Movies of the Decade: 2003

Today's Movies of the Decade post brought to you by the number 2003.

Finding Nemo (2003; d. Andrew Stanton)

This movie is so joyous. I don't there really is a bad Pixar film but Finding Nemo remains one of my all time favourite pick-me-up movies. It's so beautiful and gentle and funny; when my friends quote a Pixar movie it's most likely to be a line from Nemo ("Mine! Mine!", "Fish are friends, not food", "...now what?", pretty much this whole page).

Also, this, Happy Feet and Moulin Rouge are the movies that have brought me the most grief (and okay, fun) at uni as I get into my 849th argument about what constitutes an Australian movie.


Kill Bill I (2003; d. Quentin Tarantino)

I was so tense all through this movie; props to QT for sucking me into the story of the Bride so completely. It's such a fantastic movie, from the eye-popping visuals, the layers of music and sound, all those references to older films, the great acting from Uma Thurman. It's funny too, full of deft comic touches that fit seamlessly into a very gory, fastpaced revenge tale. If only part two had been as consistently good and evenly paced as this...


Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003; d. Peter Weir)

For a movie with no women, full of guns and battles and ships - topics I am not normally interested in - I was utterly engrossed in this, and loved it so much I went back and reread a glut of Patrick O'Brien books until I finally got sick of guns and battles and ships. But oh, it's such a great adventure, the friendship between Aubrey and Maturin is so well conveyed and served through the storyline and the fantastic acting by Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany respectively, and it's such a handsome film as well, all expanses of ocean, furious storms, and exacting period detail.


Peter Pan (2003; d. P.J. Hogan)

A beautiful, wonderful film that captures the essence of Barrie's Neverland so well, both fantastic in its bold colours and lush scenery, and dark, as dark as it needs to be to convey the subtext of Barrie's work. The child actors are so good, particularly Rachel Hurd-Wood, who does such a subtle, lovely job as Wendy on the precipice of the end of innocence. It made me fall in love all over again with Peter Pan, restoring the depth in this children's book that had been missing from the Disney version I grew up with.


Chicago (2003; d. Rob Marshall)

I've seen this twice on the big screen, the second while picnicing at twilight in a park. It's a catchy, bold spectacle of a movie, that takes the great songs and balances it out with visuals that both capture the theatrical nature of the original stageshow as well as giving it a fluidity that it could only have onscreen, leaving an indelible impression. Both female leads in this are impressive; Catherine Zeta-Jones is fabulous as the clever, hardened cabaret star/husband killer, and Renee Zellweger plays Roxie well, all shiny surface and 'razzle-dazzle'.


Movies of the Decade: 2002
Movies of the Decade: 2000-2001