Happy New Year, you all. ¶

I was going to write a Top Records of 2003 but then I realized the only things we had were The White Stripes' Elephant and that Outkast song, so I'll mention that Björk's Debut and Jamiroquai's Emergency on Planet Earth are two fine records from 1993 which are sitting right next to me, and that The Kings of Leon were among the best bands of 1973. ¶

Pop up the tops, then. During 2003 I awarded 5-star ratings to the following films: Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can, Spike Jonze's Adaptation, P.T. Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, Soderbergh's Solaris, Spike Lee's 25th Hour, Neil Jordan's The Good Thief, Gus Van Sant's Gerry, Roman Coppola's CQ, James Foley's Confidence, Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things, and finally Tarantino's Kill Bill. That's 11 out of 42 movies I went to see at the theatre - not one out of every four movies is absolutely great, but I'm a tough little bastard when selecting the movies I should bother to go watch on a big screen. Anyway, looking back I see that Cidade de Deus, About Schmidt and that wonderful reconstruction Goodbye Lenin! were unfairly awarded 4 stars and these too should be getting 5 stars. Among these, my top movie of 2003 (although released in the US back in 2001) was of course CQ, Roman Coppola's debut which was absolute candy to a film student with a thing for science fiction and black and white documentaries. Punch-Drunk Love is my number two film of the year, and Kill Bill was my third favourite film of the year, and my top film in technical terms. Gerry, which I found to have some edge over Elephant, is my favourite 'cinematic art' film of 2003, and Goodbye Lenin! was my favourite European film. And the big surprise of 2003 was Confidence, which is your typical stylish-robber flic but which I found quite delirious. Worst movies: Johnny English, Anger Management and above all Thomas Vinterberg's revolting waste of 35mm film called It's All About Love. And the biggest flops of the year were obviously the Matrix sequels. ¶

2003 resolutions and predictions, checkout time. Tragically I did obey all my New Year resolutions for 2003, so let's look at the predictions. Bush didn't push the big red button on Iraq, although things are becoming rather interesting in that front. North Korea was postponed though. Terrorism in the Western territories seems contained though, despite all the paranoia. Disney is still surviving although they did get into trouble. The war between The Entertainment Cartel and the proletariat continues, although it seems we have arrived at a stalemate of sorts, that is until human stupidity intervenes in favour of the Cartel. Nature got a little more revenge - through floods, fires and city-imploding earthquakes. Africa is still being hard-hit by AIDS, because the Pope, the IMF and the pharmaceutical industry need a place where human sacrifice is measured in millions (were the Mayan real bastards?). A few corruption scandals forced quick renovations of the right-wing Portuguese government, although the media were quick to control the damages and invent a few more paedophilia scandals against Socialist politicians or ex-footballers who did campaign for the PS. Straight cloning seems to be forgotten as a public issue - thankfully - but eugenics was not the public issue it should be. 2003 was yet another fine year with plenty of stupidity, unsavoury justice, and intolerance among the human race. ¶