful.
2.
Adaptation
Charlie Kaufman tries to adapt "The Orchid Thief" for the screen, and ends
up writing himself into his screenplay, writing a movie about its own writing,
and having ethical debates with a fictional twin brother. It's nuts. It's
hilarious. Its subject is how screenwriting formulas go nowhere, and it is
itself constructed in a formula -- such is its twisted sense of humour. Nicolas
Cage plays both Charlie and Donald Kaufman, and the best parts of the movie
are Charlie's wildly overblown neuroses and Donald's sweet dopiness. This
is not only a movie about issues in modern-day Hollywood, but about how it
feels to be a writer; the pathetic opening monologue cuts uncomfortably deep
for we who put words on paper. By capturing all that paranoid self-doubt
so well, and creating a work from it that is so entertaining, the movie helped
me get on the road to conquering my own internal anxieties. Or at least,
it made them seem more human.
3. Kill Bill
Vol.1
Just a beautiful, colourful, rhythmic cauldron of images, which wows us with
bits of stylish fighting and then slaps us around with violence that is truly
shocking. The first part of Quentin Tarantino's tribute to grindhouse movies
and kung-fu schlockarama was hilarious, sickening, pointless and brilliant
-- it feels the way video game movies should but never do, throwing gore
at us artfully instead of laboriously trudging through meaningless story
points and stopping for action scenes when it feels it should. I went down
to London to see it a week ahead of its nationwide release, I saw it twice
in two days, and if I have to, I'll do the same for "Vol. 2".
4. Catch
Me If You Can
Steven Spielberg doesn't often do comedy, but I thought this was a minor
masterpiece. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the real-life conman Frank Abagnale,
who ran away from home at 16 and got a lot of money and girls by posing as
an airline pilot, lawyer, doctor, you name it. The movie captures the thrill
of watching a charming scoundrel get away with something, and the inner sadness
of the DiCaprio character, which takes over in the lonely second half, is
touching without letting the movie lose its sense of style.
5. Intolerable Cruelty
The Coen Brothers try and do Preston Sturges, filling their dialogue with
zingers that ramble on with literate beauty, crack ironic jokes about personality
types and drop little truisms in a manner of snappy sharpness. The film is
a cynical but fast-paced and bright-looking romantic comedy, with Catherine
Zeta-Jones as a money-chasing shark and George Clooney as the jaded divorce
attorney who knows all about her but cannot resist her charms and enjoys
having met his match. Those two face off, one-liners abound, eccentric side
characters buzz around. The movie as a whole might be sort of uneven, but
every individual scene is some sort of comic masterpiece.
6. 8 Mile
Eminem could have made a stupid star vehicle like "Cool as Ice", especially
from this premise, a semi-autobiographical story of the struggles of a young
white rapper in 1995 Detroit. But he shed his ego to play a scared, nervous
dreamer, and Curtis Hanson directed with documentary seriousness. The rap
battles at the end make the movie explode in creative energy and the liberating
feeling of pulling off an achievement; this is "The Karate Kid" for the 21st
Century, but hey, what's wrong with that?
7. Cinemania
A lot of critics called this an eerie and comic story of oddballs, and that's
not exactly wrong, but it is a bit reductive. It's a documentary about social
outcasts who mostly live off savings, welfare or inheritance and do nothing
but obsessively plan schedules and watch movies all day long. There's an
old lady who does not suffer fools gladly, a childlike innocent with a silly
giggle, an old man who collects hundreds of beaten-up videotapes, a lost
soul with an affinity for European cinema who hopes to meet a girl with similar
interests, a guy who likes the classics and uses a cellphone to call the
projection booth when the screen does not look perfect. These people are
abnormal, for sure, but I found the movie sweet -- they follow their interests,
and it keeps them gentle and happy in their own little worlds, instead of
going nuts from the loneliness or becoming deviant sex pests. The way they
talk is absorbing, most of them are realistic and philosophical about their
situations, and I found it enchanting to watch them amble around New York
as the camera showed off the possibilities of the great city's cinema
screens.
8. 25th
Hour
Spike Lee uses the techniques he's been playing with over the past couple
of years -- angry monologues; constant use of music; grainy photography;
dreamy, dramatic repetitions of shots -- and uses them to full effect, to
create a feeling of clutching at empty nothingness, in a powerful tale of
a guy's last day before prison. Edward Norton plays Monty, a drug dealer
who wonders where his life went, why he made all the wrong choices, whether
he has any friends left. The acting and the film assembly made this a movie
that has kept repeating itself in my head since I saw it in early May.
9. Lord of the
Rings: The Return of the King
The end of the journey, where courage is more important than at any other
time, fates are going to be decided and stakes are high. There is such an
emotional sweep to the last entry of this series, so wrenching a sense of
eleventh-hour intensity. I liked the other two movies but haven't exactly
been a fan; now, I think, I'm as converted as ever I will be. Peter Jackson
and his collaborators have made a trilogy of astonishing beauty and scope.
Andy Serkis, who provides the voice of the wretched little liar Gollum, tormented
and driven by his lust to steal the ring, gives such an amazing performance
that he should win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. I don't think he
will, but if he doesn't it will be because the Academy cannot appreciate
vocal performance or the fantasy genre as much as soupy dramatic showboating
and well-publicised roles by people who are already famous.
10. Phone
Booth
Great high-concept thriller idea: A guy will be stuck in a phone booth for
the whole movie -- if he tries to leave, a sniper will blow his head off.
The screenwriter, Larry Cohen, turns it into a well-paced morality play and
introduces delay tactics in a way that makes them feel like random, intense
and frustrating interruptions. Joel Schumacher directs it with as much visual
invention as the premise allows, without going over the top. Colin Farrell
gives a performance of prickish charm, as an arrogant cad who gradually crumbles,
getting more desperate for his life and sorry for his mistakes.
There are a couple of movies that maybe should
be on the list, but I kept debating about: I loved the energy and power of
"City of God", but I saw it back in January,
haven't yet had a second viewing, and am not sure whether it was as good
as I thought, or how good that is even if it was. I'll probably see it again
and kick myself for leaving it out, but what can ya do.
"Irreversible" packed even more shocking
punches, but I'm not sure if I could ever sit through it again, and besides,
would its unfolding-in-reverse story of loss and tragedy work as well a second
time? "Lilya 4-Ever" was a heartbreaking film
about a girl from Eastern Europe who drifted into prostitution, shot in the
powerful, unpretentious and original style of director Lukas Moodysson;
"The Shape of Things" was a surprising,
uncomfortably insightful relationship nightmare by Neil LaBute -- I would
have loved to have included them, but I just didn't know where to put them.
Nor could I find a place for "The Last Great Wildnerness", which works
well as a road movie, a horror story, an eccentric drama on the edges of
black comedy and just a wacked-out violent thriller, and is a perfect example
of how to make a real movie using cruddy locations and a DV camera.
More good pictures: "All the Real Girls",
"Far From Heaven",
"Gangs of New York" (flat-out amazing,
until the muddled ending), "Jackass",
"Nowhere in Africa", "The
Pianist", "Punch-Drunk Love",
"The Rules of Attraction", Steven
Soderbergh's overlooked "Solaris" remake,
"Tadpole" (underrated, and better than the okay but smug "Igby Goes
Down"), "Undercover Brother". There
was "X2: X-Men United", which would have had
a place on the top ten if it hadn't been for the overlong last act. I think
I liked "Chicago", too… I can totally appreciate
the it- takes-more-than-match-cuts-and-legs-to-impress-me attitude on that
one, but in the final analysis, it doesn't take much more than match cuts
and legs to impress me. And for all its flaws, it had a stylish flavour.
Biggest disappointment:
"The Matrix Revolutions". The idea that
the sequels were made for cash doesn't quite hold water, but they still didn't
live up to expectations. Andy and Larry Wachowski probably think they made
a profound epic about choice, but I don't think they realise how the journey
of their messiah figure isn't as interesting as the idea of the matrix itself,
and on that score, nothing has changed from the end of the first movie to
the closing of the trilogy. Why did they bother? And why did they call it
"Revolutions"?
Nicest surprise: Nothing, really, although
"Blue Crush" and
"Freddy vs. Jason" were better than you would
have guessed from the ads or plot summaries.
Most overrated: "Finding Nemo". I love
Pixar animation, but this one turns their shtick into a formula -- take a
bunch of human stereotypes, like neurotics, surfers, suburban dads, whatever,
and put them in animal form. Add celebrity voices so we can play the
spot-the-personality game. The water effects were cool, but not as revolutionary
as a lot of people pretended. Ellen DeGeneres was annoying.
Most underrated:
"Gigli". The journalists who made out like
this was some sort of embarrassing travesty were really just acting like
gossip columnists and putting Ben Affleck and J-Lo in their place. It's not
a great movie, but it is beautifully shot, it has good performances and its
attempts to be a sophisticated dialogue comedy were respectably
ambitious.
Worst: "In the
Cut".
As for significant, probably interesting movies
I didn't see… well, there are quite a lot: "Biggie and Tupac", "Camp",
"Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle", "Confidence", "Dark Blue", "Down with
Love", "Elf", "Etre et Avoir", "Gerry", "Holes", "Hollywood Homicide", "In
America", "In This World", F. Gary Gray's remake of "The Italian Job", "The
Magdalene Sisters", "Max", "The Man on the Train", "Open Hearts", "Party
Monster", "Raising Victor Vargas", "Secretary", "The Singing Detective",
"Spellbound", "Spun", "Swimming Pool", "Thirteen", Lucas Belvaux's "Trilogy",
"Unknown Pleasures".
Wow, that is a lot, and I apologise. But to be
frank, this has been just about the worst year of my life, for a lot of disparate
and soul-sucking reasons, and I guess I just lost a lot of motivation. I
shall try harder next year. I shall focus with the strength of Aragorn and
the noble perseverance of Andy Dufresne. Or I'll do the closest I can.
Promise.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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