Oscars: A Look Back At The Films Of 2003

Best Picture - The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

Ten Years Ago: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King reigned supreme over the likes of, Lost In Translation, Mystic River, Master And Commander, and Seabiscuit. Now: The biggie and the one category where my own personal feelings are the most conflicted. I love The Lord Of The Rings and I'm not ashamed to admit that these films brought tears to my eyes. They represented my childhood playing out in front of me and will always hold a special place in my heart. With that said, I'd personally vote for Lost In Translation if that vote were held today and I was given a vote. I loved the movie back then, partly because of its excellence and partly because of the circumstances in which I saw it for the first time. Ok, quick story. My wife and I are newlyweds and celebrating her birthday in NYC by seeing Wicked on Broadway (Idina Menzel was still headlining, amazing) and afterword we snuck Champagne filled coke bottles into the movies to catch Lost In Translation on its opening weekend. One of the single best nights in my life. Back on task and ten years later I'm still married and still in love, both with my wife and Sofia Coppola's masterpiece. However, does it get everyone's vote? Probably not because of what Return Of The King represents. The biggest changes come in the other nominees. First, Master & Commander and Seabiscuit lose their nominations. The first and easiest to replace them is Fernando Meirelles' brilliant City Of God. Considering his best director nomination, I'd guess the film was already on the cusp. I also think either Oldboy or American Splendor get in here too. Oldboy, perhaps more than any other movie has been more highly regarded in the ten years since its release. Here's the biggest thing to consider now: We live in an age with up to ten nominees. I'm a big fan of the ten best picture nominees and think it should be a hard number. Ten, at least to me, is a much better representation of the year in film than five. Some would argue that it waters down what should be the celebration of the truly elite but I whole heartedly disagree. The winner is the celebration of the truly elite -- nominees are the celebration of what was great, what stood out. Ten is by no means a watered down number, not with the number of films released each calendar year. So now, with that in mind, here's the new and improved best picture nominees: Return Of The King, Lost In Translation, Mystic River, City Of God, Oldboy, American Splendor, Kill Bill Volume 1, Love Actually, Big Fish, Master & Commander. That's a pretty damn good representation of where film stood in 2003. Return Of The King still wins and I don't know how I feel about that but Lost In Translation closed the gap considerably and by God don't forget about Oldboy (he didn't forget about you).