Like Gaul, this post is divided into three parts.
1. It's the time when people decide on their top this, that and the others, and so I thought I'd pick out the best movies I've seen over the last year. This applies only to new movies, though not all of these were actually made in 2003. The natural cut-off point for me, when I looked through my list of movies (yes, I keep such a list - I have done since January 1967), was at three. The three top-class movies I saw in 2003 are (unranked):
> Mystic River (Clint Eastwood)
> The Pianist (Roman Polanski)
> Son of the Bride (Juan José Campanella)
I've written about The Pianist here; and, more briefly, about Mystic River here. Son of the Bride is a wonderfully humane and, in parts, extremely funny film, of which there's a review here. If you do see the movie, don't leave when the end credits start to roll, or you'll miss the answer to a certain question.
Honourable mentions, also, for The Hours (Stephen Daldry), and 25th Hour (Spike Lee).
2. During the first week of normblog's existence, I posted (on July 28) a list of my Top 20 Movies of all time. I've been aware since doing so how heavily weighted it was towards the (relatively) distant past: 15 of my favourite films were from the 1960s or earlier, and the other 5 were from the 70s and 80s. Well, I don't want anyone saying I'm stuck back then. So I've compiled the following list of ten fine movies from the 1990s. I'm not saying they're the ten best of that decade. They're just ten that I really rate. I've already watched most of them more than once; and, given time and opportunity, would watch any of them again. In alphabetical order:
> The Big Lebowski (Coen Brothers - 1998)
> Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley - 1992)
> GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese - 1990)
> Heat (Michael Mann - 1995)
> The Insider (Michael Mann - 1999)
> L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson - 1997)
> Lone Star (John Sayles - 1996)
> The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont - 1994)
> Sling Blade (Billy Bob Thornton - 1996)
> The Straight Story (David Lynch - 1999)
3. Finally - and you must have seen this coming - it's time for the call to go out for the normblog Favourite Movies of All Time poll. Please send me yours, any number of them up to 10. No need to rank them. You'll be sitting around over the coming week or two with lots of time to reflect on matters like this. Just think of the fun you'll have. So, email them in. Closing date: Sunday January 18, 2004.