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!).
Seabiscuit
release: July 25
nominations: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Jeannine Oppewall / Leslie Pope), Best Film Editing (William Goldenberg), Best Costume Design (Judianna Makovsky), Best Sound (Andy Nelson / Anna Behlmer / Tod A. Maitland)
dir/scr: Gary Ross
pr: Kathleen Kennedy / Frank Marshall / Gary Ross
cin: John Schwartzman
I saw this in cinemas with Mom! And we'll talk about more when we discuss the Best Picture nominees next week!
The Magdalene Sisters
release: August 1
dir/scr: Peter Mullan
pr: Frances Higson
cin: Nigel Willoughby
First saw this one back in college when I was obsessed with the Agatha Christie's Marple series starring Geraldine McEwan; she plays the nun who runs this particular Magdalene laundry. You know about the Magdalene laundries, yes? The "halfway houses" sponsored by the Catholic Church in Ireland for girls who were pregnant out of wedlock and/or just seen as "wayward" and were abused and exploited physically, mentally, sexually, and financially? They worked until someone came to get them out but the whole point was that the shame of them being there in the first place prevented "good" families from allowing them back so many stayed into old age? Here is the story of four girls in one of those establishments. It's risible and haunting. Tastefully done, too, never goes for shock value but emphasizes the humanity, the horror of what happens coming from your empathy. McEwan's great as a woman whose blind faith and self-righteousness have made her into a devil.
Freaky Friday
release: August 6
dir: Mark Waters
pr: Andrew Gunn
scr: Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon
cin: Oliver Wood
Update of the classic comedy about a feuding mother and daughter who switch bodies. Adds a bizarre "Chinese magic" angle that wasn't in the original and comes off a little...awkwardly. Besides that, it's an improvement on the original. The conflicts get zanier and zanier, as daughter Jamie Lee Curtis has to juggle preparations for impending nuptials to a stepdad she doesn't want, her job as a therapist, and a surprise television interview promoting her new book, while mother Lindsay Lohan must contend with a former friend who hates her, a teacher out to get her, a hot boy who loves her interest in "vintage" music, and a battle of the bands she is ill-prepared for. Both actresses do an incredible job inhabiting these characters in both their "proper" bodies and swapped ones. Mark Waters' energetic vision and the inventive writing from Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon keep the laughs coming without undermining the story of cross-generational understanding. Creative, hilarious, what a movie!
American Splendor
release: August 15
nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay
dir/scr: Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini
pr: Ted Hope
cin: Terry Stacey
A blend of documentary and narrative filmmaking adapting the autobiographical works of underground comic writer Harvey Pekar. Quirky portrait of unexpected cult celebrity. Probably the only time I've seen a biopic about how some semblance of fame not changing someone's circumstances or personality and he's still kind of, hm, not miserable but misanthropic. The play between fiction and nonfiction is marvelous, at some points, the actors watch the people they're playing interact with each other, not just appreciating the surreality of it all, but knowing that they can never quite nail the natural oddity of reality (even though, frankly, these performers are perfect).
Freddy vs. Jason
release: August 15
dir: Ronny Yu
pr: Sean S. Cunningham
scr: Damian Shannon & Mark Swift
cin: Fred Murphy
I've never been the biggest fan of either Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street, but this movie has always gotten me. It's fun, it's funny, it's bloody violent, and Kelly Rowland calls Freddy Kreuger a "faggot" with every consonant hitting. Love it!
Open Range
release: August 15
dir: Kevin Costner
pr: Kevin Costner / Jake Eberts / David Valdes
scr: Craig Storper
cin: James Michael Muro
Kevin Costner's third directorial effort, another Western (imagine that!) about free-range cattlehands who have to fight a corrupt rancher and his thugs in a small town. For my money, Costner's best film, his most assured. Yes, there are still the odd pacing issues that plague his other films, but the meditation on violence and its awful transformative powers is effective...and not undermined by the awesome shootout that climaxes the film. Costner and Robert Duvall are the leads, they're great together; ditto Annette Bening as the woman Costner takes a shine too. Hell, everyone's great. Everything is great. Love this movie.
Thirteen
release: August 20
nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Holly Hunter)
dir: Catherine Hardwicke
pr: Jeffrey Levy-Hinte / Michael London
scr: Catherine Hardwicke & Nikki Reed
cin: Elliot Davis
Teen girl spirals when she befriends a Bad Girl classmate. Audacious, unflinching in its depiction of sexual activity and the brazen dishonesty that only a habitual liar or an emotionally-fraught teenager can practice. The dynamic of the household - Holly Hunter trying to stay sober, barely making ends meet but trying her best, though maybe a little too free in a way that hints at reconciling with her own rebellious past - feels authentic. Evan Rachel Wood is marvelous here, she knows just how to play the uneasy line between young fun and genuinely dangerous. A tough watch but a great movie.
Party Monster
release: September 5
dir/scr: Fenton Bailey / Randy Barbato
pr: Fenton Bailey / Randy Barbato / Jon Marcus / Christine Vachon
cin: Teodoro Maniaci
James St. James tells the sordid tale of Michael Alig and how he went from face of the norotious Club Kids of the 80s to, uh, murderer. I watched this movie three times in one week back in 200...4, maybe -5? Watching it now, I kind of understand what struck me about it but, honestly, it felt so dull and cheap! There's a convincing seediness in the budgetary constraints, everything looks so dingy and slapped together that you get a genuine feel for this community of DIY partiers, forcing glamour and excitement amidst their own poverty and need to escape. That it goes downhill so quickly feels inevitable, it's too much all at once not to. Macaulay Culkin is Alig, he's terrible; Seth Green is James St. James, he's a gas. Awful at trying to balance tones, much better when it's in a cynical/campy mood than when it's trying for sincerity.
Matchstick Men
release: September 12
dir: Ridley Scott
pr: Sean Bailey / Ted Griffin / Jack Rapke / Ridley Scott / Steve Starkey
scr: Nick Griffin & Ted Griffin
cin: John Mathieson
OCD tic-addled con man starts therapy and reconnects with his estranged daughter, bringing her in on a new scheme. Nicolas Cage gives a committed performance as the lead. Breezes by, and while one always expects twists and turns in a conman flick, this one has some inventive, unexpected ones.
Lost in Translation
release: September 12
wins: Best Original Screenplay
nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Bill Murray)
dir/scr: Sofia Coppola
pr: Sofia Coppola / Ross Katz
cin: Lance Acord
First saw this on a kind of "Netflix and chill" date and was so impacted by the movie that it kind of killed the evening. The romantic aspects anyway. Never did see him again. Anyway, a lot more on this one next week.
Anything Else
release: September 19
dir/scr: Woody Allen
pr: Letty Aronson
cin: Darius Khondji
A rising comedy writer can't figure out his career or his relationship. Underrated Woody Allen effort has a game Jason Biggs and a quietly insane Woody, great dynamic, they could have done more together. Christina Ricci is saddled with the girlfriend role, another of Allen's hot neurotics who's awful because she's exactly who she says she is at the outset, how dare she!
Underworld
release: September 19
dir: Len Wiseman
pr: Gary Lucchesi / Tom Rosenberg / Richard S. Wright
scr: Danny McBride, story by Kevin Grevioux and Len Wiseman & Danny McBride
cin: Tony Pierce-Roberts
The long-dormant battle between Vampires and Lycans (werewolves) explodes in the modern era as both seek a human who is rumored to have been descended from a common ancestor. This, to me, will always be the ultimate in 00's Goth entertainment, so broody and bloody and full of leather and vinyl. Makeup and effects are impressive and, I admit, the performers are so committed that you believe they believe everything they're saying. It's dull, though; humorless, too.
The Rundown
release: September 26
dir: Peter Berg
pr: Marc Abraham / Bill Corless / Karen Glasser / Kevin Misher
scr: R.J. Stewart and James Vanderbilt, story by R.J. Stewart
cin: Tobias A. Schliessler
I don't remember who I saw this in theaters with, but I do remember it was my first inkling that The Rock was going to be a major movie star. He's like a fixer or something, and he goes to South America to get back the son of a very rich, very dangerous man, and the two wind up in a treasure-hunting, guerrilla-endorsing, odd couple comedy. Crazy sexual tension between The Rock and Seann William Scott. Oddly forgettable, considering what I just said about The Rock and his impending stardom.
Tomorrow, a very busy October that includes my first movie date (Runaway Jury) and the movie that I called my favorite of all time...until I saw Donnie Darko.
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