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Feb.27,2005 -Mar.6,2005 |
A rise in documentaries and quality
Last year saw the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Quentin Tarantino and Clint Eastwood
By Angela Baldassarre
Originally Published: 2004-01-11
Despite the number of high-budgeted Hollywood fare and some very impressive independent cinema, the year 2003 was a memorable one thanks mostly to the heady material that got released on the screens.
A few themes for the year emerged. Movies in 2003 were more on the dramatic and dark side, and the Far East influence was undeniable, whether it be epic dramas (The Last Samurai), action (Kill Bill - Vol. 1) or comedy (Lost in Translation).
Documentaries, once virtually unseen except on the pre-recorded segments of the Oscar telecast, came into their own, led by the breakthrough success of Capturing the Friedmans, Andrew Jarecki's shattering account of the fate of the Friedman family in Long Island, whose paterfamilias, Arnold, along with his teenage son, Jesse, were convicted in a sensational child-molestation case.
Then there was, Spellbound, which charmed audiences with its portrait of the National Spelling Bee as a symbol of aspiration and assimilation for children from diverse national and economic backgrounds.
One of the year's most impressive features, American Splendor, could be called a semi-documentary; made by documentary filmmakers Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, the movie accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of bringing Harvey Pekar's autobiographical underground comic to life. Another fact-based film, Shattered Glass, was a timely exploration of journalistic ethics, an issue that captured headlines this year, thanks to media miscreants as Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass, the New Republic writer whose mendacious exploits (he made up most of his stories) earned him a place of dishonor in the journalism hall of shame. Even if Glass's crimes were relatively insignificant in the scheme of things, director Billy Ray made the story into something quite riveting.
The best dramas this year were independents: The Station Agent, Tom McCarthy's modestly affecting tale of three loners who find comfort in one another; The Secret Lives of Dentists, Alan Rudolph's literate drama about a pair of married dentists whose relationship is threatened by suspicions of infidelity; The Magdalene Sisters, Peter Mullan's wrenching, account of the suffering of young women confined to an Irish home for unwed mothers; and Swimming Pool, François Ozon's mysterious tale of a repressed mystery novelist (Charlotte Rampling) whose vacation idyll is disturbed by the appearance of her publisher's sexy daughter.
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