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.

2023 Saturdays with the Stars Recap

Yesterday we finished up our month with Kris Kristofferson, and today, we are putting the final cap on our "When Cowboys Ruled Hollywood" season.  I will totally own this, our fifth season, is probably my favorite season we've done since Season 2 (when we tackled sex symbols), and maybe my favorite ever.  I knew going into this that westerns have always been one of my favorite genres, and getting to see such a wide array, including a lot of hidden gems that have been on the To Do list for a while, was an absolute treat.  But I didn't realize how many of the films would end up being downright classics, from Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy to some of the gorgeous westerns that Anthony Mann made with Jimmy Stewart, there are movies on this list that have quickly catapulted to my favorite westerns list, and I have even added a few already to my home collection.

The biggest thing that excited me, though, was how this really ended up being the tale of Hollywood, starting with The Big Trail and ending with Heaven's Gate, and how much of Classical & New Hollywood came in-between.  This has been the case in all of our seasons, but seeing it through the most American of genres, the western, it felt like I was hearing it for the first time.  We'll get into our sixth season, where we will be "Crowning America's Sweethearts," on Saturday, but one last time, take a look at some of the best from this season of "When Cowboys Ruled Hollywood."

Favorite Performance from Each Star 

January: Gary Cooper, Man of the West

February: James Stewart, The Naked Spur

March: Gregory Peck, The Gunfighter

April: Marlene Dietrich, Witness for the Prosecution

May: Randolph Scott, Ride the High Country

June: Yul Brynner, Westworld

July: John Wayne, The Shootist

August: Franco Nero, Querelle

September: Clint Eastwood, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

October: Robert Redford, Barefoot in the Park

November: Sam Elliott, Molly and Lawless John

December: Kris Kristofferson, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

5 Favorite Performers (Alphabetical, and based solely on the films we watched as a collective & not on the rest of their careers)

Marlene Dietrich

Clint Eastwood

Robert Redford

James Stewart

John Wayne

5 Favorite Performances of the Year (Alphabetical)

Marlene Dietrich, Witness for the Prosecution

Clint Eastwood, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

James Stewart, The Man from Laramie

James Stewart, The Naked Spur

John Wayne, The Shootist

12 Favorite Films of the Year (Alphabetical)

The Big Country

Destry Rides Again

A Fistful of Dollars

For a Few Dollars More

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

High Plains Drifter

The Naked Spur

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

Ride the High Country

Westworld

Winchester 73

Witness for the Prosecution

Top 12 Performances of the Year (Not By Our Stars...and Yes, Alphabetical)

Ellen Burstyn, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Dan Duryea, Winchester 73

Mariette Hartley, Ride the High Country

Burl Ives, The Big Country

Katy Jurado, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

Diane Ladd, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Elsa Lanchester, Witness for the Prosecution

Charles Laughton, Witness for the Prosecution

Una O'Connor, Witness for the Prosecution

Lee van Cleef, For a Few Dollars More

Lee van Cleef, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Eli Wallach, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Pale Rider (1985)

Film: Pale Rider (1985)

Stars: Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Richard Dysart, Chris Penn, Sydney Penny

Director: Clint Eastwood

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Clint Eastwood: click here to learn more about Mr. Eastwood (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Clint Eastwood, to use Gen Z social media parlance, will "always be famous."  In the years after High Plains Drifter, Eastwood would have a few highs (specifically The Outlaw Josey Wales), but would arguably hit one of the bigger nadirs of his career.  The western went out of fashion in the wake of Heaven's Gate failing spectacularly, and so he was back to doing crime films, some of which would make money, but none of which are particularly memorable today.  His best-regarded of the movies that he'd make during the 1980's would be our film today (the first major Hollywood western to come after Heaven's Gate basically ended the genre as a Hollywood staple), but it wasn't until 1992, when Eastwood would make Unforgiven, his magnum opus as a director and one of the great westerns of all-time, that he'd fully cement his stardom for the ages, making one of the biggest movies of the year and gaining Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Director, & Actor (he'd win the former two).  But I've seen Unforgiven (it's absolutely brilliant), so to finish off our month with Eastwood, we're going to talk about the one major western he made in the 1980's, and one of his last takes on the "man with no name" subgenre, Pale Rider.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie follows the Preacher (Eastwood), a man who sits atop a pale white horse (hence the title), who comes into the lives of a group of prospectors who are up against Coy LaHood (Dysart), a mining baron who is trying to drive out independent prospectors, led by Hull Barret (Moriarty), who recruits the Preacher to help them with their cause.  The Preacher, whose ties to the cloth aren't particularly strong (it feels more costume than reality as the film wears on), not only starts to ingratiate himself into the community, but also into the hearts of several characters, including widow Sarah Wheeler (Snodgress), who is in love with both he & Hull, and her daughter Megan (Penny), who has a strange infatuation with the Preacher.  As the film goes on, you learn a little bit more about the Preacher, but mostly you get involved into the same plot we've seen most of this month-strange man comes to town, surrounded in myth, and saves the villagers from the evil atop their mount.

Pale Rider is the least of the five films we've watched of Eastwood's this month, and it's mostly because by 1985, Eastwood had been milking the "Man With No Name" routine for decades, and there wasn't a lot more to say.  While this film borrows heavily from High Plains Drifter, it also clearly wants to be Shane by introducing the character of Megan to the formula.  It forgets, however, that most of the magic of Shane is that Joey doesn't really understand what's happening (particularly the wrench that Shane is throwing into his parents' auto pilot marriage), and makes it far too opaque, with the Megan character becoming romantically infatuated with the Preacher rather than just having her want to become him like him as in Shane.

Eastwood's performance here also isn't as strong as High Plains Drifter.  Perhaps not wanting to take risks like United Artists did coming off of the disaster of Heaven's Gate, Warner Brothers kept things simple here, but without the villainous undertones of High Plains Drifter, Eastwood can't really sell the subplot romance with Snodgress, and it's not as clear here that he has a handle on the complicated backstory he's bringing to his part.  As you can tell this month, I'm a fan of Eastwood's, but I'm not a stan, and this one...he's been better.

And indeed, he would be better in the decades to come.  After Unforgiven, Eastwood would almost exclusively work with himself as a director (the last time he did a significant role in a film he didn't direct was Wolfgang Peterson's In the Line of Fire in 1993).   He'd make a number of Oscar-cited films (The Bridges of Madison County, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, American Sniper), many of them hits, and make an unfortunate move into partisan politics.  Always a Republican, his appearance at the 2012 Republican National Committee where he would debate Barack Obama in the guise of an empty chair, drew confusion from his fans & partisan allies alike (Eastwood would later say he regretted this speech).  Even today, he's still making movies-in 2021, Eastwood at the age of 91 became the oldest person ever to direct a major studio film with Warner Brothers' Cry Macho.  Next month, we're going to shift to another icon of the 1960's & 70's cinema, one who would appear in several key westerns, but would get a very long, lauded second life as a film director.

High Plains Drifter (1973)

Film: High Plains Drifter (1973)

Stars: Clint Eastwood, Verna Bloom, Mariana Hill, Billy Curtis

Director: Clint Eastwood

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Clint Eastwood: click here to learn more about Mr. Eastwood (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Inevitably with Clint Eastwood, we were going to get to the films that the actor turned into a director.  Eastwood for modern film audiences is known as a proper movie star, of course, but also as a much-lauded director.  In fact, not counting cameos, Eastwood hasn't starred in a film for another director since 1993's In the Line of Fire (with Wolfgang Peterson).  Eastwood first started directing in the early 1970's, with the thriller Play Misty for Me, but that didn't stop him from wanting to lean into his most iconic genre (the western), and indeed his second directorial effort was the 1973 cowboy flick High Plains Drifter.  The film was a hit, but was noted for being a departure from many of the films that had made Eastwood famous, and indeed, was a step further into the violence that westerns had started to allow in the late-1960's.  John Wayne once said of this film, "this isn't what the West was all about."  The movie came at a turning point in Eastwood's career-two years earlier, he'd made Dirty Harry, which would spawn four sequels and would become the defining role of his career.  In 1973, less-than-a-decade after Rawhide was pulled off of the air mid-season due to low ratings, Eastwood had suddenly become one of the most bankable names in Hollywood.  All of this meant that there were a lot of expectations (for me, and for Clint) going into High Plains Drifter...how could Eastwood find something new to say about the western, now that he was allowed to do so in his own voice?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie features the Stranger (Eastwood), a drifter of sorts who comes into the town of Lago, and quickly kills three men who are protecting the town with little issue.  We see, but the other characters don't, that the Stranger is haunted by the death of a US Marshal named Jim Duncan, who is being whipped to death by several outlaws.  As the film progresses, we understand that Duncan was not a villain but a hero, and the town hired the outlaws to kill him after he threatened to tell that the local gold mine they were getting rich off of was illegally dug on government-owned land.  The town is wracked with guilt, and in trouble because they never paid those outlaws, so they hire Duncan to protect them & kill the outlaws, but for a price...they have to give him whatever he wants, and increasingly we find that he wants chaos, and to destroy the town itself.  As the film continues, several of the townsmen are killed or have their livelihoods destroyed, but in the end both the outlaws (and several townspeople) are killed, with the Stranger telling his only real friend in the town (a little person named Mordecai, played by veteran character actor Billy Curtis who was at one point one of the munchkins in The Wizard of Oz, as well as Mayor McCheese) when he's asked "what is your name?" and he responds "you know my name."

The ending makes the film.  In original drafts of the script, it was strongly implied that the Stranger is Duncan's brother, out for revenge, but Eastwood was smart enough to change that so it was more ambiguous, and as written, it reads more like he's Duncan's ghost or spirit come back to haunt the town for betraying him for doing what was right.  This gives the performance a different level, and honestly, it improves it.  Eastwood is not noted as a great actor in the same way that he is a great director, but I personally think he's a strong actor, and this is a good testament as to why-he's able to give this character a sense of enigma that other actors would've wanted to solve in the film, ruining the picture.  He also would've made him more redemptive.  The Stranger, unlike Jim Duncan, is not a good man.  He rapes multiple women, violently ruins the lives of several townspeople, and seems to delight in killing.  He is not a hero, and Eastwood plays him as a villain (barely even an antihero)...someone who is literally coming from hell to punish other wickedness, not to dismiss his own.  You could read the ending as him riding back into the abyss in the closing moments of the picture.

The film itself, with apologies to John Wayne, is therefore pretty darn good.  I loved the framing device of him being evil, and quite enjoyed how unique this film is.  It's also an unusual picture in Eastwood's directorial efforts, given that Jim Duncan, the only truly good person in the movie, is killed for defending the government.  Eastwood, who would enter politics (he'd become the Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, and endorse the Republican presidential candidacies of John McCain & Mitt Romney) is most noted not necessarily for being a conservative figure in Hollywood, but for being a principled libertarian figure (for example, he is a supporter of gay marriage).  As a result, most of his films are critical of the government, but High Plains Drifter still holds it in relatively high regard, with the "people" being the ones at fault here.  That would not be the case as you'd move further into his filmography.

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

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

Stars: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee van Cleef

Director: Sergio Leone

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Clint Eastwood: click here to learn more about Mr. Eastwood (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

While the "Dollars Trilogy" had done extremely well in Europe, it wasn't released in the United States until 1967, and it was then released in rapid succession (all three in one year).  Keep in mind, despite his time on Rawhide, at this point Eastwood was still an unknown to large swaths of the American audience, certainly when it came to the movies.  That changed with the release of these films.  Though they were greeted poorly by critics, audiences ate them up, and Eastwood was marked as one of the top box office draws of 1967.  The films' success (particularly our picture today) led Eastwood to try to push his stardom, and he was able to with a series of box office successes including Hang Em High, Coogan's Bluff, and Where Eagles Dare.  He also had the noted box office bomb (and to date, his only musical) Paint Your Wagon, which we're sadly not going to have time to watch but I'm desperate to see eventually as we've got a lot of ground to cover with Eastwood in the next two weeks.  But first, let's finish out the "Dollars Trilogy" with the celebrated western The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

(Spoilers Ahead) At nearly three hours, the movie stretches a lot of time, but it's honestly a series of short stories about three men: Blondie (aka the Good, aka Eastwood), Tuco (aka the Ugly, aka Wallach), and Angel Eyes (aka The Bad, aka van Cleef).  The three of them represent honor in the form of Blondie, treachery in the form of Tuco, and evil in the form of Angel Eyes.  All three men cross paths on their way to the same treasure-there is $200,000 in gold buried in a Civil War graveyard.  The only problem is-Tuco is the only person who knows what the name of the cemetery is, and Blondie's the only person who knows the name of the gravestone where it's buried.  They therefore form an uneasy alliance, and cross paths with Angel Eyes.  Tuco, under torture, tells Angel Eyes the name of the cemetery and that Blondie knows the name of the gravestone, but they both escape, and in a moment of trust, Tuco & Blondie tell their secrets...after which Tuco quickly betrays Blondie and runs after the gold by himself.  The problem is, Blondie smartly didn't tell him the actual name of the gravestone.  This leads to a standoff between the three men, where Angel Eyes is killed by Blondie, and Tuco stands there with an unloaded weapon (not realizing Blondie had taken out the bullets).  In the end, Tuco & Blondie find the gold, but before they can part, Tuco (in a callback to the beginning of the film), is strung up on a noose, and from a distance, Blondie shoots him down.  The film ends with Blondie riding into the sunset with his pile of gold, while Tuco runs after him, his hands bound, with no horse, and no way of transporting his riches.

The movie is masterfully-handled by Leone.  I was already a fan of his before I started watching the "Dollars" trilogy, as he made what is certainly my favorite western (and on some days, my go to answer for "what is your favorite movie?") Once Upon a Time in the West.  After watching this, I'm convinced he's the best director to never win an Oscar nomination.  The film is technically marvelous, with expansive, gorgeous cinematography, an impressive recurring score from Ennio Morricone, and marvelous editing, sound work, & art direction (this is admittedly more location scouting than production design, but the scene where Eli Wallach runs through the graveyards, joyfully thinking he's won the gold, is a testament to how important it is to use actual sets or locations rather than CGI it's so awe-inspiring from the sheer size).  The final hour of the movie (it's long, but I didn't feel it), is about as good as a movie can get, with the film working toward the inevitable standoff between these three men, with only one able to win.

In many ways, this would mirror the ending of Once Upon a Time in the West, except this one has more room for comedy than that picture (the ending of that one is grander, which if you've only seen The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly you'll look at me with skeptical eyes, as this is a pretty elevated finale).  The three title actors are all splendid.  We talked a lot about Lee van Cleef last week, but I'm so thankful that he was given a chance at stardom in the Italian cinema, because he's now had two classic turns, here as a villainous baddie who in his opening scenes kills a family out of some sort of warped sense of duty (it's hard not to think that the Coen Brothers had him in mind with Anton Chigurh).  Eastwood continues to impress.  The actor frequently gets criticized for being a relatively limited actor, but, if we're honest-so was Cary Grant, and he still had a laundry list of classic performances.  The main goal of a movie star is to pick roles they'll do well in and sell the movie, and this is splendid, with him playing the man-with-no-name as a snarky, omnipotent being.  But best of the three is Wallach.  His Tuco is funny, scene-stealing, and in some of his best moments (like the running through the graveyard) some of the finest work of Wallach's career.  A triumph, and what a treat to get to watch all three of these movies for the first time.

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

Film: For a Few Dollars More (1965)

Stars: Clint Eastwood, Lee van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonte, Mario Brega, Luigi Pistilli

Director: Sergio Leone

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Clint Eastwood: click here to learn more about Mr. Eastwood (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

In the early-1960's, Clint Eastwood's career was at a unique stage.  Rawhide had given him a platform & a stardom, but it was still in television, and Eastwood had his sights set on movies.  By the 1960's, though, most of the biggest western stars of the previous era (John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper) were either dead or on their way out of the genre, and New Hollywood didn't have a lot of interest (yet) in where the western was going.  So Eastwood headed down an unusual path, going to Italy to make a low-budget western that would change his life, Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars.  The film was not just a surprise box office smash, it briefly created a new genre of movies.  The 1960's would be dominated by the somewhat pejoratively named "spaghetti westerns," westerns filmed in Italy, usually dubbed from the original Italian for English release, and featuring a similar plotline of a stranger coming to town and turning out an evil.  The most famous of these movies was the Dollars Trilogy, which we're on the second one of this week.  For a Few Dollars More was an even bigger hit than its predecessor (something that was a lot rarer in the 1960's than it would become in the 1980's and later when VHS and video rental places allowed for a film's audience to grow between filming sequels), and cemented Eastwood as the biggest box office draw in Italy.  Next week, we'll talk a bit more about how Eastwood used his success in these movies to eventually become a name in Hollywood movies, but first, let's discuss the movie that is oftentimes forgotten in discussions of the trilogy, though after watching...I have no idea why.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is considered part of a trilogy, but it's not really a sequel in the traditional sense as while many of the actors from A Fistful of Dollars are in this movie, they are playing different parts.  Eastwood inhabits the "man with no name" persona again, here nicknamed Manco, and initiallly he is in something of a turf war with Colonel Mortimer (van Cleef), as both are noted bounty hunters who come to realize they're after the same man, El Indio (Volonte), a ruthless bandit, thief, & murderer, who carries around the musical pocket watch of a woman he raped who killed herself during the act we later discover.  After a fantastic showdown (which involves both men shooting each other's hats in a metaphorical dick-measuring contest), the two join sides, content to get the nearly $40,000 that would come with taking down El Indio's gang.  Initially they infiltrate him by having Manco join the gang, but once he's found out, this sets up a showdown between the three men, and us understanding that the woman whom El Indio raped was Mortimer's sister, and he had done this not for money, but for vengeance.

The movie doesn't have the scrappiness of A Fistful of Dollars.  Shot for a considerably larger budget (purportedly double the original's), it shows.  The cinematography, which in the original is excellent but scrappy, expands into gorgeous vistas, and the set design is magnificent, us getting to see these recreations in the real world rather than just on a studio lot.  The music from Ennio Morricone is marvelous, another absolute gem of a score, here a bit more melodic & less recurring than A Fistful of Dollars.  Even the acting is better here than the original.  Eastwood feels more at-home in this character, deprived of some of the stress of carrying the picture (and the main character's enigma) by himself with van Cleef very strong as his right-hand man.  Like Eastwood, van Cleef had spent much of the 1960's working in different bit parts in Hollywood (he had a non-speaking part in High Noon) before doing a number of guest spots on western shows of the era like The Rifleman, Have Gun-Will Travel, & Maverick.  This film revitalized his career, making him a huge name in Italy, and he spent much of the remainder of the 1960's & 1970's doing westerns, most of them in Europe.

The only thing that I think maybe it feels inferior to the original on is the story structure.  The movie has a lot of side plots, and is less focused than A Fistful of Dollars.  In some ways this is okay (Leone's magnum opus, Once Upon a Time in the West, is also a movie that as four separate plot lines converging into one gigantic showdown).  But this one doesn't do a good enough job of differentiating them.  It feels, quite frankly, like it functions better if you think of it as a series of western motifs rather than something that should be considered brilliantly plotted.  It still has great dialogue, and I like it a lot if you think of it as an homage to the western rather than one that should be taken literally, but if we're going to split hairs between two masterworks of the genre...that's where I'd land.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Film: A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Stars: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Volonte, W. Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, Joe Edger

Director: Sergio Leone

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Clint Eastwood: click here to learn more about Mr. Eastwood (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Clint Eastwood has been a genuine movie star for so many decades, it's hard to kind of comprehend a time before he was famous, or before his name was on a scrolling marquee (he is one of the few actors from the 1960's to not only still be around, but still able to genuinely open a movie...his last one feels like it was one of the bigger casualties of the same-day-as-streaming phenomenon).  But when he was first brought to Hollywood in the mid-1950's, he wasn't a success.  Lanky and ruggedly handsome, there's no doubt why he was hired, but his stiff delivery didn't help him (even if it eventually made him a household name), and he appeared in schlocky horror films for Universal like Revenge of the Creature and Tarantula before the actor was dropped by the studio as they didn't know what to do with him.  A few years as a free agent were tough for Eastwood, who was nearing 30 and hadn't made a name for himself despite key roles opposite actors like James Garner & Ginger Rogers.  Finally, Rawhide came along and changed everything.  The show was a big hit for CBS, and it finally got Eastwood the star-making role he'd dreamt of.  The show would continue for eight seasons, and by the end, Eastwood would be a star thanks to the spaghetti western, the first major one of which we'll discuss today (though we'll move into a more robust history of his time in Italy when we talk about another major film in the genre Eastwood would make next week).

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie features Eastwood as Joe, though he would become known as the Man with No Name (a role that Eastwood would play in some part for much of his career, and which will honestly be a thorough-line through all five of our films this month).  The film centers on this mysterious stranger coming to town, and finding himself in the middle of a long-standing fight between the Rojos and the Baxters, two local clans where both sides seem at fault, though it's pretty clear the Baxters are the lesser of two evils when Ramon Rojo (Volonte) kills a crew of Mexican soldiers.  Joe spends much of the film trying to play both sides, bilking money from each by riling up the other, but when a young woman named Marisol (Koch) is shown to be a sexual slave of Ramon (despite a husband and son at home who miss her), he takes up the mantle of their hero, saving the town from Ramon and riding off into the sunset.

As you're going to find this month, the Eastwood westerns, even when he takes over as the director, have a fairly similar plotline, albeit a tantalizing one-the idea of a stranger coming in and fighting the insurmountable evil at bay has been the plot of everything from Shane to The Shootist, so it makes sense that Eastwood would play into this trope.  But Fistful is one of the best creations in this mold.  It helps that Eastwood is given a little bit more fun here.  For the first half of the movie, he's having a blast being silly and finding ways to milk another $500 a pop from each family.  There's a playfulness that would not be standard in his movie roles, but would be evident in offscreen interviews or testimonials from former costars.  I loved getting to see that in such a young performance from him.

But Eastwood, albeit an underrated actor (with apologies to Ray Liotta), is not the biggest draw here-it's the technical wizardry.  Sergio Leone made what might be my all-time favorite movie, Once Upon a Time in the West, a few years later, and you can see him building to that with this brilliantly-structured film.  The violence onscreen really resonates, both visually and emotionally, as you come to understand just how cruel the old west could be.  The cinematography is fantastic-there were shots in this movie where I just wanted to hit pause and marvel at the use of space & color on the big screen.  And of course, Ennio Morricone is hitting a home run with the score, so effectively simple in drilling every moment onscreen (less grandeur than some of his later work...think of this as his Jaws).  All-in-all, this is a really special way to start our month with an actor that I have been excitedly waiting to get into all year.

Saturdays with the Stars: Clint Eastwood

Each month of 2023 we are taking a look at a star who made their name in westerns, rustling cattle & riding horses during the brief time when cowboys ruled Hollywood.  Last month, we talked about Franco Nero, whose role in the spaghetti western Django led to an unusual & eclectic cross-genre career in Hollywood.  This month, we're going to focus on another mainstay of spaghetti westerns, and a figure that, save for John Wayne, is more associated with the Hollywood western to modern audiences than any other figure.  From playing a rough-and-tumble cowboy to becoming one of Tinseltown's most successful (and lauded) directors, he's basically the definition of a movie icon.  This month's star is Clint Eastwood.

Eastwood was born in San Francisco, the son of a manufacturing executive, and the descendant of William Bradford, one of the passengers on the Mayflower (yes, Eastwood's bonafides as an "All-American movie star" are come by honestly).  He was drafted into the military (though he never saw active duty), and was discovered by a talent scout though a bad audition led him to acting school.  Eventually, he started to get work in cheap horror movies and guest spots on television.  All of this might've been the end of it had he not gotten cast on the CBS western series Rawhide, which got him on the radar of major moviemakers in Italy who would put him in a series of iconic spaghetti westerns, several of which we'll get to this month.

The rest, as they say, is history.  Eastwood has had a career that is wide-and-varied enough that a month full of Saturday's couldn't get to all of his career waves, from television to spaghetti westerns to eventually gaining massive success as an Oscar-winning filmmaker.  He's also had dalliances in music, including an ill-fated musical, Paint Your Wagon (which we sadly won't have time for), and a successful foray into politics.  Eastwood is a somewhat controversial star, but one that's impossible to deny his endurance, and an actor whose best work as a performer I've never really seen (I'll be honest, I generally like Clint Eastwood even if his film's politics can be a bit much).  We'll correct all of that this month as we look at five films (all westerns) starring the former mayor of Carmel.

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