Just in time for the Oscars, Debbie and I present the Third Annual Best and Worst Movies We Watched Last Year List! Herewith, the 2003 Awards go to...

BEST

Angels in America. On the small screen, it seems so much... smaller. But Jeffery Wright is great, as is Meryl Streep as an aged rabbi, and Justin Kirk as Prior Walter.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3. Now that was a good season. Maybe the Buffy season best ever. Who can forget Evil!Willow and Good!Willow pretending to be Evil!Willow? Or Joyce and Giles acting like teenagers? Or the World Without Buffy? Xander's "Zeppo" episode? And of course Faith and the Mayor, probably the best Big Bad the series ever had.

Cape Fear. The Mitchum / Peck version; about 10 times better than the Scorsese remake, and I liked that. Peck shows the dark side of Atticus Finch; and man is Mitchum menacing in this movie.

Cowboy Bebop. Debbie and I will probably disagree about including this on the "best" list, but it had more style than many movies we saw last year, even if it didn't make a heck of a lot of sense. My advice, rent the series first.

Forbrydelsens element. One of von Trier's first features, a dreamlike / nightmarish combination of Kafka, Brazil, Hiroshima mon amour, and Beckett. Filmed in brown!

From Here to Eternity. All I knew about this before seeing it was that famous surf-kiss. Lancaster, Clift, Sinatara, Kerr, Reed, Borgnine -- what a cast, and what a very human film. Of course, one is reminded of A.O. Scott's review of the oft-panned Affleck vehicle Pearl Harbor: "The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II has inspired a splendid movie, full of vivid performances and unforgettable scenes, a movie that uses the coming of war as a backdrop for individual stories of love, ambition, heroism, and betrayal. The name of that movie is From Here to Eternity."

The Great Dictator. There've been many attempts at using humor to deflate the horrors of Hitler and Nazis -- think of The Producers, Life Is Beautiful,, or even Hogan's Heroes. But Chaplin did it in 1937. (He later stated that had he known the true extent of the Nazi atrocities, he "could not have made fun of their homicidal insanity.")

The Limey. I can't say enough good things about this meditation on time, family, and revenge -- I think it's Soderbergh's best, and that's saying something. We saw it right after another California Coast Thriller, Play Misty for Me, which also makes this list.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and The Two Towers, which we saw last year in the extended DVD edition. Really, Andy Serkis as Gollum deserved a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

Lost In Translation. Again a point of disagreement with us; I thought the film was an overhyped fantasy, but Debbie appreciated its subtlety.

My Son the Fanatic. Om Puri masterfully plays a Pakistani taxi driver in a UK town who's truly a man without a place.

Pirates of the Caribbean was a perfect blend of Bruckheimer (big action and effects) and Disney (minor characters who almost steal the movie). Major points for Depp's hilarious role.

Watch Pillow Talk and Down With Love back to back, and you'll appreciate both more.

Le Retour de Martin Guerre. What does it mean to be a man?

Roma, città aperta. A brutal and powerful movie.

Shichinin no samurai. I can't believe I'd never seen Kurosawa's masterpiece. Simply amazing in every frame.

Six Feet Under, Season 1. Great, great, television.

This Is Spinal Tap. This one goes to 11. Great extras including commentary from the band.

Stone Reader. Probably the only movie you'll ever see that makes you want to read, and read, and read some more.

X2. Better than the first one, just as (Debbie says) Superman II was better than Superman.

SPECIAL MENTION

Eighties Ending. OK, so it's only six minutes long, but I still think this was one of the funniest things I've seen.

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WORST

Boys Don't Cry. I wanted to like this, but there was something so ugly about this film, it's like watching a roadside accident. Move on, folks, there's nothing to see here.

Cecil B. Demented. The whole joke seemed to be casting Patty Hearst in a movie that spoofed the SLA as a movie crew. I didn't make it through.

The Cider House Rules. Figured I'd rent to see what all the fuss was about. So mawkish I couldn't watch the whole thing. Not even the sight of Charlize Theron's ass could save this movie.

Clockers. I really liked Richard Price's book, which is why Spike Lee's adaptation disappointed me so much. Price's book gets in deep with two characters -- the dealer and the cop -- but Lee just turns this into a Boyz in the Hood, message-about-violence-and-drugs movie. And why move it to Brooklyn?

Daughters of the Dust. Maybe we were just tired, but after 40 min neither of us knew what the hell was going on. And.... everything... moved.... so... slowly....

eXistenZ. Phenomenally stupid. You'd think Cronenberg would do something interesting with virtual reality; instead we get something that's obvious and pointless. Go watch Naked Lunch instead.

Girl, Interrupted. Why did I even bother? Completely predictable. Grrrl flew over the cuckoo's nest.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. How is it that they can suck all the life out of the book? Is it some sort of spell?

The Larry Sanders Show. We'd heard about Garry Shandling's show-within-a-show, and figured we'd check it out. It may have felt fresh and original in 1992, but it suffers from a tragic lack of the funny. Rip Torn was good, though.

Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions. The latter wins, hands down, for the Worst Release of 2003. M2, at least, had that car chase, and an intellectual brainteaser of a scene. But M3 devolves into a mindless action flick. Actually, the Animatrix almost made it onto our best list, because of Shinichirô Watanabe's two sequences, Morimoto's "Beyond," and the "Second Renaissance" histories, but the rest was no great shakes.

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And, finally, a new category this year:

WHA?

The Wicker Man deserves special mention as one of the strangest movies we've ever seen. We rented this Christopher Lee "British Horror Classic" as a potential Halloween movie. It isn't exactly scary -- Debbie says the scariest thing about it is the 70s haircuts -- but it's definitely weird. Especially the musical numbers.

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