By James David Patrick
I always like to look back on old moviewatching years fondly and reminisce. I like to scrobble through the titles and relive memories of theatrical experiences and surprising rental greatness. And then I became reacquainted with 2003.
The blank page in front of me represented my inability to name one movie I identified with the year 2003 except Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (but more on that in a moment). Then I started taking notes based on the most watched and highest rated movies of the year. I did not feel any warmth. Actually, that’s not entirely 100% true. I moved to Boston during that fall and began venturing out into my new city to find new theaters and new opportunities – but my favorite moments happened in a repertory house called The Brattle in Harvard Square. Regarding new movies, however, the overwhelming bad tarnished the infrequent good or great. In fact, if I laid out the 2003 movies I greatly disliked end-to-end, I’d have a stretch of movies that circumnavigated the globe a time and three-fifths.
First of all, yes, reader, I practice wild hyperbole. Second of all, I’m enjoying putting movies on a figurative rack-like torture device in order to stretch them out to their fullest extent. I would inflict great pain on excruciating Hollywood flotsam like Daredevil, Cheaper By the Dozen, Scary Movie 3, and whatever other rubbish I had to review while I was still writing for that Atlanta tabloid rag, which mercifully ceased when I migrated north. (Who am I kidding? I miss that crappy gig.) Low man on the journalistic totem pole doesn’t pick his assignments. He gets the junket for Basic (2003).
By 2003, the creative boom of the late 1990s had really and truly evaporated into a vaporous mist, and I suffered through some of the worst Hollywood cinema I’d ever seen. Looking back on all of this 2003-ness, I’m actually pretty jazzed about rewatching Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle – the movie I watched with my best man, in the theater, the day I got married. It was a wonderful spot of spontaneity just because we had the time. Did I actually like the movie? Or was it the brief respite among swirling chaos? Does it even matter? The experience matters.
I’d suggest this hot take. 2003 reeked of organ grinder flop sweat and wrinkled movie theater hot dogs. By and large, the big Hollywood movies rushed toward the middle, toward numbing mediocrity. As my Top 10 list took shape, however, I began to find a surprising number of movies I really liked, even if I didn’t find many I loved all that much. Little indie movies I’d forgotten and quirky fare that got lost somewhere in the Shire and The Return of the King’s interminable final act. They were there – just lost in the woods. (And now I’ve got the best song from Frozen 2 stuck in my head.) I just needed to look harder and stop worrying that Under the Tuscan Sun made my 2003 short list. I will surrender to Diane Lane and gorgeous Italian vistas. It’s just a very pleasant movie. And that’s okay.
Not every year needs to be 1998 or 1992. Some years are just 2003, some years are just that dehydrated, crispy hot dog on a spit, and they make us appreciate the highs even more. Before I check in with my Top 5 from 2003, I’d like to state for the record that I like Return of the King. I like Kill Bill. These are undeniably massive critical and commercial successes for Peter Jackson and Quentin Tarantino, but they’re not my Peter Jackson and Quentin Tarantino movies. I don’t connect with them on a personal level, whereas the five I’ve chosen feel like far more personal reflections of my perspective as a unique movie watcher.
That’s an important detail. Too easily, we conflate subjective taste with objective goodness and, in doing so, lose sight of why we watch movies in the first place. We put on a movie not merely to appreciate (although that is one component of the experience), but to be swept up in a dreamscape so that there is little emotional distance between ourselves and the flickering image. My apologies for detouring into gooey cinephilic romanticism. I sometimes need to remind myself to appreciate my singular perspective rather than idly nodding along with the general consensus.
Dare to be me. Dare to be you.
My Subjective Top 5 from 2003 (alphabetical order):
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir, 2003)
Open Range (Kevin Costner, 2003)
Saddest Music in the World (Guy Maddin, 2003)
The Triplets of Belleville (Sylvian Chomet, 2003)
Have you seen my Top 5? Good. If not, add those. Then dig deeper, dig into the Underseen and Underrated 2003. That’s why you’re reading this in the first place. Prepare to go “Huh?” right from the jump. As I’ve said before I’ve recommended Leonard Part 6 (1987) in this space, so I’ve got nothing left to hide.
The Underrated Films of 2003
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (McG, 2003)
Honest question. When you sit down to watch a movie like Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, what do you hope to see? Think about it for a moment while I wax solipsistic.
When I first started writing about film in high school, I knew I hadn’t yet seen enough to draw on a deep well of cinematic exposure. I’d seen more than any other 16-year-old I knew, but I wasn’t aiming to write for other teenagers because what the hell did they know? Like any other aspiring writer, I wanted to produce content that everyone would take seriously. I don’t know if I fully succeeded, but my writing partner and I did get a feature in the Sunday Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and broader Internet syndication. (Maybe I’m the Al Bundy of film writers. I peaked in high school.)
Because of my limited frame of reference, the guiding philosophy for those reviews was this: What does this movie hope to be? And who was it made for?
In Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, McG decided that if you came back for more after the competent but largely mundane adaptation of the groundbreaking television series, you were down to party. Full Throttle turns its trio of leading ladies into the spectacle. And while it might muddy the line between female empowerment and popsploitation, the obscenely self-aware film dares to take its female-led action-comedy franchise (still a relative novelty in 2003) into the realm of the disasterpiece. The pointless narrative merely provides an excuse for Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu to throw sexy, engage in ridiculous wire-fu action set pieces, and throw lazy situation comedy at the screen. Some of works. A lot of it doesn’t.
It’s the cinematic equivalent of a Cheeto. You can’t live on Cheetos, but don’t you just crave one every now and again? McG’s movie didn’t care about your objective notions of good vs. bad cinema. But were you entertained? In the end that’s the most important question.
So, for whom was this movie intended? What did you want out of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle? It was made for someone who wanted to watch hot, badass, charismatic ladies command the screen with material far below their greater talents soundtracked by bangers from Apollo 440, Sir Mix a Lot, Tone Loc, Electric Six, and The Prodigy.
I believe this movie did exactly what it set out to do and yet it feels almost universally reviled. If it’s not meant for you – that’s one thing, but let’s not pretend it’s not successful in its execution of being super dumb escapism meant to be forgotten ten minutes after exiting the theater.
rent charlie’s angels: full throttle
The Rundown (Peter Berg, 2003)
I don’t want to rehash points made in the previous blurb, so I’ll take a different tact. Compare The Rundown with the more recent The Lost City (2022), starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum. Action-adventure comedies set in the jungle, featuring convoluted and insignificant plots secondary to the character dynamic. The latter’s only six minutes longer, but overstays its welcome because it’s in denial about the value of its narrative. The Lost City wants to be oh so clever. 10 years from now, nobody’s going to remember anything about that movie other than the Brad Pitt cameo.
The Rundown respects exactly what it is – a rampaging programmer featuring B-level stars with A-level charisma. Dwayne Johnson (still billed as The Rock here) exudes a surprising amount of on-screen energy for a dull wrestler guy that’d just mugged his way through the unimpressive The Scorpion King (2002) with a one-note performance. Here, he’s punching concrete and cracking wise with Seann William Scott, who – let’s face it – we all kind of miss. He occupied that Ryan Reynolds niche, the slightly unhinged smart-ass, until Ryan Reynolds came along and ultimately removed the “unhinged” as his career migrated toward the middle and bigger paydays in lackluster Netflix streaming movies.
Johnson’s a bounty hunter looking to retire and start a restaurant when he gets roped into one last job, fetching his boss’ wayward son in the Amazon – which turns into treasure hunting and witty banter. Rosario Dawson shows up and doesn’t get enough to do. And then Christopher Walken enters from the bullpen, acting in an entirely different movie. I won’t complain.
At times Peter Berg falls back on genre cliché, but litters the action with unique camera angles and movement above the film’s station. In the end, it’s another mindless action comedy, sprung forth from Romancing the Stone’s mismatched jungle loins, but it’s full of vim and vigor. Something I can’t exactly claim about the majority of The Lost City.
Intolerable Cruelty (Joel Coen, 2003)
I’ve written more words than I’d ever thought I’d write about Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and The Rundown, so I’ll keep this one brief. Even a lesser Coen brothers movie is watchable (except one) – especially when that movie’s headlined by proper beautifuls like George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It’s the Coens’ take on a Hollywood Romcom via Danny Devito’s War of the Roses (1989). Cruelty didn’t resonate at the time, but give it another shot and I think the movie’s gooey cynicism might win you over.
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (Mike Hodges, 2003)
Mike Hodges only directed ten feature films over his career, most notably Flash Gordon (1980) and Get Carter (1971). And I would probably argue that his best movie is 2000’s The Croupier. His movies were always interesting, if not totally successful. I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead feels like a proto-John Wick, even if it takes an entirely different tact when it comes to its methodology. Clive Owen plays a former London crime boss who’s left the game to live like a forest hermit. When his brother commits suicide, he returns to London to uncover the events leading up to his brother’s death and seek revenge.
Some would call this languid or boring. Others would use the term “slow burn” to describe how Hodges unfurls this movie like an ancient scroll, checking every so many inches to make sure he’s not tearing the fragile papyrus. Both camps could be right – depending on whether Clive Owen and the supporting cast (Jonathan Rhys Myers, Charlotte Rampling, Malcolm McDowell) draw you into this world. Owen’s excellent – it’s the performance that had us convinced (alongside those BMW mini-movies) he’d be the next James Bond.
If you don’t mind time to ruminate, to savor that cold dish of revenge, you should give Mike Hodges’ late career, sleepy thriller a taste.
The Underseen Films of 2003
I initially jumped at the chance to include Peyton Reed’s Down With Love on this list, but I’ve already pushed it in a past article and it was actually the most-watched selection of my list of Underseen films. More than double the Letterboxd viewings of the second most popular title on the list.
Wild and fascinating things were happening under the radar in 2003, and we just had to be receptive to their wavelength. I knew a couple of these movies only because I worked at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts when a few of these passed through town. I used to grab a bag of popcorn and sit in on whatever was playing in the early time slot that day. I’ll start with one such entry, a movie that left lingering emotional scars of the best variety.
The Return (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2003)
What sounds like a routine Sundance affair quickly transcends its arthouse coming-of-age story by swapping it with a haunting neo-noir thriller about the reappearance of a 12-year absent father who takes his boys out to a remote island for holiday. The “holiday” devolves, challenging the boys’ manhood and sacrificing their adolescence.
Zvyagintsev undercuts each frame with anticipation for what’s about to happen. Shot with a nearly monochrome color palette, bleached and gray, the film absorbs hope like a black hole. It’s a masterfully paced drama, anchored by two stunning child performances. Few films leave marks as indelible as The Return – it’s the rare movie I’ll resist writing more about because it’s best to go in cold and receptive to everything it has to offer.
Cowards Bend the Knee (Guy Maddin, 2003)
The lazy list-maker stops with Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World because it is indeed an underseem gem, as is most of Guy Maddin’s filmography. I, however, forge onward because I already mentioned The Saddest Music in the World in my 2003 Top 5 and it just so happens that Guy Maddin released the lesser seen, almost as good Cowards Bend the Knee the same year.
In many ways, Cowards is Maddin’s Greatest Hits collection. Winnipeg, hockey, tragedy, unsexy sex, patricide, silent film homage, abortion. And after I typed that I’m wondering who would want to watch this movie after reading that introduction. Now for my pitch. Maddin turns his demons into bleak humor and potent emotional resonance. He’s most reminiscent of fellow Canadian David Lynch, but Maddin could never be considered derivative. He’s more personal, more specifically referential, and darkly comical.
I’m never fully able to convey Maddin to anyone who’s not seen Maddin, but I’ll do gosh darn best.
A hockey player takes his girlfriend to a seedy abortion clinic where he falls in love with the daughter of the abortion clinic/brothel/salon proprietor. The daughter wants revenge against her mother for cutting her father’s hands off (and killing him). On top of that, she’s saved the hands and wants to transplant them onto her hockey player boyfriend so that he and his father’s hands can carry out said revenge. Plus, the movie looks like it was filmed by Tod Browning.
Now— you might be thinking WHY WOULD I EVER WATCH THAT? – but I think you’re smart. I think you’ve already added it to your queue because like any good watcher you’re curious, you’re wondering how is that a movie? And why haven’t I heard about it until now. Good on you.
Stander (Bronwen Hughes, 2003)
If she is known for anything at all, Bronwen Hughes is known as the director of Forces of Nature (1999), a movie that is at best a test of Sandra Bullock’s ability to resuscitate comatose co-stars and a lame script.
That’s a shame – because this $15 million South African true-life biographical crime thriller about Andre Stander (Thomas Jane), a South African police officer who decides to rob banks in order to thumb his nose at apartheid in the wake of the Tembisa riots, should have put her on the map for something other than a bland romcom. In an alternate universe, she’s Kathryn Bigelow.
Although the film supplies surface-level entertainment that might not be extraordinarily layered, the subtext introduces some undeveloped ideas about white people doing bad things under apartheid. It doesn’t follow through with a lot of conviction, but it does serve up a lot of great mustache action. In one scene, Stander shaves off his own mustache so he can replace it with an even more impressive fake one. Eat your heart out, Mission: Impossible.
Bukowski: Born Into This (John Dullaghan, 2003)
I’m not certain when I first saw this movie. I’m not even sure how familiar I was with the work of Charles Bukowski at the time or if I was just familiar with the Bukowski mythos. I was living in Cambridge, MA when this movie came out, and I made a comment about the Bukowski Tavern in Inman Square and wondered why Bukowski had a bar in Boston when he was a lifelong Los Angeleno. Has he even been to Boston? I had so many questions. I don’t know if I ever got an answer but my friend force fed me this documentary instead.
The documentary excels in presenting Bukowski the personality, Bukowski the rabble rouser. It goes beyond his legend to dive into what made him tick.
Harry Dean Stanton, Barbet Schroeder, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, and Bono (?) make fanboy appearances. Dullaghan’s documentary doubles down on everything you thought you knew about Bukowski, filling in the hazy details to make him more fascinating, more human but no less of everything else.
James David Patrick is a Pittsburgh-based writer with a movie-watching problem. He has a degree in Film Studies from Emory University that, much to everyone’s dismay, gives him license to discuss Russian Shakespeare adaptations at cocktail parties. He hosts the Cinema Shame and #Bond_age_Pod podcasts. You’ll find him crate diving at local record shops. James blogs about movies, music and ‘80s nostalgia at www.thirtyhertzrumble.com. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
#Coens #Cowards #Side #Underrated #Underseen
