2003 Film List - Page 13

Interesting Jason, haven't heard of The Big Animal. Hope it comes around.

I'm super behind in the theaters but rather than see something new I caught Kill Bill again and stand by my A and #2 of the year ranking.

Hope to get to the theaters this weekend, but for now, 2 more Netflix:

Respiro is a slice-of-life movie about an Italian family whose matriarch suffers emotional and/or psychological problems like hyperactivity or uncontrollable impulses or something. Filmed on a Mediterranean island, it features beautiful scenery and an entertaining and occasionally moving narrative. Highlights are the children/teen actors and their efforts to pass the time with little "modern" entertainments, the love story of the older daughter, and the husband's loyalty to his wife and conflicted feelings towards her problems, especially after they cause damage to the village. B

Owning Mahowny stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman in a based-on-a-true-story role about a lowly banker with a gambling problem that causes him to forge accounts and commit fraud to satisfy his ever-increasing wagers and debts. Hoffman's acting is the rock-solid work we've come to expect in his portrayl of another man in crisis who has lost control of his life. Unfortunately director Richard Knietowsky fails to equal his excellent debut film, Love And Death On Long Island. He never seems to decide what he wants this film to be and fails to tie together all the elements (gambling movie, thriller, police procedural, biopic, con movie) into a satisfying whole. As someone who loves gambling as a hobby, gambling movies instantly grab me, but here, the director fails to capture the excitement and attraction of playing that would drive this man to steal millions of dollars. B-

Guess I'll go against most of the critical grain...

Matrix: Revolutions
9 of 10
I found the somber tone to be a pleasantly surprising shift. As for action, I thought it was much better here than in Reloaded which was no slouch itself. The Zion battle and the Lobby-Revisited scenes were inventive, interesting, and as dramatic as anything in the first 2 films. I really enjoyed where they took the story, though after Reloaded it was all that much of a shock to me. It was the only way it could end in my mind.

I am downgrading Reloaded to an 8.5 by comparison and reflection.

I will also go fix my list now.

Intolerable Cruelty exemplifies the adage "a so-so (insert a fav director) movie is still better than 90% of the junk out there". And I would put IC at the end of the Coen Bros. line with its flimsy story and characters that are more the stars on the screen than developed individuals. However, what IC is, is funny, REAL funny. And bottom line, I want a comedy to make me laugh and I laughed more in IC than any other movie this year. B+ (but please create your own story next time Coen's!)

Mystic River is an interesting, at time moving, story of loss, murder, and mystery. It is finely crafted in every way, but failed to completely draw me in until one stunning scene near the end. I think there was a whole other movie here that would have been far more compelling than what was put on screen. I don't really agree with all the Sean Penn hype, I think he's done similar work before and has given stronger performances. I would also say that Tim Robbins does every bit as good a job as Penn and that Laura Linney has the best scene in the movie. B+ (really a "B" grade movie for most of the running time with an extra nudge for 1 fantastic scene and its effect on the film's final scenes)

.

Wayne Kramer's The Cooler.


Next Up: Love Actually

~Edwin

Screenwriter turned director, Richard Curtis' Love Actually. And yes, there is no comma in the title.


Next Up: The Matrix Revolutions

~Edwin

Updated with the fantastic,

American Splendor (***1/2 / ****)

Just a hilarious movie. Great acting (Paul Giamatti nailed Harvey Pekar), great script ("this will be as important as the "I have a dream" speech"), and gourmet Jelly Beans!

and what you could probably call the "poor Terry Gilliam" movie,

Lost in La Mancha (*** / ****)

I'll probably catch Matrix Revolutions at some point within the week too.

Lowell

Updated with :

Matrix Revolutions 1/2

Personally, I would rate it only at 2 stars but adding 1/2 for its signifance as a series. While its disappointing that this series won't be remembered as a GREAT triology, it does try and I'm sure ALOT of its "hard-core" fans appreciate this movie and Reloaded. So in general it gets the 1/2 bonus because it will please its fans.

Charlie's Angels Full Throttle

Other then having a pretty good soundtrack for your home-theater, this movie screams a pure Rental in every sense. Not much here to remember.

Also added some Netflix rentals, with the highlite coming from Master of the Flying Gulliotine every action and martial-art fan should go and watch that movie.

Raymond

Elf
8 of 10
I laughed my ass off. My wife laughed more than I can remember in recent years (perhaps MBFGWedding, and besides that nothing). This is a great role for Ferrell and he destroys every scene he gets a shot at, he is able to tweek almost any little moment into a laugh and the big moments are a scream.

BUT, the film is built on a template skeleton which it refuses to commit enough scenes to. So it skips along barely touching on any of the actual plot threads. In fact I would say that the only reason you can follow any of the them is because they are so heavily built on formula. You can hear the beeps when the next plot point must be inserted. If Ferrell wasn't killing you with laughter, you'd probably hate this film.

But the fact is that Will IS in the film and he is great. The story is told worse than School of Rock but Will is even funnier than Jack Black was.

Also the film is perfect for the kids to go with the parents. Everyone should get a good laugh out of it. There are only perhaps 2-3 jokes based on the current gross trend and the film doesn't linger on them. Much of the humor surrounds Ferrell's nice guy innocence.

"Buddy the Elf speaking. What's your favorite color?"

Also, I'm downgrading Charlie's Angels 2 from a 4 to a 3 after seeing it again recently. I can't believe I was nice enough to give it a 4 in the first place.

.

Updated with a couple "eh"

The Rundown frustrated me because, well, we know Dwayne Johnson can do action well - he does it live every week - so why is Peter Berg using all the reverse angles, jump-cutting and the like? Oddly enough, Johnson does better in his "nice guy" scenes than his "badass" ones. ¾

In The Stain looks like a book that should have stayed that way. It just never really comes together as a movie, squandering some pretty decent performances.

Well, if its any comfort, that one now qualifies for me as one of the worst of the year. But, let's not accentuate the negative.

~Edwin

.

Arman, what if I just take your word for it, alright? Like you said, "So many movies, so little time". Because of my busy schedule, I try to be selective in what I see.

That is why I don't even like posting a "worst films of the year" list as I do not get a representative sampling of most of them. Once in a while though, there are some that slip through my filtering system.

~Edwin

And remember Edwin, my scale is on 10, so that 4 wasn't very good before. But when I looked back I thought "this really isn't better than The Core".

Last year I tended to be more kind early on as well. I'm trying to be more consistent but I do use comparison to help place the ratings for films. CA2 was mildly annoying the first time (any film under 5 is to me), but the problems just seemed so much thicker on the 2nd viewing. It had its moments, but not many of them.

It's in my bottom 5 right now, but I also have avoided MANY bad films. Alex and Emma and Shanghai Nights are in my bottom 5 for example, and while they were poor films (IMO) it would be a great year if that was the worst out there. CA2 and House of 1000 Corpses are legit contenders on the worst of the year list.


I do actually like Sandler, Carrey and Ferrell, but this never means a free pass from me. Instead what I mean is that I enjoy them when they use their innocence and good nature as part of the humor instead of when they play for cheap laughs. To me Elf was much better for Ferrell in that way than Old School was, for example. And as minimal formula as it is, its 20 times more coherent than Old School was.

But unlike many people I have no inherent hatred of them just because they are on screen. If the structure is there, then I love it. I understand that some people don't like them, but then I would say its wise to avoid any films which are star vehicles for them. My wife can't stand Woody Allen and thus will not watch his films. I think she is missing out, but its not like the world is lacking in other sources of entertainment for her to turn to.


I'm scared of Boat Trip. I think it was Scott's review that put that fear into me.

Don't let the movie scare you. Just pity it. Never touch the case to check out the Extra Features. Never even say the words "boat" and "trip" in the same sentence...for the rest of your life.

When your doctor says to you (and I hope this is many, many years from now) "Seth, I'm sorry, but you only have about 85 minutes to live." you'll think back on this discussion and silently thank me.

Never. See. Boat Trip.

Steve James' Stevie.


Next Up in my documentary series: Daughter From Danang

~Edwin

Hi all. I've been updating my list steadily, only not posting updates because, hey, who really cares what I thought of Beyond Borders, Marci X, In the Cut, The Human Stain and a dozen others?

American Splendor, Party Monster, Anything Else, Blue Car, Northfork, Brother Bear, The Matrix Revolutions, Radio, Master and Commander...I've seen a lot over the past month or two. Nothing new there.

Oh here's something uncommon. I bumped T3 from a 2.5 to a 3.5 (out of 5) after a second visit with the movie. I still have large and rather specific complaints with the movie, but overall it's more entertaining than I remember it being a few months ago.

Wachowski brothers' mindless and humorless romp, The Matrix Revolutions.


Next Up: Master and the Commander

~Edwin

Peter Weir's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.


Next Up: The Station Agent

~Edwin

Better Luck Tomorrow
8.5 of 10
I love the script, I love the characters, and for the most part I love the stylish direction. But at the same time I couldn't help but notice just how much the film borrows in tone, sound, and style from Fight Club. I like FC, so naturally I also liked this film. But I couldn't rate it higher because it also seemed like a lot of it's charm was not of its own making due to this "copying".

Still, this is a film that makes a nice companion piece to something like Trainspotting or this year's City of God, but with the twist that these anti-social youths are hiding within the structure rather than clashing against it.



I also just saw the DEC 2002 film Drumline which I thought was mostly awful (4 of 10). I can't believe its high RT score (I know its a thumbs up or down thing, but still). It's not offensively bad but the script is horrible and simply does not fit the subject matter (the only good thing about the film really).



Now I need to go see M&C too. I'm hyped on it.

Updated with,

Master and Commander : The Far Side of the World 1/2

A terrific movie, a great character movie and one of the best high sea movies ever. Crowe is one damn good actor too. While the action bookends the movie, the heart lies in the middle with some great storytelling between characters.

Elf

A solid run-of-the-mill family movie but with some adult hooks by the director to please and the break-out performance in a talior made role/movie for former SNL star Will Ferrell.

Raymond.

Jonathan Mostow's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines does have some funny one liners. But overall, it is yet another throwaway summer action adventure flick.

~Edwin

Okay, what I've seen the past week:

Dragon Fight made me happy as a sandboy.

Master & Commander is a solid fighting-sailor movie, maybe the best ever made. Certainly, one of the most eye-poppingly gorgeous and elaborate; it just puts you in its time and place. ½

The Event is awful. I think even if I agreed with its politics, I'd have hated this movie, it's so lifeless with flat characters and no discernable drama. Wastes some pretty decent actors, too. ¾

I haven't yet figured out where I'll categorize The Animation Show; most of the cartoons are from previous years - I think the only new things created for the show are Don Herzfeldt's introduction, "Intermission In The Third Dimension", and close, which feature the little cornflake guys from "Rejected" (also included). New Herzfeldt is always a good thing, though, and -- ROBOTS!!!

Die, Mommie, Die! had me splitting my sides. Writer Charles Busch plays screen siren Angela Arden (yeah, you're reading that right), in a hilarious sendup of old-style Bette Davis melodrama. Great supporting turns by Jason Priestly, Natasha Lyonne, Stark Sands, and Phillip Baker Hall.

More detailed reviews available (or forthcoming) on my movie blog (below).

Updated with Lars Von Trier's Epidemic (1987). This is its first official US release, so I am putting it with the 2003 films.

DJ

Eric Byler’s Charlotte Sometimes was featured in Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival earlier this year. An overlooked film, indeed.

~Edwin

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is inferior in every conceivable way to Cameron's films. The humor is awful, the action scenes demonstrate a way to abundant usage of CGI, the Terminatrix (or whatever) doesn't exhibit 1/10th of the menace of Robert Patrick, the film is underlit, the score generic, and there is no punch or tension to the scenes. Only the poignant (or at least as poignant as this type of soulless action flick can get) ending saves the movie from complete blandness. C+

Gerry count me in the "this is really good camp". I found it a moving rumination on the monotony of everyday life as well as raising extraordinary questions about what a person thinks about when they know death is at hand. For all of our "modernness", man must always respect nature. The Sun will keep coming up...we won't. A-