Top 10 Films of 2023

This morning, we did the Top 10 films of 2023 (that aren't from 2023), the films I saw for the first time from previous years.  Now, though, we'll be tackling the list of films still in the zeitgeist, the ones in some cases still in theaters (SEE THEM-SUPPORT QUALITY CINEMA!)...my Top 10 films of 2023 from 2023!  These are listed alphabetically, and I'd love to hear yours in the comments if you're willing to share.  Enjoy!

Afire

dir. Christian Petzold

Petzold remains one of our freshest & most introspective filmmakers, and with Afire he continues his quest to make challenging, provocative cinema.  This is much pricklier than Transit or Undine, and it'd be easy to be turned off by Thomas Schubert's great turn as our unlikeable protagonist, but beneath that is a lot of looks at our ability to process happiness for others, and how our own insecurities can eat up our lives. 

All of Us Strangers

dir. Andrew Haigh

Haigh understand loneliness better than any other filmmaker working, and he brings that to All of Us Strangers, a romantic ghost story, one that shows us the cruelty of how love doesn't last forever because people don't last forever...but in the process, also shows us the meaning of life.  The entire acting quartet, led by Andrew Scott, is staggering (this is the film that should've swept the acting nominations).

Bottoms

dir. Emma Seligman

The most I can remember laughing in a movie theater in ages, the lead pair of Rachel Sennott & Ayo Edebiri are dynamite, which you probably already know if you've been watching them emerge into acting powerhouses the past couple of years.  The way that it throws some truly fantastical curveballs into the third act (where you're wondering what it is you're exactly seeing) is a treat for even the most jaded of film-watcher.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

dir. Francis Lawrence

If you told me this time last year the Hunger Games (a movie series I hadn't even finished until this year I got so bored) would have an entry alongside Scorsese, Coppola, & Glazer on my year-end Top 10, I would've thought you'd gone mad.  Proof that greatness can come from anywhere (and that we should expect more from legacy sequels) this is a perfectly-constructed, thoughtful action romance, led with movie star turns from Tom Blyth & Rachel Zegler.  Every song is a gem.

Killers of the Flower Moon

dir. Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese continues to play in a league of his own, doesn't he?  Another 3+ hour epic from him that flies by, the movie gives us rich sound & cinematography, and shares challenging work from both Lily Gladstone & Robert de Niro, one showing what she can do, the other showing why he was the greatest of his generation.  If only Thelma had managed to cut Brendan Fraser from it, we'd be home free.

May December

dir. Todd Haynes

A movie that continually changes what it is about, and plays previous scenes differently with each passing moment, this is a nasty peak into celebrity culture, and how we value entertainment more than the damage it can cause ordinary people.  It's not surprising that Oscar didn't respond to Haynes totally going after Hollywood's obsession with itself, but don't worry-Hollywood hated Sunset Boulevard, this film's spiritual sister, at first too.

Of an Age

dir. Goran Stolevski

This is kind of from 2022, but it was released in 2023 in the states so I'm counting it for this year.  There's no way I was leaving out a movie this lovely, a gay coming-of-age film that shows how key moments of your life last longer in your memory than whole years of time, with Thom Green & Elias Anton's thoughtful dialogue & chemistry enriching the experience.

Priscilla

dir. Sofia Coppola

Sofia Coppola's latest take on femininity gives us one of the 20th Century's most indeterminate women.  How do you make a film about Priscilla Presley, someone who most dismiss as just the pretty face behind the most famous man on earth?  Coppola does it by showing us two splendid performances from Cailee Spaeny & Jacob Elordi, and showing us how even Priscilla had to come to terms with not knowing who she was...until finally she at least knew what she wasn't.

Saltburn

dir. Emerald Fennell

The most divisive movie of 2023 (some people not only hate it, but want to force you to hate it too), I was engrossed by Emerald Fennell's latest take on moneyed revenge.  The mess is kind of the point here-the decadence, the way that we quickly make assumptions & have then have them upended...they all come together for us to only understand the movie in the final moments, with a brilliant Barry Keoghan committing "Murder on the Dance Floor" to our memories forever.

The Zone of Interest

dir. Jonathan Glazer

Jonathan Glazer's first film in a decade, Zone of Interest was always going to come with high expectations after his marvelous Under the Skin.  That it's somehow even better shows that the wait was worth it.  I had heard the sound design was something else here, but I still wasn't prepared for how good it would be, aiding the story, and showing the banality of evil (and how so many people learn to look past it to create a false sense of normalcy).

Top 10 Films of 2023 (that aren't from 2023)

We are officially unveiling today all of our Top 10's for 2023, and while later today we will share out the Top 10 films that were actually released in 2023, this is a blog that centers on classic cinema, and it's never "just" the year at-hand-we're always plumbing over a century of movies.  So we're going to start first with the Top 10 films I saw for the first time in 2023 before we get into my actual Top 10 of 2023.  Please enjoy, and share your favorite first-time experiences in the comments (all titles listed alphabetically)!

Diary of a Country Priest (1951)

dir. Robert Bresson

A fascinating look at the way faith can consume us if we let it, to the point where we stop living our own lives and can't find order without making it align to our worldview.  Claude Laydu gives an astonishing performance as the anguished priest, one that has to be seen to be believed.

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

dir. Louis Malle

Perfectly-constructed film noir, aided in large part by Jeanne Moreau giving a world-class performance that would make her an international icon.  The way that Malle lenses her is ingenious, always using onscreen light sources to highlight that beautiful, melancholy face.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

dir. Sergio Leone

In the year of the western on the blog, while I saw a lot of terrific movies, it feels a bit cheater-y to give the next three slots highlighting the only westerns on this list, all from the same trilogy.  But it cannot be denied that this lives up to the hype, starting out with a wonderful spin on what would be the classic "Man with No Name" trope from Clint Eastwood.

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

dir. Sergio Leone

Armed with a stronger budget, Leone makes sure his follow-up uses every dollar on the accounting sheet, giving us a growing set design, and more intentional cinematography (which was already pretty darn great).  Lee van Cleef getting added alongside Eastwood is a strong twist on the original's formula.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

dir. Sergio Leone

The third film wraps it all up with a true sense of the word "epic."  Eastwood, van Cleef, and now Eli Wallach create a glorious trio, and Ennio Morricone, already batting a thousand with this series, brings one of the best scores he ever wrote (and that's saying something).  The final hour is about as good as a movie can get.

In the Mood for Love (2000)

dir. Wong Kar-Wai

One of the sexiest films I've ever seen, In the Mood for Love looks wonderful in every frame.  The way that the art direction, costuming, and the glowing candlelit cinematography add to the forbidden nature of the two title lovers is grand, but Cheung and especially Leung sell it throughout, an absolute electric sexual tension that recalls something like Lauren Bacall walking onto the screen in To Have and Have Not.

Paranormal Activity (2009)

dir. Oren Peli

An impossible level of tension emerges from this film, one that would launch a ton of pretenders, but that doesn't deter how truly scary the first film is.  I loved the way that, for a film criticized for too many jump scares, that's not really the case-much of it just comes from finding the changes, searching in the silence...until we realize there's a reason to be scared of the dark.

Summertime (1955)

dir. David Lean

Maybe the most narcissistic choice on this list (I, too, am a bit of a spinster who loves to travel & maybe in 2023 gave up a little bit on love being the end of my story), but that doesn't deter that Summertime is a grand, marvelous spiritual sequel to Brief Encounter.  I don't know that I've ever seen Hepburn so raw, using her persona against a gorgeous 1950's Venice to craft her best dramatic performance...ever?

The Virgin Suicides (2000)

dir. Sofia Coppola

I love the way that Coppola's debut plays with form & expectations.  We're meant to assume that this is a coming-of-age story, one where the boys will find their own journey through the introspective girls they see across the street.  What it becomes is a mystery, and how our own lore becomes an enigma as we grow up, realizing how much of life, even our own, we can't understand.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

dir. Billy Wilder

Absolutely sensational treatment, a riveting courtroom drama brimming with all of the delicious intrigue that you'd expect from Agatha Christie.  Charles Laughton, Elsa Lancaster, Una O'Connor, they're all grand in this, but it's Marlene Dietrich (robbed of an Oscar) who makes it truly unforgettable.

OVP: Picture (2003)

OVP: Best Picture (2003)

The Nominees Were...

Barrie M. Osborne, Peter Jackson, & Fran Walsh, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Ross Katz & Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation

Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., Peter Weir, & Duncan Henderson, Lost in Translation

Robert Lorenz, Judie G. Hoyt, & Clint Eastwood, Mystic River

Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, & Gary Ross, Seabiscuit

My Thoughts: Frequently when I look at a list like this, after spending weeks and nineteen articles talking about the movies themselves, the eventual winner for Best Picture (in my mind, maybe not in yours dear reader), is relatively anticlimactic.  Usually Oscar chooses maybe 2-3 nominees that I'd put in my personal Top 10, and then the rest are films that show the clear dividing line between my taste & Oscar's, and to a degree that is true this year (this full list isn't going to repeat with me, even with me choosing ten nominees), but this year...I don't honestly know which movie I'm going to pick at the beginning of this article, and so we're going to have a bit of a conversation as I try to convince myself before we get to my eventual "My Ballot" choices this afternoon.

To delay the inevitable, let's focus on the three films that won't be getting Best Picture (spoiler alert, though if you look at our links to all past races at the bottom of this article, you're going to know that this isn't much of a spoiler).  This isn't because they are unworthy.  After all, Master and Commander has grown on me the past ten weeks quite a bit, both in terms of me rewatching it for these write-ups and truly appreciating the way that it really paints a beautiful, complete picture of life on the high seas.  With solid performances from Russell Crowe & Paul Bettany and Peter Weir's steady hand, it might not always win every battle (I think the character development beyond Crowe & Bettany needed a bit more growth), but it's steadfast & a nominee that has aged well.

Seabiscuit is the clear "fifth nominee" not just in my rankings, but in terms of Oscar's preference.  In the days before the ten-wide fields, there was usually one film that was a crowdpleaser that otherwise couldn't make it in Best Director, and for 2003 it was Seabiscuit.  For me, it's just an underdog sports movie.  It doesn't have any of the heart you'd need to make it rise above cliche, and it doesn't have the kind of sentimental click that occasionally works for me in a field like this (when we get to 1999, you'll find I'm going to be a bit kinder to a movie like Cider House Rules which I connected with more than I did Seabiscuit even though they're cut from the same cloth).  It's not a terrible movie (though I don't even know if it's a good one), but when you put it next to some of 2003's best...it feels woefully out-of-place.

Mystic River is a solid thriller, and speaks to what Clint Eastwood does best (or at least used to do best), turning antiheroes into complicated leading figures that the audience has to deduce where the ethical boundaries lie.  I do feel that the beginning & endings of this movie hide that the middle is a bit rougher; the dialogue is good, but I feel like the treatment of Tim Robbins' character of Dave feels off, partially by some of Robbins character choices & also by Eastwood's treatment of him as the director.  But this is a decent movie, and it's not embarrassing-I get what Oscar fell for here, and even if I wouldn't join them, I respect it.

Which brings us to the two movies I am going to nominate for Best Picture.  Lost in Translation is a wonderful movie, one that is filled with a lot of wisdom that becomes clearer the older you get.  Thoughtful in the way it's romantic but rarely sexual (it would have been a nightmare to make Charlotte & Bob feel like lovers rather than spiritual soulmates), it shows the way that we value different things as we age, our bodies getting older slightly before we do, and how youth becomes elusive, but in brief moments something we can capture for a night or a moment.  If I'm being picky (and I've gotta be at this point), some of the humor feels dated (it's intended to be cringe territory, but I suspect Coppola would today avoid it all-together because there's a mocking element to it), but that's really my only complaint.  I love Lost in Translation.

The problem is I also love Return of the King.  It's honestly hard for me to compare the two in part because when you combine Lord of the Rings, which you do subconsciously even if you try not to, pretty much nothing beats it.  Lord of the Rings came out when I was a teenager, and became so synonymous with movies for me that to reward anything else for Best Picture feels like blasphemy; as a collective, it's certainly my favorite film franchise and possibly my favorite movie, period.  But, we are only rewarding Return of the King here, not the entire trilogy (that's the point of the OVP), and like Lost in Translation, if I'm being picky, I think the endings of Return of the King feels like a weak point (which, in contrast, the ending is one of Lost in Translation's finest scenes).  They are also very, very different pictures, so it's hard to grasp how you compare one with the other.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their categories into Drama and Musical/Comedy (a tactic I'm envying right now), with The Return of the King winning the former against Cold Mountain, Master and Commander, Mystic River, & Seabiscuit while the latter went to Lost in Translation against Bend It Like Beckham, Big Fish, Finding Nemo, and Love Actually.  BAFTA also went to Return of the King atop Big Fish, Cold Mountain, Lost in Translation, and Master and Commander, while the PGA picked Return of the King against Cold Mountain, The Last Samurai, Master and Commander, Mystic River, & Seabiscuit.  In terms of sixth place, I think it's either City of God (Oscar nominations for Best Director, Editing, & Writing), against Cold Mountain (Oscar cited for Directing, Editing, & two acting trophies, plus the PGA/BAFTA/Globes triumvirate).  I know it's tempting to think it's City of God solely on that Best Director nomination, but I'm going with Cold Mountain-it was a genuine stunner when the Weinsteins couldn't get this movie in in 2003, and I think it was a close call, probably against Seabiscuit.

Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out later today. 😉

Oscar’s Choice: There was no stopping Return of the King-it won all eleven trophies in a steamroller effect.

My Choice: Let's work backward.  Seabiscuit is in last, and I'll go Mystic River in fourth.  Master and Commander is a fine bronze, and it's the movie that most grew on me throughout this retrospective.  As for the winner?  My head is saying Lost in Translation, my heart is saying Return of the King...if ties were an option I'd probably tap into that right now, but since they aren't I'm going to go with my heart.  Return of the King defines so much of what I love about movies that I can't bear to give it a loss, even if there are certainly days I'd pick Lost in Translation instead.

And there you have it-another OVP in the books.  Later today we'll do the My Official Ballot, but in the meantime-where did you land?  Do you think that Return of the King is a landslide winner (like it was with Oscar) or are you barely giving it the edge (like me)...or did you choose something else all-together?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2003?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2003: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2003

Past Best Picture Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019

OVP: Director (2003)

OVP: Best Director (2003)

The Nominees Were...

Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation

Clint Eastwood, Mystic River

Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Fernando Meirelles, City of God

Peter Weir, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

My Thoughts: We're going to be moving into the final two races of 2003 this weekend.  I'm not entirely sure what pace I'll be doing this at after this (we likely won't do them daily, though I will be honest that I'm going to be doing them at a sharper speed than two-a-week as part of a still-secret project I'm trying to accomplish for later in the year).  Today, we're going to move into a pretty solid Best Director lineup.  It is not often that I can say that I'd give a "thumbs up" to all five of the movies in a list, but here I definitely would.  Of course, if you're competing for an Oscar nomination, you should be able to do better than just a thumbs up, and a few of these filmmakers don't quite get far enough, in my opinion.

One of them is Clint Eastwood, who was using Mystic River as a way to tee up a comeback in 2004 for Best Director, followed by a decade of major successes, both artistic & (increasingly more importantly to Eastwood) commercial.  Mystic River is the rare one of these movies that he didn't star in, but you've got the Sean Penn character taking on the obvious Eastwood trope of "man against the law."  Mystic River is a good movie that sometimes feels a bit lost in the middle stretch, coasting off of what is a dynamite ending by not focusing enough on where some of the characters (specifically Tim Robbins' Dave) needs to go.  Eastwood is a bit of a lightning rod amongst progressive cinephiles these days due to his conservative politics, but I'll admit that isn't really the problem with Mystic River in the way that it would be years later with American Sniper (which for the first two-thirds is about as strong of a "conservative vantage point" to a political issue as I've seen in a movie, and then totally derails in the final forty minutes).  It's more that it becomes just a film of a few great moments, without enough substance in-between.  If he weren't competing for an Oscar, I wouldn't complain (it's a good movie), but when you're trying to be the best of the year, details matter.

This is also my problem with Fernando Meirelles' City of God-it's too reliant on big moments.  Meirelles has some key sequences that are jaw-dropping, and though this film was mimicked ad nauseam in the years that followed (including by Meirelles), it deserves credit for being the first of this style/visual palette of filmmaking.  City of God, though, relies too often on increasing shock value to get its point across, and that's a problem when the story is as repetitive as it is.  You understand as the film continues which characters are going to escape & which ones won't, and while it's jaw-dropping to see this group of violent teenagers put in unspeakable situations, Meirelles uses the same types of stories repeatedly to the point where it feels like the movie needed editing.  Picky, I know, but again-it's for an Oscar.

Sofia Coppola knows how to make her time judicious.  Even from the opening moments of Lost in Translation, time hangs over the story as a way for us to understand that everything between Bob & Charlotte is precious (but also, that all of life should be treated as precious).  Coppola achieves a sort of "cinematic" approach to Lost in Translation (I'm not entirely sure that's a descriptive enough adjective, but hopefully it comes across), making it feel warm & like this complete vision (she used film, rather than digital, to make the movie, and I wonder if that helps make it look a bit softer onscreen).  Everything about the way that she resists certain romantic impulses, making sure that the framing is perfect in key moments (especially the karaoke scene)-it all just works beautifully.  It was her breakthrough film, and while she's made great ones since, it's still her best.

Oscar-winner Sydney Pollack once said Hollywood's view of the director's job is "less an artist, more a damage containment expert."  This might explain why so many directors get cited for epics, including our final two nominees-both are trying to make sure a gigantic sequence is kept onscreen without sprawling too badly.  Both men pull this off, though.  Peter Weir's film occasionally veers too much into the "handsome, but not enough character development" column for my taste, but it looks great & I think the battle sequences are gorgeous.  Master and Commander also, as we've mentioned a few times, seamlessly combines sound stage, CGI, & real world sequences all into the same film without ever feeling like you can tell them apart, which is certainly a credit to its director.

Peter Jackson won this Oscar nominally for Return of the King but really for his entire brilliant Lord of the Rings series.  I can only count it for Return of the King, though, so I will admit that I have to dock a point or two off for the slightly repetitive nature of the film's endings.  That being said, the rest of the film is such a treasure you won't care.  Particularly strong points for the way that Jackson manages to make the anticlimax of some of the battles (there are very few major character deaths in LOTR, certainly compared to something like Game of Thrones, which makes the stakes feel less high) by giving such detailed emotional sendoffs to each of the primary characters.  Return of the King represents not just a high point for Jackson & 2003, but also for movies in general-few films stand apart quite in the same way that Lord of the Rings does.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes preferred Jackson (singling how easily he'd win the rest of the season, as the Globes are pretty genre averse) against Coppola, Eastwood, Weir, & Anthony Minghella (Cold Mountain), while the DGA went with Jackson as well against Coppola, Eastwood, Weir, & Gary Ross (Seabiscuit).  BAFTA favored Weir as their winner, the only blip in Jackson's run (Return of the King did win Best Picture there, for the record), against Jackson, Minghella, Coppola, & Tim Burton (Big Fish).  In terms of sixth place, it's between Minghella & Ross, and while Ross hit more of the hallmarks we associate with Best Director (i.e. Seabiscuit is up for Picture, Screenplay, & Editing), I feel like it was slightly more Minghella, as I think that Cold Mountain feels more like a directing branch preference than what Ross is doing.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: I'll have my My Ballot out tomorrow, so I won't spoil the contenders quite yet.  Suffice it to say, this is a good list...that I plan on totally upending.
Oscar's Choice: After two years of misses across all of the categories he was cited in, Peter Jackson was inevitable.  Not even Academy favorite Clint Eastwood could give him a race.

My Choice: I'm a bit closer than AMPAS both because I'm not giving this award for the full series and because I do think that Return of the King is the weakest of the three Lord of the Rings films AND it's competing against a movie as flawless as Lost in Translation.  But Jackson wins this-he manages to make it 3/3 in Grade A quality for a film series which is next to impossible to do, and I will argue that Lost in Translation is slightly more a writer's/actor's triumph than it is a directing one (it's close though-both are being mentioned tomorrow).  Behind them would be Weir, Eastwood, & Meirelles, in that order.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Does everyone cosign the Peter Jackson gravy train or does someone want to stand apart?  Do we think that Sofia Coppola, whose filmmaking style has slightly fallen out of favor with Oscar, will ever get back into this lineup again?  And was it Ross or Minghella who was just out-of-reach in sixth place?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2003: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2003

Past Best Director Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019

OVP: Original Screenplay (2003)

  OVP: Best Original Screenplay (2003)

The Nominees Were...

Denys Arcand, The Barbarian Invasions

Steven Knight, Dirty Pretty Things

Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, & David Reynolds, Finding Nemo

Jim Sheridan, Naomi Sheridan, & Kirsten Sheridan, In America

Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation

My Thoughts: All right, we're going to be trying some growing paints on the blog in the next few weeks.  I'm trying to tackle some new things in my personal & professional life, and so we'll be a little shy on the blog for the next 2-3 weeks as I attempt to jump start a few New Year's resolution projects that I am not giving up on until I give a proper college try.  As a result, while we will have articles near daily, we won't be prioritizing film reviews for at least the next couple of weeks (if you follow me on Letterboxd, though, you'll find that I'm still reviewing everything I've been seeing, which has been a lot of 2003 & 2021 movies in the past week).  To make up for that, we'll be increasing dramatically the number of OVP Ballots we're doing in the coming weeks (which, I will admit now, is part of one of those projects I'm doing, but more on that to come).  With this, like last week, we're going to get three OVP articles in the coming days, including today's look at the Original Screenplay Oscar (giving us a slight break from JRR Tolkien).

When it comes to the Best Original Screenplay race, there's kind of two classes of nominees (sorry, but it's real), and so we're going to get three films that made very little impression on me out of the way first.  Probably the best of these is Jim Sheridan's In America.  The film isn't bad (unlike the next two), but the screenplay is not its best asset.  Sheridan's story is brimming with sentimentality, bordering on the saccharine, and it feels like an odd element from the film to cite (even in a year where most of the major movies were from adapted work)-the acting, especially by the two leads, is much more the calling card for In America.

Still, it's better than the meandering mess that is Dirty Pretty Things.  One of those movies that stars a number of actors before they were famous (hello Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, & Sophie Okonedo), and features Audrey Tautou, who is a favorite of one of TMROJ's most devoted readers, but it just doesn't work (sorry Robin-please forgive me!).  The story is all-over-the-place, needlessly violent & aggressive, and rarely does it make any sense.  I get that, like In America, it has a famous film director behind the camera who might make giving it a nomination feel appropriate, but that's no excuse for AMPAS to cover for it when it's dreadful.

The last of the bunch is The Barbarian Invasions, which doesn't have solid acting like In America and doesn't have messy ambition in its storytelling like Dirty Pretty Things, but instead is an eye-rolling comedy, frequently trading in hackneyed sex jokes that even in 2003 felt like they had dated badly, and not understanding how to move the story along or make the characters feel relevant to the audience.  I have admitted before that I have not seen the original of this movie, which might in part be my problem, but considering the first film came out 17 years earlier, I can't be alone in feeling lost (and it's hard to fathom it gets better with more context).

All of this is to say thank goodness for Sofia Coppola.  Lost in Translation is everything that these first three films is not.  Witty, nuanced, and deeply observational, it takes a really smart look at two people at a crossroads in their lives.  Coppola's script is such a winner partially because she takes two stories that should be different (a coming-of-age vs. a midlife crisis), and makes them intersect without having one of them feel inauthentic.  She also makes sure the movie plays like a love story even if that's not really what it is...it's romantic, it's not a love story, and that makes all the difference in some of the later moments of the picture.

Finding Nemo might be the best traditional story, at least in its execution of any of these five films, and I love that the Academy took the time here to honor only the third animated film for a writing nomination with this movie.  The story unfolds beautifully-with tales like this, frequently the problem becomes that we dwell somewhere too long or that the story becomes repetitive (after all, when you can explain the plot in a sentence, that's a risk).  But Nemo avoids that by keeping both of its stories fresh, and with really great comic one-liners uttered by one of Pixar's best-assembled vocal casts (particularly Ellen Degeneres, getting the role of a lifetime).

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes combine adapted and original into one category, and despite 2003 being a year dominated by adapted screenplays they went with three originals here with Lost in Translation winning against Love Actually and In America.  The BAFTA's separate the two, and went with The Station Agent for its victor over 21 Grams, Finding Nemo, Lost in Translation, & The Barbarian Invasions, while the WGA favored Lost in Translation against Bend It Like Beckham, Dirty Pretty Things, In America, and The Station Agent.  My gut says that it was 21 Grams (which got way more love with Oscar) rather than the more-rewarded The Station Agent getting into sixth here (and I'm kind of stunned it didn't make it against Dirty Pretty and Barbarian).

Films I Would Have Nominated: I mean, it's hard to grasp that we have a Tarantino film in the running here, one could argue his best this century (it's between Inglourious and Kill Bill for me), but that he missed out for his first take on the Bride's odyssey is a mystery that needs solving one day.

Oscar’s Choice: As the only Best Picture nominee of the bunch, there was no beating Lost in Translation, even against Jim Sheridan's resurgent film (which had a bit of steam at the time).

My Choice: Lost in Translation is one of my favorite screenplays, period.  There's no beating this, though Nemo would've made a solid winner in most years.  The remainder are such a "meh" crowd I honestly don't care, but for posterity's sake let's go...In America, Dirty Pretty Things, and The Barbarian Invasions.

Those are my thoughts-what about you?  Can we all just state that Sofia deserved this rather than pretending there were other contenders who should've shown up?  What's it going to take for an animated film to finally win a writing Oscar?  And was it 21 Grams or The Station Agent just missing this crew?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2003: Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2003

Past Best Original Screenplay Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019

On the Rocks (2020)

Film: On the Rocks (2020)

Stars: Rashida Jones, Bill Murray, Marlon Wayans

Director: Sofia Coppola

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Some directors take you on a journey, and you are willing to go back no matter what.  This has been the case for me with Sofia Coppola.  I will not pretend to have seen every one of her films, but I try to see as many as I can when they are out, and all of that stems from my first outing with her, Lost in Translation.  I distinctly remember where I saw this film, in a theater that is no longer in existence (not from Covid but due to gentrification) with several friends, and I was just in awe.  I left mesmerized, and in the years since it has graduated into one of my all-time favorite films, one that perfectly encapsulates why I love the movies.  Coppola's pictures since have usually been more miss (Marie Antoinette, The Beguiled) than hit (The Bling Ring, which is delicious if never as flawless as LiT), but she has forever earned a place in my heart for Lost in Translation, and her reuniting with Bill Murray for this movie...I couldn't finish up 2020 without visiting it.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is pretty simple, with Laura (Jones) a writer in an idyllic marriage to Dean (Wayans) worried he is straying on her.  This stems from her complicated relationship with her doting father Felix (Murray) a philanderer who doesn't think anyone is good enough for his daughter, and insists that her husband is cheating on her.  As the movie progresses, they get into a series of escapades, many of them foolish, in trying to catch Dean in the act, nearly wrecking Laura's marriage when it turns out that Dean is not cheating, and she's falling into the same sort of paranoid traps her father has for years in his relationships.  The film ends with the couple back together, and after a fight, Laura & Felix going back to their strange, loving relationship (with Laura hopefully a little wiser to falling into her father's shenanigans).

The movie is not at all what I expect from Coppola.  It's not bad, but it just lacks any of her social commentary or panache.  Coppola has become an expert at examining the specific life of upper-middle class women, and she does that here, but it doesn't have the artistry that we expect even in her least films.  This is just a movie, a funny one (Jones & Murray have great chemistry), but one that lacks her specific brand of insight.  I am kind of staggered Coppola (who usually only makes movies ever 3-4 years), picked this pretty forgettable picture as the one that she wanted to stake a new decade on, and feel like I missed something in the delivery as it's so good-but-basic.

Murray's character should be more interesting than he is, but even there the film feels merely "adequate" (I'm going three stars mostly because it's not bad, it's not good...this would be a 2.5 star if I did halves, but I lean toward watchable because of the chemistry).  His character is brimming with a level of toxic masculinity that feels like it needs an explanation (even though that heaps out of many corners of American culture these days without warning), but we never get one.  Murray could play this role in his sleep-this is not Bob Harris, a career-defining role, and it'll be a weird choice for a second nomination (and an even weirder one if Murray somehow gets on a winner's track, which I doubt but you never know with a star of a certain age).  Either way, though, the movie & Murray himself are just fine.

The Beguiled (2017)

Film: The Beguiled (2017)
Stars: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning
Director: Sofia Coppola
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

The films of Sofia Coppola run the gamut between movies that I adore for all-time (Lost in Translation) to the best of the year (The Bling Ring) to pictures I don't quite get the hype surrounding (Marie Antoinette), but they're always worth the time investment.  For some reason her films are always greeted with criticism that they are too similar in focusing on the world of rich, white women (suspiciously a criticism that isn't levied at Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen, or Paul Thomas Anderson, but you draw your own conclusions there), and while there is some truth to that, her movies still have a feminism in them that few other mainstream pictures have, and I rarely leave uninterested in the movies.  Thus, I caught The Beguiled with an ardent fan's interest, curious to see where her latest film (one that has largely disappeared at this point from the film year conversation) ranked in my personal estimation.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place in the waning days of the Civil War, where Martha (Kidman) runs a girl school within the ruins of a largely abandoned South, assisted by a dowdy Edwina (Dunst), who dreams of getting out.  One day, one of the girls in the school comes across a handsome, wounded Union corporal, John McBurney (Farrell), who has abandoned the battlefield and is in desperate need of medical treatment.  Despite trepidations, Martha and the students decide to let him stay at the school, and slowly there's a game of cat-and-mouse, with John seducing the lonely women who have been neglected of attention through the war, and starts winning their favor until Edwina, who has become madly in love with him and views him as her escape from "spinsterhood," finds him having sex with the eldest student Alicia (Fanning).  She pushes him down the stairs, and in the process he breaks his leg badly, to the point where Martha (whom he has also spurned) feels like she needs to amputate the leg.  It is never entirely clear whether this was the only option, but Corporal McBurney is convinced they crippled him out of spite and vows revenge, eventually getting a gun and holding the women hostage until Martha finds a way to poison him, even though Edwina has forgiven him and plans to marry him.  Corporal McBurney dies, to the devastation of Edwina, who viewed him as her only way out of this existence, and the film ends just as it began, with the women alone in the house, with no implication of how this random man has changed their lives, if at all.

The film functions almost best if you view this as something removed from the South.  Aside from the two teachers, five students, and the corporal, there is only one other allusion to actual humans in the outside world, when the Confederate soldiers come looking for the soldier.  Part of me wished that they had skipped this portion of the picture, as it could just as easily be a strange Purgatory or Hell, a punishment for the misgivings of war or of the soldier himself, as the isolation of the picture is its best attribute.  The movie ends so closely to the beginning you could view this as a sadistic Groundhog Day, and suddenly later that day they will find a different wounded soldier in the woods.  These women quite literally only have each other when the corporal comes into the house, disrupting their fragile ecosystem of boredom and trying their best to carry on in the face of a seemingly never-ending war.  When the film plays with this idea, of them trying desperately to end a cycle that seems too oppressive to overcome, it makes for very interesting film.

But it doesn't seem as intrigued by this concept, and when reality strikes, it feels a bit too soft.  The motives of Corporal John appear too accidental, and that of Martha perhaps a bit too strained.  It isn't entirely clear what Corporal John did to deserve the ire of these women except refuse to love them all, and in the process it's hard to tell in the first half who exactly the villain is supposed to be.  When Corporal John goes mad and puts a gun on the students in the second half, it feels almost like a copout, with the hanging question of whether they have just maimed a largely innocent man (albeit one with a wandering eye) for no reason other than jealousy.  Coppola doesn't play with this idea enough, and the ending becomes a bit predictable and doesn't idle around in the fascinating way the first half of the picture does, like a long plantation version of Marienbad, but that doesn't mean there aren't some fine elements in the picture, and overall I was a fan, even if it never approaches the heights of something like Lost in Translation or the sharpness of The Bling Ring.

Those were my thoughts on The Beguiled-how about yours?  At this point I'm assuming a lot of you have caught the picture, so anyone else want to weigh in on where they thought Coppola was going with the movie?  Share your thoughts below!