2003 Top Ten Favorite Films


I hate to say it but the last time I really posted anything substantial here was my 2002 Top Ten. Please don't hate me because I procrastinate.

Here is my list of favorites

1. American Splendor

I really, really liked it. I have been a fan of the comic American Splendor for almost 20 years and I really, really liked the way they adapted the original material for the screen. Really.

2. Whale Rider
3. Bend it Like Beckham

Real girl power from New Zealand and the U.K.

4. Touching the Void

An amazing survival story of two climbers trapped by a storm at the summit of a remote peak in Peru. Then one breaks his leg and the real trouble begins. A documentary that deftly intersperses gripping reenactments with gripping talking heads.

5. Dracula: Pages from a Virgins Diary

A film of a ballet based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. If that sounds good to you then you will love this. If that sounds weird to you then you will still love it.
Directed in a stylized pseudo-silent era film style by Guy Maddin, who also directed a near miss film for my list this year The Saddest Music in the World also in a sylized pseudo-silent era style.

6. The School of Rock

The laugh out loud funniest feel good movie of the year. Do I really need to say Jack Black Rules.

7. Lost in Translation

Poigniant, understated, and everybody's obligatory top ten film, so what do you need my two cents for.

8. Story of the Weeping Camel

A wonderful documentary made as a student project by a German film class in Mongolia. You get a wonderful cast of real people surviving in an isolated part of the world in large part due to the health of their camel herd. A mother camel rejects her calf and a muscian needs to be brought to perform the ceremony that will get them to bond, or the calf will starve. Unfortunately the nearest muscian who can perform the ceremony is 500 miles away. And yes, the baby lives, and the mother really does weep.

9. Bubba-ho-Tep

Bruce Campbell as Elvis and JFK (in the body of Ossie Davis) battle Egyptian mummies in a nursing home in Texas. What more do you need to know.

10. Ong Bak: Muy Thai Warrior
From Thailand comes the most fun, most spectacular, martial arts film since The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk, and the star "insert unpronouncable name here" is certainly the next Jackie Chan and Jet Li rolled into one. All stunts seen are seen actual size. No Wires.
No special effects.

Honorable Mentions: The Saddest Music in the World Shattered Glass; Thirteen; Zatoichi; 28 Days Later; Swimming Pool; Fulltime Killer; The Legend of Suriyothai; The Eye.

If my list seems especially devoid of big Hollywood prestige Blockbusters such as Master and Commander, Mystic River, Lord of the Rings, Cold Mountain, The Last Samurai, Seabiscuit, etc. Well that's because I didn't see them. None of them. I don't really even know why. I do fully intend to see The Lord of the Rings, but beyond that none of the usual Academy suspects this year really held much allure for me. I don't think they suck. I'm not against Hollywood movies per se. I just am at the point where I don't really feel obligated to see what I don't particularly want to see. If that means I'm missing alot of good films, well, I could give you a list a mile long of other good films I missed and you know life is short and movies are long, nowadays mostly way too long.

So as they used to say in Rome de gustibus non disputandum. I really feel strongly that in matters of taste it is silly, completely silly, to argue over someones likes and dislikes. If I like something that you thought was absolute drivel what am I supposed to do about that? "Sorry I guess I was wrong. I guess I really didn't enjoy that movie for whatever strange idiosyncratic reason. I guess that film really didn't appeal to my particular unique individual perspective."

Think of aesthetic preferences as if they were sexual fetishes. If leather boots or golden showers turn you on, then who am I to say they shouldn't. Hollywood movies are sort of like the missionary position with the lights off. The majority of people are doing it and they seem to be enjoying it. That doesn't mean your sex life can't be a four hour sub-titled epic set in a Soviet tractor factory, but it doesnt really make you better than everybody either.

If you prefer Happy Gilmore to The Sweet Hereafter what is that to me or you. We live in a world with a dizzying array of entertainment choices where Adam Sandler and Atom Egoyan can exist side by side and one doesn't need to kill the other.

Next: My top TV shows and Favorite Reads and why you should love them too.