Article published December 28, 2003
Sometimes the biggest movies were among the best
By CHRISTOPHER BORRELLI
BLADE STAFF WRITER
It was a wonderful year at the movies if you chose wisely, and a repetitive slog if you succumbed to the hard-sell, carpet-bombing advertising strategies that sent the average movie's marketing budget in 2003 north of $15 million, and summer box office to a record take of $3.3 billion.
As usual, 2003 saw a disconnect between the box office and the critical flotsam in its wake - but not a huge one. The heralded arrival of the two Matrix sequels had all the crushing anticipation of an impending second Ice Age, and they didn't disappoint - at least their coffers. Two of the more beloved movies of the year had box office and reviews at their side: Finding Nemo and The Pirates of the Caribbean, which at press time still held on to the No. 1 and No. 2 box office slots for 2003 - but beware, fair Nemo, 'tis no surprise The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King closes fast!
Another winner in 2003, though far less likely, were documentaries. Adults returned to theaters and made relative hits (or, in relation to their costs, blockbusters) of tiny true stories about spelling bees (Spellbound) and unhinged family members (Capturing the Friedmans). Simply watching a goose soar in Winged Migration seemed a needed respite from a culture gone 2 Fast, 2 Furious. More incredible, these even made it into Toledo theaters - in particular, the Franklin Mall 6, which became National Amusements' de facto clearinghouse for specialty films. Yet the relentless flood of new movies, and the conservativeness of the dominant theater chain in town, only underlined a pressing problem:
Toledo needs an independent theater. If only because ticket prices went up yet again last spring - this time to a tier system that saw off-peak screenings at $9 a pop and weekends at $9.25.
At least it was a good year for Toledoans in movies. Alyson Stoner, former Maumee Valley Country Day student, turned up as the bad egg in Steve Martin's Cheaper by the Dozen. And Kevin Cooper, another former Toledoan, co-executive produced that Michael Cain-Robert Duvall schmaltz-a-thon Secondhand Lions.
Meanwhile, Katie Holmes ended her run on Dawson's Creek, but closed the year with one of the sunniest-looking big screen careers in young Hollywood. She started 2003 with a Sundance feeding frenzy for her terrific Pieces of April, and ended it in negotiations to co-star in the next Batman film. As for the following list: If there's a common thread to the movies on it, it's what Pieces of April has in spades and the best filmmakers of our time seem fixated on right now: empathy. It's what kept movies humming this year:1. The School of Rock. Great art about the creation of mediocre art. Why it worked - why it didn't molt into cheap sentiment, or flail into bad slapstick, or why it didn't just turn out as painfully ordinary as everything about it suggested - should remain a mystery to the movie gods. Why I chose it as my favorite for 2003 when so many others (Seabiscuit, etc.) look the part is simpler to explain: No other film this year gave me as much joy, or as much hope that the mainstream isn't dead. Director Richard Linklater, an indie darling for much of the '90s, has grown more daring in recent years, and nothing could be more daring than taking an inspirational comedy about a failed rocker and a bunch of cute kids - and pouring your earnest heart into it. As much as this is a vehicle for Jack Black, it's also the movie equivalent of an AC/DC riff: ham-fisted and corny, but the impact is undeniable.
2. Lost in Translation. The kind of movie you start planning to see again even before it's over: one of those left-field convergences of heart and talent, sliding up against each other at the precise moment of alchemy. Bill Murray has never been better than when playing an aging actor on his way down; Scarlett Johansson, as a lonely newlywed, matches him step for step; while director Sophia Coppola comes into her own, demonstrating a rare ability to get across emotions without big moments. As you would a poem, you feel this film in your bones.
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Name another film series, let alone another trilogy, that has grown more poignant and more passionate with each subsequent installment. The concluding chapter of Peter Jackson's 11-hour adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien classic gives ridiculously expensive studio franchises a good name, upends conventional wisdom about sequels, and proves a rousing tale of courage and anxiety. It's the crowning achievement of a literate, inspiring epic that is itself, the most inspired movie spectacle in memory.
4. Raising Victor Vargas. This overlooked gem from first-time director Peter Sollett is about teenagers as they are. It is true not only because it is not about drugs, gangs, or guns. For a film about a Latino family in a poor neighborhood, it's also not melodramatic or harsh: it's about three average kids raised by their grandmother, and plays as honest as movies got this year. Forget that R rating - it's for a few bad words. Show to anyone who is or was a teenager. Watch as they fall in love and nod in recognition. On video now.
5. Finding Nemo. Luminous doesn't begin to describe the sensation of seeing this instant Pixar classic on a big screen, and allowing its colorful flora and fauna to wash across your eyes. Great animated films do not merely speak to the narrowly cast kiddie demographic that studios bank on. They find something human in a story that could never be told using the physical presence of real humans. Ellen DeGeneres gives one of the most touching performances of the year, and as the voice of forgetful Dory, she is never on the screen. On video now.
6. Mystic River. The most overused word in film criticism is powerful. But if ever that particular sheet of emergency glass needed to be cracked, it was for Clint Eastwood's latest American tragedy, a bruising tale of three childhood friends who plumb all too well the dark potential of human nature. Everything Eastwood knows about filmmaking gets a workout, but it's Sean Penn's performance as a man who loses his daughter and clings to a neighborhood blood code that elevates this ordinary police procedural into the realm of Shakespearian.
7. The Triplets of Belleville. The Americans have their all-digital fantasias, the Japanese their angular anime. This absolutely engrossing and original French confection is notable for doing what animation does best: It rewrites the rules of the form to suit its own oddball whims. I couldn't begin to tell you where the inspiration for it comes from; only that, for starters, it's part Chuck Jones, part Popeye, and part perverse alien sensibility. Alien, as in "from another planet." Elderly women hunt frogs with grenades, steamships stretch to skyscraper heights, and a grandmother must rescue her grandson from a delightful barrage of non sequiturs, including the French mob. Currently playing in New York to qualify for the Oscars, look for it to make the rounds early next year.
8. American Splendor. As warm a portrait of a dyspeptic Cleveland mensch as you will ever see. Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini make an exquisite and funny case for the well-observed and militantly normal life of comic book artist Harvey Pekar. He's played by Paul Giamatti, who nails every slouch and shrug, but also by the real Harvey, and sometimes by an animated Harvey. Sometimes all incarnations share the screen. It's a bold rethinking of the movie biography, with an Oscar-worthy performance from Hope Davis as Harvey's wife. Now aren't you sorry you skipped it in Toledo last September? Penance is within reach: The video hits stores Feb. 3.
9. Bad Santa. Enlightened vulgarity that makes no compromises, offers no apologies, more or less assaults everything fair and decent about the holiday season - and every time I see the commercial for this wildly soiled Billy Bob Thornton chestnut I think back to when I first saw it and laughed so hard that my stomach cramped up. Terry Zwigoff, best known for acclaimed art house favorites like Crumb and Ghost World, is working perfectly in sync with his wary view of mankind: Here is raunch made by adults, for adults. And by the way, am I the only who thinks this is one of the best written films of 2003? Obscenities rarely get this creative.
10. The Fog of War. Documentary legend Errol Morris is never better than when traversing the moral relativism of men. So he couldn't land a better subject than the life lessons of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, whose policies and decisions span the firebombing of Japan during World War II to the invasion of Vietnam in the 1960s. McNamara fixes his eye squarely on the camera and offers remorse, pride, and candor. Morris looks back with empathy and an unblinking critical eye, and the result is a film that should be mandatory viewing for historians and presidents alike. Although The Fog of War is playing the east and west coasts now to qualify for the Academy Awards, it's expected to open in the Toledo-Ann Arbor corridor early in the new year.
Honorable Mentions (in no order): Bus 174, 21 Grams, All the Real Girls, Spellbound, X2: X-Men United, Balseros, Love Actually, Pieces of April, Capturing the Friedmans, Winged Migration, To Be and To Have, Whale Rider, Elephant, The Italian Job, In This World, Kill Bill Vol. 1, The Company, Stuck on You.
Worst of the Year (in no order): Gigli, Gods and Generals, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Alex & Emma, Veronica Guerin, Bad Boys II, Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat, Timeline, The Life of David Gale, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, Masked and Anonymous, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
I could go on, if you'd like.
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