Best of the summer of 2003

Rating: Null/10 (6 August 2003)

Seabiscuit tries to be Chariots of Fire on four legs. The racing scenes are spectacular. Randy Newman (in his The Natural mode) has composed a stirring score. The writer/director, Gary Ross,has simplified Laura Hillenbrand's wonderful book. Charles Howard now has only one son. The first Mrs. Howard conveniently disappears. Howard meets the second Mrs. Howard "cute". The most disturbing thing to me was David McCullough's narration. I hate narrated films (unless they're documentaries). A good screenwriter/director should be able to tell his/her story without having a faceless voice read to you. I got the feeling that Gary Ross felt that without David McCullough telling us, we wouldn't know that in 1929 the US went into the Great Depression or that this was a depression that couldn't be fixed by Prozac.
I enjoyed the movie. It is clearly the best of summer 2003 (which may be faint praise).