Bearing in mind that I purposely avoided movies like  Gigli  and Charlie's Angels: Full Thottle, and that I have not yet managed to see Mystic River or The Station Agent, here are my Top Ten Best and Worst Movies of 2003.

 

Top Ten Best Movies of 2003:

10) Seabiscuit:  A true story of what happens when misfits band together.

9) Pieces of April:  A Thanksgiving fable...gritty and not pretty. Norman Rockwell would never have painted this picture, but it's a lot more like the Thanksgivings we all know and...endure.

8) Runaway Jury:  I can't get this movie out of my head. And I read the book because of it. Not brilliant...but very, very good.

7) Phone Booth: Reminiscent of Rope, a lot happens in a very small space.

6) A Mighty Wind: Believable brilliance. With a soundtrack to back it up.

5) Down With Love:  A perfect homage to the Doris Day/Rock Hudson romantic comedies. While not a great film, it was perfect at what it set out to do.

4) Finding Nemo: Actually gets better the more times you see it. That's not easy to do.

3) Pirates of the Caribbean: For a movie based on an amusement park ride, it was well-written, well acted and fun.

2) Elf:  Destined to become a holiday classic...silly, but not stupid. And less depressing than A Christmas Carol.

1) Lost in Translation: Just...beautiful. Surreal. And perfect. I saw 87 movies this year...and this was my favourite.

 

Top Ten Worst Movies of 2003

10) View From the Top: It had a nice moral. But it was just so...lame. And we know Gwyneth Paltrow is capable of so much more...

9) Once Upon a Time in Mexico: This poor film just couldn't decide what it wanted to be. But any movie with a line like "Are you a MexiCAN, or a MexiCAN'T?" deserves to go on at least one Top Ten Worst list...so here it is.

8) The Recruit:  I wasn't expecting a lot...and it was worse than I expected.

7) Chasing Papi: While it's interesting that they're making movies in English which target Hispanics...couldn't they make them good movies?

6) It Runs in the Family:  Hello, Douglas family? We don't want to pay $10 to see your home movies.

5) Confidence: Edward Burns. Rachel Weisz. Andy Garcia. Dustin Hoffman. It should have been more.

4) Le Divorce:  It may not be the director's fault. The book was dull and flat, too...which begs the question of who decided it would make a good movie...

3) Kill Bill: Volume 1:  I should have loved it. But it was bloody awful.

2) The Matrix Revolutions: How many times do we have to see the same scene? I never bothered to see the third one...this was bad enough.

1) The Cat in the Hat:  When the best thing you can say about a movie is that the dog wears the same collar I bought for my cat...well...