The Best of the Year...So Far
Honoring the Brightest Lights of January through August
Here we are in August, and it's already been a remarkably good year at the movies, more than making up for the near-boneyard
that was 2003 (especially if, like me, you weren't able to catch some of the limited-release gems like In
This World, demonlover, or Monster until 2004 had
already dawned). We can only assume there are more hits to come from the fall and winter, though for the first time in forever,
most of the movies I was most excited about have been parceled out over the early months. If you'd asked me on January 1 which
films I absolutely couldn't wait for, I would have said Dogville, Code
46, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Collateral,
Young Adam, Kill Bill, Vol. 2, Distant, Father and Son, and
The Manchurian Candidate. All of those have already opened, though the arthouse titles are
still taking their time getting to upstate New York.
You can click here for the profiles of what I'm still jazzed
about in the coming months, but it deserves to be said that if the year were over now, I'd be proud to stand by the following
rosters of supreme achievements. Indeed, many of the categories were already too small to fit the deserving entrants (though,
like last year, I'm still on the lookout for a few good supporting men).
So, check out these lists and, more importantly, check out these movies if you didn't already see them. They're de-lovely!
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Best Picture
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Before Sunset |
That rare phenomenon, the arthouse sequel, carried to even rarer levels of warmth and grace. |
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The Bourne Supremacy |
Paranoia is big in this year's movies, but this is the conspiracy thriller to rule them all. |
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Code 46 |
Practically its own genre, mapping the nebulous territory between desire, power, and regulation. |
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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind |
A romantic drama for the ages, or is it an egghead comedy, or is it a surrealist masterpiece? Or all three? |
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Osama |
Art this compelling reminds us that testimony and maturity are our greatest weapons against terror. |
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Best Director
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Michel Gondry
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind |
Plumbs Charlie Kaufman's wittiest, most intricate script and makes it his most moving to boot. |
Paul Greengrass
The Bourne Supremacy |
Accused of overstatement, but his choreography of global agendas could hardly be more acute. |
Michael Mann
Collateral |
Transitions from epic to anecdote without sacrificing his trademark precision or style. |
Michael Winterbottom
Code 46 |
Still unknown to most audiences, he's the most important British director in a decade or more. |
Andrei Zvyagintsev
The Return |
With control this exquisite and performances this strong, why should he lighten up? |
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Best Actress
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Julie Delpy
Before Sunset |
An incandescent performance, lightening and deepening her earlier work. Love the waltz. |
Nicole Kidman
Dogville |
Amid a recent run of failed turns, her Grace was sharp as a tack, proving she'll recover. |
Helen Mirren
The Clearing |
Broods and worries constantly, but somehow lets us know when the nature of her worry has shifted. |
Anne Reid
The Mother |
A television veteran withstands the urge to overplay the role of a lifetime. Quiet sagacity. |
Kate Winslet
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind |
Has she done too many variations on this role? Maybe, but here she attains pure perfection. |
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Best Actor
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Paul Bettany
Dogville |
No longer a second-fiddle actor, he's the squirmy center of Dogville and the deepest character. |
Tom Cruise
Collateral |
Lots of good performances are described as pared-down, but Cruise really earns the phrase here. |
Ivan Dobronravov
The Return |
Best in show: an emblem of envy, distrust, and anger that practically needs a surge protector. |
Jamie Foxx
Collateral |
Nails the decency thing in the first fifteen minutes; adds continual shades of fire and remorse. |
Kevin Kline
De-Lovely |
A scrupulously detailed turn that is clever without being twitty, warm without going gooey. |
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Best Supporting Actress
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Joan Allen
The Bourne Supremacy |
Should be mandatory in every Hollywood movie. Ferocious, intelligent, uncannily effective. |
Cate Blanchett
Coffee and Cigarettes |
Sandwiched into a cloying concept, she characteristically turns her own dual cameo into a bright spot. |
Patricia Clarkson
Dogville |
Playing the darkest of all her big-screen characters, she lashes out and still breaks your heart. |
Irma P. Hall
The Ladykillers |
Like Blanchett, she's stuck in a movie that does her no favors. How kind of her to work hard anyway. |
Helen Kim
Kill Bill, Vol. 2 |
Her single scene in Kill Bill, with a rifle and a pregnancy test, is impeccably played and made. |
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Best Supporting Actor
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Eric Bana
Troy |
Kind of a lead, but his quiet intensity amid so much floridity feels like the best kind of support. |
David Carradine
Kill Bill, Vol. 2 |
Whether or not QT revives his career, too, he has filled the iconic demands of this character perfectly. |
Willem Dafoe
The Clearing |
A frequently fussy actor calms down, quiets down, and gets down to business in a sad, subtle part. |
Liev Schreiber
The Manchurian Candidate |
Rebuffs Demme's misplaced desire to stoke his actors; stays modest, and comes out looking best. |
Shaun Smyth
Proteus |
As the most complex of the film's three protagonists, he brings new dimensions to the whole scenario. |
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Best Original Screenplay
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Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, and Richard Linklater
Before Sunset |
Ever heard the nightmares about actors who want to write all their own words? Sometimes it's a good thing to encourage. |
Charlie Kaufman
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind |
We knew he was smart and we knew he understood kooky relationships, but who knew he was this mature, this reflective? |
Siddiq Barmak
Osama |
From the smart decision of his oblique opening to the devastating force of his conclusion, Barmak's a wizard at structure. |
Vladimir Moiseyenko and Aleksandr Novototsky
The Return |
Their screenplay is so confidently built and elliptically charged, it feels like the director's own vision. Experts at symbol and allusion. |
Kim Ki-duk
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring |
The title alone smells of cliché until you detect the layers of buried irony and sharp-edged wisdom in this deceptive scenario. |
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Best Adapted Screenplay
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Mario Van Peebles and Dennis Haggerty
Baadasssss! |
The direction leaves the script and actors dangling, but this is still a pressing tale with a big heart and a strong message. |
Tony Gilroy
The Bourne Supremacy |
Nimble in preserving what needs preserving and updating what needs updating in Ludlum's template. Brisk but discerning. |
James Gunn
Dawn of the Dead |
Writing doesn't seem like a key element in this smart movie until the characters start dropping suggestive details halfway through. |
Steve Kloves
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban |
Maybe his other two Harry scripts were equally good, or maybe not. Either way, this script's a beaut, condensing a gangly story. |
Kevin Macdonald
Touching the Void |
The strongest ingredient in the movie is the careful pacing of incidents and the adept decisions of when to pause for explication. |
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Best Cinematography
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Alwin K?chler and Marcel Zyskind
Code 46 |
K?chler's the man for those gleaming, diagonal compositions; Zyskind is the poet of the lonely highway. Together, they're aces. |
Dion Beebe and Paul Cameron
Collateral |
Another duo of cinematographers, working across celluloid and high-definition digital video, seamlessly blending it all together. |
Ellen Kuras
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind |
Without lingering on the movie's fancy tricks or relying on any of her own, Kuras' images are witty, affecting, and a bit lonely. |
Alwin K?chler
The Mother |
K?chler again, showing us how one person can be desperately alone amid a sea of people. He stays on task when the film flails. |
Mikhail Krichman
The Return |
Like the great Russian storytellers, Krichman gets a lot of mileage out of simple contrasts: high/low, open/shut, clear/bleary. |
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Best Film Editing
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Richard Pearson and Christopher Rouse
The Bourne Supremacy |
Some of the montage is frenetic, but they make it serve the story. And all the plotlines are gorgeously kept in play. |
Peter Christelis
Code 46 |
Since the movie refuses to be driven by story or emotional pleas, the tacit logic of the images is what unlocks the secrets. |
Jim Miller and Paul Rubell
Collateral |
Ever get bored inside that car? Nope. Ever unclear where we are in that building, that subway station? Nope? Great editing? Yep. |
Niven Howie
Dawn of the Dead |
Even if Dawn were nothing but its two credit sequences, it would be a genius instance of devastating cuts. And the middle ain't bad, either. |
Vald?s ?skarsd?ttir
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind |
The revelations of new realities are timed and positioned just right. The interblending of reality and fantasy becomes a metaphor for love. |
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Best Art Direction
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Mark Tildesley
Code 46 |
If the future looks this good, I'm going to have to start getting out more. Brilliance on a budget. |
Peter Grant
Dogville |
Few production designers achieve so much with so little. Devilish props and inspired flourishes. |
Tom Hannam
Proteus |
Some good ideas swiped from Jarman, but the integration of past and deeper past still clicks. |
Neil Spisak
Spider-Man 2 |
The loving recreation of the comic-book aesthetic is the proudest mark of this bright piece of pop film. |
Stefan Sch?nberg
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring |
The floating domicile, the carved characters, the carefully chosen colors. Could the film be more ravishing? |
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Best Costume Design
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Janty Yates
De-Lovely |
Though guilty of overdone work in the past, she makes everyone here as elegant as the music. |
Kumiko Ogawa and Catherine Marie Thomas
Kill Bill, Vol. 2 |
What would the Bride wear on the biggest night of her life? These two know, and know it well. |
Jerusha Hess
Napoleon Dynamite |
Those priceless T-shirts, the straight-leg jeans, the headbands and valours? Swwweet. |
Maria Bradley
13 Going on 30 |
Jennifer Garner looks exactly and funkily like a pre-teen let loose in a zany woman's gargantuan closet. |
Ann Roth
The Village |
Bless Ann Roth's heart for taking this all so seriously. The actors look uncomfortable enough; at least they're in cool clothes. |
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Best Original Score
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John Powell
The Bourne Supremacy |
Relentless without growing dull, global without sounding like World Muzak, this is good, nervy work. |
Craig Armstrong
The Clearing |
He's taking a risk with all those elegiac piano chords, but he earns most of his effects. |
David Holmes
Code 46 |
Ethereal music for a rigidly pragmatic world, supplying a healthy dose of ironic contrast. |
James Newton Howard
Collateral |
Also did good work for The Village, but this looser, freer score is a step above. |
John Williams
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban |
Turns out Williams was as bored as we were the last two times; here, he waves his magic conductor's wand. |
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Best Sound
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The Bourne Supremacy |
As the world pops and whooshes and hums and clicks and blasts and bursts, the movie keeps up with it. |
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Collateral |
The sound design is scaled down to the minor dimensions of the story, but it's still a heady mix. |
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De-Lovely |
Wisely avoiding an original score, the sinuous blend of tunes sounds great and works perfectly. |
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Kill Bill, Vol. 2 |
Not quite the coup of the first film, but the artful silences are more modest for a good reason. |
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The Manchurian Candidate |
The best detailing in the movie comes from the chattering TVs and the uneasy, murmuring crowds. |
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