2003 Best Reviewed Movies (Page #5)

Ben is an overachieving high-school student in Orange County, Calif. He's at the top of his class and set to matriculate at an Ivy League school. But Ben has a darker side. While he maintains academic success, to alleviate the pressure put upon him by his parents, he indulges in acts of crime. His life slowly begins to spin out of control and he eventually joins a gang.

"Step Into Liquid" is a personal glimpse into the world of surfing from the original family of surf films. It's a film for surfers as well as non-surfers alike because it is a film about people with a passion for life. "Step Into Liquid" is a collection of stories about people who live for surfing. The cross-section of characters featured in this film come from many walks of life, but share one thing in common, the need to surf. For many of them, surfing is merely a hobby. For others, surfing is an identity and maybe even a lifestyle. For a fortunate and talented few, it is a profession. And, for one, it is a salvation.

"Divine Intervention" follows ES, a character played by and clearly based upon the filmmaker himself. ES is burdened with a sick father, a stalled screenplay and an unrequited love affair with a beautiful Palestinian woman (Manal Khader) living in Ramallah. An Israeli checkpoint on the Nazareth-Ramallah road forces the couple to rendezvous in an adjacent parking lot. Their relationship and the absurd situations around them serve as metaphors for the lunacy of larger cultural problems, and the result is palpable, bottled personal and political rage.

This documentary, filmed over six years (1996-2002), is about Mark "Gator" Rogowski, a pro skateboarding star in the '80s currently serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of a woman he barely knew. The film mixes old footage of Gator skating and carousing with recent interviews with such skateboarding icons as Tony Hawk and Stacey Peralta. It examines what drove a charming, rich, and famous bad-boy skater to kill.

A man too small, a boy too tall, a girl with her mouth made over all meet by chance. An encounter that seems fated to have no story but, as fate would have it, it becomes the tormented chronicle of denied love. Peppino, the man too small, is a taxidermist. Valerio, the boy too tall, is a waiter. Deborah, the girl with her mouth made over, is one who continually changes jobs… all have different dreams, hidden needs, secret drives. They are three castaways trying to cling to the certainty of a love that can justify the common ills of living and make them normal. They are just as incapable of communicating the ideals of the others as they are incapable of accepting them, they will tragically become lost.

From the Mexican writing-directing team behind the Oscar-nominated "Amores Perros" comes this explosive, emotionally charged English-language drama about a woman (Naomi Watts), her cheating lover (Sean Penn), and an ex-convict (Benicio Del Toro).

The film takes us into the teenage psyche of Meg, a gifted but emotionally scarred 18-year-old. Haunted by her father's abandonment of the family, she is neglected by her overworked mother and left to her own devices in dealing with her emotionally disturbed younger sister. Meg finds solace in writing poetry. Mr. Auster, her English teacher, recognizes her talent and steps into the role of mentor and father figure, encouraging her to enter a national poetry contest for which he is a judge. As tension at home escalates and Meg struggles to find a way to get to the poetry finals in Florida, Auster's role in her life becomes increasingly complex.

The story of six friends variously struggling to make ends meet in the wake of a shipyard closure several years earlier in a depressed northern Spanish coastal city. The portrait of their friendship contrasted with their family lives is ultimately poignant and bittersweet.

Aboard the Black Pearl, infamous pirate Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) attacks the city of Port Royal and kidnaps a governor's daughter, Elizabeth (Keira Knightley). Barbossa then sets sail with his hostage toward a secret hideaway, hoping to lift an ancient curse by sacrificing her and returning a once-plundered treasure. Elizabeth's childhood friend Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) meets an eccentric seaman, Jack Sparrow, who reveals that the Black Pearl was formerly his ship, until Barbossa committed mutiny. Together, they assemble a ragtag crew and commandeer a British vessel, hoping to chase down and free both Elizabeth and Sparrow's Pearl. Following after them is the British military, led by Elizabeth's would-be fiancé, Commodore Norrington (Jack Davenport).

Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall), Charley Waite (Kevin Costner), Mose Harrison (Abraham Benrubi) and "Button" (Diego Luna) freegraze their cattle across the vast prairies of the West, sharing their friendship forged by a steadfast code of honor and living a life unencumbered by civilization. When their wayward her forces them near the small town of Harmonville, the cowboys encounter a corrupt Sheriff (James Russo) and kingpin rancher (Michael Gambon) who govern the territory through fear, tyranny and violence. Boss Charley find themselves inextricably drawn towards the inevitable showdown as they are forced to defend the freedom and values of a lifestyle that is all to quickly vanishing. Amidst this turmoil, life suddenly takes an unexpected turn for loner Charley when he meets the beautiful and warm-spirited Sue Barlow (Annette Bening), a woman who embraces both his heart and his soul. As these courageous men prepare for the decisive battle that looms, they are also forced to confront and conquer their own internal demons.

Based on the Bram Stoker Award nominee short story by acclaimed author Joe R. Lansdale, "Bubba Ho-tep" tells the "true" story of what really did become of Elvis. We find the King (Campbell) as an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home, who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his "death", then missed his chance to switch back. Elvis teams up with Jack (Davis), a fellow nursing home resident who thinks that he is actually President John F. Kennedy, and the two valiant old codgers sally forth to battle an evil Egyptian entity who has chosen their long-term care facility as his happy hunting grounds...