Movies and Music: The best and worst of the year

By Erik Pepple
210 west Pop Culture Editor [send email]

While The Return of the King continues its march to box office history, it’s safe to say as far as movies go, 2003 was the year of Peter Jackson’s visionary epic. While I’m not much of a fan of the films (I respect them more than I actively like them), I do understand the enthusiasm that surrounds them. Jackson has put together an epic in scope and vision the likes of which Hollywood hasn’t attempted since the salad days of David Lean. And as a Peter Jackson fan from his earliest work (Meet the Feebles, Dead Alive), it’s nice to see such a unique talent given his due.

But what of the rest of 2003’s movies? You know the ones that didn’t have hobbits or wizards.

Generally this was a reasonably strong year for film, so much so that in the last few months I was starting to feel like a bit of a hack inasmuch as the bulk of the movies I’d seen had all had something entertaining or enlightening about them. Whether it was the top-shelf, old Hollywood professionalism of Cold Mountain or the genuinely brilliant Kill Bill the last few months have seen the film industry spitting out a solid assortment of quality pictures. And it’s not just the art house stuff that has been making an impression; studio pictures like The School of Rock and Matchstick Men were uncommonly intelligent and well-crafted entertainments. It’s a marked contrast from a year that began with the reprehensible Bringing Down the House and the inane, inert League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And sure, the last few months have seen an abundance of junk (The Cat in the Hat, for starters. For evil, evil starters), but the odds of seeing a decent movie has been pretty solid since mid-September.

The list that follows is by no means complete. Thus far eagerly anticipated pictures such as Big Fish, 21 Grams, The Triplets of Belleville, Melvin Goes to Dinner, Bus 174, House of Sand and Fog, and so on and so forth have yet to see wide enough release to meet 210 West’s deadline.

Qualifiers out of the way here’s a look at some of the best and worst movies of the year.

BEST

1.Lost in Translation—

Sofia Coppola’s beautifully subtle, remarkably touching almost-romance features a pair of masterful performances by Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansen. This quiet, dreamlike meditation about displacements both cultural and romantic is attracting a backlash from those who think it’s too slight to be deeply moving. But the quiet almost seems to be the point, this is a small movie about the grand importance of tiny gestures be it a kiss or shared joke.

2.Kill Bill, Vol. 1

The thematic opposite of Translation’s calm, is Tarantino’s effusive, blood-soaked homage to the grindhouse. Uma Thurman is The Bride, an action hero whose stoicism is firmly in league with icons like Eastwood’s Man With No Name. The movie would be successful as a purely kinetic action piece, but Tarantino’s writing and structuring of this material is so controlled and well-thought out that it becomes a piece of luridly stunning pop art. Some of the best action sequences of any picture this year, with the confrontation at the House of Blue Leaves as balletic and gracefully violent as the best of John Woo or the Shaw Brothers.

3.Mystic River

Clint Eastwood’s enormously affecting drama is superficially a murder mystery that through the remarkable performances by Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon and Laurence Fishburne becomes an operatic meditation on the nature and cycle of violence and how it brutally perpetuates itself from generation to generation.

4.School of Rock

The bulk of Richard Linklater’s work has been about how people (especially the young) formulate and create identity, and while School of Rock continues this theme, it does so in the guise of big-studio comedy. Resisting formula every step of the way, Linklater’s hugely entertaining comedy is a slyly subversive treatise on the idea that the inherent rebellion and life-affirming force of the best rock and roll is slowly being bled out of future generations. And while Jack Black has been playing a variation on his character (average Joe cum rock star/enthusiast) for years; he’s never been more alive or joyous. A performance that begs comparison to greatest moments of John Belushi.

5.American Splendor

In their feature film debut, documentary filmmakers Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini craft an elegant and structurally innovative (fictional characters mingle with non-fictional ones, cartoons mingle with live action, with every character breaking the fourth wall) biopic about comics writer Harvey Pekar. Paul Giamatti gives a career-best performance as the vitriolic misanthrope; a man who just wants to be left alone. The ultimate irony of the movie is that by the end it reveals its grumpy hero as a closet optimist; miserable only because he expects the best of humanity and perpetually sees it following the worst of its impulses.

6.Finding Nemo

After triumphing with the Toy Story series and Monsters, Inc. Pixar Animation Studios finally drives a welcome nail into the increasingly cynical and lifeless Disney animation coffin. Ironically, Disney releases Pixar’s movies, regardless; Nemo is a work of genuine wit and warmth.

7.Shattered Glass

Somehow writer/director Billy Ray’s exciting, smart look at infamous fabulist Stephen Glass has been getting lost in the shuffle of year-end pictures. Told as cleanly and to the point as a well-written news feature, Shattered Glass offers a sobering indictment of a culture that clamors more for a well-told lie than a well-told truth. Hayden Christensen’s (Anakin in the Star Wars prequels) performance is as close to a revelation as performances get and Peter Saarsgard gives one of the year’s most stunning performances, making his characters’ gradual implosion in the face of Glass’ lies palatable and very moving.

8. The Weather Underground
Sam Green’s first-rate documentary is a powerful, empathetic, but unforgiving look at one of America’s most notorious radical groups. Asking whether or not violence is justified in the pursuit of a cause, the film may focus on the 1960s, but its questions and ideas echo throughout history up to and including the present day.

9. 28 Days Later
Danny Boyle’s (Trainspotting) ruthless horror film is a rare bird. Like many of the horror and sci-fi flicks of the 1970s, 28 Days Later doesn’t find its terror in the shock of marauding zombies and slash and hack murder, but in the prospect of isolation. This is a horror film about being adrift and hopelessly lost without a future or a chance for a future. Brutal and relentless, 28 Days Later is one of the best horror films of recent years.

10. Old School
Yeah, that’s right, this is one of the year’s best films. Yes, it’s about as ramshackle and rickety as a movie can be, but no movie this year had as many laughs or as deeply a surreal performance as that of Will Ferrell as Frank the Tank. Like pornography, comedy is as subjective as anything, and Old School made me laugh harder and more frequently than any movie this year.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Matchstick Men

Ridley Scott’s diamond-sharp comic thriller was a quiet character study in the guise of a con-artist picture. Nicolas Cage gives one of his best performances, Sam Rockwell follows up his peerless work in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind with another fine performance, and Alison Lohman establishes herself as one of Hollywood’s most gifted young actresses.

A Mighty Wind

Christopher Guest’s and Eugene Levy’s humane, bittersweet look at the fading glory of 60s folk groups is not as biting as Waiting for Guffman or Best in Show, but instead is a sweet story about recapturing lost love and former glories. It rests squarely on the shoulders of Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara’s brilliant work; two of the finest performances of the year.

Cold Mountain
Anthony Mingehella’s Oscar-bait has got its faults, but on the whole this is a big, heart on its sleeve epic from the old school of Hollywood. Strong performances, outstanding photography, and a stirring sense of scope, this is the Odyssey by way of the Civil War and its works most effectively.

May
The year’s most original horror films is this weird hybrid of Carrie and Frankenstein and Cronenbergian dread. Much like the recent, and equally ignored Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps, this is a quirky, one-of-a-kind horror movie that deserved a much larger audience.

MUSIC
The past year in music is going to be considered a year of loss.

With the record industry continuing it’s crowing about losing profits to kids in dorm rooms downloading the latest 50 Cent single, the music world lost three of its leading talents from three separate generations.

Johnny Cash passed away on September 12, leaving behind a legacy that has influenced everyone from Springsteen to Wyclef Jean to Dylan to such relative unknowns as The Silver Jews. His work was that of the greatest in the folk traditions-stories about outlaws, the misunderstood, drunks, whores, cons, God, and the meek. Cash has always been more rock and roll than country and his legacy will continue to infuse generations in both genres to come.

Warren Zevon’s death was expected; he had been dying of cancer for nearly a year. But in that year he wrote and recorded a strong album, The Wind, of his typically acidic, but secretly optimistic rock. As a chronicler of the excess of mid-70’s Los Angeles, Zevon’s blunt and dark humor made him not only one of America’s best songwriters, but one of its foremost satirists as well.

Of all the deaths this year, none was more unexpected than Elliot Smith’s suicide. Best known for his Oscar nominated song, “Miss Misery,” Smith was a talent whose ambition and gifts for melody and structure are peerless. Unfortunately he was as known for his depression and trouble with drugs as he was for his songs, and the most tragic thing about his death is that for as shocking as it was, somewhere his fans could feel it coming. Smith’s passing is an enormous loss to the rock world, he was writer with a vision and scope that few possess and to compare his best work to Lennon/McCartney or Alex Chilton would not be hyperbole.

The following best of list are the thoughts of one man. It is subjective and filled with the traditional overwriting so common to those who write about pop music. But if we can’t celebrate with wordiness at the end of the year, well then, when can we, I ask?

THE BEST

1. The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (Sub Pop)—The challenge to follow-up their 2001 debut (Oh, Inverted World) had to have been daunting as World is widely considered one of the most beloved indie records of recent years. The Shins faced almost impossible expectations. The fact that they not only met, but surpassed them speaks volumes about frontman James Mercer’s remarkable songwriting gifts. The Shins utilize their broad grasp of pop and rock history and create music that is both forward thinking and timeless.

2. Crooked Fingers – Red Devil Dawn (Merge)—Chief Crooked Finger, Eric Bachman is unnervingly talented. His work with Crooked Fingers has been consistent and close to brilliant for the last few years, but with Red Devil Dawn he reaches a graceful, but haggard peak. With tunes that document the down and out as empathetically, poetically, and booze-soaked as the best Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, and Shane MacGowan songs. Red Devil Dawn is the year’s most heartbreaking and touching release.

3. Guided by Voices – Earthquake Glue (Matador)—Indie stalwarts GBV continue to put out three minute pop songs that have all the sweep of the Beatles and The Who, and Earthquake Glue continues to offer evidence that Robert Pollard has more than earned his place at the bar with finest songwriters in rock and roll. With tracks as stirring “The Best of Jill Hives” and “My Kind of Soldier,” it seems that Pollard and company have an almost endless supply of greatness in them.

4. M. Ward – The Transfiguration of Vincent (Merge)—One of the year’s most surprisingly powerful releases is this bluesy, heart-tugging song cycle. Combining the sepia tones of Tom Waits and the pop sensibilities of Lennon and McCartney, Ward is an overlooked talent. Bonus points for a cover version of “Let’s Dance” that somehow tops Bowie’s original.

5. OutKast – Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (Arista)—Big. Messy. Ambitious. Sprawling. Sexy. Brilliant. Those are just a few words to describe this flawed, but utterly ingenious masterpiece. As far as syntheses of pop, rock, rap, hip-hop, psychedelia, jazz and funk go, this is the first record in contemporary R & B to earn rightful comparison to Prince’s masterwork, Sign O’ the Times. That it contains “Hey Ya!” the year’s most buoyant and ubiquitous single is just a bonus.

6. Pernice Brothers – Yours, Mine, and Ours (Ashmont)—Joe Pernice’s gorgeously despondent songwriting continues to grow lusher and more ambitious with each release. His beguiling hybrid of Elvis Costello, the Smiths, and Bacharach is a complete original. This is as literate and intelligent as pop songwriting comes.

7. Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros – Streetcore (Epitaph)—Maybe it’s nostalgia for Joe Strummer. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s the fact that Strummer’s final record with the Mescaleros is his strongest post-Clash work. Rooted in the rock of the 50s and 60s, this is a record also informed by Motown, reggae, dub, rap, and the street-level poetics of Strummer himself; a songwriter with a heart and empathy that few of his peers will ever match.

8. My Morning Jacket – It Still Moves (ATO)—Sounding like The Band produced by Brian Wilson, My Morning Jacket creates some of the lushest, most accomplished rock and roll in contemporary music. Bolstered by vocalist Jim James’ remarkably versatile voice, It Still Moves is a major label debut that loses none of the quirks of their indie past, but expands and develops them into a force of their own.

9. Andrew Bird – Weather Systems (Righteous Babe)—Long dismissed as “that violinist with the Squirrel Nut Zippers,” Andrew Bird is establishing himself as one of the most idiosyncratic voices in rock and pop. This is not quite the whirling dervish of genius that his last record (The Swimming Hour) was, but is still a thoroughly original work that seems to live and breathe in its own little niche of cabaret pop.

10. New Pornographers – Electric Version (Matador)—While not quite the statement I originally thought it was upon first listen, Electric Version is still a solid piece of power pop with its strongest moments (“The Laws Have Changed” “All for Swinging you Around”) making you once again believe in the power of the 3 minute pop song.

Honorable Mention: Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man- Out of Season, Aesop Rock-Bazooka Tooth, The Joggers-Solid Guild

WORST OF THE YEAR

Black Eyed Peas-Where is the Love?
Daryl Worley-Have you Forgotten?

Compiling a worst of the year in records list seems a bit pointless. Why bother clogging it with the usual suspects (the Jessica Simpson record blew? What a surprise!), when you can take the time to point out the year’s two most nauseating and inept tunes?

In an incident of surprising symmetry both the Black Eyed Peas’ “Where is the Love” and Worley’s “Have you Forgotten” made the shitlist. Both were written in response to the state of contemporary American politics and culture. Both ask simple questions. One begs for patience and peace the other begs for heads on platters. Both are simplistic works of jargon, hitting the same rote notes, and offering up insights about as deep as thimbles. So consider it a sign of 210 West’s journalistic balance that we’re singling out for scorn a piece of liberal pap and an unabashed ode to ignorant, knee-jerk conservative jingoism.

Editor's note: While Erik Pepple is the pop culture editor for 210 West, he also dabbles in some freelance work for a fine site called Spoiczine.com. We sort of share him. He's just that damn good. However, he is also a little bit lazy. Because of that, he submitted the same year-end lists to both sites. So these were originally run on that fine webzinbe sponiczine.com, which we at 210 West recommend you check out.