All Bangers: September 2000

What was I doing in September 2000? I don't remember. But here we have my first rewatch of one of the year's Oscar winners, Almost Famous, critically acclaimed but a box office bomb on its initial release, which nevertheless has gone on to an artistic and cultural reputation that makes many go back and ask, "Why the hell wasn't that nominated for Best Picture?"

Nominees Return: August 2000 (contd)

As though to make up for July's total lack of Oscar nominees, August gave us three...

School's Back from Summer: August 2000

In August 2000, I began sixth grade. For some, this is the start of middle school; for others, the end of elementary school. For me, it was the end of an experience. 

See, I went to a magnet school with only three grades, 4th-6th, and I was in a program that saw me with the same teacher all three years. Ms. Turner is still one of my favorite teachers, we're even friends on Facebook. She was a true personality, a queen - literally, instead of a pointer or a ruler to, uh, point out things on the whiteboard, she had a stuffed glove covered in glitter with a deep red velvet cufft, the handle of which read, "QUEENIE." So close were we, she even got me an audition with a local high school for a part in their production of Mame; I was offered the role of Young Patrick on the spot, but it was canceled before rehearsals even began (it was said the teenage main cast had behavioral issues). 

Of my writing, she was a great encourager, editor, and critic. She streamlined my fiction but also tried to set me free from the confines of conventional storytelling. I remember once when I turned in a direct Star Wars parody for a creative writing exercise, she told me it was funny, clever even, but so structured, I had missed the point of the exercise, which was to let the pen roam and the mind run free, that is, stream of consciousness. Funnily enough, it was also her class that taught me the importance of outlining before writing, though that was the standard for the grade. Still, it was her personal touch, the notes in the margins, the praise for some aspects, the tsk-tsks for others...look, every teacher I've had encouraged my writing, but she was the most instrumental in shaping it.

August 2000, then, was the beginning of the end of an important chapter in my life. This would be my last year with her. Middle school brought more good teachers, and high school still more (including a drama teacher who showed me how to translate what I learned to playwriting, directing, and producing).

Funnily enough, my two rewatches are about the end of summer and the beginning of a new school year:

The Unawarded: July 2000

We have now gone halfway through the year 2000, with 49 films logged and 73 films to go - the back end is always heavy, studios save their "prestige" projects for the winter awards season, banking on immediacy and short memories. But as we saw, lots of films in the first half of the year went on to nominations and wins! In fact, the only two months with no Oscar nominees in the year 2000 are January and July. Why July? I don't know, let's take a look at the options:

Fictionalizing Facts: June 2000 (contd)

My mother was very helpful to me with this batch of movies. When I told her how I was wrestling with my feelings regarding one of the movies, she immediately sent me the book it was based on and, of course, I read it. 

It did make me appreciate the film more as a largely successful adaptation of an impossible-to-adapt story, yet at the same time, the book's own shortcomings pulled into focus what I didn't like about the movie. 

But it wasn't the worst movie I saw...

Summer in Atlanta: June 2000

June was the most important month of my year 2000. This was the month my mom and I went to Atlanta for a week, staying with my Aunt Jenny. And boy, did we keep busy!

This was the trip where I made my first appearance on television! 

Mind, it was the closed-circuit Emory University station, as part of the sketch show created and produced by my cousin. It was a good show. Past episodes included a Blair Witch Project spoof (the movie was the sensation of 2000) and a prescient sketch called Homoerotic, Or...? wherein two men were presented with a video or photo - of three guys clad only in swim trunks being hosed down, for instance - and debated whether it was clearly homoerotic or just "good clean fun," which just demonstrates how old those debates are. Anyway, I was there when they filmed a "behind-the-scenes" sketch on the making of the show, and was of course cast as the Godfather of Comedy (see above), the ultimate decider of what was or wasn't funny enough to make it to air. The two jokes I remember: a Gladiator reference (see how popular it was?) wherein I gave my approval through the old emperor's thumb technique...

...and me flipping through a script until a tired Tom Green reference (see how popular he was?) made me hurl it across the room. That didn't make it the final cut. The entire episode is here, my bit is at 18:26, that's my cousin Clay hosting the segment.

This was also the trip where my fascination with Ancient Egypt (borne of my love for The Ten Commandments) came to its zenith with a look at the Fernbank Museum's Mysteries of Egypt exhibition. What I remember most is the IMAX film of the same name, where Omar Sharif tells his grandson ofthe native boy who really discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen, and who, despite the legend of a curse, lived to a ripe old age; and the journals of Napoleon's Egyptian exhibition, with richly detailed drawings of the French taking obelisks "home".

This was the trip where I saw the original Psycho at the Fox Theater. Sponsored by TCM, the entire program was a throwback to cinema days of yore. There was live organ accompaniment as we sang old tunes for the pre-show: "Yes, sir, that's my baby / No, sir, I don't mean maybe..." There was a short before the main feature - coincidentally, the Looney Tunes "What's Up, Doc?", a snippet of which I had watched just the previous night when my aunt introduced me to Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up, Doc?. And let us not forget: Janet Leigh herself was there, live, on stage, for an introduction and Q&A (oddly, what I remember most is not just her talking about how sweet and easy Alfred Hitchcock was to work with, but how her co-star and Hitch's daughter, Pat Hitchcock, would tell her how frightened classmates and teachers looked when he picked her up from school). Then, the film itself, a masterpiece. I had seen it a couple times before at home, but you truly have not lived until you've seen it on the big screen. Everything is more horrifying. Did I skip a shower that night? Of course I did. Did I hesitate before going up the stairs, sure that Martin Balsam's fate also awaited me? Baby, I had to turn on all the lights before mounting the first step. And this was before digital projection was a thing, so the silver screen was truly silver.

Naturally, there were other movies and television shows. No Time for Sergeants and the aforementioned What's Up, Doc?; Auntie Mame, which became a perennial for me, one I introduced many friends to, I've even seen some revival screenings in cinemas, it is one of my all-time favorite movies; a glimpse at a VHS cover at the video rental store turned me on to Freaks, which I found and rented and fell in love with when I got back to Florida.

Honestly, my auntie did

And then there was Daria, which had its season premiere the same night as the Psycho screening. Aunt Jenny, helpfully, recorded the whole thing, including the two-hour marathon that played beforehand and half of the follow-up program: Making the Video for Janet Jackson's "Doesn't Matter" from The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. I still have the VHS. Very gracious when one remembers this was Aunt Jenny's birthday weekend. To celebrate, we had tea at a traditional tea room - was it Mary Mac's, or am I misremembering? - friends of hers visited, and the day ended with a (homemade by one of the said friends?) coconut cake. I know she had fun doing the rest of it, too, but one can't overstate how much thought she put into making this trip meaningful and enjoyable for me and my mother.

Our last night, the moms went to bed while my cousin Carl and I stayed up late in the basement and read out loud Paddy Chayefsky's The Hospital. We stopped when 11-year-old me came upon the phrase, "It is nipple-clear that she is braless." Did we move on to Marty, or did we just chat about the Beatles, or both? I think both. We then listened to a Jesus Christ Superstar highlights CD featuring Claire Moore. Then dawn broke and it was time to leave...

Elsewhere at the movies...

The Best and the Worst: May 2000 (contd)

May 2000 continues from yesterday.

The month of May was fruitful for awards season, seeing the release of two films whose popularity and infamy, respectively, lasted well into March of the next year. I refer, of course, to Gladiator and Battlefield Earth.

Gladiator was a hit, Battlefield Earth was a bomb. Gladiator was the #1 film in the USA two weeks in a row, the #3 film of the whole year; Battlefield Earth bankrupted its studio, the #100 film of the whole year.  Gladiator won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Battlefield Earth "won" the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture. Are their reputations warranted?

Read on:

The Forbidden Books: May 2000

And so comes May 2000 and the end of fifth grade. (OK, that may have been early June, but my June post has too much going on already, so let's say it was May)

My teachers liked to make the last week of school a "summer camp" for our mixed 4th/5th-grade class. This year's theme was based around a popular book series whose fourth entry was coming that summer and for which a movie had been announced - indeed, several classmates told me I should audition, despite me pointing out that casting calls were specifically in England. I speak, of course, of Harry Potter. 

I was "sorted" into Gryffindor (we drew random names out of a bucket, I got Oliver Wood), and was completely at sea: I'd never read these books, though it seemed everyone else had, or at least enough for there to be a class debate over how to pronounce "Hermione." It was certainly a boon for Gigi, who had been partially raised in England and so became our in-house expert on how English schools with their houses and prefects worked. We even played a version of Quidditch where I had to be the "Keeper", and seeing as I already had no clue what was going on with actual sports, my memory of this made-up one was me standing in front of the three hula hoops and just kind of...staring. No idea what was going on.

The thing is, I wasn't allowed to read Harry Potter. There was a very short period where my family's Adventism kept such things at bay, the fear at the time being that the youth would be seduced into turning away from God and Christ by the Trojan horse of reading. My family's partaking in this kind of thinking lasted only a year, maybe, and was pretty much undone by my paternal grandmother gifting me The Goblet of Fire at Christmas. When my mom herself saw the first movie at home, there was a bit of a, "This is what people were worried about?" reaction - what was so wrong with an imaginative work where good triumphs over evil?

But that was later. I'm talking about the year 2000, where this was happening at the movies:

Tardy to the Party: April 2000, contd

Well, it took a few days, but here's the rest of April 2000 - all first-time watches for me:

Well, Mom Likes It: April 2000

My most distinct memory from April 2000 is below. Before we get there, I want to point out how, quelle coincidence, all three of these films I rewatched were directed by women. Not on purpose! Just how my rewatches of April 2000 worked out.

America's Actress: March 2000, contd

Continuing from yesterday's rewatches of March 2000, here are my first-timers from that same period. Among them is the first of the second of the year's releases to go on to Oscar glory.

That movie, of course, is Erin Brockovich, which opened before the Oscars for 1999 even aired and immediately had Julia Roberts as the Best Actress frontrunner for the next year's ceremony, momentum that never once slowed down. It was perfect, in a way: despite a Supporting Actress nomination for 1989's Steel Magnolias, her superstardom began with 1990's Pretty Woman, the 20th Century ending with her as our reigning rom-com box office queen, America's Sweetheart. It's only fitting that the 21st Century began with her being lauded not just as a genuine thespian, but as our Best Actress. (Sometimes I think, oh that all happened fast, but that's actually the typical timeline for breakthrough-to-Oscar for female movie stars - Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence, Grace Kelly...hell, Audrey Hepburn won for her debut!)

Here's where Erin Brockovich fell within the March 2000 landscape:

Killer Birthday: March 2000

March 2000. This was the month I turned eleven, and I feel like this was the birthday where I got a CD of Highlights from the Phantom of the Opera (with Claire Moore!) and a VHS of Yellow Submarine. I had awakened early in the morning, so there was time before school to listen to the whole CD; the VHS I saved for later.

I had only recently gotten into the Beatles, and I remember it had to be fifth or sixth grade because my introduction to them was through neither their music nor their movies but through a small paperback in our classroom's Take A Book, Leave A Book library: Beatles Diary, written by their chauffeur and road manager, Alf Bicknell. Odd that without any other context, I latched on to the story told in those pages. I was so into the Beatles that, for a project asking us to create an Egyptian-themed calendar, I did one with images of a band called The Scarabs, with, I believe, Anubis in place of Ringo.

While I was turning 11 and dreaming of a past I never experienced, here's what was happening at the movies...

Magic, Melancholy, and Wonder Boys: January/February 2000, contd

Continuing the beginning of the year 2000 and, already, we have our first Oscar winner of the year!

Wonder Boys was originally intended for end-of-year awards consideration in 1999. Getting it all together proved a challenge, though, and the release date was pushed back to February 2000, a surprising decision considering how firmly the November-December period had become Awards Season by that time. Critically acclaimed but met by audiences with a shrug, it came and went at the end of February. Such was the support within the film and critical communities, it was re-released in November, better suited for awards consideration. Indeed, it went on to be nominated for four Golden Globes (winning Best Original Song) and was among the National Board of Review's Top Ten Films of 2000, while star Michael Douglas was named Best Actor by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. 

But that would be a December 00/January 01 story. We're still in January and February 2000, and Wonder Boys was one release of many - all seen this year for my first time:

The Beginning of a New Age: January/February 2000

The year 2000 began with a genuine sense of history. Once the ball dropped and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve continued without blackouts, internet outages, or planes falling from the sky (that wouldn't be for another 20 months), we celebrated as citizens of a New Millennium, laying the groundwork not just for the next century but the next ten centuries!

We started with eyewear

When the media spoke of the Y2K bug, a glitch that would convince the world's computer systems that the year had turned to Zero, it was in apocalyptic terms. Yet, in a sense, it did feel like Year Zero, in that there was a sense of renewal, of possibility. We were living in the future, Two Thousand! Even I, a fifth grader, ten years old, felt it. I seem to recall the slightest hitch in my breath when some joker turned the lights off just as the countdown hit "three....two...ONE...HAPPY NEW YEAR", but soon I was swept up in the emotion, in watching the people around me -  mom, Dad, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - celebrate how we, they, had made it. There were people in the room who seemed to have seen it all: WWII, the moon landing, the Concorde, the internet at your fingertips, now marveling that they were part of this new era. My God, what would we do with this blank slate, this call to shape the world?

We would keep living, it turns out. The real opportunity to shape the 21st Century would not come until November (it was an election year!). Until then, we returned to work, to school, back to reading The Ballad of Lucy Whipple, to doing homework while watching Pepper Ann in the afternoon, to evenings with Dilbert and Malcolm in the Middle. 

And people went right back to the movies. Indeed, some went the very first day of this New Millennium....

The Year 2000: An Introduction

The Turn of the Century is a phrase that, growing up, I knew referred to that blurry period between the Gilded Age and WWI. Working with people born after 2001 humbles one into realizing, somewhere between the reminiscences of Y2K paranoia and Daria, that for many, and soon many more, the Turn of the Century occurred just 25 years ago. And I was part of it!

With the gravity of that realization, I decided my look at the year 2000 would be different from other retrospectives. I lived through it! I watched many of the hits either in theaters that year or on VHS (ha!) the year after! And what I didn't see, I certainly knew about thanks to daily conversation, TV spots, newspaper reviews, and subsequent pop culture references. So, instead of the usual 65-80 films, I watched 122, doing my best to watch in the order of their release (the only exception: January releases, which I sprinkled throughout because...well, I'm not sure why I did that, but that's how it worked out). I had my friends on Instagram vote on what I should prioritize. And I decided to spend two months talking about it.

Sunday, I'll discuss the films released in January and February 2000 that I was already acquainted with; Monday, I'll discuss the films released in January and February 2000 that I saw for the first time. And it will continue in that pattern until September, when I take a look at that year's Oscar race category by category (well...ten categories, at any rate), culminating in my personal picks for the best of the year.

By the way, these are the 122 films:

28 Days

102 Dalmatians

Almost Famous

American Psycho

The Art of War

Autumn in New York

Bamboozled

Battlefield Earth

Beau travail

The Beach

Bedazzled

Before Night Falls

Best in Show

Big Momma's House

Billy Elliot

Boiler Room

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2

The Boondock Saints

Bounce

Bring It On

The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy

But I’m a Cheerleader

Cast Away

Cecil B. Demented

The Cell

Center Stage

Charlie's Angels

Chicken Run

Chocolat

Chuck & Buck

Chunhyang

The Contender

Coyote Ugly

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Croupier

Dancer in the Dark

Disney's The Kid

Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Dr. T and the Women

Dracula 2000

Drowning Mona

Dude, Where's My Car?

Duets

The Emperor's New Groove

Erin Brockovich

Eye of the Beholder

Fantasia 2000

The Fantasticks

Final Destination

Finding Forrester

Get Carter

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

Girlfight

Gladiator

Gone in 60 Seconds

Hamlet

Hanging Up

High Fidelity

Hollow Man

The House of Mirth

The In Crowd

Isn’t She Great

Judy Berlin

Keeping the Faith

The Last September

The Legend of Bagger Vance

Love & Basketball

Love’s Labour’s Lost

Malèna

Me, Myself & Irene

Meet the Parents

Men of Honor

Miss Congeniality

Mission: Impossible II

Mission to Mars

Next Friday

The Ninth Gate

Nurse Betty

The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Paragraph 175

The Patriot

Pay It Forward

The Perfect Storm

Pitch Black

Pollock

Psycho Beach Party

Quills

Ratcatcher

Red Planet

Remember the Titans

The Replacements

Requiem for a Dream

Return To Me

The Road to El Dorado

Road Trip

Romeo Must Die

Rules of Engagement

Scary Movie

Scream 3

Shadow of the Vampire

Shaft

Shanghai Noon

Shower

Small Time Crooks

Snatch

Space Cowboys

State and Main

Sunshine

Thirteen Days

Traffic

U-571

Unbreakable

Urban Legends: Final Cut

Vatel

The Virgin Suicides

What Lies Beneath

What Women Want

Wonder Boys

X-Men

Yi Yi

You Can Count on Me

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Oscars 2025: Way Too Early Predictions

The 98th Academy Awards will be held on March 15, 2026. Every year I try to predict who the nominees will be in Best Picture, Best Director, the Acting categories, and the Writing categories. Sometimes I'm pretty good, often I'm horrendous, but it's fun to do and also works as a list of anticipatory titles for the coming year.

Winners, Day Three: The 2024 Hollmann Awards

Today is the last day of the 2024 Hollmann Awards. The full list of nominees is here, the first six winners are here, and the last six winners are here. Six more categories we'll discuss today, beginning with:

Winners, Day Two: The 2024 Hollmann Awards

Today is the second of three days' worth of the 2024 Hollmann Awards. The full list of nominees is here, the first six winners are here. Six more categories we'll discuss today, beginning with:

Winners, Day One: The 2024 Hollmann Awards

Today is the first of three days' worth of the 2024 Hollmann Awards; the full list of nominees can be seen here. Six categories we'll discuss today, beginning with:

The 2024 Hollmann Awards - My Nominees Are...

We are a week away from the 97th Academy Awards - but you are only a sentence away from the nominees for the 2024 Hollmann Awards! 70 films seen, a Top Ten named (alphabetically), and now, 29 films in 18 categories - what I think is the best of the year...

2024: The Longlists

The following is a collection of longlists. A companion to my Top Ten, it narrows the field of the remaining 17 categories in the Hollmann Awards to 15 options each:

My Top Ten of 2024

This year, I thought the best way to approach the Top Ten was to consider: which movies so excited and moved me that I wanted to go out and make one of my own? Which movies made me feel that anything was possible? Which movies sparked the same wonder and amazement I first felt as a budding cinephile? Which movies sent me off on such a high that I wanted, at the very least, to rollerskate after?

With that in mind, and with a tip o' the cap to honorable mentions Cabrini, Gladiator II, Hundreds of Beavers, Lisa Frankenstein, Megalopolis, The Substance, Wicked, and The Wild Robot...my Top Ten:

Passion Projects: 2024

I started my Directed By Kevin Costner journey back in October, looking at the films of 1990, the year he made Dances with Wolves and won Best Director for his efforts. Among the competition both at the box office and the Oscars was The Godfather Part III and its director, Francis Ford Coppola. Both men came back in 2024 with passion projects financed either partially or in whole from their own pockets. Both projects were highly anticipated, at least by me. 

The Films of 2024

In 2020, I saw 119 films. In 2021, 120 films; in 2022, 97 films; and in 2023, 115 films.

This year, I saw a grand total of...74 films. 

One of them I have a personal connection to. I highly recommend it. 

My Winners: The 2003 Retro Hollmann Awards

I watched 79 films from 2003. I nominated 33 of them. And now - 11 winners. Here they are:

The 2003 Retro Hollmann Awards Nominees

Here they are, 33 films across 18 categories - the nominees for the 2003 Retro Hollmann Awards:

My Top Ten of 2003

This was a tough field to narrow down, as this year was full of old favorites and new discoveries. Here’s to the ones that didn't make the final cut: 28 Days Later, Cold Mountain, Elephant, House of 1000 Corpses, The Last Samurai, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and Phone Booth.

My Top Ten, in alphabetical order:

Best Picture, 2003

It may be the only time a Best Picture winner was correctly predicted by all two years in advance. When The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released to critical hosannas but A Beautiful Mind won Best Picture, we all looked at each other and said, "They're saving it for the third one." Sure enough, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King swept the season (I believe LAFCA was the only holdout, giving its Best Picture prize to American Splendor). When Oscar Night came, we all saw it coming:

Not a nailbiter, though that's a shame because all five nominees are pretty damn great. The nominees for Best Picture, ranked from 5th to 1st:

Best Actor, 2003

When Sean Penn won Best Actor in 2003, it was the first and, to my memory, the only time I’d ever seen the host himself apologize to one of the other nominees. That’s because while Penn’s victory wasn’t a total shock - there was a late surge of support for him and the film - conventional wisdom at the time had Bill Murray as the inevitable winner. Both Penn and Murray won Golden Globes, but Murray had also been crowned by the New York critics, the LA critics, the Indie Spirits, and BAFTA, an actual industry group! The only other nominee to be honored by people who’d actually vote for the Oscars was Johnny Depp at the SAG Awards, and many felt the nomination was the win for him. Murray was a beloved comedy icon who many agreed probably just missed on a Supporting Actor nomination for Rushmore, it seemed inevitable that the Academy would reward him and his career. For once, the inevitable did not occur:

Here are the performances, ranked from 5th to 1st:

Best Actress, 2003

I will never forget that photo of Charlize Theron in full Aileen Wuornos drag, clad in a prison jumpsuit with hands clasped while awaiting mercy in a courtroom. It's the picture everyone used to say "this is our next Oscar winner", the picture everyone chose to say "gorgeous women can only win Oscars win they de-glam!" Hell, in 2006, the Academy Awards itself made a joke by saying Charlize Theron was once more "ugging it up" for North Country. If you read "We Predict the Winners" articles from the era, everyone tries to build suspense by saying it's a narrow race between Theron and Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give...and everyone predicts Charlize Theron. I was three days from turning 15 and even I knew who'd win:

Who should have won? The performances ranked, by me, from 5th to 1st:

Best Director, 2003

What do you look for when it comes to “best” directing? I confess, for me it’s about consistency: all the performers, all the “crafts”, even the rhythm of the edit (not always under the aegis of the director, by the way), are on the same page, delivering the same tone. If it’s slow and meditative, you’re not bored, because everyone is doing their job to make that purposeful instead of plodding. If it’s broad and loud, no one is over-the-top but everyone is Stylized, Theatrical. You believe in the world of the film because the director has worked on every element to make it real.

I think that's what everyone was responding to in 2003 when Peter Jackson made his inevitable ascent to the Dolby stage, a consistency that spanned 438 days of shooting, three years of release (and reshoots), a cast and crew of thousands, and beaucoup box office. Everyone knew they were waiting for the third movie to give him his reward:

As you see, he wasn't the only nominee, and nobody turned in a bad movie. Ranking them is more a matter of who you love most than who you like least. Here they are, ranked from 5th to 1st. 

Best Supporting Actress, 2003

What a lineup, huh? We have Shohreh Aghdashloo giving a performance that made American critics and Hollywood sit up and take notice, Patricia Clarkson riding the momentum of 2002’s Far from Heaven and her other 2003 indie The Station Agent, Marcia Gay Harden returning in a Best Picture nominee after her shocking Oscar win in 2000, Holly Hunter back for the first time since her 1993 double-header, and Renee Zellweger on her third consecutive nomination after just missing out on a win the previous year (so we assume, anyway). Zellweger had the ol' "When are we giving it to her already?" going for her, and just like Tim Robbins, her win was considered "in the bag":

The performances, ranked from 5th to 1st:

Best Supporting Actor, 2003

Much of the 2003 race felt like an inevitability. We all knew Best Picture and Best Director were locked for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. We all knew Renee Zellweger was getting Best Supporting Actress. And we all knew the winner for Best Supporting Actor was gonna be Tim Robbins. And we were right:

My ranking, from 5th to 1st:

The End of the Year: 2003, Day Six

Here they are, the last 13 films of my 2003. My first time watches here were Cold Mountain, The Company, The Fog of War, House of Sand and Fog, Mona Lisa Smile, and The Station Agent. The movies I’ve seen more than just the two times are The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Big Fish.

Christmas in November: 2003, Day Five

New to me this round: 21 Grams, Bad Santa, The Barbarian Invasions, Brother Bear, The Cooler, In America, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and The Missing. Everything else I was seeing for only my second time, except Love Actually, which I’ve seen many many many many times.

First Kisses: 2003, Day Four

This set of films goes from September 26 through Halloween, 2003.

In the midst of all this was my first real date with a girl. I met her through my summer theatre camp, though we didn't do a show together, she was friends with friends of mine. Cute girl, dated two of my friends before me, we saw Runaway Jury.

I regretted it when she started making out with me. Good kisser, cute girl, don't get me wrong, but I was enjoying the movie and missed an important plot point, a blank that wouldn't be filled until, well, this year. That’s when I realized I was not a movie date guy, not for a first date, anyway, and definitely not for a first kiss. My best friend later told me the mistake was going to one I was interested in but I don’t think that matters. I love the movies, I want not just to watch them, but to tell you what I liked, what I hated, why something was good or bad! I think I would’ve felt the same frustration if we had seen, I don’t know, The Room. Cinema was already My Girl.

We split about a month later, amicably, and I never saw her again. Twenty years later, I saw Runaway Jury without interruption.

Thirteen films here. My first time watches were The Human Stain, In the Cut, Shattered Glass, and Under the Tuscan Sun. The only ones I saw multiple times before this were Mystic River, Kill Bill: Volume 1, and Intolerable Cruelty.

Predicting the 97th Academy Awards Nominees

UPDATED 1/23/25 with the actual nominees. I've kept my predicted titles: incorrect guesses are now in red, unpredicted nominees in green. I'll warn you, the only categories I predicted perfectly are Best Director, Best Actress, Best Sound, and the Supporting Acting categories.

The nominations for the 97th Academy Awards are tomorrow, a celebration of the best in 2024 cinema.

'Anora' won the Palme d'Or at Cannes - can it also win Best Picture?

For the first time in a decade, my own tally for 2024 viewings currently sits at 60, but I'm gonna give myself another ten days to catch up. In the meantime, based on nominations given by the various guilds, critics' groups, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs, here's what I think will be nominated tomorrow at 5:30am PST:

A Third Costner: 2003, Day Three

We're in the thick of Summer '03 now, July 25-September 26. Two Best Picture nominees were released in this peiod, the studio sports drama Seabiscuit and the indie dramedy Lost in Translation. But as I said in 1990 and in 1997, we're here for Kevin Costner, so let's focus on that.

After a gap of only six years, Costner returned to the big screen with Open Range. Based on The Open Range Men, a 1990 novel by prolific Western author Lauran Paine, the film follows a group of men herding cattle across the land who are stopped in their endeavors by the powerful rancher of a nearby town who detests open range cattlemen, and is willing to kill, so, you know, our main duo elect to stay in town and prepare for the inevitable. 

Costner grew up reading the works of Paine, and I think it's interesting that the novel he went with came out the same year as his Dances with Wolves. He cast Duvall, who made his directorial debut with 1997's The Apostle, the same year as Costner's second film, The Postman. I'm sure these vague connections were not thought of at the time, but it always strikes me, the way lives are just always circling around each other, time constantly in conversation with itself.

Filming between June and September of 2002 on a, for Costner, modest budget of $22 million, the film opened to good reviews and good box office. Heck, I remember seeing the TV ads ("You're the one killed our friend?" BANG!) during every commercial break. Why it never managed to take hold in the Oscar race, I'm not sure. Just one of those things, I guess. It would be 21 years before Costner gave us another movie...which we'll discuss another time.

Of the thirteen discussed below, five were brand new to me: American Splendor, Freaky Friday, Matchstick Men, Open Range, and Thirteen. Of the rewatches, Party Monster and Freddy vs. Jason are the only ones I've seen more than twice (more than thrice!). 

Legends Are Born (and Retired): 2003, Day Two

Continuing our journey through 2003 with the films of May 2 through July 25. A lot happened in this period: the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean, the end of Sean Connery, Pixar and comic book films leveling up artistically and commercially. It was quite the time to be alive.

Of these thirteen, three were brand new to me (Camp, Capturing the Friedmans, Dirty Pretty Things). Of the remaining ten, I’d only seen half of them multiple times before this (X2, The Room, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Down with Love, 28 Days Later).

On the Defensive: 2003, Day One

The difficult thing about doing “retrospectives” of Oscar years is that, the closer you get to the contemporary timelines, the more you hear, “Oh, you didn’t watch [blankety blank] you have to watch [blankety blank]!” People can forgive missing a Bacall or two because, hey, those are old; tell people you missed Bringing Down the House and you might as well say you didn’t take the project seriously.

But I swear I did! Remember, I was a moviegoer in 2003, albeit still at the mercy of friends’ and parents’ availabilities: the closest theater was miles away and besides, I wasn’t exactly driving at 13/14 years old (nor am I at 35 years old). Point being, there were “popular” movies I missed then, there are “popular” movies I miss now - there are “popular” movies you miss now, admit it!

Ach, such a defensive way to begin this retrospective! The films we look at today cover the period from January 17 to April 25. There are thirteen in all. Four of them are new to me: Bend It Like Beckham, City of God, A Mighty Wind, and Phone Booth. The rest I’d seen before, though only three of them I’ve seen more than twice: Identity, House of 1000 Corpses, and Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie.

Let’s begin:

2003: Beginnings

Obviously, there's been some delay in the 2003 posting due to life stuff.

I am still prepared to start with the reviews on Sunday. I watched 78 films total for this project - and, since 2003 was a year when I started to ramp up my moviegoing and cinephilia, over 50 of them are rewatches, some for the hundredth time, many for the first time since seeing them in cinemas.

The 78 films are:

21 Grams

28 Days Later

Anger Management

Anything Else

Bad Santa

The Barbarian Invasions

Bend It Like Beckham

Better Luck Tomorrow

Big Fish

Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie

Brother Bear

Camp

Capturing the Friedmans

City of God

Cold Mountain

The Company

The Cooler

Daredevil

Die, Mommie, Die!

Dirty Pretty Things

Down with Love

Elephant

Elf

Finding Nemo

The Fog of War

Freaky Friday

Freddy vs. Jason

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Gothika

The Haunted Mansion

House of 1000 Corpses

House of Sand and Fog

House of the Dead

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

The Human Stain

Identity

In America

In the Cut

Intolerable Cruelty

The Italian Job

Kill Bill Vol. 1

The Last Samurai

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Lost in Translation

Love Actually

The Magdalene Sisters

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Matchstick Men

A Mighty Wind

The Missing

Mona Lisa Smile

Monster

Mystic River

Open Range

Party Monster

Peter Pan

Phone Booth

Pieces of April

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

The Room

Runaway Jury

The Rundown

The School of Rock

Seabiscuit

Shattered Glass

Something's Gotta Give

The Station Agent

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Thirteen

The Triplets of Belleville

Under the Tuscan Sun

Underworld

View from the Top

Whale Rider

Willard

Wrong Turn

X2

We begin Sunday with the first 13 films released that year, taking us from January 17 to mid-April, including Oscar surprise City of God and Marvel embarrassment Daredevil. Do join...

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The 1997 Retro Hollmann Awards: The Winners

The biggest gap from the beginning of a year to its conclusion in a while. Nevertheless, here we are: you've seen my take on the Academy Award nominees in six categories, my Top Ten, and my nominees. Now, here are my winners, the best of the best, for the 1997 Retro Hollmann Awards: