It surprised me to see that I've only written about Lost in Translation one time on this blog, and that was when I was talking about travel-related sleep deprivation, not the movie itself. It's still nestled in my top 50 on Flickchart nearly 20 years after I first saw it, and though I've revisited it comparatively few times -- only once since I started keeping track of rewatches in 2006 -- each revisit confirms my feelings toward it. (I'll have another revisit in the near future as part of my 2022 project of rewatching all my #1s.)
Two thousand three was a bit of a tumultuous year, as it involved a breakup with the woman I'd been dating for more than 18 months, though that wasn't until November. It had not yet occurred when I saw Lost in Translation, but I was already in a pretty melancholy state, I suppose, as I expected that relationship to end soon. (It had been my decision to end it, but it was a decision I ended up regretting for most of 2004 as I tried to get back together with this person.) I suppose I call it tumultuous because we had a 24-hour breakup in the summer, but as you know, the first breakup never takes. Other than that, though, pretty stable, as it was the first year since moving to California in 2001 that I had the same job the whole year, and by this point I was really entrenched in my social scene out there.
Now that I've given you my personal 2003 biography, here was how I ranked my films in early 2004 when I closed off my list:
1. Lost in Translation
2. Finding Nemo
3. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
4. House of Sand and Fog
5. Kill Bill Vol. 1
6. Seabiscuit
7. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
8. Elf
9. Big Fish
10. Whale Rider
11. The Guru
12. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
13. American Splendor
14. The Triplets of Belleville
15. Monster
16. 28 Days Later
17. The Matrix Reloaded
18. School of Rock
19. Camp
20. Capturing the Friedmans
21. 21 Grams
22. View from the Top
23. In America
24. X-Men 2: United
25. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
26. Shanghai Knights
27. Mystic River
28. The Station Agent
29. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
30. Bad Santa
31. A Mighty Wind
32. Better Luck Tomorrow
33. Final Destination 2
34. Thirteen
35. Daredevil
36. Down With Love
37. Anger Management
38. Bruce Almighty
39. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
40. Old School
41. Bend It Like Beckham
42. Love Actually
43. Cold Mountain
44. Identity
45. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
46. Hulk
47. The Core
48. Phone Booth
49. Gothika
50. Confidence
51. The Matrix Revolutions
52. Bad Boys II
53. S.W.A.T.
54. Northfork
55. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd
56. The Real Cancun
57. Paycheck
58. Dreamcatcher
And no, I don't think I was just being cheeky by ranking 21 Grams 21st of the year. I mean, I didn't ranked Thirteen 13th, did I? I like to think my process has more integrity than that ... though maybe it didn't 20 years ago.
This is how they are currently ranked on my Flickchart out of 5916 films, followed by the percentage of the ranking out of 5916 and the number of slots they rose or fell compared to the other movies from that year on my Flickchart. A positive number indicates a comparative rise of that many slots, a negative number a fall.
1. Lost in Translation (35, 99%) 0
2. Elf (46, 99%) 6
3. Finding Nemo (131, 98%) -1
4. The Guru (228, 96%) 7
5. 28 Days Later (387, 93%) 11
6. House of Sand and Fog (427, 93%) -2
7. The Triplets of Belleville (571, 90%) 7
8. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (616, 90%) -5
9. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (620, 90%) -2
10. Kill Bill Vol. 1 (653, 89%) -5
11. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (659, 89%) 1
12. Seabiscuit (701, 88%) -6
13. Big Fish (716, 88%) -4
14. Whale Rider (1014, 83%) -4
15. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (1144, 81%) 10
16. X-Men 2: United (1156, 80%) 8
17. Capturing the Friedmans (1236, 79%) 3
18. Bad Santa (1296, 78%) 12
19. American Splendor (1738, 71%) -6
20. The Matrix Reloaded (1797, 70%) -3
21. Camp (1864, 68%) -2
22. Old School (2078, 65%) 18
23. Final Destination 2 (2090, 65%) 10
24. Monster (2115, 64%) -9
25. A Mighty Wind (2327, 61%) 6
26. School of Rock (2343, 60%) -8
27. Bruce Almighty (2815, 52%) 11
28. Shanghai Knights (2839, 52%) -2
29. In America (2866, 52%) -6
30. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (3024, 49%) -1
31. The Station Agent (3128, 47%) -3
32. View from the Top (3221, 46%) -10
33. 21 Grams (3224, 46%) -12
34. Better Luck Tomorrow (3259, 45%) -2
35. Love Actually (3784, 36%) 7
36. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (3910, 34%) 3
37. Anger Management (3955, 33%) 0
38. The Matrix Revolutions (3957, 33%) 13
39. Thirteen (4023, 32%) -5
40. Daredevil (4058, 31%) -5
41. Bend It Like Beckham (4087, 31%) 0
42. Mystic River (4183, 29%) -15
43. Down With Love (4553, 23%) -7
44. Hulk (4634, 22%) 2
45. Bad Boys II (4785, 19%) 7
46. Cold Mountain (5001, 15%) -3
47. The Core (5039, 15%) 0
48. Confidence (5123, 13%) 2
49. Identity (5192, 12%) -5
50. Phone Booth (5308, 10%) -2
51. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (5442, 8%) 4
52. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (5464, 8%) -7
53. Gothika (5500, 7%) -4
54. Northfork (5710, 3%) 0
55. S.W.A.T. (5717, 3%) -2
56. Paycheck (5814, 2%) 1
57. The Real Cancun (5816, 2%) -1
58. Dreamcatcher (5853, 1%) 0
Five best movies I've seen since closing the list (alphabetical): City of God, Code 46, Dirty Pretty Things, Memories of Murder, Shattered Glass
Five worst movies I've seen since closing the list (alphabetical): Alex & Emma, The Brown Bunny, Just Married, The Room, Wrong Turn
Biggest risers: Old School (+18), The Matrix Revolutions (+13), Bad Santa (+12)
Biggest fallers: Mystic River (-15), 21 Grams (-12), View from the Top (-10)
Average percentage on Flickchart: 50.67% (4 of 5)
It may just be a feel I get from this list rather than anything borne out by the stats, but I feel like these movies are seriously shuffled around. Their comparatively small quantity masks it a little bit, but there are movies rising and falling all over the place here -- and if there were twice as many movies, they might rise and fall by twice the amount.
The biggest risers are a bit of a mystery for me, as two of them I don't like significantly more than when I first saw them. I've always been a bit underwhelmed by Old School and continued to feel so when I watched it again a few years ago, but there are a few scenes -- specifically the one where Will Ferrell's character outlines his Saturday plans to the college students ("We might go to Bed Bath & Beyond, but I don't know if we're going to have enough TIME") -- have really become personal favorites, apparently elevating the film on the whole. I certainly don't feel like I have the reason to like the third Matrix movie any more than I did back then, especially since I haven't even seen it again, but clearly I've decided to give the whole trilogy certain credit for seeing its vision all the way through -- even if the vision falters near the end. (And really falters in the fourth, which I ranked as my worst movie of last year.) Bad Santa is the only one whose large rise feels really legitimate, as I definitely unlocked something on my second viewing that I didn't on the first.
In terms of fallers, my big turn against Mystic River has a similar origin to my big turn against Crash two years later -- unjust Oscar love. Bill Murray's richly deserved Oscar was stolen from him by Sean Penn, leading to the way I always talk about this movie when people (rarely) bring it up -- I just launch into a quotation of Penn's most histrionic scene, where he continues to shout at greater volumes "IS THAT MY DAUGHTER IN THERE?" (And with the Boston accent, the last word is "THEY-uh.") Incidentally, 2003 must have been a year of awarding overacting, since that was the year Renee Zellweger got her Oscar for chewing the scenery of Cold Mountain -- which couldn't drop much because I pretty much hated it then too.
21 Grams started to curdle for me pretty quickly after I closed off my list, too -- I think Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu pulled off some structural trick like playing it in reverse order, which I thought was really cool at the time. But even at the time it struck me as the sort of emotionally tormented drama that always turned me off a bit. I genuinely don't know why View from the Top has dropped, since I always thought of that as a bit of a confection, and have consistently given it the win in duels on Flickchart. It must just always come up against movies ranked lower than it so it can never jump up.
The average ranking of 50.67% on Flickchart brings 2003 in at fourth of the five years considered so far.
June will bring us the films of 2002.
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