Three out of the five films I most admired this year were critical successes but common sense must also play

Three out of the five films I most admired this year were “critical” successes, but common sense must also play a part. While I would be keen to commend a moving exploration of a young woman’s hand-to-mouth existence in a Belgian trailer-park, I have to accept that after a hard week at work this might not be the Saturday night movie that friends had in mind.For the record, the best film I saw in the past 12 months was Memento, Christopher Nolan’s brilliant meditation on time, identity and the usefulness of body tattoos. It was the only movie that I paid to see again, partly because I loved it, partly because its tricky backwards narrative and layering of clues almost demanded a second viewing. I still can’t say for certain whether the ending supplies closure or opens an infinite vista of murder and retribution. Haunting in a different way was Wong Kar-Wai’s In The Mood for Love, a melancholic memoir of a romance that might have been. Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung play unfortunate neighbours in a Hong Kong tenement drawn into a faltering pas de deux by their partners’ infidelity; though neither seems able to decide whether their dalliance is play-acting or the real thing.Unlikeliest star of the year was Mark Borchardt, the subject of Chris Smith’s engrossing documentary American Movie.

Borchardt, geeky and unstoppably garrulous, is the Ed Wood of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: he has been making films since he was 14, and as yet shows no obvious signs of talent. The spectacle of a man almost pathologically driven to make movies (check his horror classics, The More The Scarier I-IV) was funny, and in an odd way, rather moving. I was thrilled and awed by the bloodthirsty battle sequences of Gladiator and thought Russell Crowe the most convincing action hero in years. Finally, Laurent Cantet’s Ressources Humaines took the unpromising subject of labour relations in provincial France and parleyed it into a gripping story of class barriers, corporate duplicity and filial resentment. Jean-Claude Vallot, a non-professional playing the role of the hero’s father, gave the year’s most affecting performance.As for the worst of the year – I groaned and tsked through Honest, Scary Movie, Battlefield Earth, Coyote Ugly, The Skulls, and Ben Elton’s appallingly smug Maybe Baby.

But if you put a gun to my head, I’d sooner you pull the trigger than make me watch Lars von Trier’s unspeakable Dancer in the Dark again.. Steven Spielberg, the Hollywood studio boss and director whose film catalogue stretches from Jaws to Saving Private Ryan, is to join the select club of foreign citizens with a knighthood to their names. In the United States, they include such figures as Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope and Colin Powell. Steven Spielberg, the Hollywood studio boss and director whose film catalogue stretches from Jaws to Saving Private Ryan, is to join the select club of foreign citizens with a knighthood to their names. In the United States, they include such figures as Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope and Colin Powell.
Mr Spielberg, who has made several of his largest films in Britain, will receive the honorary knighthood at a ceremony at the British Embassy in Washington DC today, it was announced yesterday. As is traditional, it will allow him to put KBE after his name, but not to use the title “Sir”.

An Embassy spokesman said: “Honorary Knighthoods are conferred by the Queen, on the advice of the Foreign Secretary, on those who have made an important contribution to relations between their country and Britain.”The British Ambassador, Sir Christopher Meyer, will preside over the ceremony.Mr Spielberg, 53, a co-founder of the Dreamworks SKG studio, has a history of straddling Hollywood and the UK in his film projects.Last month the Duke of York flew to Los Angeles to present Mr Spielberg with the Britannia Award, an honorary tribute given by Bafta, the British Academy of the Film and Television Arts.. Such a lot of dance – and audiences to match. The rebuilt Sadler’s Wells continued its vigorous programming despite pathetic funding that a London lawyer wouldn’t accept as a salary. Salford’s new Lowry centre opened in May and presented the world’s oldest, grandest – and possibly greatest – company: the Paris Opera Ballet, making its first British trip in 16 years

Such a lot of dance – and audiences to match. The rebuilt Sadler’s Wells continued its vigorous programming despite pathetic funding that a London lawyer wouldn’t accept as a salary.

Salford’s new Lowry centre opened in May and presented the world’s oldest, grandest – and possibly greatest – company: the Paris Opera Ballet, making its first British trip in 16 years.
The return of long-absent visitors produced several of the year’s highlights. The Parisians brought Nureyev’s sumptuous staging of La Bayadÿre, its designs so rich the Queen’s diamonds would have dropped from their settings in disbelief, its dancers so perfect they were probably extra-terrestrials.New York City Ballet (last here in 1989) arrived at the Edinburgh Festival with Balanchine and Robbins masterworks. We could at last make up our own minds whether standards have, as certain Americans allege, gone down the tubes. The answer is no, although the men at present dominate in virtuosity and distinctiveness, reversing the Balanchine dictum: “ballet is a woman”.Another American, Paul Taylor, is the Balanchine of modern dance Yet we haven’t seen his own ensemble in a decade. The triple bill performed at Sadler’s Wells in November epitomised his broad stylistic range – and allowed us to wish him a happy 70th birthday.The Kirov Ballet (and Opera) treated us to a mammoth eight-week banquet at the Royal Opera House. The ballet company possess several Balanchine works and brought his glittering three-act showpiece, Jewels, as well as their recreation of Petipa’s original 1890 Sleeping Beauty. Both were such hits that the presenters added extra performances.So this was a year for major – mostly ballet – outfits, but not so much our own.