2003 was a decent year for movies, but hardly stellar. While documentaries (Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time, Spellbound, Winged Migration, Love and Diane) made a strong showing, narrative features — especially gay-themed and foreign films, the latter considered the very definition of good taste where serious cineastes are concerned — showed a marked decline in quality. (It was no accident, methinks, that I walked out on a record seven movies — and I can sit through just about anything.) On the plus side, 2003 was the year of the writer-director; every single one of my ten favorite films was written (or co-written) by its director (or directors).

Despite an overall creative dip, there were films this year that made for enjoyable, enriching viewing, elevating the art form and reminding us why we critics spend upwards of 400 hours in the dark each year, sitting on our south ends, when we could be out communing with nature (though I doubt that sitting in Balboa Park with a cup of Starbucks and a copy of Entertainment Weekly qualifies).

Since movies are such a subjective experience, I’m not comfortable labeling certain of those I saw this year as the “best” or “worst” — that’s a matter of opinion, and I can’t speak for anyone but myself. So let me instead talk about my “favorites” and “least favorites” of 2003.

1. Northfork: It struck many as arty and pretentious, but I found the Polish brothers’ (Michael and Mark) serio-comic tale — about a band of angels searching for a missing member of their flock in a dying American town — both amusing and (as lensed by master cinematographer M. David Mullens) hauntingly beautiful. When I heard that Rex Reed had denounced it as one of the worst movies he’d ever seen, I knew I was going to love it.

2. Whale Rider: Writer-director Niki Caro has done the near-impossible: made a “family” film that is also a heart-tugging female empowerment story. A young Maori girl (the wonderful Keisha Castle-Hughes), not taken seriously because of her sex, teaches her crusty old grandpa that girls can make good leaders, too. Nicely shot, edited and acted, this is a movie to be cherished — and not just by little girls.

3. American Splendor: Using the comic book(s) of the same name as a springboard, writers-directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini have created a low-budget classic. Paul Giamatti has the role of his career as dour-faced government employee-turned-comic book writer Harvey Pekar, a pudgy, self-loathing and perpetually dissatisfied schlub who’s also an obsessive collector of jazz records. (Hope Davis is excellent as his no-nonsense, bespectacled girlfriend, Joyce Brabner.) Acerbically funny and visually clever (animation is used to bring Pekar’s stories to life), American Splendor is an expert portrait of one of underground comix’s most celebrated figures.

4. The Guys: A grieving fire captain (Anthony LaPaglia) asks a writer (Sigourney Weaver) to pen eulogies for “the guys” he lost on 9/11. Written by Anne Nelson and adapted from the play (also starring Sigourney Weaver) by Nelson and director Jim Simpson (Weaver’s husband), this touching, extremely personal story is a tour de force for both actors. Simpson’s direction — like the script — is simple, spare and achingly effective. Too bad the film got such a limited release in San Diego (my thanks to the folks at Madstone Theaters for giving it a two-week run).

5. Kill Bill — Vol. 1: Clearly influenced by Spaghetti westerns and Kung fu movies, Quentin Tarantino’s exciting, beautifully stylized homage to B-movie bloodletting is one of those films you either dig or detest. Uma Thurman proves to be an inspired choice as deadly female assassin out to get revenge on the pricks who put her in a coma. She punches, chops, and slices and dices her way through the material like a Yakuza on steroids. Loud, garish (in a good way) and over-the-top violent (its cartoon violence helps take the edge off), Kill Bill — Vol. 1 (Volume 2 is due early this year) is the film Quentin Tarantino was born to make.

6. The Barbarian Invasions: A movie about death and dying that’s uplifting rather than depressing? Denys Arcand’s intelligent, touching drama is that and more. His insightful script concerns a cantankerous, gravely-ill history professor (Rémy Girard) who spends his last days surrounded by loving friends and family. Terrifically acted and sweet without being overly sentimental, it deals with the subject of assisted suicide (and medicinal heroin use) in a compassionate, unapologetic manner. My choice for the year’s best foreign film.

7. 21 Grams: A horrific event has a chilling impact on three people’s lives in Alejandro González Inárritu’s (Amores Perros) relentlessly downbeat tale of spiritual bottoming-out. While it’s tough to sit through and at times frustrating — the story is told in a challenging, non-linear fashion, somewhat like Amores Perros — Inárritu’s exceptional direction (he also co-wrote the script with Guillermo Arriaga), and the powerhouse acting of his three dynamite stars — Sean Penn, Benecio Del Toro and Naomi Watts — ultimately make it immensely rewarding.

8. Pieces of April: Writer-director Peter Hedges makes an entire meal out of a simple premise (a young woman’s stove goes on the blink just as she’s about to cook the turkey for a nerve-wracking family Thanksgiving dinner), telling in the process an affecting and funny tale — shot on digital video in only 17 days — about the fragility of family ties. Katie Holmes (as April) is extremely winning; Patricia Clarkson tops off a terrific year (she also appeared in The Station Agent, All the Real Girls and The Safety of Objects) as the cancer-stricken mom who refuses to be babied.

9. Shattered Glass: An absorbing white-collar thriller — and true to boot. With a minimum of flash and a keen sense of observation, writer-director Billy Ray retells the events that lead to the unmasking and firing of gifted New Republic writer Stephen Glass (well played by Hayden Christensen), who later admitted he had fabricated 21 of the 47 pieces he wrote for the magazine. Peter Sarsgaard is a model of restraint as the fellow staffer who helps cut Glass down to size.

10. Camp: Openly gay writer-director Todd Graff’s film debut is a sort of updated Fame (but with out-and-proud queer characters), an infectious musical-comedy/drama set at a summer camp for aspiring theatrical performers. Full of good songs (two co-written by Fame composer Michael Gore, brother of ’60s pop princess Lesley Gore) and fresh performances (especially by Daniel Letterle, Joanna Chilcoat and Robin de Jesus, playing a Sondheim-mad theater queen), it unfortunately played here to largely empty houses.

Bubbling under the top 10: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Love and Diane, Dirty Pretty Things, The Triplets of Belleville, Raising Victor Vargas, The Magdalene Sisters, Mystic River, Spellbound, Winged Migration, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

1. Irreversible: This ultra-repugnant French film, written and directed by Gaspar Noé, concerns the graphic rape of a woman (we’re forced to watch the entire, excruciating act, including the weapon used: the first-ever CGI penis) and the search by her tormented ex-husband for her attacker. The gimmick: the story is told backwards. It’s well done, certainly, but little more than an exercise in sensationalism. I split once the rapist started kicking his victim (apparently, sexually abusing her wasn’t enough).

2. Wonderland: What role did down-on-his luck ex-porno star John Holmes play in the grisly quadruple homicide that rocked L.A. in 1981? Director/co-writer James Cox’s seedy first film theorizes what might have happened that bloody July night — not that any of us cared. Annoyingly photographed and exceedingly unpleasant — not to mention a poor choice of vehicle by Val Kilmer (Holmes) for his return to the big screen after taking time off to hang out with his kids.

3. Love Liza: Ever see a film that made you want to throw yourself off the nearest bridge? That nicely sums up this drab, depressing story, directed by Todd Louiso, about a nerdy Web site designer (Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of my favorite character actors — in other of his films) whose life goes spinning out of control when his wife commits suicide (maybe she read the script). The worst part is, this exercise in flagellation was written by Hoffman’s brother, Gordy. It was splitsville for me after an hour.

4. The Shape of Things: In Neil LaBute’s poor adaptation of his malnourished play, a geeky museum guard (Paul Rudd, doing his best Beaver Cleaver imitation) is seduced by a sexy, wacky art student (Rachel Weisz). We later learn that it was all a cruel “experiment” (like we didn’t wonder what such a babe saw in this poor schmuck). Stiffly directed and stage-bound to the max, its sophomoric “dirty” language (“prick-cock-thingy”) made you want to wash the writer-director’s mouth out with soap. Me, I just stormed out after 45 minutes.

5. Dreamcatcher: In this putrid adaptation of Stephen King’s novel (written by the usually reliable William Goldman, who did a fine job adapting King’s Misery), an alien organism — which enters and exits from its victims’, er, anuses — rudely interrupts the lives of a bunch of 30ish dudes on a hunting trip. They band together to stop one of their possessed buddies from (I kid you not) dropping an alien seedling into the local water supply. Disgusting, silly, and absent of any suspense whatsoever, Lawrence (The Big Chill) Kasdan’s sad excuse for a science-fiction film is shrill, overproduced crap.

6. Cremaster 3: Have you heard? Ex-model-turned-actor/director Matthew Barney has made a five-part series of arty, avante-garde movies called the Cremaster Cycle. I’ve only seen part 3, so I can’t attest to the quality of the other installments. What I can tell you about Cremaster 3 is that its moments of visual poetry are eclipsed by a barrage of stupid and grating set pieces (a demolition derby inside the lobby of the Chrysler Building, for instance) that will have you tearing out your hair in a matter of minutes. I tried to hold out until Barney took off his clothes, but I finally grew tired of waiting and went off to get a tattoo.

7. And Now…Ladies and Gentlemen: What was Jeremy Irons thinking? Come to think of it, what was French writer-director Claude Lelouch thinking? This bungled “romantic thriller” finds jewel thief Valentin Valentin (Irons) setting off on a solo sea journey. Seems all those glittering gems just don’t do it for him anymore. In Morocco he meets up with a sultry jazz singer (played by sultry jazz singer Patricia Kaas) who is recouping after a failed relationship; could love be far behind? Dull, banal and — at 133 minutes — endless. Just wait till you see Irons in drag — a sight gag if ever I saw one.

8. Cabin Fever: A horror film about a bunch of stupid white kids exposed to a creepy flesh-eating virus? I’m sooo there! Or at least I thought I was, given the advance word on Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever, which I had heard was a “scary movie” with a comic spin. The white kids did a lot of stupid things, all right; the problem was, they never stopped doing them. This is funny? I get more laughs from watching paint dry. I took an agitated stroll to the exits at about the time one of the bitchin’ chicks started shaving her legs and taking off strips of skin in the process. Ewwwww!

9. Paycheck: Paramount/Dreamworks saved the worst for last by releasing this cold and mechanical sci-fi actioner on Christmas Day. (Is this the lump of coal we were all warned about?) Ben Affleck, bronzed and blankly handsome, plays a “reverse engineer” (I’m still not exactly sure what that means) who has his memory erased while doing a job for a monolithic corporation. He “awakens” three years later to find — surprise! — that several nasty men with guns are trying to kill him. Painfully aware realizing that Philip K. Dick’s short story doesn’t have enough meat in it for a feature-length film, director John Woo, his career still on a downslide, pads the proceedings with fist-fights, chases (involving police cars, helicopters and motorcycles — yawn), gunfire (earplugs are advised) and hair-breadth escapes, none of which have anything original to offer. Too bad there isn’t a machine currently on the market that would allow me to wipe my memory clean of this atrocious, by-the-numbers thriller.

10. Holes: I had heard such good things about Andre Davis’ Holes that I actually paid to see it (gasp!) after missing the press screening. Yes, young lead Shia LaBeouf (now there’s a name to be cherished) is excellent — he plays a kid sent to a desert detention camp for stealing a pair of sneakers — as is Sigourney Weaver as the ball-busting “prison” warden. But after awhile, the bullying and hole-digging got tiresome. Most distressingly, I rarely heard a line of dialogue (Louis Sachar adapted his novel of the same name) that sounded as if it was coming out of a real kid’s mouth. Another one I bolted on.

Ten other duds: Pool Hall Junkies, Man Without a Past, Gerry, The Recruit, Levity, Spun, It Runs in the Family, Timeline, The Statement, O Fantasma.

Parting thought (screenwriters take notice): Most overused phrases in 2003: “whatever” and “I was set up!”

See you at the movies!

Kyle Counts is the film critic for the Gay and Lesbian Times