1941 DONE! Year #23: 2003

Ok, boys and girls. Let's get started here. As you may remember, 1941 was a bit of a strange year. Two of the most renowned classics were from this year, Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon. Yet, when the Oscars came around, the now unheard of How Green Was My Valley went home with the Best Picture. Now, for your very enjoyment, Adam and Kim will tell you which of the three was the best!

First, we watched my pick, The Maltese Falcon. This was a mystery-drama starring Mr. Casablanca himself Humphrey Bogart. He plays a detective who is approached by a mysterious woman to investigate her sister and her boyfriend. That night, his partner and the sister's boyfriend are both murdered, and Bogart has to figure out who's behind the murders and what they have to do with a prized statuette of a bird. All in all, we both found it to be interesting and decent for a old time mystery, but nothing to write home about.

Then we watched Kim's pick, the movie many consider to be the best movie of all time, Citizen Kane. It was more or less a biopic about a fictional person named Charles Kane, played by Orson Welles, who dies right at the beginning of the movie, his last words being....."rosebud..." It then chronicles his life as the richest and most influential private citizen there ever was. We both enjoyed the movie very much (Kim more than I did), but I was more entertained by the realization that the White Stripes song "The Union Forever" was pretty much all directly quoted from this movie.

So, here's the moment of truth. Which was the best? NEITHER of us thought Maltese Falcon was the best, nor did it really warrant Best Picture consideration. Kim thought Citizen Kane was much better than How Green Was My Valley and should have beaten it. While I didn't disagree that Citizen Kane probably should have won, I may have enjoyed How Green was My Valley a little better. So there you go.

OK, let's keep moving. Our next year is from the new millennium! 2003 to be exact, the year of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Neither of us are huge LOTR fans, and I am under the firm belief that third parts of trilogies should never win Best Picture, unless the movies preceding it won. But then again, I am not in the Academy, so what do I know. That being said, LOTR 3 was pretty good. Watching it was especially difficult for Kim, considering she never watched the Two Towers, but hey that's the breaks when you're watching every best picture. There are definitely some great battle scenes and exciting rising suspense with Frodo, Sam and Gollum, but it was very long, at times very confusing, and the movie never freakin ended! I'm sure we'll get some LOTR backlash for this critical review, so bring it. I gave it a 3.5, Kim gave it a 4.2, giving it a total 7.7. Now let's see what we picked.

Kim: Mystic River
Adam: Identity

Kim picked the great Dennis Lehane book turned Clint Eastwood film that cough cough should have won Best Picture and I went with a relatively little known John Cusack thriller that neither of us have ever seen. We'll write back after we've watched the films!

In the meantime, which movie was your favorite? LOTR: The Return of the King, Mystic River, or Identity? What other 2003 films did you enjoy?