2003 Film List (1 Viewer)

[Mark Pfeiffer]

How lucky can a guy get? Three terrific films in a row, all with good chances of making my best of list. 28 Days Later, Whale Rider, and Capturing the Friedmans are wildly different but share one thing: great moviemaking. Capturing the Friedmans is astonishing and heartbreaking. All of these are must-sees, but I'd put this one at the top of the priority list since chances are it won't play long wherever you are.

 

[Ryan FB]

Massive updates made, with a few that I probably forgot to add still left to come.

I also rehauled the entire program, ported it from C++ to PHP, moved the data file into XML, and added a few new nifty graphs/stats (more to come?). I might eventually make it available for anyone to easily use by putting it on one of my public webservers, if there's any interest at all. This would, of course, require a lot more functionality and customization options to be added on...

 

[Stevan Lay]

Finally got around to compiling my list


Quote:



No; in the past I've included an ineligible or special section for re-releases, director's cuts, etc...




There are movies I have in my summary that are technically of 2002 but due to geographical differences, they are included in the 2003 list. Hope that's okay. The following movies are mainly based on the Australian local release dates, which seems to lag the US/European release most of the time (mainly for 'indy' movies), although there are exceptions from time to time (e.g. Bend it Like Beckham)

Last updated 11th February, 2004.

Movies I've seen in 2003:
POSITIVE (58)
City Of God - $13.50 DVD dts
Chicago - $13.00 DVD dts
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - $12.50 dts
Hero/Ying Xiong - $12.50 DVD dts
25th Hour - $12.00
The Good Girl - $12.00
Punch-Drunk Love - $12.00 dts
Better Luck Tomorrow - $12.00
The Station Agent - $11.50
Lost In Translation - $11.50
The Matrix: Reloaded - $11.50 DVD dts
The Pianist - $11.50 dts
Talk To Her - $11.50
Kill Bill: Volume 1 - $11.50 DVD dts
Seabiscuit - $11.50 DVD
X-Men 2 - $11.00 DVD dts
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - $11.00 dts
Finding Nemo - $11.00
L'auberge Espagnole/The Spanish Apartment - $11.00
Cold Mountain - $10.50
In America - $10.50
Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind - $10.50
Narc - $10.50
The Secretary - $10.50
About Schmidt - $10.50
Frailty - $10.50 DVD
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - $10.50 dts
21 Grams - $10.00
Something's Gotta Give - $10.00
Raising Victor Vargas - $10.00
The Italian Job - $10.00
Matchstick Men - $10.00
Dark Blue - $10.00
Read My Lips - $10.00
The Life Of David Gale - $10.00
Down With Love - $10.00
Freaky Friday - $9.50
The Last Samurai - $9.50
Equilibrium - $9.50
Identity - $9.50
Ned Kelly - $9.50 dts
Big Fish - $9.00
Mystic River - $9.00
Irreversible - $9.00
Catch Me If You Can - $9.00 dts
8 Mile - $9.00 dts
Gangs of New York - $9.00 dts
The Hulk - $9.00 dts
Spellbound - $8.50
The Rules of Attraction - $8.50
Formula 51 - $8.50
Femme Fatale - $8.50
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days - $8.50
Whale Rider - $8.50
Holes - $8.50
Intolerable Cruelty - $8.50
Roger Dodger - $8.50
Master & Commander: The Far Side Of The World - $8.50 dts
Antwone Fisher - $8.50
Confidence - $8.50
Igby Goes Down - $8.50
Love Actually - $8.50

NEUTRAL (52)
The Rundown - $8.00
Elf - $8.00
Bad Eggs - $8.00
Real Women Have Curves - $8.00
S.W.A.T. $8.00
The School Of Rock $8.00
Runaway Jury $8.00
Two Weeks Notice - $8.00
Solaris - $8.00
The Hunted - $8.00
2 Fast 2 Furious - $8.00 dts
The Core - $8.00 dts
Willard - $8.00
Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - $8.00 dts
Waking Up In Reno - $8.00
Tears of the Sun - $8.00
The Good Thief - $8.00
Old School - $8.00
Basic - $8.00
Who Is Cletis Tout? - $8.00
Shanghai Knights - $8.00 dts
Maid In Manhattan - $8.00
The Hours - $8.00
Charlie's Angles 2: Full Throttle - $8.00 dts
Analyze That - $8.00
The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen - $8.00 dts
Wonderland - $7.50
Biggie & Tupac - $7.50
Swimming Pool - $7.50
Phone Booth - $7.50
City Of Ghosts - $7.50
The Quiet American - $7.50
Knockaround Guys - $7.50 dts
The Tuxedo - $7.50 dts
Buffalo Soldiers - $7.00
Matrix: Revolutions - $7.00 dts
Naked Weapon/Chek Law Dak Gung - $7.00 dts
Amercian Wedding - $7.00
Dreamcatcher - $7.00 dts
Daredevil - $7.00 dts
The Recruit - $7.00 dts
Russian Ark - $7.00
Freddy versus Jason
Goodbye Lenin! - $6.50
A Man Apart - $6.50
One Hour Photo - $6.50
Final Destination 2 - $6.50 dts
Empire - $6.00
Just Married - $6.00
Anger Management - $6.00
Bruce Almighty - $6.00
Daddy Day Care - $5.50

NEGATIVE (15)
The Medallion - $5.00
Bulletproof Monk - $5.00
Cradle 2 The Grave - $5.00 dts
The Guru - $4.50
National Security - $4.50
I Spy - $4.50
May - $4.50
Cabin Fever - $4.00
Malibu's Most Wanted - $4.00
Johnny English - $4.00
Bad Boys 2 - $4.00 dts
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life - $3.00
Half Past Dead - $3.00
Bring Down The House - $3.00
Scary Movie 3 - $2.50
The Hot Chick - $2.50


Ratings Legend:
Positive = means that it is worth a look as I enjoyed what I saw. Highly recommended viewing.
Neutral = Mixed feelings on the movie. You should maybe wait for the rental. Another viewing may push it over to the 'positive' column

Negative = Hollywood trash. Try to avoid it if you can. These movies should be recommended to people you 'dislike'

$0.50 - $13.50 = represents the worth of the movie in dollar terms where the value of a full adult admission price is the benchmark.
DVD = indicates a considered or already have purchased the DVD of the movie. It is DVD worthy, IMO
dts = means that the movie has a kick-@ss audio track and superior sound effects, which deserves a DTS soundtrack.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Updated with Aki Kaurismäki's The Man Without A Past.
~Edwin

 

[Jason Seaver]

Updatd with two specialty items.
The Legend Of Suriyothai is an old-fashioned historical epic, for better or worse. If you survive the slow, highly expository first half, the movie picks up and ends with an exciting, action-packed final hour. Note that the cut currently playing in US theaters is 142 minutes, but the original Thai version is 3:05. :star::star::star:
May has a good central performance, and a bit of quirky charm, but is pretty grisly in the latter half. In the end, I found it more off-putting than interesting. :star::star:

 

[Damin J Toell]

BTW, I forgot to give my thanks on the input from the other day about TGTBATU. So, thanks.
DJ

 

[Seth Paxton]

Well 28 months later we US peons (ie, not the critical elite) get to see...
28 Days Later
8.5 of 10
I did not find the film overtly terrifying and was far less scared during the film than I was watching Others, Ring, or Blair Witch. However, this film has Boyle back in form and makes for a very good Sci-Fi/Horror mix, simply a well-told, interesting story. In fact much of what he is hitting upon you have seen in countless other films, including last year's Reign of Fire, but Boyle has perhaps bested them all except the original Night of the Living Dead by giving us solid moral situations and believable actions.
The film also benefits from having a good base story. Having the infection spread so quickly makes the positions people are in more believable and as a basic entrance you can't get much better than a character waking up to a world that was wiped out while he was in some type of coma (we assume).
I like Boyle's visual touches as well as his use of music. Again, I felt more like I was back in Shallow Grave than with Boyle's more recent work.
PS - crowd had its share of assholes, typical of FRI nights anymore. "ha, ha, that dude's naked, ha, ha, that dude's dead" :frowning:

 

[Seth Paxton]

Brief note: I have shifted Bruce Almighty down to 7.5 from 8 upon reconsideration of the sappiness since I have more memories of that aspect than any other part of the film (not a good sign, but I did laugh a lot during the film).

Also I have nothing but fond memories of Italian Job and have been recommending it to everyone, so I'm moving it up from 7.5 to 8.

Still in the process of learning to get it right the first time, right being my opinion of course.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Updated with 28 Days Later, which was good, but not nearly up to the hype. And there were some very annoying people in my crowd, too, who I was able to get to shut up by embarrassing them.
DJ

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Updated with the intermittently entertaining but fairly disappointing Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2.5 out of 5), the "2 bad flicks mashed into one" chore that was Alex and Emma (1.5 / 5), the not entirely awful DTV sequel Dracula 2: Ascension (2.5 / 5), the sadly familiar Brit horror flick Long Time Dead (2 / 5), and the Oliver Stone HBO documentary Persona Non Grata (4 / 5).

 

[Brook K]

Added 2 more:
28 Days Later was a big let down. I should have known not to get to excited about a new horror film, but I couldn't help it. The setup and concept are excellent but the execution is so completely derivative in virtually every way that it never feels fresh or truly engaging.
And it continues my chief complaint with most modern horror/monster movies -- WOULD IT BE TOO MUCH TO ASK TO ACTUALLY SEE AN ATTACK?? The hyper-cutting combined with DV (and often darkened lighting) takes all the visceral pleasure out of the scenes. For a film that is basically a summary of Romero's Dead trilogy, the least Boyle could have done was allow us to see the money shots, something Romero always delivered. It's not as if Boyle's style made the film any scarier. It offered no scares and very little effective tension.
A generous B- based mostly on concept
Lilya 4-Ever is a heartbreaking portait of discarded youth and its exploitation by an insatiable sex industry. And yet the film also offers the most sublime images and spiritual honesty that I've seen in some time. I love the idea of a Heaven where you can play all the basketball you want. I'll put a longer review in the indie/foreign thread as this film merits a much longer examination than I have time for right now. One of my favorites of the year so far. A-

 

[Arman]

.

 

[John Thomas]

Got around to the theater and saw...
28 Days Later: I'm with Brook on this one, though I don't care so much for the "money shots". Great premise that stalled in the last 1/3 of the movie. Had it finished with the flourish of the first part of it, it'd easily be my #1 so far. Alas, it gets a still-respectable 7 out of 10.

 

[Arman]

.

 

[JohnS]

Back from one of the absolute worst summer movie days in history.
Charlie's Angels:Full Throttle ZERO
Was too over the top, too ridiculous and tried to be too much like a video game, more than anything.
The first one was much more original and pleasing.
The Hulk ZERO
Yep!
I'm probally the only person giving this zero stars.
This film was a freakin bore!
Nothing about this movie was exciting.
No great action sequences, and one especially was a laugh.
I hope I feel better tomorrow when I see Capturing the Friedmans and 28 Days Later.

 

[Jason Seaver]

I bought 30 Loews "Weekday Escape" tickets last summer which expired June 2003, and used #30 last night on 28 Days Later, a decent bit of postapocalyptic adventure hampered by being shot on digital video (and not the good stuff Lucas & Rodriguez use). A pretty good story, for the most part, but it's tough to enjoy what you can't see. :star::star:¾

 

[Matthew Chmiel]

Updated my list with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. In my opinion, it's on par with the original, but nowhere near as good as T2 (which is a full four stars).
This weekend I plan on seeing Whale Rider and maybe see 28 Days Later again.

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

Updated with T3.

-Dennis

 

[Matt Stone]

Updated with T3 (****/*****). Much, much better than I expected with a great performance from Nick Stahl.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Got to the theater too late to see T3, so I wasted some money on
Charlie's Angels 2
4 of 10
Not outright awful and at times inspired (at least as much as the first film was), this film represents McG being his own worst enemy. If something works, why not do it more and bigger and crazier and louder. Well the answer is because this crosses the fine line from fun action into outright silliness and enhanced fighting becomes the realm of Superman abilities.
And as much as I like the hot chicks, cripes did I feel almost dirty watching this film. I swear that at one point he is trying to hit the pee fetish audience and that at another time we have Demi Moore fondling her pistol like it's a phallic symbol.
Give it a better story, turn the action and sex back down to the teasingly fun levels of the first one and he could have had a nice follow up flick. If the first film was a film made with an MTV video sensibility, the second is a series of MTV videos strung together and called a movie.
A shame to see some rather fun performances wasted, especially people like LaBlanc, Wilson, Mac and Cleese, all of whom are pretty good with what they are given.
Still, this should make for a fun rental/cable movie, especially if you think your viewing might be interrupted by a phone call or the pizza guy.