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Written by Pete Timmermann Monday, 24 April 2006 05:08

Somewhere around the middle of the summer, a lot of film critics started bitching about what a bad year for movies it had been so far. Even the Internet Movie Database had a poll that asked why it had been such a bad year for movies (“It hasn’t been a bad year for movies” wasn’t an option). This is just wrong. 2003 has been the best year for movies since 1999, and a great deal of the year’s best movies came in the first half of the year. Just to narrow this list down to ten took a great deal of effort, eliminating films that would have been previous years’ lists had they been released earlier. Even on top of these, there will certainly be people who look at this list and see the lack of Mystic River, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and/or Finding Nemo, and assume I am an idiot for not including them. See what I mean about it being a great year for movies?

 

1. All the Real Girls (Sony Pictures Classics, Rated R)
I’ve seen All the Real Girls four times now, and every time it occurs to me more and more how scripted and intentional a lot of the scenes look and feel. It is odd, then, that ATRG comes the closest to capturing the rhythms and feeling of real life more than any other film in recent memory. If a larger number of films felt as realistic as Real Girls does, we could all stop living our lives altogether and just sit around watching movies all of the time. And I don’t know about you, but that is my ultimate goal.

2. Melvin Goes to Dinner (Showtime Original Pictures, Not Rated)
Playback has already featured a cover story about this movie, so I’ll spare you more raving. Seeing it on DVD, though, called to my attention how much it looks like the low-budget, direct-to-video movie that it wound up being (it was shot on digital video and the camerawork is pretty crappy). It’s a testament to the near-perfect script and the way-too-engaging actors that it took three viewings to notice what is usually a fatal flaw in independent films. And with Melvin, it didn’t make me think any less of the film.

3. Lost in Translation (Focus Features, Rated R)
Although I seem to be the only person on the face of the Earth who thinks Bill Murray overplayed the role of aging actor Bob Harris (albeit only by a little), the combination of the premise, locale, and the hypnotizing Scarlett Johansson was enough to make Translation worthy of the never-ending hype. There is a lot of buzz about Murray finally getting his Oscar nomination out of this film (it should have been Rushmore, dammit), but that’s being shortsighted. Here’s hoping Sofia Coppola’s writing and directing, Lance Acord’s cinematography, Kevin Shields’ score, and Johansson’s acting all get what they deserve come February.

4. Bad Santa (Dimension Films, Rated R)
Man, oh man, do I love vulgarity. And not since Clerks has a film been as vulgar as Bad Santa, which tramples every other recently relesed comedy on the laugh meter. Leave it to Terry Zwigoff, director of such modern classics as Ghost World and Crumb, to bring a film as dirty and irredeemable as Bad Santa to mainstream cinemas, much less under Dimension Films’ distribution (they’re owned by Disney). The fact that seeing the movie exceeds one’s expectations by a long shot makes it a newly minted Christmas classic, and the only one exclusively for adults.

5. City of God (Miramax, Rated R)
In a year that had many epic action movies, a number of which were very good, none topped the Brazilian City of God, which shows the life of gangsters who are barely teenagers, and does so very convincingly. What’s more, it is not at all a depressing or unentertaining film, but it manages to balance everything so as not to be mistaken as promoting, justifying, or glamorizing violence in any way, shape, or form. An amazing feat (and an amazing film), indeed.

6. The Station Agent (Miramax, Rated R)
Here’s yet another comedy in a year of great comedies, this time starring Peter Dinklage as a dwarf who moves to a small town and has to learn to put up with all of the eccentric locals. It sounds like typical bullshit indie fodder, and it kind of is, in a way, but it still coaxes many laughs and one or two dramatic moments out of the concept. Dinklage is perfect as the world-weary dwarf; he makes one remember why dwarves in movies are so beloved in the first place.

7. Raising Victor Vargas (Samuel Goldwyn Films/Fireworks Pictures, Rated R)
Raising Victor Vargas has many similarities with All the Real Girls, everything from themes (young love) to cinematography (by Tim Orr). Still, the two films are dissimilar enough that you could make a mind-blowingly good double feature out of them without feeling as if you were watching two movies on the same subject. It is rare that a romantic comedy (though not a stereotypical one) centered around teenagers is so entertaining, but it is easy to see why Victor manages to jump this hurdle: star Victor Rasuk has exceeded the legal limit of charisma allotted to 18-year olds.

8. Irreversible (Lions Gate Films, Not Rated)
This may be the only time that I would not readily recommend a film in my top ten list; make sure that you’re well informed before you track Irreversible down. If you seek out shocking films as an endurance test to jolt you out of your normal moviegoing habits, you’d be hard pressed to do better. Irreversible is right up there with the best of the grindhouse films and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo as the one of the most intentionally disturbing films ever made. And like Pasolini’s, the film is made all the more disturbing by the fact that director Gaspar Noe is one of the most formally talented directors working today.

9. To Be and To Have (New Yorker Films, Not Rated)
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum of films is Nicholas Philibert’s French documentary To Be and To Have, which centers on a single-room school taught by a great man named Georges Lopez. Beyond the enjoyment of watching Lopez (who is the type of teacher that everyone either had or wishes to God that they’d had) and his great teaching, this is the type of film that can make one wish that either they were a kid again, or had kids (assuming that you’re not and you don’t). To Be played at this year’s SLIFF, but don’t sweat it if you missed it, as it will surely get a regular run sometime in 2004.

10. American Splendor (New Line Cinema, Rated R)
A practically unmatchable film for cranky people, American Splendor is a wonderful adaptation of Harvey Pekar’s comic book of the same name. Beyond the adaptation and generic story arc elements, writer/directors Shari Springer Bergman and Robert Pulcini break some interesting ground on the fusion of fact and fiction in film, in the way that they weave the real Pekar, an animated Pekar, and Paul Giamatti as Pekar (in what is the best male performance of the year) so seamlessly, you never have to wonder how or why they did it that way.