Column #11 - 2003: The Best, The Worst, and The Rest
(with Special Guest Writer Mark Rishaug)

Tis the season to take a moment to ponder what has wistfully come to pass, what has faded from memory, and what deserves to have a stake driven through its heart, just in case it tries to come back.

Best Movie About Cultural Dislocation: Lost in Translation.

Best Movie about Dislocated Culture: In America.

Best Movie About Dislocated Shoulders: Cradle 2 The Grave.

Best Movie About Dislocated Shoulders All-Time: Lethal Weapon 2.

Best Ambiguous-Unambiguous-Yet-Still-Experiencing-Closure-Ending: Lost In Translation.

Best Lesbian Serial Killer Movie: Monster.

Proof That a Female Serial Killer Movie Can Also Be a Tender and Moving Love Story: Monster.

Movie That Makes No Apologies: Bad Santa.

Movie That Should Apologize: (Tie) Underworld, Dreamcatcher, The Matrix Revolutions.

Most Overrated Movie: Kill Bill, Vol. I.

Most Underrated Movie: The Matrix Reloaded.

Biggest Disappointment: The Matrix Revolutions.

Biggest Surprise: Seabiscuit.

Biggest But Not Entirely Unexpected Disappointment: Underworld.

Worst Stephen King Movie This Year: Dreamcatcher.

Worst Stephen King Movie Of All-Time: (Tie) Graveyard Shift, Silver Bullet, Sleepwalkers, Maximum Overdrive, Thinner, Pet Sematary.

Worst of the Worst Stephen King Movies Of All-Time: (Tie) Maximum Overdrive and Graveyard Shift. Dishonorable mentions go out to Silver Bullet, Sleepwalkers, and Thinner.

Best Stephen King Movie Of All Time: (Tie) The Shawshank Redemption and The Running Man. Kidding. Shawshank by a landslide.

Best Recognized Comedic Performance That Carries With It An Oscar Nomination: Bill Murray, Lost In Translation.

Best Un-Recognized Comedic Performance That Should Carry With It An Oscar Nomination But Didn't: Billy Bob Thorton, Bad Santa. Bad Santa, Good Movie.

Best Superhero Movie: Daredevil.

Worst Superhero Movie: The Hulk. Not because of its filmmaking, just because Ang Lee continued to beat the whole "bad father makes Bruce angry" plot into our heads every single chance he got. We get it. Bruce has daddy-issues. Go to an anger-management class already. Speaking of which...

Worst Superhero Movie (Runner-Up): The Order. Used to be Sin Eater. A mess so confusing that even the writer-director can't make sense of its plot without a plot plot. And believe me, it shows.

Adam Sandler Movie From Which I Didn't Want to Flee: Anger Management.

Adam Sandler Movie from Which I Would've Fled: Eight Crazy Nights.

Best Lord of the Rings Film: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Best Hobbit: Samwise Gamgee. Frodo is Sam's bitch, though at times this is a little fuzzy.

Best Bobbitt: Lorena, John. John, Lorena. Wait, they both have issues.

Best Samurai Fighting Ninjas Period Piece: The Last Samurai.

Other Samurai Fighting Ninjas Period Piece: Kill Bill, Vol.1. It's implied.

Best Movie of the Year: The Lord of the Rings, Return of the King.

Best Thinking Man's Movie of the Year: Lost In Translation.

Worst Movie of the Year: Dreamcatcher.

Worst Thinking Man's Movie of the Year: Underworld. What? You were expecting Tolstoy.

Worst Movie of All Time: Anaconda. But Dreamcatcher is making steady progress.

The Most Memorable Moments

Best Action Sequence: THE FREEWAY CHASE - MATRIX RELOADED

Return of the King, SWAT, Bad Boys II, and the opening of X2: X-Men United (by far the dumbest title of the year) all made good showings. But how many times have you re-watched Morpheus cut down that truck with his sword? Or watched with bated breath as Trinity races that bike through oncoming traffic? If only they could have ended the trilogy here, as a duo-logy.

Best Fight: THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES SEQUENCE - KILL BILL

The Jones-Del Toro knife-fight in The Hunted was stellar and Neo vs. the Smiths in the Burly Brawl was CG lunacy in The Matrix Reloaded, but, DAMN, girlfriend Uma Thurman offs 88 people in fifteen minutes! And it's not that chunky-easy-to-clean-up-corn-syrup-and-red-dye-number-five-concoction, no, this is Taratino's special sauce, manufactured by illegal immigrants forced to listen to techno-Zamfir, constantly threatened with deportation back to Mexico even though they're Puerto Rican. And those same poor bastards are still cleaning up the mess.

Best Reason to Test Your Bladder: THE RETURN OF THE KING

Coming in at just under 3 _ hours, the film event of the new millennium was surprisingly quick to watch. Unlike Titanic, it did not feature millions of liters of gushing water, each drop of which only reminded of that irrigation-pump sized Coke unwisely consumed during the first hour. And then you couldn't leave without finding out if Kate Winslet would get naked again. She didn't. Damn you, James Cameron.

Body Count Award: ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO

Kill Bill had bloodier deaths in its "roaring rampage of revenge", Bad Boys II had more gratuitous deaths and a third act climax that somehow manages to be both patriotic and offensive at the same time, but Robert Rodriguez's bloodbath wins for sheer brutality. He killed people in new and interesting ways, including an example of how a sawed-off pistol can remove a man's ankles. And let's face it, no moment beats Johnny Depp winning not one, but two Mexican stand-offs while blind. That sight, however, paled in comparison to...

Best Reason to Never Eat Again or Ever Again See Another Stephen King Adaptation Not Involving Frank Darabont: DREAMCATCHER

The worst picture of the year, and a frontrunner for biggest creative disappointment. The normally brilliant creative minds of William Goldman, Lawrence Kasden, and Stephen King came up with this bathroom horror: Dying, bloated people who flatulently expel bloody "sh*t-weasel aliens" out of their asses. We couldn't have made that up if we tried, or wanted to. And we didn't. Make it up. Or want to. We apologize for even saying it.

Most Unnecessary Visual: TWO RATS HUMPING - BAD BOYS II

This shot, from the exterminator sequence of the film, is Bay's worst pairing of two sexual beings since Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler shared animal crackers in Armageddon. This isn't a euphemism, they actually shared animal crackers.

Most Unrealistic Moment: BRUCE ALMIGHTY

Sure, it's about a guy who is given divine powers, but not even God can get the Buffalo Sabres to win the Stanley Cup. In the event HE'S readying this, sorry.

Best Performance (Tie): JOHNNY DEPP and JOHNNY DEPP

What can we say? This was the Year of the Sparrow, as in Johnny Depp playing Jack Sparrow. His Keith Richards impression in Pirates of the Caribbean was bold, brilliant, and insane in one swishy, cross-dressing package. Then he goes on to steal another flick, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, this time as a CIA agent so cooler than cool, deader than deadpan, that he belongs in a Quentin Tarantino movie. How does he steal this flick? One word: Impersonating Brando in a confessional...That's actually five words.

Hottest Actress: KRISTANNA LOKEN - TERMINATOR 3

Sure, there's Eva, Cameron, Bridget, and Beyonce, but this Scandinavian angel takes the cake. She's not much of an actress, but this is the one award that doesn't care. Besides, she made out with Pink (who hasn't these days?). Honorable mention goes out to Charlize Theron for The Italian Job, but Monster killed that right quick.

The Al Pacino Overacting Award: SHANE BROLLY - UNDERWOLD

Pacino would get his self-titled award any other year for his 110-decibel confession(s) in The Recruit. Kudos also go out to Billy Connelly's gushing professor in Timeline. Sadly, the most over-the-top performance is the least enjoyable. Brolly chews up more scenery than a tornado at a balsa wood factory. His vampire lord Kraven is so painfully on-the-nose, we wanted to read a book. If you don't believe us, rent Underworld and see for yourself. On second thought, don't. Ever. Stop thinking about it. Seriously.

Most Wooden Actor (The Paul Walker Award): PAUL WALKER

This race supposedly ended in June when 2 Fast 2 Furious came out. Then he topped himself in the lackluster Timeline. Walker's well on his way to a bad-acting Lifetime Achievement Award. It's a good thing he has his money and movie-star good-looks to fall back on.

Best Actor Nobody's Heard Of (The Walton Goggles Award): BRIAN VAN HOLT

This guy was in two of the most underrated films of the year, sporting a cool porn-stache in S.W.A.T. and as an Army Ranger-with-a-hidden-agenda in Basic. Keep an eye out for him, he's this year's Colin Ferrell.

Most Self Important Movie: TEARS OF THE SUN

Here's an idea, let's disguise an action flick as a serious drama by making American Navy Seals 'save' poor wayward Africans from themselves. I was almost insulted, but then that kick-ass fire-fight at the end quelled my outrage. Also, Monica Bellucci, superhot.

Biggest Disappointment: THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS

With all due disrespect to Dreamcatcher and Underworld, this one wins due to sheer indifference to the audience. I'm so offended that I plan on not watching the next sequel, so obviously set-up at the end. If you haven't seen the ending, we won't ruin it. The Wachowski brothers already did that.

Biggest Non-Event: GIGLI

Call them "Bennifer," or "Jaffleck," or our favorite "BLO", when it comes to this off-again-on-again-off-again couple, who really cares? Didn't see this crap-fest, don't know anybody who did see it, thought briefly about seeing it in the cheap theatres, beat self with stick, it passed. Special nods go out to Affleck, who apparently when given the choice between J-lo and best friend Matt Damon, picked the guy. That's like walking in on your parents, wish it had never happened, can't get the idea out of your head. Ever.

Best Hollywood Trend: THE RETURN OF SEX TO THE CINEMA

Violence and language used to be the vices of choice. Now, thanks to the likes of Halle Berry in Monster's Ball, Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room, and Meg Ryan in In The Cut, sex is en vogue again, like it should be. All we need now is some of the under-35 set to realize the significance that dropping trou often plays in a plot. Seriously, the character would do her taxes topless.

Worst Hollywood Trend: TRANSPARENT PLOT TWISTS RUINED BY THE TRAILER

We all knew Kevin Spacey framed himself in The Life of David Gale. Ditto for the whole Travolta thing in Basic. Though a remake, if you saw the trailer for The Italian Job, you knew everything. What happened to the good old days of Usual Suspects, Sixth Sense, and What Lies Beneath, where we could actually be surprised? Instead, watch TV's "24," where you get six cool twists an hour.

Best Pooling of Resources by Writer/Directors: L.A. COP MOVIES

Last year's Training Day was co-written by David Ayer. Ayer also co-wrote Dark Blue (a similar corrupt-cop flick) and S.W.A.T. S.W.A.T. was directed by Clark Johnson, who starred in TV's "Homicide: Life on the Street." Ron Shelton, also a Dark Blue writer, went on to make Hollywood Homicide. Oddly enough, all were pretty good. You might ask why Hollywood Homicide is so good...

Funniest Love Scene: HARRISON FORD/LENA OLIN - HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE

Ford hasn't had this much fun since the Amish barn-raising in Witness. The rest of the movie was a little lame, but that love scene will go down in history. From the cool homage to Top Gun to Ford's sunglasses to the Freudian bite of a glazed doughnut, we were in tears. "Bad cop...no doughnut for you". Killer.

Best Line of Dialogue: KILL BILL

Tarantino does it again. When that West Texas Lawman called Uma Thurman a "tall drink of c*cks*cker", we hit the floor. A close second was Morpheus' impossibly cryptic, "No, what happened happened, and couldn't happen any other way" from The Matrix Reloaded. I'm still pondering that one. On second thought, let's apply this to The Matrix Revolutions: "What happened happened happenstance and couldn't have happened if any other happenings or happenstance had happened unhappily. Ergo...Vis-à-vis...Concordantly..."